Peacekeeper

by REEVE, LAURA E.

  Pausing for breath, Ariane looked at the faces in the audience. Most were earnestly following the lecture. She hoped the inspection went quickly and smoothly. For her, this inspection was primarily a way to distract Terran intelligence from the truth: Icelos’s identity, her identity, and her true past. If the Terrans were behind the assassinations, then both of their lives depended upon this misdirection.

  Isrid was receiving a similar briefing on his ship. They would soon drop out of real-space for the last leg of the journey to Karthage Point.

  Nathaniel Wolf Kim wore his family name like a visible emblem to proclaim his Terran derivations, but encouraged his coworkers to call him Nathan. The man had an undercurrent of arrogance and anger that he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, hide. Nathan was always imposing, whether he was asking for directions on the street or interrogating subjects.

  "Their intelligence adviser, personally placed by Colonel Edones. Reserve Major Ariane Kedros. She’s had a lackluster career and little field experience. An analyst.” Nathan’s lip curled, but it always curled when he talked about Autonomists. They would always be the enemy.

  "Edones won’t be on Karthage?” Isrid was disappointed, but hid his feelings. He always practiced somaural control and projection. The cutthroat politics throughout the overlord’s staff needed no ammunition.

  "We knew we’d catch them unprepared with two concurrent inspections this early after the signing,” said Maria Guillotte, seated at Isrid’s right. "However, we expected Edones to delegate the preparation in Pelagos since it’s not as pivotal as Karthage Point. Instead, he left the squadrons near Hellas Prime in the hands of a golem.”

  Isrid’s interest was piqued. He looked carefully at the face of the female major, noting the gaunt cheekbones of an N-space pilot. She had a slight frame, fine features, and brown eyes. The eyes were too deep for her age, and wise, perhaps hiding pain.

  "She’s more than she seems,” Isrid murmured.

  "We broke several vault codes to get to her records,” said Maria. "We were thorough.”

  "Edones didn’t make colonel in the Directorate of Intelligence by trusting the wrong people. How heavy is Andre’s workload?” Isrid used a subtle hand signal to say, Your research wasn’t good enough.

  Maria had more undercover experience than Nathan did. She could have protested that she knew how to perform surreptitious vault searches. Instead, she stiffened and made an apology with a turn of her wrist.

  Nathan’s dark eyes glittered. "Andre’s primary mission has always been to sniff out the war criminals, although after all these years I think the trail’s gone dead. Regardless, SP, I don’t think we can give him extra tasking. Information has always flowed from him.”

  Isrid looked as though he was considering Nathan’s words, but he was evaluating a different problem. Nathan and Maria didn’t know that Andre was present on this inspection team. Isrid checked his security display on his desk. There were only the three of them in this cabin and there wasn’t any monitoring equipment. He made his decision.

  "Since none of us can recognize Andre on sight, I’m going to warn you that he’s posing as a member of this inspection team.” Isrid watched both of them. "That’s confidential, but I think both of you should know.”

  Nathan expressed surprise. Not all Terrans could perfect somaural control and Nathan never had the patience to learn. However, if one wanted a career in Terra XL government, one had to be adept at reading standard somaural signals and understanding body language. Maria’s relaxed body language should have been a clue to Nathan, but a flicker of her index finger on the side where Nathan couldn’t see told Isrid explicitly that she already knew about Andre’s new assignment.

  "Why wasn’t I told about this earlier?” Nathan scowled. "I’m supposed to be Andre’s contact—the contact on your staff, of course, SP. Also, just because Andre’s on the inspection team, it doesn’t mean he’s got time to support our research.”

  Nathan had a point, which Isrid acknowledged with a nod.

  "We have a sleeper stationed at Karthage that could provide us information about this major,” said Maria, ignoring Nathan’s outrage. "I could activate that agent.”

  Isrid paused, making his final decisions. "Nathan, use your message drop to request that Andre dig through all the Autonomist personnel records. You may activate our sleeper, Maria, but only after we get through the baseline inspection. This will be the first time we’ve visited an AFCAW installation, so let’s make the best of it.”

