A Talent for War Read online

  You mean because of their telepathic capability?

  “Yes.”

  Probably none. Experts don’t think they can sort things out quickly enough to be of any real value in a combat situation. It may be fortunate that their capabilities are only passive in nature. If they could transmit, project thoughts or emotions into the minds of their enemies, things might have been very different.

  The fighting turned quickly into a rout. Sim and his force moved almost at will through the enemy complex, collecting communication and tactical data, and destroying everything else: spare parts, supplies, weapons, intelligence systems, and command and control equipment.

  “Corsarius to landing party: we urge you to finish up and prepare to return.”

  “Why?” It was the authoritative voice I’d heard earlier. I had no doubt who its owner was. “Is there a problem?”

  “We’re going to have company. We have line of sight readings on the mutes. They’re coming fast.”

  “How long?”

  “They’ll be within maximum firing range in about thirty-seven minutes. ”

  Pause. Then the voice from the ground again: “I thought we’d have more time, Andre. Okay: we’ll be starting the Stein team up immediately. The rest of us will follow in about ten minutes.”

  “That’s cutting it close.”

  “Best I can do. Release Straczynski and Rappaport. Tell them to withdraw. We’re getting everything, Andre. Cross index on the entire fleet, breakout on cryptosystems, you name it.”

  “Won’t do us any good if we don’t get out.”

  I asked Monitor how long it would take for the Corsarius lander to rendezvous with its ship. The precise answer depended on a couple of variables, but it came down to approximately twenty-three minutes. That meant that we could get underway before the Ashiyyur began shooting, but we would be accelerating from orbital velocity. They’d overhaul us pretty quickly. Long before we could make the jump into hyper. Unless I was missing something, we were going to get blown up.

  Blips appeared on my long range scan. Destroyers and frigates. We weren’t tracking the big stuff yet, which meant they were probably having a hard time getting turned around and pointed in our direction. That would help.

  Corsarius did not pass that extra bit of information along to the force on the ground.

  The Stein lander reported that it was away. Moments later, we began to accelerate toward rendezvous.

  The enormous bulk of Masipol hung in the western sky, an eerily lit purple blotch, an ill omen. I strained to see the lander, watched the giant planet, and kept an eye on the blips, which grew in size, and gradually defined themselves into forms I could read: a flotilla of destroyers here, a squadron of frigates there.

  Again the voice from Corsarius: “Chris.”

  “We’re moving as fast as we can.”

  “You’re out of time.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  I could hear people breathing on the intercom. Someone was making course adjustments. Then a new voice: “Prepare the Phantom. Mask all systems.”

  “Enemy vessels will be within strike range in fourteen minutes. They have begun to decelerate.”

  “Fire the Phantom.”

  The ship trembled, and something dark leaped forward and disappeared immediately.

  It’s a decoy, said the Monitor. We’re running silent now, absorbing scans. The Phantom will simulate Stein’s radiation patterns. The idea is to mislead the approaching force.

  “Will it work?”

  For a few minutes. Incidentally, Corsarius has also fired one.”

  I sat there sweating. How in hell could they possibly hope to outrun the Ashiyyur? Even with the fancy devices. I wasn’t sure about these antiques, but a modern vessel, beginning from a standing start, would be overhauled within an hour.

  “Chris?”

  “We’re leaving now. The mutes were trying to jury-rig a particle beam, and we had to take it out. Get moving. We’ll rendezvous on the run.”

  He didn’t sound as if he felt trapped. But the scanners were crowded with blips. They were going to be all over us.

  “Stein lander alongside.”

  “Frigates leading the pack. They’ll be the first ones here. Maximum firing range eleven minutes.”

  “Let’s hope they chase the Phantoms instead of us. Rate of deceleration?”

  “Slowing. It’s back up to three percent.”

  “Operations reports the big ships are just now rising out of the flux. They haven’t been able to reverse course yet, and will not participate in this action.”

