Binary System Read online

  Praise for Eric Brown

  “Necropath was a real success for me: the depth of the characterisation; a very alien, yet deeply sympathetic life-form; the authenticity which Brown gives to the society on Bengal Station. This is a place that you can see, hear and virtually smell.”

  SF Crow’s Nest

  “The writing is studded with phrases I had to stop and reread because I liked them so much.”

  Fantasy Magazine on Xenopath

  “Eric Brown’s Helix is a classic concept – a built world to dwarf Rama and Ringworld – a setting for a hugely imaginative adventure. Helix is the very DNA of true SF. This is the rediscovery of wonder.”

  Stephen Baxter

  “Helix is essentially a romp – a gloriously old-fashioned slice of science fiction... What gives the novel a unique spin is its intertwining parallel plots. It’s smart, fun, page-turning stuff, with an engaging cast and plenty of twists… A hugely entertaining read.”

  SFX Magazine

  “He is a masterful storyteller. Eric Brown is often lauded as the next big thing in science fiction and you can see why...”

  Strange Horizons

  “SF infused with a cosmopolitan and literary sensibility… accomplished and affecting.”

  Paul J. McAuley

  “Eric Brown is the name to watch in SF.”

  Peter F. Hamilton

  “Helix is equal parts adventure, drama and wonder. Sometimes they work alone, providing a raw dose of science fiction. Other times, Brown uses them in concert to spin an irresistible blend that pulls the narrative along almost faster than you can keep up. However it’s served, Helix is a delightful read and is an excellent reminder of why we read science fiction: it’s fun!”

  SF Signal

  “Classic science-fiction components and a general reverence for science make this tale of intergalactic travel a worthy, occasionally awe-inspiring read... Brown’s spectacular creativity creates a constantly compelling read... a memorable addition to the genre.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “Brown concentrates on stunning landscapes and in the way he conveys the conflicting points of view between races... No matter how familiar each character becomes, they continue to appear completely alien when viewed through the opposing set of eyes. Brown has a casual and unpretentious style and... the accessibility, the tenderness between characters and more importantly the scale of wonder involved are what makes this highly enjoyable escapism.”

  Interzone

  “There is always something strikingly probable about the futures that Eric Brown writes… No matter how dark the future that Eric Brown imagines, the hope of redemption is always present. No matter how alien the world he describes, there is always something hauntingly familiar about the situations that unfold there.”

  Tony Ballantyne

  “Eric Brown joins the ranks of Graham Joyce, Christopher Priest and Robert Holdstock as a master fabulist.”

  Paul di Filippo

  BINARY

  SYSTEM

  ERIC BROWN

  Published 2017 by Solaris

  an imprint of Rebellion Publishing Ltd,

  Riverside House, Osney Mead,

  Oxford, OX2 0ES, UK

  www.solarisbooks.com

  ISBN: 978-1-78618-124-4

  Binary copyright © 2016 Eric Brown

  System copyright © 2017 Eric Brown

  Cover art by Adam Tredowski

  The right of the author to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

  To Ian Whates

  and

  Helen Sansum

  Chapter One

  THE PRIDE OF Amsterdam was transiting the Lunar wormhole when the explosion ripped through the starship’s fusion core.

  One second the Amsterdam was a billion-tonne, city-sized exploration-and-terraforming vessel embarking on a routine mission to 61 Cygni A; the next, a broken-backed wreck torn apart by an expanding fireball of superheated plasma. Two thousand crew members perished in the merciless vacuum of space as the stern of the ship fell away in beautiful silence, tumbling end over end towards the cratered regolith of the moon far below. Another hundred spacers died when the front end of the Amsterdam was shunted light years through the wormhole into an uncharted region of the galaxy.

  The only thing that saved Cordelia Kemp was her stubborn insistence that she would see out the jump in the gym, rather than cocoon herself in a transition pod at the rear of the ship. Delia had suffered her fair share of shunt malaise in her time, but during her last few missions had elected to battle through the sickness. Anaerobic exercise occupied her metabolism and took her mind off the transit.

  In the event she misjudged the starship’s transition. In her haste to leave the gym to meet Timothy for coffee in one of the observation nacelles, she stepped into the corridor a minute before the shunt. She was feeling fit and energised, and looked forward to seeing Tim Greene again. They’d met at a mission briefing in Paris a month ago – it was to be his first extra-Solar tour of duty – and she’d felt an immediate attraction to the tall, softly-spoken xeno-biologist.

  Their first date had gone well and they’d dined a few times before embarkation. Tim had been full of the wonder of the neophyte, and Delia comfortable in her role as the wise older woman blessing the young Englishman with her experience of interstellar travel. Not that much older, she told herself; she was thirty-five, Tim twenty-seven. In her last communication to her parents in Ontario, she’d even told them about Tim, surprising herself. She had hardly thought she was so serious about him until that moment.

