The Naked God

by Peter F. Hamilton

  “If, as intended, we’re going to ask a God for its help, perhaps you should consider how worthy we’re going to appear before it should you follow that course.”

  “What if it considers obliterating your foes to be a worthy act? You’re assigning it very human traits. The Tyrathca never did that.”

  “That’s a point,” Dahybi said. “Now we know why the Tyrathca managed to get where they are with zero imagination, how does that reflect on our analysis of the Sleeping God?”

  “Very little, I’m afraid,” Kempster said. “From what we’ve learned about them, I’d say that unless the Sleeping God explained itself to the Tyrathca of Swantic-LI, they simply wouldn’t know what the hell it was.

  By calling it a God, they were being as truthful as only they can be. The simplest translation equates to our own: something so powerful we do not comprehend it.”

  “Just how much will ZTT change the diskcity society?” Syrinx asked.

  “Considerably,” Parker said. “As Samuel points out, just by being here we have changed it. We have shown Tojolt-HI that it is possible to circumvent Tyrathca space. As this is a species with an intellect not dissimilar to our own, we must assume they will ultimately pursue that method. In effect, that gives us control over the timing, nothing more.

  And allowing them access to ZTT now may generate a portion of goodwill among at least one faction of a very long lived and versatile race. I say we should pursue every effort to make the Mosdva our friends. After all, we now know that ZTT or the voidhawk distortion field ability are hardly the last word in interstellar travel, the Kiint teleport ability has taught us that lesson.”

  “Any other options?” Syrinx asked.

  “As I see it, we have four in total,” Samuel said. “We can try and get the almanac through a trade exchange. We can use force.” He paused to smile apologetically as his fellow Edenists registered their disapproval.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “But we have that ability, therefore it should be examined. Our weaponry is likely to be superior, and our electronic and software capability would definitely be able to extract information from their memory cores.”

  “That’s an absolute last resort,” Syrinx said.

  “Totally,” Joshua agreed firmly. “This is a culture which wages war over any spare mass on a scale we’ve never seen before. They might not have sophisticated weapons compared to ours, but they’ll have one hell of a lot of them; and Lady Mac is in the front line. What are the other two?”

  “If Quantook-LOU proves uncooperative, we simply find a dominion which will help us. We’re not exactly short of choice. The last option is a variant of that: we leave straight away and find a Tyrathca colony.”

  “We’ve established a reasonable level of contact with Quantook-LOU and the Anthi-CL dominion,” Sarha said. “I think we should build on that. Don’t forget time is a factor as well, and we came here so we wouldn’t have to deal with the Tyrathca.”

  “Very well,” Syrinx said. “We’ll follow Joshua’s tactic for now. Set up a major commercial trade, and tack on the almanac data as a subsidiary deal.”

  Joshua kept the same team with him when he returned to the diskcity. This time they were shown directly to Quantook-LOU’s private glass bubble.

  “Have you found trade items within your ship, Captain Joshua Calvert?” the Mosdva asked.

  “I believe so,” Joshua said. He glanced round the translucent chamber with its barnacles of alien machinery, vaguely disquieted. Something had changed. His neural nanonics ran a comparison check with his visual memory file. “I’m not sure if it’s relevant,” he told his crew through the affinity link, “But several chunks of hardware bolted onto the piping are different now.”

  “We see them, Josh,” Liol answered.

  “Anybody got any ideas what they could be?”

  “I’m not picking up any sensor emissions,” Oski said. “But they’ve got strong magnetic fields, definitely active electronics inside.”

  “Beam weapons?”

  “I’m not sure. I can’t see anything that equates to a nozzle on any of them, and the magnetic field doesn’t correspond to a power cell. My best guess is that they’ve rebuilt this whole chamber as a magnetic resonance scanner: if they’ve got quantum interface detectors sensitive enough they probably think it will allow them to look inside our armour.”

  “Will it?”

