HAWKS SAT WITH WHAT WAS LEFT OF THE COUNCIL in the main control room of Thunder.
“All right, how many ships do we have armed and ready?”
“Twenty-six,” Star Eagle responded. “That was the most possible without using main engines, and they are beginning to get very suspicious ever since Raven attacked and nothing followed. That is five hundred and twenty coordinated fighters plus the on-board guns and torpedoes. The shielding, however, will be poor since it was mostly designed for punches, and the in-system speed will be slow for the same reason. Remember, I had to use Jupiter as a slingshot to gain enough speed for the initial getaway. As soon as I activate them, the whole plan will be clear to Master System.”
That begged the big question. “Can we win with that?”
“It might be close. Since Raven’s escapade they have spread out and are still fairly thin, but these are destroyers we are talking about—one hundred and thirty-one of them to be exact, along with a count of at least twelve Vals in the near-Earth orbit position commanding another ten. In realistic terms, the big ships are going to get the hell blown out of them, but the fighters are too small and fast to be separated from all the other pulses unless you know their codes. That means the fighters will show to an attack computer just like torpedoes, although they are in reality several times that size and faster.”
“Recommendations?”
“Start them all up at once,” Maria Santiago suggested. “As long as we telegraph our battle plan by starting one, let us start all of them. Swing them out and up and around as fast as possible—I know that will take time, and they will need time to organize their response. Your screens show no ships within close range except perhaps a fighter or two on picket, and if need be, Lightning can take them if those captains are as good as they seem to be. There is no evidence that Master System even suspects Lighting is there and even if it deduces it, when the big ships move it won’t be looking for one little ship. Pull the ships out in formation, accelerate, make the full Jupiter arc.”
“But they’re not going to punch,” Hawks pointed out.
“Yes, but does Master System know this? It has the advantage of having to defend a relatively small position, but its disadvantage is that it must always react, always wait for us to move. We have already done something apparently irrational. We sacrificed a ship, and while the task force lost a dozen it was hurt far less by that than we by the loss of one. It will take nothing for granted with us. I would think that it would have to consider the possibility of facing twenty-six Thunders with full command cores and specially outfitted by us. Carrying what? They cannot know. Dozens of ships? Hundreds? They will have to move to prevent the punchout of so many capital ships. The logic will be easy, since all twenty-six will have to come out of Jupiter’s gravity well in a predetermined region in order to punch out at the proper speed. It would be like shooting fish in a barrel. But we do not break out for the punch. We continue to come around and head in at maximum speed, then fan out. The initial defensive perimeter would then be left behind and forced to catch up. It would also be forced to split and give chase, which would make them easy prey for the big ships’ fighters. That is the sort of thing they were designed to handle.”
“It sounds good,” Star Eagle told them. “We must force them to split their forces and group them around the big ships. They are unlikely to engage the Vals and the ten fighters they have around Earth. Those are certainly reserves, and in any event they would be there to keep us from sneaking in under cover of the big ships. With a proper set of inbound trajectories, they would be able to take out any big ship they wanted—any three or four, even—if they concentrated all their remaining forces on them. But that would leave a massive force of our ships to get through, all concentrated on the orbital defenses. They could not permit that. But to take on all twenty-six at once would mean a mere five destroyers per big ship. My calculations show that they have a possibility of winning that way, but it is under seventeen percent, comparing weaponry to weaponry, and remembering that I have never fought such a battle before and have no precedent for it.”
“Don’t worry,” Hawks responded. “Neither has Master System. The few times it faced a battle of any magnitude, such as with the Makkikor, it was in our position, attacking. It has never been forced to defend before, even though it was originally designed to do so. Is there any other strategy that you could see—that any of you can see—other than five to a big ship?”
There was dead silence.
“All right, then, it’ll take the odds and hope that whatever is left can be handled by the Vals and orbital ships. I believe Maria’s plan is the best one for us, as well, but I want everyone at their ships and on station, all ships powered up and ready to go. The odds favor us having a number of potent but very damaged survivors to take on the Vals and the rest. When we get to that point we must commit ourselves. Everything we have. Lightning, too—notify them to be ready. Star Eagle, how many fighters do you have in combat configuration?”
“We have been manufacturing them at a good clip. We have forty-two locked on the outer hull now, half with limited punch capability. In addition I have four with transmuter transceiving grids on them and six remaining monitor ships. Those last aren’t much good unless they can ram something but that’s always a possibility.”
Butar Killomen looked shocked. “You’re not going to engage Thunder directly, are you?”
“If I have to. All or nothing, Bute. All or nothing. I’m well aware of what I’m saying and what I’m risking, but I will risk everything rather than lose at this late stage because we failed to commit one gun. This has been understood by those of us who started from here so long ago since the beginning.”
“But the children . . . ”
“If we lose,” he responded, “what sort of future do they have?” He pounded his fist on the table. “No! All or nothing. Any minute, any day, we could wind up with two or more new task forces reporting in from far-flung regions when we have already shot our wad—not to mention four hundred plus divisions of the SPF who could show up at any time if Master System is really scared. The odds barely favor us completing this thing now, seventeen percent or no. I say we go! How say the rest of you?”
Killomen gulped. “Very well. I will take Bahakatan along with Vulture, Min, Chung, and Fatima, of course. We have been modifying Kaotan, since it already had some modifications to account for the old Takya. I feel certain that Takya, Dura, and Han Li can handle it well enough. Chunhoifan has a majority of its original crew still in original form but no experienced pilots left.”
“Then Midi and I will take it,” Maria said. “I want a chance to pay them all back for my own ship. We might need some seat modifications and some change of control helmets, though, to allow for our difference in shape.”
