by Ian Douglas
Destroying the facilities at Tsiolkovsky might not kill Konstantin, but the repercussions would be damned serious.
Damn it, those factions were doing their best to tear down all that humans had built for themselves in space.
How was it, Koenig wondered, that otherwise sane and sober people could only mindlessly destroy anything with which they disagreed, anything that didn’t think the way they did, anything reflecting ideas different from their own?
Sometimes, Koenig thought, he despaired of his own species.
Lieutenant Adams
VFA-198 Hellfuries
Cis-Lunar Space
1708 hours, FST
Lieutenant Adams dropped into space from Launch Bay Two and gave a gentle burst of acceleration, sweeping from the deep shadow beneath America’s shield cap and into full sun.
“Okay, Furies,” Lieutenant Commander Beaumont, the squadron CO, announced. “Stay tucked in tight. We have a ship to catch.”
“So what are we doing chasing a freakin’ freighter?” Lieutenant Lowry demanded. “Waste of damned assets, if you ask me.”
“Waste of your damned ass, you mean,” Lieutenant Jacobson said.
“Can it, people,” Beaumont ordered. “On my mark, boost at three . . . two . . . one . . . punch it!”
Eight Starblade fighters accelerated toward the moon, looming now in the first quarter and 240,000 kilometers distant.
That range translated to about one and a quarter light-seconds, but the squadron had to accelerate for a full minute to cross half of that distance, then decelerate so that they wouldn’t flash past the moon at thousands of kilometers per second. The moon grew rapidly huge as Julia decelerated, then kicked her grav drive around to make the curve over the dazzling horizon. She was moving far too quickly for the lunar gravity to make much difference to her course, and she had to haul the Starblade into the curve with a ferocious expenditure of energy.
The Mare Smythii, vast and riding the lunar equator, flashed beneath her keel. Mountains, broken, tortured terrain, clawed at her Starblade, now less than fifty kilometers below.
Be careful, love.
It was Gregory’s voice. Damn it, he was in her head, looking through her eyes, whispering in her mind.
“Get the hell out of my head, Don! I’m busy!”
But . . .
“No back-head driving!”
Her scanners picked up the Tomsk, a thousand kilometers ahead. She was gaining fast . . . too fast . . . and she increased her rate of deceleration.
“This is Hellfury Five . . . I’m taking my shot!” She thoughtclicked an icon and felt the surge of a Krait missile sliding clear. “Fox One!”
She was still moving too fast, and she covered the remaining thousand kilometers in a blurred instant. Her Krait leaped ahead . . . merged with the Tomsk . . .
The silent flash of a 300-megaton nuke blossomed directly ahead. Her fighter hurtled into the fireball.
There was no shock wave, of course, not in hard vacuum, but her Starblade hit bits and pieces of debris, white-hot shrapnel lashing out from the explosion. She felt a jolt . . . felt her fighter go into a savage tumble.
Her onboard AI struggled to right her . . . she tried to take control . . .
But she was ten kilometers above the lunar surface now and moving far too quickly to correct in time.
At twenty-five kilometers per second, Julia Adams slammed into the rugged lunar surface.
Julia!
Chapter Twenty-five
29 April, 2429
The Godstream
1740 hours, FST
Julia awoke.
“Gotcha!”
“Don?”
“Hey, lover.”
They floated together in the Purist heaven once again.
“What . . . what happened?”
“You didn’t think I was going to lose you again, did you?”
The Godstream
1740 hours, FST
Katya Golikova awoke.
What had just happened? She’d been on board the converted freighter Tomsk, closing on their target. She’d volunteered for the assignment, a chance to get out of her Yastreb fighter and onto an assignment that promised to advance her career by light years. The Tomsk, she’d been told, had been tasked with shutting down a USNA super-AI that was threatening to start a war between North America and the Russian Federation. On board the freighter was an EMP projector of secret design, one that would shut down this SAI without destroying it.
