by Baen Books
Tunuvun gave one of his spread-armed bows, but something about the posture hinted at apology. "It would give us great pleasure to do so, but not in the areas you discuss, I am afraid. Our people would be able to give you many combat personnel—warriors, troops to board and secure other vessels or even Upper Spheres, this sort of thing. But to control and direct the operation of Arenaspace vessels . . . no. We have only a relatively few such."
He shifted slightly, and alien though he was, his posture and expression, as well as his translated words, resonated with resentment and bitterness. "Most of the Factions did not have any interest whatsoever in giving the Genasi such training and resources. Thus—though it pains me to refuse such a request—I must beg your understanding that we must keep the few of us capable of manning such vessels for our own Sphere's defense."
Fenelon nodded. "I believe we understand completely. This does, however, complete the picture for us, and it is not a pleasant one. In essence, the Combined Space Forces are most of the people currently in that category for Humanity's use, and that means that we are having to cannibalize the CSF's people, with a few other organizations or avocations contributing people, in order to crew our vessels. As the CSF itself has only fifty warships of varying size, you can understand that we are severely limited here not by the availability of ships, but by the availability of people."
Britt was biting his lower lip, and his AISage Camden was visible, whispering something in one ear. White Camilla took a deep breath and nodded, their face slightly paler. "I . . . suppose I begin to understand. But can we not simply implant the skills and reactions necessary? If I recall correctly, Ariane's opponent Sethrik of the Blessed was able to do precisely that to allow him to race effectively against her; thus, we know that at least to a reasonable extent implanted skills transfer properly."
To Saul's surprise, Tunuvun reacted first, with a quick, shrieking whistle that cut through the air like a bolt of lightning. Seeing everyone staring at him, Tunuvun crossed his arms in a posture that suggested shrinking into himself, embarrassment and apology in one. "I beg pardon. Perhaps I do not know your people well enough, but in my experience, even gifting someone with the skills to pilot or fight is not enough to make them either pilot or fighter."
Insightful. Undoubtedly necessary if you're a Master of Challenges, remarked Elizabeth. Saul nodded inwardly and picked up the thread. "Tunuvun is unfortunately correct. The mindset to be a warrior or a combat pilot or military commander is not conveyed by giving them the basic skills. And while in theory we could convey the mindset, it would be illegal to do so."
Britt frowned. "Illegal? Why?"
White Camilla looked as though they had just swallowed a lemon whole. "Because that would amount to rewriting elements of the person's self, their basic personality," they said slowly. "We are reluctant to use that as a punishment even on criminals. So the problem is that we will need to find volunteers of appropriate skill and talent and train them to be suitable crew for warships, and that kind of training will still take months, if not longer." Saul nodded. "This is not true here in the Solar System, however?"
"No, and we have indeed begun work on extensive real-space defenses which can be automated to a far greater degree. Multiple Sim Focus Groups are working on designing ships, long-range missiles, major-class energy weapon emplacements, and so on."
Britt nodded, his face showing that this was something he had more understanding of. "And with nanomanufacturing and full automation, this should be something we can easily deploy. So the Solar System itself should be reasonably secure, yes?"
Saul and Tunuvun exchanged glances, and Saul also glanced at Robert Fenelon's grim expression. Britt sat up straighter, and White sighed. "Tell us the problem, Commander."
"Not one problem, Councillor. A number of them. Firstly, the Molothos—or, I suppose, any other adversary we may face, such as the Blessed—are an almost completely unknown quantity. We can reasonably assume we understand most or all of the physics that they do, and probably most of the basic technology, but we have little-to-no knowledge of the exact composition of a Molothos normal-space attack force—what their preferred weapons are, what the ratio of ship types may be, their preferred strategies and tactics, and so on and so forth. Until now, we have fought other human adversaries. The aliens of the Arena are startlingly human in many ways, but far from identical to us. Thus, we cannot be sure of any of these things.
