The days went by; the ships, aware that whatever had befallen the Peace Makes Plenty might as easily happen to them, signalled their locations to each other every few hours.
Sixteen days after the first ship had started searching and hundreds of investigated star systems later, the quest began to be wound down. Over the next few days, five of the ships returned to the other parts of the Upper Leaf Spiral they had been exploring while two remained behind in the volume the Peace Makes Plenty ought still to be in, somewhere, carrying out more thorough explorations of the star systems as part of their normal mission profile, but always hoping that their missing sister ship might turn up, or at the very least that they might uncover some fragment of evidence, some hint of what had happened to their missing sibling.
The fact that the ship had disappeared would not be reported outside the fleet for another sixteen days; the Stargazer clan would pass the sad news on to the rest of the Elench eight days subsequently, and the outside galaxy would be informed, if it cared, another month after that. The Elench looked after their own, and kept themselves to themselves, as well.
The Break Even powered away from the last stellar system it had investigated, leaving the red giant astern with a kind of dismal relief. It was not one of the two craft who’d stay to continue the scaled-down search; it was heading back to the volume where it had been before the Peace Makes Plenty had gone missing. It kept all its sensors sweeping on full scan as it moved away from the giant sun, through the orbits of two small, cold planets and, further out, the dark, gelid bodies of the comet nuclei. Its course took it directly towards the next nearest star; on the way it swept interstellar space with its sensors too, still hoping, still half dreading… but nothing turned up. Esperi’s single, dim-red globe fell away astern, like an ember cooling to ash in the freezing night.
A few hours later the ship was out of the volume altogether, heading out-down-spinward back to its allotted crop of distant, anonymous stars.
II
[tight beam, M32, tra. @n4.28.860. 0446]
xGSV Anticipation Of A New Lover’s Arrival, The
oEccentric Shoot Them Later
I think I have discovered something. Attached are course schedules for the Steely Glint and Wo Fixed Abode. (DiaGlyphs attached.) (The movements of the Not Invented Here can only be guessed at.) Note that both alter within hours of each other for no given reason, nineteen days ago. The GCU Fate Amenable To Change which discovered the Excession also made a sudden and acute course-change nineteen days ago; a new heading which took it almost straight to the Excession. Then there is a report from the GCU Reasonable Excuse – charged with oversight of our semidetached friend the GCU Grey-Area – that the ship left its most recent place of interest two days ago and was last detected heading in the direction of the Lower Leaf Swirl; possibly Tier.
oo
[tight beam, M32, tra. @n4.28.860.2426]
xEccentric Shoot Them Later
oGSV Anticipation Of A New Lover’s Arrival, The
Yes?
oo
Do not be obtuse.
oo
I am not being obtuse.
You are being paranoid.
A lot of course schedules have been altered recently thanks to this thing.
I’m thinking about finding an excuse to edge in that direction myself.
And as you point out yourself, the Meatfucker is heading towards the Lower Swirl, not the Upper.
oo
There is a certain potential rendezvous implied in that direction; do I have to spell it out? And the point remains; these are the only three schedules which change at the same point.
oo
They alter over the course of five hours; hardly a ‘point’. And even so; what if they do? And what’s so special about nineteen or even nineteen/two days ago?
oo
[stuttered tight point, M32]
It does not worry you that there might be a conspiracy in the highest levels of a Contact/SC committee? I am suggesting that there may be prior knowledge here; that some tip or clue was received by one of our colleagues which was not passed on to anybody else. That is what is so special about nineteen days ago; it is less than fifty-seven days ago, when whatever took place in the vicinity of the excession appears to have occurred.
oo
Yes yes yes. But: SO WHAT? My dear ship, which of us has not taken part in some scheme, some ruse or secret plan, some stratagem or diversion, sometimes of quite a sizable and labyrinthine nature and involving matters of considerable import? They’re what makes ordinary life worth living! So some of our chums in the Core Group may have had a sniff of something interesting in that region. Good for them, I say! Have you never had some clue, some lead, a hint of some potential sport, amusement, jape or focus of contemplation that was certainly worth acting upon but equally decidedly did not merit advertising due to some reservation concerning potential embarrassment, the wish not to seem vain or simply a desire for privacy?
Really, I think there is no conspiracy here whatsoever, and that even if there is, it is a benign one. Apart from anything else, there is one question you have not, I believe, addressed: What is the conspiracy for? If it was merely a couple of Minds getting wind of something odd in the Upper Leaf Spiral and finessing a search there, are they not simply to be congratulated?
oo
But there has been nothing this important before! This is perhaps our first real OCP and we may not be up to the challenge it represents. Meat it makes me ashamed! I just find this all so distressing! For millennia we have congratulated ourselves on our wisdom and maturity and revelled in our freedom from baser drives and from the ignobility of thought and action that desperation born of indigence produces. My fear – my terror! – is that our freedom from material concern has blinded us to our true, underlying nature; we have been good because we have never needed to make the choice between that and anything else.
Altruism has been imposed upon us!
Now suddenly we are presented with something we cannot manufacture or simulate, something which is to us as precious metals or stones or just other lands were to ancient monarchs, and we may find that we are prepared to cheat and lie and scheme and plot like any bloody tyrant and contemplate adopting any behaviour however reprehensible so that we may grab this prize. It is as if we have been children until this point, playing without care and dressing in but not filling adult clothes, blithely assuming that when we are grown we shall behave as we have done in the headlong, heedless innocence that has been our life so far.
oo
But, my dear friend, none of this has happened yet!
oo
Have you not carried out the projections? I took your advice to spend more time in metamathical pursuits, modelling the likely course of events, divining the shape of the future. The results worry me. What I feel myself worries me. I wonder what we may stop at, what we may not stop at to attain the prize this Excession may offer.
oo
I meant spend more time enjoying yourself, as you well know. Besides: simulations, abstractions, projections; these are only themselves, not the reality of what they claim to represent. Attend to the actuality of events. We have a fascinating phenomenon before us and we are taking all reasonable precautions as we deal, or prepare to deal, with it. Some of our colleagues show laudable enterprise and initiative while others – ourselves – exhibit caution just as commendable as – and in sum complementary to – their ambition. What is there to fear but the wild imaginings which may well be the result of looking too far beyond the scale of relevance?
oo
I suppose so. Perhaps it is me. Certainly I see worrying signs everywhere. I dare say it must be me. I may still make some further inquiries, but I take your point.
Make your inquiries if you must, but frankly I think it is this constant urge to inquire that causes you such pain; when one is able to scrutinise a subject as closely as we are – and to do so with the cross-referential capacity we possess, then the closer one looks into anything the more coincidences one finds, perfectly innocent though they may be.
What is the point of inquiring at such depth that one loses sight of the sunlit surface?
Lay up that magnifying glass and take up thy drink glass, my friend.
Slip off the academic gown and on with the antic pants!
oo
I thank you for your advice. I am reassured somewhat. I shall consider what you say. Do keep in touch. Farewell for now.