The Slowest Spacecraft (part 4)
In space, the nuclear fires of stars provide colorful contrast to the blackness of infinity. There are vistas of beauty that have struck poets speechless. On Yansmar, the fires that razed a once-beautiful world added the choking darkness of smoke and soot to the blackness of an ash-filled sky. It was ugliness in every direction, which no words could capture.
The Prefecture office complex would have been impressive under normal circumstances. After the earthquakes, with the ceiling propped up by makeshift emergency supports, it was hard to see the remains of the huge murals of cavorting Yansmar tastefully covering the interior hallways. The tall arched windows were cracked and pitted, the most serious fractures roughly covered by hastily sprayed sealant goo. There was no light to let in from the roiling sky clogged with dense layers of impenetrable black. Ash hung in the air despite air purification systems, choking everyone, coating everything with a layer of grime.
"Zeej," someone shouted somewhere. The amplified word echoed out of hurriedly-placed loudspeakers, through the rubble and the rooms, in angry tones tinged with regret and resignation. The result was electrifying; Yansmar clearly concentrating on one direction looked up and radically changed course, barely missing a step. The crowd of clerks, soldiers, bureaucrats and other victims began to evaporate.
The soldier assigned to bring me to the Prefect grabbed my arm roughly. I still hadn't had enough sleep, so he caught me by surprise.
"Zeej!" he repeated, pulling even harder.
"I don't understand Yansmar!" I replied in Standard, giving him a look that told him he was asking for serious injury if he pulled my arm again. Some languages are universal. He let go. That didn't stop him from trying to make himself understood, though. He stepped closer, pointing to a doorway leading away from the Prefect's office.
"Zeej!" He yelled it at me, as if volume and willpower were enough to get the meaning across. I choked; his reeking breath was intense enough to cut through the filter mask that couldn't quite eliminate the stubborn grains of ash that somehow sneaked into my throat.
When the speakers announced "Zeej etco," the guard left me, running to where he'd pointed. He disappeared around a corner. I was alone, lost in the Prefecture, somewhere along the path to the Prefect's office.
I was standing there wondering what to do next, when someone else grabbed my arm from behind.
I'm afraid I acted instinctively. I turned slightly, took the arm, and pulled the body it was attached to right over my knee. There was a rising scream of "zeej etco," in a voice that was uncomfortably familiar. When I looked closer at the person sprawled in a heap before me, I realized that I'd used an eri-li martial arts throw on the Prefect.
He looked up at me, stunned.
"What the..." I didn't get a chance to finish. I had just long enough realize sarcastically that my diplomatic instincts were just as sharp as usual.
"Zeej kedi!" There wasn't any anger remaining in the words bellowing from the loudspeakers. It had been replaced by panic.
For a moment, there was silence, as if the motes of ash were absorbing every vibration in the air. It was one of those perfect silences, the ones that always come upon you unexpectedly. It's that silence that envelopes and surrounds you, the one that you don't dare defile with any noise of your own. It's also the silence that comes right before something really bad happens.
A low rumble expanded into a wall of noise as absolute as the preceding silence. It turns out that "zeej" means "aftershock, coming soon." "Zeej kedi" means "really, really big aftershock, coming now." The ground tilted, beams groaned, and objects in the room started moving on their own.
The room contained a surprising number of objects and bits that were still capable of falling. It was unnerving. Vortex and I work hard to keep things stowed away, for those moments when space throws a wrinkle at the hyperfields and simple things like up and down grow confused. I've been through some intense "zeej kedi" in space; few compare to those moments in the Prefecture.
"You make my life difficult, Captain Gale," the Prefect growled, as we crawled under a door hanging from one twisted hinge, angled and wedged into a wall it was never meant to touch. It was the closest thing we could find to a shelter. Dust marched along the edge of this crooked roof, bouncing along until it fell to the floor, like an immense herd of miniature lemmings going over a cliff.
"You aren't the first who's told me that - but I believe you were the one accusing me of causing all of this." Something slammed into the barely-sheltering surface above us and we both jumped. A chunk of plaster rolled down the inclined door, crashing into smaller pieces just beyond my feet. I tried to wedge myself in even tighter underneath.
"Understand that the data we have from just before the impact is about as intact as the room that is trying to collapse upon us. Nevertheless, it seemed clear that two objects struck the planet, one near the Aljeangu Palace and the other in the Sea of Lysiu, forty kilometers south of the Emaurapa Archipelago." He stopped; we both listened. There was definitely a lull in the aftershock. Neither of us moved to try to find better cover, knowing that the perversity of the Universe would simply insist on that moment for the aftershock to come roaring back.
