Against That Time

by Edward McKeown

  Wrik looks at me and notices the slight distraction. “Are you ok?”

  I gaze back at him. I try as much as is feasible to honor Wrik’s wishes and preserve his sensibilities, however I cannot allow them to endanger us. I prize his kindness and gentility, although sometimes the universe at large does not. It pains me to lie to Wrik, but there are times it is for the best.

  “It is nothing,” I say, “I’m stepping up my hacking into City security.” This last is technically true and provides me some relief.

  He smiles at me.

  I am unable to return it but nod. “Wrik I have new information. Let’s get off the street.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  It took me a bit to get over the shock of Diralia Shon’s appearance. I had begun to doubt she even existed or that we would ever lay eyes on her. At first I wondered at Maauro’s decision to let her go, and then realized she was surely in the right. The lab was a raw nerve with the TAM authorities and we were under observation. Shon had been only a minor player, but she was apparently bringing us into contact with someone more important.

  We killed a few hours getting ready for the meeting. Maauro snuck off on one of her replenishment trips. I had a sandwich, too nervous to eat anything more. We didn’t want to return to the hotel. Mysol and Fenster have given up attaching casual tails to us, but it was always possible that could change. There was always McCaffer as well; the amiable PR man could gum up our works.

  Maauro returned to pick me up at a park I’d chosen near the restaurant. We made our way on foot to the designated coordinates, which of all things, turned out to be a botanical garden. We entered the large atrium. Inside we found Diralia Shon standing next to a Ribisan in an environmental suit. There was no one else inside the atrium although we could see people moving about outside. I found the humidity oppressive and wiped my face as I contemplated the pair. Diralia also looked a bit bedraggled from the moisture.

  “Before we start,” I said, hand on the butt of my service pistol. “Make sure that no one makes any sudden or unexpected moves. I’ve had bad experiences with Ribisans in enclosed spaces. My friend, Maauro,” I gestured at her, “is more formidable than a platoon of HCRs, tougher than Conchirri on war-drug, faster than the dire-lupines of Traxis IV—”

  “I believe they understand the situation,” Maauro interrupted.

  A light panel on the Ribisan’s chest glittered and emitted a scholarly and mature male voice. “We understand. You may call me Eldfaran. Diralia has told me of your artificial companion’s great strength. I too wonder at the sight of so complex a mechanism operating independent of a controller.”

  “Thank you,” Maauro said. “But I am not the subject of the conversation. Diralia spoke of great danger earlier and there have been attempts on our lives already. Please elaborate.”

  Diralia looked in confusion between the two of us. “Ah, is she in charge or are you?”

  Maauro frowned. “We are networked in a relationship of mutual trust and support.”

  I looked at Diralia. “I know it kind of sounds like we’re married. Basically we’re partners. She’s smarter and tougher than I am. I suppose I’m the comic relief, Wrik Trigardt by name.”

  “Wrik,” Maauro reproved, “you possess many unique insights and talents that contribute to the success of our network.”

  I smiled at her. “If you say so, dear.”

  “Emotionality,” Diralia gasped, “real or indistinguishable from real!”

  “You have no idea,” I said.

  “Your appearance though. Surely they could have come closer to true human…wait. My God, you’re patterned on a game simulation: the huge eyes, the hair the tiny figure. You’re a male fantasy character from a game!”

  Maauro looked at me. “Am I a male fantasy, Wrik?”

  I coughed delicately. “Ah, there are all sorts of males, Maauro, and at all different stages. The game sim you came from was aimed at teenage males. I guess I was a case of arrested development.”

  I turned back to the Ribisan. “But fascinating as she is, we are not here to talk about Maauro.”

  “Yes,” Eldfaran said. “I am sorry and ashamed to have to involve you in the affairs of my people. We do not easily share information with those outside our species. Still there is a tale that must be told.”

  “Go on,” I said, impatience making my tone sharp.

  “My people are on the verge of a great civil and religious war. If it breaks on us, it will not stay confined to this frontier world and may spill over onto your small, cold worlds as well.”

  I looked at Maauro in dismay. The Ribisans were the most enigmatic and advanced species in the Confederacy. Conflict had never arisen, as we didn’t want the same resources or real estate. A general war might change that.

  “What is the cause of this rift?” Maauro asked.

  The Ribisan stood silent as the seconds rolled by. We could see no expression in the grape-like cluster that passed for its face. Finally Diralia looked at Eldfaran and spoke up. “You must trust them. We have no hope of getting any other aid. It’s a miracle that we got this much. I never expected actual intelligence operatives to come looking for me.”

  “True.” For all the fact that the mechanical voice could not convey much in tone, there was no doubt of his reluctance. “Ah this is difficult. But I must tell. Yet what I tell you must be held close, or it will, by itself, give rise to the conflagration of interspecies war.”

  “Go on,” I prompted.

  “We Ribisans are an intensely religious people for all of our technological growth. It has been this way from the beginning of our recorded history. It is believed by us that we are the chosen of the Creator.”

  I shrugged. “Most religions contain that element.”

