Rediscovery

by Scott Washburn

We all know that Barrayar was cut off from the rest of the galaxy by its "Time of Isolation". But how was it rediscovered and by who? And how did the Barrayarans feel about it?

1. Chapter 1

Rediscovery

By Scott Washburn

Chapter 1

Sheela Lahn looked over her calculation for the hundredth time and then leaned back in her chair at the navigation station of the jumpship Fool's Luck and nodded at the ship's skipper. "This is as good as it's gonna get, Tam. Either we jump with these figures or we go back home."

Tam Hodgkins frowned and looked at their pilot. "What do you think, Danno?"

The jump pilot shrugged. "Like she said: either we go ahead or we go home. There's no doubt that there's a wormhole out there. But there's no way to tell where it goes or if we'll be able to get back—except by trying. Those bastards in the Betan Survey might use a lot of fancy talk about their scans and calculations, but it still always come down to giving it a try and hoping you survive. No easy way to do this, Chief. But I'm game if you are. Gonna lose the Fool if we go back to Komarr empty-handed anyway."

Tam scratched at his beard the way he always did while thinking and then sat up straighter in his chair. "All right. Let's do it."

Sheela tapped the arm of her chair nervously. How the hell did she ever get into a mess like this? In a few minutes she could be rich beyond her wildest dreams or her atoms could be strewn across light years of space. You know exactly how you got here, girl! You've got no one to blame but yourself!

She was an astrophysicist, not an explorer, damn it! She'd graduated with honors from Solstice University. Her dissertation, An Alternate Approach to Correlating Wormhole Stability with Stellar Motion, had been widely praised. Some very prestigious institutions had been looking at her seriously. The future had seemed bright. And then it had all gone to hell. She'd been accused of plagiarism. Plagiarism! The ultimate sin in scientific research! An investigation had shown that while she was innocent of the charge, her advisor—a man she had liked and trusted—who had given her important pieces of her thesis, had himself 'borrowed' them from someone else—and she hadn't noticed it. It was a major embarrassment and even though she had been exonerated of deliberate wrongdoing, suddenly the prestigious job offers had evaporated. No one wanted to touch her. It was looking like she'd end up teaching high school physics in one of Komarr's domes.

Then she had met Tam Hodgkins. Or rather, he had sought her out. Hodgkins was the captain and owner of a small jumpship. He was also… an eccentric. Her initial impression had suggested a half-dozen far less flattering adjectives, but eventually she'd settled on eccentric. A quarter century earlier he had inherited a fortune and decided to pursue his dream of becoming a bold explorer. Sheela had done some checking and found he'd applied to the Betan Astronomical Survey a dozen times in his youth and been rejected every time—he wasn't even remotely qualified. But when he acquired the means, he decided to go into the exploration business on his own. He'd spent the next twenty years squandering his money on fruitless searches for new wormhole routes, hopefully leading to new Earth-like planets, all over the wormhole nexus. He hadn't found any. He had discovered and explored a couple of new wormholes—a fairly amazing accomplishment for an amateur, actually—but they hadn't led anywhere worthwhile.

Finally, deeply in debt, he'd returned to Komarr and become obsessed with his home planet's own set of wormholes. Komarr had six wormhole exits—an unusually high number. Two of them were very important. They led to Pol and Rho Ceta and were Komarr's connection to the outside galaxy. The other four led nowhere. One dead-ended in a system with a useless red dwarf star and the other three dead-ended in deep space. Worthless.

But it hadn't always been that way.

Four hundred standard years earlier one of those wormholes had led to the important world of Escobar. Another had led to an Earthlike planet in system GC2385-653H. A third had connected to another useless system, but initial surveys had indicated there might be additional wormholes there which might lead somewhere else.

But then something happened. It wasn't well-understood at the time, but the motion of the stars in Komarr's neighborhood had shifted the gravitational equilibrium that created wormholes and some of the established routes had collapsed or shifted. The route to Escobar vanished and the one to newly colonized GC2385-653H (it hadn't even been given a name yet) was lost. A new equilibrium established itself and Komarr settled down to having two useful wormhole routes for the next four centuries.