“Easy to do,” Star Eagle told her. “I am ordering what is needed now and will have the maintenance robots install it within two hours. It is merely a matter of replacing two seats. The interface helmets are even easier, since we have many spares now.”
“I will interface with Star Eagle and track this thing,” China said. “I want to be able to see what is going on.”
Hawks sighed. “And that leaves the admiral with the wife and kids, I guess. I suppose I should have taken some time in all these years to learn how to fly one of these things. The problem is, we still have more pilots than ships. One more and the Chows could have a go. They’ve been wanting to have some action.”
“No, they lack the killer instinct,” China replied. “They still see this almost as a game. Let them tend to the children. It is what they do best.”
Hawks looked over at Cloud Dancer, sitting apart from the meeting. “Then I guess it’s just you and me, woman, as usual.”
She smiled. “Do not be so glum, husband. Not everyone is born to be a great warrior. Some are born to other things of equal importance. Look at it this way: they all will leave only to fight, but you, my husband, must tell them how the rings are to be used.”
Hawks sat in one of the command chairs on the bridge of the Thunder, trying to think, trying to sort it all out, even as the great ships were activated and other ships of the line readied for backup. He would face the climax of all their years of blood and sweat alone. He had wanted it that way. Oh, China’s body sat in a forward command chair, helmet on, but her mind was interfaced with Star Eagle’s and she was no more there in any meaningful sense than was, well, Raven.
There was nothing Hawks could do now, and he knew it. Raven and many of the others were fighters; he was a thinker. There was no particular shame in that distinction, but there was a sense that he was perceived as unequal by the fighters themselves and that hurt a bit. His political skills had in no small measure gotten them this far; now, if the warriors could gain him the last small step, it was entirely in his hands to get them the rest of the way.
He reached into a pouch and pulled out the four gold rings. Such a simple code, really. It was not a code that the original members of the Fellowship wished to be obscure or hard to understand. It was not supposed to be almost a thousand years before they might be used; it was, rather, a matter of years at the worst—or so the makers of the rings had thought. Not so great a distance that none but a historian of the Last Days might, just might, have stumbled on it.
“We are up to speed and arcing. All twenty-six units under complete control and fully operational. Defense already reacting, but even Master System cannot bend time. All going according to plan.”
He looked at the Alititian ring. Whose were you? he wondered. The ring of rings, one ring for each of the cardinal points and another, slightly larger, in the center. Probably Aaron Menzelbaum’s. He was considered the greatest scientific mind of his age; almost another Einstein, although his interests led him into more concrete pursuits. Einstein’s work had led, to his horror, to the creation of the great weapons of terror while he tried to preach world peace and explain the stars and matter and energy. Menzelbaum, on the other hand, was devoted to saving humankind from just those same terror weapons, although the direction his great mind had taken was far different from the direction the government that employed him wanted to go or thought he was taking them.
“They are taking the bait! Defense rings six through nine are deploying to block punchout!”
Menzelbaum, who had thrown out all the clumsy programming tricks the computer people like to fool themselves into calling artificial intelligence and had started anew, with totally different approaches, totally different ways of managing, storing, and accessing data. He was the theoretician who invented new forms of mathematics to construct his models and who used that math to create true holographic memory in an artificial creature.
“All scoops open. More than enough matter to transmute into the energy we need. I should be able to fully charge the fighters and defense commands by the time of orbital breakout.”
But no university, no private group, could possibly fund the size and scope of the computer Aaron Menzelbaum dreamed of creating. Only a government could do that, and only the military arm of a government could get so much money and brainpower support without the project being constantly hacked to pieces, slowed, or crippled beyond repair. And so, perhaps reluctantly, Aaron Menzelbaum had allowed himself to be recruited to the defense of his nation. Perhaps reluctantly. How often had Hawks and other historians of the period wondered if that great mind had not conceived of his master plan for peace right from the start and wound up just where he wanted to be.
“Coming ’round now. Excellent speed and control, power at seventy percent and climbing. Estimate that four ships will remain underpowered after full rounding, but that is fewer than my initial projections. There is a lot of junk to be fed to transmuters orbiting Jupiter.”
But what about the other four? Pinsky, of course, was easy. She had come to the United States to teach and do research in areas a bit too expensive for her native land and wound up living in America far longer than she had in Israel. A close friend of and engineering alter ego of Menzelbaum’s and the natural one to oversee the actual construction of the great computer. Yomashita, the Japanese-educated Hawaiian who was expert in the new manufacturing techniques necessary to create the memory storage for the computer, techniques that required memory cells to be manufactured in space to get the necessary purity and then brought back to Earth. Sung Yi, the immigrant genius behind the principles of molecular conversion that would power the new machine independently of any outside source, the primitive ancestor of the transmuter. And Ntunanga, the Paris-educated Gabonese who was, perhaps, the only other mind capable of understanding Menzelbaum’s mathematics and thus essential in spite of most certainly giving some security men fits.
“Everybody relax and get some rest. It’s going to be a while now before things start popping.”
Some assignment it had to be. To build a computer so complex and so intelligent that it would be able to gather and consolidate and evaluate and analyze all the incoming intelligence, then control, coordinate, and plan for almost any military contingency. Something so brilliant and so powerful that one would merely have to call in or type in a question like “What are the odds the Russians would fight rather than pull back on the Indian subcontinent?” “Is the new regime in Chad likely to favor a pro-American, pro-Russian, or neutralist course?” How important is holding here or moving there?
So all-powerful, all-knowing, it was supposed to be able to instantly give a President his options in a crisis, including the ultimate recommendation on whether or not to launch a nuclear strike. Not that the system could do so on its own—that was to be prohibited in a series of commands Menzelbaum called the core imperatives. There was only one very limited scenario where it had that authority—if an enemy had already launched and the nuclear defense shields were evaluated as inadequate to contain a first-strike blow. The second strike was entirely in its hands so long as that was not countermanded by the President or legal authorities. Menzelbaum would never allow any machine, not even his, to have first-strike ability.
