Edward M. Lerner (28 page)

The suspended virtual hand somehow conveyed impatience. Pashwah Two decided she had heard enough. “Dr. Walsh, there is something I
can
discuss with you.

“What exactly do you know of clan Arblen Ems?”

Bugs whirred and chirped in the bushes. Leaves rustled in a copse of trees. Birds warbled. Possibly some of the insect noises were real; the rest, like the holo projections of flitting wrens and manic squirrels, were recordings. Reality and illusion melded seamlessly here. Art understood why Eva had liked the Valhalla City Park so much.

That Eva would never see this place again—that he had failed her—gnawed at him.

The mission Art had so briefly led was disgraced and officially ended, its remaining members “asked” to stay on Callisto for the coming inquest. He was on his own until called, and Helmut’s question might occupy a bit of the wait. Evidently, there
were
too many Centaur credits in the market. Recent financial data showed a precipitous plunge in exchange rates for Centaur interstellar credits.

However badly the mission to the Snakes had messed up, Art remained—for how long remained to be seen—an ICU exec. UP regulators still took his messages, and they were already puzzled by the influx of Centaur credits. Banks across the solar system were handling a surge in small conversions just below the threshold for mandatory filing of currency transaction reports.

Art leaned against a tree trunk, the bark rough through his shirt. An army of auditors was arguing the case of patterns of deposits designed to circumvent disclosure rules. Maybe they would convince the in-house lawyers to launch a formal investigation. Maybe the agency lawyers would get useful data from the banks. It seemed implausible
he
could add anything.

Which left his mind churning with recrimination and doubt about his many failings. Did it mean anything that the apparent money laundering was occurring with the Snakes in-system? Nonsense! The Chicago Cubs had just won the World Series for the first time in more than a century. Did he believe the K’vithians had arranged that?

A virtual sun shone down on Art, its disk sized for an Earth-like sky. Pedestrians in ones and twos and threes wandered the park’s narrow, packed-dirt paths. Discreet red digits in a corner of his mind’s eye kept tally of the hundreds of messages he was ignoring. Anything TEOTWAWKI was in the military’s purview now, and somehow he didn’t expect Aaron O’Malley to seek his advice any time soon. Anything less than TEOTWAWKI could wait.

So: Centaur credits. Did he really care? It was but one more enigma, like the surprisingly tall corridors in
Victorious
. Like the too-hot exhaust of
Victorious
‘ fusion drive. That one never bothered him, but it drove Eva crazy.

He began peeling bark from a fallen twig. Let it go, Art, he chided himself.
Victorious
ran its fusion drive hotter than any of the UPAA-certified models. In turn, human standards were hotter than the smaller Snake ships—except the lifeboat. So what? There was no one best temperature for operating fusion drives. There were tradeoffs between thermodynamic efficiency, materials used in the superconducting magnets constricting the force-field nozzle, and the selection of operating margins.

The twig snapped, sending pieces flying. His hands found a loose oak leaf, one of the blue-and-orange gengineered variety, and started to shred it. He netted into the main Callisto library to compile a matrix of fusion-drive characteristics by InterstellarNet member.
Victorious
and the lifeboat ran at a standard approved by Centaur authorities.

Centaur credits. Centaur engines. Centaur photonic logic used in the Snakes’ antimatter containment canisters. And corridors tall enough for Centaurs?

Perhaps Mashkith had fixed the World Series for the Cubs. Or perhaps Mashkith, somehow, had seized control of a Centaur starship.

A dozen stony-faced men and women sat around the outside edge of three tables arranged in a shallow U. Their dress whites were crisply pressed, gold-braided, and resplendent with row upon row of campaign ribbons. UP, Galileo, and Belter flags affixed to poles behind the center table rippled in the draft from a ventilation duct. A telescopic image of
Victorious
, flanked by its escort fleet, occupied the room’s sole virtual display.

Aaron O’Malley, the one familiar face at the table, would not meet Art’s eyes. That’s a
bad
sign, he thought.

“You’ve come a long way to speak to us, Dr. Walsh, and at a very critical juncture.” Adm. Aafia Khan entered to take the final open seat at the U. She was a near-legendary figure, veteran of both wars of Phobos secession. This was her staffroom aboard her flagship, the
Donald Rumsfeld
. “It is a testament to the respect we place in your colleague,” and she nodded slightly at Carlos, “that we agreed to your request. Be advised the length of this discussion is at my sole discretion.”

