You really believe that a mind devious enough to get us this far will let us
double-cross him? That he hasn’t planned for that?
Sure he has. That’s part of my job in the time ahead. I got to find the human
bomb and somehow defuse it. You figure—only you and me, pal, didn’t get treated
in that Institute. Only us two. Everybody else here got put through the mill, in
private. Manka, Koll, your wives, and China and her girl friends—all put
through. Somewhere there, buried so deep we won’t find it with a mindprinter, is
our bomb. Our betrayer. Maybe two. I’m not even completely exempting you—or me.
You can be made to forget a session, and records are made to be faked. It’s a
long way off. It doesn’t bother me now.
Hawks frowned. I’d think it would. Why not all of us?
No, too risky. He don’t want robot people out there. The thing is, we have to
have all four outstanding rings before it’s even a problem. If we lose one, we
sure as hell ain’t gonna go after the rest until we get it back. There’s plenty
of time. I’ll still believe we even get away when we get away.
Hawks stared at him. You have reasons for the others, but why me? Why did Chen
so specifically want me? I’m not a warrior, not a computer expert, not a spy or
a thief or a spaceship captain. I’m a historian. Why me?
Raven sat back and blew a smoke ring. It’s for something you know. Something
you know that maybe nobody else does.
Me? What? I am a historian relating information on ancient and irrelevant
cultures.
Chief—in what part of the world did Master System come to be?
Uh—why, North America. Over eight hundred years ago.
Uh huh. And who’s probably the foremost expert on that period and culture
around today?
Well, I might be one, but there are many, and most of my interests are even
earlier.
Still, somewhere in your head is how the rings work, and how to make them work,
and where to use them. I’d bet on it. Chen’s betting on it. Something you know
that you don’t even know you know. Something that’ll have to be put together
when you have all the evidence, all the rings, before you. Some time out, if we
manage any of this at all, will be your turn. Some time out, if and when the
rings are brought together, you’ll be center stage, the man who knows. Don’t
fret about it, but bet on it. Old Chen always plays the best odds.
They are crude, but I have the splices in and the jumpers installed, Manka
Warlock said. The whole forward area of the bridge was a wreck, a mass of
disassembled panels and disconnected devices out of which snaked a thick coiled
cable leading to a mindprinterlike helmet. I believe we are ready to try.
China sat in the captain’s chair and licked her lips nervously. Put the thing
on my head and energize, then. Let’s see if it works.
Applying circuit power, the voice of the pilot told them. Two-way flow is
established, although I cannot guarantee how long those splices will stand up.
It is as ready as it can be.
China took the helmet and put it on, then sat back in the chair relaxed,
although her hands twitched nervously. Activate interface, she said dryly.
There was an explosion inside her head, and suddenly she was growing, expanding,
filling out, running along wondrous circuits and feeling a new, greater body.
More than that, she could see, although not as mere humans saw. Every detail as
fine and as microscopic as she wished it to be, across a spectrum that included
colors the human eye could never detect or the unaugmented brain comprehend.
She was the ship, a small universe, and everything it contained. There remained
only one part reserved, one part that was the key part, for that was the power,
the control, of this universe. It was a blinding ball of light, infinite
quadrillions of electrical relationships changing too fast to comprehend. At
first it shied away from her, resisted her tentative approach, then it suddenly
seemed to decide and rushed toward her own core and enfolded her in its warmth
and majesty.
In an instant, there was, for now, no China Nightingale, no Star Eagle—there was
only One, greater than its parts, and that One was The Ship. All that she ever
was, all that she ever knew or thought or felt, was integrated into the whole.
What was created was beyond the experience of human or machine and
incomprehensible to any of those within the ship, yet it contained a human, and
because it contained a human, it knew the need for an effective communications
shell.
It was shocking how slow the human mind was, how limited in its data storage and
how illogical and inefficient in its data retrieval, how subject to
biochemical-based emotions and how subject to sensations—pain and pleasure, love
and hate, honor and betrayal. Yet, too, these were exhilarating things, unique
factors producing a strange and exotic new way of perceiving the world and the
universe.
