Empire & Ecolitan

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  Jimjoy looked over at the young woman, about to answer. Then he closed his mouth.

  “You don’t lie, either, exactly. You never let anyone know everything if you can help it.”

  “You may be right.” He did not look at her, but at the navigational plot, which showed the Darmetier had finally coasted in behind the bulk of Permana. “Strap in again.”

  Luren said nothing, but he could hear the rustle of the harness and the shifting of weight.

  “You ready?”

  “I’m fine, Major.”

  Jimjoy did not argue about the title, but touched the stud to start the preprogrammed decel. The pressure pushed him into his seat, and the blackness narrowed his vision to a tunnel that kept trying to close in on him. He fought it until the pressure eased.

  Cling.

  He shook his head to concentrate, and was rewarded with an increasing throbbing in his temples as he studied the board, noting the postjump entrance of another ship in the Accord system. He began to calculate its inbound path against the standard parameters.

  The throbbing eased fractionally as he realized the inbound ship was Accordan and on course for Accord proper.

  “Unidentified ship. Unidentified ship. This is Nader Base. This is Nader Base. Standing by for your arrival. Do you need medical assistance? Do you need medical assistance?”

  Jimjoy nodded in response to the inquiry, but made no move to respond.

  He continued to check the plot screen, trying to calculate whether he needed to step up the decel before the ship cleared the section of transit blocking a direct screen from Accord. Finally he stabbed the override and was jolted back farther into the shell.

  “…uuuffffff…” Luren protested.

  He eased up on the extra decel and checked the parameters for near orbit around the moon. Given the six-hundred-kay diameter of Thalos, the orbit would have to be close indeed.

  As he touched the controls again, the Darmetier shivered, once…twice…

  “Unidentified ship, unidentified ship—”

  “Nader Base, Nader…tier…medical…say again…med…stance…arrival ten…”

  “This is Nader Base. Nader Base. Say again. Say again.”

  Jimjoy ignored the request. The base had already picked up the burst of power from the Darmetier, which would pinpoint the ship’s location.

  He was gambling that the Ecolitans would notify the Institute by their own courier, but not the Imperial orbit control station off Accord. From what he had seen on his guided tours of Accord, the Ecolitans, even plain local citizens, tried to avoid letting the Empire know anything.

  With a mirthless smile, he monitored the last stages of his near powerless approach to the airless moon that orbited Permana, the fourth planet of the Accord system, and home to an Ecolitan mining-and-research operation.

  “Ohhhh…” The gasp came from Luren as he called up the front visual. Thalos filled nearly a quarter of the main screen.

  As she took in the view, Jimjoy scanned the board. The courier’s EDI detection system was picking up energy sources—both in space and on the satellite itself. Those from the satellite were barely detectable, something he might have expected, given the Ecolitans’ consciousness of energy usage.

  He frowned as he studied the two point sources in space, in orbit around Thalos, each roughly one-third of an orbit from the other, indicating the possibility of a third identical source.

  Needleboats! With their only use that of space-to-space combat, the majority of Imperial needleboats were in storage. Those on his screens appeared marginally different. Why would the Accordans be using needleboats? And where had they obtained them?

  Pushing those questions away, he focused on the delicate last stages of his manual approach, trying to use the last of his power to establish a generally stable orbit and hoping that the Ecolitans would ask questions first.

  The sweat beaded up on his forehead. He wiped it clean with his forearm, not taking his eyes off the screens and the readouts before him.

  “Gentle…now…power…” The words slipped from his lips as he tried to fuse with the board, fingers adjusting, correcting, using the minimal power available, as if each erg were the last the courier possessed. He had already dropped all the screens and cut off the internal grav field.

  “There!” He sat back, bouncing in his straps in the null gee, then wiped his forehead and leaned forward to reestablish a minimal gee in the courier for as long as the energy lasted. He took a deep breath and relaxed. But only for an instant.

