Eric Flint's Blog, page 300

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 08

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 08

“Actually, it’s a fairly reasonable position,” Maximillian said after looking over the letter. “Both for us and for the lenders. Should the emperor win and the lands be restored to us, the debt is good. Should Wallenstein win, Karl can be sued to make good the loan. It gets the emperor the money he wants from us — at least part of it. And keeps Karl in the good graces of Wallenstein because he isn’t giving the money to the emperor, just authorizing us to borrow money on his lands to support the family. It’s not his fault what we do with it.”

“And the faith, brother? What of the faith?”

“Gundaker, Karl is living in a miracle,” Maximillian said.

“Possibly a miracle,” Gundaker corrected. “It could well be something less benign.”

“Agreed. I don’t know what it means and apparently Holy Mother Church hasn’t decided yet. Though, considering that the pope has made the up-timer priest a cardinal, it is leaning toward approval. In any case, as to God’s will, Karl is, quite possibly, sitting right next to it. We must trust him, for now at least.”

In the years after the Ring of Fire, the nobility of the Holy Roman Empire had a great deal to adjust to. First, of course, was the Ring of Fire and the up-timers and their support of Gustav II Adolf. Then there was King Albrecht Wallenstein — who was assassinated in the original timeline. In the new timeline, he avoided assassination and carved a great big chunk out of the Holy Roman Empire to make his own kingdom. Specifically, he took Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia. Before King Albrecht, the Bohemian crown was held by Ferdinand II, who still claimed that crown. This put a whole lot of nobles in a somewhat touchy political position. A position made even touchier by the fact that a number of those nobles were residing in Vienna under the eyes of one claimant, while their lands were under the guns of the other claimant.

Royal Chambers, Prague, Bohemia

“It seems a perfectly reasonable proposal to me,” Morris Roth looking up from the letter. He handed the letter back to the clerk.

“It seems an excellent way to move massive numbers of Austrian troops and their supplies into Silesia to attack us from the east,” said Pappenheim.

King Albrecht, propped up with pillows, wasn’t so sure. He knew that the railroads had been used in future wars to move men and materials at incredible speeds, but he also realized that they were a weak point in any transport system. Something about Sherman’s Bowties. “What were ‘Sherman’s Bowties’?” he asked.

Morris Roth looked blank for a minute. “Oh, yes. It was the American Civil War. Sherman, a Union general, would heat rails on a bonfire till they were red hot, then wrap them around a tree like a bow tie.” He paused for a moment. “I don’t want to get sidetracked into a discussion of up-time fashions, especially since I think the bow tie is perhaps the silliest piece of male attire ever invented.”

“Worse than the cod piece?” King Albrecht felt a smile crease his face as he recalled some of the French codpieces he had seen.

“Well, maybe the cod piece has them beat, but then again, maybe not. But, never mind that. Heating and bending the rails around a tree made them useless.”

“But these proposed rails are to be wooden?” Pappenheim asked.

“So you use them in the bonfire,” Morris said. “They can’t run a train on ash any more than on Sherman’s Bowties.”

“If you realize what’s happening in time,” Pappenheim said. “I don’t doubt that railroads can be disabled, but at the same time I can readily see them making the initial blow in a war decisive.”

King Albrecht looked over to Morris, who shrugged. “I am not a military expert, Your Majesty. But, financially, such a rail system would be of great benefit to Bohemia.”

“All of Bohemia or just Silesia?”

“There would be some benefit to the rest of the kingdom, but mostly to Silesia,” Morris acknowledged. “But if the railroads follow a consistent gauge, then a rail line from Prague to Opole would let us trade with the Danube and the Baltic with much of the expense being borne by Liechtenstein.”

“And us paying Liechtenstein fares on every pound,” Pappenheim said. “That family is famous for the advantage they take.”

King Albrecht considered. He had been both friends and enemies with the Liechtenstein family over the years. And what Pappenheim said was as true of him as it was of them, even more so. He had, after all, gained a kingdom. But perhaps it was time to be friends with them again, or at least with young Karl.

For now. But not for free.

“I think I’ll insist that young Karl come to talk over the project personally,” King Albrecht said. “And while he is here, he can swear fealty to me. I think we have let the boy sit on the fence long enough.”

The Hofburg Palace

Vienna, Austria

Prince Ferdinand was even less sure than King Albrecht. Having a couple of up-timers to take care of his car and consult on matters of up-time techniques was one thing. Having one wandering around the kingdom making maps was something else. But he figured there were enough down-time spies running around that one or two up-time ones wouldn’t matter. More importantly, he was unsure how the railroad would pan out in terms of generating wealth. Would it make Austria richer or Wallenstein richer? Both, he was advised, was the most likely answer, but he didn’t find that overly helpful.

He managed to keep Karl’s letter from coming to the attention of his dying father. He had no desire to explain to his emperor that he was recruiting up-timers. And he really didn’t want to discuss with his father how the Sanderlins and Fortneys had been recruited by his agents in the first place, with Karl Liechtenstein grafting his job onto the group. The emperor, his father, didn’t need his thoughts troubled and Prince Ferdinand didn’t need the argument.

****

But it took a few weeks for all the mail to make its way across Europe. And in the meantime, Judy the Younger Wendell had moved into the Higgins Hotel and her parents and sister were getting ready to move to Magdeburg.

 

The Savior – Snippet 21

The Savior – Snippet 21

2

She began to take her archery practice as seriously as she had when she was in operational command of the women’s auxiliary. She rose early and worked with a former soldier who was on staff as a guard with knife and gun. The skills came back to her fairly quickly. In the afternoon she tried to put into practice what she had learned in the morning, although, as always, she avoided firing her pistol inside the compound.

She studiously avoided Edgar, and it seemed he was doing the same with her. He was much better now and began to take rides in the countryside. She had figured it would not be long until he strayed around the southern lake shore and wandered the league and a half into Hestinga. This was the longest time she’d ever seen Edgar go without visiting a tavern or whorehouse.

Plenty of people made the journey both ways every day. The children who were learning to read and do arithmetic rode donts or were trundled to and fro inside dak wagons to the private school in Hestinga where the better-off families had hired tutors, often moonlighting Regular officers or priests, to teach their children what they would need to know to maintain their status in society.

One of these students was Loreilei, of course. Mahaut knew that Loreilei was using her trips into town to visit with Frel, who now was apprenticing afternoons with Reidel, the civil engineer, while he finished his studies. They seemed to have taken her advice to heart, at least the part about not running off to be married so early. She hoped that Loreilei was being careful in other ways as well.

Frel had to come to Lilleheim occasionally on business from his master. Reidel was trusting him more and more with the layout of irrigation systems, especially the simple ones that fed off of a central ditch leading from the lake. Often Frel stayed the night in Lilleheim with a couple who were friends with his father. Mahaut was not surprised on those nights to wander by Loreilei’s bed and notice that the sleeping form under the covers looked suspiciously like a pile of pillows.

She’d received word from Jeptha Marone, both in coded scrolls sent along the trader network and from the more expensive flitterdak winged messengers used for important matters. Marone had discovered that there was a child, but he had few other details, and was following up on the matter. The woman had moved back to her parents in Lindron, while her husband remained in Garangipore as the Eisenach factor. Mahaut had considered having the man assassinated, but he was well-guarded and his death would not serve as just revenge, in any case. He was a wronged party in this matter, and if anyone had a legitimate grievance against Edgar, it was him.

Besides, mere assassination wouldn’t be enough.

In the meantime, there was grain to grow, harvests to get in, and contracts to fulfill. Together with her weapons practice, her days were completely filled. She had to arrange beforehand for moments of necessary rest, or those moments would never come.

Firing guns on the range was exhilarating, and the archery was calming in its way. She’d been shooting with a bow and arrow almost before she could walk. She hardly needed to think during practice, only draw the bow and listen to the arrow sing on its way to her targets. Sometimes her mind wandered, and when it did, usually she was thinking about the man, Abel Dashian.

With all that was going on here, and with Abel’s studies in Lindron, they hadn’t arranged to get together in over ten months.

Ten months, eighteen days and counting, she thought. Too long.

She liked to imagine him sitting still after lovemaking, the way he did. He would hardly move a muscle, listening with that slightly puzzled look to what he called his “inner voices.” She didn’t know who or what these voices were, but she imagined they were just part of himself that he’d attached personalities to, as a lonely child might invent an imaginary friend. Whatever they were, she understood they were important to Abel, and she never made light of him in these moments of communion.

Abel always acted calmly and decisively after such a spell, but it was in that quiet moment before taking action that he was most like a child overcome with wonder. It was as if he were seeing a world vastly larger than everyone else, vastly more complex and more beautiful. It made Abel himself seem otherworldly, filled with an inner light. And it was the vulnerability he showed when concentrating on those thoughts, those voices, the intensity he put into making a decision, that she most loved.

That she longed for.

Mahaut let go the arrow and it flew into the target, striking a thumb’s length from the bull’s-eye. This was the long-range arrow, the white-fletched one with the less damaging tip. She needed to practice with both versions, and next she pulled a black-fletched arrow with its double-notched feathers from her quiver. This was the mankiller. It had a shorter range than the white-fletched arrows, but its strike was meant to tear a jagged hole in a man when it struck, and take him down quickly.

She had notched the arrows on her bowstring when a beaded curtain over a doorway in the courtyard rattled and was pushed aside. She took the arrow off the bow and set the bow down, not putting the arrow back in the quiver. Maybe this would be a short interruption and she could quickly get back to shooting.

It was Loreilei. And she was not walking toward Mahaut, she was running. As she drew closer, Mahaut saw that tears were running down her cheeks. Her face was flushed.

