“We didn’t send that krekelen out whimsically. You checked it right along with the eggheads. We have enough firepower. We have the Po-Ticra suicide pilots eager to die for their silly god.”
“I know. It looks like a lock. But I’ve been thinking. We shouldn’t have taken the Web-location modules out. We’ll lose everything if it blows up on us. That’s a lot of capital to burn.”
“It’s not Tregesser capital. If it goes bad, I want only two people getting out alive. You and me.”
“You’re the boss. But I still hate to waste ships.”
— 36 —
Lady Midnight joined Turtle in Amber Soul’s quarters. “She isn’t any better, is she?” There were tears in her eyes.
“Neither better nor worse. She must be trapped in her own sorcery. We Ku have dozens of stories about sorcerers who destroyed themselves with their own magic. I wish I knew how to help.”
“Time will help.”
“I hope so. Is he treating you well?”
Midnight blushed. “Yes. Better than most. But...”
“He’s basically decent, within the mandates of his culture. He wouldn’t willfully do you a hurt. Yet he can destroy a world or exterminate a race without a qualm. What is Canon’s is Canon’s. What isn’t shall be.” He muttered, “The dragon never sleeps.” Then, “You said ‘But.’”
“Someone has been harassing me. That woman who was there when they brought us here. She interrupts my sleep to call me names. And I don’t even know who she is.”
“She’s a ghost gone rancid in her eternal life. It’s not you she hates, it’s me. I think we can circumvent her.”
Did the Deified lose maturity with the millennia? Could an entire Guardship turn infantile?
Doubtful. This was a weakness of the ghost of Makarska Vis. “Excuse me? I was maundering.”
“I asked if you know where we are. Not that it matters.”
“No. But I know where we’re going. Starbase Tulsa.”
That name. It throbbed like the beat of primitive drums. Starbase Tulsa, the womb from which every Guardship sprang and to which every Guardship made its periodic hadj. If there was an object of greater dread than a Guardship it was that stellar citadel whence the invincible issued.
An entire mythology revolved around Starbase. It might be heaven or it might be hell. For the mass of humanity and those nonhumans adrift in Canon space, it was more of the latter. It was a place where devils spawned.
Midnight began to shiver. Her wings, which had lost so much of their luster and color already, drooped, faded. Her timidity could not withstand the onslaught of dread.
“We’ll be no worse off than we are now, Midnight.”
“I know. But I can’t help it.” Tears tracked her cheeks. She stared at Amber Soul.
Turtle did, too. “Stay with her. Try to get something down her. I think she senses our presence and concern, on some level, and that comforts her.”
Midnight had a high empathy quotient and an inability to resist appeals. She would forget herself for a while, ministering to Amber Soul.
“I have a few chores to do. I’ll be right back.”
In his own suite Turtle examined the comm. Getting the Deified Makarska Vis was easy. In moments he had her on screen, looking vexed. “You!”
“Me. Greetings, Deified. Did I disturb you?”
“Yes.”
“Good. You have been disturbing a friend of mine, presumably venting your spite on her because she is incapable of returning your vitriol.”
The Deified Makarska Vis gushed filth.
“To me you are a ghost, a memory mummy impressed upon the motions of electrons. I am not awed. If you do not wish to be disturbed, you will stop harassing my friend.”
Would it work? Was she possessed of sufficient determination to lock him out? He shrugged and returned to Midnight and Amber Soul.
— 37 —
Among the satellites orbiting the ringed gas giant, there were a dozen moonlets that were natural only in appearance. They were created things half the size of a Guardship, sheathed in ice that concealed their true nature. The ice had been bombarded to give them an ancient, lunar appearance. Everything was camouflage here. This outpost was too near the frontier.
Blinding light ripped from one of the moonlets. Meteor impact? No. This came from within, sustained. Ice turned to water and water to gas. The light died, leaving a cone burned through the mask. The moonlet began moving.
