Cauldron of Ghosts

by David Weber

  The Empress’ gaze was now merely skeptical.

  “On occasion,” Victor qualified.

  “Which occasion?” asked Langtry.

  “Victor faced worse odds during the Manpower Incident,” said Anton. “Way worse. Of course, he was young and stupid then and didn’t understand the difference between risky, dangerous and sheer lunacy.”

  Anton smiled crookedly. “Even as a youngster, I stayed farther away from that edge than he did. But I do know the difference between risky, dangerous and sheer lunacy, and our proposal is not lunatic. It’s just risky.”

  “Risky as all hell, you mean,” said Theisman.

  “If you prefer, yes. Most of the risk, though, just comes from the intrinsic nature of the project. Penetrating the Mesan Alignment’s security right on Mesa itself is a dangerous proposition whether or not they have our DNA records. But I agree with Victor. I don’t think they do.”

  Throughout the discussion, Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou had remained silent. His expression had seemed a bit detached, in fact, as if he was only paying attention with part of his mind while he mostly considered something else. Now, finally, the Beowulfer spoke.

  “It doesn’t matter. Even if the Alignment does have Zilwicki and Cachat’s DNA records—anyone’s records, for that matter—there’s a way to get around it. Theoretically, at least. It’s never been tested under field conditions.”

  The Empress’ lips tightened. “And, what, exactly, is ‘it’?” Her gaze was reentering dangerous territory. Soapstone, at least. Maybe pumice. “Is there some reason nobody at this table except me can resist being cryptic?”

  Jacques looked a bit rueful. “I wasn’t trying to be mysterious, Your Majesty. It’s just . . . this is something Beowulf has had under wraps for almost a year. As in deep, dark secret ‘under wraps.’ As Special Officer Cachat says, old habits die hard. For me to talk about something like this openly and in plain language is about as unnatural as—as—” He puffed out his cheeks, as if he couldn’t find a suitable analogy.

  The Empress gave him a thin smile. “Try real hard.”

  That produced a little chuckle around the table, shared by Benton-Ramirez y Chou himself. He gave a little shrug, as if were shedding a weight from his shoulders, and started speaking.

  “The gist of it is that we’ve developed—”

  There was a knock on the door to the conference. A real knock, too, not a buzzer or a ringer. Anton guessed that meetings held in this royal inner sanctum were so rarely interrupted that no one had ever bothered to arrange for a way to signal that someone wanted to enter.

  Elizabeth frowned. “Come in,” she said.

  The door opened and a woman came in. Anton recognized her as one of the Empress’ personal assistants, although he didn’t know her name. The woman practically exuded diffidence and hesitation.

  “I’m very sorry to interrupt, Your Majesty. But this is a rather unusual—”

  The Empress waved her hand impatiently. “Just sum it up quickly, Beatriz.”

  “There’s a delegation here from Torch, Your Majesty. Ah, actually, ‘delegation’ is probably not the right term. It seems like most of the government is here.”

  Elizabeth’s frown vanished, replaced by a look of surprise. “Who, exactly?”

  “Queen Berry. Prime Minister Du Havel. Secretary of War—ah—X. The commander of the armed forces, General Palane. And your niece, Princess Ruth.”

  “Dear Lord. Well, show them in, then.” The Empress examined the conference table and then turned to one of her bodyguards. “We’ll need to stretch this a bit. See to it, would you, Lieutenant Tengku?”

  The lieutenant pushed a button so discreetly positioned on the wall that Anton hadn’t noticed it before. A small control panel slid out and he began working at it. A few seconds later, the conference table began to lengthen—or rather, the entire space surrounding the table began to lengthen. Anton was eerily reminded of the standard depiction of the expansion of the universe: objects didn’t spread through space; rather, space itself expanded.

  The room itself didn’t seem to be getting any bigger. The floor was somehow expanding without pushing against the walls; and, along with it, the table was expanding and all the chairs (and people) sitting at it were being repositioned to make room for more people. There was almost no sensation of movement involved.

  He glanced at Victor to see how he was reacting to Thandi Palane’s imminent arrival. The Havenite agent’s eyes looked out of focus. Anton had to fight not to burst into laughter.