“Aunt!” She called out. “Auntie Mahaut!”

“What is it, niece?”

“You have to come,” gasped Loreilei as she charged up to Mahaut. “He’s going to kill Frel!”

“What are you talking about? Who is going to kill Frel?”

“My uncle, that’s who,” said Loreilei, now shouting into Mahaut’s face. “You have to stop him.”

Edgar. Up to his old tricks.

Mahaut took the girl’s hand, gave it a quick squeeze. “Yes, of course I’ll come. But where are we to go?”

“The entranceway chapel. He caught us in there, Frel and me. We were only talking. Just talking. He said Frel was insulting the Family and he was going to make him pay.”

“What?” said Mahaut. “Frel never insulted this Family. He’s a good kid.”

“Uncle Edgar said he’d insulted it by being with me. Because he is the son of a Redlander barbarian, and he’s with me.”

“How does he even know about that?”

“He was in Hestinga yesterday. He saw us together. He saw us kiss. Come!”

Mahaut quickly followed the distraught girl out of the courtyard and through the maze of passageways that led to the family chapel. It was a large empty room used for Thursday school gatherings and other religious ceremonies. It was also a place for reflection and meditation. Almost nobody used it for that, of course, so Mahaut suspected Loreilei wasn’t telling the whole truth. It was the perfect place for clandestine meetings between lovers. The chapel was empty but for one thing: there was a room-size pyramid at the front built as a replica of the great step pyramid of Lindron, where the spirit of Zentrum was said to dwell.

Frel was lying at the bottom of the altar with Edgar standing over him. When they drew near they saw that Frel’s face was badly bruised and scraped up. His lip and nose were bleeding, and one eye was swollen.

“Edgar!”

Edgar turned to Mahaut. “What? Oh, curse it all, what is it now?”

“Stop this.”

“This? Why should I? Do you know what this piece of trash was trying to do?” Edgar raised a hand. In it was a pistol. Mahaut stopped in her tracks. “He and dear niece there were going at it behind the altar. Going at it like rutting donts, they were. And when I kicked him off her, she told me that they were going to run away together. How very sweet.” He aimed the pistol at Frel’s prostrate form. “But I don’t think that’s going to happen.”

“Please don’t shoot him!” Loreilei whimpered. She rushed forward, but Edgar cocked the pistol, and she, too, stopped.

“It would be better if you stay where you are, niece,” Edgar said.

 

Polychrome – Chapter 07

Polychrome – Chapter 07

Chapter 7.

He looked up from the stone he was polishing as the Tempest swirled into the room. “You bring news?”

The bound storm-spirit bowed low before Ugu, and in a thin shrieking voice reported its observations. As he listened, Ugu felt his face tightening, already thin lips thinning. And so it has begun. Once the Tempest had concluded, he nodded and waved it away. “Call the others back; I will have new orders for you soon enough.”

Carefully he placed his tools back in their places; with the strength of a Herkus who had long since assimilated the strength of the mystical zosozo which was the sole province of that hidden group of people, he lifted the three-ton statue he was working on and carried it back to its sheltered niche. Assured that all was neat and clean in his workshop, he left, locking the door with a gesture. “Lady Amanita,” he said to apparently empty air, “we have something to discuss.”

Her light and warm voice replied immediately. “But of course, my King. I will attend you in the throne room immediately.”

Ugu mounted the steps to the great black throne – with its second green throne, slightly lower. He could not quite restrain an acid smile at that. Some would take that to indicate that he was the true ruler, and he suspected that Amanita intended him to view it that was, as well. But he knew that despite his magic being pivotal to their recovery and success, her powers were at least the equal of his own, and she was in some ways far more dangerous.

As the beautiful green-haired woman, eyes sparkling and seeming warm and inviting, appeared in the throne – where a moment before had been fluttering a harmless-looking green butterfly – one aspect of that danger was reinforced. Ugu may have been a hermit in his first war against Oz, but that hadn’t been because he was unaware of certain attractions; and when the former Mrs. Yoop had chosen her new appearance and name, she had made clear that she had very intimate ways to show her gratitude at finally being freed from her prior humiliating shape. Ugu had even allowed himself, for a short time, to believe that she might actually have fallen in love with him. But he had watched people as a sour-tempered Dove for … hundreds of years? He saw her glances in moments out of the corner of his eye, heard what his own spies reported of her behavior and words. Her enthusiasm was for power, and control. Now that she had been forced from her comfortable self-contained retreat, the former desire for isolation had been replaced with a demand for mastery – one as matter-of-factly absolute as her prior assertion of dominance over her home.

So while he still occasionally enjoyed the pleasure of her company, he had to admit it also held the additional thrill of danger – because he was unsure, every time, whether she had some additional plans for his vulnerability. Which was why, in moments he could be assured of privacy, he made his own preparations. She had gathered an array of forces of her own, he knew – and while he had his own advantages, a Yookoohoo with the incredibly honed control that Amanita Verdant (nee Yoop) wielded was a hideously dangerous opponent.

Which was, of course, why the first thing he had done upon acquiring access to his magical tools was to manufacture a charm that prevented any except himself from performing any transformation on him.

“My Lord.” Amanita bowed her head prettily. “What news is this that has you looking so serious?”

“It is time you recalled your spies, My Lady Amanita,” he said, gazing down at the map of Oz and the surrounding countries. “We need all that they have gathered, and we need it now.”

Her green eyebrows quirked upwards. “Oh my. That sounds so… grim, Ugu dear. What has happened?”

“The Lord of Rainbows sent out his daughter but a day or so past.”

“And? The dear girl travels far and wide, and has avoided our little realm.” She knew, obviously, that only one of Iris Mirabilis’ daughters would be referred to simply as “his daughter”.

“And she traveled to the mortal world, directly to the mortal world, and left the Rainbow there.”

All playfulness vanished and she shot to her feet, eyes narrow and cold. “Oh, she did, did she? And has she returned?”

“She has, my Queen. And bringing with her another – a mortal, I would presume.” Ugu was pleased he had managed to surprise her. Often he would call her in with news, only to find that one of her own myriad of spies (in equally many forms) had already given it to her. “Given the reports that Polychrome had indeed rescued that accursed Pink Bear, and the rumors your spies had garnered of a Prophecy, I think we now need the full story. Immediately.”

She nodded sharply. “It will be a loss; it took much to insert a spy undetected into the palace, which is why I have never contacted him until now. But by now he must have at least some of the Prophecy, and with luck all of it. I will recall him and the others.” She gave vent to a curse of such ancient power that one of the green plants she had set in the window nearby spontaneously blackened. “The fools! Did they think we would not know? They think to move against us, now, after we have had all this time to prepare – your marvelous armies, my own Faerie Bindings for power, and all Oz now resigned to our control? Better they had tried earlier – the result would have been the same, but at least they would have made a credible try of it.”

Ugu shook his head. “Do not make the mistake of believing that the Lord of Seven Hues is a fool, Amanita. Even I may be a fool in my own way, but not all others are so stupid as you would make them. If he has chosen to wait, and to act only now, then I assure you he has waited for excellent reasons and has a plan.”

At his quiet rebuke, she glanced at him with momentary fury in the poison-green eyes. But the fury vanished back under the cloak of her control, and she nodded unwillingly. “I… I suppose you are right.”

“I am right, Amanita. We both made the same mistakes before. It would be very well for us both to remember that. We need each other’s power, and we need each other to keep us both from making those mistakes again.”

She stared at him unreadably for a moment, and then suddenly stepped up and kissed his cheek. “You are right, as you say. I should remember that.” For a moment, he thought she actually meant it. She certainly could not forget centuries as a Green Monkey. “Now I will go to the Great Binding and send out the call through the Spirits.”

“Indeed. Go then, and tell me as soon as they return.”

He watched her go, and shuddered as the door closed behind her. The Great Binding was the thing that most frightened him about Amanita Verdant; her greatest triumph, source of her power… and an abomination that even he found distasteful. When they had laid their plans, they knew they needed more power, to arrange certain events to occur in sequence very swiftly after they made their first detectable moves. Amanita had sought out certain other enemies of Oz, including the most powerful dark faeries of all, the Phanfasms. Deprived of much of their memories in the climactic end of their attempt to invade Oz (and not so simply as the mortal books had depicted it), the Phanfasms had no real knowledge of who they had been, though they were no less powerful than before. They were mischievous, sometimes cruel children in their minds, and Amanita’s beauty and words had captivated them. She had whispered pieces of the truth to them, awakened vague memories and rage, and they had sworn to assist her at the proper moment. She had even promised that this time they need not even march to battle.

And – as she always did – she had kept her promise. As Ugu cast the spell which was intended to bring down the Curse of Stone on their enemies, they had known great and powerful defenses would resist such a direct strike. Amanita called the Phanfasms in to “assist in the ritual”, lending their power to the enchantment.

But the pentacle and runic circles she had inscribed had been a trap, something even Ugu had not fully recognized. With the First and Foremost, leader of the Phanfasms, in the center, and all the mass of his people gathered within, focused on a task of malice and destruction… she had enacted a terrifying transformation, a combination of ritual magic and Yookoohoo power that bound the very essences of the dark faeries into a swirling vortex of power, filled with hate and rage and dismay, that she could draw upon. So far, she had used scarcely any of that mass of power which, as far as Ugu was concerned, was the closest thing in faerie to the power of Hell.

He closed his eyes, then shrugged. As long as there was an external enemy, he needed her – and she would be focused outside, not inside.

And it was not as though he, Ugu the Unbowed, did not have his own reserves. When he no longer needed Amanita, there were ways to remove her. Perhaps even taking that tempting abomination for himself.

