by Nancy Kress
Don’t think about Chand or McChesney. Concentrate. Kaufman knew he didn’t look like crew, didn’t carry himself like crew. This would require careful and constant effort.
He ran to the lower deck battle station. The four crew looked at him distrustfully, but they reconfigured for him and no one said anything. They’d been told he was coming. Kaufman grabbed battle armor from station stowage and pulled it on. It had been a long time since he had supervised battle stations. He thought he remembered what to do, which was good because the crew was just waiting for him to make a mistake. He needed them on his side.
“Call me ‘Armbruster’ if you have to call me anything at all. And I’ll remember this afterward. Remember it for all of you.”
Their faces cleared. One of them, bolder than the others, said, “Sir, are we—”
“‘Armbruster!’ Seaman first class!”
“Sorry, sir … Armbruster. Are we going to surrender?”
“Yes. Battle stations are just a precaution.”
“But these are SADN ships coming through,” another said. “I don’t get it!”
Of course they didn’t. They’d been out of contact for two years, and they never knew the artifact had even been aboard. Kaufman was willing to trade chain-of-command for survival.
“There’s been a revolution in the Solar System,” he said, rapid and low. “General Stefanak is dead, and—”
Someone gasped.
“—and Admiral Pierce is in power. These are Pierce’s troops, securing the Murasaki by whatever means necessary. However, I don’t think they’re going to fire on us.” I hope. “Battle stations are just precautions. Now, please, no more talking.”
“Just one more question, s … Armbruster. After the surrender, are we going home?”
“Probably.” Crew were crew. To most of them, it didn’t matter who was supreme commander, not as much as it mattered whether they got leave. Kaufman understood. The Fallers should be the enemy anyway, not other humans.
The alarms suddenly ceased.
“All crew on parade deck,” the system said loudly. “No exceptions. Stow battle gear first.”
“Even the engine-room guys,” a seaman said. “Jesus Planetary Christ.”
The “parade deck,” standard on all war ships, was a bare open room used for anything that required full assembly of crew and officers. For its intended use, it was cramped. Between such assemblies it was used for receiving dignitaries, showing holomovies, anything else that happened to come up. Kaufman squeezed in among the crewmen in proper formation, stooping his shoulders a little and keeping his head slightly down. From the way the crew glanced at the MPs, Kaufman guessed the MPs were off whatever warship was now docked against the Murasaki. The MPs were conspicuously armed.
When everyone was assembled, the screen on one wall brightened to show the bridge. A commander stood there, in full dress uniform, flanked by strange officers. Kaufman saw no sign of Magdalena.
“Crew of the Murasaki, this is Commander Blauman. I am now in command of the Murasaki, by order of the Solar Alliance Defense Navy. Commander Chand and Colonel McChesney have been relieved of command, having been discovered to be traitors to the war effort. They are now on their way to the Solar System for court martial.”
Kaufman felt the crew stir around him in surprise.
“I know this will be a shock to you, having spent two years aboard this ship with no communication from beyond the tunnel. Since that time, humanity was fortunate in having undergone a revival of the war effort. The traitors who have not been willing to advance that effort have been eliminated, including the traitor and coward General Stefanak. Under Admiral Pierce’s Freedom Army, the war against the Fallers will be fought with all the concentration and effort the SADC is capable of, so that we can have as speedy a victory as possible, and our home system and colonies will once more be safe.”
Someone cheered and a few seaman took it up, raggedly. Most looked dazed.
“You crew have done fine duty without leave for a long time, making a valuable contribution to the war effort. In view of that, the crew of the Murasaki will be placed in rapid leave rotation, replaced by crew from Caligula Station, and reposted to Solar System defense. I expect all of you to be back home within two weeks.”
This time the cheer was hearty and genuine. Seamen glanced jubilantly at each other. Kaufman saw the woman in front of him do a little clogging dance with her feet, her body still at attention.
“For now, I ask each of you to resume normal duty. The Murasaki officers are also on leave rotation, and some of them will be relieved of duty today. Your new section officers will assemble each section to discuss the rotation.’ Dismissed.” The screen blanked.
