“TOOK FOREVER TO GET IT OUT OF
THAT MEDALLION,” Isaac Clayben remarked. “We
couldn’t use the transmuter without risking damage to the
ring, and we couldn’t try the usual chemical baths, either,
although I suspect it’s pretty sturdy. It’s stood up
under salt water for perhaps centuries, after all. I finally had to
dig it out physically and perform virtual microsurgery to get off
the glop they used.”
Hawks stared at it. “It is the real ring, though?
No question?”
“Not in my mind. The medallion is at least four centuries
old and has apparently been handed down from high priest to high
priest since it was made, with embellishments each time, of course.
Composition is exact and there is consistent circuitry within the
synthetic jade. This is not to say that we couldn’t have had
one put over on us, but I doubt it.”
“It just seemed too damned easy compared to the
rest,” the chief responded, shaking his head.
“Not that easy. Remember, we weren’t supposed to
even find the world—it’s unregistered, unlisted, its
population underwater and hostile to any outsiders. Even we
weren’t really certain until we got down there, if you
remember. Finding its exact location was sheer good
fortune—Master System reacting with typical straight-line
logic on the information it had, which was that it was highly
improbable we’d be anywhere around these parts during the
small amount of time they were there. Even so, the hypnocasters
almost did us in, and without those implanted locators they would
have done so. And the other route, via the birth island, was very
well covered, I suspect. No, it simply looks easy in retrospect.
Not the most difficult, but certainly not easy.”
Hawks nodded absently and went over to a small case where all
four rings now sat. He felt a curious lack of emotion on looking at
them, although he knew he should be celebrating at the sight. They
had done the impossible, at great cost and risk. The fact that they
had been helped along by that mysterious enemy, Nagy’s
bosses, did not in any way tarnish the achievement. Their unknown
ally had merely provided the necessary tools to place them on a
more or less equal footing with Master System; it had not in any
way aided the attempts nor minimized the price. The fact was,
without the special personnel, from Vulture to the other
specialists on the team like China and the Chows and Clayben, no
one else would ever have had a chance—but that was all they
had been given. A chance.
Raven entered, cigar in mouth, and stood next to Hawks looking
down at the rings. “Well, we did it,” he said, shaking
his head. “I can’t believe it, but we did
it.”
“No, Raven, we haven’t done a thing yet,” the
chief replied. “Master System still rules, we are still
pirates, and everything is exactly as it was.”
“Yeah, but—we got all the rings now.”
Hawks gave a weak smile. “Oh, really? I count four, Raven.
We have roamed over a quarter of the galaxy and we have made a
mockery of Master System’s safeguards, its Vals, and its
human army, but we have done nothing of importance yet. Tell me,
Raven—there’re the rings. Now, where do we go from
here?”
“Huh? Earth, of course. We go home. That’s where the
fifth ring is.”
“All right, so we go home. You think Master System and Chi
don’t know that? Do you think Lazlo Chen, if he still lives,
and the Presidium don’t know that? It was Chen who initiated
this plan, remember, and it was Nagy’s people who made it
possible. They’re around, too, and we don’t know who or
even what they are, but they know, too. Four rings, Raven—and
you know what? We are compelled by the location of the fifth ring
to bring them all back to Chen. And even if he’s still got
it, still somehow has managed to remain the boss, he only has to
own, to possess that ring, not wear it and flaunt it as he did for
me. He has a vast area of mountains, deserts, steppes, and wastes
to hide it in, too.”
“Well, he’s a crafty old son of a bitch, I admit,
but he ain’t no different from the other C.A.s we took on.
Besides, he can be dealt with. He’s got one ring, so he and
his associates maybe get dealt in if we can’t figure a way to
steal or cheat ’em out of it. But just as these four
ain’t no good without his, his is no good at all without
these four.”
“Suppose you’re right,” Hawks responded.
“Suppose we make a deal. We have all five rings and
I’ve got a fairly good idea of how to use them. But
where do we use them? Where is Master System,
Raven? Where is the human interface to it? We knew the
location of four rings and we found the fifth, but those were only
the rings. Who gives us the directions to Master System, Raven?
Even the Vals don’t really know that, I don’t think.
They are remote programmed at their bases. It doesn’t even
directly interact with humans, and it interacts with its machines
through subspace tightbeam that could be coming from anywhere in
the galaxy. Anywhere. And it’s had almost a thousand years to
hide.”
“Well, ain’t you the gloomy one! But I don’t
think it’s all that damned hard considerin’ how far we
come, Hawks. For one thing, I can’t see Chen kickin’ in
and settin’ this up or Nagy’s people, or whatever they
are, goin’ to all this trouble if you can’t find the
end of the rainbow. My old nose suspects that Master System never
moved at all. It wouldn’t risk it, ’cause it’d
have to be disassembled. I mean, back in those days supercomputers
were big mothers. It wouldn’t dare move. It
wouldn’t take the chance.”
Hawks’s head snapped up and he stared directly at Raven.
“My god! Raven, if that’s the case, then Chen already
knows where it is, and so does almost everybody. Where did your
original territory as a field agent cover?”
Raven shrugged. “North-central tier, basically. Crow,
Sioux, Blackfoot,
Cheyenne . . . Why?”
“Cheyenne . . . ” Hawks
breathed. “Of course! For years now I have been poring
through the historical tapes and records we have here, studying the
time and persons and data to get what I could.” He sighed.
“All right, let’s go get the last damned
ring!”
She was small, nude, a study in feminine perfection of beauty
and form, the essence of sensuality, and she glowed slightly, a
vague but attractive green. All who saw her worshipped her and
obeyed her every command, for she was the Goddess of Matriyeh and a
living incarnation of the supernatural.
And she was not really human, not anymore, although the original
goddess had been totally inhuman, a Val in human form. Her own body
was based upon an analysis of the carcass of the destroyed
original, her original tiny body merged and mated with the humanoid
Val structure to create a near-perfect duplicate. She was, however,
a fake.
The computer alarm sounded, indicating that someone was coming
in on the train that ran far below the great temple. She
didn’t like that; the last time that alarm had gone off it
had disgorged a couple of very unpleasant colonials in SPF uniforms
and two Vals, and she had needed all her self-control and poise and
acting ability to get through it without being detected. The
sensors had not indicated any landing or new orbital craft in the
immediate planetary sphere, so this time whoever it was certainly
did not want their presence advertised. That was not necessarily a
good sign, although it might mean a visit from her old
comrades.
That would be welcome. Ikira Sukotae had elected to stay on
Matriyeh thinking it would be the fulfillment of her dreams, but
the truth was that it had been very frustrating; the challenge of
keeping Master System ignorant of her presence or the success of
the band here had mostly prevented the slow and progressive
redevelopment of this primitive and harsh society into something
greater. Being a true goddess, all-powerful in many ways, had
blinded her to her own basic inner humanity. She was not the
machine she pretended to be and had replaced; she was a human being
inside a mostly artificial body. The incredible crush of loneliness
had simply never occurred to her until it was too late.
She went down the back way, curious to see who or what was
coming, less fearful than eager that at least there would be some
break in the monotony, some companionship. She had even found the
Vals and SPF a relief, for all the danger they presented. A
tremendous number of possibilities of whom this might be went
through her head, but the one waiting at the station for her was
completely unexpected. She stopped, frozen, just staring at the
figure standing there.
“I would tell you to rush and get packed, but you
don’t have anything to pack,” Arnold Nagy said
casually, his voice echoing around the station walls.
“But—you’re dead!” she protested, trying
to understand. “No one could survive being expelled from an
air lock in space!”
He shrugged. “And you’re dead, too, aren’t
you? At least, the goddess is long dead now. I must say that they
did a hell of a job on you. More than anything, we make a
pretty good pair.”
She walked slowly down to him. “Just what the hell
are you, Nagy?”
He grinned. “Haven’t you guessed? But, come—we
have to get you out of here and off Matriyeh and fast. Master
System has learned that both you and the ring are fakes.
They’re on their way and could be here almost any time. I
have no idea how much, if any, of a window we have. You’ve
been forcibly relieved, girl—at least for the duration.
Wouldn’t you like to be there for the endgame?”
She hesitated. “How do I know I can trust you? I mean,
considering your death and sudden, mysterious resurrection, why
should I trust you now?”
“You’re smart,” he responded. “Deep down
you know, and the rest you’ll figure out. Shall we
go?”
“To aid them?”
“Not me. That’s against the rules. That’s why
I had to die. Maybe you, if need be. But you can’t stay here,
that’s for sure.” He turned. “Ah! That’s
our train, I believe. Coming?”
She nodded hesitantly. “But—what about Warlock? The
system here?”
“It’ll go along fine. As for Warlock—the last
one I want in command of Master System is Manka Warlock. After you,
my dear.”
Brigadier Chi studied the computer models, turned, and sighed.
“All right, so they have four rings. As I understand it, it
does them little good without the fifth that’s on Earth,
right?”
Fernando Savaphoong, in his special tank, only his head and
shoulders above water, nodded. “That is correct. One would
expect that Master System is even now assembling the largest
fighting force in history to defend that system. And has it
occurred to you, Señorita Brigadier, that, now that you have picked
my brains, as it were, and know of the rings, you are no longer an
asset to Master System but rather a threat in your own
right?”
She bristled. “All my life has been devoted to preserving
and defending the system.”
“All the same, all who know, including myself, are under
the most expedient method of safety for the system—a death
sentence. You have already violated your orders by keeping me
alive, have you not? Admit it.”
The problem was, he was telling the absolute truth. Any and all
of the pirates of the Thunder were to be kept in the hands
of the Vals and other machine forces, mindprinted for their
information and data, and then destroyed. Her own curiosity about
the rings and their importance, combined with her current authority
to overrule Vals—an authority likely to be quickly terminated
now—had saved him for the moment, but it might well have
doomed her.
“All members of the SPF stand ready to die for the
preservation of order,” she told him. “I am no
exception.”
“A noble but useless, even insane, gesture. Consider how
far they have come. Do you think they will let even a great task
force stop them now? Do you not think that the mysterious enemy
behind them will allow them to fail at this point? Twice you
underestimated them. I beg you, do not do so again. Even with this
fleet, Master System is splitting logic hairs in the manner of
dealing with the devil. They are humans on the Thunder.
The core program gives them the right to go for and
use the rings. That is why the Vals hesitate, and why the system
allows a way or two to slip through the net. So Master System
mounts a defense on the pretext of serving arrest warrants on Hawks
and China and Raven. Do not be so blind, Señorita Brigadier. Their
mere possession of the rings will give them an edge, a way to get
past, or around, the fleet, to get in. It is true that they may not
find this path, but it is required. It must be there, and
they have found either the path left open or made their own path so
far. And once the five rings are united in human hands, even the
pretexts will be gone. I believe that once all five are united they
will not only be able to go for Master System, they will be
required to do so.”
She looked up and stared hard at his bizarre, monstrous face
with those eerie, cold deep-set eyes. “Required?”
