Asimov's Science Fiction: June 2013 (13 page)

Princess Ann laughed, James laughed, and soon Empress Marie was unable to help herself. So the banquet resumed in a nervous semblance of good cheer.

This was well needed, for the real hard part lay ahead.

"Your Majesty," James said to us as we left the banquet table for our quarters, where the substantive discussions were to occur. "That was well played."

"We did what we could, under the circumstances."

"Empress Marie..."

"... did, we think, no more than what she had to do. Thus, she did no harm. She could so easily, and so understandably, have made the situation much worse."

"She has been empress for a very long time."

The night had grown clear and the temperature had come almost down to what was normal for us. The brightest stars shone down on us past the lamp glow. It was beautiful, but we looked forward to releasing our bodies from the force of this gravity. We'd had some thought of touring the planet and seeing first hand the relics of the ascent of its people. We pruned our list of such things with every step our mechanical frame took.

"Whatever happens this evening, would it be possible for us to have some words alone with her?"

"Queen to queen?" James smiled. "My guess is that she would like that. She has nobody of her station to talk to. You may do."

"I have one other request, which you may find strange. Could the Princess Ann attend our session this evening?"

James stopped. This clearly surprised him. Then he nodded. "You think she should understand what's at stake."

"We do."

"You think Empress Marie thinks so as well."

"We do."

"If you will permit an impertinence, you may both put too much hope in that young woman."

"Your people play a game called contract bridge."

James nodded. "Yes?"

"Princess Ann is the key to what is left of Empress Marie's..." we searched for a word that meant willingness to strive, to try, to lead, "... heart. When there is only one distribution of cards that will allow you to win, you play the hand as if that were the distribution."

James nodded.

The magnetically generated release from gravity was even more welcome the second time than the first. The dome overhead showed the stars as if it were transparent, and decorated paper screens covered the massive coil walls of the room.

It was room enough for eight; our children rested their bodies in a nearby pool that was equally effective, but less conference-like.

James and our hive-queen were joined by an Admiral Sun Zhao-Li and his aide, a diminutive dark woman called Commander Jai. Prime Minister Eisen and the Uniformed Services Secretary, Jacques de la Soire, came during our introductions.

Then we all stood for Empress Marie, who immediately waved us down.

"Be about your business. If I have to say something, I will. Otherwise, just ignore the old bag."

Prime minister Eisen suddenly turned bright red, a very obvious display to our infrared-sensitive vision.

"The walls have ears, Hans. Don't bother with an apology, I am an old bag."

Princess Ann walked in then.

"You came," Empress Marie said, sounding somewhat surprised.

Princess Ann nodded. "I came." Some redness surrounded her eyes. "If you're going to destroy the universe or something, I may as well be in on it."

We clicked and motioned her to a human chair. We were the hosts here, in a temporary simulation of a home thirty thousand light years distant.

"Princess Ann," we said, "the destruction of universal civilization is actually in play, should we fail badly enough, but only as a very low order of probability."

"That is a gross overblowing of fact, yes?" Eisen said.

"But it does get one's attention," Admiral Sun said.

We nodded. "We are at least 97 percent certain that, even in the worst case, the outbreak would be contained within about twenty-five hundred light years by other forces being assembled. You all have the brief?"

"Annie come lately, I'm afraid." Princess Ann said.

"If you touch the net, Your Highness," Commander Jai said, "it should now be there for you."

"We shall summarize," we said. "A very rare event has occurred; the breakout of an exponentially expanding technological species that resists efforts of communication and may not even be conscious, as most of the universe understands awareness.

"They are percolating outward at an average of a tenth of a light year per year, but very unevenly; almost half the speed of light in some directions. They are now about one hundred light years away, in the direction of your constellation of Canis Major. For convenience, we can call them the Canids.

"There is another proto-technological amphibious species on a world around a red dwarf about forty-eight light years away from here, and more toward Orion. They make music, poetry, and some crude pottery. For convenience, we can call them the Oriona.

