Singularity Sky

by Charles Stross

  Of course, it was too much to expect the New Republic’s government to realize just how thoroughly they were outclassed; their cultural bias was such that they couldn’t perceive the dangers of something like the Festival. Even their best naval tacticians, the ones who understood forbidden technologies like self-replicating robot factories and starwisps, didn’t comprehend quite what the Festival might do with them.

  The Lord Vanek’s chances of surviving this engagement were thin. In fact, the entire expedition was predicated on the assumption that what they were fighting was sufficiently human in outlook to understand the concept of warfare and to use the sort of weapons overeducated apes might throw at one another. Rachel had a hopeless, unpleasant gut feeling that acting without such preconceptions, the Festival would be far deadlier to the New Republican expeditionary force than they could imagine. Unfortunately, it appeared she was going to be around when they learned the hard way that interstellar wars of aggression were much easier to lose than to win.

  “More backscatter. Target gamma! We have another target—range two-seven-zero M-klicks. Ah, another missile launching.”

  “That’s—” Ilya paused. “One base per cubic AU? One M bases, if they’re evenly distributed through the outer system.” He looked stunned.

  “You don’t think you’re fighting people, do you?” asked Mirsky. “This is a fully integrated robot defense network. And it’s big. Mind-bogglingly big.” He looked almost pleased with his own perspicacity. “The Admiralty didn’t listen when I explained it to them the first time, you know,” he added. “Eighteen years ago. One of the reasons I never made flag rank—”

  “I listened,” Bauer said quietly. “Proceed, Captain.”

  “Yes sir. Solution on target alpha?”

  Fire control: “Time to range on target alpha, two-zero-zero seconds, sir.”

  “Hmm.” Mirsky contemplated the display. “Commander. Your opinion.”

  Ilya swallowed. “I’d get in close and use the laser grid.”

  Mirsky shook his head, slightly. “You forget they may have X-ray lasers.” Louder: “Relativity, I want you ready to give me a microjump. If I give the word, I want us out of here within five seconds. Destination can be anywhere within about one-zero AUs, I’m not fussy. Can you do that?”

  “Aye aye, sir. Kernel is fully recharged; we can do that. Holding at T minus five seconds, now.”

  “Guns: I want six SEM-20s in the tube, armed and ready to launch in two minutes. Warheads dialed for directional spallation, two-zero degree spread. Three of them go to alpha target; hold the other three in reserve ready for launch on five seconds’ notice. Next, load and arm two torpedoes. I want them hot and ready when I need them.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Three rounds for alpha, three in reserve, and two torpedoes. Sir, six birds on the rail awaiting your command. The hot crew is fueling the torpedoes now; they should be ready in about four minutes.”

  “That’s nice to know,” Mirsky said, a trifle too acid; the lieutenant at the gunnery console flinched visibly. “As you were,” added the Captain.

  “Proximity in one-two-zero seconds, sir. Optimum launch profile in eight-zero.”

  “Plot the positions of the nearest identified mines. Show vectors on command station alpha, assuming they fire projectiles holding a constant acceleration of ten kilo-gees. Can they nail us in just four-zero seconds?”

  “Checking, sir.” Navigation. “Sir, they can’t nail us before we take out that command post, unless target alpha also has a speed demon or two up his sleeve. But they’ll get us one-five seconds later.”

  Mirsky nodded. “Very good. Guns: we launch at four-zero seconds to target. Helm, relativity: at contact plus five seconds, that’s five seconds after our fire on target, initiate that microjump.”

  “Launch T minus five-zero seconds, sir . . . mark.”

  Rachel watched the display, a fuzzball of red pinpricks and lengthening lines. Their own projected vector, in blue, stretched toward one of the red dots, then stopped abruptly. Any second now, she guessed, something nasty was bound to happen.

  Guns: “T minus three-zero. Birds warm. Launch grid coming up to power now. T minus two-zero.”

  Radar One interrupted: “I’m picking up some fuzz from astern.”

  “One-zero seconds. Launch rails energized,” added the gunnery post.

  “Fire on schedule,” said the captain.

  “Yes, sir. Navigation updated. Inertial platforms locked. Birds charged, warheads green.”

