Cauldron of Ghosts

by David Weber

  “Ha!”

  “The point is, now that I’m an of-fi-cial soldier, I can get a medal. As a Ballroom guy, the only thing I qualified for was a wanted poster.”

  “They haven’t made wanted posters in over a millennia.”

  “Fine. Wanted e-poster. I did get one of those.”

  “For what?” She waved the question away. “Never mind, I don’t want to know. I’m still trying to hold onto my image of you as a nice guy even if it’s getting pretty tattered.”

  For the first time, she drank from her cup. “This stuff is crap,” she pronounced.

  “It’s Marine coffee. There are rules, you know. Navy coffee has to be good but Marine coffee has to be terrible. Anybody who brews good coffee gets busted a rank. Two offenses in a year puts you in the brig.”

  There was a companionable silence for a moment. Then, Ayako sighed and shook her head. “I don’t think I want to join the Ballroom.”

  “I don’t recommend it myself, as a matter of fact.” He made a gesture, indicating his uniform. “There’s a reason I quit and joined the Marines. The Ballroom . . . Well, let’s just say they’re going through an identity crisis. It ain’t pretty to watch, believe me.”

  “Really?”

  “Well, yeah, sure. The Ballroom’s whole purpose pretty much got the legs cut out from under it once Torch was created. It didn’t help any that Jeremy quit also, of course. But even if he’d stayed in charge I think the Ballroom would be having a rough time.”

  He drained the coffee out of his cup. “What do they do now? Keep shooting slavers one at a time? Or in small batches, at best? Even with explosives they can’t do as much damage as a warship or a Marine battalion.”

  “They could with nuclear weapons.”

  “Jeremy always ruled that out. Chemical and biological weapons too.” Supakrit shook his head. “Logically, it might not make a lot of sense. What the hell, dead is dead, right? But people just don’t react the same way when you use weapons that are completely indiscriminate. Jeremy never even let us use conventional explosives on anything but legitimate targets.”

  “Legitimate to who?”

  The corporal chuckled. “Always a point in dispute, granted. But we blew up Manpower offices and headquarters, we didn’t blow up restaurants and apartment buildings just because there might be some scorpions caught in the mix.”

  “So what will they do now?” she asked.

  “Don’t know. And since I didn’t want to stick around long enough to find out, I joined the Marines as soon as they started recruiting.” Supakrit paused for a moment, thinking. “I figure they’ll wind up doing one of two things. The dumb thing to do would be to keep up the terror campaign. The smart thing would be to dissolve the Ballroom and reconstitute it as a political party.”

  “Political party? I thought Torch didn’t have any.”

  The corporal clucked his tongue. “Boy, are you a babe in the woods. Officially, no. We have what’s called a ‘grand coalition’ in charge. But that won’t—can’t—last forever. I don’t give it more than two or three years, myself. Sooner or later, formal factions will crystallize. That’s what parties are, you know? Just a fancy way of saying ‘we agree with each other and you guys are full of crap.’ ”

  “How many?”

  “I figure at least three. The Ballroom types—especially if they have enough sense to get rid of the Ballroom altogether. The people who generally agree with Du Havel. And I’d be surprised if a third party doesn’t emerge also. There’re always some people in any society who are just naturally conservative and they’ll eventually want their own spokespeople.”

  “I thought Du Havel was the conservative on Torch.”

  Supakrit laughed. “Only by a Ballroom definition of ‘conservative’—and not even most of my former comrades really think of Web that way. I’m sure Jeremy doesn’t any longer, if he ever did.” He made a wagging motion with his hand. “On Torch, Du Havel ranks as what you might call a centrist. Anywhere else in the galaxy except maybe Haven he’d be considered a flaming radical. Well, maybe not flaming. But radical, yes.”

  He paused and gave her a sideways look. “You interested in politics?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Well, that’s out too, then. So. No Ballroom for you. No smoke-filled back room either.”

  “Why would a back room—any room—be full of smoke? And if it was, why wouldn’t everyone get out?”

