Exultant (56 page)

Like every asteroid of its size, it was an aggregate shape as lumpy as a clenched fist, deeply pocked by impact craters. But on this Rock the surface had been worked, every square centimeter of it. Every crater hosted a landing pad or a dry dock or a portal, and away from the craters the land had a peculiar ridged texture. As they approached, Pirius saw it was covered by a dense scribble of trenches and foxholes, zigzagging at precise ninety-degree corners. It was ornate, even decorative, like a maze. You could tell that people had been here for a
long
time.

Orion had been spawned out of random accretions in this spiral arm long ago, and had since drifted down its center line. As it had required no human intervention to steer it onto a path that directed it straight at the Xeelee concentrations, the Rock was a marvelous natural blind. It had been occupied by humans for a thousand years, and the results of that occupation were visible on its surface—and yet it was still unsuspected as a military asset by mankind’s foe.

The greenships and their escorts settled on a landing pad at the center of the largest crater—all save the big Spline, which took up a watchful position directly overhead, like a fleshy eye.

All the crews were eager to get out of their stinking skinsuits, and to eat, bathe, screw, and otherwise get the tension of the flight out of their systems. But Marshal Kimmer came on the loop and ordered the whole squadron from Pirius Red on down to form up before his command corvette. There was nothing for it but to comply gracefully.

They clambered down to a surface of some black, hard substance so smooth and flat it was almost slippery. Near Kimmer’s corvette, Pila, Nilis, Kimmer, Guild-master Eliun and various other command staff and civilians gathered in a loose circle. Captain Marta was here, the stern training officer from Quin Base who Pirius had drafted at the suggestion of his older self to oversee the set up of operations on this Rock. Their skinsuits looked bright and fresh, and the military types were adorned with animated decorations.

And a Silver Ghost rolled complacently above the polished ground, unperturbed by the vacuum and hard radiation of the Core.

Pirius had practiced no parade drill with his squadron; there had been no time for such luxuries. Still, he drew them up in good order, though he accepted a little assistance from Commander Darc, who helped get the rows spaced out and lined up properly. Compared to the glittering gathering of commanders and civilians, the greenship crews looked shabby and exhausted. But as they stood to attention—Burden and Torec, Jees with her silvery prostheses returning sharp highlights from the starlight, even his own older self, all of them in scuffed and grimy skinsuits—Pirius felt a burst of pride.

A party approached. In the lead marched a block of soldiers in gleaming white skinsuits, following a track that ran arrow-straight from the crater wall. Pirius estimated there must be a thousand of them. Their commanders stood to attention on discs that hovered a meter above the floor.

On the squadron’s comm loop, Pirius heard muttering. “I don’t believe it,” Blue said. “It’s a welcoming committee.”

“Belay that,” Pirius Red murmured. “We’re going to have to work with these characters. Let’s get off to a good start.” The muttering subsided.

The lead party on those discs slowed smoothly before Marshal Kimmer. The marching troops came to a crisp halt, as precise as bots.

As the welcoming committee clambered down from their discs, Nilis, unmistakable in his antiquated skinsuit, gestured clumsily at Pirius. Reluctantly, Pirius abandoned his squadron and walked forward to join Kimmer and the other dignitaries. He stood beside Pila; she looked amused at his discomfiture.

The leader of the party was an extraordinarily tall and skinny man who, despite the careful tailoring of his skinsuit, was stiff and clumsy, and he had some trouble getting down off his disc. This official appeared to do a double take when he saw a Silver Ghost among the new arrivals.

Wheezing, the official puffed himself up and stepped forward to face Kimmer. The two of them looked oddly similar, Pirius thought; tall, thin, elegantly formed. “Marshal, welcome to Orion Rock!”

“Thank you—”

But Kimmer was taken aback when poles sprouted out of the hoverdiscs and thrust toward the stars. Virtual flags, adorned with the green tetrahedral sigil of free mankind, began to ripple in a nonexistent breeze.

The tall official said, “My name is Boote the Forty-Third—
Captain
Boote, I should say. I command here, and I place my base at your disposal. I am the one-hundred-and-nineteenth captain of this station, and the forty-third to wear the proud name of Boote.” He spoke comprehensibly, but he had a very strong, clipped accent. “For one thousand and fifty-seven years, sir, we have waited for the call. If today is the day we fight and die for the benefit of the Third Expansion of Mankind—if the purpose of this station is to be fulfilled on my watch—then I, Boote the Forty-Third, will be proud to take my place in history.” He struck his sunken chest with his fist.

