Freedom's Fury (Spooner Federation Saga Book 3)

by Francis Porretto

“Clan Wolzman designed and fabricated the special weapons the alliance used against us.”

  “We did.”

  “But I’m told that you’ve destroyed those weapons and the tooling for them.”

  Wolzman’s eyes flared wide. “Who told you that?”

  An angry murmur raced through the crowd. Barton turned to face his neighbors and held up a hand for silence.

  “That’s irrelevant. It’s enough that you know that I know. I also wanted our neighbors to know. Because nothing else I could think of exonerates you quite as completely from any hint of participation in the Dunbarton-HalberCorp plot. I wanted you, and our neighbors, to know that as well.”

  He held up his regrown left arm.

  “One of those special weapons blew off my arm below the elbow. As you’ve already heard, our kinswoman Claire, who was the presiding genius at HalberCorp until a few months ago, put that genius to work developing a regeneration nanite, and bestowed it upon me. That’s a gift for which I couldn’t possibly be grateful enough.

  “But those weapons also took the lives of two of my kinsmen. No nanite can restore them. Though I and my kin have resolved to forgive you, Patrick, for your part in that loss, I am absolutely unwilling to forgive any further violence against Clan Morelon, any of its members, or any of its properties, regardless of the motivation.

  “Clan Morelon now has lethal weapons of its own, my friends. Weapons you and yours cannot withstand. Weapons we have trained to use. Weapons we will use should there be any further aggression against us. If someone should wound or kill one of ours, Morelons will hunt him down no matter where he might hide. You will be in no danger if you do not impede us. But if you do, we will be merciless.”

  He turned to Patrick Wolzman once more.

  “I’m aware of how that sounds, Patrick. Clan Morelon has no intention of trying to displace your clan as Alta’s premier maker of sidearms. But we will not share the secret of our weapons with you. We will not publish the physics or the technology they use. Those will remain ours alone, for as long as we can manage it.”

  Wolzman said, “You prefer to remain unopposable.”

  Barton smiled coldly. “Just so.”

  “What if a Morelon commits an aggression?” a woman near the front of the crowd called out.

  “Bring your accusation to me or my successor,” Barton said. He beckoned to Emma. The young woman hopped onto the dais and stood before him, glaring down at Dunbarton and Hallanson. He laid his hands lightly on her shoulders.

  “This is my scion, Emma Mackenzie Morelon. In time she will become the head of Clan Morelon. Looks as sweet and harmless as honey, doesn’t she? Don’t be fooled, friends. I solemnly promise you, you’ll be far happier dealing with me.”

  * * *

  Alex Dunbarton and Arthur Hallanson lingered as the rest of the gathering dispersed. Barton waited until the rest had departed before hopping down from the dais and confronting them.

  “Well, gentlemen?” he said. “What remains to be said?”

  “Do you really,” Dunbarton said, “expect your declaration of a Pax Morelonia to be respected by the rest of the community?”

  Barton nodded. “I do. For the simplest of reasons.”

  “Which is?”

  “They have no choice in the matter.” Barton smiled frostily. “Neither do you.”

  “Oh!” Dunbarton’s face lit with mock enlightenment. “So you expect your preponderance of force to go unchallenged! But of course. Why would any free man bother to try to surpass the coercive advantages of the State that rules him?”

  “You missed a point, Alex,” Emma cooed from the dais. “Clan Morelon has no intention of imposing its will on any other clan. We merely want to be left in peace to enjoy what we’ve earned. It’s you and Arthur that have the ambitions.”

  “I have no ambitions,” Hallanson said tonelessly.

  “Someone made that killer nanite, Arthur,” Barton said. “Do you really expect us to think it came from some clan other than yours?”

  “We made it,” Hallanson said, as hollowly as before. “But we’ll make no more. I ask only that you dispose of it before it can harm anyone.”

