The Last Colony

TWELVE

"Our apologies, Administrator Perrry, for the late start," said Justine Butcher, Assistant Deputy Secretary for Colonial Jurisprudence for the Department of Colonization. "As you may be aware, things have been quite hectic around here recently."

I was aware. When Trujillo, Kranjic, Beata and I disembarked the shuttle from our transport ship to Phoenix Station, the general station buzz appeared to have trebled; none of us had ever recalled seeing the station as jam-packed with CDF soldiers and CU functionaries as it appeared to be now. Whatever was going on, it was big. All of us glanced at each other significantly, because whatever it was, it almost certainly involved us and Roanoke in some way. We fanned out from each other wordlessly, off to our own individual tasks.

"Of course," I said. "Anything in particular causing the rush?"

"It's a number of things, happening at once," Butcher said. "None of which you need to concern yourself with at the moment."

"I see," I said. "Very well."

Butcher nodded, and signified the two other people seated at the table, before which I stood. "This inquiry has been impaneled in order to question you about your conversation with General Tarsem Gau of the Conclave," Butcher said. "This is a formal inquiry, which means that you are required to answer any and all questions truthfully, directly and completely as possible. However, this is not a trial. You have not been charged with any crime If at a future point you are charged with a crime, you will be triec through the Department of Colonization's Court of Colonial Affairs. Do you understand?"

"I do," I said. The DoC's Colonial Affairs Courts were judge-only affairs, designed to let colony heads and their appointed judges make quick decisions so the colonists could get on with colonizing. A CA Court ruling had the force of law, although limited to that specific case only. A CA Court judge or colony head acting as judge could not circumvent Department of Colonization regulations and bylaws, but as the DoC recognized the wide range of colonial situations were not uniform in their regulatory needs, those regulations and bylaws were surprisingly few. Colonial Affairs Courts were also organizationally flat; there was no appealing a Colonial Affairs Court ruling. Essentially a CA Court judge could do whatever he or she wanted. It was not an optimal legal situation for a defendant.

"Fine," Butcher said, and looked at her PDA. "Then let's begin. When you were conversing with General Gau, you offered first to take his surrender, and then offered to allow him to leave Roanoke space without injury to himself or to his fleet." She looked up at me over the PDA. "This is correct, Administrator?"

"That's right," I said.

"General Rybicki, whom we have already called"—this was news to me, and I was suddenly sure that Rybicki was now less than entirely pleased he ever suggested me for the colonial administrator position—"testified to us that your orders were to engage Gau in nonessential discussions only, until the fleet was destroyed, at which point you were to inform him that only his ship had survived the attack."

"Yes," I said.

"Very well," Butcher said. "Then you may begin by explaining what you were thinking when you offered to accept Gau's surrender, and then offered to let his fleet go unharmed."

"I suppose I was hoping to avoid bloodshed," I said.

"It's not your place to make that call," said Colonel Bryan Berkeley, who represented the Colonial Defense Forces at the inquiry.

"I disagree," I said. "My colony was potentially under attack. I am the colony leader. My job is to keep my colony safe."

"The attack wiped out the Conclave fleet," Berkeley said. "Your colony was never in danger."

"The attack could have failed," I said. "No offense to the CDF or to the Special Forces, Colonel, but not every attack they plan succeeds. I was at Coral, where the CDF's plans failed miserably and a hundred thousand of our people died."

"Are you saying you expected us to fail?" Berkeley asked.

"I'm saying I have an appreciation for the fact that plans are plans," I said. "And that I had an obligation to my colony."

"Did you expect that General Gau would surrender to you?" asked the third questioner. I took a moment to take him in: General Laurence Szilard, head of the CDF Special Forces.

His presence on the panel made me extremely nervous. There was absolutely no reason why he of all people should be on it. He was several layers of bureaucracy more advanced than either Butcher or Berkeley; having him sitting placidly on the panel— and not even being the panel chairman—was like having your kid's day care supervisor be Dean of the College at Harvard University. It didn't make any sort of sense. If he decided that I needed to be squashed for messing up a mission the Special Forces supervised, it really wouldn't matter what either of the other two panelists thought about anything; I'd be dead meat on a stick. The knowledge made me queasy.

