He looked up to the bridge at large. “No mention of Admiral Bitar’s speech or Xi Virginis is to occur beyond the people present here. You are not to discuss it among yourselves unless a superior officer is present and has given permission. Understood?”
“Yes, sir,” from the bridge crew.
“If anyone mentions the disappearance of Xi Virginis to any of you, you will only confirm that command is aware of the situation. That is the only statement permitted. Understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
He looked down at Captain Rasheed. “I want you to detail a science officer and someone from the medical staff to analyze that tach-broadcast. Now.”
Date: 2526.6.4 (Standard) 750,000 km from Salmagundi-HD 101534
Mosasa stared at the holo, where the security cameras showed the spidery form of the Jizan drawing the wreckage of the Eclipse into itself. A dozen robots, and a half dozen men in hardshell EVA suits, crawled through the wreckage by the drive section like fat white aphids invading a rotten log. The invaders connected cables, secured debris, and attached umbilicals from the Caliphate ship to what remained of the Eclipse’s power and life support . . .
And data . . .
He barely listened to Parvi as she talked to the crew of the Jizan, guiding them through the heavily modified and severely damaged systems. For all the activity, movement, the babble around him, he felt as alone as he had ever been at any point in his ersatz life. His world had shrunk from the universe to the claustrophobic prison of the Eclipse. For the first time in hundreds of years, he felt trapped inside his own skin.
He had built his identity on being aware. Unknowns were solidly delineated areas to explore, not this vast all-encompassing darkness.
The Caliphate should not be here. Not yet. Not with this kind of force. They had no political or economic impetus to launch their reclamation of the colonies out here so soon. Travel time and the limits of tach-drives made it impractical for them to take physical possession. Of course they’d come out here eventually, but only after the forces impelling the various states out here had reached a political equilibrium and they put in place the infrastructure to support the journey out here.
It should have taken years.
But the Caliphate was here, with a whole fleet of ships.
Mosasa knew his view of the future was imperfect, and the smaller the scale of the projection, the less accurate it was. But this wasn’t a simple error or a slight divergence. This was a wholesale failure to see a major shift in resources on a planetary scale.
It was enough of a failure to completely shatter his faith in his understanding of the universe. Seeing the patterns of political, social, and economic energy had been as basic to his worldview as the ability to perceive color.
He looked at his hands and had difficulty being fully convinced that they were actually there.
I am Mosasa, he thought, but I am also a machine. Can I be sure that I ever left the Luxembourg? Can I know that I’ve not just suffered a prolonged hallucinatory systems failure?
“Mosasa!”
He looked away from the holo and saw Parvi looking at him. He should be able to understand the emotion in her face, but right now he found himself unable to interpret it. “Yes?”
“Did you hear what I said?” Parvi snapped.
“What?”
“They’re ordering us onto the Jizan,” Parvi said. “That means losing contact with all our comm gear—God only knows what they’re intending to do to the planet. Our people are down there.”
“What do you want me to do?” Mosasa asked.
Parvi stared at him, and he thought he could understand her expression now. She was afraid.
Date: 2526.6.4 (Standard) 1,200,000 km from Salmagundi-HD 101534
An hour later, Admiral Hussein sat in a briefing room with a group of engineers, scientists, and medical officers. On the table between them was a frozen image of Admiral Naji Bitar.
“We’ve done a comprehensive analysis of the transmission itself,” said Lieutenant Abdem, one of the Voice’s senior communications engineers. “It is unquestionably from the Sword’s tach-transmitter. The encryption protocol is embedded in the hardware, and every transmitter is imperfect enough to give a unique temporal distortion to any broadcast. No way to duplicate it precisely.”
Admiral Hussein nodded and looked toward the medical officers.
“We’ve checked every biometric marker we can given the data transmitted. Voice-print, facial structure, iris variegation, kinematics. All are consistent with Admiral Bitar’s medical profile.”
“What about his emotional and psychological state?”
“It seems unusual,” said Lieutenant Deshem, the psychologist. “The admiral is displaying no abnormal stress levels at all.”
“That is unusual?”
“Consider what he’s reporting to us. This represents a radical change—even if it’s a positive one, change always engenders a stress response.”
“Could he be lying?”
“There’s no indication of that from what we can analyze. It seems that he believes everything he’s saying in this transmission.”
“Any sign of external influences, drugs, hallucination . . .”
Deshem shook his head. “He is lucid to all appearances—”
“But?”
“His body language, at the end of the transmission, it seems to suggest that he is withholding something. As if he’s not telling the whole truth.”
Hussein shook his head. Aside from all the technical resources they had, he could tell the same thing just from the deliberate vagueness of how Bitar phrased things. “You will receive a more personal contact within eighteen hours standard after your arrival. You will have a more in-depth briefing on what we have discovered here.”
Before he could ask another question, his personal comm buzzed for his attention. The Jizan was returning with what was left of the Eclipse and her crew. He excused himself and listened to the briefing from the captain of the Jizan on what they had found, and what the Eclipse had been doing so far from human space.
What he heard was not reassuring.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
My Brother’s Keeper
Never discount the possibility you might live through it.
—The Cynic’s Book of Wisdom
Those who are prepared to die are unprepared to live.
—SYLVIA HARPER (2008-2081)
Date: 2526.6.4 (Standard) Salmagundi-HD 101534
Nickolai had mentally and spiritually prepared to die. Because of that, he found it disconcerting to open his eyes in the dark confines of the lifeboat and realize he still drew breath. He lay there, strapped to the jury-rigged acceleration couch, staring up into complete darkness, wondering if he was being rewarded or punished.
His last memory had been the slam into atmosphere. He had thought the shielding had failed the way the boat had shuddered.
He smelled blood.
Blinking, he adjusted the photoreceptors in his new eyes and the interior of the cabin came into focus. He saw the monochrome cabin in sharper relief than he’d ever be able to with his natural eyes, despite his species’ excellent night vision. His sight edged into the infrared, and he could see the form of Kugara radiating heat next to him. He heard her breathe and found himself grateful.