“Someone else was manipulating that weekend. We’re sure of it.”
“What’s happened? Have you missed out on a big contract?”
“No. But High Angel was a massive beneficiary, and through that the African Caucus. You owe us for that.”
“I suppose I might. I believe the idea came from Kantil. She was very eager to gain support for Doi at the time.”
“Did Patricia tell you herself, or was it Isabella?”
“Justine”—he grinned down at her—“are you jealous?”
“Please! This is important. Did Isabella tell you it came direct from Kantil, that Doi would sanction the spending?”
“I honestly don’t recall exactly. Isabella made the suggestion, so naturally I assumed it came from Kantil. Lovely though Isabella is, she’s only a first-life girl. Why, who else do you think would make it?”
“Isabella’s a Halgarth,” Justine said.
“Oh, no.” He threw his hands into the air with exasperation. “We’re back to the motion for a vote on Myo again.”
“It’s not the vote.”
“It’s looking that way to me. You took it personally. Admit it.”
“I know Valetta caught me off guard in there; Thompson would never have let that sneak up on him. It’s beginning to look as though I just don’t have his aptitude for this job.”
“Nonsense. You’re more than capable. You outmaneuvered Valetta beautifully, and gave yourself time to build support for the vote. You’re a natural.”
“It doesn’t seem that way. Damn that Columbia for forcing my hand like this. It’ll be a real show of strength in the next committee. I’m not even sure I can win.”
“You have my vote.”
“Yeah, right, thanks.”
“This really bugs you; and it’s not the first time you’ve clashed with the Halgarths and their allies. Why don’t you just declare open warfare, and have the fleet attack Solidade.”
“Because it’s their fleet, Rammy.”
“So that’s it! Gore’s pissed that they hijacked his pet project.”
“The navy isn’t a project, it’s essential to our survival. We’re at war, fighting for our very existence as a species, and the Halgarths are taking over the Commonwealth’s entire defense policy. That’s not healthy.”
“Don’t let this Senate spat blind you. Sheldon remains in ultimate command. Thanks to CST his Dynasty will always have the final say. And Kime is still Admiral; he’s Sheldon’s man, in alliance with Los Vada. With Columbia, the Halgarths only have control of planetary defense. It’s a classic Dynasty carve-up. The power structures balance out.”
“All right.” She tried to put on a convinced expression for his benefit.
“That’s better. So how about lunch? Just you and me, and no business.”
“Old times,” she said mournfully. “Sorry, Rammy, I’ve got to get back to the office. I need to start making calls.”
His hopeful expression gave way to something more melancholic. “I understand. My advice: call Crispin. He was never a Halgarth man.”
She gave him a quick kiss on the lips. “Thanks. See you soon.”
It was Thompson’s office. The taste was his, all lush reds and gold-brown wood furniture. She hadn’t made a single change, she didn’t have the right. When he came back, he could sit down behind his vast desk and carry on as if nothing had happened.
If the world still exists then.
Justine dismissed her aides, and ignored the urgent briefing files as she settled into her brother’s chair.
So Isabella hadn’t specifically said it was Patricia’s suggestion. That wasn’t a lot to go on, although it deepened her own suspicions that Patricia was being played like the rest of them.
“Could really do with your advice, Tommy,” she told the room. The rejuvenation clinic their family owned and used was just on the outskirts of Washington, not quite twenty-five kilometers from Senate Hall as the crow flies. Right now his clone fetus was there, about ten centimeters long, growing inside a womb tank.
She looked down at her own abdomen, resting her hand lightly against it. Her stomach was still perfectly flat, not that she’d been to the gym for weeks now. “You’re going to be born before your uncle,” she said softly. “He’s going to be surprised about that.” Along with an awful lot of other people.
With her real hand resting contentedly above the baby, her virtual hand touched Paula Myo’s icon.
“Yes, Senator?”
Does she ever sleep? “I have some unpleasant news you should be aware of. I was just ambushed in the Security Oversight Committee. Senator Valetta Halgarth asked for your immediate withdrawal from Senate Security.”
“On what grounds?”
“Very shaky ones. Fortunately. She cited interference in navy intelligence operations, claimed you were misusing government resource to pursue personal goals.”
“The observation on Alessandra Baron.”
“Precisely. I managed to delay the vote on a procedural point about the agenda. But it is only a delay. It looks like Columbia really has got it in for you.”
“I know that. Thank you for covering for me.”
“I’ll talk to the other senators, rebuild my strategic support in that committee. I should be able to pull a majority onto my side. Right now there are several people who are unhappy with the Halgarths. They’re not my family’s natural allies, but I should be able to swing them around.”
“I understand. This could be very revealing.”
“How so?”
“Do you have any indication which way the Sheldons intend to vote? It goes against the Starflyer’s interests to have me remain in Senate Security.”
“Good point. I’ll try and find out.”
***
MorningLightMountain was annoyed with humans. It had known they would strike back after its preliminary incursion into the Commonwealth; such a move was inevitable. What was less welcome was the manner of the response. It had been expecting wormholes to open above the captured planets, disgorging quantities of ships and missiles to assault its new installations. So it had dutifully prepared for that scenario, building the strongest force field generators it had over the factories and refineries it was constructing on the new worlds, placing thousands of ships in orbit armed with powerful weaponry.