But that information was wrong. She now realized, without quite knowing how, that Tomsk had been carrying a five-gigaton nuclear warhead that would have obliterated Tsiolkovsky and everything underneath. This had been a suicide mission, and she hadn’t even known. . . .
She looked around and realized she was in a receiving area of sorts. She looked up. “Bozhe moi!”
The Milky Way galaxy glowed down from straight overhead, and people were gathering to welcome her. This was . . . yes. The long-expected Singularity—a virtual world prepared for people uploading into the Godstream.
Rage surfaced, and she clenched virtual fists. She hadn’t been ready to cross over! She’d had her whole life!
Who had done this to her?
Commander Diatchenko had given her the orders, but she was pretty sure they hadn’t originated with him. She found that by concentrating, she could pull information—computer and link records, vast fields of data of all kinds—and trace the order up a chain of command to Captain Rusenski. To Admiral Shostakovich. And on up the ladder to the Ministry of Defense . . .
A thought was all it took to leave the receiving area and be elsewhere in an instant.
The Godstream
2015 hours, FST
“So how many people have ascended so far?” Gray asked.
Technically, they were in the Godstream. At Koenig’s invitation, Gray had stepped through and was in a virtual space now with Koenig, Konstantin, Laurie Taggart off the Yorktown, and Captain Mackey. Konstantin, he saw, was using his old avatar . . . the prissy-looking Russian schoolteacher wearing a pince-nez, the historical figure for whom he was named.
“A precise number is impossible to derive,” Konstantin said, adjusting the glasses on his nose. “People are entering and leaving the Godstream in large numbers, but as yet no software has been created to keep track of them all. A rough estimate would be around one billion, including both humans and conscious AIs.”
“Two percent of the population,” Koenig put in. “Give or take.”
“I always thought the Singularity would be a kind of mass exodus, you know?” Gray said, thoughtful. “One moment, there’s humanity, going about its business. The next moment . . . piff! Everyone’s gone.”
“Piff?” Taggart repeated, amused.
“Something like that.”
“Given the nature of the phenomenon,” Konstantin said, “it seems extremely unlikely that things would be that . . . neat.”
Gray nodded. “Sure. We know from the Sh’daar that not everyone is going to pass through. There are going to be Refusers, people who reject high technology, or who like the life they’re already living, or whose religion forbids them from ascending for some reason. They’re clinging to Earth and screaming, ‘I don’t wanna go!’”
“Sounds right,” Taggart said. “Still, I have to admit that I expected more than two percent!”
“The numbers are continuing to go up,” Mackey said. “Maybe it’ll just take a while for everyone else to catch up with what’s happening.”
“Maybe,” Gray said. “You know, I really hope everyone doesn’t go.”
“Why’s that, Admiral?” Mackey wanted to know.
“The Baondyeddi. There’s an object lesson there for all of us. We think they were hiding from someone or something,” Gray continued. “They’d drastically slowed the passage of time for themselves and were blissfully zipping off into remote futurity when the Consciousness came along.”
“The evidence,” Konstanti
n said, “is that the Consciousness actually absorbed the data patterns in the Etched Cliffs, made them a part of itself. It was an extremely powerful group mind, remember. The Baondyeddi and the other species dwelling with it within the Etched Cliffs may exist now within the Consciousness.”
“We’ll never know,” Gray said. “Point is, the Baondyeddi didn’t have anyone on the outside to keep someone from coming along and pulling the plug. Earth is going to need something like that.”
“What did you have in mind, Admiral?” Mackey asked.
“I’m not sure. A defense force of some sort. A special forces unit or a carrier battlegroup with access to the Godstream, but that stays outside and protects it from whatever threats might come along.”
“Something like the Consciousness?” Taggart asked. “That’s a pretty tall order.”
“The Consciousness,” Gray said, “or the Nungiirtok, or even extremist groups like Humankind First. Different threats, but all of them dangerous.”
