‘You have no idea what is about to happen on this world, do you?’
‘The great Faller Apocalypse? I know.’
‘You don’t. You don’t even know our numbers.’
‘You’ve taken over every landmass apart from Lamaran and Byarn. I can only assume you have bred a formidable population base.’
‘Touché. I suppose the seibears gave that away?’
‘Yes. And you’ve got detailed plans of how to disrupt our society; the raid on our nukes showed us that.’
‘Indeed. And the Trees?’
Chaing fought against turning to look at Yaki; it would have shown weakness. ‘What about the Trees?’
‘This is a war for total supremacy. There can only be one survivor. I know you think you understand that intellectually, but in reality you are blind.’
‘What about the Trees?’
‘The apocalypse – your apocalypse – will begin when they fly down from the Ring to low orbit. You see, your cities and farms and railways and industry are not part of Faller culture. The Fallers do not need such things. They are spoils that will not be claimed by the victor.’
‘Then what will the Trees do?’ Yaki demanded in a strained voice.
‘Low orbit will allow them to refine their aim. Every egg they have will come crashing down on your buildings, your bridges, your dams. And there are tens of thousands of eggs growing up there. Their shells are engineered at a molecular level to withstand any impact, no matter what it is they land on. Every half-important structure you have ever built will be reduced to ruin in a matter of hours. Humans will have nothing left to defend. Millions of you will die before the nests even begin their assault. Survivors will be rounded up and either eaten or eggsumed. You’ll see.’
‘Oh crudding Giu,’ Chaing whispered. ‘But why tell us? Why warn us? If what you say is true, the Fallers are going to win no matter what we do.’
‘And if they do, I will probably lose. I am a realist above all else. Now that you have captured me I cannot deal with them, not from this prison cell; the weapons I was supposed to supply will not be delivered. I was treated with contempt before, and now you, Captain Chaing, have condemned me. Paula’s protection is my only chance of survival now. And I want to survive. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.’
‘But . . . You just told us it’s useless. We don’t stand a chance.’
‘You don’t. But she does. If anyone can defeat the Fallers, it’s Paula. She’s the only hope any of us have left.’
*
‘We can help them?’ Kysandra said in exasperation.
She was sitting on one of the new chairs extruded by the synthesizers, giving Paula a disapproving look. In the chair next to her, Florian – typically – simply seemed bemused by the discovery of Unit976 and the other Macule Units of Zone43, treating them as just another marvel of the universe outside Bienvenido. Ry, of course, was excited at first contact with a non-genocidal alien race, while Paula had smoothly incorporated its potential into her plan. Kysandra wondered just what it would take to fluster the girl; so far, everything that had happened in the last few weeks had proved she was pretty much unflappable. No wonder the ANAdroids were so pleased she finally turned up.
‘Yes,’ Paula said. ‘It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement. The Kromal were obviously a territorial species; they fought and lost a war motivated by naked tribalism. And trade is the basis of most tribal and national affairs, so they understand the concept perfectly. We exchange our knowledge and offer to take them back to the Commonwealth galaxy with us, in return for the raw materials that they possess.’
‘Crud,’ Kysandra grumbled under her breath. She looked out of the dome’s window. Unit976 had been joined by several similar machines, and one – Unit26 – which made them look small. Unit26 was a single metal cylinder forty-five metres long, with massive caterpillar tracks on each corner and sensor prongs protruding along its flanks. It towed its own fission reactor behind it – a big wheeled sphere which dripped oils at an alarming rate as it crawled along. Fifteen long silver thermal radiator panels stuck out of the sphere’s steel casing, as if it had stolen wings from broken aeroplanes and didn’t quite know what to do with them.
Right now it was rolling slowly round the extruded domes, scanning them with its crude sensors. And that wasn’t the only attempt to discover the secrets the humans had brought to Macule. Unit976 had opened hatches on its third section and five small wheeled vehicles came racing down the ramps, trailing power and data cables behind them. Kysandra had named them the puppies from the way they nipped about between the few Commonwealth machines left outside the domes, examining them as best their small sensor arrays could manage.
