Probability Sun (39 page)

“That’s enough! Dr. Capelo, you—”

“Hypocrisy the size of a warship, commander. That’s what we have here.”

“—are in contempt of court. One more outburst and I—”

“You’ll what? That’s your problem, isn’t it? You don’t know what to do with me, now that I’ve produced for you. Oh, and for myself, I admit that. But now I’m an interesting problem, aren’t I?”

Kaufman said, because he couldn’t resist, “Not as big a problem as you might think, Tom. Haven’t you ever heard of J. Robert Oppenheimer?”

Capelo turned toward him, grinning. “So they didn’t cut out your tongue after all, Lyle. Or your balls.”

“MPs!” Rulanov called. “Remove Dr. Capelo from the court!”

“Lay one hand on me again,” Capelo said evenly, not moving from his chair, “and you’ll have to kill me to keep from having the worst PR problem the Navy ever saw. And if you do kill me, my daughter and her nanny are prepared to tell the story to what will, I’m sure, be fascinated reporters. Amanda would make an extremely appealing holo witness.”

Rulanov was too much of a soldier to be intimidated. He gestured to the MPs, who seized Capelo. Kaufman found himself rising.

Capelo said, still not raising his voice, “The party’s over so soon? But I have more questions. What, for instance, are you—” The MPs started dragging him toward the door. Capelo went limp, a dead weight, and kept on talking, “—going to do with this artifact, now that I’ve explained what
it’s
capable of doing?”

“We’re going to use it,” another voice said from the doorway.

Kaufman, halfway out of his chair, stumbled up the rest of the way. The court, after a stunned moment, jumped to its collective feet and snapped into salutes. Belatedly, Kaufman did the same. Only the MPs went on with their work, dragging a dead-weight Capelo toward the door. The newcomer said, “Release that man, soldier.” The MPs paid no attention.

“Release him!” echoed Rulanov, the most strangled echo Kaufman had ever heard. But Rulanov recovered fast. “Welcome aboard, sir.”

Capelo, again free and upright, turned to stare at the doorway, making it unanimous.

Kaufman had never met General Sullivan Stefanak, Supreme Commander of the Solar Alliance Defense Council, but of course he recognized him instantly. The general’s face was on every newscast in every media: holo, access, flimsy, newsgram. It wasn’t a face anyone could forget, or ignore. Almost all of the SADC top brass were genemod; Stefanak was not. The huge size and strength, easily the equal of Dieter Gruber’s, were natural. So, clearly, was the hard face under the bald head, neither one modified by cosmetic treatment. Stefanak’s skin was light brown, his eyes deep brown flecked with gold. He had full fleshy lips and a large jaw. He radiated energy, and ruthlessness, and charisma. His appetites, for everything, were rumored to be enormous.

Including for power. Persistent scuttlebutt said that Stefanak was not content with leading the Solar Alliance Defense Council that controlled Army and Navy for the entire Solar System. That he wouldn’t even be content to be elected president of the Solar Alliance. That he wanted to be dictator, and that with the war on and martial law always a possibility, it could happen. Looking at Stefanak—even more magnetic, ugly, and dangerous-looking in person than on holo—Kaufman suddenly believed it. A benevolent dictator, perhaps, but dictator nonetheless. This man made his own rules.

Beside Stefanak stood General Tollivar Gordon, who had sent Kaufman on this cursed mission, and Commander Grafton. Grafton looked curiously gray.

Capelo said, “The great man himself,” but there was no real bite in it. Even Tom Capelo seemed subdued by Stefanak.

“And you’re the great Dr. Capelo. I read your preliminary paper on probons. I didn’t understand a single word of it.”

Capelo was not that easy to charm. “I hardly expect you would. You’re more interested in outcomes than causes.”

“Exactly right, Dr. Capelo. And you’re interested in what outcomes we plan on creating from your work.”

“I am indeed. Are you actually going to tell me?”

“Yes. You have a right to know. Plus, as you so eloquently just pointed out, you represent a problem to us. If you ended up dead, would your not-quite-eleven-year-old daughter really try to tell your version of the story to the holos? Have you really briefed her on what to say?”

“I have, and she would. Would you try to stop her?”

“Difficult to do, I would imagine, if she’s like her father. Sit down, or don’t, Dr. Capelo, as you choose. I am certainly going to.”