“Thank you, Captain,” Kimmer said dryly. “I know you will do your duty.”

The two parties faced each other, motionless. As the delay lengthened, Pirius grew puzzled.

Pila leaned toward him so their helmets touched. “Go to the backup command loop.”

Pirius tapped his chest control panel, and he heard massed voices.
“
.
. . Named for a victory / Over Ghosts, a vanquished enemy / Our Rock, as firm as our resolve / Is dedicated to our duty . . .”
Now he saw the faces of the ranks of troops, their moving mouths. They were singing, he realized, all thousand of them, singing a song of welcome to their visitors. They even sang harmonies.

“The lyrics are none too tactful in the circumstances,” Pila murmured through his helmet.

Pirius glanced surreptitiously at the Ghost, but it showed no reaction to this song of triumph about its kind’s most terrible defeat.

The song went on and on. By now Nilis had coached Pirius in the need to be diplomatic, but by the fourth verse he had had enough. He switched to the squadron loop and ordered his crews to fall out. Then he confronted Captain Boote the Forty-Third. “Sir. Thanks for the song. Where’s the refectory?”

Kimmer glowered; Nilis looked mortified. Pila laughed.

Once he’d got his skinsuit stripped off, Pirius went straight to work.

In theory, so he’d been told, the base was fully equipped with all they needed to operate the squadron. He told Pila his target for resuming training flights was twenty-four hours. Again she laughed.

Captain Boote led Pirius and Nilis through the guts of the complex that had been dug into Orion Rock.

Boote wore a robe that trailed to the floor in languid, elegant drapes. His face and scalp had been shaved of every scrap of hair, even eyebrows and nostril hair.

If Boote was magnificent, so was the base he commanded. But like him, it was odd, too. In its layout it was essentially the same as every other Rock Pirius had visited, with the usual barracks, refectories, dispensaries, science labs, training facilities from classrooms to sim chambers, and technical facilities from environment systems to huge subsurface hangars.

But every other Rock had an air of shabbiness; a Rock always looked lived-in, because it
was,
by a bunch of squabbling, randy trainees and troopers who cared a lot more about sack time than about hygiene and neatness—and because, by Coalition policy, every military facility was cut to the bone in resources anyhow. A base was a place you left to go fight, not a place you longed to get back to.

Orion was different. Pirius had never seen a base so
neat.
In the barracks there wasn’t a blanket out of place. When they passed, all the troops sprang to attention and lined up neatly by their bunks, eerie grins plastered over their faces. Even the walls were smooth to the touch—worn at shoulder height by the passage of millions of young bodies.

Neat it might have been, but everywhere was dark, lit by only a few hovering globes. Pirius thought the air was a little cold, though it tasted fresh enough. Not only that, everybody—even the youngest children in the junior cadres—crept about quietly, treading softly and murmuring. Boote said it was always like this.

“Ah,” Nilis said. “Silent running.”

“What’s that?” They were both whispering; it was contagious.

“This is a covert base, remember. The crew are sailing toward the Xeelee, who must not suspect they are here. And they strive to keep everything below the level of the background noise of the Baby Spiral—their energy expenditure, their signaling. As for the whispering and creeping about, I don’t imagine it makes much practical difference, but, though I’m no expert on motivation, I should think it is good psychology—a constant reminder to
keep your head down.
”

Pirius peered around curiously at the wide-eyed children who smiled hopefully at him. He tried to imagine how it must be to have grown up in this claustrophobic environment of darkened corridors and whispers. But these kids had never known anything different; to them this was normal.

As they walked on, Boote proudly explained the origin of his name.

Of course there were no true families here, no heredity; that would be far too non-Doctrinal. This was a place of birthing tanks and cadres, like most military bases. But a tradition had grown up even so. The first Boote, centuries back, had been a fine Captain who had inspired loyalty and affection from all. When her successor had taken her name on his accession, to become Boote the Second, it had seemed the most natural thing in the world, a tribute that had become a badge of honor to the Captains who had followed, right down to this fine fellow, Boote the Forty-Third. Similarly there were “dynasties” among the engineers and medics, comm officers and pilots, and other specialist corps.

Nilis raised his eyebrows at Pirius, but said nothing. Wherever you went, a little deviance was inevitable, it seemed.

They were taken out onto the surface in a covered walkway. Nilis cringed from the crowded sky, but after that gloomy enclosure Pirius was relieved to be out under the healthy glow of the Core.

