The Greatship Read online

  “There is a young male you should meet,” Miocene replied. “A J’Jal man, of course.”

  “I’m helping him.”

  “I would think not,” she replied with a snort.

  Then through a private nexus, she fed an address to Pamir. It was in the Fall Away district—a popular home for many species, including the J’Jal.

  “The alien is waiting for you at his home,” she continued.

  Then with her cold smirk, she added, “At this moment, he is lying on the floor of his backmost room, and he happens to be very much dead.”

  4

  Every portion of the Great Ship wore at least one bloodless designation left behind by the initial surveys, while the inhabited places enjoyed one or twenty more names, poetic or blunt, simple or fabulously contrived. In most cases, the typical passenger remembered none of those labels. Every avenue and cavern and little sea was remarkable in its own right, but under that crush of novelty, few were unique enough to be famous.

  Fall Away was an exception.

  For reasons known only to them, the Ship’s builders had fashioned a tube from mirrored hyperfiber and cold basalt—the great shaft beginning not far beneath the heavy armor of the ship’s bow and dropping for thousands of perfectly vertical kilometers. Myriad avenues funneled down to Fall Away. Ages ago, the Ship’s human engineers etched roads and paths in the cylinder’s surface, affording views to the curious. The crew built homes perched on the endless brink, and they were followed by a wide array of passengers. Millions now lived along its spectacular length. Millions more pretended to live there. There were more famous places onboard the Great Ship, and several were arguably more beautiful. But no other address afforded residents an easier snobbery. “My home is on Fall Away,” they boasted. “Come enjoy my view, if you have a free month or an empty year.”

  * * *

  Pamir ignored the view, and when he was sure nobody was watching, he slipped inside the J’Jal’s apartment.

  The Milky Way wasn’t the largest galaxy, but it was most definitely fertile. Experts routinely guessed that three million worlds had evolved their own intelligent, technologically adept life. Within that great burst of natural invention, certain patterns were obvious. Half a dozen metabolic systems were favored. The mass and composition of a home world often shoved evolution down the same inevitable pathways. Humanoids were common; human beings happened to be a young example of an ancient pattern. Harum-scarums were another, as were the Glory and Aabacks, the Mnotis and Striders.

  But even the most inexpert inorganic eye could tell those species apart. Each humanoid arose on different life-trees. Fur and plumage and armor and neatly folded fat enclosed the dissimilar bodies. Some were giants built for massive worlds, others frail little wisps that could barely survive the Ship’s gravity. Even among naked mock-primates, there was an enormous range when it came to hands and faces. “I am nothing like a human,” shouted the elegant bones, while the flesh itself was full of golden blood and DNA that proved its alienness.

  And then, there were the J’Jal.

  They had a human walk and a very human face, particularly in the typically green eyes. Diurnal creatures, they were hunter-gatherers from a world much like the Earth, having roamed an open savanna for millions of years, using stone implements carved with hands that at first glance, and sometimes with a second glance, looked entirely human.

  But the similarities reached even deeper. The J’Jal heart beat inside a spongy double-lung, and every breath pressed against a cage of rubbery white ribs, while the ancestral blood was a ruddy mix of salts with iron wrapped inside a protein similar to hemoglobin. In fact, most of their proteins had a telltale resemblance to human types, as did great portions of their original DNA.

  Convergence could happen when species evolved in similar environments, but mutation-by-mutation convergence was preposterous. A common origin, however unlikely, was ten million times more practical. The Earth and J’Jal must have been relatively close neighbors in the past. One world evolved simple, durable microbial life. Then a comet splashed into the ocean, and a piece of living crust rose into space. With a trillion sleeping passengers safely entombed, the wreckage drifted free of the solar system, and after a few light-years of cold oblivion, the crude ark slammed into a new world’s atmosphere where at least one microbe survived, happily eating every native pre-life ensemble of hydrocarbons as it and its children conquered the new realm.

