Dan Simmons - Orphans of the Helix

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Orphans of the Helix (v1.1)
Dan Simmons, 1999
The great spinship translated down from Hawking space into the red-and-white double light of a
close binary. While the 684,300 people of the Amoiete Spectrum Helix dreamt on in deep cryogenic
sleep, the five AIs in charge of the ship conferred. They had encountered an unusual phenomenon
and while four of the five had agreed it important enough to bring the huge spinship out of C-plus
Hawking space, there was a lively debate -- continuing for several microseconds -- about what to
do next.
The spinship itself looked beautiful in the distant light of the two stars, white and red light
bathing its kilometer-long skin, the starlight flashing on the three thousand environmental deep-
sleep pods, the groups of thirty pods on each of the one hundred spin hubs spinning past so
quickly that the swing arms were like the blur of great, overlapping fan blades, while the three
thousand pods themselves appeared to be a single, flashing gem blazing with red and white light.
The Aeneans had adapted the ship so that the hubs of the spinwheels along the long, central shaft
of the ship were slanted -- the first thirty spin arms angled back, the second hub angling its
longer thirty-pod arms forward, so that the deep-sleep pods themselves passed between each other
with only microseconds of separation, coalescing into a solid blur that made the ship under full
spin resemble exactly what its name implied -- Helix. An observer watching from some hundreds of
kilometers away would see what looked to be a rotating human double DNA helix catching the light
from the paired suns.
All five of the AIs decided that it would be best to call in the spin pods. First the great
hubs changed their orientation until the gleaming helix became a series of three thousand slowing
carbon-carbon spin arms, each with an ovoid pod visible at its tip through the slowing blur of
speed. Then the pod arms stopped and retracted against the long ship, each deep-sleep pod fitting
into a concave nesting cusp in the hull like an egg being set carefully into a container.
The Helix, no longer resembling its name now so much as a long, slender arrow with command
centers at the bulbous, triangular head, and the Hawking drive and larger fusion engines bulking
at the stern, morphed eight layers of covering over the nested spin arms and pods. All of the AIs
voted to decelerate toward the G8 white star under a conservative four hundred gravities and to
extend the containment field to class twenty. There was no visible threat in either system of the
binary, but the red giant in the more distant system was -- as it should be -- expelling vast
amounts of dust and stellar debris. The AI who took the greatest pride in its navigational skills
and caution warned that the entry trajectory toward the G8 star should steer very clear of the L1
Roche lobe point because of the massive heliosphere shock waves there, and all five AIs began
charting a deceleration course into the G8 system that would avoid the worst of the heliosphere
turmoil. The radiation shock waves there could be dealt with easily using even a class-three
containment field, but with 684,300 human souls aboard and under their care, none of the AIs would
take the slightest chance.
Their next decision was unanimous and inevitable. Given the reason for the deviation and
deceleration into the G8 system, they would have to awaken humans. Saigyô, AI in charge of
personnel lists, duty rosters, psychology profiles, and who had made it its business to meet and
know each of the 684,300 men, women, and children, took several seconds to review the list before
deciding on the nine people to awaken.
Dem Lia awoke with none of the dull hangover feel of the old-fashioned cryogenic fugue units.
She felt rested and fit as she sat up in her deep-sleep creche, the unit arm offering her the
traditional glass of orange juice.
"Emergency?" she said, her voice no more thick or dull than it would have been after a good
night's sleep.
"Nothing threatening the ship or the mission," said Saigyô, the AI. "An anomaly of interest. An
old radio transmission from a system which may be a possible source of resupply. There are no
problems whatsoever with ship function or life support. Everyone is well. The ship is in no
danger."
"How far are we from the last system we checked?" said Dem Lia, finishing her orange juice and
donning her shipsuit with its emerald green stripe on the left arm and turban. Her people had
traditionally worn desert robes, each robe the color of the Amoiete Spectrum that the different
families had chosen to honor, but robes were impractical for spinship travel where zero g was a
frequent environment.
"Six thousand three hundred light-years," said Saigyô.
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Dem Lia stopped herself from blinking. "How many years since last awakening?" she said softly.
"How many years' total voyage ship time? How many years' total voyage time-debt?"
