Prologue
The starship Trebizond had just begun its eighth sweep of the volume near the Orionward jump point when its mass-radar registered something that defied description.
"What the hell—" Captain Richard Abramowicz began, watching the jump-echo resolve itself on his pilot's board. "Rhea, confirm that all systems are functional."
Rhea Salmonson, the watch helm officer, didn't turn around. She gestured over the console and an image of the surroundings appeared above, showing two huge jump-disturbances thirty thousand kilometers downrange. A dozen smaller ones appeared as she watched, mirrored in the board in front of Captain Abramowicz.
She looked at the board in front of her. "All systems are functional, Captain," Salmonson said.
"Beat to Quarters," Abramowicz said instantly, and ordered a course change, aiming the Trebizond for the gravity well.
Several more transponder codes appeared on the pilot's board. They moved in tight formation as they emerged from jump, tracking the Trebizond's course and accelerating to intercept it.
"Commodore, take a look at this."
Jonathan Durant, commander of Adrianople Starbase, looked up from the engineering station. His exec, and the current Officer of the Watch, Arlen Mustafa, was standing beside the pilot's board; he'd focused on a volume near the Orionward jump point that hadn't been updated for several minutes.
The pilot's board for a starbase the size of Adrianople was several times larger than that of a fleet carrier. Instead of just keeping track of squadrons of fighters, a starbase board had to monitor the large amount of traffic transiting a planetary system. Adrianople was busier than most: It was an anchor for the Imperial Grand Survey.
"Have you run a diagnostic?"
"Nothing wrong at this end, sir," Mustafa answered. "The monitor station's deep-radar isn't transmitting at the Orionward jump point."
"Increase the range on adjacent sectors. We'll lose some resolution, but it'll give us coverage until we can get something out there to repair it."
"Aye-aye, sir," Mustafa said. "Switching." He gestured at the console and the volume display went blank and then slowly began to update.
"Let's get a tech crew out there next watch and . . . What the hell are those?"
As Durant watched, the display resolved to show two unidentified transponder codes. The mass-radar, registering the jump-echo and the distortion of local space, showed figures that made no sense. As he watched, the display updated to show at least twenty smaller echoes all moving at high relative velocities and descending into the gravity well.
"Who's on duty out there?" Durant asked, reading the figures. The two large echoes massed more than two million tons and more than three kilometers long.
"Trebizond, sir."
"Find her." Durant called up a display above the engineering station. Adrianople was expecting reinforcements shortly; a task force under the command of Admiral César Hsien was due within the next few Standard days, but there wasn't much on-station right now.
There hadn't been any need. Adrianople was a quiet posting; nothing but Exploration Service ships—certainly enough to fight pirates, but against something like this . . .
Durant had read Laperriere's report. Duke William, the First Lord, hadn't wanted to show it to him at all—"part of the court-martial inquiry," he'd said—but relented, finally, after sending Hsien along with most of what had come back from Cicero to Denneva for refit. Durant had found it just as hard to believe as the First Lord did. Still, it was clear that the High Nest believed it.
Now the High Chamberlain was gone; the First Lord was gone; most of Durant's operational tonnage was outsystem—with orders to return to base as soon as possible, to be sure, but outsystem nonetheless. The only recent arrivals had been a team of scientists from the Shiell Institute on New Chicago, here to look at the alien gear recovered from Cicero when Laperriere had gotten out of there.
Most of a century of peace had taught commanding officers to be cautious but not indecisive. Durant reviewed his assets, such as they were, and his options.
One thing he knew for sure: He couldn't do what Laperriere had done. Even if he were willing, he wouldn't have the chance.
"Arlen," he said, "set up a comm to every ship in the volume. Trebizond, especially, if you can locate her. Ten minutes. I'll be in my ready-room."
"Still tracking us, Skip," Lieutenant Rhea Salmonson said. "The two big bogeys are still headed insystem." The Trebizond had been under way for twenty minutes; comm hadn't been able to reach Adrianople Starbase . . . some sort of broad-spectrum interference.
They were alone—except for ten unknown vessels following them as they moved across the outermost orbital. The Trebizond could bear on the nearest of its pursuers but probably couldn't hold out against all ten—and they were closing. Still, they hadn't opened fire. Abramowicz considered the possibility that the bogeys didn't have the range. If that were so, then it likely wouldn't be true much longer—and if it was not so, then it didn't make a damn bit of sense.
