The Eternity Artifact

75

Fitzhugh

“All personnel to General Quarters… all personnel to General Quarters. This is not a drill.”

At something like six-thirty in the morning, the announcement definitely did not declare a drill, as it shattered through a collage of troubled dreams, phantasms that mixed Jiendra with the artifact whose image I had studied at all too great a length on fiveday.

For General Quarters, I could, as I understood the parameters of action, remain in my stateroom or go to my work space, in either case ensuring that I did not hamper those who had more urgent duties relating to combat and safety.

I decided upon and embarked upon a swift shower, doubtless violating the letter of the General Quarters decree, but not the spirit, since I was remaining well out of the way of those engaged in defending the Magellan. My decision to undertake that ablution was predicated upon the observation that detection of intruders and antagonists in space was likely to occur well before any physical proximity was attained. My quickness in completing it was based upon the possibility that I might be mistaken.

Nonetheless, by six-forty-one, I found myself dressed, generally in a state of consciousness, standing in the middle of a closet-sized stateroom. With little to do in that locale, save to undertake reading of the least-intriguing sections of the professional material I had downloaded to accompany me, I made my way, if cautiously, up the ramps—deserted by the time of my peregrination—to my work space, and my analyses of Danann and the artifact, an eternity artifact, of sorts, I had decided.

I did strap myself into the chair before the console, the one anchored to the deck, with a safety harness, before calling up the sections of the analysis I’d been working on. I began to reread what I had set forth, trying not to skim through my words.

While not all sections or towers of the megaplex had been thoroughly investigated, more than fifteen percent of the towers had been opened and viewed in a cursory fashion, according to the reports filed on the system by Kaitlin Henjsen. Less than five percent had been inspected in any detail. Even so, given the gridding and the sampling used, the fact that only a single artifact of any size whatsoever had been discovered suggested most strongly that it had been left deliberately.

My tentative conclusion along those lines was bolstered by the expedition’s theoretical mathematician. Misha Nalakov had entered an analysis of the patterns of tower placement, and his analysis, which employed abstruse mathematics the accuracy of which I could not verify from my own expertise, concluded that the tower in which Chendor had discovered the artifact did in fact occupy the sole unique position within the entire megaplex. To my mind, that suggested the placement was neither coincidental nor meant to be easy to discern.

In turn, that intimated that the megaplex—perhaps all of Danann itself—had been constructed from its inception for multiple purposes meant to be accomplished over an infinitely long period of time. From that, and from the anomalous materials used in construction, few of which we could even analyze accurately, and none of which we knew how to duplicate, even theoretically, one could also conclude that the builders had not only possessed great technological talents, but equivalent skills in cultural self-patterning, social organization, and prognostication of the development and exploration patterns of other intelligences.

For a culture less advanced than ours, those capabilities might well have been considered godlike…

At that thought, I stopped. Was it remotely possible that the Sunnis or the Covenanters entertained such an idea? No. Any creation by humans—or even by other intelligences—by definition could not be divine. But how would they regard something so far advanced?

If mankind—and the leaders of those theocracies all thought of human beings primarily as men—were indeed the creation of a deity, would that deity allow a greater creation to usurp mankind? Theologically speaking, as well as politically, that was not conceivable, and that would suggest that, since there was but one God, with no others above, before, or beside Him, any such technology had to be, by definition, the creation of some incarnation of the devil, or Satan, or Iblis. The fact that its possessors and creators had vanished, doubtless extirpated by the One Deity billions of years earlier, would be proof enough that the artifact discovered by Chendor—the Eternity Artifact—was a creation of the evil one, the Hammer of Lucifer, the Morning Star, or the Spear of Iblis. That might be bolstered by the fact that the other aliens had vanished as well. Any monotheistic theologian could sermonize that even the attempt to obtain the knowledge of Lucifer had resulted in their demise, and that the same could indeed befall humanity.

By extension, that suggested why the Sunnis had attacked the Magellan. Since I had not discovered what polity’s fleet currently threatened us, I could not complete that section of the analysis, but, in general terms, the Comity faced opponents of both secular and theocratic origins. Those of a secular nature would most likely be interested in obtaining the technology for an advantage, and in destroying us only if it could not be detected and reported and could allow them to obtain such technology.

At that point, the entire ship lurched, and my mass was restrained from impacting the overhead by the harness straps with which I had secured myself, even while doubting their efficacy.

The first disruption was followed by three more, each of decreasing severity.

After a period of silence, in which I pondered remaining strapped into my chair, I accessed the general information net, but found nothing that had not been there previously. The wall screen options were nonexistent, the single image available showing only the darkness of a galactic void, a blackness sprinkled with the distant faint-ness of other galaxies.

I attempted to concentrate upon the analysis, but the conflict between curiosity and apprehension effectively annihilated my capacity for concentration.

After another few minutes, the wall screen displayed the image of Captain Spier. She did not speak immediately.

“This is the captain. We have engaged a hostile force. All the hostiles who attacked have been destroyed. The engagement was not without casualties. The Alwyn destroyed three enemy frigates and more than ten needle-boats, but was lost in that effort. We have suffered a few casualties, but we are on course for the first of the Gates required to return us to Hamilton system. At this time, it appears that there are no further obstacles to reaching that Gate… You may return to normal operations at this time…”

Return to normal operations?

Suffered a few casualties? Battle cruisers, even former colony ships rebuilt with cruiser drives and armament, were not designed or operated to suffer minimal casualties. Such casualties were either nonexistent or maximal. Why… who… ?

A cold feeling slithered along my spinal cord. Pilots… needleboat pilots, and Jiendra was a pilot.

I unfastened the harness straps, but saved what little I had added to my analysis before putting the console on standby.

Then I hurried toward the ramps, the one leading up to the boat deck. As before, I found the ramps effectively deserted, save for one junior tech who did not even glance at me as he headed inship.

The ready room was empty, the gray chairs equally vacant, under lighting bright and cheerless. I had half expected Commander Morgan, but had rationalized that he well might have remained on the bridge with the captain. I stepped inside the hatch and to one side.

Then a single pilot appeared, not from the boat locks, but from the lockers where they racked their armor. Her hair was damp and plastered to her skull, so short that it was not even heknetlike. Her eyes narrowed as she surveyed me and my obvious lack of official uniformed status. I didn’t recognize her, and that indicated that she was not from the Magellan. I could only surmise the obvious.

“You’re from the Alwyn, I take it.”

Before she could answer, Lieutenant Lindskold appeared, as disheveled as the unidentified pilot. Her eyes flicked to me, but her frown was succeeded by a nod. “Professor Fitzhugh. You shouldn’t really be up here, but…” She glanced toward the hatch through which I’d entered. “I’d suggest you take one of the corner chairs.”

“Do you know… ?” I hesitated to finish the question.

“Ops thinks they have her needle. Lerrys is trying a pickup. She reported that she’d lost all systems after the last Covenanter went to energy.” Lindskold turned to the other pilot. “We might as well wait here until Shaimen and your…”

“Eyler.”

“Until they’re clear of the bay,” Lindskold finished.

“Why’s he here?” murmured the other pilot.

“Interested in Chang. He’s a professor… former commando… took out one of the assassins… probably saved a bunch of us… Ops boss might kick him out… not me.”

Had the situation been otherwise, I might have been tempted to smile at her last utterance. I settled into one of the chairs well out of the way… waiting, ensconced in apprehension.

Before long, two more pilots appeared in the ready room, both women. I recognized Shaimen, although I’d only talked to her in passing in the mess. The other had to be the one mentioned by the other Alwyn pilot—Eyler.

“We’re all supposed to check with sick bay,” Lindskold announced. “Told the major we’d wait until Lerrys and Chang were back.” She turned to the two pilots from the Alwyn. “You can go… if you’d like.”

“We’ll wait,” Eyler stated flatly.

With no warning, Lindskold turned. “Professor? Ops reports that the recovery shuttle has secured Needle Four.” Her visage remained sober. “That’s positive, but without power, there’s no way to tell…”

“The habitability situation,” I noted.

She nodded.

Still, as I recalled Lindskold had said, Jiendra had reported in when she had lost all systems, and that had meant she had been alive then. Space armor, if un-breached, as I had learned all too well in a past I had thought long divorced from my present, provided between two and three hours of survival, even in deep space at close to absolute zero.

I could but trust that her armor was intact—trust and wait.

The moments oozed past me, and all those in the ready room, more slowly than water dripping from the ancient timepieces once employed to measure such passage of elapsed time. My forefingers rubbed the tips of my thumbs.

Shaimen paced back and forth, looking toward Lind-skold, ignoring me, which may well have been for the best, while her eyes alighted but infrequently upon the two pilots from the Alwyn.

“She’s all right!” Lindskold announced. “They had to manually open the needle. Everything was fried, and then some, but she’s on her way to unsuit.”

Shaimen smiled. “Wouldn’t have been right…”

I agreed, even if I had no idea why the younger lieutenant had voiced the words.

