Sister Time-ARC

by John Ringo

  "Shall I call maintenance?" he asked.

  "Why waste their time? I will handle it. Thank you very much for informing me," she said.

  Oddly, the door opened perfectly correctly at her touch. Perhaps someone else had cleared the problem for her. Inside, the situation explained itself. There was a Tchpht fidgeting stealthily in the corner of her office, taking unusual care not to be visible through the open door.

  "Wxlcht? Have you taken up Himmit impressions in your old age?" she laughed.

  "I do not come to laugh, Human Mentat O'Neal. Planners at the highest level have reached an extremely rare decision," he said.

  "They have determined that the Darhel Pardal's attempt to engineer the death of one of the very few, and very first, wise of an entire sophont species is an unendurable threat to long term Galactic existence. They have determined that measures of the same order of gravity are, most regrettably, necessary. They have also determined that the most skilled intriguer available from among your own clan would present the least risk to stability in the process of quieting the threat. We knew the price when we deviated from the Path, even by proxy, even for species survival. Knowing it and paying it are, to our sorrow, different matters. We turn a ripple against a ripple, hoping they cancel more than they create. It is all most unfortunate. Most unfortunate. Barbarism always is." He bounced silently for a several minutes, uninterrupted.

  "Will you arrange this?" he asked, finally.

  The Tchpht were a race almost as ancient and wise as the Aldenata. They were well set upon the Path of Enlightment. Never in her life could Michelle imagine one of them, essentially, contracting a hit. She managed to conceal her surprise.

  "You know that I understand the stakes, old friend. There is another consideration, I am afraid. Regardless of their faith in the wise among us, the jeopardy of my life as an individual complicates this particular ripple." She recognized his expression of shock at her perceived insane selfishness as easily as she would have recognized the expressions of her own species. "It will be assumed by masses of the young and foolish, and many who should know better, that I am acting alone, out of individual Human barbarism. Forgive me, but your own reaction demonstrates my point. You have known me for nearly my whole life, and your first suspicion was Human self-interest. The repercussions to all, if I did this and the Indowy masters were to draw hasty conclusions, would be severe. They would find out, you know. The gravity of my perceived sin would override the strongest traditions of informational discretion among the Indowy."

  His request that she arrange an assassination was extremely disturbing, but she could, of course, see his point. Beyond that, she had immense respect for the Tchpht planners. She also had an intimate personal awareness of how humans and Galactics both were apt to react to the power of a mentat in the hands of a Human. This gave her, perhaps, a more immediate understanding of how others would react to such an action on her part.

  "I grant your point. However, it may, even so, be the lesser risk. I would not mention, but there is a significant favor in question." The Tchpht's bouncing took on an agitated air, as her friend clearly wondered if he was asking for too big a repayment of her social debt to him. He would think that. They were, after all, talking about a murder—however justified.

  "A most significant favor, and I thank you again for your previous assistance." She inclined her head, acknowledging how much she owed him. "We are fortunate, as I have a simple solution," she said. "You speak to the Indowy Aelool, personally. He will accept the advice of wisdom. He will also be able to convey a message to my sister that will both explain the need and confirm that the request is personal among clanmates. Aelool will not recognize the message, but the Human Cally O'Neal will. I can assure you that it will address your immediate concerns."

  "I do not wish to know why such a message springs so readily to mind, do I?" the Tchpht danced nervously, one set of five legs, then the other, back and forth. She did not blame him for feeling agitated. "And will the Aelool accept her explanation enough to allow her to do what is necessary?"

  "Probably you do not want to know. With Aelool, you will just have to make enough hints at the real matter that when she tells him what the phrase means, he will believe her." Michelle bit her lip, thinking. "Could you also make a simple delivery for me while you are there? That you bring a delivery from me may help clarify the message," she offered.

  "Of course. At no obligation, as this more than returns the balance of debt. We will incur a certain level of obligation to Clan O'Neal."

  "Tell Aelool I said to turn loose her leash. She will know what it means." The mentat busied herself examining the finished device critically as she boxed it for delivery. Offloading the errand gave her most of the morning to catch up on her backlog. "Please give me a moment to do a last quality check on the item for my sister. Apropos of nothing, my brother-in-law's endeavors are developing adequately." Giving Cally her head would certainly accomplish the Tchpht aims, but with terrible consequences, even if their Planners had chosen the lesser damage. The long term consequences to her own clan would be painful. The Earth-raised among them would, very likely, take this move as justification of their heedless, rash, headlong plunges into actions with insufficient judgment of consequences. The philosophical damage to Clan O'Neal would be laborious to repair. Most laborious. She had so been trying to set a good example. Ripples upon ripples indeed—but her friend was speaking.

  "You have given an odd message. Thank you." The Crab bounced quietly in his corner, inscrutable now that the onus of such an unpleasant deed had returned to him, plainly relieved that the message, so harmless on its face, allowed him to distance himself even farther from any ultimate actions. Regarding James Stewart's activities, he made no reply.

