The Disinherited

by Steve White

  "Very true," Tarlann affirmed. "By its very nature, their system is incapable of quick reactions."

  "Still, we can't sit on the defensive like this forever!" The translator conveyed Yarvann's eagerness. "Given enough time, they'll be able to mount an attack in overwhelming force! We've got to launch a counteroffensive as soon as possible, liberate the old Raehaniv-explored systems and go beyond that, into their own territory. Now that we have their navigational data, we can use the continuous-displacement drive to do repeatedly what Aelanni did to them here!"

  "And so we shall," Arduin reassured him. "But there is much to do first. We must consolidate here and build our strength. And, of course, we need to cement our alliances."

  "Exactly," DiFalco put in. "That's the primary reason for our immediate departure. The peoples of Earth must be told what's happening out here. As Varien knows, we joined him because our world is starting to turn its back on space just when such a move holds the prospect not just of stagnation—it always held that—but of disaster. Remember, once we begin the counteroffensive against the Korvaasha it's only a matter of time before a ship equipped with continuous-displacement drive falls into their hands. From what Tarlann has told us about them, they'll be able to rationalize adding the drive to their technological repertoire, on the grounds that it's just another application of gravitics and is therefore covered by the 'Acceptable Knowledge.' And on the day that happens, our world's security is gone; it won't be able to hide behind Sol's lack of displacement points. Earth's only safe course will be to ally itself with you Raehaniv, adopting your technology and joining with you to put an end to the Korvaash threat for good. And I know we can convince them of that."

  Varien smiled and thrust shrewdly. "Can't you at least wait for your son? It's been a while since you've seen him."

  DiFalco and Aelanni winced in unison. A courier vessel had gone with Golovko's fleet to Seivra, and was now enroute to Terranova to bring the news to the colony there. It would return to Tareil as a spacegoing nursery, bringing Jason and the other Terranova-born children of those who had departed into unknowable danger.

  Slowly, Aelanni shook her head. "No, father. I want with all my heart to see him again, while he still remembers us. But this is too urgent. The sooner we can get to Earth, the better our prospects there will be."

  "Yeah," DiFalco said grimly. "Believe me, things there are going to get worse before they get better. There's no time to lose." He brightened. "Besides, it's going to take time for Jason to get here. We should be back not too long after he arrives. Now that we've refitted Andrew Jackson so she can keep up with Liberator in continuous-displacement drive, it won't take us long to get to Sol after arriving at Alpha Centauri via the Lirauva Chain. Aelanni and I should be able to bring Liberator back soon after that, leaving Daeliuv and Miranni and the rest of the diplomatic mission with Andy J., for which we've made up a crew of people who've decided to return to Earth."

  "Well," Varien said, "I can see that the two of you have thought this through and that there's no dissuading you. So let me take this opportunity to make an announcement of my own." He looked around the table. "I have decided to retire to Terranova. I will probably depart after my grandson has arrived and I have provided for his care to my own satisfaction."

  DiFalco broke the stunned silence. "But Varien, I . . . I'd kind of assumed that you'd be going to Sol with us. I mean, forging an alliance with Earth's governments was your original reason for going there. Now's your chance to finish the job!"

  Varien smiled. "That's not precisely correct. I went to Sol seeking allies to help us liberate Raehan. And in that I succeeded, albeit in a manner which was, like so much else in life, unexpected."

  "But . . . but why, Varien?" Arduin was almost inarticulate with shock. "Why do you want to leave Raehan? We need you here, now more than ever!"

  "No, you don't," Varien stated flatly. "Tarlann has been running the family enterprises for some time, and is quite capable of continuing to do so." Tarlann nodded; he had been the only one who had known in advance. "And as for why—well, at the risk of repeating myself, Raehan is liberated, I know the fate of my son and grandchildren"—joy chased sorrow across his features—"and I feel a sense of . . . completion. It's time to move on to something else." He darted defensive looks around the table. "Well, I'm not that old, after all!"

