Crisis

by David Drake

  “Are you sure they were killed in the station, and not brought here?” Travers asked. He could not help but be distracted by the evil, sliding odor of the corpses.

  “Who’d bring those things into the station?” Goro demanded. “And why? What would be the point?”

  Travers sighed and nodded. “What would be the point,” he echoed, having no answer to give to such a sensible question. “Well, let housekeeping attend to it. I suppose I ought to talk to the Waxy Tarnhelms.” That meant girding up for the surface and arranging for transportation to the nearest Waxy Tarnhelm settlement. “Tell Chambulo that he’ll have to be prepared to wire up a buggy for me with a translator, and have one of his best men come with me for the driving.” He did not want to go out there. He did not want to go near a Tarnhelm again in his life.

  “How soon?” Goro inquired, looking up as housekeeping arrived. “Over there. You’ll need masks.”

  Only one of the three housekeeping staff pretended to be amused, though when Croydon arrived a few minutes later, he burst out in grating laughter.

  * * *

  The ride onto the Waxy Tarnhelm butte took most of the afternoon, ruined two complete sets of tires, and broke one of the fuel bars. By the time they arrived at the Waxy Tarnhelm settlement, Travers ached all over; he was so tired he had trouble extricating himself from the buggy, and he found it more trying than usual to be courteous with the Tarnhelms.

  “Waxy Seventeen,” he said to the first Tarnhelm to greet him, hoping he had read the fan markings correctly.

  “He/he says ‘What are you doing here, miserable smear of offal,’” said Bingham, the translator.

  “How pleasant to see you, too,” Travers murmured, then did his best to be diplomatic. “Is the senior Waxy Tarnhelm willing to speak with me?”

  “He/he is at his/his fourth meal,” Bingham translated.

  “I will wait until he/he has finished,” said Travers, glad that he was traditionally excluded from dining with the Tarnhelms. It was bad enough watching them make a snack of uglies. He signaled to Bingham to follow him. “Keep your eyes open; I’ll want a report later.”

  They had completed three circuits of the camp when the senior Waxy Tarnhelm came from his/his slag heap of a dwelling, cleaning his facial tusks. “It is a surprising thing to see you here,” he/he said through Bingham, who added, “and I don’t think he/he likes surprises.”

  “Naturally,” said Travers. “Senior Tarnhelm,” he said, hoping his voice would not crack with fear, “tell me: have any of your number remained behind at my station?”

  “Why would you want to know this?” demanded the senior Waxy Tarnhelm, clearly offended.

  “Curiosity,” said Travers, trying to be nonchalant in his style. “You might have wanted to learn more about us. We must appear strange to you.”

  “Some he/shes are there, of course,” said the senior Waxy Tarnhelm, clearly unconcerned with so obvious an answer.

  “Will you tell me how many, and–” Travers began, only to be stopped short.

  “Nothing is revealed.”

  That was the most obvious truth to Travers, who made another sally but with plummeting nerve. “Just some he/shes?”

  “The he/shes have been.” Again the same unpleasant sound, but no indication of shock or insult.

  “They have,” said Travers with a steadiness that amazed himself. “I was not aware of them. Had I known they were to be our guests–”

  “They were not guests. They were in readiness.” He/he indicated the sky where the nighttime thunderstorm was charging up. “All is in readiness.”

  The fragile hope Travers had clung to all the way up the butte failed him. He lowered his head, trying to think of something he could say without giving way to defeat. “What do you mean?” He had read a theory that the Waxy Tarnhelms migrated, though no one had been able to prove it in spite of many attempts at it. He said a forlorn little prayer to something out in the darkness to let this be about Tarnhelm migrations, nothing worse. “How in readiness?” he asked, as offhandedly as he could.

  “For departure.” The senior Waxy Tarnhelm made a gesture that Travers was certain was rude, then issued several short, determined orders.

