The Parafaith War

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Me? You have all the answers. You can say you won’t answer, and leave me hanging. I’m just a poor pawn in a game I don’t understand.”

  “Hardly a pawn, Major. And you will understand the game, as you put it. You will … if you value your heritage and race.”

  Trystin swallowed, biting back the anger.

  The Farhkan waited a moment, then added, “I would like you to memorize something for future reference. You may find it useful.”

  “Wait a minute!” Trystin protested. “Useful? Just like that? You threaten me and all humanity, and then you just tell me to memorize something. And what about theft? Or lying? Was that all a subterfuge?” He didn’t like the way the Farhkan brought up things and just stopped. Or the incredible threat he’d delivered. Just forget it? How could he?

  “All of it is woven together. You—or another human—must discover the pattern and act.”

  “What if I won’t play this game?”

  Trystin received the impression of a shrug. “You need to decide. I am not placing judgments upon you. I am not threatening you. It may seem that way. It is not so. I do not lie. But I am a thief, as you may discover. I am not proud of that.” Ghere snorted again.

  Trystin wanted to hold his head, which had begun to ache. Instead, he just sat there, seething.

  “Listen,” commanded Ghere. “The key to the temple is … .” What followed the words was a series of equations that scripted into Trystin’s mind.

  “Why?” Trystin asked.

  “Please …” requested the Farhkan with a mental forcefulness that was more command than request, yet a forcefulness concealing something else.

  “You’ll have to repeat those,” Trystin mumbled. His head throbbed. It took four repetitions before he was certain that he had the phrases in mind, and he had to key them into his implant memory.

  “Why do you want me to memorize these?”

  “You may find them useful. At least one of you may. It may be you.”

  “One of us?”

  “Yes. One of you. If it is not you, consider yourself fortunate. If it is … you are better prepared than most, but you will pay an even higher price. These keys were … difficult … to obtain.” The Farhkan stood.

  “Wait a minute!” Trystin stood as his voice climbed. “In all these interviews, you prod me, and you probe. You threaten all humans, and you make me uncomfortable, and then you just drop things. What’s the purpose?”

  “I do not threaten. I state what is, Major. The goal is to give you—and all those we interview—a way of looking at life that may allow your species to survive. I am not your enemy. I am your patron. Remember that I am your patron.”

  “That still sounds like a threat.”

  “We do not make threats, Major. Threats do not work, and they are bad policy. We offer help. You can take it or not take it.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because those members of your species with great power and position are more interested in personal power than species survival.”

  “Great. Why are you bothering to tell me?”

  “Who would you tell? Also”—Trystin gained a sense of something like sadness—“you could learn enough, if you are unfortunate enough.” Ghere stood and turned. “Good day, Major.”

  “Good day, Doctor.”

  Trystin felt like grabbing the Farhkan and shaking him, but did not. He could not, because the Farhkan suddenly walked out the rear door.

  Even through his headache, Trystin could feel a sense of sadness radiating from the alien. Sadness? Why?

  When no answers immediately struck him, not that he thought they would, he opened the front door and went for Dr. Kynkara. His head still throbbed, and he wanted to kick people, or throw them down stairs. Or something!

  49

  “How was the physical?” asked Elsin as Trystin walked into the kitchen.

  “The physical was fine, but the interview with the Farhkan …” Trystin slipped off the beret and tucked it into his belt. “Shit …”

  “Do you want to talk about it?” Elsin paused. “Something to drink?”

  “Do you have any juice?”

  “Just mixed vegetable and sour apple.”

  Trystin shivered. “Any iced tea?”

  “That’s what I’m having.”

  “Make that two.”

  Elsin poured a second tumbler and handed it to Trystin. “The mint’s in the holder there.”

  Trystin crushed a sprig into the tea and settled into the second chair at the kitchen table. The whirr of wings drifted through the open window, and he watched as a male heliobird hovered for a moment above the hedge. “They’re beautiful.”

  Elsin nodded, waiting.

  Trystin watched until the heliobird whirred toward the pines and out of sight. “There was this Farhkan. He’s interviewed me several times, and he seems to be more interested in my ethics than anything else. He’s always pressing me to admit I’m a thief.”

  “Aren’t we all?” Elsin lifted his tumbler.

  “I suppose so. He said he was, and that he found it hard to accept. I’ve kept refusing to admit it in blanket terms. That bothers me. Finally, I asked him what he would have done if I’d admitted it.” Trystin took a swallow of the cold tea before continuing. “You know what he said? He said that he would have questioned whether I really was a thief. Then he ended up with something about humans insisting on absolutes when we refused to apply those absolute values to ourselves.”

  “That’s certainly true enough.”

  “But why does any of this matter to a Farhkan?”

  “Maybe they’ve never had experience with hypocrisy on such a vast scale.” Elsin laughed.

  “I don’t think that’s it.” Trystin took another deep swallow of the tea. “He’s been hammering on me to declare an absolute, but then he’d hammer on me not to.”

  “We like to make things absolute, but that doesn’t mean they are,” observed Elsin.

