And whirled, and hurled the controller at the illuminated black globe that he’d been told not to touch.
It did not shatter into a million pieces. Three, perhaps, or four. The globe, for its part, was not damaged at all, at least not so far as Hayden could tell.
The simulation, however, froze. Hayden looked up. His avatar was there, enemies upon him, bloody rags around his leg, but none moved. None could move, not with the controller gone.
He would not beat the machine, not this day. But the machine would not beat him, not ever.
Pietro wasn’t sure if it was Seymour yammering in his ear or Alfredsen, but it was obvious that Major Gerard had ordered the hapless Corporal Fontana out of his seat and was trying desperately to figure out what had just happened.
“You got what you wanted, Major,” he said. “The simulation can’t win. Not now, not ever. It’s frozen. Locked, unless you want to bring in another controller and try to calibrate it, but I don’t think you’ll have a lot of luck with that. I’m not even sure why you’d try.”
Gerard shot him a look of disgust. “He was supposed to beat the machine, not just . . . stall it.”
Pietro grinned humorlessly. “He did beat it. The same way it beat everyone else. He changed the rules.” He sketched a salute. “With permission, Major, I’ll go get him out of there.”
“You do that,” Gerard said, and turned back to the console, the fluttering scientists beside him, the man who’d brought them to this already forgotten.
Pietro moved toward the door. As he did, Fontana nodded, once. He understood. They’d be at it again tomorrow, no doubt. But he and Pietro, they shared the secret of why Hayden had won today.
Reiteration
By Simon Brown
Simon Brown’s latest book was Rival’s Son from DAW, the second book in the Chronicles of Kydan. The concluding volume, Daughter of Independence, will be out from DAW in 2007. Simon’s short story collection Troy came out from Ticonderoga Publications in 2006. Simon lives with his wife and two children on the south coast of New South Wales.
Captain Don Cayetano Gravina of the Asuncio’n, Spanish naval officer and a Particulate of the Novae, did not sail out of Cadiz with the Combined Fleet because his first crew went down with apple disease. The first hint was the flushing faces of the officers sharing with him the quarterdeck of the Asunci’n. Gravina first assumed their cheeks were blooming with excitement, but when his lieutenant of marines fell sideways, convulsed and spat blood, he studied him quickly in infrared and saw how hot his skin was, and realized the capillaries under his skin were disintegrating. Then the rest of his crew on the quarterdeck tumbled and fell, and when Gravina went below, he found they had all died. All his poor humans.
It was the flushing skin, the rosy cheeks, moments before death that gave the disease its vernacular name, belying its lethal nature and its artificial source. Gravina complained, of course, but the umpire was not inclined to listen; he was captain and therefore responsible for the security and safety of his crew. Gravina accepted the judgement, admitting to himself he had never considered that his human enemies—the original creators of the Novae—would attack so cruelly and dispassionately members of their own species. After all, he was the appropriate target, not the bags of flesh and blood the Novae used to lend their games some verisimilitude.
However, the day was still young, and he did not think all was lost, even though the rest of the Combined Fleet had left Cadiz at dawn. He sterilized the ship, using search-and-destroy nanos of his own design, then warmed up the second crew, downloaded into their brains the instructions they needed to sail a 32-gun frigate and enough memories to keep them happy and unquestioning for the duration of their service. It was still seventeen hours before noon, the yellow-white sun only halfway up the bruised sky, when the new crew, delivered by launches, stiffly clambered on board and took their posts. Gravina initiated awareness, and as if they had never been anywhere else, the crew bustled into activity, raising the anchors and clambering up ratlines to unfurl the sails.
Soon, her shoulder set to the sea, Asuncio’n glided out of Cadiz, heading south toward Gibraltar, a blustery easterly driving her on, her bow wave lost in the swell. If the wind kept up, Gravina was sure they would catch the fleet before long. He searched keenly for their tops over the horizon but resisted the temptation to use his own machine-built abilities to find them.
