There, AnyKaat. That do it?
She fought the panic that boiled up from the pit of her stomach. All those days of peril, all those nights of fear, all those years, with nothing constant, nothing trustworthy, but AnyKaat. Gone on so long it was programmed into her cells, it seemed. And now maybe about to be lost.
Jo suffered an almost paralyzing dread of being alone. It had been bad down below, but now it was worse. Now it was not something she could hold back by being the fastest and deadliest gun around.
“Station is all excited,” AnyKaat said. “Somebody is going to have to deal with them before STASIS gets righteous.”
Seeker faced the senior Pioyugov. The man’s half of their exchange made it sound like Seeker’s people had all but bought the Traveler. The Traveler’s operators seemed inclined to do anything he asked. If they could understand what he wanted done.
The crew went to work. AnyKaat drifted out of their way. Joe told the purser, “Guess you’d better show us where to bed down.”
He glanced at her hairsplitter, said, “Yes, ma’am.”
— 115 —
The convoy left the Web twice before crossing the Rim, each time so its commanders could pass information, each time far from any anchor point. Turtle was impressed. The Outsiders were more daring than Canon operators, who dreaded leaving the Web away from carefully calculated optimum insystem points. Few Canon-based ships were prepared for extended stays in starspace.
A Godspeaker ship waited at the second pausing place. It relayed the news that Tregesser commandos had uncrossed the planned doublecross in the Hemebuk Neutrality.
They could not make an issue of it. But Turtle was sure they would try to even scores later. He would have to keep them thinking they had not reached his useful limit.
The convoy made a long passage to the nether reaches of the Outsider empire, broke away into the wildest waste space Turtle had ever seen.
Interstellar gas and dust were so dense the galaxy outside could not be seen. Parts of the cloud were in such rapid motion that its electromagnetic voices formed an endless chorus of screams. Gasses and dust and clouds of cold matter ranging from sand to planetoids were torn this way and that by mad gravitational tides. At the waste’s heart was a trinary consisting of a black hole, a neutron star, and a living giant star that was being gutted by each in turn as the three whirled in a rapid orbital dance that distorted the very fabric of space. The cloud was no more than five light years across, yet Turtle could discern another dozen stars or protostars with his naked eye. Their fires lighted the dust, making sprawls of angel hair that braided into a firestorm spanning the entire sky.
Fourteen strands led into the maelstrom. Not a one was anchored.
Provik was intrigued. He thought a study of local conditions would reveal something about the Web, the study of which, for him, was something more than a hobby yet not quite an obsession.
“I tell you, Kez Maefele, if we survive this, I may just retire. The older I get, the less it seems worth the trouble. Shike would love to take over. I could give it to him. Take me a Voyager and go kiting off, trying to figure out what the Web is, why, where it came from, all that.” There was real excitement in his eyes.
“An honorable pursuit,” Turtle said. And not an original one. The Web intrigued everyone who came to it, of whatever species.
So far as anyone knew, the Web had always been. Yet it could not be explained by any physics or cosmology, scientific or religious. The Web had no physical right to exist. It should not do what it did. Yet it was there.
One of the mysteries of the Web was that no one ever found it independently. Every species that gained access learned how from a race already using the Web to beat the iron tyranny of the photon.
Dammit, that was like the universe itself. No matter how deep you dug, you could not come up with a First Cause.
“An honorable pursuit,” Turtle said again. “But I’ve never heard of anyone making real progress on it. Even Valerena’s Guardship, which spent centuries at it, did not do much but chart reaches not yet known.”
Provik grunted. He did not want to hear that his dreams were impractical.
The convoy moved into the waste space slowly, following beacons, traveling with screens up. The clutter was so dense and unpredictable no chart remained reliable. Two days after leaving the tag end, it reached a spinning canister of a station in a pocket kept swept of dangerous cold matter.
Soon after breakaway Turtle knew the Outsiders believed they had him in complete control. They began feeding him data of a sort a WarAvocat would kill for. Its delivery guaranteed his best chance for success. And that the Outsiders had no intention of releasing him, ever.
At one point Provik observed, “Now we know how they came up with such outrageous quantities of rare metals. Must be stars blowing up here all the time.”
Several score ships budded the station. They betrayed the varied concepts of shipbuilding of at least ten races. The lean, swift killer ships of Outsider humans predominated. Standing off, too massive to snuggle up, were three of the vessels operated by the Godspeakers themselves.
Industrial-type construction was under way nearby. “They are preparing their last redoubt,” Turtle guessed. “They do not have a falsely optimistic view of their military chances. A pity we Ku could not have had access to a region like this.”
“Why?” Midnight asked, awed by the fury of the waste space.
“We would be fighting still. The Guardships could not have rooted us out. They could have done nothing but contain us, and that would have required the efforts of half the fleet forever.”
The Outsiders knew they could not win. They had acquired him to buy time to develop the waste space as a hiding place of the mysteries of a dark faith.
The Godspeakers would not be too concerned about the loss of an empire. The pain of that would torment their human pets-slaves-allies.
