Extremis (37 page)

Wethermere merely nodded; the Orion noted that he was looking intently at the flight-deck relays.

“I offer you a great honor, Ossian Wethermere,” added Kiiraathra’ostakjo. His tone was gentler, but had also ceased to be jocular.

Wethermere looked up, as if waking from a trance. “Apologies, Least Claw. I was—thinking.”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo sighed—a gesture that was startlingly similar to its human analog—and looked askance. “When you begin to think deeply, I begin to worry greatly. What madness are you conceiving now, human?”

“Not madness. At least I don’t think so. Look at this.” Wethermere pointed to the relays that were showing the after-action reports being compiled as each retrieved fighter downloaded its mission data.

“Yes? We were uncommonly fortunate. According to those flight records, the Baldy fighters maneuvered less well than usual.”

“Yes, there’s that. And there’s this, also. Look.”

Kiiraathra’ostakjo leaned closer. “Odd. They used that many flechette missiles? And always with gaps in their firing pattern? What do you make of this, Lieutenant?” Kiiraathra’ostakjo, although he was made uncomfortable by the unorthodox nature of Wethermere’s mind, had also acquired a keen appreciation of its polymathic scope—a trait that was also ascribed to the human’s distant sire-brother, the legendary Kevin Sanders.

Wethermere was still staring at the data intently. “I’d say they were trying to cull off one or more of our fighters—like they were working to split up the formation more than they were trying to destroy our craft. That’s why they were using the flechette missiles—they were using them as area-denial munitions.”

“You mean, to create volumes of space in which our fighters could not fly.”

“Yes—but the gaps in their patterns always gave the fighters they isolated an opportunity for evasion.”

“Yes,” growled Kiiraathra’ostakjo, leaning closer and seeing the patterns in the data, “just as a hunter chooses and culls his victim from a herd ahead of time, separating it from the rest of its fellows. Ossian Wethermere, what does this mean?”

Wethermere looked away from the data and stared into the viewscreen that showed Myrtilus dwindling behind them. “I think they wanted to capture one of our fighters.”

“So it seems, but why?”

“Maybe for the same reasons we exploited today—their fighters have too many weaknesses to meet ours on an equal footing.”

“So they wish to capture one for the purposes of technical intelligence. Hermph. Most interesting.”

“Yes. Interesting…at the very least.”

From the corner of his eye, Kiiraathra’ostakjo saw that the human was distracted again, thinking his unpredictable thoughts. He seemed to be watching the violently strobing lightning that had been triggered by their fighters’ energy torpedoes. The ferocious storm had churned outward from its point of origin to engulf that entire quadrant of Myrtilus’ sunward face. Wethermere leaned his left elbow on the console, set his chin into his palm. “Look at all that lightning. The energy torpedoes must have kicked off a chain reaction. There’s got to be hundreds of terawatts of electrical energy discharging between those clouds right now.” He thought hard. “You know, if there was a way to harness that—”

“Enough!” Kiiraathra’ostakjo’s roar contained an undertone of actual fear. “Cease your speculations, Lieutenant Wethermere!”

“But I just—”

“Enough I say, and enough I mean. I know that look, human. You are scheming. And when you scheme in that way, you are always thinking of how to break things. Stop, before you break this, too.”

“Break what? The planet?”

“Or maybe the universe. Return to your station at once! Helm, execute course change Feaarnowt-three. Take us away from here before Lieutenant Wethermere can break anything else.”

13

Necessary Things

Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up commonwealths and ruin kings.
—Dryden

Punt, New Ardu/Bellerophon

“Elder, I am pained to say it, but it sounds like it was your incompetence which led to the slaughter of both the human Resistance fighters and my Enforcer-Group.” Everything about Torhok’s
selnarm
, despite being processed and therefore flattened by an orbital relay station, suggested that he was not pained, but exultant, at being able to accuse Ankaht of incompetence.

“Senior Admiral, your statement presumes much—which also tells me you did not bother to research the event. I merely sent a request to the Enforcer section prime. She handled the selection of the responding unit and any subsequent orders. I am at a loss to see how such a simple request can be ‘incompetent.’ ”

“You should have given special warning that you suspected a Resistance cell to be on the site.”

