Destroyer of Worlds (10 page)

So Er'o had believed until the latest observations.
Something
was shooting across nearby skies. Something as hot, almost, as the surface of the sun. And that something, whatever it was, was slowing rapidly, exerting tremendous forces.

Er'o emitted a sharp tone burst. The sounds would propagate along the science-station tunnels into the farthest lab, workshop, and private chamber. “Time to assemble.”

Er'o was at a loss how best to proceed.

As Ol't'ro, he would know.

 

OL'T'RO CONSIDERED:

A rapidly decelerating object—a ship—detectable only by the vast amount of heat it radiated. Ol't'ro contrasted the lost energy of motion with the measured radiated energy.

An approximation—the efficiency of the deceleration mechanism being unknown—of the ship's mass. Bigger by far than the largest Gw'oth ship.

The arc of the ship's course. A manipulation of space-time, Ol't'ro concluded. Interesting. Almost instantly, they began to refine their concept of gravity.

Reluctantly, they deferred the puzzle for a later time. Another inference had more urgent value to the polity. They disconnected a tubacle, to couple its mouth with a comm terminal.

The Others had arrived. Their ship would reach the ice soon.

 

BAEDEKER CIRCLED HIS TINY CABIN
, too tense to sleep or even to sit. He had tried comforting digital-wallpaper motifs to no avail. Neither crowd scenes, not even with a double release of aerosol herd pheromones, nor tranquil meadows helped. A dollop of synthed grain mush sat in its bowl, scarcely touched.

And they had hours to go before
Don Quixote
approached the gas giant.

Over the intercom: an unfamiliar chime. Baedeker wondered if the tone was a new affectation from Jeeves.

He was wrong.

“All hands,” Jeeves announced a moment later. “The Gw'oth are hailing.”

Baedeker gaped at the latched door of his cabin, as though aliens were about to swim through it. His reaction was foolish, of course. This ship was stealthed. The Gw'oth hail had to be a broadcast of some sort, in the hope that someone had responded to their earlier message.

He was wrong again.

“Comm laser,” Sigmund announced, surprise plain in his voice. Laser communication was directional. “The Gw'oth know we're here. Everyone to duty stations.”

Duty stations meant Kirsten and Sigmund on the bridge and Eric in the engine room. And himself? Anywhere not underhoof. Sigmund had phrased it more tactfully as “on call.”

The others reported in from their posts. “I'll remain in my cabin for now,” Baedeker declared for completeness. “Jeeves, what is the nature of the hail?”

“I'm streaming the incoming signal, receive only,” Kirsten answered for the AI.

To all appearances, rolling hills of lush purple meadowplant surrounded Baedeker for as far as the eye could see. He banished the idyllic pastoral setting from one cabin wall. The incoming message filled the cleared space.

A Gw'o undulated before an unseen camera. In parallel rows, cryptic squiggles and English translation straddled the image. “Thank you for responding. Once you are closer, we will talk.”

 

Don Quixote
plunged deep into the Gw'oth system, with every sensor straining for data.

From bases across the Gw'oth solar system, radio chatter spiked. (Perhaps laser comm spiked, too. With no way to intercept directional traffic, how could one know?) Surface vehicles massed in large formations, fanning out from the few mountain peaks that poked above the ice. Spaceships maneuvered, their fusion flames hot and unmistakable. Electromagnetic launchers stretching far across the ice flung yet more vessels into space.

So many ships! So many EM launchers! It seemed less and less likely the Puppeteers had intervened here since Kirsten's last visit.

Sigmund focused on more pressing matters: the present flurry of Gw'oth activity. Defensive measures? Factional rivalries? Preparation to attack
Don Quixote
? Knowing as little as he did about the aliens, Sigmund could rationalize any of those scenarios. Being who he was, he suspected the last.

He was sharing the bridge with Kirsten. Leaving the piloting to her, he studied the tactical summary in the main holo display. It showed far too much activity for his liking. Kirsten's certain disappointment notwithstanding, they would
not
meet soon with the Gw'oth on their home ice. That would simply be imprudent. Perhaps later, when they knew more.

“Jeeves,” Sigmund said, “I assume you can also translate from English.”