  “But why would an alien care? He said—not in so many words—that they’d have to destroy humanity, and that would destroy them, but that I’d have to find out why. And he said that the Coalition’s senior officers were too corrupt, or too in love with personal power, to learn what junior officers could. And, then, at the end, he said that I might learn enough if I were unfortunate. Not fortunate—unfortunate. What in hell would a frigging alien care?”

  “We do live in the same galaxy. Perhaps they’re worried about what we might do to the neighborhood.”

  “That’s what he said, but it seems to me they should worry more about the revs.” Trystin cupped his hands around the glass for a moment. “And he kept saying that he wasn’t making threats.”

  “Maybe he wasn’t,” Elsin said. “If you know something will happen, and you say so … is that a threat?”

  Trystin shivered and rubbed his forehead. “But he never said anything about the revs. They’re more of a threat than we are. Aren’t they concerned? It doesn’t make sense. Don’t they care?”

  “They probably do, but why would they tell you?”

  “That’s true.” Trystin took another swallow of tea. “But what about being unfortunate? That’s like a curse.”

  “Wisdom is a curse, Trystin, and it’s usually bought with pain and suffering. Your alien seems rather perceptive.”

  “Maybe … but figure this. That wasn’t all.” Trystin forced a laugh. “He’s basically told me that his people might have to destroy us—and implied that it wouldn’t be any problem at all technically—that it wouldn’t change the universe in the slightest—and then he asks me to memorize a bunch of stuff. Figure that.”

  “Oh? I can’t say I like where they’re pointing you.”

  “Me, neither,” Trystin said, taking a deep swallow of the cold tea.

  “What were you supposed to memorize?”

  “He told me that the key to the temple was a series of equations, and he insisted that I memorize them.”

  “That is odd.” E
lsin frowned. “Do you still remember—”

  “Of course. I also keyed them into my implant.”

  “Do you want to analyze them?”

  Trystin pursed his lips, thinking about security. Then he shook his head. No one had said that what the Farhkans told him was classified, and, besides, his father was more trustworthy than most officers, a lot more if the Farhkan were right. “I think I need all the help I can get.”

  “Why did you shake your head?”

  “The strangeness of the whole thing.” He didn’t even want to mention security to his father.

  Elsin stood. “Shall we? I have to use more antiquated equipment.”

  Trystin chuckled as he rose and followed, carrying his tea. The console in the office was already on. Trystin wondered if it were ever off anymore, now that his father was alone.

  “You’ll have to use the keyboard. I don’t have any direct interface equipment.”

  After setting his tea on the side table, Trystin sat down in the high-backed blue leather chair and used the keyboard and keys, slowly coding the memorized lines onto the screen.

  They both studied the lines of code.

  “I can tell you what it looks like—it’s the operating protocol for something. I’ve never seen quite that construction, but here”—Elsin pointed at the screen—“that’s an entry key.”

  “What does it open? How would you use it?”

  Elsin studied the equation for a time. “It looks like a simplified protocol for a complex system, and it has to be a human system.”

  “Why?”

  Elsin laughed. “The antique anglo, for one. Second, because I understand at least some of the terms, and while it is possible that an alien system would use another species’ phrase for security, it’s more than a little unlikely that an alien system would be that transparent or use our symbols.”

  Trystin stood and offered the console seat to his father, who settled into the chair. For a time, Elsin just sat, apparently concentrating on the codes. Trystin reclaimed his tea and took a sip.

  Finally, the older man’s fingers blurred across the keyboard, until a separate set of symbols appeared below the lines Trystin had entered.

  Trystin blinked. “All right. Now what?”

  “I’m guessing, but this section looks like the key itself, and these are merely parameters for system frequencies and band width. Now that’s a guess, but I’d present this part”—his hand stretched toward the bracketed plain-language phrase—“just like you do a Service protocol. As I told you, it looks like a human system, and the words are human, almost archaic, somehow … but that could be a translation or a transliteration. I wouldn’t know for sure.”

  “What’s the stuff you put below?”

  “My approximation of an override code. That’s even more of a speculation, but the Farhkans don’t play jokes. You were given this for a reason, and you probably won’t have time for heavy analysis if you need to use it. Things don’t work that way, I’ve discovered. Anticipation generally is worth several tonnes of reaction.”

  Trystin nodded, his thoughts going to Ulteena Freyer with the word “anticipation.” For some reason, he recalled her waiting for him, while her ship waited for her. He should have seen it before she had finally told him.

  “Trystin? Trystin?”

  “Oh, sorry. I was thinking about anticipation—about someone.”

  “She must be something.”

  Trystin grinned, half sheepishly. “She is. But she’s there, not here, and I was thinking about how she avoided much trouble by anticipating things. She’s the CO of the Mishima now.” He finished the tea and set the glass on the side table, then he stepped up to the screen. “You’d better explain this.”

  Elsin coughed. “I’m almost embarrassed to. I’m only guessing, but the layout is pretty standard—so standard it’s almost antique. All right, now this is based on the assumption that …”

  Trystin listened, trying to link in all the explanations, and burning the potential override code into his thoughts and his implant memory, as Elsin outlined the logic and the rationale.

  When they were done, Trystin wiped his forehead. He hadn’t realized he was sweating. “I need more tea.”