“I had no such suspicion.”

“And that is the source of your incompetence, Elder.” Ankaht felt the churlish delight Torhok took in combining her honorific—Elder—with the patronizing tenor of his
selnarm
.

“Senior Admiral, I asked for a unit to simply pass by the residence. Not make a contact, much less an entry.”

“Perhaps, but when an armed human shows up on our recon monitors, it rather changes the nature of the visit, doesn’t it?”

“Most assuredly. And how that change was handled was none of my affair. I was not consulted.”

“There was no need to consult you. As you said, security matters are not your affair, Councilor.”

“Precisely—which is why
my
competence cannot be in question, Senior Admiral.”

Torhok’s
selnarm
closed down, and Ankaht dismissed the brief pulse of triumph she felt for having shut him up and beaten him at his own round of the blame game. However, she hadn’t the inclination to luxuriate in that small victory—nor had she the time to do so, either, because he came straight back with:

“The flaw is in not involving us sooner—and in failing to provide us with access to this
griarfeksh
‘artist’—”

“Jennifer Peitchkov—”

“—whose house this was, and whose mate seems somehow involved in the Resistance.”

“And what good would it have done for your Enforcers to have had contact with Jenni—with our research subject?” But she did not share her deepest retort:
And, had I given you that access, you would have surely, and intentionally, done irreparable damage to our attempts to establish trust and communications with her—

Torhok scoffed through his
selnarm
. “Elder, our need for access to her is so plain that even you must be able to see it. It is certain that this artist is involved.”

“ ‘Involved?’ ”

(Disbelief, incredulity.) “
Involved.
In the Resistance. Is it not obvious?”

“Admiral, you have been back in-system for just ten days and have been aware of this incident for less than two. Tell me, have you yet had the time”
—or the inclination—
“to read my reports on what the human-research group has produced in terms of communication with the subject in question, Jennifer Peitchkov?”

Silence.

Thought not.
“Then let me suggest you update yourself on that data, which will prove to be most relevant to this situation. However, in advance of your detailed study of my report”
—which I’m sure will never occur—
“let me excerpt one or two particularly crucial facts.

“Firstly, most humans are utterly without
selnarmic
resonances, as was projected. Some, however, have residual sensitivities. The subject Jennifer Peitchkov has, even within this small subset, markedly high comparative sensitivities—so much so that we are actually establishing contact with her on complex issues. The sophistication and reliability of that communication has been growing daily.

“However, what we call her
selnarm
is actually quite distinct from what we Arduans experience. One of its most unusual and dissimilar features is that her variety of telempathy permits her no guile or misrepresentation. If she thinks a falsehood, that inveracity registers immediately and unmistakably along with the message itself. As you had requested, I asked her if she was involved in the bombings or other events. This she flatly denied without
the faintest hint of prevarication.
Indeed, she was unaware that the human terrorists were in her house. In short, she is not ‘involved.’ ”

Torhok’s response carried the faint impress of a dogged defense rather than a confident rebuttal. “Elder, with all due respect for your attemps to understand the
griarfeksh
, you cannot be sure what arts they may have when it comes to concealing the truth. Their own literature indicates that some of them can go through life completely and sincerely convinced that they are not who they are, that they are in direct conversation with their different deities, and, in some extreme cases, that they have multiple personalities, each of which can remain wholly unaware of the actions undertaken by the other personalities within them. How then can you say so surely that the artist-subject’s denial of involvement is reliable?”

Ankaht let her smile travel through her
selnarm
. “I must say that you have compiled an interesting—and highly selective—reading list of human literature, Admiral. But I have read these same books and reports, too. All the conditions you cite are profound mental abnormalities, which are inevitably accompanied by characteristic—indeed, confirmatory—clinical aberrations. Jennifer demonstrates none of these aberrations. Therefore, the simplest and most logical answer is that her missing mate is involved in the Resistance, and may be implicated in the bombings, but that she is not.”

