A Talent for War (6 page)

Benedict?" He nodded, as though he understood I was in severe difficulty. "My name's Fenn Redfield. I'm an old friend of your uncle's." He took my hand, and pumped it vigorously.

"Delighted to meet you. You look like Gabe, you know."

"So I've been told."

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"Terrible loss, that was. Please come inside. Back to my office."

He turned away, and retreated through the double doors. I waited for the data exchange. The light shifted again, brightened. Heavy sunshine fell through grimy windows. I was seated in a small office, riddled with the smell of alcohol.

Redfield dropped into a stiff, uncomfortable-looking couch. His desk was surrounded by a battery of terminals, monitors, and consoles. The walls were covered with certificates, awards, and official seals of various sorts. There were some trophies, and numerous photographs: Redfield standing beside a sleek police skimmer; Redfield shaking hands with an important-looking woman; Redfield standing oil-streaked at a disaster site, with a child in his arms. That last one held center stage. The trophies were all grouped off to one side. And I decided I liked Fenn Redfield. "I'm sorry we haven't been able to do more," he said. "There really hasn't been much to work with."

"I understand," I said.

He waved me to a chair, and seated himself in front of the desk. "It's like a fortress," he chuckled. "Puts people off. I've been meaning to get rid of it, but it's been with me a long time.

We did find the silver, by the way. Or at least some of it. We can't be certain, but I have a feeling we've got it all. Just this morning. It's not in the system yet, so the officer you spoke with had no way of knowing."

"Where was it?"

"In a creek about a kilometer from the house. It was in a plastic bag, pushed back out of sight in a place where the watercourse goes under a gravel footpath. Some kids found it."

"Strange," I said.

"I thought so too. It's not extremely valuable but it would have been worthwhile holding on to.

It suggests that the thief had no way to dispose of it, and no easy way to hold onto it."

"The silver was a blind," I said.

"Oh?" Redfield's eyes flashed interest. "What makes you say so?"

"You said you were a friend of Gabe's."

"Yes. I was. We used to go out together when our schedules permitted. And we played a lot of chess."

"Did he ever talk to you about his work?"

Redfield regarded me shrewdly. "Now and then. May I ask where we're headed, Mr.

Benedict?"

"The thieves made off with a data file. Just took one, which happened to be a project that Gabe was working on when he died."

"And I take it you don't know much about it?"

"That's right. I was hoping you might have some information."

"I see." He pushed back in his chair, draped one arm over the desk, and drummed his fingers nervously against its surface. "You're saying that the silver, and whatever else they took, was intended to distract attention from the file."

"Yes."

He raised himself from the chair, circled the desk, and went to the window. "I can tell you that your uncle's been preoccupied during the last three months or so. His game went to hell, by the way."

"But you don't know why?"

"No. No, I don't. I didn't see much of him recently. He did tell me he was engaged in a project, but he never said what it was. We used to get together regularly once a week, but that stopped a few months back. After that, he just didn't seem to be around much."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

Redfield thought about it. "Maybe six weeks before we heard that he'd died. We got an evening
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of chess in. But I knew something was bothering him?"

"He looked worried?"

"His game was off. I hammered him that night. Five or six times, which was unusual. But I could see his mind wasn't on what he was doing. He told me to enjoy myself while I could. He'd get me next time." Redfield stared at the floor. "That was it."

He produced a glass of lime-colored punch from somewhere behind the desk. "Part of my regimen," he said. "Would you like some?"

"Sure."

"I wish I could help you, uh, Alex. But I just don't know what he was doing. I can tell you what he talked about all the time though."

"What was that?"

"The Resistance. Christopher Sim. He was a nut on the subject, the chronology of the naval actions, who was there, with what, how things turned out. I mean, I'm as interested as anybody, but he'd go on and on. It's tough in the middle of a game. You know what I mean?"

"Yes," I said.

"He wasn't always like that." He filled a second glass and handed it to me. "You play chess, Alex?"