  “And your possible budding career as a historian gets cut short, too.”

  She squinted at him. “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Actually, no. I’m not. I’m just trying to help you figure out what to do with your life.” He held up his empty cup. “More coffee?”

  “I don’t think I can even finish this one. Supakrit . . .”

  “Yes?”

  She was silent for a few seconds, staring down at the table top. Then said, in a much softer tone than usual: “I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Before the last few weeks—you were a slave; you know how it is—I didn’t think about the future at all.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “I stayed away from getting close to anyone, too. You know.”

  Supakrit nodded. He knew what she was talking about very well. Better than he wished he did. As a teenager he’d made the mistake of falling in love with another slave. There’d been a few wonderful months and then . . . She was taken away. He had no idea where. Not then, not now. He’d never seen her again. Had no idea if she was still alive—and knew he almost certainly never would know.

  He’d always understood the limits Jeremy X placed on the Ballroom’s tactics. Understood—and agreed. But that was just tactics. Emotionally . . .

  If Supakrit X could round up everyone in the galaxy associated with Manpower—okay, leave out the janitors and such—and throw them into a black hole, he’d do it without blinking. And then spend eternity listening to them scream. (Or was it the other way around? For them, it would be eternity. For him, just a few seconds. He could never remember.)

  Of course, people didn’t live that long, not even ones who’d gotten prolong. Speaking of which . . .

  “You’re what, Ayako? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”

  “Twenty-two.”

  “You’ve still got a few years, then. Have you started thinking about prolong?”

  She shrugged. “Can’t afford it.”

  “Yeah. It’s not cheap.”

  “How about you? Or are you already too old?”

  Supakrit got up and went over to the coffee maker. After pouring himself another cup, he came back to the table. He used the time to make a decision.

  A very easy decision to make, as it turned out.

  After he sat down, he said: “That’s one of the reasons I enlisted in the Marines. Prolong’s expensive for an individual, but governments . . .” He smiled at her. “The magic of taxes, you understand. Actually, Torch probably gets as much money from export tariffs as it does from taxes, but the principle’s the same.”

  “What principle?”

  “The principle—one of the first ones they set up, in fact—that if you enlist in the armed forces the government of Torch will pick up the tab for your prolong treatments. I did it just in the nick of time.” He blew on the coffee. “I’m thirty, if you’re wondering.”

  Ayako scowled. “Supakrit, I really don’t think I’d do well in the military.”

  “Neither do I,” he said, still smiling. “Issues of impulse control.”

  “Hey! The guy had it coming!”

  “I’m not denying it. As impulses go, that one was understandable. Even admirable, if you look it from the right angle. Which I did and do, by the way. But you’re still probably not self-disciplined enough to like the military. Maybe the Navy, but sure as hell not the Marines.”

  He drank some of the coffee. Half the cup, actually. Bracing himself. The decision had come easily but implementing it was . . .

  Hard. He’d been a slave
for two-thirds of his life.

  “There’s a family provision to that principle, Ayako. Spouses and children are also covered if you enlist. And the coverage lasts as long as you’re in the service, so if you get married afterward . . .”

  He couldn’t quite finish that thought, so he went off on a tangent. “You can petition to have parents and siblings covered too. I’m told they usually grant the petition but . . .” His expression hardened. “How many ex-slaves have parents and siblings? Or know where they are, if they do.”

  Ayako stared at him. Then said abruptly: “Are you proposing to me?”

  “Yes. I am.” Supakrit held up his hand. “Look, it can just be a formality. Nobody’s going to stick their nose into our sex life.”

  “Shut up. What a jerk. But I’m not. Yes.”

  Now it was the corporal’s turn to stare. “Yes . . . what?”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m marrying a moron. Yes, I will marry you. What the hell did you think ‘yes’ meant?”

  She rose and held out her hand. “Come on. We’ll settle the rest of it right now. I’ve got a private room and you don’t, so we’ll use mine. I’m not getting laid in a barracks. Forget that stupid coffee. I guarantee you I taste way better than it does.”

