Guardian

Four

It took a couple of long minutes before the Marines, assisted by extra personnel who had been standing by in case they were needed, corralled the agitated former prisoners and shouted them into a tight group, shivering and whimpering but otherwise quiet. With the situation calmed enough, Dr. Nasr spoke to Geary over the bevy of voices in the loading area. “Admiral, we have a situation.”

“I noticed,” Geary snapped, trying not to sound too angry. “What’s the problem? Did the eighteen who were going to leave decide not to stay at Midway?”

“No, Admiral. We’re still trying to sort things out, but as far as I can determine, now they all want to get off and stay at Midway.”

“All?” Geary repeated.

“Yes. All three hundred thirty-three of them.”

Geary heard a thudding sound and glanced over the see that Tanya, looking pained, had slapped her palm against her forehead.

He felt the same way. “How many times did we already ask them if they wanted to stay here?”

Dr. Nasr came as close to rolling his eyes as a senior medical officer could. “On the record, with official refusals? Twenty times, Admiral. But they changed their minds when they saw the others going. They want to stay together. They want to go home. This isn’t home for the other three-hundred-odd former prisoners, but it’s a lot closer to their previous homes than Varandal or any other point in Alliance space. And we are Alliance. We frighten them.”

“We frighten them?” Desjani asked, incredulous. “Do they think Syndic CEOs are warm and cuddly? Did they hear that shuttle pilot talking about snakes?”

“Syndic CEOs, the entire Syndic system, is the devil they know. And they know from hearing that pilot that the snakes are gone from Midway. The pilot is one of them. They believed her where they would not believe us. Faced with separation from those who have been part of their group for decades, they decided to stay together rather than risk the unknowns of the Alliance.”

“Doctor,” Geary growled, “Midway only agreed to take eighteen.”

“We’re talking to the representatives from Midway, Admiral.” In the wide-view image, Geary could see the civilian specialists and fleet physicians on Haboob speaking, arguing, debating, and, in general, looking as frustrated as he himself felt, while the panicky former prisoners of the enigmas wailed and clamored in the background. “They seem willing to take the others, and their freighter has the capacity though it will be crowded, but they need high-level approval.”

Which would take nearly five hours since the planet where President Iceni and General Drakon were located was currently about two and a half light-hours from where the Alliance fleet was orbiting. “Damn.”

Tanya was wisely saying nothing, letting him burn off steam before he spoke again.

“All right,” Geary finally said. “Should we send the former prisoners back to their rooms while we wait to hear from the authorities on Midway?”

“No!” Dr. Nasr protested. “If they’re panicky now, sending them to their rooms as if we’re keeping all of them would just add fuel to the fire.”

“All right,” Geary repeated, trying to sound much calmer than he felt. “Hold them all there on the loading dock. Tell the Midway people to get off a message immediately asking their superiors if they can take all of the liberated prisoners. Have the officer in charge of the loading dock arrange for food and water for everyone who needs it and keep the guards in place.”

“Yes, Admiral. I will pass on those instructions.”

As Dr. Nasr went to work on his end, Geary shook his head in frustration at the images from Haboob, where the assembled former prisoners were now crying and holding on to each other. “I know they’re emotional wrecks because of their long confinement by the enigmas, but did they have to make this difficult by changing their minds at the last moment?”

“Like you told me,” Tanya said. “They’re wrecks. You have spotted the bright side here, right?”

“There’s a bright side?” Geary asked, glumly surveying the slowly subsiding mess aboard Haboob.

“Hell, yes, there’s a bright side. If we dump them all here, they’ll be Midway’s problem from now on. We’ll be free of worrying about them.”

He paused, then felt a smile appear on his face. “That’s true. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to protect them from Alliance researchers and media vultures once we got back. We’ll have freed them and taken them home. The honorable and the right thing to do. Hooray for us. What are you doing?”

“Research.” Tanya continued tapping some of her controls, zooming a virtual sound pickup in on the Alliance officers who had spoken with the shuttle pilot. “This is a recording from just before our many freed prisoners decided to freak out on us. I want to know what these officers thought of their conversation with that former Syndic.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know the answer, and I want to find out, Admiral, sir.” She finished entering her commands. The officers had all been muttering or speaking in low voices, which would normally have made it hard to sort out the conversations they were having with each other. However, the sound systems automatically analyzed everything and broke out each voice digitally, producing a series of phrases that could be heard clearly by Geary and Desjani.

“Lakota was that bad?” “Worse.” “Like Kalixa?” “Worse.” “What was that about Taroa? We ought to report that.” “They called their own cops snakes?” “Not cops. She said secret police or something.” “Maybe she was lying.” “Hell of a good liar if she was.” “How could they believe we started it?” “Bitch.” “She lost her brother.” “So did I!” “We don’t trust our own politicians, do we?” “Hell, no.” “Syndics are worse. Everybody knows that.” “Maybe our government isn’t so bad after all.” “Not if you compare it to the Syndics.”

“The one great virtue of the Syndics,” Desjani said, as the recording ended with the beginning of the former prisoners’ panic session that swamped the sound pickups with a cacophony of noise. “Everything about the Syndics makes everything else look so much better when weighed against the Syndics.”

“That’s something I hadn’t thought about,” Geary admitted. “We’ve gone through Syndic space once on this mission, and we’ll be doing the same on the way back. The personnel in this fleet are seeing firsthand what happens as the Syndicate Worlds falls apart. They’re seeing how bad Syndic rule was. No matter what they think of the Alliance government, no matter how unhappy they are with how our government does things or with Alliance policy or with Alliance politicians, they’re seeing firsthand how much worse things could be.”

