by Timothy Zahn
"It took less than one generation for us to give the Cobras their double vote," she pointed out.
"That was different. Tors Challinor's attempted rebellion forced an immediate political acknowledgment of the Cobras' physical power. Your case, unfortunately, doesn't have that kind of urgency to it."
For a long moment Jin just looked at him. "You're not going to fight the Council for me on this, are you?" she asked at last.
He spread his hands helplessly. "It's not a matter of fighting them, Jin. The whole weight of military history is against you. Women just haven't as a rule been welcomed into special military forces. Not official military forces, anyway," he corrected himself. "There've always been women rebels and guerrilla fighters, but I don't think that argument'll go over very well on either the Council or the Academy."
"You have a lot of influence, though. The Moreau name alone—"
"May still have some force out among Aventine's people," he grunted, "but the aura doesn't carry over into the upper echelons. It never did, really—in many ways your grandfather was a more popular figure than I am, and even in his time we had to fight and scrap and trade for everything we got."
Jin licked her lips. "Uncle Corwin . . . I have to get into the Academy. I have to. It's Dad's last chance to have one of the family carry on the Cobra tradition. Now, more than ever, he needs that to hang onto."
Corwin closed his eyes briefly. "Jin, look . . . I know how much that tradition means to Justin. Every time one of you girls was born—" He broke off. "The point is that the universe doesn't always work the way we want it to. If he and your mother had had a son—"
"But they didn't," Jin interrupted with a vehemence that startled him. "They didn't; and Mom's gone, and I'm Dad's last chance. His last chance—don't you understand?"
"Jin—" Corwin stopped, mind searching uselessly for something to say . . . and as he hesitated, he found his eyes probing the face of the young woman before him.
There was a lot of Justin in her face, in her features and her expressions. But as he thought back over the twenty years since her birth he found he could see even more of her father in her manner and personality. How much of that, he wondered vaguely, was due to genes alone and how much was due to the fact that Justin had been her only parent since she was nine years old? Thoughts of Justin sent a new kaleidoscope of images flurrying past his mind's eye: Justin fresh out of the Cobra Academy, excited by the upcoming mission to what was then the totally mysterious world of Qasama; an older and more sober Justin at his wedding to Aimee Partae, telling Corwin and Joshua about the son he would have someday to carry on the Moreau family's Cobra tradition; Justin and his three daughters, fifteen years later, at Aimee's funeral . . .
With an effort, he forced his thoughts back to the present. Jin was still sitting before him, the intensity of purpose in her expression balanced by a self-control rarely found among twenty-year-olds. One of the primary factors looked for in all Cobra applicants, he remembered distantly . . . "Look, Jin," he sighed. "Odds are very high that there's nothing at all I can do to influence the Academy's decision. But . . . I'll do what I can."
A ghost of a smile brushed Jin's lips. "Thank you," she said quietly. "I wouldn't be asking you to do this if it weren't for Dad."
He looked her straight in the eye. "Yes, you would," he said. "Don't try to con an old politician, girl."
She had the grace to blush. "You're right," she admitted "I want to be a Cobra, Uncle Corwin. More than anything else I've ever wanted."
"I know," he said softly. "Well. You'd better get back home. Tell your father . . . just tell him hi for me, and that I'll be in touch on this thing."
"Okay. Goodnight . . . and thank you."
"Sure."
She left and Corwin sighed to himself. Your basic chicken-egg problem, he thought. Which came first: her desire to be a Cobra, or her love for her father?
And did it really make any difference?
Thena reappeared in the doorway. "Everything all right?" she asked.
"Oh, sure," he growled. "I've just promised to take a running leap at a stone wall, that's all. How do I get myself into these things?"
She smiled. "Must be because you love your family."
He tried to glare at her, just on general principles, but it was too much effort. "Must be," he admitted, returning her smile. "Go on, get out of here."
"If you're sure . . . ?"
"I am. I'm only going to be a few more minutes myself."
