by Dan Simmons
Sparks drifted across the sky, glowed bright as supernovae as laser lances found them, and then fell in a shower of molten debris—white-hot to red to blue flame to darkness. Sol imagined dropships burning, imagined Ouster troops and Hegemony Marines dying in a scream of atmosphere and melting titanium … he tried to imagine this … and failed. Sol realized that space battles and the movements of fleets and the fall of empires were beyond his imagining, hidden from the reservoirs of his sympathy or understanding. Such things belonged to Thucydides and Tacitus and Catton and Wu. Sol had met his senator from Barnard’s World, had met with her several times in his and Sarai’s quest to save Rachel from Merlin’s sickness, but Sol could not imagine Feldstein’s participation on the scale of interstellar war—or in anything much larger than dedicating a new medical center in the capital of Bussard or pressing the flesh during a rally at the university in Crawford.
Sol had never met the current Hegemony CEO, but as a scholar, he had enjoyed her subtle replay of the speeches of such classical figures as Churchill and Lincoln and Alvarez-Temp. But now, lying between the paws of a great stone beast and weeping for his daughter, Sol could not imagine what was in that woman’s mind as she made decisions that would save or damn billions, preserve or betray the greatest empire in human history.
Sol didn’t give a damn. He wanted his daughter back. He wanted Rachel to be alive despite all logic to the contrary.
Lying between the Sphinx’s stone paws on a besieged world in a ravaged empire, Sol Weintraub wiped tears from his eyes the better to see the stars and thought of Yeats’s poem “A Prayer for My Daughter”:
Once more the storm is howling, and half hid
Under this cradle-hood and coverlid
My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle
But Gregory’s wood and one bare hill
Whereby the haystack- and roof-levelling wind,
Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed;
And for an hour I have walked and prayed
Because of the great gloom that is in my mind.
I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour
And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower,
And under the arches of the bridge, and scream
In the elms above the flooded stream;
Imagining in excited reverie
That the future years had come,
Dancing to a frenzied drum,
Out of the murderous innocence of the sea.…
All Sol wanted, he realized now, was the same possibility once again to worry about those future years which every parent fears and dreads. To not allow her childhood and teenage years and awkward young adulthood to be stolen and destroyed by the sickness.
Sol had spent his life willing the return of things unreturnable. He remembered the day he had come upon Sarai folding Rachel’s toddler clothes and setting them in a box in the attic, and he recalled her tears and his own sense of loss for the child they still had but who was lost to them through the simple arrow of time. Sol knew now that little could be returned except by memory—that Sarai was dead and beyond ability to return, that Rachel’s childhood friends and world were gone forever, that even the society he had left only a few weeks of his time ago was in the process of being lost beyond return.
And thinking of that, lying between the taloned paws of the Sphinx as the wind died and the false stars burned, Sol is reminded of part of a different and far more ominous poem by Yeats:
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
Sol does not know. Sol discovers again that he does not care. Sol wants his daughter back.
The consensus in the War Council seemed to be to drop the bomb.
Meina Gladstone sat at the head of the long table and felt the peculiar and not-unpleasant sense of separateness which comes from far too little sleep over far too long a period. To close her eyes, even for a second, meant sliding on the black ice of fatigue, so she did not close her eyes, even when they burned and when the drone of briefings, conversation, and urgent debate faded and receded through thick curtains of exhaustion.
Together the Council had watched as the embers of Task Force 181.2—Commander Lee’s attack group—had winked out one by one until only a dozen of the original seventy-four were left still driving toward the center of the approaching Swarm. Lee’s cruiser was among the survivors.
During this silent attrition, this abstract and oddly attractive representation of violent and all-too-real death, Admiral Singh and General Morpurgo had completed their gloomy assessment of the war.
“… FORCE and the New Bushido were designed for limited conflicts, minor skirmishes, proscribed limits and modest aims,” summarized Morpurgo. “With less than half a million men and women under arms, FORCE would not be comparable to the armies of one of the Old Earth nation states a thousand years ago. The Swarm can swamp us with sheer numbers, outgun our fleets and win through arithmetic.”
Senator Kolchev glowered from his place at the opposite end of the table. The Lusian had been much more active in the briefing and debate than Gladstone—questions were turned his way more frequently than to her—almost as if everyone in the room were subliminally aware that power was shifting, the torch of leadership was being passed.
Not yet, thought Gladstone, tapping her chin with steepled fingers and listening to Kolchev cross-examine the General.
“… of falling back and defending essential worlds on the second-wave list—Tau Ceti Center, of course, but also necessary industrial worlds such as Renaissance Minor, Fuji, Deneb Vier, and Lusus?”
General Morpurgo looked down and shuffled papers as if to hide the sudden flash of anger in his eyes. “Senator, less than ten standard days remain until the second wave completes its target list. Renaissance Minor will fall under attack within ninety hours. What I am saying is that with the current size, structure, and technology available to FORCE, it would be doubtful if we could hold one system … say, TC2’s.”
