The Stars Came Back (46 page)

Darch: FUCK YOU!
You must have a mole that leaked! I know I’m tight here! You have to find out how to get them for what they did to my family!

Seymore: No, FUCK YOU AND YOUR DEAD ASSHOLE SON!
You can’t keep a secret to save your life! You’re only in office because of my support!

Councilor Darch: And
you only have your job because of
me
!

CUT TO

INT - DAY - Bridge of
Tajemnica

Helton, Lag, Allonia, Quiritis, Cooper at stations

Over the PA the voices of Seymore and Councilor Darch are heard.

Lag: I’d say that’s enough to crucify them.

Helton: Quiri, make for the ambush pickup point.

Allonia takes a quick breath
, Lag eyes Helton critically, Cooper looks skeptical.

Helton:
We know the battalion is badly shot up. They’d call for support or extraction unless they lost all the vehicles and com, which means we should be safe. We can let those two argue forever and record it for later.

Quiritis: Aye
-aye, captain. Buttoned up. ETA 34 minutes, 26 if we push it.

Helton
glances at Allonia.

Helton: Push it.

Quiritis nods understanding, and the sound of the surging drives rises substantially.

FADE TO BLACK

Pickup

FADE IN

EXT - DAY - Fall-back hasty firing position

The
y are hunkered down, caked in grime and blood. There are no sounds of war, only the crackling of fire. Smoke swirls by. They look like they’ve been through hell.

Kaushik: Think they finally had enough?

Harbin: (Grunts) May be organizing a final push.

He drops the magazine from his rifle, an
d looks at the top. Only one round is visible, with the follower below it. As they go around, one at a time drops their mag and checks it, then reinserts and reports.

Harbin: Ammo check.
Two here.

Kaushik: Four.

Kaminski: One.

Plumbata: Two.

Foster: Out.

Brenneke: Two.

Sabot: Bayonet still mounted.

There is a long pause. There are a couple of glances at Buck. Kaushik reaches over, checks his pulse. He shakes his head.

Kaminski: Either way, shouldn’t be long.

A shadow passes over and they glance up. Above them,
Tajemnica
streaks by, going parallel to the forest fire line. It turns in a long arc and comes back to them, ramp already partially lowered, with a small crowd of people on it. Allonia, Helton, Lag, recruits, Trask, several medics with stretchers. As
Tajemnica
settles down and lowers the ramp the rest of the way, right on the edge of the firing position, everyone jumps off and to help the wounded men aboard. Kaminski stands up unsteadily, straightens up, and takes a step toward the ramp. He staggers and is caught solidly by Allonia.

Allonia: Don’t be an idiot! Let us help you!

Kaminski: (Through gritted teeth) Told you. Not on my shield.

Allonia: Good thing we showed up to save your ass!

Kaminski: Call it even. Saved yours this morning.

The rest are either being helped up the ramp or carried on stretchers. The recruits that had worked aboard with the refugees look shocked at the condition of those that went to fight.

Harbin: (To Lag, helping him up the ramp) Sorry for the mess, intel missed some details. Few more than expected.

Lag: We saw from the air.
Quite a surprise party you throw. Make for a hell of a bonus.

Harbin: (
Nodding slightly) Next Kiv staff meeting should be interesting. (Points to a trio of bullet furrows in his helmet) Best not mention details to Mohini, though.

DISSOLVE TO

INT
- DAY - Sick bay

I
njured soldiers lie on beds, being cleaned up, stabilized, and covered with many bandages. At least one medic is working on each of them, and there are blood transfusion bags hanging at every bed. Bipasha stands between Kaushik and Harbin, Allonia between Kaminski and Sabot. Only Sabot isn’t completely sedated. Everyone is tired and strained.

Kaminski: (
To Sabot) Your first battle is a really good “no shit, there we were” story, complete with cool scars and combat effectiveness bonus. Quite a day’s work.

Allonia:
I sort of understand Lag, but how can
you
be so casual about it? Buck’s dead, and how many on the other side died because their leaders were stupid?

Harbin
shrugs slightly and winks a wry grin to Kaminski with an I-told-you-so look, then faces Allonia and speaks very matter of factly.

Harbin:
Soldiers
must
focus on the positive. Keeps you from giving up or going insane. Battlefield calculus
is
insanity, attitude is what keeps you alive.

Sabot: I’m sure my parents would have liked me to finish training before my first combat, but after this…

Harbin: You did well. Kept your head, did what you had to do. Got a respectable future here if you want it. A first class reference if you don’t.

Bipasha: I’m just glad the two of you, well
all
of you, are back! I don’t know how Mohini puts up with knowing you go out and do that all the time!

