Would they believe it? Would the people who received it on the human world dismiss it because it came from a vehicle that had been assembled by a group of individuals who were probably just as marginal and unrepresentative as the eccentric who sent the warning?
Some of them might dismiss it. Some of them might believe it. Did it matter? Something unpredictable would be added to the situation—something the Integrators and Varosa Uman would have to face knowing they were taking risks and struggling with unknowns no matter what they did.
The animals in the front line of the assault force had reached the hedge. White markers covered a section of the ditch from side to side. Teeth were biting into poisoned stems.
The hedge wavered. The section in front of the assault force shook as if it had been pummeled by a sudden wind. A wall of dust rose into the air.
* * * *
Varosa Uman would have given Mansita Jano an immediate burst of praise if she could have admitted she knew he was responsible. She had understood what he'd done as soon as she realized the hedge was sinking into the ground.
There would be no evidence they had helped Trans Cultural. Some individuals might suspect it, but the official story would be believable enough. Trans Cultural had somehow managed to undermine the ground under the hedge. An explosion had collapsed the mine at the best possible time and the defenders were being taken by surprise.
The assault force still had to cross the ruins of the hedge, but they had apparently prepared a tactic. The front rank died and the next rank clambered over them. Line by line, body by body, the animals extended a carpet over the gap. Most of them would make it across. Betzino-Resdell's defenders would be outnumbered.
* * * *
Trans Cultural couldn't have dug the mine. They didn't have the resources to dig the mine while they were preparing the attack. Revutev Mavarka could prove it. But would anyone believe him?
The first white markers had crossed the ditch. The front ranks were ripping at each other with teeth and claws. Flyers struggled in the dust above the collapse.
White markers began to penetrate the copper masses. The mobile reserve retreated toward the installations that housed Betzino-Resdell's primary processing units.
A white column emerged from the hedge on the right end of the line—the end closest to the antenna. It turned toward the antenna and started gathering speed.
"Defend the antenna. You must defend the antenna."
"What are you hiding from us? You must give us more information. What is happening? Trans Cultural couldn't have dug that mine. They didn't have the resources."
* * * *
Revutev Mavarka stared at the white markers scurrying toward the antenna. Could Betzino-Resdell's mobile reserve get there in time if they responded to his pleas? Would it make any difference?
The antenna was doomed. The best defense they could put up would buy him, at best, a finite, slightly longer interval of indecision.
Two numbers.
Three words.
Blip.
"You must destroy the antenna,” Mansita Jano said. “He's given you all the excuse you need."
Varosa Uman had already given the order. She had placed a missile on standby when Trans Cultural had launched its attack. Revutev Mavarka had committed the unforgivable act. She could take any action she deemed necessary.
The missile rose out of an installation she had planted on an island in the lake. Police advanced on Revutev Mavarka's apartment. The image on his display stage disappeared. Jammers and switches cut every link that connected him to the outside world.
Three of the Betzino-Resdell programs voted to transmit Donald's message at once. Ivan argued for transmission on impeccable military grounds. Donald had told them they should defend the antenna. He had obviously given them the message because he believed the antenna was about to be destroyed. They must assume, therefore, that the antenna was about to be destroyed. They could evaluate the message later.
Betzino raised objections. Could they trust Donald? Did they have enough information?
They argued for 11.7 seconds. At 11.8 seconds they transmitted the message to their backup transmission route. At 11.9 seconds, Varosa Uman's missile shattered the surface of the antenna and melted most of the metal veneer.
* * * *
Varosa Uman had been searching for the alternate transmission route ever since Revutev Mavarka had told Betzino-Resdell it should create it. It couldn't be hidden forever. It had to include a second antenna and the antenna had to be located along the track the orbiter traced across the surface of the planet.
But it wouldn't expose itself until it was activated. It could lie dormant until the moment it transmitted. It could store a small amount of energy and expend it in a single pulse.
"Neutralize their orbiter,” Mansita Jano said. “Isolate it."
Varosa Uman checked the track of the Betzino-Resdell orbiter. It had completed over half its orbit.
"And what happens when we give Trans Cultural the Message?” Varosa Uman asked. “After we've committed an overtly hostile act?"
"You've already committed an overtly hostile act. Trans Cultural knows my emissary had some kind of covert official support. Why are you hesitating, Overseer? What is your problem?"
* * * *
Machines might be unimaginative, but they were thorough. Ivan had designed the backup transmission route and he had built in all the redundancy he could squeeze out of the resources his colleagues had given him. Three high speed, low visibility airborne devices set off in three different directions as soon as they received the final message from the base. One stopped twelve kilometers from its starting point and relayed the message to a transmitter built into the highest tree on a small rise. The transmitter had been sucking energy from the tree's biochemistry for three years. It responded by concentrating all that accumulated energy into a single blip that shot toward a transmitter stored in a winged scavenger that circled over a grassy upland.
Varosa Uman's surveillance routine had noted the flying scavenger and stored it in a file that included several hundred items of interest. It picked up the blip as soon as the scavenger relayed it and narrowed the area in which its patrols were working their search patterns. A flyer that resembled a terrestrial owl suicide-bombed the hidden antenna half a second before the blip reached it.
