Shadow Puppets

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

TRAPS

To: Locke%erasmus@polnet.gov

From: Sand%Water@ArabNet.net

Re: Invitation to a party

You don't want to miss this one. Kemal upstairs thinks he's the whole show, but when Show and Pock get started in the basement, that's when the fireworks stop, say wait for the downstairs party before you pop any corks.

"John Paul," said Theresa Wiggin quietly, "I don't understand what Peter's doing here."

John Paul closed his suitcase. "That's the way he likes it."

"We're supposed to be doing this secretly, but he-"

"Asked us not to talk about it in here." John Paul put his finger to his lips, then picked up her suitcase as well as his and started on the long walk to the bunkroom door.

Theresa could do nothing but sigh and follow him. After all they'd been through with Peter, you'd think he could confide in them. But he still had to play these games where nobody knew everything that was going on but him. It was only a few hours since he had decided they were going to leave on the next shuttle, and supposedly they were supposed to keep it an absolute secret.

So what does Peter do? Asks practically every member of the permanent station crew to do some favor for him, run some errand, "and you've got to get it to me by 1800."

They weren't idiots. They all knew that 1800 was when everyone going on the next flight had to board for a 1900 departure.

So this great secret had been leaked, by implication, to everybody on the crew.

And yet he still insisted that they not talk about it, and John Paul was going along with him! What kind of madness was this? Peter was clearly not being careless, he was too systematic for it to be an accident. Was he hoping to catch someone in the act of transmitting a warning to Achilles? Well, what if, instead of a warning, they just blew up the shuttle? Maybe that was the operation-to sabotage whatever shuttle they were going home on. Did Peter think of that?

Of course he did. It was in Peter's nature to think of everything.

Or at least it was in Peter's nature to think he had thought of everything.

Out in the corridor, John Paul kept walking too quickly for her to converse with him, and when she tried anyway, he put his fingers to his lips.

"It's OK," he murmured.

At the elevator to the hub of the station, where the shuttles docked, Dimak was waiting for them. He had to be there, because their palms would not activate the elevator.

"I'm sorry we'll be losing you so soon," said Dimak.

"You never did tell us," said John Paul, "which bunk room was Dragon Army's."

"Ender never slept there anyway," said Dimak. "He had a private room. Commanders always did. Before that he was in several armies, but..."

"Too late now, anyway," said John Paul.

The elevator door opened. Dimak stepped inside, held the door for them, palmed the controls, and entered the code for the right flight deck.

Then he stepped back out of the elevator. "Sorry I can't see you off, but Colonel-the Minister suggested I shouldn't know about this."

John Paul shrugged.

The elevator doors closed and they began their ascent.

"Johnny P.," said Theresa, "if we're so worded about being bugged, what was that about, talking so openly with him?"

"He carries a damper," said John Paul. "His conversations can't be listened to. Ours can, and this elevator is definitely bugged."

"What, Uphanad told you that?"

"It would be insane to set up security in a tube like this station without bugging the tunnel through which everybody has to pass to get inside."

"Well excuse me for not thinking like a paranoid spy."

"I think that's one of your best traits."

She realized that she couldn't say anything she was thinking. And not just because it might be overheard by Uphanad's security system. "I hate it when you 'deal' with me."

"OK, what if I 'handle' you instead?" suggested John Paul, leering just a little.

"If you weren't carrying my bag for me," said Theresa, "I'd..."

"Tickle me?"

"You aren't in on this any more than I am," said Theresa. "But you act as if you know everything." Gravity had quickly faded, and now she was holding onto the side rail as she hooked her feet under the floor rail.

"I've guessed some things," said John Paul. "For the rest, all I can do is trust. He really is a very smart boy."

"Not as smart as he thinks," said Theresa.

"But a lot smarter than you think," said John Paul.

"I suppose your evaluation of his intelligence is just right."

"Such a Goldilocks line. Makes me feel so ... ursine."

"Why can't you just say 'bearlike'?"

"Because I know the word 'ursine,' and so do you, and it's fun to say."

The elevator doors opened.

"Carry your bag for you, Ma'am?" said John Paul.

"If you want," she said, "but I'm not going to tip you."

