by Ian J Miller
Hadell and Kazyn had travelled to Earth to study the state of human development. There were two reasons for this. The first was that many centuries ago Ranh had sent a fleet to settle the Ulse/M'starn war, with instructions to choose a winning side and ensure that side won. Because of the relativistic delays, when Hadell and Kazyn set out, nobody knew the outcome of this war or what the choice had been, but since Earth had been protected by a treaty with Ulse, the outcome of that war might have significant policy consequences. The time for knowledge of that outcome was considered to be nigh at the time, so a more precise knowledge of Earth's capability was desired.
"Those two were spies!" Natasha muttered.
"So it appears," Gaius agreed.
It was after the Kuyrills had headed towards Earth that a small part of the M'starn fleet had asked for Ranhyn assistance, and that had been declined, on the grounds if they needed assistance, the likely outcome was that Ulse had won. That fleet had continued to Earth, and had taken the side of some humans trying to overturn Earth's government. The fact that Earth had beaten this smaller fleet would now be known on Ranh.
The second reason for the Kuyrills visiting Earth was that since election to the Tenzat of the Curia depended also on ability to do the job, Hadell, the then Tenzat, decided that Kazyn, her son, should be primed for that task. She arranged for Kazyn's father, Kuyrill Tallyn, to be elected Tenzat, then she and Kazyn, who had just completed his University studies, travelled to Earth to study the state of Terran development. The idea was that when they returned, his father would be twenty-four years older and ready to retire, and since they would be the most knowledgeable experts on Terran affairs, Hadell would return to the position of Tenzat, with Kazyn as an assistant. Then, in due course, Kazyn would become a prime candidate to be Tenzat when Hadell retired.
Accordingly, they went to Earth, and had returned ahead of this party, with the intention of introducing the Terran party to Ranhyn society.
"The desired outcome," Gaius explained, "was that Hadell would introduce us to Ranhyn society, the two parties would sign the standard Ulsian treaty between planets, with, perhaps, some minor modifications, then we could return to Earth and live happily ever after."
"You've been reading too many fairy stories," Natasha said, as she shook her head.
"But that isn't going to happen, is it?" Lucilla intervened. "If it were," she said, as she turned towards Natasha, "we would not be having a meeting like this."
"We don't know what has happened," Gaius replied. "We have sent a message to the Space Curia, announcing our arrival and filling the required protocols for approaching another system, and we have received no welcome."
"Maybe they haven't got around to it yet," Natasha offered.
"Actually, they have," Marcellus announced. "We received cryptic instructions to orbit a moon around the closest gas giant and await further instructions."
"Which highlights the problem," Gaius said. "On Earth, Kazyn made you an honorary nestling, which in effect makes you a Kuyrill. It would be expected that Kazyn would send a message welcoming you to Ranh."
"That conclusion might be premature," Marcellus cautioned. "They are on their own planet, and it is riddled with formalities, procedural principles, and so on. It is just possible they are debating what procedures to follow, and who gets to stand where, and so on."
"On the other hand, the failure of Kazyn to keep his word is not very encouraging," Natasha noted.
"He may be prohibited by procedure," Marcellus cautioned.
"I know," Natasha smiled wanly, "but that in itself is not very encouraging."
"I suppose not," Marcellus agreed.
Natasha smiled a little at that. Marcellus was Gaius' companion, and was a machine with extremely powerful computing ability, and to boot, was made in the style of Gaius' character. Gaius and Lucilla, having started their adult lives from late Tiberius, Caligulae, and early Claudius, were not prone to self-doubt.
"I don't suppose such procedural problems can last for ever?" Lucilla frowned.
"They can last a very long time, if left to themselves," Marcellus noted.
"It is not my intention to leave them to themselves," Gaius muttered. "Obviously we shall have to wait in orbit for a reasonable time, but then I shall pull rank and demand that something happen. Marcellus, check the data bases, and if necessary contact Ranh to find out how long I can wait out near this giant, then make an approach without being in breach of some ridiculous rule?"
"Of course," Marcellus replied. There was a brief pause, then he announced, "By Treaty agreement, you may make a request for issue resolution following two weeks after your announcement of arrival. In the meantime, you should note that the day on Ranh is approximately nineteen hours long. You should get used to their clock."
"Before we get to worry about that, I think I should remind you all why we are here," Gaius said, as he took over the speaking role. "First, Natasha, I think Katya has shown you my and Lucilla's history, and as you will recall, in the 25th century Terrans built a device placed in a satellite that could view the past. From this, I received a prophecy from a future historian, Pallas Athene, who had learned how to send messages to the past, and she had inserted her name as a Goddess. That might have been harmless enough, but someone else apparently sent a message to Ranh, and that resulted in the Ranhynn sending vessels to Earth and obliterating all life. Her messages to me have resulted in our being here now, and our mission is to stop Ranh from destroying humanity."
"It would have been easier to do that," Natasha said, "back on Earth. All we had to do was to stop them building that device and the message would not be sent. Since we haven't built it yet, that would fix it."
