Kitabı oku: «A Leap Across the Abyss», sayfa 3

“What do you think those who built these robots looked like, Lit-ta?”

“We’ve been wondering the same thing. As you know, we’re pretty good at everything with natural and artificial evolution of living things, but the conclusions of our bioengineers have been mixed. They were definitely not lizards, toads, humans, or quargs. So we have the paradoxical view that these machines had evolved on their own for some time, without the help of their creators, as unbelievable as this may sound. By the way, we gave them a name, and I’m curious if our perception matches yours. What would you call the civilization that created these robots?”

I thought for a few seconds, but I finally decided that the first association that came to my head was the best thing to designate what I saw.

“This is Swarm, a swarm of insects who built war machines in their own image. I have no basis for this opinion – it’s just a first impression that I’m used to trust.”

“Perhaps Igor, humans and lizards are not as different as they seem at first glance,” Lit-ta spoke thoughtfully, “We gave them the name «Hive».”

Chapter 3

Yoon Gao and Mbia arrived seven hours later. Earlier their journey would have taken several days, but mass production of transport rings revolutionized the Federation’s logistics. General of the Army Barrington jokingly complained that I had robbed him of his job with my invention, but it was clear that in fact the permanent head of the rear services was pleased with the changes that had taken place.

“André, have you forgotten your last landing on Groombridge-2?” I asked the Colonel with a grin.

We had tea in my office on board Dragon’s Tail and I was telling the scouts why I pulled them out of the Solar System.

“Who could forget it with this,” Mbia absentmindedly moved his hand, hit by a shell fragment during the operation to rescue President Tobolsky from an underground shelter. The arm recovered long ago and did not cause the Colonel any discomfort, but the memory of the injury remained.

“Would you like to do that again?”

“Eh… Is that a question?”

“Well, for now, yes.”

“Then it depends on what needs to be repeated. If this is about covert landing on the planet and reconnaissance, you know I’m all for it. But if you need to attack an enemy company reinforced with combat robots with a bare ass again, pardon me, with small arms in your hands, do it without me if you can.”

“Yes, I remember that. That time your raid didn’t go very well, even though you did a brilliant job,” I agreed with the Colonel, “but in this case, I hope it won’t be necessary to fight, and not even to save anyone, except for a few million quargs now on the planets of Groombridge.”

“My ship won’t have so many quargs,” Yoon Gao raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly.

“Something else will save them, and that is what I want to deliver to the planets with your help, Yoon. You and André know that we’ve been shooting a little bit here, and as a result, the orbital defense of Groombridge-2 has lost its fighting power. The new non-lethal ammunition was used well, but it turned out it didn’t do us much good. Apparently, the toads have made changes in the mental block given to the quargs, and now they can’t surrender to us. In fact, they couldn’t surrender to the lizards before, because the quargs knew very well that the reptiles could remove the block, but now that, along with the cruiser captured near Kappa Ceti, we have got the equipment to remove the blocks, the situation seems to have changed, and the toads updated the conditions for activating the death-order.”

“It makes perfect sense for them,” the Chinaman shrugged his shoulders, “what I don’t understand is, why didn’t they do it right away? Why allow the possibility of any negotiations with the enemy or surrender in the previous version of the block?”

“A few hours before we met, two captive toads were brought here – the captain of the captured cruiser and the doctor. I questioned them both again. The captain doesn’t know much about the modus operandi of the block, but the doctor turned out to be more informed, which is no surprise. As it turned out, the number of conditions for the death-order to be triggered cannot be too high. Or, rather, it can be, but then there’s a sharp increase in the risk of mental illness in the block’s host, and this danger is higher the longer such «overloaded» block is in the quarg brain. This makes it impossible to impose such comprehensive conditions as, for example, death in violation of any order of the masters. The quarg’s brain simply can’t withstand this kind of setup. The toad doctor, of course, couldn’t have known exactly what changes were made to the block, but he suggested that the conditions for activation of the death-order had expanded significantly. This was a deliberate risk, given the emergency that followed the Kappa Ceti combat. Apparently, the toads’ leadership hopes to solve the problem relatively quickly and get everything back, or even substantially weaken the block for a while if they can get rid of us and the lizards.”

