Carrearranis (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 5)

by S MacDonald

  Now, nineteen years on, holding flag rank and the highest diplomatic status in the League, Alex still felt that thirteen year old self rising up in fury at what had been done to a helpless people and a vulnerable world. It did not help in that, one little bit, that he had since learned, as a spacer, that Mimos was that rarest of treasures, a biosphere which had evolved independently. There were only two such worlds in League space, Mimos and Ferajo. All the others with living biospheres had been found to have identical genetic origins, clearly the result of widespread terraforming. That Mimos’ biosphere was so rare only made the destruction of it even more appalling in Alex’s eyes. He could not even think the word Mimos without an accompanying sense of anger, and of shame, too, that the League was responsible for such an act.

  Now Tan, who’d rapidly become a trusted friend, was actually saying that the Mimos Solution could have been of benefit. It was all Alex could do not to howl.

  ‘How so?’ he managed, tightly and still glaring.

  ‘Well, you know, looking strictly from the legal aspect,’ Tan said, apparently unmoved by Alex’s ferocity, ‘it did cut through a lot of red tape. If you look at the situation the discovery team was in, it bears marked similarity to the one we’re facing now. The provision of primary aid for sanitation and so forth is a given, but beyond that, there is an expectation that development will be funded largely through business investment. Any additional development funding must be voted on by the Senate and is at their discretion, the receiving world has no actual right to it. Nor do they have any rights to a say in League decisions, as an independent world – no vote, no representatives. They have no automatic entry into League membership, but have to apply for it. Even if they are accepted it takes at least a hundred years, under the three generational rule, for a world to progress into full League membership, and during that time they are pretty much dependent on whatever charity the League sees fit to bestow. The Diplomatic Corps is pretty much stymied in that, too – the Ambassador appointed to such a world can only advise them, and in that, is bound to represent primarily the interests of the League and comply with the directives of its government. At such a time, such a world truly is extraordinarily vulnerable. And if you compare that with the position of a world which has been placed under League occupation, you will see the benefits. A League-occupied world has rights, it is not dependent on charity, it has all manner of rights both to funding and representation, as the terms of occupation must always include the forming of a council in which the occupied world is duly represented and has voting rights in all decisions affecting their world. The Ambassador to such a world is required to advise them on those rights and to support them in exercising them, too. Deployed correctly, in fact, it has all manner of advantages both in the short and long term – long term, an occupied world does have automatic right of League membership, in the same way as a colony, and can continue to draw on League funding and support. It would be a highly controversial move, of course.’ He paused to let that sink in, evidently not expecting Alex to comment at that point, and then continued, very delicately indeed, ‘It would need someone with the necessary authority and cojones of solid duralloy to make the call, and to weather the lash-back that would come at him from all directions.’

  Alex stared at him, and as he understood what it was that Tan was asking him to do, blood drained from his cheeks and his fingers tightened convulsively, white-knuckled, around the mug he was holding. Observing this, Tan noted I not only shocked him, I scared him speechless. This, though, was not something he would boast of.

  Alex managed to breathe, though it didn’t feel easy.

  ‘No need to discuss it now,’ said Tan, with a tone which conveyed that he felt it better if they didn’t talk about it anymore, a feeling Alex was in full agreement with. He already felt as if he’d been handed a live bomb, ticking and trembling. It would be good to just put it down quietly and leave it be for a while. ‘Just let it settle,’ Tan advised, ‘and give it some thought.’

  Alex was glad to do the first, though not at all eager to do the second. He nodded anyway, and managed a deeper, calming breath.

  ‘Thanks, Tan,’ he sighed, giving his fellow ambassador a reproachful look, for which Tan merely grinned back and saluted him with what was left of his tea.

  Later that day, they had a rather more enjoyable discussion on the command deck about potential locations for a groundside base, a contingency plan which was looking increasingly likely. Given that they wanted it to have the lightest possible touch, they were looking for an island that the Carrearranians themselves did not use for any purpose. There was one obvious and outstanding candidate, but Alex seemed curiously reluctant to approve it. He was suggesting, in fact, that they look at the second option, though Tan could not see why.

