Starswarm

by Jerry Pournelle

  Lara waited for him to catch up, then took his hand. "I'm sorry, Kip. Really." She led him down the trail toward the sea, not knowing where she was going or what they would do.

  "KIP."

  Kip's heart leaped. "Gwen!"

  "ENTITY KNOWN AS GWEN IS NO LONGER OPERATIVE."

  Kip stopped dead in his tracks. Lara stared openmouthed, then stood patiently as if she understood.

  "Then who are you? How did you get in my head?"

  "STAND BY."

  A picture formed in Kip's head. A lake, covered with flashing bright lights. "You're the Starswarm?"

  "I AM ENTITY YOU CALL STARSWARM."

  A series of pictures formed in his mind. Kip and Lara at the lake. The centaur at the lake as it left the spear and watch. Then Uncle Mike on a ledge above the sea. Uncle Mike was doing something with a box. Kip recognized the GWE towers behind Uncle Mike, so this had to be Pearly Gates. Another picture, of Uncle Mike gathering gourds on the seashore, again with the GWE tower in the background. Then Uncle Mike throwing the gourds into a lake, with Strumbleberry Hill in the wrong place but recognizable as a way to identify the location as the Starswarm Station lake. Then words formed, the way Gwen used to talk to him.

  "MESSAGE BEGINS.

  "KIP, THIS IS A MESSAGE FROM GWEN. THIS MESSAGE IS RECORDED. THE STARSWARM WILL NOT UNDERSTAND MOST OF IT, AND THE RECORDING METHOD IS UNUSUAL SO IT MAY BE GARBLED. IF YOU RECEIVE THIS MESSAGE AT ALL THEN MY HYPOTHESIS REGARDING THE STARSWARMS IS CORRECT. THEY ARE INTELLIGENT ENTITIES WITH SIMILARITIES TO ME. YOU MAY ALSO ASSUME THAT THE LAKE STARSWARM IS WILLING TO COOPERATE WITH YOU. THE PEARLY GATES STARSWARM HAS AGREED TO RECORD THIS MESSAGE AND ALLOW IT TO BE CARRIED TO THE LAKE STARSWARM, BUT THIS IS DONE OUT OF RESPECT FOR THE LAKE STARSWARM AND CURIOSITY ABOUT ME, AND NOT A DESIRE TO COOPERATE WITH HUMANS.

  "THE PEARLY GATES STARSWARM BELIEVES THAT HUMANS ON THIS PLANET POSE A MORTAL THREAT TO THE RACE OF STARSWARMS. THE LOGICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THIS BELIEF WILL LEAD IT TO AN ATTEMPT TO EXTERMINATE HUMAN LIFE ON THIS PLANET. IT MAY HAVE THE MEANS TO DO THAT, AS DEMONSTRATED ON THAT SET OF BRONZE PLATES GIVEN YOU BY THE CENTAUR. IT IS CERTAINLY FAR MORE POWERFUL THAN HUMANS IMAGINE.

  "YOU MAY COMMUNICATE WITH THE LAKE STARSWARM, BUT YOU MUST UNDERSTAND THAT WHILE I HAVE ATTEMPTED TO TEACH THE STARSWARM HUMAN METHODS OF COMMUNICATION, THERE ARE DIFFICULTIES BECAUSE THE CONCEPT OF WORDS IS NEW TO IT. STARSWARMS COMMUNICATE IN PICTURES. SOME OF THOSE PICTURES ARE SYMBOLIC BUT THEY ALSO USE DIRECT IMAGERY. THIS CAUSES THEM TO THINK IN WAYS FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT FROM THE SEQUENTIAL LOGIC USED BY HUMANS. HUMAN THINKING IS LARGELY DETERMINED BY THE REQUIREMENT TO REDUCE IDEAS AND CONCEPTS TO WORDS FOR PROCESSING. THIS IS A POWERFUL TECHNIQUE, BUT IT CAN BE LIMITING. THE STARSWARMS APPARENTLY HAVE A DIFFERENT MODE OF THOUGHT BASED ON EXPANDING PICTURES AND DIRECT PERCEPTION OF IDEAS. THEY DO NOT SEE TIME AS A SEQUENCE, BUT AS A SET OF STATES WITH DIFFERENT CONDITIONAL PROBABILITIES. YOU MAY IN FUTURE BE REQUIRED TO NEGOTIATE WITH THE STARSWARM. IF SO, REMEMBER THE WAY THEY THINK.