Hawks had often wondered how it had come up. Star Eagle indicated that the five mostly got close because of their non-Christian heritage; the project was so complex that otherwise their paths might have crossed only seldom. Certainly it had come up at least three years before the terrible day their child was set loose. All five had moved by that time close to the actual site of the great computer and had pretty much taken up permanent residence there, and they met often, and socialized together. It must have been a life under a total security blanket; it’s amazing they were able to not only formulate but actually create and install their little extras without being detected. But then, of course, in order to understand what they were doing one would need to understand the complex mathematics and physics that were their life, and they were beyond their peers.
Perhaps it was not so odd. If Center personnel now could learn to cheat and defeat the most sophisticated mindprinting and surveillance systems ever devised, then it must have been child’s play for minds like that to deceive far less sophisticated and equally suspicious security forces.
The military men had chafed over the first-strike limitations, but the views of those such as these five were well known and it was their way or no computer at all. They were resolved that they would not be a new form of the Manhattan Project, whose scientists created the atomic bomb and then, in the main, spent the rest of their lives regretting it. No, this computer might well find alternatives that no human mind, under pressure or not, could ever conceive of to prevent nuclear war, and as for second strike—well, what difference was it if all was lost whether it was man or the machine who pushed that final button?
But their great computer had an added imperative. To explore and find any way or ways possible to save the human race from itself, down to the last moment, and to hold those ways in readiness in case the most terrible of decisions was somehow judged inevitable.
Still, they were ever mindful that the best of great projects created by great minds often begat monsters. The core imperatives had to be precise, unbending, unyielding. Humanity was to be preserved at all cost. That was the first imperative. Once pacified, humanity must be prevented from ever being in the position to totally destroy itself again. That was the second imperative. Humans must be left to manage their own affairs and run their own societies as soon as the first two imperatives were met. That was the third imperative, intended to forestall the tyranny of the machine. And then? The ultimate aim of human creation should be the never-ending pursuit and acquisition of knowledge. That was the fourth imperative.
And still they agonized. There was no way to test this, no way to see if, somehow, they had made a mistake. Even if they could run the models they could not hide them from the countless other brilliant minds on the project and the security and military overseers. They could not know, and it had made them uneasy no matter that theirs was the only alternative to total human genocide. Just as there could be no first strike by machine, only by order of those elected to that authority, so there should be humans with authority over the machine extending even to halting its carrying out of its imperatives. A simple interface, really, that would simply force a reset and return command to a preactivation mode, subject to human authority. But an interrupt that would require the unanimous vote of all five. A single code that the core would recognize and would not be able to block or ignore, broken into five parts, burned into five memory modules each with part of the code. The modules would have to be accessible, yet hidden from view of the security people who always watched them.
Five rings, to mark rank in an informal social club of the best brains in the project. Insert them in the wrong order and the override code would be sheer garbage. Who knew what the computer would do in that case? Certainly ignore any such signals, if not worse. It might well interpret such a wrong code as an attempt to breach its security.
More imperatives. What if any or all of them should die? The rings must be held by humans, and by humans with authority. That seemed easy enough. Humans would always hold the override, and humans with authority would obviously have access to the computer—wouldn’t they? And give an imperative that the holders of the rings had a right to access the interface. Otherwise the computer could always prevent itself from being reset.
Raven, Star Eagle, and others believed that if all five rings were united, Master System could not prevent in any way the bearers from coming to it and inserting the rings. Perhaps—but those imperatives were subject to interpretation. Four simply wouldn’t do. You had to battle your way to the fifth.
And Menzelbaum’s greatest creation was flawed not so much because it did not work or was defective or even because it was evil. It was none of those things. What it was was alien, the first alien intelligence, the first life form of its kind ever faced in human history. A life form whose personality was not shaped by birth and parenting and hormones and growing up, and who could understand those things only in an academic way. The most clear-cut of statements might to such a creature have infinite meanings.
Save humanity. Somehow it did that, the circumstances were not really known—but there certainly had been an imminent war of the sort its creators had feared. There were signs of it in places even now, although not in as many places as one would expect. How did Master System stop it? Perhaps only it could explain, if there were anyone around capable of understanding the explanation. And when it did so, the imperatives came into play.
Be certain humanity can’t ever destroy itself again. Disarm it, rule it ruthlessly, tyrannize it. But only for a time. The other imperatives are there as well. The only logical choice: dispersal. Spread it out over so great a distance that not even the worst natural or man-made disasters could destroy it. Speed was of the essence. No time after exploration to turn those worlds into Earthlike havens. Solution: turn the humans into creatures who could survive on what was found. Alien civilizations? A couple, and possible long-term threats to humanity’s survival if space-capable. Solution: total destruction of alien races unless those races surrender to and agree to be co-opted into the master system. There was no compunction about committing genocide of other life forms; the creators of the core hadn’t mentioned them at all. Master System was good at taking the initiative when faced with a problem not covered by instructions.
Humans shall rule themselves? Enter the Centers, where humans appointed by the system rule their own people—and make certain those people remain ignorant, stagnated, uncreative. Seek out the best and the brightest and either co-opt them to the Centers or, if they can’t be co-opted, make certain they don’t grow up. Make the humans enforce the system. Humans would rule humans—but only one philosophy of social management was allowed.
As for pursuing and gathering all knowledge, who was better equipped to do so, the poor humans or the great computers? To fulfill this imperative, it was necessary to keep the humans out of the way as pets in preserves, zoos, or museum exhibits.
