Faith (52 page)

Cyr had already started. Even before Kaang brought them to rest the beams were stabbing out, and even before they reached Her, Foord had seen something which made him shout in triumph. He had been watching the Bridge screen readouts, and it was clear She had made a mistake.

She had again diverted only minimal power to Her flickerfields, leaving them almost transparent and deploying them whole nanoseconds late. Cyr’s dark blue beams punched into them and almost through them; but not quite. They dissipated less than fifty feet from Her flank. Foord felt his shoulders drop—that had been their best chance, maybe their only one—but Cyr swore, loudly and sickeningly, and fired again. This time She diverted more power to the fields. They were transluscent now and they deployed earlier, but they were still below strength and the beams again almost penetrated them; and again, dissipated less than fifty feet from Her. Cyr screamed at the image on the Bridge screen, smashed a fist into her console, and fired again, and again. She was firing manually; automatic fire would have preserved intervals for the beams to power up, and Cyr would not tolerate any intervals, even if she overloaded the beams. She said so, out loud, staring wildly round the Bridge where they stared back at her; she
explained
it to them, in terms, but it came out of her only as a scream. Foord had never heard her scream before, not on the ship.

Only Kaang and the beams can hurt Her, Cyr explained, and She might already know what’s inside Kaang, so there might only be the beams, and the beams might only work
now
, when Her fields are underpowered, and Might Might Might the future
isn’t
fixed and I won’t, not Might but won’t, limp around in incontinence pants at ninety. She
explained
it to them, in terms, but it came out of her only as a scream, broken by fits of coughing when she tried to draw breath, but couldn’t.

Foord stared at her and thought, I’ve heard you be many things—spiteful, vicious, even merely unpleasant—but always in packets of words. You always choose words. I’ve never heard you like this. What’s happened to you?

“Cyr! That’s enough. Go back to automatic, you’ll overload the beams.”

She couldn’t speak. She shook her head No, and tried to form words, then pointed at the Bridge screen.

Words came. “Fuck yourself!” she spat. Literally spat; it was dribbling down her chin. Her mouth was like one of Smithson’s orifices.

“That’s
enough.
Put the beams on automatic. Now.”

She was still firing manually. The beams were still punching through the fields to within fifty feet of Her, but no further.

Cyr broke into more coughing. “Do you realise,” she managed to say, “how close I was?”

“And put your emotions on automatic too.”

Cyr glared at him, wiped the spit from her face and flung it in his direction—a gesture he chose to ignore, fortunately for both of them. Then she shrugged, and complied. The beams went back to automatic fire, and it settled into the usual pattern: their beams, and Her fields.

The beams continued on automatic, and She used their powering-up intervals to divert more power to the fields. As She did so, the cold white light on the Bridge started to diminish, and the unmoving blank figure diminished with it. It went from opaque to transluscent, as Her fields powered up from transluscent to opaque. The beams continued to fire, but got no closer. There was almost a co-operation in the way both ships settled into their usual stalemate.

This was part of what had incensed Cyr. She locked eyes with Foord.

“What’s happened to you?” he asked.

“You wanted Her more than anything,” she told him, “more than you wanted me, and I could have given Her to you, but you wanked it away.”

Foord had no answer. She’s like my own skin, he thought, even when she sickens me I can never cast her off. He turned to Smithson and asked “Are you all right?”

“Yes, Commander. All it did was recite my two names. It said nothing you don’t already know.” He performed a deprecatory movement of his upper torso. “The translations will be ready by now. Play them if you wish; we seem to have time.” He gestured towards the Bridge screen, where the stalemate of beams and flickerfields continued.

Foord wasn’t so sure about having time. The stalemate suited both ships, but only until one of them found how to do something extraordinary. Like, in Her case, duplicating Kaang’s abilities.

“Kaang, what do you think? Was She lying?”

“I don’t know, Commander,” she said, unhappily. She never liked these conversations, and Foord usually let her avoid them. But not this time.

“Try. I need your opinion.”

“You once told me that if the Commonwealth ever understood what I have, and if they could copy it and put it into others, they’d kill me to get it. Remember?”

“Maybe the Department rather than the Commonwealth, but I remember” said Foord, shifting his gaze between Kaang and the screen, where something had caught his attention.

