“And if we had elected to seize your armored pinnace and take him?” Olsirkos approached slowly.
“You would have discovered that there is a an explosive decompression setting for the Srin’s compartment, rigged to a deadman switch.”
“Which you have just revealed, minimizing its effectiveness.”
“True, but you would have less luck neutralizing the bombs on board the pinnace, since they are activated by both command detonation controllers and breach-sensitive count-down triggers. The blast would not only vaporize the Srin, but also severely damage this ship.”
Evidently, Olsirkos Shethkador-vah had not been expecting that response: he halted at a distance of two meters. He also did not seem to suspect that the second threat might be a lie; rather, he seemed to reassess Caine. Who could see, in the Ktor’s subtle shift into a deceptively casual stance, his opponent’s decision to change tactics. “I know you,” Olsirkos said.
Caine swatted away a rising edge of anxiety. “Indeed?”
Olsirkos seemed disappointed that the rhetorical shift had not rattled the human. “Yes, but I thought you were a diplomat: a delegate to the late, disastrous Convocation where our peoples first met. Yet here you are, a member of your planet’s quaint military forces.”
Ignoring the goad implicit in the adjective “quaint,” Caine shrugged. “Once we discerned that war was imminent, many people elected to join the fight that led to the defeat of your allies. I was simply one of them.”
Olsirkos fought down his color once again. “You mistake our role in your late conflict with the Arat Kur and the Hkh’Rkh. We were not their allies. We merely shared common interests and provided advisors. Furthermore, the forces you claim to be invaders were invited planetside by humans—by leaders of some of your most powerful megacorporations, if the reports are accurate.”
“The reports are accurate, but evidently incomplete. The megacorporations have no standing before the Accord, and no power to speak for the people of Earth or the broader Terran Republic. And besides, I don’t recall anyone inviting the Arat Kur and Hkh’Rkh to mount their initial sneak attack upon our naval base at Barnard’s Star. As to the matter of whether or not you were their allies, I can only report that they claim you were.”
“Yes, the endless war of words.” Olsirkos smiled. “We have not declared war upon Earth, and only had advisors present, but you list us along with the actual invaders, who then attempt to embroil us in the hostilities by claiming an alliance that does not exist. Ask them to produce any such official documents or treaties to which we were party with them. You will find none.”
And why am I not surprised in the least? “Whatever circumstances are claimed by our respective governments, Tlerek Srin Shethkador committed several crimes while upon Earth—and since, while in our custody.”
“Ah, you are referring to his attacks upon yourself and others?”
“Others?” Damn, I wish I had the time to—“Those are among the charges, yes.”
“And perhaps they were valid. But they ceased to matter when your World Confederation accepted him as our official representative and ambassador, who then traveled to this system with your fleet. As I understand it, any alleged transgressions he may have committed before that appointment were, of necessity, pardoned. He could hardly be both a felon and an ambassador, after all.” Olsirkos’ smile was that of a man twisting a knife in an old enemy’s heart or, in this case, twisting the robotic arm Shethkador had fired into Caine’s back in Jakarta.
“This,” Caine commented after a sigh, “has been a diverting conversation, but it grows tiresome. I take it you wish to have the Srin returned promptly?” He waggled the papers in his hand.
Olsirkos’ smiled faded. “Yes, I do.” Without allowing his gaze to drift from Caine’s eyes, he snapped an order at a grey-suited crewman to his left. “You, autarchon, fetch the documents.”
The grey-suited figure swung around, his eyes avoiding both Caine’s and Olsirkos’, took the papers gently but firmly from Riordan’s hands and transferred them to his superior with a slight bow of his head and bend at his waist.
“Return to your post,” Olsirkos muttered as he glanced down at the sheaf of documents and then held it back over his shoulder. “Intendant Hekarem, see that these are in order.”
One of the nearby officers fairly leaped forward, took the papers out of Olsirkos Shethkador-vah’s hand with an excess of care, and retreated to peruse them.
