“You tell him, Kaang,” Smithson invited. “He expects you to take us through part of an asteroid belt on photon drive. Let’s hear from you.”
“For once,” Cyr added.
“I’m only the pilot,” Kaang mumbled, miserably. “That was the agreement.”
“Tell us,” Cyr said, “please. As a pilot. Can you do it?”
“Perhaps,” Kaang said, “but I’m not certain.”
“It gets better,” confided Smithson to the air above him. “The Commonwealth’s greatest pilot and weakest human being, executing the orders of a Commander who died half an hour ago. I want all this entered on the record.” He looked at Foord and lowered his voice, for tragic effect; lapsing again into self-pity. “I don’t know why, particularly. But I do. Someone may read it sometime.”
“I don’t intend to sit around while She knocks pieces off us one by one,” Foord said mildly.
“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing for the last thirty minutes?”
“We might die from this engagement,” Foord answered, still mildly.
“You’ve died from it already,” Smithson muttered.
“Commander,” Cyr asked, “you said She might know our thoughts before we think them. So we use photon drive, and so does She. Then what?”
“Then we both survive or both die. If we both survive, we lose and gain nothing. If we both die we get a draw.”
“I liked you better when you were alive,” Smithson said.
For the first time, Foord looked directly at Smithson. “This ship can’t collectively survive or die. Only its parts survive or die. Alone. When the MT Drive activated, we left you to fight it. Alone. The crew of an ordinary ship would have fought it together, and you know what would have happened.”
A person of any sensitivity would have recognised that as the conclusion. Smithson, however, was not sensitive and only approximately a person.
“You oversimplified just now. If we both use photon drive, we don’t necessarily both survive or die. She could survive and we could die.”
“Of course. But only if She has a pilot better than Kaang. Do you think Her pilot is likely to be better than Kaang?”
And that, even Smithson recognised, was the conclusion. “No, Commander.”
Kaang sat quietly by in the half-light, following the conversation from one face to another. She often found herself like this: listening to them talking about her as if she wasn’t there.
Smithson caused a muscle to ripple in his upper torso: not a shrug, but some other gesture Foord had never seen before. Perhaps, as he’d never seen it before, it was an apology. “Of course, that’s if She is a ship, with a crew and Commander and pilot, and not something else. But we’ve been through that before… Commander, we haven’t even seen Her yet, and She’s made us say these things. We’ve never said such things before.”
Thought them, maybe, Cyr told herself, but never said them. What’s happening to us?
And that was the mood in which they passed on to the details of what they were about to do. To escape it, they went over the details again and again. A ten percent photon burst to bring Her back in range, executed by Kaang who, while it lasted, would become the focus of the ship as Smithson was when he fought the MT Drive. Then, if they survived, the re-establishment of the particle beam bombardment. And first, a series of slow moves towards Her on ion drive; on the basis of Her responses, Foord would decide when to engage photon.
The repetition of the details was like the restoration of a heartbeat after trauma. It brought the Bridge back to something like its normal quietness.
“Photon drive is ready whenever you want to use it, Commander,” Smithson said, a few moments later.
“Thank you. Cyr?”
“If we survive the photon burst, I can re-establish the particle beams.”
“Thank you. Kaang?”
“We now have figures for the duration and course of the photon burst, Commander. Duration is fourteen seconds.”
“Fourteen? I underestimated.”
“The course includes eleven major evasive manoeuvres, Commander,” Kaang said evenly, “around intervening asteroids.”
Eleven manoeuvres, in fourteen seconds, at ten percent photon speed. She might have been describing a routine parking orbit. Foord tried to match her lack of expression, and failed. He could feel expressions moving over his face, as if they were external forces. Eleven, fourteen, ten. What Kaang was about to do, on his orders, had now been given figures, and they were monstrous.
“I understand. Then,” as the alarms politely cleared their throats, “please take us forward on ion drive, Kaang. One percent.”
“Done, Commander.”
The manoeuvre drives fountained. The alarms increased a semitone, but stayed well within the bounds of politeness. The ion drive cut in, almost silently. The asteroids on the encircling Bridge screen whirled and resettled as the ship established direction and attitude; otherwise there was no sensation of movement.
“She’s moving away, Commander,” Joser said. “Ion drive, low register.”
“Increase to three percent, please, Kaang.”
“Done, Commander.”
“She’s matched us,” Joser said.
“Maintain at three percent, please, Kaang.”
“Done, Commander.”
Foord settled back. He glanced at Kaang. She was checking—unnecessarily, since she had already checked several times—that the navigation and drives cores had instructed their computers to make minor adjustments to the course and duration of the photon burst to allow for the last few movements. Foord knew he could do Thahl’s and Joser’s jobs about as well as they could; Cyr’s, almost as well; and Smithson’s, adequately. But Kaang’s, never.
“Joser?”
“Still matching us, Commander.”
“Good.” It was settling into a pattern, muted and orderly, with the leisure to observe one’s draughtsmanship and doublecheck the details. “Kaang, we’ll stay at three percent, please. Give you time to ready the overrides for execution. And I’d like to observe Her responses a little longer.”
“Done, commander.”
“No, Commander, your order’s refused. I’m engaging photon drive now.”
The first answer was what Foord expected and practically believed he’d heard. The second, delivered with exactly the same inflexion, was what he actually heard. It silenced the Bridge.
“I’m engaging photon drive now, Commander.”
“But the overrides—”
Kaang pressed a palm panel and gazed calmly round the Bridge. One by one, the other five consoles went dark.
“Done, Commander. As of now, I’m the only other living thing this ship recognises.”
Insanely, Foord caught himself noting her use of the word Other. The alarms were rising, beyond their normal politeness; they were beginning to sound loud, like alarms on ordinary ships. And the Charles Manson, since it did indeed recognise only Kaang, was now proceeding with complete logic and reasonableness to move against all the others. To immobilise its own crew.
“Kaang!”
“If you didn’t see this coming, Commander,” she replied, as the ship closed its burrows and corridors and bulkheads to isolate its inhabited sections, “then maybe She won’t either.”
Foord knew she was right. He wanted to say so, but there was no time. The last thing he was able to say, knowing that anything more would be cut short by the alarms’ rising noise and/or the ship’s destruction and/or the shutdown of internal communications, whichever was the sooner, was Cyr, if we survive this, come out firing.