Relic

3

The snapweft pilot was already deep in dream down in the center of the twilldizzy. From the beginning of his acclimatization to Myssari culture, Ruslan had always had the most trouble learning scientific terms. His general ignorance of physics of any kind only rendered comprehension that much more difficult. Trying to understand a nonhuman version only tied his thoughts in knots. So he asked for explanations, freely accepted the results, and translated them into terms that made a vague sort of sense. To him, anyway. Since there were no human physicists around to correct or contradict him, his improvisation served his needs quite well.

It was all magic anyway, this business of traveling between the stars. Certainly his own species had been quite efficient at it, though the last starship to visit Seraboth had come and gone two or three hundred years before he was born. Whether humans had utilized a system similar to that employed by the Myssari he had no way of knowing. When queried, Kel’les could only convolute his nine fingers and surmise that it must have been the same or very much so, because all known space-traversing species used a variant of it.

Once aboard the orbiting starship, Ruslan had a few moments before it would be time for him and the other passengers to enter stasis. He used them to query Cor’rin. Bac’cul was nearby, chatting with another traveler. Among the trio assigned to monitor and study his life, only Yah’thom remained behind. Smitten with assorted infirmities of old age, the crusty senior scientist felt that his presence would slow the group’s progress. They had not yet departed Myssar orbit and already Ruslan missed the elder’s insightful personality. He even missed the scientist’s sarcasm, perhaps because so little of it was ever directed his way.

“I have two questions,” he said to Cor’rin. “One involves the means and nature by which interstellar travel is accomplished. The other is about sex.”

The scientist replied without hesitation. Now, as on previous occasions, he was struck by the bright metallic violet of her eyes. The insouciance of her response emphasized how at ease she was with his queries.

“An odd coupling, one might say, though both involve thrust. I am expert in neither.”

“Your best take, then.” Around them, other passengers besides Bac’cul and Kel’les were seeing to final preparations. Since his minder was taking care of necessary details Ruslan did not understand anyway, he had time for casual conversation. “Firstly, as near as I can tell, you, Bac’cul, and Kel’les are of similar age and maturity. Together you could constitute a reproductive trio, a potential procreational triumvirate. Aren’t you concerned that working together away from the supervisorial strictures of Myssarian society could result in a romantic entanglement that might interfere with your work?”

“You really have learned a great deal about our society.” The dimmer illumination in the access chamber had caused her eyes to darken from violet to purple. “Bac’cul is already mated elsewhere. I am not, nor is Kel’les, but I can assure you our scientific interests easily outweigh and would dominate any thoughts that might incline to the physical.”

Ruslan nodded his understanding. “I was just curious. From what little I know and what lots I read, my kind were different. Second then, can you give me a better idea how this ship and its ilk actually work?” He gestured at their tubular surroundings. The curved floor underfoot posed no problems for its tripodal designers and builders, but he had to be more careful where he stepped.

“It is hardly a specialty of mine.” Though she was plainly keen to enter her own travel pod, she was too courteous to arbitrarily dismiss his question. Listening closely, he did his best to assign meaning to her response.

“As I understand it, the cosmos is not uniform. There are lapses, holes, walls, currents. Different kinds of matter. Some things stable, others less so. Some are fixed, while others move about. By navigating these exceptions, these oddities in space-time, it is possible to shortcut ordinary space and arrive at a destination made suddenly congruent to the point of one’s departure. To do so requires the skills of a snapweft: a highly trained pilot who is half organic and half machine. He or she or s’he is physically attached to the great contorting complex called the twilldizzy, which delicately tracks the disruptions in non-normal space-time. The body of the ship remains steady within while it spins around it, its course directed by the snapweft.

“Manipulation must be constant, unyielding, and faultless. Once control of a twilldizzy is lost, a ship can emerge anywhere in space. If that happens, sometimes a snapweft can reposition it within an anomaly and resume course. Sometimes that cannot be done. Then a ship is lost, never to be heard from again.” She gestured confidence. “But such occurrences are rare. Twilldizzy travel is safe.”

