False Colors

CHAPTER 9

Mess Hall C, FRLS City of Cashel

Near Vaku VII, Vaku System

0845 hours (CST), 2670.315

Commander Donald Scott Graham was conscious of hostile eyes turned toward his table, but he forced himself to ignore them and concentrate on his food and his conversation. The relief of being rescued was starting to turn into concern for what might come next, but he was determined to enjoy the benefits of civilization without letting anyone spoil his first day off of Nargrast. But it took plenty of effort to ignore the stares and the muttered comments. Plainly there were fellow passengers aboard the transport ship who didn’t approve of his choice of breakfast companions.

Murragh Cakg dai Nokhtak evidently noticed the hostility as well. “It would seem that my people are no more popular with humans than yours are among Kilrathi,“ he said quietly. ”Perhaps I dealt less well than I thought, that day, when I agreed to entrust my people to your good will.“

From across the table Jason Bondarevsky spoke up. “It’s rude, but you can’t really blame them. The Landreich still considers itself at war, and when the fighting’s gone on as long as this you stop recognizing the enemy as individuals and start regarding every one you see as a threat. Having close to a hundred Kilrathi in for breakfast makes people a little nervous, that’s all.”

Murragh favored him with a close-lipped smile. “Believe me, Captain, I understand. Early on when we started working with Graham I had to persuade my people that the stories were not true that said that you apes liked nothing better than to kill and eat Kilrathi prisoners for dinner.”

Graham and Bondarevsky both laughed.

“I’m beginning to believe that there are a lot more similarities between our two races than anyone would have thought possible,” Bondarevsky said.

The transport ship was on the return leg of her mission of mercy, with the survivors from Nargrast safely embarked with their equipment and supplies. They’d left a detachment of spacers from the transport on the planet to study the crash site of the Kilrathi destroyer and the neighboring camp where the mixed bag of survivors had lived for nine Terran months. The Kilrathi fighters on the ground were particularly worthy of a closer look, and might be retrieved when the battle group was ready to pull out. The transport was scheduled to rendezvous with the rest of the Landreicher squadron in orbit near Karga within a few short hours, and Graham was glad of a chance to relax in one of the passenger mess areas. It had been a difficult two days.

The survivors had been glad to be rescued, no doubt about that, and had cooperated enthusiastically with the Landreich rescue effort. After the first confrontation with Kuraq, the Kilrathi had caused no difficulties…at least not until the issue of when they could go home arose. The news that the Landreich considered itself still at war with the remnants of the Empire and hence weren’t likely to send a shipload of Cats back to the nearest Imperial colony had come close to causing a full-scale riot among the Kilrathi contingent. Once again young Murragh had proved his talents as a leader, calming them down with a few more well-chosen words. As Graham had told Bondarevsky earlier, the young Cat had a flair for leadership. He was only a Hyilghar-the word translated very approximately as a lieutenant, but with a modifier that implied staff rather than combat duties and some sort of special aristocratic social status Graham didn’t entirely understand-but despite his youth and modest rank he handled Kilrathi combat veterans three times his age with a natural aplomb that Graham still found himself envying after all these months.

So the trouble had never quite materialized, but it had left a bad taste in Graham’s mouth. The agreement he had made with Murragh should be honored, he felt, but he was afraid the Landreichers weren’t going to see things that way. The hostile stares and angry asides the Cats drew in the mess hall didn’t make him feel any better about things.

“I understand you’ve been monitoring developments outside the system,” Bondarevsky said around a mouthful of bacon from his plate. “What do you make of the situation across the border?”

Murragh showed his fangs briefly. “Ukar dai Ragark is an ambitious governor who never felt properly appreciated under Thrakhath’s rule. I think he would like nothing better than to see his hrai take the Throne. Not that they would keep it for long. He might win some short-term popularity by redeeming our pride with a victory or two, but that one won’t know when to stop. Sooner or later he will overreach himself the same way our beloved Prince did, and that will be the end of him.“

Graham chuckled “You see, Bondarevsky, the Kilrathi even understand the finer uses of sarcasm,” he said with a smile. “If you were looking for a fanatical follower of either Ragark or Thrakhath, I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed.”

