by David Weber
“And I’m sure it has—or had, at least—one,” Zilwicki agreed. “What I’m not sure about is how decentralized that support structure was. A lot will depend on what their end-game strategy is and how long ago they evolved it, Your Grace. Was the evacuation I identified—I think I identified—improvised when the military situation went south on them, or was it something they’d planned for a long time?”
“You think they could have been planning on vanishing down a rabbit hole from the very beginning?” Honor’s eyes were intent, and she frowned. “I never considered that. I guess I’d always assumed they planned on not being found out, in which case they would’ve gone right on managing their puppets from Mesa…until they suddenly realized they couldn’t. But do you think it’s really plausible that they planned on pulling some kind of Houdini from the start?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged again. “Nobody knows, on our side, at least. And, unfortunately, our friend Firebrand didn’t even realize it was going on. Frankly, I think he might have if he’d spent more time on Mesa and less time flitting about the galaxy lighting fuses. His ‘whiskers’ are more sensitive than most treecats’. In fact, I’m coming to the conclusion he may be part ’cat himself!”
“I wouldn’t go quite that far,” Honor said, although privately, she wondered if Zilwicki might not have a point.
“Maybe not,” the Highlander conceded. Then he inhaled deeply with yet another of those mountain-range-in-motion shrugs. “Anyway, he didn’t—notice anything, I mean. And Victor and Thandi and I were a bit too preoccupied to dig into it properly. So until Harahap and I can go in with the occupation teams and start digging, there’s no way to know one way or the other. But I do think it’s possible they planned on—What was it you called it? Pulling a Houdini?—from a very early stage. I’m not saying they expected to need it. I’m saying that these people obviously believe in planning ahead and that they’re the sort of people who would’ve figured that if they did need some sort of emergency evacuation plan they’d need it badly. And that I think it’s entirely possible they planned for that contingency even if they never thought they’d actually use it.”
“What a perfectly marvelous thought to ruin my morning. Thank you ever so much for sharing. Now I’ve got something else to produce bad dreams!”
“As Cathy would say, that’s why they pay you the big bucks, Your Grace. Besides, why should I be the only one worrying about it?”
“Even on flagships, people sometimes have accidents, Mister Zilwicki.”
“No, really?”
He looked at her innocently, and she chuckled. Then he looked at the shredded target draped over the shooting bench and his eyebrows rose.
“Not your best work, Your Grace,” he observed. “From your reputation, I’d’ve expected something more like that one.” He twitched his head at the silhouette with the eviscerated ten-ring still hanging in the firing lane.
“It’s not my work at all,” she said.
She lifted the damaged target with one hand and pointed at what had been hidden under it with the other. Zilwicki’s eyes followed her index finger…and widened as they saw the miniature pulser.
It was tiny, smaller even than any hideout weapon he’d ever seen, and he’d seen quite a few. For that matter, he’d never imagined a grav driver could be engineered down into something that small.
“Is that what I think it is?” he asked carefully.
“That,” Honor said, “is either a brilliant suggestion or the biggest bit of lunacy I’ve ever encountered. The jury is still out on which.”
Nimitz bleeked an indignant laugh, then made a severe scolding sound as she looked back down at him. She laughed and rubbed his ears affectionately, then returned her attention to Zilwicki.
“One of my armsmen back in Harrington—a fellow named Randy Todd—fell in love with modern small arms the instant we introduced them to Grayson. The Harrington Guard got pulsers before anybody else on the planet, except for Palace Security and the Mayhew Guard, and Randy was Harrington’s first master armorer. He was a corporal when he joined the Guard, and he retired last year as Sergeant Major of the Guard. You might say we think highly of him.”
Zilwicki nodded in recognition of that last sentence’s understatement.
