Crucible of Time

by Jeffrey A. Carver

  ***

  Dark watched The Long View set out in pursuit of the Mindaru. The ephemerals did not appear to be in immediate danger, so Dark shadowed them closely enough to keep track of the chase, while staying out of the way. She was still uncertain what to make of this Mindaru. It was different from the ones she had encountered during the Starmaker episode. Those Mindaru had been like dense little spaceships, with no ephemerals on board. This one seemed to be only half-present in this space-time, more like the ghostly thing they had seen in the starstream than a solid object.

  /Can you help us stop it?/ asked a small voice, coming from somewhere near. Dark’s translator-stones helped her to hear the words, and to understand the inflection and thought behind them, and also to locate their source.

  “Bria! It brings pleasure to see you!” Dark had grown quite fond of the tiny pandimensional creature. But what was she doing out here, away from the ship? She seemed to be floating between two layers of splinter-space, which gave her some protection while maintaining a clear channel back to the ship.

  /I too. Strange ones, these./

  “Yes, but dangerous. You must be very careful of the Mindaru.” The little creature’s method of visiting was clever, but it seemed a risky time to be ranging out.

  The gokat shivered, but conveyed an aura of confidence. /I can see it. I know how it moves. Not solid like those we know./

  “No. More like the way it was back in the stream.” Which made it hard for Dark to know what to do. It wasn’t quite solid, and Dark wasn’t sure how to control it. With the Mindaru she had encountered at Starmaker, she had used her ability to control energy and space and time to get the better of them. But with this one—in such brief encounters as she’d had, she’d found it impossible to get hold of the thing. The ephemerals might have said it was like trying to catch water in a net.

  Bria was darting back and forth in the little region of splinter-space she’d carved out. She seemed to want to say something, but couldn’t frame the thoughts enough like words for Dark to pick them out. It was something like, /(Scare them.) (Want to kill me.) (Solid to kill.)/ Her darting movement sent her caroming off Dark, and for a moment then, Dark thought she was able to read the gokat’s thoughts clearly.

  So that was how Bria thought they could beat the Mindaru! Make it solid. Maybe that would work. Maybe it would, after all.

  “You need to convey this to the ephemerals. Can you do that?”

  /Yes yes yes yes yes . . ./

  ***

  Bandicut conferred repeatedly with Jeaves and Copernicus and Ruall about the Mindaru. What would they do with it if they caught it? “We can slug it out with them,” Jeaves said, “but I don’t see what our killing stroke would be. I don’t know what would kill it, after seeing what it shrugged off back at Karellia.”

  “Nor I,” said Ruall. She spun out of sight, and then back, twice. “Remember, in the starstream, it was like a wave function that became solid? I don’t think this one has become completely solid yet. I don’t fully understand it.”

  “Well, if you don’t . . .” Bandicut began, before pausing for thought. “Where’s Dark, anyway? And did you ever find Bria?”

  “Ah—” Ruall spun out, and spun back. “Bria went to see Dark. She is on her way back. Here she is.”

  The gokat appeared with a little pop and stood on the bridge deck, cocking her head first at one and then at another. She seemed excited. Ruall bent slightly, and they muttered together almost inaudibly. Then Ruall straightened and said, “Excuse us for a moment. Bria and Dark have an idea.” And with that, Ruall and Bria both rotated out of sight.

  They were gone for the better part of an hour, and when they came back, Ruall simply said, “It might work. Copernicus, may we confer?”

  ***

  Because they were in pursuit, Ruall had said, she was pushing the ship’s effective speed higher than on previous transits. Akura wasn’t quite sure what Ruall mean by “effective speed,” but it caused the Watcher occasional bouts of lightheadedness. According to Ruall, it was due to the accelerated threading through the gravitational labyrinth of the Karellian-Uduon binary star system. Akura wondered if anyone else understood that, because she didn’t.

