Asimov's SF, April/May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Revutev Mavarka had experimented with religion during two of his awakes—most of a full lifespan by the standards of most pre-Turbulence societies. He had spent eleven years in complete isolation from all social contact, to see if isolation would grant him the insights the Halfen Reclusives claimed to have achieved.

  He could see similar patterns in the religions both species had invented. Religious leaders on both worlds seemed to agree that insight and virtue could only be achieved through some form of deprivation.

  As for those who sought excitement and the tang of novelty—they were obviously a threat to every worthy who tried to stay on the True Road.

  * * * *

  The religious studies were only a diversion—a modest attempt to achieve some insight into the minds that had created the two visitors. The emotion that colored every second of Revutev Mavarka's life was his sense of impending doom.

  He had already composed the Warning he would transmit to Betzino-Resdell. He could blip it at any time, with a three-word, two-number instruction to his communications system.

  The moment he sent it—the instant he committed that irrevocable act—he would become the biggest traitor in the history of his species.

  How many centuries would he spend in dormancy? Would they ever let him wake? Would he still be lying there when his world died in the explosion that transformed every mundane yellow star into a bloated red monster?

  Every meal he ate—every woman he caressed—every view he contemplated—could be his last.

  "You've acquired an aura, Reva,” his closest female confidante said.

  "Is it attractive? I'd hate to think I was surrounded by something repulsive."

  "It has its appeal. Has one of your quests actually managed to affect something deeper than a yen for a temporary stimulus?"

  "I think I've begun to understand those people who claim it doesn't matter whether you live fifty years or a million. You're still just a flicker in the life of the universe."

  * * * *

  "He's savoring the possibility,” Varosa Uman told her husband.

  "Like one of those people who contemplate suicide? And finish their awake still thinking about it?"

  "I have to assume he could do it."

  "It seems to me it would be the equivalent of suicide. Given the outrage most people would feel."

  "We would have to give him the worst punishment the public mood demands—whatever it takes to restore calm."

  "You're protecting him from his own impulses, love. You shouldn't forget that. You aren't just protecting us. You're protecting him."

  * * * *

  It was all a matter of arithmetic. Trans Cultural was obviously building up a force that could overwhelm Betzino-Resdell's defenses. At some point, it would command a horde that could cross the ditch and gnaw its way through the toxic hedge by sheer weight of numbers. Betzino-Resdell could delay that day by raiding Trans Cultural's breeding camps and building up the defensive force gathered behind the hedge. But sooner or later Trans Cultural's superior resources would overcome Betzino-Resdell's best efforts.

  The military hobbyist in the Betzino-Resdell community had worked the numbers. “They will achieve victory level in 8.7 terrestrial years,” Ivan advised his colleagues. “Plus or minus .3 terrestrial years. We can extend that by 2.7 terrestrial years if we increase our defensive allocation to 60 percent of our resources."

  Betzino voted to continue the current level and the other members of the community concurred. Their sponsors in the Solar System would continue to receive reports on the researches and explorations that interested them.

  Revutev Mavarka inspected their plan and ran it through two of the military planning routines he found in the libraries. 8.7 terrestrial years equaled six of his own world's orbits. He could postpone his doom a little longer.

  "We are going to plant a few concealed devices at promising locations,” Betzino-Resdell told him. “They will attempt to establish new bases after this one is destroyed. Our calculations indicate Trans Cultural can destroy any base it locates before the base can achieve a secure position, but the calculation includes variables with wide ranges. It could be altered by unpredictable possibilities. We will reestablish contact with you if the variables and unpredictable possibilities work in our favor and we establish a new defensible base."

  "I'll be looking forward to hearing from you,” Revutev Mavarka said.

  They were only machines. They couldn't fool themselves into thinking an impossible plan was certain to succeed.

  * * * *

  The weather fell into predictable patterns all over the planet. The Serenes had arranged it that way. Citizens who liked warm weather could live in cities where the weather stayed within a range they found comfortable and pleasant. Citizens who enjoyed the passage of the seasons could settle where the seasons rotated across the land in a rhythm that was so regular it never varied by more than three days.

  But no system could achieve perfect, planet-wide predictability. There were places where three or four weather patterns adjoined and minor fluctuations could create sudden shifts. Revutev Mavarka lived, by choice, in a city located in an area noted for its tendency to lurch between extremes.

  Sudden big snowfalls were one of his favorite lurches. One day you might be sitting in an outdoor cafe, dressed in light clothes, surrounded by people whose feathers glowed in the sunlight. The next you could be trudging through knee high snow, plodding toward a place where those same feathers would respond to the mellower light of an oversize fireplace.

  He had just settled into a table only a few steps from such a fireplace when his communication system jerked his attention away from the snowing song he and six of his friends had started singing.

  "You have a priority message. Your observers are tracking a Category One movement."