That said, I was also deeply curious about the man. Here was the general whose neck ny wife wished to wring because he altered her back into a Spedal Forces soldier without her permission and also, I suspected, without much remorse. Some part of me wondered if I shouldn't attempt to wring his neck out of a sense of chivalry for my wife. Considering that as a Special Forces soldier he would probably have kicked my ass even when I was a genetically-enhanced solder, I doubted I could do much against him now that I was once again a mere mortal. Jane probably wouldn't appreciate me getting my own neck wrung.

Szilard waited for my answer, his expression placid.

"I had no reason to suspect he would surrender, no," I said.

"But you asked him to anyway," Szilard said. "Ostensibly to allow your colony to survive. I find it interesting that you asked for his surrender rather than begging for him to spare your colony. If you were simply looking to him to spare the colony and the lives of the colonists, wouldn't that have been the more prudent course? The information the Colonial Union provided you about the general gave you no reason to believe surrender would be something he'd entertain."

Careful, some part of my brain whispered. The way Szilard had phrased his comment seemed to suggest that he thought I might have had information from other sources. Which I had, but it seemed impossible :hat he would know that. If he did and I lied, I would be deeply into a world of shit. Decisions, decisions.

"I knew of our planned attack," I said. "Perhaps that made me overconfident."

"So you admit that what you said to General Gau could have indicated to him that our attack was imminent," Berkeley said.

"I doubt that he saw anything more in it than the bravado of a colony leader, trying to save his own people," I said.

"Nevertheless, you can see how, from the perspective of the Colonial Union, your actions could have jeopardized the mission and the safety not only of your colony but of the Colonial Union," Butcher said.

"My actions could be interpreted any number of ways," I said. "I can't give credence to any other interpretation aside from my own. My interpretation is that I was doing what I thought was necessary to protect my colony and my colonists."

"In your conversation with General Gau you admit that you shouldn't have made him the offer to withdraw his fleet," Berekely said. "You knew that what you were offering the general was contrary to our wishes, which implies rather strongly that we had made our wishes known to you. If the general had had the presence of mind to follow your line of reasoning, the attack would have been obvious."

I paused. This was getting ridiculous. It wasn't to say that I wasn't expecting a railroading in this inquiry, just that I had expected it to be a little more subtle than this. But I suppose Butcher had noted that things were hectic and rushed recently; I don't know why my inquiry would be any different. "I don't know what to say to that line of reasoning," I said. "I did what I thought was the right thing for me to do."

Butcher and Berkeley gave each other a quick sidelong glance. They had gotten what they wanted out of the inquiry; as far as they were concerned the inquiry was over. I focused on my shoes.

"What do you think of General Gau?"

I looked up, entirely surprised. General Szilard sat there, once again blandly awaiting my answer. Butcher and Berkeley also looked surprised; whatever Szilard was doing, it was apparently off the script.

"I'm not sure I understand the question," I said.

"Sure you do," Szilard said. "You spent a reasonable amount of time with General Gau, and I'm sure you have had time to reflect and speculate on the nature of the general, both before and after the destruction of the Conclave fleet. Given your knowledge of him, what do you think of him?"

Oh, fuck, I thought. There was no doubt in my mind that Szilard knew I knew more about General Gau and the Conclave than the information the Colonial Union gave me. How he knew that was a matter I could table for now. The question was how to answer the question.

You're already screwed, I thought. Butcher and Berkeley were already clearly planning to punt me to Colonial Affairs Court, where my trial on whatever charge (I was assuming incompetence, although dereliction of duty was not out of the question, and for that matter, neither was treason) would be short and not especially sweet. I had been working under the assumption that Szilard's presence was his way of making sure he got a result he wanted—he couldn't have been pleased at the idea of me potentially messing with his mission—but now I wasn't at all sure. Suddenly I hadn't the first damn clue what Szilard really wanted, from this inquiry. Only that no matter what I said here, I was already done for.

Well, it was an official inquiry. That meant it was going into the Colonial Union archives. So what the hell.

