ON THE BRIDGE of the Plato, Dakota Bandicut saw the holo-image from John’s ship flicker, stutter, and freeze. In John’s voice she heard, “It’s the Mindaru! We need maneuvering room!” and in another voice, words she could not understand—and then the sound cut out, followed by the holo.
“Uncle John!” she cried. “Long View!” Dakota twisted in her seat to report hastily to Captain Brody, and then turned back. In the nav holo, John’s ship was moving ahead of theirs, toward the oncoming blips. What were they intending?
She called repeatedly, but the comm link was gone.
Her stones spoke. *We received a partial download from John Bandicut’s stones. Those objects are likely the adversary known as the Mindaru. They may be related to the AI that Julie Stone fought. We believe The Long View may be moving to engage them, to protect you and your ship.*
/Engage them?/ she muttered. /Those other things are ships, then? Does he think they’re going to attack?/
*Possibly. The warning came from that shadow flitting near the objects. It’s an ally of John’s. Its name is Dark, and it also has translator-stones.*
That rocked her back. How many people out here had stones, for heaven’s sake? For as long as she’d had stones, she had been the only one in her known universe with them. Yes, John and Julie had them, but they were gone. And now Uncle John was here, with this strange black cloud?
Dakota rubbed her thumbs and fingers together nervously. To Tanaki she said, “Keep a close track on those forward contacts. I’ve been warned they could be hostile.” She paused, listening to her stones as they gave her more information about the Mindaru. Then she added, to the whole bridge crew, “Be on the alert for any form of electromagnetic assault. They might try to penetrate our sensor array. Make sure all the firewalls are up on the AIs.”
Captain Brody leaned closer. “Do you know something the rest of us don’t, Exo?”
Dakota moistened her lips. She touched the stones in her wrists. “My translator-stones—”
Brody frowned. “I thought we had agreed those stones were an interesting personal item—not a qualified bridge component. Are you proposing to use them in critical decision-making?”
“Sir—” Dakota said, rubbing her wrists. Brody had never really believed that one-of-a-kind alien devices that did and said little were of much professional interest. She pointed to the holo. “My stones are matched by a pair my uncle has over in the other ship. And a pair in that creature, Dark, out there near the mystery contacts. And John’s stones and mine—”
“What—exchanged information?”
“Yes. Considerable, I think. They—we—are still sorting it all out.”
Brody’s brow creased, and his eyes focused narrowly on Dakota. “I see. Are you still in contact?”
She shook her head. “It broke off when they tentatively ID’d those forward contacts. I’m trying to reestablish.”
“Get it back, then. Get it back!”
“We’re trying. But Captain—”
“What?”
“The information I’ve received is that those contacts—Oscar, Papa, and Quebec—might be hostile and extremely dangerous. I recommend combat-alert status.”
Brody cocked his head. Dakota realized she had no concrete evidence—just the message from the stones, and the warning from her uncle. “I can’t be certain, Captain. But I recommend we be ready for an attack. If they are the beings called the Mindaru, my uncle says he has fought them before—and they are deadly.”
“All right. I’ll trust your instincts, Commander. Give the order.”
Dakota touched the annunciator button on her throat to make the call to the crew.
***
Ruall was adamant. “If these are the Mindaru, we must depart at once. It’s more important to take away the information than to confront them here.”
Bandicut stood his ground. “Ruall, those people in Plato have never dealt with the Mindaru before. They need our protection. Why did you cut off transmission?”
“To forestall any chance of the Mindaru infiltrating the transmission signal, obviously.”
“Well, that’s just—” Bandicut began, then stopped, realizing that perhaps it wasn’t such a dumb idea, after all. But they still needed to warn the human ship.
/// I believe the stones were able to convey
the warning to Dakota’s stones. ///
/Thank God for that. They were dependent on the open channel for their link, then?/
The stones answered for themselves. *As a carrier wave, yes. With transmission blocks up, contact is broken.*
Jeaves broke the silence, challenging Ruall. “Ruall, I believe a strong case can be made for stopping these Mindaru here, before they pose an active threat outside the starstream. They may be at their most vulnerable here.”
