“Infiltration,” Hiro explained to his colleague. “Parren don’t follow casually — they’re committed. Right down to the lowest rungs of society. It’s not ideological, it’s psychological on the genetic level.”
“Nearly,” Lisbeth corrected with a faint smile. “The denominations are ideological, there’s some conscious choice involved. The houses are structurally psychological, there’s no choice in those. But yet, even denominational loyalties are absolute — parren choose their denominations, but then commit to them absolutely. Absolutism is a universal parren characteristic.”
“But you clearly serve two masters,” Daica pointed out. “I mean, you’re a Debogande, and Erik’s the captain of Phoenix. They’re not dumb, surely they can’t ask you to choose?”
Not a stupid man at all, Lisbeth thought. Not surprising, given his background. “I’m alien, so it’s tolerated,” she said uncomfortably. “And I was snatched against my will by Gesul’s predecessor, so Gesul’s people feel some responsibility for the situation. So long as Gesul and Phoenix remain allies, it won’t be a problem.”
“And if that relationship changes?”
Lisbeth did not particularly want to discuss those contingencies with a man she’d only just met. Not long ago, she would have tolerated the endless smalltalk and probing. But this was her office, and this man was here to see her, not the other way around. “Daica,” she said, with the faint irony of knowing that it was unlikely to be his real name. “Why are you here?”
“Well first,” said Daica, shifting gears in the manner of a man at ease in any situation, “there’s the matter of your family.”
Lisbeth frowned. “What matter?”
Daica held up both hands. “I want to make clear that this is not something my bosses cooked up to threaten you or your family. I think Hiro can vouch for me on this — the challenge does not come from our side of government, it comes from Fleet.”
Lisbeth felt her alarm growing, from that small, manageable twinge that she’d become accustomed to ignoring, to something more like the dry-mouthed, heart-thumping fear that she would never get used to, nor learn to enjoy. “Threaten my family? What threat?”
“Fleet Intelligence are building a case against your mother,” said Daica. Almost apologetically, like a defence lawyer telling his client something unpleasant but unavoidable. “Money transfers to alien financial entities. That sort of thing.”
Lisbeth stared. “The barabo?” It was nearly funny. And then it wasn’t. “I mean, off the record…”
Daica smiled. “Lisbeth, I’m a spook. There is no record.” At which Hiro gave her a faint nod of agreement. Until very recently, Hiro had been in the direct employ of Alice Debogande. By some measures he still was… among other things.
“Okay…” Lisbeth took a deep breath. “So Mother made financial transfers to a barabo trading company to support Phoenix in barabo space. After that… well, I wasn’t there, but I’d guess the tavalai have been picking up the tab in tavalai space… or the Dobruta did anyway… and now it’s House Harmony in parren space.”
Daica nodded. “Financial dealings with alien entities is illegal. We all know it goes on and there’s very little that can actually be proven, particularly when you’re dealing with the barabo, because the barabo never actually write anything down. But whatever recent conciliations toward Phoenix by Fleet, Phoenix is still technically a renegade vessel. And so this isn’t just a matter being handled by financial regulators and the like — this is Fleet Intelligence, the big guys who can prove anything if they set their minds to it…”
“Because Phoenix is a renegade vessel,” Lisbeth murmured in shock as the implication of it rolled over her. “A Fleet-level security issue.”
“Probably the biggest Fleet-level security issue there is right now,” Daica added helpfully.
“They’re looking for leverage, Lisbeth,” Hiro explained. “Making financial transactions to unreliable alien entities in support of a renegade vessel is a pretty serious deal. They’re angling for a treason charge.”
“Yes thank you, I got that Hiro,” Lisbeth said impatiently. Spending half-a-year at this level of parren intrigue and treachery made some things quite transparent to her. “Mother’s got the best lawyers in human space, what are their odds?”
“On a fair and level playing ground?” said Hiro, with meaning. “Pretty good. What do you think are the odds of that?”
