by Ryk E. Spoor
“Ah!” Laila said as the applause dwindled away. “Now I understand.”
Orphan tilted his head. “I am very glad of your understanding, Doctor Canning . . . yet, I am afraid, I am unclear as to what you understand.”
Got it. “I think she means she knows why Sethrik brought you here, and went through the whole routine in front of us.”
DuQuesne was gratified to see Ariane grin and nod. “Of course. By doing that here, we witnessed the transfer—including the Arena’s acceptance.”
“Which means,” Sethrik said with a small bow, “that you can be quite certain I am not, in fact, an agent for the Blessed any more.” His voice was somewhat more steady, but not entirely back to its businesslike normal.
“I see,” Simon said, and Carl and Gabrielle were also nodding. “Because the Arena does not—at least openly—take any sides, and certainly would not do things like pretend to accept a false transfer of loyalty.”
“I am gratified, my friends, that you have come to understand the Arena so well,” Orphan said, his old ironic humor returning. “For my interaction with you has taught me how very difficult it truly is to understand.” He bowed to the others. “But you were, as you said, in the midst of important counsels, and I . . . well, Sethrik and I . . . have some considerable discussion to have now, as well. Which we should be doing on board Zounin-Ginjou.”
“Ha!” Wu Kung said suddenly.
“What?” DuQuesne asked.
“I wondered why Sethrik had this big carry-crate that he left in the front hall! Now I understand—he was moving!”
“In either case, yes,” Sethrik agreed. “Had Orphan denied my petition—something possible, though I thought very unlikely—I would have renewed my offer to you, Captain Austin, which I was quite sure would be accepted.”
“It would definitely have been accepted, Sethrik. But I’m glad Orphan’s no longer alone. I guess you couldn’t stay either way.”
“No,” and Sethrik’s pose reflected his sorrow. “I served the Minds faithfully, but I have learned that my very efforts for them, my drive to learn more and become greater than I began . . . these things would inevitably make me of questionable loyalty. And so my only choices were to leave, or to know that one day—very soon—I would be brought back and have all I had become taken away, replaced by nothing but hollow memories. It happened, as I said, once before; only now do I begin to suspect what I lost.” He bob-bowed to Orphan. “But never again.”
“No,” Orphan said emphatically. “Never. And one day, that shall be true for all our people.”
The two Liberated bowed again to the assembled humans, and left.
The smile only slowly faded from Ariane’s face, but by the time she finished turning back to the others, it was entirely gone.
Time to get back to business.
CHAPTER 45
Ariane looked around at her friends. But also they’re my . . . cabinet, I suppose. They—and Steve and Tom, who I’ve got to brief right away after this—are the only group I can really trust. She saw Oasis glance at her. Well, she’s the only question mark. One I’d better deal with right now.
“Oasis, I know you were brought here by Oscar Naraj to be his and Ni Deng’s bodyguard. That doesn’t mean you’re responsible for anything they did when you weren’t there.”
“Thanks,” the redheaded young woman said. Young? Ariane thought to herself. I really need to keep reminding myself she’s older than I am, probably almost as old as DuQuesne if she was involved in pacifying Hyperion.
“But,” Oasis went on, “I should have been more suspicious of what they were up to, especially when there were several meetings she decided to have without me with the same guy, Vantak.” She stood. “I guess I’d better leave you to talk with the others.”
“Hold on one moment.” She looked over to DuQuesne, and back at Wu. “DuQuesne? Wu? You know Oasis better than I do. Should she stay or do I have her leave?”
Ariane caught Wu’s glance at Oasis and over to DuQuesne. Following DuQuesne’s lead?
DuQuesne chuckled. “I wouldn’t have her leave, Ariane. We need all the backup we can get, and I’d trust her with my life—or yours, for that matter. If she’d had any inkling of this going on, she’d have kicked Ni Deng straight back to Earth. Right, Wu?”
Wu Kung grinned broadly. “Very right, DuQuesne!”
“All right, then.” She gestured to Oasis. “Take your seat. This is going to be a while.”
