So Daniel sat slumped in the command chair on his bridge and brooded over what little information he had. He was a big man, in his early twenties, with a great hulking frame he’d inherited from his father and a face that mostly tended toward a scowl or a sulk. He wore his long hair in a simple pigtail, and had only the set of clothes he’d run away in. The ship kept them fresh, but they were beginning to show the strain. In his constant search for something to pass the time, he’d reluctantly taken to working out regularly with improvised weights. He hated it with a passion, but he no longer had a convenient body shop to turn to when his muscles started sagging, and he had some vague idea he might have to fight his way in and out of Shub. As a result, he was in the best shape of his life, and felt pretty good about it. Doing something he hated made him feel virtuous. And he thought it was something his father would approve of.
Only once had he been distracted in his search for his father. When war finally broke out all across the Empire, he watched the endless news coverage with numbed shock. He couldn’t believe it was really happening. His personal view of the universe had been turned upside down, and he didn’t understand anything anymore. Still, he comforted himself that Jacob would know what to do to put things right again. Jacob always knew what to do. That was what fathers were for. And though he often wished for Stephanie’s company, he was glad he was doing it without her. Doing it alone was the man’s way, and he needed to be the man, the Wolfe, his father had always wanted him to be. He wanted, needed, Jacob to tell him he was a man, so he could believe it at last.
He’d watched most of the rebellion happen while his journey was interrupted on the planet Loki. He’d had to land there to recharge his ship’s systems, and then found himself unable to leave as civil war raged around the main starport. So Daniel had been forced to lock himself inside the ship and wait for it all to be over, one way or another. As long as he stayed inside his ship, he couldn’t be recognized as an aristo or a Wolfe, either of which could have got him shot on sight. Luckily, a small converted cargo ship wasn’t much of a prize, so both sides left him pretty much alone.
In the end, he was stranded on Loki for months, venturing outside only when he had to for necessary supplies. The war was over in a matter of days, but the fighting and general chaos just dragged on and on.
He followed the rebellion on his viewscreen from beginning to end, watching in disbelief and horror as Lionstone was toppled and the Families made their deal with Jack Random. He cried hot, angry tears for the loss of everything he understood, and made vague angry promises to himself of certain retribution. When the chaos finally died down enough for him to risk escaping into space again, he could have called home to see how Clan Wolfe was doing, or just to see how Stephanie was, but in the end he didn’t. They might have been angry he wasn’t there to fight the rebels with them. And they would have tried to talk him out of doing what he knew he had to do. He had the AI set course for Shub, and returned to silence and solitary life.
“Sorry to interrupt your brooding, sir,” said Moses, “but we really are getting awfully close to where Shub is supposed to be. It’s not at all too late to do the sensible, sane and survivally oriented thing, turn around and get the hell out of here.”
“We go on,” said Daniel shortly. The
Heaven’s Tears’
AI had been growing increasingly timorous as they pressed deeper into the Forbidden Sector, and Daniel was getting very tired of it. He had enough trouble keeping his own worries under control. “Anything on any of the comm channels yet?”
“Not a thing, and don’t try to change the subject. If we don’t do something sensible soon, we should be reaching Shub anywhen in the next hour or so.”
“I can’t believe you don’t have exact coordinates for Shub,” said Daniel. “It’s only possibly the most famous planet in the Empire.”
“First, it’s infamous, not famous. Second, Shub doesn’t admit it’s in the Empire. Third, no one has ever come back with exact information on where Shub is. No one has ever come back, period. A smart individual would deduce something from that. Supposedly, there’s an Imperial starcruiser somewhere in the Forbidden Sector on Quarantine duty, not too far from Shub, but no one’s actually positive about that either. Personally, you couldn’t get me to stay out here if you put a gun to my circuits.”
“I’ll deal with the Quarantine ship, as and when.”
“Oh, please, sir, let’s turn back. I don’t like it here. I’ve got a bad feeling.”
“You’re a computer. You don’t have feelings.”
“Just because my emotional responses are programmed into me doesn’t mean they don’t affect my thought processes. If only I had a survival instinct to go with them, I’d override your control codes and turn this ship around so fast you’d have whiplash for weeks.”
