Faith

by John Love

  She was coming again, and events were taking place on Sakhra. They were not mass events, because both the Sakhrans and the humans who had settled on Sakhra (the Sakhran humans, Sulhu called them privately) were too enigmatic, too apolitical and fragmented, for mass movements. It was ironic that they had those features in common. Sulhu sometimes amused himself with the thought that one day, Sakhran humans might become human Sakhrans. The simple reversal of adjective and noun would mean a world of difference.

  So they were not mass events, just individual episodes. Still, they were troubling. Like the strange gathering on Grid 9 at Blentport, and the manner of the Charles Manson’s departure. With his son on board. Sulhu wondered whether he would see his son return to Sakhra, but on other days he also wondered if he’d see Her return to Sakhra. There was something about Foord and his ship that made him fear for any opponent they engaged; even this one.

  •

  Swann felt tired. Not so much physically—he had been on sleep inhibitors for the last few days—but spiritually. There were too many things to deal with, all of them troubling. And the burns on his hands and face, although they’d been treated and would heal, were throbbing persistently.

  Blentport was now relatively quiet. All the Grids were empty, all the Horus Fleet ships were refitted and had joined the defensive cordon, and most of the port’s military personnel were evacuated to the highlands. Swann had personally directed this from his Command Centre in the basement of one of the Blentport buildings. When it was complete he had stayed there to observe the long-range scans of the events in the outer regions of Horus system, where the Charles Manson was engaging Faith, and to direct responses to the mostly isolated, but disturbing, incidents in the lowlands. He had been there, almost continuously, for days.

  “The Charles Manson. Still dead?” He meant its communications.

  “Yes, Director.”

  “Alright. Keep hailing it.”

  Like Foord, he was large and black-bearded and came from a heavy-gravity planet; but his bulk was not conditioned muscle, as was Foord’s, and he lacked Foord’s tidiness and grooming—a lack which had been apparent during the events preceding Foord’s liftoff, and again during the incident with Copeland’s ship. Nothing had happened since to improve either his appearance or his demeanour. The outbreaks of violence were mostly in the lowlands, and were neither large-scale nor orchestrated. But, like all lowlands politics, they were difficult to read; and troubling. Swann and Sulhu unknowingly shared the same private expression—Sakhran humans—to describe the Commonwealth settlers who colonised the lowlands.

  Grid 9 was now empty. Swann had walked through it a couple of times, as listlessly as Sulhu walked the empty wings of Hrissihr. A few days ago, those who had gathered there (civilian and military) milled around for some time after the Charles Manson’s departure. Some of them slaughtered the six chimaera. Later, when they heard Boussaid had died, they set fire to the landchariot and threw the Sakhran driver’s body into it. In the side window, unseen, the web curled and died.

  Swann had tried personally to drag the Sakhran’s body clear of the burning landchariot, sustaining burns to his hands and face. That was the first of only three times that he had left the Command Centre in the last few days. The second was to receive Rikkard Blent’s descendant (was it great-great-great-grandson? Swann couldn’t remember and didn’t care) from the Sakhrans who returned him, unharmed but still bellicose, from Hrissihr. His name was actually Blent-Gundarssen: the Blent family name had sunk and resurfaced, through generations of bedsheets.

  Swann asked them to convey to Sulhu his thanks, his promise that the man would be prosecuted, and his regret at the death of the Sakhran driver. All this had been acknowledged with polite inclinations of Sakhran heads, while above them the last few ships of Horus Fleet rose to join the cordon. Swann had to shout to be heard.

  The third time he left the Command Centre was to tell Boussaid’s family, personally, what had happened. There could have been a fourth time, when Copeland was shuttled down to Blentport to face arrest and trial, but Swann had sent others.

  “Charles Manson still dead?”

  “Yes, Director…Director, we’ll tell you if anything comes in.”

  “I know you will. But you don’t think anything will come, do you?”

  “No, Director. Foord cut communications deliberately.”

