by David Weber
“Yeah,” he said, glancing warily over his shoulder at the door through which his beloved spouse would be arriving momentarily with the roast beef.
“Well, it turns out it was a good thing I did.”
Her tone was almost whimsical, but her eyes weren’t, and he looked at her sharply.
“Why?”
“Because Ganymede isn’t there anymore.”
“I … beg your pardon?”
“I said, Ganymede isn’t there anymore.” Lewis shrugged. “Well, actually that’s not fair. There’s still some debris that used to be Ganymede. Our initial estimate is that as much as twenty or even thirty percent of it’s left. And I might point out that Ganymede’s the eighth largest orbital body in the entire solar system. It’s—or, more precisely, it was—about half the size of Mars, bigger than Mercury. You know, a fairly substantial piece of real estate?”
“Jesus.” Dvorak sank onto one of the other dining room chairs as astonishment pulled the single word out of him. Then his eyes narrowed. “Was anybody hurt?!”
“No, thank God.” Lewis shook her head. “Andromeda was a couple of light seconds clear at the time. I sort of insisted.”
“And a damn good thing, too!” Dvorak shook his head. “They blew up the whole damned moon?”
“Well, they did enough damage to shatter it, so I guess that counts.” Lewis shrugged again. “I’ve watched the imagery. Really impressive, especially when you slow it down.”
“I’m sure it is.” Dvorak grinned wryly. “I started to say ‘I can imagine,’ but fortunately, I stopped myself in time. Because I’m pretty sure my imagination would come up short.”
“Probably. In fact—”
Lewis broke off as Sharon appeared, carrying the roast beef. The suddenness with which she interrupted herself raised a copper-colored eyebrow over one blue eye.
“Should I assume someone was talking politics, or maybe history, before we even got to the salads?” she inquired sweetly.
“Not guilty, Honey!” Dvorak raised a solemn right hand. “But that said, I have to admit that what Fabienne was talking about is … pretty impressive.”
“Impressive enough I’m going to have to put up with it while we eat?” she asked just a bit ominously.
“Well, that depends,” her husband said. “I mean, only if you want to know why we don’t have a Ganymede anymore.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said we don’t have a Ganymede anymore. You know—Ganymede? Jupiter?” Her husband shook his head. “Not there anymore. But that’s okay, just put the roast down and I’ll carve. We can talk about it later.”
“You unmitigated bastard,” she said, lips twitching despite herself.
“What?” He looked at her innocently, eyebrows arched. “I said put it down, I’ll carve. No need to do any of that nasty old shop talk while you eat.”
“Later tonight, don’t ask me why it happened,” she said.
“Why what happened?”
“It’ll be a surprise,” she said sweetly. “You’ll recognize it when it comes around, though.”
“I’m sure I will,” he chuckled. “Should I take it that constitutes permission for us to go on talking about it while I carve?”
“This time,” she sighed.
“Thank you, Babe,” he said with genuine gratitude, then looked back at his daughter’s mother-in-law as he picked up the carving knife and fork. “You were saying, Fabienne?”
“Well, it all went fine at first. But then—”
* * *
“IT’S A GOOD thing we don’t worry about funding levels as much as we used to have to,” Dvorak said, much later that evening, as Sharon finished shuffling the cards and began to deal.
“Thinking about the investment in the Prometheus platform, are you?” Lewis asked, picking up her cards and sorting them.
“Yeah. That was a nice piece of hardware.”
“It was,” Greg Lewis agreed, sorting his own cards. As usual, he and Dvorak were partnered against Sharon and Fabienne. “Hardly a blip on the federal budget, though, these days.”
“True,” his wife said. “But downrange, it’s going to turn into something a heck of a lot bigger than a ‘blip,’ Greg. You should know that better than anyone else at the table.”
“Why?” Sharon asked. She had no issue with “shop talk” over Spades. In fact, anything that distracted her husband from counting trump was a plus, in her opinion.
“Because it’s very likely that eventually, we’re going to scrap all of our existing blueprints and start designing starships all over again, from scratch,” Greg said.
