The Night's Dawn Trilogy (483 page)

The Mosdva had risen to a rudimentary state of intelligence while the Ridbat ruled the planet. That made them useful slave
creatures, who were bred for dexterity and strength and passivity while any traits such as curiosity or stubbornness were
ruthlessly culled. By the time the Ridbat exterminated themselves, the Mosdva had become fully sentient. Although their population
was severely reduced by the diseases raging across the land, they did at least survive as a species.

With the Ridbat gone, Mosdva evolution reverted to more traditional lines—as normal as life could become on such a ruined
planet. Their own civilization was extremely slow to emerge as a coherent whole. Mastrit-PJ, with its exhausted mineral resources,
devastated biosphere, and extensive radioactive deadlands, was not an environment conducive to sophisticated or high-technology-based
cultures, and the cautious Mosdva psychology fitted this well. They became nomadic during the period of nuclear winter which
followed the demise of the Ridbat, roaming between habitable areas. It was only after the glaciers withdrew, half a million
years later, that the Mosdva began to advance again.

They achieved a modest level of industrialisation. Because there were no underground petrochemical deposits left, nor coal
or natural gas, their technology was based around the concept of sustainability, benign and in harmony with the ecosystem.
Although not opposed to change, change generated from within was extremely slow to manifest itself. Steady advances in the
theoretical fields of science such as physics, astronomy and mathematics were not grasped upon for technological extrapolation.
They already lived in what they considered to be a golden age. After their terrible heritage, stability was the one icon they
craved above all else. Such a desire could have led to a society whose timescale rivalled geological epochs.

Fate dealt that prospect two bitter blows. Once the glaciers were gone, the Tyrathca, until then simple bovine herd animals,
began to share in Mastrit-PJ’s evolutionary renaissance. Their sentience was a long time emerging, but their progress towards
it reflected their physical stamina, plodding forwards imperturbably. On any other world, their total lack of imagination
would have been a serious flaw, but not here. Sharing the planet with a species as benevolent and (by now) advanced as the
Mosdva meant that they had access to machinery and concepts they themselves could never originate.

Unfortunately for the Mosdva, the Tyrathca were more aggressive, a trait which came from their herd ancestry and its consequent
territorial disputes, which in turn led to the breeding of the vassal castes, especially the soldiers. With their copied technology,
greater size and larger numbers, they swiftly became the dominant of the two species.

This situation could well have spelt extinction for the Mosdva. Their settlements were being put under considerable pressure
by the Tyrathca expansion. Then Mosdva astronomers discovered their star was about to expand into a red giant.

For a race whose thoughts operated on an abstract level, the knowledge of certain extinction in 1,300 years’ time would be
devastating enough; for the Tyrathca, to whom a fact was immediate, it was intolerable. Racial survival provided a unifying
motivator which enabled them to swiftly consolidate their domination of the planet. For the second time in their existence,
the Mosdva were effectively enslaved. First they were used to devise a scheme whereby some if not all the Tyrathca could survive
the star’s expansion. They came up with the arkship concept which would guarantee ultimate racial survival, with habitable
asteroids sheltering the remainder of the population which couldn’t be evacuated. Secondly, they were made to implement it.

With their smaller bodies, greater dexterity, and higher intelligence, they made excellent astronauts—unlike the Tyrathca
themselves. Mosdva technical expertise was adapted and utilized to capture asteroids and shunt them into orbit around Mastrit-PJ,
where they were hollowed out and converted into arkships. The arkship building phase lasted for seven centuries, in which
time 1,037 were built and launched.

After this, with the star’s growing instability wrecking the planet’s fragile ecology, Mastrit-PJ’s massive space manufacturing
capability was switched to adapting asteroids into habitats. The asteroids chosen were orbiting more than a quarter of a billion
kilometres from the star, putting them outside the predicted expansion photosphere. As this operation was far simpler than
changing asteroids into giant starships, over seven thousand were created in just two centuries. Unlike the arkships which
were immediately lost to the Tyrathca upon completion, building the asteroid habitats was a near exponential growth process,
as new habitats used their industrial capacity to prepare further asteroids.

