The Myriad: Tour of the Merrimack #1

by R. M. Meluch

  Farragut became quite troubled. His voice came out more plaintive than he wanted. “But why will the job need doing? Eventually. At all?”

  Suicide, the very idea of it, was alien to John Farragut. He could see himself dying by throwing himself between harm and a beloved, but never an act wherein the whole point of the endeavor was to die.

  “Later,” Augustus dismissed the question, and before Farragut could press it, the captain’s link crackled to life on the back of his hand. It was Calli: “Captain! Res-read ! We have the Arran messenger. Just appeared from the connecting kzachin. Heading toward the Rim gate at seventy percent c.”

  “ETA?”

  “At present rate, the Arran will reach the Rim gate in three hours.”

  “And our ETA?”

  “Nine hours.”

  “If we can’t catch it, then shoot it down. Arm a Star Sparrow.”

  “Aye, sir. Load, sir?”

  “A fast one.”

  An Arran courier vessel would not require much punch. A simple collision might take it out. But a Star Sparrow at that speed might just poke a neat hole in the flimsy ship without detonating.

  “Can a Star Sparrow make intercept?”

  The specialists had been conferring over just that question. “Negative. Even at optimum launch time, which will be coming up in about one hour—we’re coming up short.”

  “Arm the bird. I’m coming up,” Farragut sent, clicked off, turned to Augustus. “Here’s where I need a patterner. Get me the precise optimum launch time for a T five forty one Star Sparrow. You’ll find the exact specs in the data bank.”

  Augustus would need to factor in the speed of the Merrimack, fuel consumption and acceleration of the Star Sparrow, and the gravitational drag of the Myriad’s stars. Merrimack was passing through the thickest part of the cluster now.

  “You can’t catch the Arran,” Augustus could tell him without plugging in.

  “Get the ordnance there in the best possible time. Can you do that?”

  “I will give you the optimum launch time, but it won’t do the job, so why are you hurrying to an intercept you cannot make?”

  “Because if you give up running out a bad hit and the shortstop just happens to overthrow base, and you get tagged out because you didn’t hustle, your own mama will boo you out of the park.”

  “Ever happen to you?”

  “Not to me!” said Farragut with some pride. “You run on what you hit. You may get tagged out, but you don’t ever quit. Unless it’s to the enemy, never say die.” And, confiscating Augustus’ sword, “And that’s not what this is for either. You don’t quit.”

  “You have no idea what this is about.”

  “You got that right. So tell me.”

  “Later.”

  “It’s always later with you. But later never comes.”

  Augustus plugged cables into his neck. His eyes extinguished. His face slackened and his voice went hollow. “Don’t talk to me.”

  Clambering up the ladder to the command deck level, Farragut caught himself playing the ifs, looking for every turn he might have played differently, each second he had squandered, all the moments he might have saved so as not to be running against a time deficit toward an impossible intercept.

  If he had not paused to return the LEN pirates to their ship.

  If he had simply ordered Hamster to blockade the Rim gate rather than have her try to talk to Donner.

  If he hadn’t paused to restock his oxygen. Could have done that afterward. Now there might not be an afterward.

  If. If. Not a question he normally asked. But faced with a real possibility of everything he knew coming to an end, the ifs came in a barrage.

  How much of his life would vanish because of any of those wasted moments? All of his own history? His world. His nation. His self. Was I killed at EtaCas?

  It wasn’t his life that flashed before his eyes—it was the people in it. From his too beautiful, slender and stately, Roman-educated XO, Callista Carmel, to his surly chief, who kept the Mack a ship to make you proud, to that obnoxious Roman IO who somehow made himself indispensable, to the unattainable Glenn Hamilton, to that big-eared kid Jeffrey at the tac station, to his civilian Nobel Laureate passenger Jose Maria Cordillera who had become more like a father to him than his own father.

  All the people on board. He knew them all. Wanted to keep them.

  They were his. He would not let them go.

  He could not control what was already done, so he threw off the ifs and charged straight ahead.

  He exploded into the control room. “Augustus, feed your numbers to fire control.”

