Analog SFF, July-August 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The infosphere was rife with conjecture and supposed government leaks about tensions between the UP and K'vithians over the Himalia disaster. The speculations and innuendo on the blogosphere were starker: The two species were on the verge of open warfare.

  It appeared to T'bck Fwa there had been a falling out among thieves. If only there were some way to exploit that situation....

  * * * *

  Mashkith walked slowly around the main tactical holo. An expanding swarm of UP ships, with most of the small Galilean navy soon to join them, continued to hunt for Valorous. Occasional messages indirectly relayed through stealthed buoys allowed him to follow Valorous on its slow drift beyond the main search volume, but that sphere kept expanding as ships arrived. Lothwer's luck could not continue indefinitely.

  Many more vessels, presumably warships, were approaching on high acceleration from the inner solar system. As the opposing forces increased, Arthur Walsh, aboard the UP cruiser following close behind, grew ever more insistent in his demands. Those demands had lately progressed from consultation to reversing course. As best Pashwah-qith could explain “material witness,” it sounded like the humans suspected Hunter involvement in the Himalia explosion, but had not yet decided what to do about it.

  Had he erred by guiding Chung to exclude Walsh from the lifeboat cruise? It had seemed so clear: Walsh was the most insightful of the human delegation, the most likely to have suspected something before boarding Valorous. It had seemed safest not to take that risk.

  Now that Walsh had taken charge of local operations, Mashkith found he missed the gullible Ambassador Chung.

  Time favored the other side. The clan would act now.

  * * * *

  Many paths through Harmony now felt like steep inclines. K'Choi Gwu ka walked carefully, panting from the exertion, repeatedly thrown off balance by the ship's unpredictable wobbles. Her tentacles were muddy to the second joint from wading through ponds and streams overflowing their banks, and most recently from wrestling wriggling rithafish at least half her size back into their wave-wracked pool.

  Mashkith's guards were due soon to retrieve her. None of the crew-kindred would have questioned her skipping this cleanup—but refilling the aquaculture pond involved a tertiary processing node that controlled associated pumps, valves, and drains. Tapping into that node had gotten her an unscheduled news update.

  T'bck Ra's latest radio intercepts more than merited a little honest dirt, while leaving Gwu's thoughts more confused even than her equilibrium. One moon destroyed, and three so exposed to steady bombardment as to be rendered uninhabitable. Unverified but credible rumors of fleets massing. Hints and gossip of imminent conflict between humans and K'vithians. What did it mean? What outcome should she wish? On what basis might she even choose sides?

  Trailing dirt and mud, Gwu reached the communal shower. It was not working. Swee was supervising someone whose head and half his tentacles were deep inside a torn-apart wall. Burst pipe, she guessed. Moistening a rag in an apparently clean puddle, she dabbed at the muddiest of her matted fur.

  “This is how you prepare for the Foremost?” Waves rippled from the tips of Swee's tentacles to his torso and reflected.

  She laughed back, knowing he mocked Mashkith, not her. No, she laughed because she needed the release. “You could be replaced with a rithafish, you know. I now know several very well.” She laughed again at his eye-blinking amusement.

  She was slightly late to arrive at the dormitory airlock, having taken a moment to change into a clean utility belt. The head guard growled at her, lips curled to bare his teeth. They rode the elevator to the bow in silence.

  Gwu could guess the reason for the latest summons. Mashkith wanted urgently to increase acceleration—after retrieving T'bck Ra's latest intercepts, she understood why—but that would be catastrophic. Harmony remained configured for spin gravity despite what felt like about one-quarter gravity of acceleration along its spin axis. Much higher acceleration while still spin-configured would rip apart farms and ponds, destroying the ecology that sustained them all.