“They tried everything to understand it, and they never could. Neither could I.”

“Yes. And so?” While she spoke, Foord stole more glances at the screen. Something there was wrong.

“So I don’t know if She was lying.”

“Oh. I see.” Foord would normally have been exasperated, but something else had distracted him. When he realised what it was he went to shout Cyr’s name, but before he could do so, Kaang continued.

“We went through this when I joined you, Commander. I’m only your pilot. Please don’t ask me about other things.”

“Right, I won’t…Cyr!”

More of the white light drained from the Bridge, and the empty figure in front of them started to fade. The reason was that She had diverted more power to Her flickerfields, and the reason for that was that Cyr had killed the automatic override on the beams and was again firing manually. On the Bridge screen they were stabbing at Her almost continuously. The fields too were almost continuous, a thick purple cloud roiling around Her; She looked like something bleeding underwater. Cyr’s continuous fire was still punching almost through the fields, despite their extra power; the purple cloud was being pulled this way and that by the dark blue shafts Cyr was throwing into it, from different directions and angles.

Cyr had become quiet, as abruptly as she had become incoherent. Now she was playing her firing-panels coldly and without apparent haste, the way Kaang would pilot the ship; taking the beams almost but not quite to overload, the way Kaang would take the ship almost but not quite to destruction.

“Cyr!”

“No, Commander, I’ve almost got Her, I can give you what you want.”

“Go back to automatic, Cyr. That’s an order.”

“Commander,” Smithson said, “let her go on firing manually. I have an idea.” He spoke briefly into his comm, and nodded. “Yes, we can do it. Commander, let her go on firing manually.”

“Smithson, what—”

“No time.” Smithson’s gaze swept the Bridge. “Brace for an emergency. This will seem worse than it is.”

But there was only a near-quietness, punctuated by the ship’s murmurings to itself and the low rhythmic pulse of the particle beams. In the dwindling light the blank figure was barely visible. It stood among them like a dead tree in a copse of living ones, with evening falling.

There was a dull faraway explosion in the
Charles Manson
’s midsection, in the area of the particle beam generators. The alarms sounded, and the Bridge screen patched in a view of the starboard midsection, where some hull plates had been blown away. The ship lurched, but Kaang immediately righted it. Repair synthetics were already scuttling over the hull.

“It’s nothing, Commander,” Smithson said, over the shouts and alarms, “it’s a fake. Best we could do at short notice, but She might buy it. Damage is minor.”

“Damage?”

“Cyr,” Smithson continued, “cut the beams’ power by twelve point five percent.”

“What?”

Foord said “Cyr, I see what he wants. Do it now. Don’t disobey me again.”

Cyr did it, and started to understand.

“Twelve point five percent,” Smithson intoned smugly, “is consistent with a blowout of one beam generator. You overloaded the beams. Remember?”

“You mean,” Cyr said, “that if She thinks a generator’s blown, She might…”

“Might cut the power to Her fields and divert it back here, yes. So if that thing over there comes back to life and starts talking to us, you get your shot. You can fire your beams on full power.”

Cyr laughed, softly. “You clever bastard.”

The near-silence was still punctuated by the ship’s murmurings to itself and the low rhythmic pulse of the particle beams; the beams were on automatic and firing on reduced power, and the thick purple flickerfields held them easily. The empty figure standing among them was almost nothing, a bruise on the surface of the air. A minute hung, quivering, and dropped. Foord felt something like vertigo, as if the floor had turned to glass and cracks were racing across it; he suddenly saw how much might hang on the next few moments.

Cyr caught his expression as it raced across his face.

“Are you scared She might not buy it, Commander?”

“Not scared. Unsure.”

“Don’t be. She’ll buy it.
Then,
you can be unsure.”

“What made you say that?”

“The future isn’t fixed. Least of all for you, Commander.”

Foord glanced at her curiously, started to reply, then forgot her. The temperature plummeted. Cold light was flooding back into the Bridge, Smithson was bellowing
I Told You So,
and the empty figure was starting to fill. The light went everywhere, and the figure drew substance out of it; then shape; then surface textures, and skin colour, and posture. And lastly, identity.

When it finally stood before them, slender and graceful and slight of build, it surprised none of them.

