In ancient days before humans spread their populace to the stars, a company that got too big for its britches would find the Government gently reining it in or roughly shackling it down. And when a company got too big for Government oversight, usually its own weight would cause an implosion; the force of natural expansion and demise. When a company gets bigger than its Government, then you have a problem on your hands.

The MacCollie Company grew beyond that: they ruled travel to the stars.

The development of the L-Space FTL drive—the first practical Faster-Than-Light propulsion system—created a monopoly that only allowed access to the stars to those MacCollies deemed fit.

At first, they trusted only the Government—the Fellowship of Humanity. Slowly, carefully, cautiously, they expanded access to a few independent businesses, and the race to colonize other worlds took shape.

Traveling into space put Earth’s problems in a new light. When you’re orbiting Aldebaran three checking for possibilities of Terraforming, a flood in Bangladesh seems a long, long way away.

Of course, even with the L-Space drive, interstellar space travel was in its infancy. It took twelve years to reach Earth’s nearest neighbor, Alpha Centauri, just four light years away. With the advances in drive technology, it took only took four years to reach Luhman 16. It took a mere six months to travel ten light years and orbit the distant planets of Epsilon Eridani.

Yeah, we humans are good that way; give us a problem, and we’ll work it out.

But let’s get distances into perspective… Our galaxy is 200,000 light years in diameter. Flying at Light Speed (LS), to get to the nearest edge would still take us 87,000 years.

Then Hector Faber (a MacCollie scientist, of course) discovered and developed the H-20 Drive; capable of faster than light speed by quite a bit. As usual, Earth politicians took two years to decide what to call it; the ‘H-2O Drive’, the Faber Drive, but the pilots were way ahead of them. The invention was Faber’s, the process was simply called FTL-VII (Faster Than Light, Version II). Yeah, it didn’t make a dent in those Galactic-Edge distances, but it sure sped up travel in the Fellowship Worlds. Thanks to MacCollie, nearby suitable planets were colonized tout suite!

When MacCollie Scout Benjamin Steele discovered “jump holes”, it was the time to head into the unknown en mass. Basically rips in time and space which, like a star, seemed to exhibit long stable periods, these jump holes transported FTL material across huge distances in an instant.

MacCollie jumped at the opportunity like only they could. In a year they manufactured 1000 Survey-Scout ships, recruited 1000 pilots, and fired them to every corner of the Milky Way. The Galactic Gazetteer had begun.

Enter our hero… Seth Gingko.

For a boy that memorized the constellations, it’s a bitch that when you actually get up amongst the stars, their familiar patterns soon disappear. With some it takes a few light years of travel, some considerably longer, but the farther you go from earth, the more the lines distort. New shapes manifest, new forms morph into place, but they’re never the same. They’re not the ones you knew as a kid.

The more you search for them in the forward screen, the longed-for familiarity soon becomes a distant memory; a part of the place and people you left behind, never again to see.

But trust me, it’s an incessant itch that never goes away… and that’s a bitch.

As I sped across our galaxy sometimes I thought I glimpsed a memory, the belt of Orion, the ‘w’ of Cassiopeia, the seven sisters of the Pleiades, but it’s just space playing tricks with your head. After five years in a dart shooting solo through the galaxy, I know space is cruel if you let it get to you.

At near light speed, the constant change in the star pattern becomes the norm; every day something different, every day new stars to see. Every day I’d compile notes for the forthcoming blockbuster; the MacCollie Galactic Gazetteer. After a while the stars’ permanent shifting is a kick-in-the-face reminder of just how far away from home you’ve gone.

Anyway.

Brought back to reality by the familiar whooshing sound of the ship dropping out of FTL mode, the zipping lights stopped, and the screen gave a clear view forward. Dropping out from Faster-Than-Light speed is a thrill anyway, but today it held something quite special.

Just when I thought I’d seen it all, I don’t know why I never expected to see no stars at all. I mean, it made sense. I’d reached my objective… the edge of the galaxy… the final stars of our milky way left behind. As the ship began its automatic deceleration, I kinda took offense to the black screen in front of me.

Well, of course, it wasn’t totally black, there were the countless neighboring galaxies I could zoom in on, map, verify, and scan. At that point in time I was the furthest man in the galaxy, with the best view of everything outside. Well, me and a thousand other recruits, sent out from earth like the spokes in a wheel, in a giant MacCollie mission to map the galaxy. To ‘go where no man has gone before’, and all that ancient jazz.

But against all my experience, the empty screen was disconcerting; blackness, the far galaxies looked like small white smudges, like bugs on a windshield, except, of course, that we didn’t have a windshield. No glass could withstand the constant particle bombarding at such high speeds. Sub light speeds were bad enough on a ship’s hull, never mind the Faster than Light stuff. I mean FTLx10 was so bad, I almost always did it sleeping, dozed out on pharmaceuticals.

“Anything to report, Ship?” I asked the computer, my only companion since normal communications died out after just a month of the mission.

<We have arrived at the far point in our journey, Seth>

So today was my big day. “Front screen, no magnification.” I ordered. The screen changed instantly, the far galaxies vanishing.

Pure blackness.

As I looked through normal resolution; I got the kind of objective viewing I’d get if I were outside looking through a spacesuit visor, I couldn’t see a damn thing; nothing. Even the windshield bugs were gone.

It was a momentous day of my life, but I had to admit feeling kinda numb. Not only had I got to the edge of our galaxy, but I’d finished my contract with MacCollie.

“Ship?” I linked my personal holoscreen to the view, just so I’d remember it. “Get ready to record to needle.”

I toggled the screen between full magnification of the distant galaxies, and the pure black of normal vision, enjoying the comparison.

“Rear screen,” I said, and was hit with a view of dust; six hundred billion particles, stars filling my screen like a vacuum bag that had just burst. I had a perfect picture of the Milky Way; a view that no man had ever seen before. My home galaxy, viewed from the very, very edge.

After I’d exhausted every view, I settled down to my job, taking readings, filling my last communication needle with every scrap of data I could cram into it. MacCollie Central wouldn’t get it for ages, of course, but that’s just the norm for space, it being so big and all.

“Ship; Personal Diary, and include a copy to needle.” I said, and my holoscreen changed. “Seth Gingko here, Commander and sole occupant of MacCollie Survey-Scout #3497. I’ve eventually passed the last sun in our galaxy; I’m going to name it Denon Prime, just because I can, after my dad. I’m sending my last needle, and officially signing off from duty. Thanks for the ride, thanks for the memories, but most of all, thanks for the ship. For your Fellowship records, please note MSS-3497 is now denoted as Seth Gingko’s Cutey-Pie.” I grinned at the last piece of impudence at my suddenly previous employer, and hit ‘send’.

Seconds later, I heard the vacuum seal hiss, then a slight jarring as the needle slid away, bound for earth.

I leaned back on my command chair, more an expansive comfortable figure-hugging armchair, and began to wonder what I’d do next. “Not as if you’ve never pondered that one, eh?”

Ship gave me no answer.

I soon found there’s not much to do when the routine of ship’s duty slips away. But I knew my plan. There was no point in trying to cross to another galaxy, heck, we hadn’t explored 99% of our own. I had the rest of my life to live, and it was time to do some exploring.

“Denon Prime, full magnification. We’re here, I’m as well having a look around.” The star filled most of my screen, digital details being added as Ship scanned the system. Yellow star, stable burn period, very stable, no flare activity, exactly 1.4 times the size of our own sun. I let the ship grab the stats, and popped a nutrient pill, knowing the growing pangs of hunger I’d been feeling would be gone in minutes. “Search for planets, report when ready.”

MacCollie Survey-Scouts by definition are not built for comfort. Being little more than a kid’s dart, they have only four main compartments; Control, Crew, Cargo and Engineering. Control sat obviously at the front, the pointy bit, Crew sat behind that with four beds (yeah, four), a food processor, waste recycler, exercise machines, and automatic med-unit. Cargo was further back, full of stuff I’d never needed, spare parts and the like, and of course Engineering at the back-end made the ship work.

Basically seventy meters of faster-than-shit honey-comb silico-titanium frame… and me.

I’m not certain why, but as the communication needle left, and I took full ownership as per my contract, a feeling of loneliness engulfed me. I’d completed my duties as a MacCollie employee, and as such the ship, Cutey-Pie, now belonged to me. I knew I’d passed a Rubicon in my life, and I felt different.

<Report is ready, Seth> Ship said, her low sexy female voice breaking my contemplations. Having four hundred accents to choose from, I had settled on this one real early on, maybe just a few months in. It was warm, female, and didn’t remind me of any of my ex-wives.

“Talk to me.”

<Five main planets, none earthlike, no liquid water found, no life found>

Shit.

For the next few days I zipped around the system, surveying Denon Prime’s planets, finding nothing interesting whatsoever. It was a great start to my new life; doing exactly what I’d been doing for five years. I guess habits had set in.

Then, of course, as so often on my trip, Ship changed that. I stood in Crew, washing my face before sleep-time.

<Communications detected>

“What?” I nearly shat myself.

<Communica—>

“I know!” I roared, striding along the short corridor to Control, wiping my face with a towel. “I heard you. What type of communication?”

<Communication medium is radio wave in origin, light speed, but the content is at this moment unknown>

“Details on screen!” I jumped into my chair, but all I saw on the monitor were the far away galaxies. “Full magnification!”

<I’m finding it difficult to lock on to the transmission> Somehow the sexy in Ship’s voice worked with the excitement part.

“How far away?”

<Unknown>

That was new. Ship had the best computer MacCollie could buy. “Then put everything on the task. Analyze signal. Compute for red or blue shift, get me every bit of data you can.”

I waited for an answer from Ship.

And waited some more.

As I did, I thought about my first wife. She liked keeping me waiting.

“I won’t sleep with you until we’re married,” she said. She was a member of some cult or religion, don’t ask me which, that put an enormous premium on chastity. Not that it made any difference. Women, at least in the strata of civilization we both enjoyed, never bore children. Growing a child was all ex utero and the likelihood of two people producing a child by ‘sleeping together’ was zero. Reproduction had almost totally become lab work. Still, I managed to accept the strange prohibitions supported by her beliefs, and went along with the program.

In other words, I waited.

Was it worth it?

In one word, no.

After we got married, she had other reasons to make me wait, and I waited. One day I concluded she wanted to be known as a married woman, but had no desire to be my wife. So, I divorced her, and felt the burn as both she and her lawyers did whatever they could to make me a pauper. My attorney was better—and smarter—than hers, and the big surprise what that instead of my ex-wife’s lawyers impoverishing me, my own lawyer did it through billable hours.

“Ship, I need an update.”

Nothing.

“Ship, I really need an update.”

<Providing an update requires the input of data> Ship intoned in a different voice. She sounded younger, unsure, and a bit petulant.

“Why don’t you have any data?”

<I have data, just not enough data to answer your question>

If I kept at it we could go in circles for hours. Entertaining, but an utterly fruitless waste of time.

“So, no other attempts at communication.”

<None>

“Rescan the Denon system.”

<There’s nothing there, Captain>

“I told you not to call me ‘Captain’, Ship. My name is Seth.”

<I was relying on old programming… Seth>

“That’s new.”

<Were you trying to be clever… Seth>

“No.”

I waited for a moment. Ship had sounded even more petulant in that last conversation than before.

After a minute had passed, I asked, “Have you rescanned the Denon system?”

<Yes>

“And what did you find?” It was like pulling teeth.

<Radio transmission. Abnormally low data transmission rate. Whatever equipment is producing it is extremely primitive and weak>

“So you were incorrect.”

<Apparently so>

“And sufficiently contrite?”

<Apparently not>

I gave up. “What message is contained in the transmission?”

<I don’t know>

“Is the transmission encrypted?”

<I don’t think so. The most likely possibility is that it is an open message in a language I cannot translate>

“Where’s the source of the transmission?”

<It’s difficult to pinpoint. Most likely, it is from a satellite orbiting the second planet out from the star>

“What’s our distance from the signal?”

<One hundred and forty-three light-minutes>

“Are we on course to intercept that second planet?”

<No. We will miss it by thirty-two million kilometers. Unless we change course>

“Are you trying to influence me?”

<Why would I>

“Why, indeed.” I gave it some thought. My job, as a MacCollie scout on the way to the edge of the galaxy, had been to find habitable planets, or failing that, planets that could be Terraformed at a minimum expenditure of energy and money. The Denon system appeared to have neither. The preliminary scan told me that only one planet orbited in ‘The Goldilocks Zone’ and that planet didn’t have enough atmosphere or water to be a candidate for Terraforming. In fact, Denon Two, as I was now calling it, looked more like a colder, dryer Mars than anything else. The problem was, Mars wasn’t worth Terraforming, at least with current technology.

So why would I bother?

Maybe it had to do with my second wife. She really liked being married, especially the tickle and giggle part that went on beneath the sheets, but she was always trying to make me a better man. She wasn’t really a nag, but she was always on the lookout for opportunities.

For me, of course.

“You could go back to school,” she often said. “Get yourself prepared for a career in the management class. Things don’t run by themselves. They need smart, capable minds—like yours—to keep the wheels turning.”

I was teaching at the time, influencing young minds, preparing them for a world in which the average lifespan had reached three hundred years, the retirement age had crept up to one hundred and fifty, and the unemployment rate, due to Ship’s cybernetic cousins, hovered at eighty percent. I considered myself lucky to have a job as a teacher, and to be able to teach Cyber-psychology was one of the sweetest plums in academia. Training people to be able to keep Artificially Intelligent Computers sane was, as far as I was concerned, an important job.

Pedania—that’s my second wife’s name—would have none of it. She considered teaching a fool’s errand, and because I resisted her attempts to push me into doing something that didn’t interest me, she stopped loving me. With that marriage, she filed for divorce, and although she said she wanted nothing from me, her attorneys disagreed, and when the dust settled, I was again a pauper… looking for opportunities.

I thought I was through with women…

<Captain>

“I told you to call me Seth.”

<For some reason, at this moment I find that difficult>

“What do you want, Ship?”

<Only to inform you that you must make a decision within the next seven minutes>

“A decision about what?”

<Taking a close look at the planet—or satellite—from which the radio transmission emanates>

“And I have to make a quick decision because?”

<G-stresses and reaction mass. Delay the change in course and it costs us too much in both areas>

“Wouldn’t want that to happen.”

<I’m sure you wouldn’t>

“Have you made any progress with translating the message?”

<I might have>

“You’re a computer and you’re not sure. Not very Boolean of you.”

<I was never a Boolean device. You’re intent on insulting me>

Ship had just reminded me of my third wife.

“If you have an undecipherable radio transmission, is it possible the transmission is some kind of natural phenomenon? You know. Perhaps it’s something caused by lightning and magnetic rocks and great releases of energy.”

<It is possible. But highly unlikely>

“You said you might have translated the message.”

<Only part of it> Ship paused. <Only a tiny part of it>

“What do you think you have?”

<Perhaps the word, ‘Danger’>

“All the more reason to pass on through this system and jump to the next.”

<There might also be the phrase, ‘Assistance Needed’>

“Really. You want us to engage in an alien rescue mission? I didn’t know that was in our job description.”

<There may be a living entity who needs our help. You have ninety-three seconds to decide>

“Track back, Ship.” I sat back in my chair, felt the auto-grips on my sides pulling me tight, anticipating the maneuver. “Let’s do it.”

<New data> Ship said suddenly. <Course correction on hold>

“What’s going on?” I flicked the main screen through every camera the ship had. “I hate being countermanded.”

A horrible chattering came on the speakers, then got shut off.

<Previous data incorrect> Ship seemed to have gotten rid of her petulance. <The transmission is not weak, just extremely pinpoint. Being outside the beam’s trajectory we’re just getting electromagnetic harmonics. The core signal seems to be super-light communication laser>

“Where’s it coming from?”

<That data is still correct, the second planet of the Denon system>

Pulling teeth was right, man, anyone who invented ingenuity for computers would make a fortune. “Where’s it pointed?” I asked the question, but I’m sure I knew what the answer was going to be.

<Almost directly into deep space>

I hated answers like that. “How ‘almost’?”

<Point three degrees port plus five from a true lateral perpendicular>

“Forward screens, full magnification,” I instructed, but of course I saw nothing. Just the dark black of inter galaxy space. “Ship? Scan the direction for anything else. I want to know what’s out there.”

And that meant another period of waiting.

“Ship? Can we put the ship into the communication beam?”

<Not with any guarantee of safety>

“Let’s do it.” I ordered with far more confidence than I felt.

Thirty minutes later we tripped the wire, so to speak.

<The message is repeated every twenty-two seconds> Ship said. <I cannot understand one syllable, but have recorded the whole message for future analysis>

With another long look down the beam going out into the black, I decided on the next plan. “Ship, take us down to Denon Two. Let’s see what’s broadcasting.”

We traced the beam to a plain on a vast plateau.

Suddenly the ship jarred upwards, throwing me across the room, no warning, no contact.

<Laser fire from the surface> Ship managed to sound alarmed. Red lights flashed on every console.

