Empery

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  “I am ever more convinced that you’ll never understand anything I tell you correctly the first time,” Berberon said sharply. “This is a disaster, Jean-Paul, the final failure of your attempt to neutralize the Nines.”

  “Final failure?” Tanvier said, reaching for his pipe and lighter. “My dear Felithe, you are so dramatic. What has changed except that the USS is now headless and will soon topple to the ground dead? By the time Wells’s little convoy reaches Lynx, we will quite likely control the space over our heads again.”

  Berberon glowered in the direction of the pipe and circled Tanvier’s desk to a spot where the room’s air currents were taking the plume of pollution away from him instead of toward him. The pipe’s contents were noncarcinogenic but far from nonallergenic; smoking the pipe was something Tanvier did specifically to annoy him.

  “Enjoy your triumph while you can. Because when the Mizari return, I doubt you’ll have the same cheery view of things.”

  Tanvier snorted. “Do you really believe that Wells means to start a war he can’t win? The Nines are radicals, yes, but they’re not insane—Wells least of all.”

  “We’re all a little bit insane, Jean-Paul,” Berberon said, leaning over the desk. “It’s the reptile brain buried down thereunder all those cosmetic layers of cortex. It keeps asking us too things that made perfect sense in the Cambrian Era but no sense at all in the world we occupy. Mostly we ignore the voice, but every now and then we say yes. Wells has already said yes to his beast. I knew that ten years ago. All he’s been waiting for is the opportunity to follow through. Which, bloody goddamnit, we went and handed to him.”

  Tanvier leaned back and spread his hands wide. “What do you want from me, Felithe? You said the Chancellor was on to him. She’ll put the bad genie back in the bottle.”

  “I don’t think we can take that for granted.”

  “Then let Farlad loose. He’ll handle it,” Tanvier said with a shrug. “I’ll place that option at your discretion.”

  “I’ve already claimed it myself, thank you. But the opportunity may not arise. And we have no one else positioned to take up the ball.”

  “None of our agents were tapped for Charan?”

  “No. And, of course, we have no in-place assets at Lynx Center or Perimeter Command. Talk to the section head about that, not me,” he added quickly.

  “So we’ll be spectators,” Tanvier said sanguinely. “I ask you again—what do you want from me?”

  “For one, leave the Service alone at least until this matter is resolved. If he gets to Lynx and finds that we’re answering the phones at USS-Central, he’ll figure this is his one and only chance and be all the more determined not to waste it. I don’t care how good an opportunity this appears to be. We can’t cut Janell’s legs out from under her until Wells is under control.”

  Tanvier pursed his lips and drew deeply at his pipe. “You may have something there. Very well. The Service can muddle along without our interference—for now.”

  Berberon nodded gratefully and settled back into a chair.“That’s a good decision, Jean-Paul. See that you stick with it.”

  “Felithe, have I ever pointed out to you that you’re a pushy bastard?”

  “Less often than you’ve thought it, I’m sure. So when I tell you the next part, I’m sure you’re going to want to have that celebration, after all.”

  “Why? What’s the next part?”

  “I’ve promised to go with Chancellor Sujata to Lynx.”

  “Why to God’s Earth would you do that? Wait—you’re

  not—but I heard that she was—”

  “Stop right there,” Berberon snapped. “I’m going so I can try to help her pull your irons out of the fire, that’s all.”

  Tanvier screwed up his face into a daunting frown. “You’re the Terran Observer to the Steering Committee of the Unified Space Service. How can you fulfill that function from twenty-five cees away?”

  “The only events that matter over the next fifty years are going to take place out there. Nothing even remotely as important is going to happen in the Earth locus. I assume that you’ll want me to be where I at least have a chance to make a difference?”

  Tanvier gestured with his pipe hand, disturbing a column of gray smoke. “We can send someone else along with Sujata, for appearances. It doesn’t have to be you.”

  “I’m afraid I’ve already committed myself.”

  “Then I’m afraid I must insist you give up your post. I just

  can’t embrace the idea of an absentee Observer. Rather oxymoronic, don’t you think?”