But recent observations and Sheela's own theories indicated that the equilibrium was shifting again. The evidence wasn't solid enough to attract the big names in exploration like the Betan Astronomical Survey—at least not yet. But Tam Hodgkins was convinced that his great opportunity had finally arrived and he was determined that no one else was going to beat him to the big discovery. With his ship and Sheela's calculations, they would succeed!

The scheme was crazy—and she'd told him so. His ship didn't have the right equipment for wormhole mapping! She was amazed that he was still alive.

"Sheela, give me those figures of yours," said Hodgkins. "Danno, get ready to jump." He touched the intercom and spoke to the chief engineer in the reactor room. "Ian? We're going to need full power in about ten minutes."

"Right, Skipper," came the reply. "We really gonna do this?"

"Sure are," said Tam with a grin. "Figured out how you'll spend your share yet?"

"Got a few things on the list, yeah."

Despite Tam's many shortcomings, he had a certain charisma. A wild-eyed enthusiasm which was strangely contagious. I caught it, didn't I? Somehow he'd convinced her to go. His crew, some of whom had been with him from the beginning, were similarly infected.

"You going to tell the Weasel what we're up to?" asked Danno Keller.

"Yeah, I suppose we should," sighed Tam. He touched the intercom again. "Mr. Weitzl? We're preparing to make the jump."

"I'll be right there," came the reply and all too quickly the unpleasant little man was on the bridge. In order to finance this expedition Tam had been forced to take on a number of partners. Mr. Weitzl was their observer and there were times when it was evident that he thought he was in charge. Sheela didn't even know if the man had a first name. The rest of the crew just called him 'The Weasel' and it seemed singularly appropriate. "This is it?" he demanded. "This jump will take us to Escobar?"

"We're hoping so," said Tam. He glanced in her direction and Weitzl turned to face her.

"I-I can't guarantee anything," she stuttered. "The first two jumps out from Komarr were exactly where they've always been. The third was subtly altered and so was the one that brought us here. It's not quite where the records show the original jump was. The jump we're about to make might take us to Escobar, but it might take us somewhere else. But there's no doubt that this is a new wormhole caused by the realignment of the stars. My thesis seems to be holding up." Sort of…

"I—and the people I represent—don't give a damn about your thesis, Ms. Lahn," replied Weitzl coldly. "But a reopened route to Escobar could be worth billions." He turned back to Tam. "How soon?"

The Skipper shrugged. "We're charging the capacitors for the Necklin Rods right now. As soon as they're ready—another five minutes—it will be up to Danno." He nodded to where the jump pilot was attaching the leads to his neural interface.

This seemed to satisfy Weitzl who took up a stance with his arms crossed and stared at the computer displays. Sheela looked at Tam, but he just raised an eyebrow and turned back to his own console.

She chewed on her lower lip and told herself that she hadn't technically lied to Weitzl. Although she cursed herself for using the word 'subtly' to describe the alteration in the last jump. It was true enough for the third jump, the changes there had been distinct, but still fairly minor, but this last one was radically altered. Not even close to where the old one used to be. She didn't know where the next jump was going to take them but she seriously doubted it would be Escobar.

But it will take us somewhere. Maybe it will be somewhere interesting.

And that was why she was out here: to find interesting new places. That was what had driven Tam all these years. She'd told him of her conclusions after the last jump—a week ago—and he'd just shrugged and told her not to tell anyone else. "So what if it's not Escobar?" he'd said. "I've been to Escobar. I'm hoping it will lead to some green new world, better than Old Earth ever was. A world where we can walk around in our shirt sleeves with no breath mask. A place our people can move to and forget about trying to terraform Komarr. That's my dream Sheela. One of them, anyway."

So she'd kept her mouth shut and looked at the scanners and her navigation computer until her eyes burned and her head ached. And now they were ready to give it a try. A completely new and unexplored wormhole jump. There was a good chance it would kill them. But if it didn't…

The engineer called to say that everything was ready at his end. Danno, his head seemingly sprouting wires and cables, said that he was ready, too. Tam was definitely shifting into his manic-mode. "All right, everyone! This is it! Stand by for fame and fortune!" He flipped a switch. "Okay, Danno, she's all yours! Take us through!"