A firm hand on Art’s shoulder kept him in his chair at the open end of the U. Carlos stood. “Thank you, Admiral. We appreciate the seriousness of the moment; I promise we’ll respect your time pressures. That said, I hope you will allow me a brief setting of the stage.

“None here will deny that the diplomatic mission to the K’vithians has failed dismally. Thousands have died, including many of our friends and colleagues. Our top-secret antimatter program has been disclosed, looted, and destroyed. Our key scientists are now prisoners of the aliens.” Some impatient shifting of positions made Carlos pause. “Granted, that part is conjecture. Set it aside. Here’s my point: Your justified anger is misdirected.

“Dr. Walsh was the first to suspect the K’vithians might be interested in our antimatter, and to engage my agency. He was the most insistent that the K’vithians demonstrate their own antimatter capability before any deals were made.” Grudgingly, Aaron O’Malley nodded concurrence. “Dr. Walsh also insisted upon rigorous proof that the vessel offered to us in trade actually had an interstellar-drive capability. Ladies and gentlemen, we were
all
fooled. In my opinion, Dr. Walsh has earned the right to our thoughtful consideration.”

Art’s shoulder got a final, brief squeeze of support, then the pressure vanished. He netted a quick, private, “Thanks,” before standing, his Velcro ship slippers solidly planted on the carpet. Carlos’ praise notwithstanding, Art’s credibility was unlikely to survive floating off like some flatlander.

He had agonized the whole high-gee pursuit flight about each word he would present. Confronting so many impassive faces, Art knew his practiced, polished speech was over-rehearsed and over-precise. A rote data dump would not cut it. “The K’vithians actions are unconscionable and inexcusable. I am as outraged as anyone in this room. I understand the gathering here of the fleet, the impetus toward a forceful response.

“We’ve met K’vithians. We’ve been outwitted by K’vithians. The complication is, other … parties have had the same experience.” He pointed at the holo display. “We’re looking at a
Centaur
starship.”

That
brought expression into the watching faces. “I would like,” Adm. Khan said very deliberately, “an explanation for the statement.”

“If I may,” and Art gestured to the holo. At the admiral’s nod, he cleared the telescopic image. “Only recently have enough anomalies accumulated to see the pattern. Only
very
recently did that pattern lead us to the proof that has been hidden in plain sight.” Despite Carlos’ generous introduction, Art would never forgive himself for not seeing it sooner.

He barely mentioned the merely suggestive data: the too-tall corridors; the fortune in Centaur credits being laundered; the Centaur-like fusion drives aboard
Victorious
and the lifeboat; the Centaur photonics integral to the Snake’s antimatter transfer canister. “None of that is proof. It was enough to make us search for proof.”

Art cleared the text summaries that had accumulated in the holo. A time-sorted list of shipping data took their place. “What
Victorious
has been acquiring besides antimatter is instructive.” A netted thought highlighted in yellow and magnified several bills of lading. “These compounds are Centaur biochemicals. In human space, they have specialty industrial uses, but our manufacturers have never seen orders in nearly these quantities.”

The shipping data shrank into half the display. Atmospheric measurements popped into the vacated space. “At the top right, readings by my suit instruments on our first trip aboard
Victorious
. See the concentrations of sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide. Bottom right, similar readings from my second visit. By this time, they had loaded lots of volatiles and biochemicals.”

“Lower levels of the sulfur compounds,” muttered one of the naval officers.

“K’vith is a very volcanic world. K’vithian biochem is rich with sulfur compounds.” That was hardly news. Buffering the sulfur concentrations had been one of the original challenges to adapting biocomps to human neural implants. “It’s interesting, isn’t it, that recharging their shipboard environment
removed
lots of sulfur?”

“Suggestive, I agree. It’s not conclusive.” Khan stroked her chin thoughtfully. “Maybe they started their trip with excess sulfur.”

Art highlighted new cargoes. “I suspect not, Admiral. Look how much sulfur they bought from the mines of Amalthea.” He was silent as they connected the dots: too much sulfur for the ecosystem concurrent with too little sulfur aboard.