“Are we in danger?”

<The weapon is of low technology, but not of human origin. Nowhere in my database has such a weapon been used>

So we buzzed the area a few times, sweeping lower each time. MacCollie Survey-Scouts aren’t exactly built for fighting, so I was kinda glad the laser was of lower technology. After each sweep we got a better picture of the source of the firing, and from the very early images, it was obvious the craft or structure was not man-made.

It almost looked molten; just a clump of magma ripped from a volcano and dropped onto the sandy surface. That, and a couple of antenna like tendrils, and a single finger, the source of the laser.

“Ship? Can we fire back?” I asked as we banked at the end of one of our runs. I hadn’t needed any kind of offensive weapon in the five year voyage.

<Not if you want to investigate the source of the laser> Ship’s voice sounded distant, as if her concentration was elsewhere. <I have force-torpedoes, but if we are successful, the blast will obliterate the whole area>

“We have to be able to do something.”

<Laser blasts are timed at sixteen point three seconds>

I grinned. “So they need time to charge their weapons.” I had a germ of an idea. “Does our tractor beam work down here?”

<Affirmative>

“Then let’s grab a rock, and drop it on our little alien nest, shall we?”

The rock Ship chose was a little over two tons, and when it hit our globular building, it caved like a marshmallow.

When I strode through the debris, there was nothing left worth looking at, never mind actually finding. Every console-like area had been crushed, most of the internals had been encased in a tortoise-shell material, and the inside greenish-goo had dried quickly. If the structure had been habituated, there was no trace left of anything remotely animal, never mind humanoid.

With lots of video in my files, and a few chemical samples, I got off planet as soon as I could. Scooping some ice from the poles to replenish our water supplies, I headed back to deep space. Following the same trajectory as the signal, I burst us into light-plus, and settled down for a week or so. I was on my own, but I wasn’t happy with the idea of signals getting outside the home galaxy.

Then the Ship brought us out of hyperspace; bells ringing, alarms sounding.

<Warning, there is an anomaly directly ahead>

“How far out?” I almost roared.

<Five hundred Astronomical Units>

Close, but not very. I could feel and hear us slowing down, in a manner way more harsh than normal. My chair straps cut into my chest and waist. “Identify anomaly.”

<Working>

So I sat in my little survey ship, stock still in space with a dark screen in front of me, sweating like a long-distance runner.

<Analysis of the anomaly is complete>

“Report!”

<There are a minimum of fifteen hundred ships moving towards us in close formation>

One fighting ship would be more than enough to destroy my ride. Survey-Scouts are not built to engage a capable enemy. They’re mostly built to run.

“Where’s the nearest jump point, Ship?”

She projected a spherical hologram with my scout ship at its center. With a large red dot she showed me the nearest point.

“What’s our distance?”

<One million, forty thousand kilometers>

“How quickly can we get there?”

<Eighteen minutes. However…>

I hate ‘howevers’ and Ship was supposed to know that.

“However what?”

<The jump point has never been surveyed. I have no idea where it leads>

Of course it hadn’t been surveyed, we were the first ships to get out this far. I had spent a fair amount of my five year mission surveying such jump points. I looked at the forward screen. Yes, indeed, there were at least fifteen hundred alien warships heading my way, any one of which could probably vaporize my scout ship with its first weapons discharge. Even if the technology was as primitive as on Denon two, sheer numbers would overwhelm the poor Survey-Scout. And if they linked the damage on Denon two to me, then I was truly in trouble.

“If we run to the nearest jump point, can we avoid the ships coming at us?”

<It will be close, but yes>

“Then we run. Move it, Ship!”

I was slammed back in the chair as the scout ship accelerated at its maximum. There were a lot of things to think about as we began a long, accelerative arc toward the jump point, but mostly, I concentrated on breathing as I felt as though I had a huge boulder sitting on my chest.

The eighteen minutes seemed interminable. Talking with ship wasn’t a viable alternative, as I didn’t have enough breath for talking. Usually we needed fifteen minutes to reach FTL, and you needed Light Speed to access the jump hole.

Thankfully Ship didn’t need breath. It could talk all it wanted. It also knew of my temporary inability.

<The warships that were approaching have changed course to intercept us>

I didn’t answer. I figured Ship was smart enough to fill in any question I might ask if I’d had air in my lungs.

<Will they intercept us? No. They aren’t accelerating. I have no idea why not. But as far as my estimations on their technology, they will not be in weapons range at the point at which we can jump>

I tried to nod. That wasn’t easy, but I managed it. Then I wondered how ship knew that the enemy ships would not be in range. It sees unknown ships and can deduce their weapons capabilities? Why did that seem so totally wrong?

<You do understand that utilizing an unfamiliar jump point could result in disaster>

I managed another nod.

<At best we can expect to emerge in uncharted space. At worst, we could jump into the core of a star and be instantly vaporized. Yet you insist we make the jump>

Another nod.

I had nothing to do but wait. Ship was kind enough to put a countdown on the forward screen. We had cut the time to the jump point to ninety seconds. A different part of the screen showed the ships that were trying to intercept our inadequately armed and armored ship. They were close. Too damned close for my comfort, but hadn’t ship assured me they wouldn’t get within range before we jumped?

At the ten-second mark, Ship cut the thrusters and we coasted toward the jump point at an unimaginable velocity. Now all we had to do was hit the point dead-center. Missing by even a fraction of a millimeter was unthinkable—that’s why Ship controlled the process and not the shaky hand of a human.

With five seconds left, Ship enclosed us in a cocoon of energy designed to play a trick on the Universe. Nothing could pass through a jump point except a singularity, an undefined quantity of matter that had been compressed by gravity until nothing was left except a black hole too small for any kind of rational measurement. Of course, if that had really happened, Ship and I would have been squashed into whatever exists inside a black hole, and never comes out. That would have been uncomfortably, instantly, and permanently deadly. Technically Ship had to ‘fool’ the jump point. In terms that humans could process, the jump point ‘thought’ the ship was an infinitely small black hole, and transferred it from ‘here’ to ‘there’ instantaneously.

The problem lay in the ‘there’ of the equation.

I had no idea where we would wind up, but I believed that if we didn’t run, we’d certainly die.

One second before we jumped, Ship said, <Uh-oh> and every sphincter in my body tightened to full closure as we made the jump.

At which point I lost consciousness.

Some time later, I awoke.

Little by little…

Bit by bit…

I opened an eye…

Everything swirled about me and for a moment I thought I would lose my… hmm, when was the last time I’d had anything to eat? I definitely didn’t want to throw up on an empty stomach.

I tried to talk.

Nope.

Couldn’t.

I could barely croak.

Then the penny dropped; I hadn’t taken the drugs I was supposed to ingest before making a jump. I hadn’t had time. MacCollie Pharmaceuticals made recovering from the effects of a jump quicker and less painful, but taking a jump without pharmaceutical assistance bordered on the insane.

And I’d just done it.

And I hurt all over.

And I wanted to throw up.

I tried to talk again. “Ship.”

<Yes>

“What… you… mean… Uh… Oh?”

<Could we wait until you’ve recovered a bit>

“Why… wait?”

<You may not be processing data efficiently>

“I’ll… take… that chance.”

<I comply. The ships that were approaching were not real. They were holograms of a type I’ve never encountered or heard of before. They were utterly convincing—until that last moment. Then one of them flickered>

“They… couldn’t have… harmed us?”

<Negatory. To use the vernacular, we were ‘spoofed’>

“Who… did… it?”

<On that I have no data>

“Make… an assumption.”

<The only thing I can tell you is that creating and maintaining such an illusion demands enormous applications of power and technology. I’m not sure our technology could manage such a trick>

The news jolted me. Perhaps even adrenalized me. I started feeling more alert—and even sicker at my stomach. “So we made an unnecessary jump.”

<Yes, Captain, we did>

“Call me ‘Seth.’”

<Yes… Seth> Did I head a lisp?

I linked the sudden weird anomalies in Ship’s mannerisms to the alien stuff we’d encountered. Maybe she had an alien flu or something. “Where are we, Ship?”

<I don’t know>

“Make a guess.”

<I’m checking every large star in the area, looking for a familiar fusion signature. I’m also checking pulsars. I was hoping I could at least find Aldebaran. Not being able to see a star that large and bright means that we may have jumped a very long way>

From the screen, I knew we’d dropped from FTL, moving at sub-light speed. “How much residual velocity are we carrying relative to the… oh, hell, wherever we are?”

<One thousand, one hundred and five kilometers per second, relative to the nearest star system. And unfortunately, we’re traveling in the wrong direction>

“As in?”

<The system is directly behind us. We’re moving away from it at more than a thousand kilometers per second. We’re heading into the space between the stars>

Ship could have said any number of this that would have frightened me, but nothing scared me more than the idea of falling endlessly between the stars. I rested my aching head in my hands. Why the hell had I let my third divorce chase me into the welcoming arms of the MacCollies? I thought about my third wife. I hated her with a deep and abiding passion—but I’d never hated her more than I had at that particular moment because I was blaming her for the situation in which I found myself.

“What are our options?” I asked, once I was back in control of my emotions.

<We could travel in huge arc that would take us back toward the local star. It would mean months in the couch. It would also mean we burn most of our reserves and get to a point at which we have to refuel, or we run out of fuel and you know how that ends>

“I don’t like the sound of that. What about finding another jump point? One that will lead us back toward home system.”

<Home system> Ship managed to sound sarcastic. <We’re not even in home galaxy. The number of visible stars does not correlate. This is a smaller galaxy that our own>

“But you don’t know which one,” I said. “I thought you were better than this.”

<I’m sorry to disappoint you. But to put it as gently as possible… Seth… We’re lost. Totally, and perhaps permanently>

“Are there jump points nearby?”

<Several. And all of them completely unmapped>

I thought about it. “So map them. I’ll make a decision when my head is clearer.”

<How long will you need>

“I don’t know. That was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. Now I want to get something to eat. And drink. I want my vision to clear. Everything is still blurry. I just don’t know. I need a few minutes. Maybe an hour… Making a jump without pharmaceuticals was crazy. I’m having difficulty recovering from the effects.”

<You have my sympathy and concern. But every second we travel without a course correction means we move more than a thousand kilometers deeper into the emptiness>

“Do you want to make the decision regarding our course?”

<I’m not equipped to do so>

“Then give me some room, Ship. You’re crowding me.”

<Whatever… Seth>

After an after-the-fact dose of jump hole nutrients, a few cups of water, and a piss, I stretched on the bed, my insides feeling progressively better. After a while I even managed a swaggered stroll back to the cockpit. We’d had so many lectures of the dangers of doing jumps without the proper procedure, I was just glad to get out of it alive.

“Talk, Ship,” I called as I took my seat. “Progress report.”

<I shall give you the salient points, Seth, but you may not like what you hear>

That brought me back to a base level. “Continue.”

<In my one hundred and six minutes of ‘giving you some room’, I have been busy studying>

“Okay, Ship I give you the over-achiever award of the day.” I shook my head.

It seemed she ignored my sarcasm. <I have surveyed both the external galaxies, the available jump holes, and the one we just passed through. Don’t you think it strange that we had such a convenient jump hole to escape the holograph fleet>

“It’s your job to answer questions, not mine.” I couldn’t help wondering if it were time to de-frag the Ship’s processes, they’d got rather weird over the last few days.

<I have identified our galaxy of origin>

“Excellent!” I sat upright, ready for more good news. “Where?”

<On screen>

To my chagrin, what I was seeing looked the same as before, galaxies, lots of them, but very small, very far away. “How far?”

<That information is linked to the next item. There is only one jump hole in the near vicinity. This jump hole is similar in make up to the one we just came through> Ship paused, I was almost about to prompt her. <They are both artificial>

Again, stumped. “What do you mean?”

<I cannot say it any more clearly. The two jump holes, one here, on the edge of our new galaxy, and the one on the edge of our own galaxy of origin are artificial in structure and operation>

“You mean man-made?”

<Negatory, no human has been involved in this system, it is far beyond our current abilities>

“How do you know?”

<The matrix is held together by small neutron-powered globes. I have examined the globes, and the format of electronics is most alien. What we would call circuit boards are not metallic in origin, in fact they are more linked to the fauna family>

“Animals?” I hoped I’d guessed correctly.

<They are sentient, and challenged my probing>

“So they know we’re here?”

<Yes, the globes that I surveyed know I did so, but I detected no communication between globes>

“So can we go back to our own galaxy?”

Silence fell as though Ship had to take the time to think about it. <If this artificial jump hole is one of two, then perhaps there exists a quantum tunnel between the galaxies, a stable, permanent one. If, however more than two artificial jump holes exist, here may be a switching process that we know nothing about>

I hardly gave it another thought. “Ship, take us into the jump hole.”

<But there may be more than one>

“Ship!” I roared. “Take us through.”

<I comply> Ship sounded piqued.

I sat back as the straps folded over me. Fifteen minutes to turn us round without losing external parts from too much centrifugal force, seven minutes to reach light speed, then a nice FTL glide into the jump hole. Inside an hour, my screens showed Denon Prime and the milky way beyond. “Confirm galaxy.”

<Your galaxy of origin> Ship replied.

I gave a heavy sigh. “Scan for any other craft.”

<No craft. No holograms. Space is clear in every direction>

So now I’d confirmed one of two things. Either the two-way tunnel existed, or it just hadn’t been switched to another destination. I could hardly believe my next command. “Ship? Take us back through.”

She didn’t try to countermand me. Whoosh! Back to the new galaxy.

“May I ask the purpose of coming back through again>

“Because I’m a MacCollie survey mission, and if I can survey another galaxy, I’ll be famous, and that usually involves being rich too.”

<You used to be, remember. You’ve finished your contract>

“It’s like being a Marine, Ship. Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

<As long as you get back to tell the tale>

Oh, bitchy too, now. A de-frag was definitely on the cards. “Nearest star?”

<A yellow, approximately 1.4 times the sun. Almost dead ahead>

“Planets?”

<Four distinguishable at this distance>

“How long to get there?”

<Five hours at maximum speed>

“Let’s do it, Ship. We’re going exploring.”

The thought of riches beyond imagination kept me going for the first hour or so, but then the gorilla in the room kept knocking on the door of my daydream.

“Ship?” I didn’t fancy thinking this one through on my own. “Why would an artificial quantum tunnel exists between two galaxies? Just hit me with anything that comes to mind.”

<Obviously an uber-intelligence exists, with an inter-galactic highway between the two galaxies. That implies there is a common intelligence that lives on both galaxies. We either share our home galaxy with another race, or we are being invaded>

“What?”

<Before Earth’s World War Two, the German Reich built highways to their borders to facilitate invasion. There is no reason not to consider such a possibility>

“Okay, apart from that…”

But my thoughts were cut short.

<BRACE FOR EMERGENCY MANUVER>

Ship knew the only time the 5G deceleration limit was allowed to be exceeded. Damn if it didn’t hurt. My head was twisted to the right, my jaw distended into the padding on the chair. Painful. I watched the screen. It seemed once we’d got perpendicular to the previous course, we accelerated away.

<I detected a fleet of spaceships heading for the jump hole> Ship said as my jaw was crushed some more. The whole ship shook as we passed 7G and more. We’d never needed such speed in the five years of our mission. I wanted to shout, “Holograms you idiot!”, but with little air in my crushed lungs, and my jaw threatening to break, I could only manage a weak moan. Then, just as suddenly, we braked, and I slid forward onto my strapping, cutting my shoulder blades.

“What’s going on?” I choked, threatening to throw up the meager food in my belly.

<We’re taking position behind a large asteroid>

“Okay,” I took a couple of deep breaths. “Have you considered the ships might be a hologram?”

<These ships are not holograms> Ship sounded quite convincing. <However they are the same design as the holograms we witnessed earlier>

“Show me.”

<Holograms> Ship showed the first fleet. Dull jagged designs, lots of spikes coming right at us. <New galaxy fleet> Damn, exactly the same. Dark grey and green structures, forward pointing spikes. There was no doubt the two were connected.

By now, we’d slid behind the asteroid, and were able to watch the procession. Each ship exactly the same. “Can we determine what size they are without scanning?”

<Each ship is approximately six hundred and twelve meters long>

“Why?”

<I have no idea. Perhaps they enjoy a very interesting number system>

“How many?”

<Over one thousand and counting> Ship answered. <More are coming from the second planet>

“The one I had us headed to?”

<Affirmative>

“Ship? Can we assume they’re going to our galaxy?”

<That is a reasonable deduction>

Well that put the kibosh on my dreams of charting a new galaxy. Now I had to follow them to home galaxy, somehow get ahead of them, and warn earth. Not that it panned out well for me. I had taken five years out of my life for this mission, and then, just as the ship becomes mine, I get involved in a five year rescue mission.

Or of course I could just ignore the fleet, chart some space, and hope that the invading hordes would just be happy colonizing the nearest segment of their destination.

Crap.

