The Myriad: Tour of the Merrimack #1 (18 page)

“Not stolen. Lost in transit,” said Augustus. “Does everything you send into the
kzachin
come out of the
kzachin
?”

Donner paused, seemed about to lie again, then admitted crossly, a dismissal, “As you said, it is a long, long way from here.”

Donner’s bare feet whispered a brisk retreat across the jeweled floor with his leaving.

Captain Farragut displaced back to
Merrimack
with his IO in defeat. Donner was not going to give away his transportation secrets any more than John Farragut would give Donner guns.

“Well, Augustus, did you get anything from that? Does that wormhole go to Origin?”

“It may,” Augustus allowed. “But it may have branches or other hazards. We already know that
kzachin
can distort time. And now I know that some of them may distort it severely. Catastrophically, in fact.”

“Based on what? Where did you get that pattern?”

“From this.” He held up the paper, between forefinger and impudent digit.

Farragut snatched it from him and regarded the alien inscription. Upside down. “What is this? Where did this text come from?”

“From your own computer’s data bank.”

“We have this?” Farragut kept staring at the alien signs as if staring would make sense fall into them. “And it matches Original? Then why didn’t it come up during our language search?”

“Why?” Augustus picked up a book someone had left in the wardroom, a picture book of fairy tales. It was a popular book on
Merrimack
. The crew made video recordings of themselves reading from it to send home to their children. Augustus opened the book to a drawing. “Here. Search this. Where’s Little Red Riding Hood.”

Farragut pointed her out right away, asking, “Where is this taking me, Augustus?”

“Child’s play, isn’t it? But without this specific picture inputted along with a precise set of instructions, your most powerful computer could not have found her if you gave it all year to search. First you would have to instruct the machine that these two-dimensional lines represent storybook characters and that Lil Red is a storybook character. Then there’s the matter of color. This picture is black and white, so how can there be a Little Red Riding Hood in there? But you knew the color of her cloak because there’s a wolf in the bed wearing Granny’s cap and glasses, and the little girl carries a basket of goodies. You didn’t need to sift through all these images, checking for parameters, and I don’t need color to find Little Red Riding Hood.”

“So where is she?”

“Grandma’s house.” Augustus righted the inscription in the captain’s hands. “Planet Xi.”

Farragut blinked, all the connections gone blank behind his blue eyes.

Augustus continued, “Your computer checked the Myriadian languages against all known living languages. This is a dead one.”

“Oh, no, don’t tell me it’s Latin.”

“Deader than that.” Latin had, in fact, been thoroughly resuscitated. “You are holding the inscription from the Xi Tablet.”

“The Xi Tablet. The Xi Tablet,” Farragut murmured. “I know what that is. I . . . used to know what the Xi Tablet is. What’s the Xi Tablet?”

“Oldest known artifact anywhere. It’s a twenty-billion-year-old hunk of lead in a fifteen-billion-year-old universe. And it has an inscription on it.”

“Why didn’t the computer match the symbols?”

“Because the symbols they have in common appear dextrorsum on the Xi Tablet and sinistrorsum on Donner’s wall. I told you, the Myriadians write their monumental inscriptions back and forth. The computer did not recognize the inversion. I did.”

“If it’s got Donner’s name on it, then that tablet can’t be twenty billion years old.”

“Oh, but it is,” said Augustus, something like malice, something like enjoyment glinting in his eye.

“Donner’s reliquary was solid thorium,” Farragut reminded him. “The Xi Tablet is lead.”

“Lead 208 to be precise,” Augustus confirmed. “With traces of radium 224 and radon 220. Garden-variety lead is lead 206, which is the end product of uranium 238. Lead 207 is the end product of uranium 235. When you find lead 206 or 207, you know you have very old uranium. You know by the isotope of lead what element it used to be.”

“And lead 208 is the end product of . . . ?”

“Thorium 232.”

“The Xi Tablet is old thorium,” said Farragut.

“Very, very old thorium,” said Augustus. “Older than the planet it was found on. The Xi system coalesced about five billion years after the Big Bang, at the same time you and I were hydrogen and helium atoms inside stars that no longer exist.”

“We are stardust, we are golden.”

“We are so lost. So here is a lump of very old lead that has no business being on that planet, or anywhere else in this universe. The assumption has been that the Xi Tablet was on Xi a long time, given that it was buried quite deep. But the Xi Tablet has Donner’s name on it, and Donner is not that old, so we may have to rethink that conclusion. Donner sent his reliquary to Origin—through a
kzachin
. We know that
kzachin
can bend time. Echo Leader came out the other end of his
kzachin
aged five days more than the rest of us. Perhaps there’s one other rabbit hole you don’t ever want to fall down, Alice.”

