by Steve White
"And just where could these mysterious Unknowns have come from?" Daeliuv's sarcastic tone didn't quite make it to the end of the sentence.
Yarvann shrugged. "Who's to say? Seivra has only the two displacement points, and the Unknowns obviously didn't come from this system, so they must have come through the other one, from somewhere beyond Seivra."
"But," Daeliuv argued, "that leads to Korvaash space."
"True, but between Seivra and the old Korvaash frontier lie all these displacement connections"—he indicated the holo display—"that we explored before we blundered onto the Korvaasha, and all these displacement chains that branch off from them. We never explored very far along the branching chains; maybe, since occupying Raehan, the Korvaasha have ventured farther along them than we did, and stirred up a zorat's nest! Or maybe the Unknowns have been expanding along one of those chains and encountered the Korvaasha and decided something had to be done about them. Either way, we can't say how much they've conquered beyond Seivra. All we know for sure is that any enemy of the Korvaasha is a potential ally of ours!"
Arduin held himself aloof from the desperately-hopeful excitement that visibly awoke among the others. "Let's consider all the possibilities, Yarvann. For one thing we don't know that these hypothetical conquerors of Seivra reached it via displacement points. They might have the continuous-displacement drive."
That brought them all up short. He had told them about Varien's invention, of course, but it still wasn't altogether real for them—they hadn't grown up with it. They had discussed the possibility of equipping some of their ships with the drive and leaving the Tareil system to search for a new home among the stars. But nothing had come of it. Too much of the vital technical information had departed with Varien, and the task of recreating the drive from theoretical generalities was beyond their capabilities, or at least beyond any capabilities they could spare from the day-to-day desperation of their struggle against the Korvaasha. Arduin suspected there was a deeper reason: such a project would have represented an admission of their cause's long-term hopelessness, and this was precisely the admission they could not afford to make to themselves.
"Well," Yarvann began after a moment's hesitation, "I hadn't thought of that. But if the Unknowns have the continuous-displacement drive and can go where they please without regard to displacement points, why should they have gone to a miserable little red dwarf like Seivra?"
Miranni zho'Traellann spoke up hesitantly. "Unless . . . could it be Varien? Or somone somehow connected with Varien?" She spoke the questions with an eagerness that reminded Arduin of her prewar friendship—and, some said, more than that—with the long-time widower Varien. When he spoke, it was with a careful gentleness.
"I don't see how it can be, Miranni. In straight-line distance, Seivra is even further from Lirauva or Landaen than this system is. At the top pseudo-velocity most of Varien's ships can manage, a nonstop continuous-displacement flight from either of those stars to Seivra—as if such a thing were possible—would take more than three times as long as he's been gone! No," he continued, meeting one pair of eyes after another around the circuit of the table, "I want to believe in Varien's return as much as any of you. But we can't let our hopes run away with us.
"Yarvann, you may be right: something has caused the Korvaasha to take the pressure off us. So perhaps it's time to put some pressure on them! I want a detailed operational plan for an attack on the mining station at Raesau. In the meantime, we'll continue our surveillance of the Seivra displacement point and stand ready to respond to whatever happens in that direction."
Yarvann slapped the edge of the table and sank back into his chair with an exclamation that a Terran of the American persuasion, had any such been present, would have instantly recognized as Raehaniv for "Hot damn!" Then he leaned forward as if energized by a new thought. "Something else, Arduin. If we're going to put pressure on them, we should do it everywhere. Maybe it's time to signal our people on Raehan to commence some serious guerrilla action."
Daeliuv looked on the verge of a stroke as he tried to form words. "Are you insane?" he finally blurted out. He turned to Arduin beseechingly. "We can't commit our planetside organization to overt action now! Even if they succeeded, the result would be massive, bloody reprisals—we learned that early in the occupation. And the consequences of failure would be catastrophic: the destruction of our hidden munitions caches and the severing of our contacts. We can't jeopardize our intelligence sources!"
Arduin nodded. "You're right, Daeliuv. Yarvann, an armed uprising on Raehan would be premature at this time. Rmember, we've discussed this before." They did remember—none of them could forget the sickening butchery of the massacres that had followed the first attempts at resistance. "We decided then that our groundside combat capability can only be used once, so we have to hold it in reserve for a final, all-out effort to liberate Raehan. The logic of that decision still holds." Even Yarvann's mutter of disappointment was pro forma, as if he knew it was expected of him. "No, for now we'll continue to keep the full extent of our organization on Raehan secret. That . . . and the Turanau find."
An uneasy silence descended, for Arduin had reminded them of an irrelevance that was too massive to ignore. Probing further and further into unfrequented regions of the asteroid belt in search of potential fall-back bases, their scouts had stumbled onto the asteroid he had named, with its enigmatic works that some unknown intelligence had wrought and then abandoned in the unguessable past. Before the war it would have been a discovery of epoch-making importance. In their present pass, it represented only a hope that novel alien weapons technology might be discovered—a hope that had been completely disappointed, for the mysterious builders had left their chambers and corridors stripped clean of everything except the relief sculpture that had identified them.
