by Scott Rhine
They whisked Roz and Echo off to meet with the race’s best mathematicians to resolve the mystery of her success. With inventor and the prototype safe, they sent other available ships to every corner of the realm bearing news of her Enigma variation. They refused to trust the sacred math to ansible or radio. Though the academy was skeptical, they distributed the revelation in case the sun went nova or some other freak disaster occurred.
Max hosted a one-day medical seminar on the effects of subbasement exposure on sentients and his emergency bonding ritual to save Echo. However, he rejoined the original crew by evening meal.
The lesser races were shuttled to a specialized nursery for the mentally deficient. Their handlers were polite but condescending. Only when Max noticed his beard had stopped growing did they admit the water supply in his quarters contained powerful drugs. He was sleeping half the day because his bed was subjecting him to a regimen of life-extension treatments. They needed him around to keep the Enlightened One alive as long as possible.
Kesh lived in the observation lounge. Due to the natural sunlight, it was the warmest room in the complex, ideal for a cold-blood. He began each day, lifting weights and squeezing a rubber ball to build his weak arm back up. He watched through the clear dome while his ship was stripped to the skeleton.
He passed the time practicing his invasion skills with the others on the adjustable terrain of the children’s playground. Daisy channeled her grief into perfecting her ability as a sniper. She didn’t converse with him or apart from the exercises.
Fighting two-handed opponents and hidden rifles put Kesh at an extreme disadvantage. He was forced to carry a clear Plexar shield on his weak side, if for no other reason than to block darts. The first day he used it, he managed to get a tail under Max and flip him into a wall. The doctor cried, “Uncle.” Even Menelaus had learned not to let a Saurian pin him on the floor.
During his personal time, Kesh had little to do until Magi Intelligence stumbled over something on Deep 6. A voice from his console said, “General Kesh, we have questions about your model of the new Phib fleet.”
As an idle exercise, given his knowledge of prewar tactics, he had determined the most likely flight configuration for the secret armada. Logically, the small moon and large asteroid would lead the way to shield other against solar flares and meteors. Warships would fly like migrating geese in a V to protect the unarmored vessels inside. Variations of the plan revolved around guarding the vulnerable rear during slow refueling maneuvers. At attack speeds, missiles couldn’t breach the back door, but a subbasement vessel could gut them from inside. The plan had been such a rout that it wasn’t a challenge for any decent predator. He’d left the exercise incomplete.
“I’ll happy to explain. In return, perhaps you could provide me with maps for my latest analysis project.” During their long conversation, he had no trouble convincing the military that their race should breed others with Roz’s abilities.
****
The next morning, a stack of gravitational-thread charts appeared on his doorstep. Some only aligned every 250 years. Kesh papered the ceiling of his room with these maps. He explained to Reuben, “The Human term ‘point’ refers to a piece of land jutting out into a body of water. As aquatic beings, Phibs don’t have that term. Therefore, they must be referring to chokepoint on star charts—places where multiple star lanes converge. The various parts of the fleet must be converging at one of these points before continuing.”
Kesh diagrammed all known paths leading to the Banker realm. On the wall, he depicted the vague Nivaar region as a pirate’s treasure chest, overflowing with gold coins. He represented each gravity thread between the stars with a piece of yarn from the craft bin. He would stare at a grid section for hours while his programs ran. Others in the room would forget his presence. He startled them when he pounced on the pad results or made another notation.
He eliminated nexus points that were legal under Union treaties. The fleet would rely on surprise. Discreetly, Magi Intelligence sent scouts out to investigate each potential route.
Reuben exposed the Xerxes goggles to a wide range of documents and charts, hoping to trigger more information from the artifact. Without females to distract him, he began learning to read Phib. Even with Kesh’s help, deciphering the correspondence from Xerxes was a slow task. Unraveling the entire conspiracy would take decades. The best procedure turned out to be Reuben reading the text aloud phonetically while Kesh and the Magi listened. They eavesdropped to collect evidence but didn’t speak lest the goggles react.
