Michael Kube-McDowell - The Quiet Pools

The intercept point was just four kilometers from Memphis . If the two objects meeting there were perfect, incompressible spheres, the satellite would follow the track on Martin’s display and miss the earthside curve of the hull by less than a hundred meters. Elementary physics of inelastic collisions.

But these were spacecraft, not billiard balls, and no computer on Memphis could predict the outcome.

“Range, twenty kilometers.”

The chatter on the starship’s bridge had ended. Dryke watched the panoramic and the tracking plot on his display wall, both relayed from Memphis via Highstar. They said enough.

“What—”

Something was happening to the truck. The shield had broken free from three of the grapples and was twisting to one side. A moment later, it went spinning away down toward the Pacific night like a discus. As it vanished, the Hughes appeared, a twinkling star skimming Takara’s moonside pole. Dryke’s breath caught.

“Range, ten kilometers.”

“Eight—”

“Five—”

The satellite closed, the Hughes rose, and for an instant—but only an instant—they merged. The violence with which the truck was hurled aside, spinning crazily, underlined the missile’s frightening speed. If it was deflected at all, no one watching could tell.

“Oh, shit—” said Dryke.

Suddenly, the Hughes brightened, as though it were caught in a spotlight. Dryke’s mind locked, and he watched without understanding. Then the display wall strobed blinding white, like a giant photographer’s flash, as the satellite exploded.

The panoramic went black, and Dryke could barely see through the afterimage that the tracking plot had splintered into dozens of diverging lines, some heading directly for Memphis . One second, two, three, four—whatever was going to happen should have happened.

“Matt?”

There was no answer. Then the tracking plot suddenly vanished, and Dryke realized that he was hearing shouting, cheering, the bubbling over of giddy relief. “Bridge link,” he said quickly, and the scene came up in window 1. Reid was being hugged by someone. “Matt?”

Reid escaped the hug and turned toward the cam. “I guess you’ve still got a starship, Mike. You can fire us now.”

“Firing’s too good for you,” Dryke said. “Besides, I wouldn’t want to deny the Director the pleasure of firing us all at once. Did the ship get tagged?”

“We had a little bump, so we must have taken something. But it can’t have been much, because all the important lights are still green. The chief engineer’s on his way out in a boat to take a look.”

“What happened there at the end?”

Reid looked over his shoulder. “Marty?”

The tech looked sheepish. “The reflector was blocking the truck’s rendezvous radar, and I wanted a little insurance for a center hit. I thought it was worth a hundred kilos, so I threw the reflector away.”

“Highstar’s gonna ticket you for that.”

“Ticket, hell,” said Martin. “Do you know how long it’s been since I did this to my shorts?”

Reid laughed. “I’ll buy you a new pair.”

“I’ll pay the ticket,” Dryke said. “Get us a report on damage ASAP, will you?”

The postmortem was not a happy gathering. Marshall was there, and Oker. Talbot, the construction manager, and Reid were linked from Memphis . Edgar Donovan was fresh in from Los Angeles. Dryke was nursing a cold fire and trying to hide it; at the opposite end of the table, Sasaki was hollow-eyed and startlingly frail.

They heard from Reid and Talbot first. The ersatz missile had been detonated by the PDS lasers 2.1 kilometers away from the ship. The explosion was a mercy—it hurled the bulk of the disintegrating satellite away from, rather than toward, the target. Fifty-eight fragments, the largest the size of a child’s fist, escaped the HEL beam and tore through the fringe of the aft structural skirt. It looked worse than it was—no critical systems had been hit, and no pressurized spaces had been breached.

Then Sasaki ordered the links closed. “We did not deserve the luck which befell us,” she said to the others. “This is unrestricted war, and we were not prepared. We were not prepared, and no one stood ready to help us. Governor Wian bears a measure of the blame—he has been unreasonably opposed to allowing weapons or weapons platforms on Takara. I believe he has sufficient reason now to reconsider—”

“He’d better,” said Marshall, the only one present who would dare interrupt Sasaki at that moment. “Who knows if there are any more sleepers parked up there?”

Sasaki’s gaze flickered in Marshall’s direction, but she did not otherwise acknowledge him. “Our opponents are still strong, still determined, and growing desperate. We must take Memphis where they cannot reach us, at the earliest possible date.”

“We’ve got an opportunity here,” Donovan injected. “The real damage isn’t serious. How serious do we want the official damage to be?”

“Will anyone who counts believe it?” Oker’s expression was skeptical.

“I hear that the explosion was visible all around the Pacific rim,” said Marshall.

“It’s number one on the nets,” said Donovan. “Even though they’re starved for facts. That’s the best time to feed them bullshit—if you can get there before they start producing their own.”

“This discussion does not interest me,” Sasaki said. “Issue what statements you wish. Mikhail, I would like to hear from you.”

Dryke looked down the table to her. “This feels like the Kasigau incident. A variation on a theme.”

“The same mind?”

“No. But someone schooled under it. Someone’s taken Jeremiah’s place at the helm.” He frowned and looked away. “Goddammit, it didn’t do any good to kill him.”

She nodded. “Mikhail, I am sorry. It is possible I was wrong about Christopher McCutcheon.”

Shaking his head, Dryke said, “I can’t gloat. It looks like I was wrong about Anna X.”

“What do you mean?”

He touched his earpiece. “I heard from Horizon a few moments ago. The McCutcheon kid passed through there five days ago on his way to Sanctuary.” He stood up, driving his chair away from the table. “With your leave, Director, I’m gonna go correct those mistakes.”

Ten and half again had come to the Spring Grotto to hear the story, but the story could not be told with voice alone, or heard only with the ears.

To tell it as Deryn told it required eyes, sad sparkle laughing— hands, signing soaring—a body fluid and supple. She moved among them as a breeze in the many-tiered chamber, hovered as a spirit in the field of firepoint stars beyond the sky windows, rested as a stone on the tumbledown cascade of the waterfall. She told the story from the heart, not from memory, and invested it with her love.

“ ‘Will you stay with us?’ asked Cho. She was first among Asa’s daughters, and the boldest. ‘Stay in the golden house, and be our guiding fire.’

“But Tetsu said gently, ‘Is this as much as you’ve learned, to keep me as an idol in a monument?’

“Cho was shamed, but the others begged Tetsu to stay. They offered their houses and their worship and their love. Tetsu refused all but the last.

“ ‘I have been away long enough,’ she told them. ‘I am going back to my home in the Earth.’ ”

It was then that Anna X appeared at the arched Spring Corridor entrance. She entered the grotto silently, advancing several steps toward where the audience was seated, but stopping before she intruded on anyone but Deryn’s attention. Deryn noted her presence and wondered, but went on without a pause or a break.