They surveyed earthworks dug into the ground. Teams of troopers in skinsuits were working in the trenches. They weren’t digging so much as refurbishing, Pirius saw. He had never seen earthworks so regular and neat—their walls were precisely vertical, their edges geometrically straight and dead neat. And he couldn’t see a trace of stray dust anywhere. The troops smiled as they worked, in precise formation.

In one part of the works the troops suddenly lunged out of their trenches and flopped onto the surface, across which they began to wriggle.

“They’re maneuvering,” said Pirius. “But it’s not an exercise. It’s more like a game.”

“Yes,” said Nilis. “And these earthworks are an ornamental garden. These folk have been isolated too long, Pirius. A trench is a place to fight and die. They have
domesticated
these trenches.”

Pirius slowly pieced together an understanding of this place.

Rocks were an essential element in most attacks on Xeelee concentrations; they provided cover, resources, and soaked up enemy firepower. But while most Rocks were purposefully deflected onto their required trajectories, Orion Rock, and a number of others, had natural orbits that took them into useful positions in the Core without deflection. So they could be used as cover, to mount covert operations.

But as the Core’s geography spanned light-years, travel times were painfully slow. The planners behind this place had been forced to think ahead, across no less than a thousand years—for that was how long Orion Rock would have to travel before it was in a position to be useful.

Nilis said gravely, “This is the scale of this war, Pirius. Orion Rock is like a generation starship sent to war: forty, perhaps fifty generations doomed to these dark tunnels, all the possibilities of their lives sacrificed to one goal, a strike on the Xeelee, a
single assault
that might be carried out in their children’s time, or their children’s children.

“
A thousand years,
though. On pre-Occupation Earth, a thousand years was a long time: time enough for empires to rise and fall, time enough for history. To us it is just a checkmark on a war planner’s chart!”

As the troops dug and marched and played at maneuvers, their mouths moved in unison, Pirius saw. They were singing again. But, thanks to some fault in the systems, he couldn’t hear their song.

They had been assigned a hangar, a huge one, beneath that paved-over crater where they had landed. Pirius went to inspect it. The hangar was big enough for a hundred greenships, let alone fifteen, and it was fully equipped with repair and maintenance facilities. Crisscrossed by walkways, full of hovering bots, the hangar was fully pressurized, although sections could be opened to vacuum when necessary. The working areas had been kept at microgravity—greenships were built for lightness, and were too frail to support their own weight under full gravity—but the floor and walkways were laced with inertial adjustors. Brightly lit by hovering globe lamps, it was a stunning facility by any standards.

But it didn’t have the feel of a workplace. It was too clean, too orderly. It didn’t even
smell
right; there was no electric ozone stink, or tang of lubricants, or the hot burning smell of metal that had been exposed to vacuum. It was like a museum; a place where you looked at greenships, rather than where you got your hands dirty working on them.

Pirius joined Enduring Hope, his ground crew leader. But Hope was accompanied everywhere by Eliun of the Guild of Engineers and a couple of that worthy’s aides. Since he had been outmaneuvered back on Arches, Eliun had barely let Hope out of his sight.

The party watched as their precious greenships, crudely modified, nestled into their graving docks.

Eliun punched Pirius in the shoulder, none too gently. “Look at that!” he said. “Pilot, these docks were built more than a thousand years ago. These greenships, on the other hand, are barely five years old—some of them younger than that. And yet dock and ship fit together hand in glove, every surface contoured to match, every interface locking, just as these ships could be lodged in any similar dock across the Galaxy. And why? Because of the Guild: I am talking about uniformity, sir, uniformity on galactic scales of space and time. How do you imagine such a war can be fought without this epic
sameness
?”

Pirius was short on sleep and overstressed. “Engineer Eliun, I don’t know anything about procurement policy. You’ll have to talk to Commissary Nilis.” The Engineer wasn’t satisfied with that, but Pirius turned deliberately to Enduring Hope. “So what do you think?”

Hope shrugged. “Technically, the hangar’s perfect. But look at this.” He led Pirius to one of the graving docks, where the battered hulk of an Exultant greenship now rested. He ran his bare hand over the massive cradle of fused asteroid rock, metal, and polymer. “It’s
worn,
” Hope said, wondering. “It’s the same everywhere. Every bit of equipment in this place is worn smooth, until you can see your face in it. For a thousand years they’ve done nothing but polish everything in sight.” Hope grinned nervously. “This is the strangest place I’ve ever seen.”

Pirius grunted. “Well, I don’t care about the last thousand years. All I care about is the next twenty-four hours, because at the end of it I want this place set up for our operations. Now. What about the cannon gear? Do you think you’ll have to cut through that roof to get it in here? . . .”