"I think he's an honorable man," I said.

"Excuse me?" Berkeley said.

"I said, I think he's an honorable man," I repeated. "He didn't simply attempt to destroy Roanoke, for one thing. He offered to spare my colonists or allow them to join the Conclave. None of the information the Colonial Union gave me indicated that these were options. In information I got—that all the colonists at Roanoke got, through me—was that Gau and the Conclave were simply wiping out the colonies that they discovered. It's why we kept our heads down for an entire year."

"Simply saying to you that he was going to allow your colonists to surrender doesn't mean that he would do any such thing," Berkeley said. "Surely as a former CDF commander you understand the value of disinformation, and providing such to your enemy."

"I don't think Roanoke colony would have qualified as an enemy," I said. "There are fewer than three thousand of us against four hundred twelve capital ships. There were no defenses we could bring to bear, no possible military advantage in securing our surrender simply to destroy us. That would have been profoundly cruel."

"You're not aware of the psychological value of cruelty in warfare?" Berkeley said.

"I'm aware of it," I said. "I wasn't aware from the information the Colonial Union gave me that it was part of the general's personal psychological profile or of his military tactics."

"There's much you don't know of the general," Butcher said.

"I agree," I said. "Which is why I chose to go with my own intuition of his character. But I seem to recall that the general noted that he had overseen three dozen of these colony removals before he got to Roanoke. If you have information about those incidents and how the general acted toward those colonies, that would be instructive regarding his honor and his position on cruelty. Do you have that information?"

"We have it," Butcher said. "We are not at liberty to provide it to you, as you've been temporarily removed from your administrative position."

"I understand," I said. "Did you have any of this information before I was stripped of my administrative status?"

"Are you implying that the Colonial Union withheld information from )rou?" Berkeley asked.

"I'm not implying a thing," I said. "I was asking a question. And my point was that in the absence of information provided to me by the Colonial Union, I have only my own judgment to guide me, to complement the information I have." I looked directly at Szilard. "In my judgment, from what I know of the man, General Gau is honorable."

Szilard considered this. "What would you have done, Administrator Perry, if Gau had appeared in your sky before the Colonial Union had its attack plan finalized?"

"Are you asking if I would have surrendered the colony?" I asked.

"I'm asking what you would have done," Szilard said.

"I would have taken advantage of Gau's offer," I said. "I would have let him take the Roanoke colonists back to the Colonial Union."

"So you would have surrendered the colony," Butcher said.

"No," I said. "I would have stayed behind to defend Roanoke, i suspect my wife would stay with me. Anyone else who wished to stay could stay." With the exception of Zoe, I thought, although I didn't like the scene of Zoe being dragged, kicking and screaming, to a transport by Hickory and Dickory

"That's a distinction without a difference," Berkeley said. "There's no colony without colonists."

"I agree," I said. "But one colonist is enough for the colony to stand, and one colonist is enough to die for the Colonial Union. My responsibility is to my colony and to my colonists. I would refuse to surrender the colony of Roanoke. I would also do everything in my power to keep the colonists alive. From a practical point of view, twenty-five hundred colonists are no more able to stand up to an entire fleet of warships than a single colonist would be. My death would be sufficient to make the point the CU would wish for me to make. If you think I would force every other Roanoke colonist to die to satisfy some arcane accounting of what defines the destruction of a colony, Colonel Berkeley, then you're a goddamned fool."

Berkeley looked as if he were ready to come over the table at me. Szilard sat there with the same damned inscrutable look he'd had through the entire inquiry.

"Well," Butcher said, trying to get the inquiry back under control. "I think we've gotten everything we need from you, Administrator Perry. You are free to go and to await the resolution of our inquiry. You will not be allowed to leave Phoenix Station prior to the resolution. Do you understand?"

"I understand," I said. "Do I need to find some sort of lodging?"

"I don't expect it will take that long," Butcher said.

"Understand that everything I've heard is off the record," Trujillo said.

"At this point, I don't know that I would trust information that is on the record," I said.

Trujillo nodded. "Amen to that," he said.

