Authors: Sean Williams,Shane Dix
“What makes you so keen to stay, Frank?” Sol asked.
“I’m not,” he said.
Sol’s eyes narrowed. “That doesn’t make sense. If you’re pitching us on some damfool mission designed to distract or kill us while the rest of you follow some other agenda—”
He cut her off with a laugh. “Okay, I take your point. But you’re only half right. The rest of me
are
off doing something else, but nothing that’s likely to conflict with your interests. You see, I’m not just banking on this plan; I’m also following the Yuhl path. I’m also migrating outward in other directions and hiding a few of myself on worlds that might be overlooked by the Starfish. I’m taking every option at once and hoping that at least some of me survive.”
“Spores,” said Alander, his face a picture of distaste.
Axford 1041 didn’t shy from the analogy. “Exactly. Every one of me is a seed. By propagating them as widely as possible, I hope to guarantee the survival of the Axford genome.”
“A plague of Axfords,” Sol mused. “It doesn’t bear thinking about.”
His smile only widened further. “It doesn’t seem so bad from my point of view, collectively speaking,” he said. “And there’s the rub. From
my
point of view, as an individual, this situation is a little different. The thought that one of me might survive somewhere, but not here, is only intellectually satisfying. It won’t change the fact that
I’m
still dead. So I’m going to do everything I can to ensure that
this
me will survive, that
I
will pull through. And if I have to drag you along with me to do it, then I will.”
“No guarantees afterward, I presume,” said Sol.
Frank the Ax’s smile turned predatory as he shook his head. “Once we’re out the other side, then it’s everyone for themselves. But it’s a big galaxy, Caryl. I’m sure we can coexist peacefully enough.”
Assuming anyone survives,
Thor thought to herself.
“All right,” said Sol, her expression guarded. “You’ve told me some of it. Now give me the rest. And bring Peter up to speed, too.”
“What about the others?” Alander asked. “What’s the point of letting them argue on if we’re going to make our own plans here? Shouldn’t we at least let them know there might be an alternative?”
“Perhaps when they’ve finished arguing, we’ll consider bringing them into it,” said Axford. “Once the engrams and the Yuhl have divided into their camps, then we’ll know who has the guts to work with us.
They’re
the people we need: the Species Dreamers determined to find a new home; the patriots willing to defend the home they already have. There’s no room for fence-sitters now, people. We either stand or we fall; it’s as simple as that. There is no other alternative.”
Axford’s words settled like a cowl over the conversation, and for a long time no one spoke. But from their expressions, Thor could tell that the ex-general’s words had hit home. And when her original finally met her eyes and gave a reluctant nod of approval to the plan, Thor allowed herself a brief, self-satisfied smile.
1.2.0
UEH/ELLIL
There was no fanfare as the Yuhl migration divided in two.
Although it took a great deal of preparation and incredible attention to detail, the occasion itself was marked only with silence by the human observers and sadness by the Yuhl. The many hundreds of hole ships comprising the
Mantissa
that had survived the Battle of Beid were split almost down the middle, with 44 percent staying behind to confront the Ambivalence and rebuild themselves a home, and 56 percent continuing onward with their great emigration. The species was well and truly divided.
Ueh/Ellil
watched the separation of the
Yuhl/Goel
with resignation but no small amount of uncertainty. His species had been attending the Ambivalence for more long cycles than he’d care to count. The home worlds were legends remembered only by a handful of survivors of that time. But such memories did not belong to him. He had only ever known life in the hole ships, and sometimes it felt as though this was the only world he would
ever
know. It seemed inconceivable to him that the life he knew would ever end.
And yet for some it had already ended. Those who had voted to remain behind were no longer part of the
Yuhl/Goel.
The Species Dreamers were
Yuhl/riil
now. They were prey, the already dead—and he wasn’t one of them.
He didn’t know how to feel about that. Once, life had been simple. As one of a helot pair, his tasks had been simple, purely functional, and he had needed to think no more than was required to ensure those tasks were carried out effectively.
