Caines mutiny, p.83
Caine's Mutiny, page 83
part #4 of Caine Riordan Series
Downing answered, “I can’t tell you.”
“What, more clearance issues?”
“No. The political representatives on site haven’t told me. Or Ambassador Sukhinin.”
Which strongly implied that Vassily wasn’t any happier about this development, and that he might have communicated that to his bloc’s naval commanders. Specifically, those who were at the cons of the oncoming Federation destroyers. Caine shook his head. “I’m sorry, Richard. I won’t—I can’t—turn over these people without knowing what’s going to become of them.”
“And I have no way to get those answers for you. God knows, I tried to get them for myself, Caine. I was told I am not on the ‘need to know’ list.”
“Sounds like you don’t much like these orders, either.”
Downing’s face and voice were carefully expressionless. “We are all subject to the chain of command.”
“Only if we choose to be. And I don’t, not this time. I don’t want to make trouble for you or decline to follow a direct order, but I will if I have to—and in a very public way.”
“That presumes you can go public, Caine.”
“So does that mean you’ve also got orders to muzzle us? Or impound us? Or worse?”
“Caine, your team is not at risk. You were all cleared for top secret operations involving exosapients. So while we have protocols for controlling public exposure, they do not include forcibly silencing you.”
“I’m sure we’d be well cared for. Perhaps living for years like canaries in gilded high-security cages, or in subterranean vaults. To keep us from leaking what we know, what we’ve seen, voluntarily or otherwise.”
Downing folded his arms. “All I can say is that your safety is assured. And that I very much regret not having any information on the intended disposition of the Lost Soldiers or the Cold Guards.”
Dora crossed her own arms. “Our safety is assured only if we assume you’re telling the truth.”
Downing reddened. “I am not lying to you.”
“Maybe not, but how do you know you haven’t been lied to? Because if you have, then”—she freed one hand to draw her index finger across her neck—“we get to join the others. So it seems there are only two reasons those approaching destroyers might not open fire on us: they might hit or offend the Slaasriithi, or we might send what we know out on broadcast.”
Downing frowned, looked over at Riordan. “And would you betray Earth that way, Caine?”
“No. Not unless my own government betrays me.”
“Caine, don’t be ingenuous: a government frequently has to change its objectives, its orders. That’s what is happening here, not betrayal.”
“Really? Then what is it when leaders lie to their followers? Because that’s exactly what has happened here. My team, the Cold Guard, and the Lost Soldiers all took oaths to serve, mostly to governments that are still in existence. Having kept their oaths, there is simply no justification for handing them over to another power for imprisonment, exile, or execution. What’s their crime? Doing their duty?”
Downing cut the air with the side of his hand. “Caine, neither of us has a choice in this matter. The orders must be obeyed. The full truth of what you found, of what your troops know and can testify to, is too destabilizing. It’s a delicate time, Caine. You, more than anyone else, should understand that.”
“I do understand. I understand that the time has come to stop managing information and concealing the truth.”
“Even if revealing that truth condemns us to starting a war we can’t win?”
“That’s one possible outcome. But only that: a possible outcome. At some point, we have an obligation to share the facts so that our people can decide for themselves whether or not they should trust these Ktor bastards.”
Downing shook his head. “You heard what Shethkador said. His government is likely to see any sharing of the Lost Soldiers’ true identity as a prelude to war, a war in which the Accord might not be able to help us.”
Riordan folded his arms. “Richard, at a certain point, we can’t control, or worry about, what the Ktor might think. If we are to keep alive the premise of plurality, we have to keep its basic promise: that the citizens of the CTR are competent to handle basic information and exert their political will. Otherwise, our governments become no different than mandarin star chambers, and political process becomes just so much theater. We have to keep our promises. That means I have to keep my oath to the Lost Soldiers, and implicitly, to the Cold Guard: that I will not turn them over to anyone else without concrete guarantees for their safety and fair treatment. You’ve given me neither.”
