by Dan Simmons
Ces Ambre smiled. “I was fourteen standard years old. It was a long time ago. He was traveling from world to world via farcaster and stayed a few days in my second triune parents’ home because he was ill—a kidney stone—and then the Pax troopers kept him their under arrrest until they could send someone to interrogate him. My parents helped him escape. It was a very few days a very many years ago.” She smiled again. “And he was not Aenea’s husband at that time, remember. He had not taken the sacrament of her DNA, nor even grown aware of what her blood and teachings could do for the human race.”
“But you saw him,” pressed Chief Branchman Keel Redt.
“Yes. He was in delirium and pain much of the time and handcuffed to my parents’ bed by the Pax troopers.”
Reta Kasteen leaned closer. “Did he have any sort of…aura…about him?” she almost whispered.
“Oh, yes,” said Ces Ambre with a chuckle. “Until my parents gave him a sponge bath. He had been traveling hard for many days.”
The two Ousters and the Templar seemed to sit back in disappointment.
Ces Ambre leaned forward and touched the Templar woman’s knee. “I apologize for being flippant—I know the important role that Raul Endymion played in all of our history—but it was long ago, there was much confusion, and at that time on Vitus-Gray-Balianus B I was a rebellious teenager who wanted to leave my community of the Spectrum and accept the cruciform in some nearby Pax city.”
The other three visibly leaned back now. The two faces that were readable registered shock. “You wanted to accept that…that…parasite into your body?”
As part of Aenea’s Shared Moment, every human everywhere had seen—had known—had felt the full gestalt—of the reality behind the “immortality cruciform”—a parasitic mass of AI nodes creating a TechnoCore in real space, using the neurons and synapses of each host body in any way it wished, often using it in more creative ways by killing the human host and using the linked neuronic web when it was at its most creative—during those final seconds of neural dissolution before death. Then the Church would use TechnoCore technology to resurrect the human body with the Core cruciform parasite growing stronger and more networked at each death and resurrection.
Ces Ambre shrugged. “It represented immortality at the time. And a chance to get a way from our dusty little village and join the real world—the Pax.”
The three Ouster diplomats could only stare.
Ces Ambre raised her hands to her robe and slipped it open enough to show them the base of her throat and the beginning of a scar where the cruciform had been removed by the Aeneans. “I was kidnapped to one of the remaining Pax worlds and put under the cruciform for nine years,” she said so softly that her voice barely carried to the three diplomats. “And most of this time was after Aenea’s shared moment—after the absolute revelation of the Core’s plan to enslave us with those despicable things.”
The True Voice of the Tree Reta Kasteen took Ces Ambre’s older hand in hers. “Yet you refused to become Aenean when you were liberated. You joined what was left of your old culture.”
Ces Ambre smiled. There were tears in her eyes and those eyes suddenly looked much older. “Yes. I felt I owed my people that—for deserting them at the time of crisis. Someone had to carry on the Spectrum Helix culture. We had lost so many in the wars. We lost even more when the Aeneans gave us the option of joining them. It is hard to refuse to become something like a god.”
Far Rider made a grunt that sounded like heavy static. “This is our greatest fear next to the Destroyer. No one is now alive on the forest ring who experienced the Shared Moment, but the details of it—the glorious insights into empathy and the binding powers of the Void Which Binds, Aenea’s knowledge that many of the Aeneans would be able to farcast—freecast—anywhere in the universe. Well, the Church of Aenea has grown here until at least a fourth of our population would give up their Ouster or Templar heritage and become Aenean in a second.”
Ces Ambre rubbed her cheek and smiled again. “Then it’s obvious that no Aeneans have visited this system. And you have to remember that Aenea insisted that there be no ‘Church of Aenea,’ no veneration or beatification or adoration. That was paramount in her thoughts during the Shared Moment.”
“We know,” said Reta Kasteen. “But in the absence of choice and knowledge, cultures often turn to religion. And the possibility of an Aenean being aboard with you was one reason we greeted the arrival of your great ship with such enthusiasm and trepidation.”