He nodded. “And I truly believe that Hawks, and perhaps
Chen and others, know the correct sequence needed to use the rings.
It is no longer a choice of duty to the system, Señorita Chi. It is
only a choice of new masters. The so-called pirates, the Presidium,
or . . . ”
She stood and cocked her head. “Just what are you getting
at, Savaphoong?”
“Are you not human? Am I not, no matter what my form? The
core, it says nothing about who is or is not qualified. Humans,
just humans. Act while Master System is preoccupied. Act while you
still have freedom and authority to do so!”
“Act? What are you saying?”
“We, you and I, have just as much right as anyone else to
go for the rings. If you believe so much in the status quo it is
even your duty to do so! And we know exactly where four of those
rings will be, don’t we? Taking us to the fifth. Sit here
meekly and die, Señorita Brigadier. Perhaps they will name a medal
after you. Die, and do not survive to see the death of your
precious system. Or act now. All humans, no Vals or others subject
to other orders.”
She sat down, stunned by the enormity of his proposal. Stunned,
and also damned tempted.
“Your arguments are persuasive,” she admitted,
“but why should I take you along?”
He shrugged. “Partly because I know them. My knowledge of
them and your expertise in security will be a powerful combination.
And because in that part of my mind that has been rendered
impervious to mindprinter techniques lies the answers. I, too, know
the key to the interface. Once I realized that Hawks had discovered
it there was no trick to correlating the ring designs with the data
banks aboard Thunder until I got a match. That should be
worth one ring out of five. No, do not think to pry it out of me.
Like your own mind, any deep attempts at involuntary extraction
will only result in my death. And I can only be an asset. I can
hardly be a threat. I have a fish’s tail. The direct light of
most suns will blind and harm me, even kill me over a prolonged
time. In deep water I might be dangerous, even to you, who are also
a water creature, since you cannot breathe what I most crave,
but—like this? I am at your mercy.”
She thought it over, then sighed. “All right. For now,
anyway. But this will take careful planning and will not be without
risk. We must stay out of this or other fights and we must hold
back until they show us where the interface is. We must also be on
guard for this enemy, whoever it is. We need no ugly last-minute
surprises. That is why I will do it. Not because of my own life, or
yours, but because if it is not me, we shall be wide open to that
enemy. I will give the administrative exec the orders now. There is
no time to lose on this. If I were this Hawks, I would be making
for Earth as fast as possible in the hopes that the forces there
will not yet be gathered and fully organized.”
But, she had to admit to herself, this was also to salvage her
own ego and pride. Twice she had been out-maneuvered and outwitted
by these . . . people. But those losses would
be meaningless if they were denied the final prize.
“A fleet is assembling,” Star Eagle told them. He
had sent out a probe far in advance of their arrival, in the hopes
that it could send back information before somebody noticed it and
shot it out of existence. “I have never seen so many Vals, so
many automated fighter systems. They are indeed preparing for us,
and there is no way for any of our ships to get in close without
triggering their attention.”
The council of captains listened and watched the visuals as they
came in, represented by all-too-clear graphics.
“I am surprised that they have not yet come after the
probe,” Maria Santiago remarked.
“Not I,” Captain ben Suda responded. “It is
small and unobtrusive and they have no real defensive organization
as yet. It is even possible that they know it’s there but
choose to ignore it.”
Hawks frowned. “How’s that?”
“They want a fight. Everything they have done has
been an attempt to provoke a repeat of the Battle of Janipur,
although on even more favorable terms to them. I believe we have
come this far partly because, at its heart, Master System was
designed as a brute-force defensive war computer. We have beaten it
to this point with subtlety, and there is little subtlety in
anything Master System ever did. Big battles and major actions are
its chosen forte, its best and most comfortable situation. If it
hits our probe or shows just how well monitored the system is, then
we might back off, wait, even for years, until we figured a sneaky
way in. That still might be our best move.”
Hawks shook his head negatively. “From one viewpoint,
maybe, but not the real one. Four rings do us no good at all. Give
Master System time and it’ll figure out a way to move or
obscure our fifth and final ring, maybe turn Earth into that
permanent primitive hell it seemed bent on doing years ago. Maybe
even obscure or move its own interface. No, we have to go in. The
question is, can we sneak in or not?”
“The probability against anything, organic or mechanical,
penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere unchallenged at this point
is virtually nil,” Star Eagle replied. “After all, it
was Earth that Master System was originally supposed to protect
anyway. No, the only way in is to beat it, and every day we delay,
it will gather more strength from its far-flung
outposts.”
“What if we hit ’em hard now with all we got?”
Raven asked the computer. “Do we stand a chance?”
“Practically none. We have a far inferior force and the
fleet already present is at least six times as powerful as at
Janipur. We are outmanned and outgunned many times over. The only
thing that could take that force would be a task force as big or
bigger than it.”
China’s blind head snapped up at that. She looked old for
her years now, her beauty and glow faded by the curses Melchior had
inflicted on her so many years ago, but she was still as sharp as
ever. “Big! Of course!”
“If you got somethin’, girl, spit it out,”
Raven said.
“The probe’s just one of our fighters, specially
outfitted. Have it check the orbit around Jupiter and
report.”
“Scanning,” Star Eagle responded.
Hawks looked over at her. “Jupiter? You’re not
thinking . . . ”
“They’re still there, China,” the pilot told
her. “All still nicely mothballed. Minimal status.”
“Recall the probe,” she ordered. “We have need
for it. If they let it come in once, they might just let it come in
again. Stay well clear of Jupiter—I don’t want to
telegraph our intentions.”
“Will do,” the computer responded. “And, yes,
it just might work. At least the attempt will be minimal in
cost.”
Hawks shook his head in wonder. “You’re thinking of
somehow getting in close enough to activate those old universe
ships? With what? A fighter? It couldn’t carry more than one,
maybe two people in pressure suits.”
“Master System knows that,” China replied.
“That’s why I’m counting on it letting us get in
there for a little while. A fighter from a sister ship
shouldn’t even set off the security systems aboard those
things.”
“An interesting idea,” Isaac Clayben put in,
“but they have no cores. We, at least, had Star Eagle to work
with.”
“Then we must make cores,” China responded.
“Star Eagle is capable of it, since he knows his own design,
and the ships are all the same as this one used to be so we know
exactly where everything is.”
“But we could not exactly duplicate Star Eagle without
removing him from the core command center amidships,” Clayben
pointed out. “To do so would cripple this vessel, cause the
failure of all life support and other systems, and leave us totally
vulnerable. Besides, true cores aren’t like people. One minor
mistake and we could wind up with no core at all, killing Star
Eagle in the process.”
“I am willing to take that risk,” the computer told
them. “All of you have done as much or worse.”
“No! We don’t need that!” China responded.
“Besides, it would take too long. What we need is the
physical unit. Programmable. Not Star Eagle’s complex systems
and banks. We don’t need ten or twenty Star Eagles, as much
as that might be nice. What we need are basic cores capable of
handling the ships and carrying out commands from Thunder.
Remotes, as it were.”
Clayben’s eyebrows rose. “Indeed? And even if we
could do that, how would we get the cores aboard? Standards or not,
the security there would seize control of any service robots we
might use.”
Captain ben Suda looked thoughtful. “But would the same
apply to a being who might be able to work in such an
environment?” he asked them. “One who could even
survive a deep-space vacuum for up to three hours? A Makkikor, for
example, who was also the finest ship’s engineer
alive?”
“You think he’d do it?” Hawks asked,
interested.
“I think so. In a sense, his world and people have been
injured more by Master System than ours. After all, it was our own
ancestors who created this monster, but his people just had the bad
luck to be in the middle of the exploration field when Master
System rolled over it. I should think he would consider it an honor
and a privilege to not only do whatever was necessary but to give
his life to free his people—from us.”
Raven shook his head. “No, no. A Makkikor can stand a
vacuum, yeah, and work mostly in the dark, too, but that
don’t mean it don’t need air. It ain’t a matter
of holdin’ your breath for three hours, it’s
havin’ the air inside for three hours’ worth of work,
and he’s a big sucker. We might sneak him in, but
not the auxiliary ship with the air and water. He can’t
manufacture it, you know, even if he gets the cores in and the
ships operating. There’s only so much murylium in them
ship’s engines and they’ll be needed for full power.
They ain’t got the transmuters we got, neither. Remember, we
had to build and modify over months to get what we got here. A
transmuter that simply fuels the engines won’t do no good at
all.”
Clayben scratched his chin in thought. “I wonder. We still
have plenty of power, and they are bound to notice and figure out
what we’re doing if we get a punch that close in to Jupiter
anyway. If I were thinking of coming in, a head-on engagement, I
might well run a sacrificial lamb right into them to check out
their power and organization before I committed my real forces. If
we could punch into the solar system not far from Jupiter, but
sufficiently distant to not draw undue notice to our intentions,
and if we could punch through two ships in tandem, very
close, the punch pulse might register as a single entry. If the
trailing ship had the proper exit speed and momentum and made its
turns using minimal local power, it just might not get picked up on
the scanners at all. Then the defenders would concentrate on the
leading ship, the probe, and possibly never even notice the one
heading in toward the mothball fleet. And if that ship had the
proper codes, which we can easily check with the fighter, then the
mothball fleet would not react. Yes—it could be
done.”
“You are not talking about small automated fighters
there,” Maria Santiago pointed out. “You are talking
about a full-size ship and a trailing smaller ship, both managed by
skilled pilots. The second might make it, it is true, but
the first, the diversion—what did you call it? A sacrificial
lamb? Without the unpredictability of a human pilot aboard you
could not hope to throw the defensive computers off long enough for
your diversion to succeed, but we would most certainly lose that
ship—and any who were aboard. You are asking someone to
commit suicide.”
Hawks sighed. “Any other reasonable way to do this?
Doctor, is there no possibility your technological magic could get
us in any other way?”
“That is the best I can come up with, and it is filled
with a great many variables,” Clayben responded. “Star
Eagle?”
“It is risky, but feasible,” the computer responded.
“I’m afraid Maria is correct—if even I were to
engage the defenses there now, it would be no contest. No matter
what a rebel I have become, or what I have learned, the fact is
that my basic design—and basic designer—is the same as
those cores on the defensive ships. That means I can unerringly
know how they are going to react, and they will know how I will
react. That is the reason for Val ships—they have a measure
of humanity, as it were, from the life memories recorded within
them. There are Vals in the system, but they are not involved in
the main task force as far as I can tell, nor could they reach the
positions in time. No, it is the ship’s computer mated with
the unpredictable and often irrational human interface that might
buy some time. I agree with Doctor Clayben—and
Maria.”
Hawks looked around at them. “So, all this computer and
brain power and we come up with a suicide play in which the most
likely result is that we lose two of our remaining ships and three
or more people. How can I authorize such a thing?”
“I believe it is the way in,” Star Eagle told him.
“There must be a way in. I am more convinced of that
than ever now. Master System is required, I think, to leave a blind
spot, a single avenue of entry. In each case we have either found
that avenue or discovered one that it did not think of. I really
suspect that there is little Master System doesn’t think of.
