Free Gateways by Elizabeth Anne Hull Page A

knew one thing.
    Courier
proclaimed that the Havana Artifact had been sent by “liars.”
    Wer concentrated on drawing the ancient characters right. When the last figure was finished, seeming to float, just below the surface of the egg-shaped thing, Wer spoke the question aloud, as well.
    “
How
did you arrive on Earth?”
    The reply came in two parts. While
Courier of Warnings
painted ideograms and uttered antiquated words, an
image
took shape nearby, starting as night’s own darkness. Anna Arroyo quickly arranged for an expanded version of the picture to billow outward from their biggest 3D display, revealing a black space vista, dusted with stars.
    Meanwhile, in arch tones that seemed beautifully and appropriately old-fashioned, Professor Yang Shenxiu translated the ancient ideograms, aloud.
Pellets, hurled from point of origin,
Thrown by godlike arms of light,
Cast to drift for time immeasurable,
Through emptiness unimaginable . . .
    One star, amid a powdery myriad, seemed to pulsate, as if aiming narrow, sharp twinkles outward. . . .
    “Capture those constellation images!” Dr. Nguyen commanded, with no time for courtesy.
    “I’m on it!” Menelaua snapped. His fingers left the crucifix and waggled in the air with desperate speed, while the islander grunted and hopped a little in the seat of his chair.
    Wer stared as several of the narrow, winking rays seemed to propel tiny dots in front of them. One of these zoomed straight toward his point of view, growing into a wide, reflective surface that loomed toward those watching.
    “Photon sail!” Anna diagnosed. “A variant on the Nakamura design. Propelled by a laser at point of origin.”
    Wer grunted, amazed by her quickness—and that he actually grasped some of her meaning! The space windjammer hurtled past his viewpoint, which swiveled around to give chase—and he briefly glimpsed a tiny,smooth shape, dragged behind the giant sail, brilliantly radiant in the home star’s propelling beam . . .
    . . . which then dimmed. The diaphanous sail contracted, folding and collapsing into a small container at one end of a little egg, whose former brightness now faded, until it could only be made out as a seed-shaped ripple, hurtling at speeds Wer couldn’t begin to contemplate.
    “Neat trick with the sail,” Patri commented. “Tuck it away, when it’s not needed for propulsion or energy collection, so it won’t snag interstellar particles. With bi-memory materials, it could expand or contract with very little effort. I bet they use it later to slow down.”
    Wer now grasped how the worldstone must have come across the incredible gulf between stars—a method sure to provoke feelings of kinship from this colony of wealthy yachting enthusiasts. At the same time, he wondered. What would ancient peoples, in China or India, have made of these images?
    In fact, could anyone guarantee that modern humanity was much more advanced now? In ways that mattered most?
    Meanwhile, Scholar Yang’s narration continued.
Slow time passed while the galaxy turned,
A new star loomed—its light, a cushion.
    The pellet turned around and redeployed its sail, which now took a gentler, braking push from a brightening light source ahead.
The sun,
Wer realized. It had to be.
    “Knew it!” the islander exulted. “Of course there’s no laser at this end. Just sunlight alone won’t be enough.”
    As the star ahead grew from a pinpoint into a tiny, visible disk, a
new object
abruptly loomed in front of the worldstone—a great, banded sphere, replete with tier after tier of whirling, multicolored storms.
Chosen beforehand—a giant ball waited,
Ready to catch . . . pull . . . assist . . .
    Yang Shenxiu’s translation stumbled as, even with computer aissistance, he could only offer guesses. Well, after all, the Indus and archaic Chinese peoples knew very little about astronomy, planetary navigation, and all that.
    “A gravity swing past Jupiter,” Anna murmured in apparent