"What have you heard?" I said.

"It's bad," he said. "And it's getting worse."

Trujillo, Kranjic, Beata and I sat in my favorite commissary at Phoenix, the one with the truly spectacular burgers. We had all ordered one; the burgers cooled, neglected, as we talked in as secluded a corner as we could find.

"Define bad," I said.

"There was a missile attack on Phoenix the other night," Tru-jillo said.

"That's not bad, that's stupid," I said. "Phoenix has the most advanced planetary defense grid of any of the human planets. You couldn't get a missile larger than a marble past it."

"Right," Trujillo said. "And everyone knows it. There hasn't been an attack of any size against Phoenix in over a hundred years. The attack wasn't meant to be successful. It was meant to send a message thai no human planet should be considered safe from retaliation. That's a pretty big statement."

I thought about this while I took a bite of my burger. "Presumably Phoenix wasn't the only planet to get a missile attack," I said.

"No," Trujillo said. "My people tell me that all the colonies have been attacked.''

I nearly choked. "All of them," I repeated.

"All of them," Trujillo said. "The established colonies were never in any danger; their planetary defense grids picked off the attacks. Some of the smaller colonies saw some damage. Sedona colony had an entire settlement wiped off the map. Ten thousand people dead."

"You're sure about that," I said.

"Secondhand," Trujillo said. "But from a source I trust, whq spoke to the Sedonan representative. I trust my source as much as I trust anyone."

I turned to Kranjic and Beata. "This fits in with what you've heard?"

"It does," Kranjic said. "Manfred and I have different sources, but what I'm hearing is the same." Beata nodded as well.

"But none of this is on the news feeds," I said, glancing down at my PDA, which lay on the table. I had it open and active, awaiting the determination of the inquiry.

"No," Trujillo said. "The Colonial Union has slapped a blanket prohibition on information about the attacks. They're using the State Secrecy Act. You'll remember that one."

"Yeah," I winced at the memory of the werewolves and Gutierrez. "Didn't do me a whole lot of good. I doubt it'll do the CU much better."

"The attacks explain the chaos we're seeing here," Trujillo said. "I don't have any sources from the CDF—they're clammed up tight—but I know that every single colony representative is screaming their head off for direct CDF protection. Ships are being recalled and reassigned, but there's not enough for every colony. From what I hear, the CDF is doing triage—deciding which colonies it can protect and which colonies it can afford to lose."

"Where does Roanoke fit into that triage?" I asked.

Trujillo shrugged. "When it comes down to it, everyone wants defense priority," he said. "I sounded out the legislators I know about increasing Roanoke's defenses. They all said they'd be happy to—once their own planets were taken care of."

"No one's talking about Roanoke anymore," Beata said. "Everyone is focused on what's happening at their own homes. They can't report it, but they're sure as hell following it."

We focused on our burgers after that, lost in our own thoughts. I was preoccupied enough that I didn't notice someone standing behind me until Trujillo looked up and stopped chewing. "Perry," he said, and glanced meaningfully over my shoulder. I turned to see General Szilard.

"I like the burgers here, too," he said. "I'd join you, but given your wife's experience, I doubt you'd be willing to eat at the same table as me."

"Now that you mention it, General," I said, "you'd be entirely correct about that."

"Then walk with me please, Administrator Perry," Szilard said. "We have a lot to discuss, and time is short."

"All right," I said. I aicked up my tray, giving a glance over at my lunch mates. Their expressions were carefully blank. I dropped the contents of my tray into the nearest receptacle and faced the general. "Where to?" I asked.

"Come on," Szilard said. "Let's go for a ride."

"There," Szilard said. His personal shuttle hung in space, with Phoenix visible to port and Phoenix Station off to starboard. He motioned to indicate both. "Nice view, isn't it?"

"Very nice," I said, wondering why the hell Szilard had taken me here. Some paranoid part of me wondered if he were planning to pop the shuttle s access hatch and toss me into space, but he didn't have a space suit, so this seemed somewhat unlikely. Then again, he was Special Forces. Maybe he didn't need a space suit.

