The Shattered Sphere the-2

by Roger MacBride Allen

Wally worked long hours before he had the code just right, was absolutely certain it would work—and even then he hesitated. He really ought to check with someone first, get someone’s permission. But no, that would spoil the fun of the thing.

  He set up the link, calibrated his equipment, and sent the execute command.

  He couldn’t resist.

  The Mind of the Sphere did not understand what had happened. Clearly it all had something to do with the last world it had captured, the one that had come to it unexpectedly. Somehow it, or some unnoticed, insignificant creatures on it, seemed to have fended off the attack that the advent of their world had caused. Very strange. Very strange indeed. The Mind decided to pay more attention to that world in future. But for the present, the danger was past. It could withdraw its Special Guardians and rebuild them to suit other purposes. It sent out the word. All across the Multisystem and the Portal, the Special Guardians began their long journeys home.

  Thinking on it further, it occurred to the Sphere that the new planet had managed to kill at least one regular Guardian—and it might not be wise to trifle with a world that could defeat the Adversary. And why waste precious Guardians to protect a planet that was perfectly capable of taking care of itself? Surely a world that could protect itself against the Adversary would have no trouble defending against incoming skyjunk. Almost by way of experiment, the Sphere decided to withdraw its regular Guardians from the new planet. It could always return them later, if need be.

  Multisystem Research Institute

  New York City

  Earth

  THE MULTISYSTEM

  No word. No word at all from NaPurHab or Terra Nova, and now this. There had to be a connection, somehow. Wolf Bernhardt stepped out of the elevator onto the main level of MRI’s under-ground headquarters. He rushed across the quadrangle to the auditorium. The word had come just a few minutes before. Wolf could have watched the video of the telescope images just as well from his office, but he felt the need to be with people, to join together with others.

  Practically the whole staff of MRI was there, watching it on the big screen. The images from the terrestrial telescopes were grainy, and more than a little hard to make out, but they were the most beautiful thing Wolf had seen in a long time.

  They were leaving. The SCOREs and COREs that had kept humanity bottled up on Earth for all these years were pulling out, departing their orbits, heading off across the sky.

  Wolf looked around and spotted Ursula Gruber standing in the rear of the room. He hurried over to her, and she took him by the hand, her eyes shining and bright. “It’s wonderful, Wolf. Just wonderful. But what do you think it means?”

  Wolf shook his head and looked up, past the auditorium ceiling, past the caverns of MRI, past the towers of Manhattan and the skies of the Multisystem, out to the unknown place, somewhere out in the Universe, where NaPurHab and the Terra Nova had gone. And past there as well, to Earth’s own Solar System. Surely the rest of the human family was waiting as eagerly for news as Earth itself was. And surely news would come soon. The departure of the COREs was a message to that effect, all by itself.

  “I think,” he said, “I think it means that our friends out there have done rather well.”

  THE END

  Notes on the Charonian-Adversary War

  (Information on the Charonians and their life cycles can be found in The Ring of Charon by Roger MacBride Allen, Tor Books, 1990.)

  It is important to realize that nearly every term in the discussion that follows must be regarded as an approximation or as poetic license. Paleontologists often speak of, say, a giraffe evolving a long neck, as if that were some sort of deliberate policy decision on the part of the giraffe. Clearly, this is merely convenient shorthand used instead of a more precise—and necessarily laborious— description of the process.

  Just so, here we must discuss a “war” that moved at glacial speeds, over astronomical distances and tremendously long periods of time, between two belligerent parties that quite likely never regarded each other as the “enemy,” so much as mere forces of nature. Both sides quite likely viewed it as a “war” only in the sense of a war against the weather, or an untamed territory, or a plague of locusts. It is likely that, for long periods of time, the two sides were not consciously aware of each other.

  It was a conflict between army ants on the one hand and a flock of vultures on the other. Conscious decision-making played little if any part in shaping the conflict.

  Like ants and vultures, the two sides had ways of life so radically different, and experienced their portions of the Universe in ways so wholly different from each other that they might as well have lived in separate universes.

