Conquerors 1 - Conquerors' Pride

by Timothy Zahn

  [I will be brief,] the Yycroma said, his long jaw grinding out the alien words as if chewing small animals. [I have heard long talk today about preparation and political matters. Such things are for the mediation of females. This is not a faction threat or corsair attack that now stands before you. This is an enemy beyond anything you have faced. To use less than your full strength would be the mistake of fools.]

  "Typical Yycroman tact," Aric murmured.

  "Shh."

  [If I speak bluntly, it is because this danger does not threaten only you,] the Yycroma continued sternly. [The prohibition imposed by Peacekeeper fiat upon Yycroman military vessels leaves our worlds and people defenseless against attack from outside should the interdiction zone forces be withdrawn. And such attacks will come. Speak to the Mrachanis - hear their tales of those who once passed through their domain fleeing an enemy they named as the Mirnacheem-hyeea.]

  He paused, his helmet glinting as he swept his gaze around the chamber. [You have spoken of much today. You have not yet spoken of the CIRCE weapon. Of that you must speak further among yourselves. I say only this. If these are indeed the Mirnacheem-hyeea, they will move swiftly to take your worlds from you. If the worlds they seize contain parts of the CIRCE weapon, you will lose by default any ability to use it against them. Think on that.]

  He stepped down from the podium and strode back to the observation boxes where the rest of the nonhuman ambassadors sat or squatted. "I guess that makes CIRCE an official part of the discussion," Aric commented.

  "Unfortunately, his point's a valid one," his father said. "Scattering CIRCE's components across the Commonwealth might have kept it from being easily abused, but it also makes it vulnerable to precisely that kind of piecemeal seizure."

  "I don't see why," Aric said. "The original plans must be still kicking around somewhere. We ought to be able to build an entirely new CIRCE from scratch, let alone manufacture a replacement part or two."

  "One would think so," his father said thoughtfully. "But that assumes that it was deliberately designed in the first place."

  Aric frowned at him. "Come again?"

  "It's just something I've been thinking a great deal about since all this broke. Don't forget that CIRCE came effectively out of nowhere - there weren't even whispered hints about its existence until after it had been used. And in thirty-seven years since then no one else has been able to come up with another working model of it. Either NorCoord's had an incredible run of luck and good security... or else there's something about the weapon that can't easily be duplicated."

  Aric chewed at the inside of his cheek. Pheylan had gone on a CIRCE kick back in grade school, reading everything he could get his hands on regarding the history and technology of the project. He'd complained at the time how surprisingly little there was available. "So what are you saying?" he asked. "That CIRCE is a non-human technology that NorCoord found buried somewhere and figured out how to work?"

  His father smiled faintly. "You sound like a second-rate thriller. No, I don't think we've got a nonhuman device here. But research accidents do happen; and I think it's entirely possible that part of CIRCE came from a botched experiment that turned out to be more than anyone expected. Possibly one reason they broke the weapon up, in fact. Scattering the pieces across a dozen planets would make it that much harder for a potential thief to identify and locate the key component."

  "But they must have analyzed the whole thing since then," Aric argued. "Surely they know by now what they've got."

  "Perhaps. Though I can say from experience that electronic mistakes can sometimes be impossible to reproduce. The larger fact remains, though, that if any part of CIRCE is difficult to replicate, we could be in serious trouble if that component was destroyed or fell into enemy hands."

  Aric grimaced. "Peacekeeper Command has presumably thought about that."

  "If not, one hopes our Yycroman friend has now reminded them."

  Aric nodded. On the floor below, a Dja was waddling its way forward. Apparently, Parliament had decided to give podium time to each of the nonhuman observers. "Did you catch the name he was calling those aliens from the Mrach legend? I couldn't make it out."

  "Mirnacheem-hyeea," his father said. "It's a somewhat archaic Mrach phrase that translates roughly as 'conquerors without reason.' One of the few bits of the language I know."

  Conquerors without reason. "Sounds ominous."

