This is a fan translation of Counterstrike (Ответный удар) by Mikhail Akhmanov, currently only available in Russian and, because of the author's passing in 2019, unlikely to ever be published in English. This is the second book in a six-book series called Arrivals from the Dark (Пришедшие из мрака), which also has a six-book spin-off series called Trevelyan's Mission (Миссия Тревельяна).
I claim no rights to the contents herein.
Chapter 1
Dreams
2125, space beyond Pluto's orbit and the Baal System
Paul Corcoran saw Dreams often. Not regular dreams that every person experienced, the ones that were reminiscent of their earthly existence refracted through the prism of the sleeping mind, but something else, not in any way related to life or Corcoran's loved ones or, for example, to his flights between planets and stars. Of course, he also saw ordinary dreams, and he was visited in them by Vera in her wedding dress, and their girls Lyubasha and Nadenka, and his mother, bent over his bed, and Uncle Pavel and Aunt Yo, and other landscapes and faces; they came and left, not leaving a sense of unreality, for those events and people were familiar to him and, for the most part, close and dear. As for the Dreams, which he always designated with a capital "D", they seemed to flow in from the cosmic emptiness, from some unknown astral abyss; at the very least, neither the past nor Corcoran's memories served as their foundation. Sometimes, he saw himself from outside, naked, hanging in an enormous hall among other naked people or submerged into some translucent viscous substance; sometimes hallways opened to him, brightly lit, wide and endless, like a path to an unknown galaxy; sometimes ruins of a gigantic city rose up to him, but not like any city on Earth: the buildings were not made of stone, not put together from metallic parts, but seemingly cast entirely from plastic, which cracked from the time and covered by a layer of brown and red moss. Occasionally, he spoke or argued with someone, but not in Russian, English, or Spanish, but in some special language, in the language of thought, where words and thoughts were equal and seemed to spur one another on: the sound merged with the mental image, the image extended what the words left out. Then again, in the Dreams, the language was a familiar detail, it was a language taught to him by Yo, he remembered it as clearly as three decades ago, on the day of her death. But what did it talk about, why did he argue?.. More often than not, the memory of these conversations melted away along with the departing Dream.
But now he was in silence and quiet. The silence and the quiet reined in his sleeping consciousness and on the bridge, and outside the frigate Commodore Litvin; they stretched from Pluto's orbit to the farthest stars, shining on the viewscreen. Corcoran did not see the stars; it was Selina Praagh's watch, who took her responsibilities so zealously that the Captain could take a nap. The Dream that had descended on him from the layer of mirages and phantoms was unusual, having come to him only five or six times in his life, which meant that he needed to watch this rarity from beginning to end.
He was standing in a strange grove under an enormous tree, whose crown opened up like an umbrella made of intertwined branches and broad leaves; the tree was surrounded by a ring of other trees of the same kind, but not as large, the soil was overgrown with blue-green grass or moss, and the sun floated in the cloudless violet sky, not as golden as on Earth, but more orange, twice the size of Earth's sun. Such a sky, grass, and trees were not present on Baal, or Astarte, or any other world he knew, although, having served in the space fleet for fourteen years, he'd landed on many planets, and knew even more from holovisual recordings. The number of worlds studied from the moment the contour drive opened the way to the stars kept growing, not overcoming, however, the limits of human memory; and captains, pilots, and navigators were required to know them by heart. He knew for certain that no planet with such atmospheric refraction had ever been visited by humans.
The trees surrounding the central giant blocked the view. Corcoran made several leaps, which were light, swift, as only happens in dreams, slipped between two bulging trunks and whirled his head back and forth, examining the locale. The strange grove crowned the top of a gently-sloping hill, around which stretched a plain with the same blue-green grass, with other hills with the same smooth, soft features, with trees planted in a circle or growing so due to some natural causes. The plain was crossed by a river, slow and wide, and either buildings or barracks were visible on its bank: long, low, white, looking like an upside-down pirogue. Loaded platforms were slowly moving towards one of them, disappearing in the dark sink of the gates. They seemed to be carrying grass; Corcoran was almost certain of that, even though it was difficult to see the cargo in detail.