"Nine ship years and one hundred two time-debt years since last awakening," said Saigyô. "Total
voyage ship time, thirty-six years. Total voyage time-debt relative to human space, four hundred
and one years, three months, one week, five days."
Dem Lia rubbed her neck. "How many of us are you awakening?"
"Nine."
Dem Lia nodded, quit wasting time chatting with the AI, glanced around only once at the two-
hundred-some sealed sarcophagi where her family and friends continued sleeping, and took the main
shipline people mover to the command deck, where the other eight would be gathering.
The Aeneans had followed the Amoiete Spectrum Helix people's request to construct the command
deck like the bridge of an ancient torchship or some Old Earth, pre-Hegira seagoing vessel. The
deck was oriented one direction to down and Dem Lia was pleased to notice on the ride to the
command deck that the ship's containment field held at a steady one gee. The bridge itself was
about twenty-five meters across and held command-nexus stations for the various specialists, as
well as a central table -- round, of course -- where the awakened were gathering, sipping coffee
and making the usual soft jokes about cryogenic deep-sleep dreams. All around the great hemisphere
of the command deck, broad windows opened onto space: Dem Lia stood a minute looking at the
strange arrangement of the stars, the view back along the seemingly infinite length of the Helix
itself where heavy filters dimmed the brilliance of the fusion-flame tail that now reached back
eight kilometers toward their destination -- and the binary system itself, one small white star
and one red giant, both clearly visible. The windows were not actual windows, of course; their
holo pickups could be changed and zoomed or opaqued in an instant, but for now the illusion was
perfect.
Dem Lia turned her attention to the eight people at the table. She had met all of them during
the two years of ship training with the Aeneans, but knew none of these individuals well. All had
been in the select group of fewer than a thousand chosen for possible awakening during transit.
She checked their color-band stripes as they made introductions over coffee.
Four men, five women. One of the other women was also an emerald green, which meant that Dem
Lia did not know if command would fall to her or the younger woman. Of course, consensus would
determine that at any rate, but since the emerald green band of the Amoiete Spectrum Helix poem
and society stood for resonance with nature, ability to command, comfort with technology, and the
preservation of endangered life-forms -- and all 684,300 of the Amoiete refugees could be
considered endangered life-forms this far from human space -- it was assumed that in unusual
awakenings the greens would be voted into overall command.
In addition to the other green -- a young, redheaded woman named Res Sandre -- there was: a red-
band male, Patek Georg Dem Mio; a young, white-band female named Den Soa whom Dem Lia knew from
the diplomacy simulations; an ebony-band male named Jon Mikail Dem Alem; an older yellow-band
woman named Oam Rai whom Dem Lia remembered as having excelled at ship system's operations; a
white-haired blue-band male named Peter Delen Dem Tae whose primary training would be in
psychology; an attractive female violet-band -- almost surely chosen for astronomy -- named Kem
Loi; and an orange male -- their medic, whom Dem Lia had spoken to on several occasions -- Samel
Ria Kem AH, known to everyone as Dr. Sam.
After introductions there was a silence. The group looked out the windows at the binary system,
the G8 white star almost lost in the glare of the Helix's, formidable fusion tail.
Finally the red, Patek Georg, said, "All right, ship. Explain."
Saigyô's calm voice came over the omnipresent speakers. "We were nearing time to begin a search
for earthlike worlds when sensors and astronomy became interested in this system."
"A binary system?" said Kem Loi, the violet. "Certainly not in the red giant system?" The
Amoiete Spectrum Helix people had been very specific about the world they wanted their ship to
find for them -- G2 sun, earthlike world at least a 9 on the old Solmev Scale, blue oceans,
pleasant temperatures -- paradise, in other words. They had tens of thousands of light-years and
thousands of years to hunt. They fully expected to find it.
"There are no worlds left in the red-giant system," agreed Saigyô the AI affably enough. "We
estimate that the system was a G2 yellow-white dwarf star ... "
"Sol," muttered Peter Delen, the blue, sitting at Dem Lia's right.
"Yes," said Saigyô. "Much like the Old Earth's sun. We estimate that it became unstable on the
main sequence hydrogen-burning stage about three and one half million standard years ago and then
expanded to its red giant phase and swallowed any planets that had been in system."
"How many AU's out does the giant extend?" asked Res Sandre, the other green.
"Approximately one-point-three," said the AI.
