by Ian Douglas
And so Ramsey and Thoth entered the Song, listening and recording. Using data brought back from previous penetrator raids within other Xul hunterships, the Ramsey-Thoth cooperative had woven a software emulation shell about itself, the digital equivalent of donning camouflage. From Ramsey’s perspective, he was another of the brightly colored fish flashing above the reef. The Song itself, besides playing out in his thoughts as words, was echoed by the movements of schooling fish around him. As one of the numbered voices sang its piece, one of the fish would brighten and dart, followed an instant later by a swarm of its fellows. When the chorus sang, all of the fish pulsed and throbbed and flashed in unison.
Unnoticed, Ramsey-Thoth settled in with one of the lesser swarms. The software shell reflecting the surrounding thoughts like nanoflaged body armor rendering a Marine invisible.
6223: . . . threat . . .
7118: . . . serious threat . . .
7472: . . . the local Mind faces disruption . . .
8571: . . . disruption is ending/evil . . .
6223: . . . is ending/evil/wrong! . . .
8947: . . . but Mind will survive . . .
chorus: . . . Mind must survive . . .
7472: . . . query—what of MIND? . . .
8947: . . . MIND is . . .
7472: . . . MIND must be informed, lest the[?cancer] spread . . .
9335: . . . unprecedented . . . chorus 1 : . . . unpre ce dented . . .
chorus 2: . . . unprecedented! . . .
2221: . . . the threat offered by this species is unprec- e dented . . .
5294: . . . the Hub should be informed . . . chorus: . . . the Hub will be informed . . .
chorus 1: . . . that MIND may live even if Mind should dissipate . . .
chorus: . . . that We Who Are survive . . . chorus: . . . We Who Are will be/endure/survive . . .
Ramsey had been listening with an intuitive openness of mind. All Marines underwent extensive training in certain mental disciplines while in boot camp and in OCS, disciplines such as weiji-do that increased the flexibility, adaptability, and psychic strength of the human mind.
Weiji-do, developed back in the 22nd and 23rd centuries and based on some of the stranger, reality-generating aspects of Quantum Physics, was sometimes called the Way of Chaos, but a better translation would have been the Way of the embodiment of the chaotic potential of creation and reality. The skill-set helped Marines function with confidence within the virtual realities and downloaded sim-worlds of computer-generated combat networks and information feeds, but it also sharpened innate intuitive and psychic abilities. The training allowed the Ramsey portion of the Ramsey- Thoth mental fusion to relax into a deeply altered state and follow individual threads of the alien exchange—in effect backtracking on some of the movement patterns woven by those flashing, colorful fish around him.
He was curious about two partic ular concepts overheard in the alien conversation—the reference to the hub, and the thought-symbol translated as MIND. Both ideas had rich associations within the substrate of the Xul mentality. He felt himself sinking into the structure of the reef itself, felt the pulse of life around and within him.
He recorded everything, of course—images, listings of data, sounds . . .
The Hub, he was almost certain, was an astrographical reference. If so, it could only refer to the Galactic hub, the very center of the Galaxy. Some of the side links and associated data stores appeared to relate to another Xul node—a very large, very important Xul node—somehow connected with the deep Galactic core.
The concept of MIND—his own mind supplied the sense of all capitals—had been hinted at by other incursions into other Xul networks. Though poorly understood, the idea appeared to hinge on the notion of nested hierarchies, or meta- gestalts.
The species humans knew as the Xul were generally thought of as a type of hive mind, though that phrase suggested similarities to anthills or beehives on Earth, or to the kadje nests so common on the cold, wet world of Cerridwen that were misleading at best. Electronic sigint carried out on Xul structures in the past, though, suggested that the lowest, simplest components of the Xul mentality were individual software components running Xul warriors or individual weapons. All of those “minds” grouped together, working together, and linked with patterns of information that might well have been uploaded into the system from living organisms eons ago, comprised the “Mind” resident within a single Xul huntership.
All of the ship-Minds resident within a single Xul node, one of the gated star systems where dozens or hundreds of hunterships, fortresses, and base elements were networked together into an metamind, usually referred to in N-2 circles as the Node Mind.
There was a sense, here, of something higher. Logically, if Xul mentalities were built up in hierarchic data structures, a metamind made up of the thought processes of all Xul ships and nodes throughout the Galaxy might form a yet higher-level gestalt. mind.
But there was no time, and there were no resources here, for analyses. The data were recorded within the molecular computer circuits of the Spymaster probe, still sheathed deep within the huntership’s armor.
Something else was happening as well. For an eternity in electronic terms—but actually something on the order of eight to ten seconds in objective time—the Xul huntership had been under fire by the massed MIEF fleet. While the Commonwealth’s targeting AIs were being careful not to hit areas probed by the cloud of Spymaster penetrators, they’d been bombarding other parts of the Xul Nightmare, if only to keep it from engaging the Commonwealth fleet at close range and destroying it—a necessary tactical trade-off.
