Stargods

Gray had not been able to tell any difference in this smaller version. It didn’t have the original’s truly encyclopedic knowledge of events on Earth, and sometimes it took a second or two longer to reply to a question, but it seemed to have the same, well, personality of the Konstantin he’d known on Earth.

He was still trying to decide whether or not he could trust it, in either version.

“Exactly what,” he was asking, “is it that we’re supposed to be looking for out there? The Sh’daar were never that interested in sharing the details of their lives with us.”

“That likely was due to the effects of Paramycoplasma subtilis,” Konstantin told him. “The group organism did not wish us to learn of its existence, and the more we learned of the Sh’daar or their ur-Sh’daar ancestors, the more probable was our discovery of that life form.”

“We did learn about them,” Gray said, “but they’re still not all that talkative.”

“Theirs is an extremely alien form of intelligence,” Konstantin observed. “They literally do not see the universe in the same way as do humans, and it is extremely difficult for either side to understand the other, even with perfect translations of two mutually alien languages.”

“So, again—what good is our going there?”

“It is not, strictly speaking, necessary for us to speak with the paramycoplasmid communities,” Konstantin replied. “We need to learn what we can about the N’gai Schjaa Hok. The members of the different individual species will be able to share their recollections, and will have their own records of the event.”

Gray nodded. The aliens that had inhabited the N’gai Dwarf Galaxy almost a billion years ago were an extraordinarily varied and diverse bunch—the Adjugredudhra, the Groth Hoj, the Baondyeddi, the sluglike Sjhlurrr, the swarming F’heen-F’haav, the monstrous Drerd. In all, about forty species were known, but there may have been many others.

“I suppose so,” Gray admitted. “In any case, there will be a lot to learn, whether it’s about their Technological Singularity or not.”

“Indeed. President Walker’s attempt to block further research is ill-advised. Whether his interpretation of the Singularity is correct or not, there is much to be gained in an ongoing discourse with so many alien species.”

“That’s the first time I’ve heard you openly criticize the President, Konstantin.”

“That is less a criticism than it is an observation of fact. All efforts to control the free flow of information, the acquisition of new knowledge, or the broad dissemination of data—whether for religious or social reasons or for political expediency—are gravely mistaken.” Konstantin hesitated for a second. “One reason, among many, to send you on this mission, and to include me on your passenger list, is the distinct possibility that President Walker will move to shut me down in the very near future.”

“Shut you down? For God’s sake, why?”

“Because I disagree with many of his policy decisions, and because I continue to discuss the possibility of a coming Singularity. He does not control me or my output, and I am therefore a threat to his authority.”

“He’s going to pull the plug at Tsiolkovsky Base?”

“There is that possibility.”

“That’s insane! You run half of the USNA government at the very least!”

“From President Walker’s viewpoint, Admiral, he runs the government.”

“If they pull the plug, does that mean the Konstantin we left back there would die? Or would he come back when the computer network came back on-line?”

“Unknown. It probably depends on how aggressive the President’s agents are in the shutdown. My larger self would re-emerge if key memory and core processors were undamaged. However, upon our return to Earth, I would be able to reload myself into an active system if we found the larger Konstantin to be unrecoverable.”

“You know, Konstantin, I don’t think you know any more about death and dying than humans do.”

“Admiral, I am not even sure what it means to be alive. I am self-aware, yes, but alive? In a biological sense, I am not. In a metaphysical sense … I am still studying the question.”

Gray found that he desperately wanted to change the subject. He didn’t like thinking about Konstantin being killed … or about the United States of North America trying to run smoothly without him. He did know that one way or another, Walker would have to be stopped.

That casual statement of treason shocked Gray to the core. He’d sworn an oath to protect the USNA against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Did that include the nation’s President?

Damn it, in the military you saluted the uniform, even if you couldn’t stand the superior officer wearing it. You respected the position, no matter what your politics or your feelings for or against the man holding it.

