Nexus by Robert Boyczuk (best large ebook reader txt) 📕

A resource rich world, Bh’Haret has extensive tracts of arable land and huge reserves of oil and common metals1. Only 0.031 percent of the world’s surface area is currently in use. Politically, the planet is divided into forty-one city-states that govern the surrounding regions. An Upper Congress with a representative of each city-state oversees planetary and off-world concerns. The population is estimated to be nearly one hundred million and is growing rapidly. Government incentives have helped spur birth rates as high as five percent in several protectorates. Few regions have experienced population decline in the last twenty local years2. Little attention has been given to this world because of its previous ranking (in the lower tenth percentile of Level II) and its relatively small population. Threshold was estimated to be more than five hundred years off.

This was clearly a miscalculation.

Our Instrument there reports a disturbing admixture of cultural and technological touchstones whose statistical variance falls well outside acceptable ranges established for the Ascension Program. Below are excerpts from her transmissions:

Walking down almost any street, one finds recent buildings constructed from crude, almost pre-technological, materials, stone and mortar being the most common. Remnants of ornate oil lamps line the boulevards, yet arclamps actually light the thoroughfares. It is not unusual to see a cobble-stone street being excavated to lay fibre-optic cable. Work on the infrastructure has become so common it has faded into the back of inhabitants’ consciousness. Public trolleys, governed by AIs, are routinely re-routed to bypass construction crews working with pick-axes and shovels….

Several orbiting manufactories have been established. Colonies has been installed on Dayside and Night, the two cold worlds in the system. Regular missions are run to the outermost reaches of the system, and already two dozen manned interstellar missions have been completed to proximate worlds. Suspension techniques requisite to these missions have already been developed or acquired. Representatives from other non-affiliated worlds have visited, and part of the impetus for growth has no doubt been spurred by the bartering of technologies….

Most disturbing, however, is that antimatter trigger systems for De-He3 drive systems are now being tested that are, ultimately, expected to achieve specific impulses in the millions of seconds-or more than 10% of c! When applied to the Standard Ascension Model, this development, given the current technological base on Bh’Haret, is so unlikely as to be of vanishing probability….

The general population has embraced these rapid advances without the hesitation normally seen in developing worlds. New technologies have been incorporated into the daily round of things with a matter-of-fact acceptance that is surprising. There is scant evidence of the social upheavals and displacements one would expect to slow the process of technological development….

There is strong anti-affiliation sentiment on Bh’Haret. Although the government has not openly condemned the Nexus Polyarchy, they have adroitly used the media to colour public perception. Nexus has been portrayed not as a vehicle for disseminating new technologies in an orderly, controlled fashion, but as a monolithic organisation designed to suppress technological advancements, doling out minimal information to its members, hoarding the best for itself. Persistent rumours call into question the ability of Speakers to communicate over interstellar distances, suggesting their powers have been feigned in an elaborate hoax designed to keep the Polyarchy in control of the affiliated worlds. Affiliation is now generally considered to be tantamount to a surrender of individual freedoms. No referenda have ever been conducted, but were one to be held, its outcome would not be in doubt. Coercion on our part, real or perceived, would almost certainly have disastrous results. Indeed, were the authorities to discover my activities as an Instrument of Nexus, I believe they would use this information to further incite public sentiment against the Polyarchy and discredit the Ascension program….

Clearly, these are all signs of an immature culture with a technological ascent dangerously out of control. In my opinion, Bh’Haret is on the cusp of further dramatic changes for which the standard Ascension Models are of little use. It would be foolish not to treat this world as a special case. I cannot recommend too strongly that additional Instruments and a Speaker be sent immediately to monitor the situation….

‘It would be foolish,’ the Instrument says. Strong words, but ones with which I must agree. We may have already witnessed the effects of Bh’Haret’s recalcitrance: Ohan, half a light year from Bh’Haret, was scheduled to be assumed in three local years (a Speaker was en route); now, however, Ohan has requested an indefinite stay. Though they have not stated so, I am convinced they are reluctant to sever trading ties with Bh’Haret (and the seven other non-affiliated worlds clustered in a 1.3 light year radius) as required by assumption into the Polyarchy. It is my belief that the administrators of Bh’Haret have convinced their counterparts on Ohan that the acquisition of technology will occur more rapidly through trade with non-affiliated worlds than through the Nexus Ascension program. If so, this constitutes a major setback. Had Ohan been assumed, Bh’Haret would have been further isolated. Instead, we now find ourselves facing an extremely delicate situation on Ohan. Other local non-affiliated worlds are waiting to see the outcome of Ohan’s vacillation.

Because of the distances involved, I urge you to act expeditiously. The current Instrument installed on Bh’Haret is not a Speaker; her communications, therefore, are time-lagged two years (the nearest Speaker is on Doelavin, 2.1 light years distant), an unacceptable delay in this situation. The rate of change on Bh’Haret demands, as our current Instrument has suggested, the presence of a Speaker.

Yours Humbly,

H. R. Ptiga, Local Ascension Administrator, Right Leg Cluster

“I need you!”

