The Immortal Game (Rook's Song) (7 page)

“Why?”

“It is very awkward because to mention it…well,
to mention it, it breaks a certain code of etiquette.  Once you are
aware
that I’m actively trying to deceive you, then the deceptions…they can become less potent.  Because you are expecting them, you see them more easily, and it doesn’t train your mind as well as it should.”  Bishop nods towards the holographic chessboard, still floating behind Rook.  “It would be like me telling you my next move.  It isn’t fair to rob you of the chance to discover it on your own.”

“But then you can’t…wait…
wait
!  Hold on!”  Something has just occurred to him.  “A second ago, you said that you’ve been playing these games on me already.  Meaning this wasn’t the first time?” asks Rook.  The alien says nothing.  “Well, what were they?  What were the other decep—”  Then, it dawns on him, and his nostrils flare.  “Oh…oh, I’m supposed to guess, is that it?”  He chuckles mirthlessly, and a second later it turns into another one of his mad laughs.  Rook hasn’t cackled like this in a long time, not since before the final encounter at
Magnum Collectio
.  This is all just too much. 
Aliens and their ridiculous cultures
, he thinks.  Then, slowly, a few more things begin to dawn on him.  An endoergic coupling that kept burning out a week ago, a series of fuses that kept blowing out in the circuitry bay, and then today, with the electrostatic energy influx that kept burning out all the quantum capacitors…

“I can see you’re putting some of the pieces together now.”  The Ianeth makes another human-like shrug.  “A pity the revel
ations stem from my confession.  I’ve robbed you of the glory of the thought’s inception, and the exercise of working it out for yourself.”

“This…this is
insane
!  We’re supposed to be on the same side here!  Partners!  Partners don’t do this to one another!”

“If they wish to be strong, they
do.  If they are truly friends, they will.”

“
We’re…”  Rook trails off again, his face turning red.  “You…you bloody moron!  We are the
last of our people
!  You an’ me!  If you play games of sabotage with my ship, we can’t rightly fight the Cerebs, now, can we?  Not if the whole damn ship is comin’ apart because of your games!”

“If our friendship cannot survive the lies, if we are both unable to apply the Sight adequately—”

“
Both?
You expect me to
reciprocate
in this ridiculous game of—?”

“—then we are not worthy to survive at all.”

Rook finally lowers his weapon, shaking his head.  “Wait, say that again.  Say that
again
.  You need to repeat yourself because I swear heard something else.”

“If our friendship cannot survive—”

“Shut up, I heard you the first time!”  Rook turns and throws his pistol against the flight controls, temporarily upsetting the harmony of half a dozen holo-screens.  Then Rook runs a hand through his hair, scratches his beard, starts pacing and fuming.  He leans against the fire controls for the particle beam and spits out a curse, then kicks the base of the seat.  “This isn’t happening.  This can’t be
happening
to me.  It’s bad enough that I…”  He thinks about Badger, what he sacrificed to make it this far.  “I thought I had someone.  A real partner.  What is this?  What are
you
?”

“I think you need to understand, this is part a paternal instinct in my peopl
e—a natural game we play with our children, to teach them about the world and to keep their wits about them—but also part of something we do on a more subtle, sophisticated level with our adult friends.  It has a term, you might call it, ah,
deception play
.”

“
Christ,” Rook whispers, running his hands over his face.  “Just when I think things are looking up, it turns out I’ve got a traitor on my crew!”  He is fuming, fighting to keep control.  The old paranoia from back in the asteroid field threatens to rear its head here.

“I am no traitor.  It is instinctual for my people to test the Sight of each other on occasion,
and the instinct is so deeply embedded that it often happens without forethought or planning—”

“
Yeah, well, your people were morons!
” Rook roars, suddenly rounding on the alien.  His face has turned a dangerous hue.

“You really shouldn’t be so upset.  In many ways, this is conducive with your own philosophy.”

“What the hell’re you talking—?”

“An opponent sharpens the mind.  Those were your words, were they not?”