  She took a lateral slideway that ran alongside the outer skin of the Amsterdam; there was no one else in sight, fore or aft. Soon, with the shunt over, the ship would be swarming with crew members going about their duties. She touched the implant at her temple – relinquishing the silence she enjoyed while working out – and sub-vocalised, Timothy?

  A small voice spoke in her head: Mmm...

  She laughed: Blitzed?

  A little whisky before climbing into my pod, he replied.

  Well, make sure to take a sober-tab before we meet, hm?

  Yes, Doctor Kemp. A hesitation, then: Delia...

  Yes?

  I love you.

  That stopped her in her tracks. She’d been walking along the slideway, to hasten her progress; but now she allowed the slide to carry her past a long, curving viewscreen. She stared out at the pewter face of the moon, a million kilometres to starboard.

  Is that the alcohol talking, Tim?

  I’ve been meaning to tell you for a while. That last meal in Paris... Remember the moon? I said I couldn’t believe that soon I’d be up there, making the transition... and you took my hand and told me not to be afraid. You understood, Del, you saw through all the bravado and knew I was scared.

  I’m trained to...

  Anyway, he cut in, that’s when I realised you mean a hell of a lot to me.

  She spoke softly: Thank you.

  He cut the connection and Delia walked on, feeling as if she were being carried along on a cloud.

  She muted the mind-noise of her Imp: the restaurant where she and Tim had last dined was beaming a farewell message – Bon voyage aux astres, Dr Kemp et Dr Greene! – and offering a fifteen-per-cent discount on their next meal. A sub-program was reminding the Amsterdam’s crew of the safety procedures to be observed during the shunt. Zeena Al Haq, a friend in Engineering, squirted her an invitation to the 61 Cyg
ni A rendezvous party twenty-four hours from now. Delia accepted, on the condition that she could bring someone.

  She glanced through the viewscreen. The vacuum ahead of the starship pulsed with the lapis lazuli effulgence of the quantum lattice. Her Imp told her that transition would commence in thirty seconds.

  She stepped from the slideway and found a handhold on the bulkhead. She braced herself for the wave of nausea, staring along the curving wall to the raised outline of a lifeboat hatch. The frame was coloured a garish red and yellow, the only splash of colour in the silver-grey corridor. All the easier to locate in an emergency.

  Her Imp said: Transition in ten, nine, eight...

  She opened a channel to Tim and whispered, Love you, too... and immediately cut the connection before he had time to reply.

  The blue light of the lattice consumed the ship and Delia hung her head as a queasy heat passed through her body. She felt as if she were going to be sick. She swallowed, riding the nausea.

  The ship bucked, throwing her off her feet. The transition had evidently affected the artificial gravity, and only her hand-hold kept her where she was. She floated, thinking that this was the worst shunt she had ever experienced.

  Then the Amsterdam bucked again and she cried out with the knowledge that something was very wrong.

  She accessed the data-stream via her Imp, wanting the reassurance that all was well. All she heard, through a firestorm of static, were a thousand screams and a computerised voice issuing status reports, a techno-babble meaningless to her.

  She heard the rending screech of metal on metal as the ship up-ended. She held on, crying out.

  Her Imp said, Delia, the emergency lifeboat.

  She looked along the corridor. The hatch was now beneath her. She pushed off towards it, at the same time trying to summon Tim.

  Tim, Tim... for chrissake, answer me!

  All she heard was a hail of static, punctuated by screams.

  She grabbed hold of the hatch’s lever and pulled. The door gave with a pressurised whump and swung inwards, pulling her inside. She slammed the hatch shut after her and experienced a sudden, profound mind-silence. Normally, even when commanded to silence, her Imp updated her every few seconds, a background noise so ubiquitous she was hardly ever aware of the mind-chatter. Now she experienced absolute silence, and it was shocking.

  Imp! she called. Why the...?

  Systemic communications failure, Delia.

  What’s happening? She was turning end over end in the confines of the life-raft. She found a handhold and steadied herself. Imp?

  Assessing data input.

  A second later it resumed: Initial detonation in reactor core. Secondary explosions in decks A and C.

  What? she cried, stunned.

  A hundred life-rafts dotted the carapace of the starship, positioned close to the banked transition pods. Chances were, she told herself, that Tim had managed to make it to a raft...

  Her Imp said, Move to the control console. Initiate jettison manoeuvre.

  But what about...?

  Her Imp anticipated her: There are no more survivors in this section of the ship. Move to the control console and initiate jettison manoeuvre.

  She looked around her, saw the console and pushed herself towards it. She grabbed the edge of the console and palmed the initiation plate, then strapped herself to the wall and waited.

  The life-raft jerked as it ejected itself from the wreckage of the Amsterdam. She imagined the tiny craft spinning away, turning over and over like a leaf in a gale.

  Tim! she called.

  Comprehensive communications failure, her Imp said in its maddeningly neutral masculine voice. Intra-crew communications impossible.

