The Mammoth Book of SF Wars (5 page)

They destroyed the first colonized planets they came to, without hesitation, without warning. They paused in orbit just long enough to look down on the civilizations we had built there, and just their terrible gaze was enough to kill everything that lived. We still have recorded images from that time, of the dead worlds. Cities full of corpses, towns where nothing moved. Wildlife lying unmoving, rotting in the open, and fish of all kinds bobbing unseeing on the surfaces of the oceans. The Medusae moved on, from planet to planet, system to system, leaving only dead worlds in their wake.

We sent the Fleet out to meet them, hundreds and hundreds of our marvellous and mighty Dreadnaughts, armed to the teeth with disrupters and force shields, planet-buster bombs and reality invertors. The Fleet closed with the Medusae, singing our songs of glory, ravening energies flashing across open Space, and all of it was for nothing. We could not touch the Medusae. They passed over the Fleet like a storm in the night, and left behind them mile-long starships cracked open from stem to stern, with streams of dead bodies issuing out of broken hulls, scattering slowly across the dark. Occasionally some would tumble down through the atmosphere of a dead world, like so many shooting stars with no one to see them.

The Medusae moved on through the colonized systems, wiping clean every world we’d colonized or changed, as though just our presence on their planets had contaminated those beyond saving. One by one, the planetary comm systems fell silent, voices crying out for help that never came, fading into static ghosts. Some colonists got away, fleeing ahead of the Medusae on desperate, overcrowded ships; most didn’t. There is no number big enough that the human mind can accept to sum up our losses. All the men, women and children lost in those long months of silent slaughter. All the proudly named cities, all the wonders and marvels we built out of nothing; gone, all gone. And finally, when they’d run out of planets to cleanse, and people to kill, the Medusae came looking for us. All that great swarm, hideous beyond bearing, complex beyond our comprehension, beyond reason or reasoning with … they followed the fleeing ships back to us, back to the home of Mankind.

Back to Old Earth.

We sent up every ship we had, everything that would fly, loaded with every weapon we had, and we met the Medusae at the very edge of our solar system. And there, we stopped them. The aliens looked upon our worlds, but came no closer. And for a while we rejoiced, because we thought we had won a great victory. We should have known better. The Medusae had stopped because they didn’t need to come any closer. Hanging there in open Space, silent and huge and monstrous, out beyond the great gas-giant planets, they looked on Old Earth, and reached out with their incomprehensible energies to touch our world. They poisoned our planet. Changed her essential nature, so that our world would no longer support human life. They turned our home against Humanity. A fitting punishment, from the Medusae; they terraformed us.

And that … that was when we got really angry, and contemplated revenge.

The Lords and Ladies of Old Earth came together in Convocation, for the first time in centuries. They met at Siege Perilous, that wonderful ancient monument to past glories, shaped like a massive hourglass, towering high and high over the bustling starport of New Damascus. Immortal and powerful, relentless and implacable, the Lords and Ladies represented Concepts, not Countries. They spoke for all the various aspects of Humanity, and their word was Law. Made immortal, so that they could take the long view. Denied peace or rest, because they were needed. Cursed with conscience and damned with duty, because that’s how we always reward the best of us.

Only the Lords and Ladies knew the secret truth of our poisoned estate; that we would have to leave Old Earth and find a new home somewhere else. The continuance of Humanity itself was at threat, but only the Lords and Ladies knew. Because only they could be trusted to know everything. The Lords and Ladies of Old Earth were given dominion to do anything and everything necessary to serve and preserve Humanity. In an acknowledged Emergency, the Lords and Ladies were authorized and enjoined to call upon any human being, anyone anywhere, for any necessary purpose. Humanity gave them this power, and trusted them to use it well and wisely. Because only they could take the truly long view; and because everyone else was just too busy.

There were checks and balances in place, of course. And truly terrible punishments.

