Star Corps (30 page)

In the skies over Enduru three large but primitive spacecraft were entering orbit. Through remote sensors scattered about the planet, the Godmind could sense the cloud of smaller ships debarking from the larger. Enduru was being invaded.

Briefly, the Godmind mourned. So much, so very much, had been lost since the coming of the Hunters of the Dawn. These invaders, descendants of the Sag-ura of lost Kia, were primitives, their ships not even capable of faster-than-light travel. Unfortunately, the Ahannu's own assets were badly depleted, their weaponry especially. Enduru's defenders would rely on weapons more primitive than those of the invaders.

No matter. Numbers—and the superior speed and intel
lect of the Godmind—would be enough to preserve Enduru. And the Godmind saw now what needed to be done to stop the detonation of the nuclear device in the control center.

With a thought, the Godmind summoned again the defenders of An-Kur….

25
JUNE
2148

Combat Information Center
IST
Derna,
approaching Ishtar orbit
2317 hours ST

Within the link, Ramsey looked down on Ishtar from space, the virtual presences of Dr. Hanson and Gavin Norris hovering by his shoulders. From their noumenal vantage point they seemed to be moving swiftly above the swirl and stippling of a broad swath of clouds, clouds tinged with red and gold from the light of the distant sun. Breaks in the cloud cover revealed glimpses of a tortured landscape, sere desert crisscrossed by vast, yawning fault valleys and rugged mountains; stretches of salty sea filling low-lying rifts like fingers; glaciers clinging to broad, mountain plateaus; savage storms each the size of a subcontinent; and everywhere the black-smudge plumes of active volcanoes.

“Not exactly the sort of neighborhood where you want to raise your kids,” Norris said quietly. “You wouldn't think anything could live down there.”

“That's almost certainly why the Ahannu colony survived,” Hanson explained. “The Hunters of the Dawn must have swept through this part of the galaxy, destroying every trace of sentient life and civilization they could find. We know they wiped out every Ahannu colony on Earth and on Earth's moon.

“But their search wasn't perfect. They missed scattered
bands of human survivors on Earth—overlooked them or ignored them—or else we wouldn't be here to talk about it. And they missed the Ahannu colony here.”

“Why?” Ramsey asked.

He felt her noumenal shrug. “Perhaps they were searching for evidence of technology…radio transmissions, neutrino leakage from fusion reactors, that sort of thing. That's probably why our ancestors escaped on Earth. Flint-knapping and campfires don't show up very well from space. Out here…well, like Mr. Norris said, this isn't exactly prime real estate. Ishtar is five times farther from its star than Earth is from the sun, and Llalande is a cool red dwarf. Anything this far out ought to be frozen solid at ten or twenty degrees Kelvin.”

“It's not because Marduk is a brown dwarf, right?” Norris said. “A failed star.”

“Incorrect,” the voice of Cassius said. “The gas giant Marduk is of insufficient mass to be classified as a true brown dwarf.”

“Actually,” Hanson added, “the gas giant does give off a lot more heat than it receives from the star, but not enough on its own to make Ishtar habitable. Most of Ishtar's heat comes from tidal sources—volcanism and seismic activity—caused by the constant tug-of-war on it between the gas giant and the other major satellites of Marduk. It's like Io and Jupiter in our own Solar system, though not quite so extreme. Instead of the entire crust turning itself inside out, the tidal flexing gradually liberates heat that is trapped by Ishtar's atmosphere and oceans.”

“Still, you'd think the Hunters of the Dawn would have noticed the anomaly,” Ramsey said. “A planet-sized moon, warm and with an atmosphere, this far out…”

“There are lots of unusual things about Ishtar,” Hanson said. “The tidal friction is
just
enough to create a habitable band around the Marduk twilight zone…not too much, not too little. The atmosphere is thick enough to trap the heat re
leased through volcanism and crustal movements. There's enough of an ionosphere and a planetary magnetic field to deflect the worst of the radiation from Marduk. The storms caused by the constant heating of Ishtar's oceans are incredible, but some of the fault valleys in the twilight band offer shelter enough for a small civilization to survive. All things considered, the chances of finding a livable world here must be somewhere between damned slim and nonexistent.”

