by Tony Daniel
“Didn’t you notice the writing? It’s how he calms himself.”
“I guess I didn’t get the whole show.”
“He writes postcards. Constantly. And they don’t count—not to him—unless he mails them.”
“Who is he writing to? You?”
“To his son,” Sam said.
“Oh, yeah, he mentioned a kid, now that I think of it.”
“Theodore. Neddie.”
“So he writes to Neddie? He can text him, or p-mail, leave it in the beta relay.”
“Theodore is dead, Coalbridge.”
“Huh?”
“Killed by the churn. Griff wasn’t there.” Sam took a long drag on her cigarette, breathed out over the red cherry end, fanning its flame further. “He was with me when it happened, actually.”
“Oh, man.”
“Yeah. Griff was separated from Bev at the time, but the divorce wasn’t final. Theodore was convinced his parents were going to get back together, of course.”
“Sure.”
“He was supposed to have spent the weekend with Neddie,” Sam said. “Instead, he begged off to spend the weekend having cheap sex with his new concubine.”
“God,” Coalbridge replied. “Is that why you two—”
“That’s exactly why, Coalbridge.” Sam brushed a stray hair from her eyes. Sadness. No tears.
She reached over to the table and tapped away her ash into an empty beer bottle.
“Look, Sam, I’m sorry about all that,” Coalbridge said. “But that guy is one of the world’s experts on sceeve psychology. Maybe the best there is. We’re not dicking around out there.”
“So let Griff figure it all out on Earth,” Sam said. She finished her beer, set the bottle down on the wooden table with clunk. “Does he know about this yet?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s going to flip.”
“Think he’ll protest his orders?”
“If he does, he’ll win,” Sam said. “Griff used to be a hell of a lawyer.”
So he’d been right after all in his first impression. Former JAG.
“He won’t win. Not on this one. But he might hate me.”
Sam considered. “If you convince him that you really need him . . . he’ll eventually find a way to be okay with it. He has methods. Ways around his limitations. The postcards are only one of them. For instance, he’s like you. Crazy about cooking. That’s funny, because I always was a terrible cook. Still can barely boil water. He promised to do all that when we . . .” She shook her head. “He promised a lot of things back then.”
“Sam, I need him. Or somebody exactly like him.”
“You can’t tell me what this is about, can you?”
“No,” Coalbridge said.
“Is it something to do with the Poet?”
“I wouldn’t ask for him if I didn’t need him.”
Sam took another long drag. The cigarette’s wrapper crackled and browned. She flicked another ash, sat back, breathed out. Frowned. “Were you hoping I would talk to him? Is that why you . . . called me?”
“Of course not.” Coalbridge touched her chin, ran his finger along the curve of her cheek. It wasn’t, was it? Coalbridge considered for a moment. “Not consciously,” he said. “Will you?”
“Hell, no.”
She punched him in the collarbone, hard enough to sting.
“Understood. All right, all right,” he said. “And I promise that has nothing to do with my wanting to get in your pants.” He put his hands around Sam’s waist, drew her up. “Let me convince you.”
He paused. Let her settle back in her chair.
“But it does occur to me,” he said. “Do you think he’s going to resent this? Us?”
“What us?” said Sam. “I’m headed back to Huntsville tomorrow, and you’re about to be out there fighting sceeve.”
“I mean, are you going to tell him about this?” Coalbridge fumbled for the right words. “You’re still good friends. . . .” He couldn’t find a way to put it.
“Now that you mention it, maybe he should know I fucked his captain, don’t you think?”
“Maybe. Depends. As you point out, I don’t really know the guy.”
“Yet you’re willing to take him away from what he loves and put him through extreme personal turmoil.”
“I’m more worried about you. The planet may not be here soon,” Coalbridge answered. “Not in any recognizable form. I know it seems like we’re losing it. Hell, we are losing it. But I plan to win. And the fact is that I don’t speak sceeve and everybody else I know who says they do or who claims to understand the way those fuckers think is pretty much full of shit.”
