by Ian Douglas
“Yes, sir. I’ll handle it, sir.”
Wizewski appeared to withdraw for a moment, as though he was thinking something over. “Corders off,” he said.
That startled Gray, but he disengaged his implant recorders. Normally, records were made of all ViR conferences, if only because people’s memories were faulty unless their implant ROMs were active.
“Corder is off, sir.”
“I assume you’ve heard the scuttlebutt about my religion.”
Ah. Wizewski had ordered the recorders off for that reason. Technically, it wasn’t against the law to discuss religion, but the terms of the White Covenant, the Covenant of Human Dignity, made it illegal to attempt converting someone else. People who didn’t agree with the declaration of non-interference with another’s religious beliefs, or who used religion as an excuse to kill, physically mutilate, or emotionally harm another human being, were denied Confederation citizenship. The Muslim Rafadeen were a case in point. So were the Refusers of some Baptist, Pentecostal, and Alien Rapturist churches. While Gray sincerely doubted that Wizewski was about to try to convert him or tell him that he was going to hell, he could understand the CAG’s reluctance to have any discussion of religion put into an official record.
“Nothing specific, sir,” Gray replied. “I guess some of us wondered why you weren’t using nananagathics.”
“I’m not a complete neo-Ludd,” he said. “I wouldn’t be in the Navy if I were. But I am a Purist.”
“Ah . . .”
That made a certain amount of sense. Neo-Ludd referred to that tiny and generally marginalized portion of the human spectrum that rejected, for one reason or another, any technological enhancements or infrastructure. There were degrees within such belief, of course. Usually, it meant a rejection of nanotech and other invasive technologies—cerebral implants, cosmetic transmogrification, or Netlinks, but stopped short of banning fire, textiles, or water purification. There were peoples still living in isolated corners of the Americas, Australia, South Asia, and Africa where local cultures rejected all technology more advanced than subsistence agriculture, but those were rarities. Life in the modern world demanded a certain amount of interaction with information technology, if nothing more. When he’d been living in the Manhattan Ruins, Gray had lacked a basic neural implant because he’d not been a full citizen at the time . . . but that had been for social and economic reasons, not a matter of personal faith or belief. He’d liked the fact that the government couldn’t look over his mental shoulder, as it were, but he’d envied a lot of the risty high-tech advantages like global communication access, net downloads, and full healthcare that citizens took for granted.
Purists, though, were a branch of the Rapturist Church of Humankind, an offshoot of the old Pentecostals that believed that it was important for believers to be fully human if Christ was one day to return for them. While most modern RCH members accepted nano-grown implants that enabled them to communicate, interact with computers and implant-linked machinery, and engage in basic economics, they tended to reject more serious modifications to the basic human somatype. No cosmetic nano or physical enhancements. No genetic prostheses or modification, either in utero or later. No cyborg blendings of human and machine.
And no anti-aging nano.
The Purists seemed to pick and choose among which bits of technology were forbidden, and which were allowed. Many would accept basic medical care, for example, for emergency first aid or for disease prevention, though quite a few rejected any nanotechnic or genetic tinkering with what they saw as God’s creation. Gray found the idea ridiculous; there’d been Christian sects a few centuries before that prohibited blood transfusion or, in extreme cases, any medical treatment at all, and the Purist philosophy struck him as just as irrational as those.
But, of course, it was their basic and unalienable right to believe anything they chose, so long as they didn’t try to harm others with their antiscientific nonsense.
“The church I grew up in,” Wizewski continued, “believed that you shouldn’t mess with the human body, shouldn’t change it, because we were all created in God’s image.”
“Including nanogrown implants?” Gray asked. He tried not to smile. “Or gene-therapy inoculation?”
“That was . . . a matter of personal belief,” he said. “There were a few, including our pastor, who paid the fine.”
To be a citizen of the Union of North America, you had to have at least a basic Class One cerebral implant. Otherwise you would have trouble paying for goods or opening locked doors. The law mandated heavy fines and compulsory neurpsytherapy for people who refused; the government authorities could do so under the terms of the White Covenant by assuming that any who refused the basic advantages of the technological infrastructure were harming their ability to interact with society and, therefore, were harming themselves.
“We were not idiots,” Wizewski went on. “If we were sick, we accepted treatment, even if it was gene-therapy or nanomeds. But injecting ourselves full of nano in order to change into an animal or change our skin color or to add a pair of arms or make ourselves super-strong or to turn our bodies into movie screens . . . no. If a fetus had a genetic predisposition to heart disease or depression, we would treat that. But try to make ourselves live for five hundred years . . . or make ourselves look like we were twenty for the rest of our lives? Uh-uh.”
“That seems a little . . . selective, sir.” Gray honestly wasn’t sure how far he could go with being critical of the man’s religious beliefs. There was a fuzzy area here between freedom of speech and freedom of belief, and he was glad Wizewski had asked for the corders to be turned off. “How is giving yourself a life span of more than a few decades against God’s will if preventing a life-threatening illness is not?”
