Conquerors' Pride

23

"I changed my mind," Cavanagh said, glancing at each of the other six men now spreading out behind Lee. One of Bronski's men was among them—Garcia, if Cavanagh remembered his name correctly. Bronski himself was nowhere to be seen. "Shifting circumstances and all that. Speaking of Mr. Bronski, where is he?"

"I'll ask the questions, if you don't mind," Lee said. "You made quite a mess getting out of that hotel. The Mrachanis were absolutely furious."

"Given that they intended all along to maneuver me here, I hardly think they have any right to complain." Cavanagh caught Garcia's eye. "Garcia, where's Mr. Bronski?"

"I told you, Cavanagh—"

"He's out inspecting that little impromptu shipyard outside," Garcia said.

"Shut up, Garcia," Lee snapped, throwing the other a knife-edged look as he pulled a card from his tunic. "This is a NorCoord Parliament carte blanche, Lord Cavanagh," he identified it. "I'm in charge here. As I was on Mra-mig, if that matters to you."

"I see," Cavanagh nodded. He'd already figured that part out, but it was useful to know what authority Lee was operating under. "So what great leadership act are you here to perform?"

"For starters, I'm going to put you under arrest," Lee said. "You and your journalist friend both."

"You mean Ezer Sholom?"

Lee lifted his eyebrows in mock surprise. "I thought you didn't know who he was."

"I didn't," Cavanagh said. "I identified him the same way you did: by scanning one of Fibbit's threadings of him into a computer. Did you take the time to read his complete record?"

"He was once a journalist," Lee said, looking at one of his men and nodding sharply toward Cavanagh. "That's all I need to know," he continued as the man stepped forward.

[What do you intend to do?] Klyveress asked.

"I intend to put him under arrest, Klyveress ci Yyatoor," Lee said as the man moved to Cavanagh's side. "Either he's already broken the Official Secrets Regulations or is intending to break them. Either way, that's adequate cause for a presumptive arrest."

[He is on Yycroman soil,] Klyveress pointed out. [Is he not bound therefore by Yycroman rather than NorCoord law?]

"If I were you, ci Yyatoor, I'd stay out of this," Lee said, his voice deadly quiet. "That shipyard out there is a serious and blatant violation of the Pacification treaty. Trying to defend Lord Cavanagh will simply buy you more trouble than you and the Yycroman Hierarchy are already in.

[Commonwealth interdiction forces have been withdrawn from Yycroman space,] Klyveress reminded him. [We thus lie undefended beneath the Conqueror threat. Would you have us sit idly by and allow our worlds to be destroyed?]

Lee snorted. "Do you really expect me to believe that's what all those ships are for?"

[Do you call me a liar?] Klyveress countered.

A couple of the other men seemed to wince. Lee either didn't notice or didn't care. "I call you a twister of the truth," he said bluntly. "I don't believe for a minute the Hierarch would be foolish enough to send barely armed merchant ships against an enemy like the Conquerors."

"What else do they have?" Cavanagh put in, watching Garcia. "The Commonwealth took all their real warships away from them."

Garcia's lip twitched. Not much, but enough to show he knew about the Yycroman warship out there.

A fact that apparently had been kept from his temporary boss. "Maybe the Hierarch will hire you to defend them before the NorCoord Parliament," Lee said sarcastically, no hint of Garcia's reaction registering on his face. "Otherwise, I suggest you start cooperating. Before I slap a charge of treason on top of the Official Secrets violations. Now, where's Sholom?"

"He's not here," Cavanagh said, feeling a ring of sweat beginning to collect beneath his collar. Treason. Did Lee know about the fueler he'd sent to Melinda? Or about the Peacekeeper fighters Aric and Quinn had borrowed?

Or could that even have fallen through right at the beginning? Were Melinda and Aric even now in custody, with Lee simply playing a spider's game with him? "I think he's still on Mra-mig, unless the Mrachanis have moved him. And there's a good chance he's in trouble."

"He sure is," Lee said grimly. "All right, let's go."

"No," Cavanagh shook his head. "I mean real trouble. If I could talk to Bronski—"

"I already told you I'm in charge," Lee cut him off. "Daschka, take him to the shuttle. We'll finish up here and—"

"There," Cavanagh said, pointing to the doorway as Bronski and two other men walked into the room. "Mr. Bronski, I need to speak to you. Immediately."

