Final Inquiries

by Roger MacBride Allen

  "You're not suggesting we fabricate evidence," said Brox.

  "No," said Jamie. We'd never get away with it anyway. "Of course not. We're trying to prove a fraud. Creating a fraud would be suicide. What I'm saying, and what Hannah is saying, is that murder--or rather proving murder--is not enough. It's part of the whole. We want to prove charges of incitement to war, intent to seize the Pentam System by fraudulent means, interference with a diplomatic mission. Grand-scale stuff."

  "But we don't even know if those are crimes to the Elder Races," Brox objected. "Your people always talk about the Great Game, as if it were all some sort of sporting competition. If the Elders view it that way, why would they even care?"

  "Some of them would," said Hannah. "The Reqwar Pavlat certainly would, and I'd bet the rest of the Pav governments would feel the same way. It's okay to kill someone as long as you do it properly. Honor is a very big deal."

  "But on the other hand the Stanlarr Consortia are so hard to kill, and live so long, they barely know what death is, let alone murder," said Jamie.

  "But they would care about planet-theft," said Brox. "Even if it was a plot that was going to take many twelves of years. They feel strongly about honest dealings."

  "The Metrans and the Bruxa wouldn't like the planet-theft," Jamie said. "Or the stalling, the playing for time. They know all about being short-lived. They take it as a deadly insult when another race tries to use that against them in negotiations."

  "Wait a second," said Hannah. "All of that is good. Very good. Step back a bit, and what we're telling each other is that we should build a case for each race, based on what that race cares about. Or at least try. We're going to be awkward about it, we'll get some of it wrong, but some of it will work. And it will get attention."

  "And there's one other race to think about," said Jamie. "What about the Vixa? They're the ones who did it. They're the ones who are probably going to try to do us in once they figure out we're here. What about them?"

  "You know," said Hannah, "Special Agent Singh made a pretty interesting observation to me. He pointed out that we humans always assume every alien culture is monolithic. But just about every one we've come up against has had factions and groups and bickering and all the rest of it. We always think of you Kendari as a unified whole--but I don't think your government agrees with the guys who came over the walls with ramping equipment."

  "No," said Brox. "We don't. And I assure you that if you ever visit Kendal, you'll find all the bickering factions you would ever care to see. You won't have to look any further than my family."

  "Stop by our house some time," said Hannah. "That's a whole other angle. Maybe the most dangerous one for us. How will our people, and yours, react?"

  "With anger," said Brox. "Extreme anger, that might tempt one or both of them into doing something foolish. I would suggest that we don't try and contact any human or Kendari worlds or groups, just at first. We do not wish to incite any rash reactions."

  "I think you're right about that," said Jamie. And just how crazy are we to be trying to dabble in Elder Race politics when we don't dare tell our own home worlds what's going on?

  "Getting back to the point I was about to make, we know the Vixa aren't monolithic, either," said Hannah. "One clan maneuvers against another. Kragshmal became Preeminent Director very recently--and they moved the Grand Warren back to Rivertide because of it. One of the Cities on the Founder's Pillar lost the Warrenship. Presumably they weren't happy about it."

  "And we've heard a phrase a few times," Jamie said eagerly. "Flexdal used it. 'The consensus of the hierarchy.' If it was a complete, absolute, hierarchy, that idea would be meaningless. Everyone would always agree with what their superior did, and that superior would always agree with his superior, and so on right up to the big boss. But if there's a consensus, that means there has to be some wiggle room, some chance to disagree."

  "Okay, great. You're telling me we're going to have to think through the politics of what amounts to a caste-based hive mind," said Hannah.

  "A place to start would be to ask the same question you've asked regarding every other species," said Brox. "What would the Vixa care about in all this?"

  "Easy," said Jamie. "Getting caught."

  "Don't get cute, Jamie. This is serious."