A part of Ramsey-Thoth was aware of cascades of data washing through the realm of the simulated coral reef like an incoming storm tide. Portions of the Nightmare’s hull were failing, and the main engineering core had been seriously damaged. The black hole at the heart of the huntership’s power systems would be released from its magnetic containment at any moment. When that happened, the ship’s structure would very swiftly fail.
Mind—the Mind of the ship—was maneuvering the huge vessel back through the stargate.
No one knew for certain what would happen when the bodies of fleet intelligence officers were on one side of a stargate, and their disembodied minds were on the other. The physics of the stargates were not well understood, but it was known that the orbiting of pinpoint- sized microsingularities within a stargate’s ring created the special discontinuity that allowed passage across the gate interface, that matter passed through easily, but that radiation—including radio signals and visible light—did not. The only way to communicate from one side of a gate to the other—other than through the physical passage of message drones, of course—was to use field-entangled QCC communications which, theoretically, could connect with one another anywhere in the universe without traversing the space in between. Quantum-Coupled Comm units were large and complex, however, suitable for larger starships, but too large for fighters, to say nothing of the slender, 2-meter length of a K-794 Spymaster.
If they wanted to get their intelligence treasure- trove back to the Hermes, they would need to transmit it before they completed the passage back to Carson Space.
As he emerged from the depths of the reef, he was aware of a new and ominous component of the virtual reef . . . shadowy gray shapes circling the flashing schools of fish.
Sharks. The Xul were aware of attempts to penetrate their data structures and networks, and had evolved means of dealing with those intrusions. Within the symbology evolved within Ramsey’s personal net, those defensive routines appeared as large and hungry sharks.
It was definitely time to withdraw.
Rumor and pop ular myth held that when an operator linked into an enemy system was discovered, or if the alien network itself were suddenly destroyed, or, indeed, if the mind crossed to the other side of a stargate interface, the shock of being cut off from his organic brain could kill him. That was simply not true; his body was alive and well protected
back within the intelligence center of the Hermes. If his link with the Xul computer was cut off, he would simply wake up back there, as if emerging from a deep and dreamfilled sleep.
But there was a danger. The organic brain could not tell the difference between virtual reality and Reality, could not know the difference between illusion, memory, or a data feed and the actual input from the body’s natural senses. The human mind required a bridge to safely extricate itself from the alien mental environment. Sudden destruction of the target, or an attack by enemy defenses, could so shock the human psyche that serious damage was the result. Intelligence operatives had suffered serious emotional trauma when things went wrong on a Penetrator op.
Insanity or, at the very least, serious neurosis, was always a possibility.
Ramsey usually tried not to think about the possibilities. He highly valued his mind, its sharpness, its responsiveness, its clarity, and, for him, at least, death was preferable to insanity.
The sharks had identified him. Somehow, he must have given himself away within the embrace of the data storage reef.
“We need to withdraw,” he told Thoth. “Now. . . .”
“The threat has been noted,” the Thoth part of his mind replied. “I’m initiating—”
The sharks never reached him. Instead, the Xul ship itself, pounded by volley upon volley from the Commonwealth fleet, had finally begun to collapse.
Worse, he could feel the odd sense of discontinuity as the huntership crossed the stargate interface.
“Transmit!” he yelled, ignoring the need for stealth. “Now! . . .”
And then his conscious world came crashing in upon him.
7
1506 .1111 UCS Hermes
Stargate
Carson Space
0816 hrs, GMT
From General Alexander’s electronic viewpoint on board the Hermes, it appeared that the tide had definitely turned. As the Xul Nightmare-class huntership began to crumple, folding itself into its own rogue microsingularity in a burst of hard gamma radiation, he allowed himself the exhilaration of knowing the Commonwealth had won.
“There he goes,” Taggart’s voice said.
“I see him, Liam. Did our penetrators get clear?” “Not sure yet, Marty,” Taggart replied. “Lots of telemetry
coming through.” The admiral paused, studying the streams of incoming data. “Yeah . . . I think we hit the jackpot with this one!”
“I want verification that our people are out of there.” Sending human minds in virtual reality into the very bowels of Xul hunterships seemed to Alexander to be an incredibly high-risk proposition. If the Xul could pattern the minds of humans on captured starships and upload them into their own virtual realities, they could do the same with human emulator software penetrating their own networks. Only two factors made the idea worthwhile in his mind—the amount of sheer data these raids could return, and the fact that the target ship, by his express order, was about to be destroyed in any case. Alexander would not allow humans—even downloaded human copies—to endure that kind of imprisonment, that kind of terror and pain.
“No information yet, General. We’ll need to wake them up, take them through the usual post-mission debrief. It’ll take time. . . .”
“Just make damned sure we get them back,” he snapped. “Their minds as well as their bodies! And I want to see an analysis on what they managed to pick up as soon as one is available.”
