[This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call. The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books. I try to post new chapters about every two weeks, but there will sometimes be short stories and vignettes if I don’t have a new chapter ready. The next chapter is planned for the week of October 9th.]

Previous: Chapter 38

Light and darkness. Ice and fire, turning to water and steam behind her.

Anger and heartache.

Flicker hadn’t expected the heartache, as she skated around Europa. Despite all the pain, effort, and dread she’d gone through up to this point.

She could suppress her emotions at high speed. She’d done so unconsciously for most her life, thinking slow neurochemistry was needed for them to be real. But four humans, one Grs'thnk, three AIs, two pseudo-mythological entities, and every biogestalt she’d ever met had recently convinced her otherwise. And that suppression was unhealthy. So she’d stopped.

Flicker ached because Europa’s surface had millions of years of history, oddities, quirks, and places of beauty. And she was obliterating them all. She was angry because she had no choice. Because she needed Skybreaker’s Spear to defend against what was coming. And for her to construct it, Europa needed to be smoother.

There had been last-minute scans and surveys, pictures and core samples, all taken before she started. It helped a little, knowing that there would be records. But not enough. She glanced at the picture of the old Europa on her visor display one more time. It was familiar to astronomy buffs, and similar images were in books, papers, articles, and vids, and even on a few posters.

Those would require an update, or a note. The simplest one would be ‘Before’.

Doc, Ashil, and DASI were still hard at work, struggling to determine the best way for her to forge the Spear. But all plausible construction scenarios had something in common–they required a portal in a freefall orbit of Europa within Flicker’s entropy dumping range of the surface–and that was only fifty meters. Allowing for a reasonably sized portal, and the ship needed to support and guide it, meant nothing could be much over thirty meters high across the entire orbital path.

Europa was already the smoothest large body in the solar system, and its outer layers were almost entirely ice. Flicker was giving it a temporary atmosphere of steam and a shallow liquid water surface. Those would condense and refreeze, but not before the water had time to do what it did best–flow downhill.

If you wanted to make a solid surface very flat, it was hard to beat covering it in water and letting it freeze. Tidal flexing would eventually produce irregularities again–but not soon.

Journeyman was aboard Three’s favorite ship, keeping watch from above, along with the Learning Is About To Occur. There were new, more distant watchers as well–a group of ships from an ally of the Grs'thnk had jumped in yesterday. Learning said they’d moved up the timetable of a planned diplomatic mission. Preparation for black hole construction was apparently enough to worry the neighbors, even if they lived two universes away.

*****

The lab was a kaleidoscope of holograms and display screens, and Doc concentrated to keep focus as Ashil flipped between them. This was the kind of work where her implant made a big difference–and Doc wasn’t as fast as he’d been.

“…worst still third case. Collapse asymmetry,” she was saying. "Not most energy, but–“

"But hardest for us to rule out,” finished Doc. “We need better bounds on either the non-linear collapse phase or the permeability of the portal to gravitational waves. Because they won’t bother Flicker, but they sure might kill Journeyman, even through a Xelian shield. I think–”

“Priority interrupt,” announced DASI.

“Incoming?” he asked. "Problems on Europa?“

"Neither. However–”

“Then what on Earth is so important?” Doc felt the immersive flow of the theoretical work slipping away.

“Director Reinhart wishes to discuss her response to an official communication from the Floater ships that jumped in yesterday, along with several other issues. Also, you and Ashil are two hours overdue for a dinner break, and your personal health maintenance index is in the red.”

“Great.” Doc closed his eyes and sighed. "Ashil, I’m sorry. Can we–“

"Break. Yes. Implant yell at me, too. Don’t worry, I have new idea for free parameter reduction I work on after I eat.”

“Thank you for being understanding,” he said. Robots served the meal in the kitchen nook of the apartment Doc shared with Stella. "Okay,“ he said after taking a bite, "Choosers and superheroes are handling the crisis list, DASI won’t let me start reading my message backlog before I eat, and nothing’s on fire except Europa. What did the Floaters want?”

Stella smiled. "A short, liberal translation might be 'You are doing dangerous and reckless things. We are very concerned.’ Which is reasonable. But.“

Stella raised an eyebrow. "One thing everyone agrees on is that mistranslation and misunderstanding of other races is a longstanding issue for the Floaters. Working out the protocol for their entry into the Grs'thnk Trade League took years. You’re the only human who has spoken to a Floater before, and I’m curious about your meeting. The notes you recorded about the occasion were brief and unhelpful.”

“I didn’t write them up until I got back to Earth, and a lot happened in the meantime. It was at that same diplomatic nightmare of a party where I got myself in trouble talking about grav drives. I wasn’t drunk, but I was still very loopy from the antihistamines.”

