Guardian

Thirteen

“A couple of other people needed a ride to Ambaru, so I arranged for them to be on this one,” Desjani remarked, as they waited to board the shuttle that was coming to dock aboard Dauntless.

“I wish you had asked me about that first,” Geary grumbled. “I am not looking forward to this meeting. I don’t even know which senators will be here as representatives of the grand council.”

“It scarcely matters,” Rione said as she walked up to them. “Some will trust you, some will mistrust you, and all will be scheming and plotting. Do you mind if I tag along? I received a rather urgent invitation.”

Whatever Desjani was about to reply went unsaid as a medical team entered the dock with a stretcher on which Commander Benan lay. Rione’s husband was unconscious, but the readouts on the stretcher indicated he was physically healthy aside from the sedation keeping him insensible.

“An invitation for me to be at the grand council meeting,” Rione continued, and an… invitation for my husband to proceed for emergency, specialized medical treatment.” Only the uncharacteristic catch in her voice when she spoke of Commander Benan betrayed Rione’s emotions.

“It’s what we demanded?” Geary asked.

“It is,” Rione confirmed. “That ill will be removed.” Neither of them would openly refer to the mental block that the Alliance itself had placed on Benan to ensure the secrecy of a forbidden research program. “That won’t cure the damage that was done, but it will allow the damage to finally be effectively treated.”

One of the corpsmen with the stretcher spoke apologetically. “Ma’am, we’re going to have to go straight from the dock at Ambaru to another dock for the shuttle down to the surface. If you want to say anything to him before you’re separated for a while, we can rouse him enough.”

“I…” Rione glanced at Geary and Desjani. “Yes. I don’t want to risk him awakening at the treatment facility and not knowing.”

The corpsman worked for several seconds, then both medical personnel stepped away to give her and Benan some privacy. Geary and Desjani started to do the same, but Rione forestalled them.

“Paol,” she whispered, kneeling beside the stretcher.

Benan’s eyes opened, looking about with a puzzled expression. “Vic?”

“You’re on your way to get the block removed. I’ll join you there, after I take care of something else. You’ll be all right.”

Benan smiled at her with a gentleness surprising to those who had seen the rages the mental block had created in him. “Not totally useless yet, huh?” he said in a low, hoarse voice. “Not yet. Shot to hell and barely operational, but you think I’m still worth fixing.” He blinked. “You’ll be there?”

“As soon as possible,” Rione promised.

Commander Benan twitched, and a low tone sounded from the stretcher’s monitor. The corpsmen hurried back. “His brain’s ramping up, ma’am. We’ve got to get him quiet, or he’ll lose it.”

Within another couple of seconds after the corpsman adjusted a setting, Benan had closed his eyes, out cold again.

The shuttle had landed and extended its ramp. Geary indicated Rione and the corpsmen with the stretcher. “You go on board first.”

Desjani stood gazing at them as they headed for the shuttle, her expression tight with anger. “No one should be used that way.”

“The block, you mean?”

“Yeah. To one of our own. What do you want to bet that the rules prevented whoever ordered that block put on him from doing to Syndic prisoners what they did to a fleet officer?”

“I won’t take that bet.”

“Sometimes I feel sorry for that woman,” Desjani admitted of Rione. “Sometimes she seems almost human.”

“Sometimes she is,” Geary said. “But don’t let her know you spotted that.”

He and Desjani walked up to the shuttle ramp and inside, joining those already there. Geary’s misgivings at having other company evaporated as he saw Dr. Shwartz and Admiral Lagemann. “You’re both leaving?” Geary asked as he sat down and strapped in.

Lagemann smiled lopsidedly. “I have been relieved of command. The good ship Invincible has been officially reclassified as an artifact.”

“I thought the government techs were going to take over Invincible a week ago.”

“They were.” Lagemann winked. “We suggested they might want to take a little time to get accustomed to Invincible, but they brushed aside our superstitious concerns, came charging on board to take custody and eject us, then went charging back into their shuttles much faster than they had come aboard. After a week spent working out how they would deal with the Kick ghosts, the techs finally took full custody late yesterday. The last fleet sailors, Marines, and I left this morning.”

“Maybe the techs will figure out what the ghosts are.”

Lagemann looked into the distance. “Would you think it odd if I wanted the ghosts to remain a mystery? To maybe fade away and disappear, their cause and their nature remaining unknown?”

“I wouldn’t be surprised,” Desjani tossed in, “if that’s exactly what happens.”

“Are you going home?” Geary asked Lagemann.

“Yes. For a brief visit with those who thought me dead. Then I have to report for extensive debriefing on everything I learned about Invincible while serving as her commanding officer.”

“That should be fun,” Geary remarked. “What about you, Doctor?”