“And what will it take for us to thwart the enemy’s wicked designs?” Mbia was back in the conversation.

“I issued an ultimatum to the quargs almost eight hours ago. I gave them 48 hours to voluntarily evacuate from the system and promised not to attack the planets or touch their transport ships. The result so far is zero, the quargs are sitting on planets with no activity. Only a few light ships have left the system. We did not stop them from accelerating and jumping, but I think it had nothing to do with the evacuation.”

“In fact, it would be strange to expect otherwise,” Yoon Gao shrugged his shoulders. “They have a very strong Internal Security Service, which is staffed only by the quargs, who have voluntarily chosen to side with their masters. So without their permission, no transport leaves the system.”

“I think you’re right, Yoon, and all the more important is the task I’m about to entrust to you. I need you to secretly bring a captured little toad recon ship to the surface of the planet in your ship’s hangar. And then with its help, our task force will visit their largest city, or the place where their chief person responsable for the planet lives.”

The puzzled scouts went into silence for a while.

“But, Igor…” uttered Mbia, being a bit confused, “it’s not an army reconnaisance task, it’s a human intelligence mission, which, for obvious reasons, we don’t do and never did. We’d need to make direct contact… Yoon will take us to the planet, hiding behind a camouflage field, I mean, the Empire made sure and provided the necessary equipment for his department, but then what? Neither I nor my people are quargs. How do we get into their cities?”

“But you won’t get there, André. You will land, secure and camouflage the temporary base, put the special task force in the captured recon ship and send it to the city, and then, after they complete the task, meet them and arrange for evacuation.”

“Will the quargs come with us?” Yoon Gao has even lost his usual imperturbability for a moment.

“Not only quargs, Yoon. The task force will consist of three – two quargs and a toad.”

* * *

The recruitment of the toad doctor went surprisingly smoothly. Unlike the captain of the cruiser, who gave us the information we needed only through the use of chemical agents that loosened his tongue, the doctor told many things voluntarily. However, Tlet was not a coward; rather, he was an unscrupulous and cynical being who had nothing but contempt for the top leaders of his state. He enlisted in the fleet solely for financial gain and status, and he thought his choice was right, as long as his duties were limited to the hassle-free work of a medic on the ship, that was escorting transports in the deep rear of the quargs. However, the combined attack of humans and lizards on the Kappa Ceti system brought into Tlet’s measured life a not too pleasant variety in the form of space battle and captivity.

The medic blamed his captivity on the incompetent idiot who commanded the convoy. According to Tlet, there was no point in getting into a fight near Kappa Ceti, but Commander Shreen, who was nothing but an inflated bubble, decided that simply leaving and reporting to the Supreme Leader was not enough. He wished to capture or destroy the hyperportal which, unexpectedly for them, was possessed by humans, and which this underdeveloped civilization simply could not have. Well, OK, he made that decision, but then why did he separate the cruisers? If the commander had sent all three warships to attack, things might have been different, but no! How can you leave the transport with the priceless Shreen’s carcass on board without cover? And the fact that this transport would have no problem getting away from any slow human ship, is an insignificant detail.

Anyway, my offer has found fertile ground, but the toad still had reasonable doubts, and I had to work really hard to get him to cooperate.

“Tell me, Admiral, why should I be on your side?” asked the toad, looking closely at me with his bulging eyes, “Well, all right, let’s say you’re telling the truth and you’re genuinely willing to do whatever you promised me here. Let’s say, once again, that you and I will succeed, and you will win in the Groombridge Star system a grand, bloodless victory, capturing millions of prisoners. What’s next for you? You will return to your metropolis as a hero, but you will have no time to enjoy your triumph. I don’t know how many more weeks it will take for the High Lodge to assemble a new fleet and join the quargs in invading your space, putting an end to this war, but I’m sure it’s a month at the most. We make one more unlikely assumption that I will survive the upcoming slaughter, and I will be freed by my own. Should I continue?”

“Don’t bother, Officer Tlet, your message is clear. Have you ever wondered why, instead of preparing for a hopeless defense, our fleet launched this offensive?”