  As the life-raft had stabilised its flight from the starship, she looked down. At first she thought she’d wet herself in panic; then she saw a spread of transparent gel ooze across her thighs and down her legs. Her abdomen spasmed as the gel caressed her like a lover’s hand, then spread upwards to cover her chest. It stopped at her throat, thankfully, leaving just her head free and the rest of her body cocooned in a warm, gelid mass.

  Imp, the ship’s reactor core... How close was it to the crew’s transition pods?

  Precisely three thousand metres distant.

  So... that’s a long way, yeah? I mean, the blast...

  She stopped herself. She was babbling, clutching at straws.

  There is a ninety-nine-point-seven–per cent likelihood that the crew’s transition pods were consumed in the initial blast within a time-frame of between one point three and four point five seconds.

  She had the irrational impulse, then, to shout at her Imp, rail at its smartware for being so inhuman and emotionless.

  Tim...

  Nevertheless, she could not believe that Tim had perished. Surely he’d managed to scramble to a life-raft... The initial blast might not have destroyed the pod sector.

  She shut her mind to any other possibility and considered her own survival.

  How long before I can expect to be picked up?

  After a delay of a second, her Imp responded, Unable to assess.

  Can you calculate how many other survivors there might be?

  That is impossible to determine without access to the Amsterdam’s core AI.

  She snapped: You can’t guess?

  Her Imp ignored the question. Smartware did not guess.

  She imagined the raft floating like a tiny seedpod around the moon, soon to be rescued by one of the Lunar teams. A matter of hours, she told herself.

  The Imp might not be able to tell her precisely how long it might take to be rescued, but surely it could give her some indication of her present position.

  She asked.

  Unable to determine, her Imp responded.

  She swore. Chrissake, why not! Do a calculation. How far away were we from the moon when the blow-out happened? What direction did the life-raft take when we jettisoned? Work it out, damn you!

  That is impossible, Delia, it said.

  Impossible? Why impossible?

  Because the Amsterdam was in the process of transition when the explosion occurred.

  An icy hand gripped her innards. But... but the shunt hadn’t completed –

  The fore section of the Amsterdam was negotiating the lattice when the detonation occurred.

  She nodded, telling herself to be calm. I see. I understand. So... that’s okay, that’s fine, isn’t it? We made the transition, right, so we’re somewhere in Cygni space right now? We’ll be picked up by an extra-Solar team, right?

  Delia, her Imp said, the explosion aboard the Amsterdam resulted in a translation failure.

  She nodded again, swallowed. She felt terribly constrained by the gel cocooning her body. She wanted to be free to move around, work off her fear. So okay... And what exactly does that mean? ‘Translation failure’?

  The lattice was damaged in the explosion. In the nano-seconds before transition, I received information that the fore section of the Amsterdam was shunted at least ten thousand light years through space, perhaps as far as fifteen thousand light years.

  “At least ten thousand...” she murmured to herself.

  In humankind’s expansion, the furthest they had ever explored was two hundred light years from Earth.

  So, where are we?

  That is impossible to determine, Delia. All that I can state with any degree of certainty is that we are in an unexplored sector of space.

  Panic gripped her. She struggled, but the safety gel gripped her as rigidly as any straitjacket.

  Delia, said her Imp, for your own good I am about to sedate you.

  And within seconds her fear subsided and she slipped into blessed oblivion.

  Chapter Two

  DELIA.

  Mmm...?

  I am bringing you round.

  I think I’d rather sleep, thanks all the same.

  I have been monitoring your metabolism. You should eat.

  She blinked her eye
s open and stared around the cramped confines of the life-raft. How long have I been out?

  A little under twenty-four hours.

  She relived the explosion. Tim!

  She moved, finding that she was no longer constricted by the safety gel. She floated across the raft, came to the curving wall and gripped a hand-hold.

  You will find a container of supplies in the unit marked Three. Food and water.

  I don’t want to eat.

  For your wellbeing, Delia, you should eat and drink.

  Why?

  For your wellbeing, her Imp repeated.

  I mean, why should I bother? I’m stranded in uninhabited, unexplored space, at least ten thousand light years from Earth...

  That is no reason not to eat.

  Typical machine logic, she thought.

  What are the chances of ESO sending out a rescue mission? she asked.

  That is impossible, Delia.

  That fist again, ice cold and gripping her heart. Why?

  Because the Amsterdam was shunted on a random trajectory through space.

  Wonderful. The furthest we’ve ever shunted before is, what? Two hundred and ten light years?

  Correct.

  And now I’m at least ten thousand light years from the nearest human... and you want me to eat?

  For your well –

  ...For my wellbeing. Yes, I know. She closed her eyes and tried not to scream.How much food and water is there?

  Sufficient to last four people six days.

  So... do the math for me, Imp, I don’t feel up to it... How long will the supplies last me?