Imperial Stars 3-The Crash of Empire

by Jerry Pournelle

  The ship trembled slightly—or perhaps it was only his own reaction—and the Captain turned to the large screen of the foredeck. There was the F8 star, burning hot and yellow.

  "A minute, Cap'n," the Executive Officer said. "Looks like we blew a few on that last one."

  "What?"

  "The ferrite banks. A lot of them failed."

  "The Paralixlinnes, you mean," the Captain said precisely.

  "Right. Some are showing flashover effects, too."

  The Captain frowned. "I am afraid this might put us over the margin."

  "What?"

  The Captain grimaced at this insolence. "We may not have enough ferrite memory to make the transition back into Jump. I want a detailed report, if you please."

  "Oh." The Executive Officer nodded and turned slightly away, fumbling at his fly. "You think it's that bad?" As he spoke he began urinating into the porous Organiform flooring. "I mean, it could trap us here?"

  The Captain stepped away and clasped his hands behind his back. "Well, uh, yes, it might." He knew this public passing of water was acceptable practice on some worlds, the product of crowding and scarcity. He knew it was not supposed to be a sign of contempt. But something in the Executive Officer's manner made him think otherwise. Certainly actions like this were forbidden on his own home world . . .

  "What happens if we try it without getting more ferrites?" the Executive Officer said, looking back over his shoulder. His urine spattered on the Organiform and quickly disappeared. Many spots in the ship had such floors and walls; in the long run it was the only way to ensure cleanliness. Dust, liquid, odd bits of paper—all were absorbed and gradually bled into the fuel reserve, to be chewed apart in incandescent fusion torches and converted into thrust.

  "The ship's mass will not trigger coherently."

  "So?"

  A political appointee, the Captain guessed. "We would emerge into tachyon space with each particle traveling at a different velocity."

  "Ah, I remember." The man finished and zipped his fly. "Tear ourselves apart. Grind us to atoms."

  "Uh, correct."

  The Executive Officer had made no attempt to hide himself from view while urinating. The Captain wondered whether the man had any convention of privacy at all. Did he defecate in public? It seemed impossible, but—

  "Okay, I'll get that report. Might take a while." The man did not bother to salute.

  "See that it doesn't," the Captain said sharply and returned his attention to the phosphor screen. He expanded scale a hundredfold and found the banded gas giant planet. It was enormous, he knew, and radiated strongly in the infrared. At the very center of it, according to theory, hydrogen atoms collided and stuck, fusing together and kindling weak fire. But this vast giant of a world was not their aim. There, not far from the methane-orange limb of the planet, gleamed a blue-white moon: Seascape. He smiled.

  Shibura sat, feeling the exquisite rough texture of the floor mat on his ankles and yet at the same time not feeling it at all. There was no sound, and all was sound. He was listening and shimmering in the sweet air of incense, relishing the sticky pull of damp robe on his flesh.

  "Thus we proceed to fullness," finished the Firstpriest. "Quit of our tasks. Gathered once more into the lap of sunlight."

  Shibura studied the old man's weathered brown face, receptive. The morning had begun with sainted rituals among the crowds of Priestfellows and Priestsisters. As the quiet rhythm of the day wore on, each was assigned a task of convergence, expressed gratitude, rose and departed. The damp of the suntide gradually seeped into the high vaulted room. The cold stone walls became clammy at first and then warmed, adding their own moist breath to the layered smoke of incense. From the rear of the great hall the singing reeds brought a clear, cutting edge of sound that aided the mind to become fixed.

  "So we come to the end. All roles are suited but one." The Firstpriest paused and looked into Shibura's eyes. "There is left the place of him who stands on the right hand."

  Shibura felt a momentary jolt of surprise. Then he extended his hearing and sensing behind and around him. True; he had not noticed the fact, but the other Priestfellows were gone. Only he remained. He felt a swell of elation. That implied—

  "It passes to you as it once came to me," the Firstpriest said. From beneath the folds of his robes he produced a copper talisman and handed it to Shibura. It was deceptively heavy. Shibura tucked it into his side pouch and straightened the cloth. He knew no reply was necessary.

  The ripples of excitement and surprise smoothed and vanished. The Firstpriest began the ritual passes Shibura had heard described but never seen. The old man's hands slipped through the torchlight, now visible, now unseen. Shibura entered into a state of no definition, no thought, no method. To put aside the thousand things and, in stillness, retain yourself. So the motions led and defined him. And inside, the soft tinkling chuckle of joy.

  After a time they rose and moved from the great hall. They did not use the usual passage of exit. Instead, they walked slowly through the Organic Portal, as convention required. Shibura had been here only once before, when he was learning the intricate byways of the temple. Their sandals made echoing clicks in the great hall, but when they stepped into the Portal there came a sudden quiet, for they now walked on a firm softness of green. The Portal was a long, perfectly round passage that muffled all sound. It had no noticeable weave or texture, save the uncountable small pores. There were no torches, but the cushioned walls seemed to provide light. It was a hushed and holy place. It was the enduring gift of the Starcrossers.