Consider its sheer size, power, speed, data bases, and intellect.
Consider just how much it governs, and how absolute its power
really is over that vast area where even tightbeam communication
can take hours or days. No, it is as Raven said so long ago. Humans
have an absolute right to go for the rings and to use
them. Master System may make it very difficult and dangerous but
its core program, its subconscious dictator, as it were,
requires it to miss something, to keep creating blind
spots, possibly without even realizing it. It should be
child’s play for such a computer to keep us off Earth, even
if it cannot find us. And now I have proof. My fighter probe
indicates that the security codes to the colonization ships have
not been changed since we stole this one. Unchanged. That fleet is
unlocked—if we can get to it.”
Hawks sighed. “There it is, then. That little detail is
not something Master System would overlook. It’s something it
was compelled to not think about. It has drawn its usual convoluted
and dangerous route, and with the highest of prices to be paid.
Somehow I never thought of the core imperatives in terms of a
subconscious mind, but the analogy is sound.” He paused a
moment, as if suddenly seeing a new thought, a new fact, for the
first time. He shook his head as if to clear it and muttered,
“No, it couldn’t be,” low and to himself.
“What ‘couldn’t be’?” China asked
him.
“Never mind. A silly thought from out of my own depths.
The fact remains, even if all this is true and this is the only way
left to us, it requires something I have never asked, or been able
to ask, of anyone. It is not my right, even as chief and leader, to
ask it.”
“Oh, hell,” Raven said casually, “I’ll
fly your damned target.”
They all turned and stared at him, and he seemed almost
embarrassed by that. He shrugged and explained,
“Hey—ask Hawks. Our people had a damned habit of
attacking iron horses with bows and arrows and somehow
kiddin’ themselves they could stop millions of white faces by
winning a few cavalry battles. They got creamed, of course. But
wouldn’t it have been worth it to my ancestors to ride down
whoopin’ and hollerin’ on the towns and the forts as a
diversion, the warriors who fell knowin’ that while everybody
was watchin’ and worryin’ about them a few smart braves
were blowin’ up the Great White Father?”
“You don’t have to do this,” Hawks told him
seriously. “You have nothing to atone for, no stain on your
honor from our point of view.”
“Not from your point of view, Chief,” Raven
responded. “But I don’t give a damn about your point of
view. Never have, and you know it. You know, I can’t think of
anything that might have come up that I really wanted to do more
than this. No more bein’ a pawn, no more sneakin’
around, no more cheap cigars. By god, it’s what I was born to
do, Chief! One lone Crow warrior against a nest of the worst damned
iron horses the white man ever inflicted on anybody! One damned
warrior in the craziest, stupidest, loudest diversionary action his
ancestors ever thought of—and, this time, we don’t do
it just for honor, we actually got a chance to win. But I
don’t just want one of the ships. I want the best armament,
the best attack programs, the most speed possible.”
“Lightning would be best, but we can’t use
it,” Clayben noted. “It is a smaller ship, the logical
trailing vessel with the smaller footprint and the better
intrasystem maneuverability. It’s big enough to take the
cores, the air supplies, the other supplies we might need, all
that, but nothing could hide behind it save a fighter and that
would be much too small.”
Raven grinned. “I figured that, Doc.
Kaotan’s good, but it don’t turn tight enough
for my tastes, and deep down it’s just a cobbled-together
rust bucket. No offense, Ali, Chun, but Bahakatan and
Chunhoifan are fine merchant vessels, well maintained and
real capable, but in the end they’re still freighters. No,
there’s only one ship that meets all the requirements, and it
just so happens it ain’t got no captain right now. It’s
fast heavily armed, and very neatly disguised as just another scow.
Besides, we only got to take this warrior shit so far. With
Espiritu Luzon I go out in absolute luxury.”
Everyone who could fly a ship volunteered for
Lightning, but Hawks refused to pick anyone right then.
“It will be the best one for the job,” he told them.
“There is no rush in this. In the meantime, Captain ben Suda,
you might just ask your Makkikor engineer if he’s willing to
go along with this. If he’s not, then we’ve got a lot
of rethinking to do.”
The Makkikor was an incredibly fluid creature for being so large
and so formidable looking. Its basic shape was lobsterlike, but
instead of legs it had seemingly endless numbers of fine tendrils
that could secrete various substances to allow it to stick to or
walk upon almost any surface. What looked like a shell was deep
purple with some yellow strains, yet the exoskeleton, while as
tough as it looked, was almost rubbery in its ability to twist and
bend, to contort into whatever shape its wearer required.
The head—it was not possible to really think of it as a
face—consisted of eight very long tentacles covered with
thousands of tiny sucker pads grouped around a circular mouth that
resembled more the cavity of some gigantic worm than anything else.
The eyes, on each side of the exoskeleton, were lumpy protrusions
from inside the body, each able to independently swivel in almost
any direction. The irises were black, with V-shaped yellow pupils.
When you looked upon a Makkikor you knew for certain that this was
no creature of Master Systern’s design, but a product of a
far different evolutionary path. To most humans, colonial and Earth
types alike, it was monstrous, yet its people had risen on their
home world to a high level of technology and while their brains
might work as differently as their bodies looked, they were of
extremely high intelligence.
Perhaps more intelligent than humans, some commented, because
although they, too, were the products of a violent history they had
the good sense never to create a Master System. Smart enough, too,
to realize after a struggle that this alien computer was unbeatable
and to accept the new system as the only alternative to
genocide.
No Makkikor had the capacity for humanlike speech; theirs was a
far different language, beyond human abilities as well. This one
had a small transceiver implanted within it that was controlled by
the creature’s own electrochemistry. The implant would
broadcast the Makkikor’s words to another unit, translating
as it did so. Although still imperfect, the implant was better than
the unit it had used prior to joining the crew of the
Thunder, and the creature fully understood what they had
done and what they were intending to do.
“What will the new system do to my people?” it
asked, mulling over the proposition.
“Nothing,” Hawks tried to assure it, although he was
grateful that Ali ben Suda was on hand, as well, a human used to
conversing with it. “We are liberators, not new
enslavers.”
The Makkikor considered that. “Almost all enslavers began
as liberators,” it noted. “In my history, in your
history. Such power will corrupt anyone. Human history is
genocidal. I fear that even if we are liberated and grow out into
space as our forefathers tried to do, we will meet the vastness of
humanity doing the same.”
“There are no guarantees,” Hawks admitted. “I
promise nothing, I guarantee nothing. In terms of the future, I can
speak only for myself. We have no choice in this matter, really.
Not you, not me. Our people—yours and mine—stagnate. We
are strangled, slowly, by a dictator both ruthless and all-powerful
yet for benevolent reasons. This must cease. What happens when its
hold is broken is something I cannot say, but it is an unacceptable
present versus the unknown future. I fear that future for my people
as much as you fear it for your own, but I am committed. The system
we face now is wrong. What might be is not something I can be
concerned about. I believe it is as fitting for my people to be
involved in this enterprise as it is fitting that one of your race
also be here. It can only be said that we took the risks and struck
the blows, Makkikor and Hyiakutt among them. For me, that is
sufficient. That is as much as I can expect, and it will not be
forgotten.”
The Makkikor seemed to think on that. It had wound up with ben
Suda because of a chance run-in on one of those freebooter worlds
where ships were cannibalized to keep the other ships running. Why
it had signed on was never clear, but it had been loyal and a
superior engineer—Bahakatan was the best-run and
best-maintained ship of all the freebooter craft. It had come here
because its ship was here, and it had stayed mostly to itself all
these years, working on not only its own craft but the others, as
well.
“I am old,” the Makkikor said. “Old and tired.
I will do it not because I believe that what comes after will be
any better, nor for what your people call honor, nor for loyalty or
ideals or any of those things. I am too old to have retained any
such feelings if I once had them. I will do it because I wish to
die among my own kind. I will do it because between the time the
old way dies and the new is organized might well be longer than I
have left, and certainly longer than it would take me to go
home.”
“Each of us acts for his or her own reasons,” Hawks
responded. “I do not ask for motives, only for
accomplishment.”
“These ships. You say they are approximately a hundred
kilometers apart?”
“Yes. That’s an average, of course.”
“Too far for a jet pack, then, but power consumption must
be minimal or they will be upon us. Lightning is a good
ship but we cannot risk burst after burst of even low-level power.
We will prepare a fighter with the most basic of drives, more
pressure than anything else. We will take our time. Out, then back,
to each ship and back to Lightning, which should remain
relatively stationary in the midst of the fleet. Very well. Let us
get to work on it.”
Raven, too, was working on his end. Since volunteering he seemed
almost a changed man, although if anything his cigar consumption
had gone up along with rather conspicuous consumption of the fine
wines and liquors left behind by Savaphoong. But using
Thunder’s maintenance robots, he had slimmed down
the shape of Espiritu Luzon, eliminated much weight,
reinforced the shields to the maximum that was possible, and added
additional armament. Hawks surveyed the work approvingly.
“It doesn’t look like you intend to lose,” he
noted. “Try to save a few of them for us.”
Raven chuckled. “Oh, there’ll be plenty left, Chief.
No question about that. This is a diversion, though, not a suicide
mission. Oh, sure, any fool can see I’m gonna get creamed,
but I ain’t makin’ it easy for nobody. If I can buy the
time and still get out with my skin, I’m gonna do it.
They’re gonna figure it’s a diversion from the
start—we’re only hopin’ they’re gonna be
lookin’ for the big attack instead of where we’re
really workin’, but they won’t take me none too
serious. I figure there’s a little tiny chance out of this.
If there is, I ain’t gonna get blown to bits ’cause I
overlooked something.”
Hawks nodded. “When will you be ready?”
“Never if I had my choice, but as good as I’m gonna
be in three, maybe four more days. What about that Makkikor and
Lightning?”
“Ready now. The construction of the cores has gone well
and they all have been tested. They can run the ships’
systems, follow all offensive and defensive security commands, and
will be tied in with our own master battle network. Enough brains
and enough basic data to get the job done but no personality. Sort
of like Savaphoong’s poor slaves aboard here. You decide what
to do about them?”
Raven shrugged. “Ain’t nothin’ to do
with ’em. They’re transmuted. They ain’t gonna
ever be more than beautiful bodies and empty heads. They got no
future and you know it. I figured I’d just take ’em
along for the ride. Might as well be decadent while I’m
bein’ noble.”
“I feel somewhat—dirty—in allowing that, but
they have no capacity for making their own choice or even
contemplating their own mortality. I should take them off, but they
have no place here, and I refuse to allow anyone here to get used
to some people being mindless slaves. Very well. Take them. They
will be on my own conscience.”
Raven grinned. “You got too much of that conscience shit,
Chief. You can’t carry the guilt of the universe. All
you’re gonna give yourself is a damned heart attack that way,
and wouldn’t that be ironic? You droppin’ dead before
you even saw the rings bein’ used?”