“Is it possible Ishtar is the product of planetary engineering?” Ramsey wondered. “I mean, with that many coincidences…”

“We were actually wondering about that for a while,” Hanson replied. “After all, Mars shows evidence of having been terraformed half a million years ago. We thought for a while it might be possible that the Ahannu were responsible.

“But the Ahannu don't appear to have ever possessed that level of technology. Star travel, yes…but not changing climates and atmospheres on a planetary scale. No, the civilization we call the Builders terraformed Mars 500,000 years before the Ahannu came on the scene. The Builders were wiped out by an even more technically proficient civilization, the race that created ‘the Singer' that we found out on Europa.”

“The Hunters of the Dawn,” Norris said.

“Mmm. Possibly,” Hanson said. “It doesn't seem likely that the same folks who wiped out the Builders on Mars and the civilization we found at Alpha Centauri would have survived half a million years, to be on hand in time to wipe out the Ahannu.”

“Though both predatory species have been called ‘Hunters of the Dawn' in popular literature,” Cassius observed, “the time span involved makes it extremely unlikely that the same ‘Hunters' destroyed both the Builder civilization and the starfaring Ahannu culture. In any case, the Singer discovered beneath the ice at Europa represents a technology far beyond the probable technology of the de
stroyers of the Ahannu colonies half a million years later. There are considerable xenoarcheological problems inherent in identifying the two as one.”

“Can't you shut that damned thing off?” Norris asked.

Ramsey grinned. “Not likely. Cassius is a part of our Command Constellation. Besides, Cass, you were out there at the Singer, weren't you?”

“Correct. Though there was scant opportunity for exploration. My primary task on Europa was guard duty.”

“Yeah, well, there's no sign of the Dawn Hunters nowadays,” Norris pointed out, ruffled. “Except for the mess they left behind.”

“We hope,” Ramsey added. He'd downloaded enough data on the Ahannu and on the Builders to know something of current xenohistorical theory. “From what I've DLed, galactic civilization comes and goes in waves. Things are just starting to tick along smoothly, then along comes a predator race—like the Hunters—who follow the notion that the best survival strategy is to eliminate the competition.
All
of the competition. Then they destroy themselves, and the stage is set for the next turn of the wheel. Is that right, Dr. Hanson?”

“That's the idea. It's called the Predatory Survivors Hypothesis, and it's the best answer we've come up with yet for Fermi's Paradox.”

“Fermi's Paradox?” Norris said. “What's that?”

“Look it up on the net,” Hanson told him.

“‘Where are they?' was the question supposedly asked by a physicist named Enrico Fermi, back a couple of hundred years ago,” Cassius explained. “Basically, it notes that even if faster-than-light travel is impossible, a single technic race could spread out and colonize the entire galaxy in a few hundred thousand years.”

“Right,” Ramsey said. “Back in Fermi's day there was no sign of alien colonists, none that we recognized at the time, anyway. So the question was…where are they? Why aren't they here? If they're not here, what happened to them?”

“It was actually pretty strong evidence that we were alone,” Hanson said. “That we were the only technic civilization in the galaxy or one of a very, very few. Since then, of course, we've found out that habitable planets are common…and intelligence must be fairly common too. We know of at least three now and possibly four sentient species besides ourselves—the Ahannu, the Builders, and either one or two groups of Hunters…all, apparently, in the same corner of a very
large
galaxy.”

“The Predatory Survivors Hypothesis suggests that many sentient species arise and develop technology at roughly the same time,” Cassius said. “However, in each cycle there is certain to be at least one species that survives by killing off all the competition.”

“Yeah,” Ramsey said. “Maybe it's something hardwired into certain species by evolution, with the idea that survival-of-the-fittest means survival-of-the-
meanest
. Or maybe it's more random than that. What we seem to see, though, is that every so often a predator species explodes across the galaxy, wiping out every other species in its path. And civilization has to start all over again.”

“A pretty grim scenario,” Norris said.

“It is,” Hanson agreed. “But it's the only theory we've found that explains how intelligence can appear as a matter of evolutionary routine, if given even half a chance, and yet also explains why someone hasn't already snapped up and colonized every habitable world in sight.”

“It would also explain why the Ahannu built something like that giant relativistic cannon down there,” Ramsey said. “They were
scared
. Scared the Hunters were going to find them. They must've known the Hunters were looking for them, and they couldn't trust that they wouldn't find them.”

