Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume 5 An anthology of stories

“Twisting ambient light,” she said. “I know that trick. Metamaterials and a lot of energy. You do it quite well, but it’s nothing new.”

Alone remained transparent.

“And I understand how you can alter your shape and color so easily. You’re liquid, of course. You only pretend to be solid.” She paused for a moment, smiling. “I once had a pet octopus. He had an augmented brain. To make me laugh, he used to pull himself into the most amazing shapes.”

Alone let his body become visible again.

“Step away,” he pleaded.

Aasleen stared at him for another moment. Then she backed off slowly, saying nothing until she had doubled the distance between them.

“Do you know what puzzleboys are?” she asked.

He didn’t answer.

“Puzzleboys build these wonderful, very beautiful machines—hard cores clothed with liquid exteriors. Their devices are durable and inventive. Their best machines are designed to survive for ages while crossing deep space.” Aasleen paused, perhaps hoping for a reaction. When she grew tired of the quiet, she explained, “Puzzleboys were like a lot of sentient species. They wanted the Great Ship for themselves. Thousands of worlds sent intergalactic missions, but my species won the race. I rode out here on one of the earliest starships. Among my happiest days is that morning when I first stood on the Ship’s battered hull, gazing down at the Milky Way.”

He said, “Yes.”

“You know the view?”

“Yes.”

She smiled, teeth showing. “A couple thousand years ago, as we were bringing the Great Ship into the galaxy, puzzleboys started singing their lies. They claimed they’d sent a quick stealthy mission up here. The laws of salvage are ancient—far older than my baby species. Machines can’t claim so much as a lump of ice for their builders. But the aliens claimed that they’d shoved one of their own citizen’s minds into a suitable probe. Like all good lies, their story has dates and convincing details. It’s easy to conclude that their one brave explorer might have actually reached the Great Ship first. If he had done that, then this prize would be theirs. At least according to these old laws. The only trouble with the story is that the mission never arrived. I know I never saw any sign of squatters. Which is why we’ve made a point of insulting that entire species, and that’s why the legal machinery of this cranky old galaxy has convincingly backed our claim of ownership.”

Quietly, he said, “Puzzleboys.”

“That’s a human name. A translation, and like most approximations, inadequate.”

With a burst of radio, the species’ name was offered in its native language.

“Do you recognize it?” asked Aasleen.

He admitted, “I don’t, no.”

“All right.” She nodded. A thin smile broke and then vanished again. “Let’s have some fun. Try to imagine that somebody we know, some familiar civilization, dreamed you up and sent you to the Great Ship. Maybe they borrowed puzzleboy technologies. Maybe you’ve sprung from a different engineering history. Right now, I’m looking at a lot of data. But despite everything I see, I can’t pick one answer over the others. Which is why this so interesting. And fun.”

Alone said nothing.

She laughed briefly, softly. “That leaves me with a tangle of questions. For instance, do you know what scares me about you?”

He took a moment before asking, “What scares you?”

“Your power supply.”

“Why?”

Aasleen didn’t seem to hear the question. “And I’m not the only person sick with worry,” she admitted. She closed one of her eyes and opened it again abruptly. “Miocene,” she said, and sighed. “Miocene is an important captain. And you’re considered a large enough problem that, right now, that captain is sitting inside a hyperfiber bunker three kilometers behind me. Three kilometers is probably far enough. If the worst happens, that is. But of course nothing is going to go bad now. As I explained to Miocene and the other captains, you seem to have survived quite nicely and without mishap, possibly for many thousands of years. What are the odds that your guts are going to fail today, in my face?”

He considered his nature.

“Do you have any idea what’s inside you?”

“No,” he admitted.

“A single speck of degenerated matter. Possibly a miniature black hole, although you’re more likely a quark assemblage of one or another sort.” She sighed and shrugged, adding, “Regardless of your engine design, it is novel. It’s possible, yes, and I have a few colleagues who have done quite a lot of work proving that this kind of system might be used safely. But to see something like you in action, and to realize that you’ve existed for who-knows-how-long, and apparently without demanding any significant repair…

“Alone,” she said, “I am a very good engineer. One of the best I’ve ever met, regardless of the species. And I just can’t believe in you. Honestly, it’s impossible for me to accept that you are real.”

“Then release me,” he begged.

She laughed.

He watched her face, her nervous fingers.

“In essence,” she continued, “you are a lucid entity carrying a tiny quasar inside your stomach. A quasar smaller than an atom and enclosed within a magnetic envelope, but massive and exceptionally dense.”

“Quasar,” he repeated.

“Matter, any matter, can be thrown inside you, and if only a fraction of the resulting energy is captured, you will generate shocking amounts of power.”

He considered her explanation. Then with a quiet tone, he mentioned, “I have seen the Ship’s engines firing.”

“Have you?”

“Next to them, I am nothing.”

“That’s true enough. In fact, I’ve got a few machines sitting near us that can outstrip your capacities, and by a wide margin. But as Submaster Miocene has reminded me, if your magnetic envelope is breached, and if your stomach can digest just your own body mass, the resulting fireworks will probably obliterate several cubic kilometers of the Ship, and who knows how many innocent souls.”

Alone believed her. But then he remembered that good lies have believable details and he didn’t feel as certain.

Aasleen smiled in a sad fashion. “Of course I don’t know exactly what would happen, if your stomach got loose. Maybe it has safety mechanisms that I can’t see. Or maybe its fire would reach out and grab my body, and everything else in this room would be consumed, as well as Miocene…and with that, the Great Ship would be short one engine, and the survivors would have an enormous hole in the hull, spewing poisons and nuclear fire.”

“I won’t fail,” he promised.

She nodded. “I think that’s an accurate statement. I know I want to believe that both of us are perfectly safe.”

“I won’t hurt the Ship.”

“All right. But why do you feel certain?”

He said, “Because I am.”

Aasleen closed her eyes, once again concentrating on the machines inside her head.

“Please,” said Alone. “Let me go free.”

“I can’t.”

He changed his shape.

Aasleen’s eyes opened. “I know that story about you and Wune. My guess? That you’d take on my appearance like you did hers.”

But he hadn’t. He had no limbs now, no face. To the eye, he looked like a ball of hyperfiber with giant rockets on one hemisphere, thick armor on the other. Using a hidden mouth, he promised, “I won’t do any harm. I shall not hurt anyone and I will never injure the Ship.”

“You just want to left by yourself,” she said.

“Nothing else.”

“But why?”

He had no response.

“Which leads us to another area of deep concern,” she continued. “A machine built by unknown hands is discovered wandering inside another machine built by unknown hands. But there seems to be two mysteries, there might be only one. Do you understand what I mean?”