"You can talk to him aboard ship," Lee said. "What are you waiting for, Daschka? Get him moving."

"This can't wait," Cavanagh insisted as Daschka took his arm and levered him to his feet. "It's absolutely vital to Commonwealth security."

"Save it for your hearing," Lee said. Across the room, behind Lee's back, Garcia had stepped over to Bronski's side and was whispering in his ear. "Get him out of here, Daschka. And put him under communications quarantine—he's not to talk to anyone aboard ship without my permission. Now, as for you and the Hierarch, ci Yyatoor—"

"Just a minute," Bronski said.

Slowly, deliberately, Lee turned to look at him. "What did you say?" he demanded, his voice deadly.

"I said just a minute," Bronski told him. "I'd like to hear what Lord Cavanagh thinks is this vital to Commonwealth security."

"In private, Mr. Bronski," Cavanagh added. "For the moment I think this should be for your ears only."

"Cavanagh—"

"It's all right, Mr. Lee," Bronski cut him off. "There's nothing he can tell me I'm not cleared to hear. Where to?"

[There,] Klyveress said, gesturing toward one of the other doors leading from the main room of the suite. [It is private, and there is no other exit.]

The room was a small sleeping chamber, with a Yycroman bed pushed all the way to one wall and two human-sized chairs facing each other in the center. "Interesting," Bronski commented as Cavanagh sealed the door behind them. "Human chairs and everything. You and the ci Yyatoor had this already set up, didn't you?"

"As I said, this is something that needs to be discussed privately," Cavanagh said, taking one of the seats and gesturing Bronski to the other.

"What, with an assistant liaison from a small Commonwealth diplomatic outpost?" Bronski asked, pulling the chair a few centimeters back.

"No," Cavanagh said. "With a senior member of NorCoord Military Intelligence."

For a second Bronski seemed to freeze halfway down into the seat. "That's an interesting accusation," he commented, continuing the rest of the way down. "Totally ridiculous, of course."

"Of course," Cavanagh agreed. "All Commonwealth diplomatic personnel routinely carry concealed flechette pistols. Just in case they should happen to find themselves in an unexpected face-off with Bhurtala on a Mrach world. It was also just coincidence that your assistant Garcia happened to twitch a few minutes ago when I suggested all Yycroman warships had been taken away from them after the Pacification, which you and he know is not strictly accurate." He cocked an eyebrow. "And, of course, all Commonwealth diplomatic liaisons are issued with forged Mrach red cards. I'd guess that would make you—what? A colonel? Senior colonel?"

For a long moment Bronski just looked at him. "Brigadier," he said at last. "Let's hear about this threat to Commonwealth security."

"Ezer Sholom," Cavanagh said. "The man Fibbit made a threading of in Mig-Ka City. What do you know about him?"

Bronski shrugged. "Ezer Ronel Sholom. Born May twenty-second, 2234, in Crane City, Arcadia. Joined the StarNet News Service in 2257 and became one of the most popular journalists of his day. Covered the Pawolian war and guerrilla insurrections on Tal from the front lines and did daily analysis during the Yycroman Pacification. Wrote about a dozen books, did the lecture circuit, hobnobbed with the rich and famous. Retired about fifteen years ago to a small estate on Palisades."

"Is he still there?"

"It's still his official residence. Whether or not he's there at the moment I don't know. What's this about?"

"It's about a book he set out to write but which was never published," Cavanagh said. "I don't know if it's even in his file, but right after the Pawolian war he was appointed by the head of NorCoord Command to write the history of the CIRCE project. The official history, including everything that wasn't classified."

A muscle in Bronski's jaw seemed to tighten. "No, that wasn't in his file," he said. "I've never heard anything about it."

"As I said, it was never published," Cavanagh said. "It may not even have been completed. I seem to remember speculation at the time that the only reason he'd been given the assignment was that the whole Commonwealth was clamoring for information about CIRCE, and NorCoord wanted to shut them up. Once the noise had died down, someone high up in the government apparently decided to reclassify everything about CIRCE and stillbirthed the book. But Sholom had definitely made progress before that happened. He talked to my cleanup unit, and to the officers and crews of every snip that took part in that battle. I'm pretty sure he talked to the heads of NorCoord Command, too."

"So what are you suggesting?"