He was unable to forbear from pointing out, “Except for those unfortunate enough to have been designated the exception.”

Her reply was even, her tone enigmatic. “It is good to see that you are feeling like your usual self. I need to ready myself for departure now. You should do the same.”

Having silently joined them mid-conversation, Kel’les now put a hand on Ruslan’s shoulder. “It is possible you will perceive the overflow from the snapweft. A pilot’s projections are very powerful. There is no need to be alarmed. Such reception is perfectly normal.”

Uncertainty further corroded Ruslan’s already rugged features. “Why would I sense mental emanations from a representative of another species? I didn’t when I was brought to Myssar from Seraboth.”

“You made that transfer while under heavy medication. It would have dulled your awareness. As to being a member of a non-Myssari species, snapweft projections are sensed across multiple intelligences.” A hand gestured meaningfully. “It is something that transcends species. Sensitivity depends entirely on the architecture of one’s sentience. You may feel nothing at all.”

They had entered the passenger torus. All around them, other travelers were slipping into waiting pods as calmly and efficiently as he would have slid into bed. Quite unexpectedly he felt a rush of uncertainty. Confronted with the possibility of death, rare as such occurrences might be, it developed that perhaps he was not quite as ready to die as he supposed.

They halted before a pair of open pods. Bac’cul and Cor’rin had already entered theirs. The transparent covers were closed, the occupants awake and relaxed. He noticed that Cor’rin was wearing a customized sensory eyeband. One of her three hands was conducting a diversion silent and unseen. Interstellar travel was plainly not for the claustrophobic. He eyed his own waiting deuomd nervously.

“What do I do if I get inside and find that I can’t stand it, or that I’m having trouble?”

Kel’les eyed him tentatively. “What kind of trouble?”

The human’s mouth twisted slightly. “If I knew, I’d tell you now.”

His handler’s voice was soothing. “I have seen how you deal with the unfamiliar, Ruslan. You will have no trouble. But if you do, simply announce the nature of the difficulty. The information will be relayed to the appropriate personnel and your problem will be dealt with promptly.”

Kel’les’s patient, confident tone was reassuring. Climbing into the deuomd, Ruslan lay back against the cushioned interior. Engineered to accommodate travelers with far more outrageous physiognomies than his, it had no trouble molding itself against him. He felt better already. His weight activated the deuomd’s functions. There was a soft hiss as the cover began to slide from his feet toward his head. He spoke quickly but calmly before the lid could shut out the rest of the universe.

“If I do have trouble and declare it, what will be the likely response?”

“Your unit will analyze your observations and react accordingly.” The cover was nearly closed now. “Most likely you will be appropriately sedated and sleep through the remainder of the voyage.”

After that he could no longer hear Kel’les. It did not matter. The intermet had nothing else to tell him and he could think of nothing else to ask.

It was utterly silent within the deuomd. There was a surprising amount of space in which he could move around, doubtless because the wider triangle-shaped pelvis of the Myssari demanded it. He did not feel cramped. Whether he would feel the same way in another hour or so was a different matter. With all that had been going on, he had forgotten to ask how long the trip was going to take. Since no one had said anything to him about emerging for meals, or exercise, or voiding wastes, he assumed it would not take very long. No more than half a day, surely. Although it was all relative. The time that transpired inside the deuomd, inside the ship, might not be the same time that passed outside. So much depended on the skill of the cyborg pilot.

What would snapweft overflow feel like? He looked forward to possibly finding out with a mixture of awe and trepidation. Surely it was not potentially fatal or Kel’les would have so informed him. Unless his handler and the two scientists thought it better to keep certain information from their prize specimen.

There was a lurch. The ship starting out and away from Myssar orbit? he wondered. Or entering a distortion, an anomaly? Feeling nothing, he was suddenly disappointed.

An hour passed. In response to his verbal query, the flexible deuomd supplied diversions. Music, visuals, olfactory refractions: anything he could think of that he had learned from the Myssari. It was all very unextraordinary. The deuomd in which he lay was designed to promote sleep without the aid of drugs.

