by Timothy Zahn
"Solar flares?" Barynson shrugged. "It's certainly one possibility. But if we assume random flares or ionosphere shifts we're still left with the question of why only that one area was so often left unmonitored."
"It seems to me," Nguyen spoke up quietly, "that we could argue about this forever without getting anywhere. Mr. Moreau is correct: we have insufficient data for any solid conclusions. The only way we're going to get the kind of information we need will be to go back down there."
"In other words, send in another spy mission," Atterberry said with undisguised distaste. "The last one we sent in—"
"Wound up buying us nearly thirty years of peace," Telek put in tartly.
"Postponing a war that's going to have to be fought anyway, you mean—"
"Who said it's going to have to be fought?" Telek snapped. "For all we know, that compound has nothing to do with us—it could just as well be part of the preparations for an all-out internecine war that'll blow the Qasamans back to a pre-metal culture."
"I hope," Priesly said quietly, "that you aren't as eager for that result as you sound."
Telek's jaw tightened visibly. "I don't particularly want to see the Qasamans destroy themselves, no," she growled. "But if it comes down to a choice between them and us, I want us to be the ones who survive."
Chandler cleared his throat. "It should be obvious that, whatever reservations we might have, Mr. Nguyen is correct. Another mission to Qasama is called for, and the sooner we get it underway, the sooner we'll find out what's going on." He tapped a key on his reader, and the telephoto on Corwin's reader was replaced by a list of nine names. "Given the experience of the first Qasaman mission," Chandler continued, "it would appear to make more sense to start primarily with new Cobra recruits than to try and retrain older frontier-duty Cobras for the different kind of action they might face on Qasama. I've taken the liberty of running a preliminary sort-through of the latest acceptance list; these are the names that fell out."
"Sorted how?" Gavin asked.
"Particular emotional stability, ability to mix well and comfortably socially—that sort of thing," Chandler replied. "It's just a preliminary sorting, of course."
Vartanson straightened up from his reader. "How many Cobras were you planning to send on the mission?" he asked Chandler.
"The initial plan is calling for one experienced Cobra and four fresh recruits—"
"You can't have them," Vartanson said flatly.
All eyes turned to the Cobra. "What in the worlds are you talking about?" Bailar asked, frowning.
Vartanson gestured at his reader. "Six of these recruits are from Caelian. We need them back there."
Chandler took a deep breath. "Mr. Vartanson . . . I understand the close community feeling the people of Caelian have—"
"There are barely three thousand of us left, Mr. Chandler," Vartanson said, his tone icy. "Twenty-five hundred civilians, five hundred Cobras—all of us fighting for our lives against Hell's Own Blender. We can't afford to let you take even one of those Cobras away from us . . . and you're not going to."
An uncomfortable silence filled the room. Caelian was a dead-end world, in every sense of the word—a planet abandoned after years of struggle against its incredibly fluid ecology had bought the colonists nothing but a stalemate. Most of the population, when offered transport to the new world of Esquiline a quarter-century ago, had jumped at the chance . . . but for a small fraction of that populace, the mindless Caelian ecology had taken on the status of a powerful and almost sentient enemy, and to run from that enemy had seemed to them to be an acceptance of defeat and dishonor. Corwin had visited Caelian once since that remnant had dug in for the battle, and had come away with the uncomfortable picture of the people of Hell's Blender as rafters on a raging river. Drifting away not only from the rest of the Cobra Worlds community, but possibly even from their own basic humanity.
All of which made Vartanson a very wild card indeed . . . and a man no one else in the Directorate ever really liked to cross.
Not even the governor-general. "I understand," Chandler said again to Vartanson. Soothingly. "Actually, I think that even if we don't find another good candidate, these three new Cobras plus the experienced one ought to be adequate for the mission's needs."
Corwin took a deep breath. "Perhaps," he said carefully, "we ought to see this lack of a fifth Cobra not as a problem but as an opportunity. A chance to throw the Qasamans a curve."
