Analog SFF, June 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Wealth beyond the dreams of avarice surrounded Mashkith, but his orders were to abandon it. He was to destroy this enormous vessel if he could do so without excessive risk to his own ship. If Arblen Ems could not have these riches, than no one else should.

  “Lothwer,” he radioed. “Status of your efforts?"

  “Loading of metals ahead of schedule,” his lieutenant answered from elsewhere within the derelict. “Completion by middle of next shift.” A netted image showed a line of crew, stretched along a curved corridor for as far as Lothwer's helmet camera could see. They stood at arm's length, swinging ingots and metal rods ceaselessly from gloved hand to gloved hand. A second window opened, offering a view from a hull camera on Defiant. Here, another team relayed pilfered stocks from starship airlock to the airlock of his ship.

  Defiant's cargo holds now stored appreciably more metal than had gone into the ship's construction. Despite many unknowns, one thing seemed certain: This wondrous artifact had originated far away, someplace where metal was much more common. How different Hunter vessels like Defiant would be, Mashkith thought, if they could be built mainly from metals rather than ceramic.

  “Excellent,” Mashkith said, feigning enthusiasm he could not feel. To buy time for a bit more exploration, he was using the most skilled and valiant crew in the fleet as manual laborers. Or worse: Laborers, at least, had intelligent purpose to guide them. We steal crumbs from an unknowably vast feast. We pilfer, unguided by wisdom, like the lowliest insects.

  And yet, what choice did he have?

  For its seemingly inevitable last stand, the clan had retreated to proto-comets whose orbits inclined steeply to the plane of the ecliptic. The lowliest cadet could recite the tactical reasons. They were less likely to be spotted there, and more likely to detect any ships headed towards them. Any assailant would be disadvantaged by the energy cost of changing orbital planes. The serendipitous result of this place of exile was that Defiant, out on patrol, was the first to detect the unexpected fusion flame, and the first to reach what could only be a starship.

  But we are too few and too ill-equipped to hold it.

  Anathema though Arblen Ems had become, there were always some in the inner solar system willing—surreptitiously—to take its money. Reports had come to the Foremost from such spies: The Great Clans had also taken note of the artifact's emergence.

  Any of the flotillas now racing outward from the lit worlds could retake the treasure. The advantages given Arblen Ems by spatial position and the fierce rivalries among the converging forces were fleeting. Even if there were no other conclusive result, the amassing of so much firepower would surely achieve the final elimination of Arblen Ems.

  Immediate return. The order's context was a general recall of all clan vessels. The long-feared last stand was upon them, triggered by universal lust for the unexpected interstellar visitor. Even the brief delay while Defiant's crew loaded scarce metals skirted disobedience.

  Mashkith continued his hunt, unsure as ever of his goal. His stalling seemed such a disproportionately petty act of rebelliousness. Questing ever deeper into the ship, he could not help but think: Grandfather dared too much. The Foremost who replaced him dares too little.

  And what do I dare?

  Aboard Defiant, the holds were rapidly filling up. Little time remained here to discover the secrets that still taunted him. Engine room and bridge, dormitories and farms, landing platform and docking bay, brimming cargo holds and endless corridors ... what else did he think to explore?

  His mind, Mashkith suddenly realized, still refused to grasp the sheer scale of this small world. Whatever hidden thing tugged at his subconscious, it was foolishness to imagine he would just happen upon it. No, some great mystery tantalized him wherever he looked. The elusive answer was somehow all around him.

  Ah. Heat and light and air all around him maintained habitability for someone. All his crew's searching had found no one aboard the ship. From where could this someone come?

  Having formulated that question, Mashkith finally knew where to look.

  * * * *

  The lifeboats nestled, logically enough, in scattered niches on the periphery of the ship. Mashkith stood in a lifeboat now. Tendrils of cold vapor coiled above rows of tanks, their inset windows—and the crew that must slumber inside—obscured by layers of frost.

