The Imperial warships had positioned themselves near the end of the Nova Aquila Stargate where One-GEF had vanished some minutes before, hunting dogs waiting for the rabbit to reemerge from the hole.
Within the Haven Mind was incalculable power. Power to easily break computer security codes, hunt down frequencies, brush aside access blocks. The gestalt could penetrate the Imperial squadron’s computers within milliseconds, take them over, and do whatever was needed to cripple or destroy the ships. He remembered the race to destroy the Hoshiryu, falling from the skies over Singapore, and realized that the same task, with the same result, could be accomplished now without effort, in the blink of an eye.
“What will we do?” Kara asked.
Dev smiled. “We call them up,” he said, “and we talk.”
Epilogue
For now, at least, the truce was holding.
The appearance in the Imperial squadron’s rear of the Haven Planetoid, accompanied by two DalRiss city ships, a ryu-class carrier, and the Gauss, along with five squadrons of Confederation warflyers, had given Admiral Hideshi pause. A brief demonstration on Dev’s part, crashing the weapons and fire-control AIs aboard the Soraryu, had turned pause into an indefinite stay of execution… and a truce. It wasn’t, necessarily, the end of the Imperial-Confederation war. It might, for all any of them knew, be only the beginning. But for the moment, both sides were talking, communicating, and while they were talking, they weren’t killing one another.
It was a start.
It was a start, too, when a number of Web kickers were reactivated through a link-up with the Naga core of the Haven Planetoid. A few seconds of analysis provided the missing code string in the Naga communications protocol; the strange entities really were organic computers, with as literal and as straightforward an understanding of the universe as any of that breed. Quite possibly, they could have provided the answer all along, if anyone had been able to ask the proper questions.
Soon, the Haven Planetoid would depart for the Galactic Core. The Devgestalt would encounter the Web, use the code sequence, and allow itself to be assimilated by the Web.
“I don’t want you to go,” Katya told him. They were meeting a final time in the virtual simulation of Cascadia, Dev and Katya, Vic, Kara, Daren and Taki. An extended, if somewhat unorthodox family. “None of us do.”
“I’m not leaving, not really,” Dev replied. “There are enough copies of myself in the Net now, that you’ll still have me around no matter what happens at the Core.”
“Those are copies.…”
“I’m a copy,” Dev reminded her. “The original Dev died a long time ago. Remember? Besides, if there’s no difference between a copy and the original, down to the quantum scale, they are the same.”
“He knows he survives in the future,” Kara said. “We all do, though I’m not sure I see how.”
“You know,” Vic said, “there’s a religion growing up in some parts of the Confederation. I think in the Empire as well. It holds that the Overmind will somehow absorb everyone when they die, make them part of itself. And that it will eventually move throughout time, taking to itself the minds, the souls, if you will, of everyone who has ever lived or ever will live. A rational basis for a belief in God.”
“I never believed in God,” Daren said thoughtfully. “But if there’s no difference between the copy and the idea it was taken from…”
“I think we’ve glimpsed a tiny, tiny shred of one of the great, driving truths of human existence,” Dev told them. “It hinges on the old idea that death need not be an end, but a kind of graduation. I don’t know if we’ve really seen the answer to that. My survival as a download doesn’t guarantee the same for everyone. But it’s comforting to know we might have touched the answer to a very, very old and human question.”
“A lot of people are turning to downloads as a way to beat death,” Taki pointed out. “And we saw in the Galactic Associative that the downloads are going to outnumber the organics some day. Maybe the new religion has something to it.”
“I don’t hold much with religions,” Katya said. “In the long run, they’re human institutions for dealing with human problems. But it’s going to be fun to see if there’s a reality behind this one.”
“By the way.” Dev said, looking at Kara. “I understand the ranks of the downloaded lost a couple the other day. How are they?”
