Empery

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  “Felithe said nothing—how can you know that? You monitored his calls?”

  “This is a sensitive military installation, Chancellor. Everyone’s communications are monitored,” Shields said. “Outgoing and internal. Oh, don’t try to hide behind your indignation. Your responsibility for what Berberon tried to do is obvious.”

  Sujata looked at Wells. “I could not have given him such an order, nor would I if I had the authority. I came here to try to prevent needless death, not to be a party to it.”

  “Then why did Berberon call you for instructions before he acted?” Wells demanded.

  Taking Berberon’s hand in here, Sujata looked down at his slack-muscled face wistfully. “He called me for information, not instructions. Perhaps I should have known what he was thinking. I wish I had, because then I would have stopped him, and he might still be alive.” She glanced up at Wells.

  “But I gave him no orders, Harmack. If his orders from the Council truly were withdrawn, then he did what he did for his own reasons.”

  “Or your reasons,” Shields persisted.

  “No,” Sujata said firmly. “Even if I thought as you do, Colonel—which I’m grateful I do not—what Commander Wells told me yesterday would stop me. I want the Triads recalled. Since he seems to be the only one who can do that, it would be insane to have him killed. And contrary to what Chaisson has been telling your homeworld, hoping for peace with the Mizari does not automatically mean one is insane.”

  Wells’s face, still open to her reading, told her that her argument had persuaded him. But she had no fund of shared experience with Shields to draw on, and he remained unimpressed.

  “You can plead your case when you’re tried,” he said.

  “Which, unfortunately, can’t be immediately. Who you are and where we are poses certain technical problems—as I’m sure you took into account beforehand.”

  “A complaint against a Chancellor has to be presented before the full Service Court,” she said.

  “Yes. Which, of course, is based at Central. But we may not have to ship you back there—we’ve requested an opinion on whether the trial can be conducted through a Kleine link.”

  “So I’m not under Clause 34 suspension?” she asked, referring to the relevant part of the Service contract.

  “Until we have the Court’s answer, technically not. But that doesn’t mean you’re going to have your run of the station. Governor White has more than sufficient authority on this station to restrict you to your quarters.”

  She looked to Wells. “Harmack, this is unnecessary. You know that I’m no threat to you.“Scratching the back of his neck with one hand, Wells turned away from her. “Perhaps not. But you still could disrupt this station at a critical juncture. Governor White is concerned, and it’s his decision. I’m here to exercise operational command, not logistical. Don’t look for me to interfere.”

  Sujata pursed her lips and nodded. She had expected nothing less, and yet she needed something more. “If you don’t object, I’ll contact the Council and tell them of Felithe’s death.”

  “No communications,” Shields said sharply.

  But Wells overruled him with a wave of his hand. “You can’t stop the Chancellor from talking to Central, Philip. She has that right. And if she wants the unhappy task of reporting the Ambassador’s death, I see no reason we can’t oblige.”

  “She may have coded messages to deliver—”

  “All she can tell them is the truth. I have nothing to fear from the truth.”

  “They could have other agents here,” Shields insisted.“Remember Farlad—”

  “If there are other agents here, no doubt they will take the Chancellor’s cautions to heart,” Wells said. “Authorize a link with President Dailey for her.”

  “Thank you, Commander,” she said.

  Shields scowled, then rose from the chair. Pocketing Berberon’s weapon, the Chief of Staff circled the examination table and moved to the doors. He stopped there and looked back expectantly at Sujata. “Come along, then,” he said.

  Sujata gave Berberon’s flaccid fingers one last squeeze and then released his hand. You didn’t kill him, Felithe, she thought as she followed Shields out the door. But perhaps you showed him that he’s mortal, and that might be enough. Enough to make him understand what there is to be afraid of—

  Roland Dailey, 107th President of a World Council just concluding its 694th annual session, was a younger man than Sujata had hoped he would be. All that tradition was in the hands of a man who wore less than four decades of living on his face.