"I'm not planning to kill you," Szilard said.

I smiled in spite of myself. "Apparently you can read minds," I said.

"Not yours," Szilard said. "But I can guess what you're thinking well enough. Relax, I'm not going to kill you, if for no othec reason because then Sagan would track me down and kill me."

"You're already on her shit list," I said.

"Of that I have no doubt," Szilard said. "But it was necessary, and I don't plan to apologize for it."

"General," I said, "why are we here?"

"We're here because I like the view, and because I want to speak frankly to you, and because this shuttle is the one place I'm entirely sure where anything I say to you is not going to be overheard by anyone else in any way." The general reached over to the control dash of the shuttle and pressed a button; the view of Phoenix and Phoenix Station disappeared and was replaced with a depthless black.

"Nanomesh," I said.

"Indeed," Szilard said. "No signals in, no signals out. You should know that being cut off is unspeakably claustrophobic for Special Forces; we're so used to being in constant contact with each other through our BrainPals that dropping the signal is like losing any three of our senses."

"I knew that," I said. Jane had recounted to me the mission in which she and other Special Forces hunted Charles Boutin; Boutin had devised a way to cut off the BrainPal signal of the Special Forces, killing most of them and driving some of those who survived completely insane.

Szilard nodded. "Then you'll understand how difficult something like this is, even for me. Honestly I have no idea how Sagan was able leave it behind when she married you."

"There are other ways to connect with someone," I said.

"If you say so," Szilard said. "The fact I'm willing to do this should also communicate to you the seriousness of what I'm going to say to you."

"All right," I said. "I'm ready."

"Roanoke is in serious trouble," Szilard said. "We all are. The Colonial Union had anticipated that destroying the Conclave fleet would throw the Conclave into a civil war. That much was correct. Right now the Conclave is tearing itself apart. The races loyal to General Gau are squaring off against another faction who has found a leader in a member of the Arris race named Nerbros Eser.

As it stands there's only one thing that has kept these two factions of the Conclave from destroying each other entirely."

"What's that?" I said.

"The thing the Colonial Union didn't anticipate," Szilard said. "And that is that every single member race of the Conclave is now bent on destroying the Colonial Union. Not just containing the Colonial Union, as General Gau was content to do. They want to eradicate it completely."

"Because we wiped out the fleet," I said.

"That's the proximate cause," Szilard said. "The Colonial Union forgot that in attacking the fleet we weren't only striking at the Conclave but at every member of the Conclave. The ships in the fleet were often the flagships for their races. We didn't just destroy a fleet, we destroyed racial symbols. We kicked every single member race of the Conclave hard and square in the balls, Perry. They're not going to forgive that. But beyond that we're trying to use the destruction of the Conclave fleet as a rallying point for other unaffiliated races. We're trying to get them to become our allies. And the Conclave members have decided that the best way to keep those races unaffiliated is to make an example out of the Colonial Union. All of it."

"You don't sound surprised," I said.

"I'm not," Szilard said. "When destroying the Conclave fleet was first considered, I had the Special Forces intelligence corps model out the consequences of that act. This was always the mosr likely result."

"Why didn't they listen?" I asked.

"Because the CDF models told the Colonial Union what it wanted to hear," Szilard said. "And because at the end of the day the Colonial Union is going to place more weight on the intelligence generated by real humans than the intelligence created by the Frankenstein monsters it creates to do its dirty work."

"Like destroy the Conclave fleet," I said, recalling Lieutenant Stross.

"Yes," Szilard said.

"If you believed this was going to be the result, you should have refused to do it," I said. "You shouldn't have let your soldiers destroy the fleet."

Szilard shook his head. "It's not that simple. If I were to have refused, I would have been replaced as the commander of Special Forces. Special Forces are no less ambitious and venal than any other sort of human being, Perry. I can think of three generals under me who would have been happy to take my job for the simple cost of following foolish orders."

"But you followed foolish orders," I said.

"I did," Szilard said. "But I did so under my own terms. Part of which was helping to install you and Sagan as colony leaders at Roanoke."

"You installed me," I said. This was news to me.

