“Which faction?”
“A religious one.”
“And you transported it.”
“We did.”
“Except you didn’t transport it to its destination.”
“It was a battle. I don’t like that kind of destination. Not when it isn’t my fight, anyway.”
“So you just took it. Easy as that.”
“Yes. Because, as I’m trying to tell you, the split-faces were too busy fighting each other to come after us.”
“Okay.”
“I thought it would come in useful for a customer. It is, as you say, a planet killer. A battlecruiser with a ventral beam. Pious Inquisitor.”
Staffan hated those sanctimonious Covenant names, albeit in a theoretical kind of way. The Covenant had never troubled Venezia. Earth was the only power that had ever done that. He hated some UNSC ships’ names a lot more; they were about ferocity and bravery, when all he could see was an imperial power that didn’t do much for its empire except bleed it dry and leave it to save itself when the Covenant came.
I got out of Sansar in time. Millions didn’t.
“That name…”
“The Sangheili are very upset at losing her,” Fel said. “Apart from hulls being at a premium in these uncertain times, I understand she has quite a history.”
“Is this making the Sangheili extra-pissed off?”
“I wouldn’t risk offering her to the Arbiter.”
“Very wise.”
“But I did check the stored data in the navigation computer, and this ship has deployed to Earth in the recent past, so given your interest in acquiring a more compact warship and your relationship with Earth … I thought of you immediately.”
Staffan tried to recall if he’d heard the ship’s name before. “Have you ever seen a planet after it’s been glassed by one of those beams?”
“Of course I have. I used to serve the Covenant.”
“I mean one of your own.”
“No. But you have—yes, yes, I know all that. Just tell me who you might use this ship against.”
“None of your customers, Fel.”
“Humans, then.”
“I may have scores to settle with the Covenant, but those with my own species come first.”
“Because you know—”
“Yes. Glassed cities are cities that can’t do business. Glass a city and you glass the merchandise. Don’t glass the customer. I get it.”
Only a Kig-Yar would turn down the chance of keeping a battlecruiser that could reduce the surface of a planet to molten slag. But it wasn’t morality. Kig-Yar simply didn’t fight that way, not if they had a choice. Staffan tried to recall any human culture that had abandoned an empire before over-expansion and hostile subjects brought it to its natural and inevitable end, but he couldn’t. Yet the Kig-Yar had done just that. It was hard to think like them. They progressed, they expanded, and then they reverted to their tribal, piratical, scavenging selves.
No ideology. No manifest destiny. No mission to civilize or enlighten or save souls. No obsession with dominance. They just do it because they’re good at it, and they actually enjoy the acquiring and winning more than they enjoy what they’ve taken.
Staffan needed to understand motives. If he knew why someone did something—an individual or an entire culture—then they rarely caught him out. Kig-Yar didn’t need big capital ships because they didn’t want to invade or destroy worlds, and most warships weren’t built for raiding and slipping away. Kig-Yar preferred to be free and agile. They preferred to travel light. Even a relatively modest warship like Pious Inquisitor was a little too big for that.
That’s what they do. Strike, peck, collect, fly. Carrion rather than prey. Opportunists. They’re turning into birds. Vultures.
No, magpies. And magpies can be nasty little bastards.
The universe made perfect sense again. Staffan knew that it would if he thought about it long enough.
“So what will you pay for it?” Fel asked.
Staffan stared him out. “I’ll tell you when I see it.”
“I need particle beam rifles, dropships, and plasma pistols.”
“Plenty of pistols and dropships, but the rifles are temporarily in short supply.”
“Temporarily? You’re one of the biggest arms dealers on Venezia.”
“Meaning I’ll see what I can do. I need to see the ship first.”
“That means a trip to … another system.”
“Fine. I didn’t think you’d park it in your yard. And I want to test the ventral beam, so let’s find a quiet backwater where we can do that.”
“I shall. There’s something else. It’s extra.”
“What is?”