“Correct, Sigmund. Barring vocabulary shortfalls, of course.”

“Good. Send this: We wish to meet first with those who invited us.”

Kirsten squirmed in her crash couch.

“Something on your mind, Kirsten?” Sigmund finally asked.

“No. Well, yes. We know who on the ice moon contacted us. I backtracked the laser.”

So why not land near there, she meant. And if that's a trap? “Who
initially asked for our help and who contacted us when we arrived might not be the same.”

“Besides whoever used our beacon, who knew to look for us?” she countered.

Even those Sigmund had trained seldom thought to consider spies and traitors, comm taps, or the general perversity of the universe. He couldn't
not
think of them. His gift. His curse. “It could be—”

“A reply,” Jeeves interrupted. “The signal is from the same ice-moon surface peak that sent the greeting.”

A holo opened in a secondary display. Sigmund couldn't decide if this Gw'o was the one they'd seen in the earlier message. Its skin tone differed, but that told Sigmund nothing. Even over short comm sessions the colors ebbed and flowed.

Gw'oth communicated in sound bursts, not unlike dolphin speech, and like a dolphin the acoustic organs were internal. Sigmund wasn't surprised that the figure in the holo didn't
look
like it was speaking. The transmission's audio subchannel sounded—the part, anyway, low-pitched enough for Sigmund to hear—like a whale crossed with a click beetle.

Sigmund read, “Greetings again, visitors. We are those who asked for your help.”

Assertion was hardly proof. The mention of “help” was encouraging—Sigmund's message had said “invited”—but hardly conclusive. “Respectfully,” Sigmund began. How should he phrase this?

“Sorry. I can't translate ‘respectfully,' ” Jeeves said.

The Gw'o had not finished speaking. New text appeared in the holo. “But I ask myself, how can you know that?” (Sigmund had an answer for that—not foolproof, but an answer. He waited to see what the Gw'o would say.) “We should meet where you left your beacon, although the radio itself has since been moved to a more convenient location. You will know that we know the spot.”

At the beacon: That was the solution Sigmund had envisioned. Tanj, but these Gw'oth were fast.

Baedeker was monitoring from his cabin. “Sigmund, tell these Gw'oth to arrive first. If they follow us or extrapolate our course, their arrival near the beacon would prove nothing.”

“Agreed, Baedeker. I'll give it a minute to be sure our new friend is done.”

It wasn't. “We will launch from this location, arriving before you. When we meet, you will also know that we control the beacon area.”

Anticipating another possible objection. Implying, if not proving, that these Gw'oth were those who first found the beacon. “Acknowledged,” Sigmund said.

Very
tanj fast.

 

THE GAS GIANT HAD FOUR MOONS
, all tidally locked to their primary.
Explorer
had left its beacon on the outermost moon, on the outermost side, on an airless, stony plain forever invisible from the ice moon. From space, however, the laser-carved X could not be missed.

A ship sat near the crossed lines, in a shallow depression seared by fusion flame. Spectral analysis of the dim sunlight reflecting from the hull suggested steel and ceramics.
Don Quixote
's instruments had tracked the Gw'oth vessel from an electromagnetic launcher on the third moon to its landing here.

A low dome rose from the plain half a mile from where the alien vessel now sat. Electromagnetic railguns around the dome made a point: The Gw'oth in the ship had come with the consent of those who controlled this area. Probably additional railguns remained hidden in camouflaged emplacements.

Don Quixote
was in a high orbit around the moon, where it would remain until Sigmund decided a landing was safe. The Gw'oth ship would disappear soon below the horizon.

Those on the ground saw that, too. A Gw'o appeared in the main bridge comm display. “Again, we thank you for coming. We have much to discuss. Will you join us?”

Sigmund studied the tactical display. The railguns did not represent any threat to a General Products hull. At worst a volley from the surface might rock
Don Quixote
a bit. Nothing else nearby seemed threatening.

He polled his crew. Eric and Kirsten wanted to land immediately. Baedeker proposed they continue by radio, now that they had eliminated any appreciable light-speed delay. And Sigmund considered the message that had summoned them: “Friends, come at once. Something is rushing our way. Something very dangerous.”