Shwartz gazed longingly around her. “I will miss being here, Admiral. Here with your ships. No luxuries at all, and food worse than even universities provide in their cafeterias, but I finally had the opportunity to really work in my field! And I enjoyed working with you, against all expectations about rigid military minds and institutions. Now we must go our separate ways and fight our separate battles.”

“You have battles?”

“Vicious and ugly battles,” she confirmed. “Battles for academic primacy, battles for credit for discoveries, findings, and interpretations, battles for positions on boards and study groups. There will be ambushes to strike the unwary, no end of verbal and written atrocities inflicted on the combatants and innocent bystanders, and horrible barrages of rhetoric exchanged in unending debate until some bloodied figures manage to surmount the smoking wreckage of truth and declare themselves authorities over the scholarly rubble that remains.”

Geary smiled. “You make it sound worse than actual warfare.”

“Having seen both academic and real warfare, Admiral, I find the relative honesty of the real thing something of a relief.” Shwartz gestured vaguely. “The fight for access to that Kick superbattleship has just begun, and the amount of academic bloodletting over that alone will probably exceed what your Marines encountered. I only hope the entire ship is not declared classified and off-limits to scientific inquiry.”

“The military and the government wouldn’t do something that stupid—”

Lagemann intervened. “Sad to say, I think the techs may have intended doing that until they got aboard and realized the enormity of what was inside that ship. Before I left, the most common comment among the techs was we’re going to need a lot of help.”

“Good,” Desjani said. “Personally, I think the limits of enigma space were a lot easier to find than the limits of official stupidity would be.”

“You know,” Professor Shwartz said with a wicked smile, “you might want anyone working against you to get their hooks into that Kick warship. The superbattleship looks so terribly powerful. And yet it is helpless, a burden to whoever has it.”

“Yes,” Geary agreed, remembering the long and difficult journey to get Invincible back here in one piece. “Having the ship with us was a real headache.”

“A white elephant.” Her smiled broadened. “I’m going to be an academic and lecture you, Admiral. Do you know where the term ‘white elephant’ originated? Back on Old Earth. It literally referred to an elephant who was white. In one particular civilization in ancient times, an elephant who was naturally white was regarded as sacred. Such an animal required no end of caring for and rituals and special treatment. It was ruinously expensive. Because of that, when a white elephant was born, the rulers of that land would bestow it as a gift upon their richest, most powerful enemy, who would be forced by law and custom to drain their fortune on the upkeep of the animal. No one could refuse such a gift, and no one could afford to keep it. Do you have any powerful enemies who could benefit from the gift of your white elephant, Admiral?” Shwartz finished in teasing tone. “You might try to lure them into seeking that prize.”

Geary laughed. “I might be able to think of some who would benefit from that sort of thing. If the opportunity arises, would you be open to being invited to return to work with the Dancers?”

“Admiral, if you arrange such an invitation I will be here so fast that even the hypernet will look slow by comparison.” Shwartz hesitated. “Admiral, I really don’t know how to thank you. You found them. You found three intelligent, nonhuman species, and even though only one of those will speak to us, you still found all of them.”

“We all found them. I’m just glad we survived the experience.”

After the shuttle docked, the corpsmen raced off with the stretcher while Rione watched them go with a blank expression.

Dr. Shwartz ambled away, waving farewell and looking around like a tourist as she went.

Admiral Lagemann saluted Geary, then grabbed his hand. “Thank the living stars, I’m home. And thank you. A rescue, an astounding adventure, and a final command that no one else can match. I hope to see you and your, uh, Captain Desjani again.”

“We’ll look forward to it, Admiral,” Desjani said. As Lagemann left, she looked at Geary. “You’re welcome. I figured you could use some more pleasant diversion on the ride than worrying about politics.”

“And, as always, you were right. Here comes our escort.”

This time there were no armed soldiers threatening to arrest Geary, just some military police handling crowd control to keep a quickly gathering mass of people from swamping the area as they sought to meet and see Black Jack. From the happy buzz of conversation, Black Jack’s stock was still pretty high among the residents of Ambaru station.

“Admiral, Captain, Madam Emissary,” Admiral Timbale greeted them. “I was delayed seeing to the arrangements for the delegation from the grand council. I’m to bring you to them right away. Ah, that is, I’m to take Admiral Geary.”

“I received a late invitation,” Rione said. “Someone realized that they might want to have someone else present who has conversed extensively with the Dancers. I recommended Emissary Charban come as well, but that suggestion was vetoed.”

“I never get to go to these meetings,” Desjani said. “But I’m sure I’m happier as a result.”

Timbale grinned and gestured to them to accompany him as he began walking down a passageway cleared of other traffic. “Have you seen the news?” he asked.

“I’ve been trying to avoid it,” Geary admitted.

“Understandable. But you need to know what’s going on before you end up in front of the grand council.” Timbale exhaled heavily, gazing upward. “Here’s what they’ve been seeing. Cute aliens. Really cute aliens. We killed them. A lot of them. Ugly aliens. Really ugly aliens. We brought them home with us.”