  There had been a small shift of power from Nathan to Maria, although unacknowledged.

  "Certainly, SP,” Nathan said crisply as he stood. He accepted his orders, but his back was tight with resentment as he left the room.

  Maria stretched her legs languidly before she stood up. Her body was perfect by Terran standards: symmetrical and ideally proportioned, height between 175 and 180 centimeters, and topped by a head of smooth blond hair and flawless regular features. Isrid also knew that the rest of her skin was flawless. His gaze moved from her breasts to her small waist, then down her hips. The stretch suit hid nothing; he could see the angular lump of her hipbones and her slightly raised pubic region. He knew how soft her inner thighs were, and how she smelled and tasted.

  "Do you need anything more, SP?” Maria wasn’t being suggestive. Having control of practically every muscle in her body, she could radiate the fact she wasn’t available.

  He once thought he knew what drove Maria. Power had excited her, more specifically, his power. However, Maria had proved to be more complicated, particularly after Sabina had seduced her. Or had it been the other way around?

  "No, you’re dismissed,” he said. Maria nodded, professionally cool and distant.

  Isrid had been puzzled when, shortly before he was assigned to oversee this inspection at Karthage, Sabina triumphantly showed him a video of the two of them. Sabina purposely gave him no clue of what she expected. Was he supposed to be titillated or jealous? Moreover, jealous of whom? Sabina knew they couldn’t marry Maria. Terran group marriage was merely permission to breed within specific genetic restraints, and Maria was prohibited from marrying because of genetic damage she’d received near Tantor.

  He watched Maria exit, wondering whether he should ask her the questions. Did Maria know about the video? Did she mind whether he had seen it? Did she care for Sabina? He doubted it; he’d never seen Maria use sex as a way of expressing feelings.

  Damn, this was—well, this situation was just plain awkward. Moreover, it was distracting. As a specialist in psychological torture himself, Isrid knew when people were playing head games.

  Ariane glanced sideways at Lieutenant Santorini and stifled the urge to tell him to stop fidgeting. Santorini, the one and only aide thrown her way when she desperately needed more, obviously hadn’t had his dress uniform recently fitted. She’d been grateful for his help, but she wished he’d stop pulling at his collar.

  Leaning her way, Santorini whispered, "Everybody’s here, Major, right on time. We’re ready.”

  She glanced to her right. The senior officers arrayed outside the docking air lock looked impressive as well as apprehensive. Ariane knew that Colonel Icelos, like her, had reason to truly fear the Terran inspectors, particularly Parmet. The senior staff of Karthage Point looked as frightened as she felt. The long coats and epaulets, the gold braid, the medals and decorations, and the bright cuffs of the dress uniforms couldn’t hide their tension.

  In a way, their fear relaxed her and buoyed her spirits. The Terrans, trained in their vaunted somaural techniques, would have problems picking out nervous guilt from this mélange of fear, hostility, and dread.

  The boarding pipes sounded. The treaty didn’t allow the drama of being late. Per the treaty, the Terrans had announced their inspection point two days prior to their arrival. Then they announced their arrival time twenty hours out, then twenty minutes out.

  The air lock slid open and the Terrans filed out to the landing. Ariane kept her eye on th
e weapon detector light above the air lock. The treaty allowed AFCAW to perform active scans for weapons. None of the twelve interpreters or inspectors carried stun, compression, or explosive weapons. State Prince Parmet came through the air lock last.

  The Terrans lined up on the other side of the landing. Autonomists and Terrans stared at each other. There were no Minoans here and no supervision. Fifty years of hostility wasn’t easily forgotten, even if Pax Minoica had ended active warfare fifteen years ago.

  The eight Autonomist officers, plus their two security guards, were a vibrant line of color compared to the twelve Terrans. Ariane’s uniform was the most conservative, being a black coat edged with light blue, with blue and gold epaulets and stripes about the cuffs. The other officers wore their AFCAW red-and-gold dress coats over black trousers.

