“TOOK FOREVER TO GET IT OUT OF THAT MEDALLION,” Isaac Clayben remarked. “We couldn’t use the transmuter without risking damage to the ring, and we couldn’t try the usual chemical baths, either, although I suspect it’s pretty sturdy. It’s stood up under salt water for perhaps centuries, after all. I finally had to dig it out physically and perform virtual microsurgery to get off the glop they used.”
Hawks stared at it. “It is the real ring, though? No question?”
“Not in my mind. The medallion is at least four centuries old and has apparently been handed down from high priest to high priest since it was made, with embellishments each time, of course. Composition is exact and there is consistent circuitry within the synthetic jade. This is not to say that we couldn’t have had one put over on us, but I doubt it.”
“It just seemed too damned easy compared to the rest,” the chief responded, shaking his head.
“Not that easy. Remember, we weren’t supposed to even find the world—it’s unregistered, unlisted, its population underwater and hostile to any outsiders. Even we weren’t really certain until we got down there, if you remember. Finding its exact location was sheer good fortune—Master System reacting with typical straight-line logic on the information it had, which was that it was highly improbable we’d be anywhere around these parts during the small amount of time they were there. Even so, the hypnocasters almost did us in, and without those implanted locators they would have done so. And the other route, via the birth island, was very well covered, I suspect. No, it simply looks easy in retrospect. Not the most difficult, but certainly not easy.”
Hawks nodded absently and went over to a small case where all four rings now sat. He felt a curious lack of emotion on looking at them, although he knew he should be celebrating at the sight. They had done the impossible, at great cost and risk. The fact that they had been helped along by that mysterious enemy, Nagy’s bosses, did not in any way tarnish the achievement. Their unknown ally had merely provided the necessary tools to place them on a more or less equal footing with Master System; it had not in any way aided the attempts nor minimized the price. The fact was, without the special personnel, from Vulture to the other specialists on the team like China and the Chows and Clayben, no one else would ever have had a chance—but that was all they had been given. A chance.
Raven entered, cigar in mouth, and stood next to Hawks looking down at the rings. “Well, we did it,” he said, shaking his head. “I can’t believe it, but we did it.”
“No, Raven, we haven’t done a thing yet,” the chief replied. “Master System still rules, we are still pirates, and everything is exactly as it was.”
“Yeah, but—we got all the rings now.”
Hawks gave a weak smile. “Oh, really? I count four, Raven. We have roamed over a quarter of the galaxy and we have made a mockery of Master System’s safeguards, its Vals, and its human army, but we have done nothing of importance yet. Tell me, Raven—there’re the rings. Now, where do we go from here?”
“Huh? Earth, of course. We go home. That’s where the fifth ring is.”
“All right, so we go home. You think Master System and Chi don’t know that? Do you think Lazlo Chen, if he still lives, and the Presidium don’t know that? It was Chen who initiated this plan, remember, and it was Nagy’s people who made it possible. They’re around, too, and we don’t know who or even what they are, but they know, too. Four rings, Raven—and you know what? We are compelled by the location of the fifth ring to bring them all back to Chen. And even if he’s still got it, still somehow has managed to remain the boss, he only has to own, to possess that ring, not wear it and flaunt it as he did for me. He has a vast area of mountains, deserts, steppes, and wastes to hide it in, too.”
“Well, he’s a crafty old son of a bitch, I admit, but he ain’t no different from the other C.A.s we took on. Besides, he can be dealt with. He’s got one ring, so he and his associates maybe get dealt in if we can’t figure a way to steal or cheat ’em out of it. But just as these four ain’t no good without his, his is no good at all without these four.”
“Suppose you’re right,” Hawks responded. “Suppose we make a deal. We have all five rings and I’ve got a fairly good idea of how to use them. But where do we use them? Where is Master System, Raven? Where is the human interface to it? We knew the location of four rings and we found the fifth, but those were only the rings. Who gives us the directions to Master System, Raven? Even the Vals don’t really know that, I don’t think. They are remote programmed at their bases. It doesn’t even directly interact with humans, and it interacts with its machines through subspace tightbeam that could be coming from anywhere in the galaxy. Anywhere. And it’s had almost a thousand years to hide.”
“Well, ain’t you the gloomy one! But I don’t think it’s all that damned hard considerin’ how far we come, Hawks. For one thing, I can’t see Chen kickin’ in and settin’ this up or Nagy’s people, or whatever they are, goin’ to all this trouble if you can’t find the end of the rainbow. My old nose suspects that Master System never moved at all. It wouldn’t risk it, ’cause it’d have to be disassembled. I mean, back in those days supercomputers were big mothers. It wouldn’t dare move. It wouldn’t take the chance.”
Hawks’s head snapped up and he stared directly at Raven. “My god! Raven, if that’s the case, then Chen already knows where it is, and so does almost everybody. Where did your original territory as a field agent cover?”
Raven shrugged. “North-central tier, basically. Crow, Sioux, Blackfoot, Cheyenne . . . Why?”
“Cheyenne . . . ” Hawks breathed. “Of course! For years now I have been poring through the historical tapes and records we have here, studying the time and persons and data to get what I could.” He sighed. “All right, let’s go get the last damned ring!”
She was small, nude, a study in feminine perfection of beauty and form, the essence of sensuality, and she glowed slightly, a vague but attractive green. All who saw her worshipped her and obeyed her every command, for she was the Goddess of Matriyeh and a living incarnation of the supernatural.