“Anyway, like I say, Randy was in seventh heaven playing around with pulsers, stun guns, vibro blades, the odd grenade launcher—all those toys so dear to an armsman’s heart.” Major Hawke, who’d been standing against the firing range’s rear bulkhead made a sound remarkably like Nimitz’s, and she flashed a smile over Zilwicki’s shoulder. “He’s also just a bit demented,” she continued, still smiling at her personal armsman, “and I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s had this—” she flicked a finger at the tiny weapon “—in the back of his mind for a long time. But when word got back to Harrington that the treecats were providing bodyguards, he decided any armsman—regardless of species—should be properly armed. So the lunatic designed ’cat-sized pulsers that actually work.”
“Not exactly precision weapons, judging from the results,” Zilwicki observed.
“And it probably wouldn’t be a good idea for one of the ’cats to accidentally kill a half dozen or so innocent bystanders,” Honor acknowledged. “Especially considering who those bystanders would most likely be.”
Zilwicki’s shudder was only half humorous. Uncontrolled pulser fire at a meeting of the Joint Chiefs—or, even worse, between Empress Elizabeth and President Pritchart and their staffs—definitely constituted a very bad idea, he reflected.
“The problem is that treecats have never used missile weapons more complicated than a thrown stone. Bit surprising, really, but they come naturally armed and oriented for what you might call close-quarters battle. And as anyone who’s ever seen Nimitz with a frisbee or a tennis ball could probably predict, they’re pretty darned accurate when they do throw a rock at someone. But the notion of aiming and controlling something like a pulser is a bit more complex. And judging from Nimitz, it’s not something that comes as naturally to the ’cats as it does to humans.”
“No?” Zilwicki frowned. “Do you have any idea why not?”
“Not really.” Honor leaned more of her weight against the bench and opened her arms to Nimitz, who leapt up into them and pressed his nose against her cheek before turning in her embrace to face Zilwicki. “Some of it’s clearly physiological, but not all of it. There are a lot of things about the ’cats we still don’t understand, and we’re steadily discovering more of them now that the two species are talking to each other.
“One thing we’ve found is that their thought processes aren’t like ours. For one thing, they don’t use words—‘mouth-sounds’—at all when they communicate. They send…encrypted data packets, I guess. Doctor Arif’s assembled a team of ‘’cat psychs’ to try and figure it out, and so far it’s driving them crazy almost as much as it’s fascinating them, but it seems—so far—like a case of their sharing concepts directly, without any need to formulate terms of reference for them. We don’t have a clue exactly how a ’cat experiences complex information interchanges with another ’cat, and to this point, they haven’t been able to figure out how to explain it to us, either. The best handle I’ve been able to come up wth is that because their exchange is so direct, literally like sharing the other person’s very thoughts without the need for any physical interface, all the references we put into nouns, adjective, adverbs, differentiated concepts—all that stuff—is simply inherent in the original thought. I’m actually inclined to wonder if that helps explain why they don’t seem very innovative by human standards. Their information exchange is so complete that the sort of…ambiguity that often sparks a human inspiration just doesn’t happen between ’cats.”
“That’s fascinating.” Zilwicki rubbed an eyebrow thoughtfully. “But if that’s the case, how do they manage to sign?”
“It took them centuries to figure out that ‘mouth-noises’ were data packets at all, but once they did, they
seem to have realized that us poor, limited two-legs needed a sound tag to hang on the thoughts we couldn’t share. From there, they started gradually learning human vocabulary and syntax, at least well enough to comprehend it. I don’t think most people have a clue how monumental an accomplishment that was for a species which had never even considered the possibility of differentiated words!
“Apparently, though, the jump to a written language and the ability to associate letters or signs with phonemes and the phonemes with ‘mouth-noises’ was a heck of a lot steeper in some ways. They realized what we were doing when they saw us reading, they just couldn’t figure out how we were doing it. Doctor Arif made the breakthrough when she taught them to associate their own gestures with the words they’d learned to recognize, and most of the signs they use are really more concept than word, if you think about it. They very seldom sign exact Standard English, although the ’cats who spend the most time associating with humans do a lot more of that. But even they tend to think of the limited number of words they spell out more as ‘a two-leg thought construct expressed by multiple gestures’ rather than the components of a single word.”