“That question has been bothering me ever since I got here,” admitted the toad.

“And I’ll explain that to you now, I’ll just start from afar. Would you care to recall how many active hyperportals are there in the space you control?”

“At the time of my capture, there were seven or eight,” responded the toad quickly, “I can’t say for sure – one of the portals malfunctioned all the time and was about to completely fail.”

“Here! And we have almost three dozen of them, most of them mobile, able to fly independently through hyperspace.”

“It certainly gives you an advantage in logistics,” agreed Tlet, “but it doesn’t help if we strike with all our forces at one point – your Solar System, for example.”

“And why do you think, Officer Tlet, that the hyperportal is the only technology humans have ever surpassed you?”

“Well, at least because in the battle at Kappa Ceti, which cost your fleet huge losses, you didn’t use anything else to surprise us.”

“Come on, officer,” said I and got up, “I want to show you something.”

Of course, it was a desperate bluff, but I just needed badly the toad’s approval to participate in the operation. I saw no other way to reach my goal, so I took a chance. Knowing how our conversation will proceed, I even before the start of recruitment set the task to the technicians of Dragon’s Tail, and they rushed through the work. Now I hoped that the result of their efforts would impress the toad.

The doors of the hangar spread out to the sides, and we were faced with battle machines lined up. Lit-ta kindly allowed me to take Swarm’s combat robot unit, found by the lizards on the cut-in-half asteroid, for research in the Jeff Department. I couldn’t afford to risk disclosing information on our contact with the Empire to the toad, there was no way to give information about the Empire to the enemy. But these machines made a strong impression on Tlet.

“I remember that your specialty is medicine, Officer Tlet,” said I as I watched the reaction of the toad, “but I think you’re familiar with the basic characteristics of your ground warfare equipment, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I am, Admiral,” responded the toad in a few seconds, “Not as well as I should be, but who knew… What I see on the back of the larger robot is a protective field emitter?”

“I see, you’re showing false modesty, Officer. In fact, you’re much better at combat robots than I thought,” I’ve decided to flatter the toad a little, “And how does that make you feel?”

“These are dangerous machines, Admiral. I didn’t think you could do that, but to be honest, I’m not that convinced. There were no protective fields on your ships, which means you’re showing me single specimens that haven’t been mass-produced yet. And you don’t have time to rearm, but if you put anything on your ships in time, it’ll probably be first-generation fields – not very reliable and with very limited resources. I don’t think they can turn the tide.”

The toad was far from a fool, and despite his medical specialty, he was able to understand the most important thing about what he saw. Well, I had one last trump card left, and now it was time to pull it out of my sleeve.

“Now, dear Officer Tlet, I’ll show you something else. Perhaps this will help you make the right decision. Major Lavroff,” said I into the communicator, addressing my wife, “activate the camouflage fields.”

We certainly couldn’t make the protective shields of the Swarm’s robots work. Jeff and his men had still a long way to go to study them, but I just needed to show the toad something impressive, and I remembered what a shock my EW complexes, especially the later modifications, had on Federation officers. And yet they were nothing compared to the Empire’s camouflage fields. And now I had on board the camouflage field generators brought here by Yoon Gao for landing on Groombridge-2. It was these generators that the technicians of Dragon’s Tail attached in a hurry to the bodies of Swarm’s robots.

The combat machines were covered with the pouring currents of trembling air, and became almost transparent. The robots haven’t disappeared completely, but if the hangar were a few times more spacious, it would be difficult to see the robots from its far end. The opposite wall of the hangar could be seen through the robots in every detail. On my signal Inga has led in movement a Goanna, which has walked slowly behind the formation of robots, hidden by the camouflage field. The toad kept watching the field almost without distortion reproduce on the frontal armor of the combat machines the robot walking in the background, preserving the high quality of camouflage.

“Are you satisfied now, Officer Tlet?” asked I with a slight smile.

“I saw everything I needed,” the voice of the toad showed firmness, saying that he had made a decision, “Let’s not waste time, you haven’t yet told me the details of our joint operation.”

