Conquerors' Pride (38 page)

"I'm talking about that contact between the Mrachanis and a Conqueror ship six months ago off their Mra-kahie mining world," Cavanagh told him. "The one where both sides took a quick look at the other and hightailed it for home. The Yycromae may not have much military left, but they still have an excellent intelligence service. Klyveress told me all about it."
"Well, salutes all around to Yycroman Intelligence," Bronski said. "Doesn't have anything to do with us."
Cavanagh shook his head. "Sorry, Brigadier, but that won't wash. By your own admission you, a senior officer, came charging personally all the way over from Mra-ect when word reached you that I was on Mra-mig asking about contacts with the Conquerors. As it happens, I was only looking for details of that two-hundred-year-old legend, but you didn't know that. And even if you had, you couldn't risk someone there spilling the rest of the soup to me."
"So why didn't I haul you in right then and there?" Bronski demanded.
"Because somewhere between the spaceport and my hotel suite Taurin Lee intercepted you," Cavanagh said. "He was nosing around on his own and must have decided that attaching himself to your party would be a good way to find out what I was up to. Does he know who you really are, by the way?"
Bronski's lip twisted. "No."
"I didn't think so," Cavanagh said. "And as a minor Commonwealth liaison, of course, you could hardly refuse to honor his carte blanche. Unfortunately, that meant you were going to have to confront me with a high-ranking parliamentary aide in the room. Your superiors hadn't bothered to inform the NorCoord Parliament about the Conquerors, so you couldn't tell him the real reason you were there; and you knew he wasn't likely to swallow the flimsy excuse you'd concocted about Fibbit and deportation orders. About all you could do was look around some, throw around a lot of weak bluster, and then leave, planning to come back later after you'd gotten rid of him to finish the job properly."
Bronski shook his head. "This is nonsense," he said. "Complete soap-bubble nonsense."
"Fine," Cavanagh said. "Let's go back to the main room, then, and ask Lee why Commonwealth Commerce suddenly decided to restrict the transfer of human technology six months ago. Or why during that same period Peacekeeper Command has been spending money like sand. A Parlimin like VanDiver would be most interested in learning how far they'd been left out of this."
"Be careful, Cavanagh," Bronski warned softly. "You're treading on very dangerous ground here."
Cavanagh sighed. "I have no interest in precipitating a governmental crisis, Brigadier," he said. "If I did, I'd have said all of this in Lee's presence in the first place. All I want is to sweep this Yycroman thing under the rug until we've dealt with the Conquerors."
Bronski chewed at his lip. "And just how do you suggest we do that? Walk away and pretend the shipyard doesn't exist?"
"Of course we can't do that," Cavanagh said. "What we'll have to do is invent a legitimate explanation for it. Create a secret agreement between the Peacekeepers and the Yycroman government, postdate some order-something along those lines."
"Put our professional necks on the block, in other words."
"Under the circumstances," Cavanagh reminded him quietly, "I think parliamentary investigations are likely to be the least of a Peacekeeper's worries."
Bronski grimaced. "I'll think about it," he said. "In the meantime we've got your journalist friend to find. Get your people together and let's get moving."
There was a breath of air from behind him, and Aric turned to see Quinn hovering in the control-room doorway. "Maestro," he said. "Good timing-I was just about to come and get you."
"I came by to remind you we'll be leaving in an hour," Quinn said, pulling on the doorjamb to propel himself across the room. "You found anything?"
"I think so, yes," Aric said. "A possibility, anyway. Max, put up that last display, with the red line and mark."
The star field he'd just been working on appeared on the display. "All right," he said as Quinn braked to a halt behind his chair. "The red mark is the system the Conquerors chased us out of a few hours ago. The red line is the vector they came in on."
"With nothing at the other end of it," Quinn said.
"Right," Aric said, holding up a finger. "Nothing at the other end;if you assume the Conquerors came in a straight line. Max: the green line and points."
Another line appeared, this one intersecting the red line at a not quite ninety-degree angle. "Let's assume instead that the Conquerors were originally on this green vector, and that they changed to the red line approximately seven light-years out from the system. Assume further that they were originally traveling between two systems, and that Max's estimate of twenty-five to seventy light-years is accurate. If you pivot all possible course segments around that point, it turns out there's only one pair of systems that meets those criteria. That's them, marked in green."