She grinned. “Will Daniels is back on active duty. Ran is still recovering, but they tell me he’s going to be okay. It was your patterning technique that did it, though. Thanks.…”
With a potentially infinite number of duplications possible, the techs working with Ran Ferris and Willis Daniels and a number of other RDTS victims had been able to try numerous techniques for reinstalling the mental software that were downloaded minds in the wetware-hardware of the patients’ brains. In fact, copies of both men remained on the Net; there was talk now that, just as everyone had a Companion, everyone might soon have a downloaded copy of himself existing on the Net, a kind of alter ego to conduct research, extend human experience… and even serve as a backup copy in the case of the original’s death.
Dev had already been exploring numerous possibilities there, working with both AIs and human, DalRiss, and Gr’tak experts in designing the shape of the new Net.
A Net that, one day, would evolve into the Associative he’d met in the distant future.
The research had been intriguing to Dev, in particular. Cloned bodies—or even new generations of hubots—offered the hope that one day he would be able to reinstall himself in a flesh-and-blood body. When he did so, though, it would be in a world so transformed by the power and the scope of Net consciousness that it would, likely, be unrecognizable to anyone alive now. Dev was more than willing to concede that he might not mind remaining immortal after all.…
“When are you going?” Katya asked. “To the Core, I mean.”
“As fast as we can arrange it, Mums,” Kara replied. “Those gokking machines came too damned close to frying Earth. We’re going to have to do something about them fast… before they try again.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Kara,” Dev said, letting his image settle back in the warm comfort of the electronic world about him. “In fact, we have all the time in the universe.”
TERMINOLOGY AND GLOSSARY
AI: Artificial Intelligence. Since the Sentient Status Act of 2204, higher-model networking systems have been recognized as “self-aware but of restricted purview,” a legal formula that precludes enfranchisement of machine intelligences.
Alpha: Type of Xenophobe combat machine, also called stalker, shapeshifter, silvershifter, etc. They are animated by numerous organic-machine hybrids and mass ten to twelve tons. Their weapons include nano-D shells and surfaces, and various magnetic effects. Alphas appear in two guises, a snake-or wormlike shape that lets them travel underground along SDTs, and any of a variety of combat shapes, usually geometrical with numerous spines or tentacles. Each distinctive combat type is named after a poisonous Terran reptile, e.g., Fer-de-Lance, Cobra, Mamba, etc.
Alya: Naked-eye star Theta Serpentis (63 Serpentis) 130 light years from Sol. A double star with a separation of 900 All (5 light-days), Alya A is an A5 star, Alya B an A7. Alya B-V is the homeworld of the DalRiss, who know it as GhegnuRish. Alya A-VI is known as ShraRish, a DalRiss colony.
Analogue: Computer-generated “double” of a person, used to handle routine business, communications, and duties through ViRcom linkage.
Annaisha: “Guide.” Term for Imperial liaison officers who coordinate military or political activity between the Empire and Hegemony military forces.
AND Round: Anti-nano disassembler. Tube-launched NCM round that bursts almost as soon as it is fired, releasing an NCM cloud.
Antigenics: Nanotechnic devices programmed to hunt down and destroy disease bacteria and parasites inside the body.
APW: Armored Personnel Walker. Any of several large, four-legged st
riders designed to carry unlinked passengers. VbH Zo (“Elephant”) can carry fifty troops. Kani (“Crab”) can carry twenty.
Ascraft: Aerospace craft. Vehicles that can fly both in space and in atmosphere, including various transports, fighters, and shuttles.
Beta: Second class of Xenophobe combat machine, adapted from captured or abandoned human equipment. Its weapons are human-manufactured weapons, often reshaped to Xeno purposes. They have been known to travel underground.
Bionangineering: Use of nanotechnology to restructure life-forms for medical or ornamental reasons.
CA: Combat Armor. Light personal armor/space suit providing eight hours’ life support in hostile environment.
Cephing: Also linking. Derived from cephlink. To operate equipment, computers, striders, etc., through a cephlink.
Cephlink: Implant within the human brain allowing direct interface with computer-operated systems. It contains its own microcomputer and RAM storage and is accessed through sockets, usually located in the subject’s temporal bones above and behind each ear. Limited (non-ViR) control and interface is possible through neural implants in the skin, usually in the palm of one hand.
