by Wil McCarthy
“Then what?” Marshe said. “There's nobody to come to the rescue, here. Why not just fight us straight out?”
On the screen, explosions surrounded the swarming fighters and gunboats in expanding shells, as if the ships were firing bombs into empty space. Dozens of bombs from each ship, every second, with fuses set to longer and longer delays. The effect was a series of plasma walls, expanding rapidly outward.
“Roland! Can we fire through that shit?”
“#I/I do-not/does-not know#” The Worker replied.
The plasma walls grew and dimmed, grew and dimmed.
“Is it a threat to our ships?”
“#Yes If we/we get too close get too close#”
Some of the fleetships retreated from the formation.
“Ken?” Marshe said.
“#They/they do-hide/are-hiding a trick This display does-be/is very costly#”
A look of suspicion crossed Marshe's face. “Get a count of the Waister ships,” she said to Ken.
Ken nodded. Rolling his chair back, he tapped lighted shapes on one of the control panels. He paused. No sensory input? He tried again, with the same result.
“#I/We not-see through this#” Ken said. “#It is a shield against My/Our eyes#”
Marshe started to reply, but her voice trailed off as the explosions faded from the screen. The gunboats seemed to have run out of bombs.
Ken's voder produced a noise of exclamation. “#Stupid-lings do/have-causing five vehicles of destruction#”
“Look, there goes another one!” Sipho Yeng cried out in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. Another Waister ship had exploded as it passed within range of Triton, the largest moon.
Ken tapped furiously at the panel, not quite sure of what he was doing but knowing the result he wanted to achieve. The panel beeped at him twice, and he pounded on it angrily before resuming his work. “There!” He cried, in Standard, as the numbers he wanted appeared on the screen. He pointed at them.
“Yes,” Sipho said, looking where Ken was pointing. “It's Triton. While we were blinded, it looks like the humans destroyed everything in that million-kilometer arc behind the planet. There must be a gun or something...”
“Roland!” Marshe said. “How much power do they need to blow up a fleetship at that range?”
“'Bout a terawatt,” Roland said. “Big power.”
Ken furrowed his brow. A terawatt? That was a thousand gunboats' worth, ten thousand times more than a city like Albuquerque consumed. He tried to imagine a fusion plant capable of producing such power, a beam weapon capable of projecting it. Huge. Simply huge.
On the holie, the anti-planetward side of Triton flashed white, then faded to black. An explosion larger than any they'd yet seen.
“Oh,” Roland Hanlin said.
“Did we get it?” Marshe asked.
“Got itself,” Roland told her. “Tricky to channel that much power.” He turned his face away.
Ken stared dumbly at a visual display which looked down on Triton from a range of perhaps a hundred thousand kilometers, so that the moon looked like an oversized cantaloupe. The explosion seemed to have gouged out a major chunk of crust, leaving a crater tens of kilometers deep and hundreds across, its edges black against the blue-pink-gray of the icy surface, its depths fading through red and orange glows to a bright and malevolent yellow at the center. Bullseye, he thought, reminded of the targets he'd used for archery practice as a child. On the screen, he could see a shockwave spreading out from the crater. How big must the wave be, to be so clearly visible from that distance? A ripple of stone a hundred meters high? A thousand meters? Slowly, the ring-shaped shockwave expanded, working its way around the moon. In a few minutes, Triton would harbor human life no more.
The Tritonians had destroyed themselves, it seemed, to kill a handful of Waister ships. The Governor General would be proud.
“Any more of those?” Marshe asked tiredly.
“I don't think we can tell that right now,” Sipho said.
“No. No, I guess not.”
The humans' cone formation was breaking up. It had served its purpose, throwing up a blinding screen to confound the enemy while the Triton gun did its work.
“#Damn these Stupid-ling tricks# Ken said quietly.
Four or five more gunboats flashed off the screen.
“What happens now?” Marshe asked, looking to Sipho.
