The Swarm

by Orson Scott Card

  He stared at her, saying nothing.

  She grew quiet. “I want a baby, Mazer, because if I lose you, I lose us.”

  It was only then that he understood. She didn’t want a child solely to grow their family. She wanted a child to preserve their family, to keep a part of him with her always. They both knew—everyone knew—that even if by some miracle the Fleet were to beat the Formics, it would not be without a cost. There would be heavy losses. Catastrophic losses, most likely. No one pretended otherwise. Yes, there were some soldiers with a blind sense of optimism, but most people who enlisted and took on the blue understood what they were getting into. They had no pretense of surviving the war. They simply wanted to go down fighting.

  And yet Kim believed. The family that he and she had created would continue, with or without him.

  How could he deny her that, especially when it was what he so desperately wanted as well, despite the sorrow he knew it would bring her if the Fleet failed.

  “We’ll try,” he said.

  She narrowed her eyes, a questioning look. “We’ll try as in you and I will try to have a baby, or as in you and the Fleet will try to win?”

  “Both,” he said.

  She moved around the table, took his face gently in her hands, and kissed him, a long lingering kiss that had a spark of passion in it.

  When they parted, Mazer smiled at her. “Not here though. I don’t want our child conceived in a noodle shop. No matter how good the ramen is.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Ansible

  To: imala.bootstamp%e2@ifcom.gov/fleetcom/gagak

  From: ketkar%polemarch@ifcom.gov

  Subject: Zip it

  * * *

  Perhaps we did not make ourselves clear when we commandeered your vessel, but allow me to clarify the point now. The Gagak is now the property of the International Fleet, which means the equipment ON the vessel is also IF property. Ergo, any intelligence or information of a sensitive nature that you or a member of your crew discovers while using that equipment is also property of the International Fleet.

  While we appreciate your forwarding us Edimar’s findings regarding the enemy fleet’s movements, we do not approve of Edimar posting that intelligence in a public forum without our permission. The IF will control how intelligence is disseminated to the public, and only after we have independently verified the authenticity of that intelligence.

  Now the nets are in a panic because they have learned from a pack of free-miner spotters that the enemy fleet is coming into our system from above and below the ecliptic. Do you have any idea how this erodes the people’s confidence in the IF?

  What’s worse, you allowed Edimar to speculate in this same forum that as many as three thousand Formic miniships are already inside our solar system rooted to asteroids. Not only is this conjecture, but it’s grossly exaggerated conjecture. To come up with enough material to do this the Formics would have had to completely dismantle their starship and build those three thousand miniships in flight, an obvious impossibility. Edimar is screaming fire in a crowded theater where there may be little or no fire.

  Silence her. Or revoke her net access. Invoke whatever discipline you deem necessary so long as it is harsh enough to communicate the severity of this offense. Then train your crew on how to handle sensitive intelligence. See attachment. Handbook of Military Instructions. Section 27.3–27.7.

  Ketkar

  “They’re calling it the ansible,” Serge said. “It instantaneously transmits digital and audio communications across any distance. You could chat with someone in the Kuiper Belt just like you and I are chatting now. No lag time. No delay. Like a normal conversation. It sounds impossible, but this is legit.”

  Lem glanced out of the window of the empty warehouse to reassure himself that no one was outside listening to or watching this conversation. He had swept the room for any eavesdropping devices long before Serge arrived, but he couldn’t shake the worry that they were not alone. Father had been so vehement the other evening about secrecy that Lem hadn’t expected Serge to uncover anything. The tech was obviously well protected. Lem had only discovered it by accidentally falling into a bed of clues. Yet Serge had learned the name of the device. And maybe more.

  The warehouse was on the south side of Old Town, back near the dome’s inner edge in the most neglected part of the borough. Most of the buildings vacated after the war had been snatched up for government use, but the Hegemony had had little use for a dilapidated warehouse in need of serious repair, and so the building hadn’t seen occupants in years. Dust was everywhere. Windows were broken. Graffiti adorned several walls. Lem felt dirty just standing here.

