Part 33 (1/2)
SIGMUND MET ERIC AND KIRSTEN at an Office of Strategic a.n.a.lyses safe house. They were yawning, too.
”What's the emergency?” Eric asked.
Sigmund jammed his hands in his pockets to keep from fidgeting. ”Maybe nothing. Maybe an answer to everything. Until I know, I'm not going to sleep.” And if he was right, he wouldn't sleep tonight, either. Hope was exhilarating. ”Only it's half an idea at best.”
Kirsten brushed bangs off her forehead. ”All right, Sigmund, begin at the beginning.”
He saw no need to start that far back. ”First, Baedeker's drive. It won't move planets. It just blows them up.”
”If he's not careful,” Eric agreed.
”Second, we're unable to do to the Pak what the Pak do to everyone they pa.s.s.”
Kirsten nodded. ”Because everyone else is planet-based. One kinetic-kill weapon can smash a world. They, having abandoned their world, are too dispersed to attack that way.”
”Turn the problem on its head.” Sigmund waited for them to see it, but they didn't. ”Pak will use a kinetic-kill vehicle against a planet. With Baedeker's drive, we can shatter a planet into overwhelming amounts of kinetic-kill debris.”
Eric's eyes got round. ”Huge amounts of relativistic dust and gas, blasted right down the maw of the ramscoops. Ma.s.sive overload. It'd be unavoidable-and lethal.”
”Yes, but.” Kirsten used a voice-of-reason tone. ”There's no way to get a planet into position. Baedeker's drives won't do that.”
The perfect weapon and no way to deliver it. So So close. close.
”Here's a thought,” Eric said suddenly. ”Take a world out of the Fleet. We know that can be done: Not so long ago we pulled NP4 out of the configuration. NP5 is expendable. It's not yet fully reengineered for Hearth life. It'd be easy to evacuate the few planetary engineers living there.”
The Fleet had accelerated steadily since the Concordance first fled the core explosion. Worlds racing at ten percent of light speed (a bit more for New Terra, redlining its drive to get away from their former masters) was astounding-and yet hardly enough. They couldn't outrun the Pak even if the Fleet had been heading in exactly the right direction.
But some of the Fleet's velocity vector did did point away from the Pak. NP5 would need years to shed that momentum. And the Pak, given years to notice a whole point away from the Pak. NP5 would need years to shed that momentum. And the Pak, given years to notice a whole planet planet headed their way, were much faster and more maneuverable. headed their way, were much faster and more maneuverable.
So how could NP5 help? Sigmund didn't get it. ”I don't see-”
Eric chuckled, but not unkindly. ”Now you know how we feel around you, Sigmund. You're always three steps ahead of us. NP5 isn't the weapon. We get NP5 out of the way, salvage its planetary drive, and put the drive onto a sacrificial world close to the Pak. With luck, they won't detect an unlit planet coming at them until too late.”
Sigmund rolled the idea around in his head. A plausible weapon. A way to deliver it. And probably just one shot.
That was one more opportunity than they had had until now.
OL'T'RO COMPLETELY UNDERSTOOD the humans' proposed attack. It was brilliant-and as brutal as the enemy.
They were not surprised. Pak and humans were related.
With a shudder, Ol't'ro detached the Er'o unit. They wanted an alternative, even before the hyperwave consultation ended, and that required eyes on instruments. They kept monitoring the conversation as Er'o struggled into a pressure suit for the trek to Haven Haven's observatory.
”Yes, it is possible we might spare NP5,” Nessus said. He partic.i.p.ated by hyperwave link from somewhere near Hearth. ”It is not yet producing food. Even if it were, almost everyone lives on synthesized food. Nature-grown food is a luxury.
”The issue will be sacrificing an Outsider drive. No Nature Preserve world matters as much as the planetary drive it carries. The Concordance bought several drives-and will continue paying the Outsiders long after we are all dead-lest Hearth's unit ever fail. Only the Hindmost can make such a decision.”
Hearth's drive, if it failed as spectacularly as Baedeker's prototype, would leave no survivors-and quite possibly no world, either. A spare drive served no purpose. Baedeker surely saw that, too, and chose not to comment. The Pak threat was all the reality the Citizens could handle.
