A Night Without Stars

  The Units had handed over three batches of astronomical observations so far, which had given them very little fresh data on the other planets. Paula speculated that Zone43’s observations had declined substantially from the initial steadfast watch for other worlds to appear around this sun. They certainly had very little data on Bienvenido. Even information on Ursell’s atmospheric destruction was minimal.

  ‘I bring them,’ Unit976 replied. ‘Your data on quantum junction processors will be most useful.’

  Florian didn’t ask how they’d use the new processors. So far they’d seen very little evidence of weapons, but the Units clearly existed to defend their territory. He didn’t like to think they were giving Zone43 technology that would shift the relative balance this ruined world had achieved. When he’d mentioned that, Paula had told him that when they were successful the Units would be leaving Macule behind, so it really didn’t matter.

  ‘Thank you,’ Paula said to Unit976.

  ‘I am transmitting the information now.’

  Florian shifted the incoming astronomy data to a peripheral display in his exovision. Unlike Ry, he simply couldn’t get worked up about sharper pictures of the other planets, nor the minute changes they had undergone over the course of millennia.

  Paula, on the other hand, was practically obsessed. ‘Is this the best resolution you have?’ she asked of the Valatare data.

  ‘It is,’ Unit 976 replied.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ Florian asked.

  ‘I want to know if Valatare’s atmosphere had decreased since the Kromal started their observations. That would be evidence that the mass is being consumed. These images don’t tell me a thing.’

  ‘They go back twenty-five thousand years, if I’m reading the text right,’ Florian said.

  ‘But the scale isn’t precise,’ Paula replied. ‘The Kromal observations aren’t accurate enough for what I need.’

  ‘They seem pretty clear to me,’ Florian said, reviewing the ever-swirling pattern of dull-pink and white cloud bands. ‘I bet these telescopes could even show you Trüb’s old colours.’

  Paula turned slowly to stare at him. That stare was very disconcerting, as if she somehow possessed Void-era telepathy that could examine his soul. His cheeks flushed. ‘What?’ he mumbled.

  ‘What colours?’ Paula asked, deceptively lightly.

  ‘Mooray told me about it,’ he said defensively.

  ‘And who is Mooray?’

  ‘My friend. A Vatni. He was with me when you landed.’

  ‘So what does he know about Trüb?’

  ‘They have amazing eyes, the Vatni; they never used telescopes to watch the planets. He told me Trüb used to be covered with coloured shapes – and its moons, too. It was the most remarkable sight in the night sky, he said. Then the Primes flew there to invade and the colours all turned to grey – like it is today.’

  ‘The moons,’ Paula said without blinking. ‘Of course. Damn, I’m slow!’

  ‘Did aliens make those colours?’ Florian asked.

  ‘They didn’t make them. They were the colours.’ She smiled happily at the ANAdroids, who were all motionless, looking at her. ‘I think Trüb is a Planter world.’

  ‘The parallels are favourable,’ Demitri acknowledged.

  ‘Who the crud are Planters?’ Florian asked.

  ‘We never met them,’ Demitri said, ‘but we did encounter the gigalife they left behind.’

  ‘The Sheldon Dynasty isolated the world they found the gigalife on,’ Paula said sharply, ‘and researched its molecular structures for their own advantage.’

  ‘An advantage which resulted in us providing the human race with biononics,’ Demitri countered.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Florian said. ‘What is a gigalife?’

  ‘Enormous quasi-biological structures,’ Demitri said. ‘A combination of pure biological components supported on engineered molecular skeletons. There were trees the size of mountains. And more important, the planet had spaceflower moons – small asteroid rocks in low orbit that had colourful petals tens of kilometres in diameter—’

  ‘That’s what Mooray said!’ Florian exclaimed. ‘Trüb’s moons were bigger back then, because they had petals like a flower.’

  ‘Well, that settles that,’ Paula said.

  ‘We concur,’ Demitri said.

  ‘But you said you never met the Planters?’ Florian queried.

