Caine shrugged. “They seem to think so, but we’re not going to find out. Since our best medical tests and scanners haven’t been able to detect their organics in our bloodstreams, we’re not about to take the risk of giving them our whole body to infuse. So we’ll rig the long-duration escape pods on Puller for the job.”
Dora folded her arms again. “They’re quad pods. That leaves two of us without a berth.”
“There’s a medical cold-cell in sick bay; that will provide for a ninth person.”
“There are ten of us,” Dora persisted.
Riordan smiled. “So we’ll draw straws. In the meantime, I’ll brief you on what I know of our mission during the preacceleration toward our first shift. That way, when everyone is awakened, we’ll be ready for an update and can hit the ground running. And once we’re done, we should be able to get back home to Earth a lot faster than before.”
Tygg frowned. “How?”
“Just before we left Sigma Draconis, I heard talk about the Republic setting up an express service out to the Big Green Main using one or two of the captured Arat Kur shift carriers. With their greater range and reduced turn-around time, travel back to Earth should be reduced from six shifts to four, and only twelve weeks, total.”
“That’s still a long time,” Dora complained, “even from Delta Pavonis.”
Riordan just nodded: every day was a long time when you hadn’t seen your soul-mate in nine months and hadn’t seen your son in—well, forever. “It will be good to get home,” he sighed. “We’ve been away too long.” He hung his head and laughed. “As I count it, I now owe my son Connor fourteen birthday presents. And his mother a proper proposal.”
Noticing the sudden silence, Caine looked up, discovered an oddly changed scene. Bannor, Tygg, Peter, Miles, and Karam were staring at the floor, faces wooden; the rest were staring at them, baffled.
“What is it with you guys?” Dora leaned forward. “Did someone die?”
Rulaine looked up, quick and hard. “Shut up.”
Dora blinked, frowned, opened her mouth.
“Just shut up, Dora.” He turned to Caine—who, seeing Bannor’s eyes, had the sudden sense that he might vomit: he’d seen eyes like that before. At funeral homes and intensive care wards.
“What is it?” Riordan asked. “What haven’t I been told?”
“Look,” started Bannor, hands opening into an appeal. “I didn’t know—none of us did—that you didn’t know about it. Not at first, and then—”
“That I didn’t know about what, god damn it?” Riordan held his voice level, wasn’t sure if he’d be able to manage that measure of self-control again.
“Caine, if you go back to Earth, you won’t find her—Elena—there.”
Riordan’s thoughts spun off on their own, uncertain, inchoate. “Not on Earth? Why?”
Bannor opened his mouth, then looked away. Peter Wu took up the tale. “Commodore, back in Jakarta, after we took the Arat Kur headquarters, how much do you recall right after Shethkador shot you in the back with his environmental suit’s manipulator arm?”
Riordan frowned. “I—I don’t remember much. I remember falling. I remember most of you were there. I remember Elena screaming, her brother Trevor trying to call in a med-team. I remember feeling that arm sticking out of my back…”
The arm that was no longer attached to Shethkador’s faux environmental suit when Caine had confronted him again at Sigma Draconis, where the Ktor was still masquerading as a cold-planet entity calling itself Apt-Counsel-of-Lenses, and where—
—Apt-Counsel rolled closer to the platform. Caine watched for the angle of the manipulator arm, saw that it had not been replaced. And saw that the other arm was missing as well: a prudent precaution…
But what if the other arm hadn’t been removed as a prudent precaution? What if—?
“Shethkador shot Elena with the other arm a moment after you fell in Jakarta.” It was Rulaine’s voice again: bitter, tight, hating every word. “She was turning when he shot her. It hit her in the spleen, and a piece of the arm lodged in her spine. The two of you were assessed; our docs thought they might be able to save you, tried, had to ice you so that the Dornaani could work their medical magic later on.
