On the second day, the court of inquiry was to resume. But Varcin said that he wanted to run through the Commission’s findings with us - me, Captain Dakk, Tarco - before it all unravelled in front of the court itself.
So, early on that crucial day, the three of us were summoned to a place Varcin called the Map Room.
It was like a vast hive, a place of alcoves and bays extending off a gigantic central atrium. On several levels, shaven-headed, long-robed figures walked earnestly, alone or in muttering groups, accompanied by gleaming clouds of Virtuals.
I think all three of us lowly Navy types, Tarco and I, even the older Dakk, felt scruffy and overwhelmed.
Varcin stood at the centre of the open atrium. In his element, he just smiled. And he waved his hand, a bit theatrically.
A series of Virtual dioramas swept over us like the pages of an immense book.
In those first few moments I saw huge fleets washing into battle, or limping home decimated; I saw worlds gleaming like jewels, beacons of human wealth and power - or left desolated and scarred, lifeless as Earth’s Moon. And, most wistful of all, there were voices. I heard roars of triumph, cries for help.
I knew what I was seeing. I was thrilled. These were the catalogued destinies of mankind.
Varcin said, ‘Half a million people work here. Much of the interpretation is automated - but nothing has yet replaced the human eye, human scrutiny, human judgement. You understand that the further away you are from a place, the more uncertainty there is over its timeline compared to yours. So we actually see furthest into the future concerning the most remote events …’
‘And you see war,’ said Tarco.
‘Oh, yes. As far downstream as we can see, whichever direction we choose to look, we see war.’
I picked up on that. Whichever direction … ‘Commissary, you don’t just map the future here, do you? I mean a single future.’
‘No. Of course not.’
‘I knew it,’ I said gleefully, and they all looked at me oddly. ‘You can change the future.’ And I wasn’t stuck with becoming Captain Dakk. ‘So if you see a battle will be lost, you can choose not to commit the fleet. You can save thousands of lives with a simple decision.’
‘Or you could see a Xeelee advance coming,’ Tarco said excitedly. ‘Like SS 433. So you got the ships in position - it was a perfect ambush.’
Dakk said, ‘Remember the Xeelee have exactly the same power.’
I hadn’t thought of that. ‘So if they had foreseen SS 433, they could have chosen not to send their ships there in the first place.’
‘Yes,’ Varcin said. ‘In fact if intelligence were perfect on both sides, there would never be any defeat, any victory. It is only because future intelligence is not perfect - the Xeelee didn’t foresee the ambush at SS 433 - that any advances are possible.’
Tarco said, ‘Sir, what happened the first time? What was the outcome of SS 433 before either side started to meddle with the future?’
‘Well, we don’t know, ensign. Perhaps there was no engagement at all, and one side or the other saw a strategic hole that could be filled. It isn’t very useful to think that way. You have to think of the future as a rough draft, that we - and the Xeelee - are continually reworking, shaping and polishing. It’s as if we are working out a story of the future we can both agree on.’
I was still trying to figure out the basics. ‘Sir, what about time paradoxes?’
Dakk growled, ‘Oh, Lethe, here we go. Somebody always has to ask about time paradoxes. And it has to be you, doesn’t it, ensign?’
I persisted. ‘I mean’ - I waved a hand at the dioramas - ‘suppose you pick up a beacon with data on a battle. But you decide to change the future; the battle never happens … What about the beacon? Does it pop out of existence? And now you have a record of a battle that will never happen. Where did the information come from?’
Tarco said eagerly, ‘Maybe parallel universes are created. In one the battle goes ahead, in the other it doesn’t. The beacon just leaks from one universe to another.’
Dakk looked bored.
Varcin was dismissive. ‘We don’t go in for metaphysics much around here. The cosmos, it turns out, has a certain common sense about these matters. If you cause a time paradox there is no magic. Just an anomalous piece of data that nobody created, a piece of technology with no origin. It’s troubling, perhaps, but only subtly, at least compared to the existence of parallel universes, or objects popping in and out of existence. What concerns us more, day to day, are the consequences of this knowledge.’
‘Consequences?’
‘For example, the leakage of information from future into past is having an effect on the evolution of human society. Innovations are transmitted backward. We are becoming - static. Rigid, over very long timescales. Of course that helps control the conduct of a war on such immense reaches of space and time. And regarding the war, many engagements are stalemated by foresight on both sides. It’s probable that we are actually extending the war.’
My blood was high. ‘We’re talking about a knowledge of the future. And all we’re doing with it is set up stalemate after stalemate?’
For sure Varcin didn’t welcome being questioned like that by an ignorant ensign. He snapped, ‘Look, nobody has run a war this way before. We’re making this up as we go along. But, believe me, we’re doing our best.
‘And remember this. Knowledge of the future does not change certain fundamentals about the war. The Xeelee are older than us. They are more powerful, more advanced in every which way we can measure. Logically, given their resources, they should defeat us, whatever we do. We cannot ensure victory by any action we make here, that much is clear. But we suspect that if we get it wrong we could make defeat certain.’ His face closed in. ‘If you work here you become - cautious. Conservative. The further downstream we look the more extensive our decisions’ consequences become. With a wave of a hand in this room I can banish trillions of souls to the oblivion of non-existence - or rather, of never-to-exist.’
‘So you don’t wave your hand,’ said Tarco pragmatically.
‘Quite. All we can hope for is to preserve at least the possibility of victory, in some of the futures. And we believe that if not for the Mapping, humanity would have lost this war by now.’
I wasn’t convinced. ‘You can change history. But you will still send Tarco out, knowing he will die. Why?’
