If the ion drive made any noise, it was not enough to be heard above the soft and, as always, discreet murmur of the alarms. If it produced any emission from the outlets around the ship’s snout, it was not enough to be noticed on the forward section of the Bridge screen, which would have filtered it out anyway. And if it produced any sensation of movement—which objectively it did not, because the gravity compensators would have dealt with it—it was only the illusion of the ship standing still for ten seconds while the red screen image of Horus 5 receded.
“It’s changed course to match our movement, Commander,” Joser said, “but it hasn’t changed speed. Eight minutes forty seconds to impact.”
“Thank you. Another ten seconds on ion drive at forty percent, please, Kaang. This time to starboard.”
Again the object matched them, again without changing speed.
“Here’s the visual, Commander,” Joser said.
On the screen directly ahead, a hole opened in the face of Horus 5. It was a black rectangular section of space, as though punched through the planet by some industrial machine, and in the middle of it floated a featureless grey sphere.
“Just over eight minutes to impact, Commander, and I have a full set of results. I’ll put them up on the screen.”
Foord studied the superimposed rectangle carefully. Joser’s text scrolled along its lower edge. Unasked, the screen began generating a series of schematics of the object from other angles: ventral plan, dorsal plan, side view, rear view. It wasn’t a sphere—that was only an illusion created by its angle of approach, which was head on to the Charles Manson and closing—but a cylinder. A long, thick cylinder whose snout was blunt, whose rear bulged in a manner suggesting both photon and ion drives, but whose exterior was blank and featureless. While Foord gazed at it the alarms continued to murmur on the Bridge and throughout the ship, but the normal onboard business of the ship was still conducted as quietly and calmly as if they were silent. If anything, more quietly and calmly.
“Good,” Foord said eventually. “Joser, your results suggest that it’s three times bigger than one of our standard missiles, but seven times heavier. So what’s happening inside it?”
“I’m sorry, Commander, the interior’s too heavily shrouded.”
“But your people are working to penetrate the shroud.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“And what else can you tell me?”
“The hull is a conventional mixture of alloys and ceramics. It’s on ion drive at the moment, but seems also to possess photon drive. Its guidance system is obviously active and self-programming. And She must have launched it at us only a few minutes after we launched our missiles at Her.”
“Thank you, but most of that’s on the screen. Do you have anything to say about how She kept this hidden from us until now?”
“I’m sorry, Commander.”
“He means No,” Cyr whispered.
“Cyr, you have about…seven and a half minutes. Particle beams first, then closeup weapons. Kaang, hold us at this position for now. Joser, please turn off those alarms.”
The Charles Manson’s particle beams were dull blue, the colour of bruises. They stabbed out once, in two parallel and almost-solid lines. They reached the object, but what followed was unexpected. It threw up a flickerfield to meet the beams, a shimmering white aura which enveloped it. It lasted only for the nanoseconds of impact and no more—no vessel, even Faith or the Charles Manson, could sustain a defensive forcefield for any longer than the bare minimum, the millionths of a second needed to survive—but instead of the inevitable blinding concussion as the beams hit the field and either stabbed through it or were deflected, the field merely assumed their shade of dark blue and sank back into the object. The silence which followed should not have lasted so long.
“Six minutes forty seconds,” Joser said. “Still closing. No variation in course or speed.”
It was the first recorded appearance of a flickerfield which was energy absorbent and not energy repellent, and it robbed Foord of nearly half his weaponry.
“Cyr?”
“Her flickerfields are like ours, Commander, they only repel energy. You’ve seen recordings of Her other engagements.”
“I know. So why has that thing got an energy absorbent field?”
“For whatever it’s going to do next. Which won’t be just to make impact.”
“So don’t…”
“I know, Commander. Don’t use beam weapons.”
“But everything else.”
“Six minutes ten seconds to impact,” Joser said.
He knows it won’t be impact, Foord thought, but he’s too sloppy to think of another word.
“Use everything else, Cyr. Everything.”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Imagine it’s some frightened kid at Blentport.”
She glanced at him, but did not reply. She was already sending orders through a nest of command needlemikes which had grown up around her.
“Five minutes fifty seconds to impact.” How, thought Foord, did we suddenly get so short of time?
Without needing any formal confirmation, the ship—having heard the conversation, and exercising its usual discretion—placed its entire resources at Cyr’s disposal. As Foord became increasingly polite and punctilious during a crisis, Cyr became increasingly passionless; Foord’s last remark, which he was already regretting, had been easy for her to ignore. Under her direction the Charles Manson turned the whole of its conventional weapons array on the approaching object, Cyr’s curiously flat voice ordering in rapid succession the use of harmonic guns, friendship guns, tanglers, disruptors, plasma clouds, and finally missiles: missiles with conventional explosive warheads, with micronuclear warheads, with bionics-disruptive and hull-corrosive warheads. And one by one, the object’s flickerfield met and repelled them, in a series of jarring concussions which the Bridge screen duly filtered out.
“Nothing’s reached it so far, Commander,” Cyr said. “I can try again, but…”
“Four minutes ten seconds to impact.”
“…but its flickerfield was reinforced by what it absorbed from our beams.”
“Thank you, Cyr. Discontinue for now, but have closeup weapons ready. We’ll resume this at close quarters.”
“They’re ready now, Commander.”
“Thank you. Kaang, when I give the word, take us towards it; ion drive, fifty percent.”
“Standing by, Commander.”
“But not yet…I think something’s happening to it. Joser?”
There was no reply. Foord glanced up.
“Joser?”
“Commander, the object is slowing down.”
“Deliberately? Or is it damaged?”
“I think…Commander, I think we may have hit it. I’m getting readings which suggest it may have sustained internal damage. Its drive emissions are…”
“One moment, please. Cyr?”
“None of our weapons reached it, Commander. I don’t think it’s damaged.”
“Neither do I. I think it’s slowing deliberately. But why?”
“Commander,” Joser continued, “it’s almost at rest now. And its drive emissions are clearly…”
“Get us out of here, Kaang! Photon drive, ninety percent, random evasion!” His voice sounded strange. It wouldn’t carry.
“Have you seen the screen, Commander?” Thahl asked.
“Kaang, I said Get us out of here!”
“Out of where, Commander? Where are we?”