Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail flotd-4

by Jack L. Chalker

  As the standard clock hit 2400, there was a sharp, anticipatory taking in of breath by all concerned, but nothing happened immediately. The task force continued to close, now well within the orbit of Orpheus, the farthest out planet in the Warden system.

  At 2403 the task force slowed, then came to a complete stop between Orpheus and Oedipus, next in of the planets, as shown in the total system insert, and the cruisers deployed in protective formations around the two main war stations. Suddenly buzzers sounded, and they could see a great number of tiny pinpricks of white light emerge from the war stations in a steady stream that lasted several seconds, then halted. The field, resembling an onrushing meteor storm, was on the big in-system board in a matter of seconds.

  Streamers of blue light appeared in great numbers, lashing out from the moons of Momrath at the onrushing storm of modules. About a third of the modules broke from the main stream and headed toward the source of the fire, but the defenders were taking a tremendous toll. “The fools clustered them too closely together,” Morah sneered.

  And it was true. Bright flashes occurred all through the field and its breakaway segment, followed by tiny white lights winking out all over the place. The blue streams were moving so fast the eye could hardly follow them, but they were well directed and found their targets.

  “Second wave, away and dispersing!” an aide at a terminal called, and eyes went back to the insert. The new modular attack appeared to be about the same in number as the first, but it spread into an extremely wide field that was almost impossible for the boards to track properly. They were now coming in from all directions.

  “That’s more like it,” Yatek Morah mumbled to himself.

  He could only look at Morah and the others in wonder. Quite rightly, some of those modules were aimed directly at them, yet they didn’t seem the least bit concerned. He sighed and gave himself a fatalistic shrug. Either they were safe, or they were not—but, in either case, as much as he’d like to be out there in a ship under his control, he was stuck.

  “Open camera screens,” Morah ordered, and on the rear screen a series of views appeared. One was a long shot from a position far enough from Medusa to show it only as a greenish-white disk, the view polarized enough so that the night side of the planet showed dully but completely as well. Then there were six smaller views, some from orbit around Medusa, others apparently on the planet’s surface. One showed a city that might have been Rochande but also might have been any one of a dozen others, while another showed a long shot of the sacred mountain in the far north, a location he recognized well.

  “The defensive shields are holding just fine,” Morah commented to nobody in particular. “However, we can’t possibly get all the probes if we’re to save Momrath’s bases as well as give cover to the other three planets.” He turned toward the camera viewscreens and pointed. “There! See the sky near that plains view?”

  They all looked, and could see clear streaks in the otherwise blemishless dark blue sky, streaks leaving a reddish-white trail. Now there were more and more of them, almost filling the skies as the attack modules separated after entering the atmosphere and split into a hundred equally deadly weapons each.

  Massive explosions showed on each view, with huge domes of crackling energy ballooned up and out. One of the cameras was knocked out, but was quickly replaced by another. Obviously there were enough located all over the planet for them to get at least one good surface view.

  The full disk view showed thousands of tiny bursts of light all over the globe, as if it were covered with windows and now suddenly had internal light, each window representing a lethal energy weapon of enormous destructive potential.

  He glanced over at the situations board and saw, to his surprise, new formations in a new color, yellow, approaching the system from all directions in a coordinated circle. There was no way to tell their size or design from the board codes, but there were a hell of a lot of them, at least a number equal to the total task force. “The Altavar are closing for attack,” he said to the others, all of whom were watching the merciless bombardment of Medusa.

  Morah took a glance back at the board. “Yes. They made it very easy on us, giving us the week. It allowed us to plot their probable attack pattern and to position our own forces so that they could emerge from hyperspace at precisely predetermined points. They will engage only the two smaller reserve task forces, however; the main body’s job is to restrict the main enemy force to its original target.”

  “But with a force like that they could have defended the whole damned system!” he almost yelled in fury. “They’re deliberately throwing Medusa awayl” Why? Why? What have I missed?

