by John Ringo
“For how long at a stretch? That’s a crushing schedule,” Cally said.
“It is an ordinary schedule. The discipline reduces the need for sleep. And I include necessary muscle care periods in my schedule, of course. Human Sohon workers cannot maintain health without it.” She waved a casual hand at Cally, a deliberate gesture rather than a spontaneous one. “Really, I enjoy my work, Cally. It satisfies me a great deal to accrue honor to Clan O’Neal. I do regret that Father has never learned to understand. You are more often around Indowy than he is. Am I truly that alien to you?”
Her sister shrugged. “You’re… very Indowy. Your expressions aren’t very expressive.”
“How strange. To the Indowy we are so very human. And our expressions are stilled, of course, out of habit. We copy Indowy expressions, or those of the other races, to communicate, but they never become automatic. So when we Galactized are not actively using facial expressions, our faces tend to be still to avoid misunderstandings. And, of course, while working, the feelings must be still.”
“We should order.” Cally pressed the button for the discreet call light at the base of a small lion sculpture next to the sauce caddy. She didn’t recognize many Chinese ideograms — after so many languages on so many missions they ran together without a pre-mission review — but she did know those few that she could expect in these establishments, including the sequence that roughly translated, “Press for service.”
“What are you going to eat?”
“I thought I’d try the crispy-skin duck, and I love hot and sour soup. Ooh. And they have shrimp spring rolls.”
“You have not been here before?”
“No, this is a treat for me.” Cally smiled. “What are you going to have?”
“The Buddha’s delight looks appropriate. And I will have to ask the waiter which soups do not have meat. I can order my spring roll vegetarian, can I not?”
“There’re other vegetarian choices on the back of the menu, so you don’t need to feel locked in to any one thing.”
“I noticed. I chose what I like.” Her smile was slow, and obviously thought about, but it did reach her eyes.
“So how do you see me?” Cally couldn’t help but ask. Seeing Michelle from her own point of view had been… enlightening.
“Like the rest of our clan. You are so aggressively human that at times I can not imagine how the Indowy who live on your base avoid fleeing in distress. You do not actually eat meat in front of them, I hope?”
“They don’t come to the cafeteria. And we learn lists of expressions not to do when they’re around.”
“Yes, but I doubt any of you understand how difficult it must still be for the Indowy who live among you. Each of them perforce becomes an expert in a very difficult branch of xenopsychology. And those who raise their children on your base must be very apprehensive and very brave, to risk the lifelong social functionality of their offspring. I have seen the reports. Most of them are almost pathological loners, by Indowy norms.”
“I hadn’t thought of it that way. I suppose xenopsych is hard for everyone,” Cally conceded. “Now, about this mission… The leadership wants more evidence and more information before committing us to the mission.”
“The purpose and the pay are not sufficient?”
“It’s political. The risks are, for various reasons, greater than just the loss of our team if the mission goes to hell on us. They want some hard evidence. Sorry about that, but there it is. Think convincing Indowy.”
“I had made a projection of the possible complications, and anticipated your request. I would have preferred a better price and wished to keep my request simple. I think I can help you get what you need while relieving some of the political concerns.” The mentat lifted her hand to reveal a data cube. It could have just been sleight of hand, but Cally suspected “real” magic.
“Here is a cube of some of Erick’s work that I was able to acquire through my own resources. The Darhel commissioning the research cannot do the tests themselves, but they… like to watch,” she said, something about her colorless tone expressing infinite distaste. “I do not have other hard evidence that your superiors would accept, but there is a way to get it, and something else. Since the material on that cube was in Darhel hands, it was possible to obtain a copy. The device specifications and modifications never leave the research facility. I have my memory, and I have partial views from cube recordings. I could construct a very convincing substitute from just that data, but I can build something much more effective with some additional information. I can construct a substitute that almost works. Not a working model, but a device almost all personnel will merely take for damaged or malfunctioning, not completely inert. What I need are the records from the Fleet Strike team that originally retrieved the device. It was recovered partially disassembled, and with some other devices — part of a museum display on a Tchpth planet.” Unlike most humans, she pronounced the name of the Galactic species perfectly, making it sound easy.
“Crabs have museums?”
“Yes. They have very good museums, although the ones with extensive Aldenata displays are typically closed to any species but their own. The other species were never meant to have this. Not until we were much farther along the Path.”
“Path? You say that as though it’s preordained or something.” Cally held up her hands, rejecting the idea.
“There are things you do not know. There are things you should not know.” Michelle held up her hand. “Do not ask for things you know I will not tell to even my sister and fellow O’Neal. I will not harm you or Clan O’Neal with too much of the wrong information. Your employers, the Bane Sidhe, have this policy also — not to harm their people with things they must not know. In this, at least, they are wise. You need to listen now so that I can tell you what you will need to know about the Fleet Strike mission that first obtained this device.”
“The biggest thing I need to know, first, is how your man inside can ensure our operative gets hired, how we can be assured that this isn’t a trap, and to what degree we can count on your man to keep our operative’s identity confidential if your guy gets burned.”
