by John Ringo
None of which got her any closer to solving this damn problem. Stewart. That was her next option, and she really hated to call it in. It was not common knowledge in the Tong that Stewart was married to someone in the Bane Sidhe. It wasn’t even common knowledge that he was married, or a round-eye. Sure, a girlfriend, even kids, but then a blond mistress was a status symbol. The picture on his desk of her and the kids was regarded by his colleagues more as a power statement than an emotional relationship. In their minds, of course he hadn’t married the exotic mistress. It would have been a bad career move, and he was a recognized player.
So, out of concern for his safety, she avoided making contact with him. Proper mistresses came when called — they didn’t make demands. She had no choice. Maybe he could make some kind of sense of this mess, but that was the kicker, wasn’t it? For him to sort out the mess, he’d have to see the data. That wasn’t a security problem; Granpa would be fine with it. The problem was there was no way she could send that much information through a covert pipeline without enormous risk of revealing the pipeline. There was also the sticky bit of using her organization or his. The information either crossed to his organization on this end of the pipeline by her paying to send it up — which wouldn’t be cheap — or it crossed to his organization on the far end of the pipeline, with someone Bane Sidhe passing him a data cube. Either way was bad.
She settled for sending him a brief summary of the problem under cover of love letters. It had to be brief. The still holo of her, done pin-up style, only had just so much room for planting an encrypted message, once you accounted for redundancy. Her encryption task was much more complicated than it seemed. The first thing her Tong contact would do upon her buying the postage was compress it and encrypt the compressed file. This would cause a great deal of data loss, which wouldn’t matter a whit if the file were the simple cheesecake holo it pretended to be. Software on the other end would infer the missing data and fill in the gaps. Visually, it would be impossible to tell the difference.
Unfortunately, that data loss would irretrievably garble a message that could otherwise fit quite securely and unnoticeably within a garden-variety still holo. The trick was to include an encrypted message in the holo that had sufficient redundancy to survive the damage in the mail, but was still obscure enough to avoid detection. It cut down the amount of data she could send quite a bit. The more information, the more garbled or the less secure, take your pick. She picked a very short message.
Chapter Six
The stateroom was cramped, the walls an odd shade of brown that suggested overtones of some hue beyond the ken of human eyes. The bunk was too low for human comfort, soft where it should be firm, and vice versa. The fold-out chair and desk were too high, and clearly not configured for human bodies.
Schooled in xenology as he was, Alan Clayton recognized the “bunk” as a Himmit fitness station, pushed into the room and hastily modified for a human’s basic need for sleep. The fold-out “desk” and “chair” were, together, one of the actual rest areas of the room. The closest description was a Himmit recliner. He could just barely see the outline on the wall where their version of a holoprojector had been removed from the room.
The captain had not vacated his own quarters to house them. That would be absurd. Instead, the room revealed the interesting — and new — information that there might, occasionally, be more than one Himmit on board this vessel. That intelligence catch alone put this trip in the “win” column.
He expected Michael O’Neal, Sr., to arrive momentarily. Being short and squat, like his more famous son, the O’Neal could be almost comfortable in a room intended for Indowy; but only because it was built for four of them.
His own room was tall enough for an average human man to stand in because Himmit liked to climb. It actually had a high ceiling, which told him it was designed to be triply versatile in case the ship had to carry a Darhel. He wasn’t getting preferential treatment over the O’Neal. Far from it. The Himmit had simply looked at the relative sizes of their two passengers and stowed them in the most convenient places.
The high ceiling was useful in another respect. It had a Himmit on it. Rather, it had the Himmit who was their captain. Although some token value had changed hands, the real “fare” for their voyage was that the Himmit thought the instruction of the O’Neal in Galactic protocol would make a good story. It was probably right.
Clayton politely pretended not to notice it, and it politely pretended not to notice his pretense. Wasn’t Galactic diplomacy fun?
“The O’Neal is at the door, Mr. Clayton,” the soft voice of his buckley chimed.
“Thanks, Liz. Let him in,” he said.
“You realize we’re trying to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, don’t you? Hate to talk that way about myself, but situationally, it applies,” Papa said.
“If we’re trading aphorisms, ‘needs must when the devil drives.’ ” Clayton pitched back. “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing towards the bed, which was by far the more comfortable spot.
“Okay, shoot. How to be a diplomat one-oh-one.” Papa scratched his nose and shifted until he found a comfortable spot on the bed. Somebody had screwed up his luggage, loading only half the tobacco, so he was rationing himself.
“We’re not even to that point,” Alan said. “Let’s start with the theory of communication.”
“Okay,” Papa said in a pained voice.
“I just used words and intonation to move a thought from my head to yours,” Alan said, his face deadpan. “But what you received was not what I sent.”
“I don’t get what you mean,” Papa said, frowning.