Wizewski smiled. “I often wondered that. Maybe a short life isn’t so bad if it’s not a short miserable life.”
“And maybe God doesn’t care if we use our intelligence to make our lives better. Healthier and happier.”
“Maybe. I won’t argue the point. It’s up to me to draw the lines, right?”
“Of course it is, sir.”
“But I told you all of this so that you would know. I do understand your position.”
“Sir?”
“You’re a Primitive . . . or, rather, you were. You grew up without all of this hardware”—he tapped the side of his head with a forefinger—“inside your brain. And every person you meet, damned near, assumes you hate technology and can barely make a credit transfer, much less strap on a Starhawk and fly the thing. It’s a common prejudice, and one that you and I are going to be facing for the rest of our lives. However long they might be. Understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“If you need to talk to someone, I’m always here. That goes for Ryan too, if she needs it. Having a set of social and personal beliefs outside of the mainstream can be crippling, especially in the military, where you’re forced to fit in, to assimilate. Sometimes the need to keep a low profile can make you feel like you’re absolutely the only person in the universe who feels the way you do. But that’s not true. Understand?”
“Yes, sir, I do. Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me. Just assimilate, damn it, because the next time you assault another man or woman in this battlegroup, I’m going to skin you alive and nail the bloody hide on that bulkhead in my office as a warning to the others. Clear?”
“Clear, sir.”
“Then get the hell out of here. Preflight in thirty minutes. Launch in forty-five.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
The virtual reality link was broken, and Gray was again in the lounge chair in his squadron’s ready room. A number of the other flight officers were there, including both Collins and Kirkpatrick, but both of them were on the other side of the compartment and none were paying attention to him.
Which was good. He
needed a little time alone with his thoughts.
Enforcer Shining Silence
Alphekka System
0945 hours, TFT
Tactician Diligent Effort at Reconciliation considered its preparations yet again, and was satisfied. Every preparation was complete, every ship and weapons system at full readiness.
It was impossible to gauge precisely when the Human fleet would arrive in-system. The intelligence received from the H’rulka Seedcarriers had noted when the enemy had begun acceleration, but human FTL systems were less efficient than were those of the Turusch and other allied species. Based on Turusch understanding of human technologies, the enemy fleet could have been here fifty g’nyuu’m ago. Or they might not arrive for another hundred to come.
“Threat,” the Turusch’s Mind Above cried, shrill and writhing. “Anxious waiting! Impatience! Act!”
But Diligent Effort at Reconciliation had long experience and considerable training in shunting the narrowly focused demands of the Mind Above aside, allowing rationality and forethought to rule. To the Turusch, the inner voice they called Mind Above represented a more primitive, more atavistic part of themselves that had been the whole of Turusch sentience millions of g’nyi ago. The Mind Here was the modern, more rational complex of thought, memory, and planning, while the Mind Below was the melding of separate minds . . . and, for those gifted with the Seed, the link with the Sh’daar masters.
“Patience,” the Mind Below counseled. “The enemy will be here soon. There is nothing more to be done that has not been done.” Part of that thought had originated with Diligent Effort’s twin, the other Turusch, which shared its name, with which it was life-paired. But part, too, had come from Diligent Effort’s Seed.
It was good to know the masters were here, that they would be watching and guiding the Turusch Fleet’s effort soon.
“Very soon, now,” the Seed said, reading the thought. “And victory will belong to us.”
“Kill!” cried the Mind Above.
Chapter Nineteen
25 February 2405
CIC, TC/USNA CVS America
Outer Reaches, Alphekka System
1112 hours, TFT
At a precisely calculated instant, America’s metaspace bubble collapsed and the star carrier dropped into normal space, excess velocity bleeding off in the intense pulse of photons characteristic of FTL deceleration. She’d emerged at the fringes of the Alphekka system, some fifty astronomical units from the two close-spaced suns.
The carrier was drifting above an immense, red wall of light.
Alphekka’s protoplanetary disk was enormous, a flattened ring of dust, gas, and debris with a sharp, inner edge thirty astronomical units from the star, trailing off to a fuzzy outer rim well over a hundred AUs out. Invisible to the naked eye, the disk glowed an eerie, sullen red at IR wavelengths; America’s AI was superimposing the infrared data on the optical, making it visible as a broad and somewhat grainy-looking ring. Such disks, Koenig remembered, had first been detected from Earth using IR telescopes. The dust grains picked up radiation from the central stars, then re-emitted it at long, infrared wavelengths.
In toward the double sun burning at the ring’s center, thousands of comets gleamed with an icy, blue-white light, their tails streaming away from the brilliant stellar pair. Many of the larger specks of debris along the inner stretch of the ring also showed comet tails, as volatile gasses were heated and blasted out-system by radiant sunlight.
Several planets glowed brightly under infrared, including a large one, perhaps three times the mass of Earth, circling at the sharp inner edge of the ring. Under magnification, its surface showed as a partially molten, ember-glowing sphere.
A planetary system in the making. . . .