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"And no outer planets?" asked Kem Loi. Violets in the Helix were dedicated to complex
structures, chess, the love of the more complex aspects of human relationships, and astronomy. "It
would seem that there would be some gas giants or rocky worlds left if it only expanded a bit
beyond what would have been Old Earth's or Hyperion's orbit."
"Maybe the outer worlds were very small planetoids driven away by the constant outgassing of
heavy particles," said Patek Georg, the red-band pragmatist.
"Perhaps no worlds formed here," said Den Soa, the white-band diplomat. Her voice was sad. "At
least in that case no life was destroyed when the sun went red giant."
"Saigyô," said Dem Lia, "why are we decelerating in toward this white star? May we see the
specs on it, please?"
Images, trajectories, and data columns appeared over the table.
"What is that?" said the older yellow-band woman, Oam Rai.
"An Ouster forest ring," said Jon Mikail Dem Alem. "All this way. All these years. And some
ancient Ouster Hegira seedship beat us to it."
"Beat us to what?" asked Res Sandre, the other green. "There are no planets in this system are
there, Saigyô?"
"No, ma'am," said the AI.
"Were you thinking of restocking on their forest ring?" said Dem Lia. The plan had been to
avoid any Aenean, Pax, or Ouster worlds or strongholds found along their long voyage away from
human space.
"This orbital forest ring is exceptionally bountiful," said Saigyô the AI, "but our real reason
for awakening you and beginning the in-system deceleration is that someone living on or near the
ring is transmitting a distress signal on an early Hegemony code band. It is very weak, but we
have been picking it up for two hundred and twenty-eight light-years."
This gave them all pause. The Helix had been launched some eighty years after the Aenean Shared
Moment, that pivotal event in human history which had marked the beginning of a new era for most
of the human race. Previous to the Shared Moment, the Church-manipulated Pax society had ruled
human space for three hundred years. These Ousters would have missed all of Pax history and
probably most of the thousand years of Hegemony history that preceded the Pax. In addition to
that, the Helix's time-debt added more than four hundred years of travel. If these Ousters had
been part of the original Hegira from Old Earth or from the Old Neighborhood Systems in the
earliest days of the Hegemony, they may well have been out of touch with the rest of the human
race for fifteen hundred standard years or more.
"Interesting," said Peter Delen Dem Tae, whose blue-band training included profound immersion
in psychology and anthropology.
"Saigyô, play the distress signal, please," said Dem Lia.
There came a series of static hisses, pops, and whistles with what might have been two words
electronically filtered out. The accent was early Hegemony Web English.
"What does it say?" said Dem Lia. "I can't quite make it out."
"Help us," said Saigyô. The AI's voice was tinted with an Asian accent and usually sounded
slightly amused, but his tone was flat and serious now.
The nine around the table looked at one another again in silence. Their goal had been to leave
human and posthuman Aenean space far behind them, allowing their people, the Amoiete Spectrum
Helix culture, to pursue their own goals, to find their own destiny free of Aenean intervention.
But Ousters were just another branch of human stock, attempting to determine their own
evolutionary path by adapting to space, their Templar allies traveling with them, using their
genetic secrets to grow orbital forest rings and even spherical startrees completely surrounding
their suns.
"How many Ousters do you estimate live on the orbital forest ring?" asked Den Soa, who with her
white training would probably be their diplomat if and when they made contact.
"Seven hundred million on the thirty-degree arc we can resolve on this side of the sun," said
the AI. "If they have migrated to all or most of the ring, obviously we can estimate a population
of several billion."
"Any sign of Akerataeli or the zeplens?" asked Patek Georg. All of the great forest rings and
startree spheres had been collaborative efforts with these two alien races, which had joined
forces with the Ousters and Templars during the Fall of the Hegemony.
"None," said Saigyô "But you might notice this remote view of the ring itself in the center
window. We are still sixty-three AU's out from the ring ... this is amplified ten thousand times."
They all turned to look at the front window where the forest ring seemed only thousands of
kilometers away, its green leaves and yellow and brown branches and braided main trunk curving
away out of sight, the G8 star blazing beyond.
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"It looks wrong," said Dem Lia.
"This is the anomaly that added to the urgency of the distress signal and decided us to bring
you out of deep sleep," said Saigyô, his voice sounding slightly bemused again. "This orbital
forest ring is not of Ouster or Templar bioconstruction."
