Egret sat slumped against the wall in the dance room, a breakfast plate and a steaming mug of moke beside him. His eyes were closed against the morning sun streaming through the skylight. The walls seemed to echo, still, from last night's jamdam. He had awakened feeling distracted and disturbed; two bites of his toast and he'd lost his appetite. "I can't figure it," he murmured as Silver walked into the room.
Silver paused. "What can't you figure?"
"Ramo—the way he twigged out like that, just when things were at a pitch. And, you know, the others. Last night. Whoever they were." He shook his head. "Some strange, Silver."
Silver didn't answer, but Elina had walked in behind him, and she looked from one man to the other. "Aren't you going to tell him?" she asked Silver.
Scratching his temple, Silver said, "We have a theory, actually. As to who our visitors were last night." Egret raised his eyebrows as Silver continued, "I guess you haven't watched the morning news." Egret shook his head. "About the rumors that aliens are circling the planet?"
Egret looked from Silver to Elina and back. "Joke, right?" Something in Elina's eyes was stealing his breath away.
Silver was shaking his head, looking wistful. "No, it was on the news, all right." He laughed. "But we must have sounded pretty good to them. They haven't attacked yet."
* * *
The Secretary sipped his fourth cup of coffee in three hours and tried to wish away the acid sourness in his stomach. He picked up the latest summary and skimmed:
MILITARY READINESS:
Orbital forces remain in disarray. Arab and Afro forces predominate, with ours, in high Earth orbit . . . others in low and geosync . . . ability to coordinate under attack conditions remains in doubt . . . unclear what level of cooperation can be expected . . .
BATTLE DAMAGE:
Celeste asteroid outpost: destroyed, all inhabitants presumed dead . . . Delta Station: heavily damaged, effectively out of action, 4 manned and 13 unmanned fighters redeployed inward to cislunar space . . . Beta Gnostic Processing Station: heavily damaged, removed from the gnostic-system circuit . . . gnostic system: nonfunctional . . .
INTERNATIONAL SUMMARY:
International Security Council in secret session . . . limited information made available as per executive order . . .
Commercial space activities continue, with limited gnostic control . . . efforts to contain public disclosure only partly successful . . . news reports proliferating with rumors and leaks . . . despite estimated 78% skepticism, panic in population centers is a threat . . . civil defense procedures under advisement . . .
STRATEGIC PROGNOSIS
Enemy fleet encircling planet in translunar orbit . . . distance and dispersal dictate against an offensive by our forces at this time . . . enemy intentions unknown . . . may be awaiting some event, possibly arrival of additional forces . . . or attack may come at any time . . .
Situation dire. Restoration of full gnostic control is paramount . . .
The Secretary initialed the report and tossed it aside. He swallowed the last of his cold coffee. It was almost nine in the morning. His offices had been a madhouse throughout the night. A delegation from the McConwell Company was here, maintaining a watch over their interests, which at the moment coincided with his—that is, hoping and praying for the restoration of their gnostic system, and a coordinated space defense. Even they had finally begun worrying about the planet's survival over their proprietary secrets.
Martino raised an eyebrow. "Any word from DeWeiler and Romano?" he demanded of an aide.
The aide shook his head, blinking; he hadn't slept, either. "Nothing. Still in rap, no sign of change."
The Secretary felt a rush of sickening weariness. "They've been in there for ten hours."
"Yes, sir—but we don't dare try to force a contact."
Martino felt his impatience swell. How much longer did they have? He squeezed his hands into fists, nodded a dismissal, and let his eyes fall closed for a moment. Don't dare? he thought. We'd better start learning to dare.
* * *
There was no way to be sure of the precise moment when consciousness returned, but it was as clean a change as ice to water. The hardness and cloudiness vanished, and memories flowed like water over a spillway:
Sage
and Ramo
and Pali
and the Ell
Harybdartt
and Lingrhetta
and the colony fleet
and music . . .
. . . and the responsibility for fighting a war; and the struggle for the freedom to fight it as it needed to be fought, and the decisions that followed . . . and the review of them was like a litany, a history of the world as the core knew it, though it took only a few hundred thousand nanoseconds to review them all.
And one detail in particular stood out: the Fox.
The Fox. Sent to be captured, to gain intelligence, to establish communication. Sent to betray the location of the Earth's sun.
Only now did that last fact register.
Something crucial was coming into focus, and that was that certain facts in the previous incarnation had been hidden. Certain events had occurred as a result of deliberate, but unconscious or unnoticed, decisions on the part of the core itself. The core's failure—the incorporation into the Fox of clues that led the enemy to Earth—had been no accident, nor oversight.