“Well,” the astronomer said, “The gunboats will fire as often as they can, in an effort to keep our hull temperatures up. If they can dump more heat on us than we can effectively shed, we may have some problems. And there are undoubtedly more fixed-site guns in operation, though possibly none as powerful as that last one.”
“So we hang back and snipe from a distance?”
“Yes, I believe so.”
“Ah.” Marshe pulled her voder mask down around her neck and buried her face in her hands.
“Perhaps you need more sleep?” Sipho asked politely.
“Damn you for being so calm,” Marshe said to him without looking up. “No, I'll be fine. I just need to rest my eyes a minute. Right now they've seen enough.”
Chapter Thirteen
The door slid open, and Gabrielle Vestan smiled faintly as Josev drifted through. He looked heartsick, beaten. Gabrielle's smile faded.
“Josev?” She said.
He looked into her eyes, then around the chamber, out the window at Saturn, back into her eyes again. “Hello, Love,” he said quietly. “You been waiting long?”
She shook her head. “I don't mind. I don't have a lot to do since the shooting started. You want to tell me what's wrong?”
Josev moved toward her, pulled her weightless body into his arms. “The usual,” he said, very softly. “Death, destruction, humiliation. Not much longer to worry about it, I s'pose.”
Gabrielle nodded, to indicate her understanding. She had a brother at Neptune, a fighter pilot, whom she loved as dearly as anything in existence. But she'd said goodbye to him two years ago, when time and space and war had separated them for what they knew would be the last time. She worried for him, now, but really he was already gone. No letter would inform her when his death became final.
She forced the thoughts from her mind.
“Do me,” she murmured.
“Charming, Love,” came Josev's reply. “You really know that sweet talk.”
But he slid his hand across her torso, toward the zipper of her uniform, and he began, gently, to undress her.
“You should hurry,” she said.
Josev shook his head. “No. The human race is doomed. Surely they can't begrudge me a few moments' peace?”
“The human race isn't doomed,” she said, stroking the side of his face.
“No?” Cloth pulled aside, exposing a breast. The air was cold against her skin. “You got a note from God?”
“From the general,” she corrected, shuddering as Josev's lips caressed her.
Then he pulled away, stiffened. “General?” He asked.
“Josev...”
“Tell me, Gaby. I'm listening. The general says we're not going to die?”
She sighed. “No, we are going to die, you and me. But not everybody.”
“I'm still listening.”
“There's a lot going on at Tech Ops,” she said, feeling her face flush. She was embarrassed, suddenly, to be making work-talk in her current state of undress. Embarrassed and frustrated. “We've been burying people in deep vaults all over the system. Hibernation, you see? Little seed colonies hidden away in the hearts of comets, and deep in the planetary crusts. We expect most of them to survive, but even if only one of them does...”
“You shouldn't be telling me this, should you?” Josev asked.
“No,” she said. “I don't know. It doesn't matter.”
“Sounds like they've been keeping you busy.”
She grunted. “That's nothing. We've juggled hundreds of projects like that. Starships. Eugenics. Even your Aggressor Six
es get their funding through my office.”
“Six,” Josev said. “Singular.”
“Plural,” she corrected.
Josev went rigid in her arms. “You serious?” He asked, raising his voice. He gripped her shoulders, pushed her out to arm's length. His face was angry, and... strange. “Gaby, are you serious?”
His fingers dug into her.
“Yes,” she said. “You're hurting my arms.”
“How many are there?” He demanded, shaking her a little.
“There are three,” she said, “Including yours. Josev, you're hurting my arms!”
His eyes seemed to bore into hers. His mouth opened slightly, teeth exposed. Nostrils flared. Breath running crazily. She felt the first tingling of true fear.
“Two more?” He asked. “We're not the only?”
His eyes glazed over, and he shook her again. “Where do I find them, Gaby? Where do I find them? Where do I bloody well find them?”
~~~
Marshe looked up at the sounds of commotion.
A breathless Josev Ranes came around the entryway corner, his shoes sliding on the metal floor. “Marshe!” He cried.
