David Brin - Heaven's Reach

A new force rose to meet Streaker — this time consisting of sleek, powerful cruisers. Meanwhile, the giant dreadnoughts near Earth began changing formation, arranging themselves into a hollow shell, its cusp aimed toward Gillian’s ship. Loudspeakers groaned, twittered and beeped in several formal languages, as commanders of the united fleet beamed a final warning.

IDENTIFY YOUSELF, OR BE DESTROYED.

She wondered.

After all this time, hounding us to every far corner of the Five Galaxies, have we really changed so much that you don’t recognize your intended prey — coming now to beard you in your den?

Gillian decided.

It’s time to end the silence. Answer their beamed challenge with one of our own.

Pressing a lever, she unleashed her prerecorded message — one that had drawn her entire concentration ever since Streaker dived into that cool black tunnel milliseconds ahead of a supernova’s fist. It was inspired partly by her own interview with the transcendent being.

More than one can play games of illusion, she had thought. Of all the tricks pulled by her godlike visitor, the one that impressed her least had been that showy series of visual poses, mimicking everyone from Tom and Jake Demwa to Hikahi and Creideiki.

Mirages are a dime a dozen.

If Earthlings possessed any craft that was equal to the best Galactic technology, it lay in the art of manipulating optic images.

The play began with one of her oldest disguises — one she routinely used to fool Streaker’s stolen Library unit.

Appearing suddenly in the holo tank, a stern Thennanin admiral strode forth, preening his elbow and shoulder spikes, puffing up his extravagant head-crest, and clearing his vents with a deep harrrumph, before commencing to speak in stately, formal Galactic Six, addressing his remarks to those besieging Earth.

“Brethren! Fellow high patrons of starfaring civilization and descendants of the Great Progenitors! I come before you now at a crucial juncture of choice. You, along with all your clients and clan mates, may profit or suffer because of decisions made during this nexus of opportunity.

“The time has come to look past blinders of false belief. Your presence here (which my clan had the great wisdom to resist) is anathema to destiny. It brings you nothing but cascading sorrow, replenished from an inexhaustible supply of hardship that the universe willingly provides the obstinate!”

It really was a very good Thennanin, quite pompous and credible. But credibility — even plausibility — wasn’t the point here.

No, it was the sheer effrontery of this ruse that should gall them.

Her ersatz admiral continued.

• • •

“Consider the facts, misguided brethren.

“Number one.

“To whom did the Progenitors reveal relics of great-and-profound value?

“To you? Or even to the Old Ones you revere?”

While speaking those words, the Thennanin started to melt, shifting and reconfiguring in a much more gaudy and disturbing manner than the Transcendent had. (Her visitor’s intent had been to focus Gillian’s thoughts, while her aim right now was to frighten … then enrage.)

The big admiral finished transforming into a quite different entity that now floated in midair, glossy and gray, resembling Captain Creideiki at his most handsome and charismatic, before an accident permanently scarred his handsome sleek head.

“No they did not! The Progenitors did not disclose hidden truths to you, or to any noble clan or alliance!

“In fact, the Ghost Fleet was revealed to one such as this!”

Creideiki’s image thrashed its tail flukes for emphasis.

“A member of the youngest of all client races. A race whose talents would have made any senior patron eager to adopt them, yet who proudly call themselves members of wolfling Earthclan!

“Next, consider yet another fact. The way the Earthship, Streaker, evaded all your searches and clever schemes to capture it! Even when you bribed and suborned the Great Institutes, did such acts of treasonous cheating avail you at all?”

• • •

The figure began shifting again, continuing, sotto voce, with teasing GalSix undertones.

(“Tell me, brethren. Have you begun to guess the identity of the vessel now plummeting toward you, laughingly defiant of your vaunted power?

“Do you need more clues? You shall have them!”)

A male human shape replaced Creideiki. She had tried using Tom as a model, but that proved too hard. So she settled on old Jake Demwa … which was probably a good idea anyway. The Soro would instantly recognize him from two centuries of frustration, when he had proved their bane on numerous occasions.

“Fact three: Despite great wealth and innumerable lives spent subduing the Terrans’ homeworld, what have you accomplished here, except to make their legend grow? Even on the verge of apparent success, can you be certain this is not yet another ruse? A trick, meant to draw in your reserves? To make their unexpected triumph seem all the greater in others’ eyes?

“Even if you win, and the last human lies dead — with every dolphin and chimp readopted by some humorless clan — will you withstand the vengeance others may then take upon you, in the name of martyred Earth?

“Ask yourselves this. Might these wolflings rise even stronger, out of death? Either in fact, or else in a flood of new ideas? Ideas that will span the New Era to come, diverting Galactic culture down paths you can’t imagine?”

Streaker shuddered. The lights flickered. On other screens, Gillian glimpsed a brief, violent, one-sided battle, as the cruiser flotilla fired volleys while sweeping past. Either they were getting a knack for using dumbed-down brains in their missiles or there were simply too many, this time. For whatever reason, about a dozen got through, detonating uncomfortably close.

Suessi gave a thumbs-up sign, indicating the pattern wasn’t focused enough to be dangerous. But it showed the limits of their defense.

Just so long as the enemy can’t tell. Let them think we’re just shrugging it all off, for a bit longer.

In the holo tank, Jake Demwa faded into another shape — one of the elder races Streaker encountered at the vast, chilly habitat called the Fractal World. Without pause, that stark visage continued the soliloquy.

“Or take fact number four: Did any of you foretell the Great Rupture? So conservative were you all, so trusting of your own elders, that you had no idea the Old Ones were manipulating the Great Library, and the other Institutes! For their own reasons, they kept the Civilization of Five Galaxies ignorant. We had no inkling to prepare, or that this sort of massive spatiotemporal breakup has happened before!

“Yet, a warning did come. Even while beset by attackers, the Terrans did their citizenly duty, broadcasting an alert based upon their alternative mathematics.

“Is it a coincidence that great harm befell those who ignored the warning? Those blinded by their contempt for wolfling science, who chose obstinate ideology over pragmatism?”

(“Have you guessed yet, brethren? Have ye figured out who streaks toward you now? Insolent. Heedless of the reverence you feel yourselves due? Can you sniff/sense/feel/grok the very thing you covet … and secretly fear?”)

Cruisers fell in behind Streaker, cutting off retreat. Looming just ahead, the unified armada of capital ships left their siege positions to meet this challenge, spreading to envelop and enclose the impudent newcomer in an inescapable mesh of fire.

“They’re talking to each other,” informed the Niss Machine. “From battleship to battleship. A lot more discussion than you’d expect for warships going into a fight. It’s coded, but I can tell it is pretty heated.