Starplex

The word “process” had been deliberately chosen for the public reports, but many believed that no natural activity could have done that, not even if the Tejat Posterior shortcut exit had been inside a star’s core. The hypothetical beings responsible were dubbed “Slammers,” because they’d apparently slammed the interstellar doorway in the Commonwealth’s collective face.

Additional hyperspace probes with heavy shielding had been sent toward Tejat Posterior (from launch points well away from any-of the Commonwealth homeworlds), but it would still be another two years before they arrived there. Until they did, the mystery of the Slammers remained unresolved—but there was always a fear that they might be lurking behind other shortcuts.

“With relief, I report a tachyon pulse,” announced Rhombus.

Keith let out his breath; he hadn’t been aware that he’d been holding it until then. The pulse meant something was coming through the shortcut; the probe was returning. They watched as the shortcut grew from an infinitesimal point to a meter in diameter, with a violet periphery. The cylindrical object popped through. Keith nodded slightly: the probe appeared undamaged. It maneuvered back toward Starplex under its own power, meaning its internal electronics were still intact, and slid down the launching tube into its berth. Umbilicals were attached to it, and its store of data was uploaded into PHANTOM, Starplex’s central computer.

“Let’s see it,” Keith said, and Rhombus complied, replacing the spherical hologram of space outside Starplex with what the probe had seen on the other side of the shortcut. At first, it just seemed to be more space, different constellations enveloping them. There were murmurs of disappointment. One always hoped that a spacecraft would be visible—a ship from whatever race had brought the shortcut on-line.

Jag got out of his chair, and walked around to stand in front of the two rows of workstations. He rotated on his hooves, looking at various parts of the hologram, then began interpreting what was visible for the rest of them. “Well,” said a translated Brooklyn accent overtop of his dog barks, “it looks like normal interstellar space. Just what you’d expect for the Perseus Arm—lots of blue stars, not too densely packed.” He stopped and pointed. “See that band of light? We’re on the inner edge of the Perseus Arm, looking back toward the Orion Arm. Neither Galath nor Hotspot would be visible from here, but we might be able to find Sol in a telescope.”

He began a circumnavigation of the bridge, his black hooves ticking against the invisible floor. “The only thing that looks bright enough to be a nearby main-sequence star is that one there.” He indicated a blue-white point that was indeed brighter than all the others. “Still, it shows no sign of a visible disk, so at a minimum we are several billion kilometers from it. Of course, we can use a couple of probes to do some long-base-line parallax tests to see how close it is as soon as we go through the shortcut; I don’t normally favor A-class stars for having habitable planets, but it seems as good a place as any to start looking for whoever activated this exit.”

“So you think it’s safe for us to go on through?” Keith asked.

The Waldahud turned to face him, and his left pair of eyes blinked. “There doesn’t appear to be any immediate danger,” he said. “I’ll want to review the rest of the probe’s data, but it looks just like, well, space.”

“Okay. In that case, let’s try—”

“Just a second,” said Jag, apparently catching sight of a part of the hologram over Keith’s shoulder. He walked toward the director, then continued on, past the seating gallery behind his station. “Just a second,” he said again. “Rhombus, how much real-time hologram is left?”

“I abase myself to admit we exhausted the real-time playback two minutes ago,” said the Ib at the ExOps console. “I’ve been looping the playback since then.”

Jag walked over to the bridge wall—which was something like taking a few steps toward a distant mountain in hopes that doing so would improve one’s view of it. He peered into the darkness. “That area there,” he said, circling his upper left arm to indicate a large portion of the starfield. “There is something unusual… Rhombus, speed up the playback. Ten times normal rate, and loop it continuously.”

“Done without rancor,” said Rhombus, ropes snapping.

“That can’t be,” said Thor, who had turned around to look as well. He half rose from his chair at the helm console.

“But it is,” said Jag.

“What is it?” asked Keith.

“You see it,” said Jag. “Look.”

“All I see is a bunch of stars twinkling.”

Jag lifted his upper shoulders, the Waldahud equivalent of a nod of assent. “Exactly. Just like a clear winter’s night back on your wondrous Earth, no doubt. Except,” he said, “that stars do not twinkle when seen from space.”

GAMMA DRACONIS