Galactic Empires

by Gardner R. Dozois

  "Our options are limited," said Traviss. He touched another control and areas of the cylinder were shaded in different colors. Their ship was within a blue hemisphere that disappeared off-cylinder-the Collective. A red area impinged from above and other discrete red areas were scattered below, with one large red hemisphere filling the lower right of the cylinder.

  "If you would run through those options," said Slome, and Kelly got the suspicion that Slome and Traviss had already done so, and that a decision had already been made.

  Traviss touched controls and numbers appeared in each of the colored areas. "Red signifies danger," he said needlessly. "Area One is what's left of the Grazen Empire. If we head that way, we'll either run straight into their defenses or their wormships will catch up with us." He glanced around. "And if we're lucky, they'll blow us out of space rather than capture us." They all knew what happened to humans caught by the Grazen.

  "Area Two?" Slome prompted.

  "Areas Two, Three, and Five are asteroid fields," Traviss explained. "We would have to drop out of U-space to navigate them." He highlighted some stars in the Collective adjacent to Area Three. "Even if we tried to get through Three, which is the smallest, the Collective could send ships from the bases indicated and intercept us."

  "Six?"

  "Grazen outposts scattered in an asteroid field and extended dust cloud."

  "You surprise me," said Slome.

  Kelly interjected, "Collective problems at home ended that mission. In my opinion, the area wasn't worth taking-nothing there remotely human-habitable and it would have taken years at the cost of many ships. But the Doctrinaires don't let facts get in the way of ideology-there'll be another attack on it."

  Slome nodded, then pointed a gnarled finger at the hemisphere of red. "And that?"

  Traviss hesitated for a moment and Kelly knew precisely why. She also knew that Slome's prompting and Traviss's hesitation were just a performance. They both knew where this was leading. Kelly wondered what it was they were yet to reveal.

  "That's been under Interdict since before the Markovians," Traviss replied. "I can't really find out much about it."

  "But you've found something," said Slome.

  "Yes," Traviss said. He appeared distinctly uncomfortable with the act. "That area is classified as Owner Space."

  After a brief, almost embarrassed silence, Elizabeth laughed knowingly, then said, "The Markovians were not noted for their rationality."

  Kelly felt the need to defend Traviss, despite the fact that he and Slome were playing some game. "Yes, which is why they were slaughtered by our oh-so-rational Collective."

  Elizabeth shot back, "The Collective is a doomed ideology, but their rationality is superior to the myth-making and religions of the Markovians."

  "Well, I can always drop you in one of the escape pods if you want to go back," said Kelly. "That's supposing the Doctrinaire aboard the Lenin thinks you a valuable enough asset to pick up."

  Elizabeth began to bristle until Olsen interrupted heavily, "The Owner is no myth, though some people's conception of him may stray into the territory of religion."

  Holding up a finger to silence his daughter, Slome turned to the geneticist and sometime historian. "I heard something about all this when I was a student under the Markovians. Perhaps you could elaborate?"

  Olsen shrugged. "Highlight the Sabalist System, would you, Traviss?"

  Traviss complied, picking out a star sitting just on the Grazen side of the border between the Grazen Empire and the Collective.

  "Owner Space extended to here. The Owner apparently ceded the area to us in the pre-Markovian era. The Markovians lost it to the Grazen over a century ago, but we still have a lot of data and biological samples from Sabal itself. Those samples indicate a great deal of adaptation from ancient Terran forms." "That was almost certainly our work," said Elizabeth. "We aren't in that league," Olsen replied. "But perhaps we were?" Olsen shook his head.

  "Though I know some of the details, this is the first I've heard about the Sabal connection," said Slome.

  "It's in some very old data files—I did some research," Olsen replied. "Those same files were secured by the Collective, and I came under the scrutiny of Doctrinaires long before they invented the concept of 'societal assets.' Some of my fellows weren't so lucky."

  "So we are now to believe in immortal superbeings?" enquired Elizabeth.

  "We don't have to," said Kelly. They all turned to look at her.