  “There’s not much more I can tell you. It’s filed in your directory if you want to review it again before you have to go.”

  “Good.” Trystin’s head ached, again, and, Farhkan denial or not, he felt like a pawn on the ancient board in the great room. How long had this been going on? Why him? Or were the Farhkans playing the same game with a bunch of interview subjects? And why did the Service let them? Was the situation with the revs that bad? He shivered again.

  “Trystin?” asked his father.

  “Just thinking … trying to make sense of things.”

  “Let it settle in. You’ve got a few days, don’t you?”

  “A few.”

  His father cleared his throat. “Did you tell anyone about this … key?”

  “No. I didn’t have a chance. You’re suggesting it might not be a good idea?”

  “I don’t know … but with what the Farhkans said about senior officer …”

  Trystin nodded. That presented another problem. Did he have a duty to report it? And what was he reporting? Would he just look foolish? Would he jeopardize the technology the Coalition was receiving?

  He shook his head as they walked back to the kitchen, where Trystin refilled the glass and crushed more mint into the tea. He took a deep swallow. Settling in or not, the questions wouldn’t stop. “Have any ideas why the Farhkans wanted me to have this … key or whatever it is?”

  Elsin shrugged, then rubbed his silvery hair. “Your mother probably could have told you more, but … what I do know is that the Farhkans don’t lie. I doubt they’re more ethical—the one admitted that he was a thief—but they don’t lie. So it’s a key to something. I just don’t know what.”

  “Neither do I.” Trystin took another swallow, almost a gulp, of the tea. “Why—how—would they get access to a human system?”

  “He said he was a thief.” Elsin laughed.

  Trystin swallowed. The interviews were more than psychological evaluations. But what more? And why? “What’s their purpose? The Farhkans, I mean? Why me?”

  “I don’t know what the Farhkans are doing. Several years ago, there was a rumor that they were working with their own version of the Genome Project. That died away.”

  Trystin moistened his lips. The initial Human Genome Project had been one of the factors leading to the Great Die-off, when the neo-Mahmets, the Revenants, the Eco-Techs, and the Argentis had united in their assaults on Newton and old Earth. Although rumors had persisted for centuries that some of the Immortals had survived, Trystin doubted it. Over time, accidents alone would have done them in, and any routine gene trace would show the genetic modifications.

  “They are aliens, Trystin. Aliens with alien motivations, no matter how much they seem human, no matter how much we try to steal or manipulate their knowledge and skills from them. Sometimes, I think they must sit back and laugh at our obviousness.”

  “So why do they help us?”

  “Why do we help the poor? Or save certain environments or species?”

  “Only those that take our fancy,” pointed out Trystin.

  “Maybe we take their fancy.” Elsin shrugged.

  Trystin refilled his glass again, wiping his forehead and wondering why he was so thirsty.

  After a time, Elsin spoke. “By the way, I’ve transferred the title to the property here to you … it’s in a trust that you can revoke or modify. The trust provides for maintenance, taxes, and the rest in case anything happens to me while you’re unable to be contacted.” Elsin delivered the words matter-of-factly, as if they had been rehearsed.

  “Why? You’re in great shape.”

  “Property registered to a Service major with a distinguished career is far less likely to be targeted for miscellaneous legal ploys.” Elsin’s voice was
dry. “Besides, I won’t live forever, and if you translate the wrong way, I could live another fifty years and still not see you. It’s better to handle these things when you can. Anticipation, remember?” He laughed, but there was an edge to that laughter.

  “Oh … Father.” Trystin could feel the lump in his throat.

  “You still have that investment trust? With the Pilot’s Trust?”

  Trystin nodded. “Last time I checked, it had built to over fifty thousand creds.”

  “And it has arrangements for paying taxes? That’s the latest bureaucratic ploy. You look like a rev, and you’re late or somehow deficient in taxes, and the revenue service is all over you.”

  “It does, but maybe we should go over it before I leave.”

  “Might as well.” Elsin nodded. “Make sure it has the maximum statutory length—that’s a hundred years now. The longest translation error documented, plus twenty years. If anything happens to me, everything will be handled by your trust. That should ensure that everything will be here for you.”

  Trystin looked down for a moment, then took another long swallow of the tea,. his eyes going to the window where a female heliobird paused before darting toward the upper flower beds. “I miss the gardens.”

  “They do grow on you. They’ve been a comfort, and, someday, I hope you’ll find them so.”

  Trystin nodded. He reached out with his left hand and covered his father’s right hand for a moment. They continued to look at the greenery beyond the window.

  50

  Service Command Headquarters occupied two three-story buildings set in three gardens—one garden between the two buildings and one on each side—all three joining in a series of low flower beds in front of the east-facing buildings. SERCOM was the fourth stop on the number three surtrans route from the West-Break station in Perdya.

  Trystin walked along the covered pale green marble walkway, lugging his gear, and glancing between the pillars at the flowers. He recognized most, but not all. A steady flow of uniformed personnel, usually in ones or twos, traversed the walkway. Just before the flower beds that linked all three gardens, the covered walkway split—one section heading to the right building, the other to the left.