Spheres of Influence-eARC (33 page)

Her lips tightened. “Then we…no,
I
…will blow them out of the sky. I don’t want to. I hope they take this offer. But I’m through ignoring my responsibilities. I have to let us get back and deal with the
real
problem.”

“Heart of gold and still hard as nails,” a weak voice came from behind them. “I approve.”

“
Simon!
” Ariane went to help him to a chair.

“What the
hell
are you doing out of bed, Simon?” DuQuesne demanded.

“Couldn’t…just stay in bed when you might need me,” he said; the face was pale under the reddened burns and bruises.

Ariane was staring at Simon’s injuries, aghast. “God, Simon. I’m so sorry.”

“Hardly
your
fault.”

“Yes. Yes it is, Simon. But I won’t let it happen again.”

He raised an eyebrow, then shrugged painfully. “If you insist on taking the blame, I haven’t the energy to argue with you. And who knows, perhaps you’re right. But in that case, apology accepted, it’s all forgotten.”

In a few more minutes, Ariane snapped on the transmitter. “Guidemaster Hancray, do you have an answer for me?”

Hancray immediately appeared. He looked slightly more bedraggled than before, as though despite his injuries he had still gotten in some sort of altercation. “Yes, Captain Austin. After…some quick and heated discussion, I have convinced the others to accept your offer.”

She stood rigid and unbending, but DuQuesne knew Ariane very, very well, and he could see the slight shift of her feet, hear the tiny catch in her breath, that showed her great relief. “We will offer no resistance. I will notify you when we are all in the designated quarters. This will take no longer than ten minutes.”

“Acceptable, Guidemaster. I will await your transmission.” She turned to Orphan and Sethrik as the picture faded. “Are we
sure
there are no weapons they can be preparing for use against us?”

“The ship has effectively no power. The only energy available will be in portable devices,” Orphan answered after a moment. “If they assembled a large number of such—say, rifles, pistols, and so on—they could make a fairly powerful bomb. But they would have to get it outside of
Thilomon
and onto our hull. Once we have brought them into the cargo bay, it will be quite easy to monitor for any movement. If they attempt to open any door, leave by any route, we simply drop them out into Arenaspace and fire.”

Sethrik bobbed his agreement. “The larger explosive warheads…those could pose a problem. But again, they must be maneuvered into place.”

“Hmm. But one of
those
could still do damage to
Zounin-Ginjou
even from within the salvaged piece we bring on board.”

“Possibly,” Sethrik answered, and gave an almost cheery wing-snap. “But we do have the last data download from her command structure following the battle. Before transferring them we can hook back in and just check the readiness systems to see if any of the major weapons have been moved or tampered with since.”

“Good enough, then,” Orphan agreed.

The communications panel beeped. “Captain Austin, we are now secure.”

“Thank you, Guidemaster. Now I must caution you again that there must be no resistance. We will also be checking to determine if any large weapons, such as missile warheads, are not in their proper locations. If any such are found to be unaccounted for, I will have the entire ship destroyed. Is that understood?”

A pause. “Understood.” Hancray’s voice was tense.

“Do you require a few moments to verify that all such weapons are accounted for?”

Relief was evident in his reply. “I would greatly appreciate it.”

“As you called back within five minutes, I will give you the additional five I had already granted you. Starting now.”

DuQuesne grinned.
From Hancray’s tone, I’ll bet he’d just found out some loyalist group had brought on a big bomb without telling him. Now he’s got the motivation to get the thing off his ship. Maybe they’ll get out of this alive after all.

A few minutes later, Hancray reported that he was certain everything was in order. Orphan and Sethrik verified this with a temporary low-power reboot of
Thilomon
’s main operational system.

Simon, meanwhile, had somehow brought up a diagram of the interior structure of
Thilomon
. “Here, Orphan. If you use your energy beams along these lines, you should be able to safely cut it out of the surrounding ship. It should then be easy to drag on board.”

“Truly, Doctor Sandrisson, you astonish me. Yet your information appears quite accurate, if I am to judge by Sethrik’s expression.”

“
Quite
accurate,” Sethrik confirmed.

