“Yes, yes! Religion provides a rationale for existence in a universe which may otherwise seem chaotic — perhaps an illusory rationale, but a way to cope. And religion has a function as social cement. Cooperation is essential, and religion fuels conformity. Really, religion ought to be a universal…”
As this academic talk went on, Pirius glared at the wounded Ghost, and he imagined it glared back. Pirius said, “I don’t care what it thinks about gods. I want to know what it thinks of the humans who destroyed its kind.”
Nilis and Mara tensed, but waited for the Ghost’s answer.
The Ghost said, “You are the ones who kill.”
Nilis said quickly, “Others kill too. The Xeelee kill. You kill.”
“Only other kinds. No Ghost would kill another Ghost; it would be a kind of suicide.”
Mara said, “The Ghosts think human war is insane — not just the war in the Galaxy, all our organized wars. Only humans spend the lives of others of our kind as if they were mere tokens. The Ghosts think nothing is so precious as sentience.”
“Humans aren’t killers,” Pirius said. He lifted his hands. “We didn’t choose this war. Before we left Earth humans didn’t wage war at all.”
Nilis actually laughed. “Ah, Ensign — another Coalition myth! Don’t pay attention to what the political officers tell you. Before spaceflight, despite the lessons of your childhood, Earth was not a paradise, where humans ruled other creatures in a kind of benevolent despotism; we were not noble savages. We have always killed, Ensign, always waged war — and as we had no alien enemy to kill in those days, we turned on each other. The proof is in the bloodstained ground of Earth.”
Pirius pointed at the Ghost. “Commissary, don’t you get it? This is why this experiment, this revival of the Ghosts, is so wrong. We’re already arguing! Give them a chance and they will worm their destabilizing ideas into our minds.”
Nilis was studying him; Pirius had the cold feeling he had become just another fascinating specimen to him. “Perhaps. But there will be no killing today.”
Mara pointed upward. “Look.”
Pirius, stiff in his skinsuit, tilted back and peered up.
The patient bulk of Charon hung suspended over its parent, half-shadowed, a misty form in the light of the pinpoint sun. But now, right at the center of its face, a spark of light had erupted, blue-white, intense — far brighter than Sol. When Pirius looked away, he saw the new light was casting shadows,
knife-sharp.
Nilis clapped his hands with childlike excitement. “That’s the gravastar! What we see is the glow of infalling matter, shedding its gravitational energy as it hits the ultra-relativistic wave front. It’s really a remarkable technical achievement — the parameters of the controlled implosion of matter needed to create the shock are terribly narrow — stability is difficult to maintain.” He sighed. “But the Ghosts always were good at this sort of thing.”
Mara said, “The test is being run on Charon. This is an experimental technology, and the energies involved are immense. There’s nobody up there to be hurt. Nobody but a few Ghosts, of course.”
“Remarkable,” Nilis said again, peering up. “Remarkable.”
That pinpoint of light, reflected, slid over the Ghost’s hide now. It was impossible for Pirius to believe that that starlike object, that bit of fire, was in fact far colder even than the ice of Charon itself.
They returned to the dome.
Nilis showed Pirius a summary of the rest of Draq’s briefing, and Pirius, his head full of anger, tried to pick his way through the jargon.
He said, “But, Commissary, I still don’t see what use this is. You said yourself that if you got stuck inside a gravastar’s horizon you would be as cut off as if you fell into a black hole — and just as dead.”
“Of course. A shock wave in the shape of a closed surface, spherical or not, would be no use to us. But Draq and his team, working with the Ghosts’ theoreticians, have come up with another solution.
“Imagine that the shock front is not closed, but open — not a sphere, but a cap. Behind it you have your expanding captive universe, just as before, and where the expansion meets the infall you get your shock wave, the cap. But this toy cosmos isn’t symmetrical. At the rear, away from the cap, the curvature flattens, until asymptotically you have a smooth transition to an external solution…”
Pirius thought he understood. “So you have your cap of gravastar horizon,” he said carefully. “That’s lethal; you can’t pass through it. And behind it is a zone that is still effectively another universe. But if you approach from the rear, you would move through a smooth bridge from our universe into the captive one—”
“Smooth, yes, save for the detail of a little tidal pull and so forth,” Nilis said.
Pirius wondered how much trouble there would be in that “detail.”
Nilis beamed. “Now do you see the potential, Pirius? Now do you see the application?”
“No,” said Pirius frankly.
“The toy universe is not causally connected to ours. And that means it wouldn’t be possible for the Xeelee, or anybody else, to have foreknowledge of what we might hide there — even in principle — because, you see, we’ll be tucked inside another universe altogether!”
With a triumphant wave, Nilis brought up a Virtual copy of Pirius’s old sketch of the assault on the Prime Radiant: the journey in, bedeviled by FTL foreknowledge, the Xeelee ring of fire around the Prime Radiant itself, and then the mysterious Radiant at the heart of it all, sketched as a crude asterisk by Pirius. All of this was in red, but now Nilis snapped his fingers. “Thanks to Torec’s CTC computer, we can outthink the Xeelee when we get there.” That crimson ring around the Radiant turned green. “With the gravastar technology we should be able to stop foreknowledge leakage.” The inward path became green too. “Now all we need is a way to strike at the Prime Radiant itself.” Smiling, he said, “See what you can achieve when you focus on a goal, Ensign? See how the obstacles melt away before determination? Now — what would you suggest as a next step?”
Pirius thought quickly. “A test flight. We need to modify a ship. Equip it with the gravastar shield and CTC processors. See if we can make the thing fly.” He grinned; for a pilot it was quite a prospect.
“Yes, yes. Good!” Nilis slammed his fist into the palm of his hand. “That will make those complacent buffoons in the ministries sit up and take notice.”
Mara had listened to this, her gloved hands behind her back. She said now, “The gravastar is a Ghost technology. No transfer to purely human control would be possible in a short period. You’ll need to take the Ghosts.”
Even Nilis looked dubious. “That will be a hard sell to the Grand Conclave.”
“You have no choice.”
Pirius had managed not to think about the Ghosts for a few minutes. Now he felt his fists bunch again. “I bet the Ghosts intended it this way.”
Nilis said sharply, “Ensign, you will have to learn to overcome this rage of yours. Even the planning of war is a rational process. Hate is unproductive.”
“Commissary, don’t you see? They’re doing it again. This is what they are like — the Ghosts — they are devious, sly, always seeking leverage—”
“Ensign.” Nilis glared at Pirius, willing him to silence. Mara was studying Pirius, all trace of human warmth vanished.
Pirius, angry, confused, and ashamed, longed to be away from this place.