by Ian Douglas
"Maybe all we need to know at this point, though, is that mind, whatever it is, must work over teleoperational distances, somehow. Look, it doesn't matter whether you see over optic nerves a few centimeters long, or by way of optic sensors and a lasercom link a few million kilometers long, right?"
"Of course. That's the whole point behind teleoperation. Or warstriders, for that matter."
"Okay. While I was linked through the Nagas in the DalRiss fleet, I was . . . I was touching the other ships. At one point, I looked for you. I could feel you over the link. Was that, that sensation traveling to my mind aboard Daghar? Or was my mind traveling to you, here aboard your warstrider?"
"I think the question is meaningless."
"Don't be so sure, Kat. When someone says his mind is elsewhere . . ." He stopped, and she heard his chuckle. She shivered. It was as though he really was right there beside her. "Anyway, the Naga on one of the other ships must have picked up the pattern of my mind when the Daghar exploded."
"Dev, you're not a pattern. People aren't patterns!"
"Maybe not. But if you can call mind a set of programs run in parallel . . ." The voice stopped, pausing for a moment. "Here's one way to think of it, Kat. We've talked before about the Nagas being like an enormous computer network. Each fragment is a node, itself a collection of some trillions or quadrillions of molecule-sized computers. Organic nanotechnics."
"Yes. . . ."
"The whole could be considered to be a massively parallel networked system, a widely distributed processing network with one hell of a lot of redundancy. I, the important part of 'I,' anyway, was distributed throughout a large part of the whole system when Daghar blew. It patterned my mental software, copied everything that I was . . . or saved it, or whatever term you want to use. Think of it . . ." and she'd felt him grin. "Think of it as having me permanently jacked in. The important thing is, I'm alive . . . sort of, anyway. And that's enough for me right now."
"Are you, Dev?" Dev I want to see you want to hold you be held oh Dev I want you inside me again oh please—
"I'm afraid I can't, my love. Not anymore. But I'm here. With you. For as long as you want me."
Her thoughts were crumbling again, veering into chaotic nonsense. She battled for control. She felt as though she was going to cry . . . she wanted to cry, and yet, linked into the Warlord's AI, she couldn't.
Warstriders, she found, couldn't cry.
Epilogue
Many wonders there be, but none more wondrous than man.
—Antigone
Sophocles
Fifth century B.C.E.
Travis Sinclair, it turned out, had made it safely to Liberty. It wasn't necessary, though, for the Confederation fleet to track him from system to system, as planned. Ten hours after the battle, a Confederation frigate, the Freedom, jumped back into the outskirts of the Heraklean system in order to check on what the Imperial fleet was doing. When Darlene Vonnegut, Freedom's, skipper, found Miyagi's battlefleet scattered and fled, his flagship still broadcasting its surrender call, she jumped back to Liberty to summon a task force, scraped together from those ships that had managed to flee the debacle at Herakles.
And a good thing, too, Katya thought, for the only ships able to enter K-T space in the entire Confederation fleet were Tarazed, Mirach, and Vindemiatrix, and sending those lightly armed starships hopping from system to system in search of the missing Confederation fleet would have verged on foolhardiness. Eagle and the other Confederation survivors of Second Herakles might be jump-capable again someday, depending on how the repairs went . . . but it wouldn't be soon.
"I was damned sorry to hear about Dev," Sinclair told her. It was nearly three months after the battle. They were on Liberty, in the new Confederation headquarters in the capital city of Lincoln. They sat alone together, in Sinclair's office. A viewall looked out over the city, and the sullen, ember-bright glow of Liberty's sun, 70 Ophiuchi A.
She nodded and managed a smile. "Thanks, General."
"Are you all right?"
Again, she nodded.
"That's the Katya I know. There's a hell of a lot to do yet, even now. I'm going to miss Dev. I would miss you, if we lost you as well."
"I'm not sure what you need me for now. The war, well, the war's over, isn't it?"
"If the truce holds. If the Emperor ratifies the new agreement. If hotheads on one of the occupied Confederation worlds don't launch an attack on the Imperials during the next few weeks. A lot of ifs . . . but yes, I think the war is over."