  His hands clutched the edge of the table. He lowered his head and shifted his system to subvocalization mode. The woman on the other side of the table caught his eye and he tried to look like he was receiving a message that might lead to a cozier kind of pleasure.

  Category One was a mass movement toward the Betzino-Resdell base—a swarm attack.

  How many observers are seeing it?

  "Seven."

  How many criteria does the observation satisfy?

  "All."

  His clothes started warming up as soon as he stepped outside. He crunched across the snow bathed in the familiar, comforting sense that he was wrapped in a warm cocoon surrounded by a bleak landscape. It had only been three and a half years since Trans Cultural had started building up its forces. How could they attack now? With a third of the forces they needed?

  Has Betzino-Resdell been warned? Are they preparing a defense?

  "Yes."

  * * * *

  He activated his stage and gave it instructions while he was walking back to his apartment. By the time he settled into his viewing chair, the stage was showing him an aerial view, with most of the vegetation deleted. The trees still supported their foliage in the area where the base was located.

  The display had colored Trans Cultural's forces white for easy identification. Betzino-Resdell's defenders had been anointed with a shimmering copper. The white markers were flowing toward the base in three clearly defined streams. They were all converging, dumbly and obviously, on one side of the ditch. A bar at the top of the display estimated the streams contained four to six thousand animals. Trans Cultural was attacking with a force that exactly matched his estimates of their strength—a force that couldn't possibly make its way through the defenses Betzino-Resdell had developed.

  There could only be one explanation. Somebody had to be helping it.

  "Position. Betzino-Resdell orbiter. Insert."

  A diagram popped onto the display. Trans Cultural had launched its attack just after the orbiter had passed over the base.

  The antenna built into the rock face couldn't be maneuvered. The base could only communicate with the orbiter when the orbiter
was almost directly overhead. Trans Cultural—and its unannounced allies—had timed the attack so he couldn't send his warning message until the orbiter completed another passage around the planet.

  He could transmit it now, of course. Betzino-Resdell could store the Warning and relay it when the orbiter made its next pass. But the whole situation would change the moment he gave the order. The police would seal off his apartment before he could take three steps toward the door.

  Up until now he had been engaging in the kind of borderline activity most Adventurers played with. The record would show he had limited his contacts with Betzino-Resdell to harmless exchanges. He could even argue he had accumulated useful information about the visitors and their divisions.

  * * * *

  "Have you considered isolating him?” Mansita Jano said. “It might be a sensible precaution, given the tension he's under."

  Varosa Uman had been eating a long afternoon meal with Siti. She had been thinking, idly, of the small, easy pleasures that might follow. And found herself sitting in front of a stage crowded with a view of the battle and headshots of Mansita Jano and her most reliable aides.

  She could cut Revutev Mavarka's electronic links any time she wanted to. But it would be an overt act. Some people would even feel it was more drastic than physical restraint.

  "He's an emotional, unstable personality confronted with a powerful challenge,” Mansita Jano said. “He could send a warning message at any time. If they manage to relay it to the backup system they've set up, before you can stop them . . ."

  "He knows what we'll do to him if he sends a warning,” Varosa Uman said. “He has every reason to think Trans Cultural has made a blunder and the attack is going to fail."

  "He's an emotional, unpredictable personality, Overseer. I apologize for sounding like a recording, but there are some realities that can't be overemphasized."

  Siti had positioned himself on her right, out of range of the camera. She glanced at him and he put down his bowl and crossed his wrists in front of his face, as if he was shielding himself from a blow.

  Mansita Jano had placed his advice on the record. If his arrangement with Trans Cultural failed—whatever the arrangement was—he would be shielded.

  * * * *

  "This attack cannot succeed,” Betzino-Resdell said. “We have repeated our analyses. This attack can only succeed if it contains some element we are not aware of."

  "I've come to the same conclusion,” Revutev Mavarka said.

  "We are proceeding with our defensive plan. We have made no modifications. We would like more information, if you have any."

  A tactical diagram floated over the image of the advancing hordes. Most of Betzino-Resdell's defensive forces would mass behind the toxic hedge, in the area the attackers seemed to be threatening. A small mobile reserve would position itself in the center of the base.

  "I suggest you concentrate your mobile reserve around the antenna."

  "Why do you advise that?"

  "I believe the antenna is their primary objective. They will try to destroy your connection with your orbiter if they break through the hedge."

  "Why will they make the antenna their primary objective? Our plans assume their primary objectives will be our energy transmission network and our primary processing units."

  "Can you defend yourself if you lose contact with your orbiter?"

  "Yes."

  Betzino-Resdell had paused before it had answered. It had been a brief pause—an almost undetectable flicker, by the standards of organic personalities—but his brain had learned to recognize the minute signals a machine threw out.

  He had been assuming Betzino-Resdell's operations were still controlled by the orbiter. He had assumed the unit on the ground transmitted information and received instructions when the orbiter passed over. That might have been true in the beginning. By now, Betzino-Resdell could have transmitted complete copies of itself to the ground. The ground copies could be the primaries. The copies on the orbiter could be the backups.

