Watson, Ian - Novel 06 by God's World (v1.1)

smile slips as he stares at his own instruments, counting. “Seven, eight,
nine.”
                 “Confirm.
Spreading out. Two targeting on our missiles. Others on different vectors.”
                 “Slow
lasers,” broods Heinz, disenchanted now. “And nuclear warheads doing about as
much harm as hand grenades . . . How punily our weapons perform.”
                “Hence my remark about fireworks,
Anders. Possibly the main effect is sucked down into normal space. I hope we’re
not disrupting anything.”
                 “You’re
glad!” accuses Jacobik, driving Heinz away from him with a glare of
hatred—which even encompasses Captain K. “You really don’t want us to blow them
out of the sky. You’re dooming us! ”
                 “How
could I be?” Heinz recoils, looking puzzled.
                 “Intercept
those missiles, Mr Jacobik. Use the minimum salvo possible.”
                 “Minimum
computes as seven. That’s all we have left!”
                 “Double
fireball! And again. That’s our attack missiles taken out. Seven bandit
missiles oncoming. Those slow X-rays can’t have cooked their circuits.”
                 “Use
all seven, Mr Jacobik. And afterwards, pray.”
                 Jacobik
obeys, then stares listlessly at his control board, for his nest is eggless
now.
                 As
the tiny double-suns bloom invisibly in High Space, with Ritchie counting off
the echoes of the fireballs, something writhes and surges and explodes within.
Something discharges in my belly, my abdomen, my sex. There’s absurd relief. A slackening of tension.
                 “Did
you feel it, Amy?” gasps Peter. To some degree or other we all must have.
Jacobik’s face is drained of blood.
                 “A
dream,” mutters Rene. “What next?”
                 As
if in answer, Ritchie uncaps the scopes. Four scimitars of red light are
cutting in towards us. They’re too close. There’s no time left to gun the
engines.
                 “We’re
hit,” cries Natalya; and her face reveals astonishment. “No we aren’t. Yes we
are. There’s damage, but it’s the old damage. The same sites that were lasered
before. I don’t understand.”
                 “I
do,” says Heinz. “We have lasered ourselves. We already did it when the alarm
rang, when we were all in mess room. Causality is different here. Cause and
effect break down outside. You fired
our lasers, Jacobik, because your blood’s roused and you’re fighting mad. We were
all getting quite worked up. The beams have looped round us in High Space, and
through time too. There are two impact times, balancing each other: after you
fired, and before you fired. The effect is the cause of the effect— but the
real cause is you , my friend. Or,” he
shudders, “maybe all of us, with you as the catalyst. We’ve just shot
ourselves. Which means—”
                 “Look
at the alien ships! ” Peter catches Rent’s arm.
                 On
the scopescreens they’re growing larger now, closing in on us from two
different quadrants. Still they change shape. The cone is now a prism, studded
with four cubes. And the ovoid is a cube, with hemispheres upon it. Ritchie
backs off the magnification, and now they aren’t closing on us at all, but on
each other.
                 “They
won’t fire again,” cries Peter. “I know they won’t. Don’t we all?”
                 Rene
slaps his belly and gufffaws. “Ten suis
certain ”
                 “He’s
right! ” shouts Heinz. “They’re us ,
that’s what. They’re projections—transformations of Pilgrim . Their shape’s the same as ours: five linked units each.
Topologically it doesn’t matter whether those are spheres or cubes or pussy
cats. It’s a zone of abstract