James P. Hogan

by Migration

  “Wisely said, Tek. But it is not my pledge that I offer. Would you accept the word of Banker Lareda, who speaks in turn for the Archbanker Sorba?”

  The pause before Tek answered was noticeable enough for Korshak to know he had made an impact. “The banker himself? Indeed, that would be a certification of authenticity that could not be ignored – if it were the signed original. But I see the trick. You will tell me I have to activate my receiver circuit for the banker. Thus would I be undone.”

  Korshak flipped his audio to local long enough to murmur at Vogol. “This is it.”

  “Ready and primed. We have the beam locked on him,” Vogol confirmed.

  Korshak switched back to Tek. “Remote communication is not necessary. The eventuality was anticipated, and the proof that you desire is already there with you now.”

  The tilting of the head beneath the hooded cape captured the human mannerism perfectly. “How so?”

  “Was it not Banker Lareda personally who provided you with the cape of concealment that you wear?”

  “It was.”

  “And did Banker Lareda himself not arrange for it to be made in the workshops on Etanne?”

  “To my knowledge, it was so.”

  “Then I will reveal to you now, Tek, that Dollar, in His wisdom, even then inspired the banker to have written into that creation the confirmation that it was known you would require.”

  Tek’s befuddlement again resulted in a hesitation that was palpable. “I do not comprehend the terms of this contract,” it returned finally.

  “The name that it was agreed would be the sign of Dollar’s true Messenger is still known to you, is it not?” Korshak sent.

  “It is.”

  “Look then carefully among the folds of the garment that Banker Lareda commanded be made. And there you will find the proof that cannot be denied.”

  “Thus you would distract my attention while you move to thwart my design.”

  “Your hand is poised, and no move could be swift enough. But the moment is not yet.” Korshak opened his arms out and then folded them stolidly on his chest. “Search for the sign, Tek.”

  The robot looked down hesitantly, then quickly up again for a moment as if to check. It loosened a side of the cape from its attachment, turned it over, and began examining along the edge, glancing up every few seconds – but the robed figure of Kog continued watching and waiting impassively. And then Tek came to a corner, opened a fold to examine something more closely, finally raising it before its face and staring at it wonderingly.

  In accordance with his lifelong custom of endorsing his creations, Korshak had signed his name at a place where two of the seams came together. But it wouldn’t have done to leave evidence of his true identity lying around, so he had signed it SHAKOR.

  “I, who was chosen, doubted! Can it ever be absolved?”

  “Ask not me, but He who awaits your answer.”

  Vogol came through. “The beam’s registering! He’s opening up.”

  “Go for it!” Lubanov snapped.

  Tek felt the same overpowering sense of possession that had come over it in the viewing gallery on Etanne. The robot just had time to surrender to the blissful sensation of ecstasy sweeping through its being before commands coming in over the NC beam overrode its internal functions, and the consciousness that it had been experiencing ceased.

  FORTY

  A site tug carrying a dozen suited engineers and technical specialists arrived less than a half hour later to retrieve the two robots and haul the bomb and its conveyance away for examination and disposal. The operation was performed surreptitiously, without any public announcement. Before the tug had returned to Outmark, Lubanov’s fast-response force was quietly embarked on an unscheduled shuttle departure. Not long after its arrival at Aurora, an unremarkable transporter appeared off the hub at Etanne, requesting docking permission. The important thing had been to get them there before Envoy was launched. The Dollarian Academy was overrun and occupied before anyone there realized that something had gone seriously amiss and had time to start thinking about removing evidence.

  Tek’s self-initiated communications blackout turned out to have had its advantages too. A message to Lubanov from the unit’s commander reported that the viewing gallery at Etanne was filled with cult members from the various sects, waiting to see the launch, including a large contingent of Dollarians who had been brought out to witness the fulfillment of Archbanker Sorba’s prophecy that it would end disastrously.

  At Cereta’s invitation, Korshak and the others stayed at Outmark to watch the launch from the dome of the site operations tower, which was being used to direct the event. Although the construction and traffic-movement control that had been going on for months was over and most of the associated work stations shut down, the crews were back almost to a man to see their effort and dedication brought to its culmination. Virtually all of Constellation would be following the live transmission on screens, although the flash – even from that distance – would easily be visible to the naked eye. The latest news was that much of the protest movement seemed to be wilting in the tide of excitement and enthusiasm that was taking over, with some of its proponents showing signs of last-minute defection.

  “T-minus-five and counting. Fine attitude correction effected. Ignition sequencer is go.” Cyblic Heshtar, who had directed site operations and was assisting the launch team, reported from a console. Cereta was not actively involved in this phase but stood looking on from the center of a group to one side that included Wesl Inchow, head of the probe instrumentation program, whose part was also over. Korshak was with Vaydien and Masumichi, taking in the views of Envoy from numerous screens around the floor, being sent by remote cameras positioned close in. Outside, it was visible to the eye as a bright spot in the starfield, dimly discernible through the dome wall darkened to protect against the light and radiation glare when the drive fired.

