The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Invincible (26 page)

Then his eyes would go to hundreds of small markers on his display, each with its own vector aimed inward toward the star. Hundreds of dead from this fleet, on their final journey toward the fires of the star, to be consumed there and eventually reborn as another part of the universe. “Light, then dark, then light,” he murmured the words. “The dark is just an interval.”

Desjani heard, turning a somber gaze his way. “The dark does not last,” she said, the proper response from the ritual. Then her voice changed. “Are we certain that the spider-wolves won’t desecrate any of our dead? It will be months before they reach the star.”

“Our emissaries and our experts are all positive that the spider-wolves understand how important we consider the safe journeys of our dead to be,” Geary answered. “Just as insurance, we provided the spider-wolves with full scans and biological information about our species. There’s nothing the spider-wolves could learn from those bodies that we haven’t already given them.”

“Have the spider-wolves given us all that stuff about them?”

“Not yet.”

“Politicians and civilians,” Desjani grumbled disdainfully.

“Coming up on jump point in five minutes,” Lieutenant Castries said.

Geary activated his comms. “All units, this is Admiral Geary. We are not expecting hostilities at the next star and must not act in a threatening manner inside space controlled by the spider-wolves. No evasive maneuver will be preplanned for execution upon exit from jump, and no weapons are to be powered up when we leave jump. However, all shields are to be at maximum and all personnel are to be prepared for anything. All units jump as scheduled.”

The moment of jump came, the stars vanishing and human bodies and minds twisting at the shift from somewhere to somewhere else.

There would be some time for rest in jump space, but not a great deal. While in jump space, the engineers on the auxiliaries could no longer travel to and perform work on other ships, but they could spend that time manufacturing new spare parts and replacement equipment, both of which were in very high demand, as well as new fuel cells and new missiles to replace those expended. The crews of the other ships would, in most cases, be busy with extra internal maintenance and repairs.

Geary sat looking at a display showing the outside view. The dull gray of jump space spread on all sides, an infinity of nothing. It was possible to go outside on a ship’s hull while in jump space. It was possible to do work on the exterior of a ship in jump space. But if anything, human or equipment, lost physical contact with the ship for even an instant, it was gone. It was still in jump space, but somewhere else. Just like the ships that made up this fleet, which were all in jump space together, all traveling from one jump point to the same new jump point, but which could not see or interact with each other except for some very simple and basic messages that could be exchanged.

The difference was that those ships all had the means to leave jump space when they reached their destination. Anyone who lost contact with a ship did not.

As a result of that, no work was done by humans on the outside of ships in jump space. In emergencies, robots might be employed, but with the expectation that those robots would very likely be lost forever.

Was that what the mysterious lights of jump space were? Frantic distress flares from someone or something eternally caught in nothing? Geary almost shivered at the thought. The common belief that those lights had some mystical significance was much more comforting and easier to live with.

Also comforting was the knowledge that no external threat could reach them in jump space. For now, he could truly focus on other issues for a while.

“I’m going to be down in my stateroom,” he told Desjani. “Do we have any of those VIP wraps left?”

“Not that I’ve discovered,” she replied.

“Maybe I’ll eat a meal with the crew and get a feel for morale.”

“Morale on my ship is fine, Admiral,” Desjani said. “I haven’t had to have anyone flogged to improve their morale for days now.”

“That’s good to hear, Captain.”

The walk to a dining compartment did feel almost relaxing, the crew obviously feeling as relieved as Geary to be going away from the bear-cows and toward home. He talked with some of the crew as he ate, asking about their home worlds. Most were from Kosatka, and some had been there during the brief but memorable few days he and Tanya had spent on that planet for what had passed as a honeymoon. “I didn’t buy one drink during those days,” one sailor told Geary. “I’d walk into a bar in uniform, and they’d see
Dauntless
on my ship badge, and that was all there was to it.”

“I got two marriage proposals,” another crew member said. “I told both of them I was okay with it but that my husband probably wouldn’t go along.”

