Starbound

  Although we are in actuality going slower each day, it feels emotionally like we’re rolling downhill. Committed now, in a way we weren’t before turnaround. Wolf 25 or bust.

  What do we mean by “now,” really? It’s odd to be compelled to think in relativistic terms. At this moment, the creatures on Wolf 25 (the planet circling its dark companion, technically) are unaware of our existence. We’re twelve light-years away, so in twelve years they will be able to observe the raging matter/antimatter beacon of our braking engine.

  If things have gone according to plan—you could also say “if things are going to be going according to plan”—our prerecorded explanation of what we are attempting to do will have preceded the beacon by exactly one hundred days.

  Their response to our pacifistic message might be to blow us out of their sky as soon as the beacon appears. If they did that, when would it happen? How long do we have before we know they haven’t killed us?

  If we take the worst possible case, that they attack the instant they see us, their response can’t come faster than the speed of light. So, if my notebook is right, we will meet our doom no sooner than three years and some weeks.

  Unless they figure out a way around the speed of light. Then we could be doomed any old time. As we could, supposedly, any time Other-prime decides the universe would be better off without us.

  So it’s eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. I can do something about the eat and drink part. Tonight it will be meat loaf without meat, served with wine that’s not wine, all washed down with water distilled from our various body wastes. Be merry.

  9

  RELATIVITY IS RELATIVE?

  On Spy’s fourth trip into ad Astra, it dropped a bombshell. For some reason it chose me to tell it to, not exactly the most technically sophisticated woman aboard.

  Spy had said it wanted to talk to us one at a time, so we were sitting on the floor in “the onion field,” the part of the garden where we cultivated scallions and garlic.

  We’d been talking about human history and customs, and as always, I was trying to extract information about the Others in return. I asked it about the voyage out here with Other-prime. Did they have anything like a social relationship? What did they do to pass the time?

  “Carmen, there was no actual ‘time’ to pass. We knew in what part of space-time you would be turning around, and we just went there. Went here, approximately.”

  “Wait. You just went here? Without traveling the twelve light- years in between?”

  “Of course we traveled the distance. We got here. But there was no reason for the journey to have any duration, so it didn’t.”

  “You were on Triton one instant, and here the next?”

  “That’s what it feels like, but of course time isn’t shut down; there’s no way around relativity. But time is not the same thing as duration. This universe is twelve years closer to its end. But we didn’t have to experience the passage of the years.”

  “You mean . . . your spaceship is some kind of time machine as well?”

  “No, not really.” He seemed cross, exasperated. “This is like trying to explain to a bird how an elevator works. This is the way we go to the top of a building. We don’t have to flap our wings.

  “Your own spaceship is a time machine; you compressed twelve years into less than four. What we do is no more magical than that. We just have better control over it; we’re more economical and efficient.”

  I was completely out of my depth here. “Let me get Paul. I don’t understand—”

  “Paul wouldn’t understand better. Like you, like any other human, he misunderstands the nature of time. His mathematics just compounds the error, because it’s already wrong before ‘one plus one equals two.’

  “It’s time I had a talk with all of you, or perhaps all except Moonboy. Can you arrange that in about one hour?”

  “Sure. It wouldn’t take an hour.”

  “I want to spend an hour looking at your library, the paper printed books. This may be my last chance.”

  “What? What’s going to happen?”

  “I said ‘may,’ not ‘will.’ Shall we say 15:21 in the compromise lounge? I want to talk to the Martians, as well.”

  “Okay . . . what should I say you want to talk about? Our ignorant mathematics?”

  “Partly. Partly your survival.” He turned, and walked toward the lounge, presumably the “library” corner.

  I sat for a minute, collecting my thoughts. Then I pinged Paul and told him what was going on. He said he’d make a general announcement and asked what I thought Spy was up to. “That’s as close as they’ve come to an actual threat.”

  “I know.” My voice cracked. I wiped cold sweat from my palms. “See you there.”

  I made a cup of tea and took it back to our room. I’d just begun a letter to my mother but couldn’t think of anything to say. Dear Mom, my survival was just threatened by a robot from another planet. What have you done when that happens?

  I wondered what Spy meant by “our” survival. The people on this ship or humanity in general? Dear Mom, you may have only twelve years to live. Unfortunately, I wrote this twelve years ago.

  Jacket and scarf and knitted socks. Might as well be nice and toasty for the occasion. I went over at precisely 15:20 and sat on the couch next to Paul.

  Everybody but Moonboy was there, including both Martians. Rare to see them together outside of their tub. I guess if you bathed with someone twenty hours a day, you might avoid him the rest of the time.

  Spy came in exactly on time and stood in the door. He was wearing his space suit, holding the helmet. “Other-prime has decided that we should precede you to Wolf 25. We have learned enough about you to help the Others there deal with the problem. So we will leave this iceberg and speed on to our mutual destination. We should arrive about eight months before you.”

  I didn’t know whether to feel relieved. We wouldn’t have them looking over our shoulders, but then we wouldn’t learn anything more about them, either.