“Well, forgive me if I’m too obvious,” Bondarevsky said, grinning. “But it’s always nice to know where you stand.”

“A sentiment from the Codices,” Murragh replied. “You are forgiven your curiosity…though I would warn you to remember that the ape’s questing hands are a sure route to trouble.”

“And curiosity killed the cat,” Graham added. Murragh laughed, a strangely human sound from a massive, fur-covered, cat-like creature with a flattened muzzle and sharp fangs. It always startled him to hear the Kilrathi laughing. They were so often depicted in Terran propaganda as dour creatures who took pleasure only in blood and death.

“So who do you support, in the new Empire?” Graham asked. “Chancellor Melek?”

“An honest kil, although he was a creature of Thrakhath’s,” Murragh responded. “His caretaker government at least does not assert a claim to the Throne itself. I imagine he will turn control over to the rightful Emperor when the time comes.”

“The trouble is deciding who has the right,” Bondarevsky countered. “Every governor and petty warlord in the Empire is claiming to be the one leader who should take over as Emperor, in the absence of a legitimate heir.”

Murragh didn’t answer, but he was showing his teeth again. The fighting smile wasn’t an expression of satisfaction or humor in a Kilrathi warrior. It meant the anticipation of battle.

“Ah, Bondarevsky, maybe you missed the significance of Murragh’s full name,” Graham said, stepping into the awkward silence. “The dai Nokhtak hrai is a distaff branch of the Imperial Family. Murragh here is a distant cousin of the Prince Thrakhath’s…maybe the last one alive. His grandmother was sister to the late Emperor. That makes him a legitimate heir to the Kilrathi throne.”

“What?” Bondarevsky almost stood up, taken aback by Graham s quiet announcement. “I didn’t make the connection…I guess somebody mentioned Admiral Cakg was a cousin of Thrakhath’s, and you…”

“I am his nephew,” Murragh said quietly. “And possibly the only living kil with a claim to the Empire. As such, since you ask me whose side I am on, I can only say that I am wholeheartedly in favor of my own side.”

Bondarevsky shook his head slowly, his expression a mix of wonder and embarrassment that made it hard for Graham to keep a straight face. “My God, I’ve just had breakfast with the rightful Emperor of the Kilrathi. My memoirs are going to be a bestseller, I just know it.” He grinned. “I guess you never know who you’re going to meet out here on the frontier.”

Graham laughed. “Surprised the hell out of me, too, when I found out,” he said. “And I thought all Cats were pretty much alike…until I started hanging out with royalty!”

VIP Quarters, FRLS Independence

Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System

1442 hours (CST), 2670.316

Jason Bondarevsky cradled his head in his hands and stared at the overhead above his bunk. It was good to be back aboard the escort carrier, the rescue mission completed, but now that he was back he couldn’t help but worry about what the future might hold.

The leaders of the Goliath Project had spent a stormy hour that morning discussing the situation on the Karga. For the most part, the consensus was that it was hopeless to try to salvage the ship. That self-destruct system made the whole prospect entirely too dangerous, and the extent of the damage was such that it seemed unlikely they could get the ship back into fighting trim even if they could circumvent the computer’s deadly last program.

Of them all, only Admiral Tolwyn had been in favor of going forward with the project, but he’d made up in vehemence what he lacked in support.

As for Bondarevsky, his worries centered more on what would come next. Kruger had recruited him with this Goliath scheme in mind, and now that it looked to be a dead letter he had to wonder if there’d be a place for him in the Landreich after all. There weren’t that many decent military commands available, and somehow he couldn’t see himself ending up as some supernumerary staff officer pushing computer keys for the greater glory of Max Kruger and the Landreich.

The door buzzer sounded, interrupting his reverie, and Bondarevsky raised his voice to order the computer to open it. Sitting up in the bed, he was startled to see Admiral Richards framed in the opening. The admiral held up a hand as he started to scramble to his feet.

“Don’t get up, Jason,” he said, looking weary. “May I come in for a few minutes?”

“Of course, Admiral. Please. Can I get you something?”

