Spy Station
The Forlani Saga: Part Two
J. M. R. Gaines
J. M. R. Gaines
FREDERICKSBURG, VIRGINIA
Copyright © 2017 by John Manley Roberts Gaines
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Spy Station/ J. M. R. Gaines. -- 1st ed.
ISBN 978-0-9981721-3-2
To Papa and Paddy, Authors of the Feast
“Any fool can tell a crisis when it arrives. The real service to the state is to detect it in embryo.”
―ISAAC ASIMOV, FOUNDATION
1
T he Forlani girl, her toenails retracted, padded noiselessly down the ramp into the storage compartment, alert for any movement. As soon as she got to the bottom of the ramp, she gracefully vaulted over a railing and crouched behind a cargo cylinder, pointing her weapon ahead to scan with its detector to try to find her enemy. She had little experience hunting spies in cramped quarters, but she had been very well trained, according to the traditions of the Forlani Guard and her own matriline. Nothing from the detector. Yet she was sure the enemy agent was watching her from some hideout among these cargo containers. She knew fellow members of her cluster must have blocked the other exits now and were counting on her to flush out her opponent, even at the cost of her own life. She decided to trust her physical senses, first her brilliant red eyes, which were more effective in the dark than those of most creatures. At the same time, she drew her striped security cape forward over her body. In the penumbra of the compartment, where a single lamp somewhere ahead of her cast strange shadows over the cargo, the stripes added to her own concealment. She sniffed the musty air carefully for odors. Still without a clue, she flicked her tongue out repeatedly. The Forlani tongue was better than a second nose, with over a hundred thousand receptors sensitive to a vast number of chemical signatures. Ah, there it was! The distinctive track of a Powl. It reminded her of a certain yellow and brown berry that grew near the polar regions of her distant planet. Nothing but a Powl could produce such an impression in the depths of a space station so many light years from her world.
Was it armed? Hard to determine. It had snatched the memory unit from a table top in the Forlani rooms and rushed on its six legs out the door. It could not possibly be carrying a machine to read the complicated tetrahedron, deliberately chosen by the delegation because it was such a rare data storage device and the readers were scarce and bulky. What would the Powl do, fight or run? They were neither terribly smart nor terribly formidable, being employed mainly as menial workers on freighters, where their tick-like bodies and low need for moisture were an advantage. Powls were also quite good at maneuvering into tight places and quickly scampering away. She remembered one more thing. They were expert climbers. Peering into the dark once again, she thought she saw the slightest bulge on the ceiling off to her right. She guessed that the Powl might try a diversion and possibly move to neutralize her, then make a dash to double back the way they had come, taking its chance against whoever was backing her up at the doorway.
The only thing to do was to expose herself first to prod it out into action and hope to prevail. She stood up and took a couple of steps to the left. Sure enough, a beam zapped against a container next to her. Leaping three meters, she aimed her weapon, prepared to fire when she landed. Other beams flashed harmlessly behind her. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she waved her tail wildly to distract the Powl’s aim and fired. A projectile from her weapon smashed into its target – not the spy, but the tetrahedron it was holding in one of its left limbs. It burst into tiny slivers and the Powl shot off mewling across the ceiling, heading for the door.
With a little sigh of pride and thankfulness that her opponent was such a bad shot, she whistled and said into her communicator “Cluster Leader. Unit destroyed. Agent doubling back.”
“Good work. Let it go. Kantua will try to track it back to contact. In any case, it would just be hard to explain if we killed it. Fade into shadows and reassemble at HQ.”
“Understood Cluster Leader Ayan’we. Leli out.”
The Ministry of Interstellar Relations was located on top of a hill on the outskirts of the administrative capital of Garan Prime. Tashto took a minute to gaze out at the view overlooking the bustling city, his eyes soaking in the sights of garish electric billboards and towering office spires, the hoverbikes slowly driving through the crowded roadways, the plumes of smoke rising from the massive factories. Such a view of the entire city metropolis was a rare luxury in his life; most of his existence had been spent below, in its disorienting streets, monitoring its citizens and business leaders for evidence of tax dodging and money laundering. The Garanian government had finally rewarded him by promoting him from his old job of Tax Monitor to the much more prestigious position of Off-World Diplomat. Tashto had performed well in his first few “diplomatic” assignments and had spent the last couple of weeks studying for his greatest, most prestigious assignment: the Zonal Peace Conference. “Tashto, the Overseer of Diplomats will see you now,” a steamy voice announced over the intercom. Tashto nervously cracked his knuckles and stepped into a long corridor.
