The Iron Tactician (NewCon Press Novellas (Set 1), #1)

by Alastair Reynolds

  ‘Not if they didn’t want you to,’ Merlin said. He walked on for a few paces. ‘There was an assassination strike. But it didn’t play out the way you think it did. The real prince was terribly injured – much worse than your memories have it.’

  Now an anger was pushing through Baskin’s voice. ‘What do you mean, the “real prince”?’

  ‘You were substituted,’ Struxer said, ‘the assassination attempt played down, no mention made of the extent of the real Prince’s injuries.’

  ‘My bloodline,’ Teal said. ‘This is the reason it’s broken, isn’t it?’

  Merlin nodded, but let Struxer continue. ‘They rebuilt this palace as best they could. Even then it was never as idealised as this. Most of the east wing was gone. The view through these windows was... less pretty. It was only ever a stopgap, before Lurga had to be abandoned completely.’

  They had reached the only open door in the corridor. With the sunlit view behind their backs their shadows pushed across the door’s threshold, into the small circular room beyond.

  In the middle of the room a small boy knelt surrounded by wooden battlements and toy armies. They ranged away from him in complex, concentric formations – organised into interlocking ranks and files as tricky as any puzzle. The boy was reaching out to move one of the pieces, his hand dithering in the air.

  ‘No,’ Baskin whispered. ‘This isn’t how it is. There isn’t a child inside this thing.’

  Struxer answered softly. ‘After the attack, the real Prince was kept alive by the best doctors on Havergal. It was all done in great secrecy. It had to be. What had become of him, the extent of his injuries, his dependence on machines to keep him alive... all of that would have been far too upsetting for the populace. The war was going badly: public morale was low enough as it was. The only solution, the only way to maintain the illusion, was to bring in another boy. You looked similar enough, so you were brought in to live out his life. One boy swapped for another.’

  ‘That’s not what happened.’

  ‘Boys change from year to year, so the ruse was never obvious,’ Struxer said. ‘But you had to believe. So you were raised exactly as the Prince had been raised, in this palace, surrounded by the same things, and told stories of his life just as if it had been your own. Those games of war, the soldiers and campaigns? They were never part of your previous life, but slowly you started to believe an imagined past over the real one – a fiction that you accepted as the truth.’

  ‘You said you grew bored of war,’ Teal said. ‘That you were a sickly child who turned away from tabletop battles and became fascinated by languages instead. That was the real you breaking through, wasn’t it? They could surround you with the instruments of war, try to make you dream of it, but they couldn’t turn you into the person you were not – even if most of the time you believed the lie.’

  ‘But not always,’ Merlin said, watching as the boy made up his mind and moved one of the pieces. ‘Part of you knew, or remembered, I think. You’ve been fighting against the lie your whole life. But now you don’t need to. Now you’re free of it.’

  Struxer said: ‘We didn’t suspect at first. Even those of us who worked closely with the Tactician were encouraged to think of it as a machine, an artificial intelligence. The medical staff who were involved in the initial work were either dead or sworn to silence, and the Tactician rarely needed any outside intervention. But there were always rumours. Technicians who had seen too much, glimpsed a little too far into the heart of it. Others – like myself – who started to doubt the accepted version of events, this easy story of a dramatic breakthrough in artificial intelligence. I began to...question. Why had the enemy never made a similar advancement? Why had we never repeated our success? But the thing that finally settled it for me was the Tactician itself. We who were the closest to it... we sensed the changes.’

  ‘Changes?’ Baskin asked.

  ‘A growing disenchantment with war. A refusal to offer the simple forecasts our military leaders craved. The Tactian’s advice was becoming... quixotic. Unreliable. We adjusted for it, placed less weight on its predictions and simulations. But slowly those of us who were close to it realised that the Tactician was trying to engineer peace, not war.’

  ‘Peace is what we’ve always striven for,’ Baskin said.

  ‘But by one means, total victory,’ Struxer said. ‘But the Tactician no longer considered such an outcome desirable. The boy who dreamed of war had grown up, Prince. The boy had started to develop the one thing the surgeons never allowed for.’