"Well, actually, I installed Sagan," Szilard said. "You were merely part of the package deal. It was acceptable because you seemed unlikely to fuck things up."

"Nice to be valued," I said.

"You did make it easier to suggest Sagan," Szilard said. "I knew you had a history with General Rybicki. In all, you came in handy. But in point of fact neither you nor Sagan was the key to the equation. It was your daughter, Administrator Perry, who really matters here. Your daughter was the reason I chose the two of you to lead Roanoke."

I tried to puzzle this one out. "Because of the Obin?" I asked.

"Because of the Obin," Szilard agreed. "Because of the fact the Obin consider her something only a little short of a living god, thanks to their devotion to her true father, and the debatably beneficial boon of consciousness that he gave them."

"I'm afraid that I don't understand how the Obin matter here," I said, although that was a lie. I knew precisely, but I wanted to hear it from Szilard.

He obliged. "Because Roanoke is doomed without them," he said. "Roanoke has served its primary purpose of being a trap for the Conclave fleet. Now the entire Colonial Union is under attack and the CU will have to decide how best to portion out its defensive resources."

"We're already aware Roanoke doesn't rate much of a defense," I said. "I and my staff have had our face rubbed in that fact today."

"Oh, no," Szilard said. "It's worse than that."

"How can it be worse?" I asked.

"This way: Roanoke is more valuable to the Colonial Union dead than alive," Szilard said. "You have to understand, Perry. The Colonial Union is about to fight for its life against most of the races we know of. Its nice little system of farming decrepit Earthlmgs for soldiers isn't going to get the job done anymore. It's going to need to raise troops fiom the worlds of the Colonial Union, and fast. This is where Roanoke comes in. Alive, Roanoke is just another colony. Dead, it's a symbol for the ten worlds who gave it colonists, and to all the rest of the worlds in the Colonial Union. When Roanoke dies, the citizens of the Colonial Union are going to demand that they be allowed to fight. And the Colonial Union will let them."

"You know this for sure," I said. "This has been discussed."

"Of course it hasn't," Szilard said. "It never will be. But it's what will happen. The Colonial Union knows that Roanoke is a symbol for the Conclave races as well, the site of their first defeat. It's inevitable that defeat will be revenged. The Colonial Union also knows that by not defending Roanoke, that revenge will happen sooner than later. And sooner will work better for what the Colonial Union needs."

"I don't understand," I said. "You're saying that in order to fight the Conclave, the Colonial Union needs its citizens to become soldiers. And to motivate them into volunteering, Roanoke needs to be destroyed. But you're telling me that the reason you chose Jane and I to lead Roanoke was because the Obin revere my daughter and would not allow the colony to be destroyed."

"It's not quite that simple," Szilard said. "The Obin would not allow your daughter to die, that much is true. They may or may not defend your colony. But the Obin offered you another advantage: knowledge."

"You've lost me again," I said.

"Stop playing the fool, Perry," Szilard said. "It's insulting. I know you know more about General Gau and the Conclave than you let on in that sham of an inquiry today. I know it because it was the Special Forces who prepared the dossier on General Gau and the Conclave for you, the one that rather sloppily left a tremendous amount of metadata in its files for you to find. I also know that your daughter's Obin bodyguards knew rather more about the Conclave than we could tell you in our dossier. That's how you knew you could trust General Gau at his word. And that's why you tried to convince him not to call his fleet. You knew it would be destroyed and you knew he would be compromised."

"You couldn't have known I'd look for that metadata," I said. "You were risking a lot on my curiosity."

"Not really," Szilard said. "Remember, you were largely incidental to the selection process. I left that information for Sagan to find. She was an intelligence officer for years. She would have looked for metadata in the files as a matter of course. The fact you found the information first is trivial. It would have been found. It does me no good to leave things to chance."

"But none of that information does me any good now," I said. "None of this changes the fact that Roanoke is in the crosshairs, and there's not a thing I can do about it. You were at the inquiry. I'll be lucky if they let me tell Jane what prison I'll be rotting in."