  "I am being serious. They're the lord-high Vixa, mightiest of all the Elder Races--according to their own publicity, anyway. The craftiest, the most cunning, the cleverest schemers in the sky. And they got caught--caught by the two bumbling, dopey, clumsy idiot Younger Races they were trying to cheat. Caught in the attempt while trying and failing to take candy from a baby. How's that for humiliating?"

  The others were quiet for a long time. Hannah broke the silence. "I think you've got hold of something there, Jamie. Maybe something big."

  "Something big, yes. But even that would be more effective if it were, as you put it, part of a larger whole. I suggest the following," said Brox. "We put together a complete package of all our evidence. Everything from the isotope ratio of the carbon atoms in the caffeine to the Kendari weapons inside my simulant's digestive cavity. Make it as orderly, as detailed, as complete as we possibly can. All facts, with no opinions or conclusions."

  "Seems pretty obvious," said Jamie. "Then what?"

  "Then we craft an introduction, a summing-up, that will appeal to each particular species. Let them all have the truth, the proof, the evidence--but for each one, present an argument, state a case. A case that is supported by the facts, but that will appeal most strongly to that species. Then we do what you had planned--transmit it to all the embassies of all the species here on Tifinda, using all the means at our disposal. Assuming this bunker's communications system survived the Vixan attack."

  "Getting all that together shouldn't take more than, what, two or three years?" asked Jamie. "How long you figure we've got, Hannah?"

  "With one thing and another, it's going to be a lot harder to keep control of the situation once the two embassy ships make their transit-jumps," said Hannah. "Once they do, and they reach their home systems, word is going to get out. The Kofi Annan ought to reach its transit-jump point in about five days. Once it does, the story is going to start leaking."

  "Our ship will likely be about a half Earth-day slower. But if we're to have any hope of affecting the situation, we'll need to transmit well before they boost," said Brox. "For one thing, the longer we wait, the longer the Vixa will be able to get out their version of events, unchallenged. Two embassies evacuating, and the compounds fired upon. All the other embassies saw it. How could they not? They'll have to come up with some explanation. The longer we take to make our case, the more Elder Races will find reasons to accept whatever nonsense the Vixa put out. Furthermore, the sooner we transmit, the more chance the other ambassadors on Tifinda will have to contact our embassy ships directly. They'll want to ask our people follow-up questions, and so on."

  "A big part of the idea here is that the accusations are not coming from the embassy ships," Hannah pointed out. "We don't want to give the Vixa any excuse for declaring them pirate craft or something and blowing them out of the sky. If they start getting queries from the other embassies, answering the questions could lead to them being targets again."

  "Leave that to Stabmacher and Flexdal," said Brox. "They will know how to answer questions--and confirm our accusations--without giving the Vixa any excuses for being unpleasant. In short, they will be--well, diplomatic."

  "Whereas there's a good chance there will be a smoking crater where we are now, five minutes after we transmit," Jamie said. "I doubt we'll get more than one shot at this. It'll have to be the absolute best we can do. We'll have to draw on all the data both species have. In other words, Brox--if you show us yours, we'll show you ours."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "I think--I hope--he's talking databases, Brox," Hannah said with a smile. "Of xeno species. We've got ours. If we integrate it with yours, we're bound to wind up with better data overa
ll."

  "I don't need to tell you how many security violations that will involve," said Brox. "Ours and yours."

  "No, you don't," said Hannah. "And I don't have to tell you all the reasons we should do it, either."

  Starting with Emelza, Jamie thought. But we don't dare say that directly.

  "The integration will take some time," Brox said. "We had better get started."

  It wasn't work any of them was trained for, or even very good at. But, in a sense, that didn't matter. It even worked in their favor. There were times, Hannah soon realized, when telling the truth too slickly, too smoothly, was counterproductive.