"The Canids reform the surfaces of the planets they encounter to suit their own parameters, destroying all surface and oceanic life in the process, so this second species is at great risk. They have reformed fourteen life-bearing worlds and probably many more in the time the information has taken to reach us."

"So for us, it's about twenty-five hundred years before the cavalry arrives, about five hundred years late, give or take a millennium?" Empress Marie asked, with not a little irony in her voice.

A slight exaggeration, but we nodded.

"That all must be verified," Eisen said.

"I have not been complacent since receiving Anathor's data," Admiral Sun said. "It is consistent with everything we know. For example, there has been a recent 60 percent decrease of oxygen pressure in the atmosphere of a world sixteen light years from the outbreak world. It is down to 11 percent. Another fifteen worlds show similar changes of lesser magnitude."

That was about half of Earth's oxygen and a quarter of ours. We looked at the crown princess, whose eyes were wide and mouth slightly open; she knew the significance of that number. The information was new to her, and she was still in a slight state of shock from last night; she had said nothing since the summary started.

Though it was not necessary with our compound eyes, it was useful in the way of human body language to turn our head to each of the conference participants. "What
we suggest is that we spend the next two decades converting about 10 percent of the mass of your asteroid belt into a fleet sufficient to provide an overwhelming numerical advantage over whatever forces they are sending toward the Oriona world."

"A tenth!" Eisen shouted. "You can't be serious! The bodies of the Solar System are the common heritage of all humanity. Most of the larger ones are settled, with families, communities on them. This is outrageous!"

"Are you sure a tenth will be enough," Admiral Sun asked quietly, "to end this, if the show of overwhelming force is not sufficient?"

"End this?" Princess Ann asked.

Empress Marie looked at her daughter. "A final solution, my daughter." She turned to us, her visage grim. "We are asked to contemplate genocide, are we not?"

Her two dark pupils focused on us, boring into us in a way no compound eye could communicate. She was, of course, linked to their Earthmind and the whole of the heritage of this species from the time they were able to transcend biology, and even before, by cruder means of recall. Their parallel collective experience dwarfed even that of our billion-year star hive.

She continued. "Queen Anathor, this ramshackle galactic civilization, with its library nodes scattered here and there, with its relative handful of anachronistic wanderers flitting randomly from this star to that, this galactic civilization so wise and so hands-off that it can't respond to genocidal evil in less than a couple of millennia, this galactic civilization wants
us,
the newest kids on the starfaring block, to do its dirty work for it. That's where we are at, isn't it?"

Despite our vast seniority, we did not feel very superior at that moment. But we did know better than to prevaricate. "Yes. We should mention that in the process, you would be saving yourselves."

"Oh? Admiral Sun, if we just sat still and built weapons, we could handle these vermin when they get to us, couldn't we?"

"If! Not when!" Eisen said. "You are being too credulous!"

The Admiral ignored that and spoke to his empress. "Your Majesty, a prepared defense has a great advantage over any offense, but I have no way of knowing what our opponents' strength would be at that point."

Eisen harrumphed. "In such a preposterous event, the political problem would belong to someone else; we all will have passed from the scene," he said, then caught himself, "except your Majesty, of course."

We tried to put our pincer claws into the notion that the possible extinction of one's species was a "political problem," and noted that this remark brought an even greater tightness to Empress Marie's face, and that she had, unconsciously perhaps, formed a fist with her left hand. As had James.

"Your Excellency," we addressed Eisen, "another intelligent species, as well as countless worlds that may sometime develop thinking beings, are also at risk."

He snorted. "About that, my voters are not likely to much care."

"And you, Hans?" Princess Ann asked. "Do you give a fart?"

A brief smile touched Empress Marie's face, even as she shook her head at her daughter.

"I represent the people of the solar system and beyond. Myself, not."

"With your leave, Admiral," Jai said.