“Brace yourselves, Guidemaster Hancray. We are about to cut you free.”

Energy weapons from
Zounin-Ginjou’
s forward batteries struck out with surgical precision, cutting along four perfect geometric lines. A rectangular section of
Thilomon
slowly floated free, and the top and bottom were also cut off by those irresistable beams of light.
Zounin-Ginjou
moved slowly in, caught each end of the now-tumbling wreckage with a manipulator, and drew the boxy assemblage into its cargo bay. “Blessed prisoners are now onboard,” Orphan announced.

“Right,” DuQuesne said, and grabbed up his toolbox. “C’mon, Wu. You’ll keep an eye out while I hook ’em up to power to keep their lights on, air flowing, and toilets flushing. Once that’s done, we can get the hell out of here!”

Chapter 42.

“You clear on what you want us to do, Ariane?”

She could still feel the uncertainty boiling inside her.
Maybe it never goes away. Or at least I’d better hope it doesn’t.
The last thing she
ever
wanted was to get used enough to commanding people that she stopped doubting that she was right.

But I still have to
act
like I’m right.
“I think so.”

She stood and faced the small group around the conference table on
Zounin-Ginjou
.
A
very
small group when you consider that in this room are people making decisions for three separate Factions
. “Sethrik, Orphan, you are technically equal in rank to me, so—”

“Please, Captain Austin,” interrupted Sethrik. “We know the situation. This is a point of choice and honor for Humanity. Unless I think your course is insane, I am ready to follow you.”

“And perhaps even if it
is
insane,” Orphan put in with his usual ironic humor. “Given how often you humans make a habit of insanity.”

She smiled at that. “All right. Well, we’ve gone over what we could drag out of
Thilomon’s
databanks, especially Vantak’s private files and what Vantak carried with him when he got aboard
Zounin-Ginjou
. He was awfully cautious, but I think we should be able to use some of what he had planned for our own purposes—especially to flush out the masterminds of the whole thing.”

“If I can get back to our Embassy,” Sethrik said, “I should be able to obtain the final pieces of the puzzle. It is evident that after the basic processing I was expected to return. Therefore they will
expect
to meet with me and be…debriefed. If of course I had been killed, Vantak would likely have been appointed Leader, but since Vantak indicated my loyalty was to be renewed, I must assume—and so would our unknown but suspected conspirators—that I would have remained Leader of the Blessed in the Arena.”

That sparked an important memory.” A question about that, Sethrik,” Ariane said. “Why don’t they
routinely
do this loyalty renewal treatment? Not that I’m complaining, mind you—without you helping we’d have been totally screwed—but I’m wondering why the Minds don’t just do that every year, or six months, or whatever, making sure that you guys
never
get to the point that you start thinking outside whatever box they have around you.”

“The short answer is that they do…over fairly long periods. But…” Sethrik’s wings scissored as Orphan’s often did when he was uncertain how to respond. Somewhat to her surprise, Orphan spoke—and with a startlingly gentle tone. “Sethrik, I will answer—if I may?”

At the Blessed’s gesture of assent, Orphan faced them. “To some of you, such as Doctor DuQuesne, the answer may be obvious. But it is a matter of compromise, as with many things.

“You know that the Minds were forced to give the Blessed at least some independence, or they would be unable to function at all in the Arena. And in fact, that independence must include the ability to evaluate, adapt, change, or the Blessed would be
hopelessly
crippled in the Arena. They would be…what was the phrase you once used? Ah, yes, the eternal ‘clueless newbies’ of the Arena, programmed perhaps with a wide array of facts and techniques but unable to encompass the fluid
life
of the Arena.

“So the Minds must compromise and balance between allowing their people to develop these capabilities, learn from others, forging alliances, building…a rapport with other species, and keeping them from developing,” he gestured to himself, “an unfortunate longing for even more independent thinking.”