  The tactical specialist reviewed the firing solution. Shook his head. “Best isn’t good enough. The Arran ship will be at the Rim gate in one hundred twenty-one minutes. Star Sparrow will get there in one hundred thirty-five minutes. We can’t make intercept.” He craned round in his seat to add, “Unless you mean to shoot through the kzachin and catch him on the other side.”

  “No. Under no circumstances send anything through the kzachin.”

  All evidence suggested that no object could overtake any other object inside a kzachin, and energy weapons did not exist at all inside the kzachin. Once on the far side of the kzachin, the race was over.

  “Why?” Jeffrey asked. “We still have nineteen minutes on the far side of the gate to make intercept. The kzachin spits you out on the other side of the sun and nineteen light-minutes from Origin.”

  “Don’t forget, as soon as that messenger ship is through the gate, it will be transmitting its little heart out. We can’t corral electromagnetic waves. Once that messenger gets through the gate, the genie is out of the bottle. And there’s no way I’m sending a Star Sparrow back ten billion years to become the instrument of our own destruction. We catch him on this side of the gate or—we catch him on this side of the gate.

  “Can’t, sir.”

  Not a word to use to John Farragut. He turned to Augustus. “Why aren’t we launching the Star Sparrow yet? It accelerates a hell of a lot faster than the Mack.”

  Augustus remained withdrawn into his data storm, not hearing, or more likely, ignoring the ignorant question.

  The tactical specialist responded for him. “These look like real good numbers Colonel Augustus gave us, Captain. The Mack is passing through the core of the Myriad. If we launch now, the Star Sparrow would spend all its energy fighting tidal drag and making course corrections. Course corrections will rob its forward capability in a big way, probably crack it up. Sparrow’s kind of speed needs a straight-line path. Optimum launch really is in fifty-nine minutes. We’re going to be close.” Heard how feeble that last part sounded as it came out of his mouth. Wanted that one back.

  “Don’t give me close. I need it to be there.”

  The captain paced, paced huge, as if long steps would speed up his thought process. And the idea came: If optimum launch was fifty-nine minutes off, then why not move the launch platform to the optimum launch point faster? “Redline us.”

  Calli, “We’re already redlined, sir.”

  “Push.”

  “Pushing, aye . . . and we have a balk.” Expected.

  The ship would not obey a fatal instruction without asking verification first. Merrimack had accelerated to the distortion threshold.

  Farragut nodded. “Did we pick up any time at all?”

  “Some,” said Jeffrey. Augustus had already recalculated the missile launch and fed the numbers to fire control. “Optimum launch in fifty-five minutes. Deficit to intercept, ten minutes.”

  “Load launch sequence,” Farragut ordered. At these speeds, waiting for human orders and acknowledgments to pull the trigger would eat up split seconds that made differences of millions of miles.

  “Load launch sequence,” Calli relayed. Then aside, for only Farragut to hear, “The target is a manned ship, John.”

  “I know.” And aloud, “Fire Control, confirm that missile course will take the missile past the gate and
not into the gate in case of a failed intercept.”

  “Fire Control, aye. Bypass confirmed.”

  Augustus gave a vacant nod, seconding that. His eyes flickered slightly, quickly, as if reading inward lists.

  “Launch sequence loaded. Sequence engaged. We’re on auto countdown.”

  The minutes passed in quiet murmurs, updates, requests, and confirmations.

  In fifty-five minutes, the missile whined in its launch tube. The ship’s energy coiled.

  The Star Sparrow sprang with a scathing shriek. The deck heaved. The ship rang behind it.

  “Missile away.”

  Farragut heard a murmured benediction from Jose Maria. Hadn’t known he was on the deck. Farragut demanded, “Tracking.”

  “Tracking, aye. We are on course. Accelerating well. Perfect launch, sir.”

  Perfect. Ten minutes too late to achieve intercept. “Take us down from redline.”

  Calli relayed orders to back off Merrimack’s tearing speed. She brought the ship about on a course toward Centro to retrieve Steele’s Marine detachment from their sortie.

