Destroyer of Worlds (23 page)

Was Phssthpok sane even at the beginning of his quest? Thssthfok had his doubts. Regardless, Phssthpok was surely insane when he reached the lost colony—

There to be killed.

Sigmund would not discuss Phssthpok's fate, but a quick death was the obvious answer. Only death could stop Phssthpok from striving to exterminate the humans.
They
were what remained of the lost colony. And they had spread—far—or Thssthfok could not have encountered them here.

Mutants! Abominations! Their stench was unavoidable. Thssthfok's nostrils wrinkled.

He edged his modified multi-scanner a handspan closer to the hatch. Underneath his fingers, the prickling changed subtly. Another spot along the unseen wire where insulation had degraded from friction or age. Another vulnerability.

Sigmund did not know everything.

The launch of Phssthpok's ramscoop had left his legions of childless protectors on Pakhome without a reason to eat—so they found one. And so whole fleets had followed in Phssthpok's wake. Lest Phssthpok failed to survive his trek. Lest inferences about the colony's location had been imprecise, and Phssthpok's chosen course misguided. Lest the reborn colony need succor before it could build an industrial base. The reasons did not matter.

Thssthfok told himself
his
clinging to life was no such delusional rationalization—and wondered if it was true.

On the one hand: a new Pak world in the galactic hinterlands. It would battle other Pak clans to the death. On the other hand: aliens who destroyed whole Pak fleets. Those were the only possibilities. Whichever doom had befallen the Librarian armadas following in Phssthpok's wake,
something
barred the only marginally explored path into the spiral arm.

And so the evacuation from Pakhome in Thssthfok's time had had to chart a different course. Thssthfok cursed Phssthpok, and his hordes of followers, and the Library yet again.

His fingers moved infinitesimally, taking yet another measurement, as he pictured the device that would wirelessly usurp the hatch controls. He did not mean to open the exterior hatch. In its porthole Mala was long gone from view, and even its red-dwarf sun had receded into a mere spark. That was why he studied here, where the humans were least likely to suspect his purpose.

Because within the bulkhead around the hatch into the ship were similar circuits.

 

“
ER'O?” SIGMUND CALLED
. “What do you and your friends think?”

Ol't'ro considered. This Pak must die. Its death was the only prudent choice, and yet the humans hesitated. Er' o's advocacy would not convince them. No Gw'o could—by reason of deficiencies in human nature, not any flaw in the Gw'oth analysis.

Wishful thinking wasn't.

To make humans see reason, Ol't'ro would have to reveal truths kept hidden for this entire voyage.

“Er'o,” Sigmund said again. “Are you there?”

Failure to convince Sigmund carried worse risks than disclosure.

Extending a tubacle, Ol't'ro reconfigured a comm terminal to transmit human-authoritative acoustical properties. “Yes, Sigmund.”

“Who
is
this?” Baedeker asked.

“We are Ol't'ro.” Ol't'ro paused for the humans and Citizen to ponder the pronoun. “We are Er'o and Ng'o and Th'o. We are
all
the Gw'oth aboard, and we are many become one.”

“One of their biological computer groupings,” Eric whispered.

“More than that, I think,” Kirsten whispered back.

Sigmund, in an even softer undertone, wondered, “Why reveal . . . themselves now?”

The human murmuring was scarcely detectable. By correlating these acoustic scraps with months of phonetic templates and syntactical patterns, Ol't'ro recovered the conversation.

“Let us explain,” Ol't'ro said. They remodulated the voice in the manner calculated to be soothing. “Together we form a biological computer. In our language, we are a Gw'otesht. We thought you were aware.”

“Not from anything a Gw'o ever said.” Sigmund's voice was now firm, even loud. Accusing. “I did not anticipate a collective mind.”

For
Sigmund
not to suspect—they had kept their secret well, indeed. Or Sigmund lied. No matter. “Let us explain. Even Gw'oth seldom speak of this capability.” And then, mostly, in condemnation.

