Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) (84 page)

‘Can’t ask more,’ Shion observed. ‘So – evidence for
T
, the area which Marfik considers to be within their territorial right to invade and dominate, yes?’

She put up another star chart, indicating all known incidents of Marfikian aggression. In this case, though, there was no great sprawling blob of ‘Marfikian controlled territory’ fading out into the unknown.
This
map was centred on Marfik itself, with a sharply defined 3D shape around it. Alex noted that it was a twenty-sided regular polygon – twenty equilateral triangle faces meeting at twelve vertices. Some flicker of memory from infancy supplied the word icosahedron. Two vertices of the polygon touched League space, one at Cherque, the other at Lundane.

‘But…’ Alex protested immediately.

‘Yes – I’ve put the League outside their territory,’ Shion said. ‘Because I do think that you’ve got this backwards, Alex – sorry, but in
my
view, it isn’t the League fending off the rabidly aggressive Marfikians, because I honestly do not believe that they have any intention of invading the League, or any interest in doing so.’

‘Shion!’ As he took in the implications of that, he gave her a look that was deeply, genuinely shocked. ‘You can’t mean – that’s
outrageous!’

‘Yes, I know. Sorry. It’s challenging – offensive, even – to your view and understanding of your place in the cosmos. But just
try
for a moment to consider the theoretical possibility that the Marfikians are
not
regarding the League as some mighty force they want to conquer and are only held back from attacking by how well armed and determined you are, try just to see the possibility that as far as they’re concerned you’re over their border, of no interest to them so long as you
stay
over the border.
Their
border. And I do have to say, Alex, you talk about the League pulling your forces back in order to defend your own worlds, your own borders, but looking at the evidence it seems quite clear to me that it was the
Marfikians
who decided where that border was going to be, not you. They chased you off.’

Alex took a breath.

‘I don’t think you can realise,’ he said, ‘just how insulting that
is
. What you’re saying is that they don’t see us as a threat, that they already think they’ve got us beat.’

‘Humiliating, yes, believing you’re the big tough guys standing up to them, when actually, they have nothing but contempt for you, aren’t even interested.’ Her tone was sympathetic. ‘But I do believe that’s what the score is.’

‘No.’ Alex said, and his manner became resolute. ‘
No
. If that was the case, what about Cherque? Why do they test our defences there, and keep matching our technological advances?’

‘They’re not testing your defences,’ Shion said. ‘They’re like…’ she reached over and poked him on the shoulder with a sharp little flick of her finger. ‘
Oi
,’ she said. ‘Stay on your side of the line.’

‘Shion!’ He felt quite breathless, and was lost for words.

‘As for matching your tech, of
course
they do, as far as they’re concerned,
you’re
the aggressors,’ Shion said. ‘As far as they’re concerned, this
is
their space, and historically at least, I suspect they may be right.’

She saw him actually stop breathing at that, for a moment, at the sheer enormity of Shion,
Shion
, one of his own officers, saying something which was so insulting, actually
treasonous
.

‘There are fundamental issues, here,’ she said, ‘about concepts of territorial rights. You have a tremendously strong territorial ideology, your people. You have established a purely arbitrary bubble which you claim as League territory, even though there are hundreds of thousands of systems within that area which you haven’t even visited yet. If another species set up a colony within what you claim as your borders, you’d consider you have every right to object, yes? Even if it was out on some slimeworld in a sector you hadn’t even explored yet.’

‘Well, yes – but you’re not telling me that Marfik has any kind of legitimate claim over all this space! Other worlds!’

‘Well, you know, other people
do
have different ideas about what constitutes ‘their’ space,’ Shion said, apologetically. ‘We do, ourselves – I know you regard legitimate system sovereignty as being bounded by the natural geography of comet clouds, but our own defended zone at Pirrell starts more than four light years out from that point. Generally speaking, rough rule of thumb, defended space is proportional to sociability – open, friendly cultures might not have any defended space, as such, at
all
, open house, all welcome, come and go as you please. The more insular a culture is the more likely they are to feel the need to establish a control-zone around them, and the Marefek are known to have been ultimate control-freaks even pre-plague.’ She looked at him earnestly.

