By Force of Arms

by William C. Dietz

  Unit AV-7621769 registered the machine equivalent of surprise as the incoming missiles hit his shield and hammered their way through. Most destroyed themselves in the process but one managed to penetrate the hull.

  Thousands of miles away the Hoon “felt” what amounted to a tiny pinprick, a unit of machine pain so small as to barely register on its consciousness, yet annoying nonetheless. The AI accessed the back feed from the surviving fighter just in time to witness the explosions. There were three of them, each more powerful than the last, as the Prithian vessel ceased to exist.

  Satisfied, and eager to return to what it had been doing, the machine intelligence severed the connection.

  Veera felt pain at the back of her head, struggled to penetrate the thick gray fog, and remembered the tube. Had her actually father aimed the device at her? Or was that a dream? The teenager forced her eyes to focus, saw where she was, and knew the truth. She remembered the fleet, the argument with her father, and the hiss of anesthetic. The youngster threw herself forward, felt the harness cut into her shoulders, and called out loud, “Father? Where are you?”

  But there was no answer. He was gone. Just like her mother. The weight of Veera’s sorrow threatened to crush her chest. But there was no time to mourn, to sing the death song, or to enter the traditional fast.

  Something grabbed the lifeboat, jerked it back and forth, and drew it in. Something huge. Veera touched controls located in the arm of her chair and a 3-D vid screen popped into life. What she saw was a ship, a strange ship that shimmered as if lit from within, and a steadily growing rectangle of light. A hatch! The aliens planned to take her in! Veera felt her heart race and wondered what to do. The Sheen swallowed the lifeboat whole.

  Though successful, from the Hoon’s viewpoint at least, the assassination, and Jepp’s role in it, left the human feeling depressed. He had been manipulated, used, and subsequently ignored, none of which was consistent with his status as God’s prophet, or his position as head of the New Church, an organization that would be of critical importance to all sentients once they realized how wonderful it was.

  Still, even the creation of a glorious new position for himself had not been sufficient to lift the human’s spirits. The truth was that he was both bored and lonely. Yes, members of his mechanical flock attended to his needs round the clock and, with the occasional exception of Henry, agreed with everything he said. But that wasn’t half as pleasant as he had assumed it would be ... not without genuine feedback.

  All of which accounted for why the one-time prospector had resumed his once habitual explorations of the ship and the fleet it was part of. Except that now, aided by both Alpha and Sam, the human had a good deal more access to things than he had had before. Things like the fleet’s electronic nervous system. That’s how Jepp heard about the fugitive ship, the lifeboat, and the fact that it had been salvaged.

  The process of being there when the salvage ship landed, of entering the bay only moments after it was pressurized, reminded the ex-prospector of his childhood. There had been two or three birthdays when he received presents . . . and the emotions were very similar. The way the excitement started to build, the rising sense of anticipation, and the delightful delay. Then, when he could stand it no longer, the pleasure of opening the packages, except this present was wrapped in metal.

  The lock opened, the human stepped out, and eyed the bay. Silvery strings of nano hung from the overhead, slithered along the deck, and caressed the waiting ships. There were thousands, no millions of the tiny repair and maintenance machines, all linked together to create mechanical organisms. Organisms that could take ships apart and put them back together. Mindful of the fact that the “snake” nano had a tendency to slap unauthorized intruders, Jepp was careful to watch his step.

  The Prithian lifeboat was coaxed out of the salvage vessel’s hold by two tractor-sized robots. It might contain anything, or anybody, since the very existence of such a craft hinted at a survivor, or at least the possibility of one. Something Jepp wanted—or thought he did.

  Finally, when the pod-shaped lifeboat had been removed and placed on the deck, a hatch started to open. The prospector, who prided himself on his knowledge of ships, was stumped. The vessel wasn’t human. Turr, Dweller, or . . .

