Day of Truth

by Brian Stableford

  At first, the flat of the arrowhead was oriented in the same plane as the flat of the toys’ crescent. But as the fleets closed and the velocities slowed from half-maximum to omega-minimum, Rayshade began to rotate his arrowhead so that only the long axis would mesh with the crescent.

  Before it had reached a thirty degree angle, the fleets closed, and Rayshade released the microfilm to direct the larger portion of his attention to piloting the battleship.

  He was not in the midst of the toys. Both battleships were well back, halfway out on the wings, and so both were clear of the plane of the toy formation. A wall of silver, hardly seeming to be made up of regularly placed single points, filled the bottom edge of Rayshade’s screen. Rayshade concentrated on that part where the fleets had interlaced—where the long axis of his arrowhead was tearing through the much shallower central line of the crescent. The fusing fleets began to lose some of their coherency. If anything, the Beasts survived better than the toys. Individual toy ships seemed prone to give way when confronted with a temporary surfeit of enemy ships, and there seemed to be a danger that the toy fleet would be cut in half before the serious shooting started.

  Silver dots rose into the screen, and Rayshade shouted: “Fire at will!” He called to the air, not into the microphone. It was a hangover from the old days and the old ships. The men behind him now were not gunners, but men with headphones and charts. The pods which housed the guns were all over the ship, with each gunner living in a tiny world of his own, restricted to a fragment of the big screen. The gunners did not have to be told to fire at will, but a small, smiling man in headphones relayed the message anyway.

  Rayshade eased the battleship toward the rising wall of enemy ships, wanting to be in the firing line but keeping the formation steady at the same time. He could feel the eyes of his junior officers glued on to the screen in front of him. His mind was racing to keep the three-dimensional picture in his mind and the two-dimensional one on the screen identical.

  His fingers slowly moved over the keyboard, steadying the ship and maintaining its position in the middle of the wing. One hand jumped a little as a muscle twitched, eager to hit the speed control, while his brain ticked off the seconds.

  The horns of the toy fleet curled in and over, each one engulfing a wing of the arrowhead. The firing began in earnest, and the whole of each fleet was suddenly engaged. The point of the arrow was already clear of the convex edge of the toy fleet.

  “One up!” he yelled. “Now!” He jerked the velocity control up with a compulsive suddenness, and heard the power column muttering its displeasure. The Beast formation bounded forward with a mechanical precision which rivaled the grace of the toys.

  “Now!” he screamed again, and before the tail of the arrowhead was clear of die convex silver face, the ships wheeled round in a prearranged arc and headed back at speed. The toy crescent, with its center beginning to crumble and dissipate and its edges curling back and over, reacted with equal facility and speed. The thin line of centrally placed ships dropped away, and one edge of the crescent curled over to make a vast arch, while the other sped back and up.

  The hollow hemisphere formed as quickly and as smoothly as it possibly could, with the precision and expertise expected of the toys and their ships. But just for a moment, as the central band slipped one way and the edge which was replacing them formed its net, there was a thin strip of darkness curving across Rayshade’s screen.

  “Curve twenty—thirty—thirty!” yelled Rayshade, not bothering to get the line accurate, only wanting to force the fleet into the spot where it could apply most leverage in splitting the toys in two. The weak spot was still being filled up as the Beasts arrived. They did not hit dead on—at the point where they would have done the most damage. But they hit soon enough to achieve results. The toy fleet tried to close its vast billowing net around the Beasts, but found it was too late. The arrowhead was already curved away.

  “In slow and close!” commanded Rayshade, and the fleet from the Confederacy tightened itself unsteadily. The arrowhead was blurring, but it was still there. And the toy fleet were a valuable second behind.

  In the midst of a blaze of omega-energy, the toy ships scattered and the Beasts smashed a hole in Heljanita’s fleet.

  “Curve sixty—zero—five!” ordered Rayshade, and the narrowing arrowhead turned into the hemisphere.