Cephlink RAM: Random Access Memory, part of the micro-circuitry within the cephlink assembly. Used for memory storage, message transfer, linguistics programming, and the storage of complex digital codes used in cephlinkage access. An artificial extension of human intelligence.
Ceramiplas: Plastic-ceramic composite used in personal armor.
Charged Particle Gun (CPG): Primary weapon on larger warstriders. Including proton cannons and electron guns, they use powerful gauss fields to direct streams of charged subatomic particles at the target.
Chiji: “Governor.” Specifically, the Hegemony governor of Shichiju worlds. Usually (but not always) an Imperial.
CMP: Cluster Munitions Package. Missile or artillery round payload. Dispenses hundreds of mines, bomblets, or nuclear-triggered plasma bolts in a destructive “footprint” across a large area.
Coaster: Intrasystem, low-cost space transport, usually for cargo, although sometimes passengers are carried. Cramped, old, and uncomfortable, they are characterized by brief periods of high-G acceleration and deceleration at either end of the journey, with a long interval of zero-G “coasting” between.
Colonial Authority: Hegemonic bureaucracy charged with overseeing government, trade, and terraforming of the human-inhabited worlds.
Commpac: “Communications package.” Long-range communications unit that plugs into both temporal sockets and is worn behind the head. It permits long-range communication and can serve as a modem to planetary computer networks without a direct palm interface.
Compatch: Small radio transceiver worn on the skin and jacked into a T-socket. Allows cephlink-to-link radio communications.
Compscam: Using computer networks—especially non-AI systems—to illegally divert money, equipment, etc.
Cryo-H: Liquid hydrogen cooled to a few degrees absolute, used as fuel for fusion power plants aboard striders, ascraft, and other vehicles. Sometimes called “slush hydrogen.”
C-socket: Cervical socket, located in subject’s cervical spine, near the base of his neck. Directs neural impulses to jacked equipment, warstriders, construction gear, heavy lifters, etc.
C3, C-Three: Military term for Command, Control, and Communications, the essentials of battlefield command.
DalRiss: Nonhuman intelligence first contacted in 2540. Native to Alya B-V (GhegnuRish), they are highly advanced in biological sciences, relatively backward in engineering and metallurgical sciences. Compound name reflects use of Dal, a gene-engineered organism, as “mount” by Riss (“Master”).
Deplur: Depleted uranium. Ultradense metal used in massive projectiles such as 8-mm hivel ammunition.
DHS: Directorate of Hegemony Security. Joint military-civilian bureau under Imperial overwatch tasked with internal security in both civilian and military sectors.
Dracomycetes mirabila: Fungus harvested in jungle lowlands of Eridu, the source of a drug used for memory enhancement.
DSA: Deep Seismic Anomaly. Seismic tremors associated with subsurface movements of Xenophobe machines.
Durasheath: Armor grown as composite layers of diamond, duralloy, and ceramics; light, flexible, and very strong.
El-shuttle: Saucer-shaped pressurized chamber ferrying passengers and cargo up and down the sky-el. The passenger deck has seats for up to a hundred people, complete with jackplugs and a recjack library.
Embedded Interface: Network of wires and neural feeds embedded in the skin—usually in the palm near the base of the thumb—and used to access and control simple computer hardware. Provides control and datafeed functions only, not full-sensory input. Used to activate T- and C-socket jacks, to pass authorization and credit data, and to retrieve printed or vocal data “played” inside the user’s mind. Also called ’face or skin implant.
E-suit: Environmental suit. Lightweight helmet and garment for use in space or hostile atmospheric conditions.
Fabricrete: Artificial building material assembled molecule by molecule by nanotechnic constructors in Rogan Process, using dirt or refuse as raw material.
Fukushi: Imperial welfare program that provides Level One Implant technology, free housing, and ration subsidies to dependent citizens.
Fusorpak: Power unit carried on board most striders and large vehicles. Uses tanked slush hydrogen as fuel.
Gamma: Third type of Xenophobe combat machine, usually relatively small and amorphous. Apparently a fragment of a Xenophobe Alpha, animated by one or more Xeno machine-organism hybrids. Its surface consists of nano disassemblers, making its touch deadly.
