“Here.” The lead serpent stopped at a door, which promptly slid open in front of them. “The Interpreter-Captain is here.”
With a likely-unnecessary nod to the robot, Annette walked through the door into the meeting room. Based on the rest of the ship, she’d expected something stark and white, but the room was quite different from what she’d seen so far.
It was lit in a soft blue, calming but easy to see detail in. The walls were gentle hues, carefully guiding the eye around. She could feel her breathing ease and her blood pressure drop.
The room had been designed to ease a human’s stress levels, to make her as comfortable as possible. She suspected it was easily changed, lights and colors and sounds adjusting in a matter of moments to prepare for whichever species the Interpreter was meeting with.
A moment later, she understood why, as the Interpreter moved. She’d missed them in the relaxing vibe of the room, but the Mesharom reared up to be clearly visible and Annette had to suppress an instinctive urge to run—or to vomit.
Interpreter-Captain Adamase looked like nothing so much as a four-meter-long, dark-green furry millipede. Dozens of long feelers, equally capable of tool manipulation or locomotion, fluttered around on their underside as they rose to face her. Massive crystalline eyes, reflecting the soft lights of the room, turned their attention on Annette as Adamase studied her.
“I have not met a human before,” they finally said. “Yet…a life beats within. Two lives. You bear?”
That took a moment to process.
“I am pregnant, yes,” Annette confirmed.
“Are you first or final bearer?” Adamase asked, then shuddered. A nerve-wracking gesture, possible a head-shake equivalent? “Right. Your species is dual-gendered, two gametes, one bears. You are…female?”
“Yes.”
“I am final-bearer,” Adamase told her. “I have delivered two litters into this world for my parenting circle. Is it as incredible an experience for your kind?”
Annette laughed.
“I do not know, Interpreter-Captain,” she admitted. “I haven’t done this before, and my understanding is that the process is much different for Mesharom.”
Those crystalline eyes blinked rapidly, the reflection of the light in them almost blinding. Laughter, Annette thought.
“This is true. Is the meeting room comfortable, Duchess Bond? We can make changes if you wish.”
“It is more than sufficient,” Annette replied. “If there is a seat somewhere, at least.”
A feeler separated from the rest of Adamase’s limbs and pointed to a seat that Annette had missed. She took the chair carefully, mindful of her stomach, then turned her gaze back on the Mesharom.
Adamase was silent, watching her.
“Ki!Tana told me I needed to meet with you,” the Duchess of Terra finally said. “We found a ship of a species she called ‘Those Who Came Before’, and we wish to avoid conflict with the Core Powers—but you, the Laians, and the Wendira are all here now.”
“The Laians came for their own reasons,” the Mesharom replied evenly. “So did we. The Wendira, however, were hunting the ship. Which is fascinating, but now we all know it is there, and you are correct, Duchess Bond, in that it could far too easily trigger conflict.”
“The ship offers immense opportunity to my people,” Annette argued. “Both Terra and the Imperium would benefit greatly from researching it.”
Adamase was silent again. The crystalline eyes stayed focused on Annette for a long time, then slowly closed and reopened.
“You are not prepared to fight us for it,” they said. It wasn’t a question, and Annette wondered just how obvious her thoughts and emotions were to this creature. “But you want to know why you must surrender it to us.”
“If it is the price for you to protect us from the Laians and Wendira, I will pay it,” Annette said bluntly. “But yes, I do not understand why.”
“Because you do not know what we know of Those Who Came Before,” the Mesharom final-bearer told her. “I think…yes. We must tell you what we told your friend, that which she has forgotten and you, Duchess Bond, must share with your Empress…and only your Empress.
“Do you understand?”
Annette was taken aback.
“What is this secret you would have me keep?” she asked.
“The nature of the universe and how what was shapes what is,” Adamase told her. “I do not need to explain. You simply need surrender the ship to us. But you are owed the explanation, if you will die with it.”
“Tell me,” Annette instructed.
#
The Interpreter-Captain was silent for a minute or so, presumably marshaling their thoughts into a form of explanation that they figured Annette could understand.
“You must realize,” Adamase finally began, “that our civilization has never advanced quickly or in giant leaps. Steady development as a culture and a technological race has always been our way.
“However, we never suffered the mass cultural and technological setbacks so common to other races from wars or the collapse of empires. We…did not fight wars on grand scales. Do not think we were pacifistic,” they warned, “we simply cannot organize armies as other races do.
“Our wars were fought by small groups of champions. We have always been more individualistic than many races, our distaste for others’ company outside of breeding cycles a long-term impediment to us in many ways.”
Annette knew that the Mesharom she was speaking to was arguably insane by their species’ standard, willing to associate not merely with other Mesharom for extended periods—a requirement to be starship crew—but also with aliens.
The ship she was on required as many hands as a Terran ship, but most of those hands were robots. Mesharom did not like each other’s company. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.
She’d never really thought through what that meant for a civilization. Everything from war to science were group efforts for most races…but not for the Mesharom.