‘The Kromal might have been tribal,’ she said, ‘but Giu alone knows what these things are,’ she said.
‘I performed a thorough field scan on Unit976,’ Paula said. ‘Its mechanics are relatively crude, barely ahead of Bienvenido’s technology. However, there is one exception. The controlling intelligence, its processor core, is mainly biological in nature.’ Her u-shadow sent them all a file, which contained the field scan imagery of Unit976. Right at the centre of the second segment was a spherical module into which all the machine’s data cables were plugged. At its core was a hexagonal star-array of bioware cylinders, sustained in a fluid that seemed to serve as both coolant and nutrient.
‘Not quite as advanced as us ANAdroids,’ Demitri said, ‘but certainly capable of semi-sentient thought if the programming is sophisticated enough. My only worry would be what kind of corruption has crept in over time.’
‘976 claims that original Kromals downloaded their memories into the biocores,’ Paula said. ‘The Units they’re housed in can be repaired and rebuilt with a basic engineering capability – presumably in the caves Ry found. They build completely new ones every few hundred years when the biocore has also begun to degrade. The Unit simply transfers its thought patterns and memories into a newly grown core, which is installed inside the new Unit.’
‘And they’ve kept that going for thirty-five thousand years?’ Kysandra asked in astonishment.
‘Thirty-five thousand years is only sixty or seventy generations for the Units,’ Demitri said. ‘Technology stasis is easy to maintain over such a period. Their only problem is going to be copy errors creeping in. Other than that, theoretically they should be able to maintain themselves for millennia to come, until an outside event intervenes or their resources shrink.’
‘Intervention is us; so other Zones running out of resources and coming over the border would be the other event?’ Kysandra said.
‘Yes. Resource wars can’t happen often here. As long as the Zones have energy, they can recycle most of their metal. Uranium may be their limiting factor, even with breeder reactors.’
‘Why, though?’ Florian asked. ‘What’s the point? This world is dead.’
‘Not quite,’ Paula said. ‘The idea is to wait until the radioactivity dies down to a point where biological life is sustainable again.’
‘The Zones must have banks of genetic material,’ Demitri said. ‘The Kromals will live again. Hopefully next time, they will have learned from history and embark on a more peaceful society.’
‘Unlikely,’ Paula said. ‘They were expelled from the Void, then they wiped themselves out in a planet-wide nuclear exchange. That doesn’t speak of peaceful rationality to me.’
‘And you want to trade with them?’ Kysandra asked sceptically. She glanced through the big hexagonal window again. Unit26 had stopped its prowling and was now turning slowly to face the domes. She didn’t want to think what would happen if it tried to roll forwards. The tracks on each corner were massive, capable of crushing the composite dome panels with ease. And the force field was off . . .
‘Yes,’ Paula replied. ‘They can supply us with material which we would otherwise have to waste time tracking down and bringing back here. All that costs to us is some technical information, which we will limit.’
&nb
sp; ‘And help them back to the Commonwealth galaxy,’ Ry said. ‘If they’re as bad as we suspect, do we want them as neighbours?’
Paula grinned. ‘Bienvenido humans were also expelled from the Void. And trust me, back in the galaxy we deal with aliens a lot worse than the Kromal.’
‘I suppose . . .’ But he didn’t sound convinced.
‘In any case, we have no real choice,’ Paula said, indicating the Units and their puppies outside. ‘They’re here, it is their world, and we have to deal with them. And I’d rather have them as allies than enemies.’
‘All right then,’ Kysandra said. It was just like arguing with Nigel all over again. You knew you were always going to lose; the only interest was in exactly how.
Paula stood up. Her suit flowed over her, expanding a transparent bubble round her head. Kysandra and the others followed her out of the dome’s airlock.
Three of the puppies raced over to them, hauling their dusty cables along. Unit26 stopped its ponderous turn and tracked them with several sensor mechanisms. Kysandra’s exovision showed her maser pulses just a little too powerful for comfort, as if their suits were being tested.
