Encounter With Tiber Read online

  He shuddered. “Tiberian was my dead worst subject in school. I can’t wait till we catch up to them so that I won’t have to study so much stuff out of their books.”

  Clio grinned sadistically. “You mean you can’t still recite the four forms for subject-verb agreement—”

  “In my sleep, I just don’t understand them.” He smiled. “And yet I owe those guys a debt, I guess, since that’s what I’m celebrating. Using their slow-imaging technique and our very long baseline, I was able to show the spectroscopic lines for free oxygen coming from a point orbiting Tau Ceti, in the habitable zone.”

  Clio almost dropped her drink. “So there may still be live Tiberians?”

  “Well, live things somewhere the Tiberians went, yes. Free oxygen in spectroscopic lines, not from the sun but around it, means a planetary atmosphere with free oxygen. And free oxygen shouldn’t be possible, at least not over geologic time, without the presence of life. So, yes. Life elsewhere in the universe, and in the present. Or sort of in the present. Fourteen and a half light-years away, so up till fourteen and a half years ago, at least. Can’t vouch for what’s happened since.”

  She noticed that they had been slowly walking toward the row of seats; you always walked slowly carrying a drink on Tenacity because every other week or so, some of the bank of thirty zero-point-energy lasers that propelled the ship would unexpectedly lock up, or one of the ones that had locked up would come back on line, so that the nominal 0.06 g sideways force caused by the ship’s acceleration was forever fluctuating unpredictably between 0.052 and 0.062. The main gravitational component, produced by rotating the cylindrical living quarters that joined the bulbous life support system to the zero-point-energy laser “engines,” had a fierce Coriolis component as well.

  So on Tenacity, liquids in open containers never quite behaved themselves. It might have made more sense to serve the wine in squeeze bottles, as liquids usually were, but none of the crew would have heard of that. A party should feel like a party, and that meant “real” wine glasses, even if the wine was synthesized and the glasses were plastic. When they had sat down with a minimum of slopping, he said, “Now tell me what’s so fascinating about the two Accounts. They were the thing everyone in my school dreaded.”

  She started to tell him, and sipped some wine, and then the conversation became more and more of a blur for a few hours; they ended up being among the last people at the party, which was bound to start some gossip, but they both agreed that neither of them cared at all about gossip. They had agreed to meet for breakfast, Clio realized, as she sat brushing her hair, and reached for her portable terminal, where she carefully marked her calendar.

  Still, wine and excitement aside, as she drifted off to sleep, she found herself thinking of Zahmekoses again, and he seemed to stand in front of her in her dreams: almost seven feet tall, big ears like a bat’s and face elongated like a dog’s, eyes two dark pools like those of a horse, soft amber fur rippling … saying to her, Now, explain a thing like me.

  And the next morning, before breakfast, she had begun her introduction, tapping it out on her keyboard as she sipped her first coffee:

  “There is hardly a more relevant document from the Tiberian exploration of Earth than the Account of Zahmekoses. First and most astonishingly, he actually lived through the whole period of Tiberian exploration in the Sol System, coming as a child on the first ship, playing a role in the affairs of the second ship during his later years, and finally writing his account as a very old being on the Moon….”

  Part II

  Light of Dawn

  7328–7299 B.C.E.

  1

  “HEY, POINTY-EARS!” MEJOX SHOUTED, POUNDING at my door. “You ready to go?”

  “Hey, yourself, fossil-man.” I opened the door. “I’ve been ready for ages. Just sitting here thinking.”

  Mejox was my best friend, had always been my best friend, because we were five years old now, fully conscious and capable of reasoning, and we had first met when we were three and barely verbal. I didn’t really remember the Public Orphanage at Atherebof; we had always lived here, in the crew training quarters on the Windward Islands. Mejox said he didn’t really remember his parents’ house, either.