  Nathan O'Reilly suppressed the urge to grumble into his morning coffee. It was an unpleasant surprise that he hadn't known there was a Tchpht in his base until Aelool walked in the door with him. He hated intelligence failures. Granted, it wouldn't have been possible for the operatives to give him much notice, but even a little would have been nice. Especially since he was practicing his dart throwing accuracy against a cork board picture of the Tir Dol Ron. He covered his chagrin with the smooth grace bred by many years of organizational and professional politics.

  "Please, have a seat," he said, gathering darts and board, nonchalantly storing them in their proper place. "May I get you a water?" he asked.

  Aelool said "please" at the same time as the unknown Tchpht said "no thank you." His stomach was tied in a tight little knot, because Aelool was carrying the awaited device for the Michelle O'Neal mission.

  "Wxlcht, I would like you to meet Nathan O'Reilly, head of the O'Neal Bane Sidhe." If the Crab was surprised by Aelool's deferring authority to the Jesuit Priest, he gave no indication. "Nathan, my Tchpht friend is named Wxlcht. He is the Speaker of Intrigue as the closest English translation. He is here, however, in the capacity of those of his kind far wiser than himself."

  Oh shit, O'Reilly thought, silently apologizing to the Almighty for the vulgarity. What the hell did we get into to have what amounted to the Crab head of Intel in my office, speaking with the authority of the entire Tchpht species. Lord, please be with humanity in this time of trial, he prayed.

  "Wxlcht is here to deliver an instruction to me, to be repeated to Miss O'Neal," the Indowy said.

  "The Human Cally O'Neal," the ambassador interrupted.

  "Yes. Miss Cally O'Neal," Aelool accepted the correction.

  "May I ask the nature of this message?" The priest continued to pray, silently.

  "Four words. 'Turn loose her leash,' " the Crab quoted.

  "Are you very sure you want us to relay those exact words to Cally O'Neal. I do not know how she will interpret them, so I cannot guarantee the consequences. At all," he warned. This was both far better and far worse than he had feared. That was nothing that Nathan himself would ever say to Cally. Ever.

  "Yes. Those exact words. You do not know, yet
, what they mean. The Tchpht do, and she will." The planner paused, thinking. "If there is any question in her mind, and if you think it wise, you may tell her I made that delivery after speaking with her sister. And tell her that soon would be good. Very soon." He indicated the decoy prototype with one limb. "We would not . . . It is, if there were not grave hazard to . . . We never otherw . . . Enough," he sighed, body stuttering a bit in its perpetual multi-legged tap dance.

  "I trust and expect your absolute discretion," he said. "We do, of course, acknowledge the creation of a debt to the Clan O'Neal. A significant debt."

  Good Lord! Big. Dangerous, big, and either cataclysmic or priceless. He made the only possible answer, "You have my word."

  "And mine," Aelool added.

  "Thank you, and farewell."

  That it did not merely say "goodbye" was another surprise. Ordinarily, any Tchpht would avoid even a simple change of leaving-word as too explicit an expression of well wishes to any "vicious omnivore." Curioser and curiouser.

  After his unusual visitor departed, along with his own Indowy counterpart, Nathan took his AID out of his desk. "Get Cally O'Neal in my office. Now."

  Minutes after Father O'Reilly's peremptory summons, his most effective assassin entered his office. She had not stopped to change out of leotard and leg-warmers, but instead stood before him barefoot, hair in a pony-tail and gym towel around her neck. She blotted her still perspiring face and bounced on her toes, clearly feeling her endorphin rush.

  "Decoy Aerfon Djigahr in?" she asked.

  "Yes, but that's not why you're here," he said.

  She stilled. "Nothing bad, I hope?"

  "That depends on you. A high-level Crab planner delivered the decoy, in person. He also, after informing us that he was speaking on behalf of the entire Tchpht leadership structure, gave us a message with the strict instructions to quote it to you, verbatim."

  "And?" she prompted, when he paused and was wasting time searching her face, as if she knew a damn thing about it. Unless it was about Stewart. That could be bad.

  "Turn loose her leash," he quoted.

  "Excuse me?" she wasn't quite sure she'd heard what she thought she'd heard. Or, she was, but thought she'd better hear it again, just to make sure.

  "Turn loose her leash," he repeated. "He also said I could tell you he delivered the device here himself. He certainly thought you'd know what he meant. If you don't, we're in a very bad position."

  "Oh, I know what he meant. He had to have gotten that—" she pointed at the machine, "from Michelle. Therefore, logically he got the message from her, as well. What I can't figure out is why the hell the Crabs would order a hit on Pardal."

  "They whu—?" It was the first time she'd seen O'Reilly slack-jawed.

  "At a meeting with Michelle recently, I offered to kill Pardal for her—more to get a rise out of her than anything. If you could have just seen . . . I meant it, of course, but I knew she'd never bite. Or thought I knew. And I don't know what the Crabs have riding on this. How close are my sister and this Crab, anyway?"

  Nathan picked up his AID. "Tell Aelool I need him again, but phrase it nicely. Then give me an executive summary of Michelle O'Neal's relationship with the Tchpht Planner Wxlcht." He had learned early on to ask for executive summaries as the magic words that prevented his AID from talking his ears off.