Hawks thought about his conversation with the Makkikor. Were it
not for Cloud Dancer and the children, he wondered if a heart
attack at such a time might not be a mercy. Instead he said,
“Every day another ship or two comes into the system. Every
day I feel the pressure of more, perhaps the SPF, as well, closing
in on our backs. The window is small and getting smaller, Raven.
Four days. Four days from right now.” He paused. “You
can still back out, you know.”
The Crow grinned. “Chief, I wouldn’t back out of
this for all five rings and Master System, too. I’ll be
ready. You just be sure that Lightning gets where it has
to and does its job. You decided who’s gonna fly it, by the
way?”
“We’ve run trials with Kaotan on just about
everyone. It’s clear we need two aboard just in case, and
Maria and Midi are the best choice—but I want them on the
ground with me if we get through. I don’t want them stuck out
there, and I don’t want to deal with Matriyehan orphans.
It’s simply too much of a problem to adapt the ship for the
Alititians. The same goes for the Chows, and I want experienced
people there. I’m going to send Ali ben Suda because he knows
the Makkikor as well or better than anyone else alive and is a
damned good captain, and I’m also sending Chun Wo Har.
That’s two good captains who also want to participate in the
end.”
“Good enough for me,” Raven told him.
“Let’s go before I die of all this damned
luxury.”
The four days passed all too quickly.
Raven had told them he wanted no sendoff, but Hawks and Cloud
Dancer both came down to see him as he was preparing to leave. The
Crow startled them by his appearance; he wore the loincloth and
skin moccasins of a young warrior, and his face was painted with
glowing designs, his long hair braided in pigtails.
“You look like someone from a warm climate,” Hawks
noted. “Any Crow who dressed like that would freeze to
death.”
Raven laughed. “The summers get very hot where my people
live,” he told them, “and on the dark summer nights
with the fires blazing in the midst of the lodges they perform
their rituals. I’ve always been a rationalist, Chief; I
always figured that when we go, we go out like a candle. But when
you’re there, in the midst of them all, with the chants of
the holy ones merging with the songs and supplications of the
people—then you get a different feeling. Out there, between
the mountains of the north, where you sometimes feel as if you can
reach out and grab a star and bring it home with you—then
there is something there.”
Cloud Dancer smiled. “If you can feel that, if you have
felt it even once, then you know in your heart that there is
magic,” she said gently. “We have come a long way, have
we not, together?”
Raven was suddenly very serious. “Yes. A long
way.”
“The ghosts of not only your ancestors but of all our
ancestors going back to the start of time ride with you,
Raven,” she told him. “In the past years I have learned
much. It is the penalty of being married to a historian. Our people
have been conquered, their lands stolen, the buffalo slaughtered,
the very skies stained with their blood at each sunrise, yet we
survive. We true humans are a small people compared to the others,
far smaller in number than even I had ever dreamed, yet we are
still here, and now it again falls to us. We who have suffered so
much have been guided by destiny to this point. Be brave, Raven,
for we will never die.”
And she reached up and kissed him, and he was deeply moved by
it. Hawks had feared that Cloud Dancer would break into tears but
her eyes were dry. Raven’s, however, were not, and Hawks was
suppressing tears himself. He reached out a hand and clasped
Raven’s long and hard, and then the Crow turned without a
word and made his way back to his ship. They watched him go, until
he was but a tiny figure in the vast cargo bay, then they turned
and went back inside.
“Do not weep for him, my husband,” she said at
last. “Few of us ever are placed in such a wonderful position
where we might do something, contribute to something, truly
momentous. He himself has said it. He was born for this,
for the next four hours. When you write the history of all this,
there will not be a Crow among his people who will not claim
lineage to him nor a child among them who will not wish to measure
up to him. It is no time for sadness, but rather rejoicing. When we
first met him as an enemy, he had lost his soul. Now he has found
it again.”
It would still be a near thing, and although Master System might
have left this one hole open for them it was, as Star Eagle had
said, not a conscious hole. If they did it wrong, if they
didn’t pull this off, then the forces being massed by the
great computer would eat them alive.
To emerge on virtually a single punch their speed had to be
exact, their placement mere meters apart and in a perfectly
straight line. Lightning was almost in Espiritu
Luzon’s engines and held fixed by four carefully rigged
tractor beams. Computers aboard Luzon would manage both
ships through a link, keeping engine thrusts absolutely equal and
the hold tight, until the very moment of the punch. At that point,
mere nanoseconds before Luzon would punch out, the link
and the tractors would be severed and Lightning’s
own automatic systems would take over. Captain ben Suda would be
linked but only observe until after the breakaway at punch in. At
that point, it would be his show—and Raven’s.
“Punch in thirty seconds,” Star Eagle reported as
everyone on the Thunder held their breaths. Even the very
air seemed still. “I am picking up odd sounds from
Espiritu Luzon.”
“Put them on,” Hawks ordered.
They came through the speakers, and Hawks smiled and looked at
Cloud Dancer, who returned the smile. Neither could understand the
Crow language, nor could Star Eagle, which was why he was so
puzzled, but the two Hyiakutts knew. “He sings the ancient
songs well,” Hawks commented.
“For a Crow,” she responded. “Just pray he
does not forget where he is and order a launch of
arrows.”
“Punch!” Star Eagle reported. “Perfect! On the
nose!”
There would now be no contact possible with the ships for close
to twenty minutes. It was ironic that they could communicate
through that nether-space from point to point in real time but they
could not talk while between the two regions.
Nobody said or did much during the waiting period. Even the
youngest children seemed to be silent, as if they, too, were
somehow aware that something important was happening. Hawks looked
around at the great inner world of Thunder as if seeing it
for the first time. It had been his world for so long, and it had
been good. The children had known no other. Now, suddenly, it
seemed so empty, and so transitory.
“Punch out!” Star Eagle reported. “Perfect
separation. My own monitors in the asteroid belt easily detected it
but there was no indication of a double punch-in. Lighting
made something of a trace as it broke away but nothing inconsistent
with the usual anomalous readings you might get on a punch. Raven
is still singing, and he has released dozens of drones that are
showing up well in scatter-shot fashion. It is impossible even for
me to pick up Lightning in all that clutter, and I know
it’s there and where it’s going! Uh oh!”
“What is it?” Hawks asked.
“Outer perimeter fighters using short punches. Four of
them closing fast on Luzon. Raven sees them.
Hmmm . . . That is odd. He has stopped
singing.”
“You chant before a battle, not during one,” Hawks
said tensely.
The fighters were in for something of a surprise: Luzon
still looked like only a freighter, but was faster and carried more
armaments than even Lightning after the modifications. The
defensive fighters expected Raven to use short punches and
maneuvered to cover, but he just kept on, picking out the weakest
area of the field and then letting loose a salvo of torpedoes,
turning wide, and bearing right down on two other fighters. The
maneuver was absolutely insane and against all logic.
It confused the hell out of the automated fighters, who turned
and came at him, locking on as best they could. Raven launched
missiles, short punched, then launched more aft. The fighters,
confused, swung around and launched their own right into the region
where the first fighter was trying to pick off the initial torpedo
salvo. There were so many torpedoes in the area from both the three
pursuit ships and Raven, all with smart warheads, that they began
to go after the ships indiscriminately and even each other. The
other fighters, closing, had to veer off to stay out of the mess
and found themselves going for a few precious seconds in exactly
the wrong direction from Raven. In the meantime, two of the three
fighters that initially closed on Luzon were struck
hard—by whose torpedoes it was impossible to tell—and
the other torpedoes, seeing a target, zeroed in on the ones that
were hit.
By remaining inside the full range of the fighters Raven could
not avoid taking a few hits himself, but he and the others were so
close together that the odds were three to one against it being
him that was hit by any given torpedo. He managed to take
his lumps and punch further in, leaving the outer perimeter guards
damaged and in disarray. Man plus machine had beaten machine alone.
Loud shrieks, which everyone but Hawks and Cloud Dancer attributed
to pain and wounds, came back to them from Luzon.
Raven had been right all along, Hawks realized. He was having
more fun than he’d ever had in his whole life.
He noticed that Cloud Dancer sat silently, doing a rough sketch
in charcoal. As time progressed, he saw that it was a drawing of
Raven, in loincloth and full war paint, a ferocious, even maniacal
expression on his face, at the controls of an idealized spaceship.
It wasn’t exactly realistic, but if it became a painting that
hung in the lodges of the Crow some time from now it would be a
definitive classic.
Star Eagle’s calculations were that Raven would be twenty
percent or more disabled by the initial engagement, and very likely
not survive any further inbound engagement against heavier forces.
Over three hours after the initial engagement, however,
Luzon was battered and starting to run low on certain
kinds of ammunition, but was still going, using short punches, and
had almost reached the orbit of Mars.
“The main body is not engaging him,” Star Eagle
reported. “They have guessed it is a feint and are grouping
for a main attack. They are still spread a bit thin, and it appears
that they have deduced that our most logical line of punch-in and
attack will be from behind the main body, possibly under as well.
Raven has also played everything exactly right. He has acted with
total illogic when they expected logical moves and with computer
precision when they allowed for total illogic.”
“What about Lightning?” Hawks asked.
“Inbound, engines down. Good speed and angle. They have
already broadcast the security codes and are angling in to the
fleet. I would expect that they will be slowing to station within
the hour. No sign that they have been detected. I think we got away
with it!”
“Tell Raven to get the hell out of here, then!”
Hawks ordered. “Tell him to punch out no matter where the
hell he winds up and keep punching!”
“He has a possibility of breaking free although he is
badly damaged,” Star Eagle replied. “I have sent the
recall but to no effect. Perhaps his main engines are out and he is
incapable of punching.”
“Main engines out my ass!” Hawks growled.
“What the hell has he got in mind?”
“Hard to say. He is currently in an open area, but his
recent corrections are taking him on a direct heading for Earth.
Hawks—there are Val ships all over there, not to mention
about half the task force. He has already survived nine
engagements. A stone or spear could probably take him out now, yet
he’s heading straight for the main body.”
Hawks sighed and sat down. “Now is he drawn to the very
center of Hell, the lost city of Dis, having run the circles of
Malebolge. Though he be consumed by the flames or frozen by the
cold of demon wings, that idiotic son of a bitch is going to ram
himself right down the devil’s throat.” No one heard.
No one was meant to.
“He’s going on, screaming like a madman!
There’s a huge force now, closing in from all sides!
There’s no way they’re going to let any ship reach
Earth itself!” Star Eagle sounded as if he were going to
short circuit from the tension. “He’s heading right
into the center of them! Loosing everything he’s got left!
He’s hit! Again! Again! He—”
There was a deadly, unnatural quiet.
“He’s gone,” Star Eagle said flatly.
“Punched?” Hawks asked, hoping against hope.
“No. Nothing could have lived amid what they were throwing
at him. He’s just—gone. I have reviewed the sequence.
It appeared that at the last moment he made a slight correction and
just, well, went to his maximum speed straight into a Val
formation. He got two of them.”
Cloud Dancer looked up from
her sketch. “He is home,” she said softly, and went
back to her drawing.