Even so, it was another ten minutes before Jiendra walked out into the ready room, her eyes going to Lindskold and Shaimen first, standing, awaiting her. “Glad to see you two… wish… wish I were seeing more…”

Lerrys appeared behind Jiendra, his face slightly flushed, his demeanor almost embarrassed.

I rose, slowly, not wishing to intrude, knowing that the majority of the needle pilots had not been so fortunate as those before me, and yet wishing to convey, by my presence, my concerns for one particular pilot.

At that precise instant, Commander Morgan entered through the main hatch, his iron gray hair more than slightly disheveled, and his eyes reddened and set in darkness, suggesting long stans under high stress. “Welcome back, Lieutenants. All of you did well. All of you.”

Not one of them offered a direct reply.

Lindskold and Jiendra nodded. Shaimen looked down. Lerrys looked at me, and provided the slightest of nods, clearly approval at my presence.

Jiendra looked straight at Morgan. “What were those waves of yellow energy? They burned out all my systems.”

“The Danannian defenses.” Morgan smiled. “They took out all the remaining Covenanters and the CW ships that had been chasing us. If we’d been much closer, they would have taken us as well.”

Jiendra stiffened. “You’d thought there might be something like that. That was what destroyed the Norfolk, wasn’t it. That was why you modified the satellite beacons and left the fusactor sites you left on Danann, wasn’t it?”

The commander did not deign to reply, but I could see that Jiendra had been right, although I had but a general concept of Morgan’s strategy, based on what her question had revealed.

As the silence extended itself, Morgan finally spoke. “It was worth the gamble.” Abruptly, he saw me, apparently for the first time. That, or he wished to use me as way to avoid saying more. “Professor, the ready room is off-limits to civilians.”

“Commander… I believe you have a point there, but do you really wish to press it?” I observed him as if he were a Covenanter crusader, lower than the underside of a sand snake and uglier than a fire roach. While I didn’t care for either Covenanters, sand snakes, or fire roaches, I wasn’t sure I cared much for an officer who had apparently lured two fleets to their destruction by ancient technology and probably denied all of humankind the possibility of more in-depth investigation and inquiry.

He met my eyes, but I wasn’t about to give in, not at the moment, and not until I’d had a chance to assure myself that Jiendra was indeed as strong as she appeared and that she understood the significance she had brought to my existence.

I could sense her eyes taking me in for the first time, but I continued to observe Morgan.

“I’ll leave you as Lieutenant Chang’s responsibility then.” The commander inclined his head to Jiendra. “If you would act as the professor’s escort, Lieutenant, as necessary. You do need a check at sick bay. All of you.”

“I can manage that, Commander.” Jiendra smiled politely. “I think he has more than proven his loyalty and trustworthiness.”

“After sick bay,” Morgan continued, pointedly ignoring me, “you’re relieved of all duties until morning quarters tomorrow.”

Jiendra eased up to me, and smiled. “Will you escort me?”

“That might be in the optimal interest of all.” I did not bother to mask my relief and elation.

“… most polite she’s been to anyone…” came a murmur. I thought it might have been from Lindskold.

I offered my arm to Jiendra, and she accepted it.

76

Barna

In between the General Quarters and the escape and fight with the Covenanter ships, and afterward, I kept working on the differing paintings of the artifact. From each angle, each image, it conveyed a different sense of what it was. I didn’t even try light matrices. Those didn’t seem right. While I thought I managed, especially in one of the larger oils, to combine several of those different “identities” into one painting, even that work didn’t catch everything.

I also spent some time on the study of the professor and the pilot, and that kept me fresh for the work on the renderings of the artifact.

I also worried about Elysen. I’d stopped by her work space often, but she wasn’t there. I’d even slipped down to sick bay, but the medtech on duty there insisted she wasn’t there, and promised to let Major DeLisle know I’d inquired.

I hesitated to try to find her stateroom, or to go there, but the comm gave me the same response every time, and she hadn’t returned any of my messages.

For perhaps the eighth time in less than half a stan, I stood back from the canvas and studied the work. I had the silvered blue of the hall in which I’d found it correct, and I was happy with the crystal flaring sections, but the silver-grayish bases didn’t convey what I wanted.

“Ser Barna?”

I turned from the easel. A major stood in my work space/studio doorway. He looked familiar.

“I’m Doctor DeLisle.”

“Yes?” Was it about Elysen? “Is it about Dr. Taube? What can you tell me?”

“She asked to see you, and, well, it’s not something I wanted to handle over the comm.”

“Is she… she said there was nothing anyone could do.” I didn’t know what else to say.

“I’m afraid there isn’t.” The doctor smiled, sadly. “Not that I can do. Not that anyone could have done anywhere. Remedial actuation of telomerase only works for so long, even under the best of conditions. She was fortunate that she’s one of those for whom it works at all. It doesn’t for most people.”

Fortunate? I wondered. Watching your children and grandchildren die before you? Even partial immortality—or extreme old age, active or not—had a price. My eyes strayed back to the canvas. Had that been a problem for the Danannians? Would we ever know?

“Where is she?”

“I’ll take you.”

“Just a moment. I want to bring something.”

DeLisle waited while I gathered up the best of the portraits of her. Then we took the lift down to the quarters deck.

On the lift, a solid-faced lieutenant I didn’t know looked at DeLisle, me, the portrait, and back at me. He almost shook his head. I could tell.

“She’s dying.” I wanted to shake him.

He started to retort something, then caught himself. “Your friend?”

“In a grandmotherly way. She’s an astronomer.”

We got off, leaving the lieutenant. He had other things to worry about, I surmised.

“He doesn’t understand,” DeLisle said quietly. “He’s young, and if he survives combat, he still believes he’ll live forever and never grow old.”

Did I feel that way? Or somewhere in between—not young, but ageless? Didn’t we all?

DeLisle stopped at a doorway. “I can’t stay. There’s a monitor, and if there’s any problem… when…”

“Can you do anything?”

“No. Nothing more than relieve the pain and discomfort. We’ve done that.”

“Do what you need to. I’ll stay with her.”

“I can send a tech if you have to leave.”

“I’ll stay with her.”

DeLisle eased the door open and motioned for me to enter.

Elysen lay stretched on the gray plastrene bunk in her quarters, plain white sheets tucked neatly across her chest, white counterpane folded across a gray D.S.S.-issue blanket, her upper torso and head propped up with two white pillows. Somehow, she should have been in a solid wood bed with fine linens, and an antique china tea set beside her. Then, perhaps not. She had wanted to keep working. The only sign of any medical equipment was a wide wristband, with a narrow strip that led to a miniature console on the low table beside the bunk.

Her head turned. “Chendor?” Her eyes went beyond me. “I told you not to tell anyone.”

“Medical discretion, Dr. Taube.” DeLisle smiled, almost boyishly.

“If you were not a D.S.S, doctor, I’d report you.” Her voice was thin, wheezy, and slightly rasping.

“But I am.” He inclined his head. “I’ll be back later.” The door closed behind him.

Elysen snorted, but the sound was a soft wheeze.

“I thought you might like to see the final version.” I stepped forward and turned the canvas so that the light fell on it.

“You… do have a great gift, Chendor… shouldn’t have wasted it on me.”

“It wasn’t wasted. You made a great discovery, and there ought to be a real portrait of you.”

“Looking too old to have done anything.”

I wasn’t about to get into that. “You’re not in pain?”

“No. There’s no pain, except feeling the universe close in around me. It’s hard to think for long at a time, and soon, I won’t be able to at all.”

“You’ll be fine,” I lied. “You’re just tired.”

“I’m more… than tired… but there’s nothing to be done.”

I propped the portrait against the bulkhead where she could see it, then settled onto the stool beside the bunk.

Her eyes closed, and I just sat there for a time.

She coughed and opened her eyes. “You asked what we had discovered, Chendor. It’s very simple. The Danannian aliens used their technology to move their entire galaxy—a small one, as galaxies go—into a new universe that they created.”

Was Elysen getting delusional? She’d already told me that.

“I am not losing it.” Her voice became gently acerbic. “I am not imagining things. That was what your device or model was all about. It was a representation of what they did… or, at the time it was made, a representation of what they were trying… Cleon doesn’t think that part of their science will work now… don’t understand the physics… something about the understructure of the universe… when dark energy and matter… atrousans and gravitons… once the density of the universe drops below a certain value… there’s an attenuation effect…” Her voice dropped off.

“You told me some of that. You and Cleon made it very clear. Just rest.”

“I suppose… I did. It’s hard to remember… I can recall when everything was so clear…”

I reached out and patted her shoulder. “We all have times like that.”

“Don’t humor me, Chendor.”

“I’m not. I’ve forgotten and told Aeryana and Nicole things I’ve said twice before. They look at me as if I were crazy.”