And she was not really human, not anymore, although the original goddess had been totally inhuman, a Val in human form. Her own body was based upon an analysis of the carcass of the destroyed original, her original tiny body merged and mated with the humanoid Val structure to create a near-perfect duplicate. She was, however, a fake.
The computer alarm sounded, indicating that someone was coming in on the train that ran far below the great temple. She didn’t like that; the last time that alarm had gone off it had disgorged a couple of very unpleasant colonials in SPF uniforms and two Vals, and she had needed all her self-control and poise and acting ability to get through it without being detected. The sensors had not indicated any landing or new orbital craft in the immediate planetary sphere, so this time whoever it was certainly did not want their presence advertised. That was not necessarily a good sign, although it might mean a visit from her old comrades.
That would be welcome. Ikira Sukotae had elected to stay on Matriyeh thinking it would be the fulfillment of her dreams, but the truth was that it had been very frustrating; the challenge of keeping Master System ignorant of her presence or the success of the band here had mostly prevented the slow and progressive redevelopment of this primitive and harsh society into something greater. Being a true goddess, all-powerful in many ways, had blinded her to her own basic inner humanity. She was not the machine she pretended to be and had replaced; she was a human being inside a mostly artificial body. The incredible crush of loneliness had simply never occurred to her until it was too late.
She went down the back way, curious to see who or what was coming, less fearful than eager that at least there would be some break in the monotony, some companionship. She had even found the Vals and SPF a relief, for all the danger they presented. A tremendous number of possibilities of whom this might be went through her head, but the one waiting at the station for her was completely unexpected. She stopped, frozen, just staring at the figure standing there.
“I would tell you to rush and get packed, but you don’t have anything to pack,” Arnold Nagy said casually, his voice echoing around the station walls.
“But—you’re dead!” she protested, trying to understand. “No one could survive being expelled from an air lock in space!”
He shrugged. “And you’re dead, too, aren’t you? At least, the goddess is long dead now. I must say that they did a hell of a job on you. More than anything, we make a pretty good pair.”
She walked slowly down to him. “Just what the hell are you, Nagy?”
He grinned. “Haven’t you guessed? But, come—we have to get you out of here and off Matriyeh and fast. Master System has learned that both you and the ring are fakes. They’re on their way and could be here almost any time. I have no idea how much, if any, of a window we have. You’ve been forcibly relieved, girl—at least for the duration. Wouldn’t you like to be there for the endgame?”
She hesitated. “How do I know I can trust you? I mean, considering your death and sudden, mysterious resurrection, why should I trust you now?”
“You’re smart,” he responded. “Deep down you know, and the rest you’ll figure out. Shall we go?”
“To aid them?”
“Not me. That’s against the rules. That’s why I had to die. Maybe you, if need be. But you can’t stay here, that’s for sure.” He turned. “Ah! That’s our train, I believe. Coming?”
She nodded hesitantly. “But—what about Warlock? The system here?”
“It’ll go along fine. As for Warlock—the last one I want in command of Master System is Manka Warlock. After you, my dear.”
Brigadier Chi studied the computer models, turned, and sighed. “All right, so they have four rings. As I understand it, it does them little good without the fifth that’s on Earth, right?”
Fernando Savaphoong, in his special tank, only his head and shoulders above water, nodded. “That is correct. One would expect that Master System is even now assembling the largest fighting force in history to defend that system. And has it occurred to you, Señorita Brigadier, that, now that you have picked my brains, as it were, and know of the rings, you are no longer an asset to Master System but rather a threat in your own right?”
She bristled. “All my life has been devoted to preserving and defending the system.”
“All the same, all who know, including myself, are under the most expedient method of safety for the system—a death sentence. You have already violated your orders by keeping me alive, have you not? Admit it.”
The problem was, he was telling the absolute truth. Any and all of the pirates of the Thunder were to be kept in the hands of the Vals and other machine forces, mindprinted for their information and data, and then destroyed. Her own curiosity about the rings and their importance, combined with her current authority to overrule Vals—an authority likely to be quickly terminated now—had saved him for the moment, but it might well have doomed her.
“All members of the SPF stand ready to die for the preservation of order,” she told him. “I am no exception.”
“A noble but useless, even insane, gesture. Consider how far they have come. Do you think they will let even a great task force stop them now? Do you not think that the mysterious enemy behind them will allow them to fail at this point? Twice you underestimated them. I beg you, do not do so again. Even with this fleet, Master System is splitting logic hairs in the manner of dealing with the devil. They are humans on the Thunder. The core program gives them the right to go for and use the rings. That is why the Vals hesitate, and why the system allows a way or two to slip through the net. So Master System mounts a defense on the pretext of serving arrest warrants on Hawks and China and Raven. Do not be so blind, Señorita Brigadier. Their mere possession of the rings will give them an edge, a way to get past, or around, the fleet, to get in. It is true that they may not find this path, but it is required. It must be there, and they have found either the path left open or made their own path so far. And once the five rings are united in human hands, even the pretexts will be gone. I believe that once all five are united they will not only be able to go for Master System, they will be required to do so.”
She looked up and stared hard at his bizarre, monstrous face with those eerie, cold deep-set eyes. “Required?”
