Battle of the Ring (23 page)

“As you were afraid she might, as I recall,” Mayelna pointed
out.

“Recognizing your mistakes before you make them is hardly an asset,
not when you go ahead and make them.” He looked up as Tregloran entered
and quietly took an empty place at the table. “Ah, here he is at last,
the Kelvessan cannonball. Explain to me one thing. Did you keep your main
generator from overloading by keeping the power lines open with a rather
surprising exercise of your newly acquired talent?”

“Why, Treg! I never knew you had it in you,” Consherra
exclaimed. She was the self-appointed trainer of psychic talents to the
Methryn’s handful of mutant Kelvessan. Tregloran looked insulted.

“And why not?” he demanded indignantly.

“And why not?” Valthyrra repeated that question. “It is
hardly surprising, when you consider that nearly all the Dvonnan Kelvessan
that we have identified so far have been fairly closely related.”

Everyone, except for the apparently dozing Lenna, regarded her
questioningly. As the implications of that became evident, Velmeran and
Tregloran turned to look at each other.

“No, not you two.” Valthyrra laughed. “I have been able to
put together a vague history of the Dvonnan Kelvessan by lengthy consultation
with the other ships. There seems to be two distinct clans of mutants that
arose separately at about the same time some ninety years ago – although
I suspect that some link between them has yet to be found – originating
from a single parent who was not Dvonna Kelvessa himself.”

“Both male?” Velmeran asked.

“That is not surprising,” the ship explained. “It is our
system of taking duty mates that has contributed to the mutation. As I said,
these clan progenitors are nearly but not quite mutant themselves, but
remarkable people and very desirable duty mates, and their unions were often
with females like Mayelna and Baressa who are themselves near-mutant, and whose
union produced true mutants. Commander Fverran of the Schaylden originated the
larger group that gave us Baress and Tregloran, while the smaller but somewhat
more talented clan descended through Commander Tryn gave us Velmeran and his
sisters Daelyn and Consherra.”

“Me?” she asked. “Where do I come in?”

“Do you remember your father?”

“My father? I barely remember my mother.”

“Well, I remember that both the Kalvyn and I were at Home Base several
months before you were born.”

“Yes, but...,” Consherra faltered, aware that everyone was
staring at her. Even Lenna opened one eye. She frowned, then gave the camera a
hard stare. “Do you know this for a fact, or are you just
supposing?”

“Call it an educated guess. Although I could not help but notice that
Tryn did remember you.” She turned her camera pod to look at Velmeran.
“The two of you should produce some amazing offspring.”

Lenna blinked sleepily. “Oh hell, we’re just one big, happy
family! How does that work out, anyway?”

“We do not have the problem you must be thinking of,” Mayelna
answered, obviously amused with the whole affair. “Close inbreeding can
be advantageous for us, as long as we do not make a habit of it.”

“Well, it’s strictly your affair,” Lenna said as she again
propped her head in her bed, closed her eyes and, to the mystification of
all present, appeared to go to sleep. They were still staring when she opened
her eyes a final time. “I should point out, however, that you are
straying from the subject.”

Velmeran started and stared accusingly at Valthyrra. Everyone present
knew from experience that she could not only change the subject but lead it on
a merry chase before someone remembered what they were supposed to be talking
about. Valthyrra recognized that stare and looked away quickly.

“Now, it seems to me that we were discussing the problem of one very
large ship,” he began, sitting back in his chair. “I have now
either tried or rejected every idea I can think of – “

“Just how certain are you of that?” Consherra insisted suddenly,
although she was not talking to Velmeran but to Valthyrra. “Have you
actually discussed the matter with Commander Tryn?”

There was a long moment of silence as everyone, including Lenna, regarded
her with a mixture of surprise and mystification.

“No, I did not,” Valthyrra answered. “It is a possibility,
but some other crewmember of the Kalvyn, one of Tryn’s offspring, could
have easily been your father.”

“That is true, of course,” Consherra agreed softly, then noticed
that Velmeran was watching her with an expression of forced patience.
“Sorry.”