With all the knowledge it had gathered about the Commonwealth and its abilities, MorningLightMountain was certain this would be enough to ward off the human attack. There was an astonishing amount of information left behind amid the wreckage of the abandoned human cities; storage crystals that contained entire encyclopedias, scientific theories and research, engineering designs, economic and industrial statistics on each of the Commonwealth worlds, and a truly endless supply of “entertainment.” For the first time MorningLightMountain was grateful it had animated the Bose memories; without that small insight into human thinking it would have been extremely difficult to distinguish between fact and fiction. And humans produced an astonishing amount of fiction to amuse themselves.
To its disappointment, there was little information available on the SI. There was no verifiable record on any of its new twenty-three worlds as to the exact location of Vinmar. Once the Commonwealth worlds were converted to Prime life, it would have to search all the star systems within two hundred light-years of Earth. Some files speculated that the SI was no longer physically based, but had transformed itself to an energy-based entity. MorningLightMountain could not decide if these, too, were works of fiction.
It also had humans to extract information from. There were tens of thousands of discarded bodies lying buried in the rubble or trapped in smashed vehicles. Removing their memorycells was an easy operation. Living humans presented more trouble; they struggled and fought the soldier motiles. In the end MorningLightMountain simply shot them all, and recovered their memorycells that way. It learned that there was very little useful information recorded in these personal units; they only ever held memories, and h
uman minds were not reliable. After animating a few inside isolated immotiles, it found that most were even more unstable than Bose. Even more surprising, few were as knowledgeable. MorningLightMountain had always assumed Bose was an inferior human specimen.
As it tapped into more and more databases, so its picture of the Commonwealth strengthened, building on the original loose interpretation that came from the Bose memories. It began to reclaim and modify human cybernetic fabrication systems, turning the machinery to producing components and machines of its own design. Buildings were modified to house its facilities, roads were used for vehicles. Bridges rebuilt.
The one segment of human technology it discarded was the electronics. MorningLightMountain simply did not trust the processors and programs that were available to it. There were hundreds of thousands of files detailing hidden subversive applications built into arrays and software. Ever since the first communications net was commissioned on Earth, humans seemed to have devoted a colossal amount of time and effort to conduct seditious assaults against each other inside its virtual boundaries. They disrupted the activities of their rivals, renegades launched viral attacks for the fun of it, and criminal elements stole from anyone with weaker encryption defenses in a massive electronic version of the territorial struggles that the immotile Primes used to wage constantly. After centuries of development, their skill in this arena was deadly. Their electronic warfare attacks against MorningLightMountain’s soldier motiles during the original incursion were proof of their digital superiority. It did not have the experience nor ability to uncover and guard against such digital deceit. Consequentially, it simply removed the arrays from human equipment, and inserted itself into the control circuits. Such substitution absorbed a great deal of thought capacity. One of its priorities on its new worlds was to establish immotile groups that were used to manage and exploit human engineering.
Progress in this and other areas was advancing well. Then the Commonwealth made its counterstrike. Wormholes opened above all the new twenty-three worlds. Sure enough, missiles flooded through. MorningLightMountain sent its ships to intercept. It had a huge advantage: humans were reluctant to use fusion bombs, fearing their collateral environmental damage, a trait it had learned from both Bose and subsequent human personality animation, as well as datamining political proclamations. All of the weapons it directed to repel the attack were nuclear.
Then more wormholes appeared, this time on the ground, flashing in and out of existence. MorningLightMountain struggled to keep up with plotting their emergence. Once more, humans were successfully disrupting its internal communications. Flyers were sent out to each location, encountering some resistance as aerobots zoomed out to confront them. The automatic machines were nimble, but not strong enough to defeat superior numbers of flyers. And superior numbers was MorningLightMountain’s specific advantage.
After seventeen hours, the attack ended. MorningLightMountain was victorious. It had sustained some damage, but there had been no strategic defeat. Motiles and machinery were directed to repair the broken systems. After studying the attack pattern, it began to strengthen and modify its defenses accordingly. The Commonwealth was weaker than it had predicted.
Many hours later, the disturbances began. There had always been brief clashes with armed humans on its new twenty-three worlds. Several hundred motiles had been killed, a number so small it barely registered with MorningLightMountain’s main thought routines. Defenses strong enough to withstand strategic bombardment from space were more than adequate to cope with anything wild humans could strike them with.
Bridges fell as convoys were driving over them, their support pillars blown apart by explosives.
Soldier motiles on patrol dropped out of communication and never returned.
Fires broke out in factories.
Fusion generators suffered unexplained confinement field instabilities. Their MHD chambers ruptured to shoot out spears of plasma that incinerated anything in their path.
Armored humans were detected around force fields, only to inexplicably vanish again.
Equipment outside the force fields failed. Investigation showed deliberately damaged parts, or small explosive charges.
A fusion bomb detonated outside the Randtown force field, wiping out fifteen flyers.