  And in that frigid mist hung the ultimate question that only he could see: What would I dare? Soon enough, he thought, all will know the answer.

  Despite an unfamiliar layout and alien markings, the starship's airlock controls had been obvious. The unsuspecting sleepers before him would find the airlocks on Defiant no less intuitive. It could hardly have been otherwise. Lives depended on how quickly, despite emergency and loss of lighting, such controls could be activated.

  Each cryogenic tank bore an array of buttons that was equally unfamiliar to him. Standing before a random tank, Mashkith took only a moment to select a button. This equipment, too, would have an emergency release. Its placement would be prominent.

  He hoped not to lose any of these new prisoners finding the right button.

  Talon held just above the largest key, Mashkith paused. “Alertness mandatory,” he reminded. Armed crewmen from Defiant encircled the tank. One by one, firmly grasping their weapons, they netted their readiness.

  Mashkith pressed the button....

  * * * *

  The abruptly awakened prisoners received a stark choice. They could help Arblen Ems to escape into interstellar space where none could follow, or they could die with the clan defending its prize. Either way, the herd would be sharing the clan's fate.

  To the fearful masses awaiting assault in the clan's last, failing bases, Mashkith offered, if not salvation, at a minimum years of reprieve. His terms: that he be made Foremost.

  Fleeing in anything capable of flight, the clan—the able and the infirm, the children and the adult and the elderly—raced the oncoming navies. Many of the ships completed the trip to the newly named Victorious; most of those docked successfully. They receded into the outer darkness where their enemies dare not follow, a gaping puncture in the starship's hull all that remained of an inexpertly piloted cargo vessel.

  Most of Mashkith's family, including his wife, children, and grandfather, perished aboard that freighter.

  * * * *

  Lothwer cleared his throat. “Your move, sir.” He sounded a bit cocky. He likely had noticed Mashkith's attention wander.

  A strong position in b'tok only grew stronger. It manifested itself in the emergence of new opportunities. At the outset of their journey, Mashkith had vowed their trip would end in glory. By three K'vithian years into the long voyage, he knew what a strong position his boldness had seized. He knew he would succeed. And how.

  It was all coming to pass as he had foreseen.

  Clan members were healthier and stronger than at any time in his memory. Their ships were repaired and modernized with the best of prisoner and human technologies. They held the secret of interstellar travel—the mechanism, if not the physics, was easy to duplicate. Soon they would know how to safely produce and wield antimatter. A new generation of Arblen Ems had come of age during the voyage, steeped in the mythos-in-the-making of a clan made great again.

  Mashkith returned his full attention to the present. Lothwer had advanced his second rook in an aggressive attack, in emulation of game seven in the 2084 Grandmasters Tournament on Mars. He had apparently not accessed the post-tournament analyses.

  Mashkith moved a knight, away from the usually crucial center of the board but prepositioning it for a now-unstoppable forking attack on queen and king six moves hence. “Mate in seventeen, Lieutenant."

  Lothwer frowned, unaccustomed to thinking that far ahead. Let him remember his fallibility the next time he thought to wager with a crewmate.

  The clan was prepared. The humans had grown complacent with the proximity of Victorious to their most precious asset. Arblen Ems would never be better positioned
for their next move. “Time,” he told his hopefully chastened underling, “for increased attention on the antimatter deal."

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 22

  Supernovae and black holes are best studied by gamma-ray observation, and space-based sensors around Sol system maintained a constant vigil for gamma-ray events. T'bck Fwa subscribed to and forwarded home the human astronomers’ raw data. His purchases were far more cost-effective for the Unity than replicating the instrumentation.

  Since the earliest hints of a covert antimatter program on Himalia, anything unusual with even a remote association with the Jovian system sooner or later gained his attention. When instruments on three platforms suggested tiny gamma-ray spikes not far off a line-of-sight to Jupiter, that was sufficient to make T'bck Fwa look further. Judging from the open literature, he was the first to examine this particular anomaly.