"Interesting," Quinn said. "Any particular reason why you picked seven light-years for the intersect point?"
Aric braced himself. "That's the distance a stardrive would take them," he said, "if someone on the planet called for help the same time we hit atmosphere."
He could feel Quinn's gaze. "You realize what you're saying," the other said at last. "You're suggesting that the Conquerors have a method of true interstellar communication."
"I'm aware of that," Aric said soberly. "I'm also aware that that's considered scientifically impossible. But it's the only way this makes any sense."
"They could have come from a deep space station."
"And meshed in practically on top of us?" Aric countered. "That wasn't just coincidence, Quinn-I ran the whole thing through Max earlier. If you hadn't made that last course adjustment to the fueler, they would have meshed in flanking us. They had to be getting concurrent data from the surface. Observational data, at the very least."
"So where was this observational data coming from?" Quinn asked. "These Conquerors who supposedly were screaming for help-where were they?"
"Maybe they were hiding somewhere," Aric said. "Possibly on the part of the planet we didn't get to." That scream he'd heard when he was standing beside the pyramid... "Or maybe they were right there in front of us."
"What, those sausage-slice things?" Quinn snorted. "That's ridiculous."
"Maybe," Aric agreed. "Being ridiculous doesn't mean it's not true."
"It's a wild-snipe chase," Quinn insisted. "Ninety-nine percent chance of that."
"I know," Aric said quietly. "But it's all we've got."
Quinn sighed. "Max, what do we have on those two systems?"
"The one closest to Commonwealth space is currently being claimed by the Mrachanis," Max said, "even though it lies more than fifteen light-years outside their generally recognized territorial sphere. They have a pilot mining operation on the second planet, which they've named Mra-kahie."
"What about the other one?"
"I have nothing but observatory data listed," Max said. "Spectral data indicates G2 class; planetary probabilities unknown but considered moderate. The system is seventy-one light-years from Dorcas and sixty-six light-years from theJutland battle."
"How far away are we from it?"
"Twenty-eight light-years," Max said. "Fuel reserves are more than adequate for a trip there and back."
"How about if we have to fight a battle at the other end?" Quinn asked bluntly.
There was a slight pause. "They would still be adequate," Max said, "provided the battle lasted less than four hours."
"Yeah," Quinn muttered under his breath. "Well, with the Conquerors that's not likely to be a problem. All right, Max, go ahead and compute us a course. Something evasive, with four or five vector changes along the way to confuse their trackers. And don't use more than two of our static bombs."
"Yes, Commander." The red and green lines vanished from the display, to be replaced by a zigzag of yellow lines from their position to the target system. "The static bombs would be dropped at the blue marks," the computer added.
"Looks good," Quinn said, peering closely at it. "Go ahead and get us started."
"Yes, Commander."
Quinn shook his head. "I hope you're wrong about this," he said to Aric. "I really do. If the Conquerors have genuine tachyonic communication, then it's all over except for the shouting. The Commonwealth won't have a prayer."
Aric looked at the jagged yellow line, striking at the green mark like a frozen bolt of lightning. "Makes it that much more important that we find out now. One way or the other."
"I suppose," Quinn said. "Well... you'd better go get some rest. We've got another eleven hours to go, and you won't want to hit that system half-asleep. I'll let the others know about the change in plans."
"All right." Aric hesitated. "Quinn, maybe this is none of my business. But under the circumstances... why did you quit the Copperheads?"
There was a brief silence from behind him. "It's hard to explain," Quinn said at last. "Have you ever done any kind of computer linking?"
"I did gamer links a few times when I was in college," Aric said, turning to look at him. "That was an inductive type, of course, not an implant."
"It's not the implant itself," Quinn said. "At least, not directly. It's..." He paused. "You have to understand that the Copperhead Mindlink is absolutely unique. It feeds data to us at least a thousand times faster than any business computer-link ever created-probably ten thousand times faster than the best inductive gamer type. You're not getting just a game scenario or sheets of numbers and flow vectors when you link up this way. The data literally floods over you, running in over every sensory input your brain's got. You don't just see the combat-you feel and smell and taste it, too. Every image razor clear and razor sharp; every thought you have turned instantly into vectors and curves on a tactical overlay. You feel your team like an extension of your own mind and body, with their thoughts flowing in and complementing your own. It's like nothing else that mankind has ever created. Like nothing you could ever imagine."