Richards pursed his lips. “How about a sane assistant?” he muttered darkly. “Or a laser pistol so I can shoot the insane one I’ve already got.”

“Sir?”

“That idiot Tolwyn went over my head!” Richards exploded. “Got on a hypercast channel with Kruger and talked him into authorizing a go-ahead on Goliath. And all this before the meeting this morning!”

“What?” Bondarevsky couldn’t believe the admiral’s words. Even Admiral Tolwyn couldn’t be so set on this operation as to ignore the danger of trying to work on the supercarrier. “That’s impossible! That ship is a bomb waiting to go off. We can’t hope to work on her. I assumed we’d launch a spread of torpedoes, cut our losses, and head for home base.”

“That’s what I planned on doing,” Richards said heavily. “But Kruger’s adamant. We’re to use all means available to try to save the carrier, whatever the risks may be. That’s a direct presidential order, no less.”

“But Admiral Tolwyn’s behind it?”

“That he is,” Richards said. “I went stomping across to his cabin as soon as I had Kruger’s message, and the bastard actually boasted about getting Old Max to come on board. Said it was too important to back off now, and then clammed up on me. I’m telling you, Jason, I just don’t know what to do! Part of me wants to out-Kruger Old Max, invoke my superior rank over Galbraith and take us out of here no matter what our orders are. But…” He shook bis head. “Damn it all, we’ve invested a hell of a lot in Goliath. It really was the best chance we had of evening the odds. I know how Tolwyn feels. I’d like to take a crack at it too. But not when repairing a single circuit could bring the self-destruct countdown back up and kill the whole salvage team. This is asking too damned much!“

“I agree, sir,” Bondarevsky said softly.

“I didn’t think Geoff Tolwyn had it in him, to be this callous about men’s lives.” Richards locked eyes with Bondarevsky. “You know, I heard a lot of nonsense about how he’d turned into a cold-blooded killer when he started work on Behemoth, but I wouldn’t buy into it. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe when you’ve seriously contemplated genocide as an option a few more lives one way or another aren’t going to matter any more.”

Bondarevsky looked away, remembering some of his own thoughts about Tolwyn’s involvement with Behemoth. But some perverse part of him rallied to the admiral’s defense. “Sir, I don’t like the sound of this any better than you do,” he said slowly. “But I’ve known Admiral Tolwyn for a lot of years now, and I’ve never known him to do anything without a pretty damned good reason behind it. Maybe we should try to find out what the reasons are for this, too.”

“You do what you like,” Richards said. “I don’t know if I can trust myself not to punch the bastard out the next time I see him.”

Bondarevsky understood exactly how Richards felt.

VIP Quarters, FRLS Independence

Orbiting Vaku VII, Vaku System

1934 hours (CST)

Bondarevsky touched the stud by the door to Admiral Tolwyn’s suite and waited with mounting concern. The admiral had not stirred from his quarters all afternoon, and now, when Bondarevsky had finally decided to seek him out, it seemed as if he wasn’t planning on seeing visitors. There wasn’t even a query from the intercom.

Finally, though, the door slid open.

The room was dark, with all the lights out except a single worklight by the computer terminal, and the glow of the monitor screen. But Tolwyn wasn’t at the desk. It took a moment for Bondarevsky’s eyes to adjust to the darkness and pick out the shadowy figure of the admiral slumped back in an easy chair facing the door.

“Sir?” Bondarevsky ventured, uncertain of himself.

“Come in, Jason,” Tolwyn said softly. “I suppose Vance Richards sent you.”

“He…talked with me earlier, sir, but it was my idea to come, Admiral,” Bondarevsky said.

Tolwyn chuckled, but there was precious little humor behind it. “You missed your calling, Jason. You should have been a diplomat. What Vance did was rant and rave, scream bloody murder, and call me everything but a Cat-lover, right?”

Bondarevsky didn’t answer that. “I came because I think it’s a mistake to go ahead with Goliath, sir. A big mistake. You’re putting hundreds, maybe thousands of lives at risk on a project that had damned little chance of success from the very start. And going outside the chain of command to Kruger instead of working on a report with Admiral Richards…” He paused. “I’ve known you for most of my adult life, Admiral, and I’ve always thought of you as a second father. But you’ve not been acting like the man I remember…not since Behemoth. And that scares me, sir.”