Caine returned Olsirkos’ stare and discovered that he did not have to feign boredom anymore. The dominance duel that had started as riveting had become repetitive, then pointless, and now, childish. But damn it, I can’t look away if he doesn’t do so first, so I guess I just have to—
Olsirkos looked past Caine toward O’Garran. His smile transformed into a smirk. “Pitiful,” he said.
Oh, no. Little Guy, don’t you dare—
Miles “Little Guy” O’Garran’s retaliatory inquiry was quiet, controlled, and full of rage. “Would you care to clarify?”
Damn it, O’Garran, I told you: we’re not here to start a war; we’re here to end one. Caine cleared his throat for Olsirkos’ attention. “It may not be inconsiderate to openly comment upon a stranger in Ktoran culture,” Caine observed in a neutral voice. “It is considered offensive in ours.”
“Oh, I am familiar enough with your cultures. But you are on our ship, and we will not put our conventions aside for your comfort.”
“I was not asking you to.” Caine reflected that this first contact—with another branch of humanity—was, in every conceivable way, by far the most unpleasant one he’d ever experienced. “I was simply explaining my companion’s reaction.”
“Yes. I am aware. Frankly, I was not staring, but examining, your servitor. I find it most amusing that you elect to bring the inferiorities of your culture wherever you go. Whether out of blindness or perverse pride, I cannot discern.”
“The inferiorities of our culture?”
“But of course.” Olsirkos gestured toward O’Garran as if he were a disappointing show dog. “The physical insufficiencies of this servitor alone proves my point. We would never tolerate a genetic deficiency that is so obvious, and so easily corrected. And if we did, we would never make such a specimen a warrior.”
O’Garran made no sound, which worried Caine more than if he had. “You know,” Riordan said with a mirthless smile, “we have a saying on Earth about combat capability: that it’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.” And then, over his shoulder: “Sorry, Miles; no offense intended.”
Caine could hear the grin in Little Guy’s response. “Absolutely none taken, sir. And oo-rah.”
Olsirkos matched Caine’s stare, smiled when he saw he was not going to win that dominance contest. “Yes, I have heard that inane axiom. All other physical parameters being equal, size is decisive.”
“Oh, you must mean as demonstrated by the Hkh’Rkh, who average almost two and a half meters? But I wonder if the example of the Hkh’Rkh adequately supports your implication that Chief O’Garran is an inferior warfighter. Indeed, the accuracy of that claim could have been assessed during the recent fighting in Jakarta.” Riordan shrugged. “But it would be difficult to gather the relevant Hkh’Rkhs’ opinions on that matter.”
“Why so?”
“Because they’re all dead. Chief O’Garran was not in a position to take any prisoners that day.”
Olsirkos blinked. And Caine responded with a widened smile. Gotcha, asshole. “May I presume that our credentials have been verified and that the initial pleasantries are over?”
“They are indeed over.” Olsirkos’ stare, now openly hostile, reminded Caine of a chained attack dog straining at its collar. “The papers are in order. Return the Srin at once.”
Caine folded his hands. “This will go more quickly if you observe proper diplomatic, or even military, etiquette. Such as: since we’re not under your command, you will secure our coo
peration by making requests, not by giving orders.” And while your enraged eyeballs try to jump right out of your head, I will ignore you and survey my surroundings patiently—and so, observe what I can for the technical intelligence people.
Affecting disinterested waiting, Riordan could not change the angle of his head too dramatically. He had, at most, one-hundred forty degrees of frontal exposure that he could take in, and could not be noticed looking in any one place or at any one object too long.
The most striking item was the crew itself. Its physiognomies and demographics were markedly distinct from any human ship Caine had ever seen or heard about, in any era. The majority of the grey-uniformed drones, one of whom Olsirkos had labeled an “autarchon,” were not merely thin, but spindly: probably born, bred, and employed in zero or partial gee. Their tasks—running various ship’s systems—were logical extensions of that hypothesis: they were peforming duties they’d learned growing up on a space station, a moon, or a ship.
