Drake shook his head and stared out at the mutilated disk of the Galaxy. “You sure don’t sound much like Tom Lambert. Tom couldn’t have talked about zero-sum games to save his own life.”

“This was your chosen medium of interaction, not ours. The composite that is addressing you is purely electronic. And talk of zero-sum games may be needed to save all our lives.”

The scene beyond the window changed. Again it was the seacoast villa, looking across a bay tossed now by whitecaps beneath racing storm clouds.

“You see,” Tom said. “You make my point. That is your vision, not ours. But we do not dispute its accuracy, as a possible harbinger of things to come.”

Drake turned moodily to face the south, where a single sailboat was running for shelter. A squall struck as he watched, catching the little vessel and leaning its pink sails far over to starboard.

“I think we ought to start over,” he said at last. “Tell me and show me everything, right from the beginning. Then I have a thousand questions.”

Chapter 17

Star Wars

“I know more than Apollo,

For oft when he lies sleeping

I see the stars at bloody wars

In the wounded welkin weeping.”

Drake could have anticipated the problem. Composites came in all sizes and types, remote and nearby, wise and foolish, planetary and free-space, organic and inorganic. Their constant interactions blurred the lines of identity, until it was not clear which elements were speaking or which were in control. Since he saw that problem in others, he had to assume that the same thing might happen to him when he worked with them. Yet he must, at all costs, maintain his individual character and agenda.

He decided that he had to create a private record of his own thoughts and actions. It seemed not a luxury or a personal indulgence, but a necessity.

The irony of the whole situation was not lost on him. He had been a lifelong and dedicated pacifist, hating all things military — so much so that until Ana went into the cryowomb and he was desperate for money, he would not consider military music commissions, no matter how much they offered. Now, so far in the future that he did not like to think about it, he was an aggression consultant to the whole Galaxy.

His private thought: the incompetent and the ignorant are now leading the innocent; but he did not offer that comment to anyone else.

“What have you tried?” Drake was in working session with Tom Lambert. He was sure that he couldn’t really help, but he was also sure that the composites wouldn’t accept a negative answer. More than that, for Ana’s sake he could not accept it. He had to pretend, to himself more than anyone, that he knew what he was doing.

“Drake, we have tried many things. We sent S-wave signals to that sector of the Galaxy. There was never any reply—”

“Back up, Tom. S-wave signals?”

“Fast signals. Superluminal signals, that employ an S-wave carrier to advance at high multiples of light speed.”

“You can travel faster than light? I thought that was impossible.”

“It is, for material objects. We have superluminal capability for signals only. Just as well that we do, because we really need it. How else could a composite with widespread components operate as a unit? Anyway, we sent fast signals to the silent region, but no reply was ever received. We wondered if the problem might be that the other entities could not detect superluminal messages. So we sent subluminal signals and inorganic probes. We waited for millions of years, knowing that all the time more of our stellar systems were becoming mute. Nothing returned. We sent ships bearing organic units, and ships carrying full composites. Nothing has ever come back.”

“Were your ships… armed?” Drake had to hunt the data banks for that final word, but apparently it gave Tom even more trouble. There was a long silence.

“Armed?” Tom said at last. He sounded perplexed.

“Equipped with weapons.” Drake wondered. Had aggressive impulses been stamped out completely, as an impediment to steady progress and the colonization of the Galaxy? When Tom didn’t answer, he added, “Weapons are things able to inflict damage. Weapons would permit a ship to defend itself if it were to be attacked.”

Tom Lambert didn’t like that, either. His image flickered and wavered, as though whatever was communicating had suffered a temporary breakdown. Confusion bled in from the clamoring host of minds in the background.

“They had no ‘weapons.’ ” Tom was steadying again. “There are no ‘weapons.’ The details of the concept have been relegated to remote third-level storage, and it is poorly defined even there. What are you suggesting?”

“Something very simple. This galaxy is being—” Now Drake had to pause. He wanted to say ‘invaded,’ but that word had apparently vanished from the language.

“Something outside the Galaxy is moving into it,” he said at last. “Do you agree?”

“So it would appear.”

“And that something is displacing human civilization.”

“Yes. That is our fear, although we have no direct proof. But what could be doing this?”

“I have no idea. That’s something we’re going to find out. You’ve been making too many assumptions, Tom. One is that you are seeing something intelligent at work; something with a developed technology.”

“We made no such assumptions.”

“Of course you did. Not explicitly, but you did it. You say you sent signals and you received no reply — but even to expect a reply presumes that something out there is able to detect a signal, comprehend a signal, and reply to a signal. Suppose that the entity moving into our Galaxy has no intelligence at all?”

“Then we will never be able to communicate with it. We are doomed.”

“Why?” Drake, in spite of his own reservations about his ability to help, was becoming annoyed with the composites. They were such a spineless lot, ready to lie down and die before they were even touched. “Why are you doomed? You don’t need to communicate, you know. You just need to stop the— the—” Again, the need for a word that did not exist. The composites had not named the problem. “The blight,” he said at last. “The marauder, the Shiva, the destroyer, the whatever. we choose to call it. I don’t know if it’s intelligent or nonintelligent, but it’s changing the Galaxy in a way that’s deadly to humans. Even if the Shiva don’t mean to kill, they are silencing stellar systems by the billion. Never mind understanding what’s happening. That would be nice, but the main thing is, we have to defend ourselves against the effects.”

“But we have no idea how to do that.”

“I’m going to tell you how.” The amazing thing was that he was starting to believe his own words. It was a chilling reflection on the humans of earlier times. No one, no matter how much the pacifist, could in his own era go from child to adult without becoming steeped in the vocabulary, ideas, and procedures of war. Even games were a form of combat, using the language of conflict. Drake knew more than he realized about the theory and practice of warfare.

“We have to do a few things for ourselves,” he went on, “before we can consider external action. First, we have to create and become familiar with a new language. You must learn to speak War.” Drake said the last word in English. “You need to be able to think war, and before you can think it you have to be able to speak it. I will provide the concepts, you will deal with the mechanics of language creation. All right?”

Silence from Tom. Drake took it as reluctant assent, and went on. “Second, we must form something called a chain of command. You were right when you told me that this form of communication between us limits the rate of information transfer. We have to change the system. I’m sure I can’t deal directly with billions of composites, so we need a new structure. I will deal with no more than — how many? Let’s say six — I’ll work with half a dozen composites like you. Then each of you will work with six more, and so on to successive tiers. How many levels will be necessary to fit every composite into such a framework?”