Tor knew she ought to be checking diagnostics, verifying that emergency seals were holding after the loss of her legs. My very expensive legs… Tor quashed hysterical thoughts. She ought to be twisting to brace for impact, as well as possible.
But energy and volition were gone. Used up. She could only stare skyward-
– as the deadly FACR lashed out again from its perch among some jumbled orbiting rocks-a point in the sky that was now out of Tor’s view. Denied access to her, the predatory machine was seeking other prey. Dusty scatter-glints revealed its deadly light-spear, hunting beyond the crater’s rim… and soon Tor’s audio delivered a sharp cry of shocked dismay.
Oh Gavin. You were too late… and too early.
Her percept-clock told the awful truth. With a five-second recharge rate, the foe would have plenty of time to finish off Gavin and then turn back to Warren, taking out the ship’s primary weapon before it could-
Tor blinked. Was vision failing? The number of sparkle-trails up there seemed to double, then double again… and again! Where there had been one fierce ray, now eight or nine narrow needles crossed the heavens, from left to right, in perfect parallel-even as the first one abruptly vanished.
From her falling vantage point, now much deeper in the apparently bottomless pit, she saw eight rapiers of ferocity strike the sky region where her enemy had lurked and launched its ambush. Now each of those incoming rays wandered through a spiral hunt-pattern, vaporizing sand… rock… and possibly some chunk of bright metal…
Tor choked out a single name. A hoarse cry of jubilation.
“Ibn Battuta!”
Six minutes light-turnaround time. An impossible obstacle to split-second battle coordination. Any actual damage to the FACR would be accidental. But with luck, the surprise and distraction would be just enough to let-
Another fierce harpoon of light entered from Tor’s right. A bolt of vengeance, aimed with precision and negligible delay.
Warren!
Followed by a nova-a new sun-bursting overhead to light the night.
That brief, white-hot illumination gave Tor a sideways glimpse of the asteroid’s jagged cavity, apparently not bottomless after all, converging around and reaching up to swat her, even as she laughed in bitter triumph.
“Take that, you mother-”
Lurker Challenge Number Five
Perhaps you have a policy of noninterference for a different reason… in order to spare us-and our culture-from some harm that might come from contact. Possibly erosion of our sense of free will? Or belief in our high culture? Do you fret about us getting an inferiority complex or other psychic damage? Are there particular types of knowledge we’re “not ready to handle”?
Cautionary lessons come from the sad history of “contact” on Earth, when varied human cultures met for the first time. Often, the one with lower tech sophistication suffered, even collapsed. Does that also happen out there when planet-civilizations meet? Do sad experience and mercy motivate your reluctance to speak?
Indeed, if your decision is backed by very strong proof, then thanks.
Yet-are you sure? Can you be certain we’re so fragile and not an exception? (There were some exceptions, in Earthly first contacts.) Again, might you be rationalizing a decision that you made for other reasons?
Test it! Try contacting groups of humans via the Internet and explore matters that concern you. This will be surprisingly easy, in the form of e-mail letters, or by participating anonymously in social networks or online discussion groups.
You can even call yourselves by your real names! Wear an avatar-body that resembles your own! Everyone in that virtual world will just assume you are eccentric humans, using Internet pseudonyms to playact as aliens. Any awkwardness with our language or culture will be taken as another part of this clever act.
Hence, ironically, the more open you are, the safer your secret will be! And the more you’ll learn.
You may have to be persistent. On many sites, your overtures will be dismissed with no more than a chuckle. But keep trying! Eventually, you will find a place where bright individuals choose gladly to play along, engaging you in conversation with lively enthusiasm, pretending to believe you are alien and discussing your concerns for the sheer intellectual joy of doing so.
Keep exploring and developing your technique, till you find the brightest minds who are willing to engage these topics. You’ll also encounter some of our craziest! So? Learning to tell the difference, and acknowledging the overlap, may be an important part of your education. In so doing, you’ll get to taste the diversity of human thought that is our greatest strength.
What’s the one best sign of a mature person? Letting others help you reconsider your assumptions.
Of course, you may already be doing this! Perhaps posing as eccentric participants in today’s on-line communities… or setting up amusement sites or games to try ideas out before mass audiences…
… or you may write intriguing stories under pseudonym, using a human author as front-man, publishing tales that tease our imaginations, measuring how we respond.
Perhaps you lace these works with special clues that can only be deciphered by purchasing multiple copies of every one of the purported author’s books.
In hardcover, yet.
77.
My paramount sensation must be akin to what humans call gladness-that Tor Povlov and her partner survived their encounter with a rogue killer from the Old Wars.
But how did they survive? My sense of relief blends with perplexity and worry. Was the kill-unit damaged? Degraded by time? Or else, if Earthlings are competent enough to defeat one of the formidable battle machines, shall I recalculate their odds for the Final Game?
Might this attack have been provoked by one of my fellow survivors, in order to test the odds?
Most of the major probes think this ambush has something to do with the Disease-the terrible plague that infectious crystals have spread across the galaxy. One of the space-fomite factions must have felt under threat, or perceived an advantage to be gained, by compelling one of its commandeered fighting units to attempt homicide. This notion is simple, appealing. But I find it far-fetched. As a big computer might sing, in one of those garish HollyBolly sci-fi musicals, “something does not compute.”
My companions tend to blame every evil on the little virus capsules that came flooding through space, during the last hundred million or so years. They forget-we had already been at war for ages, during the era of big, mechanical probes, long before any crystals arrived. The terrible battle they triggered was only the last of many.
There is another theory.
The killbot assaulted Tor and Gavin as they were exploring the ruined replication yard of a big Seeder probe. Could there be a secret hidden in the wreckage? One so fell and worrisome that somebody tried to keep them from uncovering it? Awaiter, Explorer, and several other major survivors propose sending a sneak-unit to investigate. But I’m opposed.
Why bother? If a dark enigma awaits discovery beneath that drifting, rocky tomb, Tor Povlov will uncover it-as soon as she and her partner finish healing repairs and recommence their mission. At which point we’ll learn everything the next time she files a colorful report to her audience, back home on the warm-wet world.