“Still without explanation, Warden Dios reveals that UMCPED director Min Donner is aboard Punisher. No doubt he cites this detail to convince us that Punisher behaved correctly in breaking off her engagement.”
“We’re lucky.” The President made an unsuccessful effort to project confidence. He may have been trying to reassure himself. “Enforcement is her job. And she’s good at it. If she couldn’t finish that defensive, no one could.”
Still Maxim plowed ahead, cutting the ground along the lines he desired.
“I mentioned omissions. Certainly the omission of any useful account of all these actions is significant. But there are others.
“Warden Dios neglects to observe that Trumpet is the vessel which convicted illegal Angus Thermopyle and Com-Mine Security Deputy Chief Milos Taverner”—Maxim permitted himself a trace of sarcasm—“are purported to have stolen in their escape from UMCPHQ. And he also fails to report what Punisher was doing in the Massif-5 system.”
Len gave a sound like a low groan. “I suppose you’re going to tell me she shouldn’t have been there. We have warships around VI all the time. For good reason.”
Maxim nodded to placate the President. “The vessel currently assigned to the defense of Valdor Industrial is UMCP cruiser Vehemence. She was sent to relieve Punisher after Punisher had endured a long and, I believe, damaging tour of duty.
“But Punisher never came to dock at UMCPHQ. As soon as she entered the gap range restricted for use by UMCP ships, she altered course and headed outward again.” Maxim had never been able to penetrate the veils of obfuscation which concealed the heart of UMCPHQ, but his authority sufficed to extract this kind of information. “Min Donner must have joined ship then. Earlier she was known to be on-station. We have reports from her following Godsen Frik’s murder.”
His tone conveyed no particular emphasis as he concluded, “With the UMCPED director aboard, Punisher left UMCPHQ control space on a course for Com-Mine Station.”
Abrim Len’s reaction was a rewarding blend of surprise and dismay. “What, Com-Mine?” he protested. “Com-Mine? Not VI?”
Maxim noted with some gratification that Len didn’t question the accuracy of this revelation.
“You begin to see the pattern, Mr. President.” He was sure that Len saw no such thing. “Punisher’s stated mission—to the extent that it has been made known to us—was to guard against reports of unusual hostile activity along the frontier near the Com-Mine belt. Yet suddenly we find her in the Massif-5 system. We find Trumpet in the Massif-5 system, although UMCPDA director Hashi Lebwohl asked us to believe that Captain Thermopyle and Deputy Chief Taverner had fled toward Thanatos Minor in forbidden space. And in addition”—he spoke slowly to give each word its full weight—“by a coincidence which beggars description, we find a Behemoth-class Amnion defensive there as well.”
The President sighed. “I’m too tired to see patterns, Maxim.” His look of nausea was growing stronger. “I want them explained to me.”
“Very well,” Maxim replied as if he were acquiescing.
“Mr. President, I believe that Captain Thermopyle and Deputy Chief Taverner did not escape from UMCPHQ. I believe they were sent into forbidden space to commit some act—I can hardly guess what—which the Amnion would be unable to countenance. Then they fled deep into human space. This was necessary so that the response of the Amnion would be unmistakable, and yet would present no direct danger to Earth. Any threat to Earth would have been too extreme to be useful.
“Punisher went to the frontier with Min Donner aboard to ensure that Trumpet was indeed able to flee. Thereafter she followed Trumpet to Massif-5, where she awaited this incursion.
“Finally I am certain that all these events occurred because Warden Dios wished it so.”
Gradually Len slid downward until his head rested on the back of the sofa. He stared at the ceiling with his mouth open.
“My conclusion is this,” Maxim pronounced. “I am convinced that the director of the United Mining Companies Police has deliberately precipitated an act of war in order to stampede the Governing Council for Earth and Space into withdrawing support for my investigation.”
Here he quickened his pace so that the President would have no opportunity to interrupt.
