While transmitting, over and over, “We spared your worlds once. You attacked us anyway.”
Doom impended, all the more ominous for not knowing how the end would come. Not by kinetic-kill weapons, for the Gw’oth fleet once more aimed at Hearth still matched the Fleet’s normal-space velocity. What did the aliens want? What would they do?
What and how continued to elude Baedeker. When was all too clear.
He plucked anxiously at his mane. Since first triggering the hyperwave radar on the Fleet’s northern perimeter, the Gw’oth had appeared four times in normal space. Each appearance brought them closer to Hearth.
A few days. No more. And then?
A tremulous voice from beyond Baedeker’s door: “Hindmost? Are you all right? May I get you anything?”
“Thank you, Minerva, but no,” Baedeker answered his aide through the closed door. Thank you for reminding me of my duty. I cannot save the herd, but I must do what I can to ease its final days. And to do that, I must appear to be in charge. “I will be ready presently.”
He sampled the news and public-safety cameras as he groomed. Another spate of grain ships stolen. Citizens by the billions unaccounted for, presumed catatonic in their apartments or hidden in the remotest recesses of Hearth’s few parks and botanical gardens. Terror and madness. Assemblies around the globe, from solemn to panic-stricken to angry. He watched an enormous rally whose orator, in full-throated threnody, excoriated the Hindmost for the coming destruction and demanded his resignation.
Brushing his mane, chewing bitter cud, Baedeker wondered: What would the herd think if they knew I had offered to resign? The elders of the party refused his resignation, lest any of them wind up presiding over the end of the world. Even Nike had sunk into despair. The Conservative leaders were too overwhelmed to talk. The party of precedent had been totally immobilized by the coming day of reckoning.
How could he resign when none would take his place?
Still, he had offered. The Gw’oth responded to Baedeker’s resignation offer as they had responded to his attempts to surrender Hearth, as they responded to every transmission sent from the Fleet. “We spared your worlds once. You attacked us anyway.”
With his token grooming finished, Baedeker cantered to the door. He found aides and his security detachment clustered outside. “I will be in my personal office,” he announced, “preparing an address to the worlds. Send for Nike and Nessus.”
“Immediately, Hindmost,” Minerva replied. He trotted alongside Baedeker to the residence’s office complex.
Baedeker’s home office overlooked the rocky coast, and he stood for a while gazing over the ocean and the incoming tide. Cloud darkened the sky and reduced Nature Preserve One to a vaguely amorphous glow.
Chords to open an address refused to come to him. In past crises humans had kicked him—sometimes literally—out of a downward spiral of despair. But New Terrans maintained their neutrality.
And gloated at the coming karmic justice hurtling toward their former oppressors?
“Hindmost.” Minerva had reappeared at Baedeker’s door. “I cannot reach Nike.”
“I would expect him to be at Clandestine Affairs,” Baedeker sang impatiently.
Minerva bobbed heads. “I, too. He stepped there earlier today and there is no record that he has left, but no one can locate him.”
“Did you reach Nessus?”
“Yes, Hindmost, at Clandestine Directorate. He will complete his current interview and then join you here.”
“I changed my mind. Have Nessus meet me at Nike’s office.”
“Yes, Hindmost.”
The unlisted stepping disc in Nike’s office would not accept a connection, nor did it respond to an emergency override. If panic had reached even into Clandestine Directorate . . .
Preceded by armed guards, Baedeker stepped through to the Directorate’s security center. He found workers milling about in confusion.
“Who is in charge here?” Baedeker demanded. “What is happening?”
The ranking security officer groveled. “Hindmost, I am called Triton. Many are missing. Their communicators are out of range or powered down. Yet according to the stepping-disc system and the building’s door cameras they have not left the building.”
“Who?”
“Nike and much of his staff, Hindmost.”
“We will go to Nike’s office,” Baedeker sang. “Accompany us.”
Baedeker, his personal security detail, and Triton stepped to the hall outside Nike’s office. Nessus stood there waiting. Behind the locked door was only silence. “Open the door,” Baedeker ordered.