"Oh, you really are upset," he murmured.

She pulled herself past him as he started tossing bags to the orderlies.

Peter was waiting at the shuttle entrance. "Cut it rather fine, didn't we?" he said.

"Is it eighteen hundred?" asked Theresa.

"A minute before," said Peter.

"Then we're early," said Theresa. She sailed past him, too, and on into the airlock.

Behind her, she could hear Peter saying, "What's got into her?" and John Paul answering, "Later"

It took a moment to reorient herselt once she was inside the shuttle. She couldn't shake the sensation that the floor was in the wrong place- down was left and in was out, or some such thing. But she pulled herself by the handholds on the seat backs until she had found a seat. An aisle seat, to invite other passengers to sit somewhere else. But there were no other passengers. Not even John Paul and Peter After waiting a good five minutes, she became too impatient to sit there any longer.

She found them standing in midair near the airlock, laughing about something.

"Are you laughing at me?" she asked, daring them to say yes.

"No," said Peter at once.

"Only a little," said John Paul. "We can talk now. The pilot has cut all the links to the station, and... Peter's wearing a damper, too."

"How nice," said Theresa. "Too bad they didn't have one for me or your father to use."

"They didn't," said Peter "I've got Graff's. It's not like they keep them in stock."

"Why did you tell everybody you met here that we were leaving on this shuttle? Are you trying to get us killed?"

"Ah, what tangled webs we weave, when we practice to deceive," said Peter.

"So you're playing spider," said Theresa. "What are we, threads? Or flies?"

"Passengers," said John Paul.

And Peter laughed.

"Let me in on the joke," said Theresa, "or I'll space you, I swear I will."

"As soon as Graff knew he had an informer here at the station, he brought his own security team here. [?]Unbeknownst to anyone but him, no messages are actually going into or out of the station. But it looks to anyone on the station as if they are.

"So you're hoping to catch someone sending a message about what shuttle we're on," said Theresa.

"Actually, we expect that no one will send a message at all."

"Then what is this for?" said Theresa.

"What matters is, who doesn't send the message." And Peter grinned at her.

"I won't ask anything more," said Theresa, "since you're so smug about how clever you are. I suppose whatever your clever plan is, my dear clever boy thought it up."

"And people say Demosthenes has a sarcastic streak," said Peter

A moment ago she didn't get it. And now she did. Something clicked, apparently. The right mental gear had shifted, the tight synapse had sizzled with electricity for a moment. "You wanted everybody to think they had accidentally discovered we were leaving. And gave them all a chance to send a message," said Theresa. "Except one person. So if he's the one..."

John Paul finished her sentence. "Then the message won't get sent."

"Unless he's really clever," said Theresa.

"Smarter than us?" said Peter.

He and John Paul looked at each other Then both of them shook their heads, said, "Naw," and then burst out laughing.

"I'm glad you too are bonding so well," she said.

"Oh, Mom, don't be a butt about this," said Peter "I couldn't tell you because if he knew it was a trap it wouldn't work, and he's the one person who might be listening to everything. And for your information I only just got the damper"

"I understand all that," said Theresa. "It's the fact that your father guessed it and I didn't."

"Mom," said Peter, "nobody thinks you're a lackwit, if that's what you're worried about."

"Lackwit? In what musty drawer of some dead English professor's dust-covered desk did you find that word? I assure you that never in my worst nightmares did I ever suppose that I was a lackwit."

"Good," said Peter "Because if you did, you'd be wrong."

"Shouldn't we be strapping in for takeoff?" asked Theresa.

"No," said Peter. "We're not going anywhere."

"Why not?"

"The station computers are busily running a simulation program saying that the shuttle is in its launch routine. Just to make it look right, we'll be cut loose and drift away from the station. As soon as the only people in the dock are Graff's team from outside, we'll come back and get out of this can."

"This seems like a pretty elaborate shade to catch one informer"

"You raised me with such a keen sense of style, Mom," said Peter "I can't overcome my childhood at your knee."

Lankowski knocked at the door at nearly midnight. Petra had already been asleep for an hour. Bean logged off, disconnected his desk, and opened the door

"Is there something wrong?" he asked Lankowski.

