Ultima by Stephen Baxter Read Free Book Online

essentially, that we’re picking up fortuitously.”
    Jiang said, “Maybe these are from scattered communities, on Earth and beyond. Radio is all they can improvise. Requests for help, for news—”
    â€œI don’t think so, sir,” Golvin said politely. “For one thing, the distribution is wrong. We’re picking up these messages from all around the plain of the ecliptic—that is, all around the sky, the solar system. From bodies where we have no colonies—none of us, either UN or Chinese—such as the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, some of the smaller asteroids.”
    â€œSurvivors, then,” Jiang suggested. “In ships. Fleeing as we are.”
    Golvin shook her head with a scrap of impatience. “Sir, there hasn’t been time. Nobody can have fled much farther and faster than we did. And besides, there’s the question of the languages.”
    Beth listened again to the voices coming from the slate, both male and female, some speaking languages that were almost, hauntingly, familiar, yet not quite . . .
    Earthshine said, “I can help with some of this. My own systems are interfaced with the ship’s; I have a rather more extensive language analysis and translation suite than the vessel’s own.”
    McGregor grunted, as if moved to defend his vessel. “Nobody expected the
Tatania
to need such a suite, sir.”
    â€œEvidently the situation has changed,” Earthshine said smoothly. “There seem to be three main clusters in these messages—three languages, or language groups. The first, the most common actually, is what sounds like a blend of Scandinavian languages, Swedish, Danish, mixed with old Celtic tongues—Gaelic, Breton, Welsh. The grammar will take some unpicking; much of the vocabulary is relatively straightforward.” He glanced at Jiang. “The second group you might recognize.”
    Jiang, frowning, was struggling to listen. “It sounds like Han Chinese,” he said. “But heavily distorted. A regional dialect, perhaps?”
    â€œWe’re hearing this from all over the solar system,” Golvin said. “If it’s a dialect, it’s somehow become a dominant one.”
    Penny asked, “And the third group?”
    Golvin said calmly, “Actually, that’s the easiest to identify. Latin.”
    There was a beat, a shocked silence.
    McGregor said, “I might add that we’ve had no reply to our attempted communications, by conventional means, with ISF command centers. And, of course, we haven’t replied to any of these radio fragments. The question now is what we should do about all this.”
    Penny nodded. “I don’t think we have many options. I take it this vessel can’t flee to the stars.”
    McGregor smiled. “This is, or was, a test bed for new kernel technologies, to replace the generation of ships that first took your parents, Beth, to Proxima Centauri. But it’s not equipped for a multiyear interstellar flight, no. In fact we don’t even have the supplies for a long stay away from dock; as you know, our escape from the moon was arranged in something of a panic.”
    â€œWe need to land somewhere soon,” Beth said.
    â€œThat’s the size of it.”
    â€œBut where?”
    â€œWell, we don’t have to decide immediately. We’re still speeding out of the solar system, remember. It took us three days under full power to accelerate up to this velocity; it will take another three days just to slow us to a halt, before we can begin heading back into the inner system.”
    Golvin said, “And then we will have a journey of several more days, to wherever we choose as our destination. We’ll have plenty of time to study the radio communications, maybe even make some telescopic observations of the worlds. Maybe,” she said brightly, “we’ll even be in touch with ISF or the UN by