“Hecate,” Achilles sang. No response. “Hecate,” he repeated, much louder. Nothing. He raised a forehoof and gave Hecate a strong shove in the flank.
“Excellency.” Hecate shuddered. “What have you done?”
“Probably saved us,” Achilles sang.
But not the crew in the cargo hold, its enormous hatch gaping into hyperspace. Only Phoebe, his eyes and ears and consciousness withdrawn into a tightly rolled ball of flesh, might survive.
Ng’t’mo floated in their tiny chamber, melded and waiting. Waiting on the master of masters. Waiting to leave hyperspace. Waiting for sensors to come alive. Waiting for threat and conflict. Waiting for the deaths certain to come.
Whose deaths? That they must wait to learn.
. . .
“Surrender or die!” Bm’o shouted. His fleet was just out of hyperspace.
A moment later chaos erupted across the control center. How could a reply come so soon? Radio waves had only begun their light-speed trek into the inner solar system. Unless the reply came from outside the singularity, via a relay very close by.
“We will do neither,” a familiar voice said. Ol’t’ro. “Look around. We have an enemy in common.”
And in his displays Bm’o saw another vessel. It was huge, larger than all his ships combined. It must be a Citizen ship! Its normal-space velocity matched that of Bm’o’s fleet. And inward from that monstrous ship—
Fusion flames drove missiles streaking toward the rebel world.
A wondrous puzzle!
Ng’t’mo drank in the data sent to their cage from the ship’s control center. The sun and planets. Neutrino sources racing at great speeds in all directions. And two large ships, not part of the master of masters’ fleet. And missiles.
Two missiles raced toward the world where Ol’t’ro must live!
Ng’t’mo remembered puzzling whether anything could defend against missiles at these speeds. They remembered concluding it was possible. And that Ol’t’ro was smarter than they.
They hoped they were correct.
Louis was on hyperwave the moment Addison dropped from hyperspace. “Metternich, a hostile Puppeteer ship is on its way. Metternich, be prepared to evade.”
From the copilot’s couch, Enzio stared in disbelief. He keyed furiously at his console. A hologram popped up, a riot of colors. “Louis, you need to look at this.”
What was he seeing? A solar system. Many objects, neutrino sources, rushing in all directions at relativistic speeds. Two streaked straight for the inner planets!
“We are busy,” Ol’t’ro broadcast. They closed channels to Metternich and the Tn’Tn’ho’s fleet.
The huge Citizen ship plummeted toward Kl’mo at half light speed. The missiles, accelerating steadily, plunged faster still. But aboard Mighty Current, Ol’t’ro had almost the same relative velocity. They studied their defensive array, its many elements racing in all directions. Ol’t’ro selected two probes speeding crosswise to the plunging missiles. The closing velocity between those probes and the missiles approached three-quarters light speed.
Hyperwave signals were instantaneous; the course and bearing calculations were quickly completed. Ol’t’ro dispatched targeting information to their chosen interceptors. The interceptors micro-jumped through hyperspace to the optimum launch points, where they would also receive final readouts from the hyperwave-radar system.
Ol’t’ro repeated the process with a second pair of probes.
The missiles plunged across an invisible border, into the singularity where hyperwave ceased to function. Ol’t’ro used visual observations to target a third set of interceptors, knowing the data was obsolete.
The first pair of interceptors fell into the singularity, beyond instantaneous communication. From now on, the antimissiles must guide themselves.
And Ol’t’ro could only watch.
Half a minute—and a light-hour removed from the singularity—later, Remembrance dropped from hyperspace. Achilles waited impatiently for the light and neutrinos from his missiles to reach him. Hecate, without asking permission, galloped from the bridge to care for those in the cargo hold. Futile.
Achilles stared, transfixed, into the tactical display. He saw a swarm of ships: the main Gw’oth fleet had arrived. Streaking to the colony world, he saw the missiles’ fusion exhausts—
With two unknown neutrino sources shooting directly at them.