“Right, Marty.” Taggart had that whatever-you- sayGeneral tone to his mental voice, one Alexander had heard plenty of times before. It was the tone of voice one reserved for a micromanaging CO, or an officer who was telling his people how to do jobs that they knew damned well how to do.
The hell with it. He didn’t care what Taggart thought, or anyone else, for that matter. Operation Clusterstrike had been his, suggested by him and largely planned by his command constellation. He wanted to be in on the pay-off, wanted to know what the Penetrators had gleaned from the Xul Nightmare.
He also needed something to show Yarlocke and her crowd back at Defense, something positive.
If he didn’t, 1MIEF would be recalled, and that would have some very bad consequences indeed.
Senate Committee Deliberation Chamber Commonwealth Government Center, EarthRing
1025 hrs, GMT
Cyndi Yarlocke always enjoyed the view from this largest of the deliberation chambers within the Government Center. The walls were opaque, of course, but the entire surrounding viewall and the room’s vaulted ceiling were set to transmit seamless imagery from optical scanners mounted on the Ring’s outer framework.
The effect was that of transparent walls looking out into space. High on one wall, Earth hung against a backdrop of stars, impossibly beautiful, impossibly fragile, a marble, illuminated now from the right and showing only half its surface, of ocean- blue and intricate swirls of cloud-white. Beyond, its half-full phase mimicking Earth’s, the Moon hung in silvery splendor.
If you looked closely, the scattered lights of cities could be picked out on the dark sides of both. It was dawn over eastern North America; the megopoli of Vancouver, Portseattle, and the two Californias drew the Pacific coastline in myriad points of cool, white light, strung together on a luminous, tightly woven net, like shining drops of dew on a spider’s web.
Since the very first tentative voyages to the Moon, that view of Earth seen from space had been an icon of fragile and delicate beauty, of oceans and clouds, of ocher deserts and green plains and wrinkled mountains and bright-lit cities all gathered together in a single, tiny sphere of intense color no larger than a fist held at arm’s length.
More delicate still, though, were the Rings. . . . They encircled Earth at roughly Geosynch, some 35,700 kilometers above the planet’s equator. Beginning as an accretion of artificial space habs and modules and orbital stations, the ring complex had been under construction since the middle of the 24th Century, shortly after the Armageddon incident with the Xul huntership. Likely it would always be under construction, as more and more of the infrastructure of Earth’s civilization moved off-planet and into space, as more and more manufactories and power stations and shipyards and planetoid mining centers and ecohabitats were wired in.
The Rings were not solid structures, of course. Human technology had not yet reached a stage where it could even contemplate the construction of a single ring- structure over seventeen billion kilometers in circumference! Like the far vaster rings of Saturn, EarthRing consisted of individual units orbiting Earth in Geosynch; an invisible web of nano- extruded diamondthread, each strand only a few carbon atoms thick, held many of the different sections together, motionless relative to one another, though others were free-orbiting. Some of the units, like Commonwealth Government Center itself, were huge, sprawling in labyrinthine complexities across hundreds of kilometers; others were the size of a single small living unit, or smaller.
Together, in their billions, their lights and reflective surfaces created EarthRing, just visible as a wispy streak of light, thread- thin where it bisected Earth, brighter—like a tightly ordered, extremely narrow Milky Way—until it seemed to double back upon itself, growing into an immense arch to connect with Government Center. Four space elevators connected the Ring with the surface, but those were too slender to be seen with the naked eye; Commonwealth Government Center was close to the orbital terminus of the Quito elevator, less than eighty kilometers away, in fact, but even at that distance the 36,000-kilometer sky-to-ground thread was quite invisible.
As always, Yarlocke was moved by the overwhelming sense of fragility presented by the vista stretched across the Deliberation Chamber’s walls. More than once, EarthRing had been called the single greatest wonder of Humankind, a summation of the richness of human civilization and technology rendered visible.
Both as a senator of the Human Commonwealth and as the Chair of the Senate Defense Appropriations Committee, Yarlocke considered human civilization to be her special and personal responsibility. T
he seeming delicacy of that vista, of world and far-flung gossamer Ring set against the backdrop of stars, was far more objective than most citizens were willing to admit. It was up to her, and a few of her fellow senators, to keep that fragile globe and its ecosystem safe, a charge she regarded as a sacred trust. And that meant reining in certain se nior military personnel, men and women who meant well, certainly, but who did not understand the terrible danger currently faced by all of Humankind.
The counter to that danger, she knew, was not military force, not Marines and warships . . . and certainly not blowing up distant suns as though the very stars of heaven were disposable!
No. The Xul threat could only be countered by understanding and diplomacy. Cyndi Collins Yarlocke was as certain of that one fact as she could be of anything.
“The other members of the committee are beginning to link in, Cyndi.” Harry, her personal AI, spoke within her thoughts.
“Let them wait,” she replied. She did know how to make a proper entrance.
