Darkspace Read online

  Leonidas and the rest of the task force were about to attempt the longest voyage of exploration in human history, and they weren’t even certain how far they would be travelling. They had star charts, of course, the result of centuries of detailed telescopic surveys, but once they got more than a couple of dozen light years from the frontier, the data became next to worthless, loaded with assumptions and guesses that may or may not prove out. Normally, a survey ship entering a new system would spend months checking orbits, landing on key planetary bodies, examining everything that might be of interest. A careful, painstaking process. They’d be doing it on the run, perhaps spending less than a day in each system before moving on to the next one, with no thought of covering their flanks or protecting their rear.

  A pair of engineers snapped a salute as she turned a corner, and she returned it with what she hoped was a reassuring smile, struggling to mask her thoughts. One of them looked as though he was still mastering shaving, the other as though she ought to be sitting at home with her grandchildren. Anyone of her age with any qualifications at all, any skill, had risen rapidly through the ranks, regardless of their true command potential. She’d been offered a ship of her own, had instantly turned it down to stay on what had universally become acknowledged as the flagship of the fleet. At her heart, she agreed completely with Admiral Scott. The fleet wasn’t going to win the war. Not once the Exterminators came in with all the strength at their disposal. It was only a matter of time before Earth itself fell, and humanity with it.

  Unless Leonidas and her crew could change the game, and that seemed the longest of long shots.

  She looked back at the two engineers, knowing what they did not. That there was every possibility that all of them would be dead in a matter of weeks, their bodies destined to tumble through the cold eternity of space forever. Under any other circumstances, their mission would never even have been considered, still less approved, but given the alternatives, there seemed little choice. Every scientist and engineer in human space was working on new weapons, new concepts for massive destruction, but such breakthroughs took years, decades, centuries. Not the weeks and months they had before the next attack. The archive of the Folk had provided some assistance, but only in a negative way, a catalog of that long-dead people’s failures. They hadn’t even destroyed one ship, not in all the years of their war. And their technology had been centuries ahead of humanity, though they lacked the aggressive, offensive instinct that had provided Leonidas with both of its victories thus far.

  She turned another corner, walking down the corridor to the expanded Science Lab, placing her hand on the security palmprint to provide access. In what seemed almost like another life, she had once been a Science Officer, a position that no longer existed in the rapidly expanding war fleet; she’d kept the old responsibilities as Executive Officer both for want of anyone else to undertake them and because, deep inside, it represented the reasons she’d joined the Fleet in the first place. Not for war, though she’d known what putting the uniform on meant, but to see what was out there, out in the dark. In another time she would have exulted in the adventure they were about to undertake. Instead she was dreading it.

  Inside the lab, the staff labored to complete their own preparations, testing last-minute additions to the equipment and frantically installing software updates while their proximity to Proxima Station made it simple. Before, Leonidas had only had a single scientist, Professor Belinsky. Now there was a full staff, scientists and technicians ready to analyze and study anything they came across, with more over on Herodotus, working in that ship’s cavernous interior.

  “Commander?” an officious-looking Nobel laureate named Hunter said, ambling over to her. “These facilities are woefully inadequate. I’m going to need far more access to the ship’s mainframe than you have currently provided, not to mention a private office for myself. I can’t work in these conditions.”

  “I suggest you try, Professor,” she replied. “We’ve already got the junior officers hot-bunking to save on space, and we’ve got eight enlisted to a bunkroom instead of four. Frankly, you’re already in luxurious conditions as it is.” Before the cyberneticist could protest, she added, “In terms of the processing power, that’s on an as-need basis. We’ve got some spare capacity, but I’m not going to authorize it being permanently signed over to anyone. If you need it for a specific purpose, ask.”

  “He’s just empire building,” a short, wiry figure with pepper-grey hair replied.

  “I hope not,” Novak said. “The only empire on this ship belongs to the Admiral. Then Rochford, then me. Get it?”

  “Ignore him,” Belinsky said, walking over to her. “He’s just homesick. This is the first time the old bastard’s left Oxford in ten years and change.” He looked around, then said, “Can I speak to you privately for a moment?”

  “As long as it is just a moment, Professor,” she replied. “I was just coming down to make sure you were ready to go. We’re scheduled to break orbit in ten minutes.” Shaking her head, she added, “This looks like about the same not-so-organized chaos on the other decks, but…”

  “We’re ready, Commander, don’t worry about us. Most of this can be done while we’re in transit, and we’re not going to be leaving explored space for at least a week, at least on the current flight schedule. It’s about that I want to talk to you.” He walked over to his cramped office, waiting for her to come in before locking the door behind him, and continued, “We found another half-dozen hidden Folk sites in the last sweep. All of them with new Godelized codes.”

  “I read the report. Nothing in the first five…”

  “It was the sixth that was extremely interesting. I only finished decoding it on the flight out here. It consisted largely of specifications and designs for a guidance system, one capable of operating autonomously over extraordinarily long distances. Intergalactic, potentially.”

  “Autonomously? That’s nothing new.”