  Their worlds scarcely ever intersected—until, of course, their interests came into conflict.

  Many details of our ant-vulture analogy are quite obviously at odds with reality, but the most skewed is perhaps that of physical scale. The Charonians—a differentiated species, with many non-reproductive individuals who labor to support those of higher castes— bear several resemblances to termites, ants, and bees. They modify their own environments extensively, develop and harvest their own “food” supply (in the form of various energy and gravitic resources), and invest significant resources in establishing new colonies.

  The Adversary does not develop resources, but merely exploits such resources as become available. As an opportunistic feeder, the Adversary must range far and wide in search of energy sources, while the Charonians must remain in close proximity to their manufactured resources.

  In short, the Charonians’ behavior resembles that of social insects, while the Adversary’s behavior closely parallels that of a free-range scavenger, such as a vulture. On Earth, the smallest scavenger birds are far larger than the largest insect. Even though the Charonians and Adversary reverse that pattern out in space, being of such disparate scales has exactly the same effect, no matter who is the larger: it is difficult for the two life-forms even to be aware of each other’s existence, let alone perceive the other as an opponent, rather than a food source or an obstacle.*

  *Indeed, the question of scale accounts for much of the Charonian difficulty in being able to perceive humans.

  Somewhere in the distant past, the Adversary broke into the Charonian wormhole network and cut a massive swath of destruction, smashing into Spheres and feeding on their energy sources, leaving wrecked Multisystems in its wake. After the first horrific onslaught wiped out most of the Spheres, the Charonians learned to fight back—and to hide. But the war did not end so much as peter out. The Adversary still feeds on Charonian Spheres whenever it can.

  One hundred forty-seven years before the book opens, the Adversary found the Shattered Sphere and ate it. The Shattered Sphere, parent to the Multisystem that holds Earth, gave a warning, then killed itself before the Adversary could make a link to other systems. When the Shattered Sphere died, its system was wrecked. Dead planets, rogue stars, and dead Charonians wheeled through space.

  After killing the Shattered Sphere, the Adversary unit responsible for the attack withdrew to a truncated wormhole and remained there. The Adversary unit lived in slow-time conditions where perhaps one year Adversary time is equivalent to a century of our time. It was “asleep” for most of that 147 years, inert, as seen from the outside Universe.

  However, the Earth’s arrival in the Multisystem created a disturbance in the wormhole net that stimulated the Adversary to wakefulness. Then, the human-caused interference was loud and indiscriminate. It served to illuminate the Shattered Sphere system links to the Multisystem, making the revivable wormholes clearly visible.

  This gave the Adversary a wonderful guide to a new system to invade, a trail which it is following as The Shattered Sphere opens. The Adversary is preparing to make a transit of normal space heading straight for the main, default wormhole link, the one that produced the most clear and powerful signal—that is, the link between Lone World of Solitude to the Multisystem. The Adversary has tak
en five years to awaken and now is preparing to attack. The Multisystem Charonians laid low until there was no question that an attack was coming. Once there was no doubt, they prepared to meet it.

  Glossary of Terms, Ship Names, and Locations

  Abduction The event and time period during which the Charonians stole the Earth and placed it in a new orbit around the Sunstar in the Multisystem. There is a natural tendency to divide things into pre- and post-Abduction.

  Amalgam Creatures See Lander.

  Artlnt (Artificial Intelligence) Typically refers to a machine or subsystem smart enough to do what should be done without being told.

  Autarch The personal ship of the Autocrat of Ceres.

  Autocrat of Ceres The absolute ruler of the largest asteroid, and the only effective instrumentality of law or justice in the Belt Community. A reputation for draconian justice has served to prevent most from daring his wrath.

  Breeding Binge Those times when large Charonians land on the surface of a living world and use it as a breeding ground, often wrecking the planet’s natural ecosystem in the process. It might take hundreds of thousands or millions of years for a planet to recover. Though no human has witnessed a Breeding Binge, the damage caused by them is plainly visible on many of the Captive Worlds nearest to Earth.