“All I said was ‘Let’s start with the theory of communication.’ But that was not my full thought. Part of my thought, that was not included but could be surmised from that short sentence was this: ‘Let us discuss the theory of communication because it is very important to the basis of diplomacy. Also because I find it fascinating. And because I’m trying to show you that whereas you are a very good killer, I am a very expert, I will not say good but certainly expert, diplomat, negotiator and interlocutor. I am, further, aware that your background, habits and thoughts lead you to hate this particular field of research and methods of interaction. Your beliefs are that negotiation is almost invariably a worthless endeavor. I am going to have to overcome tremendous resistance. One way to do that is to get the really bad parts right up front when you might still, vaguely, be paying attention.’ That is, in part, the thought I was trying to convey to your brain.”
“Damn,” Papa said. “Glad you just kept it to a sentence.”
“The thought you received, as evidenced by your response and your body language was: This is nothing but a pointless exercise in pain.”
“Yeah,” Papa said with a chuckle. “Pretty much.”
“Which means we have, as the saying go, a failure to communicate,” Alan said.
“There was this movie—” Papa began.
“I have seen it,” Alan replied. “And I wish you to recall the very ending. Because, and I do not exaggerate, that is the ending for Clan O’Neal and the Earthly Bane Sidhe if you have a failure to communicate in these negotiations. Insurgencies cannot survive without external support. Prior to reconnection to the Galactic Bane Sidhe, the Earthly Bane Sidhe were not an insurgency but a very small group of minor officials who were, in many cases over the centuries, quite quite mad. They could do little or nothing to affect their world. Furthermore, the Tchpth can eliminate the Bane Sidhe without really trying. They do not have to kill us; there are plenty of humans who will take the pay to do so. They can permanently remove support. Provide information to the authorities on all of our actions. Send assassins whom they will decry but who nonetheless will eliminate the Bane Sidhe root and every branch. Eliminate not just the thought, not just the meme, but the very gene of resistance to the Darhel from the gene pool.”
“Point,” Papa said.
“That,” Alan said, pointing to both
of his temples, “is the thought that I had in my head. That your understanding of the basic, the most basic, theories of negotiation, manipulation and interlocution are vitally important for the Bane Sidhe, Clan O’Neal and humanity.” He flung his hands outwards and pointed to Papa’s head. “Have you now read my thoughts? Do you clearly have that thought in your head?”
“I don’t know,” Papa said, actually thinking about the response. “I can’t read your mind.”
“NOW we’re to the theory of communication!” Alan said, clapping his outflung hands together and smiling. “The monkey can learn!”
Michael O’Neal, Sr., was bored enough on the ship, the young pup having left him alone for three whole days with a damned “diplomat game” to play on his PDA, that he finally resigned himself to calling the kid up out of a basic need for human interaction. He would have talked to him yesterday, but he had started feeling as though out-waiting Alan was becoming a game. He decided it would be damned stupid to get in a pissing contest with a kid young enough to be his great or three grandson. As the saying went, Papa didn’t have to like it, he just had to do it. Besides, it wasn’t the kid’s fault he had to go play nice with a bunch of smart-ass, condescending, patronizing, hypocritical, pacifist, compulsive vegetarian lobsters with an attitude.
Okay, so they were smart. Their survival instincts were for shit. They were part of creating an artificial ‘peace’ that depended on nobody disturbing it. If they were so smart, why didn’t they plan for the possibility that someone else might not have decided to ‘study war no more’?
Tchpth were survival morons. The only truly intelligent thing they’d done against the Posleen threat was to figure out they needed other people to do their dirty work and where to go to find them.
The more things changed, the more they stayed the same. This ruckus comes up, starts giving them heartburn or whatever, they pulled the same old trick as the peaceniks when he was back in Vietnam. Be more than glad to take the benefits. Yeah, you got your freedom to smoke dope and not bathe. You’re fucking welcome. Yeah, Crabs, the Posleen didn’t take pliers to your steamed asses and dip you in melted butter. You’re fucking welcome. Assholes. One war to another, it never changed.
Then this mess, he thought. He wished he could say it.
“Yeah, that Darhel and rogue mentat you found so fucking inconvenient are safely dead, so now you can wash your hands and pretend you had nothing to do with it you hypocritical bastards.” But no, he had to go haring halfway across the damned galaxy to kiss their asses. Right now, the greatest pleasure he could imagine would be to send the bug-eyed shark bait a simple e-mail saying, “Blow me,” and go home to play with his grandkids. Or do some real work. Anything but this, anywhere but here.
The flip side was, Alan was right. There had never been anything he’d done in his life more important than this meeting. It just pissed him off that it was in a conference room and not a battlefield.
“Himmit Tarkas would like to see you, Michael. May he come in?” his PDA asked.
“Come in!” he called towards the door. Unnecessarily because it had already begun to slide open, admitting the purplish gray quadruped.
“What are you thinking about?” it asked. “Is it a good story? The Human Clayton needed sleep. I would like to hear your stories. Would you like to tell them here, or would you be more comfortable in the lounge?”
“Here,” Papa said. “The lounge gives me the creeps, no offense.”
“None is taken,” the Himmit said, sliding up the wall and shading to match.
“What do you want to hear about?” Papa asked. “And, you know, it’s easier for humans to talk about stuff if they can see who they’re talking to. It’s a human thing.”
“This is understood,” the Himmit said. “And we are more comfortable being invisible. It is a Himmit thing.”