“Aeneans do not arrive by spacecraft,” Ces Ambre said softly.
The three nodded. “When and if the day ever comes,” broadcast Far Rider, “it will be up to the individual conscience of each Ouster and Templar to decide. As for me, I will always ride the great waves of the solar wind.”
Dem Lia and the other three returned.
“We’ve decided to help,” she said. “But we must hurry.”
THEre was no way in the universe that Dem Lia or any of the other eight humans or any of the five AI’s would risk the Helix in a direct confrontation with the “Destroyer” or the “Harvester” or whatever the hell the Ousters wanted to call their nemesis. It was not just by engineering happenstance that the 3,000 life-support pods carrying the 684,300 Spectrum Helix pioneers in deep cryogenic sleep were egg-shaped. This culture had all their eggs in one basket—literally—and they were not about to send that basket into battle. Already Basho and several of the other AI’s were brooding about the proximity to the oncoming harvesting ship. Space battles could easily be fought across 28 AU’s of distance—while traditional lasers, or lances, or charged particle beam weapons would take more than a hundred and ninety-six minutes to creep that distance—Hegemony, Pax, and Ouster ships had all developed hyperkinetic missiles able to leap into and out of Hawking drive. Ships could be destroyed before radar could announce the presence of the incoming missile. Since this “harvester” crept around its appointed rounds at sublight speed, it seemed unlikely that it would carry C-plus weaponry, but “unlikely” is a word that has undone the planning and fates of warriors since time immemorial.
At the Spectrum Helix engineers’ request, the Aeneans had rebuilt the Helix to be truly modular. When it reached its utopian planet around its perfect star, sections would free themselves to become probes and aircraft and landers and submersibles and space stations. Each of the three thousand individual life pods could land and begin a colony on its own, although the plans were to cluster the landing sites carefully after much study of the new world. By the time the Helix was finished deploying and landing its pods and modules and probes and shuttles and command deck and central fusion core, little would be left in orbit except the huge Hawking drive units with maintenance programs and robots to keep them in perfect condition for centuries, if not millennia.
“We’ll take the system exploratory probe to investigate this Destroyer,” said Dem Lia. It was one of the smaller modules, adapted more to pure vacuum than to atmospheric entry, although it was capable of some morphing, but compared to most of the Helix’s peaceful subcomponents, the probe was armed to the teeth.
“May we accompany you?” said Chief Branchman Keel Redt. “None of our race has come closer than a hundred thousand kilometers to the machine and lived.”
“By all means,” said Dem Lia. “The probe’s large enough to hold thirty or forty of us, and only three are going from our ship. We will keep the internal containment field at one-tenth g and adapt the seating accordingly.”
THE probe was more like one of the old combat torchships than anything else, and it accelerated out toward the advancing machine under two hundred and fifty hundred gravities, internal containment fields on infinite redundancy, external fields raised to their maximum of Class 12. Dem Lia was piloting. Den Soa was attempting to communicate with the gigantic ship via every means available, sending messages of peace on every band from primitive radio to modulated tachyon bursts. There was no response. Patek Georg Dem Mio was meshed into
the defense/counterattack virtual umbilicals of his couch. The passengers sat at the rear of the probe’s compact command deck and watched. Saigyō had decided to accompany them and his massive holo sat bare chested and cross-legged on a counter near the main viewport. Dem Lia made sure to keep their trajectory aimed not directly at the monstrosity in the probability that it had simple meteor defenses: if they kept traveling toward their current coordinates, they would miss the ship by tens of thousands of kilometers above the plane of the ecliptic.
“Its radar has begun tracking us,” said Patek Georg when they were six hundred thousand klicks away and decelerating nicely. “Passive radar. No weapons acquisition. It doesn’t seem to be probing us with anything except simple radar. It will have no idea if life forms are aboard our probe or not.”
Dem Lia nodded. “Saigyō,” she said softly, “at two hundred thousand klicks, please bring our coordinates around so that we will be on intercept course with the thing.” The chubby monk nodded.