The telescopic displays flashed impossibly bright in the instant before overload protection cut in. Tears filled his eyes.
A proximity alarm screamed. An object, relativistic, had appeared from nowhere. The object rushed straight at him!
Another of whatever had destroyed his missiles?
The ship’s hull might survive impact, and the emergency stasis field for his crash couch would protect him. Nothing else within the ship could possibly withstand the concussion. Achilles’ mind flashed back in horror to the hollowed-out hulk of Argo.
Bleating in terror, Achilles slapped Remembrance back into hyperspace. He was not safe here. No one was.
But where did he dare go now?
AN END TO WAR
43
Louis knew he was no diplomat. He told himself that that was for the best, for surely no negotiation had ever unfolded under circumstances so strange.
Leaders of both Gw’oth factions were on ships outside the singularity, able to converse instantaneously by hyperwave. But Bm’o and Ol’t’ro also consulted with counselors back home, entailing many hours for light-speed delays within their respective solar systems.
Louis and Alice could also communicate instantaneously, with each other and with the space-based Gw’oth. Sigmund sometimes joined the conversations. Because New Terra flew free, without a star, that round-trip comm delay was less than two minutes. (Closer to two minutes for Alice than for Sigmund or Louis. From her frame of reference, New Terra and its singularity had relativistic speed. Time dilation added about twenty percent to the delay she experienced.)
Twice the Hindmost called, the round-trip comm delay with the Fleet of Worlds a still-manageable three minutes. He apologized for the rogue actions of Achilles, promised severe punishment once Achilles was apprehended, hinted at opportunities for trade, and offered good will to everyone—while reminding everyone that the Concordance would soon be far away.
Every ship but Metternich had started with or accelerated to the normal-space velocity of the Fleet of Worlds: about half light speed toward galactic north. Ol’t’ro’s planetary defense probes raced just as quickly, but in all directions.
To stay near Kl’mo—whether defensively, offensively, or as neutral observers—spacecraft kept vanishing to hyperspace to loop back. No one trusted anyone; disappearances came without warning, even midsentence. The hyperspace jumps could be seconds or minutes, and to avoid predictability, jumps were also made for no reason beyond keeping everyone else off balance.
Louis’s bridge displays were an ever-changing froth of ships appearing and disappearing, of space writhing with hyperwave ripples from ships and the more numerous defensive probes entering and returning from hyperspace at points around the solar system.
And most ships were armed to the teeth. And no one could keep pace with Ol’t’ro’s thoughts or Sigmund’s paranoia. And when Gw’oth factions chose to speak directly, the humans were left to speculate among themselves.
There was much, sometimes too much, to discuss. The issues among the Gw’oth: which grievances were authentic and which were actually Achilles’ provocations. Human subtleties: New Terra’s neutrality, Alice’s services as arbiter, and Louis’s free-agent status. Threats, deterrents, and mutual assured destruction. The costs of war and the perils of appeasement. Whether two human ships arriving almost at the instant of Achilles’ attack denoted coincidence, hostile distraction, or good intentions. Possible confidence-building measures. And on, and on. . . .
Of everyone in the negotiation (if that’s what this cacophony was), Louis had spent the
most time with Achilles. Again and again, Louis was asked to explain the rogue Puppeteer. When Louis’s answers failed to satisfy, he brought in Enzio and Sigmund. The Gw’oth even interrogated the Hindmost about Achilles. Baedeker assured everyone that Achilles was an outlaw, a herdless one, who would be brought to justice.
Ol’t’ro, especially, seemed curious about Achilles. Louis wished he understood why.
Had the New Terran intervention helped? All Louis knew for certain was which disasters had not happened. No more missiles had been flung at planet or ships. No ships had left to threaten anyone else.
Things could be a lot worse.
Able at last to talk again, it was hard for Louis and Alice to bear that they remained millions, sometimes billions, of miles apart, and that while Louis sped along at half light speed, Alice was all but stationary. But it would take days to match velocities. So far Sigmund had decreed that Addison and Metternich maintain their very different velocities. He offered no rationale beyond maintaining flexibility.