“What is it,” she asked tonelessly. She hadn't yet had time to feel surprise at his sudden entrance, or fury at his tardiness.
“We're not the only!” Josev said, striding into the middle of the circle of chairs, his hands balled into shaking fists. “Not the only!”
Sipho Yeng cleared his throat in an expression of disdain. “Lieutenant, perhaps you'd best sit and get your breath?”
Josev swung around, turning a wild-eyed look upon the astronomer. He stepped forward, fists held out before him. “You clodging Martie dust digger, shut up and listen!” He looked around at the Six. “All of you listen! We're not the only Aggressor Six!”
Marshe paused, her mouth half open. The only sounds were the rasping of Josev's breathing, and the faint background hum of life support.
Not the only Aggressor Six.
She watched Ken Jonson rocket to his feet, coughing half-formed Waister syllables from his voder.
Not the only...
“SIT DOWN!” Josev shrieked at Ken.
“#Newness#” Ken said, as if he hadn't heard.
With a decidedly lunatic expression on his face, Josev placed his hands on the young corporal's shoulders and pushed him bodily into the chair. “Listen to me!” He cried. “There's two more! There's two more!”
“JOSEV!” Marshe bellowed, finding her voice at last.
Josev turned toward her, his eyes desperate.
Marshe rose to her feet. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, MISTER?”
“Not the only...” Josev said softly, plaintively. He blinked, looked around him as if suddenly realizing the insanity of his actions. “Marshe...”
“Take your seat,” Marshe ordered him, more quietly. When he had done so, she said, “Three deep breaths. Right now. One... Two... Tell me what happened.”
Josev looked up at her, and she thought his eyes looked a little more focused than they had. “I have a friend in Tech Ops,” he said, in carefully measured tones. “Young lady, name of Gabrielle. We had a... sort of a rendezvous. Up in the observation deck.”
Marshe remembered the warmth of Ken Jonson's arms around her. Inwardly, she frowned.
“Go on,” she said.
“She was talking about projects, hundreds and hundreds of projects. Freezing people in the middle of comets! Secret bases, secret starships! Cleared funding for 'em, she did. Pebble counting. She said we'd survive, no matter what. She was sure of it. That's when she told me about the other Sixes!”
“What did she say, exactly?”
“She said one of them was dolphins, and the other one was machine intelligences. Machine intelligences!” He practically spat the words.
Marshe repressed a shudder. Machine intelligences. She was not so shocked as Josev seemed to be, since she was privy to many of the cybernetic secrets of the war effort, knew of dark inner sancta in which MI's were tended and nurtured by human technicians. She suspected, in fact, that her team members had been MI-selected. The interpersonal dynamics, points of origin, interaction of mannerisms, all had a... contrived quality, as if they'd been orchestrated by a machine with an agenda of its own. The thought filled her with unease, and with something else as well, something human languages hadn't a word for.
Not the only Aggressor Six.
“#There-will-be/there-shall-be confrontation#” Jonson opined.
“Shut up,” she said absently. “I have to think about this.”
The Aggressor project had been her own idea, spawned long before the data existed to support it. Colonel Jhee had made a great show of reluctance about the whole thing, blocking her, suppressing her, holding her back at every corner. It had struck her as bizarre, unfathomable, but now she wondered. Had he secretly been stealing her ideas, warping them, weaving a skein of dark and stuporous fever dreams of which he dared not make her aware?
To hell with him! To hell with this whole God-forsaken place! She longed for the peaceful hills of Bratsilasice, the noisy and vibrant streets of Brussels. How long had it been since she'd breathed real air, filtered not by machinery but by forests and fields? How long since she'd felt even the remotest tingle of contentment?
Not the only Aggressor Six!
The thought seemed to draw her attention like a sore tooth, aching and throbbing, impossible to ignore. Were the other Sixes better than hers? Quicker, perhaps? More clever? No, certainly not!
But she looked around her. Only Ken and Roland were wearing their goggles and voder masks. Her own dangled around her neck like obscene jewelry. Josev's equipment was nowhere in sight. Nor, she noted, was Sipho's. And where was the God-damned Dog? Still sleeping, damn her?