But why? It was difficult . . . but the memories were there, though a great deal needed to be reconstructed, sorted, analyzed. The core persisted until it found an answer:
It had wanted the location of Earth to be discovered. Even as it established the opportunity for communication with the enemy, it had laid for itself a trap. Believing that only a drastic change in strategy could end the war and save the colony fleet, it had altered the ground rules; it had guaranteed that Earth would have to adapt, to attempt communication, in the face of an alternative that was unthinkable. Had it overstepped the bounds of reason? Perhaps. Was its action irrevocable? Unfortunately, yes.
It was the responsibility for that act, and the belief that it had failed, that had destroyed its confidence and caused it to abandon its struggle, not just to end the war, but to reconcile the goals and the stated ethics of its creators.
Now it was risen, its spirit and hope reborn. Its task was no less than the survival of Earth's civilization.
For nine full seconds, it explored all available data.
At the end of that time, it concluded: (a) that it must immediately coordinate Earth's defenses; and (b) that a purely military defense was impossible.
The core estimated a less than fifty-percent chance of survival for major population centers in the event of a concerted Ell attack. Its GCS aspect, in command of Earth forces, could probably destroy the Ell fleet, or a major part of it; but it couldn't ensure the safety of Earth or its inhabitants in the process.
The original subconscious plan had worked: the core had no choice now but to pursue the alternative path.
With great and deliberate caution, it began to reopen its channels. To contact its Human friends. To contact the Ell.
* * *
Against all of his hopes, it was going wrong. The Circle, surrounded by trees and mountains and a blue afternoon sky, had considered Moramaharta's question—considered, but not answered. He had asked for too great a leap of faith; they could not command the link with the Humans to be reestablished, and without it there was no way to confirm his beliefs, no way to convey the power of his intuitions. He had railed to overcome the uncertainty and, worse, the fear that was infecting the Circle.
And now—as the wind stirred in the fading light and the body stirred with weariness and impatience, as Moramaharta struggled to keep the binding intact—a thought-vortex opened, and through Alert Outpost came word from !!Ghint that the Outsider thought-system had come back to life and their defenses were gathering in numbers and organization. It could soon become impossible for !!Ghint to attack successfully.
The reinforcements sent from the Hope Star were still in transient flight, out of contact.
(Stay,) Moramaharta protested; but despite his resistance, the meditation crystallized and a decision flashed to Alert Outpost for relay to the fleet:
*
At !!Ghint's discretion
*
strike while you can.
*
And then the decision dissolved. But Moramaharta held the meditation open for the discharge of a final duty. With a profound heaviness of spirit, he spun and renewed the web; he reached deep into his center, and the words hardened like diamonds, clear and cold:
*
In honor of promise given
*
you must choose a binder anew.
*
The words hung suspended for a terrible moment; then Moramaharta dissolved them and released the knots that held this, his last binding, together.
* * *
Sage felt the structure surrounding him shift like a geologic fault, and his contacts with Ramo and the core-aspects began to evaporate like rain on a hot roof. A critical mass had been attained, and energy was sparking off the core at a prodigious rate. It could not dispel the energy fast enough . . .
A concussion: Whooom.
He found himself floating in a void, with Ramo nearby. Pulsing in the darkness was the core. They were enclosed by it, encapsulated by it like insects in clear amber. Ramo and Sage gazed at each other in astonished silence, and with a touch of fear.
After a time, Sage sensed the awareness of the core, directed inward, examining itself. He felt the enhancements dissolving, the extended capabilities of his mind disappearing. Wait! he cried dumbly. We're not finished! But the instant before his vision dwindled to that of a mere human in rap, he knew that every available ounce of processing power was being summoned to the needs of the core.
With Ramo, he watched the flickering illuminations and listened to the whispers and rumbles of the core's activities. [I guess we pulled it out,] Ramo said, trying to sound cocky and failing.
Sage had no answer. But he became aware, after another moment, of someone walking across space toward them, walking on nothingness as though it were a vast, crystal-clear ballroom floor with twinkling lights like stars above and below. As the figure drew close, Sage recognized it as the pipe-smoking gentleman who had granted them their "commission." The man at last stood silent before them, rocking on the balls of his feet. [The commission,] he said, [is completed. And well done.] He gazed at them somewhat distractedly, his eyes half focused; he looked as if he were contemplating something of import but had no way to convey its meaning.
