The Great Symmetry (30 page)

It wasn’t a bad plan, Rezar realized as he read. It was certainly innovative. In fact, Rezar couldn’t think of anything else that
would have any chance of success.

The Affirmatix fleet held, in total, more than ten times the fighting capacity that Kelter could muster. Kelter’s only advantage, if you could so call it, was that Affirmatix had to defend all of the outgoing glomes, while Kelter only had to get a single
ship to one glome.

Rezar wondered why Affirmatix had not simply taken the initiative, and wiped the Kelter fleet from space, to eliminate even that slim hope. All he could think of was that it was not worth the bother to them.

Two capital ships. The San Miguel and the San Angelo, stationed off Forbie. Thirty years old.
The last time either ship had fired a shot in anger was … never. Retired from service at Green eight years ago, picked up at salvage prices that matched Kelter’s budget.

Two captains. Tomas and Matteo. Brothers. They had served longer than the ships had been in existence. Served with distinction, loyalty, and devotion to duty.
Forty years of peacetime. Even the times that the warships had been hired for private-public use had been few, far between, and uneventful.

Now, were they ready for action? The question applied equally to the ships, their crews, and their captains.

When he was a teenager, Rezar had always enjoyed going to the pool. It was a privilege, one that came with the station of his domestic family. He could go to the pool any time that another duty did not call, and he could float and play in the
unfathomable expanse of the prized liquid.

At the pool, there were always lifeguards. Teenagers and young adults like himself, they had taken all of the required instruction and practice, about how to extract a panicked thrasher safely from the water.

It was a position of prestige, to be in charge of the pool. The power to order any person to behave, or to leave the pool. Even the governor’s son could be so ordered, as
Rezar had learned. And in any given shift, one lifeguard was in charge, assigning the spots and assuring that everyone rotated duties as needed.

It took no particular ability to become the head lifeguard. All you had to do was stick around, working at the pool when your classmates had gone on to graduate school or a profession. Those who had been there the longest were the head lifeguards.
For some who persisted for a few years past their time, the absurdity would finally become so evident that it would be time for a quiet talk, about the need to give others a chance.

Kelter was about to go to war, led by their head lifeguards. There was simply no way to evaluate whether they were the right choices. To raise the question would be blasphemy.

Rezar watched the commanders working and planning, for an event whose prospect had defined their entire adult lives, but had never before occurred. They had studied, they had drilled. Tabletop simulations and real exercises, out in space. Simulated combat with mutually postulated ammunition.

They had at their disposal a set of forces that had been accumulated for some set of reasons that, at this point, Rezar didn’t even understand
. Prestige, perhaps. The need to have a few toys if your neighbors did. Some resources that could be hired out to one of the Sisters if called upon. Certainly not to defend their planet from a major invading fleet such as Affirmatix had now assembled in the Kelter system.

There was an old saying, which Rezar struggled to remember from school. Something like, you had to go to war with the forces
you had. He had forgotten the context, from some pointless war lost long ago in the mists of time, and he didn’t know the exact words.

All he could recall was that it prophesied disaster.

Shabby Donkeys

Kate had found the governor’s garden. A stunning extravagance. Terrestrial plants, free to transpire their moisture out into the air without a visible recovery system. Flowers. Spray irrigation. By luck, or by allowance of the Kelter security program, it was within their allowed perimeter.

Mira steered them to the large fountain in the center. Water coursed up, then separated into twisting blobs, before falling and splashing with abandon. She gestured them
close to the spray. “Perfect,” she murmured. “White noise.” She had that look.

May as well get it out. “Lay it on us,” Evan told her.

“I think Kestrel can help with the Stewart monitors,” she told them.

“Remove them? I heard that bad things would happen.” Evan couldn’t resist.

“Remove – no. Mask them. It’s the same concept as noise canceling headphones. An outer casing that detects and neutralizes the signal.”

“Mira – not this time. It’s not a good idea.”

“It will totally work! Kestrel is brilliant. And he’ll do it for us.”