Humans. The ancient builders of Turanau had been humans. Viewing the hologram that the scout ship had brought back, they had all stared across the ages into the vacant eyes of that serene and entirely human face.
First the Korvaasha, then enigma in the form of the Landaeniv, and now this. The universe isn't a comfortable and secure place, like it it was when I was young. Arduin smiled inwardly at himself. That's been the lament of every old fool since time began. It's just that in my case it happens to be true.
He spoke quickly, banishing with his voice the silence in which each of them had to confront the unknowable alone, just as humans had always strengthened their common defenses against the great darkness outside their campfires with the cement of words. "We can't let ourselves think about it now. We must leave it for later." If there is a later, he did not add. "All we can do is try to take advantage of whatever it is that's got the Korvaasha stirred up, and hope that it portends a miracle. We need one."
* * *
The crudely massive chamber held the chill air and dim orange light of the Korvaash homeworld that was little more than hearsay to most of the figures who sat around the long table conversing in what would have been, to human ears, dead silence. Only the gravity was that of this world of Raehan, sybaritically low. Sugvaaz, as Conservator of Correctness, had grumbled about that, but he had been overruled. A continuously maintained artificial gravity field set at the homeworld's force (two-thirds again Raehan's) would have been costly in energy that could otherwise be powering the furtherance of the Unity. It was the type of argument Gromorgh and the other pragmatists had found most effective with Sugvaaz.
At any rate, they had Lugnaath's voice to remind them of the homeworld. The Third Level Embodiment of the Unity spoke with its pure accent, having been born there, and his every word seemed to evoke the massive, incredibly distant world that represented the ultimate (so far) triumph of the Unity, with its biosphere consisting of several score billion Korvaasha, a lot of food yeast, and a few million inferior beings of assorted species who had been imported to perform specialized tasks for which their physiologies made them particularly suited. To listen to him was to visualize the citie
s, domed against polluted air, rising above plains that had long ago been cleansed of their inefficient and redundant species of animals and plants. Lugnaath hadn't come directly from it, of course; if he had departed on the day Raehan had fallen he would still be enroute, such was the vastness of the Unity. He had left the homeworld behind in his youth, progressing through one post after another, most recently on the regional headquarters world of Izgnad from which the incorporation of the Raehaniv into the Unity had been directed.
And now, as highest authority in the Tareil system, he presided over this emergency meeting. He sat wordlessly, listening to the report of Zagthuud, Obtainer of Foreknowledge, and watching the reactions of the other males present. (Korvaash females had no function beyond procreation and, after they were no longer suitable for that, food. In the Unity, nothing went to waste.)
"We conclude," the intelligence chief was saying, "that the unknown inferior beings who have temporarily"—he stressed the word and glanced involuntarily at Sugvaaz—"occupied Seivra must have entered that system through an undiscovered displacement point."
"But," Lugnaath inquired in the voice that made the others so acutely conscious of their birth on the outer fringes of the Unity, far from its near-legendary center, "how can such a displacement point have been missed? Were our standard survey procedures not carried out at Seivra? And did the inferior beings of this world not survey the system before that?"
"Indeed, Third Level Embodiment. It does seem unlikely. But perhaps the displacement point is freakishly far from the system's primary. At any rate, there seems no other explanation."
"In the early days of the Unity," Lugnaath mused, "before the discovery of displacement points, our ancestors considered an attempt to cross normal space to the nearer stars. Could the attackers have come to Seivra in this manner?"
"My staff considered that possibility, Third Level Embodiment, and we studied historical records of the period of which you speak. Those interstellar ships were to have been enormous vessels designed to obtain reaction mass from the interstellar hydrogen; the designs were nothing like the ships that attacked Seivra, judging from the imagery our picket was able to obtain before transiting. Of course, this unknown race of inferior beings could, perhaps, have developed propulsion technologies that we have not . . . ." Belatedly, Zagthuud realized what he was saying and his voice trailed to a stop.
"It is a prime tenet of Acceptable Knowledge," Sugvaaz spoke coldly, eye darkening, "that the inception of the Unity was shortly followed by the attainment of the ultimate possibilities of technology. Further refinements such as those achieved by the inferior beings of this system are, of course, possible; but fundamental breakthroughs are not, for the Acceptable Knowledge is, by definition, complete. Any other view is . . . incorrect."
"Of course, Conservator," Zagthuud murmured. "I spoke without thinking. The scientific plateau reached by the Unity with the discovery of displacement points of course represents . . ." He went on miserably. Lugnaath said nothing. He was, in theory, the ultimate authority in this system, but for purposes of maintaining the integrity of the Acceptable Knowledge the Conservator of Correctness held transcendent powers.
After a while, when Zagthuud showed signs of running out of self-abasement, Gromorgh broke in. "At any rate," he said smoothly, "it seems unlikely. The fact that the attackers made special efforts to destroy the pickets at the displacement points—fortunately unsuccessful in the case of the one that escaped here to warn us—suggests that they are aware of the existence of displacement points." Sugvaaz glared at him but couldn't very well say anything since the Director of Implementation was, after all, agreeing with his conclusions. He had never liked or trusted Gromorgh, and in any Korvaash administration the Conservator of Correctness was chronically suspicious of the Director of Implementation; anyone who worked so closely with, and through, inferior beings must be unreliable.