Lisbeth said nothing, thinking and gnawing her lip. “Treason,” she said finally. “They can’t drop that on Alice Debogande without serious repercussions. I mean, the penalty is death.” She forced herself to say it, with difficulty.
“Fleet hasn’t liked Debogande Inc for a long time,” said Hiro. “Long before this whole mess. They do business with the Debogandes because they have to… and that’s exactly what they don’t like. They don’t like having to do anything. They don’t like being cramped for options. In strategic terms, they call it flexibility.”
“They’d break the companies up?” Lisbeth surmised. It was a horrible, nightmarish thing to contemplate, but she’d gotten accustomed to contemplating those on this journey too. “They don’t need to for procurement, there’s plenty of other good ship-builders out there, Fleet buy from us because we’re better than most of them…”
“It’s just a threat at this point,” Daica interrupted, hands again raised, calmingly. “It gives them options, and pressure against your mother. They got into trouble pulling the nuclear trigger too early before, with Captain Pantillo. They’re not going to rush into it this time… but they will if they don’t get what they want.”
“And what do they want?”
“Leverage against Phoenix. Control over all the forces that Phoenix has unleashed.”
“Phoenix hasn’t unleashed anything,” Lisbeth retorted. “Phoenix has uncovered things before they’re unleashed, for which Fleet should be eternally grateful.”
“Fleet doesn’t like anything they can’t control,” Daica said patiently. “I’ve heard talk in senior places that right now, humanity’s foreign policy is being run by Phoenix. I mean, turmoil with the tavalai, now with the parren, a suddenly resurgent deepynine force allied to the alo and making alliances with the sard. You might be right, Fleet might stand to benefit a lot from all of this. All of humanity might. But right now Fleet aren’t even being consulted, and they’d like their hands back on the controls.”
Lisbeth shook her head firmly. “Well screw that, they’re not going to get anything from Erik. Erik loves Mother as much as I do, but he’s convinced he’s on a mission to save humanity from future annihilation. He thinks the alo and deepynines could be just a few years away from pulling the trigger and there’s not much we could do about it, and that the entire Triumvirate War was just very long battlespace preparation by the alo to weaken the tavalai in advance. He won’t stop now, no matter what they threaten. And if Mother was here, she’d tell him not to.”
Daica nodded in cautious agreement. “You’ll notice I didn’t approach Erik.”
Lisbeth’s eyes widened. “Me?” Suspicion followed. “Wait a moment… you’re acting as an agent for Fleet Intel? Getting me to do what they want?”
“No, my bosses want to protect your mother. Fleet’s grown into a mini-tyranny, Lisbeth — you know this as well as anyone, after what happened to Captain Pantillo and your brother. There have been many others, just less well publicised. It was inevitable, Fleet does an amazing job of keeping us safe and they take that mission very seriously. So seriously that they don’t like to be crowded by any rival authorities, including Captain Pantillo, the Worlders, Debogandes, etc. My side of government wants to stop Fleet’s mini-tyranny from becoming a mega-tyranny, and your mother is one of the most important countervailing voices doing that.
“We’ll be helping the people constructing the case in your mother’s defence. But she’s going to need all the help she can get, Lisbeth. Anything you can give us, any proof that you’re providing invaluable in
telligence for the human cause, would be gold for that defence.”
“Daica,” Lisbeth said carefully, to be very sure he understood. “I’m granted a very special leeway by Gesul in light of my unique circumstances. I can be both in Phoenix’s service, and in Gesul’s, for as long as Phoenix remains a friend and ally of Gesul. Humanity as a whole? Particularly represented by Fleet? They’re neither friend nor ally to any parren, Gesul or otherwise.”
“I understand that,” said Daica, solemnly.
“You’re asking me to betray their trust. You’re asking me to be a double agent.”
“Nothing so drastic. Just provide Fleet with intelligence on internal parren workings.”
“Parren see that as betrayal. They’re not big on moral shades of grey.”
“Fleet’s already getting briefings from Lisbeth and Erik,” Hiro attempted.
Daica shook his head. “No, a briefing is something parren leaders would approve of. Fleet will need the stuff they wouldn’t.”
