InterstellarNet: New Order
Page 31
“Fair enough. Be right back.” Art shoved off to consult on yet another calibration check of the main comm console. All around her, small clusters, more often humans and crew-kindred together than groups of either species alone, murmured purposefully.
In a saner universe, the main holo would have celebrated nearby Saturn in all its ringed glory. Instead, that display presented the many warships swarming around New Beginnings and Prometheus, the little moon on which their antimatter had been produced.
Eva Walsh-Gutierrez and Swee emerged from the central-core elevator, back from inspecting the engine room. Swee swung gracefully from rail to rail to rail, stopping at Gwu’s side. “We can fine-tune forever. My opinion is we leave now and putter later.” He entwined a tentacle in one of hers. “What says the ka?”
“That she is eager to see the Double Suns again.” She called out to all on the bridge, “Stations, everyone.”
Gwu polled: power, propulsion, comm, navigation, trim and spin, ecosystems, logistics. Everyone was ready. Art and Eva settled into human chairs to one side of her. Swee took his place on her other side.
“We did it, you know,” Swee said. “Nothing happened as we expected, and too many were taken from us—yet we did everything and more that we set out to accomplish. The technology is proven. We leave behind our first colony. We return home with new friends.”
“The birth of an era,” Art agreed. “We’ve been privileged to see the beginning of a true interstellar civilization, so much more than an interstellar comm network. A new order of things.”
Gwu had one final check to make. “System integration, what is our overall status?”
T’bck Ra’s synthesized voice was loud and clear. “Everything is operational and ready.”
“I ask everyone to observe a moment of silence for those who fell along the way.” As so many had, across so many light-years. Then, with a single joyous word, Gwu began their journey.
“Engage.”
CHAPTER 47
Arblen Ems Firh Glithwah, Foremost, as she always did before leaving her office, took a moment to study the desolate topography outside the well-insulated windows. While she had labored, a bit more of the ancient crater had been disturbed in the never-ending quest for metallic ores. A little more of the moon’s icy surface had been strip-mined for precious volatiles. Another new edifice had begun to emerge in the distance, much of its structure made of the fused tailings from continuous tunneling and mining. We are prospering here, she thought, and the humans do not understand the consequences of that prosperity. They lack the long view.
Times were hard when Glithwah was little. Her parents worked two of three shifts to survive, leaving her often in Great-Grandfather’s charge. Few of those early memories were happy, but there were exceptions. One exception was Great-Grandfather patiently introducing her to b’tok. “The game of Foremosts,” he often called it.
Had she finally attained Great-Grandpa’s standard? She would never know. He had died with most of her family, in a far-off crash into what would become known as Victorious.
Fifteen standard years ago Victorious had been abandoned, making today yet again a day of interviews. She picked up the black queen, which stood forlornly on a corner of her desk. She restored the piece to its accustomed place of show, blink-blinking. Chess was all about constraints. Everything in chess was bounded by sixty-four squares, the prescribed capabilities of thirty-two predefined pieces, a time limit. Despite all the vitality of their civilization, all their expanding wealth, all the upheaval wrought by the arrival of Victorious, human thinking remained, if not static, almost always short-term.
Mashkith had never shared his long-term plans with her. Perhaps Uncle had disclosed them to no one. Anyone to whom he might have communicated them had surely outranked her—and was doubtless among the dead. But she knew her uncle—and she, like he, knew to plan for the long run.
Many questions had been posed to her today. As always, a few topics were uncomfortable. As always, the humans missed the crucial point. Perhaps the matter was obvious only to those who thought dynamically: What if, during the long absence of Victorious, an at-home clan obtained antimatter technology? It might have been independently developed, or stolen anew from a second herd starship, or purchased over InterstellarNet, or even transmitted freely and vengefully to K’vith by those thirsting for retribution against Arblen Ems.
That risk alone precluded a return home.
The clan dared not go—and dared not remain—any place where vastly superior numbers held, or might obtain, technological near-parity. As certain as Glithwah was about anything in this universe, their initial course towards K’vith was misdirection. Mashkith would have changed course soon after Victorious receded beyond human observation.
InterstellarNet was a yellow-sun club; K’rath was the single red-dwarf star home to a member species. Mashkith had surely planned to take them to another nearby red dwarf. She guessed the star known to the humans as Lacaille 9352, more distant from herd, human, and Hunter suns than all those stars from each other. And if not Lacaille 9352, other red dwarf suns had been within their cruising range.
Thereafter, even if their new colony were prematurely observed, who would invest the decades and treasure necessary to pursue them?
Exploiting the uncontested resources of an entire solar system, the secrets of antimatter and the interstellar drive, and time, there was no limit to what the reborn Arblen Ems might have accomplished. Perhaps, in a few generations, even a triumphant return to K’vith….
A scoopship passed overhead, delivering essential energy supplies. A human scoopship. Only in her thoughts did Glithwah bare her teeth and growl. She could be under observation at all times. She acted accordingly.
Someday, the well-behaved, increasingly prosperous survivors of the Himalia Incident—or if need be, their descendants—would have the humans’ trust. Someday, the spaceships that frequented Ariel would be controlled and flown by Hunters. Someday, the clan would freely roam this solar system. And someday, another starship would come within their grasp.
Arblen Ems was twice before a Great Clan. It will be a Great Clan again.
Copyright © 2006 Edward M. Lerner