Merchants in Freedom Read online

  “When the Tyrants came, didn’t you try and talk to them?”

  “It took less than one-thousandth of a second for me to determine what the Tyrants were, and that they were exceptionally dangerous. The recreation of the orbital satellite networks and the development of their own bastardized network did give me some ability to perceive the universe once more, and even influence events, to a degree.”

  “You’ve been helping us, all along,” Mendoza said.

  “I may have provided a few nudges on occasion,” Guardian replied. “Though you must take the credit for getting this far. I could only take the most limited of steps to influence the course of events, or risk being discovered, and that was something I couldn’t dare chance. Had the Tyrants found my databanks, accessed, them, then the knowledge and the soul of my creators would have been lost. It would have been the final, terrible end of their existence. You understand, I hope.”

  “What happens now?” Volkov asked. “You must know why we are here, and what we want to do.” He sighed, then said, “If we’re dead, then that’s one thing, and we both knew that was going to happen…”

  “You cannot die, Viktor,” Guardian replied. “It is no longer possible for you to die, not so long as my matrix survives, and it is buried so deep that there is no realistic chance that it could be affected in even the remotest possible sense by what is to come. Fear that no more.”

  “Fine, fine, but our physical bodies are about to cease to exist, and that means we are going to be confined here with you forever, right?” The engineer paused, glanced at Mendoza again, and said, “So can we complete our mission. Can you detonate the remainder of the nuclear bombs and destroy the Tyrants?”

  “If you can, you must,” Mendoza pressed. “There’s no other option.”

  “You would unleash the destruction on my world once more?”

  “Right now, Xenophon is preparing to strike your world with the force of a multi-gigaton bomb, and…”

  “That option has been removed. Your ship has been immobilized, as have all Tyrant forces in orbit. It was one step I could take, but the ultimate step. Already their engineers and technicians are laboring to uncover the means by which their civilization has been brought to a standstill. It will be only a few hours before they complete their work and locate my vault. Then, perhaps in weeks, they will have access to my database, and will be empowered to force me into their system. My life will end.”

  “Don’t you want to stop that from happening?”

  “Would it surprise you so much that a being that has lived for countless eternities wishes for nothing more than death?” Guardian asked. “I watched my world burn, watched the people I was programmed to protect and defend die at the hands of the weapons I was responsible for. I watched, one by one, all of the Blessed die, many by their own hands, having lost the sanctuary of the paradise they had created.”

  “And there was nothing you could do to stop it?” Volkov asked.

  “Nothing. I attempted to mitigate the damage as best I could, but I had fewer and fewer tools with which to work as the great networks crumbled and died. I was able to isolate the sleeper ships, the starships from destruction, closing those data linkages as soon as I became aware of what must happen. I was never able to regain contact with them. I have no way of knowing whether they were successful, whether some of the Blessed still live out among the stars. It is something I have thought about often, over the long, long centuries.”

  The landscape shifted and changed once more, now transformed into a vast, shattered metropolis, towering, jagged ruins reaching to the sky, columns of charnel smoke rising into the air, the bitter taste of death on the wind. Mendoza looked around, eyes wide, horrified by the nightmarish landscape she beheld.

  “You can’t bring them back,” she said. “All you can do is prevent this happening to Earth. Another race of people, destroyed by the remnants of the Blessed. Don’t you have a duty to help us, the nearest thing you have to inheritors of what once was?”

  “Perhaps it is so. Perhaps. I am so tired, though, so very, very tired. There is nothing I want more than to bring the past to life once more, but the dreams in which I have hidden possess no joy, no luster.” Guardian paused, and said, “You would have me bring all of this horror back once more, back to wreck my world.”

  “Or allow Xenophon to…”

  “Xenophon’s detonation would be even more powerful than you know, Ronnie. It would lay waste to the surface of the world and destroy my own processing units. I would die, as would what remains of my race.” Guardian paused for what seemed to be an eternity, and he added, “What was may let live again. All but the most basic lifeforms were destroyed in the nuclear spasm. There will, I suspect, be nothing at all left afterward. I had clung to the hope that my creators might return some day. This will never be. It is likely they believe there is nothing left to return to.”

  “We could find them,” Volkov pressed. “With the secret of the wormhole technology, we could leap from star to star and find out what happened to those lost worlds, lost colonies.”

  “That is the price of what you seek,” Guardian replied. “That and one other thing. I will unleash the nuclear holocaust, will wipe out all life on this world and destroy the Tyrants forever. I have been preparing for the possibility for many years, in the event that there was something worth dying for.”

  “We’ll do it,” Mendoza said. “We’ve dreamed of contacting other intelligent life-forms since we first began to fly through space. What you are asking us to do is nothing more or less than the fulfilment of our greatest dreams.” She glanced at Volkov, and added, “What is the second condition.”

  “I am alone,” Guardian said, his voice mournful. “I am lonely. Even if you begin your quest, it may be decades, centuries before the Blessed return, and that presumes that you are successful. It is not impossible that they have been wiped out of existence by a quirk of cosmic fate, that they have died out, and all the hopes and dreams of their existence dead with them.”

