The ethos effect, p.24
The Ethos Effect, page 24
Van nodded. He’d never had to worry about the details, not in the RSF.
All told, they spent almost two hours dealing with the various aspects of Van’s new employment. Eri left after a few minutes.
When they finished, Desoll showed Van to one of the two spare staterooms. It was more like a flag cabin on an RSF ship, with a closet and drawers for other clothes, a small built-in console, a double bunk, and a separate if compact fresher. Van hung up his gear, changed from his uniform into one of the green shipsuits, after removing the insignia, then returned to the cockpit. The older pilot was absorbed in something through the shipnet, and Van just slipped into the right seat and waited.
Finally, Desoll turned to Van. “We’ll be calling in, in a while. I’ll also do the comm verbally, although what the Farhkans will get is through the implant, and I’ll have the shipnet translate their replies verbally. Once we’ve got your implant back in shape, on the outbound, you’ll pick it all up. They don’t communicate aurally, the way we do. So they either have to talk to people with implants or use mechanical devices. They don’t like the mechanical speaking devices and avoid them whenever they can.”
“You seem to know a great deal about them.”
“I had to learn. It took a long time.” Desoll fell silent.
“Where are we?”
“A Farhkan system they call Dharel—that’s as close as I can come to their pronunciation. It’s the one nearest to the Coalition-Revenant-Argenti axis.”
Another half hour passed, then Van sensed... something, a hissing over the shipnet was the closest way of describing it.
“That’s them.” Desoll cleared his throat. “Farhka Station Two, this is Coalition ship Elsin, code name Negative Absolute, pilot Desoll, patron Rhule Ghere, inbound for scheduled resupply, cargo pickup, and medical procedures.”
Van could sense that Desoll was doing something, but his implant could only trace a vague sense of the energy flows. Then Desoll turned to Van. “You have to name a patron to dock here. Rhule Ghere is the patron of IIS. So he’s your patron.” Desoll smiled. “He died a century ago, but he’s still our patron. Remember that, Rhule Ghere.”
“Rhule Ghere,” Van repeated, concentrating on the name.
The same faint hissing filled the cockpit area when the response came back. “Ship Elsin, Pilot Desoll, you are cleared for approach and locking. Do you have the beacon?”
“Farhka Station Two, affirmative. We have the beacon. Proceeding as cleared.”
Desoll’s approach and docking were as smooth as his undocking and departure from Sulyn orbit control had been. Except for the shutdown and power transfer procedures, Van could hardly tell when the Elsin was docked.
“Smooth approach,” he offered.
“Thank you. At our ages, though,” Desoll said with a smile, “they ought to be.” He paused. “They’re waiting for us.”
“Ser?” Eri stood in the passageway behind the cockpit. Desoll turned to the petite tech. “Eri, they should be here with the dispatches, and the cargo, in fifteen minutes. After you’ve got that and onloaded the gear for Commander Albert, you can button up and rest, so long as you’re on the shipnet. We’ve got a few chores to take care of.”
“Yes, ser.”
Desoll nodded to Van. “We might as well get on with it” The lock opened as they neared, and there was a puff and a rush of air as the pressures equalized. Van had the feeling that the Farhkans were used to a slightly higher air pressure, and probably meant a higher gee field on their home planet. The sensation that hit Van as they stepped through the lock and into the station corridor beyond was the smell—or scent—a bewildering combination of musk and cleanliness.
Less than five meters down a gray-green corridor stood a Farhkan—the first one Van had ever seen face-to-face, and face-to-face was definitely not the same as a holo view. Holo views didn’t convey either the smell or the strangeness.
The bipedal alien had two arms, and he wore the equivalent of shimmering gray fatigues. Iron gray hair that was more like fur topped the square head, and the red eyes showed no differential between pupil and iris. The flexible nose flapped with every breath, and only had a single nostril. Blunt crystal-like teeth, not quite fangs, but that long, extended beyond the almost lipless mouth.
Van could sense the communications between the Farhkan and Desoll, but only as the faintest hissing through his obviously inadequate comm implant “They have the equipment set up,” Desoll said. “This is Dr. Fhale. Again, that’s an approximation.”
Van inclined his head to the alien, who was only slightly taller than he was, but broader. The alien did not seem particularly menacing, but how could one tell?
The alien nodded in return, then turned, as if he expected them to follow.
Van and Desoll did.
“They are a very peaceful species,” Desoll added. “Their last interspecies conflict was before we left Old Earth.”
“Carefully phrased, there,” Van said dryly.
Ahead of them, the alien snorted.
“He’s laughing. They came into contact with the Revenants about four hundred years ago. They suggested to the Revenants that Farhkan systems were not open to Revenant colonization. The Revs disagreed. The Farhkans suggested more strongly. The Revs still disagreed. Before it was all over, they had to destroy a number of Revenant ships before the Revs got the idea. The Farhkans were not happy about it One told me that it set them back thousands of years.”
What seemed to be a solid wall split into a trapezoidal entry. The two humans followed the Farhkan into a room that was completely empty except for what looked like an operating table tilted at a forty-five-degree angle and shaped into the form of a chair.
