by Ian Douglas
1953 hours, EST
President Koenig, too, had been thinking about the threat presented by the Sh’daar. Just how had humans been able to hold off the onslaught of the Sh’daar client species for so long, despite the fact that human technology couldn’t match that of the H’rulka, the Turusch, the Slan, or any of the other enemies encountered so far?
And he thought that he just might know the answer.
“You guys are busted,” he said, his voice mild. He took a sip from his drink. “I think I know why your masters can’t get their act together.”
“You mean the Sh’daar, yes-no?” one of the two small beings in front of him said through the small, silver-badge translation device adhering to her leathery skin just beneath her four weirdly stalked eyes. “We no longer refer to them as masters. . . .”
Koenig was standing with the two Agletsch representatives within a mostly human crowd filling Toronto’s outdoor York Plaza. Thousands of people were in attendance, and many thousands more were present virtually, linked in from home through small robotic drones or teleoperated androids. The function was a diplomatic reception for the Hegemony and Theocracy ambassadors and their staffs, a grand celebration of the new alliance. The Office of Presidential Security had just about gone hyperbolic with collective fits when they’d heard; what, his security chief had demanded, was to stop the Confederation from launching another nano-D strike? If they hit Toronto tonight, they could vaporize most of the USNA government leadership with one precisely placed shot.
The answer had been to redouble both space and atmospheric patrols over North America to make sure nothing got in. USNA High Guard ships were positioned as far out as Lunar Orbit, and Marines were manning long-range planetary defense batteries up at SupraQuito. This reception tonight was important, a means of showing the entire planet that the USNA’s refusal to bow to Confederation tyranny was shared by a majority of Humankind—that it was not simply the squeak of a small and disgruntled minority.
Besides, global popular reaction to the Confederation’s nano strike on Columbus had been overwhelmingly negative. There was a reason weapons of mass destruction had been banned by the Geneva Protocols of 2150, and nano-dissassemblers were especially nasty, taking apart everything they touched—buildings, dirt, trees, children—literally molecule by molecule, then atom by atom. Another nano-D strike by the Europeans might cause wholesale defections from the Confederation.
The Agletsch, Koenig was glad to see, appeared to have sided with the USNA cause . . . though it was always difficult figuring out what the spidery aliens were actually thinking.
“I still don’t understand that, Gru’mulkisch,” Koenig said. “You both carry Sh’daar Seeds. Seems to me that means you’re working for them . . . at least some of the time.”
After twenty years, Koenig was only just beginning to be able to tell one of the two liaisons from the other—or to pronounce their names. The other one was Dra’ethde.
Known popularly as “spiders” or “bugs,” the Agletsch were actually very little like either. Each possessed an unsegmented oval body a bit more than a meter across, supported by sixteen jointed limbs like slender sticks. The rear legs were shorter than those in the front, the bottom-most pair little more than sucker-tipped stubs, while the upper limbs serving both as legs and as manipulators were long enough to hold the body semi-upright, so that the tiny head was a meter and a half off the ground. When she wanted to move, she could do so quickly, tipping her forebody forward to lift the hind leg-stubs off the ground. The rotund body was covered by tough, flexible skin, not chitin. The reddish skin was covered with gold and blue reticulated markings and by the Agletsch equivalent of tattoos—swirls and curlicues picked out in gold and silver. The four stalked eyes were gorgeous—black Y-shaped pupils set in rich gold.
Both of the Agletsch speaking with Koenig were female, of course. The males of the species were small, brainless tadpoles attached like leeches to the female’s face.
And somewhere within those flat, ovoid bodies, Koenig knew, were minute electronic implants that stored the Agletsch’s sensory impressions, and beamed them to a receiver when the range was short enough—probably a few hundred thousand kilometers. Sh’daar Seeds, as these poorly understood devices were called, also apparently allowed the Sh’daar to talk with their minions—and served as the glue that bound the Sh’daar Collective together, making the whole vast, sprawling thing work.
