Indeed, once he stopped to rehydrate at a just too perfectly positioned pool under a just slightly too symmetrical set of parasol trees, it was not long before Fendob staggered up, sank to her hands and knees, and dunked her head into the pool to cool off. Once she was ready, she crawled over to where he crouched beneath a parasol tree and plunked herself down next to him, leaning against his downy flank. He wrapped a wing around her hirsute shoulders, glad it was useful for that, at least.
“I do not know what to do, my Hands,” he said to her, not expecting a reply. “I had hoped to find answers here, but they are more elusive than yurhaath with newborn chicks.”
The Federation ambassador and Captain Reed had both made eloquent cases for their proposal to experiment with the Ware, to attempt to modify its construction and programming and create a substitute for the living brains it now required. For all Rinheith knew, they had the technology to achieve it. After all, the Partnership had no science or engineering knowledge beyond what the Ware itself had given them, so few within it could assess what technical skills other civilizations might have. On the other hand, as Tefcem var Skos had pointed out during the Senior Partners’ assembly, other advanced races like the Manochai had failed to reprogram the Ware, resorting instead to raw destruction. But Rinheith wondered if that had been more a matter of will than knowledge. The Federation representatives, as difficult as it was to believe in the wake of sh’Prenni’s crime against Etrafso, appeared genuinely reluctant to accept brute force as a solution. Had others merely given up too soon?
Yet how could he even contemplate making such a change to the source of the Partnership’s bounty, the key to its very existence? Did others have the right to demand that the Partnership change what it was in order to satisfy their convenience?
Rinheith shook his neck and wings in frustration. “You know, I really thought Tefcem would be the deciding vote. He hates the Starfleet people so much for what they did to Etrafso. I thought he would tip the scales against this mad plan.” Fendob looked up at him with a question in her big, dewy eyes. “I had forgotten that he merely speaks for Wylbet. I wonder if he argued with her—in private, of course. I wonder if it’s even possible for an Enlesri undermate to challenge his overmate. I never would have considered the possibility until I saw how much Tefcem hated relaying Wylbet’s wishes.” Naturally, no one had ever heard a female Enlesri speak except through one of her undermates. Their males were the only ones with vocal cords. Rinheith wasn’t even sure how the Enlesri’s silent communication worked. He could probably ask the Ware to show him their medical data, but he doubted he would understand the information.
“Etrafso. Better,” Fendob said.
“Yes, I suppose. The Tyrellians have been most generous. Obtaining the technology we need without having to volunteer our brains and bodies in service . . . I can see the allure.” He shuddered. Fendob tensed in concern, laying solicitous hands on him, peering at him with a clinician’s gaze. Rinheith chuckled. “I am well, pretty lady. Merely a memory.” His beak mandibles clacked together with tension. “Volunteering . . . it is an ordeal. It took something from me that I am not sure I will ever get back. And not only the loss of your father, my dear Hands. Something deeper, inside me. The cost is more than we like to speak of, for we have never had a choice but to accept it.
“And yet . . . now we may have a choice. Naturally that would make us question—and wonder.”
“Armada,” Fendob pointed out.
“Yes, I saw how Captain Garaver’s words affected the assembly. Perhaps she was sincere about the Silver Armada ending its attacks if the Ware no longer posed a threat to them. Perhaps no one would try to attack us anymore simply for using the Ware. It could make us safer.” He clacked his beak again. “But I do not like the idea of making such a decision on the basis of fear. It felt as if they were threatening us to change our ways or face retribution.” He hesitated. “Perhaps that is unfair to Garaver. She sounded sincere. But it was the implication, whether she realized it or not.”
Needing to pace, Rinheith rose, gesturing to Fendob that she need not follow. He raised his voice so she could hear him as he circled the small pond. “But what would we be giving up? These aliens—their technology is not as advanced, nor as versatile as the Ware. They have no experience with the needs of Nierl or Xavoth or Krutuvub. They do not even have matter replication.”