  “We are going to impose something upon you that may be unpleasant, but Other-prime feels it is necessary. Your group is unstable in various ways, and there is a real possibility that not all of you, or perhaps none of you, will survive the rest of your trip.

  “To keep this from happening, we will cause you to travel the way we do. The time it takes you to go the twelve light-years will not be affected, but the duration of the trip will be negligible. I just explained this to Carmen.”

  “You did, but it made no sense.”

  “Do you remember about the elevator and the bird?”

  I looked around at everybody and shook my head. “You said that describing it would be like telling a bird how an elevator works.”

  “Yes. How you can get to the top of a building without flapping wings. It would never understand. But that would not affect reality.”

  “Of course not.”

  “What would happen if you put the bird into the elevator and took it to the roof?”

  “It wouldn’t like it,” Paul said.

  “No,” Spy said, still looking at me. “But it would get to the rooftop.”

  It turned to Paul. “It will happen tomorrow morning. I will call you a half hour ahead of time. People should be strapped in, including Moonboy.”

  “Will I be shutting the engine down?”

  “Not for another twelve years. Objective time. That would be about three years and three months in your decelerating frame of reference. Seconds, in your new one. It will all be clear.”

  Clear to whom, I wondered. To Paul? “Spy, I don’t understand. You and I were sitting down in the garden, talking about, I don’t know, marriage . . .”

  “Social connections. Friendships.”

  “And now suddenly we’re going to be the birds in your elevator, flapping around and going crazy, I assume. What happened?”

  “The Other-prime contacted me and said it was ready.”

  “What if we aren
’t ready?” Paul said, tense. “This is a pretty big deal.”

  “Just have them strapped in, Paul. You will find it an interesting ride.”

  “Wait,” Namir said, and it was like a command. “Suppose we don’t want to take your shortcut? Maybe we’d rather continue as planned and have those years to prepare for meeting your people.”

  “They aren’t mine, and they aren’t people,” Spy said. “If all of you would prefer the old slow way, tell me now. I will ask the Other-prime.”

  Meryl spoke up first. “Not me. The sooner the better.”

  Dustin nodded slowly. “Me, too.”

  “Paul?” I said.

  He tugged on his ear, a sign that he was conflicted. “Spy . . . we know our technology has worked this far. I can understand Namir’s reluctance to try something new and untested. Just on your say-so.”

  “I won’t argue with you.” It was looking at Namir. “But technology is not involved at all. It’s just that the way you experience time is connected to the way you think about time, and that is flawed.”

  “And you can change that?” I said. “The way we think about time?”

  “No, no, no. The bird does not have to build the elevator to ride in it.”

  He moved his gaze to Paul. “What it is . . . Let me put this as simply as possible. We are—or you and the Other-prime are—here together in a definite place in space and time. In a simple Einsteinian way. Twelve years from now, you will again share a place in the space-time continuum. Share a point. So what connects those two points?”

  I remembered that from school. “A geodesic,” I said, simultaneously with Paul and Namir.

  “Exactly,” it said, and looked at the two Martians. “A geodesic in space-time is something like a line drawn between two points on a map.”

  Fly-in-Amber sketched a line with his finger. “The shortest natural distance.”

  Spy nodded. “True and not true. There’s only one shortest line between the two points, but there are many geodesics. It gets complicated if you have gravity and acceleration.”

  “But there’s no magic wand,” Paul said. “You’re talking about going from here to there, a really long distance, with no time elapsing. That’s not possible, no matter how fast you go.”

  I think that was the only time I ever saw Spy laugh. “Tell that to a photon. Or tell it to me tomorrow. Which will be twelve years from now, after a trip of no duration.”

  “Unless we refuse your offer,” Namir said.

  “Like the bird refusing to enter the elevator? I’m afraid you’re already in the net. As I said, I could ask the Other-prime to set you free, but at least two of you do want to take the shortcut. How about you, Carmen?”

  “Wait. What if something goes wrong en route? The hydroponics spring a leak or the ship’s guidance system lets a pebble through? We won’t be able to deal with it.”

  “Nothing will happen—literally nothing, because with no duration there are no events. If there were two independent events, there would be a measurable time between them.”

  My head was spinning. “There’s no hurry, is there? I want to hear Paul’s take on it, and Namir’s.”

  “Paul’s argument is based on ignorance and Namir’s is just fear of losing control. But no, there is no hurry. Just let me know when you’ve made up your mind.”

  “Whereupon you will do whatever you want,” Namir said. Spy smiled and turned to go. “Won’t you?”

  “Just let me know,” Spy repeated. Paul followed him, to operate the air lock, and nobody spoke until he came back.

  “Spy’s wrong,” Namir said. “It’s not about control. It’s just about understanding what’s going on.”

  “Which is apparently impossible for mere humans,” I said.

  “What do you think, Paul?” Meryl said.

  He sat down heavily and picked up his drink and stared into it. “I think we’d better get ready for an elevator ride.”

  Ultimately, even Namir agreed that going along with Spy and the Other-prime would be the wisest course, not only to maximize our own chances for survival, but also to establish a record of cooperation before we met the Others. And abandoned ourselves to their mercy.