He nodded. “And I truly believe that Hawks, and perhaps Chen and others, know the correct sequence needed to use the rings. It is no longer a choice of duty to the system, Señorita Chi. It is only a choice of new masters. The so-called pirates, the Presidium, or . . . ”
She stood and cocked her head. “Just what are you getting at, Savaphoong?”
“Are you not human? Am I not, no matter what my form? The core, it says nothing about who is or is not qualified. Humans, just humans. Act while Master System is preoccupied. Act while you still have freedom and authority to do so!”
“Act? What are you saying?”
“We, you and I, have just as much right as anyone else to go for the rings. If you believe so much in the status quo it is even your duty to do so! And we know exactly where four of those rings will be, don’t we? Taking us to the fifth. Sit here meekly and die, Señorita Brigadier. Perhaps they will name a medal after you. Die, and do not survive to see the death of your precious system. Or act now. All humans, no Vals or others subject to other orders.”
She sat down, stunned by the enormity of his proposal. Stunned, and also damned tempted.
“Your arguments are persuasive,” she admitted, “but why should I take you along?”
He shrugged. “Partly because I know them. My knowledge of them and your expertise in security will be a powerful combination. And because in that part of my mind that has been rendered impervious to mindprinter techniques lies the answers. I, too, know the key to the interface. Once I realized that Hawks had discovered it there was no trick to correlating the ring designs with the data banks aboard Thunder until I got a match. That should be worth one ring out of five. No, do not think to pry it out of me. Like your own mind, any deep attempts at involuntary extraction will only result in my death. And I can only be an asset. I can hardly be a threat. I have a fish’s tail. The direct light of most suns will blind and harm me, even kill me over a prolonged time. In deep water I might be dangerous, even to you, who are also a water creature, since you cannot breathe what I most crave, but—like this? I am at your mercy.”
She thought it over, then sighed. “All right. For now, anyway. But this will take careful planning and will not be without risk. We must stay out of this or other fights and we must hold back until they show us where the interface is. We must also be on guard for this enemy, whoever it is. We need no ugly last-minute surprises. That is why I will do it. Not because of my own life, or yours, but because if it is not me, we shall be wide open to that enemy. I will give the administrative exec the orders now. There is no time to lose on this. If I were this Hawks, I would be making for Earth as fast as possible in the hopes that the forces there will not yet be gathered and fully organized.”
But, she had to admit to herself, this was also to salvage her own ego and pride. Twice she had been out-maneuvered and outwitted by these . . . people. But those losses would be meaningless if they were denied the final prize.
“A fleet is assembling,” Star Eagle told them. He had sent out a probe far in advance of their arrival, in the hopes that it could send back information before somebody noticed it and shot it out of existence. “I have never seen so many Vals, so many automated fighter systems. They are indeed preparing for us, and there is no way for any of our ships to get in close without triggering their attention.”
The council of captains listened and watched the visuals as they came in, represented by all-too-clear graphics.
“I am surprised that they have not yet come after the probe,” Maria Santiago remarked.
“Not I,” Captain ben Suda responded. “It is small and unobtrusive and they have no real defensive organization as yet. It is even possible that they know it’s there but choose to ignore it.”
Hawks frowned. “How’s that?”
“They want a fight. Everything they have done has been an attempt to provoke a repeat of the Battle of Janipur, although on even more favorable terms to them. I believe we have come this far partly because, at its heart, Master System was designed as a brute-force defensive war computer. We have beaten it to this point with subtlety, and there is little subtlety in anything Master System ever did. Big battles and major actions are its chosen forte, its best and most comfortable situation. If it hits our probe or shows just how well monitored the system is, then we might back off, wait, even for years, until we figured a sneaky way in. That still might be our best move.”
Hawks shook his head negatively. “From one viewpoint, maybe, but not the real one. Four rings do us no good at all. Give Master System time and it’ll figure out a way to move or obscure our fifth and final ring, maybe turn Earth into that permanent primitive hell it seemed bent on doing years ago. Maybe even obscure or move its own interface. No, we have to go in. The question is, can we sneak in or not?”
“The probability against anything, organic or mechanical, penetrating the Earth’s atmosphere unchallenged at this point is virtually nil,” Star Eagle replied. “After all, it was Earth that Master System was originally supposed to protect anyway. No, the only way in is to beat it, and every day we delay, it will gather more strength from its far-flung outposts.”
“What if we hit ’em hard now with all we got?” Raven asked the computer. “Do we stand a chance?”
“Practically none. We have a far inferior force and the fleet already present is at least six times as powerful as at Janipur. We are outmanned and outgunned many times over. The only thing that could take that force would be a task force as big or bigger than it.”
China’s blind head snapped up at that. She looked old for her years now, her beauty and glow faded by the curses Melchior had inflicted on her so many years ago, but she was still as sharp as ever. “Big! Of course!”
“If you got somethin’, girl, spit it out,” Raven said.
“The probe’s just one of our fighters, specially outfitted. Have it check the orbit around Jupiter and report.”
“Scanning,” Star Eagle responded.
Hawks looked over at her. “Jupiter? You’re not thinking . . . ”
“They’re still there, China,” the pilot told her. “All still nicely mothballed. Minimal status.”
“Recall the probe,” she ordered. “We have need for it. If they let it come in once, they might just let it come in again. Stay well clear of Jupiter—I don’t want to telegraph our intentions.”