  They created a written report of the facts and a visual record of everything that had happened. It offered no analysis or opinion--just the bald facts, and evidence that supported them. The death of Emelza. The chemical analysis of the residue in the crime scene coffee mug. The isotope-ratio evidence. The attempted humiliation of Stabmacher by Kragshmal. Recordings of Kragshmal's improper offers regarding the Pentam System made to Flexdal, and his brazen demands for payment in return. The pursuit of the humans by the simulants, and Zamprohna's getting in the way and getting stung. The dissection of Brox's simulant. Linda Weldon's statement. Imagery of the evacuation, and the shelling of the embassy ship coordinates, and the attack by the Vixan assault force. They had that from a dozen camera views--and they even had shots of the Vixa systematically going around the human compound and destroying the cameras, one by one. Brox was able to contribute an authenticated recording of the brazen lies told to the Kendari to get them to attack the human compound. The first draft of the report was rushed, but it led to a better, tighter second draft.

  With that job completed, they set to work on accompanying communiques, tailoring each one to appeal to a particular Elder Race.

  To the Pavlat they spoke of honor. For the Metrans, they emphasized the evidence that the Vixa were hoping to stall the process for a century or two. The message to the Stanlarr Consortia pointed out the Vixan frauds and deceits. They told the Unseen Race about the underhanded attempts to instigate a war, and spoke of the dangers of an unstable political situation. They made sure the Bruxa and Tlzeskez were aware of the violent attacks on the diplomats and diplomatic property.

  All the messages asked if the Vixa could be trusted to treat the recipient's diplomats properly. Would it be a small matter if the Vixa next arranged to kill a Metran diplomat, or a Pavlat, and planted evidence to implicate the Tlzeskez in the crime? Would it be a minor issue if the Vixa attempted to foment a war between the Stanlarr and the Unseen Race?

  To the Vixa went a taunting description of all the sloppy work that had been done and all the mistakes made in the name of their Preeminent Director, along with a cheerful reminder of how thoroughly humiliated they were about to be, once the news spread. That one they all read over most carefully. They wanted to embarrass the Vixa. They did not want to enrage them.

  All of it had to be written in the ponderous, careful, precise phrases of Greater Trade Writing, then checked, and rechecked, and checked again for errors.

  They worked against the clock, knowing that the Vixa might find them at any moment, that every hour that passed was time the Vixa could be using to get their version of events out there, making the humans and the Kendari the bad guys in the story. And every hour brought them closer to the time when the embassy ships would be making their transit-jumps, and the chance for some garbled version of the story to leak out on the human worlds, or the Kendari planets. It didn't even bear thinking about how many ways the situation might spiral out of control from there.

  Brox found himself to be mainly an observer much of the time. Nearly all of the equipment they were using had been designed for humans, and it was almost always faster and easier for the BSI agents to do something themselves rather than wait for Brox to struggle with the awkward keyboards and datapad displays.

  He was able to make himself useful enough using his own portable gear for various forms of research, but there was no disguising the fact that he was very much the junior partner in the enterprise.

  It gave him a chance to observe Wolfson and Mendez--no, Hannah and Jamie--at work. He thought of all the Kendari's stereotyped ideas of humans. Humans were impulsive, disorganized, argumentative, unable to work together, or stay focused on a job long enough to do it properly.

  That was the thing he had not really seen in action before. Their persistence, their endurance, their focus on the job. Brox was not assuming that all humans were like these two. But they were revealing traits and abilities that, according to most Kendari, no humans had.

  They were flawed, irritating, and most un-Kendari-like aliens. There was no denying that. But they were tough and determined as well. With every hour that passed, Brox felt more sure that he would not wish to find himself in a fight against them--and more certain that fighting alongside them was the right thing to do.

  But all such high-minded thinking could not mask the central irony of the situation. Brox knew perfectly well that a great deal of that sleepless determination was coming from the bunker's tiny kitchen, where the coffeepot was in almost continuous use. At Brox's best estimate, each of the two BSI agents was going through approximately one pot of coffee drenched with deadly caffeine every twelve hours.

  Any species that could put itself through that level of chemical abuse was bound to be hard to kill.