Glowglobe: Magnetically suspended lighting element, programmed to hover in place and produce light chemically on command.
Greens, Greenies: Political descendants of the Green Activist parties of the twenty-first and twenty-second centuries. Generally pro-environmental, anti-expansionist.
Grennel: Common name for a freshwater bladder plant harvested on Eridu. It is the source of a drug useful in treating impotence.
Guntower: Unmanned sentry outpost armed with various energy or projectile weapons. May be automated, remote-controlled, or directed by an on-site, low-level AI.
Hab: “Habitat.” home, though it usually refers to a structure used primarily for recreation or entertainment rather than a dwelling.
Hardware: Any physical computer equipment, but usually specifically applied to cephimplants, sockets, and other equipment surgically implanted within brain, skin, or bone.
Hegemony: Also Terran Hegemony. World government representing fifty-seven nations on Earth, plus the Colonial Authorities of the seventy-eight terraformed worlds. Technically sovereign, it is dominated by Imperial Japan, which has a veto in its legislative assembly.
HEMILCOM: Hegemony Military Command. Local military command-control-communications (C3) headquarters, usually based in sky-el orbitals, charged with coordinating military operations within a given sector.
Hivel Cannon: A turret-mounted, high velocity rotary cannon. Similar to twentieth-century CIWS systems, it fires bursts of depleted uranium slugs with a rate of fire as high as fifty per second. Usually controlled by an onboard AI, its primary function is antimissile defense. It can also be voluntarily controlled and used against other targets.
HMC: Hegemony Military Compound. Military base supporting at least one battalion of warstriders plus auxiliary forces.
Hotbox: Strap-on rocket or scramjet booster. Small modules allow striders to softland after an airdrop or provide jet-assisted boosts for navigating rough terrain. Larger modules provide surface-to-orbit thrust for aerospace transports.
Hunorm: Human-normal. Refers to link-feed senses, especially vision, in human-normal ranges, as opposed to spectra normally invisible to humans, such as infrared.
ICS: Intercom System. Provides shipboard voice communication for unlinked personnel. Also refers to linked commu
nications between crew members of a single vehicle.
Imbedded Interface: Network of wires and neural feeds imbedded in the skin—usually in the palm near the base of the thumb—used to access and control simple computer hardware. Provides control and datafeed functions only, not full-sensory input. Used to activate T- and C-socket jacks, to pass authorization and credit data, and to retrieve printed or vocal data “played” inside the user’s mind. Also called ’face or skin implant.
Jacker: Slang for anyone with implanted jacks for neural interface with computers, machinery, or communications networks. Specifically applied to individuals who jack in for a living, as opposed to recreational jackers, “recjacks.”
Kanrinin: “Controller.” Device that plugs into subject’s T-and C-sockets, allowing almost total motor nerve control by others. Used to handle or transfer prisoners.
Kansei no Otoko: “The Men of Completion.” Nihonjinn faction at Court and within the Imperial Staff dedicated to cleansing upper levels of Imperial civilian and military organizations of gaijin influence.
Kokorodo: Literally “Way of the Mind,” a mental discipline practiced by Imperial military jackers to achieve full mental and physical coordination through AI linkage.
K-T Plenum: Extraspacial realm at the hyperdimensional interface between normal fourspace and the quantum sea. From Nihongo Kamisamano Taiyo, literally “Ocean of God.” Starships navigate through the K-T plenum.
Kuso: Japanese word for feces. Not a Japanese expletive, it is used as such by Inglic-speakers.
L-LOS: Laser Line of Sight. Straight-line path clear of interfering smoke, dust, or other obstruction along which laser communications can be established.
Loki: 36 Ophiuchi C (Dagstjerne) II. World 17.8 light-years from Sol currently undergoing terraforming by colonists of Scandinavian descent. Place names taken from Norse mythology, including Asgard (synchorbital), Bifrost (sky-el), and Midgard (towerdown). Capital: Midgard. Language Norsk-Lokan, a dialect of Norse.
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