Multiverse: Exploring the Worlds of Poul Anderson

  At the rate we’re rotating, this here girder won’t protect me much longer.

  Looking around, she saw several better refuges, including the abyss below, where baby starships lay stillborn and forever silent. Unfortunately, it would take too many seconds to hop-drift over to any of those places. During which she’d be a sitting duck.

  Why in space would a FACR want to shoot at us, anyway?

  The battle devices were still a mystery. For the most part, they had kept quiet, ever since the dark episode still known as the Night of the Lasers. In all of the years that followed, while humanity cautiously nosed outward from the homeworld and began probing the edges of the Belt, she could recall only a couple of dozen occasions when the deadly relic machines had been observed firing their deadly rays . . . mostly to attack each other, but occasionally blasting at Earthling vessels with deadly precision, and for no apparent reason.

  Armed ships, sent to investigate, never found the shooters. Despite big rewards offered for anyone who captured a FACR dead or alive, they were always gone—or well-hidden—before humans arrived.

  We finally figured out, they must be leftovers from the final battle that tore through our solar system long ago.

  Survivors who slept for millions of years. Rousing, now that humans were flitting about, they mostly seemed interested in resuming their old grudges . . . though with more than enough vile nastiness to share with Earth’s newcomers, too.

  It all made a kind of darwinian sense . . . or so the best minds explained, reminding everybody that evolution is a notorious bitch. But again, why here? Why now?

  Eyeing the rate of rotation, she knew another question was paramount.

  How am I gonna get out of here?

  It wouldn’t suffice to just sidle sideways around the ancient girder, which was narrow and perforated in the other direction. And Gavin’s situation was probably even worse. We’ve got to do something soon.

  “Warren. Has Ibn Battuta scanned the debris field?”

  “Yes, Tor, with passive telescopes. Their results are inconclusive. They have mapped the component rocks and sand clouds and report half a dozen anomalies that might possibly be hiding the shooter. With active radar they may be able to pinpoint the resonance of refined metal—”

  “Or else get confused by nickel-iron meteoritic material. Anyway, the instant they transmit active beams, the damned thing will realize we have an ally. It can shift position long before they get a return signal and are able to fire any kind of weapon. Six minutes light-turnaround is huge.”

  “I can find no fault with your reasoning. Then perhaps our main option remains for me to emerge from shadow and come get the two of you. As you say, the machine may be reticent to do battle with a foe my size.”

  “And what if we’re wrong? Suppose the damn thing fires at you?”

  “Then I will engage it in battle.”

  “You won’t get in the first shot. Or even the second.”

  “Agreed. In a worst-case scenario, I calculate that—with excellent marksmanship—the FACR could take out my primary weapon, then attack my main drive units. But I still might position myself with vernier thrusters, so that you and Gavin could make it aboard. Even if I am rendered helpless, my innermost radiation shelter should keep you safe until help arrives.”

  Another voice blurted.

  “Screw that! I can shut down for a month or two. But Tor would starve or go crazy in that time!”

  She felt touched by her partner’s concern—the first time she recalled him ever talking that way.

  “Thanks Gavin. But don’t transmit. That’s an order.”

  He went silent with a click . . . perhaps in time to keep the enemy from localizing him too accurately. Tor weighed her options.

  On the positive side, the Ibn Battuta might be a powerful ally, if the distant cruiser managed to catch their foe by surprise with a radar beam, just once, getting a clear position fix that would be obsolete before the signal even returned. Double that light delay, and you’ve effectively rendered the ship’s mighty weapons useless.

  Then there was Warren Kimbel sitting much closer, but also much less formidable. And the Warren would need several minutes to emerge from the asteroid’s shadow, the whole time vulnerable to a first shot. Or several.

  She took census of the robotic salvage drones. A dozen or so were still in decent shape, down here with her. Or else near Gavin.

  And finally . . . there’s me.

  Tor didn’t much like the plan taking shape in her mind. Frankly, it too-well reminded her of the desperate measures she took long ago, alongside the brave man that her ship was named after, aboard a doomed zeppelin, that day when her life as a normal woman ended and her career as a cyborg soon began.

