The Middle of Nowhere

by David Gerrold

  “But . . . if Taalamar is next,” Korie asked, “why hasn’t it been hit already? Look at the timeline. They could have hit Taalamar six weeks ago. If they were trying to drive as far into Allied space as possible, they should have hit Taalamar. Why didn’t they? So, where are they now? And what are they doing?”

  “They’re preparing to hit Taalamar?” offered Jonesy. “That’s what everyone says.”

  Korie sat back in his chair. “Yes, that’s what everyone says, because that’s the logical thing to believe.” He looked to Jonesy. “And, in fact, it’s such a likely thing to believe, that the best military strategists would move every available warship into the Taalamar theater to resist such an assault. If there’s any place where we’re going to stop the advance of the Morthan fleet, it’s Taalamar. If we can cripple their left flank, they’ll have to regroup. The logistics of maintaining communications between three advancing fleets is staggering. It limits the speed of your forward advance, because you have to send ships sideways between the armadas. If they had to regroup, it would cost them months. So Taalamar represents a very real opportunity for us.

  “So, now I have to ask, if they know that every day they delay their assault on Taalamar, that’s one more day we have to prepare, why didn’t they hit Taalamar as soon as they were able?” He looked around the table. “Anyone?”

  “Resupply,” offered Goldberg. Nominally a quiet man, he only spoke when he had something significant to add. “They’ve advanced so fast, they’ve outrun their own supply lines.”

  “Their ships are semi-autonomous. Like ours. They don’t need food or fuel,” Korie responded. “So what supplies would they have run out of?”

  “Missiles? Warheads?”

  “Maybe. But the War College estimates they may have expended only one-third of their total capacity to date. And they’ve got to have tenders traveling with them. So, if it’s not weapons, what else could it be?”

  Goldberg shook his head and sat back. “Sorry, sir.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It was a good suggestion. Wars are won or lost not on the battlefield, but on the supply line. Anyone else? Come on, people, think. If you were a Morthan, what would you do?”

  It was such an obvious line that everybody turned to look at Brik, which was exactly what Korie had intended. He wanted Brik’s input here. The huge security officer had not been able to fold his three-meter body into a human-sized chair; instead he perched uncomfortably on a stool. When he spoke, his voice rumbled in the lowest registers. “Well . . .” he began slowly. “If I were a human, I would start by assuming that whatever I was thinking about the Solidarity was exactly what the Solidarity wanted me to think.”

  Korie looked up sharply, as if Brik had just confirmed something for him. “Go on, Brik,” he said quietly.

  “Morthans never let anybody know anything about them. If you know anything about a Morthan, it’s because he wants you to know. That’s true on an individual level. It’s even truer in battle. You’ve asked the right question,” Brik said. “If the Solidarity wanted Taalamar, they would have gone for Taalamar. Therefore, Taalamar is not the target. Look at the map.”

  They did.

  “What happens if the fleets all suddenly turn and sweep right?” Brik asked. “Nothing. They head out along the edge of the rift. What if they head left? Same thing, opposite direction. The rift is a natural barrier a hundred light-years across. To send so many ships that far, they intend to stay. To do that, they have to secure a permanent beachhead. That means advancing as far across as they can and destroying all human installations that represent possible staging areas for counterattack. So, yes, it doesn’t make sense for them to not advance on Taalamar immediately unless there’s something else they want more.” Brik met Korie’s eyes. His expression was grim. Both already knew the answer to the unasked question.

  “Stardock,” whispered Tor, a shocked expression on her face. “They want Stardock.”

  “Precisely,” said Korie. “That’s how we figure it too. Thank you, Brik.” He looked to the others. “They have to destroy Stardock. They have to do it before they can go on. They can’t leave a major enemy stronghold functioning behind the wave front of their advance. They can’t allow us to maintain such an access to their supply and communication lines. Stardock represents the last serious threat to their advance. That’s why I believe the whole assault on Taalamar is a feint, to draw the fleet away from Stardock. The Solidarity is trying to ‘lure the tiger out of the mountains.’”