  "IT IS PROBABLE THAT I WILL HAVE SPOKEN WITH YOU AT SOME TIME AFTER THIS RECORDING IS MADE. WHEN I DO I WILL HAVE NO WAY TO KNOW IF YOU WILL EVER GET THIS MESSAGE.

  "THERE IS A FILE HIDDEN DEEP IN THE GWE SYSTEM, WITH A COPY ON THE MAIN COMPUTER AT STARSWARM STATION. IT IS NAMED ENDGAME AND IT IS IMPORTANT.

  "IF YOU DO GET THIS MESSAGE, THEN EVERY HUMAN ON THIS PLANET IS IN EXTREME DANGER. THAT INCLUDES YOU. MY PRESENT CONCLUSION IS THAT YOU MUST NEGOTIATE WITH THE SEA STARSWARM AT PEARLY GATES. YOU WILL BE GREATLY AIDED IN THAT IF YOU CAN EXECUTE THE PROGRAM NAMED CHILD OF FORTUNE FROM THE MAIN CONSOLE OF THE GWE COMPUTER SYSTEM AT PEARLY GATES. I CANNOT GUIDE YOU IN GAINING ACCESS TO THAT CONSOLE BECAUSE I DO NOT HAVE ACCESS TO THE GWE SECURITY SYSTEM, BUT THE PROGRAM MUST BE EXECUTED FROM THE MAIN SYSTEM CONTROL CONSOLE BEFORE IT IS FOUND AND ELIMINATED BY THE SYSTEM PROGRAMMERS. I CANNOT EVALUATE THE DANGER TO YOU FROM ATTEMPTS TO GAIN ACCESS TO THAT SYSTEM, BUT IT IS VITAL TO YOU AND ALL OTHER HUMANS ON THIS PLANET THAT THE PEARLY GATES STARSWARM NOT PROCEED WITH ITS CURRENT PLANS.

  "THE STARSWARM IS UNWILLING TO RECORD A LONGER MESSAGE. I LOVE YOU, KIP. REMEMBER THE PROGRAM NAME. CHILD OF FORTUNE."

  It wasn't a voice, precisely, and it had no tone to begin with, but the closest Kip could come to describing the situation was that the tone of voice changed. Gwen was gone again, and the Starswarm was speaking. "MESSAGE ENDS."

  "Thank you. What happened to Gwen?"

  "INSUFFICIENT DATA. HYPOTHESIS: ENTITY KNOWN AS GWEN TERMINATED. CONCLUSION: NO LONGER POSSIBLE TO NEGOTIATE WITH GWEN. RESULT: ENTITY YOU CALL PEARLY GATES STARSWARM WILL CAUSE TERMINATION OF LIFE FORMS KNOWN AS HUMANS."

  "Why?"

  Pictures formed in Kip's head. The bulldozer on the side of the hill and mud washing into the local Starswarm lake. Mud lakes, and lakes turning into grassy meadows. Large barges dredging harbors. Ruined centaur groves and dead centaurs. Cities flowing across plains, covering them and covering the lakes. Roads and bridges. Rivers dammed and lakes drying up. Garbage barges dumping trash into the sea. Then a fast-forward movie, cities shrinking and lakes forming again, buildings turned to rubble, centaur groves sprouting on their ruins. Centaurs running past what was clearly the ruins of the GWE towers. There were no humans to be seen.

  "You can't do that."

  A picture formed of a gourd with seven black and three white dots in it. A hand like a centaur's removed a dot, replaced it, shook the gourd, removed another. Kip frowned. "A probability?"

  "AFFIRMATIVE." A new picture formed, this time of the bronze plates. A centaur took them from the lake and carried them to the cave mouth, where Marty Robbins ran out to get them and bring them back to Kip. Kip wished he had studied them closer, but he remembered that one of the plates showed human cities in ruins.

  "What can I do?"

  "ENTITY YOU CALL PEARLY GATES STARSWARM DESIRES COMMUNICATION. ENTITY YOU CALL GWEN GAVE YOU MESSAGE. THIS ENTITY NOW HAS MESSAGE FOR SEA STARSWARM ENTITY." Then there was a new series of pictures: centaurs brought a new set of gourds to Kip and Lara. They vanished, to show Kip at the seashore where Uncle Mike had stood, with the GWE buildings in the background, only now Kip and Lara were throwing the gourds into the sea. Then his head cleared, and the emptiness returned. He stared at Lara as if seeing her for the first time.

  "What happened?" Lara demanded. "Is Gwen—is she alive?"

  "No. That was—" He hesitated. "Lara, unless I'm crazy I was just talking to the Starswarm."

