“Sounds like a lot of ifs,” Harker noted. “Still, it’s better than anything they’ve come up with so far. There are, of course, a few things that you haven’t explained to me yet.”
“Yes?” Krill responded.
“First, why didn’t the Karas family use this place to shoot their superweapon at the Titans when they were coming? That was the idea, I take it?”
“It was,” Father Chicanis agreed. “Unfortunately, the Titans arrived before the defensive network was fully deployed, and they moved so swiftly that they had the damping mechanism in operation and had established primary occupation of Helena before anyone could act. Then there was the problem of what to do as a result. They had the system in place, but the plates weren’t fully deployed. Some were, and I suppose still are, in the underground complex thirty kilometers or so outside of Ephesus, or, at least, where Ephesus used to be. That’s where the Dutchman’s agent was heading, to see if anything really did remain that was of great enough value to risk a larger team to come in and loot.”
“Being that close to a Titan base, what could they possibly hope to steal?” Katarina Socolov asked, making her presence felt for the first time.
“Good question. The answer is data modules,” Krill replied. “With trickle charges they can retain their information for many centuries. The Titan scouring doesn’t go deep underground, and the damping field only sucks up significant sources of energy which it surveys and then targets. It doesn’t drain batteries; it simply ignores them since you can’t recharge them and it can act if significant stored energy is released. There was every reason to believe that the data modules for this project remained down there, probably in the cold and dark ruins of the place, but accessible.”
“You mean they were already going for the Lens?”
“No, not at all. The Dutchman never believed it would work, I don’t think. But the physics involved, the research, and, most of all, the almost century-old security codes for holdings throughout The Confederacy would still be valid in some places, particularly ones that were hastily evacuated. I will give each of the ground crew a small portion of what the agent—whose name was Michael Joseph Murphy, by the way—of the infiltration into the, area and into the complex. Part of it had collapsed, all of it was quite dark and dangerous. The upshot is that he could not make it to the data control center. He had to content himself with the administrative records only. Those are what we have. Those are what he thought was vital enough to give his own life for, to uplink after a nightmarish journey across a very alien landscape. So we know where to look. We have sufficient numbers to make it work, but we’re few enough to escape notice. And we know from the administrative recordings that it is quite likely the key ones also survive. That data on the wormhole seals would allow us to control and possibly selectively `fire’ the weapon by linking gates and opening and closing routings. That’s what this place does.”
“We’re going down there, Harker,” N’Gana said firmly. “We’re going down much better outfitted than Mister Murphy was. He was a pirate, a freebooter, a thief with enormous guts. I’ll give him that. Guts and the integrity to do his job even if he himself couldn’t make it. I don’t know what motivated him. He was a deserter from long ago and a scoundrel and probably a killer, but when he saw that the Priam weapon might just destroy the enemy, he died a patriot. Now we have to finish his job. The initial targeting systems that were here when the Titans came in are no good. The Titans drained the power from the old gates. The normal transport ones imploded as you’d expect, but the ones designed for this project were inert, they had their power supplies at idle rather than off. The Titans drained them and, as a security measure, they shorted. None of the targeting information survived there. We’re going in to get the backup. They never figured out how, even though they worked to the end finishing this thing. I understand it broke the old man’s heart as well as his wallet.”
Father Chicanis sighed. “Yes, he was a great man and he could not live with this level of failure after all he had built. His sister has kept the hope and dream alive with fanatical devotion, and herself alive as well way beyond what anyone could conceive, all in the faith that one day God would find a way.”
“Some holy messenger!” Harker snorted. “The Dutchman’s a monster!”
“Perhaps, but many monsters wound up doing God’s bidding in the past, and He has different standards. Many of the heroines of the Bible are real or pretend prostitutes and thieves, and even the most beloved of God, King David, committed murder, adultery, and most of the other sins prohibited in the Ten Commandments. I can pray for the souls of his victims and for his own soul, but I will not allow who or what he is to reject what is brought to us.”
Harker thought a moment. “Constantine Karas—his sister is the old lady?”
“No, not really. She’s far more stubborn and ancient than that. Madame Sotoropolis, you see, is Constantine Karas’s grandmother. Or, at least, she’s ninety percent cyborg and ten percent ancient grandmother who is dedicated to this on sheer willpower. Her daughter, Melinda, Constantine’s mother, died a few years ago, trying to assemble and finance an expedition just to see if this sort of thing was feasible. She failed. The Dutchman didn’t. Sometimes it pays to have a thief about if you want to steal something.”
Harker thought it over. “Then why not have thieves do this?”
“The Dutchman’s no fool. Murphy died, and died ugly. He’s not going to risk more of his limited band on this. Instead, he notified the Karas family and they took it from there. He controls the exit, after all.”
Gene Harker didn’t much like the sound of that. “So what you’re saying is, if this is really down there, and if we can somehow get it, and if we can get it back here in some unfathomable manner, and if this thing is still set up right, and if this theoretical bullshit actually works, and if it really can blow slashing gaps through Titans, then we have to turn over this power exclusively to someone who has no ethics, no morals, and could become the next oppressor?”
“One thing at a time, Mister Harker,” Colonel N’Gana said philosophically. “You go back and count through all those ifs you just spouted. He’s the concluding problem if all the other ones work out. Let’s do one thing at a time. Besides, the human race has had countless tyrants over it and always managed to outlast them. We can deal with our own kind, no matter how insane, sooner or later. But if we can’t first deal with the Titans, then what difference does the rest make?”
There wasn’t a good answer to that. Finally Harker said, “So, how is this supposed to work? You go down there and go hand to hand with all the threats that might be there, minus any suits or computers or authentic weaponry, and you clear the path so Father Chicanis can guide you to the installation while Doc Socolov studies and deals with the natives, or whatever the surviving humans might be called. Then our silent Quadulan friend here slides down past the blockage through a hole it can get through even if you can’t, retrieves the backup modules, and you all sneak out past the noses of the Titans and somehow manage to get picked up without them seeing you and blowing you out of the air and without whatever got that poor bloke Murphy eating you, then you turn the liberated data over to the science trio up here, and we blow the beggars away and bring freedom to the universe. That about right?”