The Unreasoning Mask (38 page)

 

The piteous tone in the voice vised his heart. But he said, "The free will
consists in ignoring your voice.

 

 

He turned and walked swiftly from his quarters. On the way to the bridge,
he said, "Shiyai! Were you eavesdropping?"

 

 

"Yes," his father's voice said. "Ramstan, what now? When you rejected the
glyfa, were you accepting us?"

 

 

He might need the Vwoordha. He said, "For the moment. What I do after . . .
if . . . we kill the bolg depends on what you do now."

 

 

"We will earn your faith. The glyfa doesn't understand that that is how
you get others to have faith in you."

 

 

"It's had long enough to learn how," Ramstan said. He thought, And so
have you.

 

 

The minutes, the hours, marched slowly by strewing flowers of anxiety.
The tension became heavier, as if it were air compressed under a slowly
driving piston in a cylinder. It strummed in the chests of some like a
fine but strong wire being pulled at both ends and in others like the
heaviness preceding a heart attack. Stomachs were twisting like Möbius
strips or bobbing like apples in a tub.

 

 

In all minds was the image of the Tolt ship exploding.

 

 

"If the bolg fires soon at a great distance, we can avoid the missiles,"
Ramstan said to Tenno. "I don't think that the missiles are self-propelled
and -guided. They're like shotgun pellets discharged at a general area.
If the bolg waits until we're close, we can try to evaporate them with
lasers. Our success will depend on how many are shot within a certain time.

 

 

"However, the bolg may not have any missiles as yet. Or it may have only
a few, in which case we may destroy or evade them.

 

 

"The Vwoordha think that our lasers and atomic bombs will not damage its
surface at all. They think, though they don't know, that the bolg's shell
is made out of the same material as the glyfa's. We'll launch four warhead-
missiles which will be programmed to land within an area of 0.1 kilometer.
At the same time, we'll concentrate all ten forward lasers on another
nearby area not more than 0.1 meter in diameter."

 

 

"If these fail to wound it . . . I mean, damage it?"

 

 

"We alaraf. Maybe. I may decide on another move. It'll depend on the
situation."

 

 

The bridge personnel were tense, but a component of their tightness was not,
Ramstan thought, caused by the approaching conflict. They had accepted him
again as their captain but only during this emergency. He did not doubt
that, once it was over, he would be relieved of his command and arrested.
Regulations required that, though, just now, regulations were suspended.
That they were thinking of this was betrayed in their faces, their voices,
and subtle body movements.

 

 

To relieve some of this tension and to occupy some time, Ramstan told them
about the sigils and how he had traveled roundabout back to the Vwoordha.

 

 

"Then," Tenno said, "that means that the Vwoordha can still get away."

 

 

"Yes."

 

 

"Even if we die, they don't. Neither does the glyfa."

 

 

Ramstan did not reply. He ordered food for the hungry. He stayed on the
bridge and chewed down half a sandwich and drank a big glass of milk.
His stomach would tolerate no more and almost did not accept that.

 

 

Doctor Hu called Ramstan from the morgue.

 

 

"I've completed the dissection. Commodore Benagur died of a massive
heart attack. Do you want the medical details now?"

 

 

"No. I'll read your report later," Ramstan said. He thought, If there is
a later.

 

 

He paced back and forth, his arms behind him, hands locked, shoulders and
back bent forward. His reflection in the only mirror on the bridge looked
like a weird bird, one that Tenniel might have drawn for
Through the
Looking Glass
if Carroll had thought of such. The "Worry Bird"? After
that, though he continued pacing, he walked with shoulders and back
straight and his hands swinging by his sides. It would not do for the
crew to see him so deeply concerned.

 

 

After a few more turns around the bridge, he stopped. "Tenno, I'm not
going to use the weapons unless we're attacked. The Vwoordha have told
me that they might not affect the bolg in the slightest. Why awaken the
sleeping giant?"

 

 

Tenno looked at the viewplate showing the bolg.