He looked aside from the pilot's board and saw his WS4 come down the ramp from the lift. Trebizond hadn't had a Sensitive on board until recently; Abramowicz had read the regs on Sensitives but didn't know much past that.
"Reporting as ordered, Captain," the WS4 said, saluting.
"Mr. Trang," Abramowicz said. "You're up-to-date on our tactical situation?" Vo Trang was a Regular Navy man who had turned up with Sensitive abilities. He'd been trained as a gunnery officer, Abramowicz recalled that.
"I am sir."
"Can you, er, feel anything?"
"I have . . . yes sir. Since we changed course, sir, I have been hearing . . ."
"'Hearing'?"
"Yes sir." For the first time, Abramowicz noticed sweat on the other man's forehead. Some of the other officers on the bridge had looked away from their stations, attracted by the conversation between their captain and the Sensitive. The usual chatter had vanished, making the bridge suddenly quiet.
"Helm report," Abramowicz snapped, more to break the tension than anything else.
"Unchanged, Skip," Salmonson answered. "Nearest enemy vessel is twenty-two thousand six hundred kilometers downrange, still accelerating."
"What have you been hearing, Mr. Trang?"
"Voices, sir. I am . . . It—they—want me to listen to them. I can hardly . . ." He rubbed his forehead with the heel of one hand. "As they get closer it becomes harder to ignore them."
"What would happen if you listened?"
"Please don't order me to do so, Captain." Trang's eyes filled with anger—or fear, perhaps? Abramowicz couldn't tell. "No sir, I don't think that's a good idea."
"Why would that be?"
"I'm . . . I'm not sure just why, sir. But I'm not sure they'd let me go."
"You'd best explain yourself, mister."
Trang said nothing. He looked defiantly at the captain for a moment, and then down at the deck.
Abramowicz shrugged. "The voices are coming from the bogeys."
"I believe so, Captain."
"You're saying that whatever is aboard those ships . . ." Abramowicz gestured at the pilot's board in front of him, and the tac display dissolved to a representation of the nearest alien vessel: a big ungainly thing, irregular in shape, with an equally irregular defensive field signature. " . . . whatever it is, can project Sensitive abilities more than twenty thousand kilometers—enough to make you believe that it'd get hold of you and not let go."
"Yes sir."
"What would you estimate to be a safe distance?"
"Captain?" Trang turned partially away to look at the slowly updating image on the pilot's display.
"How far away do we have to be, for you to be safe?"
"I'm not sure, Captain. I think—"
Whatever it was that Vo Trang thought, however, had become immaterial. As the Sensitive turned to face Abramowicz, whatever had been behind those eyes was abruptly replaced.
"Trang?" the captain of the Trebizond asked.
"It is easier for you to pronounce," Trang's voice said, "than the name I actually bear. This vessel resisted our k'th's's for longer than we expected."
"What the hell is a k'th—"
"Irrelevant," said Trang, or whatever was speaking with Trang's voice. "What is relevant, Captain, is that you listen carefully."
"And if I don't?" Abramowicz gestured toward the Marine sergeant near the gunnery station; but he—like everyone else on the bridge other than himself and the Sensitive standing beside the pilot's seat—was immobile and staring off into nowhere.
Trang shrugged. "Then you will die and we will find another. You are not important, Captain Abramowicz. This meat-creature through whom we speak has value. You will merely be food for the k'th's's.
"Nonetheless, we have no orders to terminate you and will not do so if you listen carefully and do as you are told. You have one Standard minute to decide."
More than twenty holo-images hung in the air over Durant's ready-room table. None of them belonged to Rich Abramowicz—though Arlen Mustafa had located the Trebizond as soon as it came within detection range of another monitoring station. It was headed into the gravity well, with a fair number of hounds of hell behind it.
"I want your undivided attention," Durant said to the images. "Your mass-radar should show incoming hostiles. A couple of them are . . . Well, nothing in Adrianople System is a match for them. Nonetheless they're here. I've prepared and sent a comm-squirt to Denneva informing them of our situation and sending our most current data.
"I've already dispatched Eurydice and Aragon toward the gas giant currently at opposition to the Orionward jump point. Their orders are to observe but not engage." Each of the three captains acknowledged with a gesture or a nod.
