The Big Picture Read online

  The Big Picture

  Timothy Zahn

  Timothy Zahn

  The Big Picture

  THE southwest corner of the black fortress wavered in the scope image, its clean lines obscured by distance, a rapid-moving line of wispy clouds, and the distortion that came from the natural turbulence of Minkta's planetary atmosphere. From Defender Fifty-Five's synchronous orbit twenty-two thousand miles above the surface, Jims Harking reflected, there was a lot of distance and atmosphere to look through.

  But the clouds, at least, he could do something about. He watched the image on his monitor, finger poised over the "shoot" button; and as the trailing edge of the cloud patch swept past, he gave the key a light tap.

  And that was it for his shift. Four hundred and thirty high-magnification photos, covering the entire Sjonntae outpost and much of the surrounding terrain, all painstakingly set up and shot over the past eight hours.

  As he'd done during his previous eight-hour shift. And the one before that, and the one before that.

  Leaning tiredly back in his seat, Harking tapped the scrub key. The last photo, still displayed on his monitor, quickly sharpened as the sophisticated computer programs cleaned as much of the distance and atmosphere from the image as they could.

  And with the scrubbing Harking now could see that there were also two figures in the photo, standing just outside the door at that corner of the fortress. Sjonntae, undoubtedly; the aliens never let the indigenous population get that close to their outpost.

  Possibly looking up in the direction of the human space station high overhead.

  Probably laughing at it.

  Harking glared at the photo, trying to work up at least a stirring of hatred for the Sjonntae. But there was nothing there. He'd already expended all the emotion he had on the aliens, all the anger and hatred and fear that a single human psyche could generate. All that was left now was the cold, bitter logic of survival.

  Perhaps that was all humanity itself had left. With a sigh, he touched the key that would send the scrubbed photo into the hopper with the rest of the shift's work. The analysts would spend their next shift poring over all of it, trying yet again to find a way through the damper field that protected the fortress from attack. A subtle pattern in Sjonntae personnel movements, perhaps, or some clue in animal activity that might indicate where the vulnerable whorl in the field might be located. Something that would help break the desperate war of attrition Earth found itself in.

  Behind him, the door slid open. "Shift change, Ensign Harking," Jorm Tsu gave the official greeting as he stepped into the room. "I relieve you from your station."

  "Shift change, aye," Harking gave the official response, pushing back his chair and standing up. "I give you my station."

  Tsu stepped past him and sat down. "So," he said, the formalities concluded. "Anything new?"

  "Is there ever?" Harking countered. "I saw what looked like a confrontation between an overseer and a group of slaves, and I saw a couple of Sjonntae outside the fortress who were probably giving us a one-finger salute. Otherwise, it was pretty quiet."

  "Mm," Tsu said. "What happened with the slaves?"

  Harking shrugged. "I don't know. By the time I finished the pattern and got back to that area, they were all gone."

  "At least they weren't all lying there dead."

  "Unless the survivors took the bodies away with them," Harking pointed out.

  "Maybe," Tsu agreed. "But that would at least indicate the Sjonntae hadn't killed more than a third of them. It takes two live bodies to carry one dead one, right?"

  Harking grimaced. The logic of survival. "Right," he conceded. "I didn't notice any drag marks either."

  "Must not have been a really serious confrontation, then," Tsu concluded. "Either that, or the overseer was feeling generous today."

  Harking shook his head, this time trying to work up some emotion for the hapless native beings down there who had been enslaved by the Sjonntae. But he didn't have anything left for them either. "There must be something we can send down to help them," he ground out. "Some kind of weapon that'll work in the middle of the Shadow field."

  Tsu snorted. "Hey, you invent one and the war will be over in a week," he pointed out. "But what are you going to use? Technology's what draws the Shadows; and any weapon worth a damn against the Sjonntae will have to have some technology to it."