“Artists can… repeat themselves… Scientists… should not.” Her eyes closed once more. “Very… unprofessional…”

She seemed to doze, or sleep, and a half smile crossed her lips. I could see that she once had to have been a stunningly beautiful woman.

After a time, a good half stan, if not longer, she bolted up halfway, and her eyes darted to the portrait. “Who’s… that old woman?” She sank back onto the pillows. Her eyes remained on the canvas, searching to identify who the woman was.

“Someone I know. She’s a good person.” What else could I say?

“Oh…” Her eyes cleared. “I feel… so stupid… Please go… Chendor.”

I patted the back of her hand. “Would you like anything?”

“You’re… humoring… me.”

“A little. We all need humoring sometimes. Can I get you something to drink?”

“No… there’s nothing… I need.”

I thought she’d drifted off again, but her fingers, those fingers that had been so active, grasped my wrist. “Chendor… please go… now.”

“No. I’m staying. You don’t have to talk, and I won’t.” I leaned forward and took her hand. It was cool, not cold.

“Give the rest of the tea… Liam Fitzhugh… He’ll appreciate it… especially… bergamot. He… has… high standards.”

“I will,” I promised.

After a time, she closed her eyes once more.

Before long, her hand was cold. I still sat there for a long time, until after the medtech came.

77

Chang

Much as I wanted to, some ways, Liam and I didn’t make love… not beyond holding each other. Didn’t want sex out of relief, just because I’d survived. He just held me for a long time. Held him, too.

We both knew we wanted more. Still not sure how to get there. Could be we were both afraid that sex would be a disappointment.

We slept some, but D.S.S. bunks are too frigging narrow.

When we got up, I did have to explain to Liam what Morgan had done. Whatever the Danannians had left behind distinguished between hostile and nonhostile by use of weapons. Bet that when the Norfolk had fired a torp at the surface, that triggered the defenses. Morgan had made sure that the Covenanters would fire weapons. Don’t think even he’d realized the extent of the defenses. Wasn’t sure anyone would have.

We’d lost the Alwyn. Covenanters had lost a fleet, something like fifteen ships, and the CWs had lost a flotilla of five ships. Bet the Comity and D.S.S. would be happy with that. Wondered if anyone really cared about the technology or the artifact.

Anyway, Liam and I washed up—separately—and went to the evening meal in the mess. We sat with Lerrys and Lindskold. Chendor Barna joined us. He looked worse than I’d felt when I’d gotten out of the needle.

Liam saw it too, asked, “Chendor… is there anything we might help with?”

“No…”

“Anything at all?” I added.

He gave a sad smile. “Elysen… Dr. Taube… she died this afternoon.”

“Died? How did that happen?” asked Lindskold. “Not because of the ship…?”

“No. She was old… too old for anything to hold her together, but she’d wanted to come on the expedition. She was working on something. It was a big discovery. I imagine Dr. Lazar will announce it before too long.” He paused, then looked at Liam. “Oh… she brought tea, an enormous amount. She said to give it to you.”

“To me? I cannot imagine why…”

“She had her reasons. She always did.”

“I’m sorry, Chendor,” I added. He needed consoling, not questions. “She seemed… special.”

“I think we would have been friends for a long time. It’s hard to lose friends. There aren’t that many.”

Reached out under the table and took Liam’s hand. He squeezed back, and smiled at me.

“No, there aren’t,” Lindskold agreed. “We’ve all lost someone today.”

Swallowed as I thought of Tuala. He’d gone out, enthusiastic. Hadn’t come back. The Magellan had lost five needle pilots and Braun. That didn’t count the Alwyn. Still wasn’t certain what we’d gotten from it. One artifact and a bunch of samples, and probably lots of images.

“A battle in the middle of nowhere.” Lindskold looked to Liam. “Are we all that desperate?”

Desperate? Wouldn’t have called going out and picking fights desperate, not the way the Sunnis, the CWs, and the Covenanters had. Stupid, maybe greedy. But desperate?

“That is a definite and distinct possibility,” Liam began, clearing his throat in his professorial manner.

Almost broke into a grin, but wanted to hear what he had to say.

“There have been no new or significant substantive advances in technology or the underlying sciences in close to a millennium, even longer than that so far as the basics of understanding the universe might be considered. For the fundamentalist cultures, those of the theistic believers, particularly those such as the Sunnis and the Covenanters, this scientific status quo has been not only acceptable, but desirable, insomuch as it has reinforced both established religious doctrine, theocratic practices, and the subconscious belief that the scope of knowledge available to and understandable by human beings is limited and finite…”

I had to admit I hadn’t thought of that.

“… and that greater knowledge is the providence of the deity, whoever and whatever that deity might be. Even the possibility that greater knowledge is potentially available disrupts cultural, political, and social norms— as it has in the past throughout history. The theistic cultures must either obtain or stifle such knowledge. If they obtain it, then it was vouchsafed to them by the deity, and if it is suppressed, it is as though it had never existed, and life and culture will continue as before. For the nontheis-tic cultures, knowledge is the basis of power, and the ‘lightness’ of their cultures is proven by success and survival, which is, in turn, determined by comparative advantage over other cultures, and that advantage is, of course, provided by the first and most successful application of new knowledge. Thus, the culture that can obtain and apply such knowledge first attains an advantage over all others. The Comity was and remains in a position to do so, and since it is already first among equals, so to speak, additional advanced knowledge and technology would place the leaders of other polities in a position of extreme desperation, as suggested by Lieutenant Lind-skold.” Liam nodded to her, took a sip of water.

“Then, things will get worse, not better,” I pointed out.

“Most probably.”

“You’re so cheerful, Liam,” Chendor said.

“I am sorry, especially at the moment, but I do fear that great instability awaits us.”

Things were depressing enough, without that.

“Did you get any good paintings from Danann?” Lerrys asked Chendor.

“Good? Only time will tell that. I do have quite a number…” He looked almost embarrassed to speak about his paintings.

“Tell us, if you would,” I pressed.

“I just painted what I saw. I had to enhance the light, of course…”

All of us were happier letting Chendor talk about painting. Even Liam.

78

Goodman/Bond

Once the blackness hit me, I hadn’t thought, or felt anything.

Fuzzy gray—that was the only way to describe it— replaced the blackness. It swirled over and around me for ages.

I woke up in a medcrib. It wasn’t a CIS crib, either, and I was restrained. I was surprised that I was awake and could still think. I felt feverish and weak.

“He’s coming around.” I didn’t recognize the voice.

“Good afternoon, Tech Bond, or Goodman, or whatever your real name is.” The man who spoke wore a commander’s uniform. His hair was iron gray, and his eyes were bloodshot. He didn’t sound happy.

The other figure, barely visible behind his shoulder, was a major.

“When is it?” I figured that was a safe question. Better to ask questions than have them ask the ones that would trigger the nanites in my system. It was a fool’s game, because I was playing for time I didn’t have. Sooner or later they would get to the questions, and I’d be dead in all the ways that counted. But I had to try.

“Not quite a week after we caught you.”

“What happened?”

The commander laughed. I didn’t like the sound of it. “By the way, I’m Commander Morgan.”

I should have recognized him. Why hadn’t I?

“You’re damned lucky that Chief Stuval was so careful. At least, I think you’re fortunate,” Morgan said. “You don’t fit the profile of a suicider.”

Suicider?

“That device you were assembling was a very small— but very powerful—AG capped-drive vortex bomb.”

I had no idea what he was talking about. I’d been building an AG signaler. Hadn’t I? That was what I’d been trained to do.

“I’m sure that your controller didn’t tell you that. If there had even been the slightest grav shift after you connected the power source, there wouldn’t have been more than a few coupled molecules within several thousand kays—and that would have included you. You should have wondered why you were placed in an armory, and why it was so easy to get the equipment you need…”

What could I say? If I revealed what my assignment had theoretically been, I was dead, and if the commander asked any leading questions along those lines, I was dead.

“Oh… those SAD nanites they dumped in your system are gone—at least most of them. That’s why you’ve been under so long. Major DeLisle figured that most of them had to be in the brain and bloodstream, and he’s been flushing your system for days. You’re feverish because formulated blood isn’t a perfect match, and we don’t have the equipment for that. We do have enough to read whether you’re telling the truth and understand a great deal of what you won’t say.” He laughed again, harshly. “And you’ve probably lost sections of your memory, and you’ll lose a bit more, but not enough that you won’t remain you. I wouldn’t want you to get the benefit of a quick death or a personality death through nanite amnesia. After what you planned, you don’t deserve quick oblivion.”

I had a feeling that, bad as matters had been, they were about to get worse, and I couldn’t even move.

“What was the device you were building? Or what were you told it was?”

There wasn’t much point in answering. If Morgan was lying, I was dead. If he was telling the truth, I was also dead—just a little later. Still… “Where are we? What was the thing the scientists brought back up from Danann?” Better to ask questions than to answer them, one way or another.

