“Very well,” said the Director. “I'll file the report with Ibrahim myself, save you the trouble. And I shouldn't have to remind you, if this security level is about to jump up to Talee and Talee-related matters…”
“Won't say a thing,” said Ari. Chandrasekar nodded grimly and disconnected.
“Save you the trouble?” Piyul asked. “You're still reporting to Ibrahim?”
“No,” Ari lied. “Chandi just gives me shit about it, everyone always said I was Ibrahim's boy.”
“Are you?”
“He doesn't sign my credit.”
Piyul exhaled and looked back at the monitors to Ragi's apartment. Ragi was sitting on the sofa, reading books. A monitor showed the title, something huge by some twenty-third-century literary legend, two thousand pages long.
“Talee,” Piyul murmured. “Wow.” Ari said nothing. “Though you know, I still think all neuro-synth technology came from Talee, I don't see how the League made that breakthrough on their own. You know anything about that?”
“I know nothing,” said Ari, getting up to leave. “I'm the stupidest smart man alive.”
“Cai,” said Director Ibrahim.
All were gathered in the most secure room the FSA building contained. The numbers were rather small—besides Sandy it was FSA Director Ibrahim, FSA Operations Director Hando, Fleet Rear Admiral Hoi, and Fleet Intel Commander Lupicic. Even Chandrasekar's clearance wasn't high enough for this—he wasn't a Fed, and Talee were Fed business. Thus the presence of Fleet, who liked to behave like they knew more about the Talee than anyone, and probably did. Normally Sandy's clearance would not be high enough either, were she not the source of the intel in question. Not even Grand Chancellor Li could enter this briefing, if he'd known to try. He'd be briefed in turn, but later, once the security professionals had considered it and figured out what to tell him.
Sandy was more nervous about leaving the kids alone at home. Security was no issue; Canas District was so tight even the casual breaking of wind would register on someone's display somewhere. But they hadn't been alone since they'd left Pantala. Those three being alone had typically meant working and struggling and worrying, trying to make enough loose change to buy food and stay alive without treading on the toes of some heavy who might kill them like swatting flies. Now they'd have nothing to do. Play some games, read some books, watch some movies. Seriously? She knew Danya had woken hard last night, three times, gasping for air and braced for some emergency. And Svetlana, barely waking, had pulled him back down and held him like a giant teddy bear. Mental note, she thought, buy Svetlana a real teddy bear. Maybe she'd like her own bed better with something to hold.
How did you tell kids from that background to just switch off from everything they'd ever known? She opened an uplink now, a high visual of the living room, where she could see Kiril and Svetlana indeed playing a game, something holographic. For a moment she couldn't see Danya, but a new camera angle revealed him in the kitchen. Doing something. Cooking? It looked like he was reading from a recipe book. Had they ordered more food? She hadn't known Danya could properly cook beyond bacon and eggs. What was he cooking?
Fleet Admiral Hoi asked her a question. About the most important development in Federation security since the end of the war with the League. And she'd much rather have watched Danya in the kitchen.
“No, sir,” she answered Admiral Hoi. “No idea where Cai is. He expressed a desire to make his own rendezvous with a Talee vessel. Last I heard, Captain Reichardt was going to let him have a limpet, then arrange to ‘look the other way’ while the pickup was made.”
“And how were the Talee going to communicate this pickup?”
“Again, sir, no idea. I'd advise awaiting the return of either Captains Reichardt or Wong. Being knowledgeable Fleet men, they could give you far better answers than I.”
“And no one thought to detain this…Cai?” asked Lupicic. He was tall and bald, with a face naturally given to skepticism. “Ask him further questions?”
“No,” said Sandy. “It might have come up, but everyone present, including myself, was of the opinion it was a bad idea.”
Lupicic folded his hands on the tabletop. “Enlighten me, please.”
“Cai is the first open contact made with an acknowledged representative of the Talee or any other intelligent alien species. That I'm aware of anyway, Commander Lupicic, you may of course know otherwise.”
