Fleet of Worlds Page 27

He asked without looking up, “Do you trust me?”

  “You and not much else.” They were running out of time. “If you have an idea, try it.”

  Ruby-red, a laser beam blazed out from near Long Pass’s bow. Decking bubbled and steamed at the robots’ feet. “Comm laser,” Eric explained. “Teach them some caution.” The smaller holos flickered and danced all around him. “Jeeves, status check on the ramscoop?”

  “Ready on your command,” Jeeves said.

  Eric opened another holo, real-time video of the dayroom. “Nessus.” The scout was rapt in Diego’s recording. “Nessus! Listen to me.” Eric raised the intercom volume and whistled sharply. “Nessus!”

  Heads snapped up, startled. “Yes, Eric.”

  “In two minutes, I’m activating the ramscoop field. Do you know what that will do?”

  Kirsten had no idea, but Nessus shook like a leaf. “It will kill everyone within hundreds of miles, except here in the life-support area.”

  Eric fired the comm laser again, scything a robot in half. “No, Nessus. Just everyone else within Preserver. The GP hull will contain the field. Everyone now has a minute, forty seconds to teleport off this ship. You need to tell them because they won’t believe a Colonist. Then get out yourself—unless you trust us and truly want to help. A minute and thirty seconds.”

  Nessus screamed, like the pulling of a hundred rusty nails. His torso heaved. In seconds he mastered his fear, or anger, or whatever emotion had immobilized him. He warbled rapidly and emphatically into his communicator.

  Nike’s security team must be somewhat mad, to plot violence against the Colonists aboard Long Pass, but they weren’t much madder than most Citizens. They pivoted and ran for stepping discs. The robots paused in their tracks—but only briefly. Nike’s agents resumed their remote-controlled attack from the safety of their docked ships.

  Nessus had not moved.

  “Nessus . . .” Kirsten trailed off, at a loss for words. “Because you do not deserve what has been planned for you,” Nessus said. “If nothing else, I offer myself as a witness.”

  In the composite panorama from the hull cameras, three broad I-beams, one supporting the gangway, converged to support Long Pass. All three supports terminated in the massive band that suspended the ramscoop ship in Preserver’s vast central cavity, against Preserver’s gravity generator. Writhing shadows on the cavity wall hinted at robots scuttling along the hidden undersides of all three approaches. The comm laser could not reach them without severing the support beams and sending Long Pass crashing.

  Eric called, “Omar, Sven, Nessus. Get aboard Explorer. I think you’ll get a chance to get away.”

  Omar’s voice snapped, “Then both of you come too!”

  “I must be here to give you that chance,” Eric said. “Kirsten, you’ll be safer with them.”

  She massaged his shoulders, taut with tension. “I’m staying with you.”

  “Where will I be most helpful?” Nessus asked.

  “Here on Long Pass.” Eric opened another display. A wire-frame map of Preserver, Kirsten thought. A red dot pulsed on the hull, its significance lost on her.

  “Sven, Omar, go!” Eric shouted. “In about a minute, all hell will break loose. Your autopilot will kick on. That’s your chance.”

  Kirsten watched them vanish from the dayroom. Nessus remained, pawing at the deck.

  “We’re hemmed in, all right,” Omar reported a moment later. “Right up against Preserver’s hull. I don’t see how the autopilot can help that.”

  On the distant, curved wall of the central cavity, the scuttling shadows seemed closer. They would begin carving their way into the hull at any moment.

  Eric never looked away from his keyboard. Long Pass appeared now inside the wire-frame drawing, with a faint line connecting the ramscoop with the mysterious red dot. “What happens now?” Kirsten asked.

  “Now we see if I’m worthy of you.” As Eric spoke, the communications laser blazed out from Long Pass’s bow, far brighter than before. Bright enough, Kirsten marveled, to reach between the stars. The beam punched through Preserver’s cavity wall like tissue paper. Molten metal dripped from the hole. As the beam traced a spiral, the hole grew. Chunks of wall and decking fell inward.

  Eric finally looked at Kirsten. “Remember the General Products factory? Remember how unhappy Baedeker was at my questions?”