She took a deep breath. Don’t forget your promise. “First . . . I have to apologize to all of you. In a way, I should even be apologizing to Ni Deng and Oscar.” She held up a hand to forestall anyone interrupting. “I screwed up. I insisted that I stay on as the Leader of Humanity, but I let myself . . . basically ignore what that meant. And yes, I know how many excuses I could make, and how many a lot of you,” she looked directly at DuQuesne, and then to Simon, “might make for me. But the fact is that I didn’t really take that leadership position, I didn’t hammer it home to people enough, and that’s really been the cause of a lot of these problems.”
She laughed briefly. “Remember . . . God, it seems years ago, but I guess it was only months . . . when I won the race against Sethrik and we had that knock-down, drag-out argument about what my being captain meant? I fought for that recognition. And now . . . I look at myself and see that really, I didn’t take myself any more seriously than you did, except whenever I got backed into a corner. We can’t afford that, and because I did do that, we’re in this mess—in more ways than one, too.
“Carl—you asked what we charge Ni Deng with. Honestly? I’m not sure. We never decided on a set of laws—or much of anything—with respect to how we do things in the Arena. When we first got here, we were just trying to survive, and when we got back we had a lot to occupy us. I knew we should figure out some more rules—especially with more people coming through—but I never did get around to making us think about those rules. How many people have we got back at the Sphere?” she asked Gabrielle.
“Now? Oh, lordy . . . close on a thousand, I think. We’ve got a regular little town in the Foyer area, construction going on at Emergent Falls, bases—”
“A thousand people.” She glanced apologetically at Gabrielle. “Sorry, Gabrielle. But a thousand people. All probably getting along based on the rules we have back home. But this isn’t back home, and those thousand people aren’t staying just on our Sphere forever. They’re going to want to come here—and there’s every reason that we want to encourage our people to establish a greater presence in Nexus Arena.
“But the Arena’s rules aren’t ours, and even our own situation in the Arena changes everything. It’s practically anarchy back home; the CSF and SSC are just starting to try to organize the solar system to confront the Molothos threat and the truth of the Arena. Here, every Faction has a Leader. That’s me, right now, and I should have recognized we’d need to have things organized. And that included deciding how we’d deal with rule of law, crimes and punishments.”
She nodded to DuQuesne. “Marc’s helped me dig into the rules of the Arena recently, and it’s pretty clear that the Arena has general interfaction rules, but in smaller details it leaves things to the Factions to clear up—including determining crimes and punishments that don’t reach Challenge levels. Our group—those of us in the first expedition—were all very important, key members, and we still are, so we were all treated as direct representatives of our Faction. The general population won’t be—but we, as a Faction, will be responsible for them, and for proper investigation, apprehension, determination of guilt, and punishment for any human-derived offenders.”
“So . . . what, are you saying we can’t charge her with anything?” Carl asked, somewhat testily.
“No. I’m saying that whatever we do here sets precedent. Part of me’s still saying I should just send her home, with ‘and stay out!’ on her file jacket. But I can’t do that. We may not have actually made the rules, but what she did was essenti
ally set me up to be killed—and worse.”
“Worse?” repeated Laila.
“Oh, a lot worse,” DuQuesne said. “Pardon me for butting in, Captain.”
“It’s all right, Marc. Try not to do it too often; this is hard enough.” She looked up at the ceiling, gathering her thoughts for a moment. “Yes, worse. The Blessed and their Minds figured—and they were probably right—that they had a chance of figuring out how the powers of the Shadeweavers and Faith worked if they had a test subject available.”
“Jesus!” exclaimed Gabrielle involuntarily, her Southern accent momentarily twice as strong as usual. “Sorry, Ariane . . . Captain. But . . . My God. And they figured they could grab you—”
“Because I wasn’t one of either group. That was what made it worth the risk to the Blessed. Grab me, prove that the Blessed were not to be humiliated even by proxy, and get a test subject who has the powers that just might give the Minds the ability to break the Arena’s ban on AIs. I don’t know about you, but I am really not comfortable with the idea of millennia-old T-10 or higher AIs getting a foothold here when they’ve shown their attitude is that free-thinking citizens are a danger to be properly ‘reconditioned.’”