“I’m sure your friend could do it,” Evan allowed. “That’s not the point. If we want to affect the outcome, we’re in the right place. What if we have a great idea, but we’re on the run? When the fleet moves, maybe we can suggest something.”

“So you just accept it?”

“Every day,” put in Kate. “When you live in civilization, outside the Untrusted Zone, you’re accustomed to it. T
he only thing these monitors do is that they remind you of it. Your heartbeat. Every door you swipe, everything you buy, every time you flush the toilet. It’s known. You’re just not used to it.”

“So we do nothing,” Mira spat out.

“We do everything we can – from here.” Kate turned to Evan. “I’ve got a question for you. What specific information makes you think we will be better off in custody? Do you have evidence?”

“The Versari data got us, and all of Kelter, into this pickle,” Evan said. “Maybe it can get us out of it. You know, I only decoded four of the recordsets – there are two hundred fifty two left to go. It’s time to get right back to the puzzle. But if we do figure something out, then we need to be able to talk to someone who can act on it, not hiding out.”

“Any particular avenue?”

“There’s the Omega entry issue, for one. The Versari chart lists destinations for the Omega entry of each glome. The way I read them, they’re wrong, so I must have made a mistake. If we figure out how to make Omega work, that could be worth something. I don’t know how it could help, but it might.”

Mira looked more than disappointed. “I can’t believe you two. Well, I’m due back for a follow-up check before the big show, so see you later.” And she wheeled out.

Kate and Evan walked among the opulence. They allowed themselves a few minutes before it was time to dig in, and see if they could decode anything more of value from the Versari. It was an outside shot at best – there was almost certainly nothing they could do that would affect the outcome.

“These flowers,” Kate indicated. “Ironic, isn’t it? The majestic display, so much of a plant’s energy devoted to reproducing themselves, but of course they can’t.”

“For safety,” Evan agreed. On any planet except Earth, all plants were created in deeply controlled settings, to avoid the potential for ecological disaster.

“In the wild parts of Earth, plants simply seed, and then those seeds grow where they will. Kind of a crazy idea, but that’s how everything started. Picture landing in a spot that you didn’t get to choose, and that’s the one place you must grow, or die trying.”

“It’s true for all of us,” Evan pointed out. “We can walk around, or take a ship to another star system. But we’re still in exactly this time in the life of the universe, and in our history
. We have to thrive where we are, somehow.”

The setting would have been stunningly romantic, if it were not jarred by the countdown. In less than two hours the Kelter fleet would set out on their mission, one last chance to save Kelter and everyone who lived there.

Evan was pondering the two hundred fifty-two Versari recordsets that sat, un-decoded. The destruction of the planet was going to happen at an inconvenient time.

They walked past another few beds of flowers, neatly arranged, trimmed, cultivated.

“So I’ve been thinking,” Kate said, “about regret.”

“Hey, it’s not over yet,” he offered.

“That’s what makes it an especially good idea to have regrets now. To remember them later, when it all works out. Let me tell you about one. A failure that I’m not proud of. I’ll confess it now while I have the chance.”

“Oh come on,” Evan assured her. “You’re so accomplished. And you’ve helped so many people.”

“So I guess you met one of my captains, Rod Denison.”

“Well, yeah. He rode down to the surface with us. Not my idea, I’ll have you know. What about him? You don’t mean you and him were−”

“Oh no, nothing like that,” Kate replied. “Although it would be none of your business if we were. Here’s the thing: Rod Denison had a spy, on another ship. An independent, much smaller than us, running just the one ship, captained by Paul Ricken. Rod and the spy had this game worked out where the spy would send content ahead to Denison, and also tell him where their next planned destination was, so Denison could stay one step ahead of the other ship. There was some reason why it was legal, if it were ever discovered;
a hole in the spy’s contract with Ricken’s ship.”

“And?”

“And I allowed it,” Kate confessed. “For two years I allowed it. I profited. Taking advantage of a proudly independent small family. Doing exactly the same thing to them as the majors were doing to us. Not remembering who was the real enemy.”

