Cally's War lota-6

by John Ringo

  “Cally, how are you? Come in and have a seat.” As he took her hand, he noted that the nails were bare of polish and dull, as if polish had been recently removed. Also consistent with Cally persona. Good.

  “Hi, Doc.” She smiled brightly, but he noticed as she sat in one of his comfortably, if cheaply, upholstered chairs that her arms stayed close in to her sides and her body tilted at an angle, not facing him straight on. Her hands were not clasped, but they were together in her lap, the fingertips lightly touching.

  He cocked an eyebrow at her and waited, as he grabbed a seat in his desk chair. The desk itself was pushed against the wall to keep it from coming between him and the patient. He waited, but she’d been around long enough to know that game, and they trained them out of any tendency to chatter. She didn’t fill the silence.

  “It wasn’t a rhetorical question. I meant it. How are you?”

  “I’ve been better. Work’s been a bit stressful, lately.” Her tone was still falsely bright.

  “But it wasn’t work that caused your current problem, was it?” He made a couple of notes on his second PDA, the only one in the room at the moment, which was unusual in that it had no AI at all. He didn’t trust them. He met too many really warped programmers in his profession to trust their imitations of the human mind with confidential patient data. It had nothing to do with his having tried to treat a buckley once. It had ended badly.

  “Oh, I think that’s a matter of opinion, don’t you?” Her voice had a definite edge to it.

  “Well, they told me you killed a Bane Sidhe agent. When you were supposed to be on vacation. That’s their opinion, as you said. I’d like to hear yours.” he said.

  “Okay. There was an individual on the Targets of Opportunity List who was mistakenly listed as dead. I became aware of the mistake and the target’s location. I had time, I felt like taking a trip, I took the target, I filed my report. If the organization doesn’t want a specific individual dead, then perhaps, just perhaps, the organization shouldn’t have that individual on the TOL.” She smiled thinly.

  “Petane was on the TOL? Okay. Well, look, it’s not really my job here to debrief you for the organization. That’s an ops function. My job is to assess your mental state. Since you and everybody else agree that you did kill him, why don’t we start with how you felt about him and what your feelings were when you decided to kill him?”

  “What feelings? He was alive. He was supposed to be dead. I fixed that.”

  “Come on, Cally. Don’t make this worse than it has to be. Any thoughts of suicide?” he asked.

  “Hell, no.” She looked affronted.

  “Do you actively feel a desire to live?” He made a note on his pad.

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Then you can show that by talking to me. Please try to remember what you felt when you decided to kill Colonel Petane.” He looked up, he needed to watch her body language especially closely here.

  “Love your bedside manner, Al.” Her smirk had a bitter, sardonic twist to it.

  “You’d rather I lied to you? I don’t think so. Do you remember where you were when you decided to kill Petane?” he insisted patiently.

  “Charleston. At home,” she said.

  “And how did you feel when you made the decision?”

  “Annoyed, okay? I felt annoyed, frustrated.” Her fingers tapped nervously on her purse and after what looked like a little mental debate, took out a cigarette and lit it.

  “Maybe a little betrayed?” He pushed an ashtray towards her.

  “Wouldn’t you?” she said.

  “Maybe. Did you feel just a little betrayed?” he repeated.

  “Yeah, I did.” She sighed. She was clenching and unclenching her hands.

  “So, were you annoyed primarily with Petane, the Bane Sidhe, or someone else?” At least she was talking to him.

  “I was annoyed with the Bane Sidhe, okay?” She leaned over to tap her ashes in the tray, seeming reluctant to move her arms away from her body.

  “I can understand that, and even though the reasons may be obvious, can you spell them out for me?” he asked gently.

  “It has been Bane Sidhe policy since recontact that we do not leave people who kill our operatives or who betray our people to their deaths alive. That’s a very wise policy. Abandoning it would be stupid as hell. And dangerous for us operatives.” She was cold, but patient.

