End of the Circle

by Jack McKinney

  The portly scientist cleared a low growl from his throat. “And I’m telling you we’re exactly where we’re supposed to be, Professor Nichols. If anything’s missing, it’s Haydon IV.”

  Nichols, grinning, put a hand to his round-lensed goggles as he peered over his shoulder at Penn. “Some wrinkle in the Newtonian universe, Doctor? A planet gets it in mind to leave orbit, and off it goes?”

  Penn scratched at his beard. “Need I remind you of some of the wonders we’ve experienced these past thirty years, Professor? Besides, with that world anything’s possible.”

  Nichols smirked. “Relax, Harry. I’m sure your aim was true.” His forefinger called up data on the touchscreen. “What we have here are indications of gravitational perturbations throughout this star system. So I believe it’s safe to assume the planet has in fact vanished.”

  “But Cabell had been in communication with Exedore,” Vince thought to point out. “There was nothing in his transmissions about …this.”

  “Then it’s likely the event occurred recently,” Nichols said. “Obviously within the past Earth-standard month.”

  “I concur,” Penn said.

  The bridge com-line tone sounded, and Vince leaned forward to respond.

  “Receiving an urgent distress call,” his exec began. “Survivors from the Karbarran ship N’trpriz.”

  “Survivors? What happened?”

  The line was quiet for a moment. “Sir, the N’trpriz was ordered to Haydon IV on an extraction op. Seems that several hundred Karbarran traders were taken prisoner during the rebellion.”

  Vince and Penn traded astonished looks. “What rebellion?” Penn demanded.

  “It’s unclear, Doctor. Apparently the Haydonites have risen up against the Awareness. Offworlders caught up in the rebellion have been transferred to subsurface confinement areas below what remains of Glike.”

  “This is madness,” Vince said. “Ask them if the N’trpriz attempted to engage the planet.”

  “Affirmative, sir. N’trpriz was in communication with the surface when the planetary Awareness succeeded in arming the ship’s auto-destruct systems.” Grant’s first officer paused momentarily. “The survivors claim to have jumped ship in an escape vehicle prior to detonation. They claim that the ships of their own battle group deserted them.”

  Vince tightened his lips. “Tell them we’re on our way to their position. But ask if they can give the approximate present location of Haydon IV.”

  “Negative, sir. They say no can do.”

  “Why in heaven’s name not?” Penn said.

  “Response, sir: “ ‘Because Haydon IV executed a fold.’ ”

  * * *

  After rescuing the Karbarran survivors, the Ark Angel executed a jump of its own not, however, for the ursinoids’ homeworld but for Fantoma’s third moon, Tirol.

  Scott had to call in most of the favors owed him to get himself included among the small landing party that was shuttled down to Tiresia. But the hassle was well worth it, if only for the quick ride through the city’s streets to the Royal Hall, which still towered argent and pyramidal over the city-scape like a holy mountain.

  Otherwise, the place had changed dramatically in the three years since the Mars Group’s departure. Scott had not been here for the return of Jonathan Wolfe’s starship, and with it the arrival of the 15th ATAC and the Tiresian clones they were conveying home. Nor had he been around for the first Flower of Life harvest on New Praxis or the development of Lang’s facsimile Protoculture matrix, which had been left in Tiresia for safekeeping. That alone had returned enormous wealth and prosperity to Tirol, what with liberated worlds throughout the Local Group hungry anew for interstellar transports and inexpensive but efficient sources of energy to assist in the mammoth task of reconstruction. Most of the actual manufacturing of ships and machines had been farmed out to Karbarra, but it was Tirol that had reaped the rewards. The moon had become a kind of cultural crossroads, almost on a par with Haydon IV in the trafficking of information and construction techniques.

  Thus, Tiresia’s public buildings and housing structures sparkled like gems in an emerald setting. Under REF supervision, the clones and indigs had irrigated and terraformed the city’s once-denuded outskirts, and while a Rome-analogue look had been preserved in places, reconfigurable stadiums and ultratech high rises dominated the skyline.

