Chapter 4
A Proposal Over Dinner
Arsenault House
The Crowley District, City of Exeter
Albion Prime
As the door to the passenger cabin of Eddy’s aerodyne slid open, Mason was already waiting for the twins. The valet leaned down and offered his hand to Effie.
“Thank you, Mason,” she said, he helped her out of the vehicle. Her brother climbed out on his own and brushed the wrinkles out of his suit jacket. Effie paused to straighten her dress as well. When she looked up, one of Uncle Jack’s staff had appeared on the rooftop landing pad and was walking toward them.
Mason nodded at the newcomer. “Good day, Mr. Ferrand.”
Ferrand returned the greeting with a similar nod. “Good day, Mr. Mason.” He was such a serious looking man, Effie thought, dourer than Mason, with his eyes almost always hidden behind tinted glasses. He seemed less the domestic servant and more of a bodyguard. “Monsieur Arsenault-Lancaster is expecting you and will meet you in his private study.”
That was rather out of the ordinary. It was proper for the host to greet his guests in the foyer or the dining area, not secret them away to his office. Effie looked at Eddy, and they both shrugged at one another. “Very well, Ferrand,” she said. “Please take us to him.”
“At once, miss,” Ferrand said. “Right this way.”
It had taken the twins by surprise when Uncle Jack invited them both to a private dinner party at his home. They had been planning on paying him a visit, but the old boy had preempted them by throwing a party! Eddy had spent part of the flight going on about Mason and Brighton conspiring together, but Effie hadn’t paid him much mind.
Something was afoot, however, because the circumstances of this party were highly unusual. Jack had been very tight-lipped about who his other guests were, and went so far as to ask the twins to not mention the get-together to the rest of the family. Eddy had enquired about bringing Stephanie Stanley-Stark along as a date, but to the twins’ mutual surprise, Jack asked them not to invite others. It was all very curious, but Effie was happy to hear that her brother’s date had gone well.
The dinner wasn’t to be black tie affair, but it was important to look your best for not only the host, but for the other guests, even if you had no idea who those guests were. Effie chose a knee-length black dress with ruffle sleeves and matching pumps for her dinner attire. She quite liked the outfit but didn’t often have cause to wear it. She tied the ensemble together with a gold necklace and matching earrings that had belonged to her mother.
Eddy, for all his faults, had always known how to dress smartly, and Mason always made sure he was appropriately attired for any event. Effie thought he looked quite dapper in a charcoal suit, matching waistcoat, and a blue silk tie.
Uncle Jack’s study was a large room and the end closest to the door was where his workstation was. He had a big, L-shaped desk near the only window, complete with a cluster of computer screens and a desktop volumetric display that could render three-dimensional images. At the end of his desk was an electronic globe of New Corsica, Jack’s homeworld. It rotated and even displayed cloud patterns. Orbiting a star named Achird, part of the Eta Cassiopeiae binary system, New Corsica was less than twenty light-years from Earth and was one of the older colonies in the Inner Sphere. The official language of the planet, which the locals called Nouveau Corse, was Classical French. Effie had studied this language in school and spoke it well enough that she could carry on a conversation with Jack in his native tongue.
The room had always reminded Effie of a museum, and, in a way, it was a museum of his life’s adventures and achievements. Jack had spent much of his life as a spacer. Scale replicas of every ship he’d served on were lined up on one shelf, with their names and his service dates displayed on small plaques. There was a small, transparent container of dirt from every world he’d ever set foot on, each labeled and arranged in chronological order. Every shelf, table, and square meter of wall space was decorated with mementos of his travels. She and her brother had both loved exploring the study as children, begging Jack to tell them stories of his adventures.
The item most prominently displayed was a large portrait of Jack and his late wife, Abigail. It was a painting, commissioned by Jack for her as an anniversary present, now mounted above the fireplace built into the far end of the room. He met her on a visit to Albion Prime many years before and fell in love. They eloped and married without family approval, which Effie understood was quite the scandal at the time. Not only was he a foreigner, but he had cybernetic augmentation, something that was a bit of a taboo amongst Albionites. By marriage he gained both Albion citizenship and the Peerage and had lived on the planet ever since.
Abigail died in the same accident that claimed the lives of the twins’ parents and Aunt Deidre’s husband, David. Whatever reservations the family may have still harbored about Jack disappeared in the aftermath of that awful family tragedy, as despite his own loss and grief he was there for them in their time of need.
Effie and Eddy found their Uncle Jack there, looking up at the painting with his hands clasped behind his back. If he even noticed them come in, he hadn’t acknowledged it. He was dressed for dinner in a fine brown three-piece suit.
“Uncle?” Effie said, quietly.
He looked over his shoulder at the twins. His eyes were artificial replacements, glinting blue in the dim light, but there was a brief look of sadness in them. This was replaced by a smile as their uncle turned to greet them. “Edwin! Ophelia! Thank you for coming. It’s been too long.” He gave Eddy a big hug, slapping him on the back. He was gentler with Effie, as he always had been. She stood up on her tip toes and kissed him on the cheek. “Where’s Mason? Did he not come with you?”
“He went off with your man Brighton,” Eddy said. “No doubt engaged in more Guild scheming.”
Effie interjected. “Never mind him, Uncle. He’s been prattling on about some Guild conspiracy since we left Drake’s Landing.”
“What?” Jack asked.
“I wasn’t prattling!” Eddy insisted.
Effie ignored him. “In any case, I’m sorry it’s been so long. We don’t mean to be neglectful, there’s just…well, a lot has been going on.”
“I’ve heard,” Jack said. He put a hand on Effie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry about your expedition, Ophelia. I know how much it meant to you.”
Effie had been crushed by the rejection of her expedition proposal, but she was doing her best to put on a stalwart face. “Yes, well, like the family motto says, it is what it is.”
Jack smiled at her. “My dear, you know that’s not the real family motto.” It wasn’t, that much was true. It had been sort of adopted as an unofficial motto after the accident. “There’s wisdom in accepting what you can’t change, but it shouldn’t entail despair.”