  “Even if the person in question can provide vital source information on an ongoing basis to the organization?”

  “Look, I can deal with that. What I can’t deal with is that Petane was not providing valuable information, nor was he going to, and none of the people in admin and ops who made this initial bad call had the balls to take responsibility and fix the problem. Instead they just left the mess lying around with the guy still breathing for effectively no good reason at all.” Her hands were shaking as she took another draw and recrossed her legs.

  “And how would you know that his information was worthless, or that he wouldn’t have better information later?” he prompted.

  “Look, I interrogated him, okay? He wasn’t even immune to all the interrogation drugs Fleet Strike has. They were never going to trust that man with any information of a truly sensitive nature. Ever,” she said.

  “And would you have left him alive if your interrogation had turned out differently? And what do you think his having been interrogated would have done to his utility and cooperativeness as a source.” Interesting.

  “The interrogation was mere confirmation, okay? I already knew he sucked as a source, that’s a lot of why I was really, seriously annoyed. But yeah, I would have been pissed off, but I would have left him alive,” she admitted, sighing.

  “Okay. I think we’ve covered this part. So how did you interrogate him and kill him? You can skip the surveillance part. Just walk me through starting with the interrogation,” he said.

  “Do you have awhile?” She smirked again, again bitterly.

  “For you, Cally, I’ve got all afternoon. Come on, tell me about it.” He leaned back and beckoned with one hand.

  Chapter Nine

  His assistant, Wilson, had shifted his furniture again. Around the low table there were four chairs. Two Indowy and two human. At the moment, three of the chairs were full, and his assistant had just brought in a tray of coffee and mineralized water. He quirked an eyebrow at Aelool.

  “Should we wait for Roolnai, or should we go ahead?” he asked.

  “I think it would be better if we proceeded. Clan Chief Roolnai is indisposed. I will fill him in on what was discussed later.” The tendrils of his green fur, really a photosynthetic symbiote, wavered slightly in the breeze from the air vent.

  Vitapetroni and O’Reilly exchanged a look. The doctor’s eyes dropped and he shook his head slightly.

  “So, Doctor, what, precisely, are we dealing with?” The priest took a cautious sip of his coffee. Wilson was precise and efficient about so many things, but his coffee was erratic. Sometimes it was on the verge of too cold, sometimes piping hot, or anything in between. A too-hasty sip was apt to leave his tongue burned for a couple of days.

  “She’s normal. Well, as normal for what we made her as possible. She’s been working too hard. She’s too involved in her job. She badly needs an extended sabbatical for marriage and kids. But beyond that, she performed exactly as she’s been trained and conditioned to perform. I told you back when you made the decision to salvage Petane which agents couldn’t know, and couldn’t be allowed where they might come to know. She is what we made her; she performed as designed.” The doctor looked at his hands and back up at the priest and the Aelool. He shrugged.

  “I am afraid that this example of a human operating as designed may be a problem for my people.” Aelool’s eyes were, characteristically for his species, but oddly for him, fixed on the ground.

  “Miss O’Neal says that she would not have killed the man if he had been either removed from the TOL, as opposed to inactivat
ed on account of recorded death, or if he had been a more than minimally valuable source, or if he had shown any likelihood of being more than a minimally valuable source in the future. I’m inclined to believe her,” Vitapetroni offered.

  “Yes, Al, but the fact is, she did kill him when she had ample reason to believe we didn’t want him killed,” O’Reilly said.

  “She doesn’t have the organization’s wants and wishes as a safeguard. That was a very deliberate decision for all the field operatives of her specialty, so that if the Bane Sidhe had to order a killing we were ambivalent about that ambivalence wouldn’t compromise the operative’s effectiveness. She found out he wasn’t dead, she checked the TOL, he was on it, she killed him. She might as well have been a guided missile. We trained her to follow certain orders. She followed them. Without her personal feelings she might have checked back for clarification. Probably would have. But I can’t emphasize enough that you don’t tell one of our assassins to kill a man you don’t want dead,” the doctor said.