“Evidence has been coming to light which suggests the most heinous kinds of malfeasance and corruption. Warden Dios’ probity,” his insufferable air of moral superiority, “is under question, his power is endangered. Therefore he seeks to protect his position by persuading us that we must not threaten him now. He wishes us to believe that the risk of challenging him is too great at a time when we face the possibility of war.”
Abrim Len flapped a hand, asking Maxim to stop. Maxim complied at once: he was ready to let the President speak.
Len continued studying the ceiling as if it frightened him. After a moment he muttered, “And you deduce all this from, what, Punisher’s presence near VI? Min Donner’s presence aboard Punisher?”
Maxim’s tone sharpened. “I deduce it from the explanations which have been omitted.” He made no effort to muffle his underlying vehemence now. “I deduce it from the sheer scale of the coincidences involved. And I deduce it from the knowledge that Warden Dios’ position is so precarious as to be untenable.
“Do you doubt me, Mr. President?” he challenged. “Then tell me how you account for the fact that Punisher broke off her engagement with the defensive. Min Donner is renowned for her unswerving rectitude, as well as for her pugnacity. Why would she turn aside from her obvious duty, if she had not been given orders to let the defensive live—to reduce the risk that this incursion will become a full-scale war? Warden Dios desires the threat, not the actuality. His malfeasance may be so pervasive that the UMCP is no longer equipped or positioned to pursue a war.”
“Punisher was damaged,” Len put in weakly. “You said that yourself. Warden claims she couldn’t beat the defensive.” He paused, then added, “That ship has super-light proton cannon.”
Maxim nodded, although he conceded nothing. “No doubt the director speaks factually. But if you think that weakens my argument, ask yourself why Punisher was chosen for this assignment. Perhaps it was because she could plausibly claim that she was unable to destroy the defensive.”
There he stopped. He had made his case clear enough for a half-wit to comprehend it. Now he had to await the President’s official reaction.
Len scrutinized the doom which he apparently saw displayed overhead. Despite his slumped posture, his tension was palpable. Still he refused to look at Maxim. With an attempt at asperity, he asked, “Maxim, what do you want? When do we get to the part where you ‘simplify’ my position?”
The distress he caused Abrim Len gave Maxim a bitter satisfaction. He was too well focused to show his pleasure, however. Instead he concentrated on his purposes.
“I have expressed my concerns, Mr. President,” he replied, his tone studiously meek. “Clearly they must be presented to the Council. So much is unavoidable. Humankind’s future rests on our evaluation of Warden Dios’ integrity.
“Unfortunately this burden falls to you. I lack the official standing to bear it for you. As Special Counsel charged with investigating the Angus Thermopyle case, I have no authority to address an emergency session called to consider an act of war.
“What I ‘want,’ Mr. President,” he pronounced with his utmost diffidence, “is to spare you an unpleasant duty. If you will grant the necessary authorization, I will take on the responsibility for prosecuting my concerns,” just the sort of confrontation Abrim Len loathed. “In addition, of course,” he expanded speciously, “I will accept the risk of embarrassment—or perhaps I should say humiliation—if my concerns are shown to be false.”
Len’s limbs twitched. With a jerk, he turned a gap-mouthed stare toward Maxim. His nausea had retreated into the background: assessments filled his gaze. He may have been trying to gauge the scale of Maxim’s ambitions. Or he may simply have been wondering wh
ether he could accept Maxim’s offer.
Finally he closed his mouth, cleared his throat. When he replied, his voice seemed to come from some other room, muted by distance. “If you can talk Sen Abdullah into giving you his formal proxy—and if it’s received in my office before the emergency session—I’ll recognize you in his place. It’s irregular, but I can stretch the rules of order that far. You’ll have as much ‘authority to speak’ as any other Member.”
At once Maxim rose to his feet. “Thank you, Mr. President.” He already knew that he could obtain Abdullah’s proxy. The Eastern Union Senior Member hated Warden Dios. Some of his constituents had lost fortunes when Dios had helped Holt Fasner engineer the bankruptcy and absorption of Sagittarius Exploration.
Maxim didn’t wait for Abrim Len to dismiss him. As unobtrusively as possible, he left the President’s office suite.
