The Hyperion Cantos 4-Book Bundle (198 page)

Suddenly the common band rasps and the girl’s voice comes over the Combat Control Center’s speakers. “Father Captain de Soya,” she says. There is no visual. “Please do not attempt to merge fields or board this ship. Any attempt to do so will be disastrous.”

De Soya glances at the readout. Fifteen seconds to fields merging. They have gone over this … no threats of suicide will prevent their boarding this time. Less than a hundredth of a second after the fields merge, all three of the MAGI torchships will spray the target ship with stunbeams.

“Think, Father Captain,” comes the girl’s soft voice. “Our ship is controlled by a Hegemony-era AI. If you stun us …”

“Stop fields merge!” snaps de Soya with less than two seconds
until that is to happen automatically. Acknowledgment lights flick on from the
Melchior, Gaspar
, and
Balthasar
.

“You’ve been thinking silicon,” continues the girl, “but our ship’s AI core is completely organic—the old DNA type of processor banks—if you stun us into unconsciousness, you stun it.”

“Damn, damn, damn,” de Soya hears. At first he thinks it is himself whispering, but he turns to see Captain Wu cursing under her breath.

“We are decelerating at … eighty-seven gravities,” continues Aenea. “If you knock our AI out … well, it controls all internal fields, the drives …”

De Soya switches to the engineering bands on the
St. Malo
and the MAGI ships. “Is this true? Will this knock out their AI?”

There is an unbearable pause of at least ten seconds. Finally Captain Hearn, whose Academy degree had been in engineering, comes on the tightbeam. “We don’t know, Federico. Most of the details of true AI biotechnology have been lost or suppressed by the Church. It is a mortal sin to …”

“Yes, yes,” snaps de Soya, “but is she telling the truth? Somebody here has to know. Will a DNA-based AI be at risk if we spray the ship with stunners?”

Bramly, the chief engineer on the
St. Malo
, keys in. “Sir, I would think that the designers would have protected the brain from such a possibility.…”

“Do you
know
?” demands de Soya.

“No, sir,” says Bramly after a moment.

“But that AI is totally organic?” persists de Soya.

“Yes,” comes Captain Hearn’s voice on tightbeam. “Except for the electronic and bubble-memory interfaces, a ship’s AI of that era would have been cross-helix-structured DNA held in suspension with …”

“All right,” says de Soya on multiple tightbeams to all ships. “Hold your positions. Do not … repeat … do not let the girl’s ship change course or attempt spinup to C-plus. If it attempts this, merge and stun.”

Acknowledgment lights flicker from MAGI and the outer ships.

“… so please don’t create this disaster,” comes the end of Aenea’s broadcast. “We are only trying to land on Renaissance Vector.”

Father Captain de Soya opens his tightbeam to her ship. “Aenea,” he says, his voice gentle, “let us board and we’ll take you to the planet.”

“I guess I’d rather land there myself,” says the girl. De Soya thinks that he can hear a hint of amusement in her voice.

“Renaissance Vector is a big world,” says de Soya, watching the tactical readout as he speaks. They are ten minutes from entering atmosphere. “Where do you want to land?”

Silence for a full minute. Then Aenea’s voice. “The Leonardo Spaceport in DaVinci would be all right.”

“That spaceport has been closed for more than two hundred years,” says de Soya. “Aren’t your ship’s memory banks more recent than that?”

Only silence on the com channels.

“There is a Pax Mercantilus spaceport at the western quadrant of DaVinci,” he says. “Will that do?”

“Yes,” says Aenea.

“You will have to change direction, enter orbit, and land under space traffic control,” tightbeams de Soya. “I will download the delta-v changes now.”

“No!” says the girl. “My ship will land us.”

De Soya sighs and looks at Captain Wu and Father Brown. Commander Barnes-Avne says, “My Marines can board within two minutes.”

“Her ship will be entering atmosphere in … seven minutes,” de Soya says. “At her velocity, even the slightest miscalculation will be fatal.” He keys the tightbeam. “Aenea, there is too much space and aircraft traffic over DaVinci for you to try a landing like this. Please instruct your ship to obey the orbital insertion parameters I’ve just transmitted and—”

“I’m sorry, Father Captain,” says the girl, “but we’re going to land now. If you want the spaceport traffic control to send up approach data, that would help. If I talk to you again, it’ll be when we’re all on the ground. This is … me … out.”