“I’m not sure a single battlegroup could have taken on the Consciousness,” Mackey said. “We needed help from the Denebans, you’ll recall.”
“Unlike the Baondyeddi virtual worlds,” Konstantin said, “the Godstream is accessible to the outside, and the Godstream offers Humankind a staggeringly large advantage.”
“A singular advantage, would you say?” Taggart asked, smiling.
It was possible that Konstantin missed the pun. “Indeed. Within the Godstream already exists an enormous potential in human and AI minds, a concentration unlike anything experienced in human history.”
“What do you mean?”
“Historically, geniuses who appear in a place and time and under circumstances where they are able to contribute to human development are fairly rare. Imagine, however, a community where every genius has full access to the education and cultural focus that allows him or her to achieve her full potential. Imagine them in an environment where they have immediate and full communication with others such as themselves, access to important projects, guidance in the application of their talents.”
“A powerhouse,” Taggart said quietly.
“To say the least. The process has already begun within the Godstream, and it is accelerating in an asymptotic curve.”
“That’s right,” Koenig added. “At this moment, we have entire worlds of med specialists working on the eradication of disease and the indefinite extension of human life for those left behind. We have a new theory of quantum gravity that still needs to be tested, but which is extremely promising. We have one virtual think tank that’s working on what they claim is a way to extend the Godstream to other stars.”
“How is that even possible? The speed of light would block any interaction between systems. You can’t extend the Godstream if there’s no communication infrastructure.”
Koenig’s ghost chuckled. “The infrastructure that would support the Godstream can be constructed in other systems. Hell, most exosystems with a base more advanced than a research station or outpost already have most of what’s needed. People in the Godstream here could beam themselves to another system by laser com.”
“But that would take years,” Mackey said. Then he looked surprised. “Oh . . .”
“Exactly. For someone traveling as digital packets of information at the speed of light, no time would pass at all. They step into the machine here and exit the machine there. Instantaneous travel.”
“Yeah,” Gray said, “but objectively, four and a half years would pass for a trip to Chiron.”
“What does that matter?” Koenig asked. “Admiral, we are witnessing the birth of what may be a truly immortal society. Those of us living within the virtuality of the Godstream, we won’t age. What does a hundred-thousand-light-year journey across the breadth of the galaxy matter to individuals billions of years old?”
Gray shook his head. “This is going to take some getting used to!”
“I imagine most people will stay put. The Godstream is now growing asymptotically—a graph plot of its increase would go straight up. The number of worlds available within virtuality is growing at the same rate.”
“What are they going to do with all those new worlds?” Gray wanted to know.
“I saw a news feed about a whole new fad,” Taggart said, shaking her head. “Temporal recreations.”
“Yes,” Koenig said. “Worlds representing different historical periods.”
“I’ve heard about that,” Gray said. “Ancient Rome and Greece. Versailles. Pharaonic Egypt. And not just legitimate history, either. People can hobnob with the gods of Mount Olympus or Asgard. Walk the streets of ancient Atlantis. Have tea with the hobbits of Middle Earth. Hunt dinosaurs 100 million years in the past. Or rub tentacles with the ur-Sh’daar in the glory days of the N’gai Cloud. Unlimited possibilities.”
“Unlimited possibilities,” Konstantin added, “if we can survive the next few days.”
“What do you mean?” Gray asked.
“There are forces—institutions—that don’t want any of this to happen.”
“How will they come after it?” Taggart asked.
“They’ve already tried. The space elevators. The Tomsk. I am at this moment in communication with the Russian fighter pilot of that ship,” Konstantin told them. “She entered the Godstream when the Tomsk was destroyed above Tsiolkovsky. She was angered at being manipulated by powerful political forces and sought the source of the orders directing the attack. She has found that source.”
“And what source is that?” Mackey wanted to know.
