The End of All Things #2: This Hollow Union (2 page)

“So remove the humans, and we remove his lever.”

“You remove the lever that he’s grasping today,” Lause said. “He has others.” She reached for her cup of iet
,
saw that it had grown cold, and set it back down again. My assistant Umman popped his head into the room; my next meeting partner had arrived. I nodded to him and then stood. Lause stood as well.

“Thank you, Ristin,” I said. “As always, our chat has been useful and enlightening.”

“I hope so,” Lause said. “A final piece of advice for the day, if I may. Get Hado in here the next chance you get. He’s not going to tell you what he has planned, but it’s everything else he says that will matter anyway. Talk to him even briefly and you’ll know what I know. And you’ll know why I worry the Conclave is in trouble.”

“That is very good advice,” I said. “I plan to take it very soon.”

“How soon?”

“As soon as you leave me,” I said. “Unli Hado is my next appointment.”

*   *   *

“I’m worried that the Conclave is being pushed toward destruction,” Unli Hado said to me, almost before I had time to sit down after welcoming him into my office.

“Well, this is certainly a dramatic way to begin our discussion, Representative,” I said. Umman discreetly slipped back into the office and deposited two bowls on my desk, one closer to me and one closer to Hado. Hado’s was filled with niti
,
an Elpri breakfast food that would kill me if I attempted to eat it, but which Hado was known to relish. My own bowl had tidbits on it shaped like niti
,
but made of Lalan vegetable matter. I did not wish to die in this particular meeting. I had other plans for the rest of the sur. I nodded thanks to Umman; Hado appeared not to notice him. Umman slipped back out of the room.

“I didn’t know that coming to you with a concern would be dismissed as drama,” Hado said. He reached over and fished one of the niti out of his bowl, and then started sucking on it, loudly. I did not know enough about Elpri table manners to decide whether he was being rude.

“I would in no way dismiss your concerns, as drama or anything else,” I replied. “But you may understand that from my end, leading with the destruction of the Conclave doesn’t leave much room for anything else.”

“Does General Gau still intend to bring the humans into the Conclave?” Hado asked.

“You know as well as I do that the general never lobbies a species to join the Conclave,” I said. “He merely shows them the advantages and allows them to ask, if they are interested.”

“That’s a nice fiction,” Hado said. He swallowed his niti and reached for another.

“If the humans asked to join the Conclave—if
either
of the human governments asked to join the Conclave, because as you know there is more than one—then they would go through the same process as everyone else has.”

“For which the general would heavily place his support for the humans.”

“I would imagine only to the extent he has done for any of our species, including the Elpri, Representative Hado. You may recall him standing in the well of the Grand Assembly, praising your people at the time of the vote.”

“For which of course I offer him many thanks.”

“As you should,” I said. “As should every member state of our Conclave. In point of fact, to date, the general has welcomed every species who has asked to join and was willing to accept the terms of union. I wonder why you would think—if in fact either human government wanted to join our union—that the general would do otherwise.”

“It’s because I know something about the humans that the general does not.”

“Secret information?” I said, and reached for one of my own tidbits. “With all due respect, Representative, your track record on secret information regarding the humans is spotty.”

Hado offered what to anyone else would appear to be a genial smile. “I am well aware that I have a history of falling into the traps that you’ve set for me, Councilor. But between ourselves let’s not pretend that we don’t know what really happened.”

“I’m not entirely sure I catch your meaning,” I said, pleasantly.

“Have it your way,” Hado said, and then reached into his vest to pull out a data module. He placed it on my desk between us.

“Is this your secret information?” I asked.

“It’s not secret, just not well known. Yet.”

“Will you give me a précis, or should I just plug it into my computer?”

“You should look at all of it,” Hado said. “But the short version is that a whistleblower from the Colonial Union has released information on all of the Colonial Union’s military and intelligence operations for the last several of their decades. Including the destruction of our fleet at Roanoke, the attacks on Conclave ships and planets using pirated Conclave member trade ships, biological experimentation on Conclave citizens, and the attack on Earth Station.”

