Alastair Reynolds: The Six Directions of Space

“Should we meet someone, and should questions be asked, you will explain that I found you sleepwalking, and that I’m taking you back to your cabin via the most discrete route I can think of, so you don’t embarrass yourself in front of any other passengers.”

“I see. You’ve given this some thought, haven’t you?”

“You aren’t the first skeptical passenger, Miss Bocheng.” I closed the door and disrobed, then put on thin silk trousers and an equally thin silk blouse, the one scarlet and the other electric yellow, with a design of small blue wolves. I untied my hair and messed it to suggest someone only recently roused from the bed.

Outside, as was customary during the night shift of the BK ’s operations, the corridor lights were dimmed to a sleepy amber. The bars, restaurants, and gaming rooms were closed. The public lounges were deserted and silent, save for the scurrying mouselike cleaning robots that always emerged after the people had gone away. Tayang chose his route well, for we did not bump into any other passengers or crew.

“This is the library,” he said, when we had arrived in a small, red-lit room, set with shelves, screens, and movable chairs. “No one uses it much—it’s not exactly a high priority for most of our passengers. They’d rather drink away the voyage with Temujin airag .”

“Are we allowed here?”

“Well, technically there’d be nothing to stop you visiting this room during normal ship hours. But during normal ship hours, I wouldn’t be able to show you what I’m about to.” He was trying to be nonchalant about the whole adventure, but his nervousnous was like a boy on a dare. “But don’t worry, we won’t get into trouble.”

“How is a library going to change my mind about the phantoms?”

“Let me show you.” He ushered me to one of the terminals, swinging out a pair of hinged stools for us to sit on. I sat to the left of him, while Tayang flipped open a dust cover to expose a keyboard. He began to tap at the keys, causing changes to the hooded data display situated at eye level. “As it happens, these consoles are connected to the Burkhan Khaldun’s own computers. You just have to know the right commands.”

“Won’t this show up?”

He shook his head. “I’m not doing anything that will come to anyone’s attention. Besides, I’m perfectly entitled to access this data. The only thing wrong is you being with me, and if anyone comes down here, we’ll have time to prepare for them, to make it look as if I caught you sleepwalking.” He fell silent for a minute or so, tapping through options, obviously navigating his way through to the information stored in the computer’s memory bank. “I just hope the company spooks haven’t got to it already,” he murmured.

“Every now and then, someone from Blue Heaven comes aboard and wipes large chunks of the BK’s memory. They say they’re just doing routine archiving, clearing space for more data, but no one believes that. Looks like we’re in time, though. I didn’t see any spooks nosing around when we were in Gansu: they’ll probably come aboard next time we’re back.” He glanced over his shoulder. “I’ll show it to you once. Then we go. All right?”

“Whatever you say, Mr. Tayang.”

“The BK has cameras, pointed into the direction of flight. They detect changes in the tunnel geometry and feed that data to the servomotors driving the stabilizing vanes and yaw dampers, so that they can make adjustments to smooth out the turbulence. They’re also there as an emergency measure in case we encounter another ship coming the other way, one that isn’t on schedule or hasn’t got an active transponder. The cameras give us just enough warning to swerve the BK to one side, to give passing clearance. It’s bumpy for the passengers when that happens, but a lot better than a head-on collision at tunnel speeds.”

“I take it the cameras saw something,” I said.

Tayang nodded. “This was a couple of trips ago, about halfway between Gansu and Kuchlug. They only got eight clear frames. Whatever it was was moving fast, much quicker than one of our ships. The fourth, fifth, and sixth frames are the sharpest.”

“Show me.”

He tapped keys. A picture sprang onto the display, all fuzzy green hues, overlaid with date stamps and other information. It took a moment before I was sure what I was looking at. There was some kind of pale green smudge filling half the frame, a random-looking shape like the blind spot one sees after looking at the sun for too long, and beyond that, a suggestion of the curving squiggles of the tunnel’s khorkoi patterning, reaching away to infinity.

I pressed a finger against the smudge. “That’s the phantom?”

“This is frame three. It becomes clearer on the next one.” He advanced to the next image and I saw what he meant. The smudge had enlarged, but also become sharper, with details beginning to emerge. Edges and surfaces, a hint of organized structure, even if the overall shape was still elusive.

“Next frame,” Tayang mouthed.

Now there could be no doubt that the phantom was some kind of ship, even if it conformed to the pattern of no vessel I had ever seen. It was sleek and organic-looking, more like a darting squid than the clunky lines of the BK.

He advanced to the next frame, but—while the image did not become substantially clearer—the angle changed, so that the three-dimensional structure of the phantom became more apparent. At the same time, hints of patterning had begun to emerge: darker green symbols on the side of the hull, or fuselage, or body, of whatever the thing was.

“That’s about as good as it gets,” Tayang said.

“I’m impressed.”

“You see these armlike appendages?” he asked, pointing to part of the image. “I’m guessing, of course, but I can’t help wondering if they don’t serve the same function as our stabilization vanes, only in a more elegant fashion.”

“I think you could be right.”

“One thing I’m sure of, though. We didn’t build that ship. I’m no expert, Miss Bocheng, but I know what counts as cutting-edge ship design, and that thing is way beyond it.”

“I don’t think anyone would argue with that.”

“It wasn’t built by the government, or some mysterious splinter group of Islamist separatists. In fact, I don’t think it was built by humans at all. We’re looking at alien technology, and they’re using our Infrastructure system as if they own it. More than that: every now and then you hear about entire ships and message packets going missing. They’re not just trespassing in our network, they’re stealing from it as well.”

“I can see Blue Heaven would rather this didn’t get out.”

Tayang closed the display. “I’m sorry, but that’s all I can show you. It’s enough, though, isn’t it?”

“More than enough,” I said.

Of course, I had my doubts. Tayang could have easily faked those images, or been the unwitting victim of someone else’s fakery. But I did not think that was the case. I had been looking at genuine data, not something cooked up to scare the tourists.

I was just beginning to plot my next move—how I would get a copy of the data, and smuggle it back to NHK while I continued with my investigations in Kuchlug space—when I became aware of a presence behind me. Tayang must have sensed it, too, for he turned around as I did. Standing in the doorway to the library was one of the other stewards, an older man whose name I had yet to learn. I noticed that the sleeves of his uniform were too short for him.

Wordlessly, he raised a hand. In it glinted the smooth alloy form of a small, precise weapon: the kind often carried by government spies such as myself. He shot me; I had a moment to stare at the barb embedded in my thigh, and then I passed out.