Hugh Cook - The Worshippers and the Way

"Sir," said San Kaladan. "I've been thinking."

"Speak," said Hatch.

"I have a wife and children on Borboth."

Borboth was the home planet of the Nu-chala, the servant of the great lord who was the spiritual leader of the congregation of Nu-chala-nuth.

Of course, a wrecked MegaCommand Cruiser floating helplessly in deep space would in due course become a coffin for all its crew. San Kaladan would never see his wife and children again.

That was no great tragedy as far as Hatch was concerned, for San Kaladan was in truth nothing but a transitory software artefact, an interactive feature of the wargaming environment of the illusion tanks. Nevertheless, the software artefact named San Kaladan behaved like a human being and could only be effectively managed by treating it as if it was in fact possessed of full humanity.

"I share your sorrow," said Hatch. "I too have wife and children."

"But," said San Kaladan, "we – we – we might still – "

"What are you thinking of?" said Hatch, starting to get seriously alarmed.

"If we made peace with our enemies, if we – well, we could rig the ship for survival – maybe there'd be rescue, someone must know – the Nexus could rescue us, we could – I mean, if we make a peace we've got a hope, but if we break both ships in battle there's nothing, it's all over, we're finished."

Hatch listened to this badwork babble, this panic-speech. San Kaladan did not exist, was no more than a software phantom. But this software artefact could cause the logical equivalent of panic amongst other software artefacts if it was not settled down promptly. Or – or, in the worst case, it could kill Hatch.

And Hatch, if killed in this illusion tank battle, would lose the competition for the instructorship of the Combat College, and would be exiled, forced out into the streets of Dalar ken Halvar, there to die for real at the hands of his Free Corps enemies.

"We all must make our sacrifices," said Hatch. "Like me, for instance. San Kaladan… do you know where I came from?"

"You came from the planet of Olo Malan, a planet in the Tulip Continuum, in the Permissive Dimensions. You – there was a city, Dalar Dalvar."

"Dalar ken Halvar," said Hatch.

"Ken Halvar, yes," said San Kaladan, accepting the correction. "Your home cosmos was cut off from the Nexus for twenty thousand years, but you had access to a tutorial facility, a Combat College. You were a Stormtrooper when the Tulip Continuum was reunited with the Nexus. That's all I know."

"Then know this," said Hatch. "I brought the Way to my planet. I wrote a thesis which taught my city of Nu-chala-nuth.

But that was not enough. To secure our freedom to follow the Way, we – there was oppression, religious oppression. So we had to stage a revolution. I was one of its leaders."

"I didn't know that," said San Kaladan.

"But that's what happened," said Hatch. "For the sake of our religion, I had to help lead a revolution. Unfortunately, my brother – my brother, Oboro Bakendra, he was bitterly opposed to Nu-chala-nuth and all that it stood for. He was a priest of the Great God Mokaragash. In the end – in the end I had to kill my brother. I had to cut down my brother. Then – then kill and burn an old man, Sesno Felvus, the High Priest of the Great God Mokaragash. I renounced the traditional god of my people and I killed the High Priest of that god."

Hatch said this, then fell silent. He experienced a wailing desolation. He had now cut himself off from his people.

Irrevocably. He had denounced his brother, his god, his high priest – in front of the witnesses in Forum Three. He would never be allowed to forget it.

There was silence from San Kaladan.

"That was the measure of the sacrifice I had to make," said Hatch. "Will you make a lesser sacrifice?"

"It is an honor," said San Kaladan slowly. "It is an honor to die in the company of a martyr."

It was a quote from the Ezra Akba, the holy book of Nuchala-nuth, and Hatch answered in kind, matching this quote with a quote of his own:

"Blood answers to blood, and that which was speaks now to that which is, and so we hold the sun, and find the sun sufficient."

In this context, "the sun" designated a killing blade, a blade bright with sunlight. Hatch had given voice to a part of the Martyr's Creed, and San Kaladan answered in kind:

"We find the sun sufficient."

"Then let us switch to the broadband and speak to our troops," said Hatch. "It's time to brake, time to fire rockets.

Give them the order."

Obedient to this command, San Kaladan switched from the intimate mode to broadband broadcast. He gave the necessary order, speaking brusquely, harshly:

"Collision shortly. Prepare to fire braking rockets. I count.

Nine. And. Eight. And."

The enemy MegaCommand Cruiser loomed huge ahead. Somewhere in that ship was Lupus Lon Oliver, the enemy whom Hatch must seek out and kill.

"And. Seven. And."

The two ships were still some heartbeats short of collision.

Had they started the countdown too soon?

– Battle is no place for finetuning.

Thus thought Hatch.

Thus the Nexus doctrine. Thus the voice of experience.

In any case, San Kaladan was still speaking:

"And. Six. And."

Hatch knew that if his timing was off, he must still stay with it. His every trooper would be hot by now, hot and sweating, geared up with fear and fury. To change the timing now would throw them all into confusion.

"Five," said San Kaladan, strengthening as the ritual of the countdown secured him in his identity as a warrior. "And. Four.

Hatch remembered his father on the sands. The sands of the Season. After his father had killed himself, he had wanted to die.

But he could not die. He would not.

"And. Three."

There was a rising excitement in San Kaladan's voice. He was working himself up. He was entering battle-mode.

"Two. And. One. And. Fire."

All through Hatch's battleforce, rockets flared. Hatch felt the gentle tugstrings of his own retro-rockets slowing him. Out in the night, the wink-lights which mapped out the spread-pattern of his battle-armored troops began to slow, performing the slowmotion ballet of deepspace manoeuvering. Hatch and his thousand Startroopers were slowing, like a thousand fireflies caught in an invisible net. Their dead ship, cruising forward through space at a constant velocity, seemed to accelerate away from them. Hatch knew: yes. Yes! He was in error! He had let San Kaladan give the order to fire rockets too soon!

Hatch's abandoned MegaCommand Cruiser drove onward. Ahead lay Lon Oliver's ship. They were closing. Closing, fast. Three. And.

Two. And. One. And – The ships collided. The ships impacted in the silence of vacuum. The ships crumpled as they smashed against each other. Gas ruptured outward from Lon Oliver's ship, venting in vast sheets, in pluming spasms.

The fist caught the big sheet of paper. The confetti was carried past in the wind. The confetti was still braking, was still slowing, was still shedding velocity – but too slowly! Hatch and his men were being carried past the wreckage. Hatch realized he had been badly wrong in his guestimates. Retro-rockets had been fired too late rather than too early. Hatch had been betrayed by his lack of deepspace experience.

"Ha!" said a voice, in pleased surprise. "It works! It works!"

It was San Kaladan. Hatch was surprised at San Kaladan's surprise. But of course Hatch's inexperience merely reflected the inexperience of the Nexus Stormforce as a whole.

He watched.

The collision had left the two MegaCommand Cruisers locked together in a deathgrip. Air was still boiling out of the wreckage of the enemy MegaCommand, spewing out into deep space. Inside that ship, men would be dying in the sudden vacuum.