“I know,” Effie said. In the absence of the twins’ parents and their own spouses, Uncle Jack and Aunt Deidre worked together to raise the twins. “It’s just difficult to be optimistic sometimes.”
“It can be, ma choupette,” he said. She always smile when Jack called her that—it translated to my cabbage or some such. “It’s hard for me sometimes, too. When a man gets to be a certain age, he starts to think about what he might leave behind, his legacy. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to talk to the both of you today.”
How dreadfully ominous, Effie thought.
Eddy asked, “Is everything all right, Uncle? You’re not sick, are you?”
“Sick?” He shook his head. “I’m as healthy as a man my age can be.”
Jack was probably even healthier than that. Effie didn’t know the full extent of his augmentation, but it was significant. His bionic eyes were the result of a decompression accident he’d been involved in as a young spacer. Over the years he’d also mentioned that he had an artificial heart and a reinforced spine. He was clearly the beneficiary of advanced life-extension treatments; his real age was fifty-six local years, which came to seventy Julian Years, but he looked much younger.
Aside from his eyes, the most noticeable of Jack’s augmentations was his left arm. It was a cybernetic replacement, constructed of a lightweight metallic alloy with a satin black finish. Unlike his other injuries, Jack never told the whole story of how he’d lost his arm. The most she’d ever gotten out of him on the topic was that it had occurred many years prior, and that the arm couldn’t be regrown.
“Then what’s the trouble?” Eddy asked. He turned to Effie. “He seems troubled, doesn’t he?”
“You do seem troubled, Uncle,” Effie agreed.
Jack rolled his eyes. “I’m not troubled, kids. Not really. I’ve just been thinking a lot about the both of you lately. You are the closest thing to children of my own I’m ever going to get.” He glanced at the painting. “I never had the heart to remarry. Abigail was the only woman I ever really loved.” He sighed and looked back at the twins. “We all lost so much that day, and yet some good came of it. Helping to raise you two was one of the greatest joys of my life.”
Eddy cocked his head to the side. “Are you sure you’re not dying, Uncle? You’re being terribly sentimental.”
“Eddy!” Effie was exasperated and gave her brother a quick slug in the arm for good measure. “He’s not entirely wrong, though, Uncle. This isn’t like you. What’s going on?”
Jack smiled at her. “Everything is fine, my dear. I just have a habit of getting set in my ways sometimes, getting so stuck in my routine that I don’t notice how rarely I deviate from it. I realized, for instance, that I haven’t been off-world in almost ten years. I confess that I miss it.”
It was true—Jack hadn’t gone on one of his expeditions since the twins were in secondary school. He only spoke of that last trip in the vaguest of terms, and from what Effie had been able to tell, it had gone poorly. So poorly, in fact, that his business partner quit after they returned, and Jack himself had stayed planetside ever since.
“Have you ever thought about going back?” Eddy asked.
There was a gleam in Jack’s eye, but he didn’t answer. “We should head downstairs. My other guests are waiting for us.”
“Who are these other guests?” Effie asked.
“Associates of mine,” Jack answered. “I think you’ll find them to be interesting people.”
Effie was more convinced than ever that something was, indeed, afoot.
Arsenault House was a large home with six bedrooms, and it felt ultra-modern compared to the more traditional houses of country estates. Effie and her brother had spent a lot of time there growing up and she had many fond memories of the residence. Much of it sat empty most of the time, but the dining room was an exception. Jack enjoyed entertaining, whether it was family, friends, or business associates, and did so regularly. Where Eddy had his intrepid valet and Effie lived alone, Jack employed a full staff, including his butler, Brighton, his pilot, Ferrand, the housekeeper, Mrs. Beasley, the maintenance technician, Mr. Beasley, and a personal chef named Giorgio. All of them were Guild members and they took good care of him. Effie was grateful for that, and that he wasn’t all alone.
The dining room was one of the largest rooms in the house. The table was sleek and trendy, with an opaque glass top and brushed metal legs. The chairs were comfortable and could be adjusted to almost any body type. The far wall was almost completely covered by a high-resolution display, which was presently playing soft music, and a video of Albion Prime from orbit. A large, floor-to-ceiling window filled the entire southwest wall, providing a spectacular view of the sunset.
Brighton was waiting for them. He approached Effie, Eddy, and Jack as they entered the room. “Dinner will be served soon.”
“Thank you,” Jack said. He turned to Effie and Eddy. “Come, I’d like you to meet my guests.” He led the twins over to the window, where a couple they hadn’t met before were enjoying the view. “This is Sterrance Vraz,” Jack said, “commander of the Freelancer Spacecraft Vagabond. Commander, this is my nephew, Edwin, and my niece, Ophelia.”
He’s a spacer! Commander Vraz shook hands with Eddy and Effie in turn. “Nice to meet you both.”
Effie would have guessed he was from off-world even if Jack hadn’t introduced him as a spacer. He spoke Terran Standard English with a rhotic, stress-timed dialect with relatively tense vowels that was distinct from the accent of Albion Prime. In lieu of a proper suit he was dressed in a pair of pressed slacks and a banded-collar shirt without a tie. He wasn’t even wearing a blazer! He instead wore one of the leather jackets spacers seemed to like, black in color, with a silver wings badge on the left breast and four silver bars on the epaulets.
“And this,” Jack said, indicating the woman, “is Aurelia Vraz, his wife and the chief financial officer of Vagabond Ventures, LLC.”
Aurelia was simply striking, the very picture of elegance, even to Effie’s eyes. Adorned in a red cocktail dress and black heels that made her taller than her husband, she cut a fine figure even if her attire was a touch too chic for an Albionite dinner party. (She wasn’t even wearing hosiery!) She also wore a black leather flight jacket with silver wings, though hers was in a very flattering bolero cut.
Eddy was simply agog at the spacer and stumbled over his words introducing himself to her. Effie had to force herself not to roll her eyes.