“What that slow progress has given us, however, is a written history longer than any other known race,” Adamase noted. “We have detailed records stretching back sixty thousand orbital cycles.”
Annette managed not to audibly whistle. That was somewhere between ninety and a hundred thousand years. The Mesharom had started keeping records—and storing them carefully, if they still had them!—before Cro-Magnon man had existed.
“It took us twenty thousand orbits to get from writing to the steam engine,” the alien said, “And another five thousand to get to rockets and in-system exploration.
“And then Those Who Came Before arrived. They came from the stars in great ships and they taught us technology that even then seemed like magic.”
Adamase was silent for several seconds, their crystal eyes reflecting the lights of the room as they stared blankly into space.
“For four thousand cycles, we were what your Imperium calls vassals,” they admitted. “We were not wise enough to realize what they kept from us. We and others were their…pets. Their science experiments.
“Those Who Came Before ruled. The rest obeyed, providing resources and labor for their grand projects—and their projects, Duchess Bond, were grand beyond any current dreaming of power.”
“If there was an empire that spanned half the galaxy, what happened to them?” Annette asked.
“They were arrogant. Beyond any current dreaming of arrogance,” Adamase said. “Their technology was vastly different from what you see now. We cannot duplicate it. What the records tell us of their ship engines still reads as magic—there was no hyperspace, no travel time.
“Once they knew where they wanted to be…then they were there. A spatial repositioning system, not a hyperspace portal.”
“That isn’t supposed to be possible,” Annette replied. She wasn’t a scientist, but she’d commanded experimental starships and kept up with what her people said could and couldn’t be done.
“It isn’t,” th
e Mesharom agreed. “The laws of physics would not allow it. Now.”
She stared at the alien in horror as just what Adamase had said sunk in.
“According to our histories, Those Who Came Before wanted their repositioning system to have a greater range,” the Interpreter-Captain told her. “They built a grand device, a machine around the galactic core, and attempted to deploy a system that would vastly increase their jump radius, seeking to visit other galaxies.”
“And?”
“And they changed the laws of physics,” Adamase concluded. “They broke reality, Duchess Bond. Fundamental constants of electricity, gravity, sub-quantum forces…all changed. Not enough that life stopped working; they were arrogant but not…careless.
“But enough that most technology stopped working.”
That would explain the collapse of the Empire, but not what had happened to its member races…except…
“We found bodies with neural implants,” she said quietly.
“Implants that were based on a circuitry that could no longer conduct electricity,” the alien told her. “Implants that had become essential for life for every member of Those Who Came Before and the vast majority of their subject races.
“We were always stubborn. A smaller portion of our race was implanted than many others—and we were more prepared to survive on our own when most of our technology stopped working.
“Many died,” Adamase said calmly. “Even with all that we knew, it took us five thousand more orbits to reach the stars once more. A thousand more to develop the hyperdrive.
“And then we went looking for our old masters and fellow servants. We found our own worlds, some more advanced than others, some less. We reunified.
“Our masters were gone. Their other servants were gone. We were alone in the Core, but rapid expansion was not our way.”
The alien shivered in what might have been a shrug.
“And then other races came. We helped some, ignored others. We had competition, but more than anything, we feared what Those Who Came Before had done.”
“How does any of their technology even still work, then?” Annette asked.
“Anything that still functions was designed for far higher electrical conductivity than it currently has,” Adamase told her. “If it still works, it is no longer as efficient. The ship you have found appears to be one of the most intact samples of their technology we know of, but that is a danger, Duchess Bond.”
“Why? If none of it works…”
“Attempts to duplicate their star drive are how the starkiller was invented,” the alien said flatly. “We cannot predict what their technology will do now. It is better locked away, safely, where it can harm no one.”
“Surely, some of it is still of value,” Annette argued. “The singularity core and the active hull my people describe—they’re still functional. If we work together, we can all benefit.”
“Whose system are you prepared to risk for this study, Duchess?” Adamase asked her. “We did not challenge the Syana when they sought to study the ship they found. They destroyed their homeworld.”
Annette winced from the words, spoken with a fierceness that crossed even through the translator.
“We fear the technology of Those Who Came Before,” the Mesharom continued. “The Frontier Fleet exists to contain it, store it. We cannot even risk destroying it—failure of the containment of the singularity core has a significant chance of destroying Hope. We have the capacity to safely move it.
“No one else will,” they warned her. “That ship must be taken into safe storage, Duchess Bond. We cannot risk what happened before happening again.”
The Mesharom had watched their entire galactic society self-destruct. No wonder they were terrified of the technology left over—Annette was actually impressed that they weren’t trying to stop technological development in general!
“You understand that I cannot simply hand you the ship for nothing,” she finally said. “I understand, even if I don’t fully agree with, your reasons. But you have told me I cannot share those reasons, which means I must have something to show my people and my Empress for the exchange.”