  The two men stopped midway. Near the floor on a small yellow patch was the place of dedication.

  Shibura had learned some fragments of the Starcrossers' written language, but he could not decipher all that the patch contained. No one could. He and the Firstpriest squatted together for a long moment and regarded the yellowed print.

  ORGANIFORM. 47296A index 327. Absorbent multilayer.

  They passed out of the Portal and through the temple corridor. The Firstpriest began to unfold his memories of the last Starcrosser visit. There were preparations, always extensive and complex. The citizens of the city had to be prepared, and the Priestfellows themselves would have to see to their own personal states of mind as the event approached.

  "I received word from the Farseer only this morning. They had been studying the motion of the central band in Brutus, but of course they set aside the usual five time spaces for observation of the Great Bear. That is the ordained place from which the Starcrossers speak."

  "But it is not time," Shibura said. "We expected the audience in my third decade."

  "I know. I never expected to see another Starcrossing. The last came when I was a boy—almost too young to hold the talisman you now carry. The Firstpriest of that time assured me I would pass through the lens—die—before the Captain came again."

  "Why, then?"

  "We must remember our place. The Captain is forever Crossing and his path is not so simple that we can understand."

  "The men of the Farseer could not be mistaken? They did see the lights?"

  Shibura knew a few of those patient watchers of the sky. He did not understand the great tube they seemed to worship and saw no true interest in what they did. The stars were but points of light and told nothing. Only the sun and Brutus held any interest for a man of religion, for they alone revealed their structure. The stars were great candles and might possibly say much, but they were too far away. Only through the Crossing did contact with the mightier places come, and then solely in the form of the Captain and his fellows. Nonetheless, only with the Farseer could the dancing of lights be seen and preparations made for the coming of the Captain.

  "I have every trust in them. The Farseer was built in the far past, at the command of the Captain. The role of the Farseer is ordained and it is not for a Firstpriest or Priestfellow to question the tenders of the Farseer." The old man's head bobbed in the gesture of instruction. He smiled to show
that his words carried no sharp edge and were meant only for reminding. Between the two men there had come a feeling of closeness. The Firstpriest's joy that he would again see a Crossing conveyed itself to Shibura and lightened his step.

  After a pause Shibura said, "Was there any message in the dancing light?"

  "The tenders of the Farseer said only that it was the ritual message. They come. They are now within the grip of our sun and we must be ready."

  Shibura padded ahead and put his weight against the great door of the temple. They passed out into sunlight. Going down the steps, the bare baked stone face of the temple at their backs, the murmur of life swelled up around them. The great square before them was host to hundreds of people. Knots of friends drifted past amid the flicking echoes of hundreds of sandals.

  The shops which lined the tiled walkways were small and displayed their wares with abandon, letting robes spill from their holders; beads and books and spices competed for the same spot in a display case. The two men passed through the crowd. Shibura relished the grainy feel of this uncomplicated existence: talking, laughing, some barterers greeting the price of items with a feigned sharp bark of disbelief.

  The sun lay on the horizon, burning a hole in heaven. A few men and women clad in religious raiments spoke of their missions in life, advising of the latest revelation. Shibura bore them no malice, for they were simple people who followed their own blind vision.

  Five of the women formed a circle and chanted:

  I am

  Not great or small

  But only

  Part of All.

  Shibura smiled to himself. It was comforting to know that the purpose of their world was writ large even in the minds of the most common. These people were, of course, no less than he. They formed the base of the great pyramid at whose peak were not priests or merchants or the men of government, but a holy article; the Paralixlinnes. Shibura had learned much from those infinitely detailed and faceted cubes. As objects of meditation they were supreme; how fitting that they played the crowning role even in the vast universe of the Starcrosser.

  The Firstpriest made a gesture and they turned down a bumpy avenue of black cobblestone. Rice bins towered over them, their great funnels pointing downward to the rude shop where the grains were sold. The tubs carried indecipherable scrawls in red denoting the strains.

  Here the air had its own texture, the sweat of work and reek of spices. Where the two men walked the crowds separated and let them through. Word had passed in the early morning, once the Priestfellows had met in the temple. Now surely everyone in the city knew the time of cusp was approaching. Thus and so: in the damp morning the two men journeyed through the city to the foundry that was the focus of the city itself: the birthplace of the Paralixlinnes.

  Shibura glanced upward at friend Brutus, thanking the brown and pink giant for this day. His senses quickened.

  The Captain listened intently to the whine of the air circulator. So that was breaking down, too. Nothing in this ship seemed to work anymore.

