something the Qeng Ho could supply. That was what Pham claimed would make the difference. Now he was going to get a chance to prove his point, not just argue it. Twenty years was not too much time to get ready.
In twenty years, Namqem’s once gentle decline had gone beyond inconvenience, beyond economic recession. The governance had fallen three times now, each time replaced by a regime designed to be “more effective”—each time opening the way to more radical social and technical fixes, ideas that had failed on a hundred other worlds. And with each downward step, the plans of the approaching fleets became more precise.
People were dying now. A billion kilometers out from Namqem world, the fleets saw the beginnings of Namqem’s first war. Literally saw it with their naked eyes: the explosions were in the gigatonne range, the destruction of a competing governance that had seceded with two-thirds of the outer planets’ automated industry. After the detonations, only one-third of that industry remained, but it was firmly in control of the megalopolitan regimes.
Flag Captain Sammy Park reported at a meeting: “Alqin is trying to evacuate to the planetary surface. Maresk is on the verge of starvation; the pipeline from the outer system will empty out just a few days before we arrive.”
“The stump governance on Tarelsk seems to think they’re still running a going concern. Here is our analysis….” The new speaker’s Nese was fluent; they had had twenty years now to synch their common language. This Fleet Captain was a young… man… from Old Earth. In eight thousand years, Old Earth had been depopulated four times. Without the existence of the daughter worlds, the human race would have gone extinct there long ago. What lived on Earth was strange now. None of their kind had been this far out from the center of Human Space before. But now, as fleets made their final approach into the Namqem system, the Old Earth ships were barely ten light-seconds from Pham’s flag. They had participated as much as anyone in setting up what they all were calling the Rescue.
Sammy waited politely to be sure the other was finished. Chatting at many seconds’ remove took a special discipline. Then he nodded. “Tarelsk will probably be the site of the first megadeaths, though we’re not sure of the precise cause.”
Pham was sitting in the same meeting room as Sammy. He took advantage of his location to butt in before the other’s time slot was truly ended. “Give us your summary on Sura’s situation, Sammy.”
“Trader Vinh is still in the main asteroid belt. She is about two thousand light-seconds from our present location.” It would still be a while before Sura could participate firsthand. “She’s supplied a lot of useful background intelligence, but she’s lost her temp and many of her ships.” Sura owned a number of estates in the belt; no doubt she was safe for the moment. “She recommends we shift the venue of the Grand Meeting to Brisgo Gap.”
Seconds drifted slowly past as they waited for comment from farther out. Twenty seconds. Nothing from the Old Earth fleet; but that could be politeness. Forty seconds. The Strentmannian Fleet Captain took the floor, naturally enough a woman: “Never heard of it. Brisgo Gap?” She held up her hand, indicating she was not giving up her speaking slot. “Okay, I see. A density-wave feature in their asteroid belt.” She gave a sour laugh. “I suppose that’s a place that won’t be subject to contention. Very well, we could pick a longitude close to Trader Vinh’s holdings and all meet there… after we accomplish the Rescue.”
They had come across dozens, some of them hundreds, of light-years. And now their Grand Meeting would be in empty space. As best he could across the time delay between them, Pham had argued with Sura about this suggestion. Meeting in a nowhere place was a confession of failure. When theFar Regard ’s speaking turn came, Pham took the floor. “Sure, Trader Vinh is right in picking an out-of-the-way corner of the Namqem system for the Meeting. But we’ve had years to plan for the Rescue. We have our five thousand ships. We have action strategies for each of the megalopolis populations and for those already moved down to Namqem world. I agree with Fleet Captain Tansolet. I propose that we execute our plan before we meet at this wherever-it-is gap.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
There was a war on. Three separate megalopolitan populations were at risk. The resources of almost a thousand ships were dedicated to suppressing the ragtag military that had grown up in the chaos. The lander resources of two hundred ships were sent down to the surface of Namqem itself. The world had been a manicured park for several thousand years—but now it would become the home of billions. Part of one megalopolis population was already down on the surface.
More than two thousand ships were headed for Maresk. The regime there was almost nonexistent… but starvation was only a few Msecs away. Much of Maresk might be saved by a combination of subtlety and brute cargo-hauling power.
Tarelsk still had an active governance, but it was like no governance in the history of the Namqem system. This was something out of darker times on other worlds, when rulers mouthed words about reconciliation—and willingly killed by the millions. The Tarelsk governance was an unplumbed madness.
One of Sammy’s analysts said, “Beating them down will be almost like an armed conquest.”
“Almost?” Pham looked up from the approach plots; every crewman was wearing full-press coveralls and hoods. “Hell, this is the real thing.” In the simplest case, the Qeng Ho rescue mission was three coordinated coups. If they succeeded, it would not be remembered that way. If they succeeded, each operation would be a little miracle, salvation that the locals could not provide for themselves. Perhaps ten times in all the histories had there been real interstellar war across more than a couple of light-years. Pham wondered what his father would have thought if he could have known what his throwaway son would one day accomplish. He turned back to the approach plots. The fastest would take 50Ksec to reach Tarelsk. “What’s the latest?”
“As expected, the Tarelsk governance isn’t buying our arguments. They consider us invaders, not rescuers. And they aren’t forwarding what we say to the Tarelsk population.”
“Surely the people know, though?”
“Maybe not. We’ve had three successful flybys.” The robots had been dropped off 4Msec before, recon darts that could make almost one-tenth lightspeed. “We only got a millisecond look, but what we saw is consistent with what Sura’s spies are telling us. We think the governance has opted for ubiquitous law enforcement.”
Pham whistled softly. Now every embedded computing system, down to a child’s rattle, was a governance utility. It was the most extreme form of social control ever invented. “So now they have to run everything.” The notion was terribly seductive to the authoritarian mind…. The only trouble was, no despot had the resources to plan every detail in his society’s behavior. Not even planet-wrecker bombs had as dire a reputation for eliminating civilizations. The rulers of Tarelsk had regressed far indeed. Pham leaned back in his seat. “Okay. This makes things easier and riskier. We’ll take the least-time course; these guys will kill everyone if they are just left to themselves. Follow drop schedule nine.” That meant wave after wave of unmanned devices. The first would be fine-targeted pulse bombs, trying to blind and numb Tarelsk’s eyes and automation. Closer in, the drops would be diggers, flooding the moon’s urban areas with Qeng Ho automation. If Pham’s plans worked, Terelsk’s automation would be confronted with another system, quite alien to, and uncontrollable by, the rulers’ ubiquitous law enforcement.
Pham’s fleet made a low-altitude pass by Namqem world. The maneuver kept them out of Tarelsk’s direct fire for a few thousand seconds. In itself, it was a kind of first. Civilized systems didn’t like large fusion rockets— much less starship drives—operating in the middle of urban areas. Heavy fines, even ostracism or confiscation were the price of such violations. For once, it was nice to give the finger to all of that. Pham’s thirty were decelerating at torch max, more than one gee, and had been for Ksecs. They swept over Namqem’s middle north latitudes at less than two hundred kilometers—and moving at almost two hundred kilometers per second. There was a glimpse of forests, of manicured deserts, of the temporary cities that housed the refugees from Alqin. And then they were heading out, their trajectory scarcely bent by the planetary mass. It was like something out of a children’s graphic, a planet literally whipping past their viewpoint.
Just kilometers ahead of them, space was alive with hellish light, and only some it was defensive fire. This was the real reason why high-speed flight in an urban area was insane. The space near Namqem world had once been an orderly scene of optimized usage. There had even been talk of setting up orbital towers.That optimization had been successfully resisted by the governance, but even so, low space was saturated with thousands of vehicles
