Sister Time-ARC

by John Ringo

  So here was Roolnai, doubtless to ensure that another dangerous, and much higher level, Human accident was not in the offing. "Indowy Roolnai, I see you," she said.

  "Please will you sit with me, Michelle?" he asked, gesturing towards the respite chairs along the wall. They did not go into a private room, private not being big on the Indowy list of concepts. By Indowy standards, their privacy was inviolate simply because no Indowy would ever repeat or even try to remember a conversation between a major clan head and a Michon Mentat.

  "You are here about my meeting with Pahpon," she stated.

  "Yes, I am. He contacted one of the other clans, who in turn contacted me because of my prior experience of humans."

  "Your experience is formidable. Nevertheless, I remind you that no Indowy-raised Human has ever acted, significantly, in a way that was not in the best interests of his or her clan," she said.

  "Yet. We may also disagree as to what constitutes significance, and what constitutes the best interests of one's clan. Threats of galactic annihilation would, by most standards, fall outside the interests of one's clan." The Indowy's face was angry.

  "I am not aware that anyone has ever made such threats, directly or obliquely. If you speak of my meeting with Pahpon, I did quite strongly remind him of the dangers of declaring a breach of contract prior to any such breach occurring."

  "He felt otherwise," Roolnai said, tightly.

  "He was certainly mistaken. The purely socio-economic risk to his Group of breaching the contract himself, by declaring breach where none has occurred, would be severe enough that it could only be a kindness to remind him before he made such a serious financial mistake."

  "He felt you threatened to misuse your abilities," the clan head insisted. The Indowy from her work group continued to bustle around, but increased the berth they were giving the two leaders.

  "He implied that he felt as much. I immediately laid out my case that there was no breach, which tactfully made it clear that our discussion was solely over the details of our contract. Perhaps a prejudice against humans caused him to assume a threat where there was none, but I certainly made every attempt, immediately, to correct his misperception."

  "He says your breach of contract is inevitable, and that you gave him no reason why it was not." At least Roolnai was calming down.

  "He is quite correct that I gave him no explanation of how I will avoid breach of contract. I am not obliged to. I can and will, however, give you a reason. This is a clan matter, and must not be divulged."

  "Accepted," he said.

  "As you know, I have clan members whose existence must remain unknown to the Darhel Groups. My contract allows unlimited delegation of tasks according to my judgment. I have, as is quite proper, delegated the tasks involved in ensuring I do not breach my contract to those members of my clan most uniquely qualified to succeed. Would you doubt that, with my guidance, properly limited by traditional wisdom, they are likely to succeed?"

  "I do not like this. I find the risk almost as high as direct action on your own."

  Michelle finally made an expression, one that the clan leader might actually recognize since it was close to a similar Indowy expression. She raised her left eyebrow. The slight, closed-lip smile was less conscious.

  "That is gross exaggeration and unworthy of you, Roolnai."

  Galaxy death. It seemed such a silly thing to suggest. However, the Indowy knew the power of sohon. One unchecked sohon master truly could bring about the destruction of all life, perhaps all formed matter, in a galaxy. It would take time, mind you. The mentat would be dead long before the galaxy. But the destruction would spread and spread, wiping out planets, stars . . .

  Killing one Darhel, or even a clan, would barely cause Michelle to break a sweat.

  However, Michelle knew the dangers as well as the Clan Leader. No mentat was allowed to rise to her level if they had the slightest trace of interest in that level of violence. By the same token, suggesting that putting Cally on the job, while fey as any human in history, was anywhere near the same level of danger was just . . . silly.

  After a long moment he sighed, "In that, you are correct." Now he looked nervous. "Please tell me you are supervising them closely."

  "I am supervising them closely." Childlike, she crossed the fingers of the hand that was hidden by her robe.

  "I will tell Pahpon that there is no threat, that you are using legitimate, proprietary techniques to fulfill your contract, and that you have a traditionally acceptable likelihood of fulfilling your contract without breach."

  "Thank you." Michelle bent her head slightly. The Indowy accepted the human gesture of respect and returned it. Arguably, they were of the same rank. The interaction between mentats and Clan Leaders had always been one aspect of fealty the Indowy were unsure about.

  "Please, please keep them under control. I respectfully bid your clan good fortune." He rose and turned to go, but stopped before he had gone more than a few steps. "Oh, there is something else," he said. "You should be aware that the Darhel are becoming restless. We do not know what has disturbed the balance, but Gistar diverted one of their freighters leaving this system, two days ago, to intercept one of Epetar's prize cargos at Dulain. Gistar is acting under the impression that Epetar has been the victim of a large robbery. In the Sol System. It is not good for the Darhel to be restless." He made a shifting motion, the Indowy equivalent of a sigh. "What is done cannot be undone. Your fellow humans do not comprehend the damage such rashness may do. I know you may not have . . . opportunity . . . to contact your clan head directly for some time, but please use all your influence to restrain them." He inclined his head, tacitly acknowledging her difficult position in interclan politics. After long years of practice, she had no trouble reading the plea in his eyes.

