Interplanetary space was extremely difficult to guard. When assault could come undetected from almost any angle, the best defense lay in deceit—either camouflage or outright disguise. What did not attract attention was not attacked.
The libraries told them that only primitive civilizations, such as Earth's, blatantly announced their existence.
If deceit and camouflage failed, space warfare was comparatively clean and dependent on initial conditions. Knowing the differences in technology suggested probable outcomes for most confrontations even before battle began.
For an invader, this could be turned into an advantage. If an invasion force was discovered within a system, it could "pigeon puff: provide misleading evidence of overwhelming superiority, thus forcing its adversary into ineffective and energy-wasting tactics accompanied by a sense of certain defeat. Psychological weapons were difficult to design because the psychology of an adversary might be unknown or, when facing machines, virtually nonexistent. Even the methods of perception of an adversary might be problematic.
More effective sometimes, Theodore postulated, was an appearance of weakness, of lesser technological ability. One part of an assault could perform deception while other parts deployed silently. If the adversary were deceived by this "lapwing," it might exert its forces prematurely, inappropriately, or not at all.
These were solid but not brilliant reflections of what the moms , had taught them. Where Theodore Dawn's genius truly shined was in describing an adversary's course of actions under the imagined circumstances of confrontation. Theodore seemed to have an aptitude for creating alien psychologies, and applying them to space warfare.
He created four categories of adversary: inferior, equal, superior, and unknowable. Unknowable could encompass any of the other categories; for example, a weak, low-technology adversary might have stumbled onto effective methods of maintaining silence, or of deceiving.
Inferior was easily enough defined, and even dealt with, given due caution; but it was unlikely the Killers were inferior to the Benefactors. Theodore outlined a few simple instances, warned of dangers, and went on to equality and superiority.
Equality was most difficult to plan for, simply because it couldbe planned for. Martin, choosing the most likely scenario, studied Theodore's writing and displays on the tactics of attacking equals. What he was concerned with was not equality of force, but equality of technology and intelligence; not equality of desire or fear, nor even the sameness of creativity, but equality of the raw materials of warfare, in terms of capabilities. Thus, a torpedo was smaller and perhaps less complex than the submarine it was designed to destroy, yet it was equal in technological origins.
A simple device could be made clever at the same level as a more complex, far more powerful or forcefuldevice; it could be effective against the greater force, preventing its use or destroying it.
A superior adversary was best not confronted directly, or at all (though that was not a choice here; they must bat against such a force like a moth against a glass window, if necessary, dedicated but all-uncomprehending). But the superior adversary was likely also best at concealment, deception, and diversion. A far superior adversary might not be an adversary at all, as much as a supernatural force, a Godlike potentiality that could brush aside the most careful planning and the most concerted assault like the whims of a child.
Still, the moms insisted—and Theodore agreed—confronting a technologically superior adversary was not necessarily folly. Killing Captain Cook.
The tactics of dealing with superiority were largely those of silence and attrition, like an infected flea creeping into a human's clothes to spread plague. The makers and the doers could act as bacilli.
But repeatedly, Martin was reminded by Theodore's writings that any comparisons they made—even the comparison to killing Cook—were faulty.
It was possible the superior adversary could nullify or escape any of their weapons.
Martin closed his eyes and tried to subdue his frustration, his conflict. There would never be enough information. And he—Martin—would never be sufficiently prepared…
The Dawn Treaderused every method at its disposal to slow over the long days of space, and to conserve its fuel, girding for battle.
Martin led the children outside the ship again, and this time he felt they were prepared. He had set up a particularly nasty adversary—one suggested by Theodore years before.
Martin stayed within the ship, directing the efforts of this adversary with two others—Harpal Timechaser and Stephanie Wing Feather.
Outside, forty of the children flew their craft around the Dawn Treader, preparing for entry into a simulated system configured very much like Wormwood.
The five unknown masses around the yellow star were hidden defense stations, in Martin's plan; and Theodore's adversaries, pure machine intelligences that had long since replaced their biological creators, were in command.
Martin watched the scenario play itself out.
Planets met their end in compressed time, surfaces molten slag, and most of the children survived. Hare, portrayed by the still-intact Dawn Treader, came through with minimal damage.
The farthest-scattered craft came in fifteen minutes after the simulation's end.
Stephanie licked her index finger, stuck it up to an imaginary breeze, swayed her arm toward Martin, and smiled. Confidence was returning.
The children gathered in the first homeball's cafeteria and analyzed their performances, Martin and Hans overseeing. The self-criticism flowed steadily, without hurt feelings, and Martin felt a knitting of the teams that had gone out on drill.
Afterward, they ate dinner, then listened to music performed by Joe Flatworm and Kees North Sea: raucous, lively folk music from the Ukraine and Tennessee, barely slowed by the extra weight.
Their bodies had grown stronger, stockier. No need to ask if the moms were responsible.
The performance lasted less than half an hour; they rested after, Martin in Theresa's quarters, in the heavy darkness, watching the ceiling, mind passing over the day's events.
He slept peacefully, without dreams.
Two days until coasting resumed; five days from passage through the pre-birth material.
Martin exercised in the second neck, climbing along the ladder fields instead of letting them haul him up or down. He had climbed almost the entire distance from the second homeball to the third, enjoying the exertion, almost used to the heaviness, when he heard the screaming, thin and far away, sliced into ghastly echoes by the shapes in the wormspace.
Theresa was in the third homeball, above him, doing private practice in a bombship. She quickly descended on a field, pausing beside him where he hung, and listened, frowning. "Did you hear that?" she asked.
He nodded, hoping it was nothing. It did not sound like nothing. It sounded horrible, even more horrible when distorted, and they were used to the distortions of voices in the necks.
Nothing for seconds. Then, a barely audible keening, voices of concern, two or three people trying to comfort.