Somewhat later, the probes’ thrusters and main engines changed tune, the starfield rotated, and the image of the huge machine filled the main window. The view was magnified as if they were only five hundred klicks from the spacecraft. The thing was indescribably ungainly, built only for vacuum, fronted with metal teeth and rotating blades built into mandiblelike housings, the rest looking like the wreckage of an old space habitat that had been mindlessly added onto for millennium after millennium and then covered with warts, wattles, bulbous sacs, tumors, and filaments.
“Distance, one hundred eighty-three thousand klicks and closing,” said Patek Georg.
“Look how blackened it is,” whispered Den Soa.
“And worn,” radioed Far Rider. “None of our people have ever seen it from this close. Look at the layers of cratering through the heavy carbon deposits. It is like an ancient, black moon that has been struck again and again by tiny meteorites.”
“Repaired, though,” commented the Chief Branchman gruffly. “It operates.”
“Distance one hundred twenty thousand klicks and closing,” said Patek Georg. “Search radar has just been joined by acquisition radar.”
“Defensive measures?” said Dem Lia, her voice quiet.
Saigyō answered. “Class Twelve field in place and infinitely redundant. CPB deflectors activated. Hyperkinetic countermissiles ready. Plasma shields on maximum. Countermissiles armed and under positive control.” This meant simply that both Dem Lia and Patek Georg would have to give the command to launch them, or—if the human passengers were killed—Saigyō would do so.
“Distance one hundred five thousand klicks and closing,” said Patek Georg. “Relative delta-v dropping to one hundred meters per second. Three more acquisition radars have locked on.”
“Any other transmissions?” asked Dem Lia, her voice tight.
“Negative,” said Den Soa at her virtual console. “The machine seems blind and dumb except for the primitive radar. Absolutely no signs of life aboard. Internal communications show that it has…intelligence…but not true AI. Computers more likely. Many series of physical computers.”
“Physical computers!” said Dem Lia, shocked. “You mean silicon…chips…stone axe level technology?”
“Or just above,” confirmed Den Soa at her console. “We’re picking up magnetic bubble memory readings, but nothing higher.”
“One hundred thousand klicks…” began Patek Georg and then interrupted himself. “The machine is firing on us.”
The outer containment fields flashed for less than a second.
“A dozen CPB’s and two crude laser lances,” said Patek Georg from his virreal point of view. “Very weak. A Class One field could have countered them easily.”
The containment field flickered again.
“Same combination,” reported Patek. “Slightly lower energy settings.”
Another flicker.
“Lower settings again,” said Patek. “I think it’s giving us all its got and using up its power doing it. Almost certainly just a meteor defense.”
“Let’s not get overconfident,” said Dem Lia. “But let’s see all of its defenses.”
Den Soa looked shocked. “You’re going to attack it?”
“We’re going to see if we can attack it,” said Dem Lia. “Patek, Saigyō, please target one lance on the top corner of that protuberance there…” She pointed her laser stylus at a blackened, cratered, fin-shaped projection that might have been a radiator two klicks high. “…and one hyperkinetic missile…”
“Commander!” protested Den Soa.
Dem Lia looked at the younger woman and raised her finger to her lips. “One hyperkinetic with plasma warhead removed, targeted at the front lower leading edge of the machine, right where the lip of that aperture is.”
Patek Georg repeated the command to the AI. Actual target coordinates were displayed and confirmed.
The CPB struck almost instantly, vaporizing a seventy-meter hole in the radiator fin.
“It raised a Class Point-six field,” reported Patek Georg. “That seeems to be its top limit of defense.”
The hyperkinetic missile penetrated the containment field like a bullet through butter and struck an instant later, blasting through sixty meters of blackened metal and tearing out through the front feeding orifice of the harvesting machine. Everyone aboard watched the silent impact and the almost mesmerizing tumble of vaporized metal expanding away from the impact site and the spray of debris from the exit wound. The huge machine did not respond.