  Scott’s parents, both of whom were engineers largely responsible for the rebuilding of Mars Sara Base, were among a group of Terran settlers and exiled Ghost Squadron pilots who had elected to remain on Tirol. He was eager to see them again, plans for a meet having already been firmed up during a short ship-to-surface conversation earlier on.

  Cabell—the bald and bearded wizard who had seemed such a sinister figure to an eleven-year-old Scott Bernard—was on hand to welcome the landing party and escort them, in a caravan of surface-effect vehicles, to that part of the Royal Hall given over to Local Group affairs. There, Vince and Jean Grant, Harry Penn, and the rest were greeted by planetary envoys from Karbarra, New Praxis, Spheris, Garuda, Peryton, and several emerging worlds once dominated by the Robotech Masters and Invid that had never been visited by the Sentinels.

  The Haydonite foreign minister and the whole of the ambassadorial legation had been placed in custody.

  “They haven’t revealed so much as a thought since their arrest,” Scott heard Cabell inform Vince while a Karbarran representative had the chamber’s floor. “And of course we know of no way to force them to send. I’m certain they’ve fallen victim to the same programming that has set their homeworld in motion.”

  “First the Invid, then the SDF-3, now Haydon IV,” Jean whispered back.

  Cabell nodded, flaring white eyebrows bobbing. “And these disappearances are only the beginning.”

  “How so?” Vince asked.

  The Tiresian voiced a note of frustration. “The very fabric of the continuum has been affected in some way. It would require a complex array of instruments and measuring devices to demonstrate my findings. But I will say this much: Our universe appears to be shrinking.”

  Penn blanched. “But—”

  “Wait.” Cabell cut him off, holding up a graceful hand. “Hear this one out.”

  There was commotion on the floor. Scott saw that the Karbarran who had been growling demands at everyone had been issued a message of some sort and was pacing before the amphitheater seats, waving the crumpled thing overhead in a clenched paw-hand.

  “Let it be known to all members of the Local Group that Karbarra is fully prepared to go to war unless reparations are made for the capture of our citizens and the destruction of three of our vessels.”

  The audience of diplomats and staffers muttered among themselves.

  “And how many more ships will you have to lose before you see the error of interference?” a Spherisian shouted from the hall’s upper tier.

  “The next time it won’t be a single ship but a fleet we commit,” the Karbarran snapped.

  “Fleets have been destroyed in the past, Nal,” a Praxian said.

  “Legends,” Nal scoffed. “Karbarra has outgrown such things.”

  “And Karbarra would like nothing better than to see Haydon IV added to its growing list of indentured worlds,” sneered someone from the Perytonian contingent. “You try the patience of the committee, Nal.”

  Nal gestured with a paw-hand. “Such accusations from the chief debtor world in the Local Group. Peryton tries our patience, Minister Marak.”

  “Silence! All of you,” Cabell said loudly enough to quiet a score of separate arguments that had broken out. He looked to Nal. “Talk of reprisals and reparations is not only premature but pointless, given the fact that Haydon IV has managed to elude us. I strongly suggest—”

  “No longer, Tiresian!” Nal waved the message sheet in Cabell’s direction. “Our recon forces report that Haydon IV has emerged from fold and inserted itself in orbit around Ranaath’s Star.”

  “Ranaath?!” Cabell said
, struggling to his feet. “Are you certain of this?”

  “Our reconnaissance forces pride themselves on their accuracy,” Nal told him.

  “But Ranaath is a … black hole system,” Cabell said for the benefit of the Terran contingent. He had yet to tell Penn or Grant about Exedore’s determination that Ranaath had been at the receiving end of the energy pulse that had accompanied the Invid departure. “Why would the Haydonites willingly place themselves in such a godforsaken place?”