  For most of a day, the Heart of Fire clouds streamed past in glimmering vapors, too tenuous to look like anything real; and yet, they had long been a curtain of impenetrable mystery concealing one planetary system from the other. This ship was pulling that curtain back. To Akura and Sheeawn, the journey was a rewind, somewhat faster, of the passage they had made to Karellia, though with a different flavor of apprehension bubbling beneath the surface. Akura’s hopes for some kind of reconciliation between the two worlds rested in limbo, but her fear of the Mindaru had been heightened by the experience of actually seeing one. Her thoughts went out to her homeworld, and her niece, who might soon be facing the thing.

  In quiet moments, Akura began mentally probing the clouds again, to see if she could reconnect to the layerings and magnetic tendrils that she had sensed on the first passage. Probably there was no practical benefit to be gained, but it kept her busy, and keenly aware of what lay ahead—not just the Mindaru, but her need to connect as soon as possible to the other Watchers, and persuade them . . .of what? To stand down their offensive weapons? Or to redirect them against a different enemy?

  She spoke little with the Karellian Ocellet and her officer. Those two seemed so shocked by the journey and all that had happened that they appeared almost to be in their own world. For Akura it was hard, even when circumstances might have allowed, such as at mealtime, to carry on casual conversation with those who were not yet proven not to be her enemies.

  ***

  When the ship broke out into clear space, into the huge bubble within the nebula where the Uduon solar system lived, its orange-hued star was immediately visible in the distant center of the bubble. Akura felt a mixture of apprehension and relief at the sight of her own sun. After a quick survey of the system, the robot pilot Copernicus adjusted course for the fourth planet, tracking the Mindaru. “It’s making a straight course—” the robot started to say.

  “For our planet?” Sheeawn interrupted, his voice filled with dread.

  Copernicus made a ticking sound. “Almost. Not quite.” Akura caught that much directly, and had to wait for Sheeawn to translate: “I believe it is making for the asteroid launchers, this side of your homeworld.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Bandicut grunted.

  “Yes,” Copernicus said, and continued, “I think it has detected the weapon.”

  The other robot, Jeaves, floated into view and began speaking. Sheeawn summarized for Akura, “They think it may try to hack into the control systems for the launchers.”

  Akura tightened her gaze. “Do they think the Mindaru could do that?”

  “Oh yes.” Sheeawn was looking a little pale himself. “They say it can do that. It seems quite adept at just that . . . sort of thing.”

  “We have to stop it,” Akura whispered, her voice nearly inaudible.

  Sheeawn, still listening to the others, translated, “They cannot tell whether it is simply trying to neutralize a danger to itself, or . . .” and he paused, listening, “or whether it intends to seize our weapons for its own offensive purposes.”

  Bandicut walked over to them, his arms crossed over his chest. “The time has come. You must decide where you stand. Will you set aside your enmity against Karellia and help us turn those launchers against the real enemy, if we can? If not, we’re going to have to destroy the launchers ourselves. There can be no further delay.”

  Akura winced as Sheeawn translated. Her thoughts sputtered with objections to Bandicut’s threat. But suddenly all that emotion fell away. She peered at Bandicut and Li-Jared as though seeing them for the first time. The rapport she had previously begun to feel with them now seemed hollow. They were preparing to take military action against her world’s forces, if they found it necessary. The thing was, what if they were right? Would it
be better to lose the launchers than to have them taken over by the Mindaru? Akura glanced over at Quin and Koro. They appeared to be struggling to follow the conversation; they were as disoriented as she was. Akura said finally, “I must communicate with my own people. Do you have the means for me to do that?”

  “We do,” Jeaves said. “If you would step over near Copernicus . . .” He indicated a spot where a small console pedestal was rising up out of the deck.

  Akura hurried.

  ***

  It took some fiddling to establish the kind of connection she needed, but fortunately, Jeaves and Copernicus seemed quite skilled at that. Eventually she had, at the other end of a radio connection, one of her deputies from her own house. Finner was his name. “Watcher!” exclaimed the distant voice. “We did not expect to hear from you so soon! Have you reached the other planet yet? No, you must still be in our solar system.”