  "Agreed. The real irony of it - and I doubt most of the Parlimins down there know this - is that that's the same term the Mrachanis first used for humans."

  There was a rustle of movement in the aisle beside Aric. He looked up -

  "Aric," Melinda whispered to him, squeezing his shoulder briefly in greeting as she slid deftly past the two men and sat down on her father's other side. "Hi, Daddy," she said, half turning in her seat to give him a long hug. "How are you doing?"

  "I'm all right," he said, hugging her back. "Thanks for coming."

  "I'm sorry it took so long," she apologized into his shoulder. Her eyes lifted to Aric's, eyebrows rising in silent question. He shrugged, shook his head fractionally. Only time would tell how well their father was going to weather this new loss.

  "Parian told me all about the battle on the way over," Melinda continued, pulling back from the hug but keeping hold of her father's hand. "Do they know yet who did it?"

  "Not yet." He eyed her carefully. "How are you holding up?"

  "I'm okay," she assured him. "Really. Don't worry about me. How about you, Aric?"

  "I'm doing fine," Aric told her. To his own ears he didn't sound nearly as convincing as she had. But then, she'd always been a better straight-faced liar than he had. "How did the operation go?"

  "No problems," she said, her tone dismissing it as unimportant. "Has anything new happened since I left Celadon?"

  "Nothing we're being let in on," their father said. "Excessive speech making from Parliament, mainly. I presume Peacekeeper Command is making better use of its time."

  "They are," Melinda said. "Even before your message arrived, they'd already whisked Dr. Haidar and some others off to Edo. He's one of the best diagnostic surgeons in the Commonwealth."

  "Gone to help with the autopsies, no doubt." The elder Cavanagh shook his head, eyes focused on nothing. "There'll be plenty of that sort of work for them to do."

  Snugged up against his side in its inside pocket, Aric's phone vibrated silently. "I've got a call coming in," he said, standing up. "Back in a minute."

  He had to go out past the Peacekeeper Marines at the door before he was far enough outside the Parliament's transmission shielding to get a clear connection. "Hello?"

  "Quinn, sir," the familiar voice and face said. "I thought you ought to know that Peacekeeper Command has begun notifying the families of those killed at Dorcas. That means the remains should be released soon. Do you want me to contact them and make the arrangements?"

  Aric grimaced. A distinctly unpleasant duty; but it was the family's duty, not Quinn's. "Thanks, but I'll do it," he said. "Who do I contact?"

  "Mortuary Affairs," Quinn said. "I don't know who the officer in charge is."

  "I'll find him," Aric said. "Are you at the ship?"

  "Yes, sir. Captain Teva says we'll be ready to head out to Avon whenever your father wants to leave."

  "Good. We'll let you know."

  "Yes, sir."

  Aric keyed off, called up the directory, and punched in the proper number. "Peacekeeper Mortuary Affairs," a young-looking sergeant answered. "Lewis."

  "My name is Aric Cavanagh," Aric identified himself. "My brother Pheylan was captain of the Kinshasa. I'd like to make arrangements for us to pick up his remains."

  "One moment, sir."

  The phone went blank. Aric leaned against a convenient wall, gazing around the wide circular lounge that wrapped around the back of the observation balcony. The place was mostly deserted, with the usual swarm of tourists already having been turned away and most of the journalists sn
iffing around the edges of the story having gone one level down to wait for the Parlimins and aides to come out of the chambers.

  "Mr. Cavanagh?" a new voice said.

  Aric shifted his attention back to the phone. An older officer had taken Sergeant Lewis's place on the display. "Yes?"

  "My name is Captain Rawlins, sir," the other said. "All remains have been released and are in the process of being returned to their home states. However, I don't find any listing here for Commander Cavanagh."

  Aric frowned. "I don't understand."

  "I don't really understand it myself, sir," Rawlins admitted. "There was a lot of damage out there, and there are several remains that are still only tentatively identified. But Commander Cavanagh is the only one listed simply as missing in action."

  "Could they have just missed him out there?"

  "Unlikely, sir," Rawlins said. "The cleanup team supposedly got everything worth collecting."