“Ware. Fix.”
“Yes, of course, my dear. If they do reprogram the Ware, it would still provide all the same benefits—or so they say. But they are beneath its level. Who is to say their computers will be as advanced as the ones they claim the Ware originally had? Without living brains to enhance it, how much less flexible and powerful will the Ware become? Is it worth sacrificing our standard of living to end volunteer service? Yes, that would spare some few of us a traumatic experience, maybe even spare a tinier few from brain damage or death. But it would diminish the benefits of civilization for all of us. Is it right to ask all to get by with less so that a few may be spared?
“Because Partner Chouerd is right,” he said, evoking the Nierl Senior Partner who had spoken so eloquently in the debate that had provoked his run. “The sacrifice that we make as volunteers reminds us of our obligation to place the greater good above our own convenience. If we could have everything we wanted without cost, without personal hardship, how would we appreciate the value of what we gain from the Ware? How would we recognize the importance of the community and our commitments to it? We are Partners. That cooperation is core to our very identity!” He caught the inquisitive look in Fendob’s eyes and stopped pacing, holding her gaze. “Yes. Yes, sweet one, that is what I believe. I have to.”
She clapped a hand against her chest. “Partner.”
“Yes, Partner Sorbod’s vote surprised me.” The Monsof Senior Partner usually followed Rinheith’s lead, but in this case, Sorbod had unhesitatingly indicated his support for Jahlet and Reed’s proposal to modify the Ware. “Surely if anyone appreciates the value of service and submission, it is your people. You have always been loyal and giving beyond measure.”
Fendob stood and placed herself before him with a few long-legged strides. She reached out her hands before her, palms raised and cupped helpfully. “Service,” she said, smiling warmly and nodding.
Then her body language changed. Her arms fell limply to her sides. She slumped, shoulders sagging and head lolling, and her eyes closed. And yet her pose was rigid, tense, as if confined and afraid. He recognized the essence of her pose, feeling it on the level of visceral memory, even before she said “Volunteer” in a tone of profound dismay.
Finally, she reached out to Rinheith, stroked his head in sympathy, and said “Volunteer” once more with tears in her eyes.
He stared at her for a long time. “I never realized,” he said at last. “Oh, I have been such a fool. What would I do without your wisdom?” He nodded. “You are right. They are not the same thing at all. There must be a better way. I will break the tie. Starfleet will have their chance to change the Ware.”
Fendob hugged him tightly, and he returned it as best he could. Then, as he always did at the end of these runs, he let his weary Hands climb on his back and carried her all the way back to the city.
October 6, 2165
Daskel Vabion and Willem Abramson had hit it off with disquieting ease, in Travis Mayweather’s view, once the latter had been brought into the engineering team’s discussions over subspace relay. Abramson was one of the greatest technological geniuses of the Federation, a pioneer in prototype robotic technologies that had the potential to revolutionize civilization. The idea that Vabion’s intelligence was sufficient to impress him made Mayweather sick to his stomach. When he’d said as much to Charles Tucker, the engineer had shaken his red-bearded head and replied, “Travis, you don’t know the hundredth of it.”
Still, Abramson’s input had paid off, and his experimental bioneura
l circuitry did seem to have the potential to do everything Olivia Akomo had promised. Akomo and her team had not brought any of the valuable experimental compound with them on the mission, but she proposed that the Ware could replicate the substance as long as it had the molecular pattern data uploaded into it. At first, that had seemed unlikely, given that the Ware’s replication systems were incapable of synthesizing living tissue. But Vabion had concluded that the problem was one of resolution. Although the replicator mechanism was based on the transporter principle, it needed to process data at a lower, less memory-intensive resolution in order to store the patterns of countless different foodstuffs, instruments, and the like. This introduced assembly errors sufficient to prevent the intricate processes of life and consciousness from operating, like a more drastic version of the subtle reassembly errors that had led to Federation transporter technology being declared unsafe for routine use.