  ‘We didn’t,’ Demitri said, ‘but it sounds as if the whole of Trüb was covered in gigalife; the world we found in our galaxy only had isolated examples, plus the moons. We even considered it could be a work of art by a hugely advanced species. It took us a long time, but we eventually retro-engineered some of the molecular engineering principles – the ones that gave us biononics.’

  ‘Trüb is different,’ Paula said. ‘If the Void expels only the stubborn lifeforms that will not accept subjugation, then it’s reasonable to assume the Planters themselves were on that planet.’

  ‘And the Prime killed them,’ Florian said.

  ‘I find that hard to believe. Planters, whatever their nature, are a very advanced species.’

  ‘But everything is dead, like this world.’

  ‘Trüb is strange in that it is a uniform surface without any features. Yes, the colour went, but . . .’ She paused and sighed. ‘They might have reacted to the Prime invasion like a hedgehog curling up into a ball so its spikes stand up, but I don’t have enough information. If the Planters do exist, they would make phenomenal allies. They might even be able to help with Valatare.’

  ‘You want to open the wormhole to Trüb now?’ Kysandra asked, sounding tetchy.

  ‘Not immediately. We have a course of action, and we should focus on that. However, we can build a Trüb contact into our schedule. The possibility of the Planters helping us is too important to ignore.’

  Florian could see how disgruntled Kysandra was by the prospect of another change in their plans, and grinned at her. For himself, he was rather excited by Paula’s optimism, the effortless way she accumulated and interpreted facts. And now they had another potential alien species that might help them. ‘Cool huh?’ he said quietly as he went over to her.

  Kysandra took a while to answer. ‘I know this all seems exciting, but it’s all talk, Florian. We don’t actually know anything.’

  ‘But we will do,’ he insisted. ‘We nearly have enough satellites to drop into Valatare orbit. And the atmospheric drones are ready.’

  ‘Ah, your optimism.’ She kissed him – a rather distracted kiss, he thought. ‘At least we’ll be able to retreat to Aqueous if everything goes to crud.’

  ‘It won’t!’

  ‘You weren’t around when Nigel launched the Skylady. He was utterly convinced he was going to destroy the Void. I believed him.’

  ‘I don’t think Paula’s like Nigel.’

  ‘No.’ She smiled wryly. ‘She’s not.’

  *

  Three hours later, they had enough satellites to begin examining Valatare. The ANAdroids set up a launch rail in front of the wormhole generator to fling the satellites through.

  ‘Open the wormhole, please,’ Paula said, standing at the far end of the rail to face the big circular gateway mechanism.

  ‘Initiating,’ Demitri said. His eyes closed as his u-shadow interfaced with the gateway’s smartnet.

  Within a minute, the wan indigo radiance of Cherenkov radiation was shining across the machine’s surface.

  ‘Valatare contact,’ Demitri said, and his lips twitched. ‘Laura was right: the gravity gradient is odd. I’m going to open the terminus a thousand kilometres above the ionosphere. Matching coordinates to orbital velocity. Here we go—’

  The Cherenkov glow drained backwards fast, replaced by a darker rouge light shining into the dome. Paula nodded in satisfaction as she looked down on the vast ammonia cloud bands and their small placid curlicue edgings, a vertigo-inducing distance below.

  ‘Terminus holding steady,’ Demitri
said. ‘Minimal jitter. We can launch.’ He changed the orientation and the horizon slid into view.

  ‘Send them through,’ Paula told Valeri.

  The first satellite zipped along the rail and shot straight through the force field. It was lost from view in seconds. Demitri shifted the terminus three thousand kilometres, and they launched another satellite.

  An hour after they started, they’d established a necklace of the satellites in a fifty-five-degree inclination orbit, giving them a reasonable coverage of the planet. The little globes established a full link network between each other and sent their combined results back to the terminus. Paula watched the sensor data start to build in her exovision.

  ‘That’s weird,’ Fergus said. ‘There’s no planetary magnetic field.’

  Paula’s grin was radiant. ‘No, only real planets have magnetic fields.’