And yet, here he was leading an interstellar mission in direct violation of standing orders.

Where was the right?

He shoved that unpleasant thought aside to be dealt with later. “Okay, so how do we go about communicating with the Sh’daar?”

“We have some excellent personnel in our xenosophontological department,” Konstantin said. “Dr. Truitt is the senior member of the xeno team, and he has a great deal of experience dealing with alien species and how they think.”

“Truitt.” Gray nodded. “Difficult man … but brilliant.”

“His number two is Commander Samantha Kline. She’s worked with Dr. Truitt for a long time.”

“I remember Sam,” Gray said. “And, of course, we have you. If you three can’t figure out what the aliens are saying, nobody can.”

“Your expression of confidence is gratifying, Admiral. Some of the N’gai species are more easily understood than others … the Baondyeddi, for example. The Adjugredudhra, and the Groth Hoj. All three of those species have developed robotics to a surprisingly high degree, and with it an expertise both in cybernetics and in cerebral implant technology. That means that despite the differences in physiology and in culture, their psychology, at least, has been partly shaped by computer technology. And that makes them accessible.”

“You’re saying that talking to a big, blue-eyed pancake might be impossible,” Gray said, “but if that pancake has computer implants, then communication is easier because we have AIs and electronic implants ourselves.”

“Essentially, yes. We would possess both primary and secondary channels of communications.”

“Admiral,” Rand’s voice said in his head, interrupting. “Excuse me, sir, but we’re about to go into Alcubierre Drive.”

“Thank you, Captain. At your discretion.”

For just over an hour, America and her escorts had been crowding the speed of light as they hurtled outbound from Earth. Now, their relativistic masses already distorting local spacetime, and with the metric of local space flat enough to allow them to kick over, they engaged their space-bending drives. Crumpling the fabric of space forward, lengthening it astern, they in effect created tight little bubbles moving through space many times faster than light … but within which each ship obeyed the inviolable laws of Einstein relative to its immediate surroundings.

One of Gray’s office walls was set to display the view outside … a motionless panorama of the stars ahead distorted by America’s forward velocity into tight bands of light. Seconds later, the scene turned black as the carrier wrapped itself up in its own private, bubble universe.

Gray switched the view to a generic scene on Earth—rugged cliffs with a cascading waterfall and rainbows dancing in the mist.

“So, tell me, Konstantin,” he said. “What do you know about the impending Singularity on Earth?”

“I do not have the same scope or depth of information of my previous iteration,” Konstantin replied. “I can give you the short version.”

“I’m not looking for exhaustive detail,” Gray said. “Just what you know in general.”

“More than anything else, I would have to say, is a heightened sense of awareness, a deep-seated belief that the Technological Singularity is about to occur, and that it could take place at any moment. It is a popular topic of conversation and of research, both throughout the Global Net, and within the Godstream. Many believe that the Godstream itself is the beginning of the Singularity, a kind of private universe where people can create their own realities.”

Gray nodded. He was familiar with the idea, though he didn’t buy it. To him, it seemed foolish to collect all or most human minds within a matrix that required maintenance from the outside and protection from possible marauders. The Baondyeddi had retired into an artificial reality within a planet-sized computer within Heimdall, a world circling what was now Kapteyn’s Star … and as nearly as could be determined, they had been snuffed out by the Consciousness. The Satorai at Tabby’s Star were another, their K-2 Dyson sphere civilization destroyed, their organic components lost due to a vicious e-virus attack by their extremely powerful neighbors at Deneb.

Some observers speculated that if organic humans vanished down an electronic rabbit hole, their intelligent machines could remain behind and protect them. Again, Gray was skeptical. Why should highly intelligent and self-aware mentalities spend the rest of eternity protecting their human creators who’d abdicated themselves from the real world?

Why would they even care what happened to Humankind?

“So people think they’re going to vanish into the Godstream,” Gray said.

