“Hold the helicopters,” Percy said. He peered into the jungle, wondering if he should dismount and give chase. Who had attacked them? A scouting party from the Flowered Clan? A remnant of the God-King’s forces? Ivan, testing their willingness to defend themselves? Or someone else altogether? “The enemy appear to have broken contact.”
Or are lying dead on the ground, his thoughts added, dryly.
“Understood, Lieutenant,” Colonel Boone said. “Return to base; I say again, return to base.”
“Yes, sir,” Percy said. The Bulldog lurched back into motion, altering course to put more distance between the jungle and its armour. “We’re on our way.”
He linked into the live feed from the drones and swore under his breath. They were designed to look for humans, not Vesy; the lizard-like aliens didn't show up so clearly against the jungle. If there were any Vesy closer than a bunch of farmers at the edge of Ivan’s territory, he couldn't see them. He shook his head slowly, then made a mental note to discuss the jungle with Colonel Boone. They’d need to give it a wide berth if they had to fight the Vesy on the ground, without help from the orbiting ships.
Fort Knight slowly came into view, surrounded by hundreds of alien buildings. A handful of humans could be seen, talking to aliens, as the Bulldogs drove past and through the gates, into the fort itself. It looked as though they were trying to buy native artwork, although Percy had a feeling that most of the purchasers were being taken for a ride. On the other hand, it had been produced by the Vesy, even if it wasn't their version of the Mona Lisa.
He clambered out of the Bulldog as soon as the vehicle lurched to a halt, then released the ambassador and handed her over to her aide. The ambassador had maintained her nerve, he noted; indeed, she seemed almost pleased to come under fire. Percy puzzled over that for a long moment, then dismissed it as unimportant. Instead, he joined Peerce in inspecting the outer hull of the Bulldogs. The paint had been scratched - it looked as though the aliens had used the Union Jacks as aiming points - but there was no significant damage.
“Good thing we didn't have a Whisper,” Peerce commented. “It could have got us into real trouble.”
Percy nodded. He’d never seen a Whisper, but he’d heard about them. In theory, their hulls acted rather like chameleon skin, allowing them to remain undetected at close range; in practice, the cells on the hull broke frequently, crippling the vehicle’s ability to remain invisible. It was, he'd been told during training, another brilliant idea from some idiot in a lab that had never worked out in the field.
But that’s why we don’t use walkers either, he thought. They don’t work so well in real life too.
“But we don't know who attacked us, or why,” Percy said. By now, he was sure that any bodies would have been removed ... and, in any case, it would be impossible to track down the people who’d sent the attackers. “And we don’t know what they wanted.”
“To test us, sir,” Peerce said. He nodded towards the wall. “Out there, they’re watching us; watching and assessing our strength. And if we look weak ...”
Percy nodded. “They’ll join the Indians,” he said. Why would anyone side with the British when they seemed the weaker party in the dispute? “They’re too pragmatic to do anything else, aren't they?”
“It looks that way, sir,” Peerce said. He shrugged. “Quite admirable, in some ways. But not in others.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
It would have horrified the Vesy, Anjeet was sure, if they had any idea just how capable human intelligence-gathering technology actually was. He’d been careful to ensure that none of his people mentioned microscopic bugs to the Vesy - for once, he knew he and the British were in agreement - or anything that might allow the aliens to deduce their existence. If the Vesy didn't even have a concept of atoms, how could they guess that humans could build machines little larger than an atom? Or machines that were literally flies on the wall? Or that those machines could remain silent, not transmitting anything, until a drone was close enough to pick up the low-power signal?
Of course, they might pick it up from some of their intelligence work, he thought, coldly. The British had been careless in allowing the aliens to establish so large a presence near Fort Knight. Anjeet knew, all too well, that the aliens had begged, bought, borrowed or stolen quite a few pieces of technology, including datapads loaded with human novels and non-fiction textbooks. And the NGOs had passed quite a bit of information over to the Vesy, often without considering what that information might mean for the human race. Who knew what fragment of data would give the Vesy an unexpected advantage in a bargaining session.
He pushed the thought aside as he studied the latest report from Ivan’s City. The British - and their allies - were caught between a rock and a hard place. On one hand, they needed to back their alien allies to the hilt if they wanted to reverse the Indian coup; on the other hand, they simply didn't have the resources Anjeet and his men had brought to the planet. No matter what happened, the Indian-backed alliance was going to have the advantage for the foreseeable future. The Flowered Clans were unlikely to let the opportunity to establish themselves as the sole rulers slip past ... and their rivals would know it. They’d be torn between staying loyal to the British and switching sides before it was too late.
It wasn't something the British would understand, not really, but Anjeet had done quite a bit of campaigning as a young man along the North-West Frontier. The tribesmen there respected both strength and the will to use it; they stayed loyal to the government only so long as the government showed its teeth on a regular basis. And it had to be regular, because the insurgents and terrorists who still infested the region that had once been called Afghanistan were savage, quite willing to descend on a tribal village and loot, rape and burn it to the ground. The government not only had to threaten the villagers, it had to protect them as well, or they would switch sides. It wasn't evil, although it had taken Anjeet years to understand; it was survival. The villagers cared nothing for global causes, or religion, or anything else. They just wanted to stay alive, raise their children and pass their village on to the next generation.