Doc took a drink before continuing. "The Floater I talked to had an autotranslator that used Grs'thnk trade pidgin as an intermediate language. We agreed that it didn’t work well. He seemed eager to get cultural context data for a better translator, which I could sure understand, but given the venue and available time, I thought that was just asking for trouble. So I begged off on grounds of fuzziness.“

"What did he look like?”

“No clue. His envirosuit was bipedal with six tentacles, and about human-sized, but that doesn’t mean much. Is it important?”

“Body form is associated with Floater factions in some complex way, and our new visitors admit to having representatives from at least four factions. That’s one of the clearer parts in DASI’s composite translation of the message–and there are plenty of signs that different sections were composed by different groups.”

“I remember that Floaters need to body mod to allow interstellar travel, because the gas bladders in their unmodded form are too big to make it practical.”

“That’s not necessarily true,” said Stella. "One of the ships is quite large, and part of the message is devoted to complaining about the inconvenience of transporting an elder here.“

"That’s new. At least to me. What do the Grs'thnk say?”

“Beveda says yes, it’s new. Learning says not really. DASI says it depends on what they mean by elder.”

“Wonderful.”

“It gets better. The least opaque parts of the message are disclaimers and complaints. One you might find interesting blames an entity or entities unknown–but circumstantially linked to Earth–for creating a lasting navigational difficulty that caused economic hardship to a Floater colony. For eighteen years, ending shortly after Flicker destroyed the Topaz Realm.”

“How does the timing fit with the Grs'thnk portal shifts?”

“Exactly, as far as Learning can tell.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if one reason Golden Valkyrie left in such a hurry was to avoid awkward questions.”

“Plausible. But that one was mild compared to the diatribe against the recklessness of Flicker’s probability manipulation during the fleet battle. Literal translations–we have five different ones so far–are rather incoherent. The figurative ones start with 'Fools! You’ve doomed us all!’ and go downhill from there. DASI is reasonably confident of two important bits of information from the rant: The ranter thinks it’s at least possible to avert the coming doom, and there are three of whatever is bringing it. But there’s no indication how they know that.”

“How reassuring. What else?”

“The Floaters are more moderately displeased that Flicker is threatening the fabric of spacetime and committing planetary engineering without filing an environmental impact statement, because we foolish humans are insufficiently protective of Jupiter and don’t require one. Learning says that if the moons of Jupiter were their lawn, they’d be yelling at us kids to get off of it.”

“Not unreasonable. They’re touchy about gas giants because they live on one.”

Stella smiled again. "Our lawn, our rules. The last part of the message emphasized that regardless of anything else, they are here to help, they have two portal test 'devices’, and they would like to share data as soon as is practical. They were clear, if somewhat passive-aggressive, about their intent to carefully monitor what Flicker and Journeyman are doing. They also intend to survey the local gradients around Earth, which is specifically permitted by the terms of our treaty with the Grs'thnk.“

Doc frowned. "Gradients of what?”

“They didn’t say. And 'gradients’ is an indirect and possibly figurative translation. There was also an amusing disclaimer from their primary translator; essentially 'I’m sorry, we were ordered to translate this on an impossible deadline. Here is the raw text so your AIs can try.’ He included an appendix on the failure of their first translation project, which would have been much easier to understand–”

“If it hadn’t failed.” Doc sighed. "They do have a reputation for persistent and patient action, as well as grouchy and ambiguous communication. Anything else?“

"Ambassador Beveda said it’s clear to her that the Floaters were putting together a more coherent message, then decided to send what they had on short notice. The obvious impetus would be Flicker starting work on Europa. Learning sent some highlights from past misunderstandings between the Floaters and the Grs'thnk, and a link to a sketch by an human comedian telling an improbably intricate tale of woe with the punchline 'but that part is complicated’.”

“Heh. DASI said Journeyman sent something, too. He’s still on the observation ship that you have sticking close to Learning, right?”

“Yes. His message was sent about ten minutes before the Floaters sent theirs, warning that what seemed to be a weak divination attempt bounced off one of his wards just after Flicker started work. He performed some tests that he’s unwilling to discuss until they get back, but he thinks the Floaters have either a probability manipulation based scanner or a magician.”

*****

The steam was thick enough now to block most light. Flicker used the radar in her visor to see, and her gravitational gradient sense to stay at the right level. Collisions were her usual worry, but not today. Solid matter was no more of an obstruction than a spider web if she wanted it gone.

She followed a carefully planned path, because the energy distribution was important; she could add heat to Europa in a hurry, but cooling it down again depended on weather and thermodynamics. They would need a near vacuum before starting portal work, it would take time for all the steam to condense out, and sufficiently uneven snow distribution could be just as much of a problem as the ice geography she was erasing.

