Fire with Fire

Chapter Thirty-Seven

ODYSSEUS

Exosapients. Of course. “That’s why you had this meeting scheduled right behind Nolan’s memorial service. And that’s why you had it on Mars. It’s all cover for this briefing, and puts us in a spot where there’s far less press and far fewer possibilities for intelligence leaks.”

Downing nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

Judging from Trevor’s face, Nolan’s son still wasn’t sure that he had heard what he had just heard about exosapients. Opal was that much further behind the leading edge of the culture-shock wave. “What do you mean, ‘exosapients’? You mean, the critters-er, folks-that Caine met on Delta Pavonis?”

Caine shook his head, kept his eyes on Richard. “No. These are different. Not from Dee Pee Three. They’re what you and I grew up calling ‘aliens.’”

Opal gaped, then grinned-still not believing, he guessed: “Oh, you mean little green men. ‘Take me to your leader’ and all the rest?”

Downing shook his head. “They’re rather more a gray olive-drab, according to the single image they relayed. And they do not wish to be taken to our leaders. Nor do they expect our senior leaders to be taken to them. They are calling for a delegation to attend a meeting that is part induction ceremony and part summit.”

Opal’s grin became open-mouthed disbelief. “You’re serious.”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

Caine noted that Elena was the first to recover, pick up the earlier threads. “And these-Dornaani-asked for me to attend this …meeting?”

Downing shrugged. “Not by name; they simply asked for an adult child of Nolan Corcoran.”

Now it was Elena’s turn to be flustered. She looked around the table, as if their eyes were accusing her of something. “Well-send Trevor. He’s part of your organization now, anyway. And he’s military, so he’ll be of interest to them-and of use to you. Good grief, I’m just a semiotic anthropologist-”

Downing smiled. “I seem to recall that your appointment to the State Department is as one of the section heads of the xenoculture analysis task force.”

Trevor leaned back. “So, I’m off the hook?”

“No. We can’t know which of you they will consider Nolan’s best representative, so I need both of you. And, Trevor, you will also be the delegation’s unofficial expert in military technology. And we will definitely need a pair of eyes and ears that are dedicated to immediate security. So that’s your other job. And since we need at least two people watching our backs, we’ll be taking Major Patrone, as well.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. You’re taking me to meet ET? I don’t think so.”

“Major, I think so, and I say so.”

“And what is my essential expertise for this mission?”

“That you can help keep us out of trouble and can follow orders.” Downing’s head was suddenly very stiff and erect upon his neck. “You all seem to think that this assignment is voluntary. With the exception of Caine and Elena, you are active duty members of the United States Armed Forces and these are your new orders. End of discussion.” Caine could tell from the pause that Downing had saved him for last. No reason to wait for it.

“So let me guess; I’m coming along, too.”

“Of course.”

“What happened to my new life of freedom, Richard?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to take that up with the President, Caine.”

Oh, shit. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that President Liu is formally asking you to serve your country, the Commonwealth, and your planet by accepting the position of Senior Negotiator of the Deputation.”

Caine sighed, then nodded. “Okay. But-fair warning-I’m no politician.”

“And no one is asking you to be one. You will not make policy; that is for other members of the delegation. Your role is as liaison; you are the conduit for contact and exchange.”

“So I get to make the introductions at the cocktail parties?”

“No: you get to decide how and when to communicate with the other species at the meeting.”

“Other species? As in, many species?”

“There are five, counting the Dornaani.”

Caine felt the urge to throw up. “Richard, I don’t have the training for this sort of thing.”

“Neither does anyone else. And you are the only human who has ever handled a first-contact situation. And successfully, I might add. There are no other meaningful credentials for such a role-an assertion which was made by the Confederation task force that determined the complement of the delegation three weeks ago. Indeed, you were the only nominee for Senior Negotiator.”

Great. “Lucky me.”

“Actually, I think you’d be rather honored, given some of the people who nominated you.”

Caine wanted not to ask, but he couldn’t resist. “Who?”

“Ching. Sukhinin. Visser. MacGregor. And even Gaspard.”

“What? Did they reconvene Parthenon just to decide how to staff the delegation?”

“More or less. The delegation had to have representation from each bloc, and staffed by people who had sufficiently high clearance. And two had to be senior enough politicos to make diplomatic decisions, on the spot, if need be.”

“And who are those two?”

“Visser accepted the first chair on the delegation. Durniak is joining us as her advisor and second chair.

“The rest of the team are all leaders in their respective fields. Bernard Hwang was tapped to be our expert in life sciences. Lemuel Wasserman-yes, the nephew of the inventor of the Wasserman drive-will be our engineering and physics analyst. And Sanjay Thandla is going to be our expert in IT, data management, and robotics.”

“What?” Opal sounded distressed. “No assistants? Who’ll go get our coffee?”

“We will. No assistants. That was the decision made by the commission, since the Dornaani restricted us to a ten-person delegation.” Downing leaned back. “Questions?”

I’ve got to ask. “Richard, why did the Dornaani contact us now?”

“They didn’t say. But I have a hypothesis: convenience. The Dornaani indicated that we will not be the only first-time participants at this convocation.” He frowned. “What troubles me is that the Dornaani also indicated that they make first contact soon after a species has achieved interstellar travel capabilities. I think it odd that they have two new races standing for membership during a single gathering.”

Caine nodded. “I agree. Very odd.”

Opal was looking back and forth between them. “Okay, I give up; what’s odd about having one meeting instead of two separate ones?”

