Guardian of Night (11 page)

Dear Neddie, people get the idea that just because they’ve managed not to get themselves killed in 30, 40, 50, 150 years, then that means they know something valuable. Nobody ever attributes it to luck. Truth is, luck usually turns out to be by far the best explanation for most examples of long-term survival. As always, wish you were here. D.

All right, there it was. He’d written the postcard.

Satisfied, self?

Now to find a mailbox, send it. He’d already stamped the cards in his pocket and printed their addresses on them.

P-mail would have never worked. Neddie was too young to have a p-mail account. Nope, postcards were the way to go.

Leher suddenly had another thought that he simply had to include on the postcard, even though even he was running out of room at the bottom. He squeezed his letters into a compact, infinitesimal marching line to finish.

P.S. Neddie, people say we make our own luck, and it’s undeniably true sometimes. But mostly this comes about just by
keeping at it
, not by having the exact right plan. I want you to know that I’ll always try, for the two of us. I won’t give up.

Leher had the feeling he was being watched. He straightened up, slid the postcard into the outer pocket of his uniform jacket, glanced around to see if Tillich was trying once again to melt him with his eyes. Not at the moment. But someone
was
looking at him.

Her.

Samantha Guptha.

Of course
she would be here.

Leher smiled at her and waved a finger. Sam immediately disengaged from her group and stepped over to join him.

“Hi, Griff.”

“Sam.”

She glanced down at the pocket into which he’d put the postcard, and over at the table where the cup he’d touched still lay on its side. She picked up the cracked cup and ran a fingernail along the hairline fissure.

“This set you off?”

Leher nodded.

“Let’s just be careful there . . .” Taking it from her involved touching the cup, but preventing the crack from spreading made that the lesser of two evils. He reached over and carefully took the cup away from her, moved it back from the edge of the table, and set it down.

Leher looked back at Sam, smiled slyly, shrugged—as if they were both in on a joke instead of a very weird . . . whatever it was.

Sam smiled, nodded. “So, I read this analysis everyone’s buzzing about,” she said. “Kind of brilliant.”

“Thanks,” said Leher. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“What does the weapon
do
, Sam?”

“Ah,” said Sam. “Yeah, I have a few thoughts. If I could get my hands on that thing . . .” Her smile became a look of fascination. Even longing.

The look he’d fallen in love with, once upon a time.

“Why are you here, Sam? I thought the first rule of contracting was not to bring an engineer to a management fight,” Leher said. “Femtodynamics run out of brass?”

“I
am
brass these days, Griff. Vice President of Research,” Sam replied. “Been a year now. I assigned myself to this meeting.”

He should’ve known. Should’ve called. Sent her a card—a postcard, a postcard addressed to a real address—something. And he
would
have. But the past year of work had been so pressing. He’d practically disappeared into it. And what free time he had was taken up with the rituals. With writing Neddie.

Leher shrugged, cocked his head. “Don’t I remember you once telling me that any woman in a business suit is a guaranteed uptight bitch?”

“Guess there was a dark mistress of bitchiness hiding in my closet. Now she’s out. Let me tell you, honey, the party never stops in Mordor.”

Sam’s ice-cream-smooth Northern Alabama accent was still capable of sending pleasant chills through Leher. And her Punjabi good looks still seemed to his mind incongruous when combined with the accent.

She’d grown up in Huntsville, the only child of two immigrant engineers from New Delhi who worked for the old ATK Space Systems. Leher had met her in college, and the two of them had become best friends while going out with one another’s roommates.

They’d kept in touch in grad school—Sam had leaned on him during her breakup with the boyfriend—but had grown apart as both went their separate ways into very different careers.

Then came the invasion and the PW66 project. Sam was working on the team that figured out how to transport a nuclear warhead using the first Q drive. Leher had been a JAG lawyer on the project, fending off Pentagon bureaucrats and making sure the ad hoc team had legal room to operate. The work was top secret. Leher was among the few who knew that Sam was one of the brains that had saved humanity from instant capitulation to the sceeve.

She was a goddamn hero. One day, Sam would be in the history books—if there were going to be any more history books. But for the moment, she was just another aerospace executive.