  Being fair to Victor, he was probably looking forward to seeing her more than anything else. Anticipation—eager anticipation—would be his dominant emotion, overlying the others.

  Fear. Anxiety. Dread. Trepidation. Oh, it was another long list.

  Chapter 13

  “Some introductions are in order,” said Empress Elizabeth, after the delegation from Torch had taken seats at the table. “The young lady sitting at the far end of the table from me is Queen Berry, Anton Zilwicki’s daughter. You all know Prime Minister Du Havel, who is sitting next to her—and my niece Ruth, of course. On the Queen’s other side is the commander of Torch’s armed forces, General Thandi Palane.”

  Victor was rather impressed. The Queen of Manticore had never met Thandi before. She must have taken the time to memorize what she looked like from images and videos. There were plenty of monarchs and heads of state in the galaxy who didn’t think much beyond breakfast. Manticore’s was not one of them.

  He wondered if she’d also memorized—but there were very few images available and even fewer good ones—

  Apparently she had. Or she was just guessing right. Elizabeth was now looking at the last member of Torch’s delegation.

  As was everyone else in the room, and some of them with eyes that were very wide indeed.

  “And of course none of us prior to this moment have ever met Torch’s Secretary of War. I’m a bit uncertain as to the proper etiquette here. Should we call you ‘Mr. X’?”

  Jeremy’s smile was cheerful. “Oh, goodness! No, no, Your Majesty, a simple ‘Jeremy’ will do fine.”

  Everyone continued to stare at him. Him being the galaxy’s most notorious terrorist. Or freedom fighter, depending on how you looked at things. But either way, the pronoun was him!

  The cheerful smile remained. “Please, everyone, relax. I left my horns and cloven hooves at home. True, I did bring the tail—but it’s only vestigial, I assure you.”

  That brought a few answering smiles and an outright laugh from Benjamin Mayhew. Grayson’s Protector looked around the room, with eyes that were shrewd as well as good-humored.

  “If you’ll all take the expert testimony of a Grayson,” he said, “I’d say Jeremy X falls a long way short of Creation’s genuine devils.” More softly he added: “There are enough of those to go around—in places like Mesa, for example—but there are none of them here. Not today. Not in this room.”

  Nimitz yawned, then bestowed a benign gaze on Jeremy. Then, bleeked his amusement.

  Between them, the devout statesman and the insouciant treecat brought relaxation back to the room.

  Except on the part of the two Grayson armsmen and the two members of the Queen’s Own standing against the walls, needless to say. Those worthies had never once taken their eyes off Jeremy X since he entered the room—and there seemed no chance they would until he left it.

  Other than a quick, amused glance when he’d first sat down, however, Jeremy himself paid them no mind at all.

  Once things had settled down, Elizabeth nodded toward Benton-Ramirez y Chou. “Jacques here was just beginning to explain to us a secret project by Beowulf that—oh.”

  Honor Alexander-Harrington smiled. “We should perhaps preface that by explaining to our friends from Torch the new proposal advanced by Mr. Zilwicki and Special Officer Cachat.”

  All eyes swiveled to them. Thandi Palane’s face seemed completely blank, as it had since she entered the room. You wou
ldn’t realize she and Victor had ever met before, if you didn’t know better. Whatever emotions might be roiling under the surface, she was far too much the professional soldier to let any of it show.

  “If you would do the honors, Special Officer Cachat?” Harrington continued.

  Quickly, Victor sketched the proposal. He didn’t delve into any of the arguments for or against, he just summarized it in a few concise sentences.

  When he finished, another (if smaller) outburst filled the room.

  “Daddy, you can’t!” (Queen Berry)

  “You’re daft.” (Secretary of War Jeremy X)

  “That’s ridiculous. You wouldn’t stand a chance.” (Prime Minister Du Havel)

  “Are you out of your minds?” (Princess Ruth Winton)

  The only contrary note came from Thandi Palane. She said nothing at all. However, one of her eyebrows was now slightly cocked, as if she was mildly intrigued by the idea but was reserving judgment for the moment.

  Quick moment.

  Berry turned to her and said: “Tell them they can’t do it, Thandi. Victor will listen to you even if Daddy doesn’t, and Daddy won’t go without him.”

