Implied Spaces (37 page)

Bitsy did so. When she was swallowed by the undersea trap on Hawaiki, she found herself in a medical facility equipped with pools of life and large, menacing robot guards to hold the victims beneath the surface until their brains were restructured along the Venger’s lines. The robots hadn’t been told what to do if their ambush caught only an animal, and so they kicked the matter upstairs.

Pablo’s rebellion hadn’t developed a lot of bureaucracy by that point, so he handled the matter himself. When he arrived, Bitsy was hopping around the room and wailing for Master. The distress was only partly feigned. Bitsy was wicked smart but hadn’t anticipated meeting the Dark Lord in person anytime soon.

“Wait a minute,” Aristide said. “You were transported to
Courtland?
Not to a pocket universe?”

“Specifically, I was transported from Hawaiki straight to Greater Zimbabwe. That’s where Vindex has his headquarters.”

“Pablo has developed a way of calving off wormholes to connect one place to another
in our universe?”

Bitsy was matter-of-fact. “He has achieved that particular holy grail, yes.”

“Can he
project
them, or must they be carried from one place to another?”

“Carried. As the Priests of the Venger carried their wormholes with them from Courtland to Midgarth.”

“We could be invaded!” Aristide said. “Pablo could push an army through an unknown wormhole into any pocket, at any time!”

“The fact that he didn’t,” Bitsy said, “argues that he can’t. Apparently we swept up all his wormholes when we arrested his first set of agents, and the wormholes collapsed in self-defense.”

“But—”

“There is a good deal about this in my report. Would you like to read it?”

Aristide sighed. “Not at the moment.”

“May I continue my narrative?”

“By all means.”

“I became a pet,” Bitsy said. “Vindex gave me a saltwater pool and mackerel to eat, and I had the run of the palace. Since everyone in any of Courtland’s pockets worships and adores him, and there’s no domestic opposition or criminal underground, as a culture they’re not being very sophisticated about security right now. Through observation and some guesswork I was able to gain access to some of the Venger’s systems and files and physical systems, just not enough to make much of a difference. I
was
able to get Daljit’s astronomical data, because Vindex made it generally available to his own astrophysicists.

“After your arrival, I was able to use the Venger’s codes to subvert the instructions given the pool of life, and instead of altering you, you were disassembled and uploaded. I uploaded myself likewise along with any data I’d been able to find, and pulsed the information to each of the Loyal Ten on one of the Venger’s electron beams. I reckoned they’d be able to read all the dots-and-dashes, and so it proved. Here we are.”

“You get the Grand Trophy for Extreme Cleverness, that’s certain. I shall try to think of a way to reward you properly.”

“Yes?”

“Perhaps,” Aristide said, “some fatty tuna.”

Both were present at the Standing Committee, which had changed only slightly since Aristide’s last appearance. One of the deputy prime ministers had been replaced, as had the Minister of Industry. Tumusok attended in his full military uniform, though rumor was that given the failure of the invasion his head was on the chopping block, and he might soon be replaced.

Which if true, Aristide judged, wasn’t entirely fair. Tumusok had hardly been alone in planning the invasion, hadn’t been in charge of the whole thing, and the attack had always been risky in any case. Yet, if Coy Coy fell, perhaps his replacement would make a better commander. Or a worse one—there was always that risk.

The Prime Minister, Aristide was informed, was watching the meeting from a secure location elsewhere, and the meeting was also being broadcast to other, more obscure functionaries and committees located here and there in loyal space.

As a Force Five gale spattered water against
Golden Treasure
‘s windows, Aristide and Bitsy each presented their reports and then summarized them orally. The woman from the Advisory Committee on Science spoke next.

“The Venger’s calculations have been checked and are correct. Assuming of course that his
data
is accurate, his conclusions are justified. The universe is an artifact.” She shrugged. “Of course, we’re living in an artifact
now
. I honestly don’t see what’s got him so cranky.”

Bitsy looked up from the forepaw she was licking. “I have always known that I was an artifact,” she said. “I know who created me and why. The human race, long convinced of its special place in a universe created especially for them, may require some adjustment to the new reality.”