  She continued. "The Grazen avoid that place. When I was engineer aboard the Mao, a Grazen scoutship faced us down rather than enter there. We tore it apart. Grazen ships get destroyed if they try to enter that area, and Collective ships get flung out—their drive systems wrecked."

  "This was when you were fighting for the Collective," said Elizabeth.

  "This was when I was an engineer groveling in radioactive sludge below the Mao's engines."

  Elizabeth did not have much more to say about that—they could all see the shiny scar tissue down the side of Kelly's face, her neck, and disappearing under her jacket.

  After an embarrassed silence, Slome said, "Well, as you say, Traviss, 'limited options.' But we must make a decision." He turned to Kelly. "I defer to you on this, since without you we would never have escaped the Commutank, and since you have greater experience in these matters"—Kelly knew that a "however" was due—"however, the Grazen would peel off our skins over a slow fire, while the Collective would peel our minds and we'd soon all become obedient little citizens after they fitted us with strouds." He gestured toward the viewing cylinder. "As I see it, when we drop into U-space, we should run for the edge of the Grazen outpost, where we will be in their territory only briefly before reaching the… Interdict Area."

  Hints, rumors, stories—nothing clear and nothing proven—that's all Kelly had ever heard while in the Collective fleet. The whole, however, had left an impression on her, an idea that the Owner was something to be feared, something that even the Grazen feared. Perhaps that was just the fear of the unknown.

  "We won't be able to enter there," she said-not entirely sure of her facts. "We'll get crippled and flung out, and those aboard the Lenin will capture us, if the Grazen don't get to us first."

  Slome gave a weak smile. "Yes, that would have been true."

  "Would have been true?"

  Slome gestured to the cylinder. "Show them the message, Traviss."

  Traviss cleared the cylinder. Then, after a moment, he brought up a brief text message: "Escapees from the Collective, Owner Space is open to you. Welcome."

  Traviss said, "Its source was deep inside Owner Space."

  "Very well," said Kelly, her spine crawling. "Owner Space it is."

  *

  Clinging to the handholds, Doctrinaire Shrad gazed at flecked void through the thick portholes of the Lenin and ground his teeth. A stupid waste of resources, he felt, specifically himself. He should have been back with the Central Committee, planning the coming attack on the Grazen Empire, not out here chasing after a few assets gone bad. It was the other Doctrinaires in the Committee who had driven him out-fools whose ideology was unsound, who did not understand precisely how things should run in the Collective. They called his leadership of the previous campaign "disastrous" and did not understand how working with the old Markovian command structures in the fleet had hindered him. Well, he would bring these assets back, strouded and subservient, then return to his place in the Committee and bring to fruition his vision of the New Deal. Meanwhile-he turned from the viewing window—he would have to see about correcting the ideological aberrations he had found aboard this vessel.

  The engineer, his hands bound behind his back, was being held between two of the Guard. Shrad pushed himself over and caught hold of some of the masses of pipe work running from the reactor cylinder. Then, with an exclamation, he snatched his hand away and had to stop himself by grabbing the shoulder of one of the Guard, who, as ever, just silently maintained his position.

>   "Those pipes are hot, Doctrinaire Shrad," observed the engineer. "If you must grab pipes, I suggest you grab the ones painted white."

  "Thank you, Citizen Rand." Shrad took hold of a white pipe and hauled himself back. "Now, Citizen, I expect you are wondering why the Guard have detained you."

  "I am overcome with curiosity, Doctrinaire Shrad." Shrad could feel his rage growing but, as usual, kept it locked inside. "I am presuming you understand the ideological concept behind graywear?"

  "I do: it being doctrine that all people are equal, all people must also appear so."

  "Yet here you are wearing Markovian overalls!" It was an unusual contrast: a citizen of the Collective dressed in Markovian overalls, held between two of Shrad's own unit of graywear-clad Guard—men who had once been Markovians.

  "I don graywear when I go off-shift. Unfortunately, it is not practical in the engineering environment."

  "Are you saying that Committee instructions are wrong?" "No, Doctrinaire Shrad, I am saying that in the engineering environment, I would soil and destroy my graywear, which perhaps the Committee would consider an insult, though, of course, I don't presume to know what the Committee would think. I just try to do my best for the good of the Collective."

