Free The Well of Stars by Robert Reed Page B

light-year of their world before plunging on into the heart of a dark nebula. You desire information. In exchange for knowledge, you wish to learn everything possible about the nebula’s inhabitants. Which is perfectly reasonable, Master. And let me assure you, speaking for my crew and our passengers, each of us wishes to help in every way possible.
    But first, let me say this much.
    I am responsible for my many mistakes. Everyone aboard the Calamus has made errors of judgment, and all of us are infinitely sorry for our failures. But when you consider the circumstances of our leaving and the simple fact that we have several dozen passengers of quality who are desperate to return to their apartments and old lives … well, I cannot drop to my knees and cower, Master. I am forced to beg across many light-years, admitting to you that I am weak and sorry; but in all circumstances, Good Master, I have strived to do what is best. A different officer might hold back his knowledge about the nebula. The Inkwell, as you call it. But using what I have learned as a bargaining chip … well, that would be wrong, and I won’t fall for the temptation.
    Simply stated, we need help to come home again. Our streakship is empty of fuel and seriously damaged, and the mood on board is less than comfortable. I trust you, Master. Send a mission to retrieve us. And to show my own good intentions and my genuine faith in your kindness, I will tell you all that I have learned about the dark nebula and its citizens.
     
    SHIP’S LOG (excerpts, presumably edited):
    A beautiful disappointment, our first potential refuge has been. An M-class sun with three massive jupiters and an assortment of moons, it looked inviting in our best charts. With ample volatiles and a native intelligence broadcasting strong, highly modulated radio signals, we assumed we could find fuel and technical aid. But we didn’t make contact with the local species until we were on the fringes of the solar system. They live on the cold watery moon of the largest jupiter. Their technologies are few and development is slow, hamstrung by a lack of metals and stone. Rather like cetaceans, but larger and with far slower metabolisms, they produce the radio signals with their own vast bodies, choruses of them working together. Not having a xenobiologist on board, our interpretations are little
better than informed guesses, but it seems there is a religious component to their radio voices. They hear the long radio broadcasts coming from the three local gas giants and their sun—the natural noise generated by magnetic fields and solar nares—and they assume that these celestial bodies are gods, and the gods are speaking to them … and if enough little voices can speak in tandem, then the gods will listen to them …
    But if the planets and sun are deities, then the black nebula is the Mother Ocean that blesses the universe with her bounty. (“It’s the best explanation we could decide upon”—Lorkin added later, with a scribbling hand.) In some long-ago past, the Mother Ocean visited their world with Her body. Their descriptions sound like a starship. The aliens aboard were as large as the natives, or larger. Or perhaps they were secondary ships departing from the main body. Either way, they were finned and perhaps warm-blooded … they knew how to speak to the natives … but in most cases, they chose to say nothing …
    The visitors seem to have planted the idea that the nebula is an ocean and a god, and that She washes the universe with her bounty. Until then, the locals had assumed that the blackness was just a hole in their otherwise god-rich sky …
    We could have visited the cold cetaceans, but our streakship is meant for fast transit and fully equipped ports of call. An icy moon would have supplied us with limitless fuel, but our machine shops are minimal and our shuttles small. I have decided to pass through the system, using the sun to help slingshot us on a new, more