“TOOK FOREVER TO GET IT OUT OF
THAT MEDALLION,” Isaac Clayben remarked. “We
couldn’t use the transmuter without risking damage to the
ring, and we couldn’t try the usual chemical baths, either,
although I suspect it’s pretty sturdy. It’s stood up
under salt water for perhaps centuries, after all. I finally had to
dig it out physically and perform virtual microsurgery to get off
the glop they used.”
Hawks stared at it. “It is the real ring, though?
No question?”
“Not in my mind. The medallion is at least four centuries
old and has apparently been handed down from high priest to high
priest since it was made, with embellishments each time, of course.
Composition is exact and there is consistent circuitry within the
synthetic jade. This is not to say that we couldn’t have had
one put over on us, but I doubt it.”
“It just seemed too damned easy compared to the
rest,” the chief responded, shaking his head.
“Not that easy. Remember, we weren’t supposed to
even find the world—it’s unregistered, unlisted, its
population underwater and hostile to any outsiders. Even we
weren’t really certain until we got down there, if you
remember. Finding its exact location was sheer good
fortune—Master System reacting with typical straight-line
logic on the information it had, which was that it was highly
improbable we’d be anywhere around these parts during the
small amount of time they were there. Even so, the hypnocasters
almost did us in, and without those implanted locators they would
have done so. And the other route, via the birth island, was very
well covered, I suspect. No, it simply looks easy in retrospect.
Not the most difficult, but certainly not easy.”
Hawks nodded absently and went over to a small case where all
four rings now sat. He felt a curious lack of emotion on looking at
them, although he knew he should be celebrating at the sight. They
had done the impossible, at great cost and risk. The fact that they
had been helped along by that mysterious enemy, Nagy’s
bosses, did not in any way tarnish the achievement. Their unknown
ally had merely provided the necessary tools to place them on a
more or less equal footing with Master System; it had not in any
way aided the attempts nor minimized the price. The fact was,
without the special personnel, from Vulture to the other
specialists on the team like China and the Chows and Clayben, no
one else would ever have had a chance—but that was all they
had been given. A chance.
Raven entered, cigar in mouth, and stood next to Hawks looking
down at the rings. “Well, we did it,” he said, shaking
his head. “I can’t believe it, but we did
it.”
“No, Raven, we haven’t done a thing yet,” the
chief replied. “Master System still rules, we are still
pirates, and everything is exactly as it was.”
“Yeah, but—we got all the rings now.”
Hawks gave a weak smile. “Oh, really? I count four, Raven.
We have roamed over a quarter of the galaxy and we have made a
mockery of Master System’s safeguards, its Vals, and its
human army, but we have done nothing of importance yet. Tell me,
Raven—there’re the rings. Now, where do we go from
here?”
“Huh? Earth, of course. We go home. That’s where the
fifth ring is.”
“All right, so we go home. You think Master System and Chi
don’t know that? Do you think Lazlo Chen, if he still lives,
and the Presidium don’t know that? It was Chen who initiated
this plan, remember, and it was Nagy’s people who made it
possible. They’re around, too, and we don’t know who or
even what they are, but they know, too. Four rings, Raven—and
you know what? We are compelled by the location of the fifth ring
to bring them all back to Chen. And even if he’s still got
it, still somehow has managed to remain the boss, he only has to
own, to possess that ring, not wear it and flaunt it as he did for
me. He has a vast area of mountains, deserts, steppes, and wastes
to hide it in, too.”
“Well, he’s a crafty old son of a bitch, I admit,
but he ain’t no different from the other C.A.s we took on.
Besides, he can be dealt with. He’s got one ring, so he and
his associates maybe get dealt in if we can’t figure a way to
steal or cheat ’em out of it. But just as these four
ain’t no good without his, his is no good at all without
these four.”
“Suppose you’re right,” Hawks responded.
“Suppose we make a deal. We have all five rings and
I’ve got a fairly good idea of how to use them. But
where do we use them? Where is Master System,
Raven? Where is the human interface to it? We knew the
location of four rings and we found the fifth, but those were only
the rings. Who gives us the directions to Master System, Raven?
Even the Vals don’t really know that, I don’t think.
They are remote programmed at their bases. It doesn’t even
directly interact with humans, and it interacts with its machines
through subspace tightbeam that could be coming from anywhere in
the galaxy. Anywhere. And it’s had almost a thousand years to
hide.”
“Well, ain’t you the gloomy one! But I don’t
think it’s all that damned hard considerin’ how far we
come, Hawks. For one thing, I can’t see Chen kickin’ in
and settin’ this up or Nagy’s people, or whatever they
are, goin’ to all this trouble if you can’t find the
end of the rainbow. My old nose suspects that Master System never
moved at all. It wouldn’t risk it, ’cause it’d
have to be disassembled. I mean, back in those days supercomputers
were big mothers. It wouldn’t dare move. It
wouldn’t take the chance.”
Hawks’s head snapped up and he stared directly at Raven.
“My god! Raven, if that’s the case, then Chen already
knows where it is, and so does almost everybody. Where did your
original territory as a field agent cover?”
Raven shrugged. “North-central tier, basically. Crow,
Sioux, Blackfoot,
Cheyenne . . . Why?”
“Cheyenne . . . ” Hawks
breathed. “Of course! For years now I have been poring
through the historical tapes and records we have here, studying the
time and persons and data to get what I could.” He sighed.
“All right, let’s go get the last damned
ring!”
She was small, nude, a study in feminine perfection of beauty
and form, the essence of sensuality, and she glowed slightly, a
vague but attractive green. All who saw her worshipped her and
obeyed her every command, for she was the Goddess of Matriyeh and a
living incarnation of the supernatural.
And she was not really human, not anymore, although the original
goddess had been totally inhuman, a Val in human form. Her own body
was based upon an analysis of the carcass of the destroyed
original, her original tiny body merged and mated with the humanoid
Val structure to create a near-perfect duplicate. She was, however,
a fake.
The computer alarm sounded, indicating that someone was coming
in on the train that ran far below the great temple. She
didn’t like that; the last time that alarm had gone off it
had disgorged a couple of very unpleasant colonials in SPF uniforms
and two Vals, and she had needed all her self-control and poise and
acting ability to get through it without being detected. The
sensors had not indicated any landing or new orbital craft in the
immediate planetary sphere, so this time whoever it was certainly
did not want their presence advertised. That was not necessarily a
good sign, although it might mean a visit from her old
comrades.
That would be welcome. Ikira Sukotae had elected to stay on
Matriyeh thinking it would be the fulfillment of her dreams, but
the truth was that it had been very frustrating; the challenge of
keeping Master System ignorant of her presence or the success of
the band here had mostly prevented the slow and progressive
redevelopment of this primitive and harsh society into something
greater. Being a true goddess, all-powerful in many ways, had
blinded her to her own basic inner humanity. She was not the
machine she pretended to be and had replaced; she was a human being
inside a mostly artificial body. The incredible crush of loneliness
had simply never occurred to her until it was too late.
She went down the back way, curious to see who or what was
coming, less fearful than eager that at least there would be some
break in the monotony, some companionship. She had even found the
Vals and SPF a relief, for all the danger they presented. A
tremendous number of possibilities of whom this might be went
through her head, but the one waiting at the station for her was
completely unexpected. She stopped, frozen, just staring at the
figure standing there.
“I would tell you to rush and get packed, but you
don’t have anything to pack,” Arnold Nagy said
casually, his voice echoing around the station walls.
“But—you’re dead!” she protested, trying
to understand. “No one could survive being expelled from an
air lock in space!”
He shrugged. “And you’re dead, too, aren’t
you? At least, the goddess is long dead now. I must say that they
did a hell of a job on you. More than anything, we make a
pretty good pair.”
She walked slowly down to him. “Just what the hell
are you, Nagy?”
He grinned. “Haven’t you guessed? But, come—we
have to get you out of here and off Matriyeh and fast. Master
System has learned that both you and the ring are fakes.
They’re on their way and could be here almost any time. I
have no idea how much, if any, of a window we have. You’ve
been forcibly relieved, girl—at least for the duration.
Wouldn’t you like to be there for the endgame?”
She hesitated. “How do I know I can trust you? I mean,
considering your death and sudden, mysterious resurrection, why
should I trust you now?”
“You’re smart,” he responded. “Deep down
you know, and the rest you’ll figure out. Shall we
go?”
“To aid them?”
“Not me. That’s against the rules. That’s why
I had to die. Maybe you, if need be. But you can’t stay here,
that’s for sure.” He turned. “Ah! That’s
our train, I believe. Coming?”
She nodded hesitantly. “But—what about Warlock? The
system here?”
“It’ll go along fine. As for Warlock—the last
one I want in command of Master System is Manka Warlock. After you,
my dear.”
Brigadier Chi studied the computer models, turned, and sighed.
“All right, so they have four rings. As I understand it, it
does them little good without the fifth that’s on Earth,
right?”
Fernando Savaphoong, in his special tank, only his head and
shoulders above water, nodded. “That is correct. One would
expect that Master System is even now assembling the largest
fighting force in history to defend that system. And has it
occurred to you, Señorita Brigadier, that, now that you have picked
my brains, as it were, and know of the rings, you are no longer an
asset to Master System but rather a threat in your own
right?”
She bristled. “All my life has been devoted to preserving
and defending the system.”
“All the same, all who know, including myself, are under
the most expedient method of safety for the system—a death
sentence. You have already violated your orders by keeping me
alive, have you not? Admit it.”
The problem was, he was telling the absolute truth. Any and all
of the pirates of the Thunder were to be kept in the hands
of the Vals and other machine forces, mindprinted for their
information and data, and then destroyed. Her own curiosity about
the rings and their importance, combined with her current authority
to overrule Vals—an authority likely to be quickly terminated
now—had saved him for the moment, but it might well have
doomed her.
“All members of the SPF stand ready to die for the
preservation of order,” she told him. “I am no
exception.”
“A noble but useless, even insane, gesture. Consider how
far they have come. Do you think they will let even a great task
force stop them now? Do you not think that the mysterious enemy
behind them will allow them to fail at this point? Twice you
underestimated them. I beg you, do not do so again. Even with this
fleet, Master System is splitting logic hairs in the manner of
dealing with the devil. They are humans on the Thunder.
The core program gives them the right to go for and
use the rings. That is why the Vals hesitate, and why the system
allows a way or two to slip through the net. So Master System
mounts a defense on the pretext of serving arrest warrants on Hawks
and China and Raven. Do not be so blind, Señorita Brigadier. Their
mere possession of the rings will give them an edge, a way to get
past, or around, the fleet, to get in. It is true that they may not
find this path, but it is required. It must be there, and
they have found either the path left open or made their own path so
far. And once the five rings are united in human hands, even the
pretexts will be gone. I believe that once all five are united they
will not only be able to go for Master System, they will be
required to do so.”
She looked up and stared hard at his bizarre, monstrous face
with those eerie, cold deep-set eyes. “Required?”
