Empery (5 page)

He had not found even one.

Farlad’s flagnote for
Jiadur’s Wake
indicated that it had been written after Thackery’s retirement and represented the last contact between the Service and the one time Director of the Survey Branch. When Thackery had offered the text to the Earthnet for distribution, they had routinely referred it to the Committee for clearance. Clearance had been summarily denied—and rightly so, Wells saw immediately—on grounds of executive privilege and internal security. It began:

I am Merritt Thackery. If you think you know me, you do not. I have seen the videos of my life, and it was not so. The creators of those images grafted the places and faces of my life onto another person, a stronger, more self-confident person, a person who might well have been due the acclaim that I have accrued. That person was admirable, even heroic, and his story entertaining. But it was not me, and it was not my story.

When I returned to Earth, I was asked what I did, and I told them. I was asked what I saw, and I told them. But I was never asked what I felt, and when I offered it myself, there was little interest. Somehow that was deemed not worthy of study, or thought too subjective to be trustworthy. What they wanted, and therefore what they got, was the testimony of a witness, not the experiences of a man.

So the story that the Service eventually released, and the creative talents of the Nets transmogrified, was but the skeleton of truth, lacking the sinew of emotion to animate it, the tissue of humanity to smooth over the awkward joints. The truth is this: What I did could have been done as well by another. And there have been times when I wished that it had been.

If you prefer your histories simple and your heroes untarnished, read no farther. But if you prefer the truth, whatever shape it takes, then read on, for it is for you that I have written this.

Farlad was right—I’ve found you at last
, Wells thought with satisfaction. He touched the com key. “Ronina.”

“I’m here, sweet. Will you be long?” She answered in video mode, posing before the terminal in a translucent cat suit that revealed creamy white skin down nearly to her nipples and hid very little elsewhere. But even that sight was insufficient inducement to change his mind. “Go home. I won’t be coming back to the apartment, after all,” he said, and cued forward to the first chapter.

It was nearly four in the morning when Wells finished reading. He had moved from the desk to a couch and traded the fixed terminal for a hand-held slate. His eyes were weary, and when he set the slate aside, he dimmed the room’s lights for their sake. But he was nowhere near sleep, for his mind was full of what he had just read.

The tone of the manuscript was mocking, cynical, almost embittered. Despite it, or perhaps because of it,
Jiadur’s Wake
sang, and Wells had found himself drawn in.

Though not strictly chronological, most of the first half of the text dealt with the early history of the Service, beginning with the Reunion of Earth with its daughter world, Journa, and continuing through the Revision, which had closed out the Phase II explorations in which Thackery had taken part.

His portrait of the Service was blunt and unflattering, pointing up the flaws and foibles of both the organization as a whole and the individuals who comprised it. But he was no more kind to himself. Speaking frankly of his initial lack of commitment, his later selfishness, his subsequent obsession, Thackery laid waste to his own popular image as a self-directed hero.

Wells was not obliged to accept Thackery’s own harsh appraisal of his worth. Clearly Thackery had succumbed in his later years to the imposter syndrome, that self-destructive suspicion that one’s success is due to luck and accident, not personal merit. Even great men grow weary, Wells thought.

But Wells accepted enough of Thackery’s self-deprecation at face value to lay to rest a nagging puzzle. From the time he first began to study Revision history, Wells had been haunted by the conviction that there was more to the story than was being told.

Wells could not believe that Thackery had not demanded to see the Mizari home world, to divine their nature. All he would have had to do is look out from the spindle and he would have seen them, as he had seen what they had done to Earth, as he had seen the death of the Weichsel ship, which in turn had brought on the death of the Weichsel. Thackery must have done so; the Service must be concealing what he learned. Of that Wells had been certain.

That certainty had been one of several motivations that had led him to a career in the USS. If there was more to learn, the Service was the natural custodian of that knowledge. To share in it, he would have to become one of them. To learn, then, that even the Service knew nothing more had only compounded his consternation. The months-long search through the Thackery file had been motivated by the hope that they contained data lost or overlooked.

Now, as Thackery the man rewrote Thackery the legend, it was easier to understand. Thackery had been afraid. He had been overwhelmed by what he had seen—no shame in that, surely!—and his time on the spindle had been cut short by his own inability to deal with the revelations granted to him. Consequently the things that Wells needed to learn, Thackery had never known.

But the D’shanna knew. Looking out from the energy-matrix that flowed from the universe’s beginning and guaranteed its end, the D’shanna could provide perfect knowledge of the Mizari: what they were, where they were, and how they could be dealt with. The D’shanna could do at any time what Thackery had failed to do in his only opportunity.

