In a Suspect Universe

Part I: Homeworld-2

Above the roofs outside,

I realize—I know—

The secret of identity

That to our window

Night brings…

Our longing is blind,

But our longing has wings.

Goddamn it, she knew this too well. The secret of one’s identity indeed.

She closed the book and slipped it quickly back into his pocket. His words had become too personal—too dangerous. She wanted none of this.

But a strange fascination welled up inside her.

She felt the planet turn, history crash, alien races war in the night, and her private sanctuary crumble around her.

For she knew now—she knew!—

Everything would change.

Chapter 2: The Amateur Airafanologist

Ancient galactic civilizations made Riley into what she was.

She called herself an Airafanologist. But she exaggerated.

The Airafane was the alien race that once inhabited this part of the galaxy, and Airafanology the study of their relics. It was no formal science since it had too little to work with. It was more an obsession with a dramatic tragedy from the galaxy’s past. Amateurs rather than professionals indulged in it. They liked the romance of ancient archaeology, old secrets, terrors, triumphs—and buried treasure!

The Airafane met extinction in a series of wars with another vanished race called the Moyocks. When the Airafane realized they would not survive, they miniaturized blueprints of their technological discoveries in “Clips” (Carrier-Locked Integrated Programs), small units of concentrated information bound in crystals and reinforced by stasis fields. These then were buried in the subduction zones of scattered planets whose geologies ran on plate tectonics.

The Airafane did this so the blueprints would be hidden for millions of years, before returning to the surface through the convection currents in the mantles of the planets. They then could be found by later civilizations and used to recreate the technology. Earth had discovered FTL travel, antigravity, and the means to build a huge space habitat—eventually called Annulus—through such finds.

The discoveries changed human history. Many people argued they “saved” humanity because the Clips came—late-21st century—when Earth had nearly destroyed itself with unchecked population, dwindling resources, and environmental collapse. The Clips opened the universe to quick and cheap emigration, so people left Earth in waves.

At that point, the story of the Airafane became the story of Riley Campanara. As a child, she was abandoned.

Her parents were not cruel, but they followed a chance to search for Clips when they came to Homeworld. They believed it was wrong to take a child with them so they made arrangements for Riley to be cared for. They then left the planet and never returned. Human progress, once so proudly, or fatally, self-directed, was replaced by this new scurry to find Clips in order to advance the human race—or, more crudely, to make a lot of money. It became an obsession, which few people bothered to understand.

The children, like Riley, suffered most.

Maybe it was the fault of the horrible living conditions on Earth, or the new rampant freedom in space travel, but breaking all personal connections with the past was not so anti-social anymore—troubling many humanitarians. People even speculated that an evolutionary gene might have mutated (ideas fostered by paranoia about alien—or Clip—“intervention”). Ethnic and racial ties, traditions, families, even children, were left behind, as if some strange turning point in human development had been reached and uncritically accepted, making the phrase “post-human” more literal than it ever had been.

In the midst of so much social change, Riley needed a foundation, something she could depend on once she left the government home where she’d been placed. She became interested in studying the Airafane—maybe because her solitude was the result of that race’s ancient decisions. She heard of the sites on different planets where ruins had been found, and she became enthralled.

Then, by accident (when crossing the Great South Desert alone, in a rootless gypsy wandering that was also a trait of post-Clip culture), she discovered a new Airafane site. Since these structures never showed up on satellite or aerial scans, it was possible to keep its location secret and study it alone.

This faux-scientific pursuit brought focus to her life, at least temporarily. If hard pressed she’d admit it was more an “escape” than a “finding.” But she didn’t care. She knew that when distance was no longer a barrier and the universe lay open to inexpensive forays, then anyone could indulge—in exploration, personal fixation, or offbeat pseudo-intellectual studies.

And this interest gave her one more attraction.

Since most site-oriented Airafanologists labored independently in remote places, Riley knew she’d be working alone.

Exactly what she wanted.

She was still resentful over her parents abandoning her, and when a recent lover also ran away to search for Clips, she lost desire to maintain connections. She didn’t regret the latest departure—the relationship had been dull—but it added to a persistent self-impression of being a “discard,” which both humiliated and inspired her. Instead of letting the label defeat her, she accepted its solitude and wore it with pride. Now a staunch loner, she lived in the desert and plunged into study of her private ruins, all on her own.

She found it ironic that, while the extinct Airafane led to her victimization, they also provided her with a purpose for her life.

Until now.

As she watched the man sleeping before her, in her recently rented field-study trailer, she felt threatened in more ways than one.

Was he running away or searching for something? Did his words make sense? Was he discarded too, like herself? He fell from the sky as if thrown away. She laughed at this but she was serious, for she didn’t want to impose her own history onto him—or his onto her.

She let him sleep.

Setting up a cot for him would make the trailer too crowded and she didn’t want to come across as overly inviting, so she let him stay on the couch.

She swept the sand and opened the door to the wreckage of her camp. The weather had calmed, the pink Homeworld sky now clear. The storms, often disasters at their peak, afterward became serene benedictions to a changed world, the dunes remade, the air mild.

She salvaged what she could of her fabric shelters. She had replacements since they weren’t meant to outlast such weather. She righted all the blown-down equipment and moved back everything to its proper place.

Then she re-entered the trailer, to find the man trying to sit up.

He couldn’t do this because two plastic braces, “zip-ties,” thin but impossible to break, held his leg and his one good arm to the frame of the couch, which was made of metal and bolted to the floor.