  But I don’t see where there’s any other option.

  And timing is really going to be critical.

  “Okay,” Tor said, with a glance at the encryption monitor. “Here’s what we’re gonna do.”

  Timing Is Everything

  Our fate will turn on split seconds, she thought.

  Unless the damn FACR has cracked our encryption and knows what we’re about to do. Or unless there’s more than one of the horrid things!

  In which case, we’re torqued.

  Breathing tension in her steamy life support suit-capsule, she watched the first of several timers count down and reach zero—then begin ticking upward again.

  One. Two. Three. Four . . .

  Warren is starting to move.

  In her mind’s eye, Tor pictured the vessel’s engines lighting up, blasting toward a fateful emergence from the asteroid’s protective bulk. The tip of its nose should appear in one hundred and six seconds.

  Before working out this plan, she had gone through dozens of scenarios. All the viable ones started this way, with her ship firing-up to come around. After all, what if the FACR really was too afraid to fire at the Warren Kimbel? Why not find out, right at the start? Easiest solution. Let the ship come to fetch Tor and Gavin. Then go FACR-hunting.

  For some reason, Tor felt certain things wouldn’t go that way. Life was seldom so easy.

  The new count reached forty-six. So, in exactly one minute the FACR would spot Warren’s prow emerging from behind the roid’s protecting bulk . . . .

  When thirty seconds remained, Tor uttered a command:

  “Drones M and P, go!”

  They belonged to Gavin, a hundred meters beyond the crater’s rim. Soon, a pair of tiny glimmers rose above that horizon. Tor’s percept portrayed two loyal little robots firing their jets, lancing skyward on a suicidal course—straight toward the jumble of rocks and pebbles where a killer machine lurked.

  They’re harmless, but will the FACR know that?

  Ten seconds after those two launched, she spoke again.

  “Drones R and K, come now!”

  With parameters already programmed, those two started from opposite directions, jetting toward her across a jumble of twisted girders. Now fate would turn on the foe’s decision.

  Which group will you go after first? Those rushing toward you, or those coming to rescue me? Or none?

  “Drones D and F, now!” Those were two more of Gavin’s, sent to follow the first pair, hurtling toward the sandbar-cloud where the enemy hid, leaving her partner alone. That couldn’t be helped. And Warren’s nose would be visible in five . . . four . . .

  In purely empty space, lasers can be hard to detect. But Gavin had spent the last half-hour using his one remaining hand to toss fists of asteroidal dust into the blackness overhead, as hard as he could without exposing himself. (A side benefit: burrowing a deeper shelter.) The expanding particle cloud was still essentially hard vacuum—

  —but when a kill beam lanced through the sparse haze, it scattered a trail of betraying blue-green twinkles . . . as it sliced drone P in half, almost instantly igniting a gaudy fireball of spilled hydrazine fuel.

  Tor blinked in shock, before remembering to start a fresh timer . . . as drone M
was cloven also! Without exploding, though. She fought down fear in order to concentrate.

  So. It acted first to protect itself. Only now—

  She turned to face drone R, speeding toward her above the jumble of ruined alien probe-ships. The little robot carried a flat, armor-like plate, salvaged from the junk pile, now held up as a shield between it and the FACR.

  “Gavin did you get a fix on—”

  A searing needle of blue-green struck the plate, spewing gouts of superheated metal. The drone kept coming, hurrying to Tor.

  “Now I have!” Her partner shouted. “Got the bastard localized down to a couple of meters. You know, I’ll bet it doesn’t know I’m a—”

  The FACR’s beam wandered a quick spiral. Then, whether by expert-targeting or a lucky shot, it sliced off one of the little drone’s claws, where it gripped the makeshift armor. The protective plate twisted one way, the drone another. Imbalanced, it desperately compensated, trying to reach Tor—till it crashed into a jutting piece of an ancient construction crane. The plate spun off, caroming amid girders, coming to rest just out of Tor’s reach.