However, since a transporter only needed to store a pattern temporarily, it could operate at sufficient resolution to record the detailed quantum state of every particle and thereby reassemble a viable living organism. The Ware’s transporters did so with even greater fidelity than the Federation model. Vabion had thus proposed interfacing the Ware’s replicator and transporter systems, using the latter in place of the assembly systems of the former and thus allowing the replication of viable, live bioneural tissues. The method would not be able to reproduce an entire living being, but the bioneural circuits were simple enough synthetics that Abramson agreed the principle was sound. Impressed by Vabion’s ingenuity, and prompted by urging from his apprentice Akomo, the gray-haired industrialist had reluctantly consented to share his proprietary data—though only after getting a guarantee from the Partnership that he would be paid royalties for every use of the pattern.
Still, the bioneural circuitry was just the raw material. Tucker’s team would need to design a mechanism that would integrate into a Ware data core in place of a living brain, as well as a delivery system to enable its spread throughout the Ware network.
And that was why Mayweather was here on Cotesc alongside Captain Reed, attempting to convince the Senior Partners to reconsider their refusal to release Hari Banerji. “This is absurd,” Tefcem var Skos complained. “We have already convinced the judicial council to delay the Vol’Rala crew’s trial to allow you time to familiarize yourselves with Partnership law and custom and to negotiate a diplomatic agreement. Now you ask us to intervene once again and have one of the defendants released?”
“You already agreed to release Vabion in exchange for his help,” Reed countered.
“Vabion left us with no choice. His freedom was the price for his protection—from you.”
Mayweather spoke up. “This could protect you, too,” he said. “Our engineers have an idea for a way to unify the conversion process—not only use the Ware to replicate the bioneural replacement circuitry, but to program it to automatically install those circuits and remove the sleepers all at once. Commander Banerji’s the one who devised the means to interface remotely with the data cores and override their commands. We need his expertise.”
“Why?” asked Chouerd, the Nierl Senior Partner, from within the hovering environmental capsule it occupied. “We already have the ability to enter the cores and awaken the sleepers. We do not need such an indulgence.”
“But others don’t have that ability,” Mayweather went on. “Other nations out there still fear the Ware, and they’re a threat to you because of it. If we can find a solution that works for them as well as you, one that makes the Ware harmless and useful for everyone, then their danger to you would be over. And wouldn’t that be a far better form of protection that hiring a bunch of Klingon mercenaries?”
Rinheith and others seemed swayed, but var Skos still resisted. “You demand too many indulgences. We have already given you license to conduct your experiments on the Etrafsoan Ware, in exchange for your commitment to reactivate it. You have yet to deliver on that promise.”
“Because we can’t,” Reed told him, “without putting living people in there. We know you have volunteers ready and waiting, but we just aren’t ethically comfortable with using people in that way. Especially when we’re so close to finding a better alternative.”
After giving Reed a querying look and getting a subtle nod in return, Mayweather stepped closer to the wide, curved table that the Senior Partners sat (or floated) around. “I understand that you have reason to resent Banerji, and sh’Prenni, and the others. I know resentment. Vabion and I have a history. He kidnapped me and my friends, threatened the life of a woman I cared about to force me to cooperate, and made me relive one of the most frightening experiences of my life by putting me back into the Ware against my will. And he did all that deliberately, purely for his personal gain. But I’m willing to put that aside and work with him now, because we need his skills to make this happen. And,” he confessed, “because I’m willing to believe that maybe, just maybe, his discovery of the truth about the Ware has changed him, given him a chance at repentance.
“Hari Banerji, on the other hand, is a man who was only trying to help you—who made a mistake because he didn’t understand the situation. I know he’d want nothing more than to make amends for that—not because he’ll get something from you in return, but because it’s the right thing to do. Why not give him that chance?”
The Partners deliberated, and finally cast their votes in the affirmative. “We will intervene on Doctor Banerji’s behalf,” Rinheith stated. “But our indulgence has its limits. If we do not begin to see positive results from these licenses you have demanded, there will have to be consequences.”