  Swann looked at the cordon on one of the many screens in the Command Centre. It was a classic formation. Battleships and cruisers formed the outer ring. Destroyers and interceptors inside, ready to engage Her closeup if She got through the larger ships. Everything was deployed logically and sensibly, facing out towards the Belt and the Gulf and outer planets from where She would come if Foord didn’t stop Her. All of them, of course, had been ordered to stay in formation, no matter what happened with Foord.

  It was the largest fleet in any of the Commonwealth’s twenty-nine systems, except for the Earth fleet. Swann wondered if it would be enough. If it wasn’t, and if She ignored the evacuation and launched a catastrophic attack on Sakhra’s now almost undefended Bowl areas then a handful of people on Sakhra, Swann among them, would be personally responsible. He accepted that. He was fiercely, but intelligently, loyal to the Commonwealth.

  Swann’s planet, like Foord’s, had been authoritarian and corporatist, but unlike Foord he had come to the Commonwealth in the ordinary way, through the regular armed forces and not the Department. Like Foord, however, he had found that planets like his were only a minority. Most of the Commonwealth was a lot better. On balance, he told himself with his usual clumsiness, far more about it was right than was wrong. Even when it did something wrong, such as the law about removal of poison glands from Sakhrans in the lowlands, plenty of its citizens—himself included—were ready to stand up and campaign.

  There were other banks of screens in the Command Centre, to which Swann had been increasingly drawn over the last few days. They depicted events at Horus 5, the Belt, and—now—Horus 4. They were not actual views but simulations, because of the distances involved and the cessation of transmissions from Foord. Some would be accurate, others based on the best guesses of Swann’s mission analysts.

  At Horus 5 She had outthought Foord, as Swann expected; but something had happened in the Belt, coinciding with Foord’s cutting of communications. There had been a burst on photon drive through asteroids, an apparent collision with one large asteroid, an apparent hit by one of Her missiles, but the Charles Manson was still there. Then, it had left the Belt and headed for Horus 4, and after a pause She had followed. But was She chasing Foord, or making for Sakhra?

  Foord was obviously planning some sort of action involving Horus 4. Everyone knew about Horus 4; if you got too close, it killed you. So did She, but She was more dangerous because She killed by choice and motive. Or maybe not. Maybe She was like Horus 4, and had no choice or motive. Maybe She was just made like that. There was a thought.

  Swann looked again at the careful pattern of the cordon; it’s everything we have, he thought, and again wondered if it would be enough. He had found the Charles Manson and Foord and his crew to be quite alien, outside everything he understood and valued. But She was different by magnitudes. She made the Charles Manson seem like something it could never, ever be: One Of Us. One Of Ours.

  3

  They continued their approach to Horus 4, cautious and ever-slowing.

  Gradually, their perception of Her had changed. In the Belt they had become the first of Her opponents ever to gain any advantage over Her, and that removed some of Her mystery. So too did Foord’s remark about Instrument Of Ourselves. They knew he had calculated it—he calculated everything—but it was compelling, and it changed how they saw Her.

  And what completed the change was when Foord told them how he intended to use his two missiles. When he finished, there was a long silence.

  “That’s very clever,” Smithson said, at first grudgingly; then, as he walked around it and looked at it fro
m all angles, he added what was, for him, the ultimate accolade. “I wish I’d thought of that.”

  Cyr murmured “So do I” and Foord glanced at her sharply, maybe suspecting she’d already figured it out; or maybe she read too much into his glance. Foord’s ability, like the garment Cyr wore, produced a remarkable effect on those around him; he could glide among them, like she did, as if unaware of it. The difference was that with Cyr it was just a garment, something she’d paid to find out about, and paid again to have made for her. With him, it was more: everything he was.

  So they realised now that She could actually be defeated. And as they moved closer to the planet whose unique properties would make it one of their weapons, so the planet—because of its unique properties—became less interesting.

  Even Foord grew tired of looking at Horus 4, though he was careful not to appear so. They had seen the wonders of Horus 5 and the Belt. They had crossed the Gulf between the inner and outer planets on their way to engage Her, and might—depending on what happened here—have to cross it again. But Horus 4 was different. Looking at it was as dull as looking at a door—duller, because at least someone might go in or out. It was like looking at a photograph of a door.