“Opponents aren’t the same as friends.  You trust friends—”

“My people believe relationships are more complex than that.  A friend may be
come an enemy at times, and an enemy may become a friend at others.  It happens frequently, the forging and breaking of alliances.  Nations learned all about it.  This is as much a part of evolution as natural selec—”

“Friends teach other about compassion—”

“I agree—”

“They teach each other about commitment, and endurance, and perseverance—”

“And blind spots,” Bishop puts in.

Rook blinks, incredulous.  “
Blind spots?!
”

“How else will you learn about your weaknesses?”

He blinks again.  “Well, genius, if you ever do spot a weakness in my duties, you could try
telling
me what you—”

“Telling you teaches you nothing.  As well tell the sword to sharpen itself.  Only pressure and heat temper the steel.  Only using it makes the hilt fit the hand
over time.”

Rook takes a deep breath, tries
once more to collect his calm.  “Listen to me,
amigo
, and listen closely.  This is my ship, got that?  My ship!  And you don’t mess with her, understand?”  He walks over to Bishop, gets an inch from his massive face.  “Are we clear on that?  You can play your little games when we’re off this ship, but when we’re on it, the games flippin’ stop. 
They stop!
  Got it?  I cannot be worried about both you and the Cerebs, got that?  I can’t be worried that something’s going to go wrong on my ship, or that the readings I’m getting are falsified!  The deception play doesn’t exist on my ship, do you understand? 
Do you copy?!
”

Bishop is unmoved
.  Eventually, though, he nods and says, “Compliance.”

Rook sighs heavily, and turns away.  “Good enough.  Now get outta my sight.”  Bishop turns, and starts towards the cockpit’s exit, when Rook realizes something
else.  “Hey, wait.”  The alien turns back to him.  “You said ‘compliance.’  But you also said that this deception play, it goes all the way to the core of your people.  It’s instinctual, in your DNA?”

“
Affirmative, friend.”

“So does that mean…
when you just said
compliance
…?”

Bishop holds his hands out, a gesture of conciliation.  “If I told you, would you believe me, knowing what you know now?”

He thinks about it, then produces the only logical answer.  “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

“This is as it should be, Rook.  There is an old saying where I come from: ‘Trust no one.  Especially a friend.’”  The alien lets that hang in the air between them for a few seconds, then nods courteously and says, “I have a few more things to check on.”

Rook watches him go, and now, passing into him, we know that he is already considering ejecting the alien from his ship. 
Just shut off the cockpit, open the cargo bay doors, then all the doors in the ship, and eject his ass out into the void
.  Bishop would survive, his body was built to endure in the vacuum of space, but he wouldn’t be troubling Rook any longer.

Then, Rook
considers how much the ship has benefited just by having the alien around.  Much of the upgrades are all Ianeth design, and his capacities as an engineer—and the fact that he needs only an hour of sleep each day—has put the Sidewinder in the best shape it’s been in since rolling off the assembly line.  And, though he is loath to admit it, there is also the company.  He and Bishop usually don’t talk overmuch, but they do share occasional conversations over chess games or whenever they meet over meals.

Badger
is gone, which means all of humanity is gone.  Rook is fighting a war with no positive outcome.  If he loses, mankind is wiped out.  If he wins, mankind is wiped out.  Nothing to live for, nothing to die for, nothing but the compulsion to move forward, to complete a task.  It was why he was selected to be a Sidewinder pilot, his ability to exist on his own and occupy his time with endless machinations. 
I just never thought the job would be
this
lonely
. 
How could I?

Rook takes a seat at the consol
e, gauges the holographic chessboard, then looks back at the 3D image of Kali’s surface, still streaming in front of him.  He moves the image so that it looks like he’s flying over some of the volcanoes in the western hemisphere.  He glances at the giant floating sphere outside his window, then back at his chessboard.  Rook considers the fact that if he kicked the Ianeth off his ship now, he’d have to go back to playing the computer, which was almost as soulless an experience as playing the Turk.

Rook smiles, thinking about the Turk.  It was a legendary story from Earth he first heard from his father.  A machine so sophisticated it defeated Napoleon Bonaparte himself at chess.  But then, the Turk had the advantage of…

A stray notion, interrupting his train of thought.  It’s there one second, then gone the next.  Then it returns, sticks around for a second, and causes him a brief smile.  Then, a chime goes off, and the thought goes off in search of some other idea to attach itself to.  Rook looks down at his trouble-board.  Pycno mixtures need adjusting.  Again.  And now for the first time he is forced to consider if this is a real problem or one conjured up by Bishop.