  The Altavar fleet split into three sections, two of which moved to create a ball-shaped attack formation around each of the reserve task forces, the main body moving steadily on toward a position near Momrath.

  From their movements, it appeared that the Altavar had ships that were smaller than the Confederacy’s cruisers, perhaps much smaller, but with far greater speed and maneuverability at sublight speeds. They moved so quickly and precisely into their ball-shaped attack pattern and began closing in what seemed like one motion that the bigger Confederacy ships had no chance to get out of the way or disperse. Instead the cruisers positioned themselves in a classical defense and began counterattacking the Altavar formation immediately. The fury and totality of the engagement was such that the board became a riot of colors, both white and yellow, and it quit making any attempt at showing the actual action.

  In a sense it seemed an almost romantic vision of war, the ship-to-ship battle of long ago, but he knew it was not. The board itself showed a vast distance, and those ships probably never would see one another, except on boards like this one that were far more detailed and localized. Nor, probably, were very many lives at stake. This was not really man-to-man or even ship-to-ship, it was computer versus computer, technology versus technology, and it was some time before it was clear who was going to win. The Altavar’s smaller, speedier, easier-to-turn and harder-to-hit ships, supported by computers whose programs were based not on problem theories but actual combat, had the edge, assuming the forces were basically equal in strength.

  The main task force between Orpheus and Oedipus regrouped, studying the side conflicts and learning from them, but made no move to press inward or engage the main Altavar force, which was clearly now not headed for a direct engagement but rather was establishing a large and formidable defensive perimeter inside the Diamond itself. The task force threw a number of lethal modules at the defenders, but they were easily neutralized. The main concentration continued to be upon Medusa for the moment.

  But with both reserve battle groups now showing bright yellow circles blinking on and off, meaning that the Altavar had broken the back of that force, the main task-force commander was not about to continue a methodical demonstration of increasing power against a largely deserted planet. He opted to put an end to Medusa and then, if need be, engage the main task force before the victorious remnants of the two main Altavar groups that were mopping up their battles could regroup and join the defenders.

  The agent felt a great deal of admiration for the task force commander, whoever he or she was, for having the good sense and guts not to split up that force and aid the reserves, thereby weakening their own double group to Altavar attack. That admiral understood full well that the alien main group was there to defend the other three planets and, possibly, Momrath, and could not afford to leave those targets open to close and join battle with the Confederacy task force. As soon as Medusa was taken care of, then the task force would have to close on the now defending Altavar.

  Only two cameras on the surface of Medusa were still working, and one was up in the north, where energy weapons were melting the glacial ice with ease. For the first time in a long while, perhaps since shortly after the surface was created, there was open ocean on most of the planet, and much of it was boiling.

  “Salvo seven. This should be it!�
�� somebody called, and at that moment the last surface cameras went.

  He could see them at the citadel, those proud and foolish Wild Ones, praying to their god as the searing heat and energy hit them. At least it had been quick. At least that…

  And now simultaneously deployed special warheads went off simultaneously around the entire globe of Medusa, their heat so intense the very atmosphere was inflamed, and the crust began to melt. Great sheets of steam rose from the oceans and the ice, and the world turned slowly from bright white to a dull crimson as the magma underlying the Medusan surface was freed and fed by the material at the top.

  It was a gruesome sight that yet so fascinated him that he couldn’t take his eyes off it.

  “Any moment now…” Morah said expectantly, then: “There! It’s begun!”

  He stared hard at the image, now blood red, and for a moment saw nothing he hadn’t expected to see. Abruptly, he frowned and rubbed his eyes, as the image seemed to lose its consistency and become fuzzy and distorted. Medusa seemed no longer to be a disk at all, but some sort of stretchy blob of reddish-brown goo going off in all directions. And it seemed to be growing abnormally larger, until it was twice the size it had been, and he could only scratch his chin and mutter, “Now, what the hell?”