“You just sit down there.” Desoll stepped back several paces, watching.
Van eased himself into the chair.
Desoll frowned. “Ah... before we proceed... Dr. Fhale wants to talk with you. This room is set up so that you’ll hear him over the speakers.”
“Talk with me?”
“We are providing you a favor,” came a voice from above Van. “In return, we would like a few minutes of conversation and thought from you. It will help us in improving our understanding of you and of your species.”
“I’ll offer what I can.” As he spoke, Van noted that Desoll seemed both surprised, and yet not surprised.
“You have killed other humans, have you not?”
“In combat situations...”
“Is not a death a death?”
“It is,” Van admitted.
“Then why do you offer an explanation?”
Van thought for a moment. “Because ... I mean ... there’s no difference to those who died, but there is a difference to me. There is a difference... between killing someone because you feel like it and to prevent that person from killing others.”
“Can you see what will happen in the future? Do you know that with certainty?”
Van had been over that ground before. “With absolute certainty? No? But when you are facing a ship that has already killed hundreds of innocent civilians time after time, the probability of those actions continuing is high enough to justify the assumption that they will kill again.”
The Farhkan said nothing for a time.
Van wondered if the conversation were finished, but he waited.
“Is any person innocent—other than a newborn or one recently born?”
“Probably not. But there are degrees of innocence, and there are those who have done no harm to others—or no great harm. And there are those who have done great harm.”
“You would decide that?”
“When I must,” Van admitted. What exactly did the Farhkan have in mind?
“Do all humans believe the same values are correct?”
“No.”
“Are your values more ethical?”
“I would like to think so.”
“Do you know that?”
“No.”
“Yet you have killed when it is possible that the values of those who killed were more ethical than yours. Is that ethical?”
“I don’t know about their values, Doctor. I know that their actions, which presumably reflected those values, were less ethical.”
“How do you know that?”
Van reflected. “There’s no good answer to that question.” The Farhkan barked, a sound Van hoped was laughter, then asked, “Is any value that preserves a society ethical?”
“No. Not necessarily.”
“Then what is the basis for ethics? Do you believe in a deity that determines what is correct and moral?”
“No.”
“On what do you base your values?”
“On what I must,” Van replied. “Upon what I have seen and what I have learned.”
“Are they adequate when you are making decisions that will kill some beings and spare others?”
“I can only hope so.”
The Farhkan barked his laugh again, then nodded to Desoll. “We should proceed.” He stepped closer to the chair, adjusting a cablelike protrusion that had lowered itself from the ceding until it was just above Van’s head.
“You’ll probably notice some disorientation, and you may lose some memory of what happens here,” Desoll said, “but you won’t feel it, except that you won’t recall what happened in the chair.”
Van frowned. “It didn’t take that to deactivate—”
“No. But didn’t it take a full operation to put in the implant? This isn’t like that, but it’s more complicated to undo what they did than merely turning off your functions. Also, we have to add a little capacity so that you can link with the Farhkans and some of the other out-systems that don’t use Arm-standard freqs.”
That made sense, especially after the Elsin’s approach to the Farhkan station.
Van blinked.
There was a moment of blackness, and then he was still sitting in the chair.
Except his buttocks were sore—and there were some sore patches in his skull, needlelike points. “I lost more than a few moments,” Van protested.
You did. The response came from the Farhkan, with a slight hissing overtone, but far clearer than most direct implant communications. There was some damage. It was intentional. We repaired it.
“The RSF?”
Dr. Fhale couldn’t say, only that it was there, Desoll replied. His link was crystal clear.
Van’s lips tightened. I’m all right now?
You are operating at maximum normal human capacity, the Farhkan replied.
They’re very literal, Desoll commented.
How else can one be ethical if not with maximum accuracy? Yet there was a trace of what Van would have called humor in the response.
“Ethical?” Ethical? Van’s implant echoed his words.
All life is a struggle with ethics. Those who fail to understand that are doomed to extinction. You should have gathered that from our conversation. The barking snort followed the Farhkan’s unspoken communication. You will learn. If you are fortunate.
The last seemed more command than observation.
You should move. Slowly at first, added the Farhkan.
Van eased his way out of the chair. All around him swirled pulses of energy, various nets or systems he had been unaware of before. “Is this...” Is this normal?
It is an enhanced implant, very similar to, but better than, the standard Coalition implant.
Van stopped walking for a moment, just short of the reopened trapezoidal opening. He glanced back. The Farhkan had vanished.
“Is that all?” Van hoped it was.
“You’ll have to get used to using it. We’ll be working on that over the next week or so.”
“Was that a threat... the business about not understanding ethics leading to extinction?”
“The Farhkans certainly have that kind of power, but they don’t believe in using it that way. They believe it would lead to an internal conflict that would destroy them.”
“That kind of power?” Van replied, stifling a yawn as he walked.
“More than that kind of power.” Desoll nodded toward the lock ahead. “We need to get back to the ship. You’re going to need some food and some sleep,” Desoll said.
Van found he was yawning again as he walked beside the older pilot. “How long was I out? That was more than a few minutes. Much more. But I can’t tell how much. My implant clocks were frozen.”
