A Talent for War (19 page)

blown in all sorts of directions, still drifting out there, and recoverable if you just knew where to look. But two hundred years is a long time. Things get pretty well scattered."

"Tell me about the Regal."

"The Ashiyyur hit it with an electronic pulse of some sort. It didn't penetrate the hull, but it knocked out the ship's systems. From what Gramp said, it was the crew that blew a hole in the forward section, trying to recover power. Five were sucked out. The other three were trapped and couldn't get help. The research team found them in an airtight compartment.

"But the ship itself was in good condition."

"Gabe told me about it," I said. "There was an accident."

"Shortly after they got on board, it blew up. Someone on the team touched something. No one ever did figure out what happened. It never came out publicly, but Gramp said he thought the mutes were responsible. There was a man along named Koenig that they decided later was probably in the mutes' pay. They thought he did it."

"Why would the Ashiyyur care about a two-hundred-year-old wreck?"

She looked at me searchingly. Her eyes narrowed, while she made a decision. Then she said:

"Gramp didn't know, but I guess there'd been other incidents all along that implied someone did not want the expedition to succeed."

"What happened to Koenig?"

"Died shortly after. Heart problem. He was still quite young, with no history of coronary disease." She sipped her wine, and peered at the glass stem. "I don't know: maybe there's something to it.

"But whatever the truth of that was, my grandfather was never the same. To have had that sort of prize in his hands, and have it slip away—" She sighed. "He died not long after Koenig."

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Gabe did what he could to help. I was never sure what caused more damage: losing the artifact, or getting laughed at by the entire profession. What frustrates me now is that I've gotten to know a lot of them as individuals. They aren't vindictive people. But they never understood how he felt, or maybe they didn't care because they had problems of their own. But Llandman and his frigate made such a great story. It was as if Harry Pellinor had discovered the ruins on Belarius, and then forgot where they were."

The Resistance-era materials I'd been gathering were all stacked on a couple of tables in the den.

She pored over them, nodding with satisfaction at the simul crystals and the Candles volumes and the other assorted pieces. "I didn't realize," she said, leafing through Tanner's Notebooks, "you were so deeply involved in all this, Alex."

"It seems to have caught hold of me. Are you familiar with her?" I asked.

"With Tanner?" Her face glowed. "Yes! One of the most fascinating characters of the period."

"She started out as a pacifist," I said. "And ended up in the war. What happened? Do you know?"

Quinda crossed one leg over the other and bent forward energetically. I could see Tanner would be a favorite subject. "She was never a pacifist, Alex. She felt the war was unnecessary, and wanted to see a serious attempt made to negotiate. The Sims weren't much interested in that approach."

"Why not?"

"Because they believed any attempt at conciliation, while the mutes had the upper hand—

really had the upper hand—would be interpreted as a sign of weakness. Against a human opponent, they'd have been right. But against the mutes, maybe not. Tanner knew as much as anyone did then about the enemy, and she thought they could be talked to."

"How did she end up in Sim's navy?"

"That's easy. Somehow, she got to Sim, I don't know how, and persuaded him to let her try to
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negotiate with the mutes. The fact that he went along should tell you that she was reasonably persuasive."

"But obviously things didn't work out."

"He agreed to let her meet with the mute commander, Mendoles Barosa.

"The site was a crater on an unnamed moon in a fringe system that neither side cared about.

Tanner was the only one the Confederates had who'd traveled among the mutes, the only one who could communicate with them, and, most important, the only one who could guard her thoughts against them.

"Sim and Barosa circled overhead while she met with a mute negotiator. Tanner reported later that she and the mute envoy were very close to working out an agreement within the restrictions Sim had imposed on her, when she learned that the mutes would accept no deal that did not include the surrender of Christopher Sim for assorted barbarities and war crimes.

"They got nowhere on that issue, and Sim broke off the meeting. The mutes responded by attacking, and occupying, two nominally neutral worlds which had, in reality, been supporting the Dellacondans with weapons, crews, and money. A lot of people died. And Tanner was left feeling responsible for it all.