Flexibility. Louis cursed the notion. Tanj, he had missed Alice!
“You’re beautiful,” he said a lot. Maybe it was a case of abstinence making the heart grow fonder, but he had never seen Alice so radiant.
“I miss you, too,” she often answered. “You have no idea how much.”
“Come aboard and you can show me.”
“Yah, right.” She smiled, more lovely still.
They stole every moment they could, in the delays waiting for Sigmund to respond or during Ol’t’ro’s or Bm’o’s unannounced absences from normal space. Every minute was precious. When the Gw’oth talked only among themselves, Louis and Alice spoke together a lot. They talked about finding him a job on New Terra. They talked about building a home together, a life together. They filled the hyperwaves with sweet nothings.
As the days passed, the Gw’oth spoke more and more among themselves. Louis and Alice tried to convince one another that the direct dialogue meant progress. The two sides no longer needed referees.
To which sentiment Sigmund would chide that optimism was merely a euphemism for wishful thinking.
Optimistic or not, none of them could avoid wondering just what the Gw’oth talked about in private.
Bm’o had forgotten how unsettling dialogue with Ol’t’ro could be.
It went beyond dealing with an abomination, a freak of nature. It was worse than being made to feel slow and stupid. Events Bm’o knew only from history, the Gw’otesht had lived through—and as often had caused to happen.
And Bm’o did not have a choice.
“Compromise is the only option, sire,” Rt’o had concluded in her last message from home. “You have seen Ol’t’ro defeat kinetic-kill weapons. Their defenses will destroy any unauthorized ship that attempts to approach the colony. Our world has no such defense, but we control what the rebels must have: new biological supplies.”
In the end, with no other choice, Bm’o had compromised. Every aspect of the final agreement was logical. Almost every aspect carried implications that teased and taunted him, possibilities and eventualities beyond the ability of the noblest Gw’o to comprehend.
To what had he agreed unknowingly? Only time would tell. But at least he and his great fleet would return home little the worse for their epic voyage.
If with nothing to show for it.
Bm’o took comfort in knowing he would soon set course for Jm’ho.
And that Achilles’ lackey on the home world, and everything Thalia had brought, and all his possessions, had been dropped into the sun—before they could release the ecosystem-demolishing retrovirus.
We are Ng’t’mo.
Nothing else was certain. Nothing else made sense. The eight had been ordered apart, roughly dragged from their cage, herded one by one through crowded corridors to a water lock and aboard another ship. An empty ship.
Melded anew, Ng’t’mo struggled to grasp their circumstances. A larger cage? An exotic place to die?
Vibrations suggested ships separating.
Change was bad. The masters seldom rewarded, but they were quick to punish. The master of masters was the most quick-tempered of all. Ng’t’mo had suffered exceedingly for insisting—truthfully—that they saw no way to fool the rebel’s defensive system.
Then the master of masters had commanded them to find evasive patterns that would protect the fleet. Only the patterns Ng’t’mo had devised, however seemingly random, would be predictable to a sufficiently sophisticated mind.
Because they hoped the leaping of the ships would be recognized as the product of another sophisticated mind. They might be freed if Ol’t’ro noticed.
Now, fearfully exploring this new cage, Ng’t’mo wondered if the master of masters had noticed.
We are Ng’t’mo, they told themselves. They crept, as quickly as they were able with so many tubacles mated and entwined, until they found what might be controls. None of their units had piloted a spaceship, or been allowed to see a control center.
The controls were a puzzle. They would solve the puzzle.
Then: lights flashing on a console. New vibrations. A soft thunk. The sound of a water lock cycling. An unfamiliar Gw’o, flashing greens and far reds in patterns of welcome, swam into the control center!
“We come from Ol’t’ro,” the new arrival said. “You are safe. You are free.”
. . .