Desjani rolled her eyes. “Saying our government is better than the Syndics’ isn’t exactly high praise. Anything is better than the Syndics. And claiming our politicians are better than Syndic CEOs might generate some debate.”

“Not all politicians are the same. Take a look at some of the star systems where Syndic authority has collapsed,” Geary suggested. “The people of Midway were lucky.”

“Maybe they were lucky. So far, this place hasn’t fallen apart. Doesn’t mean it won’t. You heard that woman, the shuttle pilot. We’re free, she said. How long do you think she and others like her are going to keep taking orders from a couple of former CEOs?”

“It depends upon what those former CEOs do,” Geary said. “President Iceni has been asking Rione a lot of questions about the different governments in the Alliance. How they maintain order, how stable they are, how they retain popular support.”

“She’s asking that witch for advice on how to be a good politician? Or maybe Iceni figures that woman has good advice for dictators.”

“Tanya, for all of Victoria Rione’s faults, she does believe in the Alliance.”

“You may think that counterbalances the faults. I don’t.”

He sighed and stood up. “All right. There’s nothing to do now but wait about five hours, at least five hours, to hear what Iceni says about taking all of them.”

“Nothing to do?” Desjani asked, getting up as well. “What world are you living in?”

“Dreamworld,” Geary admitted. “There are plenty of other things to do.”

“That’s my admiral.” She raised one hand to gently brush a nonexistent speck from Geary’s shoulder. “I miss my husband.”

“He misses you.”

“Hopefully, the admiral will get us home so we can spend a little while off my ship and his flagship. A little off-duty, private time.” She stepped back and smiled briefly. “I’ll be on the bridge, Admiral.”

“I’ll be in my stateroom, Captain.”

Five hours and ten minutes later a message came in from Haboob. “Midway says they will take them all,” Dr. Nasr said, looking happier than he had in months.

That had been quick. Iceni must not have spent much time thinking about it at all. Does she really care about them and their fates? Or does she see them as something to exploit, a source of information about the enigmas and leverage with the Syndic government and other star systems? The more, the better.

But those people aren’t prisoners. We freed them from imprisonment. They have expressed the desire to leave this fleet here at Midway, and Midway has agreed to take them. Do I have any choice but to hope Iceni does the decent thing?

No, I don’t. “Do you recommend that we turn them all over to Midway?” Geary asked, wanting that to be part of the official record.

“That is my recommendation, Admiral. I think the authorities here will treat in a civilized fashion those we liberated from the enigmas.”

“Then get them all on those shuttles. It’ll take a few extra runs, but get it done.”

One headache disposed of. Too bad there were a lot more left.

But now he could set a departure time. He had no trouble imagining how well received the news would be that the fleet was finally continuing its voyage home.

Humanity had built many large objects since the first hand grasped the first tool. Some of those objects had seemed awesomely large to those who constructed them, only to eventually be eclipsed by some new work that dwarfed what came before.

But the hypernet gates were in a class of their own. The many “tethers” that held together a matrix of energy formed a circle so large that even a human battleship appeared small as it approached a gate. Geary’s entire fleet, hundreds of warships, could enter a gate simultaneously. And the net created by the gates was unimaginably huge, spanning a volume hundreds of light-years across and granting direct access to scores of star systems.

The hypernet gate at Midway was close now, looming in space before the Alliance warships, looking like exactly what it was—a gateway to somewhere else.

Geary had his fleet together again, all of the warships in one titanic, egg-shaped formation that would serve well for defense but convey no offensive intent. In the most protected part of the oval were the assault transports, the auxiliaries, and the captured Kick superbattleship, the Invincible. Near those ships were most of the battleships in the fleet, forming an armored shell close to the weakest, most valuable units. Ranged outward from them were the battle cruisers, the heavy cruisers, the light cruisers, and the destroyers.

Battered and tired as they were—the crews as well as the ships—they still looked magnificent.

Geary took his eyes away from the reassuring image of strength on his display, carefully touching his comm control. “Captain Bradamont, we’re about to depart. I have every confidence in you. Use your best judgment. To the honor of our ancestors, Admiral Geary, out.”

He sighed, hoping that he had made the right decision about leaving Bradamont here as a liaison officer. At times it had felt far too much as if he were abandoning a fellow officer to the clutches of an enemy. But Bradamont had volunteered when given the opportunity. Her presence at Midway might make a big difference in the survival of Midway’s independence and provide a means to learn how sincere President Iceni was about her claims to be seeking a freer form of government to replace the Syndic tyranny. “Let’s go, Tanya.”

“Indras?” Desjani asked, her hand poised over the input for the hypernet key.

“Yes. That’s the quickest way back to the Alliance.” Geary watched her selecting the name of the star. Not every star had a hypernet gate. Not even close, given how expensive the gates were to construct. And the only thing allowing this Alliance fleet to use the Syndic hypernet was a Syndic hypernet key acquired as part of a complex Syndic plot to destroy the Alliance, a plot that had very badly backfired on the Syndicate Worlds.

He waited for the simple procedure to be complete, but instead of indicating that all was ready, Desjani gave him a concerned look. “The Syndic hypernet says it can’t access a gate at Indras.”

“Something happened to the gate at Indras?”

