“Yes, Commander. All it did was recite my two names. It said nothing you don’t already know.” He performed a deprecatory movement of his upper torso. “The translations will be ready by now. Play them if you wish; we seem to have time.” He gestured towards the Bridge screen, where the stalemate of beams and flickerfields continued.
Foord wasn’t so sure about having time. The stalemate suited both ships, but only until one of them found how to do something extraordinary. Like, in Her case, duplicating Kaang’s abilities.
“Kaang, what do you think? Was She lying?”
“I don’t know, Commander,” she said, unhappily. She never liked these conversations, and Foord usually let her avoid them. But not this time.
“Try. I need your opinion.”
“You once told me that if the Commonwealth ever understood what I have, and if they could copy it and put it into others, they’d kill me to get it. Remember?”
“Maybe the Department rather than the Commonwealth, but I remember” said Foord, shifting his gaze between Kaang and the screen, where something had caught his attention.
“They tried everything to understand it, and they never could. Neither could I.”
“Yes. And so?” While she spoke, Foord stole more glances at the screen. Something there was wrong.
“So I don’t know if She was lying.”
“Oh. I see.” Foord would normally have been exasperated, but something else had distracted him. When he realised what it was he went to shout Cyr’s name, but before he could do so, Kaang continued.
“We went through this when I joined you, Commander. I’m only your pilot. Please don’t ask me about other things.”
“Right, I won’t…Cyr!”
More of the white light drained from the Bridge, and the empty figure in front of them started to fade. The reason was that She had diverted more power to Her flickerfields, and the reason for that was that Cyr had killed the automatic override on the beams and was again firing manually. On the Bridge screen they were stabbing at Her almost continuously. The fields too were almost continuous, a thick purple cloud roiling around Her; She looked like something bleeding underwater. Cyr’s continuous fire was still punching almost through the fields, despite their extra power; the purple cloud was being pulled this way and that by the dark blue shafts Cyr was throwing into it, from different directions and angles.
Cyr had become quiet, as abruptly as she had become incoherent. Now she was playing her firing-panels coldly and without apparent haste, the way Kaang would pilot the ship; taking the beams almost but not quite to overload, the way Kaang would take the ship almost but not quite to destruction.
“Cyr!”
“No, Commander, I’ve almost got Her, I can give you what you want.”
“Go back to automatic, Cyr. That’s an order.”
“Commander,” Smithson said, “let her go on firing manually. I have an idea.” He spoke briefly into his comm, and nodded. “Yes, we can do it. Commander, let her go on firing manually.”
“Smithson, what—”
“No time.” Smithson’s gaze swept the Bridge. “Brace for an emergency. This will seem worse than it is.”
But there was only a near-quietness, punctuated by the ship’s murmurings to itself and the low rhythmic pulse of the particle beams. In the dwindling light the blank figure was barely visible. It stood among them like a dead tree in a copse of living ones, with evening falling.
There was a dull faraway explosion in the Charles Manson’s midsection, in the area of the particle beam generators. The alarms sounded, and the Bridge screen patched in a view of the starboard midsection, where some hull plates had been blown away. The ship lurched, but Kaang immediately righted it. Repair synthetics were already scuttling over the hull.
“It’s nothing, Commander,” Smithson said, over the shouts and alarms, “it’s a fake. Best we could do at short notice, but She might buy it. Damage is minor.”
“Damage?”
“Cyr,” Smithson continued, “cut the beams’ power by twelve point five percent.”
“What?”
Foord said “Cyr, I see what he wants. Do it now. Don’t disobey me again.”
Cyr did it, and started to understand.
“Twelve point five percent,” Smithson intoned smugly, “is consistent with a blowout of one beam generator. You overloaded the beams. Remember?”
“You mean,” Cyr said, “that if She thinks a generator’s blown, She might…”
“Might cut the power to Her fields and divert it back here, yes. So if that thing over there comes back to life and starts talking to us, you get your shot. You can fire your beams on full power.”
Cyr laughed, softly. “You clever bastard.”
The near-silence was still punctuated by the ship’s murmurings to itself and the low rhythmic pulse of the particle beams; the beams were on automatic and firing on reduced power, and the thick purple flickerfields held them easily. The empty figure standing among them was almost nothing, a bruise on the surface of the air. A minute hung, quivering, and dropped. Foord felt something like vertigo, as if the floor had turned to glass and cracks were racing across it; he suddenly saw how much might hang on the next few moments.
Cyr caught his expression as it raced across his face.
“Are you scared She might not buy it, Commander?”
“Not scared. Unsure.”
“Don’t be. She’ll buy it. Then, you can be unsure.”
“What made you say that?”
“The future isn’t fixed. Least of all for you, Commander.”
Foord glanced at her curiously, started to reply, then forgot her. The temperature plummeted. Cold light was flooding back into the Bridge, Smithson was bellowing I Told You So, and the empty figure was starting to fill. The light went everywhere, and the figure drew substance out of it; then shape; then surface textures, and skin colour, and posture. And lastly, identity.
When it finally stood before them, slender and graceful and slight of build, it surprised none of them.
•
Thahl’s replica did not blink in the light—Sakhrans rarely blinked—and it did not look round the Bridge to find the one it came for. Apart from a brief glance at Foord, it paid no attention to anyone except Thahl. It was not Thahl’s exact double; perhaps slightly older, though signs of aging were difficult to gauge in Sakhrans.
“Well,” Thahl said.
“Well,” said the replica.
“Why did She leave me to last?”
“Because,” said the replica, “the others were more interesting.”
“Yes, of course. No secrets about me.” Thahl’s face and voice, like those of the replica, were expressionless; Sakhran humour was as quiet as Ember humour was cruel.
“Me neither,” agreed the replica. “I have nothing to reveal.”
On the Bridge screen, the stalemate of beams and flickerfields continued. Cyr had no intention of firing the beams on full power yet—it would be too early, and too obvious—but Foord still watched her closely.
“Or almost nothing,” added the replica. “There’s your mission.”
“Well?”
“Well, it turned out satisfactorily. Three years ago—three years ago for me—the Charles Manson pursued Her through the Gulf to Sakhra, and finally destroyed Her one-to-one in front of Horus Fleet.”
“Yes, that would be satisfactory,” Thahl agreed. “And there’s nothing else you have to tell us?”
“No, nothing,” agreed the replica.
Foord still watched Cyr; she still fired the beams on reduced power, and made no move yet to go to full power.