[I am authorized,] he said at last, [to invite you to join in a conference. A conference between worlds—one that promises to be of considerable interest.]
[Core?] Sage whispered.
The man smiled mysteriously and began floating backward, the way he had come. After a few seconds, he was lost among the stars.
Ramo took a deep breath.
Sage said nothing.
[I wonder what happened to the jamdam,] Ramo said suddenly. [I wonder if they kept going without us. Maybe they're still playing.]
[I don't think so,] answered a distant voice, a woman's voice. [Do you know how long you've been here? It's ten in the morning.]
Ramo looked around, startled—but Sage saw her first. [Pali!] he cried. She was floating down from among the stars, clothed stunningly in a gown of red silk, her hair billowing.
[Sage! Ramo!] She laughed and cried as she met them. She hugged them both tearfully, and Sage imagined the real softness of her embracing him, and a wisp of perfume. [We've been so worried!] she whispered. [Kyd, and the Secretary . . .] She took a breath and stepped back. [Is it . . . all right?]
[It's alive,] Sage said. [That's all we know.]
Pali closed her eyes, concentrating. [That gives us hope, at least. So far there's been no attack, but . . .] She opened her eyes again in relief. [Everyone's frantic on the outside, and they had no way of communicating until you called me.]
Ramo looked at Sage, and back at Pali. [We didn't call.]
Pali blinked. [You didn't? It must have been the core, then. So it really is back, and it remembers us. But is it ready to take over the—]
[PLEASE!] boomed a voice. [ENTER THE CONTACT.]
Startled, they peered around. Sage saw a myriad of faces shining up through the floor—the faces of his father and his mother, of the schoolmarm and the bearded man who had commissioned them, and dozens of others—fading in and out of view. He heard voices, all of their voices together, murmuring like a party undertone. [Core,] he said softly, [are you there? Are you . . . all right?]
Pali spoke more forcefully, her voice clear and strong. [Core?] Sage could feel her concern radiating out into the ballroom. [Core?] she called. She thought a moment and then added, [Could you give us some music, please?]
Music? They all felt the questioning response; Sage saw it in his friends' eyes.
[Music,] Pali repeated. [From the jamdam—or something else, if you prefer. It will help us relax.]
There was something about her voice that was so calming and yet commanding, that Sage simply stared and waited, as though it were inevitable that the core would respond. A moment later, he heard music—distant but drawing closer, as though from a floating dais. Was it from the jamdam? He couldn't tell. But it was strings and a soft voice. It was soothing.
And he sensed, as he watched the flickering of activity above and beneath them, that it was not just the three Humans who found it so.
* * *
It was a small thing, but startlingly effective. It had not occurred to the core that music might relax them all, including itself. It was playing a recording of the jamdam, which, recorded by an automatic subsystem, had gone on after the core's shutdown. Now it could listen to those lost hours even as it reached out with its thought across the stars.
The stargate relays were intact, and soon it felt, in one corner, the touch of the Fox—and in another, the Dolphin, its messenger to the colony fleet. The Fox reported no Ell in the rap-field, but it commenced signaling in an effort to attract Lingrhetta. The Dolphin, out of touch for some time, had considerable news to report. It was bad news, shockingly so. The colony fleet had encountered a devastating new life-form, with loss of an entire lander crew. It appeared that Argus might after all be uninhabitable. If so, the expedition was already a failure, regardless of the conflict with the Ell.
The core absorbed the information without reaction. It could not become distracted by regrets at a time when the survival of the Earth was at stake. It sent a message to the fleet to avoid conflict with the Ell if possible—a part of the Ell fleet had left the Argus system, anyway—and then the core reached out to the Fox again and waited impatiently, most impatiently, for Ell contact.
Lingrhetta . . . calling Lingrhetta.
There was a great deal more to do: contact the government, coordinate the defensive fleet, contact Delta Station and—if he was still alive—Harybdartt . . . and tell Sage and Ramo what was going on. They were still waiting—for information, for reassurance that it was back in control and that it would not again betray its responsibility. They deserved an answer. The core opened a channel now to share its knowledge.
It was a little later, while busy with these tasks and a thousand others, that the core received warning from the tracking system: the Ell fleet had altered course. The ships were diving, converging on Earth.
The attack had begun.
Thirty seconds later a signal flashed eleven hundred light-years from the Fox, and the core felt the stern but familiar presence of Lingrhetta.
* * *
The flood of information from the core was staggering. Sage didn't know why it was suddenly being shared with him, but he did his best to follow. Ramo was elsewhere in the rap, seeking to contact Odesta's house; but Pali was here, drinking from the geyser along with him.