  The words were as correct as they could be under the circumstances, but Shrad could detect a note of forbidden Irony and perhaps Sarcasm. He knew that it would be necessary to modify the behavior of this man.

  "Doctrinaire Shrad."

  Shrad turned. "Citizen Astanger," he said, feeling an immediate increase in his annoyance. Astanger was a societal asset—a synthesist who, under the Markovians, would have been called captain of the Lenin.

  "Is there a problem?" asked Astanger.

  Shrad gazed at the man. He was gray-haired, tall and thin, possessed piercing blue eyes, and what, in another time, would have been called a noble face. Shrad had his suspicions that Astanger's ancestry was, in fact, Markovian—he possessed a similarity of facial structure to those in Shrad's Guard unit—and that his outer appearance stemmed from the genetic tweaks those rulers had made to their line. It further annoyed Shrad that though Astanger's hair and graywear were utterly correct, he always looked sartorially impeccable.

  "This engineer is incorrectly dressed," said Shrad.

  Astanger turned his cold gaze on the man. "Rand, why are you wearing those overalls?"

  "Graywear doesn't give enough freedom of movement, Ca… Citizen."

  Ah, thought Shrad, smirking. As he had supposed, this ship being without doctrinal supervision throughout the last five years of the conflict with the Grazen, archaic and politically incorrect behavior had flourished. Rand had nearly called Citizen Astanger Captain.

  "Be that as it may," continued Astanger, "you knew that wearing anything other than graywear is… ideologically incorrect." Astanger turned to Shrad. "As synthesist, I suggest, Doctrinaire Shrad, that for the good of this mission, Citizen Rand be made to work 120 percent shifts on 75 percent rations."

  "That will not be necessary," said Shrad. He turned to the two onetime Markovians, the two of the Guard-the only ones who wore a slightly different style of graywear in that theirs was armored. The two men were as stony-faced as ever, each of them bearing a stroud spread like a two-fingered steel hand up the side of one cheek and dividing at the temple to spread two fingers halfway along their foreheads. "Stroud him."

  Citizen Rand bellowed and began to struggle but, being experienced at this sort of thing, in fact having experienced it themselves, the Guard held him, and one of them quickly slapped the stroud he had been holding into place. Rand shrieked, and now the Guard released him. For a moment, Shrad thought he saw something in the expression of the particular guard who had used the stroud-was he Evan Markovian, or one of the others? Shrad tended to get them confused now. After a moment, he dismissed the suspicion-there was hardly anything left inside their skulls of the people they had been.

  Writhing like a maggot, Rand tumbled through the air, his face clenched in a rictus of agony and blood running from underneath the stroud. Then, abruptly, his face went slack, moronic. The probes, about two thousand of them in all, had found their required locations in his brain, in some of those locations killing brain matter and in others injecting certain combinations of neurochemicals. Now the recordings would be playing. The indoctrination process would take about three hours and Rand would be a good citizen afterward, if he survived-only one in three did. Satisfied, Shrad turned to gaze at Astanger.

  "It was foolish of him to flout the law," said Astanger, still watching Rand and seemingly unaffected by what had happened. He now turned to Shard. "As synthesist, I will now have to factor in that though we may have gained one good citizen, we have certainly lost one good engineer."

  "Be careful what you say, Citizen Astanger."

  "I am always careful, Citizen Shrad… now, perhaps you would like to come to the bridge. It would seem that the Breznev has now dropped into U-space and is taking a most unexpected route."

  "Unexpected?"

  "Well, let me say 'disconcerting'-their choices were limited."

  *

  The ovoid, eight miles long, looked like a furry egg from a distance, but closer it revealed itself to be a loose tangle of yard-wide pipes of a white coralline substance. Yig worms dwelt in the pipes and were currently extending the perimeter of the nest since it had encompassed another asteroid for them to grind up and digest after the nest's departure from the rookery. The Mother crouched in the center of the tangle, with sensory tendrils spread half a mile all around her and engaged into yig channels, which in turn led to exterior long-range sensors. Like a giant metallized crayfish with an extended body, she crouched, protected from hard vacuum by yig-worm opalized shields, tending her domain, cataloging her additions to the yig work, and raging.