As he walked through the vast building, Tashto looked at the portraits and statues of the rulers of Garan, from its old kings and warlords during the Unity Wars to the modern Planetary Ministers. Ornately detailed and painted in bright hues, the heroes and kings of old contrasted sharply with the modern rulers of Garan, who wore bland beige suits and ties, bearing a pitiful resemblance to humans. During his brisk walk, Tashto wondered if something had been lost during his planet’s rush to transition into an interstellar power. Would the old warlords, products of a culture that prided itself on individualism and valor, have wanted to live among a people increasingly consumed by subterfuge and the domination of the central state, as the modern Garanians were? Tashto had found no answers to his questions in the government-approved historical documents, and none of the other Garanians in the building looked like they would be interested in conversation on the topic; they were too busy bustling about, engaged in their own work routines, to be bothered with any sort of discourse unrelated to their duties.
The door to the Overseer’s office was open, as if the Overseer were absolutely certain Tashto would soon arrive and saw no need to impede his swift entrance. Tashto walked in the doorway and saw the Overseer standing by his desk, leaning backward on his tail. “Welcome, Tashto,” the Overseer greeted him. “I have heard timeliness was once considered the First Virtue by the culture of the Heroic Age. Or was it the fi
fth virtue? It’s so difficult to be certain.”
Of course it’s difficult to be certain, since the Ministry of Historical Records destroyed those documents after the Unity Wars. “I don’t know of such things,” Tashto said deferentially.
“Of course. We shouldn’t preoccupy ourselves with such useless superstitions or what they may have meant at some time,” the Overseer continued. “Tashto, the time has come for you to prepare for your transit to the Zonal Peace Conference. What do you know of the factions assembling at the Varess Space Station?”
“The Earthlings are numerous, but their planet is in disarray. They never achieved a Unity government on their home world, and a plague has broken loose. Their leverage is still formidable, but less so than it normally would be. The Song Pai are as the usually are —belligerent, violent, interested only in brutality. The Blynthians, inscrutable, of course. The Talinian newts are…”
“I am not concerned with the newts, an inferior evolution” the Overseer interrupted. “The species you should be focused on should not be Talinians or Song Pai. Do not be dazzled by the garish private corporate empires of the Umani either.”
Tashto could feel the feathery stubble on the back of his neck nervously flex and stick up. “Which group would you recommend I focus on?” he asked.
“The Forlani,” the Overseer answered. “It is the Forlani, more than any other race, that have a history of trade with Song Pai. There are three reasons that we have decided to focus on influencing the Forlani, rather than the other species at this conference. Firstly, there is a small chance we may bend the Song Pai in the way we wish by influencing the Forlani; we may never gain influence on Song Pa, but we may on Forlan. Secondly, we may gain information about the Song Pai through the Forlani diplomats that would aid us, should we choose to begin open conflict with them once more. Finally, the Forlani have a unique weakness that the other species at this conference lack.”
“A diplomat they sent, I presume?” Tashto said.
“Correct. The information we have discovered about her indicates that their security director is quite young, and this is the first time she has attended a diplomatic conference. We think she may be more easily manipulated compared to the other diplomats, especially since her mother is among them. Do you think you could so easily influence a veteran like Chester MacDougal of Dahlgren or the Newt Kee’ad of Tionar? Of course, gaining influence over her at the start of her career will allow you to continue to manipulate her for many years to come, whereas the older diplomats are far closer to their retirement.”
“I am confident I will succeed,” Tashto said. “But is there any supplemental information you have on her? I found very little on her personality and interests in the official government files.”
“That is because we have very little reliable information yet. She graduated their Academy not long ago, she is just beginning her career, and we have no types of data that we could use to formulate a psychological analysis of how she would respond in certain situations. Beyond the fact that she possesses a unique understanding of Blynthians, we are mostly in the dark. Of her mother, Entara, we almost know too much. The romantic songs about her and her human companion, the late Klein, are blaring all over the quadrant. I even heard one translated into Garani – disgusting! In fact, it is up to you to begin to obtain new data for us. To take note of each minute neurosis, each unusual response, every emotional peak and valley. In short, you are not only to be a spy — such a vulgarized, unseemly word, don’t you think? — but also a psychologist. You do remember her name from the files, correct?”
“Yes,” Tashto said. “Her name is Ayan’we.”
“Excellent. I see you’ve taken time to study all the available information we have. Now it is your time to broaden it. After all, information is the most important currency. Only with that may we hope to gain an advantage over the Song Pai by involving them in war against the Blynthians. Information will lead to the establishment of a second front and our ultimate advantage.”
“Was that one of the Virtues?” Tashto asked.
“Not of the Heroic Age,” the Overseer answered, clutching a pen in his clawed hand. “It is, however, the First Virtue of our age, which is the only age you need to know of.”