  Then Silvie turned up.

  ‘You’re thinking about me,’ she observed, as she sat down at the table and looked enquiringly at Alex, then glanced at the screens laid out between him and Tan. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Trying to choose the best island to ask for, for use as a base,’ Alex explained, and indicated, ‘Tan would like this one.’

  ‘But …?’ Silvie prompted.

  ‘Well,’ said Alex, very carefully, ‘it is a volcano.’

  Tan was about to point out again, patiently, that it was a very safe volcano – a shield volcano erupting only in one direction, and at that, erupting lava so slow that the average tortoise could outpace it. There was no chance of anything explosive or unexpected happening, only a small part of the island was under active lava flow and the rest would be ideal for their purposes.

  Even as he opened his mouth to speak, though, he realised that he’d got the wrong end of the stick. It was not the issue of building a base on a volcano that was worrying Alex. It was Silvie.

  ‘Oi!’ Silvie gave a sharp poke towards his arm, which Alex dodged. That meant she was playing – if she was really serious that finger could stab home before the human eye could even see it coming. ‘You are never, ever going to forget that, are you?’ Silvie lamented. ‘Look, how many times? Yes, I could have been suffocated or frazzled to a crisp, but I was not suffocated or frazzled to a crisp, so no big! And – and...’ she reminded him, ‘I did agree to Skipper’s Rule Four: No going in the craters of active volcanoes. And anyway, it isn’t even as if it was my fault. I’ve told you before, if I wasn’t allowed in there, there should have been a fence.’ She glanced around as many of the people around the command deck either spluttered or did a double-take at her. ‘Why is it?’ she wondered, ‘that you all do the gnnnnh thing when I say that? Surely, if it isn’t safe you ought to put a fence around it.’

  Alex grinned fondly at her. ‘A fence,’ he said. ‘Around an undersea volcano. In the deepest part of the ocean.’ He shook his head, ‘Only you, Silvie.’

  ‘Humans.’ Silvie shook her head right back at him, but she grinned too. ‘Anyway, I promise,’ she put her hand on her heart, ‘I will not go into any volcanoes on Carrearranis.’

  ‘Good enough for me,’ said Alex, and grinned at Tan, then, giving him a nod and tapping the island that Tan had been pushing for. ‘263327 it is, then.’

  It was the following day that the Embassy II arrived. They had been expecting it, of course, with news of its progress raced out to them by courier, so it came as no surprise when it hove into view. They had been in communication with it, too, with final permission waiting at Border Station for the Embassy II to come straight on to Carrearranis itself.

  The arrival was expected to be a global stop event. The Embassy was, after all, only the second ship to come to Carrearranis, not counting the abortive visit by the Solarans. It was also on a different scale entirely from the frigate – a deity class carrier adapted for diplomatic work, it was truly majestic, a great sweeping beauty of a ship, so agleam with lights and emblems that it shone in its own glorious radiance and even trailed a slight rainbow tail behind it. It made the Heron’s bulbous form and tech-cluttered hull look
dumpy and old fashioned, even though the Heron’s crew knew that their ship was faster, more manoeuvrable and had tech that even the latest deity class ships hadn’t acquired yet. It was such a huge event for them, the Fourth fully expected that pretty much all activity groundside would stop to watch the coverage they broadcast live to mark the great event.

  In fact, the ‘global stop’ turned out to be no more than a global ripple, a brief pause for people to have a look at the ship the Fourth was in such a fuss about, then a comment or two and they went back to what they had been doing, unperturbed. Alex had promised that the Embassy was not here for any alarming purpose, but was only here to support them – the Fourth – and would be working entirely under Alex’s direction.

  It was a bit of an anti-climax for the Fourth, too, come to that. There was some initial excitement – it was the Embassy’s role, as a ship arriving to join the squadron under Alex’s command, to salute them upon coming into orbit. This they did in style, firing a salute to the system and then to the Fourth, and presenting a display of fighter fly-bys, too, which did as much credit to themselves as compliment to the Fourth.