He smiled, and turned back towards the hall to his workshop.

First Vision:

Light.

She tried to turn away, but the light surrounded her. Not the bright and piercing warmth of the sun, the green-white of deep forest illuminance, the rosy color of castle lamps or pale white of the moon. It was the sick blazing actinic hue of daylight to one suffering a headache, the color of burning steel. There was nowhere to turn, no escape from the roiling unrelieved soundless conflagration of stabbing brilliance.

She tried to cry out, but she had no voice, she had no mouth, she had no self. There was only the terrible light and behind it the sense of loss, of failure. The pain of the people who counted on her, who looked to her in times of trouble, who needed her. Something monstrous had happened, but she was barely able to be aware of that fact, scarcely capable of realizing with molasses-slow thought that she, too, was caught in a trap, a web of deceit and diabolical purpose whose nature was all too clear, now that she could do nothing whatsoever.

And the light continued, searing into her. It was the light of prison, the light of torment, the light…

…the light of enslavement. Even as she thought it, she could feel it now, her own connection with the world being reversed, flowing from her, through her, at the will of another. She could not fight it; the binding was complete. Only something so utterly opposed to her enslavers that it lay completely beyond their knowledge or understanding could possible break that binding… and it would then, of course, be something that could have no knowledge of how to do such a thing.

And the light burned on and on, wearing her away, ever thinner, yet never quite able to vanish, never able to die or be destroyed. She would have wept, had she tears or eyes to cry them. Despair was foreign to her kind, but she recognized that in the end even she would fall to it, with no help or hope remaining for her people, her land, and herself. Already she could feel it, an aching emptiness that, once fully opened, could never be filled again.

And then there was a single point of dark. So faint, so distant, but it was there, a negation of fever-brightness and hateful brilliance.

And without lips or face, still she smiled, because the name of the color of dark was hope.

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 38

Trial By Fire – Snippet 38

Chapter Seventeen

Over West Java, Earth

Sitting beside Darzhee Kut, Yaargraukh peered out rear of the extended cockpit canopy. The waves scudding beneath them were now occasionally distressed by small rocks, diminutive islands. “We are approaching the landing zone.”

Darzhee Kut clasped to his seat more tightly. This was a part of his calling that he had never envisioned. “How soon until we arrive?”

“Ten minutes,” answered the Arat Kur at the controls. “Assuming–”

The pilot abruptly stopped speaking, pulled the spaceplane into a steep left-handed dive. The plume of a rocket–the thick white exhaust clumped and bloated like a kilometer-long length of intestines–shot up and past them, not more than ten meters away from Darzhee’s recoiling antenna.

“Counterfire!” Yaargraukh’s order was snarled into his commo clip.

Their two Hkh’Rkh escort craft banked, seeking the active sensors the humans had used in acquiring a lock on the spaceplane. An eyeblink later, a dense cluster of down-shooting, white-hot lines streaked dirtside, a ripple of supersonic cracklings trailing a second behind them: rail-launched kinetic-kill cluster warheads, heading planetside at six or seven times the speed of sound.

Darzhee Kut looked over at the Hkh’Rkh Advocate. “Do they have a target already?”

“No, but the orbital interdiction batteries will have backtracked the missile’s plume. They are simply firing at its point of origin.”

Darzhee looked out the window sheepishly, as if someone on the ground would see him and try to fire again. “The humans will not be so foolish as to loiter at the launch point.”

“Of course not. I doubt they were ever near it, but rather controlled the launch from a remote location. They probably have their active sensors dispersed, as well. That means we have nothing to shoot at, no efficacious response. So we do something pointless. And we feel better.”

Darzhee turned as swiftly as his carapace would allow. Yaargraukh was looking straight at him. Darzhee stole a glance at the rear of the craft. Graagkhruud was deep in a growling exchange with First Voice. “If First Voice heard you–”

“Then it would be among the few times he ever did.” Yaargraukh unstrapped, tried to take a step backward, found the afterdeck of the Arat Kur spaceplane too cramped. He was unable to do more than crouch. “I grow weary of this.”

“Of what? The constrictions of our craft?”

“No, of being brought along as an Advocate that is uniformly ignored.” He turned to Darzhee. “I was a tactical advisor before this. Had I been allowed to remain such, at least my efforts and input would be sought and recognized. And perhaps then we might not have quite so many problems as we do now.”

“Why? Are the strategies recommended by Graagkhruud ill-advised?”

“They are wrong. The humans do not fight as we do, but nor are they the cowards he believes. He does not understand them and he cannot win against them if he does not. The humans know this. Well, some of them do.”

“They do?”

“One, Sun Tzu, wrote, ‘if you would be victorious, know thy enemy.’ I can only hope the humans have forgotten their own axiom. But I think not.”

Darzhee felt the shuttle pull into another, but more gradual, turn. The pilot announced, “Apologies for my interruption. We are holding here until the landing zone at Soekarno airfield is available.”

“There is unexpected traffic?”

Yaargraukh placed a finger on his earpiece and grunted. “There is unexpected insurgency.”

Darzhee felt the wiggling-snake feeling in his upper digestive tract that was the Arat Kur fear reflex. “What?”

Yaargraukh, listening, offered quick updates. “Fifteen, maybe twenty insurgents. Half were killed. Almost all got inside the perimeter.”

“But how?”

“Delivery of comestibles. Explosive devices were apparently already buried someplace within the defense perimeter. An external attack–a feint–on the opposite side of the compound. Our troops rushed there, so security was reduced at the logistical ingress point. Several of the disguised insurgents managed to slip away from the food trucks. They deployed the final, triggering bombs. Casualties–” He paused and removed the earpiece, looked out the canopy into the clear blue sky overhead. “Casualties are high.”

“How high?”

“Dozens. Including some of my clan. I knew them. Personally. We shared knives at feast.”

Darzhee experienced a rare sensation. He did not know what to say. “But there are prisoners to interrogate, so there will be a counterattack–yes?”

Still looking at the blue, Yaargraukh wiggled his neck lazily. “Prisoners, yes. But they will not lead us to anything useful.”

“Certainly they can be made to speak what they know.”

“Certainly. Your drugs and our–methods–are equally effective. But it hardly matters, because the humans do not bother to resist. They tell the truth freely and immediately.”

“Then–?”

“Then we look for what they have told us about. The safe houses are empty. The hidden camps are deserted, and the supply trucks–indistinguishable from those which carry produce–are gone.”

“I do not understand.”

Yaargraukh turned to Darzhee. “The human commanders plan on having their insurgents captured. They tell them to confess and share any information they have. And it is useless to us, because the moment any of their number are captured or lag too far behind, the transponders they wear code them as being ‘lost.’ And so their commanders move everything, that very moment. By the time we have rounded up the prisoners, asked our questions, assemble a reprisal squad, they are gone. Unless they have left an ambush team behind, either with guns or control-detonated bombs.”

“They sound very well organized.”

“Too well organized, if my opinion were to be asked. I find the aptness of their tactics, and the promptness with which they began to exercise them, improbable.”

“What is improbable”–it was Graagkhruud’s voice, a rumble of rocks jounced together in a bag–”is that your defeatist attitude allows you to remain in First Voice’s service, Advocate.” He emerged from the passenger section into the forward cabin. “Perhaps you would do better clearing the streets of our adversaries?”

“The First Fist of the First Voice of the First Family would know better than I.” But Yaargraukh did not lower his crest, or his eyes, as he recited the ritual obeisance.

Graagkhruud looked down his considerable snout in such a way that Darzhee Kut felt he was under his gaze as well. “There is no problem here that we could not solve were we not constrained by the Arat Kur rules of engagement.”

“And what would you do if freed of them, First Fist?” asked Darzhee Kut, expecting the Hkh’Rkh would pause briefly to consider tactical alternatives.

Graagkhruud did not even stop to draw a new breath. “Hold hostages. Kill ten of them for every one they kill of ours. Place towns under death-interdict: an attack on one of our bases results in the firebombing of five of their kempangs. They can be stopped and their will can be broken.” He turned to Yaargraukh, whose black-worm tongue had snaked out once, briefly, at the height of the strategic tirade. “Do you opine otherwise, servitor?”

“I believe that the plan may be more easily articulated than realized.”

Graagkhruud fluted the phlegm in his nostrils. “It is well you are Advocate. As a Tactical Leader, you would have only led your troops to death.”

“He has no record of ever having done so in the past, First Fist.” First Voice had emerged from the secure suite in the center of the fuselage. “And for now, he will remain the Advocate.” The spaceplane banked again. The early morning light that came through the starboard windows angled more acutely, disappeared, then streamed in portside as yellow beams. “Pilot: report.”

The Arat Kur at the controls leveled them off. “We have just been redirected to the cargo airfield north of Tasikmalaya, First Voice.”

“We have no need to visit the mass driver, pilot.”

“With apologies, that is not the purpose of our redirection. The airspace security at Soekarno airfield is not yet deemed fully secure. We will land at North Tasikmalaya, refuel, await clearance from Jakarta.”

First Voice’s crest flattened. He looked over at Darzhee Kut. “Hu’urs Khraam assured me that your missile intercept systems would be more than adequate to counteract such attacks.”

Darzhee Kut had a momentary vision–and panic–of the immense carnivore leaning over to devour him on the spot. “I am unable to speak to the First Delegate’s assurances on this matter. Pilot, is there any word why the air defenses are unable to ensure our safe approach to Jakarta at this time?”

