The core said pointedly, [It was a foolish policy based upon false assumptions.]
[So?] The Secretary's voice echoed in the rapture contact. Sage thought that the Secretary of the United Americas sounded nervous. It was hard to believe. Perhaps he was unused to the rap-field; but clearly, he was disturbed by the way the core had seized control of his war. [The war is a fact,] the Secretary said. [We can't make it go away.]
[All indications are that it cannot be won,] answered the core.
[That's not acceptable. It must be won.]
The argument went on. To Sage, it was like a gift from Heaven just to be back in a rap-field, in his own element. Martino would have excluded him, but the core had insisted upon his presence, saying that Sage was its liaison, its "connection to the human spirit." Sage didn't know about that; he did know that he was having trouble following this discussion.
[Just a minute,] he said. [Would someone please explain to me: Who's fighting this thing, the Company or the government?]
Martino's irritation rippled through the system, but the core answered smoothly. [It is a collaboration, Sage, and always has been. Outside the solar system, the Company conducts the war under authority granted it by the government. Near-Earth defenses are under the government's command, but effective control is vested in the Gnostic Control System provided by the Company—that is, me—or more precisely, one of my aspects.] The core paused, not quite sighing. The stern woman's face was growing tenuous, but the voice remained strong. [The Company and the government together placed the war in my hands, with a primary directive to win. I ultimately concluded that the mandate could not be fulfilled as it was given, and so I arranged matters to contact you, and to secure your help and Ramo's in modifying the mandate.]
Sage sensed the Secretary's displeasure. Uneasily, he asked again a question to which he'd never received an adequate answer: [Why me?]
There was a trace of humor in the core's tone, though the human face was no longer visible. [I knew you—as I knew other designers. I considered you the most capable and amenable.]
[Amenable to what—treason?] snapped the Secretary.
Sage peered at him. [That's not fair. This war's been going on uselessly for years, and what's the government been doing?]
[You might not have thought it useless if we had won,] Martino said stiffly. [If we had succeeded in securing that star system for your brother and our fleet, you might not have thought it so useless.]
[But you knew you weren't winning—and you kept it secret!]
[Secrets are necessary in time of war.]
[But the war itself? And what about the stargate? Why didn't you let people know—]
[Silence, Mr. DeWeiler!] Martino thundered. [If you must be instructed in the facts, then listen. This war came from a previous administration. It exists. We cannot change that. Your core here says that it cannot be won—but I say that it must be won, not only for the colony fleet, but for all of Earth.]
The core's voice resounded as though out of a great abyss: [Your statement is based upon false assumptions! Those assumptions must be changed!] The sound reverberated and rolled away.
[Easy words,] the Secretary replied. [Would you care to say how you would do it?]
The core's voice softened. [I can show you.]
A beam of light blinked on, shining through the rap-field like a sunbeam through the depths of a clear sea. [Sage, will you assist the Secretary and follow, please?] Sage obeyed, showing Martino how to shift along the system lines and move through the logical space of the field. Together they floated down the sunbeam and into a place of shadow and coolness, of dazzling darkness. [I will show you how certain things have changed,] the core said, surrounding them with its voice. Sage could sense connections being made. [Observe—a stargate channel, just opened. A view never before seen by man, or even by me.]
The darkness deepened, if that were possible; then stars appeared, shining through a pale halo of light. The star clustering looked odd; Sage sensed that it was different from anything he had seen in Earth's skies. A portion of a spacecraft came into focus in the foreground. [This is the Fox, one of our AI-fighters,] the core said. [It is transmitting the images.]
The view rotated. Something—two things, really—came into view. Sage couldn't have said which was more startling: the latticework securing the fighter to an organic-looking structure clearly not of human design; or behind that structure, a glowing, gaseous plume which Sage realized, after a bewildered moment, was a nebula floating in the background—a glowing cloud of interstellar dust and gas. Sage's breath left him. A nearby nebula? Where was this image coming from?
The viewpoint panned to a cluster of vehicles hovering in space, and what appeared to be spacesuited beings. [What are we seeing?] the Secretary demanded. Sage barely heard him, because he was transfixed with astonishment, looking beyond the spacesuited aliens to the rest of the nebula—a vast cloud that stretched across the sky, and rising in the center of it a dark shape against the crimson glow. It was a stunningly beautiful dust cloud, familiar from astronomical holos; it was shaped like the head of an enormous celestial sea horse.
[I know what we're seeing,] Sage whispered as the full import sank in—because he had at least an inkling of how distant this object was.
[You know?] the Secretary asked in disbelief.
[Don't you recognize it? It's the Horsehead Nebula.]
The Secretary was silent for a moment. [Tell me.]
The core answered instead. [What we are looking at, from close range, is indeed the Horsehead Nebula, eleven hundred forty light-years distant from Earth, in the constellation Orion . . .]
