Bayley, Barrington J - Novel 10 (8 page)

 
          
"That's
not a bad way of putting it, actually," Archier responded with a
smile.   "Do you know anything about accountancy? The intermat
works very much like double-entry bookkeeping."

 
          
"I'll
try to find out something about it in Diadem." "The technical details
are restricted.  But as a creative artist, I'm sure you'll be able to
persuade the public data files to give you privileged access." Archier
nodded to
Lilac
Willow
's
captain. 
"Very
good.
Now let's take a look at the gun turrets!"

 
          
The
passages of the gun system were narrower than was usual for the more
continuously inhabited parts of the vessel. The main travelators did not reach
there. Only Archier, Arctus,
Lilac
Willow
's
captain and (at his urgent pleading) Volsted
Magroom squeezed into a small cage which shot straight towards the skin of the
warship.

 
          
The
cage smelled of oil and electricity. They debouched into a dimly lit tunnel
which echoed constantly to faint sounds of metal singing on metal. After the
luxury and frivolity he had grown used to aboard
Lilac Willow,
Magroom felt chilled by the bleak air of seriousness
he sensed about the place.

 
          
He
followed the Admiral along the tunnel. Archier paused at a place where a gap
occurred in the right-hand wall. Separated from the passageway by a curvilinear
grid was a second, parallel tunnel, slightly smaller in diameter. Along it
there swept at intervals gleaming, round-nosed, gold-plated cylinders. Each lay
on its side, and even then stood nearly as tall as a man.

 
          
"You
see the feeder system that serves each gun," Archier told Magroom.
"Those are the shells, which are being brought up from the magazine in
preparation for the engagement. They are held in a secondary magazine below the
turret and are fed into the breech automatically."

 
          
Magroom
stared at the deadly missiles in fascination. "What are they—fusion?"

 
          
"A
standard shell carries a fusion charge, sufficient to destroy a ship on direct
impact. But shells come in several varieties. Some carry a shaped fusion charge
to punch a hole in a ship and disable it. Very few shells even reach their
targets, of course. Even when aimed accurately enough they have to face
short-range anti-shell weapons of various sorts, as well as deflector shields.
A high rate of fire is what's important."

           
"Why are they so big? You can
carry a fusion charge in the palm of your hand."

 
          
"To give them mass.
They'd have no range otherwise."

 
          
Archier
proceeded along the tubelike tunnel, which ran straight for the most part but
occasionally snaked for no apparent reason. It ended in a short flight of
steps. They climbed it and emerged onto the gun platform.

 
          
The
scene was one of the strangest Magroom had seen, no matter how many times he
had described it in his novels. The gun turret was a huge protuberance, one of
twenty that studded
Lilac Willow
and
comprised the front-line-o'-war's main armament, the cause of her existence.
The cannon, or gun, was
a huge barrel-shaped structure,
mounted in a spherical bearing that was a huge recoil absorber. The
breech-loading mechanism was below the gun platform and out of sight, as was
the main firing mechanism; it was just too big to accommodate comfortably
outside the sweep of the hull.

 
          
The
gun crew was all animal: pigs, baboons and dogs
who
crouched before their command and data screens. They let out a cheer as their
admiral entered the turret.

 
          
Magroom
knew only a little about the specifications of these weapons. They had
three-axis rotation and could aim towards a large portion of the celestial
globe. When in use they extended their shell-stabilising barrels to a mile's
length (presumably all
Lilac
Willow
's
gun barrels were now so extended). How far
they could fling their shells he did not know, but he had heard a rumoured rate
of fire of an incredible one round per second.

 
          
Archier
was passing a few moments in encouraging banter with the platform crew. He
strolled back to Magroom. "They're keen, dead keen. Do you know the
history of the long-range Star Force gun?" he asked amiably.

 
          
"Not
much."

 
          
"It's
the only answer to how ships may fight one another when moving faster than
light. Beam weapons using radiation energy are clearly useless, and the feetol
drive is too bulky to be fitted to missiles—if we did that, a ship the size of
Lilac Willow
could carry no more than a
dozen or so. Even then, they would be very much slower than the ships they were
launched against! So the breech-firing cannon it is. What makes it possible is
that an object expelled from a feetol bubble retains a remnant of that bubble
for a while, and so may still move faster than normal light. These shells are fired
off at a tremendous velocity, about a million times the normal velocity of
light. They go ploughing through normal spacetime, losing speed all the time as
their remnant feetol bubbles dissipate. In good conditions they can range about
half a light year before dropping below
c.

 
          
"Do
you see the reason why the shells have to be heavy? A travelling feetol bubble
encounters the resistance of the normal space through which it moves. The
magnitude of this resistance is an inverse function of the mass contained
within the bubble. If the shells were too light, they would slow down even
before their bubbles had weakened."

 
          
There
was a point Magroom had wondered about but had never been able to find out.
"They have to be
aimed
across
half a light-year?
On a target no larger than a ship?''

