Limbo System

by Rick Cook

  “. . . violation of Council agreement.”

  “. . . if you had not . . .”

  “. . . but you insisted . . .”

  “Who was the fool who . . .”

  Squabbling and snarling like cubs, he thought disgustedly. But he did not interfere. Let them vent their rage and argue themselves out. They would be more amenable to reason once they were exhausted.

  He maintained his outward calm and dignity as befitted his station, like the parent of a brood at unruly play. But inside he too was seething.

  Fools, he raged. Greedy, stupid fools. All you had to do was act in concert and the greatest prize in the history of our race would have been ours. But you could not manage even that. You all had to go off on your own and you got in the way of each other’s schemes like an untrained hunting pack.

  The miracle was that not everything had been lost. The aliens’ ship was still here, although the ship’s elders were in disarray and the captain was threatening to leave the system at the least sign of further trouble.

  “You want the bad news in ascending or descending order?” Iron Alice DeRosa asked the captain.

  Jenkins looked at the dozen or so faces mosaicked on his screen, the officers and department heads who had spent the last fourteen hours assessing and surveying the results of the alien attack. None of them looked like they had anything good to say.

  “Let’s start with the worst and work down,” he told her.

  “Okay,” DeRosa said. “The worst of it is that the Colonists managed to grab about twelve of our people and get away clean.”

  “Not so clean,” Clancy said grimly. “They left a hell of a mess in the corridor leading to engineering.”

  “Aubrey was apparently one of those kidnapped,” Carlotti said.

  DeRosa got even grimmer. “I’m not so sure he was kidnapped. According to a couple of the survivors, he was helping direct the raiders.”

  “Oh my God,” someone said softly.

  “Father Simon was one of the ones taken,” DeRosa went on, “and they got Sharon Dolan, too.”

  “That was an accident, I think,” Suki said. “They were after me and she was in the way.”

  “Well, thank God they didn’t get you, Dr. Takiuji,” Jenkins said. “That would have been the ballgame.” Although I don’t know how much of a game we’ve got left.

  “Did they get any more key personnel?”

  “Apparently not.” DeRosa scanned the list of the missing. “When they realized the raid had failed, I think they just started grabbing people at random.”

  “What about computer data?”

  Billy Toyoda shrugged. “Hard to say. Those damn worms raised so much hell in the cyberspace you can’t say for sure what they were able to swipe. But if you mean information about the drive, I doubt it. That isn’t kept online and I don’t think they were expecting that.”

  “What about navigation data?” asked DeRosa. “Like the location of Earth?”

  “Oh yeah. They could have gone in and cleaned that area out if they wanted to.”

  “Then we have to assume they did,” Jenkins said heavily. “They know where we’re from. Okay, what about overall losses in personnel? Not the ones we think were taken, but everyone we lost.”

  “It’s pretty bad,” Iron Alice said. “All told we lost nearly fifty people.”

  Jenkins closed his eyes in pain. No one said anything for a moment. “What about functionally?” the captain asked at last. “Did we lose any critical people?”

  DeRosa considered. “Engineering is hit the worst. Ludenemeyer and DeLorenzo are both dead and that takes out the whole top echelon. Clancy and Kirchoff are good, but with Ludenemeyer gone we don’t have anyone left who has hands-on experience with the drive.” Neither Clancy or Kirchoff said anything. “There’s Dr. Takiuji, of course, but he’s a theorist.”

  “And our systems status?”

  “Still checking. We do know we have a hole in our side. There were explosions in the shuttle bays and they are vented. Bay One’s a real mess. The spin mechanism is damaged, a lot of corridors burned. As far as we know, though, there is no damage to life-support or critical systems—except for DeLorenzo’s damn disconnects.”

  “Thank God for that,” Jenkins said.

  “That Brazilian son of a bitch saved our bacon,” Clancy said. “If it wasn’t for those disconnects they probably could have taken control of the entire ship.”

  “The Lord do move in mysterious ways,” DeRosa put in. “Okay, there’s a lot more, but those are the high points. We can’t run, we can’t fight, we’ve barely got our own people under control and the Colonists are knocking at the doors wanting in.” She sighed and looked up. “The question is, what do we do now?”

  On the screen a dozen faces swiveled to look at Jenkins.

  Derfuhrer looked down over the sweep of the colony and felt the warm glow of satisfaction. Of all the leaders in this misbegotten business, he had been the most successful. He had fully understood the humans and anticipated what they would do and now the largest prize was his.

  He had known it was hopeless to try to seize the ship. One or more of the humans were sure to destroy it or, in the end, the lineage loyalty would tell. Foolish also to raid their computers. The humans were innocents, but did the other Colonies really believe they were so utterly trusting as to leave such information accessible? 348 and 579 had been badly burned on that one, he thought with a smile.

  No, he and he alone had seen that the important thing was the knowledge of the individual humans. Only he had made adequate use of his agents within the human colony and only he had conceived the daring plan of physically raiding the ship itself.

  Derfuhrer settled back and watched the forest spread out under his feet. Then he swiveled to look at the wall-sized screen displaying a view of space spangled with stars. His stars.