“Damn!” says de Soya. He keys Pax Mercantilus Traffic Control. “Did you copy that, Control?”

“Sending approach data … now,” comes the controller’s voice.

“Hearn, Stone, Boulez,” snaps de Soya. “You copy?”

“Acknowledged,” says Mother Captain Stone. “We’re going to have to break off in … three minutes ten seconds.”

De Soya flicks into tactical long enough to see the hub and
wheel breaking up as the torchships initiate their delta-v’s to achieve braking orbits. The ships were never designed for atmosphere. The
St. Malo
has been in orbit around the planet and now lies almost in the path of the girl’s ship as it brakes wildly before entering atmosphere. “Prepare my dropship,” commands de Soya.

“CAP?” he says over the planetary com channel.

“Here, sir,” comes Flight Commander Klaus’s acknowledgment. She and forty-six other Scorpions are waiting in combat air patrol high above DaVinci.

“Are you tracking?”

“Good plots, sir,” says Klaus.

“I remind you that no shots will be fired except under my direct command, Flight Commander.”

“Yes, sir.”

“The
St. Malo
will be launching … ah … seventeen fighters, which will follow the target ship down,” says de Soya. “My dropship will make the number eighteen. Our transponders will be set to oh-five-nine.”

“Affirmative,” says Klaus. “Beacons to oh-five-niner. Target ship and eighteen friendlies.”

“De Soya out,” he says, and unplugs his umbilicals to the Combat Control Center panels. Tactical space disappears. Captain Wu, Father Brown, Commander Barnes-Avne, Sergeant Gregorius, Kee, and Rettig follow him to the dropship. The dropship pilot, a lieutenant named Karyn Norris Cook, is waiting with all systems ready. It takes less than a minute for them to buckle in and launch from the
St. Malo
’s flight tube. They have rehearsed this many times.

De Soya is getting tactical feed through the dropship net as they enter atmosphere.

“The girl’s ship has wings,” says the pilot, using the ancient phrase. For millennia, “feet dry” has meant an aircraft crossing over land, “feet wet” signifies crossing over water, and “has wings” means translation from space to atmospheric travel.

A visual of the ship shows that this is not literally true. While data on the old ship suggests that it has some morphing capability, it has not actually grown wings in this case. Cameras from the defense pickets clearly show the girl’s ship entering the atmosphere stern-first, balancing on a tail of fusion flame.

Captain Wu leans close to de Soya. “Cardinal Lourdusamy
said that this child is a threat to the Pax,” she whispers so that the others cannot hear.

Father Captain de Soya nods tersely.

“What if he meant that she could be a threat to millions of people on Renaissance V.?” Wu whispers. “That fusion drive alone is a terrible weapon. A thermonuclear explosion above the city …”

De Soya feels his insides clamping with the chill of those words, but he has thought this out. “No,” he whispers back. “If she turns the fusion tail on anything, we stun the ship, shoot out its engines, and let it fall.”

“The girl …,” begins Captain Wu.

“We can only hope she’ll survive the crash,” says de Soya. “We won’t let thousands … or millions … of Pax citizens die.” He leans back in his acceleration couch and keys the spaceport, knowing that the tightbeam has to punch through the layer of ionization around the screeching dropship. Glancing at the external video, he sees that they are crossing the terminator: it will be dark at the spaceport.

“Spaceport Control,” acknowledges the Pax traffic director. “The target ship is decelerating on our directed flight path. Delta-v is high … illegal … but acceptable. All aircraft traffic cleared for a thousand-kilometer radius. Time to landing … four minutes thirty-five seconds.”

“Spaceport secured,” chimes in Commander Barnes-Avne on the same net.

De Soya knows that there are several thousand Pax troops in and around the spaceport. Once the girl’s ship is down, it will never be allowed to take off again. He looks at the live video: the lights of DaVinci gleam from horizon to horizon. The girl’s ship has its navigation lights on, red and green beacons flashing. The powerful landing lights flick on and stab downward through clouds.

“On path,” comes the traffic controller’s calm voice. “Deceleration nominal.”

“We have a visual!” cries CAP commander Klaus over the net.

“Keep your distance,” tightbeams de Soya. The Scorpions can sting from several hundred klicks out. He does not want them crowding the descending ship.

“Affirmative.”

“On path, ILS reports nominal descent, three minutes to touchdown,” the controller calls up to the girl’s ship. “Unidentified ship, you are cleared to land.”

