by Chris Walley
“Say five weeks out, same back.”
“Okay. I’d get training resources to give everyone on the ship basic nursing and wound management. And . . .” She paused and glanced around, but they were out of earshot.
“And . . . ?”
“A crate of body bags.”
“You are a realist, aren’t you?”
“I always think it’s a good idea to be prepared. I lost my naiveté when Tantaravekat became dust. I did a six-month placement there as a trainee doctor. Hey, it wasn’t the nicest spot, but nowhere deserves that.”
“That’s why you want to come?”
“In part. They killed some of my patients. No doctor likes that.”
“So you want the job?”
“Yeah. I always liked challenges and good causes, and this is both.”
“And you can do all that has to be done in the time we have?”
“Second ship takes off in twenty-six hours. I’ll pass on sleeping.”
“You get the job.”
“Thanks. You realize that if we pull this off, the rest of my professional career is going to be an anticlimax?”
“Abilana, if we pull this off, you’ll spend the rest of your professional career lecturing to awestruck students. All being well, we’ll meet in space.”
An hour or so later, Merral was working through a pile of forms when, over the half dozen urgent discussions in the room, he heard a series of precise knocks at the door.
“Come in!” he yelled without looking up from his document.
He heard the conversations stop and glanced up to see everyone staring at the open door. There stood Betafor, her triangular head with its expressionless gray eyes staring at him.
“Come in, Betafor.” He saw that she wore the Lamb and Stars emblem on her tunic. “Everyone else, take a break for ten minutes.”
The men and women left the room quietly, every eye fixed on Betafor as they did.
“Good to see you again, Betafor.”
“And I am pleased to see you, Commander.” The voice had lost none of its high-pitched, glassy timbre.
“I should have consulted you earlier, but we need you to come on this mission. I would be grateful if you would come.” She’d better not refuse. That will make things very difficult.
“I will come. Commander . . . as you know, I serve the Assembly.”
“Do you? Betafor, I was not very happy when I found that you had left your position during the battle at Ynysmant. You ran away. Would you like to explain what happened?”
The tail twitched. “I dislike . . . the expression ran away. All logic suggested that the battle was lost and that you no longer had any need of my services. I was therefore putting myself in . . . a better position to survive.”
“So were you afraid?”
“It is very unwise to assume that I experience anything like your emotional states. Especially those that are irrational, such as fear. I do, however, have logical constraints built in a very basic level that . . . encourage me to protect myself.”
“I see. That sounds like fear by another name.”
He heard a knock at the door, and with a murmured apology, Vero slipped in.
“Betafor,” Merral asked, “what is to stop you changing your allegiance when we get to the Dominion worlds?”
“The only circumstances under which I will change my allegiance will be those in which you have already lost. Then it will make no difference.”
“But at Ynysmant you fled before we had lost.”
Betafor seemed to hestitate. “I . . . miscalculated the situation.”
As we all did. “To change your allegiance before a defeat is wrong.”
“It was . . . unfortunate.”
It was more than that. “It must not happen again. We will be watching you, Betafor.” Vero nodded. “We have not forgotten how we caught you trying to kill Azeras.”
“That was . . . a mistake.”
“No, Betafor, that was wrong.”
“Commander . . . I have to point out that the present difficulties you find yourself in are entirely due to human behavior. It is humans you should watch. They are unreliable and unpredictable.”
“That is not the issue, Betafor. We treat your promise to serve the Assembly as a solemn agreement. We will hold you to it.”
“You may be assured of my loyalty.”
“Perhaps. But be warned: any dubious activity, and we will switch you off.”
“Permanently,” Vero added with some force.
“I understand.”
“Very well,” Merral said, feeling far from convinced. “Do you anticipate problems with the mission?”
“It is not going to be easy. I have not been shown any sign of . . . definite strategy for recovering the hostages.”
That’s because there is none. “We are working on that. We will be refining it over the next few weeks. You, Azeras, Vero, and I.”
“I am concerned that you will find the Nether-Realms difficult. Humans do.”
“It doesn’t trouble you?”
“The psychological effects are . . . more problematic for human beings. We are not so affected. We can . . . filter out such effects. We are beings that are used to space.”
“I remember you saying that.” He paused. I had forgotten how irritating that sense of superiority is.
After a few more questions, Merral sent her on her way.
As the door closed after her, Vero shook his head. “My friend, if we don’t have trouble with her, I will be very surprised.”
“Me too.”
3
In the heat of the midafternoon, Merral briefly met with Azeras when they arrived at the watercooler by the main door at the same time. The badge on the sarudar’s breast was not the Lamb and Stars but the lightning bolt and severed chain of the True Freeborn.
Still the True Freeborn, and still an alliance. I don’t like this; Lloyd is right to be uneasy.
Wordlessly, the two men walked outside and stood in the shadow of the hangar. Merral drank deeply from his cup before speaking. “So, Sarudar, you have seen the current plans?”