  “Huh?” asked Tor. The others looked puzzled too.

  To Korie’s surprise, it was Brik who explained the allusion. “Your executive officer is quoting one of the thirty-six stratagems of war, as postulated by the medieval Chinese military philosophers, premier among them the legendary Sun Tzu. The Chinese warlords were experts at the art of misdirection, and the study of their history can be very useful.” He met their startled expressions. “In this particular allusion, the tiger cannot be captured or killed when he hides in the mountains. That’s his home territory. You must lure him down onto the plains where he is vulnerable. The Morthan Solidarity has succeeded in doing just that. They have put the Allies into a position where we must spread our resources all the way from here to Taalamar. Both Stardock and our fleet are now vulnerable.”

  Korie nodded his agreement. “Very good, Mr. Brik. I had no idea you were so well-educated.”

  Brik gave Korie a foul look. “Then you’ve made a terrible mistake, Commander. You’ve underestimated a Morthan. So has the Admiralty.”

  “Yes,” agreed Korie. “I see your point. Thanks for the object lesson.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Tor. “The location of Stardock is so secret even we don’t know where it is. Only HARLIE does. If a ship’s integrity is compromised, that’s the first information that gets wiped. Doesn’t secrecy count for something?”

  “In this case, no,” Korie said. “You see—”

  “Hey, wait a minute—” Bach broke in abruptly. “Excuse me, sir, for interrupting but if that’s so, about HARLIE forgetting the location, then how did we get back here? Once Cinnabar was aboard, HARLIE should have forgotten that information.”

  “HARLIE?” Korie prompted.

  “Thank you,” the intelligence engine replied. “Do you remember the emergency detoxification necessary after the death of Cinnabar? That was to ensure that there were no tracking or transmitting devices aboard that would betray our location to long-range listeners. Once we achieved a critical confidence level, I was able to reconstruct my memory. I can’t be any more specific than that about the process of critical reconstruction without compromising security. Let me just say that once a piece of data is put into personal memory escrow, it is irretrievable unless certain confidence conditions are met.”

  “What HARLIE isn’t saying,” Korie added, “is that had we not met that confidence level, he would have permanently forgotten the location and we would have had to proceed to a planetary base for recertification.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Jonesy, visibly disturbed. He hadn’t been following HARLIE’s part of the discussion because he had been worrying at another part of the problem. Now he looked across the table to Korie. “Let’s get back to the other thing. Are you saying there are three armadas searching for Stardock right now?”

  “That’s my estimation of the situation, yes,” said Korie. “HARLIE agrees with me. Brik?”

  The big Morthan nodded.

  “Well, see here’s the point,” said Jonesy, looking from one to the other. “No disrespect intended, sirs, but if you and Brik and HARLIE can figure it out, why can’t the Admiralty?”

  “Well, first of all,” said Korie, “we have the advantage of being paranoid extremists.” He grinned. “Brik does by birth. I do by training. HARLIE dabbles in it as a matter of research into malevolent psychology.”

  Jonesy shook the joke away. “I mean it, sir. What’s to say that you’re right and the War College is wrong?”

&nbs
p; “The War College isn’t wrong,” said Brik. “They’re coming up with the very best answers they can, based on the information they have.” And then he added, “Unfortunately, most of the information they have about the actions, motives, and location of the three Morthan armadas, is being supplied by the Morthan Solidarity. We have no way of knowing which ship movements are feints and which are real until after the fact.”

  Jonesy looked worried. “But Mr. Korie, are the brains at the War College even aware of the possibility that their information is wrong?”