Desjani hissed in exasperation. “Do they know that the really ugly aliens helped us kill the really cute aliens?”

“Thank the living stars, no. Even though the records of your encounters with the Kicks have been highly classified by the government, somehow detailed accounts of how hard you tried to communicate with them and avoid bloodshed have been leaked to the press.”

“Somehow?” Geary asked.

Timbale shrugged in reply, doing his best to look innocent. “The upshot is that people all around the Alliance are confused. Did Black Jack do the right thing? Or did his heavy-handed missteps cause another war? Many of the academic experts you had along are hinting broadly that if you had just listened to them in particular, then all would have been well.”

“What are they saying about the enigmas?”

“Hurrah! Black Jack rescued humans from the enigmas! Also highly classified by the government, also mysteriously leaked to the press.” Timbale scratched his nose thoughtfully. “I’m pretty certain that leak came out at Unity. Someone in the government is either your friend or playing their own games that happened to benefit you that time. Otherwise, the enigmas remain, well, enigmas, but the second attack on human space and the attempt by an alien race to bombard a human-occupied planet from space have aroused vast indignation.”

Geary shook his head in wonderment. “It’s okay if we bomb human planets but aliens can’t do it?”

“You have to keep things like that in the family,” Timbale advised mockingly. “Oh, the ugly aliens. Public opinion was very much against them, but—”

“Mysteriously,” Desjani guessed, “the information was leaked that they had prevented a bombardment of a human planet?”

“Very mysteriously,” Timbale agreed. “The Syndics. Everything you ran into in Syndic space has been classified above and beyond top secret, but…

“You’ve got a lot of leaks on this space station.”

“No one can prove any of them came from here.” Timbale eyed Geary. “You do realize how much of a role good press relations have played for the last few decades in promotions to the highest rank? No? I won’t burden you with that information, then. There have also been leaks with no basis in your reporting. A big story claims that you received direct communications from the lights while in jump space. There are all kinds of variations of that story circulating. The lights led you to the Kicks and the Dancers. The lights told you what to do. The lights told you to save the Alliance again—”

“Save the Alliance again?” Geary demanded. “From what?”

“If you had been reading the news, you could guess some of the possible answers to that question.” Timbale grinned crookedly. “The rather large number of VIP former prisoners you brought back have helped keep things confused. And the six thousand other liberated prisoners were a real shot in the arm for the government, an accomplishment it can claim credit for.”

His smile slipped. “The bottom line is there’s a vast amount of uncertainty. Three alien races, and one wants to talk with us. No one wants to start fighting the Syndics again, but the Syndics are taking advantage of that. Your intentions are still critically important and just as subject to interpretation as ever. Your fleet got shot to hell, but you won some important fights. That reminds me. How are you paying for all of this repair work? I haven’t heard a single squawk from the budget bean counters.”

“We’re effectively utilizing all available resources,” Geary said.

“Ha! The less I know about that the better. Oh, one bit of good news. Nothing has leaked so far about those freighters from Midway and the role of Captain Bradamont except the official and acceptable-to-almost-everyone reports that Syndic ships came to take some Syndic prisoners off our hands. I don’t think anyone who knows more has figured out how to use the information.” They had reached a high-security hatch. Admiral Timbale pointed inside. “Good luck.”

“Tanya, will you keep an eye on things out here while I’m in there?” Geary asked.

“Why did you think you needed to ask?” Desjani saluted. “Tell them you want a day off.”

“I’ll do that.”

The delegation of the grand council once again awaited him and Rione from seats behind a long table. Geary recognized some of the faces but not others. He was glad to see Senator Navarro among them and cautiously optimistic at the sight of Senator Sakai. Balanced against them were Senator Suva, who had never made any attempt to hide her distrust of Geary and the fleet, and Senator Costa, who rarely bothered to hide her contempt for Senator Suva or her willingness to do anything she thought necessary. Geary wondered if Costa, who had once pushed for Admiral Bloch to command the fleet despite knowing (or perhaps because she knew) that Bloch was considering a military coup, had been in contact with Bloch since the Syndics had returned him in hopes of further destabilizing the tottering Alliance government.

“Why is she here?” Senator Suva demanded, pointing at Rione, before any greetings could be exchanged.

Navarro gave Suva a sharp look. “Among other reasons, because Victoria Rione was appointed an emissary of the Alliance government during Admiral Geary’s mission.”

“That was when the Callas Republic was part of the Alliance,” Suva said. “Since we heard just before leaving Unity that the Callas Republic has formally requested to leave the Alliance, a request which must be automatically granted under the terms by which the Republic joined the Alliance, this Rione is no longer a citizen of the Alliance.”

All eyes went to Rione, whom Geary had spotted flinching slightly at the news of the Callas Republic’s intentions. But Rione maintained a bland expression, raising one hand as if asking for the attention she already had. “In that case, I should like to request that the grand council grant me asylum.”