"No. I learned the moves once, a long time ago. But I was never any good at the game."

Redfield's features softened, as though he had recognized the presence of a social disability.

At home, I caught up on the news. There were reports of another clash with the mutes. A ship had been damaged, and there'd been some casualties. A statement was expected from the government any time.

On Earth, they were conducting a referendum on the matter of secession. The voting was still a few days away, at last word, but apparently several political heavyweights had thrown their support behind the movement, and analysts now concluded that approval was likely.

I scanned the other items to see if there was much of interest, while Jacob commented that the real question was what the central government would do if Earth actually tried to secede. "They couldn't simply stand by and let them go," he observed, gloomily.

"It'll never happen," I said. "All that stuff is for home consumption. Local politicians looking tough by attacking the Director." I opened a beer. "Let's get to business."

"Okay."

"Query the main banks. What do they have on Leisha Tanner?"

"I've already looked, Alex. There's apparently relatively little on Rimway. There are three monographs, all dealing with her achievements in translating and commenting on Ashiyyurean literature. All three are available for your inspection. I should observe that I've reviewed them, and found nothing that would seem to be helpful, although there is much of general interest.

"You're aware that Ashiyyurean civilization is older than our own by almost sixty thousand years? In all that time, they have produced no thinker to surpass Tulisofala, or at least none who possesses her reputation. She appeared quite early in their development, and formulated many of their ethical and political attitudes. Tanner was inclined to assign her the place that Plato holds for us. She has, by the way, drawn some fascinating conclusions from this parallel—"

"Later, Jacob. What else is there?"

"Two other monographs are known, but they are no longer indexed. Consequently, they will be difficult to locate, if indeed they exist at all. One apparently concerns her ability as a translator.

The other, however, is titled 'Diplomatic Initiatives of the Resistance.' "

"When was it published?"

"1330. Eighty-four years ago. It went off-line in 1342, and the last copy I can trace disappeared
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about 1381. The owner died; the estate went up for auction; and there's no record of general disposition. I'll keep trying.

"There may be other off-line materials available locally. Esoteric collector's items, obscure treatises, and so on, frequently never make the index. Unfortunately, our record-keeping procedures are not what they could be.

"Some journals and memorabilia have been maintained on Khaja Luan, where she was an instructor before and after the war. The Confederate Archives have her notebooks, and the Hrinwhar Naval Museum owns a fragmentary memoir. They're both located on Dellaconda, by the way. And the memoir, according to my sources, is exceedingly fragmentary."

"Named after the battle," I said.

"Hrinwhar? Yes. Wonderful tactic, that was. Sim was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant."

Next day, I visited half a dozen universities, the Quelling Institute, the Benjamin Maynard Historical Association, and the meeting rooms of the Sons of the Dellacondans. I was naturally interested in anything connecting Tanner with Talino or, more broadly, the Resistance. There wasn't much. I found a few references to her in private documents, old histories, and so on. I copied everything, and settled in for a long evening.

Little of the material seemed to have much to do with Tanner herself. She appears peripherally in discussions of Sim's staff, and of his intelligence gathering methods. I found only one document in which she could be said to be prominent: an obscure doctoral thesis, written forty years before, discussing the destruction of Point Edward.

"Jacob?"

"Yes. I've been reading it. It has always been a mystery, you know."

"What has?"

"Point Edward. Why the Ashiyyur destroyed it. I mean, it was empty at the time."

I remembered the story: during the first year of the war, both sides had discovered that population centers could not be protected. Consequently, a tacit agreement came into being, in which tactical targets would not be located near populated areas, and cities became immune to attack. The Ashiyyur violated that understanding at Point Edward. No one knew why.

"But Sim found out what was coming," continued Jacob. "And he evacuated twenty thousand people."

"There were only twenty thousand people?" I asked. I'd always assumed there'd been a lot more.

"Ilyanda was settled by the Cortai. A religious group that never cared much for outsiders.

