The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

She scrolled through the remaining messages. There was a note from Dr. Sivaraksa saying that her formal application to work on the Moat project had been received and was now under consideration. There had been no official interview, but Naqi had met Sivaraksa a few weeks earlier when the two of them happened to be in Umingmaktok. Sivaraksa had been in an encouraging mood during the meeting, though Naqi couldn’t say whether that was due to her having given a good impression or the fact that Sivaraksa had just had his tapeworm swapped for a nice new one. But Sivaraksa’s message said she could expect to hear the result in a day or two. Idly, Naqi wondered how she would break the news to Mina if she was offered the job. Mina was critical of the whole idea of the Moat and would probably take a dim view of her sister having anything to do with it.

Scrolling down farther, she read another message from a scientist in Qaanaaq requesting access to some calibration data she had obtained earlier in the summer. Then there were four or five automatic weather advisories, drafts of two papers she was contributing to, and an invitation to attend the amicable divorce of Kugluktuk and Gjoa, scheduled to take place in three weeks time. Following that there was a summary of the latest worldwide news-an unusually bulky file-and then there was nothing. No further messages had arrived for eight hours.

There was nothing particularly unusual about that-the ailing network was always going down-but for the second time that night the back of Naqi’s neck tingled. Something must have happened, she thought.

She opened the news summary and started reading. Five minutes later she was waking Mina.

“I don’t think I want to believe it,” Mina Okpik said.

Naqi scanned the heavens, dredging childhood knowledge of the stars. With some minor adjustment to allow for parallax, the old constellations were still more or less valid when seen from Turquoise.

“That’s it, I think.”

“What?” Mina said, still sleepy.

Naqi waved her hand at a vague area of the sky, pinned between Scorpius and Hercules. “Ophiuchus. If our eyes were sensitive enough, we’d be able to see it now; a little prick of blue light.”

“I’ve had enough of little pricks for one lifetime,” Mina said, tucking her arms around her knees. Her hair was the same pure black as Naqi’s, but trimmed into a severe, spiked crop which made her look younger or older depending on the light. She wore black shorts and a shirt that left her arms bare. Luminous tattoos, in emerald and indigo, spiralled around the piebald marks of random fungal invasion that covered her arms, thighs, neck and cheeks. The fullness of the moons caused the fungal patterns to glow a little themselves, shimmering with the same emerald and indigo hues. Naqi had no tattoos and scarcely any fungal patterns of her own, and could not help feel slightly envious of her sister’s adornments.

Mina continued: “But seriously, you don’t think it might be a mistake?”

“I don’t think so, no. See what it says there? They detected it weeks ago, but they kept quiet until now so that they could make more measurements.”

“I’m surprised there wasn’t a rumour.”

Naqi nodded. “They kept the lid on it pretty well. Which doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be a lot of trouble.”

“Mm. And they think this blackout is going to help?”

“My guess is official traffic’s still getting through. They just don’t want the rest of us clogging up the network with endless speculation.”

“Can’t blame us for that, can we? I mean, everyone’s going to be guessing, aren’t they?”

“Maybe they’ll announce themselves before very long,” Naqi said doubtfully.

While they had been speaking the airship had passed into a zone of the sea largely devoid of bioluminescent surface life. Such zones were almost as common as the nodal regions where the network was thickest, like the gaping voids between clusters of galaxies. The wake of the sensor pod was almost impossible to pick out, and the darkness around them was absolute, only occasionally relieved by the mindless errand of a solitary messenger sprite.

Mina said: “And if they don’t?”

“Then I guess we’re all in a lot more trouble than we’d like.”