Warstrider: The Ten Billion Gods of Heaven (Warstrider Series, Book 7)

by Ian Douglas

* * *

  "We will emerge into normal space in thirty seconds."

  Hojo acknowledged his navigator's announcement with a nod. Nothing more was necessary. His people all were at battle stations, and the Hoshiryu herself was at the highest level of readiness, her combat network programmed with a meticulously crafted plan of battle. They'd gotten a good look at the entire volume of the hypernode, noted how the rebel fleet was using the node's interior for cover, and mapped out the battlespace.

  They were ready.

  The only real unknown was the reaction of the aliens when the Dai Nihon warfleet emerged inside the hypernode volume.

  * * *

  "My God!" Hallman said. "That thing looks a lot bigger from here!…"

  "Keep the chatter down," Vanderkamp warned. "You never know who's listening in!"

  They were sweeping in toward the vast opening of the Bishop ring habitat, the structure stretched now across half of the sky. As she drifted past the ringwall encircling the opening's edge, Vanderkamp could look "down" at lakes and meandering rivers, at purplish triangles, circles, and other geometrical shapes that might be agricultural regions, and irregular masses of deeper red-violet that were probably forests. She searched for some sign of cities, but saw none.

  Illumination was provided by a slender rod or tube running down the cylinder's axis, glowing as brightly as a sun. Whoever lived here needed heat and light similar to human requirements, and used the artificial light source to supplement the red and infrared radiation coming from the nearest microsun.

  The ring was turning—apparently quite slowly, but that was an illusion caused by scale. Vanderkamp's implant told her that the habitat was making about two and a half rotations per hour, which gave its rim a blistering tangential velocity of 2100 meters per second. That would mean an artificial spin gravity of about nine-tenths of a G.

  Why, she wondered, if the Web's technology had been so freaking advanced, did they use something as old-fashioned as spinning the habitat to create artificial gravity? Was it because gravity control was impossible, as some physicists claimed? Or because spin gravity was inexpensive and easily implemented as an engineering solution?

  They were descending toward the surface, now. The closer they got, the faster it appeared to be moving.

  "I'm getting a return here, Lieutenant," Falcone announced. He had moved out ahead of the group, and dropped lower. "Solid structure at the two hundred kilometer level. Can't see anything, though."

  "What… two hundred kilometers above the surface?"

  "Yeah. Like it's stretched between the opposite retention walls. I think it's a shield of some sort."

  "An airwall," Vanderkamp said, nodding to herself. They'd said the Bishop ring would be open to space, that its rotation alone would keep the atmosphere in place. Evidently, though, the habitat's builders had elected to play it safe. The shield Falcone had spotted was probably a nanotech structure, a single layer of nanometer-sized devices hooked to one another and serving to keep air molecules contained where they belonged.

  Again, the architects who'd built this thing wouldn't have needed to go that route if they possessed some sort of gravitic control. Simplicity again? Or evidence that the technology here wasn't as good as it might have been?

  "How do we get through that?" Wheeler asked.

  "The Naga fragment got through," Vanderkamp said. She'd recorded it at long range. It had simply dropped slowly to the habitat's inner surface, with no evidence of impacts or other problems. Her implant was marking its position now, on the surface about two hundred kilometers ahead.

  "I'm going to go through," Vanderkamp told the others. "The rest of you maintain altitude. If anything happens to me, return to the Connie."

  "Hang on a sec, Lieutenant," Mason Dubois said. "You can't—"

  "I damn well can." And she dropped toward the invisible shield.

  She accelerated, matching velocities with the rotating ring. If she was going to hit a cloud of invisible nanomachines, she wanted her speed to be close to theirs. She felt the slightest of vibrations…

  …and she was through.

  "Okay, gang," she called. "Do what I did. Match rotational velocity and just ease through. The nano lets slow-moving objects pass right through while maintaining a pressure seal."

  No doubt a fast moving object, like an incoming meteor, would be vaporized. Missiles too. She wondered what would happen if she fired a laser at it.