“Why?” Sharon repeated in genuine surprise.
“We were already looking at a major redesign once Gannon and his boys and girls figured out how to generate artificial gravity,” Greg told her. “We’re not at that point yet, because we’re still dealing with the power requirements, but it’s on the horizon and probably not more than another couple of years out. When that happens, we won’t need spin sections anymore, which will hugely simplify design constraints. It’ll inject some of its own, you understand, but overall we’ll be able to design a lot more efficiently and probably significantly reduce vulnerability in the process.
“But assuming Gannon gets a handle on this thing—and he already ‘has a theory about’ what went wrong,” all of them chuckled at Gannon’s trademark phrase, “he’s just done two things. One is to give us a power source, if we can figure out how to use it without blowing up any planets in the vicinity, that dwarfs anything the Hegemony has. Trust me, as an engineer—and, especially, as an engineer who’s spent the last several years working with warship designs—energy, power, is undoubtedly the most critical element in balancing the factors of a successful design.
“That’s probably not the biggest single reason we’ll be redesigning, though, because he successfully breached both the phase wall and the beta wall before everything went to hell. If he can do that in a mobile application, and there’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to, and if his ‘phased array’ approach works, it will simultaneously produce a faster-than-light drive that’s significantly better than anything the Hegemony has and actually give us the power to make the damn thing work!”
He paused to finish sorting his cards, then looked back at Sharon.
“The key element’s going to be how successfully he can work out the control systems on this monster. I mean, in a lot of ways it’s like trying to bottle a nova and stick it in your back pocket. As long as it stays bottled, you’re fine. If the cork pops—”
He shrugged, and Sharon nodded soberly.
“But if it does stay corked—” he began.
“If it stays corked, then Gannon just gave us one hell of a trump card where the Hegemony’s concerned,” Dvorak interjected.
“Exactly.” Lewis nodded. “This is all still speculative, and even assuming we hit the most optimistic development schedule imaginable—and don’t blow up any more moons—we’re years away from actual hardware. I don’t think it would make any sense to delay the Sarth mission waiting for it.”
“Neither do I, I suppose,” Dvorak said a bit glumly, looking at his wife.
“It’ll only be a couple of years,” she said, blue eyes softening. “And if you took me along, that’d be pretty unfair to everybody else who can’t haul along their spouses.”
“But it’s not just me,” he said softly.
“Well, at least Maighread will still be here. She and I can cheer each other up.”
“Greg and I will chip in on that, too,” Fabienne promised. “Lots of ‘girls night out’ stuff while they miss you and what’s-his-name.”
“His name is Raymond,” her husband said severely. “And I cannot believe you just used such a sexist term. ‘Girls night out?’ The X chromosome contingent at this table would have committed physical violence if Dave or I had ventured—dared!—to use such language!”
“Darned right,” his wife told him with a twinkle, then looke
d at Sharon. “I’ll bid three,” she said.
AGE OF EXPLORATION
YEAR 26 OF THE TERRAN EMPIRE
. I .
CITY OF DIANZHYR, REPUBLIC OF DIANTO;
AND CITY OF KWYZO NAR QWERN, QWERN EMPIRE,
PLANET SARTH
“What I’m telling you, Qwelth, is that as big a pain in the excreter as Solkarn was, there were a lot of downsides to losing him,” Swordsman Consort Bardyn ShoKymBar said. The Republic of Dianto’s Director of Intelligence ran a four-fingered hand over his cranial down and closed his nasal flaps in an expression of disgust. “It’s like Juzhyr’s decided it’s ous job to … I don’t know, avenge Solkarn, I guess.” Bardyn was tall and broad shouldered, even for a male, which always made his shrugs impressive, but today’s was something special, Prime Director Qwelth QwelSynCha reflected wryly. “Sometimes, I think ou thinks that stupid crash was our fault! Ou’s out for our reproductive equipment, at any rate!”