  For a moment she felt blinded by the sudden realization that only a few days had passed since their departure, although it felt much longer to her. “I am returning in great haste from the other world. I require most urgent action—”

  “Of course. But Watcher, it is the middle of the night here—”

  “Then wake everyone up! The danger is grave and imminent. I need to speak with Defense Chief Landon, and with whoever is moderating the Circle.”

  “Yes, but . . .that may take time.”

  “I do not have time. Uduon does not have time. I do not care who you must disturb or how you do it. Do it now, please, while I wait.”

  “While you—yes, Watcher.” There was alarm in Finner’s voice. “At once.”

  “Keep this channel open!” she instructed—half a second, she guessed, before Finner would have cut her off. “I will be here.”

  The wait was longer than she liked, and she spoke with Sheeawn while she waited, telling him what she intended so he could more readily interpret to the others. Finally she heard a voice again from the communication device. It was not her deputy; it was Chief of Planetary Defense Landon. “Watcher Akura. I am told that you have urgent news.”

  “Yes.” She hissed a breath. “I have not yet shared it with the Circle. I am trying to reach the moderator by radio. But this cannot await my rejoining the Circle on the ground.”

  “What is it, Watcher?”

  “It concerns the control of the launchers. Are you tracking a second object closer to you than we are?”

  “We have noted a faint echo, but it is very weak and believed to be of no consequence.”

  “It is of every consequence, Chief!” Akura tried to explain, but it was difficult to summarize in just a few words, and she only succeeded in confusing the defense chief. She started over, restricting her explanation to the enemy that right now could be trying to seize control of a launcher.

  Her deputy Finner interrupted to say that he had a connection to the Circle moderator, Watcher Kriila. Should he be joined to this call? Akura hastily asked the defense chief to hold, and switched channels to speak with Watcher Kriila. “Forgive me for intruding, but I require you to contact the Circle at once. I need you to make a decision . . .” To support me in my decision. For all of us.

  Her mental rehearsal of how to explain kicked in this time, and she managed a clearer explanation of the situation. Watcher Kriila agreed to call a Circle meeting at once. Akura returned to the channel with the defense chief.

  The connection was broken. By the time her deputy got it back, the chief sounded frantic; a problem had cropped up while she was speaking to Kriila. “Watcher, there has been a disruption of the number-four launcher control system—an attempt to seize control. We have shut down that launcher as a precaution. It . . . resisted shutdown. Is this interference coming from your spacecraft?”

  Her hearts spasmed. “Our ship—no. That is the Mindaru, the enemy I warned you about.”

  “Understood, Watcher. But our tracking network had lost that echo.”

  Akura muted the microphone and said to Sheeawn, “Ask Ruall if this ship is attempting to force entry into the control system of the launcher.” Sheeawn hurried to do so and came back at once with a reply: No. Akura spoke again to the defense chief. “You can be certain it is still there, Chief, because I am telling you so. We are still tracking the object. It is more like a sensor ghost than a solid object, but no less dangerous for that. It is now close to one of the launchers. I am not sure which one.” And she thought to herself, Is the word of a Watcher enough for something like this?

  There was uncertainty at the other end. “I did not mean to suggest doubt, Watcher. But this is all so unexpected . . .”

  Sheeawn gestured urgently, and she muted again while he spoke. “Ruall says time is running out. She does not believe we can hold the launchers against the Mindaru. They all need to be powered down at once!”

  Yes, she thought. And if I ask for it just like that, they will wonder what exactly this enemy is that they cannot see. But what else can I do? Keying the comm again, she said to the defense chief, “We may not be able to block the Mindaru from taking control of the other launchers. We need you to power them down completely. Immediately!”

  There was some static and confusion before the chief’s voice became clear enough to understand again. “—such a drastic request—really requires a request from the entire Circle.”