The resulting silence lasted until Navarro, obviously trying not to smile, spoke. “You wish to become a legal resident of the Alliance? That might be classified as refugee status.”

“Or defection,” Senator Costa remarked. She didn’t seem amused at all. “Or treason against the Callas Republic.”

“The warships of the Callas Republic,” Geary interjected, trying not to get angry so soon into the meeting, “fought loyally and well for the Alliance. Even if the Callas Republic is not formally part of the Alliance any longer, I still consider them friends and hope they think of us in the same way.”

“Why then did you send those ships away?” brusquely demanded a short, thin senator whom Geary did not recognize.

“They needed repairs, which the Callas Republic should provide, and they deserved some time at home after so much time away and so many sacrifices,” Geary said. Expecting to be asked that question, he had gone over his response quite a bit to try to get it right.

“Senator Wilkes,” Sakai said to the small senator before he could speak again, “we must focus on the issue at hand. As to the matter of Emissary Rione, I would point out that she was invited to this meeting as the person who can tell us the most about the aliens known as the Dancers since she is the person who has had the most interaction with them.”

“The Alliance,” Navarro added pointedly, “needs that person.”

Suva, clearly unhappy, turned her attention to Geary. “We’ve read your report. You were sent on a mission of exploration.”

“That is what I did, Senator,” Geary replied.

“You started two more wars!” Senator Wilkes said. “You were sent to explore and learn, but you started two more wars.” He paused as if waiting for applause.

Senator Navarro grimaced. “The record is pretty clear that the enigmas have been fighting humanity since long before we knew they existed. Admiral Geary didn’t start anything with them. From the official reports, he in fact tried to stop further fighting and negotiate with the enigmas.”

“Those records are from the Syndics, Senator.”

“Not the records from our ships, Senator. They show us trying to talk, trying to resolve things, and the enigmas persisting in attacking.”

“Even if the enigmas would not speak with us,” Senator Suva said, “and given the probable actions of the Syndics and provocative actions by our own forces—”

“Provocative actions?” Senator Costa asked. Geary had learned enough to know that Costa was not so much defending him as reflexively attacking Suva.

“We entered space occupied by them without permission—” Suva plowed on.

“Didn’t you push for Admiral Geary’s fleet to be given that exact mission?” Costa needled.

Geary wondered whether anyone would notice if he got up and left the room. The senators were all locked in verbal combat now, each shouting over the others.

“I really didn’t miss this,” Rione commented. She rested her right elbow on the palm of her left hand, lowered her chin into her right hand, and closed her eyes. “Wake me up when they’re done.”

“You can sleep through this?”

“It beats staying awake through it.”

A sudden lack of noise caught Geary’s attention. He looked toward the table, where the various senators were all glaring at each other but no longer yelling. Senator Sakai, standing, was looking down at the seated senators with an expression that as usual revealed little but this time somehow conveyed disapproval. “Was there a question for Admiral Geary?” Sakai asked as he sat down again.

Wilkes spoke up first, chastened but still aggressive. “We are now at war with two other species. I trust no one will argue that? Why was our first encounter with the bov-ursoids a deadly battle?”

“Bov-ursoids?” Geary asked. “You mean the Kicks?”

“That is an insulting term. I will not tolerate its use here.”

Costa laughed harshly. “No one cares whether your feelings are bruised by the nickname given to that maniacal species.”

Another verbal riot seemed about to erupt, only to be quelled when Sakai bent cold looks down each side of the table.

Geary glanced at Rione as he began speaking again. “We did everything we could to try to communicate with them. The first thing they did was attack us the instant they saw us. We took the actions necessary to defend ourselves. We kept trying to talk with them as long as we were in their star system. They never responded in any way except with further attacks.”

“You all saw the reports,” Rione added in a matter-of-fact voice. “They attacked us, they pursued us, they continued the pursuit into another star system; even when facing certain defeat and death, they would not communicate with us, preferring suicide. You cannot talk to those who refuse to reply with anything other than further attempts to kill you.”

“Perhaps they were frightened of us!” Wilkes insisted.

“Perhaps they were. They may well have had what were for them excellent reasons for not communicating with us and fighting us to the death,” Rione said. “However, I did not feel any obligation to die simply because they thought they had a good reason to kill us.”

“If you had not barged into their star system with all weapons blazing—”

“We did not fire first,” Geary said.

“Admiral,” Senator Navarro said, “did you enter, where was it, Honor Star System, in the same fashion as you did the enigma and uh, other alien species star systems that you visited?”

“Yes, Senator. In a defensive formation.”

“And at Honor, the representatives of the Dancers there welcomed you.”

“They helped our fleet there!” Senator Costa declared triumphantly.

“But…” another senator began, “these Dancers. They’re…”

Costa kept grinning. “What’s the matter, Tsen? Would saying they’re ugly as sin be politically incorrect?”