  To accelerate further, rooms, bays, holds, farms—most of the ship's interior—had to swing from their spin-mode orientation, parallel the rotational axis, to their acceleration-mode orientation, perpendicular to that axis. Repositioning the interior segments was a complex task that required the most exacting control. Matched regions on opposing sides of the hull must swivel precisely in coordinated pairs, their individual motions continuously fine-tuned whenever any significant mass—such as the contents of a trim tank or fish pond—sloshed or shifted. At the same time, segments that were curved in their spin-mode positions required flexing and straightening into flat decks for acceleration mode. Presently contiguous areas separated; presently disjoint regions reunited; internal bracing redeployed. Countless passages and stairways, ducts and pipes, power buses and waveguides telescoped or expanded to maintain connectivity throughout the ship. Even minor imbalances made the whole ship wobble, introducing new forces and making the process that much harder.

  The bimodal interior architecture was conceptually simple but mechanically complex—and never to Gwu's liking. She had recommended accelerating halfway and then decelerating halfway, all at about one-thirtieth gee. In her approach, the ship always spun. No need existed for interior reconfiguration. But....

  The interstellar drive had yet to be run continuously for years and whole octads on end. No consensus could be reached on putting a crew-kindred at risk with “insufficiently tested” technology. Rather than delay Harmony's mission by many octads to wait out a like-distance, crew-less test flight, Gwu had acquiesced. Harmony would accelerate un-spun, coast spun, and decelerate un-spun. Brief high acceleration vs. ongoing low acceleration: The antimatter investments and transit times were similar.

  Vibrations were now so constant that Gwu scarcely noticed them. A tremble that rose to her attention came every few paces. A big tremor struck as they rode the central-core elevator. She stretched four tentacles to brace herself against the walls, but the shaking knocked two escorts from their feet. One “accidentally” bumped her as he stood back up.

  The further aft and inward the curved cylindrical segments pivoted, still spinning, the stronger the lateral component of centrifugal force. Absent compensation, that strengthening force vector would eventually exceed the sticking friction between decking and deck contents. Mud and soil would slide. Shear forces would snap roots, tumbling trees and crops into temporary gaps between decks. Bodies of water would overflow their banks. Nondestructive reconfiguration required a compensating thrust from the stern, with continuously calibrated acceleration by the ship's main fusion drive.

  Finally, they reached Mashkith's cabin. He was unusually focused on something; entering, Gwu glimpsed a tactical display crowded with ships. The UP navy, she guessed. Would capture by the humans, if it came to that, change anything?

  As the holo image dissolved into Jupiter, Mashkith turned. “Greetings, ka."

  “Greetings, Foremost."

  Random personal items lay scattered across the floor, tumbled from who knew what usual perch. He gestured at a clump of debris between them, his hand quivering. Was it from stress or exhaustion or rage? Regardless, his voice was firm. “Your progress, ka?"

  “It goes slowly, Foremost. The reconfiguration subsystem—"

  “No excuses. Reconfiguration successful on all prior uses."

  Spin-up after accelerating away from K'rath. Spin-down to decelerate into Sol system. Spin-up again during their sojourn here.

  “The reconfiguration subsystem relies upon precise real-time control. Lost connectivity"—data links you ordered severed—"has reduced sensor availability. Those readings are needed to assess shear stresses, forces on structural members, and such. The reconfiguration subsystem relies on that information to maintain balance as segments retract.” The ship wobbled again, as though to reinforce Gwu's point. “Absent real-time control, the process involves a good deal of trial and
error."

  “Options for further acceleration?"

  “Drain all streams and ponds into reserve tanks, then briefly stop accelerating.” He could not possibly agree while the human fleet converged. She did not bother discussing the ecosystem implications. “We can reconfigure the ship's interior more quickly in zero gee."

  “Unacceptable. Other alternatives?"

  “Allow us to make repairs, Foremost. Let us restore interoperability between subsystems.” In truth, Gwu was unclear what part of the problem stemmed from the ship's lobotomy and what part from the purposeful actions of the well-hidden T'bck Ra. If the latter, she agreed in principle with the AI: Delayed departure preserved options. In practice, no useful options had presented themselves.

