Caine nodded, then stopped: come to think of it, Richard’s desperation didn’t look merely emotional, but tinged with need, dependence. And was he putting on weight, the kind of waste-flab that comes from drinking too much?
But there wasn’t the time or the opportunity to surreptitiously look for other signs of a man who might be descending into a bottle. There was just enough time for Caine to say the words that had to be said, no matter how much he didn’t want to utter them, but which Downing needed to hear: “Richard, you were just the accomplice. It was her own father who performed the deeds, who got her tangled up in IRIS, albeit indirectly. Who put her through all the misery. You weren’t in a position to stop it. Ever.”
Downing was only half listening. “This is a dirty game, a dirty life, Caine. I’m sorry I got you into it, into all the lies and manipulation and secrets. I’m sorry I ever—”
“Listen,” Riordan said sharply, which got Downing’s attention. Which had been Riordan’s intent: he needed to steer Downing away from the edge of what might become a self-destructive precipice of grief. “Listen,” Caine repeated, “long before any battles were joined, we were at war. But only you and Nolan Corcoran and a handful of others knew it. And you had to get us ready, had to prepare all of humanity. Without us knowing you were doing so. We had to be ready to fight species that were more advanced and expansive than we were. That didn’t give you two any margin for error. And if you and Nolan made mistakes along the way—well, hindsight is 20/20, but real-time is a bitch. The bottom line is, we’re all still alive to complain about it. And maybe patch together a few pieces of our normal lives.” He reached into the front pocket of his duty suit. “Here. I want you to take this back to Earth. It’s for Connor.”
Downing, his eyes still haunted but his face no longer contorted, took the data chip. “What is it?”
“A collection of letters. I wrote one every day of the journey from Disparity to here. Some recordings as well; anything to give him a sense of who I am.”
Downing turned it around in his fingers. “Did you—did you know we were going to send you right out again?”
Riordan shrugged. “I didn’t know. But like I told you, it always seems to happen that way. I just presumed that nothing would really be that different this time. And see? It wasn’t.” He exhaled. “So, Elena’s in a Dornaani facility?”
Downing nodded. “On their homeworld, according to Alnduul.”
“Her recuperation seems to be taking a long time.”
Downing raised a hand, let it fall. “Too bloody long, if you ask me. But I haven’t been in direct touch with Alnduul for six months now, and none of the Dornaani I come into contact with have any knowledge of Elena. I’m not even sure her transfer was approved by the Dornaani Collective. Or the Custodians. Alnduul may just have done it on his own authority. May have been skinned alive for it, too.”
Riordan closed his eyes, asked the next awful question. “Who’s taking care of Connor?”
“Trevor mostly, but Connor spends a lot of time with my family. We—we’re doing the best we can by him. But it’s hard. He’s a tough lad, but with his mother dozens of light years away in the care of exosapients—” He raised his hand in an appeal to the skies. Let it fall again.
And Caine thought: I’ve got to get home. Now. But Riordan pushed that gut-reflex down with a principled riposte: No: you’ve got to take care of business, first. And while you do, you’ve got to get enough leverage to make sure that those nine human beings on board the corvette don’t pay for their loyalty to you by spending half of their natural lives as gagged canaries in semi-gilded security cages. Caine could not meet Downing’s eyes. “Tell Connor I’m coming home as soon as I can. I promise.”
“I will, Caine. You have my word on it.”
“Good. I’d like to have your word on one more thing, Richard.”
Downing immediately became wary. “And what is that?”
“Since you got Yiithrii’ah’aash’s message about what happened on Disparity, you know about Keith Macmillan, right?”
Downing looked, and sounded, like he was swallowing glass. “I do.”
“He has a daughter. Katie.”
“I know. I pulled his dossier.”
“So you know about the quid pro quo that the Ktor used to turn him: his cooperation in exchange for her life.”
Richard’s eyes were hard, unblinking. “They are right bastards.”
Caine wasn’t sure whether Downing was referring to the Ktor, their megacorporate lackeys, or both. And didn’t care, at the moment. “If my guess is right, they didn’t give Katie a full cure; Dora overheard one of the Ktor say as much. And frankly, that’s exactly what I’d expect of them: to let the disease come back, clean up all their loose ends.”
“I agree. And it’s an awful situation. But what do you want me to do?”
Caine leaned forward. “I want you to use your authority, your power, to make it right.”