  “For hundreds of thousands of years?” Shaking his head, he added, “It’s not my field, of course, but it’s going to revolutionize hardened electronics.” He paused, then said, “Some of the notation suggest that it was used just before they lost the war, some sort of secret project. We’re talking about a sub-light craft. Such a craft has had time to go a long, long way.” He paused, then added, “About the sort of distances we’re talking about for the ship we’re meant to be heading out to meet.”

  Taking a step forward, Novak said, “Professor, just what are you trying to say?”

  “That I’m a lot less certain of what we’re going to find when we get to our destination than I was. My assumption had been that the Folk were essentially employing a form of time travel, flying as close to the speed of light as possible in order to reduce the relative time involved way, way down. There are a hell of a lot of problems involved with that idea, if we’re talking about a ship large enough to keep a civilization going.”

  “Then a sleeper ship, perhaps,” she replied.

  “You’re forgetting your physics, Commander.” Reaching for a datapad, he said, “This design would work for at least half a million years, perhaps two or three times that. Long enough that there simply hasn’t been time to determine whether it could exceed its designed lifespan. Any ship travelling close to the speed-of-light wouldn’t need to last anything like that long. The subjective time of such a journey might only be a couple of centuries. Our guidance systems could manage for that long, if they had to. We sent wormhole probes out on century-long journeys before we worked the kinks out of the antimatter rocket.”

  Glancing at her watch, Novak said, “Professor, in less than five minutes we will be breaking orbit, heading out on a journey that could take months. Maybe up to a year, based on the supplies we’ve got. A journey based on information that you provided, that we’re betting the future of all mankind upon. If there is some reason why this mission is going to fail before we even leave the starting gate, then I think we need to know about that ri
ght away.”

  “There’s something out there,” he replied. “I just don’t know what, not any more. I was assuming that we were going to run into the Folk, that they might have managed to put together some sort of battle fleet, something to help us win, but I suppose that was never realistic.” Cracking a thin smile, he added, “We’re more likely to head out that way to find a group of refugees, desperate for our help, than anyone who can help us.”

  “If you think that…”

  “I just don’t have a better idea, Commander, and we know there is something out there, something that the Folk wanted whoever located their caches to find. The same encoding was found on another site. It’s almost strange that the Exterminators never knew about it.” He paused, sighed, then added, “Though I suppose that it is just as likely that we’re going to get there and find an enemy war fleet waiting for us as soon as we leave the wormhole.”

  “I presume that you haven’t shared any of this happy speculation with the crew.”

  “Of course not, Commander.” He looked down at his desk, and said, “All of this, all of this ancient data, it’s almost overwhelming. I feel as though we’re missing a critical piece of the puzzle, and I can’t work out what it is. Nor can the entire scientific community. The datanet showed contributions from more than a million people before we left Earth orbit, and it’s likely increased still further by now. We’re going to spend the best part of a century just trying to come to grips with the legacy they left us. Maybe that’s why I want to meet one of them, face to face. To explain some of this, provide the information we’re missing. The Rosetta Stone to unlock the secrets of their culture.”

  Shaking her head, Novak replied, “Professor, we’re leaving any moment now. I need something for the Admiral.”

  “I don’t have anything to give you. Only that there’s more going on here than we thought.” He paused, then added, “Though I don’t think the Folk would have risked spreading the information as widely as they did unless they considered it critically important, and by the end, they were totally committed to the destruction of the enemy, even if they couldn’t beat them in time to save their own kind. I very much doubt that humanity could manage the same level of altruism.”

  “What about the rest of our flight path?” she asked.

  Turning to the wall, Belinsky tapped a control, sending a riot of stars flickering in and out on the display, and said, “We could easily spend a decade on our voyage if we wanted, just to check out all of the potential points of interest we already knew about. We’ll find far more along our way. Herodotus is loaded with all the probes we could want, and I’m hoping the Admiral won’t mind if we take a quick glance at a few interesting sites on the way.”

  “As long as it doesn’t delay us, Professor. We’re on a tight schedule.” There was a knock on the door, and a young technician burst inside, clutching a datapad to her chest.

  “Bendix,” Belinsky said with a sigh, “I’m in the middle of…”

  “We hit paydirt, Professor. Big time. I mean, really, really big. It must have been in the archive for years, waiting for someone to run the right sort of analysis, but the exploration programs have been underfunded forever, and we’ve got so much data to interpret, I’m not surprised we missed it. Hell, anyone without the right sort of background wouldn’t have known what to make of it anyway, and…”

  “Breathe, damn it,” Novak said. “Now, what exactly have you found?”

  “Life, ma’am. Intelligent life. No doubt about it. I’ve got confirmation in three levels. The atmosphere has a mix of gases that suggests industrial development. Highly unlikely that anything like that would ever evolve naturally. The biosphere has heated a degree and a half over the last century, in between measurements, and that suggests a technological infrastructure that is doing to its world what we did to Earth. It’s just enough of a baseline to give us something to work with.”