“Sit down, Jason,” Tolwyn said slowly. He waited until Bondarevsky had settled into a chair across from him before he went on. In the darkened cabin, his quiet, firm voice seemed almost unreal, like a ghost’s. “I know all the reasons why Goliath should be dropped. Believe me, under any other circumstances I’d be the loudest voice calling for cancellation, no matter how much Max Kruger wanted his new toy. But I know a few damned good reasons for going on, too, and in my opinion they outweigh the ones in favor of dropping the project.”

“What could justify risking so many people?” Bondarevsky demanded. “Come on, Admiral, you’ve been hiding things since before we left Terra. How can you expect any of the rest of us to go along with you if you won’t let us in on the same information you’re using to base your decisions on?”

Tolwyn didn’t say anything for a long moment. “You can’t just accept that I know what I’m doing? Once upon a time, Jason Bondarevsky would have followed me into Hell and back out of sheer loyalty.”

“When I was still a newbie on my first deep-space assignment, maybe,” Bondarevsky said. “Back then everything was simple. You pointed at the holo-map and laid out the mission, and I flew. Simple. But a lot’s happened since then, sir. I’m not the same man I was fifteen, twenty years ago. And neither are you. Behemoth proved that.”

“Behemoth.” Tolwyn packed a world of contempt into that single word. “That’s where everything started to go wrong, Jason. And like a fool I didn’t see any of it coming until it was too goddamned late.”

There was another long pause before he started speaking again. “All right, Jason, since you won’t accept my word I guess I’ll have to spell it all out. But you’re not going to like it. Not one bit of it.” He stood up and started to pace back and forth across the narrow confines of the cabin, a dark shape only half-seen in the dim light. “Remember the mess we were in after the Battle of Earth? All the Joint Chiefs were killed, most of them in that bombing the Kilrathi pulled during the peace talks, and Duke Grecko in the fighting. And the government was in chaos, too, when the President resigned because of his part in letting the Cats nail us.”

Bondarevsky nodded, though he didn’t know if Tolwyn could see him.

“The new government amounted to a coalition between all the major parties, and it showed. After we beat the Cats back from Terra we should have followed up with a strike that would have knocked them into the stone age, but instead we frittered away our strength against a string of useless targets until Thrakhath and his granddaddy had a chance to rebuild everything they’d lost and then some. When Concordia went down, that was the last straw. We’d fallen behind in ship building, and were starting to deploy miserable old carriers fit for the scrapyard in front-line sectors because our resources were stretched so thin. That was largely thanks to the Department of Industrial Affairs. The bureaucrats there were dragging their feet every time someone suggested a move that would cut a few corners and speed up production, and Secretary Haviland either wouldn’t or couldn’t put his foot down. But we were getting the same kind of trouble from half a dozen other cabinet people, too. It was a mess from start to finish.”

Tohvyn paused. “I’d just been assigned to the Weapons Development Office when Concordia went down. I inherited Behemoth from Ubarov, who had the post before me. Frankly, my first reaction was to scrap the damned thing then and there. The design was all wrong, for one thing. It should have been mounted aboard a ship that could defend itself effectively…and one that had some legs, too, so it could maneuver in a combat situation. Behemoth didn’t have either capability. And I didn’t like the whole concept of blasting planets indiscriminately, either. It always seemed to me that the only thing that marked a difference between us and Thrakhath was that we had at least a modicum of morality on our side, and this was putting us on the very same level as him.

“But before I’d finished the review and made a final decision I had a visit from an old friend of mine that changed everything.” Tolwyn fell silent, still pacing restlessly.

“Sir?”