  "I know, I know," Harking said, an edge of impatience stirring within him. Like everyone else in the Expansion, he'd gone over this whole thing a thousand times. Any weapon more advanced than a crossbow gathered the inexplicable, insubstantial Shadows around it. And in the presence of enough Shadow, sentient beings became desperately ill.

  In the presence of more than enough Shadow, they died.

  "What about explosives?" he suggested. "I seem to remember hearing a news report a while back about them using explosive crossbow bolts on Heimdal and Canis Seven. I never heard how it came out, though."

  Tsu shrugged. "It worked fine for a time, only then the Sjonntae got explosives sniffers set up. They're probably still using them, at least off and on. Problem is, that kind of weapon only works against individual Sjonntae soldiers."

  "Right," Harking said, the brief twinge of hope fading away. "And we don't care all that much about killing single Sjonntae soldiers."

  "They care about it," Tsu said dryly. "But as far as breaking the stalemant goes, we need to find a way to take out the heavier stuff."

  Harking nodded. The frustrating thing was that the Shadows didn't bother the technology itself. They could send a self-guided nuclear missile down to the surface, and even though every Minkter within miles of the thing would die from the concentration of Shadow it would quickly gather around itself, the missile itself would function just fine.

  Only there would be nothing useful for the missile to do. The damper field went all the way to the ground, with only living beings able to pass through it.

  So they couldn't send weapons or useful equipment to the Minkters. They couldn't break the Sjonntae damper field, either from orbit or from the surface, unless they could find the whorl, the one spot where the field was weak enough for human weaponry to destroy it. And they couldn't find the whorl.

  And so the fortress sat there, filled to the brim with intact Sjonntae technology they would never be able to pull apart and examine and find a defense against.

  The logic of defeat.

  "By the way," Tsu added as Harking turned toward the door, "the commander said for you to drop by after your shift."

  Harking frowned. "Did she say why?"

  "Not to me," Tsu said. "She seemed a little on the grumpy side, though."

  "Probably a bad photo or something," Harking said sourly. "Thanks."

  Commander Chakhaza was in her office near the station's battle command center. "Ensign," she nodded a greeting as he knocked on the open door. "Come in."

  "Thank you," Harking said, tucking his folded cap under his arm and coming to attention exactly two paces from her desk. Humanity might be doomed to destruction, but there was no reason to be sloppy while it was happening.

  "At ease," Chakhaza said. "Sit down."

  "Thank you," Harking said, pulling down the visitor's jump seat and easing into it. Chakhaza never let anyone sit while she was chewing them out, which implied this wasn't about some screwup on his part.

  She also never went out of her way to be this courteous to the lower ranks either. That implied this might be good news. Either that, or very, very bad news.

  "How'd the session go?" she asked.

  "Pretty routine," Harking said. Apparently, she'd decided to ease into the main topic through a side door. "The weather was mostly clear. I got some good shots, I think."

 
"Anything of interest going on?"

  Harking shrugged. "Not really. I spotted a slave confrontation, but I didn't see any bodies when I got back to the spot, so I presume the overseer didn't kill anyone. Oh, and I caught a couple of patrols, too. Three Skyhawks each, flying standard formation. Again, it looked pretty routine."

  "Good," Chakhaza said absently. "Tell me, have you ever heard of a woman named Laura Isis?"

  Harking searched his memory. The name definitely seemed familiar- "Someone from Maintenance?" he hazarded.

  Chakhaza shook her head. "News reporter."

  "Oh, of course," Harking said, nodding as it suddenly clicked. He'd read her name or seen her face on a hundred different stories coming from the front lines of the war. The woman really got around. "What about her?"

  "She's on her way."

  Harking blinked. Minkta was about as far from the fighting as you could get and still be in theoretically disputed territory. "On her way here?"

  "Yes," Chakhaza said, her expression suddenly unreadable. "She's found out about Lieutenant Ferrier."

  An old knife Harking had thought long gone twisted itself gently into his gut. "Oh," he said, very quietly.