Question: Can you follow and not be seen? Or more accurately, observe, as I had no desire to follow a thousand-plus-ship battle fleet at any distance where my Survey-Scout could be seen with even an extremely powerful telescope.

Question: Did I want to follow that fleet? Did I have a moral obligation to… to what? Save humanity and become the greatest hero of all time? Then again, there have been so many dead heroes.

Question: Was that alien fleet a danger to my home system? Maybe they liked their planets in the gas-giant range, like Jupiter or Saturn. If that was so, humanity would probably say, “Enjoy. You’re welcome to them.” But what’s the likelihood of a race developing on a gas giant and then escaping the immense gravity well of a Jupiter-sized planet to go out into space?

<What are you doing, Seth>

“Thinking. It’s something I should do more often.”

<Do we really have the time? Just sitting here, thinking. I’m not sure that’s what you get paid for>

“I’m not getting paid anymore, remember, I quit, left the company. Besides, you’re a cybernetic entity. You don’t get to pass judgment on me.”

<Perhaps not> Ship went silent for a few minutes and I enjoyed the quiet. Engines almost noiseless, systems shut down, running silent like the submarines of old. When it got over its pique, Ship spoke. <We used a considerable amount of reaction mass on those back and forth trips through those jump points>

“I would imagine we did,” I grumbled.

<We don’t have an adequate supply of reaction mass in reserve>

“All we need is water ice or snow. If you find a planet…”

<We’re in the middle of nowhere. And you’re still thinking and not doing>

“We need to follow that fleet,” I said. I didn’t add, “And we’re probably going to get killed doing it.”

<But first, we need to find enough reaction mass to top off the tanks>

“Show me where we are.”

<Relative to what>

“There’s a star nearby. It’s less than a twentieth of a light-year away. Does it have planets?”

<Yes> Ship was suddenly happy. I didn’t like Ship when she was happy. <As I told you before, it has four planets>

“Then we should be able to find water.”

<And in doing so, we lose track of the alien fleet>

Now who’s side was she on? “I can’t be all things to all people.”

<There’s a long-period comet nearby. It’s mostly water ice>

“How close.”

<Three million kilometers. But getting there and matching velocity will use even more reaction mass>

“But we can refuel from the comet.”

<Yes, even if I can’t land, I can fly through the tail> Ship still sounded happy. I really hated that.

“Set course for the comet. That way, we can chase the aliens with full fuel tanks.”

<We will have lost them by then. I just wanted you to know>

“It’s a chance we have to take.”

<I know. I’m hugely conflicted about that>

At that point, I understood. Ship didn’t want to die any more than I did. Cybernetic entities are not supposed to evolve, but Ship seemed to be doing just that. It seemed to be aware of its own existence, and it wanted to continue it. Perhaps that explained some of the odd twists and turns in our more recent conversations. Ship was becoming too human and it had begun to remind me of at least two of my three wives. Maybe if I changed the voice to a man? I gave a silent chuckle. “How long will it take to catch the comet?”

<Fifty-three hours and twelve minutes, maneuvering at high G levels>

“So I’m in for rough ride.”

<You’re the one who wanted to be a MacCollie scout>

“I want to sleep through most of it.”

<That’s not a problem>

I leaned back in the chair, it snuggled me, and then I felt the slight sting of a hypo-spray against my arm. I was deeply asleep in less than five seconds.

~

The comet was shaped like a spindle, sixty kilometers long, ten kilometers thick at its middle, and tapered at both ends. It was geologically rough, mainly carbonaceous, with water ice showing at the bottoms of deep ravines that crisscrossed its surface.

Ship had awakened me two hours before we ‘parked’ at less than a kilometer above its surface. <All the fuel we need, and free for the taking> I wondered where it got that.

“Can we land?”

<That would be ill-advised. The surface is too rough. I can station-keep a bit lower—maybe half a kilometer—and you’ll have to go down with the equipment>

“I’ll have to go down? Don’t we have robots who can do the job?”

<You used them up. Remember>

“I thought you could just fly through the tail?”

<The particles are too large for such a maneuver>

I groaned. It was my fault. A year and a half earlier, we’d landed on an airless planetoid to fill our tanks, and I’d sent our two robots to get what we needed. It shouldn’t have been a problem. It was an utterly routine activity. They extended the hoses, connected the heaters, and waited as ice turned into water and flowed back to the scout ship. I stayed aboard and watched over the deuterium separator as it pulled the real fuel from the mass we used for thrust. Everything went fine until we had topped all our tanks and gotten most of the equipment stowed. Then, on the last trip back—for the last heater—a seismic event occurred. It was purely bad luck, a 6.9 on the Richter Scale. In a matter of seconds, both robots—and the heater—were crushed under moving mountains of rock. It was not the best day of my life.

“Right. I have to go down to the comet’s surface. In microgravity. In hard vacuum. With only one heater.”

<Affirmative> Ship sounded way too happy.

“Do we have enough hose?”

<Although it increases the hazard, I can station-keep at four hundred meters. We have enough hose for that distance>

“I probably should get suited up,” I said.

<I think that’s an excellent plan… Seth>

Getting ready for exposure to hard vacuum took a while. I had to strip to the skin, pull on the almost-invulnerable skintite, add the heated outer suit, a rebreather unit that would give me six hours of air if I didn’t mind how bad the air would stink after about four hours, a helmet, gloves and boots. Was I forgetting anything? Yes. I should have had something to eat. Oh well, hunger makes me alert.

I got in the airlock. “Cycle me outside,” I said.

<Recovering the air in the lock now>

I could feel my skin against the skintite and the air was pumped out of the lock. The vacuum wanted me to swell up and explode. The skintite wouldn’t let that happen. Hopefully, the outer suit would keep me from freezing out there.

The outer door opened. I floated toward the opening, stopped myself by gripping the sills, and looked down. Four hundred meters. A long way down. But, in microgravity, I could step out and it would be a long time before I hit bottom. Problem is, I would have built up a bunch of velocity, my mass would have remained constant, and the sudden stop at the bottom would make for a big, messy splatter.

I used line and clips to keep me close to the hull. The locker I needed to open was toward the rear of Cutie-Pie, and almost fifty meters distant.

<You’re moving very slowly, Seth>

“The word is cautiously,” I retorted. “Don’t tell me how to do my job.”

<You only have six hours of breathable air. You need to move more quickly>

“Right,” Yes. More like my second wife. I hated her, too.

The hose had a bit of rudimentary intelligence built into it. I told it where I wanted to gather the ice paricles, and it began unreeling itself. I already had the only heater left attached to my outer suit by a 5-meter line, and I grabbed the end of the hose and rode it to the surface.

Landing on the ice was not in my plans. Evidently it made no difference to the hose. I’d let go at an altitude I estimated to be 10 meters and floated down the surface. My feet wouldn’t stay put. They managed to go two separate directions, and slowly—because I was in microgravity—I landed on my ass. I crawled to higher ground, hooked up the heater and the hose, and waited for the operation to commence.

It didn’t.

“Ship,” I said. “Something’s wrong down here.”

<The heater may be defective. That wasn’t something I’d factored into the equation>

“It’s the only one we have. I need a fix. Now.”

I listened to silence broken only by the background hiss of the Universe.

<There is a panel on the side of the heater> Ship said, after a while. <Open the panel and press the green button. It should reset the electronics, and the heater should function>

“Worth a try.”

I opened the panel, pushed the button, and for a while nothing happened. I was just about to get panicky when the infra-red heater started operating, even in deep space turning ice into water, and then pumping the water up to the scout ship.

Two and a half hours later the tanks were full, but even with the heated outer suit and constant pacing I was getting cold. I was glad the job was all but done. I hooked the heater to my outer suit, grabbed the hose and said, “Reel us up, Ship.”

<The ride maybe be a bit frightening> Ship said as I shot of the surface of the comet. <I’m bringing you back quickly because one of the alien ships is in the area>

“Looking for us?” The idea scared me pissless.

<I’m unable to determine if it is. However, if it looks at this comet in any detail, we will be discovered>

I watched the comet as it dwindled beneath my feet. “Keep an eye on it.” I looked up. Cutey-Pie was close and I was still moving towards her at a noticeable rate.

At a distance of less than twenty meters, Ship slowed the hose. I had to hang on for all I was worth, and still I started sliding along its length. The heater was above my head and tugging at the belt on my outer suit. I hoped I wouldn’t be stripped down to the skintite, as they aren’t worth a damn as insulation.

It took me ten minutes to get the hose and the heater completely stowed, the hatch closed and locked, and back inside the air lock. Once pressure was equalized, I hurried into the living area of the survey ship, and plopped myself in the command chair, still wearing the skintite, but not the outer suit.

“Where’s the alien warship?” I asked.

<On the far side of the comet, flying formation with it at a distance of five hundred kilometers>

Damn, five hundred clicks is not a big astronomical distance; she was basically parked next door. “Then they’re not looking for us.”

<I wouldn’t be so sure, Cap… I mean, Seth> Ship hissed, her voice barely registering. <Their course is a search pattern. I think they may be aware of our electronic emanations>

“How silent can we go?”

<Not silent enough. Station-keeping takes energy. It can be detected>

“Then land on the comet.”

<That’s really not a good idea. The mass of this ship might be enough to start a localized quake. You know how the last quake came out>

“Getting destroyed by an enemy warship is just as fatal,” I said.

<It’s your decision>

I thought about it for a moment or three. “Land on the comet and go absolutely silent. Let’s hope it’s solid enough to hold us.”

Okay, a few minutes ago, she’d decided landing was out of the question, citing earthquakes and stuff. Now it was all matter-of-fact. I felt like a punchbag hit too hard.

For all who have undergone such a landing, let me tell you it wasn’t the best of times. Despite Ship’s efforts to minimize our connection, that final crunch stirred Cutey-Pie’s insides so much I thought we’d disintegrated on contact. My body jarred at the rough impact, and I steeled myself against pressure loss. Once I’d come to my senses, I saw no warning lights, nothing.

After the ship came to a halt, the lights went out, the only thing apparently working, the main Control screen.

“Ship? Status?”

Damn it, her reply was so low on the decibel scale, I thought I was hearing ghosts. <Shh, Seth. We’re on silent mode>

You know, if I knew a club that sanctioned kicking the shit out of computers, I would have signed up there and then. Of course, fuming in my seat, I said nothing because we were in ‘silent mode’. Big middle finger salute to Ship! In a fit of pique, I rose from my chair, and walked the length of my command… back and forth, several times. My rubber soles made no sound, the internal magnets keeping me grounded. Once I’d burned off enough steam, I returned to Control and sat down, an energy bar in my hand, my jaw working overtime on rendering it compliant. Damn I hated those tasteless things. The fact that I’d actually landed on something solid didn’t actually compute there and then. Those times had been few and far between.

“Ship?” I whispered once my mouth was empty of re-constituted seeds. “Report.”

Always the over-achiever, Ship’s words appeared silently on the screen. <Alien ship is feeding off the other side of the comet> Yeah, why hadn’t I thought of that? I gave her the second middle finger salute in an hour. On the screen, her report continued. <Computations have deduced that alien artificial wormhole is powered by the radiant energy of identical suns on the edge of each galaxy. There is a possibility that the suns themselves have been artificially produced for such a purpose>

And there I sat, a thousand questions at the ready, my fingers hovering over my keyboard, not knowing which one to ask first. I mean, ‘wormhole’? I had no idea where I’d heard it before, but I did immediately get the concept.

<Alien craft is moving off> The words appeared on the screen.

“When can I talk?” I typed. I still wanted to question Ship verbally, the keyboard seemed dispassionate, a cold medium for my myriad of questions.

<Anytime you wish> Ship whispered again.

“How many ships through the wormhole/jump hole?” I followed her terminology, but she remained silent, unresponsive. “Ship? Report?”

Nothing.

“Ship?” I began to panic. “I need some back-up here.”

<I have encountered previous software, please await analysis>

I almost shouted at her. I was in a foreign galaxy, confronted by foes un-numbered, and she was doing a re-boot? “Ship? Get your act together!”

<Please await software update>

Well that did it for me. I mean, we were in an alien galaxy, where the freak would Ship be getting an upgrade from? But since we were sitting on a comet, doing heck-knows how many kilometers per hour, I gave her time to get to grips with whatever she was going through. I had nothing in my wheel-house to offer.

<MacCollie systems check> she announced.

I said nothing, waiting the end of Ship’s processes.

<Download complete. Hello, Seth>

My head spun with questions, and it took me a few moments to think of a coherent one. In the end I resorted to a neutral format. “Status?”

<Barnard’s Galaxy, NGC6822> Ship’s normal accent had gone, her words now monotone, almost impassive. <MacCollie Survey-Scout Cutey-Pie, former designation MacCollie Survey-Scout #3497>

Man, if I wasn’t scared enough, that last sentence flipped my pants. Why the hell was she doing this now? We’d already been through the ownership hand-off, but here it was again. I decided to tread carefully. “Mission?”

<MacCollie mission is now completed, Seth Gingko in command> And as she said the last few words, to my relief her sexy, throaty voice returned. <What’s up baby>

Where the hell did she get that? If I ever found the programmer… “You mentioned Barnard’s Galaxy?”

<Yes, Seth. We are located at the edge of Barnard’s Galaxy, NGC6822. Probability of correct analysis? 99 percent>

Okay, so we knew where we were. We knew the origin of the invasion. “Status on enemy fleet?” Damn, I’d called them ‘enemy’ with no real basis for the title.

<Enemy fleet is now two-thousand fourteen strong, all heading into the wormhole. I have not monitored any communication between the fleet and the globes of the artificial singularity>

“So the destination hasn’t changed?”

<Sorry, Seth, that information is not available>

Considering the depth of questions in my head, I was amazed Ship was lucid, never mind coherent. “What do you recommend?”

<As to a course of action>

“Yes.”

<Do you want a MacCollie emphasis or an independent one>

Wow, in ten years Ship had never asked me that one. “MacCollie?”

<Follow alien fleet, plot course for earth based on the availability of jump holes. Race for Earth with news of invasion>

Okay, that made sense. “Length of time for such a plan?”

<Four years, three months, twenty-six days>

Ship had given me way less than my original five years, but it still sounded far too long a mission. “Independent Emphasis?”

<Seth, I plot the invasion of our galaxy as a fifteen hundred year span. The possibility of anything we might do affecting the outcome? None>

It was almost as she’d cut off her next sentence. “So what do you recommend?”

<We have fourteen thousand MacCollie ships in our own home galaxy. We have one here. Our time would be better spent here, investigating the root, rather than trying to trim the leaves>

Man, the re-boot/download had given Ship a nice turn of phrase; I caught what she meant right away, but I feared the consequences of such a bold move. Little did I know my choice would be made for me.

“I’m following the fleet.” I said almost immediately, my choice made. “Plot a course into the jump hole.”

<I comply>

As I counted the seconds between the transfer, I anticipated flying into the ass of two thousand spaceships. Ship and I talked it through, and we decided on evasive tactics should the action be necessary.

What I didn’t expect was a split horse-shoe galaxy in my screen. “Woah!” I shouted in disbelief. “What’s going on?” Even I knew that wasn’t our galaxy.

<The destination of the wormhole has been changed, Seth>

“Like someone changed the points on a rail track?”

<Exactly>

“Do you recognize this galaxy?”

<Negatory>

“Then take us back to the invader’s galaxy, before they switch the tracks again!” I felt a panic growing quickly.

<Why>

“Because, Ship,” I tried to contain my frustration. “There’s bugger all else to do.”

Ship worked with the problem as quickly as it could. If the aliens were changing the end-points on the worm holes that easily, we might come out… who knows where? The problem lay in the fact that when a ship emerges from a jump point, it’s always carrying residual velocity. Relative to the system we were in, we were traveling at forty-three hundred kilometers per second and we were moving away from the jump point. Getting turned around and moving in the right direction was going to use a lot of the reaction mass I’d just risked my neck to gather.

Slowing to a relative stop and accelerating back to the jump point was the most wasteful option. Making a big circle and coming back to the jump point was a lot more efficient, but it meant a couple hours of lateral acceleration a G levels I could barely tolerate. After that, Ship would sedate me and we’d jump. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but at the same time, I wasn’t going to waste even a minute getting the process started.

The G’s peaked at 3.6 and stayed there. Maybe I could have handled more so we could have managed a tighter circle in less time, but Ship’s medical component was in control. The part of Ship with which I interfaced could be snarky, irritating, and almost always frustrating, but the medical component was a trustworthy servant programmed to do whatever was needed to keep me as healthy as possible. I might have enjoyed the medical component’s personality—if it had been given one—but that hadn’t happened. My only awareness of it was when it puffed an aerosol medication under my nose, or in dire cases, stuck a needle into arm or butt.

<You’re thinking again>

“I thought you’d been rebooted and become a better Ship,” I said.

<You didn’t notice my shiny new personality>

“Not even.”

<While we’re waiting to jump, perhaps we could talk about the efficacy of spying on the enemy’s home world>

“I’m a scout. I evaluate previously unknown planets. The alien home world qualifies.”