Sun nodded

"Perhaps we could follow both courses of action, even though it might cost us
two
tenths of the asteroid belt, or the equivalent excavation of Mercury. If we simply wait here, we would put all our hopes on one battle. Perhaps we should give ourselves two chances."

Sun smiled, and nodded. "My student."

Jai bowed to him.

They were beginning to take ownership of this calamity, we noted. That was a good sign. We also wondered that this loose non-hive of associated individuals had a warrior class, whereas our hives had not evolved one. A primitive feature, perhaps, but for now, a useful one.

"It's late," Empress Marie said. "We'll all want to consult, study, and think a bit more. Tomorrow afternoon, here, Queen Anathor?"

"We are at your disposal, Your Royal Highness."

"We as well," Admiral Sun said.

"More talk," Eisen said. "Ach! Very well. Better than starting a war over fish today."

"The Oriona are amphibians, Hans," Princess Ann said, "like frogs. If we save them, maybe I'll get to kiss one some day."

Eisen grunted, while Jai put a hand in front of her mouth to hide a smile. Empress Marie sighed very slightly. Admiral Sun stood and bowed to us, and his empress in turn. "Your Majesty," he said softly and walked from the room, Jai trailing.

Eisen pushed himself up, nodded curtly to the empress and left.

Empress Marie looked at her daughter. "I just don't know what..." and then was overcome with laughter. "I just don't know what to do with you. Queen Anathor, you wouldn't know, but the frog kissing remark was a comment on my efforts to produce an heir who would actually want this job. I've been through thirty-seven consorts."

"And fifty-six crown princes and princesses, counting me," the crown princess added. "But you've had a lot more children than that, haven't you, Queen Anathor?"

"This queen has laid 573,835 eggs in her lifetime, but that is an ordinary, even a small number for a hive-queen of our species, whereas your mother's fifty-six is a very impressive number for one of yours."

Empress Marie rolled her eyes up and laughed a bit, but the laugh died quickly.

"Your species normally mates for life, we realize," we added.

She waved a hand, "When a lifetime was fifty years or so."

"There would have been a cost," we said, knowing human beings perhaps better than most knew themselves, "to every marriage, to every separation, to every child who rejected this heritage." It was very clear to us why Empress Marie was so tolerant of Princess Ann's disrespect of form and tradition. In spite of all evidence, she still had hope. "And you have borne all this for the sake of your people."

This would not be something that was any news to Empress Marie, but we wanted the crown princess to hear it.

"I should just abdicate. A robot could do this."

"Mother! Queen Anathor, she would never carry through on such a threat. I'm sure she's been saying that she would for a thousand years."

We clicked. "We have had similar thoughts ourselves, for a thousand thousand times your mother's thousand years."

"Hive-queens abdicate? That wasn't in the background material."

"It is a variant of royal feeding. Two queen eggs are laid, and when the larva has drunk in all the knowledge of the hive, and emerges from their final molt, the old queen feeds them her body. It is the greatest and final joy of her life. It is a joy such tasks as this mission make seem very attractive."

"But the Galaxy has a cancer in it, and we must not think of ourselves," Empress Marie said.

"Exactly," we replied, and turned to the crown princess.

"Well," she said, "I'm going to think of myself at least just a bit longer and get some sleep. G'night, queens."

But in contrast to her brash language, she touched each of us, gently, then turned and left.

Empress Marie turned to us. "I hope she hasn't irritated you, Queen Anathor. Though it seems nothing much does; you're an inhumanly good diplomat."

We clicked. "We are, of course, not human. But, your Majesty, we can be irritated. Five hundred and twenty thousand years ago, we encountered another breakout such as this. They had powerful religious instincts, and their leaders found themselves physiologically bound by their religious duty to their priest caste to carry out exterminations of nonbelievers. Yet they realized the logical wrongness of this in the real universe. So they contrived a frontal attack on our overwhelming numbers and would not stop until we were forced to change their genome; what survived was no longer them. It was a racial version of what humans called 'suicide by cop.' Being forced into that irritated us."