by Ben Bova
“You’ll also find hours of recorded conversations that were picked up right here.” Anmoore pointed to a piece of tripod-mounted equipment behind Hannah’s chair. “We keep that shotgun microphone in place outside the shielding during the daylight hours, pointed directly at the most exposed areas of the harbor down there. The Blanca’s computer has been working on some of it for weeks now with limited success, but hopefully the linguistic specialists you’ve brought along from Luna can make use of the recordings to redo the software. But we have managed to get an understanding of a smattering of their language. The river, for example—It’s called ‘Quittanika,’ which translates roughly to ‘Speed-Flow,’ according to the computer. The name seems to fit, though; when it’s daylight you’ll see how fast the water runs.” Anmoore chuckled lightly, one eyebrow raised, and added as an afterthought, “Of course, we’re recording mostly deckhands and sailors down there, so the reference of any words we’ve been picking up may be skewed in a direction we’d rather not anticipate.”
Adela joined his laughter. “Well, when we do finally get to talk to them, I suppose we’ll be well stocked with the latest ribald jokes—not that we’d understand the humor.”
Sounds of movement and an occasional voice filtered into the deck from the personnel area and she glanced at her wrist, realizing that the morning shift for this day’s observation of the natives was about to begin. Adela let her tired eyes scan the horizon and could see the first rays of sunshine streaking the sky over the far mountain range. She stretched, feeling fatigued for the first time since arriving at Tsing. She would have to get some sleep soon, like it or not; and she had certainly imposed on Anmoore enough. One glimpse at the man’s face revealed the reddened eyes and dark circles that must certainly reflect her own. Stifling a yawn, she asked, “The bodies you found; what happened to them?”
Anmoore didn’t answer, but instead rose and gently shook Hannah’s shoulder, rousing her. “Hannah, could you see to it that everyone heading back to South Camp is ready to go in forty-five minutes?” She nodded, rubbing at her face. Then, still half asleep, she moved unsteadily into the adjacent quarters. Anmoore returned to where he and Adela had talked through the night, but did not sit. He stared dolefully down at the river, the waking harbor already a buzz of activity.
“They had been killed by a raiding party,” he said, his voice matter-of-fact. “You saw the first recordings of the airships? The ones we made our first day on the surface?”
Adela nodded that she had.
“The inhabitants here are very aggressive, almost warlike. There’s very little association between population centers. Larger communities like this one—with their solid economies, established trade routes and manufacturing centers—are incredibly protective of what they’ve achieved. Pirating appears to be quite common in exposed regions, as is outright aggression against neighboring regions. From what we’ve been able to determine, what could best be described as a ‘city-state’ located some two hundred kilometers to the southwest had sent a scout party here, to what purpose is anybody’s guess—information gathering, outright spying, who knows? Those charged with defending this city-state discovered they were out there and, trailing them for days, dispatched the two airships after them. They slaughtered them mercilessly before they had a chance to return to their own people.” He stared down at the harbor, easily visible now that the bright morning sunshine had burned away the mist, and watched a heavily laden steam-powered vessel as it headed out into the center of the river before plying slowly northward. “We followed them, and recorded the whole sordid episode.”
There was a loud burst of laughter from the personnel section of the deck, and one of the Kiska crew—Hanson, if she remembered right—came out, his face beaming. He went to the chair, bent down, and retrieved the hood of the xenoguide’s parka from where it had fallen while she slept. “It’s out here, Hannah!” he called back. “I told you no one hid it from you again.” He nodded to the two of them, then went back into the sleeping quarters, calling teasingly ahead of him, “Now will you stop tearing up the bunks looking for it?”
Anmoore laughed as the man left the room. “They love ribbing her,” he explained. “She’s so serious all the time. I try to get her to lighten up, but she makes such a good target for them. Now they’ve got your folks doing it, too. It’s all in good fun, though, I assure you; they all have the highest respect for her abilities out here in the woods.”
“You’ve got a lot of good people working here with you,” she said candidly once they were alone again. “They’ve obviously made friends very quickly with mine.” She paused, then returned to their discussion of the airship recording. “Has the recording of the raid been sent to the Scartaris?”
He had draped his own parka over the back of the chair during the night, and he shook it once before pulling it on over his shoulders. “Absolutely not.” His words were blunt, his tone almost irate, but it was plain that the anger was not directed at her. “I won’t take that chance. I’ll give it to Commander Wood personally when we meet, along with the full report of what we’ve found at the dig site at South Camp. If you’d like, I can make a data-stick copy that you can review on the Kiska before the meeting. Could you imagine what Jephthah could do with something like that?” He shook his head at the thought, then pressed the front of his parka closed. “I’m going to take a quick look around outside.”
Anmoore smiled politely and produced a keypad from a pocket, touching a button on it to open the shielding before slipping it back into his parka.
Adela sat alone in the observation deck, watching the river traffic as Jour Nouveau prepared for another day. The occasional sounds of good humor from the personnel section did nothing to improve her mood.