“Speaker Kut, the humans intermittently salvo many small rockets–some dangerous, some not–to saturate our defense arrays. Sometimes they do this for no apparent reason; sometimes they do it when they intend to make some purposeful attack. While our point defense fire systems are occupied with these many targets, the humans occasionally manage to launch a high-performance missile that cannot be engaged soon enough and which penetrates the primary defense umbrella. I am told that more air-defense batteries are being emplaced every day.”

And if Urzueth sings true, we will soon have deployed almost all that we have. Who could have known that hundreds of these units would be required for such a small theater of operations?

First Voice emitted a rippling snort: the Hkh’Rkh equivalent of a sigh. “First Fist, we have a firebase at North Tasikmalaya. What is the size of the contingent?”

“Five hundred warriors, organized as fifty troops of ten, First Voice. Twenty Arat Kur in powered armored suits provide heavy support.”

“Is this not also the site where we have human auxiliaries in support of our operations?”

Graagkhruud’s eyes vanished for a second then bulged outward. “First Voice of the First Family cannot mean me to include these beings in my report of our strength in that place.”

“They are assets which relieve our warriors of other duties, thereby allowing more of them to be deployed for direct engagement at any moment.”

“It is as you say, First Voice of the First Family.”

Darzhee watched First Voice’s crest furl and soften a bit. “First Fist, I am not chastising you, but I need complete information at all times.”

Graagkhruud’s nostrils seemed to tremble. “Esteemed First and son of my mother’s father, I live to serve you with honor and distinction, so I plead that you hear me. We must count on ourselves alone in this enterprise. Our Arat Kur allies seem acceptably competent in the distant button-pushing that passes for war between the stars. But they must give you more freedom and more control of the true war: the war on this planet. They trust to machines and hide in their buildings. The humans have not learned to fear us and obey. And they must, or we are doomed. We are too few, even against such weak opponents, if they cannot be cowed into a reflex of submission.”

First Voice gently touched a claw to one of Graagkhruud’s. “I hear your words, but for now, we will follow the strategy we have agreed upon with Hu’urs Khraam.”

“With respect, we are already frustrated in the following of that strategy.”

“How do you mean these words, First Fist?”

“The Arat Kur and we had settled upon maritime interdiction as a cornerstone of our plan. Complete isolation of the occupied islands was deemed essential.”

“And so we had intended. But Indonesia’s self-sufficiency in food was lost when so many of its rice storage facilities were destroyed, first during President Ruap’s rise to power, and again during the outcry at our landings.” First Voice waved a dismissive pseudohand. “We must accept the changed conditions. Such are the vagaries of war.”

“Perhaps not, First Voice of the First Family.” Yaargraukh was still looking out the canopy, as they began their descent, their angle of approach paralleling the southern downslope of Gunung Sawal.

“And how is the loss of human food something other than a vagary of war, Advocate?”

“Because I do not believe that it was by chance that the human foodstuffs were destroyed. It was sabotage.”

Darzhee Kut felt his sensory polyps sag in shock. “But why?”

First Voice’s tone was calm and contemplative as he stared long and steady at Yaargraukh. “To force us to choose between selectively relaxing the maritime blockade or starving the population. By rescinding the total blockade, we must now patrol more carefully, which stretches our already insufficient forces thinner and taxes our monitoring capabilities. However, maintaining the complete blockade would result in famine, disease, and their inevitable sequelae: unrest and then suicidal revolt. The humans found a way to present us with two bad choices. We could only elect to avoid the worst.”

Graagkhruud looked at Yaargraukh as though he were personally responsible. “And so now our security cordon is no longer inviolate. Dozens of their freighters arrive in Jakarta, Surabaja, and the other allowed port cities every day.”

“Any trickle of supplies and insurgents which might somehow slip through our monitoring of these ships’ crews and cargos will be manageable,” First Voice affirmed. “However, the alternative–a mounting flood of starving, angry, desperate hordes–would surely wash over all our guns and walls and drown us in our compounds.”

“Still, I do not like it. It is a suspicious development.”

“I agree, but there is a suspicious development which troubles me more.”

“Do you refer to the mystery ship, that continues to move further out of the system, First Voice?”

“It is a mystery ship no longer, First Voice,” offered Darzhee Kut. “We have identified it as the civilian shift carrier Tankyū-sha Maru, registered to the Transoceanic Industrial and Commercial Organization. It is largely crewed by persons from the nation known as Japan. It is well into the Kuiper Belt now, and still traveling outward at point two five cee. It does not respond to our hails or our offers of assistance.”

“Is it a wreck?” wondered Yaargraukh. “Disabled? Damaged in our initial attack?”

“Unlikely, Advocate. We have detected low, intermittent engine activity. More significantly, though, this ship had already achieved preacceleration and was ready to shift when our first fleet elements arrived eleven days ago.”

First Fist ran a claw down the side of the hairless, almost tubelike snout that was also his face. “So then it must be a wreck, unable to either shift or to effect a constant course change and return.”

First Voice rumbled. “Probably so, but it is also true that a preaccelerated ship is a perfect courier, ready to shift instantly to some other system.”

Graagkhruud’s crest frisked a bit. “And where would they go? And if they wished to report what the rest of humanity must already know or guess–that Earth’s fleet is destroyed and her surface knows the tread of new masters–why did they not do it when we arrived, or when we first landed? No, First Voice, your dreams are filled with worries already. Do not add this to them. Be assured that this is a matter of little or no concern. If there are humans on board, do not be alarmed that they do not reply. As today’s deadline approaches, do we not have evidence that this race is indisposed to respond to us even under congenial circumstances? So the silence of this ship is hardly a surprise and hardly a circumstance worthy of your worry. After all, we already know the cause of many of their silences: they are cowards and fear to engage us with either words or weapons.”

Yaargraukh eyes bulged slightly. “Peculiar, then, that we should have to be redirected away from our landing site because of an attack by a race of cowards.”

“You know the meaning of my words, Advocate. Have caution your insolence is not answered with a Challenge. The humans are like vermin, like s’fet, darting in to bite us, scampering away under the dung of their cities and jungles because they lack the courage to stand and fight. The same is true of their words: they speak only to lie to us, and they grow silent when they are compelled to make honest responses to honorable questions or offers. They resemble the vile rodents of their own world–rats–and should be hunted down as such. I say again, the time for a moderate tongue is past. Now, the decisive claw must rule.”

Darzhee Kut saw and relayed the substance of the pilot’s warning gesture. “For now, First Fist, your very decisive claw must be strapped in. We are preparing to land.”

 

Paradigms Lost — Chapter 21

Paradigms Lost — Chapter 21

Chapter 21: Admissions and Evidence

The door opened. “Jason!” Sylvie said, looking surprised.

“Hi, Syl. Can I come in?”

“Sure. Watch out for the books on the floor, I’m rearranging the library.”

I stepped in. I noticed again the odd, warm smell of her house; the dusty, comfortable scent of old books blended with a faint tinge of kitchen spices and old-fashioned perfume, a smell that didn’t fit someone as young and gorgeous as Syl — except that, somehow, it did fit, because it was Sylvie’s house. Sylvie stepped ahead of me and carefully lifted a stack of books off a large chair.

“I suppose I should apologize, Jason. I was pretty hard on you.”

“No, Syl, you were right.” I sat down; she took the arm of the couch right next to me. “I’ve been trying to have it both ways and it doesn’t work. I can’t flirt with you half the time and then expect you to act just like a friend the other half. You can’t just switch your behavior to match whatever my mood is, and even if you could it’s wrong for me to expect you to.”

“I know, Jason,” she said gently. She put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m the person you’ve practically told your life story to, remember? I’m only a little surprised that you’ve understood yourself so quickly.”

“It wasn’t me, really. Someone who has better perception than I do held a mirror up to my face.”

“Now who would…” she trailed off, staring at me. “My god, Jason. Not … him?”

I had kept my interactions with Verne quiet, so I wasn’t terribly surprised by her surprise, but… “Verne Domingo, yes.”

She shuddered slightly, then studied me intensely; I almost expected her to start doing some kind of crystal ritual or something. “Are you… all right?”

“What? Of course I’m all right. What’s the matter?”

She stared at me, wide-eyed. “What’s the matter? He’s a vampire! The question should be why you have anything to do with him! Yes, I know you worked together with him but… you’ve gone from turning up your nose at the drug-runner to, it seems, being his best buddy! For that matter,” she frowned, “why does he have anything to do with you? I still don’t understand why he let us remember. It sure would have been simpler for him to make all of us forget.”

“He let us remember because, well, he needs me to remember if I’m going to be of any use, and he knows that part of the price of my cooperation is that he keeps his hands off you. Not that I’m worried about that so much, now. I’ve gotten to know him since. He’s lonely, Syl! Just think about it for a minute. Here you are, immortal, for most purposes invulnerable, with all these superhuman powers, and at the same time you don’t dare mention it to anyone! I think he got to the point that, when he realized that I wasn’t all that scared of him, he just couldn’t make himself wipe my memory away and shut me out of his life. He needs someone he can talk to, someone who knows what he is and still will treat him like a person.

“Also, that’s smuggled drugs, not smuggles. Those stories aren’t just for show — he really has become an art and artifact expert.” I hadn’t gone over the entire story before with Syl, and didn’t want to muddy the waters right now.

Syl’s face was serious now. She’s very empathic; I could see that she understood. “So why did he wipe Renee’s memory?”

“Because Renee told him to do it. She said that she would be better off not knowing, and it would help her carry conviction in the story we cooked up.”

“I see.” She looked thoughtful now.

“I also think he hopes you will visit him. He speaks very highly of you.”

She looked surprised at that, but then her gaze sharpened. “Jason, why were you there yesterday evening? I know it wasn’t just to talk about your love life.”