The
Turk
.

The thought returns again. 
Like many schemes, it forms on its own, a small irritant in the clam’s throat that eventually yields a pearl.

Rook
germinates on the thought a short while, then glances out his window, at the giant floating husk that might’ve been a powerful space station once if…

Need to
stay focused, need to go check on the pycno channelers
, he thinks, standing from his seat and stepping out of the cockpit. 
Gotta make sure the alien isn’t screwing with anything
.  Walking down the hall, the thought from before never really leaves him.  It’s like a gnat buzzing all around his ear, and it needs swatting.

The
Turk
.

3

Before making its descent to the planet’s surface, the Sidewinder must first leave orbit.  To slow the ship from its orbit
al speed, the Sidewinder is turned around and flies backward.  The OMS (orbital maneuvering engines) now thrust the ship out of orbit, and the ship begins its plunge.

The descent has to be handled carefully, for despite having a much thinner atmosphere than, say, Earth, there is no less a terrible disturbance from the unusually high levels of sulfur.  The Sidewinder holds its own, making most of the necessary adjustments itself—extending flaps to break speed, activating reverse thrusters, calculating the necessary pitch, et cetera—leaving the larger motions such as steering to Rook.

The particles of air surrounding the ship cause immense friction, or drag.  While useful to reentry, this can also be dangerous.  The Sidewinder’s exterior hull begins to heat up to dangerous levels, and the compristeel plates, despite being coated in an ablative material, do little to protect the circuits, wires, and computers running through the walls—the ship’s energy shields angle forward to deflect the resistance coming at it straight on.  However, this temporarily puts the Sidewinder in a bubble of “floatingness” that often surprised rookie pilots at the Academy.  Going from jarring drag to sudden and almost gliding conditions once caused Rook to fail an ASCA simulator exam.  Presently, he compensates for the abrupt transition without overcorrecting, and switches off the OMS.

There are other ways of bleeding off the intense heat surrounding the ship, and that includes techniques going back centuries. 
The Sidewinder was, naturally, built with blunt-body design in mind.  By pitching its body just right, it forms a blunter wall, which creates a shockwave in front of the ship.  This keeps the heat at a distance away from the ship, and allows Rook to dial back the energy shields so that he doesn’t have to use up as much power.

The Sidewinder reaches
the typical angle of descent, which is about forty degrees.  Below it, clouds of sulfur are spreading across its belly as it glides smoothly over a region of volcano-made valleys.  This region is directly on the border between the tortured western hemisphere and the relative flatness of the eastern hemisphere.  Here, there are no volcanic mountains, though there are hills of black lava rock, with rivers of red-hot lava moving between them, slow as molasses in December, we might’ve said back on Earth.  This is a rogue planet, of course, with an unstable core generating enough heat to keep hot the lava that is freshly ejected, yet, having no parent star, the temperature just outside the ship is -28° degrees F.  It ought to be colder, but the concentration of sulfur—and the fact that it keeps getting pumped out—has kept this planet at
barely
survivable arctic levels.

But the atmosphere is far from breathable.  The air is
replete with ashy dust, with such small amounts of oxygen that only certain pockets of the planet could ever be terraformed.  This planet has long been doomed, and would have never been of any other interest to humans besides an astrophysicist’s study.

Distant thunder rattles
the world.  Thor’s Anvil has struck another spark.  Wicked arcs of purple volcanic lightning split the sky over a hundred miles away, then the world goes dark again, Rook’s face lit only by the lights on the console.  Some of his sensors are showing strange data because of high-atmosphere static energies.  Looking at the gloomy landscape and even gloomier sky, Rook feels the need to lighten the mood, and, if he is being honest, a need to remind himself what he’s fighting for.  He taps a few keys, brings up the immense song library:

SEARCH: CLASSIC BANDS: ERA/YEAR: 1966

ARTIST NAME: THE BEACH BOYS

ALBUM NAME: PET SOUNDS

SONG TITLE: WOULDN’T IT BE NICE

It doesn’t take long for the song to cue up.  The first few heavenly notes play so teasingly, giving the feeling of being transported someplace far, far away.  Very dreamy.  Then, the single snare drum, and the song kicks into gear.