"More importantly—as we discussed earlier—we have no idea what the scale of their assault may be like. Based on what we have learned about the Sky Gates, a properly designed assault force could pass almost incalculably huge amounts of materiel through the Gate in very short time. Given that the theoretical location of the Gates may be in our Oort Cloud, they will not be without resources to use here, as well. We have done little to exploit the Oort Cloud and not very much with even the Kuiper Belt, so we have no direct defenses in that area."
He looked around the Council and his next words were delivered with a slow, hard emphasis. "They have tens of thousands of solar systems to draw upon; if they decide to devote even a relatively small fraction of their resources to this war, they may well be able to out-produce and out-fight us even here, in normal space. We will have the advantage of being in the center where we can make use of planetary resources and where we will have certain strategic advantages.
"But we cannot even be sure of the direction from which they will strike. All eight Sky Gates can be used to Transition to normal space, and thus their forces may emerge from any or all of those directions. Can we defend ourselves against the entirety of the sky?" He shrugged. "In addition, of course, while we can create vast numbers of defensive and offensive systems, they cannot operate completely autonomously, since no significant Tayler-level AI is permitted to operate on its own, and even though we are working through means and approaches to address the . . . emancipation of our AI citizens, I admit that the general public is unlikely to approve of our first test of this emancipation being to hand over control of our most powerful warships and weapons to unfettered AIs. Thus we will still need considerable personnel resources to support any of our defenses."
"Is that all?" White Camilla said; their voice was ironic, echoed by a smile like someone whistling in a graveyard.
"I am afraid not," Robert Fenelon said. "We are in many ways our own worst enemies. The Molothos—and from the data I have received, most if not all of the other Factions—are well-organized and focused on their activities to benefit their people in the Arena as well as normal space. They are united. For the Molothos, this appears to be at least to some degree a species trait; they may be hostile to other species, but they almost instinctively cooperate with their own. The Blessed to Serve have a similar tendency which is obviously programmed in. Other Factions are mostly centered around ideologies and purposes, which means that those who join them are already 'in tune,' so to speak, with the basic focus of the Faction.
"By contrast, Humanity is chaos. There are large swathes of our fifty-five billion people who aren't even paying much attention to the issues of the Arena, incomprehensible though that is to me. Of those who are paying attention, there are wide areas of disagreement as to how various issues should be addressed, who should address them, and so on. We are, in essence, a 'Faction' only in name; we are billions of individual, self-sufficient polities that interact on an ad hoc basis for the most part, with only the broadest of laws and rules covering this interaction. Nothing like this ever existed in our past, and it seems that if similar situations existed for other alien species, they adjusted and changed their approaches after encountering the Arena."
He gave a humorless laugh. "Look at the Sandrisson Drive; in prior eras, that would have been a major effort by one of the largest countries on Earth, an event upon which would have been focused much of the attention of the world. Today, it was a mostly-private project with SSC oversight only because it was to involve human subjects in a potentially risky test. Hyperion was a
hobbyist disaster that happened to have system-wide repercussions." Fenelon sighed. "In short—we're not organized for war, or even for cohesive politics, and that's going to be our greatest obstacle."
General Esterhauer nodded. "And it's going to be hellishly hard to convince people to organize that way. We—all of us in this room, really—are freaks by today's standards. We want to be part of an organization that covers a lot of the more dangerous and dirty parts of running a solar system. A lot of us have deliberately put ourselves through pretty painful training, dealt with people we normally wouldn't be caught dead with, and sacrificed time and energy so that we could be part of this . . . thing that we see as bigger than us. But we're actually no larger an organization than a lot of the existing SFGs, or the temples of at least twenty or thirty different religions, or a lot of other serious or casual associations. Hell, the Unlimited Racing Federation has more people in it than the SSC!"
Tunuvun's posture and expression were . . . odd. Suddenly, that shrieking laugh echoed out. Everyone stared at him. "Again, I apologize . . . But Saul, honored SSC . . . I had not yet realized that we were truly brothers and sisters in this."