  And yet where else could they meet? Anywhere in the company would be too risky. There were too many listening ears. In fact, Lem was regretting giving Serge the assignment in Serge’s office. He hadn’t thought it careless at the time, but now he wasn’t so sure.

  “Have you told anyone about this?” Lem asked. He had said nothing to Serge about what Lem had already learned himself.

  “Not a soul,” Serge said.

  “Good. Keep it that way.”

  Lem had received a message from Serge that morning requesting a meeting, and Lem had debated whether or not to go through with it. He had half a mind to tell Serge to forget the whole thing. Father had threatened charges of treason and capital punishment. Mostly empty threats probably, but still there was an element of danger, and to keep Serge involved without telling him the risks was misleading.

  Yet here Lem was, standing in a dusty dump in Old Town, curiosity getting the better of him.

  “Any idea how the ansible works?” Lem asked.

  “It works via paired subatomic particles,” said Serge. “It’s rather complicated, but basically the ansible creates a field in which particles are paired so that one particle will form and deform as the other one does. So as one changes shape, the other changes shape. That movement can be read by nearby particles, and this creates an electrical differential. And that’s what’s read, the electrical differential. There are still speed-of-light issues within each set—you know, receiver and sender—but it’s trivial because the distance is so small. What matters is that you are sending a signal, and a subatomic particle in there is getting paired.”

  “I’m not following you,” said Lem.

  “Let me back up,” said Serge. “We know the Formics communicate instantaneously across vast distances. Since the end of the war, the Hegemony has been racking their collective brain to figure out how. The belief is that the Formics use the same principle as the ansible, but they do so biochemically. So your father has been trying to pair subatomic particles. Initially what the Hegemony had was just a single pairing. It was like serial communications, sending one bit at a time, sequentially. And the fastest it could go was like three hundred baud, like the early days of modems. They had this six months after the war. But the bandwidth was incredibly low. All they could send were very short text messages as quickly as they could type them. Not massive amounts of data. Just text. And only one ansible could be paired with another ansible. It wasn’t a network. So there was one ansible on Luna, and another ansible, its mate, was way out in the Belt with the Polemarch.”

  Serge smiled, slightly amused. “But then the Strategos wanted one. And the Hegemon wanted his own private one. And the Polemarch’s admirals and commanders wanted one too. Problem was, you had to have a separate set for each pairing. Meaning you had to have a separate ansible for every person you wanted to communicate with.

  “So they started dispersing them among the commanders. And they discovered that the distance between paired ansibles can go as far as necessary. It’s just miraculous how far it goes. And it’s instantaneous. But it only works where you have the set. So the Polemarch ending up having to carry forty sets with him, because he had twenty commanders in ships throughout the Belt and twenty bureaucrats in the Hegemony that he had to keep in contact with. So it’s like he had this moving van full of sets
going with him wherever he went. Very big and clunky.

  “Then they discovered that they could do multiple particles. Not a single pairing, but an array of identical particles. And so they did fifty pairings at a time. Which meant they had fifty different sets all communicating with each other at three hundred baud.

  “Then they jumped the speeds up to twelve hundred. They found that the particles could work at much faster rates. Or rather they figured out how to manipulate them to move faster. So they started devising better and better support structures. It’s the evolution of any tech; we’ve seen it a thousand times. With each iteration it gets faster and faster and smaller and smaller.

  “So the Hegemony is constantly updating the ansible and distributing the newer, better models. It takes time and effort and expense to distribute all that hardware to all the ships getting an upgrade throughout the system. But the Hegemony invented incredibly fast unmanned ships solely for this purpose. They’re called zipships. Anyway, now, instead of a room filled with sets, the Polemarch’s ansible can be carried in a suitcase.”

  Lem stared at Serge in disbelief. “Where did you get all this information?”

