The Parafaith War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

He took another deep breath and stepped into briefing room B.

  “Sit down, Lieutenant.” Subcommander Folsom smiled.

  Trystin sat.

  “Do you have any idea why you ended up where you would have frozen into a cold cometary lump in some forsaken outer orbit?”

  “Was the situation designed to sucker me in?” Trystin wiped his forehead. “Or designed to let me sucker myself in?”

  Surprisingly, Folsom leaned back in the plastic chair and nodded. “Now why would we want to do that to you? And why do we use what appear to be antique physical simulators, rather than modem neuronic simulators?”

  Trystin had pondered that question himself—certainly more than once, but the rigorous schedule had left him limited time for questions. The entire Service left little time for questions, and only when he was too exhausted to ponder them. “I had wondered that. My first thought was that they’re expensive, and that they probably take a lot of maintenance.”

  Folsom half nodded, then pulled at his chin. “That’s partly right. The underlying reason is because we’re still full-body creatures. A lot of feedback to your brain is nonconscious, but you’re still aware of it. The more we can duplicate the entire environment, not just your mental processing of that environment, the more real it seems. Sure, I suppose we could hook each of you up in suits that fed inputs into every nerve in your body, but every damned one of those suits would have to be custom-designed. The physical simulators are much more cost-effective. Also, we don’t have to worry nearly so much about monitoring your system. The physical simulators also have physical limits.” He paused. “Although we have lost a few idiots who screwed things up so bad that the overrides couldn’t compensate quickly enough.”

  Trystin swallowed.

  “That doesn’t happen very often. But back to the original question. Why did I set up this trap for you?”

  “So we recognize that kind of situation before it gets out of hand?”

  “It’s worse than that.” Folsom squared himself in the seat. “There’s an ancient saying about forgetting that your objective was to drain the swamp when you’re ass-deep in allodiles. Now, what that means is obvious enough … and it’s not. When you’re out there alone in that vette, or when you’re the one in charge of piloting a cruiser or a transport with other people’s lives in your hands, and when everything starts to go wrong—and it does, more than we like to make public—there’s a terrible temptation to let the patterns you’ve learned take over. After all, reflexes, especially implant-boosted reflexes, are far faster than stopping to think, especially when you feel like you only have minutes or seconds to respond. Boosted reflexes make that even worse, because you can respond with trained patterns far more quickly than you can analyze a situation. That’s why you have to anticipate.”

  Trystin waited.

  “Anticipation—that’s the key to being able to think and react, simultaneously. We try to help you at first by deactivating your implants to slow down your training patterns. Later, you’ll have to handle these things at full speed or even at full reflex boost—and it may not be fast enough. Remember, a lot of the time you’re going to be on the wrong side of the time-dilation envelope, and that means you’ll have to react instantly and correctly, while the rev has all the time in the world—comparatively.”

  Trystin moistened his lips.

  The brown-haired subcommander took out a series of sheets and laid them on the small table. “First … your handling of the fusactor dump was quick and effective. Nicely done. I probably would have cross-checked the accumulators earlier, but that’s something you learn with time, and it’s not in the tutorials.”

  Trystin wiped his still-damp forehead.

  “Why would the accumulators have blown, Lieutenant?”

  Trystin frowned.

  “I know. They blew because I told them to … but what sort of problem could have caused that to happen?”

  “Well, ser …”

  “Don’t stall.”

  “Poor maintenance or too many rapid temperature changes. Either that or physical damage—a close-in laser or shrapnel—but that wouldn’t seem likely, since—”

  “Since anything close enough to inflict physical damage would probably be enough to take you out. You’re right.” Folsom cleared his throat. “The two biggest causes of equipment failure are the same as they always were, even back when people tried to slash and bash each other with broadswords—operator error and maintenance or construction error. Take it from there.”

  “Operator error,” began Trystin, trying to get his brain to operate more quickly. “Would a pattern of dumping too many quick load shifts on the system eventually wear out the accumulators?”

  “That’s right. Sure, that’s what they’re designed for, but save that ability for when you really need it. I know, station controllers want you off the lock now. And tactical coordinators want you to react even more quickly, but an extra minute to allow a gentle buildup of thrust and a smooth power transfer won’t change anything, and it might mean those accumulators won’t blow when you really need them.”

  Trystin winced, thinking about his abrupt power shifts.

  “You all do it to begin with. It’s part of the process. What about maintenance?”

  “Does that mean better preflight of equipment?”

  “That helps. How would you tell a stressed accumulator from one that wasn’t?”

  “I don’t know,” Trystin confessed.

  “There are ways. Some are in the tech library. Some are in the minds of the better techs. I won’t tell you. I’m not being cruel. I’ve told student pilots before, and most never remembered. So I don’t. The ones who want to live go find out.”

  Trystin repressed a groan. Another item to dig out of obscure files, manually no less, since his implant linkages didn’t work for anything.

  “Back to your flight. Once the accumulators went, why didn’t you just bat-ass above the ecliptic for a dust-free zone and translate?”

  “I was still running at eighty-five percent—”

  “Until you ran into the dust and had to beef up the shields.”