‘We’d like to begin our alliance,’ Paula told Unit976. ‘As a gesture of goodwill, this file contains the blueprint of a small fusion reactor which could be used to replace your current fission piles. I provide it without asking anything in return.’ Her u-shadow sent over a file.
‘We respect your commitment to honesty,’ Unit976 replied.
‘Then we should begin our trade. Do you have records of Valatare? I would like to examine them.’
‘We do.’
‘I also have a list of materials we require.’
*
Interim Prime Minister Terese was still holding meetings in the grandiose cabinet room at the centre of the palace. She’d appointed several loyal supporters to key posts, shunting Adolphus’s people aside. She’d done deals with senior Party members, and awarded civil service directorates to supporters. Her position was now as politically secure as it could be, but retreating to the palace bunker might still be seen as a sign of weakness. Her biggest concession to personal security was to use the regimental communication centre, which was on the second floor in the palace’s state wing, when dealing with martial law and the reservist build-up.
That would have to change, Stonal thought as he was shown into the cabinet room. He was mildly pleased to see that Davorky, the master general of the regiments, was also waiting for him, sitting in the chair next to the prime minister. The old general played the capital politics game well – you couldn’t rise to his post without that ability – but he also boasted a distinguished record leading troops against Faller eggs and nests, and constantly promoted the case for increased regimental funding to the dismay of the state treasury. All of which made him popular with the regiments. Technically, he was Stonal’s commanding officer, but that wasn’t a test of strength Stonal ever wanted to enter into. The two of them respected each other’s particular fields of expertise, and left it at that. It was simple realism.
‘Director Stonal,’ Terese said in welcome. ‘My chief of staff said you had some very urgent information for me.’
‘Yes, prime minister,’ he agreed as he sat in the chair opposite hers, glancing pointedly at her two young aides and mentally reviewing their files. They had top-level security clearance, but still . . .
‘Please proceed,’ Terese said.
‘I’ve just been briefed by my agent, Captain Chaing.’
‘I remember the name,’ Davorky said. ‘Wasn’t he tracking the Commonwealth girl in Opole?’
‘Yes. And now he’s just captured Roxwolf, a mutant Faller who ran the gangs in Opole.’
‘A mut . . . You mean a breeder?’
‘A failed breeder, apparently; he’s some kind of physical crossover. Chaing is escorting him here to Varlan. I’m sure the Faller Research Institute will have a wonderful time analysing him, but that’s not the point. Roxwolf is offering information on the nests and the apocalypse.’
‘In exchange for what?’ Terese asked quickly.
Stonal kept his face expressionless. Politicians, they can smell a deal a kilometre off. ‘He wants to live.’
‘Tell him he can. Once we have what we want, then the Institute can take over, as you said.’
‘That might be difficult. He wants Paula’s protection.’
‘She’s dead, along with the crudding Warrior Angel.’
‘We left the possibility open-ended. He has been remarkably cooperative given the circumstances.’
‘Good. So what did he tell us?’
Stonal took several minutes explaining Roxwolf’s claim about the Trees flying down to low orbit. How the Fallers neither wanted nor needed human structures – a point he admitted he’d never considered. None of them had, not even in the bleakest planning scenario.
‘The Trees can do that?’ Terese asked. She was perfectly still, though her hands were holding on to the edge of the table as if she feared she was about to keel over.
‘They often take flight to a higher orbit when a Liberty approaches them,’ Davorky said. ‘Their acceleration is small, but constant. You can check with General Delores if you want, but I can’t see anything to prevent them from moving into a low orbit instead.’
‘Crudding Uracus,’ Terese muttered under her breath. She looked at Davorky. ‘What do we do?’
It took Stonal a long moment to answer. ‘To defend us from an attack like that? Nothing.’
‘Crud.’ Terese looked from him to Davorky, clearly waiting for the master general to disagree and offer her a lifeline.
‘It’s starting to look like evacuation of essential personal to Byarn should go ahead,’ Stonal said, hating himself for it. Byarn was the ultimate admission of defeat. ‘That would be my recommendation. The majority of facilities there are underground.’