Farragut’s eyes widened. “Donner’s reliquary stumbled through the wrong wormhole and came out aged
twenty billion years?
”

“Best theory I’ve got at the moment,” said Augustus. “Watch that last step.”

Farragut hushed in horror. “Alpha Flight,” he breathed.

Augustus nodded. “They may already be back. If they aged twenty billion years, would we even know what they were if we saw them?”

PART TWO

Functions of Chaos

9

J
OHN FARRAGUT BARRELED THROUGH the causeway that joined his ship to the LEN vessel, the impact of his footfalls making the flexible connection undulate. The deck bowed up, nearly tripping him. Ambassador Aghani cut him off at the soft dock’s end and launched a tirade before Farragut could begin to warn him of the Myriad’s wormholes.

“Captain Farragut, you have gone behind the League’s back to contact the Arran despite our explicit orders to cease all contact. Must I explain chain of command to you? Furthermore, I don’t believe you have a squadron out. That is a deliberate fiction to subvert League authority. I demand—”

“Captain Farragut!” Calli’s voice sounded loud from the com on Farragut’s hand, overriding the mute.

“Not now,” Farragut growled into the back of his fist.

“Now, sir,” Calli’s voice was quietly insistent.

“What is it?” Farragut asked. His XO had an infallible sense of priority.

“Deck there.”

Aghani smiled coldly. “That will be the courier from Earth, conveying your dismissal from your President.”

That was not possible—though the bounds of possibility had become extremely spongy of late. No courier could arrive from Earth so quickly.

“IFF?” Farragut asked Calli.

“Friendly! It’s Alpha Flight!”

John Farragut rocked up on the balls of his feet and smiled back at Aghani, too happy for his smile to be anything less than purely joyful. “There’s my flight,” he said innocently, as if his fighters had been out for a little jaunt. He started away, at a brisk march at first, then running through the madly undulating causeway, back to
Merrimack
, roaring as he came. “Get this
hose
off my boat. Seal the lock. Calli! Take us out to meet Alpha Flight. Get those Swifts on board
now!
Go! Go! Go!”

Hatches banged shut and sealed behind the Captain’s bulleting return from the LEN vessel. The soft dock retracted, link severed. The breach in
Merrimack
’s force field healed over.

John Farragut paused a moment, knuckle to teeth, eyes tight shut, alone in the corridor.
Sir? Thy will be done. But if it’s not too much trouble, will them still alive, okay?

Merrimack
’s six engines gave a low subliminal growl, and he felt his ship’s power bunch under him like a tiger’s muscles preparing for a spring.

Farragut opened his eyes, shouted into his com, “Calli! Do you have radio contact with Alpha Flight?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Voice or auto?”

“
Voice,
sir. They’re alive!”

Eyes up.
Thank you.

Merrimack
sped out to meet the long-missing Swifts. Her tractors guided the little ships to the flight deck. You could hear the banging through the hull as the Swifts touched down, then locked down; the whir and clank of the elevators hauling them inboard to the hangar deck.

Farragut ran to the access corridor that led to the starboard hangar deck. Crewmen dived out of his path as he charged down tight passageways and ducked through the hatchways. He slid down the ladder rails to the hangar deck.

Someone with the same imperative came sliding down from the top deck after him, fast, skimmed Farragut’s hands off the rails, landing him on his back, her on top of him, on the hangar deck in a sprawl. Not too weighty. Kerry Blue.

Flat on his back with an armful of gyrene green on him, Farragut asked, “Am I not moving fast enough for you, Flight Sergeant?”

“Oh, shit!” She scrambled to get off of him. Too fast for comfort. Kerry Blue had way too many elbows.

The OOD barked, “Captain on deck!”

Heels cracked to attention all over the hangar deck. Still on his ass, Farragut took their salutes. “As you were.” And, pulling himself off the deck, “Why aren’t those Swifts open yet?”

Forbidding red lights answered from the deck monitors. “Still pressurizing, Cap’n,” the chief said. “They’re running their Swifts thin. Cutting their oxygen consumption is my guess. We open ’em now, we’d hammer their ears in. No telling what kind of shape they’re in.”

Mo Shah arrived on deck with his medic team.

Kerry Blue hovered, sobbing. A voice at her back snarled, “What have
you
got to blubber about, Marine?”

Steele, of course.

He shouldered past her to join the medics clustered around the Swifts. “Stay out of the way.”