He looked over to see Telek's eyes on him. "You mean like that switch your brothers pulled back on the first mission?" she asked. "Good idea, that—may even have saved the entire mission."
Silently, Corwin blessed her. She couldn't know what he was about to propose, but by reminding the others of how well that other scheme had worked out she'd weakened the automatic resistance his enemies would almost certainly come up with. "Something like that," he nodded, unconsciously bracing himself. "I'd like to suggest that we create, solely for this mission, the first woman Cobra. Now, before you voice any objections—"
"A woman Cobra?" Atterberry snorted. "Oh, for—Moreau, that is the most ridiculous idea I've ever heard."
"Why?" Corwin countered. "Just because it hasn't ever been done?"
"Why do you suppose it has never been done?" Priesly put in. "Because there are good reasons for it, that's why."
Corwin looked over at Chandler. "Mr. Chandler?"
There was a slightly sour look on Chandler's face, but he nodded. "You may continue," he said.
"Thank you." Corwin's gaze swept the table, settled on Priesly and Atterberry as the two most hostile-looking. "One reason that the idea of women Cobras sounds so outlandish is that the Old Dominion of Man had a fairly strong patriarchal orientation. Women simply weren't considered for elite military troops—though I'll point out that during the Troft War there were a large number of female resistance fighters on both Adirondack and Silvern."
"We all know our history," Nguyen put in gruffly. "Get to the point."
"The point is that even what little we know of Qasaman society paints it as even more patriarchal than the Dominion was," Corwin told him. "If the thought of female warriors strikes you as ridiculous, think of how they'll see it."
"In other words," Telek said slowly, "they're not likely to even consider the possibility that a woman along on the mission could be a demon warrior."
"A demon what?" Priesly frowned.
"It's the Qasaman term for Cobras," Chandler told him.
"Appropriate," Priesly grunted.
Vartanson threw him a cold look. "Being borderline demonic is often part of our job," he said icily.
Priesly's lip twitched, and he turned abruptly back to Corwin. "Your assumption, of course, is that the mission will be caught," he said. "Isn't that being a little pessimistic?"
"It's called being prepared," Corwin said tartly. "But assuming they won't get caught brings me to my second point: we want people who can fit in well enough with the Qasamans to poke around for answers without being immediately branded as foreigners. Correct?" He looked at Chandler. "Can you tell me, Mr. Chandler, how many of the Cobra candidates on your list can speak Qasaman?"
"All of them," the governor-general said stiffly. "Give me a little credit, Mr. Moreau—Qasaman may not be an especially popular language course to take, but there's a reasonable pool of proficient people out there to choose from."
"Especially since most young men with Cobra ambitions try and learn it," Gavin pointed out.
"I understand that," Corwin nodded. "How many of this pool can speak it without an Aventinian accent?"
Chandler's brow darkened. "Everyone who learns a foreign language speaks with an accent," he growled.
Corwin looked him straight in the eye. "I know someone who doesn't," he said flatly. "My niece, Jasmine Moreau."
"Ah—well, there it is, everyone," Atterberry put in sardonically. "That's what all this is about—just another blatant grab for power by the Moreau family."
"How doe
s this qualify as a grab for power?" Corwin snorted. "By sending my niece out to possibly get herself killed?"
"Enough." Chandler hadn't raised his voice, but something in his tone sliced cleanly through the burgeoning argument. "I've worked up a preliminary cost analysis for the proposed Qasaman mission—we'll take a short recess now for you to examine it. Mr. Moreau, I'd like to see you in my office, if I may."
* * *
"You realize, I presume, what you're asking the Directorate to do," Chandler said, gaze locked on Corwin's face. "Not to mention what you're asking me, personally, to do."
Corwin forced himself to meet the other's gaze. "I'm doing nothing but trying to give this mission of yours a better chance of success."
Chandler's lip twitched. "So it's 'my' mission now, is it?"
"Isn't it?" Corwin countered. "You clearly set it up privately, without the assistance or even the knowledge of the Academy board. Not to mention the knowledge of the Directorate itself."
Chandler's expression didn't change. "You have any proof of that?"
