Conquerors 1 - Conquerors' Pride

by Timothy Zahn

  "Cavv'ana."

  Pheylan sat up and looked the other way. Standing just outside his cell were three of the aliens. From the design of their jumpsuits, he tentatively identified them as the three who'd accosted him on the ground outside the ship. "Hello," he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up. "And how are you today?"

  The alien in the center regarded him for a moment, the tip of his tongue flicking in and out of his beak. "I well," he said in a deep voice. "You well?"

  For a second the whole thing went straight past Pheylan. Then, abruptly, his mental gears caught with a grinding jerk.

  The alien had spoken in English.

  "I'm much better," he managed, staring at the creature. "I was sick for a few days."

  "Who few days?"

  Pheylan frowned. Then he got it. "Not who; what. What is a few days," he corrected. "In this case a few is four." He held up four fingers. "Four days."

  The alien paused as if digesting that. "I bring your container," he said. He gestured with his tongue to the alien on his left and the pod survival kit gripped in his hand. "You want?"

  "Yes, I do," Pheylan said, standing up. "Thank you."

  The alien with the bag took a step to the side and knelt down beside the cell door. Three small white squares were set into the glass near the floor, positioned just about right for hinges and a lock. The alien did something with the upper square, and a flat rectangle of the wall swung down. The survival kit turned out to be slightly larger than the opening, but with a little effort he got it through. "Thank you," Pheylan said again as the alien closed the flap.

  "You keep alive," the center alien said. Svv-selic, if Pheylan remembered the name right. And if they were standing in the same order as before. "Container necessary?"

  "It'll help," Pheylan said, trying to keep the bitterness out of his voice. Such solicitude, all of a sudden, from these things who'd coldly butchered his crew. "But if you want me kept alive, I'm going to need more food than I've got here."

  For a minute the aliens conversed softly among themselves. "Food prepare," Svv-selic said.

  "Terrific," Pheylan grunted. "So when does the interrogation begin?"

  There was another quiet debate on the other side of the glass. "Not understand."

  "Don't worry, you'll figure it out," Pheylan assured them sourly. "How'd you learn how to speak English?"

  "We later," Svv-selic said. He turned, the others following suit -

  "Wait a minute," Pheylan called, scrambling to his feet. For a second, as they'd turned, he'd caught a glimpse of something....

  The aliens turned back to face him. "Who?"

  "Not who; what," Pheylan corrected again, moving right up to the wall in front of them and thinking quickly. He'd gotten them to turn around as he'd wanted, but now he had to figure out what he'd presumably wanted to say.

  Behind the aliens the outer door swung open, spilling a wedge of bright sunshine into the room as another alien came in. Sunshine, and inspiration. "I need more than just food," Pheylan said. "My body needs sunlight every day or two to stay healthy."

  For a moment the aliens looked at him. "Not understand," Svv-selic said again.

  "Outside," Pheylan said, gesturing to the door, now closed again. "My skin creates chemicals I need to live." He tapped the back of his hand with a finger. "Skin. Chemicals. Vitamin D, melanin - many others."

  "Not understand," Svv-selic said. "We speak later."

  They turned around again. This time Pheylan knew where to look... and at this distance and angle, he saw it clearly.

  They went to the door and exited in another brief flood of sunshine. "Sure you don't," Pheylan muttered under his breath, picking up his survival pack and taking it back to the bed. They understood, all right. That pidgin English was nothing but an act, probably designed to lull him into a false sense of security as to how much of what he said they could understand. But it wouldn't work. He'd seen the scars now, nestled there under the overhang at the base of those long skulls of theirs, and he knew what those scars meant.

  Svv-selic and his friends were wired.

  He sat down on the bed, pulling open the survival bag and dumping the contents onto the blanket beside him. Wired. Probably with wireless transceivers - there hadn't been any sign of a Copperhead-type jack implant, unless that part had been wired in out of sight beneath the jumpsuit material. But they were wired, all right... and in retrospect, given the technology, it was foolish to think they wouldn't use it. Everything they saw or heard - his words, his intonation, his expressions and body language - were probably going straight into a computer somewhere on base, a computer that was undoubtedly spitting back to them exactly what they should say. Obvious and inevitable, and the only question left was where they'd gotten the grammar and word base from. Perhaps in his fever he'd done a bit of babbling.