Ruall sounded like brushes on a snare drum. “What is your basis? We have a primary mission—to get to Karellia and stop the temporal distortion. Are you suggesting we jeopardize that mission with a secondary encounter?”
Li-Jared was making soft twanging noises. “Moon and stars, I hate to agree with Ruall—but she has a point.”
Bandicut turned to Li-Jared in disbelief. “If we just leave that ship—” and he jabbed a finger toward where the Plato had been visible a few moments ago “—to its own devices, it could easily be destroyed, and everyone on it. To allow that would be tantamount to murder. I’d be ashamed to be part of any mission that would do that.”
“The Mindaru might not attack the other ship,” said Ruall, so far forward in the viewspace she looked as if she might float out into space.
“When we’ve met them before, they’ve attacked everything, without mercy. Did we or did we not load weapons so we could deal with Mindaru if we saw them?”
“We did. But those weapons,” Ruall twanged, “were to be used as a last resort.”
“For those people this might be a matter of last resort.” Bandicut turned. “Coppy, what are those three objects doing?” /And what are you hearing from Dark?/ he asked Charli.
As though he had heard Bandicut’s silent inner question, Copernicus clicked a few times. “It seems they have detected Dark. They are maneuvering side to side, perhaps to position themselves for a fight with her.”
/// I cannot reach Dark directly.
I think she may be testing their strength. ///
/Is that good?/
/// I don’t know. ///
The viewspace zoomed in. Against the radiant walls of the starstream, the three Mindaru looked like nothing solid, more like small patches of distortion in the image. They appeared to be skittering around at different angles of movement. Dark looked like the end of a laser-pointer beam, only shadow instead of light, dancing close to the three Mindaru, and then dancing back. The image zoomed in closer. Something flickered in a halo around the Mindaru distortions, then flickered again.
“It appears they are attacking Dark,” said Copernicus.
“Attacking how?” Bandicut asked.
At that moment, a shudder went through The Long View’s hull. And then another. It felt like turbulence buffeting an aircraft. But they were not airborne; they were in the starstream, which as far as he knew was a pretty good vacuum, even if it was all wrapped up in n-space.
“Report,” Ruall said.
Jeaves answered this time. “The objects appear to be partially collapsed waveforms, as if they are caught somehow in transition between quantum wave function and classical solid objects. I have never seen anything like this before.”
“What were those shock waves?” Li-Jared asked.
“Do you remember the waves that destroyed the Starmaker waystation, at the start of our previous mission? I believe these may be similar—propagated through the fabric of space-time, rather than through a material medium.”
“Gravity waves?” asked Ruall.
“Similar, though occupying multiple dimensions. Severe oscillations radiating through n-space. Potentially extremely destructive, if given enough energy.”
Li-Jared and Bandicut were now both staring at Jeaves, and even Ruall seemed to be paying attention.
“The effect on us?” Ruall asked in a low voice.
“Little so far,” said Jeaves. “But Dark—?”
Bandicut squinted, and could just make out the halo ripples passing around and perhaps through the gray smudge that was Dark. The smudge kept moving, darting in and out like a cat with a mouse. Was she being hurt?
“Dark seems unharmed,” Copernicus said, as though reading his thoughts. “But I would prefer to avoid testing our fields against it, if possible.”
“Move us away,” said Ruall. “Take as many readings as you can. We may need this information later, when—”
“We need it now, Ruall,” Bandicut said, keeping his voice level.
“Perhaps, but the risk to this ship—”
“Ruall, with respect, we’ve flown this ship into a fucking star. I don’t think you realize how much punishment it can take. Don’t you agree, Coppy?”
“That is true, Cap’n.”
“But—” Bandicut said, gesturing at Plato “—that ship out there might not be that resilient. Let’s go after those bastards now, before they get loose in the galaxy. Or at least run interference so Plato can get clear.”
Li-Jared bonged urgently, swinging his arms. “Bandie, as much as I’d like to help your niece—”
“It’s not just her, it’s a whole ship and its crew.”