Deck monitors turned green with a soft tone.

“Are we there?” Steele demanded.

“Close enough,” the chief answered and ordered his erks: “Pop ’em!”

Cockpits hissed open. Steele tore the canopy off the nearest ship, reached in, and lifted out the ashen, limp figure of little Regina Monroe. He set her down on the deck. She teetered on her feet like something just born. Looked just as wet.

Steele reached back into the cockpit, clasped arms with Dak Shepard and hauled the big guy out of the same little ship.

Other shaken, stinking Marines oozed from their vessels to form up at less-than-rigid attention before Captain Farragut.

Farragut asked, “Colonel Steele, who do we have?”

Steele barked names, “Lieutenant Hazard Sewell!”

“Sir!”

“Flight Sergeant Monroe!”

“Sir!”

“Flight Sergeant Shepard!”

“Sir!”

“Flight Sergeant Fuentes!”

“Here. Oh, God, sir. I’m here. Sir!”

“Flight Sergeant Delgado!”

“Sir!”

Steele turned smartly, his face flushed ruddy, breath drawn deep, voice husky. “Alpha Flight present and accounted for, sir.”

“Thank you, Colonel Steele.” Farragut’s eyes beamed. He strolled to the flight leader. “Rough trip, Mr. Sewell?”

“You cannot imagine, sir.”

Farragut clasped Alpha Leader’s shoulder. The Marine swayed under his hand. “Could be worse,” Farragut said warmly. “By our clocks, you guys died last week.”

Hazard Sewell tilted his head, made a speculative moue. “May have done, sir.”

“Chief! I want the brains sucked out of these Swifts’ black boxes. I want to know where they’ve been.” And to Hazard Sewell, “ ’Cause I’m pretty sure y’all don’t know.”

“No, sir,” Hazard verified, relieved. He had been wondering how he would ever explain what he’d been through. Had to love the captain for already knowing. Should’ve expected it. “Thank you, sir.”

Farragut turned to the medical officer. “Mo. Your flight.”

“Aye, sir.” Mo Shah took the weary Marines in hand.

Farragut bounded back up to his control room, his steps springing, spirit flying. “We’re whole. We’re done here. We’re out of here. Calli! Make us go away!”

The battleship
Merrimack
backtracked out of the Myriad the way she had come, until the cluster’s dazzling millions of suns dwindled to a single light.

Somewhere back here Captain Farragut had lost the trail of the Hive. He needed Jose Maria Cordillera and Colonel Augustus to help him pick up the hunt again.

He found the two together in Augustus’ makeshift quarters in the torpedo storage bay. Cordillera, being a civilian, nodded at the captain’s entrance but did not stand, so as not to interrupt Augustus.

Augustus, being Augustus, ignored the captain entirely, intent on playing Jose Maria’s guitar—Augustus’ guitar now, for Jose Maria had given it to him.

“Because he can play it,” Jose Maria Cordillera explained the gift.

Jose Maria Cordillera could play, but not like this. Augustus drew amazing sounds from the acoustic guitar—plaintive chords and rills of passionate sadness that found expression nowhere else in the caustic, detached Roman’s stony being. No one guessed Augustus had it in him.

“Where’ve you been hiding
that?
” said Farragut at song’s end, marveling. Music tamed the obnoxious beast.

“I don’t remember learning,” said Augustus.

Augustus had moved some of his belongings from his Striker, altering the torpedo storage bay into an aristocratic Roman chamber—furnished now with rich tapestries of somber hues, a few small pieces of distinctly Roman furniture, climbing plants springing from heavy Grecian urns, a statue, being a copy of the Winged Victory from the Louvre, and a hammock, stretched diagonally between torpedo racks.

“Picked a hell of a time to redecorate, Augustus,” said Farragut. “I hope to need these torpedoes soon.”

“We are back in the hunt?”

“Tryin’ to be. I need you to get me there. Stop that.” Augustus had started to play again, and John Farragut was finding it difficult to stay aggressive with those lovely Spanish strains haunting the air.

The pretty melody ceased. From the background, the pounding bass of the young Marines’ raucous music pushed itself into notice. Augustus lifted his head to listen. “I think I used to like that in my past life.” He tilted his head to listen, as if trying to find the part of himself that responded to the raw noise. Shook his head. “It’s gone now.”

“How can I help you, young Captain?” Jose Maria Cordillera asked.

“The Hive,” said Farragut. “We were on its trail until we stumbled into the Myriad. If
we
ran into the Myriad, why didn’t the Hive run through it? Hive swarms travel in straight lines.”