The jump pilot nodded and flipped a few switches of his own and then became utterly motionless, his eyes closed. Sheela stared at the man. From a purely scientific viewpoint she knew what he was about to do, but she had no idea how he was going to do it. Somehow Danno was going to guide the ship through the wormhole to the other end. He would do something with his human brain that no computer, no matter how sophisticated, could duplicate. She'd talked to him about it, but he just said that all he did was to 'keep the Fool from scraping her paint on the sides of the tunnel'. What he really did was still a mystery to her. Maybe there just wasn't any way to describe a five-dimensional event with three-dimensional words. But whatever Danno did, Sheela hoped that he would do it really well now!

Tam was monitoring Danno's activity from his own console and he silently mouthed: Thirty seconds. The jump pilot had told her that they could shout or blow whistles in his ear at this point and he never would have noticed, but everyone just automatically got quiet before a jump.

Thirty seconds… twenty… ten… five…

They jumped.

Sheela felt that brief twinge of disorientation and nausea and gasped in relief. You could only be sick to your stomach if you were alive. They had made it! But to where?

Danno made that strange grunting noise that he made after every jump, shook his head and slowly began disconnecting the wires and cables. Tam was already studying the read-outs from his controls and Sheela started to do the same. The first task was to find the nearby stars and try to identify them by their spectral class. Stars were like fingerprints: if you knew what to look for, each one was unique. She activated the ship's telescope and started typing in the instructions for a full-sky survey. But before she was even halfway done, Tam announced:

"Well, this isn't Escobar."

"How do you know?" demanded Weitzl, He was scowling even more than he usually did.

"All the normal com channels are silent. Unless everyone on the planet and everyone else in space decided to turn off all their electronics just to play a trick on us, this can't be Escobar."

"Then where are we?"

"May take a while to figure that out. Sheela? Any clues so far?"

Sheela snorted. "Give me a few minutes, will you?" Or a few hours. Or a few days if we're somewhere really far off the beaten track. She finished with the instruction and let the telescope do its work. Weitzl was pacing around the small bridge, wringing his hands. Danno got a cup of coffee and slumped back into his chair.

She watched what the 'scope was doing, but anticipated a long wait. She was therefore surprised when after just a few minutes the computer announced it had found something of interest. Her eyebrows shot up when she saw what it was. "Okay, we have definitely arrived somewhere, folks! We have a nice, bright F8 star less than two AU away. We are in a solar system and not in deep space!"

"Halleluiah!" said Tam eagerly. "Any planets?"

"Too soon to tell. Still looking for more close stars," said Sheela distractedly. "Let me see if that F8 is in our catalogue…"

It was.

"Well, well, well…" she said, rocking back in her chair. "Tam, you said there was nothing on any of the com channels? What about the other common EM bands?"

"No, not a thing. The star's putting out a lot of hard radiation, but there's none of the usual stuff you'd see with a high-energy civilization. Come on, Sheela, give! Where are we?"

"It would appear…" she paused dramatically, "that we've rediscovered the jump route to GC2385-653H."

"What?" cried Tam, Danno and Weitzl simultaneously.

"And apparently the colony that was planted here before the wormholes shifted must have failed. Not surprising, really."

"It was Earth-like wasn't it?" demanded Tam.

"Somewhat Earth-like, if the old records are accurate. Breathable atmosphere, but the plant life was primitive and the animal life restricted to some very rudimentary insects and microbes. It was going to take a lot of terraforming—well, nothing like on Komarr, but still a lot."

"Then it's all ours," whispered Tam. "A whole colonizable world—ours!"

"Don't start calling it Hodgkin's Planet yet, Chief," grinned Danno. "A lot of folks gotta piece of this pie now."

"Indeed they have," said Weitzl. "So where is this planet? Can we take a look at it? Did it have any worthwhile resources? Mineral deposits?"

