The Immortal Game (Rook's Song) (16 page)

“That thing is three times the size of Rhode Island. 
I don’t feel small, I
am
small.”

Docking with the station proves easy, as does infiltration.  A retractable umbilical tube connects them to it, and Bishop gets them through a jammed door with a plasma torch while Rook floats inside the tube, his
Exciter pointed at the doorway.  Once through, Bishop takes a moment to initiate airlock procedures and gives them an atmosphere.

“Switching on arti-grav.  Hang on.  This will be stronger than
what you’re used to.”

And it is.  His HUD tells him it’s about 2.1
g
’s.  Rook can feel the flesh and muscles pressing against his cheekbones, and his scalp feels like someone’s hands were on it, pushing out and trying to spread it.

Then, the lights switch on.  Rook can’t get an idea of just the size of the
station he’s in because it isn’t entirely hollow.  There are wide hallways and tall ceilings, built for Ianeth-sized people and equipment, leading them through a series of “rooms” that are more like giant orbs that fit into a Ferris wheel, carrying them up one level after another.  There are computer screens and holo-screens, and none of what he sees makes on them makes much sense, but Bishop seems to know what he’s doing.

“All the stations are still linked,” he says
, scrutinizing the controls.

“That’s good news, right?”

“It is.  They’re coordinating to keep their orbits equidistant.  That means that the mass drivers are still working at optimal.”

“What will it take to slave them all to a single control board?”

Bishop doesn’t hesitate.  “Six days for me to go through all the system commands and repair all corrupted data.  Three days spent on the Sidewinder—I will need
exclusive time
with the ship’s fabricator, ferrying the parts needed from one station to another.  Another three days of running tests.  I imagine some stations will respond better than others to be slaved to a remote control.”

“Twelve days, then.  Any way I can help?”

“Just do the flying.  As for the repair work itself, negative.  It would take longer to explain how all of this works than if I just do it myself.”

“About what I figured.  Well,” Rook sighs, “I can’t stand twiddling my thumbs.  I can make good use of the time between trips seeing to some of the Sidewinder’s systems, maybe run some more decryption tests on the data we found in the derelict.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Bishop says, sounding almost humanly casual.

Twelve days is what Bishop said, and twelve days is exactly what it takes.  They make a trip about once every hour, hopping from one station to the next, the alien going aboard the station and do
ing some tweaking, and the human keeping himself busy on the Sidewinder.  Rook plays music across the ship at all hours, but always keeps an eye on radar for possible incoming.  He puts all of Metallica’s albums on a loop, and when that’s done, AC/DC, then AFI, a little Bob Segar, Elvis, some Gwen Stefani (No Doubt and post-No Doubt), LMFAO, Frank Sinatra and Soundgarden.

Rook spends some time working on repairing the shower unit, located in the forward hold with the restroom.  Once finished, he pulls the plastic cylinder up from the floor and attaches it to the ceiling, then switches on the water and has his first bath in a week, and finally shaves his beard. 
Gotta keep with military regs
, he thinks, wiping the fog away from the mirror and thinking that it’s just what Badger would’ve suggested for keeping the mind sharp. 
Clean house, clean body, clean mind
.

Most of the time, the repairs are small enough that the repair bot can handle them
, and that his omni-kit can flash-forge the small components he needs to fit into place.  Rook fights a brief internal struggle over whether to get some well-deserved rest or to find something constructive to do—there is a lot that can be done, but a mind needs rest eventually.  In the end, he splits the difference and decides to keep a schedule alternating between napping for two hours and working for three.  It’s a good thing he does, too, because during this process he finds some fluctuations in the main drive’s plasma bubble feed.  It’s a minor hiccup but he kills some time troubleshooting it—drawing from their new reserve tritium supply, he tries injecting the bubbles into the magnetic chamber, where the metal rings close around the plasma, where it is successfully compressed into a fusion state.

Good thing
I found that tritium hidden inside the derelict
.  Rook activates the sonicator, which mixes the fuel using sound waves.

It’s while troubleshooting this problem, though, that Rook comes across a strange patch of what looks like purple moss growing around some of the electronics around the main drive’s fuel feed.  He analyzes
it with the micropad, discovers it’s a fungus not too dissimilar to yeast, yet one never recorded on Earth.  For a moment, this worries him.  When the Sidewinder was infiltrated back in
Magnum Collectio
, could the Leader have left behind some biological agent?  Or is it possible that Bishop brought it on board?  Scanning shows no deadly threats, no toxins to speak off. 
Just don’t ingest it
, he tells himself.  Then, Rook has a thought, and decides to scrape the fungus off and collect a few samples for experimentation.

He
spends a lot of time exercising, too, just as Badger taught him to do on long runs where there wasn’t much activity going on.  During one of his jogs through the ship’s corridors, a chime goes off, telling him that the Sidewinder is detecting another heat wave bouncing off its wake, the same as when they first approached Kali.  Minutes later, the strange reading is gone, and Rook scans the space around them for any signs of Cereb luminals or skirmishers. 
Nothing
. 
So what gives?
  He checks a few sensors.  Everything seems to be working fine.  It bugs him for a while.  Soon, though, the mystery is behind him and he’s back to work.

Another thing Badger taught
him to do was that, whenever one was working on an op with others, it was never good to go too long without communicating with one’s squadmates.  So, in between sit-ups, he cues up another game of chess, and plays remotely with Bishop, who somewhere deep inside one of the space stations, working on getting all of them slaved.  He starts off as White, and so goes first, moving his pawn from D2 to D4.  Bishop responds by moving his knight from G8 to F6.  “You’re learning,” Rook says approvingly.

