“Aha.” Michael gritted his teeth and smiled at the ambassador. “And what makes you think there’s an expedition?”
It was Cho’s turn to smile: tiredly, for he had been awake for nearly forty-eight hours at this point, collating intelligence reports, monitoring media, and trying to put together the big picture single-handedly—the New Republic had strictly limited the size of his diplomatic staff. “Come, Your Excellency, are we to believe that the New Republic will allow an insult to its honor, let alone its territorial integrity, to stand without response? Some sort of reaction is inevitable. And given the loss of your Navy’s local presence, and the increased state of alert and heavy engineering activity around your bases at Klamovka, Libau, and V-l, a naval expedition seems likely. Or were you planning to get your soldiers there by ordering them to click their heels three times while saying ‘there’s no place like home’?”
Michael pinched the bridge of his nose, attempting to cover his frown. “I can neither confirm nor deny that we are considering naval action at this time.”
Cho nodded. “Of course.”
“However. Do you know anything about this Festival? Or what has been going on at Rochard’s World?”
“Surprisingly little. You’ve been keeping a lid on whatever’s going on—not very subtly, I’m afraid, the dispatches from the Fourth Guards Division’s desperate defense of the colonial capital would be more convincing if the Fourth Guards’ relocation from New Prague to Baikal Four hadn’t been mentioned in dispatches a month ago. But you’re not the only people keeping the lid on it. My people have been unable to unearth any information about this Festival anywhere, which is distinctly worrying. We even broadcast a request for help from the Eschaton, but all that came back was a cryptogram saying, ‘P. T. Barnum was right.’” (A cryptogram which had been encoded with a key from a secured UN diplomatic onetime pad, the leakage of which had already caused a major security panic.)
“I wonder who this T. P. Barney was,” Duke Michael commented. “No matter. The Festival has had an, ah, catastrophic impact on Rochard’s World. The economy is in ruins, there’s widespread civil disorder and outright rebellion. In fact—” He stared sharply at the ambassador. “You understand what this means for the guiding principles of our civilization?”
“I’m here strictly as an ambassador to represent the interests of all UN parties in the New Republic,” Cho stated neutrally. “I’m not here to pass judgment on you. That would be presumptuous.”
“Hmm.” Michael glanced down at his blotter.
“It is true that we are considering an expedition,” said the Archduke. Cho struggled to conceal his surprise. “But it will be difficult,” Michael continued. “The enemy is already well entrenched in the destination system. We don’t know where they come from. And if we send a fleet there directly, it may well suffer the same fate as the naval squadron on station. We are therefore considering a rather, ah, desperate stratagem.”
Cho leaned forward. “Sir, if you are contemplating a causality violation, I must advise you—”
The Archduke raised a hand. “I assure you, Ambassador, that no global causality violation will take place as a result of actions of the New Republican Navy. We have no intention of violating Clause Nineteen.” He grimaced. “However, localized causality violations are sometimes permitted within tactical situations confined to the immediate light cone of an engagement, are they not? I think that… hmm, yes. A UN observer would be able to assure all parties that our own conduct was legal and correct, would he not?”
“A UN observer will scrupulously tell the truth,” Cho stated, sweating slightly.
“Good. In that case, I think we may be able to accommodate your request, if a decision is made to prepare a task force. One inspector only, with diplomatic credentials, may accompany the flagship. His remit will be to monitor the use of reality-modification weapons by both sides in the conflict and to assure the civilized worlds that the New Republic does not engage in gratuitous use of time travel as a weapon of mass destruction.”
Cho nodded. “I think that would be acceptable. I shall notify Inspector Mansour, who is currently staying in Klamovka.”
Michael smiled, fleetingly. “Send my secretary a note. I shall pass it to Admiral Kurtz’s staff. I mink I can guarantee that he will cooperate to the best of his abilities.”