Controlled immigration rigidly, so much so that they'd stagnated, culturally and economically.

That's all changed now. But during the Resistance, the city was a theocracy, and virtually everyone on the planet lived there. Communal life was very important to them."

According to the document, Sim compromised his entire intelligence network by reacting the way he did. The Ashiyyur immediately understood that their communications were being intercepted and read, and they changed everything: hardware, cryptosystems, transmission schedules, and routes. Not until the advent of Leisha Tanner eight months later did the Dellacondans begin to recover what had been lost. "Is that possible?" I asked.

"She was evidently a highly intelligent young lady. And you will note that the Ashiyyur responded to their own crisis without imagination. The changes in their cryptosystems were inadequate, and they knew it. So they tried to compensate by using an ancient form of their base language. You haven't got to that yet, but it's in there."

"I thought they had no language. They're telepaths."

"No spoken language, Alex. But they require a system for the permanent storage of data and concepts. A written language. The one they used was of classical origin. It was one every educated Ashiyyurean knew."

"And Leisha."

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"And Leisha."

"Now we know, at least, why Sim would have tried to recruit her."

"It's curious, though," said Jacob.

"What's that?"

"Not about Tanner. But Point Edward. The mutes destroyed the city even though it was empty when they arrived. They must have known no one was there. Why would they bother?"

"Military target of some kind," I suggested.

"Maybe so. But if it was, nothing ever came out. And another strange thing is that there was no retaliation. Sim could have appeared off one of the Ashiyyurean worlds and smashed flat any city he chose. Why didn't he do so?"

"Maybe because they got everybody out at Point Edward, and he didn't want to start a series of reprisals."

We found a holo of Tanner tucked away with those of a group of staff officers in Rohrien's Sword of the Confederacy. She was about twenty-seven at the time, and lovely even in the dark and light blue Dellacondan uniform. But her amiable expression was clearly out of place among the glowering, hostile males gathered round her.

I tried to read meaning into her eyes: had she known something that sent Gabe tracking off into the Veiled Lady two centuries later? I was sprawled on the downstairs sofa, her image soft and close. Pity that the sponder technique had not been in existence then: how much easier it would be to simply link with her and ask a few questions.

I was still staring at it when Jacob quietly informed me we had a visitor.

A skimmer was descending onto the back ramp. Tanner's image vanished, and the aircraft appeared on the overhead monitor. It was late by then, and dark. Jacob turned on the outside lamps, illuminating the walkway. I watched the pilot lift the canopy, and drop lightly to the ground.

"Jacob, who is she?"

"I don't know."

She knew where the cameras were. She looked directly into one as she strolled past, pulled off her hat, and shook out long black hair. Then she strode purposefully around to the front porch, and mounted the steps.

I was waiting for her. "Good evening," I said.

She was tall, gray-eyed, long-legged, wrapped in an olive cloak which fell almost to her knees.

Her features were partially concealed by shadows. The wind had picked up, and the snow swirled round her. "You must be the nephew," she said, in a tone that suggested vague disapproval. "I assume he was on the Capella?"

Her voice was husky, and the fluttering light from the streetlamp caught in her eyes.

"Please come in," I said.

She stepped inside, glanced quickly around, her eyes gliding over the stone demon. "I thought he must have been." She removed her cloak, and hung it by the door in a gesture that implied familiarity. She was not unattractive. But there was no discernible softness in those features. The eyes were penetrating, and the thrust of the jaw was aggressive. Her diction and tone stopped just short of arrogance. "My name's Chase Kolpath."

She said it in a way that suggested I should recognize it. "I'm Alex Benedict," I said.

She appraised me quite frankly, canted her head slightly, and shrugged. I could see she was disappointed. "I was in your uncle's employment," she said. "He owes me a considerable amount of money." She shifted her weight uncomfortably. "I'm sorry to bring up this sort of subject at a difficult time, but I think you should know."