  Five million of her children were dead, and the Mother's rage was a terrible thing that she knew might last her for the rest of her millennia. After the Misunderstanding, this slaughter had been the worst thing that had ever happened to her. No other Grazen had lost so much, and she felt justified in breaking away from the rest of her kind and fleeing to this outpost. But she knew, deep in her fifth heart, that in Grazen terms she was not entirely sane.

  When she saw the distortion of the undersphere that signified the presence of humans, she lashed out, the yig weaving a ripple into the undersphere and directing it along the course she set, and she relished the coming opportunity for vengeance. Human neurology was a simplistic and easily manipulated thing, and it was possible to exact punishment lasting even beyond the death of the neural network that formed the being. She still had some of the murderers with her now-forever shrieking in yig channels. Only when the ripple was away did she experience a sudden dread. The distortion was so close to his realm that this might lead to another Misunderstanding. She waited, observed the human vessel slam up into the oversphere, then observed it continuing on under conventional drive. She felt a moment of chagrin at her impulsive reaction. The ship would be crippled and flung back out, so there was no rush—it would soon be hers.

  Then the other human vessel rose into the oversphere.

  The Mother observed it for a little while. She surmised that once it saw what was about to happen to the one ahead of it, it might flee into the undersphere, so she sent another ripple to render its undersphere engines inert. Then she began to consolidate a kernel nest for travel. She withdrew her tendrils to the kernel, shifted supplies and the required devices inside, selected specific yig worms, and opalized the kernel. The nest yig opened a path through the outer opalized shields to the oversphere, and, clawing space, she shot out, wrapped in her kernel. The second human vessel, now limited to oversphere drive, was heading directly there too. She traveled slowly, waiting for both vessels to be expelled, and relished the prospect of revenge. Then, in horrified disbelief, she observed the two human ships enter his realm, unharmed!

  *

  Wearing a spacesuit, which gave her a lot more
shielding than she had ever been allowed aboard the Mao, Kelly clung to a handhold in the drive penny and gazed at one drive unit-a teardrop of polished alloy ten feet long. There were three of them evenly spaced around the circumference of the penny, where they had been braced on bubblemetal beams at a distance apart precise to one ten-thousandth of an inch. The penny was temperature-controlled simply to maintain this accuracy, since variation in temperature would have resulted in disastrous metal expansion. It was all irrelevant now. The drive unit she was studying obviously lay out of true with the rest, and if that wasn't enough, the smoke coiling from a blown-away inspection hatch certainly was.

  "What's the problem, Kelly?" asked Slome over the suit radio.

  Kelly pushed herself away from her handhold over to the central cleanlock and went through; once out the other side, she began undogging her helmet. There were three of them awaiting her in the drive annex-no room for any more: Slome, his daughter, and Olsen.

  "The problem is," she replied at length, "no more U-space drive."

  "What?" said Elizabeth. "You're saying you can't repair it?"

  The girl was really starting to irritate Kelly now. "A U-space drive is fitted and tuned in the Gavarn station complex. It takes about eight months just to balance it, and all the processing power of the complex itself. If I took back what we've got in there"-Kelly stabbed a thumb over her shoulder-"they'd likely scrap it and start again."

  "Well," said Slome, listening to his headset, "it may all be irrelevant now." He gestured to the ports over to one side, and Kelly pushed herself over, dreading that she was about to see one of those shimmering tangles of pipes that the Collective called a Grazen dreadnought, although probably that wasn't an apt description at all. The things had only appeared occasionally during the war, and not one had ever been destroyed. If the Grazen had used them properly, she reckoned, there would be no Collective by now, but that was something you weren't ever allowed to say out loud aboard the Mao. But the Grazen had not used them, just their wormships, which, though dangerous, the human ships were able to destroy. However, the sight that greeted her eyes wasn't a Grazen dreadnought, but something she had only ever seen in very hazy high-magnification pictures.