“We cannot judge them by appearances!”

“But you are doing just that, aren’t you? And it’s tearing you apart, isn’t it?”

“Senator Costa,” a tall, dark woman said wearily, “you might win more converts if you didn’t take such obvious joy in ripping your opponents’ arms off and beating them with the bloody stumps.”

“I have a statement to make!” Senator Suva insisted.

“We’ve hardly asked any questions, Senator,” the dark woman said. “Could we break with long-standing precedent and actually learn something about a subject before we make statements about it?”

“Senator Unruh has a point,” Navarro said.

Wilkes erupted again before anyone else could, pointing at Geary. “Why did you turn over every human liberated from the enigmas to the Syndics?” The senator’s tone was accusing, making the words sound as if a capital murder charge were being leveled against Geary.

Geary did his best not to sound defensive. “They were all citizens of the Syndicate Worlds.”

“They could have provided us with critical information about the enigmas!”

“They knew nothing about the enigmas!” Geary controlled his anger before saying more. “Absolutely nothing. If you read my report—”

“You gave away—”

“I am NOT finished answering you, sir!” Everyone was staring at him. Fine. Let them stare. He had been through too much to put up with this. “Before you question me, read the available information so you know what you’re talking about. Then permit me to answer you in full without interruption. Every one of those humans we liberated from the enigma prison asteroid was a citizen of the Syndicate Worlds. I had no right to hold them against their will. None of them knew anything about the enigmas. None had ever seen an enigma, or spoken with one, or even seen any of their artifacts. They knew far less than we did even before the First Fleet entered enigma space. But the most important factor in my decision was that I had no right to hold them. They were free to make their own decisions about their fates.”

Navarro spoke with an unusual level of sarcasm. “Are we to condemn Admiral Geary for acting in accordance with Alliance law? With Alliance principles?”

“Since you brought up Alliance law,” Senator Costa said, “and the subject of leaving people with the Syndics has already been raised, I wonder if the Admiral would care to explain leaving one of his senior officers in the custody of the Syndics?”

“One of my officers?” Geary asked. “We lost far too many officers in combat, and most of those received honorable burials in space. The only living officer who did not accompany the fleet home was Captain Bradamont. She has been assigned as liaison officer for the Alliance to the Midway Star System.”

“Who approved leaving a liaison officer at Midway, Admiral?” Senator Costa asked, her voice harsh.

“I wrote the orders,” Geary said in his blandest voice. “The idea was mine.” That was the official story he and Rione had agreed upon, and he was going to stick to it. One or more of the senators he was facing might have been among those planning on blackmailing Bradamont over her work for Alliance intelligence during the war. “Naturally, I first gained approval from the representatives of the government who accompanied the fleet.”

“That would be me, and Emissary Charban,” Rione said brightly.

“Your instructions as emissaries—” Costa began.

“Granted us full discretion,” Rione finished. “Instructions approved by the grand council as a whole, I might add.”

“Why was Captain Bradamont chosen to operate with the Syndics?” Senator Wilkes demanded. “There has been information circulating which raises serious questions regarding Bradamont’s loyalty to the Alliance.”

Geary let his gaze, hard and unyielding, rest on Wilkes for a long moment before replying. “As I said earlier, and as my report states clearly, Captain Bradamont is liaison officer to the newly independent Midway Star System. The authorities and the people at Midway are extremely hostile toward the Syndicate Worlds’ government, which I also put in my report. I have no doubts as to the loyalty of Captain Bradamont, and if you indeed have information impugning her honor, you should present it openly. I assure you and everyone else here that I have more than adequate information to rebut any charges against Captain Bradamont, and I will present such information openly if required.”

Senator Wilkes glowered at Geary, plainly searching for words, but Navarro spoke first. “You have attacked the honor of one of the Admiral’s officers,” he chided Wilkes, speaking as if to a small child. “I have no doubt the Admiral will do exactly as he promised to defend that officer. Are we ready to have all of that information publicly disclosed?”

“Are there not restrictions on what can be discussed?” Costa asked.

“What restrictions and pertaining to what information?” Senator Suva demanded.

A few silent seconds passed as senators exchanged meaningful looks, then Wilkes waved an irritated hand. “We can discuss it later. I cannot see what possible benefit the Alliance gains from leaving a senior fleet officer deep in enemy territory.”

“We’ve already gained some very important information from her,” Rione said. “Thanks to Captain Bradamont, we have confirmed that the Syndics have learned how to selectively block access to individual gates in their hypernet.”

“I saw that in your reporting,” Navarro said, leaning back and eyeing Rione and Geary keenly. “That is extremely important. How do they do it?”

“We don’t know. It’s obviously something our hypernet experts should be looking into.”