He nodded. “And I truly believe that Hawks, and perhaps
Chen and others, know the correct sequence needed to use the rings.
It is no longer a choice of duty to the system, Señorita Chi. It is
only a choice of new masters. The so-called pirates, the Presidium,
or . . . ”
She stood and cocked her head. “Just what are you getting
at, Savaphoong?”
“Are you not human? Am I not, no matter what my form? The
core, it says nothing about who is or is not qualified. Humans,
just humans. Act while Master System is preoccupied. Act while you
still have freedom and authority to do so!”
“Act? What are you saying?”
“We, you and I, have just as much right as anyone else to
go for the rings. If you believe so much in the status quo it is
even your duty to do so! And we know exactly where four of those
rings will be, don’t we? Taking us to the fifth. Sit here
meekly and die, Señorita Brigadier. Perhaps they will name a medal
after you. Die, and do not survive to see the death of your
precious system. Or act now. All humans, no Vals or others subject
to other orders.”
She sat down, stunned by the enormity of his proposal. Stunned,
and also damned tempted.
“Your arguments are persuasive,” she admitted,
“but why should I take you along?”
He shrugged. “Partly because I know them. My knowledge of
them and your expertise in security will be a powerful combination.
And because in that part of my mind that has been rendered
impervious to mindprinter techniques lies the answers. I, too, know
the key to the interface. Once I realized that Hawks had discovered
it there was no trick to correlating the ring designs with the data
banks aboard Thunder until I got a match. That should be
worth one ring out of five. No, do not think to pry it out of me.
Like your own mind, any deep attempts at involuntary extraction
will only result in my death. And I can only be an asset. I can
hardly be a threat. I have a fish’s tail. The direct light of
most suns will blind and harm me, even kill me over a prolonged
time. In deep water I might be dangerous, even to you, who are also
a water creature, since you cannot breathe what I most crave,
but—like this? I am at your mercy.”
She thought it over, then sighed. “All right. For now,
anyway. But this will take careful planning and will not be without
risk. We must stay out of this or other fights and we must hold
back until they show us where the interface is. We must also be on
guard for this enemy, whoever it is. We need no ugly last-minute
surprises. That is why I will do it. Not because of my own life, or
yours, but because if it is not me, we shall be wide open to that
enemy. I will give the administrative exec the orders now. There is
no time to lose on this. If I were this Hawks, I would be making
for Earth as fast as possible in the hopes that the forces there
will not yet be gathered and fully organized.”
But, she had to admit to herself, this was also to salvage her
own ego and pride. Twice she had been out-maneuvered and outwitted
by these . . . people. But those losses would
be meaningless if they were denied the final prize.
“A fleet is assembling,” Star Eagle told them. He
had sent out a probe far in advance of their arrival, in the hopes
that it could send back information before somebody noticed it and
shot it out of existence. “I have never seen so many Vals, so
many automated fighter systems. They are indeed preparing for us,
and there is no way for any of our ships to get in close without
triggering their attention.”
The council of captains listened and watched the visuals as they
came in, represented by all-too-clear graphics.
“I am surprised that they have not yet come after the
probe,” Maria Santiago remarked.
“Not I,” Captain ben Suda responded. “It is
small and unobtrusive and they have no real defensive organization
as yet. It is even possible that they know it’s there but
choose to ignore it.”
Hawks frowned. “How’s that?”
“They want a fight. Everything they have done has
been an attempt to provoke a repeat of the Battle of Janipur,
although on even more favorable terms to them. I believe we have
come this far partly because, at its heart, Master System was
designed as a brute-force defensive war computer. We have beaten it
to this point with subtlety, and there is little subtlety in
anything Master System ever did. Big battles and major actions are
its chosen forte, its best and most comfortable situation. If it
hits our probe or shows just how well monitored the system is, then
we might back off, wait, even for years, until we figured a sneaky
way in. That still might be our best move.”
Hawks shook his head negatively. “From one viewpoint,
maybe, but not the real one. Four rings do us no good at all. Give
Master System time and it’ll figure out a way to move or
obscure our fifth and final ring, maybe turn Earth into that
permanent primitive hell it seemed bent on doing years ago. Maybe
even obscure or move its own interface. No, we have to go in. The
question is, can we sneak in or not?”
“The probability against anything, organic or mechanical,
penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere unchallenged at this point
is virtually nil,” Star Eagle replied. “After all, it
was Earth that Master System was originally supposed to protect
anyway. No, the only way in is to beat it, and every day we delay,
it will gather more strength from its far-flung
outposts.”
“What if we hit ’em hard now with all we got?”
Raven asked the computer. “Do we stand a chance?”
“Practically none. We have a far inferior force and the
fleet already present is at least six times as powerful as at
Janipur. We are outmanned and outgunned many times over. The only
thing that could take that force would be a task force as big or
bigger than it.”
China’s blind head snapped up at that. She looked old for
her years now, her beauty and glow faded by the curses Melchior had
inflicted on her so many years ago, but she was still as sharp as
ever. “Big! Of course!”
“If you got somethin’, girl, spit it out,”
Raven said.
“The probe’s just one of our fighters, specially
outfitted. Have it check the orbit around Jupiter and
report.”
“Scanning,” Star Eagle responded.
Hawks looked over at her. “Jupiter? You’re not
thinking . . . ”
“They’re still there, China,” the pilot told
her. “All still nicely mothballed. Minimal status.”
“Recall the probe,” she ordered. “We have need
for it. If they let it come in once, they might just let it come in
again. Stay well clear of Jupiter—I don’t want to
telegraph our intentions.”
“Will do,” the computer responded. “And, yes,
it just might work. At least the attempt will be minimal in
cost.”
Hawks shook his head in wonder. “You’re thinking of
somehow getting in close enough to activate those old universe
ships? With what? A fighter? It couldn’t carry more than one,
maybe two people in pressure suits.”
“Master System knows that,” China replied.
“That’s why I’m counting on it letting us get in
there for a little while. A fighter from a sister ship
shouldn’t even set off the security systems aboard those
things.”
“An interesting idea,” Isaac Clayben put in,
“but they have no cores. We, at least, had Star Eagle to work
with.”
“Then we must make cores,” China responded.
“Star Eagle is capable of it, since he knows his own design,
and the ships are all the same as this one used to be so we know
exactly where everything is.”
“But we could not exactly duplicate Star Eagle without
removing him from the core command center amidships,” Clayben
pointed out. “To do so would cripple this vessel, cause the
failure of all life support and other systems, and leave us totally
vulnerable. Besides, true cores aren’t like people. One minor
mistake and we could wind up with no core at all, killing Star
Eagle in the process.”
“I am willing to take that risk,” the computer told
them. “All of you have done as much or worse.”
“No! We don’t need that!” China responded.
“Besides, it would take too long. What we need is the
physical unit. Programmable. Not Star Eagle’s complex systems
and banks. We don’t need ten or twenty Star Eagles, as much
as that might be nice. What we need are basic cores capable of
handling the ships and carrying out commands from Thunder.
Remotes, as it were.”
Clayben’s eyebrows rose. “Indeed? And even if we
could do that, how would we get the cores aboard? Standards or not,
the security there would seize control of any service robots we
might use.”
Captain ben Suda looked thoughtful. “But would the same
apply to a being who might be able to work in such an
environment?” he asked them. “One who could even
survive a deep-space vacuum for up to three hours? A Makkikor, for
example, who was also the finest ship’s engineer
alive?”
“You think he’d do it?” Hawks asked,
interested.
“I think so. In a sense, his world and people have been
injured more by Master System than ours. After all, it was our own
ancestors who created this monster, but his people just had the bad
luck to be in the middle of the exploration field when Master
System rolled over it. I should think he would consider it an honor
and a privilege to not only do whatever was necessary but to give
his life to free his people—from us.”
Raven shook his head. “No, no. A Makkikor can stand a
vacuum, yeah, and work mostly in the dark, too, but that
don’t mean it don’t need air. It ain’t a matter
of holdin’ your breath for three hours, it’s
havin’ the air inside for three hours’ worth of work,
and he’s a big sucker. We might sneak him in, but
not the auxiliary ship with the air and water. He can’t
manufacture it, you know, even if he gets the cores in and the
ships operating. There’s only so much murylium in them
ship’s engines and they’ll be needed for full power.
They ain’t got the transmuters we got, neither. Remember, we
had to build and modify over months to get what we got here. A
transmuter that simply fuels the engines won’t do no good at
all.”
Clayben scratched his chin in thought. “I wonder. We still
have plenty of power, and they are bound to notice and figure out
what we’re doing if we get a punch that close in to Jupiter
anyway. If I were thinking of coming in, a head-on engagement, I
might well run a sacrificial lamb right into them to check out
their power and organization before I committed my real forces. If
we could punch into the solar system not far from Jupiter, but
sufficiently distant to not draw undue notice to our intentions,
and if we could punch through two ships in tandem, very
close, the punch pulse might register as a single entry. If the
trailing ship had the proper exit speed and momentum and made its
turns using minimal local power, it just might not get picked up on
the scanners at all. Then the defenders would concentrate on the
leading ship, the probe, and possibly never even notice the one
heading in toward the mothball fleet. And if that ship had the
proper codes, which we can easily check with the fighter, then the
mothball fleet would not react. Yes—it could be
done.”
“You are not talking about small automated fighters
there,” Maria Santiago pointed out. “You are talking
about a full-size ship and a trailing smaller ship, both managed by
skilled pilots. The second might make it, it is true, but
the first, the diversion—what did you call it? A sacrificial
lamb? Without the unpredictability of a human pilot aboard you
could not hope to throw the defensive computers off long enough for
your diversion to succeed, but we would most certainly lose that
ship—and any who were aboard. You are asking someone to
commit suicide.”
Hawks sighed. “Any other reasonable way to do this?
Doctor, is there no possibility your technological magic could get
us in any other way?”
“That is the best I can come up with, and it is filled
with a great many variables,” Clayben responded. “Star
Eagle?”
“It is risky, but feasible,” the computer responded.
“I’m afraid Maria is correct—if even I were to
engage the defenses there now, it would be no contest. No matter
what a rebel I have become, or what I have learned, the fact is
that my basic design—and basic designer—is the same as
those cores on the defensive ships. That means I can unerringly
know how they are going to react, and they will know how I will
react. That is the reason for Val ships—they have a measure
of humanity, as it were, from the life memories recorded within
them. There are Vals in the system, but they are not involved in
the main task force as far as I can tell, nor could they reach the
positions in time. No, it is the ship’s computer mated with
the unpredictable and often irrational human interface that might
buy some time. I agree with Doctor Clayben—and
Maria.”
Hawks looked around at them. “So, all this computer and
brain power and we come up with a suicide play in which the most
likely result is that we lose two of our remaining ships and three
or more people. How can I authorize such a thing?”
“I believe it is the way in,” Star Eagle told him.
“There must be a way in. I am more convinced of that
than ever now. Master System is required, I think, to leave a blind
spot, a single avenue of entry. In each case we have either found
that avenue or discovered one that it did not think of. I really
suspect that there is little Master System doesn’t think of.