“As we have stated in times past,” Dra’ethde pointed out, “the Seeds do not work in the manner in which you seem to believe. Some of us work within the Collective, yes-no? Others do not . . . even if we by chance carry within our bodies the Masters’ . . . the Sh’daar Seeds.”
“If no Sh’daar are nearby,” Gru’mulkisch added, “the Seeds are useless to them.”
Koenig considered a sharp reply, but decided to drop the issue. Humans tended to think in terms more black and white than did the Agletsch, who traded in information among hundreds of galactic species and seemed able to at least comprehend the psychologies of myriad alien worldviews. They seemed friendly and agreeable . . . but sometimes it was obvious that they simply didn’t think the same way as humans. The fact that they referred to the Sh’daar as Masters tended to make humans suspicious, and the various human intelligence agencies looked at them with something approaching xenophobic paranoia.
“Many of us believe,” Koenig said carefully, “that those Seeds are what tie together the Sh’daar Empire.”
He was being deliberately provocative. For years, in fact, Alexander Koenig had argued against the popular notion of a Sh’daar empire, holding that the word suggested far more cohesion and organization than was apparent through scattered encounters with Sh’daar clients over the past few decades. Koenig understood the Sh’daar threat, understood it quite possibly better than any other human alive. He’d been the admiral in command of the battlegroup that threatened the Sh’daar homeworlds in 2405. And he believed that he understood their one fundamental, crippling weakness, the flaw that had let human forces beat their forces time after time.
The Sh’daar Collective was, to be blunt, just too freaking big. That was the secret.
“The Sh’daar do collect information . . . what you call military intelligence through their Seeds,” Dra’ethde admitted. “But . . . your ambassadors and diplomatic staffs, they do the same within the nation-states in which they are stationed, yes-no?”
“Any intelligence which the Seeds provide the Sh’daar,” Gru’mulkisch said, “is quite minor. After all, the Agletsch charge for major pieces of data.”
Koenig realized that the spidery alien had just made a joke . . . and quite a human one at that. He was impressed. Humor was quite a difficult concept for many nonhuman species to understand, much less master.
“What then have you discovered?” Dra’ethde asked. “What about the together act of the Sh’daar?”
“Quid pro quo?” Koenig asked. It was a term that the Agletsch loved, and which fit well with their trade in information. This for that.
“Of course. What do you want to know?”
Koenig had been giving a lot of thought to what question he could ask. It had to be relatively low level in terms of import . . . what they called first-level compensation. More critical information—eighth level, say—could be quite expensive.
“Will the Sh’daar use you or another client species as their representatives when they come to Earth? Or will they come to Earth themselves?”
“Almost certainly they will send servant representatives,” Dra’ethde told him. “The Sh’daar have not been seen . . . in the flesh, I believe is your term, for many tens of thousands of your years. However, those representatives will no doubt have a direct communications link with their Masters.”
“That’s good, because if they came themselves, we’d need to lock up our friend Gru’mulkisch, here, to keep her Seed from dumping.”
It had happened once before, when the star carrier America had passed close to a va Sh’daar base at Alchameth, a gas giant in the Arcturan system, and data stored in Gru’mulkisch’s Seed had been transmitted to the enemy. That was the reason human intelligence services were so cautious when it came to Agletsch in human space.
Dra’ethde and Gru’mulkisch both had been carefully scanned, and their Sh’daar technoparasites identified. A scrambler had been designed and placed into the translator units they wore to block the receipt and transmission of any state secrets. In general, however, it was wiser simply not to discuss state secrets in their presence.
In any case, it was possible that a hotline to the Sh’daar might someday be useful.
“And your information in exchange?” Gru’mulkisch asked him.
“The Sh’daar have trouble dominating the galaxy,” Koenig said, “because the galaxy is far too large. Too many worlds, too many sapient species. Interstellar empires, as such, simply can’t exist . . . not when the amount of information needed to manage them is so vast. And that’s where we humans have an advantage. Interior lines of communication.”
