Stephen Baxter - Vacuum Diagrams (ss)

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Stephen Baxter: Vacuum Diagrams (short story collection)

v1.0 (04-feb-00) This document has not been proofread.

PROLOGUE 2

I ERA: Expansion ..................................................................... 7

THE SUN-PEOPLE A.D. 3672 7

THE LOGIC POOL A.D. 3698 17

GOSSAMER A.D. 3825 29

CILIA-OF-GOLD A.D. 3948 43

LIESERL A.D. 3951 63

II ERA: Squeem Occupation................................................... 77

PILOT A.D. 4874 77

THE XEELEE FLOWER A.D. 4922 89

MORE THAN TIME OR DISTANCE A.D. 5024 97

THE SWITCH A.D. 5066 103

III ERA: Qax Occupation........................................................ 108

BLUE SHIFT A.D. 5406 108

THE QUAGMA DATUM A.D. 5611 123

PLANCK ZERO A.D. 5653 136

IV ERA: Assimilation .............................................................. 147

THE GODEL SUNFLOWERS A.D. 10515 148

VACUUM DIAGRAMS A.D. 21124 158

V ERA: The War to End Wars ............................................... 170

STOWAWAY A.D. 104,858 170

THE TYRANNY OF HEAVEN A.D. 171,257 180

HERO A.D. 193,474 195

VI ERA:Flight........................................................................... 206

SECRET HISTORY c. A.D. 4,000,000 206

VII...............................................................ERA: Photino Victory 215

SHELL A.D. 4,101,214 215

THE EIGHTH ROOM A.D. 4,101,266 225

THE BARYONIC LORDS A.D. 4,101,284 242

EPILOGUE .............................................................................. 288

THE XELEE SEQUENCE - TIMELINE .................................... 295

PROLOGUE

Eve

A.D. 5664

The Ghost cruiser hovered between Earth and Moon.

The ship was a rough ovoid, woven from silvered rope. instrumentclusters and energy pods were

knotted to tile walls. Around me. Ghosts clung to the rope like grapes to a vine.

The blue of crescent Earth shimmered over their pulsating, convex surfaces.

Earth folded up and disappeared.

The first hyperspace hop was immense, thousands of light years long. Then, in a succession of

bewildering leaps, we sailed out of the Galaxy.

We fell obliquely to the plane of the disc. The core was a chandelier of pink-white

light, thousands of light years across, hanging over my head. Spiral arms - cloudy,

streaming - moved serenely above me. There were blisters of gas sprinkled along the

arms, I saw, bubbles of swollen colour.

Galactic light glimmered over the silvered flesh of the Ghosts, and of my own body.

We reached the Ghosts' base - far from home, in the halo of the Galaxy.

it was a typical Ghost construct: a hollowed-out moon, a rock ball a thousand miles wide, and it

was riddled with passages and cavities, it hung beneath the great ceiling of tlie Galaxy, tile only large

object visible as other than a smudge of light.

We descended. The moon turned into a complex, machined landscape below me. Our ship shut down

its drive and entered a high, looping orbit. The Ghosts drifted away from the ship and down towards

the surface, bobbing like balloons, shining in Galaxy light.

I let go of the ship and floated away from its tangled hull. Ghost ships and science platforms swept

over the pocked landscape, fragments of shining net. All over the surface, vast cylindrical structures

gleamed. These were intrasystem drives and hyperdrives, systems which had been used to haul this

moon - at huge expense - out of the plane of the Galaxy, and to hold it here.

There was quagma down there, I saw, little packets of the primordial stuff, buried in the pits of

ancient planetesimal craters. My information had been good, then. What in Lethe were the Ghosts

doing out here?

The world of the Silver Ghosts was once earthlike: blue skies, a yellow sun.

As the Ghosts climbed to awareness their sun evaporated, killed by a companion pulsar. When the

atmosphere started snowing, the Ghosts rebuilt themselves.

That epochal ordeal left the Ghosts determined, secretive, often reckless. Dangerous.

They moved out into space - the Heat Sink - to fulfil their ambitions.

I had been told the Ghosts were close to completing their new quagma project. I was chief

administrator of the Ghost liaison office, representing most of mankind. It was my job to stop the

Ghosts endangering us all.

So that I could deal with the Ghosts, I was remade, a decade ago. I look like a statue of a man,

done in silver, or chrome. My legs are pillars. My hands and arms have been made immensely strong.

