The End of All Things: The Fourth Instalment (10 page)

“They did, but then we found out about it.
So they changed their plans to include you.”

“They’ll kill billions here just to make the two of you fight up there.”

“That’s about right.”

Danielle glowered.
“This is a fucked-up universe we live in, Harry.”

“I’ve been telling you that for as long as I’ve known you.”

“Yes, but before this I could still believe you might be
wrong
about it.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” Danielle said.
“It might be the Colonial Union’s fault.
In fact, I’m pretty sure it is, if you go back far enough.”

“You’re not entirely wrong.”

“No, I’m not.
The Colonial Union—”

I held up a hand.
Danielle paused.
“You know you lecture me about the Colonial Union every time I see you,” I said.
“And every time I see you I tell you that you and I don’t really disagree.
If it’s okay with you, I’d be fine with just having this bit of our interaction tabled as read, so we can move on to other things.”

Danielle looked at me sourly.
“I
like
ranting about the Colonial Union.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.
“By all means please continue.”

“It’s too late for that,” she said.
“The moment’s gone.”

Our food arrived.

“Now I’m not hungry,” Danielle said.

“It’s difficult to keep an appetite in the face of global nuclear extinction,” I said.
I carved into a waffle.

“You don’t seem to be having a problem,” Danielle observed, dryly.
“But then it’s not your planet.”

“It certainly is my planet,” I said.
“I’m from Indiana.”

“But not recently.”

“Recently enough, I assure you,” I said.
I took a bite of waffle, chewed it, and swallowed it.
“The reason I can eat is because I have a plan.”

“You have a plan.”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“And you thought up this plan on your own, did you.”

“No, Ambassador Abumwe thought it up,” I said.
“Most of it.
I helped in the margins.”

“Don’t take this the wrong way—”

“This is gonna be good,” I said, and took a drink of my orange juice.

“—but the fact it’s Abumwe who thought up this plan is more reassuring than if you thought it up.”

“Yes, I know,” I said.
“She’s a grown-up.”

“Yes,” Danielle said.
“Whereas you look like my kid brother.”

“Despite the fact I’m older than you and Abumwe combined.”

“Scratch that.
You look like my kid brother’s distractingly hot college roommate.
And please stop telling me you’re old enough to be my grandfather.
The cognitive dissonance really ruins it for me.”

I grinned.
“You seem to be processing the end of days pretty well,” I said.

“Do I?”
Danielle said.
“Yes, well.
Rest assured that the moment the flirty banter stops I’m going to be well and truly losing my shit, Harry.”

“Don’t,” I said.
“Remember, we have a plan from a responsible grown-up.”

“And what does this plan entail, Harry?”

“Several small things, and one very big thing,” I said.

“And what’s that?”

“The Earth trusting the Colonial Union.”

“To do what?”

“To save you.”

“Ah,” Danielle said.
“I can already tell you
that’s
going to be a tough sell.”

“And now you know why I’m here instead of sending you a note.
And why I’m talking to you first.”

“Harry,” Danielle cautioned.
“Just because we like each other as people doesn’t mean that my father or anyone else will listen to you.”

“Of course not,” I said.
“But us liking each other, and me saving your life twice, is enough to get my foot in the door.
And then the plan will take over.”

“It better be a good plan, Harry.”

“It is.
I promise.”

“What else are you going to need besides us trusting you?”

“One of your ships,” I said.
“And, if you’re not too busy, you.”

“Why me?”

“Because we’re going to go talk to Hafte Sorvalh, the head of the Conclave.
You’ve been head of a mission to the Conclave very recently.
If we get an agreement down here, we have things to talk about to her up there.”

“The Conclave’s officially not talking to you right now.”

“Yes, I know.
We have a plan.”

“Abumwe again?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” Danielle said, and got out her PDA.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m calling Dad.”

“Let me finish brunch first.”

“I thought this was a matter of some urgency, Harry.”

“It is,” I said.
“But I fell from the sky today.
I could use a couple of waffles.”

PART THREE

“Well, and here we are again,” Hafte Sorvalh said, to the three of us.
“And how completely unsurprising this seems to me.”

Sorvalh’s audience consisted of Ambassador Abumwe, Ambassador Lowen, and me, as their joint underling for the meeting.
Sorvalh had her own underling with her, if one could genuinely call Vnac Oi, the head of intelligence for all of the Conclave, an underling.
Sorvalh and the ambassadors were sitting; Oi and I, standing.
I was doing a lot of standing in meetings recently.

We five were in her private study at Conclave headquarters.
On the other side of the door, literally and figuratively, were ambassadorial staff and experts and advisors, from Earth, from the Colonial Union, and from the Conclave.
If one was quiet, one could feel their combined howling frustration at not being in the room at the moment.

“May I be honest with you?”
Lowen asked Sorvalh.
I noted that I found it difficult to think of her as “Danielle” when she was on the job.
Not because she materially changed her personality when she was working, but simply out of respect for her position.

“Ambassador, I believe the point of this current discussion is to be honest with each other, is it not?”
Sorvalh asked.

“I assumed that there would be more of us in the room for this discussion.”

