Malaki
"What are you working on, Malaki?" Lavanya sat down at the Skybreak's mess table and peered over the flexiplast and computer displays he'd spread there. "I thought you were waiting until we got to Wireburn to put any more brainpower into the Hutchinsons."
"The better to think about Wireburn itself, my dear. Did you know that there's a species of intelligent, telepathic jellyfish native to the planet? Xenobiology departments went crazy when they learned gas giants could support native lifeforms yet somehow the whole thing is unknown off campus. Just one more crime of the University Pact."
Lavanya traced a finger along a diagram laying out a ferrovine, some kind of huge, plant-like lifeform that grew on the gas giant and served to anchor most of Wireburn's human settlements. "You've found out about them."
"I have connections that give me access to a lot of information normally only available to research departments and graduate programs. Normal people can't see this kind of thing."
She chuckled. "I struggle to think of five people I've met in my life that would care about helium jellyfish, Malaki, and I've traveled through the galactic core and along both of the spiral arms."
With a swipe of his hand Malaki moved most of his open files back onto the computer and brought another batch out onto his flexis, sorting them from most to least likely to have what he wanted. "That doesn't mean those five should go without. There's so much here we could be doing and it all goes undone because the Universities hoard their knowledge like misers."
"You know what you remind me of?"
Malaki paused, one sheet of flexiplast dangling from his fingertips, sensing that this was some kind of trick question but not sure how. "No. What do I remind you of? Nothing flattering, I hope."
"You remind me of one of those artists who complains about how museums buy up all their work instead of letting the public display it somewhere prominent. You know the type. Like that fellow who weld's together scrap metal into pyramid things."
With a pained groan Malaki dropped his flexis and grabbed his chest. "Are you calling me a hack sculpture Lavanya Brahmin?"
"If it fits..."
"Unforgivable." His eyes narrowed as he jabbed an accusing finger at her. "For this I shall carve a marble bust of you and hide it somewhere on this ship."
"What? No!" Her hands flew up in front of her face defensively.
"Some day, far from now, a hapless client will find it and wonder what kind of pilot thinks so highly of herself as to commission such a thing!"
Lavanya waved her hands helplessly in surrender. "No, no, no! No carving anything with my face, Malaki, if you do I swear I'll dump you out the airlock when you're asleep."
"Please stop teasing her," Lin'yi said, sweeping up to the table as she pulled on another pair of the long, satin gloves she favored. "Lavanya is my favorite courier in the dexter arm and it will be a blow to our business if she's arrested for murder."
"The crime would be if her remarkable appearance passed out of the galaxy with no memorial!" Malaki reached out to adjust Lavanya's head so her profile presented to Lin'yi with maximum effect but she paused long enough to slap his hands away with a glove before putting it on.
Her bemused smile was the perfect accessory to finish her outfit. When Lavanya had lifted from Rainford Lin'yi had borrowed a state room to change into something more suited to their destination. Malaki had expected something styled like aviator's leathers. Or perhaps a long coat and layered tunic like most BTL directors and managers favored. However Lin'yi had opted for a long, heavy coat with wide sleeves and loose, plush fabric styled like animal fur instead. It looked very warm, except the sleeves only went down to her elbows. Her gold colored gloves gleamed warmly in contrast to the dark blue coat, which was doubtless the intended effect, and the matching tunic drew attention to her womanly charms. She'd left her dataveil and other business accessories elsewhere which left her round face and smiling eyes on full display. Her hair was piled in a coil behind her head.
Malaki smiled as he stood and offered her a chair. "Of course you look delightful as always."
"As always!" Lavanya squeaked. "So sculpt her and leave me alone!"
"I'm sure Professor Skorkowski has several pieces of both of us hidden away in his studio already," Lin'yi said, taking the proffered chair. "It's his one truly bad habit, sculpting people without their permission."
Malaki returned to his own place at the table. "Nothing about art can be truly bad, Miss Wen, for it seeks to preserve and share what we find most valuable about the world. However, I'm afraid the two of you pose a particular difficulty. I have yet to find a good medium to express either of you." He offered Lavanya an appraising look. "Although there may actually be some merit in working with found items in your case. Do you have any engine parts from the Skybreak I could-"
"Stop," Lin'yi said, rolling her eyes. "You're going to give her a stroke and then you'll have to apply that genius intellect of yours to flying the ship until we find a good doctor to fix her. What are you working on?"
"Well, I was reading up on Wireburn's biome, since gas giants are mostly light elements that are abundant in the galaxy so the local life is going to be the only thing of interest." He shuffled the pages quickly to lay out the train of thought he was grasping at. "One of the known traits of etheric radiation is its tendency to align with magnetic fields, which is one of the reasons coral can function as a reservoir for it."