  All attention remained on the speeding Star Sparrow. No one on the command deck spoke above a murmur, constantly updating velocities, accelerations, the deficit to intercept. All indicated the attempt to stop the message from reaching Origin was going to fail.

  Farragut tried to convince himself that he was wrong, that failure was good. Augustus was right; there was no changing the past. Those innocent beings on board the Arran messenger ship would get away alive. That was the way it would happen. Augustus was never wrong.

  Tried to inhale calm.

  Augustus was always right.

  And still the desperate need to run as if his world depended on it.

  Low, professional voices read off dispassionate progress reports of the Star Sparrow, the Arran messenger, the Hive swarms.

  Captain Farragut watched the chronometer. Watched the plots creep across the tactical map. The Star Sparrow was dead on with its estimates, accelerating precisely as calculated.

  The variable was the target.

  “You’re making a race of it, John,” said Calli. “The Arran messenger has not kept a constant speed.”

  “What’s our deficit now?”

  “Six minutes.”

  “Augustus, coordinate a firing sequence with fire control.” At thousands of times the speed of light, the moment of contact would be brief in the idiotic extreme. He could not risk the explosion occurring a million miles after impact. Detonation by resonant command may be instantaneous, but the decision and execution was not.

  Augustus nodded vacantly.

  Farragut requested an update. Waited for the inevitable deficit.

  “Target is twenty minutes from the gate. Missile twenty—Whoa.”

  Farragut’s head snapped to the side. “Explain ‘whoa.’ ”

  “Target is decelerating! Five-minute deficit. Four! Three!”

  “Control Room! Fire Control here. At this rate of closure we may overshoot.”

  “I’ve got you, John,” Augustus assured him from the depths of his altered thoughts. “I’m not slowing this bird till we’re there. We aren’t there yet.”

  “Nineteen-second deficit! Target still decelerating. Eighteen!” Tactical lost his professional monotone. “Arran messenger turning to line up its approach to the kzachin. Ten-second deficit. Five seconds. Four.”

  And a long pause.

  “Status,” Farragut barked at the long quiet.

  “Deficit holding at four seconds. No.”

  “No, what?”

  Tactical made a fist. Opened it. “Five second deficit. Six. Target is reaccelerating.” Dashed beaded sweat from under his nose. “We’re losing it, sir.”

  Calli demanded coolly, “ETA of target to the gate?”

  “Five minutes.”

  At two minutes, Farragut asked again, “Deficit to intercept?”

  “Ten seconds,” Jeffrey reported gloomily.

  Farragut hesitated, ordered, “Push the missile.”

  The resonant control signal went out to the Star Sparrow’s guidance system. “Balk,” Fire control reported.

  “Override balk.”

  “Overriding, aye—Distortion! Missile flame out! Star Sparrow is running dead.”

  There would be no more acceleration from the Star Sparrow, no course correction. The missile sped on inertia.

  “Deficit at fifteen seconds. Sixteen. Climbing.” The young specialist turned his eyes up. “We’re not going to make it, sir.”

  This is it.

  Barring miracles, it was all over. Done is done. Farragut could only watch and wait out the final minute. Wait—for what?

  Hopefully, for nothing. John Farragut inhaled deeply. Chest felt full of heavy air, as if a gorgon swarm were sitting on it.

  Told himself it would be okay. In fifty-four seconds Augustus would be laughing at him and asking him to explain why he opened fire on an unarmed, manned vessel, and John Farragut would be feeling ridiculous. He never imagined wanting so badly to be ridiculous.

  Searched for Jose Maria on deck. Wanted to say to him: Here’s to Augustus laughing.

  Felt a presence immediately behind him. A touch, a breath on his hair. A kiss on his neck.

  And he was angry. A line crossed and never expected. Farragut’s hair prickled, face burned. Did not appreciate the gesture, and the timing stunk. Pissed him enough to snap around from the face of the imminent Judgment, and demand, “What was that?”

  Augustus elled his thumb and forefinger against his opposing palm, flipped a quick word in American Sign: Later.