  We went through the habitat getting things ready for zero gee; Spy had warned us that we would be in orbit, not accelerating, when the “elevator ride” was over.

  Paul led us through the seldom- used corridor that connected the lander to the rest of ad Astra, basically two air locks with a silver corridor in between. A handy metaphor for any number of things—birth, rebirth, death. Perhaps robotic excretion, the life-support system that had sustained us for years expelling us with relief.

  We got all strapped in and sat in a stew of collective anxiety, thick enough to walk on. Paul fussed with his controls and came back to crouch next to me, holding hands, for a couple of minutes. He was able to smile, but then he’s an official hero figure, and has to.

  He returned to his place and strapped in, and in a few minutes said over the intercom, “We should be about a minute away.” Then, “Let’s count down the last ten seconds together. Ten, nine, eight . . .”

  We never got to seven. The ship was suddenly flooded with sunlight, from the right—and on the left, my porthole was filled with a nearby planet, resembling Mars but more gray.

  I felt gray.

  There was no physical sensation as such. Only what you had to describe as deep loss, or longing, or sorrow. Some people were weeping. I bit my lips and kept tears away, and tried to sort out what was happening.

  I unbuckled the harness and looked back down the aisle. Familiar faces contorted with all-consuming grief.

  Except for two. Moonboy’s expression was blank, catatonia.

  So was Namir’s.

  10

  RAMPAGE

  Elza’s face kept swimming out of darkness, into focus, then I would fade back to Tel Aviv, reliving the worst time of my life in every dreadful detail. It seemed like weeks of nightmares, but it was less than a day.

  I was in my room, surrounded by images from the Louvre. Watteau’s Jupiter and Antiope, Regnault’s The Three Graces, Corot’s Woman with a Pearl, and Gericault’s terrible The Raft of the Medusa. That one persisted, all the dead and dying.

  Elza had just given me a shot, and she was cutting away a tape that bound my left wrist. My right one was sore.

  “You’ll be all right now?”

  “What’s . . . the wrists?”

  “You were hurting yourself. Pulling out hair.”

  My hand went to my head. Almost bald, sore in places.

  “All that loose hair in zero gravity. It was a mess; I used the vacuum razor. You’re a little bit tranquilized. I didn’t think you wanted to sleep anymore, though.”

  “No. Please.” I felt my head. “The razor with the vacuum attachment?”

  “It looks nice. Evened up.”

  “Was everybody . . . no. Other people can’t have been affected as strongly as I was.”

  “Nobody. Well, you can’t tell about Moonboy. But nobody else passed out. It could be your age.” She caressed my head. “Spy supposedly didn’t know what caused it, but it wasn’t just a human thing. Both the Martians were uncomfortable.”

  I took a squeeze from her water bottle. “Memories. I felt trapped inside memories.”

  “You have some sad ones. Worse than the rest of us.”

  “Not sadness.” I had to be honest with her, of all people. “It was guilt. Murder.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “You mustn’t feel guilt for being a soldier. We’ve gone over that pretty well.”

  “Not that. Long after that. I . . . never told you.” I hesitated, aware that the drugs were loosening my tongue. Then it came out in a rush.

  “It was right after Gehenna; right after I found my mother dead. I raced back into Tel Aviv, putting a list together in my mind.

  “My Working Group Seven had been formed in response to a persistent rumor that a large-scale act of terrorism was
imminent, one that couldn’t be traced to a single political or geographical entity because it was not centralized at all. We had a couple of chemically induced confessions that indicated the group was large but divided into small independent cells.

  “Anti-Semitism doesn’t have borders, and in fact some of the people we were looking at were Jews themselves, with strong opposition to the current power structure. Current at that time, liberal.

  “I privately suspected that two or even three of the people in my office were moles, making sure that we were distracted by false leads. The one woman in whom I had confided this was the first person I saw die, a few minutes after we heard the bombs that were the second phase of the poisoning.

  “As I raced down alleys and bumped across playgrounds and parks—none of the regular roads were passable—I was making a list of people I had to talk to that day.

  “Because anyone who was not stunned that day was guilty. Ipso facto. And . . . there were so many dead bodies lying around that a few more would not raise any suspicions.”

  She was behind me, rubbing my shoulders. “How many, Namir?”

  “Eleven that day. I tracked them down one by one, along with seven or eight I looked at and spared.”

  “You just shot them in cold blood?”

  “No. Bullets would look suspicious. I got them alone and strangled them. Then they looked pretty much like all the other corpses.”

  “There were more than those eleven? Other days?”

  “Six had flown out that morning, including three from my office. To London, Cairo, and New York. In London and Cairo I used my hands. The ones in New York I did shoot, with a pickup gun I’d had for years. Then tossed it in the Hudson.”

  “Like the .357 in the shoe box at home?”

  “Yeah, behind the drywall. You are such a snoop.”

  “It’s in the job description.” Holding on to my shoulder, she floated around in front of me. “Cold-blooded murder isn’t.”