  Such things often happened in the galaxy’s early times. At least half a dozen other worlds shared biochemistries with the Earth. But only the J’Jal world took such a similar evolutionary pathway.

  In effect, the J’Jal were distant cousins, and for many reasons, they were poor cousins, too.

  * * *

  Pamir stood over the body, examining its position and condition. Spider-legged machines did the same. Reaching inside the corpse with sound and soft bursts of x-rays, the machinery arrived at a rigorous conclusion they kept to themselves. With his own eyes and instincts, Pamir wished to do his best, thank you.

  It could have been a human male lying dead on the floor.

  The corpse was naked, on his back, legs together and his arms thrown up over his head with hands open and every finger extended. His flesh was a soft brown. His hair was short and bluish-black. The J’Jal didn’t have natural beards. But the hair on the body could have been human—a thin carpet on the nippled chest that thickened around the groin.

  In death, his genitals had shriveled back into the body.

  No mark was visible, and Pamir guessed that if he rolled the body, there wouldn’t be a wound on the backside either. But the man was utterly dead. Sure of it, he knelt down low, gazing at the decidedly human face, flinching just a little when the narrow mouth opened and a shallow breath was drawn into the dead man’s lungs.

  Quietly, Pamir laughed at himself.

  The machines stood motionless, waiting for encouragement.

  “The brain’s gone,” he offered, touching the forehead with his left hand, feeling the faint warmth of a hibernating metabolism. “A shaped plasma bolt, something like that. Ate through the skull and cooked his soul.”

  The machines rocked back and forth on long legs.

  “It’s slag, the brain is. And some of the body got torched too. Sure.” He rose now, looking about the bedroom with a careful gaze.

  A set of clothes stood nearby, waiting to dress their owner.

  Pamir disabled the clothes and laid them on the ground beside the corpse. “He lost ten or twelve kilos of flesh and bone, and he’s about ten centimeters shorter than he used to be.”

  Death was a difficult trick to achieve with immortals. And even in this circumstance, with the brain reduced to ruined bioceramics and mindless glass, the body had persisted with life. The surviving flesh had healed itself, within limits. Emergency genetics had been unleashed, reweaving the original face and scalp and a full torso that couldn’t have seemed more lifelike. But when the genes had finished, no mind was found to interface with the rejuvenated body. So the J’Jal corpse fell into a stasis, and if no one had entered this apartment, it would remain where it was, sipping at the increasingly stale air, its lazy metabolism eating its own flesh until it was a skeleton and shriveled organs and a gaunt, deeply mummified face.

  He had been a handsome man, Pamir could see.

  Regardless of the species, it was an elegant, tidy face.

  “What do you see?” he finally asked.

  The machines spoke, in words and raw data. Pamir listened, and then he stopped listening. Again, he thought about Miocene, asking why the First Chair would give one little shit about this very obscure man.

  “Who is he?” asked Pamir, not for the first time.

  A nexus was triggered. The latest, most thorough biography was delivered. The J’Jal had been born onboard the Ship, his parents wealthy enough to afford the luxury of propagation. His family’s money was made on a harum-scarum world, which explained his name: Sele’ium—a play
on the harum-scarum convention of naming yourself after the elements. And just a youngster, barely five hundred years old, Sele’ium carried a life story that couldn’t seem more ordinary.

  Pamir stared at the corpse, unsure what good that did.

  Then he forced himself to walk around the apartment. It wasn’t much larger than his home, but with a pricey view making it twenty times more expensive. The furnishings could have belonged to either species. The color schemes were equally ordinary. There were a few hundred books on display—a distinctly J’Jal touch—and Pamir set loose a little flat-scribe to read each volume from cover to cover. Then he lead his helpers to every corner and closet, to new rooms and back to the old rooms again, and he inventoried every surface and each object, including a sampling of dust. But there was little dust, which meant that the dead man was exceptionally neat, or somebody had carefully swept away every trace of his own presence, including bits of dried skin and careless hairs.