  Mejox was Palathian, so he was shorter and squatter than I was, with a flat nose, round ears, and a lot of body hair. I was Shulathian—tall, thin, long-nosed and long-eared, and all but hairless. Though we were only dimly aware of it, we were probably among the few people on Nisu to whom that made no difference at all. Not that either of us knew many other people. Mejox, along with the girls, Priekahm and Otuz, were the only other children I had ever known.

  Mejox held up his bag proudly. “Got all of my clothes and stuff into one bag, just like Kekox said I should. How’d you do, Zahmekoses?”

  “In one but just barely,” I said. I’d had no trouble, but Mejox tended to make everything into a contest, and he was a sore loser.

  “Hey! Kekox and Poiparesis say to get moving!” Otuz shouted from the hall. “They say if you boys don’t come right now they’ll make you ride outside on the liftsail!”

  We were used to terrible threats that the adults thought were funny, but we both grabbed our bags and ran down the hall anyway because we were eager to go.

  As usual, the adults had reserved window seats for the Palathian kids, and it would never have occurred to Otuz or Mejox to offer to share with Priekahm or me. Fortunately Soikenn, my favorite among our teachers, had saved a spot next to her, and Priekahm and I wedged into it together, so that we could both see. Sort of.

  It was a long flight from the Windward Islands to Palath, mostly over water. Priekahm and I stayed glued to the window anyway, as the aircraft flew ever westward. Just behind and above us, we could see a dozen escorts ready to move in for a rescue if anything looked even a little wrong. It was always that way whenever we flew.

  The sun set ahead of us, and an hour later Zoiroy set as well. “I guess it’s getting close to the last time we will ever see a star that bright,” I said, suddenly. For the last few eightdays they had been telling us to be sure to look hard at everything, because after the voyage, when we came home, we would be old, two-thirds of our lives gone. “There’s no second star in the new system, so there won’t be a star that bright.”

  Soikenn hugged me. “Not bright enough to read by, like Zoiroy, but there will be other things to see. There are many more planets in the night sky of Setepos, and some of them will be very bright. What you’ll really miss will be the sight of Sosahy. The new world has a big moon and there will be some light from that, but there won’t be anything like Sosahy in the sky.”

  “What’s a moon?” Priekahm asked. I could never tell if she asked a lot of questions because she didn’t pay attention, or she knew the answers but she wanted the attention. Whatever the reason, she got away with it. She was pretty, and lively, and even if you thought about strangling her, somehow you were laughing before you got around to it.

  Soikenn said, “A moon is what we are to Sosahy. A little body that goes around a big one. So the moon of our new planet won’t be as big as Sosahy—it will be a little circle in the sky not much bigger than the sun, and much dimmer. But look, now, we’re going to be coming over the Line soon, and then you’ll see Sosahy—you don’t want to miss that.”

  After a long wait, the great pale wedge reared above the horizon, and swelled to cover one-sixth of the sky. It always hung over Palath. If the scientists were right, Palathians and Shulathians alike had originated in the mountain valleys at the heart of Palath, directly under Sosahy; there were people who said this was why the sight of Sosahy always lifted our souls.

  I just thought it was beautiful.

  Once, I had heard an old Shulathian shouting, to a crowd on a street corner, that Mother Sea made the Shulathians but Palathians were descended from animals of Palath, and that was why Palathians looked like animals. I heard no more, for Poiparesis grabbed me up and carried me away, so I had only a glimpse of
Imperial Guards moving in to disperse the crowd.

  Afterwards, Poiparesis had talked with me about it. “We are all the same species,” he said, “no matter what the old fanatics say. There are differences in our appearances—hair and nose shape and all that—but we are the same species, Zahmekoses, and don’t forget it. Even though you’re Shulathian, you are as good as any Palathian—and as bad. Though I wouldn’t say that around Mejox—he’s sensitive. Anyway, whatever may have happened in the past, there are many very decent Palathians now—you know we on the crew are all friends, and look at what the Palathians did for us after the First Bombardment. We’d never have gotten through without them.”

