[This is a chapter from my latest novel, a sequel to The Fall of Doc Future and Skybreaker’s Call. The start is here, and links to my other work here. It can be read on its own, but contains spoilers for those two books. I try to post new chapters about every two weeks, but I’m currently also rewriting Fall, so there will sometimes be short stories and vignettes if I don’t have a new chapter ready. I’m aiming for December 13th for the next story post.]

Previous: Chapter 30



“Hiri? What did the Director talk to you about? You didn’t finish your breakfast.”

Marshal Hiri turned from where he’d been staring out the window. The full size, triple layer, variable-polarization window, with a nice view of Earth. In a prisoner of war camp. The Director hadn’t stinted on amenities when building the new one–it felt more like luxury accommodations to Hiri. Some sections weren’t yet fully fitted out and furnished, and most people were still adjusting to the recent move, but everyone who had volunteered to accept the Director’s offer and assist the robot constructors was satisfied. The old camp, based on the prefab structures the Crusade Fleet had intended for a base, was now almost exclusively used to keep the more recalcitrant Inquisitors separate from everyone else.

But the window had still seemed like a bit much. He’d asked Director Reinhart about it.

“I made sure you had a window so you can stand at it, hands clasped behind your back, looking out, while you think,” she’d said. "Otherwise you’ll get depressed. The last time you were a prisoner, you didn’t have any windows, so you associate them with as much freedom as you’ve ever had.“

Which was completely true. And unsettling on several levels. Like most of his conversations with her.

Captain Tengari smiled at him from her chair at the table. "There is jam for the toast, if your mind has completed its latest scouting sweep.”

“Thank you for the reminder.” He smiled back ruefully, and returned to the table. He’d gone to the window to think, as usual, after the Director’s com message. There were always layers upon layers. "It seemed primarily a courtesy call, confirming the schedule for the hearing tomorrow, and to assure me that she anticipates no problems with the charges.“

The hearing was to formally settle whether there were any grounds for charging Hiri with war crimes, as the senior surviving officer and last commander of the Xelian Crusade Fleet. Neither Director Reinhart nor the Grs'thnk Auditors believed so, but the Earth nation that had taken the most damage from the bombardment was insistent, so there would be a hearing.

The problem was that the person the Earthlings really wanted to bring to trial–Admiral Lohikar–was dead. And the hearing would be using the Grs'thnk Trade League standards–which weren’t quite the same as the ones the Earthlings used, and under which Hiri had done nothing outside of acceptable wartime conduct. For that matter, except for one difference in the definition of ‘combatants’, he hadn’t done anything against Earth law, either.

So it was a more of a formality than anything else. At least it meant that everyone under Hiri’s command would be safe, afterwards.

Tengari touched his hand and he looked up from his plate. "Do not worry,” she said. "If the Director says there will be no problems, you will be safe. The mind that ate every surviving battlecomp in the fleet is hardly going to be outmaneuvered by a few Earth politicians.“

"Oh, I’m certain you’re right,” said Hiri. "I’m just wondering why she’s overseeing it personally. I think she wants to clearly establish the precedent that the Earth Defense Union has jurisdiction over war crimes committed on Earth. But I’m not sure why.“

"I wonder why she wasn’t already ruling the planet when we showed up. She must be close to it now, even if most of the Earthlings don’t seem to have realized it yet, so it can’t be completely forbidden by her beliefs.” Tengari smiled again.

Volunteerism seemed to agree with Captain Tengari. She had embraced Naki’s new interpretation of Templatist doctrine wholeheartedly, and her haunted look was gone. Now she was the one checking up on Hiri, instead of the other way around.

“What she really seemed to want was our logistic support starships,” said Hiri. “Perhaps she didn’t want to risk scaring away anyone who might bring more advanced technology to her.”

Tengari looked thoughtful. "A good point. I look for the direct approach first.“

Hiri snorted. "My talent for strategy often allows me to remain only two steps behind her plans, instead of three. Even when I’m not completely in the dark, I miss things she sees.”

“Are you still worried that she wants to install you as the head of a puppet government for Xelia?”

“No. She’s far more sophisticated that that. Her war strategy is…” Hiri shook his head.

