A Talent for War Read online

  “Maybe,” she said. “But whoever Gabe talked to—Scott, whoever—refused to tell him who else was on the flight.” She pressed her fist against her lower lip. “That’s strange.”

  The conversation wandered a bit, and we went over old ground, as though there might be something there that had been missed. When Machesney’s name came up again, she sat up straight. “Gabe had somebody with him on the Capella,” she said. “Maybe that was Machesney.”

  “Maybe,” I said. I listened to the sound of the fire, and the creaking of the old house. “Chase?”

  “Yes?”

  Jacob had provided some cheese and a fresh round of drinks.

  “What do you think?”

  “About what they saw?”

  “Yes.”

  She exhaled. “If they weren’t still sitting on information, I’d be inclined to dismiss the whole business. As it is—they’re hiding something. But that’s the only real evidence there is. That they won’t release the logs.

  “Despite that, if I were pinned down, I’d have to think that Gabe’s imagination ran away with him.” She bit off a piece of cheese, and chewed it slowly. “The romantic thing, of course, is to conclude that there’s some sort of threat out there, something rather terrifying. But what could it be? What could possibly scare people at a distance of several hundred light years?”

  “How about the Ashiyyur? Maybe they’ve broken through into the Veiled Lady.”

  “So what? I suppose that would cost the military some sleep, but it’s not going to bother me. And anyhow they’re no more dangerous out there than they are along the Perimeter.”

  Later, when Chase was gone, I called up the passenger list for Capella. Gabe’s name was there, of course. Gabriel Benedict of Andiquar. There was no Machesney on the flight.

  And I wondered, far into the night, why Gabe, who had navigated all kinds of ships among the stars, would want to hire a pilot.

  IV.

  That’s a hell of a pile of real estate.

  —Chief Counsellor Wrightman Toomey, on hearing that there was an estimated 200 million habitable worlds in the Veiled Lady.

  THE DEPARTMENT OF Planetary Survey and Astronomical Research was a semi-autonomous agency, funded by the central treasury and an army of private foundations. It was controlled by a board of directors representing the associated interests and the academic community. The chairman was a political appointee, responsible to the foundations, but ultimately answerable to the Director herself. All of which is to say that, though Survey was officially a scientific body, it was very sensitive to political pressures.

  It maintained administrative offices in Andiquar, for the purposes of recruiting technical personnel to man the big ships, and processing applications from specialists who wanted to join the research teams. There was also a public information branch.

  Survey shared its office building with several other agencies. They were all on the upper levels of an old stone structure that had once housed the planetary government in the years before Confederation. The west wall was discolored where an interventionist’s bomb had gone off during the early days of the Resistance.

  The reception room was depressing: washed-out yellow walls, hard flat furniture, group photos of the crews of a couple of starships, and a portrait of a black hole. Not much of a public relations operation.

  I got up from the straight-backed chair into which I’d arrived, as a holo strode efficiently out of an adjoining room. The image was that of a cheerful young man, slender, coolly efficient. A stock character, actually, whom I’d seen before in other situations. The door closed behind him. “Good morning,” he said. “Can I be of assistance?”

  “Yes,” I replied. “I hope so. My name’s Hugh Scott, and I flew with the Tenandrome on its last mission. Research team. A couple of us would like to put together a reunion. But we’ve lost touch with most of the others. I was wondering if you could supply a roster, or let me know where I could obtain one.”

  “The last Tenandrome flight? Let’s see, that would be XVII?”

  “Yes,” I said, after hesitating just long enough to suggest I was thinking about it.

  The image, in turn, looked thoughtful. He had thick brown hair, a pleasant smile, and a face with a nose that was a trifle too long. Management undoubtedly wanted to project intelligence and congeniality. In some types of businesses, like antique merchandising, it would work well. There, in that bland unimaginative setting, these qualities just clashed with the furniture.

  “Checking,” he said. He crossed the room and stood inspecting the black hole while he waited for the computers to complete their run. I crossed one leg over the other, and picked up a brochure that invited me to consider a career with the Agency of the Future. Good pay, it said, and adventure in exotic places.

  The holo turned abruptly, and pursed his lips, reflecting the imminence of an unpleasant duty. “I’m sorry, Dr. Scott,” he said. “That information has been classified. You, of course, should have no difficulty obtaining it. I can provide you with a form to complete, if you wish to apply for a waiver. You may do that here, if you desire, and I will see that it gets to the right place.” He indicated one of the terminals. “You may use that position. You’ll need identification, of course.”

  “Naturally.” I was beginning to feel uncomfortable. Was the interview being recorded? “Why would it be classified?”

  “I’m afraid the reason is also classified, Doctor.”

  “Yes,” I said. “It would be. Okay.” I sat tentatively at the terminal, and then glanced at an overhead clock as if suddenly remembering a late appointment. “I’m a little pressed just now,” I said, reaching toward the headband.

  “Fine,” he replied amiably, giving me the document code number. “You can call it up anytime. Just follow the instructions.”