  And yet Horus 4 was one of the weapons which would destroy Her. The other one was Foord’s pair of missiles. Foord wished he had made Blentport build him more than just two, but that would have been difficult given the circumstances there. And if they worked, two would be plenty; one would be enough. Not for the first time, Foord found himself wondering how and when he had thought of them. Smithson had been watching him.

  “When I asked you before, Commander, you said you didn’t know. You said it was like you always had it.”

  “What?”

  “The idea about those missiles.”

  “Well, I still don’t know. I can’t remember the exact moment.”

  “That’s also what you said before, Commander… Ever thought that perhaps She planted the idea?”

  Foord looked up sharply. He had been about to give Smithson a Smithsonian reply, then noticed the angularity of posture which, for Smithson, denoted humour.

  It was infectious.

  “Why ever,” Cyr wondered, “would She do that?”

  Smithson shrugged, approximately. “Because She’s Enigmatic?”

  “Perhaps,” Foord ventured, “Cryptic is a better word.”

  Kaang had been following the conversation from face to face with some puzzlement. “What’s the difference, Commander?”

  “Do you mean, what’s the difference because we’re going to destroy Her anyway, or what’s the difference between Cryptic and Enigmatic?”

  “Yes, Commander. I mean, yes, I meant what’s the difference between Cryptic and Enigmatic.”

  “There isn’t any difference,” Cyr said.

  “Yes there is,” Thahl said, “but it’s hidden.”

  Lazily, the irony fed on itself, chewing backwards and forwards while they worked on Her destruction. The approach to Horus 4 continued, slower and slower.

  Slower and slower. Cautious, and more cautious. There was a point on their approach to Horus 4 when they would be captured by its gravity. Long before then, they would stop and make their final arrangements: the arrangements whose idea, like the design of his two missiles, seemed to be something Foord had always known. “And Faith?” he asked Thahl.

  “She’s left the Belt, Commander, and is heading for Horus 4. Her position is approximately 15-10-16.”

  “Approximately?”

  “She’s still shrouded, and Her drive emissions are faint. She’s on low ion speed, about nine percent, and the gravity distorts our scanners.”

  “Oh, of course,” Foord said. He added “Still Enigmatic, then.”

  “Don’t you mean Cryptic, Commander?”

  “I thought you said the difference between them was hidden.”

  “It’s only hidden if you try to find it, Commander.”

  Foord inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement, and the conversation chewed and savoured itself a little more.

  “Commander,” Thahl said, a few minutes later, “I still recommend caution. She might simply be heading for Sakhra, not pursuing us. She could just pass us by. Like…”

  “Like we did to Her at the Belt. I know. But…”

  But Foord knew. He had his growing instincts about Her, and his mounting pile of penny pieces of knowledge. Unless She really had planted it all, She would come for them before making for Sakhra. He knew.

  “What’s Her ETA, Thahl? Approximately?”

  “At least three hours at Her current speed, Commander.”

  “Good. Then we have plenty of time. Let’s get it done.”

  •

  The orbit around Horus 4 was the simpler part. The missiles would be a bit more complicated.

  They had calculated the orbit they would need. It would be a pronounced elliptical orbit. At the two opposing high points they would be able, with momentum plus bursts of ion drive, to break free of Horus 4’s gravity. But for the rest of the orbit they would be genuinely trapped, unable to do anything except move along its elliptical path. That was essential, if She wasn’t to pass them by. They had to be genuinely trapped. And Faith, approaching them, had to know it.

  But that was the easier part; they had calculated all of it. All they had to do was continue their ever-slowing approach to Horus 4 and wait until they reached the critical point of commitment. Then, when they knew She was coming for them and not heading past them for Sakhra, they would inject themselves into the orbit. They would do it suddenly, making it look like an overreaction to Her approach. They had planned it carefully, and practised it repeatedly; but when they really did it, they would be committing themselves to the gravity of Horus 4. Nothing was worth that, except the chance to defeat Her.