“You’re right.” I gave her the whole story along with everything Verne had said. Just as I finished, the phone rang. It was Lieutenant Reisman. She was calling from a pay phone, so I took the number and called her back. “What’s up, Renee?”

“Remember our Federal friend? Well, his business associates showed up. We’ve been told to butt out; national security and all that.”

“Well, we could have predicted that. SOP.”

Renee snorted. “Bullcrap, Wood. Usually the Feds cooperate with the locals; they don’t want to piss us off. When they go into a total stonewall like this, they’re not kidding around, and there’s something big involved.”

“So why call me?”

“Because I know you, Wood. You dropped into the middle of it and you never give up on anything. I haven’t told them you’re in the picture. No one else on the site really saw you except the ME, and he’s so close-mouthed he wouldn’t say if he saw his own mother at her funeral unless he was under oath. I’m just warning you about what kind of trouble you could be in if you keep poking into this.”

“What about you?”

There was a pause, then an explosive, short laugh. “Yeah, you know me too.”

“Can you get me the ME report?”

She thought for a moment. “I’ll have to figure out some way to weasel it out of him without alerting the Feds, but yeah, I think I can. So what are you going to do for me?”

“My job. Get you information.” I smiled slowly. “Don’t you think it might help if we can find out why they’re so worried?”

She hesitated. “It sure would. But I don’t want to know how you get it.”

“Right. Look, why don’t you come over for dinner tomorrow, if you’re not too busy? I should have something by then, and hopefully they won’t try to listen in. We can set up some way to talk safely then.”

“Okay. And, Jason,” her tone shifted, “be careful. This is dangerous stuff we’re playing with.”

“I know. Bye.”

I looked up at Syl. One glance froze me. She had that deep-eyed, deadly serious look again. Her “feeling” look. After the last few times, I’d learned to trust those feelings with my life. “What is it, Syl?”

“It’s bad, Jason. Very bad.” She shivered. “More people are going to die before this is over.”

 

Trial By Fire – Snippet 37

Trial By Fire – Snippet 37

“Dad’s? How?”

“He was the one who first saw the value of Caine’s plan, not me. And he seemed to know it might require just this kind of trickery, even duplicity, to retake our planet. No matter the personal costs.”

Downing saw Trevor’s eyes waver and his face pinch in what looked like some agony of entrapment. Richard glanced quickly toward Elena and Opal. “This might be a good moment to leave, ladies. The topics are going to move into the ‘need to know’ realm quite soon.”

“Sure,” Opal sneered. “It’s not like you’re trying to clear the room before exerting more emotional thumbscrews.” She looked away in disgust.

“Not true,” Downing lied. “And we’ll soon need to plan your part of the mission as well, Major Patrone.”

Opal snorted. “Yeah, I can hardly wait.”

“Actually, Major Patrone, your phase of the operation must commence before Trevor’s.”

“Oh? Will I also be using my diplomatic credentials to sucker punch someone?”

“No, Major. Your mission does not involve infiltration, but extraction.”

“Extraction? Of whom?” And then her eyes opened wide. “Caine! But he’s not planetside, as far as we know.”

“Not yet, but given his role at Convocation, I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the Arat Kur bring him to Jakarta. It would be almost inevitable, if we agreed to send our ‘negotiators’ there.”

She frowned. “Okay–but why extract him? No matter what happens, he’s protected by his diplomatic credentials, isn’t–?” And then the realization hit her. “Oh. So, before your killer-emissaries violate the basic principles of diplomatic privilege with a mass assassination, I have to get our real diplomat out. Because our enemies will probably not feel disposed to make targeting distinctions between genuine and fake diplomats after Trevor and his pals start pulling their triggers.”

“Yes, that pretty much sums it up, Major.”

“Which means, if I don’t find and extract Caine in time, there’s an excellent chance that some exosapient invader, or megacorporate quisling, or killer clone is going to put a bullet in his brain. Just on general principles.”

Downing put down his stylus. “It is a distinct possibility.”

Opal became very red, stood, pointed a quivering finger at Downing, opened her mouth–but then abruptly turned and was out the door in five angry strides.

Elena watched Opal go, waited until the outer door banged closed, and then rose. She looked at her brother as if she were hugging him with her eyes, and then turned a blank gaze upon Downing. “‘And on Earth, peace and good will to all men,’ That is the customary greeting of the season, isn’t it, Uncle Richard?” She gathered up her things and left without a word or backward glance.

Trevor’s voice pulled Downing’s attention away from the twice-closed office door. “I can’t be your lead operative on Case Timber Pony, Richard. I’m a soldier–not a liar.”

“Trevor, this is war, and its first casualty is personal choice. And right now, we have to do anything that helps us survive. See here, I’ve done–and continue to do–terrible things. I won’t evade or deny that. But who else is going to do them? Oh, I’m sure there were a thousand people who had the skills to do just as well as–or a damned sight better than–me, but when your father reached into the hat of fate, it was me that he pulled up by the ears. Just as fate pulled him up when he found that the doomsday rock was a weapon aimed at Earth. And now fate has tapped you on the shoulder.” When Trevor didn’t respond, Downing felt himself growing genuinely desperate. “Do you think we wanted this for you? Do you think we wanted this for us?”

Trevor still did not look at him. “I think you made a choice to keep on doing this job when you could have walked away.”

“How could we walk away from what we knew about the threat to our families, our planet? How could we walk away from responding to that threat, from a job that had–had–to be done? Who were we supposed to give it to? We couldn’t even tell anyone else what we knew. Would’ve made job interviews a tad difficult, don’t you think? And, even if we could have passed the poison cup to someone else, just what poor sod should we have saddled with this lifelong nightmare? By what right would we have chosen some other human being to sacrifice their happiness and freedom of mind so that we could have some of our own back?

“Not that we would have rested any easier, mind you. I can see it now: Richard and Nolan at the joint family barbecue, grilling shrimp, looking up at the stars, and hoping that the shop in DC was in good hands and that Earth itself wasn’t on someone’s interstellar dinner menu.”

Trevor’s eyes came back up; they were narrow, bitter. “Yeah, paint me some more scenes of your personal sacrifices, Uncle Richard. They sure make me feel better. They sure do bring my father back to life. And bring back all the hours, days, weeks he could have been with me instead of off saving the world with you, halfway around the globe.”

Downing felt his fingers and feet grow very cold, his stomach sink. In the mirroring glass door that separated the conference room from the inner office, his pallor was unnatural, as if he had aged a decade in the last ten minutes. He sat heavily. “I’ve tried to shield you from what I could. God knows I had little enough success at it, but I tried. But this time, it’s out of my hands. By Executive Order, Case Timber Pony is now in its final phase of preparation and we are committed to executing it. We might lose the war if we do not. So, I’m sorry, Trevor, but this time–this one time–you will receive orders that will require you to lie.”

Trevor pushed back from the table; his tone of voice had gone much further. “And when shall I expect those orders, sir?”

Downing waved a weak hand. “That’s not clear. There’s a bit of diplomatic dancing to be done with the Arat Kur first, obviously. We’ll begin assembling the mission force while that’s going on, and we’ll send the primary operation orders–as well as contingency plans–down to Nevis.”

Trevor nodded. “Is that where you’ve stashed Stosh, Rulaine, and the rest of the security team you had me leading on Mars?”

“Yes.”

“And I’m to use them on this op?”

“Yes, but not officially. The official force rosters are being compiled by Commonwealth JSOC and the intel chiefs. They’re not up to me. Not except your group. Which will not show up on the standard table of organization. We’ll reserve your team as our own ace in the hole, so to speak. In case the main plan is called off and you have to use one of the contingencies that involve breaching the enemy compound from the outside.”

“I see, sir.” Trevor rose. “Then, if we’ve no further business to discuss–”

“Trevor, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for this mission, for letting the Dornaani bury your father in space, for everything that our work has cost you. But if I had to do it all over again, I don’t know what I would–what I could–afford to do differently. Not with all that’s at stake.”

Trevor nodded. “I understand. I’ll wait to hear from you.” He turned and walked briskly out the door.

Downing leaned his head forward into his hands and expelled a long sigh. He closed his eyes, drank in the darkness.…

After several moments, he heard the glass door to the inner office open. He did not look up, even when asked a question:

“I perceive that this meeting was–difficult?”

“Not really,” Richard lied.

“The operation you have designated Case Timber Pony has received final approval, has it not?”

“It has. When should we start tracking the system delivery assets?”

“I am already doing so. I have also passed word that our relocation is to commence in two days. Do you believe that is sufficient?”

“Yes,” sighed Downing. “The sooner we can get out of DC, the better, I think.”

“I expected you to say otherwise. The approaching holidays are customarily spent with family members and close friends, are they not?”

“Yes, they are. That’s why I want to leave.”

*   *   *

Opal discovered that she had arrived on the street. Which was fortunate, because she hadn’t been able to think since leaving Downing’s office and hustling into the elevator. Instead, she had been myopically preoccupied with the irrational fear that Downing would appear, chasing her, demanding that she return the hardcopy folder she had scooped up while he was in the bathroom prior to the meeting. It was labeled “Riordan, Caine/code-name ‘Odysseus’: Bio data,” and it might hold the secrets of the one hundred hours Caine had lost on the moon just before being coldslept, fourteen years ago.