  Veera, terrified of who or what she might encounter, peeked out through the newly created opening. She wore a translator, an Araballazanie device common to Prithian merchant vessels, and her song sounded strange indeed. It was randomly transformed in Ramanthian, standard, and a half dozen other languages on the chance that one of them would be understood. “Is anyone there?”

  Jepp heard a snatch of standard, cleared his throat, and yelled to ensure that she would hear him. “Yes, you can come out. The Sheen won’t hurt you. They have very little interest in biologicals.”

  Veera heard the words as a series of chirps and twitters. A human! What was he doing here? Could she trust him? Not that she had much choice.

  Slowly at first, head swiveling back and forth, the Prithian emerged from the lifeboat. The nano-draped compartment was strange, very strange, and took some getting used to. The human was flanked by two robots, one to each side, with a third perched on his shoulder. He approached slowly, as if worried he might scare the teenager away. “Hello, my name is Jepp.”

  Veera, more from habit than anything else, offered the curtsy due anyone older than she was. “My name is Veera Pok.”

  The Thraki robot transformed itself into the “jump” mode, leaped onto her shoulder, and sang the original sentence back to her. “My name is Veera Pok.”

  Prithians don’t smile—but they do ruffle their neck feathers. Hers fluttered accordingly. “You speak Prithian.”

  “You speak Prithian,” Sam chirruped. “My name is Veera Pok.”

  Jepp smiled and waved at their surroundings. “Welcome to the family Veera—Come on, let’s salvage whatever rations you have before the nano disassemble your boat.”

  The suggestion made sense. Like it or not—Veera was home.

  11

  Life’s picture is constantly undergoing change. The spirit beholds a new world every moment.

  Rumi

  Persian Sufi poet

  Standard year circa 1250

  Planet Zynig-47, the Confederacy of Sentient Beings

  Having found it impossible to sleep, Admiral Hooloo Isan Andragna slipped out of bed, shivered in response to the breeze that found its way through a still unrepaired crack, and cursed the technicians who were supposed to have sealed it. While it was true that each and every one of them had spent their entire lives in space and knew next to nothing about the restoration of glass buildings, they did know something about airtight structures, or were supposed to, which made the transgression all the more annoying.

  Careful lest he disturb his mate, Andragna dressed in the dark and slipped out into the courtyard. His pet robot jumped off a chair and scuttled along behind.

  Used as he was to life aboard spaceships, the courtyard struck the military officer as unnecessarily large, although he did admire the fused glass tiles and the manner in which they went together to make complex geometric patterns. Some glowed as if lit from within—and served to illuminate a ghostly path. It led toward the remains of a gate. The Hudathans had attacked the planet many years before, murdered most of the inhabitants, and lost the ensuing war. Most of the surviving structures, his house included, had been left to the vagaries of the weather. The robot beeped softly and scrambled up a leg. It settled onto a shoulder and warmed his left ear.

  Sentries, placed there to protect his wife and him against the possibility of assassins, stood a little straighter. They looked dangerous, what with their assault rifles and all, but could they really protect him against the increasingly disaffected Runners, elements of the Priesthood, and the odd psychopath?

  No, it didn’t seem likely. What protection he had stemmed more from tradition, from the rule of law, than the obstacle posed by his guards. The military officer
gestured for the sentries to stay where they were and ventured out into the center of the ancient courtyard.

  Two moons hung against the velvety blackness of space. One of them was natural, the result of cosmic chance, or the work of the great god Rathna, depending on who you cared to listen to: the scientists or the priesthood. The other satellite was one of the arks his ancestors had built and used to propel their progeny out among the stars. Both glowed with reflected light.

  Something about the thin, pale light brought the ruins to life. Andragna imagined the clutch of structures the way they must have been, humming to some forgotten purpose, unaware of the horror ahead. The Ramanthians said that the indigenous sentients, a race of wormlike creatures, had been slaughtered by the Hudathans and driven to the edge of extinction—the same fate that he and the rest of the Thraki people could expect should the Sheen gain the upper hand. Could they? Would they?