Ah. I believe I see his meaning, if I understand him right. Elizabeth said.
I'm glad it's clear to you, Elizabeth, but I'm confused. Saul looked down. "You're saying there's something similar with the Genasi? You're not living in this universe, so you don't have AIWish units or assisting AIs or any of the things that made us so self-sufficient that we no longer really needed governments as such."
"No, Saul, we do not . . . yet the Genasi are not so different. We are a million million tribes, spread throughout the Arena, living in its endless skies, each with its own leaders, own thoughts of who and what we are and could be. Oh, we have some shared . . . ideals, principles, for our spread has been due to the first Genasi meeting with the Factions and being disseminated across the Arena through that association, and we have maintained some . . . well, coherence in our language and customs. But to organize our people as a group, as a Faction? It is an ideal we have striven for, yet now that we have achieved it we have no idea how this can be done; our greatest achievement may well be that all the tribes that could be contacted could agree to elect me as Leader. And now I begin to understand what a . . . mess they have given me." He bowed with spread arms again. "But I do see that we are truly of one great tribe, you and we."
Alia Huang began clapping, and despite the gravity of the situation a wave of applause and chuckles swept around the chamber. "It is good to hear that, at least," Alia said. "I just wish we each had what the other needed right now."
"Friends are always needed," Tunuvun said. "And we can at least offer that."
White Camilla rose. "A good sentiment to end on. Commander, I think we all need to confer on these various points and see if any of us, or our associated SFGs, can come up with ways to address or at least mitigate them. I trust that Captain Austin and her associates are aware of these issues?"
Oooh, that's a dangerous question right now, as the Captain either has departed, or is about to depart on her covert mission with Orphan.
Yes, but with luck I don't have to discuss it here on the SSC floor. "She and the rest of her immediate advisors are more than aware of the issue, and are taking their own steps to address the parts of it that they can." Which is true; learning anything she can about that power she gained is crucial, and fulfilling a promise in the Arena is also deadly important.
"Good. I would like a report from her people in detail, if that can be arranged."
"Certainly." If it's a private report I can minimize the fallout from it.
The meeting broke up; Tunuvun followed Saul out. "The situation . . . it sounds grim, Commander Maginot."
Like us, he reverts to formality when dealing with such issues. "I can't pretend it isn't, Tunuvun. A lot of the Council still wants to blame Ariane for how grim it's gotten, but it wasn't really her fault. Or even DuQuesne's, though I wish he'd restrained his impulse for dramatics."
"You mean his delivery of a Molothos corpse as a statement?" Tunuvun's eyes and mouth smiled. "It is true that they undoubtedly learned something from the body, but on the other hand, it was a beautiful statement. My people would applaud it unreservedly; you were saying to the Molothos, 'this is our world, you can't have it, and we do not fear you.' " Another eye-mouth smile. "Perhaps a foolish sentiment, for one should fear the Molothos . . . but a magnificent sentiment all the same, and you gained much respect in the Arena for it."
He glanced at the doors they were approaching. "This is your . . . home?"
"My quarters on board Kanzaki-Three, yes."
"You have no guards? No protections?"
"Elizabeth—my AISage—and the station itself, are very good at protecting me," Saul said. "I had Cornelius and Rudy when I went to the Arena because the same protections won't work there, but here it's almost unheard of. Ariane has Wu Kung, but that's because she is the Leader of the Faction, and because DuQuesne is very paranoid. Not without reason, but still, very few of us would ever need bodyguards." He activated the door, sensing Elizabeth going through her own security process before allowing it to open. I normally don't even notice, but now Tunuvun's got me thinking about it.
The same thinking reminded him of the past that Robert Fenelon often brought up, and he gave a wry smile, looking around the spacious, multi-roomed quarters that were his current home. A large living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, two guest rooms, and more, almost three hundred square meters of area in all. That would be a good-sized house on Earth, and in the past would have been a huge section of any space-based habitat. Now it's merely a reasonable set of quarters for someone on board Kanzaki-Three.