  “Of course they are,” said Korie. “In fact, I’m sure that they’re considering possibilities that even you and I would overlook. But as our security officer has pointed out, usually the only thing we know about a Morthan is what he wants us to know, and even when we factor that into the equation it still doesn’t allow us to discredit the facts we already have. It only makes us crazier because we can’t trust anything—which is also what the Solidarity intends. So we look and we observe and we study and we think and we extrapolate and we do our best to figure out what’s really going on, all the time knowing that whatever false information the War College is getting, it is of such a consistent pattern that it will overwhelm the truth. So we try to prepare for the worst, all the time knowing that as long as we’re still on the defensive, we’re losing. Lieutenant Jones, have you ever had to do a report on Operation Overlord?”

  “No, sir.”

  “I’ll expect an oral presentation tomorrow at 1600 hours. HARLIE will give you the relevant information. Wear your starsuit. Here’s the question I want you to answer. What lesson should we learn from Overlord?”

  “Operation Overlord, yes sir.”

  “But getting back to your point, I’m certain that there’s a lot of War College intelligence being applied to this very problem. There are probably people sitting around a table just like this one, looking at a display just like this one, and coming up with the same disturbing conclusions we are. And they are probably reporting it to their superiors. And their superiors are weighing all the evidence as carefully as they can . . . and they are making decisions based on all the information they have. They are probably finding it very hard to leave Taalamar undefended on the strength of a hunch by a handful of trained paranoids, while all the tangible evidence suggests a very real danger for the people of the Taalamar system. Given the same evidence, what would you do? You and I don’t have anything at stake in this conversation. We’re indulging ourselves in a thought experiment. If we’re wrong, no lives are lost. But if the War College chooses wrong... millions, perhaps billions, of people will suffer. So, given the same evidence, what would you do?”

  “I see your point,” said Jonesy. “I’m sorry for wasting everyone’s time.” He shrank into himself, chastened. He looked like a beaten puppy.

  Korie realized too late that he had made a serious mistake; he saw his own past in Jonesy’s face; he remembered the first time he had been burned by a superior officer in a discussion. He couldn’t do that to a young officer as committed as Valentine M. Jones. “No, Mr. Jones,” he said. “Don’t do what you’re doing now. Don’t withdraw like that. You’ve made a very important contribution to this discussion. We’re considering all the possibilities here. The fact that we dismiss a possibility doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth considering. This is part of your training. All consideration leads to wisdom.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.” Jonesy smiled tentatively.

  Korie nodded an acknowledgment. “Good man.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Tor, interrupting. “If the Admiralty is aware of the situation, then they’re not going to leave Stardock undefended, are they?”

  “Mm,” said Korie. “That’s the other part of the problem. You have to understand how badly the admirals want to take a bite out of the Morthan fleet. Every available ship is being put into the target sphere. Even Stardock is cannibalizing its resources. They’ve even stripped its hyperstate installations for the Fleet. We’re that desperate.”

  “Then they are leaving it undefended,” Tor said.

  Korie frowned; he didn’t like admitting it. “Think about it. There’s no real way to defend Stardock. She’s a very large stationary target. Yes, she has guns, she has missiles, and she has ships patrolling around her; but it really doesn’t matter how many guns, missiles, and ships we have; all the enemy needs is one more ship and one more missile than we can stop. Given that situation, and given the Solidarity’s commitment to destroying her, maybe we have to sacrifice her to defend Taalamar. Maybe Taalamar will be where we make our stand. Maybe that’s the Admiralty’s plan all along. Maybe Stardock is bait. See, that’s why I wanted to talk this over with all of you. There’s something going on. If we can figure it out, we can use it. We can do something that makes a difference.”

  “Little us?” grinned Hodel. “And I thought I was the magician.”

  “Well, right now,” said Korie, “we’re operating without orders, so we have the freedom to go wherever we want and do whatever we think needs doing. Let’s use that freedom.”

  Hodel smiled wryly. “You make it sound like we have a lot more freedom than we do. Without engines, we’re just a big dead lump.”

  “So is Stardock,” retorted Korie. “An even bigger deader lump.”

  “Wait. Wait a minute,” said Tor. “I want to get back to the other thing about Stardock. Is she really being left undefended?”