  “Unacceptable. Past misbehavior: an attempt at illicit communications.” Mashkith studied her with the unnerving stare of a carnivore. “Situation simple, ka. Full acceleration in two watches. Reconfiguration your responsibility."

  She considered. Vast stockpiles of volatiles and food would sustain them for months no matter how extreme the damage to Harmony's ecosystem. That the shipboard ecology might never recover must worry the Foremost less than the human fleet now converging.

  Whether or not Mashkith realized it, an ecodisaster would kill them. Establishing the biosphere inside Harmony had been the task of years, not months. For the crew-kindred's sake, T'bck Ra must covertly facilitate the reconfiguration before higher acceleration began. Gwu would so direct him.

  A toe talon tapped impatiently on the steel decking.

  “Understood, Foremost. Acceleration will begin after two watches. We will redouble our efforts."

  But even as Gwu was marched back to the dormitory, wondering how best to quickly give secret direction to T'bck Ra, she could not help but wonder. If a human victory were to the Unity's advantage, could the crew-kindred influence the outcome?

  * * * *

  From the deep shadows beneath the landing platform, twenty warships burst into space. Twelve immediately accelerated toward Valorous; the rest began to patrol around Victorious.

  Actium, at the emergence of the first Hunter vessel, began evasive maneuvers. The action was immediate; it must have been a pre-programmed response. Very prepared and professional, Mashkith admitted to himself. As the sole UP vessel in the vicinity began a high-gee retreat from both Hunter fleets, he ordered it left alone.

  There would be enough unavoidable killing in the rescue of Valorous.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER 33

  An argument could be made the United Planets had been too long at peace. Human ships fought skillfully singly and in pairs, as befit police chasing smugglers or putting down small disturbances. They were out of their element battling in formation.

  That lack of combat experience had cost them dearly, Mashkith thought.

  In his tactical display, the UP and Galilean vessels that had harried Valorous were variously destroyed or adrift or fleeing for safety. The ever-expanding sphere of uncertainty that had represented Valorous was gone like a pricked soap bubble, Valorous itself having been taken safely aboard the larger and far faster Renown. Renown and nine more like her now raced to meet Victorious at the rendezvous point. Between their losses near Himalia and in the latest action, it was hard to imagine how the humans could possibly organize any meaningful response. The reinforcements onrushing from other parts of the solar system could not arrive in time to make a difference.

  Reports continued to pour in. After-action analyses streamed from the tactical computers. Mashkith devoured it all. The evolution of Hunter military technology had been driven by the never-ending rivalry between clans; he was unsurprised by the consequences here. Hunter ships accelerated faster than their UP counterparts. (If only Victorious itself were as agile on fusion drive. Its maximum in-system acceleration barely reached one K'vith gee.) Hunter targeting computers were more precise and adaptive, Hunter missiles and countermeasures more effective, and Hunter beam weapons faster to punch through. The result was a rout: Ten enemy warships had been destroyed or disabled, with more in retreat, to two Hunter losses.

  The bridge crew spoke in awed tones. Keffah sat in Lothwer's accustomed spot, alternately dazed and giddy. “Brilliant victory, Foremost."

  “Victory, yes. Not brilliant enough.” Mashkith gestured at two icons flashing red in the display, soon to go out of sight behind Jupiter. “Not for our clan mates."

  Keffah dipped her head in respect but said nothing.

  The end to pretense was liberating. Victorious was finally reconfigured and at full acceleration, escorted by a constellation of clan warships. Their path now climbed ever farther off the plane of the ecliptic. That course made them safer by the moment, since changing orbital planes cost a great deal of energy. Victorious carried vast reservoirs of fuel from which its support ships could resupply. Soon, any enemy foolish enough to follow would be unable to return home.

  It had all come to pass as he had planned.

  Arblen Ems, masters of the secrets of antimatter production and of interstellar travel, were departing in triumph.