“If Griff says he does, he does.”
“I read his report from the summer, his explanation for the withdrawal, that Depletion stuff, plus his analysis of the Poet broadcasts. He’s confirming things that I thought nobody but me and my crew knew. I’ve seen the bastards up close and personal. There was no good human reason for that withdrawal. They were kicking our ass. And for the past eight years they have not been fighting as hard as they can, I’m sure of it. Griff Leher finally gave me a plausible reason why.”
“Yes, I know,” Sam said. “A copy did happen to fall into my hands by chance—”
But Coalbridge was lost in his train of thought and not paying attention. “The Depletion is the sceeve version of a massive energy tax. All forces called back to base and their power sources sucked dry. And then that energy directed toward winning a civil war with the Mutualists.”
“I believe Griff suggests it was more like putting down an insurrection.”
“Either way, that’s why the invasion stopped, just like Griff says. I know he’s right in my bones. The withdrawal had nothing to do with us. Fits with behavior I’ve seen with my own eyes. Predictable behavior is something I can use to kill more of them!”
He was getting excited thinking about the resource Griff Leher might actually turn out to be. They could win engagements with that kind of intel. To not have to go in fast, inflict what damage he could, and then hightail it away like a scared jackrabbit.
He could finally win!
“Okay, Jeez,” said Sam. “Enough about Griff. He had me and he lost me. You’re welcome to him.” She slid across from her chair and into his lap. “You’ve had your little break, Coalbridge,” she whispered in his ear. “Now take me back into your bedroom.”
“Or lose you forever?” Dumb. Dumbass to quote old movies nobody watched anymore. Even if it had been that old two-d movie that had made him want to join the navy back when he was a kid. Sam obviously didn’t get the reference.
“Lose you forever?” She ran a lacquered fingernail across the sprouting whiskers of his chin. “Got a feeling that’s a given with you and me.” Sam glanced down at her watch. “Happy New Year, Coalbridge,” she said.
Then she kissed him.
1 January 2076
Vicinity of Wolf 359
Sirius Armada Commander Admiral Vercimin Blawfus left wet footprints on the floor as he paced the fleet command deck of his flag vessel and considered his position. He’d ordered the armada to assume a classic half-sphere array with maximum flank alertness on the Sol-bound side of Wolf 359.
Space was large. Planets, even stars, were pinpricks within the vastness.
Space was large, true, yet Blawfus couldn’t help feeling that he occupied a mighty position within it.
He had over ten thousand vessels at his command, and with a standard spread he would be able to approach with a two-AU cone of effect, depending how he had his forces fall out to N-space.
The slow cutting off and closing down of Sol had taken months. He’d first spread his forces in a blockade around the entirety of Sol, keeping a vanguard gathered about him on the Procyon, outbound side of the Orion arm. He’d harassed the humans ever inward toward their system. This had stretched his own concentration very thin, of course, but had proved effective. The humans were putting up a surpri
singly effective resistance, and he took some casualties. But he was getting a seventy-percent kill rate on engagements, which was a more than satisfactory trade-off.
When it became clear the human fleet was mostly withdrawn to protect the home system, he’d issued a fleet-wide order to rendezvous at Wolf 359. Via relays and message drones, most vessels had gotten the order. A few were still straggling in.
He would have those stragglers under the dismemberment knives if they didn’t provide a good explanation for their delay.
Blawfus liked nothing better than making a schedule and sticking to it.
For a time, it had seemed all his carefully laid plans must be thrown out the airlock. Blawfus had received orders—very threatening orders—to find and hunt down one of his own. Or else.
Councilor Gergen hadn’t stated what the “or else” might be, but Blawfus had a fairly good idea. It was the same “or else” that had befallen his predecessor, Korlon Brand. You put yourself to the knives—or we will do it for you.
It was not a threat, but a promise. Gergen was a killer. One did not get on his bad side and live long.
