Redemption Ark

[The field is much stronger. The ship’s effective mass is now only twenty per cent of what it was when we left the Mother Nest — there’s a relatively small part of the ship projecting ahead of the field, but we can do better than that simply by increasing the field strength.] Skade clapped her hands together with a creak of armour. [Think of it, Remontoire — we could squeeze our mass down to one per cent, or less — accelerate at a hundred gees. If our bodies were inside the bubble of suppressed inertia we’d be able to withstand it, too. We’d reach near-light cruise speed in a couple of days. Subjective travel between the closest stars in under a week of shiptime. There’d be no need for us to be frozen. Can you imagine the possibilities? The galaxy would suddenly be a much smaller place.]

But that’s not why you developed it. Remontoire climbed to his feet. Still lightheaded, he steadied himself against the wall. It was the closest he had come to intoxication in a great while. This excursion had been interesting enough, but he was now more than ready to return upship, where the blood in his body would behave as nature had intended.

[I’m not sure I understand, Remontoire.]

It was for when the wolves arrive — the same reason you’ve built that evacuation fleet.

[Sorry?]

Even if we can’t fight them, you’ve at least given us a means of running away very, very quickly.

Clavain opened his eyes from another bout of forced sleep. Cool dreams of walking through Scottish forests in the rain seduced him for a few dangerous moments. It was so tempting to return to unconsciousness, but then old soldierly instincts forced him to snap into grudging alertness. There had to be a problem. He had instructed the corvette not to wake him until it had something useful or ominous to report, and a quick appraisal of the situation revealed that this was most emphatically the latter.

Something was following him. Details were available on request.

Clavain yawned and scratched at the now generous growth of beard that he sported. He caught a glimpse of himself in the cabin window and registered mild alarm at what he saw. He looked wild-eyed and maniacal, as if he had just stumbled from the depths of a cave. He ordered the corvette to stop accelerating for a few minutes, then gathered some water into his hands from the faucet, cupping the amoeba-like droplets between his palms, and then endeavoured to splash them over his face and hair, slicking and taming hair and beard. He glanced at his reflection again. The result was not a great improvement, but at least he no longer looked feral.

Clavain unharnessed himself and set about preparing coffee and something to eat. It was his experience that crises in space fell into two categories: those that killed you immediately, usually without much warning, and those that gave you plenty of time to ruminate on the problem, even if no solution was very likely. This, on the basis of the evidence, looked like the kind which could be contemplated after first sating his appetite.

He filled the cabin with music: one of Quirrenbach’s unfinished symphonies. He sipped the coffee, leafing through the corvette’s status log entries while he did so. He was pleased but not surprised to see that the ship had operated flawlessly ever since his departure from Skade’s comet. There was still adequate fuel to carry him all the way to circum-Yellowstone space, including the appropriate orbital insertion procedures once he arrived. The corvette was not the problem.

Transmissions had been received from the Mother Nest as soon as his departure had become evident. They had been tight-beamed on to him, maximally encrypted. The corvette had unpacked the messages and stored them in time-sequence.

Clavain bit into a slice of toast. ‘Play ’em. Oldest first. Then erase immediately.‘

He could have guessed what the first few messages would be like: frantic requests from the Mother Nest for him to turn around and come home. The first few gave him the benefit of the doubt, assuming — or pretending to assume — that he had some excellent justification for what looked like a defection attempt. But they had been half-hearted. Then the messages gave up on that tack and simply started threatening him.

Missiles had been launched from the Mother Nest. He had turned off his course and lost them. He had assumed that would be the end of it. A corvette was fast. There was nothing else that could catch him, unless he turned to interstellar space.

But the next set of messages did not emanate from the Mother Nest at all. They came from a tiny but measurable angle away from its position, a few arc-seconds, and they were steadily blue-shifted, as if originating from a moving source.