  The Terrans wore grays, taupes, and other indistinct muddy colors. Their suits stretched tight over their torsos, hips, and thighs, almost looking like one-piece of clothing. They wore no obvious indication of rank, but the treaty required them to identify inspectors separately from interpreters. Perhaps the black armband identified the inspectors, Ariane thought, since the TEBI interpreters Kim and Guillotte wore none.

  State Prince Isrid Sun Parmet, however, wore a black armband. As he moved to the end of the line farthest from Ariane, her gaze followed him. He had far more of a presence in person than on video. He was tall and broad-shouldered without having too much bulk. Most of the Terrans had similar perfection in body symmetry, probably because of their restricted birth program and eugenic controls. Parmet’s smooth golden skin seemed to glow. His dark hair had a touch of gray and his green eyes glinted. He gazed at all the AFCAW officers, in turn. Ariane avoided making eye contact, looking away when his gaze rested on her.

  The air lock had sealed and there was uncomfortable silence as the two parties faced each other. Ariane leaned forward and looked down the line at Colonel Icelos, who stared intently at the bulkhead wall over the air lock. He was only the facility commander. The wing commander was stationed on Hellas Daughter and she wasn’t attending this first baseline inspection. The commander of the operational squadron, Lieutenant Colonel Voyage, was her representative. Jacinthe only glared back at Ariane and made no move to address the Terran inspection team.

  Of course they wanted the liaison officer to handle this. Wishing fervently to be anywhere else, even the lowest level of hell, Ariane stepped forward and turned to stand between the two groups. Terran heads swiveled to look at her and she had to swallow hard to keep the knot of anger from traveling up from her stomach. These people were the enemy, and many had Autonomist blood on their hands—blood of her friends and comrades.

  Everyone waited. Welcome to Karthage Point? Those words would never pass her lips, not for a Terran state prince. Her jaw tightened. I’m Ariane Kedros. I’m too young to carry this resentment. I don’t have personal ties to the war.

  "Karthage Point stands ready to support the Mobile Temporal Distortion Weapon Treaty.” Once her first words were out, she felt relief.

  Her voice broke the tension on the Autonomist side. She saw shoulders twitch and sag, deep breaths taken, and slight stretches in several necks.

  "Lieutenant Santorini will assign you quarters for the duration of the inspection. He’ll also brief you regarding which corridors and parts of the station are accessible to you,” she said. She felt Santorini step forward beside her, but she kept her eyes on the Terrans.

  The Terran interpreters softly repeated Ariane’s words in various languages. Most of the Terrans glanced about at the featureless gray walls of the station while they keyed their ear bug volume up or down. Under normal conditions, the walls displayed video from ComNet, station programs, daily orders, work queues, and schedules. Now the landing and corridor felt like a cold tomb. More important to Ariane and her overt mission, it was a tomb with no intelligence value for the Terrans.

  Santorini walked to the beginning of the line of Terrans, holding his slate in front of him like a shield. At this point, Colonel Icelos dismissed the delegation formation and the Karthage Point leadership fled, quickly moving away down the corridor.

  Ariane walked beside Santorini as he assigned quarters and checked in the delegation members, cross-referencing them against the roster sent by the Terran overlords. Santorini keyed Terrans to personal slates that were modified to prevent recording of information. The slates were waiting in their rooms.

  Every Terran on the team was familiar to Ariane after poring over the intelligence files. Nathaniel Wolf Kim looked angrier in person. Maria Guillotte’s face had beauty in static pictures but in person seemed unremarkable and without personality. Ariane looked at each Terran face as Santorini processed them, wondering if the famed "Andre Covanni” was here. That agent’s penchant for causing excessive civilian casualties made him a war criminal in Autonomist eyes, but any due justice after the war had been mitigated by the Terrans’ loss of Ura-Guinn. Did Andre also suffer guilt about his actions during the war?

  If anyone could understand Andre, it’d be me. The voice in Ariane’s head was spiteful. I’m more of a war criminal than he ever was, if we’re judging by body count.

