POCSYM hurled the two ships from their rocky wombs, deep into space. From there they began the first of a series of homeward-bound jumps, some through the middle of rebel sectors. Months later, badly shot up, one of them would limp into besieged D'Lin, half her complement dead. R'Garna's ship didn't make it.
Its masters gone, POCSYM placed all but its own considerable equipment in stasis, against the day of their return. It then turned to monitoring the Recall's effect on the plans and work of centuries. It didn't like what it saw, but was forbidden to intervene.
Lack of speedier transportation prevented a massive infusion of new blood from the West into the atrophying social structures of the East. Losing their vitality, the old dynasties fell to the brash young neighbors they'd before controlled with ease. Trade ceased and the tall ships went out no more.
In the West, the prosperity brought by the mariners departed with them. The confederations disintegrated. Tribes bickered and fought, some slipping back to a semi-nomadic existence, others descending into the barbarism of human sacrifice. All fell easy prey, much later, to eastern men who no longer came in peace.
POCSYM detected the S'Cotar fleet when it first came out of hyperspace. It activated its defenses and waited-this was a problem it could confront.
When the aliens were within easy range, POCSYM casually transported all ships to the same half mile of space.
It did so with the next two fleets that appeared over the next decade. There was an interlude of peace.
The K'Ronarins weren't the only ones, though, capable of finding and refitting old Imperial ships. Using such a vessel, the S'Cotar gave the appropriate recognition codes and landed far from civilization. Destroying their ship, the transmutes scattered across the globe. Congratulating themselves on penetrating POCSYM's defenses, they began their search for the computer.
Over the next half century, they found and destroyed many of the small transporter/temple sites, used by the Colonial Service teams for intraplanetary movement and training of locals. They had no luck, though, in finding any of the main bases.
POCSYM was able to subtly alter their detector readings. Twice, the S'Cotar thought they'd scanned an underground installation. Each time, their assault force teleported into solid rock, miles below the surface. No third attempt was made.
Knowing they couldn't seize Terra until POCSYM was taken out, and finding their resources to do so inadequate, the S'Cotar established a base on a Martian satellite. From there, they augmented their force on Earth, teleporting at great risk through POCSYM's defenses. Thus reinforced, the insectoids infiltrated key posts in one of the more powerful Terran states. With its resources clandestinely at their disposal, the S'Cotar hoped to locate and quietly destroy the pesky computer. Implacable's unexpected arrival and the imminent discovery of a functioning transporter site by the Terrans had forced the S'Cotar into a premature battle…
Stephen Ames Berry
The Biofab War
Chapter 14
John awoke to something soft beating him in the face. Reaching out, he wrested the small, round pillow from Zahava's hands.
"Mouth breather!" she accused. "You were snoring!" She slid from his grasp, stepping onto the deep-carpeted floor. "Pleasant dreams?" she asked, ducking into the bathroom.
"Enlightening, perhaps. Shouldn't believe everything you dream, though." Rising, he looked for his clothes. "Seems to be a pilferage problem," he grumbled, not finding them.
"You'll find fresh Colonial Service uniforms in the wardrobe," advised POCSYM's voice.
"Do you always eavesdrop?" He opened the wardrobe door. Duplicates of last night's attire, clean and flawlessly pressed, hung there. Warsuits and blasters lay neatly stacked atop a shelf.
"Actually, yes. It's my programming. I'm sorry if it offends you."
"What time is it?" asked John.
"Ten-ten A.M., eastern standard time."
"Do you keep track of the time in each zone?" he asked, poking about the wardrobe's shelves.
"No. I listen to a lot of FM-mostly classical," confessed POCSYM. "I got the time check from one of the Manhattan stations."
"Oh."
"Yes, I've monitored radio and television transmissions since their inception. It helps keep me abreast of the geopolitical situation, and allows me to record changes in the mores and folkways of the various cultures.
"I have statistical evidence, in fact, that minor changes in social mores are frequently engineered by the media."