“I do not understand your use of interior,” Gru’mulkisch said. “The Sh’daar do not surround you.”
Score, Koenig thought. Until that moment, the Earth Confederation had not been sure how extensive Sh’daar space was. Most contacts with their clients had been in toward the galactic core, in the constellations of Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, Libra, and others in that general direction.
Earth needs allies, Koenig thought to himself. Technic species not yet under the Sh’daar thrall. We just might find them in the opposite direction from the core. Orion, Taurus . . . out toward the rim.
“I meant the word figuratively,” Koenig told the Agletsch. “With a much smaller volume of space to defend, and fewer worlds with which we have to be concerned, we can move from one to another more quickly, react more quickly to a threat than can the Sh’daar, with their much larger domain. When we make a decision, when Fleet HQ gives an order, it can be disseminated among all of our forces and put into effect much more swiftly than is possible for the enemy.”
“Quite true,” Gru’mulkisch said. “Of course, you currently have the singular disadvantage of being . . . I believe one of your politicians called it ‘a house divided.’ ”
“The quote originally was from one of our sacred texts,” Koenig said. He tried to find a way to give a positive response, to turn it around and dismiss the implied threat, but could not. “And . . . no. You’re quite right.”
He looked away from the two aliens, letting his gaze drift across the glittering crowd of humans filling the plaza. Most were in formal attire—evening dress, diplomatic cloaks, designer gowns and dinner jackets. Numerous others were stylishly nude, some with luminous jewelry or skin adornment . . . or wearing holographic projections that flowed and rippled like liquid light. You would never guess, looking at that throng of civilians, that the nation currently was at war both with the unseen alien puppet masters dominating much of the galaxy and with other humans.
He turned back to the two Agletsch data traders. “You’re right . . . and we’re going to have to do something about that.”
Chapter Four
21 January 2425
Squadron Briefing Room
USNA CVS America
In transit
0950 hours, TFT
By now, Omega Centauri was far behind. America and her escorts had threaded their way through the TRGA cylinder at Omega Centauri—one of seven discovered so far in that star-packed volume of space—and emerged again at the original Sh’daar Node cylinder from which the acronym was taken . . . the Texaghu Resch Gravitational Anomaly.
“Funny name,” a young Starhawk driver with lieutenant’s rank tabs at his throat said. “ ‘Texaghu.’ Does that have anything to do with Texas?”
America’s fighter squadron pilots had been gathering on the carrier’s briefing-room deck for the past ten minutes, now, and the place was already pretty crowded.
“Nah,” Lieutenant Donald Gregory said. “But you’re new, right? Just came aboard a couple of months ago?”
“That’s right.” The pilot extended his hand and Gregory took it. “Lieutenant Jamis Anderson. Late of the great state of Texas, and now with the Merry Reapers.”
“Don Gregory.” He slapped the VFA-96 squadron patch on his shoulder. “Black Demons.” He turned to introduce the attractive woman with him. “And this here is Meg Connor.”
“Very pleased to meet you, ma’am,” Anderson said, a broad grin spreading across his face. “I downloaded your report about you and your run-in with the Slan!”
Connor, formerly of VFA-140, the Dracos, had been captured by the highly advanced alien Slan in an operation at 36 Ophiuchi two months ago, but been rescued by the Marines shortly after. Her observations of her captors had helped Naval Intelligence put together a strategy to deal with the va Sh’daar aliens . . . and led to Admiral Gray’s unexpected victory over them a few days later at 70 Ophiuchi. Since then, her own squadron lost in the Slan attack, she’d been transferred to the Black Demons.
“Texaghu Resch,” Gregory told him, “is Drukrhu—that’s the principal Agetsch trade pidgin—for a star originally catalogued by the Turusch, another Sh’daar client species. Means ‘the Eye of Resch.’ Actually, it’s a transliteration from the language of a species called the Chelk.”
“Never heard of ’em.”
“They’re extinct,” Connor told him. “Apparently, the star was seen as the eye of a mythic god or hero in their culture, a being called Resch.”