“What strategy?” asked Tengari. "All she seems to want to do is keep up a blockade, return the Inquisitors and a few others, and arrange for everyone else here to be able to send messages to their families, as is required by their law on prisoners. And open negotiations, using the Grs'thnk as intermediaries. I see no threat of anything beyond what the Fleet and the Council have already suffered.“

"The messages are the key,” said Hiri.

“She plans to win a war with family messages?”

“Yes, and it will probably work, if she gives it enough time. Consider. Both the Council and Central Command badly want to know what happened to the Crusade Fleet. So they’ll accept the Inquisitors and the message pack, keeping the Inquisitors isolated, while they conduct long interrogations.”

“Obviously.”

“They’ll assume the letters are mostly fake, but they’ll still want to analyze them. They will call in trusted experts, to try to extract information from the fakery. They’ll get plenty of real information, but the Director doesn’t care. Because many of the most trusted will be those who have family among the Crusaders. Too many will learn, and too many will care, to keep one crucial fact from leaking–the Crusaders lived. Almost all of them. And that will undermine the last support the Council might salvage from the Crusade.”

“What do you mean?”

“They wanted victory, and either a Correctionist triumph or an excuse to destroy the Earthlings, with lots of martyrs either way. They got defeat, an enemy now forewarned and armed by their own partially captured fleet, and an utter Correctionist failure. But no martyrs.”

“The Fleet lost–”

“The Fleet lost plenty. But that won’t help the Council. What they wanted was Crusader martyrs. And all the troop transports were captured intact. The Council’s two strongest supports are Central Command and the Correctionist hierarchy. The Vengeance faction died on the dreadnoughts, so Central Command will push for any peace that will allow them to rebuild the navy. They certainly won’t want to try any new attack, now that the Grs'thnk are helping Earth. And the hierarchy will have a fit when they find out about Volunteerism–they will not want the Crusade to come back. Except possibly to cells of correction.”

“And we’d hardly agree to that.” Tengari’s eyes widened. "But most of the families…they’ll want to be reunited. Volunteerism or not. That will split the Correctionists. Badly.“

"Yes.” Hiri finally took a bite of toast. “The Director doesn’t need to attack Xelia. The Council regime will start to come apart at the seams. All she has to do is wait.”

*****

Flicker watched the display as Doc waved a hand. "Tiz was a xenobiologist, specializing in immunology. Took her a few tests and about half an hour to whip up a proper antihistamine for me. Turned out to be one I already knew about, but I’d never memorized the structure.“

"Those pharmosynths sound really handy,” said Flicker.

“They are. Then we talked while I recovered from the other stuff. She’d done full bioscans, of course, and made a remark I foolishly took issue with, because it touched on probability theory as well as xenobiology. It was embarrassing–I was still a bit loopy.”

“What did you argue about?”

“The relative likelyhood of the physical compatability of the Human and Grs'thnk reproductive organs,” said Doc. "My intuition about biology was rather poor when I was younger. She helped me correct my estimate with several interesting examples from three independant biospheres. And good humor.

“It turned out not to be that unlikely, because we’re both social endotherms of around the same mass, with relatively recent large expansions in cranial size after a switch to bipedalism.”

“I did kind of wonder,” said Flicker. She glanced aside at Ashil for a moment, who didn’t seem to be finding any of this surprising.

“I learned a lot about xenobiology from her during those two weeks. Oh, and remember I once told you never to try to outdo an experienced field biologist at body horror anecdotes, because they’ll win? Tiz taught me that.”

“Ah.”

“Anyway, several days later, she mentioned that a more interesting question was the degree of compatibility of Grs'thnk and human sexual signalling and responses. And, well, we got along, we were both adventurous xenophiles, and there was a certain thrill in being the first to find out. So we did. No injury, infection, or allergic reactions occurred. I won’t comment on awkwardness. And the rest isn’t anyone else’s business. Though the message she sent warned–”

“She sent you a message?” asked Flicker. "When did you get it?“

"Day before yesterday. She warned me that after I left, there was some not particularly accurate publicity that did not involve consulting her. Given her sense of humor, that would be a little worrying–if I didn’t have a stack of more important things to worry about.”