"Comforting," drawled John, ending his search of the wardrobe. "You wouldn't happen to have a razor, would you?"
"Depilatory cream is on the third shelf behind the bath mirror. You should find all necessary toiletries there."
Before John could move, Zahava closed the bathroom door. A shower started.
"Anyone else up yet?" he asked.
"I am," boomed a voice. Bob came in, looking a bit absurd in his Colonial Service uniform. "Don't let our pompous wizard bamboozle you," he said, jerking a thumb toward the wall. "For all its supposed scientific objectivity, it's accumulated an extraordinary number of operatic recordings. It favored me with an original cut of Caruso in The Barber of Seville- Caruso, John! God only knows how he… it… got it."
Sitting on his bunk, tugging on a boot, John grunted, "We all have pronoun problems with Mr. POCSYM.
"Were you given the same dream as we were?" he asked, squeezing his left foot into the tight-fitting K'Ronarin boot.
"Mighty ships, pigmy humans, Imperial noblesse oblige!" Bob smiled.
"You doubt?" asked John, rising.
"Someone should be a doubting Thomas. I'm bunked with D'Trelna and that cynical old space dog ate it up. If he did, the rest probably did.
"Oh, I accept all this"-he waved a vague hand about-"a priori. Direct evidence and the reasoned judgment of our intellect says this isn't a Borges fantasy. But we have only POC-SYM's word for this revisionist history-three-dimensional and in living color though it may be. No, I reserve judgment. You?"
"The same. Logic compels caution. We've been thrust into the midst of a galactic war whose-"
The bathroom door vanished. Steam billowed in, a naked form dimly visible through the mist. Bob's hasty exit ended the conversation.
At breakfast, John asked a question that'd been nagging him. "CIA and KGB, working as a team?" His gaze shifted between Bakunin and Sutherland. "Things must really have changed since I left. You'll put yourselves out of a job."
Zahava and Greg looked up with interest. McShane, listening intently to K'Raoda, took no notice.
"Not really our fault," said Sutherland between mouthfuls of what looked like fresh blueberry blintzes, bacon and coffee. "It started with Admiral Canaris's Abwehr," he said, naming the Third Reich's military intelligence arm.
"Abwehr stumbled onto a site very much like the one at Goose Hill." Bakunin picked up the tale. "It was used by the French Resistance as a storage and staging area. An Abwehr raiding party arrived at the site just as what we now know were S'Cotar transmutes dropped in-probably looking for POCSYM." He paused, sipping coffee.
Sutherland pushed his plate away with a contented sigh. "The meeting between the Nazis and the S'Cotar was Hobbes-ian: 'nasty, brutish and short.' The bugs teleported away, destroying the site as they left. Only one of the Abwehr unit lived through the carnage. He carried a map, snatched from the S'Cotar, showing the probable locations of POCSYM's transporter sites."
"An SS officer got the map," said Bakunin, picking up the story, "then gave it to us and the Americans after the war. By that time, though, all the sites we could find had been destroyed. As proved true with the CIA's explorations."
"Why did you and the Russians cooperate, Bill?" asked Greg. "Especially during the cold war." Unnoticed, the window now showed a red-sailed galley skimming an azure sea. High above its fifty-oared deck, something gold caught the sun.
"Each side was sobered," said Sutherland, stirring cognac into his coffee, "by the way those transporter sit
es had been destroyed. Someone-something-used energy weapons far beyond our ken." He watched the cream curdle to the surface.
"Confronted by this, we didn't rush to embrace like kids trapped in a wild storm-not quite. Let's just say that on this topic, and this topic alone, there's been a warm rapprochement over the years, carried on at the highest levels of government.''
"I have a question for the good Captain," said John, appropriating some of Sutherland's cognac. "If the S'Cotar can teleport-and we know they can-why did they storm Goose Hill a second time? Why not just teleport in and blow us to pieces while we were still outside? They had the location from their first attack."
D’Trelna, seated next to McShane, was puffing on one of Bob's cigars. He removed the panatela from his mouth, thoughtfully regarding its profile before answering.