  I gathered from Gabe’s comments that he wasn’t on the best of terms with the Center for Accadian Studies. Still, most of the archeological work originating out of Andiquar was coordinated from that venerable institution. So I arranged an interview, and linked in to a brisk young woman who smiled tolerantly when I mentioned his name. “You have to understand, Mr. Benedict,” she said, pressing her index finger pointedly into her cheek, “that we really had no connection whatever with your father. The Center restricts itself to professionally mounted operations, supported by approved institutions.”

  “He was my uncle,” I said.

  “I’m sorry. In any case, we really had no contacts with him.”

  “You’re implying,” I remarked casually, “that the level of my uncle’s activities does not quite measure up to your standards.”

  “Not to my standards, Mr. Benedict. We’re talking about the Center’s standards. Please understand that your uncle was an amateur. No one will deny he was talented. But still and all, an amateur.”

  “Schleimann and Champollion were amateurs,” I said, growing somewhat testy. “So were Towerman and Crane. And several hundred others. It’s a tradition in archeology. Always has been.”

  “Of course it is,” she said smoothly. “And we understand that. We encourage people like Gabriel Benedict in whatever informal ways we can. And we are gratified by their successes.”

  That evening, I was sitting lost in thought, listening to the fire, when the lights dimmed and went out. A dazzling white object, about the size of a hand, appeared in the center of the room near the coffee table. It was roughly spherical, I thought, though its exact outline was difficult to perceive. Brilliant jets spouted from either side, fell back toward the object, and enshrouded it. Clouds of blazing light expanded, swirled, reformed. The object lengthened, and took a familiar shape.

  The Veiled Lady.

  “I thought it seemed appropriate for the occasion, Alex.” Jacob’s voice sounded curiously distant.

  It filled half the room now, turning slowly about its own axis, in a movement that, in real time, would have taken millions of years. Only the most imaginative could make out a female f
orm. Still, there were suggestions of shoulder and eye and trailing folds of gossamer in the vast star-clouds.

  It was thought to contain a half-billion suns, mostly young and hot. Habitable worlds appeared to be common, and most planners viewed it as the natural home for the burgeoning population of the near future. The proximity of the stars to each other also suggested that the severity of problems arising from the terrible distances separating the worlds of the Confederacy might be alleviated. Eventually, we suspected, the old capitals would be abandoned, and the centers of power transferred into the nebula.

  It was the brightest nighttime object in Rimway’s southern skies, brighter even than the giant moon. Although never visible from Andiquar, few winter stars within twenty degrees of the horizon had sufficient magnitude to resist its light.

  “That’s where we’re headed, Jacob,” I said. “Eventually.”

  “I agree,” he said, misunderstanding. “It only remains for you to uncover your destination.”

  That was a startling notion. But it suggested it was time to get back to work. I directed him to collect all the news files he could find relating to the Tenandrome.

  “I’ve already been looking,” he said. “There’s not much.” The Veiled Lady vanished, and a few lines of hardcopy appeared on the monitor. “This is the earliest.”

  Saraglia Station, Mmb 3 (ACS): The CSS Tenandrome, currently involved in exploration of regions deep in the Veiled Lady, more than a thousand light years from Rimway, was reported to have suffered structural damage to its Armstrong units, according to a Survey spokesman. Although the extent of the damage is as yet unknown, the spokesman indicated that no one had been injured, and there was no immediate danger to the vessel. The Navy released a statement that rescue units are standing by to assist if needed.

  Jacob flashed a few more items: the official announcement that the ship was returning home, a notice in the Commercial and Shipping Registry of its arrival at Saraglia, and another recording its formal entry on Fishbowl a few weeks later.

  “Is there anything at the other end of the trip? Any details on departure?” I asked.

  “Just the standard announcement in the Registry,” he said. “No itinerary given.”

  “How about crew names? Or passengers?”

  “Only the captain: Sajemon McIras. That’s not unusual, by the way. They never publish anything much in the way of details. Sometimes there’s feature coverage, but that’s rare.”

  “Maybe there’s some off-line material available.”

  “If so, I have no easy way to find it. And it appears that, if anything unusual was going on, the news services never found out about it.”

  “Okay. Maybe McIras would be willing to tell us something. Can we get an address?”

  “Yes. The Moira Deeps, with her ship. I’ve been checking the house records. Gabe sent her two sponders. She ignored the first.”

  “And the second?”

  “Just a tachline:”

  Dr. Benedict: The voyage of the Tenandrome, save for the disruption of one of its Armstrong units, was uneventful. Best wishes.

  Saje McIras

  “Let’s try another approach: take a look at all the flights over the last few years. There should be some sort of pattern to them, and we might be able to figure out at least the general area where the Tenandrome was.”

  So Jacob extracted the records, and we studied the recent missions of Borlanget, Rapatutu, Westover, and the rest of Survey’s Fishbowl-based fleet. But the pattern, if it existed, never showed itself.

  The target area contained approximately three trillion cubic light years. Maybe a little less.

  “That leaves Scott.”

  Jacob was momentarily silent. Then: “Do you wish to prepare a sponder?”

  “How long would it take to get an answer?”

  “If he replies right away, about ten days. The problem is that his code shows inactive on the last four readouts. He doesn’t seem to be answering his mail.”