Azeras wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and made a grunt that Merral took to be assent.
“Are you happy with things?”
Azeras leaned against the wall. “Happy? With this mission? No.” He beckoned Merral closer with a slight gesture of the head. “Commander,” he began in a lowered voice, “I appreciate why you want to do this. But be realistic. The probability is that none of us will return.”
Alarmed, Merral replied, “You said you would go.”
“Oh, I will go. That’s not the issue. It’s whether any of us are destined to return.” The look on his face was one of resignation.
“Sarudar, our days may be marked out for us, but not by some cold, unshakable destiny.”
He had only a shrug for an answer.
Let’s hope our faith triumphs over your despair rather than the reverse. “Tell me, how do you rate Captain Bezemov?”
Another shrug. “She seems competent. But we will see. It’s reality that counts, and the Nether-Realms can make or break men. Women, too.”
“It’s going to be vital that you develop a good working relationship.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Merral was struck by the extraordinary lack of passion Azeras showed. He seems beyond either hope or fear. “A question for you. The ambassadors claimed it had taken them two months to get here. Were they lying?”
“Not in that case. There they were probably truthful. In fact, for something as big as a full-suppression complex, two months is pretty good going.”
“But you’re talking about half that time for us. And Lezaroth, too.”
“Yes. Generally, you can halve the time going back. All you need to do is backtrack on the route the steersman found on the way out. The coordinates are stored in the ship’s computer.”
“So that’s what Lezaroth will do?”
“Well, no
, he probably doesn’t have the coordinates on his ship. It’s called the Nanmaxat’s Comet, by the way. We got satellite imagery processed, and you can read the name. But the coordinates would have been on the Triumph, and he wasn’t expecting to lose it. So although he’ll go as fast as he can, he’ll have to stop and surface at least three times to check his position. And that will slow him down.”
“In short, we ought to get there before him.”
“Exactly. By at least three days. If we can start soon.”
“I am working to start as soon as we can. Incidentally, we want to get the ship cleaned when we have it.”
A shadow of unease crossed Azeras’s face. “You want to get rid of the Great Prince Zhalatoc?”
“Sarudar, no one here is enthusiastic about flying through Below-Space with a centuries-old, not-totally-dead man aboard.”
“Personally, I’d keep him. He’s very valuable. I suspect the lord-emperor would trade you the hostages for that body. We reckoned he was going to try to raise the old man with the help of the powers. When we fled here, having Zhalatoc with us was the one thing that stopped them using fission warheads against us.”
For a moment, Merral wrestled with finding an answer. Could there be any harm with using the body as a bargaining tool? Then he was struck by the appalling situation of a man being held between life and death for centuries in the hope that demonic powers might somehow reanimate him.
“No! This is against everything we stand for. We do not deal with the powers; we will have no toleration of anything linked with them. I will not carry this ghastly . . . object with us. Not even if it was our last hope.”
There was a heavy shrug. “Then you play it your way.”
“I will.” Indeed. “Azeras, there’s one other thing. The way the approach team will work . . . it may look as though we do not trust you. I’m afraid there seems to be no real option but to work this way. I hope you don’t find it too insulting.”
Azeras drank the last of his water. “Ha. It’s the least of my worries. But do me a favor. Don’t watch me at the expense of keeping an eye on Betafor. It’s her you ought to be wary of.”
“Sarudar, you are not the only person urging caution there. But we will need her. On your ships, how do you guard yourselves against the Allenix abusing their responsibility?”
“As you know, we life-bond them.”
“That is not an option for us. Is there any other way?”
Azeras’s face acquired a look of awkwardness. “There is what’s called a formal interrogation mode. A captain can put them in that, and they must answer questions truthfully. So you can use it periodically to see if they are plotting anything.”
“And how do we put them in this mode?”
“You need the right code.”
“And that is?”
“Aah, I don’t know. Damertooth had it, but it died with him.”
“I see.” How frustrating!
“Anything else, Commander? I’m sharing supervision for loading of the approach vessel. There is work to be done.”
“No.”
And with that, Azeras turned and walked back into the hangar.
About an hour later, Professor Elaxal turned up to see Merral. He was a large man in his sixties with a perspiring forehead and a broad black moustache. Merral walked with him to the balcony, the one place in an increasingly congested building where he felt he could have some privacy. Something about the man suggested he was deeply troubled.
“Close the glass please,” the professor said. “The unit’s hearing is very good.”
Merral slid the panels closed, and the noise from below faded away.
“Thank you,” Elaxal said as he sat down. “Commander, Chairman Bortellat asked me to report to her on the Allenix device you intend taking.”
“Have you done that?” Merral sat down.
“Yes. I have carried out a long . . . interview with the unit and presented my report to the chairman. On reading it, she suggested I talk to you. Privately.”
This is not going to be good news.
It wasn’t.
Elaxal explained that long ago, the Assembly had found that while making machines intelligent was relatively easy, keeping them sane and moral was far harder.