  ‘A conscience,’ Merlin said. ‘A sense of regret.’

  The boy froze between one move and the next. He turned to face the door, his eyes searching. He was small-boned, wearing a soldier’s costume tailored for a child.

  ‘We’re here,’ Struxer said, raising a hand by way of reassurance. ‘Your friends. Merlin spoke to you before, do you remember?’

  The boy looked distracted. He moved a piece from one position to another, angrily.

  ‘You should go,’ he said. ‘I don’t want anyone here today. I’m going to make these armies fight each other so badly they’ll never want to fight again.’

  Merlin was the first to step into the room. He approached the boy carefully, picking his way through the gaps in the regiments. They were toy soldiers, but he could well imagine that each piece had some direct and logical correspondence in the fleets engaging near Mundar, as well as Mundar’s own defenses.

  ‘Prince,’ he said, stooping down with his hands on his knees. ‘You don’t have to do this. Not any more. I know you want something other than war. It’s just that they keep trying to force you into playing the same games, don’t they?’

  ‘When he didn’t give the military planners the forecasts they wanted,’ Struxer said, ‘they tried to coerce him by other means. Electronic persuasion. Direct stimulation of his nervous system.’

  ‘You mean, torture,’ Merlin said.

  ‘No,’ Baskin said. ‘That’s not how it was. The Tactician was a machine... just a machine.’

  ‘It was never that,’ Merlin replied.

  ‘I knew what needed to be done,’ Struxer said. ‘It was a long game, of course. But then the Tactician’s strength has always been in long games. I defected first, joined the brigands here in Mundar, and only then did we start putting in place our plans to take the Tactician.’

  ‘Then it was never about holding him to ransom,’ Merlin said.

  ‘No,’ Struxer said. ‘All that would have done is prolong the war. We’d been fighting long enough, Merlin. It was time to embrace the unthinkable: a real and lasting ceasefire. It was going to be a long and difficult process, and it could only be orchestrated from a position of neutrality, out here between the warring factions. It would depend on sympathetic allies on both sides: good men and women prepared to risk their own lives in making tiny, cumulative changes, under the Tactician’s secret stewardship. We were ready – eager, even. In small ways we had begun the great work. Admit it, Prince Baskin: the tide of military successes had begun to turn away from you, in recent months. That was our doing. We were winning. And then Merlin arrived.’ Struxer set his features in a mask of impassivity. ‘Nothing in the Tactician’s forecasting predicted you, Merlin, or the terrible damage you’d do to our cause.’

  ‘I stopped, didn’t I?”

  ‘Only when Mundar had humbled you.’

  The room shook, dust dislodging from the stone walls, one or two of the toy soldiers toppling in their ranks. Merlin knew what that was. Tyrant was communicating the actual attack suffered by Mundar through to the sensorium. The asteroid’s own kinetic weapons were beginning to break through its crust.

  ‘It won’t be long now,’ he said.

  Teal picked her way to Merlin’s side and knelt between the battlements and armies, touching a hand to the boy. ‘We can help you,’ she said. Followed by a glance to Merlin. ‘Can’t we?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, doubtfully at first, then with growing co
nviction. ‘Yes. Prince Baskin. The real Prince. The boy who dreamed of war, and then stopped dreaming. I believe it, too. There isn’t a mind in the universe that isn’t capable of change. You want peace in this system? Something real and lasting, a peace built on forgiveness and reconciliation, rather than centuries of simmering enmity? So do I. And I think you can make it happen, but for that you have to live. I have a ship. You saw me coming in – saw my weapons and what they could do. You blooded me good, as well. But I can help you now – help you do what’s right. Turn the kinetics away from Mundar, Prince. You don’t have to die.’

  ‘I said you should go away,’ the boy said.

  Teal lifted a hand to his cheek. ‘They hurt you,’ she said. ‘Very badly. But my blood’s in you and I won’t rest until you’ve found peace. But not this way. Merlin’s right, Prince. There’s still time to do good.’

  ‘They don’t want good,’ the boy answered. ‘I gave them good, but they didn’t like it.’

  ‘You don’t have to concern yourself with them now,’ Merlin said, as another disturbance shook the room. ‘Turn the weapons from Mundar. Do it, Prince.’