"Our mutual friend wishes to see the two of you."

"Petra's already asleep," said Bean. But he could see from the coldness of Lankowski's demeanor that something was very wrong. "Is Alai all right?"

"He's very well, thank you," said Lankowski. "Please wake your wife and bring her along as quickly as possible."

Fifteen minutes later, adrenaline making sure that neither he nor Petra was the least bit groggy, they stood before Alai, not in the garden, but in an office, and Alai was sitting behind a desk.

He had a single sheet of paper on the desk and slid it across to Bean.

Bean picked it up and read it.

"You think I sent this," said Bean.

"Or Petra did," said Alai. "I tried to tell myself that perhaps you hadn't impressed upon her the importance of keeping this information from the Hegemon. But then I realized that I was thinking like a very old-fashioned Muslim. She is responsible for her own actions. And she understood as well as you did that maintaining secrecy on this matter was vital."

Bean sighed.

"I didn't send it," said Bean. "Petra didn't send it. We not only understood your desire to keep this secret, we agreed with it. There is zero chance we would have sent information about what you're doing to anyone, period."

"And yet here is this message, sent from our own netbase. From this building!"

"Alai," said Bean, "we're three of the smartest people on Earth. We've been through a war together, and the two of you survived Achilles's kidnapping. And yet when something like this happens, you absolutely know that we're the ones who betrayed your trust."

"Who else from outside our circle knew this?"

"Well, let's see. All the men at that meeting have staffs. Their staffs are not made up of idiots. Even if no one explicitly told them, they'll see memos, they'll hear comments. Some of these men might even think it's not a breach of security to tell a deeply trusted aide. And a few of them might actually be only figureheads, so they have to tell the people who'll be doing the real work or nothing will get done."

"I know all these men," said Alai.

"Not as well as you know us," said Petra. "Just because they're good Muslims and loyal to you doesn't mean they're all equally careful."

"Peter has been building up a network of informants and correspondents since he was ... well, since he was a kid. Long before any of them knew he was just a kid. It would be shocking if he didn't have an informant in your palace."

Alai sat staring at the paper on the desk. "This is a very clumsy sort of disguise for the message," said Alai. "I suppose you would have done a better job of it."

"I would have encrypted it," said Bean, "and Petra probably would have put it inside a graphic."

"I think the very clumsiness of the message should tell you something," said Petra. "The person who wrote this is someone who thinks he only needs to hide this information from somebody outside the inner circle. He would have to know that if you saw it, you'd recognize instantly that 'Shaw' refers to the old rulers of Iran, and 'Pack' refers to Pakistan, while 'Kemal' is a transparent reference to the founder of post-Ottoman Turkey. How could you not get it?"

Alai nodded. "So he's only coding it like this to keep outsiders from understanding it, in case it gets intercepted by an enemy."

"He doesn't think anybody here would search his outgoing messages," said Petra. "Whereas Bean and I know for a fact that we've been bugged since we got here."

"Not terribly successfully," said Alai with a tight little smile.

"Well, you need better snoopware, to start with," said Bean.

"And if we had sent a message to Peter," said Petra, "we would have told him explicitly to warn our Indian friend not to block the Chinese exit from India, only their return."

"We would have had no other reason to tell Peter about this at all," said Bean. "We don't work for him. We don't really like him all that much."

"He's not," said Petra firmly, "one of us."

Alai nodded, sighed, leaned back in his chair. "Please, sit down," he said.

"Thank you," said Petra.

Bean walked to the window and looked out over lawns sprinkled by purified water from the Mediterranean. Where the favor of Allah was, the desert blossomed. "I don't think there'll be any harm from this," said Bean. "Aside from our losing a bit of sleep tonight."

"You must see that it's hard for me to suspect my closest colleagues here."

"You're the Caliph," said Petra, "but you're also still a very young man, and they see that. They know your plan is brilliant, they love you, they follow you in all the great things you plan for your people. But when you tell them, Keep this an absolute secret, they say yes, they even mean it, but they don't take it really quite seriously because, you see, you re..."

"Still a boy," said Alai.

"That will fade with time," said Petra. "You have many years ahead of you. Eventually all these older men will be replaced."