  “So call me something else,” Berberon said tersely.“Create a new position—Special Ambassador for Military Affairs, I don’t care. Just make sure I have some authority to represent you. Give me some leverage to help Janell with Wells.”

  Tanvier nodded grudgingly. “I suppose we can come up with something suitably vague and ceremonial. But tell me—what exactly is it you think you’re going to be able to do?”

  “I’ll know better when we reach Lynx,” Berberon said with a shake of his head. “Maybe lend moral support. Maybe help Janell space the son of a bitch.”

  Laughing broadly, Tanvier leaned forward and set down his pipe. “Felithe, I’m going to miss you.”

  “Jean-Paul, you don’t know how much it troubles me not to be able to say the same,” Berberon said, rising. “I have to get back. They’re moving up Wesley’s departure to try to make up for some of the time we’ll lose dropping down for dispatches. We want to make sure we catch him at Lynx.”

  Tanvier struggled up from his chair. “Are there any matters down here that will need looking after? For instance, any pretty women being left behind?” he asked, flashing a grin.“Seriously, if there are things that you need—”

  “Just my title and a draft of my authority, by sailing time—16:00 tomorrow.”

  “I’ll see that you have it.”

  Berberon nodded and moved toward the door. He took two steps, then stopped and half turned toward Tanvier. His expression was grim. “This is a bad time, Jean-Paul, and a very dangerous business. Don’t make any mistake about that.”

  His earlier amusement was no longer in evidence on Tanvier’s face. “I won’t, Felithe. Good luck to you. I have confidence that you and Chancellor Sujata will get the job done, one way or another.”

  Berberon grunted. “All the same, just in case we fail and Wells gets his war, I’d recommend you start digging a very deep hole to hide in. Because this time around I don’t think the Mizari will settle for half measures.”

  Forty-one hours after Berberon had called her to his office to hear Farlad’s story, Janell Sujata boarded the auxiliary flagship Joanna Wesley for the first time.

  It had been forty-one hours of frantic activity, forty-one hours without sleep. Nearly six of those hours had been spent fighting with Captain Hirschfield, who had come as close as he could to refusing outright to recognize Sujata’s claim on his command before finally capitulating. Even then Hirschfield had been barely less accommodating about hastening the sailing date. He had insisted, ultimately futilely, that the ship’s defensive systems (which were not fully fault-tested) were as important as its propulsion and navigation systems (which were).

  From Hirschfield she had gone to the Committee, informing them only that a Sterilizer nest had been detected and that the critical nature of the situation demanded her presence as well on the Perimeter. To her surprise the other Directors did not balk, perhaps because Wells’s departure had conditioned them to the idea, perhaps because her absence promised to leave them more powerful, or perhaps even because they accepted her argument and their perception of the danger at face value.

  There had been other long sessions with Ten Ga’ar and Marshall, working out the responsibilities of each in the ongoing management of the Service. Those meetings, formal and businesslike, had been all Sujata had seen of Ten Ga’ar. There had been no chance to try to tear down the wall that suddenly had sprung up between
them.

  As the time neared to board the bus for the trip to Wesley, Sujata had not even been able to locate her to say good-bye. Nor had she had time for a final xochaya with Allianora or Lochas, though her need was great. Stealing a few minutes to call them was the most she could manage.

  The shipwrights had turned Wesley into an armored labyrinth, mechanical and claustrophobic. The thick energy-absorbing layer under her new mirror-finish skin had stolen some of her former living volume, and her new equipment, including the 1.5-terawatt lance, had stolen still more. The pressure walls and hatchways every few metres along the narrow climbways gave the illusion of shells within shells within shells.

  Throughout the hull, human comfort had clearly been relegated to second place behind military functionality. The largest unobstructed volumes within Wesley’s hourglass hull were the new command bridge, just forward of the pinched “waist,“and the drive and weapons engineers’ systems center, just aft of the “waist.” Cushioned between them amidships were the drive, the massive capacitance bank for the lance, and key elements of the ship’s communications and computing facilities.