  That meant they were still going the wrong way. I couldn’t see how it would matter, though. The cloud of blips across my scopes was very close.

  “Frigates are tracking the Phantoms.”

  It is difficult, Alex, for enemy sensors to pick up vessels as small as these, especially against a lunar background.

  “Ground force aboard.”

  “Casualties?”

  “Three. Plus Koley. Didn’t make it back, sir.”

  “Get them to sick bay. Status on Corsarius?”

  “Three minutes to rendezvous with her lander.”

  “Set course and speed to run parallel with Corsarius after pickup. Prepare for departure.”

  The oncoming fleet was settling behind the horizon now. I assumed Sim was planning to put the bulk of Hrinwhar between us and our pursuers, though that seemed to me to offer no hope.

  “Destroyers are still locked on the Phantoms.”

  “Dumb bastards.”

  We’d shut down all nonessential systems and reduced power in others to cut radiation leakage. We were behind the moon now, invisible, secure. Temporarily. Still, it was a good feeling.

  “Corsarius team on board.”

  “Very good. Lock in exit course. Wait for execute.”

  We waited. My God, we waited. But there was no hint of panic in the voices on the intercom, or among the bridge crew. We continued in our orbit: I watched the horizon ahead, waiting for the lights of the Ashiyyur. When we emerged from our hiding place, we would be within easy range of their weapons.

  “What the hell are we doing?” I asked no one in particular.

  “They’re turning away from the Phantoms. They’ve figured it out.”

  “Scanners are locked on. They’ve found us.”

  “Doesn’t matter now,” came Sim’s voice over the intercom. “Let’s clear out. Execute exit maneuver. Execute.”

  The webbed seat swung to face the direction of acceleration, and a moment later I was slammed flat. The moon was gone, the giant planet rolled across the top of the sky. I was damned if I could figure out what was going on. Lifting out of orbit now meant that we’d be heading in the direction of the two suns. Toward the oncoming force.

  And then I pictured the scene in the Ashiyyurean ships: the poor sons of bitches frantically applying their brakes, while we roared directly at them. Their few hurried shots went hopelessly wide, and then we were among them where the risk was too high to fire. We nailed a destroyer on the way out.

  Down below, on the bridge, and on the intercom, there was a collective sigh.

  It was followed by Sim’s voice: “Well done, friends,” he said. “I think we’ve given them something to think about today.”

  VIII.

  A good man’s name has been dragged unjustly through the streets. If we can, in some small measure, help rectify this condition, then we will have served a worthwhile purpose. And if, along the way, we can pass an hour in quiet friendship, embellished by an appropriate toast or two, why so much the better!

  —Adrian Coyle

  Address at the founding

  of the Ludik Talino Society

  MACHESNEY HAD COME THROUGH. Though I was positive the reference was to Rashim Machesney, dead these two hundred years (like all the other principal actors in this curious business), I instructed Jacob to contact everybody on the net who owned that last name.

  There weren’t many.


  We found no one who’d ever heard of Gabriel Benedict, and no one who seemed to have any ties to the Resistance: nobody who’d written about it, no old-time war buffs, no antique collectors. (There was some difficulty in acquiring this information, because persons owning that famous name tended to assume a prank when we started asking about the Resistance.)

  My next step was to learn what I could about the great man himself. But if the problem with Leisha Tanner had been a paucity of data, in Machesney’s case there was a tidal wave of crystals, books, articles, scientific analyses, you name it. Not to mention Machesney’s own works. Jacob counted some eleven hundred volumes written specifically about him, treating his diplomatic and scientific achievements; many times that number included him in their indices.

  Rashim Machesney had been a physicist, probably the most eminent of his time. And when the war broke out, while most of his colleagues urged restraint, he’d warned against the common danger and announced his intention to support the Dellacondans “to the limits of my strength.” His home world tried to stop him (creating an embarrassment it hasn’t yet lived down), but Machesney escaped, took some of his associates with him, and joined Sim.