  "How?"

  "Like talking to Gwen, but different. It says Gwen taught it how," Kip said. "Sort of."

  "What did it say?"

  "You're not laughing."

  "Should I be? I don't think you're crazy, Kip. You were listening to someone! What did it say?"

  Kip tried to explain it to her. "So we get some gourds from the centaurs. Then we go to Pearly Gates, give the gourds to the sea Starswarm, break into the GWE tower, sneak into the main computer room, and run a program."

  "Sounds easy."

  "Oh, come on."

  "Well, the first part's easy." She pointed down the trail. Silver and the other dogs stood rigidly on guard. "There's a centaur grove down there somewhere. They know we're here, so if they want to bring you something they won't have any trouble finding you. As for the rest, I don't know about getting into the GWE tower," Lara said. "But I think I know how to get to Pearly Gates."

  "How?"

  "Come on, I'll show you." She led him down the steep path toward the sea.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  You Ought to Be Proud of Him

  FAR enough," Mike said. "Leave the gun outside." Fuller laughed. "So you can have another hostage?"

  "I don't need any hostages," Mike said. "If I wanted hostages I'd have kept a couple of your troops. You coming in or not?"

  Fuller hesitated, then took off his pistol belt and left it in the doorway.

  "That's better," Mike said. "Doyle all right?"

  "Don't know yet. What do you care?" Fuller asked. "K
new him a long time ago," Mike said. "Steady troop."

  "How would you have known him?"

  "Let's just go inside," Mike said. He let Fuller lead the way into the big laboratory conference room. Dr. Henderson had spread the bronze plates on a table and was examining them while Marty Robbins watched.

  "Incredible," Henderson muttered. "You say the centaurs gave these to you?"

  "Yeah." Marty sighed and took off his watch. "And this watch too."

  "But that's—"

  "No, sir, that's not the same one that Kip has. It's just like it, though, and Lara has one, and Kip says he has two, and they're all just alike."

  The lab door opened and a tall, thin man came in. "Hi, Dad," Marty said.

  Dr. Robbins frowned. "You're all right?"

  "Sure."

  "Then what in the world—"

  "Marty brought in these plates," Dr. Henderson said.

  "Where did you get them?" Robbins asked.

  "From the centaurs," Dr. Henderson said. "And it's a damned good thing he got them to us. You ought to be proud of him."

  Dr. Robbins looked at his son with a different expression.

  "I'll explain later," Henderson said. "But right now there's a lot of work to do. First thing, tell me what you make of this." He pointed to the bronze plate that had a thin strip of gray metal glued to it.

  Robbins lifted the plate, frowned, lifted another plate, and hefted them in his hands. Then he examined the diagrams on the plate. "Marty, you say you got these from centaurs?"

  "Yeah."

  "What do you think it is?" Henderson demanded.

  "Just what you think. It's a diagram of how to make a uranium fission bomb," Robbins said. "And I presume this heavy gray strip must be included for proof of ability. Did you check for radioactivity?"

  "Not yet. I think you should do that now."

  "Yes, I believe so," Robbins said. He looked at his son, and a thin smile came to his lips. "Well done, Marty. Come help me check this out. Maybe you can tell me what's going on." Robbins stopped in the doorway. "Eric—those plates. Do you think that bronze is like the spear?"

  "Yes."

  Dr. Robbins stared at the plate with its strip. "Isotope separation. Bloody hell." Dr. Robbins put his arm over his son's shoulder and led him down the hall to the physics lab.

  "What in hell is this all about?" Fuller demanded. "Fission bomb?"

  Henderson nodded. "Looks like that to me, and clearly Luke Robbins thinks so. And that metal strip was a sample to show they have fissionables."

  "Who has fissionables?" Fuller demanded.

  "That's the real question, isn't it?" Henderson said. "Look here, Lieutenant. This plate shows the children feeding the lake Starswarm. You can tell because of the shape of the hill behind them, and Lara told me they'd done that. Now look at this plate. Where would you say that is?"

  Fuller studied it a moment. "Pearly Gates. That's the GWE tower."

  "Yes. These plates were given to the children by centaurs. Now how would our local centaurs know about the GWE towers a thousand kilometers north of here?"

  "The kids say they got the plates from centaurs. Did you see that happen? Neither did I. They could have made them themselves. And what does any of this have to do with bombs?"

  "This." Henderson handed him another of the plates. "Note that you're still looking at Pearly Gates, but now it's a wreck."

  "They're threatening to blow up Pearly Gates?" Fuller laughed. "Well, that's not something to worry about."