  Akura could barely contain her frustration. “Do you understand what I’m saying? If this Mindaru gains control of a launcher, it can use it any way it wants! Including against us!”

  Even more scratchily, the voice asked, “Why would it do that?”

  Akura found her gaze met by Li-Jared’s, who gave a slight but firm gesture of assent. “Because,” she said, “its goal is to find and destroy . . . organic life. Like ours.”

  There was silence from the other end, and Akura pressed her lips together tightly, waiting, determined not to bow under the weight she felt pressing on her shoulders. No Watcher had ever made such a request before. A glance over her shoulder confirmed that the two Karellians were watching her intently. Whether they knew exactly what was going on or not, she hoped they understood that the fate of the weapon being used against them was being decided.

  Finally the defense chief spoke again. “We are sending shut-down signals to all launch control systems. We have confirmed that Launcher Number Four was being compromised by an invasive signal. There was some difficulty in shutting it down—apparently it at first refused the commands—but our people report it now powered off.”

  Akura closed her eyes in gratitude.

  “We are getting confirmations now. All stations have powered down except two, now one. Wait—all are confirmed shut down now.”

  Akura released a tight breath in relief. “Thank you.” She turned and nudged Sheeawn to pass the information on to the others. To the chief, she said, “That is a start. But the crisis is not over. There is a hostile power on the loose in our space. It came from very far away, and it is not the enemy we thought we were fighting. There may be more on the way.”

  “We are at your disposal. But we need information, and there must be a strategy. What do you recommend?”

  Akura could only shake her head, fingers worrying at her collar. A strategy? “Right now, be vigilant for any form of invasive signal, and any tracking target, no matter how faint or improbable. Stay in close contact with us.”

  “That we will do.”

  Chapter 15

  Battle for Uduon

  BANDICUT WAS ONLY briefly disappointed at losing the chance to turn the launchers against the Mindaru; it seemed more likely that they would have become a weapon for the Mindaru. Better that they were shut down before they could be turned. Jeaves reported back on his long-range scans of the various launch complexes: “Counting outward from high planetary orbit around Uduon, it appears that four launch points have been shut down. I’m less certain about two more in Lagrange orbits farther out, or an unknown number in orbit around Uduon’s sun, perhaps gathering objects for th
e launchers.”

  Sheeawn spoke up at Akura’s behest. “Three in orbit around the sun,” he said. “Or at least that sounds about right; it is not really the Watcher’s area. But you are correct in guessing that their purpose is to gather and feed asteroids to the others.” He glanced at Akura for confirmation. “Two of the four in Uduon orbit are also feeders. The other two are the main launchers.”

  “So if those two main launchers are down, there can be no more attacks on Karellia. Right?” Li-Jared asked.

  Sheeawn affirmed that, with a quick glance at Quin and Koro, who were paying close attention. Sheeawn looked as if he felt uncertain whether he was doing the right thing in revealing the information.

  “Good!” Li-Jared said. “Keep them down, and then the Karellians can turn off their shield.”

  A moment passed. Then Jeaves said, “We may have a problem, folks. Launcher Four has just powered up again.”

  “What?” Li-Jared’s cry was echoed by virtually everyone on the bridge.

  “The acceleration rings are energized,” Jeaves said. “The Mindaru must have penetrated before the shut-down order came.”

  And just what is it going to do with that launcher? Bandicut wondered.

  “It can’t do much with just the launcher,” Jeaves said, as though reading Bandicut’s thoughts. “It needs to be fed rocks by the others.”

  “Are you monitoring the feeder launchers?” Li-Jared demanded.

  Jeaves answered, but Akura and Sheeawn were both shouting now, which drowned out his answer. Akura got back on the comm and reached her defense chief. Sheeawn translated breathlessly in real-time for those on the ship. Landon already knew about it; his people were frantically trying to learn what was going on. The launch platforms were all automated; there was nobody aboard. Information was hard to get now; the Mindaru had somehow blocked Uduon’s access to the communication channels.