“You must be Ophelia,” Aurelia said, taking Effie’s hand. “I’ve heard so much about you!” That’s when Effie noticed the long, pointed ears sticking out from her platinum blonde hair.
“Are…are you a Vanyar?” Effie immediately regretted blurting out the question and felt her face flush. She must have seemed positively unrefined. “I-I’m sorry.”
Aurelia smiled. “It’s okay,” she said. “I am Vanyar, yes.”
“You must think I’m terribly rude,” Effie said.
“Not at all!” the woman insisted. “I like your dress!”
Effie almost blushed again. “T-thank you! You look amazing!”
Aurelia smiled again. “Oh, thank you, sweetie! I found the cutest little dress shop in…Sterr, what was that district we were in?”
“Chelsea, I think,” Commander Vraz said.
“Chelsea!” Aurelia repeated. The Chelsea District was an area of Exeter where the wealthiest Commoners lived. Their fashion sense tended to be less traditional than the peerage, and Effie wasn’t surprised that Aurelia found the boutiques there more to her liking. “This was hand-made,” she gushed. “Your uncle told me that you’re an astrobiologist?”
“My area of focus is xenology, but the diversity of the human species fascinates me. Forgive my poor manners. I’m embarrassed to admit I’ve never met a Vanyar before.”
The spacer grinned playfully. “If you think I’m interesting, I’d like to introduce you to our assistant engineer, Bruce.”
“Bruce?”
Aurelia looked around, then at her husband. “Where is Bruce?”
“That’s a good question,” the Commander said, glancing around the dining room.
“He’s right here,” Mason said, entering the dining room. “We were discussing his dietary needs with Mr. Gioriano.”
At Mason’s side was a stocky, green-skinned creature which stood only 123 centimeters tall. It took Effie a moment to process that she was looking at a Gretch, the first real, live alien she’d ever met! Her jaw fell open.
The being approached, looking up at Effie without any hesitation or shyness, and stuck out a three-digit hand. “Greetings,” it said, speaking in a synthesized voice, through a language decoder. “My Terran name is Bruce.”
Effie shook the alien’s hand. The skin on the palm of its hand was soft and smooth, like fine leather. It was dressed in colorful garb that she assumed served as dinner wear amongst its people. “It-it’s very nice to meet you, Bruce,” she stammered.
“Bruce, this is Ophelia Lancaster,” Aurelia said.
The Gretch cocked its—his, Effie thought, correcting herself—head to the side slightly. “You are surprised, Ophelia Lancaster?”
“I am,” Effie confessed. “You’re the first alien I’ve met.”
Eddy, for his part, seemed completely unfazed upon meeting the Gretch. “Eddy Lancaster. Nice to meet you, chap,” he said, cheerily offering the alien his hand. “How are you liking Albion Prime so far?”
“The air smells good here, Eddy Lancaster,” Bruce responded, shaking Eddy’s hand, “and your planet has good gravity.”
“We are known for our top-shelf gravity,” Eddy said.
Effie looked back to Commander and Mrs. Vraz. “You have Gretch on your crew! Is that…is that common?”
“I wouldn’t say it’s common,” Vraz said, “but it does happen. We’re from the Sentinel System. A large population of Gretch has made its home on Gibraltar, one of our planets. Bruce here is the only representative of his people on my crew, but he’s a damned fine engineer, an absolute savant with anything mechanical.”
The alien looked up at the spacer. “Thank you, Commander.” He then looked back at Effie. “The Commander is competent and thoughtful for a human, although Mrs. Vraz will be a better pilot. Being Vanyar, she has superior reflexes and computational skills.”
Aurelia grinned at her husband. “Thank you, Bruce!”
“Yes, Bruce, thank you,” Vraz said, with chuckle. “One thing to know about living with the Gretch is that they’re honest to a fault. They’re also pretty blunt.”
“Some people mistakenly think it’s because they lack nuance,” Aurelia added, “but nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a matter of translation. There are hundreds of known Gretchen language variations and most of them are very complex. They have a simplified language they call the Common Speech. Their many tribes use it to communicate with each other much in the same way we use Terran Standard English.”
“Common Speech works best for language decoders, but lacks…” He was quiet for a second, as if trying to think of which word to use. “…subtlety. It is not my intention to be rude.”
“Not at all!” Effie said. “I could stand here all day asking you questions, is all.”
“I would prefer to eat first,” Bruce said. “Then you can ask your questions.”
“Why don’t we all have a seat at the table?” Jack suggested. “Dinner should be served at any time.”
Bruce sat across the table from Effie during dinner. Uncle Jack’s fancy chairs were able to adjust to the correct height for him and even had an opening for his tail stump. The meal was superb, as it always was at Jack’s house. On the menu that evening a sumptuous chicken cacciatore served with garden vegetables.
Effie noticed that Bruce had a different dish than the others, plain chicken served with vegetables and nuts. Before eating, the Gretch retrieved a small tube of brown goop from a pocket on his coverall and spread it on his food.
“Forgive me for being nosy but is that a special spice you’re putting on your meal?” Effie asked. “Something to remind you of home?”
The Gretch answered, “It is a digestive aid. It helps my body break down alien organic matter. It adds flavor but does not remind me of home.”
“I see!” Effie said, excitedly. “Does it allow you to eat all human food?”
“Not all,” Bruce explained, “but most.” He grabbed a chicken thigh from his plate and put the whole thing in his mouth. He chewed it briefly and seemed to swallow it in one gulp. “Terran grains, like pasta and bread, are difficult for us to digest even with the additive.”
“I find it fascinating that you’ve adapted to attain nutrition from alien plants and animals.”
“We have adapted ourselves,” Bruce said, “over a very long time. We have been in space longer than humans and once lived on many worlds.”
“Much longer,” Effie agreed, “something like five thousand Julian Years, if I’m not mistaken.”
“That is a good estimate,” Bruce said. “We are scattered now and have lost some of our history, but once we had a great empire.”