But then the bodiless humans had come along, and everything had changed. His helot pairing,
Asi/Holina,
had been taken hostage by the many-bodied human
Frank/Axford,
while he, Ueh, had accompanied
Peter/Alander
on his journey to the
Mantissa
to see the Praxis. What had become of
Asi/Holina
was unknown, but it was assumed that he had died in Axford’s care. Whatever the case, without
Asi/Holina,
Ueh’s position among his people had become redundant. He was effectively caught between two colliding cultures, an orphan among orphans.
He couldn’t blame
Peter/Alander
for breaking up his pairing, though. The human wasn’t to know the necessities of life where his culture was concerned. Alander and his kind expressed puzzlement over many things and were clearly unprepared for their first contact with an alien race. The Ambivalence had rattled them, and they were blundering now when they should have been treading lightly.
Alander had delivered
Ueh/Ellil
to the Praxis little knowing the fate that awaited either of them. Physically ingested—
eaten—by
the giant creature, they had lost everything. The Praxis had absorbed them, body and mind. For an unknown length of time neither had existed. Their regurgitation had not been guaranteed, and it came at a price. Their bodies and minds had been tinkered with, in accordance with the Praxis’ s inscrutable will. They had been changed to better fulfill the tasks required of them, fashioned as tools and sent back out into the universe with little knowledge of how exactly they had been altered.
The Yuhl were a species not unaccustomed to radical change. Their minds, encouraged by advanced medical science, had retained a measure of plasticity from their evolutionary past and were able to literally grow new sections to accommodate new skills. But even with such a background,
Ueh/Ellil
had been given cause to wonder. As he progressed with startling rapidity from helot to
envoy/catechist
and finally to conjugator, he had to ask where it might end.
“
Who am I
the same person I was before?”
Even asking that question exposed him as the freak he was. Yuhl rarely thought of themselves as individuals in isolation. Until the change, his individuality had been defined in terms of the
Yuhl/Goel
race. He was not an island; his life was not a single thread, drifting alone through space. He was a just one more strand in a much larger tapestry.
Or had been, anyway. Now that he was back among his own people, he was struck by how out of place he felt. He didn’t feel like he was one of them anymore, didn’t feel like he
belonged.
He was something else entirely.
“They call us the Pax Praxis,” said a voice that sounded as though it could fill the universe. Ueh was standing on an observation deck, watching the
Mantissa
break in two. To the Yuhl, that meant being tightly enveloped by a glistening intestine that drooped down from the ceiling. Nanometer-thin tendrils spread through his skin to nerve endings, resulting in complex illusions of the world outside.
“The humans have much to learn,” he replied.
“We all do, I suspect.” Deep rumblings echoed around him, as though a meal of stones was grinding in the belly of a giant. “There’s something I need you to do for me, Ueh.”
“You need only to instruct me, and it will be done.” He found it strange that the Praxis should word it in such a way as to make it sound like a request. Ueh’s promotion to conjugator meant that he now served the Praxis exclusively, and whatever was required of him would be done without question. He was no longer bound to the Fit like others of his race.
“No, Ueh, this is different,” said the Praxis. “I can’t command you to do this for me. I have selected you specifically, but in this instance you are not obliged to obey me. You see, this task... it’s not like others you would have performed.”
Ueh was fascinated. He had never heard the Praxis hesitate before. “What is it you wish me to do?”
The Praxis told him then, in great detail, and he began to understand. It
was
no ordinary task, and although the thought of it was daunting, he could appreciate the symbolism of the act as well as its importance. In the history of the
Yuhl/Goel.
it would go down as a significant moment, and for that he felt profoundly honored that the Praxis had chosen him. Nevertheless, the prospect of what the Praxis was asking of him was also quite terrifying.
“But no one must know, Ueh,” his new master told him. “If you decide to do this for me, you must speak to no one about it.”
“But my absence—”
“Will be explained to the others,” assured the Praxis. “Trust me, I will ensure that your duties are carried out. You will not be missed, Ueh. But you will be remembered, of that you can be certain.”
The promise of importance piqued his pride again, and he felt strangely warmed by the Praxis’s words. “And if I choose not to do this task? What then?”
“Then I shall be forced to eat my words, Ueh.”
Ueh shuddered in the tight embrace of the observatory intestine. He had no doubt in his mind that “eating his words” was a metaphor for eating
him
to ensure no one else got to know about the plan.