"If Justin had known this was in the works, he would have told me about it."
"That's hardly proof. I could have sworn all of the Academy directors to secrecy."
Corwin didn't answer, and after a moment Chandler sighed. "Let's be honest, here, shall we, Moreau? Logic and social goals notwithstanding, the real reason you want your niece in the Cobras is because your brother wants her there."
"She wants it herself, too," Corwin told him. "And, yes, I'll admit that there's part of me that wants to keep the family tradition alive. That doesn't negate the reasons I gave the Directorate a few minutes ago."
"No, but it muddies the politics considerably," Chandler grunted. "Okay, then—run the scenario. Tell me how the votes would fall if we went back and called a showdown."
"Telek and I would vote yes," Corwin said slowly. "Priesly and Atterberry would of course vote no, whether they agreed with me or not. Vartanson and Bailar . . . probably yes. Vartanson because if women were allowed in, it would effectively double Caelian's pool of Cobra candidates; Bailar because the Qasamans are only a few light-years from Esquiline's doorstep and he'll be more concerned with the logic of Jin's case than in history. With Vartanson's double vote, that would give me five votes."
"Which means you need one more vote for a clear majority," Chandler said. "Mine, for instance."
Corwin looked him square in the eye. "Yours was always the only vote I really needed."
For a moment Chandler gazed back at him in silence. "Politics goes in cycles," he said at last. "If the governor-general's office has more power now than it has had in the past, I make no apologies for it." He pursed his lips, slowly shook his head. "But you're wrong if you think I can push this through on my own, against all opposition. Priesly alone would be too much to buck."
Corwin turned away from him, eyes drifting to the governor-general's floor-to-ceiling window and the panoramic view of Capitalia that it opened onto. In his mind's eye, he could see Jin's face, last night, as she pleaded with him . . . could see Justin's expression at the hospital as the enormity of what he'd inadvertently done slowly became apparent. What price power? he thought dimly to himself. What use is this office, anyway, if it's not to do what needs to be done? "All right, then," he said slowly. "If Priesly needs incentive, I'll give it to him." He turned back to Chandler. "We'll let Jin into the Cobras, ostensibly for the reasons I listed as to her usefulness on a Qasaman spy mission. But we'll also bill it as a grand experiment into whether or not women can successfully be integrated into the entire Cobra program. If it doesn't work—if the experiment's a failure—" he took a deep breath "—then I'll resign my governorship."
It was perhaps the first time he'd ever seen genuine shock on Chandler's face. "You'll—what?" the other all but sputtered. "Moreau, that's—it's crazy."
"It's what I want to do," Corwin told him evenly. "I know what Jin's capable of. She'll handle the job, and she'll handle it well."
"That's practically irrelevant. Whatever happens, Priesly will claim the experiment was a failure, just to get you out. You know that."
"He'll try to claim that, certainly," Corwin nodded. "Whether or not the claim sticks will depend on how Jin does, won't it?"
Chandler pursed his lips, his eyes searching Corwin's face. "It'll need the approval of the entire Council, of course."
"We all have our supporters and allies there," Corwin said. "Between yours, mine, and Priesly's, we ought to have enough. Especially if we use the secrecy of the Qasaman mission to keep the experiment on closed-access. Less of a possibility for political flak from the general populace that way."
A lopsided smile creased Chandler's face. "You're getting cynical in your old age."
Corwin looked back out the window again. "No," he said with a sigh. "Just getting political."
And wondered why that should sound so like a curse in his ears.
Chapter 6
Late spring in Syzra District, Jin had once heard, was the most enjoyable time of the year in that particular part of Aventine . . . if you happened to be a duck. Supposedly, for the better part of three months straight, the sky over Syzra was either heavily overcast or pouring its guts out in torrents of cold rain.
But if those stories were true, this day was a pleasant exception. The rising sun, peeking through the dense forest surrounding them at a distance on three sides, shone clear and bright through a sky that had only a few high cirrus clouds to add counterpoint to its brilliant blue. What wind there was came in short, mild gusts; and the air temperature, while chilly, was more bracing than uncomfortable. It was the kind of day Jin had always loved.