Conversing with the alien reminded Effie of why she loved astrobiology in the first place and made her regret all the more that her expedition had not been approved. She wasn’t going to let herself dwell on that, though, not right now. Effie put a smile on her face, enjoyed her food, and listened to Uncle Jack talk with the spacers during the meal. It seemed to romantic to her, a husband and wife team of freelance adventurers. She wondered if she had what it took to live such a life.
She’d never been off of Albion Prime before, and she loved her family dearly, but would it really be so different? She lived alone. Practically all she did most of the time was her work at the University and spend time at home. Her friends were all settling down, starting families, and having children. They were usually too busy with their own lives to spend time with Effie.
For a brief moment, she contemplated running away and joining the crew of a starship; the thought made her smile. The family would be positively scandalized. Poor Aunt Deidre would be beside herself. Her smile faded as she pondered it. Why not, though? What else did she have to look forward to? Ending up as a lonely old spinster with a dozen cats? Waiting for someone to marry her out of pity? On other worlds, the technology that would allow her to conceive a child wasn’t such a taboo. Maybe she could settle down somewhere else!
Those old, nagging doubts crept back into her mind then. Why would a spacecraft crew hire you? You don’t know the first thing about being in space. You’d be more useless on a ship than you are here.
Effie was so lost in her thoughts that Eddy touching her on the arm startled her. “Are you all right, sis?” he asked. He had a concerned look on his face.
Effie forced herself to smile again. “Yes! I’m quite all right, I just…I suppose I was just daydreaming.” The expression on Eddy’s face told Effie that he didn’t really believe her, but her answer was enough to quell him.
After the meal the dishes were cleared, more drinks were poured, and the topic of conversation changed to matters of business. Uncle Jack, seated at the head of the table, addressed all of his guests at once. “Today has been a good day for all of us,” he said. He looked down the table at the twins. “Edwin, Ophelia, as the family closest to my heart, I’d like you to be the first ones to know that I will be going off-world again.”
“I knew it!” Eddy said. He seemed happy for Jack.
Jack smiled. “I’ve been working on this for a while, but Commander Vraz’s timely arrival proved to be quite fortuitous. Before you two got to the house, he and I signed a contract. The Vagabond will be the ship on which I undertake my next expedition.”
“Expedition?” Effie asked. “Expedition to where?”
He smiled. “Just another one of my treasure hunts. I came into possession of data from a survey mission in non-colonized system. One of the planets in the system is life-bearing.”
Effie’s eyes went wide, but Jack raised a hand before she could get too excited. “You should know that the data I have is…well…you could say it’s rather out of date. Nonetheless, this could be an important discovery. We may be the first humans to set foot there.”
Before Uncle Jack could say anything else, Effie pushed back from the table and stood up. “Take me with you!” Eddy coughed and nearly choked on his wine, but Effie ignored him. “Please, Uncle, this is my dream. I want to go with you!”
Jack looked at Commander Vraz, then back at Effie. “That’s why I wanted you to meet my guests.” He smiled. “Of course you can come with me.”
“What?” Eddy said.
“A survey of a life-bearing world needs an astrobiologist, Edwin. This is what your sister has been studying for her whole life. She’s perfect for the role.”
Suddenly lightheaded, Effie realized she had been locking her knees and had to sit down. This couldn’t really be happening, could it?
Eddy, obviously worried about her, reached over and took Effie by the hand. “Easy now. Here, have a sip of your water.”
“In fact,” Jack said, looking at the twins with a gleam in his eye, “I want both of you to come with me.”
Eddy paused. Effie watched as the color drained out of his face. He turned to face their uncle. “I’m sorry, you want me to do what?”
“I want you to come with me too, Edwin. Join my expedition.”
Eddy slumped back in his chair, leaned his head back, and downed the rest of his wine in one gulp. He looked at Effie as if asking what to do, but she was already dreaming of strange new worlds and wasn’t interested in his negativity.
It was happening, it was really happening! She was going off-world!
“Ophelia,” Jack said, sharply. The change in his tone and demeanor got Effie’s attention, and suddenly she felt very foolish. “Pay attention. There’s more you need to know.”
“Y-yes, Uncle,” she said, blushing. “Please continue.”
Jack looked to his staff. “Would you be kind enough to give us the room?”
Brighton nodded. “Of course, sir.” He and Mason left the dining room without another word, closing the doors behind them. Opaque shutters silently slid down over the window, blocking out the evening twilight. The room was dimly lit only by the screen on the far wall, reminding Effie of the cinema.
Jack glared at Effie and her brother, his bionic eyes glinting in the low light. His voice was stern. “What I’m about to tell you doesn’t leave this room, do you understand? You are not to discuss it with anyone, not even the rest of the family. Am I making myself clear?”
“Of course, Uncle,” Effie replied. The rapid change in his demeanor had taken her by surprise.
“Very good,” Jack said. The screen behind him switched to a map of a binary star system. There were two stars at the center, surrounded by ten concentric elliptical tracks, indicating the orbits of planets. “This is the Ashvins Binary Star System, approximately one hundred and twenty-five light-years from here. The two stars are named after twin deities from the Hindu religion. The system was cataloged almost a thousand years ago but remains currently unclaimed; the nearest human outpost is Starlight Terminus, twenty-five light-years away. In the available stellar databases, you won’t find much about the Ashvins System; it has ten planets, one of which is in the habitable zone, but the system’s unusual gravimetric characteristics discourage exploration.”
“Er, what does unusual gravimetric characteristics mean, exactly?” Eddy asked.
Commander Vraz answered his question. “For us, it means that it will be more difficult to calculate a safe and accurate warp trajectory into the system. We’ll probably be in for a longer flatspace travel time than we would normally. Gravimetric anomalies are usually associated with black holes, but they do turn up in star systems. It’s rare, but not unheard of.”
“Has anyone ever actually been to the system?” Effie asked.