Doctor Samel Ria Kem Ali whistled softly. "An alien-built forest ring. But with human-descended
Ousters living on it."
"And there is something else we have found since entering the system," said Saigyô. Suddenly
the left window was filled with a view of a machine -- a spacecraft -- so huge and ungainly that
it almost defied description. An image of the Helix was superimposed at the bottom of the screen
to give scale. The Helix was a kilometer long. The base of this other spacecraft was at least a
thousand times as long. The monster was huge and broad, bulbous and ugly, carbon black and
insectoidal, bearing the worst features of both organic evolution and industrial manufacture.
Centered in the front of it was what appeared to be a steel-toothed maw, a rough opening lined
with a seemingly endless series of mandibles and shredding blades and razor-sharp rotors.
"It looks like God's razor," said Patek Georg Dem Mio, the cool irony undercut slightly by a
just-perceptible quaver in his voice.
"God's razor my ass," said Jon Mikail Dem Alem softly. As an ebony, life support was one of his
specialties, and he had grown up tending the huge farms on Vitus-Gray-Balianus B. "That's a
threshing machine from hell."
"Where is it?" Dem Lia started to ask, but already Saigyô had thrown the plot on the holo
showing their deceleration trajectory in toward the forest ring. The obscene machine-ship was
coming in from above the ecliptic, was some twenty-eight AU's ahead of them, was decelerating
rapidly but not nearly as aggressively as the Helix, and was headed directly for the Ouster forest
ring. The trajectory plot was clear -- at its current rate of deceleration, the machine would
directly intercept the ring in nine standard days.
"This may be the cause of their distress signal," the other green, Res Sandre, said dryly.
"If it were coming at me or my world, I'd scream so loudly that you'd hear me two hundred and
twenty-eight light-years away without a radio," said the young white-band, Den Soa.
"If we started picking up this weak signal some two hundred twenty-eight light-years ago," said
Patek Georg, "it means that either that thing has been decelerating in-system very slowly, or ...
"
"It's been here before," said Dem Lia. She ordered the AI to opaque the windows and to dismiss
itself from their company. "Shall we assign roles, duties, priorities, and make initial
decisions?" she said softly.
The other eight around the table nodded soberly.
To a stranger, to someone outside the Spectrum Helix culture, the next five minutes would have
been very hard to follow. Total consensus was reached within the first two minutes, but only a
small part of the discussion was through talk. The combination of hand gestures, body language,
shorthand phrases, and silent nods that had evolved through four centuries of a culture determined
to make decisions through consensus worked well here. These people's parents and grandparents knew
the necessity of command structure and discipline -- half a million of their people had died in
the short but nasty war with the Pax remnant on Vitus-Gray-Balianus B, and then another hundred
thousand when the fleeing Pax vandals came looting through their system some thirty years later.
But they were determined to elect command through consensus and thereafter make as many decisions
as possible through the same means.
In the first two minutes, assignments were settled and the subtleties around the duties dealt
with.
Dem Lia was to be in command. Her single vote could override consensus when necessary. The
other green, Res Sandre, preferred to monitor propulsion and engineering, working with the
reticent AI named Basho to use this time out of Hawking space to good advantage in taking stock.
The red-band male, Patek Georg, to no one's surprise, accepted the position of chief security
officer -- both for the ship's formidable defenses and during any contact with the Ousters. Only
Dem Lia could override his decisions on use of ship weaponry.
The young white-band woman, Den Soa, was to be in charge of communications and diplomacy, but
she requested and Peter Delen Dem Tae agreed to share the responsibility with her. Peter's
training in psychology had included theoretical exobiopsychology.
Dr. Sam would monitor the health of everyone aboard and study the evolutionary biology of the
Ousters and Templars if it came to contact.
Their ebony-band male, Jon Mikail Dem Alem, assumed command of life support -- both in
reviewing and controlling systems in the Helix along with the appropriate AI, but also arranging
for necessary environments if they met with the Ousters aboard ship.
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Oam Rai, the oldest of the nine and the ship's chess master, agreed to coordinate general ship
systems and to be Dem Lia's principal advisor as events unfolded.