“Must have.” She bit her lip, eyeing her display. “Kalixa would have been the next best alternative, but we know Kalixa’s gate is gone. How about Praja?”

He studied his own display, then nodded. “Go for Praja.”

Several seconds passed, then Desjani blew out a long breath. “No access to a gate at Praja.”

“Try Kachin.”

Another pause, then she shook her head. “No access.”

“Could there be something wrong with our key? Could the Syndics have somehow reprogrammed their hypernet so our key won’t work in it anymore?”

“Admiral, I have no idea. I’m just a ship driver.”

Already thrown off-balance by this totally unexpected hurdle, Geary felt an irrational stab of annoyance at her reply but recognized it as being candid and accurate. “Let’s ask someone who might know.” He tapped in some commands. “Captain Hiyen, Commander Neeson,” he said, as his message went out to the commanders of Reprisal and Implacable. “We have a problem.” He explained what had happened, then sat back to wait for replies that would take a few seconds at least. Hiyen and Neeson were the nearest things to experts on the hypernet that he had left. Having to depend on their limited expertise was not reassuring when something unusual happened, especially given how little humanity really understood about the hypernet.

“We’re getting close to the gate,” Desjani murmured, as if to herself.

Geary jerked, annoyed with himself this time at not staying on top of the entire situation. “All units in First Fleet, immediate execute, alter course starboard one eight zero, reduce velocity to point zero two light.” The entire formation would turn around, each individual ship pivoting in place, then using her main drives to first brake velocity in the fleet’s original direction, then accelerate back along the track they had come, though at a much slower pace. “Thank you, Captain Desjani,” he muttered.

She just nodded slightly in reply, eyes still on her display.

Yet another reason why I love that woman, Geary thought, trying not to get angry at this unexpected delay or too worried yet about the consequences if this fleet had to jump star by star back to Alliance space.

“Admiral,” Captain Hiyen said as his image appeared in a virtual window before Geary, “a hypernet cannot be reprogrammed. Not unless everything we know is wrong.”

“You’re saying the problem cannot be with our key, or with the Syndic hypernet having been set to not accept our key?”

“Yes, Admiral. Not unless the key has failed, and we would know if that had happened because a broken key wouldn’t even link to the gate here.”

Commander Neeson’s face had appeared next to Captain Hiyen’s. “I agree, Admiral. I suggest a test, though. Try a gate near here, somewhere not too far from Midway.”

Geary frowned, turning to Desjani. “What’s the closest hypernet gate?”

“Taniwah.” She tapped in the commands. “Nope. No access.”

“Admiral,” Neeson said, “try the ‘gate listing’ command.”

“There’s a gate listing command?” Desjani asked. “What do you know. There is. Admiral, when the Syndics told you they had a device to keep anyone like the enigmas from collapsing their entire hypernet by remote signal, did they say they had actually installed that device?”

“Yes,” Geary said. “Aren’t there any gates showing up?”

“One. Sobek.”

“Only one? Sobek?” Not remembering from the name where it was, he had to enter that one into his display, seeing a star illuminate in response. “That’s not too far from the border. Not as close as Indras, but only… three or four jumps from Varandal.” His relief rapidly sank beneath a wave of anxiety. “How could the Syndics only have one gate left in their hypernet? Two, counting this one.”

“I don’t know, sir,” Captain Hiyen said. “If the Syndics have lost the rest of their hypernet, it will have catastrophic impacts on their economy as well as on their ability to move military forces. They could not have deliberately done that just to limit our options to only Sobek.”

Neeson shook his head. “When that Syndic flotilla used the gate to leave here, they didn’t seem to run into any difficulties.”

“Then what is going on?” Geary demanded.

“I don’t know, Admiral.”

Wishing for the thousandth time that the brilliant theorist Captain Cresida had not died during the battle at Varandal, Geary hit a different comm control. “President Iceni, we have encountered an unusual situation.”

Hypernet gates were always positioned near the outer edges of a star system, and Midway’s was no exception. It took several hours for Geary’s message to reach the primary inhabited world and an answer to be received.

With a restive fleet at Geary’s back, eager to head home and abruptly stymied in its departure, it was amazing how long that period of time could feel.

When her reply eventually showed up, President Iceni did not look any happier than Geary felt. “A freighter arrived two days ago from the gate with Nanggal and did not report any problems. I assure you that we are extremely concerned by the news you have given us. We cannot explain the problems you are having accessing gates elsewhere in the Syndicate hypernet. My information prior to our break with the Syndicate was that every standing gate had already been equipped to prevent collapse by remote means. I cannot believe that the new government on Prime would have deliberately destroyed almost all of their hypernet. The impact on corporate activity and profits would be incalculable.

“That said, we have no idea what has happened. There are no indications that our own gate is suffering any problems or malfunctions. We have closely monitored it for any signs of software or hardware sabotage, especially during the period when CEO Boyens’s flotilla was in this star system.

“If you discover anything, or find any anomalies in the operation of the gate, we would be grateful if you would provide us with that information. For the people. Iceni, out.”

Geary rubbed his mouth and chin with one hand, trying to think. “Emissary Rione, I would appreciate your assessment of President Iceni’s latest message.”

“She could be lying,” Rione began, “but I don’t think she is. Iceni does appear to be genuinely worried.”

“They want us to stay here,” Geary said. “This problem with the gate could offer them the means to keep us here.”

