Clemantine arrived on the high bridge just as the steerage jets fired, initiating a slow rotation that would bring Dragon’s gamma-ray gun in line to vaporize Elepaio and sterilize the space around the outrider. She took a moment for review and assessment. Urban expected her to object when she grasped his intention. Instead, she said, *Yes. Whatever the cost, don’t allow this infestation.
Griffin’s philosopher cells sighted the invasive matter around Elepaio. They had no concept of such a phenomenon, so they tagged it as likely hostile. At the same time, they launched multiple searches into the cell field’s deep memory, seeking a similar situation, a past experience to help them interpret what they saw and to suggest a method of attack.
Clemantine didn’t know what to make of it either until a submind arrived and memories unfolded. Her first action was to reinforce the classification of “hostile.”
Through the ship’s senses, she looked ahead to the gleam of Dragon’s philosopher cells, a hundred kilometers distant, and read the message contained in their microsecond flashes:
<kill it>
Sooth. It was the logical next step.
Bracing herself against the terrible sense of dissociation she knew would come, she shunted power to the gun.
*Urban, Clemantine warned.
The urgency in her voice let him know that the Clemantine who spoke was his Clemantine, the version of her on Dragon’s high bridge, and not the icy mistress of Griffin.
*I see it, he answered, apprehending the cause of her concern.
An updated image of Elepaio circulated through the philosopher cells’ conversation. In it, the discrete warm points indicating the presence of matter energized by the reef could no longer be seen. Elepaio had lost its glamour. It appeared now to be clean.
A submind brought a memory of the most recent telescope image. It confirmed the hull cells’ observation: The glamour was gone.
Clemantine said, *The devices have launched from Elepaio.
*Sooth.
The devices would try to reach Dragon or Griffin. No way to know how widely they were scattered or how fast they might be coming. And it was possible, even likely, that each device was really a package of smaller weapons. That’s how he would have done it—loaded each with thousands or tens of thousands of needle projectiles like those he’d used to infect Griffin.
He canceled his decision to use the gamma-ray gun:
– hold fire –
No need to sacrifice Elepaio when the invasive devices were already gone.
– hold fire: don’t shoot –
He dumped the argument at a hundred thousand points across Dragon’s cell field.
– hold fire –
To his surprise, the philosopher cells affirmed this argument. Reinforced it: <confirm: hold fire>
But Clemantine objected: *What are you doing? We can still hit the swarm of devices while they’re on their way in.
*They’ve already scattered. The time delay. The immense span of space. I’d have to burn out the reef to cover it all.
*Then burn it! You can’t let the swarm hit us.
The philosopher cells picked up on her mood, echoed it, their hostility swiftly rising.
*All right.
He envisioned Elepaio. Sent that image to the cells with a warning: – do not target –
<affirmed: do not target>
He shared with them the idea of an incoming infectious swarm—a concept they understood because he’d deployed it against them in the distant past.
The cells established a summary and proposed a response: <target position unknown: undertake general defense>
He made no objection, but emphasized the protection he’d placed on Elepaio: – do not target –
<affirmed: do not target>
The philosopher cells carried out the maneuver, orienting Dragon so its bow faced Elepaio, presenting the smallest profile to the incoming swarm.
To Clemantine, he said, *Tell her.
*She knows everything I know, Clemantine assured him.
As if to prove it, Griffin’s hull cells signaled their intention to fire. Seconds later, a high-energy lance punched through the wide gulf between Dragon and Elepaio. Blind strikes, repeating. Again. And again.
Excitement ignited among Dragon’s philosopher cells. With no input from Urban they flashed a microsecond message to Griffin, urging the companion ship to continue—<fire fire fire>—while commencing their own high-energy sweep of the suspect region.
Urban mentally braced as power leaped from the reef to the gun, the force of it twisting, tearing, destabilizing the reality in which he existed. Knife slices from a parallel universe.
The beam hunted blindly through the gulf, while across the surface of the reef, polyps began to immolate, burned up by the energy they channeled, burned off in micro-thin layers, blue fire eroding down into the lifeless depths that lay beneath the reef’s living veneer.
The same process underway on Griffin.
How many layers could be lost? He didn’t know—but too many, and the reef might not recover.
Enough!
He dropped the hammer of command: – stop –
Simultaneously messaging the other Clemantine: *Stop! Don’t burn out your reef.
In a cold, calm voice, easily distinguished from his Clemantine, she answered, *I’m done… for now.
Was there an unspoken implication in her words? His Clemantine thought so. She said, *If the entity gets through, we fight it. We aren’t going to yield either ship.
*We’ll do all we can, the mistress of Griffin agreed. *But warn the company. Be ready to evacuate.
The philosopher cells kept watch, and eventually they sighted sparks of plasma, barely discernible, flaring to brief life in the laser-strafed gulf. Signatures of vaporizing matter, each spark marking the destruction of a vector of infection.
Thousands of them.
No way to know if they’d gotten them all.
In the library, Clemantine said, “If even one gets through…”
“Sooth. I know it.”
On the high bridge, Urban prepared the philosopher cells for the possibility of invasion, for imminent infestation. They rallied molecular defenses. The resulting metabolic activity was so extreme it caused the temperature just beneath the cell field to climb. Aggressive preparations, but he remembered too well how swiftly his avatar had vanished after he’d entered the shipwreck… and he did not believe it would be enough.