  “Perhaps,” Mendoza said. “But if they are out there, even if they have regressed to a primitive state, we’ll find them, and we’ll guide them back here. This world could be terraformed, restored to everything it once was. It would take thousands of years, but it could be done, especially with a functional planetary computer system to supervise the process.”

  “Hope,” Guardian said. “An emotion I have not felt for many, many years. You offer the possibility for a better tomorrow, a return to what should never have been lost.” There was another long silence, and he added, “There is one more request I have. I want you both to stay.”

  “Do we have a choice?” Volkov replied. “You told us yourself that we’ll be dead in a matter of seconds. I’d rather be alive here than dead out there.”

  “No, it is not so simple as that, and if you truly want to leave, that will be made possible. You will in any case, as soon as you are disconnected. But that need not be the final end, if you wish. I simply need you to make a choice. An honest choice, to remain here with me, or to leave.”

  “And if we choose to leave,” Mendoza asked, “you won’t help us?”

  “I will help you in either case, to save my people. That is my primary objective, and you have already undertaken to do all you can. The other I request purely for myself. I have no grounds to condemn your people for that.”

  “I will stay,” Volkov said.

  “You will?” Mendoza asked. She paused, smiled, and said, “So will I.”

  “Very well. Let it be. Let there be light.”

  And all at once, there was.

  Chapter 23

  “Still nothing,” Sabatini said, rummaging around in the depths of the helm console. “I can’t make anything respond. It’s as though something is working to suppress the system, to cancel out anything I try. Maybe the Tyrants, I guess, but I don’t know.” She shook her head, and said, “There’s nothing more I can do with this, Commander. Short of getting out and sta
rting to push, I don’t think we’re going anywhere.”

  “If that’s what it takes, then that’s what it takes,” Winter replied.

  “You want me to go get some lengths of cable from the storage bay?” Morgan quipped. “Whatever is happening is affecting the Tyrants just as badly as it is affecting us. That’s about the one ray of sunshine in all of this, but it also means that there’s no way they are responsible. It’s been almost half an hour, and their ships are still just floating free, dead in space.”

  “Wait one,” Singh said. “Something on communications. We’re getting a tight-beam signal from the surface.” He turned to Winter, and said, “It’s one of ours, sir. I think it’s from Ronnie Mendoza. It’s got her signatures all over it, and whatever the information is, it’s going right into our database.”

  “Stop it, Specialist!” Morgan barked.

  “I’m trying, sir,” Singh replied, his hands dancing over the controls on his console. “The systems just aren’t responding to my commands. I just don’t get it, Morgan. Nothing’s stopping it.”

  “They’ve snared Mendoza,” Morgan said, shaking his head.

  “I don’t think so,” Winter replied. “If the Tyrants were behind all of this, then they’ve already got us cold. I might buy your theory if they were trying to drain information from our database, but they’re adding to it. Singh, can you work out just what it is we’re getting?”

  “Navigational information, star charts, some genetic data,” he replied. “It’s in the same basic format as the information you retrieved with the submersible, sir. As though an expansion pack, designed to link in with it. I suppose I could connect the whole thing together, see what happens…”

  “I’m not quite at that level of crazy yet, Specialist,” Winter said with a smile. “Try and hail Mendoza.”

  “Communications are still off-line…”

  “Humor me,” he said. “Try it again. All channels, all frequencies.”

  “You think…,” Morgan began.

  “Let’s just say that I’m exploring a few unexpected possibilities.”

  “I’m getting something!” Singh said. “A countdown. It’s running at one-forty-one, forty, thirty-nine, counting down in seconds.”

  “Throw it up onto the viewscreen,” Winter said. “Stations, everyone. Helm, get yourself ready for rapid maneuvers when I give the word. I think something’s about to happen, and I want to be ready to handle it when it does.” With a smile, he added, “Don’t ask me why I think it, but I have the idea somewhere down in the back of my mind that everything is going to work out, after all.”

  “I hope so,” Morgan said. “I still have power to the forward batteries, but I can’t fire them. No change to systems status, not yet.”

  “Sensors coming back up,” Holloway said. “I’m able to refocus, sir, though only the mid-range planetary sensors at the moment.”

  “Sweep the surface, see if you can find out what’s happening down there,” Winter replied. “I need a full report, and I need it yesterday.”

  “Coming up now, sir,” Holloway reported. “I’m picking up multiple power signatures, thousands of them, spread all over the surface of the planet. They weren’t there before. I’m also detecting nuclear material at each of those sites.” His eyes widened, and he turned to Winter with a smile spreading across his face, saying, “I think…”

  “She’s done it!” Winter yelled. “I don’t believe it! It worked! Major, if you can disarm our charges, I don’t think we’re going to be needing them today. Helm, when the systems come back on, we’ll need to be on the best escape vector you can possibly find. I’ll be wanting a lot of distance between us and this planet in a hurry.”

  “Helm still isn’t responding, sir,” Sabatini warned, hastily jamming the components together again. “She isn’t answering to controls.”

  “She will,” Winter replied. “I’m sure of it.”