Lisbeth exhaled hard, and gazed out the window at the vast alien view. “I can’t. There’s too much else at stake.”
“Well that’s your choice to make, of course,” said Daica. “But I have to tell you, Lisbeth — my bosses are telling me that there are a lot of people in Fleet who see this is a grand opportunity to remove the Alice Debogande thorn from their side once and for all. And if Fleet wants it, Fleet will get it.”
“Skah, I really think you should do the puzzle.”
“I don’t want to do the puzzle.” Skah sat in bed, AR glasses on, looking at the data files that Mummy had brought him. The files were from Chogoth, and they’d come all the way out here on the human ship, Lien Wang. All human ships, and most alien ships, carried the latest news that had reached them, so Lien Wang would have been carrying all kinds of news, not just from Chogoth. But Mummy was interested in news from Chogoth, and she’d sat with him at bedtime and instead of a story had watched some of the vision with him, and the news reports, and explained to him what it all meant.
It hadn’t been fun in the same way that a story was fun, but it had been compelling all the same. Sometimes Skah forgot what it was like to be surrounded by kuhsi. He knew he wasn’t a human — he wasn’t stupid. But sometimes he thought it would just be so much easier if he stayed with humans forever, and never had to worry about kuhsi ever again. Sometimes he thought Mummy felt the same way… but then she brought him news from Chogoth, and told him he shouldn’t forget where he came from. That was confusing, because for a long time now she’d been telling him that he was from Phoenix, and this ship and its human crew were their clan now.
“The puzzle will help you with your maths,” Styx insisted on his glasses earbuds. He often talked to her like this, in bed, when no one else was around. Often the Phoenix coms people would know who was talking to who, but Skah didn’t think even Lieutenant Shilu knew that Styx was talking to him so often. He was pretty sure they wouldn’t like it. Sometimes he was so overcome by the desire to share with his friends the things he and Styx would talk about, but then he remembered that he’d promised her not to. And it was even more fun, really, to have a real secret of his very own. And worse yet, if he told them, and Styx got into trouble, she might not be allowed to talk to him any more.
“Mummy says my Daddy was Lord Khargesh,” he said. They spoke Gharkhan, and that was good too, to have someone other than Mummy to speak Gharkhan to. He was getting very good at English, but English had so many difficult sounds that his mouth just couldn’t make. “Lord Khargesh was the Lord of Koth. That’s a big nation on Chogoth.”
He watched his visuals on the glasses. There was a big city, somewhere in Koth. The streets were wide and there weren’t many tall buildings. Lots of kuhsi were out in the streets, and there were a lot of trucks and air vehicles. There was shouting and screeching, and banners being waved, and then there was white smoke and scary-looking security men with big sticks and sonic blasters. Some kuhsi fell, others ran away, and a few more charged with claws bared, and there was fighting. Kuhsi could be frightening, Skah thought… and tried flexing his own claws. Trimmed a long time ago, they barely moved. It would be years yet until they regrew properly within their finger sheaths.
“Would you like to be the Lord of Koth?” Styx asked.
That was funny, and Skah smiled… but the images on his glasses weren’t funny at all, and the smile faded. “I’m the twenty-third in line, Mummy says,” he replied. “And besides, they’ve put a different man in charge now. They killed my Daddy. My Daddy was the real Lord of Koth.” He knew it should have made him sad, but then he’d never known his Daddy. And Lord Khargesh had had many children — hundreds, with many different women. That was normal for big kuhsi lords. “Mummy says some people want to put one of Lord Khargesh’s heirs back in charge of Koth. She says they don’t like the new Lord. And then she says some other kuhsi say there shouldn’t be lords at all, that everyone should vote for a new lord.” He didn’t really know what that meant, but Mummy said it was important, so he believed her. “What do you think, Styx?”
“I don’t know very much about organic systems of government,” said Styx.
“Don’t be silly,” Skah laughed. “You know much more than me.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because you’re the smartest person in the history of the galaxy.” Styx usually corrected him when he said something wrong. That she didn’t do it now told him that she wasn’t going to disagree with him.
