Hunted Earth - The Ring Of Charon Part 37

The education of the new planet's Keeper Ring was barely completed. The Keeper had been handling the Link on a solo basis for only the briefest period of time, but it had the procedure down to a comfortable routine. Maintain the Link, allow the aperture's innate recycle time to complete, stimulate the wormhole aperture to open, direct a Worldeater through the aperture, pull down gravitic quanta from the Dyson Sphere and direct them through the aperture at the same time. Complete all the transactions before the aperture destabilized and collapsed. And then, maintain the Link while the aperture recycled.

It was simple, straightforward, and the thingthe Keeper had been bred to do. The Keeper took the mechanical equivalent of pride and satisfaction in the work, and in the fact that the Sphere had removed its last direct monitors, trusting the Keeper with the responsibility.

But no matter how great the Keeper's competence, no matter how vast its heritage memory, time was still the great teacher, and very little of that had pa.s.sed.

The Keeper Ring-and the Sphere-paid the price for the Keeper's inexperience when the anomaly occurred. It took the Keeper only microseconds to realize something was wrong. The Keeper sensed a strange sensation on its Link to the new star system. A dip in power, a double echo on the last few pulses, as if the Caller Ring on the other end were answering twice. The Keeper increased the draw-down from the Sphere's power feed to match the increased demand while it ran diagnostics on the situation. No need to call the Sphere for help. The Keeper felt confident it could handle the problem on its own.

It had to be his imagination, but to Larry it seemed as if the Ring of Charon were visibly surging, pulsing with power. It had never been designed to store this kind of gravitic potential, but the Gravities Station staff had learned a great deal in his absence. They had devised a way to use part of the Plutopoint singularity's potential to form a toroidal gravity bottle, a gravity-field containment that knotted a toroid of s.p.a.ce between the Ring and the black hole, curving s.p.a.ce back on itself into a doughnut shape centered on the singularity. The containment could store the gravitic potential untilit was needed.

And it was going to be needed soon.

Larry drummed his fingers nervously on the console. "Simon, there are things that I'm not sure of. I think that I've got the Charonian command-image system down. The Gravities Station's engineers agree, and the Simulations work, and the data we're pulling in now from the Keeper tap seem to confirm it. But there's no time for more research. We won't know if we've got it right until we start sending commands-and by then it will be too late to find out if things are going wrong."

"All right," Simon said. "Walk through it with me one more time. a.s.suming everything works, what are you going to do?"

"Well, the best we can hope for is to send false commands to the Lunar Wheel at a higher signal power than the real commands. Because we're putting all our gravitic potential into signaling, and none into power relay, we ought to be able to shout at the Lunar Wheel louder than the Dyson Sphere-or louder than whatever auxiliary the Sphere is using to control the Wheel. Probably the Moonpoint Ring, but we don't know.

"Then we can order the Lunar Wheel to relay our commands to its underlings. Marcia MacDougal recorded a large number of start-work commands sent by the Lunar Wheel to the Landers, and a few that seem to be stop commands. We send shutdown command sequences that ought to work. They should cause all the Landers to stop what they are doing and stand down. That should buy us enough time to learn the command language, and do more refined control-while holding the link to Earth open. If we get good enough with the command system, maybe we could bring Earth back."

"It all sounds very promising. Suppose your commands don't work?"Larry folded his hands in his lap and looked down. "I have a contingency plan. But not one I want to use. It has to be decided ahead of time."

"What has to be decided?" Simon asked, as gently as he could.

Larry seemed unwilling to answer that directly.

"Well, if nothing else works, Marcia found what seems to be an abort order. The Charonians were smart enough to put an off switch in every machine.

It seems to be an order that can be used on any malfunctioning Charonian device or creature, in the event that it goes out of control, threatening others.

