The Kassa Gambit

by M. C. Planck

  This wasn’t the “look around” plan that they had agreed on. But Prudence didn’t say anything. She wanted those answers too.

  “If you injure me, an automatic alarm will dispatch law enforcement. You understand they will not hesitate to kill you, correct?” The monk was trying to put on a brave front, but even through the electronic distortion she could detect his quaver of fear.

  “You understand if they show up while we’re talking, you’ll be the first one dead, right?” Kyle shot back.

  The monk nodded, his mask rustling softly.

  “Good. Then as long as we understand each other, let’s have a little talk. But first—get rid of this.” He reached up and tore the mask off, in one quick action, before the monk had time to flinch.

  Prudence almost fainted. In the background she could hear Garcia swearing in shock. Incredibly, Kyle’s gun hand didn’t move a centimeter, even though she knew he had to be as stunned as the rest of them.

  Standing in front of them was a visibly terrified Veram Dejae.

  But this one was half the prime minister’s age.

  “Another Dejae!” Kyle barked sardonically. “Where do they all come from? Is there a factory somewhere?”

  The monk said nothing.

  “There is … not twins, but clones,” Kyle stuttered in disbelief. “There aren’t two Dejaes. There’s a whole planet of them!”

  “Cloning isn’t possible,” Prudence objected. It was one of those technologies that was always just around the corner. Every time they made an advance they discovered another critical detail they had overlooked. Like the minotaur’s maze, there were always more corners ahead.

  “Impossible for you,” the monk said.

  She was impressed that he could manage a sneer even while his lower lip trembled in fear.

  Kyle glared suspiciously. “What do you mean, for us?”

  “Our process only works on our genetic code. It won’t work for you.”

  “What are you talking about? You’re as human as I am.”

  Prudence understood. She explained aloud, so that the monk would know he couldn’t get away with half-truths.

  “He means they did it the hard way. By trial and error. They don’t know how to clone humans, they only know how to clone Veram Dejae. Brute force, not science.”

  Prudence knew she had scored a direct hit, because the monk didn’t say anything.

  Kyle shrugged his shoulders again. “But why? Why even bother?”

  “Why not?” snapped the monk. “The First Master, the original Dejae, recognized himself as the ultimate expression of genetics. Why not reproduce? Why not fill the galaxy with the best human, instead of with random genetic trash?”

  The arrogant insanity broke something in Garcia, who stopped swearing and bolted into the ship. Prudence could not tell if his flight was in horror or rage.

  “And the aliens? What part do they play in this lunatic scheme? Who is master, man or spider?” Kyle leaned in closer, with increasing menace.

  The monk didn’t retreat. His megalomania was greater than his fear. “Dejae is master, of course. Man is alone, and Veram Dejae is alone among men. The creatures you fear so much are merely our tools.”

  “But they weren’t good enough.” Prudence was thinking out loud. “You tried to brute-force their design, too, and it didn’t work. You knew the spiders couldn’t take the galaxy by strength alone. So you sent clones out into the okimune, to control RDC, and Altair, and Earth knows where else.”

  Poor little gods. Like the cargo-handling machines, none of their creations could quite live up to their expectations. Everything they made was only a shadow of the genius they had claimed for themselves.

  “But why? What is all of this for?” Kyle still didn’t understand.

  Prudence did. Kyle could not see it. But she had seen Strattenburg, and after that her eyes had been opened to the depths of narcissism that still lived in men’s souls. Prudence could comprehend the scope of their plan, the madness that made different a capital crime. She had seen it firsthand, breathed the wreath of murderous genocidal smoke.

  “They want Altair, Kyle. Professor Jandi told me that Altair was like a vat. A blank medium you could grow any kind of human on. That’s why it’s so rich, so populated. And that’s why the clones want Altair.”

  She saw the realization creep over his face.

  “Fifty million Dejaes…”

  “You’re spoiled,” the monk said. “You treat Altair like your private park. That planet could support fifty billion humans. With a hundred times as much luxury as we have here.”