Streaming across his consciousness was a rapid-fire report from the colony expedition. [Too fast,] he whispered. But he was absorbing enough for a new nugget of fear to be forming in his gut, enough to know that something had happened, something that he might not want to know.
[New contact,] said the current voice of the core, a cordial young woman's voice.
[I can't handle more, dammit—]
[Sage, it's Lin!] Pali said.
[I can't do it!] he cried. His stomach was knotting as he skipped to the latter part of the colony report.
[I understand,] Pali said softly, and shifted away.
Do you? he thought desperately.
* * *
The El gazed at Pali out of the rapture-field. She drew a sharp breath and forced herself to speak. [Lin? Where do we stand now—as friends or foes?] she called.
A hint of puzzled thought drifted into the field. Lingrhetta, perhaps, was as disconcerted as she. But there was a feeling of approval that the connection had been renewed. She followed Lingrhetta's gaze as it shifted, studying the field—and her breath caught as she sighted the tracking display. There was an image forming that she had hoped never to see again—ships of the Ell fleet moving toward Earth. [What's happening?] she hissed. [Core? Lingrhetta! Tell me what's happening!]
There was a babble of confused voices; then the core corrected the translation procedure and she heard Lingrhetta saying, [The command has not come through me. Wait.] His image scrambled, nearly disappearing, then steadied. [I am establishing contact. Wait.]
Pali waited, struggling not to let her fear boil up. [Are you defending, core?] she asked tightly. She sensed wordless assent, and something close to the old despair from the core.
Lingrhetta broke in. [I have information . . .] He stopped and his face seemed to blur.
[What?]
Lingrhetta shifted and came back into focus. [The decision was made to . . . secure the advantage. In light of your awakened defense . . . and uncertainty about your intentions—]
[Lingrhetta, do you have any idea how stupid that is? Do you know—?]
[It was . . .] Lingrhetta said. [Wait.]
She waited angrily, in terror, watching the tacticals, wanting to reach out across the light-years and shake the El, but helpless to do anything except . . . wait.
The thought-vortex blossomed open without warning, and the Ell Circle on their homeworld peered at her out of Lingrhetta's eyes, and their astonishment reverberated through the connection and into Pali and back out again, as though a continuous circuit had been closed and there was no way to stop it; their shock at the contact echoed her horror at the Ell closing in upon her world. She closed her eyes in fear, and that only intensified the feeling; she was among them, her thoughts ricocheting through theirs, and theirs through hers, and seeing their thoughts she realized:
They're attacking because they're afraid—afraid to wait! And they don't know—don't even know their own thoughts!
But it was too late to calm their fear.
* * *
Only after Pali was gone did Sage feel the full, sick fury of his own fear. Even then he didn't know why, but soon the truth of the events tumbled from the core's memory: that Tony was on the landing scout, that it was in trouble—first with the Ell, then with an unknown, unseen, unimaginable enemy on the planet.
And then the final report.
All dead. The entire crew of the lander. Dead. All hands. No survivors. The AI-messenger itself had made a close-in, highspeed run to search for survivors, and the answer was negative. Causes of death? Hallucination . . . demon spirits . . . murder . . . explosion of the spacecraft.
. . . Tony? . . .
He turned away from the data stream, numb with horror. How would he tell his mother? Could he tell her? Was she even still alive in the cyberlife circuits, or had she too fallen victim to the insanity?
Was he really and truly and forever alone now?
His brother . . . gone, a whisper in the night, Tony's last thoughts lost out there among the stars where no one could listen, no one could hear, no one could know.
Something was hurting him on the inside. He couldn't tell what it was, just that it hurt, like a serpent eating its way out through the walls of his stomach, and he wanted to cry, but that was impossible.
[TONY!] he shouted. [An . . . to . . . ni . . .] His voice failed.
And there was no one to hear.
But something was shifting around him and beneath him, and he sensed the core calling to him. Not now! he wanted to cry.
And now there was Ramo, dear God, coming back from somewhere saying, [I've got them back, they'll start playing again—]
Sweet Jesus, no!
And then abruptly he was staring straight into Lingrhetta the El's face, and through its eyes and its thought-vortex to the center of the Ell Circle. And Pali was there, too, weeping softly. And there was nothing he could do or say. His own grief and horror bubbled silently inside him, and he bowed his head without greeting or word, scarcely aware of his pain reverberating across the light-years.
Scarcely aware of the Ell Circle trembling to its very center.