Kem Loi, the astronomer, accepted responsibility for all long-range sensing, but was obviously
eager to use her spare time to study the binary system. "Did anyone notice what old friend our
white star ahead resembles?" she asked.
"Tau Ceti," said Res Sandre without hesitation.
Kem Loi nodded. "And we saw the anomaly in the placing of the forest ring."
Everyone had. The Ousters preferred G2-type stars, where they could grow their orbital forests
at about one AU from the sun. This ring circled its star at only 0.36 AUs.
"Almost the same distance as Tau Ceti Center from its sun," mused Patek Georg. TC2, as it had
been known for more than a thousand years, had once been the central world and capital of the
Hegemony. Then it had become a backwater world under the Pax until a Church cardinal on that world
attempted a coup against the beleaguered pope during the final days of the Pax. Most of the
rebuilt cities had been leveled then. When the Helix had left human space eighty years after that
war, the Aeneans were repopulating and repopularizing the ancient capital, rebuilding beautiful,
classical structures on broad estates and essentially turning the lance-lashed ruins into an
Arcadia. For Aeneans.
Assignments given and accepted, the group discussed the option of awakening their immediate
family members from cryogenic sleep. Since Spectrum Helix families consisted of triune marriages --
either one male and two females or vice versa -- and since most had children aboard, this was a
complicated subject. Jon Mikail discussed the life-support considerations -- which were minor --
but everyone agreed that it would complicate decision-making with family awake only as passengers.
It was agreed to leave them in deep sleep, with the one exception of Den Soa's husband and wife.
The young white-band diplomat admitted that she would feel insecure without her two loved ones
with her, and the group allowed this exception to their decision with the gentle suggestion that
the reawakened mates would stay off the command deck unless there was compelling reason for them
to be there. Den Soa agreed at once. Saigyô was summoned and immediately began awakening Den Soa's
bond pair. They had no children.
Then the most central issue was discussed.
"Are we actually going to decelerate to this ring and involve ourselves in these Ousters'
problems?" asked Patek Georg. "Assuming that their distress signal is still relevant."
"They're still broadcasting on the old bandwidths," said Den Soa, who had jacksensed into the
ship's communications system. The young woman with blond hair looked at something in her virtual
vision. "And that monster machine is still headed their way."
"But we have to remember," said the red-band male, "that our goal was to avoid contact with
possibly troublesome human outposts on our way out of known space."
Res Sandre, the green now in charge of engineering, smiled. "I believe that we made that
general plan about avoiding Pax or Ouster or Aenean elements without considering that we would
meet up with humans -- or former humans -- some eight thousand light-years outside the known
sphere of human space."
"It could still mean trouble for everyone," said Patek Georg.
They all understood the real meaning of the red-band security chief's statement. Reds in the
Spectrum Helix devoted themselves to physical courage, political convictions, and passion for art,
but they also were deeply trained in compassion for other living things. The other eight
understood that when he said the contact might mean trouble for "everyone," he meant not only the
684,291 sleeping souls aboard the ship, but also the Ousters and Templars themselves. These
orphans of Old Earth, this band of self-evolving human stock, had been beyond history and the
human pale for at least a millennium, perhaps much longer. Even the briefest contact could cause
problems for the Ouster culture as well.
"We're going to go in and see if we can help ... and replenish fresh provisions at the same
time, if that's possible," said Dem Lia, her tone friendly but final. "Saigyô, at our greatest
deceleration figure consistent with not stressing the internal containment fields, how long will
it take us to a rendezvous point about five thousand klicks from the forest ring?"
"Thirty-seven hours," said the AI.
"Which gets us there seven days and a bit before that ugly machine," said Oam Rai.
"Hell," said Dr. Sam, "that machine could be something the Ousters built to ferry themselves
through the heliosphere shock fields to the red-giant system. A sort of ugly trolley."
"I don't think so," said young Den Soa, missing the older man's irony.
"Well, the Ousters have noticed us," said Patek Georg, who was jacksensed into his system's
nexus. "Saigyô, bring up the windows again, please. Same magnification as before."
Suddenly the room was filled with starlight and sunlight and the reflected light from the
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braided orbital forest ring that looked like nothing so much as Jack and the Giant's beanstalk,
curving out of sight around the bright, white star. Only now something else had been added to the
picture.