“If we had left the warhead on,” murmured Dem Lia, “and aimed for its belly, we would have a thousand kilometers of exploding harvest machine right now.”
Chief Branchman Keel Redt leaned forward in his couch. Despite the one-tenth g field, all of the couches had restraint systems. His was activated now.
“Please,” said the Ouster, struggling slightly against the harnesses and airbags. “Kill it now. Stop it now.”
Dem Lia shifted to look at the two Ousters and the Templar. “Not yet,” she said. “First we have to return to the Helix.”
“We will lose more valuable time,” broadcast Far Rider, his tone unreadable.
“Yes,” said Dem Lia. “But we still have more than six standard days before it begins harvesting.”
The probe accelerated away from the blackened, cratered, and newly scarred monster.
“YOU will not destroy it then?” demanded the Chief Branchman as the probe hurried back to the Helix.
“Not now,” responded Dem Lia. “It might still be serving a purpose for the race that built it.”
The young Templar seemed to be close to tears. “Yet your own instruments—far more sophisticated than our telescopes—told you that there are no worlds in the red giant system.”
Dem Lia nodded. “Yet you yourselves have mentioned the possibility of space habitats, can cities, hollowed out asteroids…our survey was neither careful nor complete. Our ship was intent upon entering your star system with maximum safety, not carrying out a careful survey of the red giant system.”
“For such a small probability,” said the Chief Branchman Ouster in a flat, hard voice, “you are willing to risk so many of our people?”
Saigyō’s voice whispered quietly in Dem Lia’s subaudio circuit. “The AI’s have been analyzing scenarios of several million Ousters using their solar wings in a concentrated attack on the Helix.”
Dem Lia waited, still looking at the Chief Branchman.
“The ship could defeat them,” finished the AI, “but there is some real probability of damage.”
To the Chief Branchman, Dem Lia said, “We’re going to take the Helix to the red giant system. The three of you are welcome to accompany us.”
“How long will the round trip last?” demanded Far Rider.
Dem Lia looked to Saigyō. “Nine days under maximum fusion boost,” said the AI. “And that would be a powered perihelion maneuver with no time to linger in the system to search every asteroid or debris field f
or life forms.”
The two Ousters were shaking their heads. Reta Kasteen drew her hood lower, covering her eyes.
“There’s another possibility,” said Dem Lia. To Saigyō, she pointed toward the Helix now filling the main viewscreen. Thousands of energy-winged Ousters parted as the probe decelerated gently through the ship’s containment field and aligned itself for docking.
THEy gathered in the solarium to decide. All ten of the humans—Den Soa’s wife and husband had been invited to join in the vote but had decided to stay below in the crews’ quarters—all five of the AI’s, and the three representatives of the forest-ring people. Far Rider’s tightbeam continued to carry the video and audio to the three hundred thousand nearby Ousters and the billions waiting on the great curve of tree ring beyond.
“Here is the situation,” said Dem Lia. The silence in the solarium was very thick. “You know that the Helix, our ship, contains an Aenean-modified Hawking drive. Our faster-than-light passage does harm the fabric of the Void Which Binds, but thousands of times less than the old Hegemony or Pax ships. The Aeneans allowed us this voyage.” The short woman with the green-band around her turban paused and looked at both Ousters and the Templar woman before continuing. “We could reach the red giant system in…”
“Four hours to spin up to relativistic velocities, then the jump,” said Res Sandre. “About six hours to decelerate into the red giant system. Two days to investigate for life. Same ten-hour return time.”
“Which, even with some delays, would bring the Helix back almost two days before the Destroyer begins its harvesting. If there is no life in the red giant system, we will use the probe to destroy the robot harvester.”
“But…” said Chief Branchman Keel Redt with an all-too-human ironic smile. His face was grim.
“But it is too dangerous to use the Hawking drive in such a tight binary system,” said Dem Lia, voice level. “Such short distance jumps are incredibly tricky anyway, but given the gas and debris the red giant is pouring out…”