David Brin - Heaven's Reach

“Success!” it exulted.

Rety blinked.

“You mean you found a way to control this tub?”

“Better than that! I managed to coax more power and bandwidth from the communications system!”

“Yes?” Dwer moved forward. “And?”

“And I got a response, at last!”

The two humans looked at each other, sharing confusion. Then Rety cursed.

“You didn’t pull the bloody-damn Jophur back to us, did you?”

That might help the Streaker crew. But she had no interest in resuming her former role as bait. Rety would rather risk the transfer point than surrender to those stacks of stinky rings.

“The battleship is beyond effective range as it dives toward the red giant star, where other mighty vessels are dimly perceived engaging in energetic activity that I cannot make out very well.

“The rescuers I refer to are entirely different parties.”

The tutor paused.

“Go on,” Dwer prompted warily.

“The active scanners were balky and difficult at first. But I finally got them on-line. At which point I spotted several ships nearby, fleeing toward the transfer point just as we are! After some further effort, I managed to flag the attention of the closest … whereupon it changed course slightly to head this way!”

Rety and Dwer nearly stumbled over each other rushing to the aft viewing ports. They stared for some time, but even with coaxing from the tutor, Rety saw nothing at first except the great red sun. Even at this long range, it looked larger than her thumbnail held at arm’s reach. And angry storms extended farther still, with tornadolike tendrils.

Dwer pointed.

“There! Three points up from Izmunuti and two points left. You can’t miss it.”

Rety tried looking where he pointed, but despite his promise, she found it hard to make out anything different. Stars glittered brightly.…

Some of them shifted slightly, moving in unison, like a flock of birds. First they jogged a little left, then a little right, but always together, as if a section of the sky itself were sliding around, unable to keep still.

Finally, she realized — the moving stars all lay in an area shaped like a slightly canted square.

“Those aren’t real stars …,” she began, hushed.

“They’re reflections,” Dwer finished. “Like off a mirror. But how?”

The tutor seemed happiest explaining something basic.

“The image you see is caused by a tremendous reflector-and-energy-collector. In Galactic Seven the term is ntove tunictun. Or in Earthling tradition — a solar sail.

“The method is used chiefly by sapients who perceive time as less a factor than do oxygen breathers. But right now they are using a supplementary gravitic engine to hasten progress, fleeing unexpected chaos in this stellar system. At these pseudovelocities, the vessel should be able to pick us up and still reposition itself for optimal transfer point encounter toward its intended destination.”

Dwer held up both hands.

“Whoa! Are you saying the creatures piloting that thing don’t breathe oxygen? You mean they aren’t even part of the, um—”

“The Civilization of Five Galaxies? No sir, they are not. These are machines, with their own spacefaring culture, quite unlike myself, or the robot soldier devices of the Jophur. Their ways are strange. Nevertheless they seem quite willing to take us with them through the transfer point. That is a much better situation than we faced a while ago.”

Rety watched the “sail” uneasily. Soon she made out a glittering nest of complex shapes that lay at the very center of the smooth, mirrorlike surface. As the t-point burgeoned on one side and the machine-vessel on the other, she couldn’t stave off a wild sensation — like being cornered between a steep cliff and a predator.

“This thing …,” she began asking, with a dry mouth. “This thing comin’ to save us. Do you know what it was doin’ here, before Izmunuti blew up?”

“It is seldom easy understanding other life orders,” the tutor explained. “But in this case the answer is simple. It is a class of device called a Harvester/Salvager. Such machines collect raw materials to be used in various engineering or construction projects. It must have been using the sail to gather metal atoms from the star’s rich wind when the storm struck. But given an opportunity, a harvester will collect the material it needs from any other source of accumulated or condensed …”

The artificial voice trailed off as the tutor’s face froze. The pause lasted several duras.

“Any other source,” Dwer repeated the phrase in a low mutter. “Like a derelict ship, drifting through space; maybe?”

Rety felt numb.

The tutor did not say “oops.”

Not exactly.

It wasn’t necessary.

Two young humans watched claws, grapplers, and scythelike blades unfurl as strong fields seized their vessel, drawing it toward a dark opening at the center of a broad expanse of filmy light.

SOMETHING WAS HAPPENING.

The deck shuddered and vibrated. Muffled thuds penetrated through the spongy walls, puzzling him at first.

Then Lark recalled the first time he had heard such sounds — just after he and Ling were captured, when the Six Races of Jijo had surprised their tormentors by attacking this battle cruiser with crude rockets.

On a monitor screen he had watched explosive-filled tree trunks blaze like avenging spirits through the sky above the Slope, hundreds of them, handmade by the finest artisans of the Six Races and dispatched on a mission of vengeance. He remembered praying that some of the fiery missiles would get through — to end his life along with all the loathsome Jophur invaders aboard this cruel ship.

Then came that muted rumbling.

“Defensive counterfire.” Ling had identified the sound as Jophur weapons spoke. One by one, the natives’ proud missiles had evaporated, well short of their target … and Lark had had to reconcile himself with remaining alive.

This time, the tempo of jarring quivers rattled the ship ten times as fast.

It sounds pretty frantic. I wonder who the greasy stacks are fighting this time.

Alas, his pursuers gave Lark no time to ponder it. Whatever was going on in space beyond, the hunter robots kept up their relentless and systematic search through twisty corridors, blocking every effort to sneak past them, constantly hemming him northward along the great ship’s axis.

Hissing Jophur soldiery accompanied the posse, operating in groups of three or more. And on several occasions he also heard a human voice, male, shouting suggestions to help chase down one of his own kind.

Rann.

Lark had few options. With the traitor taking part, he didn’t dare try his luck again with the purple ring, whose usefulness was probably finished anyway. So he fled back toward the place where he and Ling had once made their brief attempt at sabotage, throwing a pathetic little bomb at the Jophur nerve center, then fleeing together in triumph amid clouds of smoke, running and laughing as they played spy, using their purple pass-ring to go almost anywhere, defying the enemy to catch them.

Of course it hadn’t felt like that much fun at the time. Only in contrast to Lark’s present misery did it seem a carefree episode. A frolic. He’d give anything to go back to that time. Even creeping about as half-naked vermin in an alien ship, he had been happy with Ling at his side.

More than a day must have passed since he’d last had any rest. Food became a fading memory, and there was no leisure anymore to explore chambers along the way — only the tense wariness of a prey animal, fighting desperately to stave off the inevitable.

Mysterious vibrations intensified, punctuated by other noises that boomed or crackled faintly in the distance. The normal pungency of Jophur hallway aromatics thickened with new scentomeres, wafting through the ventilation system. Some were too strange or complex for him to decipher, but fear and revulsion were almost identical to traeki versions he knew from growing up on Jijo.