The seamen broke into capers and cheers and horseplay. Only a few looked thoughtful or frowning, pondering the larger implications of this hasty change of command. Most were simply thrilled to be going home. Kaufman left inconspicuously with a chattering group. In the corridor, he faded back until he was alone, then used the codes McChesney had given him to enter the life-support housing.
It was the best place for concealment. Fully automated, its operations were usually checked only by external monitors, unless those revealed a problem. Kaufman was about to take the most important action of his entire life. Life support. Yes. Nice joke. Please let it not be black humor.
He slipped through the door and quietly e-locked it behind him.
TWENTY-TWO
ABOARD THE MURASAKI
The life-support housing was a jumble of machines, ducts, storage crates, sealed vats, and damaged ’bots. Here air and water were cleansed for most of the ship. Kaufman ducked under huge low pipes, maneuvered around whirring sealed machinery. In a back corner Capelo and Marbet sat on the deck with their backs against the bulkhead, Marbet hugging her knees.
“Everything go all right?” she said.
“So far,” Kaufman answered. He sat on the other side of Capelo from Marbet. Their quarrel, unimportant next to everything else, nonetheless lay over them like soot.
Capelo said, “So now what? Here we are, rats who can’t even leave the sinking ship by the traditional mooring lines. Have you considered what comes next, Lyle?”
Kaufman said, “Are you any closer to solving the problem of macro-level quantum entanglement?”
Capelo stared incredulously. “What? You want to talk physics now?”
“I read a few weeks ago that your current work was trying to figure how macro-level entanglement fit into the probability-force theory. Entanglement like that of the space tunnels. Is that what you’ve been working on?”
“In simplistic terms, yes. But why bring it up now?”
“I was wondering,” Kaufman said, “if you weren’t kidnapped because of what you’re currently working on.”
Capelo made a rude noise. “Not a chance, Lyle. What I’m working on is so theoretical and esoteric that no one in the military would care. It has no practical applications, no engineering possibilities, no use in blowing things up or killing people or bringing off coups d’etat. I told you, Stefanak’s thugs abducted me and brought me to the artifact because Stefanak was nervous about bringing something that affects brains into the Solar System, not unless he could obtain additional brilliant insights from me.”
Marbet said, “Do you have any?”
“Nary an insight. Now, Lyle, how do we get out of here? I defer to your military strategy.”
“We wait for Magdalena,” Kaufman said.
“Some strategy.”
Capelo was right, of course, but Magdalena was necessary. In the hurried minutes before Blauman had boarded, Kaufman had put together a plan with more soft spots than a rotten apple. But he couldn’t see any alternative.
Marbet said, “What’s happening out there?”
“The crew’s been mustered and apprised of the changes. The new commander, Blauman, is rotating them out as fast as possible. Dispersed and happy to be on leave, they’re much less likely to questio
n anything. Junior officers, the same. The Murasaki will probably be pulled out of here as soon as the artifact is retrieved, which is what Blauman is undoubtedly doing now. Magdalena will recall her ship, she doesn’t have any choice. They could easily overtake and capture it.”
Marbet said, “What if you somehow blew up the Sans Merci? And the artifact with it?”
Capelo said, “I don’t think it’s possible to destroy the artifact. It self-protects, remember, against any proton beam or nuclear blast we threw at it. What would you use?”
She said, “But you know what Pierce is going to do! He’ll take it to the Faller home system and set it off at prime thirteen, to destroy their home star!”
Capelo said slowly, with no trace of his usual sarcasm, “That’s why we’re speeding secretly back to the Solar System, isn’t it? To alert the press so that Pierce can’t do that. With press outcry, he wouldn’t dare risk the Fallers’ setting off their artifact at prime thirteen in the same star system.”
“No,” Kaufman said. “That’s not what we’re doing.”
Both of them stared. Kaufman said, I’ve been thinking. I don’t think we can get there in Magdalena’s flyer before Pierce’s troops get to the Faller system with the artifact.”