Somnolence was a state he was on the verge of entering when something stuck the dull blade of demand into his mind and he was cast outside himself. He remembered Kel’les’s words.

Overflow.

The snapweft was struggling with a current. Along with the other passengers who had remained awake, Ruslan found himself swimming hard to keep his consciousness from descending into madness.

The longer it lasted, the more he came to realize that he was overdramatizing. Focusing on regulating his breathing calmed him. No system of interstellar transport that regularly risked the sanity of those who utilized it would remain long in favor. That didn’t mean he was not unsettled.

He was receiving, or perceiving, a fraction of what the mechasymbiote pilot was sensing as he fought to utilize the outré physics that permitted travel between star systems. The more Ruslan tensed and twitched and grimaced and whined within the security of his deuomd, the more his respect for the unseen snapweft grew. Outside the spherical ship was a universe that was beautiful only in images. In person and up close its aberrations and contortions manifested themselves in shapes and sensations that ran the gamut from off-putting to nightmare.

What was the thing that brushed against the hurtling orb and left bits of its incomprehensible mentality clinging to those stretched out within? Shards of id, like strips of seaweed damp and chill, stuck to his mind until the snapweft lurched the ship leftward and a force to which Ruslan could not put a name brushed off the subconscious silt. Tendrils of another eldritch shape bigger than a star, but stretched so thin that the atoms of its being seemed stitched together only by lines of cooperating positrons, swallowed the ship. To Ruslan and the other travelers, it was less than a breath; to the snapweft, a mind-wrenching throb. Shrugging it off, the pilot pressed on, dodging and dancing, a juggler of lives and machinery and instrumentation. It was the ship and the ship was it.

Outside and beyond, stars and nebulae and blobs of unidentifiable matter and antimatter and far smaller things maintained their stately dance through the firmament, coldly indifferent to a minuscule sphere bearing tiny knots of sentience. So easy to vanish in that vastness, such a simple matter for beings that were less than nothing to disappear. Not out of maliciousness but from Nature’s deadly apathy did those who braved the gulf between star systems occasionally perish.

Finally Ruslan slept. Slept and dreamed and remembered. Even while trapped on a world of the dead and dying, his had been a childhood full of questioning hope. He had passed through adolescence and on into young adulthood while those around him, everyone he knew, had expired from the Aura Malignance. It was the speed that was so daunting, the absoluteness that was so appalling. There was no remedy, no vaccine, no escape. Walk, think, then shudder. Sometimes panic when realization set in. No time for much more as the cerebroneural connections failed. Eyes fluttering, people staggered, stopped, and toppled over. Usually individually, sometimes in groups, occasionally in rows. He remembered entire streets full of people collapsing like dominoes. No wonder a cure had never been found. Despite walls of redundant prophylactics cast up in attempts to protect them, the scientists and physicians who had tried desperately to find a cure for the apocalypse had perished before they could even understand what it was they were struggling to fight.

Gradually the streets had grown empty. Eventually even automated public transport stopped. As it had on every other human-occupied world, a stillness and silence descended on Seraboth that was quieter than the inside of his mind when he was sound asleep.

There had been an old man. Ruslan had encountered him decades ago while wandering the streets of his home city. Searching for others—hopefully at first, then reluctantly, and at last with only the most bitter resolve—found him with only corpses for company. Until the old man.

The slender elder, his clothing worn, his visage weathered, had not simply dropped dead like hundreds of thousands of others. Something in him, genetics or resolve, had kept him upright a while longer than was typical. When young Ruslan had come upon him, he was leaning against a wall, coughing and starting to slump. With a cry Ruslan had rushed to him, thrilled to find someone else, another human, alive. As he drew near, the man turned toward him. Shaking his head slowly, he bestowed a sad smile on the young man.

“Don’t worry about it, son. It doesn’t hurt.”

Then he closed his eyes, slid the rest of the way down the wall, and expired. Upon which Ruslan, beyond frustrated, beyond angry, clenched his fists and cursed the sky before howling at the newly dead body before him.

“You can’t die! You can’t!” His youthful self looked around wildly. At the lingering corpses. At the dead city. “Don’t leave me alone! Don’t, don’t!”