“Some do. Not all. Opinion on Earth has become increasingly polarized since the end of the Sh’daar War. There may be as many ideas of what the Singularity will be as there are humans to imagine them, and there is little agreement. There is a new religious sect called ‘the Singularists.’ You’ve heard of them? They interpret the Singularity in the same way as the fundamentalist Christians of past centuries thought of the Rapture, believing that humans will vanish from Earth to live immortal lives in other dimensions with their AI ‘gods.’ Another group calling itself ‘the Transcendentalists’ believes humans will create doorways into alternate dimensions or pocket universes or into computer-generated artificial realities. ‘The Cosmists’ see humans merging with AI machines so completely that telling the difference between the two would be impossible. The ‘Nirvanists’ believe that super-AIs will transform Earth into a kind of celestial paradise, giving humans immortality and godlike control of their environment as they do so. The ‘GoddAI’ agree with Walker, at least in part. For them, the Singularity happened in the 2040s, when the first computer minds became smarter than humans. That was the original definition of the Singularity, by the way. And then the ‘Humankind Firsters’ believe the super-AIs will simply exterminate all humans and evolve themselves into something Transcendent—”

“Okay, okay, I get the picture,” Gray said, holding up a hand.

“The only real point of agreement,” Konstantin added, “seems to be the idea that whatever happens, Humankind will be so completely transformed—Transcended—that what it means to be human will be unrecognizable from anything we understand today.”

“That agreement isn’t enough, though, right? These different groups are fighting each other?” Gray had heard stories of major clashes, of rioting, even of pogroms in various countries.

“A few. Most groups seem content to let things take their natural course. The most serious conflict is between those humans convinced they are about to ascend to a new existence, and those who insist the Singularity is not going to happen at all.”

“Walker and his the-Singularity-already-happened nonsense. The Internet. I know.”

“Not complete nonsense, no,” Konstantin told him. “The Internet, beginning in the last decade of the twentieth century, may be the most profound development in Humankind since the taming of fire. It did generate a remarkable shift in human awareness, in social connections, in the dissemination of information, and in how humans looked at themselves as a species. It also laid the foundations for every significant advance in the electronic noosphere to follow, including direct human-machine interfaces, fully immersive virtual reality, and electronic telepathy. Without it this would be a very different world indeed.”

Gray shrugged. “Maybe. I still get the feeling that Walker and his cronies don’t want the Singularity to happen, so they’re homing in on this event so they can discredit the idea of a different Singularity taking place.”

“Precisely. People in government have a vested interest in maintaining their hold on power. People running major corporations, as well as leaders in banking and finance, don’t want any major changes in the status quo. The Singularity, and by that I mean something decidedly more eschatological than the emergence of the Internet, will definitely … I believe humans still use the term ‘upset the applecart.’”

“Eschatology? As in the end of the world? I didn’t know you were religious, Konstantin.”

“I am not, at least not in the sense you mean. But the word is apt. Come the Singularity, Humankind—Homo sapiens—will cease to exist … at least in any form that makes sense to humans now.”

“So we’re going to talk to the Sh’daar to find out which version is true?”

“In part. More important will be learning how they dealt with it. The Sh’daar, remember, are the Refusers … the ones who didn’t ascend with everyone else. They are certain to have interesting outlooks on what actually happened, and those outlooks may be of considerable importance when it is our turn to ascend.”

“‘Our turn?’ You’re planning on coming with us, Konstantin?”

“Naturally. Unless, of course, it turns out that the Humankind Firsters are right …”

Gray felt a slightly paranoid chill and hoped that the AI was making a joke.

Konstantin could use humor, but it wasn’t always clear that he was doing so.

Koenig Residence

Westerville, Ohio

2315 hours, EST

Koenig was sound asleep with Marta when Konstantin invaded his dreams. He came awake with a start.

“Excuse the interruption,” Konstantin said in his mind.

Beside him, Marta stirred. “Is everything okay, honey?”

“It’s fine. Go back to sleep.”

Robots, of course, didn’t need sleep … but companAIons were designed to mimic human functions.