“Will do,” the computer responded. “And, yes, it just might work. At least the attempt will be minimal in cost.”
Hawks shook his head in wonder. “You’re thinking of somehow getting in close enough to activate those old universe ships? With what? A fighter? It couldn’t carry more than one, maybe two people in pressure suits.”
“Master System knows that,” China replied. “That’s why I’m counting on it letting us get in there for a little while. A fighter from a sister ship shouldn’t even set off the security systems aboard those things.”
“An interesting idea,” Isaac Clayben put in, “but they have no cores. We, at least, had Star Eagle to work with.”
“Then we must make cores,” China responded. “Star Eagle is capable of it, since he knows his own design, and the ships are all the same as this one used to be so we know exactly where everything is.”
“But we could not exactly duplicate Star Eagle without removing him from the core command center amidships,” Clayben pointed out. “To do so would cripple this vessel, cause the failure of all life support and other systems, and leave us totally vulnerable. Besides, true cores aren’t like people. One minor mistake and we could wind up with no core at all, killing Star Eagle in the process.”
“I am willing to take that risk,” the computer told them. “All of you have done as much or worse.”
“No! We don’t need that!” China responded. “Besides, it would take too long. What we need is the physical unit. Programmable. Not Star Eagle’s complex systems and banks. We don’t need ten or twenty Star Eagles, as much as that might be nice. What we need are basic cores capable of handling the ships and carrying out commands from Thunder. Remotes, as it were.”
Clayben’s eyebrows rose. “Indeed? And even if we could do that, how would we get the cores aboard? Standards or not, the security there would seize control of any service robots we might use.”
Captain ben Suda looked thoughtful. “But would the same apply to a being who might be able to work in such an environment?” he asked them. “One who could even survive a deep-space vacuum for up to three hours? A Makkikor, for example, who was also the finest ship’s engineer alive?”
“You think he’d do it?” Hawks asked, interested.
“I think so. In a sense, his world and people have been injured more by Master System than ours. After all, it was our own ancestors who created this monster, but his people just had the bad luck to be in the middle of the exploration field when Master System rolled over it. I should think he would consider it an honor and a privilege to not only do whatever was necessary but to give his life to free his people—from us.”
Raven shook his head. “No, no. A Makkikor can stand a vacuum, yeah, and work mostly in the dark, too, but that don’t mean it don’t need air. It ain’t a matter of holdin’ your breath for three hours, it’s havin’ the air inside for three hours’ worth of work, and he’s a big sucker. We might sneak him in, but not the auxiliary ship with the air and water. He can’t manufacture it, you know, even if he gets the cores in and the ships operating. There’s only so much murylium in them ship’s engines and they’ll be needed for full power. They ain’t got the transmuters we got, neither. Remember, we had to build and modify over months to get what we got here. A transmuter that simply fuels the engines won’t do no good at all.”
Clayben scratched his chin in thought. “I wonder. We still have plenty of power, and they are bound to notice and figure out what we’re doing if we get a punch that close in to Jupiter anyway. If I were thinking of coming in, a head-on engagement, I might well run a sacrificial lamb right into them to check out their power and organization before I committed my real forces. If we could punch into the solar system not far from Jupiter, but sufficiently distant to not draw undue notice to our intentions, and if we could punch through two ships in tandem, very close, the punch pulse might register as a single entry. If the trailing ship had the proper exit speed and momentum and made its turns using minimal local power, it just might not get picked up on the scanners at all. Then the defenders would concentrate on the leading ship, the probe, and possibly never even notice the one heading in toward the mothball fleet. And if that ship had the proper codes, which we can easily check with the fighter, then the mothball fleet would not react. Yes—it could be done.”
“You are not talking about small automated fighters there,” Maria Santiago pointed out. “You are talking about a full-size ship and a trailing smaller ship, both managed by skilled pilots. The second might make it, it is true, but the first, the diversion—what did you call it? A sacrificial lamb? Without the unpredictability of a human pilot aboard you could not hope to throw the defensive computers off long enough for your diversion to succeed, but we would most certainly lose that ship—and any who were aboard. You are asking someone to commit suicide.”
Hawks sighed. “Any other reasonable way to do this? Doctor, is there no possibility your technological magic could get us in any other way?”
“That is the best I can come up with, and it is filled with a great many variables,” Clayben responded. “Star Eagle?”
“It is risky, but feasible,” the computer responded. “I’m afraid Maria is correct—if even I were to engage the defenses there now, it would be no contest. No matter what a rebel I have become, or what I have learned, the fact is that my basic design—and basic designer—is the same as those cores on the defensive ships. That means I can unerringly know how they are going to react, and they will know how I will react. That is the reason for Val ships—they have a measure of humanity, as it were, from the life memories recorded within them. There are Vals in the system, but they are not involved in the main task force as far as I can tell, nor could they reach the positions in time. No, it is the ship’s computer mated with the unpredictable and often irrational human interface that might buy some time. I agree with Doctor Clayben—and Maria.”
Hawks looked around at them. “So, all this computer and brain power and we come up with a suicide play in which the most likely result is that we lose two of our remaining ships and three or more people. How can I authorize such a thing?”
