The Blackcollar (7 page)

No excited murmur ran through the group, only here and there was there so much as a thoughtful nod. Dhonau's face remained impassive. "Can you prove it?"

"I don't know. I was hoping to find General Avril Lepkowski here—one of our leaders, General Morris Kratochvil, was going to give me a letter of introduction for him. I don't suppose Galway lied about his being dead?"

Dhonau shook his head. "Sorry Lepkowski fried with his senior staff under New Karachi during the Groundfire attack. Do you have that letter with you?"

"Unfortunately, things went sour." Caine described the raid on the Resistance hideaway and his own escape to Plinry. "Without the proper papers I can't get into the Plinry archives. I was hoping the underground here could help me."

"Uh-huh." Dhonau looked thoughtful. "I notice you've carefully avoided mentioning
why
you want in the archives. What's in there that's so important?"

Caine took a deep breath. The culmination of years of preparation, the knife-edge on which the freedom of Earth blanced—he'd been told often enough how important the secret was. But he had no choice now but to tell them. "Out there, somewhere," he said, nodding skyward, "there's a great treasure hidden. Five Nova-class starships. Fueled, armed, and ready to fly."

Again there were no murmurs, but this time the silence was due to shock. Dhonau recovered first. "You must be joking," he said, his voice strangely tight.

Caine shook his head. "I agree, it sounds impossible. Here's what happened.

"The TDE was turning out vast numbers of warships in the early years of the war. In early 2424 someone in the High Command had the bright idea of hiding some fully armed and crewed warships in one of the systems near the battle front. The plan was to let the Ryqril sweep past—they were going to, anyway—and then suddenly pop up with this assault force right in the middle of their supply vectors."

"Wouldn't have helped much," someone muttered.

"Nothing would have," Dodds, sitting next to Lathe, countered.

"Well, we'll never know for sure," Caine said. "The five ships were delivered on schedule by special skeleton crews, who hid them and then returned to Earth. The convoy that was carrying the regular crews ran into a Ryqril ambush and was completely destroyed, though we're sure the Ryqril never knew just what they'd done. Anyway, with the incredibly tight secrecy around the project the report of the incident didn't get to the right people until it was too late. The Ryqril had already passed and it would have been nearly impossible to get crews through the front. All records on Earth were destroyed before the Ryqril victory, and everybody who knew where the ships were hidden is dead now, so the handful of officers who knew about the project gave up on it until about seven years ago."

"Duplicate records exist on Plinry?" Skyler asked.

Caine nodded. "General Kratochvil located a former Rear Admiral who'd been based on Plinry. The ships' location is hidden in one of the mundane, non-military records in the archives. It's in a special code, overlaid on the wording of the record."

"Go on," Dhonau prompted.

"No. The rest has to remain secret."

"I see." Dhonau scratched his chin. "What were your plans once you had the information?"

"The original plan was for me to return to Earth, still as Alain Rienzi. The Resistance was supposed to recruit all the old starmen that they could find, steal some ships, and try to get to the Novas before the Ryqril figured out what they were doing. Now—" he shrugged uncomfortably— "I'm not sure what I'll do."

"Speaking of Alain Rienzi," Dhonau said, abruptly changing the subject, "how come you're able to masquerade as him?"

"Oh, he really exists—aide to a TDE Senator, son of a well-connected government family—all of that's true. I apparently look enough like him to pass. The Resistance kidnapped him and changed his ID and the computer banks to fit my fingerprints and retinal patterns."

"That's impossible."

Hawking's flat tone left no room for argument. Caine tried anyway. "I don't know how it was done, but—"

"Look, Caine, you can't tamper with the plastic on a collie ID. I've seen yours, and I've tried it on others. And as for getting into an ID computer file unnoticed, that's even worse nonsense."

"Well, it obviously
was
done." Caine felt anger rising within him and forced it down. "If it was impossible I wouldn't
be
here. They would've nabbed me right at the New Geneva 'port."

"All right, at ease, everyone," Dhonau's voice cut in. "Vale, Haven—escort Caine back to the other room. We need time to discuss this," he added to Caine. "We'll let you know our decision shortly."

