Trial by Fire - eARC (88 page)

Vassily looked over, perplexed. “Terran? From the Latin? Why this?”

It was Visser who answered. “Caine is right. Latin is not any nation's language anymore, so any name derived from it is less likely to arouse cultural jealousies.”

Hwang nodded. “It is also wise not to use a name too closely associated with any one world. If we include ‘Earth’ in the title, we are emphasizing one planet above the others. What about the Moon, Mars, DeePeeThree, Zeta Tucanae? If we choose a title that fails to implicitly include all our worlds, I think you may be only one generation away from rebel groups chanting ‘no Confederation without representation.’”

Visser nodded. “I agree. But your point brings another issue to mind. We cannot know how our government will evolve, or if all of our peoples and polities will have equal, or any, representation within the blocs that comprise our state. Even now, some nations and groups choose not to. Can we truly claim ourselves to be a ‘confederation,’ then?”

“What would you suggest?”

Visser reflected upon Sukhinin’s question for a moment. “I think the closest English term is ‘consolidated.’ It would mean that we are all together—all one political entity—but it does not attempt to define or imply any universal set of political relationships: merely solidarity.”

“I agree,” Sukhinin said softly. “But if we make no statement of political accountability and equality, then what makes us different from a mob? ‘Terran Consolidation’ could be a fine title for the empire of a ruthless dictator, no?”

Caine felt something rise up from values learned at his family’s kitchen table, something which would have made his history-professor father proud. “Republic. We call it a republic.”

Visser frowned. “Not all states will like this.”

“With respect, that's too damned bad. A republic is representative pluralism, yes? So is the bloc structure, even if all the constituent states are not, themselves, republics. But one of the implicitly understood principles of a republic is that its social contract is the supreme authority, and may be fashioned and evolved only by representatives of the people. It puts the rule of law above both the vagaries of the
vox populi
and the dicta of would-be tyrants. And isn't that what we want? Isn't that what Nolan was urging, on his last day? To take a stand—at least this
one
—to use a global government not merely as a mechanism for enhanced security, but as an instrument for social good?”

Sukhinin was smiling for the first time in the past hour. He put a hand—Caine had to actively dispel the hackneyed association with a bearish Russian “paw”—on his shoulder. “Nolan could not have said it better. He would be happy today, to have heard you say this.” Sukhinin squeezed his shoulder and his eyes grew shiny. “Nolan was right about you. Every bit. If there is a heaven—and,
bozhemoi
, I hope there is—he is surely smiling down on you right now.”

Caine gave a brief, and he hoped humble, nod, but thought,
That assumes that Nolan is wearing wings above us, rather than in chains below. Just how many good-intentioned lies can you tell before even those prosocial prevarications earn you a one-way ticket to a personal, or mythological, hell? Probably equal to the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin.…

“So we will recommend our polity to the Accord to be named the Consolidated Terran Republic?” As the first word of the title began rolling off Visser's tongue, it sounded tentative. It had been graven in stone by the time the last syllable emerged.

Caine looked at the persons in the room, committed their locations and facial expressions to memory.
I will be able to say—and record—that this was the first time our collective name for ourselves was uttered. That this was the founding moment and vision that would become our touchstone and hope throughout the long trial by fire that now stands before us. And in so recording it, pen a rebuttal to the stylish cynicisms of the modern age: that not all declarations are banal; not all acts are futile; not all beliefs are pointless—and that I have lived the truth of that in this past minute.

And in the time it had taken to reflect upon the significance of the moment, the moment was past. That was, after all, the nature of moments.
By the time we can reflect on events, they are behind us. The present is like a vertical line in geometry, with the past stretching limitlessly to the left, and the future immeasurably to the right. But existing upon the line of the present means we are eternally perched upon a single point, an imaginary unit of measure that has no width. Just the way a “historical” moment is so narrow a sliver of time that it appears and disappears in the same instant. It has no epic dimensions and so casts no epic shadow at the moment it passes us. Only when it becomes a momentous object of the past—or future—does it acquire shape, mass, opacity.

Visser approached Darzhee Kut. “Delegate Kut, might I invite you to accompany us to the captain’s ready room? It would be the most appropriate place for us to begin our attempts to recontact your government.”