“I believe it is the way in,” Star Eagle told him. “There must be a way in. I am more convinced of that than ever now. Master System is required, I think, to leave a blind spot, a single avenue of entry. In each case we have either found that avenue or discovered one that it did not think of. I really suspect that there is little Master System doesn’t think of. Consider its sheer size, power, speed, data bases, and intellect. Consider just how much it governs, and how absolute its power really is over that vast area where even tightbeam communication can take hours or days. No, it is as Raven said so long ago. Humans have an absolute right to go for the rings and to use them. Master System may make it very difficult and dangerous but its core program, its subconscious dictator, as it were, requires it to miss something, to keep creating blind spots, possibly without even realizing it. It should be child’s play for such a computer to keep us off Earth, even if it cannot find us. And now I have proof. My fighter probe indicates that the security codes to the colonization ships have not been changed since we stole this one. Unchanged. That fleet is unlocked—if we can get to it.”
Hawks sighed. “There it is, then. That little detail is not something Master System would overlook. It’s something it was compelled to not think about. It has drawn its usual convoluted and dangerous route, and with the highest of prices to be paid. Somehow I never thought of the core imperatives in terms of a subconscious mind, but the analogy is sound.” He paused a moment, as if suddenly seeing a new thought, a new fact, for the first time. He shook his head as if to clear it and muttered, “No, it couldn’t be,” low and to himself.
“What ‘couldn’t be’?” China asked him.
“Never mind. A silly thought from out of my own depths. The fact remains, even if all this is true and this is the only way left to us, it requires something I have never asked, or been able to ask, of anyone. It is not my right, even as chief and leader, to ask it.”
“Oh, hell,” Raven said casually, “I’ll fly your damned target.”
They all turned and stared at him, and he seemed almost embarrassed by that. He shrugged and explained, “Hey—ask Hawks. Our people had a damned habit of attacking iron horses with bows and arrows and somehow kiddin’ themselves they could stop millions of white faces by winning a few cavalry battles. They got creamed, of course. But wouldn’t it have been worth it to my ancestors to ride down whoopin’ and hollerin’ on the towns and the forts as a diversion, the warriors who fell knowin’ that while everybody was watchin’ and worryin’ about them a few smart braves were blowin’ up the Great White Father?”
“You don’t have to do this,” Hawks told him seriously. “You have nothing to atone for, no stain on your honor from our point of view.”
“Not from your point of view, Chief,” Raven responded. “But I don’t give a damn about your point of view. Never have, and you know it. You know, I can’t think of anything that might have come up that I really wanted to do more than this. No more bein’ a pawn, no more sneakin’ around, no more cheap cigars. By god, it’s what I was born to do, Chief! One lone Crow warrior against a nest of the worst damned iron horses the white man ever inflicted on anybody! One damned warrior in the craziest, stupidest, loudest diversionary action his ancestors ever thought of—and, this time, we don’t do it just for honor, we actually got a chance to win. But I don’t just want one of the ships. I want the best armament, the best attack programs, the most speed possible.”
“Lightning would be best, but we can’t use it,” Clayben noted. “It is a smaller ship, the logical trailing vessel with the smaller footprint and the better intrasystem maneuverability. It’s big enough to take the cores, the air supplies, the other supplies we might need, all that, but nothing could hide behind it save a fighter and that would be much too small.”
Raven grinned. “I figured that, Doc. Kaotan’s good, but it don’t turn tight enough for my tastes, and deep down it’s just a cobbled-together rust bucket. No offense, Ali, Chun, but Bahakatan and Chunhoifan are fine merchant vessels, well maintained and real capable, but in the end they’re still freighters. No, there’s only one ship that meets all the requirements, and it just so happens it ain’t got no captain right now. It’s fast heavily armed, and very neatly disguised as just another scow. Besides, we only got to take this warrior shit so far. With Espiritu Luzon I go out in absolute luxury.”
Everyone who could fly a ship volunteered for Lightning, but Hawks refused to pick anyone right then. “It will be the best one for the job,” he told them. “There is no rush in this. In the meantime, Captain ben Suda, you might just ask your Makkikor engineer if he’s willing to go along with this. If he’s not, then we’ve got a lot of rethinking to do.”
The Makkikor was an incredibly fluid creature for being so large and so formidable looking. Its basic shape was lobsterlike, but instead of legs it had seemingly endless numbers of fine tendrils that could secrete various substances to allow it to stick to or walk upon almost any surface. What looked like a shell was deep purple with some yellow strains, yet the exoskeleton, while as tough as it looked, was almost rubbery in its ability to twist and bend, to contort into whatever shape its wearer required.
The head—it was not possible to really think of it as a face—consisted of eight very long tentacles covered with thousands of tiny sucker pads grouped around a circular mouth that resembled more the cavity of some gigantic worm than anything else. The eyes, on each side of the exoskeleton, were lumpy protrusions from inside the body, each able to independently swivel in almost any direction. The irises were black, with V-shaped yellow pupils. When you looked upon a Makkikor you knew for certain that this was no creature of Master Systern’s design, but a product of a far different evolutionary path. To most humans, colonial and Earth types alike, it was monstrous, yet its people had risen on their home world to a high level of technology and while their brains might work as differently as their bodies looked, they were of extremely high intelligence.
Perhaps more intelligent than humans, some commented, because although they, too, were the products of a violent history they had the good sense never to create a Master System. Smart enough, too, to realize after a struggle that this alien computer was unbeatable and to accept the new system as the only alternative to genocide.
