Authors: Peter F. Hamilton
"I will wait."
Simon had spent the entire voyage in the
Norvelle's
sickbay. After the first fortnight, the two doctors onboard had begun his dermal regeneration treatment. New skin was now growing successfully over the deeper burns. He found the whole process extremely tiring; the new growth seemed to devour energy from the rest of his body. Fortunately the pursuit of the
Koribu
didn't require his attention.
Captain Sebastian Manet had been surprised at the course the hijacked starship had taken. "They're heading for Aldebaran," he'd said as soon as Simon's stretcher was maneuvered through the Xianti's airlock tunnel.
Simon's personal AS scrolled data on the star. "A red giant? Are there any planets there?"
"The astronomers have never found any," Manet said. "However, we don't know for sure. There have never been any missions to Aldebaran. Nobody's pure science budget ever ran to that."
"Interesting. So we could well have an alien civilization living closer to us than we ever knew: right inside our sphere of influence, in fact."
The captain's front of disapproval
faded slightly.
"Is that what all this is about?"
"Yes. Now how long before we can depart?"
"I wanted to talk to you about that."
"There is no discussion over this matter."
"It will take a hundred and four days to reach Aldebaran from here. We will barely have enough fuel to return."
"But we do have the capacity?"
"Just. Assuming nothing goes wrong. There's also the crew to consider. They did not anticipate an extra two hundred days' flight time plus however long we remain in the Aldebaran system itself."
"Rubbish. I know you space-types. They will relish the opportunity of performing first contact."
"Then what about the ground forces on Thallspring? When will we return for them?"
"Captain, you will either give the order to go FTL or tell me you will not."
Sebastian Manet gave the obscured figure on the stretcher a hateful glance. "Very well. We can go FTL in another eight minutes."
They had barely spoken in the hundred days that followed. Simon had spent a lot of the time asleep, as the treatments ate into his reserves of strength. In his waking hours he reviewed every scrap of data they'd acquired on the Arnoon alien, hoping for some insight. Each day he checked the tracking data.
Koribu
remained a resolute twenty-six minutes and thirteen seconds ahead of them. He began to make his own plans for exodus. Manet, along with his crew, could not be trusted with what needed to be done, and they couldn't be allowed to interfere. Simon's personal AS reviewed and confirmed all the command codes, ensuring he retained ultimate authority over the starship.
Ten days before the exodus Simon ordered the doctors to end his treatments. The interval would allow him to build his strength up again.
On the day itself he remained in sickbay; the doctors and medical staff had been dismissed. He lay on the bed, content that the pain had reduced over the last three months. He would have the physical resources to carry this out. His DNI and optronic membrane linked him with every vital sensor outside the starship, their data formatted by his personal AS into a comprehensive wraparound display, putting his perception point at the front of the starship. At the moment it was surrounded by a formless gray haze, with an ebony knot far ahead of them. Indigo ranging data scrolled across it.
Simon kept switching his attention between it and the other knot, the one following them forty minutes behind. He knew the SK9 had somehow got himself up to orbit and into a starship. There was only one reason he'd do that.
"Shouldn't be long now," Captain Manet announced. "We're detecting the photosphere."
Beyond the knot representing the
Koribu,
a faint drizzle of black was creeping through the nothingness, as if space were coming to an end outside the compression wormhole. Then the knot began to waver, expanding as it lost density. It vanished.
"They left that late," Manet said. "Only forty million kilometers out."
"We need to be close to them," Simon said.
"Yes, I know. But I'm going to shift our inclination. If they're really hostile they'll mine the exodus zone."
Simon spent the next twenty-five minutes watching the black barrier of the star's photosphere coming toward them, wondering what Newton and his friends were doing out there in real space. With five minutes to go until their own exodus, Manet armed the
Norvelle's
missiles in preparation. The ship's AS primed the fusion drive under the bridge crew's supervision. Then the black wall was unnervingly close, and beginning to pick up speed. It fractured radially, with red streaks fizzling through. Then the huge starship was sailing high above a glaring carmine smog that seemed to stretch out forever in all directions.
Columns of indigo digits streamed around Simon, mutating wildly as they went. There was no mass point within five hundred kilometers. No sensor radiation fell across them. Infrared energy began to soak the fuselage. The big secondary chemical rocket engines around the cargo section flared brightly, initiating a slow thermal roll. Large rectangular radar antennae began to deploy.
Simon used his command capability to launch a salvo of missiles. Pressure doors throughout the
Norvelle
closed and locked, isolating the crew.
"What are you doing?" Sebastian Manet demanded.
"That's perfectly obvious, Captain. The
Norvelle
is my ship, and I am carrying out my mission." He canceled the link and shut down all internal communications channels.
On the bridge, Sebastian Manet stared on helplessly as his DNI was denied access to the starship's network. The console displays darkened. Two of the bridge officers hammered on the pressure door with their fists. Nobody heard them.
"Sweet Fate, they've fired their missiles," Lawrence said.
"Not at us," Denise assured him.
"What then? Oh!"
"Scatter pattern. I think they're going to try to strike the other ship at exodus."
Lawrence opened the link to One. "Will you now accept that your knowledge shouldn't be given to this starship?"
"The starship's actions support your contention so far. Our knowledge will be withheld pending resolution of this event."
"Thank you." He turned to Denise. "Can we intercept those missiles?"
"No. We're too far away."
"Shit. Get Prime to scan for the exodus. Use our main communication dish to broadcast a warning."