“I know. But our mission—”
“—is to save the galaxy from the Mindaru! And there are three of them, right out there, ready to wreak havoc. Ruall? Jeaves?”
Ruall rotated her head through three full turns. “The question is debatable, but you do make a point. They may be harder to kill after they have fully emerged. With that in mind, we will make a close pass—once!—to see if we can destroy them or deflect them from the human ship. We will not, however, engage in protracted fighting. Copernicus, can you prepare us for a raking pass? Perhaps we can learn the effectiveness of our weapons.”
Brrr-dang! “I disagree with this!” Li-Jared shouted. He waved his hands, his fingers splayed in protest. “John Bandicut, you are endangering my homeworld with this crusade of yours!”
Bandicut closed his eyes a moment. /Maybe I am. But we still have to do it./
/// I agree. ///
To his friend, he could only say, “Li-Jared, we will do everything in our power for your homeworld! But the enemy is here—now! Please!”
Li-Jared made an angry buzzing sound and stalked to the far side of the bridge. He glared into space as The Long View accelerated down the starstream toward the threatening objects. Ruall turned from both of them as she barked out commands to Copernicus. “The targets are in a state of quantum transition, so let’s see if we can disrupt the process. Let’s try a spread of quantum shock pulses, three per target, simultaneous fire. That should shake them apart.”
Copernicus acknowledged her commands in a clipped tone. “Quantum shock pulses ready.”
“Commit fire.”
Sparkles of light lazed out from the front of the viewspace. They seemed to glide toward the Mindaru. At the halfway point, they winked out. Bandicut cursed. Had they been knocked out so easily by the Mindaru? An instant later, the sparkles reappeared, closer to the targets, but flying in zigzag patterns. Smart pulses? They winked out again.
It was hard to be certain if anything was happening. “As far as I can observe,” Jeaves said, “the targets remain intact, and are still in the process of wave function collapse. I cannot tell if we have impeded the process.” Impeded or not, the Mindaru continued to radiate waves of space-time distortion toward Dark—and now toward The Long View, as well.
The deck shook as the distortions shuddered around the ship’s defensive shields. “Still no damage,” Copernicus reported. But Bandicut remembered how the Mindaru had attacked them once before, not with firepower, but with infiltration into their ship’s AI. Bandicut started to sweat at the thought. But Copernicus had led the counterattack before; Copernicus probably knew more about fighting the Mindaru than anyone alive except possibly the translator-stones.
“Quantum shock pulses appear ineffective,” Ruall said.
“Agreed,” said Copernicus. “Perhaps wave functions don’t present enough of a target.”
“Our present course will take us dangerously close. We require a different offense,” Ruall said. “Opinions on n-space disrupter missiles?”
“Not recommended!” Jeaves said at once. “They might disrupt the starstream itself. I recommend quantum implosion warheads. They require closer targeting, but they should swallow up everything including wave forms.”
“Very well,” said Ruall. “Ready quantum implosion warheads.”
“Ready,” said Copernicus.
“Estimate the optimum time for release, and release at that time.”
The ship’s course was bringing them closer to the Mindaru, but at a tangent. A line projected in the viewspace showed where Copernicus intended to veer away. Just before they reached that point, three missiles streaked out from the belly of the ship, spreading apart as they sped toward the targets.
“What’s Plato doing?” Bandicut asked.
“They’re shouting for information, Cap’n. Can we risk a comm pulse to let them know what’s happening?”
Bandicut started to say yes, but swallowed his words. Might even a brief pulse risk a Mindaru penetration of their AI network—or even of Copernicus, or Jeaves? It might. /Stones, how much information did you get across to Dakota’s stones?/
*Partial briefing, primarily on Mindaru threat. Level of comprehension unknown.*
That could mean enough, or not nearly enough.
Bwang. “Copernicus, what’s happening?” Li-Jared demanded, striding up and down at the far end of the viewspace. “Did we hit anything?”
“Negative on the quantum shock pulses,” Copernicus answered. “Still waiting on the missiles.” He projected a tactical display. They could see now that The Long View had passed from left to right between the three Mindaru and Plato, in a screening movement.