I don't live behind my eyes any more: I live in my chest cavity. I feel like a deep-sen fish, blind and

almost immobile, stuck here in the dark. My mechanical eyes are like periscopes, far above 'me'.

I can subsist on starlight, and survive the vacuum for days at a time, enfolding my seventy-six-year-

old human core -me-in warmth and darkness. I have a Ghost doctor; twice a year it opens me up and

cleans me out.

I have a face, a sculpture of eyes, nose, mouth. It doesn't even look much like I used to, before. It

doesn't matter; apart from the eyes, the face is non-functional, put there to reassure me.

I can run with the Ghosts. I can fly in space, if I choose to. I don't, much. When I'm not dealing

with the Ghosts I spend most of my time in Virtual environments. So my physical form doesn't matter

much. In fact, lately I've

come to wish the Ghosts had just rebuilt me as a sphere, as they are: simple, classical, efficient.

A Ghost came soaring up to me. It was a silvery, five-feet-wide globe, complex patterns shimmering

over its surface. I recognized it from its electromagnetic signature: contrary to myth, Ghosts aren't all

alike, at least not to another Ghost. I greeted it. 'Sink Ambassador.'

The Ambassador to the Heat Sink floated before me, shimmering; I could see my own distorted

reflection in its hide. 'Jack Raoul, it has been many years - ' 'More than a decade.'

It is pleasant to meet with you. Even if your journey has been a wasted one.'

So it began: the endless diplomatic dance. I've known the Ambassador, on and off, for a long time,

and we have a certain -friendship, I guess you'd call it. But none of that is ever allowed to interfere

with species imperatives.

''I presume you want to get straight down to business, Sink Ambassador? it's clear - I can see - that

you're running fresh quagma experiments down there, on that moon. What are you up to now?'

'We have no need to justify our actions. You have no authority over our activities. '

'Oh, yes, we do. Byforce of treaty we have the right of inspection of any quagma-related project you

run. You know that very well. Just as you have reciprocal rights over us.' It was true.

The study of primordial quagma - relics of the Big Bang - has proven immensely dangerous, Even to

the extent of drawing the attention of the Xeelee.

Humanity - and the Silver Ghosts, and a host of other spacefaring species - have grown accustomed

to the aloof gaze of the Xeelee, and their occasional devastating intervention in our affairs. For

example, fifty years ago the Xeelee disrupted the Ghost and human expeditions which crossed the

Universe in search of a fragment of quagma.

Some believe that by such interventions the Xeelee are maintaining their monopoly on power, which

holds sway across the observable Universe. Others say that, like the vengeful gods of man's childhood,

the Xeelee are protecting us from ourselves. Either way, it's insulting. Claustrophobic. In my time with

them I've developed a hunch that the Ghosts feel pretty much the same. Which makes them even more

dangerous.

Tour decades after those first expeditions, wed turned up evidence that the Ghosts were performing

experiments with quagma, in violation of treaties between our races. I was sent to see.

The lead turned out to be accurate. The Ghosts' dangerous project was unfolding in the heart of a

red giant star - concealing their work from the Xeelee, and, incidentally, from us. The disastrous

outcome of that project all but destroyed us. After that, human surveillance of Ghost quagma projects

was stepped up.

And now it seemed that the Ghosts were at it again. The Sink Ambassador said, 'You do not

understand, Jack Raoul.' 'Oh, don't I?'

'This is a new programme, of great significance. We have every right to progress it, unhindered.

Now.' It suddenly turned hospitable. 'You have travelled a long way. Your doctor is on hand.

Perhaps you wish to rest, before returning to the plane of the Galaxy - '

I approached it, holding my arms out wide, my silvered hands raised like weapons. I hoped that the

Ghosts - the Sink Ambassador at any rate - had studied humans sufficiently to get something out of

my body language. 'Sink Ambassador, we're not going to let this go. We have to know what you're

doing, out here.' I pushed my sculptured face so close to its silvery hide I could see my own distorted

reflection. 'After last time, we're quite prepared to use force. '

It seemed to stiffen, I tried to read the thin tones of the translator chips, 'is this some formal

declaration of-'

'Not at all,' I said. 'Our communications are secure, right now. This is just you, and me, out here

in the halo of the Galaxy. I simply want you to understand the whole picture. Sink Ambassador. '

It hovered in space for a long time, complex standing waves shimmering across its surface. Then:

'Very well. Jack Raoul - what do you know of dark matter?'