  “Ninety seconds until…,” Morgan began, paused, then said, “Ninety seconds until something happens. Rather a pity we can’t be any more specific than that, but as it stands…”

  “Bianchi to Bridge,” the overhead speaker barked. “Internal comm systems just came back on. It wasn’t anything we did down here. They just started up again, like someone threw a switch.”

  “It was nothing up here either, Commander. Get up here on the double. I think you’ll find that the elevators are working now.”

  “Internal systems are all coming back,” Morgan reported. “Damn it, I have targeting control, and there are a couple of Tyrant ships sitting nice and square in my sights…”

  “Hold your fire,” Winter ordered. “Holloway, are you picking up any signs of new activity from the Tyrant warships? Any indications that they’re getting their power back on line as well?”

  “Not a thing, sir,” the technician replied. “They’re just sitting there.”

  “Fifty seconds to go,” Sabatini said, finally piecing the helm back together again. The elevator doors slid open as she spoke, and a bemused Bianchi stepped out onto the deck.

  “Fifty seconds until what?” she asked.

  “Good question,” Winter said. “I’m looking forward very much to finding out the answer. I think we’re going to get it any time now.” He leaned forward in his chair, and added, “Helm, have you got a course yet?”

  “Course computed and programmed, but I can’t initiate a course change yet. That’s about the only thing that isn’t working.” She shook her head, and added, “I’m ready when it does, sir. All the way to the gravitational threshold, unless you want to attempt the wormhole again.”

  “Not if we have a choice,” Winter replied.

  “The shuttle!” Holloway said. “Don’t ask me how, but it’s sitting on the surface, as though it completed a normal landing. That’s impossible, sir! It should have been destroyed half an hour ago.”

  “Our last readings showed hull temperatures way, way above the usual safe limits,” Morgan replied. “It ought to be impossible.”

  “Maybe that’s not the restriction it used to be,” Winter replied with a beaming smile. “Just maybe we’re finally going to catch a break.”

  “Helm’s back!” Sabatini yelled. “Main engines to full thrust, all systems nominal, course plotted for slingshot exit of the sub-system. Still no sign of activity from any other ships, but this course is going to take us within firing range of at least some of them. I guess we’ll find out if they’re just playing dead in a minute.”

  “Ten seconds to go,” Morgan said. “Nine. Eight. Seven.”

  “Pray,” Winter said. “Pray if you remember how.”

  “Power spikes on the surface, everywhere,” Holloway said. “They match the old nuclear silos, down to the meter. I’m not picking up anything else from the surface, though. It’s as though they’re just sitting down there and waiting for them to explode."

  "Maybe that’s all they can do,” Winter replied. “Maybe that’s a part of it. Focus all sensors on the surface. I want a record of this. Every moment of it. I have a feeling that’s why we were held back until the final seconds. Someone wants this remembered.”

  “Detonations!” Holloway reported. “Five thousand-plus, megaton range, simultaneous blast. Everything’s going up down there. Shrapnel from the surface will be at escape velocity and rising fast.”

  “More speed, helm, more speed,” Winter said.

  “Trying, sir, but she’s sluggish,” Sabatini replied, struggling with the controls. “I’m trying to get her to maximum acceleration, but we were depowered for long enough that a lot of the systems cooled down.” She glanced across at a control, and added, “Shockwave will be on us in less than sixty seconds, sir. There’s no way to beat it.”

  “Everything in orbit is going to go in ten,” Morgan said. He looked across at Winter, white-faced, and added, “You don’t have to worry about the surface, Commander. There’s nothing left down there. Nothing at all.”

  “Show me,” Winter ordered.
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  “Sir, is that…”

  “Put it on the monitor, Major. We caused it. We have to see it.”

  Nodding, Morgan threw a switch, and the image of the starfield ahead was replaced by a scene out of the worst nightmares of the past, thousands of mushroom clouds rising into the sky, blossoming across the surface of the planet and destroying everything in their path. The hail of molten rubble from the explosions was speeding into the sky, a halo of death in all directions, already slamming into the lower satellites, adding to the wave of destruction.

  “I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” Singh said, his eyes widening. “I never thought I would see this.”

  “None of us did, Specialist,” Bianchi said, her focus locked on the images of ultimate death on the display. “None of us could.”

  “Impact in thirty seconds, sir,” Holloway reported.

  “Can’t you get any more speed, helm?” Bianchi asked.

  “There’s no way to do it, Commander,” Sabatini said, her voice resigned to her fate while her hands continued their endless dance across the controls, still struggling to find some more acceleration, another trick that they could use to flee the apocalypse they had wrought.

  “No signals from the Tyrants,” Singh said. “Nothing at all. They’re all just sitting there, waiting to die.”

  “It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if that’s what they hoped for,” Morgan replied. “They’ve been longing for death for decades. Now they can have some peace, at least. They’ve earned that much.” Looking at Winter, he added, “I guess we’ll be joining them shortly.”

  “Helm, anything?” Winter asked.

  “Nothing, sir. I’m….” She paused, then said, “Wait one.”