Eric Brown - Starship Summer

On the stroke of four, the loud-speaker system echoed around the Station. “Translation from Carmody, Mintaka II, due in one minute. Service personnel to their posts. Engineers, fifty-eight seconds and counting. Will all non-station personnel remain in designated areas.”

I felt a sudden thrill as the bored litany droned out; what was for station workers just another routing translation was, for me, the harbinger of a miracle.

I still could not comprehend the science behind Telemass travel. How was it that human beings, quite apart from non-living cargo, could be stripped down to their constituent molecules, processed and fired on tachyon vectors light years through space, and then, perhaps even more miraculously, be reformed at their destination, whole and perfect? The traveller experienced a second of disorientation, a sudden blankness, before finding himself elsewhere, not even the flow of his thoughts interrupted. Of course, the translation had an effect: you felt as though you’d been shot through the head with a laser and brought back to life.

It didn’t help that you could travel to most colony worlds only by a series of relays. The majority of travellers rested up between translation. I’d taken the fast option, with just an hour between each jump. There was some talk that, in another ten, twenty years, Telemass technology would have progressed to the point where a single jump would link Earth to even the most far-flung colony world, but as yet this was still a dream.

I turned my attention to the translation pad and the imminent arrival of the tachyon beam. The first I was aware of the process beginning was when a certain subtle charge filled the air, an atmosphere of electric tension. Seconds later a blinding bolt of light, dimmed by the filters on the observation viewscreen, dropped en bloc through the air and landed on the translation pad with a crack like thunder. The pad glowed incandescent for a second and then returned to normal—with the difference that whereas before it had been empty, now a dozen men and women, beside stacked cargo containers, stood on the metal plating of the deck.

The travellers were very still for a second, as if at the mental shock of translation, and then remembered themselves and made their way towards the terminal building. Medics moved among them, scanning with diagnostic devices. Those too weak to walk were stretchered to the Station’s recuperation clinic. I noticed a dozen travellers garbed in golden robes, marking them as pilgrims to the Column. When the pad was clear of travellers, engineers scurried across the deck, lifting inspection panels and calibrating the pad for the next arrival, while cargo handlers hauled the containers towards the distribution centre.

I waited thirty minutes, watching another beam bring a party of a hundred pilgrims to their Holy Land. I wondered what they would make of their destination, the revered Golden Column. I was looking forward to my own visit the following day, and pondered on what these pilgrims might say if they knew that the object of their veneration was not the work of God, but of an alien race.

I finished my coffee and took an elevator down to the collection point, handed over Matt’s paperwork and received a long silver envelope. I was surprised: I had expected a rather bulkier package than this. The envelope seemed empty but for a small object, perhaps the size of a lighter. I was intrigued as to what these artists’ materials might be.

I left the station and drove slowly north, enjoying the view of the coastline on the way. It was sufficiently reminiscent of certain stretches of the British Columbia coast as to provoke nostalgia, but at the same time, with its odd, angular trees, and the ever-present arc of the Ring in the sky, sufficiently alien to remind me that I was no longer on Earth.

Once, far inland, I thought I caught a fleeting glimpse of a golden glow in the sky above the central mountains when the distant mist lifted, but it was so quick, a mere glint of gold, that it was probably a trick of the eye—my imagination playing tricks after the events of the previous night.

An hour later I halted the ground-effect vehicle outside the Fighting Jackeral, where I had arranged to meet Matt, and hurried in with his package.

He was at the same table on the veranda. “You’ve been here all day?” I said.

“I’ve been home, put a shift of work in, and then came back for dinner. How about a beer?”

“I wouldn’t say no.”

I handed him the envelope when he returned with my drink. “What is it? I mean, when you said artist’s materials, I was expecting something a bit bigger.”

“Like an easel and an old-fashioned box of paints?”

He raised the envelope before folding it neatly and slipping it into the inside pocket of his jacket. “I don’t talk about work in progress, David. I’m superstitious like that.”

“You can’t even tell me what it’ll produce?”

He shook his head. “That’s part of the magical process. If I told you that, I’d feel less inclined to actually create the piece.”

I smiled. “Sounds nuts to me, Matt.”

“Tell you what… we go to see the Column tomorrow, don’t we? The following morning I’ll be working on this—” he tapped his jacket “—so how about coming over that afternoon and viewing what I’ve made?”

“You won’t mind?”

“I’ll be needing someone to give an objective opinion. I’ll be interested to see what you think.”

“I’ll be there.”

He finished his beer and asked about the surveillance equipment.

“In the car. Shall we go set it up?”

We spent the next couple of hours, as the sun went down and the Ring of Tharssos brightened, setting up the cameras and infra-red sensors around the lounge of the Mantis, programmed to start recording at midnight. With luck, we would get some hard evidence—other than the evidence of our senses—that the ship was indeed the locale of strange alien phenomena. It would be ideal if we could work out some kind of pattern to the visitations, and then Maddie could drop by and try to re-establish contact. Hawk said he’d come over after we’d visited the Column and go over the ship from top to bottom.

We stood in the entrance to the lounge and inspected our handiwork. “All set,” Matt said. “There’s nothing we can do now but wait.” He looked at his watch. “The Jackeral’s open for another hour. You owe me a beer.” We sat on the veranda, watching the bay shatter the light of the Ring, and mulled over what we’d found. We said nothing that we hadn’t mentioned earlier, but there was a curious kind of pleasure in going over old ground, and speculating on what might lie ahead, that recalled schoolboy day-dreams about the many wonders that the future had in store.

I liked Matt Sommers. He was slow and gentle, quietly spoken, and his easy manner inspired trust. He smiled a lot and laughed at himself, and asked just the right questions, which suggested genuine interest rather than prurient curiosity: after a few beers I let slip that my wife and I had separated after the death of our daughter, but he didn’t follow this up with prying questions, for which I was grateful.

Perhaps this was because Matt had secrets in his own past that he was loath to speak about. Despite his humour, his easy conversational manner, there was a certain sadness that seemed to permeate his being, almost a weariness. I recalled what Maddie had said about his past, but I liked Matt too much to alienate him with questions.

It was after midnight when I stepped carefully from the Fighting Jackeral and made my way along the beach to the Mantis. I stood in the entrance to the lounge for a while, willing the alien to appear, but the apparition deigned not to show itself and a wave of tiredness dragged me to bed.