  John Farragut felt himself go wide-eyed. Tough to scare, he was suddenly profoundly terrified. Later never comes.

  He stared into bottomless eyes. Crushing the tremor out of his voice, he commanded quietly, “Now, I think.”

  Because he sensed Augustus had no intention of ever explaining that. For all Augustus’ talk of the immutability of time, Farragut got the feeling Augustus did not expect one or both of them to be here thirty seconds from now, and that had been an end-of-the-world stunt Augustus need not live with for more than thirty seconds.

  His eyes were suddenly not blank at all. Always, when plugged in, Augustus’ eyes became vacant hollows, the thoughts racing deep inside. This time they looked back, aware, omniscient. The patterner had taken in all, synthesized all the minutiae, and saw what he had not seen before this moment.

  Farragut stared at him. You just recanted!

  Saw the answer in his eyes.

  MUNDI TERMINUM ADPROPINQUANTE. Now that we are approaching the end of the world, John Farragut.

  Your individual existence is a statistical miracle. We are, each and every one of us, highly improbable, a one-in-a-million event at conception. History turns on a space big enough for angels to dance on. I do stand by inevitability. But inevitability works on a macroscopic scale. Macroscopic events are inevitable. The blizzard will come. But the when, the where, and the unique shape of each snowflake is a function of chaos. One breath out of place, and that one singular snowflake never forms. I mistook us for macroscopic. Intuition is subconscious knowledge, and while logic says changing history is impossible, intuition says there are things beyond my ken; and you are a patterner, John Farragut. You know. You know. And you’re right. You are chaos. I won’t explain later, because there is no later. There is no earlier. There is no time at all. Simply put, it was miraculous knowing you, and that was good-bye.

  So said the eyes. Aloud, Augustus answered with an ironic near smile, “I still think you’re an idiot.”

  But Farragut understood him as clearly as if he’d spoken all of it.

  I’m right!

  The floor of the world kicked out from under him. This was the end of the world he knew.

  Did not want to be right.

  He faced forward, terrified now. The countdown fell on cotton ears.

  “Arran messenger ten seconds from the gate. Nine. Eight.” />
  There is no later.

  “He’s accelerating again.” The count sped up. “We have four seconds. Three. Two. Messenger at the gate—”

  Closed his eyes.

  O God, it’s done. If it happens, it will be this instant. I won’t even know. Either I’m here or I’m not, and I never was.

  Breathed.

  PART THREE

  A Rational Universe

  17

  BREATHED.

  “Arran ship is off the screen.”

  Still here. Still breathing. Breathing as if he’d been running. Slow it down, John.

  Fire Control was requesting instruction regarding the Star Sparrow. Now bereft of a target, the missile barreled off hotfoot to nowhere.

  Captain Farragut opened his eyes. “Detonate that damn thing.”

  “Detonating, aye.” Fire Control sent the res signal. “Detonation achieved.”

  We’re still here, thought Farragut, calming down. Feeling ridiculous, embarrassed by his fear. Time to face his all-seeing, all-knowing intelligence officer and collect the inevitable told-you-so. He knew those smug black eyes and superior expression waited behind him. He turned around to take it.

  “Well, Lu. You were right.”

  Colonel Oh’s amygdaloid eyes flickered, annoyed, her little bird voice brittle. “Told you so.”

  Lu Oh was a grating, unlovely presence. With her wide, wide brow, and tiny, pointed chin, her reedy body far too delicate for that outsized head, her enormous, black, slanted eyes, Colonel Oh looked like a twentieth-century caricature of an alien. And John Farragut did believe she would kidnap Kentucky farm boys and do diabolical tests upon them. Though the colonel wore the uniform of a Naval Intelligence officer, John Farragut knew in his heart of hearts that Lu Oh was CIA.

  Of all the things he had hoped and feared would change when the Arran crossed the kzachin, Lu Oh had fallen solidly in the “hope to disappear” list.

  But nothing had changed.

  Things happen once. They cannot happen any other way. Everything was the same and where he should have felt relief sat instead a soggy sense of disappointment. Everything was the same.