B. Larson: Battle Station

Back on Earth, we’d fought and squabbled over the factories from the start. Sure, we hadn’t had them for as long, nor had we been given much leisure time with them. We’d been pressed from the very beginning to build military equipment to face the Macros. But still, we could have done better if all of us had cooperated as the Centaurs had.

When Centaur leader finally answered, he spoke confidently. “We have no need for any world that lacks a blue sky. Please make use of them.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That is most generous.”

“The ground will shake with your pounding feet, even if there is no air to allow sounds to be made. A pity. Can there be honor for an army with silent feet?”

“Uh, I don’t know. No-I take that back. I do know. Of course there can be honor for a quiet army. Honor is won on the battlefield through victory. If an army saves the young back home, it does not matter where the battle took place.”

“Wisely said. We will relay your words to countless ears.”

“That’s great,” I said, struggling a bit with what to say next. As always, talking to the Centaurs was a delicate affair. I felt even less comfortable, as I was trying to talk them out of one of their worlds. It was like asking a shy girl out on a date, without knowing a single word of her language. You had to stay friendly and patient, and keep working hard to figure out any hint of what she was thinking.

“What are your intentions for the blue-sky worlds?” I asked. “I know you built arks and flew them there, but the Macros interrupted your plans.”

“In our waking dreams, we see vast herds on these planets. They have grasses of a different flavor, and winds with a different schtifft, but we will adapt.”

The reason I was interested in the warmer worlds was simple enough: they were empty. The Centaurs had abandoned the habitat over Eden-11 first. They’d move their other habitats to Eden-11 as well, and were quickly repopulating their homeworld. They much preferred cooler mountain ranges and the stark blue skies. This left the other habitable worlds unoccupied for now.

I cleared my throat and went for it. “We humans breathe air as you do. We enjoy blue skies and cool winds. We need a place to live if we are to stay here long. Right now, we are stuck inside our cramped ships, just as your people once were.”

There was a long pause. “We have dishonored ourselves!” the voice said at last. “When this is relayed, a hundred herd-leaders will trot off the nearest cliff in shame! A travesty has occurred!”

“Um, I’m not sure what you mean. I only wished-”

“Of course you do! You want what we cherish, the wind in your fur, the rain in your nostrils as you run. We are shamed, as we’ve been poor hosts. Always, it is the receiver of gifts who is blind. Honor has been lost, ours has been shed and given to by our unthinking selfishness.”

“Hold on, I only meant-”

“The answer is yes, stalwart allies! How many of the six blue skies will you have? How many will hold your people?”

“Uh…” I said, my eyes wide. Greed gripped me, and I almost asked for five. But then I took a deep breath. “One will be enough. It will hold us all.”

“You prove your loyalty and generosity time and again. Three you shall have. Our share of these lands shall be equal. We insist. Which three shall it be?”

I thought hard for a moment. My heart was pounding. I knew I was making history, and I had to think, but it was difficult. Their own world was lovely, but the ice caps were huge. It was like Earth in an ice age. Each of the other worlds was warmer as they progressed sunward. I figured the middle worlds were the best, but I knew that the Centaurs liked it a little cooler than my people did. They had a heavy coat of fur, after all.

“We would prefer the innermost worlds,” I said.

“Done and done! Our arks will not return to those places, and our people will egress only upon the cooler planets. They will walk under alien clouds and graze until their bellies sag. They will-”

The Centaurs went on for some time in this fashion, talking about rivers and lakes and crags of uniquely-shaped stone. I let them talk this time, without cutting them off. I let them talk and talk until they felt thoroughly finished with the conversation. Perhaps from their point of view, it was the politest discussion they’d ever had with me. I figured they’d more than earned it.

When they eventually ran out of gas and I thanked them one last time before closing the communication channel, I sat back and stared at the nanite ceiling. I could scarcely believe the magnitude of what I’d just done. If we could keep these worlds-if we could colonize them-I’d made a future for millions upon millions of souls. Generations to come would learn of this day in their textbooks.

I felt a little guilty, of course. There were precedents from the past, such as the Louisiana Purchase. For fifteen million dollars, President Jefferson had bought the central third of the United States from Napoleon. Some years later, they’d bought Alaska from the Russians for only seven million.

I was worse than those guys. I’d talked the natives out of their land, offering only protection. I was more like the German guy who’d bought Manhattan from the Indians for twenty-four bucks. The Centaurs didn’t think of ownership the way we did. No individual wished to possess more territory than the patch of earth he roamed upon. They didn’t build fences or enforce no-trespassing signs. I knew that humanity, once we had sunk our teeth into those three planets, would defend them like wolverines defending their dens. Long after I was dead and gone-provided the Macros didn’t wipe us out-the Centaurs may well be abused by people who had even less scruples than I did.

But still, I couldn’t say no. Who could have turned down three blue-green jewels hanging in the perfect zone of space? Liquid water could only exist in a narrow zone around any star. The star I’d named Eden had a higher output of heat than our own sun, and the inhabitable zone of space was marginally larger, about a hundred million miles wide. Within that thin band six worlds circled. I knew that to find a system like this, with a yellow sun so stable and perfect, we might have to search for a thousand years.

Troubled and elated at the same time, I stood up and headed for the bridge. It was time to spread the news.

It was months later when the ring orbiting Hel shivered again. We detected it instantly this time, and I sent ships through to recon the situation on the far side. They came back and reported they’d seen nothing changed in the system owned by the Crustaceans. No Macro ships had appeared. Nothing appeared to have changed at all.

I paced and worried in the heart of my battle station. I was in a grand command center, buried nearly a mile deep inside rock and steel. At first, I’d hauled mass up from Hel to serve as armor, but I soon determined I needed too much, too fast. So, I’d sent a fleet of gunships to a region of the system peppered with asteroids, and had them bring home thirty or so of those floating rocks. The battle station thus had transformed from a dull metal cube into an amorphic mass. The cube inside was almost invisible now, coated in layers of hard rock. In between the brick-like stones, I’d troweled in nanite-laden smart metals and placed thousands of weapons. Sensor pods were located in clusters, aiming in every conceivable direction. The base even had repellers, and could slowly rotate itself in space. It didn’t have real engines, nor enough power to escape Hel’s gravitational influence. But it could maneuver, and if one side of the base took a pounding, it could turn to face invaders with a fresh set of weaponry.