"Okay. See you in the morning."
He waited until he heard the outer door close behind her. Then, with a sigh, he leaned back to his reader, keying for the government info net and his own private correlation program. Somewhere, somehow, there had to be a connection between Baram Monse and Governor Harper Priesly.
And he was going to find it.
Chapter 4
The Directorate meeting started at ten sharp the next morning . . . and it was as bad as Corwin had expected.
Priesly was in fine form, his tirade all the more impressive for being brief. A less gifted politician might have overdone it and wound up boring his audience, but Priesly avoided that trap with ease. In front of the entire Council, where the sheer number of members lent itself to the generation and manipulation of emotional/political winds, the longer-winded speeches were often effective; in front of the nine-member Directorate such ploys were dangerous, not to mention occasionally coming off as downright silly. But Corwin had hoped Priesly would try anyway and hang himself in the process.
He should have known better.
" . . . and I therefore feel that this body has the duty to reexamine the entire concept of elitism that the Cobras and the Cobra Academy represent," Priesly concluded. "Not only for the sake of the people of Aventine and the other worlds, but even for the Cobras themselves. Before another tragedy like this one occurs. Thank you."
He sat down. Corwin glanced around the table, noting the expressions of the others with the frustration he was feeling more and more these days. They were falling into the standard and predictable pattern: Rolf Atterberry of Palatine firmly on Priesly's side, Fenris Vartanson of Caelian—himself a Cobra—and Governor Emeritus Lizabet Telek just as firmly against him, the others leaning one way or the other but not yet willing to commit themselves.
At the head of the table Governor-General Chandler cleared his throat. "Mr. Moreau: any rebuttal?"
Or in other words, had Corwin found any positive link between Priesly and Monse. "Not specifically, sir," he said, getting briefly to his feet. "I would, though, like to remind the other members of this body of the testimony Justin and I have already put on record . . . and also to remind them that my brother has spoken here many times in the past in his capacity as an instructor of the Cobra Academy. A position, I'll mention, that requires him to submit to frequent psychological, physical, and emotional testing."
"If I may just insert here, sir," Priesly put in smoothly, "I have no quarrel at all with Cobra Justin Moreau. I agree with Governor Moreau that he is an outstanding and completely stable member of the Aventinian community. It is, in fact, the very fact that such a fine example of Cobra screening could still attack an unarmed man that worries me so."
Chandler grunted. "Mr. Moreau . . . ?"
"No further comments, sir," Corwin said, and sat back down. Priesly had taken a chance with that interruption, he knew, and with a little luck it would wind up working against him. The thrust of his arguments, serious though they were, were still a far cry from the result he and Monse had almost certainly been trying for. If Monse had succeeded in triggering the combat reflexes programmed into Justin's implanted nanocomputer, Priesly would have had a far stronger bogy to wave in front of both the Directorate and the populace as a whole.
Across the table, Ezer Gavin stirred. "May I ask, Mr. Chandler, what Cobra Moreau's status is at the moment? I presume he's been suspended from his Academy duties?"
"He has," Chandler nodded. "The investigation is procee
ding—much of it at this point into Mr. Monse's background, I may add."
Corwin glanced at Priesly, read no reaction there. Hardly surprising—he already knew that whatever Priesly's connection was with Monse, it was well buried.
"I'd like to also point out, if I may," Lizabet Telek spoke up with an air of impatience, "that for all the fuss we're generating—both here and on the nets," she added with a glance at Priesly, "this Monse character wasn't killed or even seriously injured."
"If he hadn't had that ceramic laminae on his bones he would have been," Atterberry put in.
"If he hadn't been trespassing in the first place he wouldn't have been hurt at all," Telek retorted. "Mr. Governor-General, could we possibly move on to some other topic? This whole discussion is turning my stomach."
