Heretics

by S. Andrew Swann

  Those stars were gone now, each marking the fiery death of one of the wormholes orbiting Sol, human artifacts that had marked mankind’s first tentative steps into interstellar space. Seven of them, all had gone within the space of a few hours, dying with a burst of radiation that damaged tach-drives throughout the solar system, and may have wiped out a thousand, or as many as a hundred thousand, people in the outer solar system.

  “I’ve taken to studying the Book of Revelation recently.”

  Cardinal Anderson looked across at the pope, a questioning look crossing his face. “Your Holiness?”

  “Oh don’t look so shocked, my son. I am not about to rewrite millennia’s worth of the Church’s eschatology for a single event. But it would do to re-familiarize yourself with it.”

  “And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.”

  The pope smiled. “Of course that is just the first and obvious interpretation. We also have the seven angels and the seven churches, the seven spirits of God, the seven seals, the seven trumpets.”

  “Or it can be simply an obscenely powerful attack on the old wormhole network. Seven just happens to be a powerful number in the scriptures.”

  “You believe it is coincidental?”

  “No, Your Holiness.”

  “No?”

  “The attack came from Xi Virginis, and the last transmission we received was a quote from Revelation. I think our attacker is quite aware of the implications, and possibly timed things so that wormhole orbits had them all visible in the northern hemisphere at the same time.”

  “You’re presuming a planning window of centuries, just for a metaphorical gesture.”

  “Considering the appalling amount of energy involved, it is more than a gesture.”

  The pope looked up at the sky through the window. “I wonder what Father Mallory found out there.”

  “It appears that whatever he found will be finding us soon enough.”

  The pope adjusted his robes, looked at Cardinal Anderson, and said, “Pray that we serve God’s will.”

  “I do, Your Holiness.” He gestured toward the crowd. “What are you going to tell them?”

  “To have faith in our Lord. What else can I tell them?”

  Date: 2526.6.6 (Standard) Khamsin-Epsilon Eridani

  The administrative center of the Eridani Caliphate was on the planet Khamsin, primarily within the city Al Meftah. The government center was dominated by massive office buildings, truncated pyramids that shone mirrorlike under a purple sky dusted with the specks of dozens of moonlets, squatting like incomplete cenotaphs for a cybernetic Valley of the Kings.

  The being currently wearing the form of Minister-at-Large in Charge of External Relations, Yousef Al- Hamadi, stood on top of one of the smaller buildings on the edge of the government center. The body was old, infirm, and unfamiliar. Its occupant leaned on the cane perhaps less skillfully than the late Al-Hamadi might have.

  But any physical signs of Al-Hamadi’s departure were easily dismissed as the effects of stress and age. The flesh was vulnerable to the pressures inherent in Al-Hamadi’s job, even with the best efforts of Caliphate medicine. No one looked at Al- Hamadi now and expressed any surprise that the job took its toll on the man.

  Even so, it would have been better had Al-Hamadi chosen to serve Adam. His position was key, and there was ever so slight a chance that someone might realize that the intelligence behind his eyes now belonged to a AI salvaged from the wreckage of the Race’s homeworld, one of Adam’s disciples.

  From behind him, a voice called in Arabic, “Sir?”

  He turned Al-Hamadi’s visage to face the newcomer. “Yes?”

  The man wore the uniform of Naval Security, the branch of the Caliphate military in charge of guarding the buildings in the government sector here. He came to attention, even though Al-Hamadi had no military rank per se. As the highest ranking minister in the Caliphate’s tangled and baroque intelligence community, Al-Hamadi was probably at the top of this naval officer’s command chain.

  “All the present acting ministers have arrived, sir.”

  Al-Hamadi’s mouth formed a grim smile. “Very good.”

  He followed the officer down, under the broad receivers for Khamsin’s largest tach-comm array, and into the bowels of the Ministry of External Relations.