  Through metal vapor and a maelstrom of in-falling debris, she glimpsed a tunnel that gaped to Preserver’s hull. There the ruby-red light vanished, the absence of scattering in a vacuum rendering the beam invisible. “Baedeker?” she repeated. “He didn’t say anything about light. Anyway, we know the hull is transparent to visible light. How does the laser help us?”

  The shadows had almost reached Long Pass’s hull.

  “Remember what Baedeker refused to explain. Nessus said there’s a power plant embedded in the hull. The power plant reinforces the interatomic bonds of the hull supermolecule. I found it. The hull—the supermolecule—is transparent to visible light.

  “Kirsten, we know we can’t find Earth. We need to concentrate on what we want from the Concordance when we win.”

  “We’re winning?”

  TERAWATTS OF COHERENT light poured from Preserver’s General Products #4 hull—all but the tiny fraction of the questing beam intersected by a sealed, lifetime-fueled, embedded power plant. A tiny fraction, but still gigawatts of focused power.

  The fusion reactor overheated and shut itself down.

  Artificially constructed interatomic bonds were suddenly without reinforcement. The super-molecule that was Preserver’s hull regressed into ordinary matter. To Kirsten’s view, a wave of opaque gray spread across the big ship’s hull.

  The dust shell around Long Pass held, bulged, then blew away like a dandelion puff in a tornado.

  Air pressure exploded the flimsy decks and partitions, spewing shrapnel large and small. Lights, gravity, communications—every system died. Kirsten gasped as the floor fell out from under her. Eric didn’t twitch.

  Explorer, whose autopilot Eric had set to dart inward on full thrusters, bulldozed through the debris, away from the ships that had confined it.

  Now Long Pass’s laser flicked downward, severing the massive support beams. Attitude jets set Long Pass spinning, faster and faster, hurling away any robots that still clung to the stubs.

  “Jeeves,” said Eric steadily, “We’re getting too much radiation. Way too much. How are you doing with the ram-scoop?”

  Kirsten needed a moment to decode that. Orbiting NP5 with neither Preserver’s hull nor the planetary force field for protection, radiation induced by the Fleet’s own velocity was blasting the old starship. Was blasting them. They needed the ramscoop’s magnetic field to divert the oncoming muck.

  “Working,” Jeeves answered. “Working. Hydrogen density is adequate, velocity is adequate. Ramscoop fields in place. Accelerating at point zero zero three gee and rising. Eric, Long Pass is surrounded by rubble.”

  “Use the comm laser on anything that’s in our way. Kirsten.” Eric’s voice shook with tension and exhaustion. “I could really use a good pilot just now.”

  “You got it,” Kirsten said.

  Atop a miles-long column of blue-white fusion flame, Long Pass set its course for nearby Hearth.

  38

  Shouting.

  Nessus squeezed himself yet more tightly, and the muffled noise faded. Then a rough kneading began, the heads—no, hands—unfamiliar to him. Colonists!

  He remembered the gravity dying, then spinning, faster and faster. He’d been flung off his hooves. He had tucked himself into a tight ball just as he hit the dayroom wall.

  Nessus cautiously unclenched a bit. A man’s voice called his name. Eric’s voice. Nessus unclenched a little more. “Where are we? Are we safe?”

  “We’re on Long Pass, on our way to Hearth. As to our safety, the circumstances don’t permit an easy answer. Come out so we can talk.”

  “Preserver
is going to Hearth? Why?” Nessus asked.

  “Preserver has been destroyed. It’s just Long Pass.” With a wail, he compressed as tightly as he could. Eric’s voice became unintelligible until suffocation forced him to loosen a bit. Then Nessus heard: “Less than an hour to Hearth.”

  Shuddering convulsively, Nessus unrolled and stood. He was still in the dayroom. The room’s main holo showed a telescopic image: a cloud of debris glittering by sunslight against the stormy backdrop of NP5. Gases faintly aglow, streaming past in primary colors, converged aft: the ancient ship’s ramscoop come to life.

  “Preserver destroyed? That’s impossible! It would take large amounts of antimatter.” Nessus waited out an involuntary tremor. “Are you bringing antimatter to Hearth? You play with star-fire energies as casually as you put edges on furniture!”

