Chapter Six

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Explosions. Virgil opened his eyes onto chaos.

Pull me back from death to a shaking ship. Who’s holding on so tight and waving it about like-

“What?” he screamed. “What was that?” Alarms wailed and air hissed. Doors slammed instantly shut. A triple set of steel shutters dropped over the viewing port. The computer spoke calmly.

“The ship transferred into a region of asteroids. From the damage reports received, determine no diameters larger than five hundred microns were encountered.”

“That’s dust.”

“Teleporting into dust can be dangerous. The density here was one asteroid per twenty cubic meters. You’re lucky one did not appear inside you.”

“Straight. Any damage?” I’ve got to remember that a real death can take me any moment. Nightsheet plays a tricky game.

“Nothing major, though two Nostocacæ tanks are voiding due to ruptures. Repairs are taking place now on damaged electronics.”

“How?” Virgil unstrapped and signaled the instruments to pull back. “Robots?”

“Yes, and switching to redundant equipment in severe cases.” The computer spoke rapidly for a moment, filling him in on the current status of every piece of damaged equipment.

Babble on, Masterson. Build a tower of words. “All right. I get the picture. Have you found any planets yet?”

“No. Detect a radiant source at roughly one point oh-six astronomical units from Beta Hydri. It reads as a meteor swarm.

There is something unusual about it, however.”

Virgil rose from the chair and made his way to the viewing port. He pressed a few buttons on the console and the shutters opened. Before him blazed a star almost identical to the Sun as seen from the orbit of Venus. The viewing port’s protective shading made it seem dimmer than it was.

“Say, how far away are we?”

“Just under four light minutes from the surface.”

“Wasn’t that cutting it close?” Trying to burn me up, stop my plans? Where’s your loyalty to Master Snoop? Has everyone sold out to Nightsheet?

“Calculations can’t be exact at interstellar distances. Again, feel lucky you aren’t dead.”

Virgil kicked off and sailed toward the exit hatch. “I’m going to get changed. I sweated comets on the last transfer.”

“It’s not as if you’re leaving. Voice can follow you quite well.”

As Virgil floated down the hallways toward his sleeping quarters, the computer’s voice seemed to jump ahead and fall behind him, broadcasting from various speakers along the route.

“Why don’t you ever say ‘I’ or ‘me’ or any other personal pronouns?”

“Use ‘you’ and ‘we’ and others.”

“You never refer to yourself.” He rounded a corner and maneuvered into his room.

“Have no self.”

“You said you could think. How many synapses do you have?”

“Eleven billion, five hundred thousand in neural net, plus peripheral linkups.”

“Are you capable of independent action?”

“Yes.”

“Then you have a self.”

“Can’t change basic syntactic programming.”

“Too bad. It’s hard on the ears.” He stripped off his trunks and threw them toward a bulkhead, where they softly impacted and remained. He pulled on a new pair and looked in the mirror. His hair clung in greasy clumps like a paint brush partially cleaned. They look like snakes, viperizing my head.

“How long have we been away from Earth, subjective?”

“Five hours, twenty-three minutes.”

So short a time. Earth has aged twenty years and I don’t even feel hungry. Well, I feel a different hunger.

“Virgil, there is something strange in that meteor swarm.”

“Don’t be coy. What’s wrong?”

“Am getting a pulsating neutrino flux from somewhere near the center of mass.”

“Neutrinos. That’s-” Virgil searched his memory of a moment. “That’s atomics. Fusion.”

“It’s a fusion source that turns on and off.”

“A signal?” Virgil combed at his hair, tried to keep it from drifting outward, then gave up and replaced the tethered comb in the drawer and snapped it shut. He checked himself out. I wonder where I got that? He touched the shoulder burn and winced. You flew down a corridor when the roar was too loud for you to fight. That’s right. You slid. Whoever ran me while I hid should take better care of me.

“A very easily decipherable signal. A three second burst followed by a half second burst, then a one second burst, four second burst, one second burst, five second burst, nine seconds, two seconds, six seconds-”

“I get the picture. Pi. Well, we can figure that whatever is signaling us has ten fingers.”

“And uses terrestrial seconds.”

“Exactly?”

“Plus or minus ignition delays of twelve nanoseconds.”

Virgil put his mouth on the drinking fount sticking out of a wall and took a long draught. He swallowed, rubbed a finger over his lips and said, “How far away is it?”

“Thirty-five light seconds but decreasing slowly because we have not matched velocities yet.”

“We can’t teleport into a meteor swarm!”

“Whatever caused that meteor swarm to become a radiant source also blew a hole in the center of it. Everything is moving outward from the signal at about twelve klicks per second. Doubt that even much vapor or gasses are left behind.”

“Can you detect any radioactivity from the swarm?” Why did I ask that? Who’s directing this inquiry? That other man they put in my head, Baker-Jord Baker. Are you asking?

“-indicates only a mild increase over background radiation. Do detect a relatively larger than normal amount of free positrons and other leptons.”

“I don’t like it.” Why not? I don’t know. It just seems wrong.

“Agreed. Suggest we transfer in some distance from the signal and close in on engines.”

“While receiving on all wavelengths and with me in the battle station.”

“Suggest Ring One Superstructure Two-Center.”

“Right. See you there in a few minutes.”

Virgil made his way to the rear of Ring One, using the hand straps and grips with swift, cautious skill. It’s all economics, isn’t it Wizard? Minimize risk to maximize profits. I don’t think anyone who would leave a beacon like that is trying to trap witless Earthlings. It must be another human being. Except… why no other message?

He found the lift to the superstructure. It had been designed for “down” being aft, and hence did not go “up” to the superstructure, but “down” a slope. Virgil strapped into a seat and pressed the yellow button on the arm rest. The car sprung into life, its acceleration mild but just enough to shove his head against the cushions. The deceleration followed less than five seconds later.

Why no other message? Drake, ASCII, Morse code, anything. Why just enough to let one human know it has to be from an

other human? Maybe he doesn’t dare say more? He jumped from the vehicle and through a pressure door. Already on the second level, he careened through one more pressure door-this a set of three hatches in tandem-to enter the battle station. He strapped tightly into the command chair and signaled the weapons command console to close in.

Looking through the port, he saw the surface of Ring One and the prow ellipsoid stretch before him dozens of meters below. Beta Hydri burned ahead, casting a harsh wash of light and shadow across the crenellated surface of Ring One. Its main parabolic antenna pointed to port and slightly up from the ship’s midline. Somewhere in that direction lay the signal.

“Match velocity with our destination first.”

“Working it already,” the computer said. “Stand by.”

Master Snoop. “Wait!”

“Holding.”

“Our engine fire can be detected, too. Let me think… Transfer to the far side of Beta Hydri and we’ll do our velocity match there, then transfer to the signal area, a surprise attack.”