And the Vesy are very much the same, he reflected, as he reread the report. If they doubt the British promises, they will not feel inclined to resist when they can have a place in our alliance.
But that, he knew, wasn't the worst of it.
The message from the Prime Minister was completely innocuous, to anyone who happened to decipher the code and read the text. He had no doubt that the Great Powers - and everyone else who happened to have access to the latest generation of supercomputers - would be trying their hardest to crack the code; everyone did it, even with their allies. Indeed, there was a regular joke passed around the intelligence community that everyone should just send messages in clear, if only to save time. There were times when Anjeet figured they actually had a point. No one reading the message, in plain text or encrypted form, could guess at its true meaning. They didn't know the key.
But Anjeet did. And he knew it meant war.
It was a chilling thought. The plan had been devised years ago, shortly after the First Interstellar War. It was a gamble - it had always been a gamble - to force the Great Powers to accept that the so-called lesser powers were now their equals. The plan had been updated rapidly after Vesy had been discovered, pushing things forward a couple of years. Anjeet had agreed, when he’d been briefed, that the opportunity had been too good to miss. But the rising tension on the planet’s surface could easily lead to a general war, rather than a stalemate. And if that happened ...
We think we have the politics sewn up, he thought, but what if we’re wrong?
Anjeet had seen war. He'd served against tribesmen who were the most brutal enemies of civilisation in history, then against the Tadpoles on two different worlds. Not, he had to admit, that there had been much fighting; the Tadpoles had largely ignored human settlements, save for ground-based defences and factories that could easily become a threat.
But he’d seen the damage they left in their wake, during the Battle of Earth, and knew a second war could be even more devastating. And if the Solar Treaty collapsed ...
That’s the issue, isn't it? He asked himself. We think no one would dare violate the Solar Treaty, we think everyone else would jump on whoever did, but we might be wrong.
He shuddered, despite the warmth of his apartment. The Great Powers might have been soft, once upon a time, but they weren't soft any longer. No puny Third World state was allowed to defy them, let alone do anything that might pose a threat. Indeed, before the First Interstellar War, India and the other lesser powers had known better than to pick a fight. But now, the Great Powers were weakened, divided and focusing on their own recovery. It was just possible they’d accept the Indian demands without a fight ...
... But what if they were wrong?
Anjeet looked down at his hands. They were clean, but he knew they were covered with blood - and they would be covered in more, if matters spiralled out of control and straight into war. His unit had pulled hundreds of thousands of dead bodies out of the sea, during the aftermath of the Bombardment; how many more would join them, he asked himself, if the human race fought a civil war? It wasn't as if they were alone, not any longer. What if the Tadpoles took advantage of the situation to restart the war? Or what if the other Great Powers joined the war? India would rapidly find herself outmatched.
And what, he thought he heard the Prime Minister say, is the alternative?
They won’t grant us equality unless we prove we can take it, Anjeet answered, inwardly. The Great Powers were jealous of their status, jealous of the strength they’d shown, the innermost nerve, to hold together during the Age of Unrest. We have to prove ourselves their equals ...
He looked at the message, one final time. It would be easy enough to back off, to defuse the crisis ... except he knew it was already too late. The Vesy would fight it out on the surface and whoever won would be looking to their human allies for support. And India would get a great deal of the blame, and rightly so. Backing off now would mean exposing his country to the whims of the World Court, to the whims of a politically-driven series of charges that would leave them as exposed and isolated as the Russians. No, backing off was no longer an option. They’d been committed from the moment they’d decided to set up their own relations with the Vesy, rather than working through Fort Knight.
And if it be war, he thought, as he rose, the country will not find us wanting.
Bracing himself, he stepped through the hatch and walked down towards the conference room. Only a handful of Vesy had ever been invited into the base - Anjeet had a feeling the British were likely to regret allowing so many aliens to wander through their defences - if only to ensure that those who did receive an invitation treasured it all the more. Two armoured guards stood against the wall, a statement that the Indians took their guest seriously; humans might have been offended by their presence, but the Vesy were not human.
And that is something of the point, he thought. Isn't it?
He smiled, rather coldly, as the scent receptors confirmed the alien’s identity. They might have been almost impossible for humans to tell them apart - it had always amused Anjeet that some Westerners believed the same of both Indians and Chinese - but sensors designed to detect approaching intruders through body odour had no difficulty telling the different aliens apart. Anjeet had never met Ivan before, not face-to-face, but he was quietly impressed with what he’d heard about the alien leader. Did the British realise, he wondered, that they were dealing with someone akin to Romulus, if indeed that legendary figure had lived at all? Moses, perhaps, or Daniel? Who in human history had lost one city, escaped slavery, fought a desperate insurgency in the jungle and finally found allies who had helped them to recapture and rebuild their city?