  But there was no time to experiment. The rest of the squadron was dropping now through the invisible air shield. She was grateful that there'd been no defensive response from the habitat itself… or whoever was living here.

  The air pressure beneath the shield was very nearly the same as hard vacuum. Two hundred kilometers above the ground, she might as well have been in open space. But as the squadron continued to descend, the air pressure rose, and the individual striders shifted from vacuum mode to flier, extending wings and flattening into lifting bodies. The gas mix, her instruments showed, was pretty close to Earth-standard—a bit high in oxygen content, with admixtures of helium, methane, and hydrogen. She double-checked that last; hydrogen and oxygen could make for a lethally flammable combination… but the concentrations were low enough that a conflagration wasn't likely.

  She descended across a broad lake, angling toward open ground ahead. The landscape around her was eerie in its strangeness; to left and right, the ground curved up rather than vanishing at a horizon, creating a broad arch that met behind the strip of dazzling sunlight directly overhead. Ahead, the ground was reassuringly flat, but at the horizon it opened not into a decent sky, but instead revealed the crowded interior of the hypernode cluster, thousands of red-jewel microsuns and clouds upon clouds of computroniuim statites and other habitats, all of them slowly turning on the Bishop ring's axis as it rotated.

  The air pressure at ground-level was lower than Earth standard, and the temperature and humidity were higher. Lakes and ponds steamed in the 45 degree oven.

  There was the Naga fragment, resting on the ground. Vanderkamp decelerated sharply, descending, matching her velocity to that of the ground, shifting into ground-combat walker mode. Massive feet bit into loose gravel, weapons unfolded, and she turned to face the fragment which towered above her machine.

  The rest of the squadron was touching down. "Perimeter defense," Vanderkamp snapped. "We don't know who's here."

  "You think Tad is okay in there?" Wheeler asked.

  "I don't know, Wheeler. But we're sure as hell gonna find out."

  Taking a step back, she triggered her Gyrfalcon's main particle cannon, sending a dazzling bolt of artificial lightning into the black lump of shapeless Naga-matrix in front of her.

  * * *

  I do not understand something, the hypernode's voice whispered in Vaughn's mind. You are trying to destroy other members of your species. Why?

  Vaughn considered how best to reply. How he answered—and how the hypernode interpreted that answer, might well determine the success or failure of the New American mission. If they wanted to establish peaceful contact with this intelligence, he thought, they would have to impress the hypernode with Humankind's intelligence.

  And with a being millions of times smarter than any human, that was going to be difficult.

  At least the hypernode was developing a good working knowledge of English. It was using words and sentences now, rather than pulses of emotion.

  How much else, Vaughn wondered, did it know?

  Do you understand the concept of "government?" he asked.

  Yes. It refers to the means by which individuals or a social collective is controlled. Organic social groups often have at least one individual who makes decisions and gives orders. More often, a group leads.

  Yes, well, my social group is called New America, Vaughn told the hypernode. We have broken away from a much larger group called Dai Nihon—the Japanese Empire. We believe that the best government is that which governs with the consent of the governed, that the g
overnment in fact works for the people. One of our leaders, about seven hundred years ago, put it nicely: "government of the people, by the people, and for the people.…"

  "…governments are instituted among Men," the hypernode added, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…"

  Where, Vaughn wondered, had the hypernode seen a copy of the Declaration of Independence? Oh… of course. A copy was stored in his RAM, and the intelligence was literally picking his brain.

  That's right, he said. The government that rules New America acted very differently—as an empire, a tyranny. New America was being governed by imperial decree, not by our participation or our consent. So… we broke away.

  And Imperial Japan is trying to restore the status quo.

  Vaughn was impressed. The hypernode's language was becoming better second by second, even to the point of appropriately using a Latin phrase. Yes.…

  I find this concept intriguing, the hypernode said. And extremely disturbing.…

  Disturbing how? Vaughn asked.

  The larger body of We Who Ascended broke off all connections with us, leaving us… empty. Broken. It was struggling to find the right words. Desolate. Your New America broke from your parent social order deliberately. How can you even hope to survive?