  Friday 10/29/54

  "Now that I finally have a chance to see you, did you enjoy your weekend off last week?" Wendy prodded. "C'mon, give."

  "Need you ask?" Cally grinned at her, knowing she herself looked more relaxed than she had in a long time. She gave the plate she'd been drying a last wipe and set it on the stainless steel shelf.

  "Did you meet somebody? Ah, a blush! You met somebody. Cute?" Her friend was not going to give up this line of questioning easily.

  "All I'm going to say is I had at least one nice evening." I'm never going to get her off this, am I? Not a chance. "So the grapevine says you and Tommy are trying again?"

  "Well . . . Hey! No fair! Illegal change of subject, fifteen yard penalty, loss of down. We were talking about your nice evening." Wendy looked mildly outraged.

  "Later." Cally glanced around the kitchen meaningfully.

  "Well, okay. But if you try to dodge me I'm giving Sinda a set of fingerpaints for her next birthday. And drums for Christmas, too!"

  "Uh . . . sneak off with a pair of chocolate bars after dinner?" Cally offered.

  "You're on."

  The hall the O'Neals had rented for the "Kelley" family reunion was a refurbished Asheville wilderness resort from pre-war days. Mostly what the facility had to recommend it was huge stone fireplaces and an isolated location. It was not refurbished enough to have a stocked and staffed cafeteria, so they had had to bring their own food and crew the kitchen in shifts. Fortunately, they only filled half the rooms, since the others hadn't been redone yet and had plumbing that was . . . unreliable. But the partially unfinished state had made renting the facilities for a long weekend cheap—which was the other prime requirement in a location. Still, with the post-war economy being what it was, the O'Neals were a lot better off than many. Earth's governments, and particularly the US government, had been hit hard by late fees for failure to provide colonists according to contract when colony ships had been lost in transit and had failed to reach their destinations. Protestations that humanity had no control over the maintenance or mishaps of the ships had cut no ice with the Galactics' arbitration councils. If someone or several someone's on Earth had failed to take proper notice of the
provisions of the contract prior to signing it, that certainly didn't excuse the Earth governments from living up to their contractual obligations. The councils upheld the fees in full; the taxes to pay for them had been difficult. Earth governments negotiated later contracts to remove the offending provision. However, the interest on the existing fines had done enough damage to set post-war economic recovery back decades.

  Which had made the owners of the resort grateful for the early business, which provided desperately needed funds for their ongoing repairs and restorations. Their gratitude, plus a reasonable security deposit, had been enough to make the owners more than willing to make themselves scarce while the rather eccentric "Kelley" family served themselves for the weekend. Besides, it had meant there was no need to bring in, and pay, temporary staffers to work the off-season.

  Cally was glad to be working in the kitchen with Wendy. So glad, she had volunteered for an extra shift helping cook. The huge stone fireplaces out in the hall were nice. Very pretty. And very crowded. Any heat that didn't go up the chimney went right to the top of the beautiful vaulted ceilings. Worse, having been mured up on the island for most of the past seven years, a lot of the people she "knew," she hadn't seen for years. Particularly the kids, who changed so quickly, or the spouses when someone lived away. She could deal with crowds of strangers. She could deal with family. It was just putting both together at the same time that was way too weird.

  The kitchen's more normal proportions made it the warmest room in the place. She was presently pouring a couple of jugs of cider into a large cast iron pot to hang over the fire. If they hadn't brought the spices themselves from Edisto, and the cider from a bounty-farm orchard on the way up, the cost would have been prohibitive. There were things you didn't want to pay the import taxes on. The O'Neals knew the fees levied by the Darhel were for missing colonists that the aliens themselves had arranged the deaths of. The knowledge neatly disposed of any guilt the the family might have felt for circumventing the levy. Yes, it left the burden for paying those fees more heavily on others, but the Bane Sidhe were shouldering their share of that burden in a far more constructive way—by trying to put an end to it.

  For one thing, it looked like the penalty fines might quit accruing if the Darhel had to strike a deal to prevent the US from putting maintenance inspectors aboard the colony ships. The Darhel had long had a standard clause in the contract predicated on their long-standing control of Indowy lives. Each Indowy was kept "in line" by having to assume initial debt to buy his working tools, on terms that kept him in debt for life. Any Indowy who made waves could expect to have his debt called in, his tools repossessed, and would starve to death.

  Where an Indowy wouldn't dare actually insist on inspecting a ship for missing spare parts, but would simply provide them unless ordered not to, making the inspection clause an empty formality, humans were insisting. A team of O'Neal Bane Sidhe was surreptitiously guarding the relevant Human politicians, and another some critical engineering personnel, and it looked like the Darhel would have to either cut a deal on the fines or quit "losing" ships of colonists and turning up with the "salvaged" ships sans humans. Bane Sidhe analysts anticipated that the Darhel would choose to end the fines, figuring live humans the greater threat.