  The Runners, for whom Andragna felt a considerable amount of sympathy, had deep misgivings about Zynig-47 and the future of the race.

  The Facers, who were in control of the Committee, had never been happier. Never mind the fact that Zynig-47 was little more than an enormous dirt ball orbiting a so-so sun, they reveled in running about the surface, squabbling over how much land each individual was entitled to, rummaging through the multicolored ruins and collecting bits of shattered glass. They called the bits and pieces “art,” and he called them “rubble.” The whole thing would have been laughable if it hadn’t been so dangerous.

  Well, that was his job, to make them see and understand. And today, when the Sectors met, he would make one last attempt.

  The sun started to rise in the east, pushed the darkness off to the west, and took control of the sky. It was red, pink, and blue all at the same time. Like the glass in the courtyard walls. Andragna turned and returned to bed. Sleep brought peace.

  Commensurate with its owner’s wishes the prefab shelter had been deposited at the summit of a gently rounded hill not far from the still rising community officially known as “Base NH-426,” but increasingly called “Starfall” by those with more romantic sensibilities.

  As the sun rose and kissed the hilltops with soft pink light, a door whirred open, and a tiny female emerged. In spite of the fact that her body was small, very small, the spirit that dwelt there was large and fierce. Energy crackled around her like electricity, her movements were quick and precise, and fire filled her eyes. This was what she had fought for! To fill her lungs with pure unrecycled air! To feel the sun’s slowly growing warmth on her face—and call a planet home.

  And here it was, all around her, just as she had imagined that it would be. If she could hold the coalition together, if she could counter doubters like Admiral Andragna, if she could coax two or three more years from her steadily aging body.

  Reenergized, Nool Nortalla, also known to her people as “Sector 4,” whistled for her pet robot, waited for the device to climb up onto her shoulder, and took walking stick in hand. It would take the better part of an hour to walk down into the city of glass. A journey she would relish.

  The Chamber of Reason was lined with real stone, said to have been quarried on the Thraki home world, though no one was sure, since there were very few records that pre-dated the fleet.

  Originally maintained aboard one of the moon-sized arks that functioned as both habitats and battleships, the Chamber had been painstakingly disassembled, transported to the surface, and installed in a dome of rose-colored glass. The sun flooded the interior with blood-warm light as Andragna nodded to the sentries, entered through a tubelike door, and emerged into a formal reception area.

  Like the rest of his species, the military officer had a natural tendency to respond to certain colors in certain ways. The soft pink light made him feel good, a fact which though innocent enough, might be of concern. Could such a phenomena impact the quality of the Committee’s decisions? And was the placement part of a plot conceived by Nool Nortalla and her home-crazed Facers? Or, and this seemed more likely, had he become so immersed in his job that politics colored all his perceptions? There was no way to be sure—but Andragna feared that it was true.

  The admiral’s boots made a clacking sound as they hit dark heat-fused glass. A group of Sectors, alerted by the sound, turned to greet him. There was Sector 12, a short somewhat pudgy female known for her bombastic ways, Sector 27, who was tall and something of a wit, Sector 9, a rather conservative Runner, and a half-dozen more. Handcrafted “forms,” or robots, scampered about their feet, peered out of carrying cases, or lay cradled in their arms. Andragna greeted each of them by name, exchanged the usual pleasantries, and continued on his way. His form made little noises and scooted from one shoulder to the other while exchanging data with its peers.

  It was the admiral’s right to enter the Chamber first ... and to make the long somewhat humiliating crawl from the perimeter of the stone table to its center without the embarrassment of anyone looking on.

  Eager to conclude the process, Andragna dropped to his knees, crawled toward the splash of rose-colored light, and surfaced in front of his chair. Doing so brought with it the usual sense of pride, awe, and, yes, fear. Fear that he might fail.