  “You humans have a phrase that I believe may apply. Something about lawyers that protect houses?” Aelool looked grave.

  “Guardhouse lawyer. She probably believes, in fact does believe, she was being one. But then she’s been trained not to recognize some of the psychological aspects of her training. The traumatic stress dream cycle suppression, for example. She never seriously wonders why she doesn’t have nightmares. Her free will not to kill someone on the TOL she encountered or became aware of and was able to kill without compromising a mission… well, I don’t mean to say it was nonexistent. But it was considerably less than she believes it to have been, or than either of you obviously believe it to have been. I repeat, gentlemen, you must not tell one of these assassins that someone is a target if you do not want that individual dead,” he insisted.

  “Team Hector’s assassin knew about Petane for a couple of decades. He obviously resisted the temptation to kill him,” the priest pointed out logically.

  “Team Hector’s assassin was told Petane was alive and was ordered not to kill him,” the doctor said.

  “If I recall correctly, you had advised us that we could not reliably expect Miss O’Neal to obey such an order and that she had to be protected from the knowledge of his status,” Aelool said.

  “Yes, I did. She owed a personal debt of honor to Team Conyers, or believed she did, after they attempted to save her life when she was the target of an assassination attempt, and after they fought in battle beside the O’Neals when the Posleen attacked the O’Neal house. I wasn’t certain she would disobey the order, but I was certain the stress of having to obey it would have done substantial damage to some of the very qualities that protect her basic mental stability despite her very demanding profession.”

  “While we are always mindful of the great debt our people owe to Clan O’Neal, one of our concerns is that this particular problem has happened within that clan before. Even though there have been only two such incidents, the size of the clan is such that concern has been raised among the nonhuman associates of the Bane Sidhe that we may be seeing the beginnings of a pattern. Much as we regret to even broach the subject, we must wonder if we are beginning to see a flaw in the line.” If anything, Aelool’s eyes were even more firmly fixed on the floor.

  “What are your people seeing in terms of your interpretation of this possible flaw? It would help us to look for evidence that could either confirm or refute it, or to otherwise address your concerns, if we had more detailed specifics about the nature of those concerns.” Father O’Reilly suppressed a wince at Aelool’s facial expression. “Please, Aelool, I’m not saying that there’s no cause for concern or that we don’t have some understanding of why you’re concerned. I’m saying that it would help us if you’d detail your people’s concerns so that we can be sure we aren’t missing any of the subtleties and finer points, so that we can do a better job of finding remedies together that will fix the problems to the satisfaction of all clans in the Bane Sidhe alliance.”

  “This is hard to explain in human terms. It is not that an act for an individual or small set of individuals’ good, but against the interests of the clan as a whole, strikes my people as dishonorable and disloyal, although there are overtones of that, so much as that it strikes us as… I suppose your best word for it would be insane. It comes across to us as having taken violent, crazed, uncontrollable carnivores into the very hearth of the clan itself.” He held up a hand placatingly. “This is not how I see humans, but you must realize that… you have a saying about something that ‘pushes your buttons.’ It would not be an exaggeration to say that this one act pushes every button my species has about dealing with carnivores.”

  “Okay. I can understand, given your species’ culture and biology and social structure, why you would feel that way,” Vitapetroni said, “but I’d make a couple of points that maybe we all need to keep in mind here. First, she is not uncontrollable. In this case the systems of control failed because they were not followed. Second, her readiness to kill is not natural human behavior. Each of our assassins has been very carefully manipulated to create a human who is both sane and able to kill on orders. That manipulation has to be done with precision. Third, she had a rational reason for not perceiving her act to be against the actual interests of the Bane Sidhe as a whole. The only actual harm it did was to embarrass the people who failed to revisit the decision to keep Petane alive. Fourth, she is still acting entirely consistently within designed control parameters, and has over thirty years done the Bane Sidhe far, far more good than harm. If the Bane Sidhe was willing to keep and use Petane for pragmatic reasons, how much more willing should it be to continue to make use of Cally O’Neal’s training and talents.”