  Aric rubbed at his lip. Either someone had messed up, or someone was covering up. Either way, he didn't like it. "Who do I need to talk to?"

  "I could transfer you to Civilian Affairs, sir," Rawlins offered. "I doubt they could tell you anything more than I already have, though."

  "Don't bother, then," Aric said. "Thank you for your help."

  He keyed off, resisting the urge to swear out loud. It wasn't bad enough that he'd lost his brother. Now they couldn't even give him a proper farewell.

  Well, he wasn't going to simply sit back and wait. Keying his phone back on, he punched for Quinn. "Yes, sir?"

  "Quinn, who's the top Peacekeeper officer who Dad might know personally?" Aric asked him.

  "Well, he knows General Garcia Alvarez," Quinn said slowly. "I believe he also has at least a passing acquaintance with Admiral Rudzinski. The admiral was the Fleet's Parliament liaison when Lord Cavanagh was in office."

  And now Rudzinski was supreme Fleet commander, one member of the three-man Peacekeeper Command Triad. That could prove useful. "Any idea where Rudzinski is now?"

  "I heard he was with the assessment team on Edo. I can check if he's still there."

  "Do that," Aric told him. "And then have Teva get the ship ready to fly."

  "Yes, sir. I take it we're heading to Edo?"

  "You take it right," Aric told him grimly. To Edo, to get his brother back.

  Or to find out why he couldn't.

  6

  Pheylan had promised himself to do whatever it took to escape from his cell. And for the first four days it looked as though he were going to be leaving on a slab.

  It was like no sickness he'd ever had before. Violent stomach cramps without any vomiting; vertigo and light-headedness that left his mind foggy but without any actual pain; fever that came and went almost hourly. It was probably a reaction to some local bacterium or virus, and he would undoubtedly have been much more concerned about it if he'd had any mental energy left for such worries.

  He spent most of those four days on his cot, either bundled up to keep warm or with the blankets thrown off and his jumpsuit open to the waist trying to cool himself down. He slept a great deal, too, with strange dreams blending into the equally strange reality of his imprisonment and back again. Occasionally, he would wake up to find some of the aliens standing around him, poking or studying him with dull white instruments. But the memories were foggy. Perhaps they too were dreams. The fifth day he woke up to find himself healthy.

  He lay there for a few minutes, running through a mental checklist and trying to decide whether he really believed it. But the discomfort and confusion were gone, and for the first time since landing he realized he was ravenously hungry.

  Carefully, he sat up, aware that four days of dehydration could make him as light-headed as the sickness itself had. On his bed's pullout nightstand was a tall cylinder of some clear liquid and two of his escape pod's ration bars. The liquid proved to be a delicately scented water; the ration bars proved to be just what he needed.

  He sat on the edge of his bed, looking around the room as he ate. Three aliens were visible, two of them working at one of the consoles, the third lying on what looked like a sort of stretched-out vaulting horse in the lounge area. None of them seemed to be paying all that much attention to him, but he somehow doubted he was being ignored.

  Still, they were aliens; and any excessive sense of privacy he might have once had had been burned out by fifteen years in the Fleet. He finished his breakfast, stripped off his decidedly rancid jumpsuit, and stepped into the shower.

  The standard Fleet-shower soap drip was missing, but with some experimentation he discovered that a bumpy section of wall near the shower head was a thick slab of some soapy substance. He scrubbed himself clean and shut off the water, remembering only then that there was no towel out there to dry off with. But that was okay. Simply being able to take a shower had made him feel like a civilized human being again, and if he had to walk around buck naked while he air-dried, it was a small price to pay.

  He brushed off the excess water and stepped out. To his mild surprise he discovered that his old jumpsuit was gone, replaced by a new one that had been laid neatly across the bed. "Good maid service," he murmured. He walked across to it, glancing around the room as he did so -

  And suddenly felt a surge of adrenaline jolt through him. There, off to his left, a vertical crack was visible in the wall of his cell. A vertical crack that bisected the milky-white lock mechanism set into the wall.