  Something that almost looked like sympathy creased through the lines and scars on Chakhaza's face. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know what he meant to you. But Supreme Command has issued orders that we're to give her the whole story." She paused. "I thought you might prefer to be the one to handle the job."

  Harking's first impulse was to turn it down flat. To have to go through all those bitter memories again ...

  But if he didn't do it, someone else would. Someone who didn't know or understand the big picture, who might paint Abe Ferrier as an ambitious glory-grabber or a delusional lunatic. "Thank you, Commander," he said. "I'd be honored to speak with Ms. Isis."

  Chakhaza gave a crisp nod. "Good. Her transport's due in thirty hours. Try to work her around your regular duty shift if you can; if she insists on setting her own timetable, let me know and I'll try to shuffle people around to accommodate you. Any questions?"

  "No, ma'am," Harking said.

  'Very well, then," Chakhaza said. Just as happy, Harking guessed, that she wouldn't be the one sweating it out in front of Ms. Isis' recorder.

  Especially since she was the one who'd bought into Abe's plan in the first place. Had bought into it hook, line, and cautiously enthusiastic sinker. "Dismissed," she said. And had then sent him to his death.

  Laura Isis was pretty much as Harking expected: mid-thirties, dark blonde, still petite but with a figure that time and gravity were starting to pull at. The quick smile and probing eyes were as he remembered from her various news appearances.

  But there were also differences. Her hair wasn't as professionally coifed as it inevitably was on TV, her cheekbones not nearly as sharp, and her clothing far more casual. She was shorter than he would have guessed, too, barely coming up to the shoulder boards of his dress uniform, and that quick smile seemed somehow to have a hard edge to it.

  And there was something oddly wrong with the left side of her face. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on... .

  "Welcome to Defender Fifty-five, Ms. Isis," he greeted her as she passed her bag to one of the hatchway guards for inspection and came toward him. "I'm Ensign Jims Harking. Commander Chakhaza asked me to act as your liaison and assistant while you're on the station."

  "Thank you," she said. "It's nice to be here on Elvie."

  There must have been something in his face, because she smiled again. "Or do you use a different private name for your station?"

  "No, Elvie is it," Harking said. "I was just surprised you knew it."

  She shrugged slightly. "I've been hanging around the military since the war started," she reminded him. "And not just the upper brass. I know a lot about how the common soldiers and starmen think and behave. Did Commander Chakhaza tell you why I'm here?"

  The abrupt change in topic didn't catch him by surprise; it was a technique he'd seen her use on camera many times. "Yes, ma'am, she did," he confirmed.

  "And did she assign you to me because you know a lot about the Ferrier operation?" she went on. "Or because you know very little about it?"

  He looked her straight in the eye. "She assigned me because Abe Ferrier was my friend."

  "Ah." If she was taken aback by his response, it didn't show. "Good. I presume you have quarters set up for me?"

  Harking had hoped to get the interview over with as quickly as possible, which would have let him start the process of putting the ghosts back to sleep that much earlier. Perversely, Isis decided she wanted a tour of the station first.

  "... and this," he said as he gestured her into his usual duty station room, "is the Number One Photo Room. This is where we take all the high-mag telephotos of the Sjonntae outpost and vicinity for analysis. The telescopes themselves are through that door over there."

  "Ah," Isis said, stepping in and looking around. "So this is the real nerve center of Elvie's mission, is it?"

  Tsu, had he been on duty, would undoubtedly have made some unfortunate comment in response to that one. Fortunately, it was Cheryl Schmucker's shift, and all she did was lift a silent eyebrow in Marking's direction and then return to her work. "Hardly," Harking told Isis stiffly. "All we do here is take the photos. It's the analysis group's job to find a hole in the Sjonntae defenses."

  "Of course." Isis looked around at the controls and monitors for a moment, then crossed toward the telescope room. Harking was ready, and got there in time to open the door for her.

