The Sentinel (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  Yet he was certain enough that it was a warship, wounded or not. That was enough for Commander Li. A wounded warship, either alien or from some unknown human colony, was not enough to risk the integrity of Sentinel 3. Not when he weighed the possibility that it was a trick or being dangled in front of him as bait. He’d give his orders, and they wouldn’t please the Openers: maintain silence.

  Complete silence. No engagement. Only watch to see if the wounded spacecraft did anything suspicious. If it were pursued by whatever had damaged it. If it gave evidence of being bait.

  Li was planning his speech to the crew when new information came up on the console. He didn’t see it at first, as he was caught up in how to manage the factions on the station. The Openers would howl, while the Sentry Faction would grimly line up behind their commander, ready to defend his decision to maintain silence, or to stab him in the back if he wavered. The fifty percent of his crew who had no firm alliance would gyrate madly in response to the unexpected development.

  He had to keep them settled, had to get the crew calmed. Keep things from blowing up—quite literally, if whispered threats were to be believed—until the unknown ship was gone, and they could return to familiar patterns. Openers, Sentry Faction, neutrals, and the endless wait.

  Eleven years. 4,039 days. Tomorrow would mark 4,040.

  Li scrolled through the data one last time before shutting down the console, and it was then that he finally saw the wavy blue line. An incoming subspace message, sent by the unknown vessel. He frowned and opened it up, curious and alarmed.

  His heart nearly stopped. The message used Singapore Imperium protocol, and it was directed to them. The computer had already opened the subspace, but the message was gibberish, a string of confused data. It used their codes, but there was nothing else decipherable about it. Not in its current form, at least.

  Li’s heart kicked into his throat, thumping harder the longer he stared at it. What could it possibly mean? Whatever it meant, it changed everything. Someone knew he was here. Someone had sent him a message.

  Chapter Two

  Jon Li was a city boy who had never lived in the country, nor wanted to. As a boy, he’d climbed the steep hills of Panda City and had certainly enjoyed the gardens, trees, and tropical birds that he encountered, but that wasn’t why he climbed them. It was to get a view of the teeming tropical city, to look over the turquoise bay at the ships sailing into the harbor carrying goods from the islands that speckled the waters of Singapore like a million jewels.

  There were birds in the trees, he remembered. And lizards on the walls of the temples, ignored by the monks chanting and burning their incense. Other small animals—rabbits, mice, tree frogs, and of course the insects that thrived in the heat, humidity, and rain—hid in walls or in the tree canopy, making their small living among the city of nearly a million people: rabbits. But Li had given them little thought at the time.

  How things had changed. He’d have welcomed flies and mosquitoes, he was so desperate for something natural and wild.

  The farms were the closest he could get. Nothing natural about them—they weren’t even as natural as the terraced rice paddy he remembered from back home. Instead, the farms were a massive hydroponic operation, with plants carried on big rotating chains to take them toward or away from the light, with water and nutrients monitored almost entirely by computer. Every tomato was without blemish or bug bite, every leaf of every potato plant monitored for stress or chemical imbalance.

  But the room was big and open and humid and smelled of plants and life. And it was gloriously green. The room was alive, and when he closed his eyes and drew the scent into his nostrils, he could imagine the song and chatter of birds.

  Li took a deep breath both physically and mentally as he passed through the airlocks and into the room. He walked down the rows of plants, occasionally letting his hand drift out to gently touch the leaves as they brushed past his face. There were technicians working, repairing tubes, trimming away dead plants for recycling, and checking the air humidity. A few glanced curiously in his direction, but nobody spoke to him.

  Six hours had passed since he’d discovered the message. He’d been in turmoil ever since. Too long waiting, too long staring out at the stars. Maybe he’d clear his head walking back and forth through the farms.

  “I thought I’d find you here,” a voice said behind him.

  Li turned around to discover his sister standing behind his right shoulder. She wore her uniform, faded but in good repair. And always impeccably ironed. Anna’s eyes were narrowed, her gaze sharp, and the comment didn’t sound friendly, but penetrating. Almost an implied question.

  Well, what are you going to do about it?

  Jeremy Megat stood next to her. He was in a work jumpsuit—earth brown for those working in the farms, although there was no actual earth here, and Li knew the man would rather be flying his one-man ship—his scooter—collecting ice from the Kettle’s ring or inspecting the battle station’s hull. Megat was three inches taller than Li, but that understated his size. Li and his sister were both slender, whereas Megat had augmented his already large frame with weights and other exercise. It was said he spent hours every day in the gym. Li found the man’s size and posture vaguely menacing.

  “I know you’ve been calling,” Li said to his sister. “I saw all your queries. I didn’t answer because I have nothing to report.”

  “Nothing to report in fact?” she asked. “Or out of choice?”

  “You think I’m sitting on a translated message? I’ll share it when there’s something to share. The message came through on Imperium protocol, but we still have no clue what it says.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “The computer is trying to break it by brute force—that’ll take time. For now, it’s gibberish.”

  “And it should stay gibberish,” Megat said. His eyes were even harder than Anna’s “It can only be a trap. A trick. A lie.”