  “With us it is backed by the observation that we are the only sentient life-form of our type. Oxygen breathing life forms are common and varied in species. While we have discovered other life on the gas giant worlds that appeal to us, no other intelligent life has been found and we have been in space longer than any other species.

  “We have another reason to believe that God favors our kind above all others. Among us are born special beings who have an ability to predict the future.”

  “He’s not talking about soothsayers or fortunetellers or such nonsense,” Diralia interjected, waving her hand in excitement. “It’s real, objective and verifiable.”

  Maauro and I traded looks. “Again a common piece of religious mythos,” she said. “Miracles, saints—”

  “No,” Eldfaran said. “Our predictors, for lack of a better translation, see the possible futures of the multiverse.”

  Predictors, I thought to myself.The one useful piece of information Olivia had dug out and what the fanatic priest had said. I struggled to focus on what Eldfaran was saying.

  “They can see the events that lead to the more successful outcomes. They foresaw the coming of the Conchirri into Ribisan space more than a millennium ago. Later, they warned of the plague of the Evolvers that struck our space. It was by such prescience that we were able to avoid being exterminated, or even badly damaged, by these invasions that did so much damage to our allied species in the old trading Concord, and hundreds of years later to the Confederacy, when they finally reached you.”

  Stunned silence followed as we grappled with the wildness of these claims and their implications.

  “You do not believe,” Eldfaran continued. “Let me provide you with more personal examples. You were attacked by members of the Traditionalist party on Star Central before you came here.”

  He shifted to face Maauro. “And you, remarkable entity that you are to survive it, were intercepted in the high atmosphere by fighter aircraft from the Radicals. That interception should have been impossible, and yet you were attacked.”

  Maauro nodded. “Your intelligence on us is excellent.
But if these parties can predict the future, why did they not predict the failure of these attacks and arrange for more lethal means to be employed?”

  “The predictors can predict the most likely future, but they cannot control it,” Diralia said. “A being might turn left and be stuck by a bus or turn right and live. Or it might be that a bus is coming from both sides. You can see the future to an extent, you can seek to influence probability, but exactitude is impossible. More to the point, there is a problem with this predictor. It is not functioning properly, else you might not have survived.”

  “Just so,” Eldfaran agreed. “Beyond that, the vision has greater clarity in large events, invasions, disasters, massive economic events. On the level of the individual, the vision is rarely clear. It becomes clearer the more important or unique the individual is. We call such beings, nodes. If a common soldier lives or dies in battle, it rarely had an impact on the course of the war. But the soldier whose weapon strikes the enemy king is a node. If he dies in childhood, he will not be present to kill the king.

  “You, Maauro, are a node. I know little of you, but suspect much. The predictor gave some small information on your location. This was leaked to a traditionalist source, which attempted to disrupt your operation. As you moved closer to our world, you became more apparent to the predictor and were attacked again. This time by the Radicals, who are associated with the military and were able to get a carrier to launch a mission against you.

  “You have benefitted from the last great secret that I must tell you. The predicative ability has been fading out of our species. Only a handful of such people ever existed. They have been dying off without replacement until only one was left.

  “He too has died, in a way. Death is different for us then for you. Our brains are more akin to a highly developed computer than to what you have. Ribisan brains are transplanted from body to body, until at last it cannot stand another change. This being’s brain, last of its kind, was kept by the Radicals as they sought to duplicate the power by genetic or mechanical means. They have been only partially successful in communicating with it. So, their intelligence on you is far poorer than it would be otherwise.”

  “Who are the factions and what are their aims?” Maauro asked

  “The Radical Scientists I have explained. The Traditionalists—”

  “We met and interrogated one,” Maauro advised. “They view the Radicals as heretics and sacrilegious.”

  “Again just so. Did you kill him?”

  “Wrik would not permit him to be harmed, so we left him alive to be released later if he followed the conditions I laid on him.”

  Eldfaran shifted toward me. “You are kind. My people have not been as considerate of your lives.”

  “The Traditionalist said that the government is split,” I added.

  “Most Ribisans are orthodox of various denominations, less religious than the Traditionalists and less free-thinking than the Radical’s. Many secretly wish the Radical success, while praising the Traditionalist values. Others fear what could happen if other species learned of our ability. Both sides control sections of the military on this planet. Until recently the balance of forces favored the Radicals. I have reason to believe that Traditionalists have been reinforced. Their forces are circling the base well below us now that the location of our experiments has been found. Neither is strong enough to seize the base. Both could destroy it, but neither side has worked themselves up to that point.”

  “And you? Where do you come out on this?” I asked.

  “I belong to neither side. I do not believe that one can compel the hand of God by science. Beyond that, I fear what the mass production of such ability might cause. So I am not of the people who tried to destroy you. In fact I believe you are our only hope.”

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because no Ribisan of any stripe can destroy the last predictor mind, for the Traditionalist, it is a heinous sin–for the Radical, a breach of duty to our civilization and a military folly. All others fall somewhere in between and could not be relied on. If the predictor is ended, then the cause of the civil war will be rendered moot and thus may disaster be avoided.”

  “You wish us to destroy the last Predictor,” Maauro said.