  His value to the Confederate cause had been, as far as anyone knew, primarily diplomatic. He lent his enormous prestige to the effort to induce neutrals to join the unequal struggle. He campaigned across half a hundred worlds, wrote brilliant tracts, addressed planetary audiences, survived assassination attempts, and in one memorable escapade was actually captured by the Ashiyyur, and rescued a few hours later.

  Most historians credited Machesney for the ultimate intervention by Earth.

  But I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of material. “Jacob,” I said, “there’s no way I can go through all this. You do it. Find the connection. I’m going to try another approach.”

  “What precisely am I looking for, Alex?”

  “Hard to say. But you’ll know it when you see it.”

  “That’s not much of an instruction.”

  I agreed that it wasn’t, told him to do the best he could, and linked to the institution that had been created in Machesney’s memory.

  The Rashim Machesney Institute is a temple, really, in the classical Hellenic vein. Constructed of white marble, adorned with graceful columns and statuary, it stands majestically on the banks of the Melony. In the rotunda, the great man’s likeness has been carved in stone. Overhead, around the circular roof, is his remark to the Legislature on Toxicon: “Friends, the danger awaits our convenience.”

  The Institute housed an astronomical data receiving station, which acted as a clearing house for telemetry relayed from a thousand observatories, from Survey flights, from deep space probes, and from God knew where else. Primarily, though, the Institute was a showcase for science and technology, a place where people took their families to see what life was really like out in the cylinder worlds. Or how computers and the pulsar Hercules X-1 combine to create Universal Standard Time. There was a simulation of a ride into a black hole running at the theater.

  In addition, the library and bookstore were good sources on Machesney. I would have liked to run a search of the library files to see whether Gabe had ever checked anything out, but the clerk insisted it wasn’t possible to obtain that kind of information. “Best we can do is look outside the net. We have better records on off-line materials that he’d have to check out physically. If he was late returning anything, we’d have it. Otherwise—” He shrugged.

  “Don’t bother,” I said.

  I’d gone there hoping to find an expert of some sort, take him aside, and get a fresh point of view on the problem. But in the end I could think of no way to formulate a question. So I settled for picking up some off-line material, copied it into a blank crystal, and added it to Jacob’s pile.

  Jacob reported no progress yet on the first batch. “I am processing at a slow rate, to allow better perception. But it would help if you could define the parameters of the search.”

  “Look for suggestions of a lost artifact,” I said. “Preferably a puzzle for which we might reasonably expect Dr. Machesney to have had a solution. Or something that got lost, that we might consider an artifact.”

  I became something of an expert myself on Rash Machesney. He risked everything in that war. The scientific community blackballed him; his home world conducted criminal proceedings and sentenced him in absentia to two years in prison. The peace movement blasted him, one of its spokesmen declaring that his name would be linked with Iscariot. And the Ashiyyur denounced him as a prostitute, using his knowledge to create advanced weaponry. That was a charge he never denied.

  He was also accused of being a crank, a womanizer, and a man who enjoyed his liquor. I acquired a distinct affection for him.

  But I got nowhere, and gave up after several nights. There were no indications of anything valuable missing, and no connection with the Veiled Lady. That nebula was far from the scene of the war. It was a site for no battles, and no targets hid within its winding folds. (Strategic interest in the Veiled Lady was a creature of relatively recent development, springing from the expansion of the Confederacy into that region. During Sim’s time, there would have been no point in advancing through the nebula because there were easier routes into the heart of the Confederacy. Today, however, matters were different.)

  Chase offered to help. I accepted, and she got a sack of reading and viewing material. It didn’t matter very much.

  When the Ludik Talino Society held its next monthly meeting at the Collandium, I was there.

  Jana Khyber was right: it was to be a social rather than an academic evening. The conversation in the lobby was good-humored, full of laughter, and everyone was clearly prepared for a party.