Capelo argued, “We’ll have a head start if we can get out of this tin can by today. The navy first has to retrieve the artifact from Magdalena’s ship, and then it has to go through all the confirmation of orders and passage-through-tunnels mumbo-jumbo between here and the Fallers’ system. How many tunnels is it?”
“Five.”
“How many to the Solar System?”
“Eight. And Magdalena has only got clearances from Blauman for the first three, as far as Artemis System. He wants her out of here, but he doesn’t want her getting all the way home before Pierce brings off his heroic action.”
“Well,” Capelo said, “we’ll still have a head start, and—”
“Listen, both of you,” Kaufman said. “I’ve had time to think it through. It isn’t going to work. Tom, there’ll be no ‘confirmation of orders and passage-through-tunnels mumbo-jumbo.’ Not this time. Pierce will have this set up beforehand, ready to go as soon as he finds the artifact. It’s a surprise attack, don’t you see? Surprise attacks depend on speed and precision planning, that’s basic military tactics. Pierce wants to present the Solar System with a fait accompli—‘Look! The war is over! The Faller system is destroyed!’
“We, on the other hand, would have to depend on Magdalena’s negotiating to get us through a minimum of five tunnels without being identified and maybe killed. And then on the Sol side of Space Tunnel number one, we’d still have to summon the press, convince them we’re not crackpots, and wait for the news data packets to reach Mars and Earth. It won’t work. We don’t have time.”
Marbet said, “Then we’re helpless. We can’t take the artifact away from the navy, and we can’t get public opinion to intervene. But … won’t the Fallers have their artifact set at prime eleven? That would protect their whole system anyway, and it’s a stalemate.”
“Except,” Capelo said, “we know the bastards move their artifact around. They fried the entire Viridian System, didn’t they? Maybe they’ve taken their artifact somewhere else for an attack, and then Pierce-goes to their home system and destroys it.” His voice turned bitter. “Well, would that be so bad? They are the enemy, you know. They’ve killed millions of us.”
Marbet laid a sympathetic hand on Capelo’s arm.
Kaufman pushed down impatience. They didn’t see the situation whole. But he was going to need both of them on his side. Plus the unpredictable Magdalena, at least for a while. “Tom, if it were just frying the Faller system, none of us would be so upset. But you, more than anybody, know what happens to spacetime if we set off the artifact at prime thirteen in their system and they do the same thing.”
“But perhaps they won’t,” Marbet argued. “After all, they know what will happen to the fabric of space … they told us, remember? Maybe they won’t retaliate.”
Capelo snorted. “And let us win? Think, woman. The Fallers never communicate, not even to tell us why they’re at fucking war with us. They never take prisoners. They never allow themselves to be taken prisoner. They’ll set it off so they can take us with them. Albeit slowly … remember, the wave that reconfigures the fabric of three-dimensional space is going to travel at c.”
She said somberly, Then we better hope that the Fallers have their artifact in their home system and turned on to prime eleven. That way we get a stalemate.”
Kaufman said, “No. You don’t understand.”
“Oh?” Capelo said skeptically. “What don’t we understand? Irresistible force meets immovable defense, and everybody goes home. Which is maybe what we should do, if the errant Magdalena doesn’t dump us out into deep space somewhere.”
Kaufman thought of all that could go wrong … which was everything. “Surprise and precision planning,” he’d told Tom Capelo. This idea was the exact reverse. Haste, desperation, enormous risk, and then the universe’s largest Pyrrhic victory ever. But there was no choice, and no time.
“I have a different plan. There’s military information you don’t know. We don’t have a lot of time before Magdalena comes for us, so listen carefully. Some of this is classified, for higher clearances than you two have.”
“My, my,” Capelo said, “I’m honored.”
“You know that one of the other tunnels out of Caligula system, Tunnel Number Four-three-seven, goes to the Allenby System. We came that way; there isn’t any other route to World. The Allenby System is barren. Three gas giants, no humans, no Fallers. It has a second tunnel orbiting pretty for away from the first one, abnormally far away, which is why it took so long for Tunnel Four-three-seven to be discovered. That’s Tunnel Number Two-one-zero, the Allenby-Artemis Tunnel, and we came through that, too.”