Furthermore, none of the bridge crew appeared to be over thirty five, forty at the outside, and none of them were women.
Another surprise was the absence of robots. Although consumer and industrial ’bots were rare on Terran ships, most military hulls had a sizeable complement of zero-gee floaters: ROVs that fetched, maintained systems, and carried gear about the ship. No ’bots of any kind, or their ubiquitous charging stations and ready racks, were in evidence on Ferocious Monolith.
From what Caine could tell, the Ktoran computers had sophisticated interfaces, but there was a great deal of hard-wire control redundancy. Old-style keyboards, trackballs, and intercom handsets were tucked away in emergency access slots. Clearly, the Ktor preferred hard-wired systems. And come to think of it—
Caine shifted his attention back to the crew, focusing on the officers this time. Sure enough, none of them had collarcoms or their analogs. Instead, they all wore some kind of multipurpose device clipped on their belt, equipped with a spooled cable. But almost no one was using them. In the time he’d been on the bridge, Riordan had seen two autarchons communicating with another part of the ship, and both times, they used one of the numerous—and seemingly anachronistic-—hardwired handsets.
While studying the belts of the officers, Riordan also discovered that everyone over the rank of autarchon was armed. All had daggers of some sort, and almost as many had handguns, several of which looked outlandish. But the weapons were not standardized; the greater the apparent importance of any given individual—which Caine inferred to be roughly proportional to their accumulation of medals, insignias, and other official gewgaws—the more profoundly eclectic their gear and attire appeared to be. In fact, the most senior of the bridge crew were all wearing different uniforms. The only common adornment was a small, square, grey shoulder patch.
Peripherally, Caine saw Olsirkos lean in slightly closer. The Ktor muttered, “I request that you return our Srin with all possible speed.”
Caine did not hurry to bring his eyes around to meet with the Ktor’s. “We are pleased to comply. I will contact the pinnace and have Tlerek Srin Shethkador transferred to your custody.”
“Do so.”
Riordan tapped a three-tone code into his collarcom. The security detachment would commence unloading the Srin immediately upon receiving it. Making sure that O’Garran was close behind him, he made briskly for the exit.
Chapter Five
Far orbit; Sigma Draconis Two
Riordan hadn’t finished strapping back into his seat aboard the armored pinnace when Downing sealed the hatch to the bridge, snapped off the intercom, activated a white noise generator, and turned toward him urgently. Caine raised his hands: “Richard, calm down. I didn’t learn that much about the Ktor. I’m sure the debrief—”
“Sod the debrief,” Downing said flatly. “It will happen when and if it happens. We’ve got more pressing matters. We just got a communiqué from the Slaasriithi. They want to go now.”
“Go where? Home? Well, why’s that a problem? They’re not needed for the negotiations with the Arat Kur.”
“No, Caine. They want to carry human envoys, you and a few others, to their homeworld. And they want to leave in the next twelve hours.”
“Richard, that’s—that’s nuts. They can’t just expect us to—”
“They can and they do expect us to accede to their—well, not demand, but very strongly worded exhortation. The arrival of the Ktor seems to worry them. Profoundly. When I pressed them for a slight extension, just a day or two to prepare, they rejected that idea. And how often have you seen the Slaasriithi reject an idea outright?”
“Never.”
“Not me, either. Maybe Alnduul will be able to shed a little more light on the matter: I’ve put in a call to him. But some of the phrasing in the Slaasriithi message—‘compromised security’ and ‘possible infiltration’—leads me to wonder if they already know that the Ktor are actually humans.”
Caine saw it. “Damn, of course. If they know that, then they’ll realize that the Ktor infiltrated corporations and government agencies on Earth. And each of those infiltrators probably recruited more than a hundred human collaborators. So the longer we stay here, with a Ktor spymaster-assassin now repatriated to one of his own ships, the better the chance they have to activate some sleeper cells that might be in the fleet.”