  All twenty-seven cabinet-level ministers were represented in the conference room when the current Al- Hamadi entered. Fifteen were actually the ministers themselves, those who had been physically present on the planet when the incident happened. Another six were represented by holo projections broadcast from remote locations throughout the Epsilon Eridani system, anywhere where the lag from a light-speed signal wasn’t a bar to actual dialogue. The balance was made of acting ministers here for those who were greater than a few light- minutes’ distance away, either insystem or abroad.

  At least one, the Minister of Engineering Projects and Mining, may have been a casualty of the unexpected attack on the wormhole network. He had refused to leave the mining hub stationed in Epsilon Eridani’s rich asteroid belt until he had confirmed the evacuation of everyone in dangerous proximity of W2, W7, and W9. Of course, the area of mining operations was too broad and too dispersed for that to be insured. He stayed even after the explosions started, and after W7 was the third to go, Khamsin lost contact with him and the hub.

  By the time W9 went, Khamsin had lost all contact with the asteroid mining operations.

  All twenty-seven ministers—real, acting and virtual—turned to face him as he walked to the head of the conference table. He walked slowly, leaning heavily on the cane, extending the silent moments before he spoke. In addition to raw power, Al- Hamadi had a particular gravitas that he had bequeathed to his successor.

  The ministers remained silent as the figure of Al- Hamadi stood at the head of the conference table. Behind him a holo schematic of the Epsilon Eridani system hung in the air. Ten flashing red spheres marked various points in orbit, half within the wide band of Epsilon Eridani’s primary asteroid belt. Much larger translucent spheres centered on the red ones, marking the limits of lethal radiation from the wormholes’ destruction.

  “Forty-eight hours ago,” he addressed the ministers with Al-Hamadi’s voice, “unknown forces launched a deliberate and systematic attack against the ten wormholes in orbit around Epsilon Eridani. The attack began when ten wormholes tached into the outer system with a residual velocity close to three-quarters light speed. It ended with the last impact on W5 a little over twelve hours ago. The attack has not only wiped out the wormholes themselves, but also sixty to seventy-five percent of our asteroid mining capacity. Also, every tach-drive that was under power insystem has suffered substantial, possibly critical damage because of a tachyon burst released by the impacts. The main planetary tach-comm receiver has just been brought back on-line in the past hour. We will be able to transmit within another one to two hours.”

  He paused, allowing the news to sink in. The ministers who had charge of military or scientific issues wore the most stunned expressions. Most of the others present were focused on the immediate effects of the micro-novas in the outer system, the lost mining capacity, the damage to transport and communication, the human cost to the people who had worked and lived too close to the event.

  The ministers of a military and scientific background knew the enormity of one statement in the face of everything else. It was the acting Minister of Engineering Projects and Mining who posed the first question. “Are we certain that these wormholes tached into the outer system, or is that still someone’s hypothesis?”

  A valid point, as it already took an appalling amount of energy to accelerate a wormhole to three quarters the speed of light. To tach a mass took even more energy, as the power required was a function not only of mass and distance, but momentum as well.

  Of course they didn’t know that an entire star had bee
n consumed to power this attack.

  “Since the last briefing,” he answered, “a scientific team has been able to analyze monitors used for traffic control. They found a series of spikes that are consistent with masses of that size and velocity taching insystem.”

  Another minister spoke up. “Has the point of origin been confirmed?”

  “Everything projects the path back to Xi Virginis.”

  The room erupted into a babble of voices. Al- Hamadi’s expression remained grave even as the being within his skin felt a thrill at seeing Adam’s machinations come to fruition.

  He had been designed by the same creatures that had created the first stage of Adam’s consciousness, for the same purposes. But while he could see the small- scale dynamics of social groups, Adam had progressed far beyond him. The outlines of Adam’s plans were dim and inscrutable even to a Race AI that at one point might have been his peer, and seeing the heart of the Caliphate begin moving in the direction Adam had dictated seemed, in fact, to be close to miraculous.