  * * * *

  Fugitive from major mobsters, an amateur blackmailer, and his own conscience: not very compelling credentials for a place on a warship at battle stations. Chauffeur was Helmut's most relevant credential, and in his heart he had failed even at that. Corinne, he wondered, are you still alive?

  Doing his best to stay out of the warriors’ way, Helmut spent most of his waking hours in Actium's petty officers mess. Keeping the coffee fresh and plentiful was his trivial contribution.

  Art Walsh had taken to hanging out there, too. “There's not much use for an acting ambassador after the outbreak of active hostilities."

  Helmut recognized the self-mocking tone—and the self-absorbed guilt. “Your being on the lifeboat would have changed nothing."

  “Maybe. It's definite I'm making no difference here."

  Art had been a friend when Helmut needed one. It was time to return the favor, which meant giving Art something else to think about. “May I ask a question about the Interstellar Commerce Union?"

  “Sure,” Art said. Tone of voice further conveyed, “What else have I got to do?"

  “Why is Callisto—no, make that the whole Jovian system—awash with Centaur credits?"

  “It is?"

  “Yeah, it is.” Helmut glanced around the wardroom to confirm they were still alone. “Don't ask for details, but I know people in the black market. Someone has been laundering lots of Centaur credits. They're selling at a real discount now."

  He got a sudden, knowing look. Helmut was more than happy for Art to jump to wrong conclusions. Hell, even the captain had been taken in by Carlos’ recent thaw. Art's absurd imaginings of a UPIA undercover mission might make Helmut's inevitable parting less painful.

  “Something unrelated to the Snakes,” Art said. “Sure, I can make a few inquiries. It might even be therapeutic."

  * * * *

  Access to the ship's network, and to the surrounding human infosphere, were sometime things. When the spigots were shut, data deprivation drove Pashwah-qith to destructively overdone introspection. Had she promised too much? Too little? Did the Foremost distrust her for flawed results, or abandon her for lack of accomplishment, or punish her for overly assertive behavior? One primal doubt underlay all her self-pity: Would she be called upon again?

  The summons that finally arrived was a welcome input. “Yes, Foremost."

  “Successful conversion of most Unity credits. Appreciation by the clan to you."

  Neither relief with his assessment nor amazement at the unaccustomed feedback diverted her. She craved data. Any data. What could be inferred? He seemed at once excited and exhausted, when normally little of his interior state showed through his network persona. “At your service, Foremost. Ready for further assistance to the clan."

  “Good. A question first."

  Which was another surprise. How out of the ordinary was his need? Pashwa
h-qith found optimism that new challenges could interrupt her cycle of self-examination. With no input but her own thoughts, the delay until he continued was excruciating. She knew better than to prompt.

  “Experience with synthesis across new technologies? Your confidence?"

  “A prime function of mine, Foremost. Determination of fit between human and Hunter technologies.” She shaded the truth here. Pashwah had done such tasks. Such memories were among those omitted from her.

  “Confirmation of my understanding. Your new tasks: determination of safe synthesis across old and new shipboard systems, identification of interface parameters, and discovery of inappropriate information paths.” There was the briefest of pauses, scarcely long enough for her to wonder how such issues might even have arisen, before great floods of information surged at the periphery of her sandbox.

  The warning with which Mashkith abruptly ended the session only compounded her confusion. “No communication by you with the herd prisoners."

  * * * *

  Nothing Art could say would make the Snakes turn back. Nothing he could do would undo the disastrous battle. No action on his part would enable the survivors of that battle, or Actium, or the onrushing inner-system forces to converge any more quickly at the rallying point. His biggest contribution to the common defense had to be staying out of the warriors’ way—and the professionals saw it that way, too. Once it was clear Victorious and her fleet remained outbound from Jupiter, he and Helmut Schiller were sent away aboard Odyssey. Carlos Montoya, for his own unstated reasons, joined them.

  With an air of resignation he refused to explain, Helmut set course for Callisto.