  "But," Arduin persisted, "why Terranova? From the descriptions I've heard . . ."

  "Yes, I know, it sounds barely habitable. But it grows on one. For some inexplicable reason, I actually came to like the place. And I want to work with the Terran scientists there on some wholly new possiblities in the field of gravitics that our work on the deflector only suggested. Some of them are very brilliant people, and they've come to the field without preconceptions. I find them stimulating." Yarvann nodded as if he could understand that.

  "Furthermore," Varien continued, "Raehan holds too much sadness for me. So much has been destroyed, and will be rebuilt in ways that are strange to me. Don't misunderstand; I have the highest expectations of the new Raehan. But it won't be my Raehan, if you take my meaning. Everything I've known must change now. If I remain here, I fear I shall be running a genuine risk of becoming a disagreeable, opinionated curmudgeon!"

  He managed to maintain an air of dignified incomprehension through the storm of guffaws that broke over him.

  * * *

  "Approaching displacement point," the navigator reported crisply. DiFalco and Aelanni saw it confirmed in the holo tank in Liberator's control room, suspended just ahead of the slowly moving lights that represented Liberator and Andy J. in response to the flow of data from the nav computer.

  There were two ways to locate a known displacement point. One was to have the nav computer compare, on an ongoing basis, the apparent relative positions of the stars (and, for greater precision, the local planets, if the data was available) with what they should be at the displacement point's precise location in space at the precise time in question. When the two coincided exactly, the displacement point had been reached. Given Raehaniv computers, this was quicker than the other method, which was to search with grav scanners for the telltale gravitational anamoly in precisely the same way a new system was surveyed for hitherto-unknown displacement points (but limiting the search to a known vicinity).

  Customarily, the first method was used with the second as a backup. Thus it was that they watched in the nav tank as Tareil's fourth displacement point grew nearer.

  DiFalco marvelled anew at the sophistication of Raehaniv computers. Genuine artificial sentience remained as elusive and controversial a possibility as it was on Earth, but the really complex ones could fool you. (And, he gibed at himself, what did that say about relative sentience?) He had asked Liberator's nav computer what date it was on Earth—he himself had long ago lost track. The computer had performed the multifaceted operation with contemptuous ease, and he now knew that if the voyage went according to plan they would arrive in mid-April.

  Springtime in the Rockies. I cannot ask for more. He gazed at the tank hungrily. Beyond that displacement point lay the Lirauva Chain, and home. Impulsively, he put his arm around Aelanni's shoulders and squeezed. She smiled, knowing what it was to watch one's own home change from star to sun.

  Then, out of the corner of his eye, DiFalco noticed movement at the scanner console. Loreann was fiddling with the controls, visibly annoyed.

  "What is it, Loreann?"

  "Well, Colonel," the Raehaniv said, straightening up, "I was just running the routine scan of the displacement point, to confirm the nav computer's conclusions. But I can't seem to get any return from it. It's as if there was no displacement point there at all."

  DiFalco frowned. "Something must be wrong with the grav scanners. Run a diagnostic check."

  "I just did, Colonel," Loreann replied. "Everything seems to check out."

  "Well, check 'em again," DiFalco ordered irritably. "And get somebody out there on the hull to . . ."

  "C
olonel," the navigator broke in, "we're coming very close." His tone, and his entire body, eloquently conveyed just how little he thought his computer needed any confirmation from grav scanners. DiFalco was inclined to agree. He looked at Aelanni and she nodded.

  "Okay, cancel that EVA; no time. We'll go on through according to plan."

  The seconds ticked by, and DiFalco gave the order to execute. The stars wavered as the gravitic pulse distorted space around them . . . .

  And then they stopped wavering and resumed the familiar patterns of Raehan's night sky. And the little golden spark of Tareil continued to glow in the view-aft screen.

  "What the Hell?!" DiFalco rounded on the engineering station. "What happened?"