  I said I understood all that, and that anyway Mejox was my best friend and he was Palathian. Poiparesis got a funny expression for just a moment. I hadn’t been sure about what. I knew there were Shulathians who hated Palathians, and vice versa, and it wasn’t something you talked about. After all, even though the crew was supposed to be very equal, Priekahm and I had learned to be careful, especially around older Palathians.

  Maybe I remembered that conversation, so many eightdays ago, because it had been the first time that I had really been aware of how different things were for Priekahm and me than they were for the Palathians. We were the pick of the Shulathian orphanages—supposedly the brightest, “most stable” (whatever that was), and “most talented” children they could find. Otuz and Mejox had been chosen based on family, the way Palathians did everything—their parents were active and important members of two of Palath’s five royal families. When we returned Mejox or Otuz might even be selected as emperor or for one of the hereditary ministries. After all, Mejox was high on the list in his generation of the Roupox family, and the last three emperors had been Roupox.

  But of course anything might happen before then; we would be returning as adults of long standing. Right now I was really more concerned with the problems of sharing a window with Priekahm as we watched the immense bulk of Sosahy rear up out of the sea in front of our aircraft, the way a tall building does when you approach it from far away. By the time the aircraft landed, at Battle Gorges, Sosahy would be straight overhead.

  Priekahm had no patience, so after a bit of uncomfortable squirming, she gave up on the window and turned to whining at Soikenn for attention, which she could always get. That left me with the window to myself. I watched the dark waves roll far below in the warm light of the giant planet overhead until I fell asleep.

  When they woke me, as we drew near to Palath, the skies were crowded with aircraft of all kinds: big passenger liners moving slowly across the sky at high altitude, huge freighters that skimmed just above the sea, little racing yachts like the one we rode in that dashed and darted in all directions, and of course the menacing black police craft and blue rescue units that hovered everywhere or prowled slowly up and down the air lanes.

  Mejox and Otuz had gotten into some kind of game of counting how many police craft carried their respective family insignia, and Otuz was apparently winning, which is why there was getting to be an unpleasant edge in Mejox’s voice. That didn’t seem to bother Otuz—she was the only person who really stood up to him. She had a knack for picking just the thing he was most vulnerable about and teasing him—like right now, as she kept saying that some other family crest, neither his nor hers, was actually in the lead and that maybe her mother would have to marry into that family just to preserve her chances of being empress someday.

  Otuz’s remarks kept getting louder and Mejox’s whining tone was getting dangerously nasty. Beside me, I could feel Priekahm tensing. When things got noisy, she and I got punished, no matter where the noise was actually coming from.

  “I think we should count the Zowakou family crests for my side, because they’re allied with my family, and we should start counting over. That way it will be fair.”

  “Oh, nonsense,” Otuz said, very loudly. “You know we’re passing over the Zowakou family’s territory. Almost all the police craft we see will be theirs. When you say ‘fair,’ what you mean is ‘that way Mejox will win.’”

  Mejox jumped out of his seat, straight at her, but before he could get to her, the captain, Osepok Tarov, had grabbed Mejox by the hair on his back and bellowed, “Sit!”

  He did. Osepok was officially just another teacher, right now, but we all thought of her as “the captain,” even though it would be some time before we left. Osepok was the only person who could consistently make Mejox behave when he really didn’t want to. Unfortunately, usually she just ignored him.

  “We can all do with some silence,” the captain said. “Think about the fact that you’re looking at home for the last time, at least for many years. Is that clear, Zahmekoses, Priekahm?”

  “Yes, Captain, sorry,” we said. We always apologized, especially when we hadn’t actually been doing anything.

  “Otuz?”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Mejox?”

  “Everyone else already said it was clear,” he said.

  “Is it clear to you, Mejox?”

  “Yes, Captain.” Mejox was just respectful enough not to be overtly rude, but if the captain heard his tone, she chose to ignore it.

  The quiet lasted until we were near Battle Gorges, far into the interior of Palath. As we approached the air harbor, the pilot brought the impellers up to full power—I liked the way the air swirled coming out the back. Then she extended the liftsail, increasing our drag, and engaged the compressor, filling the ballast tanks and reducing the aircraft’s buoyancy. We sank into aerodynamic flight and glided down toward the field.