  “Book passage,” I said, reluctantly. “It’s probably just as well to go in person anyhow.”

  “Very good. I’ll try to let him know you’re coming.”

  “No,” I said. “Let’s keep it a surprise.”

  V.

  One gazes through the walls of Pellinor into the great, curious eyes of the sea beasts, and wonders who indeed is peering out, and who peering in—?

  —Tiel Chadwick,

  Memoirs

  THE WORLD AND the city are both named Pellinor, after the ship captain who first descended onto the few square kilometers of earth that were once the only place in all that global ocean where a man could set foot. But to anyone who has since stood beneath the invisible walls that now hold back the sea, who has looked up at the shadowy forms gliding through bright green water, the name by which the place is commonly known is far more appropriate.

  Fishbowl.

  A world. A sickle-shaped spate of land hewed from the sea. A state of mind. The inhabitants are fond of saying that no place in or beyond the Confederacy induces a sense of mortality quite like Fishbowl.

  Barely half the size of Rimway, the planet is nevertheless massive: its gravity is .92 standard. It orbits the ancient class G sun Gideon, which in turn moves in a centuries-long swing around Heli, a dazzling white giant. Both suns have planetary systems, not unusual in binaries when considerable distances separate the main components. But this binary is unique in a substantial way: it was once the home of an intelligent species. Heli’s fourth planet is Belarius, which houses fifty-thousand-year-old ruins, and was—until the coming of the Ashiyyur—humanity’s only evidence that anything else had ever gazed at the stars.

  Belarius is an incredibly savage place, a world of lush jungles, stifling humidity, corrosive atmospheric gases, strong gravity, highly evolved predators, and unpredictable magnetic storms which raise hell with equipment. It is not the sort of place to take your family.

  Fishbowl was the only easily habitable world in either system, and consequently it assumed from the beginning a strategic place in Survey thinking. When Harry Pellinor discovered it three centuries ago, he dismissed it as essentially worthless. But he had not yet found Belarius: that celebrated disaster still awaited him. And it was that latter revelation that assured Fishbowl its historic role as administrative headquarters, supply depot, and R&R retreat for the various missions trying to pry loose its secrets.

  Today, of course, investigation of Belarius has long since been given up. But Fishbowl is still prominent in Survey administration, serving as a regional headquarters. A prosperous resort area, it boasts a major university, several interworld industries, and the foremost oceanographic research center in the Confederacy. At the time of my visit, it was home to slightly more than a million people.

  One of them was Hugh Scott.

  Harry Pellinor’s statue stands atop the central spire of the Executive Cluster. It is just high enough to get him above sea level. Local tradition had it that there had been extreme reluctance to honor a man whom the outside world associated primarily with disaster and precipitous retreat, the man whose crew had, by and large, been eaten.

  It wasn’t, people thought, the proper sort of image they wanted to project.

  I suppose not. But the city had prospered anyway.

  It was filled with well-heeled tourists, wealthy retirees, and assorted technocrats, the latter employed mostly by the tach communications industry, which was then still in its infancy.

  The downside port of entry is located on a floating platform, from which one can get over-water tubular transportation into midtown Pellinor. Or, if the weather is good, one can walk across any of several float bridges. My first act coming down in the shuttle had been to consult the directory. I had Scott’s address before we settled onto the pad.

  I took a taxi, checked in at my hotel, and showered. It was by then early evening local time. I was exhausted, though. It had been my usual difficult flight: sick during both jumps and most of the time
between. So I stood under the cooling spray, feeling sorry for myself, and laying plans: I would pin Scott down, find out what was going on, and return to Rimway. From there I’d hire somebody to accompany Kolpath wherever the hell they’d have to go to locate Gabe’s secret, and I myself would never again leave the world of my birth.

  No wonder the goddam Confederacy was falling apart. It took weeks to get from one place to another, anywhere from days to weeks to communicate, and travel for most people was physically unpleasant. If the Ashiyyur were smart, they’d declare peace, and back off. I wasn’t sure that, with the threat removed, we wouldn’t simply disintegrate.

  I slept well, rose early, and breakfasted at a small outdoor restaurant in the penthouse. The ocean spread out beneath me, covered with sails. The salt air smelled good, and I ate slowly. Tramways and parks and multi-leveled malls extended above the gantner walls and out over the sea. They’re lined with exotic bistros, casinos, art galleries, and souvenir shops. There are beaches and suspension piers and a seaside promenade which circles the city just a few meters above the water.

  But many people say that Pellinor is most exquisite at ground level. There, most of the sunlight is filtered through about twenty meters of green ocean water. And it’s possible to watch the great leviathans of that watery world drift majestically within an arm’s length of one’s breakfast table.

  I flagged a taxi outside the restaurant, and punched Scott’s address into the reader.

  I had no idea where I was going. The vehicle rose over the skyline, fell into traffic patterns, and arced out over the ocean. Harry Pellinor’s island sank from sight. Only the towers remained visible, rising eerily out of a hole in the ocean. The only land in the archipelago which was actually above sea level was located in two clusters southwest of the city. These hills now resembled a string of small islands.