“She asked us to tell her what was wrong,” Rione reminded him. “She did not say they were working on it, did not claim any malfunction here, did not do any of the things someone would do if they were trying to string us along. Moreover, one other gate has been left accessible. Why would they allow access to any gate, especially one in the region we wish to go to, if they wished to keep us here?”

“Admiral,” Emissary Charban began diffidently, “if this is the work of the Syndic government, and if it were a ground forces situation, and if all paths in the direction I wanted to go but one were blocked, I would wonder why that one path had been left open.”

Geary lowered his hand and gazed at Charban. “A trap? An ambush?”

“I would expect such, yes.”

“He’s right,” Desjani said. Her once-low opinion of Charban had improved a great deal lately. “As much as I don’t trust the used-to-be Syndics here at Midway, I can’t think of any reason they would leave us a path out if they wanted us to stay.”

“And we know,” Charban continued, “who controls the gates to which we no longer have access.”

“The Syndics,” Geary said. “But that comes back to the initial problem. How could slowing us down, or luring us into an ambush, possibly be worth the cost to the Syndic government of destroying almost their entire hypernet?”

“We can’t know the answer to that,” Rione said. “Even the presence of the captured Kick warship and the Dancer emissaries with us could not explain it. I agree that whatever led to this, it appears designed to force us to go to Sobek. We have to assume that something awaits us there.”

“But what?” Geary demanded. “The Syndics couldn’t possibly have enough warships to threaten this fleet.”

“They still have the gate at Sobek,” Desjani pointed out. “They could collapse it and wipe us out, along with the Dancer ships and Invincible.”

“Which would also render the hypernet gate here at Midway useless,” Rione said. “Since it would no longer be connected to any other gates. Yet such a strategy would be like committing suicide to prevent your enemy from killing you. Without the Syndic hypernet, the Syndicate Worlds’ government would have no hope of holding together what is left of their empire.”

“The Syndics have done stupid things before,” Geary said.

“Such as starting the war that only recently ended?” Rione replied. “That is true. But the CEOs ruling the Syndicate Worlds a century ago could have deluded themselves into believing they could win that war. There is no possible scenario in which the Syndicate Worlds today could survive the loss of its entire hypernet.”

He glowered at his display. The commanding officers of his ships were reporting that their crews were restless, agitated over the abrupt halt to their voyage home. Even if that weren’t a consideration, even if morale were excellent, it would leave the same dilemma. The only Syndic gate they could access was at Sobek. If they didn’t use Sobek, they would have to spend several months jumping from star to star to reach Alliance space again, opening themselves up to additional obstacles and dangers at every star. “What is your recommendation, Captain Desjani?”

Tanya made a face. “We have to go to Sobek. But we need to be ready for a fight there.”

“I agree,” Charban said.

“Emissary Rione?” Geary asked.

She took a moment to answer, gazing fixedly outward, then nodded. “I cannot see any alternative that is realistic. I agree we must go to Sobek.”

“We could wait here,” Geary pointed out.

“For how long, Admiral?”

“That’s my concern. If the gates except for Sobek are gone, sitting here won’t buy us anything. It will just delay our getting home. But I wanted to hear someone else say it so I’d know it wasn’t just my impatience talking to me.” He gestured to Tanya. “Captain Desjani, enter Sobek as our destination. I’m going to arrange the fleet in a combat formation.”

“Sobek entered,” she replied. “What do you think might be waiting at Sobek?”

“I have no idea. Maybe nothing is waiting there for us. There’s always a chance the enigmas figured out a way around the Syndic anticollapse gear, and Sobek somehow didn’t get the message.”

“If that were the case, Midway didn’t, either,” Desjani pointed out. “And Midway is the closest to enigma space.”

“Yeah. Sort of weakens that theory, doesn’t it?” How do I arrange the fleet to deal with an indeterminate threat? “Maybe we’d be best off staying in this formation and doing an evasive maneuver as we leave the gate at Sobek.”

“Maybe. Which way do you want to evade? You can be sure the Syndics are trying to spot patterns in which way you go.”

Geary hesitated, then looked at Charban. “Pick a number between one and three hundred fifty-nine.”

Charban raised his eyebrows in question, but after a moment spoke up. “Two hundred six.”

“Down and to the right,” Geary said to Desjani as he input the maneuver. “Is that random enough?”

“Asking a politician who’s a retired grand-forces officer? Yeah, that’s random.”

He got the fleet turned around again, accelerating toward the hypernet gate once more. “We’ll be just under point one light speed when we enter the gate. I guess I should tell Iceni what we’re doing.”

“Or you could let them guess,” Desjani suggested.

“Not this time.” Geary sent off a brief message to Iceni, then sat back to wait.

He felt a growing tension as the fleet approached the gate, wondering if Sobek, too, would suddenly show up as unable to access. That would leave two alternatives, neither of which would be good. Funny. I never wanted to go to Sobek. But now I want to get there very badly. “All units be ready for combat when we exit at Sobek. Any ship facing danger upon exit is authorized to fire immediately.”

Charban sounded worried. “What if the Syndics at Sobek have a picket ship at the gate? A HuK or light cruiser?”

“Then I’ll apologize for my fleet having destroyed that picket ship,” Geary answered with a glare at Charban. “I didn’t create this situation. They did.”

“They may want you to do that, Admiral.”

“I’m sorry, but you were right earlier. This smells like an ambush. I won’t tie the hands of my ships when we’re heading into something that stinks as bad as this does. Have the Dancers been warned?”

