Линда Нагата - Edges

This suggestion triggered in Vytet a rare display of anger. “Absolutely not!” he said. “There could be a human settlement there. We are not going to skulk in the dark and watch it destroyed.”

Urban crossed his arms, frowning at the map. “We aren’t going to let it attack the beacon.”

“Agreed,” Clemantine said. “It belongs to us. We’re going after it. We need its mass, the elements it’s carrying.”

“But do we want to take it here ?” Kona asked. “Put on a violent display in sight of the beacon, when we have no idea what’s there?”

“You’re worried we will appear to be the aggressor,” Vytet said.

Clemantine shrugged. “We will be the aggressor. What choice?”

“Lead it away?” Riffan proposed.

But Urban said, “No, we’re going to meet it. It’s not even a choice at this point. It’s programmed instinct for these ships to meet and mate and trade their memories.”

He turned to Clemantine with an appraising gaze. She could guess what he was thinking. On the Null Boundary Expedition, they had met a courser in just such a way. It had been a horrifying experience. Even now, remembering those helpless hours, she shuddered. But this was different. This time, they would dominate the encounter.

She waved a hand, dismissing Urban’s concern, saying, “If we ignore protocol and retreat, we’ll become the hunted.”

“Sooth.” His focus shifted away. Something internal? A submind perhaps, bringing him a new memory. He nodded as if in silent agreement with a decision already made. “I’m tumbling the ship bow to stern so we can decelerate.”

The Pilot said, “And I’m working out a trajectory that will let us intercept.”

“I’ll wake our philosopher cells when we’re closer,” Urban said. “They know how to work this, how to get us in striking distance.” He looked at the second Apparatchik. “The Bio-mechanic will prepare our assault.”

“Disable, deplete, and destroy,” Clemantine summarized in a soft voice that disguised her rising tension. “That’s the procedure you’ve used before. But I’ve been thinking. This time, we could be more ambitious.”

Urban cocked his head, looking vaguely insulted but also intrigued. “Okay,” he said. “Tell me what you have in mind.”

She had studied his past encounters and could see no reason why her idea couldn’t work. “Consider this,” she said. “We disable and deplete this courser, taking what we need from it—but we don’t destroy it. We hijack it instead. Take it, the same way you took Dragon .” She gestured at the display, speaking quickly now. “We have no idea what that beacon represents. We have no idea what else we might find where we’re going. This new courser will be a lesser beast, but with two together they can protect one another and be far stronger than one.”

Urban leaned toward her, looking both astonished and impressed. “Don’t tease me,” he warned. “You really want to do that?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t done it before.”

“ Me? ” He shook his head. “No. I wouldn’t do it.”

His refusal caught her by surprise. She had expected Urban, always so bold, to embrace the idea. Her disappointment was acute, even within her simulated existence.

He saw that, reacted to it. “It’s not that I don’t like the idea,” he said. “I love it. I love that it’s you who suggested it. But I won’t do it again. It weighs on me, Clemantine. Dragon is mine. I won’t ever give it up. But you know what it’s like on the high bridge. I feel like I’ve got my foot forever on the throat of an old murderer who would overthrow me and slash my throat if I ever once allow an opening. It’s not an experience I need to duplicate. One Chenzeme monster is enough for me. But you could do it.”

If she’d been flesh, she would have caught her breath, felt a rush of hot blood in her cheeks. As it was, her ghost froze. She had considered the idea, pondered the reality of living every second within the violence of the Chenzeme mind, immersed in the unceasing hate that had destroyed her people, her birth world. Urban endured it without complaint but Clemantine shrank from the idea.

Still, she had to ask herself, How much does my personal discomfort matter?

She felt sure her reasoning was solid. They could gain both the resources they needed and a second warship. But to do it, she would have to bear the dire responsibility of commanding that ship. No one else could do it. No one else but Urban had experience on the high bridge.

She lifted her chin, conscious of everyone’s eyes on her. She heard herself say in a perfectly steady, calm tone, “Yes, all right. I’ll do it.”

She had the uncanny sense it was some other version of herself speaking.

Chenzeme warships were adaptive. Through the interface of the philosopher cells they observed the galaxy around them, evaluated what they saw, reacted, and changed tactics as need required—and they shared their experiences with one another.

These exchanges of memories took place when two ships met in the void. Hardwired instinct drew them together, into physical proximity, so that data-encoded dust could be traded between them.

These encounters also served to reinforce the warships’ genocidal behavior. The ships were ancient. They had far outlived the species that created them. Given their adaptability and the long timespan of their existence, behavioral drift should have led the ships to diverge from their core dogma of intolerance for all other technological lifeforms—except mechanisms existed to prevent that.

Every encounter between two warships was a chance to reassert the primacy of Chenzeme dogma. As the ships exchanged data they tested and challenged and compared themselves, one to the other, in a process that assessed and exposed their behavioral drift. The stronger ship would suppress or rewrite heretical thoughts in the weaker one. Either ship could trigger an instinct that would drive the other to return swan where it would be met with devices designed to reset the programming, thoughts, and memories of a warship straying from dogma.

Urban had learned these things partly through his experiences on the Null Boundary Expedition, and in part through his explorations of the deep-time memories of Dragon ’s philosopher cells.

Those cells were now thoroughly tainted by his influence, their behavior far diverged from dogma, but their alien nature would not be immediately apparent to another courser—not until an exchange of dust exposed the truth. But Dragon would strike before that point.

Dragon was a hybrid ship, armed with molecular weapons unknown to other Chenzeme coursers. In its two past encounters it had used the camouflage of its philosopher cells to get close to an enemy courser—close enough to deploy packets laden with a molecularly active dust that destroyed the hull cells of its prey—striking before the other ship could release its own transformative dust.

In the immediate aftermath of this assault, the enemy courser was left helpless. Urban had used the interval to harvest mass from the stricken ship and then he’d retreated, opening up a safe distance before using the gamma-ray gun to destroy the hulk that remained.

Clemantine had insisted on learning all of this long ago. She’d studied the past encounters through library records and re-lived them through the detailed memories retained by Dragon ’s philosopher cells. Urban had assisted her, answered her questions. Now, he cautioned her:

*Hijacking a ship will be more complicated. It will be riskier. More opportunity for something to go wrong. Only the opening gambit will be the same. Dragon must present itself as authentically Chenzeme.