“And they’re extinct?”
Gregory nodded. Whoever or whatever Resch had been, he’d not been powerful enough to save the Chelk. Like Humankind, they’d chosen to fight the Sh’daar rather than have their technologies restricted. “Humans haven’t been there, but according to the Agletsch, the Chelk homeworld is now a lifeless, airless, glassed-over ball of charred and blasted rock. Seems like they didn’t get the Sh’daar memo about no technic singularities.”
“Damn . . .”
“It’s all written up in America’s archives,” Connor pointed out. “Interesting reading . . . and it helps you kind of stay focused on what we’re fighting for.”
“Better living through higher technology,” Anderson said, still grinning. The catchphrase was currently a popular one, and expression of North America’s determination to continue Humankind’s exponential increase in GRIN technologies.
“May I have your attention, please,” another voice said over the pilots’ in-head circuitry. They turned to face the front of the briefing room, where Captain Fletcher, America’s CAG, stood on a low stage. “Please grow your seats and link in. We have the visuals from the recon flyby yesterday.”
Chairs began emerging from the deck in neatly ordered rows, and the crowd—more than two hundred strong—began taking seats. America carried six fighter and strike squadrons, one recon squadron, and two search and rescues . . . fifteen hundred people if you included the support, intelligence, logistics, and maintenance personnel. But the meeting this morning had been called just for the pilots and flight officers—the pointed end of America’s very big and powerful stick.
With a rustle of motion and dwindling conversation, the crowd of men and women sat down and began linking in. The briefing would be carried out through America’s primary AI, and consisted of a download of information acquired by the recon squadron—VQ-7, the Sneaky Peaks. Commander James Henry Peak, who’d given his name to the group twenty-some years ago, had long since been promoted to captain, rotated Earthside to Naval Intelligence, and eventually retired, but his old squadron had kept the punning name. VQ-7’s current CO was Commander Thom McCabe, who was on the stage now with the CAG.
“Good morning,” McCabe said. “I’m sure you’re all eager to see the results of o
ur close recon pass of the Black Rosette yesterday. What Lieutenant Walton saw was . . . interesting. . . .”
Data flowed into Gregory’s in-head, and he opened an inner window to view it. He saw again the crowded inner reaches of the Omega Centauri cluster, millions of brilliant stars filling the sky, and, ahead, the blurred and eerie doughnut of blue light and gas, turned almost edge-on, set in an infalling swirl of hot dust and tortured hydrogen atoms. Shadowy, vast structures hung in the distance, made indistinct by the dust . . . the stellarchitecture of the Rosette Aliens. America’s fighter squadrons had flown CAP over the past several days—the term was from combat air patrol, an anachronistic holdover from the days of wet navies and atmospheric fighters—but never approached the Rosette. It would be kind of nice, Gregory thought, to actually see up close what all of the fuss and scuttlebutt was about.
The blurred disk grew larger, and the angle shifted as Walton’s ship approached, giving them a line of sight into the Rosette’s interior. Gregory saw scattered stars . . . a black and empty night sky . . .
“We’ve slowed down the images by a factor of ten,” McCabe told the audience. “Lieutenant Walton was only over the Rosette for a few seconds, but by slowing down the feed we can see details that are not, at first, apparent. What we’re looking at here, obviously, is deep space . . . but you can see that it’s not the space within the cluster. The stars are few and far between. This particular line of sight, we think, lets us look through to a region out on the galactic rim.”
One by one, the other spaces recorded during Walton’s passage came into view, each replacing the one that had gone before. The heart of a nebula . . . various starfields . . . the mottled, close-up surface of a red sun . . . a scattering of distant galaxies . . .
The final scene was of a searing field of radiant blue light, as though the line of sight was plunging into the heart of an exploding sun.
McCabe froze the image there. A new window opened to one side, one showing the familiar blurred cylinder of a TRGA. The two images floated next to each other in Gregory’s mind at identical angles, allowing a close comparison.