  The last transit through Jumpspace had fractured an entire encasement of Paralixlinnes, even though they were rated to stand up for longer than a year. The ship—indeed, the whole Jump network—was well over into the red zone. With that many encasements gone the ship might well fail at the next Jump. Perhaps the Captain could make it through by enforcing absolute discipline on the next Jump, but he doubted it. Many of the backup men were not well trained; it seemed a corollary of life that political appointees never knew their jobs. But if he ran the calculation through a dozen times perhaps the errors would iron themselves out. A slight mistake in the measurement of the metric tensor, some small deviation in the settings, a flashover in the encasements—any of these, and the ship would blossom into a thousand fiery fragments.

  The Captain clenched his hands behind his back and paced the organiform deck. The hooded computer modules were lit, and the sullen murmur of the bridge would be reassuring to one who did not know the facts. The Captain turned and glanced down the bridge. His Executive Officer was talking earnestly to one of the lieutenants. The Captain could be sure that whatever the conversation, it would not concern ship's business. The Executive Officer was a Constructionist, and most of the lieutenants were sharp enough to have fallen directly into line as soon as the ship left its last major port. The Captain knew there were lists aboard of each staff member's political inclination, and he expected the list would soon be used.

  The Captain shrugged and turned away. Let the Executive Officer do what he would, this voyage was not finished and the ship was in far more peril than most of the officers realized. Politics could wait. If there was some failure at Seascape this ship might very well never leave realspace again. He turned his attention back to the large screen. They were following a smooth ellipse in toward the gas giant that loomed ahead. At the terminator the Captain could see flashes of gigantic lightning, even at this distance.

  This planet was at least nine Jupiter masses; its compressed core burned with a lukewarm fusion reaction. The physics of the thing would make an interesting study. He had never visited this system before, and while reading the description had wondered why an experimental station did not orbit the gas giant for scientific purposes. But then he realized Seascape had a telescope and would see the station. No one wished to perturb the priests of Seascape with an artificial construct in their skies. Such things had proved unsettling on other worlds. So the great gas planet went unstudied and Seascape, according to the computer log, displayed very little social drift. The society there had lasted over ten thousand years, and the Captain was quite aware that he should do nothing to upset it.

  He gave an order and the view shifted from the swirling bands to a point of light that orbited the great planet. The view expanded, focused. Seascape shimmered in blue-white. At first it appeared to have nothing but vast oceans, but as the eye accommodated to its light a few details emerged. Lumps of brown were strewn randomly, as though by a careless Creator. At the edge of the horizon lay the only continent. The Captain wondered idly if a drone Ramscoop was by chance making delivery now, but a quick scan of the orbital index indicated nothing around Seascape that would fit the parameters. He made a mental note to complain—for the nth time—about the lack of communication with the drone operation. Worlds like Seascape needed tools, cutting bits, sometimes rare metals and ceramics; if the drone were off schedule or failed in flight there was no way of knowing whether the client world was carrying on manufacture any longer. More than once the Captain had brought his ship out of Jump to find a servant world without necessary materials. Without the few pieces of crucial high technology that the Ramscoop should have brought, the manufacturing process broke down. Without a cause to move them the priests had to search for some other aim, and usually they failed. The world began to come apart at the seams. Not only was the Jumpship's mission worthless, but sometimes fatal damage was done to the client society itself.

  The Captain ordered a further magnification and the mottled brown continent became a swollen mark on the planet's limb. There was a belt of jungle, a crinkling gray swath of interior mountains, convoluted snake-rivers and—in the island chains to the north—frigid blue wastes.

  An orderly passed by; the Captain accepted a warm mug of amber liquid. He sipped at it gingerly, made a face. He paced the deck again till he came to an area of Organiform and then poured the cup into the floor. In the light gravity the drink made an odd slapping sound as it hit the Organiform and was absorbed.

  The Captain glanced back at the screen, where the single continent was spreading over the edge of the planet.

  Seascape was tidelocked so that the single continent always faced the banded giant. It was rare for an Earth-like planet to be a moon and even rarer when the geological mix in its crust was hospitable to man. The Captain wondered what it would be like to live on a world where the Sun was regularly eclipsed by a gas giant planet; what color was the halo? There were so many unique things about a
ny world: winds that deafened, oceans that laughed, tranquility beside violence. Even the routine miracles of the xenobiologists could not wash away the taste and sound and smell of what was new and alien.

  "Cap'n!"

  The Captain turned. It was totally unnecessary to shout on the bridge. The Executive Officer was taking his time; he stopped and spat expertly into the Organiform carpet. The Captain went rigid.

  "About time we sent them a burst, don't you think?" the other man said casually.

  "It's day at their observatory."

  "So what?"

  "They cannot read laser flashes in broad daylight, obviously."

  "Use radio. Hell—"

  "Their culture was not designed to need or use radio. They haven't developed it and if we don't introduce it, perhaps they never will."