  Loreann, who had been in muttered consultation with the engineer, looked up. "Unknown, Colonel. But," she added, pointing to a screen, "whatever it was, it also happened to Andrew Jackson."

  It was true. Andy J. was still with them, and the two dissimilar ships plunged on into the outermost reaches of the Tareil system in formation.

  "Raise Colonel Levinson," DiFalco ordered comm, then turned to Aelanni and spoke sotto voce. "What could have happened? Could we have entered the displacement point at the wrong heading?"

  She shook her head dubiously. "That was also under computer control." She spoke to the nav computer in Raehaniv and frowned at the display that was fed into her optic nerve. "Right now, all we know is that it's going to take us a very long time to come around and line up for another run."

  "Don't I know it!" DiFalco groaned. He might not have her kind of computer linkage, but he knew his ballistics. "In fact, given our present vector it would be a lot easier to return to Raehan . . . ."

  Levinson's face appeared on the comm screen. "What happened, Jeff?" DiFalco began without preamble. "Did you see that we weren't successfully transiting and just decide to stay with us?"

  "Negative," Levinson replied grimly. "We tried to transit, and as far as we could tell everything was on the green—except that during the approach we couldn't get the displacement point to register on grav scanners."

  DiFalco and Aelanni looked at each other for a long, long time. The control room was very quiet.

  "Perhaps," Aelanni finally said in a completely controlled voice, "we should return to Raehan."

  DiFalco nodded emphatically. "Yeah. Before we risk these ships we need to find out just exactly what's going on here."

  During the long, tense trip back they listened to the uproar in the interplanetary comm channels as ship after ship reported failure to transit Tareil's other displacement points.

  Chapter Nineteen

  "I think I know what happened!"

  Varien had to shout to make himself heard above the tumult in the conference room. It was the same room they had met in before their departure, but this time it was full to overflowing. The oval table was surrounded by a tightly packed crowd, mostly Raehaniv but including a number of Terrans. Their mood mirrored that of the entire planet—a choppy sea of tense uncertainty with whitecaps of incipient panic.

  But Varien had their attention, and the noise level gradually dropped, leaving an expectant silence.

  "As you all know," he began, "displacement points owe their existence to the arrangement of stars in the galactic spiral arms, which produces gravitational interrelationships of incredible complexity. We have known this for a long time. We have known for an even longer time that that arrangement is constantly changing, that the so-called 'fixed stars' are, in actuality, in motion with respect to each other. For some reason, it never occurred to us that the latter might have an impact on the former, and that the displacement network may be no more immutable than anything else in nature."

  "Wait a minute, Varien," DiFalco spoke up. "If you're saying what I think you're saying, then Tareil's displacement points not only don't work any more . . . they don't exist any more!"

  "Not only Tareil's, I should think. I would imagine that the problem is more extensive than that, probably affecting this entire region of the spiral arm. Of course, this cannot be verified without . . ."

  "But Varien," Rosen cut off the maddeningly calm voice, "as you yourself said, the stars are in constant motion, so their relative positions are constantly changing. So if your theory is correct, then why isn't the displacement network in a constant state of flux? We know it isn't. Granted, you Raehaniv have only been using it for a short time; but the Korvaasha have been expanding via displacement points for centuries! And I don't think there's any indication in the records we've captured that anything like this has ever happened to them." He glanced at Kuropatkin, who nodded in confirmation.

  Varien pondered for a moment. "Remember, centuries or even millennia are mere eyeblinks of time on the cosmic scale. But I believe the real answer to your question lies in the sheer number of stars and the slowness of their motion relative to the distances between them. The pattern of which we're speaking is one of almost inconceivable vastness, and an enormous number of factors go into defining it. It must possess tremendous . . . inertia? Resiliency? Yes, that's it. A great deal of random stellar motion can take place without disrupting it. But eventually the cumulative effect of such motion exceeds the pattern's capacity to accomodate it. Then a disruption does occur, and it occurs all at once. Remember, gravity is propagated instantaneously. And, given the interrelatedness of the displacement points, any such disruption is likely to be widespread due to what I believe you Terrans call a 'domino effect.' "

  "How widespread?" Miranni asked in a small voice.