  There wasn't much left in the survival bag that they'd decided he could have. He sorted the ration bars in one pile, the vitamin supplements in another, the juice tubes in a third. The medical pack was mostly full, though a check showed tiny indentations in each of the capsules where the aliens had taken a sample for analysis. The tool kit, extra flechette clip, rope, and spare clothing were gone. Pulling out the first of the under-bed drawers, he dumped in the ration bars and juice tubes. The vitamins and med pack went into the second drawer. Wadding up the now empty bag, he opened the third -

  And stopped suddenly as the last piece fell into place. Commodore Dyami's stateroom, intact enough for the aliens to make a copy of it for Pheylan's cell. Including the under-bed drawers.

  Where Dyami had kept his personal research computer.

  Slowly, Pheylan dropped the bag into the drawer and pushed it shut. So that was where the aliens had gotten their word base. Dyami had been one of those secretive paranoiac types who hadn't wanted all his personal records going into his ship's computer system where it could theoretically be accessed by anyone willing to dig through all the security barriers. Keeping a private computer was technically a breach of regulations, but it was an open secret among the task force's senior officers, and Pheylan had never heard of anyone being unduly worried about it. The few concerns he'd heard had focused on what sorts of discomfiting secrets about them Dyami might be compiling in those private records.

  He took another sip of scented water and lay back down on the bed. A word base was bad enough; but what else might have been in those files? A detailed map of the Commonwealth, maybe, complete with navigational data? Strength and organizational data on the Peacekeepers, including base and task-force locations?

  Or could there even have been something about CIRCE?

  Abruptly, Pheylan twisted around. There it was again: something he thought he'd seen, brushing past just at the edge of his vision. But again there was nothing there.

  Or at least there wasn't anything there now.

  Slowly, he scanned that part of the room, taking a good look at everything and everyone there. There was nothing that could account for the movement he'd seen: no physical movement, no trick of lighting, no reflection. It had to be something else.

  Perhaps, like the open door, another test.

  He turned again to face the wall. Fine; let them play their little games if they wanted to. Sooner or later he'd find a way to turn one back on them, and then he'd be out of here.

  Resting a hand against the wall, he scratched idly with a fingernail, and tried to remember everything he'd ever learned about glass.

  7

  Edo was the last gasp of the once-proud and ambitious Japanese Hegemony; the last of fifteen colonies still politically united with the home country. Like most other Earth colonies, the others had broken off from their founding nation somewhere along the line, either grouping together with other colonies on the same planet or else joining the Commonwealth directly as independent states. NorCoord's unique political prominence had kept a handful of colonies aligned with it, but union with the Hegemony had had no comparable advantages,
and only Edo still remained. The Peacekeeper base on Edo had been a political compromise, one that critics at the time had roundly criticized. Sixty light-years from Earth, straddling the Lyra and Pegasus Sectors, it was considerably closer to the nonviolent Avuirli than it was to either of the more dangerous Pawolian or Yycroman world groups. As such, the base had long been considered the perfect example of military bureaucratic waste by Peacekeeper opponents. There was no reason, they maintained, to have such an extensive facility out on the fringes near such minor colony worlds as Massif, Bergen, Kalevala, and Dorcas.

  For the moment, at least, such criticisms were likely to remain muted.

  The base's public waiting room was impressive, too, one that you could be comfortable in for hours. And it was starting to look to Cavanagh as if they might have the chance to put that to the test.

  "I'm sorry, Lord Cavanagh," the Marine at the inner door said for probably the tenth time. "Admiral Rudzinski is still in conference. I'm sure he'll contact me when he's ready to speak to you."

  "I'm sure he will," Cavanagh said, struggling to contain his irritation. "Can you confirm for me that he has at least been informed I'm here?"