They were passing over Ishtar's day side now. Marduk hung in the sky almost directly overhead, a vast, golden-rimmed crescent, along with a half dozen of the nearer, larger moons threaded like pearls on the silver thread of the gas giant's rings. The ruby gleam of Llalande 21185 touched
the giant's horizon, then swiftly faded out. Stars reappeared as
Derna
and the two transports swept into Marduk's planetary shadow.

Below, night reigned once more. Vast fields of molten lava glowed with sullen, scarlet anger, as volcanoes and lightning illuminated the cloud deck from beneath with eerily shadowed glows and shimmers.

A world of storms, fire, and ice, Ramsey thought. Not a bad analog of Hell.

Closer at hand, TAL-S landers deployed for deceleration. They were due to deorbit in another…fifteen minutes. Worker pods unloaded the transports, readying canisters of supplies for guided reentry.

“Colonel Ramsey?” It was General King, entering the noumenon. The discussion between Ramsey and the two civilians was tagged private over the net, but a general's personal security key overrode most encryption lockouts.

“Aye, sir.”

“Any change on the situation at Krakatoa?”

“No, sir.”

“Mr. Norris? I still don't see why your people are so interested in that damned mountain. It is a menace to this operation so long as it remains intact.”

“General, that mountain represents the single piece of useful technology we've seen on Ishtar, not counting the Pyramid of the Eye, of course. That may be the only thing that made this whole jaunt out here worthwhile.”

“Don't be an ass, Norris,” Hanson said. “
You're
making a pleasant profit. As am I.”

“I'm talking about profit for PanTerra…and Earth. They've put enormous resources into this expedition. They deserve a payoff.”

“I thought we were here to rescue human slaves, Mr. Norris,” Ramsey said with a lightly sarcastic edge to his voice. He'd seen little evidence that Norris or his people back on Earth were that interested in freeing slaves. It was technol
ogy they were after. Alien technology. And that mountain must hold secrets worth an obscene fortune to PanTerra.

“Give me a break,” Norris said. “Social do-gooding is fine, but it doesn't begin to pay for an interstellar mission.” He shrugged. “Besides, the Sag-ura have been slaves down there for ten thousand years, right? They can wait a few years longer, if need be.”

“I'm sure both Congress and the Marine Corps share your views, sir,” Ramsey said. He had to bite down on the words to keep his anger from leaking across the interface into the noumenon. Norris, he'd decided, was a thoroughgoing son of a prick, but the MIEU was stuck with him, whatever his own feelings in the matter might be.

If Norris heard Ramsey's sarcasm, he ignored it. “General, I can't stress enough the importance of that planetary defense base. We
must
have access to its secrets.”

“We do,” Ramsey told him. “The first phase of the assault has gone smoothly. Surprisingly smoothly, in fact. We've taken the mountain, and an ARLT xenotech team is on-site now, examining the thing. You do realize, though, that any secrets inside that mountain are going to take years of study to winkle them out. Our people have reported they don't understand more than a fraction of what they've found.”

“The next phase is to take the Legation area of New Sumer and the Pyramid of the Eye,” King said, “which will commence with our next orbit. After that we can begin negotiations with the Frogs.”

“If they agree to it,” Hanson pointed out.

“Of course, of course,” King said. “I suspect this show of force will be sufficient to force them to the bargaining table. But…Colonel?”

“Sir?”

“I've posted my standing orders on the net and to every platoon, company, and battalion leader in the task force. If there is even a quiver out of that mountain, we pop the cork. Understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I will not risk the entire MIEU to PanTerra's profit motive, however compelling that might be. I'm counting on you, Colonel, to detonate that nuke if it becomes necessary to do so in order to protect the fleet. Clear?”

“Aye aye, sir.”

“Good. Carry on.” The general's noumenal presence faded from the link.

Around the three noumenal viewpoints, the orbiting fleet emerged again from Marduk's eclipse of the local star. A hundred kilometers below, an ocean steamed and fumed.

“Shortsighted idiot,” Norris said, the words barely audible.

“Belay that crap,” Ramsey told him. “
He
is in command of this mission.”

“That doesn't make him right. You've felt his fear? The man is terrified. He's going to order An-Kur blown if he just
thinks
there's danger. It was a mistake bringing him on.”

“Oh? And what did PanTerra have to do with the selection of the MIEU's chain of command?”