By God, Cleatus Fane was going to regret refusing to speak to him. Special Counsel Maxim Igensard had just demonstrated that he was a force to be reckoned with.
MARC
It was typical of his kind that the loss of Soar—and of his fellow Amnion aboard—meant nothing to Marc Vestabule.
The ship itself had been merely a technological artifact: temporarily useful as an ally; ultimately more interesting for the methods of production it represented than for itself. Its human crew was exactly that: human rather than Amnion; significant only because they served the Amnion—and might become available for research. And the Amnion aboard Soar were expendable. The protein soup from which more Amnion might be grown was plentiful: any Amnioni could excrete it by the liter at need. Therefore any individual could be replaced by another with the same abilities and characteristics.
Even Milos Taverner was not to be lamented, despite his precious heritage. Physically he was a near-perfect transformation; better than Marc Vestabule. The Mind/Union had achieved important advances. But psychologically he was a failed experiment: he had retained too little of his past identity. An Amnioni who appeared human, but who thought, spoke, and acted Amnion, would be too easily detected; therefore useless against humankind.
Like all his fellows, Marc Vestabule wasted neither attention nor emotion on the death of Soar.
On the other hand, the fact that Soar had turned against Calm Horizons required a great deal of attention. Specifically it required Marc Vestabule’s attention. He had been invested with decisiveness aboard Calm Horizons. And he remembered more of his former humanity than any other Amnioni like him.
Because he remembered, he was not replaceable.
Sorus Chatelaine’s betrayal had been quintessentially human: no Amnioni could have imagined—much less carried out—such an action. Even Marc Vestabule only grasped it with considerable effort. To contemplate its implications caused him a form of nausea so fundamental that it might have been ribonucleic.
Nevertheless he did contemplate them. The dilemma of Trumpet’s escape made that necessary.
Many of his memories were gone, but he could still recollect the end of his time aboard the human ship he had served, Viable Dreams. He remembered its capture by treachery. He remembered the vindictive fury of the man who had taken it into Amnion space in order to sell its crew: Angus Thermopyle. And he remembered his own desperation—
The Amnion did not comprehend terror or frenzy. They understood urgency: they were capable of haste. Their dedication to their own purposes was complete—and completely organic. But they were not genetically encoded for desperation. They could not encompass it.
Marc Vestabule still did.
It was the key to understanding humankind. Sorus Chatelaine had betrayed Calm Horizons—despite the dictates of her own self-interest—out of desperation. Similarly, desperation had driven Angus Thermopyle to sell the crew of Viable Dreams: it drove him and his companions aboard Trumpet now. And the results of Soar’s treason had been disastrous. Trumpet had fled intact. A UMCP cruiser had received Trumpet’s broadcast. Beyond question the outcome of Trumpet’s escape would also be disastrous.
Once the desperation was grasped, the nature of the disaster became possible to imagine.
Trumpet would approach some large human station—or perhaps Earth itself. Alternatively the small vessel might join forces with its defender, the UMCP cruiser. Then the formula for the mutagen immunity drug would become broadly known. Until a means was devised to circumvent or mask the drug, humankind would be effectively impervious to absorption or transformation.
That invulnerability might inspire the species to initiate a war: a war of ships and weaponry; a technological war, which the Amnion could not win.
Yet even if humankind did not react so extremely, they would be forewarned of Amnion researches into near-C acceleration. Given their mechanistic ingenuity, and their vast means of production, they might well design weapons or defenses to counter the greater velocity of future Amnion vessels. They might devise the means to acquire such velocities themselves.
And their efforts would be inspired by Calm Horizons’ own actions, which they would doubtless consider an act of war, as well as by Trumpet’s broadcast.
Lastly—the heaviest blow—the opportunity which the force-grown template called Davies Hyland represented would be lost. If a human could be made Amnion, and yet retain the ability to speak and act and pass as human, the purposes of the Amnion might be achieved at one stroke. That great accomplishment would make possible a war of infiltration and mutation; a war which humankind could not win.