"What about Trebizond?" asked one of the other captains— Darrin Feng of the Arcadia, Trebizond's sister ship.
"We haven't been able to establish comm contact with Trebizond. There's no indication of weapons fire, but clearly something is preventing her from raising us.
"Based on . . . what we know of the enemy, I am ordering all of you to stand off from Trebizond."
"And let her die?" Feng asked. Others muttered assent.
She may already be dead, Durant thought to himself. And so are we.
As they watched, the mass-radar showed Trebizond changing course and speed as her pursuers closed in. The ship's defensive fields suddenly dispersed, leaving her undefended.
Not a single shot had been fired.
As soon as Abramowicz had nodded his assent, Vo Trang collapsed to the deck. Suddenly everything was in motion; people all over the bridge found themselves doing whatever they'd been doing three minutes earlier, when Vo Trang had been . . . taken over.
"Dr. Ellis to the bridge," Abramowicz said to comm. "Helm, change course," he added, a chill in his voice. He named a new heading and speed. Rhea Salmonson spun to look at him, her eyes full of alarm, but he nodded. "Do it."
"Bridge, this is Hafner," came the voice of his exec. "I'm in Engineering—we're being grappled! Skipper, do you read?"
"Come up topside, Kit," he said. "I know we're being grappled. And we're about to be boarded."
"What the hell?"
"Topside, Commander. On the double—that's a direct order." If you want to live, he thought to himself, crouching down to check on his WS4. Trang was unconscious, but seemed to be breathing normally. Whatever had taken him, seemed to have let him loose.
"Drop your fields," Trang's voice said, though his eyes didn't open.
Abramowicz fell back in alarm, bracing his fall with one hand.
"Captain—"
"Do it," Abramowicz said, gritting his teeth. "Drop the fields."
"Captain," Salmonson said, looking toward him, "we're in a hell of a crossfire. If we drop our fields we're dead."
"We're dead if we don't. Tell them," he said, grabbing the unconscious Sensitive by the shoulders and shaking him. "Tell them, damn it!"
Trang's eyes opened, and his lips formed into a half-smile. "Very well. You will be spared if you follow my instructions exactly. Drop your defensive fields and prepare to receive a . . . deputation."
Abramowicz lowered Trang to the deck. Somewhere within Trang's eyes, he could see fear and horror.
"Disperse the fields," Abramowicz repeated. His order was carried out. On the pilot's board, he could see one of the enemy ships closing to dock with his shuttle bay.
"When your deputation is aboard, will you let him go?"
"Since you are being so cooperative," Trang's voice said, "the answer is yes."
Trang's head lolled over onto its side, his eyes rolling up in his head. Abramowicz checked for a pulse—first at his wrist, then his neck—but there was nothing to find.
Eurydice's forward screen showed more detail than its captain truly wanted to see.
Amir Abu Bakr, whose uncle owned a quarter of Imperial Oahu (and rented it to courtiers at outrageous prices), had sought—and found—one of the quietest posts in the Solar Empire: captain of a Grand Survey ship near the Orionward edge. At least, it had been quiet—until the commander of Cicero Base had turned up with what was left of her command, then headed off on a zor starship for who-knew-what errand. Since then it had been drills and inspections, not to mention General Quarters every time the Eurydice was deployed.
Which had been damn near never. At least since Laperriere had come. And gone.
Until four hours ago, Abu Bakr had placed the entire inconvenience of it all at Laperriere's feet. Now, as he looked at the thing looming in his forward screen, he realized how foolish he had been.
Clearly, he thought to himself, the commander of the Aragon must be thinking the same thing. But he was not Natan Abu Bakr's nephew.
"How the hell are we supposed to fight something like that?" he said to no one in particular, leaning his chin on his folded hands as he sat in Eurydice's pilot's seat.
"Our orders were not to engage," his exec reminded him.
"I know that, Peter," he snapped back. "But I don't think it's here just to refuel. Someone will have to fight it sometime."
The ship was irregular in shape, a shade over three kilometers from stem to stern; it had none of the streamlining of Imperial ships, no obvious port and starboard—it looked as if it had been constructed by pushing lumps of grayish clay together and jamming hardpoints on the outside. What they'd been able to gather from scanning suggested that the ship was in fact made up of a large number of small compartments.