Sheela called up what records she had on her computer and scanned over them. "Tam, here's the orbital coordinates. I've cancelled the sky-search with the 'scope. Maybe you can locate the planet and plot an approach. As for resources on the planet… nothing unusual, I'm afraid, Mr. Weitzl. The initial surveys indicated a pretty Earth-like distribution of elements. There's probably gold, platinum and uranium there, but I doubt it's neatly stacked in piles on the surface for you to pick up."

"Oh forget the damn minerals," said Tam in exasperation. "It's a planet! A planet people can live on! That's worth more than if it was made of solid gold!"

"But not so easily converted to cash," countered Weitzl. "A trade route to Escobar could have easily charged tolls to the ships. Selling colonization rights will be a lot more complicated. Could be years before we see a real return…"

"Well, if you want to sell off your shares, we'll be glad to buy you out," said Danno. "I've got… just a sec… twenty-seven dollars and… thirty eight cents—Betan! Deal?"

Weitzl snorted and turned away.

"I'll take that as a yes. So let's see, one planet, divided eight ways is…"

"Got it!" cried Tam, squinting at his console. "Right where the figures said it should be, Sheela. It's about two-thirds of the way around the primary from where we are. Time to orbit from here is about… sixty-three hours."

"Well let's get going!" said Danno. "I want to stake out my claim!"

[Scene Break]

Arkadi Kurzov watched his young charge with an anxious eye as the lad brought his horse to a full gallop and leveled his lance. The boy's target was a small ring dangling by a thread from a wooden beam that jutted out above the practice run. With a joyful whoop, he thrust the lance-point through the tiny ring as he flashed past.

"I did it!" he cried as he reined in his horse and trotted back. "Arkadi, I did it!"

"Indeed you did. And without falling off and nearly breaking your fool neck like last time."

"That was an accident," said the boy, some of the elation draining from his face.

"Well, I should hope so! I'd hate to think you did that on purpose! You scared me out of ten year's growth. Of course knowing you, maybe you did do it on purpose, just to spite old Arkadi."

"I did no such thing! And you are not old! My father is much older and he's not so old, either." The boy frowned and lowered the lance point so that the ring slid off into Arkadi's hand. "And in any case, I did it today and I didn't fall off!"

"Yes you did and no you didn't, and you did and didn't very well, my lord." Indeed, it had been well done. A grown man could rightly take satisfaction in the deed, let alone a ten-year old.

"In a few more years I shall be an ensign in the Emperor's lancers!"

"Ah, but as an officer you won't carry a lance. Indeed, I've heard it said that the lancers may soon get rid of their lances and carry the new magazine rifles instead."

"But they look so fine with their lances!" protested the boy. "The blue and red pennants are so splendid!"

"Well, they'll probably keep them to use in parades," conceded Arkadi.

"I do hope Father will allow you to come along as my batman when I go," said the boy. "I should miss you a great deal."

"We shall see. That is a few years down the road, my lord." Arkadi was touched by the boy's statement. In truth, he would miss the lad, too, if they were separated. Fortunately, that didn't seem likely to happen at least for a few years. The Count seemed happy with the way his son was being trained and guarded and that was what mattered. "But," he continued, "speaking of rifles, let's have a go at the range, shall we? Before it gets dark."

"Yes!" cried the boy. He handed his horse and his lance off to a groom and repossessed the target ring from Arkadi and ran ahead with all the energy of youth. Arkadi sighed and followed, wishing that he had some of that energy. But the boy had been cooped up with his tutors all week and it was only natural that he'd want a chance to play now.

The rifle range was down by the Long Lake and the path to it led past the old barracks building. Twenty years earlier, when Arkadi was about the same age as the boy was now, the reigning emperor, Dorca Vorbarra, had finally crushed the last of the rebellious counts and secured imperial dominance by outlawing the counts' private armies. The counts were limited now to just a tiny bodyguard of twenty men. The barracks, which had once housed two whole companies, had been nearly vacant for decades and had a sad and dilapidated look to it. Native damnweed was creeping up the walls in several spots. It was mostly used for storage these days. All the Count's armsmen, including Arkadi, lived with him in the castle atop the hill when they were here in Vorkosigan Surleau. Which wasn't all that often anymore; they seemed to spend most of their time in the capital at Vorbarr Sultana these days.