  “No. Our suit shielding will block that. Nice try though.”

  “Did you examine the processor I gave you?” Joshua asked Quantook-LOU.

  “It has been tested. Your design is a radical one. We believe we can duplicate it.”

  “I can offer more advanced processors than that. As well, we have power storage cells that operate at very high density levels. We offer the formula for superstrength molecular chains; which should be very useful to you, given your shortage of mass.”

  “Interesting. And what would you like in return?”

  “We saw your ship returning from the sun. Your thermal dissipation technology would be extremely useful to us.”

  The negotiation took off well, Joshua and Quantook-LOU reeling out lists of technology and fabrication methods. The trick was in trying to balance them: was optical memory crystal worth more or less than a membrane layer that could guard metal surfaces against vacuum ablation? Did a low-energy carbon filtration process have parity with ultrastrong magnets?

  As they talked, Oski kept monitoring the new hardware modules. The magnetic fields they put out were constantly changing, sweeping across the translucent bubble in waves. None of them were able to penetrate their suits. In return, her own sensors could pick up the resonance patterns they generated inside the Mosdva. She slowly built up a three-dimensional image of their internal structure, the triangular plates of bone and mysterious organs. It was an enjoyable irony, she felt. After forty minutes, the magnetic fields were abruptly switched off.

  Liol was paying scant attention to the negotiations. He and Beaulieu were occupied reviewing the data coming in from their ELINT satellites. Now they had the observation subroutines customized properly, there was a lot of activity to see on the darkside. Trains moved everywhere, following a simple generalized pattern. Large full tankers made their way inwards from the rim, offloading cargo at the industrial modules, then once they were empty, they turned and went directly back to the rim. Goods trains, those loaded with items produced inside industrial modules, ran in every direction. Liol and Beaulieu were beginning to think they might even be independent trading caravans, forever touring round the dominions.

  Something Joshua hadn’t asked was if the Mosdva had currency, or if everything was bartered.

  “Another vent,” Beaulieu commented. “It’s only seventy kilometres from the captain’s location.”

  “Christ, that’s the third this morning.” Liol ordered the closest satellite to focus on the plume. Bobbles of liquid were oscillating amid the gas squirting out towards the nebula. Ebony shapes, radiating brightly in the infrared, thrashed around inside it, their motions grinding down the further away they got from the darkside. “You’d think they’d have better structural integrity after all this time. Everything else they do seems to work pretty well. I know I wouldn’t like to live with that kind of threat looming over me, it’s worse than building a house on the side of a volcano.” His subconscious wouldn’t leave the notion alone; there was something wrong about the frequency of the tube breeches. He ran a quick projection through his neural nanonics. “Uh, guys, if they suffer structural failure at this rate, the whole diskcity will fail inside of seven years. And I’ve included some pretty generous rebuilding allowances in that.”

  “Then you must have got it wrong,” Kempster said.

  “Either that, or this isn’t a normal event we’re witnessing.”

  “Venting again,” Beaulieu called out. “Same web as the last, barely a hundred metres apart.”

  In the Oenone’s bridge, Syrinx gave Ruben an alarmed look. “Access all
the visual records from the ELINT satellites,” she said. “See what kind of activity there is in the vent areas prior to the actual event.”

  Ruben, Oxley, and Serina nodded in unison. Their minds merged with the bitek memory processors governing the satellites.

  “Do we tell Joshua?” Ashly asked.

  “Not yet,” Syrinx said. “I don’t want him alarmed. Let’s see if we can confirm the cause first.”

  An hour after they began negotiating, Joshua and Quantook-LOU had finalized a list of twenty items to exchange. It was to be mainly information, formatted to the digital standard used by the Mosdva, with one physical sample of each item to prove the concept wasn’t merely a boastful lie.