“David Whittaker.” Tolwyn paused again, as if the name alone conveyed everything he wanted to say. Finally he continued. “Dave Whittaker was a classmate of mine in the Academy more years ago than I care to remember. We were shipmates on our cadet cruise aboard the old Albemarle. The captain sent us down in a shuttle with a survey team…you know the drill, give the middies some responsibility on some jerkwater little planet where nothing can go wrong. Well, this time something did go wrong. My helm console exploded-they never did figure out why-during the landing approach. The shuttle crashed. I woke up bund and pinned in the wreckage, without my helmet and with sulfur dioxide fumes leaking in from the planetary atmosphere. Dave didn’t have a helmet either, it had been crushed under a piece of the computer when we hit. But he stayed with me, got me out and helped me get to an emergency pressure bubble, breathing that god-awful stuff. I never would have made it if it hadn’t been for him. We both pulled six months in the hospital, and Dave got a commendation and the Distinguished Service Award. We kept in touch, off and on, but I kind of lost track of him over the last few years, until he came to see me one night at my house off-base.

“It could have been old home week, but he didn’t waste any time making small talk. Instead he launched right into it. He wanted to sound me out on behalf of some friends of his, military officers with long and distinguished service records who were sick and tired of the way the Confederation civil government was making a hash out of the war effort. He named a couple of names…important officers, men like DuVall and Murasaki. And they were just recent recruits, not part of the main organization. It took a few minutes for me to get it through my thick skull that Dave was talking about a military coup, about throwing over all of our service oaths and rising against the Confederation government!“

“What did you say to him, Admiral?” Bondarevsky asked.

“Well, what I should have done was say I’d sign on and find out more, but I didn’t. I told him exactly what I thought of the idea of the military shaking loose of civilian control. I don’t care how screwed up things are in a democracy, there’s never an excuse for the military to run free of government control. Never! So Dave left, handing me a story about it was all just a vague idea and he was sorry he’d even broached it. But I knew he’d been serious. I guess my reputation for playing things my own way persuaded them that I’d be sympathetic.”

“You could have been in a lot of danger,” Bondarevsky said. “A halfway decent conspiracy would have had you killed if they thought you were a danger to them.”

“I know. I think Dave was the only thing that held them back…that and the fact that I didn’t do anything that could worry them.”

“You mean…you didn’t alert ConFleet Security?”

Tolwyn stopped his pacing and stood looking down at Bondarevsky. “I did not,” he said flatly. “And for a good reason. One of the things Dave let slip when we were talking was the fact that Security is lousy with their people. They have a whole secret wing of the security forces, an agency I later found out is designated Y-12 on the TO amp;E. But they have agents scattered all through the structure. So who could I report things to? Anyone I contacted could have been part of it, even my best friends and oldest contacts. If Dave Whittaker was one of them…“

“You had Presidential access,” Bondarevsky pointed out.

“And you know it takes time and several layers of bureaucracy to get a meeting, even to place a holo-call-not that I’d’ve trusted something like that to a holo-call, no matter how secure the line was supposed to be. The way I figured it, if I had made a move to see anybody I could be reasonably sure wasn’t part of the plot I’d have been dead before I knew what hit me. So I pretended I believed Dave’s disclaimers and did the only thing I could think of doing.”

“What was that?”

“I threw everything I had into getting Behemoth operational, Jason. Everything. I pushed every man in my command past the breaking point, myself included, trying to get that goddamned weapon built and tested as fast as possible.”

Understanding dawned. “To get the war over as quickly as you could,” Bondarevsky said slowly.

“Exactly,” Tolwyn said. “I figured the only way to head off a coup was to remove the only excuse the conspirators had. End the war by whatever means possible, and the civilian government wouldn’t have be in a position to screw things up so much any longer. So I figured Behemoth was our best possible chance. If I’d’ve known about Paladin’s Temblor Bomb project I would have thrown all my department’s resources into backing him. But his operation was strictly black, top secret all the way.”