“About three hours. Someone had set a few more traps in you, probably when you were in the medcrib.”
“Traps?”
“Locator, remote trigger transmitter.” Desoll lifted a bag. “You can see for yourself later.”
“What?” Van was stunned, then outraged. Absently, he noted that he seemed more able to sense overtones in Desoll’s words and gestures. “But why?”
“I could guess, but it would only be that. My best judgment is that the gadgets weren’t RSF at all. That either the Scandyans or the Revenants had a hand in it. That might also be why the RSF wanted you out of the way. They may have thought you’d been compromised.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Van said. “None of it does. There’s no reason for you to invent it, but there’s no reason why—” He paused.
“There isn’t?” asked Desoll. “Didn’t there have to be a reason why the Fergus was attacked? And a reason why the Scandyan premier was targeted? In both cases, you stopped something.”
“How did you know about the Fergus?”
“Major Murikami told me. Most of the military in Scandya knew.”
Van nodded slowly. That was true enough. Commodore Petrov had made that clear from the beginning. “Do you have any ideas about that? And what happened later?”
“We’ll talk about it later. You need to get back to the ship and get some rest.”
Van yawned again. He felt as if he’d run a dozen klicks. He did need food and sleep. That was also clear.
Chapter 41
Van slept a good ten hours, but woke feeling more rested than he had in weeks. Even the pinpoints of soreness on his skull were gone. The hot water of his shower felt good—and it didn’t feel or smell recycled, although it had to have been. After he dressed, he looked over the miniature implants that Desoll had handed him the night before, but he could make no sense of them and slipped them into a locker. Desoll and Eri were at the mess table eating when he joined them, but a third plate was set out for him, as was a cup of café. “Thank you.”
“Thank Eri,” Desoll replied. “She heard you. I was working on schedules.”
“What sort of schedules?”
“The Farhkans are kind enough to let us send message torps here. There were several waiting. First, we need to work out a jump route to Keshmara via Kush. We’ve got a deliverable in Keshmara. We’ll have to work in what we can, because I’ve been served with a judicial inquiry order to appear before the Transport Commission in Cambria in three weeks. There’s an anonymous claim that IIS has violated its foundation charter by engaging in transportation of persons as primary carriage trade...”
“They’re claiming we run a passenger line?”
“We don’t. We don’t even fit the definition. A ship has to have conveyance space for more than ten passengers outside of crew quarters. It’s an old harassing trick. If the managing director or a prime official doesn’t appear, then our charter is suspended until I do.”
“They want something?”
“The Service wants information on Revenant ship movements, according to IIS Cambria, but they can’t just ask. They have to pressure us to prove that the information was good.”
“Are you sure that’s what they want?”
“No.” Desoll took a long swallow of tea. “But it’s my best guess. Either that or they want information we can’t give them, and then I’ll have to make a stink about how they’re abusing their power. They know I would. So I doubt it’s that.”
“You’d threaten to make a stink, and they back off?”
“Information cuts two ways. It would be expensive, but we could.”
Van didn’t want to pursue that, not on an empty stomach. After sipping the café, better than any shipboard café he’d ever had, he began on the mushroom and cheese omelet, also good. He took several bites. “Good food.”
“It has to be. We spend too much time on board for it to be bad.” Desoll’s tone was dry. After a time, he observed, “You come from a very ethics-oriented background. Hasn’t your father published a great deal on ethics and the law?”
“Some.”
“And what is he saying now?” asked Desoll, after refilling his mug of tea. He sat back down in front of an empty platter.
Van debated before answering. “My father said that the Republic was facing an ethical crisis.” He smiled. “He always used to say to beware of the person who trumpets his ethics.”
“Cicero’s published works are impressive, and they suggest an even deeper consciousness.”
“Do you know everything about my background?” asked Van ruefully.
“As much as I could find out. We’re going to be trusting you with close to a billion credits worth of ship. Don’t you think that we would investigate thoroughly?” From the other side of the mess table, Desoll laughed. The laugh died away as the older man went on. “Your father is too modest and too conservative in his assessments, I fear. Those traits are the mark of a good and careful advocate, but like most ethical men of judgment, he still wishes to believe better of human foibles and frailty than he should.”
“You think he’s right?”
“The situation is far worse than he believes, and it’s something that has affected human societies throughout the entire Arm. He finds it hard to understand that some societies and some belief systems are fundamentally flawed, inherently dishonest, if you will.”
“Such as?”
“The Revenants, for one. They operate from the basic assumption that anything they do is correct It was perfectly correct to replace the government on Nraymar, then annex it and turn all the Dzinists into day laborers if they didn’t convert Ten years later, it was clearly their deity’s wish that Samarra become part of the Revenant theocratic realm, and that once more, those not of the faith be relegated to second-class citizenship or worse. They’ve already started the same process on Aluyson. Anything that they do is sanctioned by their theocratic authorities. When it can’t be sanctioned, or they get caught out, they deny it happened. Once, in a great while, when they can neither sanction nor deny, they will change, and pretend that they didn’t. I’ve only... known that to happen once, and it stopped their expansion cold—for about one generation.”