“What is the point of Reiteration if one cheats?” he wondered aloud, and ignored the curious glances from his officers.
It was a curious thing, Ignatio knew, but the woman was not where she was supposed to be. He had heard Frederico, foul and fat Frederico, whisper to Antonio that he had hidden her in the tiller room on the mess deck, behind the purser’s cabin, and Ignatio had gone to steal a peek at her, wondering if she would be foul and fat like Frederico, or beautiful like all women were in his dreams. But she had not been there, and as much as Ignatio disliked Frederico, he knew the fellow was not stupid or forgetful. He even checked under the canvas sheet over the hardtack, just in case, his boy’s heart a-flutter, but there was nothing there but bread, not even a female weevil.
A midshipman, not much older than he, caught him and kicked him out. Ignatio nodded and scuttled, but he cursed under his breath. When he got back to his proper station near the aft magazine he could feel a bruise over his tailbone and cursed again, this time damning Frederico for being stupid and forgetful after all.
The wind changed to a southeaster, and Asunción, maybe the fastest ship in the Combined Fleet, slowed to no more than five knots. Gravina, who had programmed himself to experience data jams at such times, understood it was not a true substitute for the frustration a human might feel under similar circumstances, but it made him more slow and stiff-jointed. He stomped along the quarterdeck, making sure not to put any holes through the timber.
“Sail, Captain!” shouted one of the boys in the tops. “Straight south!”
Gravina immediately cleared all data and focused on the horizon. The lad was right. Two sails at least, but he could not let the crew know he could see that far. “How many?”
“Three or four, Captain!”
The lad’s eyes needed readjusting; Gravina made a mental note to order repair work the next time the boy was in storage.
“Can you make out their colors?”
“Ours, Captain! We’ve caught the fleet, sir!”
A half-hearted cheer went up from the crew, who wanted the assurance of the Combined Fleet around them but knew its purpose was to bring the enemy to battle.
Too soon, Gravina told himself. We’ve come up on them too soon. He used his superior vision to scan the ships ahead more closely. They were running ragged before the wind. Not enough crew to sail them properly. At almost the same time, another boy cried down, “Smoke, Captain! Smoke! Southeast!”
Ignatio heard the drums roll to clear the frigate for action. He helped stow the paneling and furniture from the captain’s cabin, then took two gunpowder cartridges from the handlers in the magazine and with one under each arm ran to his station by the sternmost port gun, an 18-pounder. Antonio, the gun captain, smiled encouragingly, but Frederico, the loader, took the cartridges from him with a grunt and shoved him aside.
Ignatio stood at his post, wishing orders would be given to run the guns out so he could at least catch a glimpse of the outside world through the gunport. Some light came from the open gangway to the quarterdeck, throwing a hatched shadow across his station that swung to and fro as the Asunci’n rolled with the waves. The crew was strangely quiet. Frederico sniffed. A goat bleated from one of the longboats being towed behind the ship.
Ignatio hoped the most noble Captain Don Cayetano Gravina knew what he was about. He reminded himself he had been in battle before under Gravina, but somehow the details eluded his memory. Undoubtedly they would come through victorious, heroes all, and be given a wonderful welcome back in Cadiz. He hoped some of the women there would take him in hand and treat him with
the respect he would deserve.
Gravina received a tight-beam transmission from Captain Jean-Jacques Lucas of the Redoubtable, the larger of the two escaping ships. She had all her masts, but most of her sails had been torn, and the hull had been holed below the waterline; water poured from the dales as her pumps were worked continuously by her crew to help keep her afloat. Her companion, the Pluton, was not much better off. The English fleet—the human fleet—had won. Again.
“This time the English admiral even survived my sharpshooters,” Lucas added.
Gravina would have sighed if he were human. It would seem the Novae—so superior in so many ways, who held the fate of the Sphere and its countless inhabited star systems in their hands—still had far to go before they could match the human capacity to take advantage from chaos.