She spotted it being sent to the Landers that went out of control and crashed. I can use that command-as a last-ditch effort-to tell the Lunar Wheel and the Moonpoint Ring and all the Landers to die. It's a very simple command. There's no question that we have it right. If we sent it in a general broadcast through the wormhole link, and direct from here it would give us permanent, complete, final shutdown. I have no doubt about that. But of course, there would be other consequences as well," he said.

"Consequences?" Simon Raphael asked. "It would be a full-blown disaster! Without the Wheel, we'll have lost our link to Earth! You yourself pointed out what a disaster that would be when Vespasian suggested killing the Wheel. Earth will still be in danger, exposed to a future breeding binge."

"We've sent Earth our warnings," Larry said.

"Unless a miracle happens and we can bring the planet back here, I don't really think there's much more beyond that we can do, or will be able to do.

Whether or not we are in contact, Earth will have to stop the breeding binge on its own."

"But you yourself said the Dyson Sphere had to have a backup linkage system," Simon said.

"If it does I bet the other end is maintained by the Moonpoint Ring in the Multisystem," Larrysaid. "And the Moonpoint Ring will get the order to die at the same time the Lunar Wheel does. With both ends of the link destroyed, the wormhole will collapse. I don't know if even the Dyson Sphere could find us again."

"How can you even imagine doing such-" Simon Raphael was about to protest, when his eyes fell upon the clock. With every change of the numbers, the Solar System was suffering more and deeper wounds. Three more of the core-matter volcanoes on Venus, and six on Mercury. Port Viking's dome coming apart at the seams, its air rushing out into the Martian night. Daltry's law, he thought. There is always a worse catastrophe. "Forgive me. If it does come to that, perhaps we will find out how we can do such a thing. We've done all we can afford to do in order to prepare for this. There is no time.

Begin it. And good luck."

Larry took a deep breath, turned back to the controls and adjusted the release on the gravitic quanta containment. The Ring took on new power.

Up until now the Plutopoint end of the wormhole had been at the lowest possible energy, a mere pinp.r.i.c.k in the side of the main sky tunnel.

Now Larry amplified the power going into the Pluto aperture, in effect grabbing at s.p.a.ce, grabbing at the pinp.r.i.c.k and pulling it wider, until the pinp.r.i.c.k was a gaping hole in s.p.a.ce.

Simon Raphael watched the main display screen, with half an eye on the countdown clock. The Earthpoint-Moonpoint aperture was to reopen in another five seconds. Four, three, two, one-where there had been a tiny flicker of blue, suddenly there was a blazing flash of color-and a ma.s.sive object was hurtling through s.p.a.ce. Simon caught a glimpse of a gleaming, cigar-shaped object before it flashed out of camera angle.

"Good G.o.d. We caught a Lander!" Simon said.

Suddenly, for the first time, the mad idea of building a worm-hole was real, was concrete to him.A Lander, an asteroid-sized half-living s.p.a.ceship, had popped out of nowhere right in front of them.

"That poor dumb Lander had to have been targeted and programmed for one of the inner planets. Now what the h.e.l.l is it going to do?" Larry asked gleefully. "Good start, and if we didn't know before, we know now," Larry said. "Our aperture is stronger than the Earthpoint aperture. The theory worked-the wormhole is drawn toward the most powerful gravity signal. Now we're in the driver's seat," Larry said eagerly.

"But what will the Sphere do?" Raphael asked.

"Not the Sphere," Larry said. "That's our main hope. The Sphere would be smart enough to handle our attack. But from what I could get out of the reports from Earth, the Sphere delegates everything. My bet is the Moonpoint Ring is running autonomously by now."

"So how will it react?"

"G.o.d only knows." Larry was intent on his control panel. "There! There it is." He threw an oscilloscope tracing on the main screen. "That's the main command signal coming from the Moonpoint Ring through the wormhole. I'm going to shunt it toward us, try and pull as much of that signal in through our aperture as possible, so we can weaken the signal arriving at Earth-point."