Consider its sheer size, power, speed, data bases, and intellect.
Consider just how much it governs, and how absolute its power
really is over that vast area where even tightbeam communication
can take hours or days. No, it is as Raven said so long ago. Humans
have an absolute right to go for the rings and to use
them. Master System may make it very difficult and dangerous but
its core program, its subconscious dictator, as it were,
requires it to miss something, to keep creating blind
spots, possibly without even realizing it. It should be
child’s play for such a computer to keep us off Earth, even
if it cannot find us. And now I have proof. My fighter probe
indicates that the security codes to the colonization ships have
not been changed since we stole this one. Unchanged. That fleet is
unlocked—if we can get to it.”
Hawks sighed. “There it is, then. That little detail is
not something Master System would overlook. It’s something it
was compelled to not think about. It has drawn its usual convoluted
and dangerous route, and with the highest of prices to be paid.
Somehow I never thought of the core imperatives in terms of a
subconscious mind, but the analogy is sound.” He paused a
moment, as if suddenly seeing a new thought, a new fact, for the
first time. He shook his head as if to clear it and muttered,
“No, it couldn’t be,” low and to himself.
“What ‘couldn’t be’?” China asked
him.
“Never mind. A silly thought from out of my own depths.
The fact remains, even if all this is true and this is the only way
left to us, it requires something I have never asked, or been able
to ask, of anyone. It is not my right, even as chief and leader, to
ask it.”
“Oh, hell,” Raven said casually, “I’ll
fly your damned target.”
They all turned and stared at him, and he seemed almost
embarrassed by that. He shrugged and explained,
“Hey—ask Hawks. Our people had a damned habit of
attacking iron horses with bows and arrows and somehow
kiddin’ themselves they could stop millions of white faces by
winning a few cavalry battles. They got creamed, of course. But
wouldn’t it have been worth it to my ancestors to ride down
whoopin’ and hollerin’ on the towns and the forts as a
diversion, the warriors who fell knowin’ that while everybody
was watchin’ and worryin’ about them a few smart braves
were blowin’ up the Great White Father?”
“You don’t have to do this,” Hawks told him
seriously. “You have nothing to atone for, no stain on your
honor from our point of view.”
“Not from your point of view, Chief,” Raven
responded. “But I don’t give a damn about your point of
view. Never have, and you know it. You know, I can’t think of
anything that might have come up that I really wanted to do more
than this. No more bein’ a pawn, no more sneakin’
around, no more cheap cigars. By god, it’s what I was born to
do, Chief! One lone Crow warrior against a nest of the worst damned
iron horses the white man ever inflicted on anybody! One damned
warrior in the craziest, stupidest, loudest diversionary action his
ancestors ever thought of—and, this time, we don’t do
it just for honor, we actually got a chance to win. But I
don’t just want one of the ships. I want the best armament,
the best attack programs, the most speed possible.”
“Lightning would be best, but we can’t use
it,” Clayben noted. “It is a smaller ship, the logical
trailing vessel with the smaller footprint and the better
intrasystem maneuverability. It’s big enough to take the
cores, the air supplies, the other supplies we might need, all
that, but nothing could hide behind it save a fighter and that
would be much too small.”
Raven grinned. “I figured that, Doc.
Kaotan’s good, but it don’t turn tight enough
for my tastes, and deep down it’s just a cobbled-together
rust bucket. No offense, Ali, Chun, but Bahakatan and
Chunhoifan are fine merchant vessels, well maintained and
real capable, but in the end they’re still freighters. No,
there’s only one ship that meets all the requirements, and it
just so happens it ain’t got no captain right now. It’s
fast heavily armed, and very neatly disguised as just another scow.
Besides, we only got to take this warrior shit so far. With
Espiritu Luzon I go out in absolute luxury.”
Everyone who could fly a ship volunteered for
Lightning, but Hawks refused to pick anyone right then.
“It will be the best one for the job,” he told them.
“There is no rush in this. In the meantime, Captain ben Suda,
you might just ask your Makkikor engineer if he’s willing to
go along with this. If he’s not, then we’ve got a lot
of rethinking to do.”
The Makkikor was an incredibly fluid creature for being so large
and so formidable looking. Its basic shape was lobsterlike, but
instead of legs it had seemingly endless numbers of fine tendrils
that could secrete various substances to allow it to stick to or
walk upon almost any surface. What looked like a shell was deep
purple with some yellow strains, yet the exoskeleton, while as
tough as it looked, was almost rubbery in its ability to twist and
bend, to contort into whatever shape its wearer required.
The head—it was not possible to really think of it as a
face—consisted of eight very long tentacles covered with
thousands of tiny sucker pads grouped around a circular mouth that
resembled more the cavity of some gigantic worm than anything else.
The eyes, on each side of the exoskeleton, were lumpy protrusions
from inside the body, each able to independently swivel in almost
any direction. The irises were black, with V-shaped yellow pupils.
When you looked upon a Makkikor you knew for certain that this was
no creature of Master Systern’s design, but a product of a
far different evolutionary path. To most humans, colonial and Earth
types alike, it was monstrous, yet its people had risen on their
home world to a high level of technology and while their brains
might work as differently as their bodies looked, they were of
extremely high intelligence.
Perhaps more intelligent than humans, some commented, because
although they, too, were the products of a violent history they had
the good sense never to create a Master System. Smart enough, too,
to realize after a struggle that this alien computer was unbeatable
and to accept the new system as the only alternative to
genocide.
No Makkikor had the capacity for humanlike speech; theirs was a
far different language, beyond human abilities as well. This one
had a small transceiver implanted within it that was controlled by
the creature’s own electrochemistry. The implant would
broadcast the Makkikor’s words to another unit, translating
as it did so. Although still imperfect, the implant was better than
the unit it had used prior to joining the crew of the
Thunder, and the creature fully understood what they had
done and what they were intending to do.
“What will the new system do to my people?” it
asked, mulling over the proposition.
“Nothing,” Hawks tried to assure it, although he was
grateful that Ali ben Suda was on hand, as well, a human used to
conversing with it. “We are liberators, not new
enslavers.”
The Makkikor considered that. “Almost all enslavers began
as liberators,” it noted. “In my history, in your
history. Such power will corrupt anyone. Human history is
genocidal. I fear that even if we are liberated and grow out into
space as our forefathers tried to do, we will meet the vastness of
humanity doing the same.”
“There are no guarantees,” Hawks admitted. “I
promise nothing, I guarantee nothing. In terms of the future, I can
speak only for myself. We have no choice in this matter, really.
Not you, not me. Our people—yours and mine—stagnate. We
are strangled, slowly, by a dictator both ruthless and all-powerful
yet for benevolent reasons. This must cease. What happens when its
hold is broken is something I cannot say, but it is an unacceptable
present versus the unknown future. I fear that future for my people
as much as you fear it for your own, but I am committed. The system
we face now is wrong. What might be is not something I can be
concerned about. I believe it is as fitting for my people to be
involved in this enterprise as it is fitting that one of your race
also be here. It can only be said that we took the risks and struck
the blows, Makkikor and Hyiakutt among them. For me, that is
sufficient. That is as much as I can expect, and it will not be
forgotten.”
The Makkikor seemed to think on that. It had wound up with ben
Suda because of a chance run-in on one of those freebooter worlds
where ships were cannibalized to keep the other ships running. Why
it had signed on was never clear, but it had been loyal and a
superior engineer—Bahakatan was the best-run and
best-maintained ship of all the freebooter craft. It had come here
because its ship was here, and it had stayed mostly to itself all
these years, working on not only its own craft but the others, as
well.
“I am old,” the Makkikor said. “Old and tired.
I will do it not because I believe that what comes after will be
any better, nor for what your people call honor, nor for loyalty or
ideals or any of those things. I am too old to have retained any
such feelings if I once had them. I will do it because I wish to
die among my own kind. I will do it because between the time the
old way dies and the new is organized might well be longer than I
have left, and certainly longer than it would take me to go
home.”
“Each of us acts for his or her own reasons,” Hawks
responded. “I do not ask for motives, only for
accomplishment.”
“These ships. You say they are approximately a hundred
kilometers apart?”
“Yes. That’s an average, of course.”
“Too far for a jet pack, then, but power consumption must
be minimal or they will be upon us. Lightning is a good
ship but we cannot risk burst after burst of even low-level power.
We will prepare a fighter with the most basic of drives, more
pressure than anything else. We will take our time. Out, then back,
to each ship and back to Lightning, which should remain
relatively stationary in the midst of the fleet. Very well. Let us
get to work on it.”
Raven, too, was working on his end. Since volunteering he seemed
almost a changed man, although if anything his cigar consumption
had gone up along with rather conspicuous consumption of the fine
wines and liquors left behind by Savaphoong. But using
Thunder’s maintenance robots, he had slimmed down
the shape of Espiritu Luzon, eliminated much weight,
reinforced the shields to the maximum that was possible, and added
additional armament. Hawks surveyed the work approvingly.
“It doesn’t look like you intend to lose,” he
noted. “Try to save a few of them for us.”
Raven chuckled. “Oh, there’ll be plenty left, Chief.
No question about that. This is a diversion, though, not a suicide
mission. Oh, sure, any fool can see I’m gonna get creamed,
but I ain’t makin’ it easy for nobody. If I can buy the
time and still get out with my skin, I’m gonna do it.
They’re gonna figure it’s a diversion from the
start—we’re only hopin’ they’re gonna be
lookin’ for the big attack instead of where we’re
really workin’, but they won’t take me none too
serious. I figure there’s a little tiny chance out of this.
If there is, I ain’t gonna get blown to bits ’cause I
overlooked something.”
Hawks nodded. “When will you be ready?”
“Never if I had my choice, but as good as I’m gonna
be in three, maybe four more days. What about that Makkikor and
Lightning?”
“Ready now. The construction of the cores has gone well
and they all have been tested. They can run the ships’
systems, follow all offensive and defensive security commands, and
will be tied in with our own master battle network. Enough brains
and enough basic data to get the job done but no personality. Sort
of like Savaphoong’s poor slaves aboard here. You decide what
to do about them?”
Raven shrugged. “Ain’t nothin’ to do
with ’em. They’re transmuted. They ain’t gonna
ever be more than beautiful bodies and empty heads. They got no
future and you know it. I figured I’d just take ’em
along for the ride. Might as well be decadent while I’m
bein’ noble.”
“I feel somewhat—dirty—in allowing that, but
they have no capacity for making their own choice or even
contemplating their own mortality. I should take them off, but they
have no place here, and I refuse to allow anyone here to get used
to some people being mindless slaves. Very well. Take them. They
will be on my own conscience.”
Raven grinned. “You got too much of that conscience shit,
Chief. You can’t carry the guilt of the universe. All
you’re gonna give yourself is a damned heart attack that way,
and wouldn’t that be ironic? You droppin’ dead before
you even saw the rings bein’ used?”