  Jamie yawned tremendously as he shoved the datapad away from him. "Okay," he said. "That's it. I just caught myself starting in on reading over the same section five times in a row. I'm too tired to read, let alone proofread."

  "Me too," said Hannah. "How are you doing, Brox?"

  "Mppmh? Me? I stopped being able to do much of anything fourteen hours ago. Either we stop, allow ourselves an extended period of complete rest, and then go on--or we stop now, accept that we have done the best we could in the amount of time we had, and send what we have."

  "The risks on that side go up and up and up with every hour that passes," said Jamie. "What we're checking for now is big, dreadful mistakes that some xeno or other will take as a deadly insult. We haven't found anything. There's a chance we've missed something--but I think we're at the point where there's more risk in delay."

  Hannah rubbed her face. "I agree with Jamie. How about you, Brox? Do we rest up?"

  "Yes," said Brox. "After we send our reports. Let us make our marks of authentication and responsibility and get them on their way."

  "Fine by me," said Jamie. "Slide that thing over here again, will you?"

  He took the datapad from Hannah's hand and went rapidly through the authentication procedure. "Okay, there," he said. "A blurry fingerprint, a scan of my bloodshot retina, plus my illegible signature. If anyone can read any of that, they ought to be able to prove it's me. Hannah?"

  Hannah went through the same steps, a bit less theatrically, and handed the datapad to Brox. "Here," she said. "This thing is rigged to do Kendari authentication as well."

  Brox let the unit scan his front teeth, the pattern of whorls in his snout, and do a voice match. He used the stylus to draw his personal mark on the input screen, and the job was done. "The weapon is loaded and energized," he said. "Now all that remains is to fire it."

  "Let's just check to make sure it's aimed the right way first," said Jamie. "Let's just run through the list of recipients and make sure each one is getting the right version." They quickly confirmed that everything was in order, but Jamie paused over the last line on the list. The Vixa. More specifically, Founder's Column City, the presumed center of opposition to Kragshmal.

  Jamie tapped at that entry. "Before we do this, let's think it through one more time. We have no idea at all how the Vixa will react. We've set things up to hide where the messages will be coming from, but they might be able to trace them back to here, to the bunker under the joint ops center. They might be able to do it very fast, and they might decide to vaporize us. They might think it over for a week, and then decide to
wipe us out. They might decide to blast away without bothering to look. Or they might never find us."

  "Are you changing your mind about staying here?" Hannah asked. "Are you saying we ought to make a run for it after we send the message, try and hole up somewhere?"

  "No. If they attack us here, at least there's no one else around who might get hurt. If we run to one of the embassies, or to one of the human or Kendari groups, we'll be exposed while we're running, and we'll be endangering whoever agrees to take us in. They blew up our embassy. Why not someone else's? We stay here, and hope that things break our way, or at least calm down enough after a while so we can come out with some degree of safety before our food runs out."

  "So what is the point you are trying to make?"

  "We send the messages out. We immediately cut all our links to the comm net to reduce the chances of the Vixa tracing us back to here. But that means we can no longer send or receive messages. We won't know anything. The Vixa already have a mass mind. They don't exactly have a need for a continuous all-news video feed. We can't just turn on the news or read the text updates. We might be able to eavesdrop on radio frequencies that the Kendari and humans on-planet use. Maybe we'll learn something from that. My point is that once we send the message, we're down here for the duration--and we'll have almost no way of knowing what's going on, or how long that duration might be. Are you both prepared for that?"

  "I'd like to think so," said Hannah.

  "How could one prepare?" Brox asked. "But I am ready to endure the consequences. The weapon is now loaded, energized--and aimed. Are we ready?"

  "Go ahead, Brox," said Hannah. "Pull the trigger."

  The Kendari Inquirist reached out for the datapad, took it in his hands, and brought up the command sequence that would first send the messages, then cut the comm links. He paused, only for a moment and activated the sequence. Silently, quickly, invisibly, it was done.