  He heard the words “Sirius” and “Centauri” cross ministers’ lips. Already the question came to him, what word had come from the Prophet’s Sword, the grand ship that had carried much of the Caliphate’s military might to claim the colonies beyond Helminth.

  “None, though it is still too soon to expect a tach-comm from that distance.” Of course, with the vast power of the drives on the Ibrahim-class carriers, and of the ships they carried, they could return just as quickly as a tach-comm signal could. The four ships that had gone to those outbound colonies each carried a hundred daughter ships and a crew of ten thousand. And each, by now, would be fully under Adam’s control.

  One of the ministers said, “We must assume that our enemies, Sirius or Centauri—perhaps working together—have already established a base of operations at Xi Virginis and intend to attack us—”

  “—have already attacked us—” someone interjected.

  “—and we must act to defend ourselves.”

  Al-Hamadi quietly said, “We have no evidence on the identity or even the nature of the attacker.” He said it knowing full well that it would do nothing to change the suspicions of the people in this room.

  Someone asked the Naval Minister what their military readiness was. “Not good,” the minister responded. “Our insystem forces were crippled by the blast—the tachyon pulse was unanticipated and most available ships had drives primed to jump in case it was necessary to evacuate the system.”

  The Minister in Charge of the Suppression of Vice snapped, “Our military was neutered in a matter of hours? This is unacceptable.”

  “It hasn’t been,” Al-Hamadi said.

  “All our active duty ships were affected—”

  “Two were not on active duty,” Al- Hamadi said, “We have two remaining Ibrahim-class carriers that were in the final stage of construction. Their drives were idle during the attack. We can reallocate personnel from the damaged ships to crew them. They are the largest and most capable vessels in the Caliphate navy, and the engineers on-site report that they can be fully operational within the next thirty hours.”

  All the ministers looked at Al- Hamadi as if he was offering them salvation from God himself.

  He was, of course.

  Just not from their God.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Sanctuary

  “A situation is only as safe insofar as the risks are unknown.”

  —The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom

  “They came in search of sanctuary and found themselves a wasteland.”

  —ST. RAJASTHAN (2075-2118)

  Date: 2526.6.30 (Standard) 1,500,000 km from Bakunin-BD+50°1725

  When Styx’s horizon disappeared from the viewscreen, a little more than twenty- four days standard disappeared from the universe around the Daedalus. The sky Toni looked at now was three and a half weeks older and over sixteen light-years removed from Styx and Sigma Draconis.

  The proximity alarm started going nuts.

  “What the hell are you doing to my ship?” Karl shouted.

  Toni started muting alarms. Fortunately, none of the contacts were particularly close or on an interception vector. “We’re fine, Mr. Stavros. Nothing dangerous—”

  Karl’s son Stefan snorted, as if just being within an AU of the planet Bakunin was dangerous. He was probably right.

  “What is it?” Toni II said from behind her.

  “There’s just a lot of traffic.” Toni started looking at the transponder traffic and whispered, “A lot of traffic.”

  “How much?”

  “I have twenty-five hundred separate transponders in the immediate vicinity.”

  “What?” Toni II said. “Does Bakunin normally have that kind of traffic?” Of course, the question was rhetorical, since Toni didn’t know any more than she did.

  Karl still answered, “Bah, of course not. You’ve obviously damaged the computer with your mucking about.”

  Toni sensed her twin’s irritation because she felt it herself. “Don’t hit him,” she said.

  “Now see you two—”

  “Unless he doesn’t shut up,” Toni added.

  Karl shut up.

  Toni flipped through all the comm controls. It wasn’t a mucked-up computer. There were literally thousands of tach-ships around Bakunin, and those were just the ones within short-range scanning. No wonder the proximity alarm was going insane. It was rare to have another ship within a million klicks unless you planned it or were in close orbit.