  Palane’s eyebrow cocked a little further. “Judging from recent evidence,” she said, “Special Officer Cachat pays me no mind at all.”

  That was said without any heat, just as a simple statement of fact. So might an entomologist describe the behavior of a beetle.

  Anton thought Victor might almost have winced, there. Hard to know. When he was of a mind, the Havenite agent had a stone face that put statues to shame.

  “Furthermore,” Palane continued, still in that same level tone of voice, “I have no authority over either one of them. And finally—”

  For the first time, some emotion crept into her voice. A slightly apologetic tone. “It’s probably a good idea, Berry. The truth is, neither your father nor Victor is crazy at all. Or if they are, they’re crazy like a fox.”

  “Thandi!”

  “Why don’t you hear us out, girl?” said Anton to his daughter, a bit gruffly. “This is not a harebrained scheme we came up with in an idle moment. Victor and I have talked this through a lot—and now it seems the Beowulfers might be able to tip the odds still further in our favor.”

  Berry crossed her arms over her chest. For a moment, she looked like a stubborn twelve-year-old. Then, perhaps reminding herself of her new august stature and her still-more-august company and surroundings, she took a deep breath and said: “Fine. Go ahead.”

  * * *

  Anton took a few minutes to explain the proposal in much greater detail than Victor had done. Along the way, various people chimed in to provide their own insights and opinions. When he was finished, he looked at Benton-Ramirez y Chou.

  “As you were saying . . .”

  Jacques nodded, and started in. “We’ve developed a technique to—I’m using these terms loosely, you understand—sheathe someone in a coating of fake DNA. ‘Fake’ in the sense that it’s not the DNA of the person being sheathed. It’s real DNA, just taken from someone else.”

  Everyone stared at him. After a moment, Foreign Secretary Langtry tugged his ear and said: “How can you possibly change someone’s DNA? I would think that would—would—”

  “She or he would no longer be the same person,” said Eloise Pritchart. “At least, I don’t think so, although I suppose that might pose an interesting philosophical question.”

  Jacques shook his head. “No philosophical subtleties are involved. The person’s DNA doesn’t get altered. What we do is . . .”

  His face got an expression somewhere between a grimace and a rueful smile. “This really isn’t as gross as it’s going to sound—doesn’t hurt at the time, although it’s an uncomfortable adjustment afterward. Essentially, we flay the person’s skin and grow another one, using someone’s else’s DNA.”

  Berry’s expression was pure grimace. “Oh, that’s disgusting!”

  Anton shrugged. “It’s not all that different from what happens in a regeneration of destroyed skin tissue—although as far as I know there’s always enough surviving skin that the injured person’s own skin is used.”

  Jacques nodded. “The tricky part is suppressing autoimmune responses to foreign bodies. That’s easy enough to do for most transplants, but the skin is the body’s largest organ and the way it interacts with the rest of the body gets awfully complex. There’s really no medical use for the technique, since anyone who suffers one hundred percent destruction of their skin tissue is bound to be dead anyway. But eventually it occurred to us that the intelligence uses of the technique might be tremendous if we could perfect it.”

  Victor’s face hadn’t been marked by a grimace, as you’d expect. The Havenite agent was perfectly capable of accepting even grotesque consequences if he thought they were warranted. His expression showed only keen interest.

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, here,” he said. “The gist of what you’re saying is that we’d be protected from routine DNA sampling—hair, flakes of skin, traces of sweat, body oils, that sort of thing. So if someone tried to find out who we were from testing the residues we left on a door button or a railing, they’d be misled. But we wouldn’t be protected from targeted examination. If someone tested our blood or swabbed the insides of our mouths, for instance, we’d be exposed.”

  “That’s a pretty accurate summation. I feel obliged to point out that if your supposition that the Alignment has lost your genetic records because of McBryde’s actions is correct, you might be worse off if you went to Mesa with this genetic sheath I’m describing.”

  “Yes, I understand that,” said Victor. “If we got seriously tested after they’d already picked up routine samples, we’d show two different DNA results. That would set off alarm bells even if they didn’t suspect anything beforehand.”

  He looked at Anton. “I still think it’d be worth it.”