  “I’d like to move on to pure data now,” Joshua said. “We’re interested in as much of your history as you’re prepared to release; astronomical observations, particularly those dealing with the sun’s expansion; any significant cultural works; mathematics; the biochemical structure of your plant life. More if you’re willing.”

  “Is this why you have come?” Quantook-LOU asked.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You have ventured around the nebula, sixteen thousand light-years by your own telling. You believed the Tyrathca were all that lived here. You say you came purely to trade, which I do not believe. There can be no meaningful trade between us, the distance is too great. At most it would take two or three visits by ships such as yours to level all differences between us. Your technology is so superior we cannot even scan through your spacesuits to verify you are what you say you are; which means that any machinery you see here you will be able to understand and duplicate without our assistance. In effect, you are giving us a multitude of gifts. Yet you are not driven by altruism, you pretend you are here to trade. You persevere in the task of gaining information from us. Therefore, we ask, what is your true reason for coming to this star?”

  “Oh Jesus,” Joshua moaned over their secure communication link. “I’m not half as smart as I thought I was.”

  “None of us are, it would seem,” Syrinx said. “Damn, he saw right though our strategy.”

  “In itself a useful piece of information,” Ruben said.

  “How so?”

  “Everything in Anthi-CL is valued in terms of resources. Quantook-LOU controls their distribution, which makes him leader of the dominion, and he’s also a tough negotiator and diplomat. If those are the traits which make him a good leader, then that confirms the level of competition which exists among the dominions. We may still have leverage. I would suggest that now the cat’s out of the bag you play it straight, Joshua. Tell him what we want. Frankly, what have we got to lose at this point?”

  Joshua took a breath. Even with Ruben’s unarguable summary, he couldn’t bring himself to gamble the outcome of their mission on a xenoc’s generosity. Especially when they had confirmed virtually nothing the Mosdva had told them about Mastrit-PJ’s history, nor even their own nature. “I congratulate you, Quantook-LOU,” he said. “That is an admirable deduction from such a small amount of information. Although not entirely correct. I will profit considerably from introducing some of your technology to the Confederation.”

  “Why are you here?”

  “Because of the Tyrathca. We want to know where they are, how far their influence extends, how many there are of them.”

  “Why?”

  “At the moment our Confederation co-exists alongside them. Our leadership believes this situation cannot last forever. We know they have conquered entire sentient species as they spread from star to star, either enslaving them as they did you, or exterminating them. We were fortunate that our technology is superior, they did not threaten us when we first encountered them. But they already have our propulsion systems. Conflict is inevitable if they continue to expand. And any further expansion must be outward, through our worlds. If we know their extent while our starships remain superior, we may be able to terminate that threat.”

  “What is your propulsion system? How fast do your ships travel?”

  “They can jump instantaneously between star systems.”

  Quantook-LOU’s reaction was enough for Joshua to class him as human, or as near as made no difference. The xenoc emitted a piping squeal, the fore and mid limbs clapping urgently against his front torso.

  “I am glad I have no eggs in my pouch,” Quantook-LOU said when he had quietened. “I would surely have cracked them.” Marsupial? Joshua wondered idly.

  “Do you realize what you have in your ship, Captain Joshua Calvert? You are our salvation. We considered ourselves trapped here orbiting this dying star, encircled by our enemies, never to escape as they did. No more.”

  “I take it you’d like to acquire our propulsion technology?”

  “Yes. Above all things. We will join your Confederation. You have seen our numbers, our ability. Even with our limited resources, we are vast and powerful. We can build a million warships, a hundred million, and equip them with your propulsion system. The Tyrathca are slow and stupid, they will never match us in time. Together we can embark on a crusade to rid the galaxy of their evil.”

  “Oh Jesus wept,” Joshua exclaimed over the communication link. “It just keeps getting better. We’re going to let loose a cosmic genocide if the Mosdva ever get ZTT technology. And I’ve a feeling the four of us might not be allowed back to Lady Mac until Quantook-LOU has the relevant data.”