  It was the edge of the door to his cell. And it was open.

  He continued on to his bed, looking around quickly as he tried to kick his brain cells into activity. Could his captors really have left the door open when they brought in the fresh jumpsuit? No - surely they wouldn't have been that careless. It had to be a test of some sort. A test to see what he would do if they offered him a way to escape.

  He sat down on the bed, picking up the jumpsuit and pretending to examine it. On the face of it the whole thing was so blatantly obvious as to be an insult to his intelligence. Here he was, barely recovered from four days of illness, imprisoned on an unknown world with nothing but the clothes they themselves had provided for him; and they expected him to jump at the first hint of a way out?

  Or were they expecting a different reaction entirely? A reaction like charging out and trying to kill the aliens in the outer room?

  His hand, he noticed suddenly, was dry where he was touching the jumpsuit: the material seemed to have wicked the water away from his skin. Possibly why they hadn't provided him with a towel in the first place. He started to get dressed, watching the aliens out of the corner of his eye as he did so. They were still just going about their business, completely oblivious to the open door.

  All right, he told himself as he finished sealing the jumpsuit. It had to be a test, which meant that ignoring the door would tell them only that he was smart enough to be suspicious. But with luck maybe he could use it to plant a few false assumptions. Stuffing the empty water tube awkwardly into the top of his jumpsuit, he mentally crossed his fingers and stepped to the door.

  The one time he'd seen them use it, the door had swung open on its own at the touch of a button on a milky-white plate set into the cell wall near the door's edge. It wasn't nearly so easy to push open by hand, but it was also not nearly as hard as Pheylan tried to make it look. Whatever method he used to eventually break out of this place would almost certainly include simple raw strength, and the more the aliens underestimated human muscle power, the better chance he'd have.

  So he pushed hard against the door, clenching his teeth as he strained to inch it open, hoping that those who were watching couldn't see that his shoulder was simultaneously pushing against the wall itself. He shifted to a two-handed grip on door and jamb as soon as it was far enough open, grimacing all the more dramatically as he forced tired muscles to strain isometrically against each other and against the skintight material of the jumpsuit. He got it open just far enough and squeezed out.

  The three aliens
were watching him now, all right. But there was no mad scramble for the door or for hidden weapons. Sacrificial goats, for sure, there to draw the tiger in for the attack.

  An attack Pheylan had no intention of making. He'd demonstrated his physical weakness with the door; now it was time to demonstrate his innate innocence and lack of aggression. Stepping up to the nearest alien, he pulled the water tube out of his tunic and held it out. "Do you suppose," he said, "that I could have some more of this?"

  They led him back to his cell, one of them going off to one of the consoles to refill the water tube. This time the door was closed properly behind him.

  Apparently, that part of the test was over. Pheylan wondered whether he'd passed or failed.

  He drank half the water, then lay down on his side on the cot. Propping his head up with the pillow, resting one hand against the smooth coolness of the cell wall, he gazed out at the aliens as they resumed their work.

  Or at least he hoped it looked as if he were watching them. At the moment he was far more interested in the wall of his cell.

  His first reaction on seeing it had been to identify it as glass. Later, before succumbing to his illness, he'd changed his mind and decided it was probably a plastic. Now, running his fingertips and nails across the material, he decided he'd been right the first time. An incredibly tough glass, undoubtedly, and a good five centimeters thick on top of it, but a glass nonetheless.

  He turned over to lie on his back, trying to think. Glass was a noncrystalline substance, often but not always silicon based. Generally acid resistant, though there were one or two acids that he vaguely remembered would attack it. An old memory drifted up from the past: the time he, Aric, and Melinda had been playing drag ball and he'd driven the ball squarely into the window of his mother's study. The glass itself had survived, but the impact had cracked the framing and popped the pane neatly out onto the desk, knocking over a cup of tea his mother had left there and creating a major mess.

  At the corner of his eye, something moved. Pheylan turned to look; but there was nothing there. Just the wall of his cell and the usual flickering of lights from the consoles on that side.