Downing leaned away sharply. “Caine, assuming that I could get permission to—”
“Fuck permission. You’ve got the leads you need. Macmillan was approached in the waiting room. That gives you a place and a face. And that face is sure to be all over the security cameras. I suspect that face didn’t arrive at the hospital by public transport, so that face is also connected to a vehicle. You track down that vehicle, and that face. You grab that face from whatever well-appointed apartment or sybaritic retreat it happens to be occupying and you put a bag over it. And you take that bag off when you have that face in a cold, well-lit room and you squeeze that mother-fucker for everything he knows. Someplace, there is a connection between that face—that malicious bastard—and whatever cure he slipped into Katie. I’ll even bet there are still some samples out there, just waiting to be used to turn some other desperate parent into a traitor. So you find that face, and that drug, and you save that poor girl’s life.”
“Caine, what you’re asking—I can’t just—”
“Richard, I will not listen to your bullshit. Not this time. This is a little girl who was a victim of our enemies. The timing makes it a near-certainty that they bred the cancer that was in her. And then they turned her father against everything else he loved to save her. You will do this, you will save that girl, or I will hold you—I will hold our side—responsible. Do you understand?” When Downing hesitated, Riordan lifted his hand to the table. He deposited its contents—a holstered CoBro liquimix sidearm—immediately to his right. “I asked: do you understand?”
Downing leaned even further away, eyes wide. “Bloody hell, Caine, what’s come over—?”
“I am going to ask this. One. More. Time. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes, of course. But I—”
“No buts, Richard. And no excuses or backsliding or consulting with your superiors. If you don’t save her, then I will—and then I become your worst problem. Your worst problem. Do the right thing and—who knows?—we might actually become real friends. But I’m giving you a choice, right here, and right now: you can obey your precious rules and regulations and intelligence protocols and let Keith’s little girl die, or you can stand up for basic human compassion and loyalty, and resolve not to allow these monsters to screw with our children.” Caine felt his face grow suddenly hot. “With our children, for fuck’s sake.” Riordan rose so swiftly that his chair fell over. He spun and stalked away; if Downing called after him, he wasn’t aware of it.
Because all he could hear, again and again, was what Dora had told him about Macmillan’s death, about what the Ktor commander on Disparity had said: “Family is our strength, but it is your weakness.” Riordan walked through the dust and post-combat debris littering the marshalling area of Site One, and thought: and you Ktor actually believe that, too. Because part of the price you’ve paid for all your enhancements is love. But that love—and the loyalty it breeds—is not just our best virtue:
It is the weapon I will use to destroy you.
Dramatis Personae
The Humans
(traditional Chinese and Japanese names list family names first)
Qwara Betul: Archivist/recorder; legation to Beta Aquilae
Piet Brackman: First Pilot, SS Arbitrage
Joe Buckley: Quartermaster/Purser; legation to Beta Aquilae
Oleg Danysh: Physicist; legation to Beta Aquilae
Richard Downing: Director, Institute of Reconaissance, Intelligence Security; Riordan’s handler:
Philip Friel: Engineer, legation to Beta Aquilae
Etienne Gaspard: Ambassador Plenitpotentiary, legation to Beta Aquilae; CTR Consul
Hirano Mizuki: Planetology/exobiome expert; legation to Beta Aquilae
Trent Howarth: Staff Sergeant, NZSAS; security staff for legation to Beta Aquilae
Ben Hwang: Biologist and senior scientist; legation to Beta Aquilae
Emil Kozakowski : Former master of the SS Arbitrage; (former) employee of CoDevCo
Morgan Lymbery: Aerospace and drive expert; legation to Beta Aquilae
Keith Macmillan: Warrant Officer Class 2, British Army/IRIS; legation to Beta Aquilae
Tina Melah: Engineer; legation to Beta Aquilae
Miles O’Garran: Master CPO, SEAL/IRIS; security staff for legation to Beta Aquilae
Caine Riordan: Commander, IRIS/USSF; security chief of legation to Beta Aquilae
Christopher “Tygg” Robin: Lieutenant, SAAS/IRIS; security staff of legation to Beta Aquilae
Bannor Rulaine: Major, US Special Forces/IRIS; security staff for legation to Beta Aquilae
Melissa Sleeman: Advanced science and technology Expert; legation to Beta Aquilae