Charban shrugged. “As best as we can communicate such a warning, Admiral. Their ships are ready to enter the gate along with ours. I do want to talk to you about the Dancers when you have the time.”

“Here we go,” Desjani announced. She sounded cheerful, as she usually did when Geary decided to go weapons free on anything that looked Syndic. “Request permission to enter the gate, Admiral.”

“Permission granted.”

There was no disorientation like that felt going into jump space. The stars vanished, replaced not with the gray nothingness of jump space but by literally nothing at all.

Geary slumped back, wondering if he would see Midway again. “How long to Sobek?”

“Twenty days,” Desjani said.

They were going an immense distance even by interstellar standards. Long ago, it seemed, when he had assumed command of a trapped fleet in the Syndic home star system, she had told him that with hypernet travel, the farther you went, the less time it could take. It was still jarring to be reminded of that, and disturbing not to see the familiar if uncanny gray of jump space or see the unexplained lights of jump space growing and fading randomly around them. It’s strange how Nothing can be more upsetting to me than the weirdness of jump space.

Charban shook his head. “It’s hard enough for me to grasp the velocities that spacecraft travel within star systems. Tens of thousands of kilometers a second is just too fast for my planetary-surface instincts to visualize. What sort of velocity are we traveling now, to go such a distance in such a span of time?”

“We’re not actually going any speed at all,” Desjani said with a smile. “That’s what an expert told me.” Her smile slipped, and Geary knew why. Cresida had been that expert, and a good friend of Desjani’s. “We’re at one gate, then a bit later we’re at another gate, but, technically, we didn’t travel the distance between them. We just went from being in one place to being at another.”

“Does anyone actually understand things like that?” Charban wondered. “Or are we still children, surrounded by things we don’t really grasp and poking at a few of them to see what happens?”

“I don’t know,” Desjani said, turning back to her display, which now showed nothing but the situation aboard Dauntless. “I just drive a battle cruiser.”

The enforced isolation of hypernet travel, or that in jump space, left a lot of time to get backed-up work accomplished. Geary, sitting at his stateroom table and sourly eyeing the long list of backed-up items he still had to go through, was trying to decide whether that was a good or a bad thing. Why did I want to be an admiral? Oh, yeah, I didn’t ever want to be an admiral. I just wanted to do my job and do it well. Rise to command of a ship. But command of a fleet? A fleet far larger than the Alliance fleet that existed before the war? And be responsible for every man and woman, and now Dancer as well, who is part of that fleet? Nope, I never wanted that. But I’ve got it.

His hatch alert chimed.

Trying to not look too relieved at the diversion from administrative tasks, Geary spun in his seat to face the hatch and tapped an entry authorization.

He had half hoped it might be Tanya, visiting to snatch a few moments of being together without being under the eyes of the entire crew, or maybe Rione, ready to spill a few more clues about her mysterious secret orders. Instead, the hatch opened to reveal the earnest and melancholy face of Emissary Charban. “Have you a few moments, Admiral?”

“Certainly. Come on in.” He didn’t hesitate to offer his time, as he would have much earlier in the mission. Charban had come aboard Dauntless tagged as an aspiring politician, a retired general who had been sorely disillusioned about the usefulness of violence in accomplishing anything as he watched men and women die and little change. But Geary had come to see that Charban was not a fool or a phony. He was a tired man who had seen too much death but could still think and reason well enough to spot things that others could not.

Increasingly, Charban had emerged as the primary point of contact with the Dancers, even Rione giving way to him. Dr. Setin had complained about that before the fleet entered the gate at Midway. “Why is an amateur being given preference in dealing with this alien species?”

“Because the alien species keeps asking specifically to deal with him,” Geary had pointed out. He knew that thanks to reports from Setin’s associate Dr. Shwartz.

“He is an amateur. We have spent our entire academic careers preparing for communication and contact with a nonhuman intelligence!”

“Yes, Dr. Setin, I understand. I will look into the matter and see what should be done.” Dr. Setin had spent an academic career preparing to communicate with a nonhuman intelligence but, ironically, wasn’t able to identify a classic human bureaucratic brush-off when he received one.

“May I speak with you about the Dancers?” Charban asked Geary as the emissary entered the stateroom.

“Have a seat. I hope this is good news.”

Charban grimaced as he sat down opposite Geary. “The experts tell me I am wrong.”

“Then you’ve got good grounds for thinking you may be right,” Geary said. “Dr. Shwartz told me those academic experts, herself included, spent their entire careers up until now theorizing about intelligent aliens, and now that they’ve finally encountered the real things, they’re having trouble adjusting to the fact that the realities aren’t matching a lot of their theories. What in particular is this about?”

“Our attempts to communicate better with the Dancers.” Charban’s expression shifted into exasperation, then worry. “I am not certain they are being cooperative.”

Having had the same suspicion growing in him for a few weeks now, and not happy at all with the idea that the Dancers might not be playing straight with their human contacts, Geary was less than thrilled to hear that someone else shared his worries. He took a deep breath. “Explain, please.”

“It’s hard to explain an impression,” Charban complained. “Not scientific at all, I am told. You know we have been making slow progress in communicating with the Dancers. Very slow progress.”

Geary nodded. “They’re so very different from us that the slow progress isn’t surprising anyone. We have such a huge gap to cross between our species in order to establish the meaning of words and concepts. But I have been wondering why even the basic concepts are coming so slowly.”

