Hearthspace, p.1
Hearthspace, page 1
For
Gerry, Bertie, Lloyd and Brodie
HEARTH
SPACE
STEPHEN BAXTER
Contents
Dedication
Title Page
Inner Worlds
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Transit
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Outer Worlds
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
The Search
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Afterword
Credits
Also by Stephen Baxter
Copyright
Ixchel
i
Mission Inception
Ixchel was with her mother and the Companion the very first time she saw the Hearth – or at least saw something like it, learned to recognise it – in the deep night sky of Yucatán, her birthplace.
And, as it turned out, it was one of the last times she would ever see it with her mother.
Though with the Companion, quite the opposite.
It was a familiar enough night, at first.
Mother had visitors, and that wasn’t unusual. At ten years old, Ixchel enjoyed trying to keep herself awake, lying in bed, listening to her mother’s late-evening conversations with her friends – or colleagues, her mother called them – as they debated some complicated matter or other. Sometimes the discussions became arguments, and sometimes those arguments got loud. Loud enough for Ixchel to make out individual words, complicated words, words she sometimes understood, words she liked to try to remember.
A starship they were going to call Hummingbird. A bird that would fly to the stars, then.
And, antimatter. They talked about that one a lot. No matter how much she tried to get the house to explain that, she couldn’t understand it. Stuff that made starships go, it seemed. And stuff that was hard to make … or something.
And … hearths?
This night, the talk started to get unfamiliar when they discussed how clear the sky was. The group didn’t much talk about the weather, usually. But then they spent all day shut up in offices and workshops, while Ixchel walked to school, nearby, out in the open, and there was play and organised sports outdoors … They’d talked about that, in fact. About how shut-in Mother was. Mother said it was ironic that for somebody who spent all her life talking about stuff up in space, she hardly ever saw the sky herself, save when ‘scuttling from one observatory or college to another’. (Ironic, another word Ixchel didn’t understand … or maybe she was coming to understand.)
An unfamiliar night already.
And after it sounded like she had got rid of her guests, Mother came walking quietly up the stairs, quiet save for the one creaky board she had never gotten around to fixing, up the stairs and into Ixchel’s room, sat on her bed, and gently touched Ixchel’s shoulder.
That was unfamiliar too.
Ixchel rolled on her back. The light was low, but Ixchel could see the pendant at her mother’s throat. A bird with brilliant green back and head, grey belly. It was a quetzal – a female – a sacred bird. Of all her mother’s lovely clothes and jewellery, it was the bird pendant that Ixchel lusted after the most. Now, in the low light, its green stone seemed to shine …
‘Sorry to wake you, little one.’
‘You know I was awake already. Am I in trouble?’
Mother stroked her dark hair back from her brow. ‘Oh, not at all. But let’s both pretend—’
‘That I wasn’t listening in on everybody.’
‘So what was it that you didn’t you hear this time?’
‘Umm …’
Ixchel riffled through her memory – good for a ten-year-old, they told her at school.
‘You were talking about a hearth this time.’
‘You don’t know what that means? But I guess you haven’t grown up around open fires. Nor did I, come to that.’
‘You mean like when a house burns down?’
‘No, not like that. I’m talking about a fire you want inside the house, to keep you warm.’
‘If the heating breaks down.’
‘Well, yes. But long, long ago, when there was no mechanical heating—’
‘When you were a girl, and people hadn’t invented stuff yet.’
‘You shouldn’t tease your mother. No, I’m talking about long ago, before there were heating systems for houses, or even houses as we have.’
‘Before the Europeans came to the Yucatán.’
‘Even they didn’t bring central heating, not at first … No, our ancestors relied on fire to keep warm. And a hearth was, well, a safe place to build a fire, and keep it going.’
This seemed dreadfully dull to Ixchel. ‘And this is what you were talking about downstairs all this time?’ Her mother and her ‘colleagues’.
‘In a way, yes.’ Mother smiled. ‘But it was a conversation your grandmother would have understood. At least in part. She had a hearth in her house. And the Companion understands.’
‘Now I’m just confused.’ And she pulled a face at the mention of the Companion.
Mother put on one of her I’ve-got-an-idea faces. ‘I’m confusing you, and it’s not fair. But if you’re smart enough, and know enough, to be confused in the first place, you ought to know the truth, as much as you can understand.’
She stood up.
Ixchel, suddenly alarmed, grabbed her arm. ‘You’re not going away, are you?’
As her mother did, very occasionally, in the course of her work, to ‘conferences’ and ‘observation assignments’ … Ixchel hated that.
But Mother put her hand over Ixchel’s. ‘I’m not very good at this, am I? Talking to my ten-year-old daughter. Whereas a conference room full of scientists and engineers and starship builders …’
Starship. That funny word again.
Mother seemed to make up her mind.