“
Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older?

Then
we didn’t have to wait so long;

And wouldn’t it be nice to live together,

In the kind of world where we belong?
”

In the kind of world where we belong
, Rook thinks, considering those words heavily.  An entirely different meaning now that the world he knew was gone.  But he still hums right along.

“
You know it’s gonna make it that much better,

When we can say goodnight and stayyyyyy together
”

He taps a few more keys, checking the resolution of the images from the high-gain antennae.  Ahead of him, the probes that Bishop constructed zip ahead, scanning and sending back valuable data and images.  There is ample obsidian and pahoehoe lava below—vast lava lakes that have formed and frozen solid, with more lava being slowly added down through the millennia.  Scans also detect frozen water far below the surface, likely never to see the light of day.

He taps the intercom switch.  “Bishop, can you come up here to the cockpit?  We’re approaching the coordinates you specified.”

A moment.  Then, “Compliance.”

Rook feels a little tense and awkward.  He doesn’t know how to speak to Bishop now.  Indeed, he is only recently getting used to the idea that there
are
alien beings in the universe—despite having fought them, despite having captured them, despite having seen his comrades die at their hands, and despite the fact that even the most conservative inputs of the Drake equation long ago demonstrated that, at minimum, there are
millions
of advanced civilizations in the Milky Way alone, a part of Rook’s mind still doesn’t believe. 
Just as easily believe in ghosts
, he thinks.

While setting an approach vector, Rook thinks back to his first reaction to the Cerebral threat, to those first days when we all came into contact with something we
conjectured about countless times, but never thought we would live to see.

He was in the bed when the call came from Madison, his former college roommate.  The micropad was buzzing, and with the
wave of a hand he activated it.  The holographic image of Madison was sketchy, and he only got out a few words.  “Hey m…did…gotta see…”

“Whuuuu…?”

“Dude, you…can’t…it’s all over the…”  Then, the image blinked out, and all that was left was the holo message floating in the air:
SORRY!  THE CONNECTION IS BROKEN!  CHECK WITH YOUR QEC PROVIDER FOR MORE INFORMATION: SERVICE CODE 118A-420-000-1260.

The young man
sighed heavily.  He was tired of switching QEC providers—they claimed that this new quantum-entanglement communication was all ready to go, but obvious there were still bugs.  Groggily climbing out of bed with the intent to call his service provider, he threw the tangle of sheets off, fighting to loosen one piece that had wrapped around his ankle like a tentacle.  He staggered down the hall to the kitchen, poured a glass of orange juice and made the call to his provider.  Lo and behold, wouldn’t you know it, no service to
them
, either.

Great
, he thought, and downed his orange juice.  When he lowered his glass, he looked out the window over the sink at the expansive family farm, what had been in his family for four generations.  The farm was mostly flat fields that stretched across Kansas and even dipped into parts of Oklahoma.  Those fields were vast stretches of wheat, sorghum and sunflowers, terminating at the verdant green hills that rolled far off in the east.  The agri-bots were out in full force, helping tend to the 3,000-hectare farm, watering, spreading pesticide, and targeting weeds while they were still young plants.  Two of them needed repair, though, and so far Dad hadn’t saved enough to get a decent repair bot, so that would be his job today.

That morning, there were dark clouds rumbling off in the distance.  They looked harsh and black, more like roiling smoke than clouds. 
Kind of like a volcano cloud
, he thought, pouring another glass of OJ.  There were black columns of smoke climbing the sky, and through his sleep-addled mind he forced another conclusion. 
Jesus, no
. 
Not a wildfire
.  It had been a dry summer, and local firefighters and meteorologists had been warning the whole region about the possibility.

He’d just slammed down his glass when the door burst open, and he heard someone rushing in.  He had a feeling he knew who it was, and what it was about. 
They would need to start up the anti-fire irrigation system quickly.  “Dad?” he said.