“It’s not quite that bad, Bardyn,” Mynsaro MynQwerDyn said in a milder tone. “I’m not saying it didn’t affect oum; losing a spouse will shake any triad. Chelth knows we all know that! But Juzhyr never really needed any more reasons to dislike us. The entire Republic’s been on Clan Qwern’s shit list for the last thousand years.”
“Which doesn’t invalidate a single thing I just said.” Bardyn’s response was just a tad more acerbic than most males would use addressing a neutro, but he and Mynsaro had known one another for over seventy years. They were close friends, even if they did have occasionally … energetic discussions during meetings of the Directors.
“No, it doesn’t,” Qwelth intervened, “but Mynsaro has a point, Bardyn. Oh, you do too, but it’s a matter of degree, not a change in kind.”
“That’s fair enough,” Bardyn acknowledged after a moment. “But I’m more worried about it than I’ve been in quite a while because of what our station chief has to say about old Erylk’s health.”
Now there, Qwelth conceded to ouself, Bardyn probably had a point. Erylk ErGarzHyn nar Qwern, the Flock Lord of Dyrzhyba, was not only Chancellor of the Qwern Empire but the bearer-in-law of its current ruler, and ou was a tough old daurysaki. But ou wasn’t getting any younger. The old neutro was still a force to be reckoned with in the Ministries, but ou was clearly less energetic than ou had been. Which was potentially very bad news indeed. Erylk was no fonder of the Republic than any other Qwernian, but at least ou had always been realistic about it, which had made oum a moderating influence.
“I don’t see them getting adventurous anytime soon,” Jartyr LysJarKyn put in. Qwelth turned to her and arched one nasal flap, inviting the second lord of war to continue. “Nothing’s changed on the military front,” Jartyr pointed out, and raised both nasal flaps to grin at Bardyn across the table. “I know it’s your job to worry about things, but I don’t think there’s any way the Qwern Alliance is rolling tanks through the Nahsyr Gap next day-half, Bardyn!”
“Probably not. I’m more worried about where they’re headed diplomatically, though,” Bardyn replied. “Just look at their talking points at the last Nonagon session. Mark my words, Jartyr—Myrcal’s picking up the influence Erylk is losing.”
“I don’t think there’s any doubt of that,” Qwelth agreed. “And I agree it’s worrisome, too, but none of the other Eight seemed too impressed by the Empire’s arguments.”
The Nonagon was the closest thing Sarth boasted to an authoritative international body. To be sure, that wasn’t saying all that much, but at least the majority of multinational conferences and negotiations were increasingly held under its auspices. The last plenary session had been … fractious, to say the least, though. If the Qwernians really meant to revert to the sort of adversarial relationship their Nonagon delegate’s recent language seemed to embrace, things could get—
The door to the Directors Room opened without warning, pulling Qwelth out of ous reflections. Ou turned in ous chair, both nasal flaps wide in surprise, and then ous eyes narrowed as ou recognized the sheer shock in ous aide’s expression.
“Prime Director, I—” The aide paused, and Qwelth realized he was actually shaking. “I wouldn’t have—I mean, I’m sorry but—”
The aide paused again, and Qwelth stood and reached out and up to lay a steadying hand on the taller male’s shoulder.
“What is it, Fyrdak?” Ous reasonable tone seemed to steady the young male, who swallowed and closed both nasal flaps tight, then exhaled.
“I apologize for interrupting, Tysan,” he said then, in a tightly controlled tone, “but we’re receiving a transmission.”
“A transmission?” Qwelth cocked ous head. “What sort of transmission? From whom?”
“We don’t know, Tysan.”
“What do you mean ‘we don’t know’?” Bardyn demanded sharply. “Where’s it from?”
“Sir,” the aide turned to the intelligence director, “we don’t really know that, either. But whoever it is, they’re transmitting to every nation on Sarth on every radio frequency and in every Sarthian language. And it looks like they’re doing it from orbit!”