Senator Kakinuma rose. “This is not acceptable, General.”
Morpurgo looked up. “I agree, Senator. But it is true.”
President Pro Tern Denzel-Hiat-Amin sat shaking his gray and mottled head. “It makes no sense. Were there no plans to defend the Web?”
Admiral Singh spoke from his seat. “The best estimates of the threat told us that we would have a minimum of eighteen months should the Swarms ever turn toward the attack.”
Minister of Diplomacy Persov cleared his throat. “And … if we were to concede these twenty-five worlds to the Ousters, Admiral, how long until the first or second wave could attack other Web worlds?”
Singh did not have to refer to his notes or comlog. “Depending upon their target, M. Persov, the nearest Web world—Esperance—would be nine standard months away from the closest Swarm. The most distant target—Home System—would be some fourteen years by Hawking drive.”
“Time enough to shift to a war economy,” said Senator Feldstein. Her constituency on Barnard’s World had less than forty standard hours to live. Feldstein had vowed to be with them when the end came. Her voice was precise and passionless. “It makes sense. Cut your losses. Even with TC2 and two dozen more worlds lost, the Web can produce incredible quantities of war matériel … even in nine months. Within the years
it will take for the Ousters to penetrate farther into the Web, we should be able to beat them through sheer industrial mass.”
Defense Minister Imoto shook his head. “There are irreplacable raw materials being lost in this first and second wave. The disruption to Web economy will be staggering.”
“Do we have a choice?” asked Senator Peters from Deneb Drei.
All eyes turned toward the person sitting next to AI Councilor Albedo.
As if to underline the importance of the moment, a new AI persona had been admitted to the War Council and had given the presentation on the awkwardly labeled “deathwand device.” Councilor Nansen was tall, male, tanned, relaxed, impressive, convincing, trustworthy, and imbued with that rare charisma of leadership that made one both like and respect the person on sight.
Meina Gladstone feared and loathed the new Councilor at once. She felt as if this projection had been designed by AI experts to create just the response of trust and obedience she sensed others at the table already granting. And Nansen’s message, she feared, meant death.
The deathwand had been Web technology for centuries—designed by the Core and limited to FORCE personnel and a few specialized security forces such as Government House’s and Gladstone’s Praetorians. It did not burn, blast, shoot, slag, or incinerate. It made no sound and projected no visible ray or sonic footprint. It simply made the target die.
If the target were human, that is. A deathwand’s range was limited—no more than fifty meters—but within that range, a targeted human died, while other animals and property were totally safe. Autopsies showed scrambled synapses but no other damage. Deathwands merely made one cease to be. FORCE officers had carried them as short-range personal weapons and symbols of authority for generations.
Now, Councilor Nansen revealed, the Core had perfected a device that utilized the deathwand principle on a larger scale. They had hesitated to reveal its existence, but with the imminent and terrible threat of the Ouster invasion …
The questioning had been energetic and sometimes cynical, with the military more skeptical than the politicians. Yes, the deathwand device could rid us of Ousters, but what about the Hegemony population?
Remove them to shelter on one of the labyrinthine worlds, Nansen had replied, repeating the earlier plan of Councilor Albedo. Five kilometers of rock would shield them from any effects of the widening deathwand ripples.
How far did these death rays propagate?
Their effect diminished to below the lethal level at just under three light-years, Nansen responded calmly, confidently, the ultimate salesman in the penultimate sales pitch. A wide enough radius to rid any system of the attacking Swarm. Small enough to protect all but the nearest neighboring star systems. Ninety-two percent of the Web worlds had no other inhabited world within five light-years.
And what about those who can’t be evacuated? Morpurgo had demanded.
Councilor Nansen had smiled and opened his palm as if to show there was nothing hidden there. Do not activate the device until your authorities are sure that all Hegemony citizens are evacuated or shielded, he had said. It will be, after all, totally under your control.
Feldstein, Sabenstorafem, Peters, Persov, and many of the others had been instantly enthusiastic. A secret weapon to end all secret weapons. The Ousters could be warned … a demonstration could be arranged.
I’m sorry, Councilor Nansen had said. His teeth when he smiled were as pearly white as his robes. There can be no demonstration. The weapon works just as a deathwand, only across a much wider region. There will be no property damage or blast effect, no measurable shock wave above the neutrino level. Merely dead invaders.
To demonstrate it, Councilor Albedo had explained, you must use it on at least one Ouster Swarm.
The excitement of the War Council had not been lessened. Perfect, said All Thing Speaker Gibbons, choose one Swarm, test the device, fatline the results to the other Swarms, and give them a one-hour deadline to break off their attacks. We didn’t provoke this war. Better millions of the enemy dead than a war that claims tens of billions over the next decade.
Hiroshima, Gladstone had said, her only comment of the day. It had been said too softly for anyone except her aide Sedeptra to hear.
Morpurgo had asked: Do we know that the killing rays will become ineffective at three light-years? Have you tested it?