  The robot juttered to a halt, shuddered and died, with another hole drilled neatly through its brain case.

  Damn. The sonovabitch is accurate! And its re-fire rate is faster than any weapon built by humans.

  Aware that nineteen seconds had passed since the first laser bolt, she spun to look at drone K, jetting toward her from the opposite side, clutching another slab of makeshift, ill-fitting armor. Again, harsh light speared from the enemy. Molten splatters spewed and then instantly froze, wherever the FACR’s beam touched metal, hunting for a vulnerable spot. In moments—

  The lance of bitter light vanished—with suddenness that left Tor blinking. As her optics struggled to adapt, the drone kept coming toward her, apparently undamaged.

  Which must mean—

  “I am now under attack, Captain Povlov. The good news is that your distractions bought me half a minute. The bad news? The Faction-Allied Competition Remover does not appear to be afraid of me.”

  The latest generation of AI had an irksome habit of turning verbose, even garrulous, at times of stress. No one knew why.

  “I have pinged a radar pulse at the site Gavin provided. The return echo was strong down to half a centimeter. In response, the FACR burned off my main antenna and a surrounding patch of hull. Adjacent chambers are no longer air-tight.

  “I am rotating my primary weapon, in order to aim it at the foe. But at his current rate of re-fire, he will be able blast my laser turret from the side, before I can shoot.”

  Drone K, burdened with the awkward metal plate, had trouble slowing down. Tor was forced to duck with a shout, as it collided with the girder protecting her. Acting quickly, before it could spin away, she darted out a hand to clutch the thick disk. Her prosthetic fingers grabbed so hard it hurt and Tor’s wrist ached from the twisting strain.

  That’s nothing compared to getting a whole arm sliced off, she thought, having to expose the limb for several seconds. But the enemy was occupied elsewhere.

  Thanks, Warren, she thought, when everything was safely behind the girder. Tor felt pangs over yet another sacrifice on her behalf.

  Now, just hold out till it’s my turn.

  The chunk of metal was only a makeshift “shield.” Under orders, drone K had gone down to the asteroid’s catacombs, in order to retrieve part of a shattered airlock hatch—one of many that once protected the mysterious habitat zone, and among the few objects at hand that might block the kill-beam for a few seconds. Maybe. If she managed to keep it turned right, between her and the FACR’s deadly gaze.

  Things might have been simpler in Earth-gravity. Just jump away from the girder while holding up the shield for a couple of ticks—long enough to plummet to safety, worrying only about the landing. Here, gravity was a tepid friend, weaker than a mouse. Falling would take much too long.

  “Tor. The foe has been expertly burning my instrumentalities, as each one came into view. Half of my forward compartments are now holed. My primary weapon will be exposed to side-attack for at least fifteen seconds before it can shoot back. That window will commence in forty seconds . . . mark.”

  Cursing her slowness behind the girder’s narrow protection, Tor helped drone K turn and line itself upside down, with jets pointing skyward, still clutching the rim of the airlock cover with both manipulator clamps.

  There were serious flaws to this plan. The worst drawback declared itself in stark, sudden illumination from somewhere high above. A hot light, rich and reddish—not anything like the laser’s icy blue—burst across the crater, bathing dead starships in the flicker-colors of flame.

  That must be drone D, or drone F—or both—exploding before they could reach the FACR. It had to turn and deal with them, at last, in case they carried bombs. Well, at least their sacrifice bought Warren a brief respite. Too bad the distraction couldn’t be better timed.

  Is that mother’s weapon ever gonna run out of laser-juice?

  Tor felt intensely aware of drone K’s hydrazine tanks, too close above her back as she crouched. She had no wish to experience incineration a second time. In spite of all her cyborg augmentations, Tor’s mouth tasted the same bile flavors of dread that her ancestors knew long ago, when they confronted lions on the veldt, or pictured dragons in the night. Her body suffered waves of weakness.

  But battle makes no allowance for fear. It was time.