“I’ll show you when you see the ship.”
Fel looked almost excited. Kig-Yar didn’t have any facial expressions in common with humans, but they did have little gestures that gave a lot away if you knew how to look. Staffan did. There was a little back-and-forth jerk of the head, almost imperceptible. Most Kig-Yar males displayed color changes when their moods shifted, but Staffan had never seen any real change in Skirmishers at all. Sometimes he thought he caught something, but it was simply iridescence on their feathers.
“If this is a bait and switch, Fel,” Staffan said, “ask your compatriots what happens to business associates who try that on with me. You told me you had a ship with a ventral beam. That’s all I want. Don’t try palming me off with anything else.”
He hoped Fel would ask around. Venezia had its laws, whether people believed that or not, but it was fairly relaxed about how its residents settled disputes. It didn’t need a police force.
“Wait to hear from me,” Fel said. “What are you going to do about crewing this vessel?”
“I can find plenty of willing hands,” Staffan said. “I’ll let you know if I have recruiting issues.”
As he drove back into town, Staffan racked his brains to remember the name. Pious Inquisitor. He’d have to look it up. He wanted as much information as he could get on the vessel, not just the sales brochure detail that Fel would peddle. He checked his mirrors for vehicles that might be following, because Fel had a point about spies. Tribal rivalries, business feuds, and even foolhardy outsiders employed by some Earth or colonial agency weren’t unknown here, and the one thing Venezia didn’t have and didn’t want was a border patrol recording who went in and out. It was a safe haven for people who couldn’t show a passport anywhere else. Small ships were almost impossible to control anyway.
But Staffan took comfort from the fact that the border was almost self-policing. If someone wanted to get to Venezia, they couldn’t exactly catch a scheduled flight. They’d have to pay someone with a ship to bring them in, or they’d need the kind of money to have a ship of their own. And sooner or later, unless they wanted to live like a hermit on a diet of grass and mice, they’d have to come into town. Eventually, they’d be spotted.
And then we remove them. Permanently.
Edvin was sitting in the garden with Kerstin when Staffan got home. She rushed up to him, excited and giggling. “Grandpa! Grandpa! I’ve been drawing!”
“That’s my clever girl.” He gave Edvin a look: you haven’t mentioned the doll’s house, have you? Edvin just blinked slowly to indicate that he hadn’t. “Grandpa’s got to do some work first, but I’ll come and look, okay?”
There was a little bit of Naomi in Kerstin, Staffan was sure. It was the long blond hair. If she’d been any more like her, though, that would have been too painful.
When do you let go? When is it time to close the book and move on?
Staffan asked himself that once in a while, and the answer was always the same: never. This had to be done. The question had to be answered, and the price had to be paid. It had just taken a lifetime to reach the stage where he had the power to demand an answer with the only kind of persuasion that Earth understood—a warship.
Kerstin picked up a toy bucket and trowel and began digging holes
in the flower border. She liked to keep busy. Edvin got up and walked slowly out of earshot with his father.
“Well?” Edvin asked. “Was it true?”
“Yes. We may have a battlecruiser.”
“Wow.”
“I still have to check it out and make the payment. But this thing exists. Imagine it—the mighty Sangheili, losing a battlecruiser to the Kig-Yar.”
“Fel’s a cheeky old crow, isn’t he?”
“Pious Inquisitor. That’s the ship.”
Edvin stared into the mid-distance for a few moments, then put on his concerned face. “Are you sure this is what you want, Dad?”
“What, to have the clout to get some respect from Earth?”
“I meant are you sure that you shouldn’t just hand the ship over to the militia. Isn’t that what we all want? Some justice for all Earth’s done to the colonies over the years?”
“When I’m done with the ship, I will,” Staffan said. “But I need answers. And I’m doing it for Remo, too. If it hadn’t been for him, I’d have signed myself into a mental hospital long ago.”
“Okay,” Edvin said. “I know you won’t do anything dumb. Just trying to put things in perspective.”
