The Naked God

  The Mosdva paid it no attention as they walked painfully along the narrow streets between the towers. Humidity was high. Every surface was beaded with condensation, horizontal ledges and pipes dripped constantly. The eternal background pattering sounded like a gentle rainfall.

  Tyrathca breeders (always in pairs, Ione noticed) crowded every intersection along the street, chittering among themselves as the procession made their way into the cylinder. There were few vassal castes in evidence, and most of those were soldiers. Farmers tended the curtains of vines with slow arthritic movements, training new shoots up the trellis and picking the ripe clusters of dark purple fruit.

  As they walked slowly through the buildings, her impressions of Lalarin-MG clarified. The interior of the cylinder had the same pattern of lethargic decay that was present across all of Tojolt-HI. Some buildings were in good repair; one or two were actually new, their siege of vines barely reaching up to the first floor windows. But for every new one, four were disused. Even the equipment on the walls of the occupied towers was allowed to fail; magnetic and infrared sensors revealed the casings were inert, sharing the ambient temperature.

  “They’re on the border between stability and stagnation,” she said. “And edging over the wrong way.”

  “It’s the biological aspect,” Ashly said. “It has to be. It’s the one negative factor at work here. They need to interbreed, inject some vitality back into the family bloodlines. They’ll die out for sure otherwise.”

  They finally came out on an annular plaza directly underneath the Sleeping God effigy. It was paved with slabs of aluminium coated with a rough layer of quartz for traction. Overhead, long ribbons of algae dangled from the effigy’s rim, as if it had been given a raggedy skirt.

  Water showered down from the fringes, falling in a wide curve to sprinkle the whole plaza.

  Tyrathca breeders were lined up along the edge of the aluminium slabs, sheltered from the drizzle. They were sitting on their hindquarters, antennae rising high from the shaggy manes running down their spines.

  The soldier caste guard all halted at a single piping command from the breeder. Quantook-LOU immediately sank down so his lower belly was resting on the slabs. His breathing was coming very fast.

  A breeder rose from the row of Tyrathca and came over to stand in front of the serjeants. An old one, Ione guessed. Its hide was covered in white and grey patches, rheumy fluid leaked from its eyes, and it seemed to have some trouble focusing.

  “I am Baulona-PWM, my family regulates electronics throughout Lalarin-MG. The Mosdva I know of. You I do not.”

  “We are humans.”

  “The Mosdva distributor of resources claims you have travelled from the other side of the nebula to visit Mastrit-PJ.”

  “We have.”

  “Did the Sleeping God send you?”

  “It did not.”

  Baulona-PWM tilted its head back against the soft warm rain, and let out a soft keening. The other Tyrathca around the plaza followed suit. A mournful chorus of dismay.

  “Do humans know of the Sleeping God?”

  “We do.”

  “Have you seen it?”

  “No.”

  “We have called to the Sleeping God for its aid since before the separation agreement. We called when the Mosdva began the slaughter of our clans. We called when we were herded into our enclaves. We have called to it continuously for every moment since. There is always one of us here to call. The clan riding in Swantic-LI said it sees the universe. They said it is our ally. Why then does it not answer?”

  “The Sleeping God is a long way from Mastrit-PJ. It might take a considerable time for it to arrive to help.”

  “You bring us nothing new.”

  Quantook-LOU straightened his midlimbs, rising off his belly to look from the serjeants to Baulona-PWM. “What is this Sleeping God?”

  The old breeder hooted loudly. “One day you will know. The Sleeping God is our ally, not yours.”

  “I am here to make new allies. Humans have changed our agreements. They have come here in a ship that travels faster than light.”

  Baulona-PWM’s head pushed forward to within ten centimetres of the first serjeant. “The Sleeping God knows how to travel faster than light. How can you do this without its help?”

  Ione used the general communication band to say: “I think we should avoid anything that sounds like blasphemy at this point. Suggestions?”

  “Tell them it was a gift from our God,” Syrinx said. “They can hardly argue with that.”

  “I don’t want to put any pressure on,” Joshua said, “but we haven’t got much time until that sunscoop ship rendezvous. And those trains are still closing on you. If it looks like Quantook-LOU can’t swing a deal, then we’ll just have to deal with the Tyrathca directly.”