  “Light particles!” yelled Radar One. “Big explosion off six M-klicks, bearing six-two by five-nine! Looks like—damn, one of the cruisers bought it. I’m getting a particle stream from astern! Bearing one-seven-seven by five, sidescatter, no range yet—”

  “Five seconds to launch. Launch commencing, bird one running. Lidar lock. Drive energized. Bird one main engine ignition confirmed. Bird two loaded and green . . . running. Gone. Drive energized. Bird three running—”

  “Radar One, I have a lidar lock! ECM engaged from directly astern! Someone’s painting us. I have a range—five-two K—and—”

  Mirsky stepped forward. “Guns. I want all three spare missiles ejected straight astern now. Passive seekers, we will illuminate the targets for them.”

  “Aye aye, sir. Bird four, coming up . . . green. Bird four running. Five, green, running.”

  “Radar Two, we have a seeker on our tail. Range four-five K, closing at—Holy Mother of God, I don’t believe it!”

  “Bird six running astern. What do you want me to lock on?”

  “Radar Two, feed your plot to gunnery for birds four through six to target. Guns, shoot as soon as you see a clear fix—buy us some time.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” The Lieutenant, ashen-faced, hunched over his console and pushed buttons like a man possessed.

  “Range to firing point on alpha?” asked Mirsky.

  “Three-zero seconds, sir. You want to push the attack?” The nav officer looked apprehensive. Every watt of power they pumped at the attack salvo via the laser grid was one watt less to point at the incoming interceptor.

  “Yes, Lieutenant. I’ll trust you not to tell me my job.” The nav officer flushed and turned back to his console. “Guns, what’s our situation?”

  “I’ve pumped the forward birds right up, sir, maximum acceleration the warheads will take. MECO is in one-five seconds. Soon as that happens I’ll divert power to our trailers. Ah, bird one burnout in one-zero seconds.”

  Rachel nodded to herself. Remembering lectures on the basics of relativistic physics, strategy in the post-Einsteinian universe, and the implications of a light cone expanding across an evenly spaced grid of points. Any moment now the fossil light from the next shell of interceptors should reach us . . .

  “Holy Father!” shouted Radar Three. “I have beam spillover on all sides! We’re boxed!”

  “Control yourself,” snapped Mirsky. “How many sources?”

  “They—they—” radar punched buttons. Red lines appeared on the forward screen. “One-six of ’em, coming in from all points!”

  “I see.” Mirsky stroked his moustache. “Helm, are you ready with that microjump?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” Mirsky smiled, tight-lipped. “Guns, status.”

  “Bird one burnout. Boosting bird four. Bird two, bird three, burnout. I’m diverting all propulsion beam power to the second salvo. Salvo time to target, one-five seconds. Ah, we have one-seven inbound aggressors. Three outbound antimissiles.”

  “Hold further fire,” ordered the Captain. “How long until the first hostile is in range?”

  “Should happen at—oh. Two seconds postcontact, sir.”

  “Nav! Pull the jump forward five seconds. We’ll not stay around to count coup.”

  “Aye aye.”

  Radar One: “More scattering! Sir, I have . . . no, they’re not going to get us in time.”

  “How many, Lieutenant?”

  “We’re boxed. Incoming
beamriders in all directions, at long range. I count—”

  “Bird one detonating now! Bird two, detonating. Bird three gone. Sir, three detonations on target.”

  “Jump in five. Four—”

  “One-eight-point-nine K—no, one-nine K beamriders incoming!”

  “Incoming number one, range one-two K and closing—”

  “Confirmed kill on target alpha, oxygen, nitrogen in emission spectra.”

  “Two.”

  “Nine K.”

  “Three-two K incoming hostiles! No, three-two and—”

  “One. Jump commit.”

  The red emergency lights dimmed as the main overhead lights came up. There was silence on the bridge for a moment, then Commodore Bauer cleared his throat. “Congratulations, gentlemen,” he announced to Mirsky and his stunned ops crew. “Of all the ships in the squadron who have run that tape so far, you are the only one to have escaped at all, much less to have taken any of the enemy down. There will be a meeting in my office at 1600 to discuss the assumptions underlying this exercise and explain our new tactical doctrine for dealing with situations like this—massively ramified robot defense networks with fire control mediated by causal channel. Then we’ll run it again tomorrow and see how well you do with your eyes open . . .”

  diplomatic behavior

  meanwhile, two thousand years away, a small boy lay curled in darkness, whimpering in the grip of a dream of empire.

