Analog SFF, March 2010 Read online

  "Why do you think Earth is still so poor after thirty-four years on the Network? Because we have nothing to offer anybody. No reason for them to care about us."

  David glanced at Rynyan. “The Sosyryn care."

  "Please. Haven't you been listening? You're his new toy. Charity is something Sosyryn do to pass the time. They've wiped out all hardship on their own world, so they're bored stiff looking for something to do."

  "You mean,” Rynyan corrected with his typical polite condescension, “that we seek to spread the fruits of our prosperity to others."

  "So we'll bow down in gratitude and make you feel like there's a point to your existence.” She turned back to David. “But they've never suffered, never wanted for anything. They can't understand pain, so they can't really care. So before his ... enabling gets you hurt, let me be cruel to be kind. Drop this. Now. Go back to East Bloody Podunk and work at the general store."

  "I've got nothing to go back to,” David said. “No money to live on ... or to buy a ticket with. The only way I can go is forward."

  Her heart threatened to go out to the poor fool, so she yanked hard on its leash. “Rynyan was right. You are insane."

  "You think I don't know how the galaxy looks at humans, Ms. Wing? That's the whole reason I'm out here. Because somebody has to be. Because we can't let ourselves be brainwashed into thinking the galaxy's right about us. Sure, they've all done wonderful things ... but none of them are us."

  "And what makes us so much better than anyone else?"

  "We're not better. But we're new. We can come at the universe fresh, apply our unique way of thinking, maybe hit on something nobody else ever thought of.

  "I'm not saying it's a sure thing. But I know humans can contribute something important to the galaxy. Why not this? And how will we ever know unless we try?"

  "Well, you don't start small, I'll give you that."

  "How can you not be excited at the possibility?” he continued, eyes gleaming. “I mean, you're a Hub scout! A pioneer, braving unknown frontiers, seeking out strange new worlds and new—"

  "If you split an infinitive, I'm leaving,” she told him. “You think this job is glamorous? Some big adventure you can tag along on? Let me tell you something. Space isn't empty. Space is beyond empty. At least ‘empty’ implies there's something there that can be filled. Space is nothing, with trace impurities.

  "Now, imagine jumping randomly into nothing for a living. Imagine the odds of happening to materialize in range of one of those trace impurities, one that's interesting enough that people might want to come to it. Can you imagine that?” He thought it over, and she interrupted before he could speak. “I'll give you the answer: You can't. Whatever you're imagining, it's not even close.

  "Now, imagine knowing that if you do eventually find a Hubpoint that's close to a star or planet, there's no way to know you won't emerge directly inside it and get an instant, no-fuss burial or cremation thrown in free with your death. Not that I'm complaining; that undercurrent of mortal terror before every dive helped relieve the monotony for the first year or so."

  "And now?"

  "Now it offers a ray of hope.” He stared. “That's what being a Hub scout is, kid,” she went on. “I don't do it for the adventure. I do it because I'm a human, and that means I'm desperate. I'd quit faster than a Hub dive if I got a better offer."

  Rynyan leaned forward, leering. “That room in my mansion is still available for you."

  "I said a better offer.” She shuddered. “What is it with you? I'm not even your species."

  "It is my duty as a Sosyryn to share my people's bounty with other species,” he intoned. “If that includes sharing the wonders of Sosyryn sex, then I stand ready to serve."

  "More like your own people are so decadent and dull that you have to look elsewhere for excitement. I'll stick to humans, thanks."

  He shrugged. “Well, if you want to settle for males with only one penis..."

  Mercifully, David got back on topic. “Look at it this way: your job won't be so boring if you have me along for company. I don't care if we find any interesting destinations—it's the jumps themselves I want to study.” He smiled. “And it means your jumps will be accomplishing something even if they don't come out anywhere good."

  "Except this crazy plan of yours isn't going to accomplish a bloody thing,” she said.