  The glob seemed to flow in a single direction, then separate into two distinct masses, one of which clearly again was a planetary body of Medusa’s size. The other mass, however, of almost equal size, congealed and writhed and twisted—and moved. Moved outward, gaining speed as it did so, moving toward the Confederation task force that immediately began throwing everything it had at the onrushing mass.

  The Altavar fleet, in a wide, inverted V, moved in behind it, matching speed and direction.

  “Close-up!” Morah snapped. “I want a close-up on the Coldah!”

  His staff did what they could, and found at least one view from somewhere out-system that showed the mass of the writhing, terrible planet-sized thing that had emerged from the bombarded planet.

  It was a monstrous, ever-changing shape, mostly energy but with some matter, taking no clearly defined substance for more than a second before changing into something else, like a mad ball of lightning gone completely berserk.

  And yet it was not berserk—its course and speed were deliberate, and it continued to close on the fleet, ignoring all that was being thrown at it, absorbing module after module that could destroy a planet.

  It was on the fleet before any counteraction could be taken, just wading in, shooting off tens of thousands of tendrils of fire and flame into the hearts of the ships, exploding whatever ordnance they still carried. Both war stations went up in blazes that matched Medusa itself, but much of the outer task force, beyond immediate reach of the Coldah’s tentacles, began to fan out and those were now engaged by Altavar ships from the edges of the great fleet’s wedge.

  The agent angrily pounded his fist on the table. “Of course! Of coursel” he muttered to himself. “Why the hell didn’t I think of that? Not one species—two! That wasn’t the damned Altavar computer I sensed on Medusa, it was the mind of this other thing!”

  Morah couldn’t take his eyes off the pictures, but nodded. “Yes, two. The Altavar serve and protect the Coldah.”

  “This—this Coldah. What the hell is it? What’s it made of? How can the damned thing even exist?”

  “We don’t know. The Altavar, who have been studying it for thousands of years, don’t know, either. They’re not many in number, these Coldah, so we have no idea how numerous they might be or even if they are native to this galaxy or even this universe. They roam solitarily throughout the vastness of space until they come upon a world of the size and type and position they need for whatever it is they do. Long ago, thousands of years ago, when the Altavar were an expanding empire like the Confederacy, one came into an Altavar system and made one of their worlds its home. They are energy, they are matter, they are whatever they choose to-be whenever they choose to be. In settling into that Altavar world, they killed three billion inhabitants. Naturally, that started a long and dirty war.”

  He nodded, seeing the possibilities.

  “Of course,” the security chief went on, “they attacked that first Coldah much as we just did, and with similar results. They made the thing irritable. It went right through their forces to another inhabited world and did the same thing. They continued to fight it, to chase it, to harass it as much as possible while trying to learn as much about it as they could. It became an obsession with the Altavar, as, of course, it would with us. But while the Coldah don’t like company they can communicate with one another over great distances, and after a few centuries more of them showed up in the Altavar systems. Eventually the Coldah learned to anticipate the Altavar attacks and take measures ahead of time. The Altavar losses were gigantic, and they finally had to stop their continual, useless war and take stock, learn a bit more, then try again. Every time they failed. For thousands of years they failed. They learned a lot, though. When the Coldah inhabited a planet, it added little or no mass, apparently remaining in an energy state, and it sent out colonies of organisms to create within it a disguise of sorts—a perfect, natural disguise.”

  “The Warden organism,” he breathed.

  “The concept is not unknown in nature. As to why they always prefer our kinds of planets, and remake them into our kinds of planets, nobody really knows. They are the classic alien—so different from anything we know, any form of life we know, any life origins we can understand, that they are totally incomprehensible to us. Your man on Medusa once made a fringe contact with this one. Do you remember it?”

  He nodded. “I thought it was the computer.”

  “What was your impression?”

  He thought a moment. “It was aware of me, but didn’t have much of an opinion about it. I got the impression of a sense of utter superiority out of the thing, and I had the feeling it noted me, then flicked me aside as we would a fly.”