She twitched a frown.
“I’m not really explaining this as well as I’d like, but that’s because there are still so many holes in what we know. And, frankly, Adelina and her teams are way ahead of me and Nimitz in figuring it out. I try to keep abreast of their findings, but there’s not enough time in a day for everything I’d like to be doing after I finish everything I have to be doing.”
“I can see that. It is fascinating, though. How else do their thought processes differ from ours?”
“Obviously, we’re still working on that,” Honor said. “One thing we have figured out already, though, it that they seem to have serious difficulties with any sort of math more advanced than very simple addition and subtraction.” She snorted suddenly. “Mom always did say I was half-treecat.
“Anyway, getting back to our abdundantly perforated target, Nimitz here seems perfectly comfortable with the notion of point-and-shoot. He’s just not very good at it—” the treecat reached up and back to smack her gently “—and teaching him aimed fire is turning out to be a skosh more difficult than Sergeant Major Todd expected. And, frankly,” her tone turned more serious, “it’s even more important with something as short barreled as any ’cat-sized pistol. Randy’s worked out a pulse rifle suited to treecat anatomy, but I’m not turning any ’cat loose with any pulser until I’m confident they understand how dangerous they are and that they’ll be able to actually hit their targets without killing everyone else in the room.”
“Sounds like a very sound approach to me, Your Grace,” Zilwicki said with feeling.
“To Nimitz, too, really,” Honor replied, hugging the ’cat briefly. “And I think we’re on the right track. This pulser—” she nodded at the weapon lying on the bench “—is a dedicated range-only version. It can’t be fired at all outside Imperator’s range, and it won’t fire even here unless it’s pointed down-range. Which is probably a good thing judging by how…enthusiastically dispersed Nimitz’s first groups were. But I’ve been working with Captain Cardones’s armorer to modify it, and we seem to be getting better results—for certain values of the word ‘better,’ at any rate—today. The problem’s been getting Nimitz to understand both what a sight picture is and why it’s important. That’s what we were working on when you arrived.”
“Well, by all means continue, Your Grace!” Zilwicki chuckled. “Far be it from me to stand in the path of such a noble scientific endeavor. Especially—” his smile sobered “—one that’s likely to save some very important lives down the road.”
“My thought, as well,” Honor said quietly, and looked down at Nimitz.
“Ready, Stinker?”
He nodded firmly and jumped back on to the shooting bench.
He gathered up the pulser with what struck Zilwicki as admirable safety awareness. He was especially careful about where the muzzle pointed and keeping his fingers away from the treecat-adapted trigger guard while he did it.
“I came to the conclusion that a big part of the problem is that the barrel length doesn’t give Nimitz enough sighting axis. The way his shoulders articulate, it’s difficult for him to even get into a proper sighting posture, and then he’s looking down that really short barrel. I tried fitting it with a standard holo sight like the Simpson & Wong on my Descorso, but we just found out that doesn’t seem to work for him either. So, we’re trying this. You just in time for the trial run of Plan C. Although, really, by now it’s about Plan G, I think. Show him, Stinker.”
Nimitz bleeked cheerfully, raised the pulser to point in the general direction of the fresh target, and wrapped both true-hands around the weapon’s grip, still keeping the first finger of his right true-hand away from the trigger. He held it there and looked up at Honor, pricking both ears in inquiry, and she nodded.
“Ready on the range!” she announced formally, and he returned his attention to the task at hand.
Nothing happened. Then the miniature laser Honor had mounted under the barrel blinked to life. A small, brilliant dot of light appeared on the target, the pulser whined instantly…and a tiny blotch of crimson dye blossomed exactly where the laser had pointed.