"As it happens, we do have another topic to tackle today—one which is far more serious," Chandler nodded. "All further discussion on the Monse case to be tabled until further investigations are complete . . . now, then." He tapped a button next to his reader; a moment later the door across the room opened and a dress-uniformed Cobra ushered a thin academic type into the chamber. "Mr. Pash Barynson, of the Qasaman Monitor Center," Chandler introduced the newcomer as he walked over to the guest chair at the governor-general's left. "He's here to brief us on a disturbing pattern that may or may not be—Well, I'll let him sort it all out for you. Mr. Barynson . . . ?"
"Thank you, Governor-General Chandler," Barynson said with a self-conscious bob of his head. Setting a handful of magcards down on the table, he picked one up and inserted it into his reader. "Governors; governors emeritus," he said, glancing around at them all, "I'm going to admit right up front that I'm rather . . . uncomfortable, shall we say, about being here. As Mr. Chandler has just indicated, there are hints of a pattern emerging on Qasama that we don't like. On the other hand, what that pattern really means—or even if it really exists—are questions we still can't answer."
Well, that's certainly clear, Corwin thought. He glanced across the table at Telek, saw a sour expression flicker across her face. As a former academician herself, Corwin knew, she had even less patience with flowery fence-straddling than he did. "Suppose you elaborate and let us judge," she invited.
That got her a frown from Chandler, but Barynson didn't seem insulted. "Of course, Governor Emeritus," he nodded. "First, since all of you may not be familiar with the background here—" he glanced at Priesly—"I'd like to briefly run through the basics for you.
"As most of you know, in 2454 the Council had a series of six spy satellites placed into high orbit over the world of Qasama for the purpose of monitoring their technological and societal development following the introduction of Aventinian spine leopards into their ecological structure. In the twenty years since then the program has met with only limited success. We've noted that the village system has expanded beyond the so-called Fertile Crescent region, indicating either that the Qasamans' cultural paranoia has eased somewhat or that they've given up on keeping their long-range communications immune from interception. We've spotted evidence of some improvement in their aircraft and ground vehicles, as well as various minor changes you've had full reports on over the years. Nothing, so far, that would give us any reason to believe the Qasaman threat vis-a-vis the Cobra Worlds has in any way changed for the worse."
He cleared his throat and tapped a button on the reader. A series of perhaps fifty dates and times appeared on Corwin's reader—the earliest nearly thirty months ago, he noted, the most recent only three weeks old—under the heading Satellite Downtimes. A quick scan of the numbers showed that, for each downtime listed, the affected satellite had lost between three and twelve hours of its record. "As you can see," Barynson continued, "over the last thirty months we've lost something on the order of four hundred hours of data covering various parts of Qasama. Up until recently we didn't think too much about it—"
"Why not?" Urbanic Bailar of the newly colonized world Esquiline cut in. "I was under the impression that the main duty of your Monitor Center was to keep the planet under constant surveillance. I wasn't aware that leaving twelve-hour gaps qualified as constant."
"I understand your concern," Barynson said soothingly, "but I assure you that Esquiline was—is—in no danger whatsoever. Even if the Qasamans knew your world's location—which they don't—there's simply no way they could create an attack fleet without our knowing it. Remember that they lost all their interstellar capability shortly after they reached Qasama—they'd be starting from literal step zero." Something flicked across his eyes, too fast for Corwin to read. "No, none of us are in any immediate danger from the Qasamans—that much we're certain of."
"Well, I for one don't see what the fuss is," Atterberry snorted. "Self-repairing machinery like satellites are supposed to fail occasionally, aren't they?"
"Yes, but not this often," Governor Emeritus David Nguyen put in.
"Both of you are correct, actually," Barynson nodded, licking briefly at his lips. "Which is why we hadn't paid the gaps any real attention. However, a week ago one of our people, more on a hunch than anything else, tried running location and vector correlations on them. It turned out—well, here, you can see for yourselves," he said, pushing another series of keys.
A map of the Fertile Crescent region of Qasama, home to virtually all the humans on that world, appeared on Corwin's reader. A series of colored ovals and arrows had been superimposed on the landscape.