  “All right. Let’s suit up.”

  “Suit up?”

  “Right. We’ll put Kordel and the Lieutenant into the bubble sled.” He looked at her. “Before very long, someone will be here, and we’ll need to be ready. They certainly aren’t about to let an Imperial ship close to their base, even if the Darmetier were able to land.”

  “Darmetier?”

  “Name of the courier.” He was in his suit, except for the helmet, before she was halfway suited. While she finished, he located the bubble sled in one of the lockers next to the lock.

  Then he checked Kordel. The man lay on the bunk, still staring blankly at the overhead, still wearing the harness straps. From there Jimjoy went back to the control area, where the Imperial Lieutenant was beginning to toss, as if the stun charges were wearing off. The last thing the woman’s nervous system needed was another stun or drugs. He sighed and tied a makeshift blindfold over her face. Her hands and feet were still bound.

  She might be rather uncomfortable, but for some perverse reason, he didn’t want to hurt anyone he didn’t have to, no matter what Luren and Thelina thought. Besides, the woman hadn’t done anything wrong, except be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Turning back to the main corridor, he found Luren suited, except for her helmet. “Turn around.”

  As she did, he checked over the suit connections, and found everything in place.

  Clang.

  “Our rescuers have arrived.”

  “Are they our rescuers?”

  “Hope so.”

  He moved to the lock controls, and touched the stud to open the outer door. Through the narrow vision port he watched as two green-suited figures edged in. Both wore holstered hand weapons of an unfamiliar design.

  He closed the outer lock and waited for the pressure to equalize, then cracked the inner door.

  Despite the protection of her suit, Luren shivered as the cold air poured into the corridor.

  Jimjoy said nothing, waiting with his empty hands in full view of the Ecolitans as the pair stepped inside the courier.

  The taller one opened his faceplate. “You don’t look that disabled.”

  “Not in the conventional sense,” answered Jimjoy. “But I can assure you that both you and I would suffer a great deal if we had been forced to make Accord orbit control.”

  At the word “suffer,” the first Ecolitan shifted weight and put a suit gauntlet on the butt of the holstered hand weapon.

  “Refugees, then? You know we’ll have to turn you back to the Empire, particularly if you mutinied and took the courier.”

  “We didn’t exactly mutiny, since we weren’t the crew. And I think you’ll be in deep trouble if you act without contacting the Institute. You might check with an Ecolitan I once knew there. Andruz…Thelina Andruz.”

  “Who are you?”

  Jimjoy grinned raggedly, belatedly recalling that he had told the man in the green suit nothing. “Sorry about that. Been a long time without much rest. My name is Wright. Jimjoy Wright. Guess you’d have to call me either a defector or a traitor, depending on your viewpoint.”

  He gestured toward Luren. “Can’t the inquisition wait? Her…husband is lashed in the crewroom with deep-space shock trauma, and there’s a rather angry Imperial Lieutenant trussed up and about ready to wake up in the control area. Luren here hasn’t had much more than a few hours’ sleep in the past four days.”

  “You still haven’t explained why
we shouldn’t summon the Imperial Service.” The Ecolitan’s voice was cold and tired.

  His silent companion had said nothing.

  “Oh, that…it’s really rather simple. You could execute me yourself—”

  “No…” The involuntary cry came from Luren, who immediately closed her mouth.

  “—but you might have a rather difficult time explaining why an Imperial courier with a defecting Major from the Special Operative section of Imperial Intelligence showed up near Accord with a commandeered courier. Even if you turn all three of us over. And you might have an even harder time with the Institute if you got rid of me without at least consulting with them. And last, if you insist on getting rid of us, how are you any better than the Impies?”

  Jimjoy shrugged, then added, “And by the way, Luren and Kordel are the last survivors of the Imperial massacre on New Kansaw. You might find what they have to say about Imperial tactics and kindliness interesting.”

  Cling.

  Jimjoy recognized the sound.