“That sounds very fine, Caine, but tell me: how is keeping this secret any different from the other secrets you’ve kept?”
“I haven’t liked most of the secrets I’ve been tasked to keep, but they’ve never been at the expense of our own people. That’s what you’re asking this time, and that’s why I won’t stand for it. So, excepting those Lost Soldiers or Cold Guard who want to go with you—with full knowledge of the conditions under which they are doing so—I cannot comply with your requests. Unless, that is, we figure another way out of this.”
Downing nodded slowly. “You have a proposal for how we might come to a peaceful agreement?”
“I might. I need to confer with my officers and put the matter before the Lost Soldiers and Cold Guard. And in order to do that, Wedges One through Three are going to need to redock with the Shore-of-Stars. As will we. So call the hounds off, Richard.”
Downing smiled faintly, gestured off screen. In the holoplot, the seven yellow chevrons denoting the CTR destroyers began slowing: they were counterboosting at maximum thrust. “How soon may we hope to hear from you again, Caine?”
Riordan shrugged. “It depends.”
“Upon what?”
“Upon just how outraged the people on my side of the equation feel by their homeworld’s betrayal of them. Riordan out.”
Caine turned toward Duncan Solsohn as soon as Downing’s image had faded from Puller’s screen. “Major, I need direct answers to some very blunt questions.”
“I expected that.”
“Good. Did you know this was coming?”
Solsohn shook his head. “No. I knew there was some political infighting over our mission to Turkh’saar, but nothing like this. And I still find it hard to believe that Mr. Downing is standing there telling us to give up our own people. That’s just not like him.”
“You mean, he’s not quite that big an asshole?” asked Veriden.
Solsohn cut an unfriendly glance in her direction. “He’s not an asshole, Dora. But he does have a shitty job. I just didn’t know it had gotten this shitty.”
Riordan folded his arms. “So when you joined us, you didn’t know about these new protocols governing IRIS?”
Solsohn shook his head. “I can’t believe that Downing did, either. He would have briefed me differently, set out more detailed contingencies. Hell, he wanted to put you and your team directly in the loop on our suspicions regarding BD+56 2966, but the politicos nixed it.”
Riordan frowned. “Which politicos?”
Duncan smile was crooked, rueful. “Developing World Coalition, with some scattered support from TOCIO.”
Riordan nodded. “The same powers that resented being kept in the dark about the existence, let alone operations, of IRIS. So, the handwriting was on the wall even before we left Delta Pavonis. And while we were gone, they’ve flexed their muscles, made their cooperation contingent upon shared control.”
Duncan shrugged. “And can you blame them? IRIS was rolling the dice for the fate of the world in the years leading up to the war and then all the way to the end of it.”
Riordan sighed. “No, I don’t blame them. IRIS should have come clean, at least about its existence and operational mandate, to the rest of the globe’s leaders right after the Parthenon Dialogs.”
Bannor scowled. “Jesus. That would have been one God-awful mess.”
Riordan tried to smile. “You mean compared to the mess we have on our hands now? I think we’d be in better shape to handle this crisis if IRIS had bitten the bullet earlier, rather than later.”
Karam scratched one homely ear. “Guys, none of that helps us get out of this situation.”
Riordan smiled. “Actually, it might, at least insofar as there are government players who don’t like their current orders any better than we do. Richard has just about come to the end of his tether. And I suspect Vassily Sukhinin is already there.”
Dora frowned. “And how does that help us?”
“It means they, too, want to find an option that doesn’t involve us turning over the Lost Soldiers and Cold Guard. Or being destroyed for refusing to do so.”
Peter Wu’s voice was very quiet and level. “I like the sound of that.”
Riordan’s smile broadened. “Me too. So let’s find them that option.”