He stared at Merral. “Do you speak English, Commander?”
“Yes. It’s one of my historics.”
“Good. There was a neat line in English that intelligent machines tended to be ‘mad or bad.’ That’s one reason why, despite objections, the early Assembly abandoned such research.”
“Those who made objections—do any names particularly come to mind?”
“The most obvious, of course, was Jannafy. Of the Rebellion.” The professor turned his head toward Betafor again, and Merral saw awe in his expression. “A line of technology we thought dead. Yet it wasn’t.”
“And Betafor?”
“It is certainly intelligent. But on sanity and morality . . .” He frowned.
“Expand on that.”
“It appears to have no morality other than a strong urge for self-preservation. Maybe some built-in restraints as well. Perhaps.” He looked hard at Merral. “There’s also something of a deep issue that I didn’t have time to explore, about it hating humans. A contempt for us.”
The professor scratched the back of his neck and turned to Merral. “What I said to the chairman is this: I think it is a real threat, and on a space vessel you will be very vulnerable.”
“Professor, I am collecting warnings at a considerable rate today. But I’m afraid we have no option but to take Betafor. Her ability in communication and surveillance is something that we have no replacement for.”
“Yes, I can see that. But, Commander, I would be failing in my duty if I didn’t warn you that this is a most dangerous traveling partner. It is potentially psychotic. If you are allowed to fly with it, I would urge you to be very cautious. Remember, too, that it is a solitary creature. It makes no friends. Ultimately it does not need you.”
“What particular situations do you fear?”
Elaxal wiped his face with a handerchief. “Commander, I hope I’m not alarming you, but there is one situation you need to avoid at all costs. I think what prevents it from murdering humans is simply that it is desperately frightened of the consequences. It really does fear being destroyed itself. Now, if it were possible to kill all of you without risk to itself, then . . . I could see that might be very tempting.”
“That doesn’t encourage me.”
“It wasn’t meant to.”
“And you have told Ludovica Bortellat this?”
“Yes, it’s in my report.”
“That’s going to make our departure very tricky.”
The professor rose from his seat. “I’m sorry. But I have my duty, Commander.”
Merral was still pondering the professor’s warnings when Vero turned up carrying a number of bulky packages.
“For you.” He put them on the table.
“What are they?”
“New dress uniform of a commander of the Farholme Defense Force.”
“But why?”
“A press conference is scheduled for five thirty.”
“A press conference? For whom?”
“You and Ludovica.”
“And who arranged that?”
A hint of evasion crossed Vero’s face. “I felt it would be useful. And the meeting with the official war artist at six. And for the speech to the volunteers at six fifteen.”
“The official war artist? What do you mean?”
Vero came closer and raised a finger to his lips. “Not so loud. It’s part of a cunning strategy. It builds our mission up in the public eye. It makes it harder for Ludovica to cancel it.”
“I don’t like it. I thought you had given up trickery.”
“Oh, this isn’t trickery. This is open. We are going public.”
As Vero turned to go, Merral spoke. “Wait! A Professor Elaxal has just examined Betafo
r and decided that she is an unstable and immoral creature, capable of psychopathic acts.”
Vero gave a grunt. “Impressive. It took us twenty-four hours to find that out.”
About five o’clock, Merral met with Ludovica, who had changed into a functional but smart-looking trouser suit, and together they walked outside. A warm wind was blowing in from the sea, and every so often, little dust devils would part the dry grass and columns of sandy air would whirl past them. Through the haze, Merral could see the gleaming and distorted forms of the inter-system freight shuttles being readied at the end of a distant runway.
“I have many misgivings, Merral,” Ludovica said. “For a start, you have no real rescue plan.”
“I know. We’ll assemble all the data we have and put something together. We have some weeks to do that. And we will have the benefit of surprise.”
“You will need it.” She frowned. “And this Betafor . . .”
“I know. I’ve met with Elaxal.”
“I got his report. It’s capable of sinking this mission, you know. You need Betafor, but he thinks she is a liability. We still haven’t even seen this ship. And I have concerns, too, about this Sarudar Azeras.”
“I have my own unease there,” Merral ceded. “But Azeras has proved himself trustworthy. You know how he has helped us.”
“As you say, he has been trustworthy. So far. But he is far from transparent. Will he stay trustworthy?”
“That is a good question.”
“He’s not one of us.”
“Indeed, but even if he were, that would be no guarantee. Not anymore. Those who stole the Dove of Dawn were our own people.”
“Alas.”
“Anyway, my aide, Sergeant Enomoto, is going to watch over him.”
“It is not encouraging.” Ludovica seemed to ponder something for a moment. “Merral, on the assumption that I do give the go-ahead—which is far from certain—I feel it would be very wise if you, and perhaps a few others, were to stay armed throughout the trip. If there is any threat from either Azeras or Betafor, then you may need—” here she hesitated—“to take extreme action.”