  “You’ve kept many secrets, Nessus.” Eric grinned unpleasantly. “I have mine. I suggest you consider more pressing matters. Kirsten”—he raised his voice—“What’s our status?”

  “I’m here.” Her voice over the intercom sounded frighteningly tense. “I’ve been beaming Diego’s final message to Hearth for the past twenty minutes. We arrive in another forty.”

  Nessus sensed an unarticulated question in her tension: What then?

  He nipped and tore at his mane, thoughts churning. Freed of Preserver, the Colonists hardly needed antimatter to threaten Hearth. A low orbit while operating the ramscoop field would quickly kill billions on the ground. A drifting hover over almost any populated area would kill mere millions. Lacking hyperwave radio, Long Pass carried a comm laser powerful enough to beam across light-years. At short distances, it, too, would be fearsome.

  Eric watched silently, appraisingly. Nessus thought: I’m meant to work through the horrors of this situation. He knows they have a position of strength.

  Forty minutes. What could possibly stop this ship? Very few Citizen pilots were insane enough to fly anything other than routine food transfers. That was why the Colonist scouting program began in the first place. Who would be so insane as to board a ship now, knowing that it could be dissolved around him?

  Hearth was hidden, not protected. How could a planetary defense be organized in mere minutes?

  Shaking violently, Nessus battled his useless instinct to flight. Where could he go? Where could anyone go? “You said I would be most helpful here. What would you have me do?”

  “Kirsten?” Eric prompted.

  She answered in a firm voice. “Radio the Concordance. Persuade the authorities that the price of Hearth’s safety is immediate freedom for all Colonists, publicly promised.”

  “We arrive in minutes!” Nessus said. “The government is in chaos. You cannot expect—”

  “We do expect,” Eric interrupted. “Time changes nothing except their ability to conspire against us.”

  “Call Nike,” Kirsten said. “Do it now. Convince him we’re serious, so that we do not have to show how serious. However chaotic the government, Nike will know whom to contact.”

  “Freedom from what? What do you want?”

  Kirsten said, “I think we want NP4.”

  Nessus whistled a wordless query.

  “I can’t think of a safe way to claim just the continent of Arcadia,” Kirsten said. “We’ll have to take the whole planet. Does NP4 still have its motor? Of course it does, we’ve been accelerating for years. Nessus, you wouldn’t still want us as neighbors, would you? After this is over, we’ll have to be gone, one way or another. We’re too dangerous.”

  Nessus’ thoughts raced. Less than forty minutes until the end of the world. “I’m coming to the bridge, if that’s satisfactory.”

  Eric shook his head. “You can talk from here.”

  Did they think him insane enough to attempt to retake the ship from them? Perhaps so: Eric now held a flashlight laser. Nessus shook with fear and rage. “I’ll stay.” He plunged a head into a belt pocket to tongue communications codes. “This will get us through to Nike.”

  THE HOLO BROADCAST was ubiquitous: in millions of stores and dining halls, in billions of homes, and, magnified to many times life-size, in public spaces around the globe.

  Even here in the remote island retreat of the Hindmost.

  Everywhere, Diego MacMillan glared at his oppressors. Nothing short of a Fleet-wide network shutdown might interrupt the damning recitation. Nothing short of a Fleet-wide network restart might purge all the copies. Even then, countless billions would remember it.

  I do not believe in ghosts, thought Nike, and yet here one is.

  Nike did his best to ignore the dissonant clamoring that filled the room. The Hindmost let his ministers, Eos newly among them, prattle on, obsessing illogically on how best to explain or excuse or resuppress centuries-old tragedies. Did no one wonder why the Colonists had released this history?

  Maybe a few did. The more practical among the ministers had succumbed already to the dubious safety of their underbellies.

  Unexpected trilling released Nike from his futile musings. Only Vesta held the access code that could reach him now. Nessus had known it too, Nike thought sadly. There had been no word from Nessus since the destruction of Preserver.

  Nike took the call, wondering: What new catastrophe has occurred?

  Nessus appeared in a small holo, and Nike felt a glow of relief. “You’re alive!”

  “For now,” Nessus said. He stepped backward to reveal a hard-faced Colonist with flashlight laser in hand. “You remember Eric. He and Kirsten now control Long Pass.”