He pounded on the thin, motionless chest until his hands hurt. It didn’t do any good. The brain didn’t function, the heart didn’t start. It wasn’t fair! To meet someone else, to encounter another living person, only to have them greet you with a dying farewell.

Afterward came the guilt. Why should he be spared? Why out of the thousands, the millions, did he continue to live? His health stayed good, his mind sound. Several times, overcome by despair, he had contemplated killing himself. Why live on alone only to die among the greater loneliness that surrounded him? Why had he been singled out to become the last old man?

Then the Myssari exploration team had found him. Their astonishment at encountering a surviving human far outpaced his own at the sight of their trisymmetrical bodies. After centuries and ages of his kind searching the cosmos, he was the first human to encounter an intelligent alien species, and the last. He let them take him (not that, courteous though they were, they gave him any choice). He let them keep him alive. To remember, and to dream.

He woke up to the soothing sounds of a cloisteram stream: not quite strings, not quite woodwinds, all reminiscent of spring and running water—aural honey. He did not remember when reminiscence had replaced apprehension, but he was glad of the change. Better to lie abed in the grasp of old bad memories than incomprehensible nightmare realities. Humming softly, the lid of his deuomd retracted toward his feet and out of sight.

When he sat up, the first thing he did was silently salute someone he would never meet.

All praise to the snapweft.

He tried to push out the thought as forcefully as he could. Whether even a twinge of it was received, or perceived, or otherwise picked up by the half-Myssari, half-machine pilot he did not know. A slight shiver passed through him. Just cooler air outside the capsule, he told himself.

Less activity eddied around him than he had anticipated. Only a few other pods had opened to permit their denizens egress. As soon as he could stand he vented his curiosity on Kel’les.

“There is no reason for them to come out of stasis. Most will not do so until the ship arrives at their intended destination.”

“Then what’s the story behind these?” He indicated the clutch of awakened who were presently shuffling off in the direction of a nearby corridor. Bac’cul and Cor’rin were among them, chatting energetically. “Are they all assigned to work down on the planetary surface?”

Two of his minder’s hands gestured elaborately, though it was not quite an explanation. “Some are, certainly. But there are those for whom a stop at a previously unvisited world is worth being roused from stasis, if only to garner a glimpse of it from orbit.” S’he extended a third hand. “Come, Ruslan. We must go one way and our supplies another.”

The human trailed slightly behind. “Will we be in the first group to go down?”

Kel’les looked back at him, almost facing him. “There is no teleport system here. No string of linked platforms like we used to reach the ship from Myssar’s surface. The Myssari presence is modest and wholly scientific in nature. The demands required to construct and sustain even the most basic, conjoined teleport system would cost more than maintaining the entire scientific outpost. We will descend to the surface via the ship’s cargo transporter.”

That seemed fitting. He’d thought of himself as little other than cargo ever since the Myssari had recovered him.

Treth was beautiful from orbit. Ruslan had never traveled off-world until the Myssari had found him, but he’d had access to millions of stored images of other worlds. He did not specifically remember looking at or reading information about Treth, but with dozens of human-settled worlds to choose from and thousands of uninhabited others, it was hardly surprising that he should fail to recall a specific one.

Nor was there anything especially distinctive about the blue-green-brown orb turning slowly beneath the great interstellar craft and its much smaller orbit-to-surface transporter. The oceans Yah’thom had promised were smaller than those on Seraboth, the mountain ranges less imposing, the deserts widely scattered. It could have been Earth and he would not have known it. That it was called Treth was proof of nothing. With the passage of time, names change as readily as does history.

Though he was in excellent health, additional precautions were taken to ensure his safe arrival. Dropping from orbit via a cargo transporter could sometimes be rough. Wouldn’t do to damage their prize specimen. There were straps and pads and sensors, so much so that he felt far more confined than he had within the deuomd.