“The Sisters.”

“Of course. They watch us fight with each other, while they slowly draw all the air out of the room.”

“You’re taking this kind of hard, Kate. I’m sure you were doing what you thought was best for your family.”

“Paul used to be a friend. I should have protected him, even as a competitor. It’s a funny thing, the independents. All so different, but the same in one way. Nothing matters more than being an independent. So we knew each other. Could recognize one another across a room, even if we had never met. Shabby donkeys will find each other, even over nine hills, my mom used to say. We were the shabby donkeys.”

Evan led the way around a lush bend in the path, to find a
small courtyard with a smaller fountain. Water emerged from a hole in the top of a round boulder, then flowed down in a sheet on the rock’s surface. “But you were kind of big for that kind of independent scene,” he said. “Getting close to corporate, weren’t you?”

“Maybe that’s why I forgot. Thought we were so big. Still just a bug, compared to a major.”

“Look on the bright side. We won’t be around to trouble him anymore. Not after a few more hours. He’ll be spy-free!” Evan put both of his thumbs up sardonically.

“Here’s the final kick in the butt: He’s incoming. To Kelter, from Green. In five hours. For two years we’ve been stealing from him, and at the end, he’ll arrive right into the thick of the Affirmatix fleet. So that’s my regret.”

“I thought Affirmatix was stopping incoming traffic by now.”

“Yes, but not from Green, they couldn’t get there yet. Paul Ricken is going to come in from Green, and he’s going to die here. ”

“And this matters why?” Evan asked.

“Just my conscience, I guess. Confession. A small step in preparing to meet our maker. Don’t you have regrets?”

“Oh do I ever! But I don’t think this park is big enough to tell you about them all.”

“We shall save it for the right moment,” Kate decided. “You’ve got the rest of the Versari data with you, right? Let’s have a look.”

Private Dinner

Roe wasn’t going to pass this up. With a scant hour or so off duty, and the prospect of being recalled at any moment, he knew he should be getting some shuteye. Instead, he was making plans for dinner with Sonia West.

She had requested the dinner, out of the blue, and insisted on a private setting. While Roe had lost the use of his suite for the duration of the current mission, he still could take possession of a small officer’s lounge. That would have to do.

Marilyn wouldn’t mind. It was only dinner. And she was light-years away.

At the appointed time, they met in the dining room and picked up their respective orders to take to the lounge. Roe brought a bottle of wine. By convention, no more than two glasses was acceptable if you would have to return to duty any time in the next four hours.

Then they were alone. “Thank you for joining me on such short notice,” she said, and picked at her salad.

“You are the finest dinner companion I could hope for this side of Arrow,” he told her.

“Home?”

“When I am there,” he said. “My wife, two of my kids. A grandchild on the way. What about you?”

She obviously was hesitating. “It’s okay,” he told her. “Alcyone.”

“Have you been there?”

“No, and I don’t know the glome that goes there,” he told her. “But it is an open secret, these days. When we get orders we don’t understand, we just say that it must come from Alcyone.”

“Yes, Alcyone,” she said.

“Tell me, is it paradise like they say? Every wish fulfilled?”

Sonia considered. “In one sense, yes. In another, it is always about work. A wonderful place if you get a moment to be there. But only the most dedicated workers live there, at least that I saw. I have been realizing how much of my children’s lives I have missed.”

“Duty,” he intoned.

“Yes. Duty to the facts, duty to doing the job in the best possible way. Tell me, Captain, how do you evaluate duty? You command a ship, but you operate it at the behest of those who currently hold the rental contract. What is your duty?”

“A complex question indeed, Dr. West.”

“Please call me Sonia, at least when we are here,” she told him, smiling to the extent that her manner allowed.

She had features that a man could easily call beautiful, if you saw them in a still image, or if they were described to you. Her skin, lacking any flaw, or perhaps scrubbed of them. Eyes that conveyed brilliance within. Her
absolutely straight black hair, elegant or perhaps imprisoned. Her expression, confined.