“Mordor? Pretty geeky way to describe being a corporate Nazi,” Leher said.

“That’s Queen Geek to you, sir.” Sam smiled. Her teeth were whiter than they really ought to be. And she no longer wore glasses. Lasik? Or probably the new acuity drops made of tiny nanotech lens crafters. He kind of missed the wire frames. “Anyway, it’s a running game against a passing game,” she said.

“Much better. That sounds
exactly
like something a corporate Nazi would say.”

“Uh-huh. How you been, Griff?”

“Shoveling the coal of cultural linguistics into the firebox of the American war machine.”

Sam shook her head. “Goodness. Then you ought to have developed more muscles.”

“Touché.”

Sam selected one of the china cups next to the urn—all the cups bore the presidential seal—and clinked it onto a matching platter. “Guess that’s probably why you haven’t called in a year and a half.”

“No, I—”

She moved next to him and playfully shouldered him aside in order to reach the coffee urn’s spigot. He caught a trace of tobacco tang from her hair as she passed.

Oh, man, she’s back to smoking.

Time to change the subject.

“So—you’re in on the war council,” he said.

Sam nodded. “Had to head-butt my way in, but yes.” Sam’s eyes were sparkling, predatory. It was a side of her he’d rarely seen before. “I signed on as technical support and then made sure the marketing v.p. got a shit-his-britches call from Kylie late last night that sent him packing back to Huntsville.”

Kylie Jorgenson was the president of Femtodynamics, Sam’s company. Jorgenson had been navy, the director on the PW66 project back in the day. Back then Sam had hated Jorgenson—who was originally from Boston and projected Yankee bluntness—but had simultaneously been fascinated by her. She had now obviously become some sort of protégé.

“So here you are, the face of Femtodynamics at our little get-together.”

Sam nodded. She took another sip of coffee, left pale coral lipstick on the china rim. Leher successfully resisted the urge to take the cup from her and wipe it clean with a napkin.

There was a rumble in the corner. Tillich was speaking heatedly to a woman in a suit who’d approached him. Sam nodded toward Tillich. “How does it feel to be the Old Man’s designated executioner? You made a pretty devastating case for taking the offense in your summer report.”

“Yes, I suppose,” Leher said. “I take no pleasure in going against the admiral. And I’m far from sure we’ll win. Argosy is still on the table.”

“It’s going to be tricky. He’s got lots of friends,” Sam said. “Powerful ones in the Senate. I’ve gone up against him a few times, lost some battles. And you know he practically owns the space-serving Extry.”

“Never a truer word spoken,” said Leher. “Look at me. I’m
right
. I know I’m right and he’s wrong. But he still scares the hell out of me.”

“He can’t win this fight, Griff, or we’re toast. You know that. Better he’s taken out by somebody who respects him.”

Then a geist flickered into being in the reception-room doorway. Leher recognized the blue-green projection as KWAME, the president’s chief of staff. He was a servant, an artificial intelligence. His geist had the features of a middle-aged black man but was entirely monochrome in color, including his clothing.

“There’s KWAME,” Leher said.

“Where?” said Sam, turning around and scanning the room. Then she shook her head, chuckled. “Stupid me, I left my salt charger back in Huntsville,” she said. “Now I’m low on battery, and I can’t see a thing in the chroma.”

In fact, only half the people in the room were adequately salted or charged up to see the projected image of the president’s a.i. chief of staff. You could tell who was by who had turned his or her face to the door. There was a murmur as those who could see in the chroma explained what was going on to those who could not. Leher joined in.

“KWAME’s standing by the doorway,” Leher said. “He’s giving us the cue that the president’s ready for us.”

“Better get back with my team, then,” Sam said. “I’ve got two of my best along with me. It’s going to be quite crowded in there. Suppose I’ll be rooting for you from across the room.”

“We can pass notes,” Leher said.

“Sure, dude.” Sam smiled. “It’s . . .” A small tear in Sam’s eye, which she flicked away with a lacquered nail. “It’s good to see you, Griff. Been too long.”

Leher took Sam’s hand and pulled her into a quick hug, careful not to upset her coffee, then made his way through the waiting National Security luminaries. Leher turned a corner and headed for the president’s office.