Lieutenant Framingham sprang forward with her own chair, and Stefanak squeezed his bulk into it. After an uncertain moment—his first yet, Kaufman thought—Capelo also sat. Everyone else remained standing.

“You have questions,” Stefanak said to Capelo. “But before you begin, I have duties.” He looked up at Rulanov. “Commander, you have done an excellent job conducting this court of inquiry. Before I relieve you of the responsibility, I want you to know that your thoroughness and professionalism have been noted. Lieutenant Ramsay, Lieutenant Framingham, the same goes for you.”

All three officers tried not to look too gratified. Rulanov said, “Thank you, sir.”

Stefanak turned to Grafton, still gray. “And you, Commander, have acted completely in accord with the highest standards of the Solar Alliance Defense Navy, correctly following procedure for every action you’ve taken from the moment the prisoner of war was brought aboard ship. You will receive a letter of commendation, in due time, for your promotion jacket.”

Grafton looked less gray, although still uncomfortable. It couldn’t be easy, Kaufman thought, having control of your own ship taken away from you as easily as jumping on the moon. Not easy for the court of inquiry, either. Stefanak was now in charge of everything.

“Colonel Kaufman, the charges against you have just been dropped. They were appropriate when filed, but new information, which General Gordon will discuss with you later, has invalidated them.”

Kaufman said, “Thank you, sir.” He was careful not to look at Grafton. But he risked a question … “And if I may ask, sir … Ms. Grant? Are the charges against her dropped, as well?”

“Ms. Grant is a civilian; she is beyond my jurisdiction. The matter is still pending,” Stefanak said, and everyone in the room knew that the charges against Marbet would also disappear. You didn’t aspire to be dictator without extensive political control.

Kaufman said, “Thank you, sir.”

“Now. Dr. Capelo … your questions. Fire away.”

Capelo had had time to regain his equilibrium. “What are you going to do with my artifact?”

Stefanak smiled at the pronoun, which Kaufman knew had been deliberate on Capelo’s part, but didn’t comment on it. “We’re going to take it to the Solar System, install it somewhere secure and classified, and activate setting prime eleven, thereby protecting all of the Solar System from Faller attack.”

Somewhere secure and classified.
My God, Kaufman thought, Stefanak will control it completely. No one will dare cross him—he’ll hold an undefeatable Excalibur, one that could become a doomsday machine if he chose. He
will
be dictator.

And he, Lyle Kaufman, trained diplomat, had not seen it until just this moment. Seduced by the science and the weaponry, he had not looked at all at the politics.

“I see,” Capelo said, with shades of meaning. “So you won’t take it to the Faller system, activate it at setting prime thirteen, and fry their entire home system?”

“You’ve told us that’s not possible without disastrously affecting the fabric of spacetime itself.”

“What if I’m wrong?”

“We hope you’ll continue to refine your theory, becoming more sure.”

“What if I’m wrong about what setting prime eleven does?”

“Same answer,” Stefanak said. He appeared to be enjoying himself.

“What if as I ‘refine my theory,’ and others do, too—I
am
going to be allowed to publish?”

“Certainly.”

“But you know the Fallers most likely monitor whatever of our electromagnetic spectrum they can. They may be able to decipher our breakthroughs.”

Kaufman, too, had wondered about this. He listened intently for Stefanak’s answer.

“Let them. My scientific advisors are convinced their approach to science is so different from ours that they’ll find translation and imitation very difficult.”

Probably true,” Capelo admitted. “So what if, as I ‘refine my theory’ and others do the same, major errors are uncovered?”

“We’ll correct for them. Dr. Capelo, I’m a soldier, not a clothing designer. I expect major errors, and I expect to have to correct for them. War is like that.”

“And just how do you expect to ‘correct’ for the destruction of spacetime if two artifacts are activated at setting prime thirteen in the same star system?”

“Don’t you think the original engineers thought of that and built in failsafes?”

“I have no idea. And neither do you.”

“True enough. But I don’t anticipate ever using setting prime thirteen, Doctor. It would constitute an unacceptable risk.”

Capelo sat thinking. Finally he said, “You wouldn’t have to take any risk. You don’t actually have to activate the artifact at all, you know. You merely have to convince people, humans and Fallers, that you activated it. The effect would be the same, unless the bastards are stupid enough to actually bring their artifact to our space and call your bluff.”