  He looked sad that he was unable to infect her with his enthusiasm. But he didn't give up trying. “Taking me along will accomplish one thing, at least. It'll get you paid. You can save up more toward getting a better job."

  Nashira remained skeptical. “You can't even afford a ticket home. How're you gonna pay me?"

  "Rynyan's agreed to fund the expedition."

  She turned to Rynyan. “Really?"

  "Absolutely. It sounds like a marvelous adventure. I'll be coming along, of course, to make sure my donation is put to good use."

  Nashira quailed. The prospect of Rynyan's company almost outweighed that of Rynyan's money ... but only almost. If Sosyryn got their kicks out of spreading their obscene wealth around on charity, who was she to refuse to take advantage of it? “Okay, Mr. LaMacchia."

  "David."

  She ignored it. “It's against my better judgment ... but as long as I'm getting paid, you can come along ... provided my supervisor okays it.” Not that there was any chance Kred would go for it; he hated variations from procedure. But he wouldn't have any grounds to forbid it, either. She just didn't want to seem too eager.

  David took her hand and shook it ardently. “Thank you, Ms. Wing. When we crack the code of the Hub, I'll make sure the history wikis say only nice things about you."

  Rynyan leaned across the table, putting a hand on her arm. “If all it takes to change your mind about an offer is money, my dear..."

  A moment later, Rynyan began to understand pain.

  * * * *

  "What's this about you taking on passengers, Wing?"

  Nashira sighed. She should've known Mokak Vekredi would've found out about this. The molelike Zeghryk may have been myopic in more ways than one, but he certainly seemed to hear about everything that went on in the Hubstation he managed. “Why, hello, Kred,” she replied with feigned affection. “You're positively glowing today, dear. Pregnancy agrees with you."

  The diminutive alien's night-adapted eyes darted away under their tinted goggles. “I don't know what you're referring to. I asked about these passengers. They're attempting to study Hub travel?"

  "That's the idea. So when are the babies due?"

  "I know of no babies,” Vekredi insisted, ducking down to hide his swollen belly behind his desk. Nashira stifled a laugh. Kred was so easy. Zeghryk were prolific breeders, hermaphrodites that could produce dozens of litters from a single mating. The boons of Hub contact had cured disease and conquered dangers, letting their population explode and forcing them to migrate offworld en masse. On learning that other races might feel threatened by their rampant growth, they'd made a decision typical of the officious Zeghryk mindset: by denying the problem existed, they could make it go away. They utterly refused to discuss the concept of sex or procreation with outsiders, insisted that they were all male, and denied ever being pregnant or raising children—even when they were visibly pregnant or surrounded by young, one or both of which they usually were. The xenosociologists had their theories for this strange behavior, but Nashira had her own theory, which was that Zeghryk were freaking idiots.

  Which must be why they so often took jobs in middle management. “Your job is to search for profitable destinations,” Vekredi went on. “Not to ferry tourists."

  "Hub scouts take scientists along all the time. You know the regs, Kred. I'm not violating any procedures by bringing these guys along.” She knew she'd have him there. He lacked the imagination to be comfortable with anything beyond clearly drawn procedure.

  "Yes, but the Dosperhag want you to refuse this particular ... expedition."

  Nashira grimaced. Unless it
involves following direct orders from above. “The Dospers don't own the Hub, Kred. Nobody does."

  "It is in their territory."

  "Only ‘cause they moved their star system to keep it there."

  "Exactly. The Dosperhag have an enormous investment in the Hub. They are entitled to ... take an interest in its operation."

  She shook her head. “You mean try to quash any attempt to figure out how the Hub works, just in case someone figures out how to build another one and take away their gravy train."

  Vekredi blinked. “Their concerns run far beyond the import of meat-based sauces."

  "Come on, Kred, they're being paranoid! Nobody's ever gonna crack the Hub."

  "Of course not. But the Dosperhag feel that people should be discouraged from undertaking such futile efforts—possibly risking their lives for nothing."

