Conquerors 1 - Conquerors' Pride

by Timothy Zahn

  And just about the right size for the removal of something the diameter of that sausage slice.

  Slowly, carefully, she returned the head to vertical and closed the cover of the storage box. It was ridiculous, she knew. Completely ridiculous. And yet...

  Behind her mask she snorted. No; it was ridiculous. The Conquerors had sexual organs - surely they didn't reproduce by budding. And they certainly didn't reproduce in any way that required surgery to function. Turning away, she lifted her gloved hand to the seal on the breather mask -

  And froze. There, no more than ten meters away, something was floating slowly through the air across the storage area. Something pale white in color, insubstantial in form, moving between the piles of boxes and equipment.

  A ghost.

  Against her cheek Melinda felt her hands begin to tremble, every ghost story Aric and Pheylan had inflicted on her as a child surging back in a bubbling flood of panic. She took an involuntary step backward, coming up short as the small of her back rammed into the cold storage box. The ghostly figure paused, seemed to turn its head toward her -

  And with a flash of horror she saw that the face turned toward her was that of a Conqueror.

  It vanished at that moment, disappearing instantly into nothingness. But it didn't matter. Melinda's scream was already on its way.

  "I'm all right," she said, taking one last sip of hot liquid and handing the cup back to the medic. Her hand, she noticed, was still trembling slightly. "Thank you."

  "You sure?" Holloway asked.

  "Yes. I'm sorry, Colonel."

  "It was a perfectly reasonable reaction," Holloway assured her. "I'd probably have emptied a full clip into it, myself. Is there anything else you can tell us about it?"

  Melinda shook her head. "Not really. It was definitely there, definitely three-dimensional, and definitely a Conqueror. And definitely looked like something straight out of a ghost story."

  Beside Holloway, Major Takara shook his head. "This doesn't make sense, Cass. Even begging the question of how they did it, why bother running a hologram into the base in the first place?"

  "Maybe to shake us up," Holloway said. "Create a ruckus so they could get an idea of personnel and weapons placement by seeing how and where we react. If all it was was a hologram."

  "What else could it have been?" Takara asked.

  "I don't know," Holloway said. "But we're dealing with aliens and unknown technology. And a slice of something that Dr. Cavanagh suggested might be part of a sensory cluster."

  Takara frowned at him. "You're not suggesting that sausage slice is part of a high-tech retrieval system, are you? With a hologram as the far end of it?"

  "Yes, it's a ridiculous idea," Holloway nodded. "I agree. But Dr. Cavanagh said it was floating around the equipment dumps; and at this point I don't care about looking ridiculous. Have we got anything out here with half a chance of blocking whatever sensor system the Conquerors might be using?"

  Takara already had his plate out. "Well, we could rig another pod like the one holding the body back there. But that wouldn't - wait a minute. Here we go: the darkroom."

  "What's that?" Melinda asked.

  "Electronics reconfiguration chamber," Holloway told her. "Multilayered steel, lead, soft iron, and a couple others. Designed to block out anything that might damage unshielded crystallines, up to and including a fair percentage of cosmic rays. That's perfect, Fuji. Get the slice moved over there right away."

  "Got it," Takara said. "What about the body? You want that moved in there, too?"

  "Yes," Holloway said. "Dr. Cavanagh can continue her dissection work in there tomorrow." He looked at her. "If you feel up to it by then."

  "I'll be fine," she promised.

  For a moment his eyes searched her face. "All right," he nodded. "But don't push it."

  He glanced toward the overhang. "Chances are we're going to have plenty of time out here to get things done."

  23

  "So nice to see you again, Lord Cavanagh," Taurin Lee said, positively radiating self-satisfaction as he and his entourage passed between the silent male Yycroman guards and crossed to where Cavanagh and Klyveress sat waiting for them. "You know, I would have sworn you told Bronski you were going to be staying in Mig-Ka City."

  "I changed my mind," Cavanagh said, glancing at each of the other six men now spreading out behind Lee. One of Bronski's men was among them - Garcia, if Cavanagh remembered his name correctly. Bronski himself was nowhere to be seen. "Shifting circumstances and all that. Speaking of Mr. Bronski, where is he?"

  "I'll ask the questions, if you don't mind," Lee said. "You made quite a mess getting out of that hotel. The Mrachanis were absolutely furious."

