Звезда Пандоры

Wilson grinned. “My point exactly. So… after this, arrange to see the Commonwealth xenocultural experts talking to the Silfen. Get out to the High Angel. Interview a Raiel. I simply don’t believe that none of our so-called allies know nothing about the Dyson Pair. Most of them have been around for a hell of a lot longer than us, certainly they all had starflight when it happened.”

“Why would they hold out on us?”

“God knows. But then there’s a great deal about this which doesn’t seem logical.”

“All right, I’ll add it to my list.”

Wilson’s e-butler announced that the wormhole connecting Half Way to Far Away had begun the ten-hour active phase of its cycle. The unisphere established a link to the small data network in Armstrong City. From there, a solitary landline carried the call to the Institute.

The big portal at the far end of Wilson’s study fizzed with multicolored static. It cleared to show Director James Timothy Halgarth sitting behind his desk, a fourth-generation member of the family that founded EdenBurg, which gave him a reasonable level of seniority within the dynasty.

He wore a simple pale blue suit of semiorganic fabric that stretched and contracted around his limbs whenever he moved, giving him unrestricted movement. His apparent age was mid-thirty, though he was completely bald, an unusual style in the Commonwealth. Small OCtattoos shimmered platinum and emerald on his cheeks.

“Captain Kime, finally,” the Director said with obvious enthusiasm. “I apologize for the delay in enabling this conference. The Guardians of Selfhood are annoyingly tenacious in their attacks on our landline. The current repairs were only completed three hours ago. No doubt we shall suffer our next cut within a few days.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Wilson said. “Wouldn’t you be better off with a satellite relay?”

“We used to have one. The Guardians shot it down, and its three replacements. It’s actually more cost-effective to have a landline and keep a repair crew permanently on the payroll. Fiber-optic cable is very cheap.”

“I didn’t realize the civil situation was quite so bad on Far Away.”

“It’s not. We’re the only ones suffering from assaults by the Guardians. They are deplorably xenophobic, not to mention violent.”

“I’m not too well briefed on their objectives; I never did pay much attention to conspiracy theories before. They think you’re helping an alien survivor from the arkship, don’t they?”

“Actually, they believe we transported the Starflyer into the Commonwealth, but that’s the general thrust of their argument, yes.”

“I see. They have been releasing a great deal of propaganda about how the Starflyer arranged for the whole Second Chance mission. What I really need to know, from the horse’s mouth as it were, is if it is in any way possible the Marie Celeste did come from the Dyson Pair. Does it have that kind of flight range?”

“In theory, yes. Once the ship accelerates to its flight velocity of point seven two lightspeed, its range is limited only by the amount of fuel it carries to power the force field generators, and indeed the lifetime of the generators themselves. However, our research determined that the actual flight time was five hundred and twenty years. The arkship didn’t come from, or even pass by, the Dyson Pair. It came from somewhere closer.”

“That could be a planet which didn’t have the kind of protective barrier the Dyson Pair possessed,” Oscar said. “They couldn’t defend themselves against whatever was threatening the Dyson aliens, so they left?”

“We can speculate on the reason for the flight as much as you like,” the Director said. “As we don’t yet know which star the arkship came from, we can hardly determine anything for certain. It could have originated from inside Commonwealth space for all we know.”

“What about if the Marie Celeste species was the reason for the enclosure?” Wilson asked.

“I’m sorry,” the Director said. “I don’t follow your reasoning.”

“If more than one arkship set off from its origin star, the civilization at the Dyson Pair could be defending themselves from the arkship aliens. After all, look what the Marie Celeste did to Far Away’s star when they arrived there.”

“Ah, the mega-flare. Yes, I suppose that’s a valid argument, although I don’t see why the barriers would remain on for such a long time. But we do believe that the sterilization of Far Away was an unfortunate side effect. The flare was only triggered to act as the power source for the message.”

“That’s one hell of a side effect.”

“You have to take the alien viewpoint. They triggered the flare to communicate across the entire galaxy. Whatever machine manipulated the star into flaring then went on to modify the emission into a coherent radio signal powerful enough to be detected as far away as the Magellanic Clouds. We humans certainly picked it up easily enough, you barely needed a dish when the signal reached Damaran, let alone the SETI scanners they were using back then.”