  The instruments were well separated: One orbited Earth, the second orbited Mars, and the third was staked to the surface of an asteroid. Each had recorded a transient gamma-ray anomaly at similar frequencies. If they had all observed the same event, triangulation gave it a position near Jupiter. Each observatory carried an atomic clock with its readout measurements time stamped. Adjusting the time stamps on the anomalous readings for the respective travel times from the triangulated location gave T'bck Fwa a highly precise match.

  It was one event—an unannounced hydrogen/antihydrogen annihilation incident near Jupiter.

  At the end of a long chain of inferences, he came to a final one. No refueling agreement had been announced, but the humans and K'vithians were already, and with great secrecy, experimenting with an interface between their respective antimatter-containment technologies.

  How long did he have before the stolen starship and its presumed captive crew were whisked away?

  * * * *

  The farms were ailing, exuding the faint but unmistakable scents of illhealth. Traces of erosion had appeared where sickly root systems surrendered topsoil to the irrigation flows. Hives buzzed manically and creeper burrows writhed in civil war, their tiny denizens confused by out-of-balance biochemical markers. Only the newly recharged hydroponics tanks showed signs of recovery.

  Each spotted and sere leaf, each fallen bug tore at K'Choi Gwu's hearts. As though reading her mind, Swee entwined a tentacle with one of hers. Gwu took that to mean: You did what was necessary. Whatever that might have been.

  She gave a quick squeeze of thanks. Had anyone ever borne the burden of ka for so long?

  They worked slowly through a bluefruit arbor, their pruning and gathering of rotting fruit mainly for show. Her real objective was a remote tertiary processing node that metered out irrigation water in this secluded region of the orchard. As Swee stumbled ostentatiously over an exposed root, tentacles flailing for the benefit of any undiscovered surveillance cameras, she flipped open the cover over a maintenance jack. In an eye blink, she swapped the tiny memory chip for an empty one. The new chip went into a music player in her utility pouch; the cover flopped closed.

  Her husband muttered as he brushed leaf fragments, twigs, and dirt from his fur. “A shower will feel even better than usual."

  “Try watching where you walk."

  “I should have thought of that."

  At the end of the next row, Gwu ignored his interrogatory glance. It did not matter how curious she was about the data surreptitiously collected by T'bck Ra. The more valuable the information, the more vital it was that she not jeopardize the source.

  They followed routine until the shift ran its course. They showered, as always. They joined colleagues in the common dining room. After eating, Swee brought a friend back to their small apartment, where—finally—Gwu retreated from their loud conversation by donning earphones.

  There had been other secret data transfers with the reawakened T'bck Ra. She knew far more than just a few shifts ago: about the pervasiveness of K'vithian alterations and networks throughout the ship; about inventories, reservoirs, and stockrooms now mostly refilled to capacity; about the human ships all around. She better understood the sensor grid with which their captors watched them, its scope implicit in the vast array of radio sources her reawakened ally had detected but been unable to compromise. From unguarded comments near a corridor sensor the K'vithians had failed to disable, she even knew Mashkith expected soon to finalize an antimatter-refueling arrangement.

  So Gwu had ample reason to be confident another report from T'bck Ra could not further discourage her.

  Once again, she was disastrously wrong.

  * * * *

  External communications was among the ship subsystems most intrusively altered; it was completely subservient to an overlay of K'vithian computers. T'bck Ra could detect a steady stream of messages to and from Harmony, but that traffic was encrypted. Was that communications with its own support vessels? The humans? The K'vithian trade agent?

  The soft muttering of Gwu's earplugs must have been indistinct to the K'vithian bugs, whose long-suspected presence in her cabin was now confirmed. She fought to suppress her trembling. She dare not gamble that watchers were unable to interpret her body language.