Only a type of refueling filter specified in the first volume gave them any actionable information to narrow the search. However, they knew a great deal about where the subs planned to splash down on Nivaar and how they would deploy.
Nothing mentioned what the Bankers looked like or how many there were. Most of the star-chart puzzle fragments revolved around Nivaar’s defensive perimeter known as “the wall.” In theory, no one couldn’t approach the fortress without being detected. Though they had a wide range of exit options to export their ansibles, the weak Banker sun had no inbound nexus. Bankers had increased their safety buffer by placing military outposts on every feasible approach path. All Xerxes would say in his journal was that Bankers were so certain of their impregnability that they banned support troops inside the Nivaar system. Security by obscurity meant that anyone who managed to breach the wall had free rein inside.
Roz and Echo both underwent hormone treatments, making interactions mercurial. No one bothered to tell Max about the reproductive imperative.
Then, weeks slipped by with no word from their pilot. Their taciturn Magi keepers would not be threatened or cajoled. Deep 6 was reduced to the bones of a beached whale, picked bare by scavengers. Every passing day increased the likelihood their mission would fail before it truly began.
Daisy provided the first message from outside their quarantine. One afternoon, they caught her snickering at lunch.
“Find a Magi joke book on the nursery shelves?” asked Reuben. Daisy had ignored him since the accident. He claimed this was due to his visits to a prostitute. Monogamous Humans didn’t understand the great Goat need for social intercourse.
Max suggested the cold shoulder might be due to Reuben’s lack of support during her time of need.
Kesh thought the answer was simpler. Reuben reminded her of Ivy, a loss she struggled to avoid from the moment she awoke.
With a rare smile, Daisy said, “That jester of yours is the best.”
“Armand?” Reuben asked.
“Yeah. He’s been giving periodic updates on the exploits of the six princes. What a comedy of errors. That film of yours had Posy laughing chicken soup out her nostrils.”
“She never liked me. What film?”
“Armand spliced together a slapstick skit. He took your peace plan speech and interspersed it with the bank footage of them shocking the shit out of you. In the propaganda piece, every time you said something nice about the Bankers, they’d zap you again. For the finale, they zoomed in on the urine seeping down your trouser leg.”
Reuben stopped eating. “He did what? Is he trying to undermine my credibility?”
“Relax. You didn’t have much dignity to begin with, but you weren’t the target. The Goats are outraged at your treatment after extending such an unprecedented olive branch. He’s making the Bankers out to be heartless sadists. He’s implying they tortured you into ordering the accounting of all Goat holdings, and you were taken to Magi space to heal.”
“Do you think someone told him what’s really happening? Is the conspiracy trying to recruit a Ram who’s on their side? Did I turn over my government to an enemy?”
Her face softened. “I don’t think he’s malicious. He has eyes and a brain—a good one. He knows satire can pierce walls that logic will fail to move.”
“Is there any way I can persuade you to lower your wall?”
Kesh dropped his eating dagger. “Stop right there. I don’
t want to smell your happy reunion. At least have the courtesy to let me leave before I lose what I ate of my lunch.”
Menelaus continued devouring his pulled-pork sandwich. Each of them had been rationed a tiny helping from the dwindling meat reserves. Kesh hadn’t expected to sit this long in normal space with no access to animal protein other than shrimp, eggs, and fish. He became queasy just smelling vat-grown and textured proteins. He had to conserve to make certain they had sufficient red meat to complete the roundtrip.
Daisy said, “Easy. There won’t be a reunion. Llewellyn Intelligence has ordered me to keep my distance from the Black Ram. Every time he touched my bare skin, he sent alarm bells off across our entire network. We don’t want him co-opting our world mind or learning anything more about our operations.”
“We’re allies,” Reuben protested. “Close, intimate allies.”
She blushed. “We trust the Goat people, but there are secrets you can’t know in case the Phibs or the Bankers capture you.”
“I can keep a secret.”