  PART VI: KO

  “I’m sorry gentlemen,” Captain Peter Jenkins said, flipping through the surrender document and looking up at the three men, “but this simply isn’t sufficient.”

  C.D. MacNamara, acting president of the Ship’s Council, shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t like zero-gravity and neither did Winston Chang or Henry Parker, the other two Council members who had come with him to present the document to the captain. Worse, the trio was crowded cheek by jowl into the captain’s small office. There was no room for them to sit so they were standing, trying hard to maintain their positions in zero-G.

  MacNamara would have much preferred to meet the captain alone, but with things the way they were on the Council just now, that wasn’t possible.

  “What do you mean it’s not sufficient?” MacNamara demanded.

  “Why, it isn’t nearly specific enough,” Jenkins told him. “It doesn’t even say to whom we are handing over the ship.”

  “To a group of Colonists mutually agreed upon,” MacNamara pointed to the document. “Can’t you read?”

  “Yes, but which Colonists? I can’t very well turn my command over to the first Colonist who comes through the air lock. Are we to hand over to representatives of the Colonial Council, one of the colonies, or who?”

  “That will be settled later,” MacNamara snapped.

  “I’m sorry gentlemen, but that simply is not acceptable. You must specify to whom the surrender is to be made.”

  MacNamara looked at his companions. The Council was split into no less than four factions on the question of who to turn it over to and in three days of arguing, the best they had been able to do was to postpone the question by making vague reference to it. Now the captain was demanding specifics on issues on which the Council could not agree.

  “In the opinion of the Ship’s Council this is more than sufficient,” MacNamara said testily. “We formally call on you to implement it immediately.”

  Jenkins shook his head. “Gentlemen, I cannot implement what isn’t there. I’m sorry the Council feels so strongly on this issue; they will have to do a better job than this.”
/>   “You agreed to hand over the ship,” Chang protested.

  “I agreed to hand over the ship when the Council spelled out the precise terms for that action. This,” he tapped the papers, “doesn’t.”

  MacNamara realized he didn’t have a lot of options. United, the Ship’s Council could easily control the ship. But he knew that at least one and possibly two of the factions would not support any direct action at this time. Besides, the document wasn’t really satisfactory to the Colonists he was dealing with. The Captain was holding the Council’s feet to the fire and that might give him the leverage he needed to get something his Colonists would like better.

  “Very well, Captain. We will further refine the document.” MacNamara turned and maneuvered out of the room, Chang and Parker trailing him like discouraged pilot fish.

  “You know,” said Jenkins into thin air after they were gone. “I’m beginning to like this consensual decision-making.”

  The ship holding the captured humans flew true, but it flew anything but straight. The hydrox engines fired at precise but carefully irregular intervals, slewing the ship and moving it off course. Sometimes when the engines were shut down, mass drivers mounted on the hull would throw out chunks of nonmetallic mass, changing their course even further with no rocket signature to make the ship easier to track.

  The prisoners were never warned about maneuvers, so they were knocked about every time the engines cut in. They became exquisitely sensitive to the sounds that might precede a firing.

  Sharon Dolan awoke sick and weak, as she always did from the effect of the aliens’ drugs. She had no real memory of the time under the drugs, just a vague feeling of having floated in a gray place for some indeterminate amount of time. Like a dream, but she was not rested.

  She felt dirty and used by what had been done to her. Unclean.

  She swallowed and tasted the bitter drug residue on her tongue as saliva trickled down her aching throat. They must have kept her talking for hours, she realized.

  At least there was no physical torture. No beatings, no electric shocks. Not even questioning under bright lights. Instead at intervals their captors would remove one of the prisoners to be interrogated under the influence of drugs.

  “Are you all right, Miss Dolan?”

  Sharon turned her head and saw Father Simon sitting on the floor beside her bunk.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I must have dozed.”

  “How . . . how long?” Sharon croaked.

  “Quite a long time I’m afraid. They had you nearly two days.”

  “No, how long have you . . . been here?”

  “Oh, since they brought you back. I really don’t know how long.”

  Sharon reached out and the priest took her hand. “Thanks,” she forced out.

  Father Simon looked embarrassed. “Quite all right, Miss Dolan. Would you like some water?”

  “Captain, I must speak to the Colonists.”

  Jenkins looked up. “Why, of course, Dr. MacNamara. Surely, you don’t feel you need my permission to do that?”

  “I am told there is only one channel available. An open channel.”

  “That’s true,” Jenkins said. “Because of the damage our facilities are stretched extremely thin. We only have one channel available.”

  “But an open channel . . .” MacNamara shifted from foot to foot unhappily.

  “We have very little computing power left, Doctor, and almost all that is needed to help us run the ship. I’m sorry, but we don’t have the capacity to provide scrambled communication with the Colonists.”

  “But Captain, our negotiations are in a very delicate state. The Ship’s Council must communicate privately with the Colonists!”

  Jenkins spread his hands helplessly. “I’m sorry, Doctor, but we simply do not have that capacity. Perhaps in a few weeks when we have been able to repair more of the systems.”

  “Weeks? Captain, I must speak with the Colonists now!”

