"We're still alive."
The officers had begun talking urgently to the AS; fingers skidded over the console keyboards as they tried to pull useful information from the degraded network. Reserve sensors deployed from their sheaths. The AS located the two radar sources again. They were both under acceleration.
"How long before we can get after them?" Simon asked.
"I should have an answer for you in about a week," the captain said.
* * *
The Koribu's telescope immediately blanked out as the nuclear warheads exploded around the Clichane. Filter programs compensated as the fury slowly diminished. They saw the starship wreathed in coiling gas plumes. They were alive with scintillations from the radiation blitz, entombing the giant ship in a nebula of shooting stars. Venting had imparted a slow tumble. Lawrence didn't like to think how much liquid would have to be evacuated to move something so massive. Then they saw a flare of rocket motors around the cargo section as the AS attempted to stabilize their attitude.
Lawrence realized he'd been holding his breath for a long time. "They're alive, then," he said.
"Unless the Norvelle fires at them again," Denise said. "With the state they're in, I doubt they'll be able to defend themselves."
"Can you defend yourself against that kind of attack?" Lawrence asked One.
"No," One replied. "There is no reason for us to be armed. We have nothing other than knowledge. And that we give..."
"Yeah, you live to share," Lawrence said. "What happens when other species do threaten you?"
"We incorporate the knowledge of the threat"
"That's it?" Denise asked. "That's all you do, remember being destroyed?"
"We exist to acquire and distribute knowledge. We hatch in every sector of the galaxy and examine what surrounds us. Once that has been accomplished and the sun cools again, our existence there ends. Another sun will eventually replace it. The overall processing of knowledge will continue no matter how many individuals of our species are exterminated. Very few other species have sufficient munitions to destroy every one of us. By now our eggs have probably reached other galaxies."
"Are you saying you don't care if you're destroyed?"
"Care is an emotion I do not possess. You know it because it is bound with your sense of individuality. We are not a hive mind, but we are aware of ourselves as a civilization that could well prove to be eternal. All events we encounter contribute to what we are and what we will become. All individuality ends eventually. We birthed ourselves in acknowledgment of that."
"But the person in command of the second starship could threaten to destroy you if he realizes how vulnerable you are."
"If threatened I will provide the knowledge required. The threat will end."
"You said you'd withhold it," Lawrence said.
"In the assumption that would provide a balance for your species. You claimed the third starship would deliver our knowledge to your entire race. That is no longer possible."
"We're going to have to go to Earth," Denise said. "Carry the knowledge ourselves and get there ahead of the Norvelle. Damn Roderick to hell. I didn't want this."
Lawrence held up a finger. "One, will you help repair the starship that has just been damaged?"
"Yes. A patternform can be provided that will modify itself to perform the operation."
"So if we disable the Norvelle, the balance will be restored. They can both be repaired simultaneously. There would be no monopoly when they return to Earth."
"Will you make us a weapon that can disable the Norvelle?" Denise asked quickly.
"No," One said. "You may have knowledge that can be used to build a weapon."
"How long would it take to build?"
"First you would have to learn how to apply patternform systems. Then you must integrate the knowledge for the weapon to be extruded."
"Yes. How long?'
"You have some familiarity with patternform systems. This would be to your advantage. I estimate you would require as little as three weeks."
Frustration made Denise want to hit something. Anything. The Koribu and the Norvelle were equally matched. If they launched a strike, the Norvelle would retaliate. They needed something else, a weapon that would give them an advantage.
"But you already have a weapon we can use," Lawrence said quietly.
The first thing the Norvelle's sensors confirmed was the alien structure's complete lack of rotation in any direction. Somehow it held its attitude stable against the gusts of thick solar wind that blew constantly from the turbulent photosphere. Its shape gradually resolved during their approach: circular, divided into twenty scalloplike sections that curved down toward the surface of the star. Their edges were rounded and very smooth, tapering down to a few tens of meters thick. Its bulk was concentrated in the middle, with a small aperture at the very center.
Simon thought it might be a docking port of some kind, although he wasn't convinced. Even for an alien design it was a very strange habitat.
The apex of each scallop sprouted three slender ridges that shone a livid scarlet, radiating heat away out toward the stars, leaving the rest of the upper surface considerably cooler. The AS postulated that this was how the structure generated its power, exploiting the thermal difference. To do so, the ridges could well be a type of thermal superconductor. An interesting technology, Simon thought, but hardly on a level with nanonic systems.
The Koribu's fusion burn ended, rendezvousing it with the alien structure. It hung inside the umbra, three kilometers from the surface. Simon waited, half expecting to see an engineering shuttle fly over into the aperture.
"What are you doing?" he muttered to himself.
Norvelle's long-range radar continued to scan around. The AS detected another eleven similarly sized alien objects within 150,000 kilometers. If they were some alien version of habitats, it gave him a seriously large population base to deal with. There must be millions of similar structures in orbit around the red giant.
"Have we intercepted any interstructure communications yet?" he asked the starship's AS.
"Not in the electromagnetic spectrum. They could be using lasers, or masers. In order to intercept them we would have to insert ourselves into the beam."
"Never mind." He continued to study the structure. When they were two thousand kilometers away, Norvelle extended its magnetometer booms. The alien structure was the core of a vast magnetic field. Around the center it was as dense as a tokamak containment field. Vast, invisible flux wings extended for hundreds of kilometers below the star-facing surface. Simon altered the calibration of the main radar and refocused the telescope. The AS combined the data from each, presenting it as a false-color thematic image.
Solar wind was being scooped up by the magnetic field and pulled inward. He could see tenuous eddies of the stuff forming as it streamed up toward the hidden center of the structure's star-facing surface.
He knew it couldn't be a habitat. A machine of some kind, then. One that consumed solar wind particles. What sort of machine did that? He knew the aliens had nanonic systems. They must be converting the solar wind into artifacts of some kind. The production capacity represented by the millions of structures was awesome. Although that would be severely limited by the minuscule quantity of mass that the magnetic field scooped up. If you had that kind of ability, why use it like this?