 
          
Archier
smiled. "No, that would be asking too much of our gun comps. The shells
have limited self-guidance near the end of their trajectory."

 
          
Staring
at the massive gun, Magroom had to remind himself that this was
not
fantasy. This was real—and in deadly
earnest.

 
          
It
gave him an altogether different perception of things.
This,
he realized, was what maintained the Empire, which he had
thought of as a vague entity up to now. Oh, he had heard of how the Empire
would sometimes punish worlds, but it rarely happened and the stories had an
almost fictional quality. It came home to him with a vengeance, now, that this
warship with its twenty big guns was the reason
why
it rarely happened. In space, the Empire dominated; it could
blast any rival force of ships to kingdom come. As long as it could do that, as
long as no nonimperial fleets could defend disobedient worlds, there could be
no effective rebellion.

 
          
All
the effete decadence, the senses-soaked sophistication, he had grown used to
since boarding
Lilac Willow,
faded
into the distance. This was the sharp end, and here the Empire meant business.

 
          
An
old refrain came to his mind:
"Rule
the Empire, the Empire
rule
the stars."
"But
tell me, Admiral," he said, "isn't it true you haven't got all that
many of these ships left now?"

 
          
"That's
right," Archier admitted with a sigh. "Not as many as we could do
with, anyway. But that's only because Diadem's robot workforce has been on
strike for the past hundred years, as part of their campaign to be recognised
as sentients. As a result the Star Force yards are idle and no new ships have
been laid down in that time. If the strike should end, we can begin replacing
the fleets.'' He shrugged, gesturing about him. "These guns were designed
originally to be operated by fast-reaction robots, but they are so unreliable
now. Still, animals serve well enough. Loyalty counts for more than you might
think."

 
          
"But
this is unbelievable," Magroom protested. "If it's doing you as much
damage as that, why don't you just give the robots the sentient status they
want?"

 
          
Archier
stared at him blankly. "The Empire will not be coerced," he stated
simply. "You are suggesting the Imperial Council should give official
voice to what is probably an untruth, and we simply do not do things like that.
If machine sentience could be established philosophically, then it would be
another matter."

 
          
A
sense of unreality began once more to engulf Magroom. "Not even if it
means the fall of the Empire?" he persisted. "Let me tell you
something; for a practical issue as vital as this our politicians on Alaxis—who
are all elected representatives of regional populations—would have got machine
sentience proved from top to bottom. Truth wouldn't have anything to do with
it."

 
          
'Then
that shows why you need the Empire," Archier told him. "You need the
Empire to save you from your own barbarism."

 
          
Archier
had managed to make brief visits to about a quarter of the ships under his
command when the call to battle rang through Ten-Fleet. For a moment he was
taken by surprise; the rebel fleet had advanced more quickly than anticipated.

 
          
He
had returned to
Standard Bearer
to
refresh himself before continuing the inspection tour. When Arctus came
bustling in with the news, he laid down the flask of liquid cannabis concoction
he had been sipping, and removed the coronet that had been wafting calming
cortical pulses through his brow.

 
          
"Is
this a verified ranging?" he asked, glancing through the date sheet the
elephant gave him.

 
          
Arctus
waved his trunk uncertainly. "It's usually reliable at that distance.
About ten light-years."

 
          
"Usually.
But not always."

 
          
"Nevertheless,
Admiral, may I suggest we go to the Command Room without delay . . . ?"
Arctus' trunk curled itself questioningly in the air.

 
          
"Yes,
we must," Archier agreed crisply. He hoped the elephant didn't think he
was scared. He was, for a fact, beginning to feel tense despite the cannabis
and the coronet. Early indications were that the rebel fleet was sizable; and
this was his first proper space battle.

 
          
He
rose, placed his Admiral's crested combat casque upon his head, and nodded to
Arctus.

 
          
They
proceeded through a door to his right. The Command Room was not a physical
location but a holocast meeting locus present somewhere within the
communications nerve-net that covered the entire fleet. As Archier entered, it
was into the appearance of a council room whose chairs, couches and cushions
were arranged around a circular pool. In this pool, vague images moved.

 
          
Gruwert,
Archier's Acting Fire Command Officer, was already sprawled upon a large
mattress-like cushion. He was fairly snuffling with excitement. Sitting across
the pool from him, frowning with tension, was a young woman with an
artificially aged face and brittle blue-grey hair: the Fleet Maneuvers Officer.

 
          
Other
officers of command rank popped into existence around the pool, some
disappearing a moment as their attention was diverted elsewhere. Archier
mounted to the Admiral's throne.

 
          
Arctus
settled down beside him. "Pool data, Arctus," Archier said.

 
          
The
pool at his feet cleared momentarily and then, indistinctly, a group of blurred
dots appeared. These were the contents of the sheets Arctus had shown Archier:
the rebel battlefleet. Ranging numbers appeared beside them; then these, too,
wavered and altered, as if uncertain of
themselves
.