“It is somewhat more than that,” Sethrik said. “Even the Minds…have limits. One of those limits is that it is effectively impossible for them to restructure someone’s entire manner of thinking, eliminating the independence of thought, and still leave them with not merely the memories but the
experiences
that brought them to that point. They can give to one so processed the facts, the sequences of events, but if they were to leave in the emotional and event context…the processing would be self-reversing in extremely short order. This means that to do so—especially to the Leader of the Blessed or others who frequently interact with outsiders of high rank and importance—risks severely damaging any such connections; one of us who is so…changed cannot conceal that they no longer have the same affection—or, in truth, even animus or curiosity—towards those with whom they have had extensive contact.”

“So they have to guess when things are about to go south and order—or drag—you in at the last minute?” she asked. It was a horrific thought. “Have you…”

“Once before, yes. I can now deduce what I lost.” He looked to Orphan. “And understand from whence came the Liberated.”

“So you
are
the Leader of the Blessed to Serve still,” Ariane said, continuing.

“As far as I am aware, yes. They had certainly not performed the usual procedure to remove a Leader, and I do not believe they would have set such a thing in motion unless they had reason to believe their plans had failed and that nothing could be recovered—a conclusion that they will only now be reaching.”

“All right.” She looked at DuQuesne and Simon, who was now thankfully looking somewhat better; during the journey to drop off the Blessed prisoners they’d enforced bed rest on the scientist, and his medical nanos had taken the chance to do some real work. It would still be awhile before Simon Sandrisson was really back to his former self, but he no longer looked like someone incompetently raised from the dead. “The first step is to get Sethrik back to the Arena and let him get to the Blessed Faction House. I think we have an excellent plan to do that.”

“Simple ruse,” DuQuesne agreed with a grin. “We just apparently arrive after having completed our ship-transport gig. The only people who could possibly put that into question are people on our Sphere who’d be able to figure out that the timing was a little off.”

“Hopefully they won’t look too hard at
Zounin-Ginjou
itself,” Simon said. “I know you’ve done miracles on covering up the damage in the last week or so, but anyone who looks at the wrong areas carefully will know there’s something wrong.”

“You’re right, Simon,” Ariane said. “But the deception doesn’t have to last too long.”

“I have every intention of making that part as short as possible,” Orphan said. “That is why we will transport Sethrik—and Captain Austin and Sun Wu Kung—to
my
Embassy first in standard cargo containers. Sethrik can then leave by a somewhat more concealed exit that I had constructed some years ago, while I publicly depart for my ship and leave—bringing her back for repairs.”

“I admit, I don’t exactly like the idea you’ll be gone,” DuQuesne said, and she smiled.
We really used to distrust Orphan…and he gave us plenty of reasons to. I still think he’s got other agendas. But he sure demonstrated what side he was on this time.
“But you’ve got the right idea. That way if no one notices the damage to
Zounin-Ginjou
in about an hour, they’ll never have a chance to see it, and our story will be pretty close to airtight.”

“If we’re right,” Ariane continued, “once in the Faction House, Sethrik will be able to find Vantak’s contact protocols with whoever was behind it, and get them called in for a meeting. We will deal with them privately—in-Faction—once we get the evidence. Externally,” she said, looking directly into Sethrik’s black eyes, “we will state that the Blessed acted to protect me from an unknown assassination attempt, and encountered difficulties which required a roundabout route to return me. I will thank the Blessed for their prompt action and efforts on our behalf.”

She then gave a momentary humorless grin. “You will convey these…
thanks
to the Minds, via a courier, along with this message. Are you ready?” she asked of Orphan.

“Recording now, Captain Austin,” Orphan said. “We can edit when you are done.”

She took a breath, then read from the speech she’d prepared along with Simon and DuQuesne.

“This is Captain Ariane Austin of Humanity. Your attempt to kidnap me, and to extract the knowledge of how to use the powers of Shadeweaver and/or the Faith which are sealed within me, has failed, as you no doubt are already aware.

“The details of that plan are now known to us, and you have no knowledge of how your plan failed—nor will you. But you should be aware that while your initial attempt to capture me succeeded, we deliberately and completely destroyed the
Thilomon
and the entire task force sent to bring me in.”

