Idrem nodded. “Brenlor sent us a tight-beam update half an hour ago. He estimates that the additional landers we require for the assault will arrive here in eight days.”
“The sooner the better. The Slaasriithi shift carrier is probably no more than four days away from making shift. Consequently, a response force from Beta Aquilae could arrive here within two weeks. We need to have concluded our operations and be well into our preacceleration phase by then.”
Idrem gestured at the cannonballs orbiting the image of the planet. “It would be helpful to have the Arbitrage’s navigational laser array on hand when we confront the cannonballs again. It would make short work of them, even at extreme range.”
“Helpful, yes, but to do so, we would be telegraphing our intent to attack. The enemy sensors, of which there seem to be an almost inexhaustible number, would detect the approach of Arbitrage days before we could include it in an attack. That might prompt the Slaasriithi to launch more cannonballs, or undertake different strategies that could complicate our primary objective: to find and eliminate the planetside Aboriginals.” She steepled her fingers. “So, we will conduct our attack without prior warning. We shall wait and watch the cannonballs’ orbital patterns, crack a hole in those defenses using Lurker’s firepower, and then send one of our landers through that hole to locate and neutralize the Aboriginals on the surface.”
Idrem’s eyes drifted to a yellow triangle that was closer to the image of the planet, looping around it in an uneven, wobbling orbit. “So, when do you envision eliminating the other Aboriginal craft?”
Sehtrek had evidently thought the question to be addressed to him. “I do not know that we must, Idrem. It has shown no power output, and its orbit continues to decay. As an added precaution, I have projected attack times during which it would be on the other side of the planet, should it retain some combat capability.”
Idrem folded his arms. “Although it shows no power that we can discern at this range, the ship in question—a Commonwealth Wolfe-class corvette—has reasonable capacitors.”
“Capacitors are useless without a working power plant,” Tegrese asserted. “There is never even residual heat to suggest that they powered up while out of the field of our sensors.”
Idrem stared at her near-insolence. “Most versions of the Wolfe-class are fitted with retractable solar panels. They can maintain minimal power by recharging the ship’s batteries.”
“As it might be doing now,” Nezdeh concluded.
“Or it may simply be the lifeless wreck it seems to be.” Tegrese’s comment doubled Nezdeh’s annoyance.
Idrem intervened. “We know the craft was significantly damaged. Time will help us further determine its status. And if their orbit decays to the point where they start entering the atmosphere, they are finished, even if there are survivors aboard.”
Nezdeh nodded her agreement. “Happily, we need not confirm the status of the Aboriginal craft before we commence our operations. Once we have removed a cannonball to open a landing window, Red Lurker will continue to track both the remaining two cannonballs and the Aboriginal wreck whenever their orbit puts them within sight of our sensors. If the wreck attempts to challenge Lurker in any way, we will be able to destroy it, even from our stand-off position.”
Tegrese shrugged. “If you are so fearful of it, then why not strike now and eliminate this troublesome variable?”
Sehtrek’s tone was careful and very patient as he pointed out what should have been obvious. “The present range of engagement is far too great for us to be assured of success, and a renewed attack may bring more cannonballs after us. At any rate, it would not only reveal our presence but our position, depriving us of the surprise we need for our planetary assault.”
“Very well. But what of the ground target? Isn’t it possible that the shuttle crashed? That all the Aboriginals are dead?” Tegrese was asking the questions Nezdeh had feared she’d ask: questions that she, Idrem, and Sehtrek had already considered and answered.
“There are survivors. My Reifications confirm that there is at least one Devolysite still extant on the surface. Furthermore, our sensors showed no thermal blooms consistent with either a catastrophic reentry or a crash.”
“So,” said Tegrese with a sardonic smile as she leaned away from the table. “The impossible task of eliminating the escaped Aboriginals is now merely improbable.” She became serious. “We shall need many of the frozen clones, and all four of the Arbitrage’s landers, if we are to—”
Idrem shook his head. “That will not answer our needs. Firstly, several of the Arbitrage’s landers have been converted into refueling auxiliaries. Secondly, any clones which are still in cryogenic suspension will be of no use. They take too long to revivify and longer to indoctrinate to our dominion. The Slaasriithi response from Beta Aquilae will be here before they are ready.”
Tegrese seemed almost abashed. “Then what are your plans?”
“We shall dedicate all our currently revivified clones to the project, who are currently aboard one of the two landers that are en route to us. The other one, a paramilitary version, will be our landing and assault craft.”
Tegrese nodded, seemed to be searching for some worthwhile point to raise. “Will the other cannonballs not simply follow our lander planetside and destroy it?”
Sehtrek pulled up a holographic report on what they knew about the cannonballs. “I do not have complete technical intelligence on the devices, but their shape and performance indicates that they are intended for extra-atmospheric work. Without lift surfaces, all their maneuver is powered. So, given their limited atmospheric duration compared to craft with lifting surfaces, it seems unlikely that they would descend to pursue our lander.”
Tegrese finally asked a pertinent question: “So, given the planetary communications black-out, how will you find the Aboriginals?”