  "Given that they intended all along to maneuver me here, I hardly think they have any right to complain." Cavanagh caught Garcia's eye. "Garcia, where's Mr. Bronski?"

  "I told you, Cavanagh - "

  "He's out inspecting that little impromptu shipyard outside," Garcia said.

  "Shut up, Garcia," Lee snapped, throwing the other a knife-edged look as he pulled a card from his tunic. "This is a NorCoord Parliament carte blanche, Lord Cavanagh," he identified it. "I'm in charge here. As I was on Mra-mig, if that matters to you."

  "I see," Cavanagh nodded. He'd already figured that part out, but it was useful to know what authority Lee was operating under. "So what great leadership act are you here to perform?"

  "For starters, I'm going to put you under arrest," Lee said. "You and your journalist friend both."

  "You mean Ezer Sholom?"

  Lee lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise. "I thought you didn't know who he was."

  "I didn't," Cavanagh said. "I identified him the same way you did: by scanning one of Fibbit's threadings of him into a computer. Did you take the time to read his complete record?"

  "He was once a journalist," Lee said, looking at one of his men and nodding sharply toward Cavanagh. "That's all I need to know," he continued as the man stepped forward.

  [What do you intend to do?] Klyveress asked.

  "I intend to put him under arrest, Klyveress ci Yyatoor," Lee said as the man moved to Cavanagh's side. "Either he's already broken the Official Secrets Regulations or is intending to break them. Either way, that's adequate cause for a presumptive arrest."

  [He is on Yycroman soil,] Klyveress pointed out. [Is he not bound therefore by Yycroman rather than NorCoord law?]

  "If I were you, ci Yyatoor, I'd stay out of this," Lee said, his voice deadly quiet. "That shipyard out there is a serious and blatant violation of the Pacification treaty. Trying to defend Lord Cavanagh will simply buy you more trouble than you and the Yycroman Hierarchy are already in.

  [Commonwealth interdiction forces have been withdrawn from Yycroman space,] Klyveress reminded him. [We thus lie undefended beneath the Conqueror threat. Would you have us sit idly by and allow our worlds to be destroyed?]

  Lee snorted. "Do you really expect me to believe that's what all those ships are for?"

  [Do you call me a liar?] Klyveress countered.

  A couple of the other men seemed to wince. Lee either didn't notice or didn't care. "I call you a twister of the truth," he said bluntly. "I don't believe for a minute the Hierarch would be foolish enough to send barely armed merchant ships against an enemy like the Conquerors."

  "What else do they have?" Cavanagh put in, watching Garcia. "The Commonwealth took all their real warships away from them."

  Garcia's lip twitched. Not much, but enough to show he knew about the Yycroman warship out there.

  A fact that apparently had been kept from his temporary boss. "Maybe the Hierarch will hire you to defend them before the NorCoord Parliament," Lee said sarcastically, no hint of Garcia's reaction registering on his face. "Otherwise, I suggest you start cooperating. Before I slap a charge of treason on top of the Official Secrets violations. Now, where's Sholom?"

  "He's not here," Cavanagh said, feeling a ring of sweat beginning to collect beneath his c
ollar. Treason. Did Lee know about the fueler he'd sent to Melinda? Or about the Peacekeeper fighters Aric and Quinn had borrowed?

  Or could that even have fallen through right at the beginning? Were Melinda and Aric even now in custody, with Lee simply playing a spider's game with him? "I think he's still on Mra-mig, unless the Mrachanis have moved him. And there's a good chance he's in trouble."

  "He sure is," Lee said grimly. "All right, let's go."

  "No," Cavanagh shook his head. "I mean real trouble. If I could talk to Bronski - "

  "I already told you I'm in charge," Lee cut him off. "Daschka, take him to the shuttle. We'll finish up here and - "

  "There," Cavanagh said, pointing to the doorway as Bronski and two other men walked into the room. "Mr. Bronski, I need to speak to you. Immediately."

  "You can talk to him aboard ship," Lee said. "What are you waiting for, Daschka? Get him moving."

  "This can't wait," Cavanagh insisted as Daschka took his arm and levered him to his feet. "It's absolutely vital to Commonwealth security."