Farmer motiles were killed on a continuing basis, shot from long range. Farm equipment was sabotaged. Whole crops were lost.
A fusion bomb went off inside the Randtown force field, destroying the entire installation.
Armored humans had now been spotted on every world. They were impossible to catch. When cornered they fought until they died, usually by triggering fusion bombs.
Microscopic wormholes began to appear above all of the new worlds, emerging for a few seconds only. They were no threat.
Fusion bombs went off on Olivenza, Sligo, Whalton, Nattavaara, and Anshun.
New strip mines were vaporized.
The sabotage was not causing enough damage to halt MorningLightMountain’s expansion across its new twenty-three worlds. But the ruined installations all had to be rebuilt. Motiles replaced. Roads repaired. Crops replanted.
Then the armored humans would reappear from nowhere and wreck them all over again. MorningLightMountain rebuilt each time, incorporating stronger defenses, which took longer to construct. It brought in tens of thousands of additional soldier motiles from its homeworld, all of which had to be fed and supported, stretching its resources on the new twenty-three worlds. The disruption tactics that the humans were employing were extremely irritating. MorningLightMountain didn’t know how to stop them. Back on its homeworld, conflicts had been fought out in the open with both sides trying to inflict maximum damage. This was different. MorningLightMountain knew from human personality animation that they would never stop this guerrilla warfare harassment. Their history was heavy with such actions. Fanatical freedom fighters had successfully defeated conventional armies time and again.
It would only stop when there were no more free humans. MorningLightMountain began to commit more resources toward achieving that task.
The staging post detected superluminal quantum distortion waves sweeping through the star system. Their origin point was a distortion signature that corresponded to a human starship engine, three light-years distant. The starship was already heading away from the staging post.
MorningLightMountain knew what the Commonwealth navy would do now it had discovered the location of the staging post: attack with every weapon it possessed.
Thousands of immotile groups had considered what defense could be used against the kind of relativistic attack the humans had used at Anshun. The complex machinery that would modify its wormhole generators was already under construction. MorningLightMountain prioritized its completion, and began transferring the first components to the staging post. It also began to assemble its new fleet of warships. When the navy starships arrived, weakening the Commonwealth defenses, it would begin its second expansion stage into Commonwealth space, invading a further forty-eight worlds.
Chapter Seven
Patricia Kantil and Daniel Alster left the Senate Hall together and shared the express to Kerensk. McClain Gilbert was waiting at the gateway station to escort them. The three of them took a navy shuttle over to Babuyan Atoll, a twenty-minute flight.
“Even after all the preparatory work we’ve done, I can’t believe we’ve reached this stage,” Patricia said. “I don’t mind telling you, the President is very anxious about this.”
“We all are,” Mac said. “This could well be the turning point.”
“Does the Admiral think we have enough ships?” Daniel asked.
“He’ll tell you himself,” Mac said. He gestured at the thick windows set into the cabin’s ceiling. “As you can see, we haven’t been slacking.”
Space around the High Angel was getting crowded. There were now three free-flying ports linked back to Kerensk, delivering passengers and small cargo pods to the shuttles that flew them on to
the new navy facilities as well as the archipelago’s industrial stations. The nine warship assembly platforms were much larger than the original models used to construct the first generation of scoutships. Each one had five giant malmetal fabrication spheres arranged around a central gateway section that had a wormhole leading back to Kerensk. Hull sections and components were now conveyed directly to the advanced cybernetic systems that would put them together.
A malmetal ball on platform four was open, revealing one of the new Moscow-class warships as it prepared to disengage. The London was a hundred fifty meters long, its rust-red hull a double sphere, with the forward globe smaller than the rear, and seven rapier-blade thermal radiators protruding from its waist. There was no allusion to aerodynamics this time; the Moscow-class was designed purely as a weapons-delivery ship.
“They look imposing,” Patricia said.
“There’s enough weaponry in one of those to destroy every planet in Earth’s solar system, including Jupiter,” Mac told her. “For once, we have the firepower advantage.”
“I hope you’ve got fail-safes to prevent unauthorized launches,” Daniel said.
Mac gave him a funny look. “The Douvoir missiles have tripartite arming codes. Three members of the crew have to authorize a launch.”
“What if a ship is damaged, and you’ve only got two crew left?” Patricia asked.
“Not going to happen,” Mac assured her. “Anything powerful enough to get through the force field which shields a Moscow-class ship will destroy the entire ship.”
“Ah, I see.” Patricia turned back to the massive alien starship that the shuttle was approaching.
Admiral Kime gave his guests a warm welcome as they arrived in his office at the top of Pentagon II. It was night in Babuyan Atoll, leaving the vast crystal dome clear. Icalanise was a slender cadmium-yellow crescent sinking toward the parkland rim. The rest of space visible overhead was packed with the bright silver shapes of the archipelago, whose research labs and shimmering macrohubs were now complemented by all the new navy stations and platforms. Hundreds of shuttles swarmed between them, their ion rockets creating tenuous electric-blue nebula streaks across the void.
Judas Unchained Page 43