Jack nodded. “Yes. I have the survey data from that mission, and while much of it is missing, what’s there is rather compelling. For instance, Cyavana, the fourth planet, is reportedly inhabited by an intelligent species.”
“Intelligent?” Effie repeated. “You mean to say, sapient?”
“Correct again, Ophelia.” Jack turned to the screen on the wall behind him as the image animated. The point of view quickly zoomed in on the fourth planet, which was shown to have two moons. Massive ice caps covered both poles. “The highlighted dots you see on the globe are cities. Cyavana is a dry world, with approximately one-fifth of its surface covered by shallow oceans. Much of the world’s water appears to be trapped in its ice caps.”
Eddy had a question. “Uncle, what are those lines on the surface? Roads?”
“Those are canals, Edwin. They run for thousands of kilometers, bringing water from the ice caps to the dry continental interiors of the planet. It would appear that the Cyavanian civilization is capable of significant works of geo-engineering.”
“Now that’s bloody interesting,” Eddy said.
Effie could barely contain her excitement. She had to remind herself not to bombard her uncle with too many questions. “Does this report say what the state of Cyavanian technology is?”
“The native civilization was observed to be industrial, but apparently without spaceflight. We do not have any other specifics about their tech levels. The expedition was not authorized to initiate first contact and did not attempt a landing.”
“How is it that the discovery of a sapient species was not make public knowledge?” Effie asked. “Reporting of such information is mandated by the Alliance Charter, to prevent the exploitation of primitive civilizations. Was this a private venture?”
“It was government-sanctioned,” Jack explained. “The Alliance Charter doesn’t apply because the expedition predates the founding of the Interstellar Alliance.”
Effie hadn’t known what to expect going into this, but she definitely hadn’t expected that. “I’m sorry, did you say it predates the Alliance? When was this survey conducted?”
“Some four hundred Julian Years ago, space-time irregularities notwithstanding. It was carried out by the Strategic Exploration Administration, an organ of the Greater Terrasphere.”
The room was quiet after Jack finished speaking. Effie needed a moment to process what she’d just heard. “How…how did you even come by this data?”
“Apparently some archivist on Earth was digging through the old records and uncovered the report. It was likely forgotten during the Wars of Secession and the Terrasphere Civil War.”
Effie’s mind was racing now. “This is incredible, simply incredible! Why, after so much time, they could already be spacefaring! Will we be making first contact with them? There’s so much I’ll need to prepare! The reporting requirements alone—”
Jack interrupted her, holding up his hand. “Ophelia, there’s more you need to know.”
Effie felt herself blushing. “Of course. My apologies.”
Eddy spoke up. “I have a question. This is all terribly interesting, but I don’t see how it warrants this level of secrecy. Surely this effort is going to cost you a fortune. What do you hope to find that would make it worth your while? Studying a comparatively primitive alien civilization seems like a task better suited to a dedicated research expedition.”
Effie elbowed her brother in the ribs while maintaining both eye contact and a pleasant smile for Jack. “Don’t listen to his nay-saying, Uncle.” She turned to her brother and spoke through clenched teeth. “I’m sure he has excellent reasons for offering us this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and I would appreciate it if you didn’t talk him out of it, Edwin.”
“Your brother asked intelligent questions, Ophelia,” Jack said. “This will be an enormously expensive undertaking and a scientific survey of a habitable planet, even one with an intelligent species, wouldn’t be profitable for me. As you said, the Alliance has laws that are specifically intended to discourage the abuse of alien species. If that was all there was to this, then a scientific research mission like the one you tried to get the University to fund would be called for, and my investors would not have been interested. However, the native Cyavanian civilization is not my primary concern.”
Effie raised an eyebrow. “Dare I ask what the primary concern is, then?”
Jack was quiet for a moment. He looked contemplative, as if trying to decide how to phrase what he needed to say. “There was a second expedition to the Ashvins, roughly a Julian decade ago. It was sent in secret by the Omnitechnic Syndicate, of Earth. One of the documents in my possession indicates that this expedition met with disaster. A ship was destroyed, but the Syndicate never publicly acknowledged the loss. The whole affair has been covered up, and no follow-up has been attempted.”
Eddy was incredulous. “Just so I’m not misunderstanding the situation, this Earth outfit launched an expedition to Cyavana, lost a ship for their trouble, and you want to go running after them? Do you even know what they were looking for?”
“As I said, Edwin, the information I have isn’t complete,” Jack explained, calmly. “I don’t know what spacecraft the Syndicate sent, and have only basic information about the planet itself from the old Terrasphere records. However, I have seen communications between the Syndicate’s Special Projects Directorate and representatives of several of Earth’s nation-states. They found something in that old survey data that convinced them it was worth investigating. One document referred to an object called the Array.”
“What was it?” Effie asked.
Jack shook his head. “We don’t know. There was no other data about the object. It was, however, described as likely non-native technology. That is to say, the relatively primitive species inhabiting Cyavana did not appear to be capable of constructing it on their own.”
Effie’s mind was reeling at the possibilities.
“There’s more,” Jack said. “Listen to this.” A moment later, a strange, ethereal music began to play over the dining room’s audio system.
It was unlike anything Effie had ever heard. She looked at Eddy for a moment, then back at Jack. “What…what is that?”
“This is a recording of a transmission that the Terrasphere survey ship received while in a high orbit over Cyavana.”
Effie listened carefully. There was something familiar about the interval of the music. Her eyes went wide when it came to her. “That’s a perfect fifth!” she blurted out. She turned to Eddy. “That’s when music has a pair of pitches in a three-to-two ratio!”
“A Pythagorean ratio,” Jack added. “Mathematics as a universal language.”
“And music!” Effie said, barely able to contain her excitement.
Jack smiled. “Oh, there’s more, Ophelia. This signal carried a lot of data.”
“What sort of data?” Effie enquired.
Jack’s eyes narrowed. “Star charts. Maps of systems on the far side of the Galactic Core and in the outer Centaurus Arm. It even listed the locations of planets in the Tarantula Nebula, in the Large Magellanic Cloud.”