"This is real time?" whispered Dem Lia.
"Yes," said Saigyô. "The Ousters have obviously been watching our fusion tail as we've entered
the system. Now they're coming out to greet us."
Thousands -- tens of thousands -- of fluttering bands of light had left the forest ring and
were moving like brilliant fireflies or radiant gossamers away from the braid of huge leaves,
bark, and atmosphere. The thousands of motes of light were headed out-system, toward the Helix.
"Could you please amplify that image a bit more?" said Dem Lia. She had been speaking to
Saigyô, but it was Kem Loi, who was already wired into the ship's optic net, who acted.
Butterflies of light. Wings a hundred, two hundred, five hundred kilometers across catching the
solar wind and riding the magnetic-field lines pouring out of the small, bright star. But not just
tens of thousands of winged angels or demons of light, hundreds of thousands. At the very minimum,
hundreds of thousands. "Let's hope they're friendly," said Patek Georg. "Let's hope we can still
communicate with them," whispered young Den Soa. "I mean ... they could have forced their own
evolution any direction in the last fifteen hundred years."
Dem Lia set her hand softly on the table, but hard enough to be heard. "I suggest that we quit
speculating and hoping for the moment and get ready for this rendezvous in ... " She paused.
"Twenty-seven hours eight minutes if the Ousters continue sailing out-system to meet us," said
Saigyô on cue.
"Res Sandre," Dem Lia said softly, "why don't you and your propulsion AI begin work now on
making sure that our last bit of deceleration is mild enough that it isn't going to fry a few tens
of thousands of these Ousters coming to greet us. That would be a bad overture to diplomatic
contact."
"If they are coming out with hostile intent," said Patek Georg, "the fusion drive would be one
of our most potent weapons against ... "
Dem Lia interrupted. Her voice was soft but brooked no argument. "No discussion of war with
this Ouster civilization until their motives become clear. Patek, you can review all ship
defensive systems, but let us have no further group discussion of offensive action until you and I
talk about it privately."
Patek Georg bowed his head.
"Are there any other questions or comments?" asked Dem Lia. There were none.
The nine people rose from the table and went about their business.
A largely sleepless twenty-four-plus hours later, Dem Lia stood alone and god-sized in the
white star's system, the G8 blazing away only a few yards from her shoulder. The braided worldtree
was so close that she could have reached out and touched it, wrapped her god-sized hand around it,
while at the level of her chest the hundreds of thousands of shimmering wings of light converged
on the Helix, whose deceleration fusion tail had dwindled to nothing. Dem Lia stood on nothing,
her feet planted steadily on black space, the alien forest ring roughly at her belt line, the
stars a huge sphere of constellations and foggy galactic scatterings far above, around, and beyond
her.
Suddenly Saigyô joined her. The tenth-century monk assumed his usual virreal pose: cross-
legged, floating easily just above the plane of the ecliptic a few respectful yards from Dem Lia.
He was shirtless and barefoot, and his round belly added to the sense of good feeling that
emanated from the round face, squinted eyes, and ruddy cheeks.
"The Ousters fly the solar winds so beautifully," muttered Dem Lia.
Saigyô nodded. "You notice, though, that they're really surfing the shock waves riding out
along the magnetic-field lines. That gives them those astounding bursts of speed."
"I've been told that, but not seen it," said Dem Lia. "Could you ... "
Instantly the solar system in which they stood became a maze of magnetic-field lines pouring
from the G8 white star, curving at first and then becoming as straight and evenly spaced as a
barrage of laser lances. The display showed this elaborate pattern of magnetic-field lines in red.
Blue lines showed the uncountable paths of cosmic rays flowing into the system from all over the
galaxy, aligning themselves with the magnetic-field lines and trying to corkscrew their way up the
field lines like swirling salmon fighting their way upstream to spawn in the belly of the star.
Dem Lia noticed that magnetic-field lines pouring from both the north and south poles of the sun
were kinked and folded around themselves, thus deflecting even more cosmic waves that should
otherwise have had an easy trip up smooth polar-field lines. Dem Lia changed metaphors, thinking
of sperm fighting their way toward a blazing egg, and being cast aside by vicious solar winds and
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surges of magnetic waves, blasted away by shock waves that whipped out along the field lines as if
someone had forcefully shaken a wire or snapped a bullwhip.