  “I’m sorry, Doctor, but that is simply impossible. Surely Doctors Chang and Parker told you.”

  “Told me?”

  “Why yes, they have both spoken to me about opening a secure line of communication to the Colonists. Didn’t they tell you?”

  The Council president’s face had taken on a glazed expression, as if he was thinking hard. “Ah, why yes, they did tell me. But I was hoping . . . well, I see how it is. Please let me know when a secure link is available.” He turned to go. “Oh, and there is no reason to mention this to Dr. Chang and Dr. Parker is there? I wouldn’t want them thinking I was going behind their backs.”

  With that, he beat a hasty retreat.

  Terrible when thieves fall out, Jenkins thought to himself as he turned back to the screen.

  The Owlie guard watched the priest approach with unblinking yellow eyes. He stood at the door leading out of the captives’ quarters with no weapon except his formidable talons and a flexible truncheon.

  “I want to talk to Dr. Aubrey,” the priest said firmly. The guard cocked his head to one side, listening to the translation coming in through his helmet. He spoke into his microphone, a collection of hoots and roars that made the priest flinch back.

  “Wait,” the speaker on his harness said. Then the guard settled back into his attention posture and ignored the priest again.

  At last there was a rattling noise on the other side of the door. It slid back into the wall and Andrew Aubrey stepped through. Originally, the aliens had kept Aubrey with the rest of the humans. After he was repeatedly beaten by the other prisoners, he had been taken out and kept separately. The other prisoners only saw him in glimpses and none of them before had tried to talk to him.

  “You wanted to see me, Father?”

  There was still that old geniality and air of easy superiority, but it was more strained now, almost forced. Father Simon saw that he had lost weight and appeared drawn.

  “Dr. Aubrey, I have come to ask you to use your influence with the Colonists to stop the interrogations. They are damaging and they are producing nothing of value.”

  “I’m sorry it upsets you, Father, but it is necessary.”

  “Dr. Aubrey, you must put a stop to this.”

  “You’re being unreasonable.”

  “This is torture.”

  Aubrey made a dismissing gesture. “Oh come now. You exaggerate.”

  “I have just come from Dr. Dolan. If you saw her you would not say I was exaggerating.”

  “Father, I have been examined several times by exactly the same techniques. I tell you, you are exaggerating. The Colonists are far too superior to resort to something as crude as torture.”

  “So superior they raid our ship, kill people and kidnap us? That adds up to superior force, perhaps, but hardly superiority in any other area.”

  “Father,” Aubrey said testily, “by blind luck we have stumbled across one thing the Colonists do not have. We insisted on withholding it from them like petulant children. In spite of all they offered us, all they can do for us, we refused them this one thing. So, finally, they took it from us, just as a father would take something from a child. Do you blame them in that?”

  “Yes, I blame them,” the priest said angrily. The guard shifted threateningly, as if to interpose between the arguing humans. Aubrey seemed to gather strength from it.

  Aubrey shook his head. “I thought that as a priest you would see more clearly the essential brotherhood of all intelligent beings.”

  “Doctor, there are a great many things brothers should not do to one another. What Joseph’s brothers did to him comes to mind.”

  “Yes, but Joseph became one of the mightiest men in Egypt because of it,” Aubrey said triumphantly.

  “Joseph was also a slave,” Father Simon bit out. “And his people became slaves as well.”

  “Father, I am afraid you are blinded by your prejudices.”

  “There is certainly blindness here. Now, once and for all, will you tell the Colonists to stop torturing us?
None of us have the secret of the drive and we cannot help them.”

  “I hardly see how putting someone to sleep for a few hours can be considered torture,” Aubrey said stiffly.

  “Then I have nothing further to say to you,” Father Simon turned and stalked off.

  “Even if I did believe it, there is nothing I can do,” Aubrey whispered to his back.

  “The prisoners have told us little,” the Master of Bounds told Derfuhrer. “We know most or all of what they know about the drive. However, none of them were directly concerned with it and they are able to describe it in only the most general functions. Further, there are some inconsistencies in their stories apparently arising from different understandings of the drive.”

  “What have you learned then?” Derfuhrer said impatiently.

  “Enough to offer a solid basis for beginning our own research. We know the manifestations of the drive, much of its limits and how it is used. The Master of Skies has already started our scholars to work.”

  Derfuhrer said nothing. In fact, the Master of Skies had been given pathetically little to work with and both of them knew it. Just as both of them knew that the raid had been botched and the one key prisoner captured had managed to commit suicide with disgraceful ease. But the Master of Bounds hoped that the Master of Masters would forget and it did not suit Derfuhrer’s purposes to bring the matter up yet.

  The leader looked out past his Master of Bounds, out across the terrace at the green vista beyond.

  “And the other colonies?” he said at last.

  “They find our possession of the humans most convincing. Already they are ready to listen to our words with new ears. A few of the weaker ones already heed our call. Many of the others listen carefully and begin to waver in our direction.”

  The question was more for the Master of Cities and the Master of Forests than Derfuhrer. He himself had spent long hours at the screen negotiating, cajoling and threatening, using the force of his remarkable personality to help forge a coalition that was nearly strong enough to overturn the Colonial Council itself.