  “I think we’re expected to go now, Manager Travers,” said Bingham, who was definitely frightened. “Right now.”

  “Is it that drastic?” asked Travers, wanting to flee, to fling himself off the butte just to get away.

  “Yes.” He was already levering himself into the buggy, struggling with the harness as Travers clambered in beside him. “I can’t bear those things,” he said as soon as the buggy doors were secure. “I hate them.”

  “So do I,” said Travers wearily, leaning his head against the body harness. He glanced back to see over two dozen of the Waxy Tarnhelms hovering around the place where the buggy had been only seconds ago. He frowned as he watched them. “Did you notice any he/shes or she/shes?”

  “I don’t know the difference,” said Bingham. “It has something to do with the color of the spines, doesn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Travers.

  “They could have been ... somewhere else? Indoors maybe, or at another one of the settlements?” He was not driving as well as when they had come up the mountain: the buggy rattled and shook and jolted its way toward the valley where the station waited.

  “Yes.” Travers knew he had to notify his superiors at once, though he shrank from the task.

  They rode in silence for a while. Then Bingham said what had been on his mind. “They’ve already got out, haven’t they, sir.”

  Travers sighed. “Yes.”

  * * *

  “I don’t know how I can tell you how dangerous it is,” said Travers uncertainly as he stared at Hylander’s enormous face. “Having the Tarnhelms out, that is.”

  “Ungoverned, savage killers, you mean? Without blood contracts to hold them? Oh, I have some notion, yes I do,” said Hylander, his voice cutting more than his posture of outrage. “Is it too much to ask how many are gone?”

  “Yes, and too much to ask where,” said Travers. “But I know they went on the supply ships, which means they have some way to get past the mass detectors as well as our other inspections.” There was another alternative, but he could not bring himself to suggest it.

  “And what if someone at the station is doing it, what then?” asked Hylander. “Or hasn’t that crossed your mind?”

  Travers did not answer at once. “No, it didn’t cross my mind, not at first. I thought about the Syndicate and the Tarnhelms themselves. I thought about possible rivals whom we haven’t identified, I thought about the people here last because they are part of the family. I don’t like to think that any member of another family would be so foolish as to unleash the Tarnhelms on the Syndicate. That is why I was reluctant to think about the staff here.” He met the ferocious eyes in the screen as directly as he could. “I wanted to think that we were a little bit better than the rest of them. Then it wouldn’t be so bad that I wasn’t quite as good. It would average out.” He got up from the couch and walked away from the screen, apparently unaware of how very rude he was being.

  Hylander stood stupefied by what Travers said. “The strain has been too much for you,” he said at last, his head shaking with disbelief.

  “Yes, I think it probably has been too much,” said Travers. “This planet, this station is too much.” He wandered over to the port and looked out at the lurid reflections in the clouds as lightning clawed through them. He remained silent, then said, “You know, they have shadows, the Tarnhelms. You can’t see them, but they do cast shadows. You ought to remember that.”

  “Travers?” Hylander’s voice was no longer able to inspire fear in Travers. He came back to the screen. “What are you doing?”

  “Arranging my evening. We’re having a going away party for Croydon. He said once he’d do anything to get out of here. It seems he was telling the truth when he said it.” He came and stood before Hylander. “Better wa
rn the Family Father that he’s got a problem he’s going to have the devil’s own time getting rid of.”

  Hylander was beginning to look worried. “Listen to me, Travers. You’ve been there a long time, and you know a great deal about the Tarnhelms. It might be best if we bring you here and–”

  “I don’t think so,” said Travers, feeling absurdly calm. Well, he thought, I am either completely sane or completely mad for the first time in my life. “You’ve had me for decades , and now it’s over.” He sighed. “I am going to dress for high tea, I am going to congratulate my treasonous proctor, and then, when I’ve got good and drunk, I’m going outside for a midnight stroll.”

  “You can’t be serious,” Hylander protested, his features going plum color with distress and making his pale hair visible. “Why, you can’t do that. You’re not allowed to do that.”