Indigo targeting graphics locked on to a section of space eighteen thousand kilometers away as the
Norvelle's
radar detected an object under acceleration. Simon's visual focus leaped across the distance. A long, incandescent spark burned hard above the mellow radiance of the photosphere. It was moving fast, descending.
"Fusion flame," the starship's AS reported. "Spectral pattern identical to our own. Radar substantiates vehicle size. It is the
Koribu."
"Where are they going?" Simon asked.
Several plot lines curved out of the dazzling plume. The
Norvelle's
long-range radar began to sweep along them. It swiftly found the destination.
"A solid structure, type unknown," the AS said. "Twenty kilometers across, circular, very regular."
"Take us down to it," Simon ordered.
On the
Clichane's
bridge, Simon Roderick sat behind the captain as they approached exodus. Console panes counted down the last few seconds. Camera images turned a garish carmine. A small cheer went round the bridge officers. Simon's DNI relayed the radar data directly to him. No large, solid objects within five hundred kilometers. Several small points registered. Extraneous radar pulses were illuminating their fuselage. The AS confirmed their signature as the long-range type carried by both the
Koribu
and the
Norvelle.
It began plotting their locations.
"Receiving communications," the captain said. "Somebody's shouting." The AS showed a very powerful transmission beamed straight at them.
"Your exodus point is mined. Launch defense salvo."
"Is that the
Norvelle?"
Simon asked.
"There is no identification code," the AS told him.
Simon's personal AS checked the radar image again. The small points were now moving under heavy acceleration, tearing straight toward them.
Clichane's
AS immediately fired a countersalvo. The missiles slid out of their launch cradles around the cargo section. Solid rocket motors ignited, accelerating them at over sixty gravities. Sensors were degraded by the ion wind and radiation rising from the photosphere. The missiles' onboard programs tried to compensate. But the attacking missiles were also using countermeasures and em pulses. The defenders responded with their own volley of electronic treachery.
The
Clichane's
AS acknowledged that the defense salvo wouldn't be able to achieve precision elimination strikes. Attacking missiles would breach the defenses. It ordered separation, and the swarm blossomed as each missile discharged its multiple warheads. They were still inside safe-distance limit, but the attacking missiles were closing. The AS had no choice.
A huge corona of nuclear fire erupted around the
Clichane
as the barrage of defending warheads detonated. The spherical plasma shock waves clashed and merged, forming a hellish shield of seething raw energy. Secondary explosions ripped long ebony twisters through the rampaging ions, short-lived hypervelocity spikes that tried to assail the star-ship.
At the center of the fusion inferno the
Clichane
was buffeted by radiation. Its external sensors were blinded as hard X-rays burned up their circuitry. Em pulses induced huge power surges along electrical cables and metal structures. Temperature escalated, blackening the thermal protection foam before the surface began to ablate, shedding scabby charcoal flakes. The residual foam bubbled like molten tar. A hurricane of elementary particles washed across the besieged fuselage. In the bridge and throughout the life support wheels radiation monitors began a shrill whistle of alarm. Emergency pressure valves began venting deuterium gas from tanks around the fusion drive section as the liquid started to boil from the electromagnetic energy input. Thermal radiator panels ruptured, jetting their sticky, steaming fluid into the hurricane of neutrons swirling round the giant starship.
Simon clung to one of the consoles as the bridge shook. Loud, harsh, metallic creaking sounds reverberated through the life support wheel structure as the lights flickered. The radiation alarm kept up its insistent whistle. Schematics had turned completely red. The AS was battling to compensate for massive systems failure, rerouting power and data, isolating leaking tanks and fractured pipes. Backup thermal reservoirs were used to absorb the heat seeping through the fuselage structure. Over half of the secondary rockets were disabled. The AS fired the remaining engines in short bursts, attempting to counter the twisting impulses from the larger vents.
The whistle alarm slowly faded. One of the officers was throwing up. Simon had to force himself to let go of the console. His heartbeat was racing badly.
"We weren't hit," the captain said incredulously.
"How do you know?" Simon asked. There was no external sensor data available at all.
"We're still alive."
The officers had begun talking urgently to the AS; fingers skidded over the console keyboards as they tried to pull useful information from the degraded network. Reserve sensors deployed from their sheaths. The AS located the two radar sources again. They were both under acceleration.
"How long before we can get after them?" Simon asked.
"I should have an answer for you in about a week," the captain said.
* * *
The
Koribu's
telescope immediately blanked out as the nuclear warheads exploded around the
Clichane.
Filter programs compensated as the fury slowly diminished. They saw the starship wreathed in coiling gas plumes. They were alive with scintillations from the radiation blitz, entombing the giant ship in a nebula of shooting stars. Venting had imparted a slow tumble. Lawrence didn't like to think how much liquid would have to be evacuated to move something so massive. Then they saw a flare of rocket motors around the cargo section as the AS attempted to stabilize their attitude.
Lawrence realized he'd been holding his breath for a long time. "They're alive, then," he said.
"Unless the
Norvelle
fires at them again," Denise said. "With the state they're in, I doubt they'll be able to defend themselves."
"Can you defend yourself against that kind of attack?" Lawrence asked One.
"No," One replied. "There is no reason for us to be armed. We have nothing other than knowledge. And that we give..."
"Yeah, you live to share," Lawrence said. "What happens when other species do threaten you?"
"We incorporate the knowledge of the threat"
"That's it?" Denise asked. "That's all you do, remember being destroyed?"