"By younger men that I trust even less," said Alai ruefully.

"Telling Peter is not the same thing as telling an enemy," said Bean. "He shouldn't have had this information in advance of the invasion. But you notice that the informer didn't tell him when the invasion would start."

"Yes he did," said Alai.

"Then I don't see it," said Bean.

Petra got up again and looked at the printed-out email. "The message doesn't say anything about the date of the invasion."

"It was sent," said Alai, "on the day of the invasion."

Bean and Petra looked at each other. "Today?" said Bean.

"The Turkic campaign has already begun," said Alai. "As soon as it was dark in Xinjiang. By now we have received confirmation via email messages that three airfields and a significant part of the power grid are in our hands. And so far, at least, there is no sign that the Chinese know anything is happening. It's going better than we could have hoped."

"It's begun," said Bean. "So it was already too late to change the plans for the third front."

"No, it wasn't," said Alai. "Our new orders have been sent. The Indonesian and Arab commanders are very proud to be entrusted with the mission that will take the war home to the enemy."

Bean was appalled. "But the logistics of it... there's no time to plan."

"Bean," said Alai with amusement. "We already had the plans for a complicated beach landing. That was a logistical nightmare. Putting three hundred separate forces ashore at different points on the Chinese coast, under cover of darkness, three days from today, and supporting them with air raids and air drops-my people can do that in their sleep. That was the best thing about your idea, Bean, my friend. It wasn't a plan at all, it was a situation, and the whole plan is for every individual commander to improvise ways to fulfil the mission objectives. I told them, in my orders, that as long as they keep moving inland, protect their men, and cause maximum annoyance to the Chinese government and military, they can't fail."

"It's begun," said Petra.

"Yes," said Bean. "It's begun, and Achilles is not in China."

Petra looked at Bean and grinned. "Let's see what we can do about keeping him away."

"More to the point," said Bean. "Since we have not given Peter the specific message he needs to convey to Virlomi in India, may we do so now, with your permission?"

Alai squinted at him. "Tomorrow. After news of the fighting in Xinjiang has started to come out. I will tell you when."

In Uphanad's office, Graff sat with his feet on the desk as Uphanad worked at the security console.

"Well, sir, that's it," said Uphanad. "They're off."

"And they'll arrive when?" said Graff.

"I don't know," said Uphanad. "That's all about trajectories and very complicated equations balancing velocity, mass, speed-I wasn't the astrophysics teacher in Battle School, you recall."

"You were small-force tactics, if I remember," said Graff. "And when you tried that experiment with military music- having the boys learn to sing together-"

Graff groaned. "Please. Don't remind me. What a deeply stupid idea that was."

"But you saw that at once and let us mercifully drop the whole thing."

"Esprit de corps my ass,' said Graff.

Uphanad hit a group of keys on the console keyboard and the screen showed that he had just logged off. "All done here. I'm glad you found out about the informer here in MinCol. Having the Wiggins leave was the only safe option."

"Do you remember," said Graff, "the time I accused you of letting Bean see your log-on?"

"Like yesterday," said Uphanad. "I don't think you were going to believe me until Dimak vouched for me and suggested Bean was crawling around the duct system and peeking through vents."

"Yes. Dimak was sure that you were so methodical you could not possibly have broken your habits in a moment of carelessness. He was right, wasn't he?"

"Yes," said Uphanad.

"I learned my lesson," said Graff. "I trusted you ever since."

"I hope I have earned that trust."

"Many times over. I didn't keep all the faculty from Battle School. Of course, there were some who thought the Ministry of Colonization too tame for their talents. But it isn't really a matter of personal loyalty, is it?"

"What isn't, sir?"

"Our loyalty should be to something larger than a particular person, don't you think? To a cause, perhaps. I'm loyal to the human race-that's a pretentious one, don't you think?-but to a particular project, spreading the human genome throughout as many star systems as possible. So our very existence can never be threatened again. And for that, I'd sacrifice many personal loyalties. It makes me completely predictable, but also someone unreliable, if you get what I mean."

"I think I do, sir.

"So my question, my good friend, is this: What are you loyal to?"

