Authors: William H. Keith
Sinclair, resplendent in his new brown-and-tan uniform, was talking to two visiting diplomats. Dev had met both of them earlier. One was Manchurian, a
fu kuan
from the refugee colony on Chien V, a survivor of the Lung Chi disaster. The other was a striking woman, two meters tall, her skin ebony black, her hair, even her eyebrows, a startling, silvery white. Her name was Sheria, a Swahili word meaning “Justice,” and she was a Network representative from Juanyekundu. Her white hair, he’d learned, was a dominant genetic trait among her people, who had carved a home for themselves on the innermost world of a flare-prone red-dwarf star.
The Confederation leader was gesturing as he spoke, thrusting repeatedly with his fist. Dev could almost read the words on his lips, the familiar refrain.
Diversity,
Sinclair was saying.
Mankind’s survival lies in his diversity, not in the iron rule of a stagnant government from a distant, backwater world.
If Eridu’s fate as a free world had yet to be determined, at least the fate of the people trapped atop in Babylon was decided. The synchorbital facility was to be turned over to the Confederation next week, and those who wished to return to Earth or elsewhere would be permitted to do so. The negotiations had been carried out with Governor Prem, who spoke on behalf of both HEMILCOM personnel and the Imperial subjects. The Imperial
daihyo,
Yoshi Omigato, unfortunately had slit his belly in the traditional manner shortly after word of the disaster at Babel reached him.
Dev wondered what had hit the
daihyo
harder, the defeat on Eridu or the loss of his ship. The former
Tokitukaze,
now the
Eagle,
flagship of an infant rebel navy, had barely managed to limp into a higher orbit after its brief, fiery pass above Babel, and it had been forty hours before an ascraft from Babel had been able to match orbits and take off the crew—together with forty-seven bruised and battered Imperial crewmen. The
Eagle
would need repairs, lots of them, before she could fly or fight again. The rebels were carefully keeping her true condition secret from the Imperials during this impromptu truce, pretending that she was still a potent force in the Confederation arsenal.
God, but we need ships,
Dev thought.
If we can’t get them somewhere, the Imperials are going to trample us right into the ground.
The need for warships was, arguably, the single most pressing need the Confederation had at the moment… though the needs for trained soldiers, for weapons, for warstriders, and for AIs of every type were all clamoring for attention as well. But ships! They could not control their worlds without control of the space around them, and they could not coordinate the activities of one system with the next without control of the space lanes between them. At the moment, all they had were a handful of surface-to-orbit ascraft, a few merchantmen like the
Saiko Maru,
and the armed hulk that they called
Eagle.
Dev was scowling, when he felt a touch on his arm.
“Katya!”
She smiled at him. “You were looking grim,” she said. “Trouble?”
“Nothing a five-hundred-ship navy wouldn’t solve. I was just wondering where it’s all going. Where
I’m
going. This has all been… kind of sudden.”
She laughed. “A month ago you were still the Empire’s fair-haired
shiro.”
He grinned.
Shiro
was Nihongo slang for “white boy,” a racial epithet. “Something like that.”
She took a sip of her drink and looked around the room. “I know what you mean. I don’t know about you, but I feel… at home. Doing something I believe in, with people I believe in.”
“You can’t ask for more than that, can you?”
“I can ask what you’re doing tonight.”
He raised his eyebrows. “You want to give us another chance?”
“We can try. No promises. But as long as we’re finally on the same side…”
“Hey, I’d much rather serve in
your
army than the Emperor’s. You’re considerably prettier than he is.”
“And more forgiving.”
“Yes…”
“Ah. There you two are!”
They turned at the new voice. “General Sinclair!” Dev said. “Thank you for inviting us.”
“Hell, I couldn’t very well
not
invite the guy who pulled my tail out of the fire at the Battle of Raeder’s Hill, could I?” He looked at Katya. “Have you asked him yet?”
“No. Haven’t had a chance.”
“Asked me what?”
“Got an assignment for you.If you want it.”