  “You closed access,” Anna said, “so all I have is your word that you haven’t translated it.”

  “Why would I keep the message secret?”

  “Presumably for the same reason you closed access to me.”

  “I need time. A few minutes to look it over before everyone goes crazy.”

  “What are you afraid of?” she asked. “That one of us will translate it first? Why should that bother you?”

  “All this factionalism,” Li said. “It’s as dangerous as any enemy. Whatever the message says, someone is likely to do something dumb when he reads it.”

  “A strong hand prevents that sort of thing, brother.”

  “A strong hand against what? Against whom? And what do you want me to do? Put people in solitary because they’re excited about this ship? Because they think it might be their salvation after eleven years of constant vigilance?”

  “If necessary,” Anna said. “Or stronger measures, if needed.”

  “Stronger measures? My God, what are you talking about?”

  Megat reached out and plucked a leaf from the potato plant growing next to his head. He dropped it to the cement floor, where it joined the withered plant material that had fallen naturally or been trimmed by workers. Li stared, taken aback, so shocked by the gesture that for a moment he was speechless.

  At last he found his voice. “What the hell are you doing, Megat?”

  “It was diseased.” His voice was flat, emotionless.

  Li picked the leaf up and turned it over. It was large and green and without visible blemishes. “I don’t see anything—it’s not diseased.”

  “I work here, not you. I know a diseased leaf when I see one. The potato plant will barely notice its absence. Leaving it on would have killed the whole plant.”

  “You didn’t even look at the leaf. I saw you! You tore it off while staring straight ahead, and then you dropped it, also without looking. How would you know?”

  Li found himself growing irrationally angry. It was one leaf from one plant. It didn�
�t matter, not really. But the act was so careless, so wanton in a farm where every plant, every calorie produced, was counted and compared.

  Megat didn’t look apologetic at all. He didn’t even look defensive.

  “It’s my job to notice these things, Commander,” the man said. “You can’t see what I see—that’s because you don’t work in the farms.”

  “You’re a scooter jockey. This isn’t even your real job.”

  “Believe me,” Megat said, as if he hadn’t heard, “when you can’t spot the disease, that’s when it’s most insidious. That’s when it threatens to metastasize and destroy the entire plant.”

  Li finally understood what the man was getting at, and his anger grew.

  “It’s a dumb metaphor. Men and women aren’t leaves. This station isn’t a potato plant. That plant you damaged completes its entire life cycle in a few months, and we’ve got to keep going for who knows how long? Maybe the rest of our lives.”

  “All the more reason to be ruthless in pruning the dead and dying,” Anna said.

  Li turned on his sister. “And you! Are you the one spreading this factionalism? I’m no Opener, I’m on your side. I agree and have always agreed. Sentinel 3 maintains its vigil. We do not break from protocol.”

  “I used to believe that, Jon. Now I’m not so sure.”

  He looked between his sister and Megat. How had they found him here anyway? He was theoretically off shift—whatever that meant for the base commander, who’d been on call for better than a decade—and hadn’t logged his location. Hadn’t even been aware that he was on his way to the farms until he’d already taken the shuttle to the inner ring and passed through the food processing plant. It had started as a walk, a way to clear his head while waiting for more information.

  Li was about to ask Anna this, when his com link opened. It was the base computer. He glanced away, as if looking at the potato plant, so they wouldn’t catch from his expression that he was receiving a message.

  “The unknown transmission has been successfully decoded,” came the dispassionate voice. “It is an audio message. The voice is human.”

  Li walked down the row, glancing at the plants as if distracted by his thoughts. In reality, his heart was pounding. The other two followed.

  He responded subvocally to the computer’s message. “Play the audio.”

  What followed was a string of nonsensical sounds. The speaker was undoubtedly human, but she didn’t speak one of Singapore’s known dialects, or any language that sounded remotely familiar. It was a woman’s voice, no tonal quality to it at all, but pleasant and melodic at the same time. He’d heard Old Earth languages, not spoken, but sung in ancient recordings of operas, and assumed it must be one of those.

  “What language is it?” he asked, again subvocally. “Italian? German?”

  “Negative. Unknown language.”

  Anna tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around. “Well?” she demanded. “Are you going to keep ignoring me?”

  Belatedly, Li realized she’d been talking to him as he walked. He’d been so swept along in that mysterious unknown language and his queries to the computer that his sister’s voice had faded into the background, along with the hum of the air purifiers and the bubbling of water in the hydroponic system. Whatever she’d been saying, he had no time for it.

  “I have nothing more to discuss,” he said. “Return to your posts and await my orders.”

  #

  Li waited impatiently as Dong Swettenham listened to the audio for what had to be the hundredth time. The man wore headphones, had the sound turned up loud, the audio slowed. He held his hand computer, which he used to make notes or scroll through what appeared to be a dictionary. Whenever Li tried to interrupt him or peer over his shoulder at the notes he was taking, Swettenham waved him off with an impatient air.

