As Rex Regum, he had ordered and supervised demeaning punishments like this for transgressors in the Zone, and even for new members of the Warrior Kings, to impress on them where they stood in the hierarchy. He’d put an end to “nest raiding” by castrating the rapists who had invaded his territory and leaving them outside it for Security to find. Tommy Novotny had given the Kings a strict code of honor and forced them all to observe it. Now Barry Novak was in charge, juggling “hot potatoes” and living by a much more complicated set of rules.
The part of him that was Tommy Novotny was enjoying the sight of an enemy brought low, but Barry knew that Quan couldn’t be kept shackled indefinitely. EIS agents were routinely instructed to either turn or terminate an adversary. As Chief of Operations, Novak would have to do the same.
“You worked with him for years and know him better than I do, Nayo. Can he be trusted?”
Naguchi moved his shoulders as though physically attempting to shrug off the question. When that apparently failed, he replied, “You give me too much credit, Barry. We were partners for nearly twenty years, spent eight to ten hours together almost every day of that time, and all I managed to learn about him — the hard way — was that Nestor Quan is a consummate pragmatist with no sense of loyalty. The only thing he can be depended on to do is whatever happens to be in his own best interests at the time. If you’re asking whether I believe his story about helping us in order to gain a personal victory over his government, all I can tell you is that it sounds typical of him. Make no mistake, this man is nobody’s friend, and he never does anything out of the goodness of his heart.”
“What about his claim to be one hundred and seventy-two years old? You said you had a hunch, so you must have been expecting it.”
“Not a hunch, exactly — a hypothesis. Susan’s most recent update mentioned preparing subjects to be used for experimentation, and that got me thinking. We use rodents in our laboratories, partly because they’re prolific breeders, making them a plentiful commodity, but also because their short life spans enable us to see the results of our experiments more quickly. So I asked myself, what if the preparation mentioned in that document included shortening the Human life span to make us better lab animals?
“To test my hypothesis, I revisited some of the blood tests I’d done on our Stragori friends and cultured a few additional samples from Quan for good measure. The cultures are still immature, but based on what I’ve observed so far, I believe he may be telling the truth.
“The telomeres in the nuclei of Stragori cells appear to be unaffected by replication. If so, that means something else must be regulating their aging process. It may be those extra enzymes in their blood, or something else I’ve yet to discover; and it wouldn’t necessarily be on the same clock as ours. All I can tell you for certain right now is this: since Quan and I first met, thirty-five Earth years ago, I’ve aged thirty-five years — and he doesn’t look a day older than he did the first time I laid eyes on him.”
Novak returned his attention to the light screen and was startled to find Nestor Quan staring directly into the securecam. As though sensing that eye contact had been made, the prisoner fidgeted in his chair for a moment, then said, “Now that we’ve established my intentions, do you suppose these restraints could come off? I’ve been sitting here for hours.”
Naguchi was watching Novak expectantly. “It’s your call, Barry,” he said, “but I would exercise caution.”
Turn him or terminate him. The words rang in his mind as Novak crossed the hall and re-entered the interrogation room.
“I see you found the surveillance eye,” he remarked, dropping once more into the seat facing Quan. “Convince me that you’re an ally and not a threat and I’ll let you stretch your legs.”
“And how do you suggest I do that?”
Novak leaned back in his chair and pinned a pleasant smile on his face. “It’s simple. Just tell me everything that your government is determined to keep secret from us.”
“You’ve evidently taken my earlier advice to heart.” Still immobilized by the collar, he managed to tilt his head slightly in approval. “Very well. I’ll tell you what I can. Where would you like me to begin?”
“Start with the decision made by your government that you are so intent on undermining. You said they want nothing to do with us, and yet they have plans for our world. What sort of plans?”
“To preclude your making a claim to the Galactic Great Council for the reunification of the Human race, the Directorate has been actively working to prevent you from learning the truth about our shared past.”
“That’s old news,” said Novak. “The man who brought us the file after Patel was killed told us about the Directorate’s decision to suppress what was in it.”
Quan’s eyebrows went up. “Did he also tell you that the Directorate had set up corporations on your world for the sole purpose of aborting any scientific or technological advancements that might lead you to uncover the truth on your own?”
Novak stared wordlessly at him for a moment as the ramifications of this barreled through his thoughts. In his ear, Naguchi’s harsh whisper expressed enough astonishment and outrage for both of them. “Those bastards!”
“That’s why EuroGenics was so determined to own Naguchi’s patents?” Novak said grimly when he could speak again.
“Among many others. When it was discovered that he’d absconded with his most important work, I was ordered to find and bring back the missing experiment, using whatever methods were necessary.”
“But it was your work too,” Novak pointed out. “Naguchi shared credit with you on papers, and both your names appeared on most of those patents. You were helping him to make those breakthroughs. That couldn’t have sat well with your superiors.”
