Greg Bear - Hull Zero Three

“No record,” the voice says. “There is a transfer craft docked to this hull. Was it sent by Destination Guidance?”

“No.” A long pause. We’ve really screwed up, I think. Then:

“Does it contain daughters ?”

This makes my muscles knot and my spine shiver. If I had any body hair, I’m sure it would prickle.

“Yes,” I say. “Two little girls.”

“Do they require assistance?”

“Yes,” I say. “They want to find their mother.”

Big Yellow looks around the bow chamber with his mouth open, like a yokel at a country fair. Circuses and fairs—all useless imagery, but somehow comforting. I need comfort. I could totally screw up our chances of survival—screw up any chance that the hulls will ever rejoin to form Ship, that Ship will ever find a stellar system and a beautiful planet….

“We need heat and food and water. A change of clothes would be nice,” I say.

“You are not Destination Guidance.”

“I think… that’s right,” I say.

“I have rejected or destroyed all envoys from Destination Guidance,” the voice says. “After communication with the other hulls was blocked.”

“Good,” I say. “What are you?”

“Welcome,” the voice says. “Daughters are expected.”

We feel it right away—the gentle spin increases. Then, cables and bars grow out of the surface of the chamber, stringing and arranging magically. A billowing draft of warmer air swirls down from the center. And the walls light up, brilliantly, until we’re almost blinded. Our eyes adjust behind our raised hands and Big Yellow laughs. The sound is deep and rich and satisfying, and I join in, but I can’t compete—my laugh is a doggish, repetitive bark.

We join up along a raised bar, and Big Yellow extends his huge hand. “You know how to shake, don’t you?” he asks.

“Of course,” I say. My hand is lost in his, but he doesn’t squeeze too hard.

“Food!” he shouts, and the whole chamber booms. “Ask it for food and drink! And I need a bath!”

We go back and wait in the egg-craft for an hour, giving the hull time to warm to a tolerable level. Then we bring the others into the bow chamber. As a group, we look sad and worn down, but there’s a glint in our eyes—except for Tsinoy’s, which are as flat and pink as ever. But even the Tracker seems to be enjoying the new possibilities, the relief of not being pursued. Not now, not yet. Of having a little time to catch up and consider what we need to do next. The Knob-Crest still looks sleepy. I wonder if he took a knock on the head somewhere and hasn’t recovered.

“You spoke to the hull, to Ship Control,” my twin says, standing close.

“Yeah,” I say. “I think so.” We watch the girls walk hand-in-hand toward the bow. The front plates are still shut.

“Is it healthy? Is it really in control?”

“You’ve been around longer. You know more than I do.”

“Not really. Everything we’ve seen, everything we’ve been told, could be an illusion, or a trap. What if the hull is fading, losing its grip?”

Tsinoy approaches. We’re almost used to the Tracker’s nearness; the egg-craft was pretty confining, and familiarity breeds familiarity—but nothing like contempt. It ripped some of the nastiest Killers to shreds.

It elongates, stretching. “I would like to take a look forward and contemplate.”

“Why?” my other asks.

“See our situation. View the stars. Speculate.”

“Just a few more minutes,” I say. “We’ll see if we get food and water, then we’ll ask for the forward plates to open.”

“All right,” Tsinoy agrees. It makes a little clack with its jaws and teeth. We both jump, but this seems to indicate a desire to just sit and think, without interruption. “But soon.”

The spidery woman has been silent since emerging from the egg-craft. I don’t know how to read her expression. Eyes wide and a little moist, she moves slowly from place to place along the cables, as if waiting for something to do, someone to be—a redefinition of her role seems in order. I approach her, my twin not far behind. We’re both thinking the same thing. “If we get the controls back, can you tell us more about the condition of the hull, the Ship?” he asks.

“Maybe,” she says. She looks around. “Why don’t we set off alarms? I mean, we come out of nowhere—and you say the magic words, and suddenly it’s all better. How’s that possible?”

“Too good to be true,” my twin says, and I reluctantly agree. We can’t afford to be complacent, but it is getting more comfortable. Maybe that’s the point—we’re letting down our guard.

“It mentioned shutting out Destination Guidance—or words to that effect,” I say. “Apparently, communications between the hulls have been blocked. Some kind of prolonged struggle for power, maybe—like a war.”

“I wish we knew more about that conflict,” my other says.

“Maybe the girls can explain,” I say, guilty to be shoving responsibility over to them. But, then, they started me off on this journey. “I think they might have come from here… originally, a while back.”

“Now there ’s a thought,” Tsinoy says, and smacks its jaws again.

“Why can’t any one of us talk to the hull?” the spidery woman asks, but before her question can be addressed, or ignored, or whatever that sort of question deserves, in an atmosphere of almost total ignorance—

The girls slide forward on bars, almost flying, and call us together in high, piping voices.

“We need names—we need names now !” they announce together. “Gather for your names!”

“Mother must be nearby,” my twin says in an undertone. “I think we’re about to be introduced.”

The girls move in symmetry, one left, one right, and gather us in a circle. Tsinoy, out of respect for its armor, is not touched, but all the girls have to do is raise their hands and look at the Tracker and it complies. The spin has increased enough that we stay on our feet without bouncing up at every toe twitch.

As we wait for the girls to arrange us just right, as if setting the table for a tea party, my other murmurs to the spidery woman, who whispers back, and then he says to me: “We’re getting pretty heavy. The outer parts of the hull have to be moving fast—uncomfortable if we’re headed that direction. I’m thinking there aren’t any new applicants working their way through the outboard tubes.”

Good information to have—maybe we’re alone, or maybe everyone important has been concentrated along the hull’s center axis.

“Or the hull’s trying to shed attackers,” I say.

“Wow. That’s a possibility, too.”

The girls walk around our circle, on the inside, and christen each of us in turn. “You are Kim,” one girl announces, tapping Big Yellow’s knee. Her twin, on the opposite side of the circle, brushes the spidery woman’s hand. “And you are Nell,” she says. The other girl taps the Knob-Crest and says, in a strangely comprehensible hoot, “Tomchin.”

To me, “You are Sanjay.”

And to my twin, “You are Sanjim. But we call you both Teacher. And you are Tsinoy, of course,” they conclude with the Tracker. “Now you all have names.”

“What about your names?” Nell asks.

“Mother knows. You do not need to know.”

“That’s not fair, is it?” Kim asks.

One girl pats his hand, and when he opens it, she folds herself into his fingers, then jerks her arms and head— up ! He lifts her and holds her out high. This stirs something in my deep memory—something cultural, but I can’t quite place it. A monster and a girl. Anyway, he’s the wrong color, and so is she.