Gregory Benford - Shipstar

Tananareve wiped sweat away and watched the bulbous vehicle settle a good distance away, engines throbbing. Still teetering a bit, feeling woozy, she stood in the hot moist wash of rocket exhaust, waiting. Running wouldn’t help her. She’d seen the tremendous creature’s speed.

Memor opened the great target-shaped window and rolled out. It looked painful: the rocket vehicle was cramped for her. Memor walked to Tananareve, huffed, and bent low, her eye to the woman’s eyes. In her own tongue she asked, “Where have they gone?”

Tananareve groped for a lie, and it was there. Beth’s team had discussed destinations, and rejected—“They’ve gone to join Cliff.”

“The other fugitives? The killers?”

“Cliff’s team, yes.”

“Where?”

She said, “I don’t know. The aliens knew.”

“The limbless ones? They are Adopted, but often rebellious. We must take action against them. Tananareve, how goes your adventure?”

“We were dying for lack of weight,” she said. “Lost bone and muscle. What choice did we have?”

Memor seemed to restrain herself. “No choice now. Come. Or shall I carry you?”

Tananareve took two steps, wobbled, and fell over.

She woke to a vague sensation, a hard surface with big ribs under it: Memor’s hands. She flexed her fists and shook her head, trying to get her mind to work. Now they were in the ship, her face close against a wall dotted with icons for controls. Something rumbled, vibrated. Language? And now the wall took on the appearance of a distant forest of plants grown in low gravity, like the place she’d escaped from. A creature like Memor stepped into view and flexed a million multicolored feathers.

No way could Tananareve follow a conversation that was largely the flexing of feathers and silent subsonic tremors that shook her bones. Memor was holding Tananareve like a prize, and the other was snarling.…

Asenath the Wisdom Chief was not of a mind to be placated. “One! You have one, and it is dying!”

“I will save it,” Memor said. “I will take it … her … down to the Quicklands, where spin gravity can restore her muscle and strengthen her bones. I know what she eats and I will procure it. This female is the one who understands me best. Gifted, though in many ways simple. She knows Rank One of the TransLanguage. Wisdom Chief, will you question her now?”

“What would I ask?” Asenath’s feathers showed rage, but that was a plumage lie. Memor’s undermind had caught the truth: She was in despair.

Memor found that revealing. Earlier the Wisdom Chief had been trying to bring about Memor’s disgrace and death. What had changed? Memor decided to wait her out.

Asenath broke first. “There comes a message from the Target Star, from our destination.”

All Memor’s feathers flared like a puffball. The human, engulfed, tried to wriggle free. Memor said, “That is wonderful! And dangerous, yes? Can you interpret—?”

“There are visuals. Complex ones. The message seems aimed at these creatures. At your Late Invaders!”

Memor’s feathers went to chaos: a riot of laughter. “That is … endlessly interesting.”

“You must care for your talking simian. We will try to make sense of this message. It is still flowing in. If I call, answer at once, and have the human at hand.”

Tananareve had caught little of that. She was nibbling at a melon slice now, slipped to her by Memor. She was enraged—tight-lipped, squinting in the strange glow—that she’d been caught again, but grudgingly grateful that Memor had brought provisions. The huge thing did not seem to mind carrying on conversation in front of a human, either.

What was that about? Hard to follow. Was Glory inhabited? And had someone there sent a message? Surely not to Earth; that would be foolish, when the Bowl was straight between Earth and Glory, and so much more powerful.

The captain should be told. He and his crew would figure it out.

Rockets fired, accelerations gripped her—and Memor’s ship was in flight. Tananareve sagged into the pull. The hard clamp was too strong to allow movement. She relaxed against the floor and tried to get into savasana pose, letting her muscles ease, hoping that her dinosaur-sized captor wouldn’t step on her.

They couldn’t all get into SunSeeker ’s infirmary. Beth and Fred and Captain Redwing hovered around the door, watching as Mayra and Lau Pin were led to elaborate tables. Tubes and sensors snaked out to mate with them. Jam, acting as medic now, watched, tested, then asked, “Are you comfortable?”

Mayra and Lau Pin mumbled something.

“I’m sedating you. Also, you’re being recorded. Mayra Wickramsingh, I understand you lost your husband during the expedition?”

“Expedition, my arse. We were expi … expiment … animals for testing. Big birds had us—”

Redwing said, “Come with me. You’ll both be on those tables soon enough, but for now we’ll give you gravity and normal food.”

Beth resisted. “You’re testing her while she talks about Abduss? He was slaughtered by one of those monstrous spider-things.”

“We’ll need to know how badly that traumatized her. The rest of you, too. How are you feeling now?”

Fred said, “Hungry.” He lurched up the corridor toward the ship’s mess, then sagged against the bulkhead. “Feeble.”

Beth asked, “How is Cliff? Where is he?”

Redwing allowed a vexed expression to flit across his face, then went back to the usual stern, calm mask. “Holed up with some intelligent natives, Cliff’s last message said. The Folk tried to kill them all. They were shooting down from some living blimp—sounds bizarre, but what doesn’t here? The locals helped Cliff’s people get away. Aybe sends us stuff when he can. We have pictures of a thing that looks a lot like a dinosaur, plus some evolved apes. I sent those to you; did you get them?”

Fred spoke over his shoulder. “We got them, Cap’n. The Bowl must’ve stopped in Sol system at least twice. Once for the dinosaurs, once for the apes, I figure. And we found a map in that museum globe.”

“You sent us the map,” Redwing said, ushering them along the corridor. A pleasant aroma of warm food drew them. “How did that strike you?”

“Strange. Might be history, might be propaganda for the masses.”

“There’s a difference?”

She smiled. “It was in a big park, elaborate buildings, the works.”

Fred wobbled into the mess. Beth was feeling frail, too; there were handholds everywhere, and she used them. Surely she’d been longing for foods of Earth? There had been almost no red meat in the parts of the Bowl she’d seen. Beef curry? Its tang enticed. The mess was neat, clean, like a strict diner. Already Fred had picked a five-bean salad and a cheese sandwich.

Redwing dialed up a chef’s salad. “We’re recording everything we can get in electromagnetics from the Bowl surface, but there’s not much,” he said.

Beth asked, “What are you doing with our allies? I mean the—”

“Snakes? They kind of give me the willies, but they seem benign. We’re helping the finger snakes unload that ship you hijacked. Those plants will do more for them than for us, don’t you think? Shall we house them in the garden? We’ll have to work out what to give them in the way of sunlight and dirt and water. Want to watch?” Redwing finger-danced before a sensor.

The wall wavered, and yes, on the visual wall there were finger snakes and humans moving trays out of the magnetic car. Beth saw these were new crew. Ayaan Ali, pilot; Claire Conway, copilot; and Karl Lebanon, the general technology officer. The ship’s population was growing. They moved dexterously among the three snakes, struggling with the language problem.