Kesh interceded. “Name one woman you haven’t introduced yourself to as the Black Ram and tried to sleep with.”
Reuben stammered, “Th-That’s not fair. Procreation is part of my job description.”
“Just one,” Kesh repeated.
“Roz.”
Daisy began laughing. “Every other woman? You really make a girl feel special.”
Serious, Reuben said, “Ivy was my first. I would’ve given up my title for her. In fact, I only took it because she begged me to. So whose fault is it I’m a whore? Who seduced me and handed me off to MI-23 wrapped in a bow? I never cheated on her, despite what she did. Let’s turn the tables. Name one time I pressured you to touch me.”
Taken aback by the strength of his acid reply, Daisy admitted, “You haven’t.”
“Yet Llewellyn is happy to send you to work me like a puppet because they know you share the face of the one woman I couldn’t refuse. I’m not the one who moved in for a kiss to get what I wanted.”
“I guess I never looked at it from your side.”
He continued to press home the point. “Name one woman who hasn’t left me, lied to me, or used me.”
She was speechless, so he answered for her. “Roz. A coincidence, huh? Maybe I haven’t asked because I want one woman who accepts me as a person, who I was before I danced to your tune.” Reuben left the table.
Daisy departed soon after in tears.
Menelaus grinned. “You know what that means?”
“That she likes him in spite of her orders.”
“More pork for us. You take his leftovers, and I’ll get hers.”
Callous but practical, our Bat. He’ll make a soldier yet. “Right.”
21. Know Your Enemy
Over a month into the isolation, the Magi allowed Roz to visit. Oddly, she stopped to see Kesh first. When she walked into his room, he remarked, “Your scar is gone.” Her most recognizable feature, the one non-Humans relied on to tell her apart from others, had been erased.
She rubbed her forehead as if missing the mark. “Magi kept staring at it. It got in the way at meetings, so they fixed me. They improved my face’s symmetry, too. It wouldn’t do to have a flawed saint. Max told me to think of it as a disguise. It’ll fool facial-recognition software.”
“Speaking of disguises, your eyes look like you’re wearing a raccoon mask.”
“Thanks. That’s how I feel. The locals have a thirty-two hour day, and I haven’t adjusted yet.”
“Then rest.”
“I’ve tried, but no one can seem to get anything accomplished without me.”
“How do you stand all this pointless delay?”
She sighed. “It’s not pointless from their point of view. Extreme stress deformed the structure of our ship. Essentially, the farther from the central sphere a material was, the greater the distortion. We’ve worked out the equations. Even our nav chamber wasn’t protected completely.”
“So we’ve been exposed to radiation?”
“People who were in stasis should be fine. For the next iteration, we’ve built improved shielding. Not all types of matter deformed equally. Symmetric molecules like Buckyballs remain the same from any angle. We found three materials to build helmets and buffers out of. We’ll test each during the next prototype trial.” She rubbed her temples. “I’m so sick of hearing about the tests everyone wants to perform to prove their own pet theories.”
Kesh offered the woman a seat. “You didn’t come back to talk project management. What’s bothering you?”
“My peak fertility period is in four days, but I’m not sure anything will implant with all this stress.” She fidgeted with her hair. “Sorry for the overshare. I don’t have a girlfriend to discuss these things with.”
“The clutch is one. You can be certain I won’t leak a word of this to anyone. Since Max’s longevity treatments are completed, his body chemistry should be stable enough.”
“You noticed that?”
“The smell is distinctive. I’ve been near many rich men who wanted to hold age at bay. Whether they went to the University on Anodyne or to the black market, the transition odors were the same.”
She nodded. “Well, this isn’t for the sake of vanity. Whether they like him or not, the academy knows Echo and I would die without him.”
“Prejudice?”
“His reputation as a killer has made this an uphill battle. They worry he’s a bad influence.”
“Yet you’re the one with the criminal record.”
She smiled. “I may have neglected to mention that fact.”