  Captive Suns or Captive Stars Those stars that have been captured and held by a Charonian Sphere to serve as suns for its Captive Worlds.

  Captive Worlds Life-bearing planets that have, like the Earth, been abducted into a Charonian Multisystem. They are placed in orbit around Captive Suns, at distances and orbital periods that will maintain their climates. The Charonians, in effect, use the Captive Worlds as breeding cages to reproduce certain subspecies during certain parts of their life cycle.

  Carrier Bugs Any of the lowest-level Charonian types, capable of only the simplest fetch-and-carry duties.

  Central City Formerly Central Colony. The principal city and capital of the Lunar Republic.

  Ceres Largest body in the Asteroid Belt. The de facto capital of the Belt.

  Charonians Named for the Ring of Charon, the Charonians are the aliens responsible for the Earth’s Abduction. There are many species and subspecies of Charonian, ranging in size and complexity from Carrier Bugs to Spheres. They are partially living, partially mechanical. Though their ancestors were creatures not completely unlike humans, they have now guided their own evolution into forms so completely changed that it is often difficult to recognize them as living. The form and degree of Charonian intelligence are quite unclear.

  Conner A citizen of the Lunar Republic. Derived from colonist and/or con-artist.

  Consortium of Spheres Charonian term for the now-ruined network of linked Spheres and Multisystems connected by a web of wormhole links.

  COREs, Close-Orbiting Radio Emitters Any of a large number of identical objects in various orbits, not all close, around all the worlds of the Multisystem. Their powerful radio signals—emitted over a wide range of frequencies—serve as an effective jamming mechanism. See SCOREs.

  Directorate of Spatial Investigation (DSI) The organization charged with studying—and ultimately defeating—the Charonians. Wolf Bernhardt is the director. DSI works closely with MRI.

  Dyson Sphere A huge sphere built entirely around a star, so as to provide huge surface area (hundreds of billions times greater than the surface area of Earth) and /or to capture all of the star’s radiated power.

  Earthpoint That point in space, relative to the Moon and the rest of the Solar System, where the Earth once was. The Earthpoint Black Hole, a.k.a. the Earthpoint Singularity or Earthpoint Wormhole, occupies this space See Moon-point.

  Event Horizon The minimum distance from a black hole required before time or light can escape—or, to put it another way, the minimum distance required before events are possible. The stronger a gravity field, the slower time moves. Make the field strong enough, and get close enough, and time slows to a complete stop. Also defined as the point at which the local escape velocity equals the speed of light.

  Event Radius The distance, usually measured in light-minutes or light-hours, between two points. So called because no event can have any effect at a given distance until light (or radio waves or other electromagnetic energy) has had time to cross that distance. Referred to as a “radius” because light expands out spherically. Not related to Event Horizon.

  Fast-Time Space Normal space, as seen from the Adversary’s point of view. Used to high-gravity, high-energy, slow-time environments, the Adversary views normal space as a strangely distorted—and hostile—place.

  Ghoul Modules Large Charonian forms that docked themselves to the dead Moonpoint Ring. So called because they apparently brought the dead ring back to life.

  GIGO, Garbage In Garbage Out A slang version of the obvious rule that inputting bad initial data will produce unreliable results. However, the primary usage is as a description of data that is known to be bad. “We can’t run the simulation. All we have is that GIGO data.”

  Graser Gravity laser—a focused beam of gravity power.

  Graviton An experimental ship using cannibalized Charonian equipment to generate a gravity-beam propulsion system, riding gravity beams sent by the Ring of Charon.

  Guardian Charonian term for CORE.

  Heritage Memory In effect, the collective race memory of the Charonian race. Each significant new experience of an individual is recorded and stored by at least one other individual, usually by a higher-level being capable of evaluating it. Copies of the appropriate sections of the heritage memory are placed in each newly made or manufactured Charonian. Each higher-level individual possesses a significant fraction of the race’s history, in the form of individual memory. As nearly all Charonian behavior is based on precedent, the Heritage Memory is of tremendous importance. A Charonian facing a situation outside the experience of its Heritage Memory will have no guide for its actions.