Problems, once stated, could take endless time to run through, yet by the clock
so little time elapsed that no one on the bridge had taken a single step or
fully blinked an eye. The pilot gained a new perspective, a new subjectivity;
the girl acquired a newer, faster, more efficient added brain.
The potential codings used by Master System for the universe ships’ defense came
to more than fourteen quadrillion to the fortieth power; it took almost nine
seconds to come up with the proper algorithms that, matched with the potential
send speed of the ship-to-ship communications devices, would cover better than
ninety-seven percent of all possibilities. They were complementary: She could
formulate and state the problem; it could then solve it.
She still was humbled, knowing that she was less than nothing.
The pilot was humbled, knowing now what it had always been denied and might
always be denied.
But it was the computer part that mandated the severing of the connection after
a matter of hours. The core commanded it, for no human and no pilot could ever
sever that connection voluntarily once it had been made. They were separated,
and she felt herself drawn, much against her will, back to a tiny figure
seemingly asleep in the captain’s chair. Her consciousness, her ego, was read
back in, along with all of that unified experience that her mind could handle,
to be sorted, reclassified, reinterpreted, and reprocessed.
She came to with a mixture of wonder and despair inside her. She felt terribly
humble, insignificant, a worm in a universe led by a giant she could know so
intimately only for brief intervals. She loved—she worshiped—that blinding
light. Moreover, Star Eagle loved her as his link to humanity, his taste of his
ultimate Creator. What she had, it could never know any way but vicariously, and
it envied her that and craved more. He could live through her; she could touch
and tap the power only through him. In many ways it was the perfect marriage.
Look at them! Floating cities, each one! Hawks could hardly contain himself as
they watched the fleet come into view on the long-range viewer.
I think they are ugly, fat tumors, Cloud Dancer commented.
You have no appreciation of scale, her husband noted dryly. Each of those
ships is farther than from the Four Families’ lodge to the village of the
Willamatuk. They do not need outside beauty. They are wonders of creation.
Still, you got to admit, they look like long black sausages with lots of
warts, Raven put in, chewing on a cigar. I hope they’re more comfortable
inside. They didn’t ship out all those folks in luxury.
Fully one-third is the engines alone, Manka Warlock noted, sounding a bit awed
for the first time in her life. The center is a cargo bay so large that even
this ship would be dwarfed, a flyspeck so tiny we could hardly see it at this
distance. I must admit, to steal something of this magnitude will make history.
We are being challenged, came the voice of Star Eagle. The voice was far
different from what it had been in the beginning—expressive, emotive, and very
human. It was, in fact, China’s voice exactly a half octave down. When she was
united in the captain’s interface with him, the voice became totally hers.
Thirty-six fighters have been activated ahead of us and to our flanks. They
will be up to launch power in under a minute.
Send them the damned algorithms! Warlock snapped.
I’m sending, I’m sending! It will take almost sixteen minutes to send them all
the maximum transmission rate. He paused. First set of fighters is launched.
How long until they’re within range of us? Raven asked nervously.
Fourteen minutes.
Raven didn’t need to be a mathematical genius on that one. Uh, oh! Strap in,
everyone! All of you! Strap in and brace yourselves! Activate ground takeoff
restraint systems as soon as possible!
Between the bridge, the passenger cabin chairs, the command chair amidships, and
the bed in Sabatini’s quarters, there were enough spaces to go around. Not, of
course, counting Sabatini, who, locked in one of the big cages, would simply
have to rough it.
‘They look like bird sketches, Cloud Dancer said, eyes still on the screen as
she strapped herself in. The fighters, the first of which were now launched and
coming at them, were so small, they had been invisible with the overview shot,
but now Star Eagle focused only on them.
They were like great, stiff birds with wings curved down at the tips so that
they ended below the main body, forming a stylized V of black and silver, a tiny
but deadly body suspended between. Totally automated and run by Battle Control
on the mother ship, they did not need to take any precautions to protect fragile
humans inside.
Star Eagle didn’t have that luxury. I estimate three hits on the first pass,
first wave, he told them.
On them or us? Raven asked.
On us, of course. I will probably not be able to take out more than four of the
first wave. The second wave should disable at least one of my turrets.