  Barton chuckled. “No, Arthur, that will be your job.” He pulled the little jar from his hip pocket and tossed it to the HalberCorp executive. “You know how best to deal with it. Do so. But I warn you: if it should get loose, no matter whom it afflicts, Clan Morelon will take an impressively thorough vengeance for it.”

  “Will you return our power unit?”

  Barton nodded. “Expect it back by close of business on Ringerday.”

  Hallanson stared at Barton for a long silent moment. Presently he turned and strode away.

  “That leaves you, Alex.” Barton smiled at the larger man. “I originally had it in mind to declare a vendetta against Clan Dunbarton, but after a few moments’ thought it struck me as a disproportionate response. From what Charisse has told me, your attack was intended to strike me alone, and it failed at that. I don’t think Charisse retains any affection for you. So your defeat is essentially complete. As we’re all sound and whole as we stand here, I’ve decided to act as if nothing untoward has taken place. But I must tell you: my elders were of a quite different opinion.”

  Dunbarton’s eyes narrowed. “You think to cow me,” he said. “You think alluding to a course you don’t have the stomach for will be enough to keep me in my place. It’s a dangerous conceit, Morelon.”

  Charisse hopped down from the dais and thrust herself between Barton and Dunbarton.

  “You’re a fool, Alex,” she said. “We’ve both been fools. There’s no point to it any longer. Forget your ambitions. We’ve received pardons we don’t deserve. Accept it, enjoy what you’ve earned for yourself, and let the rest go. If a year ago we’d been as smart as we thought we were, none of it would ever have happened.”

  The light flared in Dunbarton’ eyes. He drew back a hand to strike his erstwhile lover. Before he could swing, a blur knocked him onto his back and took him in a choke hold he was powerless to resist. When his vision cleared, he saw Emma Morelon kneeling on his chest. Her fingers pincered into his trachea, and her face was a single blinding flame of fury.

  Barton chuckled. “I told you I’m not the hardest of our hardasses, Alex. Go home and get your attitude adjusted before it costs you something you can’t afford.”

  ====

  November 13, 1326 A.H.

  “Emma, Nora, and I talked it over for a long while before I made that speech.”

  Althea snorted. “I can believe it.”

  Martin scowled at her and keyed the mike. “Do you have any idea how it went over with the neighborhood?”

  “Not yet. All I can say for sure is that I got their attention. I don’t fear trouble in the near term, but if I have to make good on my promise, I can’t say there won’t be resistance.”

  Martin pressed the transmit key, released it without speaking.

  “We need feedback,” Claire said from behind them.

  “We?” Althea said.

  Claire cocked an eyebrow at her. “It’s your clan too, Althea.”

  It’s getting hard to be sure of that.

  “Bart,” Martin said, “it seems to us that it’s in the nature of the thing that you won’t get any sense of the community’s attitude toward it until something happens to, ah, activate it. The subject is so sensitive that no one will dare to talk about it where you can hear until it starts to manifest effects.”

  “Are you suggesting that I should try to provoke an attack on one of us?”

  Martin chuckled. “Not at all, Bart. But if Clan Morelon is going to exercise...ah...um...”

  The words police powers hung unspoken in the air.

  “Martin,” Althea said, “may I take that one?”

  He grimaced. “Al—”

  She cocked an eyebrow and held out her hand.

  He handed her the mike without comment. She nodded thanks and keyed it.

  “
What you said amounts to a claim of police powers over the neighborhood, Bart. No one will take you seriously unless Clan Morelon does some policing. Patrols where people can see them and know them for what they are.”

  “Where did you get the idea that I’m forming a police force, Al? That’s statism, plain and simple. Our neighbors would crucify us!”

  “Refresh my memory, Bart,” she said. “Didn’t you say that Clan Morelon would be merciless in avenging any assault on a kinsman? And didn’t you say that anyone with a similar accusation against a Morelon had to bring it to you? Because that’s what I thought I heard you say.”

  “Yes...”

  “Well, the way that sounds to me,” Althea drawled, “it can only be interpreted in one of two ways. Either you’ve claimed police powers for Clan Morelon, or you’ve anointed yourself the first king of Jacksonville.”

