Greg Bear - Hull Zero Three

“Hatch up here,” the Tracker announces. “Big one.”

The opening is clear.

The Tracker plants a sticky claw-foot against a smooth surface, takes hold of Big Yellow’s leg, swings him out, and uses him to retrieve the rest of us. Rather neatly, we separate as we’re arcing toward the wide hatch, drift through, and grab whatever we can inside.

This could be where equipment is stored or stowed—a space about ten meters deep and five meters square. Or it could be some sort of elevator. My mind draws a blank—this area isn’t part of my job responsibility.

Where load jockeys hang out.

“Load jockeys,” I murmur.

“What’s that mean?” Big Yellow asks.

“Stevedores. Cargo managers. Crew chiefs. I’m not sure—it’s fragmented.”

The whole journey has taken us about a third of a spin-up. “Not too bad here,” the spidery woman says. “No mist—except what’s coming through the hatch.”

She feels her way around the hatch perimeter, then attempts to push, tug, and finally shout at it. Nothing closes the hatch. She backs away. Big Yellow tosses her a gray bag to wipe herself off.

But our presence has triggered another response. The forward bulkhead rotates, splits, and seems to melt into the outer wall. A ring of large fluorescent panels switches on. The chamber fills with shadowless light. Now we see a series of copper-green arches—and beyond, another bulkhead, curved, shiny black, and covered with myriads of glim lights.

As we pass through the arches, that curved bulkhead also splits into three sections, which rotate and then seem to melt aside. For a moment, my eye is confused. I think I’m looking at more glim lights but they’re different. Sharper, brighter against an even deeper darkness—very many and very tiny, like an infinite spray of luminous dust.

We’re in a big blister, the hull’s forward observation dome. Beyond the bow, the darkness is thick with a billowing canopy of minute, cold brilliances.

Stars. Even seeing them for the second time, they startle and surprise me.

So lost.

The spidery woman reaches with long fingers and kicks out, as if she’d fly through them if she could. Big Yellow makes a grab for her, but she neatly draws in her arms and legs and he misses. She floats right by us all.

She’s the first to make it into the bow. “This is hull control,” she says. “It feels like I’ve been here already….”

“What are those?” the girl asks, pointing at the glowing dust.

“They’re why we’re here,” I say, and it’s all I can say, because my heart is in my throat. This is the view to where we’re going.

Somewhere out there, maybe, is home.

To our left stream long, grasping wisps of ionized pale blue and pink. And directly ahead, a vague grayish bull’s-eye sends back a ghostly cage of barely visible bands. Not part of the stars—part of Ship. I didn’t notice the thin bands at first, because the stars are visible right through them.

We follow as caution permits—quickly for the girl, while Big Yellow and I trail behind her, taking it all in. The Tracker is last, protecting our rear.

The bow chamber forms a blunt cone, with a transparent blister or dome covering the very tip, about ten meters wide and four meters deep. A hexagonal web of cables and slings allows for purchase, movement, and tie-down.

For a long moment—too long, my caution tells me—we stare out through the dome.

Tsinoy points to the colored streamers and wisps. The Tracker’s eyes have turned violet in the dark. What it says doesn’t register at first, I’m so lost in the spectacle. “Nebulae don’t look that bright, unless you’re very near a recent nova—or worse yet, a supernova.”

I pull back reluctantly. There are control stations already in place, mounted on narrow pylons around the perimeter of the dome. The spidery woman is gliding from station to station, hands swiftly lighting up curved displays and panels.

Even having seen this place, I can conjure no memory of it. Likely it will be dismantled, subsumed by the triad, before the end of our journey, when the three hulls join. But Ship’s timing seems skewed everywhere. Why is the staging area completed? And why are some of the landing ships already constructed, only to be smashed? Useless. Wasted. Like all those bodies in the freezers.

The spidery woman seems very much at home here, rapidly becoming more and more aware of her function. That fits—she’s built for low weight or zero g. She’s probably part of the group that crews the Ship during the last few decades of journey, guiding it into orbit, preparing the way for the colonists. Does that mean she dies before I’m made?

Assembly crew is not landing crew. We were never meant to be one big happy family. I’m almost getting used to this irregular effervescence of memory. I wonder if she’s the same or similar to the “tall female” in my book.

“This is where we’ll do our work,” she says. “My people put us in orbit and bring the hulls together. That’s got to be the reason I’m here.” She looks back at Big Yellow and the girl—then at me, fiercely demanding confirmation.

“Makes sense,” I say.

“Damned right. I know what I am, if not who I am.”

The little girl has wrapped herself around a control pylon, watching as the bigger folks try to make sense of the arrangements.

Big Yellow grabs my shoulder as we hand-over-hand. “Where’s Tsinoy?” he asks. The Tracker seems to have vanished after saying something about nebulae.

The spidery woman, eyes flashing, is absorbed by the panels, making her second circuit with fluid ease from one rank to the next.

We’re not much use here—for the time being, anyway. “Let’s go back and look for it,” I suggest.

We pull our way aft, then transit the illuminated entry. We are slowed by mist drifting through the hatch from the staging area. We keep back but move around to peer out. No sign of the Tracker—of Tsinoy.

“Why would it leave?” Big Yellow asks. “It’s pretty loyal to the gray lady.”

I see movement near where we first entered the staging area, a shifting patch of paleness—unfamiliar in silhouette, but then, the Tracker excels at never looking the same twice.

“Is that it?” I point. The mist pushes me back into fresher currents of air. I can hardly see.

Big Yellow stretches his upper torso into the acrid gloom. “Yeah,” he says finally, withdrawing. “This damned fog stings.”

I pull another empty gray bag from the cinch of my pants and hand it to him. He wipes and dabs. “It’s coming this way.”

“You’re sure it’s the Tracker and not—”

But then it’s upon us, pushing us aside in its haste. Its touch—even its near approach—makes me groan deep in my throat. Big Yellow grabs a long, knotted arm to slow it.

“Stuff coming up the pipe,” it announces. “Bad stuff.”

“Human?” Big Yellow asks.

“Shit no. Like me, only mean.”

“How soon?” Big Yellow asks.

“A snap. Get them out of the dome. It’s bad up there, anyway. Bright nebulae, all wrong. Pull them back here. We missed a door—in shadow. Might be a way out.”

“Show me,” I say. Without hesitation, it grabs me—hard enough to hurt. We launch into the darkness. I’m helpless to do anything about it. Everything’s a whirl.

Then, with astonishing deftness, Tsinoy grabs a surface and slows, bringing us both to a smooth halt, and positions me before a round depression rimmed in slowly pulsing red.

A hatch opens.

Still shaking, I break loose from its paw-claws but drift out of reach of anything that would allow me to make a move one way or another. I start flailing, cursing in a frantic whisper, and then the spidery woman is beside me. She tugs me to the side, where I seize a cable.