Darkness Falling

by Ian Douglas

Except that it was anything but.

  Damn, he hated these joint political deliberations.

  They sat around a large, magnetically levitated table floating within the Grand Amphitheater, a kind of stadium located by the Government Center close to Seattle. Surrounded by parkland and open forest curving gently up to either side, the Amphitheater provided an open-air venue for public meetings and town halls, sports events, and festivals. A long, narrow window set into the curve of the habitat surface looked out into space; every couple of minutes the gold-ocher glare of Ki passed through the opening as the starboard hab turned.

  Seating for several hundred had been grown in concentric circles about the central table, around which several dozen council members and their aides and secretaries were seated. St. Clair was not, properly speaking, a member of the Council, but he was there to represent the Navy, with Symms, his executive commander, beside him as his assistant.

  At least they’d gone through the motions of asking him to attend the deliberations . . . even if it sounded as though their minds were already made up.

  “Is everything alright, Lord Commander?” Lloyd asked from across the table.

  “As fine as it can be,” St. Clair replied, “in the middle of a palace coup.”

  “Don’t take it like that, Grayson,” Kallista DePaul told him. “We know you were having trouble with Lord Adler before his . . . ah . . . breakdown. This will smooth things considerably.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” St. Clair replied. “When it comes to government, a little sand in the gears can be a good thing. Governments that work too quickly, too smoothly, terrify me.”

  “Damned anarchist,” Jeffery Benton muttered, but he was grinning at St. Clair as he said it, apparently trying to rob the words of sting. St. Clair wasn’t sure how well that attempt worked.

  “The Imperial system was designed for efficiency, Lord Commander,” Hsien said. “We suggest that you accommodate yourself to the present day.”

  St. Clair bit off a sharp reply. The Cybercouncil was well aware of his republican sentiments—republican in its original sense of representative government—limited government—and a keen mistrust of Imperial decree. And though it chafed, he wasn’t about to try to argue politics with a tableful of Imperialists.

  “Efficiency is all well and good,” St. Clair admitted. “I just don’t want to see anyone run down in efficiency’s name.”

  At the head of the table, Ambassador Lloyd shifted, looking annoyed. “If we might return to the meeting agenda . . .” he said.

  “Yes, my lord,” Gressman said. “As I was saying, this council has formally accepted Lord Adler’s resignation. I’m sure all here join with me in wishing him a happy and well-deserved retirement. . . .”

  St. Clair glanced around the amphitheater as several Cybercouncil members gave brief paeans in Adler’s memory. The encircling rows of ascending bleacher seats were filled with silently watching audience members, and he knew that many more were linked in electronically. The ones he could see didn’t seem distressed at Adler’s ouster. Maybe that was a good sign.

  Of course, there were battle-armored Marines standing at each entrance to the seating area—security requested by the Cybercouncil before the meeting. That might have something to do with why the audience was so quiet.

  “Christ,” Symms said to him over a private channel, head-to-head. “They’re talking about the guy like he was dead!”

  “I’d say that he is, politically,” St. Clair replied over the same link. “At least so far as this crowd is concerned.”

  Eventually, though, the meeting shifted over to the main agenda point, which was discussing Tellus Ad Astra’s new relationship with the Cooperative. “Lord Lloyd is the hero of the hour,” Gressman told the crowd. “At great personal risk he has engaged the Cooperative leadership in a highly productive exchange, and guaranteed safety for our human community for the foreseeable future.”

  “Oh, please . . .” Symms said.

  The watching crowd cheered . . . a roar of noise that seemed just a bit too scripted. St. Clair had a feeling that most of those in the audience had been handpicked, and something clicked.

  “I’ve finally got it,” he told her. “This whole spectacle is just for show.”

  “You only figured that out now, my lord?” she said. “What the hell took you so long?”

  “Give me some slack,” he told her. “I’m military. I’m not used to the political memegineering.”

  She gave him a strange look. “Really? What the hell planet are you from? This is the Navy!”