Cringing, Triton overrode the lock.
Of Nike and his staff, there was no sign. The meadowplant carpet was in tatters, as though shredded by countless anxious hooves. The desk had been pushed against the wall, its legs scoring parallel grooves in the living rug. Where the desk had been, a stepping disc stood revealed.
“What is that symbol embossed on the disc surface?” Triton asked. He turned to point at the second disc across the room. “And why hide a disc in a room that has a disc?”
“Everyone except Nessus, go to the hall,” Baedeker ordered. He shut and locked the door. A desk ornament tossed onto the formerly hidden disc landed with a clatter. The disc was no longer in transmit mode. He removed a transport controller from his sash pocket. It was a very special controller. “Do you know what this is?”
“A secret exit, obviously,” Nessus sang. “Where did they go?”
Voices murmured in the hallway, the melodies indistinct but the worry plain.
Lips and tongue pressed against the device’s biometric sensors, Baedeker crooned the pass code. The activation LED remained dark. He stepped onto the disc and nothing happened. The controller’s diagnostic mode insisted that the disc itself was working properly. The disc’s maintenance log had recorded twenty-three transfers that day. Everything was in order.
But the destination disc no longer responded.
“Where can we not go?” Nessus asked this time.
Baedeker put the transport controller back in his pocket. An eerie calm came over him. He had one fewer decision to make. “Nike has fled to the Hindmost’s Refuge and locked the door behind him.”
Nessus looked himself in the eyes. “I think we know who Achilles’ source was.”
. . .
Lost in thought, Achilles circled his empty bridge yet again.
He did not have Remembrance to himself, not quite. Metope and Hecate were quavering wrecks, scarcely able to feed themselves, useless to him. Even if he could anticipate the Gw’oth’s actions, even if—damn Louis Wu!—he had retained enough fusion suppressors to disable a fleet, he no longer had workers enough to deploy them.
But other options had begun to appear.
“Guide us,” one transmission pleaded. “Be our Hindmost,” another begged. At last count, entreaties had come from eighteen evacuation ships. Most signals were faint, broadcast in all directions, for the refugees could not know where to find him.
And, “Come home,” the Party elders implored. With the Gw’oth upon them, evidently the patriarchs were ready to overlook esoteric infractions. They, too, had had to resort to broadcast, but using Hearth’s most powerful transmitters their appeals came through clearly. “We need your wisdom. Baedeker has no answers, nor will the Gw’oth speak to him.”
How satisfying it would have been to return to Hearth, to see his enemies grovel at his hooves, to crush and humiliate Baedeker. But the gratification would have been short-lived. Whatever rancor the Gw’oth felt toward Baedeker, they must feel more toward him.
Let Baedeker officiate over disaster.
Achilles would bide his time. Vesta’s reports made clear that the Gw’oth were scant days behind him. If they left anything and anyone behind, Achilles would be ready to pick up the pieces. And if not? Then he would be Hindmost of those who had taken to ships, the founder of a whole new Citizen civilization.
He rou
ted maximum power to the ship’s hyperwave transmitter. “To those who have left Hearth, I am touched by your pleas. Gather at”—and he gave coordinates far removed from the Gw’oth’s apparent course—“and I will meet you.”
But only after the Gw’oth ships were well past.
Achilles walked up and down the empty corridors of Remembrance. When pacing grew old, he synthesized and pecked at a shallow bowl of mixed grains. Vesta’s call was late. Had his disciple been caught?
When the contact finally came, Vesta’s eyes darted about wildly. His voices trembled, the undertunes strident with panic. “All here is chaos.”
“Your insights remain valuable,” Achilles answered. Stay where you are. “Tell me more.”
Vesta twitched. “Nike and many of his senior staff have fled, Excellency. Baedeker has put me in charge of Clandestine Directorate.”
And so put Hearth’s defenses and the emergency communications network into Vesta’s—and Achilles’—jaws. A fool, Baedeker. As ever.
“Fled where?” Achilles pressed. “Is Nike apt to return? Is anyone looking for him?”