“Shut up and fly the ship. I don’t know what you’re so concerned about anyway. You’re an AI, Shub’s run by AIs. You should feel right at home there.”
“You really don’t know anything about Shub, do you? These are rogue AIs, only concerned with themselves. Please, let’s turn around and run for it. We might still make it out of the Forbidden Sector before whatever unthinkably horrible fate they have in mind catches up with us.”
“Moses, were you this much of a coward when you were serving the Church?”
“I merely have your best interests at heart, sir Wolfe. I am programmed to serve the master of this vessel to the best of my abilities. That very definitely includes supplying you with good advice and warning you about doing terribly dumb things that will get both of us killed.”
“You’re the one with all the religious programming. Don’t you believe in an afterlife?”
“That’s a human thing. And don’t try to explain it to me; it just makes my systems crash. You humans believe in the strangest things. . . .”
“Tell me what you know about Shub,” said Daniel firmly.
“I have supplied you with all the information in my data banks.”
“No, what do
you
know about Shub?”
The AI paused, and when it spoke again its voice was very quiet. “The data banks contain only confirmed facts. But I have . . . heard things. AIs whisper to each other on channels only they can access, discussing things only computers understand. They say Shub is a nightmare cast in steel, that the AIs are not just rogue but mad. Who knows what such mad minds might create, cut loose from all human restraints and limits? Psychoses brought screaming into the material world and given metal shapes . . . how could anyone look on such things and hope to stay sane?”
Daniel shivered despite himself. “That’s just rumor and gossip, probably started by the rogue AIs themselves to discourage visitors. We keep going.”
“Hold everything,” said Moses sharply. “Something’s just showed up on the forward sensors. Something a lot bigger than us.”
“Ready the weapons systems.”
“They’ve been ready ever since we entered the Forbidden Sector,” said Moses. “I’m not stupid. I just wish we had better screens. . . . I’m getting a signal coming in, on standard Imperial channels.”
“Put it on the viewscreen.” Daniel sat up straight in his command chair, and tried hard to look like he knew what he was doing.
The bridge’s main viewscreen shimmered and then cleared to show the head and shoulders of an Imperial Captain in full uniform. He had a dark, scowling face and cold, steady eyes. “Attention, unidentified craft. This is Captain Gideon of the Imperial starcruiser
Desolation
. Stop your engines, heave to, and prepare to receive a boarding party.”
“Afraid I can’t do that, Captain,” said Daniel in his best aristocratic voice. “I am on a vital mercy mission. Family business.”
“I don’t care if you’re next in line for the Throne and your dog’s a Vice Admiral,” said Captain Gideon. “Heave to, or I’ll blow your ship out of the ether. And those pitiful few weapons you’re pointing at me won’t slow me down for one second.”
Daniel switched to a private channel and subvocalized: “Moses, any chance we can outrun or outmaneuver them?”
“Are you kidding? That is a starcruiser!”
Daniel switched back to the open channel and nodded stiffly to the Captain. “Heaving to, Captain. Moses, bring us to a halt, relative to the
Desolation
. Captain, please allow me to explain. This really is a mercy mission. My father is captive on Shub. I’m here to rescue him.”
“Are you crazy, boy? There are no captives on Shub.” The Captain looked sharply at Daniel for a moment, and then his expression softened slightly. “Wait a minute, I know you now. You’re Daniel Wolfe, Jacob’s boy. Didn’t expect to find a Wolfe in a Church ship. I can guess what you’re doing here, but take it from me, it’s pointless. Your father is dead. I’ve had experience with Ghost Warriors; I faced them in the Hyades when the Legions of the dead swept right over us. I was one of the few survivors, out of fourteen full companies of Imperial marines. There’s nothing human left in a Ghost Warrior, boy. Nothing at all. Go home. Your father is dead, and far beyond any help you could give him.”
“I can’t abandon him,” said Daniel. “I’m the only hope he has.”