“The Hive did not come this way,” Jose Maria Cordillera concluded.

“But a swarm came close. And it didn’t go in. What could cause the Myriad to get passed over?”

“A mezuzah on the door,” said Augustus, loosening the strings of his guitar.

“And what would constitute a mezuzah to the Hive?” Farragut wondered aloud. “Can you think like a gorgon?”

“I can think like a machine, which the Hive does. And Dr. Cordillera can think like a virus, which the Hive does.”

Farragut glanced from Augustus to Jose Maria. He opened both empty palms. “So? Why aren’t there gorgons here?”

“Something made the swarm turn,” said Cordillera. “All things being equal, the Hive moves according to inertia. Something here made the swarm turn. They would have had reason. But I do not see it.”

“Augustus?” Farragut prompted a second opinion.

“What do you know about the types of planets found in globular clusters?” Augustus answered with a quiz, as he replaced his guitar in its case.

“There usually aren’t any,” Farragut answered.

“And there you are,” said Augustus.

Jose Maria Cordillera nodded. Of course, why had he not seen that?

Farragut shook his head, still not seeing it. “Where am I?”

“A globular cluster normally has no planets,” said Augustus. “Which means no food. Its mass makes it a gravity well. A Hive swarm would steer wide of the gravitational drag. The Hive does not like to expend energy unless it’s running to the dinner table.”

“But the table is
set,
” said Farragut. “There are three living solar systems inside the Myriad. That’s a lot to eat.”

“Think flat, John Farragut,” said Augustus. “Stay
in
the box. Globular clusters have no planets. The Hive won’t look for exceptions to a long-established pattern.”

Jose Maria nodded agreement.

Farragut shook his head. “How can they be so stupid?”

“How can you be so human? You are an intuitive creature, John Farragut. For the flat mind, data gets sifted through logic gates and Boolean choke points. Things either are or they are not. ‘Sort of’ is a powerful concept. The Hive doesn’t have it.”

“So the swarm turned before it got here. Which way did they go? Or should I ask: from which way did they come?”

“I have not figured that part yet,” said Augustus.

“Do it. I don’t care how you do it, gentlemen, find me a target.”

Farragut left Jose Maria Cordillera and Augustus to their task, while he joined Colonel Steele in the wardroom for the debriefing of Alpha Flight.

Steele came to attention before the captain, then glanced guardedly past him. “I hope you haven’t brought that thing with you. I won’t have a Roman grilling my Marines.”

“I have Augustus gorgon tracking,” said Farragut.

“Should be easy for him. Birds of a feather.”

Farragut waved off the comment. He surveyed the somewhat guilty-looking pilots of Alpha Flight. “Where have your boys and girls been, TR?”

Steele frowned. The frown became a scowl. He hated being asked questions he could not answer. Made him look stupid. TR Steele hated looking stupid. The Roman, Augustus, had made a campaign of making Steele look stupid, and Steele had had enough of it.

But Steele’s Marines were only able to tell of nothingness, a spaceless space responsive to nothing, in which there was no speed, no acceleration, no direction. No communication.

Out of the void they had, each and all, emerged together, no matter what each had tried to do in transit, in a place not on any map. They returned the way they came, a vastly shorter journey than the going, with scarcely a breath left to breathe.

“That matches what Echo Leader reported on his voyage to Rea,” Farragut said.

“Not quite,” said Steele. He stepped aside to let his Marines confess to the captain for themselves.

And the reason for the guilty looks came out.

The Marines of Alpha Flight had resonated.

Farragut ducked his head in a double take. “On our harmonic? You resonated on our harmonic? And we didn’t receive it? That’s not possible.”

The Swifts’ black boxes confirmed it. Alpha Leader and Alpha Three had each shot the flare.

“Severe breach of discipline, sir. I’ll take care of it,” Steele assured him.

It was the worst breach.
Merrimack
was on silent run.

Resonance summoned the Hive.

“There’s another real alarming part of this, TR.”

“Yes, sir.”

“
Both
their resonators failed,” said Farragut. “We’ve got a serious equipment problem with our Swifts.”

“
No,
sir,” Steele said. Felt clunky. Farragut wasn’t getting it. Easy to see why he wasn’t getting it. “Both resonators
worked.
The black boxes of both Swifts say
they resonated.
”

“How can that be?” said Farragut.

Resonance had no frequency, no speed, it just
was.
The signature harmonic to which it resonated existed within the receiver. Without the receiver, the resonance was not there. Resonance did not travel like starlight or sound. It existed everywhere at the moment of resonance, then ceased.