Ascending - James Alan Gardner [146]
“Then keep us here, but let everyone else go—everyone in the crusade and Royal Hemlock. They haven’t seen any of this.”
“They still know too much,” Immu replied. “For example, they know FTL fields can be hypercharged by entering a star.” The mist above her head reshaped itself slightly—a tiny bit of fog broke off from the main gold ball and circled for a bit before plunging back inside. I realized this was intended to suggest Starbiter looping about the sun before she finally entered the fire…and I was most envious the Shad-dill mist-clouds could not only perform English translations but provide delightful visual effects.
Even as the fog was pretending to be Starbiter and the sun, its voice continued to speak. “This information is something we sought to keep secret. We replaced high officials in every culture we uplifted—like your Admirals Rhee and Macleod—and had them pass laws to prevent disclosure. For example, all starship computers in the Technocracy must be programmed to stay well clear of suns…supposedly as a safety precaution.”
“So,” said Festina, “if someone ever wanted to get near a star, the ship’s computer just wouldn’t let it happen. Simple, but elegant.”
“And yet,” I said, “Starbiter flew into the sun. She was reluctant to do so, but she obeyed me.”
The fog above Immu’s head flared brightly and made a harsh fizzing sound. I do not think the noise was intended to be speech—it sounded as if Immu was transmitting such angry thoughts to the cloud, the translation nanites had caught fire. In a moment, however, the fizzing spittered into silence and the cloud muttered, “We never should have given the Divians living starships.”
“It was part of their culture,” Esticus said softly. “It was what they were used to. They would have been most suspicious of ships made from inorganic parts.”
“I know,” Immu snapped, her cloud threatening to fizz again. “We still shouldn’t have taken the risk.” She turned back to Festina and me. “The moment we gave the first Zaretts to the Divians, we surrendered control. You don’t build Zaretts, you breed them; and in the breeding process, random factors inevitably creep in. The first Zaretts we made would never go close to a sun; we designed them to have an absolute phobia against it. But in every subsequent generation, a few individuals weren’t quite as afraid as their parents. Inhibitions just don’t breed true, especially when they’re groundless. By now, half the Zaretts alive can be bullied into entering a star if you scream at them loud enough. Fortunately for us, no one ever tried it persistently.”
“Until I came along,” I said proudly.
Immu did not answer…but her translation mist gave another angry fizz.
“Why did you do it?” Festina asked the Shaddill. “Why create this elaborate lie about the limitations of FTL fields?”
“To slow you down,” Esticus said. “To disrupt your species’ development. And to make sure our own vessel was always much faster than the craft of lesser races.”
“Surely you’ve realized by now,” Immu said, “everything we do is aimed at weakening you. We approach cultures as they start into space; we offer them technology and flawed but plausible scientific models that completely bypass certain discoveries those races would otherwise make on their own.” The cloud above Immu’s head split into two hemispheres with a slight gap between left and right. “We create a discontinuity in a species’ scientific progress,” she said. “We give them devices they don’t understand and won’t understand, because they’ve been deflected from developing the necessary scientific background.”
“And of course,” Festina said, “you place robot agents in positions of authority to make sure the background science is never filled in.”
“Exactly,” Immu agreed, her cloud fusing together again. “Our robot replacements control the purse-strings for almost all research in your sector. If someone begins to investigate topics we dislike, that person is diverted to a different project.” A part of her cloud spun off on its own. “When that