Lupicic smiled thinly.
“The last thing we're going to do,” Sandy continued, “to said representative of a species far more advanced than our own, is piss him off. To use plain language. Cai was exceptionally helpful to us, and to the Federation's interests, on several occasions. To the point of actively intervening on two occasions in military conflict to ensure the Federation's success. That strikes me as a wonderful strategic success, a stunning success in fact, and possibly a vital one, in the struggles that lie ahead with the League, if the League's problems are as bad as they seem. We decided to pay Cai every courtesy, and to communicate our courtesies and heartfelt gratitude to his Talee friends when he reunited with them. A copy of which courtesies I included in my report, and you've all no doubt read.”
“I concur with this decision,” said Fleet Admiral Hoi, with what might have been a disagreeable glance at his Fleet compatriot. “Talee contact to positive ends is a staggering development—actual military assistance is beyond belief. My only complaint is that you did not put on a banquet in Cai's honour.”
“We thought that sucking up should not be the Federation's style,” Sandy said drily.
“If only that were true,” said Hoi. He was a tough little nugget of a man, broad and grey with a toothy smile. Without the uniform, he'd have looked like farmer or the guy who came around to fix the electrics. He'd risen all the way through Fleet ranks from ensign to become commander of everything. Sandy didn't know him very well, but what little she'd seen, she respected.
“Plus the distinct possibility,” Sandy added, “that if we'd decided to detain Cai, Cai might have decided otherwise. And we couldn't have done anything about it.”
Grim assessment around the table.
“Commander,” said Ibrahim. “Can you assess the evidence that Cai was acting a lone hand toward your situation? Or was he representing the thought-out policy of his superiors?”
Just like Ibrahim, he asked the central question every time.
“Logically any actor in Cai's position has a degree of operational autonomy,” she said. “Like Fleet Captains, information takes so long to move in space, decisions cannot always be consultative, decision makers must be empowered to decide, with some degree of finality. Sir, there's no conclusive evidence either way, as you've read in my report, and Cai was deliberately vague on the question, as you might expect of a competent operative determined not to reveal too much about the Talee. But in my opinion, Cai did have general support, what you might call conceptual support. I find it inconceivable that an individual of Cai's capabilities would be allowed to make contact with us, against all established precedent, in that situation, and command the actions that he took…I mean, the destruction of a League ghost recon vessel and the effective network takeover of Pantala's primary space station.”
Amazed silence. They'd read the report, but it still read like fiction.
“Talee have been so cautious,” she continued. “This was an extraordinary break from that caution. I can't conceive that they would allow such a break to occur by carelessness. I think Cai was where he was meant to be. Now, whether all Talee are happy with the results, that's another matter. Little enough a lowly soldier like myself is qualified to know about the Talee's internal organisation.”
With a faintly hopeful look around the table. Hoi might have smiled a little. If they knew, or anyone knew, they weren't going to tell her.
“So if he was in your opinion just where he was supposed to be,” Ibrahim continued, “why did the Talee want him there?”
“There's only one co
nceivable reason why a people so determined to avoid human contact in the past suddenly change their position,” said Sandy. “Fear. Or whatever the Talee emotional or intellectual equivalent. Whatever's going on in League space, centered upon events on Pantala, the Talee don't like it. Now, whether that's out of concern for themselves or out of concern for us, I'm in no position to say. Perhaps both. Perhaps our fates and theirs are connected. Perhaps Talee have had something in their past that makes them particularly concerned about what they see happening now amongst humans. I don't know.”
“Pantala was a Talee outpost, two thousand years ago,” said Ibrahim.
“Yes,” said Sandy. “Then mysteriously abandoned. And I'm betting, perceptive grunt that I am, that this is a pattern of settlement and abandonment Federation and League spacefarers have encountered before, out at the fringes of our existing territory, all highly classified from the rest of us. It suggests some kind of disaster. That would make a species concerned.”