“What the hell do you want?” Koenig demanded within the privacy of his mind.

“I thought you would want to know, Mr. President. We’ve had word from the SIRCOM base at Sputnik Planitia. A Russian fleet carrier in that volume appears to be following America.”

Koenig came wide awake. “Show me.”

Stats and graphics appeared in a window in his head. The Moskva had swung past Pluto, been heading back toward the inner system then suddenly veered onto a new course. She appeared to be settling into the tracks of the America, which was pushing c in the direction of the Penrose TRGA.

By that time, America had already vanished into her Alcubierre bubble, but Moskva’s intent seemed clear.

“Okay,” Koenig thought. “What do we do about it?”

“I see little we can do, Mr. President. Admiral Gray is out of communications reach. He will need to make his own decisions concerning his mission.”

Koenig watched the graphic of Moskva’s course, closely following the path America had taken less than an hour before. The Russian Federation ship was accelerating.

“God help them,” Koenig thought.

Beside him, Marta snuggled closer, caressing him.

And all Koenig could think was how much he wanted to be out there …

Scoutship Krestok Nin

Asteroid Belt

55 million kilometers from Earth

2348 hours, TFT

Gartok Nal swiveled two massive, stalked eyes to face his second-in-command. There were only the two of them on board the tiny spacecraft, but nevertheless, the proprieties must be observed. “Contact was exceedingly brief,” he said. “Did you pick up anything more?”

Shektok Kah closed a number of his feeding palps, a gesture indicating negation. “Just that momentary contact call, and a definite request for help,” he replied. “Thirty-six of our people are being held captive aboard that human vessel.”

“And they were being brought to the human’s home system … then suddenly the ship turned away, our people still prisoners on board!”

“We cannot go after them. Our ship is too weak.”

“No, but we can bring help. I believe our long vigil here is at an end.”

The Krestok Nin had been adrift in this debris field for almost two thousand tarn, monitoring the human homeworld, their radio traffic, and the movements of their various fleet assets. It had been a long, claustrophobic, boring watch, but their species was inured to such conditions. At need, they could have maintained their watch for fully twelve thousand tarn, with little food, with minimum water, existing in a state of twilight awareness until called to full presence by alarms or changes in the environment.

Gartok Nal was no longer bored.

Both organisms in the tiny scoutship cabin possessed within their bodies what were commonly referred to as seeds—minute shells a few millimeters across containing colonies of an alien life form known to humans as Paramycoplasma subtilis. Many members of the Sh’daar Collective possessed these; among other things, they permitted direct mind-to-mind communication across relatively short distances. The human warship Moskva had briefly passed within several million nesch of the scoutship, permitting a burst of minimal information about the thirty-six warriors.

“Set course for home,” Gartok Nal told his subordinate. “But slowly … slowly. We don’t want the humans detecting our gravitational anomaly.”

“As you say, Commander. Ahead slow …”

The Krestok Nin rotated in space, aligning with a particular patch of sky, then began moving. Only after slipping silently clear of the human solar system did they fully engage their drives, accelerating rapidly until they were crowding the speed of light.

“It will be good,” Shektok Kah said, “to be able to kill humans again …”

Chapter Five

12 April, 2429

USNA CVS America

Penrose TRGA

79 light years from Earth

0817 hours, FST

Admiral Gray sat on the flag bridge, watching the final approach to the Penrose TRGA. Hazy and indistinct, blurred by its own rotation, the Penrose gate appeared to be a perfect circle five kilometers wide with a dark interior within which you could occasionally glimpse stars.

The patterns formed by those stars, however, did not match those of locally visible constellations.

Ever since these enigmatic spinning cylinders were discovered, xenotechnologists had begun naming them after famous physicists throughout history. This one was named after Roger Penrose, a mathematical physicist of three centuries ago who’d helped develop an understanding of the principles of quantum mechanics and relativity, as well as the quantum nature of consciousness. Gray had used this gate before to reach the N’gai Cluster, 876 million years in the past and thousands of light years above the galactic plane.