A thousand years after the project began, the planet had become uninhabitable, and was completely abandoned.

No Mosdva were ever carried on an arkship, the vessels were used exclusively by the Tyrathca. As soon as they had finished
building one, the Mosdva were moved on to the next.

However, they couldn’t be excluded from the asteroid habitats without a policy of complete genocide. The Tyrathca tolerated
them, knowing that their own numbers were constantly rising, necessitating an ongoing construction programme. And with the
exact conditions of the star’s expansion unknowable, they would need Mosdva technical ability to adapt the asteroid habitats
to the environment of the swollen photosphere.

When Mastrit-PJ’s star expanded, its diameter was larger than predicted, as was its radiant heat output. New, larger thermal
dissipation systems had to be constructed for the asteroid habitats, and quickly. As a consequence, the habitats became even
more engineering-dependent, which began the gradual shift of political power. Only Tyrathca breeders were capable of any meaningful
technological activity, making all but the builder, housekeeper, and farmer vassal castes redundant. Their soldier caste was
now bred purely to keep the Mosdva in line.

The revolution didn’t happen all at once, but rather over a thousand year period, starting ten thousand years earlier. The
asteroid habitats initially formed a cohesive one-nation grouping after the expansion. But the scarcity of mass in the form
of unused asteroids to mine forced the Tyrathca to revert to their original clannish state of competition. As the number of
unused asteroids declined, wars were fought over the remainder. Each asteroid habitat reverted to complete autonomy.

After that, the rise of the Mosdva to supremacy was inevitable. They controlled the habitat machinery, and industrial facilities,
a power they discovered which enabled them to dictate their terms to the Tyrathca.

Under this new order, the asteroid habitats gradually banded together politically and physically. As they did, new design
concepts were enacted, bringing the old Mosdva dictum of sustainability to the fore, enabling them to maximise their use of
dwindling mass resources. Life support sections outside the spun-gravity biospheres were constructed. First they were little
more than adjuncts to the gridwork which held the clustered asteroid habitats together; transport and transfer tubes, eliminating
the wasteful need for airlocks and vessels. But the Mosdva, with their climbing-adept limb arrangement and natural agility,
found they adapted well to the freefall environment inside them. Only the Tyrathca needed gravity and the associated complex
engineering to maintain the rotating biospheres. More freefall segments were constructed and added to the clusters, hydroponics
and industrial sections first; which led to their technicians spending more and more time in freefall. Living sections followed
quickly. The era of the diskcities began.

“And the Tyrathca?” Joshua asked. “Are they still here?”

“We do not keep them any more,” Quantook-LOU said. “They are no longer our masters.”

“I congratulate you on ridding yourselves of them. The Confederation has always found them difficult to deal with.”

“But we are not difficult, I hope. And the dominion of Anthi-CL is on the edge of Tojolt-HI. That makes us rich in mass, more
than any other. We are good trading partners for you, Captain Joshua Calvert.”

“How does being on the edge of Tojolt-HI make you richer than other dominions?”

“Is that not obvious? All ships have to dock at the edge. All mass flows through us.”

“Oh, classic,” Ruben said. “The rim dominions are the diskcity harbourmasters, they can charge what they like to allow cargo
through. They’ve probably got some kind of political alliance between themselves to put the squeeze on the central dominions.”

“A minimum fee?” Joshua asked.

“Most likely. It puts us in a good position. Everything travels through them; QED, they must have good communications with
all the other dominions. They should be able to find us a copy of the almanac file if it still exists.”

“Okay.” Joshua checked his neural nanonics time function. They’d been in the diskcity for nine hours. “I thank you for your
hospitality, Quantook-LOU. My crew and I would like to return to our ship now. We have gathered enough information to see
where our respective interests lie, so we’ll start reviewing what items and information we’ve brought with us which will bring
about the most beneficial exchange for both of us.”

“As you wish. How long will this review process take?”

“Only a few hours. I look forward to returning, and the start of true negotiations between us.”

