Elizabeth Bear - Worldwired

“Supercooled?” Charlie asks. “Doesn't that get problematic out here in the sunlight?”

“They aren't fazed by vacuum, at least,” Jeremy says. “Maybe they come from an extreme environment of some sort—” Stopped cold, he bumps the brow of his helmet with the side of his gauntlet. “Leslie, what if they come from someplace with an opaque atmosphere? Or nearly opaque? Or no light to speak of? Like Venus, say. Or Pluto.”

Leslie's been silent since the comment about the atmosphere, but the way his suit rocks on the end of its line tells me he just reflexively tried to glance over his shoulder. He looks very small against the massive filigree of the birdcage, a white plastic spaceman doll floating in front of a shifting, faceted fretwork of spun glass. “No physical semiotics,” he answers when he's stable again. “Jeremy, that's pretty damn smart.”

“Thank you.”

“More than that,” Charlie puts in. “A completely different set of senses and manner of processing information than we have. No sense of sight, of smell, of hearing. Those would be more foreign to them than… a dolphin's sonar sense is foreign to us. No wonder we're having a hell of a time talking to them.”

“That's what I've been trying to explain,” Leslie says. “It's like Anne Sullivan teaching Helen Keller how to talk, only we can't even take them outside and pump water over their hands until they get that we're trying to show them something.”

“Les,” I say, “what on earth are you babbling about?”

“Semiotics,” Leslie answers. Which doesn't help me, but judging by the richness in his tone, he's quite pleased with himself. “Never mind,” he finishes. “Just doing my job.”

A scatter of the birdcage aliens drifts diagonally across the starship, passing beside and through one another. “So, what do you say we invite ourselves in and sit down?” Richard asks.

“Do you suppose they're safe to touch?” Leslie's already let himself drift forward; he's ahead of the rest of us by a good three meters now. Lieutenant Peterson is eyeing her end of the lines between them as if she's about to grab a fistful and haul Leslie back to her hand over hand.

“No. I don't think it's safe to do anything to them.” They're all looking at me. I blink. I hadn't intended to speak just then; it slipped out. “But if I understand you right, Les, you think they can't talk to anything they're not touching?”

“Got it in one,” he says, straining at the end of his leash. “I'm not sure they can notice us unless we wander in among them.”

“Forgive me if that sounds like a thoroughly lousy idea.”

“I know,” he answers, and this time he does grab the ropes and turns himself completely around, so we can see his broad white grin reflecting the running lights of the Buffy Sainte-Marie . “But it's also what we came out here for, isn't it?”

And they're all waiting for me. Waiting for me, even though the lieutenant ranks me. Waiting for me because I'm Genevieve Casey, dammit. And calisse de chrisse, I hate this shit.

“All right,” I say, and I do it without reaching out for Richard, because I already know what Richard's going to say. “All right, guys. Spread out. Let's go on in.”

Richard watched silently through Min-xue's eyes as Clarke receded behind the Gordon Lightfoot . It was only Min-xue's third trip in a Canadian shuttlecraft. Richard kept an ear on Min-xue's thought process, certain that Min-xue would call for his attention shortly. Right now, the pilot was musing on how he'd never expected to find himself in space again, much less headed for a billet aboard the Canadian flagship. Richard knew that Min-xue had assumed this part of his life was over. Had assumed that his life was over, destroyed in an act of conscience that was also an act of treason. He'd never expected to sit where he sat, the lone passenger on a hastily detoured shuttlecraft, a startling extravagance by Chinese standards.

Clarke slid out of view as the shuttlecraft turned toward the Montreal . Min-xue couldn't see their destination through the ports on the shuttlecraft's sides, and the pilot's compartment was shielded from the passenger cabin by a bulkhead. There was a monitor on the back side of that bulkhead, and Richard contemplated turning it on for Min-xue, but he wasn't sure if Min-xue wanted the long view of the Montreal, or of Earth, or of the Benefactor ships.

Both he and Richard knew very well what they all looked like, after all—

Richard?

“A good rain knows the season, and comes on with the spring,” Richard quoted, drawing a smile to Min-xue's thin-pressed lips. “I've been wondering if you would want to talk.”

You're still reading the Tang poets, I see.

“You are an enormously bad influence,” Richard answered, and Min-xue smiled. “Min-xue, I know you've spoken to the Canadian legal team about the—”

About the impact event. Yes, and so have you.

And Richard knew why the young man chose that distancing, clinical term. Euphemism had its uses. “They feel we are not being as forthcoming as possible about Captain Wu's orders.”

They think we know more than we're telling, you mean.

Richard indulged himself in a calculated hesitation. “Yes.”

Perhaps they should ask Captain Wu these questions. I do not know the source of his orders. I am certain that they came from his chain of command, however. Min-xue closed his eyes, leaning back in his chair, regulating his breathing. Richard couldn't do anything about the roughness of the seat against Min-xue's back, or the way the vibration of the engines rattled through the ship as a controlled burn accelerated them toward the Montreal, but he could — and did — dim the Gordon Lightfoot 's interior illumination.

“Thank you, Richard,” Min-xue said out loud. He turned his head to press his face to the cold glass of the portal, a gesture Richard saw a lot among his pilots. His pilots. With their hair-trigger reflexes and enhanced senses that made the simplest navigation through daily life an act of courage and endurance. His pilots. Richard's pilots. Richard's ticket to the stars.

And telling Riel I accept her offer of citizenship would make it that much easier to be certain I get there. Eventually.

“You're welcome. Min-xue, I'd like your permission to adjust your wetware somewhat.”

“What are you going to do?” Min-xue didn't open his eyes, but the creases at the corners eased as Richard bumped the light level down again.

“Update the protections and start low-level monitoring on your nanosurgeons.”

There's a problem? You have doubts about the worldwire?

If Richard had a lip, he would have been chewing it. His pilots. And not, frankly, just his pathway to other worlds, but personal friends, all three of them. Well, his friends or Alan's, and there was no practical difference between the two.

Mad as they were.

He'd been unable to save Trevor Koske and Leah Castaign. Humans would persist in being human. “Preventative measures. I'm having the same conversation with Jen and Patty right now.”

You're not telling me everything, Richard.

“I can't.” But closer monitoring of Min-xue's nanotech would give him a further glimpse into the Chinese programming techniques, and besides, he was worried about the unexplained dieoffs in Charlie's ecospheres… and more worried that he hadn't noticed it happening.

Min-xue opened his eyes. His hands curved in to the hand grips molded to the edge of his seat, useful in zero gravity, now useful to push himself forward against the thrust that pressed him back into his seat. “This is the life I have chosen.” He gave his head a sideways shake. “All right,” he said, tightening his grip on the handholds. “All right. And Richard?”