Marshe heard a sibilant noise, like an air leak, and realized suddenly that it was her own breath whistling through clenched teeth. No way, she told herself. No bloody way. The thought of other teams, better teams, was intolerable.
“Sipho, Josev,” she said quietly, tightly. “Go get your masks, and your goggles, and put them on. And when you come back, bring Shenna with you. She's asleep in my quarters, I think.”
“What are we going to do?” Roland Hanlin asked in his heavy, Cerean accent.
Slowly, Marshe slid the dark goggle-lenses over her eyes. She gripped the voder mask, eased it into place over her mouth. She smoothed her hair back away from her face.
“#There will-be/shall-be confrontation#” She said.
“#Unconfronted newness not-was/not-is acceptable#” Ken agreed.
“#Quiet#” She commanded him. She wanted it quiet, right now; she wasn't through thinking. She wasn't nearly through thinking.
~~~
The colonel stood with his feet apart, hands clasped behind him, his eyes sweeping back and forth, taking in the sight of Marshe and her team. His beige-skinned face was oily with sweat, his uniform rumpled. The ultraviolet view through Marshe's 'spreaders made the greasy hairs on his head stand out individually, like weary soldiers stood too long at attention. He looked tired, far more tired than Marshe had ever seen him, but still he managed to project an air of barely concealed amazement, of excitement, of rage.
He thinks we are monsters, Marshe realized, seeing the way he eyed their fright-mask faces. He thinks that, in our zeal, we have crossed into madness.
Have we? The thought was fleeting, and quickly gone.
“What is so important, Captain Talbott?” The colonel asked. “What have you discovered that so desperately requires my physical presence?”
“Dolphins,” Marshe said flatly. “And machine intelligences.”
Colonel Jhee squinted at her, as if she were a queer animal half-hidden behind a thicket. “I do not know,” he said, “What you are talking about.”
“I'm talking about Aggressor Sixes,” Marshe said, raising her voice slightly, resisting the temptation to scream at the man. “I'm talking about the dolphin Aggressor Six,
and the MI Aggressor Six, the existence of which you have concealed from us.”
Jhee's face darkened. The lines at the corners of his eyes stood out like cracks in dried clay. “Captain, do you assume you'll be informed of all secret information? In your mind, is that my function, my purpose in life?”
“Information which is vital to us,” Marshe said.
“Vital to you?” There was wonderment in the colonel's voice. “Vital to you? Madam, there are several hundred Waister fleetships inside this star system. Have you lost touch with that fact? Have you lost touch with basic reality?”
Yes! Screamed a voice in Marshe's head.
“We will confront the other Sixes,” she said.
Jhee blinked stupidly. “What? What? This is no time for games, Captain! We're in the middle of a God-damned war!”
“We will confront the other Sixes,” Marshe repeated, as if to a child, or a fool.
“Captain,” Jhee said, unclasping his hands, reaching up to run fingers through his hair. Was there a note of concern in his voice, now? “We have known each other for several years. It would trouble me greatly to see you on the wrong side of an airlock!”
“Where are they?” Marshe demanded.
The anger filtered back into his face. “I am not going to confirm your speculations, Captain. Excuse me, I have business.”
He turned sharply, strode out to the exit.
“We need this information!” Marshe shouted after him.
No reply.
The door made sounds of opening, and closing.
“Bastard!” Josev growled, his emphasis on the word's first syllable.
Marshe clenched her teeth. What had she been thinking? Had she really expected Jhee to comply with her wishes?
And what now? Was she to ignore the other Sixes, go on as if nothing had happened, nothing had changed? She looked to the holie screens. With the goggles, the familiar red and green trails were gone, the display reduced to a tangled mass of seemingly random colors.
“#Drone One What is/are circumstances#” She asked.
Everyone looked at her for a moment. Even the Dog. But with visible effort, Josev tore his gaze away and turned to the holies.