Chapter Seventy-Three
PLANET TWO (“HOMENEST”) FAR ORBIT, SIGMA DRACONIS
Lieutenant Brill, senior communications officer aboard the battlecruiser Lincoln, appeared on the screen in the intel center. Before speaking to him, Richard Downing held up a long, slim hand, thereby cutting off the torrent of position statements being delivered by Mr. Bentley Awan, the senior attaché of the Developing World Coalition observation group that had arrived at Sigma Draconis three weeks earlier. “Yes, Mr. Brill?”
“Commodore Riordan on encrypted lascom one, sir.”
“Very good, Lieutenant. Please pipe it down here. Private channel.”
“Yes, sir.”
Downing folded his arms, glanced at his assistant, Gray Rinehart, who had been conferring with the COs of the seven destroyers suspended halfway between the capital ships of the squadron that had been sent on this mission and Shore-of-Stars. Rinehart nodded faintly, surreptitiously. Good: so everything’s in readiness.
“Let us hope Commodore Riordan has elected to see reason in this matter,” Awan said, folding his hands behind his back.
Downing nodded, wondered how the DWC liaison really felt about his job. He had arrived minutes after the first exchange with Riordan, his shuttle having pulled four gees in an attempt to get him into the conversation. The DWC power brokers, for whom Awan was the public factotum, had remained well back from engaging with any of the other senior CTR personnel in system. They had not even allowed Awan to attribute comments to any of them individually. In Downing’s experience, that was a sure sign that they were unwilling to be held personally accountable for anything that might occur here, which in turn suggested that they expected outcomes that might be quite messy.
The screen blanked momentarily, then reilluminated, showing Riordan and most of the bridge of Puller: it was full.
“This is most irregular,” Awan muttered. “We should not be speaking of policy matters in the presence of—”
“Commodore,” Downing said loudly, drowning out the attaché, “there is some concern on this end regarding the persons witnessing our exchange on your end.”
Riordan nodded. “I am not surprised, Mr. Downing, but since the decisions about to be made will affect everyone you see, it is our unanimous decision that all of them must be present. Otherwise, there will be no discussion at all.”
Awan was hissing something about blackmail as Downing returned Riordan’s nod. “I understand. We accept those conditions.” I expected them, anyway. “Have you come up with an alternative to our current impasse, Commodore?”
Riordan continued to match Downing’s formality: theater for the benefit of the DWC representative. “We have. We propose a trade.”
“You have nothing to trade,” Awan asserted over Downing’s shoulder. “You are agents of the state. Whatever you have belongs to the Consolidated Terran Republic.”
Riordan raised an eyebrow. “Mr. Awan, is it? That kind of talk might play well in Beijing and Islamabad, but I think you will want to bear in mind that the recording of this exchange will also be heard in Washington, London, Brussels, Moscow, and Tokyo. And Shanghai. Be careful not to sow discord where you are working to build cooperation.”
“Do not school me in my job, Commodore. I represent interests that have long gone without representation. We are asserting our rights, which include a frank expression of how we view the affairs of the Republic and its servitors.”
Riordan smiled. “As you wish. In the meantime, let me acquaint you with a practical view of how negotiations like these work: possession is nine-tenths of the law. And we have something that you want. Very badly.”
“This is not trade; this is extortion!”
Downing turned. “Mr. Awan, firstly you have not even heard the Commodore’s proposal. Secondly, assuming he does have something we want so badly, how does your outburst get you any closer to possessing it?”
Awan leaned back, looked away. Downing spent a moment assessing him: he was angry yes, but not just at Riordan. Was it the whole situation? Did he resent being the errand boy for the anonymous puppeteers from the DWC, sent to be the voice and face that would be forever associated with the decision to put aside the Lost Soldiers and Cold Guard in a safe place? A place that might ultimately prove to be a mass grave or deep space? If so, he might be eager for an escape from his role. “Commodore, what is it that you have that we want?”
“The Ktor cold-cell technology that we discovered on and extracted from Turkh’saar. Their systems—and we have now identified sixteen different types—are immeasurably more advanced than our own. Once they have been studied and reverse-engineered, the broader implication—rapid human colonization with essentially zero mortality risk from cold sleep—is strategically greater than all the exosapient drive, energy, and weapons technologies that have been accrued to date.”