“Your ship, your rules,” Papa said. “Ask away.”
“You were a mature adult, for your species, before the Posleen war. Am I correct that you fought in human killing human wars?”
“One of them,” O’Neal answered grimly.
“Tell me stories from that, please.” To the extent that it was possible, the Himmit seemed almost cheerful.
Papa O’Neal sighed inside. It was going to be a long trip. If the Himmit wanted an old man’s war stories from ’Nam, the Himmit could have war stories to its froggy heart’s — or whatever it had — content. “Well, this one time we were out on patrol way the hell up north and inland, damn near into Laos, and…” He paused and held up the cup of goop that had come out of the tap as a “drink.” “You wouldn’t happen to have some form of alcoholic beverage, beer by preference, instead of this stuff, would you?”
“I will be right back,” it said.
Papa would have described its movement off as scampering, and its mood as cheerful, if someone had put a gun to his head and just made him give a description. He shook the impressions off as absurd. Vietnam war stories. He was paying for interstellar passage somewhere with fuckin’ Vietnam war stories. O’Neal reflected that the universe was a strange place. He didn’t know if there was any kind of god out there in the sense of religion, and he kind of thought not, but if there was, the guy sure had a twisted sense of humor.
Tir Dol Ron stared at the monkey in front of him and found himself once again amazed by the creative ingenuity of the vicious beasts. Most of the reason he felt this amazement, at the moment, was because it distracted him from the more natural feelings the situation might have engendered.
“This violates the Compact,” he said grimly.
John Earl Bill Stuart only knew about the Compact in the vaguest terms possible. Specifically, he knew that he could… deal with… people trying to kill him or his employees, but must ask his AID for permission to… to… preserve the Tir’s interests against other opposition agents if he found them. The Tir had no idea how often or seldom the AID granted or withheld permission. He couldn’t. It would be hazardous to his life.
The monkey smelled of fear. Well he might. The Tir admitted to himself that under other circumstances this news could have seriously upset him. In the present case, Tir Dol Ron had absorbed so many unpleasant messes today that he was in a constant state of meditative calm. Extremely angry meditative calm, but the anger sat like ice in his stomach.
“You need not be frightened. I am quite calm.” He said this not to reassure his employee. He hadn’t even thought of such a thing. The thought would have required empathy. Darhel simply lacked that faculty; or, as they saw it, flaw. Instead, he spoke from the knowledge that John Stuart would have impaired functioning if he was frightened, and would be less efficient in understanding his own instructions.
“This requires a response. You are familiar with mirrors, of course.” The Darhel chose his words carefully, hiding his mind away from whatever implications there might be to what he was saying.
“Yes, your Tir. I own several mirrors. Are you informing my AID that there has been some level of change in what your interests may be?”
“That is a very good way of putting it, Johnny.” Tir Dol Ron didn’t understand the human custom of nicknames, but he didn’t have to understand them to use them. Primitives were often inexplicable.
“Tina, do you understand the Tir’s instructions? Please do not reply in detail. Yes or no will do.”
The AID had failsafes against expressing certain ideas in the presence of their masters. Not that a Darhel minded if somebody died. Billions did it every day. They just wanted no implications, ever, that they were directly, causatively involved. It was an indication that his employee was very slightly smarter than most humans, and confirmed that hiring him had been a good choice.
“Yes, I understand,” the machine replied.
“Good. Apropos of nothing,” the Tir’s voice was silky, melodious to the point of sublime, “there was a large unit of Galactic and local professional killers who disappeared from north of here recently. At the time, I requested that you ig
nore the matter. I have changed my mind. You will look into it.”
For what must have been the millionth time, Tir Dol Ron cursed the Aldenata and how very little it took to invoke the release of Tal, the lethally blissful hormone that locked a Darhel into catatonia until he died — usually of thirst. To have to use primitives with so little control over -
He turned his mind away from forbidden thoughts and dismissed his less-stupid-than-average employee.
Cleanup would now proceed in the present intolerable situation. The intriguers had destroyed an entire Darhel business group. Tir Dol felt an icy chill go up his spine. This was beyond serious. This was a threat. He had his AID plot ship schedules and collate his findings, transmitting them to the courier on station and ordering its dispatch to the most time-efficient locations and route. He used a billing code, under a standing contract, that would split the courier charges among all Darhel Groups thus informed.
Tir Dol Ron was possessed of a major treasure in the Sol System. There were a very, very few altars of communication left behind. The Tchpth, curse the folth-leavings, flatly refused to either build more or even indicate whether or not they knew how. They were open enough about using regular communications channels via ship that the Darhel had a debate among themselves about whether they knew or not. The fact remained that because of the sensitivity of Earth to the anti-Posleen effort, one of the very few devices for genuinely real-time communication between worlds had been sited here during the war. It was not real-time accessible. Instead, it was sited on Earth’s moon as a location much less susceptible to annoying intriguers. They might not be able to kill sophonts any more than he could, but property was another matter. One would hope its irreplaceable nature would protect it but, alas, that had not been the case in the past. Chances were not taken.