The only threat: the rings. Can’t destroy them, can’t keep them. Imperatives, more imperatives. Best to disperse them, as well, to the far corners of the colonies, and then destroy all references that the rings even existed, let alone what they might be used for and how. With humanity denied control of space, how could anyone who ever did learn of them get them?
One . . . two . . . three . . . four. One more left behind, on Lazlo Chen’s fat finger. His was the one with the three birds with open beaks. Parrots, it looked like. It was funny, absurd. Five golden rings . . .
How damnably simple, how droll a joke, especially for the five brilliant minds left behind when everyone else went off for Christmas.
The center ring was largest on the Alititian stone. Not as much help as he’d hoped, but it was clearly first among equals and the song tended to be sung, according to the records, in descending order. Five, four, three, two, one—the simplest progression.
And where is the interface? They had decided it, and logic dictated it. Master System wasn’t some portable core that could be picked up and moved. It was massive. It had to be. Built right into the Earth upon which it fed and through which it expanded. It would never dare allow itself to be transferred or moved, to be shut down for any interval, or to trust even its own creations to reassemble it perfectly elsewhere. It was right where they had built it. Right in the great mountains of the western divide in North America, surrounded entirely by nontechnological people of the land who migrated from mountains to plains and hunted the buffalo and fished the great rivers and stalked the elk and bear.
Knowing that, and from space, it ought to be simplicity itself to find. The radiations coming from it, the communications network, all that, focused on a single point somewhere in those mountains—hell, it was child’s play.
If you had something in orbit of your own that wouldn’t be knocked down while you were taking that look.
“I have separation over almost two million kilometers, the outermost in a broad arc and the ones with the least power in a direct center line! They are turning in pursuit and breaking up. Uh oh! They’re letting the four center ships go and concentrating an extra fighter on each of the other twenty-two. I guess Master System figured out they had the lowest reserves and is leaving them for the planetary defense. We’re leaving the outer defenses in our wake! I might have to slow down to let them catch us, but now we’ve got the first waves coming in-system. Here we go!”
Hawks started, then looked around for a moment. He must have fallen asleep. The announcement of the initial engagement woke him up. He felt thirsty, and hungry, but made do with water. Even though it was still remote from him, he knew he could neither eat nor drink much of anything until it was over. Then? Well, Raven had left some pretty fancy stuff from Savaphoong’s larder. It would either be the best last meal he ever ate or a victory repast.
There was a wrongness about computers fighting computers. You could only sit and wait; your poor human brain couldn’t even follow the intricacies of parry, thrust, maneuver, shoot. There was something terribly disquieting in the knowledge that empty ships were fighting empty ships to determine humanity’s direction, as if the ghost of Aaron Menzelbaum hovered over both sides and would not let go.
There was a sense of remoteness about it, as well. Up on the main screen he could see little colored lights representing what was going on and even though he had the skill to follow them, something inside him disallowed even that. It wasn’t real; it was some sort of simulation, some game, even with its own scoreboard. On the one side was a big numeral 26, and under it a smaller number that had started at numeral 520. On the other, numeral 131 and under it a smaller 10 and a companion 12. The numbers now began to count down, but not rapidly.
The problem was distances within a solar system. The big ships would soon be up to their maximums, which was less than half light speed—a bit faster than the destroyers, ironically, since the destroyers could mini-punch within the system. The big ships weren’t designed to do that and weren’t all that maneuverable around here. Those giants were fourteen kilometers long and two wide; the destroyers could be measured in meters. Forces and even braking and turning distances were radically different on that basis alone, and the big ships were heading in, not out.
Even at maximum speed, and assuming they were not slowed by battle or damage, it would take them four or five days to reach the neighborhood of Earth. Add two more days, perhaps, just for braking to avoid slipping past and whipping around the sun, and you had a better scale of just what was happening out there.
It was going to be a very slow, very long battle.
For the first time, he thought he might now understand a little of Raven, and particularly the nature of the man’s death.
The tribes came down off the hills chanting and hollering, firing and throwing everything they had at the great iron monster that belched smoke and for whom the buffalo had been so mercilessly and senselessly slaughtered. They had been under no illusions that they could stop the white man’s terrible machines, but the travesty, the sacrilege, of putting a machine’s interest above and at the cost of the interests, lives, and very way of life of nations of human beings demanded it. It was not the machine itself but the worship of it they found so horrible that fighting and death seemed preferable to accepting its domination of human values. To the white man, the great black belching monsters were progress, for they worshipped innovation at any cost and could not conceive of invention being evil; to the natives it displaced, it was the demon horde from hell.
Cloud Dancer had understood, for her culture and values had been of the old ways. The Isaac Claybens and Lazlo Chens never would. He now understood, at least to a degree, on the most personal of levels.
I am sitting here waiting for the iron horses to bash themselves to bits, he thought, and in so doing I cheapen all that is truly important, all that this has been truly about.
He sighed, got up, stretched, and left the bridge. The hell with nerves and keyed-up reflexes. He was going to go down and play with his kids and maybe make love to his wife.
“Overall, an excellent accounting,” Star Eagle reported to them. “We now have six ships and one hundred and twelve active operational fighters within eight hours of the Earth. Five more ships have grouped and merged forces well away with early braking and have successfully drawn off the remaining defensive fleet, which operationally now is down to only sixteen ships. Negligible. When they began hurling themselves suicidally at our fleet I knew we had won. We’ve done it! We’ve broken through and destroyed the greatest defensive fleet ever assembled! Lightning has managed to pick off most of the newcomers as they entered in-system before they could receive and act on their new marching orders.”
Hawks nodded. He had not once been back up to look at the “scoreboard” since he’d left that first day. He figured that Star Eagle and the others would tell him when he was needed.
