Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

Intergalactic space.

A dead ship.

A dead ship on a collision course with another dead ship.

And, everywhere:

A disciplined watchfulness. A disciplined readiness. And the implacable maintenance of routines.

"Estimated time to intersect point," said Asodo Hatch.

"Sir," said San Kaladan. "Estimated time to collision with enemy MegaCommand Cruiser is three arcs plus or minus one tenth of an arc."

"Good," said Hatch.

He had done it.

On his command, the ship's asmas, its intelligent probability manipulators, had self-destructed, disrupting local probability for five light years in every direction. Hatch's ship had died instantly in the resulting turbulence. The enemy ship commanded by Lupus Lon Oliver had died in the same instant.

This tactic was not to be found anywhere in any Book of Battle ever written by the Nexus, for the Nexus did not teach suicide tactics. Suicide? Yes, it was surely suicide to kill one's ship way out in the wastelands of intergalactic space, far from any star or any planet. How long could life survive on the dead hulk of a ship which had lost its asmas? Ten days? Twenty? It made no difference. Everyone on board would die, and sooner rather than later, dying when food ran out, or water, or air.

"Suit up," said Asodo Hatch. "Everyone on the bridge is to suit up and join the rest of the ship's complement. Suit up – and prepare to board."

Prepare to board.

An electrifying command!

Asodo Hatch was going to lead his men into battle and fight Lupus Lon Oliver hand to hand, weapon to weapon, face to face.

Hatch was going to meet Lupus Lon Oliver in close quarters battle.

Back in Forum Three, the assorted beggars, wives, relatives, friends, Startroopers and Combat Cadets were absorbed by a multiscreen view of the proceedings. Each and every one of them could understand what was going on, for the entertainments of the Eye of Delusions – garish and inaccurate though they were – had long tutored Dalar ken Halvar in starwarrior dramas. So everyone in Forum Three understood that Hatch and Lupus each commanded a ship; that the ships were now dead, and sliding helplessly through deep space on a collision course; and that Hatch was getting ready to lead his men into battle.

Beggar Grim and his friends passed their Eye between them, seeing (or pretending to see) the drama which was unfolding before them. Hatch was giving orders, marshaling troops, explaining plans. Meanwhile, on the opposing ship – On the opposing ship, Lupus Lon Oliver was cursing at bewildered technicians. Cursing and swearing with a rage which was but a mask for a panic close to hysteria.

Sitting in Forum Three, watching the splitscreen drama being played out on that lecture theater's display screen, Manfred Gan Oliver tried to defend his son.

"He cheated!" said Gan Oliver, seeing that Lupus was coming across badly. "Hatch cheated!"

"All's fair in the Season," said Shona stoutly.

"The Season!" jeered Beggar Grim. "You're a woman. What would you know of the Season?"

"Shut up," said Shona. "Shut up or I'll rape you."

Which provoked Grim to venture a further unfortunate witticism, which led to him shortly finding himself face down on the deck while Shona tore the hair from his head in handfuls. The room roared applause as Grim thrashed and screamed. The younger Combat Cadets indulged themselves in hysterical ululations.

"Silence!" shouted Gan Oliver in fury. "Silence! There are real men at battle!"

But the show being played for real in Forum Three was better than that being widescreened from the illusion tanks, at least for the moment. So Gan Oliver was ignored. Except by Scorpio Fax, who had just then entered Forum Three, and who immediately began to work his way through the crowd toward Gan Oliver. Fax, freshreleased by the cure-all clinic, was shaky but still resolute. In his pocket, Fax had a knife, a small knife made from cellophane cooked up over burning painkiller tablets.

A small knife – but a sharp knife.

One could kill with such a weapon.

And Scorpio Fax fully intended to kill Gan Oliver, and thus to win himself the fair Penelope as his bride.

The scenario: for the purposes of the competitive interactive wargames being played out in the illusion tanks of Dalar ken Halvar's Combat College, it is assumed that a Nexus ship crewed by the Nu-chala-nuth has mutinied. Asodo Hatch is the captain of that mutinous MegaCommand Cruiser. Lupus Lon Oliver captains the MegaCommand Cruiser loyal to the Nexus which has been sent to destroy the mutinous ship.

Who of the gods can know, or know

If we be flesh or shadow, or By doom are damned to judgment or to judge.

And was it sin when with her sweat -

Or was the act salvation?

So.

So this is how it was.

The two MegaCommand Cruisers were blind, dead and disabled.

The ship captained by Asodo Hatch was on a collision course with that which was ruled by his rival. Hatch and his men had suited up in their deepspace battlearmor. The space armor, and the lightbattle Weapons Minor which came with those suits, were powered by corrosion cells, powerpacks in which small quantities of antimatter were destroyed by controlled contact with normative matter.

At the moment, Hatch's MegaCommand Cruiser was still drawing on its emergency power supplies to maintain its artificial gravity. So for the moment, all the armor-suited warriors were firmly orientated to the floor. They were anchoring themselves in preparation for the opening of the airlocks.

"All men anchored," said San Kaladan, when he was sure the job was done.

"Very well," said Hatch. "Open the airlocks."

Hatch wanted all his men out of the ship before it collided with Lupus's helpless craft, so he had no time to cycle his people through the airlocks in the conventional manner, one or two at a time. That would have been intolerably slow. So he was going to open his ship to the night.

"Opening the airlocks… now," said San Kaladan.

All through the MegaCommand Cruiser, airlocks opened. The ship's atmosphere boiled out into the vacuum, carrying with it a brief blizzard of papers and unanchored detritus. Hatch felt the air-tug tide of the venting atmosphere pull at his suit, then subside.

"Interior pressure is zero," said San Kaladan.

"Pressure at zero," acknowledged Hatch.

Then, with San Kaladan at his side, Hatch left the bridge, and ventured through the airless corridors of the ship. He moved clumsily in his armor. The cumbersome armor, black upon black, was swollen at the joints where extra engineering protected the machinery. In the corridors, Hatch met with other battle-warriors similarly suited, their features invisible behind the bulbous faceplates of helmets. Those faceplates were tinted against radiation and blast – tinted so heavily that they were almost black. This was an army of shadows, an army of night. An army of armored creatures insectile with antennae.

"Free yourselves," said San Kaladan, seeing that some men were being slow to free themselves from the various devices which they had used to anchor themselves as the ship vented its air.

Hatch clumped ponderously down the corridor to the nearest airlock. All its doors were jammed open. Open to the night. He entered the airlock and stood in the last doorway. Stood on the edge of the immensities of eternity. He could exit simply by stepping from the ship. By stepping out into the deepness and darkness of space.

"Ship's gravity dies in three," said San Kaladan. "Three.

And. Two. And. One. And. None."

The ship's artificial gravity died away to nothing. Hatch floated. He took hold of the rim of the airlock's outermost doorway and hauled himself forward. He began to float outward, out toward the coldness of deep space.