“The Large Magellanic Cloud is a hundred and sixty thousand light-years away,” Commander Vraz interjected. “Mankind has never been there.”
Bruce, the Gretchen engineer, spoke up as well. The voice synthesized by his decoder did a good job of expressing his tone. “My people, in our long history of space exploration, have never reached the satellite galaxies you call the Magellanic Clouds. The rapid transit made possible by warp technology belies the vastness of the galaxy.”
“In any case, it stands to reason that the native species of Cyavana lacked the means to acquire such information on their own,” Jack concluded.
“This is incredible,” Effie said. “Do you think these findings might be remnants of the Ældar?”
Jack made one of his habitual, understated shrugs. “I do not think so. The Terrasphere had a classification system for Ældritch artifacts. This ‘Array,’ whatever it is, was described of being of unknown origin.”
“My God,” Effie said. “This could be huge.”
Eddy didn’t seem as enthusiastic. “This all seems like a rather long shot, doesn’t it? That expedition was ages ago. Is there any guarantee that whatever was making that broadcast is still there? You don’t even know where to look.”
“There isn’t,” Jack replied, matter-of-factly. “Attempting to locate the source of this signal, and the Array, will be one of the goals of my expedition. It is a long shot, but it was enough to convince my investors and Commander Vraz, here. I want you and your sister both to join me.”
“I want to go,” Effie said, turning to her brother again. “Come on, Eddy, what do you say?”
He looked up at her, then at Jack, then back at Effie. He pushed back from the table and stood up. “Please excuse me,” he said, and left the dining room without another word.
Effie, realizing that he was upset, followed him out of the dining room. She found him in the hallway, quickly walking away. “Eddy, wait.” He stopped, allowing Effie to catch up with him. “What’s the matter with you?”
He turned his head, looking at Effie as if she’d just asked a particularly dumb question. “What’s the matter with me? Jack wants both of us to go traipsing off into the unknown in pursuit of some expedition that never returned and you’re acting as if I’m being unreasonable.”
“You didn’t have to go storming off like that,” Effie replied.
“Didn’t I? What was I supposed to say, Eff? A life-changing decision was dropped in my lap, with no warning, over dinner, in front of family and strangers alike! How am I supposed to react?”
Effie crossed her arms. “You could try being grateful, Edwin Lancaster. Jack is presenting us with an amazing opportunity. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
“I never asked for this kind of opportunity,” Eddy retorted. “You may be miserable but I’m quite happy with my lot in life. Naturally, just as things are going well for me, I’m suddenly expected to walk away from it all and disappear in the cosmos, possibly never to return!”
“Is this about Stephanie Stanley-Stark? Really, Eddy, you went on one date. A date, I remind you, that you didn’t even want to go on! You had a ridiculous plan to make it so she didn’t want to see you again.”
“Yes, well, I was wrong, okay? It was only one date, but it was a good date. It was a fantastic date. I think I’m in love with her! There, I said it.”
“In love? Eddy you’ve only just met her! You’re being ridiculous!”
“You’re being ridiculous, Eff. Going into space was your dream, not mine. All I wanted was to find someone and be happy!”
“That’s what I wanted, too!” Effie insisted, her voice raised. “We don’t always get what we want!”
“We can both get what we want this time,” Eddy replied. “You can go off into space, and I can stay home and be happy. This is what everyone wanted, isn’t it? Eddy Lancaster, the joke of the family, needs to grow up, settle down, and start a family. Now that I might actually have a chance to do so, suddenly I’m needed off-world?”
“Nobody said you’re needed,” Effie snapped. “Jack is doing you a favor.” She immediately regretted what she’d said.
Eddy pointed a finger at Effie. “No, he’s doing you a favor. Do as you please. I don’t need his pity, and I don’t need yours.”
Before Effie could say anything else, Eddy turned and walked away.
Later that evening, Eddy found himself back in Uncle Jack’s study. Effie was so eager to prepare for the expedition that she insisted on flying home right away. Jack had his man Ferrand take her home in his personal aerodyne. Eddy was going to leave on his own, but Jack asked him to wait; he said he wanted to talk to him. Eddy really didn’t need another lecture about not living up to others’ expectations, but…well, he couldn’t just walk out on Jack without hearing him out, could he?
Thus he relented. He presently sat in a plush chair, next to a bookshelf, nursing a small glass of bourbon that Mason had poured for him, while he waited for his uncle to return. A cozy fire crackled and popped in the fireplace.
“The nerve of him,” he grumbled, “putting me on the spot like that with no warning. How humiliating.”
“I don’t think your uncle meant to embarrass you,” Mason said. Eddy hadn’t told him about Jack’s proposal, but it seemed that Jack had.
Eddy continued his grousing. “It’s preposterous, simply absurd. Me, of all people, gallivanting off into space, as if I don’t have responsibilities at home!”
“What responsibilities are those, sir?” Mason asked, dryly.
“I have responsibilities!” Eddy insisted. “I have a lot of responsibility!”
“You were instrumental in planning last year’s family Christmas gathering,” Mason agreed.
“Precisely! I also can’t just up and leave the Cheshires in the lurch like that!”
“No, sir,” Mason said.
“You think this is rich, don’t you?” Eddy snapped. “Everyone thinks I’m useless! The family, my sister, even my own valet!”
“You’re not useless, Edwin,” Jack said, striding purposefully into the room. He sat down in the chair across from Eddy. “The only one who thinks so is you.”
“That’s not…that’s not true at all,” Eddy said, weakly.
“You can’t fool me, boy. I’ve known you your whole life, watched you grow up. You doubt yourself, but I believe you have potential.”
“What potential is that?” Eddy asked, more sharply than he’d intended. He softened his tone. “I know what I am, alright? A useless fop, the third son, the joke of the family, the boy who won’t grow up. You think I don’t know what they say about me?”