Charban smiled crookedly. “You’ve been reading the reports from our experts,” he noted. “That is all true. But…” He paused, frowning in thought. “I have the impression that the Dancers are deliberately slow-pedaling the process, that it is taking far longer than it could if they went at the pace of which they are capable.”

“Do you have any impression why?”

“You’re taking me seriously? Thank you.”

“Emissary Charban,” Geary said, “you’ve proven remarkably good at grasping the way the Dancers think. You figured out why the enigmas fear us so. You explained Kick behavior before any of the rest of us figured it out. You have a talent for this. Of course I am taking you seriously.”

This time Charban’s smile was genuine. “I thank you again. It has been a humbling and frustrating experience for me since leaving the military, Admiral. Diplomats and politicians know much I do not and yet seem to miss things obvious to me. Our experts in nonhuman intelligent species have a vast formation of advanced degrees following them around, yet often circle around answers instead of seeing them.”

“Our experts in nonhuman intelligent species,” Geary said dryly, “had never actually known anything about any real nonhuman intelligent species until they joined us on this mission. When it comes to real aliens, you seem to have a feel for the right answers.”

“Would you recommend me for a position working with such aliens?” Charban asked. “I should tell you that our experts would be very put out by an amateur like me getting such a job over them.”

“All of our experts?”

“Not Dr. Shwartz.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Dr. Shwartz seems to be unique among them in recognizing that real-life experience can sometimes be more valuable than academic degrees. But understanding the Dancers is a unique challenge.”

Charban frowned. “I don’t know why the Dancers would be delaying more open communications with us. I don’t have a sense of ill intent. I don’t have any sense of any reason. What I do have is a feeling that they are choosing to go slow on this.”

Geary looked toward the star display, thinking. “If they can understand us better than they are letting on…”

“It is my feeling that is the case.”

“But are keeping their own speech with us at basic levels…” Geary shook his head. “That would mean they can understand what we’re saying but would be pretending not to be able to tell us things.”

“Yes.” Charban nodded toward the star display. “And what would they not want to tell us?”

The potential answers to that question were almost infinite. Geary shook his head once more. “If they think in patterns, as you and Dr. Shwartz suggested, they might be seeing a pattern they don’t want to tell us about. What kind of questions are they being asked?”

“All sorts of things. Basic information about themselves, about other alien species, scientific and technical questions, what they know of us, and how long they’ve known of us.” Charban shrugged. “Pick your possible secret.”

“But the experts disagree with you?”

“Yes. Except Dr. Shwartz. She listens. I don’t know if she agrees, but she’s reserving judgment.”

Geary caught Charban’s eyes. “Tell me your gut feeling. When we take the Dancers back with us to Alliance territory, should we regard them as a potential danger?”

“My gut feeling, Admiral, is that they’ve already been to Alliance space, that they’ve been watching us for a long time. If they meant to harm us, as the enigmas did, I believe they have had opportunity. Instead, I think they have been studying us. They—” Charban broke off speaking, showing dawning realization. “That could be it. If they’ve been watching us, they may have seen a pattern. Something involving us. A pattern or patterns that are still playing out.”

An odd sense of cold ran down Geary’s back. “Something they see coming. Something they don’t want to tell us.”

“It could be.” Charban spread his hands. “Telling us might change the pattern. Change what we do and how we do it.”

Geary leaned forward and adjusted the view of the star field, expanding it to include all of human space. “We know what’s happening to the Syndicate Worlds right now. We know some of the strains the Alliance is under.”

Charban nodded slowly. “And we know that pattern from human history. Great empires, powerful alliances, grow and flourish, then weaken and fall. And afterwards, cultural and political fragmentation, wars, declines in population, standards of living, scientific progress, and much else.” His smile now seemed wan and tentative. “I would not wish to tell any friend of mine that sort of prophecy for their future.”

“They don’t know us, General. Not that well,” Geary said, scarcely noting that he had referred to Charban’s old rank rather than his current position as emissary. “Patterns can change. They can be altered.”

“They can.” Charban laughed. “Is that the Dancers’ secret? They believe they know what we should do, but if they tell us, it will change what we do? Or they do not know what we will do but do not wish to influence our actions? The Observer Effect, applied to relations to alien species.”

“The Observer Effect?”

“Sort of an offshoot of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Schrödinger’s cat.”

“I see,” Geary said in the way that conveyed that he didn’t, in fact, see at all.

This time Charban smiled. “A dissolute youth spent partly in the realms of physics left me with bits of knowledge. Basically, the Observer Effect says that the act of observing something alters the outcome. It’s been proven in physics. Even with particles like photons. If you’re watching them, they act differently. It’s very strange, but it’s true. Social scientists still debate whether that concept also applies to their work. But if the Dancers believe that what they tell us can change what we do, they might be slow-pedaling communication for just that reason.”

“That could be.” Geary gave Charban a questioning look. “The Dancers might have been watching us for a long time, watching us fight that war for the last century. But they only intervened very recently, during the battle with the enigmas at Midway Star System.”

“The difference is that now we know we’re being observed,” Charban said. “However long they have been watching us, we weren’t aware of it before. Once we came to them, arriving in a star system where their ships were, that fundamental fact changed.”

“That could be it,” Geary agreed. “Or is that too simple an answer? Keep doing your best to find out.”

“I always do my best, Admiral.”

As Charban got up and turned to go, Geary stopped him. “Emissary Charban, if you had received secret orders from the government, would you tell me?”