  Eldfaran turned to face her. “Destroy it, seize it or find some resolution that has eluded us. You must do this soon. For if one side or the other of my people moves to end this situation, I fear that the resulting war might have no end.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Eldfaran left soon after. Unlike Shon, he had not escaped to Tir-a-Mar; the Ribisan staff of the secret lab were allowed leave on the vast floating city. Eldfaran had family on Tir-a-Mar and had arranged to slip into the 02 section on a pretext. I wondered if he found his time here as disorienting as I had my sojourn into their part of the city.

  That left us with Shon.

  “How did you plan to return to the lab without being detected?” Maauro asked.

  “After I found out about a Confed officer’s arrival on the station, I went to Eldfaran. He found contacts among criminal elements on both the Ribisan and O2 side. It cost a fortune, mostly of Eldfaran’s, to get me smuggled up here. For the return they arranged for me to ride back down in an automatic supply dropship. The dropship goes at 6 a.m. local time.

  I looked at Maauro. “Not a lot of time to figure out what to do.”

  “Our choices are very limited, Wrik. Either we go to the lab and seize control of the situation or we must flee Tir-a-Mar back to the Confederacy and present the problem to Deveraux. Meanwhile events here will continue to accelerate toward civil war and perhaps conflict beyond that. My belief is, if that fate is to be forestalled, we must seize the initiative. Now. There will not be another chance.”

  “You can get down in the same dropship I’m going in,” Shon said. “As to what you will do when you get there, I have no idea.”

  “I do,” Maauro said. “We must seize the predictor and control of the lab. Anything less provokes the sides to immediately attack us.”

  “Jaelle’s already set up Hartain to believe that I may need her to fly us around outside of Tir-a-Mar,” I added. “Time for us to get her in play.”

  “I am relaying instruction for her and Dusko to prepare for that. Jaelle will have to fly up to Stardust to get him. She is not comfortable flying further down in this soup.”

  “Damn,” I said. “I’d rather be at those controls.”

  “You will be,” she assured, “when we head up.”

  “If we head up.”

  “There is little point in planning to die, Wrik.”

  I barked a laugh. “Guess not.”

  “The small apartment that I arranged as part of the cover for Estrella Lostly,” Maauro continued, “may be a good place for us to lay low until we head for the dropship.” She gave Shon the address and the door code. “Proceed there now and wait for us. We will secure some supplies. It will not be surprising to anyone for Lostly to return home in the company of Lieutenant Fels.”

  Shon, her face pale with tension, nodded and left.

  Maauro and I took a more circuitous route, buying some food and drink for the adventure ahead. When we finally reached the unprepossessing block of transient apartments Maauro had used as an address, she led me to the door. A few taps on the keyboard and we were in. We found Shon inside, watching a movie on a monitor. She switched it off as we came in.

  I looked around. The apartment was comfortably, if sparingly furnished. I dropped our supplies on the table. “Home, sweet home.”

  Maauro nodded. “For a few hours at least.”

  Shon, perhaps realizing that an android and an ex-fighter pilot weren’t the safest bets as cooks, took charge of our supplies and rustled up a surprisingly good dinner, though she was startled when Maauro partook of it. We brought her up to speed on what we knew of her brother.

 
“Let’s knock off for a few hours,” I suggested. “It will be a long day tomorrow, however it goes. Rest now, while we can. Diralia you can have the bed. The couch will be fine for me.”

  She nodded, looking a bit relieved, and headed for the small bedroom.

  Maauro plugged a finger into a wall socket as I stretched out on the couch. I still couldn’t quite get used to that sight. Sleep eluded me for a while, my brain buzzed with worries about our future and, for that matter, the whole Confederacy’s. There had been no major wars in my time. Even the occupation of Retief has been a minor, local affair. The giant wars of legend with the Conchirri, the Evolvers and the brief one with the Voit-Veru had marked the psyche of every living being. Could those times be coming again? Could we do anything to stop it? I thought about Captains Fenaday and Rainhell, who had served Candace’s grandfather and been instrumental in all those wars and what they would have done. Sleep drew down on me.

  While Wrik is asleep, I hear from Jaelle. She opens the channel to my mind. “I am back at Hartain’s, seeing what I can find out. He told me to check in with him before I went up to Stardust.”

  “Be careful. Things are moving toward their conclusion.”

  I reach out and touch Dusko’s mind. He remains unhappy about this but tolerates it.

  The homely shopkeeper at the front greets Jaelle dourly. “The boss is in a bad mood.”

  “Should I come back another time?”

  “No, he wants to see you.”

  Jaelle passes the Sheskaya, the female Dua-Denlenn bodyguard whose face is an expressionless mask. I feel a wave of interest out of Dusko at the sight of her. I find this disturbing. I have never received an empathic sensation from him and I find I do not like it. There is something predatory about the male sexual response that I do not care for. I dial down my awareness of him as much as is safe in the tactical situation and make some adjustments to buffer the interchange with us. I recall something of the heat of Wrik’s reaction to Croyzer and am even more discomforted to realize there is something similar in their reactions.