The Phiddian space station called Transfer Varess was, Entara thought, quite sensible, compared to those hollow-core things the humans constructed. Someday perhaps they would learn to conserve their resources better. Instead of the Earthlings’ bizarre doughnut shapes (she remembered Klein had once gotten her a package of doughnuts when they were together, but she never liked them as much as crunchy toast), Varess was shaped like a slightly squashed fruit, spherical, but with a protruding ring around the diameter that contained the docking ports for up to forty vehicles, such as the one where she was now cuddling her most recent, and perhaps last, child. Their present ship had originally belonged to one of the Earth corporations and like many others had been left without a crew when they learned that their employers had all died of the plague. Without pay or drug quotas, the crew members had degenerated and wandered off to join other ships, some even desperate enough to indenture themselves to the Song Pai. She knew from Klein’s harsh experiences what the eventual end of that indenture usually meant. But the thought of being on a virtual ghost ship troubled her much less than the responsibilities she had shouldered, not only for the Eyes of Alertness, but for all the matrilines and the Council of Nine, when she agreed to attend the Zonal Conference.
“Soft baby Quatilla,” she murmured, “Go to sleep now. You’ve eaten enough and I still worry you won’t get your growing sleep now that I’ve taken you away from the nurturing peace of Forlan.” Peace of Forlan. Yes, but it was only guaranteed by the continual military might of the Song Pai, those ugly, repellant squid-like creatures that had honorably guarded their world against the depredations of the Earth corporations. Only too willingly would most humans have enslaved her sisters, according to the FastTrack scheme her corrupt husband Tays’she had sought to implement. Only too quickly would the human Corporations have ravaged her planet’s ecology, just as it was finally being restored after the Disasters. “Fifty-sixth daughter,” she whispered to the slumbering baby, “You would be unsafe were it not for those unlikely allies. And now their taste for conflict threatens to draw us into a crisis. A crisis I am supposed to know how to solve.”
For centuries before she was born, before the Song Pai had first navigated into the Forlan system, the cephalopods had been at war unceasingly against the distant Garanians – a race tough enough to assure that their own taste for suicidal sacrifice would not go unsatisfied. Each Song Pai knew that its ability to vitrospawn, to pass on its genes to a new generation, would hinge on a heroic and violent death. Yet, now the Song Pai were contemplating the unthinkable, a war against the Blynthians. That strange and vastly powerful race, with its territory in systems in the opposite direction from Garan, might seem an enticing target, especially since it contained many watery worlds favorable to Song Pai expansion. Blynthians themselves had never attacked anyone in recent memory, and preferred to rest behind their wall of silence. Nevertheless, their technology was phenomenal, as they had demonstrated by transporting a large, hollowed-out asteroid many parsecs at incredible speeds in order to aid the human plague recovery at Tau Ceti Anchorage. What would happen if their anger was stirred up, assuming they were capable of anger?
Ayan’we’s arrival interrupted her mother’s reverie. She spotted Quatilla right away and tip-toed across the room gracefully, as Entara placed the infant in a moss-filled crib covered with a porous muffle, so they could talk during her nap. “Any news on that Powl?” she asked.
“We followed it back to the other side of the station, Mother, but it didn’t contact any Phiddians or humans. It may be waiting until the Garanians arrive, which they will do very shortly. Maybe it won’t make contact at all, since it failed in its mission. We’ll have to see.”
“Have the Blynthians shown themselves y
et?”
“No. They’re still behind their barrier. The part of the council room assigned to them is still walled off. You can hear construction noises behind it, but I think they will wait for the formal opening to appear. I wonder what effect it will have on the other delegations. Besides myself, only some of the Coriolans and Dr. Torghh have ever actually seen one.”
“When you were with them, did you ever get a sense of their emotions toward the Song Pai?”
“Mom, I’m not sure if they have emotions like most other species. As you’ll see, communication is most problematical. I strongly suspect the trade language that I learned is not even their principal mode of communication among themselves.”
“I hope Torghh can give us some insight. Although he’s present as physiological consultant – and therefore is supposed to stay neutral – Ragatti seems to think he is positively inclined towards us and may be helpful.”
“Hah, the great Doctor Ragatti. I wish she could stop operating and seducing her way across the galaxy long enough to help us with something clearly as important as this. As a physician, doesn’t she realize how much is at stake?”
Entara gave her firstborn daughter a knowing maternal expression. “I know from experience that Ragatti is most helpful when one doesn’t attempt to control her too much. Despite her natural… eccentricity, she has a generous heart and a brilliant, though quirky, mind. And she is devoted in her own way. Hasn’t she been present at most of my birthings and those of your sisters, too? She could easily leave that chore to an ordinary doctor, but I think that in her round-about way she is fond of us.”
“Mother, I must say that I feel you are a bit too indulgent towards Ragatti because of her kindness towards Klein and the fact that she affectionately reconstructed part of his face after his injuries. As well as other little services she claims to have performed.”
Spy Station Page 1