Such fluctuations could lead individual particles to hold vast amounts of energy for brief periods. Under ordinary circumstances, this energy was quickly relinquished, but this did not take away from the fact that, for a moment, the vast amount of energy was there.
This had been understood for centuries. But not until Eschless had anyone found a way to directly stimulate subatomic particles to high-energy states. Eschless’s breakthrough was this: You excited the particles in a small region of space into achieving, simultaneously, quantum fluctuations toward the highest levels of energy. You then stole this energy and directed it—to an engine. Thus, you reaped the moments of highest energy and let the universe itself worry about keeping the energy balance sheets in order. Behind this engine, as it moved through space, was a permanent eruption of new particles, forced into existence by the huge energy deficit left in the ship’s wake. The new particles were “brought to life” to counteract the actions of the ship’s drive. The engine that accomplished this was called the Eschless Funnel. It stimulated the fluctuations, funneled away the highest moments of energy, and then moved along its way.
That was where things got tricky, because the amount of energy created by such a system turned out to be nearly infinite, and infinity was an odd thing. When you built a ship based on the Eschless Funnel, it had a theoretically infinite capacity for motion. The universe, however, did not allow for infinites. So the ship, technically, was not moving through space in the classic fashion. It was moving in a parallel stream, the stream of the infinite, where traditional physical barriers did not apply. This stream was still within the physical universe, but it was like a small enclave, with a different government and different statutes. The speeds they could reach in this stream, while not infinite, were far greater than the speed of light.
All of this knowledge had gone into the Champion, the first such ship to carry people. The Champion was operating perfectly. They had been traveling at super light speeds for three months. They were now close to their point of arrival, and the Engineer was preparing the Champion to shift phases and move back into the normal stream of space, back through the light barrier into relatively slow speeds.
The Engineer ducked down a side passage, which led at a downward slope to the machine room. The hum of the engines was louder here. Around him on all sides, just beyond the walls, were the guts of the ship’s drive, the complicated city of coils and pipes and crystalline throughways, all working in harmony.
My ship is the naughty child who steals the cream off the top of the milk, the Engineer thought, taking the very best for herself. He couldn’t have been more proud.
He emerged into the machine room. This room was like a great switchboard. Here many of the systems met and made energy exchanges. This was the transfer hub between the raw energy that propelled the engines and the tamer energy that was directed to various internal areas of the ship.
The man who tended this area was called the Mechanic, and he stood in front of the bank of readouts and manual override switches, which were arrayed along the far wall of the room. The Mechanic had the gray skin and hair of Herrod’s eastern provinces.
“Hello, Mechanic,” the Engineer said as he moved into the room.
“Hello, sir,” the Mechanic replied, not glancing at him, but keeping his eyes fixed on the readouts.
“Is your checklist complete?”
“Yes, sir. Here.”
The Engineer examined the Mechanic’s list, which clearly displayed that every item in the machine room had been carefully examined and tested. “Excellent,” he said, a bit surprised the man had finished so quickly. He walked over to the bank of switches and began a spot check. It was just a matter of protocol, but after a few minutes, he found something wrong. A set of valve switches were tight, indicating lack of use. He quickly checked the automated computer log and discovered that these switches had not been cycled for nearly three weeks. Any standard check would require cycling them several times to ensure they were functioning correctly.
“Mechanic, you marked these switches as complete. But they haven’t been examined for weeks.”
“Sir, I’m sure I did examine them. The fault must be with the computer.”
“Mechanic, there is no fault with the computer. How could there be?” The Engineer was feeling bewildered. Why would this man falsely claim to have examined something when he hadn’t? The safety of the entire crew depended on everything working perfectly. Was it merely laziness?
“Sir, I’m sure the switches are in working order.”
“That’s hardly the point, Mechanic.” The Engineer unclipped a portable communicator from his belt and called into the engine room. “Engine Supervisor,” he said into the device, “I need you in the machine room. You’re going to walk the Mechanic through his checklist from beginning to end.”
“Sir, that’s hardly—”
“Mechanic, wait here for the Engine Supervisor to arrive. I’ve got the rest of the ship to examine.”
The Captain sat in a chair in his private ward room, scanning through the Engineer’s reports.
The Engineer was leaning against the opposite wall, looking perturbed. His clipboard hung down by his side, clipped to his belt.
“Captain, he’s just sloppy,” the Engineer said.
“I’m sure it wasn’t intentional,” the Captain replied, his face still turned to his lap, where the reports were spread out, leaving the Engineer with a view of his short blond hair. That hair and his blue eyes had been famous back home. The Captain had earned the right to his current position after being decorated by the Combined Leaders of Herrod for establishing a self-sufficient scientific base in the asteroid belt around Herrod. He had been the perfect choice to head this historic mission, the first manned mission in an Eschless Funnel ship, the first interstellar voyage. They were heading for a planet called Earth, which was eight light-years distant from Herrod.