He turned to Ashil. "But I imagine you might know a bit about that. How bad was the publicity?“

"Not bad, mostly,” said Ashil. "I liked second movie best. But musical didn’t get your voice right at all.“

"I see.”

“Not worry–it all archive stuff now. Old. I had personal reasons to watch.”

Doc sighed. "Well, I won’t intrude on your privacy other than to suggest one thing. It’s possible that Yiskah might be able to give you useful advice about some things Tiz would be unfamiliar with. But she’s a telepath. Would it bother you to talk to her?“

"No. But she might get headache if she read my mind when I think about portal physics.”

“I’ll make sure DASI warns her. Does that adequately address any concerns you might have?”

“My concern was let Flicker know why I not worry. Then stay with her, because she embarrassed, ” Ashil looked down. "I apologize. Did not intend involve you or interrupt your important work.“

"You didn’t–Flicker did. And I’m used to that. It’s necessary, often enough. And now I’d like to talk to her privately for a moment.”

Ashil nodded to both of them and left the room. Flicker stared at the screen, feeling thoroughly embarrassed again.

“I apologize, too,” she said. "I shouldn’t have–“

"Don’t worry about it,” said Doc. "It was relevant, and you’re still coming down off that external memory overleveraging. Any change in an emotional context feels like a data integrity threat, right?“

"Well, yeah. I’m still sorry. Tiz sounds like an interesting person.”

“You’d probably like her–although her idea of interesting small talk might be the details of how you keep your internal biome alive under extreme conditions.”

“Seems reasonable to me–but I doubt I’ll be going to Grs'thn anytime soon.”

“Ah, Ashil didn’t tell you.”

“Tell me what?”

“Principal Researcher Tizareth is the head of the xenobiology team for the Grs'thnk aid mission. She’s on the medical ship in orbit right now. It’ll probably be quite a while before she gets a chance to come down, though–she’ll have plenty of high-priority work in her lab.”

“Oh.” Flicker swallowed, feeling another emotional shift. They did feel just like data integrity loss false alarms, that was a good way to start thinking about how to deal with them.

“So, was there anything–” Doc frowned suddenly, and pulled his goggles down over his eyes, then grunted.

“What?” asked Flicker.

“Warning from DASI. Your day is probably about to get more stressful. Can I ask a favor?”

“You can ask.”

“If you feel inclined to do anything drastic, can you have DASI call me first, so I can come back down to discuss it with you in person? That will let me keep working for now, and nothing you’re about to learn is urgent. Believe me on that.”

“Um. All right. But now I need to go find out what’s going on.”

“Go ahead.” Doc nodded. "Just take care of yourself, okay?“

"I will.” Flicker ended the call and sped up, finally putting on her visor. DASI owed her some answers.

*****

“They’re starting the Lost Years again,” said Flicker, keeping her voice even.

DASI had raised the opaque force field in the secure room doorway, to assure privacy. She knew Flicker well enough that she hadn’t even asked whether it was all right to close the physical door instead. Flicker felt like she was facing some kind of trial or judgement, instead of a briefing.

Stella sat to the left, wearing the latest version of her interface helmet, which was plugged into one of the data ports at the table. To the right, Jumping Spider leaned back in her chair, hands laced behind her head, feet up on the table. In the center, DASI’s preferred human avatar, which reminded most people of a good-natured but very sharp reference librarian, presided from the main screen.

And they were all looking at Flicker with concern or reserve, like she was the problem.

“Depending on how you define 'they’, the Lost Years never really stopped,” said Jumping Spider. "But yes, there are a couple of groups that have become more active recently. Like whichever one was behind the attempt on you. And one of them almost has to have Tabula Rasa, to explain what I haven’t found. But that’s not what you should be worried about.“

"Explain,” said Flicker. Get the data. I need the background. Emotions before full context would be even more unhelpful than usual, today.

“What you should stop to think about is this: We’ve been discussing evidence for a lot of fun things–kidnapping, assassination, disappearances, mind-wipes, rogue black groups of assorted origin and funding, and the possibility of a long cold war going hot again. But everyone else in this room is most worried about how you are going to react. Because of a promise your father made to you when you were a bloodthirsty, spoiled, fifteen-year-old brat throwing a temper tantrum.”



Next: Chapter 32