I picked up the data module. “How was this whistleblower able to procure all this information?”

“He was an undersecretary of the Colonial Union’s State Department.”

“I don’t suppose this undersecretary is available to us.”

“My understanding is that the Colonial Union reacquired him,” Hado said. “If the Colonials’ standard practices hold, if he’s not already dead, he’s a brain suspended in a jar.”

“I’m curious how this information came to
you,
Representative Hado.”

“I got it this morning by diplomatic courier drone from Elpri,” Hado said. “The information has been readily available there for an Elprian day. The information was apparently released widely. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re offered the information by others, including your own planetary government, Councilor. Nor would I be surprised if it’s offered to the Conclave itself by the end of the sur.”

“We don’t know if this information is reliable, is what you’re telling me.”

“What I’ve read of it—which has been the most recent events, primarily—seems accurate,” Hado said. “It explains at the very least why we’ve been losing trade and cargo ships, and how the Colonial Union has been using them against us.”

“It might not surprise you to know that the Colonial Union has maintained their own civilian ships have been pirated.”

“I won’t deny I am not fond of humanity, but that isn’t to say that I think they are stupid,” Hado said. “Of course they would be doing a magnificent job of obfuscating their plans.”

“And what are their plans, Representative Hado?” I asked.

“The destruction of the Conclave, obviously,” Hado said. “They tried and failed at Roanoke Colony. They are trying again by using our own trade ships against us.”

“At that rate they should topple us at about the same time as the heat death of the universe,” I said.

“It’s not the physical damage. It’s persisting despite the obvious strength of the Conclave.”

“And attacking Earth Station?” I said. “How does that relate to the Conclave?”

“The Colonial Union has denied the attack. Who else should Earth think could orchestrate it?”

“But you don’t want the humans in the Conclave in any event.”

“Neither do I want Earth reconciled with the Colonial Union, offering it soldiers and colonists again.”

“In which case I’m not sure why you would oppose Earth’s admission into the Conclave,” I said. “That would shut the door to the Colonial Union using it as a recruiting station.”

“And frustrate the Colonial Union even further, making them more dangerous,” Hado said. “And aside from that, how would we ever be able to trust any humans? If one group of humans were at war with us and the other our ally, how many of our so-called allies would feel obliged, by species solidarity, to act against our interests?”

“So we are damned if we admit the humans, and damned if we don’t.”

“There is a third option,” Hado said.

I stiffened at this. “You know the general’s opinion on preemptive war, Representative Hado,” I said. “And on genocide.”

“Please, Councilor,” Hado said. “I am suggesting neither, obviously. I am suggesting, however, that war with the humans is inevitable. Sooner or later they will attack, out of opportunism or out of fear.” He pointed to the data module. “The information here makes that much clear. And when they do, if the general does not have a response, then I fear what happens next for the Conclave.”

“The Conclave is robust,” I said.

“Again, it’s not the physical damage to the Conclave I worry about. The Conclave exists because its members are confident in its leader. The general spared the humans once when he could have crushed them. If he does it twice, there comes the legitimate question of why, and for what purpose. And whether his judgment can be relied upon any further.”

“And if the answer is ‘no,’ then I suppose you have an idea of who might take his place,” I said. “To restore this ‘confidence.’”

“You misunderstand me, Councilor,” Hado said. “You always have. You think I have ambitions beyond my station. I assure you I do not. I never have. What I want is what you want, and what the general wants: the Conclave, whole and secure. He has the power to keep it that way. He has the power to destroy it. It all depends on how he deals with the humans. All of them.”

Hado stood, bowed, took a final niti from his bowl, and left.

*   *   *

“He thinks
this
is going to be the thing that destroys the Conclave,” Vnac Oi said, holding the data module Unli Hado had given me. I had traveled to its office, in part to get a change of scenery and in part because as the Conclave’s head of intelligence, its office was substantially more secure than my own.