  During the war, the Galactics had needed humans to fight the Posleen. Recruiting humanity to their war had been a desperation measure because the Galactics had been losing the war and losing badly. They had needed humanity, even though they had regarded humans as carnivorous primitives only barely less dangerous than the locust-like Posleen. Well, locust-like if you discounted the differences between a flying grasshopper and a space-faring, omnivorous, six-limbed carnosaur. Calling the Posleen intelligent would be inaccurate. The hermaphroditic cannibals reproduced at an appalling rate, laying eggs that randomly hatched into hordes of moronic Normals with a few sport God-Kings, and immediately became food for each other and the adults. The Posleen who survived the nestling pens grew up to eat nestlings. And everything else.

  A Darhel could only kill once directly; the tremendous high they got when they did so triggered a hard-coded response that sent them into lintatai. On the other hand, they were more than capable of unlimited indirect kills by technical error and negligence, as well as by hiring Human psychopaths to independently kill direct Human threats for them. They just tried very hard not to get excited about it. They followed a deliberate policy of maximizing Human casualties during the war, keeping just enough alive to stop the Posleen, and were, as a race, responsible for billions of needless Human deaths. Most of those Asian, given the pre-war planetary demographics.

  Now, in 2054, the Galactics still needed humans. They needed them to throw the Posleen off of those of the formerly-Galactic planets that were still capable of sustaining life. They needed them to protect the primarily Indowy settlers of those planets safe from the few remaining feral posleen.

  Once infested by the Posleen, a planet stayed infested for a long time. Nestlings hatched with the knowledge base to survive and function; they needed no care. A single feral Posleen, left unchecked, was a planet-destroying pest problem.

  Still, while the Galactics needed humans, they no longer needed very many, and still considered the species deadly-dangerous primitives and an ongoing threat. Hence, the Darhel maintained their policy of actively but indirectly killing as many humans as possible. It was a cold war where disengagement was impossible. It would take only a single Darhel sacrificed to lintatai to fire a planet-killer into the Earth. Galactic politics prevented that, but humanity was in no position to push its luck. Hence the very long-term cold war humanity had joined in along with the very-underground resistance movement among the other Galactic races known as the Bane Sidhe.

  Everything came back to the Darhel. She blamed them more than the Posleen for destroying her and her children's chances at anything like a normal life. Starting from when they sent assassins to kill her and Grandpa when she was eight, and continuing on through their deliberately worsening Human casualties in the war pretty much any way they could. She didn't know for sure that Daddy wouldn't have had to drop that antimatter bomb on Rabun Gap if the Darhel hadn't fucked up the war, but she thought it was a good bet. And if it weren't for the Darhel, there would be no need for the Bane Sidhe, and no need for James Stewart to be officially dead—as far as the Bane Sidhe were concerned—and separated from her and the girls. Cally O'Neal hated Darhel with a passion. She tried not to think about it. But she tried not to repress it either. Ah, stupid shrink head games. You can't win. Best not to play.

  Shari was further down the counter in the very large kitchen cutting up fruit for some kind of salad or desert. She was also chatting about business with one of the sisters of a Baen Sidhe newlywed, probably to look over any single O'Neal men as prospects for marriage. Or whatever. Said sister was already in on the big secret, having grown up with Bane Sidhe parents. The parents had done little more than run a safe house. Dangerous enough, but deliberately not in the know for many things, which was reflected in the knowledge base of the daughter—or lack thereof.

  Her interest seemed a bit on the serious side, because she was pumping Shari for information about DAG. If it had even occurred to Cally that eavesdropping was impolite, she would have silently laughed at herself for the qualm and done it anyway. Had she been asked, she would have been able to count on the fingers of one hand the social engagements of this size that she had attended that hadn't either been professional or, earlier in her life, orchestrated tests of her professional skills. She was what she was—not listening in never crossed her mind.

  "I don't understand why the government doesn't just go ahead and admit DAG exists and end all the melodrama. It's not as if they can keep something like that secret for long. Just about the whole country knows they're around and what they do. There have been movies about them!" The short brunette had a tendency to squint and wrinkle her nose as if her glasses were trying to slide down it.

  "Sure, ev
eryone knows it's there. But it's not the only open secret in the history of the world, you know. You aren't the first one to have asked that question. As I understand it, the rationale is that if they don't admit DAG exists, they have the best of both worlds. They don't have to openly account for what it does, but they can hold it out as a threat against bandits and tax revolts in the territories, as well as pirates and raiders around the city states that might interfere with the flow of strategic resources. And more than a threat, when threats aren't enough. At the same time, the voters are reassured that their interests are being protected. And the voters subconsciously don't worry as much about DAG turning up on their doorsteps. After all, the government is hardly going to violate the Posse Comitatus law and use DAG in the actual Core States if it would 'expose their secret,' are they?"

  "But it's not really a secret," the young lady protested.

  "It doesn't matter. As long as the government pretends it's a secret, the pretense, no matter how thin, gives it certain advantages. Or it thinks it does. Politics is weird that way."