“But they didn’t spend one second wondering if they could save Elena; she would have been dead within the hour. The Dornaani offered to mend her if they could, and the docs turned her over. They put her in one of their own ICU cold cells and took her away. At first, we thought Downing must have told you when they woke you up. We never guessed—”
“No, the son of a bitch never told me. Of course, he never tells me anything, never commits to anything.” Riordan didn’t remember getting to his feet. “But that’s going to change next time I meet him. Or he won’t walk away from that meeting.”
Riordan wasn’t paying attention to his tone of voice, wasn’t even bothering to choose his words. When he looked around the room again, he had paced halfway across the ring of chairs. The other nine were sitting up very straight; O’Garran had grown pale, Dora looked like she was ready to run, Tina’s eyes were wide.
Tygg’s voice rose behind him. “Caine, I was with Trevor when they took Elena away. Downing was right to do it. There wasn’t any other choice.”
“Maybe not. But he could have left me on Earth to be with her, to take care of Connor. And he sure as shit had the choice to tell me about it when they yanked me out of my cold cell.”
Rulaine’s voice dragged like a lame dog, moving in a direction it had to go, but wanted very badly not to. “I’m not sure Downing really had a choice then, either, Caine.”
“Why? Was he under some kind of gag order?”
“He didn’t have to be under any order, Caine. He simply had to read the strategic tea leaves.”
Riordan turned. “What sort of bullshit are you talking, Bannor?”
“No bullshit; straight, hard facts, Caine. Come on, think it through. First of all, they needed you at Sigma Draconis. Downing knew that, and he was right. If it hadn’t been for you, would we have found out that the Ktor were human? More to the point, would we have learned it in time to keep that bastard Shethkador from tricking us into bombing the Arat Kur out of existence? You were the linchpin that day, Caine; your presence was the indispensable variable.”
“Bullshit.”
“You can say bullshit all you want, and wear that combination of real and false modesty all day long, but you know I’m telling the truth. You smelled the lie that Shethkador was peddling; you pieced it together. That was the moment we stepped back from xenocide, Caine—and not a moment before. And you’re going to tell me Downing wasn’t right to have you there? But he had to have you in that room undistracted by the knowledge that your lover was frozen on death’s doorstep light years away, and your son was a veritable orphan.” Bannor, seeing Riordan paralyzed by the terrible truth of his words, stopped abruptly, hung his head to stare at his tightly clasped hands.
It was Phil Friel who broke the silence with a sigh. “And within twenty-four hours, you were meeting with Yiithrii’ah’aash. And within another four, we were being scraped together into this legation. So when was Downing supposed to tell you, Caine? Was there ever a reasonable moment, a moment when you didn’t need all your attention and faculties, both for yourself and for the mission?” He paused. “I don’t know Downing, but withholding this information doesn’t sound like something he chose to do: it sounds like something he had to do. And then the rush of events did the rest.”
Riordan did not remember returning to his seat, was not sure how long he’d been sitting there before he looked up and said, through a tight, parched throat, “I’d like to be alone.” And then he was lost again: lost in one image after another of Elena, occasionally interspersed with the one photo he’d ever seen of his son Connor.
Out of the silence, as if happening at the other end of a long tunnel, he vaguely heard a chair leg scrape on the floor, then Dora’s voice. “Hey, you.”
> It was Karam who answered. “Me?”
“You see anyone else sitting where I’m looking? Let’s go get dinner. And don’t get any ideas; I’m just hungry, is all.”
Karam must have risen and left with her. At some point the others did as well.
Riordan didn’t see or hear them leave; all he could see was Elena.
* * *
Mriif’vaal accompanied Yiithrii’ah’aash to the flight operations section of the Third Silver Tower. They approached the waiting shuttle in silence. Yiithrii’ah’aash sent forth a thin wave-front of amity pheromones, and turned to board and begin his journey back to the Tidal-Drift-Instaurator-to-Shore-of-Stars and, ultimately, human space.
“Yiithrii’ah’aash, a question, if I may.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash turned back toward Mriif’vaal. “Of course. You have been most silent today, and I have not wanted to distract you from your thoughts.”
