by David Weber
He'd had his reservations when he first received those orders, and in some ways, he had even more reservations now. For one thing, his relationship with Simões really had turned into something which truly did resemble friendship, and he knew that hadn't been a good thing, in oh so many ways. Turning someone who was a solid mass of emotional anguish into a friend was one of the best recipes for destroying one's own peace of mind he could think of. Empathizing with what had been done to Herlander Simões and his daughter was even worse, given what it did to his own anger quotient . . . and the mental byroads it had been leading him along. And leaving all of that aside, he was only too well aware that his objectivity—the professional objectivity it was his sworn duty to maintain where Simões was concerned—had been completely destroyed. What had begun as obedience to orders, as a mere dutiful effort to keep an important scientific asset functional, had segued into something very different.
Simões was equally aware of that. It was odd, but in some ways the fact that McBryde had begun from a purely pragmatic effort to salvage Simões' utility to the Gamma Center had actually made it easier for the hyper-physicist to open up with him. McBryde was the only person who hadn't started out concerned only for Simões' "own good," and that had let Simões lower his guard where the security man was concerned. There were times when McBryde wondered if there hadn't been at least a trace of self-destructiveness in Simões' attitude towards him—if a tiny part of the scientist hadn't been actually hoping that he would say or do or reveal something which would force McBryde to yank him from the Center.
But regardless of the exact nature of the tangled emotions, attitudes, motives, and hopes, Jack McBryde was the one person in the entire galaxy with whom Herlander Simões was prepared to be totally honest. He was also the only person who could take Simões to task for something like the scientist's self-flagellating habit of watching the recorded imagery of Francesca night after night without triggering Simões' instant, self-defensive anger.
"Let's be honest here, Jack," the scientist said now, smiling crookedly. "Sooner or later you're going to decide it's time to pull me. I know as well as you do that my efficiency is still dropping. And I'm not exactly what someone might call the life of the party when it comes to the rest of the team's morale, now am I? It's not even actively destructive, anymore. Not really. It's just this slow, grinding, wearing away. I'm so frigging tired, Jack. There's a big part of me that just wants to stop. Just wants it to be over. But there's another part of me that can't stop, because if I do, Frankie's just gone forever, and those bastards will just go ahead and forget about her. Sweep her under the rug."
His voice had hardened with the last two sentences, and his hands locked around the beer bottle, squeezing it. Throttling it, really, McBryde thought, and wondered if he should try to distract Simões from his anger.
He knew he really ought to be consulting with the scientist's assigned therapist. He should have been offering his information to her, and asking her advice on how he could most constructively respond to Simões. Unfortunately, he couldn't. To his surprise, part of the reason he couldn't was because it would have been a betrayal of Simões' confidence. Despite what he'd said to the other man at their very first meeting about respecting his privacy, he'd never actually violated it, and he suspected that Simões knew it.
The other reason was more disturbing, when he allowed himself to confront it (which he did as seldom as possible). He was afraid. Afraid that in discussing Simões' mindset and anger, he might reveal altogether too much about certain thoughts of his own . . . especially to a trained Alignment therapist who was already thinking in terms of the potential security risk her patient might present.
Should I try and pull him up out of the anger, or just let him vent? He needs to let some of that pressure out, but it doesn't just go away when he does, does it? McBryde shook his head mentally. Of course it doesn't. It's like letting the pressure out only lets more oxygen in. Only makes the fire burn hotter in the end.
"You're still pounding away at Fabre and the rest, aren't you?" he asked out loud.
"You're the security guy," Simões riposted with just a flash of anger directed at him. "You're already reading all my mail, aren't you?"
"Well, yes," McBryde admitted.
"Then you know, don't you?" Simões challenged.
"The question was what's known as a conversational gambit," McBryde said just a bit flatly. "A way of edging into a point that needs to be discussed with at least a modicum of tact, Herlander."
"Oh." Simões' eyes fell for a moment, then he shrugged. "Well, in that case, yeah. I'm still . . . letting them know how I feel."