The scene stretched across the CIC bulkheads and overhead, spectacularly and indescribably beautiful, held the personnel in America’s CIC spellbound for a moment. “My God in heaven,” one voice said against the silence.
“Duty stations, people!” Commander Craig snapped, all business. “There’ll be plenty of time for rubbernecking later!”
In the tactical tank, a dozen green icons showed those members of the battlegroup that had emerged within a few light seconds of America. One by one, farther and farther out, other Confederation ships began dropping into view.
Koenig continued studying the big overhead display. America appeared to be skimming above the surface of the disk, which was perhaps five astronomical units below. A number of glowing red knots were visible to the naked eye, protoplanets forming as debris and planetesimals clumped together.
One point of light was highlighted by a targeting reticule, however, and carried the identifying alphanumerics AL–01.
“America,” Koenig said, addressing the ship’s AI. “What is target Al–01?”
“Unknown,” the ship replied in his head. “Sensory data so far suggests an artificial structure one hundred twelve kilometers across and massing at least two point eight times ten to the sixteen tons.”
“That’s gotta be a mistake,” Sinclair said, shaking his head. “No ship . . .”
“Enhance and magnify,” Koenig demanded.
An inset window opened up on the bulkhead display. The object remained fuzzy and quite grainy, at the very limits of optical resolution. Oblong in shape, it glowed with intense infrared heat, and appeared to be skimming just along the upper fringe of the main body of the ring. A readout in the window gave the estimated range: 12 AUs.
“What makes you think it’s artificial?” Koenig asked. To his eye, the object appeared to be an irregularly shaped planetesimal, the first stage in the creation of a planet.
“The object is radiating more heat than it would receive from the suns at that range,” the ship’s AI replied. “It is also the source of numerous radio transmissions of intelligent origin, as well as gravity wave signatures characteristic of paired artificial singularities used for quantum power generation.”
“It might be a Turusch base built on an asteroid,” Craig suggested.
“Or a converted asteroid vessel,” Sinclair added. “Like their Alpha- and Beta-class ships. Just . . . bigger.”
“Much bigger,” Koenig agreed. “It’s got to be a base of some kind, not a ship.”
“We are also detecting numerous point sources of RF transmissions,” the ship added, “in the immediate vicinity of the object. These transmissions are consistent with Turusch fighters, operating in large numbers.”
“How large?” Koenig asked.
“I have so far identified four hundred ninety-five discrete RF sources in close proximity to Al–01,” the ship’s AI said. “I am also picking up other clusters of small ships scattered about the system, including three separate concentrations of gravitic, IR, RF, and coherent EM radiation that are almost certainly large numbers of enemy warships. I estimate a total of more than five hundred capital ships, and perhaps one thousand fighters.”
“Distance to the nearest concentration.”
“Eight point two astronomical units.”
Koenig checked the time. The battlegroup had begun emerging from FTL at 1112 hours; the light announcing their arrival would reach those ships at something just over sixty-five minutes . . . call it 1217 hours. America had that long before the enemy became aware of their presence.
The sheer number of enemy ships facing them in the Alphekka system was daunting, as daunting as the size of that base ninety-six light minutes away. Koenig had been expecting some sort of supply depot in the Alphekkan system, and possibly a number of Turusch warships as well . . . but the capital ships alone outnumbered the entire Confederation fleet, and on a strictly fighter-to-fighter basis, the enemy outnumbered the Confederation fighters by more than six to one.
Koenig’s first thought was to order an immediate withdrawal. The Confederation battlegroup couldn’t face a fleet that large, not with
any hope at all of survival.
But not all of the battlegroup’s ships had emerged yet from metaspace. Stragglers might take as long as another ten minutes to arrive, and they would be scattered all over a sphere as large as thirty light minutes across. It would take a half hour or more to contact them all and give them new orders.
Ships arriving late would die.
Was there a chance?
In modern space combat, there is a blunt aphorism that dictates the shape of all fleet maneuvers: Speed is life. The battlegroup had to begin accelerating—it didn’t matter much in which direction—to build up the highest possible velocity. If they weren’t moving when the first flock of Toads reached them, they were in for a beating.
Essentially, two choices presented themselves. They could order the battlegroup to accelerate out-system, hoping to build up enough velocity to switch over to Alcubierre Drive before the full weight of the enemy fleets caught up with them. . . .
Or they could plunge into the system’s heart, toward that enigmatic monster object skimming above the Alphekkan protoplanetary disk, and seek to cause as much damage as possible.
If they turned outward, all but that one closest body of ships would be behind them, chasing them with higher accelerations than Confederation capital ships could manage. If they headed in-system, the situation became . . . more flexible.
“How many of our ships have checked in?”
“Twenty-eight so far, sir. Three are still missing . . . Crucis, Diablo . . . and Remington.”
Koenig thought about this. Two frigates and an AKE . . . the replenishment ship by far the most important of the three.
But he couldn’t hold the rest of the battlegroup for them.
“Make to all commands,” Koenig said. “Target Al–01 and go to maximum acceleration. CAG?”
“Yes, Admiral.”