  "There is, of course, no way for us to know. Likewise, until we've been able to observe the phenomenon for a very long time we'll be unable to even guess how frequent such events are. Perhaps their occurrence is completely random. Or perhaps they run in epicycles—which, if true, might help to account for the fact that the Korvaasha have never experienced one; we could only now be entering into a period when the intervals between them are shorter."

  Arduin spoke slowly, his engineer's practicality asserting itself. "Varien, this is all very interesting, but if I'm understanding you correctly, shouldn't there be a new pattern, based on the new interrelationship the stars have shifted into?"

  "Indubitably!" Varien nodded vigorously. "And such a pattern should stabilize as instantaneously as the disruption of the old pattern. It should manifest itself at once. I propose that we survey this system exhaustively for new displacement points. Of course, we should not be too hopeful of locating any; only a minority of stars have these phenomena associated with then, so the odds are against us. But the fact that Tareil previously had four displacement points suggests that perhaps this star is located in a kind of crucial region—a nexus, as it were, resulting from an unknowable concatenation of factors. If this is the case, then perhaps . . ."

  "Wait a minute! Wait a minute!" Levinson took a breath and spoke into the startled silence he had created. "Excuse me for interrupting this fascinating bull session, but just where does all this leave us? How do we go about getting back to Earth?"

  Varien had the embarrassed look of a man abruptly reminded of something he should have thought of but hadn't. "Ah. Well. That poses a problem. You may recall the discussion we had before departing from the Solar system, when we had learned that the Lirauva Chain was denied to us. Well, it is now denied to us with even greater finality. In point of fact, the Lirauva Chain no longer exists. I pointed out at that time that we could not even locate Tareil in realspace. Well, the same applies in reverse now; we have only the vaguest, most inferential notion of where Sol might be located."

  "Hold on, Varien," DiFalco said, sternly commanding his voice to steadiness. "I know you only have general approximations of Sol's distance and bearing from here. But you've never tried to do better—you've never had to! Can't we use those approximations to narrow the search to a certain segment of the sky, and then narrow it down further by process of elimination? I mean, we know Sol's spectral class, and what bright stars are nearby . . ."

 
; He trailed to a halt, silenced by what he saw in Varien's face: compassion without a trace of condescension or complacency.

  "We can certainly try," the old Raehaniv spoke. "And we will try, as a partial interest payment on the debt we owe you. But I don't think you fully grasp how many stars that 'segment of the sky' contains. And remember, at our departure from Sol we destroyed every scrap of information, including and especially everything related to descriptive astronomy, that might have enabled the Korvaasha to find Sol had our enterprise failed. If we still had that information, the methods you suggest might well succeed, given time. But as it is, we simply lack the data to build on.

  "And even if we could locate Sol," Varien went on with the same quiet finality, "how would you use the information? Our conclusions as to the impracticality of voyaging from Sol to Tareil under continuous-displacement drive apply with equal force to any attempt in the opposite direction."

  "Hey, look," Levinson began, almost stammering, "there's got to be something we can do! Like . . . well, we know where Terranova is in the sky, damn it! We can go there via continuous-displacement drive, and . . ."

  "And what?" Varien asked gently. "Oh, I suppose it's not absolutely impossible that Terranova's displacement point, and the Altair Chain beyond it, are still as we remember them. But it would be unwise to invest much hope in it."

  DiFalco barely heard them. He had already passed beyond the denial that still held Levinson in its grip and was letting his consciousness adjust to a new fact, so enormous that it must henceforth form the backdrop to his entire life. He eventually grew aware that Aelanni was gripping his hand tightly.