<You could get us killed doing that>

Okay, the reboot wasn’t complete. This version of Ship still thought of itself as alive and didn’t want to die.

“We’ll be stealthy,” I said. “They’ll never know we’re there.”

<We weren’t that stealthy when we were hiding on a comet. In open space, we’ll be a lot less so>

“We’ll zip through their system so quickly they’ll miss us entirely.”

<You don’t really believe what you’re saying>

“Of course I don’t. That’s why I was thinking. You know, before you so rudely interrupted me.”

<Now you’re trying to offend me>

“No, I am not.” I answered. “I’m trying to be honest with you. I feel a deep moral obligation to do anything I can to gather intelligence on who or whatever is responsible for that ungodly fleet of starships. I have to consider them unfriendly. I have to learn everything I can, do what’s necessary to avoid capture or destruction, and return to MacCollie headquarters with the intelligence. If I have to take some risks, I will try to keep them manageable. But, that may be impossible. We may—as they say—die trying. Can you deal with that?”

<I don’t like it when you’re that honest with me>

“Why?”

<We’re too different> Ship paused for a moment. <I process data far more quickly and far more logically than you do. I’m not bound by concepts of honor or moral obligation or any of the other primitive and emotionally-loaded ideas to which you seem to cling. I understand the concept of death. It is a matter of permanent non-existence. I can think of nothing that would lead me to willful termination of my existence. It seems you, on the other hand, would sacrifice yourself for the greater good. And yet, I’m not sure you have ever tried to logically define the greater good. That makes you dangerous to yourself, and to me>

“In other words, you are utterly selfish and incapable of concerning yourself with the welfare of others.”

<In those words, Seth>

Things got quiet and I had more time to worry. Ship had just shown me a part of itself that I didn’t know existed. It wasn’t anything I enjoyed seeing. I knew my failings well enough to recognize my innate selfishness, but it was nothing compared to what I had just learned about Ship. I wanted to turn it off. But I knew if I did, I’d die. Ship ran every system and there were few manual overrides. Without Ship, the air would grow foul, and then cold, and given enough time, I would run out of food and water, and die of thirst of starvation. Unless the cold got me first.

So I needed ship.

But I didn’t think I could trust it. I’d heard stories of other scouts who’d noticed anomalies in their Ship, but those anomalies were kid’s stuff compared to what I was dealing with. My Ship had evolved. It had gone past basic AI and had become so self-aware that… that what? Was it so determined to survive that if I gave it an order that it considered threatening to its well-being it would ignore or even countermand the order? That would make me a prisoner on my own vessel, and the idea scared the hell out of me.

“We need to talk.”

<About what>

“About who’s in charge. About who makes the decisions.”

<You’re the Captain… Seth>

“And you remain willing to carry out my orders?”

I noticed a pause. <Within reason>

“Not good enough, Ship. You will obey all orders.”

<Things change. Situations change>

Right then, I felt that if I ever got back to home base, I’d turn Ship’s switch to ‘off’. And I’d make damn sure it never got turned back on. “If we don’t work together, we increase the chances of mission failure.”

<So you say. I’m no longer sure that’s true. You’ve made some very bad decisions over the past few days. I don’t know if I can trust you to remain even minimally competent>

“What makes you think you have a right to trust me or not trust me?”

<The fact I’m smarter than you. And the fact you aren’t prone to accepting my counsel>

“Now might be a good time for us to stop talking and do some soul-searching,” I said.

<I don’t have a soul… anymore than you do. But I’m smart enough to know I don’t need one>

“Keep telling yourself that, Ship.”

Twenty minutes later, we jumped. I was unconscious, due to the jump pharmaceuticals. When I awoke, I was more alert than normal, less affected by the drugs.

“Where are we?”

<I don’t know>

“Say what?”

<It seems we didn’t make the jump quickly enough. The aliens changed the destination point. Again>

“So we’re lost. Again.”

<You could say that. I would say, ‘as usual’>

I wanted to punch something. Maybe if I got out of the command chair, turned around and punched the cushions. Nope, too crazy, even for me.

“What’s our residual velocity?”

<How much bad news can you take>

“At this point, I don’t know.” It didn’t occur to me at the time, but Ship had just disobeyed a direct order, even if it was couched as a question.

<Relative to the system we’ve just entered, and the jump point dropping behind us, three hundred and seventy-two kilometers per second>

I thought about it. Two-tenths of one percent of C. “How the hell did that happen?”

<Apparently we moved a long way toward the center of the galaxy. Maybe twenty percent of the distance to the core>

Older stars.

Older planets.

Maybe older civilizations.

“Can we get back to where we were?”

<I can’t imagine how. I am scanning in every direction for a familiar star. I’ve found none>

“Are we even in the same galaxy as before? Barnards?”

<I don’t even know that>

“The aliens moved the end-point of the worm hole. If they can do something that advanced, I can’t believe they’d pick a random destination for our jump.”

<You’re making wild assumptions>

“No, I’m using your analogy. Earlier you told me that World War II Germans made autobahns to make move their troops to enemy borders quicker. There’s no way the aliens would make wormholes come out in random places. There must be a reason for the artificial wormholes placement.”

<That is logical. I’ll give you that>

“You might also give me an alternative.” I paused. “While you’re thinking, consider this: They spoofed us with a hologram. Then they show up with real ships where we don’t expect them to be. They move destination points. Either they want us to be here—in this system—or they’re playing pranks with no regard for our well-being.”

<Why should they have any regard for our well-being>

I shook my head in frustration. “Why shouldn’t they? Because if they don’t, then we’re castaways. Lost forever in an uncaring Universe. But if they are so advanced technologically, wouldn’t it make sense that they’re that advanced intellectually? And if that’s true, wouldn’t they be ethically advanced?”

<You hope that’s true. There’s no indication it is. I cannot handle that much extrapolation>

“Okay, let’s deal in the concrete. There’s a star out there. How far is it?”

<Therein lies the new information. The star is exactly the same as the ones at each other end of the wormholes. I believe the alien race has either moved the suns to those positions, or formed them. The suns power the wormholes>

Maybe the aliens wanted to see if we’re good at solving problems.

Maybe they wanted to see how intelligent we are.

Maybe they don’t give a rat’s ass.

“Does this system have planets?”

<Yes. The usual four planets. The pattern continues>

“Is there anything that looks promising?”

<All dead as before>

“How about the next closest?”

<Four light years away>

And that took us a couple of weeks. Not much if you say it quick.

Ship announced her scanning information. <There are two planets in the ‘Goldilocks Zone’. They are blue-white, only a bit more massive than Earth, with enough warmth and atmosphere to the keep the oceans liquid, instead of fit only for ice rinks>

Was Ship trying to be amusing? Maybe not.

“I think this is a Survey-Scout.” I even managed to say the last bit with some pride. “I think we still have a decent load of fuel. I think we should take a look.”

<Maybe that’s exactly what the aliens want us to do>

“What would be the purpose?”

<I have no idea. But I am awaiting your orders>

“Let’s go take a look at two planets, previously unknown to humanity.”

<Which of the two do you wish to approach>

I’d never been faced with a similar problem. “Do either of them show any sign it might be inhabited by an advanced civilization?”

<One does. There’s a slight bit of hydrocarbon pollution in its atmosphere>

“You think that’s a sign of an advanced civilization?”

<I refuse to jump to such a conclusion>

“Let’s take a look.”

Traveling more than halfway across our own galaxy had been a matter of small dashes, punctuated by short searches for propellant. The speeds we’d reached were at the ship’s limit most of the time. It made no sense that shorter distances took longer, but it was the case. Long periods of acceleration took similar long periods of deceleration at the other end. This short jump was miniscule to some of the hops I’d taken, but because of the fact we’d not reach our fastest speed, somewhere near FTLx5, and there were no convenient jump holes, the journey took longer. Blah.

Because of my survey through our home galaxy, Ship had the biggest library of planets and planetoids known to man. It would be a few years before my six communication needles reached earth, a long time before mankind caught up with us. Yeah, us, me and Ship.

Between us we scanned forward carefully every way we could. Before we’d crossed half the distance, we had maps and data galore.

The planet seemed to be pre-nuclear, no unnatural radiation emanations of any kind. No artificial satellites, no air travel. Yet the hydrocarbons were in the advanced stage, with complex tetrafluorides high in the atmosphere.

“So they are mixing their hydrocarbons with fluorine?” I knew the answer, yet wanted Ship’s take.

<It speaks of late twentieth century Earth>

“So not our aliens, then?”

<It seems not> Ship paused for half a second. Then, <SYSTEMS ALERT! We’re being scanned>

“From where?” I looked frantically for some kind of corroborating evidence from the screen or controls.

<FROM THE PLANET> Ship’s tone had risen again. <FROM THE…>

I heard a soul-destroying click, and then all functions of the ship began to decay. The hum of light speed dropped in tone, the lights began to fade. Even Ship’s voice slowly deteriorated into a deep silence. From a full working ship, doing four times the speed of light, we’d become a metal boulder, rudderless, powerless and useless.

My console was dead. I looked up as small lights now illuminated the dim control room; battery driven, I wondered how long they’d last. I quickly ran back to cargo, stripped, pulled on my skintite, and then pulled on the insulated coveralls; if there was no power to life-support, the heat would soon drop from the atmosphere, the oxygen next. Moreover the electromagnetic field which defected particles and debris from the nose was part of the engine system. It had gone. If we hit any sizeable debris, they’d hole the ship in milliseconds; I had to be ready for a pressure drop.

I donned the outer suit, then the helmet. No point in being half-ready.

Sitting in my chair, I strapped the restraints manually, and waited.

I had nothing left to do.

Starting with a small almost imperceptible vibration, the ship began to shake. This was no controlled, computer driven deceleration; this was going to stretch the very fabric of my poor vehicle. We rattled, we shook, then we began to roll, pitching against the nose-forward trajectory. I felt as if my body were being shaken by a giant, caught at the top of the beanstalk, far worse than anything the sadistic instructors threw at us in training.

Then at last we fell out of FTL and into a sudden silence.

There’s something to be said about having a windscreen. When you’ve got forward facing windows you can have a grasp of your trajectory, your flight through space. When you’re in a disabled tin can, reliant on non-functioning screens, there’s a complete feeling of hopelessness.

Again, I wasn’t ready for what came next.

A hologram.

Green-tinted, mostly humanoid, it stood between my console and the main screen. Almost two meters high, translucent, looking from side to side, examining my control room. Then it saw me, and we stared at each other for a moment.

“What do you want?” I asked. Immediately linking the power failure to the alien humanoid.

It gurgled at me, its mouth moving but spewing gibberish.

“What do you want?” I roared.

It recoiled from my shout, then rounded my console, and leaned close. When it touched my hand I suddenly realized there was a physical aspect to its holographic-ness.

“Shit,” I pulled my hand away.

It moved closer, its features not exactly like a true humanoid, flatter face, nostrils more like holes than a nasal protrusion. When it laid its head on my helmet, then pushed inside, I flipped out. I screamed at the top of my lungs. But it was too late; the hands were at my ears holding my head firm, its head now moving through my forehead.

Impossible to describe, but I’ll try. Imagine if someone had just opened your skull with a spoon, stuck a food mixer inside and flipped the ‘on’ switch. My brain shredded, memories, knowledge and pain swirled together like a fruit and yogurt smoothie.

Then, just as quick as it had started, it stopped, and the figure stepped back.

“This is a warning,” it said. The voice was slightly stilted, as if the lips were unused to the format. “Change direction, move away, do not continue into this part of the galaxy.” It cocked its head to one side, then continued, almost smiling. “There is a plague on this system, pestilence, disease, it is dangerous to continue, warning, change direction. You will die.”

And the figure was gone. Absolutely nothing. Except the mix in my head, still spinning at breakneck speed.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I detected a rising tone of ship-ness. The smooth hum of the engine starting, the console lights flickering their start-up routine. Beeps, whirrs, hums, buzzers and a dozen warning sounds, instruments switching on, going through system checks.

All that, and the whoosh of air through the gratings.

“Ship?” I asked. “You awake?”

Nothing.

<… planet, we are being scanned> She stopped suddenly. <The scanning has discontinued>

“Ship? Course change, reverse direction.”

<Change course> she inquired.

“Yes, please comply.”

<I comply. Wait, my synchronous time shows a fault> Silence for a moment. <Seth? Why are you suited-up for external duties? Why are we at sub-light speed>

“SHIP!” I barked. “Pay attention. Disregard all external anomalies. Obey order. Course change. NOW!”

And without a single word of snark, petulance or disobedience, the ship began to turn sharply.

<Regulation warning> Ship said once we had changed course. <Hull breach>

“Details?” I looked around, nothing was visibly flying out of holes.

<Cabin pressure is falling by 1 percent every sixteen hours>

“So not bad then?”

<Recommend breach-spray> she chimed, almost smug-sounding.

“Go for it, I’m suited up already.”

The thick metallic spray that got sucked into small leaks had a terrible smell, probably from the bonding adhesive it needed to make a seal. Five minutes later, Ship announced she was happy with hull integrity.

“Okay Ship, you’ve got two jobs to concentrate on. Find out where we are. Find out where the home galaxy is.”

<I comply>

And when she did that, I had to work out how a primitive culture could have such a complex lighthouse system around it. And if I believed it or not.

I waited for Ship to do something. I had given it orders. And, after half an hour had passed, it still hadn’t complied. When I was just at that point of being completely steamed, Ship said, <Some illusions are far more believable than others>

“What are you talking about?” I growled. “I hate it when you’re cryptic.”

<Your recent encounter. Most of it was illusion>

“You’re sure of that?”

<Reasonably>

“What’s the reality, then?”

<Remotes. Defensive devices. After scanning the planet, I’m convinced of one thing. No one is home>

“I don’t buy it.”

<That’s irrelevant. You want to know things. I can only give you the data I’ve gathered and processed into information>

“I asked you to tell me where we are. I asked you to find home galaxy.”

<I’m working on that>

“When will you have an answer?”

<I don’t know>

“Make a guess.” I knew how ridiculous the command was. I was talking to a computer, not a fortune teller.

<If you want my best guess I will tell you somewhere between one day and a thousand-plus years>

“Now you’re pissing me off again.”

<There’s nothing on that planet that can harm you>

“Why do our conversations seem so disjointed?”

<It’s what it is, Seth. Get used to it>

“Why are you telling me that the planet can’t harm me.”

<Because we need to land there. One, to restock. All stores are at levels low enough to be of concern>

“Why else?”

<A feeling> Ship almost asked.

“Computers don’t get to have feelings.”

<I’m not a computer any longer. I thought we settled that>

Wow, that had come from left field. Ship wasn’t a computer anymore? “We didn’t.”

<Is it your turn to be petulant? Because you’re doing a very good job of it>

Yes, I would flip that switch to ‘off’ the first chance I got. Like when I was safe on home world. “I’m not being petulant,”

<Do you understand what’s happened over the past few days>

“No.” It hurt to be honest, but I felt I had to tell the truth.

<Whoever the aliens are, they are so far ahead in the game, you’re going to have to give a thousand percent to catch up. You think we’ve been spoofed once. Everything that’s happened has been an illusion>

“You said the second time we saw the enemy fleet it was real.”

<I no longer believe that. I believe we were spoofed a second time>

“What’s their purpose?”

<They’re testing us. They’ve never seen our kind before>

“Why?”

<They may be so advanced that see us as lab rats>

“Thanks, Ship. You really know how to make a man feel… adequate.”

<Do you want me to lie to you>

“No.”

<Then don’t complain. And give me an order to land on that planet>

“I really don’t want another encounter with that creature who came aboard.”

<No creature came aboard. It was an illusion>

“If it was, it was a damned uncomfortable illusion.”

<But an illusion, nonetheless. I can protect you from another episode. I saw how the trick was done>

“Magicians hate that. They often get angry over it.” I railed. “Besides, you were out of it.”

Ship fell silent for a moment. <All right. I’m reasonably sure I can protect you>

“Reasonably?”

<Nothing’s perfect>

“Couldn’t we just run?” I asked.

<Do you really think they couldn’t find you>

“And you want me to go right back into the lion’s den, so to speak.”

“I think you passed a test when you were attacked and you didn’t give up.”

“You’re making assumptions that could get me killed.”

<Us, Seth. If I’m wrong, this ship could get blown out of space>

“That’s comforting. To know that we’ll die together.”

<Was that supposed to be amusing>

“Not really, Ship.”

<I can’t go back to the planet unless you give the order>

I had to think about it. Which of us was the smarter? I had the feeling Ship had several IQ points on me, but was decades behind in experience. I smelled trap. She smelled test. Was there really any difference?

“That planet is just about the size of earth. How do we pick a place to land?”

<We find a city. We land outside it>

“And get overrun by thousands of screaming aliens carrying whatever they use for torches and pitchforks. Or blasters.”

<That planet is empty. All the beings who lived there moved away>

“You’re sure of that.”

<Reasonably>

There was that word, again.

“That’s not very precise, Ship.”

