Darzhee looked away. Yes, you could have brought along a handful of your pitiable Hkh’Rkh submarines. And the humans would have cheerfully sunk them.
Urzueth Ragh was not done. “It is just as you say, First Voice, but this would be the logical time for human submarines to enter the battle. Our look-down sensors are overtaxed, the others are confused by false signals, and our local PDF capabilities are significantly degraded.”
“And so what would the submarines do?” First Delegate Hu’urs Khraam wondered mildly. “Torpedo the docks?”
“Esteemed Hu’urs Khraam, most of the submarines that the humans retained were what they call ‘boomers’: deep submersibles which carry nuclear missiles.”
Hu’urs Khraam settled back and his antenna switched in wry amusement. “Urzueth Ragh, is this Tuxae Skhaas’ worry? Has he forgotten that this is precisely why we occupy the largest cities on this island? What does he expect that the humans will do? Destroy millions of their own population? Even they are not so savage.”
Darzhee Kut glanced at Caine—who was already staring at him. The human did not look away, did not smile, did not blink. But surely, thought Darzhee Kut, Hu’urs Khraam is right. Surely the humans—who are now capable of extraordinary insight and compassion and sacrifice—are not still capable of such savagery.
Surely.
Chapter Forty-Two
Only two VTOLs left, and not for long, conjectured Thandla. The lasers had picked off all but Dortmund’s craft and that of his right wingman, Michael Schrage.
“Fifteen more seconds,” Dortmund called out.
Which was probably not possible, Thandla realized, and in so realizing, discovered he was probably thinking his last mortal thoughts. The Arat Kur were poking huge holes in the overlapping image makers, rapidly discriminating between false signals and real returns, destroying the drones either by orbital interdict or now, long-range missiles from the enemy’s Java-based combat air patrols, which were waiting for them over the island’s western coastline.
But Thandla still had a few tricks left that might help them reach that crucial fifteen-second mark. And if he—
Praeger, the back-seat EW and countermeasures operator, spoke for the first time during the mission. “We are painted!” The VTOL’s own sensors had detected a low-power laser contact. It was an orbital targeting beam that also plasmated the atmosphere, clearing a path for the actual weapon-grade laser.
So, thought Thandla, as he played his last hand of trick electronic cards, we don’t have fifteen seconds left after all. But I shall not fear on the threshold of Nirvana. We do not sacrifice and live for ourselves alone. The final step is to renounce ego, self. He had often seen the faces of his family in the last twenty minutes. Now, unbidden, he saw the faces of the delegation he had accompanied to the Convocation: Riordan, the Corcorans, Ben Hwang, Opal Patrone, and Lemuel Wasserman. Lemuel, who had insulted him, snubbed him, argued with him, and loved him. And had not understood him and probably never would have. There were too many cultural divides for him to bridge before he could have understood the very different reality that Thandla inhabited.
Sanjay was watching for the flicker of a targeting lock that would signal the microsecond before his death, but was instead startled by Dortmund’s shout. “Schrage! Was machst—?”
The right wingman had pulled his VTOL up and over, angling into a position just above Dortmund’s craft. He had almost straightened out from his brief banking maneuver when Thandla blinked involuntarily against a single strobelike pulse. Schrage’s VTOL transformed into a spearhead of flame. Light debris spattered down and scored their own fuselage, put a hairline crack in the cockpit blister. But they were still alive and Thandla was still working—
Dortmund counted out the mounting seconds. “Twelve, thirteen—”
Thandla played his last card—which was a simple randomized shift between all the strategies he had employed to date. It would be penetrated in a second or two, at the most, but the Arat Kur machines, being driven by pattern-loving expert systems, would spend several precious seconds trying to reconcile this anomalous pattern with what had come before—
“Fourteen, fifteen—”
And it was done. Even now, secret orders were being transmitted to ears listening beneath the waves. The final part of the trap was closing upon the Arat Kur and their Hkh’Rkh allies.
Dortmund was jubilant. “Mission plus two, three—!”
Four was an important number for Sanjay Thandla. He was four when he came to understand exponents by understanding that two was the square root of four. He had four children, had earned four degrees, and had slept with four women, including his wife. So when a brief flash of light coincided with Dortmund’s counting off of the number “four,” Thandla would not have thought it an odd coincidence, but a sign of order in the universe, that patterns repeated and life progressed in cycles, and that nothing was ever, ever lost, but came back again in all its quiet glory.
When hit, Dortmund’s VTOL had reached the edge of the tidal shelf off the northwest coast of Java, and so went down in only forty meters of water. There, years later, its remains were recovered, but without imparting any greater sense of the identity or sacrifice of its crew. The fish, as agents of Nirvana, had carried away and reintegrated every trace of Praeger, Dortmund, and Sanjay Thandla.
Who had, at last, reentered the great mandala of creation, had become one with the entity that was Earth.
Again.
“Mr. Downing, we have achieved operational density of image makers, decoys, and chaff. We are good to go.”
Richard leaned back from the Dornaani holosphere, which dominated the passenger section of the high-speed armored VTOL that had been modified to accept the alien technology. “Very well, Mr. Rinehart. Send the word. All orbit-capable and long-range ground rockets are to launch immediately. Maritime launches are to commence two minutes later.”
Alnduul had come to stand beside Downing. “Do you need our assistance?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I offer our assistance in penetrating the Arat Kur signal jamming. If we do not help in that matter, how will your first two submarines know it is time to act?”
“Acoustic signaling.”
“Please explain.”
“You know how easily sound travels in water? How ocean sensors can hear whale songs around the world?”
Alnduul nodded.
“Well, it’s a lot easier to hear metal rods banging together. What we use is a lot more sophisticated, but it’s the same principle. The water itself is our communication medium. You might say we’re banging rods in code for all our submerged ears to hear. Particularly those two.”
“I see. And when will they receive the message?”
Downing checked his watch. “Right about now.”
“Captain Tigner?”
“What is it Mr. Alvarez?”
“Acoustic signal, ma’am. Nothing fancy, in the clear: we are a go.”