“As do I. Our resources will be marshalled to cope with your demands. Perhaps then I could visit your ship?”

“You would be an honoured guest, Quantook-LOU.”

Ten Mosdva formed the entourage to see them back to the MSV. It had been left untouched, though Ashly and Sarha who’d been
monitoring its status, reported it had been bombarded by every conceivable active sensor sweep.

As soon as they were back through
Lady Mac
’s decontam procedure, Joshua ordered the SII suit to withdraw, giving a huge sigh as his skin was exposed to air again. “Jesus,
I thought that Quantook character would go on forever about how wonderful his people are. Don’t they ever sleep?”

“Probably not,” Parker said. “As a general rule, sleep evolves from a planetary day-night cycle; they don’t have that here
any more. I suspect they have slow periods, but no actual sleep.”

“Ah well, that’s one weakness we’ll have to concede to them. I need a meal, a gel wipe, and some time in the cocoon. It’s
been a long day.”

“I concur,” Syrinx said. “The ELINT satellites are approaching operational range, which may or may not give us useful information
on the dominions. We also need to evaluate what we’ve heard today, and I’d like us all fresh for that. We’ll reconvene in
six hours to see what the satellites have found and discuss the next stage.”

Joshua managed three hours in the cocoon before he woke. He stared at the cabin wall for fifteen minutes before acknowledging
he’d need to put a somnolence program into primary if he wanted to sleep again. He hated doing that.

Liol, Monica, Alkad, and Dahybi were already in the small galley when he air-swam through the hatch. They gave him varying
sympathetic looks which he acknowledged ruefully.

“We’ve been talking to Syrinx and Cacus,” Monica said. She shrugged at Joshua; he’d paused in the act of filling his tea sachet
from the water nozzle to raise an eyebrow. “Not just us that’s restless. Anyway, they’ve located another seven diskcities.”

Joshua datavised the flight computer for a general communication link and said good morning to the
Oenone
’s crew.

“The Mosdva empire appears to be quite extensive,” Syrinx told him. “Judging by the distribution of diskcities we’ve seen
so far, that early estimate needs to be revised upwards. Fair enough if we believe there were seven thousand asteroid habitats
to begin with. Kempster and Renato have also been scanning further out from the photosphere. So far they haven’t located a
single lump of rock within twenty degrees of the ecliptic. Quantook-LOU was telling the truth when he said there was a desperate
struggle for mass after the stellar expansion. Every spare gram must have been incorporated into the diskcities.”

“Quantook-LOU didn’t say struggle,” Joshua said. “He said wars, plural.”

“Which he blamed squarely on the Tyrathca,” Alkad said.

Joshua gave the physicist a bleak look. She didn’t say much, but her comments were normally pretty valid. “You think the Mosdva
took control earlier than that?”

“We can never know exactly what this star system’s history is, but I would think it likely that the Mosdva started their revolt
right after the star’s expansion phase. That would be when the Tyrathca were most dependant on them. Everything else we’ve
been told does tend to paint them in an unusually generous light. An oppressed people struggle to regain their long-lost freedom.
Please. History is always written by the good guys.”

“I did gloss over some of our less endearing traits,” Joshua said. “That’s human nature.”

“You should have stung Quantook-LOU’s office space with some nanonic bugs,” Liol said. “I’d love to hear what’s being said
in there right now.”

“Too big a risk,” Monica said. “If they found them, at worst they could interpret it as a hostile act; and even if they were
diplomatic about it, we would have handed them a whole new technology.”

“I don’t think that leaves us much to worry about,” Liol said. “The Confederation isn’t about to be invaded by Mosdva, it’s
the Tyrathca we have to worry about.”

“Enough,” Joshua said. He shifted round to make room for a sleepy unshaven Ashly who was drifting into the galley. “Look,
we’ve just about got everyone up now anyway, we’d best convene and thrash out what we’re going to do next.”

There was one more discovery before the meeting started. Joshua was finishing his breakfast when Beaulieu datavised a curt
message requesting him to access
Lady Mac
’s sensor suite. “I’ve located a Mosdva ship,” the cosmonik said.