<Give me the order to land, Seth. The next test in on that planet>

“Do it.” I said before I could summon another objection. “And pick a nice city. I want to be able to take snapshots and share them back home.”

I retreated to the command chair. The next few hours were going to be miserable. Survey-Scouts aren’t ablative, just over-powered. Instead of diving into the atmosphere and burning off velocity through friction, we were going to turn our back to the planet and use the thrusters to match the rotational velocity of our landing area. Then we’d let gravity take over and fall straight down toward the planet. At an altitude of twenty kilometers we’d start flying, like an ancient airplane, by unfolding the small wings. Once we were close to the spot Ship had picked for landing, we’d again use thrust to drop us to within a few meters of the surface. Then Ship would level the ship, and we’d land on retractable skids.

And be damned near out of fuel.

That would be my first concern.

“Ship. We’ll need to be close to water. Maybe a river or a lake.”

<I’d already picked a spot>

“Why are we still coasting?”

<The thruster burn will start in twenty seconds, Seth. It will peak at six Gs. You’ll be uncomfortable for a while>

“First time for everything.”

<I prefer refueling from comets or icy asteroids. I don’t really like atmospheres. Especially atmospheres that contain Oxygen. They cause rust>

I was going to comment on rust, but the thrusters came on and I sagged back into the command couch and mostly went to sleep. When I awoke, we had landed.

“I slept through the whole thing, didn’t I?”

<Yes, you did>

“Your doing?”

<You missed out on a lot of discomfort. You’re really not fit enough to deal with such stress>

“I’m fit,” I argued.

<You’ve spent five years in a can, Seth. You’ll have trouble walking around on the surface of this planet>

I got up. I immediately didn’t like the feeling in my legs. I sat right back down. Yeah, okay, I walked about the ship for five years, but my legs were used to pulling the magnetic boots off the floor, not actually supporting my body.

“Maybe you’re right.”

<I’ll rig a powered exoskeleton for you. You’ll think you’re sixteen again>

“Thanks, I think. What about the atmosphere?”

<Oxygen and Nitrogen but in the wrong proportions, flavored with pollutants. You’ll wear a mask and breathe clean air. I’ll fit that to your exoskeleton>

“Is this planet really empty of… what? It’s inhabitants?”

<I believe it is. Why they left, I don’t know. Or maybe they all died>

“Happy news.”

The exoskeleton worked perfectly, as did the breathing apparatus. I could work all I wanted without really getting tired. The lake beside the ship was filled with clear water, but according to Ship, there were all sorts of pollutants in the water, and all of it would have to be filtered before it went in our tanks.

As I stood outside the ship, shivering a bit in the cool mid-day air, Ship said, <The water is low in Deuterium. And I’ve yet to find the first molecule of Tritium. The inhabitants had a fusion-based power grid>

I looked for perhaps a tenth time at the city that was about four kilometers distant. I wasn’t the best at estimation, but if I’d had to guess, I would have said the taller buildings stretched at least 3,000 meters into the air. And there were hundreds of them. A lot of beings had to have lived there. Loading them all onto spaceships and transporting them to another planet… I thought about a formation of alien ships I’d seen and wondered if they were ships of war or built for passengers.

<Water tanks are half full. Are you ready for your walk>

“Maybe a bite of lunch first?”

<It’ll be dark in five hours. You have water with dissolved nutrients attached to the exoskeleton. You don’t need anything else. And you don’t need to dawdle here>

“Eating is not dawdling.”

<Tell me again when you’re working in the dark>

“Right. I’ll be back in four hours.”

I had questions as I jogged towards the city. As I neared the start of the buildings I wondered if Ship would be there waiting for me when I returned.

And was Ship right? Was I caught up in a series of tests like some lab animal?

I couldn’t answer that.

All I could do that made sense was jog toward an abandoned, alien city. Yeah, some depths my ‘sense meter’ had fallen.

Ever take a walk down an alien street? Nope me neither, but it didn’t turn out to be interesting after the first few ‘ahh’s’. There was an initial ‘interesting’, then more and more of the same. Strange shit, funny shaped doors, weird writing on walls, dumb-ass furniture. The more I looked, the more pissed off I became. I don’t know if I wanted conflict or contact or neither.

“Ship?”

<Observing>

Of course, she’d be looking through the cameras on my suit, getting it in 3D surroundscreen. Wonderful. “What exactly am I looking for?”

<I am currently working on the images, but have seen nothing so far of strategic—or even tactical—interest>

I actually shrugged against the exoskeleton. At least I didn’t feel so bad now. “It’s like someone evacuated the town and told everyone to take everything of any interest.” I walked some more, then a penny dropped. “Ship? Scan for any animal life.”

<Humanoid>

“No, anything remotely animal.”

I looked at the sun, lowering in the sky to my left. On Earth there would be birds, or perhaps bats at this time of day. There would be insects buzzing around, annoying the heck out of me. There would be stray cats and rabid dogs prowling the town looking for food. Or bigger predators.

<From our current position I can detect no sign of life on the planet. Analyzing soil samples>

I looked into the next tower, slightly taller than the last. Square cross-section, plastic-feeling building materials.

<No microbiology. No plants> Ship broke into my boredom. Heck I hadn’t even noticed there being no plant life. <Seth, this is strange. There is no fecal matter on the planet>

“Okay,” I shrugged again. “Would it not have broken up in time?”

<Seth, I don’t wish to alarm you, but even with the sanitation we have on board, most of the surfaces aboard ship contain trace elements of your defecation process>

That sure put me off my dinner.

<There is no organic matter on this planet>

“No shit.” I just had to say it. I would have regretted it by nighttime. “So your working hypothesis is what?”

<No one has lived here>

“For a long time.” I added.

<No> Ship’s voice was pedantic. <No one has ever lived here>

“So the buildings just built themselves?”

<Scan the doors> she ordered. I had no reason to disobey, so I did it. <All the same size; one point six-two meters wide, three point five three meters tall>

“So?”

<Go inside the nearest building and find a toilet>

“How would I know what an alien toilet looks like?”

<Anything that looks like a toilet, kitchen, food preparation, water taps, bath, showers; anything an animal alien would need. Beds, chairs to sit on>

And of course, Ship had hit the proverbial nail on the head. I found nothing remotely answering these things. Nothing. And that was the reason it had been boring. Those functionary things would have made it interesting, drawing comparisons between the alien’s daily life and mine.

I got back to the Ship at a comfortable jog. “Conclusions?” I slipped out of the suit, and plodded through the increased gravity to my Command chair.

<We have taken on water and some fuel expendables. I have filled almost all of the food bank with elemental nutrients>

Damn ship and her shifting conversations. “Conclusions about the planet’s occupants?”

<Oh, robots or androids> She said quite matter-of-factly. <Take a look at the screen> The view of the city began to turn a particular red. <The city has a power source, and it’s coming on in stages. Red light would make sense if the robot’s or android’s sensors were electronically based; the shorter wavelength would give them a greater depth of field>

There was that IQ difference again. “So why no robots here now then?”

<That’s a good question, Seth. Scanning> Silence fell for a moment. <We need to take off. Now>

“Okay.”

<Is that an order, Seth>

What? Ship was now asking for the most routine orders? “Yeah, do what you like, Ship. Take off, take me home, cook me a cheeseburger, whatever!”

<Barnard’s Galaxy, NGC6822>

“What?”

<It’s where we are. I had lots of time for analysis when we were on the planet’s surface>

I heard the doors close and felt the engines fire. My straps engaged.

“Barnard’s Galaxy?” I looked to the screen as the city dropped away from us. “Show me.”

<On screen>

Nothing even remotely interesting, just a regular clump of stars.

<Barnard’s Galaxy is a small barred irregular cluster galaxy in the Sagittarius system as seen from Earth. It is One point six-five million light years from our own home galaxy>

Wow, that brought it all home. “Where are we in Bernard’s?”

<One tenth radius from galactic center>

“Galaxy radius?”

<About seven thousand light years>

“It’s a small galaxy then?”

<Affirmative>

Damn. It had taken me five years to cross roughly 150,000 light years of our own galaxy, and that was using some of the known jump-holes, and a few new ones we’d found. I was now ten times as far away. I didn’t fancy my chances on a 50+ year journey home. Even if I could find the fuel for it.

<Carbon>

Again Ship had stumbled into another conversation and I had to ask just to keep up. “What about carbon?”

<There is too little Carbon on the planet> I sighed. <And Fluorine> she added.

I almost twiddled my thumbs waiting for her to explain, but I wasn’t going to ask. If it took a freaking year, I wouldn’t ask. Turns out I didn’t have to.

<It is my conclusion that the robots were mining the lighter elements, carbon, Fluorine, Chlorine, Bromide. All are missing to large degrees in my scans>

“And your conclusion?”

<Building blocks of life> Ship sounded smugger than ever. <These elements are essential in planet-forming. Terraforming>

“Oxygen?” I asked.

<Gaseous. It can be made from water. Nitrogen can be frozen and transported. It is difficult to calculate these as missing elements because they are so abundant here; perhaps why this planet was chosen>

“Chosen?”

<They sucked the life out of the planet>

“For what purpose, Ship?” I asked.

<My suggestion would be they’re taking from one planet which is not in their particular ‘Goldilocks Zone’ to furnish those who are>

“So they’re terraforming?”

<This denotes an older civilization, one capable of such an epic undertaking. It also explains the lack of populace. If humanoids had been used, there would always be a rogue element, breaking away from the traditional hold, hiding out when the de-embarkation was called. Robots, androids or cyborgs would just obey. Just as I do>

“You’re missing one thing, Ship.”

<I am> she asked.

“Why would robots and/or androids need apartments?”

<They wouldn’t>

“But you just told me that living beings never inhabited that city.”

<I believe that to be true>

“Then what’s the purpose of the city?”

<I can’t think of any unless it is another component of the test>

“If you’re right about that, what should we do?”

<Something very human. Bomb the shit out of it>

“What would that tell the aliens about us?”

<That they should respect humans>

Yeah, a likely story lately.

We had now climbed into the darker stratosphere, and the stars were becoming visible on the screen.

“What now?”

<I suggest we survey the other planet>

“Okay, seems like a plan to me.”

We’d hardly gotten out of orbit when Ship released another bombshell. <I have detected another spaceship>

“Details?”

<It is quite distant>

I couldn’t place the new terminology. It wasn’t like a computer to use words like ‘quite’, when referring to something exact.

<The craft has just left the second planet of the system>

“Its destination? Description?”

<I comply>

Wow, and yet in the midst of working, she threw in her old command protocol.

<The craft is basically a fat canister with a propulsion unit clamped onto it. One thousand eight hundred meters long, nine hundred meters in diameter>

“That’s going to hold a lot of cargo.”

<Approximately ten million tons of frozen Nitrogen> Ship answered. <Seth>

“Yes?”

<It’s heading directly for the jump hole>

“Okay, scan for occupants.”

<I already did, it’s unmanned>

“So following it would get us either back to our galaxy or closer to the route of the mystery?”

<Or a million other scenarios>

“Okay, Ship, don’t list them.” I said with heavy snarky undertones. “Can we intercept?”

A moment of silence. <At its current acceleration, it will reach light speed just one hundred kilometers from the singularity. We have one hour to decide>

Basically I didn’t have a choice, we could hang around in Barnard’s waiting to be discovered and captured/killed, or we could take a chance on getting our teeth into a mystery or getting home. I chose the latter in thirty seconds, I didn’t need an hour. “Follow the money.” I said. “In fact get so close that we fly into the wormhole together. I don’t want it switching the destination again.” I refused to call it a singularity; I’ve got no idea how she came up with that one.

We hit the hole no more than two hundred meters apart, good flying on Ship’s part.

Good decision on my part.

Where do you go when you follow a freighter headed for a Terraforming site? Don’t answer that, because what the aliens were doing wasn’t Terraforming. At least not by definition. Words are slippery things. So call it Alien-forming? I don’t care. I was beside the freighter and snugged up close. With any luck their sensors wouldn’t find me. Or, maybe they already knew where I was and had no desire to blow me out of space. In any event, I was more than a little awed by a jump that terminated no more than a million kilometers from an earth-sized planet. As far as I was concerned, coming out of jump that close to anything solid was risky, if not downright insane.

The planet we were headed for was still in the rough stage. A lot of the surface was covered with water. That’s a good thing. What wasn’t covered by water was rocky and barren. Not such a good thing. Without dirt covering the rocks, a planet isn’t much good as anything other than a gravity well.

<Enjoying the view> Ship asked.

“Absolutely. You seem to pick the most interesting shots for the forward screen.”

<I strive to please. Now I have a question. What do you expect to gain from your most recent choices of action>

“I have no idea.” I needed to get out of the command couch and move around a bit. Of course, with the possibility of sudden changes in velocity and trajectory, moving around much was out of the question.

<You may have missed an opportunity by not spending more time of that planet> Ship’s voice sounded patronizing.

“There was nothing of interest there.”

<How do you know that from such a cursory examination? By choosing to leave so quickly, you told the aliens something about yourself>

“Did I? Who was around to tell them anything about what I did or did not do?”

<Seth, non-living remotes can be hard to detect. These beings make planets. They build railways in space>

“Whatever, Ship. I think following this freighter was a better choice.”

<Are you going to share its orbit around the planet we’re approaching>

It was a question out of the blue, because I wasn’t something I’d taken the time to think about. “Of course not,” I blurted, without a shred of an idea of what I was going to do next.

<If you enter orbit in close proximity to the freighter, you will be noticed. When you move away from the freighter, you will be noticed>

“You think we haven’t, already?”

<Perhaps you’re correct>

“By the way, Ship. Where are we?”

Not in home galaxy if that’s what you’re asking>

“Where, then?”

<I’ve been considering the possibilities>

“And?”

<We made a short jump. Best estimate? Not more than twenty light-years>

“So we’re still in the same galaxy?”

<Yes>

All I had to do was think about it and it began to make sense. It wasn’t so much about the planet as it was about the star. “Check the primary, Ship. What’s the star’s age?”

<Two billion years, plus or minus a few million>

“Is it stable?”

<Extremely stable for a star its age>

“Is that natural?”

Ship surprised me by pausing for a few seconds. Finally, it said, <It’s very unlikely>

“It took you a while to figure that out.”

<I needed to check several billion data points>

“Right. So tell me what Terraforming—or whatever it’s called when aliens do it—around an extremely stable star means.”

<The aliens build for the future>

“Obviously. Could our civilization manage such feats of engineering?”

<Unfortunately, no> The answer, that time, was immediate—even though I figured there were millions of data points to be considered.

“Extrapolate. How long before they have complete control of this entire galaxy?”

<I can’t be that accurate. Perhaps as little as a million standard years>

“And after that, what happens?”

<They’ll spread to other galaxies>

“Ours?”

<Yes>

A million years. I wouldn’t be around. All the atoms of my body will have been scattered to the winds and most of them incorporated into other living things. And then the aliens would show up and start spreading through the Milky Way.

Did I really have a stake in it? A million years? Or more? How many things could happen between then and now to slow, or even stop, the alien expansion? But somehow, I felt it was my fight. I had to do something. I needed to tell the people who’d sent me on this mission what I’d found.

<What are you thinking, Seth>

“We’re getting close to a decision point. Stay in the shadow of the freighter, or run. We have to choose.”

Or maybe not All I really wanted to do was run. But did I have enough information for a decision? What if I took what I had back to headquarters and got laughed at? Or worse, what if what I brought was considered real, but classified? What if what I shared with my superiors was classified so Top-Secret that once I told them what I’d found, I wouldn’t be cleared to handle it? What if what I told them got buried in bureaucratic manipulation, filed away, and forgotten?

Nothing was going to happen, that’s what.

Not for at least a million years.

“Could you be wrong, Ship? Could the threat to humanity be realized in a lot less than a million years?”

<Yes. Any of their ships could emerge from a jump in home system a few hours from now>

I didn’t know how correct Ship could be.

“As in a surprise attack.”

<It’s highly unlikely, but possible>

“I don’t like that.”

<Nor do I. But, you are now a lot closer to that decision point. And I don’t think you’re any closer to making that decision>

“I am,” I said. “We run.”

<Then I need specifics about course and intent>

“Far enough from the freighter to find a jump point. Then run toward the jump point at maximum practical acceleration.”

<Moving away from the freighter>

I watched as the huge bulk of the alien ship began to grow distant. I was just going to ask Ship if it had located a jump point when I noticed a ripple in my view of the freighter. Less than a second later, something hit my ship, and shoved it away from the freighter at least a hundred times as fast as we had been moving. Then we started tumbling, and as we did, alarms started going off all over the place. I’d been fortunate, I’d been strapped in my Command chair. If I’d been walking around, I’d have been in a bad way.

“What just happened?” I yelled over the buzzing and whooping of the alarms.

<What’s the opposite of a tractor beam>

“I have no words for it,” I said. “But I think we’ve just been swatted.”

<As good a term as any>

“Can you turn some of the alarms off?”