  “Yes and no,” said Korie. “Stardock’s only real defense is secrecy. If no one knows where she is, no one can attack. So we make Stardock hard to find, she gets moved regularly, the timing of the move and the location are always selected at random; usually within a five light-year radius. But if you’re the enemy and you know that Stardock is likely to move every six weeks or so, then the most unlikely place to look is the place where it moved from. So—theoretically at least—Stardock is safest left where it is. For now, anyway.”

  “But that still doesn’t resolve the real problem,” Tor said. “The Solidarity is looking for an installation which is now essentially undefended. And with every ship that they detect, they get a little bit more information about where Stardock is likely to be.”

  “That’s right,” said Korie. “But it’s even worse than that. If the point of this whole operation is to find Stardock, then they aren’t searching casually; they’ve most likely spread their ships out across the entire sphere of probability, and each one has a specific sector of space to sweep. Last night, I asked HARLIE to run some simulations. The amount of time it would take for three Morthan fleets to sweep the sphere of probability is just about the same length of time as has already passed since they should have attacked Taalamar. They’re actually overdue here. Assume some logistical difficulties, the usual snafus, and we can assume that we have maybe a day, maybe a week.” He looked around the table; all of the officers present were grim-faced.

  Tor said it for all of them. “So the question is no longer if, is it? It’s when. What happens when a Morthan scout finds the Stardock? Then what? Are there any defenses at all?”

  “There are patrols,” said Korie, calmly. “And we’ll be joining them.”

  “We will?” Tor asked, surprised.

  Korie nodded. “Remember, we have no orders. And I expect that state to continue for some time. The admiral is pretending we don’t exist. So there’s really nothing to keep us from lifting anchor and running our own operations. We’ll call it a shakedown cruise.”

  “Okay,” said Tor, grimly, “let’s game this out. Let’s say we detect a scout ship and destroy it. Won’t that tell the Morthan armada that something important is in the area of the missing scout?”

  “Yes, it’s definitely a lose-lose situation. You can’t let the scout go and you can’t destroy him. What do you do?”

  Brik grunted for attention. They all looked to him. “The Morthan Solidarity knows how humans think. They do not expect humans to think like Morthans. Therefore, you have to do what a Morthan would do.
Make him think what you want him to think.”

  Korie mulled that one over. “Good. Very good... in principle. But make him think what? And how? And with what resources?” He looked around the table. “That’s the problem,” said Korie.

  Nobody replied. They were as stumped by the question as he. Korie stood up to leave. “Okay, that’s it. We’ll reconvene after dinner to consider possibilities. Please check your starsuits.”

  “Just tell me one thing,” asked Tor abruptly. They all looked to her. “Was this meeting for our benefit? Or for the imp’s?”

  “Yes,” grinned Korie. And then he left, leaving them frowning after him.

  Sex

  “Thank you for coming,” said Brik.

  Bach didn’t answer. She glanced around Brik’s cabin. There were two chairs in the room now, facing each other.

  Brik gestured. “Would you like to sit?”

  “Thank you,” said Bach. She sat. The chair was not particularly comfortable. Brik had gotten it from the mess.

  Brik sat opposite her. “May I offer you something? I have tea. Morthan tea.”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  Brik got up and busied himself for a bit, then returned with two ship’s mugs, both steaming.

  Bach took hers and held it in both hands. She brought it close to her face and inhaled deeply of its essence. “This is very good tea,” she said.

  “Thank you,” said Brik. He sat down again, facing her. He sniffed his own tea, rolling the cup back and forth between his two huge hands.

  Bach waited. Whatever Brik wanted, he would tell her in his own time.

  “I think I owe you an apology,” Brik said. “I said things that were thoughtless.”

  “No, you were honest. I should not have been offended by your honesty.”

  “Nevertheless, it was not my intention to offend.”

  “I know that.”

  “I don’t know human mating rituals very well.”

  “No, you don’t,” she agreed.

  “I’ve been reading in the ship’s library.”