  Anton nodded. “So do I. The only reason they’d take mouth swabs or blood samples is if they were already suspicious. Mesa isn’t exactly a dictatorship—not, at least, for its own citizens—but it’s a far cry from a state that respects legal procedures if they think anything important is at stake. If we’re that far in the hole, they’ll be trampling right over us anyway.”

  “What’s most important about the sheath,” Victor said, “isn’t the fact that it hides our true identities. If we’re right, they don’t have those anyway. The real advantage is that it would enable us to assume false identities—entirely false ones, I mean. Am I right about that?”

  Jacques looked puzzled. “I’m not sure— Oh.” His face cleared up. “I see what you’re getting at. Even if Mesa doesn’t have your DNA records—as individuals, that is—they do know your personal history. Enough of it, anyway.”

  “Which means,” said Anton, “that they’d be on high alert for any routine samples that showed the individuals were from either Haven—more specifically, Nouveau Paris—or Gryphon’s highlands. Neither of those genetic strains is as distinct as something like”—he nodded toward Princess Ruth—“Masadan origin or”—now he glanced at Thandi—“Mfecane origin. But it’s distinctive enough that they’d probably be able to spot it even from routine sampling.”

  “There’s no ‘probably’ about it,” said Benton-Ramirez y Chou. “The Alignment’s biological skills are as good as those of us Beowulfers, for the most part, and better in some areas. They’d spot someone from Haven or Gryphon, you can be sure of it. Especially someone from Nouveau Paris or the highlands, because their methods are more than good enough for that sort of detail.”

  Victor’s smile had little humor in it. “Precisely. So we go in sheathed as”—he looked at Zilwicki—“what strikes your fancy, Anton?”

  “I’ve always had a yen to be a filthy-rich oligarch from one of the Verge territories, unrestrained by any code or scruple.”

  Jeremy grinned. “Perhaps from Hakim?”

  “Just the thing.” The Hakim System was notorious even by
Verge standards for the behavior of its upper classes. And it was very far away from either Manticore or Haven. “And how about you, Victor? An effete snot from one of the Core planets, do you think?”

  Across the table, Thandi Palane smiled—with no more humor than Victor had. “A dilettante news reporter, too rich to actually have to work at it but with delusions of journalistic grandeur. From the Hirochi system, perhaps. That was mostly settled by people from east Asia, so you’d be fairly removed from the usual Havenite genome.”

  Berry stared at her, aghast. “You’re encouraging them!”

  Palane’s smile became gentler. “It’s a good idea, Berry. We do need to find out more about the Alignment—and it’s a simple fact that Victor and Anton are the best people to do the job.”

  Victor’s gaze seemed slightly out of focus. “We could . . . use some help, though.”

  Anton understood what he meant immediately. Well . . . within a second, anyway. It was a little disturbing, the way his mind seemed able to track Cachat’s so well.

  But it was a great idea. “That’d be just about perfect!” He smiled broadly at Thandi. “Our very own one-person wrecking crew.”

  “You have got to be kidding,” said Thandi.

  “No, actually, I’m not,” said Anton. He nodded toward Cachat. “And for sure and certain he isn’t.”

  Honor Alexander-Harrington spoke up for the first time since the Torch delegation entered the room. “If I’m not mistaken, they’re proposing that General Palane accompany the mission to Mesa. Special Officer Cachat and Mr. Zilwicki are proposing it, at least. The general herself seems to have some reservations, of course.”

  Berry stared at her, mouth open. Then, stared at her father. Her mouth still open.

  “I can see several advantages to the idea myself,” Alexander-Harrington went on. “On the other hand, I also see one big drawback—the fact that General Palane is in command of Torch’s armed forces. It’d be like sending Admiral Caparelli here on an intelligence mission.”

  “That analogy is a bit forced, Duchess Harrington,” said Jeremy X. “For two reasons. The first is that the so-called ‘armed forces’ of Torch bear a lot more resemblance to a work-in-progress—small work in progress—than they do to anything either you or the Republic of Haven would call a real military. General Palane has set underway a training program for ground troops that’s going quite well, I think, but she has good subordinates and they could do without her for a time. That’s especially true for the navy, for which her background and experience really aren’t of much use.”