  With the airlock plate poised above, her legs flexed . . . then shoved hard against the metal strut, her refuge for the last hour. Drifting backward, just before leaving the girder’s shadow, Tor yanked all of her limbs into a fetal tuck, clinging to the center of the hatch, as faithful little drone K ignited all engines, attempting to rocket Tor downward, toward safety amid the jumbled wreckage below. Still so very slowly.

  Did the FACR hesitate?

  Tor and Gavin had to be the highest-priority targets. Given what happened earlier, nothing else made logical sense. On the other hand, for the foe to let up on Warren could be a lethal mistake . . .

  Come on. Pay attention to me!

  After five whole seconds, the war machine’s indecision ended in a blaze of blue-actinic brightness that erupted just above Tor’s head, penetrating drone K like tissue paper. The little robot convulsed—and Tor worried.

  If it took out the brain . . . In that case, the robot might keep holding on to the plate, leaving its fuel tanks exposed—in effect a bomb, ready to be ignited.

  The worker machine’s long arms pulsed, like a spasm, shoving itself away from the armor shield—as planned. And having pushed Tor in the direction of safety, drone K swiveled to jet the other way. Thanks, she thought, toward her last glimpse of the loyal machine. And now the enemy had three targets to choose from.

  Shoot at me.

  Shoot at Warren.

  Or try using the drone to blow me to smither—

  The world turned orange-red—a harsh, fury-filled light, much closer than before. Explosive brightness swept past the airlock hatch on all sides, surrounding Tor, who cowered in a narrow, cylindrical shadow.

  Goodbye, drone K.

  Her brain could only manage that one thought before the shockwave hit, shuddering the hatch so hard that her hand-grip almost failed. Both legs flung out as her oblong shield began to spin.

  That had been the enemy’s obvious tactic to get at Tor. This new rotation would bring her body into the FACR’s sights, several agonizing instants before she reached safety.

  Time to bail.

  Tor gathered her legs, bracing them against the hatch plate.

  “Tor Povlov, my weapon is now emerging into view. The foe must be distracted for fifteen seconds.”

  Too long. Even if she got the FACR to focus on her, that interval amounted to three shots, at the rate the damn thing could re-fire.

  But she had to try! While the plate still shielded her, Tor kicked hard, in a semi-random direction. If the enemy needed even a fractio
n of an extra moment to spot her, beyond the still glowing explosion-plume . . .

  The pit, filled with craggy debris, was looming faster now. But Tor fought the instinct to turn and brace for impact. Instead, she twisted her legs skyward, as another voice cried out.

  “I’m coming, Tor!”

  Gasping from exertion, she somehow found the breath to grunt.

  “Gavin . . . don’t . . . ”

  The armor shield spun away. Beyond the fading warmth and sparkle of drone K’s glowing remnants, she now glimpsed a vast spray of stars . . . and Tor knew she shouldn’t look at them. With a heave, she brought up both knees, just in time.

  “Gavin . . . Stay where you—”

  Pain erupted along the entire length of her left leg, then cut off before she could start an agonized cry. The limb was simply gone. By raw force of will, Tor brought the other one around, placing it between her body and lethal violence. And almost instantly, fresh agony attacked that leg—

  —then stopped as something-or-somebody barged in to the rescue! A dark silhouette thrust itself between Tor and her tormentor, taking the laser’s brunt. For one instant of brain-dazzled shock, she saw a hero, huge and fearless, armored and armed with a jagged sword, appear to leap in, parrying the foe’s bitter lance, deflecting it away from her, with no more than a blithe shrug of molten sparks.

  “Ten seconds,” Warren announced. Blatantly lying. An hour must have passed, since the ship last spoke.

  The laser stopped hunting for Tor. In sudden darkness, her helmet-percept remapped the dim surroundings.

  I’m falling through the junk pile. Her savior, she now realized, had been some pre-historic construction derrick, blocking the laser as she fell past. And soon, the onrushing pit-bottom would smack her, very hard.

  Tor knew she ought to be checking diagnostics, verifying that emergency seals were holding, after the loss of her legs. My very expensive legs . . . Tor quashed hysterical thoughts. She ought to be twisting to brace for impact, as well as possible.