Vassily Sukhinin: Chief negotiator and Deputy Director of IRIS, Sigma Draconis; CTR Consul
Ayana Tagawa: Executive Officer of SS Arbitrage
Karam Tsaami: Pilot; legation to Beta Aquilae
Jorge Velho: Captain of SS Arbitrage
Dora Veriden: Personal security for Ambassador Gaspard; legation to Beta Aquilae
Peter Wu: Lieutenant, Taiwanese Army/IRIS; security staff for legation to Beta Aquilae
Xue Heng: EMT and assistant quartermaster; legation to Beta Aquilae
The Ktor
Ulpreln Balkether: Evolved; Crew of Red Lurker
Vranut Balkether: Evolved; Crew of Red Lurker
Zurur Deosketer: Evolved; Crew of Red Lurker
Tegrese Hreteyarkus: Evolved; Crew of Red Lurker
Pehthrum: Intendant; Crew of Red Lurker
Brenlor Perekmeres: Evolved and Srin; Captain of Red Lurker
Nezdeh Perekmeres: Evolved, Aware, and Srina; Executive officer of Red Lurker
Idrem Perekmeresuum: Evolved; Second Officer of Red Lurker
Jesel sul-Perekmeres: Aspirant; Crew of Red Lurker
Suzruzh sul-Perekmeres: Aspirant; Crew of Red Lurker
Sehtrek: Intendant, Crew of Red Lurker
Tlerek Shethkador: Evolved, Srin, and Ambassador to Earth/CTR; Captain of Ferocious Monolith
Olsirkos Shethkador-vah: Evolved; Acting Master of Ferocious Monolith
The Slaasriithi
Hsaefyrr: Third Ratiocinator of the Third Silver Tower
Mriif’vaal: Senior Ratiocinator; Overseer of the Third Silver Tower
Thnessfiirm: spokesperson for the cerdorae assisting the human survivors on Disparity
Unsymaajh: spokesperson for the convectorae assisting the human survivors on Disparity
W’th’vaathi: spokesperson for the ratiocinatorae assisting the human survivors on Disparity
Yiithrii’ah’aash: Prime Ratiocinator; Ambassador to Earth/CTR
Useful Acronyms and slang
ACS: attitude control thruster
AMP: automated munitions platform
CIC: combat information center
CINC or C-in-C: Commander in Chief or Commander in Charge
CoDevCo: Colonial Development Combine
CTR: Consolidated Terran Republic
HALO; high altitude/low opening
MAP: magnetically (or magnetohydrodynamically) accelerated plasma
PDF: point defense fire
RFS: Russlavic Federation ship
ROV: remote operated vehicle
TOCIO: TransOceanic Commercial and Industrial Organization
UCS: United Commonwealths ship
Ktoran glossary
Aboriginal: a low breed of original Earth stock; unmodified homo sapiens
Agra: A junior officer who is neither Evolved nor Intendant.
Aspirant: the progeny of a particularly accomplished and genetically preferred huscarl; these children are being considered for Elevation to Intendant; rarely, directly to Aspirant. If they fail the first step of Elevation (to ’vah or Aspirant), they are typically demoted.
Aware: an Evolved that can exercise the power of Reification (self-reference; homo transcendens)
Berem(a): (m./f.) A generic term that indicates aristocratic birth or station, but which does not signify any particular rank (and usually, implies an absence of special rank within that social class). Akin to “sir” or “madame.”
Catalysite: a symbiot or “cataylst” that amplifies Reification control and power
Devolysite: a devolved version of the “catalyst” symbiot that is senstive to various quantum entanglement alterations
Evolved: a member of the Ktor master geneline (homo imperiens)
Elevation: the process and rite by which low-breeds (usually Intendants) become Evolved
helot: a low-bred servitor, typically commanded by huscarls; many subclassifications exist
huscarl: direct, prized low-bred servitors; the class from which Intendants are usually drawn
jur: prefix; a particularly promising individual of one of the low-bred classes (a jur-huscarl, for instance, is likely to be the father of a sur-Intendant)
lictor: A junior officer rank, particular to the Aegis forces that answer solely to the Autarchs.
Srin/Srina: an aristorcrat of the Evolved, whose accomplishments, geneline, or both qualify them for elevation to Hegemon or Autarch. (pl.; Srinu)
sul: the prefix or short-form referent (’sul) signifying an Aspirant
Tval: one whose geneline has become corrupt, distant from the core line, or is otherwise not suitable to become the Hegemon of a House or Head of a Family, but who is otherwise unrestricted in their ambitions
-uum/’m: no longer of the core or progenitorial geneline of a House
vah: suffix added to a name that indicates the progeny of an Elevated Aspirant. Also shortened as ’vah, this status may be extended in the event of disappointing achievement, or other failures. Only in extreme cases, or several generations of a geneline remaining as ’vahs, is a ’vah demoted.
Wilding: a low breed that was not raised under Ktoran dominion
Raising Caine - eARC Page 62