"To this cause, sir. And to you."

"This informant who used your log-on. Did he peer at you through the vents again, do you think?"

"Very unlikely, sir I think it much more probable that he penetrated the system and chose me at random, sir."

"Yes, of course. But you must understand that because your name was on that email, we had to eliminate you as a possibility first."

"That is only logical, sir."

"So as we sent the Wiggins home on the shuttle, we made sure that every member of the permanent staff found out that they were leaving and had every opportunity to send a message. Except you.

"Except me, sir?"

"I have been with you continuously since they decided to go. That way, if a message was sent, even if it used your log-on, we would know it wasn't you who sent it. But if a message wasn't sent, well... it was you who didn't send it."

"This is not likely to be foolproof, sir," said Uphanad. "Someone else might have not sent the message for reasons of his or her own, sir. It might be that their departure was not something for which a message was necessary."

"True," said Graff. "But we would not convict you of a crime on the basis of a message not sent. Merely assign you to a less critical responsibility. Or give you the opportunity to resign with pension."

"That is very kind of you, sir"

"Please don't think of me as kind, I-"

The door opened. Uphanad turned, obviously surprised. "You can't come in here," he said to the Vietnamese woman who stood in the doorway.

"Oh, I invited her," said Graff. "I don't think you know Colonel Nguyen of the IF Digital Security Force."

"No," said Uphanad, rising to offer his hand. "I didn't even know your office existed. Per se.

She ignored his hand and gave a paper to Graff.

"Oh," he said, not reading it yet. "So we're in the clear in this room."

"The message did not use his log-on," she said.

Graff read the message. It consisted of a single word: "Off." The log-on was that of one of the orderlies from the docks.

The time in the message header showed it had been sent only a couple of minutes before. "So my friend is in the clear," said Graff.

"No sir," said Nguyen.

Uphanad, who had been looking relieved, now seemed baffled. "But I did not send it. How could I?"

Nguyen did not answer him, but spoke only to Graff. "It was sent from this console."

She walked over to the console and started to log back on.

"Let me do that," said Uphanad.

She turned around and there was a stun gun in her hand. "Stand against the wall," she said. "Hands in plain view.

Graff got up and opened the door "Come on in," he said. Two more IF soldiers entered. "Please inspect Mr Uphanad for weapons or other lethal items. And under no circumstances is he to be allowed to touch a computer. We wouldn't want him to activate a program wiping out critical materials."

"I don't know how this thing was done," said Uphanad. "but you're wrong about me."

Graff pointed to the console. "Nguyen is never wrong," he said. "She's even more methodical than you."

Uphanad watched. "She's signing on as me." And then, "She used my password. That's illegal!"

Nguyen called Graff over to look at the screen. "Normally, to log off, you press these two keys, you see? But he also pressed this one. With his little finger, so you wouldn't actually notice it had been pressed. That key sequence activated a resident program that sent the email, using a random selection from among the staff identities. It also launched the ordinary log-off sequence, so to you, it looked like you had just watched somebody log off in a perfectly normal way."

"So he had this ready to send at any time," said Graff.

"But when he did send it, it was within five minutes of the actual launch."

Graff and Nguyen turned around to look at Uphanad. Graff could see in his eyes that he saw he had been caught.

"So," said Graff, "how did Achilles get to you? You've never met him, I don't think. Surely he didn't form some attachment with you when he was here for a few days as a student."

"He has my family," said Uphanad, and he burst into tears.

"No no," said Graff. "Control yourself act like a soldier, we have very little time here in which to correct your failure of judgment. Next time you'll know, if someone comes to you with a threat like this, you come to me.

"They said they'd know if I told you."

"Then you would tell me that, too," said Graff, "But, now you have told me. So let's make this thing work to our advantage. What happens when you send this second message'?"

"I don't know," said Uphanad. "It doesn't matter anyway. She just sent it again. When they get the same message twice, they'll know something is wrong."

"Oh, they didn't get the message either time," said Graff. "We cut this console off. We cut off the whole station from earthside contact. Just as the shuttle never actually left."

The door opened yet again, and in came Peter, John Paul, and Theresa.