  “Yes, I can. I’ve done my time with the Tarnhelms. Now you can do yours.” He gave a last gesture of farewell, doing it gracefully for the first time, and turned off the receiver screen.

  DURING the period of relative calm between the fall of Khalia and the titanic space battle that marked the real beginning of the war between the Alliance and the Syndicate of Families, both sides prepared feverishly. The Alliance knew only that they were facing a major human power of unknown strength. As always Fleet strategists planned for the worst. The Families had spent years studying the Alliance, and were only too aware of the Fleet’s strength.

  During this time the Syndicate devoted most of its intelligence efforts to delaying the Fleet buildup at Target and to sabotage. Thousands of humans were arrested on the suspicion that they were Syndicate agents. A frightening number were actually guilty, making those responsible for counterintelligence wonder just how badly the Alliance had been infiltrated. During this same period, much effort was expended locating and confirming the Syndicate worlds.

  Among the more heroic actions set in this period was the defense of Monitor Post D3487, a small base that had the misfortune to be on the most commonly used route used by Syndicate ships for clandestine entry into Alliance space. The saga of their three-day holdout against overwhelming attack was retold on every omni station for days. Four members of the staff received posthumous Spiral Galaxies, the Fleet’s highest award for valor under fire.

  No one could have ordered the personnel of Monitor Post D3487 to make their suicidal stand; in the final reckoning such a decision must be made by the individuals involved.

  And in every war, there are many individual decisions with wide-ranging effects ...

  AFTERWARD we learned that it had been a feint. The Syndicate command hoped it would make Admiral Duane concentrate his attention on Target, leaving the way to Khalia relatively clear when their real task force arrived. The naval histories record how she declined the gambit. They say little about how we who were at Target beat off that initial attack. Our detachment was small, the enemy’s no larger. It became a minor battle, remembered mostly because the Syndics, withdrawing, joined the main fray at a critical moment and very nearly brought victory to their side.

  Well, be it major or incidental, after an engagement the wounds hurt equally and the dead are down in the same darkness. We must keep station, pending new orders, but since there was no further imminent danger, we went about the grim business of cleanup. I was in our flagship, the light cruiser Aubourg. Her screenfields and interceptors had worked perfectly, saving her from all damage. Casualties elsewhere necessitated redistribution of officers among auxiliary units. Still amazed at being alive and whole, I found myself in charge of a frigate sent forth to search around.

  From the pilot cabin, I could at first see no trace left by war. Even a single planetary system is too big. At its distance the sun was hardly more than a blue-white spark, brightest of the stars that thronged the black. Silence enclosed me, inhuman peace.

  The intercom broke it: “Large metallic object detected” and figures for position and velocity. “Probable ship section, likeliest off one of theirs.”

  My heart banged. “Close in,” I directed. “Try to establish communication. Be prepared for possible hostile action. In that case, respond initially with solid missiles.” Bulkheads and self-sealing hull might well contain air, living personnel, and some working armament.

  “Question, sir,” came from another post. “Lieutenant Holland speaking. Shouldn’t we go after men of ours first? Let those bastards wait.”

  I heard my own words as cold as the thought behind them. “In principle, an excellent idea. In practice, though, that may after all be a piece of a Fleet vessel. Besides, let me remind everybody that I am an officer of Intelligence. We know much less about the enemy than we should, prisoners are still our major source of information, and we do have other units conducting salvage. That’s why I don’t want any survivors who resist simply nuked. We’Il take them alive if we can, and bring them back to Aubourg before resuming operations.” I paused. “You need not be unreasonably gentle with them.”

  “Yes, sir. I understand now.” I realized that what had surprised Holland, and maybe the rest, was less the instruction than the source. I made no bones about my hatred of the foe. It had caused arguments in my mess. The general feeling was that the Syndics were, at least, human, not Khalian. Commander Fujikawa actually maintained that by their lights they were warring in a just cause, for their society and its values.