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU mean, ‘aliens’?” Clan Ruler Juzhyr XI demanded irritably as ou stalked into the communications center. Ou disliked having ous afternoon nap interrupted. Ou was a night chyrn who did ous best work when all the world was asleep outside ous study windows. Unfortunately, ou’d discovered ou needed more sleep than ou once had, and ou had to make up for it somewhere. Of course, ou thought grumpily, settling the lenses onto ous muzzle ridge to peer through them at the note ou’d just been handed, ou’d been a lot younger when ou developed those work habits.
“That’s what they say they are, Clan Ruler,” the young Air Force gauntlet who had the Palace communications watch said. From his expression, even he had trouble believing that.
“And they just happened to be speaking perfect Qwernian?” Juzhyr grunted skeptically.
“And also Diantian, Wynokian, and Deltaran, Clan Ruler. That we know of.” Juzhyr looked up at the gauntlet, and he twitched his nasal flaps. “We’ve copied the same broadcast in all of those languages,” he said. “And, as you can see, they said—”
He waved a hand at the message form, and Juzhyr scowled. Then ou tossed the paper onto one of the desks and gestured at the banks of radio consoles and the personnel manning them.
“I assume we recorded this?”
“Of course, Clan Ruler!”
“Then play it back and spare my eyes.”
“Yes, Clan Ruler!”
The gauntlet turned to the senior noncom of the watch and snapped both thumbs on his left hand.
“Spool it up for the Clan Ruler, Thirty-Six.”
“Yes, Sir!”
Juzhyr waited rather more patiently than ou felt while the thirty-six rewound the wire recorder to the right time chop. The clan ruler refrained from pointing out that the gauntlet should damned well have ordered the noncom to have the recording ready to go long before Juzhyr actually got to the radio room. As a general rule, the clan ruler tried to avoid biting off officers’ heads in public, partly because having the ruler of the largest empire on the planet scream at one didn’t do wonders for one’s self-confidence. Juzhyr could have lived with that—sometimes a good kick to the self-confidence (or some other portion of the anatomy) was what someone needed—but ou refused to undercut an officer’s authority by berating him in front of his subordinates. Besides, it was beneath ous dignity to misuse the authority of the crown to score a petty victory over someone who couldn’t possibly respond in kind. Even if it hadn’t—
“We’re ready, Clan Ruler,” the thirty-six said respectfully.
“Then play it, Thirty-Six, please.” That was another thing ous bearer had taught oum. Inferiors might not expect courtesy from their superiors, especially when the gulf between them was vast, but they certainly remembered it.
“Of course, Clan Ruler.”
The noncom flipped the PLAY switch. For a moment, there
was only the quiet hiss of blank wire passing through the heads. Then a voice came from the speakers in—as the gauntlet had said—perfect Qwernian.
“Greetings, people of Sarth,” it said. “We come in peace. My name is David Dvorak—” Juzhyr’s nasal flaps twitched at the bizarre sounding name “—and I am speaking to you on behalf of my government, the Planetary Union of Earth. We have traveled many light-years to speak to you and to warn you. There is a grave danger waiting in the stars, and as our presence in your star system indicates, it is closer than I fear any of your scientists may yet suspect. My government wishes me to warn you of that danger and to seek allies who would stand against it with us.
“I come not to speak to any single nation, or any single alliance of nations, on your world. I come to speak to all Sarthians: Sarthian neutros, males, and females alike. It is my intention to seek contact with the Nonagon in the next few days to establish an interface through which our two species may communicate openly and clearly. I think it must be obvious that our visit portends a time of potentially great change for your planet. My own species has endured a great deal of change itself since we were attacked by those against whom we would warn you, and we know it is not an easy thing. But your world belongs to you, and the conditions under which we speak—the amount of change you choose to embrace—must ultimately be up to you. We will not seek to dictate, to coerce, or to seek private arrangements with one of your nations at the expense of the others, yet time is precious. I therefore request that all the nations of Sarth, not just the members of the Nonagon or those who have official observer status, send delegates to Lyzan to meet with me and with my colleagues.
“My people realize that no Sarthian could have expected this contact, and we wish to disrupt your societies no more than we absolutely must. Yet there is much we can teach you, much we can share with you, and much we can learn from you, and we look forward to beginning that journey.