  Trystin was beginning to see the pattern. The power he had shifted to the shields was meant to be temporary, but with his out-system velocity and the extended dust belt, the power load had strained the capacity of the fusactor, and its efficiency and output had dropped, and then the rev patroller had shown up.

  “So why didn’t you tilt for the ecliptic after you cleared the dust?”

  “I shut down all EDI emissions and thought I would be able to coast clear of the first rev.”

  “You did that all right, but by then you were in the detection envelope of the second without enough power to outrun a solar-sail ore carrier or a water asteroid on a slow spiral.”

  Trystin nodded.

  “Do you see, Lieutenant? Each decision you made seemed perfectly logical. Except for one. That toggling of your defense shields was unnecessary, probably the only really overtly stupid thing you did, not that it would have changed the outcome much. Anyway, there are times when you’d just better cut your losses and run for home.”

  Folsom stared at Trystin. “Now … I understand young pilots. None of you want to admit that there’s something you can’t handle. There’s a saying that dates back to the first years of atmospheric flight. It’s still true. ‘There are old pilots, and there are bold pilots, but there are no old bold pilots.’

  “The other thing that you had to be considering in not choosing a high ecliptic exit was the compounded translation error. Is saving a month—or a year—in elapsed time worth the rest of your life? Some pilots have thought so. I hope you’re not one of them. After all, we do have several million credits already invested in you, one way or another.”

  Trystin nodded once more, trying not to reveal that the commander had caught him out again.

  Folsom picked up the papers from the table and stood. “Not too bad, all in all. Especially if you learn something from i
t.”

  Trystin stood. “Yes, ser.”

  The slender commander walked out, his steps slow and deliberate.

  After packing up his notes, Trystin flicked off the debriefing room lights and walked down the corridor toward the ramps. He’d have to hurry if he wanted to get a shower before his translation-engineering class, and the way he smelled, he needed a shower.

  The simulators were on nearly the bottom levels—that was because it was easier to cancel the grav fields generated by the equipment nearer the center of the small moon—or big asteroid—that was Chevel Beta.

  He had almost reached J level when he heard someone come out of a corridor below and start to follow him up the ramps.

  “Trystin?”

  He stopped and turned.

  Jonnie Schicchi trudged up the ramp behind him. “I saw you had Commander Folsom as your setup instructor. Constanzia says he’s a mean old bastard.”

  “He’s tough,” Trystin conceded.

  “Everything here is tough.” Schicchi looked down at the ramp. “You figure out the power-translation problems?”

  “Most of them, except the second one. As far as I could figure out, you can’t make a translation.” Trystin wiped his still-damp forehead. “But the worksheet asks for power requirements, maximum distance, and a coordinate envelope. I don’t know.”

  “So what did you do?”

  Trystin shrugged. “Put down the calculations indicating it couldn’t be done. I probably overlooked something, and Commander Eschbech will make me feel like an idiot.” Trystin looked up the ramp. “I’ve got to get moving. I need a shower before class.”

  “So do I, but I’m too tired to rush.”

  “See you later.” Trystin hurried up the ramps toward J level and his cubicle. Luckily, all the classes were on D level—as were the few administrative offices.

  “Right. Maybe Yamidori can help me with the engineering stuff.”

  Trystin didn’t rise to the bait, although he felt vaguely sorry for Schicchi. Supposedly, Jonnie had great instincts, at least in the simulator, but equally great difficulties with more abstract exercises.

  Trystin began to unfasten the shipsuit even before he was fully inside his cubicle.

  22

  “Before we approach the tactical aspects of translation, such as the virtual impossibility of synchroneity, that is, the synchronization of translations and emergence from translation by separate spacecraft, we need to discuss translation error. We talk about ‘translation error,’ but is it really an error? Of course not.” Commander Kurbiachi nodded at his own answer to his question. “We call it an error because we cannot determine in advance exactly how much apparent elapsed time passes in our space-time universe while a ship is in the process of translating between the congruencies created by a translation engine. Two identical ships with precisely, or as precise as we can make it, the same cargo and personnel can routinely emerge at the same point in space with differences in translation time as great as two months. The problem is that each ship, each point of translation, each time of translation is unique. Thus, even attempting to determine the impact of literally hundreds of subtly different variables upon a translation through what can be roughly called chaos, though it is not, becomes a mathematical problem beyond the capabilities of any equipment yet developed. Oh, our estimations have gotten relatively precise, but they are only estimations, and they are really only even halfway precise for a single ship … most references do not account for the impact of the so-called translation error upon multiple ship movements …”

  Sitting in the second row of the dozen-plus would-be pilots, comprised of officers at three slightly different practical training levels, Trystin stifled a yawn.

  “As established by the noted academician Ryota more than a century ago, because so-called translation error is a function of the unique properties linked to each translation, the result approximates a random distribution within a range limited by the gross variables of the situation.” The commander paused as a major in the third row raised her hand. “Yes, Major?”

  “I might be getting ahead, but theoretically,” asked Ulteena Freyer, “theoretically, if you had a large enough group of ships, and you attempted simultaneous translations, effectively wouldn’t you end up with groups of ships emerging at roughly coincident times?”