PART FIVE
TO FEAR THE LIGHT
The mind will ever be
unstable that has only prejudices
to rest on, and the current will
run with destructive fury
when there are no barriers
to break its force.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
21
BREAKING SILENCE
The cylindrical airship held steady, hovering directly above the small band of Tsing natives it had trapped in the meadow below it. There were six of them, all caught in the open as they tried to run for the protective cover of the woods on the other side of the wide field. The second airship had effectively cut off their route of escape at the edge of the tree line, while this one had followed their path and came up from behind, neatly trapping them in the open. As the battle unfolded, the other airship had moved into a closer support position and now hovered halfway between the fighting and the tree line, ready to come about in whichever direction it might be needed. The dark green and brown of its flanks could just be seen at the very limit of the camera’s field of view, the red markings on the side of the cylinder barely visible.
Those on the ground fired projectile weapons upward at their attackers, with little result: Their hand-carried weapons simply lacked the power necessary to present any serious threat to the airship at its current altitude.
The four Tsing natives in the basketlike gondola suspended beneath the bulk of the cylinder, on the other hand, held a distinct advantage in their attack. As the image zoomed in to give a closer look at the underside of the gondola, it was clear the airship’s purpose was for fighting. The slender muzzles of four downward-firing guns extended through openings in the bottom of the gondola itself. It was difficult to tell, but by the way the thin barrels disappeared inside the openings periodically or wavered as they sought their targets, the guns could be hand weapons designed specifically for the purpose of aerial assault.
The picture swept dizzily downward and oriented once again on the hapless natives defending their position below, the shaking and wildly tilting image an explicit indication of how nervous the camera operator must have been at being this close to the fighting. It centered on one of the natives who had just fall
en, the blood flowing freely from a wound in his left shoulder matting the fur of his upper arm. As he screamed out in pain, another of his comrades bent to his side and ripped back his clothing to get at the wound; then he, too, cried out as he was similarly felled. Unlike his downed companion, however, he dropped silently to the ground, where he lay unmoving as the other continued to call for help. The four natives still on their feet persisted in their ineffectual assault on the airship, deaf to his agonizing cries.
Directly, they, too, fell to join the others.
The gunfire halted; the scene grew quiet save for the cries of the first native to fall and the steady thrumming of the airship’s steam engine. The camera swung upward again, revealing the four passengers of the airship leaning over the rim of the gondola in an attempt to get a better look at their handiwork below. One of them, the fur on his face and arms a shade of gray-brown much lighter than that of his three younger shipmates, nodded vigorously, then stood upright and slapped the nearest of his companions gleefully on the back. The wild chattering that ensued among them was indecipherable, but it was clear that the four were rejoicing over their good fortune in battle. The smallest member of the gondola crew gesticulated animatedly to the other airship, which slowly swung around in their direction.
The image zoomed closer as the four discussed what to do next. The older one, seemingly in charge of this endeavor, addressed the others, prompting an excited showing of hands. He put his own hands on the shoulders of one of them, whose face beamed proudly. The chosen native shucked off the top of his uniform and played a length of rope out over the side of the gondola, while the others set about altering the airship controls in such a manner that it sank gradually, smoothly to a point about twenty meters above, and to one side, of those felled on the ground below. The airship held its position and the crew watched as the shirtless native scrambled over the side and easily slid down the rope, dropping to the ground several meters from where the others lay.
The native pulled a small weapon from the waistband of his trousers and pointed it at the bodies as he cautiously approached. The field of view tightened on the bloodied clearing as he drew near, such that it was easy to see that the shirtless one would meet with precious little resistance from those lying on the ground. Of the six, only one—the first to fall in the ambush—still moved; and he had lost too much blood, and was in too much pain, to even rise to his feet.
The native from the airship kicked at the first of the bodies as he neared, knocking one of the dropped weapons aside. He bent nearer the body, then put his weapon to its head and pulled the trigger with a single, sharp crack! Apparently determining that the next body was lifeless, he ignored it as he moved on to the next, repeating his actions. Crack!
At that, a sudden strangled scream of protest came from the one member of the ground party still obviously alive. The shirtless one swung around and aimed the weapon at him as the downed, bleeding native tried to raise himself up on one elbow, chattering frantically, unintelligibly at his assailant. The attacker shouted back at him, then let loose with an unmistakable sound: a hearty, ruthless laugh that would have been understandable in any language. He shouted again, then spun about and put a projectile into another of the bodies, which—apparently still alive—jerked grotesquely. He then did the same to another, before turning back to the remaining member of the party.
The camera zoomed in closer as he pressed the muzzle of the gun into his victim’s forehead and shouted several more words at him. The native was fear-stricken, his expressive eyes wide in abject terror, his mouth working silently as he undoubtedly tried to beg for his life. There was one last crack! and he was thrown violently backward, thudding heavily into the ground, and moved no more.
As the image began to fade, the last thing that could be seen in the recording was the shirtless one lifting his arms skyward, dancing among the bodies at his feet. A cry of triumph came from him, then, as he called out to his fellows in the airship above him. They, in turn, called back to him in a ritualistic song of conquest and waved to the other airship, whose occupants responded in kind.
