Eric Brown - Starship Summer

“Spooky. And he’s exorcising it?”

“Or something. Drink?”

“Wine will be great.”

She was dressed in a trim red trouser suit that, for once, didn’t look as though it had been run up by a blind seamstress. She noticed my glance and said, “I took extra care with this one. What do you think?”

“Suits you.”

“And the gloves. Silk. So if I do accidentally touch something…” She stopped as Hawk entered the lounge, mopping his face with a red bandanna. “The man himself. Found the ghosts?”

He slumped into a couch and accepted a beer. Only after a long drink did he reply, “No ghosts, but I did find a lot of incredible alien technology.” To me he said, “Like I mentioned, the crystal nexus cocoons the ship. My guess is that it’s this that’s projecting the images.”

“Any reason why?” Maddie asked.

“Search me. Something’s malfunctioning? A sub-routine that’s got into repetitive cycle mode? I can’t say. It’s alien. I’d be a fool to make a judgement.”

I gestured through the viewscreen to the bay. “Here’s Matt.”

He approached the headland on his wave-hopper, accelerated up the beach and came to a halt beneath the nose of the ship. He climbed off the hopper and locked the steering mechanism, his body-language tired.

A minute later he joined us, nodding to Hawk and Maddie and passing me a bottle of champagne. “To welcome you to Magenta.”

I thanked him and said, “I’ll save it until we have something jointly to celebrate. Wine?”

He sat down, tiredly, and took a long swallow from the glass I poured for him.

Maddie said, “David was just saying that his ship is haunted.” Matt looked at me, sceptical. “Haunted? I didn’t have you down as the type to see ghosts.”

“I don’t think whatever it is is a ghost,” I said. “But I’ve been having visitors.” And I told him about what I’d seen.

Hawk said, “I’ve checked it out. It’s nothing supernatural, as far as I can see. Something to do with the alien operating system.”

Matt shrugged. “There you are, then. Won’t the Qlax and the others have operating manuals that might tell you how to get rid of your visitors?”

Hawk was smiling. “If only it were that easy, Matt. But this little tub doesn’t belong to any of the alien races so far discovered.”

Matt stared at me. “No kidding?” He thought about it. “You mean the ship belonged to a race either now extinct, or yet to be discovered?”

“That’s about it,” Hawk said. “This galaxy alone is a big place. There’ll be many a race out there that we don’t know about.”

Matt said, more to himself, “Just think of it. All that alien art we’re in ignorance of…”

We thought about that for a time, and then Maddie said, “What about the art of the aliens we know about—the Qlax and the Mathan and those others?”

“The Zexu,” Matt said. “Well, the Mathan don’t produce anything we’d consider art. They look at the world in severely logical terms. They have no room for metaphor, and a race without the understanding of metaphor is unlikely to produce creative works of art. The Qlax are another matter. Everything to them is metaphor—which is fine, but we humans have great difficulty understanding their basic concepts, so we have no real appreciation of their creations.”

“And the Zexu?” Maddie asked.

Matt smiled. “The Zexu,” he said, “are the most creative race in existence. Every Zexu creates. It’s as if creation produces a drug in their heads, and they can’t help themselves. I’m particularly interested in a new development in Zexuan art at the moment—the art of recreating oneself.”

I stared at him. “How would that work?”

“The Zexuns consider the perfection of the self to be the highest achievement, spiritually. This has lately had an effect on their art. A school of Zexuan artists has been perfecting simulacra of themselves, in order, I suppose, to see themselves as others see them…”

The talk of art, which I listened to with fascination, and Maddie added to from time to time, continued as we moved to the table across the lounge and ate.

As the meal progressed, talk turned to life on Chalcedony, and then Matt dropped his bombshell. “I’ve been here over twenty years now, and lately I’ve been thinking of moving on.”

For a couple of awkward seconds no one knew quite what to say. Then Maddie spoke up, “Leaving Chalcedony?” She sounded stricken.

Matt shrugged. “I need new experiences. I’ve been looking at my work recently. I’m not happy with it.”

“And you think a move might help?” Hawk asked.

“Maybe. I am a bit isolated out here—which is strange for me to say, as the reason I came here in the first place was the desire for isolation.”

Maddie asked in a small voice, “Where will you go?”

“I’ve been thinking of returning to Earth. San Francisco, where I was born. If, that is, I can steel myself for the… how many Telemass relays is it now, David?”

“Four,” I said, “and each one seems to tear you apart and put you back together differently. I’d be loath to make the journey again.” Matt smiled. “I’d survive.”

“We’d miss you Matt,” Maddie said.

He laughed. “I won’t be going for a while yet. Six months, at least.”

“So you are definitely going?” Maddie asked.

“I’m seriously thinking about it,” Matt answered. “I suppose it all depends on the project I’m planning, and whether I consider it successful.”

“What’s that?” Maddie asked.

“Maddie, you should know better than to ask. You know I never talk about future projects.”

Maddie drew a histrionic hand across her brow. “Oh, the fragility of the creative process.”

Matt had the good grace to laugh. We finished the meal and I opened a sweet white wine. We moved to the couches ranged before the viewscreen and watched the sun set and the Ring of Tharssos brighten high above.

We chatted amiably about nothing in particular for a while, the comfortable banter of friends who have known each other for years. Oddly, even though I’d been on the planet for less than a week, I was made to feel part of the group, as if I too had known each of them for years.

At one point I mentioned I was looking for a part-time job—more, I joked, to keep me out of the Fighting Jackeral.

“I don’t see what’s wrong with spending half one’s life in the Jackeral,” Maddie said. “Look at me…”

This was open invitation for Hawk to say, “Yeah, just look. Fair warning, David—get that job or you’ll end up like Maddie.”

“We all have our foibles,” Maddie said primly. “Mine is the steady consumption of alcohol in pleasant company. Just because I don’t share your predilection for pre-pubescent alien girls.”

I looked at Hawk to see how he’d take this. He laughed. “Kee is an adult, Maddie. You know that. And anyway, we don’t have sex.”

Maddie stared at him. “You don’t? You never told me that.”

“I don’t tell you everything I don’t do, Maddie.” He shrugged. “Our relationship is platonic. It’s more like… I suppose like having a daughter.”

“But you told me you loved her?” Maddie said.

Hawk said, “So? You can love someone like a daughter, even if she isn’t technically your daughter.”

I looked at Maddie, wondering if her condition, her physical isolation, had over the years worked to deaden her empathy.

She said to me, “Do you understand that, David?”

I looked past her, to the holocube of the laughing blonde girl. I was overcome, suddenly, by the recollection of the love I had felt for my daughter. I nodded. “Of course. We can love anyone. If we can love someone, without physical intimacy, then isn’t that something to be cherished?”