"It's stormy," said Dem Lia, seeing the flight path of so many of the Ousters now rolling and
sliding and surging along these shock fronts of ions, magnetic fields, and cosmic rays, holding
their positions with wings of glowing forcefield energy as the solar wind propagated first forward
and then backward along the magnetic-field lines, and finally surfing the shock waves forward
again as speedier bursts of solar winds crashed into more sluggish waves ahead of them, creating
temporary tsunami that rolled out-system and then flowed backward like a heavy surf rolling back
in toward the blazing beach of the G8 sun.
The Ousters handled this confusion of geometries, red lines of magnetic-field lines, yellow
lines of ions, blue lines of cosmic rays, and rolling spectra of crashing shock fronts with
seeming ease. Dem Lia glanced once out to where the surging heliosphere of the red giant met the
seething heliosphere of this bright G8 star and the storm of light and colors there reminded her
of a multihued, phosphorescent ocean crashing against the cliffs of an equally colorful and
powerful continent of broiling energy. A rough place.
"Let's return to the regular display," said Dem Lia, and instantly the stars and forest ring
and fluttering Ousters and slowing Helix were back -- the last two items quite out of scale to
show them clearly.
"Saigyô," said Dem Lia, "please invite all of the other AIs here now."
The smiling monk raised thin eyebrows. "All of them here at once?"
"Yes."
They appeared soon, but not instantly, one figure solidifying into virtual presence a second or
two before the next.
First came Lady Murasaki, shorter even than the diminutive Dem Lia, the style of her three-
thousand-year-old robe and kimono taking the acting commander's breath away. What beauty Old Earth
had taken for granted, thought Dem Lia. Lady Murasaki bowed politely and slid her small hands in
the sleeves of her robe. Her face was painted almost white, her lips and eyes were heavily
outlined, and her long, black hair was done up so elaborately that Dem Lia -- who had worn short
hair most of her life -- could not even imagine the work of pinning, clasping, combing, braiding,
shaping and washing such a mass.
Ikkyû stepped confidently across the empty space on the other side of the virtual Helix a
second later. This AI had chosen the older persona of the long-dead Zen Poet: Ikkyû looked to be
about seventy, taller than most Japanese, quite bald, with wrinkles of concern on his forehead and
lines of laughter around his bright eyes. Before the flight had begun, Dem Lia had used the ship's
history banks to read about the fifteenth-century monk, poet, musician, and calligrapher: it
seemed that when the historical, living Ikkyû had turned seventy, he had fallen in love with a
blind singer just forty years his junior and scandalized the younger monks when he moved his love
into the temple to live with him. Dem Lia liked Ikkyû.
Basho appeared next. The great haiku expert chose to appear as a gangly seventeenth-century
Japanese farmer, wearing the coned hat and clog shoes of his profession. His fingernails always
had some soil under them.
Ryôkan stepped gracefully into the circle. He was wearing beautiful robes of an astounding blue
with gold trim. His hair was long and tied in a queue.
"I've asked you all here at once because of the complicated nature of this rendezvous with the
Ousters," Dem Lia said firmly. "I understand from the log that one of you was opposed to
translating down from Hawking space to respond to this distress call."
"I was," said Basho, his speech in modern post-Pax English but his voice gravel-rough and as
guttural as a Samurai's grunt.
"Why?" said Dem Lia.
Basho made a gesture with his gangly hand. "The programming priorities to which we agreed did
not cover this specific event. I felt it offered too great a potential for danger and too little
benefit in our true goal of finding a colony world."
Dem Lia gestured toward the swarms of Ousters closing on the ship. They were only a few
thousand kilometers away now. They had been broadcasting their peaceful intentions across the old
radio band-widths for more than a standard day. "Do you still feel that it's too risky?" she asked
the tall AI.
"Yes," said Basho.
Dem Lia nodded, frowning slightly. It was always disturbing when the AIs disagreed on an
important issue, but that was why the Aeneans had left them Autonomous after the breakup of the
TechnoCore. And that was why there were five to vote.
"The rest of you obviously saw the risk as acceptable?"
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Lady Murasaki answered in her low, demure voice, almost a whisper. "We saw it as an excellent
possibility to restock new foodstuffs and water, while the cultural implications were more for you
to ponder and act on than for us to decide. Of course, we had not detected the huge spacecraft in
the system before we translated out of Hawking space. It might have affected our decision."