In the Sphere itself it mattered little: The Novae were designed to exploit the vast distances and inimical environment of space, and with their fugueships they could restrict humanity to any planet they desired. But what if the Novae should encounter another biological species, one as innovative and curious as the humans but even more technologically advanced? And so these games, these Reiterations, where their human opponents might earn glory and riches, and the Novae experience and understanding. But no matter how many times they met in combat, the humans always seemed to have some intellectual resource at their disposal that the Novae had not yet learned to program for or to counter. Gravina believed it had something to do with the way humans experienced emotion. Although the Novae had feelings—all sentient creatures must have some method of absorbing and adapting and responding to events—there was demonstrably a distinction between the kind and range of emotions felt by humans and Novae.
Then Lucas gave Gravina the news that made him focus more sharply on the present.
“We are being pursued,” Lucas signaled as Redoubtable and Asuncion drew away from each other. “It is the Mars.”
“I will intercept it.”
“Stay clear, Captain. Mars has claimed more than one prize this day. Do not add to its list of captured ships.”
Gravina did not bother responding. This was an opportunity for him to learn something new from the enemy and to show to all the Novae—including Jean-Jacques Lucas of the Redoubtable—his individual worth as a Particulate.
He turned to his officers, saw the grave looks on their faces as they watched the retreating ships sail north toward the safety of Cadiz. They were afraid but struggling hard to hide it.
How do they do it? he wondered. How do these terrified, chemical-driven creatures do it?
He smiled for them. “Be hearty, my friends. We have not been left out. An enemy or two remains afloat on which we may practice our gunnery.”
Ignatio knew they would soon be in combat when Asuncio’n changed direction, her bow swinging so sharply he felt himself lurch slightly, and the order was given to run out the guns. Frederico wedged open the port, and the 18-pounder was pulled into place with ropes and handspikes. Ignatio peered through the port and at first saw only a rush of blue, as dark as ink, and then the horizon swung down as the ship righted, the sky so bright it made him blink.
“What is it?” Frederico asked Antonio, but the gun captain just shrugged.
What a fool Frederico is, Ignatio thought. How could Antonio know any more than he? And then he saw the round bee-striped hull of an English ship heave into view. “Jesus protect me,” he said under his breath, and touched the crucifix hanging from his neck.
“What is it?” Frederico demanded again, this time of the boy.
“Three decks,” Ignatio said, almost whispering. And then he saw the ship more clearly as it’s full size came into view. “No. Two. It is a 74.”
There was a dull boom, a puff of smoke from just one of the enemy’s guns, and then two seconds later a shot splash no more than a ship’s length short of the Asuncio’n. Cold water sprayed through the open gunport and Ignatio gasped in surprise.
Frederico leaned over the gun to peer out of the port. “God, we’re going to die,” he said matter-offactly.
“Gauging the distance, I expect,” said Asunci’n’s first officer.
Gravina was not so sure. If the Mars had already taken prizes, then her captain obviously knew how to estimate distance and knew how accurate his own gun crews must be. What was he trying to prove by it? It was a waste of a first shot, the best loaded in any battle.
Asunci’n was using its speed and agility in an attempt to get behind Mars and rake her from behind. For all its victories, the English ship had not gone unscathed. One mast hung over the ship like a fallen tree, tangling rigging and sails, and he could see crew struggling to cut it loose and send it overboard. There were a few holes along the hull, and the quarterdeck looked a mess, with splintered railings and a broken wheel. As well, there were hardly any sailors or marines about, although Gravina allowed that could be a ruse.
And what had that single shot been about? Perhaps the captain was trying to fool Gravina into thinking most of his starboard guns were out of action, or that he was desperate, but there was not enough damage there to tempt Gravina to close from that direction.
Nevertheless, Mars was wounded, and her crew must be depleted if some were sent to secure her prizes from the earlier battle, and the remainder near exhaustion. Asunci’n was fresh and fast. Perhaps all that was needed was a broadside or two down her length and Mars might be ripe for boarding. That would almost be audacious enough for a human, Gravina thought.