"I'm suggesting that in the course of his research, he might have learned something vitally important about CIRCE," Cavanagh said. "I think the Mrachanis know it and are trying to find out what that something is."

Bronski rubbed at his lower lip. "You really think a journalist could have figured out something that significant?"

"Sholom was sharp as a cross-saw," Cavanagh said. "He'd also spent a lot of time already with the military. He knew how they operated and how to read between the lines of what they said. And it wasn't until Fibbit started talking about him to me that the Mrachanis began to get nervous."

"Maybe," Bronski conceded. "If they are, I think they're shooting in the wrong barrel. Still, we can't have nonhumans kidnapping or leaning on Commonwealth citizens. All right, let's go find him. You're going to want to come along, I suppose?"

"Definitely," Cavanagh said.

"Fine," Bronski said, getting to his feet. "We can consider you under house arrest till we sort out whatever this Official Secrets stuff is Lee keeps ranting about."

Cavanagh stood up. "One other thing. What are you planning to do about that Yycroman shipyard out there?"

"I'm going to report it, of course," Bronski said. "They've broken the Pacification treaty. They have to be slapped down, and they have to be slapped down hard."

"What about the Conquerors?"

"What about them?" Bronski retorted. "You can't blink at treaty violations just because someone nastier is waiting over the next hill. Especially not from people like the Yycromae. Bad enough they were able to hide a couple of warships from us for twenty years—something like this proves they're out for blood again."

"We need all the fighting ships we can get right now," Cavanagh said. "And you can't seriously suggest the Yycromae should allow their worlds to stay undefended."

"You really believe self-defense is all they've got in mind?" Bronski countered.

"The ci Yyatoor has given me guarantees," Cavanagh said. "I can show them to you aboard ship."

Bronski's eyes narrowed. "Since when have you had authority to negotiate treaties and accept guarantees?"

"Since it became necessary for someone to do it," Cavanagh said. "And since I was the man on the spot."

Bronski snorted. "I'm sure that'll play real well with Lee and his boss. I'm starting to see why VanDiver wants your head on a plate."

"There are a lot of reasons," Cavanagh said. "Whether he gets it this time depends on whether you're willing to help me smooth the whole thing over."

"And why would I do that?"

Cavanagh shrugged. "Loyalty to the Peacekeepers, perhaps. The realization that opening a second front against the Yycromae would be a dangerous waste of resources."

Bronski snorted again. "Forget it," he said, stepping toward the door. "Come on, Jet's go find your journalist friend."

"Or," Cavanagh added, "perhaps the fact that, unlike the NorCoord Parliament, Military Intelligence has known about the Conquerors for the past six months."

Bronski froze, his hand still reaching for the door release. "What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about that contact between the Mrachanis and a Conqueror ship six months ago off their Mra-kahie mining world," Cavanagh told him. "The one where both sides took a quick look at the other and hightailed it for home. The Yycromae may not have much military left, but they still have an excellent intelligence service. Klyveress told me all about it."

"Well, salutes all around to Yycroman Intelligence," Bronski said. "Doesn't have anything to do with us."

Cavanagh shook his head. "Sorry, Brigadier, but that won't wash. By your own admission you, a senior officer, came charging personally all the way over from Mra-ect when word reached you that I was on Mra-mig asking about contacts with the Conquerors. As it happens, I was only looking for details of that two-hundred-year-old legend, but you didn't know that. And even if you had, you couldn't risk someone there spilling the rest of the soup to me."

"So why didn't I haul you in right then and there?" Bronski demanded.

"Because somewhere between the spaceport and my hotel suite Taurin Lee intercepted you," Cavanagh said. "He was nosing around on his own and must have decided that attaching himself to your party would be a good way to find out what I was up to. Does he know who you really are, by the way?"

Bronski's lip twisted. "No."

"I didn't think so," Cavanagh said. "And as a minor Commonwealth liaison, of course, you could hardly refuse to honor his carte blanche. Unfortunately, that meant you were going to have to confront me with a high-ranking parliamentary aide in the room. Your superiors hadn't bothered to inform the NorCoord Parliament about the Conquerors, so you couldn't tell him the real reason you were there; and you knew he wasn't likely to swallow the flimsy excuse you'd concocted about Fibbit and deportation orders. About all you could do was look around some, throw around a lot of weak bluster, and then leave, planning to come back later after you'd gotten rid of him to finish the job properly."

