Chapter Thirty-One

Several days went by without news from the Shapieron. VISAR analyzed all the available data on the design of JEVEX and gave ZORAC a five-percent chance of electronically lock-picking its way through the layers of security checks and access restrictions protecting the enemy system. The problem was that JEVEX’s Ganymean-designed molecular circuits worked at subnanosecond speeds, enabling an enormous amount of self-checking to be interleaved with its regular operations. The odds were overwhelming that any chink in JEVEX’s armor that ZORAC managed to slip a wedge into would be detected and closed before VISAR could be brought in to drive the wedge home. In other words JEVEX could scan its own internal processes too rapidly, or as Hunt put it to Caldwell, "It’s got too much instant-to-instant awareness of what’s going on inside itself. If we could distract its attention somehow, even for a few seconds at the speeds those machines work at, ZORAC might be able to neutralize the jamming system and let VISAR in." But how could they distract JEVEX when the only channel they had to it was through ZORAC, and ZORAC couldn’t get in until JEVEX had been distracted?

And then VISAR reported a series of gravitational disturbances outside Gistar’s planetary system, followed by a steady accumulation of objects that seemed to be ships of some kind being transferred through from somewhere. Shortly afterward, the objects began moving toward Thurien. VISAR could detect no h-grid power or control beams and was unable to check their progress. They were self-powered, heavily armed Jevlenese war vessels, and there were fifty of them. As they fanned out to maneuver into positions around Thurien, JEVEX reopened contact briefly with VISAR to deliver the Jevlenese ultimatum: the Thuriens had forty-eight hours to place their entire world-system under Jevlenese control. If at the end of that period they had not agreed, obliteration of Thurien cities one at a time would commence, starting with Vranix. Those were the terms. There was nothing to discuss.

The atmosphere inside the Government Center at Thurios was strained and tense. All of the Terran group from McClusky were present with Calazar, Showm, and a selection of engineering and technical experts that included Eesyan’s deputy, Morizal. They were already six hours into the ultimatum period.

"But there must be something you can do," Caldwell protested, stamping backward and forward across the center of the room in frustration. "Couldn’t you try using remote-controlled ships to ram them? Couldn’t VISAR make a few black holes to suck them into or something? There has to be a way."

"I agree," Showm said, looking at Calazar. "We should try. I know it’s distasteful, but the Jevlenese have made the rules. Have you considered the alternatives?"

"They could pick off ramships long before they even got near," Morizal said. "And they could detect a black hole forming and evade it long before it could trap them. And even then you could only hope to get a few at the most. The rest would incinerate Thurien then and there without waiting for the deadline."

"And besides, that’s not the way," Calazar said at last, throwing up his hands. "Ganymeans have never sought solutions by war or violence. I couldn’t condone anything like that. We will not descend to the level of Jevlenese barbarism."

"You’ve never faced this kind of threat before," Karen Heller pointed out. "What other way is there to meet it?"

"She’s right," Showm said. "The Jevlenese force is not large. There’s a good chance that it’s all they possess right now. Six months from now that could change. Earth’s logic is harsh, but nevertheless realistic in this kind of situation: losing some people now could buy the time to save many more later. It’s a lesson they have learned, and we may have to as well."

"It’s not the way," Calazar said again. "You’ve seen Earth’s history. That kind of logic always leads to escalation without limits. It’s insane. I won’t allow us to start down that road."

"Broghuilio is insane," Showm insisted. "There’s no other way."

"There must be. We need time to consider."

"We don’t have any time."

A heavy silence descended. On one side of the room, Hunt caught Lyn’s eye and shrugged hopelessly. She raised her eyebrows and sighed. There was nothing to say. The situation didn’t look good. A short distance away Danchekker was becoming restless. He removed his spectacles, squinted through them while he twisted them first this way and then that in front of his face, then replaced them and began pinching his nose with his thumb and forefinger. Something was going through his mind. Hunt watched him curiously and waited.

"Suppose . . ." Danchekker began, thought for a second longer, then swung his head toward Calazar and Morizal. "Suppose we could induce the Jevlenese to postpone their offensive intentions and switch their force to the defensive . . . in other words take it back to Jevlen," he said. "That would gain us some time."

Calazar looked at him, puzzled. "Why should they do that? To defend against what? We have nothing to threaten any attack against them with, and neither have you."

"Agreed," Danchekker said. "But perhaps there is a way in which we could persuade them that we do." The Ganymeans stared back at him nonplussed. He explained, "Lyn and Vic were talking recently about an idea to simulate an all-out assault on Jevlen inside VISAR and inject it into JEVEX, assuming ZORAC gains access of course. And by suitably manipulating JEVEX’s internal records, we could, perhaps, then instill in JEVEX the conviction that the existence of such forces was consistent with what it has been observing for years. You see my point? Such a ruse might create enough confusion inside the Jevlenese camp for them to withdraw their forces. And given a sufficient level of uncertainty, they would probably not risk firing upon Thurien until they had determined the true situation. What we would do then I have no idea, but it would at least gain us some respite from the current predicament."

Showm was listening with a strange look on her face. "That would be almost identical to what they did to us," she murmured. "We’d be turning their own tactic right back at them."

"Yes, it does have a certain appeal of that nature about it," Danchekker agreed.

In response to some questions from Morizal, Danchekker went on to describe the idea in greater detail. When he had finished, the Ganymeans looked at one another dubiously, but none of them could pick out a fatal flaw in the argument. "What do you say, VISAR?" Calazar asked after they had talked for some time.

"It might work, but it still rests on a five-percent probability at best," VISAR replied. "It’s still the same problem: the only way I could get into JEVEX is if ZORAC can switch off its jamming system, and so far ZORAC doesn’t seem to be having much luck. I still haven’t heard a thing from it."

"What else can you suggest?" Calazar asked.

A few seconds went by. "Nothing," VISAR admitted. "I could get to work and manufacture the information with some help from the Terrans and have it ready to beam through on the off-chance ZORAC does get me in, but it’s still five percent. In other words don’t bank on it."

A faraway look had been coming into Hunt’s eyes while the discussion was going on. One by one the heads in the room turned toward him curiously as they noticed. "It’s this problem about distracting JEVEX’s attention again," he said, "isn’t it? If we could just freeze its self-checking functions for the couple of seconds ZORAC would need to switch off the jamming routines and open an h-link, VISAR would be able to hold that link open permanently and do the rest."

"True, but what’s the point?" VISAR said. "We’ve already been through all this. We can’t do anything like that because the only way in is through ZORAC in the first place."