“We accept your offer to help,” Ol’t’ro had hyperwaved to Metternich and Addison.
“I thought we’ve been helping.” Louis tried to keep sarcasm out of his voice. Had he not already saved the Gw’oth fleet from massacre? Perhaps only Bm’o considered that to be help.
“You offered useful information,” Ol’t’ro granted. “We ask now that you do something.”
“Ol’t’ro, I’m putting you on hold for a moment,” Alice said.
“This is good,” Sigmund offered when the relayed conversation caught up to him. “If they let New Terra help, it means we’re on no one’s enemies list. As long as whatever thing they want done is not too dangerous.”
Says the man light-years away. Louis kept that to himself, too.
Something in Ol’t’ro’s presentation made Louis nervous. He could not put his finger on it. “Sigmund, what’s your best guess about Hearth? Are the Puppeteers on anyone’s enemies list?”
“Let’s hope not,” Sigmund finally said.
Louis presumed hope was also a euphemism for wishful thinking.
Alice reconnected with Ol’t’ro. “Help, how?” she asked.
“Our colony needs supplies from Jm’ho. When we tried to obtain them ourselves, what we got was tainted.”
Alice said, “So you want New Terran ships to retrieve fresh specimens for you?”
“Would we know a good specimen from a bad one?” Louis asked. Sigmund had the same concern shortly after.
“Unlikely,” Ol’t’ro said. “We must send our own experts for that. We ask that one of your ships go along as a witness. And as a confidence-building measure, as you humans call it. Bm’o, too, wishes your participation, as you should confirm.”
Trust me, I will, Louis thought.
“I can send a ship,” Sigmund offered. “It will rendezvous with your mission on its way.”
“Not acceptable,” Ol’t’ro said. “Our experts and a cargo ship leave immediately from Kl’mo. Our vessel cannot travel even partway without an escort. Besides, our need is urgent. Any ship leaving New Terra for Jm’ho must waste days decelerating.”
“Crap.” The word just slipped out of Louis. “You mean Metternich.” You mean Alice.
“Of course,” Ol’t’ro said.
Sigmund said, “The new ship can take Metternich’s place en route.”
“We have come to know and trust Alice and her crew. Or is that a problem?” Ol’t’ro’s question came out: Or can we not trust you humans after all?
“I’ll do it,” Alice said softly. On a side channel to Louis she added, “This is my job. It needs
to be done.”
“I know,” he answered. And I hate this.
It took another day for the local Gw’oth to assemble their expedition. That was too little time for Louis and Alice to rendezvous, but painfully long for a good-bye.
“I love you,” Alice said. She seemed on the verge of tears. “You have no idea how much. Wait for me?”
Had she ever been more beautiful? Louis put on a brave face. “Where else would I go? Thanks to Nessus, I have no sense of direction.”
“Wise guy.”
“And? It looked like you had something else to say.”
The same . . . strange . . . look. “Nothing that won’t wait.”
Huh? He looked at her differently. Critically. There was something.
She was sad. (So was he, but somehow her sadness was different. Moodier.) She glowed with health. Her face seemed a bit rounder than when he first met her. That meant nothing: so she had put on a pound or two. Maybe her face only looked round because her camera was in an oddly tight close-up.
The pieces came together.
“You’re pregnant!” he burst out.
“Yes.” She smiled ruefully. “I pictured telling you some other way.”
“You can’t go,” Louis said. “Let me back up. It’s wonderful. I couldn’t be happier. But a warship is no place for a pregnant woman.”
“It’s a peace mission.”
Which was different than peaceful, but that wasn’t what bothered him. Arithmetic did: About sixty days since their last night together, and nothing said conception hadn’t happened earlier. About thirty light-years to Jm’ho meant ninety days just in hyperspace travel. Each way. Add sanity breaks in normal space along the way. Add delays while the Gw’oth selected and loaded, and at the other end unloaded, their precious cargo. Then roughly ten light-years, and more sanity breaks, from Kl’mo to New Terra.