The Kinley had been studying their neighboring stars for a few generations. Their closest neighbor star was home to a planet named Rheat, on which they had discovered a race of tall, silver creatures called Lucien. The Lucien were, at the time the Kinley’s probe arrived in orbit around their planet, engaged in all-out clan warfare. Considering them a dangerous race, the Kinley had left their probe in orbit to keep an eye on them but had decided emphatically against a manned trip to Rheat.
Instead, Herrod had sent small unmanned observation ships to Earth, the next-closest livable planet. To the amazement of the Kinley, they had discovered that Earth was home to humans. From pictures brought back by their probes, it appeared the Earth humans were nearly identical to the Kinley. This seemed to indicate that there had been a great, galaxy-wide seeding of the human race at some distant point in history. It was only natural to want to examine these humans and the cultures they had developed. They had immediately begun plans for a manned mission to Earth.
The crew of the Champion were scientists for the most part, and their goal was simply to study this new planet and its life-forms. It was a peaceful mission, and they planned for more to follow within four years. It was hoped that Earth would enable scientists of all disciplines to learn more about Herrod by comparing it to a similar planet.
“It doesn’t matter if it was intentional or not, Captain,” the Engineer said. “The Mechanic’s job is vital to the ship. Sloppiness can be fatal. He did a better job when the mission first started, but lately—”
“Aren’t you blowing this a little out of proportion? It was a few switches. And as you said, they were in working order, even if he hadn’t tested them.”
“Captain, I don’t want him on post.”
The Captain could see that the Engineer was seriously annoyed. That was not good. The Engineer was possibly the single most valuable member of the crew, aside from the Captain himself. The Captain had recruited him for this mission because he was considered by many to be the most brilliant living scientist on Herrod. Aside from his understanding of the Eschless Funnel and
related physics, he held over two hundred patents on other scientific techniques. The Engineer was a wealthy man back home, but he had been excited enough to cast his lot with this mission, even bringing along his wife, a renowned doctor.
The Captain knew the Mechanic had a way of irritating people, and he frequently found himself smoothing over such difficulties. The Mechanic was not a bad man, however, merely hard to deal with sometimes.
“He’s been with me for years, Engineer. I’ll talk to him. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure he understands and is more careful.”
It was sometime later that the Captain called the Mechanic to his ward room.
The man showed up within minutes, his gray face looking tired, his coveralls smeared here and there with grease.
“Mechanic.” The Captain greeted him warmly and gestured for him to have a seat. There was tea in a pot, and the Mechanic poured the Captain and himself a cup each.
The Captain had known the Mechanic since his earliest years in the space services on Herrod. The Mechanic had been in charge of the shuttle that ferried the Captain from Herrod to the asteroid belt during his years establishing a colony there, and he had served with the Captain on a dozen other missions. They were not exactly friends, for the Captain was certainly the senior of the two, but the Captain felt they were as close to being friends as two men in their relative positions could be.
“Oh, that’s very good tea, Captain,” the Mechanic said, leaning back in his chair and smiling as he sipped the hot, sweet liquid.
The Captain had brewed the drink himself. Making the perfect pot of tea was one of his special talents, something he never relegated to an assistant, and the Mechanic’s compliment pleased him.
“Tell me about the crew, Mechanic,” the Captain said after he had breathed in the aroma of the tea and taken several sips from his own cup. “What’s the general tone as we approach deceleration?”
“Good, I think, Captain. There is nervousness, of course, for who really knows what it will be like when we land? But they will follow your lead. They look to you to learn what their own reactions should be. They trust you.”
“Good, because I’m nothing but excited.”
“Then they’ll be excited,” the Mechanic said. “Especially when these damned checklists are done and we are allowed to get on with our jobs.”
“I heard you had a bit of an incident with the Engineer.”
“We’re all chafing a bit under his minute examinations, Captain. What can you expect?”
“Was there some problem with your station?”
“No, no. Everything’s in working order. But the Engineer has to find something he can order to be fixed. Otherwise, he wouldn’t feel it was his mission.”
The Captain smiled slightly at this. It was true, the Engineer had a proprietary—some might even say arrogant—attitude toward both the ship and the mission. “At any rate, the inspections will be done soon.”
“May the mother be blessed for that,” the Mechanic said, raising his glass and downing the remainder of his tea.
“Until then, you should be more careful.”
“Atmosphere entry in five minutes, twenty-four seconds,” the Engineer called out to the bridge at large. “Captain, I am taking the pilot chair.”
“Yes,” the Captain said, watching the projections in front of him on a foldout screen. He could see their approach line through Earth’s atmosphere.
The Engineer slipped into the low booth positioned at the front end of the Champion’s bridge. The booth had sat unused, except for weekly inspections, since initial take off months earlier. Inside was a chair and an array of controls that differed from others in the surrounding room. This was the chair for piloting the ship through atmosphere.