Stefanak said nothing. He went on smiling, huge legs crossed carelessly at the knee, relaxed and comfortable.

Capelo laughed, the short harsh sound Kaufman had heard a hundred times.

“All right, General. I’m not a soldier. But I have one more question, and it’s a soldier’s question. I called up all the battle data in the ship’s library since the Faller skeeters first turned up protected by disrupter-beam shields. I don’t have the classified material, of course, but you know those war correspondents—their robots go practically everywhere and cover practically everything. Then I wrote a program to compare that data to probable tunnel system use and maximum skeeter flying time. And I found something very interesting.

“The two can be made to coordinate such that a single Faller artifact could have been transferred from ship to ship and still cover every place the beam-disrupter shield turned up. They haven’t cracked the engineering at all, have they? They only possess one artifact, just like we do.”

Lieutenant Framingham gasped. Kaufman could feel his own face stretch in surprise. For the first time, Stefanak looked discomforted. No one spoke; no one dared.

Finally, the general said, “You’re a very intelligent man, Dr. Capelo. Pity you didn’t choose to become a soldier.”

“I’d have made a rotten soldier.”

“Perhaps you’re right. How good a patriot are you?”

Capelo laughed again. “Do you mean, will I tell anyone about this conjecture? Publish it? Make it part of my daughter’s armor? No. I want to see us win the war, General, as much as you do. Maybe more, because I’m not a soldier, and I have nothing to gain from success in battle and even more to lose than I already have. As long as you’re not going to prosecute me for treason, or breaking-and-entering, or any other stupid charge, you have my silence on everything that you tell me is classified. I already have heavy-duty security clearances, you know.”

“I know.”

“And Marbet Grant?” Capelo asked.

“Much lighter security clearances. But I suspect she, too, will remain silent about anything that happened aboard this ship.”

“In return for her freedom.”

Stefanak had resumed his easy smile. “I told you—Ms. Grant is a civilian. All I can do is present her case as I see it to the proper authorities.”

“Yes,” Capelo said sardonically, “only that.”

“Are we finished here yet, Doctor?”

“As finished as something like this can be.”

Stefanak stood. Capelo rose, too; it was impossible to stay seated when that overwhelming presence did not. Stefanak held out his hand. “Good-bye, Doctor Capelo.”

“Good-bye, General Stefanak.”

“Colonel Kaufman,” Stefanak said, “General Gordon will stay behind on this ship to debrief you. I must leave immediately. Gentlemen, madam.” He saluted the officers, who responded with the hypercorrect fervor of Academy cadets. Stefanak left, trailing Grafton behind him like a flyer behind a war cruiser.

Rulanov, Ramsay, and Framingham seemed eager to leave as well. They marched stiffly out the door. Capelo followed, saying, “I have to tell my girls I’m not going to jail. They’ll be glad to get home to Earth, I think. Good luck, Lyle, you deserve it.”

In a few moments the room contained only Kaufman and Gordon. The silence felt unnatural to Kaufman, after so many jolts. Like the suspended moment after a Marsquake.

Gordon grinned. “I told you that you were the right man for this job, Lyle.”

“The …
right
man?”

“Certainly. It doesn’t matter that you got everybody connected with it arrested, and the prisoner of war killed. Oh, it does matter, actually, you know that. Your career in the military is over. You know too much. More important, Stefanak will need a scapegoat for those closed, classified SADC sessions in which he explains how we lost the alien POW we never officially had. He’ll be grateful to you, Lyle, and a bit nervous about you, and he’ll stick you behind a desk way out on some remote battle station served by one space tunnel and hope to never lay eyes on you again. Probably after first sweetening the assignment with a promotion and a medal. And if you ever move against him in any way, you’ll be dead.”

“I know,” Kaufman said.

“I’m sorry. But you were still the right man for the mission. You got the job done, Lyle, and done as well as anyone in the galaxy could have done it.”

“Thank you, sir. I’m just another casualty of war, is that it?”

“Yes. Capelo and Stefanak will get the glory of protecting the Solar System. But because of you, the war may yet be won. Is it enough?”

“No,” Kaufman said, but he knew, as did Gordon, that it would have to do.

EPILOGUE

LUNA CITY, JULY 2167