  "Save it for your hearing," Lee said. Across the room, behind Lee's back, Garcia had stepped over to Bronski's side and was whispering in his ear. "Get him out of here, Daschka. And put him under communications quarantine - he's not to talk to anyone aboard ship without my permission. Now, as for you and the Hierarch, ci Yyatoor - "

  "Just a minute," Bronski said.

  Slowly, deliberately, Lee turned to look at him. "What did you say?" he demanded, his voice deadly.

  "I said just a minute," Bronski told him. "I'd like to hear what Lord Cavanagh thinks is this vital to Commonwealth security."

  "In private, Mr. Bronski," Cavanagh added. "For the moment I think this should be for your ears only."

  "Cavanagh - "

  "It's all right, Mr. Lee," Bronski cut him off. "There's nothing he can tell me I'm not cleared to hear. Where to?"

  [There,] Klyveress said, gesturing toward one of the other doors leading from the main room of the suite. [It is private, and there is no other exit.]

  The room was a small sleeping chamber, with a Yycroman bed pushed all the way to one wall and two human-sized chairs facing each other in the center. "Interesting," Bronski commented as Cavanagh sealed the door behind them. "Human chairs and everything. You and the ci Yyatoor had this already set up, didn't you?"

  "As I said, this is something that needs to be discussed privately," Cavanagh said, taking one of the seats and gesturing Bronski to the other.

  "What, with an assistant liaison from a small Commonwealth diplomatic outpost?" Bronski asked, pulling the chair a few centimeters back.

  "No," Cavanagh said. "With a senior member of NorCoord Military Intelligence."

  For a second Bronski seemed to freeze halfway down into the seat. "That's an interesting accusation," he commented, continuing the rest of the way down. "Totally ridiculous, of course."

  "Of course," Cavanagh agreed. "All Commonwealth diplomatic personnel routinely carry concealed flechette pistols. Just in case they should happen to find themselves in an unexpected face-off with Bhurtala on a Mrach world. It was also just coincidence that your assistant Garcia happened to twitch a few minutes ago when I suggested all Yycroman warships had been taken away from them after the Pacification, which you and he know is not strictly accurate." He cocked an eyebrow. "And, of course, all Commonwealth diplomatic liaisons are issued with forged Mrach red cards. I'd guess that would make you - what? A colonel? Senior colonel?"

  For a long moment Bronski just looked at him. "Brigadier," he said at last. "Let's hear about this threat to Commonwealth security."

  "Ezer Sholom," Cavanagh said. "The man Fibbit made a threading of in Mig-Ka City. What do you know about him?"

  Bronski shrugged. "Ezer Ronel Sholom. Born May twenty-second, 2234, in Crane City, Arcadia. Joined the StarNet News Service in 2257 and became one of the most popular journalists of his day. Covered the Pawolian war and guerrilla insurrections on Tal from the front lines and did daily analysis during the Yycroman Pacification. Wrote about a dozen books, did the lecture circuit, hobnobbed with the rich and famous. Retired about fifteen years ago to a small estate on Palisades."

  "Is he still there?"

  "It's still his official residence. Whether or not he's there at the moment I don't know. What's this about?"

  "It's about a book he set out to write but which was never published," Cavanagh said. "I don't know if it's even in his file, but right after the Pawolian war he was appointed by the head of NorCoord Command to write the history of the CIRCE project. The official history, including everything that wasn't classified."

  A muscle in Bronski's jaw seemed to tighten. "No, that wasn't in his file," he said. "I've never heard anything about it."

  "As I said, it was never published," Cavanagh said. "It may not even have been completed. I seem to remember speculation at the time that the only reason he'd been given the assignment was that the whole Commonwealth was clamoring for information about CIRCE, and NorCoord wanted to shut them up. Once the noise had died down, someone high up in the government apparently decided to reclassify everything about CIRCE and stillbirthed the book. But Sholom had definitely made progress before that happened. He talked to my cleanup unit, and to the officers and crews of every snip that took part in that battle. I'm pretty sure he talked to the heads of NorCoord Command, too."

  "So what are you suggesting?"

  "I'm suggesting that in the course of his research, he might have learned something vitally important about CIRCE," Cavanagh said. "I think the Mrachanis know it and are trying to find out what that something is."