Junior Procurator Vassily Muller, of the Curator’s Office, stood in front of the great panoramic window that fronted Observation Bay Four and looked out across a gulf of light-years. Stars wheeled past like jewels scattered on a rotating display table. The spin of the huge station created a comfortably low semblance of gravity, perhaps eighty percent of normal; immediately outside the double wall of synthetic diamond lay the shipyard, where the great cylindrical bulk of a starship hung against a backdrop of cosmic beauty.
Shadows fell across the gray cylinder like the edge of eternity, sharp-edged with the unnatural clarity of vacuum. Inspection plates hung open at various points along the hull of the ship; disturbingly intestinal guts coiled loose, open to the remote manipulator pods that clung to it by many-jointed limbs. It resembled a dead, decaying whale being eaten by a swarm of lime green crabs. But it wasn’t dead, Vassily realized: it was undergoing surgery.
The ship was like a marathon runner, being overhauled by surgeons in hope of turning him into some kind of cyborg prodigy to compete in the ultimate winner-take-all sporting event. The analogy with his own, slightly sore head did not escape Vassily: it struck him that the most radical preparation was essential for the struggle ahead. He could already feel the new connections, like a ghost of an undefined limb, firming up somewhere just beyond the edge of his perceptions. Another three days, the medic had assured him in the morning, and he’d find himself able to start training the cranial jack. They’d given him a briefcase full of instructions, a small and highly illegal (not to say horrifically expensive) tool kit, and a priority travel pass to the orbital station on an Air Defense shuttle, bypassing the slow space elevator.
“Procurator Muller, I presume?” He turned. A trim-looking fellow in the pale green uniform of His Majesty’s Navy, a lieutenant’s rings on his cuffs. He saluted. “At ease. I’m Second Lieutenant Sauer, shipboard security officer for the Lord Vanek. Is this your first time up here?”
Vassily nodded, too tongue-tied to articulate a response. Sauer turned to face the window. “Impressive, isn’t she?”
“Yes!” The sight of the huge warship brought a great wave of pride to his chest: his people owned and flew such ships. “My stepbrother is on one of them, a sister ship—the Skvosty.”
“Oh, very good, very good indeed. Has he been there long?”
“Three—three years. He is second fire control officer. A lieutenant, like yourself.”
“Ah.” Sauer tipped his head on one side and regarded Vassily with a brightly focused gaze. “Excellent. But tell me, how good is this ship, really? How powerful do you think it is?”
Vassily shook his head, still dazzled by his first sight of the warship. “I can’t imagine anything grander than a ship like that one! How can anyone build better?”
Sauer looked amused. “You are a detective, and not a cosmonaut,” he said. “If you had been to naval college, you would be aware of some of the possibilities. Let us just say, for the moment, that they wouldn’t have named it after old Ernst Ironsides if it wasn’t the best ship we’ve got—but not everyone plays by the same rules as we do. I suppose it’s only fair, then, for us to play a different game—which is of course precisely why you are here and we are having this conversation. You want to protect that ship, and the Republic, don’t you?”
Vassily nodded eagerly. “Yes. Did my CO let you know why I’m here?”
“I have a full briefing. We take anything that might compromise shipboard security extremely seriously; you won’t be able to work in restricted areas, but as far as I’m concerned, you’re welcome to go anywhere that isn’t controlled—and by arrangement, I’m sure w
e can help you keep an eye on your yard-ape. To tell the truth, it’s good for us that you are available for this duty. We have more than enough other problems to keep track of without stalking contractors on the job, and as long as the problem gets wrapped up satisfactorily in the end, who cares whose turf is turned over, eh?”
At this point, Vassily realized that something odd was going on, but being inexperienced, he didn’t know quite what could be the matter. Nor did he want to push Sauer, at least not this soon in their acquaintance. “Can you show me where Springfield is working?”
“Unfortunately”—Sauer spread his hands—“Springfield is actually on board at this very minute. You realize that he is working on the interstellar propulsion system itself?”
“Oh.” Vassily’s mouth made a round “O.” “You mean I’ll have to go aboard?”