Ariane leaned back, trying to relax, even though the subject made her want to tense up even more. “And that’s the kind of people she was encouraging to take me. Sure, she didn’t know that aspect of it, although she might have guessed if she thought, but still, she set the Leader of Humanity up to be kidnapped. What’s that? High treason? If I were accepted as the actual leader of humanity back home I guess that’s what we’d call it. But technically that happened here in the Arena—outside our solar system’s jurisdiction—and we didn’t even have a set of laws yet for things going on here.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Carl said. “She obviously knew what she was doing was wrong. Especially if she really was hiding it from Naraj, which I kinda think she was.”
“Kidnapping is a minimum,” Simon said, slowly. “But you know, I think you need to go for treason. Yes, I understand that we haven’t even defined the law here, and that back home there is no longer a clear definition of nation for one to commit treason against . . . but I think that’s the proper term. Laying aside my personal feelings on the matter—which I will note is not at all an easy thing to do—she was betraying the leader of the entire human species and handing her over to people who were at best competitors to, and at worst possibly enemies of, our species. The fact that she sincerely believed it would be in the long run better for us doesn’t, honestly, matter. We cannot allow that sort of thing. We just cannot.”
“I agree,” Oasis said firmly. “Kidnapping’s a very strong basic charge—and not one anyone’s ever going to minimize. But you said it yourself, Captain; whatever we do here sets precedent, and I think the last thing we want to do is minimize that precedent. I didn’t get all the details—none of us have, yet, I guess—but from what happened with Sethrik, I’d deduce that he got grabbed, too? That is, he wasn’t involved, he was a victim?”
DuQuesne nodded. “Spot-on, Oasis. They knew he was becoming . . . unreliable, and so when Vantak got this offer, I guess they figured that they could use Sethrik as a perfect sucker—a front man that really believed the lies.”
“It even worked with me,” Wu Kung admitted. “He smelled so much more relaxed and happy. He wasn’t trying to lie or mislead us, so I never suspected anything about what was happening.”
“So she also aided and abetted someone else’s kidnapping—that of another head of state,” Oasis said. “And if you’ve got confirmation of that other reason the Minds wanted you—”
“We do,” Ariane said, touching her head, indicating the data was on the memory in her headware. “Vantak himself explained it to me . . . after he deliberately triggered a momentary flareup of the power.”
Carl bit his lip. “I’m not sure what you’d call that. Almost treason against the Arena, if it were possible.” He grimaced. “Do we know if it’s even possible? I mean, whether the Shadeweaver or Faith powers would work in normal space? I’d think they wouldn’t.”
“I don’t know, but I think I know how to find out,” Ariane said. “And I think that much is important.”
“Really?” DuQuesne asked, and she could see the black eyebrow arch. “Offhand I don’t see any way to find that out, short of asking the Shadeweavers . . . and we can’t tip our hand on that unless the Minds are dumb enough to reject your deal.”
“Deal?” repeated Laila curiously.
“A chance for them to make up for this offense and save face. I really don’t want to end up in a spitting match with a second Great Faction, but at the same time I can’t just let this slide. So I offered them a bargain. The details aren’t important right now; the point is that for now the public story is going to be that someone tried to assassinate me and the Blessed saved me, then encountered some problems that delayed my return. Some people may be suspicious, but if we keep to that line, the Blessed get to look like good guys instead of absolute bastards, and that’s got to be worth a lot here in the Arena where reputation is half your bargaining power.
“So we won’t be talking to the Shadeweavers or Faith about this, at least not yet.” She smiled at Simon. “But there’s nothing stopping you from going to the Archives of the Analytic and looking for records of Shadeweaver or Faith activity in normal space.”
Simon looked surprised, then smiled. “Certainly, nothing prevents me from that.” His smile faded. “But . . . honestly, Ariane, you know there may be a limiting factor . . .”