  “That last point is one I can use to convince my people to go ahead with the next scheduled mission, given the importance of the mission and if you can assure me that Miss O’Neal is highly, highly unlikely to kill the wrong person or people on this mission. It doesn’t address the long term issue of standards of loyalty,” the Indowy said.

  “With respect, Aelool, we aren’t going to have the same outlook as your people because, well, we aren’t you. If your people expect us to be, well, Indowy that can be used for the violent missions, you’re going to be disappointed. Any resolution is going to have to take into account the differences between the psychology of our species,” Vitapetroni said.

  “Al, you’re supposed to be helping make things better,” O’Reilly sighed.

  “I am. I’m not an expert at xenopsychology, but I do understand and appreciate that Indowy loyalty is one way. Totally. From the individual clan member to the clan. That won’t work with humans. If the Indowy can’t find some way to come to terms with that about us, this alliance will not work. They cannot think of human members of the Bane Sidhe as members of their clan. It would lead to… unrealistic expectations,” he insisted.

  “We are quite aware that humans are not Indowy, thank you.”

  “But not aware enough. Had you been, your people would have understood that loyalty down the chain from the organization to the individual is not some eccentric detail of etiquette, but is vital to dealing with humans in an organization. Petane’s status would have been reviewed. I take some of the blame that it was not. I shouldn’t have assumed more understanding on both sides than there was. I should have explicitly informed you of the organizational hazards of not periodically reevaluating the Petane decision to see if it was still justified to let the man live. That part, that I didn’t make sure you understood that necessity, or that our base commander here didn’t understand that he had to bring it up. That’s my fault.” The psychiatrist tapped his chest with a hand.

  “And you would then say that not understanding you was our fault?” Aelool’s grip on his glass tightened.

  “Not at all. I’d say we learned to understand each other better. How we found out wasn’t exactly pleasant.” He grimaced. “Not to sound too much like a shrink, but I think both sides ne
ed to think a bit about how this knowledge affects our policies.”

  “Or the arrangement itself,” the alien sighed.

  “We understand that. At the same time, it is possible that we could use this understanding to revise our policies to pursue our mutual goals without having this kind of thing happen again,” the priest interjected.

  “Yes, that is possible. I would like the doctor’s assistance in exploring the ramifications and details and looking for anything related we may have missed. Meanwhile, I think I can make the case, given how critical the need for this particular mission is, and how good a body type match Miss O’Neal is for Miss Makepeace, for continuing with this mission. After that…” he trailed off.

  “I agree. We can discuss the other issues after we get Team Isaac in the field,” O’Reilly nodded.

  “I think we must all hope that that mission goes well,” the alien’s expression was the Indowy equivalent of a deep and troubled frown.

  * * *

  Wednesday morning, May 22

  When the knock at the door came for breakfast, she looked over at the alarm clock. Seven-thirty? Ugh. She pulled on her bathrobe and trudged to the door, rubbing her eyes. I suppose sleeping in was a vain hope. They want to emphasize I’m in the doghouse. I don’t care. The bastard needed to be dead — even if he was a pathetic schmuck.

  She opened the door and stepped back, blinking, as her grandfather walked in with the tray. It was set for two, with pancakes, eggs over easy, sausage links, orange juice, and coffee. It smelled like heaven, especially after a dinner of low-salt pinto beans in corn tortillas.

  “Okay, thank you. But… why? Yesterday you seemed royally pissed,” she said.

  “I am. I am royally pissed that you are letting this job eat you. The guy you killed was a worthless asshole. Probably doesn’t matter one way or the other that he died. Yeah, he’d earned it, but it probably wouldn’t have hurt anything to let him live.” He patted his pocket reaching for his tobacco pouch, looked at the tray and poured syrup on his pancakes, instead.