  Serge laughed, pleased with himself. “A pub. I figured out where a lot of the Hegemony engineers went after hours. So I parked myself inside with a pint and listened to conversations.”

  “And that worked?” Lem said. “Surely they wouldn’t have divulged all that in public.”

  “Oh no no, they didn’t,” Serge said. “But there was a woman there who wasn’t getting a lot of attention.”

  “And you gave her attention.”

  “She was actually very sweet. But lonely. So we talked. I told her I was developing secret tech for Juke, which isn’t a complete lie. And she told me she was developing secret tech for the Hegemony. Turns out we both went to Caltech. Under different circumstances I think we might have hit it off for real.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t get her inebriated,” Lem said.

  Serge looked affronted. “Oh no, nothing like that. Well … actually that’s not far from the truth, I suppose. But the drinking was her own doing. She took her wrist pad off when we started dancing, and left it at the table with her purse. All the dancing and drinking got the better of her, though, and she rushed off to the ladies’ room to be sick.”

  Lem was suddenly angry. “So you hacked into her wrist pad? Please tell me you didn’t hack into a Hegemony wrist pad.”

  “I know you said you do this legally, Lem. But it was just sitting there. She had received several messages throughout our conversation, so I had seen her sign in with her password over and over again. I didn’t technically hack it. I just knew how to get inside.”

  Lem started pacing, furious. “Stupid, Serge. Stupid.”

  “Why are you getting all upset about this? I got you the information you wanted.”

  Lem was practically shouting. “This is not what I wanted, Serge. Far from it.”

  Three doors opened at once, and a SWAT team came pouring into the warehouse wearing combat gear and pointing slasers.

  “HANDS IN THE AIR!”

  Lem and Serge froze. Their arms went up. The SWAT team surrounded them. The letters IF were painted on the front and back of their vests.

  The lead marine was a woman. She lowered her rifle as she approached Serge.

  Serge’s eyes widened. “You.”

  Her face remained expressionless. “Me.”

  She grabbed his wrist and spun it behind his back. Then she grabbed the other wrist, did the same, and snapped on the hand restraints.

  Serge’s voice was weak and desperate. “You’re arresting me?”

  “No,” the woman said. “Drafting you. Welcome to the International Fleet, Serge.”

  She grabbed his arms and roughly led him toward the exit. Serge glanced back at Lem, in a frantic plea for help. Lem didn’t move. His hands were still raised. His heart was racing. The slasers were pointed at him, ready to slice him in half if he so much as twitched. Serge and the female marine exited the building. And then all at once the other marines began to back toward the exit as well, slasers still up, watching him. They moved fast, though, and in seconds Lem was alone.

  “You can put your hands down now,” Father said.

  Lem spun. Behind him, standing in the open doorway, Father stood silhouetted against the false sunlight of Old Town.

  Lem lowered his hands and Father stepped inside.

  “I hope you realize how close you just came to joining the International Fleet,” Father said. “If you hadn’t responded the way you did at the end, getting angry, rebuking him, telling him what a mistake it was, those marines would have cuffed you too and taken you as well. Frankly, I don’t think you would have lasted a week in the IF. It’s just not your style.”

  Lem felt dizzy. “The woman. She was the one from the pub. This whole thing was a sting.”

  “When I said the Hegemony takes this tech seriously, Lem, I meant it. The IF takes it even more seriously.”

  Lem pointed to the door where Serge had exited, suddenly angry. “You can’t just take someone, Father. Serge is a civilian. If he’s committed a crime, he gets a trial. There’s a legal process here.”

  “Serge was a civilian. He forfeited that right the moment he stole sensitive information and then shared it. And not to split hairs here, but I didn’t take him. The International Fleet did. I’m just the Hegemon. I don’t have any jurisdiction over what they do.”

  “So what, he’s a soldier for the rest of his life now? He’s consigned to a life of military servitude?”

