The two missiles waited to perform their task. When the time came they would sacrifice themselves to perform it, but they would not make the sacrifice knowingly or freely. They would do it because that was how they’d been made.
They floated in unpowered orbits, behind the Charles Manson and further out from Horus 4, on trajectories which still bore some of the Charles Manson’s imparted motion. The shortsighted lenses in their nosecones tracked back and forth in search of the only shape they’d recognise; but She was still too far away.
They could see the Charles Manson in front of them, but they didn’t see it. They were not programmed to recognise it and not equipped to communicate with it. They didn’t know it had made them and launched them. They didn’t know about any of its sixty-two (previously sixty-three) living inhabitants. They didn’t know it existed.
They could see the grey flat face of Horus 4, but they didn’t see it. They were not programmed to recognise it and not equipped to feel its gravity. They didn’t know it existed.
They didn’t even know there were two of them. Each was the centre of its own universe, in which only one other thing existed, the shape they hadn’t seen yet. If they didn’t see Her soon, their orbits would decay and they would go down into the grey flat face they didn’t see, and would die before they attained their very limited life. And if they did see Her and did attain life, it would begin and end almost simultaneously.
Instruments of Themselves.
The crude shortrange lenses in their nosecones tracked endlessly back and forth, and still didn’t see Her. Their universe was empty. She had to come closer.
•
The Bridge screen displays showed that Her ion drive, which She had been using in reverse to maintain distance, was gradually reducing. She was closing the distance between them, slowly and apparently with caution. And She was still studying them, with the probes they couldn’t block, or detect, or trace back to Her. They could feel it.
“Everything,” Smithson was saying to Thahl, “comes down to those missiles.” As usual, he was irritating but right. “How are you sure She hasn’t seen them?”
“If She’d seen them,” Thahl said, “She’d know this is all a simulation and She’d destroy them. They’re inert and defenceless.”
Smithson grunted, but said nothing for the moment. Thahl reflected on Smithson’s wording: not Are You Sure but How Are You Sure, as if he wanted to avoid giving offence. Unusual for him.
“What if,” Smithson said suddenly, “She’s already launched missiles of Her own, similar to ours, and they’re waiting for us to come in range?”
“I’d considered that,” Thahl responded.
“And?”
“And I probed the areas around Her. Nothing.”
“They might have evaded you.”
“Then She’ll win.”
Smithson sighed theatrically. Foord said to him “Listen. We’re trapped in this orbit, and She’s coming closer, both of which we planned. If She’s seen our missiles, what do we do differently from what we’re doing now?”
“Particle beams?”
“No. We’ve been through that. We both fire our beams, we both use flickerfields, and we both keep our distance. That isn’t what we want. She has to come closer.”
“Is that what She wants?”
“Yes. She wants to finish us closeup, and She will if we’re trapped and vulnerable, and we’ve made ourselves trapped and vulnerable. She has to come closer.”
There were gasps from Cyr and Kaang, but when Foord turned quickly from Smithson to look at the screen, She was still there, unchanged.
“What happened?”
“Didn’t you see it, Commander?” Kaang asked.
“No, I wasn’t watching. Replay it, please.”
On the screen She flicked, like a visible hand on the end of an invisible arm, whipping sideways and instantly back to its previous position. It was over almost as soon as it began, and everything else was unchanged. The space between them was still closing, but slowly. The Bridge screen returned to real time.
“Has She ever done that before?”
“No, Commander. Not on any of the recordings.”
It was a strange unreadable movement, thought Foord; not done for us but for some purpose of Her own. The way it ended immediately it had begun reminded him of the lifecycles of their two missiles. She has to come closer.
•
Minutes passed. Foord still had his erection; and the bitter taste in his mouth and along the sides of his tongue had returned, gradually stronger as She came gradually closer.
His head throbbed like his penis. His thoughts were slowing down, like an ancient clockwork. Every time one of his thoughts tried to move it tripped a counterweight and generated an equal and opposite thought. No it didn’t. He’d never felt like this before. Yes he had, on the occasions he’d caught himself looking at Cyr, and remembering the orphanage: first an arousal, then something darker, a need to open and penetrate and see underneath. He hadn’t done it with Cyr, but had to with Her. He was afraid not to.
The Bridge screen reduced its local magnification to keep the same image as She came closer. Her ion drive was still reducing. The ports and windows and apertures remained dark. Probes showed no evidence of Her weapons powering up, and no trace of any missiles like theirs, floating inert nearby; although, as Foord knew, their probes were not effective against Her.
“I want Her, Thahl. What do I do to bring Her closer?”
“She’s already closing, Commander.”
“Not fast enough. What do I do to bring Her closer?”
“Commander, don’t gamble. Not now. If She thinks we want Her closer…”
“I do want Her, Thahl…So something opposite. I don’t want Her.”
The taste along the sides of his tongue. His penis, pumping. Time to lay a card.
“We’ve changed our minds about fighting Her closeup. Haven’t we.”
Phrasing the question as a statement gave his voice a downward cadence at the end of the sentence. So did the deadpan recital of their motives, in the way he intended She would interpret them.
“We’ve seen Her and it’s affected us. Hasn’t it. Now all we want is to keep Her away. Don’t we. So we fire our beams.”
“That’s what I told you!” Smithson crowed. “It seems hours ago.”
“Commander,” Thahl whispered, “don’t gamble. You don’t need Her to come in faster.”
“Yes, I do.” Before I have time to think what it means to destroy Her. “Fire particle beams, please, Cyr.”
The beams lanced out, twice, across the piece of space that had set itself out between them. It was like they’d violated that space and the unwritten sharing of time. Foord didn’t care. Time was up for the sharing of time.
They watched the beams reach Her and watched Her flickerfields hold them easily. Then She reacted.
“She’s increased Her reverse ion drive,” Thahl said. “She’s moved back. I don’t think it’s worked.”
But it had. There was a brief pause while She hung at a fixed distance from them—as though She had drawn back to examine Her conclusion, one last time—and then the Bridge was full of murmuring alarms and headup displays recalibrating to accommodate what She did next. The Bridge screen needed no more shufflings of filters or local magnifications, because She filled it. She had switched Her ion drive to forward, fifty percent, and was coming straight at them.