Walking–still without really thinking about what she was doing–she produced the folder from her backpack, grazed a finger along its outer edge. The cover turned back slightly. By mistake, of course. Not that she was snooping. Well, not for herself, anyway. This was for Caine, so he could finally have some answers about what happened on the moon, about why Nolan and Downing had cryocelled him and impressed him into IRIS. Her own burning curiosity was not propelling her actions, of course. She had never stolen anything in her life–not even from the snotty rich girls that always pegged her as a tomboy army brat in each of the myriad of grade schools she attended while her family followed Dad on his endless restationings.

She realized she had inadvertently started glancing at the contents, had a quick impression of old photographs and news clippings. She shut the manila folder swiftly, heart racing. She had faced death on a battlefield frequently, and yet nothing had ever induced this particular species of terror–because this one was laced with guilt, as well. Which was foolish. Because after all, she hadn’t stolen Caine’s file; she had only borrowed it. And she hadn’t done so to satisfy her own curiosity. She had done it to help him. Only to help him.

She looked around her, discovered that she had somehow navigated herself to the correct street corner, and raised a hand. A driverless cab smoothly swerved across two lanes of traffic and came to a stop beside her.

The taxi was requesting the address and she was giving it, but that was happening someplace else, as if it was in a side closet of her mind. Because as soon as she had stepped inside the vehicle, was beyond Downing’s reach, she knew the truth of what she was doing. You’re a liar, Opal. This isn’t about Caine. This is about you, worrying that there’s something in those one hundred hours that could come between the two of you. Maybe he hooked up with some old girlfriend, there, or maybe–

She felt suddenly nauseated. At herself. So now you’re jealous of ghosts that might not even exist, Opal? How pathetic is that?

The question remained unanswered. She was too busy getting the encircling rubber band off the manila folder so she could devour its hated and feared contents.

Letters he sent to friends. High school records. A picture with a girl–but only a skinny, coltish girl–before a prom. It was a funny picture, too; he was kind of gangly as a kid. Pictures of his house on the Chesapeake Bay. Another, much earlier one with several teeth missing from his warm and easy smile, his silver-maned father with an arm around his shoulder, and some kind of sports field behind them. She studied his faintly freckled face and tousled hair. It was impossible to reconcile that boyish image with the mental portrait she had of the man whom fate had turned into an operative code-named Odysseus.

There were printouts of the first articles he published as a kid in the local paper, then later in Time, then reviews of his books, letters to publishers and editors that lauded him, castigated him, and finally eulogized him.

She came to the end of the folder. And had discovered absolutely nothing useful. Somewhere far away, the taxi announced that their arrival was imminent.

She looked down at the ravaged pieces of Caine’s life, scattered in her lap. What have I done? Or, more importantly, why did I need to do this? Because I’m afraid I’ll never see him again? Or that I will–only to find he has someone to go back to, a life in which I can have no part?

She closed the folder slowly. And now I can’t undo what I’ve done. Even if Downing never notices this file is missing, even if I return it first, I still stole it. Stole it to quiet my fears–but at the expense of what little privacy Caine has left. She looked up without seeing the dusk-darkening streets, tried to will away the two tears–one from each eye–that struggled free of her lower eyelids and streaked swiftly down each cheek. Damn me. Damn me.

This time, when the taxi’s robot voice announced her arrival, she heard it. “Now at Bethesda Hospital, Maternity Annex. Eleven dollars, please.”

 

The Savior – Snippet 20

The Savior – Snippet 20

PART FOUR

The Toll

Six years previously

1

Lilleheim

Treville District

470 Post Tercium

There had been no report from Jeptha Marone in over a month. This was not good news, as far as Mahaut was concerned. It probably meant he had found out something and was following up on it.

Meanwhile, grain promises-to-buy were wildly shifting. The trend was falling for Lindron-bound mixed grain and rising for Bruneberg-bound wheat and Delta rice, but that changed almost daily when the runner came in with the previous day’s numbers from Garangipore. Mahaut didn’t need a special investigator to tell her what was happening.

The Guardians were at their war games in Lindron. Sixteen thousand men, a town’s worth, were on the move. Anyone who knew exactly where the Guardians would be could make a tidy sum off the information. This was because the grain promissory notes were guesses at what offers to buy in a certain location would be. Cascade-bound grain, meanwhile, was in freefall. Unusually good harvests — from the fields of Progar no less — had flooded the markets of Bruneberg with grain. A few years ago, Progar was a meat supplier. Its grain production was mainly confined to barley, and not much at that. Now it seemed they’d shifted over to more water-hungry wheat.

If it weren’t for the large carrying distance from Progar to Lindron, and the fact that all shipments would have to be landed and ported around three sets of cataracts, she might fear for House Jacobson prospects in Lindron itself.

Anyway, thank Zentrum for the Guardians and their war games.

Mahaut, Solon, and Benjamin were bent over a scroll comparing the Garangipore House offers with what they knew were in the Lilleheim silos when the messenger from Hestinga arrived.

He was carrying a reed basket on his back. It was held on by two dakleather straps over his shoulders. Mahaut recognized him as one of the warehousemen from town. He dealt in imports, mostly from up-River, and specialized in the cheaper, lesser quality pottery from Cascade.

The fine stuff, the expensive stuff, was made by the artisans in Lindron, of course. Yet Bruneberg had street after street of kilns many times larger than all of the one-man shops of Lindron combined. The Lindron porcelain was for Firsts and those who emulated them. The Bruneberg potteries, which were controlled by a House Dupree, House Ziman, and House Weatherby cartel, turned out cups, pots, and pitchers for everyone else.

The front clerk had brought the warehouseman back to the granary offices. He was a known and trusted merchant — and one who usually had a lot of good-natured bluster to his attitude, if Mahaut remembered rightly. Now something was wrong. Instead of confidently striding through the door, the man hung back. Benjamin look up, considered him.

“Come in, Master Knopf. Don’t stand there like a post. You know you’re welcome here.”

The warehouseman shuffled across the threshold.

“Why don’t you lay your burden down and sit? Have some wine. Daughter, can you pour him a cup?”

Mahaut moved toward the pitcher, but Knopf held up a hand. “No, please, Land-heiress. Not now.” He gulped. “I have something to…show you.”

“Well, what is it?” Solon said briskly. “We are a bit busy at the moment.”

“I’m very sorry to interrupt, but I thought…you would want…”

He took the basket from his shoulders and set it down in front of him. He unclasped the latch and, with a resigned sigh, opened it up.

“We received a shipment from Lindron yesterday.”

“Lindron? I thought you only dealt Bruneberg pots, Master Knopf.”

“Business has been good, so we’ve been branching out, me and the missus. She’s been after me for years to deal in the fine stuff. Thinks it’ll sell in Hestinga as well as anywhere. Well, we took the chance, and she was right, she was. We started off with those porcelain half-elb cookpots, and damn me to cold hell if they haven’t been going out as fast as we can get them in.”

“Interesting, but what does this have to do with House Jacobson?” said Benjamin. “You know I don’t care who a man trades with as long as he gives me a fair deal.”

“I know, I know, Pater Jacobson,” Knopf replied. He paused, as if to gather his wits. “Yesterday, Pater, we got in an order of more of them half-elb cookpots, about a thousand this time, and some plates in there, too.” He coughed, cleared his throat. “Anyway, in the middle of the cookpots, packed in there with the straw and such, the boys in the warehouse found something. Something in place of a pot, if you know what I mean –” Knopf pulled a canvas sack from the open basket. “This,” he said.

“What is that?” Solon asked. “A rotten Delta melon? Is it some kind of practical joke or something, Knopf?”

“I wish it were, Land-heir, sir. I wish it were. No, there was a scroll attached.” Knopf patted his tunic, pulled a small roll of papyrus from an inner pocket. “Here it is.”

Mahaut took it from him.

“Read it, Daughter,” Benjamin said. He was staring at the sack, and his eyes had grown cold. Mahaut unrolled the scroll.

On pain of your own life, deliver this to Pater Benjamin Jacobson, House Jacobson, Lilleheim. Say it is in payment for killing a son. Tell him that cold hell awaits him and his house.

“Open it,” said Benjamin.

“I…I don’t like to,” said Knopf. “It’s just…I don’t want to be the one…”

“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Mahaut said. She took the bag from him. It was heavier than it looked. She put a hand under the bottom and pulled back the top –

And almost dropped the contents in shock.

It was a head. A human head. A man’s head.

The skin was desiccated. The hair was stringy and filled with a dandruff of flaking chips of dried blood.

She’d grasped the bottom with the neck stump to one side. Now she took it by the neck stump, so she could hold it upright.

The eyes were closed. The mouth was sewn shut.

Benjamin Jacobson let out a cry of anguish.

“What is it, Father?” Solon asked.

“My friend,” said Benjamin, moaning. “It’s my friend.”

“Who? Who is that, Father?”

“Abram.” Benjamin began to sob. “My friend. My old friend.”

It was Abram Karas. He had been the Jacobson House Factor in Lindron. Benjamin Jacobson’s best friend from childhood, and long-time chief of staff in Lilleheim until Solon had reached maturity.

After that, Karas had been given the important posting at Lindron, where the largest share of Jacobson grain was sold, where deals were made, and he was also the overseer of a large portfolio of House Jacobson loans to Lindron merchants and investments in Lindron real estate.

This was the severed head of Abram Karas.

It’s either retribution from House Eisenach, Mahaut’s shocked mind told her. Or someone willing to go to any length to provoke a Family war.

Her father-in-law recovered himself sufficiently to look Knopf in the eyes. “This is not your fault, Knopf, and we don’t hold it against you. Thank you for your troubles. See Dillard, and he will reimburse you for –”

Then a sob rose in Benjamin’s throat again. He shook his head, unable to speak. Knopf, taking the hint, bowed and exited, leaving the basket pack behind. Mahaut carefully covered the head again with the sack and set it down inside the basket.

