Heaven's Reach

Gillian

REALIZATION CRACKLED THROUGH HER consciousness like pealing thunder. She cried out a shrill command.

“Security alert!”

Klaxons echoed down the Earthship’s half-deserted halls, sending dolphins scurrying to combat stations. The ambient engine hum changed pitch as Suessi’s crew increased power to shields and weapon systems.

“Niss, report!”

The spinning hologram spoke quickly, with none of its accustomed snideness.

“We seem to have been suborned by a combined psi-cyber stealth attack, with an aim toward distracting Streaker’s defenders, both organic and machine. The fact that you and I roused simultaneously suggests the emitter source has been abruptly destroyed or degraded. Preliminary indications suggest they used a sophisticated logic entity whose memic-level was at least class—”

“What’s our current danger?” Gillian cut in.

“I detect no immediate targeting impulses or macroweaponry aimed at this vessel. But several nearby automatons show latent power levels that could turn dangerous at close range.

“So far, it seems they are content to fire away at each other.”

She stepped toward the display showing a camera view of the ship’s bow … exactly opposite from the region she had been inspecting, suspicious of some unknown menace. Her heart pounded as she saw how close it had been. All might have been lost, if the intruders had not fallen to fighting among themselves. Sharp flashes surged and flared as spiderlike shapes lashed at each other, casting battle shadows uncomfortably close.

“Where the hell are the Zang?” Gillian murmured under her breath.

Scanning the area of space where the hydrogen entities had been, her instruments showed no sign of the big globule-vessel … only a disturbing, elongated cloud of drifting ions. Perhaps it’s only backwash from their engines, when they departed on an errand. They may be back at any moment.

Her mind quailed from the other possibility — that some weapon had removed the Zang from the local equation. A weapon powerful enough to leave barely a smudge of disturbed atoms in its wake.

Either way, the psi attack kept us from noticing our guardians were gone. Someone went to a lot of trouble making sure we’d sit still for a while.

She felt Suessi’s engines dig in as Kaa started backing away from the combat maelstrom. But the pilot only made a little headway before the swarm of conflict followed, as if tethered to Streaker by invisible cords.

“Do you have any idea who—”

“None of the combatants has identified itself.”

“Then what were they trying—”

“It appears that some group was attempting to steal Streaker’s WOM archive.”

“Streaker’s …?”

Her question froze in her throat. Gillian’s mouth closed sharply as she understood.

By law, each Galactic vessel was supposed to carry a “watcher” … a device that would passively chronicle the major features of its travels. Some units were sophisticated. Others — the sort that a poor clan could afford — were crude mineral devices, capable only of recording the ship’s rough location and identifying any ships nearby. But all of them fell into the category of “write-only memories” … designed to store knowledge but never be read. At least never within the present epoch. Eventually, each was supposed to find its way into the infinite archives of the Great Library, to be studied at leisure by denizens of some later age, when the passions of this one had faded to mere historical interest.

At once, the strategem behind this attack made sense to her.

“The Old Ones … they must have found the codes, enabling them to read our WOM. It would tell them where Streaker’s been!”

“Enabling them to backtrack our voyage and find the Shallow Cluster.”

Gillian’s reaction was strangely mixed. On the one hand, she felt angry and violated by these beings who would meddle in her mind and rob Streaker of its treasure. Information her crew had guarded for so long, and Tom and Creideiki paid for with their lives.

On the other hand, it might solve so many problems if the thieves succeeded. Some mighty faction would then have the secret at last, perhaps using it to dominate the next age. Battles and great conspiracies could then surge onward, perhaps letting Earth and her colonies drift back into the side eddies of history, neglected and maybe safe for a while.

“I’m surprised no one tried this before,” she commented, wary as she watched the minibattle follow Streaker’s retreat across the vast interior of the Fractal World.

“Indeed, it seems a logical ploy to try seizing the watcher from our bow. I can only hazard that our prior enemies lacked the means to read a coded WOM.”