“I know some members of the family like to talk, Edwin. They used to talk about me as well. Trust me, few of them are in any position to be casting judgment on you.”
“Yes, well, you earned their respect. You did respectable things, amazing things,” he said, gesturing at the roomful of mementos around them. “I’m not cut out for any of that.”
“You have more aptitude than you give yourself credit for.”
“Aunt Deidre likes to say the same thing.”
Jack leaned forward a little. “The difference between your Aunt Deidre and me is, she would tell you that even if she didn’t really believe it, just to be nice. I wouldn’t.”
Eddy looked his uncle in the eye for a moment, then back down at his lap. He very much felt like a schoolboy getting scolded by the headmaster and didn’t know what to say.
Jack sighed. “I’m not trying to berate you, Edwin, but I will not tolerate you running yourself down like that. It’s unbecoming of a Lancaster, for one thing. For another, and more importantly, you don’t deserve the grief you give yourself. You are perhaps the most dedicated person in the family. Whenever anyone needs anything, you’re the first one to offer help. No matter how ridiculous the request, no matter how much they impose on you, you’re always there for them. You put up with your aunt trying to marry you off to one girl or another, and you never complain because you don’t want to hurt her feelings. You’re not a womanizer or a scoundrel and you don’t embarrass the family.”
Eddy struggled to maintain eye contact with his uncle. He wasn’t used to being praised like that and still didn’t know what to say.
Jack didn’t wait for him to say anything. “I know it’s tough, being the third son, living in your brothers’ shadows. Cedric manages the family assets. Leonard has amassed a fortune of his own. You haven’t found your way in life yet. That’s an observation, not a criticism. Not everyone lives his life at the same pace, and not everyone is cut out for a life in finance.”
Eddy still didn’t say anything. Jack kept talking. “I’m not trying to pressure you into doing this because I think you’re not doing enough with yourself. If your life makes you happy, who am I to tell you to change? Out of everyone in the family, I am not the one to try and badger you into meeting expectations. On the contrary, Edwin, I want you to come along on this expedition because I think you would be a good man to have around.”
“You…do?”
“Of course I do, boy. As I said, I’ve known you your whole life. I also know the real story about your, ah, incident in your university days.” Eddy had to stop himself from cringing whenever anyone brought that up. “I know you don’t like to talk about it, but you’re hardly the first young man to let a beautiful woman coax him into such a situation.” He chuckled. “The stories I could tell you from my own misbegotten youth!”
“It wasn’t some…some university prank that got out of hand,” Eddy said, more defensively than he’d intended to. “Derrick Spode…I-I killed him! I can still see his face. I can still hear the sound of him gurgling, choking on his own blood.”
“Edwin, look at me,” Jack commanded. “Look at me.” Eddy did as he was told and looked his uncle in the eye. “I was younger than you were the first time I killed a man. The first one is hard. You will never forget his face. That’s normal. That means you’re human, that you have a soul.”
“I just wish none of it had ever happened.”
“But it did happen, and you can’t change the past. He was the fool who started the whole damnable affair. You tried to placate him, but he wouldn’t be placated. He issued the challenge, and you answered it, as a man ought to. You stood your ground. Most importantly, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
It was all Eddy could do to keep his composure. It had been a long time indeed since he’d talked about this with anyone.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Jack repeated, “and you need to stop letting that unfortunate episode hold you back. That is what you’ve been doing, even if you don’t realize it.”
Eddy sighed and looked down at his lap again. Jack was right, of course. Whenever Eddy thought about undertaking some measure of responsibility, a little voice inside his head would remind him that he once cocked things up so badly that a man ended up dead.
“I know this is a lot to process, Edwin. You came over for dinner and got asked to make a life-altering decision. It’s not ideal, but as your sister likes to say, it is what it is.”
“You really want me to come along?”
“I remember when you were this tall,” Jack said, holding his hand out. “You’d sit on the floor right there with your sister and ask me to tell you stories. You told me you wanted to be like me when you grew up.”
“I was just a child,” Eddy said.
“Children are more honest about things like that than adults. I see great potential in you, I truly do. I don’t just want you to come with me on this expedition, I want you to start working with me full-time.”
“In the import-export business?”
Jack nodded. “I’m not getting any younger. I don’t have a son of my own and I need a protégé. I spent years building this and I’d rather it not get divided up or sold off when I die.”
Eddy was thunderstruck. It took him a few moments to speak again. “You…you want me to be your…heir?”
“Yes,” Jack stated. “There’s no one else I’d even consider making this offer to. Your sister is smart enough, but her passions lie elsewhere, and I don’t think she has the business sense. You have a lot to learn, but I’ll be here to mentor you until I retire.”
“I couldn’t possibly. I’m not cut out for that sort of thing.”
“You’re not, but with time and mentorship, you will be.”
“I…I don’t know what to say, Uncle. This is all so much to take in.”
“I’d also like you to consider Ophelia. I would feel better with you along to look after her. We will likely be gone for some time.”
“How long?”
“It’s hard to say. Commander Vraz hasn’t planned his route yet, and how one experiences time during interstellar warp travel isn’t the same as it is for a person living on a planet. My best guess, allowing for unforeseen circumstances and the crossing of many intervening star systems on reaction engines, is that we could be off-world for five months, subjectively.”
“That’s still a long time.”
“It’s not so long,” Jack assured him. “The world will still be here when you come back.”
Eddy thought about it for a moment. “Can you guarantee we will come back?”
“No. There are no guarantees, especially not in space.”
Eddy finished his drink and set the glass down. “What’s this all about, Uncle? What’s it really about, I mean? Why this? Why now? What do you hope to find out there?”
Jack was quiet for a few moments. “Do you believe the rumors about me?”
“What do you mean?” Eddy asked. “What rumors?”
Jack cocked his head to the side and looked him in the eye. “Don’t play dumb with me, boy. You know what I’m talking about.”
Eddy sighed. “Fine. Yes, I do know what you’re talking about. You raised me. You’re a good man. You have your reasons for doing the things you do, and I respect you enough not to question it.”