The waste would be no boon to those. Those who retreated here would have to hide far deeper than this station lay. They would have to stay on the move amidst chaotic matter. Operations outside would require long voyages to the tag ends, starspace voyages measured in decades.
Did the Outsider humans understand that their masters were going to abandon them?
The existence of this place, and the planning behind it, said many things. One was that Turtle was caught in the jaws of another moral quandary.
To engineer the destruction of Starbase in a manner that insured that Canon had to change radically to survive was not the same as destroying it to guarantee the survival of a repugnant and predatory creed.
He glanced at the Valerena, at Blessed, at the Proviks, as though for inspiration — and found it. In what they were. In what they represented. One of Canon’s great pestilences could become a blessing, through their greed.
There was unimaginable wealth in this waste space. Let the Houses battle the darkness for it.
“This may be our home for a long time,” he said. “Let’s hope it’s not our last.”
The Outsiders had an agenda more brisk than Turtle’s. They barely gave him a chance to find his quarters before they put him to work.
The heart of the station was a major military headquarters. They presented it to him in its entirety. All its resources and personnel were assigned to his project. He was shown how things worked, given a team of translators, and was told to get busy.
They gave him access to everything worth knowing about their military and industrial capacity. They gave him technicians who could communicate with any Godspeaker anywhere on the Web, through Godspeakers here. He could check every fighting unit and what it faced. He could take charge if the whim hit.
His employers were determined to let him do his job.
It was a general’s dream.
He had been created an all-powerful warlord, but even he could not believe this.
Turtle spent most of his time in that command center, learning, putting together what needed putting together,
running models, reaching across the light years to experiment, even interfering where interference would save lives and forces or would avoid stupidities that offended him professionally. And all the while his employers studied him, feeling for the truths within.
The methane breathers watched every breath he took, humping and slithering through transparent pressurized tubes that meandered throughout the station.
Sometimes he could not resist temptation, used his power to twist Guardship noses. It was a trying year for the fleet.
Turtle found fewer and fewer occasions to consult his conscience. He had become too caught up doing what he had been designed to do.
The Outsiders even presented him with a command ship, of a type as yet uncommitted to combat, unsubtly named Delicate Harmony. It came complete with quarters for six Godspeakers, his long-range communicators. And keepers.
— 116 —
WarAvocat quietly attended the business of a ruthless, efficient, merciless conquest. Deified criticism faded.
He shared his thoughts with no one but Aleas. Aleas did not criticize when she disagreed. She argued, but did not carp or collude or try to rally the opinions of others, as the Deified had become accustomed to do since Makarska Vis introduced the spirit of divisiveness.
He had thoughts he reserved from his best friend. Perhaps Gemina knew them. Gemina knew so much. But Gemina did not betray him.
Long months after VII Gemina crossed the Rim, during a quiet interval, he tested the waters. “Something dramatic has happened on the other side, Aleas. Have you noticed?”
“They’re getting harder to find and it’s harder to get them to stand still when we find them. And they’re more clever than they were.”
“Uhm?”
“Maybe they’re adopting some of our tactics?”
He slipped a sheet of hard copy out of a stack. “Read this.”
Three Guardship assault, Objective Sixty-Nine, sector capital, four orbital fortresses. Point Guardship, magnum launch, object, forcing fortresses to raise screens. Enemy fighters launched. Standard. Nonstandard, attack upon fighters rather than Guardships.
Present insystem, twelve methane breather heavies, at distance, never before seen in concentration. Remained passive till time to recover and rearm fighters.
Warship fighters launched. Guardships forced to raise screens. Guardship secondaries decimated. Fortress-based and ship-based fighters alternate waves. Outsiders gain total secondary supremacy.
Point Guardship surprised at point of attack, Hellspinner funnel flooded with counterbarrage of self-shielded CT projectiles. Point Guardship disabled. Support Guardships destroy fortresses. Outsider secondaries destroy disabled Guardship. Support Guardships attempt close engagement with methane breathers, which remain at distance, employing secondaries.
WarAvocats consult, elect to return to Starbase. Methane breathers block path to Web strand, intentionally collide with one Guardship. Remaining Guardship retires at speed through starspace, catching strand after shaking pursuit.
This warning four months old.
Aleas read it twice. WarAvocat said, “That’s not out of my fevered imagination. Gemina analyzed the action at Objectives Sixty through Seventy-Five. There’s been a shakeup in the enemy high command. Chicken or egg, dramatically different goals have been adopted. They’re preserving their best and maximizing our losses. To me that says they’re preparing something they think will rock Canon and galvanize its enemies. They’re getting ready to bet everything on one pass of the dice.”
“I can’t contradict you.” Aleas was troubled. She looked at him oddly, decided to speak her mind. “You think the Ku is directing them.”
“That’s possible. It’s also possible they’ve learned how to run a war.”
She did not bite at the disclaimer. “And you’re sure he’ll take a shot at Starbase.”
“That’s a possibility, too. But not the only one. There’s the operation he was planning when he got the rug yanked by the Ku Surrender.”
“I’m no student of the times. Illuminate me.”
“He was going to try Capitola Primagenia.”
Aleas frowned.
