Charles Stross - Singularity Sky

Now, as the first starwisps departed — aimed forward at new, unvisited worlds, and back along its track to the hot-cores of civilization where it had stopped before — the Festival took stock. Events on the ground had not gone entirely satisfactorily; while it had accrued a good body of folklore, and not a little insight into the social mores of a rigidly static society, the information channels on offer were ridiculously sparse, and the lack of demand for its wares dismaying. Indeed, its main source of data had been the unfortunate minds forcibly uploaded by some of the more dissolute, not to say amoral, fringe elements.

The Critics, with their perennial instinct to explain and dissect, were moaning continuously — something about the colony succumbing to a disastrous economic singularity — but that sort of thing wasn’t the Festival’s problem. It would soon be time to move on; the first tentative transmissions from Trader clades had been detected, burbling and chirping in the Oort cloud, and the job of opening up communications with this civilization was nearly done.

Each of the hundreds of starwisps the high-orbit launchers were dispatching carried one end of a causal channel: a black box containing a collection of particles in a quantum-entangled state with antiparticles held by the Festival. (By teleporting the known quantum state of a third particle into one of the entangled particles, data could be transmitted between terminals infinitely fast, using up one entangled quantum dot for each bit.) Once the starwisps arrived at their destinations, the channels would be hooked into the communications grid the Festival’s creators had set out to construct. No longer limited by the choke point of the Festival’s back channel to its last destination, the population of Rochard’s World would be exposed to the full information flow of the polity it belonged to.

Out toward Sputnik, the Festival took note of some activity by Bouncers. They seemed to be clearing up a small mess: a handful of slow, inefficient ships that had approached without warning and opened fire on the Bouncers with primitive energy weapons. The Bouncers responded with patient lethality; anything that menaced them died. Some small craft slipped by, evidently not involved in the assault; a number of the second wave broke and ran, and they, too, were spared. But for the most part, the Festival ignored them. Anyone so single-mindedly hostile as to attack the Festival was hardly likely to be a good source of information: as for the others, it would have a chance to talk to them when they arrived.

The air in the lifeboat was foul with a stench of sweat and stale farts. Rachel sat hunched over her backup console, staring unblinkingly at the criticality monitors while the rocket howled and rumbled beneath them: while a single output jitter might kill them before she could even blink, it made her feel better to go through the motions. Besides, she was totally exhausted: as soon as they touched down she had every intention of sleeping for three days. It had been fourteen hours since they escaped from the Lord Vanek; fourteen hours on top of a day and a sleepless night before. If she stopped making the effort to stay awake—

“Riddle this interrogative.” The creature on the screen snapped its tusks, red light gleaming off fangs like blood. “Why not you Bouncers accept?”

“I couldn’t possibly place myself further in their debt,” she said as smoothly as she could manage.

Neutron flux stable at ten kilobecquerels per minute , warned her implants. A hundred chest X rays, in other words, sustained for four hours during the deceleration cycle. The lifeboat’s motor shuddered beneath her like something alive. Vassily’s hammock swung behind her. He’d fallen asleep surprisingly fast once she convinced him they weren’t going to throw him overboard, exhausted by the terror of four hours adrift spent waiting to die. Martin snored softly in the dim red light of the comms terminal, similarly tired. Nothing like learning you aren’t about to die to make you relax , she thought. Which was why she couldn’t sleep yet—

“No debt for payment in kind,” said the strange creature. “You bear much reduction of entropy.”

“Your translation program is buggy,” she muttered.

“Is so interrogative? Suppose, we. Reiterate and paraphrase: question why you do not attack Bouncers like other ships?”

Rachel tensed. “Because we are not part of their expedition,” she said slowly. “We have different intentions. We come in peace. Exchange information. We will entertain you. Is that understood?”

“Ahum. Skreee —” the thing in the screen turned its head right around to look over its shoulder. “We you understand. Will Bouncers of notify peaceful intent. You part are not of not-old administrative institution territoriality of planet?”

“No, we’re from Earth.” Martin stopped snoring: she glanced sideways. One eye was open, watching her tiredly. “Original world of humans,” she clarified.

“Know about Dirt. Know about you-mans, too. Information valuable, tell all!”

“In due course,” Rachel hedged, acutely aware of the thickening air in the capsule. “Are we safe from the Bouncers?”

“Am not understanding,” the thing said blandly. “We are will notify Bouncers of your intent. Is that not safety?”

“Not exactly.” Rachel glanced at Martin, who frowned at her and shook his head slightly. “If you notify the Bouncers that we are not attacking them, will that stop them from eating us?”

“Ahum!” The creature blinked at her. “Maybe not.”

“Well, then. What will stop the Bouncers from attacking us?”

“ Skree —why worry? Just talk.”

“I’m not worrying. It’s just that I am not going to tell you everything you want to know about me until I am no longer at risk from the Bouncers. Do you understand that?”

“ Ha-frumph\ Not entertaining us. Humph. A-okay, Bouncers will not eat you. We have dietary veto over theys. Now tell all?”

“Sure. But first—” She glanced at the autopilot monitor. “We’re running low on breathable air. Need to land this ship. Is that possible? Can you tell me about conditions on the ground?”

“Sure.” The creature bounced its head up-down in a jerky parody of a nod. “You not problem, land.

May find things changed. Best dock here first. We Critics.”

“I’m looking for a man,” Rachel added, deciding to push her luck. “Have you installed a communications net? Can you locate him for us?”

“May exist. Name?”

“Rubenstein. Burya Rubenstein.” A noise behind her; Vassily rolling over, his hammock swinging in the shifting inertial reference frame of the lifeboat.

“Excuse.” The creature leaned forward. “Name Rubenstein? Revolutionary?”

“Yes.” Martin frowned at her inquiringly: Rachel glanced sideways. I’ll explain later , she thought at him.

“Knows Sister Burya. Sister Seventh of Stratagems. You business with have the Extropian Underground?”

“That’s right.” Rachel nodded. “Can you tell me where he is?”

“Do better.” The thing in the screen grinned. “You accept orbital elements for rendezvous now. We take you there.”

Behind her, Vassily was sitting up, his eyes wide.

The Admiral didn't want to board the lifeboat.

“D-d-d-d-” he drooled, left eye glaring, right eye slack and lifeless.

“Sir, please don’t make a fuss. We need to go aboard now.” Robard looked over his shoulder anxiously, as if half-expecting red-clawed disaster to come stooping and drooling through the airlock behind him.

“N-ever surrr—” Kurtz found the effort too much; his head flopped forward onto his chest.