“Close punches,” he ordered. “I want all ships to come in and support the remaining big ships in the near-Earth engagement. No stops, no quarter. How close can you punch Thunder in if you had to?” It was standard procedure to bring in ships well away from the inhabited areas to avoid causing nasty side effects, and the big ships rarely punched in anywhere close to their in-system destinations. Star Eagle, however, had a lot of practice.
“To be safe, three days behind the main body,” the pilot told him. “Do you wish me to commit now?”
“Right now. I’m still expecting surprises to punch in at any moment behind us, and this may be our only window of opportunity. Punch through and try to hail Chen directly if you can, the Presidium if you can’t, as soon as we’re close enough in for reasonable communications.”
“All right. But I’m going to be a sitting duck in that close, you know. There’s no way I’m going to be able to accelerate and scoop from that close in without using the sun, and that will take a few days to do. In the meantime, anyone who wants a crack at me can get it.”
“Nothing personal and nothing cruel intended, Star Eagle,” Hawks responded, “but fast getaways simply aren’t relevant any more.”
“The ten fighter destroyers don’t worry me—I’ve got their number now—but there’re a dozen Vals in orbit there. The odds at this point are more than slightly against us with what forces we’ve got left.”
“Bring it in!” he ordered sharply. “We’re going home!”
The punch from their protected position took only eleven minutes, and Star Eagle’s greatest problem was putting on the brakes. It would take a good day and a quarter just to slow the massive vessel to a point where it could be safely maneuvered near a planet.
“The destroyers are coming out to meet the forward fleet,” Star Eagle reported as soon as it could get its communications grid reestablished. “Kaotan punching in now. Good punch! Very close! Chunhoifan is a bit off the mark but okay—I guess I didn’t jury-rig those seats and interfaces a hundred percent. And there’s Bahakatan. Easy formation. Uh oh! The Vals are starting to group and move out behind the fighter screen. Watch for trouble. All of them are capable of mini-punches.”
Hawks frowned. “How many Vals are coming out behind the fighters?”
“All of them. Fourteen.”
“That’s odd. They’re leaving Earth wide open.”
“Yes, but . . . I . . . Oh! Oh!”
All of them leaned forward. “Yes?” Hawks prompted, braced for bad news. “What happened?”
“The Vals! They’re opening fire on the destroyers! They—they’ve got them. The destroyers can’t cope with it. What the hell is going on here?”
Hawks sat back in his chair as if struck by a physical blow. Finally he said, “Repeat that. You mean the Vals are shooting down the reserve squadron of Master System’s fighters?”
“I mean they’ve shot them down! Incredible! And now they’re breaking off in twin formations! The Vals are yielding way! I’ve already had to alter course to keep the big ships from getting into real trouble that close in. I’m braking to parking orbits and recalling the fighters. Hawks—what does it mean?”
“You have a right to the rings . . . ” “The core system is like a subconscious . . . ”
“Oh, my god . . . ” Hawks breathed. “So that’s it.” He snapped out of it at once, as if suddenly shot with a stimulant.
“Star Eagle—brake Thunder down, but keep it outside of Earth orbit. We have no idea if Master System still has ground-based defensive systems. Bring all three manned ships back here as quick as you can. Ask Lightning if it wants to be relieved or can stand running interference for us a while longer.”
“Sending. Our people are confused and not completely relieved by this unexpected turn of events. They think it’s a trick, or that something big is being brought up to bear on them. Vulture suspects that Master System simply didn’t want to risk destruction of the rings at this stage.”
“Maybe, but I don’t think that’s it. I think I have this thing fairly well figured out now, and I’ve been right so far. What sort of time are we talking on these?”
“I have replies. Lightning is willing to remain on station and actually thinks it would be a good idea to have some company. They are uneasy and are using the time to send the Makkikor to a few more generation ships. I can have the other three back here in a couple of hours.”
“Good enough. You hailed Chen yet?”
“Nothing on Chen’s personal frequency, but the Centers are still active. I had feared, frankly, that Master System had placed its draconian plan to revert Earth back to the stone age in place while we were away.”
So had Hawks. “Well, get me whoever is highest in command down there as soon as you can. And get a survey fighter ready to take aboard Bahakatan. I want to scan the intermountain basin of North America and I want a thorough job. I don’t want to have to find Master System, I want to just head there.”
“Will do. Mind telling all of us just what you have in mind?”
“When we get to talk to the bosses down there I’ll give you more information. But, by god, if we have to come in and blow hell out of a few Centers to get some attention, we’re going to get some attention!”
“I’ve got China Center now and I’m letting our China handle the conversation, although it might be kind of sticky.”
“Huh? What’s the problem?”
“It seems that China Center is still under Administrator Song. Although we are right now still in the talk stage with security, there is a very real possibility that we will be faced with dealing with China’s father.”
“Put ’em on,” Hawks ordered. “China can monitor and translate if need be.”
There was a momentary clicking noise and then they were plugged into the direct communications network. A string of very angry sounding Chinese was coming out of the speaker.
“I don’t care who or what you are,” Hawks said into the transceiver, “you will shut up and listen. Either we will be placed in contact with someone in authority within one minute or I will order a laser torpedo launch on China Center and we will deal with the next Center we get. You understand that?”
The jabbering stopped. Suddenly a very angry voice came on, again speaking in Chinese, but now China was translating over it as quickly as the man was speaking.
“I am General Chin, Chief of Security for China Center,” came the translation. “Who is this?”
“I am Jonquathar of the Hyiakutt, also called Jon Nighthawk in the master records. Who I am is irrelevant. It is what I am that is all that matters. I am Chief and Admiral of the Pirates of the Thunder. I am currently in a ship closing on Earth and I have just eliminated all effective defensive ships sent up by Master System to keep us out. We have lived among the stars and killed many and fought many during these long years and we no longer have any patience. Is Administrator Song there or isn’t he?”