He reached the range and saw that the boy was excitedly showing the target ring to one of the servants, Boris Dakman, and boasting of his feat. Boris was smiling and nodding. Arkadi took out his keys and unlocked the weapons cabinet in the shed next to the range. He took out two weapons, a long infantry rifle for himself and a smaller cavalry carbine for the boy. He leaned them against the wall while he opened a drawer that held the ammunition.

"I shall be a lancer, Boris!" cried the boy. "One of the Emperor's lancers! Even if I use a rifle instead of a lance!" Before Arkadi could stop him, he grabbed the carbine and swung it around. Boris flinched back as the weapon pointed in his direction.

"Piotr!" shouted Arkadi. "Piotr Vorkosigan!" He lunged and snatched the gun out of the startled hands of the Count's son. The boy's face flushed crimson with anger for an instant and then drained of color as he realized what he had done. Arkadi towered over him and stared down. "What is the first rule, my lord?" asked Arkadi in a calmer voice.

"T-to treat every weapon as if it is loaded."

"And you forgot that just now didn't you?"

"Yes, sir. But…"

"No buts. You can be right a thousand times and no one will give it a thought. But you only need to be wrong once. Just once, and Ma Dakman would be a widow and your friend, young Daren, wouldn't have a father." Piotr glanced at Boris and blushed.

"I'm sorry. I apologize to you, Armsman, and to you, Mr. Dakman. It won't happen again."

"No, I don't imagine it will," said Arkadi. "Now, let's do some shooting." He handed the carbine back to the boy who held it properly with the muzzle pointed at the ground.

They shot until it got too dark to see the targets. The boy really was a fine marksman and had the self-discipline to become a truly excellent one. Despite his earlier lapse, the boy was amazingly mature for his age. Someday he would be a fine count.

They put away the weapons and then walked toward where the grooms had their horses waiting. They had to get back to the castle and get cleaned up for dinner. As they walked Arkadi glanced up and saw a bright spark crossing the sky. "Look, my lord, a shooting star! Make a wish!"

Piotr looked up and then closed his eyes for a moment.

"What did you wish for, my lord?"

"Oh, I can't tell you that!" he laughed and then skipped ahead toward the horses.

Arkadi smiled, but his eyes were drawn upward again. The shooting star was still there. Odd, they usually disappeared immediately. And they usually moved much faster than this one. It crawled across the sky and slowly faded from view. Strange. But Piotr was already mounted and he put it out of his mind and mounted his own horse.

[Scene Break]

"Orbit is stable," announced Tam Hodgkins. He flipped a switch on his console. "Ian? Secure the drive, we're here."

"Right, Chief," came the reply. "So when do we get to go down and take a walk? I need to stretch my legs."

"Oh, in a few days. We need to take a look and find a good spot, right Sheela?" He looked towards her and she nodded nervously. My God, what am I going to tell him? It had taken nearly three days for Fool's Luck to make orbit and Sheela had spent most of that time with her eyes glued to her instruments. She wasn't a planetologist, but she was the nearest thing to one aboard and it had fallen to her to study their prize.

At first things had looked good; the readings nearly matched the old records. A planet a little smaller, but a little denser than Old Earth, so the gravity was just a bit higher than one standard gee. The atmosphere was primarily nitrogen with an oxygen content a little less than standard but well within the breathable range. The planet looked blue and brown and white in her 'scope with a touch of redder areas. The records said that the native plant life was mostly red and brown.

But there were a few oddities in her readings, too. The oxygen levels were a tiny bit higher than the old records and the carbon dioxide readings significantly higher—almost a quarter of a percent. What could have caused that? And as they got closer the images started to show patches of green here and there when she could find areas not obscured by clouds. There shouldn't be any green…

"How dangerous are those radiation levels you mentioned?" demanded Mr. Weitzl. "And what's causing them?"

"The sun's causing most of them," said Tam. "An F8 star is pretty energetic and the planet has a weak magnetic field. More radiation gets through than is healthy for long-term exposure. But for a short visit there's no danger to us."