As the laughter from that died down, the questions turned to other matters. Usually with an admiral within reach, sailors would ask about living conditions and food and time off and working conditions, but this time the questions were about bigger issues. The thousands of Marines who had been aboard the bear-cow superbattleship had spread their stories far and wide, so everyone knew a lot about the creatures. But that still left some serious concerns. “Are we going back there, Admiral, to where the Kicks live?”

Geary shook his head firmly. “No.” He could see the crew members around him relaxing immediately at his unambiguous reply. “Any human ship going there for the foreseeable future would have to be fully automated. I’m not going to risk another human life dealing with the bear-cows.”

“Why are we bringing that huge ship with us, sir?” another sailor asked. “It’s slowing us down, isn’t it?”

“A bit,” Geary admitted. “But it’s incredibly valuable. It’s a treasure trove of bear-cow technology. Maybe when we have time to analyze everything back in Alliance space, they won’t find anything amazing on it, just different ways of doing what we can already do. But maybe they’ll find things we never knew we could do.”

A veteran systems technician nodded. “Something really revolutionary that we never thought of. How do you measure how much that could be worth?”

“Exactly. And, if nothing there is beyond what we can already do, that at least tells us the limits of what the bear-cows can do.”

That earned him more nods, then one sailor proffered her data unit where a picture was displayed. “Admiral, is this really what the B—the things that helped us look like?”

It was a good representation of a spider-wolf, probably taken from one of the messages the spider-wolves had sent to the fleet as a whole when it had arrived at Honor. But although the sailor had shown the sense not to call them Bubs to Geary’s face, the term obviously was still in use. “Yes. That’s what they look like. Unattractive as sin, aren’t they?” Geary asked, trying to disarm the inevitable reactions. “That’s on the outside. On the inside, they seem to have a lot more in common with us than the bear-cows or the enigmas.”

“Some of them tried to help a pod off of
Balestra
,” another crewman noted.

“That makes them better than Syndics, too,” someone else remarked.

The laughter this time was a bit nervous. “The bottom line,” Geary said as convincingly as he could, “is that they did fight alongside us, and they did attempt to aid us in other ways. They’re letting us use their hypernet to get home a lot faster than we could otherwise. You judge someone by how they act, not by how they look.”

“Tell that to my chief at the next uniform inspection, Admiral!”

“Yeah, Admiral, can I quote you on that?”

Geary laughed, standing up and waving away the eager, joking requests. “I’m only an admiral. I can lead chiefs, but I can’t push them around. Besides, according to Captain Desjani, you’re the best sailors in the fleet. Why would I need to ask for special treatment for you?”

He left the dining compartment feeling better, but the sailors’ questions had brought to life some of his own concerns. Once Geary reached his stateroom, he put in a call to another officer aboard
Dauntless
, asking him to drop by as soon as possible.

“Admiral.” General Charban, at least, was enjoying some rest. With the ships isolated in jump space, he was no longer being called upon to try to communicate with the spider-wolves on a constant basis. “You wanted to see me?” he asked as he entered Geary’s stateroom.

“Yes.” Geary waved Charban to a seat. “I was afraid you’d already passed out for a while.”

“After all those days I had to stay awake to deal with negotiations, my metabolism will take a few more hours to slow down again to the point where I can sleep,” Charban said as he sat. “I could slam it down with some different meds, but I prefer to let my body handle getting back to normal a little more naturally.”

“A wise move,” Geary said. “I wanted a candid appraisal from you, without any pressure from anyone else being present. You’ve had as much contact with the spider-wolves as anyone has so far.”

“Emissary Rione is actually the only one to have had ‘contact,’” Charban pointed out. “Though that distinction didn’t seem to mean much to the fleet medical personnel who inflicted such a wide array of tests and examinations on both of us. In preparation for that meeting with the spider-wolves, I had read a number of accounts of supposed encounters with alien species in the far past. Those old stories often claimed the aliens used probes and other uncomfortable forms of physical inspection. In fact, the spider-wolves were very courteous. It was our own doctors who probed away with considerable enthusiasm.”