Since time immemorial, a few had had the ability to link—and been shunned for it. Ensembles were inherently vulnerable, a tangle of limbs lost in contemplation. Across eons of hunting and gathering, of endless primitive
tribal warfare, to link was a selfish indulgence that endangered the tribe. A corruption of nature . . .

And across the ages, some had succumbed to the addiction of deeper thought.

With the rise of great cities, ensembles became practical. Traditionalists still abhorred them. Society recoiled from them. Governments exploited them. Government biologists found ways to expand, and strengthen, and deepen the couplings.

And awareness happened.

Technology exploded. City-states with the most gifted ensembles raised empires, spread over the ice, even leapt to new worlds. And Gw'otesht, become indispensable to the rulers, became partners rather than servants—

Even as ensembles remained repugnant to all but the most progressive Gw'oth.

That was more than Ol't'ro cared to share. “Those like us are a recent development, Sigmund. Some of our own kind . . . disapprove. We did not know how you would feel.”

“Then why reveal yourself at all? And why now?” Sigmund asked.

“We have a unique perspective.” Ol't'ro chose their next words carefully. “It relates to whether Thssthfok returns to the planet below.”

Baedeker whistled skeptically. “How does secretiveness bestow unique knowledge?”

“Our apologies.” But no explanations. “We claim no special wisdom, Baedeker, only relevant experience. It is from the efforts of ensembles like us that the Gw'oth have recently developed much new technology.”

“Connecticut Yankee!” Kirsten blurted. “Oh, crap.”

For once, Ol't'ro was without a clue. They disliked the feeling.

 

CONNECTICUT YANKEE
?

Sigmund's brief interest in
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court
began with insomnia and ended that same night with the discovery of the eclipse scene. He never went back to the story, never gave Kirsten the recommendation she had requested. Apparently she had proceeded on her own.

He scarcely remembered the 3-V adaptation he had watched so long ago, but one scene had stuck with him: medieval knights slaughtered with Gatling guns. The Yankee had introduced guns and gunpowder, dynamite, electricity. In short order, he had remade society.

“Finagle, yes!” To Baedeker, who looked even more troubled than usual, Sigmund explained, “Thssthfok will push ahead the flying squirrels' technology. How quickly, and how big a threat could he create? I don't know. I don't see how we can know.”

“
We
know,” Ol't'ro boomed in that gravelly, resonant voice. “We know because we accelerated the rate of progress of our home city. That is why, against all our instincts, we now reveal ourselves. Because you
must
believe us.

“With
Don Quixote
's instruments, we have inferred a great deal about the beings that Thssthfok calls the Drar. Technology falls off very quickly with distance from the city where we found him. We have assessed alternative development paths and done the simulations. The results are clear. Within fifty New Terra years, probably fewer, Thssthfok's servants can build him ramscoops.”

Something in that warning rang false. Sigmund's gut told him Ol't'ro was holding back, making a point without telling the whole truth. They, it, whatever pronoun applied, could advance the Drar—and the Gw'oth themselves—even faster.

Gw'oth progress, like the existence of Ol't'ro, could await another day. They should live long enough to worry.

Ol't'ro's warning had set Baedeker to burrowing into his mane, and launched Eric and Kirsten into intense whispers. Sigmund stopped them all with a stern look. Almost, the puzzle pieces had fallen into place. He had to think this through.

Pakhome was sterilized, its history over. Thssthfok surely thought those safe topics, and Sigmund a fool to be distracted by them. But in describing lost lands, and clan rivalries, and vanished institutions like the Library—anything but the weapons and tactics in which Sigmund professed interest, certain Thssthfok would divulge nothing useful about them—the prisoner had conveyed something more precious. Psychological and sociological insight.

Thssthfok had lost his family and any hope of recovering them. Still he ate. Everything Sigmund knew about protectors said that Thssthfok had rededicated his life to serving all Pak. Like Phssthpok in an earlier age, Thssthfok had found his Cause.

Now, thanks to Ol't'ro, Sigmund knew that purpose.