Yet in the century and a half since the Revision, no such collaboration had taken place. Thackery had reported that of all the D’shanna only Gabriel had taken note of the human species and an interest in its plight. And Gabriel had been crippled by the time of his encounter with Thackery and thereafter had either “died” or gone far uptime on the spindle to rejoin his own kind and replenish himself. Either Way, Gabriel was beyond reach.

These were the givens: that Thackery’s experience had been unique and unrepeatable and that the D’shanna could not be counted on to do any more than they already had.

But
Jiadur’s Wake
told Wells that Thackery’s feelings toward the D’shanna had not been sufficiently taken into account. One passage near the end illumed that more clearly than the rest:

… Somehow, because of our need for heroes, I have been credited for that which Gabriel did. If there was sacrifice, the greater sacrifice by far was his, for he owed us no loyalty save that which his morality imposed upon himself. For that reason, if there was nobility, it was Gabriel’s, not mine. My interests were selfish, his selfless. The human race has never had a better friend. Nor have I.

For, while I was on the spindle, Gabriel and I were intimate in a way that I had never before nor have ever since experienced with another human. It was a quality of relationship that is beyond depiction, beyond description, just as the spindle itself cannot be understood solely in terms of. the matter-matrix. Without masks or barriers or deceptions each grasped and accepted the essence of the other. It was the purest moment of my life, a high, clear note of joy.

Gabriel gave us life, knowledge, and identity, perhaps at the cost of his own. And I, our feeble ambassador, was able to give him nothing in return…

Wells had been searching for what had been overlooked, not hidden. None of the memory aids used in Thackery’s debriefing could make a man say what he did not want to say. It was assumed throughout that Thackery was a willing subject, eager to share everything that he knew.

But was that true?

A dark suspicion was forming in Wells’s mind, a slippery, shadowy thought that resisted his efforts to dislodge it.
Where were your loyalties, Thackery? What didn’t you tell us? Perhaps that you could call Gabriel at will? Did you think to protect him from further demands, or perhaps insure that no one would intrude on that most perfect relationship with that most empathic mind?

It was a shocking, almost treasonous thought—that Merritt Thackery, the most outstanding figure in Service history, the architect of the Revision, had been compromised by divided loyalties, had held back information because of the bond he felt with an alien being.

A radical thought, indeed. But as Wells lay in the darkness and reflected, it was a thought he could not stop thinking.

Wells’s presence in the suite at seven in the morning surprised Farlad. “You’re in early, sir.“Weary enough to find that observation funny, Wells chuckled deep in his throat. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

“Have you been up all night?”

“I have.”

Farlad’s gaze narrowed in concern. “Are you going to be all right for the Committee meeting this morning?”

Wells laughed. “I haven’t required more than five hours of sleep a night for more than twenty years. It’d be a sad commentary on my fitness if I couldn’t go without even that for a day.”

“Yes, sir.” Farlad hesitated, then went on. “If you’re ready to hear it, I have a little more data on that communications problem. It seems that, quite unknown to anyone outside Operations, the quality of our Kleine transmissions has been steadily deteriorating—enough so that they’ve had to reduce the standard rate of transmission three times in the last six years. I’ve asked the supervisor of communications to come in and give you a full briefing.”

“Do they have any idea what’s causing it?”

“No—only that they’re now confident that it isn’t a hardware problem.”

“Meaning that it’s something happening between the transmitter and the receiver.”

“Yes, sir.”

“But the signal is piped directly through the spindle. The interference would have to originate there.”

“Supervisor Ruiz believes it’s related directly to the sheer volume of traffic—that we’re approaching the carrying capacity of the system. There’s a good correlation between the degree of interference and the level of traffic in a particular octant.”

Wells shook his head. “Unless he can support his belief with more than a correlation, we’re obliged to take a darker view of this business—officially, at least.”

“Are you suggesting that the Mizari could be responsible?”

“They could be,” he said, steepling his fingers and touching them to his chin. “Perhaps they’ve learned how to access the spindle or how to project some instrumentality there.” He paused, his expression thoughtful. “There’s also the possibility it may be the D’shanna.”

“Trying to communicate? Or trying to cut off our communications?”

“It doesn’t have to be either. It could be a meaningless consequence of their normal activity. It doesn’t matter. What would matter is if they’re there—if they’ve taken note of us or could be made to take an interest. We could use an ally, Teo—someone who can get us the information we need without alerting or alarming the Mizari.”