“So you pushed Behemoth as the best way to finish the fighting before the conspirators struck. I can see why you were under so much pressure…”

“Can you, Jason? Can you really?” Tolwyn’s voice was suddenly ragged with emotion. “I don’t know if anyone can understand what I was going through. Try to put yourself in my place. I was being forced to put my faith in a weapon I didn’t really believe in, and the stakes weren’t just victory or defeat any more. If we didn’t stop the Kilrathi cold, one of two things would have happened. Either the Cats would have hit us so hard that we’d be joining the dinosaurs, or the conspiracy would strike and militarize the Confederation in the name of saving mankind. Either way, everything I believed in would have been gone. And on top of it all was the fact that it was Dave Whittaker who’d brought it to me. Damn it all, he saved my life when we were middies together, Jason, and yet he turned out to be part of this group that would actually consider an armed coup against our own government! I think that hurt me worse than when I lost my family.”

Bondarevsky found himself picturing how he might react if someone close to him, Sparks or Kevin Tolwyn for instance, had approached him with such a concept. “Yeah…that must’ve been…” He trailed off. There weren’t words for such a betrayal.

When Tolwyn spoke again, his voice had dropped until it was barely more than a whisper. “The real hell of it wasn’t even Dave’s involvement,” he said. “God forgive me, Jason, but there was a part of me that was tempted to go along with Dave. The civilian government really was making a hash out of the war effort. In the right hands, a military government could have stabilized things long enough to deal with the Cats. It wouldn’t need to be a tyranny, if the right people were involved. And Dave Whittaker should have been one of the right people.”

“Then what stopped you from joining?”

Tolwyn’s answer was oblique. “Back in the days of the Roman Republic, before the Caesars, the word ‘dictator’ didn’t have any unfortunate connotations,” he said. “A dictator was just a leader appointed for the duration of an emergency with broad military and civil powers. Did you ever read Livy, Jason? Cincinnatus was a simple country squire, but when Rome was in danger he left the plow to become the dictator until the crisis was over. Then he laid down the rods of office and went back to his simple rustic life. George Washington was the same kind of man, in the early days of the American republic.” Tolwyn sighed. “But there aren’t many men like Washington or Cincinnatus, Jason. Rome had Caesar and Pompey; America had Harold Jarvis back in the early twenty-first century. I was tempted to play Cincinnatus and defend the Confederation, but I’m damned if I’m going to help some ambitious bastard play Caesar!”

“I see your point, sir.”

“Well, anyway, you know what happened. By the time we got Behemoth operational I was so tied up in knots over everything that I tried to carry off the whole operation on sheer brute determination. Most of my people were on the thin edge of a nervous breakdown, and I wasn’t far behind them. Otherwise we would have tightened security, and that damned Cat Hobbes would never have been able to get the details of the Behemoth to Thrakhath. Hell, there were officers aboard my flagship who were conducting a search for a spy long before I ever knew anything about it. Maybe if I’d been more conscious of anything beyond the need to get the job done I might have been able to help them find him before he screwed us all. But…I didn’t. Thrakhath jumped the fleet and knocked out Behemoth, and that was all she wrote. Fortunately Paladin was there to pick up the pieces, and Chris Blair flew the mission that ended the war before the conspirators had a chance to move. I ended up with a messy court-martial and a career in ruins even after they acquitted me. But it was what happened after the court-martial that made me realize that I’d underestimated the bastards in the conspiracy after all.”

“After the court-martial?”

“Just after. When I got home from the court appearance that last day, I found a message on my comm terminal. No video, just a voice using a distorter so it couldn’t be recognized. All he said was ‘We could just as easily have crushed you. Remember that we look after our friends…as long as they are friends.’”

“You think the officers on the court were in on the conspiracy?” Bondarevsky asked.

“I’m certain of it,” Tolwyn responded. “Just as certain as I am that it was that same bunch who had Dave Whittaker killed four months ago.”

“But why?”

“I did some digging, as quietly as I could, and found out that some of the conspirators were in it for a lot more than just the idea of saving us from the Cats. They call themselves the Belisarius Group. Some of the ringleaders have enjoyed the increased power they’ve acquired as a result of the war. Even under civilian authority, the military’s been riding high lots of ways. They must have figured they would lose out on their perks once the peace was signed. I suspect the civil government might not have been as stupid as everyone thought, too. The indecent haste with which they started scaling back the armed forces tells me they were worried about a coup even after the war…and it turns out they had good reason to worry.”