  Soikenn had assigned me to make a report about aircraft and how they worked a couple of weeks before, and I was quite impressed with myself for remembering. We glided in over the runway, already moving slowly, and the pilot reversed the compressor to drain ballast tanks, so that we became a little more buoyant and began to be more affected by wind resistance. With a little jump, rise, and gentle drop, the aircraft came to a stop and settled onto its metal feet; ground crews ran to secure the liftsail and tie down the feet as the pilot ran the compressors flat out, filling our tanks with compressed air and making us sit firmly on the ground.

  The airfield we were using for this trip was a private one, belonging to Otuz’s family, but there was no one here to greet her. Priekahm had whispered to me once that Otuz’s family were all very old-fashioned and didn’t want to associate with her because she had been seen in public with Shulathians so often. Whether this was true or not, I didn’t know. Priekahm inclined to very dramatic explanations.

  But I didn’t think Otuz’s feelings would have been hurt much even if her family were snubbing her. Like all Palathian royalty, she had been raised by nurses and nannies and, if she had stayed home, would not have really gotten to know her parents until she was past puberty and of an age to be engaged—and nobody even entered puberty until they were at least twenty-six. Many royalty didn’t meet their parents until they were past thirty and married, with children of their own—though their parents had probably arranged the marriage.

  The flight had taken most of a day, so we would make our official visit tomorrow. They gave us an evening meal. Afterwards, Soikenn talked to us about what we would see at Battle Gorges tomorrow, and Kekox told us a couple of stories about the expedition he had been on to Kahrekeif—the farthest voyage in space so far, though the one we were about to go on would dwarf it by far.

  “It’s a terrifying place,” he said. “The only thing you can say for Kahrekeif is that the other moons are worse.” Toupox and Poumox, the other two moons of Sahmahkouy, were worlds of tidal volcanoes, blanketed with thick poisonous atmospheres with a huge greenhouse effect, so that molten lead lay in pools on their surfaces and exposed steel or aluminum burned and smoked; I had seen the pictures.

  “But you weren’t afraid,” Mejox asserted, firmly, “no matter how dangerous Kahrekeif was.” Kekox was his hero.

  Kekox laughed. I liked it when he did that; thou
gh he was an old-style warrior, and had been an Imperial Guard, there was something kind and warm about his eyes. “I was scared out of my mind, Mejox. Anyone with any sense would be. You could easily die there; four of our crew did, and which four died was all a matter of luck. We had no idea how dangerous conditions actually were until we got there long enough to take a good look.”

  “How far away is it?” Priekahm asked, breathlessly. She was doing her usual routine on Kekox, making her eyes get big and looking cute.

  It always worked, too. “Well,” he said, and his voice got warm and he talked as if we were all still preconscious, “Zoiroy is a smaller star that goes around our sun every seventy-one years. Sahmahkouy is a planet that circles Zoiroy, just as Sosahy circles our own sun. And Toupox, Poumox, and Kahrekeif all go around Sahmahkouy, just as we go around Sosahy. But how far away it is … well, that depends. Sometimes it’s three times as far as at others. Anyway, it took us several years to get there and return during the nearest approach.”

  As he warmed to the subject he stopped talking baby-talk and began to look more at Otuz and me. “We didn’t have time to wait for the next time there would be a close approach, and the next approach wasn’t going to be as good as this one, anyway. So the situation was very unfavorable for getting a probe there any time much before we went ourselves. We had to leave before we really had gotten much data back. We had sent a few fast flybys, probes that went by Sahmahkouy and Kahrekeif so fast that they didn’t take up an orbit around them—too fast to take a good look. The trajectories for an orbital probe would have required so much energy that we decided to just go and take our chances.”

  “Nobody understands that energy stuff,” Mejox said. “We want to hear the adventure.”

  “I understand it,” Otuz said, “and so does Zahmekoses, but he’s afraid to admit it.”