  Nal folded powerful-looking arms across his massive chest. “We’ll be sure to ask them,” he said, hurling the message to the floor and storming from the room.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  At 66:18:740, Commander in Chief Dolza committed the last of the Golthano Fleet ships to the dark maw of Ranaath’s Star, and once more the ships were torn asunder by (translator’s insert: tidal forces encountered at the event horizon). Losses to this date number 670 ships, 42,000 Zentraedi lives. It would appear that the Zentraedi ships are of insufficient durability to negotiate penetration of the (horizon) or the (realm jump) that is a suggested probability should such a penetration be effected. Be aware that Commander Khyron of the Botoru Battalion is fully prepared to undertake the next attempt. He would have it made known to you that he in fact requests to be afforded the honor.

  Exedore, in a communiqué to the Robotech Masters, as quoted by Rawlins in his Zentraedi Triumvirate: Dolza, Breetai, Khyron

  Max Sterling watched Exedore play the console Veidt had delivered to their cell, stubby fingers pecking away at command keys. To offset any suspicion that the furtive delivery might have aroused among level four’s cadre of humorless, hovering overseers, the terminal had been designed to include an archaic touchpad. The armless Haydonites had no call for such a tedious approach, and in truth neither did Exedore, who had grown accustomed to the Awareness data lab’s neural headbands. The console consequently resembled nothing so much as a child’s learning aid, which was exactly what the jailers were meant to make of it. To buoy the ploy, Aurora was seated alongside Exedore, ostensibly under the Zentraedi’s tutelage, issuing appropriate sounds of excitement and discovery as the screen displayed responses to Exedore’s prompts.

  Miriya and Dana were in the Praxians’ quarters, trying to reassure the four Amazons that Veidt’s sudden turnaround was genuine.

  Well, Miriya was, Max thought. Dana was probably encouraging everyone to tunnel beneath the walls.

  The former Skull Squadron ace found himself thinking about twentieth-century prison escapes as he cast a wary eye at the cell’s laser-barred threshold. It had been pastry surprises back then, files and hacksaw blades concealed in cakes and long loaves of bread. But breakouts now required break-ins of a sort, direct data links to the security system’s keymaster—in this instance, Haydon IV’s artificial sentience, the Awareness.

  Exedore voiced a plosive sound of frustration. “Another mistake. My fingers have forgotten just who it is that does the thinking for them. They seem convinced they have a mind of their own.”

  “Take your time,” Max advised under his breath. “Remember, you’re supposed to be a teacher, not some interloper.”

  “Teachers have been known to lose patience,” Exedore retorted. “In any event, keeping watch on the front door—such as it is—does little more than draw attention to us. I suggest to you that the Haydonites would have filled these rooms with monitoring devices if they for one moment suspected we’d be foolish enough to attempt an escape.”

  Max glanced at the alloy partitions and ceilings. Veidt had been responsible, too, for the holo-views that adorned the long, rear walls—vistas of rolling hills crisscrossed with hedgerows and low stone walls. A sun shone in the false sky, rising and setting in breathtaking colors; if nothing else, it had at least returned the captives to a semblance of circadian normalcy. Max sometimes felt as though he were back in the SDF-1, carousing after a mission with Rick and Ben in downtown Macross under EVE’s projected cloudscape.

  And there he was, the only full-blooded Terran in the room.

  “I’m certain of one thing,” Exedore resumed. “Haydon IV has defolded.”

  “I guessed as much,” Max told him, gratified that he could still rely on his own senses to differentiate between real time and hyperspace. “Can you find out where we are?”

  “I have already established that. Although I’ll confess I should have suspected it all along.”

  Max laid a protective hand on Aurora’s shoulder; the doe-eyed child looked up at him and smiled as Exedore took a deep breath.

  “We are inserted in orbit around a small, carbonaceous moon that circles this system’s sixth planet—an equally desolate place, I might add. The Zentraedi knew the system’s dying primary as Qalliph, a word approximated by the Panglish term dread.”

  Max raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”

  “Actually, it isn’t so much the star itself that inspired the name but the phenomenon to which it in turn pays gravitational obeisance. The Masters named it Raanath’s Star, after an especially barbaric warlord from Tirol’s pre-Transition past. Your own astrophysicists have labeled such phenomena black holes.”