  “Understood,” Ione said. “The faster-than-light drive was given to us by our God,” she told the old Tyrathca breeder.

  “You have a God?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “We don’t know. It visited our world a long time ago, and hasn’t yet returned.”

  “The humans will give me the faster-than-light drive,” Quantook-LOU said. “It will provide the Mosdva dominions with fresh resources. We will build new diskcities. We will be able to leave Mastrit-PJ as the Tyrathca did.”

  “Give us the drive,” Baulona-PWM said.

  “The drive is mine,” Quantook-LOU said. “If you want it, you will mediate with me. That is why I have come to you.”

  “What do you want from Lalarin-MG?”

  “All data and records on the Tyrathca flightships.”

  Baulona-PWM hooted sharply. The soldiers shuffled round, agitated.

  “You would know where our new worlds are,” Baulona-PWM said. “You would destroy all Tyrathca. We know the Mosdva. We never forget.”

  “Neither do we,” Quantook-LOU hooted back. “That is why we must mediate now. If not, then Mosdva and Tyrathca will wage war again. You know this. Humans say they will help neither of us unless we have a new arrangement that will prevent war.”

  “Smart argument,” Ione said to the others. “I think I can see where he’s taking it.”

  “What is the new arrangement?” Baulona-PWM asked.

  “The humans do not want war in this part of the galaxy. If we are to have the faster-than-light drive, then Mosdva must not use it to fly to stars with Tyrathca worlds. We must know where they are to avoid this.”

  “That’s the condition we make for giving you the drive,” Ione said. “We know of your history, and the conflict between you. We will not permit that conflict to begin again and engulf other species. There is room in this galaxy for the Mosdva and Tyrathca to exist peacefully. It will be like the separation agreement you have here, but on a much larger scale.”

  “We have our weapons to make the Mosdva obey the separation agreement here,” responded Baulona-PWM. “What will make them obey after you give them the faster-than-light drive, and they know where our new planets are? With this drive they will leave Tojolt-HI. Our weapons will mean nothing. They will destroy all Tyrathca at Mastrit-PJ. They will destroy all Tyrathca new worlds.”

  “You destroy,” Quantook-LOU said. “We build.”

  “Mosdva do not keep agreements. You send your soldiers against Lalarin-MG. They are here now. We will use our weapons against all of Tojolt-HI.”

  “Can you confirm this?” Ione asked the Lady Mac’s crew.

  “We’re picking up some Mosdva movement on the darkside,” Joshua said.

  “Looks like they’re infiltrating the tubes around the edge of the knot.”

  “How many?”

  “Several hundred. It’s a large infrared signature.”

  “Are these the ones from the trains?”

  “No. The first train won’t be there for another fifteen to twenty minutes.”

  “They are not Anthi-CL soldiers,” Quantook-LOU said. “They are from the dominions who would use
the human’s drive for themselves. I will mediate with Tyrathca, I will make agreements with Tyrathca. They will not. Give me the information. Once I have the drive, they will have to retreat from Lalarin-MG.”

  “Make them retreat now,” Baulona-PWM said. “When they are gone, I will mediate with you.”

  “I cannot mediate with the other dominions until I have the information.”

  “I will not give you the information until you mediate.”

  On the Lady Mac’s bridge Joshua banged a fist into his couch cushioning.

  “Jesus! What is wrong with these people.”

  “Twenty thousand years of hatred and strife has become hereditary in both of them,” Samuel said. “They can’t trust each other, not any more.”

  “Then we’re going to have to break the deadlock.”

  “We’re about out of time on that front,” Liol said. “The sunscoop has just reduced its deceleration thrust.”

  “Oh shit,” Joshua mumbled. He knew what that meant. The flight computer datavised the huge ship’s new trajectory into his neural nanonics. With a reduced thrust the sunscoop wouldn’t have nullified its velocity in time to stop beside the Lady Mac, twenty kilometres above Tojolt-HI’s sunside.