Senator Unruh shook her head. “Government-funded hypernet research has been drastically scaled back in order to save money.” She turned a long, slow look at her fellow senators. “How fortunate that Admiral Geary also brought back a Syndic-designed system to prevent gates from being collapsed by remote signals. How fortunate that the Syndics continue to invest in research that we have decided is beyond the proper scope of the Alliance government.”

“We’ve been over this,” Suva complained. “We have to set priorities.”

“Our fleet was almost trapped again deep in enemy territory,” Unruh said. “I wonder at the priorities that produce such great benefits and advantages to our enemies.”

Suva’s face flushed with anger. “Are you implying that I—”

“I’m certain that Senator Unruh is not implying anything about anyone,” Senator Navarro said.

“If I were, I certainly wouldn’t be limiting the implications to one senator,” Unruh said.

“From what we could learn,” Geary said to fill the awkward silence that followed Unruh’s statement, “our best estimate is that the Syndics can’t tell who is trying to use a gate. All they can do is block a gate to access, which will only benefit them if they know where we are and where we need to go. They had that advantage at Midway. Even if we face that situation again, we now know that we can use jumps to reach other gates and zigzag our way through their space without following a path they want us to take.”

“A path littered with traps,” Costa growled.

“Are we at peace with the Syndicate Worlds or not?” Suva asked, sounding almost plaintive.

“We’re at peace,” Navarro replied. “I don’t think the Syndics are.”

“We brought back two prisoners taken aboard Invincible,” Geary pointed out.

“Who can tell us nothing,” Navarro said with obvious distaste. “They’ve been mentally conditioned so severely that one has gone catatonic on us, and the second is barely functional. We can’t prove any official Syndic involvement in that or the other attacks.”

“Screw proof! We know the truth! They need to be destroyed. We need to finish them,” Costa insisted.

“We can’t break the peace agreement!” Senator Suva cried. “The people would not stand for it!”

A babble of voices sounded as senators broke in from all sides.

“What peace?”

“Ask the people of the Alliance!”

“We can’t restart the war! The government would collapse!”

“Fellow Senators,” Sakai said in a calm voice that somehow carried over that of his colleagues. “As has been noted, we must at a minimum pursue the liberation of those Alliance citizens still held within Syndic and formerly Syndic space before we give the Syndics legal grounds to discard the peace agreement. Perhaps we should move on to another topic.”

Geary waited while the senators considered Sakai’s advice. He wondered if any of the senators could tell that he was nervous, that he was worried that someone would ask what the rulers of Midway had asked of him in exchange for the Syndic device that would prevent a gate collapse by remote signal.

But the grand council lacked any desire to keep talking about the hypernet.

“Well,” Navarro said, “there is some good news. We need to talk about that. We have a vast amount of, um, Kick technology in that captured warship. We should be able to learn a lot about them.”

“We would have learned much more if we could talk to living individuals of that race,” Senator Suva muttered loudly.

Rione forestalled Geary’s reflexive response with a hand gesture. “We tried,” she told Suva and the others. “We tried in every way we could.”

“The specialists you had with you,” Suva said pointedly, “are saying you failed to try several methods that might have worked.”

“Some of them may be saying that now, but they certainly didn’t propose any such methods at the time,” Rione said. “I personally asked more than once. If some of our academic experts now claim to have known of other methods to communicate with the Kicks, they must have deliberately withheld their suggestions. You might ask them why they did that.”

Navarro grimaced, tapping his hand lightly against the table. “I suspect those experts had no more ideas than you did. I can’t think of anything you didn’t try. Maybe we’ll figure out how to wake up the two living Kicks we do have.”

“I strongly advise against that,” Geary said. “They’ll suicide.”

“The decision may not be ours, Admiral. What’s this I heard about ghosts on that captured ship?”

“There’s something strange on Invincible,” Geary said. “It manifests as if Kick ghosts were crowding around you. I don’t recommend going anywhere on that ship alone. The sensation gets overwhelming very fast.”

“They had a device,” Unruh said softly, “that would protect planets from space bombardment. Is there anything aboard that ship that will show us how to do the same?”

Geary could feel the wave of hope that radiated from the entire grand council. How many billions had died in orbital bombardments since humanity had learned how to go into space and use that ability to drop rocks on the surface of worlds? He shook his head, hating to crush the hopes of the senators. “I don’t know. Their technology, the way they build equipment, is very different from ours in many ways. I do know even the largest Kick ships, like Invincible, did not have that defense against kinetic projectiles. The fleet’s engineers speculate that the defense may require an immense amount of power, or a very large mass like a planet or minor planet. But the bottom line is that we just don’t know. For obvious reasons, we didn’t want to fiddle with the Kick equipment on Invincible to see what it could do.”

“Do we have to use the insulting name ‘Kicks’?” asked Senator Suva. “And why do you keep referring to the ship we took from them using a fleet name?”

