Judas Unchained

Wilson knew he should dump his irritation toward Dudley Bose; it really wasn’t helpful. But there was just something about the astronomer that rubbed him the wrong way. He’d been furious when the old man lobbied himself onto the Second Chance; he’d been exasperated with the young re-lifer who hadn’t adjusted to his new circumstances, and now the man had all his memories back and seemed a whole lot more rational, he was still irritating, still pressing for attention, getting in the way.

It had seemed like a good idea while they waited for the various arrest squads to bring in known Starflyer agents, and Paula and Nigel began their search for the actual alien itself. Wilson and Anna had gone over to the Bose motile when it finished talking to Qatux, and asked if it had accessed the signal that the Far Away flare had broadcast.

“No,” it said, “I haven’t.”

“The Commonwealth has never been able to translate it,” Wilson said. “But if you’re right about the Starflyer being an alienPrime—”

“I understand,” the Bose motile said. “I should be able to translate it for you.”

“I’d like you to try,” Wilson said. “It’s been bothering me ever since we found out what the Starflyer is. Suppose it was talking to another ship?”

“That’s unlikely,” Dudley Bose said. He’d inched his way closer to them as soon as Wilson started talking to the Bose motile.

Wilson pressed his teeth together, then smiled tightly. “Why’s that?”

“The flare emission was omnidirectional.”

“I imagine their ships would have remained silent during flight so as not to attract attention from whoever built the barriers,” Anna said. “Once the Starflyer had landed, it wouldn’t know where any of the others are. It would have to broadcast in all directions.”

“Which it actually didn’t,” the Bose motile said. “The Far Away star has a rotation of twenty-five days. As the flare only lasted for seven days, the signal was only broadcast across a relatively narrow sector of the galaxy, one that didn’t include the Dyson Pair; in fact, the star’s bulk would have shielded them from the signal.”

“Can we just examine the signal?” Wilson said. He was beginning to regret mentioning it. His e-butler accessed the national library on Damaran, and pulled out a recording of the signal.

They all waited while the Bose motile reviewed it. The initial flurry of activity in the lecture theater that had accompanied Qatux’s arrival was now dying down. Most of the technical systems were set up, Qatux and Tiger Pansy were talking together, Cat’s Claws remained on duty by the main entrance, Nelson maintained a number of his own security staff around himself and Paula. The only person Wilson couldn’t see was Mellanie.

“Simple enough,” the Bose motile said. “It’s basically an identity, which is MorningLightMountain17,735, followed by a short message: I am here. If any of I/us survive, contact me or fly here. The patterns are a very old form, but the content is easy enough to decipher, there is little ambiguity.”

“Did we ever detect another flare?” Anna asked. “An answer to the Starflyer?”

“No,” Dudley said.

“That doesn’t mean there wasn’t one,” the Bose motile said. “If another survivor picked up the signal, it could have used an interstellar communications maser to reply. Their ships were all equipped with them. The Commonwealth would never see that.”

Wilson was thinking along similar lines. “So we don’t actually know if there are any more of these alienPrimes at loose.”

“If one survived, it is logical to assume there could be others,” the Bose motile said. “Though I doubt there can be many; the Dyson Beta Primes had only just started building starships; they didn’t have the production capacity of Dyson Alpha when the barriers were established. The numbers would be small.”

“But if any of them landed on a world more useful than Far Away, there’s no telling how big their civilization is by now. Primes almost match the old nightmare of exponential expansion.”

“You should assume that the Dyson Alpha Primes had starships in flight as well,” Anna said.

“We are going to have to conduct an extensive search of stars in that sector of the galaxy,” the Bose motile said. “The problem could be more widespread than originally thought.”

“If Nigel Sheldon does initiate novas, the problem will be considerably reduced,” Dudley said.

The lecture theater’s main doors opened, and Oscar walked through. He caught sight of Wilson and waved happily.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Wilson said, smiling happily.

“I might ask you the same thing,” Oscar said after he’d collected his kiss from Anna. “You should have carried him off back to York5 and started a decent honeymoon,” he scolded her.

“Don’t think I didn’t want to,” she said wistfully. “So when did you get back?”

“About five hours ago.”

“Damn, I’m glad you’re okay,” Wilson said. “Are you reloading?”

“The Dublin is, yes. I’ve got another job.”

“What? Columbia isn’t being difficult about you being one of my placements, is he?”