“Our agent has a Devolysite that will deliquesce when I send the appropriate Reified command. As it dies, it emits a strong return wave through the Reification, which shall guide our initial point of descent. Its deliquescence also signals our saboteur to begin providing us with terminal guidance, that we may more narrowly locate the Aboriginals and kill them.”
Sehtrek nodded at Nezdeh’s synopsis. “Is there anything else we need to consider?”
“We will need patience,” she answered. She considered Tegrese from the corner of her eye. A great deal of patience.
* * *
Tlerek Srin Shethkador allowed the iris valve to remain open for several seconds before he entered the isolation cell in Ferocious Monolith’s brig. It had already been determined that the subject was susceptible to the will-eroding power of fearful anticipation. So it would be now.
The Aboriginal woman was sitting in desperate uncertainty away from the door. But since the cell was round, there was no corner in which to shelter her back and derive some sense of defensibility, of security. Her clothes were still wet from the hourly drenchings of cold water he had ordered. Every sixty minutes, one autarchon entered to hold her down, another brought in a container of cold water which he poured over her slowly. Then they left, never having said a word, never having met her eyes. She was an object they were watering: nothing more.
Shethkador stared at her slim, shivering legs. Some Aboriginals—they were rare, but they existed—were able to immediately discern the true purpose of such treatment: to unnerve and defocus the subject by demonstrating that they were alone, helpless, and of no urgent interest to their captors. Questions and direct engagement sent a message to most subjects that they were important, and that was a form of power, a slender bit of nourishment for their own aspirations to regain dominion. The rare subjects who were able to distance themselves from their fears in such a situation intrinsically understood that there was no act of cooperation or placation that would serve to appease or please their captors, because their captors desired neither. The captor-captive relationship was not, ultimately, social: it was simply manipulation exerci
sed by the dominant to extract compliance from the subordinate.
So taught the Progenitors; Tlerek silently recited, such is the truth of the universe. To which this sodden Aboriginal female was as senseless and deaf as the rocks floating around them, here in the trailing trojan point of the fourth planet out from V 1581.
She looked up; her shivering redoubled. Shethkador was pleased. In his youth, he had spent some effort perfecting the disinterested stare with which he regarded her now. “Stand,” he said.
She did, slowly. The reluctance with which she complied was not indicative of defiance, but uncertainty over what actions might displease him. Excellent. “You may ask questions, now,” he told her.
“Where am—?”
“When you are given the privilege to speak to me, you are to address me as Fearsome Srin. If you fail, you shall be immediately punished. If you fail repeatedly, you shall be terminated. Now, try again.”
“Fearsome Srin, where am I?”
“Aboard my ship. What do you last remember?”
She frowned. “I was being sedated for cryogenic sleep procedures on Jam—”
“What is Jam?”
“That’s what we call the second planet in V 1581.”
“You call it ‘Jam’? As in, a sweetened fruit spread?”
“No, as in a traffic jam.” When she saw that Shethkador’s expression did not change, she tried a different approach. “Like a big guy trying to crawl in a small space; he gets jammed, stuck—”
“So the name refers to all the fleet traffic that is passing through the orbital facilities there. Continue.”
She nodded with tolerable deference. “My partner and I were able to get away from our original ship in Sigma Draconis Two and stow away on the Changeling, just after we did the job for you.”
“You did a job for me?”
She blinked, fearful. “Yes. You—you’re a representative of CoDevCo, right? Fearsome Srin?”
Now it becomes clear. “I am not a member of the Colonial Development Combine. I, along with others, compelled that megacorporation to do our bidding during the recent invasion of Earth.”
The Aboriginal was now too confused to remember to be fearful. “You compelled CoDevCo to—?”
“Attend,” Shethkador ordered. “The Colonial Development Combine was suborned by Ktor to facilitate our invasion of Earth. CoDevCo may have retained your services as a confidential agent and saboteur, but it was ultimately acting at our behest.”
“But the Ktor are—are creatures with pseudopods, that live in liquid methane, or—”
“Female, assess me; do you see any pseudopods?”
“No.”
“That is because there are none. The description of our appearance was a ruse, so that no other power would be aware that we, too, are humans. However, our breed last dwelt upon Earth over twenty millennia ago, before the harvesting.”
The woman’s face was expressionless: Shethkador knew the symptoms of information excess when he saw them. “This is of no concern. You were hired as servitors of the legitimate leaders of the Ktor. But those who ordered you to change the cold cells you delivered to the Slaasriithi ship were impostors.”
“How do you know about—?”
Shethkador crossed the distance between them in a single long step and swung the back of his hand against the side of her face. It was a mild blow, compared to what he was capable of, but it spun her head, sent her against the wall. She slid down, stunned, and then started to weep. “When you address me directly, you use my title.” He waited. “What is my title?”
She choked out the words. “Fearsome. Srin.”
“Correct. Now: you must provide every detail of what you were to do after you switched the cold cells.”
“Yes; I—yes, Fearsome Srin.” She waited for his dismissive nod of approval before continuing. “Our employers arranged for a purser’s assistant on Changeling to sneak us on board. After it shifted here, we debarked as soon as we could and took on identities as ordinary dock workers.”
