Orphans of Earth (38 page)

She finished it for him: “Once they’re gone, we’ve lost our last chance.”

He nodded. “I believe so. And they will leave, once the Starfish front comes too close. If chi Hercules has been contacted, that means the Spinners are more than three quarters through surveyed space. Rho Corona Borealis could be next, followed by Asellus Primus or iota Boötis—”

“Then the Alkaid systems,” she interrupted him. “Yes, I know. Trust me, the maps are burned into my mind.”

“Do you know that Alkaid derives its name from the Arabic for ‘chief of the mourners’?” he asked.

“Very fitting,” she said. The big, blue variable lay ninety-eight light-years from Sol and appeared to lie right in the Spinners’ path. Clustered around and before it were five target systems which, assuming their missions had been successful, would be the last colonies the Spinners would encounter before leaving human space forever.

“Especially when you consider that the Starfish are creeping past halfway,” Axford said.

“Only eighty light-years or so behind.”

They were silent for a moment. He didn’t close his eyes, and he didn’t retreat inward again. His gaze stayed firmly with hers.

She thought of 6 Ceti, the ostrich colony that recently had been destroyed. Once she had hoped that something might be left behind if they hid well enough. Now she wasn’t sure—not even about the resettled refugee colonies like Adrasteia. All the Starfish had to do was leave monitors behind in the systems they had visited, and they would know if any of these systems had been reclaimed. She couldn’t just sit back and simply rely on the Starfish not taking precautions.

She looked down at her hands, at her seamless, impossibly smooth skin, and felt a wave of sadness rush through her. Not anger, as usually struck her when she thought about the cruel stupidity of their situation. Just sadness. It would be a terrible waste if no one remained to know the human name of Alkaid when the Starfish finally swept by.

“What are you fishing for, Axford?”

“Me? I’m not fishing. We’re just talking.”

“Crap. We’re going around in circles until you get what you want.”

“And what would that be, exactly, Caryl?”

“You tell me.”

He didn’t say anything at first. His eyes didn’t look away from her, and the rest of him didn’t move. He was like a statue, motionless except for his mouth and the slow rise and fall of his android chest.

“All right,” he eventually said. “I’ll give you a few things to think about, and then I’ll leave you alone for a while. Deal?”

She nodded affirmative in response.

“It’s about the Starfish,” he said. “You asked me if I wanted to attack them, and when I said that I did, you asked the wrong question. You asked
why,
not
how
.”

“Would you tell me how if I asked?”

“Not really, but I do have part of an answer,” he replied. “First: the Starfish are behaving like machines, searching as though they’re following a simple algorithm. They detect a signal; they home in on it. Once the source is destroyed, they jump around at random in increasingly large jumps from their starting point until they find something. Or they hear another signal, at which point they start all over again in a new location. Sure, they’re filling in the gaps eventually, but initially at least, their behavior isn’t terribly complicated. Got it?”

She nodded again. “Go on.”

“Second: we’ve never seen the Starfish strike in two places at once, so maybe their resources are limited.”

“It’s possible,” she said. “You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know, Frank.”

“I know that,” he said, leaning forward. “But have you considered this: what happens if you present the Starfish with multiple targets at once? Perhaps they’d split their resources to try and take both at the same time.”

“Haven’t we already tried that? My engrams sent data back to me under cover of the midday broadcasts. That counts as simultaneous broadcasting. So far, this hasn’t had any effect on the Starfish whatsoever—that we can measure.”

“Then maybe you’re not measuring it the right way,” Axford shot back. “Or maybe it’s simply because your scouts are broadcasting from interstellar space. The Starfish might be machines, as the other Alander thought, but they’re not stupid. I think by now they know we have a penchant for G-type stars.”

“So what are you saying? That we sacrifice a colony or two to find out?”

“Empty ones, yes. Failed missions. You must have enough of those to spare by now.”

His stare was a challenge, daring her to bring up the pronoun he had used. To him it was still a case of Axford and the rest. They weren’t on the same side yet, and perhaps would never be.

“Was that what you wanted to tell me?” she asked evenly.