“We’re on our way back to Hamilton system, and neither the captain nor I is very happy that we ran into a Covenanter fleet or that you were planted to blow us into cosmic dust. If I were a sadist and didn’t have to account for equipment, I’d put you in a needle with all your little pieces and let you either suffocate or assemble your device and turn yourself into dust and energy.”

“But what happened?”

“We stunned you before you could put the pieces together. Both the Covenanter fleet and the CW flotilla are scattered debris, and Danann is probably off-limits to human exploration for a millennium or so.”

I had to keep the interview away from more questions. I had to. “You said I was putting together some sort of bomb. That wasn’t my assignment at all.” I had to risk one sentence. “I was supposed to build a signaler.”

Morgan’s gray face froze. “That may have been what they told you, whatever your real name is, but the device you almost assembled was effectively an old-style vortex torp warhead. They were abandoned centuries ago because they were so unstable.”

A coldness settled over me. I’d been set up. Because I was pragmatic, because I was practical, I didn’t fit the suicider profile—and the colonel had been counting on that. What else could I say?

“You know what really tripped you up, Goodman, or whatever your name is?”

I didn’t say anything. There wasn’t any point in saying anything. If I did, the nanetics would turn my memory to mush. Or they might. Even if they didn’t, the Comity would execute me if I admitted anything.

Morgan shook his head, looked down at me. “You tried to be an armorer. You were too damned good. According to Chief Stuval, when you came aboard, you were a typical borderline tech second. You learned more in two months than most techs learn in three tours. When he found out you fixed that power converter…”

I’d hidden it. How had Stuval known?

“You don’t think a chief knows every hiding place in his spaces? He checked it out and put it back. That was when he let me know.”

One way or another, I was dead.

“You’ll be under restraint for a few more days yet, until we decide. I wouldn’t want you to escape seeing what happened as a result of your actions—and those of Colonel Truesdale.”

I tried not to swallow. The commander had known of Truesdale, and his connections?

“You’re going to have to pay, especially for this assignment,” Morgan added, “since I doubt we know of all the others for which you won’t pay.”

He turned to the major standing behind him. “Put him back under.”

As the grayness rose around me, so did the questions. Why had I been set up? What had really happened? What had the artifact been? Had there ever been a Morning Star or Spear of Iblis… ?

79

Fitzhugh

We’d made two successful Gate translations of the three necessary to return us to Hamilton system, and the wall screen in my work space now showed stars—those scattered at the edge of the Galaxy, but individual stars discernible to the unaided eye—and not just distant clouds of light or points of light that represented entire galaxies.

More than a day at high-sublight travel remained before we reached the final Gate on our return. With attacks by three different polities in slightly less than four objective months, I retained certain doubts that the remainder of our return would be as uneventful as intimated by either the captain or by Commander Morgan, although we had encountered no additional obstacles after the first two return translations.

Jiendra and I had eaten together when she had not been occupied with the various duties that devolved upon junior officers, particularly when casualties had abbreviated the duty rolls, and those few stans we had spent together had been the most enjoyable in years, so much so that, for that reason alone, I was not anticipating with relief the conclusion of the expedition and mission. After what I had heard from Command Morgan and from what Jiendra had appended in private, accurate postulation of any return to Danann within the temporal limbi of current human civilizations appeared improbable, and that was the most generous assessment foremost in my personal analyses of the situation.

I’d also been considering Chendor’s artifact, and the limited information surrounding it. My foremost thesis was that it was a model, perhaps even one designed to replicate on a smaller scale, a massive stellar engineering project. The two silver-gray spheres had to represent Chronos and Danann—

The rap on the door to my work space was firm, but not percussively excessive. It couldn’t have been Jiendra, since she was on duty as a junior operations officer, another result of the attrition of the officers of the Magellan.

“Yes?”

“It’s Chendor, Liam.”

Rising posthaste from the console, I opened the door. “Please come in.”

The artist carried two plastrene boxes, each a third of a meter long, half that in width, and a good twenty centimeters in depth. Once inside he raised them slightly, conveying an invitation. “These are for you… the tea from Elysen.”

“For me? Chendor… there must be some misapprehension. While I respected her and held her in esteem—” far more esteem than many of the other scientific team experts whom I had come to know, and with whose acquaintance my respect had diminished on close to a logarithmic scale in proportion to the time spent with them, every fleeting contact with Dr. Taube had reinforced my respect—”I scarcely knew her.” Chendor had mentioned the tea, but I had not appreciated the quantity involved, but should have. Chendor did not offer idle remarks.

“She felt that you would appreciate the tea, Liam.” He pressed the containers on me.

As I took them and set them beside the console, I noted that he also carried an imager. Such a device would have been vital on Danann, but on board ship?

“She said the bergamot tea would more than meet your high standards.” Chendor went on.

High standards? When had I ever said a word about tea since embarking upon the Magellan? Regrettably, I had discoursed upon wine, and upon the fact that formulated wine was close to unimbibable, but never had a word about tea escaped my lips. “She must have been most observant, in addition to her other qualities.”

“She was very observant. I wish I’d met her earlier.” He shrugged. “Without Project Deep Find, I wouldn’t have known her at all.”

His observation was more than slightly true, and the same applied to me and Jiendra as well.

“What had she discovered, Chendor? It is indubitably linked to your artifact, is it not?”

He smiled. “Before we get into that, I have a request.”

“A request?”

“I’d like to capture a few images of you, if you would. Part of my charge is to document the entire expedition.”

“I’m certain that you can do better than my image,” I demurred. “But… as you wish.”

“If you would just walk around for a few minutes, and let me take images as you move and talk.”

“What had Dr. Taube discovered, Chendor?”

He took several images before replying. “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone until it was announced.”

“If I tell you what it is, and promise not to convey the information to others, will you confirm that?”

“I couldn’t say, Liam.”

“From what I can ascertain, Chronos and Danann have been separating for in excess of ten billion years, perhaps as little as six, depending on whose report I read. The two gray spheres of your artifact represent them, while the black is the tie that binds them or the track along which they were propelled by the builders of Danann. Those builders only created or modified Danann as part of their greater project, and the artifact suggests that they used the two as some sort of graviton/atrousan fulcrum by which they moved their entire cluster somewhere else, most probably into another universe…”

“Who have you been talking to?” Behind the imager, Chendor’s face bore traces of both amusement and apprehension.

“No one, except Lieutenant Chang. She provided some details about the radiation intensification.”

“I would ask you, Liam… I’ll even beg you not to mention this. Elysen was so concerned that nothing be said until Cleon Lazar completed the mathematical proofs. She was afraid, I think, that people would dismiss the theory if everything didn’t get presented properly.”

Had it not been Chendor, I would have laughed. Virtually all the scientists at the University of Gregory had displayed traits in that vein. They ridiculed, in fashions both kind and unkind, historical or sociopolitical theses, while being perfectly willing to speculate about all too many matters of which they were effectively ignorant, but became incensed if someone speculated about their own theses prematurely, even while the aspects of what they investigated were, if not obvious, certainly not exactly unknown.

“I will not say anything, except to Jiendra, for the moment. She is not exactly effusive. I take it that you are confirming, at least in a general sense, what the artifact represents?”

“As I understand it.” Chendor paused. “Please…”

I wanted to tell Chendor that it would make little difference what I said. I was not a hard physical scientist, and anything I suggested would be disregarded as beneath consideration by those who were, but he would regard any such statement as an excuse for me to speak. “Please don’t worry about it. I’m not about to try to take credit for what they have found, and I certainly would not wish my words to cause you distress. I will say that Cleon Lazar had best finish his work fairly quickly, though, or someone else may well be able to calculate the supporting evidence and take credit it for the discovery first. Just because he and Dr. Taube were the experts in the field here on the Magellan doesn’t mean that someone else couldn’t try for the credit. If you’re concerned about that, you could tell Lazar that you’ve heard that someone has already mentioned the possibility.”

“He wouldn’t think you were that credible,” Chendor pointed out, proving that I’d underestimated his judgment. “Not in a scientific sense.” He clipped the imager to his belt.

“You don’t say that it’s me. You tell Lazar that I mentioned hearing someone talking about it, and that I couldn’t say who it was.” I laughed. “I can certainly hear myself talk, and I can’t tell anyone, you know, because I promised you I wouldn’t.”

“I could do that.”

“I might try to talk to Lazar myself, but I won’t mention your name. It’s known that he worked with Dr. Taube.”

“Do you think he’ll say anything?”

“I won’t know until I try. If I try.”

Chendor frowned, momentarily. “You won’t say—”

“I wouldn’t even consider that a remote possibility, but if I intimate that I deduced his and Dr. Taube’s theory, as a nonscientist…”

“It might work.” After a moment, he spoke. “I did want to make sure you got the tea. And get a few more images.”

“A few more?”

“I captured several off the ship’s systems. When you disabled the assassins.”

My wince was involuntary. I should have realized that such would have existed. All sections—or all public spaces—of Comity and D.S.S. ships were monitored.

“Don’t worry.” He started to turn.