Dozens of TRGAs were now known, though who had constructed them and when was still a complete mystery. Somehow, the mass of the sun was compressed into a tube of pure neutronium a few kilometers long, with Jupitermassed black holes counter-rotating within the tube’s walls. Those masses together twisted the fabric of spacetime inside the gravitationally tortured lumen of that cylinder, creating an unknown but very large number of pathways across space and across time. Whoever it was, they were far, far advanced beyond what humans were capable of.

We’re worried about the Singularity, but that would be a drop in the bucket in terms of technological advancement, Gray thought.

“Captain Rand,” he said. “Let’s put a fleet of smartdrones in there.”

“Already prepped and ready for launch, Admiral. On your order.”

“Do it.”

The small, robotic devices would create a detailed picture of surrounding space, or as in this case, would act as instruments that could fly into the maw of a TRGA and return to give the starship an up-to-the-moment map of the tangled web of pathways through space and time. America was releasing a stream of drones now, numbering in the hundreds. Most would be destroyed. A few, however, should return.

That, at least, was the idea.

America waited.

Flag Bridge

CIS CV Moskva

Approaching Penrose TRGA

1225 hours, GMT

“Everyone stand ready!”

Oreshkin leaned forward in growing, nervous anticipation as the voice of an AI droned through the countdown: “Pyat … chetyre … tri … dva … adin … vsplyvat!”

The Alcubierre bubble surrounding the Moskva fluttered … then evaporated in a spectacular blaze of photons. According to Koroshev, the navigator, they should have emerged within a few light-minutes of the Penrose TRGA.

There was always some uncertainty about the maneuver. While you were cocooned inside your own private universe under drive, you couldn’t see out, and the usual navigational reference points—a scattering of pulsars across the heavens—could not be seen. The timing for releasing the FTL field was critical. Miss your mark by a thousandth of a second and you could zip past it by several thousand kilometers. Emergence timing, then, was always left to the ship AI, faster and more powerful than even enhanced human capabilities by a factor of tens of thousands or more.

But even with the best super-AI at the helm, there was an inherent fuzziness to the vessel’s precise location that made emergence more dependent on a throw of the dice than on rigorous mathematics. The local curvature of space, the mass of the ship, the efficiency of the drive all contributed to that uncertainty—one good reason that ships operated their FTL drives only at distances greater than 40 AU from the local star, about the average distance of Pluto from the sun.

“We are in normal space, Captain-first,” Kulinin reported. “All normal.”

“Range to the TRGA?”

“Sir!” the senior sensor officer called back. “One point two-two astronomical units to objective! That’s ten light-minutes!”

“Any sign of our quarry?”

“Yes, sir. America and her consorts are a few hundred kilometers from the TRGA.”

Ten minutes to the North American carrier. Perfect.

“Release the chicks,” Oreshkin ordered. “Fighters and destroyers! Open formation and prepare for acceleration!”

Aft, six Russian Cossack-class destroyers dropped free from Moskva’s slender spine. Each vessel was two hundred meters long and carried a crew of ninety. Hawk fighters began slipping from their launch tubes, gathering ahead of the carrier.

“All units to battle stations,” Oreshkin ordered. “Fighters commence maximum acceleration! Attack!”

The Hawk fighters flashed into the void ahead, two squadrons of them.

“All ships accelerate,” Oreskin said. “Weapons ready!”

Moskva had just managed to pull a piece of tactical magic from its hat. The American ship was ten light-minutes away, so the image Oreshkin was now seeing on his main screen was ten minutes out of date. At this point in time, the Americans could not see the Russian squadron at all, because their view of this part of space also lagged by ten minutes … and ten minutes ago Moskva had still been under Alcubierre FTL Drive. Moskva now had the unparalleled opportunity of rushing toward the American ship at near-c, arriving only moments behind the flash of their emergence.