“That is excellent dialect for a translation,” Chin remarked, seemingly unimpressed. “It almost reminds me of . . . Never mind, Nighthawk. I don’t know what the hell you think you are but there are more Vals around this world now than ever in my long life and you must pardon me for not believing you could knock out a major task force and all the defenses.”
“You must believe it, General. And the Vals will not attack me or my people, at least for now. You are too ignorant and have too little authority for this discussion to have any meaning. Is Song there? And is Lazlo Chen still running Tashkent Center?”
There was a pause. “Administrator Song is not presently at Center. I am in temporary command. And, yes, as far as I know, Chen is still in power in Tashkent. None of the Presidium is available right now. They are in conference.”
“Well, General, I expect to be on Earth in a matter of hours after many long years away. Chen in particular will want to know that, and I suspect that Administrator Song will also want to know that his daughter is among our band.”
“Song Ching! My old memory was not playing tricks! So, my half niece, you survive after all!”
“You’d better do as Hawks says, Uncle,” she responded coldly. “He is not bluffing. If he arrives without contacting the Presidium on your orders, you will die, if not by our hands then by the hands of my own father, your half brother. You are the arrogant, officious idiot you always were.”
Chin did not seem unduly alarmed. “You have changed very little, my dear. How nice to hear that sarcastic bitchy tone once again. Very well—I will notify the Presidium. Give me a few minutes to get through to them and explain the situation as given to me. After that, if any want to talk to your pirate boss with his grandiose claims and big mouth, they will be patched in.”
Hawks couldn’t follow all the conversation, but he got the idea things were starting to move. “China—tell him to also send the following: We have all four and are coming for the fifth. We prefer to negotiate, but we did not get the other four by talking. Got it?”
“Got it. If my fat pig of an uncle gets it straight I think we will hear some action. I should like to see his face when he gets the reply from the Presidium. My father has been known to publicly dismember true idiots, and I suspect that this time Chin has overstepped himself at last.”
“He’d do that to his own brother?”
“Only a half brother. That’s why he’s still around at all.”
“Interesting family you must have. Are you up to talking with your father? I know the two of you were never exactly—close.”
“My father has as much humanity as a maintenance robot and I doubt if the years have changed him nearly as much as they have changed me. I just wonder if it’s sheer chance that the Presidium is meeting when we show up.”
“I doubt it. I don’t think chance enters into things from this point on. At least, the Vals don’t seem to think so. They waited to see if we could beat the task force, then made their decision. It is not the machines that will be our major enemy now, it is the people.”
The next voice that came to them from Earth spoke in high classical Mandarin, but even at that Hawks could hear the chill behind that voice. This was one tough son of a bitch.
“This is Administrator Song. Is it true that my daughter has returned?”
Hawks did not flip the switch but rather spoke openly to Star Eagle. “Make sure you get a fix on this. I want to know just where they’re meeting.”
“Will do. It might take a few minutes, though. The in-system stuff bounces all over the place and I don’t have anything fixed in Earth orbit.”
“Song Ching is dead, Father,” China replied. “Don’t you remember—it was your very wish. She has been turned into just what you designed her body for. You are a less-than-honorable grandfather many times over, but I doubt if you would approve of your grandchildren’s pedigrees. I am China Nightingale, and I am interfaced with the pilot of the great ship Thunder. Our leader wishes to speak with Lazlo Chen.”
There was a mumbling and someone on the administrator’s end clearly said, in heavily accented English, “Give me that thing, you old fart,” and there was the sound of a minor scuffle.
“This is Lazlo Chen,” that same voice said after a moment. “Go ahead, Hawks.”
“Do you still wear your three birds, Chen?” Hawks asked, almost fearing that at this late stage Master System might have done something to make the last one unattainable.
“I have it. In fact, I have it with me now, on my finger,” Chen replied. “And you?”
“I have four such baubles myself. How do we get them all together?”
Chen thought a moment. “With so many Vals around I am not certain of a safe place.”
“The Vals won’t interfere, unless we take up so much time in debate and setup that Master System is able to get reinforcements. Right now the Vals are electing to go with the evident winners.”
That seemed to unsettle the old man. “Fascinating. Unheard of. You are certain it is no trick? To get all five together and grab them?”
“Nothing is certain. I am, however, convinced that we will be far safer with all five together than with one separated from the rest as now. If there are five hands with five rings upon them, then I think we have a certain overriding right. No guarantees, but it’s been a long, tough voyage, Chen.”
Star Eagle broke in, not transmitting to Chen. “I have the location. They are meeting somewhere near, but not in, Brasilia Center. The final routing is through there but I would doubt if they’re actually in the place.”
“Why not join us here?” Chen asked him. “It is as secure an area as can be on this old world.”
Hawks grinned to himself. “You helped pick the ones who went out to get the rings. I don’t think you believe you picked fools. How about I send a ship down for you so you can join us here?”
“Even if I were so foolish as to accept I sincerely doubt if I could leave this room alive with the ring under such circumstances,” the chief administrator of Earth responded. “In all this planning I freely admit that I never thought it would come down to this point. I had to try, but I never dared dream you would succeed. Now it comes down to a rather trivial matter of trust and protocol, does it not? We are less than fully safe apart, but we have problems getting together. How ironic.”
Hawks thought a moment. “How many of your fellow administrators might be the minimum party to come with you?”
“I think five, perhaps six. I suspect that they want a shot at it in case we should fail.”
“Fair enough. Then I will bring the same number. I will give you a latitude and longitude coordinate in a moment. What season would it be now in the northern hemisphere?”