“So that you would not attract attention?”
“Yes, Fearsome Srin. Also, anyone looking for us would presume that we were trying to get out of Arat Kur space as quickly as possible and would concentrate their search on the shift-carrier.”
“So it was your intent to remain in your unassuming roles until you believed that you were no longer being sought?”
“Actually, Fearsome Srin, our employers told us to await a coded signal which meant that they had completed fabricating two new identities for us. Which they did six days after we arrived at Jam, Fearsome Srin.”
Shethkador did the math. The Arbitrage had still been in-system, then. So someone aboard her had purloined the false identities for them and was also the source of their “employer’s signal.” “And I presume your employers instructed you to travel onward in cryogenic stasis, since officials would not rouse you to confirm your identity.” Ingenious, and just what I would have done.
She nodded. “Yes, Fearsome Srin, but—what happened? Why am I here? Did you seize the ship that was carrying our cold cells to Earth?”
Aboriginals: always presuming that ends are attained by battle, rather than deception—or a knife in the back. “We used tight-beam relay to contact our own servitors in orbit at Jam and instructed them to do to your cryocells what you did to the cryocells bound for the Slaasriithi ship: they made a switch. Once your cells had been removed from the waiting list of pending cold-freight, they were shipped out by small craft to the gas giant in orbit four. Your cryocells were set adrift in a vacuum-rated cargo container. We waited for an auspicious moment and sent a stealthed patrol hunter to reclaim you.”
She looked around. “Where is Manuel, the man I worked with, Fearsome Srin?”
“He was extraneous.”
She shivered; she may have held back a sob. “We—I didn’t mean to fail. We did what we were asked to do. We had no way of knowing it was not authorized.”
“That is true. It is also irrelevant. But we could not allow you to remain among your own kind. Upon returning to Earth, the counter-intelligence agencies would have apprehended you.”
“So,” she shuddered, clutching her arms tightly, “are you going to kill me?”
Such an amateur; as if I would not have done so already, had that been my intent. “I should,” Shethkador lied, and let the pause draw on, “but no: you may prove valuable as bait.”
She blinked. “As bait?”
“Of course. Whoever hijacked our assets and acted without authorization must be located and punished. So far, the pawns have been easy enough to eliminate. We found and executed the person on my ship who sent you your initial messages. We uncovered the parties that hired him and shall have them soon enough, too. But they did not have enough power or information to undertake this ambitious scheme on its own. To that end, I will ensure that news of your capture and interrogation ‘slips out,’ and so, touches a wider circle of ears than it should. And then we shall see what responses those rumors generate.”
“I do not understand: what kind of responses do you expect them to generate, Fearsome Srin?”
“Attempts against your life, of course.”
She blanched.
“Surely you understood this is what I meant by keeping you as ‘bait.’ We shall also intimate that you are not the mere informant you seem to be but are one of our most prized, deep-cover Aboriginal agents. Our adversaries will not know, or be able to retroactively ascertain, the truth of this claim. Earth was chaotic enough prior to the invasion and is in utter disarray now. So, in order for the guilty parties to conceal their involvement, they will have no choice but to kill you. If they can.”
“But you won’t let them—will you, Fearsome Srin?”
“I will prevent it.” Which, for the moment, was true. But Shethkador could anticipate many reasons for changing his mind later on, not the least of which was to prevent his enemies from discovering how very little the Aboriginal female actuall
y knew. Indeed, the only way to perpetuate their uncertainty would be to allow his adversaries to assassinate her and thereby eliminate their only hope of determining what she did and did not reveal to him.
“And, Fearsome Srin, what assurance do I have that you’ll keep that promise?”
He smiled. “That is an amusingly ironic question, coming from someone who has not only broken her oath of service, but has become a meretricious traitor.” He turned to exit, but stopped on the threshold of the iris valve. “Your people have a customary good night wish: ‘pleasant dreams.’”
As the portal squealed shut behind him, he discovered Olsirkos Shethkador-vah waiting just beyond the entry to the brig. Tlerek motioned that he should walk alongside. “Has the patrol hunter finished its survey of the gas giant?”
“Yes, Fearsome Srin. Doom Herald just submitted its tightbeam report.”
“And?”
“As you suspected, Red Lurker did not leave a camouflaged data cache at either of the covert drop sites. Also, there was sign of a combat just above the gas giant’s exosphere: light debris, including parts of a communication mast and a length of refueling hose. All Aboriginal.”
“Of course. No sign of debris consistent with Red Lurker, I presume.”
“None, Srin Shethkador.”
“Have our collaborators on the second planet relayed the logs of the pre-shift communications with the Arbitrage?”
“Their logs show no irregular reports, Honored Srin. However, several days after refueling, the Arbitrage’s transmission characteristics altered slightly. It was presumed to be the result of changes in the gas giant’s magnetosphere and local ionization.”
Shethkador shook his head. “But that was not what caused the discrepancy. Those post-refueling messages had to be sent by Red Lurker’s array, since the debris found by Doom Herald included pieces of the Aboriginal ship’s communications mast.”
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