  "Are you assuming you can keep operating on the ground if you stop this attack and they destroy the antenna? And build a new antenna in the future?"

  ". . . Yes."

  "What if that doesn't work out? Isn't there some possibility your rival could gain strength and destroy your new antenna before you can finish it?"

  "Why are you emphasizing the antenna? Do you have some information we don't have?"

  I have an important message I want to transmit to your home planet. The future of your entire species could depend on it.

  "I was thinking about the individuals who sent you. Your explorations won't be of much value to them if you can't communicate with your orbiter."

  "Our first priority is the survival of our surface capability. Our simulations indicate we can survive indefinitely and could eventually reestablish contact with our orbiter. Do you have information that indicates we should reassess our priorities?"

  Revutev Mavarka tipped back his head. His hands pressed against the thick, deliberately ragged feathers that adorned the sides of his face. He was communicating with the visitor through a voice-only link, as always. He didn't have to hide his emotions behind the bland mask the Serenes offered the world.

  "I've given you the best advice I can give you at present. I recommend that you place a higher priority on the antenna."

  * * * *

  "He's still struggling with his conflicts,” Varosa Uman said. “He could have given them a stronger argument."

  She had turned to Siti again. She could still hear the exhortations she was receiving from her aides, but she had switched off her own vocal feed.

  "Mansita Jano would probably say he's watching two personalities struggle with their internal conflicts,” Siti said.

  Varosa Uman's display had adapted the same color scheme Revutev Mavarka was watching. The white markers had reached the long slope in front of the ditch. The three columns were converging into a single mass. Winged creatures were fighting over the space above their backs.

  "It looks like they're starting their final assault,” Siti said. “Do you have any idea what kind of fearsome warriors your white markers represent?"

  "They seem to be a horde of small four-legged animals native to the visitors’ planet. They breed very fast. And they have sharp teeth and claws."

  "They're going to bite their way through the hedge? With one of them dying every time they take a bite?"

  "That seems to be the plan."

  Revutev Mavarka stepped up to the display and waved his hand over the area covered by the white markers.

  "Calculation. Estimate number of organisms designated by white marking."

  A number floated over the display. The horde racing up the slope contained, at most, six thousand, four hundred animals.

  The three columns had merged into a single dense mass. He could see the entire assault force. The estimate had to be correct.

  He activated his connection to Betzino-Resdell. “I have an estimate of six thousand, four hundred for the assault force. Does that match your estimate?"

  "Yes."

  "Your calculations still indicate the attack will fail?"

  "Four thousand will die biting their way through the hedge. The rest will be overwhelmed by our defensive force."

  Machines were only machines. Imagination required conscious, self-aware minds. Adventurous self-aware minds. But they were talking about a straightforward calculation. Trans Cultural had to know its attack couldn't succeed.

  "Can you think of any reason why Trans Cultural has launched this attack at this time?” Revutev Mavarka said. “Is there some factor you haven't told me about?"

  "We have examined all the relevant factors stored in our libraries. We have only detected one anomaly. They are advancing on a wider front than our simulations recommend. Do you know of any reason why they would do that?"

  "How much wider is it?"

  "Over one third."

  "Do they have a milit
ary routine comparable to yours?"

  "We have made no assumptions about the nature of their military routine."

  Revutev Mavarka stared at the display. Would the attackers be easier to defeat if they were spread out? Would they be more vulnerable if they were compacted into a tight mass? There must be some optimum combination of width and density. Could he be certain Betzino-Resdell's military routine had made the right calculation?

  How much secret help had Trans Cultural received?

  "One member of our community still wants to know why you think we should place a higher priority on the antenna,” Betzino-Resdell said. “She insists that we ask you again."

  * * * *

  The first white markers had leaped into the ditch. Paws were churning under the water. Betzino-Resdell's defenders were spreading out behind the hedge, to cover the extra width of the assault.

  Transmit this message to your home planet at once. The Message you will receive from our civilization is a dangerous trap. It contains the combined knowledge of twenty-three civilizations, translated into the languages you have given us. It will give you untold wealth, life without death, an eternity of comfort and ease. But that is only the promise. It will throw your entire civilization into turmoil when you try to absorb its gifts. You may never recover. The elimination of death is particularly dangerous. The Message is not a friendly act. We are sending it to you for the same reason it was sent to us. To protect ourselves. To defend ourselves against the disruption you will cause if we remain in contact.

  It was a deliberately short preliminary alarm. They would have the whole text in their storage banks half an eyeblink after he subvocalized the code that would activate transmission. A longer follow-up, with visual details of the Turbulence, would take two more blinks.

  The initiation code consisted of two short numbers and three unrelated words from three different extinct languages—a combination he couldn't possibly confuse with anything else he might utter.