Bronski shook his head. "This is nonsense," he said. "Complete soap-bubble nonsense."

"Fine," Cavanagh said. "Let's go back to the main room, then, and ask Lee why Commonwealth Commerce suddenly decided to restrict the transfer of human technology six months ago. Or why during that same period Peacekeeper Command has been spending money like sand. A Parlimin like VanDiver would be most interested in learning how far they'd been left out of this."

"Be careful, Cavanagh," Bronski warned softly. "You're treading on very dangerous ground here."

Cavanagh sighed. "I have no interest in precipitating a governmental crisis, Brigadier," he said. "If I did, I'd have said all of this in Lee's presence in the first place. All I want is to sweep this Yycroman thing under the rug until we've dealt with the Conquerors."

Bronski chewed at his lip. "And just how do you suggest we do that? Walk away and pretend the shipyard doesn't exist?"

"Of course we can't do that," Cavanagh said. "What we'll have to do is invent a legitimate explanation for it. Create a secret agreement between the Peacekeepers and the Yycroman government, postdate some order—something along those lines."

"Put our professional necks on the block, in other words."

"Under the circumstances," Cavanagh reminded him quietly, "I think parliamentary investigations are likely to be the least of a Peacekeeper's worries."

Bronski grimaced. "I'll think about it," he said. "In the meantime we've got your journalist friend to find. Get your people together and let's get moving."

There was a breath of air from behind him, and Aric turned to see Quinn hovering in the control-room doorway. "Maestro," he said. "Good timing—I was just about to come and get you."

"I came by to remind you we'll be leaving in an hour," Quinn said, pulling on the doorjamb to propel himself across the room. "You found anything?"

"I think so, yes," Aric said. "A possibility, anyway. Max, put up that last display, with the red line and mark."

The star field he'd just been working on appeared on the display. "All right," he said as Quinn braked to a halt behind his chair. "The red mark is the system the Conquerors chased us out of a few hours ago. The red line is the vector they came in on."

"With nothing at the other end of it," Quinn said.

"Right," Aric said, holding up a finger. "Nothing at the other end; if you assume the Conquerors came in a straight line. Max: the green line and points."

Another line appeared, this one intersecting the red line at a not quite ninety-degree angle. "Let's assume instead that the Conquerors were originally on this green vector, and that they changed to the red line approximately seven light-years out from the system. Assume further that they were originally traveling between two systems, and that Max's estimate of twenty-five to seventy light-years is accurate. If you pivot all possible course segments around that point, it turns out there's only one pair of systems that meets those criteria. That's them, marked in green."

"Interesting," Quinn said. "Any particular reason why you picked seven light-years for the intersect point?"

Aric braced himself. "That's the distance a stardrive would take them," he said, "if someone on the planet called for help the same time we hit atmosphere."

He could feel Quinn's gaze. "You realize what you're saying," the other said at last. "You're suggesting that the Conquerors have a method of true interstellar communication."

"I'm aware of that," Aric said soberly. "I'm also aware that that's considered scientifically impossible. But it's the only way this makes any sense."

"They could have come from a deep space station."

"And meshed in practically on top of us?" Aric countered. "That wasn't just coincidence, Quinn—I ran the whole thing through Max earlier. If you hadn't made that last course adjustment to the fueler, they would have meshed in flanking us. They had to be getting concurrent data from the surface. Observational data, at the very least."

"So where was this observational data coming from?" Quinn asked. "These Conquerors who supposedly were screaming for help—where were they?"

"Maybe they were hiding somewhere," Aric said. "Possibly on the part of the planet we didn't get to." That scream he'd heard when he was standing beside the pyramid... "Or maybe they were right there in front of us."

"What, those sausage-slice things?" Quinn snorted. "That's ridiculous."

"Maybe," Aric agreed. "Being ridiculous doesn't mean it's not true."

"It's a wild-snipe chase," Quinn insisted. "Ninety-nine percent chance of that."

"I know," Aric said quietly. "But it's all we've got."

Quinn sighed. "Max, what do we have on those two systems?"

"The one closest to Commonwealth space is currently being claimed by the Mrachanis," Max said, "even though it lies more than fifteen light-years outside their generally recognized territorial sphere. They have a pilot mining operation on the second planet, which they've named Mra-kahie."

"What about the other one?"