“I think that Chogoth is going through some very large changes,” said Styx. “The kuhsi were not very advanced when humans discovered them. Some humans said they should be left alone, and that bad things would happen to kuhsi society if they introduced too much new technology too quickly. But the humans had a lot of enemies, and they needed some new friends, so they introduced high technology to a society that wasn’t really ready for it. I think what happened to your father is a result of those troubles. Some people don’t like change.”
“Are those the bad people?”
“Not always. Not all change is good.”
“The deepynines wanted to kill all the drysines,” Skah said slowly, thinking hard. “That’s change too, right?”
“Yes exactly, Skah.”
“And the krim wanted to kill all the humans. That’s change too.”
“And the humans, quite understandably, thought that change was very bad, just as the drysines thought the change the deepynines wanted was very bad. I’m pleased that you understand, Skah. When we first met, I don’t think you would have.”
“Mummy says I’m growing up, and I need to think about these things. How do you know if change is good or bad?”
“Objectively, it’s very hard.”
“What does ‘objectively’ mean?”
“It means that you take yourself out of the equation. Something might be bad for you, but good for everyone else. Objectively means that’s a good thing, if you can accept that the bad thing happening to you and your people is necessary.”
Skah frowned. On his glasses now were journalists, talking in a studio with big holographic displays and a live audience. It was funny to see kuhsi like that — talking in fancy clothes like civilised people. Kuhsi seemed so savage, sometimes. Like animals. “I don’t think I could let something bad happen to Mummy or Phoenix,” he said. “I wouldn’t care if it was good for someone else.”
“You know,” said Styx, “I think you might be right. I’m not sure there is any such thing as ‘objectively’. Ultimately there’s just survival, and there is no greater or more moral motivation than the survival of yourself and your people. Now, I really think you should do the puzzle. I designed it myself.”
“You made a puzzle for me?” Skah frowned. “Why?”
“Because I find you very interesting, Skah. Will you do the puzzle?”
“I suppose.” He flipped the news images from his glasses, replaced by a series of complex three-dimensional shapes. “What do I do?
”
4
Trace sat in the technical bay amidst several dozen creepily advanced fabricators, and tried to bounce the tennis ball off Peanut’s main eye. One of Peanut’s four small manipulator arms always intercepted it, grabbing with multiple-articulated claws and tossing it quickly back. His head was roughly spherical, protected within an articulated hood-shield, and darted with rapid, birdlike intensity to follow the ball.
Trace was unarmoured, but behind her Staff Sergeant Kono was fully suited, big Koshaim rifle in hand and surveying all the bay’s activity. He wasn’t pleased that Trace was unarmoured, but it was Kono’s job as Command Squad leader to be protective. Command Squad’s primary function was to make sure the Major didn’t get herself killed. But Trace was insistent that Peanut, Bucket and Wowser should get to know what humans actually looked like under those thick metal shells, to get them accustomed to the idea that cooperation between machines and organics was normal. In his full armour, Kono looked nearly as much the machine that the drones did.
Peanut’s vibroblades were inactive, and a drysine drone’s primary weapons systems were modular and thus could be removed when not on combat operations, or replaced by tools for non-combat tasks as required. His body was the size of a large man, in two primary segments — a torso to which all legs attached, and a rear abdomen containing powerplant and weapons attachments. The arrangement provoked obvious comparisons to spiders, but at this range it didn’t really work. The abdomen was multi-segmented and flexible, for one thing, with interlocking armour plates that allowed a degree of bending, with the intricacy of some three-dimensional artwork. The legs were also not exclusively side-mounted like a spider, but could rotate around the torso to create any convenient three-dimensional configuration. Drone legs were not really meant for walking, despite first appearances — AIs had never found planets very interesting, and thus their drones were not optimised for gravity but rather for various degrees of micro-gravity, where the legs would pull them floating through structures while holding equipment and manipulating things at need.
Croma Venture: (The Spiral Wars Book Five) Page 6