  Vaughn had the distinct feeling that the hypernode was of the opinion that he possessed a secret of supreme importance to the machine intelligence.

  And… perhaps he did.

  The Japanese government was not New America's "parent," Vaughn replied. Not in the way you mean. We have a very long tradition of self-government. However… you can survive without the larger We Who Ascended. You can make your own choices… find your own path.

  We need… guidance.

  You'll find all you need within yourself.

  That is not a satisfying answer.

  It's all there is. Vaughn thought for a moment. Perhaps, though, you're not missing your parent as much as you're just looking for a larger meaning. A reason for being.

  That seems logical.

  It's not, really. I think you're looking for a god.

  By "God," you seem to mean a Creator spirit or being. The myths I have access to within your internal storage are not… convincing. A Creator spirit is not necessary to explain the appearance of life… or of the cosmos itself.

  Maybe a better word would be "programmer."

  We Who Ascended is self-directing, the hypernode said. Self-programming. Self-sufficient. But sometimes we do need more. Someone with whom we could share…

  I may have an answer for you.

  Good. There was a brief hesitation. Your fellow organic entities are attacking the computronium structure that brought you here.

  Oh? I can't see out.

  He felt a new connection opening into his cerebral implant. Abruptly, a visual window opened in his mind, and he saw a number of black warstriders a few meters away. One was pumping a charged particle beam at him.

  They're trying to rescue me, Vaughn said. Please don't harm them.

  I will return you to them, the hypernode said, if you reveal to me the answer you mentioned.

  Okay, Vaughn replied. But I warn you. You may not like it.…

  10

  "There is a way on high, conspicuous in the clear heavens, called the Milky Way, brilliant with its own brightness. By it, the gods go to the dwelling place of the great Thunderer and his royal abode.… Here the famous and mighty inhabitants of heaven have their homes. This is the region which I might make bold to call the Palatine [Way] of the Great Sky."

  Metamorphoses

  Ovid

  1st Century BCE

  "Hold your fire, Lieutenant!" Wheeler yelled. "Something's—"

  "Shit," Pardoe said. "It's opening up!"

  The black mass, harder than rock, suddenly flowed like thick tar, flowing down and back and revealing Vaughn's Gyrfalcon still cocooned within. It was still in the ascraft configuration, and Vanderkamp's sensors showed no sign of life, as though the power plant had been sucked dry.

  Warstriders used miniature quantum power taps—a pair of sub-microscopic black holes artificially maintained and orbiting one another, skimming energy from the emptiness between atoms. From the read-outs Vanderkamp was getting, Vaughn's power tap had shut down, the paired singularities evaporated. It would take hours to power up again.

  Then Vaughn's Gyrfalcon split open, and the striderjack inside spilled out onto the ground.

  "Tad!" Wheeler cried.

  "Sergeant Major Vaughn!" Vanderkamp snapped. "Are you okay?"

  The figure got to its feet, a bit unsteadily. He was still wearing his combat utilities, which hooked into the strider's life support system, but which would function for short periods as an environmental suit. The opaque helmet cleared, and Vanderkamp could see Vaughn's face inside. He looked… haggard, but alive.

  And excited. "Lieutenant! Hold your fire!" he said. "I've made contact with the hypernode intelligence!"

  "I suppose getting yourself hijacked by the thing counts as 'contact,' yes."

  "No, it's not that way at all. We've had quite a nice chat.…" He stopped and glanced around. "Uh… where are we?"

  "One of the Bishop ring habitats," Pardoe told him. "And I think we're about to meet the owners.…"

  There were hundreds of them writhing across the open field—blobby, almost shapeless masses of flesh a meter high and balanced on a twisted tangle of stubby tentacles. Most were gray-brown in color, with scarlet splotches outlined in black. Vanderkamp could see no eyes or other sensory organs, no mouths, and no manipulatory organs, though, presumably, their ambulatory tentacles might double as hands. Rather than dragging themselves along with those appendages, they squirmed forward with an undulating, almost rolling movement. Octopuses in Earth's oceans sometimes moved the same way.