“So, you do believe them. Is that why you’re hesitant?”
“What? No!” Eddy protested. “I just…look, there are several stories about you that have been floating around the family for as long as I remember. Some of them contradict the others so they can’t all be true. I don’t think you were ever a space pirate, for one thing.”
“Ha!” Jack laughed out loud. “That’s one I haven’t heard in a while. No, I’m not a pirate and I never was. What else have you heard?”
The sudden shift in the topic of conversation made Eddy uncomfortable. “Why are you asking me all this now?”
“I can’t very well ask you to be my heir if you’re not even certain what it is I do, can I? I’m sure you’ve heard that I’m a smuggler, using the import-export business as a cover for my illicit activities, yes?”
“Yes,” Eddy admitted.
“Let me assure you that is not true. I’m not a criminal.”
“That’s…good to hear,” Eddy said, tepidly.
“It’s not entirely true, I should say.”
“What?”
“Edwin, listen to me. Most of what I do is perfectly mundane and compliant with the laws of both the Commonwealth and the Interstellar Alliance. Some of what I do isn’t necessarily compliant with Alliance regulations but is fully sanctioned by the government here.”
“Like what?”
Jack reached into his jacket pocket and produced a cylinder maybe twenty centimeters long. He handed it to Eddy. It had metal end caps and a transparent midsection.
“What is this?” Eddy asked.
“Look closely,” his uncle said.
Doing as he was told, Eddy examined the canister closely. Suspended in the center was a shard of crystal a few centimeters long. It was amber in color and glowed faintly.
“Do you know what that is?” Jack asked.
“I don’t,” Eddy admitted.
“Obscura.”
Eddy’s eyes went wide. “You don’t say?” He held the canister up again. “I’ve never seen it before.”
“It’s one of the rarest substances in the known universe,” Jack explained, “and possibly the most valuable.”
“They use it in the ultrawave communications relays, don’t they?”
“That’s right. Obscura can produce a negative energy density, which is necessary to keep open the microscopic wormholes that allow the ultrawave relays to function. Without this substance, information can only move as fast as a warp-ship can carry it. The ultrawave relay network keeps the Alliance tethered together across space and time. A large, multi-system polity cannot maintain cohesion if it takes weeks or months for information to propagate across it, or if member systems experience chronal divergence.”
“That’s why it’s so valuable,” Eddy said.
“Yes. The ultrawave communication relays are of vital strategic and economic importance. Various entities within the Alliance can build the relays, but they can’t manufacture the Obscura. Member systems, including Albion, are required by treaty to notify Alliance authorities of Obscura finds, and they take fifty percent. It doesn’t last forever, either—with use, the crystals degrade. They produces less negative energy from what’s put into it, and the wormhole becomes less and less stable.”
“What does that mean?”
“The wormholes can only be kept open for a few seconds at a time,” Jack explained. “Keeping them open too long will always result in failure. Degraded Obscura shortens the transmission window and increases the downtime between transmissions. If it degrades too much, eventually the wormhole will collapse catastrophically, permanently severing the tether between the alpha and omega ends. If that happens, the relay is destroyed, and a new one has to be manufactured. The alpha and omega ends of the relay have to be physically shipped to their respective relay hubs. It’s a process that can take years, given bottleneck on manufacturing.”
Eddy rubbed his chin. “So the Commonwealth government uses you as an intermediary to acquire this stuff for them.”
“Among other things, yes,” Jack said. “This is often more cost-effective than going through legitimate channels to get it.”
Eddy handed the canister back to his uncle. “Dare I ask where you got this? Did Commander Vraz bring it to you?”
Jack grinned. “Obscura doesn’t occur in nature; there are only two ways to acquire it. This piece was created by the Ældar long ago. This type is the purest, the most efficient, and the most valuable. Alternatively, the Martians manufacture and sell a lower grade of Obscura, and they have a monopoly on its manufacture. To answer your question, no, Commander Vraz didn’t acquire this sample for me. This is from the family reserve.”
“There’s a family reserve of it?” Eddy blinked a couple of times. “Uncle, this all seems rather disreputable, doesn’t it?”
Jack grinned again. “I promise you, boy, every member of the Alliance has people who do what I do. Advanced alien technology always has the potential to be incredibly beneficial.”
“Or incredibly dangerous,” Eddy mused.
“Indeed, Edwin. This is why every power in inhabited space pursues it. The Omnitechnic Syndicate, for instance, is a cartel sponsored by, and working behalf of, the collective nations of Earth, but is legally a non-governmental entity. Nonetheless, it dominates the Inner Sphere’s technology sector, deep space exploration efforts, and interstellar commerce.”
Eddy sighed. “Skulduggery is so tiresome.”
“It is, but it can pay very well. My contacts in the Commonwealth government are the ones who asked me to put this expedition together. They’re providing a good portion of the funding, through cutouts of course. Whatever might be there, they’d prefer to get there before someone else does. Being private sector, I can get an expedition together faster, and with much less scrutiny, than the government can.”
“I think Effie would agree. Say, what about Commander Vraz? Is he aware of any of this?”
“He is, and so is his wife, but I don’t know about anyone else in the crew. It’s something we don’t discuss.”
“Unbelievable,” Eddy said, tempted to ask for another drink. After all these years, Jack just drops this in his lap all at once? “What if you don’t find anything of exceptional value? No ships, no alien technology, just a planet with a primitive species?”
Jack shrugged again. “That’s the way it goes sometimes. My investors know the risks. If nothing else, we’ll be credited as the discoverers of a new civilization.” He paused and took a deep breath. “Look, I know this is a lot for you to process. I understand if you want to say no. Even if you decide not to take over my business when I retire, I hope that you’ll still come with me. I’m not as young as I used to be, and I could use you.”
“I need to think it over,” Eddy said. “I’m sorry, it’s just a big decision.”
“I understand, but don’t take too long. We’ll be launching in a matter of weeks.”