 

 

"Napoleon's words, more or less, right? Well, it's not China, but I think
his advice is appropriate."

 

 

"It's possible that its detectors aren't on," Ramstan said. "It's not ready
for action. It's recharging. Why should it expend even a minimum of energy
on powering detectors? It's invulnerable. I mean that its exterior is.
Even a very large asteroid would do no more than bump it off its orbit,
and it must have swept space far enough to notice anything like that.
As for us, it may think us negligible . . . well, I don't mean that it
thinks, it surely is as brainless and as mechanical as a virus . . .
what I mean is that its reaction mechanisms, its tropisms and antitropisms,
would not make it react to us. It might have stored data about us to track
us down when Grrymguurdha has been raked with missiles. But I suspect that
it went into a sort of hibernation when it got into its orbit. We'll ease
up on it and see if we can sneak by it."

 

 

"Good thinking," Shiyai said in his father's voice.

 

 

Both the bolg and al-Buraq were on the nightside of the planet now.
The shadow of the dark world beneath made a crescent on the bolg. One of
the markings which looked like the eye of a skull was bright; the other,
unseen. Almost, the bolg seemed to be winking at them as if it was enjoying
a grim jest and wanted even its victims to share in it.

 

 

It was rotating as Earth's moon turned, just enough to keep one side
towards the planet. This had been calculated for, and so al-Buraq moved
towards the vast opening of one vast horn in a path which would intercept
it. The hours went by. The opening, so tiny at first, swelled larger
and larger. Al-Buraq, in accordance with the program, decelerated. It
would not do to enter the horn at such a velocity that ship would smash
herself against the inside or have to slow down so quickly that her crew
would be splashed against the bulkheads.

 

 

The energy from the deceleration would be detectable, of course.
Ramstan hoped that it would not cause the bolg to react.

 

 

Its face was as cold and impersonal as that of Earth's moon and it looked
as lifeless as the moon or a mechanical object, an artifact. But it was
neither a thing of never-alive matter nor a thing made by sentient mind
and hands. It was alive, though it surely had no more consciousness than
a bacterium or a virus or an antibody. Functionally, it was an antibody
produced by a living organism to protect it from destructive bacteria
or cancer.

 

 

The horn was made of the same dark substance as the body. It rose at a
right angle to the surface to a height of 999.9 kilometers. The diameter
at the muzzle was 3.33 kilometers; at the base, 333.3 kilometers. Not
even the Vwoordha knew what force expelled the missiles from it, but
they thought that it was an electromagnetic field. The missiles must be
made by energy-matter conversion in matrices inside the bolg. Though
the thing had a surface area of almost 531 million square kilometers,
its intake of solar energy would not be enough for it to make many
projectiles in a short time. But perhaps it did not use solar energy.

 

 

As al-Buraq neared the expanding hole at the tip of the horn, she applied
gasjet deceleration instead of the energy used at higher velocities.
Presently, ship was moving just enough to match the pace of the slowly
turning bolg. The hole was illumined by the sun on the side away from
the planet; the light formed a crescent. The rest was darkness.

 

 

More gasjetting turned ship's nose downwards until her longitudinal axis
was lined up with that of the horn.

 

 

This was perhaps the most nerve-ratcheting time so far. For all Ramstan
knew, the bolg had been waiting for this. At any second, millions of the
missiles might shoot out of that muzzle. Ship's radar might give a second's
notice. Even though at this point of entry, al-Buraq could still use
alaraf drive and though al-Buraq was programmed to go alaraf immediately
on detection of missiles, she might not be quick enough. Ship and crew
would die as the Popacapyu had died.

 

 

"I hope the bolg discharged the last of its missiles at the Tolt,"
Ramstan muttered.

 

 

There was no use waiting. He gave the order -- the electromechanical
communication system was not necessary now -- and al-Buraq, nudged by
small spurts of gasjets, moved down the hole.

 

 

 

 

 

 

... 32 ...