The problem was, just as Ricimer’s benighted letter to Gergen had stated, even if Ricimer were headed toward Sol, space was wide. Stars, much less planets, were grains of salt suspended within vast oceans of emptiness. Gergen was a politician, not a sailor. He might not understand that combing the sector for one vessel was delusional. In any case, one could never say as much to a political chancellor and member of the Civitas Council if one wanted one’s gid to remain intact.
The Guardian of Night could be practically anywhere. Furthermore, Ricimer’s threat to deliver his weapon to the humans might be a decoy. He might not be in this Sirius sector at all.
And yet. Signs pointed toward Sol. The Mutualist enclaves, those that had been found and destroyed, were all located down the Orion arm, toward Sol and beyond, hidden in nebulae and dark material nearer to the galactic center. And the annoying Poet, the beta-broadcasting traitor whose identity had recently been ascertained, had been caught transmitting to a human craft in the end.
Of one thing Blawfus was certain: a captain like Ricimer would be true to his word. He would think not merely to escape. He would want to strike a blow. Fight was built into the nature of Sporata captains, the good ones. Blawfus knew because he had been one himself.
Did he still have that fight within him?
He liked to think so.
All of these considerations left Blawfus with one locus he was quite certain wasn’t hiding and wasn’t going anywhere.
Sol C.
Blawfus’s flag vessel, the Indifference to Suffering, was in the center of the classic hemisphere formation, as doctrine called for. She had only light defenses in place. Total readiness cost a great deal of difficult-to-replenish energy, and the idea was for the edges of the hemisphere to defend the center by concentrating fire on any encroacher. The vessels that made up the periphery rotated through four tagatos, about six human days, and everyone got to partially stand down at least half of the time.
So Blawfus had decided to risk Gergen’s wrath and continue the invasion, use Sol system as bait for the Guardian of Night.
The full-scale invasion of Sol was therefore on. Whether or not his gamble paid off, this left Blawfus in a difficult situation politically. Ricimer, damn him, had seen to that, had probably intended it. After that captain’s stunt, no one was going to trust a Sporata officer with tactical, much less strategic control, for many cycles going forward. Blawfus suspected the Sporata secretariat would soon be in civilian hands—which meant, effectively under total Civitas Council control.
Ever the politician, Blawfus had begun preparing himself for this certainty by spending most of his off-duty time with DDCM fleet officer Porhok, soaking up as much high grade Old Fifty-five and Cerlish Footwash as he could safely imbibe without exploding his urinary filtration organs. Porhok had, as a result, only overridden the most trivial of Blawfus’s orders. Unfortunately, Blawfus’s imbibing had also led to constantly damp feet—hence the trail of footprints wherever Blawfus trod.
Such indignity was a small price to pay.
As soon as he had his entire strength in place, he would descend upon the twice-cursed Sol system. He would net Ricimer, destroy his Mutualist allies, and, in the bargain, complete the conquest of Sol system that the Mutualist insurrection had so inconveniently interrupted. Or do it all in reverse order.
It mattered little, so long as he won.
So he would win. There was simply no other choice if he planned to survive.
Now, where were those cursed stragglers? It was time to attack.
TWELVE
18 January 2076
Vara Nebula Inbound
A.S.C. Powers of Heaven
Captain Cliff-clinging-icefall Malako stood in his bridge atrium and gazed at the view-screen representation of the down-arm portion of the Vara Nebula, his immediate destination.
Nearly a light-year in diameter, the Vara lay north of the Orion arm’s axis, and thus out of the Milky Way clumping as seen from Procyon or any other star in this branch of the galaxy. For a hundred cycles it had been a hideout for pirates and illicit traders, until the Sporata had finally moved in and cleared the interstellar scum—this at about the time humanity was sorting out the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Now the Vara was a useful tool for Sporata vessels seeking a stealthy way in toward the galactic center.
Guardian scouts had mapped the nebula down to a precise resolution—on the order of a planetary orbit—and, with a bit of precise flying, a captain might direct his craft through using instrument-only travel relying on a map and zero external sensors. Even someone following who possessed the same map could not guess where his quarry was headed.