Dev set his empty glass down on a passing tray and raised his eyebrows. “This doesn’t involve pirating Imperial destroyers, does it?”
“Not quite. I’m leaving for New America in a few days. For a meeting of the Confederation Congress of Delegates.”
“Your Declaration,” Katya said, eyes lighting up.
He nodded. “We’ll be proposing it to the delegates from twelve Shichiju worlds as the basis for secession from the Hegemony. If they like what they hear, well, it’s a beginning.…”
“How does that involve us?”
Sinclair grinned. “Son, the Confederation is going to need all the help it can get. All the
friends
it can get. I’d like you two to be ambassadors at large… for the Xenophobes.”
Dev blinked, stunned. “You want us to represent… the
Xenophobes?”
“They can’t represent themselves. Not yet, anyway.”
“It’s just you, actually,” Katya added. She sounded embarrassed. “He asked me and I said no. I don’t think I could.”
“I have something else in mind for this young lady,” Sinclair said. “I’m hoping to open friendly relations with the DalRiss as well. She will speak for them at the Congress.”
This was all happening too fast for Dev. “I’m not sure what to say.”
“Say yes. And come with us to New America. Help give rebirth to an old idea. To
freedom.”
In the background, the square dance had broken up and Lorita was singing “Hope Eyrie” again. Dev caught the words again that had arrested him during his first evening of freedom.
From all who tried out of history’s tide.
Salute for the team that won.
And the old Earth smiles at her children’s reach,
The wave that carried us up the beach
To reach for the shining sun.…
The old America had faltered, centuries ago, but somehow it had managed to break free of Mother Ocean and scrabble a few meters up onto a wet and empty beach. Now, the descendants of those first pioneers were opening a new frontier. A frontier of new promise. New hope.
New friends, even, though they were very strange friends, difficult to understand in the alien ways they looked at the cosmos. Maybe that was part of the evolutionary trek, though, learning to see the universe in a different way.
For the Eagle has landed. Tell your children when.
Time won’t drive us down to dust again.
“Absolutely, General,” Dev said. He exchanged a look with Katya, who nodded and smiled. “I’d say we need all the friends we can get.”
TERMINOLOGY AND GLOSSARY
AI:
Artificial Intelligence. Since the Sentient Status Act of 2204, higher-model networking systems have been recognized as “self-aware but of restricted purview,” a legal formula that precludes enfranchisement of machine intelligences.
Alpha:
Type of Xenophobe combat machine, also called stalker, shapeshifter, silvershifter, etc. They are animated by numerous organic-machine hybrids and mass ten to twelve tons. Their weapons include nano-D shells and surfaces, and various magnetic effects. Alphas appear in two guises, a snake-or wormlike shape that lets them travel underground along SDTs, and any of a variety of combat shapes, usually geometrical with numerous spines or tentacles. Each distinctive combat type is named after a poisonous Terran reptile, e.g., Fer-de-Lance, Cobra, Mamba, etc.
Alya:
Naked-eye star Theta Serpentis (63 Serpentis) 130 light years from Sol. A double star with a separation of 900 All (5 light-days), Alya A is an A5 star, Alya B an A7. Alya B-V is the homeworld of the DalRiss, who know it as GhegnuRish. Alya A-VI is known as ShraRish, a DalRiss colony.
Analogue:
Computer-generated “double” of a person, used to handle routine business, communications, and duties through ViRcom linkage.
Annaisha:
“Guide.” Term for Imperial liaison officers who coordinate military or political activity between the Empire and Hegemony military forces.
AND Round:
Anti-nano disassembler. Tube-launched NCM round that bursts almost as soon as it is fired, releasing an NCM cloud.
Antigenics:
Nanotechnic devices programmed to hunt down and destroy disease bacteria and parasites inside the body.
APW:
Armored Personnel Walker. Any of several large, four-legged striders designed to carry unlinked passengers. VbH Zo (“Elephant”) can carry fifty troops. Kani (“Crab”) can carry twenty.
Ascraft:
Aerospace craft. Vehicles that can fly both in space and in atmosphere, including various transports, fighters, and shuttles.