"This is . . . quite pleasant, if restricted," Tunuvun said, looking around.
"Restricted? Oh, of course. Your people live in three dimensions and very wide spaces. I hope you are not bothered by claustrophobia."
"I have dealt with that problem. It is a major challenge for many of my people, of course."
Saul could easily imagine that; a species that regularly swam through the infinite skies of the Arena must find even very large enclosures somewhat stultifying.
Elizabeth pinged him. Saul, you have a secured message waiting.
Mentor? he asked.
It's secured, Saul, she answered patiently.
Saul winced at Elizabeth’s gentle reminder of his foolishness. A fully secured message concealed its contents, including sender, unless the intended recipient opened it and allowed others to read it.
"Excuse me, Tunuvun—I have to take a message; it may be a few moments."
"Do not worry; there is much that is new here for me to contemplate."
The desk indicator was blinking a bright red, confirming Elizabeth’s alert. Saul sat down and touched the panel. "This is Saul Maginot. Quantum-key decryption pulse being sent for confirmation." With the tiniest of practiced efforts he sent the confirmation and unlocking one-time key.
And without the slightest warning, Tunuvun's hand—now broader and webbed—clamped across Saul's entire face, sealing off his eyes, his mouth, his nose, plunging him into a suffocating darkness.
vi.
Tunuvun hauled him bodily from the chair with terrifying strength, scraping Saul's back, bruising his arm with the force of the pull. Saul tugged at the hand that was suffocating him, without avail. A rushing sound was in his ears, and a whistling shriek, and, more distantly, the klaxon of some kind of alarm.
A metallic ripping sound reached his ears, and Saul was vaguely aware that Tunuvun had forced the doors open from the inside. But wait! The doors would normally open easily . . . Elizabeth?
I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. Elizabeth's reaction, her voice, was that of someone in complete shock, a frightening sensation to experience from someone who was literally inside your own head.
ELIZABETH! What's happening? I'm suffocating!
Tunuvun was running now, dragging
Saul with him, screaming something Saul couldn't make out. His arms . . . somehow he's covered my ears too?
There was a shockwave and Saul felt the breath explode from his body, Tunuvun's hand flicking outward to allow it, then clamping down again. What? Decompression! I'll be out in seconds!
A swift jolt, a crash, and then the piercing, crushing pressure of air returning, something both soft and burning coursing over his body. Tunuvun's hand released him finally and the tiny alien tumbled to the deck, the white-pink iridescent foam washing over him as well. But even with the foam, Saul could see to his horror that the shining-white and purple integument was . . . gone, eaten away as though dissolved by acid across half the alien's surface. He became aware that he, too, was feeling a burning across his body, and there was a pink in the foam that grew more red.
Elizabeth! Kanzaki-Three, what happened?
"Alert," Kanzaki-Three's core AI voice spoke, echoing through the floor as well as the air, "Inimical nanobreach detected, Class Five."
For a moment Saul couldn't grasp it. A nanobreach? Class Five?
Then he did, and the horror almost made him sick. "Alberto, Kanzaki-Three, this is Saul Maginot. Am I compromised? Is our guest Tunuvun?"
"Evaluation in progress. Make no attempt to escape sealed area."
"What about my quarters?"
"Complete neutralization was necessary."
God Almighty. That euphemism meant that the entire section had been ejected and vaporized.
It slowly dawned on him what had happened. "Tunuvun? Tunuvun, are you all right?"
The voice that answered rasped, rough and wheezing, like scraping files on wood. "I . . . may be. Are you, Saul Maginot?"
"I've lost . . . a lot of skin. God that's starting to hurt! Elizabeth, please, help me out here!"
He felt Elizabeth's shock break. Gracious me—I'm frightfully sorry! Saul could feel her trying to trigger Saul's medical nanos to pain suppression. Dash it all -- Saul, your nanos are all busy on defense. All I can do is direct suppression, with your permission.