“If Caine and I are thinking similarly, that is not what we find suspicious, Major. Rather, it’s the fact that two separate species would be attaining interstellar capability at almost exactly the same time.”

“Okay, I see your point: the odds are really against that kind of timing. But then how do the ruins on Dee Pee Three make any sense? If that civilization fell twenty thousand years ago, it doesn’t seem plausible that four or five brand-new interstellar species could have risen up since then.”

Caine shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t.”

“What?”

“Maybe the first bunch of exosapients didn’t all die out-in which case today’s exosapients would have some overlap with the ones who were running things about twenty thousand years ago.”

Downing nodded sharply. “Caine is absolutely right. Indeed, without such an exosapient collective constraining the colonizing activities of its members since then, new species would have no chance to develop independently, either on their homeworld or beyond.”

Trevor snapped his fingers. “Sure. Otherwise, all the green worlds we’ve colonized in the last eight years would have already been filled with the other exosapients. Unless we are way the hell out in some interstellar backwater, why would they have left all that nice green real estate alone, unless it had been set aside for us?”

Opal nodded. “Like property held in trust for when we ‘come of age.’”

Caine shrugged. “That’s the theory. And that’s all it is: a theory. But it does account for what we know of this area’s past, and what we see in its present.” And it could be that our rapid push outward also triggered this invitation: maybe we’re about to cross over some neighbor’s property line. Maybe we already have…

“We may be walking into a very complicated situation,” Elena said quietly.

Downing sighed. “Exactly. But as long as different powers exist, so too will rival interests, and therefore, many of the basic rules of foreign relations and realpolitik should continue to apply.”

“And when do we get to learn if that hypothesis is accurate, Uncle Richard?”

“We are due to arrive at preset coordinates-ten AU above the ecliptic out near Saturn’s orbit-in sixteen days. That means we need to depart tomorrow.”

MENTOR

Opal was the first to break the stunned silence. “So we’ve got only two weeks to prepare?”

“The convocation will be very simple, and very brief. We have not even been given any advance guidelines.”

“I’m not talking about guidelines. I’m talking about being ready for-” Opal stopped, at a loss for words.

“For facing the unknown, the outre?” supplied Downing.

“Yeah. Something like that.”

Downing shrugged. “The Dornaani indicated that we don’t need to actually meet-or even see-any of the exosapients except them. Also, the other races are sending cross-species liaisons who have become experts in several of our languages and cultures in anticipation of this event.” Downing looked around the table. “Besides, all of you, and the other members of the delegation, tested low-very low-on the xenophobia index.”

Apparently in response to the puzzled expressions, Elena expanded upon the topic. “The xenophobia index was originally a test for anthropological field workers-usually buried inside another test-to measure how aversive they’d find unfamiliar conditions. Some people are so xenophobic that they freeze up just going to an authentic foreign restaurant; others thrive best when plopped down in a wholly different culture.”

“Well, I never took any test like that,” grumbled Opal.

Downing smiled faintly. “Major, when you were recuperating from your liver surgery, do you remember that vocational survey you filled out?”

“Yeah. Wait. Are you telling me…?”

“That test told us a great deal more about you than your long-term work preferences. A great deal more.”

Opal looked up from under sullen brows. “Still. Only two weeks to prepare?”

Trevor raised a finger. “Actually, Uncle Richard, I’ve got my own problem with that two-week time frame. If my math is right, two weeks is not enough time to make a stationary rendezvous. We won’t be able to get there and also counterboost enough to come to a full stop. However we slice it, we’re either going to be late, or we’ll be hitting the target point at a pretty decent velocity.”

Downing nodded. “The Dornaani simply requested that when we reached these coordinates, we were not traveling any faster than zero-point-two C.”

Trevor’s eyebrows rose. “Wow. Sounds like we’ve got a lot of questions to ask the Dornaani.”

Downing’s lips quirked. “And we have only a few days to choose and prioritize them, Trevor. For now, let’s just get a good night’s kip.” He started moving his many papers back into folders.

The others exited, Opal lagging, waiting for Caine, who smiled and held up a pausing finger. He turned toward Downing. “You knew this day was coming, didn’t you?”

Downing looked up from his papers. “No. Not me.”

Caine remembered Sounion, remembered the last look on Nolan Corcoran’s face. “So-Nolan knew.”

Downing looked away. “I’m not sure…but I think he suspected we might find ourselves in this situation. And that we’d need you. Again.”

“So you guys never planned to cut me loose at all, or help me piece together my lost hundred hours. You just wanted to keep me dangling, forcing me to choose between living out on Mars, where I’ve got almost no access to information, or down on Earth, in easy reach of IRIS.”

Downing closed his eyes momentarily. “Caine, I’m sorry. Yes, we hoped you would continue to work for us. As to having access to the right information-well, you chose to come up here; you weren’t exiled.”

“So you’re telling me you do have information on the one hundred hours now? That you can help me?”

“Caine, it’s not that simple. It was Nolan who kept all the relevant files, who knew where they were and how to access them. But when he died, well-”

“Oh, I see. You can’t help me because Nolan’s gone. Blame it on the dead guy. Very original.”

“Damn it, Caine, it’s the truth!”

“The truth? Since when has anyone connected with IRIS ever cared about the truth?”

“Caine,” Downing pleaded. “This is not how it was supposed to be. But I can’t undo the past, and I can’t get information from dead men. All I can tell you is that we need you. Again.”

“Well,” said Caine, turning to leave with Opal, “thanks to the President, you and IRIS have me. Again.”