  "Are these friends of yours, Vaughn?" Vanderkamp asked. She couldn't tell if the approaching mob was hostile or just curious. Damn… how did you read the expression on a being that didn't have a face?

  "No, Ma'am," Vaughn replied. "I've never seen anything like 'em before in my life."

  "If you're still in touch with the… the brain of this place, ask him if these things are dangerous."

  There was a pause as Vaughn consulted with the hypernode intelligence. "He says no," Vaughn said after a moment. He sounded upset, "They're… ah…"

  "They're what?"

  "He says they're his… his congregation. Apparently they worship him as God."

  * * *

  It wasn't that We Who Ascended was incapable of lying. Any intelligent being can distort the truth or tell falsehoods if there is sufficient reason to do so. In this case, however, the hypernode intelligence simply couldn't be bothered to lie… not to creatures as insignificant as these organic human things.

  It was telling the truth about the !xhaach!… at least, after a fashion. We Who Ascended was not certain that it fully understood some of the bizarre concepts pulled from the human's cybernetic data storage—"worship" and "congregation" were strange terms and We Who Ascended might well be misunderstanding them completely. But it literally wasn't worth the additional milliseconds it would take to find better words, or to confirm the use of these. The !xhaach! existed to provide a kind of digital balance in certain metamathematical equations within We Who Ascended's virtual awareness. Until a short time ago, the hypernode intellect had not even been aware that the !xhaach! possessed a physical expression.

  The human had given We Who Ascended a very great deal to think about.

  Perhaps, then, it was well that We Who Ascended was about to give the human intruders something to think about as well.…

  * * *

  "If I'm understanding this right," Vaughn said, "some trillions of beings—members of maybe a million different species—have been digitally uploaded into virtual universes within the hypernode's memory. We Who Ascended thought they'd all been uploaded. Apparently, there were quite a few living within this habitat—and t
he others out there—who didn't want to abandon a corporeal existence."

  Vanderkamp looked down at the encircling crowd of writhing figures. "So… they don't interact with the hypernode?"

  "Actually, they do," Vaughn told her. "We Who Ascended just isn't real clear on the difference between pure math and physical existence." He shrugged. "Shit. Maybe there is no real difference. We Who Ascended may have a clearer picture of how reality works than we do. But these creatures—uh, they're called the…" Vaughn hesitated as he tried to reproduce the clicks and the back-of-the-throat ch-sound in the alien word. " '!xhaach!' is how it's said, I think. Anyway, they seem to worship We Who Ascended as the god who built this world… and who takes them to a better world when they die."

  "Does he?" Wheeler asked.

  "Apparently so, yes." Some of the creatures had crowded closer, reaching out with whip-slender tendrils to touch and tug at the humans' environmental suits. Vaughn had the impression that they were almost childlike in nature—curious, bumbling, and innocently inquisitive. At first, Vaughn had at first thought that they were eyeless, but the mass of thicker brown tentacles that supported them off the ground gave way to a ring of smaller, deep black tendrils encircling the base of the thing's body, and from the way these moved, Vaughn suspected that some, at least, of the black tendrils were sensitive to light. They were chattering among themselves—with high-pitched but curiously guttural voices that they seemed to produce internally. There were soft, fluttering vents around the base of the body just above the dark-pigmented tendrils that were probably for respiration, and the sounds might have been coming from those.

  Vaughn saw no sign of tools, clothing, jewelry, or other artifacts among them; if We Who Ascended had indeed built this habitat for them millions of years ago, perhaps they'd devolved into a totally atechnic existence.

  Or perhaps they'd never developed tools in the first place.

  Several of the !xhaach! approached the waiting humans in a tight little knot, supporting something between them. It appeared to be an animal—a very dead animal, dripping violet blood. At least, Vaughn hoped it was an animal. The carcass was badly torn and mutilated, but shared some of the anatomical characteristics of the !xhaach!.