  She hoped she was right that Vekredi lacked the subtlety for that to be a veiled threat. “Look, this guy's just a kid with delusions of grandeur. He can barely find his sodding hotel room. The Dospers have nothing to worry about."

  The little manager fidgeted. “I suppose not. However...” He leaned forward and spoke conspiratorially. “There is no procedure violated if his experiments ... fail. And such failure would serve to ... caution others against similar attempts."

  Okay, so he did have a trace of subtlety after all. Not much, though. “No way, Kred. I'm not gonna sabotage this guy's equipment."

  "What is your interest in defending him, Wing? Simply that he is of your species?"

  He was really getting on her nerves now, so she reciprocated. “Yes, Kred. I'm madly in love with him. I'm going to spend the whole trip having wild, athletic sex with him.” Vekredi cringed. Zeghryk didn't like discussing other species’ sex lives either. “In fact, maybe I'll settle down with him and have lots and lots of babies. I bet you can give me all sorts of wonderful advice on mothering. Maybe your children can baby-sit for me!"

  "They're not children!” Vekredi insisted by rote. “They're ... small relatives. And none of this is pertinent."

  "There's nothing pertinent about any of this, Kred! There's no point in sabotaging something that won't bloody work to begin with!"

  The fidgeting increased. Kred was torn between two imperatives: following orders from his superiors and following his beloved procedures. She wondered if his head would explode. That would be fun to see. “There might be a point,” he managed to say. “I know you are eager for promotion out of the scout position. A good performance review from me could open new doors for you, Ms. Wing."

  For once, she had no comeback.

  * * * *

  This time, David got to see the view. Once Nashira's scout ship, the Starship Entropy, launched from the Hubstation into open space, he gasped in awe. The sky was ablaze with stars and nebulosity in all directions, making the skies of Earth seem empty by comparison—but the Bulge itself filled nearly half the sky with an unbroken mass of yellow-white light. Against this magnificent backdrop lay the enormous ring habitats that surrounded the Hub concentrically, their rotations providing different gravity levels to accommodate the thousands of species participating in the Hub Network.

  The Entropy was one of countless vessels shuttling between the Hubstation rings and the heavily armored Shell that encased the Hub, the light from their various drive sinks and exhausts creating a multicolored light show rivaling the galactic splendor beyond. It looked like freeway gridlock on Earth, except in three dimensions and less cluttered; the lethally hot plasma exhaust from fusion engines tended to discourage tailgating.

  But Hub scouts tended to be given priority, since there were simply so many untried Hub vectors remaining to test. The Entropy was able to soar past the gridlock on a reserved vector and was soon passing through a hatch in the Shell. “That's no moon, it's a space station,” David quipped, but Nashira ignored him.

  As they passed through the intricate array of launchers and scanners inside the Shell, David was finally able to look upon the Hub itself. It was less impressive-looking than he'd expected, just an odd pucker in the center of the Shell, faintly glowing with the trace energy that seeped through from literally every point within the galactic halo, but oddly difficult to focus his eyes on.

  But as the Entropy took its place on the launch rail and was shunted around the curve of the Shell toward its dive trajectory, David remembered just how impressive the Hub really was. “This is so cool,” he said. “Here we are, about to go someplace no human or Sosyryn has ever been in the history of the Universe."

  "Yep,” Nashira said. “Hey, you did remember to update your will, right?” David swallowed, suddenly remembering what Nashira had said about the risks of her job. She cackled at his expression. “Now that's the Hub scout spirit. Nice knowin’ ya, suckers!” she cried as the Entropy was launched from the rail and dove into the Hub. David missed the transition because his eyes were squeezed shut.

  After a few moments, he realized he wasn't dead, and dared to open them again—only to gasp at the vista that spread before him on the cockpit's wraparound display wall. Out there, just beyond the ship's nose, the whole expanse of the Milky Way spread out before him, its two major spiral arms and central bar clearly delineated. Off to the side, both Magellanic Clouds were visible, two small, irregular clumps of light with a faint streamer barely detectable between them. He looked to the other side and saw a spray of red-orange stars, a globular cluster a few thousand parsecs off their starboard bow.