Genetic memory… That which had been seen and known by one of his ancestors, distant or close, was feeding his Dreams… Aunt Yo, who'd taught him the language, hadn't mentioned that; at least Corcoran did not remember it, and everything she had told him was firmly in his head. But she was a t'ho, only a t'ho, and Corcoran clearly descended from a Bino Faata of the ruling caste, from a being with a highly-developed brain. Klaus Siebel held to that opinion, and who was a better judge than him? Or me, Corcoran thought, still in the sleepy oblivion. At thirty-seven years old, a man knew enough about himself to learn the secrets of his own mind, soul, and heart. Especially if he was not entirely human...
The platforms drifted and drifted in unending succession, falling into the open maw of the gates, and he guessed that he was looking at a food factory. Was that his own conclusion or something prompted by the memory of his ancestor? Probably the latter: in the rare Dreams, where he happened to find himself in the world of the violet skies, he was unable to get close to the buildings on the river bank. This meant that the Faata, his biological father, had not been there, and no memories, except for the general picture, were preserved; unless, of course, the memories faded when transferring from ancestor to offspring. Corcoran did not discount such a tendency, but neither he nor Siebel had data to support it.
Nevertheless, he attempted to take a step towards the factory by the river, but it ended the same way it usually did: the Dream was interrupted. The sudden feeling of concern and a mental pulse coming from Selina Praagh woke him up entirely.
"Captain!"
Corcoran's eyelids came up, his eyes swung to the viewscreen, then to the pilot's controls, which were manned by Santini. A silver holographic haze was dimly flaring up above them with dark glyph [Glyphs are a system of characters used when transmitting messages over cosmic distances. A trained specialist can read them at a glance, while computers use glyphs to correct and restore speech.] symbols floating in the depth. The transition from Dream to reality was sudden, but such leaps had long ceased to disorient Corcoran; he had an unusually stable psyche.
"Captain, signal from the flagship. We're at T minus twenty." Selina's voice was even, there was no excitement in it; it would not be her first time going through Limbo [Limbo is a dimension of quantum chaos, an unordered portion of the universe, the inverse side of matter structured in the Metagalaxy. When submerged in Limbo, it becomes possible to combine two points (two contours of a material body) at different locations of metagalactic space and perform an instant transition between them. This effect is used by all highly-developed races for interstellar travel.].
"I see. All hands to battle stations."
Selina Praagh relayed his order. She was a good assistant, reliable, competent, and probably capable of more than serving aboard a small scout frigate. "First Officer on a cruiser" would sound more reputable, but here she wasn't even called "first"; the Commodore Litvin was not a large ship, so there was no need for a second or shird officer. But in any of the three fleets, the honor of being assigned to a selected crew was valued higher than postings.
Corcoran turned to the sensor screen. Outlines of enormous warships crawled in its depth, formed up in a loose line: the closest one was the flagship Europe, where he'd served not long ago, followed by five of her sister ships, all starting with "A", five heavy cruisers of the same class: Asia, America, Africa, Australia, and Antarctica. Task Force 37, as it was called in the secret list of the Third Space Fleet, or the Retaliatory Squadron, as it was unofficially called. "37" was not the number of the unit and did not indicate something like the thirty-seventh model of a ship or a weapon; the symbolism was different, reminding people that thirty-seven years had passed since the Faata Invasion. Over a third of a century; more than enough time to figure out the secrets of the alien starship, create their own, not as gigantic but still powerful, search the Sun's neighborhood for thirty parsecs in all directions and think about vengeance. The only one who knew what sort of vengeance it would be was Commodore Karel Vrba, the man in command of Task Force 37; only he had access to the Security Committee's directives and documents, handed to him by the Second Speaker personally. Actually, Pavel Litvin was supposed to have led the squadron, but man proposed, and God disposed, granting each person his own lifespan... After Litvin's death, the new task force commander had been selected with great care, and Vrba was clearly the best candidate: experienced, cool-headed, not yet old, and prepared to follow any order. His father and older brother had been killed at the Battle of the Martian Orbit, and Vrba loathed the aliens with a fierce hatred. But personal feelings did not affect his decisions.
