Things Fall Apart: Chapter 34

Zephyr, arriving at third waypoint, shiptime 656ksec

The trip to the second waypoint had been uneventful, given the almost pedestrian time compressor ratios they were still using. They had notched up to 1000:1, which was fast relative to recent memory, but only because Bellerophon's damaged TC drive had not allowed her to reach that ratio, any longer. The system they came out near was nothing interesting. No stations, no ships, no inhabited worlds. Just a brown dwarf that was almost more of a stray gas giant than a star, with a handful of planets. It had never been worth settling or exploring, but it was a perfectly adequate place to anchor a relay.

So they had, and Ernestine 2RD had reported herself operational, synced up with Ernestine 1RD at Gliese-581, sent Singer's quick report through the stubby network back to Haraldsdottir, and then collected the mail that had queued up. She also reported continuing to receive the anomalous signal, and sent what she was logging and what E1RD had logged so far as well to Cordé's attention.

With Zephyr now able to participate in this chain as a "client", there was no need to wait for any further responses. From this point forward, there should be a steady data stream back and forth. It would still be subject to time lags, but Zephyr was no longer alone in the dark, as Bellerophon had been after the Incident.

The trip to the third waypoint made up, to some degree, for the prosaicness of the first leg out. With Espinoza's cautious approval, they had nudged the ratio up to 2000:1, then 3000:1. This was already faster than any Tau Ceti Treaty ship had ever traveled, with the exception of Espinoza's pathfinder ships, which should have made Singer pretty happy. It also should have made her happy that these transitions went smoothly, and everything appeared to be running as it should.

It made her nervous.

What am I, now? A disaster junkie? she thought to herself, as she looked over the status reports that waited for her from her off-shifts. Espinoza's report was downright effusive, with Alexander concurring entirely. Everything was working exactly as designed, and the only reason not to push the ratio higher yet was that they would overshoot the next waypoint if they did so. In fact, they were already starting to surface, as she came onto the bridge, reading the master status display and seeing the numbers and their position.

Neera Goldsmith was at the helm, rather than Wasserman, which surprised her momentarily. She hadn't intended the surprise to show, but Goldsmith said, "Wasserman pulled a long shift monitoring our dive to 3000:1, and it finally caught up to him. The exec asked me to swap and take our surfacing at the third waypoint."

Singer was still not sure what to make of Espinoza's former pilot. That she was competent, Singer had no question, but her motives for joining their expedition remained obscure. Loyalty to her boss could explain at least some of it, but it felt inadequate.

Not really knowing what else to say, Singer said, "Thank you, Pilot. Carry on!" Singer was beginning to understand that many of the rituals of command were exactly that. At any rate, Goldsmith seemed satisfied, said, "Aye, Captain," appropriately, and returned to watching her boards and the plot, while Singer relieved Terranova of his reluctant place in the hot seat. The logistics officer had not been entirely pleased with the idea that he would be in the bridge rotation, but they simply didn't have enough officers for him not to be. As it was, most of them were occasionally—but not always—pulling double shifts to ensure coverage.

Cadotte entered the bridge moments later, from the briefing room just aft, with Cordé close behind. Both looked like they had also pulled extra shifts, and both were radiating perplexity as they approached Singer. "Something interesting?" Singer asked.

"That's one word for it, Captain," Cadotte replied.

"I assume you have several more?" Singer retorted, not really wanting to have to drag a report out of her officers.

"Yes, ma'am. Several. Starting with this one: 'nonary'."

It was Singer's turn to be perplexed. "'Nonary'? As in base nine?"

Cordé muttered, "Told you she'd get it in one." Singer was not sure how to feel about Cadotte doubting that, but let it pass.

Cadotte continued as if Cordé had not just won a wager. "Yes, ma'am. We've been looking over the logs Ernestines One and Two have been relaying regarding the anomalous packet stream. Turns out it gets weirder. Every 531,441st packet is different. It's gibberish, and different not just from the rest of the stream, but each from the other. Ensign Cordé had the idea to analyze them from first principles, assuming nothing about them, so she tuned our own receivers to capture the signal without any decoding, as a purely analog stream. This yielded nine distinct tones being used to encode that packet, as opposed to our usual quaternary encoding. We can easily decode the recorded signal on either side of the strange packets, which gives us a frame of reference, and the ones we can decode all just repeats of the same message."

Singer squinted in thought, then said, "I may simply not be remembering something obscure, but I don't believe any culture we've contacted to date uses a nonary system. We've encountered binary, trinary, even one that used sixteen states to directly encode hexadecimal, but not nonary."

Cordé fielded this one. "I concur, Captain. I asked Chef to do a records search in case I was also misremembering, and he confirmed it. Most of us inherited quaternary encoding from David's Star during the diaspora, so it's become the most common. There aren't even many records of experiments with nonary encoding, either at the logic level or for communications encoding."

Singer nodded, and asked, "So, now that we know it's nonary, can we do anything more with it?"

Cadotte let their frustration show. "Not a thing. We've already run it through a wide range of known text encodings, audio and video codecs, and so on. Nothing fits so far. And here's the other thing: those packets are clearly not meant for Ernestine, or any other AI. None of them would even try to decode it or relay it."

Singer stared at the holotank while she thought that through. "So, your theory about a really big, powerful transmitter out there just gained more evidence. That packet is buried in the stream, but not really part of it. It's part of a separate, interstitial stream."

The other two officers nodded in unison. Cadotte, being senior, was the one to respond. "That's what we think, too, Captain. That would explain why the signal is even still present. It's carrying some kind of message outward that's intended for a recipient who will know what to do with it. We can eventually triangulate the source of that signal and investigate, but because the signal is radiating outward as a broadcast, it's almost impossible, without additional evidence from other sources, to determine who's receiving it!"

"No need to make a tight-beam transmission or anything of the kind," Cordé continued. "They don't even really have to encrypt it in the usual sense. It's already opaque to us. It could be a plain-text message, but in a character encoding totally unknown to us, encoding an alphabet we've never encountered. Without more context, it might as well be static, or music."

Before Singer could ask another follow-up question, Goldsmith said, "Captain, we're about to surface. Normal space in ten...nine..."

When she hit zero, normal space unfolded around them in the tank, and the relief communications rating who was sitting the station yelped. "Distress signal, Captain!"

Singer, Cadotte, and Cordé all looked at each other, and Cadotte voiced what Singer was privately feeling. "Well, at least this system won't be boring!"

Cadotte and Cordé each moved to a station, Cordé choosing not to relieve the rating, someone Singer had not yet met from the Aquila refugees. Singer thought about that a half-second, then remembered how they'd looked coming in. Cordé should by rights be off shift, but apparently wanted to be part of what was happening. Singer took one more moment to register that she was not the only possible disaster junkie amongst her crew, then said, "PO, beat to quarters, then get me details!"