Singularity Sky Read Free

to cooperate. The worst elements are holed up in the Corn Exchange, two miles south of here, holding continuous committee meetings, and issuing proclamations and revolutionary communique on the hour, every hour.
    Encouraging people to traffic with the enemy.”

    “Why haven’t you used troops?” rumbled Politovsky.

    “They say they’ve got atomic weapons. If we move in—” He shrugged.

    “Oh.” The Governor rubbed his walrus moustache lugubriously and sighed.
    “Commander Janaczeck. What news of the Navy?”

    Janaczeck stood. A tall, worried-looking man in a naval officer’s dress uniform, he looked even more nervous than the otherwise controlled Von Beck. “There were two survival capsules from the wreck of the Sakhalin; both have now been recovered, and the survivors debriefed. It would appear that the Sakhalin approached one of the larger enemy intruders and demanded that they withdraw from low orbit immediately and yield to customs inspection. The intruder made no response, so Sakhalin fired across her path. What happened next is confused—none of the survivors were bridge officers, and their reports are contradictory—but it appears that there was an impact with some sort of foreign body, which then ate the destroyer.”

    “Ate it?”

    “Yes, sir.” Janaczeck gulped. “Forbidden technology.”

    Politovsky turned pale. “Borman?”

    “Yes, sir?” His adjutant sat up attentively.

    “Obviously, this situation exceeds our ability to deal with it without extra resources. How much acausal bandwidth does the Post Office have in hand for a televisor conference with the capital?”

    “Um, ah, fifty minutes’ worth, sir. The next consignment of entangled qubits between here and New Prague is due to arrive by ramscoop in, ah, eighteen months. If I may make so bold, sir—”

    “Speak.”

    “Could we retain a minute of bandwidth in stock, for text-only messages? I realize that this is an emergency, but if we drain the current channel we will be out of touch with the capital until the next shipment is available. And, with all due respect to Commander Janaczeck, I’m not sure the Navy will be able to reliably run dispatch boats past the enemy.”

    “Do it.” Politovsky sat up, stretching his shoulders. “One minute, mind. The rest available for a televisor conference with His Majesty, at his earliest convenience. You will set up the conference and notify me when it is ready.
    Oh, and while you’re about it, here.” He leaned forward and scribbled a hasty signature on a letter from his portfolio. “I enact this state of emergency and by the authority vested in me by God and His Imperial Majesty I decree that this constitutes a state of war with—who the devil are we at war with?”

    Von Beck cleared his throat. “They seem to call themselves the Festival, sir.
    Unfortunately, we don’t appear to have any more information about them on file, and requests to the Curator’s Archives drew a blank.”

    “Very well.” Borman passed Politovsky a note, and the Governor stood.
    “Gentlemen, please stand for His Imperial Majesty!”

    They stood and, as one man, turned expectantly to face the screen on the far wall of the conference room.

    The Gathering Storm

    “May I ask what I’m charged with?“ asked Martin.

    The sunshine filtering through the skylight high overhead skewered the stuffy office air with bars of silver: Martin watched dust motes dance like stars behind the Citizen’s bullet-shaped head. The only noises in the room were the scratching of his pen on heavy official vellum and the repetitive grinding of gears as his assistant rewound the clockwork drive mechanism on his desktop analytical engine. The room smelled of machine oil and stale fear.

    “Am I being charged with anything?” Martin persisted.

    The Citizen ignored him and bent his head back to his forms. His young assistant, his regular chore complete, began unloading a paper tape from the engine.

    Martin stood