First Navigator Nikolay Tumanov entered the bridge, wordlessly saluted the Captain and sat in the chair of the ANS [Astronavigation System] terminal. Klaus Siebel, translator, expert, and USF Secret Service officer, slipped in behind him like a shadow. He and Corcoran exchanged smiles; they had known one another for over thirty years, which allowed them to skip the formalities. The frigate's bridge could not fit more than five people: three cocoon seats [A cocoon is a biomechanical seat/suit, keeping the occupant safe during sharp maneuvers and connected to the systems controlling the drives, weapons, and other ship's systems.] at the control panels, the Captain's panel and seat behind them on a small dais, and one more backup cocoon near the hatch. The remaining eleven crewmembers were at their posts on the auxiliary bridge, in turrets, at the long-range communication panel, and in the tiny cubbyhole traditionally called the reactor room, even though there was not and had never been a reactor on the ship. There was a gravity drive for in-system maneuvering and a tube one hundred and twenty meters in length — the contour drive's acceleration shaft.
A dark row of characters of a coded message flashed past above the pilot's console.
"Ten minutes to jump, sir," Selina spoke. Her dark face with delicate oriental features seemed to Corcoran to be cast from bronze; only her hazel eyes were alive, restless, betraying the tension gripping the woman.
"All sections report," he ordered, bending down to the intercom and peering at the scarlet stripe slowly crawling along the Captain's panel. To the right of it was the pentalion, a stylized imprint of a five-fingered hand, the "paw" in the pilots' slang; it was the trigger activating the contour drive. More precisely, it activated the ANS program controlling the drive.
"Navigation section ready," Tumanov said, staring into the obsidian depth of the viewscreen.
In it, following the computer's command, two stars flared bright: Sol and Baal, the start and finish points. Twenty-three parsecs, seventy-six light years...
"Engineering section ready," the voice of Sancho Hernandez boomed from the vocoder. "Full power to the circuit in five and a half minutes."
Corcoran nodded. The scarlet stripe on his panel continued its leisurely movement. When it reached the edge of the pentalion's thumb, the inside of the acceleration shaft would be illuminated by light unbearable to the human eye. Then, one movement of the hand, an imperceptible burst of electrons in molecular computer chips, and the contour drive would fling the frigate through the quantum foam [Quantum foam is the chaotic fluctuations of the force fields in the Limbo dimension, the "reverse side" of the ordered Creation.] of Limbo. The frigate and six cruisers, capable of cracking a planet and turning its fragments to dust... Thirty-two hundred people, six hundred combat Peregrines, annihilators, robots, plasma throwers, containers with virulent organics...
Weapons Officer Pelevich, as expected, reported third, "Combat section ready."
Kirill Pelevich, wrapped in a cocoon and connected to the annihilator, was currently hanging in a compartment behind the bridge, while his four gunners were sitting in cramped turrets, which were sticking out of the Litvin's hull as streamlined blisters. There was really no reason to prepare for battle, as the Baal System, colonized and inhabited for several decades now, had patrol ships, forts, and a long-range detection service. But regulations required that every jump be accompanied by a Red Alert [Red Alert – full battle readiness.], since they were not certain who would be waiting them in the colony world: their own people with a party or aliens with bombs and cannons. Not counting the Faata, humans had encountered three spacefaring races, and these first contacts had not instilled in them great confidence. The Lo'ona Aeo, who looked like fragile elves, seemed to be peace-loving and even offered to trade, but the Haptors and the Dromi did not see humans as their fellow sentient brethren and did not entertain friendly thoughts towards them. Fortunately, their areas of influence [Area of influence is a sector of the galaxy dominated by a certain star-faring race.] were far from Sol and humanity's first colonies.
Selina Praagh turned her head, looked Siebel over, who was sitting in the seat by the hatch, and reported, "Command section ready, Captain."