Councilor Nansen smiled. If he answered yes, there were heaps of dead humans somewhere. If he said no, the device’s reliability was seriously at stake. We are certain that it will work, said Nansen. Our simulation runs were foolproof.
The Kiev Team AIs said that about the first farcaster singularity, thought Gladstone. The one that destroyed Earth. She said nothing aloud.
Still, Singh and Morpurgo and Van Zeidt and their specialists had spiked Nansen’s guns by showing that Mare Infinitus could not be evacuated quickly enough and that the only first-wave Web world that had its own labyrinth was Armaghast, which was within a light-year of Pacem and Svoboda.
Councilor Nansen’s earnest, helpful smile did not fade. “You want a demonstration, and that would be only sensible,” he said quietly. “You need to show the Ousters that invasion will not be tolerated, while focusing on the minimum loss of life. And you need to shelter your indigenous Hegemony population.” He paused, folded his hands on the tabletop. “What about Hyperion?”
The buzz around the table deepened in tone.
“It’s not really a Web world,” said Speaker Gibbons.
“Yet it is in the Web now, with the FORCE farcaster still in place!” cried Garion Persov of Diplomacy, obviously a convert to the idea.
General Morpurgo’s stern expression did not shift. “That will be there only another few hours. We’re protecting the singularity sphere now, but it could fall at any time. Much of Hyperion itself is already in Ouster hands.”
“But Hegemony personnel have been evacuated?” said Persov.
Singh answered. “All but the Governor-General. He could not be found in the confusion.”
“A pity,” said Minister Persov without much conviction, “but the point is that the remaining population is mostly Hyperion indigenie, with easy access to the labyrinth there, correct?”
Barbre Dan-Gyddis of the Ministry of Economy, whose son had been a fiberplastic plantation manager near Port Romance, said, “Within three hours? Impossible.”
Nansen stood. “I think not,” he said. “We can fatline the warning to the remaining Home Rule Authorities in the capital, and they can begin the evacuation immediately. There are thousands of entrances to the labyrinth on Hyperion.”
“The capital of Keats is under siege,” growled Morpurgo. “The entire planet is under attack.”
Councilor Nansen nodded sadly. “And soon will be put to the sword by the barbarian Ousters. A difficult choice, gentlemen and ladies. But the device will work. The invasion will simply cease to exist in Hyperion space. Millions might be saved on the planet, and the effect on the Ouster invasion forces elsewhere would be significant. We know that their so-called Sister Swarms communicate by fatline. The termination of the first Swarm to invade Hegemony space—the Hyperion Swarm—may be the perfect deterrent.”
Nansen shook his head again and looked around with an expression of almost paternal concern. There could be no simulating such pained sincerity. “It has to be your decision. The weapon is yours to use or disregard. It pains the Core to take any human life … or, through inaction, allow any human life to come to harm. But in this case, where the lives of billions are at risk …” Nansen opened his hands again, shook his head a final time, and sat back, obviously leaving the decision to human minds and hearts.
Babble around the long table rose. Debate grew almost violent.
“CEO!” called General Morpurgo.
In the sudden silence, Gladstone lifted her gaze to the holographic displays in the darkness above them. The Mare Infinitus Swarm fell toward that ocean world like a torrent of blood aimed toward a small blue sphe
re. Only three of the orange Task Force 181.2 embers remained, and even as the silent Council watched, two of these winked out. Then the final one was extinguished.
Gladstone whispered into her comlog. “Communications, any last message from Admiral Lee?”
“None to the command center, CEO,” came the response. “Only standard fatline telemetry during the battle. It appears they did not reach the center of the Swarm.”
Gladstone and Lee had held hopes of capturing Ousters, of interrogations, of establishing the identity of their enemy beyond a doubt. Now that young man of such energy and ability was dead—dead at Meina Gladstone’s command—and seventy-four ships of the line were wasted.
“Mare Infinitus farcaster destroyed by preset plasma explosives,” reported Admiral Singh. “Forward elements of the Swarm now entering cislunar defense perimeter.”
No one spoke. The holographics showed the tidal wave of blood-red lights engulfing the Mare Infinitus system, the final orange embers around that gold world blinking out.
A few hundred of the Ouster ships remained in orbit, presumably reducing Mare Infinitus’s elegant floating cities and ocean farms to burning debris, but the major part of the blood tide rolled on, out of the region projected above.
“Asquith System in three standard hours, forty-one minutes,” intoned a technician near the display board.
Senator Kolchev stood. “Let’s put the Hyperion demonstration to a vote,” he said, ostensibly addressing Gladstone but speaking to the crowd.
Meina Gladstone tapped her lower lip. “No,” she said at last, “no vote. We will use the device. Admiral, prepare the torchship armed with the device to translate to Hyperion space and then broadcast warnings to planet and Ouster alike. Give them three hours. Minister Imoto, send coded fatline signals to Hyperion telling them that they must … repeat, must … seek shelter in the labyrinths at once. Tell them that a new weapon is being tested.”