  The young pretend that death only happens to others until the truth is forced on them, she thought as she studied him. Have you had your revelation yet, Roland Dailey? Through what set of preconceptions will you filter what you hear?

  She could study him at her leisure, for Dailey’s image was frozen due to interference between Perimeter Command and Earth. Her greeting block had gone out and she was waiting for a reply; in the meantime the terminal was holding the last complete data frame on the screen. The net operator had warned her she would spend half her time waiting and recommended a text link. But she had insisted on a full bimodal link.

  I need to see his face and hear him, and he to see and hear me, she thought. I need every edge I can get—

  Dailey’s image was abruptly reanimated as the next datablock got through. “Chancellor Sujata, what a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I wonder if you might not have known my grandfather, Commissioner Brant Dailey. I understand that that was your era.”

  “You’ll forgive me, President Dailey, if I forgo the reminiscences,” she said with courtly curtness. “I have a great deal to talk about and a limited amount of time in which to do so. To begin with, I must tell you that this conversation is being monitored by the military forces here under the command of Harmack Wells, Director of the Defense Branch. You should consider any interruption that occurs to be an attempt at censorship rather than the result-of interference, which I am assured the techs can cope with if we’re willing to be patient.”

  This time the wait was only a few seconds, as though a screen-before-transmission delay had been removed from the loop. Shields had reluctantly left her alone at her office terminal, but she had no doubt he was listening in. “I understand, Chancellor—at least I understand what you said, not why it should be so.”

  “I hope to make that clear,” she replied. “I don’t know you, President Dailey, but I must depend on you. You don’t know me, but you must trust me. If I can’t depend on you, or if you decide you can’t believe what I tell you, then the last chance to prevent a foolish and unnecessary war will slip away from us.

  “I understand fully that it may be difficult for you to credit what I tell you. I am a woman, and I know that there are still many men who hear the same words differently from a woman’s mouth than from a man’s. Even more, I am a Maranit woman, and so doubly suspect. But though I am not of your world, I love it better than my own. You must believe that we have a common stake in preserving the life it embraces. I have done as much as I can. Now I need help.”

  Dailey’s expression and tone were both guarded, but there was a flicker of curiosity in his eyes. “You make this all sound very ominous. All right, Chancellor. I am listening.”

  “Before I can tell you anything, there’s something I have to know,” Sujata said. “President Tanvier had authorized Ambassador Berberon to kill Commander Wells if circumstances dictated. Though I didn’t approve of the method, I did understand the reasoning. You withdrew that authorization. Why? I need an honest and complete answer. Why aren’t you as troubled by the situation here as President Tanvier was? What do you understand the situation here to be?”

  There was a long delay, and Sujata had no way of knowing whether it originated with Dailey or somewhere in the loop. “I don’t know if you know the circumstances of my succession,“Dailey said. “President Tanvier held on to this office for fifty-seven years, which virtually everyone but Ta
nvier himself and the Nines agreed was twenty years too long. He was Presidentwhen I was born, and he was President when he died three years ago. I was elected by the Council to replace him precisely because I reject his Machiavellian approach to governance.

  “I inherited from Tanvier a rather large file detailing the attempts by him and Ambassador Berberon to manipulate the internal affairs of the Service. I don’t know how aware you were of these attempts. I do know that I was shocked to read of them. Perhaps before we had our own independent planetary defenses there might have been some justification for concern, if not for meddling.

  “But I don’t share the paranoiac obsession with the Service’s Defense plans that typified Tanvier and his supporters. And there can be no justification for the kind of orders Tanvier gave the Ambassador. Ever since I learned what they were, I’ve been most eager for a chance to countermand them. Which I finally got when your ship arrived at Perimeter Command.

  “I was glad to hear you say that you disapproved of the assassination order. I don’t like this kind of business, Chancellor. I also don’t like the kind of people who employ it. Which is why when we spoke the other day, I gave Ambassador Berberon seventy-two hours to submit his resignation or be fired.”