Caine stood up, but his muscles were strangely tense, and he didn't trust himself to speak. So he simply nodded and left. The door closed solidly behind him.

For a few moments the room was silent as the assembled blackcollars considered Caine's words. Stroking his dragonhead ring gently, Lathe glanced surreptitiously around him, trying to judge the others' thoughts. His own mind was racing with possibilities.

Dhonau spoke first "Comments?"

"I think," Skyler said slowly, "the first order of business is Caine's credentials. Hawking, were you overstating your case?"

"Nope. It's probably possible to get into a collie ID computer, but not without someone finding out."

"Before he got off the planet?"

"Easily. The most likely explanation is that the Ryqril had broken the Resistance leaders by then and let Caine go, hoping he'd lead them to the ships."

"But if they're on to him, why didn't Galway let him into the Records Building?" O'Hara objected. "The collies should've been falling all over themselves giving him what he wanted."

Beside Lathe, Dodds shifted slightly in his seat. "There's one other possibility," he said. "The Resistance may have pulled a very sophisticated trick with Caine. It's possible he's a clone of Rienzi."

Dhonau's eyes narrowed. "Explain."

"Within a couple of years after the war's end it should have been possible to guess which of the collies were likely to hold onto position and power. The Rienzi family sounds like a prime choice. All that would be needed would be to obtain a scratch sample of skin from a newborn Rienzi baby, make a clone from it, and raise the resulting child under Resistance supervision. He'd have the same fingerprints and retinal patterns, and the few months' age difference would be undetectable."

"Where was Security while the sample was being taken?"

"Bound to be loose in the first couple of years," Lathe pointed out. "It was on Plinry, certainly."

"Maybe," Dhonau grunted. "Anyone know whether cloning techniques had advanced that far by the end of the war? Dodds?"

"They were working on it a lot, I'd heard," Dodds said. "I know they'd finally broken the instability problem, but whether the method was ready to use I don't know. But I'd say the chances are good that it was."

"Let's let that pass for now," a big black man named James Novak said. "Even if the Ryqril are on to this, we can stay a jump ahead of them. What
I
want to know is whether five Novas are really worth going after."

"Good point," O'Hara agreed. "After all, the Ryqril fleets must have a good two hundred comparable ships, plus an unholy number of smaller craft."

"True, but those are probably all off fighting the Chryselli," Hawking said. "Not much left in the TDE except Corsairs, I'd imagine."

"We're way behind their shock fronts, too," Kwon mused. "Thirty years late, but we could follow the original script and hit their materiel shipments."

"Hmm. The Chryselli." Dhonau looked thoughtful. "What does anybody know about them?"

There was a short silence. "The TDE sent a mission to talk with them a couple of years into the war," Lathe offered at last. "General Lepkowski was in charge of it, before he took over the war theater here. I had a brother aboard his ship." He said this last with complete confidence, only Dodds knew it wasn't true, and Lathe could trust him to control his face.

"What are they like?" Novak asked.

"Short, dumpy things—like giant hairballs on legs, Paul described them. Warm-blooded, oxygen-breathers—I forget the rest. Anyway, Lepkowski was supposed to talk them into coming into the war on our side."

"Obviously, he failed," O'Hara said dryly.

"Yes, but not because they didn't see the danger. They just weren't ready for war yet and figured they would do better to build up their defenses while the Ryqril were busy stomping us."

"Helpful types."

Lathe shrugged. "You can hardly blame them. Even now, after forty years' head start, they're barely holding their own against the Ryqril, if news reports are to be believed."

"If things really are balanced out there, five Novas
would
be a force worth taking seriously," Kwon commented.

"Agreed," Dhonau said. "Alternatively, if we decide the Chryselli aren't worth helping directly, we could pull the ships into Earth orbit, say, blast as much Ryqril hardware as possible, and try to precipitate a revolt. Just having the ability to break the isolation they've put our worlds into would be a big help."

"Just remember that they'll have hunters on our tail from day one," Chelsey Jensen cautioned, running his fingers through his mop of gray-blond hair. "So don't get any ideas about massed assaults—five Novas together would leave a wake-trail six parsecs long."