Only an opportunity to study Davies Hyland might serve to counter the other harms which Trumpet could do.
Sorus Chatelaine’s—and Angus Thermopyle’s—desperation had created a dilemma which none of Marc Vestabule’s fellows were equipped to evaluate.
He had been invested with decisiveness aboard Calm Horizons. After a period of rigorous contemplation—and acute nausea—he concluded that the complex threats of Trumpet’s escape could only be answered by an act of even greater desperation.
He decided nothing in isolation. The air of Calm Horizons was rich with communication of all kinds: information and analysis; emotion and commentary. Pheromones filled with language the sweet atmosphere which the Amnion craved. Marc Vestabule was an Amnioni, alive to the scents and hues of nucleotidal communion; nourished by it.
Yet he was truly unique among his fellows. Furthermore they all recognized his uniqueness: they recognized its value. Without that recognition he would not have been invested. The conclusions he reached were neither understood nor questioned. By a common consent of the most profound form, his uniqueness was granted scope.
The risks were great. Indeed, they were vast. If Calm Horizons failed and died, the costs would be terrible. And Marc Vestabule could do nothing to diminish them. Like symbiotic crystalline resonance transmitters, gap courier drones were difficult to grow; hugely expensive in time, effort, and expertise. He was fortunate that he had been supplied with the former. He had no access to the latter. Therefore if he acted on his memories of desperation he would be unable to inform or forewarn his kind of their peril.
Nevertheless when Calm Horizons reentered normal space beyond the Massif-5 system, the defensive turned at once and began spanning the dimensional gap on a direct course for Earth.
WARDEN
Warden Dios wasn’t alone in the CO Room. Techs sat at their stations nearby, linking him to every facet of his domain; listening to their respective communications traffic with receivers set into their ears so that he wouldn’t be distracted by incessant chatter; studying the same displays and readouts he watched. He didn’t concentrate on what he saw, however: he left that to his staff. While they worked, he focused his energies on trying to think like an Amnioni.
Some of his people—especially those assigned to UMCPHQ Center—believed that he was prescient. They didn’t know how else to account for the fact that he so often seemed to be precisely where he was most needed in emergencies. Why was he there, if he couldn’t see the future? His reassuring presence in
his personal Command Operations Room minutes or perhaps hours before some crisis developed had no other obvious explanation.
But the UMCP director wasn’t blessed—or cursed—with foreknowledge. The searching IR vision of his prosthetic eye told him nothing in advance. To some extent his apparent prescience was simply the outcome of his gift for planning ahead. For the most part, however, his knowledge was not of the future, but of himself. He did what he did out of shame and stubbornness—which was to say, out of fear. He was probably no more fearful than anyone else. Unlike most of the people around him, however, he called his fears by their true names. And he paid attention to them.
That was why he sometimes displayed an almost uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time.
This time he was in the CO Room because he feared the consequences of his own actions.
Lord knew he had enough of them to worry about. Holt Fasner had ordered him to turn Angus over to Nick Succorso, so that Nick might then be persuaded to kill the other survivors of Captain’s Fancy; all except Davies Hyland, who would be delivered to the Dragon. Warden had obeyed that order—and undermined it at the same time. Had his subterfuge succeeded? If it hadn’t, he was finished. But if it had, young Davies might now have control over Angus. What would he do with that power?
According to Hashi, Davies may have been force-grown with his mother’s mind. What would Morn do, after experiencing so much brutality from Angus—and so much betrayal from the UMCP?
Vital questions. At another time they might have dominated Warden’s thinking. But the specific fear which had brought him here revolved around a different set of consequences.
Punisher had broken off her engagement with the Amnion defensive which had pursued Trumpet from forbidden space to Massif-5. That was exactly what Warden would have ordered the cruiser to do. He needed Trumpet’s people; needed them desperately. And he wasn’t likely to get them if Punisher risked her life trying to defeat a far more powerful enemy. He suspected that if Min didn’t bring them to him, he would never see Morn and Davies, Angus and Vector.