Saigyô answered. “Class-twelve field in place and infinitely redundant. CPB deflectors activated. Hyperkinetic countermissiles ready. Plasma shields on maximum. Countermissiles armed and under positive control.” This meant simply that both Dem Lia and Patek Georg would have to give the command to launch them, or—if the human passengers were killed—Saigyô would do so.
“Distance one hundred five thousand klicks and closing,” said Patek Georg. “Relative delta-v dropping to one hundred meters per second. Three more acquisition radars have locked on.”
“Any other transmissions?” asked Dem Lia, her voice tight.
“Negative,” said Den Soa at her virtual console. “The machine seems blind and dumb except for the primitive radar. Absolutely no signs of life aboard. Internal communications show that it has… intelligence… but not true AI. Computers more likely. Many series of physical computers.”
“Physical computers!” said Dem Lia, shocked. “You mean silicon… chips… stone axe-level technology?”
“Or just above,” confirmed Den Soa at her console. “We’re picking up magnetic bubble-memory readings, but nothing higher.”
“One hundred thousand klicks…” began Patek Georg, and then interrupted himself. “The machine is firing on us.”
The outer containment fields flashed for less than a second.
“A dozen CPB’s and two crude laser lances,” said Patek Georg from his virreal point of view. “Very weak. A class-one field could have countered them easily.”
The containment field flickered again.
“Same combination,” reported Patek. “Slightly lower energy settings.”
Another flicker.
“Lower settings again,” said Patek. “I think it’s giving us all it’s got and using up its power doing it. Almost certainly just a meteor defense.”
“Let’s not get overconfident,” said Dem Lia. “But let’s see all of its defenses.”
Den Soa looked shocked. “You’re going to attack it?”
“We’re going to see if we can attack it,” said Dem Lia. “Patek, Saigyô, please target one lance on the top corner of that protuberance there…” She pointed her laser stylus at a blackened, cratered, fin-shaped projection that might have been a radiator two klicks high. “…and one hyperkinetic missile…”
“Commander!” protested Den Soa.
Dem Lia looked at the younger woman and raised her finger to her lips. “One hyperkinetic with plasma warhead removed, targeted at the front lower leading edge of the machine, right where the lip of that aperture is.”
Patek Georg repeated the command to the AI. Actual target coordinates were displayed and confirmed.
The CPB struck almost instantly, vaporizing a seventy-meter hole in the radiator fin.
“It raised a class-point-six field,” reported Patek Georg. “That seems to be its top limit of defense.”
The hyperkinetic missile penetrated the containment field like a bullet through butter and struck an instant later, blasting through sixty meters of blackened metal and tearing out through the front feeding-orifice of the harvesting machine. Everyone aboard watched the silent impact and the almost mesmerizing tumble of vaporized metal expanding away from the impact site and the spray of debris from the exit wound. The huge machine did not respond.
“If we had left the warhead on,” murmured Dem Lia, “and aimed for its belly, we would have a thousand kilometers of exploding harvest machine right now.”
Chief Branchman Keel Redt leaned forward in his couch. Despite the one-tenth g field, all of the couches had restraint systems. His was activated now.
“Please,” said the Ouster, struggling slightly against the harnesses and airbags. “Kill it now. Stop it now.”
Dem Lia shifted to look at the two Ousters and the Templar. “Not yet,” she said. “First we have to return to the Helix.”
“We will lose more valuable time,” broadcast Far Rider, his tone unreadable.
“Yes,” said Dem Lia. “But we still have more than six standard days before it begins harvesting.”
The probe accelerated away from the blackened, cratered, and newly scarred monster.
“You will not destroy it, then?” demanded the Chief Branchman as the probe hurried back to the Helix.
“Not now,” responded Dem Lia. “It might still be serving a purpose for the race that built it.”
The young Templar seemed to be close to tears. “Yet your own instruments—far more sophisticated than our telescopes—told you that there are no worlds in the red giant system.”
Dem Lia nodded. “Yet you yourselves have mentioned the possibility of space habitats, can cities, hollowed-out asteroids… our survey was neither careful nor complete. Our ship was intent upon entering your star system with maximum safety, not carrying out a careful survey of the red giant system.”
“For such a small probability,” said the Chief Branchman Ouster in a flat, hard voice, “you are willing to risk so many of our people?”
Saigyô’s voice whispered quietly in Dem Lia’s subaudio circuit. “The AI’s have been analyzing scenarios of several million Ousters using their solar wings in a concentrated attack on the Helix.” Dem Lia waited, still looking at the Chief Branchman.
“The ship could defeat them,” finished the AI, “but there is some real probability of damage.”
To the Chief Branchman, Dem Lia said, “We’re going to take the Helix to the red giant system. The three of you are welcome to accompany us.”
“How long will the round trip last?” demanded Far Rider.
Dem Lia looked to Saigyô. “Nine days under maximum fusion boost,” said the AI. “And that would be a powered perihelion maneuver with no time to linger in the system to search every asteroid or debris field for life-forms.”
The two Ousters were shaking their heads. Reta Kasteen drew her hood lower, covering her eyes.
“There’s another possibility,” said Dem Lia. To Saigyô, she pointed toward the Helix, now filling the main viewscreen. Thousands of energy-winged Ousters parted as the probe decelerated gently through the ship’s containment field and aligned itself for docking.
They gathered in the solarium to decide. All ten of the humans—Den Soa’s wife and husband had been invited to join in the vote but had decided to stay below in the crew’s quarters—all five of the AIs, and the three representatives of the forest-ring people. Far Rider’s tightbeam continued to carry the video and audio to the three hundred thousand nearby Ousters and the billions waiting on the great curve of tree ring beyond.
“Here is the situation,” said Dem Lia. The silence in the solarium was very thick. “You know that the Helix, our ship, contains an Aenean-modified Hawking drive. Our faster-than-light passage does harm the fabric of the Void Which Binds, but thousands of times less than the old Hegemony or Pax ships. The Aeneans allowed us this voyage.” The short woman with the green band around her turban paused and looked at both Ousters and the Templar woman before continuing. “We could reach the red giant system in…”
“Four hours to spin up to relativistic velocities, then the jump,” said Res Sandre. “About six hours to decelerate into the red giant system. Two days to investigate for life. Same ten-hour return time.”
“Which, even with some delays, would bring the Helix back almost two days before the Destroyer begins its harvesting. If there is no life in the red-giant system, we will use the probe to destroy the robot harvester.”