“It was only technically my work. I secured funding for the laboratory and designed and ran some experiments. The concepts and theories, however — the heart and soul of his research — that was all Naguchi. But you’re correct, Mister Novak. When my superiors learned that I had actually been facilitating his progress, they were beyond listening to reason. By then, of course, I had already decided that the Directorate was making a huge mistake by holding Humanity back, and that I would gain great satisfaction from rubbing their noses in it. Not surprisingly, my final official assignment came in the form of an ultimatum: succeed or die.”
Novak nearly smiled. Clearly, the “implacable enemy” Quan had referred to earlier was far from hypothetical.
“Well, according to my sources, you left Daisy Hub empty-handed, so you didn’t succeed; and here you are, still alive — for now. A double loss for the Directorate — how disappointing.”
“That is not entirely true,” said Quan. “And it’s one of the reasons I wanted to ensure that I fell into your hands as quickly as possible. Shortly after my arrival on Platform Zulu I discovered a tracking device tucked into the seam of my jacket. Evidently, my superiors did not trust me to carry out their orders.”
Novak let out a snort of laughter. “What a surprise.”
“I destroyed the device immediately; however, the damage was already done. The Directorate now knows where to find the rest of Naguchi’s work. I may have come away empty-handed, but the next operative they send will assuredly not. In fact, that individual is probably already on the station, tasked with completing my mission.”
For about three seconds, it was a sobering thought. Then Novak declared, “It’s not that easy to sneak aboard Daisy Hub, as you should know from experience.”
“True,” he conceded, “but there is more than one way to infiltrate an enemy camp. This man you spoke about who brought you the file after Bruni Patel was killed — would you indulge me by describing him, please?”
A nameless unease crept over Novak then, like a nagging feeling that he’d forgotten to do something important. “He was tall and muscular, with blond hair and blue eyes.
Well, one blue eye — he’d ripped out all his implants to sever his connection to the intellinet. He came to us torn up and bloodied, quite a mess. Asked us to help him disappear.”
“So he was a soldier, and he no doubt claimed to have a close connection with Bruni Patel, whom you knew quite well and whose loss you were still mourning. And because of the gift he’d brought you, ostensibly on poor dead Bruni’s behalf, you accepted his story as truth and agreed to help him.”
Novak’s gut already knew the answer, but he asked the question anyway. “What are you trying not to say, Quan? You think this man could have been sent by the Directorate as your replacement?”
“Oh, I’m certain he was. Bruni belonged to the moderate faction, and he was a pacifist. He wanted nothing to do with soldiers, wouldn’t even accept a military shadow on Earth, and his superiors humored him. If they’d insisted, he might still be alive — in a cell on Stragon, awaiting execution for plotting treason, perhaps, but alive. So, this lying impostor who brought you the file — dare I guess where you sent him?”
His stomach now curling into an icy knot, Novak rose from his chair and stalked silently out of the room.
— «» —
First the Thryggians had screwed them up, and now the Stragori were screwing them over.
“You can’t take anything he says at face value, Barry,” Naguchi reminded him. “He’ll twist things to make you believe what he wants. He’s done it before.”
Novak rubbed his eyes with a thumb and forefinger. “I don’t think he’s lying this time, Nayo. Not about all of it, anyway. Too many things are starting to add up. Bruni Patel, for example. Dennis Forrand would never have hired him, not even for low-level courier work, if there had been a ‘shadow’ in the picture. And if the Directorate knew through the intellinet that he was moonlighting for us and they wanted to take him out quietly, they had the means to do it. As his handler, I might have suspected foul play, but without a body to prove it, and knowing that he was an alien, I would eventually have been forced to assume that he’d been unexpectedly recalled to Stragon. No muss, no fuss, no questions. Instead, Patel was murdered — we still don’t know how — and his body with all its implants ripped out was left on the Kings’ doorstep for anyone to find.”
“As a message?” mused Naguchi. “We know where you live and you can expect a visit?”
“I suspect it was more than that. Think about it, Nayo. When did we even become aware of the file on that datawafer?”
The other man’s eyes widened slightly as comprehension dawned. “When Trager brought it to you, along with what seemed a rational explanation for Patel’s death. It answered most of our unanswered questions…”
“…making us want to believe it. And once we’d swallowed that much of the story, the rest went down without any difficulty,” Novak concluded ruefully. “We’re not dealing with aliens, Nayo. They’re as Human as we are, and they knew exactly how to play us. Bruni was a pawn. His death gave Trager access to me, and I was his pipeline to Daisy Hub. Damn! We need to alert Townsend right away.”
“Actually,” said Naguchi hesitantly, “he probably already knows that Karlov is not to be trusted.”
Halfway out of his chair, Novak halted and dropped back down, his expression stern. “You’d better explain that, Doctor Chin.”
“I had Danziger darken the iris of the prosthetic eye by a couple of shades. Nothing dramatic, just something that would strike the crew as being not quite right about Karlov and put them on their guard. If those people are still as smart as they were when I was station manager, they’ll already have begun unraveling his cover story by the time your warning arrives.”
Novak leaned back into his chair, slack-jawed. “Wow. And I thought Quan took unconscionable risks. This was the last thing I expected from you, Nayo.”