“Exactly. They are probably conjecturing what we already know: that the Ktor can create and control suicidal saboteurs, penetrate many of our data and intelligence networks, and exchange information between their operations cells faster than should be physically possible. Given a few days, they could pull some strings, change some files, and seed any diplomatic team we assemble with one or more of their own operatives. Which, depending upon how and where those operatives struck, could leave the Slaasriithi uncertain of how safe it is to deal with us at all.”
The intercom status panel flashed red. Downing jabbed the virtual button. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Sorry to interrupt your confab, Mr. Downing, but I have Senior Mentor Alnduul on secure three.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant. Patch him through.”
The compartment’s comm screen brightened, revealing the Dornaani’s back-sloping teardrop head and large eyes. Underneath his single nostril, his lamprey mouth was clenched tightly before he began to shape human words. “I have responded as soon as I was able, Richard Downing. I have already been apprised of the situation. The Slaasriithi ambassador, Yiithrii’ah’aash, contacted us as soon as Ferocious Monolith revealed its identity. They were unaware that any Ktoran ships were expected in the area, and were alarmed to learn that this one arrived so early. Frankly, I cannot fault the Slaasriithi’s reaction. But I also suspect they were less undecided about inviting a human delegation after meeting with you, Caine Riordan.”
“That sounds promising,” Downing observed.
“I agree. The Slaasriithi make decisions and act upon them at a much more leisurely pace than the other races of the Accord. For them to tender an inviation regardless of the current pressures says much about the impression Commander Riordan has made upon their leaders. But their acceleration of this diplomatic mission also signifies they fear the Ktor could undermine it. If you refuse to leave promptly, I believe they will withdraw their invitation. They no doubt wish to ensure that envoys from your species would be drawn from a pool of persons unlikely to have been subject to Ktoran influence.”
Caine leaned toward the Dornaani’s image. “That’s an interesting speculation, Alnduul. I don’t see how you could arrive at it unless you also presumed that the Slaasriithi have a strong suspicion—or know—that the Ktor are another branch of humanity and that therefore they could have infiltrated us earlier.”
Alnduul’s nictating eyelids cycled even more slowly this time. “I cannot comment on your conjecture, Caine Riordan. But the fundamental logic is inarguable.”
Huh: typical Dornaani. They manage to tell you you’re right without coming straight out and telling yo
u that you’re right. “Alnduul, am I correct in assuming that you believe it would be in our best interests to comply with the Slaasriithi request?” Which is to say, go completely unprepared?
One of Alnduul’s hands rose into view: his long fingers trailed like streamers in a sad, slow wind. “As a Custodian, I am unable to share my personal counsel on this matter. However, I have approached the on-site representative of the Dornaani Collective with a request that my ship, the Olsloov, be allowed to provide you with transport on your journey.” The end of his statement was abrupt, clipped. Among Dornaani, that was the equivalent of a pregnant pause.
Caine managed not to smile. Okay, so you’re willing to piss off your boss to try to get us a high-security ride to the Slaasriithis’ party. So, yes; you think it’s important that we go. “Thank you, Alnduul. I am unsure if you’re familiar with the human expression, ‘a wink is as good as a nod’?”
“I cannot recall hearing that expression,” said Alnduul. Who then nictated his left inner eyelid with uncharacteristic speed.
“Did he just wink?” whispered Downing.
“If not, he developed a very timely facial tic,” Caine replied.
Alnduul glanced off-screen. “I am summoned to discuss my request to transport you aboard the Olsloov.”
Downing nodded. “We’ll start making our preparations.”
Alnduul’s fingers made a gesture that somehow used the rotary motion of a pinwheel to impart an impression of a passing ocean swell. “I shall update you with all speed. Enlightenment unto you both.” The screen went dark.
Downing leaned back in his acceleration couch. “Well, now we have to find a Consul to send along with you as a plenipotentiary ambassador.”
“We’ll need a world-class technical expert as well. Thank God we’ve got Lemuel Wasserman traveling with the fleet.”
Raising Caine - eARC Page 5