  But they’d only taken two steps toward the door when the com in the mess room started blaring.

  “All personnel assigned to Operation Serket Breach, report immediately to Launch Bay Sigma Nine. The mission will depart Parmley Station at sixteen hundred hours.”

  Simultaneously, Supakrit and Ayako looked at their watches.

  “Hell’s bells,” he said.

  “There ain’t no justice at all,” she agreed. “You better go. Just make sure you come back in one piece, okay?”

  They did have time for a kiss, at least.

  * * *

  After he left, not knowing what else to do with herself, Ayako wound up making her way into Parmley Station’s control center. She didn’t have any official clearance to be there, but she’d already learned that BSC personnel were willing to bend the rules if they thought there was a good reason to do so.

  She figured her reason was as good as it got. So she didn’t wait for anyone to challenge her. As soon as she entered she made her way toward the big tactical plot in the middle of the chamber. She’d never been inside the control center, but the tactical plot was obviously what she wanted. She’d had it described to her before. It was very similar, apparently, to the ones used by starships.

  “I just got married—well, agreed to, anyway—and then you—you”—she managed enough impulse control to choke down the pejorative that had been about to emerge—“bad people yanked my fiancé off to go play Marine somewhere.”

  Plaintively, she added, “I don’t even know where he’s going because you—you—obsessive-compulsive motherfu—really bad people are maniacs about so-called security and who would I tell anyway? It’s just stupid.”

  The five people in the center stared at her. Two of them were obviously Torches and two were just as obviously Beowulfers. She wasn’t sure about the guy doing something at a console against the far wall. (Or what that called a bulkhead? Ayako wasn’t sure.)

  “Who are you?” one of the Beowulfers asked. He was one of the three people monitoring the tactical plot.

  “And what are you doing here?” asked the man standing next to him. He was one of the Torches, as was the third person working at the tactical plot. She was the only one Ayako recognized, although she wasn’t sure of the woman’s name. Alexia . . . something.

  “I told you. I just got married and my brand-new husband—okay, fine, be anal-retentive about it; my to-be-husband—is on that ship.” She pointed at the tactical plot, which to her just looked like an immense kaleidoscope. “Whichever one it is. In that thing.”

  “The Hali Sowle?” That was asked by the other Beowulfer, a woman sitting at a console nearby.

  “Yeah, that’s it.”

  The male Torch at the tactical plot was now looking belligerent. “You can’t just—”

  “Ease up, Liam,” said the Beowulfer next to him. “This might be quite charming—and the universe needs as much charm as it can get, these days.”

  To Ayako he said, “I take it your husband—past, present or future, we’ll worry about that later—is one of the Marines or naval personnel aboard the Hali Sowle. What’s his name?”

  “Supakrit. Corporal Supakrit X. Royal Marines.”

  “Check that, would you, Magda?”

  The Beowulfer female at the console worked the board for a few seconds and then studied the screen.

  “Yeah, he’s there. One of the Marines assigned to the mission.”

  “Hey!” protested the Torch named Liam. “Security!”

  “Give it a rest, will you?” Magda was still examining the screen. “What’s she going to do? Grow Warshawski sails and fly herself to give warning to whoever you might notice I didn’t actually specify?”

  She tapped the screen and looked up at Ayako. “What’s really interesting is that Corporal Supakrit is listed in the rolls as being single.”

  Liam glared at Ayako. “So she’s lying.”

  “Fuck you. Me and Supakrit just got married. Well, decided to. About two seconds before you assho—bad people—told him he had to report to launch bay whatzit.”

  “That order was actually given by Colonel Anderson, not us,” said the woman Ayako thought was named Alexia. Her tone was mild, and seemed a bit amused. “We’re just in charge of traffic and such.”

  The Beowulfer at the tactical plot grinned. “Like I said, charming. Just got hitched, huh? Well, come over here and I’ll show you where your future husband is. I’m Bill Jokela. What’s your name?”