No Makkikor had the capacity for humanlike speech; theirs was a far different language, beyond human abilities as well. This one had a small transceiver implanted within it that was controlled by the creature’s own electrochemistry. The implant would broadcast the Makkikor’s words to another unit, translating as it did so. Although still imperfect, the implant was better than the unit it had used prior to joining the crew of the Thunder, and the creature fully understood what they had done and what they were intending to do.
“What will the new system do to my people?” it asked, mulling over the proposition.
“Nothing,” Hawks tried to assure it, although he was grateful that Ali ben Suda was on hand, as well, a human used to conversing with it. “We are liberators, not new enslavers.”
The Makkikor considered that. “Almost all enslavers began as liberators,” it noted. “In my history, in your history. Such power will corrupt anyone. Human history is genocidal. I fear that even if we are liberated and grow out into space as our forefathers tried to do, we will meet the vastness of humanity doing the same.”
“There are no guarantees,” Hawks admitted. “I promise nothing, I guarantee nothing. In terms of the future, I can speak only for myself. We have no choice in this matter, really. Not you, not me. Our people—yours and mine—stagnate. We are strangled, slowly, by a dictator both ruthless and all-powerful yet for benevolent reasons. This must cease. What happens when its hold is broken is something I cannot say, but it is an unacceptable present versus the unknown future. I fear that future for my people as much as you fear it for your own, but I am committed. The system we face now is wrong. What might be is not something I can be concerned about. I believe it is as fitting for my people to be involved in this enterprise as it is fitting that one of your race also be here. It can only be said that we took the risks and struck the blows, Makkikor and Hyiakutt among them. For me, that is sufficient. That is as much as I can expect, and it will not be forgotten.”
The Makkikor seemed to think on that. It had wound up with ben Suda because of a chance run-in on one of those freebooter worlds where ships were cannibalized to keep the other ships running. Why it had signed on was never clear, but it had been loyal and a superior engineer—Bahakatan was the best-run and best-maintained ship of all the freebooter craft. It had come here because its ship was here, and it had stayed mostly to itself all these years, working on not only its own craft but the others, as well.
“I am old,” the Makkikor said. “Old and tired. I will do it not because I believe that what comes after will be any better, nor for what your people call honor, nor for loyalty or ideals or any of those things. I am too old to have retained any such feelings if I once had them. I will do it because I wish to die among my own kind. I will do it because between the time the old way dies and the new is organized might well be longer than I have left, and certainly longer than it would take me to go home.”
“Each of us acts for his or her own reasons,” Hawks responded. “I do not ask for motives, only for accomplishment.”
“These ships. You say they are approximately a hundred kilometers apart?”
“Yes. That’s an average, of course.”
“Too far for a jet pack, then, but power consumption must be minimal or they will be upon us. Lightning is a good ship but we cannot risk burst after burst of even low-level power. We will prepare a fighter with the most basic of drives, more pressure than anything else. We will take our time. Out, then back, to each ship and back to Lightning, which should remain relatively stationary in the midst of the fleet. Very well. Let us get to work on it.”
Raven, too, was working on his end. Since volunteering he seemed almost a changed man, although if anything his cigar consumption had gone up along with rather conspicuous consumption of the fine wines and liquors left behind by Savaphoong. But using Thunder’s maintenance robots, he had slimmed down the shape of Espiritu Luzon, eliminated much weight, reinforced the shields to the maximum that was possible, and added additional armament. Hawks surveyed the work approvingly.
“It doesn’t look like you intend to lose,” he noted. “Try to save a few of them for us.”
Raven chuckled. “Oh, there’ll be plenty left, Chief. No question about that. This is a diversion, though, not a suicide mission. Oh, sure, any fool can see I’m gonna get creamed, but I ain’t makin’ it easy for nobody. If I can buy the time and still get out with my skin, I’m gonna do it. They’re gonna figure it’s a diversion from the start—we’re only hopin’ they’re gonna be lookin’ for the big attack instead of where we’re really workin’, but they won’t take me none too serious. I figure there’s a little tiny chance out of this. If there is, I ain’t gonna get blown to bits ’cause I overlooked something.”
Hawks nodded. “When will you be ready?”
“Never if I had my choice, but as good as I’m gonna be in three, maybe four more days. What about that Makkikor and Lightning?”
“Ready now. The construction of the cores has gone well and they all have been tested. They can run the ships’ systems, follow all offensive and defensive security commands, and will be tied in with our own master battle network. Enough brains and enough basic data to get the job done but no personality. Sort of like Savaphoong’s poor slaves aboard here. You decide what to do about them?”
Raven shrugged. “Ain’t nothin’ to do with ’em. They’re transmuted. They ain’t gonna ever be more than beautiful bodies and empty heads. They got no future and you know it. I figured I’d just take ’em along for the ride. Might as well be decadent while I’m bein’ noble.”
“I feel somewhat—dirty—in allowing that, but they have no capacity for making their own choice or even contemplating their own mortality. I should take them off, but they have no place here, and I refuse to allow anyone here to get used to some people being mindless slaves. Very well. Take them. They will be on my own conscience.”
Raven grinned. “You got too much of that conscience shit, Chief. You can’t carry the guilt of the universe. All you’re gonna give yourself is a damned heart attack that way, and wouldn’t that be ironic? You droppin’ dead before you even saw the rings bein’ used?”
