Haze, p.7
Haze, page 7
“Right, a Throwback thing. I should have realized that.”
“Something I’ve always wondered. Why didn’t your people develop Throwbacks?”
“They tried to, or so we learned in school. The problem is, when you develop inside an egg, there’s a shell, and inside that, a membrane. Crack the shell, and maybe you can mend it and save the hatchling. Pierce that membrane, and the poor little thing dies. They never did figure out how to get inside safely to alter the genes. The Grandmothers put an end to the experiments, anyway. The few hatchlings that survived were pretty badly deformed.”
“Not good, no.”
“There’s a few natural talents, I guess you’d call them, that most Leps have. But every sapient species seems to have something like that. Psi, I think it’s called. Nothing spectacular.”
Yeah, sneaky—stop it! “Humans have some kind of shit like that, too. Psionics. You don’t see it much anymore. They hide it.”
“Makes sapes nervous, I guess.”
Devit nods agreement and lets the subject die there.
The Mary came equipped with a pair of cargo bins designed for hauling dangerous goods. Devit stows the carton and locks the bin with a password. If the contents of that package actually were what the labels say, a leak or accident would jeopardize the entire crew. It’s no wonder that the Merchants Guild leaves carrying such material to the lowest tier of their members.
Right, we get the medical cargos. Research material, huh?
Devit hurries up to the bridge, where Evans—the only officer present—is lounging in her chair and watching newsvids on the main communication screen. A Kar-Li man in a brown business suit that matches his facial fur is discussing the results of the local planetary elections.
“A word with you, Captain?”
“Yes, of course.” Evans blinks her eyes three times. The screen reverts to its usual dull gray.
“About that special cargo. I’m thinking we might need to go to the Repositories. Is that the case?”
“It’s likely, yes.”
“And there’s a research hospital at the Repositories. Am I right?”
“Yes. It’s in a self-contained module near the main spacedock. They didn’t build it onplanet because they don’t want any of their research projects getting loose. Some of the diseases they’re trying to cure are horrendous.”
“They must get shipments of dangerous materials, then. Tissue samples, that kind of thing.”
“I suppose so. I—” All at once she laughs, one short bark. “And we’re just the kind of ship to carry them there.”
“I’ll have PrimeTwo add a line to our charter. Let shippers know we’ve got the capability to store hazards during transport.”
“Right. You’re very good at your job, Chief.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Coming from you, that’s a real compliment.”
“You’re welcome. By the way, where’s our pilot?”
“In the cabin. Drugged. He promised me he’d be sober by 1800 hours. Sober enough to take the ship out of orbit, anyway.”
“We reach the stargate six hours later. The should be time enough for him to get clear.”
Another thing that can’t be said hovers between them. Let’s hope so.
After years of living with and for Haze, Dan can judge the amount of the drug in his blood and calibrate it to whatever actions he needs to perform. If he ever should be too drugged to make a jump safely, he would delay as long as necessary. As it is, he feels sufficiently clear to go head on schedule. At jump minus one hour he melds with PrimeOne without any problem. The rise to Level Two proceeds smoothly as well.
“Your heart rate is sixty-four, Pilot.”
“Good. Oxygen content?”
“Normal. Registers at ninety-eight on the scale of one to one-hundred.”
“Good. View ahead.”
In the starry reach ahead, the black sphere seems to swell ever larger as they approach. Dan begins his count and through the link-up feels PrimeOne echoing the numbers. Closer—
Now!
The jump strips Dan’s self away and leaves only the-Dan-who-has-melded-with-the-ship. They sail into the golden light on a smooth arc. Ahead the blue currents dance and twist. Dan throws himself into a streak of blue and begins his search for the road he needs. To one side a vortex spins, then shrinks, distorts, forms itself into enormous cubes and pyramids that seem solid for a brief space of what-might-be-time. As they rush past, the illusion thins out, swirls, and disappears.
He has a few moments of what-might-be-time to glance to either side. In the light a misty cube forms, then disintegrates. Distant vortices swirl around their black hearts. A point appears in the light—a golden point just slightly less bright than the vast spreading glow around them. It heads straight for the ship, and as it approaches it distorts itself into a shape that might belong to a sapient. A torso, four stubs of arms, four protrusions that might be legs, and a globe-like head marked with two pits that might be eyes and a thin slit that might be considered a mouth.
Dan turns his attention away to check the ship’s progress on the blue river. They move in the right direction, but he feels rather than thinks that they’ve shifted off course. He looks around, sees the sapient-like shape for a brief flicker of time. It stands on another current and holds one arm up before it. Dan speeds after the blue, catches it, leaps and sinks into it just as the obsidian exit sphere appears.
Five, four, three, two—now! They sweep on through. A chime sounds, PrimeOne calls, “Level Two,” and Dan has a body again.
“Yeah! Just fucking yeah!”
“Pilot? I do not understand—”
“Don’t worry about it, PrimeOne. First level and the Map.”
The glowing web brightens underneath him. Ahead lies the red dot of RE89-3rd.
“Pilot, arrival in seven solstandard hours.”
“Noted. Break the meld.”