"I have nothing but observatory data listed," Max said. "Spectral data indicates G2 class; planetary probabilities unknown but considered moderate. The system is seventy-one light-years from Dorcas and sixty-six light-years from the Jutland battle."

"How far away are we from it?"

"Twenty-eight light-years," Max said. "Fuel reserves are more than adequate for a trip there and back."

"How about if we have to fight a battle at the other end?" Quinn asked bluntly.

There was a slight pause. "They would still be adequate," Max said, "provided the battle lasted less than four hours."

"Yeah," Quinn muttered under his breath. "Well, with the Conquerors that's not likely to be a problem. All right, Max, go ahead and compute us a course. Something evasive, with four or five vector changes along the way to confuse their trackers. And don't use more than two of our static bombs."

"Yes, Commander." The red and green lines vanished from the display, to be replaced by a zigzag of yellow lines from their position to the target system. "The static bombs would be dropped at the blue marks," the computer added.

"Looks good," Quinn said, peering closely at it. "Go ahead and get us started."

"Yes, Commander."

Quinn shook his head. "I hope you're wrong about this," he said to Aric. "I really do. If the Conquerors have genuine tachyonic communication, then it's all over except for the shouting. The Commonwealth won't have a prayer."

Aric looked at the jagged yellow line, striking at the green mark like a frozen bolt of lightning. "Makes it that much more important that we find out now. One way or the other."

"I suppose," Quinn said. "Well... you'd better go get some rest. We've got another eleven hours to go, and you won't want to hit that system half-asleep. I'll let the others know about the change in plans."

"All right." Aric hesitated. "Quinn, maybe this is none of my business. But under the circumstances... why did you quit the Copperheads?"

There was a brief silence from behind him. "It's hard to explain," Quinn said at last. "Have you ever done any kind of computer linking?"

"I did gamer links a few times when I was in college," Aric said, turning to look at him. "That was an inductive type, of course, not an implant."

"It's not the implant itself," Quinn said. "At least, not directly. It's..." He paused. "You have to understand that the Copperhead Mindlink is absolutely unique. It feeds data to us at least a thousand times faster than any business computer-link ever created—probably ten thousand times faster than the best inductive gamer type. You're not getting just a game scenario or sheets of numbers and flow vectors when you link up this way. The data literally floods over you, running in over every sensory input your brain's got. You don't just see the combat—you feel and smell and taste it, too. Every image razor clear and razor sharp; every thought you have turned instantly into vectors and curves on a tactical overlay. You feel your team like an extension of your own mind and body, with their thoughts flowing in and complementing your own. It's like nothing else that mankind has ever created. Like nothing you could ever imagine."

"Sounds a little frightening."

"No." Quinn shook his head. "That's just the point, a point most of the Parlimins who questioned me never really understood. The problem wasn't that the programmers did their job poorly; the problem was that they did it too well. The Mindlink is a tremendous experience—exhilarating, challenging, and not the least bit frightening. There have been many computer links over the years that have claimed to be complete realities. This one genuinely is.

"And it was a reality that too many of my teammates didn't want to leave."

Aric looked at him, a shiver running through him. "You mean like an addiction?"

"I mean like a total withdrawal from reality," Quinn said bluntly. "They walked around offlink like ghosts. Just going through the motions of living, doing whatever they had to do so they could get out of this pale imitation of reality and back to the real thing. Some of them went so far as to steal wireless jack connectors so that they wouldn't have to face the real world at all."

His lip twitched. "Some of those never came back. Not even when the Mindlinks were forcibly taken away from them. They never came back."

Aric gazed at his face. At the lines of tension in his jaw... "You feel it too, don't you?" he said.

Quinn turned away. "All Copperheads do," he said. "And I'm convinced that it does damage to us every time we link up. But the Peacekeepers didn't want to give up the program. Neither did NorCoord." He shrugged fractionally. "They're screening the applicants better these days—we got that much out of Parliament at the hearings. Maybe it was enough. I don't know. I'm not sure I want to."

Aric grimaced. "I'm sorry. Sorry, too, for dragging you into this in the first place."

Quinn turned to face him again. "Don't be," he said, "I told you all this so you could try to understand, not so you'd waste time with sympathy. When lives are at stake, you do what you have to, whether it's personally comfortable for you or not." He cocked an eyebrow. "I doubt this was something you really wanted to do, either, if you want to get right down to it."

Aric shrugged. "It's not exactly the same situation."