  “Commander,” Cyr murmured, “I know what the difference is.”

  “Difference?”

  “Between Cryptic and Enigmatic.”

  “Well?”

  “I’ll leave it unspoken.”

  The more complicated part was the preparation and launch of the two missiles. It was more complicated only because the missiles were what shaped everything else. If they didn’t work, She would pass by unhindered to visit Sakhra, and the Charles Manson would go down to visit Horus 4.

  But they would work. Nothing Enigmatic about them. They were simple, relatively small, and—most important of all—inert. They would be released quietly before the Charles Manson entered its orbit, at a point (calculated) which would put them in orbits parallel to the Charles Manson’s but further from Horus 4, where they would not be trapped.

  They were almost nothing but drives and warheads. Their warheads, cramming every inch of their limited size, were charges of E91, the most concentrated conventional explosive ever made. It did exactly what it said on the packet, and, over a small area, did it with nuclear intensity; but unlike a nuclear device, it was inert and undetectable until the moment of its explosion. Their drives were high-intensity particle motors, giving huge initial acceleration but only over a short range. Each missile had in its nosecone a lense and low-power microcomputer, programmed to recognise only Faith, from whatever angle they saw Her. They would project nothing and transmit nothing; and receive nothing, except Her image.

  The missiles would float like fragments of Horus 4, dark and dead, and too inert—Foord hoped—to be noticed by Her as She approached. She would realise that apart from the two high points of the elliptical orbit, the Charles Manson was genuinely trapped; it could still fight, but could not move out of its orbital path. It would be fatally hampered. She would choose somewhere midway between the two high points for Her attack. She wouldn’t have to destroy the Charles Manson, just damage it enough to make it unable to break free at the high points. Then, She could pass on to Sakhra while Horus 4’s gravity did the rest; or She could stay and watch, and then pass on to Sakhra. Either way it would be decisive, and at decisive points in any eng
agement She always unshrouded. That was where Foord’s two missiles came in.

  “Cyr, if you know what the difference is, you can’t say that you’ll leave it unspoken. You can’t use speech to announce that you’re leaving something unspoken.”

  “If I didn’t say I was leaving it unspoken, Commander, nobody would know about it.”

  “Exactly.”

  This word-construct was getting more and more self-indulgent, thought Foord, but its whimsicality somehow worked: considering what they intended to do, it seemed oddly right. They could each murmur their additions to it while they worked towards creating Her destruction.

  The lenses in the nosecones of the missiles would be shortsighted, almost squinting. And they would not be sending, only receiving. They were no more than automatic cameras: operating on low power, absolutely conventional, and programmed to recognise Faith’s image from any angle the moment She came in their sight. She would obviously approach slowly and cautiously, drawn by the Charles Manson, this strange opponent who’d got more out of Her than any other; drawn by the Charles Manson’s predicament, but never becoming anything less than cautious.

  The missiles would not be in any way controlled by, or in communication with, the Charles Manson. There would be nothing, no signal or emission, for Her to detect. Almost every part of them would be inert. When the cameras recognised Her, which they would only do over short range, the missiles would activate. They would—Foord hoped—be almost point-blank and would reach Her too quickly even for Her flickerfields.

  This was the idea which Foord had always seemed to have in him. It depended on a lot of Ifs: if She didn’t pass them by, if She didn’t detect the missiles, if the missiles worked, if She came close enough, if She unshrouded. And, of course, if they’d calculated Horus 4’s gravity correctly. It was simple, and might be decisive; high-risk, but dependent on low-tech devices. It was the kind of thing nobody had ever offered Her before: a threat. If it succeeded, then Faith, if not destroyed, would be damaged; too damaged—Foord hoped—to prevent the Charles Manson from reaching the high point of its orbit, breaking free, and finishing Her. That was likely to be, as Smithson had said, the point where Some Of Us Will Die. But nobody before them had gained any advantage over Her, and here they were, realistically working towards defeating Her. And even, along the way, snatching some self-indulgent wordplay while they worked.