Guardian of Night (24 page)

Leher nodded weakly. “Now we’re only suspended over a total abyss.”

Coalbridge looked out a window. Earth was a sphere that he could cover with his thumb. They were traveling laterally with it now, so it would grow no smaller on their trip to the space station.

He pointed down. “Still gets to me to be up here, see it there, so far away.”

Leher risked a glance out. “Gets to me, too.”

The puck continued traveling in a straight line for another half hour and slammed home into the Walt Whitman’s
catch bay, an enormous apparatus of high-tension wire and buckeyball carbon that did indeed resemble a goalie’s mitt
.

Walt Whitman was the transfer station from the Skyhook and housed the enormous supply depot for materials shipped up from Earth. This was the place Extry craft came to be made ready and fitted out.

This was where Coalbridge’s new command, his craft, the
Joshua Humphreys,
awaited, and Coalbridge tried to catch a glimpse of her as they came in. She’d been out for a thruster test the day before, he’d heard. But today she was firmly ensconced in a launch bay, and he could not see her.

Or, rather, he could only see her in his mind’s eye, where she’d been the three weeks since he’d learned that she was to be his to command.

An Extry frigate. Not a patrol craft, not a surveyor. A craft fitted for war and no other purpose. Decked out in a fully supported, official servant system which was a direct copy of the last iteration of DAFNE Coalbridge had served with. The
Humphreys
was waiting for him. He was her captain.

Coalbridge glanced over at his green-faced companion. Leher was hunched head-down, frantically scribbling out a postcard.

My
own
secret, God help us,
Coalbridge thought.
Well, you make do with what the universe sends your way, I suppose.

Leher glanced up, tugged three times at his beard, then went back to writing.

FOURTEEN

10 January 2076

Vicinity of Sirius

Guardian of Night

Ricimer stood as Lieutenant Commander Hadria Talid entered his captain’s stateroom and joined the gathered officers for the evening mess. The craft cabins were confined, even on such a vessel as the
Guardian of Night,
and it was customary when someone entered for both parties to move around a bit to clear the air for conversation. No matter how absorptive the walls, there were always stray words hanging about in such close quarters, and it was important for a captain to say what he meant.

The chairs of the dining area were arranged in a square, with Ricimer taking up one entire side—at the head of the table, as it were, although there was no table—and two or three of his officers seated in feeding chairs on the other three sides of the square’s perimeter. Between them all on the floor of the cabin was square-shaped trough, like a small wading pool, whose inside was filled with a gellike feeding solution that would have smelled musty and woodsy to a human. All of the officers dipped their legs up to the ankle joints into the trough and absorbed sustenance through the gills on the bottom of their feet.

These officers were the product of many
molts
of selection. He must have officers to help him carry out his plans, but he could not afford to make one mistake in his choice. It had been harrowing. He’d spent hours poring over files, asking innocuous questions, trying to arrive at an officer’s true disposition. But it had all been worth it.

The proof was before him. No one had turned him in. Here they all were, in this up to their necks. Even if one were a plant, he or she must know that to turn back now would mean his or her death. Things had gone too far.

Yet they were frightened. Which was good—it was a display of intelligence to be frightened in such circumstances. He must use the fear, however, and not let it overcome them. This had always been his task as captain, and was now as much as ever.

“The refugees selected as rate replacements are coming along all right, but our other guests are growing restless in the cargo hold,” Talid informed him after the first “course” of appetizer fluid sloshed out over their feet. “They’ve requested a corridor pass to obtain exercise and an exhaust fan to clear the air in the hold once a day.”

Ricimer sat back and ran a palm along his cheek—a sign of Guardian contemplation as it was with humans. “I believe that should be possible,” he answered. “But remember it is taking all of Lamella’s ability to train our new rates at an accelerated speed. If the others leave the hold, they’ll inevitably cause distractions for our new crew. This must be done in a limited and orderly fashion.”

“I told their spokesperson as much, but he insisted I take the matter you, sir.”