Perhaps not to meet was more dangerous than meeting.

“We'll be right down,” Sigmund said.

 

.   .   .

 

THE AIR LOCKS OF THE GW'OTH SHIP
and dome stood no taller than Baedeker's knee. No one from
Don Quixote
could enter even if they wanted to—which he certainly did not. The humans, though, were clearly disappointed.

But neither did Baedeker want to see any Gw'oth aboard
Don Quixote
.

“We cannot permit them aboard this ship!” he shouted. He and the humans had crowded into the relax room. “They will see things. They will ask questions. Who knows what they will discover about our technology.”

Eric and Kirsten exchanged glances. Recalling their first and only visit to the General Products orbital facility and the secrets Nessus had carelessly let slip? A deflated minor chord escaped Baedeker at the memory.

“We haven't much of a choice,” Sigmund said. “We wouldn't fit inside their facilities, even if we felt like swimming, nor do I care to give them potential hostages. We can't stay on the surface for any length of time because of the radiation. That leaves
Don Quixote
.”

“And radio,” Baedeker reminded.

“We'll take precautions,” Sigmund said. Tone of voice declared the subject closed.

Baedeker pawed nervously at the deck. A paranoid's precautions might keep them physically safe, but that was not enough. “Then we must control what any visitor can learn. We have seen no evidence that the Gw'oth know about hyperwave radio or hyperdrive shunts, or of deep radar.” Of course, within his lifetime they had not known fire. These aliens were very quick. Too quick. “We cannot even allude to the existence of such technology.”

Sigmund nodded. “Fair enough. They're small; some of them and a couple of us can meet in this room. We'll move or cover the few stepping discs between the main lock and here. No access to the engine room, so they won't see the hyperdrive shunt. What else?”

“No bridge access,” Eric suggested. “A glimpse of the controls might imply things about all sorts of systems, from propulsion to the emergency protective force fields for the crash couches.”

Baedeker made an unfamiliar sound, part whinny and part whistle. Nerves? “We cannot hide the hull, but we do not mention its properties or how it is made.”

“We paint over the few clear areas of the hull,” Kirsten contributed. “And we don't show or allude to our computers. Given that the Gw'oth compute biologically, they may not suspect what can be done with hardware.”

Sigmund nodded. “Jeeves, when our friends come aboard, don't speak unless spoken to. You're a crewman. We can say you're on watch on the bridge.”

“Yes, Sigmund.”

“Good,” Sigmund said. “What else?”

Baedeker had a stasis-field generator in his luggage for medical emergencies. It was locked in his cabin, secured behind a biometrically controlled lock he had installed. He had not admitted to having it, and he would not now, but—“We should not mention stasis technology.”

The length of the eventual list did nothing to assuage Baedeker's doubts.

 

PARANOIA HAD ITS USES
, Baedeker had to admit.

It did not matter that a Gw'o was only two feet across, or that only one would come aboard for this first meeting. Sigmund saw no certain way to distinguish between a pressure suit and battle armor, or between instrumentation and weapons.

And so, before they opened the outer air-lock hatch for the tiny figure scuttling across the arid plain, Sigmund set into place a final safeguard.

Unless one of
Don Quixote
's crew periodically reset the failsafe, the hyperdrive shunt would activate. If Jeeves decided the crew was acting under duress,
it
would activate the shunt. Either way, the ship would be forever beyond the reach of the Gw'oth.

The precaution was Eric's idea, and he had the decency to look embarrassed when he suggested it.

 

Despite the motorized exoskeleton of his pressure suit, the trek to the alien ship left Er'o exhausted. A trace of memory from Ol't'ro condescended about how easy Er'o had it. Early pressure suits had been only garments made from the tough hide of deep-sea creatures, trailing hoses to leather-bag “pumps” kneaded by helpers who remained beneath the ice.

The echo of memory did not dwell on how many had died in their explorations.

The alien hatch controls were intuitive enough but above Er' o's reach, and he waited for those inside to cycle the access mechanisms. The outer hatch shut and he got his first surprise. Gas, not water, gushed in. The pressure leveled off at a very low value. Without his protective gear, he would burst before he could suffocate.