”How long will it take to extricate NP5 and remove its drive?” Eric asked. He, Kirsten, and Sigmund had linked in from a s.h.i.+p just outside New Terra's singularity.
In Ol't'ro's comm terminal, Baedeker pawed at the vegetation-covered deck of his cabin. ”No planetary drive has been installed within living memory, but records show installation is a lengthy process. To my knowledge, no one has ever uninstalled one.”
Ol't'ro sent a private message-hurry!-to Er'o, who was finally suited up and through the water lock. ”We see a possible way to save time,” they said. ”Fine-tune your other drives. Mold the s.p.a.ce-time neighborhoods around all all the planets to give NP5 a harder push out of the way.” the planets to give NP5 a harder push out of the way.”
That started the argument Ol't'ro intended. Had they learned enough to even consider such a maneuver? Might they cause worlds to crash? What real-time sensing and control would they need? How long would it take to reestablish the old s.p.a.ce-time slope? Would asymmetries in the drive field cause tidal waves or trigger seismic activity?
Whenever a conclusion threatened, Ol't'ro found some complication to raise. Otherwise they kept quiet. Their goal was delay, not decision, while Er'o made his observations. That left Ol't'ro to brood about the quickness with which humans and Citizens alike accepted a genocidal attack. Ol't'ro would have hoped for a moment of regret.
But Ol't'ro, too, had a home to protect, and memories washed over them. The boundless ocean of Jm'ho. The lush seaweed forests, swaying in the hot currents upwelling from seafloor vents. The great, sprawling seafloor cities. The icy roof of the world and above that the banded splendor of Tl'ho.
They told themselves they were feeling the cramped confines of the tiny habitat. They told themselves they were suffering the imbalance of a meld short of a unit- They did not believe it.
Ol't'ro could not forget Baedeker's recent private words to Sigmund. Would they see their home again? If the Pak were defeated, would a kinetic-kill weapon still still find its way to Jm'ho? find its way to Jm'ho?
Jm'ho must be made too powerful to attack.
Perhaps they had mastered enough technology to make that possible. If If they brought their new knowledge home and applied it. (conveniently, the hyperwave link with Jm'ho was one-way, the wrong way.) they brought their new knowledge home and applied it. (conveniently, the hyperwave link with Jm'ho was one-way, the wrong way.) If If they lived that long. they lived that long.
”I am in the observatory,” Er'o finally radioed. ”Commencing scans.”
”Excellent.” Ol't'ro netted Eric simulation data about withdrawing a world from the Fleet, maintaining the dispute at a boil. ”Work quickly, Er'o.”
And so the argument continued to rage. ”Something about this feels lousy,” Sigmund eventually interrupted. ”As single-minded as are the Pak, they have not yet attacked us. Even Pak deserve a warning shot. Give me some options, people.”
That turned the discussion to how fastest to recover the precious Outsider drive-before a homemade model blew it apart with the sacrificial planet. Baedeker got excited. Nessus fretted that the evacuation s.h.i.+p would be exposed, unable to flee to hypers.p.a.ce, from within the weapon world's singularity.
Neither Citizen mentioned Sigmund's moral reservation.
”I have two candidates,” Er'o radioed privately. ”Here are the coordinates. With time for a complete survey, surely I could find several more.”
The new data sufficed. Ol't'ro said, ”Sigmund, we propose another possibility. Planets are not always bound to suns.” Many float free, where hypers.p.a.ce-traveling species have little reason to look. ”Use a wandering body close to the Pak, and explode that. Er'o found two candidates with only a quick scan. Your warning shot need not endanger the drive from NP5.”
”That,” Sigmund said, ”is an option I can live with.”
56.
”Keep it simple,” Sigmund told Thssthfok. They were in Thssthfok's cell. ”Jeeves will record it for transmission.” And do a sanity-check, to the extent he could.
It was a warning message. For the demonstration to matter, the Pak had to see Niflheim shatter. was a warning message. For the demonstration to matter, the Pak had to see Niflheim shatter.