“The D’shanna certainly
could
do that. But why would they? According to Thackery—”

“I am not sure we can trust Thackery’s assertions on the subject. After reviewing his manuscript I find myself wondering if he remained in contact with the D’shanna after returning to Earth, or at least knew how to contact them at will.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Nevertheless, I want to know what happened to Thackery’s personal datarecs—his notes, diaries, logs, anyplace he might have recorded his most private thoughts.”

“I presume he took his personal recs with him when he resigned. There may be some record of the download—”

“There is. Two hundred gigabytes worth.”

“P.D.’s aren’t archived. They’re gone.”

“But
he
had them. That’s the track I want to follow.”

“Impossible,” Farlad said, shaking his head. “Thackery filed a comprehensive no-disclosure request with Earth’s Citizen Registry three years after he resigned. I can’t even get confirmation on a date of death.”

Wells scowled. “Damned Privacy Laws—what the hell is the use of a planetary information net if you can’t get anything out of it?”

“I can’t blame Thackery. He was apparently hounded by all sorts of mystics and religionists who wanted his blessing or his secrets or to have his baby.”

“If we couch the request as a Defense need-to-know—”

“I did, sir. They wouldn’t release any information, citing the Right of Privacy. They wouldn’t even confirm that they
had
any information.”

“Route the request through Berberon.”

Farlad shook his head. “Sir, I’ve dealt with these people before. It doesn’t matter. Thackery requested that his records be closed, so they are closed, end of discussion. Earth citizens have that right, sir, as you well know. Even Berberon wouldn’t be able to help. And in any case, if there really was anything sensitive in his files, Thackery would have ordered them destroyed after his death.”

“I suppose so,” Wells said. He pursed his lips and glanced at the clock. “I can shower here before the Committee meets, but my dress uniform is upstairs in my apartment—”

Farlad took the hint graciously. “Be back with it shortly,” he said, and left the room.

But rather than head for the comfort room, Wells went to his desk. He dialed the number manually, since it was forbidden to have it recorded anywhere. Even the dialer’s traffic log would be purged by commands from the other end as soon as the connection was made.

The phone rang twice, then stopped. No one spoke, but he had not expected them to. “This is Harmack Wells, Eighth Tier,” he said, and hung up.

A moment later the phone buzzed softly. Wells touched a contact and settled back in his chair.

“Alcibiades went out for the evening,” said the caller.

“And saw a play by Aristophanes,” Wells replied. The callback and code exchange were special concessions to the need to protect Wells from being charged with a proscribed affiliation. Had he been an Earth-based civilian, as most Nines were, no such precautions would have been necessary.

“Good morning, Mr. Wells,” the undertier said. “How can I help you?”

“I have an Aid Referral request.”

“Go ahead, sir.”

“Do we have persons placed where they can access secured data in Earth’s information net?”

“Of course, Mr. Wells.”

“I need to get around a Registry blackout arid locate the personal datarecs of former USS Director Merritt Thackery. If they’re archived anywhere, I want a copy. If not, I want to know what became of them. Can you help?”

“One moment.” After a few seconds the undertier came back on the line. “Yes, we have some avenues we can pursue. What priority shall we assign to it?”

“Highest.”

“Yes, Mr. Wells. Will a progress report every six hours be sufficient?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“If he’s left any traces, we’ll find them,” the undertier promised.

Sujata breezed into the Chamber Room of the Unified Space Service Steering Committee later than she had planned but still with ten minutes to spare. Her circular alcove was on the far side of the sunken central arena, one of six on that level—for the five directors and the Chancellor. Six similar alcoves, reserved for the Observers, looked down on the arena from the upper level.

Giving the aggregation of Observers, Directors, and senior aides milling about the chamber only a cursory glance, Sujata circled the room to her seat. She had just begun to descend the three steps that led to her alcove when hands touched her shoulders from behind and a familiar voice whispered at her ear “
Fraxis denya—natalir pendiya nalyir en entya, ne fraxis
. So you do still exist—I heard rumors that you’d fallen down a hole and been lost.”

Reaching up to grasp the trespassing hands, Sujata looked back over her shoulder into the knowing smile of Allianora of Brenadan, the Maranit Observer. “
Sarir pendiya bis penya, Allianya
—gossip sits badly on your tongue, Allianora,” Sujata answered in the same mellifluous language and salacious spirit.

“A surprise, since so much sits well there,” said Allianora in English, eyes twinkling. “Ten minutes ago I had a chance to wager whether you would tear yourself away long enough for the meeting. Not having yet seen your pillow mate, I was forced to decline. When do I meet her?”

“When you promise to behave yourself around her.” Allianora laughed huskily. “Perhaps you’re wise to keep her hidden away, at that.”

“In truth, it’s on her account more than mine that we’ve been so reclusive.”