The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25

by Gardner Dozois

  “I suggest you concentrate your mobile reserve around the antenna.”

  “Why do you advise that?”

  “I believe the antenna is their primary objective. They will try to destroy your connection with your orbiter if they break through the hedge.”

  “Why will they make the antenna their primary objective? Our plans assume their primary objectives will be our energy transmission network and our primary processing units.”

  “Can you defend yourself if you lose contact with your orbiter?”

  “Yes.”

  Betzino-Resdell had paused before it had answered. It had been a brief pause – an almost undetectable flicker, by the standards of organic personalities – but his brain had learned to recognize the minute signals a machine threw out.

  He had been assuming Betzino-Resdell’s operations were still controlled by the orbiter. He had assumed the unit on the ground transmitted information and received instructions when the orbiter passed over. That might have been true in the beginning. By now, Betzino-Resdell could have transmitted complete copies of itself to the ground. The ground copies could be the primaries. The copies on the orbiter could be the backups.

  “Are you assuming you can keep operating on the ground if you stop this attack and they destroy the antenna? And build a new antenna in the future?”

  “. . . Yes.”

  “What if that doesn’t work out? Isn’t there some possibility your rival could gain strength and destroy your new antenna before you can finish it?”

  “Why are you emphasizing the antenna? Do you have some information we don’t have?”

  I have an important message I want to transmit to your home planet. The future of your entire species could depend on it.

  “I was thinking about the individuals who sent you. Your explorations won’t be of much value to them if you can’t communicate with your orbiter.”

  “Our first priority is the survival of our surface capability. Our simulations indicate we can survive indefinitely and could eventually re-establish contact with our orbiter. Do you have information that indicates we should reassess our priorities?”

  Revutev Mavarka tipped back his head. His hands pressed against the thick, deliberately ragged feathers that adorned the sides of his face. He was communicating with the visitor through a voice-only link, as always. He didn’t have to hide his emotions behind the bland mask the serenes offered the world.

  “I’ve given you the best advice I can give you at present. I recommend that you place a higher priority on the antenna.”

  “He’s still struggling with his conflicts,” Varosa Uman said. “He could have given them a stronger argument.”

  She had turned to Siti again. She could still hear the exhortations she was receiving from her aides but she had switched off her own vocal feed.

  “Mansita Jano would probably say he’s watching two personalities struggle with their internal conflicts,” Siti said.

  Varosa Uman’s display had adapted the same color scheme Revutev Mavarka was watching. The white markers had reached the long slope in front of the ditch. The three columns were converging into a single mass. Winged creatures were fighting over the space above their backs.

  “It looks like they’re starting their final assault,” Siti said. “Do you have any idea what kind of fearsome warriors your white markers represent?”

  “They seem to be a horde of small four-legged animals native to the visitor’s planet. They breed very fast. And they have sharp teeth and claws.”

  “They’re going to bite their way through the hedge? With one of them dying every time they take a bite?”

  “That seems to be the plan.”

  Revutev Mavarka stepped up to the display and waved his hand over the area covered by the white markers.

  “Calculation. Estimate number of organisms designated by white marking.”

  A number floated over the display. The horde racing up the slope contained, at most, six thousand four hundred animals.

  The three columns had merged into a single dense mass. He could see the entire assault force. The estimate had to be correct.

  He activated his connection to Betzino-Resdell. “I have an estimate of six thousand four hundred for the assault force. Does that match your estimate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your calculations still indicate the attack will fail?”

  “Four thousand will die biting their way through the hedge. The rest will be overwhelmed by our defensive force.”

  Machines were only machines. Imagination required conscious, self-aware minds. Adventurous self-aware minds. But they were talking about a straightforward calculation. Trans Cultural had to know its attack couldn’t succeed.

  “Can you think of any reason why Trans Cultural has launched this attack at this time?” Revutev Mavarka said. “Is there some factor you haven’t told me about?”

  “We have examined all the relevant factors stored in our libraries. We have only detected one anomaly. They are advancing on a wider front than our simulations recommend. Do you know of any reason why they would do that?”

  “How much wider is it?”

  “Over one third.”

  “Do they have a military routine comparable to yours?”

  “We have made no assumptions about the nature of their military routine.”

  Revutev Mavarka stared at the display. Would the attackers be easier to defeat if they were spread out? Would they be more vulnerable if they were compacted into a tight mass? There must be some optimum combination of width and density. Could he be certain Betzino-Resdell’s military routine had made the right calculation?

  How much secret help had Trans Cultural received?

  “One member of our community still wants to know why you think we should place a higher priority on the antenna,” Betzino-Resdell said. “She insists that we ask you again.”

  The first white markers had leaped into the ditch. Paws were churning under the water. Betzino-Resdell’s defenders were spreading out behind the hedge, to cover the extra width of the assault.