  Dailey’s prideful revelation answered one of Sujata’s nagging questions. Now I understand why Felithe didn’t wait, Sujata thought. His time was running out even faster than ours. If he were no longer Ambassador, Wells would have no reason to see him.

  “President Dailey, you’ve judged a man you didn’t know more harshly than he deserves,” she said. “There’s no point in trying to persuade you of that, because it’s now a moot issue. Orders or not, Felithe Berberon was killed a few hours ago attempting to assassinate Commander Wells. I don’t expect you to mourn, though I will. But despite what you think of him, I do need to persuade you that he wasn’t paranoid but justifiably frightened. And the reason he was frightened is that Wells is about to begin a war he can’t win.”

  Dailey’s face screamed his resistance to that news. “What has this to do with me or the Council?” Dailey protested.“Why are you coming to me with your complaints? You’re Chancellor of the Service. If you disagree with your commander’s judgments, overrule him. Order him to stop. Or am I missing something?”

  Sujata sighed. “Regrettably Commander Wells no longer accepts my authority. In his mind, he’s not here on behalf of the Service. He thinks he’s representing all humanity. And since there is no one delegated to speak for humanity, he’s following his conscience.”’

  “I don’t understand why you gave such a man command in the first place—” Dailey began.

  “Then Tanvier’s file was incomplete,” Sujata said angrily without waiting for the clear-to-send. “Or are you trying to pretend the Council had no part in creating this problem?”

  “—and what do you mean that he’s about to start a war? And how do you know he can’t win? Why would he do such a thing? Or are you trying to pull me in on your side of an internal power struggle? If you were friends with Ambassador Berberon, perhaps you share more of his philosophy than you care to admit.”

  “President Dailey, you deserve specific strategic details,“Sujata said, sighing. “But I have no doubt that the moment I begin to provide them to you, this connection will be broken. All I can risk are the naked assertions, and you must somehow find a way to believe me. War is imminent. The Triads cannot protect you. The Defenders cannot protect you. Your Exotics cannot protect you. If war comes, Earth will be put to ruin just as it was when the Weichsel called it home.”

  “I simply can’t accept such a claim. Our strategic advisers—”

  “Your strategic advisers are just like Wells’s,” Sujata said.“They find it impossible to credit the Mizari with powers on any level other than our own. You impose our limitations on them without knowing anything more about them than that they exist.”

  She paused to catch her breath and collect her thoughts, then continued. “Perhaps your advisers are right. Perhaps Wells is right. But do you understand the price of being wrong? Do you have any concept of the level on which this war will be fought; the energies each side has harnessed? Do you have any concept what these weapons can do to the body of life on our worlds and theirs? How can you allow him to make this decision for you?”

  President Dailey’s expression had turned cross, as though he had stopped resisting and begun resenting. “If he won’t listen to you, then why would he listen to me? I don’t see where you’ve presented me with an alternative. If your Commander Wells is as reckless as you say, what can I do to rein him in? Do you expect me to appeal to him as a planet-kin?It’s your china shop he’s broken loose in, not mine. If you can’t stop him, how can I?”

  “I think he would like a reason to stop,” Sujata said, measuring her words carefully. “I think you can give him that reason. Wells is not out of control, you have to understand that. He’s a principled man. He’s doing what he thinks is his duty, according to the code that he’s lived his life by. But that perception—of duty, that code he subscribes to, that gives us one chance to reach him.

  “But to do it you have to create an authority greater than that of the Service and the Chancellery, one equal to the level of the principle Wells is following.”

  “You expect the Council to seize control of the Service? Or are you offering to surrender it to us?”