“They are not thoughts so much as they are concerns. Anxieties, even.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s interlaced his tendrils, made sure that his posture was relaxed. “Please share these with me; perhaps I may help.”
“My gratitude, Yiithrii’ah’aash. The events surrounding the humans, and particularly Caine Riordan—I am not sure I understand all the consequences of the choice we made to preserve his life by applying the ancient theriac.”
Ah: Mriif’vaal is both subtle and wise. He will be an excellent Prime Ratiocinator, when his day comes. “What consequences do you fear or foresee?”
“My reservations are not specific, but general.”
“Please elucidate.”
“Gladly, Yiithrii’ah’aash. I have never before encountered so many safeguards against the use of any resource that is at our disposal, and so many limiting protocols for its application. Even our employment of nuclear weapons has fewer, or at least less narrow, constraints. And yet, the danger one would presume to necessitate such extreme precautions is nowhere evident in the action of the theriac itself.”
Clever. Excellent. But I may not fully satisfy your curiosity, and so apologize for the lie of omission that I must now employ. “The consequences of the theriac are difficult to foresee; they may take different forms, it is said. However, we created these potential problems by acting hastily in bringing the humans to us.” That we had no good alternative to that haste is a separate matter. “What I commend to your further consideration is this: what problems we may have made for ourselves, and for Caine Riordan, by raising him from near-death with the theriac are in the future. Obversely, we had to act to solve urgent problems that beset us in the present. And Caine Riordan was, and remains, the key to their solution. In short, there was no choice. Besides, Mriif’vaal, beyond his utility to our purposes, Caine is also a great friend to our species and will prove even more so in the years to come, I foresee.”
Mriif’vaal buzzed faintly. “And you are fond of him.”
Yiithrii’ah’aash’s neck wiggled. “And I am fond of him. But beyond any personal feeling in the matter, there is the need for our two species to be Affined. A powerful need.” Yiithrii’ah’aash paused, let that pause alter the tenor of the conversation as he resumed with a casual, almost speculative tone. “I, and others, have been contemplating how the humans both problematize and adorn our macroscopic perspective of the universe, and how that points toward a long-term solution to our current problems. In contemplating the humans, I find myself unfurling tendrils of logic into the fibers of the cosmos as it is revealed to us through our challenges.”
“And what does this reflection show you?”
Yiithrii’ah’aash was silent for a second, elected to answer Mriif’vaal’s question with one of his own. “It is odd, is it not, how each of the sapient species in this region of space has a special talent?”
“I am not sure I perceive your meaning.”
“It is as though the way our own species has distributed our need for different skills over our taxae and subtaxae recalls and resonates with the cosmos’ own distribution of special talents and abilities among the other species we have encountered.” He sent a final wave of affinity pheromones at Mriif’vaal. “You might contemplate this, in quiet moments.”
Not daring to say more, Yiithrii’ah’aash dipped his neck in farewell, turned and boarded the waiting shuttle.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Deep space; BD +02 4076 and Sigma Draconis
Brenlor glanced at Ayana Tagawa, the only Aboriginal who was still on the bridge of the Arbitrage. “Your shift-plot is sufficient. Leave us.”
The small Asian female nodded her way into a reasonable bow that never did become fully submissive, Nezdeh noted. She is the best of them and the most dangerous. And having lost one of our two Intendants and two near-Evolved, we need her even more than before. That does not bode well.
Arbitrage’s preacceleration burn caused them all to lean slightly toward the aft bulkhead; in eight hours they would terminate thrust and engage the shift drive to the system designated as G-22-26. But after that…Brenlor had not announced their subsequent course, which made Nezdeh nervous. His decisions had improved recently, but he had closeted himself over the matter of their further destinations and ultimate objective. Thus shielded from counsel, Brenlor would decide their fate. Possibly disastrously.
