The Saga of Seven Suns: Veiled Alliances (6 page)
Read The Saga of Seven Suns: Veiled Alliances Online
Authors: Kevin J. Anderson
Tags: #Fiction, #Science Fiction, #General
9
CHAIRMAN MALCOLM STANNIS
It had been a very gratifying week.
Despite his initial reservations about the massive diplomatic force of the Ildiran Solar Navy, Stannis now saw many advantages to the alien presence. The Terran Hanseatic League was changed forever; never again would it be so limited. At times, the possibilities left him breathless, and he had already filled many more pages in his journal file of ideas to pursue.
With the maniple of warliners parked in orbit, Adar Bali’nh remained at the Whisper Palace as a guest. Since Ildirans thrived on pomp and pageantry, King Ben treated him to diplomatic banquets and parades in his honor. The Adar had even taken brief trips to the lunar settlement and the industrial colonies in the asteroid belt, though the military base on Mars remained discreetly off limits.
These Ildirans seemed so human, and, yet, having watched them closely during their time on Earth, Stannis could recognize that they were alarmingly different, with certain incomprehensible attitudes.
He still didn’t understand why the aliens were so strangely, perhaps foolishly, benevolent—offering their remarkable technology and asking for little in return. When he ventured a cautious question to see if he could make Bali’nh confess some secret motivation, the alien commander would say only, “The Mage-Imperator commanded it.” Bali’nh didn’t think any other answer was necessary.
Stardrives! Faster-than-light travel would carry Hansa trade vessels across the Spiral Arm, and human colonists were eager to plant the Hansa flag on dozens, if not hundreds, of fresh worlds . . . all those planets, just there for the taking!
He had already established five blue-ribbon committees, and the Terran Hanseatic League was poised for significant expansion far beyond the solar system. With all the opportunities for commerce with the Ildiran Empire, and for resource development on countless untapped planets and moons, the potential for profit and power was unimaginable. And Malcolm Stannis had a very good imagination.
Now, as the Solar Navy made ready to depart, crowds gathered in the Palace District for a huge sendoff. Cannons shot glittering confetti into the air, creating a multicolored celebratory blizzard. The forty-nine warliners gathered in the sky above the Whisper Palace, while King Ben and Adar Bali’nh made a final public appearance together. Stannis watched from an inner room, accompanied by Liam Hector, as the King and the Adar stepped out into view.
The King wore royal blue robes this time, delivering his speech of gratitude from the high balcony of the Palace. Beside him the Adar stood in full military dress spangled with incomprehensible medals and badges. His long dark hair blew loosely about his head, showing off his lightning-bolt streaks of white.
King Ben raised his hands and, on cue, a crowd let out a deafening cheer. “We gather to bid farewell to the Ildiran warliners—for a time. The human race owes so much to our new friends in the Spiral Arm.” He turned to Bali’nh and extended a hand for a firm handshake, a human gesture that the Adar had been taught.
Adar Bali’nh offered the formal open-palmed Ildiran salute in response. “We are pleased to welcome you as our neighbors in the Spiral Arm, King Ben. We also established new homes for ten of your generation ships. May your splinter colonies thrive.”
King Ben was grinning, and Stannis watched from an inner operations center, a corridor away from the speaking balcony. The Chairman was concerned. The King seemed too much at ease, as if he had forgotten the importance of every single word he uttered.
As another cutter loaded with human explorers rose up to the Solar Navy vessels, King Ben addressed the crowd, continuing to heighten their excitement. “While Earth builds new ships that incorporate the Ildiran stardrive, Adar Bali’nh has graciously offered to assist our explorers. We celebrate these brave pioneers who will find candidate worlds for us to colonize.”
Three hundred white doves were released into the air, flying up above the crowd like liberated spirits. The crowd gasped, then applauded. King Ben stepped forward, clasping his hands in front of him. “Oh, this is a wonderful day! Earth will benefit so much by joining the Ildiran Empire. The Terran Hanseatic League will certainly profit from such a direct alliance.”
Stannis’s eyes flew open in shock. What the hell did the King think he was saying? “That wasn’t in the script!” As he ran toward the speaking balcony, he shouted over his shoulder to his aide, “Mr. Hector, cut the sound system. Shut it down before the King gets us into any more trouble!” He felt sick and knew he couldn’t run fast enough.