  “Now what?”

  He was asking himself that question, but the machines replied, “We do not know what is next, sir.”

  Again, Pamir stood over the breathing corpse.

  “I’m not seeing something,” he complained.

  A look came over him, and he quietly laughed at himself. Then he requested a small medical probe, and the probe was inserted, and through it he delivered a teasing charge.

  The dead penis pulled itself out of the body.

  “Huh,” Pamir exclaimed.

  “All right,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re going to search again, this place and the poor shit’s life. Mote by mote and day by day, if we have to.”

  5

  Built in the upper reaches of Fall Away, overlooking the permanent clouds of the Little-Lot, the facility was an expansive collection of natural caverns and minimal tunnels. Strictly speaking, the Faith of the Many Joinings wasn’t a church or holy site, though it was wrapped securely around an ancient faith. Nor was it a commercial house, though money and barter items were often given to its resident staff. And it wasn’t a brothel, as far as the Ship’s codes were concerned. Nothing sexual happened within its walls, and no one involved in its mysteries gave his or her body for anything as crass as income. Most passengers didn’t even realize that a place such as this existed. Among those who did, most regarded it as an elaborate and very strange meetinghouse—like-minded souls would pass through its massive wooden door to make friends, and when possible, fall in love. But for the purposes of taxes and law, the captains had decided on a much less romantic designation. Borrowing an ancient human word, the space was labeled to be an accredited library.

  On the Great Ship, routine knowledge was preserved inside laser files and superconducting baths. Access might be restricted, but every word and captured image was within reach of buried nexuses. Libraries were an exception. What the books held was often unavailable anywhere else, making them precious, and that’s why they offered a kind of privacy difficult to match, as well as an almost religious holiness to the followers of the Faith.

  “May I help you, sir?”

  Pamir was standing before a set of tall shelves. His arms were crossed and his face wore a tight, furious expression. “Who are you?” he asked, not bothering to look at the speaker.

  “My name is Leon’rd.”

  “I’ve talked to others already,” Pamir allowed.

  “I know, sir.”

  “They came at me, one by one. But they weren’t important enough.” He turned, staring at the newcomer. “Are you important enough to help me, Leon’rd?”

  “I hope so, sir. I do.”

  The J’Jal man was a little taller than Pamir, wearing a purplish-black robe and long blue hair secured in back as a simple horsetail. His eyes were indistinguishable from a human’s green eyes. His skin was a pinkish brown. As the J’Jal preferred, his feet were bare. They could be human feet, plantigrade and narrow, with five toes and a similar architecture of bones, the long arches growing taller when nervous toes curled up. With a slight bow, the alien remarked, “I am the ranking librarian, sir. I have been at this post for ten millennia and eighty-eight years. Sir.”

  Pamir had adapted his face and clothing. What the J’Jal saw was a security officer dressed in casual garb. A badge clung to his sleeve, and every roster search identified him as a man with honors and a certain clout. But his disguise reached deeper. The crossed arms flexed for a moment, hinting at lingering tensions. His new face tightened until the eyes were squinting, affecting a cop’s challenging stare. The pinched mouth looked ready to curse, but all he said was, “I’m looking for somebody.”

  To his credit, the librarian barely flinched.

  “My wife,” Pamir said. “I want to know where she is.”

  “No.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I understand what you desire, but I cannot comply.”

  At that moment, a giant figure stepped into the room. The harum-scarum noticed two males facing off, and with an embarrassment rare for the species, she carefully backed out of sight.

  The librarian spoke to his colleagues, using a nexus.

  Every door to this chamber was quietly closed and securely locked.

  “Listen,” Pamir said.

  Then he said nothing else.

  After a few moments, the J’Jal said, “Our charter is clear. The law is defined. We offer our patrons privacy and opportunity, in that order. Without official clearance, sir, you may not enter this facility to obtain facts or insights of any type.”