“Not entirely,” he answered, leaning back into his seat. “There is something else I think you’ve missed.”

“Which is?”

“We’re concentrating on what happens when the Starfish notice us,” he said. “But where are they for the rest of the time?”

“Well, I imagine they have some sort of base or mother ship somewhere,” she mused. “The same as the Spinners probably do.”

“But where?”

“Fuck, Axford, how the hell should I know?” She met his challenge irritably, knowing he couldn’t possibly have the answer to the question, either. “We don’t think of surveyed space as
space,
really. We think of it as an array of points, with each point a system or colony, depending on your preference. We ignore the gaps. Ueh told Peter that we should consider hiding in the gaps if we decided to follow the Spinners, but maybe that’s where the Starfish are. It would make sense, if they really wanted to stay hidden.”

“Who from?” asked Axford.
“
Us?
”

She nodded. “Okay, point taken,” she said. “What’s your take on the situation, then?”

“Me, I think they’ve got some sort of command center somewhere—as do the Spinners. I don’t know what these centers would look like, mind you. Maybe they’re nothing like we can imagine. But I reckon they exist. The fact that everything is proceeding in such a well-defined, linear fashion suggests that. If there wasn’t
something
to follow, the Spinners wouldn’t be leaving such a large wake. And if the Starfish aren’t much more advanced that the Spinners, then they’ll be doing the same.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m partly convinced. But that still doesn’t help us find it.”

“Doesn’t it? It’d be well defended, wouldn’t you think?”

“Of course. But that would only make it harder to find, surely?”

“Not necessarily. Think about it, Caryl: we already have one prospective target, and you’re already keen to attack it, even if it is for the wrong reasons: pi-1 Ursa Major.”

“What?” She stared at him, unable to see how he’d come to that conclusion.

“We’ve lost three hole ships around that area, so something’s going on in there.”

“Why not the Yuhl?”

“Simple: the three systems they’ve led us to have been K-type primaries. Pi-1 Ursa Major is a G.”

And Alander had already seen the massed Yuhl fleet in Beid, she belatedly realized. The fleet therefore couldn’t be in pi-1 Ursa Major as well. Unless there was a second Yuhl fleet lurking there, her assumption had been wrong all along. She felt like slapping her forehead.

“I think you’ve got something there, Frank.”

“I know I have, Caryl. And now you have it, too.”

“Thanks,” she said, half expecting a request to reciprocate at any moment, or a long, pointed gloat. But he surprised her.

“I’ll give you some peace, now,” he said. “I need to think.” He closed his eyes and folded his arms across his chest. Frowning, she watched as he settled back into the same state he had been in earlier, apparently oblivious to the outside world.

Think about what?
she wondered. He had given her something, but she received the distinct impression that the reverse might actually have been the case. What had he got in return without her knowing? She didn’t know, and it worried her that she didn’t know. She was momentarily tempted to hack into his Overseer to find out what he was thinking, but she had no doubt that he had defenses in place that would stop her from prying. She would have to use old-fashioned guesswork to try to discover what he was up to.

The cockpit was suddenly silent. She wished she could relax like the others while they hung in the unspace void between locations, but she was too consumed with thoughts to rest. She kept turning over what might happen when they arrived at their destination.

What if it was a trap? Or the Yuhl weren’t interested in negotiating? The trip would have been wasted, and the fragile beginnings of cooperation might dissolve forever, along, perhaps, with the few scattered remnants of humanity that remained in the universe. But she wasn’t about to allow that to happen. No matter what it took, she would keep her species alive. Even if it meant abandoning her home and becoming a gypsy race, at least there would be
something
left. Anything was better than extinction.

2.1.7

An ftl communication rang through the combined hole ship
ten minutes after they arrived in Beid. Sounding like a high-speed recording of a percussion ensemble played backward, it rapid-fired through the cockpit, making Alander wince.

“Sorry about that,” said Axford. “It’s for me. A message from home.”

“Want to tell us what it’s about?” Hatzis asked.

“Not really.” Frank the Ax turned his attention back to the main screen, on which was displayed the tremendous assembly of the Yuhl. “Everything’s falling into place nicely, though.”