“As I said before, my ‘man’ is in personnel. To be specific, he occupies a key position in the personnel department. He can control which resumes get through the process. He can contrive bad references if the wrong applicant is chosen. Your person will be hired, assuming you can fabricate adequate background credentials and documentation. Scrutiny of your fabrications will be light, to say the least. A list of the positions most likely to come open, accompanied by detailed position requirements, are on the cube. My ‘man’ owes Clan O’Neal a third-level favor, through me, which is binding enough to satisfy the strictest concerns.” She looked at her sister’s raised eyebrows and sighed. “You may confirm the degree of obligation involved with the Indowy Aelool. Now, may I continue?”
The opening view of the cube showed a large, high-ceilinged room, split down the middle with a sturdy-looking dividing wall. Each room contained two chairs, at opposite ends of the room, with a man and a woman locked into each chair with steel restraints. The rooms looked quite clean around the edges, but the stains in the center of the room and by the chairs made Cally wince. The hardened assassin, being what she was, recognized instantly that the smears and trails across the floor were a mix of dried and fresh, streaming to a pair of central drains that appeared slightly… clogged.
She could hear mumbling in the background, but couldn’t quite make out the words. “Buckley, speech enhancement please.” As the thin tenor voice began to clarify into tinny but clear words, she said, “Raise the volume two notches.”
“…has no prior preparation. The subject on the right has been prepped through an increasingly intense series of directed tasks, from innocuous to unpleasant. Today’s demonstration shows the necessity, with the current prototypical configuration, of some prior access to the subject to precondition the acceptance of control, and the familiarity of the
operator with the subject’s mind. Without prior access, control is limited by intensity of task and degree of preparation. Current research aims to refine our equations for computing probability of successful control for a given task by a specified subject. Yes, you have a question?” The tenor paused. The next voice was gibberish despite the Bane Sidhe’s top of the line speech enhancement software.
“We agree. Unfortunately, even extensive conditioning fails to preserve the active subject in an end-series trial like this one. We still have a lot of refinement and research before we can meet final specifications.” There was a pause. “Another use we hope to make of our research data is to separate minds into primary and, if possible, secondary classifications identifiable by externally observable characteristics, and genetic profiles. Our goal is to refine the software, in the final device, to modify initial output based on preassessed typing, where available. We believe that we will be able to substantially increase control probability and decrease the number of prep…” The voice drifted off as if the speaker had stepped farther away from the pickup. On the floor in the rooms, the shackles on the chairs snapped open, freeing the subjects to stand, move around, rub wrists. In each room, one subject sat frozen in the chair, despite the removal of physical shackles.
Then it got ugly. Hardened as she was to the bloodier side of life, she had to fight her rising gorge several times before the “experiment” ended. On the unconditioned side, the people were physically intact. Workers shot both with a trank gun before removing them. The indifferent treatment during the removal made it clear the tranks were solely for the workers’ safety. On the conditioned side, workers in gray coveralls and gloves came in wheeling an equally gray trash bin to clean up whatever remained.
When Cally left her room to walk to the gym, people got out of her way. One look at her face and coworkers disappeared through the first convenient door or side corridor — as quietly and unobtrusively as possible. The prior inhabitants abandoned the locker room seconds after she entered. The gym itself didn’t quite empty. The other users just discreetly moved to the far end of the large room, away from the mats and bar.
Two hours later, she stood in the shower letting the steaming water pound away the rest of the stress, We’re doing it. I don’t care about the damned politics, I don’t give a fuck about approval, we’re doing it. She sighed. But approval would be nice. Professional. If I plan to get Nathan on board, I have to be strictly professional.
Chapter Seven
Monday 10/25/54
“Nathan, here’s what I’ve got for you. I think it’ll make all the difference,” the silver-blonde assassin was wearing a forest green suit. She obviously dressed for success. As a priest, he wasn’t supposed to notice such things. He could appreciate the color and fit of the suit, and the obvious custom-tailoring of the blouse. He would have suspected her of living above her means if he hadn’t known the outfit had been a Christmas present from her grandparents several years ago. As an assassin and operative, Cally had studied and drilled on the value of proper costuming. The bare fact, he winced at his mental choice of words, is that I am not as immune to Cally O’Neal’s charms as I ought to be. But it’s not the job of a good priest to be immune to the temptations of the flesh, just to resist them. Sweet and lethally charming when she wants to be, isn’t she? He focused on the “lethal” part and began counting her kills in his head as a distraction.
“I hope it’s good, Cally. I have to be a diplomat as well as manage operations. Right now, through no fault of yours, you and your team are squarely in the middle of politics again. This time, it’s our fault, and I’m sorry. Our faulty intelligence got you into this situation.” He smiled wryly, passing her a cup of coffee. He had used the good Jamaican stock. Charm and a bit of courtesy went both ways. She was a friend, not an enemy, of course, and he’d love to approve her mission if she made a good enough case for it. It’s just that with Ms. O’Neal a man had better always be quite sure he’s thinking with his brains. Even an old priest, he acknowledged ruefully.
“It’s good. First, Michelle will pay the same amount over again in level two code keys, under the table. A private reserve for us. The whole pay package, thirty percent now, thirty percent after a necessary intermediate run, forty percent on delivery,” she said.