  “Serge will make a good soldier, I think. He considered enlisting before anyway. Did he tell you? I think he’ll do fine.”

  Lem couldn’t believe it. “Is this a joke? This isn’t right, Father. The IF can’t simply snatch people to silence them. They’re not a military dictatorship. This is wrong.”

  “Sending one of your own employees out to spy on the Hegemony is wrong, Lem. You condemned Serge, not the IF. The ansible is the highest guarded secret of the Fleet. They will do anything and everything to protect it.”

  “So everything Serge told me is true?”

  “Essentially.”

  “Then why give him the information in the first place? If the IF was conducting the sting, why give him the real intel?”

  “The IF was willing to watch him. Had he left the wrist pad alone and taken the lawful route, he could have gone his merry way and no one would be the wiser. But for a crime to be committed, it needed to be real intelligence. Sharing it with you was an even greater offense. They let him do it to solidify his fate. They also wanted to bring you in as well and see how you’d react. I convinced them beforehand to wait for your response before deciding your fate. Of course this now means you know state secrets, which puts you on a watch list with the IF. Breathe the word ‘ansible’ in your sleep, and you’ll be on a cruiser in the Belt working as a navigational grunt, wearing the blue for the rest of your days.”

  Lem didn’t respond.

  “I’m on that watch list, too, of course,” Father said. “I have to keep my mouth shut as much as anyone. Which is why having you poke around is a threat to my well-being as much as it is to yours.”

  “So the IF is a military dictatorship.” Lem said.

  “Don’t be foolish, Lem. Do you see them governing? Are they passing laws, patrolling the streets of Old Town? Their job is to protect Earth from annihilation. That is their singular mission. If people like Serge obstruct that mission, then they’ll take action.”

  “Why go to such lengths to keep the ansible a secret? It’s a communications device.”

  “It’s the ultimate communications device, Lem. You can’t hack it or tap it. It operates between paired particles. If you don’t have the matching set of particles, you cannot hear the message. There are no light beams or wavelengths in the air to intercept. The message magically goes from one ansible to the mate ansible. If terrorists were to have that tech, we
couldn’t track their communications. They would be invisible to us. The possibility of revolution and subversion is suddenly out of control. They would always hit us unawares. So for the sheer ability of continuing to govern Earth, the Hegemony insists that this be a closely guarded secret.”

  “In other words, if people have ansibles you can’t spy on them and record every word they say to make sure it doesn’t offend your ideologies.”

  Father rolled his eyes. “Please, Lem. Your moral high ground is built upon a pile of pretentious naiveté. Read the news. There are people in the world who are more monstrous than the Formics. They want nothing more than to slit your throat and blow you to itty bloody bits. Why? Because you don’t pray like they do, or vote like they do, or raise your children like they do. And you’re going to prosecute me for keeping my eye on them? What would you prefer? That I put weapons in their hands? No. I will not let this technology loose on Earth and give our enemies the tool they need to destroy us. Despite what you may think, Lem, I actually give a damn about the people of Earth.”

  Lem didn’t respond.

  “So don’t preach to me, son. Especially when you don’t understand your own sermons.”

  Lem said nothing for a long moment. “All right. So now what?”

  “Now you remain absolutely silent on the subject of the ansible and prove to the Hegemony and the International Fleet that you can be a good little obedient citizen. And I assure you someone will be listening.”

  “And Serge?” Lem asked. “How are you going to explain to the world his sudden disappearance?”

  “We won’t have to. He’ll do it for us. Moved by the recent discovery of Formics in our system, he was overcome with a sense of duty and obligation to defend his friends and loved ones. He’ll make a vid, give a speech, talk about enlisting. It will be very convincing. After a few takes and some coaching from the IF, he’ll probably believe it himself. His dear mother will shed a few tears, she’ll be so proud. The IF may even use the vid with their recruitment materials. A man touched with nobility can be an inspiring sight to see. Who knows? He might convince a few others to take the blue.”