“Dimitri Vasilyev, the Russian Federation defense minister. Aleksey Lebedev, the Russian president and many within his cabinet. Zhao Zhanshu, the president of China, and Xiao Chunhua of the Central Military Commission. President Walker, President of the—”
“Wait a second!” Gray said. “Walker?”
“And most of his cabinet,” Konstantin said. “The list is quite long. Yang Jinping. Rodrigo Alvarez. Renee Kurtz. Thomas Deichman. Mohamed ben Hassoumi. Amani Samro. Anak Abnur. Linda—”
“You’re reading off a list of world leaders,” Gray said. “World leaders and military commanders, from countries all over the world!”
“Yes. Thirty-five world nations are represented, including all of the most heavily populated.”
“How the hell do we fight that?” Gray wanted to know.
“We can’t nuke the capitals of thirty-five different countries,” Taggart said. “Most of the populations don’t have anything to do with this mess!”
“What is this,” Mackey asked, “some kind of global cabal? Where did they come from?”
“Years ago, there was an expression,” Konstantin observed. “‘Old boys’ club.’ It referred to business or political leaders with back-channel communications among themselves, and a willingness to help one another on an unofficial basis.”
“You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” Taggart put in. “These were all men, of course?”
“The practice extends back at least to the nineteenth century, when women played a very small role in both business and politics,” Konstantin told her. “That changed, however, with time. This sort of corruption—a means of working around existing laws or moral standards without accountability or oversight—is a human trait. What is important within the system is the preservation of power and privilege.”
“So you’re saying this old boys’ network has been running the world, is still running the world. And now they want to shut down the Singularity because it’s . . . inconvenient?”
“It seems to be a matter of human nature,” Konstantin observed.
“Yes, well, the question remains. What do we do about it?”
“There may be a way to address the issue,” Konstantin said. “My informant told me that Vasilyev is actually on board the Russian Federation carrier Vladivostok.”
“Where the Tomsk came from,” Gray said.
“Exactly. The Vladivostok’s intentions are unknown, but the shi
p appears to be making its way across the Pacific and may be approaching us here at SupraQuito.”
Gray checked a data feed from the America, relayed from satellites throughout geosynchronous orbit. “I see her. She’s over Borneo now . . . and moving east.”
“Admiral,” Mackey said. “I suggest—”
“Quite right, Captain. Go to general quarters. Laurie?”
“Already done, Admiral. Yorktown is going to GQ. Full alert.”
“There’s a problem though, Admiral,” Mackey said. “America is at Alert 4, portside routine. It’s going to take time to get under way.”
Both America and Yorktown were at low readiness levels. Members of both crews were ashore within Skyport and elsewhere, their weapons down, their drives minutes from being brought up to full power. Gray had been a ship captain long enough that he didn’t need to ask “how long?” Even if they left the dockside personnel behind, it would be ten minutes before they could move . . . or defend themselves.
“Can Synchorbital give us covering fire?” he asked. There were planetary defense weapons within the SupraQuito military base. Perhaps those . . .
“Negative, Admiral. All weapons have been off-line since Towerfall.”
“Captain Mackey, I want the ship powered up and moving now.”
“I’ve given the orders, sir. The laws of physics—”
“I know, I know. Do your best. We’re sitting ducks here, if the Vladivostok is gunning for us.”
“I’m checking with some old contacts in the Kremlin,” Koenig said. He hesitated, listening. “They’re as mystified as we are. It looks like Vasilyev is doing this on his own.”
“Gone rogue,” Taggart said.
“Can we take over Vladivostok’s controls, the way we did with the Nungie planetoids?”
“I’ve already tried,” Koenig replied. “The Vladivostok appears to be operating purely on her internal network. They’ve cut off all communications arriving from outside.”
Meaning there was no way for the gestalt Mind to ride a carrier wave into the Russian ship’s computer network . . . and no way to employ the Omega virus to hack their way in.