On the balcony, even Adar Bali’nh looked surprised by what the old man had said. “You wish Earth to join the Ildiran Empire, King Ben?”
The very idea was absurd. Red-faced and gasping, Stannis lurched out onto the balcony between King Ben and Adar Bali’nh. It took all his self-control to quell his anger.
The King tapped the microphone, puzzled to realize that the sound had cut off in mid-sentence. No one could hear what they were saying.
Stannis grasped Ben’s robed arm, squeezing like a vise. He wanted to wring King Ben’s neck, but his image was being broadcast to billions of people right now. “Please Majesty, let me
assist
you away from the balcony. We have encountered some technical difficulties.” He hoped Adar Bali’nh would believe the clumsy excuse. “I’m sorry, Adar—the King isn’t feeling well enough to complete his speech. It will be rescheduled. Please, enjoy the performance.”
Liam Hector, bless him, had given orders for marching bands to come forward and play a loud and brassy fanfare in the main square.
Stannis dragged the King down the corridor and into a private room. The Chairman’s face was hot, his heart pounding hard. Ben looked befuddled and apprehensive, knowing he had made a serious mistake and he was in a great deal of trouble. “What, Malcolm? What did I do wrong?”
The idiot didn’t even know!
Finally, with the door slammed shut to give them privacy, Stannis raised his voice, “Do you have any idea what you just said? You—the King of Earth—offered to have us join the Ildiran Empire, to accept the rule of an alien leader! We’ll have to apologize, backpedal, and hope there’s no permanent damage.”
The King looked away, his shoulders slumped. He was trembling. “Sorry Malcolm. I just got carried away.” He heaved a sigh, spoke with more of a whine. “I don’t like how everything’s changed, all this added responsibility I suddenly have, spending every waking hour with an alien diplomat. I’m just an actor and a spokesman, not a leader—that’s why Chairman Burke invented the role of King in the first place. I wasn’t supposed to be much more than a mascot, somebody in charge of parades and handing out awards. All this pressure is just too much for me.”
“That’s an understatement,” Stannis grumbled. “I have no idea how we’re going to get out of this. Maybe the Adar didn’t comprehend what you said.”
“But Malcolm, even
I
don’t understand what I said! What was wrong with it? Wouldn’t it be best if we humans joined the Ildiran Empire, joined forces? They’ve offered us so much already.”
Stannis pinched the bridge of his nose and turned away, closing his eyes. He could feel a migraine pounding in the back of his skull. “Oh, go to bed where you can ‘rest and recuperate.’ I’m going to be up all night trying to fix this.”
Dejected, the King shuffled away. Stannis waited in the private room a long time before Liam Hector returned to announce the measures he had taken. So far there seemed to be no repercussions, but Stannis still felt nauseated. He shook his head. “Obviously, Liam, we can’t let that old fool do any more damage! I will not stand by and see our power stripped away.”
10
COREY KELLUM
Circular repairs
, that was the best name for it, Corey thought.
After the Ildirans left, his technicians and engineers had rushed around like children on a birthday morning, eager to see how the huge facility really worked, despite the formal briefings. They compared the clean Ildiran blueprints with the actual configurations; they tinkered with the cloud trawler’s power trains, the reactor lines, the levitation engines, the life-support modules, the food-processing systems. They carried electronic clipboards, studied holographic diagrams, and complained about the awkward Ildiran design.
They made repairs to the main ekti reactors, while Corey inventoried the export cylinders for all the stardrive fuel they planned to harvest. If they got the cloud trawler running to his satisfaction, they were going to need a lot more containers.
His crew combed over the floating industrial facility, running diagnostics (and, more often than not, repairs) on system after system. Over the years, the piping, electrical conduits, sensor chains, power-distribution systems, and rerouted channels had grown like vines in a fractal rainforest. No one could quite figure out what half of the systems did, other than to hamper the ekti-processing efficiency. And when the teams finished working on one deck and moved on to the next, something broke down in the previous day’s modifications, and they had to go back and start all over again.
Circular repairs
.
Shoulder to shoulder, Corey and Oliver bent over an open maintenance panel trying to dissect and comprehend the intricacies of the systems. “The Ildirans must have had some reason for doing all of this nonsense,” said Oliver, following a thick cable to a dead end. He held up the capped terminus, which did absolutely nothing as far as he could tell.