“In retrospect, I realize I probably shouldn’t have done it, but—”
“Damn straight, you shouldn’t have! Blowing the cover of an operative on a mission is a betrayal punishable by death. What if Trager had turned out to be on the level?”
“Look, I’m sorry, but from the moment I met him, I could sense that there was something wrong about him. When I tried to warn you, you brushed me off. I knew that the way you planned to send him to the Hub, smuggled aboard a freighter with a rat for a traveling companion, was bound to raise eyebrows at the other end anyway, so I changed one little thing to reinforce that reaction. That’s all I did. I was sure that if his story checked out down here, then he would pass all their tests out there, with no harm done. On the other hand—”
“Better safe than sorry. I get it. But dammit, Nayo, we’ve been friends for more than eighteen years, trusting each other with secrets that could blow up like bombs, and you still felt the need to go to Danziger behind my back?”
“Would you have approved my plan if I’d suggested it?”
“Dunno,” he growled. “You never gave me the chance.” After a pause that hung in the air between them like a wall, Novak finally added, “Maybe I would have, if I’d had time to think about it. If we— If I hadn’t been in such a rush to hide the file and get Trager off-planet before the Stragori arrived.” He threw Naguchi a sideways look. “They still haven’t come after him, you know. I’ve been hoping it’s because he actually managed to throw them off his scent, but— I should have paid attention to your instincts, Nayo. I’m sorry.”
“As you should be,” said Naguchi drily. “And while we’re on the subject, something else has been nagging at me. If the Directorate’s purpose is to keep us in the dark about our ancient past, then why hand us the document in that file? If the messenger is a liar, mightn’t that mean the message he’s carrying is false as well?”
“Are you talking about Trager, or about Quan?”
“About both. At least one of them is conning us, and as your physician I’m prescribing a healthy dose of skepticism.”
“Point taken, Doctor.” Striding to the door, Novak cracked it open and called out to his second in command, standing guard in the hallway. “DeWitt, take Quan some food and free up his hands so he can eat it himself.”
“Just his hands, boss?”
“Yes, and make certain he can’t reach the buckle on his collar. I have a few more questions for him to answer, and one of them is the deal breaker.”
— «» —
“Is there something about that file of sensitive information that we should know, Quan?”
Novak’s voice had an impatient edge to it, and with reason. Quan had taken his time eating, turning his meal of a tomato sandwich, a cup of yogurt, and a mug of java into an hour-long theatrical performance for the benefit of whoever might be watching him on the monitor.
Now, sitting with his arms crossed over his chest and wearing a smile that fairly begged to meet up with a right hook, Quan replied, “Are you belatedly wondering whether it is authentic? If not, you should be.”
“And if you were to give me a truthful answer to that question, what would it be?”
“You would learn that the document in that file is a true copy of the original, which was purportedly stolen from Earth many of your centuries ago and is now kept in the Stragori government archives. Although its provenance has never been verified, it provides an irrefutable explanation for the commonalities shared by our two races, as anyone who has drawn the unwanted attention of the Thryggians will attest.”
“And yet your government — the same Directorate that is actively working to prevent us from finding out about our ancient past, according to you — has contrived to put this information into our hands. Why?”
“Think about what you’ve done with that information, Mister Novak, and in particular what you are not able to do with it, because I assure you, the Directorate considered it carefully. In the absence of a person you trusted who could introduce and vouch for him, their agent presented you with an artifact that t
hey knew you could verify as being genuinely ancient but would be forced to keep secret, and thus could never use against them. In this, as in many other of the Directorate’s assumptions regarding Humanity,” he added, the maddening smile spreading to encompass his gleaming dark eyes, “I intend to prove them disastrously wrong.”
Tommy Novotny was finding that prospect extremely attractive. With an effort, Barry Novak dragged him back to the interrogation at hand.
“One more question: You said something earlier about us being a race of youngsters. What did you mean by that?”
“I meant what I said. In the eyes of every other spacegoing race in the galaxy, Humans are children.”
“Why?” Novak demanded. “Because we don’t live as long as they do? That makes no—” The words died in his throat as he suddenly realized that it did make perfect sense, if the other races knew what the Stragori really were.
Quan had been watching for his reaction. “Am I to gather from the expression on your face that you’ve had an epiphany, Mister Novak?” he said pleasantly.
“It’s because we don’t live as long as you do, isn’t it? What’s the average life span of a Stragori?”
“Two hundred and fifty Earth years, give or take a decade.”
Novak had to force his lungs to accept his next breath. When he could once more trust his voice, he repeated, “Two hundred and fifty? That’s twice as long as ours.”
“Now it is. You’ve made strides in medical research, managing to increase your ability to cling to life by about fifty percent. It’s a laudable achievement, to be sure. But your physical aging process still begins prematurely.”
“And we can thank the Thryggians for that?” said Novak.
Quan hesitated a moment, then dipped his chin slightly.
The Relativity Bomb Page 12