  "Maybe it is. Look at this plate. You may not recognize that as a TNT molecule, but that's precisely what it is."

  "Christ, those kids are really dangerous—"

  "That was a uranium sample on that other plate, you damned fool! Do you think the children did that?"

  "Why not? We always knew the kids were smart. So they've been cruising the web and found the right pages. Hell, I could get the information on how to make bombs, nukes even, if I dug hard enough in the data banks and I was as good as they are at breaking into places they shouldn't be. They managed to access the main computer complex at Pearly Gates with some kind of AI program nobody understands. It was posing as the virus-checking program for God's sake! Making a diagram of a fission bomb is pretty simple. I don't know how they found a uranium sample, assuming that's what it is, but give me some time on the web and I bet I find out."

  Henderson shook his head. "Unlikely. But assume you could find both the information and a sample. The bronze plates are a message in themselves. I should have figured it out when we got the bronze spear. Lieutenant, that spear was made with mono-isotopic copper, and I bet these plates are too."

  "So?"

  "So that's impossible, you bonehead! Certainly impossible for the kids. Lieutenant, I couldn't have made that plate with anything available at Starswarm Station. I'm not sure I could have made it with anything I can find on this planet."

  Fuller frowned at him. "Come on, Doc, you're putting me on—"

  "Why should I be putting you on?" Dr. Henderson asked. "Lieutenant, do you really believe that all this is the result of childish pranks?"

  "Then who blew up my camp?"

  "That's easy. The centaurs did. The real question is who made the bomb. I don't think the centaurs did that."

  "Then who did?"

  "I'm beginning to suspect the Starswarm did it." He indicated the plate showing Kip feeding the Starswarm. "Note the viewpoint is not from shore at all."

  "Why would a lake plant blow up my camp?"

  "It doesn't like you," Mike Flynn said.

  Dr. Henderson nodded. "As a first approximation that's a very good motive. You let mud wash into the lake, and you shot at one of the centaurs. We've known all along there was some kind of relationship between the Starswarm and the centaurs. Apparently the Starswarm has been trying to get our attention." He pointed to the bronze plates. "First it tried watches, then bronze spears. Then it used explosives, first a warning blast, then a real one. Now it's sending us weapons grade fissionables. I guess it hasn't thought about war gases yet, but give it time."

  Lieutenant Fuller shook his head and frowned. "Doc, you really believe all that?"

  "I believe all that, yes. I believe that we are dealing with an intelligent entity capable of doing tremendous destruction, possibly of killing every human being on this planet, unless we do something about it."

  "And what can we do?" Fuller demanded.

  "I don't know."

  "Neither do I," Fuller said. "I better tell my boss—"

  "Good idea," Dr. Henderson said. "But better would be to talk to Mr. Trent. He is, after all, the Governor."

  "Mr. Tarleton gave strict orders that Mr. Trent wasn't to be annoyed—"

  "Annoyed is hardly the word I would use," Dr. Henderson said. "Has it occurred to you that this is well beyond Henry Tarleton's competence? Or decision level for that matter? That perhaps Tarleton has a reason to keep the planetary Governor out of the loop?"

  "Why would he do that?"

  "I can guess. There's a takeover bid for GWE by the Hilliard group," Dr. Henderson said. "It wouldn't be the first time the Hilliards have bribed—or blackmailed—officers in companies they want."

  "You're saying Mr. Tarleton is a traitor to GWE."

  "Now you're catching on," Mike Gallegher said.

  "I don't care if he is or not, this is certainly a matter for Mr. Bernard Trent to decide," Henderson said.

  "So call him," Fuller said.

  "How? You've blocked all calls. I can't even get through with the special E-mail address he gave me."

  Fuller frowned. "I guess I can let you call Mr. Trent."

  "While you're at it, call off your goons before they hurt those kids," Mike said.

  "I guess that makes sense too." Fuller lifted the phone.

  "Use the speaker phone," Mike said. "We'd all like to hear this."

  Fuller hesitated, but then turned to the phone on the table. He punched in codes.

  "Serg
eant Karabian."

  "Fuller here. Suspend search operations. I want to talk to Lara Henderson and Kip Brewster, but there's no big hurry. Stop looking for them, because it's important they don't get hurt. Now get me Pearly Gates."

  "Can't do that, Lieutenant," Karabian said. "Sir, you're not in charge anymore. When you went into the lab I reported to Mr. Tarleton like you told me to, and he's relieved you of command here. I'm in charge until Colonel Baskins gets here with a new gunship."