“Son, I’ve had thirty-five years of perspective. Whatever I do won’t be rash.”
It was too late for Remo, but at least he’d died knowing that someone else would continue the search for information on what really happened to his son. Staffan wanted something that few people would ever get. He wanted the government—somebody’s government, anyway—to tell him the truth.
And if that meant reducing Sydney or some other major city to glass, he’d do it.
CHAPTER
THREE
A SLIGHT AGAINST ONE KIG-YAR IS A SLIGHT AGAINST ALL KIG-YAR, BUT FORTUNATELY THEY’RE STILL FIGHTING EACH OTHER OVER WHAT THEY SHOULD DO ABOUT IT.
—SANGHEILI SAYING
MYUR CITY, T’VAO, Y’DEIO SYSTEM: APRIL 2553 IN THE HUMAN CALENDAR
“He’s too young to understand,” Ais said, barely looking up from her data module. She squatted on cushions in the shade of the fruit trees, reading something. “And he’s a male. Don’t waste your time. Just toughen him up.”
The chick—Laik—scuttled around the yard after Chol Von, mouth wide open. He’d pursued her all morning, first with begging peeps and whistles, but now that he was getting genuinely hungry his calls had become urgent squawks. For a moment he gave up on his mother and turned to his grandmother. Chol held up a warning hand.
“He’s learning self-control, Mama,” Chol said. “Don’t feed him.”
Ais spread her arms. “I have nothing for him anyway. When are you going to hatch some daughters?”
Chol dug her claws into her palms. This was the worst thing about the end of the war. She no longer had a ship to command, and her mother had descended on her to help out with the children. Vek had gone off at short notice with his comrades to look for tantalum deposits on Reynes, the coward. He might at least have had the decency to stay and give her moral support. If she met a better mate while he was away, he could forget about coming back and expecting to find a place at her table. She was T’vaoan, for goodness’ sake. She could take any mate she pleased.
“I would rather have smaller broods and better children,” Chol said carefully.
“Hah. You’d rather have no brood and be an empress.” Ais ran a claw down the screen and let out a long, rattling sigh. “I wish you’d stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“This talk of building a national fleet. A united army. It’s unhealthy. People are gossiping about you.”
“Cooperation made us a spacefaring species. Otherwise we’d still be stuck on Eayn, robbing one another and sinking each other’s boats.”
Ais glossed over the point with her usual speed. “Strength lies in a big clan, my dear, in a lot of people who owe you allegiance based on kinship. Not in politics and treaties.”
“Strength also lies in firepower. We’ve relied on avoidance. The next threat might not be avoidable.”
It was a cloudless, baking-hot day in Myur and the only shade in the yard was under the trees. Beyond the wattle and daub wall, constructed in the same way that Chol would make her own nest, screeching laughter and shouts told her that the youngsters from last year’s brood, three males, were squabbling over something they’d found. The strongest would take it even if the weakest found it. She kept trying to teach them that cooperation would mean more for all of them. Robbing fellow Kig-Yar simply made everyone poorer. The Covenant had handed them that lesson on a plate.
“I don’t want to be an empress or any damn thing, Mama,” Chol said. “But I do know that we couldn’t stand up to the Covenant when they invaded, and now we’re free of them for the first time in … how long? A thousand years?”
“They never managed to subdue us like they did the rest.”
“We were never free to do as we liked, either.”
“And now they’re gone. So? The crisis has passed.”
“Or it’s the perfect time to make sure it never happens again. We have weapons, the Covenant kindly perfected our combat skills, and there are ships around for the taking. Am I the only person who sees the obvious opportunity there?”
“We have ships.”
“But we don’t have the right ships. We need the kind that would make any invader think twice about crossing us. And the organization to deploy them effectively.”
“Privateering not good enough for you, then?”
“Mama, I would prefer the Kig-Yar to be feared because we can exact revenge on entire worlds. Not because we steal the silverware.”
