was someone else in his fighter. They still don't know who."
"Too bad. Spoils a grand heroic story for the news-grids," said
Morano. "Captain saves his ship by ramming a suicide bomber--"
"There's still a story there," said A'baht, tapping the key. "A lot of
stories here, and they won't all get told."
Tap--tap--tap-A'baht shook his head. "What a terrible price we paid
for this one."
"Second thoughts, General?"
"No," he said firmly. "Oh, no. What I said earlier, about wanting to
spare them at the end--I'm lucky I didn't have that chance. It would
have been a mistake."
"I don't understand."
A'baht gestured at the screen before him. "Can you imagine if they'd
had the patience to wait another ten years or so, studying us, building
up their fleet? No, no regrets, Captain. I'm glad for what happened
today, even though doing it made me sick at heart. I'm glad we did
this before the Yevetha got any stronger, or any smarter about us."
The general closed the casualty file and pushed his datapad away from
him. "I just hope we're smart enough now to figure out a way to see
that they never build a starship again."
Nil Spaar's arms were bound at his sides, his claws locked helplessly
against the restraining bar. His ankles were manacled together with a
short plasteel cable.
Even so, he tried to lunge at Sil Sorannan when the Imperial officer
appeared in the bridge's escape pod access tunnel.
The lunge did not carry him far. It was not even necessary for anyone
to shoot the viceroy--Lieutenant Gar, one of the four witnesses, simply
hooked Nil Spaar's ankle cable with his own foot, bringing the Yevetha
down hard on the deck.
"For twelve years of torture, and too many friends, there isn't enough
I can do to you," said Sorannan, stepping closer. "I already know that
killing you won't be satisfying. No matter how I do it and how long it
takes, I'll wake up tomorrow and see the face of someone who didn't get
to go home with us, and I'll know in my gut that you got off too
easy.
"But still, you deserve to die. And the only thing I can think of that
will help me answer those faces that come into my mind is to make you
wait for it--and make sure that my face stays in your mind while you
wait.
"So here's something you should know about me.
Before I joined Black Sword Command, I was detailed to the Research
Section as a pilot for the experimental hyperphysics team. We were
trying to learn how to drop bombs from hyperspace. We never learned
how."
Sorannan crouched by Nil Spaar's head, and his voice grew soft. "You
see, it turns out that no matter which way you go through the magic
door, you need a hyperdrive to open it. Anything that we released in
hyperspace just stayed there. We even took a drone and blew it up in
hyperspace, to see if that might open the door. None of the wreckage
ever appeared again in realspace."
As he stood up again, he gestured to Captain Eis-tern, who stepped to
the hatch of escape pod 001 and unlatched it.
"It's really too bad the project didn't work out," Sorannan said,
stepping back while Gat and another witness dragged Nil Spaar to his
feet. "Because it turns out to be very easy to release an object in
hyperspace.
One good shove will do it--like the ejection charge of an escape pod,
for example."
The viceroy stood tall and silent, his expression one of contempt and
haughty pride.
Sorannan leaned his face close to Nil Spaar's, so that the breath of
his whisper kissed the viceroy's cheeks. "I don't know how long you
will survive there," he said. "I do know that you will die there."
Stepping back, the major watched as the others forced Nil Spaar into
the escape pod and sealed him inside.
"Die slowly," Sorannan said hoarsely, and slammed his hand down on the
firing switch.
With a roar, the escape pod hurtled away into oblivion.
Rendezvous
Joto Eckels stared at the sensor display with a degree of awe
approaching the religious. In a lifetime of archaeological fieldwork,
Eckels had never faced a moment like this one, when a functioning
instrumentality of a dead race had appeared to bridge the centuries.
It was an event on a par with the greatest finds of the modern era--the
Shadow Traproom on Liok, the Nojic Beanstalk, the Great Subcrustal
Tubeway of the Pa Tho, the Foran Tutha star probe. But at first, there
was no joy in it--only the sudden, numbing weight of responsibility.
Dreiss and Mokem had died in the Shadow Traproom. Bartleton had
watched helplessly as the Foran Tutha probe was gutted by a fire his
own people inadvertently triggered.
But Pakkpekatt's team did not appear burdened by thoughts of either
history or posterity. With matter-of-fact efficiency, they immediately
began to deal with the surprise.