Szilard waved this off. "The inquiry determined that you acted responsibly and within your duties," he said. "You're free to return to Roanoke as soon as you and I are done here."

"I take it back," I said. "You weren't at the same inquiry I was at."

"It is true that both Butcher and Berkeley are entirely convinced you're absolutely incompetent," Szilard said. "Both of them initially voted to move you to the Colonial Affairs Court, where you would have been convicted and sentenced in about five minutes. However, I managed to convince them to switch their vote."

"How did you do that?" I asked.

"Let's just say that it never pays to have things you don't want other people to know," Szilard said.

"You're blackmailing them," I said.

"I made them aware that every action has a consequence," Szilard said. "And in the fullness of their consideration they preferred the consequences of allowing you to return to Roanoke as opposed to the consequences of keeping you here. Ultimately it was all the same to them. They think you're going to die if you go back to Roanoke."

"I don't know that I blame them," I said.

"You could very well die," Szilard said. "But as I said, you have certain advantages. One of them is your relationship to the Obin.

Another is your wife. Between them you might manage to help Roanoke survive, and you with it."

"But we're back to the problem," I said. "The way you tell it, the Colonial Union needs Roanoke to die. By helping me to save Roanoke, you're working against the Colonial Union, General. You're a traitor."

"That's my problem, not yours," Szilard said. "I'm not worried about being branded a traitor. I'm worried about what happens if Roanoke falls."

"If Roanoke falls, the Colonial Union gets its soldiers," I said.

"And then it will go to war with most of the races in this part of space," Szilard said. "And it will lose. And in losing, humanity will be wiped out. All of it, from Roanoke all the way up. Even Earth will die, Perry. It will be wiped out and the billions there will have no idea why they're dying. Nothing will be saved. Humanity is on the brink of genocide. And it's a genocide we will have inflicted on ourselves. Unless you can stop it. Unless you can save Roanoke."

"I don't know if I can do that," I said. "Just before I came here, Roanoke was attacked. Just five missiles, but it took everything we had to keep them from wiping us out. If a whole group of Conclave races wants to grind us into dirt I don't know how we can stop them."

"You need to find a way," Szilard said.

"You're a general," I said. "You do it."

"I am doing it," Szilard said. "By giving the responsibility to you. I can't do any more than that without losing my place in the Colonial Union hierarchy And then I would be powerless. I've been doing what I can since this insane plan to attack the Conclave was formed. I used you as long as I could without letting you know, but we're beyond that now. Now you know. It's your job to save humanity, Perry."

"No pressure there," I said.

"You did it for years," Szilard said. "Don't you remember what they told you the job of Colonial Defense Forces was? To keep a place for humanity among the stars.' You did it then. You need to do it now."

"Then it was me and every other member of the CDF," I said. "The responsibility is a little more focused now."

"Then let me help," Szrard said. "Again, and for the last time. My intelligence corps has :old me that General Gau is going to be assassinated by a member of his own circle of advisers. Someone he trusts; indeed, someone he loves. This assassination will happen within the month. We have no other information. We have no way of informing GeneraI Gau of the assassination attempt, and even if we had a way, there's no way we could inform him, and no chance he would accept the information as genuine even if we could. If Gau dies, then alI the Conclave will reform around Ner-bros Eser, who plans to destroy the Colonial Union. If Nerbros Eser takes power, it's all over. The Colonial Union will fall. Humanity dies."

"What am I supposed to do with this information?" I asked.

"Find a way to use it," Szilard said. "And find it fast. And then ) be ready for everything that happens afterward. And one other thing, Perry. Tell Sagan that while I don't apologize for enhancing her abilities, I do regret the necessity. Let her also know that I suspect she has not yet explored the full range of her capabilities. Tell her that her BrainPal offers the complete range of command functions. Use those words, please."

"What does 'complete range of command functions' mean here?" I asked.

"Sagan can explain it to you if she likes," Szilard said. He reached over to the dash, pressed a button. Phoenix and Phoenix Station reappeared in the windows.

"Now," Szilard said. "Time to get you back to Roanoke, Administrator Perry. You've been gone too long, and you have much to do. Time to get to it, I'd say."