Starplex

"Waldahud.

Pig. The terms are interchangeable in my mind."

Rissa had finished drying herself. She pulled on a beige long-sleeve shirt and fresh panties. "They think the same way about us, you know.

All humans are weak, indecisive.

They don't have any korbaydin."

Keith managed a small laugh at the use of the Waldahudar word. "I do too," he said pointing down. "Of course, I only have two instead of four, but they do the job." He got a fresh pair of boxer shorts and a pair of brown denim pants out of the closet, and put them on. The pants constricted to fit around his waist. "Still," he said, "the fact that they also generalize doesn't make it any better." He sighed. "It wasn't like this with the dolphins."

"Dolphins are different," said Rissa, pulling on a pair of red pants.

"In fact, maybe that's the key. They're so different from us that we can bask in those differences. The biggest problem with the Waldahudin is that we have too much in common with them."

She moved over to her dresser. She didn't put on any makeup; the natural look was the current style for both men and women. But she did insert two diamond earrings, each the size of a small grape. Cheap diamond imports from Rehbollo had destroyed any remaining value natural gemstones had, but their i

Keith had finished dressing, too. He'd put on a synthetic shirt with a dark brown herringbone pattern, and a beige cardigan sweater.

Thankfully, as humanity moved out into the universe, one of the first bits of needless mass to be ejected had been the jacket and tie for men; even formal wear did not demand them anymore. With the advent of the four-day, and then the three-day, workweek on Earth, the distinction between office clothes and leisure clothes had disappeared. He looked over at Rissa. She was beautiful — at forty-four, she was still beautiful. Maybe they should make love.

So what if they just got dressed? Besides, these crazy thoughts aboutBleep. "Karendaughter to Lansing."

Speak of the devil. Keith lifted his head, spoke into the air.

"Open.

Lia

"Keith — fantastic news! A watson just came through from CHAT with word that a new shortcut has come on-line!"

Keith raised his eyebrows. "Did the boomerang reach Rehbollo 376A ahead of schedule?" That sometimes happened; judging interstellar distances was a tricky game.

"No. This is a different shortcut, and it came on-line because something — or, if we're lucky, someone — moved through it locally."

"Has anything unexpected come through any of the homeworld shortcuts?"

"Not yet," said Lia

Keith was on his feet at once. "Recall all probeships," he said.

"Summon Jag to the bridge, and alert all stations for a possible first-contact situation." He hurried out the apartment door, Rissa right behind him.

BETA DRACONIS

Keith Lansing looked around the docking bay aboard the strange alien craft. Like the ship's exterior, this part, too, was featureless. No seams, no equipment, nothing marring the six glowing cube faces.

When the shortcuts were discovered, the press had delighted in bandying around a centurY-old saying, attributed to the Sri Lankan writer Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The shortcuts were magic.

And so was this strange, beautiful starship, this starship that moved in apparent defiance of Newton's laws…

Keith took a deep breath. He knew what was about to happen, knew it in his bones. He was about to meet the makers of the shortcuts.

The pod's course across the bay curved gently downward and soon it came to rest on the flat lower face of the bay.

Keith felt weight returning. It continued to grow slowly, and he settled to the floor. The gravity kept increasing, more and more, until it had reached Starplex's shipboard standard. But still it grew, and Keith fought a wave of panic, fearing he would be crushed to jelly.

Finally, though, it stopped — and Keith realized that it was at just about the level he kept it at in his cabin aboard ship, nine percent higher than the Commonwealth standard but equal to Earth's sea-level surface gravity.

And then, suddenly — Everything around him was… was familiar.

Was Earth.

The edge of a mixed forest, maple trees and spruces rising to a sky the shade of blue no other planet he'd ever seen had. Sunlight precisely the color of Sol's — matching the antihomesickness lamps he and Rissa had in their apartment aboard Starplex. To his right, a lake covered with lily pads, bulrushes rising from its edge. Overhead, a V-shaped flock of — no mistake — of Canada geese, and — yup, just to dispel any final doubt, a daytime gibbous moon, showing the Sea of Tranquility and the O-shaped Sea of Crises to its right.

An illusion, of course. Virtual reality. Make him feel at home.

Perhaps they could read his mind, or perhaps they'd already contacted other travelers from Earth.

The travel pod had no elaborate sensors. There was air in the bay, though. He could hear — God, he could hear crickets, and bullfrogs, and, yes, the haunting call of a loon, all transmitted through the hull of the ship from the air outside. No way to test a sample, but they couldn't have gotten all the other details right and screwed up on something as simple as the gas mixture for human-breathable air.

And yet, he hesitated. The trip to Tau Ceti was supposed to be a simple run; Keith hadn't even bothered to see if there was a spacesuit in the pod's emergency locker before departure.

But it was clearly an invitation — an invitation to first contact. And first contact was what Starplex was all about.

Keith touched a series of controls, overriding the safety interlocks that kept the pod's rear door from opening when it wasn't co

Keith took a tentative breath — And sneezed.

Jesus Christ, he thought. Ragweed pollen. These guys were good.

He sniffed again, and could smell all the things he'd have smelled if he really were back on Earth. Wildflowers and grass and damp wood and a thousand other things, subtly mixed. He stepped out.

They'd thought of everything — a perfect re-creation.

Why, he even left footprints in the soft earth, something most virtual-reality simulations tripped up on. Indeed, he could feel the texture of the ground through the soles of his shoes, feel it give with each step, feel the springiness of grass compressing beneath his feet, the sharp jab of a stone. It was perfect… And then it hit him. Maybe he was back on Earth. The shortcut makers knew how to cut across space in the twinkling of an eye. Maybe this was the real thing, maybe he was home — But there had been no second shortcut inside the docking bay, no flash of purple Soderstrom radiation. And besides, if this was Earth, where had they found such unspoiled wilderness? He looked again at the sky, searching for an airplane or shuttle contrail.

Still — his sneezing meant they'd actually manufactured allergen molecules, or were manipulating his mind on a very sophisticated level.

Suddenly Keith felt his throat constricting. A zoo/ A goddamned zoo, and he was a specimen in it. He was trapped, a prisoner. He turned around, about to rush back to his pod, and saw the glass man.

"Hello, Keith," said the man. His whole body was transparent, made of perfect crystal that flowed as he moved. There was only the faintest hint of color to the transparent form, a touch of cool aquamarine.