Eyes around the U suddenly glazed over. Was there a shipboard crisis? “If I could have a moment longer, I have one more item.” Text vanished from the display, replaced by an old 3-V clip from Art’s helmet camera: Snakes and pressure-suited humans meeting in a dimly lit conference room. In a corner he put two simple graphs. “The solid red curve is the light spectrum of Barnard’s Star, intensity versus frequency. As you know, it’s a red dwarf. Its light peaks in the red region. The shorter, dashed red curve is a light spectrum for the conference-room lighting.” He slid the graphs together, and the peaks coincided.

Meeting room and graphs shrank to the left; another conference room appeared on the right. This vid had been captured by Keizo’s helmet camera. “Looks the same, doesn’t it? Just wait.” People stood from their chairs, milled around in goodbyes, and began filing from the room. “Habit is a wondrous thing.” Walking out the door, one figure—Ambassador Chung—patted beside the door frame well above Snake head height. For a few seconds, room lighting blazed bright. Snakes flinched and blinked, some shading their eyes with a hand. The lighting reverted to its prior dim level.

Art backed up the scene to a moment of brightness and froze frame. A new graph appeared. “The solid blue curve is our sun’s light. They said the room had been configured for human use—not that we were ever unsupervised anywhere aboard
Victorious
.” Pop: a second graph. “In yellow, the light component added when Ambassador Chung reflexively operated that wall sensor.” He superimposed the graphs. The axes aligned perfectly, but the yellow and blue peaks were slightly offset. He slid the curves apart.

Pop: a third graph. “That dotted yellow curve is for Alpha Centauri A. Looks like our sun’s, doesn’t it? But Alpha Cen A is about ten degrees Kelvin cooler than Sol. That makes their color balances slightly different.”

The solid and dashed yellow peaks aligned perfectly.

A fleet matter never explained preempted the navy brass. As they reassembled an hour later, the mood felt different. Officers reentering the room made eye contact; a few even smiled. The admiral reconvened the session with a casual, “As you were saying.”

“Before break, I explained why I’m convinced
Victorious
is a Centaur vessel.” And, Art thought, its proper name surely has a different translation. In his ICU dealings with T’bck Fwa, there had never been any aura of competition. “We’ve seen no Centaurs, but the dietary-supplement purchases strongly suggest some are aboard.”

“Are the Centaurs and Snakes in this together?” Aaron O’Malley asked.

“Probably not.” Art gazed at the telescopic image of
Victorious
that again filled the display. The starship was accelerating steadily now at a bit over one standard gee. “I wish I could offer certainty. The best I can do is explain my reasoning.

“The K’vithians appear to have undertaken an epic journey—forty years round trip—to steal the UP’s antimatter production technology. That voyage wouldn’t be necessary with Centaurs as their allies. It seems more likely the K’vithians captured the starship only to find themselves unable to manufacture new fuel.

“Why? I can only guess the Centaurs were playing safe. In this scenario, the original crew is held prisoner.”

“With due respect, Dr. Walsh, why does this matter?” Art didn’t need Carlos’ netted warning that Capt. Swoboda, the admiral’s aide, was likely fronting for her boss. The full panel’s sudden rapt attention was a tip-off.

“It’s common knowledge the navy is being mobilized—at least as much of the fleet as might possibly overtake
Victorious
before it recedes beyond our reach. I hope that fleet goes to rescue our friends, but I don’t believe it. Whenever I mention the missing, I get very impersonal responses. If they’re not already dead, and I concede they may be, too many of you already consider them collateral damage. I fear your plan is a revenge mission, not a rescue.”

“Please answer the question, Doctor,” the admiral said.

“I am.” Only after Helmut discreetly laid a hand on Art’s arm did he realize he was shaking. Then the full panic attack hit: sweating, light-headedness, nausea. The ship was in weightlessness, yet the weight and fate of solar systems were on his shoulders. His eyes with a will of their own kept flicking to the cabin’s single door. With a shudder, Art got himself under control. “I am.

“Set aside thoughts of our friends. Forget any dreams we shared short days ago of human starships. Ignore that the K’vithians now hold large quantities of antimatter, while we have none. Assume an attack succeeds.
Victorious
is destroyed.