"Frankly, I don't know. And I don't like it. Their entire method of operation has been different in your solar system. Downright incompetent, really. All we can do is hope that they continue that way, for whatever reason." He stuck the cigar back into his mouth.
"Another question," said Zahava. "How do you explain the invisibility of all those warriors over the years? If, as you say, they're nontelepaths, how could they maintain a protective illusion?"
"I think I can answer that," said K'Raoda, pushing his empty plate away. "They didn't.
"They were probably all housed in one central place-I suspect the Institute-until needed. Two or three of the transmutes could project an image of normalcy throughout the entire installation whenever there were visitors."
****
"It looks like the surface of the moon," said MacDonald to Montanoya as the two men looked down on Goose Hill. The morning sun had woven a grotesque tapestry of light and shadow from the twisted alien bodies and molten, wide-strewn rubble.
"More like something out of Dante, Mr. President," said Montanoya.
"Land where you can," MacDonald ordered the air force Major piloting the Apache gunship.
"Where you can" was next to a pair of gutted K'Ronarin scout craft. The six escort gunships settled in a protective ring around the presidential chopper.
Following a combat-ready platoon of Secret Servicemen, they made their way up from the beach to where S'Cotar bodies heaped the blasted entrance.
"Don't look much prettier burned than they do intact," said Montanoya, comparing a charred corpse to one less damaged.
"There are probably many life forms in the universe, Jose," said MacDonald, waiting for their escort to check the site. "Perhaps we're as repulsive to them as they are to us."
"No one home, Mr. President," reported the agent in charge five minutes later. "Something sure blasted the hell out of the lower corridor and the room above it, though. No human bodies, but plenty of them." He nudged a headless corpse with the polished black toe of his combat boot.
"Okay. Let's have a look," MacDonald said.
Armed men front and rear, the President and Montanoya carefully picked their way down the rubble-strewn stairs and upper corridor, through the broken remains of the altar chamber, then down the ladder to the lower tunnel, its lighting flickering on and off. The scarred walls and blasted S'Cotar corpses bore mute testimony to the hellish energies that had raged there.
MacDonald turned to the escort commander. "Where was-''
He never finished the question. He and Montanoya disappeared, leaving consternation in their wake.
****
"And this is Central Control," said POCSYM to the humans entering the large room.
Screens above unmanned consoles came on, filling with sights both familiar and strange. London, New York, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, Bonn, the North American continent, Terra, Terra and its moon, the outer planets, the sun.
"Are those real or taped?" asked the Russian, peering closely at Mars. The color and clarity were flawless.
"Real, Colonel. I've maintained the satellite observation network first installed by Fleet. Drone repair ships are on station in the asteroids and many of the planetary satellites."
The screens blanked out.
"We're about to receive visitors, gentlemen and lady. Please stand well away from the center of the room," POCSYM requested. "And no matter what you think you see, do nothing."
Sutherland was still in awe of the seemingly effortless way POCSYM transmitted and reassembled people. With no apparent transition, Jose Montanoya and President MacDonald stood in the center of the room, blinking.
"Welcome to K'Ronarin Planetary Command," said POCSYM. "I've been looking forward to this meeting for some time."
"You have the advantage, sir," MacDonald said, taking in the unfamiliar faces.
"Your pardon, sir. I am POCSYM Six, this installation's guardian."
"I'm Jose Montanoya," said the National Security Advisor. He paused. Why didn't Sutherland do or say something? The man was just standing there, staring at him. "And this gentleman"-he indicated MacDonald-"is the President of the United States, where I hope we still are."
"You are in the United States, or rather under it, Mr. Montanoya," replied POCSYM. "But your companion is neither gentle nor a man. Stand away from him, please."
Ignoring the hisses of indrawn breath and weapons being drawn, POCSYM continued, "Greetings to you, Gaun-Sharick, Illusion Master of the Infinite Hosts of the Magnificent. Hail! and well met, ancient foe."
"No!" cried Montanoya, even as he backed away from MacDonald. "I've known this man for forty years. He can't be an… alien."