A day later, far from its primary, it flicked out of existence. It had clambered onto the Web. Invisible, it hastened toward the Atlantean Rim of Canon space.
The intruder was invisible but not undetectable at close range. As the object breached the Rim, it very nearly ran over Guardship XXVIII Fretensis. Alarms sounded. The Guardship swept in pursuit.
— 38 —
On impulse WarAvocat went to Kez Maefele’s door. The Ku responded immediately. “WarAvocat?”
“We’re due to break away soon. Approaching Starbase. I thought you might be interested.”
“Am I that obvious?”
“I know your weakness now. Curiosity. I could use it to trap you.”
“The Deified Makarska Vis took care of me when she was WarAvocat.”
“By main strength and awkwardness. The woman’s tactics had the subtlety and finesse of an ax murder.”
“There is something to be said for overwhelming might.”
“Speaking of Makarska Vis, word is you bluffed her into backing down.”
“I am sure she did not stop harassing Midnight because I told her to back off.”
“No. Your suggestion got backing from Gemina. She’d begun showing divisive, political tendencies. I’m going to Hall of the Watchers. Their wall gives the best view. Are you coming?”
“Yes. You have a motive for doing this?”
Startled, WarAvocat said, “No.”
“You did not mean to impress me with the power of the Guardship fleet?”
“No.” He started walking. The Ku followed. “We are a less complex people than you think.”
“Maybe. Few of you are subtle.”
“We have no need.”
“Remarkable. Especially considering the longevity and persistence of the players.”
“It’s gone funny on some Guardships. Here it hasn’t because the soldiers nourish the roots of the culture. Soldiers tend to be direct and simple.”
“And if something evades immediate comprehension, they blow it up or kill it. Ku warriors were the same.”
It took an hour to reach Hall of the Watchers, by which time VII Gemina was off the Web and closing with some stellar concourse in the form of a triple wheel station, the rotational axis of which was a hollow cylinder large enough to pass a Guardship. Traffic was heavy.
WarAvocat observed, “Somone else has come in recently, for refitting. There’s always activity but seldom this much.”
“This is Starbase Tulsa?”
WarAvocat chuckled. “No. This is the Barbican, Starbase’s only intersection with the universe outside. This is as far as outsiders come. They make deliveries here. Our own ships carry materials from here.”
“Then the Guardship fleet is not self-sufficient?” Was that overdoing it? If not, it was on the boundary. WarAvocat looked like he was wondering if that ignorance was feigned. He had, after all, spent a long life studying the Guardships.
“You sound surprised.”
“Not entirely. Logically, no system could be entirely closed. I know it was open long ago. But I have been out of touch. I assumed self-sufficiency had been attained.”
“We work toward it. But it isn’t an overriding concern. Someday.”
“Then the system is vulnerable.”
“Possibly. Not very. House Horigawa, who have the monopoly on supplying us, have remained faithful through the most trying tests.”
“To their extreme benefit.” That was no secret. House Horigawa had become one of the dozen richest by serving the Guardship
s.
“They did come out of the Enherrenraat incident very well.” In part because they had betrayed the conspiracy before it had been ready to move.
Turtle watched quietly as VII Gemina entered the station’s axial cylinder. “Masterful steersmanship,” he said.
“You have to do it right,” WarAvocat said. “We have secrets even from ourselves, I think. No one’s ever told me why we run the Tube.” VII Gemina left the Tube and began accelerating. “We go back onto the Web now.”
“I fear I’ve missed the strategy here.” Turtle did not have to feign ignorance now. “Why should everyone break off the Web here?” The answer, by remaining elusive, had kept him from bringing the Dire Radiant in here.
“No choice. This is the most unusual strand on the Web. There’s a break in the strand here. The gap is only a few light seconds across, but it’s enough. Any attacker has to come off. He has to cross the gap under fire. Messenger ships are always stationed at the tag end on the other side. You can take the Barbican by surprise, but anything beyond will be a deathtrap before you get there.”