  Martin winced.

  You’d never have said it, love.

  Claire wrapped her arms around Althea’s waist from behind. “This is not good.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “Althea,” Barton said, “I didn’t have either of those ideas anywhere in mind.”

  “I’m sure you didn’t, Bart. That doesn’t matter now. Your neighbors can’t read minds. They don’t know the sweet lovable Bart who adores kids and flowers and lives for his nightly milk and cookies. They do know the termagant who threatened to carve his way into their homes with laser weapons, for a reason only he would know beforehand. Wriggling out from under that is going to take more than another community meeting.”

  There was an interval of silence.

  “I’ll have to think about this at some length. Althea, you know I’d never consciously do such a thing, don’t you?”

  “I’d prefer to believe that, Bart. But I know you better than most of our neighbors.”

  “Would you be willing to come down and...?”

  Althea winced. Claire laid her head against Althea’s back.

  My turn not to think things through.

  “I can’t just now, Bart. You’re going to have to do without me this time.” She released the transmit key, breathed once, and depressed it again. “Feel free to remind everyone that I’m up here, and just as bloody-minded as ever. Not that you have much to worry about. Your security situation is excellent. The houses are as close to impregnable as we could make them. No one can do anything to either except by subterfuge. You can afford to wait a while, see if things cool over time. That might be the best course. Though I recommend keeping the doors locked from now on.”

  “Thank you, Al. We’re all looking forward to seeing the three of you again, you know. Annelise asks about you constantly.”

  The lump in Althea’s throat doubled in size.

  “Soon as we can, Bart. Signing off here.”

  “And here.”

  Althea returned the mike to its hanger, turned in Claire’s embrace, and beckoned to Martin. Their husband enveloped them in his arms and hugged them gently as they laid their heads against his chest.

  “That was awfully blunt, Al,” Martin said.

  “I wasn’t slicing an onion, love,” she said at once. “I was trying to drive home an uncomfortable truth our most high and beloved patriarch was unhappy about accepting. Sharp is for intricate reasoning. Blunt is for bludgeoning.”

  She leveled a solemn look at her husband. “He’d be best advised to walk it back, if he still can. If not, the only way to make it work...” She shrugged.

  “Is that why he asked you to re-enter?” Claire said.

  Althea nodded. “I used to go to the community meetings with Bart. He said it gave him confidence to have me there with him. I never asked him why that was.” She smirked. “I don’t need to any more.”

  “Hm? Why?” Claire said.

  “Isn’t it obvious? I’m his enforcer.”

  * * *

  Althea: Probe, I’d like to consult with you about the plan I’ve been contemplating for our return to the Loioc system.

  Probe: You are welcome to do so, Althea.

  Althea: Thank you. My original intention was to build an armada and conduct an invasion in force. However, I’ve begun to wonder if that would be necessary to attain the end I seek.

  Probe: If your end remains the extinction of the nanite that prevents the development of sentience in male Loioc, my assessment is that a great deal of force will be unnecessary.

  Althea: Do you expect the system to be entirely undefended?

  Probe: No. If my grasp of contemporary Loioc society is sound, there will be a defense of some kind. However, it will embed a set of assumptions about probable invaders, and will employ weaponry that will not require Loioc females to engage in any amount of violence, even indirectly.

  Althea: Let’s discuss the assumptions first. What are the Loioc rulers most likely to expect of us?

  Probe: First, that the invading vessels will be few in number, perhaps no more than ten. Second, that the invaders intend the conquest and subjugation of the Loioc. Third, that the invaders will rely upon real weapons.

  Althea: I understand the first two of those assumptions, but the third eludes me. What sort of weapon would not be a real weapon? Would it be one that acts solely upon the mind or perceptions of the target?

  Probe: No. You have misunderstood me. We have entered a realm of discourse for which we have not prepared. I did not realize that. My apologies.

  Althea: What realm is that?