“I mean you can’t go aboard—not until you’ve been checked out by medical, received security clearance, gone to three orientation briefings, and been approved by the old man—which won’t be until tomorrow at the earliest. So, for the time being, I had better show you to the transient officers’ quarters—you have the same privileges as a midshipman while you are on Admiralty turf.”
“That would be great,” Vassily agreed earnestly. “If you’d lead the way…?”
Meanwhile, the first of the Festival’s entourage of Critics was arriving in orbit around Rochard’s World.
Once part of a human civilization that had transmigrated into its own computing network, the Festival was a traveling embassy, a nexus for the exchange of cultural information between stars. It was primarily interested in other upload cultures, but anyone would do at a pinch. It had zigged and zagged its way through the sphere of inhabited worlds for a thousand t-years, working its way inward from the periphery, and all the time it had asked only one thing of its willing or unwilling hosts: Entertain us!
The Festival was sharply constrained by the density of information that could be crammed into the tiny starwisps that carried it across the interstellar gulf. Unlike a normal upload civilization, the Festival couldn’t manufacture its own reality with sufficient verisimilitude to avoid the normal hazards of life in a virtual universe; it was a desert plant, existing as a seed for years at a time between frantic growth spurts when the correct conditions arose.
Like most circus caravans, the Festival accumulated hitchhikers, hangers-on, and a general fringe of camp followers and parasites. There was room for millions of passengers in the frozen mind-cores of the starwisps, but no room for them to think between stations. Trueminds aestivated during the decade-long hops between planetary civilizations; simple, subsentient supervisors kept the starwisps on course and ran the autonomic systems. On arrival, the servitors built the necessary infrastructure to thaw and load the trueminds. Once contact had been achieved and a course of action decided upon, any residual capacity would be made available to the passengers, including the Critics.
A foam of diamond was growing in orbit around Sputnik, the outer moon of Rochard’s World. Strange emulsions stirred within some of the bubbles, a boiling soup of nanomachine-catalyzed chemical reactions. Other bubbles faded to black, soaking up sunlight with near-total efficiency. A steady stream of tanks drifted toward the foam on chaotic orbits, ejecta from the mining plants in the outer system. Within the bubbles, incarnate life congealed, cells assembled by machine rather than the natural cycle of mitosis and differentiation. Thousands of seconds passed, an aeon to the productive assemblers: skeletons appeared, first as lacy outlines and then as baroque coral outcroppings afloat in the central placentory bubbles. Blood, tissues, teeth, and organs began to congeal in place as the nano-assemblers pumped synthetic enzymes, DNA, ribosomes, and other cellular machinery into the lipid vesicles that were due to become living cells.
Presently, the Critics’ bodies began to twitch.
THE SPACELIKE HORIZON
The door to the study opened and a liveried footman entered. “Commodore Bauer to see the admiral,” he announced.
“Sh-show him in, then!”
Commodore Bauer entered the Admiral’s study and saluted. Seated behind an imposing hardwood desk in the center of the huge room (paneled in ferociously expensive imported hardwoods, with raw silk curtains and not a little gold leaf on the cornices), the admiral looked tiny: a wizened turtle sporting a walrus moustache, adrift on a sea of blue-and-silver carpet. Nevertheless, he was in good condition today, wearing his uniform, resplendent with decorations and ribbons, and seated in a real chair.
“Commmmmander. Welcome. Please be seated.”
Commodore Bauer walked toward the desk and took the indicated chair.
“And how is your father these days? It’s—it’s a while since I saw him.”
“He’s very well sir.” At least as well as he could be, considering he died four years ago. Bauer looked at his superior sadly. Once the sharpest saber in the New Republic’s arsenal, Rear Admiral Kurtz was rusting at a terrifying rate: they must already be planning the funeral. He still had periods of lucidity, sometimes quite extended ones, but forcing him to go on this expedition—and no officer could realistically refuse a royal commission and expect to continue to hold his post— was positively cruel; surely His Majesty must have known about his state? “May I ask why you summoned me, sir?”