They came to Convocation in the last hours of evening, their personal ships drifting down like so many falling leaves, settling easily onto the crystal landing pads set out on top of Siege Perilous. And then they made their way down to the single reserved meeting hall, a bare and sparse chamber, isolated from the world. They had no use for seats of state, for the trappings of power or the comforts of privilege. Exactly one hundred Lords and Ladies stood in a great circle, looking openly upon each other, in their traditional peacock robes of vivid colours. Their faces were naked and unmasked, so that everyone could see and be seen. Outside, combat androids programmed with the deposited memories of rabid wolves patrolled the perimeter, ready and eager to kill any living thing they encountered.

There were other, less noticeable protections in place, of course.

The Lord Ravensguard spoke for War, so he spoke first. Tall and grave he was, with cool, thoughtful eyes. He spoke of the horrors the Medusae had committed, of what they had done and might do yet. And then he spoke of possible responses and tactics.

“There are always the Forbidden Weapons,” he said calmly. “Those ancient and detestable devices locked away for centuries, because they were deemed too terrible for Man to use upon Man. I speak of the Time Hammer, and the Despicable Childe. The Nightmare Engines and the Hour From Beyond.”

“Could we use such things, and still call ourselves human?” said the Lord Zodiac, representing Culture. “You cannot defeat evil with evil methods. You cannot stop monsters by becoming monsters.”

“The enemy we face has no understanding of such concepts,” the Lord Ravensguard said firmly. “They do not seek to destroy us because they are Good or Evil. They do not think like us. They see us only as … an infestation.”

“Have we exhausted all means of communicating with them?” said the Lady Benefice, who spoke for Communications.

“We have tried everything, from all the many forms of technology, to the most extreme reaches of psi,” said the Lord Ravensguard. “They do not hear us. Or, more likely, they choose not to.”

“Weapons are not the answer,” said the Lady Subtle, who represented Security. Small she was, compact, determined. “We have tried weapons, and they have failed us. We must sink lower than that. We shall fight the Medusae with guile and betrayal, and they will not see it coming. Because they would never stoop so low.”

“You have a plan?” said the Lord Ravensguard.

And everyone smiled, politely. Because the Lady Subtle always had a plan. She spoke to them at length, of a trap, and a punishment, and Humanity’s final revenge. The Convocation then deliberated. They did not have the luxury of being shocked, or offended; their duty demanded. Only was this awful plan practical? There was much discussion, which ended when the Lord DeMeter, who spoke for the soul of Humanity, raised the only question that mattered.

“Do we have the right,” he asked, “to make such a sacrifice, and place such a stain upon the collective conscience of Humanity?”

“We can do this; we must do this,” said the Lady Shard, who represented Duty. Vivacious, she was, full of life, and deadly in her focused malice. “We will do this because we have no other choice. Humanity will be saved, and avenged, and that is all that matters.”

And so the decision was made, and the order given. The Lord Ravensguard and the Ladies Subtle and Shard went out from Convocation to cross the world and acquire the three necessary elements for Humanity’s last blow at the Medusae.

The Lord Ravensguard went to the Grand Old Opera House, set among the gleaming spires and shimmering towers of the city Sydney, in Australia. Samuel DeClare was singing there that night. There was no greater singer among all Humanity at that time. They called him the Man With the Golden Voice. When he sang, everyone listened. He could break your heart and mend it, all in a single song. Make you cry and make you cheer; weigh you down and lift you up; and make you love every moment of it. His audiences adored him, and beat their hands bloody in applause at the end of every concert. And this night was his greatest appearance, before his biggest audience. Afterwards, everyone there said it was his finest moment. They were wrong, but they couldn’t know that. The Lord Ravensguard stood at the very back of the massive concert hall, and listened, and was moved like everyone else. Perhaps more so, because he alone knew what Samuel DeClare’s final performance would entail.

He went backstage to meet with DeClare after the concert was over. The greatest singer of all time sat slumped, unseeing, before his dressing-room mirror, surrounded by flowers and gifts, and messages of congratulation from everyone who mattered. He was big and broad-shouldered, and classically handsome, like some god of ancient times come down to walk among his worshippers. He sat slumped in his chair, tired, depressed, lost. He could barely find the energy to bow his head respectfully to the Lord Ravensguard.

“What is wrong?” said the Lord. “Your audience loved you. Listen; they’re still cheering, still applauding. You sang magnificently.”