"Somehow I suspect they've already got at least a vague idea about that," McBryde said dryly, and Simões surprised both of them with a chuckle. A harsh chuckle, but still a chuckle.
Despite that, it wasn't really a laughing matter. Simões hadn't—quite—degenerated to the point of issuing actual threats in his twice-a-week e-mails to Martina Fabre, but the degree of anger—of hatred, to use an honest word for it—in those messages was distressingly clear. In fact, McBryde had quietly advised Fabre to take a few additional security precautions of her own. Had the man sending those messages been one whit less important to the Alignment's military research efforts, he might very well already have been arrested. He certainly would have been put under precautionary surveillance . . . except, of course, that in this case he already was under precautionary surveillance.
It was like watching a slow-motion holo of an avalanche, McBryde thought. And in many ways, Simões' sheer brilliance and the mental agility, focus, and stubbornness which had made him one of the Alignment's star researchers only made it worse. Whether he wanted to or not (and McBryde had come to the conclusion that he actually did want to), the hyper-physicist was actively applying that same focused refusal to quit to his campaign to make Fabre and the members of the Long-Range Planning Board fully aware of the searing depth of his hatred and resentment. In some ways, that campaign was all that was keeping the rest of his life afloat, the only thing giving him the momentum—and the will—to go on facing the wasteland the rest of his life had become.
Yet not even that was enough to halt the grinding collapse of who and what he had once been. It wasn't happening overnight. It wasn't merciful enough to happen overnight. But despite all of the effort being mounted to salvage Herlander Simões—or, at least, the asset he represented—the scientist continued his slow, steady, inexorable collapse. They'd managed to slow it down, and his therapist credited McBryde with the lion's share of that accomplishment, yet nothing seemed able to arrest it.
I don't think anything can arrest it, McBryde thought somberly. I think it's his own impotence driving it. I have read those e-mails, so I know exactly what he's been saying to Fabre, and if I were her, I'd have already demanded that he be placed in preventive custody. As a member of the LRPB, she'd get it if she asked for it, too. I wonder why she hasn't? I suppose it's at least possible she feels sorry for him. That she genuinely does feel responsible for having created the circumstances that ripped his life apart. But there's so much anger inside him, so much need to punish someone—someone besides himself, or in addition to himself, maybe—for what happened to his daughter. One of these days, he really is going to work himself around to the point of trying to kill her, or someone else on the Board, or anyone he can punish for what happened to Francesca. And that's going to be the end.
When that day ultimately came, McBryde knew, it would be his job to stop Simões, and the awareness gnawed at him. Gnawed at his sympathy, and at his own doubts.
Because the truth is that Bardasano's actually right about how quickly we're finally coming up on Prometheus, he thought. I never really expected it to happen in my own lifetime, which was pretty stupid, given how young I am, and how much I knew about what was going on inside the "onion." But we've been working towards that moment for so long that, emotionally, I never really realized I might be one of the ones to see it.
Now I know I will be . . . and Herlander's kicked every one of those doubts I didn't really know I had fully awake, hasn't he?
How many more Herlanders is the Board going to create? How many people—and just because they're "normals" doesn't keep them from being people, damn it!—are going to find themselves in his position? Hell, how many billions or trillions of people are we going to end up killing just so that the Long-Range Planning Board can steer the entire human race into the uplands of genetic superiority? And how willing are we really going to be to accept Leonard Detweiler's challenge to improve every single member of the human race to our own pinnacle of achievement? Are we really going to do it? There'll have to be at least some beta lines, of course. And probably at least a few gamma lines. Obviously we won't be able to do without those, now will we? We'll find plenty of reasons for that, and some of them will probably even be valid! But what about Manpower's slaves? What about all those "normals" out there? Are we really going to treat them as our equals . . . aside, of course, from the unfortunate necessity of dictating what children they're allowed to have? Assuming, of course, that their chromosomes offer sufficient promise for them to be allowed to have children at all? And if we don't treat them as our equals—and you really know we damned well won't, Jack—are the children we allow them to have really going to end up our equals? Or will they be sentenced forever to never climb above the gamma level? And who the hell are we to tell an entire galaxy that it has to do things our way? Isn't that the very thing we've been so pissed off over at Beowulf for so long? Because the sanctimonious bastards insisted that we couldn't do things our way? For telling us what to do, because that's what it comes down to in the end, however high the motivations we impute to ourselves.