“I quite forgot what I was saying.”

“You have tried everything,” Lenna reminded him.

“Ah, yes.” He shrugged. “The answer is simple. If –
“

“But how can that be?” Consherra interrupted again. “You
said that the Dvonnan Kelvessan have been around for about ninety years, and I
am going on seventy. I doubt that Commander Tryn had any children old
enough to have been my father.”

“Mutant children, perhaps,” Valthyrra answered. “He could
have had nonmutant children from earlier matings who share his ability to sire
mutants.”

“Oh.” Consherra was utterly disappointed, to everyone’s
surprise.

“As you were saying,” Mayelna prompted.

Velmeran looked up and hastily closed his mouth, which was hanging open.
“Yes, I was...”

“But you obviously think so,” Consherra insisted.

“Yes, I do,” Valthyrra answered. “Are you not aware of how
much you look and act like Velmeran? If you were just a bit taller, you could
almost pass for Daelyn.”

Consherra considered that, felt her small nose, and shrugged. “I guess
so. And he did remember me.”

“But is that any real trick in a race that has selective
recall?” Lenna asked. “And besides that, you all look alike to
me.”

“Actually, you do have a point,” Consherra admitted with
disappointment.

“Tral de lessan!”
Velmeran exploded. “So you happen
to be my half sister. Is that so bad?”

“Bad?” Consherra regarded him in complete surprise. “Nothing
could make me happier.”

The entire group sat in silence for a long, expectant moment as Velmeran
glanced from one to the other. At last he sighed heavily and sat back in his
chair. “Now, if...”

“You will ask Tryn and Schayressa about it, though?”

“As soon as this is over,” Valthyrra promised, then turned to
look at Velmeran, who sat with his arms crossed, staring at the ceiling.
“Well, what are you waiting for?”

“I am going inside the Challenger and reprogram her so that she cannot
shield effectively,” he said quickly, and waited. This time there was no
question that he had everyone’s complete attention – everyone
except Lenna, who was so impressed that she again propped up her head and
closed her eyes. Valthyrra was speechless, and Consherra appeared likely to
explode as soon as she could collect her wits and find her tongue. And yet
Mayelna, the source of many past arguments, was not in the least bit surprised.

“There is no way to destroy the Challenger from the outside,” he
continued. “We have proven that. The only solution is to do something
from the inside so that she can no longer assemble her complete power grid. Consherra,
that is your department. What would you do if you had access to the
Challenger’s primary programming?”

Consherra was caught off guard by that question; whether he intended that
particular result, it had the effect of putting out her fuse before she reached
an explosive level. She was about the most gifted programmer in the fleet, with
access to the secrets of Valthyrra’s construction. Certainly no one in
the Union knew as much about advanced sentient systems.

“Well, there are any number of bugs you can throw into the
system,” she answered uncertainly. “Under the circumstances, the
best would be to insert a loop that throws power sources back out of the grid
as others come on line.”

“But to do anything effective, you have to get free access to the Challenger’s
basic programming,” Valthyrra protested. “You know yourself the
types of safeguards they are going to have on that system. It probably takes
hours to get inside even when you know the codes and passes.”

“True,” Velmeran agreed. “But what if you could bypass the
guards and go directly into the system? I can get instant control of the
Challenger.”

“Nice trick! How do you think...” Valthyrra’s voice faded
suddenly, and her lenses assumed a distant stare. Then, as everyone watched
expectantly, she began to recite.

“There once was an entrepreneur

Auditioning girls for his tour.

One girl showed her stuff

But it wasn’t enough.

So he promptly proceeded to... to...”

She seemed almost to blink, then turned her camera pod to look at Velmeran.
“And so you get control of the Challenger. What then?”

“Then I order her to open her programming from the inside,” he
explained.

“Simple enough,” Valthyrra agreed. “I should be ashamed of
myself for always underestimating you.”

“So you should.”

“Where did you come up with that, anyway?”

“Lenna.”

“Yes, I recognize the material.” She turned to Mayelna.
“Yes, he really can do it.”