Uphanad turned his face to the wall. The soldiers would have turned him back around, but Graff gave them a gesture: Let be. He knew how proud Uphanad was. This shame in front of the people he had tried to betray was unbearable. Give him time to compose himself.

Only when the Wiggins were sitting did Graff invite Uphanad also to take a seat. He obeyed, hanging his head like a caricature of a whipped dog.

"Sit up. Uphanad, and face this like a man. These are good people, they understand that you did what you thought you must for your family. You were unwise not to trust me more, but even that is understandable."

From Theresa's face, Graff could see that she, at least, was not half so understanding as he seemed to assume. But he won her silence with a gesture.

"I'll tell you what," said Graff. "Let's make this work to our advantage. I actually have a couple of shuttles at my disposal for this operation-compliments of Admiral Chamrajnagar. by the way-so the real quandary is deciding which of them to send when we actually allow your email to go out."

"Two shuttles?" asked Peter.

"We have to make a guess about what Achilles planned to do with this information. If he means to attack you upon landing, well, we have a very heavily armed shuttle that should be able to deal with anything he can throw against it from the ground or the air I think what he's planning is probably a missile as you're overflying some region where he can get a portable launch platform."

"And your heavily armed shuttle can deal with that?" asked Peter

"Easily. The trouble is, this shuttle is not supposed to exist. The IF charter specifically forbids any weaponization of atmospheric craft. It's designed to go along with colony ships, in case the extermination of the Formics was not complete and we run into resistance. But if such a shuttle enters Earth's atmosphere and proves its capabilities by shooting down a missile, we could never tell anyone about it without compromising the IF. So we could use this shuttle to get you safely to Earth, but could never tell anyone about the attempt on your life."

"I could live with that," said Peter

"Except that you don't actually have to get to Earth at this time."

"No, I don't."

"So we can send a different shuttle. Again, one whose existence is not known, but this time it is not illegal. Because it hasn't been weaponized at all. In fact, while it's quite expensive compared to, say, a bazooka, it's very, very cheap compared with a real shuttle. This one's a dummy. It is carefully designed to match the velocity and radar signature of a real shuttle, but it lacks a few things-like any place to put a human being, or any capability of a soft landing."

"So you send this one down," said John Paul, "draw their fire, and then have a propaganda field day."

"We'll have IF observers watching for the boost and we'll be on that launch platform before it can be dismantled, or at least before the perpetrators can get away. Whether it ends up pointing to Achilles or China, either way we can demonstrate that someone on Earth fired at an IF shuttle."

"Puts them in a very bad position," said Peter. "Do we announce that I was the target?"

"We can decide that based on their response, and on who is getting the blame. If it's China, I think we gain more by making it an attack on the International Fleet. If it's Achilles, we gain more by making him out to be an assassin."

"You seem to have been quite free about discussing these things in front of us," said Theresa. "I suppose now you have to kill us."

"just me," whispered Uphanad.

"Well, I do have to fire you," said Graff. "And I do have to send you back to Earth, because it just wouldn't do to have you stay on here. You'd just depress everyone else, slinking around looking guilty and unworthy."

Graff's tone was light enough to help keep Uphanad from bursting into tears again.

"I've heard," Graff went on, "that the Indian people need to have loyal men who'll fight for their freedom. That's the loyalty that transcends your loyalty to the Ministry of Colonization, and I understand it. So you must go where your loyalty leads you.

"This is unbelievable mercy, sir," said Uphanad.

"It wasn't my idea," said Graff. "My plan was to have you tried in secret by the IF and executed. But Peter told me that, if you were guilty and it turned out you were protecting family members in Chinese custody, it would be wrong to punish you for the crime of imperfect loyalty."

Uphanad turned to look at Peter "My betrayal might have killed you and your family."

"But it didn't," said Peter.

"I like to think," said Graff, "that God sometimes shows mercy to us by letting some accident prevent us from actually carrying out our worst plans."

"I don't believe that," said Theresa coldly. "I believe if you point a gun at a man's head and the bullet was a dud, you're still a murderer in the eyes of God."

"Well then," said Graff, "when we're all dead, if we find that we still exist in some form or other, we'll just have to ask God to tell us which of us is right."