“Max is pacing the halls waiting for you. Why are we chatting?”
“I wanted to congratulate you before I get distracted by my mates. Academy Intelligence is buzzing about your work. You’re definitely on the right track. Yesterday, an observation post reported in. They checked their records and found gravimetric evidence of the fleet passing by, skirting the Magi border.” She tapped a location in Saurian space on the right-hand wall.
“So I’m not crazy,” Kesh replied, circling the star system in red.
She provided the date and estimated number of jump signatures. “Observers ignored them because they didn’t enter our realm.”
“A couple more have joined the fleet since Tansdahl.” He added notes. “This changes everything. I’ll have to adjust the odds for each remaining possibility. Anything else you can tell me?”
“I’ve sent you a list of systems they didn’t detect Icarus field activity in.”
A negative could be just as useful as a positive under the right circumstances. “Thanks.”
“The rest of what I know about Nivaar will have to wait for a team briefing because I only want to explain once.”
Kesh tapped his comm. The ship’s AI had been transferred to the nursery with them, and it broadcast to all the crewmembers. “My room. Now. Roz is going to give us the dirt on the Bankers.”
Once his badge was inactive, she said, “I meant later, but sure. I can do it while the facts are fresh in my brain.”
“Any surprises?”
Plunking down on the open chair to wait, Roz replied, “Philosophically, the people we’re trying to stop are closer to us than Nivaar is. The Bankers don’t think like we do. The more I learn about them, the less convinced I am that we should try to stop the invasion.”
“You’re only continuing the mission to assuage the Magi sensibilities?”
“I’m keeping Echo alive.”
He moved printouts off the furniture so guests would have someplace to sit.
Daisy arrived first. “The Magi shared some of their secrets with you?”
“I combined what they know with what I’ve seen on my own.”
Daisy dragged a bench in from the hall.
Reuben stepped around her and didn’t help. He rested on the windowsill rather than sit next to her.
Max bounded in, greeting his wife with an embrace. “I’ve misse
d you.”
After a deep kiss, Roz whispered, “It’s not going well. The first experiment with a message torpedo failed. I don’t know what’s missing. I’ve been over the original designs and every modification. We’ve tweaked a hundred factors, and nothing made a bit of difference.”
Eyes closed, inhaling her fragrance, he said, “You’ll find it. You always do.”
She enjoyed the moment in his arms until Menelaus wandered in.
The Bat took the seat beside Daisy on the bench, and Max settled onto the arm of the chair.
As the one who called the meeting, Kesh said, “The floor is yours, Enlightened One.”
“I hate that term more with every failure. Sometimes, I think people use it to mock me.” Roz stood and waved a hand. “Present hologram N-seven.” A diagram of the Nivaar star system appeared in the middle of the room.
Kesh cursed. “You could have saved me a lot of modeling clay and paper if I’d know this room had that feature.”
“Paper is safer. No one can read it remotely or through hacking. This nursery is mu shielded against all manner of out-of-body intrusion. Every Magi trade ship has an ansible. We don’t know their range, but tentacles can reach anywhere on a space station. We’re orbiting the opposite side of the planet from the capital city so we have less chance of being observed.”
With a laugh, Reuben replied, “That bit of paranoia would’ve been nice to know when we arrived. I’ve broadcast several fake status reports on my visit with the academy. Could my media ball be subverted?”
“It’s Turtle tech, so that’s unlikely,” Max replied. “However, don’t show any of our charts or equipment in the background.”
Reuben, who had taped an hour special on the wall blade, tried to look innocent.
Roz pointed to a photo of a large moon around a gas-giant planet. “Very few outsiders have ever been to Nivaar. Anyone who has didn’t dare communicate that fact by ansible. These pictures took over a century to smuggle back. Most of our data is secondhand or conjecture. Make no mistake, the Bankers started as a military empire. They agreed to join the Union to attempt economic conquest. Their treaties have always been focused on the long game. Just in case, their servants the Tellers got to keep protosentient status.”