  All at once, the effective numbers involved in combat were not only even but were in favor of the Beasts by virtue of the positioning of their ships. The Beasts held no advantage in firepower, but they forced the toys to give space and fly even further apart. The toy fleet was losing its coherency as well, although they could doubtless regain it faster than the Confederacy, and the Beasts were still gaining valuable time. It was a matter of seconds only, but in a battle in space seconds were worth a great deal.

  Rayshade was exultant, even as he felt the battleship rock when a bolt of omega-energy alerted the shield to its close passage. He had gained a great positional advantage in the opening moments of the battle. He was doing better than he could have hoped.

  But his exultancy was still tinged with sickening doubt. How long could a positional advantage worth a couple of seconds sustain the Beasts against such overwhelming odds? The toys could trade five ships for every three of his and still win the battle. No matter how valuable seconds were, it was deaths that counted—dead ships. And on a one-to-one basis, a toy ship had more chance of destroying a Beast than vice versa.

  Unless he received some help from providence, Rayshade knew that every second he won was going to be taken back as ships died and the ratio of those remaining became three to one, and then four…In the end the Beasts could not win.

  HYPERSPACE

  Hyperspace is somewhere near space. It is easy to reach with omega-energy to bridge the illusory distance in between. But it is not so easy to come to terms with.

  Space is complicated. It has curves built into it It has limits applicable to it. It has dimensions, distances, magnitudes, durations, positions. Hyperspace is somewhat less complicated. Its dimensions are of a different kind, but there are no more of them. It has no distances. Magnitudes are meaningless. Positions and durations are more or less the same, but changes in some characteristics are certain to affect others, and it is never safe to be too sure.

  In space, the stars are sparks in the sky. They can be reached, but it takes time. There are limits to contend with: the velocity of light, changes in mass, contractions of duration and magnitude. And there are vast distances to contend with. With only space at his disposal, man could have traveled to the stars. But he could never have possessed them. They are too far away in spatial terms. They are beyond his control. Forever and ever, they remain sparks in the sky. Man never traveled to the stars before the days of omega-drive. It would have been pointless.

  But in hyperspace there are no distances to contend with. There are no changes in mass, and the contractions of duration and magnitude—if they exist—can be sidestepped. If a man could stand in hyperspace, all the stars in the sky could be in the palm of his hand, in the cells of his body, in the sparks that carry thoughts through the brain. Essentially, he would still be standing at the same position he would occupy in space. He would not have grown any bigger. But his dimensions would have altered. His point of view would be quite different.

  With the aid of the ubiquitous services of omega-energy, it is possible to change one’s position in hyperspace, to change from a position at one end of the galaxy to a position at the other end in a matter of minutes. The accuracy of the instruments which judge the positions of origin and destination and the calculations involved in the use of the omega-energy are the only limits to the time involved in the journey.

  But although hyperspace has given man control over the stars, it has not given him control over hyperspace. A man cannot stand in hyperspace with the stars in his hand. One glance into the new dimension can send a man mad. Men’s minds were designed to cope with space, no
t with hyperspace. It takes a special kind of man to look at hyperspace and remain sane—and even that man cannot remain unchanged. Mark Chaos has looked at hyperspace—but he had to. Anyone else would be a fool to dare. No one does. It is a foolish risk. Men travel between the stars encased in cocoons of metal, with screens that interpret what is outside and reduce its grandeur to a mere series of red dots.

  A mind spawned by hyperspace would be a different sort of mind; the sort of mind which could be everywhere at once, everything at once; a mind with a different perception, different ideas, different motives, different logic.

  A mind that spanned both space and hyperspace would be a strange mind indeed.