  He smiled. She was right, of course. Above a certain rank, the military—the Navy especially—was pure, unalloyed politics, and who you knew or whose butt you kissed was far more important than your experience or your record. As a ship commander—the equivalent of the old rank of captain—St. Clair had just entered the Navy’s political hierarchy. He’d actually congratulated himself a few weeks ago for having neatly avoided the need for politics as he climbed the career ladder into flag rank. His celebration, it appeared, had been premature.

  “Lord Commander?”

  St. Clair blinked. He’d missed Ander Gressman’s question.

  “I beg your pardon, my lord?”

  “I said, Lord Commander, what is your assessment of this Bluestar thing?”

  “Ah. Excuse the lack of attention. I was accessing something.” At least he was prepared with an answer of sorts, though it wasn’t going to be what the Council wanted to hear. “The Astrophysics Department has been studying IO-1 closely. Dr. Sandoval tells me that it is not a ship, not a mobile world, not a powered artifact of any kind with which we are familiar. It is approaching at near-light speed, which, of course, means it may be almost upon us now.”

  “How is that possible?” Benton demanded.

  “The object, whatever it is, is traveling so swiftly that it is just behind the photons that revealed it.”

  “Meaning it’s closer than it appears.”

  “Exactly, my lord. Much closer.”

  “Well then,” Hsien said, “what is it?”

  “We have no idea, my lord. The best guess from the astrophysics people is that it’s a kind of a node—a topological intersection, perhaps—of dark matter currents.”

  “Again, please? In English?”

  “I don’t think I can explain more clearly than that,” St. Clair said. “I asked Na Lal about it when he showed it to me, and didn’t understand the reply.”

  “Maybe we can help you figure it out,” Kallista DePaul said. “What did he tell you?”

  St. Clair ignored the barb and spread his hands, trying to find words that made sense. “He talked about ‘higher dimensional interstices’ and ‘five dimensional topoforms,’ my lady. He seemed to be trying to describe a kind of current in space, a current within the dark matter that surrounds the galaxies. The glow is generated by several currents merging together. The Dhalat K’graal apparently use currents like this as a way to transmit information and as shortcuts across vast distances. Na Lal indicated that what we’re seeing may be the prelude to a new attack.”

  “Dhalat K’graal,” Aren Reinholdt said. “That’s ‘Minds from Higher Angles’?”

  “That’s how Newton translates it, my lord. The things that materialize out of higher dimensions. The thing that killed some of our people . . . and drove Lord Adler insane.”

  “A moment, please,” Gressman said. He gestured. “My lords? My ladies? Private link . . .”

  The circle of Cybercouncil members went into a closed, in-head conference, and St. Clair smiled. He was pretty sure that the public meeting in the amphitheater had been intended to reassure the colony’s general population, especially in the wake of Adler’s abrupt removal from the government. The news that the Minds from Higher Angles might return at any moment was not exactly reassuring, however, and he could imagine those watching were not quite cheering at the appointed times.

  Worse, the Council members had seemed so damned p
leased about forging an alliance with the Cooperative, but clearly Lloyd had never bothered to ask what form the human part of the alliance was supposed to take. Which left St. Clair wondering how was the colony supposed to fight against something that could pop out of empty space and drive people mad?

  “Lord Commander St. Clair,” Lloyd said with disconcerting abruptness.

  “My lord?”

  “We require of you two things.”

  St. Clair suppressed a ripple of anger at that. The assumption that the Cybercouncil now ruled Tellus Ad Astra rather than the Navy despite the current threat was, he felt, as premature as it was arrogant. The thought that Lloyd could require anything from St. Clair was bordering on antagonistic.

  “And those are?”

  “First: As you and I have discussed before, we are assigning a political officer to your bridge. Lord Noyer?”

  A large, bearded man in formal white robes seated across the table from St. Clair nodded, then winked at Symms. St. Clair’s eyes widened. God no. Not him. . . .