Solon put a hand on his father’s shoulder. Benjamin stood silent, staring at the basket pack. His jaw was clenched so hard his face trembled.

“This will have to be done carefully. Thoroughly. And without mercy.”

“What, Father?” said Solon.

“He’s talking about revenge,” Mahaut said.

Benjamin Jacobson turned to her. “Yes,” he said, catching her eye. There was impersonal malice in her father-in-law’s face. The expression of a carnadon waiting on the banks for one false move from its prey. “I’m going to need you, Mahaut.”

“Me, Pater?”

“Yes. Will you help me do this?”

Mahaut nodded. “Of course I will.”

“Cold hell, Father, I’ll help, too!” Solon said. “Curse them. Curse them all.”

Benjamin held out an arm. “No. That would make you the next sure target. I cannot have that.”

“But Father –”

“I said no!” Benjamin lowered his hand. He was still gazing at Mahaut. “What do you say, daughter?”

Mahaut nodded. “Yes.”

“You owe this house nothing. If anything, we owe you.”

“That’s not the way I see it, Pater.”

Benjamin nodded. “Then it’s done.” He looked back down at the basket, suppressed another sob. “I have to go for a walk. A long walk. I won’t be back today. I won’t be –”

Benjamin could say no more. He strode past the basket pack and out the door.

Mahaut and Solon stood silently for a moment.

“Land and Law, I’m not meant for this,” Solon finally said. “I want to sell grain. I want to sell grain, then go home to Mary and the children in the evening. And that’s all.”

“I know, Solon.”

“What are we going to do?”

Mahaut knelt beside the basket pack, pulled it up, and put one strap over her shoulder.

“First, we’ll bury this,” she said. “Then you leave it to me.”

 

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 07

1636 The Viennese Waltz – Snippet 07

Chapter 3: Plans and Proposals

June, 1634

Fortney Home, Grantville

“Howdy, Prince Karl.” Sonny Fortney held out his hand like the prince was just anyone. It was easy because, to Sonny, the prince was just anyone. He knew that a lot of down-timers and more than a few up-timers didn’t feel that way, but he did. He felt that way before the Ring of Fire, when titles like doctor and professor were bandied about, and he felt it even more now. “I hope you’ll excuse the mess. We’ve sold the house and there’s a lot of packing being done right now.”

“Guten Tag, Herr Fortney.” Prince Karl held out his own hand, which was a good sign. “Think nothing of it. I trust you got a good price?” After they shook hands, Prince Karl continued, “I would like to watch you test Prince Ferdinand that way.”

“Really? How’d you think he’d do?”

“Fairly well. He’d be surprised, but I think after he got over the shock, he’d be amused rather than offended. However, if my uncles were in the room, they would probably call for the headsman. So while I’d love to watch, I can’t really recommend that you do it.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sonny said. He would keep both the opinion of Ferdinand and the opinion of the boy’s uncles in mind.

“Well, Uncle Gundaker would call the headsman,” Karl clarified. “I’m not sure about Uncle Maximilian. Still, most of the court would act more like Uncle Gundaker, so if you do try it, don’t do it in public. I would hate to have you beheaded before you managed to survey my railroad for me. Besides, Hayley is a nice girl and doesn’t deserve to lose her father.”

“Who is important at court, Your Serene Highness?” Sonny Fortney asked more seriously. “Who is likely to be a problem about the railroad?”

“That’s hard to say. I have been out of touch. His closest adviser and perhaps his closest friend is the Hungarian nobleman Janos Drugeth. But Drugeth’s expertise lies primarily in military and diplomatic affairs. He might not get involved in these issues at all. Reichsgraf Maximillian von Trautmannsdorf is another of Ferdinand II’s close counselors. I’m honestly not sure whether he would support the railroad or not. Pal Nadasdy is fairly conservative as well. Peter von Eisenberg isn’t on the privy council, but is a bright guy. You might be able to get him on your side, though he is a bit rank conscious. His grandparents weren’t noble. Not even as noble as mine.”

“I’ll keep that in mind too,” Sonny told Karl in a more somber tone. “So, tell me about this railroad?”

“Possible railroad,” Karl corrected. “I have written letters suggesting it to my Aunt Beth and to the family back in Vienna. I hope to get their approval, because it would connect the Danube at Vienna to the Oder at Opole. The Oder is mostly navigable up to Opole, with some breaks, so a railroad between the Danube and the Oder would link a route from the Baltic to the Black Sea by two rivers and a railroad. Which, according to Mrs. Wendell, would produce a lot of trade and a lot of wealth.”

“Sounds reasonable to me,” Sonny agreed. “You understand I am going to be working for Prince Ferdinand, so if you want me to try surveying the route for your railroad, you’d better write him a letter too.”

“I shall. Never doubt it,” Prince Karl said. “Meanwhile, I took the liberty of having some maps copied from some of the up-time maps in the national library.” He opened up the map and pointed. “Here is what I was thinking would make a good route.”

Sonny looked over the route that the prince had in mind and made some suggestions that looked like they might make it easier. Karl agreed to some and disagreed with others for political reasons. Some of the landholders along the route were more likely to be reasonable about a railroad through their lands than others. Some liked his family, some disliked them, after harking back to actions taken by Prince Karl’s father, who Sonny already knew had been something of a hard case.

“I’ll do what I can, assuming that it doesn’t conflict with anything Prince Ferdinand wants. But two things . . . one is I will have to look at the ground itself before any of this can be anything but tentative. Second thing is, this is going to be a lot of work. And I don’t work for free.”

Prince Karl smiled at Sonny and Sonny felt himself smiling back. “Do you want cash or shares?” the prince asked.

“I’m not sure,” Sonny said. “I probably need to ask my fourteen-year-old daughter.”

“Why not?” Prince Karl said. “That’s who I consult . . . well, the Barbies in general, more than Hayley in particular.”

****

Sonny did ask Hayley, and Hayley asked the Barbies and Mrs. Wendell. The answer that came back was, “It depends on how much stock and how much cash, but the odds are that Sonny could get a better deal for stock.”

“Get a lot of stock, Dad,” Hayley told him, “or get the prince to pay you in cash. Railroads are great for the territory they go through, but not so much for the companies that build them.”

“So why not just insist on cash?” Sonny asked his daughter.

“Because you could end up with a lot of stock,” Hayley said. “A whole bunch.”

Duchess’ Palace, Cieszyn

Duchess Elisabeth Lukretia von Teschen laughed as she read the letter from little Karl. Not so little anymore, and always more reasonable than his uncles. He had apparently been impressed, and improved, by the Ring of Fire. “Pawel, bring writing instruments.” A railroad was probably a good idea, but she would write to King Albrecht about it first.

Liechtenstein House, Vienna

Gundaker von Liechtenstein didn’t laugh. Instead he threw the letter across the room, then picked it up and went to complain to his brother, Maximillian.

Maximillian was in the office section of the house, dealing with Johannes Koell, the family’s chief bookkeeper. The fussy little man took a few minutes to make his points, then Gundaker could get Maximillian into a private room to show him the crumpled letter.

 

1632 option renewed by Mammoth Screen

Mammoth Screen is renewing their option on the 1632 series for another year. They’ve hired a well-known screenwriter and have the script for the first episode. They’ve also made a deal with ITV Studios for worldwide distribution. This is important because ITV is a big deal in the UK. We’re still a long ways from an up-and-running TV series, but things are looking good.

– Eric

Trial By Fire – Snippet 36

Trial By Fire – Snippet 36

Chapter Sixteen

Washington, D.C., Earth

Richard heard Elena’s response as a chorus with his own. “Nothing?”

Trevor nodded. “Despite the global panic, the World Confederation Council sees our current situation as a standoff. With the Arat Kur controlling orbital space, we can’t fight back effectively. But on the ground, the Arat Kur know they’ve got a tiger by the tail. And as the militarily weaker power, a stalemate is actually to our advantage. So we force them to make the next move.”

Downing nodded. “And if they overreact by extending their attacks to the larger landmasses, they will lose even more control of the planetside situation.”

Elena frowned. “Really? So if the current level of panic isn’t enough to compel us to surrender, why won’t they just start bombing our cities, one after the other?”

Trevor answered before Downing could. “Couple of reasons. First, even if they do that, the invaders only have enough ground forces to control a dozen or so key points in Indonesia. And even there, they’re already having a harder time than they thought. Secondly, it’s not in their political interests to widen the war in any way. As long as they’re after a settlement rather than conquest, it won’t play well across the globe. And if they can’t secure their gains directly, then when–or maybe ‘if’–the Dornaani show up, the invaders will suddenly be the ones without any bargaining power, without anything to give back in exchange for either concessions or clemency.”

Downing smiled. “And although all reports indicate that the Hkh’Rkh are excellent assault troops, the first signs indicate that they will be a dreadful occupation force.”

Elena nodded. “From that one social event we shared with them on the Convocation Station, it was pretty clear that they lack the patience for endless rounds of guard duty and garrison tasks.”

Trevor jumped in again. “Not only that. From what I heard in the Oval Office, the few mixed exosapient units that are providing ‘security support’ for CoDevCo’s Indonesian mass driver aren’t working together so well. Specifically, the Arat Kur are already having severe problems keeping a leash on Hkh’Rkh in the counterinsurgency role. For the Hkh’Rkh, war is waged by and against clearly designated combatants. Everyone else is presumed–and encouraged–to make every attempt to evacuate the area of engagement. So when guerrilla units have hit the Hkh’Rkh, they want to strike back–not just hard, but brutally. For them, sneak attacks mounted by insurgents who fade back into the population are acts of cowardice and implicit treachery that warrant full reprisals.”