The
Mantissa
crumbled around him like a rotten moon, then slowly recombined as two smaller orbs. A haze of hole ships attended both newly formed spheres, tidying configurations and ensuring structural soundness. Human vessels looked on in silent awe. Hole ship engineering on such a scale was at present beyond their comprehension. Joining ten ships in a viable construct was completely different than joining a thousand similar ships.
“I will do my duty,” Ueh told the Praxis. The words rang hollowly in his ears. The knowledge of his certain death either way didn’t make the decision any easier.
1.2
CHIEF OF MOURNERS
2160.9.27 Standard Mission Time
(30 August 2163 UT)
1.2.1
The tetrad of modified hole ships flew on thrusters with about
as much grace as a dropped glass. But it didn’t need grace; it just needed to be fast. And it certainly was that.
Alander stood at the rear of the command cockpit while Cleo Samson directed the modified hole ship via a slender, branched stalk protruding from the floor. The tetrad’s only other passenger was Axford 1041, who sat unobtrusively to one side, his attention focused on the cockpit screens.
“The beacon has been deployed,” Samson announced. “Just waiting on confirmation from Thor.”
Alander forced himself not to worry. This was a test run, after all, not the real thing. Their tetrad was one of thirty arrayed across the empty zeta Dorado system. The colony there, Hammon, had been comprehensively destroyed in the wave of Starfish attacks that had accompanied the Battle of Beid. Smoke still plumed from installations on the ground where alien weaponry had eradicated all trace of human and Spinner technology. Alander had seen enough of the Starfish strikes to know that the attack would have been swift and deadly. The colonists aboard the
Steven Vogt
would have barely known what was hitting them. Alander paced restlessly as the screens arrayed around them displayed telemetry on the mission. The other tetrads were scattered across all sectors of the system with some degree of uncertainty; it was difficult for conventional instruments to know their exact positions due to light-speed delays, and the time hadn’t come to openly use ftl communications. The system contained eight planets: three gas giants and five terrestrial worlds. Hammon was one of a binary system, not quite habitable but tectonically fascinating.
With an intense look of concentration on her face, Samson tilted the tetrad into a tight turn on its nearly reactionless thrusters. The NRTs had been uncovered by Hatzis’s Library research team on Juno, prior to Beid. Alander didn’t understand the principles on which they operated at all; he could only take the word of the researchers, who said that they
should
work. The Yuhl employed a different drive principle again for their hole ships, and this maneuver was as much a test of technology as it was of tactics.
Seconds later, with hands tightly gripping the control stalk, Samson leveled the ship out again. She glanced over to both Alander and Axford, grinning nervously.
“Seems to work okay,” she said. “Just takes a little getting used to.”
“Would have been so much easier if Ueh had been here,” said Axford. He looked around the cockpit as though searching the empty spaces for the alien. “Kind of quiet without the Roach, isn’t it?”
Alander knew that Axford was trying to get a rise out of him by using the derogatory moniker originally attributed to the aliens. The term originated in the similarity the aliens had to insects. With their unnaturally long legs culminating in broad, triangular thighs and their thick, almost chitinous black skin, they bore a striking resemblance to grasshoppers. But they were intelligent beings, deserving of more respect than the ex-general was prepared to give them. Having spoken in some depth to Ueh, Alander had developed an understanding and appreciation for the aliens and their culture and could never bring himself to be as disrespectful toward them as Axford was, in public at least. Alander didn’t doubt that Axford had a healthy respect for what the Yuhl were capable of.
“We’ll just have to make do,” he said, refusing to give Axford the satisfaction of rising to the bait. “He must have had his reasons for staying with the Praxis.”
“I’m sure he did,” said Axford, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I guess you’d understand.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
The ex-general raised his hands in mock innocence. “Hey, I’m sure the Yuhl have a lot going for them. I’m just not in any hurry to
become
one, that’s all.”
“No one’s asking you to,” said Alander.
“Not at the moment, perhaps,” Axford responded. “But one must consider all eventualities, Peter. Android bodies like this one are infinitely malleable—as the Praxis proved with yours. A hybrid human-Yuhl caste might be possible somewhere down the track. I, for one, want no part of it.”