Harbin: (
Grins) I leave her at home. She knows the Colonel doesn’t usually do stupid things, or take stupid contracts.

Sabot: Do you
always get into shit like that?

Allonia: Oh,
God, I hope not!

Kaushik: No. That was the worst
I’ve
been in.

Kaminski nods agreement.

Harbin: Trickier than most. But battles like this mean we have to fight less later. People see us coming and they run, surrender, or negotiate. It’s too bad about Buck; he didn’t do anything stupid, just unlucky. Our standing here as we did means fewer deaths elsewhere.

Kaminski: And, of course, it means
Taj
and her wonderful crew didn’t get shot down.

Allonia blushes, Harbin and Kaushik nod, Sabot drift
s off as the meds take effect.

Allonia: (
Softly, just to Kaminski) I think we need to talk in private somewhere, soon.

He
raises his eyebrows in curiosity, then settles back into his pillow.

Kaminski: Yes, I think I’d like that.

Bipasha: (Trying to change the topic) Eight trips, over eight thousand refugees. No one lost in transit. The RC built out pretty well to accommodate them all.

Allonia: (
Trying to be joking, only partially successful) We still have to figure out how to split it up.

They
look suspiciously at her.

Allonia:
Ambush delivery, recruits, crew, Lag’s company, ship’s company, a visit to Seymore, refugee contract, special target contract, Penger’s generous payment… Not exactly all spelled out in one contract anywhere.

There is a collective
groan at the prospect.

Kaminski: What!?
You went to Seymore’s?

Bipasha: Why do you think the Kiv soldiers pulled back? Allonia had a word with him, and by the time we got to you they were in full retreat. She can be
quite convincing, I hear. Didn’t like it when she’s angry.

Kaminski looks at her
, head tipped inquisitively.

Allonia: (
Tired smile) You watch my back. I’ll watch yours. Deal?

Kaminski: Deal.

DISSOLVE TO

INT - NIGHT - Loading ramp area

The cargo bay airlock doors are closed
, and the wedge-shaped space above the raised ramp is dim, empty, quiet. From one side, a folding arms slowly extends out, reaching near a top inside corner to the brass plaque. On the end of the arm is a small engraving bit. It whirs gently. Zoom in on brass panel and its huge list of names. At the bottom of a column, JON BUCK is etched, adding to the long list. There is still room for more.

DISSOLVE TO

INT -
NIGHT - Sealed off compartment

Quinn crawls though a maze of densely packed machinery. He wears a headband with light
s on each side, and a small camera in the center. He carries a screwdriver and a small mallet. The compartment is filled with gears, chains, and tube-handling equipment. There are several tubes about three meters long, missile-sized, in some of the holders. He’s inside a magazine with automated munitions handling equipment. A damaged and broken piece of metal is jammed into one of the gears. He climbs like a monkey though the magazine to the jammed gearing.

Ship AI: (OC, quietly) As I thought.
After that last impact it may be shaken loose enough for you to free now.

Quinn looks it over, playing the lights and camera on it.

Ship AI: (OC) Hit it gently from the side, low down, so it moves away from the gears.

Quinn hefts the mallet, and gives a gentle tap.

Quinn: There?

Ship AI: (OC) Yes, but more firmly.

Quinn gives it a whack, reassesses. It’s moved a little bit.

Ship AI: (OC) Pry a bit with the screwdriver.

Quinn sticks the screwdriver between the piece of broken equipment and the gear, and starts to pry, pulling gently.

Ship AI: (OC) No, the other way.

Quinn reverses and pushes. The broken piece moves, shifts, then falls free.

Ship AI: (OC) Ah, just so. Just one more fix and it may be usable again. But I’m afraid you can’t help with that right now. Thank you once again for scratching another
hard-to-reach itch, Quinn.

Quinn: Welcome. What next?

Ship AI: (OC) Nothing for now, thank you, except to see if anyone needs a hug or a hand. They usually do after battle.

Quinn
nods while he crawls back the way he came, carefully carrying the broken piece of equipment.

DISSOLVE TO

Sick bay

Everyone except Kaminski and Allonia are sleeping. No medics are around. Allonia has an apologetic look on her face as she sits next to the bandaged corporal holding his hand. Kaminski has an unsettled expression that changes several times as he makes several aborted attempts at starting to say something. Finally a thought solidifies enough to come out.

Kaminski:
That’s
not what I was expecting. And I thought the battlefield got complicated… Mom always said falling in love was easy, but doing the right thing after that was hard.

Allonia nods slightly in agreement.

Kaminski: Got some thinking to do.

Allonia: You understand why I couldn’t tell you before, and why I had to tell you now?

Kaminski nods.

Kaminski: Got some
serious
thinking to do.