‘I do, honestly, consider it entirely feasible that this entire sector was once theirs, with other species giving them their space, no pun intended, respecting that that was what ‘personal space’ clear-zone the Marefek needed around them to feel comfortable. Only then, see, there
was
the plague, Marek pulled in
tight
, shut down their borders, locked and barred. I believe – all right,
hypothesise –
that at that point this whole sector would have been protected by a shield, like our veil. We know – or at least, consider it overwhelmingly probable – that there is an ancient beacon within the Novamas system, after all, which retains enough power to give ships a buzz when they’re on close perihelion with the planet.’

Alex nodded. He had worked that out himself, in attempting to get to grips with the long-held belief amongst spacers that Novamas was a jinxed, haunted and unlucky world.

‘Just suppose, hypothetically,’ Shion said, ‘that we on Pirrell were aware from observing our own beacon that its range decreases over time – say, we’d calculated that in about another four and a half thousand years, it would have shrunk so much that ships could reach our planet.’

Alex stared at her, but managed not to react, even though he knew, just
knew
, that what she was telling him there was no ‘suppose’, but the truth. She had already told him, in absolute secrecy, that her people had no control over the Veil technology, but believed that whatever created it was located within and powered by their star.

‘I consider it quite feasible,’ Shion said, ‘that the Marfikians would have cranked
their
beacon up to maximum range, full power. They may have been running it at hundreds of times greater range and force than ours, and that being the case, it wore out a lot sooner. I’m basing that on the principle that your people call the Law of Tech Entropy. It
is
the case that any technology, regardless of how advanced it is, has a finite capacity both in terms of performance and longevity; nothing lasts for ever. It is also true that,
as
a general principle, the harder you work tech, the quicker it wears out.

‘So imagine the Marefek, they’ve sealed their borders, pulled everything back to the homeworld, and they’ve got their beacon cranked up to maximum, telling people to keep away. But, you know, there were the Olaret, looking for places to seed their nesting colonies, and other people, too; there were a lot of life-boat colonies and various quarantine and research facilities, all sorts going on, and planets which were either already suitable for colonisation or could be terraformed very quickly would have been in high demand. I think people moved in here, possibly even without the Marefek knowing about it. And, over time, they lost their knowledge of advanced technology, forgot even how to make superlight ships, they were so focused on the biotech. My guess is that by the time the Excorps ship approached their system the beacon was no longer working, might not have been for thousands of years, with the Marefek having forgotten, even, that there
was
intelligent life beyond their own world.

‘It must have come as the most appalling shock to them when the Excorps ship arrived and they realised that worlds even within what they thought of as their space had been colonised by survival species;
humans
. From your perspective, they surged out and conquered, tyrannised over those worlds, and the only thing that holds them back from doing the same to
your
worlds is your strength, standing against them. I believe that from their perspective it is far more like a police action, regaining control of what they believe to
be
their legitimate territory, with no imperative, or interest, in extending beyond that.’

She drew his attention to the location of Pirrell on her version of the star map. It was close to one of the faces of the icosahedron – had it been a sphere, in fact, Pirrell would have been within its circumference.

‘Just note, please…’ she asked him, ‘that in
this
model, Pirrell is not within Marfikian space. We never were. We were – are – their neighbours. The border-between is, like, ninety nine point eight percent on the Marfikian side, but that isn’t something we’d see as an issue, there is a gap between the outer limit of their control zone, their comfort zone, and ours, and as long as there
is
a gap, however small, there is no conflict of borders. Which brings us…’ she zoomed the chart around, again, ‘to Lundane and Cherque. These are touch-points – actually, I believe, the points which
define
the territory, as the distance between them is key to the icosahedron.’