Sweat filmed Liis’ naked body; cold air blew over her from the right and she shivered, pulling herself tighter. Her mouth was gummy and her lips had gone numb. A thin, high-pitched wail sounded in the distance, ululating in melancholy cycles.

Warm fingers closed on Liis’ shoulder, shook her insistently. “Get up!”

Leave me alone, she thought and curled into a fetal ball.

The ululation continued unabated, making it difficult for her to think. The wail rose and fell, and Liis winced. The alarm klaxon. She opened his eyes, felt the lurch of nausea and vertigo that accompanied revival from biostasis. Bright bands of light dazzled her, reflected off the silvered interior of the cell; a blurred figure hovered over her.

“Come on,” a voice shouted over the alarm. “Snap out of it!”

Sav’s voice. Liis blinked rapidly and her vision cleared. She lay on her side, staring into the cramped, circular cabin. The door to her stasis cell had been retracted into the wall overhead; all traces of liquid nitrogen had vanished. Sav, a small, swarthy man, dropped his hand from her shoulder and took a quick, nervous step back. His face, normally soft-featured, was drawn into a grimace. On his right cheek was a white service scar, a long jagged line that ran the length of his jaw and ended in a six-pointed star. Like most officers, he’d removed all but his most current qualification. Liis, on the other hand, had kept everything, including the elaborate swirls and garish colours on her left cheek where non-com rankings were made. The style of the earliest ones dated a hundred years before Sav had been born. It gave her a fierce look that intimidated most people. And it served as a reminder that, in hard time, she’d been around interstellar missions longer than anyone else-including Sav.

He stared intently at her, and the corners of his mouth tightened.

Goddamn Sav. He’d run only half as many longhaul mission as Liis, but still bounced up from stasis as if he’d just had a refreshing nap. For her, it never got easier. And now, being pulled out like this, before she was ready…he should have left her to work her way back gradually, over the course of several hours.

“We’ve got a…problem, Liis.”

Liis swallowed back her nausea and clutched the edge of her berth. She tried to pull herself into a sitting position, but fell back onto the mat, exhausted. “Help me up,” she tried to say, but only a croak came from between her parched lips. The effort twisted her stomach into a knot. Her eyes teared up.

“Wait! The tubes.”

Liis let herself go limp while Sav detached the snaking tubes from the ends of the catheters.

Half a dozen questions buzzed around in Liis’ head, but her throat was too raw and the klaxon too loud for her to give them voice. The nipple of a plastic bottle was forced between her lips. Lukewarm liquid trickled from the spout into her mouth. Swallowing was like having sandpaper rubbed in her throat. She coughed, spit most of the liquid back up along with a long, ropy strand of phlegm. But it seemed to have helped lubricate her throat; the next sip she managed to keep down. Between breaths, Liis took bigger pulls on the bottle. A comforting warmth spread into her chest and limbs; her skin began to tingle.

“That’s enough!” Sav pushed the stopper back down in the bottle. He dropped it into a large pocket in his coveralls. Reaching over, Sav lifted and turned Liis so that her legs dangled over the edge of the berth.

Liis sagged forward, tried to double over to stop her head from spinning, but something tugged at the back of her scalp.

“Wait!”

Fingers worked at the back of her neck, detaching leads. Liis felt Sav lifting the patches from her scalp, brushing away the dried flakes of conducting gel from the puckered flesh on the base of her skull.

“Okay.”

“Thanks,” Liis managed this time, her voice still hoarse, probably inaudible in the din. But Sav seemed to understand anyway; he nodded grimly. Though Liis’ nausea had passed, it hovered in the background like threatening storm clouds. Her own weight pressed down on her, made her feel like her muscles sagged from her bones. Gravity, she thought stupidly. We’re still decelerating. But she shouldn’t have been woken until the Ea assumed orbit around Bh’Haret, the ship back in zero-gee. She looked at Sav. “Wh…what…happened?” Her words disappeared in the noise.

Sav leaned in close, his ear in front of her lips.

“Are…are we…off-course?”

Sav pulled back and shook his head; his jowls moved with the motion. He turned to speak into Liis’ ear. “No. Not exactly. We’re home. Or almost. A little more than a day out.”

He’s afraid, Liis realised. But of what?

“There’s nothing-” Sav stopped abruptly. “The others,” he said cryptically. “You’d better come to see it for yourself.”

Across the cabin were three cells identical to her own. One for Sav and two for their passengers. The closest was still sealed, its pump humming as it drew the liquid nitrogen back into the reservoir beneath the deck. Another had already been drained, and behind its translucent port she could see a figure shifting restlessly, like a grub turning in black earth.

“Let’s get you to your feet before our cargo wakes up.” Sav reached around Liis shoulders and eased her forward until the soles of her feet touched the cold plates of the deck. “Ok?”

Liis nodded, and together they pushed away from the cell. The room began to spin. Liis, her legs stiff and uncertain, stumbled into Sav, who staggered under the taller woman’s weight. Sav managed to catch her beneath the arms.

“We’ll take it slowly,” Liis heard him say as the room whirled. “Clothes first.” They began weaving across the cabin to the storage lockers, Liis moving her tingling limbs in what she hoped was a helpful manner.

Sav cut the alarm. But