  Florian couldn’t help the grin spreading over his face. ‘So you were right?’ He flicked his gaze towards Kysandra. The whole notion of something the size of Valatare being artificial – made by the Void – was incredible.

  ‘So far,’ Paula muttered. ‘There,’ she said abruptly, as the sensors picked up a magnetic and gravitational vortex drifting through the gas giant’s atmosphere fifteen degrees north of the equator. ‘That has to be the floater.’

  ‘Got it,’ Demitri said. He shifted the wormhole terminus, positioning it five hundred kilometres directly above the floater that Laura Brandt had dropped into Valatare’s clouds two hundred and fifty years ago.

  Paula told her u-shadow to open a link to the floater’s smartnet. Laura had probably left it codelocked, but she was reasonably confident her routines could hack into the main processors.

  The link request ping was accepted by the floater. ‘Hello,’ it responded. ‘Who are you?’

  Paula gave Demitri a startled look. She hadn’t been expecting the smartnet to be running an autonomous sentience. ‘This is Paula Myo. I’m from the Commonwealth. I need to assume control over your functions.’

  ‘The Paula Myo? The investigator from the Serious Crimes Directorate?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘I was sent to help the Brandt colony fleet. What is your identity, please?’

  ‘Laura Brandt.’

  ‘No way,’ Florian exclaimed in awe. ‘Mother Laura?’

  Paula held up a finger. ‘That is fascinating. Could you please explain how you come to be here?’

  ‘I downloaded my secure store memories to the floater smartnet just before the Primes nuked me,’ Laura Brandt said. ‘And both floaters are linked through the wormhole. The processing power available is sufficient to mimic a basic human neural structure.’

  ‘Just like Joey,’ Paula replied.

  ‘Joey? Joey Stein? He’s alive?’

  ‘Not in a biological body. Nigel placed his memories in a smartnet, running a medical lifeboat on his starship. Effectively, he’s in the same situation as you.’

  ‘Poor old Joey. So how did you get here? Has the Commonwealth found us?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. I was on board Nigel’s starship, the Skylady. I only recently became active.’

  ‘Bollocks. So are the Fallers still a threat?’

  ‘Yes – and right now, an even bigger one than they were back in the Void. That’s why we opened the wormhole here.’

  ‘You said you wanted to take control of the floater?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We want to use it as the anchor to this wormhole so we have a very stable terminus at Valatare; it has some precision manoeuvring to perform.’

  ‘That will mean me relinquishing my connection to the floater in Ursell’s atmosphere.’

  ‘Yes. Is that a problem?’

  ‘No. I maintained the connection because there was no reason to stop. Once Ursell’s atmospheric saturation point had been reached, I reduced the size of the wormhole so that the volume of gas passing through simply compensates for the amount of gas Ursell leaks off to space – a not inconsiderable amount, given the size of its envelope now.’

  That was such a machine construal, Paula thought; factors remain stable so the equation is maintained. And the Brandt personality had certainly never thought to question Valatare’s nature at any time over the last two and a half centuries. It might be Laura’s memories running in the smartnet, but that smartnet could never emulate the quirks and imagination of a biological brain. This version of Laura was a level below even the ANAdroids. She was willing to be helpful, but she’d always have to be instructed.

  Paula reviewed the data flowing across her exovision. ‘I have a satellite flock in orbit above Valatare. They’re showing me the atmosphere is three hundred and fifty kilometres thick.’

  ‘Yes. I have only limited senses available in the floater, but that seems to be the atmospheric depth. It is an unusually stable transition layer to the liquid mantle.’

  ‘The troposphere layer doesn’t end in liquid,’ Paula replied. She was studying the radiation emissions, which were totally wrong for a gas giant. The resolute boundary at the bottom of the atmosphere was throwing out a lot of gamma-ray energy, which was swiftly absorbed by the super-pressured gas.

  As the satellite flock continued their sweep, she watched for the one anomaly she prayed had to be there. Something, anything – a radiation spike, quantum fluctuation, gravity twist, magnetic flux. Paula stared through the wormhole at the insipid cloud bands, fantasizing she’d see a blemish that would give the location away.