"I agree," said Kulnakh, the Effectuator of Expansion, with a combat officer's bluntness. "But the question now is what to do about it."
"Do about it?" Lugnaath gazed curiously at the military CO. "I would have thought, Effectuator, that we were already doing everything possible to strengthen our defenses against any attack from Seivra."
"Of course, Third Level Embodiment. That is elementary prudence. But consider: the fall of Seivra represents the first military setback, even of a temporary nature, that the Unity has ever suffered in its entire history. It is essential that we crush these attackers without delay! Furthermore, the longer they are left undisturbed in Seivra the longer they will have to strengthen their own defenses. We should counterattack through the Seivra displacement point as soon as possible!"
There was a long, uncomprehending silence. Finally, Lugnaath spoke in puzzled tones. "We have received no orders to mount a counterattack, Effectuator."
"Of course not, Third Level Embodiment. It is impossible for us to receive such orders; the fall of Seivra has cut off our communications with the rest of the Unity. We must therefore act on our own initiative!"
Sugvaaz spoke quietly. Too quietly. "The Administrative Directives state quite clearly, Effectuator, that offensive military action must be approved at the regional level, by none less than a Second Level Embodiment of the Unity. So authorization for the action you are proposing must come from Izgnad."
"But, Conservator," Kulnakh said patiently, "to repeat, we are cut off from Izgnad! Besides, it can be argued that a counterattack is a defensive measure, such as can be initiated at the system level, rather than an 'offensive operation' within the meaning of the Directives."
"Questions of interpretation concerning the Administrative Directives must also be resolved at the regional level, Effectuator. The Directives themselves state as much."
Kulnakh's voice began to take on a note of desperation. "Conservator, we find ourselves in an unprecedented situation!" He turned to Lugnaath. "Third Level Embodiment, you are empowered to take all measures for the defense of this system. I urge you to act under this authority and give the order now!"
Before Lugnaath could reply, Sugvaaz continued in the same horribly quiet voice. "The Administrative Directives state . . ."
"I tell you, the Directives simply don't cover this situation!" Kulnakh was actually shouting. "It was never foreseen when the Directives were formulated!"
Without any warning, Sugvaaz snapped up his left arm—the one that had been fitted with an implanted weapons-grade laser. The characteristic crack of air rushing back into the tunnel of vacuum made by the beam came simultaneously with a hissing sound as Kulnakh's eye was boiled away. He was dead before he could make a sound, before his corpse even began to collapse.
"The Administrative Directives," Sugvaaz stated in exactly the same quiet voice, "are an integral part of the Acceptable Knowledge. To deny that they anticipate all possible contingencies within their purview is to call the Acceptable Knowledge itself into question."
Lugnaath kept his face expressionless—easier for a Korvaasha than for a human. Too bad; Kulnakh had been an excellent Effectuator of Expansion, bringing a certain youthful energy to the position. But there was no help for it, of course. Any Conservator of Correctness had absolute power of life and death over all Korvaasha under his jurisdiction except Embodiments of the Unity. That was axiomatic—one of the pillars of the Unity.
He gave the faint whistling sound that was the Korvaash equivalent of a sigh, and spoke the code that activated his implanted communicator. "Inform Grashkul that he is now Effectuator of Expansion," he ordered the computer. "And now," he continued, addressing the meeting, "let us consider ways to enhance the defenses of the Seivra displacement point."
They continued, doing their best to ignore that which lay among them. Fortunately, the Korvaash sense of smell is almost vestigial.
* * *
The defenders of a displacement point enjoy the advantage of knowing where and on what heading their attackers will appear. On the other hand, they have absolutely no warning of when the
attack will take place, and no military unit can stay permanently at a high state of alert.
So universal tactical doctrine calls for stationing the defending fleet fairly far back from the displacement point while strewing the region of space along the emergence bearing with millions of small, dense objects—scrap metal if nothing better is available. This puts the attacker in a dilemma: if he shoots the displacement point fast, to take advantage of the defender's lag in reaction time, he encounters swarms of artificial meteorites at a relative velocity that turns them into devastating kinetic-energy weapons; but if he transits slowly to avoid this, he gives the defenders time to initiate the response for which they are ideally positioned.
Thus it was that lumbering Korvaash freighters dumped the contents of their cavernous holds into the space near the Seivra displacement point over and over, to replenish an astronomical junkyard whose contents tended to drift away. Meanwhile, warships waited at a position prescribed by immemorial tactical doctrine. It took frequent burns of their fusion drives to do so, for a displacement point, being a nonmaterial function of the relative positions of stars, does not in any sense orbit the star with which it is associated. But the Korvaash ships kept station with the professionalism of long tradition, waiting in precise formation to reduce to component atoms those unknown inferior beings who had dared to challenge the Unity.