Dark matter: a shadow Universe which permeates, barely touching, the visible worlds we inhabit...

And yet that image was misleading, for the dark matter is no shadow: it comprises fully nine-tenths of

the Universe's total mass. The glowing, baryonic matter which makes up stars, planets, humans, is a

mere glittering froth on the surface of that dark ocean.

I let the Ambassador download data into me. In my enhanced vision, huge Virtual schematics

overlaid the Galaxy's majestic disc.

'Dark matter cannot form stars,' the Sink Ambassador said. 'As a result, much larger clouds -

larger than galaxies - are the equilibrium form for dark matter. The Universe is populated by

immense. cold, bland clouds of dark matter: it is a spectral cosmos, almost without structure.'

'This is no doubt fascinating, Sink Ambassador, but I don't see - ' 'Jack Raoul, we believe we have

found a way to construct soliton stars: stellar-mass objects, of dark matter. Such is the purpose of the

experiment, conducted here. We will build the first dark matter stars, the first in the Universe's

history.' I pondered that. It was a typically grandiose Ghost scheme. But - what was its true goal?

And why all the secrecy, from the Xeelee and from us? I knew there must be layers of truth, hidden

beneath tine surface of what the Ambassador had told me, just as their nuggets of quagma had been

inexpertly hidden beneath the regolith of their hollowed-out moon.

'... Maybe I can answer your questions, Jack.' From the glands stored within my silver hide,

adrenaline pumped into my system. I turned. 'Eve.' My dead wife smiled at me.

The Sink Ambassador receded, turning to a tiny point of light. The Galaxy shimmered like a

Ghost's hide, dimming. Then all the stars went out.

I looked down at myself. I was human again.

Once we'd owned an apartment at the heart of the New Bronx. it was a nice place, light and roomy,

with state-of-the-art Virtual walls. Since my metamorphosis, I cant use it any more, but I keep it

anyhow, leaving it unoccupied. Unchanged, in fact, since Eve's death. I just like to know it's there.

Now I was back in that apartment. I was alone. I went to the drinks cabinet, poured myself a malt,

and waited. I can still drink, of course, but I've discovered that much of the pleasure of liquor comes

from the tactile sensations of the bottle clinking against the glass, the heavy mass of the liquor in the

base of the glass, the first rush of flavour. Being injected just isn't the same.

I savoured my malt. It was terrific. There was more processing power behind this simulation,

whatever it was, than any I'd encountered before -

One wall melted. Eve was sitting on a couch like mine. She smiled at me again.

'You have a lot of questions,' she said. I sipped my drink. 'Will you join me?'

She shook her head. She looked older than when she'd died. She pulled at a lock of hair, a habit

she'd had since she was a child. I said, 'This is a Virtual simulation, right?' 'In a sense.'

'You're not Eve. If you were, you wouldn't even be here.' Even the Virtual copy of Eve would have

cared too much to do this to me, to plunge me back into this self-regarding mess.

Despite my loneliness after the metamorphosis, I hadn't called up Eve in seven, eight years.

lack, I'm a better image than any you've seen before. Richer. Indistinguishable from - ' 'No. I can

distinguish.'

She said, 'You must understand what the Ghosts are doing here. And why you must allow them to

proceed. ' 'Oh, must I? And you're here to persuade me, right?' She stepped up to the surface of the

Virtual wall which separated us. After a moment, I put down my drink and approached her. She

stepped out of the wall.

I could feel her warmth, the feather of her breath on my face. My heart was pounding, somewhere, in

a hollow metal chest cavity.

... But even as I stared at Eve, I was figuring how much processing power this Virtual must be

demanding. This creature

with me wasn't Eve, and it sure wasn't the cosy untouchable Virtual representation my apartment

used to call up. How were the Ghosts doing this?

She held out her hand. I reached out, and my fingers passed through her arm: her flesh, crumbling

into cuboid pixels, had the texture of dead leaves.

I'm sorry.' She pushed back her hair. She reached out to me again.

This time, when her fingers settled in mine, they were warm and soft; her hand was like a bird,

living and responsive. 'Oh, Eve.' I couldn't help myself. 'Jack, you must understand.' Behind her, the

wall turned black.

Eve's hand was still warm in mine. 'You must watch,' she told me, 'and learn, it is a long story ...'