Torhok was nothing if not tenacious. “These studies of the
griarfeksh
brain and behavior also indicate that many of these mental aberrations can occur acutely, rather than chronically, perhaps triggered by great stress—and some are associated with what the
griarfeksh
doctors call ‘post-partum depression.’ It therefore seems possible that this species is capable of transient insanity. We have certainly witnessed evidence of this in the humans that we have fought against during our campaign thus far.”

Ankaht felt her patience slipping; she did not have the energy to retrieve that leash before it shot out of her grasp in the form of an arch retort. “Really, Admiral? You have observed so much of this transient insanity in your human opponents? Is that why every one of your ‘victories’ over them has cost us three, five, even ten times the number of ships that they have lost? If that is the nature of human insanity, Admiral, then it must be a mental malady that also imparts supreme tactical inspiration to those afflicted. Now, do you have any other concerns you wish to share?”

“I am finished.” Torhok’s final sending carried the overtone of being finished with much more than the conversation. Much, much more.

But Ankaht had no time to immediately concern herself with Torhok’s wintry and ominous displeasure. She turned to her visitor, who was removing the closed-channel
selnarm
receiver from the base of his skull. She sent (candor, fairness). “So, Cluster-Leader, does that serve to confirm the state of ‘amicability’ that exists between myself and Senior Admiral Torhok?”

Mretlak placed the band-shaped receiver on the edge of Ankaht’s desk with great care. “Indeed it does, Elder.”

(Amusement.) “And are you suitably shocked?”

“I am suitably reassured…and unsurprised. Senior Admiral Torhok’s mind is occupied by a great vision of our future—so great, that there hardly seems room for any vision other than his own.”

(Rue, appreciation.) “You have an aptitude for expressing yourself in very politic terms, Mretlak.”

“I had an excellent tutor, Elder.”

“Ah. Admiral Narrok. And how is he?”

Mretlak’s tentacles rippled restively. “As well as can be expected. Under the circumstances.”

(Sympathy, concern.) “And what circumstances are those?”

“Having to follow orders that he knows will lead to the pointless discarnation of so many trained souls at a time when we can spare so few. He is torn between his sworn duty to follow orders and his innate duty to serve the good of our race.”

Ankaht nodded soberly, sent (accord), and wondered what quirk of Illudor’s wisdom had sent this prize—Mretlak—to her doorstep this day. He was dangerous insofar as he was not under her direct authority or scrutiny, but the natural possibilities for alliance and mutual assistance between them were profound. He evidently saw that as clearly as she did, since it had been he who had proposed their meeting. Yet there was still some reluctance, some reserve in him…but perhaps the source of that reserve would soon present itself. In the meantime…“Am I right in understanding that, although you technically report directly to Senior Admiral Torhok, you have never met with him since your reassignment? Not even once?”

(Affirmation.) “Even though I traveled on his flagship all the way from Achilles.”

“And do you have any conjectures to explain his benign neglect?”

“Obviously, because my assignment to gather and assemble detailed strategic intelligence on both past and present human military behavior was merely an excuse to remove me from Admiral Narrok’s staff. In being reassigned, I have simply been shunted to the side and, thereby, administratively contained.”

“My sympathies.”

“Appreciated, but unnecessary, Elder. This evolution of events is most suitable to my purposes.”

“How so?”

Mretlak spread his lesser tentacles loosely: relaxed confidence. “Although the senior admiral presumes little if anything is to be gained by starting a military-intelligence cluster, Admiral Narrok and I anticipate quite the opposite. And if Senior Admiral Torhok is too busy to give specific procedural orders or issue targeted directives, that leaves me free to work on topics—and use methods—without his oversight.”

He is self-effacing, particularly so for a Destoshaz—and hence, his own caste will completely miss the shrewd and quiet boldness in this one.
“This is well reasoned indeed, Group-Leader. And fortuitous, I think.”

“Fortuitous, Elder?”

“Yes—because it would not do to have Admiral Torhok or any of his contemporaries decide upon the staff and operational procedures of our intelligence service. The reactivation of such a—specialty—requires a mindset that is ready to think well beyond the received wisdoms of this day. Our
military intelligence, of old, had necessarily been a synergistic enterprise among castes that now frequently find themselves at odds with each other.”