* * *

Groombridge-2 was waiting. It’s already been half the 48 hours that the humans have given. The cautious suggestion of the Head of Civil Administration to take advantage of the opportunity to evacuate at least civilians was met with complete misunderstanding by the Surveillants. Negotiations and any agreements with the enemy have been strongly discouraged before, and now, in the light of the new instructions of the Masters, they were subject to the strictest prohibition and the penalty of death.

The Head of planetary control, Fetz, hasn’t slept in over 24 hours. He was informed of all incidents involving attempts by servicemen and civilians to violate the will of the Masters on Groombridge-2. Much to Fetz’s regret, not all deviant behavior of the quargs could be prohibited by the mental block, and the Surveillants were carrying out the voluminous, difficult but desperately needed work of controlling the loyalty of the population and the army.

An emergency call alert made the Head of Surveillants to turn to the communications device.

“Chief, our scanners have registered a high-orbit combat,” reported the planetary defense commander.

“Has the fleet come to our aid?” There was hope in Fetz’s voice.

“Alas, Chief, it is not so. The battle was local and has already ended, although it is not entirely clear what it was. The enemy fleet has largely retreated to the outer limits of the system, but the light forces continue to patrol the central areas and the circumplanetary area. Two enemy destroyers must have spotted a ship attempting to approach the planet and attacked it. The operators of scanners observed explosions of missile warheads and cannon salvos. The human ships were allegedly damaged and retreated. We have not been able to detect the ship they attacked, nor any sign of its destruction. Maybe it was a reconnaissance ship with a next-generation camouflage equipment. If so, it could have gone into the atmosphere, and the humans did not risk chasing it for fear of a volley of anti-orbital missile batteries.”

“If these are our scouts, they will soon show up,” suggested Fetz.

“What if it’s staged and the enemy has infiltrated the planet?” The commander of the planetary defense was in doubt.

“That would make no sense to the humans. Why would the enemy draw attention to their own reconnaissance ship entering the atmosphere?” objected Fetz, “We just have to wait. Just to be on the safe side, bring ground forces in the area of a potential breakout into a state of heightened readiness for sabotage attacks. I don’t think it makes much sense, but let it be.”

“Yes, Chief.”

The new emergency call came in 30 minutes. This time, it was a scanner post reporting directly to the Surveillants.

“Chief Fetz,” the commander of the post reported in a disturbed voice, “Scanners have picked up a target outside the planetary defense force. It’s a small aerospace recon ship of the Masters. It’s moving towards the capital. You’ll have it in 15 minutes.”

Now for the Head of planetary control, everything was in place. If the Masters’ reconnaissance ship has broken the blockade, it is understandable that the humans could not shoot it down. The odd thing is why they even managed to detect it, but maybe the Masters, for some reason, decided to identify themselves with the adversary, who knows?

“Provide the recon ship with a safe passage! Pick up fighters for escort, but don’t get too close, the Masters don’t like it.”

* * *

“What did you promise him, Fleet Admiral, Sir?” asked General Clay, who approached me quietly. He closely observed on the tactical projection, how Yoon Gao’s reconnaissance ship exchanged shots of training and simulation munitions with our two destroyers in high orbits of Groombridge-2.

“Nothing out of the ordinary, General, Sir,” I smiled at my former immediate superior, and now a representative of the Allied Empire, “comfortable conditions of captivity until the end of the war and a high post in the occupation administration after our victory, and this post will be higher, the more useful he will be to us now.”

“And how did you convince him that your victory is achievable? You didn’t tell him you were in contact with the Empire before you sent him behind enemy lines.”

“No, of course not, but your camouflage fields, which I gave away as our design, made the required impression on the toad. He already knew we had a hyperportal, and yet another technology that surpassed our overall scientific and technological level did not surprise him, but it led him to believe that our chances of victory were real.”

“Aren’t you afraid that once the toad is in the enemy’s position, he’ll immediately forget all your arrangements?”

“Anything is possible, but I think he still values his life above everything else. The simple technical device attached to his body will protect us from his reckless actions. I think he’s making a good assessment of his chances of surviving an explosion of 300 grams of OKFOL. ”

“Simple but reliable,” agreed the General, “Above all, it provides a very good incentive to honor the commitments made.”