She treated Klaus Siebel with special attention, the reason for which Corcoran had yet to figure out. Perhaps it was because Siebel was not a young man and not a professional astronaut, which meant that he needed to be taken care of; perhaps Selina Praagh was following the female tendency to care for someone, and Siebel, short, frail, and looking like an aging teenager, fit that role more than the rest of the crew. Don't make a mistake, my dear, Corcoran thought and smiled inwardly. He had taken command of the ship four months ago, and Praagh knew Siebel for exactly that long, while he himself had known him for over thirty years; thirty-one, to be precise. Siebel's appearance was deceptive, instilling the idea of his helplessness, innate goodness, and even some immaturity, but it was only a mask. He was a man of steel, that Siebel! And mysterious! Perhaps it was the mysteries that attracted Selina?..
"T minus three," she said, glancing at the glyphs, once again flickering in the air, with her dark eye.
Half of the close-range sensor screen was taken up by the Europe's massive hulk; behind her vague shadows of the other ships could be seen, no longer stretched out in a line but gathered in a tight formation near the flagship. The Europe's computer was now controlling all these maneuvers, allowing them to perform a synchronized jump and arrive to a specific finish point, at the very edge of the Baal System, far from any gravitating masses. Technically, powerful gravity fields did not interfere with the immersion into Limbo, but they did affect the accuracy of the jump, blurring the finish area up to several light days, sometimes even months. After a jump, a good fleet commander could gather the ships in under an hour, preferably within several minutes.
A scarlet pillar of fire flared three times above Santini's console.
"Get ready!" Corcoran said. "Engaging the drive."
The scarlet stripe on his panel was already touching the pentalion's thumb. He raised his hand and froze for a moment, lowering his eyelids and sensing all the crewmembers, as if they were hiding somewhere in the depths of his consciousness, invisible and silent, but connected to him by chains of mental pulses. He sensed the anxiety felt by Hernandez, Praagh, and Pelevich, the tense readiness of the gunners, Wentworth, Bigelow, Pashin, and Light Water, the fear gripping Dupressis, the young communications officer, and the cybernetic engineer Linder, he heard the traditional prayer repeated by the pilots and navigators, Tumanov, Yamaguchi, Seriy, Bai Ling, Santini; each of them did it in their own language, but the meaning was the same: "Let us not be swallowed up by the Eternal Darkness, let it come apart, melt away, let us see the starlight, let the Lord of Emptiness, the Ruler of Creation, protect us. Let..." The prayer, fear, anxiety were the natural reactions before a jump, and only one person remained calm and steady, like a rock. Siebel... Old Klaus Siebel, known to him since childhood, who had replaced Yo, and then Uncle Pavel, almost like a relative, but still an enigma...
Corcoran lowered his hand, firmly pressing his palm to the pentalion. That was his privilege as captain, to send the ship on her way through the infinity of Limbo. To send her on a distant road to the edge of the galactic arm, to the Void and the New Worlds of the Bino Faata.
A harsh chord came from the ceiling of the bridge, something shuddered inside and tensed as a taut string, light blinked, the screens went out for a brief, imperceptible fraction of the second and immediately came back up. An alien sky was staring at Corcoran as hundreds of bright stars, and there was no Orion's Belt, no Ursa Minor or Major, no Cassiopeia, no constellations of the zodiac. But was it alien, though?.. He'd been to Baal twice, on the Europe's shakedown cruise, and remembered that a dozen of these heavenly lights were called the Maltese Cross, and a pair of those, blue and gentle ones, were the Virgin Mary's Eyes. Babies, born in their sight, had already grown up and referred to themselves as children of Baal rather than Earthlings... No, these skies were definitely not alien!
Tumanov loudly exhaled with visible relief.
"We are in the predetermined area, Captain. The coordinates..." He reached for the ANS panel, and a bizarre web of glyphs lit up above the Captain's panel.
Baal's system had seven planets, but there were no gas giants like Jupiter and no asteroid belt; the world nearest to the star was reminiscent of Mercury, the second was the inhabited Baal with three small moons, the remaining planetoids were giant dead rocks, orbiting far from the star, in the eternal cold and darkness. The most external planet was used as a defensive outpost; there, dug into the ground a hundred meters deep, was a USF base with a long-range detection station. Based on the arrival coordinates, the squadron had surfaced half an astronomical unit from the base, as calculated.