“Which leads me to suggest,” said one of the deputy prime ministers, his voice thoughtful, “that we consider an Elite Committee to study this data, and make recommendations for policy.”

“Policy?” asked the woman from the Advisory Committee.

“Vindex claims to have discovered not only the origin of the universe, but the person or persons responsible. This has profound implications for our relationship with communities based on religion.”

“We should keep the data secret for now,” said the other deputy prime minister, the curly haired one.

“Absolutely,” said the Chancellor.

“I’d like to volunteer for the committee,” Aristide said. And then, “And I’d like Daljit to be recruited as well.” He smiled. “My avatar’s partnership with her was formidable. I should like to see if we can re-create such a team.”

“Right.” Tumusok turned to the woman from the Advisory Committee. “Could you bring me a list of names by, say, tomorrow?”

“Ah—I suppose I could, yes.”

“What implications does this knowledge have for policy?” asked one of the deputy prime ministers. “Does it actually make any difference to the war that we know the Venger’s goals?”

“Yes,” Aristide said. “It gives us the option of offering Vindex what he wants.”

Eyes turned to him in surprise.

“We tell him that we will try to build this hypertube to the origin of the universe,” he said. “If he is convinced of our sincerity, he may cease his attacks.”

“But we
wouldn’t
be sincere,” said the other deputy prime minister. Then, in confusion, “I
am
correct in assuming we’d be lying, aren’t I?”

“The Venger’s project would take many years,” said the woman from the Advisory Committee on Science. “And it may be—probably is—completely unfeasible.”

Tumusok’s face held a look of sullen triumph. “So we could use this offer to delay, until the balance of power swings decisively to us. And then—” He slapped a hand down on the table. “We destroy him.”

“We’d have to assume that he’d be aware of that likelihood,” Bitsy said. “I imagine he’d demand guarantees.”

“Of what sort?” asked Tumusok.

“Observers, perhaps?” Aristide suggested. “Allowed to move freely in our zone to verify that we’re not cheating?”

“That’ll be bloody inconvenient if we
are
cheating,” muttered the Chancellor.

One of the deputy prime ministers tilted his head as he listened to something in his implant. “The Prime Minister says that observers in Topaz are completely unacceptable,” he said. “We don’t want them spreading another plague here.”

“Exactly,” said Tumusok.

“So much for the truce idea,” said the Chancellor.

Commissar Lin spoke. “Not necessarily. We can always offer and see what terms he demands. Even fruitless negotiations may serve to delay matters until Vindex can be dispatched.”

“I don’t know what’s in train for, ah, dispatching him,” Aristide said. “I claim no more than the average amount of foresight, but if I were you I’d take a close look at the segment of the Kuiper Belt between here and Epsilon Eridani.”

Lin looked at him. “Yes?”

“He told me that he halted his journey on a Tombaugh Object, where he built a place to live, and where he incarnated himself physically. It was there that he first opened communication with Courtland.”

The woman from the Advisory Committee frowned. “Ye-es,” she said, calculating.

“If all he wanted to do was talk to Courtland, he didn’t have to stop on a rocky planette and built a
house
. I think you should consider that it might not be a house, but a
base
.”

“Uh-oh,” someone said.

Tumusok turned grey. Bitsy flopped on her side, her tail twitching, and Aristide idly rubbed her belly.

“Vindex might have left something out there,” he said. “Instructions for nanomachines to build a mass driver, for example.”

“We have a mass driver of our own!” blurted the Minister of Industry. The others looked at him in silent reproach.

As a culture, the political class in Topaz was not good with secrets. There was little point, when the information was usually available to fill any citizen’s curiosity, either with data or inference based on data.

Aristide spoke into the awkward silence. “I had rather hoped you’d build one,” he said. “Preferably on a moon with a photochemical atmosphere, so preparations will not be observed.”

By expressions on certain faces, he knew he had guessed correctly.

“With luck,” he continued, “you can finish Courtland with one shot. But bear in mind that if Vindex is building a driver out there somewhere, he’s had many months’ head start.”

The woman from the Advisory Committee put a hand to her head. “It would have to be
immense
.”