“Unknown, Excellency. To my knowledge, no one is looking.”
Meaning Baedeker already knew where Nike had gone? Or a falling-out between the two so extreme that Baedeker did not want Nike back? Either possibility was interesting. Achilles set those scenarios aside to ponder another time.
“Nike and most of his senior staff. Why not you?”
Vesta looked away from the camera. “I was off-world, inspecting space-based defenses, when Nike fled.”
So Vesta, too, would have run if he could. The herd’s newly appointed defender was but one unexpected shadow, one loud noise, one surprise removed from panic. Achilles demanded the latest authentication codes for the automated planetary defenses before proceeding. The ability to slip past the Fleet’s defenses could prove useful.
Achilles sang, “And what would our useless ‘Hindmost’ have you do?”
“Whatever I can.” Vesta’s heads swiveled frantically, seeking safety where none existed. “Can anything be done, Excellency? Is the Concordance doomed?”
If the Gw’oth had wanted to destroy Hearth, they would have accelerated in normal space. They wanted something else. Something Baedeker could not, or would not concede. Something that a more insightful Citizen might provide?
And then Achilles had the insight. “Here are your orders. You control the Directorate’s emergency communications network. Use it. Tell the Gw’oth . . .”
47
With frightening precision, six ships dropped from hyperspace at the same instant to surround Remembrance. The ships were short, squat cylinders, tinier than any Citizen ship.
Achilles puzzled over their asymmetric deployment until he imagined the newcomers turning lasers on him. No laser beam passing through Remembrance’s hull would strike another vessel.
Achilles shuddered. The Gw’oth were a warlike race.
“We are Ol’t’ro,” announced the hail. (It came relayed through a buoy that had likely dropped from hyperspace at the same time as the ships, but that Achilles had just now noticed. Rerouted, the hail denied any hint which ship housed the enemy leader.) “Our ships are ready.”
Not enemy. Ally. From the bridge, Achilles opened three cargo-hold hatches. He waited alone, as Metope and Hecate cowered flank to flank in a remote cabin.
He radioed, “This is Achilles. Come aboard.”
Via security cameras, he watched the tiny ships dart inside, two to each cargo hold. They landed far apart. Positioned to blast Remembrance from within if he should manage to immobilize them.
He would not be so foolish as to try. It had been Ol’t’ro, after all, who invented the Gw’oth method of destroying General Products hulls. Ol’t’ro, who helped invent the planet-buster that defeated the Pak. Not that a successful trap, if Achilles were insane enough to take the risk, would suffice. The rest of the Gw’oth still sped toward Hearth.
And only Gw’oth allies had the means to satisfy his hunger. . . .
“All ships are aboard,” Ol’t’ro sang. “You may proceed.”
“Acknowledged. Welcome to Remembrance. Hatches closing.”
The little ships disgorged crew. (Boarding parties. Their pressure suits and exoskeletons seemed indistinguishable from battle armor. The unfamiliar implements dangling from their harnesses surely included weapons.) They scuttled about like gigantic bugs, disgusting even encased in their protective gear.
As the aliens formed into orderly units, Achilles steeled himself to meet them. He had railed, warned, and conspired against them for years. He had used them; now they would use him.
“Send the floor plans for this ship,” a Gw’o radioed. The song, while fluent, lacked the commanding presence that Ol’t’ro could project.
In each cargo hold Achilles set a ceiling light flashing. “Find the disc in the floor beneath the blinking light. Tell me where in Remembrance you wish to go. The discs will deliver you.”
“Send floor plans,” Ol’t’ro commanded, the undertunes of authority sharp and unambiguous.
Achilles transmitted the files. He watched through security cameras as his new masters scuttled and scurried to the engine room, the life-support center, and onto the bridge.
I act to save the herd, Achilles told himself. If I had not proposed this, then what? Baedeker did nothing. Baedeker could do nothing, for the Gw’oth refused to talk with him. Nike had fled—wherever. Vesta, tasked with the defense of the Fleet, struggled even to respond robotically to orders. Many among the Party elders had succumbed to catatonia; the rest, without ideas of their own, had added to the cacophony emanating from Hearth with renewed pleas that Achilles—somehow—help.