"Report," Corcoran ordered.
He listened to the reports from all four sections, but even before the voices of Tumanov, Hernandez, Pelevich, and Praagh were heard, he knew that everything was in order, as the fear and the alarm were replaced by relief in the crewmembers' mental pulses. The first interstellar probe had been launched to Alpha Centauri three years after the Invasion, after they figured out the Faata drive, and, since then, no ship had disappeared in Limbo; all of them re-appeared at their destinations and without any losses. The mind understood that, but not the emotions: crossing gigantic distances at the speed of thought still seemed like magic and caused fear. The inertia of the human psyche, nothing more... The people of Earth had been going to the stars for only a third of a century and were familiar with a tiny portion of the galactic spiral; a tiny achievement, going by the standards of the more ancient races.
"Navigator, the squadron's position," Corcoran said. "Dupressis, communications! What are you hearing?"
"Dispersion is no higher than calculated, sir," Tumanov reported. "The flagship is three-point-seven megameters away; the Australia is the farthest, about eight megameters. We came through very close!"
A singular glyph flashed by above the panel, then two more after a pause.
"Red Alert is canceled," Praagh said. "The flagship is ordering us to close to point-two megameters."
"Pilot, execute," Corcoran ordered, and the ship shuddered slightly, engaging her gravity drives. "The crew can exit the cocoons. Communications! Camille, did you fall asleep? I don't hear a report!"
"Sorry, sir, I was re-calibrating the channels, there is some slight interference." Junior Lieutenant Dupressis was young, but he knew his business and distinguished himself through his zeal. "On the primary channel, Commodore Vrba is talking to the base; the secondary and ternary channels are full of orders, instructions, and personal letters for the garrison and the settlers. Based on the information from the base, everything is calm here. Do you want to listen?"
"No. All is quiet on the Shipka Pass, and thank God for that," Corcoran muttered in Russian. Then he glanced at the timer at the bottom of the command console and added, "Lieutenant Commander Praagh, I am relieving you. Bai Ling, you will take Santini's post, Dupressis, stay at communications. As per the flight roster, we'll be here for forty-two hours.
"No liberty, sir?" came the cyberneticist Linder's raspy voice.
"No, Sigurd. You can chill on Gonwana."
A heavy sigh came from the communicator.
"Too bad! I've never been to Baal."
"No need to feel sorry, my friend," Tumanov said, getting up. "This isn't your Sweden with pines and oaks; they've got three twigs growing in the sand, and even those are fenced off to avoid being trampled by accident."
That was true. It would be many centuries before the deserts of Baal were covered in vegetation.
Lying on the cot in the Captain's small quarters, Paul Corcoran slept and saw dreams. They started well: he was driving with Vera and the girls to Sloboda, the so-called "Smolensk Switzerland", where blue lakes with crystal-clear water could be found among the mountains and the pine trees, where people enjoyed themselves on the sandy beaches and each footpath had three vending machines with beer, ice cream, and soda. He had taken such a trip, about five years ago, when he was promoted to commander and given thirty days of liberty after the flight to Astarte... The girls, Nadya and Lyuba, both fitting lengthwise on the back seat of the glider: Nadya had just turned four, and Lyuba was three... They were driving down the road between the firs and the pines, but Corcoran wasn't looking at the road, either staring at Vera's cornflower blue eyes or turning back to the girls, admiring their mischievous faces, and his heart was so clear and peaceful, so good, and no gloomy thoughts bothered him. Not of Uncle Pavel, who had been strong in spirit but weak in health, not of the escort car following them, not even of his own cursed blood and his own cursed talents, for Vera's face reflected what was on her mind: smile and happiness. He couldn't read anything else... And he himself was happy. Maybe not entirely human, but he could still be happy! Especially since everything important and dear was with him: Vera, Nadezhda, and Lyubov [The names translate to "Faith", "Hope", and "Love"]!