Reed locked eyes with all the Partners in turn (those who had eyes) and spoke with solemn sincerity. “The Federation will not let you down. I promise you that.”
Mayweather suppressed a frown at the captain’s words. He had made a similar promise of his own when this had started, guaranteeing a liberated Menaik that she was safe from the Ware; but he had ultimately been helpless to prevent her recapture. Time and again, the Ware had proven to be a more intractable challenge than anyone had expected. Mayweather only hoped that Reed was not promising more than the Federation could deliver.
October 7, 2165
Partnership border outpost
Lokog finished off his latest stein of replicated bloodwine and tossed it against the boring white wall of the Ware station’s so-called recreation area. “To Gre’thor with K’Vagh and all his nobles,” he growled, not for anywhere near the first time. “They’re no better than the HemQuch. Looking down on me, treating me like their servant, even though they’re as deformed as the rest of us.”
Next to him, Captain Korok gave a warning growl, though it was halfhearted. Korok was HemQuch himself, but he was a commoner like Lokog, a raider and mercenary with no loyalty save profit and no love for the nobility. Lokog suspected that Korok thought himself better than the QuchHa’ who made up the bulk of Lokog’s mercenary fleet, but if so, he had kept it to himself. After all, Korok was the captain who had once let himself be beaten by a group of backward, unarmed deuterium miners on Yeq. That planet had been a rare prize—a planet where gaseous deuterium was concentrated in underground pockets as a decay product of celebium, enabling it to be easily collected and purified, rather than existing in trace quantities that had to be meticulously sifted out of water or interstellar hydrogen. It had been just the thing for those who operated on the fringes and preferred to avoid the normal supply lines. Moreover, the alien miners who had settled there had been placid and easily intimidated into compliance—or so it had seemed until they had somehow developed the backbone and the strategic skills to drive Korok and his men away in humiliating retreat. Korok insisted to this day that some third party must have trained the colonists, but he had never been able to prove it. In the thirteen years since, he had been a laughingstock even among his fellow privateers and outcasts. So he had come along
readily enough when Lokog had put out the call for mercenaries to defend the Partnership’s borders in exchange for the drones now conquering the Empire.
“They forget that they need me,” Lokog went on. “Without my drones, their heads would be trophies on the High Council’s wall by now!”
“High Council, rebels, who cares?” Korok complained. “We’re way out here playing border guards for Ha’DIbaH. The khest’n things don’t even qualify as jeghpu’wI’.”
“Why should you mind?” Lokog countered. “Makes them all the easier to push around. You should appreciate that—they’re just your speed!”
Korok snarled and threw his half-empty stein at Lokog. But he was too drunk to throw straight, and the clean miss wasn’t sufficient provocation to start a fight they were both too drunk to bother with. Instead, the ridge-headed, long-haired Klingon pounded the table and ordered, “More bloodwine!” He only got a warning buzz from the table until he remembered to pull his hand away from the platform on which the new stein materialized. It would have served him right, Lokog thought, if the infernal mechanism had beamed away his hand instead. It would certainly have been funnier.
“Is drinking all you know how to do?” asked the third mercenary in the room. Umplor was a Balduk, a large, canine-featured biped with pitted black skin and a long white mane. He sat alone at his table, due as much to his fierce territorial instincts as to his sheer girth, about equally fat and muscle, which left little room for company. “You’re boring me.”
“That’s exactly the problem,” Korok replied. “It’s boring here. There aren’t even any decent females in this Partnership.”
“There are those hairy ones,” Umplor said. “The big birds’ pets. I like the looks of them.”
The Klingons grimaced. “Little more than apes,” Korok said.
“I asked the birds to give me one,” Lokog admitted, drawing a stare from Korok. “What? I was as bored as you. And I thought they were bred for service, after all. For some reason, the birds said no.” He harumphed. “They’ll use their bodies to power the Ware, sure enough, but for a bit of fun? No!”
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