“Such as?”

“Such as annihilation of any town that seems to have concealed, aided, or abetted the guerillas.”

“And by annihilation, you mean–?”

“Men. Women. Children. Kittens. Everything. With bombs or bayonets: it’s all the same to the Hkh’Rkh. They’ve been protecting the mass driver site for less than forty-eight hours, and already there are reports of nearby kempangs–villages–completely wiped off the map.”

Downing stared at the date and time stripe as the bottom of his palmcomp. “And those Indonesian guerillas are going to become more active with every passing day.”

“Because of the atrocities?” Elena asked.

“No,” interjected Opal with a malicious smile, “because of the weather. The one time I did mission prep for that part of the world was sixty years ago, but I doubt monsoon season has changed that much.” She leaned back, stared at the ceiling as the information rolled out of her. “More than a centimeter of rain every day, and when it comes down, it comes down in sheets. Temperature rarely gets under eighty, keeping the humidity at eighty-five percent or higher. Thermal and IR gear is degraded. The ambient noise background is messy. Mud everywhere.” She folded her arms. “Bottom line, if you were born there, or in a similar climate in Southeast Asia, you’re used to it, know how to use it to your advantage. If you’re a newb, you are in deep shit.” Still looking at the ceiling, or maybe through it to the orbiting ships overhead, she grinned viciously. “Welcome to Earth, you alien bastards.”

Trevor smiled, but Elena was nodding thoughtfully. “All of which means that the Hkh’Rkh will be more frustrated, and so more harsh and frequent in their reprisals. But the Arat Kur know that images depicting ‘ruthless alien invaders’ slaughtering women and children will destroy any chance of keeping even a small minority of humans interested in a ‘peace process.’”

Trevor’s nod was one of grim, vengeful satisfaction. “Or willing to accept new leadership.”

Opal turned her gaze down from the ceiling. “What do you mean?”

“I mean the megacorporations. All the bloc leaders believe that the Arat Kur demand for a speciate referendum to approve the World Confederation is a backdoor move to effect a global regime change, one that puts the megacorporations–CoDevCo in particular–in charge. And once they are in control, the fear is that they won’t bother to raise an army to impose their will. They’ll make one.”

“You mean clones?” Elena asked. “They’ve already started breaking those laws, from what I hear.”

Downing nodded. “Former finance minister Ruap’s antibloc politics wasn’t the only thing which made the Arat Kur eager to see him holding power in Indonesia. It was his extremely cozy relationship with Astor-Smath and CoDevCo.” He shook his head. “Which means the Arat Kur had all this planned before they loaded their invasion fleet. Even before we all went to the Convocation.”

Trevor scratched his ear. “Speaking of plans, President Liu did manage to pass me a message for you, through her chief of staff.”

“Which was?”

Trevor handed over a slip of plain white paper. Written in Liu’s flowing hand, Downing saw:

 

ª Case Leo Gap

• Case Vernal Rains

• Case Ifuc1

• Case Timber Pony

All Cases approved for final phase activation.

See me ASAP.

L.

It was the message Richard had been waiting for. And the message which determined what he had to do next. After sharing its contents, he explained. “It is fortuitous that you are all here, because this message clears the path for us, and IRIS, to make a tangible contribution to the defense of Earth. It’s a small operation, and difficult, but potentially decisive.”

Trevor leaned back. “What’s the objective?”

“Disable the Arat Kur’s planetside command, control, and computing net for several crucial minutes.”

Opal stared. “And how are we supposed to do that?”

“By infiltrating a strike team directly into their headquarters and neutralizing it.”

“Uncle Richard,” said a slightly pale Trevor, “with all due respect, I don’t see how we–how IRIS–can carry out such a purely military operation. You’re talking about a plan involving hundreds of bombs and probably thousands of spec ops troops with a shared death-wish.”

“No. It will involve about a dozen diplomatic passes and an equal number of covert operatives, posing as Earth’s armistice negotiation team and its support staff.”

Trevor shook his head. “But there’s not going to be any negotiation. First Consul Ching is about to do what he’s already become famous for: making no response.”

“Yes, and that will nicely pave the way for this plan’s success.”

“You’ve lost me.”

Downing folded his hands. “Through you, Trevor, the Arat Kur sent us new peace terms. We have remained silent. What will they do when, in five hours, their fifty-hour response deadline runs out?”

“Try to force an answer out of us.”

“And how will they do that?”

Elena saw it first. “They’re going to tighten the screws, show us that we cannot ignore them.”

“Precisely.” Yes, Elena is certainly her father’s daughter. And brave, too, given the bandits she had to face down during her anthropology field work. “And so, when the consequent cries of global misery begin to hit the bloc leadership, the Confederation will be forced to act, to give in and resume talks.”

Trevor saw it now. “So, only because the Arat Kur themselves force us to do so, we will send a negotiation team. And because we resisted doing so until they left us no choice, they will not suspect that they are actually giving us the opportunity we most want: to be summoned–with our tail apparently between our legs–to their seat of power in Indonesia.” He nodded. “Pretty shrewd, but how do you arm the infiltration team? Even if the Arat Kur don’t detect them as impostors, no one’s going to let our strikers traipse into Jakarta with golf bags full of combat gear.”

“Of course not. That’s why operational caches are already prepositioned there. Have been, for some time.”

Trevor frowned. “How could you know that they’d invade Indonesia and where they’d set up their HQ in Jakarta?”

“We had strong suspicions they’d go after Indonesia because of its isolation and because of the mass driver. And once our operatives sparked the protests that demolished the terminals and hotels at Soekarno Airport right after the invaders’ first initial landings–”

Opal’s eyes were wide. “We did that?”

“–then the Arat Kur had to consolidate their command elements in Jakarta itself. That in turn left them with a fairly limited number of options. Which meant they needed a large defensible compound with good C4I facilities that they could upgrade. Again, not a long list of options. We concealed equipment caches in all the probable sites. We also made sure that when Ruap’s government started recruiting locals for the mundane housekeeping tasks–sanitation, food delivery, basic maintenance–that we had some highly motivated sympathetics in the mix.”

“So when our strike team arrives in their guise as negotiators, their gear is already waiting for them on-site.”

“Correct, and there will be diversions and distractions timed to allow them to get access to it.”

Trevor nodded. “Sounds like a plan. In fact, it sounds like the kind of scheme that Caine would come up with, if he was here.”

Downing’s smile was a bit sad. “Oh, it was his plan, all right.”

“What?” said Trevor. “But for the past half year, he’s been–”

“This goes back beyond half a year, Trev.” Downing was careful not to look at Elena as he explained. “This goes all the way back to when we first awakened Caine in 2118, even before we code-named him Odysseus.” Downing pushed a virtual button on his palmcomp and the main screen snapped to life again.

It showed Caine splicing wires in one of his initial training exercises. He didn’t look up as he spoke. “If these aliens intend to rule us rather than exterminate us, they’ll want to avoid a ‘final solution.’ So you dangle the prospect of capitulation–or even collaboration–under their noses while preparing to strike at them.”

Downing’s recorded voice–coming from very close to the camera–countered with, “And with their superior technology, how do you propose to get close enough to strike at them?”

Caine glanced up. “By getting–or prepositioning–forces inside their beachhead. And don’t give me that doubting-Thomas look: there are always methods of infiltrating forces through seemingly secure perimeters or impassable borders. Even the old ploy of the Trojan Horse still has some merit; it just needs some clever updating.”

Downing turned off the flatscreen and glanced at Trevor. “That casual brainstorming session led your father to do exactly what Caine suggested: update the Trojan Horse ploy. Have the enemy themselves bring our strike team inside their HQ. That was the basis of the operation Nolan labeled Case Timber Pony, for which President Liu just gave the final green light.” Downing waved the slip of paper. “It is also the lynchpin of our strategy to take back control of the planetside situation. Without their dirtside C4I net, the Arat Kur will not be able to call for or coordinate orbital supporting fire. And by the time they get that control back, some of our best forces will be in among them and, therefore, untouchable by their standoff assets.”

Trevor was still staring at the blank screen. “And who are the negotiators you’re sending into this lion’s den?”

“It must be a mixed team. Some will be genuine government officials who happen to have combat backgrounds. There will be an equal number of tier one and tier two operators–Delta, Seals, SAS, Special Forces–who have enough of a background in political and foreign affairs that they can make convincing noises as diplomatic support staff for a day or two. And we’ll need at least one operator who is personally known to the Arat Kur, and whose participation will reassure them, beyond reasonable doubt, that the delegation is legitimate.”

Both Elena and Opal sat up ramrod straight. “You wouldn’t–”

“In short,” Downing finished, “we need you, Trevor.”

For a moment, Trevor just stared, then he blinked. “I am exactly the wrong person to send. We–Caine and I–have a personal bond of honor with Darzhee Kut. After what we went through together, he trusts that neither of us would ever–”

“Which is exactly why it must be you, Trevor,” pressed Richard. “Not only because Darzhee Kut and his leaders know you from the Convocation and from your time in the Arat Kur fleet, but because you and he had to create an unusual bond just in order to survive. His confidence in you–and by extension, the Arat Kurs’ confidence in you–is exactly the edge we need: a blind-spot, a chink in their armor, which we can exploit to get in and strike them when and where they least expect it. And when and where it will do us the most good.” Downing paused, saw that logic alone would not win Trevor over. There needed to be a personal, an emotional, compulsion as well. “Trevor, you are absolutely indispensable to the success of this mission, and that this isn’t just my assessment. It was, indirectly, your father’s, as well.”