When the answer finally came, I had dozed off. It seemed as if this reply had taken longer than usual to come in. Perhaps it had. Often, when asked a complex question, the Centaurs discussed it among themselves at length before answering.
“We have only a single, overriding need. You must maintain the honor you have gained. Keep the sweet winds in your fur. Return us to our worlds, and help us regain all was taken from us. Never allow the reflection of the sky to leave our eyes. In return, our millions will march with you to our sacred deaths.”
“I promise,” I said. And meant it.
We broke the connection then, and I fell asleep in my command chair.
— 3
I had a few days before we would be ready to fly to the Centaur satellites and begin our trial runs. During this time, I used all the destroyers to gather raw materials from the battlefield. We’d need more than factories to build the things I needed. We’d need raw materials, too.
During this time I became curious about what was going on beyond the ring we guarded. Was a task force of Macros massing out there, getting ready to invade the Eden system and destroy all our plans? What kind of a system was on the far side, anyway?
I laid mines in front of the ring while I thought about it. That’s what I set the single factory I had to producing: thousands upon thousands of mines. I could have sent a ship nosing through the ring to have a look around at any time during this operation, but I didn’t dare. At their core, the Macros were computers. If you’ve ever dealt with an artificial intelligence, you know how such minds tend to behave. They might stand quietly, motionless and seemingly asleep for a long time. But eventually, some kind of trigger is met, and at that point they spring into action. Getting too near one of these things altered its behavior. If they were gathering on the far side, they might well do so for months, waiting until they reached a preset count of ships. Only then would they move. But if I dared to change the game, they would change their plans and respond to the stimulus. Generally, with the Macros, I’d found stimulating them too much was bad for your health.
Still, despite knowing the risks, I couldn’t help wondering if I could get away with taking a peek on the other side. Perhaps not a ship-that would be too much. But what about a single man in a suit? A cold, emission-free, stealth-suit. If such a hypothetical man had a camera say, and other passive sensory equipment, he would probably escape notice entirely. The idea tempted me more as every hour passed.
The logical thing to do would be to send Marvin or Kwon or someone less valuable. But I wanted to see the new system myself. Call me crazy, but until you’ve explored star systems personally, you can’t understand the allure.
I kept thinking about taking a little walk outside, maybe a jaunt around the circumference of my ship. The idea worked on my mind like a siren’s call. If Sandra or Crow had been around to talk me out of it, maybe I never would have gone.
But they weren’t.
“Colonel Riggs?” Marvin asked the day I was finally geared up and ready to go.
“What?”
“Take me with you.”
I chuckled. “This isn’t anything important, Marvin,” I said. “I just want to suit-up and examine the ring visually. Cameras can only tell you so much. I’m sure you understand.”
Marvin looked me up and down with his numerous camera eyes. “Your optical organs are superior to cameras?”
“Yes,” I said. “They probably are. Analog input is generally inferior, but in this case I’d take it over digital any day.”
“Interesting,” Marvin said.
Several of his cameras investigated my suit. It was my normal battle suit, but it had been carefully altered. Instead of the blue glowing LEDs covering it like a Christmas tree, it was jet black. It was as dark as space itself. I’d also taken pains to disconnect the heat sinks and all automatic radio transponders. Unless I keyed open a microphone, it wouldn’t generate any form of emissions.
“You’ve made a number of preparations for this-spacewalk.”
“Yes Marvin, and I thank you for your help in that regard.”
Marvin watched me closely as I stepped to the airlock and the nanite bubble covering the entrance dissolved away, and I stepped inside. It would be a relief to escape Marvin’s probing. He obviously knew something was up.
“Colonel Riggs?”
“What is it now?”
“I still want to go with you. If I promise not to transmit anything, can I go?”
“Go where? Outside the ship? You do that all the time.”
“No-I want to go through the ring, with you.”
I heaved a sigh. How should I handle this one? Evasion wasn’t working out for me this time. Worse, if Marvin had figured it out, others might do the same.
“I can’t take you with me,” I said. “It’s too dangerous. You’ll emit a radio squawk or something and give us away. Even a small amount of propulsion might be noticed. You have heat sinks and your repellers give off a distinct signature.”
“I’ve been working on that.”
I frowned. “You have?”
“Yes, I’ve been watching your preparations, and I understand them. I might even know more about this than you do, Colonel. Recall that I once spent days in a Macro-owned system while they hunted me unsuccessfully.”
“Yeah, and you made a deal with them to sell us out for the privilege of snooping around.”
“That was an error. It will not happen again.”
“Only because the Macros are on to you, and have you marked down in some database as kill-on-sight.”
Marvin’s cameras reshuffled themselves. “Do you want to see my preparations?”
“All right,” I said, becoming curious. “What have you got?”
He scooted into the airlock with me and waited expectantly. His cameras flicked from my face to my hands and back to the wall. Touching the appropriate area would bring up a touch-sensitive radial menu in metallic relief.
“I take it you want to go outside?”
“My auxiliary systems would not fit in the ship.”
I laughed. He had me now, and we both knew it. I wanted to see what he had built for himself. I wondered if he had banked on my curiosity, and if that was part of his scheme. Marvin was always scheming.
I gave up and reached out to touch the outer wall. The wall vanished, and we floated out into space with the escaping gasses. I let it happen, leaving my magnetics off. I had a number of low emission methods to maneuver myself as needed. Behind me, I dragged a garbage-can-sized sensor box, which I’d set to strictly passive mode. I was sure it wasn’t going to send out any pings and give us away. It would only record everything around us.
A more analytical soul might have pointed out that sending a man on this mission-namely me-was not strictly necessary. All I had to do was send a sensor unit with Marvin or even by itself. When it got whatever input it could, it could be programmed to return and allow me to examine the data in relative safety.
But that just wasn’t good enough for me. I felt a place hadn’t truly been explored until a human eye had examined it in person. I’d always been bored by the endless army of roving little robots NASA sent out to roam over Mars or swing around between Jupiter’s moons. The human experience could not be discounted. Moreover, this ring was only a mile or two from my ship. It seemed like a crime to ignore it, to pass up the thrill of that first investigation.
Once I was outside the ship, I didn’t see much other than Socorro’s smoothly curved hull. The yellow sun glared from the surface, blinding me if I looked in that direction. Stretched below was the dark, icy hulk of Hel. It gleamed brightly with reflected frost on the sunward side, while the other half was encased in clinging shadows.
Marvin slid away down Socorro’s hull to the underbelly of the ship. There, something dark and angular was attached to the hull. Marvin conjoined with this mass, and I frowned as I watched it. Was it a suit or a miniature spaceship? I supposed it was a little of both.