  “We can shoot our way through the bubble,” Samuel said. “Get outside and wait in the structure until Lady Mac can pick us up.”

  “It’s not that stressful,” Liol said. “We can give Quantook-LOU any old file full of shit. Hand over the schematics for a deluxe, ten-flavour ice cream maker if you want. He’s not going to know the difference until we’re long gone.”

  “That’s my brother.”

  “Right now, you’ve got more immediate troubles. We think the dominions are having some kind of armed conflict. The number of tube breeches is reaching epidemic proportions out here.”

  “Fucking wonderful.” Joshua scanned round the bubble again. It wouldn’t be too much trouble to break out. And he hadn’t seen a Mosdva in a spacesuit. Yet. “I am prepared to offer you our propulsion system,” he told Quantook-LOU. “In return, I must have all your information concerning the Tyrathca flightships and the stars they colonized. This is not negotiable. They were sending messages back to this star for thousands of years. I want them, and the stellar coordinate system they used. Provide that for me, and you can have your freedom to roam the galaxy.”

  “Obtaining that information will be difficult. The dominion of Anthi-CL does not keep many Tyrathca files of such antiquity.”

  “Perhaps other dominions will have what I require.”

  Joshua’s suit sensors picked up the agitated movements of the seven other Mosdva in the bubble with them.

  “You will not deal with another dominion,” Quantook-LOU said.

  “Then find out where that information is kept, and trade for it.”

  “I will examine the possibility.” Quantook-LOU used a mid-limb to grasp a pipe rim on the surface of the bubble. Five of the electronic modules worn on his harness sprouted slim silver cables. Their ends swung round blindly, and they began to wind through the air with a serpentine wriggle, heading for one of the electronic units bolted to the piping.

  They plugged themselves into various sockets, and the pattern of lights on the unit’s surface changed rapidly.

  “Crude, but effective,” Ruben commented. “I wonder how far their neural interface technology extends.”

  “Captain,” Beaulieu called. “We’re seeing what looks like troop movements around the Anthi-CL dominion.”

  “You’ve got to be shitting me.”

  “Mosdva in spacesuits are crawling along the darkside structure. There is no fabrication or maintenance equipment accompanying them. They are most agile.”

  Joshua didn’t even want to ask what kind of numbers were involved.

  �
�Sarha, go to flight readiness status, please. If we need you, we’ll need you fast.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  “How long do we wait?” Oski asked.

  “Give Quantook-LOU another fifteen minutes. After that, we’re out of here.”

  But the Mosdva stirred after only a couple of minutes. Three of his five cables unplugged themselves, and wound back into their harness modules.

  “The dominion of Anthi-CL has five files relating to the information you want.”

  Joshua held up a communication block. “Transmit them over, we’ll see if that’s enough.”

  “I will release the index only. If this is what you require, we must discuss how to complete the exchange.”

  “Agreed.” His neural nanonics monitored the short dataflow from the bubble’s electronics into his block. Syrinx and Oenone examined the data eagerly.

  “Sorry, Joshua,” she said. “These are just records of messages transmitted by the arkships. Standard updates on how the voyages are progressing. There’s nothing of any relevance here.”

  “Any messages sent from Swantic-LI?”

  “No, we didn’t even get that lucky.”

  “This information is no good,” Joshua told Quantook-LOU.

  “There is no more.”

  “Five files, in the whole of Tojolt-HI? There must be more.”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps the other dominions won’t allow you access to their databases. Is that why you’re all at war?”

  “You have brought this upon us. It is for you we die. Give me the propulsion system. End all our suffering. Does your species have no compassion?”

  “I have got to have the information.”

  “Where the Tyrathca live, what planets they have colonized, is irrelevant now. If we have your propulsion system, they will never threaten you again. You will have accomplished your aim.”

  “I will not give you the propulsion system without receiving the information in exchange. If you cannot provide it, I will find a dominion that will.”