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.”“Some kind of artifact, certainly.To me its behavior suggests a gigantic robot probe.”“Must be more than a probe, I’d say.Who would make a simple probe that size, and why?Looks like a whole bloody motherless moving world.”Decades before Earth-descended humans began serious space exploration, a theory had been developed of sending robots out unaccompanied, to replicate themselves (like so many bacteria, jeered detractors) and push the exploration forward, one early calculation had predicted that by this means the whole Galaxy might be explored in only a few standard centuries.The tactic of sending out independent robots as explorers had been tested, but, for several reasons, never seriously adopted.On the same or closely related grounds, none of the beautiful new personal robots were routinely part of the hardware in the combat-ready fleet.Time passed.Five minutes after being called back to the bridge, the admiral made a decision.“Well, my colleagues, here goes.” He passed on orders.The flagship, with most of the rest of the fleet following and flanking, eased closer to the apparition, on a course that would also establish the battle fleet even more directly between it and the inner system, nesting place of the inhabited worlds.Whether the stranger took note of this redeployment or not was hard to guess.It did not alter course or speed.When Radigast ordered a halt, after the passage of an additional half an hour, they had come within a million kilometers of the intruder, putting them only light seconds apart.(On the holostage, the little image of the stranger was still steadily advancing, at a rate that would put it right in the middle of the fleet’s formation, in a matter of only minutes.) The admiral turned his gaze to the plenipotentiary.“Sir, I’m not sure if I’m conducting motherless diplomacy here or what.Would you like any input on framing the first message?”Gregor slowly shook his head.“Not this one, thank you.Perhaps the next.If there is to be another.”The stranger was hailed, in accordance with standard procedures, and asked to identify itself.There was no response.One of the admiral’s deputies said: “They don’t want to answer.But someone must be aboard?” It came out as more question than statement.No one could give a confident answer.“It seems to have a very definite idea Page 33ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlabout where it wants to go.”“It seems to me more and more likely that there’s no one on board that ship at all.Surely, anyone who’s breathing and not brain-dead would have thought of something to say to us by this time.”“If there’s no living crew, then one might argue that it’s not a ship, in the strict sense.Only a machine.”“A machine, or a bloody artificial planetoid.Whether you call it one thing or the other, it’s the purpose I’m concerned about.”“What it’s going to do next.”“Yeah.And after we know what, we can ask why, but probably that particular motherless question can wait a little longer.”“Why is it here? but I just can’t believe that there’s no living crew.”“You mean you think there are people aboard, living intelligent motherless beings of some kind, but refusing to answer us? What would they gain by hiding out?”The admiral’s people were certainly not afraid to argue with the boss.“They could gain anonymity.especially if they’re Huveans.”But Radigast was not willing to accept that answer yet.“From the look of it, it might have been through a bloody war already, or maybe two or three.Anybody here heard of a motherless war that’s started somewhere else?”Nobody had, of course.The Twin Worlds-Huvea confrontation was the only interplanetary conflict to have reached the flash point yet, though many other worlds were rearming.Whatever the intruder’s exact nature and purpose might be, certain humps and projections on the undamaged portions of the hull suggested that it might be heavily armed.The decision of what to do next was left to the admiral to make.Again Radigast issued orders.“Send our own robot probe toward it, try for a close orbit first, say at about ten klicks.If that doesn’t wake them up, we’ll go for direct physical contact.Just a gentle tap.But let’s see if we can establish the close orbit first.”Gregor was nodding his unsolicited agreement.A few minutes later, the probe was closing on the stranger, closing to a range of twenty kilometers.Then fifteen.Evidently the probe did not appear so innocent to whoever or whatever was monitoring its progress from the other end of its trajectory.Someone or something there was certainly aware of it, for the probe was neatly vaporized by some kind of beam weapon before it could quite come within ten kilometers of that monstrous hull.SIXThere was silence on the flagship’s bridge, and then a muttered obscenity from the admiral.When none of the other officers came up with anything to add to that comment, Gregor offered: “Well.I suppose we might have done the same, to anything it sent toward us.”Radigast was still staring at the stage.“Bah.We’d have responded reasonably when hailed, not let things get to this stage.I’d say our motherless visitor displays a definitely unneighborly attitude.”The captain was persistent.“A Huvean attitude, sir?”The admiral only grunted.Gregor was thinking: The world has changed, and unexpectedly, the way it always does.Probably he had just witnessed the beginning of a war, though it was not the war that anyone had foreseen, and it had started in a totally unpredictable way.Page 34ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlAround him, on the bridge and elsewhere, a full complement of people in comfortable couches, aided by some vastly greater number of machines, were continually taking readings, studying every scratch and dimple on the visitor’s surface, trying to plot every meter of its predicted course.Another crew member, one that Gregor had not met, was talking to the admiral.“Sir, we can’t identify anything about the spectrum of that weapon flash, can’t pin it down as resulting from any armament from any known world.In particular, I certainly can’t see this, this thing, as the product of any Huvean shipyard.Of course we haven’t had a good look at its capabilities yet.”“Well, keep trying.That goes for everyone, people.We have to nail this thing down, what it is, especially as it might connect to Huvea, what it can do.Guessing is not an option.”“Yes sir, I realize that, we all do.Admiral, our people have been in practically continuous contact with Huvea for many years, ever since both sets of colonies were founded.We know them, their society, their capabilities.I’ll take my oath, they have never built a ship or a machine like that.”Gregor was keeping silent, letting the military experts talk.Identifying strange ships in space was part of their business, not of his.But in his private thoughts he kept coming back to the point that if this was some Earth-descended artifact, it was way beyond the innovative possibilities of Huvean strategy.Who else was ready to attack Twin Worlds?Knowing that was part of his business, as a diplomat.And the answer was: no one.Radigast was moving in the same direction, following his own lights.“If it’s not Huvean, and not some crazy bloody tactical trick some motherless ED psycho on some other world has thought up, the only answer left is that it’s non-ED.It’s truly alien.”An officer of lesser rank, who until now had been keeping quiet, spoke up.“Carmpan?”There was a silence, as if no one on the bridge thought the suggestion really deserved a comment
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