Darzhee Kut chittered out a string of affirmatives, turned just before he, Visser, Sukhinin, and Hwang exited. “I will look forward to our next meeting, Caine Riordan.”

“As will I, Darzhee Kut.”

As the door closed, Alnduul moved in the opposite direction, toward the observation gallery and the star-littered expanse before them. Caine asked his back. “How much did you know?”

“Of what would occur?”

“That, and the identity of the Ktor.”

“Their stratagems and the flow of events we foresaw. Their identity was uncertain at best. We foresaw that the Ktor would attempt to destroy the Accord unless they could secure your cooperation. With you as a satrapy, the Accord could have been a legitimating structure for their ambitions. However, when you would not ally with them, they hoped you would either prove weak enough to be conquered, or savage enough to undertake atrocities that would make you pariahs. Like them. You have done neither, and they are not revealed. For the Ktor, the outcome is a stalemate.”

“So nothing has really changed.”

“Sometimes, when your adversary is trying to precipitate dramatic change, stability is the best victory. Besides, their stalemate is your gain. Your decision to desist from attacking the Arat Kur Homenest shall garner the humans of Earth the high opinion of the Dornaani and, I suspect, the Slaasriithi. Although provoked and holding apocalypse in your hand, you refused to unleash it. You are a promising species, after all. But history shows that you can also be mercurial at times, and wayward when it comes to following any single course for very long. Perhaps, this time, you will contemplate other species whose natural inclination is to quietly flourish in times of peace, rather than spectacularly soar in times of crisis. We shall see.”

“Well, you must have suspected, or at least hoped, we’d be capable of restraining ourselves,” observed Caine. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have invested so much effort and faith in Nolan. You watched him, helped his heart resist the damage he had received. Which means you knew how he received the damage. Which means you knew about the doomsday rock. Which means you knew the Ktor were behind it. Which means you knew the Ktor had a particular interest in and fear of Earth. Which means the identity of the Ktor really wasn’t so uncertain, that they were likely to be huma—”

“Be still, Caine Riordan.” Alnduul looked about furtively and in that second, appeared to be anything but a super-being. “The moment of revelations about the Ktor is past. Leave it so, and learn not to speak of it. One is never so alone as one thinks. And, yes, we knew of the damage to Nolan’s heart, and what had caused it. And so we surmised what he must have seen, to become so fixed and certain in his purpose to lead your people to the stars. But those of us Custodians who had further suspicions had no proof—and still have none we can share—as to the intents and actual identity of the Ktor.”

Caine gaped. “But today, just minutes ago, you saw—”

Alnduul’s eyes closed. “Understand, Caine Riordan, amongst my people, particularly amongst my elders, I am considered what you would call a hothead: impetuous, prone to unwarranted conclusions, willing to act as much upon instinct as evidence. What was revealed here today cannot even become official information within the ranks of the Custodians, let alone the Dornaani Collective.”

“But—why not?”

“Because this knowledge, and indeed, the entire outcome of your war, is the fruit of a much-poisoned tree. Consider the procedural violations we committed in handling this conflict. We did not announce ourselves to the Arat Kur as soon as we landed upon your world. We provided your people—long before the war commenced—with the device in your arm, foreseeing this probable course of events. We enabled you to carry out a sneak counterattack upon the Arat Kur by using deep-space shifts. And we were willing to stand aside—or so it seemed—as you hovered above the Arat Kur Homenest, with the fate of their entire race in your hand.” Alnduul closed his eyes wearily. “At best, what was revealed here today about the Ktor will be whispered in a the ears of those few volunteers who are willing to be more ‘proactive’ in their Custodianship. But it cannot be entered into the records, nor openly acknowledged.”

Caine felt nauseated. “Meaning that the Ktor are right in one regard. The Accord is founded, and runs, on lies.”

Alnduul closed his eyes. “If that is true, then you may say the same of being a parent. It is founded on the telling of lies.”

Again the paternalistic wisdom crap.
“That’s just not—”

“Attend, Caine Riordan. Think of yourself as having an infant child—”

“I wish I could.” A vision of dying, pregnant Opal flitted through his mind, scissored at his heart.