  "I'm sure he's been told, sir."

  "Can you confirm that?"

  "I'm sure he's been told, sir."

  "Yes," Cavanagh muttered. Turning his back on the Marine, he strode back to the seats where the other four were waiting.

  "Anything?" Aric asked.

  "They could replace him with a tape loop," Cavanagh said with a sigh as he sat down between his children. His remaining children. "Rudzinski's still in conference."

  "I thought we had an appointment."

  "We do. We're almost an hour into it now."

  Aric snorted under his breath. "Sounds to me like he's hiding."

  Cavanagh glanced at the Marine. "It's starting to look that way, isn't it?"

  Beside Aric, Kolchin stirred in his seat. "Maybe we shouldn't wait for official clearance," he said.

  Cavanagh looked at him. The young bodyguard was studying the Marine, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Whatever you have in mind, Kolchin, I don't think it would be a good idea."

  "It would get us their attention," Kolchin pointed out.

  "It would get us thrown off Edo," Cavanagh corrected. "And possibly get you a trip to the hospital."

  Kolchin wrinkled his nose. "Hardly."

  "Let me try something," Melinda said, pulling out her phone and punching up the directory. "Quinn, do you know the layout of this building?"

  "I know some of it," he said.

  "Good." She found the number she was looking for and punched it in. "Let's see if this works."

  The screen cleared. From Cavanagh's angle the picture wasn't all that good, but it looked like a middle-aged man. "Hello, Dr. Haidar," Melinda said brightly. "This is Melinda Cavanagh. We were on Celadon together last week... right, the Billingsgate team.... Oh, it went fine.... No, actually, I'm right here in the building. My father's here to see someone, but he's in conference and we're stuck waiting. I was poking through the directory and found your name, and thought I'd call and say hello.... Why, yes, that would be terrific.... I think so; let me check."

  She looked up. "We all have Class Three clearances, don't we?"

  "Yes," Cavanagh told her, wondering what she was planning. Surely building security wouldn't be fooled by anything this transparent.

  "Yes, we're all clear," she confirmed, turning back to the phone. "Great. We'll be waiting."

  She closed down the phone. "He'll be here in a couple of minutes. We're going to get a tour of the medical facilities."

  "That sounds wonderful," Cavanagh said, frowning at her. "We will, you realize, have an escort all the way there and back."

  "We're not here to see Admiral Rudzinski," she reminded him. "We're here to find out about Pheylan." She looked across at Quinn. "And every Peacekeeper medical lab I've ever seen has had at least one terminal with a Mindlink jack."

  Cavanagh looked at Quinn, too. "I don't think that would be a good idea, Melinda."

  "No, sir, she's right," Quinn said. His face was tight, but his voice was firm. "It's our best bet."

  "Can you can handle it?"

  Quinn gave a short nod. "No problem."

  "All right. If you're sure." Cavanagh stood up. "Let's get ready."

  He stepped toward the guard; and as he did so, the door behind the Marine slid open. Admiral Rudzinski stood there, flanked by two more Marines. "That won't be necessary, Lord Cavanagh," the admiral said quietly. "All of you, please: come with me."

  The admiral led them down the maze of corridors, his two Marines following closely behind. Aric walked beside Kolchin, keeping a careful eye on the bodyguard's face. Kolchin had that coiled-spring look about him, and if he decided that Rudzinski was taking them to detention instead of an office, he was likely to object rather strenuously. Aric wanted to be ready to hit the floor if that happened.

  They reached a door with Rudzinski's name and a number three on it. "You two wait here," the admiral instructed the Marines as he palmed it open. "The rest of you: inside, please."

  It was a conference room, small but impressive even by the corporate standards Aric was used to. A holographic map of the Commonwealth and nonhuman worlds dominated one wall, with a corresponding tactical map on the wall opposite it. Filling most of the room was a stylish French curve-shaped table equipped with a central display spine and surrounded by a dozen comfortable-looking chairs.

  Seated in one of those chairs, looking like a cross between a thundercloud and an extremely sour lemon, was Parlimin Jacy VanDiver.

