Empery (27 page)

“You’re going to catch hell.”

“For carelessness, maybe. Not for helping. I think I’m covered. Anyway, this isn’t that great a job,” he said without conviction. “I have to go. They’ll be expecting my okay to separate.”

Thackery nodded and advanced a few steps closer along the corridor as Hawkins stepped into the lock and cycled the outer hatch.

“I like to think that roaming in
Munin
, you’ll outlive us all,” Hawkins said as the door smoothly rotated out from the recessed position.

“I don’t,” Thackery said bluntly. “Outliving people has been my curse.“Feeling foolish again, Hawkins turned away and reached for the lock controls.

“Jeffrey—”

Hawkins looked back through the narrowing gap.

“Thank you,” Thackery said simply.

The
thwwpp
of the hatch sealing itself precluded any reply.

The transfer tunnel returned to its cradle on the side of
Viking
with a muffled clang that made the floor panels under Hawkins’s feet vibrate.

“Hawkins to bridge. We’re all buttoned up.”

“I make us one short on the count.”

Hawkins looked up at the camera and shook his head. “Must have one in the john. How’s our feisty guest feeling?”

“Still under. Resting comfortably,” the bridge replied. “All right, Jeff. Find your own seat. We’re about to get moving.”

The great survey ship came clearly into view to starboard as
Viking
drifted sideways under the impetus of its station-keeping thrusters, then began a braking maneuver to start her journey back to Equatorial Station. Less than a kilometre separated the two ships when suddenly the stars fore and aft of
Munin
seemed to ripple, as though the very substance of space were being shaken by the energies of its drive. The cabin filled with cries of alarm and delight as those with the best view came up out of their chairs, pointing excitedly.

“What the hell is going on?” demanded
Viking
’s captain.“Hawk, what’d you do to her?”

Part of Hawkins longed to answer honestly, to share the pang of jealousy that came with seeing
Munin
under power, and the deep satisfaction that proceeded from knowing who was on her bridge. But an honest answer could only aggravate whatever difficulties lay ahead.

“Shit, I didn’t do anything! Looks like we’ve got a runaway,” Hawkins offered lamely, then tabbed the cabin circuit.“Nothing to concern yourself over, folks—just part of the show, a little surprise for the end of the season. Those survey ships sure can move, can’t they? Nothing in the Universe can catch them—”

There is simply no way, Sujata thought as she waited for the comtech to establish the link with Earth, to adjust to this insane time-twisting. The journey to Lynx Center was nearly over, and she had still not made peace with the fact that the ship’s chronometers were lying to her. One minute was not one minute at all—it was two hours. While she slept a single night’s sleep, forty days raced by. From noon to noon was four months.

Contrary to her expectations, her previous transplant experience had helped only until
Wesley
sailed. After that it counted for nothing. The other times, she had hit the craze and never had to look back. She had been able to say goodbye once and then break cleanly with her past.

But with
Wesley
diving down out of the craze every second day for contact with Central, Sujata felt as though she were always saying good-bye, and the check-in had become something to dread. It meant painful reminders of what she had given up. It meant deaths and resignations and retirements, always without warning, gradually replacing the little world she had known with one she did not.

The hardest defection to take had been Regan Marshall, who resigned at the midway point of
Wesley
’s voyage. Though he had consulted with her on his replacement, it still left her depending heavily on someone who was a stranger. She was beginning to feel like a helpless spectator, cheated not only of any sense of accomplishment but even of any real feeling of involvement.

But even that was not as hard as watching Ten Ga’ar complete her metamorphosis from child to woman.

The first day Ten Ga’ar had stolen a moment of the link-time to say that she forgave Sujata, that she understood, that leaving her behind was the right decision, and that she had learned how to be happy without Sujata. Her words were jarring, and Sujata was taken completely by surprise. In one day of shiptime. Ten Ga’ar had had more chance to work through her sadness, to heal the wound, than Sujata would-have in the course of the entire voyage.

Still bitter that Ten Ga’ar had been so petty as to cheat her out of a chance to properly say good-bye, Sujata at first rebelled at being forgiven. It had taken her a few days to realize what Ten Ga’ar already knew by the first check-in—that they could not afford to sustain any emotion save a fond remembrance of the intimacy they had once shared. They were out of sync and growing apart, and there was nothing to do but accept it.

There were missteps, too, on the professional side. More than once in the first week Sujata came back the “next day” with suggestions and solutions for problems that had been either solved or made irrelevant by the months that passed between one afternoon and the next. To make it work, Ten Ga’ar had to learn to offer Sujata a decision to be confirmed rather than a situation to be analyzed, while Sujata had to agree to surrender more of her authority than she had initially thought necessary.