  The transponders, if they could be trusted, showed registries from all over. However, the preponderance of the ships identified themselves as coming from nearby systems: Earth, Cynos, Banlieue, Styx. She could see a lot of chatter going on, but most of it was encrypted on some level, so she couldn’t eavesdrop. After a bit of scanning, she found a broadcast that was in the clear and powerful enough that it seemed to be directed at everyone.

  “. . . is expected and will be enforced. This is a general announcement from the Proudhon Spaceport Development Corporation. There is an unprecedented influx of spacecraft announcing their intention to make landfall. To assure the safety of our facilities, and the safety of the approaches to our facilities, we will only permit approach by spacecraft cleared by PSDC air traffic control, in the order which they have been cleared. If you have not been cleared to land, your spacecraft will be shot down without any further warning. You must contact PSDC air traffic control for approach clearance and time. Your cooperation is expected and will be enforced.”

  Toni leaned back. “Some anarchy.”

  “You’ve never been to Bakunin,” Karl said.

  Toni turned the pilot’s chair around and looked at Karl and Stefan glaring at her, with her double between the two holding the gun. “You have?” she asked.

  “There isn’t an owner-operator in the Centauri Alliance who hasn’t.”

  “So, what do we expect here? Is this kind of backup normal?”

  “Why should I help you, Lieutenant?” Karl reached up and rubbed the back of his head where it had struck the bulkhead. “You’ve kidnapped me and my son and stolen my ship.”

  Toni rubbed her own jaw. She still tasted blood, and her neck was just beginning to ache from Stefan’s too-enthusiastic choke hold. Toni II took the opportunity to answer. “The sooner you help, the sooner we’ll be out of your lives and you can go back to normal.”

  Karl snorted and looked at Stefan. “Normal, she says.”

  “We don’t want your ship, or you,” Toni said, “We just needed to get out of there. Once we’re on planet you can take off and go back to—”

  Karl laughed.

  “What?” Toni asked.

  “You two really are Styx military, aren’t you?”

  “So?”

  Karl shook his head. “A pirate would have some sense of economics. Even if my crew haven’t taken their stake in the last load and found other work, they’ll certainly have by the time we could get back. You’ve taken two m
onths out of my schedule, so I’ve lost every contract that had been waiting for me on my normal run. Some of those I’ve been serving for seven years. You’ve pretty much destroyed my business, Lieutenant Valentine.”

  There was a long silence in the cockpit before Toni II muttered something about insurance.

  That’s when Stefan lost it, “You stupid, thoughtless bitch! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

  Karl looked at his son. “Stefan, please—”

  “Thirty years my dad worked! Thirty years! You know what the average time is before a sole operator goes bankrupt?”

  “Stefan?”

  “Six months! Six months!” Spit flew from his mouth to hang in a weightless constellation in front of him. “This was his life. It was just as good as putting a bullet in his brain—”

  “Stefan, stop it!” Karl snapped at his son. Toni II had lowered the gun, and Toni could see the same sick feeling in her face that Toni felt in her own gut. Karl looked between the two of them and said, “You aren’t going to shoot us, are you?”

  “No,” Toni said.

  Karl sighed. “The point my son makes is that while we’re insured for piracy, that only covers direct losses. Cargo, refueling, replacement cost of the ship if you steal it—business and personnel losses, no. As it is, after a year of arbitration I might get just enough paid out to cover my debts.”

  “I’m sorry,” Toni said.

  “At this point an apology is more amusing than anything else.”

  “An apology—” Stefan began to yell again.

  “Stefan!” Karl cut him off. “I did not raise an idiot child. Stop acting like one.”

  Toni sighed and turned around toward the communication console. “I guess I’ll request clearance to land and we can wait in the queue.”

  Karl laughed. “You don’t want to do that.”

  “What?” Toni II asked before Toni could.

  “Actually, I guess you can ask for clearance. You just can’t land.”