•

Thahl’s replica did not blink in the light—Sakhrans rarely blinked—and it did not look round the Bridge to find the one it came for. Apart from a brief glance at Foord, it paid no attention to anyone except Thahl. It was not Thahl’s exact double; perhaps slightly older, though signs of aging were difficult to gauge in Sakhrans.

“Well,” Thahl said.

“Well,” said the replica.

“Why did She leave me to last?”

“Because,” said the replica, “the others were more interesting.”

“Yes, of course. No secrets about me.” Thahl’s face and voice, like those of the replica, were expressionless; Sakhran humour was as quiet as Ember humour was cruel.

“Me neither,” agreed the replica. “I have nothing to reveal.”

On the Bridge screen, the stalemate of beams and flickerfields continued. Cyr had no intention of firing the beams on full power yet—it would be too early, and too obvious—but Foord still watched her closely.

“Or almost nothing,” added the replica. “There’s your mission.”

“Well?”

“Well, it turned out satisfactorily. Three years ago—three years ago for me—the
Charles Manson
pursued Her through the Gulf to Sakhra, and finally destroyed Her one-to-one in front of Horus Fleet.”

“Yes, that would be satisfactory,” Thahl agreed. “And there’s nothing else you have to tell us?”

“No, nothing,” agreed the replica.

Foord still watched Cyr; she still fired the beams on reduced power, and made no move yet to go to full power.

“Or almost nothing. There’s Foord.”

“Foord?”

“Foord left me—sorry, left
you
—on Sakhra while he returned to Earth and enjoyed the glory. But on Sakhra we knew what Srahr had written. We knew what Faith was, and we knew She would always come again. There will always be more Faiths.”

For some reason, the replica paused.

“Was there any more,” Thahl prompted, “about Foord?”

The replica seemed embarrassed; unusual for a Sakhran, even a replica. When it next spoke, its voice was different. Almost apologetic.

“Foord could never stop thinking about Her. Finally he returned to Sakhra, and read the Book. Then he wrote one of his own, which in deference to us he called the Second Book of Srahr, and he did to the Commonwealth what Srahr did to us. When they read what She was they turned away from each other, like we did. Something went from their lives, and they never got it back.”

Cyr fired the beams on full power. The future consumed another millionth of itself, and exploded all the way back to Sakhra.

9

Something unexpected had happened in the Gulf, and Swann was about to feel its first ripples.

When the
Charles Manson
lifted off from Sakhra, and the strange civil disturbances began, Swann had retreated to his Command Centre at Blentport. Like a dying pharaoh, he had ordered that his staff be buried there with him. Through the days following, it had been full of their noise and movement and smell, and the mounting layers of their detritus. They had grown hot and dirty and tired together, struggling to read things which were unreadable: the disturbances on Sakhra, and the events in the Gulf.

The Command Centre had once been spacious, symmetrical and well-ordered; now it was crowded, not only with people but with chaotic piecemeal additions. The space between its orderly rows of consoles was filled with other consoles. It was walled and even ceilinged with screens, most of them—like the consoles—commandeered from other parts of Blentport. The screens were wide-angle and high-definition, paper-thin so they could be stuck like posters over any spare flat surface. Some of them showed the final stages of Horus Fleet’s deployment round Sakhra, now almost complete, and all the others—except one—showed the civil disturbances.

Sakhra was not being engulfed by some mass uprising—neither Sakhrans nor Sakhran humans did their politics like that—but it was being prodded, here and there, by outbreaks of unease. Swann rubbed his forehead, feeling grit and sweat in his fingers. He was hot and dirty and tired from trying to read unreadable things. The disturbances were bad enough, but the events in the Gulf were worse.

There was one screen in the Command centre, the largest, which showed no images, only binary readouts and schematics and text headups, their windows crowding untidily over each other like a miniature of all the other screens on all the other walls. This was where Swann’s analysts tried to piece together the engagement in the Gulf. All through the days of Swann’s confinement it had been adding and subtracting information, as the analysts did sweep after sweep of their limited and partial data sources, updating them in sequence. The updates moved round the screen like an invisible clock hand, rippling the words and figures as it rearranged them. Each sweep took about a minute; then after thirty seconds the next one began, and the next, as unnoticed as the rise and fall of breathing.