Alander followed the brief exchange with interest. The tension between Hatzis and Axford wasn’t ebbing. If anything, it was increasing. And she still wasn’t talking to Ueh properly. Hatzis was like a very compact hurricane, wrapping around itself tighter and tighter, never letting up.

He’d caught a glimpse of her when she had dived into his mind. He had a greater understanding of her fear of letting go, of not being in control, but at the same time she knew that she
wanted
to let go. She had a love-hate relationship with power, either pushing it away or pulling it in toward her.
That
was the dynamo that fueled her tension; it wasn’t just the desire to be in charge all the time. She had simply yet to find the balance between accepting and delegating responsibility.

Not that he was one to talk. The academic life had been fine for his old self, back on Earth. Independently wealthy, he had been able to leap from interest to interest as the whim took him. He’d never had to answer to anyone but himself. As his stocks had risen in academic circles, then outside, he had enjoyed the influence he’d been able to wield while sitting comfortably safe behind glass, able to walk away whenever he wanted. He’d always learned from mistakes intellectually, never viscerally. He had been protected from the consequences, and thus thought himself immune.

He rejected me...

He wondered if his old self would have been any better adjusted than Hatzis after 150 years of life. Perhaps her greater self had been, the sum of the distributed Hatzis of which she had only been a small part.
That
Hatzis might have been completely incomprehensible to him, as far above the engrams as the engrams were above pocket calculators.

The Hatzis before him was afraid to surrender the control she had over the small universe she was rebuilding out of humanity’s ashes. But if she was going to breathe life into those dying embers, if they were to survive, then she needed to realize that relinquishing control might be exactly what she needed to do. He couldn’t tell which way she would jump—to join the Yuhl in running or Axford in fighting back—but he knew she couldn’t solve it, this time, by calling for a vote. Whether she liked it or not, the decision was up to her.

Axford wasn’t given another chance to explain about the message (not that Alander thought he was going to, anyway) because a transmission from the Yuhl arrived shortly thereafter, responding to Ueh’s hail upon arriving in the system.

“The Praxis welcomes your return,
envoy/catechist Ueh/Ellil
.” The voice came with an image of a Yuhl adorned with the accoutrements of conjugator. It wasn’t
Vaise/Ashu,
the first one Alander had met. This one seemed narrower and taller, its yellow and striped head reminding him of a pencil eraser.

“I bring
envoy/catechist Peter/Alander
,” Ueh responded, “and representatives of
humanity/riil. We/they
request permission to speak to the Fit.”

This time the reply came almost immediately. They were close enough to the
Mantissa
that transmission delays were less than a few seconds. The massive accumulation of hole ships and others structures made from ordinary matter still looked from a distance like an asteroid belt, but the more he looked at it, the more it appeared to teem with life and activity. Its component parts were in constant, chaotic motion, as though jiggled by Brownian motion on an infinitely larger scale.

“Permission is granted to dock,” said the conjugator. “
Further eventualities/will then be considered.
”

The screen went blank.

Ueh turned his black eyes on his companions in the cockpit. “Does this satisfy you?”

Alander turned to Hatzis. “Caryl? Are you going to go through with it?”

She shot him a faint glare, knowing that he was throwing her a challenge. “If we have to do it, Peter, then we have to do it, I guess. But I don’t like putting all our eggs in one basket.”

“It will be seen as a sign of confidence,” Ueh explained slowly.

She cast the alien a baleful glare. “Is that what you tell everyone as you lead them down the Praxis’s maw?”

“Leave it, Caryl,” said Alander. This was no time for squabbling, nerves or no. “We’ll be going nowhere near the Praxis, will we, Ueh?”

“Peter/Alander is correct.”

“So you don’t need to be worried about being eaten or anything,” he said. “Not straightaway, at least.”

She didn’t acknowledge his attempt at humor. “Okay, but once negotiations fail, then all bets are off.”

“If negotiations fail,” Alander said, “then we’re as good as dead anyway, so being eaten is a redundant concern, wouldn’t you say?”