  “That is certainly theoretically possible, and it was one of Ryota’s theorems that such would be the case—the Distribution Theorem. However …”—Kurbiachi paused before continuing—“the number of variables involved would have required, according to Ryota’s calculations, based on the translation engines of that time, a fleet in the neighborhood of ten thousand ships. Today, my modest adaptations of the Distribution Theorem suggest that to achieve a barely acceptable distribution, that is, twenty groups of ten ships emerging from translation chaos with the ships in each group translating into real space within a day of each other, would still require almost a thousand ships.” Kurbiachi bowed slightly, his short jet-black hair unmoving.

  “Thank you, Commander.”

  “Your question illustrates the problem of achieving synchroneity, which is obviously the basis of tactics on any level above that of the individual ship. Theoretically and practically, synchronizing multiple ship movements through interstellar distances remains impossible, even using advanced chaos-perturbation modifications.”

  “What about the Harmony raid?” asked someone behind Trystin.

  “Ah, yes. That is a good question.” Kurbiachi smiled.

  With the smile, Trystin saw why he didn’t want Kurbiachi as a check pilot.

  “A good question, indeed. You are familiar with the Harmony raid?” Kurbiachi paused. “For those of you who are unfamiliar with the details, I will elaborate slightly. In Septem of 720, the Coalition effectively attacked the Harmony system with a fleet of nearly one hundred translation ships and destroyed all the feasible military targets within the system, then the main staging base for the Prophet’s missionaries. That success has never been repeated, nor is it likely to be. The Coalition began to translate ships into the sub-Oort region of the Harmony system nearly four months before the attack. To obtain one hundred and eight ships—the precise number that began the attack—required attempted translations of over two hundred ships. Eighty ships missed the attack window through wide variations in translation and returned unharmed, although the last did not return to Chevel Beta until nearly three years after the attack. Twelve ships attempted the translation and did not return. The assumption is that those twelve missed the sub-Oort free dust zone and translated into nontranslatable zones … .”

  “Boom …” came a muted whisper from the front row.

  “Exactly,” agreed Kurbiachi. “Then, of the one hundred eight ships that commenced the attack, twenty-seven survived and returned.” He bowed to the lieutenant who had asked the question. “After the Harmony attack, the Revenant military authorities widened their patrols to include the outer fringes of their systems. That tactic, while somewhat costly, precluded any Coalition attempt to evade the synchroneity limits through a phased buildup of forces within a system … .”

  Trystin pursed his lips and took a deep breath through his nose, trying to avoid a yawn. History and more history! The conclusion was simple enough: No one had yet figured out how to have two ships translate at the same time and emerge close to each other, either in time or space, although time seemed to be the bigger problem.

  “ … As a result of the synchroneity limitations, pitched interstellar battles between fleets are highly unlikely, and the system defense provides, with the development of EDI technology, certain advantages to the defender … .”

  Trystin stifled another yawn. While Kurbiachi was a brilliant tactician in his own way, his lectures were boring. Out of the old parashinto mold, he was polite and refused to adopt more interesting classroom techniques because they might cause his students to lose face publicly.

  Rumor said he was far more taxing in private.
Trystin hoped never to find out.

  “ … likewise the Tompkins’ Limit restricts the capacity of translation engines to masses of less than roughly two thousand metric tonnes … and translations involving masses exceeding one thousand tonnes have certain … difficulties …”

  In the engineering class, Trystin reflected, Subcommander Eschbech had begun on the mathematics of the Tompkins’ Limit, and Eschbech was far more interesting.

  “ … in combating both the synchroneity restrictions and the Tompkins’ Limit, the Revenants of the Prophet have returned to what might appear to be an anachronistic approach—the use of fusactor mass conversion-boosted asteroid ships, with modified translation-effect acceleration and deceleration, based on …”

  Trystin doodled out what looked like a chunk of iron asteroid, then added his conceptualization of the so-called deceleration module. Sooner or later, Kurbiachi had to get into tactics, rather than why there weren’t tactics. At least, Trystin hoped so.

  23

  “That’s all, ser. Your implant will feel strange for a while with the wider band receptivity, but everything checks, and your neural system’s in better shape than when you checked in.” The tech folded the equipment away from Trystin’s face. “We’ll give you another check before you leave on your assignment, but everything should be all right. If anything hurts or burns, get back here immediately. That shouldn’t happen, but it does sometimes.” She coughed. “You ought to feel better, at least until you give it a workout.”

  “First rest it’s had in a while.” Trystin stood and stretched. In fact, it had been eight standard months since he had used his implant.

  “Glad it’s you and not me.”

  “Why?” asked Trystin.

  “You ever see someone with a burned neural system? Those who don’t die? They shake and shiver all over, and every time they move, their faces twist, like each movement sends needles through their brains. No thanks, Lieutenant. You can have it.” The tech shook her head.

  The first sensation he was aware of was that the silence in his skull was gone. The trickling signals even from the medical equipment registered, like a background hum, and he could sense the main Chevel Beta net, though he didn’t have the protocol to tap into the signals.