The slender delta shape at first looked, as ever, perfect and inviolate; until random stabs of the arc-lights from the working parties threw into sudden relief the jagged edges of damage, mostly around the rear and port sections. Kaang could see the gashes and striations which, suddenly lit then dark then lit again, seemed to pulse like infected areas. And as her eyes adjusted further she saw where the hull was streaked and daubed.
She resumed her seat at her console. She seemed to grow back a little, but only a little, into her normal shape and identity.
“Thahl’s rerouted the pilot’s functions back to you, Kaang.”
“Yes, Commander. You told me.”
“He has rerouted them back.” Foord spoke as if he had to be certain of that before he could say anything else to her, about anything. “We have a lot to do. Now you’re back, we’ll begin. By saying goodbye to Joser.”
•
They waited for Foord’s signal. When he gave it, each of them—including the synthetics and mechanicals—stopped working on the hull and turned to face the nearest remote, so that back on the Bridge Foord could see them all looking into the screen. The sealed capsule containing Joser’s body was ready for ejection through one of the ventral airlocks.
Like most of those on the Charles Manson, Joser had no family or relatives—or none with whom he kept contact—and had elected, In The Event Of My Death In Service, for burial in space. The nine Outsiders had standard words for such occasions. Foord spoke them over the comm.
“Before he was born, he already existed. As a set of possibilities. As something unknowable. While he lived, he was the visible tip of that same thing. Now let him return to it, and still exist. Perhaps.”
Joser’s capsule ejected from the rear ventral airlock, and drifted away.
Faith’s first victim went out in the same direction as that taken by Her third missile, after it impacted the ship. The missile had collapsed its molecular structure, become an irregular inert object about three feet across, and drifted away. Nobody felt disposed to follow it. Joser did, now.
•
“You added a word to the standard service,” Kaang heard Smithson say to Foord.
“Perhaps,” Foord said.
“Yes,” Smithson said. “Perhaps. It’s not in the service.”
“Perhaps it ought to be…. Is the comm still on?”
It was. Work had not resumed. All over the hull, they were still staring into the Bridge screen.
“This opponent,” Foord said into the comm, “is like none we’ve ever encountered. Before we finish repairs and go after Her, I want us to consider Her. To consider what She is.”
“Commander,” Cyr began, “this isn’t—it won’t—”
“It is and it will. This is important. I have my reasons. You’ll see.”
The figures on the hull were motionless. All of them, including the mechanicals and synthetics, seemed to be listening intently.
“Kaang, you start. What is She?”
“Commander, what’s happened while I’ve been away?”
“What do you mean?”
“Our orders said destroy Her and ignore what She is. You said that. What’s happened to make you change?”
“I’m sorry, Kaang, it was unfair to start with you. I’ll come back to you later, but listen and you’ll see why I’m asking….Thahl, what about you? What do you think She is? Is She from the Commonwealth, maybe a rebel?”
“Perhaps, Commander. But a ship like that—”
“Like what? We’ve been fighting Her all this time, and we haven’t seen her yet.”
“We know what She looks like, and we know some of what She can do, from records of previous engagements…She’s not a Commonwealth ship.”
“Or maybe She is, but just not one that we know of.”
Thahl paused. “Then maybe we don’t know what She looks like. She can bend and confuse scanners. Maybe how she appeared in previous engagements isn’t how She really is.”
“Maybe. So what is She?”
Thahl thought for a moment, then glanced up at Foord.
“Maybe She’s been secretly built and funded by some of the I2Js,” (he meant those Invited To Join) “to strike back at the Commonwealth.”
A ripple of something, perhaps amusement, went through the Bridge. It was impossible to tell, from the heavily-suited figures on the screen, whether whatever it was had been echoed outside.
“Better,” said Foord. “But it’s not what you really think…Smithson, what is She?”
“How about something made secretly by the Commonwealth to eliminate Outsiders? You know what they think of us, Commander.”
“Much better,” approved Foord. “I like that one, it’s so self-obsessed and so paranoid. So: Kaang.”
“Commander?”
“What is She?”
“I wish I could take part in this, Commander, but you know I can’t. We agreed. I’m only a pilot.”
“Come on, Kaang.”
“I really don’t know…perhaps your suggestion, that She’s some kind of rebel.”
“Too obvious, and She’d need a better pilot. She’d have tried to recruit you…Cyr, what is She?”
“Do we have to go on with this, Commander?”
“Yes. What is She?”
“Maybe She really is just an alien. Maybe this is the first real threat we’ve ever known. The first of many. Maybe this is the start of a war, against the first enemy we’ve ever met who can really match us.”
“She came here three hundred years ago, Cyr. It wasn’t the start of a war against Sakhra.”
“It didn’t need to be. Whatever She did was enough for Her to leave and let Sakhra decline.” She glanced at Thahl, who remained expressionless. “The Commonwealth is bigger. Maybe a war is more appropriate.”
When the silence on the Bridge had grown long enough to be uncomfortable, Cyr added “You did ask me. And it’s what we all heard back on Sakhra.”
“And is it what you think?”
“Yes, Commander, because it’s the most likely. The best fit.”
“Except that the Commonwealth has ordered us to engage and destroy Her alone. Just us.”
“That doesn’t make it untrue.”
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, Cyr.”
“Oh? Then what is all this about, Commander? You told us—”
“To consider what She is. Not discover. Not decide. Consider! Consider all the explanations, because all the explanations, whether they’re true or not, tell us the same thing.”
“Do you have an explanation for us, Commander?”
“Yes, I think She’s an alien. But not like you described, Cyr. Something quite different. Perhaps…”
“I meant an explanation for your behaviour here, Commander.”
“…Perhaps what we’ve been fighting all this time isn’t even a ship. Perhaps it doesn’t have a Commander, or crew, or pilot. Perhaps it’s a single life-form, evolved to live in space like a fish in water. Or a marine mammal, which looks like a fish but preys on fish. Yes: it looks like a ship but preys on ships.”
“And how,” Cyr inquired politely, “does it prey on ships? Does it eat them?”
“Absorbs their energies,” Smithson offered. “You know, feeds on their feelings of mortification, after it’s defeated them in various elaborate and enigmatic ways.”
“Yes! And,” Cyr went on delightedly, “and its drives, its scanners, its beams, its missiles, all the things that make it look like a ship, they’re evolutionary mimicry.”