“I have already learned from experience that he can and will do what
he says,” Mayelna replied. “So, you create a diversion, land on the
Challenger’s hull, and enter through a convenient airlock. I suppose that
you can force one without being detected?”

“Easily,” he assured her.

“Then you juggle her programming and get back out again?”

“Preferably in a hurry,” Velmeran added. “We will have to arrange
our timing so that Valthyrra will attack as soon as possible after the
tampering. That way, even if they know what we did, they would not have time to
correct the damage.”

“Wait a moment,” Consherra interrupted. “You can bet that
Marenna Challenger has the ability to review her own programming. That is
how our own ships develop personalities; they are continually altering and
expanding their personalities.”

“Yes, but there must be a way to hide the alteration,” Velmeran
insisted.

“Of course. You can insert the alteration in an invisible loop. The
information inside such a loop instructs her to be blind to the loop itself
while incorporating the alterations into the master program. It is by no means
foolproof. Once she realizes that she cannot raise the grid as she should, she
will go back in to look for the problem. Still, there will be an interval
between the time she recognizes the trouble and is able to correct it. That
will be Valthyrra’s one chance to destroy her.”

Velmeran nodded. “I knew that. I was hoping that you would be able to
insert an invisible loop that she would find particularly difficult to
detect and delete.”

“Well, yes, I could,” Consherra agreed. Then she realized what
he had in mind. “Now, wait a minute! That is not my line of work.”

“We all have to start somewhere,” Velmeran said.

“But how do you plan to get me there?” she protested weakly.

“You can fly yourself there, like the rest of us. You keep a fighter
of your own, and you have practiced with me often enough for me to know that
you happen to be a very good pilot. I also know that you flew with the packs
for several years before you transferred to helm.”

“Yes, but I am needed here.” Consherra seized upon that thought
as an excuse.

Valthyrra regarded her closely. “Just who do you think is flying this
ship right now? Your value is as second-in-command, not as an emergency
flight computer, and just now your knowledge of sentient computer systems makes
you invaluable to this mission.”

There was a long moment of silence, during which there was an abrupt shift
in viewpoints in this argument. Velmeran, who had been considering the
requirements of this expedition only as its leader, suddenly remembered his
earlier prophecy was likely to be the cause of his own death. He had forgotten
that prediction mostly because it had ceased to be valid. But now it was
back. Someone in this room, himself included, would not survive the
assault on the Challenger, but he had no idea who. At least he could be certain
of Consherra’s safety.

“Actually, Consherra is right,” he said quickly. “There is
no reason for her to go. I can modify the Challenger’s programming
as easily as she could.”

“Oh, of course,” Valthyrra agreed, supporting him enthusiastically
for some reason of her own. “I doubt that her abilities would make that
much difference.”

Consherra, however, had been considering the matter herself, and she had
realized that this might be her only opportunity to accompany Velmeran on one
of his special tactics missions. “Now wait just a moment. No one can hide
that loop as well as I can, and the success of the mission depends on
it.”

That was followed by a moment of complete silence. This abrupt and complete
reversal of positions left everyone speechless with confusion and
surprise. Even Lenna appeared to be fully awake for the first time.

“Meran, I have to share the risks like everyone else on this
ship,” she continued. “It happens that there is a task to be done
that I can do better than anyone else.”

Velmeran frowned and looked up at Valthyrra. Her camera pod made a helpless
shrugging motion. “She is right, as much as I hate to admit it.”

Velmeran knew that himself, although he found it almost impossible to
agree. He shivered imperceptively at the memory, more vivid than it had been
these past two years, of the horror of waiting for Dveyella to die while he had
been unable to help her. At last he nodded slowly, then looked over at Baress.
“Will you come with us?”

“I would be delighted.”

“What about me, Captain?” Tregloran asked anxiously.

“Oh, I had something in mind when I asked you here,” Velmeran
said, smiling. “I need for you, Trel, and Marlena to stay with the ships
and guard our way out. Our suit communication will not penetrate the quartzite
shielding on the hull, so I need a good telepath on the outside to relay any
messages.”