Nimitz bleeked in delight, capering triumphantly on the shooting bench on his true-feet. Zilwicki started to flinch, despite everything Honor had said about the pulser’s safety features, but then he relaxed. The cat’s elation was obvious, yet despite his glee, he’d carefully laid the pulser back on the bench before he started his war dance.
“Good for you, Stinker!” Honor laughed, scooping him up and burying her face briefly in his belly fur. “Knew we’d finally find the answer! Should’ve tried this one sooner, I guess.”
“Bleek! Bleek, bleek, bleek!” Nimitz agreed, and she looked back across at Zilwicki, who was grinning broadly.
“I don’t like laser pointers,” she told him a bit apologetically. “I’ve seen them lose alignment, especially external units on rifles. I really want to teach him iron sights, too—everyone needs to know that, even if only for a backup—and I may be able to do that when we move to the rifle. It’s just not going to work with the pistol version, though.”
“At the range where any of the ’cat bodyguards is likely to be shooting, the laser actually makes a lot of sense,” Zilwicki pointed out. “Has more of a ‘stop-and-think-about-this’ psychological quotient, too.”
“Which won’t be much against the nanotech.” Honor’s voice was grim, but Zilwicki shrugged.
“Probably not. On the other hand, I imagine the ’cats will be handy to have around when it comes to garden-variety, run-of-the-mill, old-fashioned assassins, too.”
“Now that’s probably a very good point,” she acknowledged. She smiled almost sheepishly. “You know, I’ve been so focused on the Alignment that I hadn’t really been thinking about what I guess you might call other applications.”
“Not too surprising. I have to wonder, though. Did your Sergeant Major Todd ever consider the possibility of just issuing them teeny-tiny stunners? More prisoners and less collateral damage that way, I’d think.”
“Actually, we did think about that. Unfortunately, not even Randy could figure out how to build a stunner this small with more than a couple of yards’ range. And even if we could, we don’t know what the nanotech would do in a case like that. As far as we can tell, the human being who’s being controlled is already ‘out of the loop’ as far as what her body is doing. If she’s rendered unconscious, does that shut her down? Or does the nanotech just go right on with whatever it’s doing?”
“Forgive me, My Lady,” Spencer Hawke put in diffidently, “but I’d vote against trying to stun someone in those circumstances even if we knew the answer. There’s a reason most bodyguards don’t like being restricted to nonlethal force, because you can never be sure it’s going to work. Anti-stun armor’s readily available and light enough to be worn under
most people’s clothing. Besides, not everybody reacts the same way to being stunned even when they’re totally unprotected.” He shook his head, his expression somber. “It’s an armsman’s job to keep his principal alive, whatever it takes. We’d just as soon never kill anyone, but if someone’s trying to kill you, then keeping that someone alive—no matter why he’s trying to do it, I’m afraid—is secondary or tertiary, as far as we’re concerned. Given who the treecats are protecting, I don’t think it should be any other way for them, either.”
“He’s right.” Zilwicki shook his head with a chagrined expression. “I should’ve thought about that myself. I guess it was the spook in me—thinking about data and not the potential consequences of trying to acquire it.”
“Well, at least we seem to have solved Nimitz’s problem…once he finally got the correlation between the dot on the target and the pulser dart.” Honor grinned at the treecat’s scolding sound. “Even that wasn’t as easy as I expected it to be. And now we have to see if he and I between us can pass it on to Sam so she can start spreading the word to the rest of Her Majesty’s Own Treecats!”
Admiralty Building
City of Old Chicago
Sol System
“Be seated, Ladies and Gentlemen,” Winston Kingsford said as he strode to the comfortable chair at the head of the briefing table.
The men and women attending the meeting—both those physically present and those in the various dedicated quadrants of the enormous smart screen in the briefing table’s hollow horseshoe—waited until he’d actually seated himself. Then they settled into their own chairs, and he smiled.