  “Takahashi Ayako. Call me Ayako.” Ignoring the glare still coming from Liam, Ayako came up to stand beside Jokela. Up close, the tactical plot looked more like a kaleidoscope than ever.

  Jokela pointed to one of the symbols in the plot. It was colored a bright green. “This is the Hali Sowle. They’ve already left Parmley, but they’re still a good fifteen light-minutes from the hyper limit. So they won’t be making their alpha translation for another—”

  “Their what?”

  Jokela paused and gave her a considering look. Then he gave the same look to the movements in the tactical plot.

  “What the hell, we’ve got time,” he said. “An introduction to basic astrogation. Pay attention, Takahashi Ayako. Who knows? You might want to make a career out of it.”

  Chapter 21

  “Zachariah McBryde?”

  Zachariah turned around to face the speaker, being careful not to spill his coffee. He had a bad habit of over-filling the mug, which could make walking back to his laboratory an exercise in finicky precision that almost matched the demands of his actual job.

  Two men stood there, he discovered. Both were wearing severely utilitarian jumpsuits with nameplates over the left pockets—the one on the left was A. Zhilov; the one on the right, S. Arpino—and both had the elaborate security badges given to visitors draped over their chests with lanyards.

  “Yes?” he said.

  The one named Zhilov nodded stiffly. “Come with us, McBryde.” He turned over the badge in order to show the identification on the other side, which was a hologram depicting himself and the legend Agent, GAUL.

  Zachariah tried not to let his sudden apprehension show on his face. The Genetic Advancement and Uplift League—the “Gauls,” to use the nickname that was sometimes used (though never in front of them)—served the inner layers of the onion as a special security force.

  Which explained Zachariah’s tension. The most common use the Alignment leadership had for the Gauls was as what you might call enforcers.

  “The preferred term for that is ‘internal disciplinarians,’ you understand,” Zachariah’s brother Jack had once told him. Jack had been smiling when he made the quip, but there been very little humor in the smile. Like most of the Alignment’s professional
security people, he hadn’t had much use for the Gauls.

  The tension shifted into anger. “How many times do we have to go through this rigmarole?” he demanded. “I’ve told you everything I know about my brother already—at least five times over. There isn’t anything else. Trust me. Nothing. Nada. Zip. Zero. I have no idea why Jack did what he did.”

  If he did it at all, which I don’t believe for a minute.

  Zhilov frowned. “I have no knowledge of what you are talking about. Your family affairs do not concern us.”

  He turned his head to give the man next to him a quizzical look. “Do they?”

  His partner Arpino was consulting a small tablet. “There is mention here of a brother by the name of Jack McBryde, who is deceased. But that has no bearing on our mission, so far as I can see.”

  “As I thought.” Zhilov turned back to Zachariah. “Come with us, please.”

  Now puzzled, Zachariah felt his anger fading—but only to be replaced by annoyance. Come with us! As if he was some sort of servant.

  He took a sip of his coffee. Partly to stall; partly because if he did wind up having to go with them somewhere, he wanted to keep the coffee-spilling to a minimum. The janitor ’bots wouldn’t complain, of course, but it was good coffee.

  His brother Jack had once referred to the Gauls as goons. He’d gotten close-mouthed right afterward. Zachariah had gotten the impression that Jack had let that slip inadvertently.

  He hadn’t pressed Jack on the matter. He and his brother were both very far inside the onion, but they had different specialties. In some respects, Jack had had a higher security clearance than Zachariah did; in other respects, the situation was reversed. They were very close, probably more than most brothers were, but they were also careful not to intrude on each other’s preserves.

  He was tempted to try stonewalling the Gauls, but he knew that sooner or later he’d have to give in. They wouldn’t have come looking for him if they hadn’t had the authority to do so. They also had a reputation for rigidly following orders. They weren’t stupid, certainly. No one that far into the onion lacked intelligence. But they didn’t seem to have much in the way of imagination—and even less in the way of empathy.