Charban looked Geary in the eyes and nodded. “I wasn’t sent to do anything to mess you up, Admiral. I think I was sent in the expectation that I would mess things up thanks to my lack of political experience and my disillusionment with the ability of weaponry to resolve issues short of genocide.”

“If they expected you to just cause trouble for me, you’ve exceeded expectations in the right way as far as I’m concerned.”

The emissary grinned. “It’s not so hard to do when the bar is set so low.”

“In this fleet, it’s harder to set the bar lower than politician,” Geary said. “I wish more people would realize how much someone like Victoria Rione has contributed to what we’ve achieved. And how much someone like you has contributed.”

“Thank you, Admiral.” Charban shook his head. “But I don’t think I’ll ever be a politician. I thought I wanted to do that, but after working with the Dancers, I want to continue doing that a lot more.”

“I’ll do my best to see that you are allowed to continue doing that. Who would have guessed that a career leading ground forces troops would have suited you so well for dealing with different sorts of minds?”

Charban, halfway out the hatch, turned and smiled again. “My career involved a lot of interaction with the aerospace forces, and the fleet, and Marines. If you want to talk about different sorts of minds, all of those were good practice for trying to understand alien ways of thinking.”

The hatch closed behind Charban, and Geary turned back to his work. Results of fleet mess facility cleanliness inspections. Ancestors help me. Even at the best of times, concentrating on that kind of important but tedious matter was difficult. Right now… “Emissary Rione, are you free to talk?”

“Your place or mine?” her image asked as it appeared near his desk.

“This is fine.” For once he didn’t have to be too worried about someone’s intercepting a conversation. “How is Commander Benan?”

“Sedated.”

“Uh…”

“And you’re wondering why I’m not in tears of despair because my husband is under sedation?” she asked. “Because being sedated is the best condition he can be in right now. It keeps him out of trouble, and to be honest, which I know is unusual for me, he’s a lot easier to handle that way these days. And we are on our way back, where, one way or another, we will be able to deal with his condition.”

He regarded Rione’s image, wondering exactly what she meant by “deal with his condition.” To say that she wanted both Benan cured of his mental block and vengeance against whoever had ordered that mental block was to put it mildly. Even after the months he had known her, Geary was still not certain just how far Rione would go to accomplish something she had resolved on. He did know he wouldn’t want to be someone she had resolved to go after. “I promised to get that block lifted, and I will.”

“You’ll threaten the Alliance grand council if necessary? No, you don’t have to promise to do that. I’ll threaten the grand council, and they’ll know I mean it. Were you just calling to see how I was feeling?”

“Partly,” he said. “But I wanted your opinion of the leaders of Midway now that we’ve had a week away from them.”

“You mean Iceni and Drakon, or others as well?” Rione asked.

“Just those two,” Geary said. “The self-styled president and the newly minted general. I think they’re the only ones in that star system who count.”

“I strongly suspect you’re wrong about that. There are hidden currents moving in the star system. I could only observe things from afar, but I am certain of it.”

Geary looked at her dubiously. “Lieutenant Iger’s intelligence team didn’t report anything like that in their analysis of the situation at Midway.”

Her smile was scornful. “Lieutenant Iger is not bad at all when it comes to collecting intelligence, but political analysis? I think you’d be well advised to listen to someone who knows politics from the inside. I also think you already know that since you asked me for my opinion despite Iger’s report.”

“Are you saying that there’s some counterrevolution being planned to regain Syndic control of the star system from within? Or a revolution against the revolution of Iceni and Drakon to maintain an independent star system but with different leaders?”

“I don’t know. There are monsters in the deep, Admiral. Have you ever heard that saying?” Rione leaned back in her chair, closing her eyes. “Neither Iceni nor Drakon are fools. But neither are they all-wise and all-seeing.”

Rione opened her eyes and looked over to one side, her expression darkly thoughtful. “I have the distinct impression that President Iceni is making this up as she goes along. There are strong remnants of the Syndicate CEO attitude in her, leading me to think that Iceni planned on a change in title but not a change in function.”

“Just what you’d expect from a Syndicate CEO,” Geary said. “She wants to stay an absolute ruler.”

“Yes, I think she wanted to. But. She’s already permitted things no Syndicate CEO would have allowed. There seem to be real reforms under way. Iceni may be faking it all, but my gut feeling is that she is pursuing some real changes despite whatever her initial plans were.”

He considered that, measuring it against his own impressions of Iceni. “An interesting assessment. What about General Drakon?”

“Ah. General Drakon.” Rione smiled with amusement. “No guesses are needed there. He’s military, and that’s all he wants to be. The Syndics made him play the CEO game.”

“That’s all? He just wants to be a soldier?”

“Do you find that so hard to understand, Admiral?”

“Those two aides of his. Morgan and… Malin.” Geary spoke slowly, trying to put his impressions into words. “They were… not like the sort of aides I would have expected from someone who just wants to be a soldier.”

Rione smiled thinly this time. “The assassins? The bodyguards? The trusted agents in tasks above and below the board? I am certain they are all of those things. Remember the environment in which Drakon operated. Such assistants may be as much a matter of survival for him as armor is for one of your battleships.”

She paused, then spoke in more serious tones. “We received a lot of reporting from the planet when the bombardment the enigmas launched was on its way. Free-press reports, but also a lot of chatter in personal conversations that your intelligence people have been busy vacuuming up. I assume you have seen the analysis of all that.”

“And I assume you have as well.”

