"Small ship between Nebuchadnezzar and Ramses is firing thrusters," Jennifer reported. With a scowl of concern, Hakim projected the picture, checked the images and interpretation, nodded, glanced at Martin, eyebrow raised.
A very small reaction.
"Pod release in ten minutes," Harpal said, stating what they all knew, tracking the numbers on their wands.
The room fell quiet. Three of the four couples stopped making love. The fourth became subdued, though still active.
Martin felt sick.
Nebuchadnezzar's heartbeat changed. Hakim cycled the signal through several enhancements and interpretations, meaning little to most of the crew, and said, "Subsurface activity seems to have decreased."
" Decreased?" Martin asked.
Seen in the star sphere, Nebuchadnezzar's atmosphere shimmered. Something sang through the Tortoise'shull, between a bell tone and the screech of a fingernail on slate.
Martin's entire body tensed and he rubbed his eyes with one hand. Nobody moved. The War Mother did not move. Seconds passed.
"Jesus Christ," Harpal Timechaser murmured.
"Quiet," Martin said.
The fourth couple had separated and put on overalls. It would not be decorous to die naked and in the clinch.
Long minutes passed. Two minutes to releasing the pods and scattering the mines.
The atmosphere rippled again. The simulated beat changed abruptly to a chirp-thud and another bell-screech hurt their ears.
"The planet's crust has risen and fallen a few centimeters," Hakim reported.
"The entire crust?" Andrew Jaguar asked, incredulous.
"All that we can see," Hakim said. "I presume the entire—"
The surface of the planet seemed to shatter, hot white lines racing from the poles to meet at the equator, marking off jagged polygons, then dying into racing small reddish lines, fading again to normal brown.
Hakim's face blanched. "I don't know what that was… The mines are released."
"All eleven of the ships in the outer solar system have turned on thrusters," Jennifer said.
Martin surveyed the room, working to steady his breathing. "Something's up," he said.
The star sphere followed the progress of a pod of mines from a bombship. The pod dropped, exploded in a puff, and thousands of mines spread out in a shimmer, disappearing rapidly. Thirty seconds later, massive blossoms of light spread across the atmosphere. Spinning fireballs cascaded like fireworks, dazzling the eye, too many to count.
That was not supposed to happen.
Some of the bombships seemed to ignite with burning halos.
"Strong traces of anti em reactions," Hakim said. "Extreme gamma ray production, split nuclei forming alpha particles and larger ions. Cherenkov in the atmosphere… I think perhaps the entire planet is made of anti em…"
"No," said the War Mother. All faces turned to the painted robot. "The sensors do not support this interpretation."
"Still, there are anti em reactions," Hakim said, voice trembling. "The mines have detonated prematurely…"
"Have any mines reached the surface?"
"None," Hakim said.
"Are the bombships pulling away?"
The star sphere showed that the ships were indeed pulling away, four of them surrounded by glowing halos. The halos faded as they gained altitude.
"Four of our craft show strong anti em traces," Hakim said.
"That doesn't make sense," Martin said. "Is there a layer of anti em in the atmosphere…?"
"Not possible," Hakim said, looking to the War Mother for support. The War Mother agreed.
Tortoisehad passed beyond Nebuchadnezzar and was now dipping below the ecliptic. The bombships, one by one, had dropped their loads. Three of the ships, upon spreading their mines filled with makers and doers, had produced merely the flowering of immense atmospheric explosions across thousands of kilometers, leaving turbulent scars on the planet's surface.
The fresh scars made very little difference.
The planet looks like one huge scar, smoothed over by time.
"It's been attacked before, hasn't it?" Harpal Timechaser asked.
Martin shook his head. "I don't know."
"That's it. We drilled on that. Nebuchadnezzar has been attacked before. It's always survived."
But three of the ships' weapons had found their marks and dropped to the surface, leaving no flowers of radiation behind; falling and entering, unseen from this distance but tracked by the bombships responsible. These ships rose from their close approach, clearly visible to anyone watching on the planet, to Tortoise, but minus halos of light.
The bombships began their acceleration to be picked up by Tortoise. Nothing followed them; nothing attacked. The defense craft around Tortoisestayed in formation, unchallenged.
"How long until we pick up the bombships?" Martin asked.
"Twenty minutes," Hakim said. "They have to accelerate and decelerate on combat schedule—they will be almost out of fuel. We could be more leisurely about it, perhaps." But he didn't sound convinced. Unexplained things had happened; not all the mines had made it to Nebuchadnezzar's surface.
Martin bit his fingernail.
"We've gotten ourselves into something," he said softly.
"What?" Hakim asked.
They waited, the crew in the cafeteria silent, or whispering softly. Harpal approached the star sphere, examining the planet closely. "We've failed, haven't we? The seeds from the outer cloud will have to do the Job now."
"That will take years," Martin said. He turned to the War Mother. "We can't get volatiles from Nebuchadnezzar. We'll have to move on to Ramses and try again. Do you know what happened?"
"There is deception here," the War Mother said.
"No shit," Harpal said.
"Bombships are returning. Something's wrong," Hakim said.
In the sphere, Martin could see them outlined by tiny sparkles of white light.
"What's the discharge?" Martin asked the War Mother.
"Not known," the War Mother said. "The effect produces intense gamma rays, much like anti-matter reactions."
"Do we keep the bombships out?" Hakim asked.
Martin masked his face with intense concentration, eyebrows knit, lips tightened and pushed out, breath harsh in his nostrils. "That doesn't make sense," he said.
The six bombships drew closer to Tortoise, came into position for pickup, signaling their status on noach. All were intact, all weapons dispersed. The first ship in line-up for retrieval was William and Fred Falcon's.
William's voice came over the noach. "Mines discharged. I've got sparkles all around me. I think I picked something up in the upper atmosphere. Why would my mines discharge? Tortoise!"
Martin asked, "Is it possible the mines were defective?"
Hakim shook his head. "I think not."
"We've never been in combat. Could something on the planet deactivate the mines?" He turned to the War Mother.
"No conclusions are possible. Deactivation of the mines is not inconceivable, but simple deactivation would not cause an explosion. The atmosphere may contain seeker and doer systems designed to attack incoming weapons, but we have detected nothing of that nature. Shielded anti-matter dust does not seem a likely possibility."
"The weapons could be disguised, or hidden, like our own ships," Hakim suggested.