  It hung serenely, drifting almost imperceptibly against the cosmic background, like a coiled spring or a pent-up racehorse at the starting line, its very stillness and tranquility seemingly a portent of the awesome power lying within it, waiting to be unleashed. Watching it on the large display dominating the floor, Korshak felt that finally his coming of age in the new world of wonders to which his life had led was complete. Twelve years ago he had been a wandering illusionist with a talent for mechanisms, to whom such a creation would have been as inconceivable as the true nature of the heavens would have been to any inhabitant of Arigane. But he had studied and he had learned, and his understanding had grown until he was able to contribute to such work as Masumichi’s. And now, with Envoy, he had become a part of something that would once have seemed impossible.

  It was Real Magic.

  He felt fulfilled.

  “T-minus-three. Primary holding,” Heshtar anounced.

  The launch director came in from an adjacent station. “Release inhibitor shield interlocks. Confirm annihilator alignments.”

  “Interlocks released. Annihilator alignments confirmed at zero-zero, zero-point-one, and zero-zero,” another voice replied.

  “I remember watching Aurora as a light crossing the sky back on Earth,” Vaydien said. “The light became a world that my children will live in. And now we have another light that will go ahead of us to another world that their children will live in. Aurora was the bringer of a new kind of life.”

  “More than just that,” Lois Iles said. She was standing with Lubanov, Vogol, and a few more from Lubanov’s office, in front of a screen showing Ormont, who was following from the Directorate on Aurora. “It symbolizes a new way of life.”

  “The potential that was always there but not free to express itself.” Marney Clure, who was standing with her, spoke without turning his head. He had matured into a deep thinker and influential political figure since the day Lois brought him from Tranth. Opinions were that he would lead a powerful movement one day, if not the entire mission. “What Aurora symbolizes is the triump
h of the human mind and spirit over the unreason and passions that destroyed the first attempt. Hera will become that way of life.”

  “Is that why Aurora was conceived?” Lois asked him.

  “Aurora wasn’t conceived. It was an imperative that had to express itself.” News from Earth had come through intermittently. In recent years it had told of a deteriorating situation in Sofi, faced by rising opposition and threats from without, and deepening political divisions at home over how to respond to them. Yes, in the shorter term it possessed the ability to maintain its superiority by imposing a worldwide tyranny of force, which would be a betrayal of all the principles that it professed to believe in. But even then, how could it hope to prevail indefinitely against the universal hostility that such a course would engender from numbers that an entire planet would eventually command? Most of those who had debated the issue felt that there was no ready answer, and eventually the same forces that had consumed Earth before would do so again.

  “Into the last minute.” A glowing numeric display of the countdown appeared across the bottoms of the screens. Views from Aurora showed crowds out in the urban plazas and smaller numbers in places like Evergreen and Plantation, staring up at the sky windows. Even on Istella, the gaudy lights and signs had been turned down, and the squares between the darkened arcades and show palaces filled with hushed, upturned faces.

  “Disengage primary hold. Enable igniter trigger.”

  “Primary hold is off. Trigger enabled. We have go on all.”

  The launch director addressed a screen on his panel. “Over to you on zero?” Ormont nodded on the screen showing him. It had been agreed at Cereta’s suggestion that Ormont should have the privilege of issuing the final command.

  At Korshak’s side, Vaydien pressed closer. He slipped a reassuring arm around her. Lois smiled encouragingly.

  “It would be ironic if the alarmists’ fears come true after everything we’ve put into this,” Lubanov commented. Only he could have thought of it.

  Three… two… one…

  “Launch,” Ormont commanded.

  Even through the electronically attenuated wall of the dome, the whole of the control floor lit up like day as, fifty miles away, a jet of blue-white plasma lanced across space, its length such that through some peculiar trick of optics it appeared to be curved. Envoy itself was invisible, but already the source of the jet was moving visibly, extending a line in the opposite direction that was already beginning to take on a curvature of its own. Korshak thought of the replays he’d seen of the Aurora’s departure as captured from Earth and sent on after the ship. Like the protestors against Envoy who had relented as the magnificence of the achievement of the species they belonged to at last burst upon them, many who had opposed Aurora had subsequently beamed well-wishes for its future, as if Earth were sending its farewell.

  Earth was a living organism, Korshak realized as he stared at the screens and thought of the images he had seen of it progressively receding. It had struggled and grown to bloom to the limits that its potential was capable of. When the final convulsions set in that would lead to decline and decay, it had mustered its dying strength to hurl a seed of itself out to take root among fresh, uncontaminated beginnings. And then it would die, as every organism had to. The older Mirsto had understood that within the first year out, before he died. Korshak was beginning to grasp it only now.

  The line of radiance burning across the sky pointed in two directions. Behind lay the world that once was and could never be again. Ahead was the world that would be, that could become all that it was capable of.

  And in the vastness of the empty void between the two, the tiny fleet of miniature artificial worlds hurtled onward to whatever its destiny would be.

  THE END