  ‘Not bad,’ said Shion, judiciously. The Embassy carried four wings of three fighters, primarily for use as honour-escorts. They were much smaller than the Swarm class carried on the frigate, just room for pilot and gunner. They were far superior in performance to the Swarm class when the Swarms had to be flown with their stabilisers on, but nothing like as manoeuvrable as Swarms with their stabilisers off. Being aware that Fourth’s pilots habitually flew them with the stabilisers off, they were very much on their mettle as they span, spiralled and blazed rainbow light-tails in their three-orbit salute display.

  This over, though, and the Embassy settling into position off the Heron’s starboard side, excitement died away quite rapidly. There was no rush of visits or even calls from the Diplomatic Corps ship, just a few calm greetings to relevant officers and an assurance that the Embassy stood ready to provide whatever assistance might be required.

  Alex had a list. It was quite a long list, because the Embassy did have manufacturing and other capacity far beyond the Heron’s, and writing the wish-list had been part of the morning briefing for the last couple of weeks. He did not send the list to the Embassy, though – just gave it to Tan, with a smile.

  Tan took it with a smile, too. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  There was no such thing in Diplomatic Corps hierarchy as a deputy or assistant ambassador. It wasn’t, however, all that unusual for there to be another Ambassador In Potentia on scene, particularly in situations where it was felt that the sitting Ambassador might need to withdraw for some reason. AIPs hovered in the background, though they might assist with specific tasks at the request of the sitting Ambassador. In this case, the specific task was to liaise between Alex and the Embassy staff so that in effect, Tan managed things over there and Alex did not need to be bothered with any of it.

  ‘Thank you,’ Alex said, well aware of how much Tan was helping him out with that.

  He couldn’t, however, avoid all the obligations which the Embassy’s arrival brought with it. One of them, the least welcome of all, landed in his airlock a couple of hours later. It was one Thule Arnthony, another Director of the League Intelligence Agency.

  Twenty Two

  Alex was braced for a long and tedious confrontation. That the Fourth had moved forward with this mission against the most urgent advice of the LIA director on scene was undeniable. That they had subsequently fired stun cannon at the shuttle containing that director was undeniable too. Alex would not expect anything less than that the rest of the LIA would be outraged at that, and that they would express their disapprobation in the strongest terms. The precise nature of LIA internal ranks, roles and relationships was obscure, as the very fact that the organisation existed at all was denied by the Senate and to the few outsiders allowed to meet them as LIA operatives they were only ever identified as ‘Agent’ or ‘Director’. It seemed likely, though, that Director Arnthony was of a higher status than the man Alex had shot at, and more than likely that he was here to deliver a vociferous complaint.

  In fact he was here, as became apparent after a quarter of an hour’s rigidly courteous small talk, under the direct orders of the League president to offer an apology.

  It was very very clear that he did not want to do so. He was a lean, muscular, hard-faced man with a tough-guy walk and an uber-military haircut. He had a trick of looking away from people while they were talking to him, then holding silence for a moment before responding, more or less curtly depending on the status of the speaker. His personal charm in formal situations was pretty much on a par with Alex’s own cold reserve. It seemed unlikely, though, that Director Arnthony would unbend in private and reveal the sense of humour which saved Alex himself from becoming a prig.

  ‘I was already en-route, on cover as a passenger aboard the Pride of Cartasay,’ he stated. ‘When the Embassy II overhauled us and transmitted supersedary orders requiring me to transfer aboard. Doing so required cover-screening, of course, but I believe we were able to detach credibly.’

  And…

  ‘The journey from Telathor was challenging, even aboard a ship as well appointed as the Embassy II. There were manifold instances of turbulence…’ a look of reproach at the captain for that, clearly holding Alex responsible for the discomforts of the route the Fourth had chosen. ‘The Exploration Corps is finding a more suitable route for civilian shipping.’