“I know,” she said. That . . . strange ability of his isn’t constant; he still doesn’t know exactly how to trigger it. “I know, but it won’t hurt to try, and we have at least some time left to wait. I’m not going to decide the exact direction we’re taking until I hear what diplomatic message the Blessed will send in response to my . . . suggestions.”
Gabrielle blinked. “Now what does that remind me of . . . oh! Darn it! Hold on, Arrie.”
She got up and ran out of the conference room. A few moments later she returned with a small data module. “While you were gone I was in charge here—Carl had work to do back at the Sphere—and a few days ago a message torpedo came through with a lot of the usual stuff, but also with this module. It’s encrypted and sealed, but it’s not for Ariane—it’s for Marc.”
Ariane frowned. “Encrypted? Is it from the SSC?” She saw DuQuesne take the device and link up.
“Doesn’t say, so I’d guess not.”
Without warning, she saw Marc go pale beneath his olive complexion. “Marc?”
DuQuesne’s face had gone stony, and for a moment he didn’t respond, just gazed into space.
“Marc! What is it?”
DuQuesne shook himself, then looked up. “What is it? Something bad. Bad enough I have to get back home now.”
“Marc, you are not leaving at all unless you give me a clearer answer than that,” Ariane snapped, and DuQuesne froze. “I said I am going to start doing this leading thing, as much as I can, until I am ready to turn the reins over. That means that my top advisors don’t get to go running off on errands I don’t know something about. Now, if you really don’t want anyone else here to know, fine, we can talk privately, but you are not going off by yourself without explanation. That’s basically what got me kidnapped—people going behind their leaders’ backs doing what they thought was right. Are you clear on that, Marc?”
The huge Hyperion stared at her, and then—to her surprise—an equally huge grin spread across his face. “On the beam and in the green, Captain!” He snapped her a salute—without any irony, as far as she could tell—and dropped back into his seat. “You’re right. Damn, you’re right, Ariane. And if it’s been this long . . . a few more minutes probably won’t count.” He looked around at the others—and I think he stared just a hair longer at Laila—and then nodded. “Okay.
“You all know about my basic backstory. Well, another part of it is that wi
th Saul’s help I rescued a few of the other Hyperions.” He pointed. “Wu there was one. The others were still under the care of Doctor Davison, who was supposed to be lining up potential replacements for him, so I can vet ’em the next time I came back.
“Now, you can bet anything you like that I’d figured out about a thousand safegards for Davison and my old friends; ways for him to get out with them fast, ways to keep people from getting to them, methods to cover his tracks, pay for things without a trace, favors from people I knew that he could call due, all that kind of thing.” He looked down at the tiny memory block. “He sent me just four words: ‘Moved to summer home.’
“And what that means is that he had reason to believe that someone—and a not-friendly someone—had not only found his location but knew what he was up to.”
“Maria-Susanna?” Simon asked, then shook his head. “No, wait. She’s here.”
“That’s what really worries me,” DuQuesne said, and the dark brows were furrowed above the pitch-black eyes. “I’d known old M-S was completely off her nut, and she was the threat I’d put all of those safeguards up to stop. But I was pretty sure that she was here, in the Arena, to stay, at least until she got established with whatever faction she chose to hook up with. So that means either she left behind some people—some pretty damn capable people, too—to keep her work going, or . . . it’s someone else entirely.
“But Maria-Susanna’s always been pretty much a loner; partly that’s because—believe it or not—she still thinks of herself as the shining heroine of her story, and the kind of people you could get to carry out a carefully coordinated series of murders aren’t the kind of people she’d see herself associating with.” Ariane felt a frisson of sympathetic horror at the thought, seeing DuQuesne’s painful, twisted smile.
“Problem with that,” DuQuesne went on darkly, “is that if it’s true, then there’s some other group out there that closed in on Davison in a way that made him feel he was threatened enough to take off for parts unknown. And that, ladies and gentlemen, scares me enough to make me chew my nails right up to my elbows.”