  Ignored in the confused activity of final preparations for sailing, Sujata headed forward to find the cabin she would share with Berberon and see that her effects had been safely delivered aboard. She had been too busy even to see to something as personal but fundamentally trivial as selecting her own clothing. In fact, she had only returned to her suite once in the last two days, and then only long enough to retrieve her lifecord from its hiding place and add it to the things her aide had collected for her.

  The cabin was essentially as she had expected, yet seemed almost intolerably crowded. It was narrow enough that she could span it with her outstretched arms, perhaps twice that deep, and had a low enough ceiling that Sujata was aware of it over her head. There were two bunks, the upper folded and latched against the wall, the lower providing the only seating;a tiny bath with shower and toilet, to be shared with the occupants of the adjacent cabin; and a floor-to-ceiling bank of swinging-door lockers of assorted sizes, serving as closet, bureau, and desk.

  Her possessions were neatly arrayed in several lockers labeled with her name, though on scanning their contents she immediately thought of other things she would have liked instead of, or in addition to, what was there. But it was too late for such considerations. Sailing time was less than an hour away.

  In the process of coming forward she had snagged the loose folds of her daiiki several times on projections and so took the opportunity to change into more close-fitting clothing. Then, since she had no part to play in the preparations for departure, she stole a few minutes to tour the rest of Wesley’s climbways and chambers.

  When she reached the aftmost section, she instantly regretted her unspoken complaints about her cabin. The ratings’ quarters located there made the command cabins seem palatial.

  Ten sleeping cubicles, arrayed like cells in a honeycomb—or crypts in a mausoleum—faced a small galley flanked by a two-stall shower on one side and a lavatory on the other. The cubicles, which were too small even to sit up straight in, consisted of a padded sleeping surface, a blank wall that cried out for decoration, a sliding wall that concealed storage for personal effects, and a bare ceiling with recessed lighting and a flatscreen terminal.

  There would be little privacy here, Sujata saw. The ratings would eat, sleep, copulate, bathe, and excrete in close proximity to each other, the fundamental human functions colliding in the confined space. And, she knew, should any of them die while on patrol, the bodies would rest here as well, sealed in a cubicle flooded with tissue-preserving gases, awaiting return to the requested place of burial.

  Leaving the crew quarters, she joined Berberon and Hirschfield on the command bridge. With its six egg-shaped battle couches arrayed in a circle, the bridge looked oddly like the nesting place for some great bird. The couches rested on a circular track; if Wesley were to begin spinning as a defense against energy weapons, the couches would rotate in the opposite direction along the track, protecting their occupants from any disorienting effects. In the center of the circle was a six-sided display not unlike that in the Committee chamber. The screen facing Sujata showed a graphlike gravigation track.

  “I was just about to come looking for you,” Berberon said, coming up to her. “Captain Hirschfield says that we can go forward—that there’s really no place for us here.”

  “Even so, we can stay if we’re so inclined,” Sujata said, loudly enough for Hirschfield to hear. “Which I am.”

  They stood there together and listened to the chatter between the various bridge officers and the techs on the systems deck as 16:00 drew closer. Though much of what was said meant little to Sujata, she could see that Hirschfield was walking them through the final minutes in an unhurried, yet crisply disciplined, manner.

  “Captain Hirschfield?” the comtech said at one point. “The off-watch is requesting a feed of the coverage from Earthnet. Any objection?”

  Hirschfield shook his head. “No. You can put it on up here, too, on alternate screens.”

  Earthnet had learned a lesson from the sailing of Charan, namely that a deepship retreating against a background of stars is an unspectacular image on all but the largest and sharpest video displays. Unquestionably the most dramatic sight in Earth’s region of space was Earth itself. So for Wesley the Net was trying another tack: covering the sailing from Wesley’s perspective and showing the receding Earth as it would be seen from the ship’s observation deck—if it had one, which it did not.

  The picture that came up on the screen facing Sujata was of swirling cloud tops and mottled blue oceans, zigzagging rivers and smooth, tan plains. The sight brought an involuntary smile to Sujata’s face.