Malfunction! Terrible malfunction. Ma.s.sive amounts of power were being drained away from the Link. The young and inexperienced Keeper Ring forced itself to think clearly. There had to be an answer, a solution stored in its heritage memory. But this circ.u.mstance was new, unique,utterly unknown in all the annals of the Sphere and its ancestors. It rushed to abort the next launch of a Worldeater through the aperture, knowing the terrible dangers of sending ma.s.s through an unstable wormhole.

But power. That was the real problem. Without sufficient power, the Caller Ring would be unable to complete its work. The Keeper Ring redoubled its efforts.

On the other end of the wormhole Link, the Caller Ring was equally mystified, equally frightened, and utterly helpless. Without power it was nothing.

"Here we go," Larry said. "We're sending a modulated pulsed gravity beam, at high power, in command mode, right down the wormhole. I'm ordering shutdown of all activity on Mars." He pressed the b.u.t.ton and wiped the sweat off his brow. "h.e.l.l! The Moonpoint Ring is increasing its command power feed to the Lunar Wheel through Earthpoint. I'll have to shunt more power away and store it here to make sure ours is the stronger signal at the Lunar Wheel."

"But we don't have that much storage capacity,"

Raphael said, leaning over the control console.

"We'll have to dump the power, or use it to amplify our own command signal."

"Can't," Larry said tersely. "Everything's at capacity already and there's no way to dump itexcept through the Ring of Charon. Put any more power through the Ring and we'll melt it. And we don't have any storage capacity left in the gravity containment."

There was something wrong with the incoming commands, and nothing could be more terrifying to a Caller Ring. It was getting two command signals at once, and neither made any sense. The weaker one advised that increased power was on the way-but if anything, the power transmission was dropping again. The second command signal was loud, blaringly loud and powerful. It took a supreme effort of will to resist blind obedience to it. But its command syntax was garbled slightly, and there was something odd, disturbingly unfamiliar about it-and the orders did not make sense. A stranger's voice, commanding wrongful acts. The Caller Ring was badly frightened now.

What could it be? What was happening? It sent a reply signal to both senders.

The Keeper Ring was stunned. The Caller was clearly receiving an alien signal. Why was the Caller being ordered to cease disa.s.sembly of one world? Who or what was ordering it? How was it that the increased power the Keeper sent was not received?

The Keeper Ring upped its output to the Caller Ring again.? ? ?

"d.a.m.n all that's holy. Son, we're spiking high,"

Raphael said. "The gravity containment is completely saturated. We can't shunt any more power to it. We have to let the power through to the Lunar Wheel or melt out the Ring."

"Not yet," Larry said. "Just a little bit-hold it, signal coming back. Computers working to interpret. Stand by." Larry stared at the display screen, and his face turned ashen gray. "Oh my G.o.d. We've failed. The Wheel is saying our command was garbled, and indicates receipt of two command signals. We didn't jam the Moonpoint signal hard enough."

"Well, send the Martian shutdown order again,"

Raphael said.

Larry shook his head, and punched in a display code.

A highly complex visual image flashed on the main screen, the schematic of the Martian shutdown command. "Not if it contains an error.

We can't just send it again, the Wheel would just refuse it again." He stared at the schematic, and muttered to himself, trying to read the symbols and codes.

"Can you fix it? Correct the error and send it again?" Simon asked.

Larry shook his head, the sweat popping out on his forehead. "Not in time, not this fast. The d.a.m.n message is too complicated, and we don't know the language well enough. And we can't shunt any more power to our containment, unless you want to recreate the Big Bang right here and now. The Wheel is going to get everything Moonpoint sends-all the power, all the commands-and youcan bet the Moonpoint Ring is going to increase its power relay.

"And now they know we're in the power loop, that there's an intruder in the system. When the Wheel gets a full power signal from Moonpoint, they'll find a way to lock us out. Just change the d.a.m.n frequency, probably. And it'll all be for nothing."