FADE TO BLACK

PM Book

FADE IN

EXT - DAY - Landing Pad D9

Tajemnica
’s aft ramp is down toward the building across the street. Helton sits on the ramp, a long piece of grass between his teeth, waiting. For once, it looks fairly peaceful and quiet. The ship and cargo deck look clean and orderly, with minimal gear or equipment around. The day is overcast, no sharp shadows.

The sound of an approaching truck breaks the quiet.
A grav truck with a large cargo container on the back comes down the road and stops in front of the ramp. The driver hops out, walks over to Helton, and hands him a tablet to sign.

Deliver
y Driver: Where do you want it?

Helton: Need the container back?

The driver shakes his head.

Helton: Can you drop it inside?

He tips his head toward the cargo bay. The driver eyes the bay a moment and nods.

Deliver
y Driver: No problem.

The driver spin
s the truck in place, backs up the ramp. Loading arms lift up and gently drop the container onto the deck. The truck glides smoothly down the ramp and away. Helton pushes a button on a wall com unit.

Helton: Henery, got
some parts you were waiting for. Think you’ll need a hand unloading them.

FADE TO

INT -
NIGHT - Helton’s cabin

Helton walks in looking tired. He takes off his shirt and flops down on his bed.

Helton: Lights out.

Most of the lights turn off, but one
over the desk shining on the book stays on.

Helton:
All
lights off!

The light remains on.

Helton sighs, rises up slowly onto one elbow, grumbling. He looks toward the book, open under the light. He sits up sharply, surprised. The exposed pages are now quite legible, densely covered with writing margin to margin.

The writing is
divided up. The top left starts with a set of small tally marks next to a symbol. There are twelve symbols, and no tally marks in the top row next to a zero-like symbol, then one, down to eleven. Then there is a group of 12, and the first and second symbols next to each other. It looks like a basic math text setting up a counting system. Below it are further symbols and small groupings of tally marks. The symbols are angular, similar to Futhark. As Helton flips through the pages they become less clear and distinct as they have had less exposure to light. The page appears to have some basic math expressions, showing tally marks and symbols.

Helton: (
Aloud to himself) Weird place for a basic math book. Wonder what language it is?

He turns the book up on its end and spreads out the covers to hold it up,
facing the wall screen/ light so it can shine in on all the pages from the side, and heads back to bed.

DISSOLVE TO

INT -
DAY - Engineering

Stenson is working with a couple of guys and
a young woman on a long, partially disassembled tube-shaped thing, watching as they take it apart and discuss. Helton walks in through the open hatch.

Stenson: How goes it, captain?

Helton: You tell me. Ready to trans-light yet?

Stenson: Almost. The drive cores will be so far out of harmonic alignment we’ll look like a calliope on anyone’s scope until we can tune them, but I think we are close enough to not
make ourselves a small star.

Helton:
Good to know.

Sanchez: (
Looks up from working on tube) Calliope?

Stenson: A ship with poorly matched drive cores, so they are “playing different notes” in the same tune, as it were, li
ke the old musical instrument. Usually ships built from parts not designed to work together. Slower, less efficient.

Helton: This ship has
always played a different tune, it seems.

Stenson: We can get them synchronized and meshed close enough to fly, then fine tune on the next trip. Anything new in the book?

Helton: Things are showing up. Looks like a math text.

Stenson: Math?

Helton: Yah. Don’t recognize the language, though.

Stenson: We can take a look at it later and run a comparison to known alphabets. Shouldn’t be hard to match.

Helton: How about when you break for lunch?

Stenson:
See you then.

DISSOLVE TO

INT - DAY -
Officers’ Mess

Lag, Stenson, Allonia,
and Seraphina sit at the table with food and settings for six. Helton walks in with the book and sits down to general greetings.

Helton: A bit more readable already. Take a look
.

He
slides the book over to Stenson.

Stenson: Yup. Looks like a math primer. Hmmm… Base twelve.

Sar: What’s “base twelve”?

Helton: We count in base ten
; ten digits, zero through nine, then you add a column when you get to ten, and at ten times ten you add a hundreds digit, and so-on for any power of ten. Computers are binary, base two, just ones and zeros.

Lag: Where did you get that?

Helton: In a cave Harbin and I hid in, back during that event that didn’t happen at the mine, after we weren’t hit by pirates. It was closed. The hole there is where it got hit with a grenade shot at me while I was carrying it on my back.

Allonia: If you hadn’t been carrying that…?

Helton: We’d not be having this conversation.

Stenson: You can see some writing around the edges
of the blast hole. Lost a lot, though.

S
ar: That font looks like the Planet Mover message.

Helton: Let me
see that again.

He pulls the book closer, and the other
s crane their necks a bit to get a better look.