Antonio clapped Ignatio on the shoulder. “Go. Another two cartridges. I think we will need them.”
Ignatio nodded, ran to the gangway and descended two levels to the orlop deck, then back to the aft magazine. The fixer in the magazine automatically handed him a cartridge through the damp curtain. Ignatio stuck his hand through and showed two fingers, but the hand was slapped away, and another powder monkey behind him pushed him aside. “Yours is not the only gun,” the boy said.
Ignatio did not argue. Even as he turned to go back another two had joined the queue. As he got to the gangway, the ship shuddered. He heard a sound like a bull coughing (and what did a bull look like? a part of his brain wondered), and he had to hold onto a step to stop falling over. The cartridge dropped from his grip, started to roll away. He bent over to pick it up, and the powder monkey who had pushed at him clambered past.
Ignatio spat, retrieved the cartridge and raced after him. By the time he reached the gun deck, he had almost caught him, and tapped the other’s heel to prove the point. He turned to get to his own station and stopped. The gun was gone.
Gravina almost barked in delight at the cleverness of it. The broken mast on Mars had been a ruse. Oh, it was snapped alright, but not tangled at all. As soon Asuncio’n was committed, it had been pushed over the side with hardly any effort at all, and the warship for all its size turned almost as quickly as the much smaller frigate. Before Gravina could correct his mistake, Mars had fired a full broadside. Only the stern dozen or so of the enemy’s guns had the angle to hit the Asuncio’n, but that included a few 32-pounders, and Gravina could hear the shot break through his hull and bounce around the deck beneath. There was a terrible hush, and then the screaming started. His regard for his own humans made him consider decommissioning them, but even their pain and suffering might teach the Novae something about the species, something that might explain their incredible endurance and tenacity.
The frigate had now rounded the stern of the enemy ship, and as each of its 18-pounders lined up, it fired, sending shot the size of a grapefruit crashing through glass windows and galleries and then running down the length of the ship’s middle deck, dismembering any human it struck.
Gravina was so delighted at the success of the raking broadside that he did not pay any attention to the enemy’s poop deck, nor the five marines lining up at the railing. The first thing he knew about it was the sound of his first officer groaning and then falling to the deck. Then something struck him in the leg. He ne
ver felt pain as such, but he was very aware of emergency nanobots rushing to repair any damage. He turned to see the signals lieutenant looking at the body of the first officer and then at Gravina. “He’s dead,” the lieutenant said numbly, and then, pointing at Gravina’s leg, “and Captain, you’re shot.” Gravina looked down, saw the hole in his stocking near what would have been his shin bone had he been human. He immediately ordered blood to flow. A small diaphragm burst behind his knee, sending a stream of artificial blood to the hole. Another ball struck the body of the first officer, making his coat puff out, but by the time Gravina turned his attention to the enemy marines, Asuncio’n was clear of Mars and they were no longer a threat.
“Send him over,” Gravina ordered the lieutenant, nodding to the first officer, and gripped the railing as if he could no longer stand without assistance.
“Sir, you should go below.”
“I will decide when I go below, Lieutenant. Carry out your orders.”
The lieutenant nodded, and with the help of a midshipman carried the slain officer to the railing and lifted him over so the corpse fell into the sea.
Ignatio saw at once that his gun crew was gone, every one dead. Even Antonio, torn and bloody, who had always seemed invincible to the boy. The only way he could identify Frederico was the tattoo on his right forearm; the head was missing completely. He stood there for a moment, bewildered but surprisingly calm. He should tell someone. The officers will want to know. He put the gunpowder cartridge down carefully, and searched for the deck officer. Another powder monkey told him the deck officer had been wounded and taken down to the surgeon. “You’ll have to go to the quarterdeck to find any officer alive and walking,” the boy said.
Man Vs Machine Page 23