"This is a human-Ouster culture, almost certainly with a sizable Templar population, that may
not have had contact with the outside human universe since the earliest Hegemony days, if then,"
said Ikkyû with great enthusiasm. "They may well be the farthest-flung outpost of the ancient
Hegira. Of all humankind. A wonderful learning opportunity."
Dem Lia nodded impatiently. "We close to rendezvous within a few hours. You've heard their
radio contact -- they say they wish to greet us and talk, and we've been polite in return. Our
dialects are not so diverse that the translator beads can't handle them in face-to-face
conversations. But how can we know if they actually come in peace?"
Ryôkan cleared his throat. "It should be remembered that for more than a thousand years, the so-
called Wars with the Ousters were provoked -- first by the Hegemony and then by the Pax. The
original Ouster deep-space settlements were peaceful places and this most-distant colony would
have experienced none of the conflict."
Saigyô chuckled from his comfortable perch on nothing. "It should also be remembered that
during the actual Pax wars with the Ousters, to defend themselves, these peaceful, space-adapted
humans learned to build and use torchships, modified Hawking drive warships, plasma weapons, and
even some captured Pax Gideon drive weapons." He waved his bare arm. "We've scanned every one of
these advancing Ousters, and none carry a weapon -- not so much as a wooden spear."
Dem Lia nodded. "Kern Loi has shown me astronomical evidence which suggests that their moored
seedship was torn away from the ring at an early date -- possibly only years or months after they
arrived. This system is devoid of asteroids, and the Oort cloud has been scattered far beyond
their reach. It is conceivable that they have neither metal nor an industrial capacity."
"Ma'am," said Basho, his countenance concerned, "how can we know that? Ousters have modified
their bodies sufficiently to generate forcefield wings that can extend for hundreds of kilometers.
If they approach the ship closely enough, they could theoretically use the combined plasma effect
of those wings to attempt to breach the containment fields and attack the ship."
"Beaten to death by angels' wings," Dem Lia mused softly. "An ironic way to die."
The AI's said nothing.
"Who is working most directly with Patek Georg Dem Mio on defense strategies?" Dem Lia asked
into the silence.
"I am," said Ryôkan.
Dem Lia had known that, but she still thought, Thank God it's not Basho. Patek Georg was
paranoid enough for the AI-human interface team on this specialty.
"What are Patek's recommendations going to be when we humans meet in a few minutes?" Dem Lia
bluntly demanded from Ryôkan.
The AI hesitated only the slightest of perceptible instants. AI's understood both discretion
and loyalty to the human working with them in their specialty, but they also understood the
imperatives of the elected commander's role on the ship.
"Patek Georg is going to recommend a hundred-kilometer extension of the class-twenty external
containment field," said Ryôkan softly. "With all energy weapons on standby and pre-targeted on
the three hundred nine thousand, two hundred and five approaching Ousters."
Dem Lia's eyebrows rose a trifle. "And how long would it take our systems to lance more than
three hundred thousand such targets?" she asked softly.
"Two-point-six seconds," said Ryôkan.
Dem Lia shook her head. "Ryôkan, please tell Patek Georg that you and I have spoken and that I
want the containment field not at a hundred-klick distance, but maintained at a steady one
kilometer from the ship. It may remain a class-twenty field -- the Ousters can actually see the
strength of it, and that's good. But the ship's weapons systems will not target the Ousters at
this time. Presumably, they can see our targeting scans as well. Ryôkan, you and Patek Georg can
run as many simulations of the combat encounter as you need to feel secure, but divert no power to
the energy weapons and allow no targeting until I give the command."
Ryôkan bowed. Basho shuffled his virtual clogs but said nothing.
Lady Murasaki fluttered a fan half in front of her face. "You trust," she said softly.
Dem Lia did not smile. "Not totally. Never totally. Ryôkan, I want you and Patek Georg to work
out the containment-field system so that if even one Ouster attempts to breach the containment
field with focused plasma from his or her solar wings, the containment field should go to
emergency class thirty-five and instantly expand to five hundred klicks."
Ryôkan nodded. Ikkyû smiled slightly and said, "That will be one very quick ride for a great
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