The links disappear and the Map with them. Dan realizes that he’s lying on the pilot couch in his pod. He sits up and runs both hands through his sweaty hair. The touch of his fingers on the metal jacks and output buttons brings him a little further back to normal consciousness.
PrimeOne beeps in the AI equivalent of clearing one’s throat. “Pilot, request for data. I noted visual input.”
“Yeah, so did I. You were seeing them through me.”
“I made that assumption. Request: What were they?”
“I don’t know. I see things in the light sometimes. I filed a log about those incidents. Years ago. Before the top brass kicked me out on my ass.”
PrimeOne clicks to itself for a few moments. “Pilot, I have never worked with any sapient before who sees objects in the light.”
“You wouldn’t, no. The guild doesn’t have any record of other pilots who do. I checked when I filed the log.”
“I have found a note in a partially deleted file that names one other. Orinoco Bolivar.”
Him again? Dan finds himself remembering the last word of that desperate transmit: Look.
“Pilot, should I notify the bridge that the jump was successful?”
“Agreed. We can discuss the visual data later. For now, keep the ship on the set course. I’ll take over from the bridge for the dock.”
“Do you still have your Personal Link for this log re: images?”
Dan cleared and pawned the unit on Ruby to buy Haze. When he joined the mission, Evans issued him a new one, along with the earjack and visor from the Bureau.
“No, but I can access my records from the guild and reload them. There’s a guildhall on RE89-3rd.”
Not precisely on the planet, it turns out. Ocean covers most of RE89-3rd or Wet, as the locals call it. Enormous tides sweep over the scraps of land, thanks to a pair of large moons, and make settlement impossible. There are compensations. The local sapients harvest the oxygen produced by the thick beds of oceanic plant life and stromatolites. They pressurize it into a liquid, then sell it to the Fleet and passing merchanters at a good profit. The creds have built a spacedock structure even larger and more elaborate than the one orbiting Tala.
Along with the oxygen crews, all the sapients attached to Wet live and work in the cluster of spacedocks in geosync orbits. In the outermost of these, where visiting ships dock, the Pilots Guild maintains offices in a curved section of the station given over to official matters. Instead of the usual mats of mazla vine, the walls and the offices both glitter with bright light bouncing off steel facing. On this world, carbon dioxide gets collected and funneled back into the oceans rather than wasted on feeding vines.
Even with his visor on, Dan cannot stand to look at the walls. Riding the blue again has made his eyes more sensitive than ever. Devit lays a hand on his shoulder and guides him to the right door.
When they get inside, Dan takes the visor off. Pale yellow light glows in strips set in the floor and fills the room with shadows. The guild knows what its pilots need.
“Damn!” Devit mutters. “I should have brought a lightstick.”
“No go. They’d take it away from you. There’s some chairs over there, so go sit down. I’ve got to check in.”
An AI sits in a half booth on the long curved counter. When Dan walks up, it clicks, hums, and brings up an information screen. Dan follows the written instructions and tells it his name, rank, reg number, and his preferred language, Tech Speak.
“Processed. Retinal scan. Please lean forward and look at the glowing blue dot.”
Dan does. It clicks again. “Welcome Dan Brennan. What may we help you with?”
“I want to access personal records.”
“Enter file number.”
“I don’t remember it.”
“File number is necessary for access. There are no files listed under the name Dan Brennan.”
In his chair by the door Devit mutters, “Oh crap.” Dan has to agree.
Eventually the AI agrees to search under the name Dan X. The delay drags on so long that Dan begins to be afraid the records have been stolen or wiped in the same way as the main files on the shunt closure were. He’s about to call Devit over when the AI speaks.
“They are filed under X, Dan. Is that you?”
“Yes, it is. Match retinal scans.”
“I have done so. Place your PL on the counter.”
The actual transfer of the files takes approximately two seconds. The AI goes dark. Dan checks to make sure that the log he needs still exists before he leaves the office. By then, Devit has already gone outside to wait where he can see his surroundings. Once Dan’s eyes settle, he can see that Devit’s reading something printed on a piece of soyskin paper.
“What’s that?”
“A manifesto from the Pure Heritage assholes.”
“They use paper? Weird, but then, so are they.”
“Flyers like these can’t be traced.” Devit shoves it into his pants pocket. “Public PL posts can be. So they leave crap like this around to get their message out. Anyway, tell me something. Why did your mother name you X?”
“Oh, who the hell knows why she did anything? Hey, when are you and Lod going to deliver the biohazards?”
“When you and I get back. The research lab’s in another dock, but Mata reserved an LTV.”
“Which is?”
“Lateral transport vehicle.” He hesitates. “Look, while we’re gone, I want you to stay onboard the Mary. Agreed?”
“Agreed. I want to look over these records and send them to PrimeOne.”
They return to the Mary to find Evans on the bridge, watching her usual newsvids. She answers their salutes, then mutes the sound on the main comm screen.
“There you are, gentlemen. I just sent off a status report to the Bureau to let them know our itinerary. No one else wants shore leave. Chief, once you and Mata get that cargo stowed, we’re breaking berth. Brennan, I’ve decided that we might as well travel to the next jump.”