The descent to the surface was cheerily anachronistic: all bumps and bangs, sideways slews and howling, as flowmetal and composite squabbled with atmosphere. The discomfort went away as soon as the transporter touched down. Kel’les was at his side almost instantly, unpacking him. There was a dose of medicine, a shaky but increasingly steady trek down several corridors, further descent via a mechanical lift, and then he was standing on the surface of a new world. His third.

Visually it was anticlimactic. Low hills off to the right dusted with vegetation that was reassuring shades of green. Ordinary dirt underfoot. A sky that shaded to yellow but was blue enough to be comforting. Ahead and to the left, the ruins of a once extensive metropolis. Even at a distance he could clearly make out crumbling towers and collapsed domes among the rest of the decomposing, verdure-encrusted infrastructure. Wherever intelligence fled, Nature took over. In that, conditions on Treth were no different from those on Seraboth. He felt almost at home.

A driftec was waiting for them, hovering a handsbreadth above the ground. Glancing upward, he saw no sign of the orbiting starship. When the next might arrive here he did not know and it did not matter. He had no control over such things and had not for some time now. It had been many years since he had been the captain of his ship.

Not a good attitude with which to begin, he chided himself. A little optimism, if you please. They were here to find something that might lead them to old Earth. If nothing else, it should be an invigorating change from daily life on super-civilized Myssar.

The driftec was composed of completely transparent ripples. Looking toward the stern, one could see its drive and other components encased in something like clear jelly. As soon as everyone and the first load of supplies were aboard, the driver activated the craft’s systems. From a handsbreadth it rose to the height of Ruslan’s waist, turned, and accelerated silently toward the ruined city.

On the way, they passed several lines of enormous trees that rose higher than anything he knew from Seraboth. At intervals the massive growths extruded branches that themselves were greater in diameter than most of the plants with which he was familiar. Each bole was topped by a crown of dark pink tendrils that waved in the wind. The straight lines in which the trees grew were a strong indication they had been planted here, perhaps to impressively flank some long-disintegrated boulevard leading to the city. Wrestling for sun-space among the massive trunks and exposed roots was a riot of lesser, opportunistic vegetation.

Of native fauna he saw nothing, though Bac’cul assured him it was present. “Some of it is hostile. Keep that in mind if while we are here you are tempted to wander off on your own.”

“Where would I go?” he protested.

Seated in front of him, Cor’rin swiveled her head completely around. “We know you, Ruslan. You like to explore. Another characteristic of your people that you personally possess.”

“Maybe I did once, but not anymore.” He leaned back against soft transparency. “Now I leave the exploring to others. I’ll do mine via readouts and let the Myssari do the heavy work.”

Her responding gesture indicated that she understood the humor underlying his remark. He quite liked Cor’rin. Bac’cul was all right, too, but more somber—as befitted the one in charge of their little hunting expedition. Ruslan did not hold the male alien’s attitude against him. With age comes tolerance.

The headquarters of the Myssari scientific expedition on Treth was situated deep within the city, in the center of what once must have been a park. Or so Ruslan deduced from the density of the vegetation that had taken over the vast open space between high, now vine-covered buildings. Predominant among the flora was an interesting growth with dark purple bark that grew parallel to the ground before extruding numerous vertical trunks that in turn linked together to form yet another horizontal branch. Plant or not, it looked more engineered than evolved. A number of smaller growths aped the fascinating configuration, while innumerable vines ran parallel to one another instead of fighting for space. When tended to, he reflected as he climbed carefully out of the driftec, the luxuriant open space between the buildings must have been some long-dead horticulturalist’s pride.

Despite their innate cultural sensitivity, in establishing their base camp the Myssari had opted for practicality over preservation: the plant growth occupying the center of the park had been vaporized to clear an open space.

To Ruslan’s eyes the outpost was substantial. In typically orderly Myssari fashion there were well-defined locations for vehicle storage, maintenance, living quarters, research, and much more. As his companions disembarked, other Myssari were busy with smaller driftec, unloading supplies from secondary vehicles. An unusually squat Myssari ambled over to greet them, his stout physique lending him an unflatteringly insectoid appearance. Introductions were made. Project supervisor or not, San’dwil could not keep at least one of three eyes from constantly straying toward the only non-Myssari present.