Hawks thought about his conversation with the Makkikor. Were it
not for Cloud Dancer and the children, he wondered if a heart
attack at such a time might not be a mercy. Instead he said,
“Every day another ship or two comes into the system. Every
day I feel the pressure of more, perhaps the SPF, as well, closing
in on our backs. The window is small and getting smaller, Raven.
Four days. Four days from right now.” He paused. “You
can still back out, you know.”
The Crow grinned. “Chief, I wouldn’t back out of
this for all five rings and Master System, too. I’ll be
ready. You just be sure that Lightning gets where it has
to and does its job. You decided who’s gonna fly it, by the
way?”
“We’ve run trials with Kaotan on just about
everyone. It’s clear we need two aboard just in case, and
Maria and Midi are the best choice—but I want them on the
ground with me if we get through. I don’t want them stuck out
there, and I don’t want to deal with Matriyehan orphans.
It’s simply too much of a problem to adapt the ship for the
Alititians. The same goes for the Chows, and I want experienced
people there. I’m going to send Ali ben Suda because he knows
the Makkikor as well or better than anyone else alive and is a
damned good captain, and I’m also sending Chun Wo Har.
That’s two good captains who also want to participate in the
end.”
“Good enough for me,” Raven told him.
“Let’s go before I die of all this damned
luxury.”
The four days passed all too quickly.
Raven had told them he wanted no sendoff, but Hawks and Cloud
Dancer both came down to see him as he was preparing to leave. The
Crow startled them by his appearance; he wore the loincloth and
skin moccasins of a young warrior, and his face was painted with
glowing designs, his long hair braided in pigtails.
“You look like someone from a warm climate,” Hawks
noted. “Any Crow who dressed like that would freeze to
death.”
Raven laughed. “The summers get very hot where my people
live,” he told them, “and on the dark summer nights
with the fires blazing in the midst of the lodges they perform
their rituals. I’ve always been a rationalist, Chief; I
always figured that when we go, we go out like a candle. But when
you’re there, in the midst of them all, with the chants of
the holy ones merging with the songs and supplications of the
people—then you get a different feeling. Out there, between
the mountains of the north, where you sometimes feel as if you can
reach out and grab a star and bring it home with you—then
there is something there.”
Cloud Dancer smiled. “If you can feel that, if you have
felt it even once, then you know in your heart that there is
magic,” she said gently. “We have come a long way, have
we not, together?”
Raven was suddenly very serious. “Yes. A long
way.”
“The ghosts of not only your ancestors but of all our
ancestors going back to the start of time ride with you,
Raven,” she told him. “In the past years I have learned
much. It is the penalty of being married to a historian. Our people
have been conquered, their lands stolen, the buffalo slaughtered,
the very skies stained with their blood at each sunrise, yet we
survive. We true humans are a small people compared to the others,
far smaller in number than even I had ever dreamed, yet we are
still here, and now it again falls to us. We who have suffered so
much have been guided by destiny to this point. Be brave, Raven,
for we will never die.”
And she reached up and kissed him, and he was deeply moved by
it. Hawks had feared that Cloud Dancer would break into tears but
her eyes were dry. Raven’s, however, were not, and Hawks was
suppressing tears himself. He reached out a hand and clasped
Raven’s long and hard, and then the Crow turned without a
word and made his way back to his ship. They watched him go, until
he was but a tiny figure in the vast cargo bay, then they turned
and went back inside.
“Do not weep for him, my husband,” she said at
last. “Few of us ever are placed in such a wonderful position
where we might do something, contribute to something, truly
momentous. He himself has said it. He was born for this,
for the next four hours. When you write the history of all this,
there will not be a Crow among his people who will not claim
lineage to him nor a child among them who will not wish to measure
up to him. It is no time for sadness, but rather rejoicing. When we
first met him as an enemy, he had lost his soul. Now he has found
it again.”
It would still be a near thing, and although Master System might
have left this one hole open for them it was, as Star Eagle had
said, not a conscious hole. If they did it wrong, if they
didn’t pull this off, then the forces being massed by the
great computer would eat them alive.
To emerge on virtually a single punch their speed had to be
exact, their placement mere meters apart and in a perfectly
straight line. Lightning was almost in Espiritu
Luzon’s engines and held fixed by four carefully rigged
tractor beams. Computers aboard Luzon would manage both
ships through a link, keeping engine thrusts absolutely equal and
the hold tight, until the very moment of the punch. At that point,
mere nanoseconds before Luzon would punch out, the link
and the tractors would be severed and Lightning’s
own automatic systems would take over. Captain ben Suda would be
linked but only observe until after the breakaway at punch in. At
that point, it would be his show—and Raven’s.
“Punch in thirty seconds,” Star Eagle reported as
everyone on the Thunder held their breaths. Even the very
air seemed still. “I am picking up odd sounds from
Espiritu Luzon.”
“Put them on,” Hawks ordered.
They came through the speakers, and Hawks smiled and looked at
Cloud Dancer, who returned the smile. Neither could understand the
Crow language, nor could Star Eagle, which was why he was so
puzzled, but the two Hyiakutts knew. “He sings the ancient
songs well,” Hawks commented.
“For a Crow,” she responded. “Just pray he
does not forget where he is and order a launch of
arrows.”
“Punch!” Star Eagle reported. “Perfect! On the
nose!”
There would now be no contact possible with the ships for close
to twenty minutes. It was ironic that they could communicate
through that nether-space from point to point in real time but they
could not talk while between the two regions.
Nobody said or did much during the waiting period. Even the
youngest children seemed to be silent, as if they, too, were
somehow aware that something important was happening. Hawks looked
around at the great inner world of Thunder as if seeing it
for the first time. It had been his world for so long, and it had
been good. The children had known no other. Now, suddenly, it
seemed so empty, and so transitory.
“Punch out!” Star Eagle reported. “Perfect
separation. My own monitors in the asteroid belt easily detected it
but there was no indication of a double punch-in. Lighting
made something of a trace as it broke away but nothing inconsistent
with the usual anomalous readings you might get on a punch. Raven
is still singing, and he has released dozens of drones that are
showing up well in scatter-shot fashion. It is impossible even for
me to pick up Lightning in all that clutter, and I know
it’s there and where it’s going! Uh oh!”
“What is it?” Hawks asked.
“Outer perimeter fighters using short punches. Four of
them closing fast on Luzon. Raven sees them.
Hmmm . . . That is odd. He has stopped
singing.”
“You chant before a battle, not during one,” Hawks
said tensely.
The fighters were in for something of a surprise: Luzon
still looked like only a freighter, but was faster and carried more
armaments than even Lightning after the modifications. The
defensive fighters expected Raven to use short punches and
maneuvered to cover, but he just kept on, picking out the weakest
area of the field and then letting loose a salvo of torpedoes,
turning wide, and bearing right down on two other fighters. The
maneuver was absolutely insane and against all logic.
It confused the hell out of the automated fighters, who turned
and came at him, locking on as best they could. Raven launched
missiles, short punched, then launched more aft. The fighters,
confused, swung around and launched their own right into the region
where the first fighter was trying to pick off the initial torpedo
salvo. There were so many torpedoes in the area from both the three
pursuit ships and Raven, all with smart warheads, that they began
to go after the ships indiscriminately and even each other. The
other fighters, closing, had to veer off to stay out of the mess
and found themselves going for a few precious seconds in exactly
the wrong direction from Raven. In the meantime, two of the three
fighters that initially closed on Luzon were struck
hard—by whose torpedoes it was impossible to tell—and
the other torpedoes, seeing a target, zeroed in on the ones that
were hit.
By remaining inside the full range of the fighters Raven could
not avoid taking a few hits himself, but he and the others were so
close together that the odds were three to one against it being
him that was hit by any given torpedo. He managed to take
his lumps and punch further in, leaving the outer perimeter guards
damaged and in disarray. Man plus machine had beaten machine alone.
Loud shrieks, which everyone but Hawks and Cloud Dancer attributed
to pain and wounds, came back to them from Luzon.
Raven had been right all along, Hawks realized. He was having
more fun than he’d ever had in his whole life.
He noticed that Cloud Dancer sat silently, doing a rough sketch
in charcoal. As time progressed, he saw that it was a drawing of
Raven, in loincloth and full war paint, a ferocious, even maniacal
expression on his face, at the controls of an idealized spaceship.
It wasn’t exactly realistic, but if it became a painting that
hung in the lodges of the Crow some time from now it would be a
definitive classic.
Star Eagle’s calculations were that Raven would be twenty
percent or more disabled by the initial engagement, and very likely
not survive any further inbound engagement against heavier forces.
Over three hours after the initial engagement, however,
Luzon was battered and starting to run low on certain
kinds of ammunition, but was still going, using short punches, and
had almost reached the orbit of Mars.
“The main body is not engaging him,” Star Eagle
reported. “They have guessed it is a feint and are grouping
for a main attack. They are still spread a bit thin, and it appears
that they have deduced that our most logical line of punch-in and
attack will be from behind the main body, possibly under as well.
Raven has also played everything exactly right. He has acted with
total illogic when they expected logical moves and with computer
precision when they allowed for total illogic.”
“What about Lightning?” Hawks asked.
“Inbound, engines down. Good speed and angle. They have
already broadcast the security codes and are angling in to the
fleet. I would expect that they will be slowing to station within
the hour. No sign that they have been detected. I think we got away
with it!”
“Tell Raven to get the hell out of here, then!”
Hawks ordered. “Tell him to punch out no matter where the
hell he winds up and keep punching!”
“He has a possibility of breaking free although he is
badly damaged,” Star Eagle replied. “I have sent the
recall but to no effect. Perhaps his main engines are out and he is
incapable of punching.”
“Main engines out my ass!” Hawks growled.
“What the hell has he got in mind?”
“Hard to say. He is currently in an open area, but his
recent corrections are taking him on a direct heading for Earth.
Hawks—there are Val ships all over there, not to mention
about half the task force. He has already survived nine
engagements. A stone or spear could probably take him out now, yet
he’s heading straight for the main body.”
Hawks sighed and sat down. “Now is he drawn to the very
center of Hell, the lost city of Dis, having run the circles of
Malebolge. Though he be consumed by the flames or frozen by the
cold of demon wings, that idiotic son of a bitch is going to ram
himself right down the devil’s throat.” No one heard.
No one was meant to.
“He’s going on, screaming like a madman!
There’s a huge force now, closing in from all sides!
There’s no way they’re going to let any ship reach
Earth itself!” Star Eagle sounded as if he were going to
short circuit from the tension. “He’s heading right
into the center of them! Loosing everything he’s got left!
He’s hit! Again! Again! He—”
There was a deadly, unnatural quiet.
“He’s gone,” Star Eagle said flatly.
“Punched?” Hawks asked, hoping against hope.
“No. Nothing could have lived amid what they were throwing
at him. He’s just—gone. I have reviewed the sequence.
It appeared that at the last moment he made a slight correction and
just, well, went to his maximum speed straight into a Val
formation. He got two of them.”
Cloud Dancer looked up from
her sketch. “He is home,” she said softly, and went
back to her drawing.