“Uh? Why, it would be almost fall. Why?”
Full circle, Hawks thought. “Then that will do fine. Six of you and six of us, no more on either side, and no tricks. We go together. Understood?”
“Fair is fair. I assume the site is near where we must go?”
“I have only a vague idea, but I should know by the time we get together. You have skimmers around, I assume. Bring a big one for all of us. And a few warnings. Any tricks and while the Vals might not care, we have current, if temporary, command of air and space in the region and we have become quite good at tracking. If your people or you try anything with us, and even at this late stage, nobody will use the rings. You think, too, that right now I’m the only one, even of my party, who knows just how to use them, and any attempt to get that out of me will result in my death. And one last thing—a few of my friends might appear a bit strange to you.”
“Understood. I shall be fascinated to hear your story of how you did it. Weapons?”
“Bring what you can easily carry—we aren’t out of the woods yet, and I am expecting an SPF force or another automated task force any day now, so we cannot waste time on this. I’m not kidding myself that I have anything more than temporary control and I can’t even guarantee what the Vals will do if such a force shows up. What day and time have you?”
“It is twenty-two forty-nine Greenwich, on a Wednesday.”
“Very well. Give a time check in one minute so we’ll be synchronized. We meet at my position tomorrow at seventeen hundred Greenwich exactly. Agreed?”
“Agreed. Standing by to synchronize.”
Hawks sat back and sighed. “And so it is the beginning of the end,” he said. “We’ll use Bahakatan. Star Eagle, I’ll want a tie-in to all ships including Lightning and everyone still aboard Thunder for a general meeting in one hour. We’re going to have to make some hard decisions, and these are decisions of a nature that I cannot impose them.”
“No problem,” the pilot responded. “But if you are too long-winded we will have some of them docking before it’s over.”
“I’ll take that chance.” Hawks sat back and shook his head. So long, so slow, so deliberate—and now it was all coming down to this.
Isaac Clayben had joined him and listened to this barrage of orders. “I’m not sure I like this. You will be on their turf, in their domain, with only a few of us present in case of treachery. You don’t seriously expect those powerful men to just go along with a twenty percent share, do you?”
“As long as they don’t have all the information they need, yes,” the chief replied. “If and when they do, then we could face our final challenge. Not until the moment Master System is reset and we know just what we are dealing with will I feel that we have accomplished anything at all. I understand what you’re saying, Doctor, and I can but cover my back and pray. After all that struggle and all these years, we could still lose it in the last fleeting moments.”
The meeting was, in spite of the need for communications hookups, in many ways not very different from the meetings they had held for years and which had run both the operations and the internal society of Thunder so well during that period. Hawks was capable of giving orders and making the hard decisions, which is why he was the elected leader, but he preferred consensus. This time, however, he really had doubts as to whether the consensus could be achieved.
“We don’t know just what we’re getting into now,” he told them. “In some ways this is the most difficult ring of the whole batch, since our two greatest weapons, secrecy and the ignorance of our opponents, are denied us. I would like to take down all of you who have been with us all this time and have worked so hard and sacrificed so much, but I can’t. I must go—this is the one task that simply cannot be delegated, one risk I must face myself. Under the terms of the agreement with Chen, I can take only five others with me.”
“I say we cheat a bit,” China said flatly. “You have only some experience with them, but I know them all too well. They have something up their collective sleeves, perhaps quite a bit. They intend to get and use all the rings for themselves. That’s what it’s all about. Without some insurance, it will be their game.”
Hawks agreed with her but saw no way around it. “They will know if we cheat. Their resources are quite extensive in their own right, you know. We will all get as far as the interface, I suspect, but at that point—who knows? What can I do? If I call in reinforcements and air cover, they will know it, and their armed skimmers can reach us well in advance of anything Thunder can send. The only insurance we have at this point is that they don’t know how to use the rings.”
“That is not exactly excellent insurance,” Dura Panoshka noted. “Savaphoong thought that his knowledge of Alititia was all he needed, and look what it got him. You cannot be certain that they do not know far more than they pretend to.”
“I would suspect a more sophisticated, technological trap,” Clayben put in. “Remember that hypnocaster inside the Matriyehan goddess? Our monitors are not in place, but they have almost a day to set up anything they want at the meeting site. I might be able to rig up some sort of portable device to jam such things, although I don’t have much time, but you can’t ever be sure you’re covering everything.”
“Do what you can,” Hawks told him.
“What’s to keep them from just planting a small army in the region and shadowing us, waiting to pounce?” Vulture asked via the radio.
“Well, that’s why I chose the meeting place I did,” Hawks replied. “I will be able to take some precautions and we’ll be able to monitor it, as well, before we go down. In fact, I am going to cheat in a small way. We’re going to land a transmitter pod down there in just a few hours if all goes well. That will allow us easy access when the time comes, but might also allow an earlier drop, not of an armed agent but someone else. Cloud Dancer has wished for many years to feel the wind and sun again and to visit our people, many of whom are still in that area. She is very capable and cannot be coerced into anything on the very slim chance she is spotted. We’ve worked on some makeup to hide the Melchior facial tattoos, or at least make hers appear to be far different from what they are. She will talk Hyiakutt to Hyiakutt. I seriously doubt if anybody they send will be able to do that, particularly as one of the tribe. If they’re trying to pull anything, she’ll find it out, and if she can convince the elders that these big shots are trying to steal the fruits of a Hyiakutt victory we will have quite a number of warm-body allies down there.”
Clayben shrugged. “It’s worth the gamble. All right, then—we’re down to the bottom line, aren’t we? Who goes?”