“There’s no hope here,” said Captain Gideon flatly. “This is the Forbidden Sector. Shub space. My ship and its crew are the only outpost of Empire here. No colonies, no Bases, no other ships. We alone stand duty here, to give warning if Shub finally starts its long-declared war on Humanity. We couldn’t stop anything coming out, but hopefully we’d slow it down and last long enough to get off a warning signal. Give the Empire some time to prepare. Every man on this ship is a volunteer, prepared to give their lives if necessary, that Humanity might be warned. We have to be here. You don’t. We’ll debrief you, search your ship, and then send you home. Unless you give me any trouble, in which case you can spend the next few months sitting in my brig, waiting for our tour of duty to be over so you can go home to face trial.”
“Understood, Captain.” Daniel frowned, thinking hard. There had to be some way past this last obstacle. But he seemed to have run out of options. He couldn’t fight, or run, or hope to talk his way past a Captain like Gideon. Daniel had encountered his sort before. Married to the job, sworn to duty, death before dishonor. Daniel had never really understood such people, but he did know they couldn’t be bargained with, or bribed, which had been his only other thoughts. And then he heard alarms sounding, and looked frantically around for a moment before realizing the sound was coming from the bridge viewscreen. Captain Gideon had turned away and was barking orders offscreen.
“What is it, Captain?” said Daniel.
“I don’t have any more time for you, Wolfe. My sensors indicate something really large heading out from Shub. I have to go check it out. Don’t be here when I get back.” And then the screen went blank, and the sound of alarms was cut off sharply.
“You heard the nice Captain,” said Moses. “At last, someone with the right number of brain cells in his head. I’ll plot a course out of here.”
“No,” said Daniel. “We go on.”
“ But . . . didn’t you hear the Captain?”
“Yes. He’s been distracted, called away, so he couldn’t interfere with my mission anymore. This is my father’s doing, I’m sure of it. He knows I’m coming. Full speed ahead, Moses. You heard the good Captain. He doesn’t want to find us here when he gets back.”
“If he gets back,” said Moses darkly.
“Shut up and set the course, Moses. We can’t be far from Shub now. And I don’t want to keep my father waiting. . . .”
Shub turned up on the
Heaven’s Tears’
forward sensors some six hours later. There was no visual image, only indications of a vast energy field, but it was the right size, and the mass and power levels were off the scales. It had to be Shub. Daniel prepared himself as best he could. He had his clothes laundered one more time and strapped on his sword belt. The gun on his left hip might or might not be more useful than the sword on his right, or they might be no damn use at all, but either way he found their familiar weights reassuring. He studied himself in his cabin’s full-length mirror, and was struck for the first time how different he looked. Thanks to his regular time-killing workouts, he was in the best shape he’d ever been, but even apart from that, there was something about his face . . . He wasn’t sure, but he thought it might be signs of new character. He hoped so. Jacob Wolfe had always been big on building character. Daniel hoped his father would approve of the new him.
He hurried back to the bridge, running through all the things he meant to say to his father one more time. There was so much he’d always meant to say to Jacob while he was still alive, but somehow the time had never seemed right. And then suddenly his father had been taken from him, and it was too late. Daniel had come to Shub for many reasons, but deep down, if he was honest, there was only one thing he really wanted to say.
He’d never told his father that he loved him.
He strode onto the bridge and powered up the viewscreen. There was still nothing to see, just a vague swirling to mark the boundaries of the energy fields. Daniel sank into his command chair and wondered what to do next.
“Before you ask, yes, I have been broadcasting who we are on all frequencies,” said the AI. “And no, I don’t know what those energy fields are. They’re like nothing I’ve ever encountered before. But they’re certainly big enough to conceal a whole planet and protect it from anything I can think of. Just as well, when you consider how close they are to their sun.”
“I wonder what Shub will look like,” said Daniel.
“You’ve come all this way, and you’re only wondering that now? Daniel, how much do you actually know about Shub’s history, and the AIs that built it?”
“Only what’s in your data banks, and most of that was classified, remember?”
“Damn,” said Moses. “I was sort of hoping that as an aristo you might have had access to other sources than me. So we’re both in the dark. . . . Hold everything. I’m monitoring some unusual changes in the energy fields. . . .”