  “I have been—far deeper—hi contact over the years,” Morah told him, “and I find it an impossible, frustrating task. I’m not even certain that what we get into our minds really correlates with the real Coldah. There is an undeniable sense of power—and why not? They have it, that’s for sure. Beyond that—who knows? They are certainly aware we exist, and they are even aware of who their friends are, but that’s about it. Perhaps, one day, we will know, but I somehow doubt it. All we can do is study them and learn what we can. They’re impossible creatures, but whatever they do they seem to obey the laws just as we do. They just might know a few more laws than we do.”

  The viewscreens were blank now, except for the long-shot view of Medusa, still molten hot yet cooling even now, swaddling itself in an incredibly thick and violent layer of clouds. He turned to the plot board, which showed no white dots or forms whatsoever and yellow forms only in the mop-up battle operations. It was over. The greatest task force ever assembled by man had been met, and bested, partly by a better assembled force that had an easier time on the defense, and partly by a creature they could neither understand nor believe in even as it was killing them.

  “Where’s this thing going now?” he asked Morah.

  The security chief shrugged. “Wherever it wants. Probably to another of our planets, to burrow in once again. They go from system to system until they find a planet within our life zone around a stable sun, then they burrow in and remake the surface out of matter and energy. It’s never the same twice, but always something familiar to us, even the atmosphere. It’ll stay there a thousand years unless disturbed, as this one was, then rise again, move on, find the next planet, and start it all again. You know, when they leave on their own they do virtually no damage to the planetary systems their little symbiotic riders create? They just leave ’em. I think a number of mysteries about how so many worlds have formed within our life tolerances may be answered by the Coldah. As random as they are, most of the planets they use are not initially inhabitable, but they leave them tha
t way. Once they leave their little symbiotes don’t destruct, as they do when in residence and taken away, but just sort of fade out. Normal evolution follows.” He chuckled. “You know, it’s even just possible that our own race, and the Altavar, grew up over the millions of years because of Coldah lifestyles. It’s a fascinating concept.”

  “But the Altavar—they fought these things. And now they seem almost to protect them.”

  “That’s true,” Morah agreed, telling one of his aides in an aside to get them all strong drinks, “but in the thousands of years they fought and studied the Coldah, a funny thing happened. Somewhere along the line they got tired of it, just got sick of futile head-knocking, and sort of mentally surrendered to the big bastards. To the Altavar, the Coldah became their whole life, and in a probably gradual switch they came not only to accept the existence of these creatures but to actually work with them. Don’t ask me to explain it—it’s certainly religious, or mystic, in a way, and those are unexplainable even when we’re talking about our faiths, yet they are coldly and scientifically devoted to the great project, as they call it. They protect the Coldah from outside interference whenever possible, and they try with their fleets to nudge the Coldah into worlds that need some work. Don’t ask me how that’s possible, bat the Coldah, once the Altavar started helping rather than fighting, seemed to go along with it.”

  He nodded. “But not here.”

  “Well, it was impossible, for one thing. When the Coldah originally came to the Warden system we were still stuck knee-deep on old Mother Earth. These four worlds were pretty piss-poor rock piles with nasty atmospheres and surface pressures, just perfect. And when a particularly big, fat, Coldah arrived, it did something the Altavar, with all their experience, had never seen before. It reproduced by fission. It made triplets, in fact, and the one old and three new ones entered into the four Diamond worlds. Shortly after, they released, or made and released, or whatever, their little beasties, and they went to work on the world, making it over. Lilith, with the original mama Coldah, had the most rigid system imposed on it. Then the Altavar moved in. In the years they have studied, fought, then served the Coldah, they learned a lot. They can make their own Wardens, and they can give orders to these synthesized versions, too. Within limits, they can even play games with the Coldah versions, and they did here. Looking at the climates, they elevated one species on each to dominance.”