She showed him what she meant with a simple diagram, starting with a chart, measuring the distance between Lundane and Cherque, fixing them as vertices and then using that line to construct an icosahedron with Marfik at its centre.

‘But look really closely, Alex…’ She zoomed in again, showing that the points of the vertices actually converged a short distance from both Cherque and Lundane. ‘I don’t know exactly how close it gets,’ she said, ‘I’m guessing it is
very
close, maybe even right up to the edge of the comet cloud. But I do believe that both Cherque and Lundane are perceived as being on the outside of the defended zone. Just ask yourself, Alex, what
is
going on with Lundane? It is right on the edge of their border. It is a world which actively engages in contact with the League, but they leave it alone. Why?’

‘It’s believed that Lundane has nothing that they want,’ Alex said, ‘that there may be some advantage to them in allowing Lundane to maintain contact with us, or perhaps that they just haven’t noticed it yet.’

‘Come on, Alex, that’s weak,’ Shion said. ‘For one, the Marfikians don’t want anything from any other worlds anyway. They take
nothing
from any of these worlds for themselves, they build their own ships and no resources, raw materials or manufactured goods are taken to Marfik,
ever
. They never leave their ships, when they are in orbit, they certainly don’t take anything aboard, and no other ships are allowed anywhere near their homeworld-space. They compel worlds to supply one
another
with resources, sure, but there is no benefit to the Marfikians themselves in that. No, I really don’t think there is,’ she held up her hands as he looked even more dubious.

‘I’ll just ask,’ she said, ‘
Why
do the Marfikians allow Prisos to build ships? They don’t just allow it, they
enable
it. Prisos is dependent on other worlds supplying them with raw materials for their ship building
and
domestic industries. It is the Marfikians who organise that, telling other worlds what to send, where, and when. And to what advantage? Enabling Prisos, one of the most rambunctious worlds in their zone, to build ships and develop weapons which they
know
will be used against them. Prisos is, in fact, like Chartsey, entirely dependent on other worlds not just for industrial materials but for
food
. They were already heading that way at the point of first contact, yes?’

Alex nodded. Prisos had been forced into developing system space travel, exploring, mining and exploiting other worlds and moons within their system because they had exhausted their own planet’s resources and population growth was outstripping their ability to grow enough food. Things had only got worse, since then, as they had exhausted all the rarest resources throughout the system and could not even create a tenth of the food that their population needed.

‘If the Marfikians wanted to destroy Prisos all they’d have to do would be to blockade the port. Prisos would be running out of food within five months,’ Shion observed. ‘There would be an apocalyptic famine, global starvation and disintegration of infrastructure, a tiny number of survivors descending into Dark Age subsistence. The Marfikians could have done that at any time, but no, they
feed
them, ordering other worlds to supply them with the nutrient and raw materials they need. I believe this to be an ethical decision – the Marefek, remember, are known to have aided other worlds, despite their insular culture and considering even other advanced species to be dirty and their garden worlds disgusting. If another world needed their help, they gave it, not with any great degree of warmth or generosity, perhaps, but on the ethical position that they had a duty to do it. They regard these worlds as within their space and I do think that makes the Marfikians feel not only that they have the right to control them but responsibility to do so, too. If you accept that as a bedrock principle, that makes
total
sense of why they manage things the way they do.’

‘
Manage
things?’ Alex couldn’t keep the cry of protest from his voice. ‘With
missiles fired at cities?’

‘Yes, I know,’ Shion held up her hands. ‘I’m
not
defending what they’ve done, I’m just trying to get you to understand
what
they are doing and
why
they are doing it. Can we agree, at least, to consider this as a hypothetical? Taking it, for now, as accepted that the Marfikians, for whatever reason, believe themselves to have sovereign rights over this territory, okay?’ She saw that he was listening, however unwillingly, and continued.