  He opened his mouth to speak; Aric decided to get in the first word. "Well, well," he commented lightly. "Old-home week on Edo, I see. At least now we know what the delay was."

  "One more time, Admiral," VanDiver warned, clearly intent on ignoring Aric completely. "This is both ill-advised and unnecessary."

  "Would you rather they find out another way?" Rudzinski countered. "They have no right - "

  "They have every right, Parlimin," Rudzinski cut him off. "They are Commander Cavanagh's family."

  "None of whom have clearance for Class One information," VanDiver snapped. "Or any official standing in either the Peacekeepers or the NorCoord government."

  "Are you suggesting that I'm a security risk?" the elder Cavanagh asked quietly.

  VanDiver looked him straight in the eye. "I'm saying, Lord Cavanagh, that contrary to what you seem to believe, you're no longer the Parlimin from Grampians on Avon. You're a private citizen. You don't rate any special treatment."

  "Thank you for reminding us of that." Deliberately, the elder Cavanagh turned back to Rudzinski. "You have information for me about my son, Admiral?"

  "To be perfectly honest, Lord Cavanagh, we don't have anything solid enough to qualify as information," the other said, gesturing them to seats around the table as he sat down at the inner-curve chair. "What we have comes more properly under the heading of vague speculation."

  He touched a key on the control board, and a field of slow-moving points of light appeared on the spine displays. "A section of the battle scene near Dorcas," Rudzinski identified it.

  Aric glanced at his father's face. The pain was back, but buried so deeply that he doubted anyone else in the room except he and Melinda could see it. No surprise there: showing that kind of emotion in front of Jacy VanDiver would be the last thing he would want to do.

  "It was taken a few hours afterward," Rudzinski continued. "Here" - a large circle appeared, filling most of the display - "is where the Kinshasa was during the battle. We know that both from the watchship data and from the fact that all the honeycomb pod debris retrieved from inside that sphere came from the Kinshasa" He paused. "And here" - a hazy and slightly distorted white cone appeared near one edge of the circle - "is a stream of oxygen molecules."

  He paused. Aric glanced at the others, looking for some indication that any of them had the slightest clue as to
what that was supposed to mean. If the blank expressions were anything to go on, they were as mystified as he was. "You said that as if it was important," he prompted.

  "We're not sure whether it is or not," Rudzinski said. "What we do know is that it didn't occur during the battle itself. The conical shape's too well preserved for that, and the momentum-vector map too uniform."

  "So where did it come from?" Aric asked.

  Rudzinski glanced at VanDiver. "There's no way to know for certain," he said, the words coming out with obvious reluctance. "But it's not inconsistent with a deliberate, controlled leak from a honeycomb pod's oxygen tank."

  For a long minute the room was silent. "You said you'd identified some of the pods from the Kinshasa," the elder Cavanagh said at last. "Did you find any pieces from Pheylan's?"

  VanDiver slapped the table. "There you go," he said, glowering at Rudzinski. "I told you he'd jump to this conclusion, Admiral. I told you he would."

  "We haven't identified any specific pieces, no," Rudzinski shook his head. "But bear in mind that that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Not with the kind of destruction we're dealing with here."

  "But you clearly suspected something," the elder Cavanagh persisted. "Otherwise, why the investigation?"

  Rudzinski made a face. "Blame it on the commander of the Dorcas Peacekeeper garrison," he said. "He took a fact-finding joyride out to the battle site and then filed a recommendation that an effort be made to confirm no prisoners had been taken. One of the analysis team picked up on the suggestion and took it seriously." He waved at the display. "That's what dropped out."

  Quinn stirred. "Those momentum vectors you mentioned," he said. "What direction were they pointing?"

  "Away from the apex of the cone," Rudzinski said. "And, possibly coincidentally, away from the watchship positions."

  "As if someone was using his reserve oxygen supply to get his pod moving toward safety?"

  "There is no evidence that anyone survived the battle," VanDiver snapped. "Not Pheylan Cavanagh; not anyone."