“I can call them bear-cows if that’s more acceptable,” Geary said, not wanting to get into useless debate over that issue. “We don’t know what they call themselves. As for why I call the ship Invincible, it’s because it was as Invincible that she came through the voyage back here, and more than one Marine died defending her as Invincible.”

“Learning more about the technology used aboard the ship will surely be a priority for the Alliance,” Senator Unruh noted in a pleasant voice that still drove her point home. “And for the enigmas, you believe there may be hope for peace?”

“I believe that Emissary Charban is right in his guess that such a privacy-obsessed species regards a curiosity-driven species such as ourselves as a major threat. Promising not to seek any further knowledge of them, or enter space controlled by them again, might serve as a basis for halting hostilities. But,” Geary conceded, “so far the enigmas have not responded to our proposals in that direction.”

“And lastly,” Unruh continued, “the Dancers.” She smiled. “I have seen their ships move. It is an apt name.”

“They saved a human-occupied planet,” Senator Suva said eagerly. “Can they show us how to do that?”

“Again,” Geary said, “I don’t know. They are talking to us, they seem helpful and friendly, but they also have an instinctive grasp of maneuvering in space that exceeds the capabilities of human senses or human equipment.”

“But can we trust something that looks like… that?” Wilkes said distastefully.

Rione smiled as she replied. “We can be certain that we aren’t being mesmerized by their beauty.”

“Negotiations are going well?” Navarro asked.

“We’re still learning to communicate. We’re not at a formal negotiation stage, yet.” Rione’s smile went away, replaced by an expression that was impossible to read. “They have communicated something to us since we arrived at Varandal that was unexpected. Emissary Charban and I just managed to work all of this out definitively late last night, so this is the first report of it. I wanted the grand council to be the first to hear.” Even the senators hostile to Rione puffed up slightly at her implied acknowledgment of their importance. “The Dancers have told us they need to go somewhere. They will not open further negotiations until they go there. That’s not being presented as an ultimatum, rather as sort of an if-then set of conditions. If we take them there, then they will talk about other things.”

“They told us?” Costa asked skeptically. “How? I thought our communications with the Dancers were still very basic.”

“They said there was a place they had to go. They used the pictograms for must and travel, so there’s no other interpretation possible,” Rione said. “They did the same, repeatedly, regarding the if-then condition for further negotiations.”

She held out her data pad, tapped a control, and an image of angular characters appeared in the air over the table. “And then they showed us this. It’s a word formed from letters from one of the ancient common languages of humanity, so our systems were easily able to translate it. Even one of us can almost make out the word from its ancestry of our current language.”

“What does it say?” Senator Navarro asked in amazement.

“Kansas.”

“What?”

“The ancient word is Kansas,” Rione explained. “We asked in every way we could, and the Dancers insisted in every way that they could that they must go to Kansas.”

“Where the hell is that?” Costa demanded. “I’ve never heard of a star named Kansas.”

“We located Kansas,” Rione said. “It’s not a star, or a planet. It’s a place on a planet, an old name for a province or region on that planet.”

“What planet and what star?” Senator Navarro said.

“Old Earth,” Rione replied. “Sol Star System.”

The resulting silence was so deep and complete that a falling pin would have resounded like an explosion.

When Navarro broke the silence, he almost whispered, but his voice still sounded unnaturally loud. “Old Earth? They want to go to Old Earth?”

“They are insistent upon that,” Rione replied.

“Why?”

“They cannot, or will not, explain. Not until we take them there.”

“Impossible,” Senator Costa declared. “Take aliens to Sol Star System? To Old Earth itself, the Home of our ancestors? We can’t do that.”

Instantly, Senator Suva turned on her ideological foe Costa. “These are representatives of the first nonhuman intelligent species that has ever sought to communicate with us. It is critically important that we do not offend them!”

“It is critically important that we don’t let a bunch of alien warships drop a stellar destabilizer into Sol itself!”

“These aliens have helped us. Helped people,” Senator Unruh pointed out. “There is no evidence that they are hostile.”

“But look at them!” Wilkes insisted. “We’re supposed to take them to the most sacred spot in the galaxy? Those things?”

“Judge them by their actions,” Geary urged.

“But you can’t tell us why they want to go to Old Earth! How did they even hear of this Kansas place?”

“I don’t know,” Rione conceded.

“Wait,” Senator Sakai said, as another babble of argument began. “Tell me this, Admiral Geary. You have seen the ships of these Dancers. Could they reach Old Earth on their own?”

“Of course,” Geary said, wondering as always what angle Sakai was pursuing. “They have the equivalent of our jump drives, which appear to have at least the same range as our equipment.”

“They would have been seen and stopped,” Costa said derisively.

“The Dancers have excellent stealth capability,” Geary replied. “Better than our own for objects as large as their ships. Even if they were detected, they could easily outmaneuver any human attempt at intercept. And we don’t know how long they’ve had spaceflight and jump drives and stealth capabilities for their spacecraft, which means we don’t know when they might have first gone to Old Earth.”