"Not necessarily," Lucilla countered. "The problem is, the message was not that deep in time, and to be able to do what they did, the Ranhynn must have had a fleet capable of exterminating life on Earth anyway. The message would merely have thrown the switch to use it."
"But the message still would not be sent . . ."
"It's also possible that Ranh had two factions," Marcellus added. "They might have been arguing as to whether to use this fleet or not, and the message may have merely tipped the balance in a way we cannot understand."
"Also, we have altered the timeline very seriously," Gaius said. "In the other timeline, there were no M'starn. Now, if the Ranhynn have suitable ships to exterminate life on Earth, someone might say that since Earth defeated the M'starn fleet, and acquired some of their technology, it may be a case of doing it now or it won't be possible to do it in the future."
"Worse," Lucilla added, "they may fear that Earth may not be very impressed with the help Ranh gave, and may decide to take them on."
"We wouldn't do that," Natasha protested.
"No, we wouldn't," Gaius agreed, "or at least I hope Earth wouldn't. But the problem is, the Ranhynn don't know that, so it is your job to persuade them of the benefits of the treaty we wish to enter with them."
"So, what now?" Natasha asked.
"We park near the gas giant as requested," Gaius said, "but we also refuel. Unless they wish to do that for us, that involves a star skim, and for convenience, the ship has no live crew and, from experience, it is better also to have all our perishables somewhere else. So, Lucilla, I want you to take Natasha on board, and all her food and personal belongings, then we shall let the Livia refuel. Then each of us will transfer the food, et cetera, to the Livia, and let the Romulus refuel.
"Refuelling itself has to be done in a coordinated way. What I want is for each ship refuelling to use the outer and inner rocky planet's gravitational field to turn. The ships will do this automatically, but while doing so they will scan the surfaces of the planets. They can get about two-thirds of a planet during a turn, and I want it timed so we have a record of all the surface of both planets from the Livia and the Romulus. The Actium will refuel when I go down to Ranh. I can't really do such a survey because the planetary alignments will be such that it would draw too muc
h attention to what I am doing, and the Ranhynn might draw the wrong conclusion. In the meantime, we should each spend the time as well as we can. I'll get the Companions to put up as much information on the planet as possible. We should use the time to learn as much as we can about it."
"Of course." Natasha nodded, then muttered, more to herself than to anybody else, "I wonder what happened to Kazyn?"
Chapter 3
Ships capable of relativistic travel are not designed to enter an atmosphere. Accordingly, Ranhynn with access to such a vessel must park it at one of the great docking bays on satellites orbiting Ranh on their return. The satellites themselves are often strangely designed, and largely because of the expense of bringing material up from the planet, first use is made of the materials of other ships that have ended their useful lifetime. The docking bays around Ranh were ugly, effectively a collection of oddly designed vessels locked together and subsequently butchered, but they were functional. Nobody lived in them permanently, although some workers came and went, for the satellite also had a function of selling certain materials and fuels to the ships docked there, and of carrying out maintenance and repairs. However, the Kuyrills had just come home, they were not going anywhere in the near future, their shuttle had fuel, so they merely docked and after securing the ship to prevent unwanted entry, they entered their shuttle to descend to the surface.
Descent from ship to planet in a shuttle is a relatively slow process, with the objective of losing as much velocity as possible while the atmosphere is still rarefied so as to minimize the heat stresses on the shuttle. Such descents are also invariably carried out through computer control, since the ability to integrate differential equations means that it will produce far more optimal paths than any experienced pilot could hope to produce. Amongst other advantages, it can automatically compensate for atmospheric pressure variations, it can correct for minor variations in wind speeds supplied from ground control, and it can respond far more quickly to any change in circumstances. Accordingly, the crew simply sit and watch, prepared to take over only if something is clearly going wrong. Sitting and watching dials may seem boring, but after an interstellar trip, particularly such a short one as going to Earth, the anticipation of returning home raises the excitement levels. The Kuyrills were more than simply excited. How would your mate greet you after a twenty-four year absence? What would your father think, when you had hardly changed and he was now officially old?
When the ship finally docked, the two raptors gathered their belongings that they wished to take with them, secured the others in special secure lockers on the shuttle, and made a special effort to ensure that their uniforms were strictly correct. As Hadell had pointed out to Kazyn, their time on Earth had got them into bad habits. These had to be corrected at once. The priestly class had to look the part, always, and it was important that if you had a very high position, everybody was aware of that position, particularly since there may have been a tendency for the ordinary Ranhynn to forget them over the twenty-four year period.
"Yes, Kazyn," Hadell pointed out. "I am afraid your tailball exploits will have been consigned to old record books."
"I know," Kazyn said sadly. "No adoring females chasing after me at every step."