“I’ll thank you for the tea, since I can’t thank Dr. Taube. I will enjoy it. That I can promise you.”

He smiled before he closed the door.

What was he painting that needed me? I refrained from shaking my head, a useless gesture in private, particularly as I contemplated a strategy to gain access to Cleon Lazar and to obtain more details about his and Dr. Taube’s theory.

80

Fitzhugh

Several hours of cogitation and calculation followed Chendor’s visit, and in the middle of three-day afternoon, I attempted to reach Cleon Lazar through the comm system. He did not deign even to respond, nor to return my message requesting a few moments of his time. From what I had seen and heard of him, that lack of courtesy toward a non-physical scientist was what I had anticipated.

Determining Cleon Lazar’s location required a certain amount of drudgery, including exerting percussive announcements on a few wrong doors, but by midmorning on fourday, I stood looking at him, through little more than a slip between the edge of his plastrene door and its equally gray plastrene casement.

“Dr. Fitzhugh… this is the physical science area, not the social studies section.”

“That is a fact of which we are both fully cognizant, Cleon, and in this particular instance, irrelevant. I presume you did receive my message.”

“I thought it was more like a threat.”

“I don’t make threats, Cleon, but I do chase down information, and if I can determine what you have in the artifact on the few clues I have, so will any competent physical scientist.” I managed a facsimile of a pleasant smile. “I think it would be best if you offered me some hospitality.”

“I’d rather not.” He started to close the door.

His efforts were ineffectual, and after several moments, he reeled back, and I closed the door behind me.

He moved toward the console. “If you do not depart immediately, I will summon ship’s security.”

“You do, and Commander Morgan will require you to divulge far more than I want, and he will not be precisely pleased to be required to deal with such a matter at a critical time. Because of my particular skills, I can ensure that he will have to focus on this issue, and when he discovers why, and what you have withheld, he will be exceedingly less than pleased.”

He paused. Some of his fine black hair had fallen across his low forehead, almost touching his dark brows. His gray eyes were bright, and his skin far too white, if not quite that of an albino.

“Dr. Lazar… you appear not to be terribly understanding of the situation your discovery has precipitated, a situation which will most certainly deteriorate. Either that, or you prefer a time of galacticwide warfare.” Lazar might well laugh at my presumptuousness, for if my own sociopolitical calculations were correct, that period of warfare had already been proclaimed with the arrival of the CW and Covenanter ships off Danann.

“What are you talking about?”

“Your discovery shatters some very basic social truths, and it is upon those truths that a plurality, if not the majority, of human polities have been constructed and operated.” I managed a smile, one far less amicable than the first I had offered.

“Are you always so… direct?”

“No. Usually those I deal with tend to be less isolated from the social and political aspects of the universe that surrounds them, and thus more inclined to at least listen before reacting.”

“I believe in only what is observable, provable, and verifiable, and, ideally, what is scientifically replicable.”

“Then we agree in principle. I’d like to tell you what I think you’ve found, and I’d like you to correct any basic misconceptions I may have.”

“For what purpose?”

“For my own research and publications. If you choose to announce what you and Dr. Taube discovered within the near future, I will be more than pleased to refrain from publication until your announcement.”

“And if I do not, then you will publish… anyway?”

“You may have overlooked the fact that everyone on the team was given great incentive to publish their results once we returned. Not when every fact and mathematical proof was laser-edge perfect.”

Cleon actually sighed. “Do you beat up your students this way?”

“If necessary.”

“It will come out. You’re correct about that. I had hoped for a bit more time to refine the mathematics and the proofs while the rest of the expedition was exploring Danann.” He paced toward the blank wall screen, then turned back, halting. “As you have deduced, and as I told Barna, the artifact is a physical representation of what the culture that created Danann did in creating an entire new universe…”

I listened, attempting to correlate everything he said to what I had attempted to set forth logically.

After he finished, including providing responses, doubtless oversimplified, to my inquiries, his eyes narrowed as he asked, “What does this have to do with history and its trends?”

“Everything,” I replied. “Just about everything.” I inclined my head, in courtesy, and added, “Thank you. I look forward to seeing your initial announcement.”

Then I left. I had more work to do than I’d thought, especially based on Lazar’s initial response to my concerns and his apparent inability to grasp the magnitude of the artifact’s impacts—technological, scientific, and particularly, cultural.

81

Chang

At fourteen-seventeen on fourday, I sat at the ops junior duty officer’s console. Tiny space in the corner of main operations. Gray plastrene bulkheads, decks, and overheads, no wonder Morgan looked gray all the time.

Just a junior command pilot under instruction… that was all, but I had passive access to all the screens and systems. Could access anything, but couldn’t do anything unless the command pilot—that was the captain at the moment—shifted the conn to me. Wasn’t about to happen. Still, getting to know a ship as big as the Magellan felt good. Could also put it on my cert record.

Time to translation, one start. The link announcement was restricted to those in control.

Morgan appeared, almost at my shoulder. “You’re off duty now.”

I frowned. My watch didn’t end for two-plus stans. “I do something wrong?”

“No. I’m shifting you back to the needleboats. I’m having all needle pilots on standby for immediate launch once we clear the Hamilton Gate inbound.”

I could see that. Didn’t like it, but could see it. “Trouble waiting for us?”

“That’s likely.”

He was lying. He knew, probably from the Owens— courier had rejoined the Magellan less than ten stans earlier.

“You’re not surprised?”

“With three attacks already, and a bunch of attempts at sabotage? I’d be surprised if trouble weren’t waiting. How bad?”

“We don’t know. D.S.S. intelligence had indications of possible recon and hidden Gate translations in a number of Comity systems.”

“We could wait, couldn’t we?” Doubted that either Morgan or the captain would have bought that, but wanted a reaction.

“For how long? And how safely, without escorts? Two fleets found us at Danann. Also, if Hamilton system comes under attack, the Magellan might be critical.”

“You think someone will attack Hamilton?” Managed not to raise my voice. That was definitely an act of war, the kind of war everyone had been trying to avoid for centuries.

“The Covenanters and the Alliance believe we have the Morning Star or the Spear of Iblis, or whatever the true believers call the mythical weapons of Lucifer.”

“We don’t have anything like that… do we?” While Liam had told me about the artifact and what Dr. Taube believed, Morgan wasn’t going to get that from me.

“No.”

Didn’t like the touch of equivocation behind his denial. “But the artifact… it’s the key?”

“The scientists can’t prove what it is. They don’t know how the Danannians built it, or how they even created the materials it’s made from, and it’s anyone’s guess when we will, or if we will.”

“So… tell the Covenanters that,” I suggested.

He laughed. “Let’s see. What do we say? ‘We have a device that we can’t analyze because it’s so advanced, and we don’t know what it’s good for or how to use it But it’s not the advanced weapon you think it is.’ Even if we offered to share the data, which I doubt that anyone in the Comity would approve, the Covenanters don’t want that information loose. They think it tore their Heaven in two and loosed evil on mankind.” He paused. “Enough. You need to get to the ready room and suit up. All you pilots will be in your needles when we translate.”

That told me we had more trouble than he was admitting. “Who do I turn the watch over to?”

“You don’t. There’s no one left.”

Junior ops watches were for instruction, not necessary, strictly. I got up. “The watch is yours, sir.” Wanted that on the record. Even logged it.

He didn’t say anything, just moved back to the ops boss’s console without a word.

I’d thought Morgan had a softer inside. Beginning to think I’d been mistaken. Or it was buried so deep no one would ever find it. Not even him.

Was that my problem, too? Didn’t want to think about that. Not yet.

Took my time getting to the ready room. Even made a stop at the mess and got something to eat from the cooks. Had to keep moving, because getting into armor took some time. It was still almost thirty minutes to translation when I entered the launch bay. Lindskold, Shaimen, and the two pilots from the Alwyn were already in their needles.

Ysario looked at me as I stopped short of Needle Four and studied it, then said, “All the internal systems have been replaced, sir.”

Managed a grin. “Hope so. It’s pretty dark out there without screens and shields.”

“Yes, sir.” She didn’t smile, but her eyes crinkled at the corners. She was worried, too.

After the walk-around, and the physical inspection, I settled into the cockpit of the needle. Ran the checklist all the way to launch, then backed off to standby.

Five minutes until translation. All personnel should be secured. All personnel should be secured. All unnecessary gear should be on standby. Once in armor, we got the announcements by link alone.

Checked once more—all the needle systems were on standby, with the fusactor cold.

Could only sit in the darkness and wait for the captain to guide the Magellan into the Gate and translation.

Stand by for Gate translation. Stand by for Gate translation.

Translation was like always—flashed white and black simultaneously, and we went null grav. Then black turned white, and white black. Colors inverted. The white and black strobing stretched out endlessly, then stopped with no real time having passed, as black returned to black. We were back in normspace—hopefully on the edge of Hamilton system.

Full grav returned, but only for a moment.