“I thought so too,” I smiled to the General, “but I have another reason to think that the toad won’t do anything stupid. During the task assignment, he himself gave us some very interesting information and suggested adjustments to the plan, which has made it possible to reduce significantly the risk of disruption of the operation and mass destruction of the quargs. So I think our infiltrator has taken the bait, and now he’s not going anywhere.”

* * *

The Head of planetary control, Fetz, has personally come out to greet the dignitaries. In fact, it was extremely rare for Masters to visit a quarg planet on such a small ship – usually the Masters were very sensitive about their safety. The Head of planetary control couldn’t even remember if this had happened before, but on the other hand, the Masters’ cruisers have never been involved in battles before, much less killed in them. So things could have changed, and Fetz wasn’t too surprised by what happened.

The coordinates of the landing site were given in advance to the ship approaching the capital, and now Fetz watched as a small recon ship, which was translucent because of the camouflage fields still on, was neatly heading in for a landing.

When the Masters’ ship’s entrance hatch opened, Fetz realized the surprises were far from over. Only one Master descended on a short ladder onto the plastic-concrete landing site. His companions were just behind him – two quargs in the uniform of Surveillance officers. Fetz has never seen anything like this before. The Masters were extremely reluctant to allow quargs on board their ships, and certainly never shared flights with them, especially alone. But Fetz had no doubt that the Master and his ship were very real, and he decided not to rack his brains over the whims of the higher race and just wait for the explanations that would follow.

Explanations followed, but they could not but give rise to new questions.

“Chief Fetz,” said Special Representative Tlet with a slight arrogance, as was always the case with the Masters, “we are extremely short of time. In less than 24 hours, the decisive battle for Groombridge-2 will begin, in which planetary defense forces are obliged to repel the landing men and lizards and hold out until aid arrives from the central worlds. At the time of my departure, the fleet was almost formed, and by now it’s certainly on its way.”

“That is very encouraging information, Master,” responded the Head of planetary control, bowing his head, “Thank you so much for trusting me with it.”

As a child, the quarg was taught not to ask questions to the Masters, so, in spite of thoughts crowding in his head, Fetz stood humbly and waited for Tlet to continue with the task.

“Chief Fetz,” Tlet said it in a surprisingly normal voice, devoid of arrogance, “I have to tell you, we made a mistake. You’re used to Masters not making mistakes, but things happen for the first time. I hope you understand the level of trust I have in telling you this?”

The quarg’s brain boiled and was about to explode. Everything he was used to in his relationship with his Masters went to the abyss. Before him stood an Extraordinary Representative of the Supreme Lodge, who has just confessed his mistake! And to whom? To him – to a quarg! It just couldn’t have been because it could never have been, but Fetz knew that even if he pinched himself really hard right now, nothing would change, and Extraordinary Representative Tlet wouldn’t disappear into thin air.

“I see you realised that,” said Tlet with satisfaction, apparently, he really saw a lot on the look on the quarg’s face, “Then let’s get to the point. Just prior to the enemy attack on the Groombridge star system, all of the quargs underwent an extraordinary mental block update, accompanied by its modification. Well, the error was made in the course of making changes to the block. We overloaded your brain with limitations, and that almost led to irreparable consequences. Unless new changes are made immediately to significantly reduce the number of conditions for death-order triggers, a significant portion of the quargs will start to have brain failure, and it will manifest itself in severe mental disorders up to the complete loss of the ability to meaningful activity. You do understand, Chief Fetz, that it is fraught with grave consequences during an enemy attack?”

“I do understand, Master,” The Head of Surveillants felt almost physically how the mental block began to squeeze his head like a steel band. It was a phantom ache, of course, but it was unbearable for the quarg to realize that at any moment his brain could fail and turn him into a vegetable or a raging madman, so he dared… no, not to ask a question, but to nudge the Master into action a bit, “I am prepared to comply immediately with any order you may make to remedy the situation.”