  “Hold on. The grav’s going, and we’ll be down to emergency lights and no ventilation.”

  “Going?” asked the Ecolitan.

  “We didn’t exactly have a lot of power to play with, friend. Less than I thought…”

  As the courier lapsed into weightlessness, the onetime Imperial Intelligence officer squinted, tried to hold back the blackness as the corridor swirled around him. Tried to hold on, to argue for Luren and Kordel, for himself, and for Accord. And failed.

  The blackness of deep space swallowed his awareness.

  XLIX

  “SIT DOWN, COMMANDER.” The Intelligence Service Commander looked at the Admiral. A hint of a faint and sad smile flickered around the corner of his lips. He inclined his head, as if to ask where.

  “Over there,” added the Admiral, jabbing a long finger at the single straight-backed chair.

  The Commander sat, gingerly, as if the chair represented a trap into which he was being forced to place himself.

  “Commander Allard V. Hersnik, under the regulations of the Service, I regretfully must inform you that this gathering represents the initial Board of Inquiry to investigate your handling and conduct of the events leading to the destruction of the Service Base at New Kansaw, with the loss of life of more than twelve thousand souls. Indirectly, your actions may have contributed to the extensive damage suffered by the New Kansaw orbit control facility, and to the loss of His Imperial Majesty’s Ship Darmetier.

  “All proceedings here will be recorded on tamperproof vitraspool, but will remain under seal, due to the extremely sensitive nature of the material to be discussed. The findings of this Board will constitute a recommendation to the Admiral of the Fleets for disposition of the case.

  “Anything you say will be retained for review by the Admiral. Likewise, while in any future review proceeding, should there be one, you may elaborate upon any testimony you provide today, you may not introduce new evidence unless you can prove it was not known to you today.”

  The Admiral paused before continuing. “Are these conditions understood?”

  The Commander in the straight-backed chair swallowed. “Yes, Admiral. Perfectly clear.”

  “Then let us begin.” The Admiral nodded at the Legal Services Commander to his left. “Commander Legirot will serve as your counsel as well as satisfy the requirement that at least one member of the proceedings be of equivalent rank to the Service member under inquiry.”

  The Vice Admiral to the Admiral’s right straightened in his seat.

  “Vice Admiral M’tabuwe will serve as the Presiding Officer, and I will act as Inquestor.”

  Commander Hersnik’s eyes ran from the dark-skinned Vice Admiral, clearly just promoted and quite junior to the Inquestor, to the Legal Services Commander and back to the silver-blond Admiral with the light and penetrating voice.

  “May we hear the nature of the charges?” asked Commander Legirot, his deep bass voice drawing out each word.

  “The charges are as follows:

  “First, failing to recognize and report unauthorized actions in a subordinate officer under the inquiree’s command—a violation of Code Section 4004(b).

  “Second, by not reporting such actions, becoming an accessory after the fact in a criminal action, that action being the murder of a Service officer in the performance of his duty—a violation of Code Section 5020(a).

  “Third, by returning said subordinate officer to a field assignment without proper debriefings, medical examinations, and loyalty evaluations, allowing an Imperial command to be hazarded and lost—a violation of Code Section 6001.

  “Fourth, ordering the elimination of an Imperial officer under emergency provisions of the Anti-Espionage Act without receiving clearance from a Board of Inquiry or an appropriate Flag grade officer—a violation of Code Section 6003 and Code Section 2012(c).

  “Fifth, failure to report gross violations of security at an Alpha class installation, amounting to dereliction of duty—a violation of Code Section 3007.

  “And sixth, falsification of official records—a violation of Code Sections 6006(b) and 6006(c).”

  The Commander in the uncomfortable chair smiled bleakly, looking at his counsel, who did not return the smile.

  The Admiral turned to the Vice Admiral. “With your permission, Mr. Presiding Officer, the Inquestor would request leave to present the facts at hand.”

  “You may begin, Mr. Inquestor.”