Stand by for null grav in the launch bay. Null grav in the launch bay. All needles, prepare to launch. Report when ready. Report when ready.

My stomach lurched up within me. The double cycle from full grav to null to full to null hadn’t helped. After a quick swallow, I began running through the checklist to get the needle ready to launch.

Launch doors open this time.

Morgan had the bays open and the nanite barrier in place before I finished the checklist. Not by much, though.

Navigator Control, Needle Tigress, ready to launch.

Tigress, stand by. You are number three to launch. Number one departing cradle this time.

Standing by.

Lindskold was first, then Shaimen, then me, then Eyler and the other Alwyn pilot.

Needle Tigress, clear to uncradle and launch.

Stet. Uncradling this time.

Used the steering jets to ease the needle out, then formed up on Lindskold. When the last two joined, we had a loose wedge ahead of the Magellan.

Accessed the farscreens. What came through were points of energy all over the outer reaches of Hamilton system. The majority were D.S.S., according to the identifiers, but there were still close to fifty hostile vessels-—including eight dreadnoughts—in three battle groups. One enemy group was down to a pair of cruisers. One cruiser’s shields flared red, and raw energy replaced it, then faded.

Navigator needles, vector three one zero relative, plus two zero.

A pair of frigates—configured like Covenanters—lay along the vector. They were accelerating, closing on the Magellan. Leading them were three needles.

Needle Tigress, stet.

Let Lindskold take the lead, closed up slightly, but not enough that there was any chance for our shields to touch or interlock.

The Covenanter needles accelerated toward us, moving into a tight wedge with overlapping shields. Sure sign that they were trying for the Magellan.

Navigator needles, concentrate on the right needle. Hold fire until minimum plus twenty. Report fire.

Kept formation on Lindskold, holding as Morgan had ordered.

Less than thirty emkay… twenty… Still no torps from the Covenanters. None from the Magellan. Screens showed the Owens and the Bannister tucked up tight aft of the Magellan. They’d have bolted for Hamilton Base or some such. Except they were probably safer following the Magellan. Didn’t have the shields to deal with all the attacking ships around Hamilton system.

Closure at ten emkay… five… we were screaming toward each other. Could smell sweat inside the armor.

Navigator needles. That was Lindskold. Could “feel” the difference. Stand by to fire on my mark.

Two emkay… one…

Mark… fire two… mark…

Ten torps converged on the starboardmost Covenanter needle.

My farscreens blanked, then came back online after the energy wave swept past. All three enemy needles had vanished. Just dust, dispersing energy, and heat that would vanish into the chill and darkness in minutes.

Navigator needles, regroup and prepare for attack on leadfrigate.

Regroup? Realized we were missing one needle. Shaimen. Hadn’t even seen her go. Backlash on her shields, probably. Frigging bitch of a way to go.

Shuttled the remaining torp to the port tube. Always preferred the port.

Navigator needles, prepare to fire on frigate, link. Morgan this time. Wanted perfect synch of all torps.

The four torps from the needles and the ten from the Magellan slammed into the lead frigate’s shields. They barely flickered amber before going to red and shredding. Just a pair of torps from the Magellan finished that Covenanter.

Farscreen showed a wad of stuff flying out toward us. Past me before I could do anything. Shields flickered into the amber, and the needle shuddered.

Checked the farscreens. Frig! One of the Alwyn needles was gone. Didn’t know which, whether it was Eyler or the other pilot—Sennis, that was her name.

Navigator needles, stand clear. Form on couriers as possible.

With no torps left, Morgan didn’t want us caught between the last frigate and the Magellan. I didn’t want to be caught there, either.

Swung in a loop, small one, just enough to let the Magellan pass. Didn’t want to get caught without enough power to recover. I’d been there. Didn’t want to do it again—ever.

Could see the Magellan shifting shields forward. Covenanter had done the same.

Just before their shields touched, Covenanter released torps.

Had to gape… Magellan’s shields contracted. Morgan or the captain released double torp salvo, then expanded the shields forward. Never had seen that done.

Covenanter never had a chance. Got fried by his own torps, shield flex, and the Magellan’s torps. Could have been that the Magellan’s mass alone, backed by the shields, might have been enough. Wouldn’t ever know, though.

Morgan didn’t take chances. Didn’t think the captain did, either, but didn’t know her as well.

Navigator needles, cleared to return and recover.

Control, Needle Tigress, returning this time.

Stet, Tigress.

Checked the farscreens again. No one left close to us. Screens still registered dissipating energy. All that was left of five needles and two frigates. Had trouble swallowing. My mouth was dry.

Followed Lindskold back to the Magellan for recovery. Cold sweat coated the inside of my skintights. Ahvyn pilot trailed me.

Checked the farscreens a last time before I dropped shields. Around Hamilton system, most of the hostiles had vanished—one way or another.

Still couldn’t believe that whoever it was—couldn’t have just been the Covenanters—had dared to attack Hamilton system itself. More unbelievable was that the Comity had been able to fight them off. D.S.S. must have pulled in every ship from hundreds of systems, if not all thousand. But how would they have known?

Navigator Control, Needle Tigress, standing by for recovery.

Stet, Tigress.

How could Comity D.S.S. have dared to concentrate so many ships, leaving systems defenseless? Bet Morgan knew. Bet he had a lot to answer for. Didn’t know as I wanted to confront him on it.

82

Fitzhugh

This time, after the battle, I’d waited outside the ready room, discreetly removed so that I could observe Commander Morgan’s appearance. As fortune, chance, or fate would have it, the commander did not deign to appear, and I finally made my way into the ready room.

Jiendra looked up from where she slumped in one of the chairs, exhausted. “You didn’t have to come.”

Lieutenant Lindskold smiled, then looked away before Jiendra could perceive her colleague’s amusement.

“You need nourishment, and separation from this locale would not be amiss,” I observed, “preferably before Commander Morgan appears.”

“He won’t be here. He’s got bigger problems.” She stood. “Could use a bite to eat.”

“Bigger problems?”

“Need to eat. We can talk then.”

Within a handful of minutes, Jiendra and I sat at the corner table in the mess, where she cut some form of formulated beef, drowned in a tan liquid masquerading as a sauce, with quick, exact strokes of a knife, then ate them with equally swift and precise bites.

“What is the probability that you’ll have to fight another battle?”

She swallowed, then sipped some lager that actually resembled closely the brewed product in both appearance and taste. “Doesn’t look likely. Not anytime soon. There must have been over a hundred Covenanter ships in Hamilton system. Saw more than fifty, and that was when things were winding down. Three, four times that many D.S.S. ships. We came in, looked like, on the tail end of a big-assed battle. Could have been bigger than anything since the Conflagration. Can’t say as I understand what brought it on, or why now.”

“You find it unsettling that the Covenanters and Sunnis and the CWs would sacrifice so many ships?”

“Stupid, first of all,” she pointed out, taking another quick sip of lager. “The CWs… I understand them. They wanted the Danannians’ technology. They didn’t attack Hamilton system, either. Just sent ships to Danann. Not that many, really. The Covenanters and Sunnis didn’t want anyone to have it. Understand that as well. But sacrificing so many ships? Makes no sense.”

“It does if you consider that, for them, the technology is something God never meant human beings to have. Because it came from another species, it had to have come from Iblis or Satan.”

“Still stupid.”

“It’s not precisely a question of intelligence, but of beliefs. We all have beliefs. Certain sets of beliefs enhance intelligence while others restrict the scope of its application. True believers, theocratic or otherwise, are those whose beliefs limit their applied intelligence. Throughout history, they’ve always been so. This… conflagration merely proves that little has changed. The Covenanters are monists in a multiplex universe.”

“You think it’s all over?” Jiendra’s vocal intonation, despite the inquiry, professed skepticism.

“You comprehend, all too well, my dear lady…” I shouldn’t have said that. I hurried on, trying to explain. “… that it has scarcely commenced. The Danannians, for lack of a better term, applied their technology to create a brane flex in a higher or different dimension, or another side of reality, or whatever, and they had enough power to push through at least a globular cluster. Cleon Lazar has suggested the possibility that they may have taken an entire galaxy. How or what they did doesn’t matter, except for one thing. Can you conceive of what that might be?”

“Liam…” She laughed. “You sound like a professor.”

“Professor or not,” I continued, essaying not to lecture, or not too much, “they created an entire new universe. For true believers, that’s something that only a deity can do. That leaves the true believers with a number of difficulties…”

“Aliens as powerful as gods, for one.”

“Or as powerful as they believe God to be, or as powerful as the mythical Satan, and a universe or a series of universes that can go on forever, for another, and where humans aren’t the most favored or the most powerful species, for another, and that’s particularly hard for those believers who insist humans are made in the image of God and foremost among his creatures.”

Jiendra laughed, and I just took in her face.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

“Do you think the scientists will ever figure out what’s behind all that stuff?” she finally asked, pushing aside an empty plate.