Ship AI: (OC
, thin, dreamy voice) Nice. Quiet. Good listeners.

Helton: Uh, what was that?

Everyone: …

Helton:
Taj
,
what
did you just say?

Ship AI: (OC, normal voice) What? I didn’t say anything.

Helton: Just now, you said something.

Ship AI: (OC, petulant) Of course I did. I said
“I didn’t say anything!”

Helton: No,
before that
.

Ship AI: I was talking to Quinn on deck 5, but I’m not sure how you heard that.

Seraphina: Deck five? I thought there were only three decks here?

Lag: That symbol there. It looks like the three line “equals” sign in the Planet Mover’s message.

Helton looks where he is pointing. He flips back and forth through the pages rapidly, suddenly starting to tremble. As he flips describing what he’s seeing and what it represents, the pages flash onto wall screens all around the room. They show densely packed symbols, tables, diagrams, short “phrases,” etc.

Helton:
(Quiet, then increasing excitement) Counting, just like a child. You start with
counting
. Number symbols. Then basic arithmetic operations: add, subtract multiply, divide. Fractions. Roots. Algebra. Geometry. Pythagorean theorem; that
has
to be a proof! A circle gives us pi and irrational numbers. Physics, definitely physics diagrams. Free body diagrams. Text describing the problem… switch the objects moving and acting on them, change in syntax, change the formula… that’s got to be a table of elements, with hydrogen, helium, oxygen. Water. Balancing chemical reactions. More symbols. More math. Mostly text. Good
God
….

Helton looks up at them. They look at one another.

Allonia: Is… is that a book about the planet movers?

Lag: I think it’s a book
by
the planet movers.

Helton: Mother of all that’s warm and fuzzy.

They sit staring at the book, soaking up the implications, when Bipasha walks in with a tray of food. She sits down chattering, then notices their stunned silence.

Bipasha: I was just talking with Kwon about how we seemed so lucky to get a high
paying easy job, then so unlucky to find out we were set up, then lucky to get through it all and make a pretty penny, then… What’s got all you all bent? Is the book that good a read? I…

Helton: Until we know for sure,
no one
says
anything
. Agreed?

A
ll nod their heads.

Bipasha: Agree to what?

Lag: Don’t breathe a word to ANYONE.

Bipasha: Even uncle Harbin?

Helton: OK, your uncle, he deserves to know, and I’m pretty sure he can keep a secret.

Bipasha: Um… OK, I guess. What?

Helton: I think this book was
written by
the Planet Movers, and it may be a universal translation text for their message.

S
ar: Really?

Helton: How would you send a message to someone in
any advanced culture, regardless of what language they speak or what their background? It doesn’t make any difference if you are counting on fingers, flippers, or feathers, or what symbols you use, two plus three equals five. If they have space travel, they have science, and the basis of
all
science is mathematics. Start with counting, work your way up, defining counting numbers, then arithmetic symbols, then use pictures for physics and chemistry which are both pretty universal, then create a written language out of that by describing the things in the physics and chemistry diagrams. Build up from there. We have more than four hundred pages totally intact, and about the same that are damaged to some degree by the grenade. Diagrams and text look dense, so it’ll take a while to decipher, but the more I look at this, the more I think that’s it. It might be premature, but-

Stenson: I think you’re right. A basic, universal medium, a printed book: tough, and will only be readable by someone in a relatively high oxygen atmosphere who uses visible light.
Any
space-faring race could translate the message with this, if that is what it is.

Allonia: But it’s incomplete
… will it still work?

Bipasha: That’s worth more than this planet. You
do know that, right?

Helton nods his head in wonder.

Allonia: (Incredulous) You’re joking.

Bipasha: No.
Any human government I know of would kill us all in a heartbeat to get it.

Seraphina: Some might kill us to
destroy it or hide it, too.

Helton: So… do we keep silent, sell it, or copy it and put it out on general broadcast for everyone to see at once?

Bipasha: Sitting on it won’t pay the bills.

Stenson: We don’t have the tools to properly decode and understand it here.

Allonia: I think it should really belong to everyone, so the best minds can really figure it out.

Seraphina: Give it away? You are very sweet, dear, but crazy naive.

Helton: Crazy? I agree that giving it away kind of makes it hard to pay the bills-

Seraphina: There are people who don’t
want
the truth to be known, just like they don’t want Jews alive, or self-aware computers, or honest politicians. They feed on the problems. They’d kill us and destroy the ship to keep it secret for their own purposes.

Helton: And I thought Kwon was the only conspiracy
nut I knew.

Lag: She’s right, though.

Helton: I don’t follow.

Stenson: There
are
people who would want to keep this under wraps. Think about how any major religion would view a potential challenge to their message?