‘So we are going to be using Operation Reclaim, then?’ Terese said. ‘I never thought it would actually . . . I thought the regiments might prevail.’ She blinked against the moisture in her eyes. ‘Are we absolutely certain Paula and the Warrior Angel are dead?’
‘The Fallers used two atomic bombs in the location we believe the Viscount was buried. Major Yulei was unable to regain contact with their party after that. The conclusion is straightforward. They had personal force fields, but Mother Laura showed us they cannot withstand a nuclear explosion.’
‘Right then,’ Terese said through a tightened throat before regaining her poise. ‘Start the evacuation,’ she told Davorky.
4
Florian had been impressed and more than a little intimidated by the Macule Units. They were big machines (especially 26), built with one aim – to survive. And not just to survive incursions from neighbouring Zones, but time, too. They were also alive in a weird way, like the space machine that had brought Paula to him. But without Joey’s humour, he realized.
Once Paula had agreed the basic terms, Zone43’s Units had begun delivering raw material from whatever stores they had deep underground, attaching open trailers to the back of themselves and hauling back metal ingots, boxes of minerals, and tanks of hydrocarbon fluids.
That was when Florian realized the massive difference between Macule technology and the science of the Commonwealth. The refineries and synthesizers from Viscount devoured the materials they were fed, and began to churn out finished products at an astonishing rate in the central assembly dome. That was when his second re-evaluation began. He’d been impressed by the composite panels used to build the domes, and the quad-karts had seemed a miracle of engineering. But now satellites the size of his fist were being completed every ten minutes, whose complex solid-state components were immeasurably superior to the axle motors and magnetic bearings of the quad-karts.
He was more impressed by the quantum analysis engine the ANAdroids were building. They called it Nigel2 – an innocuous cylinder a metre and a half high, which contained processing power an order of magnit
ude above their own bioconstruct brains. ‘We’re going to need it to evaluate Valatare,’ Valeri explained. ‘It’ll even determine what kind of sensors we have to build to increase its understanding.’
‘You mean it’ll be alive?’ Florian asked.
‘Are we?’ Valeri replied equitably.
Florian blushed. ‘Well . . . yes.’ He couldn’t think of the ANAdroids as anything other than perfectly human, not after all they’d been through together.
‘Then so will it.’ The ANAdroid winked at him. ‘My thought routines will form the base personality.’
‘You mean you’re going to put your mind into it?’
‘Yes and no. My base personality is Nigel Sheldon. That’s what’s will be loaded in, along with the Skylady’s files. All the irrelevant memories I’ve accumulated since I was activated will be stripped out of the copy. It will be Nigel’s primary mentality, but able to utilize the engine’s full capacity.’
‘Right.’
‘Nigel is a physics genius,’ Paula explained. ‘I need that original ability of his to analyse Valatare for me.’
Florian gave Valeri a curious look. ‘But I thought you couldn’t innovate?’
‘We can’t. Well, we can’t make direct intuitive leaps, anyway. But this much processing power will allow a metaheuristic search for a solution, using brute-force calculation, examining every variable from every direction until you have a valid answer.’
Florian gazed at Paula. ‘I thought we were using the satellites to find the armada warships?’
‘Not quite, they’ll provide data on the nature of Valatare’s internal structure. If I’m right, and there’s a barrier below the cloud layer, we’ll need Nigel2 to analyse its composition and work out how to get through it. This isn’t going to be easy, Florian.’
‘Yeah. I’m getting that now.’
Unit976 rumbled past outside, delivering another trailer load of minerals.
‘Do you have the Valatare files?’ Paula asked it.
Florian had noticed how keen she was to update their own astronomy files, but getting information out of the Macule Units was a lot more difficult than material. The Zones and Units clearly didn’t have anything like a communication net; their data was safeguarded in whatever underground citadel they existed to protect, presumably alongside that most precious Kromal genetic bank. So the information had to be downloaded from the central database and into a Unit’s memory, then finally transmitted to Paula.