Chol sidestepped Laik again. He squawked angrily and executed a tight turn, claws scrabbling on the paving stones. He’d get fed, and with the very best meat she could afford, but he needed to learn to put off immediate gratification for a greater reward later. She’d read about that in the computer library of a captured human ship. The flat-faces had done tests with their own young. The human chicks who could resist eating sweet food put in front of them for a set period of time were more successful later in life than those who ignored the instruction and ate it right away. It was a small detail that spoke volumes to Chol. She wasn’t sure if the self-control was something inborn or taught, but if it could be taught, then it might achieve the same result. When Laik had learned to wait, he could progress to resisting temptation. Chol wanted to make a thinker of him, a planner, a shipmaster capable of seeing a much bigger picture.
She thought her mother had given up on the argument, but after a long pause, Ais looked up from her data module. “The Covenant didn’t turn us into indoctrinated cannon fodder like the Sangheili because we’re scattered,” she said. “Because we’re anarchic. Because we’re a rabble. That’s our strength. Not a weakness. Central control of any kind will be the death of us.”
“Then we need to be a rabble with warships,” Chol said.
Laik crashed into Chol’s legs, arms flailing. His brown fledgling down, the coat of fluffy feather that would gradually molt and give way to scales and plumage, made him almost irresistible. But she had to stand firm. Eventually his squawks became more plaintive. He stood staring up at her, mouth still open, making little hiccuping noises, all squawked out.
“Go find your brothers,” she said. He was old enough to understand even if he could manage few actual words yet. “Go on. Go find your brothers and bring them back here. Then you’ll all be fed, and you’ll learn something.”
Laik gazed at her expectantly for a few more seconds, then trotted away behind the house, crestfallen. Chol felt guilty. She was only doing it for his own good. She wanted more for him than life as a scavenger fighting lower-status scavengers for scraps. Why prey on your own people? Nobody benefited from that. It was hard to think that and look at her mother’s accusing face, though. Ais radiated disappointment, one eye half-shut.
“So when are you going to this assembly?” Ais asked. “I came all this way
to look after the children so you could go on your little jaunt. Seeing as your latest useless mate isn’t around to help.”
“After I’ve fed Laik,” Chol said. “Then you can pretend you’re in charge for a whole day.”
Chol envied other avian species. Some would drive an old female out of the roost. In others, the parent drove off the chicks to make them find an independent territory of their own. They’d obviously worked out something about family dynamics that the Kig-Yar hadn’t.
We’re becoming birds. There’s a lot we can learn from them.
The three older boys came rushing into the yard, Kij and Gon chasing the biggest—Hiiq. He was clutching a handmade catapult in one fist. Chol couldn’t recall any of them having one before, so it had probably been stolen from another roost’s youngsters. Hiiq stood against the wall with his prize held above his head, batting away his smaller brothers. Laik came trotting some way behind, tripping over the tree roots.
“Mama, it’s not fair!” Gon said. “Make him give it back, Mama!”
“If you can’t take it,” she said carefully, “then nobody’s going to give it to you. How about you all agreeing to share it? Equal time. Then you all get to use it, and you all improve your aim, and then you can defend yourselves better.”
They looked at her as if she was insane. Then Gon sank his teeth into Hiiq’s arm and a brawl broke out. Chol waded in, cuffed them all, and forced them apart. They stood at a reluctant distance, all eyeing the catapult which now lay on the ground.
“Save that for outsiders,” she rasped. “Here’s your choice. Accept that Hiiq won, or reach an agreement. Or carry on behaving like some ignorant Unggoy, and then I’ll feed you to your brothers.”
Heads hung. “Yes, Mama.”
“No more of this nonsense. I have to leave now. If I hear you’ve given Grandmama any problems, there’ll be consequences.”
They disappeared into the house, leaving only a silence broken by buzzing insects. Laik sat at Chol’s feet, gazing up at her, mouth closed this time.
Halo®: Mortal Dictata Page 6