“It’s an easier target. Imagine the impact Outside. Imagine the civil chaos. He might prefer Starbase but he’s a realist. He doesn’t try to do something when he doesn’t have the resources.”
“You might suggest that an attack on Capitola Primagenia could be coming, but don’t mention the Ku. Some of the Deified think you’re as screwy about him as Makarska Vis.”
WarAvocat snorted. When the hour came, he would bet his immortality on his intuition. He would use all his power to do what had to be done.
Meantime, there were worlds to conquer.
— 117 —
Lupo looked up as Two came in. “What did they think?” A fraction of the take from the Hemebuk Neutrality had arrived. T. W. and one of the Valerenas had introduced the Directors to the undistributed pile. Two had gone along disguised as one of T. W.’s assistants.
“They were impressed. T. W. told them there would be more. I didn’t hear much grumbling about how we shut them out.”
“Simpletons. As long as they can afford to indulge themselves, they don’t care what we do. It was worth the investment for the little time we need.”
Lupo Provik had embezzled the majority of the Outsider payoff. He’d already bought the shell and assets of a dying colonial corporation from artifacts who had hoped to establish their own closed society. He had gotten a bargain by agreeing to maintain their social goals.
Now he was shopping for independently held, financially troubled, potentially profitable star systems, preferably with the foundation infrastructures in place. Given those, he could put together a new House. With capital left over.
It would not be House Tregesser, but it would be safe.
It would be a veil behind which he and his could vanish. If the dam just held till he cobbled it together.
Two said, “There’s something going on out there in the shadows.”
“Uhm?”
“Somebody is going to try something. A couple of the Directors had that slinky feel. And there are tensions down below. Like people sense a storm gathering.”
Lupo leaned back, frowned, wondered who and why. “Anything concrete?”
“No.”
“Any ideas?”
“Not unless the Worgemuth faction thinks it’s a good time to unforget and forgive about Myth.”
“I can’t buy that.”
“I don’t either, really.”
“What’s T. W. say?”
“She feels it but she hasn’t found anything. I told her to keep an eye on everybody since there’s no sane reason for anybody to try something.”
“Tina too?”
“Even Tina. What the hell are you messing with? You’ve been at it for two days.”
“Putting together specs for a star chart like we had in the end space. I figure if we’re going into business on stolen money, we ought to buy at least one toy while we’re at it.”
— 118 —
It took a week to get loose. The Pioyugovs had to do some fancy talking and, Jo suspected, had to grease a few palms. Station could get away with screwing aliens easier than humankind.
At P. Jaksonica 3 they collided with bureaucracy grinding its finest, for reasons not immediately clear. Station said that since Jo and AnyKaat had no documentation, they could not be permitted egress from the Traveler. But hundreds of people ought to be able to identify AnyKaat. And Station Master Magnahs and STASIS Director Otten should remember her. But Admin played the game as though what mattered was not people but papers. They wouldn’t even let AnyKaat see her mother or son. Wouldn’t notify them that someone claiming to be AnyKaat had arrived.
The people responsible bulwarked themselves behind a claim for need of a clearance from Sector General Secretariat.
Jo’s patience cracked. She established herself in the Traveler’s lounge, told a steward, “Tel
l Amber Soul I want to see her as soon as possible.”
Amber Soul came immediately.
Jo had found she could communicate with her more completely than she could with Seeker. They had Merod Schene in common. Emotionally Jo shared little with Seeker but goals.
She told Amber Soul, “I’ve lost patience with these dinks. They’re tearing AnyKaat apart. I want to go twist some arms. I want you to go along and scare the shit out of anybody who gives me any grief. Can you do that?”
Yes. As simple as that, understanding bridging the gulf.
“Let’s go.” The opposite of bureaucracy. Decide. Do it.
Jo did not see what Amber Soul showed the STASIS guards dockside. They took off howling. What if somebody got scared and did something stupid and lethal?
They had no trouble reaching the hub, and got there fast enough to catch Gitto Otten as he was sneaking away from his office. Amber Soul put a fear in him that welded his feet to the deckplates.
Jo said, “I came up to deliver a message. We’re pulling out on the tenth. Headed for Starbase. I estimate a max thirty-two day turnaround. You recall how Guardships get about respect? I think you’ll see one here about the twelfth of next month. Unless something really upbeat happens here before the tenth. You get my drift?”
Otten gulped, looked over her shoulder, over his own and found no help there. “Are you threatening me?”
“Damned straight.”
Otten sputtered.
“Think about it. Get advice from Master Magnahs. You don’t have much time.” She headed back to the Traveler.
AnyKaat’s son and mother reached the Traveler twelve hours after Jo visited Director Otten. The boy was pale and anxious, probably armed with only the vaguest memories of his mother. With them came a nervous Admin clerk who handed over “emergency” documentation for AnyKaat and Jo. He delivered a hasty, mumbled admonition about getting final approval from Sector General Secretariat, then fled.
Jo hung around as long as it took to be introduced, then withdrew. She took a lot of pain back to her cabin. After calling Otten and delivering a polite “Thank you,” she lay down in the dark to stare at an overhead she could not see, wondering why that reunion filled her with hurt when she should be pleased for her friend.