  It felt a bit like going to the theater. People were well-dressed, waving to one another, mixing easily. Not at all the sort of crowd you might have expected at a gathering, say, of the local historical society, or the Friends of the University Museum.

  I wandered inside, traded a few trivialities with a couple of women, and secured a drink. We were in a series of connected conference rooms, the largest of which was set up to seat about three hundred. It was just adequate.

  There was money in the establishment: thick carpets, paneled walls, crystal chandeliers and electric candles, carved bookshelves, paintings by Manois and Romfret. Talino’s image was displayed on a banner in the main room. And Christopher Sim’s harridan device had been mounted on the podium.

  There were exhibits of relevant works by the members: histories, battle analyses, discussions of various disputed details of that much-disputed war. Most had been privately produced, but a few bore the imprint of major publishers.

  Above the speakers’ platform, Marcross’s Corsarius appeared again.

  An agenda was posted. Panels would evaluate the validity of assorted historical documents, examine the relationship between two people I’d never heard of (they turned out to be obscure women who might have known Talino, and, in the opinion of many of those present, had quarreled over his favors), and look into some esoteric aspects of Ashiyyurean battle tactics.

  On the hour, we were gaveled to order by the president, a large, hostile woman with a stare like a laser cannon. She welcomed us, introduced a few guests, rambled on about old business, accepted the treasurer’s report (we were showing a pretty good profit), and introduced a red-faced man who moved to invite an Ashiyyurean “speaker” from the Maracaibo Caucus.

  I whispered into my commlink and asked Jacob what the Maracaibo Caucus was.

  “It’s composed of retired military officers,” he said. “Both ours and Ashiyyurean, and dedicated to keeping the peace. It’s one of the few organizations in the Confederacy with alien members. What’s going on there anyway? What’s all the racket?”

  The audience was voicing its discontent with the suggestion. The red-faced man shouted something above the noise, and was roundly hooted. I wondered whether there was any place in the Confeder
acy where feelings ran more strongly against the Ashiyyur than in the inner sanctum of the Ludik Talino Society.

  The president reasserted herself, and the red-faced man turned away in disgust and descended into the crowd. A cheer went up, followed swiftly by laughter, and a hoisting of glasses. It was a game. Or a ritual.

  The president quieted the audience with a cautionary glance, and launched into an introduction of the first speaker of the evening, a tall, balding man seated beside her, who was trying not to look impressed with the traditional flow of compliments. When she’d concluded and announced his name—it was Wyler—he ascended to the lectern, and cleared his throat. “Ladies and gentlemen, I’m delighted to be with you tonight.” He lifted his jaw slightly, and struck a pose that he must have assumed to be one of considerable dignity. In fact, he was an ungainly individual, all elbows and odd angles, with wiry eyebrows and a nervous tic. “It’s been a good many years since I’ve been in these rooms. A lot has changed. I wonder, for one thing, whether we’re not closer to war. We’re certainly closer to destabilization. Every place I go, there’s talk of independence.” He shook his head, and thrust one hand forward, waving it all away. “Well, it doesn’t matter, really. Tonight, we’re all here together, and I suspect whatever happens out there, the Talino Society will continue to serve as a bulwark of civilization!” His eyes brightened, and he jabbed a finger at the chandelier. “I remember I was sitting right over there—” I glanced in the direction he pointed, looked back toward the speaker, and realized suddenly that I’d seen someone I knew.

  When I looked again, when I focused on the woman whose face had drawn my attention, I saw only a stranger. Yet there was something familiar in the graceful curve of throat and cheekbone, or perhaps in the almost introspective expression, or the subtle grace with which she lifted her glass to her lips.

  I knew the face. But I could not give her a name, and she was far too attractive to have forgotten.

  “. . . I was quite a young man when I first came to Rimway. I was even then fascinated by the puzzles surrounding the life and death of Ludik Talino.