 

 

"As easy as slipping milk down a baby's throat," Tenno said.

 

 

"As easy as a minnow entering a shark's mouth," Toyce said.

 

 

Ramstan said, "Quiet! No talking until I say so."

 

 

On a viewplate and on the radar and laser screens was the three-tiered
houseship of the Vwoordha. It shone in the sun and was behind al-Buraq
by a kilometer. Its hull would not be pierced by the missiles. However,
it would be hurled backwards at such a velocity that its occupants would
be spread out paper-thin against the walls.

 

 

The houseship plunged into the darkness. The Vwoordha were fully committed.
Ramstan had not been sure that they would be.

 

 

The detector plates and screens showed pictures of the hollow. The sides
were as smooth as a bull's horn and opened out downwards. Then the entrance
to the sphere was ahead of them. Al-Buraq passed slowly through it.
Now the detectors probed the interior of the bolg. Unlike the smooth
exterior surface, the inside surface was crowded with regular rows of
stalagmite-shaped structures. These ranged in height from 0.5 centimeter
to 66.6 kilometers. The arrangement was in no sequence that could be
figured out as yet. Sometimes, there would be sixty of the tall structures
and sometimes several hundred of the tiny ones beside those. Sometimes,
one or two or three tall structures would be flanked by thousands of
the shorter ones.

 

 

The other phenomena so far detected were not in the visible spectrum.
Some were in the ultra-violet; some, in the infrared. They shot out from
a sphere that hung in the center of the sphere, a dark interior moon
of the body of the bolg. They were of various shapes as they flickered
off and on: lanceolate, pyramidal, tongue-like, some rodlike with balls
forming at their slender tips. The "slender" was relative, since their
diameter was probably approximately three kilometers. The ball hanging
in the center was large enough to be an asteroid, 135.791 kilometers in
diameter. It was rotating at its equator at 379.17 kilometers per hour.

 

 

The tec-op said, "Captain! Something else!"

 

 

Ramstan looked at the indicated screen. Far below the lip of the hole
through which they had just emerged was a bulk as big as a mountain. The
tec-op covered it with finer-tuned detectors, narrowed down the field,
and several thousand of the larger spherical projectiles were clear on
the screen. At Ramstan's order, the tec-op broadened the screen.
The entire pile was larger than Mount Everest; it was 100 kilometers wide
and 12 kilometers high.

 

 

Other screens showed similar-sized piles around or below the other
five openings.

 

 

"The bolg isn't turning swiftly enough to make centrifugal force there,"
Ramstan said. "What's keeping the missiles from floating off?"

 

 

The tec-op said, "There's a weak e-m field there, sir."

 

 

Ramstan told him to focus on the edge of the nearest pile. The scanners
moved slowly along the circumference, then stopped at an order from Ramstan.
A tiny bead had suddenly dropped onto the pile and bounced off onto the
smooth floor between two stalagmitoids. Within two minutes more it began
putting on layers. Meanwhile, other beads fell and started to go through
the same process.

 

 

The instruments indicated a tremendous amount of energy concentrated in
narrow fields.

 

 

Ramstan thought that eventually the missiles would be lifted by e-m
force to the hollow horn and moved up it. When the bolg was ready,
it would propel these out of the horn. But to hit even in the general
direction of its targets must require some directing force. Perhaps
that was in the missiles themselves. It did not seem likely. Yet, the
missiles functioned with great efficiency.

 

 

"Head for the globe in the center," he said. "That must be the heart of
the thing, the main generator or converter."

 

 

Shiyai spoke in his father's voice. "Ramstan. What do you plan?"

 

 

"We'll place all our warhead-missiles around the central globe. We'll set
them up to be activated by radio signal. We'll go to the exterior then,
and we'll set the warheads off by signal transmitted through the horn
opening. If that doesn't do it, then I don't know what we'll do."

 

 

"Captain!"

 

 

The tec-op pointed at the colors and numbers flickering wildly on his
screens. "There's a hell of a lot of energy out there!"