He looked down into his own bottle of beer for several seconds, then shook himself and looked back up at Simões.
"You know, Herlander," he said conversationally, "it's going to be those letters to Fabre that finally yank the rug out from under you. You do realize that, don't you?"
"Yeah." Simões shrugged. "I'm not going to just give her a pass on it, though, Jack. Maybe I can't do anything to stop her from doing it to some other Frankie, and maybe I can't do anything to . . . get even with the system. Hell, I accept that I can't! But I can at least make damned sure she knows how pissed off I am, and why. And telling her's the only relief I'm likely to find, now isn't it?"
"I happen to know that there are no surveillance devices in this kitchen." McBryde leaned back in his own chair, and his tone was almost whimsical. "At the same time, you might want to consider the wisdom of telling someone who works for Security for a living that you want 'to get even with the system.' That's what we call in the trade becoming an active threat."
"And you don't already know I feel that way?" Simões actually smiled at him. "For that matter, you're the only person I can say it to knowing that someone isn't going to report it to Security! Besides, you're supposed to be keeping me on the rails as long as you can, so I figure you're not going to turn me in as a security risk—which would undoubtedly come as a huge surprise to your superiors, I don't think—as long as you can keep on getting at least some work out of me for the Center."
"You know it's not as cut and dried as that anymore, don't you, Herlander?" McBryde asked quietly, and the hyper-physicist's eyes flicked up for a moment, meeting his.
"Yeah," Simões said after a moment, his own voice quiet. "Yeah, I know that, Jack. And"—he smiled again, but this time it was a smile fit to break a statue's heart—"isn't it a hell of a galaxy when the only true friend I've got left is the man who's ultimately going to have to turn me in as an unacceptable security risk?"
Chapter Thirty-One
"I think we should talk to Admiral Harrington," said Victor Cachat. "As soon as possible, too—which means going to see her where she is right now, not spending the time it would take to set up a meeting on neutral ground."
Anton Zilwicki stared at him. So did Thandi Palane.
So did Queen Berry and Jeremy X and Web Du Havel and Princess Ruth.
"And they say I'm barking mad!" exclaimed Ruth. "Victor, that's impossible."
"Harrington's reported to be at Trevor's Star," said Zilwicki. "In command of Eighth Fleet, to be precise. What do you think the chances are that she'll agree to let a Havenite secret agent on board her flagship?"
"Fairly good, actually, if everything I've learned about her is accurate," replied Victor. "I'm more concerned with figuring out how I can protect Haven from having information forced out of me if she decides to get hardnosed."
He gave Zilwicki a look that might be called "injured" if Cachat had been someone else. "I will point out that I'd be the only one taking any real risks, not you and certainly not Admiral Harrington. But that's easy enough to handle."
"How?" asked Berry. She glanced apologetically at Ruth. "Not that I think the Manticorans would violate their word to allow you safe passage, assuming they gave it in the first place. But you really don't have any way to be certain, and once they got their hands on you . . ."
Zilwicki sighed. Palane looked as if she couldn't decide between just being very unhappy or being furious with Victor.
"Are you kidding? We're dealing with Mad Dog Cachat here, Berry," Thandi said. Her tone of voice was not one you'd expect from a woman describing the love of her life. It had a greater resemblance to a file peeling off metal. "He'll handle it the same way that presumed Manpower agent Ronald Allen handled it. Suicide."
Cachat didn't say anything. But it was obvious from the look on his face that Thandi had guessed correctly.