And nearly tripped over his own feet.

Shit. The Lincoln Plaza linoleum markings. He’d forgotten about the linoleum. Black and white checkerboard. When he was here, he always stepped only on the black tiles. White was bad. Easily scuffed. But he’d never had a crowd of bigwigs pressing at his back before. Shit. He’d have to move fast and still be careful. This was going to be one of those trials by fire his OCD often handed him.

Leher felt a touch on his shoulder. He turned to see Coalbridge, the Extry captain he’d met before.

“Want to take point?” Coalbridge said quietly. “I’ll follow behind you on cleanup. I’ll make sure nobody gets pushy.”

Leher considered. Could he trust Captain Courageous not to fuck with him? Leher tugged at his beard. Not ready for trim. Two more tugs. Always three in a row for full verification. Nope, no trim yet.

“Yeah, that would be great,” he said to Coalbridge. “Thanks.”

Coalbridge moved directly behind him, and Leher continued down the hall. With a sigh of relief, Leher took only the black tiles. Behind him, Coalbridge did as he promised and slowed the pace of the nervous group. Nobody tried to push Leher along.

Then through the open door and onto the blue carpet of the president’s office. It had once been a fruit market and sometimes was still referred to that way by Capitol staffers. Of course, it bore no resemblance to a store now. The original owner and all his employees had been killed by churn in the first sceeve attack.

After the entire gang of twenty or so officers, political aides, and contractor senior reps (including Sam) had trooped in and taken seats around an enormous conference table, KWAME mimicked closing the door behind them all, although in reality he had actuated some sort of servo in the hinges that did the actual door-swinging. He flickered out of existence and then appeared again, standing at attention across the room.

And there beside him at the end of the table sat Taneesha Joelle Frost, the sixty-fifth president of the United States.

She looked worried. Very worried.

Leher didn’t blame her.

The sceeve were coming back.

SIX

22 December 2075

Vicinity of 82 Eridani

A.S.C.
Powers of Heaven

Transel had found the Poet. Here, on this vessel.
His
vessel. The craft beta conditioner was on the other side of the vessel from the direction DDCM Receptor Lirish Transel was currently headed, but Transel had deduced long before that the Poet would never be found near the conditioner. No, he must have something like a virtual conditioner that fed off the main transmitter’s Q uncertainties.

Such a clever trick. A novelty as an end in itself.

Transel felt the acidic bile of contempt rise in his nostrils, as he did whenever he considered the nonsense the Poet was spewing. The waste of effort required to bring him to justice.

The repugnance of having to listen to the spew in order to do his job.

The knowledge that this subversive garbage was being secretly recorded, bounced to beta relay points, messengered in drones, passed hand-to-hand among officers, rebroadcast through the armada.

Disseminated.

Those traitorous officers—the ones who had been caught—claimed to think the Poet funny, amusing. A way to pass a mind-numbing voyage. Some thought him profound.

Worst of all, the Poet was beginning to spawn imitators. Other poets were cropping up in the armada, even in the Shiro.

This must be stopped. Everyone from the top level down agreed, and the directive had gone out.

And now Transel had isolated the Poet to
this
vessel. The original broadcasts of the Poet were originating with the
Powers of Heaven
!

It was an amazing stroke of luck. Transel suspected he, Transel, was about to become a hero. Granted, only within the clandestine coterie of the DDCM. But still. Not a bad reward for a bit of detective work.

More importantly, Transel felt he was serving the cause of justice in a pure way, a way he’d not been able to in the messy world of Sporata deployment. He felt good. He felt virtuous.

He was going to see the Poet ripped to pieces by the dismemberment knives!

Transel had fixed the traitor Gitaclaber’s actual location: a little-used janitorial storage area near the Q drives. He’d brought a gun—it had an official designation but was nicknamed a “painter” since its action was to release a cloud of needles at the target, with the “painting” itself being an empty, needle-free shadow behind the target on a bulkhead. The body would not be needle-free, of course. Quite the contrary. Transel quickly made his way down the accessway toward the storage area. He felt like a scouring wind, about to turn stone to sand.