  “That wouldn’t leave room for any non-Dejaes,” Prudence said. Because she knew that narcissists could never share.

  “We’re not going to murder them,” the monk said contemptuously. “We’re not savages.”

  Kyle growled. “No, you’ll just squeeze them out. The League is just another one of your tools. You’ll use the League to squeeze humanity into a coffin, and then you’ll throw the League in after them and nail it shut.” He had finally found the secret he had been looking for, but Prudence didn’t think he was happy about it.

  “And the aliens are the tool you use to control the League. There will be other attacks, on other planets. More people will die, and more planets will join the League. The war against the spiders will go on and on and on, until there’s nothing left of the governments that took up arms in self-preservation. No matter how much power the League gets, the attacks will continue, so they’ll ask for—and receive—even more power. Until they have it all. Then you can institute population controls, or diseases, or whatever you want, until there aren’t any native humans left at all.” Kyle was doing his interrogation thing, where he laid out a plan so cleverly that the criminal wanted to claim ownership of it. She’d seen him do it to Garcia during one of their card games.

  The monk shrugged. “It’s worked before.”

  “Not this time. You didn’t plan on us.”

  “What are you going to do?” The monk seemed genuinely curious. “You must know that the minute you leave this planet, I will report you, and you’ll never make it to the node. If you kill me now, then you won’t even break atmosphere before they shoot you down.”

  “What if we take you with us?” Prudence asked.

  “Fuck that,” Garcia shouted, coming down the loading ramp.

  Prudence swore under her breath. He had the splattergun again, and he was drunk as hell.

  “Fuck that. Let’s just kill the Earth-damned thing right now.” Garcia stumbled closer, raising the gun to his shoulder.

  “Garcia, put that down!” she ordered.

  “It’s not even human, Pru! It’s a goddamn clone, and it killed Kassa, and it called me and you and everybody in the whole universe genetic trash!”

  Prudence chose to overlook the fact that Garcia had called Jorgun that very same thing not too long ago. Probably that was exactly why Garcia was so angry. “He is human, and he’s not lying. He hasn’t lied to us yet, Garcia. He’s not lying about the automatic alarm.”

  “Then why hasn’t he triggered it? Why aren’t they already here?”

  The monk spoke down his nose at Garcia. “Our society, like any other, attaches different values to different individuals. Being young, I am not particularly highly ranked at this time. Thus, they will not negotiate for my life.”

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Garcia glared at everyone.

  Kyle answered. “It means if he trips the alarm, they’ll show up, shoot everything that moves, and sort out the bodies later. It’s how police forces without oversight tend to operate.”

  “Exactly,” agreed the monk. “And for the same reason, you cannot take me on your ship. They would detect my leaving the planet and simply destroy your vessel.”

  “The alarm isn’t in there just to protect you, is it,” Prudence said to him. “It’s there to stop you from running away, too.”

  Again, the monk said nothing.

  “It�
��s a Mexican standoff,” Garcia said, and then he laughed. “You know how you break a Mexican standoff?”

  “Garcia, I don’t even know what a Mexican is,” she said wearily. From now on she was going to ration his liquor. She couldn’t take these wild mood swings anymore.

  “I’ll tell you how, Pru. You get yourself one crazy-assed motherfucker of a Mexican. You give him a bottle and a gun, and then you run like hell.”

  “We can’t do that.” Kyle was disagreeing with the plan, and Prudence hadn’t even figured out there was one.

  “You know I’m crazy, right?” Garcia was talking to the monk. “You know I’m drunk enough to do something really goddamned stupid, right?”

  “Yes,” the monk answered. “I believe you capable of the most irrational behavior.”

  “Jorgun.” For the first time Garcia’s voice was commanding, not arguing. “Get me another bottle. Then get Pru on the ship, and get out of here. You’ve got until I fall asleep or the bottle empties. I hope it’s enough.”