  The jury was still out on the body count, however. In a few months, their closest telescopes would see whether Ura-Guinn’s sun had survived the TD detonation. No one could know the full ramifications, however, until the generational ship arrived at Ura-Guinn.

  "Major?” Santorini prompted her. They were standing in front of State Prince Parmet and his interpreter, a short man with thinning and receding hair.

  Ariane looked up and, for the first time, met Parmet’s gaze. The brown flecks did nothing to warm his green eyes, arrogant, unyielding, and knowing. Her rational mind told her that Parmet knew nothing of her history, yet she instinctively flinched, wanting to flee. She took a deep breath.

  "Inspections will begin with storage lockers A through D, scheduled at fourteen hundred universal time.” She made sure to address both interpreter and state prince as she gestured to the wall where the schedule displayed. "That gives your team a significant rest cycle. Will that be sufficient?”

  Surprisingly, the interpreter gave her a warm smile and made no pretense of interpreting for State Prince Parmet, who slowly looked over the inspection schedule.

  "It looks fine, Major Kedros.” Parmet’s voice was distant. "However, I’d like to change Ms. Guillotte’s quarters. Ms. Guillotte needs better ventilation because of Tantor’s Sun disease.”

  "Of course. Your quarters are already located near the medical facilities, but we can make room changes.” Ariane nodded, hearing Santorini’s quick intake of breath. "A moment please.”

  She took Santorini’s elbow and steered him across the landing until they were well away from Terran ears and had their backs toward the Terrans.

  "How does he know we have ventilation problems in A-twelve? Then he parades Guillotte’s war record in front of us,” Santorini said. Young as he was, he knew that only one famous battle had given space-farers Tantor’s Sun disease.

  "Lieutenant, keep your voice down and relax your body,” Ariane said quietly. "He’s trying to put you off-balance and he’ll see he was successful.”

  "How?” Santorini looked startled.

  Ariane made a mental note to send out a briefing regarding somaural reading. Standard training used to include background on Terrans, but apparently not any longer. She realized that she shouldn’t make such assumptions based upon her wartime memories. She described it to Santorini as the deep study of facial and body language, but avoided any mention of reading auras. Santorini would consider his aura invisible to human eyes, used solely for the transfer of personal data. Besides, she’d heard that only extremely talented somaural practitioners could read auras, usually under optimum conditions that involved trance or meditation. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Parmet watching them with sharp eyes.

  "Relax and let go of your emotions. Can you do that, Paul?” She used his first
name purposely, trying to put him at ease. Her voice was low.

  Santorini nodded. "But what about his comment about the ventilation system? Do we have a leak?”

  "They’re only showing us that they’re monitoring our unclassified maintenance chatter. We should tighten up our security, even in station maintenance, while they’re here. Go ahead and make the room change Parmet requested.” Ariane wished she felt as confident as she sounded. She made a note on her slate to have Karthage Security Force sweep regularly for active and inactive recording pips.

  With pity, she watched young Santorini walk back to the Terrans. Feeling Parmet’s gaze upon her, she left the docking air lock and landing, trying to keep her body neutral. She felt dizzy with relief when she was safely out of his sight.

  CHAPTER 8

  What is Truth? Truth can be written to crystal. Once written, Truth cannot be erased unless the entire vault is destroyed. But interpretation of Truth must be performed by intelligent beings. . . .

  —Melissa Solis, Sophist at Konstantinople Prime University, 2087.005.14.37 UT, indexed by Democritus 4 under Cause and Effect Imperatives

  Change came slowly within the Athens Point Law Enforcement Force, almost as slow as decisions. After a decade of testing the use of AI interrogators, Athens Point LEF had grudgingly agreed that many suspects cracked more easily under AI because they didn’t have human reactions to play against. Some suspects, however, could blatantly control their biometric responses regardless of the interrogator. Because of this, the LEF had established a tedious pendulum of question-by-AI, then question-by-human, and by Gaia, they wouldn’t deviate from this procedure for anyone.