  CHAOS’S STORY CONTINUED

  We took off and flew north. We flew low, and as slowly as the spacedrive would permit us to. We had our guides, but we had our doubts as well. Doubts as to whether Heljanita might not already know that we were on Aetema, and that foreknowledge would permit him to dispose of our mission without difficulty. There were also doubts about our ability to take Heljanita’s citadel with just eight men and two small, sexless, terrified tunnel dwellers, even if we could gain access without being detected. We had no way of knowing how many toys had taken to space, and how many remained with the toymaker. All in all, I had so many doubts and so little information that I was amazed by the sheer foolishness of what we were trying to do. Yet I never told Darkscar to turn the ship and go home. I was dragged on by a tide which I could not identify.

  I think that by then I had become accustomed to the idea of Heljanita as my enemy. But I was not yet ready to take Darkscar as a friend. There was too much about the man that I did not like, for all his impressive manner and his generosity to me.

  Perhaps Darkscar was having doubts, too. Comarre was certainly dismayed by the prospect of attacking a fortress, and Felides are men who never turn their backs on overwhelming odds.

  “We must strike at Heljanita” insisted Darkscar, talking directly to Comarre, but indirectly at me and anyone else who cared to listen. “The battle is to be fought in space, but the battle alone cannot win the war, no matter if Ray-shade and Deathdancer wipe out every one of Heljanita’s ships and every one of his toys. It is Heljanita himself who is the enemy. Heljanita and the ideas which he carries in his head. More toys can be built, more ships. The crooked wheel can ensnare more men, make more wars. The galaxy is already on the brink of chaos. If we leave Heljanita alive we can never bring it back.”

  Darkscar carried Comarre more by way of his manner than by the substance of his words. He didn’t convince me. It was useless to ask him to win the battle first and the war later. I told him that twenty ships could erase Heljanita’s citadel from the face of the planet, that a thousand men could take it if eight could. But he was adamant. Heljanita would run from a thousand men. It was not a matter of overwhelming him but of trapping him, of sneaking up when he was not looking.

  He would not entertain the notion of attacking the citadel with ships. He was no Beast and not bound by the code of honor which would prevent any Beast even thinking of such a thing, but he was still a product—twenty thousand years removed instead of ten—of Adam December’s philosophies. War, to Darkscar as to everyone else, was only a means. We could not be allowed to stray over the limits, no matter how vital our winning. Wars were to be fought cleanly.

  I agreed with him while harboring doubts no Beast should have.

  “Suppose we were to bomb the citadel?” he asked. “Don’t you see that instead of fighting a battle at Saraca, the toys could be bombing Falcor, Aurita, Chrysocyon, Sabella, Ligia, Sula, Andola, Olivia, Amia, Clava? In minutes, the whole civilized universe could be in ruins. Between the time we drop our first bomb and the time we drop our second, the whole galaxy is dead. Who could put it together again? Aquila as the capital of the galaxy? Merion? Unless we can beat Heljanita on his terms, both sides will lose. That is the worst of a war. When real power is brought into play, both sides lose. There is no victory except an honorable victory. I mean that literally.”

  “Can’t we at least wait?” I asked. “Can’t we at least wait until the battle is over? The battle must be won before the war is ours.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” he said. “You know better than that. The time to win the war is now, when Heljanita is at his most vulnerable—perhaps the only time when he will ever be vulnerable. While Heljanita is here with his toys and his attention focused on the battle, while an unnamed enemy threatens the most vital stage of his campaigns, while the whole of his ten-thousand-year journey and his ten years of work is balanced in the palm of providence, this is the only time when the real war can ever be fought our way. This is the only advantage we will ever have. Don’t ask me not to take it. The confrontation must be now. The toys are already in space. Within an hour, they will be engaging the fleet near the Time Gap—if it really is there to fight. Before the sun sets here, the battle with the Confederacy will be on. At Saraca, if Rayside has his way. Before morning, that battle will be over. And so must our battle here be.”

  I couldn’t stand up to him in argument. I was clever enough, but I didn’t have his drive. In all probability, he was completely right. I couldn’t foresee another time when we might catch the toymaker off his guard. And I knew full well the power of the crooked wheel. Heljanita alive was dangerous, toys or no toys.

