As Morgan spoke, the captain and the Special Deputy Minister made a quiet egress. I had no doubts that Special Deputy Minister Allerde was present only as a political prop so that, once the expedition was over, the Minister of External Affairs could assert that a high-ranking representative of the people had been overseeing the operation all the way.
“It is possible that this could also be a dangerous expedition,” Morgan went on. “As mentioned earlier, we will have a D.S.S. battle cruiser as an escort, and we have attempted to keep those who know me objective and the stakes to an absolute minimum. Keeping such a secret, unfortunately, can reveal that the secret exists…”
That secrecy revealed as much as it concealed was irrefutable.
“We are also operating under a time constraint. Danann will remain in a position where the planet can be explored and evaluated only for a few more years, perhaps less than three. That is another reason for this commitment.” He stopped and surveyed those in the mess before going on. “At the moment, anything more from me would be either superficial or superfluous. After you have a chance to study your briefing materials, either Major Tepper or I will be meeting with the various teams to discuss and develop operations in dealing with Danann.” Morgan offered a pleasant smile, a nod, then turned and was gone.
His behavior fit what I would have categorized as a typical military approach—make a presentation so general that the only value was the basic announcement and follow it with a promise of more information, while avoiding all questions on the basis that they were premature before we read the briefing materials.
“I said it was an alien artifact.” Melani was radiating both excitement and anxiety. “How can we even begin to understand how they thought?”
Alyendra said nothing.
“You must have noticed that we are among the few who are not specialists in the physical sciences,” Tomas said. “I believe there are also an artist, a cryptographer, and a linguist.”
If Tomas was correct in his assessments, we were indeed a minority.
Alyendra finally spoke. “Why all the secrecy? It’s not as though the Covenanters, or the League, or even the Sunnite Alliance or the Middle Kingdom, could use the Comity Gates to get to us, or to wherever we may be headed.”
An economic sociologist she might be, but Alyendra clearly didn’t understand the trends of human history. I cleared my throat.
“If this is truly a scientific expedition, why such a fetish for secrecy?” she continued, her voice increasing in volume and stridency. “All of us could have prepared better if we had known where we were going and why—”
I cleared my throat again. This time I was louder. “Throughout human history, over time, no polity has long regarded the limbus of authority of another polity as sacrosanct, regardless of the difficulties in surmounting either political or geographical borders. No polity has ever resisted the temptation to attempt to possess and monopolize new knowledge and technology. If what the Special Deputy Minister and the commander have asserted is accurate, and the D.S.S. obviously believes it is, or they would not have committed such an inordinate accumulation of resources and expertise, then the potential for a brane-explosion of new knowledge exists for whoever can find it and exploit it.”
“But a Gate is as close to invulnerable as… as a star itself…” That was Melani.
“That is indubitably so. Do you recall what occurred in the Dirty War or the Second Arm War?”
Melani frowned.
“Gates had been long established by that time. Each of the belligerents controlled its own system Gates. Not a single Gate of any belligerent polity was compromised or destroyed through direct military action, yet whole systems were decimated.”
“They created Gate-ships,” pointed outTomas. “Those were ships that went through their own Gates and ended up outside the enemy’s systems, and then they were converted into functioning Gates for the attackers.”
“Exactly. Consider that those wars were over control of populations, territory, and human knowledge. Wouldn’t the possibility of alien knowledge be worth the expenditure to create or use Gate-ships, either to gain control of such knowledge or even to preclude the Comity from monopolizing it?”
“How would they be able to build them so quickly?”
“They wouldn’t. Those earlier Gates later formed the basis for enhanced interstellar contact—those that were not dismantled because of their excessive operating costs. Do you know how many Gates are positioned outside Hamilton system?”
“How would I know that?” asked Melani.
“That’s the salient point. Unless a Gate is used, space is vast enough that no one would know it’s there. If its first use is to translate a fleet…”
“You think they would come after us, after a D.S.S. ship like the Magellan?”
“The commander said we would have a full battle cruiser as an escort.” To me that more than intimated that the D.S.S. anticipated a high probability of some form of hostilities.
“Then let us hope that no one sends a dreadnought after us,” Tomas said quietly.
While I appreciated and shared his concerns, I would rather that he had not expressed them quite so directly.
22
Chang
On fiveday, early, I was down in the ops workout rooms trying to get back in better shape. Never had the time on Alpha Station. McClendon contract had been a bitch. Not many there, and all D.S.S., except for one of the civilians. Dark-haired, working hard but smoothly in the high-gee area. Doubted I could match him. Wondered who he was.
All pilots to stations! All pilots to stations! I’d forgotten that the links worked everywhere in the Magellan. Shouldn’t have forgotten that. She was a D.S.S. ship.
Ran through the shower and scrambled into my uniform and up the ramps—faster than the lifts for a few levels. Lerrys was in the ready room before me. Braun was right behind me.
Major Tepper was waiting, not Morgan.
“We’ve got a small problem.”
Tepper looked across us and the five needleboat pilots. All were junior lieutenants. Lindskold, Rynd, and Rigney were the ones I knew. Rigney was the biggest pilot I’d ever seen, over 190 centimeters. Name strips on the other two said SHAIMEN and UNGERA.
“An out-system Gate has translated two battle cruisers and two frigates. They’ve split One of the cruisers and one frigate will reach us just before we reach our Gate.”
“The others are positioned to keep us from returning to Hamilton system without a fight?” asked Braun.
“They’re Sunni-conngured, and once they’ve translated through a Gate, they don’t back off.”
“Why the Sunnis, sir?” asked Rynd.
“We don’t know. It could be that they’re the most desperate for any possible alien technology. Their systems are outflanked by the Covenanters and the Comity, and Old Earth blasted them the last time they encroached on League worlds.” Tepper gave a tight smile, wry. “If we prevail, the Alliance will deny that those ships ever existed. There certainly won’t be any records. Or if there are, they’ll be raiders funded by some extremist splinter group. All that’s beside the point.” She looked hard at the junior lieutenants. “Sunnite ships carry lots of needle-boats. Each needleboat can carry one antimatter torp.”