And all of Ivan’s deeds are recorded, he thought, mischievously. The British and the NGOs had done a surprising amount of recording alien stories, including some that would have been unbelievable if they hadn't happened in living memory. How much from our early history is nothing but legend?
“I greet you,” he said, in careful Russian. He had no idea if Ivan spoke Bengali or not, but he wasn't about to risk confusing the alien with a new language. It was annoying - the aliens all seemed to use the same language, even though it defied logic - yet he had no choice, but to tolerate it. “I bid you welcome to my home.”
“I greet you,” Ivan replied. The alien’s Russian wasn't bad, just oddly accented. “I can speak in English, if you would prefer.”
He may have been invited, but he knows he is a supplicant, Anjeet thought, coldly.
“It would be acceptable to speak with either,” he said. “I speak both fluently.”
Ivan’s beady bird-like eyes fixed on his. “You invited me,” he stated, flatly. “I assume you have something to say.”
“I do,” Ivan said. There was no point in beating around the bush. “Your allies have betrayed you.”
The alien showed no visible reaction, but his scent changed noticeably. Anjeet wondered, absently, if the aliens had any form of control over their emotional displays, then decided it was probably unlikely. A culture that had built itself around brutal honesty could only have formed if lying directly was impossible. And it allowed anyone with the right technology to practically monitor their emotions without using any form of intrusive probing.
He knows, Anjeet thought.
“They have lied to you, several times,” Anjeet continued. “They have no intention of defending you against the Flowered Clan.”
He smiled, then leaned forward. “Kun is alive.”
The alien rocked backwards, shocked. Anjeet wasn't surprised, not even slightly. If there was one thing humans and Vesy had in common, it was a shared urge to protect their children. Indeed, if the Tadpoles so clearly hadn’t shared the same urge, he would have said it was a universal impulse. And the battle in City Seven had smashed dozens of eggs, killing children who would never be hatched. The media hadn't been the only ones to be shocked, then turn it into a deliberate mass slaughter.
But it helps to back the right media producers, Anjeet thought, coldly. It had been risky, sending the records home directly, but it had given them a chance to shape the coverage - and it had succeeded, remarkably well. There isn't a story that couldn’t be made to sound more dramatic - and to hell with whoever gets hurt.
“They lied to you,” he said. “Kun was shipped to orbit, then dispatched back to Earth along with the rest of his party. That’s how little concern they show for your feelings - or for your position.”
He watched Ivan closely, keeping one eye on the screen monitoring the alien’s scent. Ivan knew - he had to know - that he had staked his position on the British keeping their promises, that he would lose his power and influence if the British proved to be weak reeds. There would be a party in Ivan’s City ready to take over and make an agreement with the Flowered Clan, Anjeet was sure; hell, given how the alien politics worked, it was quite likely that Ivan had even encouraged it. If Ivan lost his power, the British alliance would be lost with it and the city would join the Flowered Clan.
It was fascinating to see just how swiftly the alien’s emotions changed. Ivan didn't know it - no one knew, apart from a handful of researchers - but the Indians had purchased a number of slaves from the Flowered Clan and experimented on them. It wasn't perfect, not yet, but the monitors could tell roughly what the alien was feeling at any given moment. Ivan had already had his doubts - that was clear - and he was seriously considering throwing in the towel.
And what will happen to him, Anjeet wondered, if he did switch sides?
It wouldn't have mattered to humans, he figured. Humans could change their minds about anything, but Ivan had staked his entire position on a weak reed. Would he simply hand over power to the collaborationist faction or join them himself? Or would he be ritually killed for leading his people into a trap? The Vesy didn't tend to like incompetent rulers. An
jeet had heard stories of what had happened to the God-King’s supporters, stories that would have made a tribesman blanch. Ivan might well have signed his own death warrant by working with the British.
“They had no intention of giving you weapons,” Anjeet added. “It was only when we started to offer weapons to the Flowered Clan that they changed their mind. And even then, they didn't offer you unlimited ammunition or support. They don’t care about you, not at all. All they care about is the system.”
It wasn't entirely fair to the British, Anjeet knew, but he didn't care. They hadn't thought to bring along a handful of portable factories, even though - in hindsight - they had to be kicking themselves. Giving the Vesy weapons was one thing, giving them practically unlimited supplies of ammunition was quite another. Anjeet knew from bitter experience - and his British counterparts would know the same - just how rapidly ammunition stockpiles were burned through on active service. Having a factory ready and able to replenish those stockpiles would be decisive.
Ivan peered at him. “Do you have a better offer?”
“Join us,” Anjeet said. Didn't the British recognise, honestly, what a treasure they’d had at their disposal? Probably not; their age of heroes was long gone. “Your city can join the Flowered Clan as an equal member, with the same level of access to weapons, support and training as the others. We would be honoured to have you.”
A Savage War Of Peace (Ark Royal Book 5) Page 33