“A Laian war-dreadnought. A Wendira star hive,” Adamase observed. “We will protect you from these.”
“You’ll have to convince them to stand down anyway,” Annette replied. “Or they won’t let you take the ship.”
“The Laians can be convinced. The Wendira can be intimidated,” the Mesharom Captain said simply. “This is not a negotiation, Duchess Bond.”
She laughed.
“Of course it’s a negotiation, Interpreter-Captain,” she told Adamase. “We’ve established that you’re taking the ship, but there remains the question of price.”
They’d given Ki!Tana—well, A!Ana, but that name was a dangerous one to have in her mind—the starkiller technology to make sure the Kanzi didn’t have access to technology from Those Who Came Before.
The Mesharom didn’t know she knew about that, but there was no way she was giving them the ship for free.
“There are rules around the transfer of technology to non–Core Powers,” they noted.
“The Mesharom wrote them,” Annette agreed, pleased to see that Adamase recognized at least the currency they’d be paying in. “Would it be the first time the Frontier Fleet has broken them?”
“No.”
Annette waited in silence. She had only the vaguest idea of what she could ask for in exchange, and that struck her as the best time to let the other side make an offer.
Negotiations weren’t her strong point, but she hadn’t spent three years watching Zhao and Elon dissect people across the negotiating table without learning something.
Adamase also waited and Annette smiled at the alien. The Mesharom were intimidating and more than a little repulsive, but the bit of history Adamase had shared with her put their entire foreign policy into perspective.
The Mesharom only had one goal: to make sure galactic civilization didn’t destroy itself again. That was a cause Annette was willing to help them with.
“I am authorized to provide certain assistance in exchange for artifacts of Those Who Came Before,” the Interpreter-Captain finally told her. “Retrieving the ship would require us to drive off the Laians and the Wendira. I am prepared to commit that we will make certain that the Imperium is protected from their actions now and from retaliation for this in future.
“I can also…” A pause. Thoughtful.
The Mesharom, it seemed, never rushed to anything.
“I can also provide your BugWorks Two facility with certain schematics and specifications,” they concluded. Annette tried not to cringe. The Mesharom really shouldn’t know that facility existed, but she’d suspected the Frontier Fleet had Terra completely wired up.
“They will not be sufficient to allow you to build anything immediately,” Adamase warned, “but they should provide the groundwork for you to construct folded-hyperspace communications and…other systems.”
Annette blinked. “Folded hyperspace?”
The crystalline eyes glittered with inner light of laughter.
“The problem the Arm Powers always have is that you keep trying to miniaturize starcoms, and then wonder how we fit one into a ship that moves,” Adamase murmured. “And the truth is that we use a completely different type of communicator. Your scientists will see.
“If, of course, that is a sufficient price for you?”
The capacity to have ship-to-ship communication—hell, even just to have ship-to-planet communication—was huge. It was the biggest gap in the command-and-control loop of the Imperium, and having those communicators would all but guarantee victory in the next war against the Kanzi.
And given the attack at Hope, Annette couldn’t help but feel there was going to be a next war against the Kanzi.
“That will suffice,” she agreed levelly.
“Good. Return to your ship,” Adamase instructed. “We will meet you in Alpha Centauri.
”
#
Chapter 29
The first arrival was one of Pat’s “spoilers”. Unfortunately, whoever it was also chose to remain a mystery.
The sensor platforms scattered through the system and augmented by the Militia and Navy’s recon drones picked up the hyperspace portal, despite the attempt to hide it behind the farthest-out planet, one of the ones with an odd double loop around both of Centauri’s stars.
Unfortunately for whoever was being sneaky, Alpha Centauri AB2 had been the location of an old secret supply cache, one of the ones that had enabled Tornado’s exile years before. There wasn’t much there, but there had been no point in wasting the carefully concealed and dug-in underground facility.
AB2 hosted the central processing center for the outer-system surveillance network. It had a six-person crew, all of whom had pissed off somebody to get the job—and to protect said crew, the planet itself had been seeded with passive sensors to cover every approach.
It had been enough to pick up what had been intended to be a covert hyper portal. What those sensors hadn’t enabled, however, was to see what had come through.
“Stealth fields,” Commander Chan observed as he studied the same screen as his Admiral. “I’m starting to very much hate stealth fields.”
“I’d be a much larger fan of them if we had them,” Pat replied. “Get CIC on the reprocessing. If we can track a course for the bastard, we can send a destroyer to go say boo.
“If nothing else, I want to know whose stealth ship it is.”
It was six hours too early to be the Laians. Unfortunately, right now, that wasn’t reducing the options by nearly enough.
#
“This is Buenos Aires Actual, we are in zone delta-six and sweeping for the target.”
Pat couldn’t help but wonder when destroyer skippers had started sounding so young. Like the rest of his ship commanders, Commander Ognian Andreev had been a UESF officer before the Annexation.
Terra and Imperium (Duchy of Terra Book 3) Page 23