Three spots of green light pulsed, as though deep in a storm cloud.
“That’s detonation,” Copernicus reported. “The contact is changing.”
Ruall flew to the front of the viewspace, crying, “Changing how?”
For a moment no one spoke. Then Jeaves said, “Decoherence. I’m seeing signs of decoherence.”
“You mean the wave functions are collapsing?” Bandicut asked.
Li-Jared took a swift step forward and seemed poised to ask a sharp question. But instead he gestured to the robot to continue. At the front of the viewspace, Ruall was hanging in the air, also waiting.
“Massive loss of entanglement. Yes, it’s collapsing.”
“And that’s good, right?” Bandicut said, and felt Charli mentally crossing her fingers. “That means we hit it?” Did we destroy it?
“Here’s a surprise,” said Copernicus. “There were three contacts—but they’re collapsing into one—”
“One what?” Bandicut could see the three swirls suddenly contract and come together—and then blossom into a flower with a central blaze of light. Against the light, off to the left, fluttered a black moth.
“One object,” said Jeaves. “One solid object.”
For a moment, they all absorbed that in silence. Then Li-Jared yelled, “What kind of object, Jeaves?”
“A vessel of some kind,” Jeaves answered. “It’s shielded. We have not destroyed it. I think we might have—”
“What?” Li-Jared demanded.
“—helped catalyze its creation,” said Jeaves. “This is unexpected. Our warheads seem to have triggered a phase change. Before, we were fighting highly focused waveforms, temporally entangled. Now we’ve got this . . . solid, fast-moving object.”
Ruall began ringing at a low frequency. “This is a dangerous development. I must investigate at a level that you cannot. Bria and I will be gone for a minute or two. Copernicus, move us to a safer distance. I place you in temporary command. Do not engage the enemy if you can avoid it.”
“What are you do—?” Bandicut began, but Ruall had already turned sideways and vanished into the air, followed by Bria.
***
The rotation out of tri-space, through the wall of the spaceship, pancaked Ruall into the surrounding multi-space with unexpected force and turbulence. A lot was happening. The flowing space-time of the starstream was punctuated by shrieking echoes from the place where moments ago the collapsing wave function had given birth to a solid object.
Multiple views were possible of the object, and Ruall sensed Bria darting among them. /Careful, Bria!/ Dark, too, was out here, a blurry presence sliding around the Mindaru like a shepherding entity, more light than dark in this part of the continuum.
The Mindaru in physical form looked like a helical thing of steel, emerging from nothing into this crossover of n-space and fractal space. Ruall slipped in and out of dimensions and found different slices of the Mindaru in each level. It was rotating and yawing, as though seeking its own level and direction, and Ruall thought, It’s alive and hunting, but it’s disoriented. If we’re going to strike it, this really is the time. Oh yes, the Bandicut one was right. Strike while it’s weak! /Bria, back to the ship with me!/
The gokat glinted here, and there, and then streaked over to join her, and together they returned to tri-space.
***
To Charli, it was clear they were in trouble. If their efforts to kill the thing had only made it stronger, their mission might indeed be over, as Li-Jared had feared. They were going to have to do everything right to get out of this alive, and help Dakota to get out of it alive, as well.
But what was the right way? What did they know about this thing—except that it was unquestionably deadly. The one who knew the most, probably, was Dark—and she was out there probing, but not communicating. Did Dark understand the need to keep those on the ship informed?
When Ruall and Bria slipped out to survey the scene, Charli felt a surge of hope that they would not simply have to take a stab in the dark whether to flee or attack.
But as she waited, she thought, perhaps they didn’t need to rely only on Ruall and Bria. She could reach across the gulf to Dark. John wouldn’t like it, because when she’d tried something like it back on the Starmaker mission, it had nearly killed her. But she knew better what to do now, and besides, Dark had translator-stones, which should help.
She queried Bandicut’s stones and found encouragement. They too wanted to know more. It was a risk, but a risk worth taking.
To John, she said,
/// I’m going to take a quick look
and see what I can find out from Dark.