  “I’m looking for my wife,” he repeated.

  “And I can appreciate your—“

  “Quiet,” Pamir said, arms unfolding, the right hand holding a small, illegal plasma torch. With a flourish, he aimed at his helpless target, and he said one last time, “I am looking for my wife.”

  “Don’t,” the librarian begged.

  The weapon was pointed at bound volumes. The smallest burst would vaporize untold pages.

  “No,” Leon’rd moaned, desperately trying to alert the room’s weapon suppression systems. But none were responding.

  Again, he said, “No.”

  “I love her,” Pamir said.

  “I understand.”

  “Do you understand love?”

  Leon’rd seemed offended. “Of course I understand—“

  “Or does it have to be something ugly and sick before you can appreciate, even a little bit, what it means to be in love.”

  The J’Jal refused to speak.

  “She’s vanished,” Pamir said.

  “And you think she has been here?”

  “At least once, yes.”

  The librarian was swiftly searching for a useful strategy. A general alarm was sounding, but the doors he had locked for good reasons suddenly refused to unlock. His staff and every other helping hand might as well have been on the far side of the Ship. And if the gun discharged, it would take critical seconds to fill the room with enough nitrogen to stop the fire and enough narcotics to shove a furious human to the floor.

  Leon’rd had no choice. “Perhaps I can help you, yes.”

  Pamir showed a thin, unpleasant grin. “That’s the attitude.”

  “If you told me your wife’s name—“

  “She wouldn’t use it,” he warned.

  “Or show me a holo of her, perhaps.”

  The angry husband shook his head. “She’s changed her appearance. At least once, maybe more times.”

  “Of course.”

  “And her gender, maybe.”

  The librarian absorbed that complication. He had no intention of giving this stranger what he wanted, but if they could just draw this ugly business out for long enough, allowing a platoon of security troops to swoop in and take back their colleague…

  “Here,” said Pamir, feeding him a minimal file.

  “What is this?”

  “Her boyfriend, from what I understand.”

  Leon’rd stared at the image and the attached biography. The soft green e
yes had barely read the name when they grew huge—a meaningful J’Jal expression—and with a sigh that sounded human, he admitted, “I know this man.”

  “Did you?”

  Slowly, the implication of those words was absorbed.

  “What do you mean? Is something wrong?”

  “Yeah, like I said, my wife is missing. And this murdered piece of shit is the only one who can help me find her. Besides you, that is.”

  Leon’rd asked for proof of the man’s death.

  “Proof?” Pamir laughed. “Maybe I should call my boss and tell her that I found a deceased J’Jal, and you and I can ask the law do its important and loud and very public work.”

  A moment later, with a silent command, the librarian put an end to the general alert. There was no problem here, he lied; and with the slightest bow, he asked, “May I trust you to keep this matter confidential, sir?”

  “Do I look trustworthy?”

  The J’Jal bristled but said nothing. Then he stared at shelves at the far end of the room, walking a straight line that took him to a slender volume that he withdrew and opened, elegant fingers beginning to flip through the thin plastic pages.

  With a bully’s abruptness, Pamir grabbed the prize. The cover was a soft wood stained blue to identify its subject as being a relative novice. The pages were plastic, thin but dense, with a running account of the dead man’s progress. Over the course of the last century, librarians had met with Sele’ium on numerous occasions, and they had recorded his uneven progress with this very difficult faith. Audio transcripts drawn from a private journal let him explain his mind to himself and every interested party. “My species is corrupt and tiny,” Sele’ium had confessed with a remarkably human voice. “Every species is tiny and foul, and only together, joined in perfect union, can we create a worthy society—a universe genuinely united.”

  Several pages held holos—stark, honest images of religious devotion that most of galaxy would look upon as abominations. Pamir barely lingered on any picture. He had a clear guess about what he was looking for, and it helped that only one of the J’Jal’s wives was human.