  Commander Hersnik slowly began to envy those who had been at the New Kansaw Base. Most hadn’t known what had happened to them.

  L

  JIMJOY STRETCHED OUT on the narrow bunk, glancing at the locked door, not bothering to stand. The door had been locked when he had awakened two days earlier, after his collapse in the courier.

  At regular intervals a tray of food was slipped inside. Irregularly, the trays were removed.

  The former Special Operative smiled, almost a real smile, as he waited. While he could not be certain, he doubted that the Ecolitans would turn him over to the Imperial Intelligence Service. Not after two days. They might dispose of him themselves. That was not out of the question. But if that had been their intention, they could have done so without letting him regain consciousness…unless they wanted to debrief him. That certainly would have been the Imperial way.

  His eyes roved over the room. Standard asteroid station quarters, except for the small adjoining room with the fresher and toilet facilities. The hard rock walls and the minute fluctuations in gravity told him he was still on Thalos, awaiting who knew what.

  He stretched again. This time he swung off the narrow bunk and stood, debating whether to run through his exercises again, doing his best to stay in shape for whatever might come.

  With a flicker, his eyes ran toward the locked door and back to the foot of the bunk. Had he been so determined, he could have left the makeshift cell at almost any time, but he still would have been on Thalos. On Thalos with some rather worried and scared Ecolitans, and no one was more aware than Jimjoy that he now needed all the support, or lack of opposition, possible.

  Someone was at the other side of the door, but he waited, forcing himself not even to look in that direction, not until there was a noise from the old-fashioned door itself.

  Click.

  Turning, he watched as the door opened and a silver-haired woman stepped inside. He suppressed the smile he felt. “Good day, Ecolitan Andruz.”

  “Good day, Major. I see you’re still presenting problems.” Thelina’s voice carried a mixture of resignation and amusement.

  “Forget the ‘Major.’”

  “I take it you are not interested in remaining on active Imperial service.” Her voice was still dry.

  He looked at her, wondering how he ever could have thought the woman impersonal, not with the piercing green eyes and expressive voice. “I have no doubt that the Empire would be most anxious that I do so. Not exactly eager to pay that price.”

  “I can guess
why.”

  Before she could continue, he interrupted. “Been patient and waited, but isn’t there somewhere else we could talk?”

  “You’re still the restless type.” She paused. “You act as if it were your choice to stay here.”

  “Some ways it was. Not much doubt that I could have gotten out of here without any trouble at all—or not much. Probably could have taken over a good section of the base.” He shrugged. “But that would have gotten everyone upset and given the local commander the perfect excuse to dispose of me. They weren’t exactly thrilled with my arrival anyway.”

  A short laugh, half chuckled, came from Thelina. “You think you know us that well?”

  “Don’t know you at all. Know something about people.” He smiled slowly. “Now…about talking somewhere else?”

  “I don’t see why not. Besides, I’m not about to stand and talk while you sit.”

  Jimjoy refrained from noting that the narrow bed was still wide enough for two.

  She turned and walked back through the door she had never closed, speaking to someone outside. “Major Wright and I will be going to the small conference room.”

  Jimjoy moved through the doorway cautiously, nodding quietly to the pair of impromptu guards standing with the strange hand weapons. Both young, the man and woman inspected him closely, as he did them.

  Although they had the look of solid training, the edge of experience was missing.

  Thelina watched the proceedings, then gestured. “Follow me.”

  Once they were a good twenty meters down the wide corridor that had been drilled from the solid rock, she asked quietly, “And do you still believe you could have escaped?”

  Jimjoy nodded. “But I’m glad I didn’t try.”

  “So am I.”

  Another few meters and they stepped into a small circular room with a stone table sculpted out of the original rock. Around the circular and polished surface of dark gray were six functional wooden chairs, hand-carved, with the type of design that Jimjoy had come to regard as Ecolitan.

  “Take any one you please.”