"Thank God."
"Yes. And thank the people who bought that victory for us. People like Dev."
Clearly, the Empire, the entire Hegemony, had been shaken from Frontier to Core Worlds to Earth herself by the Battle of Second Herakles. The knowledge that the Confederation had allied with the DalRiss had proven to be at least as critical for this revolution as an alliance with the nation of France had been in another revolution, over 760 years before. A cease-fire had gone into effect almost at once, and so far it had lasted, even on New America, where armed guerrillas continued to share the world with Imperial occupation forces. Negotiations were under way, both on Earth and on Liberty. Imperial recognition of the Confederation was widely accepted as fact; all that remained was to map out the actual extent of their victory. Rebel worlds currently unoccupied by Imperials, like Liberty and Rainbow, would certainly receive full independence. Occupied planets, those like New America and Eridu, would probably be allowed to go, or the question might be put to a vote ratifying the decision on each world. Other worlds that had indicated their desire to be free by signing the Declaration of Reason, but which had not joined in the fighting, planets like Loki and Juanyekundu and Deseret . . . well, their fates still had to be worked out.
But peacefully.
Both sides were sick of war.
As for the DalRiss, they would be all right as well. She'd heard later that the long-expected Imperial fleet had, indeed, arrived at ShraRish some weeks after the fight at Herakles. They'd dropped out of K-T space, taken up orbit . . . and vanished.
Could Achievers make other things go away? Or bend space in unexpected ways? Gods, so little was known yet about these beings, able to bend reality with a thought. It was a dreadful mistake to underestimate them.
"Actually, General, I think what I need most right now is work."
"That's the spirit. I'm sure Dev would approve."
She almost laughed out loud. No one but her knew of Dev's curious survival.
They'd talked about it a long time, after she'd been picked up and returned to the Eagle. When she'd jacked in to ViRcom a message to Freedom and the other Confederation reinforcements, he'd been there.
She'd seen him . . . touched him. And they'd made love together on a nameless, deserted beach with the ocean surf crashing nearby. All of the myriad and intricate programming that had been Dev, it seemed, had been saved, and that included the far cruder programs that had once been resident in his now vaporized RAM. What was a program but saved information? The information was still there, distributed through the DalRiss fleet.
They made love, and she tried not to think about the fact that his touch, the feel of him on her and around her and inside of her, was not real.
What was "real," anyway? She closed her eyes and downloaded the scene to her biological memory once again.
"They want me to go with them," Dev told her afterward, as they lay together on the wet sand. "I'll be gone a long time."
"What? Who?" She'd been wondering about Dev's body. It was just information, after all, and the Naga might have preserved a pattern of that as well. . . .
"The DalRiss, of course."
"Can't you . . . stay? We could talk with Sinclair, maybe see about having the DalRiss migrate to human space. . . ."
"Uh-uh, Kat. They sacrificed a lot to help us here. And I sure as hell don't want anyone trying to lay claim to their fleet just because the . . . call it the soul of one human striderjack is somehow trap
ped inside their communications network."
"What . . . so you're going with the DalRiss exodus? Where are they going?"
Again, she felt the warmth of his infectious smile. He couldn't be dead, he couldn't. She couldn't be imagining his warmth, his humor, his smell, his presence in this much detail, and it had none of the hollow emptiness of a recorded encounter. He, everything about him, was too real. Somehow, the Naga link had preserved so very much more of his personality than words and thoughts alone.
"You know what the DalRiss think about life," he said. "It's damned near a religion for them."
"Yes."
"We're going . . . out there. Beyond human space. Jumping from star to star, looking for life. They believe—and I believe with them—that the galaxy, the whole universe is chock brim full to overflowing with life . . . and tidal theories and prebiotic matrices be damned. They want me to navigate for them."
"But you haven't been out there. I thought you had to have been to a place, to pass its feel on to the Achiever."