"So?"
"One of the technicians recovered the data for in-system spatial traffic. Within a small margin of error, your ship's position and the two impact points describe a straight line. Instead of two incidents, the results can be simplified into one object, loosed from the vicinity of your ship, traveling completely through the planet. A small singularity, perhaps, accelerated to high speed. You are known to travel to new areas of space, and are known for your First Contact experiences."
"I try not to admit to it." He wasn't pleased by my weak attempt at humor. Some of my First Contact reports are used by colleges as prime examples of "what not to do in First Contact situations."
"Thus," he continued, ignoring the interruption, "even if our scientists could not explain how you might create and control a singularity, we could not eliminate the possibility." They were giving me a lot of credit. I suppose that I should be proud that my reputation was strong enough to bend the laws of physics.
The loudspeakers squawked something unintelligible. The Prefect sighed, climbing out from our shelter. He offered me a dusty hand.
"Are you sure it's all right?" Objects were still falling, even if the rumble had gone away. He turned, gesturing for me to follow him.
"Nothing is right with Yansmar now." He walked quickly, stepping around the rubble and debris on the floor, as if it wasn't there. It had to be from too much recent practice, because I had a tough time keeping up. He barely slowed when he had to push a fallen chandelier to one side to pass through a doorway.
Shards of crystal were scattered over the floor. I almost bumped into him when he abruptly stopped to pick one of them up. It was a beautiful amber when he held it up to the light, carved with facets that sparkled and glowed. He shook his head, sighing. Sometimes, it's the little things that get to you. He tossed the crystal to one side.
"We can only hope to save as many of the survivors as possible. However, this aftershock is over."
One last doorway led into a huge room. A small yellow sun burned in a back corner of the room, casting its harsh but necessary illumination throughout the room. Its twin, in the other corner, was as dark and ash-covered as Yansmar itself. A fallen support brace had crushed some essential component.
The walls were lined with empty bookcases. The books were scattered on the floor. The desk, imposing and massive, remained intact, covered by a dusty tarpaulin. The Prefect carefully lifted the covering, spilling the dust on the floor. Underneath was the inevitable evidence of bureaucracy. In the midst of this disaster, they'd been forced to return to using hardcopy. The monitor he'd used to speak to me was on the floor at the side of the desk. He wouldn't be talking to anyone with it again.
"That doesn't explain why I am here after what Vortex had to say."
The Prefect indicated a chair in front of his desk. I picked it up, brushed it off and sat down. The Prefect did the same with his chair.
"You are here because both you and the Vortex were in the immediate vicinity of the object that led to the destruction of my home world. Your sensors and your logs are intact. I ask that you search that data and learn what you can. Once you've done that, follow where the trail leads you. If there is anyone in the sector who can find the truth of this matter, it is the inimitable Captain Maggie Gale. You are released from your legally mandated duties in the relief effort to pursue this task, in the name of Yansmar."
He picked up one of the papers from his desk. Using a gold pen extracted from a cloak pocket, he signed it with a flourish and handed it to me.
With that, he picked up another document and started reading it. He was done with me; I was dismissed.
By Coterie law, ship captains are required to provide all aid and assistance possible in circumstances of planetary emergency. This aid must continue until the emergency is lifted or until released from service. The document in my hand meant that Vortex and I could leave the system - but we were still under the jurisdiction of Yansmar. If I didn't live up to my reputation, the search for the Prefect's mysterious object might take me a very long time. I also wasn't particularly interested in looking for a hypothetical being that could create singularities. I was especially not interested in meeting one who would throw them on vectors that resulted in millions of dead.
"Captain Human Maggie Gale, did you actually find beings that could shape the laws of physics?"
"Bend the laws, perhaps, but not break. Or, at least to understand them in a different manner, which allows them to do things we can't. Yet."
"But Captain Human Maggie Gale, such beings would be able to create incredible spacecraft, moving faster and faster, like the Jewel of Her Father's Eyestalks. I asked about the slowest spacecraft."
Maggie smiled, taking the last sip from her glass. When she set the empty glass down, the bartender's tentacle was already at the table, with the bottle tilted to pour, the liquid anticipating its splash. A small yellow and blue cloth draped over the side of the bottle, hanging from where it was tied around the tentacle. Those were the colors that identified unique tentacle number twenty-two, to cheers at the bar. More wagers were paid off, even as new ones were placed.
"Patience, J'orrr of Grove F'rrrnkell, for we are almost there."