“It would, wouldn't it?” said Hoi. And no more, as Lupicic gave him an unimpressed sideways glance.
“Do you think Cai will be back?” Hando asked her. “Talee seem to have the ability to avoid our sensors when they choose, probably they can insert their own synthetic human copies into our populations as well, should they want.”
“Oh, I'm betting they've been doing that for decades,” Sandy said dismissively. “Probably there's a bunch of them walking around in Tanusha right now.”
“Wonderful,” said the FSA's Ops Director. “Now we have to figure how to tell Director Chandrasekar without violating the Feds-only rule.”
“Agent Ari Ruben,” Ibrahim began, in that slightly cautious way a man might bring up a contentious topic, “has some interesting ideas about a new GI arrival in Tanusha. A man by the name of Ragi, non-combat designation, massively intelligent, with augmented uplink capability so advanced to look at we're not yet willing to let him within contact range of a network. Given the capabilities Cai demonstrated, it seemed a wise precaution.”
“Wait,” said Hoi, hearing this for the first time. “He's Talee?”
“We don't know,” said Ibrahim. “No recollection of his history, he just turned up on Nehru Station three months ago and requested asylum.”
Everyone turned to look at Sandy.
“Apparently we've done the basic scans on him,” she said. “He gave consent, but the new protection laws won't let us do anything more invasive without an external independent monitor…which of course we can't do because he's too secret.”
“Wait,” said Hando. “Apparently? You're not involved in this personally?”
“I'm attempting to rationalise my workload,” Sandy explained flatly. “We've got a lot of GI experts here now; I don't need to personally supervise everything.” No comment from Hando. Nor anyone else. “I don't think he's Talee; from what I can see he's crazy advanced, almost certainly one of the alternative neural growth methods—most GIs are number one, me and a few others like Ramoja and Jane are number two…were number two…” pause for a breath. “And Ragi looks like something else again. I've technical terms that won't mean anything to you; let's call him number three.
“Now if he's Talee, he's not nearly as advanced as Cai, because Cai's a combat GI, and he's got crazy network capabilities plus serious combat capabilities my synthetic colleague Rhian Chu estimates are not quite to my ability, but to combine both skillsets in the same brain at that level indicates that the Talee can do far more than the level represented by Ragi. Plus, Cai was a covert operator; if they're using other similar covert operators, that's some serious technology and knowledge, letting them roam around in our midst is a huge risk, so logically they'll be able to defend themselves, like Cai. So Ragi being non-combat, and Talee, doesn't make any sense, nor does the way he turned up here, delivered straight into our hands.”
“So if he's not Talee, what?” asked Hoi. Sandy thought the Fleet Commander seemed a little agitated on this question. Was he expecting something from the Talee? Worried about something? Or just concerned that someone not-Fleet might have access to this much information on them?
“Presumably someone who wanted us to have him,” suggested Ibrahim.
Sandy nodded. “So who is there in all human space, not Talee, who can make GIs to number three specifications?” She looked around the table. Probably they knew but weren't going to say it first. “Well, as I figure it, there's Renaldo Takawashi, and…well, Renaldo Takawashi.”
Ibrahim frowned in that curious, intent way he did when he was right there with her on some very important point. “But what you discovered on Pantala suggests that Takawashi, and in fact no human anywhere, originated synthetic neural design. It's a Talee technology, as are all the different origin methods you're describing.”
Sandy smiled. “Exactly. The League never invented neural synthology like they claimed, and Takawashi's a big, self-aggrandising, fucking liar. Like I always said.” Tried to pass himself off as her Daddy. She hadn't fallen for it then and now had proof she was right. “So where did he get it from? There's only one place anywhere that was working on alternative GI development methods, and that was Pantala. Unless the Talee gave him the tech directly, and somehow I don't think they like him that much.”
“And the first thing he does with this technological breakthrough,” Lupicic said skeptically, “is give it to us?”