The other two high-speed airborne devices veered toward the northern and southern edges of the orbiter's track. Relays emitted their once-in-a-lifetime blasts and settled into permanent quiet.
The antenna located along the northern edge of the track succumbed to a double suicide by two slightly faster updates of the owlish suicider. The third antenna picked up the orbiter as the little ball raced over a dense forest. It fulfilled its destiny twenty seconds before a pre-positioned missile splashed a corrosive liquid over the electronic veneer the antenna had spread across an abandoned nest.
* * * *
Revutev Mavarka went into dormancy as if he was going to his death. He said goodbye to his closest friends. He crammed his detention quarters with images of his favorite scenes and events. He even managed to arrange a special meal and consume it with deliberate pleasure before they emptied out his stomach.
The only omission was a final statement to the public. A private message from Varosa Uman had curtailed his deliberations in that area. Don't waste your time, the Situation Overseer had said, and he had accepted her advice with the melancholy resignation of someone who knew his conscious life had to be measured in heartbeats, not centuries.
Four armed guards escorted him to his dormancy unit. A last pulse of fear broke through his self-control when he felt the injector touch his bare shoulder.
The top of the unit swung back. Varosa Uman looked down at him. Technicians were removing the attachments that connected him to the support system.
"Please forgive our haste,” Varosa Uman said. “There will be no permanent damage."
* * * *
There were no windows i
n the room. The only decoration was a street level cityscape that filled the wall directly in front of him. He was still lying on the medical cart that had trundled him through a maze of corridors and elevator rides, but Varosa Uman's aides had raised his upper body and maneuvered him into a bulky amber wrapper before they filed out of the room.
"You're still managing the visitation, Overseer?"
"The Integrators won't budge,” Varosa Uman said. “The Principals keep putting limits on my powers, but they can't get rid of me."
He had been dormant for one hundred and three years. He had asked her as soon as he realized he was coming out of dormancy and she had handed him the information while they were working the wrapper around the tubes and wires that connected him to the cart.
"I've spent much of the last ten years trying to convince the Overseers they should let me wake you,” Varosa Uman said. “I got you out of there as soon as they gave me permission."
"Before they changed their minds?"
A table with a flagon and a plate of food disks sat beside the cart. He reached for a disk and she waited while he put it in his mouth and savored his first chew.
"You want something from me,” he said.
"The two visitors still have bases on the third moon of Widial—complete with backup copies of all their subunits. I want to contact them with an offer. We will try to guide their species through the Turbulence—try to help them find responses that will reduce the havoc. It's an idea I had earlier. I had a study group explore it. But I fell back into the pattern we've all locked into our reactions."
The men strolling through the cityscape were wearing tall hats and carrying long poles—a fashion that had no relation to anything Revutev Mavarka had encountered in any of the millennia he had lived through.
One hundred and three years . . .
"There are things we can tell them,” Varosa Uman said. “We can end the cycle of attack and isolation every civilization in our section of the galaxy seems to be trapped in."
"You're raising an obvious question, Overseer."
"I want you to join me when I approach the visitors. I need support from the Adventurer community."
"And you think they'll fall in behind me?"
"Some of them will. Some of them hate you just as much as most Serenes hate you. But you're a hero to 40 percent of them. And the data indicate most of the rest should be recruitable."
He raised his arms as if he were orating in front of an audience. Tubes dangled from his wrists.
"Serenes and Adventurers will join together in a grand alliance! And present the humans with a united species!"
"I couldn't offer the humans a united front if every Adventurer on the planet joined us. We aren't a united species any more. We stopped being a united species when you sent your warning."
"You said you still had the support of the Integrators."
"There's been a revolt against the Integrators. Mansita Jano refused to accept their decision to keep me in charge of the Visitation."
"We're at war? We're going through another Turbulence?"
"No one has died. Yet. Hundreds of people have been forced into dormancy on both sides. Some cities are completely controlled by Mansita Jano's supporters. We have a serious rift in our society—so serious it could throw us into another Turbulence if we don't do something before more visitors arrive from the human system. If we make the offer and the humans accept—I think most people will fall in behind the idea."
"But you feel you need the support of the Adventurer community?"
"Yes."
The men in the cityscape tapped their poles when they stopped to talk. The ribbons dangling from the ends of the poles complemented the color of their facial feathers.
"That's a risk in itself, Overseer. Why would the Serenes join forces with a mob of irresponsible risk takers? Why would anyone follow me? Everything they had ended when I sent my warning."
"You're underestimating yourself. You're a potent figure. I'll lose some Serenes, but the projections all indicate I'll get most of the Adventurer community in exchange. You may look like an irresponsible innovator to most Serenes, but most of your own people see you as an innovator who was willing to set a third of the galaxy on a new course."
"And what do you see, Varosa Uman?"
"I see an irresponsible interloper who may have opened up a new possibility. And placed our entire species in peril."
"And if I don't help you pursue your great enterprise I'll be shoved into a box."
"I want your willing cooperation. I want you to rally your community behind the biggest adventure our species has ever undertaken—the ultimate proof that we need people with your personality structure."