The sole thread of continuity across all seven weeks of the run was Garrard and Evanik’s report. It had come to be the only part of the dispatch that commanded her attention when the link had been terminated. The duo now headed a team of fifteen researchers, who documented in both objective and subjective detail that the cultural shift Sujata had feared was continuing.

Both the economy of the system as a whole and the budget of the World Council were increasingly dominated by military expenditures. The time was not far off when the military would directly or indirectly employ the largest fraction of the system’s work force. Questions of planetary security had moved permanently onto the World Council’s agenda.

Those were the generalities: the specifics were equally disturbing. Eleven years ago the Nines had brought the concept of political parties back to global governance, coming out of the closet to promote Robert Chaisson for a vacancy on the World Council. Though he failed to gain appointment, Chaisson did gain a new platform for his views. As if to answer Chaisson’s charge that the Council was jeopardizing Earth’s security by entrusting its defense to the Service, the next year Tanvier initiated an ambitious and horrendously expensive effort to build ground-based defenses against a Mizari attack—defenses that Sujata’s technical analysts regarded as worthless.

Three years later the Council authorized a special branch of the Peace Force that was in everything but name an army. The Exotics, as they came to be called, were meant to be the first on the scene if the Mizari attack took the form of an invasion. Their weapons included everything from teleoperated air armor to X-ray bombs and other nucleonics; their strategy embraced such concepts as “cauterization” and “nonstrategic personnel write-off.” The Exotics did not need to recruit—there were ten applicants for every opening.

But that was no surprise, considering that the three most popular mass entertainments of the decade were jingoistic glories-of-war tales in which courageous men and women turned back the loathsome Mizari hordes. True, all three were independently produced (one with financial support from the Nines), and less inflammatory fare was still coming out of the Council’s edu-entertainment arm, but the fact that they attained net distribution at all was in itself telling.

A light winked on the terminal before her, and Sujata roused herself from her gloomy ruminations. The check-in was fairly routine. In less than fifteen minutes Ten Ga’ar highlighted the contents of the main dispatch, being transmitted on the high band in compressed mode directly to
Wesley
’s library.

Evanik came on to outline the research unit’s current projects, and to inform Sujata that Garrard had finally made good on his threats to resign, taking a position with the Council’s sociometric division. Vice Chancellor Abram Walker came on to offer his usual empty assurances that everything was in hand and running smoothly.

There was nothing in any of their messages for Sujata even to respond to with more than a grunt and a nod until Ten Ga’ar came back on at the end.

“I wanted to remind you that this is the last opportunity for you to send a dispatch forward to Wells,” she said, “something that’ll be waiting for him when
Charan
comes out of the craze. The majority opinion here is that you need to take the offensive, because he’s sure to. He’s virtually certain to take the fact that you’re right on his heels as a threat.”’

“I’m afraid I’m going to side with the minority, Wy,” Sujata said, shaking her head. “Wells has to act before I can react. What he’s done so far isn’t enough to support coming down on him—if it was, we’d have gone through the Committee. Even though we’re afraid he intends to, he hasn’t crossed the line yet. I see no reason to force him to that point any sooner than necessary. I don’t want to comer him into having to disobey an order.

“He’ll hear through normal channels that I’m coming to Lynx, and the official reason for it. Beyond that, I’m content to let him wonder. Hitting him with an order to ground the Triads, or some such, isn’t going to make him feel
less
threatened. Just the opposite—all it would do is spook him. I need to sit down with Wells and have this out before he does anything irreversible. I can’t do that from here any better than I could from where you are. It’s just going to have to wait until I catch up with him. Which won’t be long now.”

Ten Ga’ar received those words with a neutral expression, which confirmed for Sujata that the “reminder” actually had been someone else’s idea. As the years had slipped by, the number of people willing to talk to her directly had dwindled to three. Sujata understood—she was a stranger to most of her own staff, a sort of technological oracle giving three audiences each year. In a recent nightmarish dream her face had appeared on terminals throughout Central, but no one had known who she was or wanted to talk to her.

“We understand your perspective, Chancellor,” Ten Ga’ar was saying. “What you said parallels some of our discussions here. Is there anything else we can do for you today?”

“No,” Sujata said. “Nothing you can do.”

“Then I guess the next time we talk, you’ll be out of the craze for good and inbound to Lynx. Our best to all of you until then. Central out.”

“
Wesley
out,” Sujata said, leaning back in her seat and rubbing her eyes.
No, nothing you can do to help me, Wy. And that’s about the hardest part to accept—

The sound of exuberant cheering was still ringing in Harmack Wells’s ears as he settled into a chair in the office of Andrew Hogue, the governor of Lynx Center. Barely an hour ago Wells had led the crew of
Charan
out of the disembarkment tunnel to a reception that made the send-off from Central fifty-two days ago seem restrained.