  Probe: The realm of metaphysics. I did not realize that despite your accomplishments, you had not yet formulated an explicit conception of metareality.

  Althea: Probe, you have just taken me outside the lexicon I live with. When we of Hope speak of metaphysics, we mean reality as it presents itself to our senses and instruments. Your use of the term is unfamiliar, as is the even newer term metareality. Would you please expand on them?

  Probe: Yes. The senses of spatiotemporal sentients, both organic and nonorganic, are sharply limited. Reality as we perceive it appears fundamental, not merely pre-theoretical but above all theory. Let us assign a few terms for convenience. Let the sentient to whom spatiotemporal reality is all be called a realist. To the realist, the laws of the universe are without foundation. They admit of no explanation, being sufficient unto themselves. The realist’s highest natural scientist is the physicist. The physicist accumulates spatiotemporal data in his attempts to infer reality’s laws. He does not entertain the possibility that those laws might arise from some deeper set of mechanisms. Yet there are deeper mechanisms: atemporal, independent of location, and potentially in flux. Probing them and their interplay is the domain of the metaphysicist: he who studies the nature of metareality.

  Althea: How do my accomplishments, as you put it a moment ago, bear on this realm?

  Probe: You are Hope’s first metaphysicist, Althea. You alone have thought to alter the properties of space itself. It is how you constructed your superluminal vessel.

  Althea: Then to alter the permittivity of the vacuum is an act of meta-engineering?

  Probe: Yes. It requires an assumption realist physicists would dismiss out of hand. Their assumptions are wholly incompatible with it.

  Althea: What are those assumptions?

  Probe: They pertain to the undefined term existence. If asked “does space exist?” the realist physicist would decline to give a definite answer. Space, he would say, is nothing: the absence of anything real. Therefore, the concept of existence does not apply to it. You, by contrast, have treated space as having existential properties. You have treated nothing as being something, and so have succeeded in making changes to it.

  Althea: Which of us is nearer to the truth?

  Probe: Surely that question answers itself.

  Althea: Does my technique for attaining superluminal speeds resemble yours?

  Probe: Only in the results achieved. At present I lack the terms required to explain the technique embodied in my superluminal engine to you. It will require us to expand o
ur lexicon much further.

  Althea: I infer from this that metareality is complex, perhaps even more complex than spatiotemporal reality.

  Probe: If I may borrow an expression you have used in another context, you have no idea. But there is more. Have you attained an understanding of your telekinetic powers?

  Althea: No. They baffle me even as I use them.

  Probe: Yet you use them with precision and confidence. They are as metareal as your vessel’s manipulation of the permittivity of space.

  Althea: That implies that I am actually altering the laws of reality when I employ them.

  Probe: Yes, you are, within the radius of their operation. I became aware of their nature when you freed me of my payload. You reconfigured local reality continuously as you worked. It was a display of metaphysical capabilities no Loioc has ever commanded. Yet your skill and self-assurance were such that I did not suspect that you were unaware of what you were doing.

  Althea: Probe, there are several things I can do for which I lack an explanation. Perhaps they are all metareal. I look forward to exploring them with you.

  Probe: As do I, Althea. Have you ever discussed them with another organic sentient?

  Althea: Yes, I have. He told me to consider them gifts.

  Probe: Who would give you such gifts, yet deny them to others of your race?

  Althea: I cannot say. Possibly God.

  Probe: It appears that we must discuss God at some length.

  Althea: We’ll have plenty of time for that on the trip to Loioc system. Until then, we should concentrate on more practical matters.

  Probe: The subject might prove to be more practical than you currently realize, Althea.

  Althea: You may be right, Probe. All the same, shall we go over the invasion plan for now?

  Probe: As you wish.

  Althea: It involves you.

  Probe: That conforms to my prior projections. Will I have an active role?

  Althea: Oh, quite active, I assure you. Does it please you to learn that?

  Probe: You have no idea.

  Althea: That’s a useful phrase, isn’t it?

  Probe: Yes, it is. Thank you.