Chris Randolph - Stars Rain Down

The factory certainly wasn’t the only source of activity on Legacy. The rest of it was in a constant state of change as the ship and its crew adapted to one another. Legacy grew terminals that mimicked human computers, which went a long way toward improving communications with her new inhabitants. The terminals weren’t perfect, and the ship’s grasp of language especially could be puzzling, but they were a start.

Engineering posed its own challenges. The original Eireki occupants had been in continual psychic contact with one another, which made their thoughts more orderly and fine tuned. They weren’t just people; they were something more, capable of doing complex mathematics and spatial transformations in their collective consciousness. To run the factory, they simply dreamed up new devices to the last exacting detail and the machinery turned the dreams into reality.

Sal was supposedly “more like the Eireki” than the others—whatever that meant—but she just didn’t have the mental brawn necessary to drive construction that way. On a few occasions, the machines managed to produce small baubles she pictured in her mind’s eye, but she was scribbling on the wall with crayons when they needed the Sistine Chapel.

This left her in a lurch. The factory could dissect and reproduce her machined parts, but couldn’t fabricate things like microchips. It could produce a variety of standard Eireki components, but most of it left Sal utterly baffled. She needed to integrate the two somehow, but it just wasn’t coming to her.

She briefly considered volunteering for a freaky brain interface like Donovan’s, but she couldn’t stomach the idea, and it would only go part of the way to solving her problems anyway. While it would aid in back-and-forth communication, it wouldn’t make her any smarter. She was plenty sharp with numbers, but was no Eireki savant.

What she needed was a way to plug her workstation into the ship. She’d been using modeling and simulation software for years, and considered the machine her better half, but trying to get it and Legacy to talk was impossible.

At first glance, the problem was similar to designing the MASPEC’s interface, but her work there relied on decades of other people’s research into biofeedback and human nerve conductivity. The building blocks had all been known quantities; she simply stacked them correctly, with a smidgen of elbow grease and patchwork. Her current problem was a mirror image. She was trying to reverse engineer an alien nervous system, and build a translation layer on top of it. The task was miles outside of her expertise.

She had to find some way to bridge the gap between her digital tech and whatever the heck Legacy used, or construction would be permanently stuck in a rut.

Sal toyed around with a computer aided design program on her workstation. A three dimensional model hovered and spun around in an endless sea of grey. She wasn’t working on anything in particular. It was just something to keep her hands busy while her brain assaulted the interface problem.

Then she heard the whoosh of the transit tube, followed by a pair of boots clacking on the floor. She found the prospect of company dreadful, and didn’t bother to look up. Hopefully, whoever it was would take a hint.

The person stopped behind her chair. “That design looks interesting. Let me guess… A planetary probe?” It was Marcus Donovan.

“Close. I’ve been thinking about the people on Earth. They have no idea we’re out here. They don’t know help is on its way, and I thought maybe we could give them a little hope.”

“You’re planning some kind of two way communication, I presume?”

“Depends on if I can figure out Legacy’s comm technology or not. If not, then we can at least send a message in a bottle. Pack in some orbital photos and a note letting them know we’re building a fleet.”

“Maps are good, but leave it at that. I don’t want the enemy to know we’re out here until it’s too late. Until we’re knocking at their door. Your plan is clever, though.”

“Thanks and all,” she said. “But I’m not clever enough to communicate the design to the factory. It’s nothing but wasted pixels.”

“That’s actually why I’m here,” Donovan said. He had that seductive tone in his voice again, like the devil about to offer a deal. “Rao and I discovered something we think might help.”

Discovered something? Sal doubted anything less than a hidden network port would be of much use. She turned and looked at Donovan with skepticism in her eyes. “Well, whaddya got?”

“That’d be telling. Just go to the transit tube, and you’ll see.”

Sal considered not going to spite Donovan and his stage magician theatrics, but if he had an answer, she needed to see it. “Fine,” she said, “lead the way.”

“Ladies first,” he said.

She smiled despite herself. Chivalry was a dying art form, especially on Mars.

She stood and walked to the landing pad. The artificial gravity lifted her into the air sucked her into the tube. She couldn’t escape the feeling Legacy’s transit was a bit like being flushed down an impossibly large toilet, and she didn’t know if that was hilarious or terrifying. Probably a little bit of both.

The tubes passed by in a blur, and then she was lowered down inside a large, dome-shaped white room. There were evenly spaced concentric rings in the floor, each of them a channel full of what appeared to be water, but faintly glowing a rich sea-blue.

Donovan arrived a second later, and strode out across the floor. He beckoned Sal on with a curled finger. “We’ve been trying to figure out the purpose of this room since we arrived. As usual, everyone had a theory, but most resembled Professor Caldwell’s, who was absolutely sure it was some kind of temple. He was really keyed into the perfect circles, and the possibility of a pseudo-Pythagorean geometry cult, or some-such.”

“Doesn’t seem like a bad theory.”

“No, not bad. Except that it was completely wrong.” Donovan waved his hand and the lights dimmed. The man really had a thing for stage theatrics. “Of course, that’s just the way Caldwell is. All symbolism and nothing practical. If he dug up an ancient wrench, he’d spin a theory about it being an abstract lunar sculpture used by moon worshiping priests to summon the seasons.”

“So why’d you bring him along?”

Donovan had a sheepish smile. “Because I’m the kind to dig up a lunar sculpture and assume it’s a wrench.”

“Sensible decision. Alright then, Mr. Smarty Pants, what is this place then?”

“Simple. It’s a projection room.”

There was a slight disturbance in the gravity, a tiny readjustment. Then the fluid in the channels began to rise into the air in streams that dissipated to a thin vapor a half-meter later. “The fluid is doped with micro-organisms that fluoresce when excited.”

Stars and nebulae appeared all around, swirling in the humid air. Donovan floated up from the floor and swam through his new galaxy, and as he pointed to the different stars, each burned more brightly. “Even better, it’s fully interactive.” With those words, a literal handful of stars swarmed above his open palm and circled like fireflies.

“Whoa,” was all she said.

“Precisely what I said when I first saw it. Give it a try.”

Sal closed her eyes and tried to summon absolutely anything to mind, but drew a blank. This new development was just too startling, the possibilities too open. Her heart was racing. Finally, something simple came to her and she imagined it as clearly as she could.

When she opened her eyes, Donovan’s stars were gone, replaced by a reasonable imitation of the table in her workshop. The shape was a little wonky, but it was there.