"What message should I send to HQ, Colonel?" asked Pleck.
"A contact report only," said Pakkpekatt. "Let us see what sort of
greeting she has for us first. Is the satellite prepared for
deployment?"
"I'm finished with it. It's set up on the fantail and ready to go,"
said Taisden.
"Recommendation?"
"Penga Rift needs to move to the far side, keep the planet between it
and the vagabond until they've collected their people and cleared
orbit. If we place ourselves and the satellite a hundred and eighty
degrees apart in geosynch, we can get complete coverage of the
approaches plus maximum separation."
"Deploy the satellite," said Pakkpekatt. "Doctor?"
Looking slightly bewildered, Eckels shouldered his way forward. "May I
speak with Penga Rift, Colonel?"
"Of course. Colonel Hammax, get the doctor set up at station three."
Eckels gave the recall order, then apprised Captain Barjas of the
situation. "Get everyone aboard and everything locked down," he
said.
"Have Mazz monitor everything that goes through our satellite. See
what you can get on the incoming ship. But don't risk the
arti-facts-at the first sign of any direct threat, jump out."
Then he turned his attention back to the others, who seemed to have
forgotten him for the moment.
"Let's do one more test cycle on the auto-responder," Pleck was
saying.
"When that interrogative comes--" "No," said Pakkpekatt. "The earlier
tests were satisfactory.
The interrogative could come at any time.
Bring it up and put it online."
"Yes, Colonel," Pleck said.
"Satellite is away, active, and moving to position," said Taisden.
"Fourteen minutes to station. We can make our station six minutes
after the skiff clears."
Pakkpekatt turned toward Eckels and eyed him curiously. "Doctor,
shouldn't you be going?"
"Where?"
"Back to your ship-to Penga Rift."
"To hide on the other side of Maltha Obex? I don't think so,
Colonel.
I think you can make more use of me than that."
me
nt. But the only detectable dialog took place between his
determinedly steady gaze and Pakkpekatt's sharply inquiring one.
Against the possibility of an undetected dialog, Eckels held one
thought in his mind: I accept your authority. Let me help. Let me be
there when the door is opened.
Pakkpekatt grimaced in a manner reminiscent of a yawn. "If Penga Rift
does not need you, then we will take advantage of your presence," he
said. "Agent Pleck, take Dr. Eckels to the observation deck and
familiarize him with the equipment."
Lobot found sharing his interface with the vagabond a seductive
preoccupation. After as little as twenty minutes, he began to lose
both the will and the ability to respond to Lando or the droids.
It was not that the link was so rich and easy that he experienced what
cyborgs spoke of among themselves as "falling down a hole into
heaven"--much the opposite, in fact. The link was so difficult,
communication so painfully slow, and the data structures so alien that
staying in contact with the vessel gradually absorbed all of his
attention and resources.
Even switching to Basic to process aural input or formulate and voice a
response gradually became an insuperable burden. For the first time in
his memory, Lobot found himself single-tasking, surrendering his own
internal processes and thinking in the base-six binary algorithms of
the vagabond. The cyborg community called that loss of boundaries
"turning inside out" and viewed 'it as a danger to systemic
integration--one step away from dissociative collapse.
Lando knew only that Lobot was connected to a machine with the power to
take him away and no apparent inclination to return him. After
observing the phenomenon the first time, Lando set strict limits and
appointed himself the enforcer of them. Throughout the duration of the
hyperspace jump, Lobot spent no more than an hour at a time linked,
with at least two hours between sessions.
Even allowing that much was 'a concession to Lobot, who insisted that
the most productive part of a session was the part when he was
insensible to anything but the vagabond's data structures. That
assertion was one Lando had to take on faith. So far, Lando hadn't
seen enough in the way of useful results to justify risking any contact
at all. The insights Lobot was gleaning from contact with the vagabond
seemed far more meaningful than the ones he was managing to communicate
to Lando.
"It doesn't know what it is," Lobot had explained.
"It only knows what it does." But even within those parameters, what
the vagabond "told" Lobot seemed all too changeable, subject not only
to interpretation but to Lobot's errors of enthusiasm.