  So I stood behind Darkscar, watching white snowflakes dancing in front of the windows, racing toward us but usually pushed aside before they reached the windows. The few that did get through could not cling to the glass. They marched in damp streams back along the streamlined curves of the windows, forming a narrow border at the edge. It was impossible to see very much through the gloom, and I would have been quite happy to seal the windows away behind the screens, and see the contours of the country in cold, uncompromising red.

  But it was kinder to leave some small sight of home and familiarity for the pathetic creatures we had begged from the Mother to guide us through the mountains. We had been careful before we set off to obtain sufficient direction to allow us to get close to the citadel. We were not optimistic enough to hope that the tunnel dwellers would be able to guide us while the ship was in flight.

  They were scared witless. I wanted to offer them some help, to try to calm them down, but I didn’t know how. I was a stranger. Every word I said to them might frighten them more. I suppose they must have had a great deal of courage. For their Mother—as well as their ruler and goddess—to order them to take flight in a spaceship with strangers and to order them to take orders from the strangers must have felt like the ultimate in desertion. I wondered whether they would be much good to us once we had landed.

  Even with my doubts, I wished we had half a hundred of them. There were eight of us—ten counting the Aeternans—against an unknown number of toys in Heljanita’s stronghold. I couldn’t have placed much trust in their accuracy with rifles, but I could guarantee their hatred of the toys. We were strangers conceptually; outsiders who did not belong to the hive. But Heljanita’s toys were real strangers: inhuman creatures who had no kinship at all with the tunnel dwellers, who came and went in spaceships, and who killed people.

  I watched the Aetemans surreptitiously—they did not like being stared at—and wondered how much we could depend upon them if we were forced to. If I gave them guns, how safe was I going to be? How could I convey the idea of one set of strangers being friends and another being enemies? It was not that I doubted the intelligence of the tunnel dwellers, it was simply that I knew their conditioning had been on very simple lines. I did not know how strong their system of categorization was. There were only two categories: hive members and strangers. How could I break that down, or even attack it?

  These poor, sexually immature females had no personal relationships, no friendships. Or at least, that was how I saw their society. Perhaps I was wrong, and they were not merely units in a machine. They were the symbolization of Darkscar’s ideals, and Darkscar was not a stupid man, certai
nly not incapable of friendship.

  I tried to pass the problem on to him, although I knew it was mine. “You tell them,” I said, after we had landed. “You get the ideas across to them. You’re the prophet of perfect harmony, the disciple of order. Well, these people have a way of life which is just that. Their lives are absolutely ordered. Their minds are totally adjusted.” He felt the bitterness and gave me a black look which tried to be pitying and superior. Even Darkscar couldn’t keep a touch of poison out of his reply.

  “They’re happy in their Underworld,” he said, unwisely.

  It was a ridiculous time to start another argument, but I couldn’t resist the temptation of his reply. Maybe Heljanita’s crooked wheel still lingered in my mind and I was still on his side underneath. Maybe Darkscar was right.

  “How do you know they’re happy?” I said. “How do they know? What standard of comparison have they? Happiness has absolutely no meaning for them. It’s a standard which simply can’t be applied. It’s like saying that Heljanita’s toys are happy.”

  Darkscar shook his head. “You’re denying them everything that the Beasts value most,” he said. “They are Beasts. Remember that.” That’s all he said. After that, he turned away. He had more sense than to remonstrate with reluctant followers in the middle of a sneak attack.

  In the end, I had to explain anyway. I gave them rifles.

  “Don’t kill people,” I stressed. “Fire at the metal ones. The silver beings. Not us.” I didn’t mention the word “stranger.” I thought it was best not to confuse them, to keep the indoctrination away from tricky ground.

  I was still hoping then that they could tell robots from people. I was underestimating them shamefully. They weren’t in the least stupid. They weren’t even as ignorant as I took them for.