“Correct,” said Bitsy. “The RCDA—Rogue Comet Detection Array—is pointed outward. From the Kuiper Belt, Vindex would have to accelerate the projectile to relativistic speeds in order to be sure of knocking out one of the Loyal Ten before we would see it coming—and if he uses rockets as an element of the acceleration, we’d see it anyway.”

Bitsy’s tail lashed. “I suppose he wouldn’t use just a singlerail gun,” she said, “but a whole series of them, each imparting another push to the projectile.”

“How is he powering it?” asked the woman from the Advisory Committee. “I can’t imagine he’s managed to build a nuclear power station out there, out of nothing.”

Aristide viewed the committee with interest: his speculation about the rail gun had now, in the minds of the committee, become a desperate fact. All looked haunted, if not panicked, by a thought they hadn’t considered until just a few moments earlier. The atmosphere was heavy with the scent of desperation.

“We’ve seen no sign of his shipping antimatter anywhere, let alone the Kuiper Belt,” Bitsy said. “So it’s likely he’s using solar power both for building and then for powering his weapon.”

“Not much solar power that far out,” Aristide said.

“No. Construction would be slow, and there might be a significant delay between shots.”

“He might be lucky,” said the woman from the Advisory Committee, “and have a source of geothermal power.”

Aristide looked at the Minister of Industry. “When will our own mass driver be completed?”

The man reddened. “I probably shouldn’t say. Spoken too much already.”

“That’s our deadline, then, whatever it is. But as we’re building it, we should be certain that Vindex doesn’t know where our driver is, or can’t find it once he starts looking.”

“Or,” said Bitsy, “that one of the people who knew about it died in the zombie plague, and get turned to one of the Venger’s clients long enough to report it to his boss.”

That
set them into a panic. Decisions were made in haste, though with a certain residual decorum. Endora, speaking through Bitsy, said that none of those who knew officially of the rail gun project were known to have been a pod person—though of course if someone had carelessly blabbed to someone, that someone could have been anyone. The committee breathed only a little more easily.

“Perhaps,” said the Chancellor, “the Treasury can afford more than one mass driver.”

“Redundancy,” said Aristide, “is our friend.”

Tumusok and Bitsy both looked up, their eyes identically glazed as they communed with their implants.

“
Now
what?” Aristide muttered. Bitsy yawned, stretched, and looked at him.

“Vindex is demonstrating his petulance,” she said. “He just threw a new weapon at us—at Topaz, I mean.”

“What
was
it?” Tumusok asked. “All I got was a lot of data.”

“Courtland fired a missile,” Bitsy said. “Our antiproton beams intercepted it. It was about three meters long, but at my best guess it contained a wormhole gate leading to a universe containing about ninety million tonnes of antimatter. The antimatter was ejected, but fortunately it’s no longer aimed at us. It’s heading south of the plane of the ecliptic, and doing battle with the solar wind all the way.”

“Our defenses are adequate?” Tumusok asked.

“Unless he fires millions of the things, yes.”

They both jumped as Aristide hammered the table with both fists.

“
Damn
it!” he said.

The committee stared at him.

“Do you mean to say,” Aristide said, “that our civilization has now reached the point where we’re hurling
hostile universes
at each other?”

There was another moment of silence.

“Apparently yes,” Bitsy said.

“I’m annoyed,” Daljit said. “No, more than that. I’m furious.”

Aristide looked at her across the table. “Not at me, I hope.”

“No. Yes. Make that
hell
yes.”

He was silent, observing her.

“I failed,” she said. “I sensed something behind those Chiau equations, and I failed to find it, and
you failed to inspire me!”

“It could be argued,” he responded, “that I
did
inspire you, though the
you
and the
I
were alternative versions of ourselves. But,” seeing the impatience in her eyes, “I won’t argue that. Instead I’ll suggest that our alternative selves were not entirely lucky.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I tried to break Chiau’s theory and I couldn’t,” she said. “I switched to genetics because it was still in a place where I could contribute, and astrophysics was such a dead end.” Her lips tightened. “I so
want
it to be your fault that I failed,” she said.