  Felix moaned and shivered and dragged the tattered blanket closer around his shoulders. The abandoned hayloft was unheated, and the gaps between the log walls admitted a furious draft, but at least it was a roof over his head. It was warmer than the stony ground. Wolves roamed the untamed wilderness, and for a lad to sleep beneath the stars at this time of year was hazardous even in normal times.

  Raven roosted on the thick oak beam above Felix’s head, his long black beak tucked under one wing. Occasionally, he would wake for a moment, shake his feathers out, shuffle from one foot to the other, and glance around. But as long as the door stayed barred, nothing could reach them that he couldn’t deal with; and so he would rejoin his master in sleep.

  Rain battered on the roof, occasionally leaking through the sods that covered the rough-cut timber, dripping to the floor in thin cold streams. The smell of half-decayed hay hung heavy in the air. Felix hadn’t dared light a fire after Mr. Rabbit pointed out how dangerous that could be. There were things out there that could see heat, silent things without mouths. Things that liked to eat little boys’ brains.

  Felix dreamed of Imperial orders, men in shiny uniforms, and women in silky gowns; of starships and cavalry parades and ceremonies and rituals. But his dreams were invaded by a tired and pervasive cynicism. The nobles and officers were corrupt hangers-on, their women grasping harpies searching for security. The ceremonies and rituals were meaningless and empty, a charade concealing a ghastly system of institutional injustices orchestrated to support the excesses of the rulers. Dreaming of New Prague, he felt himself to be a duke or prince, mired in a dung heap, chained down by responsibility and bureaucracy, unable to move despite the juggernaut of decaying corruption bearing down on him.

  When he twitched and cried out in his dream, Mr. Rabbit crawled closer and sprawled against him, damp fur rising and falling with his breath. Presently Felix eased deeper into sleep, and Mr. Rabbit rolled away, curling nose to tail to resume his nightly regurgitation and cud-chewing. If it was hard being a small boy in a time of rapid change, it was a doubly hard burden to be a meter-tall rabbit cursed with human sentience and cunicular instincts.

  In the early-morning light, Felix yawned, rubbed his eyes, and stretched stiffly, shivering with cold. “Rabbit?”

  “Caaaw!” Raven flapped down from overhead and hopped closer, head cocked to one side. “Rabbit gone to vill-lage.”

  Felix blinked, slowly. “I wish he’d waited.” He shivered, feeling a sense of loneliness very alien to a nine-year-old. He stood up and began to pack his possessions into a battered-looking haversack; a blanket, a small tin can, a half-empty box of matches, and one of the curious metal phones by which the Festival communicated with people. He paused over the phone for a moment, but eventually his sense of urgency won, and he shoved it into the pack. “Let’s play hunt the wabbit,” he said, and opened the door.

  It was a cold, bright morning, and the ground in the abandoned farmyard was ankle deep in squelching mud. The blackened ruin of the house squatted on the other side of the quagmire like the stump of a tree struck by lightning, the Holy Father’s fire. Behind it, a patch of dusty gray mud showed the depletion layer where the Festival’s nanosystems had sucked the soil dry of trace elements, building something huge; it was almost certainly connected with the disappearance of the farmer and his family.

  The village lay about two kilometers downhill from the farmhouse, around a bend in the narrow dirt track, past a copse of tall pine trees. Felix shrugged on his backpack and, after a brief pause to piss against the fire-blackened wall of the house, slowly headed down the road. He felt like whistling or singing, but kept his voice to himself; there was no telling what lived in the woods hereabouts, and he wasn’t inclined to ignore Mr. Rabbit’s warnings. He was a very serious little boy, very grown-up.

  Raven hopped after him, then flapped forward heavily and landed in the ditch some way down the path. His head ducked repeatedly. “Brrrreak-fast!” he cawed.

  “Oh, good!” Felix hurried to catch up, but when he saw what Raven had found to eat he turned away abruptly and pinched the bridge of his nose until the tears came, trying not to gag. Tears came hard; a long time ago, a very long distance away, Nurse had told him, “Big boys don’t cry.” But he knew better now. He’d seen much bigger boys crying, men even, as they were stood up against the bullet-pocked wall. (Some of them didn’t cry, some of them held themselves stiffly upright, but it made no difference in the end.) “Sometimes I hate you, Raven.”