  The Thraki took his chair and eyed the recently completed enclosure. The roof of the Chamber was shaped like a dome, which, as the result of luck or divine providence echoed the native structure above. It was pierced by thirty-seven slit-shaped windows, each arranged to admit a single shaft of light, which thanks to the use of servo-operated reflectors, was quite steady. Artificial light up in orbit . . . sunlight here on the surface. All the beams of light converged on the table’s granite surface, just as the Sectors were supposed to meet and guide their race.

  Having allowed the admiral an adequate amount of time to take his place, the Committee filed into the room and set their pets loose to roam the top of the table. Andragna’s form was quick to join them. The machines tumbled, rolled, and jumped, all vying for attention. Nothing was said, but each machine was awarded points for appearance, flexibility, and charm. Functionality, or a base level thereof, was assumed. Nortalla entered, still smiling as a result of her walk, followed by Sector 19 who liked to be last and usually was.

  Once all of them were seated, the chamberlain called the meeting to order by administering a single blow to a large metal disk. It was known as the Shield of Waha. The sound echoed between the stone walls as it had so many times before. That’s when the forms were recalled, deactivated, and removed from the tabletop.

  Under normal circumstances, Andragna would have waited for one of the Sectors to speak rather than open the session himself, but the situation was anything but normal. He took the initiative. “Assuming that no one objects, I would like to open today’s session by discussing our strategic position.”

  Andragna paused, scanned the faces around him, and saw that he had their attention. “Thank you. The first thing to talk about is the political situation within the Confederacy. Based on intelligence provided by the Ramanthians, it appears that certain factions have used the threat posed by the Sheen to not only pull the organization together but make it stronger. The reality of this can be seen in the way that the once hospitable Clone Hegemony has begun to distance itself from us, and the fact that the Hudathans, once confined to their home system, are now referred to as ‘allies.’ ”

  “So, what’s your point?” Sector 12 demanded querulously. “The stronger the Confederacy is the more damage they will inflict on the Sheen.”

  “Possibly,” Andragna replied carefully, “assuming they behave as the Ramanthians predict that they will. But how likely is that, given that our Ramanthian friends told us the Confederacy was about to crumble?”

  “An excellent point,” Sector 9 put in. “I believe it was our friend Nool Nortalla who suggested that we use the locals as a screen, allow them to bear the brunt of the Sheen attack, and deal with the survivors at our leisure. A silly plan with a predicable outcome. Enough time has been wasted.
It’s time to run.”

  There it was, the very idea Andragna wanted the Committee to consider. Now it was out in the open. And, given that the meeting was available to the entire armada, the idea would circulate. But not without opposition.

  Nortalla came to her feet. Her eyes probed the room like laser beams, her body was rigid with the intensity of her emotions, and her voice was hard as hull metal. “Run you say? For what? So we can keep running? So our cubs can be born in the blackness of space, live their lives in fear, and run till they die? Is that what you want? Is that worth the price? Is that who we are?”

  Nortalla let the question hang there, not just in the Chamber of Reason, but throughout the fleet. Then, with a perfect sense of timing, she broke the silence. Her voice was low now—tittte more than a whisper. “The answer is ‘no.’ Many of us will die fighting the Sheen, but there are worse things than death, such as a life spent running away from it. I say we face the machines, fight them to a standstill, and claim what’s ours. This sun! This planet! This home!”

  There was a moment of silence followed by the thump of a single foot, and another, and another until the individual sounds were lost in one massive beat. The female known as Sector 4 sought the admiral’s eyes. He tried to conceal how he felt, tried to erase all expression from his face, but the oldster knew the truth. A battle had been fought and won. How many more would it take? Nortalla felt tired and sank into her chair. The foot-stomping died away.

  The sun, which was high in the sky, beat down on the officer’s back as he followed the slightly concave worm path upward. Although Andragna took pride in his body and worked hard to keep in shape, he had discovered that a lifetime of shipboard living had left him weak and out of breath. Something he was reluctant to admit to himself, much less to the fit, young bodyguards who trailed along behind.