Hawks sighed. “In order, and I’ll make my own comments when we hear from each. The Chows have the right to the two-birds-of-peace ring. I would love to have you both, since you have that great talent for locks and puzzles and I fear we may face one of the greatest when we get there, but I simply can’t take you both. I want your talent, though.”
“That makes it very difficult for us,” Chow Dai responded, “for never have we been separated. Still, for our honor and the sake of our children, one of us must go, although we have no real understanding of what it is you hope to do down there, nor any ambition toward it. And, down there, we will be not at home but four-footed freaks on a world to which we no longer belong. Still, we have discussed it. One of us must remain for the sake of the children anyway. I was always the more outgoing and so it falls to me to go.”
Hawks nodded. “Thank you. That’s two. Maria, Midi, you two have the votes on the ring of the bird and the tree. I would like to take you both, particularly since your fighting instincts, toughness, and reflexes are the best among us, but for now I must be content with one of you.”
“Maria will go,” Midi told them. “We have discussed this. She has lost a ship and a command and many fine comrades, in part because of my shameful actions on the Luzon off Janipur. Now we are sisters of the same blood. If I would trust her with my life, I see no reason not to trust her with the ring.”
Hawks nodded. “Fitting. All right, that’s three—me, Chow Dai, and Captain Santiago. Butar, your people have the vote on the Chanchuk ring. I need one candidate.”
“Let me speak to that,” Vulture cut in. “I know you’re dancing all around this, Hawks, trying to figure a way to not include me, so I take myself out.”
“No one has a greater right than you to a ring,” Hawks noted.
“Yeah, that may be true, but I wouldn’t take me, much as I want to be there. We don’t really know how exacting this human rule is. I’m Chanchukian human now—am I ever!—but I wasn’t born, I didn’t grow up this way. I’m still artificial, still questionable. That leaves me out as a ring bearer, and the only other possibility would be to go as one of the extra people for security. I’m tiny and I’m weak and I’m not in full control of myself any more—I’d be no good in a fight. I will be a good Chanchukian boy and defer to my mates on this one, but I have a suggestion and it’s Butar. Kaotan’s crew more than any gave its all, and she did tremendously at Chanchuk, even to making the hard choices.”
“In discussions with the others it seems I am elected, and I admit I want to go,” Butar Killomen told them. “I am somewhat awkward on land but I can make do and I have a low profile. And I can shoot straight and have excellent night vision.”
“That’s four,” Hawks said. “Takya—your group controls the ring with the rings.”
There was silence for a moment, then Takya replied, “I can tell by your tone that you’d rather we passed,” she said.
“I can’t deny you a place, but we are going on to a world with a bright sun, in conditions that will call for daylight action. We will be as far on that world as you can get from an ocean or sea and we will be heading away from any such places. You would have to spend all your time in a water-filled filtered pressure suit and move using the flying belt. I can certainly use your toughness and fighting skills, but you will be out of your element there. Still, if you insist, I have no choice but to take one of you. You know that.”
“We do. Perhaps the most courageous thing a warrior can do is to admit when he is a burden. We pass. We will patrol your rear out here, where we are on a more equal footing. Kaotan is well represented by Butar. You wear our ring, Hawks.”
“I very much thank you for that,” he told them sincerely. “All right, then, two slots to fill. One I think is essential, even though I have many grave reservations. China, it’s your father we’ll be dealing with and without you we couldn’t have gone anywhere or done anything. You understand computers and interfaces better than anyone aboard, perhaps even Clayben, and you have a right to come.”
“I—I understand your problems,” she told him. “Yet I feel I must be there, if only to represent Star Eagle. I understand what a burden I will be. I know what a liability I am. A blind woman in strange terrain, her belly over eight months pregnant. Still, I feel somehow that I must be there. At least I have the headgear that will give me limited sight when I need it. I haven’t used it in years but it still works, I am certain.”
“All right.” Hawks sighed. “You’re in. And, because I want as much experience and technical prowess as well as political savvy on the ground with me, I’d like to take Doctor Clayben. It will be your job to counter anything fancy they might come up with, Doctor. And I can think of no one better qualified to explain what we might see than you.”
“It is the height of my entire life,” Clayben responded, sounding genuinely pleased and perhaps a bit relieved. “In the past I might have been, well, less than trustworthy, but I have learned a lot in this strange odyssey of ours. I will get you there, all of you. My previous life was in fooling and foiling such men, and I know these directors well.”
Hawks gave a long sigh. “All right, then, that’s it. Bahakatan should be checked and turned around as quickly as possible as soon as it gets in. Load the probes and other devices or mate them to the outer hull. We want continuous contact. Maria, you take command of the ship and get those probes and monitors into position. As soon as it is possible, land the transmitter near the camp and send Cloud Dancer down. Then return here where all of us who are going will load up our supplies and equipment and go. Doctor, whatever magic boxes you can come up with, we’ll need. Chunhoifan is to be tied into our communications net and patrol in or near Earth orbit to cover our immediate rear. I may well have to call in almost any nasty weapon you have, Takya, so be fully armed and prepared and watch out for any attempts on your ship from Master System. If I have to call in a strike on myself, though, I’ll do it. Midi, you’ll fly Bahakatan and pull it out of there after we’ve been dropped and join Takya on near station. Lightning will remain in its early-warning post and should continue activating and arming any other big ships that it can. Star Eagle, you will be in complete command here and will be coordinator, but get Thunder turned and in position in case you need to fire up. Understood? Don’t try to rescue any of us. Pick up who you can and get out if you can.”
“We will see,” the pilot responded. “Very well, though, we’ll set up as best we can.”
Hawks looked around at all of them, as satisfied as he could be, but his final comment, muttered aloud, was really to himself.
“We’re back, as we promised.” He sighed. “I’m coming home.”