"Interesting," Telek growled. "How many of these gaps are missing that same chunk of the Crescent's western arm?"
"Thirty-seven of the fifty-two," Barynson said. "All but two of the others—"
"Lose some of the territory directly to the east of that section," Priesly interrupted him.
Corwin felt something cold crawl up his back. "You have any small-scales of that place?" he asked.
A slightly grainy picture replaced the map. "This is a photo taken three years ago, before the rash of malfunctions," Barynson said. "For those familiar with the Qasaman landscape, the city in the left-center of the picture is Azras; the one northeast of it, near top-center, is Purma."
Involuntarily, Corwin glanced up at Telek, to find her eyes likewise on him. Purma—the city where the Qasamans had tried their damnedest to kill three members of Telek's original spy mission . . . one of those three being Justin.
"Now here—" the photo changed "—is that same area as of the last satellite collection two weeks ago."
Azras and Purma were essentially unchanged. But in the center of the screen—"What's that thing in the middle?" Gavin asked.
"It appears to be a large compound or encampment or something." Barynson took a deep breath. "And from all indications, it's not only encircled by the standard Qasaman defensive wall, but is also completely covered on top."
Protected from overhead surveillance . . . "And those areas on either side of it?" Corwin asked.
"Those could have been blanked out by accident," Barynson said carefully. "But if they're not . . . we think it significant that east—parallel to the planet's rotation—is the obvious direction for practice in firing large, long-range rockets."
There was a long moment of silence. "Are you telling us," Bailar said at last, "that that covered compound is the center of a Qasaman missile base?"
Barynson nodded grimly. "The probability seems high that the Qasamans are attempting to rediscover space travel. And that they may be succeeding."
Chapter 5
For a long minute there was silence in the room. Then Atterberry stirred. "Well," he said to no one in particular, "so much for that one."
"So much for that one what?" Telek growled at him.
"That attempt to keep the Qasamans down," Atterberry amplified. "Trying to break their intersocial cooperation by tricking the mojos off the people and onto spine leopards—the whole Moreau Proposal, in other words."
"Who says it's been a failure?" Corwin put in, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of his voice. He and his family ha
d sweat blood over that proposal . . . and in the process had saved the Cobra Worlds a long and costly and possibly losing war. "All we have here is an inference from a possible assumption based on questionable data. With that underground communications system of theirs we have no way of really knowing what's going on down there."
"All right," Atterberry snorted. "Let's hear your idea of what that compound is for, then."
"There could be hundreds of explanations," Corwin shot back. "Ninety percent of which would have nothing to do with any spaceward expansion."
"Such as a new test facility for the air-to-air missiles they've already got, for instance," Telek said. "Or longer-range ones for use against each other."
Chandler cleared his throat. "I think you're both missing the point," he said. "Whatever they're doing down there, the fact is that if Dr. Barynson and his colleagues are correct about the satellite malfunctions, then we're already talking a serious threat. Am I correct, Dr. Barynson, in the assumption that those satellites aren't easily knocked out?"
"Without our realizing that they had been deliberately hit?" Barynson nodded. "Most definitely. That's one of the reasons we were so slow to notice the pattern of the downtimes, in fact—with no obvious physical damage anywhere, there was no reason to assume the Qasamans were responsible."
"Have we established the Qasamans were responsible?" Vartanson spoke up. "You haven't yet suggested a mechanism for this purported sabotage, Doctor, and until you do I don't see how this can be treated as anything but an admittedly odd coincidence."
Barynson scratched at his cheek. "That's the dilemma we're in, all right, Governor," he admitted. "As I said, there hasn't been any obvious physical damage to any of the satellites. We've checked into some of the other possibilities—high-powered lasers blinding the lenses from the surface, for example—but so far none of the simulations give us the right kind of damage profile."
"How about ionizing radiation?" Vartanson persisted. "And I don't necessarily mean radiation from Qasama."