“You did rightly, of course,” Ricimer said. “But let’s forget craft business for a while, Hadria, and enjoy our meal.”

“I’ll try, Captain.”

“I was sure these Mutualists would become a problem, and so they have,” said Maram Cadj, Ricimer’s communications director. Cadj was an ensign who ought to have long ago been promoted to lieutenant. But he’d once drawn a crude graffiti image of an Administration Depletion collector on a Shiro bulkhead. When he was four cycles old. This had been a blot on his record ever since, and had been the reason for his lack of advancement. “They have become a major body ache for all of us. Was this rendezvous and transfer really necessary, Captain?”

Ricimer turned to the communications officer sharply but held in his irritation. Had he just not asked to change the subject? But Cadj was dogged, a quality that he brought to his work, as well. You could not punish a person for being true to his or her own nature.

“It was,” Ricimer said. “Unless you would have had me massacre our former crew.” Ricimer smiled, stroked his cheek. “And it could be we are doing the right thing, maybe.”

Several of the other officers nodded, but not all. He hoped at least his utilitarian argument had convinced them. But it didn’t ultimately matter. What was done was done. The Mutualists were aboard.

“We are headed to a new home, friends, and a new fight,” Ricimer said. “It is a great experiment we are trying. You should all feel proud to be such pioneers.”

This time agreeing nods from all. A moment of silence. Then Contor, Ricimer’s N-based weapons officer, sloshed his feet about, sighed, spoke. “I will have a computer with a firewall,” he said. “I will be able to look out through it, but no one else can look in or override what I am doing. Can you imagine? For many, many
tagatos
, I will play
Storm-sword Saga
unmolested.”

“Play it until you are so sick of it all you want to do is fill your nostrils with clouds of straight ammonia.”

“Who knows, friend, I may play it forever. I have a female Kama Hunter.”

“You’ll pretend to be human?”

“Not at all. The Kama are an alien race, having arrived in Urlot, the world in which the game takes place, in a crashed spacecraft. I have looked into the computational substrate. It’s said the humans have such sophisticated quantum computers on Earth that a person can live in virtual reality forever. Perhaps my hunter will come to life and fall in love with me.”

“Or eat you alive.”

“I would be satisfied either way,” Contor said. “I have given her very large hands.”

A couple of female officers guffawed at this, filling the cabin with the strawberry piquancy of female laughter.

“And I will have an animal companion,” Contor continued, then broke off in contemplation of his happy virtual future.

“I will live as I always have,” Talid said after a moment. “But I will think as I choose. In fact, my new life has already started here with all of you now. To be able to speak my mind. To say that I think the Administration is fucked. Fucked!”

Talid stood up in the nutrient pool, a minor faux pas, but no one noticed. They were transfixed. They’d never seen the first officer express herself in such a way before.

And she is speaking thoughts they have all barely dared to think,
Ricimer thought.

“You ask why we must put up with this cargo, Contor? I’ll tell you. I, myself, am a Mutualist. I have spent all the cycles of my life hiding this fact. These people are not merely useful cargo, they are our salvation as a species.”

“Now, Hadria, you perhaps exaggerate—”

“Perhaps, but for once I won’t be shut up. Not now. Not after all this. Not after coming this far,” she replied. “The propaganda. The endless drone of Administration nonsense. It is enough to drive anyone with a caring tremor in his
gid
to craziness! Regulation? Robbery stamped into law. We call ourselves the highest form of life in the galaxy merely because we’re at the top of the food chain. What a standard! We should be servants to life, not its master. Life itself is above us.”

Talid noticed now that she was standing, and her nasal membranes flushed blue-green, a sure sign of embarrassment. She sat back down and puffed out a demur. “At least, that’s what I believe.”

