The Braided World Read Free

analyzing the planet of origination; its presence could be discerned by the wobble of the parent star. The planet's edge-on alignment to Earth allowed astronomers to determine its atmospheric composition by identifying which wavelengths of starlight were dimmed by the atmosphere. The reason Bailey Shaw slapped her money down on the table was that the planet matched Earth. In such things as astronomical setting, mass, radius, and atmosphere, it was a perfect match. She had looked up at her staff—more accustomed to planning concerts and benefits than space voyages—and asked,
How much would it cost to go?
    It wasn't such a surprising move on her part. She would never sing again. Despite having a voice like the very angels, even now, in her eighth decade … So she was
looking
for something to do. And here it was.
    The trouble began when they arrived in orbit and grabbed a close resolution of that boat traffic along the rivers. The readouts from three hundred kilometers overhead were blurred, but unmistakable. Those beings using boats on the rivers were human. As the science team fell into denial and the crew whispered apprehensively, Bailey had stormed around the ship, claiming victory. It's all here, she'd proclaimed, just as the Message promised.
    And the sweetest utterance of all: I told you so.
    Well, on this mission there were good days and bad. The present one, as Bailey stood in front of the doors to the conference deck, was definitely one of the latter. But she called up a confident smile. Anton Prados and Nick Venning stood as she entered the room, but she waved them back into their seats.
    They looked uncomfortable, these two young men who'd shared quarters all the trip out, who'd been classmates at officer candidate school—who now were competitors. It was appalling to think of appointing one of these twenty-four-year-olds to captain a ship worth billions and to preside over an alien contact. But what choice did she have?
    “Anton,” Bailey said. “Nick.” She found a seat and let the pause lengthen.
    “I'm sorry, ma'am,” Anton said.
    No need to say what about.
    Nick said, “He rallied for a bit yesterday. It's an ugly shock.”
    They were a study in opposites. Anton Prados was slim and black-haired, a handsome dark Russian look. A little serious. Young.
    Nick Venning was a little shorter, more stocky, sandy-haired. Good with the crew. Quick-witted. Young.
    They kept looking at the door, expecting to see Phillip Strahan join them. He wouldn't be. Strahan was a systems engineer, and would be staying on board to keep the ship and its science deck operational. Bailey had decided against appointing Strahan around midnight, before turning her attention to the remaining choices.
    She voiced the wall screen forward, choosing a real-time view of the planet, now displaying the hemispheric ocean. If there was a highly advanced civilization here, perhaps it was underwater. But no, ground radar surveys found nothing that looked artificial. Yet, having captured one of the four orbiting satellites broadcasting the Message to Earth, they'd found the engineering so highly advanced it was incomprehensible. Furthermore, the satellite was composed of a material the science team called transuranic—something about its atomic number being, well,
astronomically
high. The thing was built to last forever, although it could be destroyed—as evidenced by the debris of one former satellite that had perhaps succumbed to meteor bombardment.
    But where were the beings who'd created these things?
    And if they had abandoned this planet, how long had they been gone? The materials of the satellite couldn't be dated by conventional means, since they didn't decay.
    Bailey found herself asking the young men, “Do you think we've come here for nothing?”
    Nick leaned forward. “That's what we'll go down to see.”
    “And you, Anton, what do you think?”
    “If it's there, we'll find it.”
It
referring to the code, to the vanished life