"But what about for colonists? How can we sell colonization rights to a dangerous planet?"

"Oh, I meant it was unhealthy if you don't have proper medical treatment!" said Tam, waving his hand dismissively. "The only danger is an increased long-term cancer risk and possible genetic damage in children. With up-to-date galactic medicine available, both of those risks can be eliminated. Nothing to worry about."

"But that's probably one of the reasons why the first colony failed," said Danno. "They didn't have a chance to get things set up properly before they were cut off. Right, Sheela?"

Sheela's heart was pounding and she bit her lip. Now or never…

"Uh, Tam? Danno?"

"What?"

"The uh… the first colony didn't fail."

"What?" Three voices shouted at her simultaneously and she flinched.

"There are people down there. A lot of people."

Weitzl gave an exasperated snarl and turned away. Tam goggled at her. "You… you're sure?"

"Yes," she replied, shaking her head. "I started to suspect it yesterday. The elevated oxygen and CO2 levels, the green patches. But now that we're in orbit, there's no doubt. Look." She punched up an image on her console and then transferred it to the main display. It showed a river and on each bank there were objects that were clearly buildings. Roads stretched away in a number of directions.

"Oh my god," moaned Tam. Sheela zoomed in and the structures became more distinct. Closer yet and strange vehicles could be seen on the roads, although their nature and mode of propulsion could not be determined. Smaller specks that were almost certainly people.

"This is the biggest city I've spotted so far," said Sheela. "But there are dozens of other towns. And hundreds of villages. Lots of cultivated land and Earth-type forests. Population has got to be in the millions, I'd think."

"But… but there wasn't anything on any of the com channels!" protested Tam. "No high-energy emissions at all!"

"It would appear that the colony backslid, lost most of its technology. But not all. Take a look at this:" She called up another image. A long row of boxy objects were strung one behind the other. One of them at the end was spewing out a trail of smoke.

"What's that?" asked Danno.

"I believe it's one of these." Sheela split the image and a picture of a strange vehicle appeared. "A steam-powered locomotive," she explained. "They run on metal tracks. Kind of like a monorail. And I've picked up some very faint electrical emissions. Possible some sort of wire-carried telegraphic device."

"So they aren't completely primitive," said Weitzl, an odd expression on his face.

"No," replied Sheela. "They have roads, factories, mines, ships. Early industrialization. I was puzzled by the elevated CO2 levels, but I've seen hundreds of chimneys billowing out smoke in this city alone. There's evidence of slash-and-burn agriculture going on, too. I would imagine they have firearms and enough science that they won't fall on the ground and worship us as gods, if that's what you were thinking."

"How do you suppose they dealt with the radiation hazard?" asked Danno.

Sheela shrugged. "Lacking modern medicine, life-spans are probably a lot shorter. The cancer problem might only occur in the very old. There would probably be a lot of birth defects in the children. Not sure how they deal with that."

"I guess we'll have to ask them," said Danno.

"Go down there?" snapped Weitzl. "What for? This is a complete bust, Captain! A wasted trip! My superiors are not going to be pleased."

"You can tell your superiors to go…" started Danno.

"This is not a bust!" cried Tam. "We've contacted a lost colony! Given them access to the rest of the galaxy again! And large portions of this planet must still be unsettled, right, Sheela?"

She nodded. "Oh yes, the settlements seem widely scattered and the big continent in the southern hemisphere only has a few small towns along the northern coast. Of course it's mostly unterraformed land…"

"So what?" countered Weitzl. "Our people aren't going to be interested in coexisting—or competing—with a bunch of savages!"

"The locals might tend to get pissed if we start divvying up their planet, yeah," said Danno.

"But they probably have things to trade!" persisted Tam. "Ships will be coming here, even if they're only carrying anthropologists to study this society. Your bosses can levy tolls on them!"

"Hmmph!" snorted Weitzl. "The decision will be up to them, of course. I suggest we return to Komarr at once."

"Without landing? Not a chance! I'm still the captain of this ship and I'm in charge!"

"For the moment," conceded Weitzl. "But I trust you won't waste too much more of our time."