“It’s all right.” Even when it was expected, Ruslan’s fluent Myssarian never failed to surprise new acquaintances. “I’m used to it.”

San’dwil’s reply was marked by a slight respiratory stumble. “Used to what?”

“Being stared at. Especially by children.” The indirect reprimand ensured that in the future the supervisor would strive to treat the sole human as simply another member of the visiting scientific team.

“Chilly here.” It was the tone of her voice that told Ruslan that Cor’rin was already uncomfortable. He could not tell just by looking at her: the Myssari did not shiver. Along with his companions he had already noted the heavier garb worn by the outpost workforce. “Could you not have found a more climatologically amenable part of the planet on which to base operations?”

“We are here because the human science of Treth is to be found here.” Turning, their host started toward a two-story structure of dull whitish construction foam. It had been poured as a solid; holes for windows and doors had long since been cut out and filled. “Not because we like the weather.”

“I find it quite pleasant.” Ruslan inhaled deeply of the fresh air. “Reminds me of Seraboth.”

Cor’rin bobbed her head, a gesture intended to show what she thought of his opinion. Though there were exceptions, Myssari-settled worlds tended to run hotter and dryer than those that had been favored by humans.

The doubled entranceway admitted them to a heated interior. As opposed to the frenetic commotion he had half-expected to encounter, Ruslan was surprised by the lack of activity. It made sense, though, if one thought about it. Those engaged in research had little time to spare for casual chatter. Good science demanded plenty of silence.

Though he had seen similar displays on Myssar, he was still suitably impressed when San’dwil led them through one door and into an unexpectedly large room. It held little other than a massive dimensional visual of Treth that extended from floor to ceiling. Embedded indicators showed the location of outlying study camps, some of which were situated halfway around the globe. Markers could be enlarged to show where the ruins of human cities and towns had been discovered, as well as which had been investigated and which awaited initial exploration. With a wave of one hand, San’dwil brightened the network of orbiting recorders that were working tirelessly to map the planetary surface in ever increasing detail.

“I did not realize your work here had progressed this far.” Bac’cul did not try to hide his admiration. “You have accomplished a great deal.”

“With such extensive facilities, you must have learned much,” Cor’rin added.

Focusing his attention on her, San’dwil dismissed the praise with a wave of two arms. “You asked why despite the less than convivial climate we chose to place our main base here, and I replied that this was where human science was to be found.” He raised his center leg, then brought the booted foot down emphatically. “Deep beneath our feet, beneath this ruined and overgrown public space from which we had to carefully clear many bones, lies what we believe to be the core processing center for Treth global information. In a modern society all information is readily available to the population, but ultimately there has to be a central storage facility, an origination point. On this world it lies, we think, directly below us.

“Our linguistics specialists have been translating data as fast as the technicians can extract it. Some things wonderful, some depressing, much that is ordinary and of no especial importance.” He paused, glanced at Ruslan, and resumed. “As one would expect, there is in the last days much discussion of the Aura Malignance. The results correlate with what is known from other human worlds, including Seraboth. No explanation, no reasoning, and certainly no solution. Eventually information input ceases, to be followed not long thereafter by the cessation of inquiry.”

An uncomfortable silence ensued that Ruslan felt bound to break. “I don’t suppose that in the general course of doing their work any of your translators happened upon any reference to coordinates for a human-populated world called Earth?”

San’dwil’s mouth twisted as much as was possible for a Myssari. “It peers no toplift to me, but as I am responsible for keeping the entire scientific program on Treth functioning, not to mention keeping the scientists functioning, I might easily have heard or seen multiple references. To me such fragments of new knowing are like seeds in the wind: important no doubt, but dispersed before I can have a look at them.” He proffered a formal gesture of welcome.

“You have traveled a long way. Come and have something to eat. Later, if it is important to you, I will pass you along to a database specialist and a search can be run for evidence of what you seek.”

“It is important.” Cor’rin walked alongside their hosts. “Finding that particular human world is the reason we have come here.”

San’dwil gestured back that he understood. Meanwhile his eyes questioned the human.