Hawks thought about his conversation with the Makkikor. Were it not for Cloud Dancer and the children, he wondered if a heart attack at such a time might not be a mercy. Instead he said, “Every day another ship or two comes into the system. Every day I feel the pressure of more, perhaps the SPF, as well, closing in on our backs. The window is small and getting smaller, Raven. Four days. Four days from right now.” He paused. “You can still back out, you know.”
The Crow grinned. “Chief, I wouldn’t back out of this for all five rings and Master System, too. I’ll be ready. You just be sure that Lightning gets where it has to and does its job. You decided who’s gonna fly it, by the way?”
“We’ve run trials with Kaotan on just about everyone. It’s clear we need two aboard just in case, and Maria and Midi are the best choice—but I want them on the ground with me if we get through. I don’t want them stuck out there, and I don’t want to deal with Matriyehan orphans. It’s simply too much of a problem to adapt the ship for the Alititians. The same goes for the Chows, and I want experienced people there. I’m going to send Ali ben Suda because he knows the Makkikor as well or better than anyone else alive and is a damned good captain, and I’m also sending Chun Wo Har. That’s two good captains who also want to participate in the end.”
“Good enough for me,” Raven told him. “Let’s go before I die of all this damned luxury.”
The four days passed all too quickly.
Raven had told them he wanted no sendoff, but Hawks and Cloud Dancer both came down to see him as he was preparing to leave. The Crow startled them by his appearance; he wore the loincloth and skin moccasins of a young warrior, and his face was painted with glowing designs, his long hair braided in pigtails.
“You look like someone from a warm climate,” Hawks noted. “Any Crow who dressed like that would freeze to death.”
Raven laughed. “The summers get very hot where my people live,” he told them, “and on the dark summer nights with the fires blazing in the midst of the lodges they perform their rituals. I’ve always been a rationalist, Chief; I always figured that when we go, we go out like a candle. But when you’re there, in the midst of them all, with the chants of the holy ones merging with the songs and supplications of the people—then you get a different feeling. Out there, between the mountains of the north, where you sometimes feel as if you can reach out and grab a star and bring it home with you—then there is something there.”
Cloud Dancer smiled. “If you can feel that, if you have felt it even once, then you know in your heart that there is magic,” she said gently. “We have come a long way, have we not, together?”
Raven was suddenly very serious. “Yes. A long way.”
“The ghosts of not only your ancestors but of all our ancestors going back to the start of time ride with you, Raven,” she told him. “In the past years I have learned much. It is the penalty of being married to a historian. Our people have been conquered, their lands stolen, the buffalo slaughtered, the very skies stained with their blood at each sunrise, yet we survive. We true humans are a small people compared to the others, far smaller in number than even I had ever dreamed, yet we are still here, and now it again falls to us. We who have suffered so much have been guided by destiny to this point. Be brave, Raven, for we will never die.”
And she reached up and kissed him, and he was deeply moved by it. Hawks had feared that Cloud Dancer would break into tears but her eyes were dry. Raven’s, however, were not, and Hawks was suppressing tears himself. He reached out a hand and clasped Raven’s long and hard, and then the Crow turned without a word and made his way back to his ship. They watched him go, until he was but a tiny figure in the vast cargo bay, then they turned and went back inside.
“Do not weep for him, my husband,” she said at last. “Few of us ever are placed in such a wonderful position where we might do something, contribute to something, truly momentous. He himself has said it. He was born for this, for the next four hours. When you write the history of all this, there will not be a Crow among his people who will not claim lineage to him nor a child among them who will not wish to measure up to him. It is no time for sadness, but rather rejoicing. When we first met him as an enemy, he had lost his soul. Now he has found it again.”
It would still be a near thing, and although Master System might have left this one hole open for them it was, as Star Eagle had said, not a conscious hole. If they did it wrong, if they didn’t pull this off, then the forces being massed by the great computer would eat them alive.
To emerge on virtually a single punch their speed had to be exact, their placement mere meters apart and in a perfectly straight line. Lightning was almost in Espiritu Luzon’s engines and held fixed by four carefully rigged tractor beams. Computers aboard Luzon would manage both ships through a link, keeping engine thrusts absolutely equal and the hold tight, until the very moment of the punch. At that point, mere nanoseconds before Luzon would punch out, the link and the tractors would be severed and Lightning’s own automatic systems would take over. Captain ben Suda would be linked but only observe until after the breakaway at punch in. At that point, it would be his show—and Raven’s.
“Punch in thirty seconds,” Star Eagle reported as everyone on the Thunder held their breaths. Even the very air seemed still. “I am picking up odd sounds from Espiritu Luzon.”
“Put them on,” Hawks ordered.
They came through the speakers, and Hawks smiled and looked at Cloud Dancer, who returned the smile. Neither could understand the Crow language, nor could Star Eagle, which was why he was so puzzled, but the two Hyiakutts knew. “He sings the ancient songs well,” Hawks commented.
“For a Crow,” she responded. “Just pray he does not forget where he is and order a launch of arrows.”
“Punch!” Star Eagle reported. “Perfect! On the nose!”
There would now be no contact possible with the ships for close to twenty minutes. It was ironic that they could communicate through that nether-space from point to point in real time but they could not talk while between the two regions.
Nobody said or did much during the waiting period. Even the youngest children seemed to be silent, as if they, too, were somehow aware that something important was happening. Hawks looked around at the great inner world of Thunder as if seeing it for the first time. It had been his world for so long, and it had been good. The children had known no other. Now, suddenly, it seemed so empty, and so transitory.