“That is the
standard Indian Defense, I believe,” says the alien, his voice coming over the ship’s comm.

“
You would be right,” he says, moving his pawn to C4.  He watches the holographic chessboard as Bishop moves his pawn in front of his king to E6.  Rook already knows where he’s going with this. 
The Nimzo-Indian Defense
, he thinks, moving his knight to C3.  Sure enough, Bishop moves his king-side bishop to B4.  Rook starts in on a set of push-ups, thinking on his next move.  He completes eighty and then makes his decision.  “You know, there’s something I gotta ask you.”

“What is it?”

“Back in the asteroid field, why did you save me?”

“I told you, I had to get out of there, and you had obviously dealt a decisive blow.  They were firing on you, so obviously you were their enemy.  I had nothing and no one else to cling to.”

Rook makes his move, Bishop makes his.  They carry the game forward three more moves before Rook says, “It was more than that.  Had to be.  I mean, you were freshly out of suspended animation.  You couldn’t have known exactly what was going on, could you?”

“Perhaps not exactly, but I made a guess, and took a chance.”

They move a few more pieces.

“That’s it, then?  Just a survival instinct?  A common enemy that binds us?”

“No, there’s more to it than that.”

“
I thought so.  Like what?”

A long pause.  Bishop makes a move on the board. 
“I don’t quite know how to say it so that you’ll understand, so I’ll try to find something analogous in your culture,” the alien says.  It takes him a few seconds to dig something up.  “Are you familiar with Jewish texts?”

That was the last thing Rook thought he would hear
, and it makes him chuckle.  “Uh, sorta.  Why do you ask?”

“‘Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.’ From the
Talmud
.”

Rook thinks on that
.  “Whoever saves one life, saves the world entire.  I like that.”  He snorts out a laugh and moves his bishop to scoop up a pawn.  “Maybe I should’ve been Jewish.”

“It wouldn’t have agreed with you.”

“How d’ya know?”

“It seems to me most Earth religions require meetings and social gatherings.  Your personality does not seem to fit that.  You’re more suited to the stars.”

At the mention of that, Rook can’t help but look out the forward view, at the curve of dark planet’s top, at the tens of thousands of stars that lay beyond.  “My father said some people are meant to be sheepherders and lighthouse workers.”

“He was wise, then. 
My Progenitor told me much the same.  Of course, his line and mine were designed to be that way.”

“Your
Pro…?”

“Progenitor.  A parent.  Neither mother nor father, but in our language we used a male pronoun to describe the Progenitors.”

“They raise you?”

“They teach us.  They are lifelong instructors.  Their genetic material is what we’re made of—genetic engineering beget our caste system.  Some genetic lines are more gifted at nurturing, parenting, so their genetic material is granted from
their
Progenitor, a parenting specialist, and their legacies are to be mothers and fathers.”

“You…genetically engineered people to be good fathers and mothers, and then they, what, adopted another Progenitor’s engineer-warrior offspring to nurture?”

“Yes.  It’s up to our mothers and fathers to feed us, keep us safe, but it’s the Progenitor’s job to instruct.  Mine told me that not all people are meant to have families.”

“So you don’t have anyone you care about?”

“I did not say that.  I miss my people greatly, and my family.”

“Your Progenitor?”

A pause.  “Him most of all.”  There was a note there…almost human.

Rook nods.  “
Well, that caste system sounds weird to me, but I think my dad and your Progenitor knew what they were talking about.  Solitude is definitely me.”

“It’s what’s kept you alive.  Me, as well.  Our personalities keep us apart from others, but we still try and watch over them.  We try and do the right thing, without thought of reward.  On my world, we had a name for that kind of person.  It’s unpronounceable by you, but it meant
Lone Watchman
.  Your world once had another name for it:
ronin
.”

Rook considers that a moment, then looks down at the chessboard,
and brings about the conclusion.  He finally pushes his queen into position.  “Checkmate.”

“I see that.  I’m afraid I’m not giving you very good practice.”

“You just need to start thinking about the three separate stages of play, and approach them separately.  After the opening, there’s the middlegame and endgame.  After about ten or fifteen moves, middlegame starts, and that’s when you need to watch carefully for maneuvers, mistakes to exploit.  Also, you need to try to look for a combination—a series of forcing moves—that wins pawns and pieces.”

They cue up another game, and after just six moves, Rook already knows he’s going to win.  Ten moves later, it’s over.

“You lost that time because you started endgame-type of maneuvers too early.  Don’t even start thinking about endgame until most of the dangerous pieces are lost.  And when you
do
reach endgame, it’s best to utilize the king.  King and queen versus a lone king is the most basic endgame play, but you gotta be careful about a stalemate.”

A long silence.  Then,
“You really love this game, don’t you?”

Rook smiles.  “Takes me back.”

“It’s more than that, though, isn’t it?”

He gives it some thought, and realizes the alien is right.  “It’s what opened my eyes to my enemy’s weakness.  It’s how I beat them.”  It feels good just saying it.

“Why do you think that is?  The Cerebrals are the most highly-advanced creatures and computers either of our species ever encountered, so how did you beat them?  What principle was it that beat them, exactly?  It wasn’t just their aversion to sacrifice, or the principle of four.”

For Rook, the answer is as simple as pie. 
“Computers can never conceive of what we can.  Not ever.”  He smiles briefly.  It’s just a flash, there and gone, but we can see the pride in his eyes and hear it in his voice as he talks about his people.  “When the first computers were built to play chess, what surprised the builders the most was how inadequate computers were in playing against humans.  It’s the exponential number that was always the problem.”