“And you have the right to say so,” Ricimer said, reaching over and tapping her reassuringly on the bend of her elbow. “We all have the right to think what we want. But we had that right back in the Shiro. Now we may speak.” Ricimer waved a hand behind himself, and a tray of nebulizers rose from its below-deck concealing canister. He reached behind him and took the nebulizer from the tray, randomly picking among the assortment. Naphthalene. Good. A fast and steady drunk that would wear off much more quickly than some of the less potent but longer-lasting benzene aromatics. He stood up and raised a post-dinner naphthalene ampoule in front of him, releasing its ester into the room. They would all be tipsy very soon. Ricimer was a connoisseur of aromatics. It was something to do on long voyages. His naphthalene may not be as good as Old Fifty-five, but it would be the best and most expensive breath most of his officers had taken in a very long while. “Now breathe in, my friends. Who knows? This may be our last share before the Final Rotting.”

“That’s right,” said a disjointed chorus, answering the traditional toast. “Before the Rotting.”

And they all breathed deeply. Tightened nostrils. Sighs of contentment. This was the good stuff, all right.

Ricimer allowed them to marinate in the nutrient basin a little longer. Then he withdrew his feet from the pool and pushed back his chair. His officers followed his example, but not without Ensign Contor taking a final long sip.

“On the next watch, we will deploy the Kilcher artifact,” said Ricimer. “We must drill in its operation and be ready when the time comes to use it.”

All had heard rumors that there was new technology aboard, technology acquired from a newly conquered species on the other end of the Administration territory outbound from the galactic core. They had been known as the Kilcher.
Had
. For the first time in the history of Guardian conquests, the Administration had decided to eliminate a conquered species utterly.

The reasons were clear enough. Unlike, say, the humans, the Kilcher were not expected to be a particularly difficult species to conquer. It was the post-conquest
cost of population maintenance
during the anticipated exploitation period that worried the Administration. There was talk that the Depletion energy would have to be spent not on rooting out Mutualism but upon sustaining an already doomed species for a few more cycles in order to fully glean their world.

The cost of normal operations was deemed untenable, and so a new plan was put forward.

The Kilcher Wipe.

And any Sporata officers who had objected to the exercise—which included most with Mutualist sympathies—had been rounded up and force-fed into the machinery of eradication themselves. All present had friends and colleagues who had been affected.

“A few of us already know what it is we carry, although I’m not sure if even we understand its full potential.”

“I do not,” said Talid. “How is this different from a large laser? We all know that kinetic energy is the better choice in most circumstances. This weapon’s effects may be vaster, but can they equal that of a titanium rod traveling at relativistic speeds when it crashes into a body?”

Ricimer nodded. Talid’s strength was her single-mindedness and her skepticism toward official cant. But there was a certain tactical inflexibility within her that she had difficulty seeing beyond. In preparation for her captain’s exam, he’d had her studying strategy scenarios from a variety of Sporata campaigns—and even some alien literature.

All that beside the point now. There would be no further promotions for Hadria Talid within the Sporata. Merely slow dismemberment by sharp blades if she should ever show her face in Administration domains.

“It is not a laser, Hadria,” Ricimer said. “It has an effect even beyond that of complete energy conversion. I don’t believe it would be too much to say that this artifact destroys the fabric of being itself.”

“So do all weapons, in their way,” Talid said. She was irritated, feeling patronized, perhaps. Ricimer could not worry about that at the moment.

“I’m speaking of
information
,” Ricimer said. “The artifact seems to be able to violate a basic physical law of the universe. Since this cannot be possible within the laws of physics as we know them, it stands to reason that that law is either mistaken or we are observing some other effect that is equally mysterious.”

“And what basic law is that is being violated?”

“The law that states that, like matter and energy, information can be neither created nor destroyed but only change form,” Ricimer said. “It could be said that the artifact strips the information content from the material substrate, disentangling all matter from its relationship with distant or nearby particles and returning it to a primordial, uninformed state. It is, as I conceive it, something like yanking the skeletal exostructure, the cartilage framework, from a body. The meat collapses without support. This was essentially what was done to the Kilcher when we turned the weapon on them, employing it in a way
they
never could have. It is possible they did not even conceive of such a use.”