There was a patch of light, diffuse, in the centre of the wall. It resolved into the blue Earth. Ships

swam around it, on sparks of light.

I ERA: Expansion

It was, I saw, the morning of mankind, two thousand years before my own birth.

‘it's difficult now to recapture the mood of those times,’/ Eve said. 'Confidence - arrogance .. .'

Earth was restored. Great macroengineering projects, supplemented by the nanoengineering of the

atmosphere and lithosphere and the transfer offplanet of most power-generating and industrial

concerns, had stabilized and preserved the planet's fragile ecosystem. There was more woodland

covering the temperate regions than at any time since the last glaciation, locking in much of the excess

carbon dioxide which had plagued previous centuries. And the great decline in species suffered after the

industrialization of previous millennia was reversed, thanks to the use of genetic archives and careful

reconstruction - from disparate descendants - of lost genotypes.

Earth was the first planet to be terraformed. Meanwhile the Solar System was opened up. Based in

the orbit of Jupiter, an engineer called Michael Poole industriously took natural microscopic wormholes

- flaws in spacetime - and expanded them, making transit links big enough to permit spaceships to

pass through.

Poole Interfaces were towed out of Jovian orbit and set up all over the System. The wormholes which

connected the Interfaces enabled the inner System to be traversed in a matter of hours, rather than

months. The Jovian system became a hub for interplanetary commerce.

And Port Sol - a Kuiper ice-object on the rim of the System -was to be established as the base for

the first great interstellar voyages...

THE SUN-PEOPLE A.D. 3672

At the instant of his birth, a hundred impressions cascaded over him.

His body, still moist from budding, was a heavy, powerful mass. He stretched, and his

limbs extended with soft sucking noises. He felt blood - thick with mechanical

potency - surge through the capillaries lacing his torso. And he had eyes.

There were people all around him, crowding, arguing, hurrying. They seemed tense,

worried; but he quickly forgot the thought. It was too glorious to be alive! He

stretched up his new limbs. He wanted to embrace all of these people, his friends, his

family; he wanted to share with them his vigour, his anticipation of his life to come.

Now a cage of jointed limbs settled around him, protecting him from the crush. He

stared up, recognized the fast-healing wound of a recent budding. He called out - but

his speech membrane was still moist, and the sound he made was indecipherable. He

tried again, feeling the membrane stiffen. 'You are my father,' he said.

'Yes.' A huge face lowered towards him. He reached up to stroke the stern visage.

The flesh was hardening. He felt a sweet pang of sadness. Was his father already so

old, so near to Consolidation?

'Listen to me. See my face. Your name is Sculptor 472. I am Sculptor 471. You must

remember your name.'

Sculptor 472. 'Thank you,' he said seriously. 'But-' But what did 'Sculptor' mean? He

searched his mind, the memory set he'd been born with. Limbs. Father. People.

Consolidation. The Sun: the Hills. There was no referent for 'Sculptor'. He felt a stab

of fear; his limbs thrashed. Was something wrong with him?

'Calm yourself,' his father said evenly. It is a name preserved from the past, referring

to nothing.'

Sculptor 472. It was a good name; a noble name. He looked ahead to his life: his

brief three-day morning of awareness and mobility, when he would talk, fight, love,

bear his own buds; and then the long, slow, comfortable afternoon of Consolidation.

''I feel happy to be alive, father. Everything is wonderful. I - ' 'Listen to me.'

He stopped, confused; his father's tone was savage, insistent. Something was wrong.

'Things are - difficult, now. Different.' Sculptor 472 wrapped his limbs around his

torso, 1s it me?' 'No, child. The world is troubled.' 'But the Hills - Consolidation - '

'We had to leave the Hills.' There was shame in 471's voice now; again Sculptor

became aware of the crush of people beyond the cage of his father's strong limbs. 'The

Hills are damaged. There are - Sun-people - strange forms, glowing, shining. We dare not

go there. We had to flee.' 'But how will I Consolidate? Where will I go?' 'I'm sorry,' his

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StephenBaxter:VacuumDiagrams(shortstorycollection)v1.0(04-feb-00)Thisdocumenthasnotbeenproofread.PROLOGUE2IERA:Expansion.....................................................................7THESUN-PEOPLEA.D.36727THELOGICPOOLA.D.369817GOSSAMERA.D.382529CILIA-OF-GOLDA.D.394843LIESERLA.D.395163IIERA:Sq...

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