“That’s your decision.”
“Indeed it is.”
Alander bit his lip to keep his irritation contained. Of the engrams, about a quarter had expressed xenophobic concerns over the
Yuhl/Goel,
even thought their alien allies had offered significant assistance both before and after the meeting in Rasmussen. Following the failure of that meeting to reach a consensus, as he had expected, both human and Yuhl corps had split in two, leaving every human survivor with no choice but to rely on alien assistance. Approximately half of the Yuhl had remained behind to follow Thor’s plan, with the endorsement of Sol, while the rest elected to continue their flight with the Praxis. A similar split divided the human camp, and tensions were running high as old alliances crumbled and new ones formed—all with the relentless ticking of the clock in the background.
“Imagine how the Yuhl must view our customs,” Alander said. “I’m sure they see us as incredibly primitive. I mean, we’ve hardly changed since we left Africa. Even in engram form, we still cling to ancient shapes and functions. Does that make sense for a space-faring race?”
It wasn’t a strong defense of tolerance, but it was the best he could do. He couldn’t argue that he understood the Yuhl better just because he was more open-minded. Already a human-Yuhl hybrid, his nature counted against him in arguments with racists.
Genuinely or for effect, Axford deflected his response with a nonchalant shrug. “We get the job done.”
“Maybe, but I doubt we would have thought of migrating if the Yuhl hadn’t set the example.”
“I would have.”
“But you’re an outlier, General. We all know that.” Alander said this evenly, letting the implication—
You’re a freak
—rest in the words rather than his tone.
The android laughed out loud, but before he could actually say anything in response, a vibration trilled through the tetrad. Alander and Axford both returned their attention to the screens, recognizing the distinctive sound of an incoming ftl communication.
“I guess that means go,” said Samson.
Alander took a deep breath. Ftl transmissions attracted the Starfish like blood attracted sharks. The time between transmission and arrival varied; sometimes it was hours, other times they arrived after barely a few seconds, giving the unlucky broadcaster little chance of escape. Thus far, no colonies that had attracted the attention of the Starfish had survived. Alander had witnessed two attacks: one on Sol and the other on the Yuhl world-vessel
Mantissa,
and both had left him overwhelmed and stunned by the ferocity and technology of the Starfish. He had no real desire to witness such an attack a third time, but he acknowledged the necessity of it.
The tetrad rang like a bell once more: another ftl message, as expected. The first had been confirmation from Thor at the edge of the system; the second was from the beacon itself— the lure.
All thirty tetrads sounded their transmitters in synchrony, summoning the enemy with a non-Einsteinian racket that would most certainly get their attention.
The waiting was the worst part for Alander. Not knowing exactly how little time there was made evacuating dangerous and difficult. Barely 40 percent of the
Mantissa
had survived Beid, even though the Yuhl were constantly alert for an alien attack. What remained had been divided into two halves, with the slightly larger half,
Mantissa A,
accompanying the Praxis and the departing engrams on the Yuhl’s ongoing migration. The rest,
Mantissa B,
remained with the Species Dreamers and the human resistance to either confront or evade the Starfish. If their gamble failed, there would be nothing left at all in less than two weeks.
Data from the distant hole ships thrilled through
Klotho
in a dissonant cacophony. The thirty tetrads were no longer hiding and therefore able to exchange telemetry at ftl rates. The instantaneous communication allowed a detailed picture of zeta Dorado to form on the screen. From the primary to the outermost gas giant, the picture was one of scarred indifference; behind the occasional puff of radioactive dust where an installation or satellite had once been, the planets and moons continued on their stately way, uncaring what happened to those who passed briefly by.
“Target acquired,” said Samson, her tone sharp and touched with alarm. “Relocating!”
The screen stayed alight as the tetrad hopped across the system. Fleeting images of roiling energies and vast, disk-shaped craft peppered the screen. Alander felt his abdominal muscles tighten.
Then, abruptly, they were among the cutters, dodging the exotic weapons of the Starfish. Each had been given a nickname that in the throes of battle seemed to trivialize their potency: yellow dots, blue lances, red darts, energy whips, and more. The principles behind each were difficult to fathom. Energy whips appeared to be snaking regions of destabilized space-time, where the fundamental properties of the universe had been altered, tearing even the vacuum apart. Yellow dots blinked in and out of unspace in search of targets, materializing inside their unlucky prey and causing massive explosions as two chunks of matter tried to occupy the same space.