"She reacted by throwing herself wholeheartedly into the common defense. Maurina Sim, in her diaries, says that Tanner never forgave the mutes. And that no one prosecuted that war with a more unrelenting fury."

It was well into the early morning when we climbed into the skimmer and started back across the city. We were both tired by then, and the conversation dwelt on trivialities. I could see that her thoughts were far distant. At the end of the flight, as we circled down onto the roof of her apartment complex, I brought her abruptly back into focus: "Quinda, I spoke with one of the Ashiyyur yesterday. In person."

All the warmth drained from her face. "You're not serious," she said, in a voice that was deadly flat.

I hesitated, confused by her reaction. "Yes," I said, my own temper going up a notch or two.

"One of the people from the Maracaibo Caucus."

"Alex, you didn't really do that." She radiated shock, anger, disappointment.

"Why not?" I asked. "What's wrong?"

"My God, Alex," she whispered. "What have you done?"

XI.

We frequently refer to Imarios' revolt as "fateful," presumably in the sense that, without it, these two centuries of unremitting hostility and occasional war would not have happened. But consider the rough technological balance between the two cultures, their mutual expansionist tendencies and assumptions of destiny, and the personal antipathy inevitably experienced by individuals of either species in the presence of the other: how could it have been otherwise? If ever two societies were intended by nature to confront each other, and to settle the issue in Darwinian combat, those two societies are Ashiyyurean and human.

—Gasper Mendez, The long Twilight

"AND YOU DID not ask her to explain why she was upset?"

"No, Jacob. She didn't really appear to be in a mood to respond to questions."

"I see one connection. Remember the claim that Artis Llandman's expedition was destroyed by the machinations of the Ashiyyur. It appears to me that your Quinda Arin is concerned that you may have exposed information of consequence."

"But what? I don't know anything."

"I would say she thinks you do. In any case, I have some news. We may be able to get more information on Tanner. Maybe find out what she was doing during the missing years. Please attend the monitor."

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The lights dimmed, and a message formed:

ANGI54IY66133892Ir 261 MARNET PLACE, TEUFMANOIL

MR BENEDICT. I HAVE MATERIAL ON LEISHA TANNER THAT YOU MAY FIND

OF INTEREST. I AM IN POSSESSION OF A CERTIFIED COPY OF HER JOURNALS

COVERING THE YEARS 1202-1219. I WILL NOT COPY THE DOCUMENT, NOR WILL

I

ALLOW IT OUT OF MY HANDS. IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN EXAMINING IT, WITH

A VIEW TO PURCHASE, PLEASE RESPOND TO ROUTING CODE ABOVE.

HAMEL WRICHT

"It came during the night. It's a response to a general query I sent out several days ago. But somebody's going to have to go get it."

"Why? Let's just link in and get a look at it."

"I've already suggested that." Jacob flashed a second message on the screen, the gist of which was: YOUR SUGGESTION WOULD EXPOSE THE ARTIFACT TO POSSIBLE

COPYING.

REGRET I CANNOT COMPLY.

"That doesn't make sense," I said. "We could only copy what we could see. It wouldn't be much."

"Do you wish to send another message?"

"I'll talk to him myself."

"He's not on the net, Alex. You can't reach him directly. Except maybe on the transcom."

"Do it," I said. "Where's the closest terminal?"

"At a hotel in Teufmanoil. I expected you would wish to respond, so I've already tried them.

They say the address is outside town somewhere and they'd have to send someone out to get him and bring him in. They don't sound anxious to do it."

"A recluse," I grumbled. "Is this something other than the Notebooks? Did she keep journals, too?"

"Apparently she did," offered Jacob.

"All the writing she seems to have done, it's a wonder she had time for anything else. Find out how much Wricht wants for the thing, and buy it."

"Alex." Jacob adopted a tone that suggested he was about to talk sense with me. "Artifacts of this nature, as you very well know, are inordinately expensive. And there's quite a good chance it isn't even legitimate." The message blinked off. "I don't wish to tell you your business—" he said.

"Thank you, Jacob. Where's Teufmanoil?"