"You want to turn an irritating escapader into a prophet?"
"Yes."
"Speech writers? Advisers? Presentation specialists?"
"You'll get the best we have. I've got a communications facility in the next room. I'd like you to sit through a catch-up review. Then we'll send a simultaneous transmission to both visitors."
"You're moving very fast. Are you afraid someone will stop you?"
"I want to present our entire population—opponents and supporters—with an accomplished act. Just like you did."
"They could turn on you just like they turned on me. The revolt against the Integrators could intensify. The humans may reject your offer."
"We've examined the possibilities. We can sit here and let things happen or we can take the best choice in a bad list and try to make it work."
"You're still acting like a gambler. Are you sure they didn't make a mistake when they classified you?"
"You take risks because you like it. I take risks because I have to."
"But you're willing to do it. You don't automatically reach for the standard course."
"Will you help me, Revutev Mavarka? Will you stand beside me in one of the boldest moments in the history of intelligence?"
"In the history of intelligence, Overseer?"
"That's what it is, isn't it? We'll be disrupting a chain of self-isolating intelligent species—a chain that's been creeping across our section of the galaxy for hundreds of millennia."
He picked up another food disk. It was dull stuff—almost tasteless—but it supplemented the nutrients from the cart with material that would activate his digestive path. It was, when you thought about it, exactly the kind of food the more extreme Serenes would want to encounter when they came out of dormancy.
"Since you put it that way . . .” m
Copyright © 2011 Tom Purdom
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Short Story: THE ONE THAT GOT AWAY by Esther M. Friesner
This two-time Nebula award winner for short story and author of dozens of novels, has lately been having “much too much fun writing young adult historicals.” Her latest titles include Sphinx's Princess and Sphinx's Queen, about young Nefertiti, for Random House and Threads and Flames, a novel about the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, for Viking/Penguin. Esther is currently at work on two new YA historicals for Random house, Spirit's Princess and Spirit's Bride, about Queen Himiko of Japan. Her newest story for Asimov's is decidedly not a young adult tale. In this bawdy seaport yarn, a plucky young woman finds she must make the most of her charms and her wit if once again she is to be . . .
"You're not from around here, are you, miss?"
I looked up from my beer into the face of the young sailor who'd finally gotten the courage to come over to my table.
And about time, too, I thought. The sorry swab's spent most of the evening eyeing me from his barstool. I thought he'd never find the nerve. Now let's see how fast he can get down to business.
I knew he was a sailor. If there's one thing I know, it's sailors. I can always tell a seafaring man. Mostly I can tell him, “Stop touching that until you pay for it,” but do they ever listen? Bunch of big apes, the lot of them; apes crossed with octopi.
"Yeah, you're right, I'm not a local girl. What was yo
ur first clue?” I replied, craning my neck to meet his gaze. I gave him a demure, close-lipped smile. Very close-lipped. Never tip your hand too soon, that's what I say. When the men get a load of my real smile, it either sends them scampering for the hills or it seals the deal (especially when the seadog's as drunk as blazes and in company with his just-as-drunk buddies, all of them daring him to take me on after that). Either way, I get something out of the transaction: Business or amusement. Hey, bless Roosevelt, but there's still a Depression on! A girl's got to eat, and if I can't find a paying customer, at least I'm entitled to a few laughs.
"Well, uh, you remind me of my mother.” He rubbed the back of his head and looked sheepish. “There's a very strong resemblance. She was from . . . elsewhere, too."
His mother? He thought that I looked like the woman who gave birth to him? That was a new one. I studied my new admirer carefully, top to toe. He was wearing the same outfit favored by most of the ragtag seamen I'd endured—I mean, encountered—ever since I'd left home years ago. Sailors who aren't Navy men or part of the crew aboard the big, swanky ocean liners wear their own kind of uniform that's not so much the clothes themselves as the smell: brine and bilge and bacalao. They also tend to come from a mixed bag of bloodlines, but this guy . . .
"Your mother,” I said, mouthing the words like they were a chunk of hardtack that needed a lot of work before you could swallow it. “Honey, why don't you have a seat? It's bad enough, having to tell a handsome man he's crazy, but I don't want to get a stiff neck while I'm doing it.” It took him a moment to accept the invitation. Poor little lamb, he looked like he'd never had a woman say one kind word to him. If this turned out the way I hoped it would, he'd be easy pickings. The pathetic ones always pay more.
"Lay your hand down next to mine,” I told him, and when he obeyed, I repeated, “Your mother?” For there it was, on the table before us, one very obvious and unquestionable piece of evidence: His hand was the pasty shade I'd seen on the bellies of countless cod and multitudes of mackerel. My own was dark as night, black as coal, and it looked even blacker peeking out of the frilly white cuff of my blouse. “Sweetheart, either Gregor Mendel was full of beans or you're a liar.” I said it gently, trying to honey up the sting of my words with a light tone. Not that I was afraid to give him some lip. I could tell that my little fish wanted me too much to get mad and swim away over a bit of ribbing.
Asimov's SF, April/May 2011 Page 24