  The boy’s hand loitered over the wooden battlements. Merlin intuited that these must be the logical representation of Mundar’s defense screens. The boy fingered one of the serrated formations, seemingly on the verge of moving it.

  ‘It won’t do any good,’ he said.

  ‘It will,’ Merlin said.

  ‘You’ve brought them too near,’ the boy said, sweeping his other hand across the massed regiments, in all their colours and divisions. ‘They didn’t know where I was before, but now you’ve shown them.’

  ‘I made a mistake,’ Merlin admitted. ‘A bad one, because I wanted something too badly. But I’m here to make amends.’

  Now it was Baskin’s turn to step closer to the boy. ‘We have half a life in common,’ he said. ‘They stole a life from you, and tried to make me think it was my own. It worked, too. I’m an old man now, and I suppose you’re as old as me, deep down. But we have something in common. We’ve both outgrown war, whether those around us are willing to accept it or not.’ He lowered down, upsetting some of the soldiers as he did – the boy glaring for an instant, then seeming to put the matter behind him. ‘I want to help you. Be your friend, if such a thing’s possible. What Teal said is true: you do have her blood. Not mine, now, but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to help.’ He placed his own hand around the boy’s wrist, the hand that hovered over the wooden battlements. ‘I remember these games,’ he said. ‘These toys. I played them well. We could play together, couldn’t we?’ Slowly, with great trepidation, Baskin risked turning one of the battlements around, until its fortifications were facing outward again.

  The boy said: ‘I wouldn’t do it that way.’

  ‘Show me how you would do it,’ Baskin said.

  The boy took the battlement and shifted its position. Then he took another and placed them in close formation. He looked up at Baskin, seeking both approval and praise. ‘See. That’s better, isn’t it?’

  ‘Much better,’ Baskin said.

  ‘You can move that one,’ the boy said, indicating one of the other battlements. ‘Put it over there, the other way round.’

  ‘Like this?’ Baskin asked, with a nervous, obliging smile.

  ‘A little closer. That’s good enough.’

  Merlin realised that he had been holding his breath while this little exchange was going on. It was too soon to leap to conclusions, but it had been a while since the room last shook. Hardly daring to break the fragile spell, he slipped into a brief subvocal exchange with Tyrant. His ship confirmed that the rain of kinetics had ceased.

  ‘Now for the tricky part,’ Merlin murmured, as much for himself as his audience. ‘Prince, listen to me carefully. Rebuild those defences. Do it as well as you can, because you need to protect yourself. There’s hard work to do – very hard work – and you need to be at your strongest.’

  ‘I don’t like work,’ the boy said.

  ‘None of us do. But if you’re bored with this game, I’ve got a much more interesting one to play. You’re going to engineer a peace, and hold it. It’s going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done but I’ve no doubt that you’ll rise to the challenge.’

  Struxer whispered: ‘Those fleets aren’t exactly ready to set down their arms, Merlin.’

  ‘I’ll make them,’ he said. ‘Just go give the Prince a running start. Then it’s over to him.’ But he corrected himself. ‘Over to all of you, in fact. He’ll need all the help he can get, Struxer.’ Merlin leaned in closer to the boy, until his mouth was near his ear. ‘We’re going to lie,’ he said, confidingly. ‘We’re going to lie and they’re going to believe us, those fleets. Not forever, but long enough for you to start making peace seem like the easier path. It’s a lot to ask, but I know you’re up to it.’

  The boy’s face met Merlin’s. ‘Lie?’

  ‘You’ll understand. Tyrant: open a channel out to those ships. The whole binary system, as powerful a signal as you can put out. Hijack every open transmitter you can find. And translate these words, as well as you can.’ Then he frowned to himself and turned to Teal. ‘No. You should be the one. Better that it comes from a native speaker, than my garbled efforts.’

  ‘What would you like me to say?’

  Merlin smiled. He told her. It did not take long.