  “What’s the third?” Belinsky asked, turning to Novak. “I’ll go over the data, but if this is correct…”

  “Signals!” the researcher triumphantly said.

  “Wait a minute, they’re signaling us?” asked Novak.

  “No, no, it’s not intentional. They’re flooding the electromagnetic spectrum, just like we did, and they’re shouting loud enough that our detectors are just able to pick it up. It’s not easy, it’s at the extreme limits of our ability, and there’s certainly no way we can decode any of it, but there’s something there, buried in the static.” She smiled, and said, “First contact, at last.”

  “For them, perhaps, but not for us,” Novak replied. “What do you think, Professor?”

  “At first glance, this looks like it might well be the real thing. I’ll need a little while to interpret the data myself, but I trust Bendix’s assessment. The star’s not far from our flight path, either. Just a short detour, two weeks beyond our space.” He turned to her, and said, “You realize the implications of this, I hope.”

  “If we know they’re there, so do the Exterminators,” Novak said with a nod. “Believe me, I get it.” She reached for a wall communicator, tapped a control, and said, “Science Lab to Bridge. I need to speak to the Admiral, in person, right away. It’s urgent.” Looking up at the two scientists, she added, “I think this just became a rescue mission.”

  Chapter 3

  Three weeks. Nineteen systems, each of them as bland and unprepossessing as the last. Deliberately so, chosen by the best astronomers Earth possessed in order to give them the best chance of sneaking out of human space without being detected, on a winding, twisted path that nobody in their right mind would attempt. That had been the goal, and it had worked. No trace of active Exterminator presence along their path, though plenty of signs that their ships had wandered that way at some point in the distant past.

  Scott looked around the bridge, sensing the excitement emanating from the crew. Finding the new alien race, a race that appeared to be on the verge of launching itself into space just as humanity had done centuries before, had been a shot in the arm for morale, had turned what would have been a long, dull journey into the unknown into an exciting adventure. First Contact had been the dream of everyone who had reached out into space since the earliest days of spaceflight. When it had finally arrived, it had come in fire and blood, rather than the peaceful contact humanity had longed for. This time they could get it right.

  Bendix walked onto the bridge, her eyes eager, looking up at the viewscreen before turning to Scott, saying, “I’ve finished the last analysis of the transmissions we picked up in the last system, sir. Good news. They’re dropping in intensity.”

  “That’s good news?” Rochford asked. “I would have expected a steady increase.”

  “No, sir, it means their technology is rising. Our electromagnetic footprint dropped dramatically in the 21st century when we switched over to high-density cable communications. It didn’t go back up again significantly until the establishment of large colonies on the Moon and Mars towards the end of that century. What this means is that they are progressing at about the same rate as us, which means we have some idea what to expect. A spacefaring culture, not a starfaring one.”

  “How near is the wormhole?” Scott asked. “Could they have stumbled across it as we did?”

  “Unlikely,” Chen said, looking up at the scanners. “It’s a good hundred million miles from what we assume to be their homeworld, orbiting a planet that our systems suggest is uninhabitable. A burned-out ball of rock big enough to cause serious problems to the technology of that period. If they are following our example, I’d expect orbital and lunar installations as well as activity in any asteroid belts.” Frowning, he added, “We don’t have enough information on the system to tell for sure, sir. Definitely nine planets, five gas giants in the outer system, but we can’t say how many smaller bodies there might be at this time.”

  “All sensors to maximum active resolution as soon as we emerge,” Scott ordered. “Prepare the First Contact package for
transmission as soon as we work out where their center of government is. We’re not going to sneak into their system like thieves in the night, we’re going to make our presence known at once.”

  “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, Admiral,” Bendix warned. “The psychological trauma…”

  “Anyone out of the atmosphere of their homeworld is going to know that we’ve arrived as soon as we emerge from the wormhole,” Scott said. “If we’re secretive, they may feel threatened, and I have no wish to start an interstellar war today. One of those is more than enough for me, thank you. Anything else I should know?”

  “The situation on their homeworld is evidently deteriorating. Another temperature jump, increased pollutants in the atmosphere, worse than Earth, if I’m honest.” Shaking her head, Bendix said, “They need our help, Admiral. Badly.”

  “Ninety seconds to emergence, sir,” Ensign Cunningham, the veteran at the helm, said. “Orders?”

  “Straight and smooth, Ensign. No rapid moves. Though I want an evasive course programmed in and ready, just in case there’s something we don’t expect waiting on the other side. Lock in a trajectory to take us to our planned system egress point, and initiate when ready.”

  “Aye, sir. Estimated time of transit will be nineteen hours.”

  “We’re not staying?” Bendix asked, frowning. “We could easily spend nineteen months here…”

  “We don’t have nineteen months, Doctor, we don’t even have nineteen days. I might approve a slight increase in that time, but we’re going to have to work on the run. If for no other reason than that I do not want to draw unwanted attention to this system. The Exterminators might be on the way, but I’d rather they focused their attention on humanity for the moment. We can defend ourselves a hell of a lot better than they can, I strongly suspect.”