“Commander,” Lok said, “I have a message from the Department. Will you hurry the validations, please?”
“Joser? Thahl?”
”I’m rechecking the voice analysis, Commander,” Joser said.
“Rechecking?”
“It doesn’t completely match Lok’s pattern.”
“Commander, it’s a fake!” Thahl said. “It’s from Her.”
“Cyr, fire before She breaks cover!”
Cyr, swearing loudly, was already doing so. She overrode the five-minute count. A warning harmonic warbled politely through the Bridge. Headup displays and target simulations were superimposed on the Bridge screen, but
“Too late, Commander, She’s gone. Out of range. Heading into the Belt on ion drive, high acceleration.”
Foord swore, more softly and less obscenely than Cyr, then subsided. It had only taken Her a second to divert them, but now She might as well have been hours gone.
“Commander,” Kaang said, “I can get Her back in range if we move now.”
“No, not this time. There’s no need.”
“I’m sorry, Commander….No Need?”
Foord glanced at her, surprised. Kaang never questioned tactics; part of their understanding was that she was only a pilot.
“She isn’t running, Kaang, so we don’t need to catch Her. She’ll wait.”
“Commander,” Cyr said, “with respect, I think you should reconsider.”
“What’s Her speed and course, Joser?”
“It’s on the screen, Commander. She’s going into the Belt at sixty percent, but the speed’s dropping.”
“Take us forward on Her course, please, Kaang. Thirty percent.” He turned to Cyr. “You’re right, we can’t just sit here. But we won’t have to chase Her. Now She’s out of range, She’ll wait.”
Like Foord, the Bridge swore softly to itself and subsided.
Kaang quietly engaged ion drive and took them deeper into the Belt. Foord turned an icy gaze on the microphone, whose Incoming light still glowed.
“You can go now” he told it.
There was no reply. The light stayed on.
“I said, You can go now. You aren’t real.”
“Neither are you. Neither is the Department. Neither is the Commonwealth.”
2
Both ships possessed a similar array of drives, and a similar performance in each of them. When they entered the Belt, Kaang had cleverly feinted and doublebluffed Her into range of their beams, but that wasn’t going to happen again. In fact, quite the opposite: the second part of their engagement in the Belt was a reversal of the first.
For ninety minutes, She danced in front of them exactly beyond the reach of their beams, countering even the attempts of Kaang to get Her back in range. She did sideslices and curlicues, rolls and tumbles and even the occasional somersault; She hopped behind asteroids which were just outside beam range, breaking out and running for cover just before they came within range. They still couldn’t see Her—She hadn’t yet decided it was time to unshroud—but they tracked Her path, including the dancing manoeuvres, easily enough through Her drive emissions, as of course She wanted them to. It was deadpan and sly, like a Sakhran might mock a human.
“Bring us to rest, please, Kaang,” Foord said, ninety minutes later. He gazed around the Bridge. “If Kaang can’t get Her back in range, we need something else.”
Kaang carefully refrained from comment, as did Thahl, but the silence of the others was more pointed. He repeated wearily She’ll wait, She’s not running, we don’t have to chase Her. He knew that for certain; one by one, he was adding pieces to the huge clockwork he had designed to engage Her. But he was still shivering from what She had done, how She’d faked a Department call but hadn’t even bothered, apparently, to fake it properly. What if She decided next time to fake it properly?
He needed time, to see if they were affected as badly as he was. To draw out their reactions. But his first attempt was ill-judged.
“She spoke to us in that call,” he said. “She’s never spoken before.”
“She didn’t speak,” Joser said. “It wasn’t Her voice. It was a fake, and not even a very good one.”
“It was good enough,” Smithson said sourly.
Foord tried again.
“She spoke,” he insisted. “She said we aren’t real.”
“Why didn’t She fake it better?” Joser was almost plaintive.
“It was good enough,” Smithson repeated. “It got Her out of range.”
“She should have faked it better.”
“Perhaps,” Cyr said to Joser, spitefully, “it really was the Department.”
“But the voice patterns and signature…”
“They could have been testing you. They’re at least as clever as She is.”
“It said we aren’t real.”
“Then it must have been the Department. Call them back.”
Good, thought Foord. Smithson and Cyr seem unimpaired. Kaang doesn’t count, not in this. Joser is suspect, but always was. So that leaves
“Thahl,” he said. “This was the first time anyone’s got an advantage over Her, and it disappeared because She distracted us...”
“Yes, Commander.”
“…but maybe She let us get an advantage, so She could show us how easily She could make it disappear.”
Thahl looked up sharply at him. “Do you really believe that, Commander?”
“Of course not!” he said, a little too loudly.
There was a silence. Feeling a need to fill it, Foord rushed on.
“Thahl, how did She know the vocabulary and forms of address? Is She able to monitor the Department’s MT channel to us? Because if She is…”
“No, Commander, it’s more likely She monitored the Department’s calls to Director Swann. Sakhra’s a communications beacon at the moment. We could probably monitor it ourselves.”
“Yes, that must be it.”
“I said More Likely, Commander. We can’t be certain.”
Foord didn’t reply. Is he, thought Thahl, waiting for me to make a suggestion, or is he faking? He can be irritating, sometimes.
“Commander, you already decided to kill normal communications. I suggest you kill the Department’s MT channel. It’s as useless as the MT Drive, and for the same reason: She got into it.”
“If we kill that channel, we’re alone. And another part of us goes down.”
“You wanted to be alone when we faced Her. You insisted on it. And as for another part going down…”
As for another part going down, Foord completed what Thahl did not need to say, this is an Outsider. Each of its parts, and each of us, has no perception of needing each other. A Sakhran would know that better than anyone. We can go through each phase of this engagement having limbs lopped off one by one, and still the mouth will bite.
“Yes, you’re right,” Foord said eventually. “Kill the Department’s channel.”
Thahl and Foord briefly made eye contact across the Bridge. Foord was thinking I’m not only unsure how much he’s faking, I’m unsure how much I’m faking. Thahl was thinking the same thing.
“Joser, what’s Her situation?”
“Still heading into the Belt, Commander. Forty percent ion speed and dropping. Position 12-16-14.”
Foord was silent for a minute. Then he smiled.
“Take us back out of the Belt, please, Kaang.”
“Commander?”
“Back the way we came. Ion drive, five percent.” He looked round the Bridge. “Yes, I know. But I want to see what She does about it.”