“Ah—ah—ah, yes.” The Admiral jerked as if someone had just administered an electric shock to him. Suddenly his expression tightened. “I must apologize, Commodore: I have too many vague moments. I wanted to discuss the flisposition of the—I mean, the disposition—the fleet. Obviously you will be in day-to-day command of the task force, and in overall tactical command once it arrives at Rochard’s World. The matter of planning, however, is one to which I feel I can make a contribution.” A wan smile flitted across his face. “Do you agree with this?”
“Ah, yes, sir.” Bauer nodded, slightly encouraged. The grand old man might be drifting into senility, but he was still razor-sharp during his better moments: if he was willing to sit back and let Bauer do most of the driving, perhaps things might work out. (As long as he remembered who Bauer was, the commodore reminded himself.) They’d worked together before: Bauer had been a junior lieutenant under captain Kurtz during the Invasion of Thermidor, and had a keen respect for his intellect, not to mention his dogged refusal to back down in the face of heavy opposition. “I was led to believe that the General Staff Directorate has some unusual plans for lifting the siege; is this what you have in mind?”
“Yes.” Admiral Kurtz pointed at a red leather folder lying on his desk. “Contingency Omega. I had a ha-hand in the first paper, ten years ago, but I fear younger minds will have to refine it into a plan of attack.”
“Contingency Omega.” Bauer paused. “Wasn’t that shelved, because of, ah, legal concerns?”
“Yes.” Kurtz nodded. “But only as a plan of att-att-attack. We are not allowed to fly closed timelike paths—use faster-than-light travel to arrive before war breaks out. Leads to all— all—sorts of bother. Neighbors say God doesn’t like it. Blithering nonsense if you ask me. But we’ve already been attacked. They came to us. So we can arrive in our own past, but after the attack began: I must confess, I think it is a bit of a pathetic excuse, but there we are. Contingency Omega it is.”
“Oh.” Bauer reached toward the red folder. “May I?”
“Cer-certainly.”
The Commodore began to read.
Accelerating to speeds faster than light was, of course, impossible. General relativity had made that clear enough back in the twentieth century. However, since then a number of ways of circumventing the speed limit had turned up; by now, there were at least six different known methods of moving mass or information from A to B without going through c.
A couple of these techniques relied on quantum trickery, strange hacks involving Bose-Einstein condensates to flip bits in quantum dots separated by light-years; as with the causal channel, the entangled dots had to be pulled apart at slower-than-light
speeds, making them fine for communication but useless for transporting bodies. Some of them—like the Eschaton’s wormholes—were inexplicable, relying on principles no human physicist had yet discovered. But two of them were viable propulsion systems for spaceships; the Linde-Alcubierre expansion reciprocal, and the jump drive. The former set up a wave of expansion and contraction in the space behind and in front of the ship: it was peerlessly elegant, and more than somewhat dangerous—a spacecraft trying to navigate through the dense manifold of space-time ran the risk of being blown apart by a stray dust grain.
The jump drive was, to say the least, more reliable, barring a few quirks. A spaceship equipped with it would accelerate out from the nearest star’s gravity well. Identifying a point of equipotential flat space-time near the target star, the ship would light up the drive field generator, and the entire spaceship could then tunnel between the two points without ever actually being between them. (Assuming, of course, that the target star was more or less in the same place and the same state that it appeared to be when the starship lit off its drive field—if it wasn’t, nobody would ever see that ship again.)
But the jump drive had huge problems for the military. For one thing, it only worked in flat space-time, a very long way out from stars or planets, which meant you had to arrive some way out, which in turn meant that anyone you were attacking could see you coming. For another thing, it didn’t have a very long range. The farther you tried to jump, the higher the probability that conditions at your destination point weren’t what you were expecting, creating more work for the loss adjusters. Most seriously, it created a tunnel between equipotential points in space-time. Miscalculate a jump and you could find yourself in the absolute past, relative to both your starting point and the destination. You might not know it until you went home, but you’d just violated causality. And the Eschaton had a serious problem with people who did that.
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