“Yes,” said DeClare. “But how can I ever follow that? There will be other songs, other performances, but nothing to match tonight. It hits hard, to reach the peak of your career and know there’s nowhere left to go, but down.”

“Ah,” said the Lord Ravensguard. “But what if I were to offer you the chance for an even greater performance? One last song, of magnificent scope and consequence, before an audience greater than any singer has ever known?”

DeClare raised his heavy head, and looked at the Lord Ravensguard. “How long would this performance last?”

“Just the one song,” said the Lord Ravensguard. Because he was allowed, and even encouraged, to lie when necessary.

The Lady Subtle went to meet the infamous Weeping Woman in that most ancient of prisons, the Blue Vaults. That wasn’t her real name, of course. She was Christina Valdez, just another face in the crowd, until she did what she did, and the media called her La Llorona, the Weeping Woman. The authorities put her in the Blue Vaults for the murder of many children. She wept endlessly because she had lost her own children in an awful accident, which might or might not have been of her own making. And then she went out into the night, every night, drifting through the back streets of dimly lit cities, to abduct the children of others, to compensate her for her loss. None of these children ever went home again.

The Lady Subtle went down into the Blue Vaults, those great stone caverns set deep and deep under the Sahara Desert, and there she gave orders that one particular door be opened. Inside, Christina Valdez crouched naked in the small stone cell, covered in her own filth, blinking dazedly into the sudden and unexpected light. Because normally, when criminals came to the Blue Vaults, they were locked away for ever. No clothes, no windows, no light; food and water through a slot, and a grille in the floor. The door only opened again when they came to take out the body. The Lady Subtle dismissed the guard, and spoke, and the Weeping Woman listened.

“You have a chance to redeem yourself, Christina,” said the Lady Subtle. “You have the opportunity to save all Humanity.”

Valdez laughed in the Lady’s face. “Let them all die! Where were they when my children died? Did any of them weep for my lost babies?”

“The Medusae have murdered millions of children,” said the Lady Subtle. “You could weep for them, and avenge them, too.”

The argument went round and round for some time, because the Lady Subtle was patient and wise, and Christina Valdez was distracted and quite mad. But eventually an agreement was reached, and the Lady Subtle led La Llorona out of her cell and into the light. And if the Lady Subtle felt any guilt at what was going to happen to Christina Valdez, she kept it to herself.

The Lady Shard tracked down that most dangerous of fugitives, Damnation Rue, to a sleazy bar in that maze of criss-crossing corridors called the Maul, deep in the slums of Under Rio. The media called him the Rogue Mind, because he was the most powerful telepath Humanity had ever produced, and because he would not be bound by Humanity’s rules, or the psionic community’s rules, or even the rules of polite conduct. He went where he would, did what he wanted, and no one could stop him. He built things up and tore them down, he owed money everywhere, and left broken hearts and minds in his wake, always escaping one step ahead of the consequences, or retribution.

The Lady Shard watched him cautiously from the shadows at the back of the packed bar, a foul and loathsome watering hole for the kind of people who needed somewhere to hide from a world that had had enough of them. The Rogue Mind was there to enjoy the barbaric customs and the madder music, the illegal drugs and the extremely dangerous drinks … and to enjoy the emotions of others, second-hand. For Damnation Rue, there was nothing more intoxicating than just a taste of other people’s heavens and hells. He could always stir things up a little if things looked like getting too peaceful.

The air was full of drifting smoke, and the general gloom was broken only by the sudden flares of discharging energy guns or flashing blades. There was blood and slaughter and much rough laughter. The Rogue Mind loved it. The Lady Shard watched it all, hidden behind a psionic shield.

She brought Damnation Rue to book through the use of a pre-programmed pleasure droid, with a patina of artificially overlaid memories. She was beautiful to look at, this droid, in a suitably foul and sluttish way and, when Damnation Rue persuaded her to sit at his table, and watched what he thought were her thoughts, she drugged his drink.

When he finally woke up, he had a mind trap fastened tight to his brow, holding his thoughts securely inside his own head. He was strapped down, very securely, in a very secure airship, taking him directly to the Blue Vaults. The Lady Shard sat opposite him, told him where he was going, and observed the panic in his eyes.