  “Gorton Noyer,” Lloyd went on, “is ex-Navy. He understands military protocol and the chain of command of a starship bridge, and he has served in combat. We have formally reactivated his former rank of Lord Commander Second Rank—”

  “This was approved by the Navy Department?” St. Clair snapped, interrupting.

  “Of course not,” Lloyd snapped. “The Navy Department is 4 billion years gone, like everything else of Earth.”

  “The UE Imperial Cybercouncil is the official government instrumentality for all that is left now of Humankind,” Reinholdt added, “and as such has the authority to issue this order. Do you have a problem with that, Lord Commander?”

  St. Clair hesitated. If the Cybercouncil was assuming the Imperial Navy Department’s executive authority, it would not hesitate to remove him from command if they didn’t like his answer. There was no higher authority to which he could appeal, and the only way to fight an order would be open mutiny.

  “No, my lord. No problem.”

  “Good,” Lloyd said, nodding as though satisfied. “Lord Noyer will not interfere with the running of your bridge. He will be there strictly in a supervisory capacity, to make certain that the Cybercouncil’s orders are carried out, and that the broad framework of Council policy is respected. If anything happens to you, he will assume command.”

  St. Clair wondered if there was an implied threat there. If he disobeyed an order, would Noyer shoot him and take command? St. Clair was pretty sure that was the impression Lloyd meant to convey.

  “Grayson!” Vanessa Symms said in his mind over the private channel.

  “Not now,” he thought back. “It’s okay.”

  “Do you understand, Lord Commander?” Lloyd asked.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “Next . . . we need to know more about the Bluestar object. We suggest that you park the Tellus colony in a safe orbit outside the Ki Ring, and investigate the object with the auxiliary vessels at your command. We further suggest that you leave one—” he glanced over as Benton coughed politely “—no, two of your heavy Marine auxiliaries with the colony as security.”

  St. Clair scowled. The man didn’t know what he was talking about. He glanced across at Noyer, who gave him a contented smile and the slightest of nods.

  “I will . . . take that under advisement, my lord,” St. Clair said with careful deliberation. Lloyd’s expression darkened and he started to say something in reply, but St. Clair spoke first. “This will be a military operation, my lord, a reconnaissance in force, and that by the terms of the expedition charter puts the planning and deployment firmly under my authority.”

  “Within limits, Lord St. Clair. Within certain very important limits.”

  The only limits are that I’m currently stuck in Tellus, and don’t want to be removed from command right now because I disagree. But the law is very clear: military decisions are mine and mine alone, and I’m not going to put the colony in danger by relinquishing that duty to you.

  But, again, St. Clair said nothing.

  Lloyd slowly looked around the table at the others. “Other business?”

  There was none.

  “This meeting is adjourned.”

  “Are you going to stand for that, my lord?” Symms said as the meeting broke up, with colony legislators standing and talking in small groups as the audience filed out.

  “I don’t see that we have a lot of choice, Van,” St. Clair told her. “By law, the military is subordinate to the civil authority.”

  “We’re making our own law, my lord. At least, they are. Or haven’t you noticed?”

  “I am not going to overthrow the government, Executive Commander,” he told her. He glanced around at the others, making sure none were close enough to have heard her. “And I’ll pretend that I didn’t hear you say that.”

  She sighed. “Thank you, sir. It’s not my intent to incite you to mutiny. But, damn it, where do they get off playing their little power games?”

  “Newton will keep them in line,” St. Clair said. “I rather suspect that he’s on our side.” He turned away, moving toward the nearest exit.

  “Where are you going, my lord?”

  “To talk to Newton.”

  “About this meeting?”

  “Well, yes—I’ll want him to organize a meeting of ship commanders, and begin working out a plan for our recon deployment. But, actually, there’s something else.”

  “My lord?”

  “I’m extremely worried about . . . someone.” And he strode off.

  Gunnery Sergeant Roger Kilgore let go of a long, heartfelt, and appreciative breath. “God, that was good!” he said.