“Of course. The bombardment would have inflicted massive damage on that world if the Dancers hadn’t stopped it, but every report agrees that neither Iceni nor Drakon made any moves to flee the surface. If what we’ve learned about Drakon so far is right, he has demonstrated loyalty to those who work for him before this, so that action would have been consistent with a man who never bought into the CEO-first-last-and-always attitude of the Syndicate Worlds.”

“That’s how I felt about him from the messages I’ve received from him,” Geary said. “I felt… well, I felt like he was somebody not all that different from me.”

“Be careful who you say that to,” Rione advised dryly. “A former Syndic CEO who is a decent commander and cares about those under him? ‘Heresy’ is too kind a word.”

Geary shook his head. “The Syndicate Worlds couldn’t have held together as long as it did, couldn’t have sustained the war as long at it did, unless there were some capable people in positions of authority. Some people who could inspire those under them or make the right decisions regardless of what it meant to them personally. Why people like that worked for a system like that I have no idea, but they must have been there.”

“Maybe you should have asked General Drakon,” Rione said with every appearance of meaning it.

“Maybe someday I will. But you said Iceni didn’t try to run to safety, either. She didn’t before, the first time we were here, when it looked like the enigmas were certain to take over this star system.”

“It is a pattern,” Rione agreed. “At the least, it implies a sense of responsibility consistent with her position of authority. I think both of them can be worked with in the long run, Admiral. More than that, I think if they avoid giving in to Syndic ways of doing things, they might be able to build something at Midway that the Alliance would be happy to do business with.”

“Assuming those monsters in the deep don’t devour them.”

“Assuming that, yes.” She looked over to the side again, a flicker of concern appearing before she could suppress it, and he realized that Commander Benan must be lying in his bunk over there in her stateroom. “Is that all, Admiral?”

“Yes. Thank you, Victoria.”

The alerts sounding as the fleet exited the hypernet gate at Sobek were cautionary, not full-scale alarms, but Geary still focused as quickly as possible on the objects highlighted on his display. “What are they?”

“Syndic courier ships,” Lieutenant Yuon replied. “Unarmed.”

That should have been reassuring information, but not in this case. You might occasionally see a couple of courier ships in a star system, especially if it was an important star system, but never a large group of them. Even stranger, these courier ships were not spread throughout Sobek Star System as if en route various missions, but were clustered together in a narrow swath of space facing the hypernet gate. “Why are there over twenty Syndic courier ships five light-minutes from this gate?”

“They’re broadcasting merchant identity codes,” Lieutenant Castries reported. “Not Syndic military and government codes. All twenty-three courier ships are claiming to be private shipping.”

“This stinks,” Desjani growled. “We’ve never encountered a Syndic courier model that wasn’t government or military. What are they doing here?”

Geary already had Lieutenant Iger on the line. “Can you confirm that, Lieutenant? These courier ships should actually be military or otherwise under the control of the Syndic government?”

“Yes, sir,” Iger replied after a two-second pause that felt far longer. “Proving that might be difficult. Very difficult. But all of our experience is that courier ships have always been reserved by the Syndics for official use only. The fact that these are pretending to be something else is highly suspicious.”

“What threat can those courier ships pose to us?”

“I don’t know, Admiral. Fleet sensors aren’t spotting any indications of weapons add-ons.”

“They’re not here for a party,” Desjani said.

He stared at his display, feeling the same sense of threat and wrongness that Tanya obviously was. His fleet had automatically slewed about after exiting the gate, carrying out the preplanned maneuver to avoid a possible minefield. But there were no mines, just that very odd grouping of courier ships. “All units in First Fleet, come starboard three zero degrees, up four five degrees at time two four. Maintain all systems at full readiness.”

The ships of the fleet were coming around to face the courier ships when the supposed merchant craft pivoted and began accelerating to meet the Alliance ships. “They’re approaching at maximum acceleration,” Lieutenant Castries said as alarms pulsed from the fleet’s combat systems. “Projected tracks are for an intercept with the center of our formation.”

Desjani took in a deep breath, then spoke calmly. “They’re coming straight at us at max acceleration, and they have no weapons.”

“Reconnaissance?” Geary asked, knowing that wasn’t the real answer.

“You know better than that. Those things accelerate like bats out of hell. By the time they reach us, they’ll have achieved a closing speed of at least point two light and probably faster. They’d want to be able to see details if they were on a recce mission, and at those kinds of velocities details tend to smear. No. There’s only one possible reason why those ships would be coming directly at us that way.”

He knew what she meant. “The Syndics haven’t done that before,” Geary said. “They haven’t sent ships on deliberate suicide runs.”

“The Syndic warships at Lakota were ordered to destroy the hypernet gate there—”

“Those warships didn’t know that was a suicide mission!”

She pointed to her display. “How large a crew does a courier ship need for a one-way mission?”

He took a second to reply. “One.”

“Do you think the Syndics could find twenty maniacs willing to die for their CEOs?” Desjani asked. “Or some poor saps given a chance to wipe out their family’s debt or get a relative out of a death sentence at one of the Syndic labor camps? I don’t know. I do know the Syndics have often shown the willingness to sacrifice their ‘workers’ at the drop of a hat. It’s a suicide attack. That’s how the Syndics are balancing the odds since you beat the hell out of them using conventional tactics. Is there any other possible mission those ships coming at us could be carrying out?”

“No.” And at the rate they were coming, those ships would be plunging into his formation in about twenty minutes.