Sakai nodded slowly. “Then the Dancers could go anywhere in human space? On their own, they might already have explored human space?”

“Yes, Senator,” Geary agreed. “In my report, I speculate that they might have already penetrated human space at least as far as the outer edge of Alliance territory. They recognized the symbol of the Alliance.”

“Yet they ask our permission. They ask to be taken to Old Earth even though they could go without asking.” Sakai looked around, having made his point. “How can we learn what they want there? By taking them there.”

“And if they are secretly hostile?” Costa asked grimly. “Then what happens? Sol has no defenses. Our Home has been neutral and demilitarized for centuries.”

“We would escort the Dancer ships,” Sakai said. “That escort would defend the Dancers, and, if necessary, defend against the Dancers.”

“We can’t send a fleet of warships to Sol,” Suva objected. “That’s politically impossible. The uproar would toss all of us out of office and turn every human star system not in the Alliance against the Alliance.”

“What could we get away with?” Navarro asked, looking up and down the table. “Politically, what would be acceptable?”

Sakai addressed Geary again. “Admiral, did the Alliance ever send warships to Sol Star System before the war?”

Geary nodded. “Yes, Senator.” Increasingly, he had been able to put aside the loss of all he had known a century ago, to live in this time, but questions like Sakai’s drove home to him how long ago his life had once been, that he had lived in a time that was the distant past for the people around him. “Every ten years, the Alliance would send one warship for anniversary commemorations.”

“One warship?” Suva asked, eyeing Geary suspiciously.

“Yes, Senator. One. Of course, the fleet was much smaller then, but it was usually a capital ship to show due respect for Home. A battleship or battle cruiser.”

“A battle cruiser?” Navarro nodded, smiling. “Dauntless is a battle cruiser, the flagship of your fleet, and a distinguished ship whose crew has acted heroically and with honor.”

Everyone seemed to be waiting for him to say something, so Geary nodded back. “I would not dispute that characterization of Dauntless or her crew.”

“Or, doubtless, her captain,” Costa sneered.

“A ship large enough,” Sakai added without acknowledging Costa’s jibe at Geary’s private relationship with Desjani, “to carry selected members of our government along on this journey, to ensure all feel adequately represented, and to conduct whatever negotiations the Dancers wish following their arrival at this place called Kansas.”

“A battle cruiser?” Costa asked, her eyes calculating. “And all… interests… would be represented? I might be willing to buy into that.”

“If Senator Costa goes,” Senator Suva said, “I will go as well. That is nonnegotiable.”

“I’m sure we’d all love to have you along,” Costa said with a nasty grin.

“We can agree on this?” Navarro said, as if not believing any agreement could be possible.

“Not just those two,” Senator Unruh insisted.

“Someone acceptable to all,” Navarro agreed. “I know that doesn’t include me. What about Senator Sakai? Would anyone object?”

No one did.

“So, we agree that Senators Sakai, Suva, and Costa will travel on the battle cruiser Dauntless as that Alliance warship escorts the six Dancer ships to Old Earth. The orders to Dauntless will be to escort and protect the Dancer ships, unless the Dancers unexpectedly act in a hostile manner, in which case Dauntless will protect Old Earth and the rest of Sol Star System. In addition, Admiral Geary will go along, as will Emissary Rione—”

“Her?” Suva demanded. “Why?”

“To talk to the Dancers,” Unruh said, sounding tired again. “What about the other? Charban?”

“The Dancers prefer to communicate with both of us,” Rione said.

Geary knew the Dancers actually preferred communicating with Charban, but since he wanted Rione along, he simply nodded as if in agreement.

“It is better to have two intermediaries,” Sakai noted. “One could become fatigued by constant demands. Both Rione and Charban should come.”

“But not as emissaries!” Suva insisted.

“No. There is no need of that when representatives of the grand council will be present. They will need a title. Ambassador? Speaker?”

“Envoy,” Navarro suggested.

“That is acceptable to me.”

Suva and Costa gave reluctant agreement as well, followed by the rest of the senators present.

Navarro smiled encouragingly at Geary. “That’s decided, then. Make your preparations for this journey. I envy you, I admit. There has been no luxury for journeys to Old Earth in recent decades despite the hypernet gate the Alliance constructed there decades ago. You, Dauntless, and her crew, deserve the chance to see the Home of our ancestors, and the chance to rest after your arduous mission outside human space and back through Syndic space. This trip to Old Earth should give you all a well-earned break from the blood and fire you have faced for far too long.”

After Geary and Rione had left the room and were facing Timbale and Desjani once more, Rione turned to Geary. “Do you believe in jinxes, Admiral?”

He made an uncertain gesture in reply. “I believe that sometimes they seem real. Why do you ask?”

“Because I wish that Senator Navarro had not made that last statement. It is never good to tempt fate.”