Existence (88 page)

“I have just confirmed a two-way channel to the ISF vessel
Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta
.
They are only three light-minutes away.”

Well at last, a stroke of luck! Suddenly Tor felt less alone.

She quelled her enthusiasm. Even using its fusion-ion engines, the big, well-armed cruiser would have to maneuver for weeks in order to match orbits and come here physically. Still, that crew might be able to help in other ways. She checked encryption again, then asked the
Warren Kimbel—

“Can ibn Battuta bring sensors to bear?”

“That ship has excellent arrays, Tor. As of last update, they were swinging sensors to focus on the region in question—where the killer beam came from—a stony debris field orbiting this asteroid, roughly five kilometers from here, twenty north by forty spinward. They will need some minutes to aim their instruments. And then there is the time lag. Please attend patiently.”

“Ask them not to use active radar,” Tor suggested. “I’d rather the FACR didn’t know about them yet.”

“I have transmitted your request. Perhaps it will reach them in time to forestall such beams. Please attend patiently.”

This time Tor kept silent. Minutes passed and she glanced at the starscape wheeling slowly overhead. Earth and the sun weren’t in view, but she could make out Mars, shining pale ocher in the direction of Ophiuchus, without any twinkle. And Tor realized something unpleasant—that she had better start taking into account the asteroid’s ten-hour rotational “day.”

North by spinward…,
she pondered.
Roughly that way …
She couldn’t make out any glimmers from the “stony debris field,” which probably consisted of carbonaceous stuff, light-drinking and unreflective. A good hiding place. Much better than hers, in fact. A quick percept calculation confirmed her fear.

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 us, anyway?

The battle devices were still a mystery. For the most part, they had kept quiet, ever since 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 were observed firing their deadly rays … mostly to destroy some glittering crystal—or one another, 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 made a devil’s bargain with the interstellar crystals. A battle machine would help one of the crystal fomite factions to win, by eliminating its competition. In return, that faction would repay the favor, once it took over the local civilization. In exchange for its help, the FACR might win a role in the new order.

Biologists claimed to see clear parallels in the way some natural diseases did their deadly business, with viruses and bacteria paving the way for each other. One exo-sociologist wagered that the Last Machine War—ravaging Sol System tens of millions of years ago—must have been triggered by the arrival of crystal message capsules. They likely infected some of the more ancient mechanical probes, swaying them with persuasive offers of immortality and propagation. This theory might explain the Night of the Lasers.

When it seemed likely that the Havana Artifact was about to win over humanity, uncontested, all the other fomites had to gamble everything to draw our attention—either sacrificing bits of themselves to detonate come-get-me signals underground, or emitting risky here-I-am flashes as they drifted overhead. But these FACR devices were out here waiting, after eons, to fight for one crystal lineage or another. To help one faction to get heard … or to blast others and keep them from making their pitch.

It all made a kind of Darwinian sense … or so the best minds explained, reminding everyone that evolution had ferocious logic.

But then, how can this one benefit by firing at us?

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 might 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 out.

“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 roid’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.

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

And timing is really going to be critical.

Maybe I should have stayed home and remained a girl reporter.

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

THE LONELY SKY

Lurker Challenge Number Four

If you’ve been monitoring our TV, radio, and Internet—and the reason you haven’t answered is that you are
studying us and have a noninterference policy,
let’s say we understand the concept.

*   *   *

Examining more primitive species or cultures can seem to demand silence for a time, in order for observers not to interfere with the subject’s natural behavior. Your specific reason may be scientific detachment, or to let us enjoy our “innocence” a while longer, or perhaps because we are unusual in some rare or precious way. Indeed, we can imagine many possible reasons you might give for keeping the flow of information going in just one direction—from us to you—and never the other way. Similar rationalizations are common among human observers.

Of course, some of us might respond that it was cruel of you not to contact us during the murderous World Wars or perilous Cold War, when news of contact might have prodded us away from our near-brush with annihilation. Or that you should have warned us about the dangers of ecological degradation, or many other pitfalls. Or call it heartless to withhold advanced technologies that could help solve many of our problems, saving millions of lives.

In fairness, some other humans would argue that we have won great dignity by doing it all by ourselves. They take pride in the fact that we show early signs of achieving maturity by our own hard efforts. If your reason for silence is to let us have this dignity, that might make sense …

… so long as it isn’t simply an excuse, a rationalization, to cover more selfish motives.

To interfere or not? It’s a moral and scientific quandary that you answer by silently watching, to see if we’ll solve our problems by ourselves. (Perhaps we are doing better than you expected?) Your reasons may even have great validity.

Still, if you continue this policy, you cannot expect profound trust or gratitude when we finally overcome our hardships and emerge as star-faring adults without help. Oh, we’ll try to be friendly and fair. But your long silence will make it hard, at least at first, to be friends.

We understand cold-blooded scientific detachment. But consider—the universe sometimes plays tricks on the mighty. In some distant age, our roles may be reversed. We hope you’ll understand if our future stance toward you is set by your past-and-present behavior toward us.

75.

LURKERS

I am pondering her latest posted challenge—a tasty one that pierces closer to truth than some others—when sudden confusion erupts! Unaccustomed to abrupt news, our community of refugees stirs in a babble. Awaiter and Observer extend their sensors. They play back the sharp glitter of this attack … followed by a buzz and crackle of cipher-code as the humans confer urgently with their vessel.

Ah, then she still lives. The intensity of my relief surprises me … along with unexpected levels of concern that her chances remain slim.

How did this happen?

After hurried consultations, we conclude that an independent rogue fighting unit has attacked my favorite human. Hundreds of the brutal things abandoned their old loyalties, long ago, in order to join one or another of the crystalline clans. Moronic battle machines, hobbling about the Inner Edge with ancient war damage, their spasm of violence a few years ago only served to alert and antagonize the humans, putting them on guard.

We should have waged a campaign to eradicate the foul remnants, long ago.

Only matters aren’t so simple. Not every killer went rogue. Many are still owned and operated by bigger probes like Awaiter and Greeter, despite our treaty to disarm.

I kept some of my own, buried in reserve.

Are any of my loyal hunters near enough to aid Tor Povlov? If so, would I dare order it done? What strange temptation! To intervene. Reveal hidden powers, for a
mayfly
? Perhaps the lonely wait—with beings like Greeter my sole company—has driven me unstable.

I am saved from cognitive dissonance by a swift calculation. None of my remotes are close enough to help. Yet, might one assist some other way?

Meanwhile—in parallel—another thought occurs to me. Can I be certain Tor was ambushed by a loner? As I recall, the ancient war machines sometimes operated in pairs or triples.

Worse—might this have been
planned
by one of us major probes? By a fellow survivor? One who shared my lonely exile for almost seventy million Earth years? Without even trying hard, I can come up with a dozen possible motives that might tempt Sojourner, or Explorer, or Trader … though certainly not Awaiter.

I am warming up my repair and battle units. In truth, I began doing so (gradually and in secret) almost a human-century ago, when radio waves began pouring from the silent third planet. Preparation seemed prudent.

Now perhaps I had better—as an Earthling might say—crank it up.

76.

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 start 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 raced 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.