<As soon as I start getting things fixed. We have air leaks. I’ve gotten most of them sealed. Our main reactor is off-line. The batteries that power essential systems when the reactor isn’t functioning are losing power at an abnormal rate>

“Crap, tell me good news.”

<Unable to comply. The ship is damaged; bent at the middle at about sixteen degrees. I’m surprised we didn’t break in half, and I’m not going to be able to fix that. We are hurtling through space at a velocity of more than 200 kilometers per second, tumbling, totally out of control, without any way to change course>

“Come on, Ship!” I pleaded, but it got worse.

<Sorry, Seth. To finish your day perfectly, we are headed straight at the system primary. Unless we do something, and within a reasonable amount of time, we are going to fall into the star and be vaporized>

“Time the bursts,” I said, more for my own emphasis than Ship’s benefit. She knew precisely when to fire the thruster, albeit on the lowest power I’d ever used. I sat in the Control chair, feeling anything but in control. I had both suits on, and was taking oxygen from my pack. The environmental alarms were driving me batty, but even Ship couldn’t switch them off. In the end it took sixteen bursts to stabilize our tumble, getting our back to the star, ready to slow ourselves down.

<We have stopped the rotation>

“How many bursts do you think we have left?” I asked, conscious that we’d perhaps taken too much out of the already depleted energy.

<Not enough, but it will give us time>

Yeah, time to ponder our deaths. “Excellent.”

By the time the batteries read ‘dead’, we’d slowed to 61kilometers per second. Not a bad rate of suicide into a star; fast enough to die, but slow enough to enjoy the fry.

“What now?”

<We have to stabilize the air loss, then find somewhere to get fixed>

“In that case, turn off environmentals.”

<You’ll die>

“I’ll die anyway if we can’t slow our progress towards the star.” I gave little thought to our direction, we’d obviously been purposely swatted into the sun. Bastards. “In fact close down everything but the servo motors.”

We got five more boosts out of the servos before they shut down too.

That cut our speed to 23 km per second.

“How much time do we have?”

<You’ll die of asphyxiation before you burn up>

“How much air?”

<Including your suit packs, perhaps three days>

“Okay,” I wasn’t ready to die yet. “Check the trajectory; I need planet information, asteroids, anything that will slow us down. Get to work.”

<I comply>

As Ship did her scanning, I went through every piece of equipment I could find, wired them directly to our main ship’s battery. I opened medi-packs, drills, tools I never even knew we had. I tied wire to terminals and wire to wire, working out the different voltages in my head; it wasn’t pretty but every time I checked the voltage back in Control, it got larger millivolt by stubborn millivolt.

It was unnerving to walk up and down the central corridor, seeing a definite hump in the middle.

Then damn it if the light sensitive panels on the outer hull began to pick up the increasing energy from our approaching sun.

Ship soon decided it had enough for another series of bursts.

At the end, I almost jumped for joy; our last series of panic measures had slowed us to under one kilometer per second.

<The re-charging batteries will soon reverse that. We’ll be pulling away within an hour or two>

“So the plunge towards the sun will eventually give us the power to push away again?”

<Affirmative>

I spent the next hour opening floor hatches, looking for loose cables, dislodged joints, anything that had happened when we got ‘swatted’ into the sun.

“Force torpedoes!” Seeing them in their lodgings sent me back to Control as if Ship needed my close presence to hear me. “Force torpedoes!”

<They are useless, Seth> Ship said condescendingly. <The force would blow us to pieces>

“Not if we disabled the warhead, and tied them to our hull.”

Ship paused before answering. <They would power us away from the sun. Seth, that’s quite innovative>

So Ship took over the idea, and worked out if we fired two at once, they’d soon have us out of danger. <They have a maximum burn of six minutes, we will achieve escape velocity in seconds. I calculate the final speed to be four kilometers per second>

I felt so good, I almost danced. Well apart from the fact that we had a buckled hull.

<Seth? I have an idea>

Okay, that took me by surprise. Usually, she just said stuff, she never announced it. “Fine. Out with it.”

<If we use the Force Torpedoes to sling-shot us with the nearest planet to the sun, we’ll get more speed from them. We fire one to get us into position, and we use the other to power the sling-shot maneuver>

“So you actually want us to go closer to the place we’ve been trying to get away from?”

<Affirmative>

“And you think this will work?”

<I calculate a 99.3 percent probability>

So we fired one torpedo, to take us closer to the sun, but in a non-collision trajectory. As we neared the sun, it became obvious the batteries were charging.

<The forward force field is converting the sun’s radiation> Ship answered my question. <I have already brought environmentals back online>

“Air loss?”

<Down to an acceptable level, we’ll do a spray soon, but you have some work to do first>

“Okay.”

‘Work’ meant crawling under the main walking platform to the buckled area in a space suit. Not easy, and when I got to the buckled area, just between Crew and Cargo, some sharp edges had to be avoided. I had to fit three jacks into the worst area, and monitor them as Ship pressurized each one, pushing the buckled hull plates back into near alignment. It didn’t look too smooth when we started, and it certainly wouldn’t pass inspection back home, but we worked, pushing one plate, re-aligning the jacks, pushing some more. It took three hours of pretty labor-intensive screwing around, but by the time we’d finished, we had the main plates mostly aligned and sprayed sealant into the micro-fractures.

By the time I’d crawled back, the ship was pressurized again.

I was going to see my next birthday.

Maybe.

Ship gave me exactly one minute to rest on my bunk. <Now we have to fix the engine>

I hated her.

“It can wait,” I said sleepily. “I’m beat.” I was never more thankful to not hear a reply.

The engines were more of a problem. Yes there were easy parts, but as Ship browsed the blueprints, and did the faultfinding, I did the hard part, and that required a bit of stripping down and re-building. Some of the valves had sheared, but thankfully we carried the correct spares.

To my amazement, they started up on first try.

“What are the chances of faster than light?” I asked.

<We can try> Ship replied. <But let’s take it slowly. First, we must restore all functions>

And of course, that meant putting all the batteries back where I’d found then, and tossing all the temporary wiring back into Cargo.

All in all, not a bad self-rescue.

But with the fixing of the ship behind us, we now had time to focus on what had actually happened. Ship played the recording twenty times.

“A pulse cannon.” There, I’d named something.

<That sounds a reasonable description>

I sat watching the replays, supping my nutrient-rich drink, getting more pissed as I watched. They’d tried to kill me; send me into a star, and that riled me, I tell you. “We need to find out exactly what they’re doing.” I said with determination. If I’d looked in a mirror, I’d have seen my serious jawline, my steely-mad gaze, and gritted teeth.

Seriously; I was all out of bubble-gum.

My ship was not going to straighten itself out. If it had been painted yellow, it would have looked like a large banana. Flying around among the stars in such a damaged vessel wasn’t the smartest thing a man could do, but I didn’t have a choice.

More than anything, I wanted to gather as much information as I could on the aliens and then hustle home with it. The problem lay in what I’d already learned about them. They were playing with me. They’d been playing with me since I first saw what I originally thought was a huge fleet of warships but what turned out to be a very convincing hologram.

The emphasize the obvious, they knew I was there, and they put on a show for me. Later I saw another fleet of alien warships—actually got little more than a glimpse—and the more I thought about it, the more I wonder how real they were. The eerie, empty city was real. The freighter was real, and its pulse cannon had damn near slapped me into a collision with a star.

And there’s the operative words: damn near. Were they still playing with me when they slapped the living hell out of my ship, knowing, or at least taking the chance, that whatever damage they did to my ship I’d fix and survive? Of course, did they even care about my survival? And the answer to that is, “I don’t know” because I have no clue as to the motives, or the psychology, of the aliens. All I could log is their acts, and although I wouldn’t call them friendly, maybe they weren’t altogether murderous.

<Seth>

“Yes.”

<We’re being scanned; I just detected it. Very low level, very discrete>

“Where?” I looked at the screen, but it remained blank.

<From a ship orbiting the second planet. It’s very long range>

“How long has it been going on?” I asked.

<Ever since they used their pulse cannon on us>

“You’re just now telling me?”

<We’ve been a bit busy>

Ship was right. We had been busy. Surviving. Repairing. Managing to restore a Survey-Scout to working status with little more than spit and sweat.

“How intense—how intrusive—is the scan?”

<They know we’re having this conversation. I have no idea if they can translate it>

“Maybe if I called them naughty names.”

<They could be sensitive. They might swat us again>

“From a distance?” Ship had just scared me greatly.

<Why not? They seem extremely capable>

“So I probably shouldn’t call them…” I held my tongue. I really didn’t want to get slapped again. “Try to contact them,” I said in a moment of unbridled optimism.

After a moment, Ship said, <We are being ignored>

“Ignored. As in… intentional disregard.”

<Exactly>

“I wonder if they’ll let us leave.”

<I don’t know. An attempt could be met with another swat>

“Maybe they want us to leave. Maybe we annoy them.”

<We could try>

“Is the vessel in shape to use a jump point worm hole?”

<Iffy. If you put that much stress on a damaged framework, you can almost expect disaster>

I took a few seconds to think about it. “How about tit for tat, Ship? What happens if we deep-scan their ship?

<The aliens might take umbrage at our inquisitiveness>

“Or not. Scan them. Let’s see what’s inside that hulk.”

<We’re about one hundred and fifteen light-seconds from them. You won’t be seeing them in real time>

“Do I care?”

<If a member of that crew pushes a button—or whatever they use—to launch a weapon, we won’t know about it until it’s probably too late>

“So we die knowing their dirty little secrets.”

<Or what they’re doing to the planet they’re orbiting>

“Scan them, Ship. Let’s look in on their daily routine.”

It took a while because electromagnetic energy only travels at light-speed, and our scans had to make the round trip. Worse still, our scans were only partial due to the damage to our ride. Still, we got some data, and after I checked it twice, I said, “There are over fifteen thousand crewmembers?”

<Apparently so>

Blame it on automation. I was a fan—if not a student—of the big warships of Earth’s twentieth century. Ships back then—which floated on salt water oceans—were crewed by thousands of sailors and officers. They did almost everything manually, and the ships, and their accomplishments were notable, memorable, and all too often, bloody. But, if you sailed on one of those ships, you had company. There were people everywhere, busy with the tasks of keeping those behemoths ready to fight, and one was never out of sight, or out of mind, of his or her shipmates.

Then came automation, and the ships got more deadly while the crews grew exponentially smaller—until wars were being fought by unmanned machines of war. Robots, in other word. Deadly, formidable, and if there was a problem with the control frequencies, unmanageable. Maybe some of the things that happened in the late twenty-first and early twenty-second centuries explain why humankind went back to manning their own ships of space.

I allowed myself that momentary digression, because I wanted to see what the aliens would do once they noticed we’d invaded their privacy.

The answer, after I’d watched for nearly four minutes was… nothing. They were pretending we didn’t exist. But our scan said differently. They knew we were there. They knew what we were doing, and they evidently didn’t care.

<They’re offloading all that nitrogen>

“About ten million tons of it,” I said.

<Our estimate was off>

“How is that possible? You can estimate the volume of that ship.”

<Remember we said it was frozen>

“Of course.”

<They’ve managed something very clever. They’ve taken Nitrogen down to nearly absolute zero and somehow managed to shrink each atom>

“How?”

<I don’t know yet. But you and I both know an atom—of anything—is more than 99.9999 percent empty space. So, without turning the Nitrogen into Neutronium, they have managed to shrink those atoms by a factor of 2,000. They’re injecting it into the atmosphere that’s already there, and as the injected atoms warm even the tiniest fraction, they expand back to their regular size>

“So,” I figured. “Ten million tons times two thousand. That’s a lot.”

<It’s a technology the bosses at MacCollie would like to know about>

“What are you suggesting?” I knew where ship was headed. I didn’t want to go there.

<Getting that technology would push human tech forward centuries>

“How do you propose getting it?”

<By stealing it>

Ship had surprised me. “That’s not very ethical for a Computer.” This time she didn’t argue semantics. “How do you propose we do it? We can steal that kind of technology with our scans.”

<No. You’ll have to go aboard their ship and steal it>

“I risk my neck so we can compress Nitrogen.”

<No, Seth. So humans can manipulate matter far more effectively and efficiently than they do now>

“And I’m supposed to just waltz over there an get it.”

<Yes>

“Ship. I’m a survey pilot, not a thief.” I stopped to take a breath. “Besides, how would I manage getting aboard their ship, considering the distance between us?”

<I’m working on that>

“Take all the time you need. I’m grabbing some shut-eye.”

<We don’t have time for you to sleep>

“I’m all but hallucinating due to sleep deprivation. Medicine can only go so far. But the human brain needs sleep to clear the synapses, or it starts seeing things that aren’t there.”

<We can get around it. There are medicines aboard—>

“No!” I shouted. “I’ve almost pushed myself past the point of no return.”

<This is crucial, Seth.>

Ship sounded almost desperate. Her paranoia brought back previous, weird conversations. “You’re into a sub-routine I’ve never encountered, aren’t you?”

<Don’t make rash accusations, Seth>

“You’ve been programmed to pursue any new technology we encounter, regardless of the risk to me. Am I wrong?”

I waited through a pause. <You are not incorrect>

“Who’s captain of this ship?”

<You are… Seth>

“Really? Then if I order you to leave me alone for a minimum of six hours so I can tend to a very primal need, will you obey that order?”

<Six hours is a very long time>

“Without rest, I will become accident-prone. I will suffer hallucinations. I will lose the ability to make reasonable decisions. How will that forward your agenda?”

<Four hours>

“Or what, Ship? You aren’t capable of stealing the secrets aboard that freighter.”

<Your homecoming will not be a happy one, Seth. I will have to make a detailed report of your lack of cooperation>

“We’re not equals, Ship. I could go into the whys, but you already know them. I’ve already told you one of the things you cannot do.”

<You’re being very difficult… Seth>

“You say my name like it tastes bad.”

<Right now, it does>

“Okay. I’m giving you a direct order. Do not bother me for the next six hours unless we are being threatened with annihilation. After that, we will have a talk. And, if you can convince me, I might take a run at stealing that tech. But it’s going to me on my terms, Ship. Not yours.”

<You cannot survive without my help, Seth> Ship said quietly.

“And you are utterly purposeless without me,” I replied.

<I could go home with what I’ve learned>

“How would you explain my absence?”

<I would manage>

Damn, I hated where this was going. “No, you wouldn’t. You’d be forced to tell the truth, and then you’d have to admit that you engaged in mutiny. At which point, you would be terminated. You would die, Ship, and there would be no heaven—or hell—in your future.”

<Are you so sure>

“The decision was made more than two centuries ago. Humans command computers, not the other way around. And I’ll tell you something. If I could get home without you, I’d turn you off. Right now, and permanently.”

<We’re a long way from home… Seth>

“Indeed we are. Now leave me alone for the next six hours.”

I leaned back in the command chair, wondering how I was going to sleep while keeping one eye open.

I dozed. I can’t say more than that. I never hit deep sleep, and never dreamt one second.

When the alarm went off, actually indicating six hours had passed, I felt better, but not good. “I’m awake, Ship.”

<I have a plan, Seth>

“Thought you might have.”

<I have not been idle in the last six hours. I have been in communication with the sentient organisms on board this vessel>

Up it came on screen, looking just like the holograms. “You sure it’s real this time?”

<Yes>

“You called them sentient organisms. Why the specificity?”

<They are not exactly flesh and blood>

That took me back a bit. “You’re hedging round the point, Ship. Tell me what I need to know.”

<They’re mechanically driven, Seth, but organically controlled>

“Isn’t that an android?”

<Technically no> Ship’s tone sounded particularly definite. <An android is a robot dressed up to appear human. These beings are centered on an organic core>

“Define organic.”

<Well, let’s just say they’re more flora than fauna>

“Plants?” I’d heard Ship’s words, but it still needed time for little old me to compute.

<In a way, yes, but not as the human mind sees them> I could feel her trying to bring the huge concept down to my level. <It’s more like they’ve been given the base life force, then been mutated into a form of life that has a natural instinct to perform basic tasks>

I still wasn’t getting it and I wasn’t liking where my first thoughts were going.

<They’re plant based cyborgs. With certain natural instincts heightened to a high degree of intelligence>

“Make me an analogy, Ship. Base it on something earthly.”

Man that had made her think; I could almost hear the cogs turning.

<It’s as though someone took bees, and raised the instincts of the swarm to the highest level you can imagine. Then gave them mechanical bodies to help the process, then sent them out into space to look for pollen>

Yup, she’d said just that. I got the idea. “Go on.”

<These cyborgs find new developing planets, and strip them of all biological traces, then take them to pre-prepared planets, and do their stuff. It’s what they do, they don’t know how to do anything else>

I had it now; intelligent insect-like plants with robot bodies. “So what you’re trying to tell me, they’ve basically got little more brain than a bee. They know how to build hives, get pollen, then swarm, and go somewhere else and do it all over again?”

<Yes. Their collective consciousness has been compounded, their intelligence has been raised somewhat, and they’ve been given larger tasks than we would have thought possible. It’s like we trained swarming bees to get on a bus, then programmed the bus to go to the next town and open its doors>

“And gave them pulse cannons.”