  Their roles reversed, Prudence found herself suddenly trying to wheedle. “Garcia—we can’t leave you here. They’ll kill you.”

  “Not necessarily,” the monk said. “He’s pliable, and too stupid to lie. They may simply enslave him.”

  The monk was already beginning his negotiations, already trying to talk Garcia into putting down the gun and making a deal. The monk was sober, brilliant, and armed with facts. He would con any ordinary man out of the gun thirty seconds after the ship was out of sight.

  But this wasn’t any ordinary man. This was Garcia.

  “I’ll tell ’em everything, Pru. You know that. In the end I’ll tell them all your secrets. But not until the bottle is empty. I owe you that much.”

  Her vision was getting blurry. There were tears in her eyes.

  She wanted to thank him. For the first time since she had seen him getting beaten up in that tawdry bar back on Antonio, suffering the results of a complex con he was too drunk to pull off, she wanted to grab his big brown head and kiss him.

  But she couldn’t. Garcia was doing his own negotiations, playing his own part. He had to make the monk think he would give in, like any sane person would. He had to stall, just on the edge of surrender, for as long as he could. He had to look like the weak, pathetic, incorrigibly dishonest human being he had been for his entire life.

  Prudence couldn’t wreck that by treating him like a hero, even while he was being one. She couldn’t trust herself to say anything. She watched Jorgun, white-faced with confusion and fear, hand Garcia the bottle. Then she walked away.

  “We can’t do this, Prudence!” Kyle seemed frozen in place, unable to move.

  “Do you have any better ideas?” she snapped, without turning around. Without stopping.

  “Get the fuck out of here, dummy. And you too, Jorgun.” Garcia laughed wildly again. “Go, motherfucker, or I’ll shoot you myself!” Screaming rage followed his mirth without pause.

  Prudence knew he wasn’t merely acting. Garcia had a lifetime’s worth of rage to carry him through the next few hours. And Prudence had a lifetime’s worth of practice in running away.

  Openly crying, she ran up the loading ramp.

  The bridge was cold and austere. In her command chair, she could function without emotion.

  Jorgun sat quietly at his console, afraid and uncertain.

  She didn’t bother to ask about Kyle. Either he had come aboard, or he hadn’t. There was nothing she could do about it.

  “Requesting permission to depart.” Amazing how steady her voice was. Amazing that she had said those words, and not what she was feeling.

  Requesting permission to abandon my family to certain death.

  The automated control system gave her an exit vector. She let the Ulysses follow it, even while she argued with the machines.

  “I’m carrying no cargo. Give me a vector that wastes less time in-system.”

  Cursing, she saw that the machines on Monterey had already taken that into account.

  It was harder to not cry when she didn’t have anything to do.

  Ten minutes, and they were out of the atmosphere. It seemed like hours. How long had it seemed for Garcia?

  A light on her console. Another ship, making contact. She sat, paralyzed with fear, unable to respond.

  The console relayed the message anyway.

  “This is the Altair patrol boat Launceston, hailing the Ulysses. Acknowledge, please.” Captain Stanton’s voice washed over her like the dregs of an incomprehensible dream. Did he follow her around from disaster to disaster, like some tardy herald of woe?

  “This is the Ulysses,” she answered, feeling unreal. “Captain Falling speaking.”

  “May we ask if Altair is on your current itinerary, Captain?”

  It was the kind of question that had only one answer.

  “I think we could arrange that, Captain. Is there something you’d like us to deliver?”

  “We have a surveying report we’d like to send back. Nothing exciting, but regulations are regulations. You can collect a moderate payment for it, of course.” The report would be a cryptographically sealed data pod. Fleet vessels scattered these little pods all over the local sector. Theoretically it was a backup system, in case the ship in question disappeared. Since no Fleet vessel had ever disappeared, Prudence was pretty sure they used the capsules as a way to smoke out who could be trusted and who couldn’t. She’d never been tempted to crack one of the pods, since she was positive it would just contain a note that said something pithy like “Espionage doesn’t pay.”