"Maybe what they really want is a human viewpoint. A human outlook on the universe. Remember, both the DalRiss and the Naga are blind to the visible spectrum. They've both learned to see, in the same way that we've learned to 'hear' radio with artificial receivers but we have a clearer perspective on the universe than they do, the way it's made, the way it really is . . . at least in some ways. I can help them."
Katya sighed. "I find it hard to believe that humans can see anything clearly."
"I know what you mean. But, well, the perspective of seeing things from someone else's vantage point, that always makes things clearer in the end. Don't you think?"
"Dev, I don't want to lose you. Not again."
"I'll be back. But I think you need some time on your own. Time to get used to . . ."
"To you being a ghost? Maybe so. And maybe those DalRiss biological wizards can do something about a body for you, someday."
"Maybe. Right now, I don't want to even think about it. Katya, I want this. You know, since my memories have been coming back, from my childhood, I . . . I'd forgotten how much I wanted the wonder of it all. The stars. Katya, the stars . . ."
"You always wanted to be a shipjacker, didn't you? Until you got sidetracked into the warstriders."
"It was a good sidetrack. I met you there, right? I wouldn't have missed that for anything."
"I'm glad I knew you, Dev."
"Me too. And . . . I will be back."
She'd not told him, even then, that when she'd last seen a DalRiss, aboard one of their ships, the being had "looked" at her with the curiously scanning crescent of its head . . . and mentioned the new life growing deep in her belly.
Katya had deliberately kept a piece of Dev for herself, that last time aboard the ascraft, by switching off the part of her cephlink that regulated her sexual rhythms.
"I love you, Dev," she'd told him.
And, through the Xenolink, she'd felt his lips brush hers, as warm and as sweet as reality.
Terminology and Glossary
AI: Artificial Intelligence. Since the Sentient Status Act of 2204, higher-model networking systems have been recognized as "self-aware but of restricted purview," a legal formula that precludes enfranchisement of machine intelligences.
Alya: Naked-eye star Theta Serpentis (63 Serpentis) 130 light-years from Sol. A double star system, home to the DalRiss.
Analogue: Computer-generated "double" of a person, used to handle routine business and communications through ViRcom linkage.
Ascraft: Aerospace craft. Vehicles that can fly both in space and in atmosphere, including various transports, fighters, and shuttles.
Cephlink: Implant within the human brain allowing direct interface with computer-operated systems. It contains its own microcomputer and RAM storage and is accessed through sockets, usually located in the subject's temporal bones above and behind each ear. Limited (non-ViR) control and interface is possible through neural implants in the skin, usually in the palm of one hand.
Cephlink RAM: Also RAM. Random Access Memory, part of the microcircuitry within the cephlink assembly. Used for memory storage, message transfer, linguistics programming, and the storage of complex digital codes used in cephlinkage access. An artificial extension of human intelligence.
Compatch: Small radio transceiver worn on the skin and jacked into a T-socket. Allows cephlink-to-link radio communications.
Cryo-H: Liquid hydrogen cooled to a few degrees absolute, used as fuel for fusion power plants aboard striders, ascraft, and other vehicles. Sometimes called "slush hydrogen."
C-socket: Cervical socket, located in subject's cervical spine, near the base of his neck. Directs neural impulses to jacked equipment, warstriders, construction gear, heavy lifters, etc.
DalRiss: Nonhuman intelligence first contacted in 2540. Native to Alya B-V (GhegnuRish), they are highly advanced in biological sciences, relatively backward in engineering and metallurgical sciences. Compound name reflects use of Dal, a gene-engineered organism as "mount" by Riss ("Master").
Durasheath: Armor grown as composite layers of diamond, duralloy, and ceramics; light, flexible, and very strong.
Embedded Interface: Network of wires and neural feeds embedded in the skin—usually in the palm near the base of the thumb—used to access and control simple computer hardware. Provides control and datafeed functions only, not full-sensory input. Used to activate T- and C-socket jacks, to pass authorization and credit data, and to retrieve printed or vocal data "played" inside the user's mind. Also called 'face or skin implant.
Genegineering, bionangineering: Use of nanotechnology to restructure life-forms for medical or ornamental reasons.