  According to the new vector, it would end up one kilometre above the darkside of the knot which contained Lalarin-MG. And as it was approaching the knot drive first, its fusion plume would slice clean through the Tyrathca enclave, vaporizing the entire structure. It was also due to pass uncomfortably close to Lady Mac.

  “I think we’re going to have to take a more active interest,” Joshua told the bridge crew. He aligned Lady Mac’s main dish on the sunscoop.

  “Attention sunscoop ship. Your present course will result in the destruction of Lalarin-MG. Members of my crew are currently inside this dominion. Increase your deceleration thrust immediately.”

  “Josh, it’s over four kilometres across,” Liol said. “That’s not a ship, it’s a mountain. Even if you nuke it, the debris will still rip this section of Tojolt-HI to pieces. In fact you’ll probably do more damage that way.”

  “I thought I’d told you how I dealt with Neeves and Sipika in the Ruin Ring.”

  “Oh,” Ashly said dryly. “You mean that was a true story?”

  Joshua gave the pilot a wounded look.

  “No response from the sunscoop,” Liol said. “And no change in thrust. They’re still going to burn through the knot in eight minutes.”

  “Okay, if that’s how they want it. Combat stations, please.”

  Lady Mac’s thermo dump panels folded down into their hull recesses.

  Joshua ignited the main fusion tubes, and closed on the sunscoop at one and a half gees.

  “This is going to be one very fast flyby,” he said. “Sarha, you have primary fire control.”

  “Aye, Captain,” she acknowledged. Her neuroiconic display was already showing her the sunscoop: a cluster of incandescent globes sitting on top of an even brighter flame of plasma that stretched out over thirty kilometres before dissolving into a hazy tip of blue ions. It descended relentlessly towards the vivid copper sunside like some gigantic insect stinger.

  The flight computer datavised a stream of targeting data, overlaying her image with a bright purple grid. Under her guidance, it split into five segments and wrapped each piece around one of the incandescent globes.

  She upped the power level from the main tokamak generators and activated the maser cannon.

  Lady Mac swept past the sunscoop in a shallow curving trajectory, keeping a constant twenty kilometres away from the fusion plume. Her masers fired at the five storage globes, each beam piercing clean through the radiant thermal dissipation material. Fissures of darkness streaked out from the impact points. The beams began to chew round in a tight spiral, widening the holes. Whatever the casing material was, its physical resistance to the microwaves was minimal. Ninety per cent of their energy went directly into the massive reservoir of hydrocarbon fluid stored inside. It started boiling immediately, belching out clouds of hot vapour. Pressure began to build up inside the globes, sending vast jets of blue-grey gas roaring out through the gashes.

  “Delta-V change,” Liol reported. “The punctures are creating thrust. Christ, Josh, it works.”

  “Thank you. Sarha, keep those lasers centred, I want to heat as much fluid as we can. Stand by, reducing thrust. Let’s try and avoid coming back for a second pass.”

  “Captain,” Beaulieu called. “The sunscoop drive is switching off.”

  Lady Mac’s combat sensor clusters tracked the sunscoop, showing Joshua the fusion plume dwindling away. “Shit, did we do that?”

  “Negative,” Sarha said. “My shooting’s not that bad. Drive systems are intact.”

  “Liol, give me a trajectory update please.”

  “They’ve got a smart captain. Without the fusion drive, the gas plumes aren’t enough to kill their velocity. They’re going to hit the knot. Impact in four minutes.”

  “Damn it.” Joshua immediately began plotting a new vector, taking Lady Mac round for another pass. The starship began accelerating at four gees.

  He had to be careful their own plume didn’t wash across the sunside webs.

  “Sunscoop gas vents are reducing,” Ashly said. “The fluid must be cooling again. That thermal dissipation mechanism of theirs is bloody good, Joshua. It’s worth giving them the ZTT drive in exchange for that.”

  Lady Mac was racing back towards the sunscoop. Sarha fired the masers again, to be rewarded by the sight of the gas jets thickening. The glare of the storage globes fluoresced them a blazing silver-white as they emerged from the holes; then they shaded down along their length until their diffuse tails shimmered cerise.