“But pay wasn’t our problem. Please tell me you have more.” The Darhel’s lackey in Burma, a corrupt priest in Ireland, three businessmen who sold out a factory of captured Posleen equipment in Durban, that too-able subordinate of Worth’s in Cleveland…
“I’m getting there, Nathan. I’ve got a file with her initial results studying the Aldenata device, the one this research is based on, before this Erick person took off with it. Buckley, send it and stay mute,” she said.
Father O’Reilly’s eyebrows arched.
“Yeah, I keep my buckley’s emulation set a little high,” she shrugged. “Anyway, I know it’s not much, but that’s where the intermediate mission comes in. Fleet Strike recovered the device on Dahl, and that initial report, as well as the observations of their field technician, will be in Fleet Strike’s secure AID files at Fredericksburg. There are a lot fewer unknowns there, and they just aren’t used to getting hit, so they’ll have decent security, but not great. They’re used to security against Posleen and the occasional humanist nutballs, not other trained humans. They’re not trying to protect a nasty mind-control gadget against rival businesses.”
“So you’re hoping you can get me to approve the Fredericksburg run to get enough data to approve the job you really want. And if you get there and the records you want have been deleted? Wouldn’t the group sponsoring this Erick want to clean up behind themselves?”
“Michelle doesn’t think they have. I think they might consider it an unnecessary risk. What do they gain? Michelle admits she can’t make anything workable from the initial field observations, and our potential targets have the device in hand. Who would they be keeping the information from? Besides, she says the initial observations probably will help her make a more convincing decoy for the switch.”
“Might and Michelle says and probably. It’s still a bit thin, Cally.”
“I know. But you get sixty percent of the total just for this. That’s a hundred and twenty percent of the original fee. Half of that in code keys you can actually use. Just for the initial intel gathering mission. With nothing counterproductive to Bane Sidhe interests. I would think that’s a pretty sweet deal. Of course there’s risk, but isn’t there always? It’s a good deal, Father.”
“Yes, it is.” He sighed. Am I succumbing to feminine charm, or making a rational decision? The keys are the kicker. They reduce our direct dependence on the Tchpth in the short term, and open a favor-trading relationship with a potential alternate source, with the strongest clan of connections, which provides a future margin of safety. The Tchpth planners would see a difference between ceasing to provide us with keys, versus cutting us off from alternate supplies. As a Michon Mentat, Michelle O’Neal’s judgment carries weight that they might not interfere with. They would consider her decisions more reliable than that of the leaders of the Indowy Bane Sidhe, since she does not — or has not until now — engage in intrigue. A tenuous thread, but better than we have now, which is no backup. It’s a sound rational basis for the decision, and damn my juv hormones for confusing the issue.
“You have my approval for the Fredericksburg run. But if what you find isn’t conclusive, I won’t be able to approve the rest of the job in good faith. I also need much more than ‘Michelle says’ about how we’re going to get an agent in place for the main job,” he said.
“There’s a file on the cube with job listings and requirements. We fake up the ID’s and resumes, her guy in personnel makes sure at least one of us gets hired. I took the liberty of downloading it to buckley to cross-reference with our prior missions and build a file for the covert identifications department. I hope I can get authorization to get them moving on this. Time is tight.”
“Fine. If Michelle still wants to hire our services, knowing that this in no way commits us to the rest of her project, then do it.”
O’Reilly stared after her as the door closed behind her. Heavenly Father, I hope I’m doing the right thing. He crossed himself and picked up his own coffee, sipping it before it got cold.
As a “live” priest, prewar, to him the area of finance had always been something other people dealt with. Ever since he’d come inside and taken over the base management of the Earth headquarters for the Bane Sidhe, he had learned more about budgets and cash flow and overhead than he had ever wanted to know. But he had come in as one of the leading experts on xenopsychology — albeit only known as an expert by a select few. The Tchpth hadn’t a clue about finance. As long as they were undisturbed in their figurative ivory towers, they let the Darhel deal with such mundanities. Which was half the reason the Galactic situation had become, so long ago, what it was today.
There were no Darhel here. The likelihood of the Tchpth or the Indowy outside the O’Neal Bane Sidhe figuring out that they had more level two code keys than they should was, well, infinitesimal. It just wasn’t the way they thought. Some Himmit somewhere would notice, sometime. But they wouldn’t share the information. They liked to gather stories; they didn’t seem to have nearly as much fun telling them.
A strategic reserve wouldn’t solve the fundamental problem of Crab-dependence, but that was going to be a tough nut to crack. They were not going to be able to out-Crab the Crabs. The solution was going to have to be a matter of reducing, not ending, their dependence on the Crabs, while finding other Galactic trade goods than mercenary soldiers. And that last might well turn out to be the impossible dream. But if solved, that would likely be solved after one Father Nathan O’Reilly had joined his maker, rejuv or no rejuv.
Connections with Michelle O’Neal wouldn’t hurt, but mentats tended to be so aloof from the real world that it was far more likely than not to be a one-off, of no long-term help. Still, plant enough seeds and something was bound to come up.