  To hell with such bleat.

  We boosted cautiously toward rendezvous. Presently we made contact. Yes, it was a fragment of a cruiser that our fire had reached. Twenty-five men and several corpses were inside. Their senior officer gave surrender. He was fluent in our language, though his accent made it a trifle hard to follow. However, exhaustion and grief speak a universal tongue.

  Good, I thought. That can be taken advantage of. “You outnumber us,” I said. “Therefore you will do precisely as you are told. Be warned, at the slightest suspicion of treachery we will blast the lot of you.”

  “I swear we are helpless–”

  “That is as it should be. Stand by for further orders.” I cut him off and let him think about my tone of voice.

  The objective hove in sight, a great curving shell, wanly agleam in starlight except where the metal lay bubbled and blackened. When the ship burst asunder, this compartment had separated cleanly; but scraps tumbled everywhere around, broken and twisted. Some had been alive a few hours earlier. The part that remained more or less intact was indeed unarmed; with a thrill along my spine, I recognized it as the central control section. Oh, our tech boys would be busy dissecting! It was not unscathed, of course. Blobs of sealer marked where shards had sleeted through. This, and the shock wave from the explosion, accounted for the dead inboard. Without treatment for radiation, their comrades would soon join them.

  It tasted foul, that Fleet people might float too long in space and die that wretched death because I ferried a clot of Syndics to sickbay. But what we could learn from them might in the long run save more Fleet lives, and cost more enemy. Duty is duty.

  Our boat matched velocities. Two men suited up and secured a gang tube between airlocks. At our end waited a squad with firearms, nightsticks, and lengths of cord. As each foeman entered, they seized him, bound his wrists, and hustled him off to the hold. Only then did they allow the next one to proceed. After they finished, I sent three in full armor, bearing rapid-fire weapons and grenades, to ransack the shell and make sure.

  Not that I really awaited trouble. Most of the newcomers moved like ill-made robots, empty-eyed, dazed. Dried blood smeared faces. A few got roughed up when they didn’t respond to commands that should have been obvious whether or not they knew the language–till an old, hand among us said quietly, “Sir, they’re deaf. Ruptured eardrums.” I heard later that what he saw caused the youngest member of my search party to vomit in his helmet.

  The last man out was the senior, tall, gaunt, gray-haired. Somehow he kept his shoulders straight, and he had thrown a dress tunic over his combat fa
tigues. At sight of that forlorn dignity, my pulse leaped. He bore vice admiral’s insignia and a triple row of service ribbons. We’d caught us a big fish.

  I signed my squad to hold off. “Don’t tie him,” I said, and, hypocritically, “he rates respect.”

  His lips quirked, a gallows smile. “I do rank you, Lieutenant Commander–”

  “McClellan,” I supplied. “You shall have the honors of war, provided you conduct yourself as befits your status.” Make clear immediately who was boss.

  “My men?”

  “Confining them is a necessary precaution, but they will not be mistreated. We observe the rules of civilization.” I turned to my second officer. “Take over, Mr. Srinavasan. While the prize is being checked out, have its orbit determined precisely and beam a report to Captain Yuan. Then, if I haven’t returned, start back to Aubourg. I will be in my office with Admiral Godolphin.”

  My orderly followed the two of us, a pistol at his hip. It wasn’t needful. I could readily subdue my Syndic, after what he’d been through. Nevertheless he walked firmly. “You know the family emblems,” he remarked.

  I nodded. The symbol shone proud on his breast. “It’s my business, that sort of thing.”

  “Interrogation already? You might allow me rest, if not a wash and a change of clothes.” I heard neither self-pity nor appeal, but scorn, and felt an irrational need to explain.

  “Not much available on a boat, and when we get to the ship shortly, you and your men will go straight under medical care. Since you are capable of coherent speech, I’m taking the opportunity while it lasts.”