Varcin’s face worked as he tried to control his irritation. ‘You must understand the decision-making process here. We are trying to win a war, not just a battle. We have to try to see beyond individual events to the chains of consequences that follow. That is why we will sometimes commit ships to a battle we know will be lost - why we will send warriors to certain deaths, knowing their deaths will not gain the slightest immediate advantage - why sometimes we will even allow a victory to turn to a defeat, if the long-term consequences of victory are too costly. And that is at the heart of the charges against you, Captain.’
Dakk snapped, ‘Get to the point, Commissary.’
Varcin gestured again.
Before the array of futures, a glimmering Virtual diagram appeared. It was a translucent sphere, with many layers, something like an onion. Its outer layers were green, shading to yellow further in, with a pinpoint star of intense white at the centre. Misty shapes swam through its interior. It cast a green glow on all our faces.
‘Pretty,’ I said.
‘It’s a monopole,’ said Dakk. ‘A schematic representation.’
‘The warhead of the Sunrise torpedo.’
‘Yes.’ Varcin walked into the diagram, and began pointing out features. ‘The whole structure is about the size of an atomic nucleus. There are W and Z bosons in this outer shell here. Further in there is a region in which the weak nuclear and electromagnetic forces are unified, but strong nuclear interactions are distinct. In this central region’ - he cupped the little star in his hand - ‘grand unification is achieved.’
I spoke up. ‘Sir, so how does this hurt the Xeelee?’
Dakk glared at me. ‘Ensign, the monopole is the basis of a weapon which shares the Xeelee’s own physical characteristics. You understand that the vacuum has a structure. That structure contains flaws. The Xeelee actually use two-dimensional flaws - sheets - to power their nightfighters. But in three-dimensional space you can also have one-dimensional flaws - strings - and zero-dimensional flaws.’
‘Monopoles,’ I guessed.
‘You got it.’
‘And since the Xeelee use spacetime defects to drive their ships—’
‘The best way to hit them is with another spacetime defect.’ Dakk rammed her fist into her hand. ‘And that’s how we punched a hole in that Sugar Lump.’
‘But at a terrible cost.’ Varcin made the monopole go away. Now we were shown a kind of tactical display. We saw a plan view of the Galaxy’s central regions - the compact swirl that was 3-Kilo, wrapped tightly around the Core. Prickles of blue light showed the position of human forward bases, like Base 592, surrounding the Xeelee concentration in the Core.
And we saw battles raging all around 3-Kilo, wave after wave of blue human lights pushing towards the core, but breaking against stolid red Xeelee defence perimeters.
‘This is the next phase of the war,’ Varcin said. ‘In most futures these assaults begin a century from now. We get through the Xeelee perimeters in the end, through to the Core - or rather, we can see many futures in which that outcome is still possible. But the cost in most scenarios is enormous.’
Dakk said, ‘All because of my one damn torpedo.’
‘Because of the intelligence you will give away, yes. You made one of the first uses of the monopole weapon. So after your engagement the Xeelee knew we had it. The fallback order you disregarded was based on a decision at higher levels not to deploy the monopole weapon at the Fog engagement, to reserve it for later. By proceeding through the chop line you undermined the decision of your superiors.’
‘I couldn’t have known that such a decision had been made.’
‘We argue that, reasonably, you should have been able to judge that. Your error will cause great suffering, unnecessary death. The Tolman data proves it. Your judgement was wrong.’
So there it was. The Galaxy diagram collapsed into pixels. Tarco stiffened beside me, and Dakk fell silent.
Varcin said to me, ‘Ensign, I know this is hard for you. But perhaps you can see now why you were appointed prosecutor advocate.’
‘I think so, sir.’
‘And will you endorse my recommendations?’
I thought it through. What would I do in the heat of battle, in Dakk’s position? Why, just the same - and that was what must be stopped, to avert this huge future disaster. Of course I would endorse the Commission’s conclusion. What else could I do? It was my duty.
We still had to go through the formalities of the court of inquiry, and no doubt the court martial to follow. But the verdicts seemed inevitable.
You’d think I was beyond surprise by now, but what came next took me aback.
Varcin stood between us, my present and future selves. ‘We will be pressing for heavy sanctions.’
‘I’m sure Captain Dakk will accept whatever—’
‘There will be sanctions against you too, ensign. Sorry.’
I would not be busted out of the Navy, I learned. But a Letter of Reprimand would go into my file, which would ensure that I would never rise to the rank of captain - in fact, I would likely not be given postings in space at all.
It was a lot to absorb, all at once. But even as Varcin outlined it, I started to see the logic. To change the future you can only act in the present. There was nothing to be done about Dakk’s personal history; she would carry around what she had done for the rest of her life, a heavy burden. But, for the sake of the course of the war, my life would be trashed, so that I could never become her, and never do what she had done.
Not only that, any application I made to have a child with Tarco would not be granted after all. Hama would never be born. The Commissaries wanted to make doubly sure nobody ever climbed on board that Sunrise torpedo.
I looked at Tarco. His face was blank. We had never had a relationship, not really - never actually had that child - and yet it was all being taken away from us, becoming no more real than one of Varcin’s catalogued futures.
‘Some love story,’ I said.
‘Yeah. Shame, buttface.’
‘Yes.’ I think we both knew right there that we would drift apart. We’d probably never even talk about it properly.
Tarco turned to Varcin. ‘Sir, I have to ask—’
‘Nothing significant changes for you, ensign,’ said Varcin softly. ‘You still rise to exec on the Torch - you will be a capable officer—’
‘I still don’t come home from the Fog.’
‘No. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be, sir.’ He actually sounded relieved. I don’t know if I admired that or not.
Dakk looked straight ahead. ‘Sir. Don’t do this. Don’t erase the glory.’