He hesitated for a long moment, and turned toward Simon, a desperate look in his eye. "Unless the Lunar Wheel isn't there anymore."

There was a pause, a deep beat of time while Simon Raphael looked at Larry, and understood what he was saying.

Simon Raphael felt a hard knot in the pit of his stomach. Fifteen minutes ago he had been rejecting the idea as a disaster, but now it was the only choice left. "Do it," he said, Now he wished Larry had kept the whole plan to himself. Dr. Simon Raphael did not want this decision thrust upon him. "Do it. Send the order to die."

Larry decided not to tempt fate by asking for confirmation. He shifted all the power he could draw, called up the signal he had so carefully constructed, and ordered the computer to send it down the wormhole with everything behind it. Not just to the Lunar Wheel-but through the Wheel to the Moonpoint Ring, and through open s.p.a.ce, to every Charonian in the Solar System.

The Caller Ring had never known such terror.

What was happening? What monstrous enemy was doing these things? Suddenly its whole being twitched to attention, a hugely powerful signal grabbing at it, demanding its entire attention. The feel of the message, the voice, was still that of astranger, an alien. But this time the command was unmistakable, sent in perfect syntax and modulation.

And it was the one signal that could not be denied, for it worked not through the Caller's conscious mind, but through the very circuits that formed that mind. The command echoed through the Caller Ring, out on its every command link, to every Worldeater in the system. And rebounded through the Caller Ring itself.

Death.

Stop.

Halt.

Cut power.

Shut down.

Death.

With a strange, cold, fascination, it felt the signal, absorbed it, sensed it coursing through all the myriad links that made up the Caller. It could see the order crashing through all the components of itself.

There was only one hope. It had to set up a stasis storage, set part of itself into hibernation mode before the signal could destroy everything.

Any portion of itself that was shut down would not hear the command, and would survive, inert.

There was very little time left. Only microseconds at best. Almost at random, the Caller selected a portion of itself near the North Pole region and used every command channel it had to send the stasis order.

But then the signal reached the seat of consciousness itself.

Death.

Death.

Dea-? ? ?

The Keeper Ring shuddered, convulsed with pain. Death. Death. Death. It fought off the impulse to die, struggled to clamp down its outgoing comm system. If this hideous command echoed out further, out into the Multisystem, the catastrophe would be complete. The Sphere itself might be imperiled. With a last effort of will, it held the command to itself.

And died.

The Sphere realized something was wrong. It switched its full attention back to the new Keeper Ring, milliseconds too late. It caught the last shreds of the death command on an outgoing signal, deftly countermanded it before it could travel outward. None of the Sphere's other charges would be endangered.

But the Ring was dead, utterly inert. Something had attacked it, and killed it savagely.

Without a Keeper, the Sphere would have to monitor the new world directly, control its...o...b..t personally. A further drain on its resources and attention. No world it had ever taken had caused it so much trouble.

And its new star system! Its hope for a new Multisystem, a refuge against the coming onslaught. Gone. Lost. And with the Link to the new star system shattered, there was no way to know how this thing had happened.The Sphere realized that new star system was not merely lost-it had been deliberately taken away.

For the first time, the Dyson Sphere realized that it had not one enemy, but two.

And the second enemy knew how to deny it a star system.

But who and what had done this thing? The Sphere set to feverish work, sifting through the wreckage of the dead Keeper Ring's memory.

There had to be clues. There had to be a way to get the Link back.

If there was not, the Sphere was doomed. For its first enemy would not stop at killing a single Keeper Ring.

Frank Barlow, lately known as Chelated Noisemaker Extreme, looked down at his instruments, and out the porthole at the Moonpoint singularity. Suddenly there was no activity. The whole farging thing had shut down. As best he could tell with low-power, low-sensitivity, jury-rigged sensors, there was no gravity modulation going on at all. The Ring had stopped controlling the Moonpoint black hole, and the wormhole wasn't there anymore.