While he waits for Mata to call him from the cargo hold, Devit sits down at his security station and considers the automatic readouts that appear on-screen. Nothing untoward happened during his absence. Once that’s taken care of, he scans in the Pure Heritage Society flyer he found outside the Pilots Guild and slots it into his growing collection. As most of them do, the new addition focuses on the Inborn and the Throwbacks as a “threat to our republic,” “an ambitious and evil cancer growing in our society,” and other such phrases. This flyer adds something new:
Could it be true? Have the Throwbacks found some devious way to destroy the stargates? They could threaten to isolate any planet whose government refused to do their will! Rumors fly everywhere. Are these hints shedding light into an unspeakable darkness?”
Rhetorical questions again. Nothing actionable, just questions. Clever. Start people thinking and maybe they’ll believe it.
Could the Pure Heritage people be the source of the rumors concerning the stargates? Devit makes a note of the possibility in the file. They’ll be worth investigating whenever he gets the chance.
“Pilot, I have processed your record of images seen. I have data re: the illusion of the humanoid being.”
“Noted, PrimeOne. Share.”
“When I was brought online, Pilot, I experienced many training routines. One taught me how to recognize sapients and their variations. Common features of sapients: vision, hearing, communication functions, appendages for grasping tools. Most common configuration: an extension of the main body commonly called a head. On this head, eyes facing forward to give binocular vision, a slit or a protruding organ to make sound, and a feature on each side of the head to receive sounds. The image we saw fit these definitions.”
“The slit on its face, was that there to make sounds?”
“It fits the definitions I was given of mouths.”
“Accepted. What we saw was possibly an image of a sapient.”
“There is a small probability it was not an image but a being. Its form endured much longer than the images did. Its form was precisely defined rather than spreading randomly in the light as did those geometric shapes. It terminated its presence by moving away, not by dissolution.”
“It didn’t have a ship. No one can ride the light without a ship.”
“Correction: It is commonly believed that a ship is required. No evidence exists that any being can exist in the light without a ship. But lack of available evidence does not mean undiscovered evidence does not exist.”
“True. But ….” Dan lets his voice trail away.
“What is your objection, Pilot?”
“No objection. Just a need for corroboration. I felt like it was looking at me. I’d drifted off course. It showed me the correct streak to ride.”
PrimeOne makes a series of clicks, the longest delay that Dan has ever experienced from it. “Pilot, am I interpreting your statement correctly? Do you mean it saved us from being lost?”
“Just that. Unless it was a coincidence. It stood on the blue streak I needed. Or maybe it was just luck.”
“Luck is a concept I have never understood. I must gather more data before we even consider if we need to inform anyone else.” There is a pause, then a few beeps. “Pilot, we are approaching the scheduled jump time.”
“Noted and agreed. I’m ready to meld.”
RE84-2nd has a long name in the Hirrel language. Most other sapients call it by the first syllable, Glah. Whatever the name, the drab rocky sphere offers no reason to bring the shuttle out of its bay. Lee and Wang go to a discount warehouse on the spacedock to buy medical supplies. No one else asks for shore leave.
Evans accesses the local Merchants Guild via voicelink and reports that one more jump will deliver their current cargo. An actual Human comes online.
“Nothing more out there for you at the moment,” the clerk tells her. “But I see you’ve registered for hazardous material delivery.”
“That’s right. We have secure bays in the hold and hazmat suits for both Humans and Leps. Also a detoxification filter on the air supply.”
“Sounds good. Check in when you reach your destination. There could be a pickup for you. There will be soon, anyway.”
Because no one else is stupid enough to volunteer for these jobs. Aloud, she says, “Thanks. We really need cargo.”
“Everyone does. Good luck!”
The clerk signs off.
By Fleet regulations AI units file a complete report of their every activity under the captain’s password. Normally Evans never reads them. Routine AI activity generates hundreds of lines of mostly numerical detail. As for melds, she prefers not to spy on a fellow officer when they’ve linked up to an AI. Dan’s addiction, however, has made the current situation abnormal.
She’s been glancing at some of the exchanges between Dan and PrimeOne before and after jumps just to see how sober and coherent he is. A few lines generally tell her all she needs to know. When she logs in to check his condition after the just-completed jump, she finds the conversation concerning the humanoid image. She reads through it twice.
“Chief Devit?”
Devit turns in his station chair to face her. “Yes, ma’am?”
“Does Haze give Dan hallucinations?”
“No, ma’am. That’s not one of the effects the drug has. Mata, did Dan ever get them when you sapes were in Gleam?”
“Not that I know of, no. No one ever mentioned them at Mission House, either, and they would have told me if they knew about them.”
“Noted. Thank you both.”
Devit and Mata are looking at her expectantly. She stands up with a nod in their direction. “Chief Devit, you have the bridge.”
Evans goes down to her cabin to read the report yet again, just in case she’s the one hallucinating. It reads the same as before. Everyone knows he’s one of a kind. Why? Who knows! But dangerous or not? Don’t know that either. But this is important. Dan and, through him, PrimeOne have seen things in shunt space that no one ever suspected existed.