It was this tactic that had inspired the Yuhl to their one and only victory in the Battle of Beid. Hole ships could be divided into thirds as well as combined, and each of those thirds could be sent inside a target, equipped with weapons designed to cause maximum damage. Using this method, the Yuhl had managed to render one of the Starfish cutters totally inoperative, leading to its rescue by two of its comrades.
Alander vividly remembered the strange incident with the rescuing craft. The two flat, giant ships were kilometers across, their edges spinning at relativistic velocities, dragging space-time around like water on the edge of a whirlpool. Spinning in opposite directions so spatial distortions made the very vacuum shimmer, the two cutters had sandwiched the damaged ship and brought it to a halt. Then, in a blaze of pulsing light, all three had disappeared.
It was at this point the Yuhl had completed their evacuation, scattering in the face of such an imposing and terrifying enemy.
The tetrad bucked violently, and Alander’s attention returned to the present. Samson guided them through the thick of the battle, sophisticated algorithms in the AI combining with her increasing expertise to ride out the worst of it. A detonating red dart sent them rolling at one point, but they managed to avoid serious damage.
“How long can we keep this up?” asked Alander anxiously as he watched the thirty Yuhl/human tetrads winking in and out of unspace around the majestic Starfish craft.
“I don’t know,” said Axford. “But with five of those cutters slicing their way into the system, we wouldn’t want to be out here too long.”
The tetrad shuddered beneath them again.
“Probes away,” said Samson.
She took them back into unspace as the tetrad dropped half its structure in the form of six smaller parts. Their ship instantly reduced itself in size, changing from a tetrad to a double. However, there was no appreciable change in the size of the cockpit itself or the way the ship flew. Each of the mini-hole ship probes had ftl capacities but little more than that. Their pay- loads consisted of sensors rather than weapons.
Klotho
emerged from unspace at the far edge of the system, along with the other Yuhl pilots, safely out of the Starfish light cone. In the icy regions of zeta Dorado’s Oort cloud, they viewed the five cutters from afar, relying on the instruments of the detached probes to keep a close eye on things.
There were hundreds of data streams coming in. Each of the tetrads had dropped six probes, and all of them were taking a slightly different route into and around the cutters. A quarter were destroyed within the first minute of being launched; another quarter in the next minute. Half of those were expended in collisions with the giant craft, testing the strength and nature of their exotic hulls. Every explosion was recorded by another nearby probe, the data sent to their distant observers.
Shortly after the dispersal of the tetrads, another quarter had disappeared from the screens. These hadn’t been destroyed, though. They reappeared as data streams over the next fifty seconds, scattered within the cutters themselves. Having jumped inside the giant craft, they proceeded to follow a number of detailed routines designed to test their new environments. Some extruded sophisticated sensors designed to probe the nature of their surroundings. Others tested more aggressively to see what sort of reaction they would provoke. Others stayed carefully quiescent, recording their location and anything they observed with passive, patient sensors.
Alander didn’t bother trying to absorb all the data coming in. That would have to wait until later, once they had jumped to safety and were well away from the Starfish. He managed to take in some of it, though, watching the scattered, bright stars of the probes wink out one by one, attacked by defensive systems within the Starfish cutters. Some activated self-destruct mechanisms; others simply fizzled out. Others clung on with admirable tenacity.
Then, suddenly, all of them were gone. Alander blinked at the empty screen in confusion. The telemetry from the probes had abruptly ceased. He couldn’t see the inner system or the cutters. They were totally blind.
“What the—?”
His question was cut short when the data stream returned as abruptly as it had disappeared, only this time they were accompanied by cries of alarm and panic from the other Yuhl-human hole ship pairs. The cutters, realizing that their targets had moved, had relocated to continue the attack. Two of the pairs instantly vanished under heavy fire as the giant ships appeared directly over them, lashing out with terrifying lethality. The cutters then jumped to another location and repeated the tactic, slicing through space with an ease that belied their size.