Well played, Caine. Now, let’s underscore the urgency of the matter for the myopic politico in the room. “Commodore, I think you overestimate the value of that technology. It certainly cannot compare to the political authority, and unity, of the Consolidated Terran Republic, which is what you are asking us to sacrifice in exchange for these cold cells.”
Riordan smiled. “Firstly, Director Downing, the technology in question is so profoundly beyond ours that not all the systems are actually ‘cold’ cells. More importantly, it is at best ingenuous, and at worst duplicitous, to ignore the profound changes that this will bring within even three years time. For the CTR to compete successfully, it must move population offworld rapidly. This technology removes the largest impediment to that: the mortality risks of cold sleep, which has been, since the beginning of our interstellar expansion, the fear that keeps most people from considering emigration. That has, in turn, forced most blocs to provide waking transport, which, per kiloliter, enables the relocation of one-tenth the number of persons who could be moved if they were in cryogenic suspension. With the technologies we found, these problems would come to an abrupt end.
“Now factor in the coming changes in shift-range. I understand that reverse-engineering of captured Arat Kur shift drives have now demonstrated ranges of nine point four eight light-years. That dramatically redraws the interstellar map, cutting months off of the travel times to the colonies of the Green Mains. And with the Slaasriithi engineering that has or will soon be added to that, we can expect even better performance in five years time.
“The combination of zero-risk cold sleep and drastically reduced travel time will change the current trickle of colonists to a flood. Now add in the postwar attitude: people are scared. The invasion eliminated the belief that staying on Earth meant you were in the safest possible place; it is now perceived to be in the crosshairs of various hostile exosapients. But we have to expand, to make sure that we don’t have so many of our eggs in one vulnerable basket. Now, we can accomplish that. Easily.
“So when you have to vindicate this trade to whoever might be overseeing this matter, they will understand that you were right to guarantee the safety of the Lost Soldiers and Cold Guard in exchange for the Ktoran cold-cell technology. And you can blame me for forcing that choice upon you.”
“And if I do not agree to those terms?”
Riordan shrugged. “Then you will not get access to that cold-sleep technology.”
“You would destroy it?”
Riordan leaned back. “If you can give me a guarantee that the Lost Soldiers and Cold Guards won’t be permanently disappeared, then I will be happy—relieved—to guarantee you that we will not destroy the Ktoran cold cells. We would merely—misplace them—until our people are safe. So, can you guarantee the safety of our people, Director Downing?”
Richard looked over his shoulder at Awan. Moment of truth, old boy.
Awan, eyes shiny, would not meet his gaze, blinked a few times. Then he shook his head, his jaw clenched.
Downing turned back to Caine. “I am unable to provide you with the guarantee you seek.”
“Then we cannot give you a guarantee either, Director.”
“In that event, you leave me no choice; I must agree to your terms.”
Awan stepped forward rapidly. “Downing, you cannot—!”
Richard interrupted him with a hard stare. “Mr. Awan, we discussed this: are you authorizing and instructing me to use lethal force to compel Commodore Riordan and his team to comply?”
Awan went pale. Downing waited. And here are the wages you must pay in order to climb the political ladder, you foolish sod. You’ve got to do the dirty work that others have ordered. I’ve done it out of dubious patriotism. Let’s see if you’ll do it out of blind ambition.
Awan glanced away again. “You are authorized and instructed to use lethal force.”
Downing turned back toward Caine. “I must inform you that if you do not comply, we will take custody of the personnel that must be remanded to us, as well as take possession of the technologies you have extracted, through the use of force.”
One or two of the bridge personnel around Riordan exchanged worried glances: most did not. “I am surprised to hear that you are willing to start a war with the Slaasriithi over this, Director Downing. They are our only allies, after all.”
