Prophets

“It should be destroyed,” Nickolai whispered. He spoke in a register so low that the others didn’t seem to hear him.

“What did it say about this ‘Other’?” Kugara asked.

Flynn/Tetsami shook his head. “It described it as a cloud, sometimes as a virus, sometimes as a complete abstraction: ‘the change without consent.’ What I could understand is that what I talked to was the remains of the autopilot for the Protean probe. The probe actually changed course to investigate some spectral anomalies happening to Xi Virginis. By the time it got within a light-year or so, the whole solar system was gone.”

“It knows what happened?”

“The Other,” Flynn/Tetsami said. “The Other somehow consumed—”

Nickolai heard the aircraft first. He raised his head to look at the sky. In a few moments, the two others followed his lead, looking up.

“One aircraft,” Nickolai said.

“Mr. Shane? We need confirmation to detonate the nuke.”

Alexander looked at the security footage. Flynn and the offworlders were looking up.

“Mr. Shane, sir?”

The Confederacy, or what was left of it, was about to take Salmagundi. He saw no hope of resistance. Seventy-five ships now.

They sent that many this far. He looked at the security camera feed of the crystalline invader. He wondered if it was the invader they pursued. He knew human history before the founding of Salmagundi. He knew the taboos against heretical technologies that would condemn the Hall of Minds. He also knew that Flynn’s discovery would be an order of magnitude worse in the eyes of the fleet descending upon them.

The two offworlders he saw in the security footage, they were clearly an advance team. Diplomats or spies, it didn’t matter—they belonged to the fleet entering orbit. How would the newcomers accept their loss? Could he afford to provoke them?

“Sir?”

In the past, the Confederacy had blown the crust off of planets infected by the kind of nanotechnology that lived in the egg Flynn Jorgenson had found. Just its presence here was a provocation.

The Hall of Minds was taboo to them and might be destroyed by an invasion. But intelligent, self-replicating nanotech? That was an abomination that might cost the lives of everyone on this planet.

It wasn’t really a choice.

“Sir?”

Alexander rubbed his fingers across the tattoos on his brow and said, “Detonate the nuke.”

Date: 2526.6.4 (Standard) 620,000 km from Salmagundi-HD 101534

Admiral Hussein reached the bridge still wearing the jumpsuit that he had worn under his EVA suit. Even before he said “at ease” to the bridge crew, he saw that the situation had developed alarmingly. The main screen showed a magnified image of the planet, and just coming into visual range over the horizon was an Ibrahim-class carrier, the twin of the Voice.

There was no question it was Bitar’s ship.

There was also no question, given the enhanced visuals, that the Sword had deployed its own hundred-ship battle group.

What the hell does he think he’s doing?

“Captain,” Hussein asked, “Any communication with the ship?”

“No response yet, sir. They’re deploying in a defensive grid around the planet.”