“I’m sorry about that.” Geary sat down opposite Charban. “General, I want to know any impressions you have of the spider-wolves that have not appeared in formal reporting.”

“Impressions, Admiral? As to what? I can speak for hours about different matters, but it would help if I knew exactly what you’re interested in.”

“Can we trust them?” Geary saw Charban taken aback by the question. “Yes, they fought alongside us against the bear-cows. But what about now? Jump space is not a big trust issue. We know where we’re going. I don’t have a gut feeling that we need fear any kind of trap or ambush from the spider-wolves there. But we’ll be entering their hypernet, dependent on them as to where we come out.”

“I see.” Charban gave Geary a wry look. “Admiral, have you ever met the sorts of people who strike you as dangerous because they’re unpredictable? You know the kind. It’s not just that they’re capable of doing things but that they might strike out at any time at anyone. Or they might do something totally unexpected.”

He nodded, an image of Jane Geary flashing into his mind, followed by that of Commander Benan. But he wouldn’t say either name aloud.

“But,” Charban continued, “there are other sorts of people, like General Carabali, who are dangerous because of their capabilities, but in a very targeted way. General Carabali will only strike after carefully considering options and deciding this target must be hit in this way.”

“Sure,” Geary agreed. “I’ve met both types.”

“The spider-wolves strike me as being fundamentally of that second nature. They can be very deadly, but they always calculate their strikes. They always act to support their goals, and those goals and plans are well thought out. This pattern thing that the civilian experts came up with, for example. Just thinking in terms of that, in terms of how one action will impact not only those things around it but also anything that might somehow be tied to it, requires acting in a well-planned way. You or I might act in that fashion because we believe it is smart. The spider-wolves, I am convinced, act that way because they feel they must.”

Geary sat thinking about that for a while, Charban waiting patiently. “That’s scary, isn’t it?” Geary finally said. “An intelligent species that feels an obligation to think out its actions, to consider consequences. That makes them smarter than us.”

“Smarter? Perhaps. It depends on how you define ‘smarts.’” Charban shook his head. “Do they take chances? I don’t think so. Not as we would define it. What about leaps of faith? Unlikely, I am guessing. Spontaneous moves? Sudden inspirations driving immediate actions? No. I don’t think so. It’s all planned out carefully, thought out carefully.”

“Engineers,” Geary said. “Really good engineers. They do the planning before they act. They don’t build something they don’t expect to work. We could probably outreact them.”

“Or at least confuse them.” Charban hunched forward, his eyes on Geary’s. “But here’s what I think is the most important part of my assessment. Admiral, would a race that always plans ahead, that doesn’t like to deal with unanticipated or uncontrollable events or consequences, a race that wants to be sure of what will happen, would such a species
ever
begin a war by choice?”

That one was easy. “No.”

“No,” Charban repeated. “War is chaos. War is unpredictable. I heard a story once about an ancient king who asked an infallible oracle about what would happen if he invaded a neighboring kingdom, and the oracle answered that if he did that, a mighty kingdom would fall. Assuming that guaranteed victory, he invaded, only to be utterly crushed, his own kingdom destroyed. He hadn’t considered the possibility that the oracle’s answer meant that his kingdom would be the one to fall.”

“Unforeseen circumstances,” Geary said.

“Right. If humans were a rational species, we would take heed of such examples from our history, and no one would start a war. But some humans always convince themselves that ‘this time’ it will be different and that they can confidently predict the outcome. Why did the Syndic Executive Council start the war with the Alliance a century ago when they should have realized that even with enigma help they couldn’t have won? Even then it should have been obvious that a bloody stalemate was inevitable. But we humans find ways to fool ourselves. I don’t believe that the spider-wolves think like that. On the contrary, their bias to avoid the unpredictable might prevent them from ever being aggressive against their neighbors.”