  "Michelle O'Neal and the Tchpht Planner Wxlcht," it replied immediately. "They are both avid Aethal players and partner each other frequently. They communicate often, exchange favors, and are unusually close for members of their respective species. Executive summary material prepared by analysis of organizational files. Would you like me to broaden my search or elaborate on existing material?"

  "That's quite sufficient. Thank you." It wasn't necessary to thank an AID, but the Priest was wise enough to know that any habit of omission of the basic courtesies would carry over into his relationships with humans and Galactics. He was always polite to his AID.

  "So would he do this from friendship and to return a favor? Would he lie about representing his government?" the assassin asked the machine.

  "That is not even a remote possibility," Aelool said as he entered the room, forestalling the AID's reply. "The Tchpht would never tolerate insanity in a planning position, nor have they had an adult manifestation of insanity in a thousand years, except as a temporary reaction to some drugs. I would have noticed had Wxlcht been drugged, unlikely as that would have been. The message and authority were authentic. What did it mean?"

  "Miss O'Neal informs me that the Tchpht government has requested that she kill the Darhel Pardal," O'Reilly said woodenly.

  Aelool slumped to the floor, landing seated. "If this is a Human joke, it is in execrable taste."

  "Aelool, I'm really not kidding. Even I am not that dense about inter-species relations," she said.

  "Then you are mistaken," the literally floored alien stated.

  "Anything is possible," she answered.

  "Not this," he declared.

  O'Reilly could see a situation developing and was about to intervene when Cally opened her mouth again.

  "I meant, it is possible that I'm interpreting his message wrong, or that he thought it meant something different from what it means to me. This could be a misunderstanding," she allowed.

  "It is. It most certainly is. Please tell me why you have come to this conclusion so that we can sort out the real meaning." The small creature wasn't happy with Miss O'Neal. Again.

  The priest said nothing, wanting to hear the answer, too.

  "When I met Michelle a week or so ago to give her that information she wanted from her Tong contact on the Moon, she said some nasty things about Pardal and I offered to kill him for her. More as a joke than anything."

  "A bad one," Aelool said.

  "Granted," she nodded. "But then she said that it was a good thing you guys kept me on a tight leash. That's the only time Michelle and I have ever talked about a leash. Ever. So as ridiculous as it seems, can we at least consider what motives the Tchp— Tphk— Crabs would consider sufficient to order a specific sentient being killed?"

  "Tchpht do not kill sophonts. Not even second or third hand," Aelool reiterated.

  "Of course they do!" Cally contradicted. "They sure as hell commissioned humanity to kill off Posleen. In job lots."

  "That was because the Posleen were a threat to all of the wise and, thereby, to all the sentient life in the galaxy." Aelool sounded positively testy.

  "Don't get mad at me. I'm not giving the orders. I'm just the poor kid at the sharp end." Apparently deciding it was an oversight that she had not been invited to sit, or making a subtle Cally-esque point, she walked to the other side of the coffee table from the spot where Aelool was still seated on the floor and planted herself in a chair.

  Aelool got up and moved to a chair, himself. As O'Reilly joined them, the Indowy explained, as if to a child, "The whole institution of the Wise was at stake. The whole Path was at stake. Without the Wise to guide others on the Path, the remaining sophonts would eventually destroy themselves and the galaxy with them. The Tchpht very reluctantly deemed using barbaric omnivores to kill barbaric omnivores an absolute necessity."

  Nathan O'Reilly raised a hand. "A moment, Aelool." He rubbed his forehead pensively. "That Tchpht was as upset as I've ever seen one, he said the situation was grave 'or they wouldn't' whatever. He sure didn't like what he was having to say, and he went to a lot of trouble to let us know it was from their whole government. He clearly didn't think a misunderstanding would be a possibility, and it was something he couldn't or wouldn't come right out and say."

  "Pardal is trying to kill Michelle. She'd be one of your 'Wise,' wouldn't she? How would the Crabs extrapolate events from that? Or could Pardal be into something else that big or that dangerous?"

  "Wait." Aelool held up a green, furry hand for silence—a human gesture—and thought.

  After a moment, he looked directly into her eyes—for the first time, e
ver. "The consequences if you are wrong would be unthinkable."

  Finally, the Human leader of the O'Neal Bane Sidhe did intervene. "Plausibly, the highest Tchpht Planners could have extrapolated events from the Darhel's planned murder—don't equivocate, that's what it is—of one of the first Human mentats to some sort of galactic threat. I can't see it, but I can't understand their physics, either. Aelool, I hate to ask you, but how close is your wisdom to theirs?"

  "It is not close." He cringed. "You asked him if he was very, very sure. On their own heads be it, and I hope the Tchpht can be made to see it that way if she is wrong. All we can wisely do is just exactly what it told us. We turn loose her leash." He turned to the priest, "My friend, do you still keep the Human custom of prayer?"

  "Of course," the Jesuit answered.

  "I hope very much that you will never find a better time to practice it. Please excuse me. This is more distressing than any Human can imagine." The little green alien left the room without another word.