"Sounds a little frightening."
"No." Quinn shook his head. "That's just the point, a point most of the Parlimins who questioned me never really understood. The problem wasn't that the programmers did their job poorly; the problem was that they did it too well. The Mindlink is a tremendous experience-exhilarating, challenging, and not the least bit frightening. There have been many computer links over the years that have claimed to be complete realities. This one genuinely is.
"And it was a reality that too many of my teammates didn't want to leave."
Aric looked at him, a shiver running through him. "You mean like an addiction?"
"I mean like a total withdrawal from reality," Quinn said bluntly. "They walked around offlink like ghosts. Just going through the motions of living, doing whatever they had to do so they could get out of this pale imitation of reality and back to the real thing. Some of them went so far as to steal wireless jack connectors so that they wouldn't have to face the real world at all."
His lip twitched. "Some of those never came back. Not even when the Mindlinks were forcibly taken away from them. They never came back."
Aric gazed at his face. At the lines of tension in his jaw... "You feel it too, don't you?" he said.
Quinn turned away. "All Copperheads do," he said. "And I'm convinced that it does damage to us every time we link up. But the Peacekeepers didn't want to give up the program. Neither did NorCoord." He shrugged fractionally. "They're screening the applicants better these days-we got that much out of Parliament at the hearings. Maybe it was enough. I don't know. I'm not sure I want to."
Aric grimaced. "I'm sorry. Sorry, too, for dragging you into this in the first place."
Quinn turned to face him again. "Don't be," he said, "I told you all this so you could try to understand, not so you'd waste time with sympathy. When lives are at stake, you do what you have to, whether it's personally comfortable for you or not." He cocked an eyebrow. "I doubt this was something you really wanted to do, either, if you want to get right down to it."
Aric shrugged. "It's not exactly the same situation."
"It all comes together in the end." Quinn looked up at the display. "Anyway. Now you know. Better go get some sleep. We could have a really busy day ahead of us."
24
With a start Pheylan woke up, a twisted and tortured dream evaporating in the dim nighttime lighting of his prison cell. For a moment he lay on his cot without moving, blinking the sleep from his eyes and trying to figure out what had happened to shock him awake that way. In the room outside four Zhirrzh techs were puttering about as usual, the consoles with their gray-tone displays looking as normal as they ever got. The clock on one of them indicated it was just after dawn outside, at least if Pheylan was reading it correctly, an hour or two earlier than he was accustomed to waking up. There was no indication that any of the aliens had just come in, slamming a door behind him; nothing on the floor that would suggest someone had dropped something with a crash. From outside he could hear a distant, barely audible roar, growing fractionally louder as the vehicle circled around coming toward them.
Pheylan frowned. It was an odd sort of sound, now that he was concentrating on it. An aircar? No, more likely a spacecraft. One whose engines made an unusual sort of twittering drone.... And suddenly every muscle in Pheylan's body went rigid, his throat tightening as he strained to hear. Half-afraid he was imagining it... but there was no mistake. The sound was unique and unmistakable.
A Mrach ship.
With an effort Pheylan forced his muscles to relax, the hammering of his pulse abruptly loud in his ears. This was it. His best chance-maybe his only chance-of getting out of here. His training at the academy had included a unit on Mrach ships, instrumentation and flight technique both. If he could get to it, he would be out of here.
If he could get to it.
He lay there another minute, running through all the nebulous gambits and wild schemes he'd thought up in the past three weeks. None of them were all that terrific, but there was no time now to come up with anything better. Outside, the drone of the Mrach engines had fallen silent, and there was no way of knowing how long it would be before the ship took off again. It was now or most likely never.
Taking a deep breath, he propped himself up on one elbow. "Hey," he called plaintively, pointing to one of the techs as they all turned to look at him. "You. Go get Thrr-gilag. I don't feel well. I think I'm going to be sick."