"Captain," the comm officer said, "I've lost contact with Aragon."
"Well, reestablish it," Abu Bakr said without looking.
"I—I can't find her, Captain."
"What?" He looked from the forward screen to the pilot's board. He noted the Aragon's last known position and was about to say something about it, when the icon turned from green to blue—indicating that the mass-radar data was stale, reflecting a projected position change based on its current movement vector.
"Captain!"
Abu Bakr looked at the forward screen again. An alien vessel—not the big one, but one more his size—was closing rapidly on their position. The pilot's board was already registering weapons discharge, and the Eurydice's defensive fields were beginning to absorb energy.
"Target and fire!" Abu Bakr said, gripping the arms of the pilot's seat. "Come to new heading—" He named a course and speed, looking to put a limb of the planet between the Eurydice and the rapidly closing enemy. "Execute! And find Aragon!"
On the bridge of Adrianople Starbase, Commodore Jonathan Durant watched with horror as the Eurydice and Aragon opened fire on each other.
On the bridge of Trebizond, Captain Richard Abramowicz turned from the sight of two medical orderlies bundling up the body of Vo Trang, to see someone come through the lift doors. He wasn't sure what to expect, but a man in an Imperial Navy uniform wasn't it. Still, there was something not quite right about the man—something in his eyes.
This is your enemy, Abramowicz told himself.
The unknown officer scarcely looked aside as the orderlies carried the stretcher off the bridge. His attention was completely focused on Abramowicz.
"Save your energy, Captain," he said. "Your loyalty to the young man is quite noble, by human standards . . . but does very little for you now."
"I'm supposed to be comforted by that." Abramowicz exchanged a glance with Kit Hafner, his exec, and then returned his glance to the alien.
"It is not my role to comfort. There is something here I want, and I shall have it. The number of meat-creatures that die in the process is of very little importance to me. I believe I told you that already . . ." He crossed to the pilot's seat and sat in it, turning it around to face Trebizond's captain. "And I do so hate to repeat myself.
"Believe me, Captain, your young Sensitive was having very uncharitable thoughts toward me, and I simply no longer needed him."
"And you need me, I suppose."
"Eventually not, perhaps. But in the meanwhile, I need what I came for—and you're going to take me to it."
"Where?"
"Adrianople Starbase. By the time we reach it, matters should be just about decided."
The transponder code for Aragon disappeared from the Adrianople Starbase pilot's board. The energy discharge had not yet registered visually; mass-radar operated on the same principles as jump technology, and over interplanetary distances, informational update was almost instantaneous. Any explosion would come no faster than the speed of light. Aragon had a few more minutes to live, though Commodore Durant knew the truth.
"What happened?" Mustafa asked, shaking his head.
"You haven't read Laperriere's report; I have: This has happened before. Aragon and Eurydice saw each other as enemies. They thought—" Durant leaned heavily on his wardroom table, feeling older than he'd ever felt. "I don't know. But the enemy . . . The aliens have the ability to make you see whatever they want."
Eurydice's transponder code suddenly winked out as well.
"What the hell do we do now?" Mustafa said. "Throw the rest of them into combat?"
"No, I don't think so. I think we only have one alternative."
"Surrender?"
"That's right. We can't escape, and I don't want to send more people out to die."
"Like the Eurydice and the Aragon, you mean." Arlen Mustafa clenched his fists. "You knew that would happen, didn't you?"
"No," Durant said, looking at his exec. "No."
Mustafa looked like he was going to say something else, but couldn't decide what it was. After several moments he turned away.
The door from the bridge slid aside. Durant turned to look and saw Dr. Edward Comeau, one of the Shiell Institute techs, enter the ready-room.
"Doctor," Durant began, "I don't have time for you now—"
"Yes, you do," the tech said. There was fear in his face. He took out his comp and gestured over it; the pilot's display over the table vanished and was replaced by a holo of the lab where the alien tech was being studied.
The alien equipment was a set of a dozen odd-shaped objects made of some unknown metal, with various indentations and protrusions. From the time a Marine squad had brought them aboard the starbase from the Duc d'Enghien, they had— as far as Durant understood—shown no sign of functioning in any way.