  Alex privately wished them good luck with that endeavour. Excorps was indeed powering through their explorations of the region, now that they had Oreol as a base and the use of the Naos system which had enabled the Fourth to navigate this foul, tangled and hyper-energised space. Excorps had already reached both the other worlds identified in the region as having life-indicators; both had turned out to have no life more advanced than bacteria, though one had revealed some quite spectacularly colourful ocean-swamping mats of bacterial slime. As for finding a better route between Telathor, Oreol and Carrearranis, Alex doubted that they could. The Fourth might not have found the only possible route, but they were as satisfied as they could be that they had found the best.

  ‘Yes, indeed,’ he said, this being one of his stock answers in awkward social situations. And any social situation in which Alex was involved, really, had a high probability of being awkward. This, though, was not a social situation, though Director Arnthony seemed reluctant to move on from the initial courtesies and get down to business. ‘And not an easy situation,’ Alex prompted, ‘to come into.’

  A short, heavy silence.

  ‘Indeed,’ said Director Arnthony, and drew breath, squaring his shoulders and reverting even further into the jargon in which the LIA cocooned itself. ‘It has been particularised by executive authority that I dialogue the response of…’

  ‘Ah – excuse me.’ Alex’s comm was buzzing and he answered it at once, to Director Arnthony’s evident indignation. ‘Arak – good evening!’

  ‘Evening, Alex.’ Arak was just calling, as he usually did at the end of the day, just checking to make sure that all was well before he settled for the night. Also as usual, he and Alex spent several minutes chatting. In this case, the main topic of conversation was a forthcoming cotton harvest, for which the young people of seven islands were about to converge.

  Alex already understood about the cotton harvest, both in its economic and social importance. The plant the Carrearranians called ullah, identified as a species of the Gossypium family, grew best at higher elevations and was therefore particularly prevalent on the upper slopes of the hillier islands. One such lay to the north of Arak’s island and was within reach of six others. When the cotton there came into harvest, therefore, boats from all seven islands would set off, bringing the strong and agile younger people, fit for the task of scrambling up and down steep slopes. After a week or two they would set out again, baskets stuffed with the fine fibre-stuffed seed pods which would, in due course,
be spun and woven into cloth.

  While they were there, though, the young people from the seven islands would camp at the lagoon and enjoy a social time together, away from the eyes of their elders and with no singing stone by which their elders could check up on them, either. It was a time, Arak had said, with a reminiscent grin, for sharing songs and food and having fun.

  ‘And you won’t forget, your people,’ Arak asked, ‘that…’ he held up his hand over his head, flat palmed towards the sky, ‘means ‘no watching!’’

  ‘We won’t forget,’ said Alex, who’d suggested that gesture when the drones were installed, ensuring that Carrearranians could request blur-out at any time they required privacy. ‘Our cameras,’ he added, also confirming something that had already been fully discussed, ‘are set to blur out automatically when they detect sexual activity.’

  Arak gave a gurgle of mirth.

  ‘The whole island will be a big blurry blob, then,’ he predicted, and Alex laughed too.

  Director Arnthony, when Alex had finished the call with a friendly goodnight, was seething with rage. He had set out from Chartsey long before the incident with the Fourth firing at the shuttle from the Comrade Foretold had been reported; even the tone of the LIA reports which had accompanied the news of the discovery had been enough to tell them that things were going very seriously pear shaped out there. Director Arnthony had set out, initially, on a mission to find out what was going on and kick whatever backsides needed to be kicked. Just a couple of weeks out from Chartsey, though, the Embassy had overtaken the liner he was travelling aboard and had pulled him out, giving him quarters on the Embassy and a whole new set of orders. These had come from the President, whom the LIA referred to always as ‘executive authority’, and had been countersigned by the head of the LIA in person. President Tyborne, it appeared, had been presented with some of Director Harard Perkins’ reports in an effort to get him to exercise his executive authority in favour of bringing the Telathor sector up to high alert and dispatching a major Fleet squadron in case of an invasion.