The two women peered at the plastic sheets, confusion evident on their faces. Lin'yi nudged one to face her directly but Malaki quickly twitched it back to place. She gave him an annoyed look and said, "Anyone who works with sliptech knows that, from full slipknot engineers to basic maintenance swabs. But there's no coral native to Wireburn."
"That we know of. It's a gas giant and it doesn't even have a full beacon network built in the section of the upper atmosphere humans bought from the natives." Malaki finished arranging the flexiplast on the tabletop. Each was marked with a series of coordinates and showed an image from a deep scan survey over the relevant sector of the planet. Hints of deep shadow ran through each of them. "The natives report some kind of thing living in the deep atmosphere, where the atmosphere turns liquid beyond the point we can safely go. They're terrified of it. There's a handful of place we know of where they say it's common and these are the scans the settlers have taken of them. I only needed to see three of them to realize there was a pattern."
Lavanya ran a hand along the shadows, sketching out the vague pattern they would make if connected. "It does look a little like a magnetic field. But it's not the right size for a planet on the scale of a gas giant, it's far too small, isn't it?"
"Correct. This is closer to the size of field you'd find in a very small planet with a nickle iron core, something in the 10,000 kilometer range. I don't think it's intended as a 1-1 reproduction of the planet's actual field." Malaki pulled up a different image on the console. "It's more in line with this."
Lin'yi glanced at the screen and sighed, sitting back in her chair. "I should have known."
"What is it?" Lavanya studied the strange, half finished sphere on the screen. "Is that some kind of light fixture? A diagram for a new beacon? I don't understand why the apertures for the light source are on the top and bottom. Doesn't seem very functional."
"No. This is the Andromeda Array. One of the oldest and least understood structures in our galaxy." Malaki manipulated the image on the screen to zoom in on the Array, revealing it as a structure of astronomical scale, an incomplete sphere around a star with a diameter comparable to a planetary orbit. "It's not obvious to the naked eye but the Array is built as if it were the magnetic field of a planet the size of a star. I've run the numbers on it myself to be sure. It's built around the star in the Milky Way currently closest to the Andromeda Galaxy."
"Why?"
"No one knows for sure."
A small spark of interest lit in Lavanya's eyes. "And you say the thing deep in Wireburn is built on the same pattern?"
"No." Lin'yi sighed and got up from the table. "There's never enough data to say any of these things for sure but I know it's important to you, Malaki. Just... if it's not true this time around don't do a repeat of the last time."
Lavanya watched their employer walk out of the room in consternation then turned back to him and asked, "What happened last time?"
"She hired you to keep an eye on me. Very expensive. But I like to flatter myself that I am worth it."
Lavanya nudged his hands as he tried to work the computer console again, jostling him away from his work. "What happened before that, Malaki?"
He considered just lying to her, which wasn't his preference but also not something he shied away from. However he settled on an edited version of the truth. "I went back to Rainford, clear cut the back lot where the landing pad is now and carved the big arch in the entry hall. I call it the Triumph of Lost Cities, it's themed on the slower than light colony ships and explores the themes of persistence and disappointment in the composition of-"
"Why does she care about that?"
"Because I didn't take her calls for six months. I let her sell some of the smaller carvings I couldn't use in the final piece, though, and she made decent money. We fell behind Agamemnon, though."
Lavanya could tell he was leaving something out but she didn't pry. It was for the best. He didn't want to revisit his misguided visit to the main campus of Vinland University or all the problems he'd created for himself by going back there. However there was a price for his lack of candor. She left the table, too, calling over her shoulder, "Ten minutes until the next jump, three more to Wireburn. As I recall landing takes another fifteen minutes or so. Don't get too caught up in what you're doing, okay?"
"Of course. I'll be on the bridge before we start planetfall, I want to see what it's like landing on a gas giant." He spent the next few minutes collecting his flexis and dumping the documents on them back into the computer. Wireburn was a nice little windfall. Sometimes things just worked out in his favor and he was grateful when that was the case. A more scientific mind would be annoyed at how randomly things worked out. But after more than two years without any hints about the Array and the difficulties securing funding for another expedition Malaki was happy to have a break even if it didn't stem directly from his own research.
It made artistic sense. His entire career had collapsed after his last attempt to answer the Andromeda question. Now, after years sifting through the ruins, he had a new lead. It was perfect composition. Better yet, his career was already ruined so he was quite confident there was nothing on a simple gas giant that could do him greater harm.
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