Genie: Gene-engineered human. On some worlds they have full rights of ordinary humans. On others they are property. Appearing in many different forms, they are used for a variety of purposes, from mining to heavy labor to companionship to entertainment to sex.
Gun tower: Unmanned sentry outpost armed with various energy or projectile weapons. May be automated, remote-controlled, or directed by an on-site, low-level AI.
Hegemony: Also Terran Hegemony. World government representing fifty-seven nations on Earth, plus the Colonial Authorities of the seventy-eight colonized worlds. Technically sovereign, it is dominated by Imperial Japan, which has a veto in its legislative assembly.
Herakles: Mu Herculis III. Former colony world 26.2 light-years from Sol overrun by Xenos in 2515. Later occupied by Confederation forces.
Hivel Cannon: A turret-mounted rotary cannon (the term hivel comes from "high velocity"). Similar to twentieth-century CIWS systems, it fires bursts of depleted uranium slugs with a rate of fire as high as fifty per second. Usually controlled by an onboard AI, its primary function is antimissile defense. It can also be voluntarily controlled and used against other targets.
Jacker: Slang for anyone with implanted jacks for neural interface with computers, machinery, or communications networks. Specifically applied to individuals who jack-in for a living, as opposed to recreational jackers, or "recjacks."
Kansei no Otoko: "The Men of Completion." Nihonjin faction at Court and within the Imperial Staff dedicated to cleansing upper levels of Imperial civilian and military organizations of gaijin influence.
Kokorodo: Literally "Way of the Mind." A mental discipline practiced by Imperial military jackers to achieve full mental and physical coordination through AI linkage.
K-T Plenum: Extraspacial realm at the hyperdimensional interface between normal fourspace and the Quantum Sea. From Nihongo Kamisama no Taiyo, literally "Ocean of God." Starships navigate through the K-T plenum.
Liberty: 70 Ophiuchi A III. Colony world 16.7 light-years from Sol.
Loki: 36 Ophiuchi C II. Colony world 17.8 light-years from Sol. Xenophobe incursion here defeated in 2540.
Lung Chi: DM+320 2896 (Chien) IV. World terraformed by colonists of Manchurian descent. Overrun by Xenophobes in 2538.
Nangineering: Nanotechnic engineering.
Use of nanotechnic devices in building or in medicine.
Nano-Ds: Nano-disassemblers. Weapon delivered by mag-accelerated projectile consisting of billions of submicroscopic machines programmed to disassemble molecular bonds. A high concentration of nano-Ds can cause several kilos of mass to disintegrate into its component molecules within seconds.
Nanoflage: Nanofilm on military vehicles designed to transmit colors and textures of vehicle's immediate surroundings. Selectively reflective, it does not reflect bright light or motion.
Navsim: ViRsimulation used in ship navigation.
New America: 26 Draconis IV. Frontier colony 48.6 light years from Sol.
Null: Person possessing no cephlink hardware and unable to engage in financial transactions, interface with computers, or engage in useful work. Large numbers of nulls on Frontier worlds and even in some areas on Earth constitute a growing and problematical lower class.
Prebiotic: A world similar to Earth in the distant past, before the evolution of life. Possessing primitive atmospheres of CO2, water, methane, and ammonia, they can be tailored through terraforming techniques to eventually develop Earthlike environments.
Quantum Sea: Energy continuum reflected in "vacuum fluctuation," the constant appearance and reabsorption of vast quantities of energy on a subatomic scale. Tapped by starships operating within the K-T plenum.
Rainbow: 36 Ophiuchi A II. Colony world 17.8 light-years from Sol.
Rank: Terran Hegemony ranks are based on the Imperial Japanese rank structure, though the English terminology is preferred in common usage. A rough comparison of rank in the Hegemony military, as compared to late twentieth-century America, is given below:
Enlisted Ranks
Commissioned Ranks
Rank within the Confederation forces was initially based on the Hegemony model, but later changed to the pre-Imperial form once used in North America.
Recjack: Using implants for recreational purposes. These range from participation in ViRdramas to shared multiple sensual stimulation to direct stimulation of the hypothalmic pleasure centers (PC-jacking).