Beta:
Second class of Xenophobe combat machine, adapted from captured or abandoned human equipment. Its weapons are human-manufactured weapons, often reshaped to Xeno purposes. They have been known to travel underground.
Bionangineering:
Use of nanotechnology to restructure life-forms for medical or ornamental reasons.
CA:
Combat Armor. Light personal armor/space suit providing eight hours’ life support in hostile environment.
Cephing:
Also linking. Derived from cephlink. To operate equipment, computers, striders, etc., through a cephlink.
Cephlink:
Implant within the human brain allowing direct interface with computer-operated systems. It contains its own microcomputer and RAM storage and is accessed through sockets, usually located in the subject’s temporal bones above and behind each ear. Limited (non-ViR) control and interface is possible through neural implants in the skin, usually in the palm of one hand.
Cephlink RAM:
Random Access Memory, part of the micro-circuitry within the cephlink assembly. Used for memory storage, message transfer, linguistics programming, and the storage of complex digital codes used in cephlinkage access. An artificial extension of human intelligence.
Ceramiplas:
Plastic-ceramic composite used in personal armor.
Charged Particle Gun (CPG):
Primary weapon on larger warstriders. Including proton cannons and electron guns, they use powerful gauss fields to direct streams of charged subatomic particles at the target.
Chiji:
“Governor.” Specifically, the Hegemony governor of Shichiju worlds. Usually (but not always) an Imperial.
CMP:
Cluster Munitions Package. Missile or artillery round payload. Dispenses hundreds of mines, bomblets, or nuclear-triggered plasma bolts in a destructive “footprint” across a large area.
Coaster:
Intrasystem, low-cost space transport, usually for cargo, although sometimes passengers are carried. Cramped, old, and uncomfortable, they are characterized by brief periods of high-G acceleration and deceleration at either end of the journey, with a long interval of zero-G “coasting” between.
Colonial Authority:
Hegemonic bureaucracy charged with overseeing government, trade, and terraforming of the human-inhabited worlds.
Commpac:
“Communications package.” Long-range communications unit that plugs into both temporal sockets and is worn behind the head. It permits long-range communication and can serve as a modem to planetary computer networks without a direct palm interface.
Compatch:
Small radio transceiver worn on the skin and jacked into a T-socket. Allows cephlink-to-link radio communications.
Compscam:
Using computer networks—especially non-AI systems—to illegally divert money, equipment, etc.
Cryo-H:
Liquid hydrogen cooled to a few degrees absolute, used as fuel for fusion power plants aboard striders, ascraft, and other vehicles. Sometimes called “slush hydrogen.”
C-socket:
Cervical socket, located in subject’s cervical spine, near the base of his neck. Directs neural impulses to jacked equipment, warstriders, construction gear, heavy lifters, etc.
C
3
, C-Three:
Military term for Command, Control, and Communications, the essentials of battlefield command.
DalRiss:
Nonhuman intelligence first contacted in 2540. Native to Alya B-V (GhegnuRish), they are highly advanced in biological sciences, relatively backward in engineering and metallurgical sciences. Compound name reflects use of Dal, a gene-engineered organism, as “mount” by Riss (“Master”).
Deplur:
Depleted uranium. Ultradense metal used in massive projectiles such as 8-mm hivel ammunition.
DHS:
Directorate of Hegemony Security. Joint military-civilian bureau under Imperial overwatch tasked with internal security in both civilian and military sectors.
Dracomycetes mirabila:
Fungus harvested in jungle lowlands of Eridu, the source of a drug used for memory enhancement.
DSA:
Deep Seismic Anomaly. Seismic tremors associated with subsurface movements of Xenophobe machines.
Durasheath:
Armor grown as composite layers of diamond, duralloy, and ceramics; light, flexible, and very strong.
El-shuttle:
Saucer-shaped pressurized chamber ferrying passengers and cargo up and down the sky-el. The passenger deck has seats for up to a hundred people, complete with jackplugs and a recjack library.