If so, it spoke well for the neutrality of the Library Institute, that even the richest clans and alliances could not break the seals. That made Gillian wonder. Might the betrayals at Oakka have been an aberration? Perhaps it was just Streaker’s run of typical bad luck that put it at the mercy of rare traitors. Institute officials might be more honorable elsewhere.

If so, should we try again? Gillian wondered. Maybe head for Tanith and try surrendering ourselves to the authorities one more time?

Meanwhile, the Niss whirled thoughtfully. The Tymbrimi-designed software entity flattened into a planate whirlpool shape before speaking once again.

“It must have taken them much of the last year, using their influence as elder members of the Retired Order, to access the keys. In fact …”

The mesh of spinning lines tightened, exhibiting strain.

“In fact, this casts a pall across our earlier miraculous escape from this place.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that we thought we were being aided by altruistic members of the Retired Order, benevolently helping us elude persecutors in the name of justice. But consider how conveniently easy it was! Especially the way we stumbled on references leading to the so-called Sooner Path—”

“Easy! I had to squeeze our captured Library for it, like pressing wine from a stone! It was—”

“It was easy. I now see that in retrospect. We must have been infected by a lesser meme parasite, conveying the attractive notion of fleeing to Jijo. A nearby sanctuary with just one way in and one way out. A haven whose only exit would lead us right back here again.”

Gillian blinked, abruptly seeing what the machine was driving at.

Suppose one faction hoped to seize Streaker’s WOM, but knew it would take a while to access the right codes for reading it? Fugitive wolflings could not be left just hanging around in the open till then. Someone else might snatch the prize!

What better way to stash the memory unit for safekeeping than by sending it into hiding, guarded by the self-preservation skills and instincts of tested survivors? The Earthship’s own crew.

“If we had not turned up about now, no doubt they would have sent word to Jijo luring us back. Indeed, the plan has earmarks — patience and confidence — that resonate of the Retired Order.

“Only now this failure to seize the object of their desire shows that their scheme broke down. Not everything is going their way. This faction still has enemies. Moreover, note how dismal the state of their power has become, under these conditions of calamity!”

“Calamity” was right. As Gillian watched, fighting seemed to ripple outward around them. Tactics sensors showed signs of conflagration spreading toward the nearest ragged edge of the wounded criswell structure.

“At this rate,” she mused, “someone’s gonna get fed up and use one of those big disintegrator rays. Maybe on us. We better think about getting out of here.”

“Dr. Baskin, while we have been talking I’ve thought of little else. For instance, I have endeavored to call our captor-protector, the Zang ship entity, to no avail. A leading hypothesis must be that it was destroyed.”

Gillian nodded, having reached the same conclusion.

“Well, if it ain’t coming, I don’t care to hang around waiting.”

She raised her voice toward the intercom.

“Kaa! Give it a full effort. Let’s make a break for t-point!”

The pilot acknowledged with a click burst of assent.

Cornered by orcas,

With our backs against sharp coral,

Watch them eat plankton!

As Streaker started pulling away, the battle storm followed. Detectors showed still more machines converging from all sides. Still, a gap slowly began to grow.

Then the Niss interrupted again.

“Dr. Baskin, something else has come to my attention that I know will concern you.

“Please observe.”

The main viewer zoomed toward one corner of the fiery brawl — a scrap far smaller than some other battles Streaker had observed, though nearness made the flashes and explosions seem more garish by far. Rapid glimpses revealed that most of the fighters were machines, lacking any boxy enclosures to protect protoplasm crews. Clearly, the varied factions of “retired” races preferred doing combat by proxy, using mechanical hirelings rather than risking their own necks.

Then one object loomed into view, more squat in profile than any other — a tubby dart, rounded and heavily armored. Gillian recognized the outline of a Thennanin scoutcraft.

“Ifni!” she sighed. “Has he done it again?”

“If you mean Engineer Emerson d’Anite, I can tell you that interior scans show no sign of him within this ship. I surmise it is him out there, unleashing weapons with quite futile abandon, missing nearly everything he shoots at. Organic beings really should not face mechanicals in close combat. It is not your forte.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Gillian murmured, deeply torn over what she could or should do next.