  “That wouldn’t be enough,” Sujata said. “You have to create an authority that is nothing less than all the Worlds united, which offers a way for you to reclaim collectively the power Wells believes he’s exercising in your best interest. You must make a credible way for the Worlds to say, ‘No, this is our decision to make, not yours.’ ”

  Dailey was shaking his head even before Sujata finished.“No, Chancellor, no. This is impossible. Do you understand the political cost—the entrenchment against any sort of intersystem federalism, a legacy left by the Nines? How can you even ask me to surrender Earth’s sovereignty—”

  “If I were there with you, I’d Wring your neck for a fool!What value is there in the sovereign right to die a meaningless death?” Sujata exploded. “Do you think you can escape the consequences just by telling yourself it’s the Service’s problem? Do you think that by helping pay for the Triads you’ve discharged your duty, like some medieval knight paying scutage?

  “This is the way it is, President Dailey, as unhappy a choice as you gave Felithe. You can have war, qr you can have the responsibility you’ve been shirking since the Revision. You have three days to make it happen. Because that’s all the time left before Wells’s fleet takes us past a point of no return,—”

  The screen went blank, and Sujata fell silent, knowing what it meant. Less than half a minute later a breathless Shields materialized in the doorway, his chest heaving as he glowered blackly at her.

  “I don’t care what the Commander said, that’s the end of it,” he said fiercely! “You’d do anything to stop us, wouldn’t you?” Betray the Commander, sell out the Service—”

  “Yes,” she said, rising from her seat uncowed. “And if you understood what was really about to happen, you’d be helping me. But you don’t have it in you to understand that you’re being loyal to the wrong man and the wrong idea.”

  “Yours is the wrong idea, Chancellor—that it’s somehow more moral to be a victim than a victor. Ensign!” he barked, and a moment later a security officer appeared behind him.“Escort Chancellor Sujata to her quarters and post yourself outside the door until you’re relieved. She is not to leave or have visitors.”

  He looked back to Sujata with a grim, but self-satisfied, smile on his face. “You were right about one thing, though, Chancellor. Time is running out for you. When the Triads conclude their final wave-off checks, it will be too late for anyone, including President Dailey, to interfere.”

  Though there were no bars in her makeshift cell, Sujata’s imprisonment was complete. The room terminal was locked out of the station net, and her
slate had been taken from her. She had no way of reaching Dailey or even Wells, and no friends on-station to argue for her in her stead.

  Each time a meal was brought, she asked the bearer to pass a message to Wells: “Please tell Commander Wells that I would like to see him.” But none of her messengers wore the command emblem or ranked higher than specialist. So none were positioned to pass that message directly to Wells, and she was certain that Shields would never relay it to him. In any event, there was no answer.

  She could not sleep, and yet awake there was nothing to do but wonder. The mind-eating uncertainty drove her to converse with her guards, sitting on the entry way floor with her back propped against the inside of the door. But though it saved her from endlessly reviewing her catalog of missed opportunities and outright mistakes, the guards were no less vigilant for her having reached out to them.

  One day ground by, then a second, and a third began, days counted by the cycle of meals since even the terminal clock had been disabled. When she tired of the guards or they of her, her mind kept returning to images of ships in the high craze, drawing closer and closer to worlds teeming with life. Terrible weapons nested under the wings of the carriers—more terrible weapons waited on the planet’s surface. In the darkness and silence of her quarters she could see them clearly, sense their imminent unleashing.

  She saw the wholeness of life shattered—the delicate fabric of ancient ecologies rent. The shock and confusion in the last moments, not only in sentient minds but also in the minds of a thousand species with a glimmer of self-awareness and in the collective mind of the Mother. The soul-searing knowledge that this specter, this moment, was death, death final and terrible, death cold and inescapable. And the world she kept seeing in flames was Earth.

  Sujata knew with a certainty not justified by any facts she could marshal that Wells’s ships could not win, and that certainty puzzled her. She could not recall when that certainty had displaced prudent apprehension, personal affront, and cultural opprobrium as her motivation. Sometime after Wesleysailed from Earth orbit, sometime before it docked at this station—she could fix it no more firmly than that.