The image cross-faded to Jephthah, the frame tight on his face. His eyes were moist, his brow furrowed in concern.
“It’s loathsome, is it not?” he asked, his eyes almost pleading. “This is the new ‘civilized race’ discovered at Tsing that the Emperor would seek to hide from you. A race of brutal, aggressive killers that make the Sarpan seem unthreatening by comparison. They live for aggression, their sole aim in their miserable existences to prey upon their neighbors, to take what they have, while at the same time protecting what they already possess.” He paused, an ironic half-smile appearing briefly on his lips as he shook his head disgustedly. “Is it any wonder why the Emperor would keep this secret from you?”
The image panned back, revealing Jephthah to be wearing the familiar casual suit that was his trademark. He sat in a swivel chair at a terminal screen mounted into a desktop, the small room and his surroundings nondescript. The broadcast, as always, could have originated anywhere.
“You’re probably wondering, as you think back over the recording you have just viewed, what threat these aliens represent to us. They are, after all, technically backward to such a degree that they could pose no serious danger to even the most ill equipped of the frontier worlds. Why, they don’t even possess electricity yet, much less the means to take their unbridled aggression off their own world. In that aspect, then, you would be correct to look with derision upon these primitives.
“But think a moment longer,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows. “What exactly might this race be like if they possessed a sufficient level of technology to move them out to the stars?” He paused, giving his audience sufficient time to contemplate the rhetorical question. “Well, consider their differences from the Sarpan: Where the cold-blooded Sarpan share little in common with us as far as what they need in the way of creature comforts, these ‘Tsingers’ share a common biological heritage with us humans. Where a Sarpan would die quickly, horribly, were it to stroll the surface of a human world, a Tsinger is a mammal that enjoys the same air and temperature range as we do. Their children are born warm, and must be raised to adulthood in a family unit. Their basic sense of sight and sound; their diet, mating habits, commerce, even their architecture; all are similar to ours.
“The Sarpan have always been a threat to us, because they perceive us to be a threat to them. And while they have always been desirous of our knowledge and our technology, they have never fully coveted the life we lead because of the physical requirements of their amphibious biology.
“But the Tsingers are not amphibians! They are like us!” He slapped both hands flat on the desktop and stood, leaning intently forward. “They are warm like us, and enjoy the sunshine like us. They give birth and suckle their young like us. They are adaptable to all but the harshest of the Human Worlds. Imagine,” he said portentously, “the threat they would pose to you, to your children, if they moved out among us.”
Jephthah retook his seat, lacing his fingers together in front of him. “But they cannot, because they are weak … for now; even a schoolboy would find their technology to be laughably crude. But they are intelligent. Take the airships you saw in the recording, for example. How could they be powered by steam engines, and still be light enough to achieve lift? They found a way, utilizing their abundant mineral resources to concoct a simple, gas-fired method that produces ample amounts of steam without requiring enormous wood or coal boilers. They are not to be underestimated.”
“But they are weak now,” he repeated. “Would it not be better to deal with this threat now, rather than wait until they are able to develop a higher level of learning or, worse, receive it as a gift from our shortsighted Emperor?”
22
CONTAINMENT
The holoconference chamber on board the Scartaris reminded Adela a great deal of the Imperial residence in Kentucky, which, in turn, evoked a memory of how the Empire used to b
e. The semicircular ring of ten sculptured couches, the manner in which the room was laid out, even the subtle decorations that adorned the walls all spoke of an era long gone. And yet, it shouldn’t have been a surprise to her that Lewis, a son of House Wood—given free reign to design the facilities of his flagship as he saw fit—might choose to fondly mimic what he saw in the place where he grew up.
She remembered many such conferences, held in holographic facilities much like this one, in the early days of the project back on Luna. The Imperial Court was still in the process of being moved from Corinth to Earth’s Moon, and her beloved Javas served as acting Emperor while his father traveled from the former Imperial planet. Javas would sit by her side then, either in actuality or holographically, along with Bomeer and his fellows from the Academy of Sciences, Commander Fain of the Imperial fleet, and Emperor Nicholas himself as he approached Earth aboard his starship.
The faces and temperaments, not to mention the mindsets, were far different now as she looked around the room; but there was much here that was familiar, and in that familiarity she found a sense of belonging, a sense of place.
The conference room was far from filled to capacity. Later, following the conclusion of this meeting, the chamber would be boisterous with the collected voices of a parade of holographically invited attendees of every imaginable stripe—captains of starships now in Tsing system; scientists and researchers engaged in study of the controversial planet spinning below them; experts on anthropology, biology, geophysics, law and a hundred other disciplines.
Now, however, there were only three people physically in the room. Brendan and Lewis, ironically seated next to each other in a manner that recalled their counterparts Bomeer and Fain so many years earlier, were at her right. Eric’s real-time holographic image meshed smoothly with one of the couches directly across from the three of them, as did Captain Anmoore’s image at her left, and only at those times when the computer was unable to correct the transmission speed of the tachyon signal from Luna was there even a hint that the Emperor of the Hundred Worlds was not actually seated in the room with them.