“Has it been tried?” He knew it had. What he did not know was why attacks against Starbase inevitably failed.
“Everything has been tried. That, half a dozen times.”
“And there were no survivors to carry the news.”
“None. The price of attacking Starbase is absolute and final.”
VII Gemina climbed onto the Web with hydraulic ease. The wall, still carrying a forward view, flashed on a gleaming strand. The Guardship surged along it. In seconds the wall went nova.
The light storm cleared. The wall revealed the shine of a guttering red dwarf glimmering off the backs of two orbital fortresses and the complex they guarded. The primary around which the three scampered was a supergiant with a thousand moons, a planet a minim short of being fat enough to become a star itself. Turtle wondered how it had come to be paired with the red dwarf.
“By the right!” he murmured. “Starbase. I never imagined... no construct can be that big. Unless there is some trick of perspective....”
“No trick,” WarAvocat assured him. “And it’s not the biggest construct around. You’ll see that, too.”
The relative motions seemed odd. “We are moving past it.”
“I told you this was the most unusual strand on the Web.”
“Then this is not Starbase.”
“No. We call it Gateway. It’s a decoy.”
“No one outside even suspects.” He never had.
“No. It’s totally automated. Its complement consists of dupes of Deified from the fleet. Starbase itself runs the same way.”
The supergiant rolled beneath VII Gemina. Turtle asked, “What is in that atmosphere to give it those blue tones?”
“I don’t know. I can access the information.”
“Never mind. It isn’t important.”
WarAvocat watched the supergiant dwindle. He wondered why he’d never been curious about its coloration, nor been particularly cognizant of the planet’s beauty, with those thousand pearls in its hair. Nor even much curious about a strand that had a double anchor, supergiant and red dwarf, with a gap between.
VII Gemina clambered back onto the interrupted strand.
The construct waiting off the nether tag end was much larger than Gateway. It was a vast rectilinear shape guarded by eight orbital fortresses poised on the points of a cube. The array orbited a feeble yellow star that had no planetary family.
One more curiosity on this particular strand. The star was there but the strand was loose. An end, period. There was no strand leading away in any other direction.
The Ku said, “A battery of adjectives suggest themselves. But none are adequate.”
“I know. It still awes me. I used to see it as the ultimate construct, the product of a golden age, never to be equalled. Its builders probably thought that, too. But Starbase Dengaida will make it look like a pyramid raised by clever neolithics.”
“Starbase Dengaida?”
“The inevitable consequence of being what we are.”
The Ku looked puzzled.
“Invincible. Canon has grown so vast we have a problem with travel times. We have Guardships operating against pirates beyond the Roberquan Rim, which did not exist when you went into hiding on V. Rothica 4. Their patrols take them a thousand light years Outside. The Rim keeps advancing. It can take them six months to reach Starbase. A year in and back. The problem will worsen. Soon after the Enherrenraat incident, foreseeing the problem, Starbase recommended we build a new Starbase out there.”
“Word never filtered down into Merod Schene.”
“Wasn’t meant to. I doubt anyone outside the fleet and House Horigawa has guessed yet. It isn’t something we want broadcast. Construction works are vulnerable.”
“And it will be bigger than this?”
“A lot. We couldn’t find another site to compare with this one, though. So we had to make it tougher to crack.”
The Ku’s attention remained fixed on Starbase.
Cues on the wall said Gemina was in touch with the Guardship already docked. Data flowed both ways, and back and forth between Gemina and Starbase Core. He picked the ID code out. “Kez Maefele, the Guardship already docked is XII Fulminata.”
The Ku eyed him. “You do not seem excited.”
“They aren’t a social bunch, XII Fulminata crew.” He turned away. “Access, OpsAvocat. WarAvocat here. I’d consider it a great favor if you docked us on the same face as XII Fulminata. Out.” He turned back to the Ku. “They want to cut themselves a slice of our action. I’m going to let them gobble till they choke. We owe them one.”