Now, in the holo, it was obvious that they were working—there were beams of energy connecting the twelve objects in a latticework that crisscrossed the lab. One of the Shiell Institute techs had evidently been standing in the wrong place when the equipment started working. He appeared neatly sliced in two just below the breastbone: His lower half was slumped on the floor, while his upper half, one arm thrown uselessly out, was sprawled on a table. The other techs were out of the way but were standing, immobile, looking aside emotionlessly.
In the center of the latticework was . . . something, or perhaps a holo of something. It looked like a tall rectangular pillar filled with iridescent gas, with a silver ball floating at the surface. A limb of light extended outward from within it to touch one of the alien objects.
"What happened?" Durant asked, after a moment during which he and Mustafa had stared at the scene, trying to make sense of it. He tried to read the expression in Comeau's face. "And what the hell is that?"
"The objects started interacting a few minutes ago," Comeau began. "Dr. Warren was killed instantly—at least, I hope to God it was instant. Then that appeared. It commanded me to come to the bridge."
"To find me," Durant said.
=That is correct, Commodore.=
Durant whirled to face the holo again. The voice he'd heard hadn't spoken aloud, but he'd heard it just the same; Mustafa and Comeau had heard it as well. It was like an abrasive, scraping noise inside his mind. It had no intonation; it remained at a steady pitch.
It came from the box in the middle of the latticework.
"Who— What are you? What do you want?"
=I am the Ór,= the box said. =I want, and will have, your complete cooperation.=
"For what purpose?"
=This system and this base will be secured. You will cooperate completely and instantly, or you will be terminated.=
"What does this 'cooperation' entail?"
=You meat-creatures require so much explanation for concepts that are childishly simple,= the Ór replied. Durant could feel the contempt in its remark, though the voice never changed. =The approaching vessels will take command of Adrianople Starbase and Adrianople System. You will surrender them at once.=
"Unless I choose to blow up the whole damn starbase, and you with it." Durant looked at Mustafa, with whom he'd been discussing surrender just a few minutes earlier.
=That is no longer an option, Commodore Durant,= the Ór answered. =The control and self-destruct pathways have already been blocked by the s's'th'r.=
Durant didn't know what a s's'th'r was, and wasn't in any hurry to find out.
"Then I only have one question."
=Ask.=
"If you're already in command of the starbase, why do you need me to cooperate?"
=My directives are to preserve life where possible. By cooperating you save more lives.=
"Like you saved the lives of the people aboard Aragon and Eurydice, you mean?" Mustafa asked, stepping toward the holo. "How did that serve your—your directives?"
=Where possible,= the Ór answered. =A necessary demonstration. Would you care to be another demonstration, Commander Mustafa?=
"Of what?"
=Of this.= A limb of energy leapt from the Ór and out of the holo to touch Mustafa amidships.
Mustafa turned away from the holo to look at Durant. Suddenly the anger on his face turned to horror as he looked at his commanding officer. "No," he said. "No, not—"
"What is it, Arlen?" Durant asked, looking from the Ór to his exec. "What are you showing him?"
=Something he fears,= the Ór said. =In thirty seconds the fear will cause a hemorrhage within his brain, causing his termination.=
Arlen Mustafa had fallen to his knees, his hands stretched out, his eyes wide, his mouth partially open and unable to make a sound.
=Twenty seconds,= the Ór said.
Durant shook his head. "No. Stop it. Turn it off!"
=Fifteen seconds,= the Ór replied. =It is a demonstration.=
Mustafa had fallen to hands and knees, his head hanging down, his legs twitching.
"You don't need to demonstrate any more! You—Your 'directives' are to preserve lives. Preserve his—I need him to manage this base. To manage it for you."
=Five seconds,= the Ór said.
As suddenly as it began, the limb of energy withdrew. Mustafa collapsed to the deck like a puppet with cut strings. Durant stepped to his side and knelt beside him.
=A lie,= the Ór said at last. =Still, a touching example of compassion. Most instructive.=
Durant felt Mustafa for a pulse and found one. His exec was breathing normally, as if he'd just passed out.
"I was supposed to let him die," Durant said angrily. "For your entertainment."
=Instruction. Do you require any further demonstrations? If not, prepare to surrender your base.=
The holo vanished and was replaced by the pilot's display. Durant looked up to see the two large alien ships approaching the base, and the Trebizond inbound, escorted by several smaller alien vessels.
As he watched the ships creep across the display, he hoped he'd made the right choice.