Eventually, they seemed to be running out of gas. I could tell, because they began asking me prompting questions. “Is this not so? Has honor not been served with zeal?”
“It has, it has,” I assured them. “Let me ask you something, if I may.”
“Ask not! Demand! Make your needs known without hesitation! Be not concerned-”
“Thank you,” I said gently. “I will do so. I need one of your factories. Maybe two. I apologize, but I need to move a Nano production system to the planet to work together with the captured Macro factory.”
There was a hesitation. It was slight, but I think I’d surprised them with this request. It was a big move. I knew they only had a few of these factories on each of their satellites. They produced all of their serious technological equipment. Without them, they’d be unable to do much independently to supply the war effort.
“As we have promised, we shall honor your request. You shall have both our duplication systems. Ghosts of the fallen ripple with the grasses.”
“Yeah, that’s great. Thank you. Let’s talk about getting the bulk of your population down to the planet. I think they will be safer on the surface of this world than they are inside an orbital habitat. I think we should move them as quickly as possible.”
“Your wisdom is like the stone under flowing water. Can you carry our people home on the wings of your machines?”
I frowned. “That is not the best approach. I can carry them, but it will take too long to transport millions of individuals-possibly years. I thought you were going to extrude some kind of shaft down to the surface for this purpose?”
Originally, the Centaurs had left their world by climbing up shafts into space. These tubes of metal connected the surface of the world with the satellites far above. Using the shaft had made transportation of their vast numbers much more feasible. I’d hoped they would employ the same strategy to exit the space stations.
“Our plans have changed,” they said.
“Why?”
“Because you require the use of our duplicators.”
Suddenly, I caught on. They had been using the duplicators to create constructive nanites and had planned to use them to build the shaft down to their planet. I nodded and frowned at the same time. This wasn’t going to be as easy as I thought. The more I thought of it, the more I realized the perfect substance for creating a structure like a shaft into space was a nanite-chain. They could form into anything, meaning you could just order them to build their way down to the surface. Incredibly light and strong, they would be perfect for the task.
Now, I had a decision to make. The Centaurs were leaving it up to me. Should I commandeer the only two factories the Centaurs had for the war effort? Or should I allow them to continue churning out nanites to build their own escape path down to the surface? If that satellite was destroyed by the Macros, I knew I’d feel terrible. I’d have allowed millions of innocents to die. On the other hand, if I didn’t have enough military hardware to face the Macros during the next stage of the war, I’d feel even worse.
Because all of us would be dead.
— 23
In the end, I decided to split the factories and try to do both. I would build a fleet and save the Centaur civilians. Half-measures weren’t my usual style, but it had worked out for King Solomon, so why not me?
Taking one of the Centaur factories down to the planet surface, I had it tucked under the dome for protection. Then I had the second factory in our possession moved from the guts of Socorro to sit next to the donation from the Centaurs. Within hours, two Nano factories and one big Macro unit were squatting together under the captured dome. When all three systems were installed and functional I entered the protective, shimmering walls of force to work with them.
Captain Miklos was there, and he didn’t understand my decisions.
“Why didn’t you take both units from the Centaurs? They offered them.”
“I’m not even sure I’ll need them.”
He laughed at that. “When have you ever suffered from an overabundance of production?”
“Never,” I admitted. “Well, I couldn’t decide which use of these units was better. I know we need a fleet, but the herds would have no hope of escape down to their world without keeping at least one of the units on their satellite.”
Miklos shook his head and tugged at his beard. He’d been growing it a bit longer lately. I supposed none of us had a lot of time for niceties like a weekly trimming.
“I don’t know, sir,” he said. “If the Macro fleet defeats us, they will kill all the civilians anyway.”
“We don’t know that. They’ve made deals in the past. I’m happy with double my previous nanite production, in combination with this monster.”
“There’s another thing, Colonel. You asked me to find any trace of the strange cloud-like creature you found here in this pit.”
“Right. The Blue named ‘Introspection’. What did you find?”
“I carefully looked over all our surveillance of the region, both before and after the battle. I found very little evidence on the sensor logs. There was a spectrographic registration of helium and deuterium. We thought at the time it was a byproduct of the mining here, or possibly related to the force-dome itself.”
“That’s it? Where did it go?”
“Well sir, we don’t know. It dissipated over time, but that could mean anything. During the battle, I did not have sensory systems tracking each cloud of water vapor in the sky, nor did I follow this gaseous ghost.”
I nodded and sighed. “All right. The short answer is it’s gone, and we don’t know where it went because we weren’t looking for it. I want you to reprogram the sensory boxes to recognize a signature set of readings. Put together a profile, and have them watch for it. Maybe it will come back.”
“Right sir.”
Then I checked the time, and waved for Miklos to exit. “I’m going into programming mode now,” I told him. “That takes careful thought. Please go keep an eye on the rest of the star system for me.”’
“Will do sir,” he said, and left.
I watched his form glimmer and flare white as he entered the field. When he had gone, I turned my attention back to the three machines and the scarred earth they sat upon. The ground under the dome still showed massive wounds from the battle we’d fought. It was strange, walking over the same loose earth men had died upon just days earlier. Bits of jagged metal still thrust up here and there.
The bunker I’d hastily built was still there, half-sunken in the ground near the central unit. It seemed hard to believe, looking at it now, that we’d withstood the attack of swarms of Macros inside its relatively thin walls. The bunker walls were blackened and pitted with a hundred laser strikes. I shook my head, it was a wonder any of us had lived through those long hours. If they’d had real ground troops, even just Macro marine units, they would have slaughtered us. We’d survived because most of the enemy had been equipped with the Macro equivalent of hedge-trimmers.
Another one element of the scene I remembered well was missing: the destroyed Macro workers. They’d been hauled away and fed back into the factories as raw materials. We’d converted the mass into a more useful form: tanks and ground troop kits.
Now, I had a new challenge to face. I needed to build a fleet-fast. It had to be better than anything we’d put up yet. It couldn’t simply be a set of Nano ships. Such vessels functioned well, but were built primarily of nanites, which our newly captured factory could not produce. I needed a drastically new design to make use of the bigger production system the Macros had provided for us.
I took off my helmet and gauntlets. I demanded coffee, and got it. Then I walked around the machine, kicking at the slagged dirt and scowling. I hated programming under pressure-but I’d always done my best work that way. I told myself to halt the self-pity. What programmer didn’t live with a deadline over his head?
I gave myself a shake and tried to clear my mind of extraneous thought. The first thing I needed was Marvin. I was still dependent on him to translate my instructions into the binary this Macro production facility understood. In the future, I was sure I could replace that function with a nanite brainbox, but I simply didn’t have