  Two lasers struck Lady Macbeth, fired from somewhere on the diskcity’s sunside. Joshua rolled the ship fast as their thermal protection foam flash-evaporated, scoring long black lines across the fuselage.

  “No penetration,” Beaulieu called. “We can handle this energy level for eight minutes. Thermal reservoirs will be saturated after that.”

  “Acknowledged.” Joshua accelerated the starship at eight gees, heading back down to the sunside surface. Everyone tensed against the crushing gravity as the sensors showed them the red and gold corrugations hurtling towards them. Lady Mac flattened out, flying parallel to the diskcity, sixty metres from the tops of the web tubes. Her fusion drive cut out, leaving them in freefall.

  “Lasers lost us,” Beaulieu said. “They can’t track us at this altitude.”

  Behind them the sunscoop continued on its approach towards the knot. The five storage globes were glaring furiously as they tried to throw off the energy imparted by Lady Mac’s masers during the second pass. Success was measured by the way the gas jets were slowly shrinking.

  “It’s going to be close,” Liol said. “But I think we’ve done it.”

  Joshua followed the flight computer’s plot. Watching the sunscoop’s relative velocity winding down, comparing the rate against the declining gas vents. Flakes of grey slush had started to clot the ever-reducing gas jets. But it was going to work, he told himself. The figures were tight, but the ship would reach zero relative velocity sixty kilometres above the diskcity.

  Datavised alarms suddenly glared across his neuroiconic display. Lady Mac was under attack again. Energy impacts bloomed against the fuselage, ablating patches of foam in spurts of soot.

  “Lasers again,” Beaulieu said. “They can’t stay on us for more than two or three seconds at a time, but there’s a lot of them. They’re going for a coordinated saturation. Strikes are almost constant.”

  “Quantook-LOU warned us the dominions would try to stop us leaving before we handed over the data,” Samuel said. “They must think that’s what we’re doing.”

  Joshua checked their vector. At their current velocity they’d fly over the rim in another hundred seconds. The course was taking them a long way round from Anthi-CL. He datavised the flight computer for a tactical analys
is. “The old girl can handle this level of fire. We don’t need to jump clean yet.”

  Lady Mac’s sensors were still tracking the sunscoop ship. It was sixty-five kilometres away from the sunside, with its approach velocity down to ten metres per second. The five jets from its storage globes were still active, though the rents weren’t squirting gas any more. It was mainly liquid and slush pouring out now. At sixty-three kilometres, its velocity was two metres a second.

  The vector reversed at sixty-one kilometres. For a moment the sunscoop was stationary, then it began to creep away from the diskcity again at an almost unmeasurable velocity. By now the flow from the storage globes was reduced to a splutter of mushy fluid dribbling away into space.

  Its fusion drive ignited.

  Joshua groaned in dismay as Lady Mac’s flight computer translated the sensor image into pure data, providing him with the figures for the plasma’s temperature, luminosity, and flow rate. This time the sunscoop was using its full thrust. The tip of the plume seared its way downwards as the giant ship began to accelerate away. There was never going to be time for the separation distance to increase beyond the range of the plasma spear.

  The drive flame hammered against the crown of the knot, instantly vaporizing every tube and foil sheet it touched. A blast wave of superheated gas roared out through the tangle of tubes inside the knot, rupturing web junctions and sending shredded tube fragments whirling deeper into the tangle. Slow structural ripples flexed their way across the sunside, radiating sinuously out from the knot. Tubes cracked open around junctions and reinforcement ribs. Hundreds of fan-shaped fountains of circulation fluid and atmospheric gas howled out into space across an area fifty kilometres across, producing a stormy pellicle of crimson mist which hung over the surface. Its centre was energized to azure blue by the fusion plume from the retreating sunscoop, expanding in a perfectly symmetrical ring, swelling and fading as it raced away across the sunside.

  The devastated Mosdva dominions around the knot retaliated. Every laser that remained functional was fired at the sunscoop. Small petals of darkness opened across the glaring storage globes, distending. Sprays of molten metal drifted out from the drive nozzle, followed by boiling globules of fluid. The plasma flame began to waver as it was contaminated by streaks of impurity burning emerald and turquoise.