  Inside, it was like another world. The whole outer wall was floor-to-ceiling hullglass, with a dozen different telescopes lined up peering at various angles through it. Taking care not to touch or jostle anything, Isis stepped to the guard railing and leaned on it, gazing out at the silent black circle of the planet far below. It was full night down there, the darkness alleviated only by the clusters of mocking lights from the Sjonntae fortress and protected territory. To the far right, an edge of blue-green showed where the dawn line was beginning to creep across the landscape.

  Dawn for the Minkters. The beginning of another day of servitude to their Sjonntae masters.

  They hated them, the Minkters did. Hated them with the kind of passion only an enslaved people could generate. There had been at least four attempts at revolt during the time Defender Fifty-five had been up here. All had been easily crushed, of course. Organized crowds of Minkters whose only weapons were rocks, spears, and crossbows were no match for armed Sjonntae Sky-hawks. And each time the humans of Defender Elvie had watched in impotent rage. The only sky-to-ground weaponry the station had were its missiles, which would have indiscriminately killed attacker and defender alike.

  Which was yet another reason Abe had pressed so hard to be allowed to go down there. The Minkters were certainly intelligent enough, but they were unschooled in the ways of mass warfare. If someone with military knowledge and training could get them organized—

  "And have they?" Isis said into the memories.

  "Have who what?" Harking asked.

  "The analysis group," she said, "You said they were looking for a hole. Have they found one?"

  Harking grimaced. "No."

  "Why not?" Isis asked. "You've been here for almost three years. What's the problem?"

  A diplomatic answer was probably called for, but Harking was fresh out of stock. "The same problem that's been killing almost a thousand humans a day since this damn thing started," he told her bluntly. "Between the damper field and the Shadows, they've got about as impenetrable a planetary defense as you could ever come up with."

  "Damper fields always have a whorl somewhere in them," Isis countered. "A dead spot you can put a missile into."

  Harking drew back a little. "How do you know that?" he demanded.

  She snorted. "What do you think I've been doing the past four years on the line? Sitting on my hands?"

  "That's top secret information," Harking said
stiffly. "We can't afford to let the Sjonntae know we know about that weakness."

  She sighed. "Relax. If Supreme Command didn't think I was trustworthy, they certainly wouldn't let me roam around loose this way. I was just trying to examine all the possibilities."

  "Trust me, we've done that," Harking growled. "Over ana over again. We can't find the whorl from up here; and without it, we can't knock down the damping field and get into the fortress."

  "What about from lower down?" she asked. "Could you send a fighter loaded with sensors in for a closer look?"

  Harking shook his head. "The Shadows reach all the way up to the lower stratosphere," he said. "That means the thing would have to be unmanned; and unmanned remotes are like a free lunch to Sjonntae fighters."

  "Saturation bombing, then," Isis persisted. "Hit the whole damper field at once."

  "Too much area," Harking told her. "Sjonntae planetary fields aren't nearly as neat and compact as the ones they wrap their warships in. This one sprawls out over about twenty thousand square kilometers, covering the outpost itself plus a huge buffer zone. Add to that the fact that a missile would have to hit within a hundred meters of the whorl to take down the field, and you can see why we can't simply rain fire and expect to get anything out of it."

  "Bottom line: you can't do it from up here," Isis murmured, her face unreadable in the glow of the sunlight peeking around the edge of the planet. "And so Lieutenant Ferrier sold you on this plan of trying it from the surface."

  And there it was, exactly as Harking had predicted. "It wasn't like that at all," he snapped back at her. "Abe had thought it through, all the way down to the last detail. It was a good plan, with a good chance of succeeding. And it beat the hell out of sitting up here watching the Sjonntae go about their daily routine and doing nothing about it."

  He ran out of breath and stopped. "That's quite a speech," Isis commented. If she was offended, it didn't show in her voice. How long have you had it ready to go?"

  Again Harking thought about being diplomatic. Again it didn't seem worth the trouble. "Since I heard you were coming here to investigate this," he told her candidly. "I knew you'd be all set to fork Abe onto the barbecue for this."