“Cleon Lazar has figured out some of it already, but it won’t be very useful as it is…”

“Why not?”

“The universe has changed since then. Oh… not in the grandest sense, but the comparative strength of atrousans and gravitons was stronger then. They’ve estimated that the surface gravity on Danann might have been close to one-point-five Tellurian. Cleon tried to explain the physics of it, and I still don’t understand. It has something to do with what you might call frequencies of brane flexion. Because everything is related to everything else, the relationships remain constant. One of the keys has been around for a long time, in astrophysics, where the age of the universe doesn’t work out quite right if the speed of light has been a constant since the prime flex. The higher gravity might be one rationale for why all the towers were shorter than anyone thought. And why the scientists thought everything was overengineered. It wasn’t.”

“Did they have Gates?”

“It’s not likely. According to Cleon, Gates wouldn’t work in the earlier times of the universe. Atrousan density was too high.”

“But… why did they leave?”

“That’s a guess. One of Cleon’s colleagues, and I’d calculate that it was most likely Koch or Chais, although Cleon refused to identify whoever it might be, theorizes that they were faced with the prospect of mental and physiological degradation because their biology was vastly different. They may even have a nervous system that was based on something similar to an AG drive. As the universe expanded, atrousan density decreased. So did everything else. It was a hotter, brighter universe… brighter in more ways than one.” “They wouldn’t be able to think as fast?” “I’d judge that they anticipated that possibility. Cleon won’t commit on that. He asserts that he is a physicist, not a neurologist. Most of the physical scientists have concluded that what we’ve found doesn’t work, or rather, that it functions only to a small percentage of its original design and capabilities. Not only are those functions impaired, but they will always be impaired and will continue to deteriorate as the universe continues to expand.” I couldn’t help laughing. Jiendra tilted her head.

“Doesn’t sound funny to me.”

“Don’t you see? Neither the rationalists nor the true believers will be happy. The scientists want to believe that, if they can just find the proper rational key, they can make anything work. If the preliminary work is correct, no one can ever make the Danannian technological devices operate as they once did. We might be able to create a universe where they did work again, but, personally, I’m not so certain that we’d work there.”

“What are we, then? The dregs of the universe?”

“I’d prefer to suggest that we’re the mature vintage of the universe, the later and better wine…” She did laugh at that.

83

Chang

Finished eating and looked at Liam. Wanted some answers. He’d supplied some, but there were others, ones he didn’t know.

“You have that look, lady…” he said.

“Lady… I’m no lady. I’m a pilot, and I’m frigging pissed. We go off on an archeological expedition. We get attacked. We face assassins and sabotage, and when we come back through the Gate outside Hamilton system, we’re in the middle of the biggest single-system battle in human history. It’s no frigging coincidence.”

“That’s a rather charitably captious abnegation of—”

“Why don’t you just say you’re pissed, too?”

He grinned. “Your expressions are more colorful.”

“We need to see Morgan.”

“Will he see us?”

“If you come, how can he say no? You’re not under his command, and you can bust his butt into little fragments so small even a nanetic biologist couldn’t reassemble him. He also knows you just might.”

Liam stood. “We need to stop by my work space first, for some insurance.”

His insurance took more than half a stan. Finally, he stepped away from the console. “That should do it.”

“That to make sure everyone knows?”

“Some probably do. I just want to make sure everyone does.” Liam closed his door. Didn’t lock it.

We walked up the ramps.

Couple of officers looked round-eyed when we got to the ops level. Didn’t stop us, though. Morgan was in his spaces.

“Ah… I see I’m surrounded.” Morgan looked up from the console. His smile was hard.

Liam gestured for me to step inside, and then he closed the hatch.

“The captain will know you’ve closed the hatch, and she’ll be monitoring everything.”

“That’s fine.” My words were harsh.

“We have been pondering matters, Commander,” Liam began, “and cogitation, while often difficult, also can have unexpected negative impacts.”

“Get to the point, Professor. I don’t need lectures or verbiage.”

Liam moved. In instants, he had Morgan on the deck. “I don’t need condescending crap, Morgan. I’m polite because I was taught to be. You have a lot of explaining to do. Especially for all the blood on your hands. And don’t think that you can get out of it—not unless you want to silence or murder every member of the expedition.”

In a way, I was glad Liam had acted. I might have just busted Morgan’s balls and neck—in that order.

Morgan looked up tiredly as Liam released him. “Some sort of timed release?”

“It’s a bit more sophisticated that that. It’s a burst transmission, like a virus, that will appear in every terminal in the system, shortly. It will also appear if the system is turned off, if power is lost, and if any attempt is made to remove or tamper with it.”

“How did you learn that, Professor?”

“My subspecialty was communications disruptions, Commander. I’ve kept abreast, mainly out of curiosity.”

“Out of thousands of former commandos, we would get you.”

“No. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but it’s transparently obvious that I was placed here as a check on you, as well.”

I wondered how many checks on how many people the Comity really had. Got the feeling that there were plots within plots, stuff that I’d never know. Wasn’t certain I wanted to, either.

“Diplomatic Corps, no doubt.” Morgan cleared his throat. “Might I get up?”

“Why don’t you just sit on the deck?” I said. “Until we get some answers.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start right here,” I said. “How did you know that the battle here in Hamilton system was going to happen?”

“I didn’t.”

Just looked at him. My eyes were colder than his. Angrier, too.

“Just out of curiosity, Commander” asked Liam, “what were you at D.S.S. Headquarters, Deputy Chief of Intelligence? That has to be a matter of record, and I imagine that, if anyone published such a coincidence as your also returning as operations officer of the Magellan...”

“It would all be hypothetical, Professor, very hypothetical. Besides, I’m well past the time for full retirement, and I certainly haven’t done a single thing against any law or regulation.”

“Deputy Chief of Intelligence?” Liam pressed.

“Assistant Deputy Chief.”

“Now… about how you knew there would be a battle here in Hamilton system?”

“As I said, it could only be hypothetical—”

“Then, perhaps you had best offer your hypothetical answer.” Never heard Liam’s voice that calm or cold. Deadly.

Morgan looked from Liam to me.

“I’ll take hypothetical.” For starters.

Morgan rose to his feet. Liam let him.

Morgan smiled. Uneasy smile. “Let us start with Danann itself. Just assume that a D.S.S. ship fired a flash torp at the surface of Danann. Not anyplace near the megaplex, but just a flat icy patch over one of those frozen oceans. Not out of hostility, but to get some spectral readings because the ship was leery about landing its single flitter. Let us also assume that within moments the ship vanished, and there was a massive surge of energy on the AG level, enough to rock its companion vessel, despite the other ship’s having stood off several thousand emkay… Let us assume that, far later, another ship approached and successfully landed a flitter. What conclusion would you draw?”

“Danann protects itself.” Frig! “You set up everything so that the Covenanters would fire on those fusactors, and the frigging planet wiped out the whole flotilla—and what was left of the CWs, too.”

“We don’t know that. Not for certain.”

“How long did it take to set it all up?” I asked.

“I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Lieutenant. Nor will anyone else, if you happened to be so unwise as to discuss it publicly.”

“You still haven’t answered why the Covenanters attacked Hamilton.”

“There was another agent on board—a Covenanter agent. We caught him just before he was about to complete a device that would have destroyed the Magellan. That was another reason why the Owens was dispatched,” Morgan said. “The captain felt it was urgent to report a Covenanter saboteur who was planted to disable or destroy the Magellan just at the time the Covenanter fleet arrived. We didn’t know about the CW flotilla, of course.”

Just nodded. Morgan had a pat explanation. Only problem was that saboteurs wouldn’t reveal where they were from, or much of anything. So Morgan had known before and had been watching. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have been able to move so fast.

“What happened to the saboteur?” Liam’s words didn’t sound like a question.

“He had nanetic fail-safes in his system. Major DeLisle couldn’t keep him alive.”

Knew both statements were true. They also weren’t related. Morgan had taken care of the saboteur… or ordered DeLisle to let him die. Couldn’t say I felt much sympathy.

“The battle here in Hamilton system,” I prompted.

“No single system—not really, and especially not without advance notice—can be effectively defended, not without massive superiority in numbers,” Morgan went on. “When they didn’t get the signal from their agent, and when the Magellan appeared leaving Danann, they figured he’d been discovered, and that meant we had the Danannian technology. For them, the only way to stop us from using it was to try to destroy our installations on Danann, and the Magellan, and attack Hamilton and create enough destruction and disruption that it would be generations before anyone could recover or find the Danannian technology…”

Sounded good if you didn’t think. Didn’t make total sense, if you did. Just nodded. Waited to see what else Morgan had to say.

“Very good defense in depth, Commander.” Liam’s voice dripped sarcasm. “And just how did every D.S.S. fleet in the Comity happen to be waiting off Hamilton?”

Morgan lifted his hands in a shrug. “I can’t explain that. Good luck?”

