“Unless a weapon is designed to attack something you don’t find out in space — plants, maybe, or animals. The universal disassemblers down on Mars were like that.”
“Could be. Except that the disassemblers were on a different Belt list, of weapons designed for use against personnel and equipment. But there was something stranger still on another list. According to this one, Nadeen Selassie had a new weapon fully finished and tested before the end of the Great War. It was classified as a weapon of planetary destruction. You’d think it would be just the kind of thing that the Belt leaders would have used on Earth or Mars, or even one of the populated moons of Jupiter. So here’s my question: why didn’t they use it? If it really was a weapon that could completely destroy a planet, that would have been enough to end the war at once, with the Belt the winner the first time it was used.”
“Perhaps a full-scale version was never produced. You say only that it was tested.”
“No. Apparently a production version was ready for use, complete with a delivery system.”
Bat closed his eyes and sat in silence for a long time, so long that Mord finally said, “Hey, are you going to sleep on me?”
“By no means.” Bat opened his eyes. “I am as lacking for an explanation as you are. A weapon, capable of destruction on a planetary scale, finished, tested, and ready for use. And yet, not used. It might be tempting to argue that the Belt leaders refrained from employing so terrible a weapon for humanitarian reasons, but everything we know of the Great War tells us that no such charitable motive can be ascribed to the leaders of the Belt war effort. They would have killed every human on the inner planets and all through the Jovian system, if it allowed them to win the war.”
“So you agree with me. We got us a mystery.”
“A mystery, indeed, and one that would be of high abstract interest, were it not for my suspicion — my conviction, even — that this weapon was not destroyed. It left the belt with Nadeen Selassie, traveled with her to the asteroid Heraldic, and is now — where?”
“You got me. I’ll let you wrap your head around that one while I see if I can crack the data on Earth’s medical records. Anything else? Otherwise, I’m out of here.”
“I will only repeat my earlier warning. Take care. The whole computing and communication profile of the System has changed since the Seine came into operation. I can detect a substantial difference, without being able to define or quantify it.”
“Same here, but more so. I used to move around freely, now it’s look before you leap. I never relocate or access a new data file without checking everything beforehand. Look for me back here in a week or less. If I’m not, you’ll know that something got me. Trouble is, you won’t know what.”
Mord’s squint-eyed image vanished from the display, leaving Bat oddly worried. Mord was only a program; far more sophisticated than most programs, true, but still no more than a few million lines of logic and code.
On the other hand, could you say much more than that about human consciousness? The loss of Mord would be mourned, as much as the loss of any human. And the blank display, doorway to the Seine, suddenly seemed dark and ominous.
19
TIME WITH THE OGRE…
The witch of Agnesi was inspected, fueled, and ready to go. Jack Beston, arriving minutes before their scheduled departure, said only one thing to Milly.
“Travel time with Ganymede surface gravity as ship’s acceleration would take too long, so I’ve set us for one-gee Earth. Okay?”
At Milly’s startled nod — what choice did she have? — he vanished into his own suite of rooms and closed the door. His disappearance suited her fine. It was not his absence that worried her, so much as his possible presence. As for the acceleration, one Earth gravity was six times what she had grown up with on Ganymede and far more than she had ever experienced before. She would probably feel like she was made of lead, but if it meant getting there quicker she could take it. She went across to the pilot interface. “How long will we take to reach the Odin Station at Jovian L-5?”
The pilot included a high Level Four Fax, embodied as a dignified man with a smooth face and a touch of gray at the temples. He frowned as though thinking about Milly’s question, although the answer could have been provided by the computer in microseconds. “Assuming that I receive no requests for change of acceleration, the scheduled travel time including mid-point turnover is eight-point-six days. Perihelion distance will be three hundred and eighty-nine million kilometers.”
“But that will take us inside the Belt.”
“Quite true. We will travel closer to the Sun than many of the asteroids. However, with our onboard matter detection systems there is absolutely no danger of collision. Can I help you with anything else?”
“Not at the moment.”
“Then I hope that you enjoy the flight. If there is anything that I can do to make it more pleasant, don’t hesitate to ask. And now, please take a seat. The drive is scheduled to go on in thirty seconds, but cannot do so unless all passengers are suitably positioned.”
Milly went to sit down and strap herself into one of the cabin’s swing chairs. She had been surprised by the pilot’s answer, but she should not have been. The acceleration due to Sol at Jupiter’s distance was only a couple of hundredths of centimeters per second per second. Given a drive capable of accelerations of a Ganymede gravity or more, orbits around the Outer System were practically point-and-shoot. The passage from Jovian L-4 to Jovian L-5 would fake The Witch of Agnesi arrowing across between Sol and Jupiter, on a near straight-line trajectory. At turnover point the ship would be almost exactly equidistant from the planet and the Sun.
She lay back in the padded seat. A few seconds more, and the ship was moving. The force that Milly felt was surprisingly gentle. If this was all she had to take there would be no problem at all. From the port on her left she saw the Argus Station, apparently rotating around an axis that directly faced Milly. She realized that the Argus Station was not actually moving. The ship was turning into position. And suddenly, while that thought was still in her head, a powerful force seized her and thrust her hard against the supporting chair.
So this was one Earth gravity. She felt as though she could hardly breathe. Her breasts, always in her opinion too large, became more than a cosmetic problem. They were heavy weights pressing against her ribs. And she was supposed to endure this for — how long? — more than eight days, the pilot had said.
Milly closed her eyes. Eight minutes would be too much. She lay in misery for an indefinite period, until she heard another sound in the cabin. She opened her eyes.
Jack Beston was standing in front of her. He didn’t seem to be suffering any strain at all.
“Here.” He was holding out a vapor syringe. “One Earth gravity for a week or so won’t do you any physical harm, but there’s no point in feeling uncomfortable. Just remember not to try to move too fast for the first few hours.”
Milly didn’t have enough breath to speak. She took the syringe. If this was part of some deep Ogre-ish plan to render her unconscious so that Jack could have his way with her, then she was his and good luck to him. In her present condition, being unconscious was better than being awake.
“Not there.” Beston gripped the syringe and re-directed it to a place on Milly’s neck. She, uncoordinated and with her hand weighing a ton, had somehow pointed the syringe at a part of the chair support behind her head.
“You want it to act as quickly as possible,” he went on. “So an artery is best — and anywhere in the body works a lot better than a shot into the seat cover.”