Brenlor Srin Perekmeres crossed his arms, leaned over the star-plot, shrank its scale to show more stars in the same volume. “Our mission to disrupt the establishment of an alliance between the Aboriginals and the Slaasriithi has failed. While our loss of Terran equipment and clones is negligible, we shall continue to feel the loss of our own team-members. However, we still have a way to achieve our primary objective: to undermine any post-war stability between the various powers. We must ensure that the Aboriginals’ recovery from the war is problematic and that they are unable to fully capitalize upon both the spoils of their victory over the Arat Kur and the benefits of any alliance with the Slaasriithi. And in so doing, we shall implicate House Shethkador as providing woefully insufficient leadership in this area of space.”
So we will achieve the same ends with far fewer means—including the inestimable advantage of surprise? This, thought Nezdeh, should prove most interesting.
“Firstly, our defeat in this system provides our foes with no decisive forensic evidence, so it is unlikely to register with the Autarchs as more than a nuisance. Because Jesel and Suzruzh were not the product of optimized genelines, we left no definitive genetics. The Catalysites were expended and hence, deliquesced. We did not lose any of our own technology on their mission. In summary, any accusation against the Ktoran Sphere will be circumstantial and unsubstantiatable. The incident will become at most a cavil, not a decisive argument, against us, either within the Sphere or the Accord. Indeed, all the evidence we left behind is of Aboriginal origin.”
Idrem nodded, folded his own arms. “Yes, but the Aboriginals still lack the shift range, to say nothing of the astrographic charts, to make their way to this system. So the question will be asked: how did they get there?”
“To which every responsible party must presently answer: ‘Who knows?’ Every power of the Accord will deny responsibility, including our own Sphere, who will be the most eager to disavow any involvement. And so, discord is sewn: an act has been committed but no one takes responsibility. Let them concoct whatever plots they wish. It shall not point back to the Sphere or our patrons.”
Sehtrek rubbed his chin. “And yet, Srin Shethkador, the Autarchs and the Hegemons will all know—know—who did this.”
Brenlor smiled. “Yes, they will know. And part of what they will know is that Shethkador failed. We stole a ship of his in order to commandeer the Arbitrage, and although he was charged with calming the post-war waters, they instead roiled and frothed due to his inability to establish full dominion.”
Idrem nodded. Nezdeh could tell that he was impressed with Brenlor’s growth as a schemer. “That is so. But despite insufficient evidence, the other powe
rs of the Accord will also know.”
“Of course they will…and what could be better for generating the suspicions and tensions that are the precursors to the reumption of war? The humans will point incessantly to the impossibility of their involvement. The Slaasriithi must already conjecture it was us, the Arat Kur will be cast into greater turmoil, and the Hkh’Rkh will not care. But the greatest impact will be among the Aboriginals themselves, who will be torn between concealing or revealing the implicating clones and landers and guns we left behind.”
“Yes, which could ultimately align the still disparate and factious nations of the Aboriginals strongly against us.”
“Perhaps, but only if they have the luxury of time, of clarity, in which to consider the relevant facts. However, we shall ensure that the reports of what occurred here will be thoroughly mixed with new, more perplexing and distressing reports.”
“And your plan can sow this profound confusion?”
Brenlor nodded, leaned away from the plot. For the first time his posture suggested hesitation. “I know of a project, a false flag operation left in sleeper mode, that was established by the next to last Hegemon of House Perekmeres. It was developed intermittently, opportunistically, starting approximately two centuries ago. It fell by the wayside a century later and was all but forgotten. Indeed, it was not referenced in any of the records that were arrogated during our Extirpation. When our House died, so did all the memories of this project. Except for mine.”
“And you know of it how?” Tegrese asked.
Brenlor stared at her. “My father was one of those few who had overseen the project And if all the pieces of this hidden ploy remain where they were deposited, it only requires my touch to set it in motion and thereby draw the Aboriginals into another disastrous war. In the bargain, we shall assure the Ktoran Sphere of the continued alliance of the Hkh’Rkh, and gain access to badly needed resources. In the meantime, as we make our journey, we may reanimate the many UnDreamers of the Arbitrage and train them properly.” He leaned back. “It will be risky, but it can be done. And it is so bold, that none will look for it.”
Raising Caine - eARC Page 58