“Is this a personal-history lesson?” Capelo said, and again Kaufman ignored the sarcasm. Tom couldn’t help it. It was his only defense against fear.
“Artemis System is big. A colonized planet, a colonized moon, a space station, major SADC presence. We refueled there. Artemis System has five tunnels, which is why it’s such a crossroads for humans. One of those tunnels is the one we would take toward Sol. Artemis System would be a prime target for Faller attack, which is why, everybody figures, there’s so much military there. And everybody is right, but only partly right. One of the tunnels, Number Two-one-eight, is never reconfigured and never used. It’s probably the best fortified spot in the galaxy, after Space Tunnel number One at Sol.”
Marbet said quietly, “Two-one-eight leads to the Fallers’ home system.”
“No, not directly,” Kaufman said. “That would be a bit too dose to them. Tunnel Number Two-one-eight leads to an unnamed system with the military designation ‘Q.’ It’s barren, and it has two tunnels. One is Number Two-one-eight, the other is Number Three-zero-one. Three-zero-one leads to the Fallers’ system. Look, I’ll draw you a picture.”
Kaufman traced a line with his finger on the deck, but there was no dust. Damned efficient air-siphon cleaning. Silently Marbet pulled a handheld from the pocket of her coverall and handed it to him. Kaufman sketched clumsily:
Kaufman said, knowing the importance of the classified information he was revealing, “We have an agreement with the Fallers that we stay out of Q System.”
Capelo sat up straighter against the bulkhead. “An agreement? What are you talking about? They never communicate with us!”
“No. It’s a tacit agreement. We’ve fought four separate battles there. The idea was to bottle them up in their home system. It didn’t work; they appeared in Viridian System and wiped it out, which means their home system has two or more tunnels, not just Number Three-zero-one. We lost all four battles in Q System. Worse, we lost them to a single warship. It had the artifact aboard, set to prime two.”
“The beam-disrupter shield. So none of our ships could hit it.”
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“Yes. It just picked off ours one by one. Four times.” Kaufman was silent a moment. The SADC had lost good men in those battles. He’d known some of them. “After that, we stopped going through Tunnel Number Two-one-eight into Q System.”
Capelo said, looking at the sketch on the handheld, “Why didn’t the Fallers go through it, into Artemis System? If they had the artifact aboard at prime two, they’d be protected. We couldn’t have stopped them. Then they just turn on prime thirteen and destroy Artemis.”
“They might have done that. But they fried Viridian instead. We think it was a test. They didn’t know that setting thirteen would destroy an entire system, no more than we did. It was theory. They tested the theory. The next step might have been to destroy Artemis System. Except … that was the time they learned that now we had an artifact, too. They monitor our broadcasts, you know. We aren’t sure where or how, but they do a better job of it than we do. We’ve never taken the first step in cracking their language. The Fallers found out we have an artifact, too.”
“So?” Capelo said.
Marbet was quicker at discerning motivation. “They thought we might bring our artifact into their home system by another tunnel route. They thought we might have figured out alternate routes in—”
“They’re wrong,” Kaufman said. “But they don’t know that.”
“—and so they moved their artifact to their home world and set it at prime eleven. To protect themselves. We’re back to a stalemate.”
“They might have done that,” Kaufman said. “But there’s an alternate speculation.”
“Seems to me a lot of this is just speculation,” Capelo said.
Marbet snapped, “You’re an odd one to make that charge, Tom. Your profession consists of turning speculation into theory into fact.”
Capelo laughed, unwillingly. Kaufman smiled at Marbet, his first genuine smile since their quarrel. He went on, “The other tunnel or tunnels out of their home world must lead to Faller colonies, or at least to military outposts. Humans have never appeared at any of them. So as time goes on, the Fallers deduce that we know only one way into their home system: through Q space, and they think we can’t even be sure of that route, since no human has returned alive with the information.