“I think it’s more the thing Hado plans to use to try to oust Tarsem,” I said.

“It took some nerve to drop it on your desk,” Oi said. “He might as well have put a sign up over his head announcing his plans.”

“Plausible deniability,” I said. “It can never be said he was not the first to alert us to this information and the dangers within. He’s being the perfect example of a helpful and faithful officer of the Conclave.”

Oi gave a whistle of derision. “The Gods should protect us from such faithfulness,” it said.

I pointed to the data module. “What do we know about this?”

“We know Hado wasn’t lying about how he got it,” Oi said. “This information has showed up at several dozen Conclave worlds already and more reports are coming in. The data is consistent across the various planets. It even showed up here.”

“How?”

“Diplomatic courier skip drone. Credentials forged, which we determined right away, but we examined the data anyway. Same data as in every other packet we’ve been offered.”

“Any idea where it came from?”

“No,” Oi said. “The skip drone is Faniu manufacture. They make hundreds of thousands of them a year. The drone’s navigational cache was clear, no skip history on it. The data itself was unencrypted and in standard Conclave format.”

“Have you looked at it?”

“There’s too much to just look at. Reading it manually would take more time than we’d want. We’ve got computers doing semantic and data analysis on it to get the important information and trends. That will still take several sur.”

“I mean did
you
look at it,” I said.

“Of course,” Oi said. “There was a document that came with it highlighting particular bits of information whoever sent it thought might be relevant to us. I skimmed.”

“What do you think?”

“Officially or personally?”

“Both.”

“Officially, anonymous information that shows up randomly at one’s door should be treated as suspicious until proven otherwise. That said, the documents we’ve done spot analysis on conform strongly to the Colonial Union’s data formatting and known activity. If it’s fake, it’s very cleverly done, at least superficially.”

“And personally?”

“You know we have sources in the Colonial Union, yes?” Oi said. “Ones I don’t go out of my way to let either you or the general know too much about?”

“Of course.”

“As soon as this started popping up I sent a query to one of them about this alleged whistleblower, this Undersecretary Ocampo. Just before you got here I got a ping back. He exists, or at least
did
exist. He went missing several of their months ago. He would have had access to this information. So personally I think it’s very possible this is legitimate.”

“Hado seemed to be under the impression that the Colonial Union had found this Ocampo.”

“I have no information on that, and I’d be curious to know how he does,” Oi said.

“It might be a rumor.”

“This would be the time for rumors about this information,” Oi agreed. “Do you want me to look into it?”

Before I could answer my handheld buzzed out the sequence that told me Umman was trying to reach me for a critical purpose. I answered. “Yes?”

“Your manicurist called and wishes to inquire about your next appointment,” Umman said.

“I’m in Oi’s office, Umman,” I said, glancing over at Oi, whose expression was studiously neutral. “And you can be sure it already knows about my ‘manicurist.’”

“I’ll just send the message over, then,” Umman said.

“Thank you.” I terminated the call and waited for the message.

“Thank you for not being offended that I know your business,” Oi said.

“Thank you for not pretending to be offended that I would suggest you know my business,” I said.

The message arrived. “And what does Colonel Rigney of the Colonial Union have to say?” Oi asked.

“He says, ‘By this time you’ve probably seen the data alleging to be from our Department of State Undersecretary Ocampo,’” I read. “‘Some of it is true. Much of it is not. What is not is of concern to both the Colonial Union and the Conclave. We are sending an envoy to treat with the Conclave on this to reach an amicable resolution before things escalate. She is Ambassador Ode Abumwe, known to you, and will be in possession of information to clarify or refute what you have in your possession. I ask, with the basis of our previous association as proof of earnest intent, that you see her and hear what she has to say.’ And then there’s data on Ambassador Abumwe’s intended arrival time and position.”