  "Wow,” he finally said. “Wow. There, you see, Nashira? Our very first dive, and we get something ... this beautiful. What are the odds of that?"

  She rolled her eyes. “Oh, about 4,999 in five thousand. Dives can take you anywhere inside the halo, and the galaxies make up a fiftieth of a percent of that by volume. I see views like this every bloody day, and so do the tourists who go to the hundreds of destinations with views just like this. Destinations that actually have nearby stars to support the tour facilities. Here, we'd be lucky to find a speck of dust within a parsec."

  As David's face fell, Nashira worked the controls. “Now let's get back before we lose the beam."

  He put his hand on her arm. “Wait. Can't we just stay here a little longer? It's my first time."

  "And it's my first time today. I've got a lot of vectors left to test."

  "Please? Come on, can't you remember what it was like the first time you saw this?"

  She sighed. “All right, I guess there's no harm."

  "Uhh, we can call for pickup after the beam's shut down, right?"

  "Long as we've got the ‘lopes."

  David kept drinking in the sight until the laser beam that “held the door open” along their Hub vector shut down, about four minutes after the dive. When the Dosperhag had first stumbled upon the Hub millennia ago, they had lost many probes and ships to one-way interstellar journeys before discovering the beam effect. That simple discovery had made the Hub viable for interstellar travel and begun bringing the galaxy together. As a result, the Dosperhag had become one of the most prosperous and influential races in the galaxy—although their low-gravity, metal-poor biology limited their ability to visit other worlds, so they were content to share the burden of managing the Hub with others. David cast a glance back at his instruments, hoping they would bring about another simple revolution—for the benefit of all, but in the name of humanity.

  Nashira caught his glance. “Okay, I might as well ask—what's this big theory of yours for how the Hub works?"

  He smiled at her interest, however marginal it sounded. “Well, I got the idea from a twentieth-century physicist called Richard Feynman. He thought that every particle in the Universe was really the same particle, bouncing back and forth endlessly through space and time. I think he was onto something. I'm theorizing that every particle in the Universe is just a cross-section of one great big cosmic string ... and the Hub is a sort of tangle where all the paths intersect. The Hub vectors are the paths the strings take. So if I can identify
the string signatures and how they intersect, we'll be able to predict where a Hub vector comes out!"

  Nashira stared at him blankly until David said, “Was I clear enough? Do you need something explained?"

  After another moment, she turned to Rynyan in the back. “Rynyan, I owe you an apology. For once, you were right. You've found yourself a grade-A lunatic."

  Rynyan preened. “I bring you nothing but the best, my pet."

  "It just sounds crazy to you because it's not accepted by the galaxy,” David told her. “But that's exactly the kind of new idea we need to try!"

  "Forget it. I'm just the driver. You play with your gadgets all you want, doesn't matter to me. Whatever happens with that stuff, it's not my problem."

  David chuckled. “You make it sound like something bad's going to happen. What could go wrong?"

  "Nothing. Never mind.” Nashira cleared her throat and headed back to the communication shack. “I'm calling for retrieval."

  David hastened to follow. “Ooh, I want to watch. I've never seen a quantelope."

  A quantelope was a small, rabbitlike creature with purple fur and two small horns on its head. And the whole of galactic civilization rested upon its tiny shoulders. The Hub allowed instantaneous travel, but the blanket energy leakage obscured any radio traffic. The only way to communicate with the Hub from a distance, whether to confirm a viable Hubpoint or to request a beam for a return trip, was by talking to a quantelope. Somehow, in the ultracold environs of their homeworld, these ammonia-based animals had evolved with Bose-Einstein condensates in their bloodstreams, allowing their brains to become quantum-entangled with those of their relatives. A little gengineering had turned them into quantum radios, able to parrot anything heard by one of their entanglemates. Which made them dandy for interstellar communication but unwise to keep as pets in one's bedroom.