Sorvalh smiled one of her absolutely-terrifying-to-humans smiles.
“I believe each of our staffs thought the same thing, Ambassador,” she said.
“But I have always found that there’s an inverse relationship between the number of people in a room and the amount of useful work that can be done.
Now that I am the person in charge of things, I find it even more so.
Do you not?”

“No,” Lowen said.
“I think you’re right, by and large.”

“Of course I am.
And, Madams Ambassador, I believe that the reason we are here is to have a
definitively
useful meeting, are we not?”

“It is to be hoped,” Abumwe said.

“Precisely,” Sorvalh said.
“So, no, Ambassador.
I believe we have precisely the correct number of people in the room.”

“Yes, Premier Sorvalh,” Lowen said.

“Then let’s not waste any more time.”
Sorvalh turned her attention to Abumwe.
“You may begin, Ambassador.”

“Premier Sorvalh, Equilibrium intends to attack the Earth with nuclear weapons and make it appear to the Colonial Union that it is the Conclave that initiated the attack.”

“Yes,” Sorvalh said.
“Vnac Oi here gave me a précis of the report you prepared for us.
I assume you are going to ask us for our help in thwarting the attack, seeing that we are meant to be blamed for it.”

“No, Premier,” Abumwe said.
“We want the attack to proceed.”

Sorvalh reared back slightly at this, looked over to Lowen, and then back at Abumwe.
“Well!”
she said, after a moment.
“This is certainly a bold and unexpected strategy.
I’m fascinated to learn how this will be beneficial to any of us, not least the poor irradiated citizens of Earth.”

“Lieutenant,” Abumwe said to me.

“We want the attack to proceed because we need to draw out Equilibrium,” I said.
“The group is small, driven, and has been difficult for us—any of us—to locate and attack.
The one successful attack against the group as a whole was by Rafe Daquin, when he escaped from their control.
But other than that they’ve been very good at working in the shadows.”

“Yes they have,” Oi said.
“We’ve purged known Equilibrium operatives, as I’m sure both Earth and the Colonial Union have.”
Abumwe and Lowen both nodded here.
“But at this point they don’t appear to need any additional operational intelligence to continue their plans.”

“Or they simply have new allies,” Abumwe said.

“Either way your man is correct.”
Oi motioned at me with a tendril.

“We found their new base,” Abumwe said.

“Where?”
asked Oi.

“On Sedna,” I said.
“A dwarf planet on the edge of Earth’s solar system.
We confirmed it just before Ambassador Abumwe’s ship skipped here.”

“Then this conversation should be about how you’ve wiped them out already,” Sorvalh said.

“It’s more complicated than that,” Abumwe said.

“We know where their new base is, but their fleet—the fleet with which they intend to wipe out Earth—isn’t there,” I said.
“They’re showing cautiousness.”

“So even if the Colonial Union destroyed the base, Earth would still be vulnerable to attack,” Lowen said.

“That’s why we need the attack to proceed,” Abumwe said.
“Draw out the ships over Earth, and simultaneously destroy Equilibrium at their base.
Leave nowhere for either element to go.”

“I’m still not clear how this involves the Conclave,” Sorvalh said.

“We can’t do both,” I said.
“Equilibrium will only act if it’s confident the Colonial Union has no way to respond to their attack on Earth.
We need to commit a substantial portion of our CDF fleet to give the appearance we’re threatening the nine planets declaring their independence.
We need to be seen taking ships away from the skip drive line, to make it look like it would take days for our ships to respond to an attack on Earth.
We also have to have enough ships to immediately respond to Equilibrium’s attack, hidden where it would not think to look for them.
We need to be sure we have enough ships to keep even a single nuke from making it to the Earth’s atmosphere.
That means generously overestimating the number of ships we need.”

“So you’ll need the Conclave to attack the Equilibrium base,” Oi said.

“Yes,” Abumwe said.
“And we want you to allow us to hide a fleet in Conclave space, at skip distance, so we can respond immediately to the Equilibrium attack on Earth.
We don’t believe Equilibrium will look for our fleet in your space.”

“That means trusting you not to attack whatever system we’d put you in,” Oi said.

“You don’t have to trust us,” Abumwe said.
“Put whatever protections you like on us.
Just give us a place to park our fleet.”

“And you?”
Sorvalh turned her attention to Lowen.
“It’s still the general consensus on your planet that the Colonial Union engineered the attack on Earth Station and killed thousands, including much of your global diplomatic corps.
You’re telling me that the Earth trusts
them,
” she flicked a hand to encompass Abumwe and me, “to protect
you
from annihilation.”

“It wasn’t an easy sale, no,” Lowen admitted.
“This is where the Conclave comes in again.
Our assent for this plan is contingent on your acceptance.
If you don’t trust the Colonial Union, we don’t trust it.”

“And what then?”
Sorvalh asked.
“What if I don’t, in fact, trust it?”

“Then we give you everything we have on the attack,” Abumwe said.
“We give it to you and pray that, despite your recent actions, you are willing to protect the Earth.
You did before.
Your predecessor General Gau did, at the very least.”