Alnduul seemed to shrink inside himself. “Apologies. Profound apologies. Let me rephrase. Think of small children you have seen about you in Indonesia, and elsewhere. Children who are scared, are hungry, possibly even mortally wounded. And they ask their parent: ‘Progenitor, will I be safe? Will I be fed? Will I live?’ And the parent, knowing the truth to be in the negative—what do they say?”

Caine looked down. “They lie.”

“Just so. And they must. It is a kindness to the child, no less so than a palm placed upon a fevered brow, or lips upon a face streaked with tears. And so, Caine Riordan, do not answer now, but think upon this. Is no lie a justified means to a good end? Is existence so black and white as that? It would be comforting and simple if such were the case—but is it?

Alnduul stepped back and his mouth puckered slightly: a melancholy smile? “Enlightenment unto you.”

Caine lifted his arms in response. “And unto you, Alnduul. I hope we shall meet again.”

Alnduul, who had started to turn after the farewell, half turned back toward him: “We shall. Indeed, we must.”

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Far Orbit, Sigma Draconis Two

Caine looked from Sukhinin to Downing as they rose. “Are you at least going to monitor the meeting?”

Downing shook his head. “The Slaasriithi specifically asked that their first contact with us be unrecorded.”

“And that it be with you alone,” Sukhinin said through his playfully malicious smile.

Caine found he was impatient for them to leave.
It’s harder to act like I’m not nervous than it is being alone
. He made sure his answering smile was lopsided, his tone ironic. “Yeah, that’s me: Speaker to Exos.”

Sukhinin picked up his briefing materials. “Better you than me,
cheloveck
.” There was a very slight tremor under their feet. Half out of the room, the Russian cast one eye back at the light over the airlock. The red light flickered, became yellow. “Well, they have arrived. Good luck. Don’t get eaten by aliens.”

“Hah, hah, Vassily. Go away.”

“I hear and obey,
Gospodin
Riordan.” A cough of laughter and he was gone.

Downing sounded more serious and more sympathetic. “Their representative should just about be ready. They breathe an almost identical mix of gases, so neither of you will need suits. When they signal that their representative has debarked and they have undocked from this module, our shuttle will leave as well. You’ve removed your transponder anklet?

“And my collarcom. I don’t like that requirement, Richard. Did they give any explanation?”

“As to why there are to be no transmissions of any kind while the two of you are out here? No, but they were firmly, if gently, insistent.”

“Firmly but gently insistent.” That’s a pretty good descriptor for every one of our few, brief exchanges with the Slaasriithi.

Downing continued. “I suspect they just want to create an environment that is—for their species, at least—optimally private, even intimate.”

“Yes. Like two scorpions in one high-tech bottle.”

“Nonsense. They are simply very careful. They have suggested some general discussion before direct contact. The idea is that you acclimatize to their discourse first, then to them. Or so goes the theory.” Downing looked up sharply, beyond Caine’s shoulder.

Caine turned. The green light over the airlock had come on.

Downing straightened up. “Your show, now.” He smiled, put out a hand. “Try not to muck it up.”

Before he could rethink the reaction—before he could recall Downing’s lies, manipulation, withheld secrets—Caine had offered his own hand in response to the unpremeditated amity that he felt in Richard’s gesture.

Downing’s smile widened, then seemed to falter, along with his eyes. He turned quickly, exited with a backward wave as the hatchway into the Commonwealth—or would it now be Terran?—corvette sealed with a shrill hiss. A moment later, Caine felt a slight shudder in the module, as though something were pressing down on the roof of the room: the counterspin boosters. The fractional centrifugal forces that had provided a faint pseudo-gravity diminished, were gone.

All alone in a can in space, weightless and adrift. But no, not quite alone. Caine looked at the iris valve at the other end of the chamber. No reason to be apprehensive. So far, the Slaasriithi were the most honest—if reclusive and enigmatic—allies that Earth had. It was beyond thinking that there should be any danger from them, particularly here. Their recently arrived ship was enveloped by the entirety of the human fleet, and fully exposed to the scrutiny of Alnduul and the Custodians. And yet—