This received a snort of derision, and Hadell almost pushed Kazyn out of the ship. She stepped out, locked the hatch shut, then keyed in the command that would ensure that the shuttle take itself to the Kuyrill hangar. The two then made their way along the bridge to the entry hatch of the Space Immigration Department. Hadell inserted a card into a machine and waited. Their ships were designed to decontaminate them and certify them as decontaminated from alien viruses, and this was usually sufficient. However, a traveller from Earth posed a slightly different problem from most because through the compatibility issue, viruses from Earth were far more likely to be infectious. However there were no problems, and the door opened.
There before them stood four guards.
Hadell made a small gesture with her claws. This was one of their symbolic warnings: something is wrong. Kazyn showed no sign that a signal had been passed, and for him it was unnecessary. He had already come to the same conclusion.
"You will come with us!" the guard Sergeant said loudly.
"I wish to see Tallyn," Hadell replied simply.
"There is no Tallyn here."
"I wish to see Tenzat Tallyn," Hadell replied calmly.
"There is no Tenzat Tallyn. The Tenzat of the Space Curia is Thapet Tergyn. You will come at once." He reached out to grasp Hadell's arm, and was rewarded with a sharp tear down the arm. Blood splattered to the floor.
"As an ex Tenzat, I retain the personal rights of a Tenzat. You will keep your claws to yourself!" The Guardsman pulled back a little, unsure as to whether to reach for a weapon. To draw a weapon on a Tenzat could have extreme consequences.
"Kuyrill Hadell!" one of the other guards stepped forward. "Thapet Tergyn has requested your presence. Would you please accompany us?"
"Of course," Hadell responded. To decline a request from a current Tenzat, for whatever reason, would be extremely provocative, and it was still far from clear whether there was a real problem, or merely incompetent guards.
They followed the guards in silence until they reached a transport capsule, when Hadell requested they travel separately from the guards. To her surprise, the guards seemed almost over-eager to comply. The reason became apparent when they entered. Kazyn produced a detector for listening devices, and immediately there was a strange discordant noise.
"This is not the appropriate way to treat an ex Tenzat," Hadell said coldly.
"W we didn't know," the sergeant replied. His nervous stutter and complete lack of sincerity showed this to be an obvious lie.
"Then we can wait around while you remove them."
"I don't know anything about how to do that. Can't you go? The Tenzat will be upset over delay."
"You can find someone who does know how to fix this, then," Hadell replied coldly.
"But the Tenzat…" The statement was left hanging.
"If he finds my wishing to have proper protocol followed objectionable he can always take the matter to the Great Conclave," Hadell said tersely, "and if you don't get on with it quickly, he'll have to queue behind me."
This had the desired effect. The sergeant quickly barked an order, and one of the guards stepped into the capsule, and quickly removed the devices. As Hadell remarked later, the fact he did not even waste time getting a detector left little doubt who put them there in the first place. Eventually the guard stepped out, and announced the capsule was ready.
"If I get in there, and if my Ulsian detector finds something," Kazyn said coldly, "I shall lodge a formal complaint with the objective of ensuring you spend quite some time learning the values of truth."
There was a pause. It now became obvious that there was a further device, which would be undetectable to Ranhyn devices, however he could not be sure whether it would fool an Ulsian detector. Eventually he must have decided that it was not worth the risk, or alternatively he had shown himself up and it was obviously there. Eventually he came out with one further device. At this point Hadell nodded, and signalled to Kazyn they should enter. Kazyn's device remained silent, and as the doors closed, they keyed in the destination. The capsule began to accelerate.
"Kazyn!" Hadell said quietly, "When we get there, please remain silent unless it is absolutely necessary to speak, such as responding to a direct question, and then say the bare minimum. Do not commit yourself to anything. Leave that to me."
"You don't trust me," Kazyn made a fake face of sorrow.
"I have a better knowledge of protocol," Hadell responded softly, "and anything I say as an ex Tenzat is privileged."
"Don't worry," Kazyn replied. "As far as I am concerned, the only tactic now is to find out what's going on."
"That could be a problem, and we have to play for time. It appears that there has been a challenge to Tallyn, which was always a ris
k given there were two positions regarding the war. We must say nothing until we can confer with him."
"We may not be permitted," Kazyn said softly.
"They can hardly keep me from my mate," Hadell growled, "or, for that matter, you from your father."
"Then why wasn't he at the Space Port to greet us?"
"I don't know," Hadell said harshly, "but I shall certainly ask –"
"There are two obvious reasons," Kazyn interrupted. "The first is that he is not permitted freedom of action. The second is that he was unaware of our presence. Neither option is very promising from our point if view."
"You think there was a contested challenge with bad faith?" Hadell asked. "That is almost unheard of these days. In any case, I'm sure Tallyn would have stepped down gracefully if he lost a challenge."
"There was a dramatic change in the situation of the war after we left," Kazyn pointed out. "Personally, I can see why others might have been uncomfortable with the position the family Kuyrill had taken over the previous centuries."
"That doesn't follow," Hadell grunted. "The family Thapet was even more badly committed. I might agree if there had been a move from a family in a different Curia, but this repositioning does nothing."
"I suppose not," Kazyn replied. "Anyway, I don't think we need to speculate on matters too much. We'll find out soon enough."