  All that you’ve done these last two days, and nothing for yourself, she told herself. You didn’t even take a few minutes out to go down to the Earthdome, or even to take one long last look from the greatport in your office.

  All at once the true dimensions of what she was leaving behind were clear to her. Up until then she had been too busy to think of it, too busy and perhaps too wary of the emotions such thoughts would unleash. But fatigue had made her vulnerable, and as she stood there staring at the face of Earth, a devastating sense of loss welled up inside her.

  “Wait,” she said suddenly.

  “What?” Hirschfield demanded.

  “I said wait. Suspend the count.”

  “Listen, I asked you once to go forward to your cabin, that I didn’t need your interference here,” Hirschfield said crossly.“Now I have to insist—”

  “No!” she said sharply, cutting him off. “I have to leave the ship. Recall the bus.”

  “You can’t,” Hirschfield protested. “We’re programmed to sail in eighteen minutes.”

  “Recall the bus,” she repeated. “I am sorry, but I have too this.”

  Three strides carried her to the port climbway, and she started forward without looking to see if Hirschfield or Berberon were following. Ten metres on, the climbway merged with the corridor leading to one of the forward space doors. She stopped there and pressed the stub of her transceiver. “Joaquim? Where are you?”

  “Uh—Chancellor, I’m here in Central. Seeing you off from the star dome, in fact, with a few friends from Transport.”

  “Joaquim, I need to go downwell one last time. Point of Arches. Very quick—just down and back. Can you help me?”

  “Of course, Chancellor,” the pilot said cheerily. “No problem. We heard you recall the bus. I’ll see that there’s a shuttle ready to go by the time it gets you back here. And a skiff standing by in Seattle.”

  After Hirschfield’s belligerence and Berberon’s questioning looks, his unquestioning willingness to help her touched Sujata, nearly triggering tears. “Thank you, Joaquim,” she said hoarsely. “I’ll be waiting.”

  The bright landing lights of the skiff lit up a cloverleaf-shaped section of the sands like midday, sending nocturnal crabs scurr
ying in confusion for cover. Other creatures watched from their dark sanctuaries as the vehicle dipped to within a metre of the ground, gracefully rotated a half turn, then settled on the beach.

  With a hiss and a faint metallic creak, the port hatch edged open. Almost immediately Sujata clambered out, clutching in one hand a small parcel wrapped in a thin red fabric.

  “Give me ten minutes,” she shouted over the whine of the turbines and the white noise of the surf.

  “I’ll just wander up the coastline to Cape Flattery and give the Makah Indians a scare,” Joaquim called back. “Holler when you want me and I’ll pop right back.”

  Waving her agreement, Sujata pushed the hatch closed, ducked her head against the flying sand, and moved away quickly. As she did, the skiff raised up and slewed northward. Its machine sounds faded gradually into the night, restoring peace to the beach and insuring privacy for Sujata’s actions.

  Compared to the harsh argon floodlights of the skiff, the light from the gibbous moon was pale and ghostly. Sujata fell to her knees in the sand and set her burden before her to unwrap it. The land breeze tugged at the comers of the light fabric, then swept the scrap away when she cradled the life-cord in both hands and raised it before her eyes. Slowly she ran the knotted cord with her fingertips, remembering. Then she draped it around her neck and clutched the heartstone fiercely in one hand.

  So long a journey, with so little joy, she thought sadly.

  Slipping her shoes from her feet, she stood and walked down the slope of the beach to the water’s edge. The chill brine swirled around her ankles and made her shiver. She leaned down, scooped up a handful of water in her cupped palm, and brought it to her mouth to taste. Then, for a long moment, she stood still, listening to the Mother’s voice, reaching out with all of her senses for Her face.

  Then with a sudden, decisive movement, she slipped the lifecord from her neck and hurled it with all her strength out toward where the waves were expending themselves against the columns of black rock. She watched the lifecord arc over the near breakers, turning gracefully end over end, but lost sight of it in the shadow of a sea stack and did not see where it fell.