I’ll be right back. ///
Before he could protest, she was on the move.
***
Bandicut felt Charli’s sudden movement and started to shout /No!/ but it was too late. One moment the quarx was centered in his head, and the next she was out there somewhere, trying to get Dark’s attention. He felt a rush of panic, but he fought it down to churning anxiety. Don’t do anything foolish! he thought bleakly.
He was distracted then by Copernicus announcing, “We’re getting some pinging on our sensor array. Our friend’s trying to break in. We’re guarding against it.”
“Christ, that didn’t take long! Coppy, you’ve got to get off a warning to Plato! Just a snap-burst to let them know of the danger.”
Copernicus clicked. “Agreed.” Click click. “It is sent.”
Li-Jared immediately asked, “Did it try to get in while you were sending?”
Copernicus was busy doing some complex flying. Jeaves answered for him. “Yes, it tried. Not too skillfully, and it was easy to deflect. I would guess it hasn’t had time to study us yet.”
“If it’s unprepared, then we should get the hell out of here while we can,” Li-Jared said. “And get back to our mission, which just became a lot more urgent.”
Bandicut said, “I agree about the urgency. But this may be our one chance to destroy that thing before it can get to Karellia.”
As Li-Jared tapped his chest, thinking about that, a pop broke the air and Ruall reappeared in the center of the viewspace. An instant later, a smaller pop accompanied the reappearance of Bria. “Listen!” clanged Ruall. “We may not have much time! The intruder appears disoriented. It might not have intended to materialize yet. We think it may be at its most vulnerable right now. We must press the attack!”
***
The Mindaru didn’t wait for them to decide. It had taken the shape of a silver helix, hanging in the middle of the starstream. It began rotating, and it flung off droplets of light in a casual-looking spray toward The Long View. It was almost beautiful.
Weapons fire?
Jeaves confirmed that it was. “I don’t know exactly what that is, but I’m seeing a lot of highly energetic neutrons.”
“Neutrons! Enough to kill, if they hit us? Or hit Plato?” Bandicut asked. /Charli, where are you?/ Several minutes had passed since the quarx had jumped, and his worry was edging toward panic.
“Possibly. We can deflect it with our shielding. But Plato? Maybe not,” Jeaves answered. “If a burst penetrated Plato’s hull, it would probably kill everyone aboard. Everyone organic, anyway.” As he spoke, the first burst of light sprayed into The Long View’s outer shields. Bandicut’s stomach tightened, until Jeaves said, “No damage, though it cost us some energy to stop it.”
Heart thumping, Bandicut asked, “Is Plato getting to a safe distance?” /Charli! We may be in trouble! Where are you? Quit fucking around./
“Plato seems to be moving in to back us up.”
Damn. /Stones, can you reach Charli?/
No response. But the Mindaru had noticed Plato’s approach, behind and to the left of The Long View. A volley of fire spun off from the Mindaru, shooting wide of The Long View toward Plato. Bandicut froze for a second, then shouted, “Copernicus, can you stop that?”
“It’ll cost us, Cap’n.” The bridge lighting flickered, as something flashed out in the viewspace—a momentary glimmer like a ghostly wall. The enemy fire seemed to veer slightly and flickered past Plato in a clean miss.
Bandicut yelled approval—and with a sinking feeling, realized there was no echo from the quarx. Had she really jumped away, and not kept one foot in his head?
*She intended only to stretch, not to jump. But we’re barely hanging onto contact.*
/Christ Almighty. We could lose her!/
“It worked,” Copernicus said. “But it took a hefty burst of energy. I can’t keep it up.”
“Don’t try, then,” said Ruall.
“Can you get us in front of Plato, to shield her?” Bandicut asked, his fear for Charli warring with his fear for Dakota and her ship.
The Long View maneuvered sharply back toward a protective position. Another spray of light hit The Long View’s shields and dissipated.
“We cannot keep up being a shield,” Ruall warned. “We must maneuver if we are to destroy it! Copernicus, set up another attack run!”