  ‘This is Teal of the Cohort,’ she said, her words gathered within the sensorium, fed through Tyrant, pushed out beyond the ruins of Mundar, through the defense screens, out to the waiting fleets, onward to the warring worlds. ‘I came here by Waynet, a little while ago. But I was here once before, more than a thousand years ago, and I knew King Curtal before you set him on the throne. I stand now in Mundar, ready to tell you that the time has come to end this war. Not for an hour, or a day, or a few miserable years, but forever. Because what you need now is peace and unity, and you don’t have very long to build it. A Husker attack swarm is approaching your binary system. We slipped ahead of them through the Waynet, but they will be here. You have less than a century... perhaps only a handful of decades. Then they’ll arrive.’ Teal shot a look at Merlin, and he gave her a tiny nod, letting her know that she was doing very well, better than he could ever have managed. ‘Ordinarily it would be the end of everything for you. They took my ship, and I’m with a man who lost a whole world to them. But there’s a chance for you. In Mundar is a great mind. Call him the Iron Tactician for now, although the day will come when you learn his true name. The Iron Tactician will help you on the road to peace. And when that peace is holding, the Iron Tactician will help you prepare. The Tactician knows of your weapons, of your fusion ships and kinetic batteries. But in a little while he will also know the weapons of the Cohort, and how best to use them. Weapons to shatter worlds – or defend them.’ Teal drew breath, and Merlin touched his hand to her shoulder, in what he hoped was a gesture of comradeship and solidarity. ‘Hurt the Tactician, and you’ll be powerless when the swarm arrives. Protect it – honour it – and you’ll have an honest chance. But the Tactician would sooner die than take sides.’

  ‘Good,’ Merlin breathed.

  ‘He’s my blood,’ Teal continued. ‘My kin. And I’m staying here to give him all the protection and guidance he needs. You’ll treat me well, because I’m the only living witness you’ll ever know who can say she saw the Huskers up close. And I’ll do what I can to help you.’

  Merlin swallowed. He had not been expecting this, not at all. But the force of Teal’s conviction left him in no doubt that she had set her mind on this course. He stared at her with a searing admiration, dizzy at her courage and single-mindedness.

  ‘You’ll withdraw from the space around Mundar,’ Teal said. ‘And you’ll cease all hostilities. A ship will be given free passage to Havergal, and then on to the Waynet. You won’t touch it. And you won’t touch Mundar, or attempt to claim the Tactician. There’ll be no reminders, no second warnings – we’re be
yond such things. This is Teal of the Cohort, signing off for now. You’ll be hearing more from me soon.’

  Merlin shook his head in astonishment. ‘You don’t have to do this, Teal. That was... courageous. But you’re not responsible for the mess they’ve made of this place.’

  ‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘But then again we had our chance when we traded with them, and instead of helping them to peace we took one side and conducted our business. I don’t feel guilty for what happened all those years ago. But I’m ready to make a change.’

  ‘She does have an excellent command of our language,’ Baskin said.

  ‘And she’s persuasive,’ Struxer said. ‘Very persuasive.’

  Merlin made sure they were no longer transmitting. ‘You all know it’s a lie. There’s no attack swarm heading this way – not how Teal said it was. But there could be, and for a few decades there’d be no way of saying otherwise, not with the sensors you have now. Here’s what matters, though. You’ve been lucky so far, but somewhere out there you can be sure there is a Husker swarm that’ll eventually find its way to these worlds. A hundred years, a thousand... Who knows? But it will happen, just as it did to Plenitude. The only difference is, you’ll be readier than we ever were.’ Then he turned to direct his attention to the boy. ‘You’ll have the hardest time of all, Prince. But you have friends now. And you have my confidence. I know you can force this peace.’

  For all the toys and battlements, some spark of real comprehension glimmered in the boy’s eyes. ‘But when they find out she lied...’

  ‘It’ll take a while,’ Merlin said. ‘And by then you’ll just have to make sure they’ve got used to the idea of peace. It’s not such a bad thing. But then again, you don’t need me to tell you that.’

  ‘No,’ the boy reflected.

  Merlin nodded, hoping the boy – what remained of the boy – felt something of the confidence and reassurance he was sending out. ‘I have to go soon. There’s something I need on Havergal, and I’d rather not wait too long to get my hands on it.’