‘Let me show you something. Come on. Put your dressing gown on. I don’t think you’ll need a coat. And your slippers will do, we won’t go far from the house.’
Ixchel scrambled to comply.
As her mother waited, she said, ‘You know, you can always speak to the Companion. It will tell you anything, if you ask a sensible question and if it knows the answer. And believe you me there aren’t many questions it can’t answer, if they’re phrased properly …’
Except, Ixchel thought, the questions that mattered: When is my mother coming home? How long for? Will she stay next time? Does she still love me like she did when I was a baby … ?
‘I don’t like the Companion,’ she blurted.
‘Dressing gown on, please. Slippers on.’
When she was done with that, her mother pursed her lips and bent down, pretending to make a loose inspection.
Ixchel loved looking into her mother’s face, close up, the deep smoothness of her skin, her bright eyes, the dark hair tied back. Maybe she, Ixchel, would see such a face when she grew up, looking back at her from a mirror.
‘You’ll do. Come on. If it gets cold, mind, you’ll be straight back in for your coat.’
‘I know, I know …’
Outside the air was still, balmy. Ixchel was warm enough. They were both bathed in the light of the fence floodlights, washing the property with their glare.
And Ixchel could see the Companion standing still as a statue, just beyond the lights’ splash of brilliance.
Her mother took her hand. ‘Come on. We’ll go into the shadow, so we can see better, with the Companion.’
As they walked that way, the Companion swivelled silently, looking back at them.
Its human-like face was a rigid mask. Its body was like a pillar, with ‘folds’ artfully wrought on the outer skin of that pillar, as if it wore some long gown. But if you touched a fold, it was hard, unyielding – not cold, though. Really, it was much more like a statue than a human being.
Ixchel preferred not to touch it.
As Ixchel and her mother passed, the Companion followed, the small wheels under its skirt-like base leaving tracks in the lawn.
When they had evidently walked far enough, Mother stopped, looked at the sky.
Ixchel looked up too. She could see a few bright stars – the sky was moonless – but she knew that more would become visible as her eyes adapted. They would have to wait.
And as they waited, Mother asked the Companion what it thought was the reason they had come out here tonight, what they wanted to see.
‘Orion,’ it said promptly. ‘Based on your earlier conversations.’
To Ixchel, its voice was very like a human voice, but too like one, if that made sense. Maybe because it never made a stumble. Or swore.
Mother glanced at Ixchel. ‘And Orion is – what? Where?’
‘A constellation in the sky.’ Ixchel looked around, and pointed. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? The big square, and the three stars in a row.’
‘Very good. Your eyes are better than mine. Well, I guess they ought to be. And do you know why we call that pattern “Orion”?’
Ixchel liked astronomy, as her mother knew. ‘Because they thought that pattern looks like a hunter, a person. Here’s his belt …’
‘That’s what the Europeans thought. That’s what they taught us, the people of the Yucatán. We, the Maya.
‘But we already knew what we thought about those stars. We had a different story. We thought that – well, why don’t you tell us, Companion?’
The machine spoke smoothly. ‘I will. And I had deduced, of course, that that is the reason you have come here, tonight. The hearth.’
Its voice was too … perfect.
Mother said, ‘People all around the world had their own stories about such patterns in the sky. With Orion, the Maya didn’t see a hunter at all, not like the Europeans. They said that the hunter’s supposed belt and feet were actually a hearth – where you build a fire – because—’
‘Oh,’ Ixchel said, feeling oddly excited. ‘Because the bright stars make a triangle. And Mayan homes have a hearth of three stones, like a triangle. Like ours, in the house.’
Mother rubbed her back. ‘That’s right. Now, can you see – I can’t, my old eyes aren’t good enough – can you see the smudge in the middle of the “hearth”? It’s not a fire – it’s a place where stars are being made, in a big cloud. A nursery for stars. The nearest place to Earth where stars are being made, right now. Huge numbers of them …’
Ixchel suddenly understood – or thought she did. ‘That’s where your starship is going, isn’t it? Off to see the Orion hearth, the new stars being born? And—’
‘Good guess,’ Mother broke in. ‘But not quite.’ She pointed, off to the left of Orion. ‘Out there is another place where planets are being born. Another hearth. You can’t see it, not without a telescope. It’s not as large as Orion, but much further out, and different – something stranger still, something wonderful. Not stars. Just one. A single, enormous star, made of dark matter, which is – well, that doesn’t matter.’
‘You said “matter matter”,’ Ixchel said, teasing.
‘Now, don’t be silly. Many stars have planets. Our Sun has eight. But the exciting thing about that big dark star up there is – well, it has more than that. Planets.’
Ixchel liked numbers. She guessed wildly. ‘How many? Eighty?’
‘More than that.’
‘Eight thousand?’
‘No—’
‘Eight million?’