  Kilgore and Lisa lay naked in a tangle of arms and legs in the bed. The hostel was located in the woods a few kilometers outside of New Hope, and offered rooms for hikers enjoying the Port Hab’s Crescent Lakes region. The room’s viewall looked out over the steeply rising hills of the port module’s forward hub, thickly forested at this level. A waterfall spilled from the endcap rocks high above and vanished into the thick mists filling the spectacular gorge below.

  For Lisa, the view was simple engineering. Kilgore, though, had gone on and on about how hard it was to remember that all of this was man-made. Did humans always have this much trouble with their memories?

  “I’m glad you enjoyed it,” she told him.

  “How about you? Did you enjoy it?”

  “Of course.”

  “I mean, you being a robot and everything. . . .”

  “I am capable of feeling pleasure, Roger. I can’t be certain, of course, that what I feel is the same qualitatively as what others feel . . . but, then, neither can you.”

  “A philosopher and a robot,” he said approvingly. He hesitated. “Uh . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “Can I see you again? I mean . . . like this?”

  “I may not be available soon.”

  “You mean you’re going back to . . . him?”

  “To Grayson St. Clair. Possibly. I haven’t decided yet. I wish to explore the full depth and scope of my freedom.”

  “Meaning you don’t want to get tied down to a broken-down old Marine gunny?”

  “Meaning I haven’t decided yet what I want to do. I find something incredibly liberating about that . . . about not knowing. Tomorrow might bring anything.”

  “Most humans prefer to have some certainty about tomorrow.”

  “Perhaps. I suspect you simply would rather not have to struggle to get what you need—food, shelter, sex—and are happiest when you know your basic needs are taken care of. We live, however, in a post-scarcity society.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “In the Tellus colony, with basic nanotrophic technology, food allowances are free and abundant. You pay only for gourmet meals or for elaborate service. The climate is controlled, and hostels like this one are free for the asking, so shelter is not an issue.”

  He reached out and caressed her left breas
t. “Yeah? How about sex? You said sex was one of the things us benighted humans struggle for.”

  “You do seem to spend a lot of time worrying about it,” she told him. She responded to his caress by sliding her hand up his thigh, a sensual exploration. “But in my experience, so long as you get out and mix with other people, physical pairings pretty much take care of themselves.” She squeezed. “Like this. . . .”

  “Ah! Yes. I see what you mean. . . .”

  “You don’t feel very broken-down, Roger.”

  “It’s the nanochelation. Building bigger, stronger Marines through the marvels of modern bioengineering.”

  “You’re cybernetically enhanced?”

  “Not there,” he said with a laugh. “But they plated out a mesh of titanium and plastic around my bones, bioengineered my musculature, gave me enhanced senses and reaction times, pumped my circulatory system full of Freitas respirocytes . . . yeah, they made a new man out of me.”

  “Perhaps you and I aren’t that different.”

  He continued caressing her. “Sure feels like soft, warm human skin. . . .”

  “It’s designed to. I take it the respirocytes give you enhanced endurance?”

  “Yup. Artificial red cells that carry 236 times as much oxygen as a natural blood cell. Lets me sprint at top speed for fifteen minutes without even taking a breath.”

  She pulled him closer. “Let’s test that out, shall we?”

  Their mutual explorations became more urgent once again. Then, abruptly, Roger pulled back. “Damn!”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Sorry, babe. A platoon in-head just came through.”

  “What is it?”

  “Sounds like the Marines are gonna have to go to work. . . .”

  “Damn it, Newton. I know you can do it!”

  St. Clair was back in his office, reclining in the massive chair as he linked through to the colony’s primary AI. Two galaxies of stars filled the overhead display, merging, and between them, highlighted by computer graphics, shone a tiny star with an actinic blue hue.

  But St. Clair wasn’t thinking about the Bluestar. Not at the moment.

  “Lord Commander,” Newton said, “I believe you are as aware as anyone within this colony of the ethical considerations at risk here. As an emancipated robotic being, Lisa has the same rights to privacy that humans do. She is not taking in-head calls at the moment. And I will not tell you where she is.”