“I don’t see any other way out of our impasse, sir.”
“Not an impasse, General, but our defeat.”
“Yes, sir. Our defeat.”
General Hawthorne sat on the edge of his desk. He massaged his forehead and wiped the sheen of sweat from his upper lip. “Sir, to be blunt, the Highborn were a good idea that went bad.”
“A good idea?”
“Superior soldiers, sir. Or, to use a metaphor, a better sword than our foes in Outer Planets could wield. Only this sword has turned in our hand.”
“I see.”
“Actually, one could say it became a magic sword that turned and attacked us.”
“Yes, yes, quite colorful, General, but what is your point?”
“Our old swords, sir, break every time we try to defeat the magic sword. My first theory was to throw so many old swords against it that in time the magic sword would become nicked once too often and shatter. That doesn’t seem to be happening, or it’s not happening fast enough. What we need is a better sword.”
“You mean create more Highborn to throw at the first batch?”
“That’s not a bad idea, sir.”
“It’s lunacy. The first batch turned on us. Why not the second?”
“You’re probably right, sir.”
Enkov scowled. And by that, General Hawthorne believed that his time was limited.
“Sir, what about a new and better sword, even better than the first sword? This new sword we shall be able to control?”
“What are you trying to say?”
“That in deep space a habitat orbits Neptune. Actually, it’s in deep-Neptune orbit. It appears to be like any other of the hundreds of habitats orbiting the gas giant. In actuality it’s the home to a secret and special project.”
“What project?”
“The creation of a new and better sword, sir.”
“Men, General?”
“Soldiers, sir, who can outfight Highborn.”
“Are you mad? What’s to stop them from turning on us like the Highborn have?”
“These are quite different creatures, sir. Their very makeup allows us to implant deep controls.”
“Out with it, man! What are they?”
“Cyborgs.”
The old withered eyes narrowed. Enkov glanced at his bodyguard. “You mean like him?”
“No, sir. Infinitely more deadly. And if I may say so, sir, most inhuman in their efficiency.”
“You’ve actually made enough of these… these cyborgs to change the war?”
“Not yet, sir.”
Director Enkov spat the stub of his stimstick onto the carpet. There it smoldered until the bodyguard crushed it with his foot. “What do you mean ‘not yet’?”
“I need the go ahead for phase two, sir.”
“What is phase two?”
“If the Director would be so kind as to glance at the holochart on my desk….”
For a second they stared eye to eye. Hawthorne wondered if the old man was going to order the bodyguard to kill him. He began to judge how fast he could jump for the gun in his desk.
Then, with a wheeze, ancient Director Enkov began to work his way to his feet to come and look at the holochart.
2.
Far from the raging civil war—past Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus—orbited blue Neptune. Hundreds of habitats orbited it, and many colonies had sprung up on its various moons. The majority of the space habs had been constructed out of weird ice, making them glittering, colorful motes in the eternal night of space. It insured that the Ice Hauler Cartel was one of the major powers in the Neptune System.
The continuing, growing thirst for weird ice and the constant need for new sources of water had finally led the cartel into experimental ship construction. IH-49 was the third of its kind. It was being readied for a long and hopefully momentous journey. However, within the command module things had already started to go wrong.
“That’s impossible.”
“What?”
“My game froze.”
Osadar Di frowned, not sure that she’d heard correctly. Paranoia came easily to her. Thus, she always checked and rechecked everything that could possibly go wrong. It made her an excellent space pilot.
Osadar shut down her scanning program and pushed VR goggles onto her smooth forehead. She had short dark hair, dark worried eyes and a scratch on her nose. A bit too tall for an ice hauler, she had long shapely legs highlighted by her blue-colored jumpsuit. The suit had a red IHC tab on the left shoulder. The cramped command module held screens, consoles and claustrophobically close bulkheads. The commander sat in the middle of this mess, the pink-faced life support officer to his left and Osadar to his right.
The commander, a tough old man with short silver hair, experimentally tapped his VR monocle.
“What game could you possibly be playing at a time like this?” asked Osadar.
“Antiquity.”
”
“Not Earth’s. Neptune’s.”
Because light moved so slowly, three hundred thousand kilometers a second, each planetary grid only linked with computers in its near vicinity. The time lag of say from Earth to Mars—something over five minutes—was too much for players of a complex game like Antiquity to react successfully to each other’s moves.
Osadar checked a screen. The commander used ship’s AI (Artificial Intelligence) to run his ultra complex character. A laser lightguide system hooked him into the nearby Neptune III Net.
“What’s
“Explain.”
“I just ran a diagnostic, and Ajax checks out.”
“Who?”
“Ajax!” He scowled. “My character in the Trojan War.”
Osadar shook her head.
“The Greeks and Trojans, Achilles and Hector? Didn’t they teach you anything in the Jupiter System?”
“Give me the code,” Osadar said.
“Eh?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“Oh. Thanks. The code word is Asimov.”
Osadar put her goggles back on and manipulated her gloves. “There isn’t anything wrong with your character.”
“That’s what I said!”
“So what’s wrong?”
“Ah ha! Found it. The laser-link is down.”
Osadar frowned. It was her habitual look. She tried to squeeze off a message to the nearest IHC station. Zero. She ran a diagnostic on communications. Check. So she sent another flash. Another zero. Either the diagnostic lied or IHC had gone off-line, which wasn’t possible. For that would mean IHC no longer existed. The Ice Hauler Cartel