‘Well, that’s not far off the mark. Millions of planets … We don’t know for sure. A storm of planets, we believe we can see it up there, planets crowded close, and perhaps, worlds with life. Why not? All orbiting this big dark-matter “sun”. There can’t be a more fecund place in the galaxy …’
Companion murmured to Ixchel, ‘“Fecund” means lots of life.’
Ixchel sensed the wonder in her mother’s voice. And she began to feel deeply troubled. This ‘dark star’ sounded much too interesting, to her …
Oh.
And now fear congealed inside Ixchel, a deep, dark fear.
‘And you’re going there, aren’t you? That’s why you’re telling me all this. Are you going away?’
Her mother turned, her face – radiant, was the word that came into Ixchel’s head. ‘Yes! We are building a ship. Yes, that’s the destination. It’s still in the planning stage, and it will require a huge resource-gathering exercise – would you believe, a million tonnes of antimatter! A block of it a hundred metres on a side. We will have to assemble that in space, of course.
‘And even with all that, the people on the ship will have to live for sixty or seventy years before they ever get to the Hearth. They, or their children, their grandchildren … And their children will spread out across a storm of worlds …’
‘What about me?’
That came out as a shriek.
Ixchel shocked herself.
And it startled her mother, who seemed to become aware once more of her daughter. ‘What about you … ?’ She stepped forward, and wrapped Ixchel in her arms. ‘You’ll be coming too! I’d never leave you behind …’
This was happening too fast for Ixchel. ‘What will I do on a spaceship my whole life?’
That seemed to flummox her mother. ‘Why, why—’
The Companion said, ‘There will be hundreds of people on board. Babies being born, people growing old. Your name, Ixchel, is the name of the Mayan goddess of medicine and midwifery. Maybe you can be a doctor.’
Her mother seemed to be surprised by that suggestion of the Companion’s.
‘Tomorrow we’ll … scratch your name on the companion’s back so everyone can see. IXCHEL in big clear letters.’ Now she held her daughter’s shoulders at arm’s length. ‘So will you come with me to the Hearth? That’s what we will call it. The worlds of Hearthspace …’
‘… and with me?’ the Companion asked, hesitantly.
And so they endured the years-long preparation for the mission. A preparation, eventually much delayed, that consumed much of what was left of Ixchel’s childhood, even her life as a young woman.
Still, once she understood it fully, she always felt dedicated to the mission.
Dedicated, even when her mother was unable to stay in the programme herself, because of a new rule demanding that all females had to be of child-bearing age or younger.
And the day of the launch from low Earth orbit, with her mother stranded below, a mother she would never see again, was the worst of Ixchel’s life.
INNER WORLDS
1
First contact.
Of all the teeming populations of the Alliance of Earths, it happened that the first sighting of the intrusion of the remote empire soon to be known as the Hierarchy of Worlds was made by a junior naval officer called Commander Fels Sedhi, of the lightsail ship Patrol 45.
It hadn’t been the plan.
The ship’s current mission, hundreds of days long, was essentially to transport a senior officer, Commodore Siri Mott, across Alliance space from one world to another, specifically Earth 6 to Mars 5. Routine. You always kept your eyes open for the unexpected. But the mission had nothing to do with first contact.
Which happened anyhow.
And it happened that Fels Sedhi’s own personal assignment during that crucial watch had him, and him alone, outside the hull of the 45 when the first encounter was made.
For the Alliance navy, this was already a significant moment in its own right, as it happened, coming during an early test of a new deep-space propulsion technology: a dark-matter ramjet.
It was a turning point in history, Fels Sedhi would later reflect, much later. But a heck of a mess to live through.
A dark-matter ramjet …
Start with that.
The very name excited Fels.
A brand new propulsion technology to replace, or at least supplement, the huge, unwieldy lightsails that were the standard interplanetary-travel technology to date. A new technology to be tested by the crew of his ship on this jaunt, the Patrol 45.
And here was Sedhi himself at the cutting edge, at the controls of this one-person test article, a prototype demonstrator of the technology itself, along with a flock of miniature drones. He would have made barrel rolls if he’d had the nerve, and the stupidity.
But he did swivel his tiny one-person cabin to take in the view.
And, out here, far from any planet, what a view – including the sail ship Patrol 45, its own lightsail opened up to complete porosity while it hung, immobile in space, to release Fels’ craft and send it on its way.
Hearthspace:
Fels had grown up learning and dreaming of spaceflight and its arena. And now here he was, for the first time, at the controls of his own craft. And what a craft.
And Hearthspace …
He knew the geography. From his small cabin, there at the centre of his vision he saw the brilliant pinpoint at its heart, the Hearth itself, as bright at this distance, so he understood, as the legendary Sun, the distant star of mankind, as seen from the equally legendary first Earth, origin of mankind.