They walked on, talking and planning. Engineer Eliun tailed them for a while, but Pirius didn’t acknowledge him further, and after a time Eliun gave up and stomped away.

After the first twenty-four hours, they had achieved only a fraction of what Pirius had demanded. He called a crisis meeting in Nilis’s office.

Boote’s staff were an uninspiring bunch, soft, flabby-looking administrators and clerks who seemed to have no ambition save to replace the Captain one day. Boote at bay, though, had a glint in his eye, and Pirius had the feeling that he had a bit of steel in him, and would put up a fight.

It was yet another obstruction, just as they had encountered all the way from Earth. Pirius was hugely weary, impatient to get back to his ships, and he felt like biting somebody’s head off. The only thing he wanted, he kept reminding himself, was to get the job done.

He turned to Enduring Hope. “Engineer, why don’t you sum up how far we’ve got in twenty-four hours?”

Hope consulted a data desk. He looked as ticked off as Pirius felt. “The priorities are, one, setting up a manufactory on the far side of the Rock for producing the point black holes we will need for the cannon; two, modifying the hangar for our upgraded greenships.” He snapped the data desk down on the tabletop. “So far we’ve argued a lot, and we’ve laid down the foundations for the manufactory. And that’s it.”

Pirius said, “I wanted to be flying by”—he checked the Virtual chronometer that hovered over Pila’s head—“two hours ago. You all committed to that yesterday. What’s gone wrong?”

Hope took the bait. He jabbed a finger at Captain Boote. “It’s those people. They block everything we propose. Or they
defer
it for
discussion
further up the
chain of command.
” His tone, dripping with sarcasm, was deeply insolent. “They’re blocking us, Pirius.”

Captain Boote sputtered. “I won’t be spoken to like that!”

“Quite right,” Nilis murmured. “Why don’t you tell us your perception of the problem here, Captain?”

The Captain turned his magnificent hairless head to Pirius. “Squadron Leader, we support your project. That’s our function. But you must recognize the practical difficulties. For a thousand years—
a thousand years,
sir!—we have worked and polished and honed this base until it is perfectly fit for its purpose, which is to strike a great blow against the enemy. Now you are asking us to change all that. To rip holes in our walls—to install equipment so new it won’t even interface to our kit!” He held up his hands. “Of course we must accept the challenge of the new. But all I’m asking for is time; while recognizing the pressure of your schedule, a measured and thoughtful response . . .”

He talked smoothly, liquidly, one sentence blending into another so seamlessly that Pirius couldn’t see a way to cut into the flow. And he was so plausible that after a while Pirius found himself helplessly agreeing. Of course these new things couldn’t be done here; what other point of view was possible?

In the end Nilis managed to break into the monologue. “If I may say so, Captain, I think there is a failure of imagination here. You and your antecedents have been here so long, loyally following the dictates laid down long ago, that I don’t think any of you quite grasp that some day
all this must end.
”

Boote’s mouth dropped open. But then he shook his head. “If it is my generation that has the privilege of fulfilling the mission of Orion Rock, I will grasp the opportunity with both hands . . .” Once again he talked on. But it sounded like another rehearsed speech, and Pirius saw that he himself didn’t believe a word he was saying.

With a smooth motion, Captain Marta produced a handgun. Darc made a grab for the weapon, but Marta fired off her shot. Boote was hit in the arm. It was a projectile weapon, and the impact threw him backward off his chair and against the wall. For a moment his spindly legs waved comically in the air, while his aides flapped around him.

When they had him upright and back on his chair again, he had his hand clamped over a spreading patch of blood on his upper right arm. His face was florid with anger and fear.

Nilis was shocked into pallid silence. Pila hadn’t so much as flinched when the shot was fired; looking faintly annoyed, she brushed blood spots off her sleeve. Hope and Torec were trying hard not to laugh.

Boote pointed a shaking finger at Marta. “You shot me!”

“A flesh wound,” she said. “A half hour in sick bay will fix that.”

“I’ll have the hide flogged off your back for this.”

“That’s your privilege, sir,” Marta said evenly. “But I thought I should introduce a little reality into the discussion.
This is real,
Captain. The sky really is falling.”

Pirius stared at her. Then, as the silence lengthened, he realized it was his cue. He turned to Boote. “Captain, I’m not in a position to adjourn the meeting. Time is too short. I’ll ensure Captain Marta answers any charges you care to raise later. Commander Darc, would you accept her custody for now?”

Darc inclined his head ironically.

“Captain Boote, you need to be excused to get that graze seen to. In the meantime, who would you nominate to represent you in the continuing negotiations?”