  “Caaww?” Raven looked up at him. The thing in the ditch was still wearing a little girl’s dress. “Hungrrry.”

  “You might be—but I we’ve got to find Pyotr. Before the Mimes catch us.”

  Felix looked over his shoulder nervously. They’d been running scared, one jump ahead of the Mimes, for the past three days. The Mimes moved slowly, frequently fighting an invisible wind or trying to feel their way around intangible buildings, but they were remorseless. Mimes never slept, or blinked, or stopped moving.

  A hundred meters closer to the village, the phone woke up. It chirped like a curious kitten until Felix rummaged through his bag and pulled it out. “Leave me alone!” he exclaimed, exasperated.

  “Felix? It’s Mr. Rabbit.”

  “What?” He looked at the phone, startled. Chrome highlights glinted beneath grubby oil-slick fingerprints.

  “It’s me. Your flop-eared friend. I’m in the village. Listen, don’t come any closer.”

  “Why not?” He frowned and carried on walking.

  “They’re here. My luck ran out; don’t think I can get away. You—” The giant lagomorph’s voice broke into something utterly inhuman for a moment, a rodent squeal of rage and fright. “—Behind you, too! Go cross-country. Run, boy.”

  The phone buzzed, disconnected. Felix raised it angrily, meaning to dash it to the ground, then stopped. Ahead of him. Raven stared at him, beady-eyed and bloody-beaked. “Fly over the village,” Felix ordered the bird. “Tell me what you see.”

  “Caaaw!” Raven took a running leap into the air, lumbering heavily over the grass, then climbing up over the treetops. Felix looked at the phone again, mingled rage and grief in his eyes. It wasn’t fair. Nothing was fair! All he wanted was to be young and carefree, and to have fun. The companions came later; at first there had been Mrs. Hedgehog as well, but she’d been killed by a random Fringe performance, electrical discharges flashing to ground from an ionosphere raped by induced solar flares. The Fringe was like that; a mindless thing, infinitely dangerous and fickle, as trustworthy as a v
enomous snake but sometimes capable of producing works of great beauty. (The auroral displays had lasted for weeks.)

  Felix looked around, nervously. Over the hedgerow, back down the road, something seemed to move. He held the phone to his cheek. “Somebody talk to me?”

  “Will you entertain us?”

  “I don’t know how!” he burst out.

  “Tell story. Provide entertaining formal proof of correctness. Sing, dance, clap your hands.”

  “What will you do for me in return?”

  “What do you require?” The voice on the other end of the line sounded tinny, distant, compressed through the bandwidth ligature of a causal channel.

  “Bad men are after me. They throw custard pies, turn me into one of them. Can you stop them? Protect me from the Mimes?”

  “Tell story.” It wasn’t a statement or a question, it was an order.

  Felix took a deep breath. He glanced up and saw Raven circling overhead. He jumped the ditch, then ducked under the first branches and began to weave his way into the woods. He talked as he walked. “In the beginning there was a duke who lived in a palace, on the banks of the river, overlooking the only city on the world. He wasn’t a very wise duke, but he did what he thought was best for his people. Then one morning, it began to rain telephones, and the world changed. This is the duke’s story.”

  It was a long and rambling story, and it went on for some time. How the duke’s palace had been besieged by anarchist terrorists, who unleashed chaos and plastic cutlery on the town. All his soldiers deserted after looting the palace and the zoo; he escaped through a secret passage under the Curator’s waiting rooms in the sub-sub-basement. The elderly duke had escaped with three trusty retainers. Grief-stricken, he had barely been able to understand what had happened to his world. Why had everything changed? A telephone chirped at him, like a curious kitten, from the rubbish in a back alley. He bent to pick it up and the motion saved his life for two renegade soldiers shot at him with their rifles. They killed Citizen Von Beck, but not before the Citizen marked them with his slow gun—for the Citizens of the Curator’s Office were allowed to use forbidden weapons in the course of their duties. (Bullets from a slow gun flew on hummingbird wings, seeking their prey wherever they might flee. Bullets from a slow gun killed by stinging with their neurotoxin barbettes, like wasps with secret police insignia. They were a terror weapon, to demonstrate the horrors of unrestricted technology.)