  Bronski rubbed at his lower lip. "You really think a journalist could have figured out something that significant?"

  "Sholom was sharp as a cross-saw," Cavanagh said. "He'd also spent a lot of time already with the military. He knew how they operated and how to read between the lines of what they said. And it wasn't until Fibbit started talking about him to me that the Mrachanis began to get nervous."

  "Maybe," Bronski conceded. "If they are, I think they're shooting in the wrong barrel. Still, we can't have nonhumans kidnapping or leaning on Commonwealth citizens. All right, let's go find him. You're going to want to come along, I suppose?"

  "Definitely," Cavanagh said.

  "Fine," Bronski said, getting to his feet. "We can consider you under house arrest till we sort out whatever this Official Secrets stuff is Lee keeps ranting about."

  Cavanagh stood up. "One other thing. What are you planning to do about that Yycroman shipyard out there?"

  "I'm going to report it, of course," Bronski said. "They've broken the Pacification treaty. They have to be slapped down, and they have to be slapped down hard."

  "What about the Conquerors?"

  "What about them?" Bronski retorted. "You can't blink at treaty violations just because someone nastier is waiting over the next hill. Especially not from people like the Yycromae. Bad enough they were able to hide a couple of warships from us for twenty years - something like this proves they're out for blood again."

  "We need all the fighting ships we can get right now," Cavanagh said. "And you can't seriously suggest the Yycromae should allow their worlds to stay undefended."

  "You really believe self-defense is all they've got in mind?" Bronski countered.

  "The ci Yyatoor has given me guarantees," Cavanagh said. "I can show them to you aboard ship."

  Bronski's eyes narrowed. "Since when have you had authority to negotiate treaties and accept guarantees?"

  "Since it became necessary for someone to do it," Cavanagh said. "And since I was the man on the spot."

  Bronski snorted. "I'm sure that'll play real well with Lee and his boss. I'm starting to see why VanDiver wants your head on a plate."

  "There are a lot of reasons," Cavanagh said. "Whether he gets it this time depends on whether you're willing to help me smooth the whole thing over."

  "And why would I do that?"

  Cavana
gh shrugged. "Loyalty to the Peacekeepers, perhaps. The realization that opening a second front against the Yycromae would be a dangerous waste of resources."

  Bronski snorted again. "Forget it," he said, stepping toward the door. "Come on, Jet's go find your journalist friend."

  "Or," Cavanagh added, "perhaps the fact that, unlike the NorCoord Parliament, Military Intelligence has known about the Conquerors for the past six months."

  Bronski froze, his hand still reaching for the door release. "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm talking about that contact between the Mrachanis and a Conqueror ship six months ago off their Mra-kahie mining world," Cavanagh told him. "The one where both sides took a quick look at the other and hightailed it for home. The Yycromae may not have much military left, but they still have an excellent intelligence service. Klyveress told me all about it."

  "Well, salutes all around to Yycroman Intelligence," Bronski said. "Doesn't have anything to do with us."

  Cavanagh shook his head. "Sorry, Brigadier, but that won't wash. By your own admission you, a senior officer, came charging personally all the way over from Mra-ect when word reached you that I was on Mra-mig asking about contacts with the Conquerors. As it happens, I was only looking for details of that two-hundred-year-old legend, but you didn't know that. And even if you had, you couldn't risk someone there spilling the rest of the soup to me."

  "So why didn't I haul you in right then and there?" Bronski demanded.

  "Because somewhere between the spaceport and my hotel suite Taurin Lee intercepted you," Cavanagh said. "He was nosing around on his own and must have decided that attaching himself to your party would be a good way to find out what I was up to. Does he know who you really are, by the way?"

  Bronski's lip twisted. "No."

  "I didn't think so," Cavanagh said. "And as a minor Commonwealth liaison, of course, you could hardly refuse to honor his carte blanche. Unfortunately, that meant you were going to have to confront me with a high-ranking parliamentary aide in the room. Your superiors hadn't bothered to inform the NorCoord Parliament about the Conquerors, so you couldn't tell him the real reason you were there; and you knew he wasn't likely to swallow the flimsy excuse you'd concocted about Fibbit and deportation orders. About all you could do was look around some, throw around a lot of weak bluster, and then leave, planning to come back later after you'd gotten rid of him to finish the job properly."