But it wasn’t his dad.  Coming down the hall was Mom, who wasted no time.  “
Oh my God, where’s your father?  Have you seen him?”

“
No, he’s probably there, though,” he said, pointing towards the clouds in the distance.

“Why would you say that?” she said, looking a little more than frightened.  “
Have you not heard?”

“I saw.”

“You saw?  Saw what?”

“The smoke.  Jesus, how big is it?”

“How big is wh—no, no, it’s not a wildfire.  Jesus…God A’Mighty, I wish it was.”

That made his eyes go wide.  “What the hell are you talking about?  You wish it
was
?  What’s going—?”  The door opened again, and this time it was his dad.  “Jesus, Dad, how big is it?”

“God, son, it’s not just one.  There’s
four
of them,” he said, walking with large strides across the living room to switch on the holoprojector.  At the center of the room Catey Mangsley, the news anchor known to everyone in Kansas, came into their room and started talking, but no words were coming out as it was muted.

“I don’t understand.  Four fires?” he asked.

Dad turned around.  “Fires?”  He looked at his wife.  “What’s he talkin’ about?”

“He hasn’t heard, John.
  He thinks it’s a wildfire.”

“
A wild…?”  He trailed off and looked at his son.  “Holy God, son, it’s not a wildfire out there, that’s the ash cloud coming out from Kansas City.  We’ve been invaded.  Everybody has.  It’s happening everywhere.  It happened on Marra Four, the planet’s totally destroyed.  They think the thing that landed in Kansas City was just one of their probes.”

“Dad, what the hell are you—?”

“You don’t keep up with the news?”

“Some,” he admitted.  “But what’s this about?”

“Two weeks ago all communication stations on every planet lost communication with Marra Four, so the government sent military and repair squadrons.  It took them a while to get out that far, but after they did they reported back.”  He had never seen his father looking so afraid.  “The whole planet…it’s…they say it’s on fire.  Just like the atmosphere ignited, or something.  There’s no sign of impact craters, at least not any big enough to cause planetwide fallout…hell, I don’t know what all they’re saying, it’s all coming over too fast—”

“There’s reports that the last communiqué from a military outpost on Marra Four detected four large unidentified ships breaking through the atmosphere,” said Mom.  “An hour ago, Uma Six stations reported a bunch of machine-looking things falling out of the sky, and a bunch of people posted pics on the QEC boards—”

“And now nobody’s heard from them, either,” Dad cut back in.  “It’s their probes!  That’s what the news people are saying is the big theory now.  They send probes down days or weeks before they attack.  Four of them!  Just like we got!  Kansas City’s been hit, so has Tokyo, someplace in Siberia—”

The young man
interrupted.  “They?”

“Yes, son.  Aliens.”  Dad shook his head.  “Don’t give me that look, I didn’t believe either until I…well, hell, look here.”  He waved his hand at one of the dials on the holo
-screen and the news anchor was unmuted.

“—not clear if this is a
genuine attack,” said Catey Mangsley.  “But again, military officials are advising all citizens in and around the areas of impact to seek shelter now.  Do not try to take to the roads because you’ll only risk exposing yourself to possible harmful—”

“Yeah, right,” said Dad.  “Harmful my ass.  They’re just afraid all the roads and skyways are gonna be clogged, so no military vehicles can get in or out.”

“
Shh
.  Hush, John,” said Mom.

“—are now getting this emergency…yes…yes, hang on.  Please give us just a moment while we…”  The news anchor moved her hand around in the air, accessing images and files only she could see on the back of her imtech lenses.  “Okay, we have been instructed to read this warning to all local residents.  May I have your attention: This
is an urgent health message from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services,” she said.  “A weapon of unknown power and origin has been detonated in or outside of the following cities: Kansas City, Chelyabinsk, Tokyo, and Sydney.  The HHS and Department of Homeland Security urge you to find shelter.  If you can see the clouds at all, or if you were close enough to see the flash from where you were, it is advised that you seek shelter for no less than twenty-four hours.  Radiation is your greatest threat right now.  You cannot see, feel, or taste radiation.  You may not know if you’ve been exposed—”