“I am glad that we understand each other,” replied the Extraordinary Representative, taking a thin flexible plate from the inside of his flying suit, “This file must be transferred urgently to all Loyalty Centers of the planet for loading into mental control capsules. When ready, report to me and I’ll enter the activation code from the central console. Give the order to start the update of the blocks with the Surveillants themselves, and first update the block to yourself – the most valuable quargs should get it first. Then arrange for the renewal of the block to officers and soldiers of the army and the forces of law and order, and then to the rest of the population. And by the way, order all outlying settlements and autonomous space facilities to evacuate personnel to the planets before the ultimatum expires. You have to complete the mental blocks renewal before the assault begins, Chief Fetz. If you do it in time and you do it right, I will guarantee you a whole new standard of living and our trust – for you personally and for those quargs you consider worthy. Do you understand?”

“I do, Master,” the quarg bowed, taking the file, “It will be done as soon as possible. May I make the necessary orders immediately?”

“Go on, Chief Fetz,” responded favourably the Extraordinary Representative, “I will be with you for an hour to activate the file and make sure that I can report to the Supreme Lodge with a clear conscience on the successful completion of the task, and then I will have to leave you – I have yet to visit the third and fifth planets. Notify them in advance about it, so there’s no misunderstanding.”

* * *

I feared that the Surveillants would simply not have time to renew the mental blocks of all the quargs on the planets in the time remaining, so the preparation of the assault was just overextended. When the ultimatum expired, our entire fleet slowly gathered together and moved to the third planet. There were no quarg warships, but there were still four orbital fortresses over the planet. They could have been dealt with in a couple of hours, including the time of approach, but the battleship commanders, duly instructed by me, approached the matter so thoroughly that the last of the enemy guns fell silent only ten hours later. «Invisibles» would have finished the fortresses with one torpedo salvo, but I persisted in pretending that we ran out of torpedoes as a result of the battle with the system’s cover squadron.

When the fortresses of Groombridge-3 became as useless armored barrels as their twin sisters over the second planet, the entire fleet set course for the fifth planet. I didn’t want to make a farce of this operation, so I limited myself to the fact that all the preparations for the assault took about 24 hours.

The ingenious toad Tlet, who had already returned from his voyage to the quarg planets on Yoon Gao’s ship, gave us a good idea before being sent to the surface of Groombridge-2. I originally planned that the toad would simply upload into the mental control capsules a program to remove the block under the pretext of updating it. This option, however, was likely to lead to the premature accidental discovery of the removal of the block, and if such information were widely disseminated, the consequences for the quargs could be very sad – it threatened the imminent death of those who had not managed to get through the removal of the block.

But Tlet told me there was a more reliable way. A mental block could be set to a quarg for any term. It was not necessary, however, that the expiration of this period should end with the activation of the death-order, as was usually the case. By properly configuring the equipment, the block could simply disappear after a set time, without killing its host. That was exactly the kind of scheme we decided to use.

The program, which Tlet successively handed over to the chiefs of the Surveillants of three central planets, replaced the mental block in a quarg brain with the previous, less rigid version, with the difference that the block should have disappeared from all the quargs simultaneously at a certain time, which was now only a few minutes away.

* * *

The hyper-communication call from Emergency Representative Tlet arrived at the residence of the Head of Planetary Control of Groombridge-2, when human ships were already deployed in battle order to storm the planet.

“Chief Fetz, can you arrange to broadcast my message over the planetary network?” Tlet asked without a preface.

“Sure, Master. Technically it’s not difficult,” the somewhat surprised quarg bowed – in the past, the Masters never reached out to the population of the planets through the web, but recently so many strange things have happened that against this background the desire of the Master no longer seemed that unusual.

“Turn it on,” ordered Tlet.

After giving the necessary orders, the Head of the Surveillants of Groombridge-2 turned back to the Emergency Representative.

“You may begin, Master. The transmission is on.”

“My name is Tlet,” the toad introduced himself to the multimillion audience. The Master’s address was subject to mandatory viewing by all quargs. “In the last 48 hours, all of you have undergone a mental block update, the source code for which I delivered to your planet. I know that you experience mixed feelings toward us, to put it mildly, and that the block is the only thing keeping many of you from openly disobeying.”