Corey shook his head and gave up in exasperation, extracting his fingers from the tangle of wires and connectors. In front of him, the holographic system grid showed a detailed map, and he tried to match the blueprint with what he saw with his own eyes. “Somebody must have thought it was a good idea, and then generations of Ildirans just continued the modifications without asking questions. This cloud trawler needs a full-blown overhaul. If our clans had run the
Kanaka
like this, we would have died twenty years out from Earth.” He forced an optimistic grin. “Then again, Oliver, if the Ildirans knew what they were doing, they’d have no need for us, and we’d be out of a job.”
In only a few weeks, however, they began to send shipments of stardrive fuel aboard Ildiran vessels. In spite of constant breakdowns and unexpected delays, the cloud trawler already produced ekti at the same rate it had under the most experienced Ildirans. After his crews installed one more round of enhancements, Corey expected the trawler to double its output within a month.
When Sara Becker announced over the intercom that an Ildiran cargo ship had arrived to pick up a load of fuel canisters, Corey told Oliver, “Keep tinkering with the reactor process monitors. I’m going to the control dome to monitor the cargo.”
“And leave me with all the work?” Oliver said.
Grinning, Corey gave his friend a mock salute. “It’s my way of showing confidence in your abilities.” Taking a lift up to the control dome atop the big cloud trawler, where Sara was monitoring all the screens and calling his crew to prepare the fuel canisters for transfer. The Ildiran pilot radioed in as he approached, “How much ekti do you have prepared for us?”
Corey sauntered in and answered, “A full load, come and get it.”
Sara Becker leaned over the comm and said, “Sorry we’re a bit slow—the other two skymines were ready days ago.”
“Nevertheless, your ekti output has exceeded expectations, Cloud Trawler Number One,” said the cargo captain. “The Mage-Imperator will be pleased.”
Corey switched off the comm and muttered, “I’m insulted they had such low expectations of us.”
Sara shrugged. “Even I wasn’t sure we could pull it off, Corey.” She ran a quick display of the production output, and the repair-crew schedules.
“All operations running smoothly, I presume?”
Sara forced a smile, “Same as usual, Corey.”
He rolled his eyes, “Come on, we can do better than that!”
“Not until we have the faster processing units installed.”
“We’re working on it, Sara. We’re working on it.”
Corey enjoyed tinkering with the systems and getting his hands dirty, but Sara preferred to manage the teams and operations, like pieces in a complex strategy game. He was impressed with how efficient she managed to be without seeming bossy.
Leaving Sara to her screens, he descended to the cargo bay where his workers were already loading ekti canisters onto the Ildiran cargo ship. The alien captain stood on a high deck, arms crossed over his chest as he oversaw the operations.
Corey waved and shouted up, “This agreement will work out just fine for all of us, Captain. You can come back in a week for another full load. We’ve got most of the glitches in the ekti reactors worked out, though we believe they’re only running at a fraction of their realistic capacity.” He climbed the stairs to stand next to the Ildiran captain, and they both watched a line of his men carrying the fuel canisters. “We’ve already increased production, you know, and we haven’t even incorporated our major improvements yet. Before long, our people are going to run circles around your other cloud trawlers. We’ll be ready to assume control over Number Two and Number Three within months.”
“We are not opposed to efficiency and increased production, Corey Kellum. The Mage-Imperator is satisfied with our arrangement.”
After the loaded cargo ship flew away, Corey returned to the lower decks where Oliver continued to work on the frustrating systems. Grease smeared the man’s cheeks, and he shook his head in exasperation when Corey arrived. “Every time we open up a new compartment, there’s another surprise. The Ildirans held this skymine together with twine and prayers. Those levitation engines are a jury-rigged mess. It’s a wonder the thing is still afloat—they sold us a lemon.”
“Then it’s a tribute to our ingenuity that we have it running so well, isn’t it?” Corey said, grinning at his friend. “Anyway, we weren’t in a position to be choosey. Would you rather be on Iawa watching our crops die?”
“Nah.” Oliver laughed. “It’s not in my nature to settle down in the dust. I’d rather be roaming above an untamed world.”
The human families had settled in, accepting the new situation, perfectly comfortable in the enclosed quarters, drifting along on the breezes. This was definitely a new home for them.
The two men looked out at the ocean of gray and lavender clouds. Corey said, “This place . . . we’ve got room to breathe.”