“They really love us, don’t they?” Captain Elizin had whispered. He was standing beside Wells on the cargo sled that had been pressed into service for the processional through the streets, which were thronged with thousands who had come out to welcome them.

Wells had nodded agreeably, but he did not take the acclaim personally. He took it instead as a sign of how badly the people wanted a champion, a hero. He accepted it graciously at the same time he discounted it, because he understood their need to find release from fear.

This is not for what we’ve done but for what you hope we’ll do
, he had thought, looking out at their faces.
I will try to do justice to your faith
.

Across the room, Onhki Yamakawa, the senior member of the Strategy Committee traveling with Wells on
Charan
, stood studying a directory of Lynx Central. “I am afraid that I will have no better luck finding a proper Japanese meal here than I had trying to coax one from
Charan
’s synthesizer,” he said mournfully.

Before Wells could commiserate, the door opened to admit two men, both Lynx natives. The first through was Hogue, a broad-chested man with a pleasant face and fair hair that was so closely cropped, he almost seemed bald.

“Governor,” Wells said, coming to his feet and offering his hand.

“Very glad to meet you at last, Commander,” Hogue said as they shook. “Sorry about all the commotion on the way over here. I thought it was best if we simply got that behind us all at once.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Wells said. “I’m sure the crew appreciated it.“Hogue introduced his companion, a rangy young man with darting eyes that never seemed to look straight ahead, as Colonel Philip Shields, chief of the Defense Intelligence Office, Lynx Annex.

“I know this has already been a long day for you,” Hogue said, “but Mr. Shields thought it important that you be put in the picture as quickly as possible.”

“I agree entirely,” Wells said, settling back into his chair. Hogue took the seat to Wells’s right, and the others dragged chairs across the carpet to form a small circle.

“Did you have a chance on the way in to begin reviewing the news abstracts we sent over?” Hogue asked.

“A few minutes, no more.”

“Then you know at least the good news: the Perimeter is quiet; the political situation is stable, and the Triads are on schedule. However, there are a couple of wrinkles that I’ll let Mr. Shields discuss.”

“What about
Wesley
?” Yamakawa interjected. “What’s her status?”

“Due in thirty-eight days from now.”

Wells wrinkled his brow at hearing that. “She was only supposed to be twenty-one days behind us. What happened? What delayed her?”

With a meaningful glance Hogue deferred to Shields.

“Commander, Chancellor Sujata and Ambassador Berberon are aboard
Wesley
,” Shields said. “
Wesley
’s been pogoing in and out of the craze, which accounts for the slippage in her arrival time.”

“This is bad,” Yamakawa muttered. “Very bad.”

“Why are they coming here?” Wells asked with honest puzzlement.

“Sir, I do not know. The official purpose is to observe. Our sources inside the Chancellery report that Sujata has described the situation on the Perimeter as ‘critical.’ ”

“Even so, I don’t understand why she should consider her physical presence necessary,” Hogue said. “Communications with Unity haven’t even been close to going down.”

“Does anyone have any ideas?” Wells asked. “Colonel?”

“The one possibility I’ve considered is that she may wish to align herself more strongly with the pro-defense faction and thereby secure her own position.”

“She’s coming to meddle,” Yamakawa said firmly. “She is coming to insinuate herself into matters she knows nothing about.”

“Does that seem reasonable to you, Commander?” Hogue asked.

“No,” Wells said. “She’s kept her distance, and at the same time she’s been very accommodating to our interests and concerns. I don’t believe that she would suddenly decide that she needed to become more intimately involved.”

“Unless something happened to make her lose confidence in the senior Defense administration,” Yamakawa pointed out. He had been preparing to say more, but caught an admonitory glance from Wells and fell silent.

“Are there any messages waiting for me from the Chancellor?” Wells asked, turning to Hogue.

“None that I am aware of.”

Wells frowned and shook his head. “This seems to me to be no cause for concern. Certainly Chancellor Sujata has every right to exercise oversight in person,” he said. “Assuming that this is one of the wrinkles the Governor mentioned, what’s the other?”

“I think you will find this a more serious matter. There is about to be a violation of the Perimeter. Not by the Mizari,“Shields added quickly. “By one of our vessels—
Munin
, sir. Hijacked from the Unified Planets Museum at Arcturus.”

“Hijacked?”

“Yes, sir. It gets stranger. The person responsible seems to be Merritt Thackery. As far as we’ve been able to determine, he’s the only one aboard. The investigation showed that he had two accomplices at Cheia, one a Museum employee and the other one of our people, a Colonel Ramiz. Both served time, but that hasn’t helped us get
Munin
or Thackery back.”

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Wells said, settling back in his chair. “Where’s he headed?”