Suddenly, the lowercase "d" dream was interrupted and a capital "D" Dream began. He was in a huge city, among panicking crowds; the people, similar in appearance to humans but wearing unfamiliar clothes, as if made up of silver ribbons and bright shreds, were rushing around a square, or some sort of area that looked like a square. It was large, almost boundless, but it was still unable to fit the people continuing to arrive, like sea waves being pushed by the tide. Somewhere far off, on the perimeter of the square, he saw tall towers of buildings, those same ones, not built from stone, metal, or glass, but seemingly cast entirely out of plastic. The people were running, dashing, scurrying from these hulks, crushing and pushing one another, trying to get to the middle of the square, where a mound was being made of human bodies; those who ended up on the bottom were groaning, suffocating, bleeding out, but, crushing ribs, breaking limbs, new throngs continued to climb up, some with horror, some with a mad vicious persistence or desperation on their distorted faces.
What is that?.. Why?.. Corcoran thought, failing to understand the reasons for the fear, or the cause of the running to this place, so open and defenseless under the low gray sky, where there was nowhere to hide and nothing to shield oneself with, except maybe to get under the pile of the trampled and suffocated people. While he was thinking that, the earth under the feet shuddered; once, twice, stronger and stronger, and a glow suddenly flashed in the sky, dull, like clouds smeared across the sky. Its dirty purple cloths swayed, gripping the city, and the tower-like buildings on the square's periphery started to crack and lurch. They were clearly very tall, two or three kilometers in height, and, while falling, were producing tons of debris, which flew from every direction like shrapnel. The crushing, the groans, the screams grew unbearable, the people recoiled from the structures, but it did not save them: the enormous towers started to crumble, the earth shook under their impact, and each fall was accompanied by an eerie inhuman wail of thousands of dying and mutilated people. Corcoran, helpless, crushed by bodies, pulled into one or another side, almost physically felt the horror hovering over the square. The inevitability of death was frightening tenfold, for it was not one person dying, and not even a hundred or a thousand, but an entire people; a whole world was departing into nothingness, the sun was setting on a great civilization, and dark centuries of chaos were coming to replace it.
A powerful blow to the temple, pain below the heart, blood flowing from the throat... Cold, darkness, oblivion...
He groaned and woke up.
Klaus Siebel was sitting next to the cot, bent over, almost touching his chin to his sharp knees. Corcoran's eyes slid past him to the chronometer. It was 0420, Second Navigator Oki Yamaguchi's watch... All was quiet on the frigate... The dreams, over which Corcoran had no power, took him to Earth and other places and times, made him a father and a husband, an observer or a participant of strange and bygone events, but, when opening his eyes, he felt himself a captain. A person responsible for his ship and crew, for the lives of fifteen people. That was important, at least while he was in space.
He sat up, swinging his legs out of the cot, cleared his throat and said, "Yamaguchi, report." His voice was even.
"Nothing new, Captain," came from the vocoder. "At 0347, we received confirmation from the flagship to maintain course. We are continuing to move away from the edge of the system."
Corcoran nodded. It was a little less than a day until the next jump that would take them to Gondwana. He rubbed his temples with his hands, yawned, and stared at the wall. There, above the redundant control panel and the desk with the recording crystals and all sorts of junk, there was a portrait and two large photographs. One of the holographic images displayed his mother and Aunt Yo, the other had Vera with their daughters; between those images was his whole life, maybe thirty-five years. As for the portrait, it was painted, and Uncle Pavel looked down at Corcoran from it, the way he remembered him two years before his death. There was another portrait, an official one, in parade uniform with all his awards, in the frigate's wardroom, but Corcoran did not like it. Uncle Pavel was a lot closer than Commodore Litvin, astronaut, marine, hero.
Siebel moved on the narrow seat, raised his head, asked, "Feeling heavy, Paul?"
"Heavy," Corcoran admitted.
"Is it one of those Dreams?"
"Yeah. I think I was in an Eclipse."
"First or Second?"
Corcoran shrugged.
"How should I know, Klaus?! There was a city with very tall buildings, which were falling and breaking into fountains of shards. People tried to save themselves on a square, in an open space, but in vain; the buildings crushed them, and these shards... Have you ever seen a swarm volley? Very similar, but on a bigger scale."