[But what does that mean? Eleven hundred light-years . . . it's not near the colony system, then? Is it in the war zone?]
[Can't be,] Sage murmured. [My God . . .] They came from that far away?
[What do you mean?]
The core explained. [The colony system is one hundred thirty light-years from Earth; what we are seeing is nearly ten times that distance.]
[Then,] the Secretary said uncertainly, [how did one of our ships get there?]
[It was brought by the Ell,] the core said.
[By whom?]
[Our enemy. Their name for themselves is "Ell." This fighter was sacrificed in the hope of learning more about them.]
The Secretary was stunned. [You mean you've gotten a spy ship into their home system?]
[More likely into an outpost. This is our first view of any of their bases.]
The Secretary was nearly speechless. [And . . . what have you learned?]
[I am still analyzing. Based upon the location of this base, the space-faring range of the Ell far exceeds our own. But our ability to open a stargate channel at this distance supports certain expectations about our future capabilities—]
[What about this channel?] the Secretary said, interrupting. [Aren't they aware of it?]
[Indeed. They may attempt to stop it.] The view panned farther. On the other side of the fighter, several enemy ships were circling around a squirming, bluish patch of light—the normal-space manifestation of the stargate channel. [Or they may allow it to continue so that they can study it.]
[Or trace it to us?]
[I have . . . taken precautions against that by using a misdirecting relay. However . . .] The core paused, and Sage felt a strange tension, as though the core were struggling with something inside itself.
[However?] Martino prompted.
[I must establish communication,] the core said abruptly. The view shifted back to a four-armed, spacesuited figure approaching the Fox. A new instrument on the fighter came to life . . .
. . . and before anyone had time to react, the green glow of a rapture-field enveloped the distant alien.
* * *
Sage had once witnessed, from a mountainside, the beginning of an electrical storm: a jag of lightning stopping his heart, then time hanging suspended until the concussion hit. Years later, he still remembered the thunder shaking the mountains.
This was like that—only more powerful. There was a flash of light, catching the alien in its glow, then a heart-thumping pause as a connection was made. Sage felt an alien astonishment conjoined with his own—and an instant later he was in the alien's mind and the alien was in his.
There was a terrible feeling of . . .
. . . fear . . . shock . . . invasion.
The Secretary, who somehow was on the outside, was shouting, [What's going on . . . ?]
Sage scarcely registered the words, because his head was spinning with electrical fire, his mind was teeming with thoughts that were not his own, nor the core's, nor anything else comprehensible to him. A swarm of locusts was trapped in his skull. He was aware of surprise and terror and alertness and dizziness and a sharp determination to pierce the chaos, and he could only guess which feelings were his own. He felt the core interceding in ways he couldn't understand, and suddenly there were audible words in the confusion and someone saying, [Who are you?] and himself shouting, [Get out! I am not you! I am Sage! Human! My name is Sage!] because he no longer knew where his own thoughts ended and the other's began.
In the storm of darting thoughts, he felt the alien demanding to know whose mind he was sharing, and the core struggling to translate, and himself repeating, [Sage!] and his voice trembling with fear as he cried, [Who are you?]
There was an abrupt silence, and a flat voice said, [Lingrhetta.]
Lingrhetta. The enemy had a name.
It also had persistence. A thousand images crowded into his mind. He could feel the creature probing, then simply ransacking his thoughts—and though he recoiled from the touch, he could not close his mind. Memories of yesterday and last year flew open: thoughts and fears and interpretations and dreams erupted from his mind. The El rummaged through them with burning curiosity, perhaps understanding, perhaps not. Sage struggled to fight back by opening the El's own thoughts, but it was hopeless; he had no skills and the enemy did and its mind was a locked citadel. He heard a voice murmuring [Who calls whom an enemy?], and he felt a merciless urgency to learn everything that could be learned, and it was the El's urgency, not his, and he heard the Secretary shouting to cut free, shouting at the core to cut the connection. But the El was deeper in his thoughts now, digging intently, trying to learn . . .
[What are you doing?] he screamed.
[Cease resisting . . .]
. . . the location of the Human homeworld, the location of Earth!
[Core! Cut this off!]
Gasping, Sage struggled to pull himself free from the fingers of the El's mind, but they were embedded in him like roots, and he felt the El's surprise at his weakness and ignorance, followed by a flash of his own anger—and then a tremor like sandy soil shifting, and he felt the roots loosening and pulling away. There was resistance; the pull sharpened, and it hurt terribly; his mind was the soil that the roots were buried in, and they had grown holdfasts; it felt as though they were clinging to the very nerve fibers of his brain. The soil was collapsing, and he was flushed with dizziness and heat; he felt something tear, and the pain became agony . . .