Jack Campbell - Invincible

The only other thing that Midway had to muster in its defense was a promise that he, Admiral Geary, had made to defend them against the enigmas.

But he was very far away from Midway now, with either spider-wolf or enigma territory blocking his way back.

Admiral Lagemann spread his hands in apology. “I know that’s not a welcome assessment.”

“It’s an incredibly valuable assessment,” Geary replied. “I don’t know whether I can do what I need to do in time for it to make a difference, but at least I know I need to do it.” He measured with his eyes the distance back to Midway, knowing it was much too far given how little time he might have. “It may be impossible. Especially with that superbattleship we have to haul along with us.”

“We can’t risk losing that,” Lagemann agreed. “Have you been aboard it?”

“Only virtually. I’ve seen a few compartments, some passageways, and during the capture of the ship, of course.”

“Hell of an operation,” Lagemann said. “The colonels and generals with me on Mistral all agree that your General Carabali did a fine job. But, anyway, I’ve been on that ship in person. While the other members of my assessment group were finalizing their conclusions, I volunteered for some of the cleanup duty because I wanted a chance to see an alien ship. Besides, it never hurts for sailors and Marines to see an admiral doing real work, does it?” Lagemann paused in memory. “Being on that alien ship was like a dream. Literally like that. Familiar, and yet strange. I’d be walking down a passageway, everything feeling right about this ship I was in, normal, then I would encounter something utterly weird but which belonged in that place. You never really appreciate how many things we do in certain standard ways because everyone does them that way until you get around a totally alien creation built by someone who doesn’t share any of our understandings of how things should be done.”

Geary nodded. “It’s got the engineers alternately thrilled at the new approaches and pulling their hair out at things they can’t figure out.”

“If we’re taking it back, who’s going to ride it, act as commanding officer?”

He hadn’t even considered that yet.

“You’ll need at least a captain,” Lagemann suggested. “Maybe even an admiral if one volunteered.”

“Where would I find an admiral dumb enough to volunteer for that?” Geary asked, smiling. “It’s going to be hardship duty. The bear-cow life support is erratic after all the damage we inflicted taking that ship, the only food will be battle rations, and the furnishings are all sized wrong for us.”

“Sounds like a little slice of heaven,” Lagemann said.

“Can anyone on Mistral keep an eye on things if you’re on the superbattleship?” Lagemann had been a reliable source of information and a steady presence among the former prisoners, some of whom had reacted very badly to discovering that they no longer had any role to play in the destiny of the fleet or the Alliance.

“Admiral Meloch. Angela has a steady hand and a steady head. Or General Ezeigwe. He’s aerospace defense forces, but don’t hold that against him.”

“I won’t.” Geary thought only for a moment, feeling the prod of having to get moving on the assessment that Lagemann had brought. “All right. Consider yourself assigned to command of the prize crew on the superbattleship. Coordinate with the Marine on-scene commander and the officer in charge of the engineers aboard it. I’ll notify General Carabali and Captain Smythe.”

Lagemann stood up, smiling with enthusiasm. “It’ll be nice to be really responsible for something again! Any idea when the next shuttle from here to the superbattleship will fly?”

“I’m sure we can arrange something fairly soon.”

“Is there an official designation for the superbattleship yet? Some name a little less cumbersome than ‘the Captured Kick Superbattleship’?”

“I hadn’t thought about that, either. I’ll get back to you.”

“Great. With all due respect, Admiral, I’ve learned that one of the officers aboard Dauntless is the daughter of a man I served with. Before I take the shuttle back to the CKSB, I’d like to see her and let her know—” Lagemann’s smile wavered, then vanished. “I’d like to let her know how her father died. It was something I wanted to do in person.”

After Lagemann left, Geary sat, trying to think what he could do. One thing overrode everything else. He couldn’t possibly get to Pele or Midway in time unless the spider-wolves agreed to let him pass through their territory, which hopefully extended a fair way back toward human space. Which meant he had to talk to those who had been trying to talk to the spider-wolves.

He called Rione, finding her in her cabin going over pictograms. “You’re supposed to be resting, Madam Emissary.”

“So are you. And since when did you expect me to follow your orders?” She still looked tired and obviously wasn’t in the mood for banter.

“I know you’ve been talking to the spider-wolves about getting us clearance to head back toward human-controlled space through spider-wolf territory,” Geary said without further preamble. “That has now become an urgent priority. We need to be able to get back to the vicinity of Pele or Midway as quickly as possible.”

Rione eyed him, then nodded. “The enigmas?”

“Very likely, yes.”

“I understand. I should have thought of that. General Charban and I will make that our highest priority now. Oh, you or someone else had asked how the spider-wolves manipulate small objects with those claws. It turns out they have small… wormlike tentacles inside each claw that they can extrude for fine-motor tasks.”

“Small wormlike tentacles? Inside each claw?”

His reaction must have been showing because Rione smiled crookedly. “I know. Could they possibly be any more physically repulsive to us? That’s something we have to overcome. Speaking of which, I recommend you call Dr. Setin and Dr. Shwartz. They have an intriguing theory about the spider-wolves that I think you want to hear.”

“All right. Thanks.” He punched in the call to Mistral , quickly getting a reply from a guilty-looking Dr. Setin.

“Admiral! Is there something?”

“Yes.” Geary studied the expert on nonhuman intelligent aliens, trying to figure out why he had the appearance of an undergraduate caught cheating on an exam. Cheating… “Are you working, Doctor?”

“Yes, Admiral,” Setin blurted out. “But it is so important, we didn’t think we could afford to pause. I knew that you would understand.”

Which is why you didn’t tell me? “Emissary Rione said that you and Dr. Shwartz have a theory about the spider-wolves?”

“Oh, yes. It’s not really at the stage where—”

Dr. Shwartz expanded the view of the comm screen on their end so that she was in it, too, looking haggard but gleeful. “I think we should tell the admiral. This is more of a gut instinct, a belief, than something scientifically provable at this point. We can puzzle over exact words and phrases the spider-wolves seem to be employing until new stars replace the old and not find any certainty. What I feel to be true of these beings, and Dr. Setin agrees this is a real possibility, is that they think in patterns.”

“Patterns?”

“Yes. General Charban and Emissary Rione and all of the rest of us keep trying to talk in terms of specific things. It took me a while to understand that the aliens were always talking about connections between things. You and I are seeing a forest made up of individual trees. They are seeing the forest as the primary thing.” She paused, grimacing unhappily. “Maybe that is not the right analogy because they use terms that seem to refer to balancing of forces. Like spiderwebs. That’s what made me think of this. Our academic bias is to assume that something that looks like a spider can’t actually be a spider. It needs to be deconstructed and broken down to learn what it really is. But what if the spider-wolves are indeed descended from the thing they resemble to us? Something spiderlike. Something that makes webs, in which everything is tied together, all the tensions and forces in equilibrium, a picture of beauty and stability. Imagine a race of beings that sees everything in those terms.”