  “We’d be happy to oblige you. Can you meet us at the halfway point?” They would have to match velocities to do a physical exchange. If they did it halfway to the node, she could still pick up enough velocity to make the trip on the other side in a reasonable amount of time.

  “Negative, Captain. We’re not at the Solistar node. We just came over from X785-C844.”

  The dead node. The one that led to Kassa. Going that way would get them back to Altair in one less hop. She had just enough fuel to get there, running without cargo.

  “Captain … was it quiet over there?”

  “Dead as a doornail. That’s why they call them dead nodes.” Stanton’s voice was not suited to mockery. Then she realized he wasn’t mocking. He knew, and he knew she knew, there was reason to suspect what others took for granted. They had both been at Kassa.

  There were monsters hiding in the dark places, after all.

  “Captain Stanton, have you cleared,” she beat at her screen, pulling up a node-chart, “X784-D12?”

  “Where? Oh, you mean the inward link?” Inward was an arbitrary designation that meant “toward home.” It wasn’t the kind of term tramp freighters used. “Yes, we came from there. If you wanted to go to Kassa, it would be a short trip.”

  “That suits our plans perfectly, Captain Stanton. I’m contacting Traffic Control now and informing them of our course change. We hadn’t considered it before, because of the risk. But if you say it’s safe, then we can shave a hop off our trip.”

  They were oh-so-careful to talk in generalities, to explain everything in simple terms. It was a tight comm beam, and encrypted to standard privacy, but both of them were assuming they were being overheard.

  “We can do better than merely say it’s safe, Captain Falling. Our mission takes us back the same way, so we can go through with you, if you’d like.”

  Would she like to be escorted by a fusion-powered warship? Would a girl like to be escorted to the dance by the captain of the football team? “That would be very generous, Captain.”

  “I’m sending you the latest orbital data, for both nodes. Pick your optimal transit velocity, Captain. We’ll match you.”

  That was potentially a lot of fuel Stanton was willing to expend to make her life convenient. She hoped it was merely because he was trying to impress her, like lonely men in deep space often did, and not because he was worried about something dire.
r />   Monterey Traffic Control was not happy. The machines beeped and complained, threatening her with fines for filing false course information. She brushed them off. Free navigation was still the law.

  There was a pause in the warnings, and then they went away. That might mean that a human being had taken charge, or it might mean the machines had exhausted their limited threats.

  A human being. There was one down there right now, on the planet, making this all possible. She put her hands to her eyes, to hold back the feelings that poured through her.

  “Anything?” Kyle asked softly, from the entrance to the bridge. She didn’t know how long he had been standing there.

  “No.” No news was good news.

  “Remarkable that the Launceston showed up,” Kyle mused. “Nice to see an old friend.”

  “They’re not my friends.”

  Kyle grinned. She could tell by the sound of his voice. “One thing I can tell you after my two weeks on the Launceston is that Stanton is as anti-League as it is possible to be, and still hold a commission in Fleet. He’s a friend to both of us.”

  “Why are they here, Kyle?” It was too suspicious to let go of.

  “For the same reason we are, Prudence. Fleet isn’t stupid. There are too many threads pointing this way. Stanton is out here looking for clues.”

  Stanton came back on the line. “Captain Falling, we’ve examined your course, and we feel it would be best to handle the delivery on the other side of the node, if that’s acceptable to you.”

  Apparently Stanton found Monterey system as unpleasant as she did. She doubted his opinion would be improved by learning that the planet was crawling with genocidal clones.

  “Of course, Captain. We’ll see you on the other side, then.”

  “Acknowledged, Ulysses. We’ll match with you after exit, while you’re doing your cross-system flight. Give you more time to adapt, if there are any problems. Regulations require commercial vessels to try and avoid course corrections during node approaches.”

  “Understood, Launceston.” Stanton and his regulations. For once she appreciated them, knowing how handy they might be in the next few hours.