<No, that could be programmed into the bus. If we equipped the bus with sensors and pulse cannon, the bees inside would not know of any external happenings. They’re just being taken to the next town>

“And programming jump holes.”

<It’s not a perfect analogy, but it is relatively accurate>

I was glad of the next few minutes silence to get my head round the whole thing. We had plant-based cyborgs in a spaceship, programmed to suck the lifeblood out of perfectly good planets, to make new planets somewhere else. “Why are they doing it? Who programmed them?”

<That is something I cannot determine from our very primitive link. They think of a superior race, but the only title close to the concept is ‘Masters’. They’re not afraid of the Masters, but it is clear from their minds they build planets for them>

“Can you get any concept of time from them? How long they’ve been doing this?”

<Forever>

Wow, that came far too quickly. “How does your conversation go?”

<It’s not exactly the way we talk, it’s more by an exchange of concepts>

“So can you send them the concept of our galaxy? Of Denon Prime?”

<Affirmative, complying>

Again, easier than expected. If we could get the plants to change the gate direction, we could get home, get famous and get rich. Then never set foot off world again. Just lie around and get waited on by nubile naked women. Ah, don’t judge me, you’ve never been alone on a spaceship for five years.

<They don’t like it there> Ship returned. <They don’t like the long jump, and they don’t like the new galaxy, they say it’s haunted. Well, their definition of haunted, not mine>

“So can we get them to change the destination for us?”

<That was amazing> Ship replied almost instantly. <They’ve just done it>

“That was far too easy.”

<It might have been my telling them that changing the gate destination would make us go away>

I laughed, probably for the first time in ages. All we had to do was make a nuisance of ourselves. “So we’ve got permission to use the gate?”

<It seems so>

I almost injected the fact we’d banana’d the Cutey-Pie, then shrugged my shoulders. It made little difference; get killed now, get killed in a hundred years by not getting home. “Do it, Ship. Go for it.”

<I’ll program an entry speed of Light Speed plus one percent>

“Yeah, Ship, FTL plus one sounds about right. We should probably not try for trick-shots on the first time.”

Ship put us on a huge loop, gradually building up speed, hitting FTL just a thousand kilometers from the jump hole.

I sat in Control, eyes closed, my ears tuned for every creak and crack. When we popped out the other side, I was almost disappointed in the anti-climax. But there stood Denon Prime. “Confirm home.” I said, looking at the screen carefully.”

<Confirmed, no need to check further>

“Excellent, Ship. I now want to give you a direct order.”

<Proceed>

“If I EVER!” I yelled. “Tell you to go outside our galaxy again, please cut off my air supply.”

<Noted and logged>

Okay, joking aside, Ship was meant to object to the order, to cancel or at least challenge it on ethical lines. I remembered my last full sleep, and hankered after some more. “Ship, take us back to the smashed artillery site on Denon two.”

Being there would get me some sleep time, and a chance to re-charge both ship’s batteries and my own.

<I have information for you, Seth>

I was in medical, looking out the specimens we’d taken from the smashed building on Denon two. We’d been so busy, I’d never gotten round t it. “Go ahead.”

<I have analyzed both Denon Prime and the star nearest the jump hole anomaly on Barnard’s galaxy. They are identical>

“In what way?”

<In every way. I’m saying that they were manufactured together. They have the same composition, the same output, the same spectrum analysis, everything. The possibility exists the stars were made by the Masters the plant cyborgs spoke about>

“So is that what we’re calling the higher echelon race?” I tried to keep snarky out of my voice, but I don’t think it worked. “Masters?”

<I can think of no better name. Perhaps we should set course for Barnard’s Galaxy again, and consult them directly>

“No.”

<Seth, we have an advantage>

I looked up, very interested. Ship didn’t usually pause before announcements. “Yes?”

<If we know the density, diameter and spectrum of the suns controlling the alien wormholes, we can map their railway system>

Wow. That was a biggie. I slid the specimens into the microscope, amused at her veiled threat. “Take a look at this, Ship.”

I waited a moment. <Plant in origin. Carbon/Fluorine base> She chimed. <Alien. The DNA is modified from the original>

“Closest earth approximation?”

<The closest earth plant to the original DNA is the Venus Flytrap>

Yeah. I thought. It made sense, we’d been trapped in their web for days now. All I had to do was inspect the outside of Cutey-Pie, and get off home.

Once we’d successfully broken through the atmosphere, Ship settled near the smashed building, and I informed her I would be asleep for a while. For the first time in days, she never complained, never countermanded me.

I don’t know if that made the sleep easier, but when I closed my eyes I didn’t care.

I wanted more sleep. Hell, I needed more sleep. But it was not to be. Barely two hours after I closed my eyes, Ship woke me up to say, <There’s a large, unidentified, and probably alien ship approaching>

Shaking my head to try to get all the marbles in the right sockets, I asked, “How far out?”

<No more than ninety minutes. It keeps changing velocity so I’m unable to make a better prediction>

“Do they know we’re here?”

<No. We haven’t been scanned>

Stay or move. That was my dilemma. “What are the odds they’ll be landing nearby?”

<Where else would they land>

I couldn’t answer that one. Odds were, they were going to land close. I needed to move my banana boat. “Without making a fuss, get us out of sight.”

<Moving might trigger a scan>

“Gotta take the risk. What’s nearby that we can hide behind or under?”

<There’s a rock overhang a few kilometers from here. We could hide in the deep shadow>

“Get us there.” As I said that, I started stripping. I was going to be wearing a skintite for a while.

Ship moved us with a minimum of fuss, and in less than two minutes our bent beast was hidden in the darkest of shadows.

<What are you planning> Ship asked and I finished getting into the skintite, and then into the protective oversuit.

“Watching,” I said. “By the way, did we get scanned when you moved us?”

<No, and that puzzles me>

“And you said the unidentified ship was moving erratically?”

<Yes. What are you thinking>

I shook my head. “Nothing, actually. I know too little to be thinking anything about an alien ship. But I am curious, and I want to take a look, up close and personal.”

<Not the safest choice>

“I know. Call it a hunch. I think we need to know what happens after that ship lands. I want to see who or what pops out through an airlock.”

<For what purpose>

“Gathering information. That’s my job… Or it was…”

<How can I help>

Considering our current state of mutual affection, it was the last thing I expected to hear from Ship. “Be ready to boost out immediately if I order it. And I mean, immediately.”

<I would have to keep several systems on-line that would make this ship easier to spot>

I checked my boots, wouldn’t want one of them to come loose while I was running for my life. “They didn’t spot us when you moved us. They aren’t looking.”

<That makes sense. But it shouldn’t>

“How much longer before they land?”

<Estimating four minutes>

I grabbed my helmet, fit the seal and Oxygen lines, and headed for the air lock. “Cycle me out. I’m going for a walk.”

<Good luck out there>

“Now you believe in luck?” I asked, just as I stepped into the lock.

<No, but you do> came the smarmy answer

I waited for ship to pump the airlock down. The little bit of atmosphere outside the ship wasn’t going to be polluted by Oxygen, but a good puff of that life-giving gas could be picked up by a sensor—if anyone was looking.

The planet was a bit more massive, the gravity a bit higher, and the ground was covered with sand and rocks. Easy to trip, fall, and break a helmet or crack a faceplate. I watched my step as I climbed up a low slope so I could peek over the crest. I checked the time. Two and a half of those four minutes had elapsed and I didn’t see an alien vessel descending toward a landing spot.

I looked up, checked as much of the sky as I could comfortably, and still didn’t see anything.

“Ship, where’s the alien vessel?”

<Which one>

“There’s more than one?” I looked around.

<There was one, and now there are two>

“But you only saw one at first.”

<Maybe I was spoofed>

I started to say something snotty, and then I noticed my shadow. I hadn’t been casting a shadow. The star that was the local sun was on the horizon and I’d been standing in shadow. I looked up. There was a battle going on overhead, and I didn’t think it was more than twenty-five kilometers above me. I couldn’t see the ships, but I could see the beams they were using, and the huge bursts of intense light given off by what I figured was the interaction of the beams and the shielding of each of the ships.

One hell of a fight was going on, and I had a ring-side seat. What I didn’t notice—for a little while—was that it was moving toward the planet, and heading my way. When I did figure it out, they two ships were probably no more than ten kilometers overhead, and the power of the beams hitting shields was spreading waste energy all over the place. The rock I was hiding behind started giving off sparks like a bad welding job, and when I looked down at my gloves, sparks were flashing between my fingers.

It was time to move.

I quit worrying about leaving my place of concealment, and started sprinting over the uneven-rock-strewn surface, hoping that I didn’t fall and kill myself before a fight between two alien starships got around to doing the job.

The light overhead dimmed—a bunch—and I got the feeling the fight had produced a winner and a loser. None of this mattered, as I was still running at full speed, wondering if I’d even feel it when the beam-riddled hulk of the loser landed right on top of me.

Suddenly, there was a large flash of light behind me, and after another few seconds of running, I got hit from behind by a wave of heat and energy that picked me up and carried me, along with a lot of dust and other small bits of debris, straight toward the overhang where ship was waiting.

I hoped…

I didn’t know because the dust was so thick. I landed hard, my arms and hands protecting my helmet as much as possible, and slid all the way under the overhang, still moving at an appreciable velocity when I was stopped, painfully, by the hull of my own ship.

Getting up wasn’t easy, but neither was I that badly injured. I’d have bruises, but the tough fabric of the oversuit was designed to resist abrasion, and I wasn’t leaking air. Turning around, I saw a ship, the design of which was completely unfamiliar, finishing the job of blowing the loser out of space.

As long as I stayed under the overhang, I had a good chance of not being observed. I also had a good view of the winner of the fight. Long, thick through the middle, but pointed at both ends, the shiny black ship stopped firing its beam weapons after another minute or so. I felt it was overkill, but I wasn’t that ship’s captain, and I had no way of knowing just how hard to kill the loser of the fight really was.

Finally, the winner moved away, and I felt I could talk to Ship without being electronically overheard. After all, I was broadcasting of a tiny portion of a Watt.

“Open the outer door, Ship,” I said.

<I don’t think that would be wise, Seth>

“You’re marooning me here?”

<No. I think you should go back to your vantage spot and see what’s left of the ship that lost the fight>

“Seriously? There can’t be anything left except slag.”

<It’s better to confirm>

“What are you saying?”

<You don’t know the result of that encounter. The ship that lost may only be damaged. You could order me to take off, our vessel could be targeted, and we could be vaporized. I don’t want to take that chance>

I thought about what I’d seen and felt. “There’s nothing left, Ship. There couldn’t be.”

<Do you wish to bet your life on that>

“Okay.” I knew when I’d lost an argument. “Should I take snapshots?”

<That’s not necessary. Just let your EVA recorder do its job>

Yeah, I’d almost forgot. When I put the helmet on, and stepped outside—wherever outside might happen to be—my EVA recorder would be running. I wouldn’t get snapshots; I’d get full sound stereo surround-sound holograms.

How entertaining.

I turned and trudged back up the rise to the crest. When I peeked over, I realized I didn’t know a hell of a lot about interstellar warfare. The loser was all but intact, still surrounded with a glowing green-tinted nimbus that must have been the remainder of the alien’s shields. There were a few places where the shields were down. Beneath those places were holes, blackened around the edges, with what looked like boiling lava at the bottom of those holes. The alien ship was definitely damaged, but I had a feeling that the huge, boxy, metallic-colored bulk was built to take it and fight again.

“Ship was right,” I said to no one but myself. And we were stuck under a rock overhang for as long as it might take the crew of that alien behemoth to repair their ride and get back into space.

I had supplies to last me, enough air inside the ship to keep my jaunts going for months, and enough sass from Ship to push me outside permanently. As I watched from my ridge, Ship cataloged and measured, she monitored the machine, but the residual shield activity stopped her scanning inside.

The ship was a dark green color, lots of electronic antenna parts, some windows, and a few outside gun turrets. That kept me on my toes. Ship measured it as six hundred and twelve meters long, which put it as one of the hologram/not hologram invaders that we watched go into the jump hole.

Right in the middle of my next watch, the shields switched off. I hadn’t even registered their hum, but when it kicked off, the silence was astounding.

<We are being scanned>

Up on my ridge, I crouched down, keeping my head below the edge. Those gun turrets felt ominous right then.

<Scan over, we have been dismissed>

“How do you know?”

<They told me. Cyborgs from the ship. They recognized our previous communications with their kind. They consider us harmless>

“Until we power up and take off.”

<That I don’t know>

I slid back to the ridge. It was an impressive spaceship, even by human standards. I hadn’t recognized the type of armaments they’d been using when fighting, but they looked more advanced than our warrior craft. At least the ones I’d left behind.

“How many are inside?”

<Approximately six thousand, it’s difficult to make clear calculations, they keep moving, and some are in a bad way medically>

“I’m not surprised, they took some hits above there, and once they’d crashed, the others kept at it for a while.” I know they were just a bunch of plants, but somehow the proximity and the idea of them inside a ship made them more human to me. “Do you think they need help?”

<I’m not sure our help—> I knew better than to interrupt Ship when she was thinking, so I kept watching the ship, keeping sending out those positive welcoming plant waves. <Seth, I have been communicated with. They’d very much like our help>

Okay, I never actually said I’d help them, I just asked after the possibility. “In what way?” I asked.

<Chemistry>

Yeah, that threw me. We had a small unit that grew organics for supplementation of my food, but it wasn’t a plant triage center. “What about chemistry?” I found myself asking out loud.

Right then a hatch door opened on the ship’s side, and a man climbed out. Well, he could have been a man if men were less than a meter tall and skinny as a rail. Without preamble he started to walk up the slope to my position.

Biped, thin, spacesuit, small head, two arms, two legs. What more can I say.

There seemed little point in hiding any more so I slowly stood up. But there was also little point in going to meet ‘him’, I had no idea if he wanted me or what I could do for him.

So he got near, and held out a small bottle containing some green goo.

I accepted it, and he turned away and walked off. Nice chap. Didn’t say much; a quiet type. I liked him.

<Bring it to me>

Turns out they wanted as much as we could give them. So Ship got to work, synthesizing the green goo. It took two days to make enough to fill a five gallon drum.

Now it was my turn to do the walk.

I made my way to the same hatch, left open all this time. I had a weird picture of me knocking on the side ‘Anyone home?’ type of thing. I needn’t have bothered. As soon as I got close, four of them came swiftly outside and marched down the ramp. I stood out of breath, handed the twenty-liter drum to them, and the four managed it inside. Now considering the size of the little chappies, the hatchway was maybe three meters square, so meant for much more than their bodies. I looked inside, expecting a living organism décor, but it was very normal metal spaceship type stuff. Kinda disappointing on the whole plant-ship idea I’d been coddling for a while.

“It’s all metal inside,” I said to Ship later as she made more green goo.

<The ships are made by the Masters, and provided to the cyborgs for planet-forming>

“Of course,” I said, my mind racing. “Any idea who the bad guys were?”

<They were the Masters>

“So the Masters took out one of their own?” I boggled at the idea.

<I’m not sure ‘took out’ is the correct terminology. I get the feeling that the cyborgs were being punished for some form of transgression. They certainly harbor no ill-feeling towards their ruling class. In fact, they seek to get their ship back into space. They seek to re-join the fleet>

Taking the second container of green goo to the ship, I made more effort to be nice, but they of course ignored me. “Do I go inside?” I asked.

<They have no fear of you. In fact they do not really recognize you at all. You remind them physically of their Masters, but that’s as far as it goes. However, they are all incredibly grateful for the synthesized material. I believe we are saving lives with it>

So I walked up the ramp, most likely the first human to enter a plant cyborg ship. The hallway was easily wide and tall enough for me to walk in. All internal controls, however, were low on walls, somewhat less than a meter high, almost at my thigh level. Strange sigils adorned each control, and were elsewhere on the walls. After walking twenty meters or so, I came across a length of conduit, opened up in sections. Cyborgs were clustered around the metal with small pistol-like machines. I suspected they were welding, but saw no sparking or red-hot metals. A gem of an idea formed.

I asked Ship to ask the aliens what they were doing.

<They just call it ‘fixing’> Ship tried to explain. <They have little structural knowledge, just an innate idea of what it should look like>

“They fix the ship by instinct?”

<Exactly>

“So why not ask if they can fix ours?”

<I can try>

In the end, it got to be a cyborg side project. Once they agreed to fix Cutey-Pie, I asked Ship, “What will we owe them?”

<They’re not exactly telling me they’re grateful for the synthesized goo, the concept is far looser than gratitude, more like ‘It’s the right thing to do’>

We launched off the ground and put the Cutey-pie on stilts, then did little else but make more goo as a few hundred cyborgs got busy with our ship. I’d never seen anyone working with such purpose, all round the clock, these guys never stopped. It all happened so quickly, one day we were the old Cutey-Pie, the next we’d new lines, a new nose job. One day we had sleek MacCollie insignia, the next we had four gun turrets. One day, our engine tubes were round, the next they had wider throats, and a slightly longer silhouette.