"Victor!" Berry protested.
But Anton knew how hard it was to talk Victor Cachat out of a course of action once he'd decided upon it. And the truth was, Anton wasn't inclined to do so anyway. It was less than a day since they'd returned to Torch and learned about the assassination attempt on Berry that had happened three days earlier. Anton Zilwicki was as furious as he'd ever been in his life—and Cachat's proposal had the great emotional virtue of being something concrete they could do—and do it now.
Besides, leaving emotional issues aside, there were a number of attractive aspects to Victor's proposal. If they could get Honor Harrington to agree to meet with them—a very big "if," of course—they'd have opened a line of communication with the one top Manticoran leader who, from what Anton could determine, was skeptical of the established wisdom in the Star Kingdom when it came to Haven.
Of course, even if Anton was right, it was still a stretch to think she'd agree to let a known Havenite agent—who, if he wasn't precisely an "assassin," was certainly a close cousin to one—into her physical presence. Given that she herself had been the target of an assassination attempt less than six T-months earlier.
On the other hand . . .
By now, Anton and Victor had gotten to the point where, at least when it came to professional matters, they could almost read each other's minds. So Zilwicki wasn't surprised when Victor said, "Anton, it'll be the very openness of our approach that's most likely to lead Harrington to agree. Whatever I'm up to, she'll know I'm not skulking about—and unlike the assassination attempt on her, I'd be coming at her directly. Which, given her level of protection—not to mention her own reputation as a hand-to-hand fighter—is hardly a real danger."
He spread his hands and looked down upon himself, smiling as beatifically as Victor Cachat could manage. Which, admittedly, would have left any saint appalled. "I mean, look at me. Is this the physique of a deadly assassin? Unarmed assassin, at that, since she'll be perfectly capable of detecting any weapons and insisting I remove them."
Zilwicki made a face. "Anybody know a good dental technician? He'll also have to be immediately available—and be familiar with archaic dental practices like tooth extraction."
Berry frowned. "Why do you need a dental technician?"
"He's actually suggesting that I do, Berry. So I can get a poisoned hollow tooth installed. Which is just silly." Victor clucked his tongue chi
dingly. "I have to tell you, Anton, that in this technological area Haven is way ahead of Manticore. And apparently Manpower, as well."
Thandi Palane was squinting at him. "Victor, are you telling me that you routinely carry around suiciding devices?" Her tone of voice was short of absolute zero, but could have made ice cubes in an instant. "If so, I am not pleased. And wouldn't be, even if we didn't share a bed every night."
Cachat gave her a quick, reassuring smile. "No, no, of course not. I'll have to get it from our station on Erewhon. But we'll need to pass through Erewhon en route to Trevor's Star, anyway."
* * *
On their way out of the palace to start making their preparations, Anton murmured, "Nice save, Victor."
Cachat might have looked a bit embarrassed. If so, though, it was only an itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny bit of embarrassment.
"Look, I'm not crazy. Of course I don't carry the thing into bed. In fact, I don't keep it anywhere in the bedroom. But . . . what would be the point of having a suicide device in another star system? Naturally, I carry the thing with me at all times. I've done so for years."
Zilwicki didn't shake his head, but he was sorely tempted. There were times when Victor seemed like an alien from a far away galaxy with an emotional structure not even remotely akin to that of human beings. It was obvious Cachat thought it was perfectly reasonable—normal practice for any competent secret agent—to carry around a suicide device at all times. He'd no more think of venturing out without one than another man would go without putting on shoes.
In point of fact, no intelligence agency other than that of Haven followed such a practice—and, although he wasn't positive, Anton was pretty sure not even the Havenites did so routinely. Not even when Saint-Just had been running the show. Suicide devices would only be provided to agents on rare occasions, for missions that were especially sensitive. They wouldn't be passed around like so many throat lozenges!
Once again, if Anton needed the reminder, Victor Cachat was demonstrating that he was Victor Cachat.