Thssthfok would raise a great host. He would command a rearguard fleet to protect all Pak. He would smash any technological civilization missed by
the Pak fleets, and smite anew any world recovering too quickly in their wake.

Decision time, Sigmund thought. He would not allow Thssthfok to raise a battle fleet.

That left two choices. They could kill Thssthfok—to strand him anywhere but where they found him meant only a slow and lingering death—or they could keep him aboard this ship.

Only there was no
they
. This was Sigmund's mission. His ship. His responsibility.

He would kill to protect New Terra—if killing was necessary. It wasn't.

So: They would return to the planet of the flying squirrels and grab a supply of tree-of-life root. They would head, with Thssthfok, to the Fleet of Worlds.

Sigmund made a final mental note. While on the ground to collect tree-of-life root, one of the crew would paint—from the outside, where Thssthfok could not scratch—the porthole in the cargo-hold hatch. An uncovered view into hyperspace might drive Thssthfok insane.

Sigmund permitted himself a moment of hope. Perhaps the sight of a live Pak protector would awaken—even in the Hindmost—the need for bravery.

 

Thssthfok's first escape attempt failed almost instantly. Hallway sensors spotted him and a sudden jump in gravity turned his limbs too heavy to move. Two armed and armored humans appeared at the end of the hall. Under the sights of their weapons, barely able to wriggle as gravity eased just slightly, Thssthfok surrendered his jury-rigged hatch-lock controller and crept back to his cell.

It had gone much as he had expected.

The brief glimpse of the corridor had been necessary reconnaissance. One quick look had shown Thssthfok the location of hallway sensors and suggested ways that they, like the passive data feeds from his cell, might be accessed, bypassed, or compromised. And he had forced his jailors to reveal how they responded to a breach, and how quickly.

This
escape would be real.

After the first escape, of course, the humans had searched his cell. They found what Thssthfok allowed them to find: a hoard of material scraps and a sacrificial instrument from his repair kit.

Everything important remained hidden. His cache looked like any other surface in any of the empty storage units. The humans had poked and probed randomly, even in obviously empty spaces. By blind luck, they might have found his hiding place. That was a risk he had had to take, and the odds had favored him.

They had not found his cache.

Thssthfok was prone on the deck between rows of empty storage units, where his captors were accustomed to seeing him retreat for sleep. He had not picked this spot randomly—it put him below the line of sight of the cell's sensors. He reached through the small softened area on a bottom shelf. His structural modulator lay hidden between that shelf and the floor.

Ironically, primitive materials had held him when properly designed
material would not.
Twing
was a flawless substance, but human materials were rife with cracks, voids, and impurities. He had had to rebuild the modulator to accommodate so many imperfections.

The ship's hull was a curious exception. To his improvised instruments, the curved wall scanned as defect-free as
twing
—but unlike
twing
, this material resisted softening. A spot of hull absorbed without effect all the power he had dared apply. The ship itself powered his modulator, with power drawn wirelessly from the humans' own magnetically coupled power transmitters. Any higher setting on the modulator risked drawing his captors' attention.

But for the ever-present sounds of air circulating and engines humming, the ship remained quiet. It was time.

Thssthfok modulated a small patch of the deck to transparency. He studied the room below: a table, chairs, an oddly shaped bench, and exercise equipment. No crew. He softened a large area, reached into the room below, grasped the top of an exercise apparatus, and pulled himself through. With a
pop
, surface tension re-formed the ceiling behind him. He climbed onto the table, reached back into his cell, and retrieved the modulator, leaving the cell floor (from his new perspective, the ceiling) permeable. He might have to make a quick retreat.

As he did. He had only bypassed half this deck's sensor feeds—from now on, they would always show empty corridors—when footsteps approached. A three-legged gait!

Thssthfok scrambled onto the table. He reached through the viscous ceiling, gripped a shelf, and, carefully staying beneath the sensors' line of sight, lifted himself into his cell. Resuming a prone position, he pressed an eye against the still-transparent spot on the deck.

Moments later, a two-headed, three-legged
something
cantered into the room that Thssthfok had just vacated.