“Let me offer a hypothesis,” Liam said. “Let us just suppose that the Comity wanted to exploit the fact that the Worlds of the Covenant had this… fixation on the Morning Star or the Spear of Iblis. Let us further suppose that the Covenanters received unimpeachable intelligence about just how advanced the Danannian technology was, including its potential to destroy warships at a distance and how it just might be something like the Morning Star. Further assume that they received scattered information about how to find Danann, and that most Comity fleets would be elsewhere than in Hamilton system… and let us further suppose that the Middle Kingdom, which was doubtless more than a little irritated about the assassination of First Advocate Tyang Ku Wong, just happened to discover that all Covenanter fleets might conceivably be engaged in occupying Danann and attacking Hamilton system… I would judge that the Middle Kingdom is effectively laying waste to the Zion system and New Jerusalem, if it hasn’t already done so.”

Morgan looked at Liam. Tiredly. “That’s all hypothesis.”

“Absolutely.” Liam smiled. Thought his early expressions had been cold. I was wrong. “But that doesn’t invalidate its basic truth.” He paused, then went on quietly. “I’m not a spy, and I’m not an agent. I wasn’t certain, but it would make perfect sense. The Worlds of the Covenant have been expanding. They have a high birth rate, and they don’t operate with any kind of logic that meshes with the more rationalistic polities. The Middle Kingdom has suffered most, but isn’t powerful enough to risk the Comity’s enmity… but an alliance of convenience would not only remove the Covenanter threat, perhaps permanently, but neutralize the Chrysanthemum Worlds. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone even suggested that a CW flotilla might be able to slip in and discover that technology after the Magellan left. They really didn’t pursue us that hard.” Liam paused. “Then, too, you even considered the most important motivation of the Covenanters and the Sunnis.”

Morgan smiled, amused. Said nothing.

“If an alien species could create a universe, does that make them gods? If the Comity obtains that technology, that ability, what does that do to the myth of the divine creator, the source? What does that do to the power structure of the Covenanter worlds? The theocracies didn’t want the technology. They wanted it buried. If the Comity obtains it and masters the Danannian technology, the Worlds of the Covenant become even more irrelevant— politically, theologically, and in terms of sheer power. Even if the Covenanters did manage to acquire the technology, either from Danann or by stealing it, what the technology represents would destroy their culture. Five thousand years of history has shown that.”

“Can anyone master it?” I asked.

“Not for a long time, if ever,” Liam said. “Dr. Taube, Lazar, Hector Regens—they’re convinced that some of it may never work because the expansion of the universe somehow changed the understructure of the universe itself.” Looked at Morgan. “You suspected that, didn’t you?”

“Let us just say that I’m a skeptic.”

“We can’t go back to Danann? Can anyone?” Thought I knew, but had to ask.

“After those fireworks, I don’t think either the captain or the D.S.S. would wish to risk it I don’t.” Morgan’s voice remained tired.

“Very effective, Commander. You managed to employ a technology we’ll never master to destroy the one rival to the Comity long before it could become a significant threat, while creating an effective alliance with the Middle Kingdom and weakening the strongest other system along their borders. Do they get to keep and ‘pacify’ the Covenanter worlds?”

“You’ve been wasted as a historian, Professor.”

“I think not.” Liam smiled. “I’ve enjoyed life more— although not as much as I intend.” He turned to the blank wall screen. “Captain… since we don’t intend more violence, might we depart with your assurance of, shall we say, neutrality?”

“What do you intend to do with your burst transmission, Professor?” The captain’s voice came from the screen.

“Oh… that. I imagine I’ll leave it on standby in various locales, possibly for the rest of my natural life.”

“I doubt that will be necessary.” Her image filled the screen. Beside her was the most honorable Special Deputy Minister Allerde. “We have already recorded a number of speculations from others on the team. Professor deSilva has extrapolated most of what you suggested, and Professor Khorana also has had some enlightening speculations. Ser Barna knows most of this, and his absence would be noted. Besides, as a most practical matter, it is now in the Comity’s interest for the rest of the Galaxy to understand exactly how far we will go against blind—and it is truly blind—faith.”

“And I’ll be allowed to publish a monograph or book that outlines this?”

“But, of course,” Allerde replied. Sounded genuine. “So long as you can document whatever you publish in the scholarly accepted fashion.”

Liam laughed. “Very clever.”

Morgan looked unhappy. “What about security?”

“I am sorry, Commander,” Allerde added. “It was decided that the most obvious aspects of the strategy would be made public. Since initial communications have revealed no significant damage to civilian targets in Hamilton system, there is little advantage to further secrecy, and great disadvantage. As you have experienced, it appears that secrecy is not possible concerning the… artifact and what it represents.” He smiled politely. “ I am most certain you will enjoy your well-earned retirement.”

Almost felt sorry for Morgan as Liam opened the hatch, and we left.

Was still pissed, though. Could see the Comity point of view. Didn’t like it. At the cost of maybe fifty ships, a few thousand D.S.S. personnel, they’d ensured Comity primacy for centuries.

Problem for me was simple. Those personnel were people. People like Braun, and Shaimen. Saved Shaimen once so she could get killed in Morgan’s trap of the Covenanters. Braun got whacked by assassins trying to get Morgan’s bait. To Morgan and his kind, all of us were rats in a maze. Didn’t like being a rat.

Liam hadn’t either, and Morgan was probably more than a little pissed that Liam had turned out to be a very tough cat… a tiger.

I smiled at that thought.

84

Barna

I took a last look at the canvas before I covered it. I’d done a good job. I adjusted the drape and thought about Aeryana and Nicole, and how good it would be to go home… and about Elysen. At the time I hadn’t realized it, but when I spent that last stan with her, holding her hand… that was when I was ready to return home. That was when I realized how it all fit together.

I understood now why I had not destroyed the portraits of Aeryana, and why I never would, or could. Why it would be wrong. I’d even make friends with Peter Atreos. Not grudgingly, either. He could commission my work or not. It didn’t matter. Enough people would.

The Danannians had developed incredible technology and great knowledge. I don’t think they’d had great art. Great art happens when the artist goes beyond mere skill and sets a part of his soul in a permanent form—a painting, a sculpture, a building, a poem, a song—for all to see or hear and defies those who follow to surpass it The mutability of the megaplex was great technology. It wasn’t art. The artifact was art, of a sort, but I questioned the artistic heritage, even the soul, of a culture with that level of technology that only left one recognizable piece of art.

I glanced at the door to the studio, waiting. I’d be leaving the Magellan in the next few days, with most of the paintings, but I’d always remember what I’d learned and what it meant.

I didn’t have to wait long.

Liam arrived first, stepping inside the work space. He was so unostentatiously graceful. He glanced to the covered canvas.

I shook my head. “I’ve asked some others to come. I hope you don’t mind waiting.”

“No. That’s fine, Chendor.” He looked around the studio, taking in the renditions of the artifact and the towers of Danann, and the paintings I’d done of the shuttle on the ice in the darkness, stark-outlined by the Danann ground-base lights. His eyes drifted back to the covered canvas again. “Is that—”

“It is. But artists like audiences. It won’t be long.”

He laughed. “I understand. So do professors.”

Lieutenant Chang was only a few moments later.

“I’m sorry, ser Barna. Commander Morgan had a few words. He won’t offer more than a few these days. Not to me.” She glanced toward Liam. Her expression held both warmth and puzzlement. That was fine with me. “I thought you wanted my opinion on some art dealing with piloting.”

“With pilots, as well,” I said. “I’d like to be mysterious. Would you both close your eyes?” I could tell that Liam had a glimmering of what might happen.

I slipped the drape off the frame. “Now… you can look.”

The lieutenant took the slightest breath.

Liam just stood there, staring at the canvas.

I’d put him in black skintights, with a dark green vest and shorts. I didn’t know that he had such, but they suited the painting, especially contrasted with the blue skintights and dark gray vest worn by Lieutenant Chang. I’d set them together, just outside the shuttle, in the boat bay. Most likely they would have been in armor there, but not necessarily. Besides, this painting was for a different purpose. They’d just turned, as if addressed, or surprised. Both of them were alive, and they were in love. I was pleased with it, but not surprised. I’d learned a lot on Danann. I just hadn’t realized it until afterward.

The lieutenant looked at me.

After a moment, so did Liam. “Is it that obvious?”

“Not to everyone, but to an artist.”

“Why… what?”

“You two deserve it.” I couldn’t help but grin. “There is one problem, though.”

They exchanged glances.

“There is only one portrait,” I pointed out. “One original.”

“Liam will take it, for now.”

“For now?” His voice was bantering, but there was an awkwardness behind it.

“Until I get released from the D.S.S. That’s what Morgan was telling me…” She looked at him, but didn’t say another word.

“What degree of certainty do you possess—”

“Liam… keep it simple.” Her words were firm but soft. She finally smiled.

“Can you deal with a history professor?”

“If you can deal with a pilot.”

I left them among the canvases and in front of their portrait.