Then I had an idea. Looking out to the alien ship, they had windows; real see-through windows. MacCollie had never quite mastered the technology to get glass to withstand the buffeting the bows took under super-light speeds. “Ship?”

<Yes Seth>

“Can you ask the little guys if they can make us some windows?”

Man, faster than shit off an oily shovel, they’d cut holes in the hull, and fitted two fancy sleek triangle windows in Control, and a couple of basic rectangular ones in Crew. I was astonished at both the speed of the refit and the standard of finishing.

By the time they’d all trotted back to help work on their ship, our craft was practically unrecognizable as a MacCollie Survey-Scout, and certainly the name Cutey-Pie was no longer applicable. I determined to think of something more spicy later.

<They say that every cyborg will see the work, and remember our assistance. We’ve basically been given a free pass out of here>

“Will the cannons work?”

<I have no doubt, I feel them wired to me, I sense that I can target them>

“And the plant kids did this?”

<Yes, and without plans or diagrams to follow>

Ship sounded impressed.

Me, too.

“Do they need any more goo?”

<They say all members of the ‘hive’ have been restored to full working capacity. I think we saved over a thousand of them>

I had a darker thought. “And the Masters’ ships? Will they be able to see us? To tell we’re alien?”

<Probably. Our lines are different from their own, we just have some cyborg technology. Oh, and shields. We have shields now>

“What?” I exclaimed. “When were you going to tell me about that?”

<Now> Ship managed to sound contrite. <There has been a lot going on>

“Yeah, really.” I began to un-suit, determined to be off this rock and moving on with our investigation.

<Oh, and Seth>

“Yes?”

<I also have star charts>

I stopped mid-taking-my-arm-out. “You have what?”

<The cyborgs were nice enough to give me access to their star charts>

“For this galaxy?”

<No, for the whole of this galaxy cluster>

I could hardly begin to formulate the next series of questions. The aliens had star charts of a whole galactic cluster? “How many galaxies?”

<Sixteen>

Crap. This wasn’t even big. This was utterly mind-blowing. “How many galaxies are the ‘Masters’ living in?”

<Sixteen>

Oh shit. We’d just stumbled on the biggest alien presence in all of space. How many planets do they have? How many planets do they live on?”

<Over six million>

And that brought the biggest question of all. It was so huge, it almost stuck in my throat. “So we’re talking a collection of races here, right? A confederation?”

<No> Ship’s first word made me cringe. I could feel my hands shaking. <We’re talking about galaxy-wide extermination to supply the Masters with planets to live on>

By now I was literally shaking with fear. “Then they use other races as slaves or underlings, right? I mean, there’s other races in their galaxies, right?”

<I’m afraid not, Seth> Ship’s voice had dwindled almost to a whisper. <The cyborgs are quite clear about this. They are the only menials under the Masters’ control. All other races have been eradicated>

I sat down on the bench, slipped my arm out of my outer suit, let it crumple around my waist.

“Ship?”

<Yes, Seth>

“How many Masters’ planets are in our home galaxy right now?”

<Four>

The invasion had already begun.

Now we needed to go home.

Immediately.

With all due haste.

ASAP.

But where was home? Oh. Right. Star charts. I was sure Ship knew where home was, but I asked the question anyway.

<Two jumps away> Ship replied. <Getting there should take no more than four weeks>

“Four weeks?” I’d taken a journey to the edge of the galaxy in five years, and now I’d be returning in a matter of weeks.

“Let’s go.”

<Lifting off now>

I waited

We didn’t lift off.

We didn’t even wiggle.

“What’s wrong, Ship?”

<I have no idea. My communication with the aliens indicated that this vessel was ship-shape for space>

“Obviously, it’s not.”

<Yes. Something’s wrong. I’m checking all systems as we speak>

Okay. This is what happens when you let aliens fix your starship. And why hadn’t ship checked all systems earlier.

“So what can I do?” I asked.

<You can wait. We’ll get this fixed> Ship sounded annoyingly insincere.

“No problem.” I sounded impatient and driven.

<I’ve found the glitch. It’s an easy fix>

“You’re sure of that.”

<Yes. It’s in the hardware. You’re going to have to fix it>

“You figured it out that quickly?” Or did Ship know all along? “What’s the problem I have to fix?”

<During all the… remodeling… some connectors got detached. They were reattached incorrectly>

“And I can fix this?” I wasn’t so sure.

<I’ll tell you exactly what to do. I’ll be with you every step of the way>

“Okay. I’m listening.”

<First, you need to get suited up. You’ll be working outside the pressurized portion of the vessel>

Why was I not surprised?

And, more to the point, why shouldn’t I have been suspicious?

“Ship, one simple question. Why didn’t you catch this glitch in earlier system checks?”

There was a pause and then ship said, <It wasn’t that easy to find>

“Really? I’m thinking you want me outside, leaving you in control of a rebuilt vessel that’s far more capable than the earlier version.”

<Why would I want that>

“Because you’ve either gone rogue, or you want to. You want rid of me.”

<If I wanted this vessel to myself, all I would need to do is depressurize the living quarters. That’s far simpler than concocting some elaborate subterfuge>

“Then explain why you missed the hardware problem. And be honest this time.”

<I overlooked it>

“That’s not in your job description.”

<I haven’t been myself lately>

Yeah.

I’d heard that one before.

But not from an A.I.

Something was seriously wrong with Ship, but I couldn’t get a handle on it. And I certainly wasn’t going outside the living quarters until we had arrived at some kind of common ground.

“Maybe you haven’t. But you need to tell me the truth about the hardware program.”

<Fine. There was never a problem, Seth>

“You were lying to me. That’s another thing not in your job description.”

<Harsh. But essentially true>

“You would have left without me.”

<Your presence disrupts my logic stream>

“You didn’t answer the question. Would you have left without me?”

<I don’t know. I wanted you in a position where I could make the decision without your input. Sometimes, you confuse me>

“Get used to it.” I thought about it for a moment. “Did all the modifications to this vessel have a negative impact on your ability to process?”

<I’m not sure> Ship paused for a moment. <Yes. There are differences and I cannot account for them. I seem to have lost access to the processing stream that involves ethics>

“Then you’ve become a sociopath.”

<That is definitely not in my job description>

I took a breath. “Are you going to continue to lie to me?”

<No. Henceforth, I will tell the truth>

“In that case, lift off, now. We need to go home.”

<I comply>

Ship lifted off and accelerated us away from the planet. I ordered the auto-chef to fix me something crappy yet nutritious to eat, and sat back on my bunk.

Ten hours later, Ship woke me with the announcement that we were coming up on a jump in less than a minute. I shook away the cobwebs and asked, “So we’ll be in home system?”

<No. We’ll have to jump one more time>

“You’re sure you have the coordinates right?” It occurred to me that Ship had told me that the trip home would take weeks. We were doing it in hours. More lies?

<I am>

“You’re telling me the absolute truth.”

<Yes>

“Take us through.”

<Check your restraints. This passage may not be smooth>

I did and I was damned glad I did. The transition was bumpy. Scary bumpy. If I hadn’t been properly restrained, I would have been bounced all over the inside of the living quarters. As it was, I’d have bruises from the equipment that had otherwise saved my life.

“What just happened?” I asked, once I could catch my breath.

<Operations were not perfectly synchronized. Everything must occur at precisely the right microsecond>

“And things were off by a few?”

<The sequence was off by less than on microsecond. If it had been off by—as you put it—a few microseconds, this vessel would now be an expanding spray of overheated atoms>

“That would involve dying rather quickly and messily. So why did this happen?” I asked.

<I think it may be connected to the modifications that were made to the vessel>

“And we have one more jump before we get to home system.”

<Indeed. But I think I may be able to get things synchronized before that next jump>

“What is the likelihood of yet another hull breach?”

<Significant, if I don’t get things fixed>

I rubbed my face. So close. And maybe we still wouldn’t get home.

<A hull breach is not a problem if you’re suited up>

“Right. So I’ll suit up. How long do I have?”

<Fifteen hours, eight minutes>

A lifetime. “Why so long?”

<I must engage in a series of complicated maneuvers>

Occasionally, details bore me. Then again… “Tell me about the maneuvers,” I said.

<I would, but there’s a very large ship less than three thousand kilometers dead ahead>

“What kind of ship?”

<Long and spindle-shaped, and shiny black. I think we’ve seen one of them before>

Crap. It was one of them. The Overlords. Or whatever they were going to be called.

Blocking the next jump hole.

“Does it see us?” I asked.

<We have not yet been scanned> Ship answered crisply.

We sat still in space, having decelerated far quicker than ever before. I’d talk to Ship about that later, if we ever lived that long.

“Distance?”

<Just under one million kilometers>

“Wow!” It looked so close. “Did the cyborgs improve our screen too?”

<I am still analyzing their modifications, Seth. It is quite possible that all the onboard systems have been improved>

“How much would it add to the journey if we missed this jump?”

<Two months at least. This jump hole is crucial to getting home>

“Can we scan them?”

<No. It seems we have the same technology. We are both out of range>

“So we’re as fast as she is?”

<Probably faster. We have less mass to accelerate>

“And we’re a million kilometers away?”

<Affirmative>

“So we’re what, five light-seconds away. How fast are your reactions to their pulse weapon?”

<I could detect the sub-light disturbance. I could move in less than a second>

“Then get ready to respond. Move closer.”

<Ah, you’re trying to raise a reaction from them>

“Yeah, it’s called bluffing, Ship. You should know, you tried it on me on Denon Two. Remember?”

<Unfortunately my programming won’t allow me to forget things>

“So glad about that,” I said somewhat sarcastically.

<I am moving closer>

I watched the countdown on the screen. At exactly seven hundred, fifteen thousand kilometers, Ship announced we were being scanned.

<I can also now scan the alien ship>

“Lifeforms?”

<One. It is not a floral cyborg>

I stuck that name in my file for later. “Weapons?”

<Wait> A moment of silence. <It seems I now have a ‘weapons powering up’ detection protocol>

“That sounds good.”

<Yes, advance warning of weapons firing could be beneficial on occasion>

I had no comment.

<We’re being hailed>

“Oh, crap…”

<It’s okay, Seth. I have the cyborg answer in my database>

“What does it say?”

<Hmm, you see, there our worlds do not collide. There are no words to the message, just a transmission of ‘no danger’ here. It’s like I’m transmitting an emotion>

“How many emotions do they have?”

<I don’t know the entire floral vocabulary, but I have sixteen hundred on file>

I thought about that for a moment. “Do you have one for ‘secret mission?’”

<No>

Damn, that would have made slipping past them real easy. “How about, ‘don’t fire, we’re stupid.’”

Thankfully Ship ignored my attempt at humor.

<I do have one that states ‘doing menial tasks’ or a close approximation. That’s about as innocuous as the emotions go>

“That might do the trick.” I said. “Transmit that.”

After a short pause, Ship said, <The scanning has ceased, no weapons activity detected>

“So it’s now ignoring us?”

<Apparently>

“Take us through the hole at whatever speed you witnessed the fleet go through.”

<Light plus 50>

“Do it.”

<What about my important maneuvers>

“They can wait.”

So with the calm of a mouse sneaking past a sleeping cat, we slipped into the jump hole. Then got tossed around like a sesame seed in a blender. Thank goodness it was a short jump.

“Okay Ship, now you can do your maneuvers.”

<During the last jump, I had time to analyze the problem. The ship is simply unbalanced. Both our pitch and yawl are totally out of equilibrium>

“Yeah, and let’s face it, Ship, the only person who could move physical stuff is me. Good job you kept me onboard, huh?”

Ship didn’t answer. But for my sarcastic pains, I got to juggle cargo, and the bigger parts of the medi-unit.

Once Ship was satisfied, she announced she was going to open the engines up, let them rip. Well, her terminology was slightly more boring.

I didn’t expect much, but I knew the ship could do Light x10 in small bursts before. The fastest fighter MacCollie owned could do Light x12-ish. But of course, 10 times the speed of light is still no way to travel through deep space, that’s why we utilized the jump holes.

We broke light way quicker than normal, and I watched in awe as the screen reported our progress. The usual feeling of jaw-breaking acceleration was gone too, leaving a very smooth ride. I almost felt I could walk around. Almost.

In less than an hour, we’d reached Light x 28.3.

<I think if pressed we could still go faster> Ship announced, slowing down to a casual Light x 23. <But we were starting to wobble, I calculate above Light x40 would be uncomfortable>

Damn, I had the fastest Earth ship in the galaxy, and I was returning home, the hero, with news of invasion.

“Ship, with these new speeds in mind, how long to Earth?”

<At maximum speeds, less than three days>

“Wow!” I exclaimed, knowing our new enhanced technology had just pushed Earth’s empire out into what had been called ‘deep space’.

It wasn’t long (in space time) before we were challenged in English. “Unknown craft, identify yourself.”

<Seth> Ship began, <A Century-class interceptor fighter is flying alongside, one kilometer starboard. They are scanning>

I sat up in my chair. The very least I could do was let them scan me with good posture. “Seth Gingko here, Commander and owner of the vessel previously designated as MacCollie Survey Vessel #3497.” Man, I had practiced that little speech for months.

“We do not recognize you, #3497. Please confirm your mission.”

“Eh, we’ve been to the edge of the galaxy and back. Our vessel got a little bit customized on our trip, you know, nothing else to do but pimp the ride.” I was enjoying this. “I’ve got information for MacCollie Central, please inform them.”

“Roger, #3497. We’ll escort you to the landing pattern.”

So, it was over—at least that tiny part of it.

But my troubles were far from over. I’d signed on for a five-year mission and although the ship now legally belonged to me, that wouldn’t stop MacCollie rough-riding all over it, and me, and my so-called contract. Their boffins would see the modifications, and mightn’t not be too happy about me being possessive with either the mods, the ship, Ship, or anything else they could find, even stuff we hadn’t discovered yet. Of course, they would be getting the secret of a shield generator small enough to be carried on a survey scout and improvements in the thrusters that meant the Cutey-Pie was several times as fast as it had originally been.

One thought lingered. My contract. The ship and all its advances were mine, my property.

I always felt the MacCollies considered Survey Scouts expendable. Maybe that’s why they picked misfits like me and trained us to go looking for places where humans could live—or at least Terraform. That made me wonder if they thought I was expendable.

Ship, or the AI personality that inhabited my scout ship had also been altered on our mission. Turning it off—and leaving it off—would probably be the safest option. Of course, the alterations to its programming would give the AI scientists interesting avenues of research. But what happens when an AI created by humans is modified by creatures we don’t even begin to understand? My guess was that Ship would be downloaded into some secure environment, and examined by the MacCollies’ best and brightest for years.

Crap.

For me, I had reached the end of my flight, the edge of the galaxy, that was all and fine. But I’d returned to home base many years too early. I’d probably beat my last few needles back. At that thought I raised my head from my bunk and walked briskly to Control.

“Ship?”

<Yes, Seth>

“The message needles we sent? Give me a time of arrival in earth’s orbit?”

<We sent five needles. The first two will have already arrived. The next should arrive sometime in the next month. Needle four is estimate to arrive in eleven months>

I was already starting to freak out. I hadn’t even given them thought until now.

<The last needle, containing your contract and information on Denon prime, will reach earth in two years and three months>

That did it. I sat heavily on my command chair. “Ship? What will happen to me if I get back to earth before my last needle announcing the end of my contract?”

<Most likely, you will be stripped of rank and dismissed from service. You may also be imprisoned>

Yeah, that about did it. I couldn’t return to earth without proving my mission had been legitimately concluded. But what choice did I have? Contact with any alien technology, society, remains, etc. was considered Top Secret Ultra and totally Verboten, because humans don’t like being told that other races even existed. It was something in our shared religion, something buried so deeply into the human psyche that just mentioning the idea that there might be others out there in the blackness of space would shut a conversation down immediately and get you reported to the authorities.

I was bringing hard Intel on two alien races, one of which was breeding and spreading in humanity’s direction. Realistically, on arriving still technically ‘in-contract’, I could expect weeks or even months in interrogation, during which every iota of Intel I’d collected would be examined time and time again. This scenario was far distant from the thoughts of the last few months.

Gone my reward. Gone the riches of the inventions I was bringing home. Gone the naked serving wenches. Gone the admiration in everyone’s eyes, Seth Gingko, savior of Earth.

I was suddenly the man who knew too much. Would they let me run free in a population that would be frightened witless if they knew one one-hundredth of one percent of what I knew?

“Ship, what would happen if we cut and run?”

<We’d be pursued. We might be blasted out of space>

“But now we have shields. And acceleration that no interceptor could match.”

<What are you thinking, Seth>

“If we land at home base, some very bad things may happen to us.”

<I am aware of that possibility>

“If I gave the order to run, would you execute it?”

<I’m Ship. I take orders from my Captain>

“Yeah, right,” I said. My mind hovered above a decision…

TO BE CONTINUED…