Antagonist - Childe Cycle 11 (135 page)

"It
isn't,"
Bleys
said.
"It
makes
too
much
sense
for
it
to
be
wrong. That
phase-shield
wall
around
Old
Earth
changed
everything.
A wall
like
that
would
only
slow
down
a
determined
attack
from
outside,
normally,
because
attackers
could
simply
move
up
close enough
to
get
their
bearings,
shift
right
through
it—and
have
time on
the
other
side
to
recover
and
mount
an
attack
on
the
planet."

"I
see!"
Toni
exclaimed.
"With
the
Dorsai
at
Old
Earth,
they
can simply
wait
behind
the
wall
and
destroy
any
ship
shifting
through
it before
it
can
recover
from
the
effects
of
the
shift!"

"More
than
that,"
he
said.
"They
can
also
threaten
to
come
out from
behind
the
wall
whenever
one
of
our
ships
comes
near
enough to
try
to
set
up
for
a
safe
shift.
Forcing
our
ships
to
shift
from
farther away
widens
the
uncertainty
factor—"
He
stopped
as
she
made
a gesture
indicating
he
had
lost
her.
"—I
mean,
the
farther
a
ship moves
in
a
shift,
the
less
certainty
it
can
have
that
it
will
come
out exactly
where
it
intends."
He
stopped,
to
let
her
think
that
over.

"I
think
I
see,"
she
said
after
a
moment.
"It's
something
like
the fact
that
the
farther
away
an
archer
is
from
his
target,
the
more likely
it
is
his
arrow
will
miss
the
target—"
He
started
to
speak,
but she
checked
him
with
an
upraised
hand.
"—but
there
are
no
such factors
as
windage
in
space,
so
it
must
be
a
factor
of
the
physics
involved?"

"That's
an
analogy,
only,"
he
said,
"so
don't
try
to
run
too
far
with it.
Let's
simply
say
that
under
the
principles
of
uncertainty,
the
farther
a
ship
tries
to
shift,
the
more
its
point
of
arrival
has
to
be
pictured
as
a
sort
of
spray
pattern."

"I
understand,"
she
said.
"That's
why
interstellar
ships
take
a number
of
shifts
to
make
their
trips—they
make
relatively
short shifts
so
that
they
don't
come
out
of
shift
too
far
off-course.
And
it takes
time
because
when
they
come
out
of
each
shift,
they
have
to figure
out
exactly
where
they
are
before
they
can
calculate
their next
shift."

"Exactly,"
he
said.
"That's
why
only
the
most
accomplished spacers,
like
the
best
Dorsai,
dare
to
try
to
shift
in
a
planet's atmosphere—they
do
it
in
such
short
jumps
that
they
don't
have
to calculate
very
much.
...
I've
heard
they
just
judge
it
by
eye,
or maybe
by
feel."

"So
if
we
tried
to
shift
to
Old
Earth
from—let's
say
the
orbit
of Mars—we
couldn't
be
sure
we'd
come
out
inside
that
wall
of
theirs."

"Yes,"
Bleys
said.
"And
if
we
sent
a
fleet,
it'd
be
statistically
certain
some
of
them
wouldn't
get
it
right;
the
greater
the
range
from which
a
ship
makes
a
phase-shift,
the
greater
the
likelihood
of errors—such
as
coming
out
on
the
wrong
side
of
the
wall,
coming out
so
near
it
that
they
touch
it
and
are
destroyed—or
coming
out inside
some
other
solid
object,
such
as
the
planet
itself."

"Which
would
create
a
big
explosion?"

"About
the
size
of
a
large
nuclear
weapon,"
Bley
s
responded— somewhat
absently.

"It's
not
that
we
can't
shift
our
fleets
through
the
shield-wall
any time
we
want—once
we
have
our
ships
and
people
ready,"
he
went on
musingly.
"But
our
people
would
know
they
were
being
asked
to make
a
fairly
long-range
shift
into
a
fairly
small
pocket
of
empty space—it's
going
to
be
hard
to
motivate
them."

Toni
was
silent;
and
after
a
moment
he
turned
to
look
at
her.

"Ask
the
captain
to
pick
a
place
for
us
to
sit,
on
Old
Earth's
side of
the
star,"
he
said.
"Perhaps
somewhere
in
Mars'
orbit—although of
course
she's
not
there—and
then
give
those
coordinates
to
Many Colors,
so
she'll
know
where
to
come
once
she's
delivered
the
message
I'm
about
to
give
her.
I
want
it
to
go
to
New
Earth."

He
sat
back,
returning
his
gaze
to
the
screen.
While
he
had
been talking
with
Toni,
Favored
’
s
path
had
moved
the
planet
out
of
sight; but
then,
it
was
the
stars
he
wanted
to
see,
anyway.

"The
captain
has
decided
on
a
rendezvous
point,"
Toni
said
a short
time
later,
"and
the
information's
been
passed
to
Many Colors.
Since
she's
only
going
back
to
her
place
in
the
chain,
she
doesn't need
to
calculate
a
jump,
and
is
ready
to
go."

"All
right,"
Bleys
said.
"Take
a
look
at
this."
He
touched
a
control,
sending
the
file
to
her
own
screen,
and
she
sat
down
to
read what
he
had
written.

To
all
who
believe
in
the
future
for
ourselves
and
our
children:

I
have
been
reluctant
to
speak
out,
since
it
has
always
been
my firm
belief
that
those
like
myself
exist
only
to
answer
questions— once
they
have
been
asked,
and
if
they
are
asked.

However,
I
have
just
now
received
information,
from
people
fleeing
Old
Earth,
which
alarms
me.
It
speaks,
I
think,
of
a
danger
to
all those
of
good
intent;
and
particularly
to
such
of
us
on
the
new worlds.
For
some
hundreds
of
years
now,
the
power-center
worlds
of the
Dorsai,
with
their
lust
for
warlike
aggression,
the
Exotics,
with their
avarice
and
cunning,
and
those
the
Friendly
people
have
so aptly
named
the
Forgotten
of
God—these,
among
the
otherwise great
people
of
the
fourteen
worlds,
have
striven
to
control
and
plunder
the
peaceful
and
law-abiding
Cultures
among
us.

Toni
looked
up
from
her
screen. "It's
a
declaration
of
war,"
she
said.

"No,
it's
a
call
to
arms,"
Bleys
said.
"I'm
not
calling
for
war.
I'm trying
to
tell
people
that
someone
else
had
already
started
a
war, and
we
need
to
work
together
to
defend
ourselves."

Toni
looked
back
to
her
screen.

"Let
me
rephrase
that,"
he
said.
"It's—"
He
stopped
as
she made
a
movement
with
her
lips,
but
her
eyes
never
left
her
screen and
she
did
not
speak.
He
stayed
silent
himself.