“But without the War there’s no excuse…”

“Exactly.” Tolwyn sat down again, leaning forward and talking now with an intensity that reminded Bondarevsky of the admiral’s customary aura before a major engagement. “The conspiracy has penetrated beyond the military now, Jason. They’ve got people on the Peace Commission, in the Foreign Office, plenty of key places. And they are deliberately engineering a revival of the Kilrathi War so that there will be a sufficient threat out there to justify them seizing power and holding on to it.”

“That’s…that’s a pretty powerful accusation, sir.”

“It’s true. I’ve been collecting information ever since the court-martial, trying to gather enough evidence of what’s going on to stop them, but they’ve covered their tracks awfully well. I know a lot of what they’re trying to do, but I can’t prove very much of it.” He paused. “As far as I can tell, their plan is to stir up trouble out here on the frontier. They’re doing everything in their power to embroil Kruger in a fight with Ragark, knowing full well that Kruger doesn’t have a snowball’s chance in Hell of stopping a full-scale invasion. But at the same time they’re not letting the truth get out back home. When the Landreich falls, it will be another ‘sneak attack’ by the Kilrathi. Ten major colonies and all the people on them will be martyrs to the cause of resisting the Kilrathi hordes once again. They know that a show of support early on will probably make Ragark back off. He’s no fool. So there is a concerted effort to keep Kruger and his people from getting so much as a hearing back home…and at the same time, they’re already setting things up so that the blame for the Landreich’s fall will be laid at the government’s doorstep. Who disarmed the fleet? Who failed to respond to Kruger’s warnings? So they’ll have another war, and it will look as if the inept civil government is to blame. The perfect conditions to carry off the coup.“

“It sounds plausible, I suppose,” Bondarevsky said, dubious. “But you’re ascribing an awful lot of power to these people. What do they need a coup for, if they’ve already got such a long reach?”

“They’re powerful, but so far they have to operate very carefully, and from the shadows. And they didn’t keep all of their original membership when they started this new phase. I’m convinced Dave Whittaker died because he couldn’t go along with this new plan.” Tolwyn slumped back in the chair again. “At least I hope that’s why. I’d like to think that, in the end, he really was the same man I remembered.”

“But they still want to use you?”

“I think so. I’m pretty sure they see me as a figurehead to give their regime an air of respectability. And look how they’ve set me up for it! They can blame the court-martial and my subsequent disgrace on the short-sighted civilian government. When they sweep into power I’ll be the military man who was the victim of the civilian leader’s meddling, rescued and reinstated by the saviors of the Confederation.”

“MacArthur,” Bondarevsky said. “A lot of people would have supported him after he clashed with Truman in the Korean War.”

“Exactly,” Tolwyn said. “I suspect I’d only last long enough to give them time to get a grip on things. Then some ‘enemy of the people’ would assassinate me, paving the way for tighter control and more repression.”

They’re still playing a dangerous game. You don’t have much left to lose by airing what you know.”

“Ah, but right now I’m so thoroughly discredited that nobody would believe me without some damned convincing proof. And these people play dirty, Jason. Why do you think I sent Kevin out here ahead of me? I figured he’d be the first one they’d target if they thought I was getting dangerous to them. Out here they can’t touch him. I think.”

“Okay, I see all of what you’re saying. But I’m still not sure where Karga fits in to all this, or why we should risk our people in what looks like a lost cause.”

“Come on, man, think.” Tolwyn sounded exasperated. Terra’s one hope is if the situation here in the Landreich doesn’t develop the way the conspirators have planned it. If we can just hold Ragark back, stop his invasion scheme, we not only save the Landreich, we also buy time to fight the conspiracy. They can’t mobilize without Ragark’s fleet orbiting Landreich after a bloody campaign that violates the Treaty in a big way. And that supercarrier is our last chance to hold the Cats back. Without it, Kruger doesn’t stand a chance. We have to get her back in service, Jason. Without her, we’re not just looking at the end of the Landreich. We’re looking at the fall of the Confederation to a pack of tyrants a hell of a lot worse than Thrakhath ever would have been. He would have exterminated the human race…but this lot will do worse. They’ll extinguish everything we believe in, turn the Confederation into a tyranny, maybe ignite a civil war. Better to the fighting the Cats than to live to see a military junta deciding the fate of mankind.“

Bondarevsky didn’t respond right away. His eyes were on Tolwyn’s shadowy figure, but he was focused on something infinitely farmer away…Terra.