  Transmit this message to your home planet at once. The Message you will receive from our civilization is a dangerous trap. It contains the combined knowledge of twenty-three civilizations, translated into the languages you have given us. It will give you untold wealth, life without death, an eternity of comfort and ease. But that is only the promise. It will throw your entire civilization into turmoil when you try to absorb its gifts. You may never recover. The elimination of death is particularly dangerous. The Message is not a friendly act. We are sending it to you for the same reason it was sent to us. To protect ourselves. To defend ourselves against the disruption you will cause if we remain in contact.

  It was a deliberately short preliminary alarm. They would have the whole text in their storage banks half an eyeblink after he subvocalized the code that would activate transmission. A longer follow-up, with visual details of the Turbulence, would take two more blinks.

  The initiation code consisted of two short numbers and three unrelated words from three different extinct languages – a combination he couldn’t possibly confuse with anything else he might utter.

  Would they believe it? Would the people who received it on the human world dismiss it because it came from a vehicle that had been assembled by a group of individuals who were probably just as marginal and unrepresentative as the eccentric who sent the warning?

  Some of them might dismiss it. Some of them might believe it. Did it matter? Something unpredictable would be added to the situation – something the Integrators and Varosa Uman would have to face knowing they were taking risks and struggling with unknowns no matter what they did.

  The animals in the front line of the assault force had reached the hedge. White markers covered a section of the ditch from side to side. Teeth were biting into poisoned stems.

  The hedge wavered. The section in front of the assault force shook as if it had been pummeled by a sudden wind
. A wall of dust rose into the air.

  Varosa Uman would have given Mansita Jano an immediate burst of praise if she could have admitted she knew he was responsible. She had understood what he’d done as soon as she realized the hedge was sinking into the ground.

  There would be no evidence they had helped Trans Cultural. Some individuals might suspect it but the official story would be believable enough. Trans Cultural had somehow managed to undermine the ground under the hedge. An explosion had collapsed the mine at the best possible time and the defenders were being taken by surprise.

  The assault force still had to cross the ruins of the hedge but they had apparently prepared a tactic. The front rank died and the next rank clambered over them. Line by line, body by body, the animals extended a carpet over the gap. Most of them would make it across. Betzino-Resdell’s defenders would be outnumbered.

  Trans Cultural couldn’t have dug the mine. They didn’t have the resources to dig the mine while they were preparing the attack. Revutev Mavarka could prove it. But would anyone believe him?

  The first white markers had crossed the ditch. The front ranks were ripping at each other with teeth and claws. Flyers struggled in the dust above the collapse.

  White markers began to penetrate the copper masses. The mobile reserve retreated toward the installations that housed Betzino-Resdell’s primary processing units.

  A white column emerged from the hedge on the right end of the line – the end closest to the antenna. It turned toward the antenna and started gathering speed.

  “Defend the antenna. You must defend the antenna.”

  “What are you hiding from us? You must give us more information. What is happening? Trans Cultural couldn’t have dug that mine. They didn’t have the resources.”

  Revutev Mavarka stared at the white markers scurrying toward the antenna. Could Betzino-Resdell’s mobile reserve get there in time if they responded to his pleas? Would it make any difference?

  The antenna was doomed. The best defense they could put up would buy him, at best, a finite, slightly longer interval of indecision.

  Two numbers.

  Three words.

  Blip.

  “You must destroy the antenna,” Mansita Jano said. “He’s given you all the excuse you need.”

  Varosa Uman had already given the order. She had placed a missile on standby when Trans Cultural had launched its attack. Revutev Mavarka had committed the unforgivable act. She could take any action she deemed necessary.

  The missile rose out of an installation she had planted on an island in the lake. Police advanced on Revutev Mavarka’s apartment. The image on his display stage disappeared. Jammers and switches cut every link that connected him to the outside world.

  Three of the Betzino-Resdell programs voted to transmit Donald’s message at once. Ivan argued for transmission on impeccable military grounds. Donald had told them they should defend the antenna. He had obviously given them the message because he believed the antenna was about to be destroyed. They must assume, therefore, that the antenna was about to be destroyed. They could evaluate the message later.

  Betzino raised objections. Could they trust Donald? Did they have enough information?

  They argued for 11.7 seconds. At 11.8 seconds they transmitted the message to their backup transmission route. At 11.9 seconds, Varosa Uman’s missile shattered the surface of the antenna and melted most of the metal veneer.

  Varosa Uman had been searching for the alternate transmission route ever since Revutev Mavarka had told Betzino-Resdell it should create it. It couldn’t be hidden forever. It had to include a second antenna and the antenna had to be located along the track the orbiter traced across the surface of the planet.

  But it wouldn’t expose itself until it was activated. It could lie dormant until the moment it transmitted. It could store a small amount of energy and expend it in a single pulse.

  “Neutralize their orbiter,” Mansita Jano said. “Isolate it.”

  Varosa Uman checked the track of the Betzino-Resdell orbiter. It had completed over half its orbit.