"Were there a lot of people?"
Approximating the size of the square and the height of the buildings on the horizon, Corcoran frowned darkly.
"Millions! Between five and ten."
"Then it was the First Eclipse," Siebel said with a confident expression. "The Phase following it had a demographic decline. Cities with populations in the millions no longer existed."
The history of the Faata race was known from the information received by Litvin during his captivity on the alien ship. Very fragmented data, having come not from living beings, not from Yo, who was virtually unfamiliar with the concept of history, but from a quasi-sentient biocomputer, which was controlling the enormous starship. But the USF experts still had a general idea. It was known that the progress of civilization on the Faata homeworld had been interrupted twice by global cataclysms, Eclipses using their terminology, which were separated by a time period of five to eight centuries. The final disaster, the Second Eclipse, had taken place two millennia ago, and, among the long-lived Faata, there were probably witnesses to that planetary tragedy.
Siebel chewed his dry bloodless lips.
"The First Eclipse... two and a half or three thousand years... Curious! You thought that the memories were fading, but that information is from a very distant ancestor."
"Not necessarily," Corcoran countered, snapping the jumpsuit's clasps. "Maybe the ancestor isn't distant but long-lived. Yo, for example, had said that Intermediary Iveh was about two thousand years old."
Saying that, he grimaced; the last thing he wanted was to include Iveh among his ancestors. Siebel, as usual, understood him without words and curled his thin lips in a smile.
"There had been no long-lived people in-between the Eclipses, and at least fifteen generations changed in the five to eight centuries. No, Paul, these are distant memories, very distant. Your brain–"
Corcoran stood up, slid his cot in, and angrily waved his hand.
"Screw my brain! Why don't you tell me why they huddled in that damned square? I understand, they wanted to stay far from the buildings, but they could've run away into the fields, meadows, forests, anywhere in the countryside. Why did they go to the square?"
Siebel, the logger and interpreter of his Dreams, shook his head.
"Forests, meadows, fields... No such landscape details remained prior to the Eclipse! There was a city, a city on two continents in the temperate zone, while the equatorial landmass was planted full of grass to keep them from dying of hunger. Very tall grass, with a high protein content, raw material for artificial food."
"How do you know that, Klaus?" Corcoran asked, then waved his hand and started putting on his boots. "Whatever, you know better..."
Siebel only smiled enigmatically. He really did know better. As an officer of the USF Secret Service, as well as a doctor of psychology and linguistics of the Research Corps, he had been working on the Faata for exactly as long as Corcoran had been alive. He knew about them everything that could have been extracted from Litvin's messages and studies of the starship's remains, from Yo's interrogations and the dissections of the corpses, those few bodies who had not been smeared on the bulkheads during the disaster in the Antarctic. He even knew the Faata language and spoke it at least as good as Corcoran, not counting the psychic component, of course. Siebel didn't seem to possess telepathy. Although, if he was being completely honest, Corcoran wasn't certain about that.
"What did you see besides the city and the dying people?"
"Vera," he answered with a smile and looked at the photo. "Vera and my girls. A sunny day, a forest road, and the glider we're in. Vera is wearing something lilac to match her eyes, Lyoba and Nadya are in yellow dresses, like a pair of dandelions... But that has nothing to do with it, Klaus. That's mine."
"Everything here is yours, and everything is related," Siebel muttered, also looking at the picture. "The Dreams that come from your Faata ancestors are valuable information, as for the personal... well, what you consider personal... that's a sign of your stability. Mental stability, I mean. The love for your wife and children, for your mother, the sense of gratitude and friendship…" He raised his face to Litvin's portrait. "You have normal dreams and normal reactions, Paul. Hmm… human ones, not like a Faata."
Corcoran's smile faded slightly.
"Thanks, Klaus, you've calmed me down; I guess I'm not a monster after all. By the way, I also feel a sense of gratitude and friendship towards you."
"Eit t'tesi," Siebel said in the Faata language. "I'm glad."