Plasma flashed brightly but briefly for the central peak of Pwyll crater, and Flicker felt a pang of sadness as she vaporized the jagged blocks of the Conamara Chaos, old ice rafts twisted into rugged beauty. But there was no beauty in a portal crash, so they had to go. Any life on Europa was kilometers deep, in buried oceans far under the ice, and shouldn’t notice her disturbances to the surface unless something went catastrophically wrong.

And if things went that wrong, life elsewhere would be in trouble too.

*****

Doc finished reading the messages on his handcomp. A lot had piled up over the past week while he’d been helping Ashil with portal theory. He looked over at Stella. She was reviewing DASI’s translation of the official EDU message to the Floater ships.

“Send, with a copy to the Grs'thnk,” she said aloud.

“Sending,” said DASI. "Verified. Recorded by the Auditors.“

"Thank you.” Stella set down her own handcomp, then met Doc’s eyes. "Well?“

"I asked not to be disturbed if there wasn’t a crisis,” he said. "So I can hardly complain. But I’m wondering about the Volunteer. His letter was not reassuring. Did he send anything to you?“

"DASI has been keeping me updated on his healing progress. His eyesight hasn’t returned. The problem seems to be that Golden Valkyrie and Flicker regenerated most of his brain damage while his eyes and optic nerves were still gone. DASI’s most recent scans indicated a connectivity problem that’s healing very slowly, if at all.”

Doc nodded. "He says they were making sure he didn’t lose any memories permanently. But I’m more concerned about the effects he’s been experiencing on Earth. Migraines and general malaise–but they go away as soon as he returns to Kyrjaheim. That sounds like a probability manipulation effect.“

"Our magic theories are all pretty speculative, as Journeyman never tires of pointing out, but I think it’s archetype backlash,” said Stella. "The Volunteer filled an important symbolic role for a long time, and now he can’t. There could easily be a strong feedback effect from all the people that saw him as a bulwark against unwanted change. Especially older people in the United States.“

Doc frowned. "Or he could have lost part of his connection to Earth; he was gone when Flicker was hammering the universal reset button, and he was healed in Kyrjaheim. We just don’t know. He sounded pretty discouraged.”

“He’s discouraged because he can’t directly help Earth. Margie was quite clear about that. I forwarded some letters from the Xelian Volunteerist converts; perhaps those will help.”

“I hope so. Not much else we can do. I could go visit him, I suppose. I need to stop pushing the physics for a while, anyway. I can keep up with Ashil and help her–but not all the time. I’d trash myself on the schedule she’s been keeping lately.”

Stella smiled wryly. "That rarely deters you. But I could use your assistance with a few things, on a more reasonable schedule.“

"I’m trying to be more sensible. I have a lot of bad habits from my days of dealing with crises while chronically short of sleep. But we still have time, and I’m now convinced that Ashil is better at portal theory than I am or will be, even if I someday manage to restore my top-level augments. And the potential for new data from the Floaters makes this a good time to take a break. What do you need?”

“The CBI has been requesting a secure meeting with you for a number of days. Given recent developments, it would be useful if you were willing to accommodate them here. DASI believes they will now agree to all of your conditions.”

Doc raised his eyebrows. "The pennies are finally dropping, eh? DASI, would that be consistent with 'taking a break’?“

"Yes,” said DASI. "Such a meeting is unlikely to be cognitively difficult, even if you have anger management issues. And it’s aversive enough to you that you won’t prolong it.“

"All right, go ahead and schedule it.” Doc turned back to Stella. "I’d like to hear a bit more about those 'recent developments’ though.“

"I could let DASI explain, but I’m red-zoned too. I really did not need a new set of aliens arriving to increase the variance of all my political projections. Venting will help. With several things, some of which I’ve been putting off for weeks.”

Doc frowned. Stella’s body language was usually very hard to read, and she normally affected a detached amusement. Now she just looked frustrated and tired.

“Stella? Are you all right?”

She stared back at him for a moment. "Let’s go into the the living room, so I can put my feet up. We need to talk.“

*****

It was done, finally.

Europa was now a steam-enshrouded billiard ball, slowly cooling. The rain had already started, but it would still take weeks before the residual atmospheric density was low enough. Flicker stared at the image in the screen on the shuttle that had picked her up. It was something to do other than dwell on the lack of mass around them.

"The destination shuttle is almost at the right spot and velocity,” said Journeyman. "You ready?“

"Green,” Flicker said automatically. He had his arms around her, preparing to port both of them most of the way to Earth. She was still dissociated from her long work at high speed, but she would recover. As soon as she had mass, and air, and ground she wasn’t doing anything destructive to.

“Thirty seconds, mark.”

“Goodbye, Europa,” Flicker whispered. "I’m sorry. I’ll be back.“

Did that make what she’d already done better, or worse? She was still wondering when they ported out, heading home.



Next: Chapter 40