“Punch out!” Star Eagle reported. “Perfect separation. My own monitors in the asteroid belt easily detected it but there was no indication of a double punch-in. Lighting made something of a trace as it broke away but nothing inconsistent with the usual anomalous readings you might get on a punch. Raven is still singing, and he has released dozens of drones that are showing up well in scatter-shot fashion. It is impossible even for me to pick up Lightning in all that clutter, and I know it’s there and where it’s going! Uh oh!”
“What is it?” Hawks asked.
“Outer perimeter fighters using short punches. Four of them closing fast on Luzon. Raven sees them. Hmmm . . . That is odd. He has stopped singing.”
“You chant before a battle, not during one,” Hawks said tensely.
The fighters were in for something of a surprise: Luzon still looked like only a freighter, but was faster and carried more armaments than even Lightning after the modifications. The defensive fighters expected Raven to use short punches and maneuvered to cover, but he just kept on, picking out the weakest area of the field and then letting loose a salvo of torpedoes, turning wide, and bearing right down on two other fighters. The maneuver was absolutely insane and against all logic.
It confused the hell out of the automated fighters, who turned and came at him, locking on as best they could. Raven launched missiles, short punched, then launched more aft. The fighters, confused, swung around and launched their own right into the region where the first fighter was trying to pick off the initial torpedo salvo. There were so many torpedoes in the area from both the three pursuit ships and Raven, all with smart warheads, that they began to go after the ships indiscriminately and even each other. The other fighters, closing, had to veer off to stay out of the mess and found themselves going for a few precious seconds in exactly the wrong direction from Raven. In the meantime, two of the three fighters that initially closed on Luzon were struck hard—by whose torpedoes it was impossible to tell—and the other torpedoes, seeing a target, zeroed in on the ones that were hit.
By remaining inside the full range of the fighters Raven could not avoid taking a few hits himself, but he and the others were so close together that the odds were three to one against it being him that was hit by any given torpedo. He managed to take his lumps and punch further in, leaving the outer perimeter guards damaged and in disarray. Man plus machine had beaten machine alone. Loud shrieks, which everyone but Hawks and Cloud Dancer attributed to pain and wounds, came back to them from Luzon.
Raven had been right all along, Hawks realized. He was having more fun than he’d ever had in his whole life.
He noticed that Cloud Dancer sat silently, doing a rough sketch in charcoal. As time progressed, he saw that it was a drawing of Raven, in loincloth and full war paint, a ferocious, even maniacal expression on his face, at the controls of an idealized spaceship. It wasn’t exactly realistic, but if it became a painting that hung in the lodges of the Crow some time from now it would be a definitive classic.
Star Eagle’s calculations were that Raven would be twenty percent or more disabled by the initial engagement, and very likely not survive any further inbound engagement against heavier forces. Over three hours after the initial engagement, however, Luzon was battered and starting to run low on certain kinds of ammunition, but was still going, using short punches, and had almost reached the orbit of Mars.
“The main body is not engaging him,” Star Eagle reported. “They have guessed it is a feint and are grouping for a main attack. They are still spread a bit thin, and it appears that they have deduced that our most logical line of punch-in and attack will be from behind the main body, possibly under as well. Raven has also played everything exactly right. He has acted with total illogic when they expected logical moves and with computer precision when they allowed for total illogic.”
“What about Lightning?” Hawks asked.
“Inbound, engines down. Good speed and angle. They have already broadcast the security codes and are angling in to the fleet. I would expect that they will be slowing to station within the hour. No sign that they have been detected. I think we got away with it!”
“Tell Raven to get the hell out of here, then!” Hawks ordered. “Tell him to punch out no matter where the hell he winds up and keep punching!”
“He has a possibility of breaking free although he is badly damaged,” Star Eagle replied. “I have sent the recall but to no effect. Perhaps his main engines are out and he is incapable of punching.”
“Main engines out my ass!” Hawks growled. “What the hell has he got in mind?”
“Hard to say. He is currently in an open area, but his recent corrections are taking him on a direct heading for Earth. Hawks—there are Val ships all over there, not to mention about half the task force. He has already survived nine engagements. A stone or spear could probably take him out now, yet he’s heading straight for the main body.”
Hawks sighed and sat down. “Now is he drawn to the very center of Hell, the lost city of Dis, having run the circles of Malebolge. Though he be consumed by the flames or frozen by the cold of demon wings, that idiotic son of a bitch is going to ram himself right down the devil’s throat.” No one heard. No one was meant to.
“He’s going on, screaming like a madman! There’s a huge force now, closing in from all sides! There’s no way they’re going to let any ship reach Earth itself!” Star Eagle sounded as if he were going to short circuit from the tension. “He’s heading right into the center of them! Loosing everything he’s got left! He’s hit! Again! Again! He—”
There was a deadly, unnatural quiet.
“He’s gone,” Star Eagle said flatly.
“Punched?” Hawks asked, hoping against hope.
“No. Nothing could have lived amid what they were throwing at him. He’s just—gone. I have reviewed the sequence. It appeared that at the last moment he made a slight correction and just, well, went to his maximum speed straight into a Val formation. He got two of them.”
Cloud Dancer looked up from her sketch. “He is home,” she said softly, and went back to her drawing.