  Max whistled lightly. “I’ve always wanted to get a look at one of those things.”

  Exedore frowned at him. “Yes, I recall from my delvings into Terran literature that your race has endowed these black holes with near-mystical importance. This was especially true among your so-called science fiction writers, I believe. A blend of romantic fascination and morbid curiosity. But I can assure you, as one who has seen an entire battle group swallowed by these sinister portals, that even the most ghoulish of your imaginings doesn’t come close to detailing the horrors of the experience.”

  “So what are we doing here?” Max asked after a moment of nightmare reflection.

  Exedore did input at the console, then studied the displayed results in silence. “The reason is twofold. First, I believe that we—Haydon IV, that is—are in pursuit of the energy pulse that originated in Earthspace with the Invid defeat. Based on the results of my previous investigations, I posited that Ranaath’s Star was the terminus of that pulse.

  “Second, Haydon IV is apparently making use of radiation bleeding from the collapsed star, but to what purpose I cannot fathom. The Awareness has also issued a series of commands to the planetary drives, which will soon bring us dangerously close to the cratered satellite we have been orbiting.” Exedore regarded Aurora but continued to address Max. “An external view would be most helpful, but I have yet to determine whether visual data are available. The Awareness had been operating in a purely abstract mode.”

  Max was just beginning to reply when Dana burst upon the scene.

  “You can put away the toy,” she directed to Exedore. “Unless you can use it to find out whether the Awareness believes in an afterlife.”

  Exedore cocked an eyebrow.

  Miriya was only a few steps behind, wearing the worried look she reserved for her eldest child.

  “The Praxians have worked out a wall-tapping commo code with the Karbarrans next door,” Dana explained. “Seems one of the jailers let it slip that a Karbarran recon vessel homed in on our new address and radioed a burst transmission to Karbarra. Since then, a fleet of Local Group battleships has folded from Tirol. They’re due any hour now.”

  Max searched his wife’s face.

  “It’s true, Max,” Miriya said. “At least that’s what they told us. The Karbarran prisoners claim to have discovered some way to override the threshold confinement lasers as well. They’re prepared to ready a full-scale revolt as soon as the battle group arrives and the attack commences.”

  “But they’ve already lost three ships,” Exedore reminded everyone. Beside him, Aurora had reached a hand over to enter a command into the console.

  “They’ll never learn,” Max said absently, monitoring Aurora’s movements peripherally.

  “Yeah, well, a fleet can do a lot more damage than a single ship,�
�� Dana argued, hands on her hips. “I say we throw in with the Karbarrans. Anything’s better than being cooped up in here.”

  “An uprising would prove a terrible mistake,” Aurora interjected quietly.

  It was as though an oracle had spoken. Exedore swiveled in his seat, but something on the display screen caught his attention and brought him up short.

  “Figures you’d say that,” Dana replied uncertainly.

  “You must tell them to be patient, sister,” Aurora added in the same assured tone. “The Karbarrans must wait until the Awareness is preoccupied.”

  “Preoccupied how?” Dana wanted to know.

  “Here!” Exedore said, an unsteady index finger aimed at the monitor.

  Max narrowed his eyes as a series of complex schematics flashed on-screen.

  Dana got a grip on the Zentraedi’s shoulder. “Don’t go mute on us now, Exedore, or I’ll—”

  “It’s changing,” he said before she could complete the threat. “The entire planet. Haydon IV is reconfiguring!”

  “The second star to the right?” Rick asked, wondering when he had heard the phrase before. “Why that one?”

  Lang’s broad shoulders heaved. “It’s the closest. It appears to be, I should say. Light seems to enjoy playing games with itself in this place. One moment the star lies directly along our course, the next it doesn’t. One moment it’s effectively beyond reach, the next at our bow.” The scientist gestured to the engineering room’s tablescreen. “You see! There it changes again. As if it were compensating for the deficiency of our drive system or trying to decide just where to locate itself.” He shook his head. “What’s the sense of trying to discover the essential mechanics of this realm where there is nothing immutable to measure against?”