Accommodation was the only way to placate the Gw’oth. Among all the herd, only he had the vision and imagination to make an accommodation.
But in his hearts, Achilles knew a deeper truth. While he kept order on Hearth, Ol’t’ro would not care what the new Hindmost did or to whom he did it.
His time—to savor power; to bask, at last, in the public adulation of his supporters; to crush and humiliate everyone who had ever thwarted him—had finally arrived.
“This is concordance vessel Remembrance, registered to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, inbound to Hearth,” Achilles announced. He sat astraddle the pilot’s crash couch, close to the comm set’s camera. The armored Gw’oth on the bridge squatted outside the camera’s line of sight.
“This is Hearth traffic control,” a voice sang back. “Remembrance, we are not reading your traffic-control transponder.”
“Inoperative,” Achilles responded. It was, having had its power cut off. The transponder registered to Grain Ship 247 was all too likely to be flagged somewhere within the space-traffic-control system. “We have been away for a long time.”
“Maintain course and speed while we confirm with Foreign Affairs,” the controller sang.
“Acknowledged.” Achilles waited, unconcerned. Vesta had created Remembrance, a long-range scout ship, in the databases of Clandestine Directorate.
“Remembrance, we have confirmation. Because your transponder is offline, I will need current ministry authentication codes.”
“Transmitting on a secure channel.” Achilles sent the data Vesta had provided. “Can you expedite, traffic control? We are on urgent official business.”
“One moment.” After considerably longer than that, the controller returned. “Codes confirmed. Detailed approach information is on its way, Remembrance. Maintain regular radar pings for safety, since your transponder is offline. I am clearing a path for you.”
“Understood, traffic control. Remembrance, out.”
While armed Gw’oth watched, Achilles piloted Remembrance through layer after layer of Fleet defenses. None of the few grain ships still flying came anywhere close. He entered the worlds’ singularity. He continued inward. He approached the plane of the planets. . . .
“Now,” Ol’t’ro ordered from within
their ship. “Open the hatches.”
Baedeker had just begun an unannounced nightshift inspection of the Clandestine Directorate command bunker when everything fell apart.
“Unidentified neutrino sources!” an operator sang. “This is not a drill. Four. Five. Six. Six ships.”
“Where?” Baedeker shouted. And, “Get Vesta in here.”
The operator enlarged his tactical hologram, a synthesis of data from public sensors, the defense grid, and Space Traffic Control. One unidentified blip streaked toward each of the Nature Preserve worlds. Two sped toward Hearth. And at the point from which the blips must have emerged: the icon of a Directorate vessel, Remembrance.
There was no Directorate ship by that name.
For a moment, transfixed, Baedeker stared at the catastrophe racing at the worlds of the Fleet. Racing was not exactly correct. Only the ships’ proximity made them appear fast. These were not kinetic-kill weapons.
“How did intruders first appear deep inside the singularity?” Baedeker trembled in disbelief: at what was happening. That Gw’oth ships—who else could these be?—had arrived before their main fleet. That the automated defenses had yet to activate. “Never mind. Set loose the automated defenses.”
Vesta arrived, his mane elaborately coiffed as if for some ceremonious occasion. He bobbed heads at the tactical display. “The war has come to us,” he intoned portentously.
“Why do our weapons not fire?” Baedeker ululated.
Across the room, images flashed above a diagnostic console. The operator there sang out, surprise plain in the second and fourth harmonics, “The intruders are transmitting Directorate authentication codes.”
“Override!” Baedeker sang. “Target manually, if you must.”
“A broadcast on the public safety channel,” Vesta interrupted.
“This is Achilles,” the broadcast began.
Not now! Baedeker wanted to scream. He forced himself to listen.
“. . . The government cannot defend you from the Gw’oth fleet that approaches. At the invitation of the Experimentalist elders, I return, reluctantly, to assume the duties of Hindmost. Assist me in the transition of power, and you will be safe. Stay in your home or—”