The ship was a protect against-harm, a shelter-and-nurture, a
heal-and-succor, a flee-from-predators, a maintain-and-preserve, and a
welcome-and-teach--which Lobot variously interpreted as egg, mother,
creche, repository, and chrysalis. The rounded bodies in the inner
tubules were sleepers, keepers, corpses, creepers, sacrifices, and
directors--with half of those designations suggesting they were part of
the vessel and half suggesting they were something apart.
"I don't think it knows any more," Lobot had said at one point,
responding to Lando's frustration. "Its reflexes are complex and
elegant, and it has great power at its command. But it lacks even a
child's self-awareness or sense of purpose. It does what it knows to
do, by stimulus and response, by instinct--it is conscious of those
processes but nothing beyond them. I don't think it even realizes
where it is, any more than a seed buried in the ground does."
"If you and it make up your mind about anything, make a point of
sharing that with me," Lando had answered in disgust. "If it won't
obey us, I don't see that we're getting anything useful out of this.
So if you're
going to keep communing with it, at least keep Working on that
point."
Even as Lobot had found a new focus, Lando seemed to have lost his.
They had access to the entire ship now, but Lando had shown little
interest in making use of it. He had powered down both droids, and
spent most of his time floating in chamber 229. The near exhaustion of
his propellant was only a pretext concealing his loss of heart.
Lobot made one attempt to talk to Lando about what he was seeing. "In
our travels together, I have only seen you leave the table twice," he
said. "Once when you found yourself in a rigged game, and once when
that woman, Sarra Dolas, came and sat at Narka Tobb's side instead of
yours. I have only seen you fold your hand in the face of a game that
could not be won, and a game that you no longer cared about winning.
Which is it this time?"
"Neither," said Lando. "I've done everything that I know how to do.
None of it's done a thing to improve our position. Now you say it's
headed home. I'm just waiting for the last hand to be played."
But the unprecedentedly violent shaking of the vagabond as it exited
from hyperspace shook Lando out of his indifference. "Lobot, where are
you?" he called over the suit comm.
"In the interspace, aft," Lobot replied.
"Did you hear what just almost didn't happen? On my worst mornings
after my worst days, I don't sound that bad trying to get up," Lando
said.
"Yes, Lando," said Lobot. "The exit growl was extraordinarily loud and
extended here--I had the distinct impression of hearing it from behind,
from the stern first, and then a fraction of a second later from the
bow. And I could see an oscillation wave with an amplitude of at least
a decimeter traveling along the outer hull."
"You're lucky there still is an outer hull," Lando said. "I've figured
out why the jumps keep getting rockier.
thing I need you to check on. I'll explain while you're en route."
"Coming," Lobot said. "Please continue."
"I don't know why I didn't realize it sooner. The ship's power
reserves--whatever it's been drawing on--must be way down. Either it's
been out too long without topping off the tanks--just like you, me, and
the droids--or the damage from the last attack affected either the
reserves or the generators."
"The vagabond does not have generators."
"Whatever," said Lando. "Take it as a metaphor.
The ship manages to store and transform energy somehow, for weapons,
and motive power, and light, and all the little gadgets in the
chambers."
"Granted."
"So whether the tanks are empty or the converters are below minimums,
there isn't enough to go around.
That's why it opened all the portals and left them open.
That's why none of the gadgets have worked since the attack, and why
the lights went out on us. We're in some sort of energy-conservation
mode. It's not just hurting--it's tired."
"Yes. The ship and I have talked about that."
"You might have shared that part with me," Lando said with a touch of
annoyance. "Lobot, the transitions have been getting rougher every
time o
ut because the ship's right at the edge--at least as far as
opening a big enough hyperspace portal, and opening it fast enough to
minimize the stresses. It's a matter of being able to focus enough
energy in a small enough space in a short enough time. And one of
these days, it's not going to be able to do itand either the middle of
the ship will jump out and leave the rest behind, or the portal will
snap back and crush it."
In the middle of Lando's exposition, Lobot rejoined him in chamber
229.
"That is something I would prefer to witness from a distance."
"Get in line behind me," said Lando. "That's why you have to link up
with your friend. We need to know where we are and what's going to be
happening--if its
home is that planetary system depicted in the orrery instead of
next-to-nowhere deep space, maybe we have a chance."
"What is it you want me to ask it?"
"I was thinking that maybe it could be persuaded to, say, let us have a
viewport--under the general heading of being willing to provide us with
information."
THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS #3 - TYRANTS_TEST Page 40