  ‘What does it end in?’ Laura asked.

  ‘A type of event horizon.’

  ‘That’s not possible. This isn’t a black hole.’

  ‘I know. Valatare is an artefact.’

  The satellites reported a quantum fluctuation. It was coming from a small zone, approximately five kilometres across, on the equator. ‘Gotcha!’ Paula cried. Behind her, she could hear the ANAdroids laughing victoriously.

  ‘What is that?’ Florian asked.

  ‘I’m assuming it’s the generator. It consumes matter and converts it into energy to power the barrier. There’s enough gas here to maintain the event horizon for millions of years.’

  ‘Just like the Void,’ Demitri said. ‘Except the Void is consuming entire star systems to provide the power it needs.’

  ‘Then the prison is like a mini-Void?’ Ry asked nervously. ‘Can it pull us in?’

  Paula finally broke away from staring at the swirling clouds. ‘No. It just uses the same principles to sustain itself. And now we have to crack it open.’

  ‘How do we do that?’

  ‘I want to manoeuvre the floater down to the anomaly; that way we can establish direct contact. If we can do that, we can analyse it and see how to switch it off.’

  ‘Ambitious,’ Kysandra said.

  ‘Indeed, but now we might be able to move our next stage along faster than I anticipated.’

  ‘How?’

  Florian smiled. ‘The Planters!’

  ‘Exactly,’ Paula said. ‘They should be able to analyse the generator a lot faster than Nigel2. I was expecting this to take weeks – now it might be over a lot sooner. Laura, we’re going to break contact for a while. When we open the terminus again, I want to use your floater.’

  ‘I understand. I’m not going anywhere.’

  ‘Thank you. Demitri, close the terminus, please.’

  The circle of wan cloudscape shrank to nothing. Paula walked over to the window, where three Macule Units were parked outside. A number of puppies zipped about between the domes, as if they could sniff out more information on the visitors. ‘We need to leave,’ she told Unit976. ‘We may return soon, but if we don’t, the technical data we have provided will be enough to restart your development.’

  ‘Do not leave,’ Unit976 replied. ‘We would like to trade more material for information.’

  ‘If we are successful, we will take you with us, back to the galaxy we all came from.??
?

  The high-pitched whine of Unit26’s colossal electric engines starting to spin up was audible through the dome’s insulation.

  ‘Open the terminus to Trüb,’ Paula told Demitri. ‘Fast.’

  The ANAdroid nodded sharply.

  ‘The rest of you, into your suits,’ Paula said, and switched on her integral force field. One of the puppies raced at the dome. When it hit, its momentum carried it a couple of metres up the panels. Its front edge rose up over a transparent section before it fell down.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Paula asked Unit976.

  ‘We do not wish to return to the galaxy we came from,’ Unit976 replied. ‘It was being consumed by the Void. There is no future there.’

  ‘Very well. Once we are back, the Commonwealth will provide you ships to carry you further on. We do not break our agreements.’

  Unit26 began to move forwards, its heavy tracks churning up spurts of dirt as it slewed round until it was heading directly at the domes. As well as hearing its engine, Paula could now feel the floor of the dome shaking. She saw hatches crank open along the front of the machine. Tubes began to telescope out, looking suspiciously like weapon barrels. ‘Dammit!’

  The wormhole opened onto a grey expanse of perfectly smooth land, vaulted by a jade-tinted sky. They were the only two colours Trüb possessed.

  ‘Go through,’ Valeri said.

  Paula walked quickly through the gateway. Her boots sank several centimetres into the dust on the other side. The surface was made of particles as fine as flour, and completely dry. She’d never seen a horizon so sharp before. A scan showed her the atmosphere was mainly argon and carbon dioxide, with a pressure eight per cent standard. Florian and Ry came hurrying out beside her, swiftly followed by Kysandra and the ANAdroids. Between them, they kicked up a lot more dust.