  Swettenham was possibly the most unusual last name on Sentinel 3. Singapore had been settled by colonists from a small city state during the Great Migration half a millennium ago, and almost all of the surnames were Chinese or Malay in origin. Swettenham claimed he was descended from a British governor of the Old Earth version of Singapore. People teased him about it.

  He certainly didn’t look any different from anyone else, but having such an ancestor—mythical or not—had made him a student of old European languages. Swettenham claimed to speak two different forms of English, plus German, a little Spanish, and a smattering of French. Not that there was anyone around to test his knowledge. For all Li knew, he was making it up and mumbling nonsense.

  At last, Swettenham peeled off his headphones. “Yep, it sure is.”

  “Sure is what?”

  “An unknown dialect of Old Earth English.”

  “You told me that already,” Li said. “You said it five seconds in. That was what? Two hours ago?”

  Swettenham glanced at his screen. “Seventy-eight minutes. I’m telling you it’s English. You wanted confirmation, and I’m giving it to you. Definitely English.”

  Li gritted his teeth. “That’s not confirmation. That’s a reassertion of a statement without confirming facts.”

  Swettenham blinked, looking chastened by the heat in his commander’s voice.

  Good. Li had been standing in the man’s tiny quarters all this time while Swettenham listened and listened, and this is what he got for his efforts? Swettenham was a low-level engineer who didn’t merit either a kitchen or a private bathroom. He owned a single piece of furniture that converted from a chair to a bed and had minimal storage underneath it. Every inch of wall in the room was covered by scribblings in some Roman-style script or with pictures of unknown Old Earth figures, most of them with long faces, wide eyes, and big noses.

  Romans? Americans? Li didn’t know enough about that sort of thing to differentiate.

  “So there’s nothing else you can give me?” Li pressed as Swettenham listened to the audio yet again.

  “I didn’t say that, sir. I was only confirming that it’s English.”

  “Dammit, will you get to the point? I need to decipher this message, and I’m running out of time to do it.”

  In the ten hours since the unknown vessel was detected, it had swung around the sun and changed course. It would approach Sentinel 3 much closer and much sooner than had initially been supposed. Discussion was heating up throughout the base, and would practically explode once word got out about the intercepted transmission.

  “I can definitely help you decipher it,” Swettenham said. “I picked out a proper name, which will help the computer parse the audio. I have also identified three words, and possibly five others.”

  “That’s all?” Li said. “There’s 137 seconds of audio. It goes on and on—sounds like one babbled nonsensical phrase. What can three words and a few guesses help us?”

  “It will help us plenty. Narrowing it to English allows the computer to run it against a database of known words, especially once it can identify sound shifts. It’s not a trivial operation—human language has always been hard for computers to master—but I could theoretically program rudimentary translation software. Grasp the meanings to enough words and we can construct a small lexicon and build on it.”

  “You can do all of that? I thought you were a mechanical engineer. What is your engineering rank? A nine?”

  Swettenham met his gaze. “I’m only a nine as an engineer. In communications I was a level one. Head of communications, in fact.”

  “Were you?”

  “I’m not surprised you don’t remember. Com is mothballed, and we never had much respect in the first place.”

  That explained a few things. There was no need for com, because Sentinel 3 was silent. Everything to do with external communication had been automated by the computer, even long-range scans, and communications personnel reassigned. Swettenham had apparently been someone important in his previous iteration.

  “How long do you need?” Li asked.

  “Ten hours. Maybe less.”

  �
�Really?” Li said, surprised and impressed.

  “Sure, I’ll grab a few others, pick up a couple of programmers to help. I assume you’ll give me whatever computer resources I need. A good team and adequate computation time will move it along quickly. The first one I want is Hillary Koh, she’s brilliant. She can head the software efforts.”

  “No, no. You can’t do any of that. I need this kept quiet.”

  Swettenham pushed up his glasses and studied Li’s face. “We can’t keep this quiet.”

  “We can and we will.”

  “Commander, no. This is too important to suppress.”

  “How do you mean?”

  The man’s eyes bugged. “It’s our salvation! You’ve got to see what this means.”

  Ah, so that’s what he was. If there had been a warning light on Swettenham’s face, it would now be flashing red.

  “How exactly do you see this as saving us?” Li asked.

  “Isn’t it obvious? There’s a human ship coming right at us. They’ve got Imperium codes and are urgently trying to send us a message.”

  “You know who else might have Imperium codes?” Li said. “Apex.”

  Swettenham talked on, as if he hadn’t heard. “We’ve been found by another human colony—some other descendants from the Great Migration. Someone from what they used to call the Anglosphere. They must have whole fleets, a planet of their own. Maybe multiple planets.”

  Even if all of this were true, five hundred years had passed since humans set out for the stars. The history of Earth itself was so bloodstained that there was no reason to believe that another human civilization would be friendly. But there was something that concerned Li more.

  “How did the ship get the Imperium communication protocols?” he asked.

  “What?”

  “The message came through with our protocols. That’s how we are able to read it. Some other human population surely has a radically different way of communicating, right? They wouldn’t use the same string of data to indicate that it was an incoming message. That would be impossible.”