"That's no problem," Skyler said, "unless you're partial to big space battles. Even skulking around individually the ships would be well worth having. I say we go with it."

The discussion trailed off into silence. "Other comments?" Dhonau said. "No? All right, then, who's in favor of taking the mission?"

Technically, Lathe knew, the vote was unnecessary. If he and Dhonau, the two comsquares, agreed on a course of action, the others were duty-bound to obey their orders. Nonetheless, he was pleased to see the vote was unanimous. Pleased, but not surprised. They'd all been waiting for something like this for a long time.

Dhonau nodded to Vale and Haven, who went into the next room and brought Caine in. Lathe watched the youth's face carefully. It was under good control, letting only a hint of his tension show through. Dhonau waited until he was seated before speaking.

"We've talked things over, Caine, and have decided to give you whatever help we can."

"Great. Thank you very much." Caine leaned forward in his chair. "Then if you can just get me in touch with the underground here, I'll—"

"Whoa! Hold on!" Dhonau held out a wrinkled hand. "There isn't any underground on Plinry. There's just us."

Caine's jaw dropped fractionally. "No underground? But that's impossible. I mean, your people are discontented, especially the youth. Don't they hate the Ryqril enough to fight back?"

"Probably. But resistance movements form around natural spark points. If those points don't make any moves, the populace usually won't, either." Dhonau glanced around the room. "I'm afraid that's what's happened here. Our one effort to hold martial arts classes was too little too late, and nothing came of it."

"I see." Caine's voice was coldly polite. "May I ask how you intended to help me, then?"

"I thought we'd ask the collies to let us go in to study our old military records. Legally, we're allowed to do that."

Caine shook his head. "That hasn't got a chance," he said harshly. "Galway knows we've been together today. He'd know you were asking that on my behalf, and he'd wonder why. And the minute he gets suspicious it's all over."

Dhonau scratched an ear. "Well... I wasn't sure myself it would work. But don't worry—we've got a few more days to figure out something. Look, why don't you and Mordecai go on back to Capstone now, instead of waiting till later. I've had your bag packed, so you can leave right away. We'll kick ideas around another day or two out here. Let's see... why don't you plan to meet Skyler at that bar three days from today. Say, two-thirty?"

Caine hesitated, then shrugged and nodded heavily. "All right." He stood up and glanced around the room, and it seemed to Lathe that pity was the predominant emotion in his half smile. "Whatever happens, I appreciate your help."

Mordecai rose from his place on the floor and went forward. Caine nodded again and the two of them left the room.

"I think we've disillusioned the poor boy for life," O'Hara murmured.

"He'll get over it," Dhonau said grimly. "If the Ryqril are on to him we'll have to hit while they're not expecting it. We move tonight—full alert; modified plan Delta."

Lathe sat up a bit straighter, muscles tightening briefly before he consciously relaxed them. Around the room the others were reacting similarly, with amazing results. Years seemed to fall from their faces; their eyes were locked on Dhonau in anticipation. Lathe had the sudden mental image of a jungle cat the instant before its attack.

"Vale, you'll go to Capstone immediately and play Paul Revere." Dhonau's voice had taken on a whiplash texture; no longer a decrepit old man, but a blackcollar comsquare giving orders. "O'Hara, you're Bait leader; Skyler, you're Liberator; Kwon, Haven, and Novak, you're handling Assault. I'll take Swatter duty myself. Lathe, you'll go into the Hub with Caine. Questions? Jump-off's in—" he consulted his watch—"four hours, at twenty-five hundred exactly. Collect your teams and get moving."

Dodds was standing by the window of his room when Lathe slid silently through the door and closed it behind him. "I rather expected you to show up," Dodds said, without turning.

"I'm not surprised. You probably also know what I'm about to ask you to do."

Dodds glanced once at the humming bug stomper and then turned to face Lathe. "You can explain it anyway, if you'd like."

Lathe did so. "Well?"

Dodds smiled crookedly. "If I refuse, who else would you get? Of course I'll go."

"Good. Be sure to hang back until all the shooting's stopped. I'll set you up in a non-combat position with Haven—spotter or something. Can you fly a Corsair?"

"Yes. But I'll need to know the system before I lift."