  “And what happens when we give Trans Cultural the Message?” Varosa Uman asked. “After we’ve committed an overtly hostile act?”

  “You’ve already committed an overtly hostile act. Trans Cultural knows my emissary had some kind of covert official support. Why are you hesitating, Overseer? What is your problem?”

  Machines might be unimaginative but they were thorough. Ivan had designed the backup transmission route and he had built in all the redundancy he could squeeze out of the resources his colleagues had given him. Three high-speed, low-visibility airborne devices set off in three different directions as soon as they received the final message from the base. One stopped twelve kilometers from its starting point and relayed the message to a transmitter built into the highest tree on a small rise. The transmitter had been sucking energy from the tree’s biochemistry for three years. It responded by concentrating all that accumulated energy into a single blip that shot toward a transmitter stored in a winged scavenger that circled over a grassy upland.

  Varosa Uman’s surveillance routine had noted the flying scavenger and stored it in a file that included several hundred items of interest. It picked up the blip as soon as the scavenger relayed it and narrowed the area in which its patrols were working their search patterns. A flyer that resembled a terrestrial owl suicide-bombed the hidden antenna half a second before the blip reached it.

  The other two high-speed airborne devices veered toward the northern and southern edges of the orbiter’s track. Relays emitted their once-in-a-lifetime blasts and settled into permanent quiet.

  The antenna located along the northern edge of the track succumbed to a double suicide by two slightly faster updates of the owlish suicider. The third antenna picked up the orbiter as the little ball raced over a dense forest. It fulfilled its destiny twenty seconds before a prepositioned missile splashed a corrosive liquid over the electronic veneer the antenna had spread across an abandoned nest.

  Revutev Mavarka went into dormancy as if he was going to his death. He said goodbye to his closest friends. He crammed his detention quarters with images of his favorite scenes and events. He even managed to arrange a special meal and consume it with deliberate pleasure before they emptied out his stomach.

  The only omission was a final statement to the public. A private message from Varosa Uman had curtailed his deliberations in that area. Don’t waste your time, the Situation Overseer had said, and he had accepted her advice with the melancholy resignation of someone who knew his conscious life had to be measured in heartbeats, not centuries.

  Four armed guards escorted him to his dormancy unit. A last pulse of fear broke through his self-control when he felt the injector touch his bare shoulder.

  The top of the unit swung back. Varosa Uman looked down at him. Technicians were removing the attachments that connected him to the support system.

  “Please forgive our haste,” Varosa Uman said. “There will be no permanent damage.”

  There were no windows in the room. The only decoration was a street-level cityscape that filled the wall directly in front of him. He was still lying on the medical cart that had trundled him through a maze of corridors and elevator rides but Varosa Uman’s aides had raised his upper body and maneuvered him into a bulky amber wrapper before they filed out of the room.

  “You’re still managing the Visitation, Overseer?”

  “The Integrators won’t budge,” Varosa Uman said. “The Principals keep putting limits on my powers but they can’t get rid of me.”

  He had been dormant for one hundred and three years. He had asked her as soon as he realized he was coming out of dormancy and she had handed him the information while they were working the wrapper around the tubes and wires that connected him to the cart.

  “I’ve spent much of the last ten years trying to convince the Overseers they should let me wake you,” Varosa Uman said. “I got you out of there
as soon as they gave me permission.”

  “Before they changed their mind?”

  A table with a flagon and a plate of food disks sat beside the cart. He reached for a disk and she waited while he put it in his mouth and savored his first chew.

  “You want something from me,” he said.

  “The two visitors still have bases on the third moon of Widial – complete with backup copies of all their subunits. I want to contact them with an offer. We will try to guide their species through the Turbulence – try to help them find responses that will reduce the havoc. It’s an idea I had earlier. I had a study group explore it. But I fell back into the pattern we’ve all locked into our reactions.”

  The men strolling through the cityscape were wearing tall hats and carrying long poles – a fashion that had no relation to anything Revutev Mavarka had encountered in any of the millennia he had lived through.

  One hundred and three years. . . .

  “There are things we can tell them,” Varosa Uman said. “We can end the cycle of attack and isolation every civilization in our section of the galaxy seems to be trapped in.”

  “You’re raising an obvious question, Overseer.”

  “I want you to join me when I approach the visitors. I need support from the Adventurer community.”

  “And you think they’ll fall in behind me?”

  “Some of them will. Some of them hate you just as much as most serenes hate you. But you’re a hero to forty percent of them. And the data indicate most of the rest should be recruitable.”

  He raised his arms as if he was orating in front of an audience. Tubes dangled from his wrists.

  “Serenes and Adventurers will join together in a grand alliance! And present the humans with a united species!”

  “I couldn’t offer the humans a united front if every Adventurer on the planet joined us. We aren’t a united species anymore. We stopped being a united species when you sent your warning.”