Encounters in the Trade (Tales Off the Main Ring #3)

There was no question of any of us skipping out.  This could, just possibly, be the First Contact.  Who in the information trade could turn up a chance at that?

Of course, I worked a contra deal with the University ships, swapping discounts on my analysis for discounts on theirs.  The more we worked on the problem, the more mysteries piled up.

We worked out that they were decelerating at five times normal spin ... almost exactly Gaian planetfall.

The vessel's spectrum was not merely like concentrated interstellar wind.  It was the spectrum of interstellar wind in the region they must have passed through.

Tracking showed it was headed for the new asteroid belt in the system.  The system had originally lacked an asteroid belt, so the local First Colonists slammed together several moons from Verus V to make one.  It was not very thick, but it served their needs, and it was conveniently located between Verus II and III.

The vessel was headed for the belt, which was not unusual in itself.  But it was not headed to the region closest to Verus III, and its Heavy-H.  Nor did it head to the region closest to Verus II and its organics.  It was headed for the region on the opposite side of the system from Verus II.  That could not be coincidence -- if they had not known the system layout before arrival, there was plenty of time to collect gross detail while braking.

Then came two changes, one on top of the other, raising and then answering a question in a rush.

We were expecting some change on the reaction boundary.  If we detected one vessel with nine engines, what chance they would fail to notice all of us?  If they had seen us when we saw them, there would be a similar lag until we saw their reaction -- and they saw ours.

The reaction boundary was further out than we expected, but it was unmistakable.  The ship stopped braking, and shortly afterward started accelerating.  Whatever it was, it was just as surprised to see us as we were surprised to see it.

That raised the question -- what should we do about it?  Should we try for contact?  The speculations of the last century of millennia entered the chatter and brought it to a fever pitch.   All were agreed that a first contact done well could bring a wealth of odd and even level information beyond an Info Traders wildest dreams.  Many cautioned that a first contact done poorly could start an interstellar war, with Wavedancer pointedly raising the example of the First Colonist's War.

The second change was a shift in perception.  The Survey department analysed the turnover event, and found that it was not a vessel at all.  It was nine vessels, flying in formation.

Wavedancer thought this was impossible.  She had analysed energy footprint, and the rate of braking, and had found a smallish vessel with nine engines in a ring around a central core.  If they were nine vessels, they were towing something in between.  They were a shade smaller than an Other skipship, and running far hotter.

Now, Others do not need shielding or a hull, so an Other skipship is little more than power plant and a tank of reaction mass - and would empty that tank running that hot for that long.  Something smaller than an Other skipship would be all power plant.  Where was the reaction mass?  Even if they were towing their reaction mass, it did not seem enough for an interstellar run.

Wavedancer, can you quote yourself?  I don't want to take undue credit.

<<Sure boss.  I said, "Oh, they are interstellar rams.">>

Quite.  Take three or more anomalies at once, and they are probably faces of the same die.  Nobody had ever seen a ram designed to run at useful speed and also not cook its pilot.  Of course, Lifeships are interstellar rams, but then Lifeships are pilotless, and it is only information store and the automated bioengineering that have to be hardened.