  The Hindmost extended a neck at the unexpected holo. “You dare to take calls at this time?” he roared.

  Nike did not flinch. “The Colonists now command a weapon of frightening potency. Clandestine Directorate has an agent aboard, and he is our best source of information. Report, Nessus.”

  Voices quavering, Nessus spoke: Of the dissolution of Preserver. Of Citizen ships fleeing from NP5. Of Long Pass, a fearful engine of death now rushing to Hearth. Of Colonist demands and dire threats.

  Incomprehensible but nonetheless familiar English translation droned in the background.

  “And they have antimatter,” the Hindmost asked, focused finally on a real problem.

  Nessus plucked at his mane. “How else can one dissolve a General Products hull?”

  Antimatter or fusion flame? Did the precise mechanism of megadeath truly matter? Nike whistled over the swelling fear of the ministers. “Describe their demands.”

  Nessus moaned. “Ceding all of NP4 to the Colonists. The right to withdraw NP4 from the Fleet, if and when they choose, and our cooperation in doing so.”

  “We’re humans, not your colonists. Not any longer.” Eric bared his teeth in a feral snarl. “We also require the repatriation of all humans to NP4—regardless of the world on which you now hold them.”

  “These are extraordinary demands,” the Hindmost said with undertunes of fear and dread. “It is impossible to meet them before your arrival. Impossible.”

  “In a few minutes,” Kirsten said flatly, “you will receive a demonstration. It may make you reconsider what is achievable.” Her disembodied voice made the warning all the more chilling. “An arcology or two seared in the fire of suns.”

  With a howl of despair, the Hindmost collapsed. He rolled into a tight ball.

  A few ministers remained on their hooves. They turned as one to Nike, and an eerie calm came over him. This was his moment. “Kirsten and Eric, I have a proposal. Reverse course immediately and return control of your ship to authorities. In exchange, the government will publicly pledge to honor your demands.”

  “Trust you?” Eric laughed humorlessly. “We tried that before, Nike.”

  “Then what would you suggest?” Nike asked.

  “You publicly commit the Concordance to our freedom,” Kirsten said. “We keep Long Pass, but promise not to use it against the Fleet.” Unless you renege, she did not bother to add.

  “Five minutes,” Eric reminded.

  Th
e attempt on the Colonists’ lives had failed. So had his more recent and elaborate betrayal. Perhaps, Nike mused, it was time to consider a new approach toward the Colonists.

  Respect.

  Assuming a confident, wide-legged stance, necks extended high, Nike said, “The Concordance accepts.”

  ODYSSEY

  Earth date: 2652

  39

  Transfer-booth abduction still worked.

  “Welcome back,” Nessus said to the woman trembling before him. Unobservable behind a one-way mirror, he yanked at his mane. Hull material enclosed his guest—which was not the comfort it once had been.

  He scarcely recognized Sangeeta Kudrin. Only in part was that due to the skimpy black evening dress in which he had found her. Her facial piercings were gone; the bold blue dye job he remembered had been exchanged for muted greens; and new muscle hung on her petite frame.

  “Two years,” she finally said. “I had dared to hope you were gone for good. It’s Nessus, isn’t it?”

  “Correct.” On his exterior views, Mojave Spaceport was emptier and seedier than on his last visit. “I hope to make this brief.”

  Sangeeta said nothing.

  “You prospered during my absence,” Nessus continued. Public databases now listed her as a UN undersecretary, no longer a mere deputy.

  She sighed. “You kidnapped me before for information. Is that why you’ve taken me now?”

  “It is.” Nessus shifted in his nest of cushions. “Information about Sigmund Ausfaller.”

  Sangeeta stiffened. “Him again. He’s still away chasing pirates.”

  That was too cryptic for Nessus. He queried through the spaceport network for a definition. Armed thieves operating on a water surface? “Go on.”

  “Back when you first contacted me, Ausfaller was obsessed with distant ship disappearances. Then starships much nearer began disappearing.”

  “Where?” Nessus asked.

  The question surprised her. “On the fringes of Sol system. Around the third disappearance, other systems started shunning us. Ship captains here began refusing to leave. Ausfaller declared the situation a threat to the state, and launched an investigation.”