Sandy shrugged. “League doesn't control Takawashi any longer; we don't even know where he is. Speculation is he's accumulated that much wealth that he's operating like a shadow department within the League government, pulling everyone's strings within the only field he cares about, which is synthetic development, obviously.”
“Doesn't explain why he'd just give us Ragi,” said Lupicic, shaking his head. “I don't buy it. He's a loose cannon, sure, but a traitor? Because that's how League would view it.”
“I saw a movie once,” said Sandy. “Pretty old film, can't remember the title. But a senior soldier fighting for one side realises his side has created a doomsday weapon, and he has no choice but to defect and give this doomsday weapon to the other side to continue the balance of power and prevent mutual armageddon.”
She looked about at them. Waiting to see which one of them got it first. Admiral Hoi looked quite unsettled. Points to Fleet for always being the first to understand what armageddon meant.
“You think Ragi that much of a threat?” Ibrahim asked, deadly intent.
“I don't know,” she said. “Probably not, if he's not actually Talee he won't be as capable as Cai. But you've seen the reports. Can you imagine Cai loose in this city? Taking control away from us in city-scale networks, like taking toys from a baby? You guys were all scared of me when I arrived, but I'm nothing compared to that. I can do physical damage, sure. But the network encompasses everything. It's our civilisation's technological life support, and we're all wired to it. Everything is. If a single entity ever got that much control over it, well, you can see why Ragi might not need to be a combat model.”
Returning home in her cruiser, she called back Justice Rosa.
“Cassandra!” he said, sounding genuinely pleased to hear from her. She quite liked Justice but was not yet prepared to judge whether that pleasure was mostly for her sake or mostly for the sake of the book he was writing and would no doubt gain great wealth and fame from. “Glad to see you're back safely.”
“Glad to be back safely, Justice.”
“And I hear your little gang of friends has grown by three?”
“You hear correctly.” Far too correctly, she thought sourly. Though it was too much to hope that news might have been silenced. Family details of high-security individuals like herself were repressed, so she wouldn't have to answer crap from any tabloids about it—and any tabloids who tried would likely end up in prison. But she'd have to answer something, sometime, she supposed.
“A very remarkable development. I understand you'll be a little busy in the near term, but can we meet a bit later?�
��
The previous routine. Sandy wasn't sure if she was looking forward to it or dreading it. Probably both. “Sure. How about give me a week, then try me again.”
“Of course. Schools?”
“Being organised.”
“The psychology bureaucracy giving you their usual bullshit?”
“Very much so,” Sandy sighed.
“Ages. Can I just know their ages?”
Sandy had to smile. Justice liked to hold himself above the Tanushan tea house chatterati but now trafficked in personal gossip like any other. No doubt he could impress others with his level of access to her life. Still, better him than some others, and drip feeding the beast was probably smarter than starving it. “Two boys, six and thirteen, and a girl, ten. All wonderful.”
“Siblings?”
“Yes. Orphans.”
“From Droze, wow. Well, best of luck to you, Sandy, it's a very noble thing you're doing.”
“You know, it's really not.” Justice had adopted a League orphan himself, she recalled. Having been a war correspondent there and seen the horrors.
“I know what you mean. Oh, one more thing. Emancipation. Your idea?” Oh, yeah, sure, Justice. Just slip it in there, I'll never notice.
“An independent development.”
“I do understand it's causing quite a stir in the human rights circles. Since it came from a rebellion on Droze, I put two and two together.”
“You know if you do that long enough,” said Sandy, “you can arrive at quite a large number that bears no relation to anything real.”
“The rebellion was League GIs left behind when the League pulled out five years ago?”
“Yes.”
“And you happening to be there at the time is pure coincidence?”
“Something like that.”
“What's happening to the rebels? We hear it's a standoff, so they haven't been wiped out yet…they captured the headquarters of Chancelry Corporation? This is New Torah Chancelry, right, the bit that remained behind, not main League Chancelry?”
Cassandra Kresnov 5: Operation Shield Page 17