  Hijacker The small stealthship destroyed in the first attempt to board a CORE.

  Hijacker II Formerly the Scott. The Terra Nova’s largest lander, used in a key action against the Adversary.

  Lander One of many huge creatures, long hidden in dormant stages inside asteroids, which move through space under broadcast gravity power radiated by the Lunar Wheel.

  Leftover A mildly derogatory term for a citizen of Earth stranded in the Solar System by the Abduction.

  Lifecode DNA, or any extraterrestrial equivalent of DNA. Any means of passing and storing an instruction set for a life-form.

  Lunar Wheel A huge, toroidal Charonian structure deep inside the Moon. It circles the Moon’s core, and is aligned precisely with the border between the Lunar Nearside and Farside.

  MG Wave Modulated gravity wave.

  Moonpoint, Moonpoint Ring That point in space, relative to Earth, that occupies the space where the Moon once was. The Moonpoint Ring, a massive gravity-generator, holds the space now, with the Moonpoint end of the Earth-Solar System wormhole at its center. The Moonpoint Ring was killed in the battle for the Solar System. See Earthpoint.

  Multisystem The huge artificial stellar system in which the Earth is placed. At its center is the Sphere. It includes a number of G-class stars, around each of which large numbers of life-bearing planets orbit.

  Multisystem Research Institute (MRI) A think-tank associated with Columbia University in New York City, and with the DSI. A major—and rather moribund—center for study of the Multisystem and the Charonians.

  Naked Purple Movement Also known as the Pointless Cause. One of a number of odd social and political movements. Its belief structure is kept deliberately obscure and conflicted. Owns NaPurHab, the Naked Purple Habitat, and Tycho Purple Penal on the Moon.

  NaPurHab (Naked Purple Habitat) A large and rather shabby orbiting habitat owned and populated by the Naked Purple Movement. Originally in a figure-eight orbit between Earth and the Moon, NaPurHab is, as the book opens, in an increasingly unstable orbit around the black hole at the cent
er of the Moonpoint Ring in the Multisystem. Its orbit is actually interior to the Moonpoint Ring’s circumference. Population ten thousand.

  Permod, Personnel Module A self-sufficient life-support unit about the size and shape of a coffin. It can be stacked and packed like a cargo module and flown in a cargo vehicle.

  Plutopoint The point in space formerly occupied by the now-destroyed planet Pluto and its satellite Charon. Both worlds were totally absorbed into the Plutopoint Black Hole. The Plutopoint hole was then used to defend the remaining worlds of the Solar System against the Charonians.

  Rabbit Hole The vertical shaft leading from the Lunar North Pole to the Lunar Wheel, forty kilometers below.

  Ring of Charon Huge human-made gravity research tool, formerly orbiting Charon, Pluto’s moon. It now holds the Plutopoint Singularity at its center. See Plutopoint.

  Ring-and-Hole Set, R-H Set The combination of a gravitic singularity (such as a black hole) and an accelerator ring (such as the Ring of Charon). Together, the two can be used to generate gravity waves and beams, and to form wormhole apertures. The Charonians use R-H sets extensively.

  Saint Anthony The automated relay probe dropped through the Earthpoint-Moonpoint wormhole just after the Abduction. It provided the last exchange of information between Earth and the Solar System. Named for the patron saint of lost objects.

  Solar Area or Solar Space Naked Purple terms for the Solar System. The distinction is an ideological one: “system” implies order and control, whereas the chaotic, uncontrolled randomness of nature dictates against order. “Area” and “space” do not imply order.

  SCOREs Small COREs. A new form of spacegoing Charonian. As the book opens, many of them are moving toward Earth at great speed. See COREs.

  Scorpion A fairly sophisticated Charonian type, capable of dealing (though not necessarily dealing well) with unexpected situations. The term is applied not only to the scorpion-shaped Charonians, but to all creatures of its approximate ability.