Most importantly to Malako at the moment, the Vara had been used as the invasion route for Sol C, for Earth.
Its inbound pathways all led to a sector about two light-years from Sol system, yet obscured in a starless patch of sky when seen from the galactic disk. So hidden was it, Malako did not believe the humans even knew of the Vara’s existence before the war.
At the moment, Malako was fuming. The ammonia of supreme annoyance grew thick about him until he absentmindedly waved a hand to dissipate it, then fumed some more. He realized the entire bridge was beginning to reek of his disgruntlement, but he didn’t care.
One tagato past, a messenger drone had intercepted the Powers of Heaven with new orders. Orders that Malako was loath to obey.
The fool Blawfus—middle of his class at the Academy, a hundred places below Malako, and admiral of the Sirius armada now, thanks to his political connections and Ur-hypha heredity—that idiot was attempting to draw Malako off the scent. Rein him in from the hunt. Malako knew he was on the trail of Ricimer. And now these orders in a message drone?
Break off current activities. Rendezvous at Wolf 359 immediately.
Vector directly across the Sol System Containment Sector, rendezvous with Sirius armada. Prepare for Sol C operation en masse attack. Unknown number and variety of Mutualist vessels may be rendezvousing and regrouping in unconquered, quarantined human territory. The Guardian of Night, now known to be traitorous, reported to be joining Sol forces.
“Now is the opportunity to eradicate all of our enemies in one powerful blow,” Blawfus had said. “Let us not hesitate, but move forward and accomplish this task with the vigor of the unconquered and forever unconquerable instrument of Regulation.”
Mutualism. A blind madness and unchecked political rage had taken over the highest levels of the Administration when the philosophy was mentioned. For the past five-cycle, the Administration, and hence the Sporata, had reacted to the slightest hint of it as an immune system reacts to an allergen. The response was always, predictably, colossal, always out of any proportion to what Malako believed was the threat. Certainly, the philosophy was crackpot and the remnant of true believers who remained ought to be stamped out. But the galaxy held greater c
hallenges.
Such as hunting down traitors and thieves. Cunning traitors. Thieves of massively powerful technological gleanings. Real threats.
Malako was more than half convinced that Ricimer had engineered the current uproar over Mutualism as a ruse. And he was certain that the Poet, the traitor Gitaclaber, had been acting for Ricimer, either wittingly or unwittingly, stirring up Mutualist sentiment in the armada—and then traitorously broadcasting news of a Mutualist rendezvous to the humans.
Ricimer, curse him, had personally recommended Gitaclaber to Malako to be his communications officer.
That’s right, Malako, your supposed friend of the gid, your own brother-in-arms and dear companion Arid Ricimer, has screwed you over.
Why did you not expect as much? Trust the purebred hypha lines to always seek to use and abuse hybrids such as yourself. Trust that your leg markings are constantly on display, uniform or not. He’d believed Ricimer to be different, above all that. Had allowed himself to be convinced in his own loneliness, his own isolation. Another cursed mistake.
Malako was done being the butt-end of purebred ruses.
And now Ricimer had the Kilcher artifact.
Could he, in his delusion, think to use it as a bargaining chip for power? No, not even a lunatic would believe the Administration would ever willingly cede one iota of its centralized control. Did Ricimer intend to establish his own outlaw enclave? Mate again, produce offspring, and found a new hypha line? Malako had at first taken it that Ricimer’s stated goal to join the humans was nonsense. But perhaps not. Perhaps the fool had been telling the truth.
Which meant that the Poet’s broadcast—maybe all of them—likely contained other information for the humans. Something more than a final plea for help before he was spaced.
If only he could personally question the scumbag, Malako knew he would be able to wring the information out of the Poet. But that was no longer an option—thanks to yet another arrogant, purebred fool.
The portal to the bridge slid open and two security officers entered, dragging between them the object of Malako’s most immediate ire.