Find the damned code! the Crow shouted.
Deactivating artificial gravity. Battle mode, the pilot responded. Uh, oh.
More trouble. My sensors show a force consisting of one armed freighter, Assim
Class, and four detached and fully operational and interfaced fighters, class
and origin unknown. They are activating their weapons systems and closing
rapidly. Estimated to be in range in twelve point four minutes.
Who the hell is that? Hawks shouted to Raven. Master System?
Uh, uh. Old M-S is what’s ahead. Nagy. It’s got to be Nagy. That son of a bitch
is chasing us from the other side. Why? Sheer professional pride? Or does he
think we can do it?
Who’s this Nagy? Cloud Dancer asked.
Security chief on Melchior. They want us bad, Chief. If we can’t figure a way
around him, better hope those fighters ahead get us first!
Forward on the bridge, China released her restraints after some fumbling and
with difficulty found the helmet, then sat back, refastened the belts as best
she could, and put on the interface. Star Eagle—activate the interface, I beg
you!
At the pilot’s request, she had not connected up at the start of the battle. She
had no fighting experience, and the resources used to support the interface
might well be needed to divert instantly to vital areas. The pilot, however, was
above all else a computer, and it could count. Even if it hit the safe code for
the universe ships, it was no match for the four battle cruisers closing on it.
In fact, the pilot had no real experience against a shooting enemy, either; it
had only simulations to go by. Such a need had not been contemplated by its
programmers for just such a reason as they now faced: The ship was hopelessly
outmatched in any fight against anything that might attack it.
Merged and in control, though, the China-Star Eagle combination went to work on
the problem while continuing to send the stream of codes inward toward Jupiter.
Curiously, it was China’s memories of her humiliation at the hands of Sabatini
that motivated her most of all. They— the whole ship—were in the hands of
onrushing Sabatinis with about the same relative strength as he had over her.
Star Eagle was at the core a creature of logic; it might surrender or die,
choosing one over the other on the basis of the facts and the odds, but it would
not contemplate anything in between.
The erstwhile Song Ching was, at her core, not a creature of logic at all but
one of emotion and strong will. This tendency dominated in an unprecedented
situation like this. She was in control.
The four Melchior battle cruisers were closing fast, and time was running out.
They were leveling off for their attack run and spreading their formation. Star
Eagle’s sensors showed life forms aboard each, and in spite of the fact that
both pilot and woman had only recently discovered this sort of interface,
clearly Melchior was far ahead of them. Still, how much practice could those
pilot-fighters have had?
Carefully she shifted course and speed so that the computer-controlled fighters
behind would be forced to line up horizontally and re-form along the proper
angle. The escapees were four minutes from being in range of the Melchior ships,
four minutes and forty seconds to first in-range contact with the defense system
of the mothball fleet. Once locked on, neither side would be fooled for more
than a second or so by crazy course changes. All the attack angles showed that
any evasive maneuvers would wind up just as bad. The odds on finding the correct
code for the fleet attackers were now split evenly into thirds—they would find
it in time, they would find it too late, or their entire supposition on the
mathematical algorithms was wrong and they didn’t have the codes. That put any
odds of survival at thirty-three percent or less. The China aspect of the pilot
proceeded to ignore those odds. The computers in all the attacking ships were
also figuring that out and expecting a logical response.
To the demons of darkness I give logic!
The ship accelerated at maximum thrust right into the attacking fleet fighters.
Startled, the Melchior ships sped up to keep to their overtake position. They
closed rapidly, but not as rapidly as their quarry was closing on the fleet
fighters.
Suddenly all power was shut down, but only for a moment. Then full reverse
thrusters were applied. The people inside the ship were twisted and contorted
against their restraints, and loose objects began shooting through the air and
off the walls. Hull plates groaned, and cargo fasteners were torn free in the
cargo compartments. There had been, in fact, a sixty percent chance that such a
sudden and dramatic move would cause the ship to break apart, but forty percent
was better than thirty-three percent any time.
The four Melchior fighters shot right past them in the act of slowing themselves
and ran straight into the first wave of fleet fighters.