  T'bck Ra had surreptitiously reestablished connectivity of a sort with the main external antenna! By interfacing directly with the real-time processor that modulated and demodulated the carrier wave, the AI had tapped into comm. A small part of the incoming data stream was unencrypted: interplanetary news beamcasts. Stories and events swirled in overwhelming variety and complexity, but one seized Gwu's attention.

  “Snake Starship Lost in Space!"

  The reports were chaotic and sensationalistic. It did not help that T'bck Ra had tuned in well after the story started to unfold, that his translation capabilities for human languages were understandably limited, and that it had sampled and synopsized to reduce its account to manageable size.

  By her fourth review, a mental image took shape. A years-ago anomaly recorded by human gamma-ray observatories had been reexamined in view of a recent small antimatter explosion near Jupiter—the nearby blast which, authorities had eventually admitted, was an initial exchange-of-antimatter experiment with the K'vithians.

  “...The gamma-ray evidence shows a matter/antimatter explosion occurred ten Earth years ago roughly two-thirds of the way along the line between Barnard's Star and Alpha Centauri. Allowing for the geometry, the observed blue-shifting of the radiation indicates the exploding material was traveling towards the Centaurs at approximately one-tenth light speed. We conclude that a starship from K'vith was en route to Alpha Centauri."

  It was a plausible conclusion for someone who believed a K'vithian starship had come to Sol system. Evidently the United Planets public believed just that.

  Her own theory was quite different.

  Those who had seized Harmony lacked the technology for interstellar drives and antimatter. They had plunged into the interstellar darkness anyway, with human assistance their only hope of refueling for a return trip. That hope was nearly fulfilled.

  The ship lost on approach to the Double Suns was logically the lifeboat she had discovered missing from Harmony's bay. Its destruction, Gwu feared, was no accident.

  The crew-kindred's final communication about its decision must have been perceived as an act of madness. Harmony itself had disappeared, hijacked before contact could be made with the Unity's trade agent on K'vith.

  And yet ... the lifeboat was somehow too near the Double Suns and too slow.

  The subtlety of Mashkith's inspired treachery finally struck Gwu. For fear of hidden cameras, she did not dare key the computations into one of the standalone calculators allowed her by the K'vithians, nor even write down the problem. She was reduced to doing calendar conversions and equations of motion in her head.

  Harmony and its lifeboats had been fueled to accelerate almost to one-third light speed, coast most of the way between stars, then decelerate. Like every major Unity decision, that mission profile reflected compromise: fast enou
gh to complete a round trip within a crew lifetime; slow enough to experiment with only minimal relativistic effects; brief enough in its reliance on the interstellar drive to have been validated by the flight to the Red Companion. In the Earth-standard years of the intercepted recording, the trip to—or from—the K'vithian system involved roughly a year of acceleration, eighteen years of coasting, and a year of deceleration.

  To make the math work, she had to assume the decoy lifeboat carried extra antimatter from another lifeboat, or from the ship's limited reserves. The decoy had accelerated well past half light speed, then coasted only part way home before decelerating. Those observing on Chel Kra would conclude Harmony had been abandoned in deep space, its lifeboats creeping home at a small fraction of their planned speed.

  The self-destructing lifeboat, “proof” of shortcomings in the interstellar drive, would be the third great failure. It would be the final vindication, if vindication were still needed, of those deeming interstellar travel too costly and dangerous.

  * * * *

  Gwu's descent into depression was so complete it blurred the boundary between wakefulness and nightmare. The remembered balls of orange and yellow flame were exaggerated: They had to be from a dream.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” Swee said. Meaning: I woke you before you might have said something compromising.

  A spot of her fur remained warm from his touch. She could never have borne this burden without him. That which she dare not mutter in her sleep she had not yet been able to discuss with him. “Sorry to disturb you.” Sorry I cannot be honest with you.

  She got a glass of water. The image of the Double Suns had faded, to be replaced by the random thought: Three strikes and you're out. The context of the saying had vanished in the long years since she had studied the humans, but the meaning was self-evident.