Excession

sun, a half-million tonne ship containing a few tonnes of anti-matter and a variety of highly exotic materials falling into a star left a tiny but distinct and unmistakable flash behind it, and usually a mark on the stellar surface that lasted for days at least; one loop round the star could tell you if that kind of disaster had befallen a missing craft. Small solid planets were easy too, unless a ship was deliberately hiding or being hidden, which of course was perfectly possible in such situations and considerably more likely than a ship suffering some natural disaster or terminal technical fault. Large gaseous planets presented a bigger challenge. Asteroid belts, where they existed, could pose real problems, and comet clouds were a nightmare.

In the vast majority of solar systems the spaces between the inner system and the comet cloud were easy to search for big, obvious things and pointless to search for small things or anything trying to hide. Interstellar space was the same, but much worse; unless something was trying to signal you from out there, you could more or less forget about finding anything smaller than a planet.

The Break Even and its crew, like the rest of the fleet, the Clan and the Elench, had no illusions about the likelihood of success their search offered. They were doing it because you had to do something, because there was always just a chance, no matter how remote, that their sister ship was somewhere findable and obvious- orbiting a planet, sitting in a 1/6 Stabile round a big planet's orbit — and you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you took the cold statistical view that there was next to zero hope of finding the ship intact, and then later discovered it had been there all along, savable at the time but later lost because nobody could be bothered to hope — and act — against the odds. Still, the statistics did not make optimistic reading, indicating that the whole task was as close to being impossible as made little difference, and there was a morbid, depressing quality about such searches, almost as though they were more a kind of vigil for the dead, part of a funeral ceremony, than a practical attempt to look for the missing.

The days went by; the ships, aware that whatever had befallen the Peace Makes Plenty might as easily happen to them, signalled their locations to each other every few hours.

Sixteen days after the first ship had started searching and hundreds of investigated star systems later, the quest began to be wound down. Over the next few days, five of the ships returned to the other parts of the Upper Leaf Spiral they had been exploring while two remained behind in the volume the Peace Makes Plenty ought still to be in, somewhere, carrying out more thorough explorations of the star systems as part of their normal mission profile, but always hoping that their missing sister ship might turn up, or at the very least that they might uncover some fragment of evidence, some hint of what had happened to their missing sibling.

The fact that the ship had disappeared would not be reported outside the fleet for another sixteen days; the Stargazer clan would pass the sad news on to the rest of the Elench eight days subsequently, and the outside galaxy would be informed, if it cared, another month after that. The Elench looked after their own, and kept themselves to themselves, as well.

The Break Even powered away from the last stellar system it had investigated, leaving the red giant astern with a kind of dismal relief. It was not one of the two craft who'd stay to continue the scaled-down search; it was heading back to the volume where it had been before the Peace Makes Plenty had gone missing. It kept all its sensors sweeping on full scan as it moved away from the giant sun, through the orbits of two small, cold planets and, further out, the dark, gelid bodies of the comet nuclei. Its course took it directly towards the next nearest star; on the way it swept interstellar space with its sensors too, still hoping, still half dreading… but nothing turned up. Esperi's single, dim-red globe fell away astern, like an ember cooling to ash in the freezing night.

A few hours later the ship was out of the volume altogether, heading out-down-spinward back to its allotted crop of distant, anonymous stars.

II

[tight beam, M32, tra. @n4.28.860. 0446]

xGSV Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The

oEccentric Shoot Them Later

I think I have discovered something. Attached are course schedules for the Steely Glint and Wo Fixed Abode. (DiaGlyphs attached.) (The movements of the Not Invented Here can only be guessed at.) Note that both alter within hours of each other for no given reason, nineteen days ago. The GCU Fate Amenable To Change which discovered the Excession also made a sudden and acute course-change nineteen days ago; a new heading which took it almost straight to the Excession. Then there is a report from the GCU Reasonable Excuse — charged with oversight of our semidetached friend the GCU Grey-Area — that the ship left its most recent place of interest two days ago and was last detected heading in the direction of the Lower Leaf Swirl; possibly Tier.

oo

[tight beam, M32, tra. @n4.28.860.2426]

xEccentric Shoot Them Later

oGSV Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The

Yes?

oo

Do not be obtuse.

oo

I am not being obtuse.

You are being paranoid.

A lot of course schedules have been altered recently thanks to this thing.

I'm thinking about finding an excuse to edge in that direction myself.

And as you point out yourself, the Meatfucker is heading towards the Lower Swirl, not the Upper.

oo

There is a certain potential rendezvous implied in that direction; do I have to spell it out? And the point remains; these are the only three schedules which change at the same point.

oo

They alter over the course of five hours; hardly a 'point'. And even so; what if they do? And what's so special about nineteen or even nineteen/two days ago?

oo

[stuttered tight point, M32]

It does not worry you that there might be a conspiracy in the highest levels of a Contact/SC committee? I am suggesting that there may be prior knowledge here; that some tip or clue was received by one of our colleagues which was not passed on to anybody else. That is what is so special about nineteen days ago; it is less than fifty- seven days ago, when whatever took place in the vicinity of the excession appears to have occurred.

oo

Yes yes yes. But: SO WHAT? My dear ship, which of us has not taken part in some scheme, some ruse or secret plan, some stratagem or diversion, sometimes of quite a sizable and labyrinthine nature and involving matters of considerable import? They're what makes ordinary life worth living! So some of our chums in the Core Group may have had a sniff of something interesting in that region. Good for them, I say! Have you never had some clue, some lead, a hint of some potential sport, amusement, jape or focus of contemplation that was certainly worth acting upon but equally decidedly did not merit advertising due to some reservation concerning potential embarrassment, the wish not to seem vain or simply a desire for privacy?

Really, I think there is no conspiracy here whatsoever, and that even if there is, it is a benign one. Apart from anything else, there is one question you have not, I believe, addressed: What is the conspiracy for? If it was merely a couple of Minds getting wind of something odd in the Upper Leaf Spiral and finessing a search there, are they not simply to be congratulated?