All the arguments against proceeding with Goliath were still there. It would be dangerous even to complete the survey, much less to attempt to disarm the self-destruct system so they could start repairs on the Karga. And the job was going to be even bigger than they had supposed, given what they had seen so far. Just understanding enough of the Kilrathi design philosophy to know how to attempt those repairs was going to be murder…

An idea stirred.

“Maybe there’s a way we can balance out the odds against us,” he said slowly. “Maybe…”

“What do you have in mind?” Tolwyn asked, his interest clearly piqued.

“I just realized, sir, that we have access to a collection of genuine experts on Kilrathi ship design. They might be able to help us disarm that destruct system…and they could certainly help us with the repair job.”

“The Kilrathi you picked up from the planet? Why should they work for our side?”

He thought back to his conversation with Graham and Murragh, and smiled. “Maybe this time, Admiral, it’s us who’ll be joining their side for a change.”

“Go to it, then,” Tolwyn said with a smile.

Saluting, Jason withdrew and Geoff turned his chair, the darkness enveloping him. There was so much more he could have told Jason; the fact that he had engaged in half-truths with a fighting officer he respected more than any other who had ever served under him was troubling. There was part of him that wanted to pull Jason all the way in, to reveal all about the Genetic Enhancements program that was the conspiracy within a conspiracy but he knew that Jason was too much of a straight arrow for that.

Tragic, so damn tragic, that in order to save what we love we so often have to destroy it. It was warriors like Jason who had ensured that the Confederation survived when so many others had given up hope, or worst yet would knowingly destroy it for their ambitions yet what I contemplate will most likely be resisted by ones like Jason.

Is this my own ambition, my own vanity, Geoff wondered. It was a troubling thought. There was the constant gnawing strain that the G.E. project, the virus hidden within the bacteria of Belisarius, was perhaps the greatest moral outrage of all. Yet there was no longer an alternative. That was the hidden truth Whittaker had revealed in their meeting, a truth which he had kept from Jason. Belisarius was simply the Trojan Horse that would be destroyed, and then the real plan would be hatched.

And the Landreich, all the Border World systems. That was the conflict to come against either the Confed or the Cats, which would be the platform for the G.E. project to be unleashed. That was why this carrier had to be saved, to provide the nucleus of an effective resistance so that the wheels within wheels would later turn.

Geoff sighed and, reaching under his chair, he took the bottle which he had hidden when Jason had come in. Taking a long drink he stared off, wondering. I know Jason would say no if he knew all the truth. Does that tell me something? An inner voice whispered the warning that indeed, if Jason did reject it, his rejection meant it was wrong. And if it is wrong for him then is it for me? God, why am I doing this? He thought of the new ones who even now were secretly in training, pilots like Seether. Seether, what would Jason think of him, this new generation, this new breed of Overman which I am helping to create.

Overman-strange, Whittaker had told me to read Nietzsche to find the hidden truth of the program. I did and I believed in spite of my moral outrage. That was the trouble, you could be outraged yet there was a terrifying logic to Nietzsche that could not be denied. The only answer to the logic of Nietzsche was the logic of a higher order of good that transcended his frightful world view. Thirty-five years of war in this universe had all but burned out the last idealistic dream of a higher order of good. There was, he feared, only one answer left-that if we are to survive in this universe we must be the Overman.

For beyond the Cats there were other enemies, far more terrifying, far more powerful and implacable. And if the Cats could come within a hairsbreadth of destroying us, what did that bode for humanity a hundred years from now? For surely they were coming and most assuredly we would be destroyed.

There was only one answer left, he feared, the answer of Nietzsche, of Whittaker, of G.E., of Seether. And I know I should have moral outrage, but that is gone, he thought sadly. That must be buried if we are to survive. He closed his eyes and drained the rest of the bottle.