“Sorry,” she said. “Just taking precautions. I have a few questions for you.”

His stunned face showed livid anger. “I thought we had a deal.”

“We did, in order to get you to sleep. I added the ties while you were under.”

He yanked feverishly at the restraints. “I would have co-operated with you. You didn’t have to do this.”

“I said I’m sorry. But we need to get a few things straight. I also have this.” She pulled out a pistol, a small green semi-automatic with a black handle, from a holster on her back that had been covered by her jacket. She held it up for him to see, then put it back. “And, in case I do eventually free you—you’ll need to convince me of a few things first—be sure you don’t take it from me. It’s programmed for the enzymes and DNA signature of my hand only. So, if you try to shoot it, you might blow your arm off.”

His look was fierce. But he controlled his anger and settled into an awkward but defensive stance. “I guessed you had a weapon when you picked me up in the desert—I felt it behind you when you walked me to your jeep.”

If true, his capacity for observation disturbed her, but she hid her reaction. “I always have it with me.”

“Sentimental attachment?”

“It was a gift from my father.”

“Your father gave you a gun?”

“He felt guilty when he left me. Never mind. You need to talk.”

“I have little to say.”

“Then start with your name.”

“I would have given it to you. You didn’t have to shackle me.”

“Ha! ‘Shackle.’ I haven’t heard that word in years. But…your name?”

He hesitated. “Mykol Ranglen.”

“That’s familiar.”

“If you’ve studied the Airafane you’ve probably come across it. I’ve written articles.”

Envy embarrassed her. He was an Airafane scholar as well as a poet. “That makes me more suspicious of your being here.”

“I don’t study the Airafane professionally. I’ve traveled a lot so I’ve seen more than one set of ruins. I write travelogue stuff.”

“But there’s something else about you. I can’t remember…”

He looked uncomfortable, and from more than just the brace holding him. “I found the third Clip.”

“What? You’re kidding!” She didn’t believe him, because only three Clips were known to exist—and here, in her presence, was the discoverer of one of them?

She remembered the name now. She once even saw a picture of him.

He added, “The Clip that’s building Annulus.”

“Yes. Yes. I remember now. They fought over it, didn’t they?”

“Over who would be in control of building it and running it.”

“And you felt no one should be in charge, right?”

“I objected. It didn’t get me far.”

“So…you’re famous.”

He said nothing but he looked offended.

“You of all people then should realize why I can’t believe you’re not after Clips.”

“I didn’t lie. I never want to find one again. And Clips aren’t present in the ruins anyway, which I’m sure you know. They come up through seafloor spreading, far from the centers of continents like this.”

“Yes, I know that, but all the i***t treasure-hunters don’t. And the ruins are more accessible than the bottom of the ocean. So I need to be careful. That’s why I carry the gun.”

“Look, you’ll either have to believe me or not. You can take your time and think about it, but this damned thing is hurting my arm—I’m wounded, remember?” He pulled on the brace. “And, by the way, what’s your name?”

She made him wait a bit. “Riley Campanara.”

“And you’re here because…?”

“I’m the one asking the questions, remember?”

“Riley, we need to stop this. I know what you’re doing here. You gave it away by being so close to the ruins, and for other reasons too.”

She waited fearfully, making him argue his point.

“You’re driving a Desert Range Vehicle,” he said, “which is often used by archeologists. You’re in a rented trailer that makes an ideal base camp. You have portable shelters for archaeological tools—shovels, strainers, a small assessing lab—which I saw when we came in during the storm. They look new but they’re not top-of-the-line, and you’re apparently staying here alone. So you’re not professional—you’d have a team with you if you were. I grant you might not be looking for Clips—you say so, anyway, though no one would believe you, in the same way you didn’t believe me. But you are trying to be an Airafanologist. Right?

Now she was annoyed. “You like to show off how perceptive you are.”

“I’m a writer. It’s my job.”

“I told you I made a claim to this place. And everyone interested in the Airafane is an amateur. But I’m not lying to you—I’m no treasure-hunter.”

“Neither am I!”

They glared at each other in personal stand-off.

“Riley, listen, the only way we’ll get over this is if you trust me. I’ve already said I’m not here to bother you.”

She didn’t respond.

He made a fist in frustration. “Dammit, doesn’t it bother you we’re being so predictable? This is the way everyone comes together now—like soldiers ready to fight or run. You even brought artillery! Clips have made us so suspicious we’re ready to kill each other…and we’ve just met.”

She was shocked by his outburst, but she basically agreed. She remembered her parents and her ex-lover.

She then stated her real fear. “I think you’re a government agent from either Homeworld or Earth.”

He sighed, almost laughed. “That’s absurd.”

“They must review all property claims like mine in case something’s found. The government wants Clips as much as treasure-hunters do. You could be an agent tracking down leads. Since surveillance drones don’t work over the ruins, authorities would have to visit directly. You blundered in the storm and lost your aircar—or maybe that was even your plan.”

“I’d be a very bad spy then. You forget that Homeworld took from me the authority to build Annulus, so I don’t like its government. I almost started a public campaign against them but they quickly squashed it.”

“An agent could call in troops to secure this site, take everything from me. I can’t afford that.”

“I agree—you’d have no protection if Clips were found here, if they even thought Clips could be found. But you won’t get that suspicion from me. And thinking I’m from Earth is ridiculous.”

“Their Federal Investigators go everywhere, making sure no world in the Confederation becomes too powerful.” The lover who left her had been an Investigator and he liked to brag, so she knew this was true. “A newly found Clip would do just that.”