"In the Sulyas."

He couldn't entirely hide his amusement. The Sulyas are halfway around the globe. "Okay," I said. "I'll go see him."

"Good," said Jacob. "I've booked the late afternoon flight."

I crossed two oceans, and landed about midnight local time at Wetherspur on the eastern flank of the Sulya Ridge. It was quite cold, high in the northern hemisphere. When I stepped out of the intercontinental, the air was literally heavy with frost. It was like walking into a wall.

I caught an airbus and, by morning, I was in Teufmanoil. It was a resort town, a skiing village.

Despite the frigid weather, the snow on the slopes was thin. The sun was bright in a cloudless sky, and the streets were packed with people on their way to the slopes.

The tourist center was located in the lobby of the depot.

A middle-aged woman welcomed me energetically to the Silver Peak Ski Valley, and placed a cup of coffee in front of me.

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I accepted, and gave her Wricht's address. She punched it into the computer, and a blue star appeared on the wall map behind her, just off a trail about six kilometers west of town. "Marnet Place," she said. "Who are you looking for?"

"Hamel Wricht. An antiquities dealer, probably."

"Oh, yes," she said. "I don't know about antiquities, but he has a small lodge out there.

Anything else you need?"

"No," I said. "Thank you."

I rented a snowbike and, a few minutes later, I arrived outside Wricht's hotel, which was a white and red three-story lodge with a lot of glass, and about a dozen pairs of skis stacked on its porch.

Several people came out while I watched. They were kids, mostly, college students. Several waved as they passed, and one young woman, who appeared to have had a bit too much to drink, invited me to join them.

I walked up onto the porch, and knocked.

The door opened, revealing a trim, bearded young man who didn't seem to be much older than the group which had just left. "I'm looking for Hamel Wricht," I said.

He bowed slightly, and stepped back to make room for me. "Do I know you?"

"My name's Benedict," I said expectantly. "I came about Leisha Tanner."

"Who?" He looked genuinely puzzled. And he also didn't look like someone who was likely to have an interest in the finer things of this world.

"You have a copy of her journals," I insisted.

"I have no idea what we're talking about, sir."

Plainly, I had the wrong man. "Is there another Hamel Wricht here somewhere?" I asked.

"Your father, perhaps?"

"No." He was starting to pull away.

"Didn't you respond to a request for material on Leisha Tanner? You said you had a copy of her journals."

"You've got me confused with somebody else," he said. "I don't do anything like that. I rent apartments. Did you want one?"

Outside again, I called Jacob on the link and told him what had happened. He said it seemed unusual.

"Is that the best you have to say?" I asked.

"Apparently the transmission was faked. You may wish to be careful."

That was an uncomfortable thought.

"Someone wanted you away from here," Jacob continued. "Need I point out that we're dealing with people who have already shown no reluctance to indulge in breaking and entering. If indeed the objective toward which your uncle was working has some intrinsic value, it's possible that someone wants you out of the way."

"Why send me halfway round the globe to do it?"

"Accidents happen," he said. "And accidents are especially likely when one is traveling. I'm probably being alarmist; but please be careful."

Aircraft schedules weren't good, and it was a full thirty hours before I got back to Andiquar.

No one made any attempt on my life, though I discerned any number of suspicious persons among my fellow travelers. I even found myself wondering whether "they" (as I had now begun to think of my antagonist) would be willing to destroy the intercontinental and everyone on board to get at me. I considered that possibility off and on, while listening periodically for some warning that the magnets were about to quit, or a wing to fall off.

I even considered, wildly, the possibility that Gabe had been murdered.

No. I put the thought away from me. Ridiculous.

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Nevertheless, I was glad to get my feet back on solid ground.

It was late evening when my taxi crossed the Melony and started its descent into Northgate.

As soon as the house came into view, I knew something was wrong. The windows were dark.

Jacob liked light. Anyway, he was programmed to keep the living room cheerfully illuminated when I was out.

"Jacob," I said into the commlink. "Lights, please."

No response. Not even a carrier wave.