She glared into the recorder, and her voice sharpened. “We are a very small Faction. We are a single world already at war with one of the Great Factions, the Molothos. But we are
not
to be trifled with, and you have made a
very
grave mistake in trying something that you couldn’t finish.”

She pointed at the recorder, an accusatory finger that she knew would have the same effect on the Blessed that it would to humans, for a pointed finger meant very much the same thing to both. “You are going to pay for that mistake, Minds. You will pay because with the full details—both of what you attempted, and how your attempt failed—we can make it so that the Faction of the Blessed loses face, loses respect, and loses trust. More than this, however, is the main reason you chose to kidnap me. If you do not accede to my demands, Minds of the Blessed, I will go to both the Shadeweavers and the Faith and tell them precisely what you planned. I do not think they will look kindly upon this attempt of yours to seize that which both have kept to themselves for so long, and I also do not believe that you could afford the wrath of even one, let alone both of them.

“Our demands are simple: three Spheres, given to us exactly as they would be had this been a formal Challenge and you had lost. One Sphere for capturing me, one Sphere for those who endangered themselves to rescue me, and one extra to remind you that if you ever,
ever
try anything against us, you will
always
regret it. You have thousands upon thousands of Spheres; this will not significantly harm you. But it will
always
remind you of what it costs to take on Humanity. You try it, you damn well better
win
, because if you don’t, it will
hurt
.

“In return for this, we will not only
not
accuse the Blessed of these crimes, but will instead put forth a public story showing that the Blessed acted to protect the leader of another Faction, and made sure that she was safe before returning her home. As a sign of
our
good faith, this particular account of the events will have been released by the time you receive this message. I hope that you will not give us cause to withdraw that story.

“Ariane Stephanie Austin, Leader of the Faction of Humanity—out.”

She saw DuQuesne and Simon grinning fiercely, and Simon applauded. “Now
that
is a message I would dearly wish to observe being delivered,” Simon said. “Though not enough so to risk going to the Homesphere of the Blessed.”

“You are playing…a dangerous game there, Ariane Austin,” Sethrik said, “for the Minds do not take at all well to threats. But…I think you are probably right to do so. Such an affront must be met with great strength, or they will believe you are too afraid to talk, too weak to dare confront them even when their offenses are of so heinous a nature.”

“Indeed,” Orphan said, and bowed deeply to her in the human fashion. “But I expected no less from the woman who was willing to face Amas-Garao in single combat…and won. Oh, this will be
most
amusing—and I agree with you, Doctor Sandrisson, that I would give much for a chance to observe the delivery of this message! For I assure you, the Minds will think hard on those truths—that the one speaking so to them has done the impossible, taking the power of a Shadeweaver to defeat one of the eldest of that brotherhood, beating one of their personally-designed own in a race of speed and courage, leading her people into Factionhood through her own personal will and courage…and surrounded by people who have personally defeated Molothos incursions. They will think long and hard on this, and on the fact that you admit to having been captured…and yet, somehow, escaped, and destroyed the entire task force sent to retrieve you…and I believe find that they have no answers save to agree, for they cannot afford the price they will pay otherwise.”

“Good,” she said, and sat down heavily. “Because I’m scared as hell that it’s going to get us in a war with a
second
Great Faction.”

“Not a chance,” DuQuesne said positively. “Orphan and Sethrik agree. They decided to go for kidnapping and brainwashing, so we’ve turned around and given ’em blackmail. They’ll probably pay, once. I don’t
like
blackmail, but I like what they did even less, and right now it’s the only option we’ve got for hitting back at a Faction that large. And Sethrik’s right that the one thing we
can’t
afford is to ignore it or pretend we’re too scared to fight back. Do that, and they’ll figure they can try again, someway, somehow.”

“I would still gladly go and beat these Minds for you!” Wu Kung said.

She smiled. “I think that’s asking a little much even of
you
, Wu. But honestly I’d prefer that route. Manipulation and blackmail, why, I’ve already started down the dirty road of politics with Oscar.” She took a breath, let it out. “But with luck, I won’t have to do anything like that again.”

The alert buzzed, telling her that they were ready for the final jump to Nexus Arena’s space. “All right, everyone…let’s do this.”