Silence from Aenea.

De Soya blinks in tactical. The girl’s ship is a red ember now, almost hovering ten thousand meters above the Pax spaceport. De Soya’s dropship and the fighters are a klick higher, circling like angry insects.
Or vultures
, thinks the father-captain. The Llano Estacado had vultures, although why the seedship colonists had imported them, no one knew. The staked plains—the stakes being the atmosphere generators set in a grid every thirty klicks—had been dry and windy enough to reduce any corpse to a mummy within hours.

De Soya shakes his head to clear it.

“One minute to landing,” reports the controller. “Unidentified ship, you are approaching zero descent rate. Please modify delta-v to continue descent along designated flight path. Unidentified ship, please acknowledge.…”

“Damn,” whispers Captain Wu.

“Sirs,” says Pilot Karyn Cook, “the ship has stopped descending. It’s hanging there about two thousand meters above the spaceport.”

“We see it, Lieutenant,” says de Soya. The ship’s red and green lights are flashing. The landing lights on the rear fins are bright enough to illuminate the spaceport tarmac more than a mile and a half below them. Other spacecraft at the port are dark; most have been pulled into hangars or onto secondary taxiways. The circling aircraft, including his own dropship, show no lights. On the multiple tightbeam he says, “All ships and aircraft, keep your distance, hold your fire.”

“Unidentified ship,” says the Pax controller, “you are drifting off path. Please resume nominal descent rate at once. Unidentified ship, you are leaving controlled airspace. Please resume controlled descent at once.…”

“Shit,” whispers Barnes-Avne. Her troopers wait in concentric circles around the spaceport, but the girl’s ship is no longer above the spaceport—it drifts over the center of DaVinci. The ship’s landing lights wink off.

“The ship’s fusion drive shows no signs of coming on,” de Soya says to Captain Wu. “Note that it’s on repulsors alone.”

Wu nods but is obviously not satisfied. A fusion-drive ship
hovering above an urban center is like a guillotine blade over an exposed neck.

“CAP,” calls de Soya, “I’m moving within five hundred meters. Please close with me.” He nods to the pilot, who brings the dropship down and around in a predatory swoop. In their rear couches Gregorius and the other two troopers sit stiffly in full combat armor.

“What the hell is she up to?” whispers Commander Barnes-Avne. On his tactical band de Soya can see that the commander has authorized a hundred or so troopers to rise on reaction paks to follow the drifting ship. To the external cameras the troopers are invisible.

De Soya remembers the small aircraft or flying pak that had plucked the girl from the Valley of the Time Tombs. He keys ground control and the orbital pickets. “Sensors? Are you watching for small objects leaving the target ship?”

The acknowledgment is from the primary picket ship. “Yes-sir … don’t worry, sir, nothin’ bigger’n a microbe’s gonna get out of that ship without us trackin’ it, sir.”

“Very good,” says de Soya.
What have I forgotten?
Aenea’s ship continues floating slowly over DaVinci, heading north-northwest at about twenty-five klicks per hour—a slow, vertical dirigible drifting on the wind. Above the ship swirl the fighters that have entered atmosphere with de Soya’s dropship. Around the ship, like the rotating walls of a hurricane around the eye, are the CAP Scorpions. Beneath, flitting just above city buildings and bridges, tracking proceedings on their own suit-visor infrared sensors and tracking feeds, fly the spaceport Marines and troopers.

The girl’s ship floats on silent EM repulsors over the sky-scrapers and industrial areas of DaVinci on Renaissance Vector. The city is ablaze with highway lights, building lights, the green swaths of playing fields, and the brightly lit rectangles of parking areas. Tens of thousands of groundcars creep along ribbons of elevated highways, their headlights adding to the city light show.

“It’s rotating, sirs,” reports the pilot. “Still on repulsors.”

On video as well as tactical, de Soya can see Aenea’s ship slowly turning from the vertical to the horizontal. No wings appear. This attitude would be strange for the passengers, but makes no practical difference—the internal fields must still be
controlling “up” and “down.” The ship, looking more than ever like a silver dirigible drifting with the soft breezes, floats over the river and railyards of northwest DaVinci. Traffic control demands a response, but the com channels remain silent.

What have I forgotten?
wonders Father Captain de Soya.

When Aenea asked the ship to rotate to the horizontal, I admit that I almost lost my composure for a moment.