"See and believe, Mr. Montanoya," POCSYM said.
MacDonald's form shimmered for an instant, then was replaced by a transmute. The alien stood unmoving. It carried no weapons.
"And the President?" asked Montanoya after a moment's stunned silence. "What about the President?"
Dead, said a voice in all their heads. The S'Cotar turned its huge eyes on them. We held him in our base on Demos. Your newfound friends killed him in their rush to destroy us.
"Intellectually, Gaun-Sharick is as old as I am, if you discount the hundreds of successive clones through which his persona has passed," POCSYM said. "He stands high in the Council of the Magnificent. His is the task of exterminating all hostile-that is to say alien-life. If he can sow dissension among the foes of the Host, all the better. He's the father of lies.
"Didn't you wonder, Mr. Montanoya," asked POCSYM, "why on earth, or under it, a President of the United States would expose himself to danger, especially without media coverage?
"Gaun-Sharick hoped I would be fooled into transporting him here. Talks between the Terrans and the K'Ronarins was, of course, the next logical step.
"Behold the Illusion Master, stripped of his illusions.
"Captain D'Trelna." POCSYM addressed the Confederation officer, who stood with blaster leveled at the insectoid, "please tell the Terrans what must have occurred for Gaun-Sharick to have imitated their President so well."
Clearing his throat, the Captain complied. "His memories had to be transferred, down to the most basic level, directly into the alien's mind. This is accomplished by slowly inserting the thin, hard antennae concealed in the mandibles into the victim's brain, absorbing each successive layer of memory even as the victim dies. The process takes several very painful hours."
The horrified silence was broken by Montanoya trying to seize John's blaster.
"No, Mr. Montanoya!" said POCSYM. "Alive he can be used to avenge your friend. Dead he is of no use. Something he realizes-he's tried to teleport continuously in the last minute. It would be certain death, as he doesn't know his location. I've blocked those attempts as well as his efforts to bring unwelcome visitors. With your permission, Captain, I'll put him on a debriefer."
"What's that?" asked Greg.
"It will extract every bit of data from his mind, but unlike your President, the process won't kill Gaun-Sharick," said K'Raoda. "I assume there's an Imperial model here. Much more thorough than ours-it will leave him a vegetable." There was no mercy in
the young officer's voice.
D'Trelna gestured to two of his commandos. They came up to the alien, flanking him. ''Follow the blue light to Interrogation, gentlemen," directed POCSYM. "My robots will take charge of the prisoner there."
A ball of soft blue light, a foot in diameter, appeared on the floor before prisoner and escort, slowly moving toward the door. The trio followed.
Gaun-Sharick turned at the door, transfixing them with baleful red eyes, twin pools of malevolence. His voice hissed in their minds again. We shall write your names on water. The scattering dust is your fate. The door closed behind him.
"Now what?" asked a shaken Jose Montanoya.
"I suggest we await our battle fleet, sir, then negotiate a mutual defense treaty," D'Trelna said. "It's only a matter of time before the S'Cotar bring up their main force. Our presence here confirms the importance of Terra and this system." He nodded at a wall hologram of the solar system.
"What is that blue light orbiting Earth?" asked Bob. "Implacable!"
"Yes," POCSYM said. "Blue is friendly, red hostile. Shall we continue the tour?"
Stephen Ames Berry
The Biofab War
Chapter 15
Implacable's XO reread the commscan:
MOST URGENT
From: Grand Admiral L'Guan
Vigilant To: Captain D'Trelna, Implacable
II Sector Fleet and elements Home Fleet enroute your position. Be advised massive repeat massive enemy withdrawals from occupied sectors. Enemy converging on your position. You are to defend the planet Terra until relieved. If, in your judgment, position becomes untenable, you will retreat only after destroying all Imperial equipment on Terra. END
"Maximum detector watch. Maintain high alert," L'Wrona ordered the incoming watch as he eyed the screen. Implacable still showed as the only ship in the system. "Better get me the Captain."
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