They had made the shift back into sub–light speeds without incident. For the past two weeks they had been decelerating as they neared their target. They had now been circling Earth for a full day and had chosen their landing site, within easy reach of the first civilization they would study. There was nothing left to do but land.
The Engineer strapped himself into the chair and slid his arms into the control mechanisms, which wrapped around his forearms and had levers for each of his fingers.
“Atmosphere shields, Engineer,” the Captain said.
“Yes, sir.” The Engineer’s left arm moved, sliding the shield lock into place. There was a faint vibration as the shields closed over the entire front portion of the ship, making it aerodynamic for its descent to the planet below.
In a moment, the whole ship began to vibrate. It was a shock after months of perfectly smooth motion, but the crew was prepared; on the bridge and throughout they were strapped into landing chairs.
The Engineer’s fingers and arms were manipulating the controls, guiding the ship through the window he saw projected before him, guiding it to a safe trajectory through the upper layers of atmosphere and then onto a dwindling heading that would take them to their target landing area.
“Stratosphere cleared,” the Engineer said softly, his quiet voice being carried directly to the Captain’s ear, just as the Captain’s was to his.
“Stratosphere cleared,” the Captain repeated.
The shaking abated as the ship adjusted to its new medium and began to brake.
“Course set and locked, Captain,” the Engineer said.
The ship made a long, long, falling arc through the atmosphere for several hours, until, as they approached their destination, they were only a few miles from the surface.
As the ship entered the final stage of flight, its engines released a great blast of heat and light, diffusing the excess energy still left over from the Eschless Funnel drives.
On the ground below, city-dwellers, farmers, artisans, noblemen, and servants living along the Nile River turned their eyes to the sky and caught a glimpse of a large metallic bird with a taillike fire and a cry like thunder splitting the heavens.
The survey crew had arrived.
CHAPTER 6
One Year Ago
The last curtain of gray rolled back, and Pruit opened her eyes in the biofluid of her crib. She was awake again. And this was year seventeen.
She brought her eyes into focus as the biofluid began to drain. Niks was not sitting over the crib. This should have been surprising, but in her barely conscious state, all Pruit felt was a sense of relief. He had reverted to regulation waking protocol, she assumed. He was lying in his own crib and waking simultaneously with her. The life-systems monitoring computer was controlling the cribs automatically, just as it should. But why now? she wondered, as full consciousness began to return. Why now after seventeen wakes?
The plantglass slid back, and the colder air of the ship washed over her. The crib’s arms withdrew into the wombwalls.
Pruit grasped the top of the crib with her hands and pulled herself to a sitting position. She expected to find Niks emerging from his crib at the same moment, his hair dark and wet from the biofluid, his face weak but smiling. Instead, she found herself staring at the closed top of his crib.
No. She saw after a few moments that it was not completely closed. The plantglass was slightly ajar.
She felt a surge of panic. Her mind cleared of sleep, and her eyes whipped to the manual controls above Niks’s crib. There were four blue lights glowing on the panel. Blue meant danger. Or malfunction.
Pruit hauled herself to her feet. The final bloodarms, snaking out of the veins of her legs, snapped out of her skin and recoiled against the wombwall with her sudden motion. She steadied herself against lightheadedness, then swung out of the crib and reached for the controls.
She hit the button to retract his glass. The glass did not move. She pushed the button again, holding it in to reset its function. Slowly, the plantglass slid back.
Pruit stared into the crib. Inside was a shell, a husk. Where Niks’s body should have been lying, encased in biofluid and nurtured by the crib’s arms, there was a dry crib and, resting within, a desiccated human f
orm.
Pruit’s legs gave out beneath her, and she fell onto the edge of his crib.
“Blessed Life!” she breathed. “Niks…”
For it was Niks, without doubt. She touched him. His face, despite it’s contorted appearance, was recognizable. His body was as dry as a reed, thin and tiny, all fluid gone, all life gone. One arm was out of place, as though Niks had reached up toward the plantglass, tried to pry it open.
Before Pruit could control her body, she was turning her head aside, and a wave of nausea hit. She retched and threw up the biofluid left in her stomach.
“Central, wake!” she yelled.
“I’m here.”
“Central, Niks is…Review his crib data!”
“The life-systems computer has not given the data to Central yet.”
Pruit clenched her teeth in frustration. The life-systems computer was an autonomous subsection of the Central computer system. It had been designed that way so a malfunction in the overall ship would not necessarily impact the health of the crew.
“Central, override! Tell me what happened.”
There was a brief pause, and then Central spoke. The computer’s voice, usually blandly pleasant, had dropped to a quiet, firm tone. The voice programming would only do that in situations where the data it had to impart, based on the instructions of its programmers, was judged to have potential emotional impact on the crew.