And she felt absolutely terrible. Squinting her eyes slightly against the sunlight, she clenched her fists at her sides, tried to stand as tall as the three young men to her right, and fought hard to keep from throwing up.
"All right, recruits, let's bend your ears forward," the man standing facing them bellowed, and Jin clamped down a little more on her rebellious gastrointestinal tract. Instructor Mistra Layn's voice, unusually rich in deep tones, wasn't helping things a bit. So much for my celebrated cast-iron gut, she thought wryly to herself, remembering the warnings everyone had given her about the normal physiological reaction to Cobra surgery. Clearly, she'd been too quick to dismiss them; now all she could hope for was that the reaction was as short-term as they'd all said it would be.
"You already know," Layn continued, "that we've been selected for a special mission to Qasama. So I won't bore you with that harangue again. What you're probably wondering instead is why we're out here in the middle of nowhere instead of at one of the main Academy centers. Well?"
It took a second for Jin to realize that he was asking them a question. It took a few seconds longer to realize that none of her fellow trainees were going to respond. "Sir?" she said tentatively.
A flicker of something crossed Layn's face, but his voice was neutral enough. "Trainee Moreau?"
"Sir, are we here because the mission will involve travel through forested areas of Qasama?"
Layn cocked an eyebrow and threw a leisurely look behind him. "Why, yes—there is forest here, isn't there? There's forest at the training center in Pindaric District, too, as I recall. So why aren't we there instead of here?"
Jin gritted her teeth. "I don't know, sir."
The young man at Jin's right stirred. "Sir?"
"Trainee Sun?"
"Sir, the Pindaric center concentrates on teaching new Cobras how to hunt and kill spine leopards," Mander Sun said. "Our mission won't involve hunting so much as it will evasion and simply staying alive."
"Don't the Cobras at Pindaric need to learn how to stay alive?" Layn countered.
Her eyes locked on Layn, Jin couldn't see if Sun flushed. But from the tone of his voice she rather thought he had. "The methods of training for attack versus defense are entirely different, sir," he said. "More than that, they would be obviously different to the other trainees t
here. I understood this was supposed to be a secret mission."
For a long moment Layn merely looked at Sun. "More or less correct, Trainee Sun. The secrecy part, that is. But who says attack and defense training are different?"
"My grandfather, sir. He was Coordinator of the Academy for twenty years."
"Does that give you the right to stiff-neck your instructor?" Layn said coldly.
This time there was no doubt that Sun flushed. "No, sir," he said stiffly.
"Glad to hear it." Layn let his gaze drift to all four of them. "Because I have no intention of going to Qasama without the absolute best people available backing me up. If I don't think one or more of you measures up, I can and will bounce you—and I don't much care whether it's on the first day of training or while you're being wheeled in to have your nanocomputers implanted. All of you got that?"
Jin swallowed, suddenly conscious of the neck-wrap computer nestling up under her jaw. If she failed her training—was deemed unsuitable, for whatever reason—the nanocomputer that would eventually be implanted beneath her brain would be a mere shadow of the true Cobra computer, disconnecting all of her newly acquired weaponry and severely limiting the power available to the servos augmenting her muscles. She would be, in short, a Ject.
"All right, then," Layn said. "Now. I know you're all eager to find out just what those aching bodies of yours can do. For the moment, actually, that's not a hell of a lot. Those computers around your necks will give you limited servos and no weapons whatsoever. In four days—assuming adequate progress—you'll be given new neckwraps that let you activate your optical and auditory enhancers. After that, over a period of about four weeks, you'll get the use of your fingertip lasers, the lasers plus enhancers, the sonic weapons and arcthrower, the antiarmor laser alone, antiarmor plus everything else, and finally your preprogrammed reflexes. The purpose, you'll note, is to give you the best possible chance of learning to use your new bodies without killing yourselves or anyone else in the process."
"Question, sir?" the trainee at the far end of the line spoke up tentatively.