Starbase was spotted like a domino, with eight black circles to a face, in rows of four. As VII Gemina approached the block it appeared to rotate, bringing another face uppermost. On that face one black circle had been obliterated. XII Fulminata docked.
WarAvocat did not look forward to his next few days.
— 39 —
The Outsider broke off the Web in the Closed System M. Meddinia. It boiled off its mask as it drove toward the system’s archaic, ramshackle station. It should have shed its disguise before invading Canon space.
It had not finished when its gaseous surround was backlighted by the violence of XXVIII Fretensis breaking away.
The Guardship wasted no time asking questions. When the corona cleared, twelve riderships were running free and swarms of smaller craft were boiling off. XXVIII Fretensis seemed to be disintegrating.
A barrage preceded the riders. Boiling through space ahead of shells and missiles were a half dozen glimmering balls spit from Hellspinner pits. The best Twist Master ever had no hope of a hit at that range, though. The idea was to frighten the Outsider into raising its screen. Hellspinners terrified anyone who knew anything about them.
The Outsider stuck out its tongue. It did not raise screen. It took M. Meddinia 4A under fire.
The one Hellspinner that looked like the worst throw broke down and in and brushed the Outsider. Tonnes of matter erupted in a geyser of shattered nucleons.
The fastest attackers raced toward the hit, looking for a soft spot.
XXVIII Fretensis developed data on the Outsider’s displacement. WarAvocat ordered a supplementary launch. A ship that large might carry secondaries of its own.
It did, but none were active. The Outsider had come expecting no resistance. In quickly, a message delivered, and out, silent and unseen....
The attackers closed in. The Outsider raised screen. Word went back: The screen was Guardship quality.
The Outsider could not have been in a poorer position. It could not deploy riders. A more powerful enemy lay between it and access to the Web. And it was deeper in the gravity well.
Attackers englobed the Outsider. They floated just meters off the screen. XXVIII Fretensis rotated to present its broadest face, closed to three hundred meters. At that range even the most inept Twist Master could not miss.
A hundred pulsating green eyes burned on the Guardship’s face.
WarAvocat XXVIII Fretensis ordered his Hellspinners loosed. Those balls of mad energy drifted onto the Outsider’s screen like the slow fall of a fine oil mist onto the surface of a summer-warmed pond. Rainbow points spread and faded slowly. Fighters darted to the impact points like fish to motes of food. They pounded those spots, probing for an opening or weakness.
The screen withstood the salvo. But the Twist Masters had permission to loose at will. No screen could absorb Hellspinners long.
The Outsider finally grasped the gravity of its situation. It began to move.
Its assailants moved with it.
Here, there, soft spots in the screen yielded. A one-meter gap opened and persisted for seven seconds. An interceptor put one hundred rounds of 40mm contraterrene shot through the hole. The Outsider’s skin blossomed, a garden of small fires.
Other gaps opened. Some attack craft chose marksmanship, gunning for specific installations. Others just blazed away. None tried running the gaps. A screen shielded both ways. A fighter inside would become the target of every Outsider weapon otherwise unable to fire.
The gaps grew larger and lasted longer. The Twist Masters began pairing, hoping to get a second Hellspinner through a gap cut by a first.
The Outsider dropped inside the orbit of the station.
The riders armed their axial cannon, which hurled 250kg projectiles at 8000 meters per second. The projectiles spun off slivers of contraterrene iron as they rattled through a target.
Orders went out to the attackers: penetrate the screen and silence the Outsider’s drives.
WarAvocat XXVIII Fretensis had guessed the reason for the Outsider’s move planetward. It meant to eliminate evidence by throwing itself into atmosphere.
Cluster shells began getting through. So did Hellspinners and massed barrages from the secondaries. The Outsider was ablaze within the envelope of its shield, surrounded by a shrapnel metalstorm. The attack ships that went in had to use their own lesser screens till they reached firing position.
The Outsider offered only token counterfire. And that soon fell silent.