***
Charli had never intended to leap. What she tried to do was stretch from her connection to Bandicut, out toward Dark. But when she hit the strange and turbulent emptiness of the starstream, suddenly nothing was secure. She called out to Dark.
The singularity-being called back, but from far away. She couldn’t make out anything Dark was saying. She stretched farther, and called,
/// Dark, we need help!
Come back! ///
Whatever Dark might have replied, Charli missed. The enemy loosed something with a rumble, and the n-space around her buckled abruptly.
Charli felt her grip on Bandicut slip. Then it was gone, and she was falling, first toward Dark and then into the stressed, infinitely stretched emptiness of the starstream.
***
“Copernicus!” Ruall commanded. “Two more quantum shock bursts.”
Tick. “But our last—”
“It may be more vulnerable as a solid than as a waveform.”
“Roger.” New sparkles of light streaked out from The Long View, straight for the Mindaru ship. With a flash of silver, a bubble went up around the Mindaru. The shock bursts flared into it. The bubble went down, revealing the Mindaru unaffected.
“Again!” clanged Ruall.
Two more quantum bursts streaked out, and again a bubble appeared, absorbing the bursts.
“Send five this time!” Ruall rang.
“Wait!” called Jeaves. “I think the bubble is eating those bursts. We may be making it stronger.”
Bandicut swore silently. His fear for Charli and Dakota was rapidly being joined by fear for their own survival.
“Did we damage it?” Ruall demanded.
“Not that I can detect,” said Jeaves. “But it’s pinging our sensors harder than ever now. It seems to be learning.”
Ruall sounded an angry cymbal-crash. “Copernicus! N-space disrupter warheads! Start with three!”
Bandicut protested in a hoarse voice, “The danger to the starstream—and Charli . . .”
Ruall spun and snapped, “How is it a danger to Charli?”
Shutting his eyes, Bandicut told her. Li-Jared hissed in dismay.
Ruall gave a perturbed vibration. “I am sorry, but I see no choice,” she rasped. “Do you?” Pause. Bandicut could offer nothing; neither did Jeaves or Li-Jared. “Copernicus, ready?” Ruall rang.
Tap. “Ready.”
“All three. Fire.”
Bandicut’s fists tightened, his nails digging into his palms. /Stones, could Charli have made it over to Dark?/
The stones twinged in his wrists, and seemed to writhe with worry.
Three missiles, points of light, shot toward the Mindaru. The bubble went up. The points of light bounced back, then flared with cones of actinic light focused on the bubble. The bubble went dark.
“Same thing,” Li-Jared muttered.
But it wasn’t. The Mindaru vessel veered suddenly, in a sharp lateral motion—toward the starstream wall. Tumbling. Fire danced along its spiral. Was it out of control?
“Damn!” Bandicut breathed. “It worked!”
“Copernicus, follow!” Ruall snapped.
But the Mindaru careened into the starstream wall—and vanished in a mushroom of sickly-green light. The light splintered and went dark.
The Mindaru was gone.
Copernicus began haltingly, “Captains, I don’t know if it’s safe to go through the wall—after—”
“You did it once—” Ruall twanged.
And then a ghostly green wave front swelled in the viewspace—reflected energy?—and hit The Long View like a tsunami. Copernicus and Ruall both cried out. The gravity field fluctuated. Bandicut lurched into the air, stomach churning—and then crashed back to the deck. “What the hell?” he gasped.
“N-space shock wave. More coming! Brace yourselves!” Copernicus warned.
“What the—? Coppy?” Bandicut pointed out the viewspace. Not just the wave front, but the glimmering starstream wall, were looming before them. They, too, seemed to be tumbling.
“Attempting to control—”
“Call Plato!” Bandicut yelled “Dark!” Charli!
Before Copernicus could finish the sentence, the starstream wall was upon them. A sea-green light flared around them. It felt to Bandicut as if they were inside an enormous thundercloud. The gravity-field lurched again, slamming him up off the deck and into the air. Before he hit the deck again, it had stabilized.
And the galaxy shone bright and glittering in the viewspace, as they gazed at the glowing tunnel of the starstream—but this time from the outside.