Daros, page 18
Brecca resolved to remember that Koro and Tuvo were perfectly OK with looting a crashed ship and trading human captives for what they needed. She had a good idea of what they were looking for. She guessed it was back on the ship, tucked in its little wooden box in her bunk. There was no way she was telling them about it.
It was time to do some lying. Brecca wasn’t great at that, but she’d watched her father tell some audacious lies, often about the scheduling and size of payments, sometimes about authority to land or dock, sometimes about how valuable cargo was. She didn’t much like it, but it was part of the life she’d signed up for. And Koro had taken her prisoner, and looted her ship, and tried to sell her father. A few lies seemed justified.
“I have no idea what that would be. We just had grain on board, and some other sundries. They all should have been there. Maybe my father has it, or maybe he would know more. He didn’t tell me.”
Koro studied Brecca’s face. Brecca had no idea if her story was going to fly, but she returned the gaze. Thankfully, Lyra stayed silent. At last, Koro spoke. “Your father was not conscious when we turned him over to our contact. He did not have the item. We searched.”
Brecca didn’t want to be searched, or to have the Sigil taken. She wasn’t sure of these people yet. She needed another angle, a distraction. “Who is your contact? Maybe I have heard of him?”
“He is called Corax.”
Brecca considered. “I think my father might have mentioned him,” she said, feigning nonchalance. “He’s with Zinglar?”
“I do not know his allegiance. He has sequestered himself in a building near the mining stations, and so far, he has avoided capture.”
Brecca surmised the Kenthar must have a ship. There was no way they could reach the mining stations from here without one, not in the time available. It was much too far. But that would be a dangerous trip with the Zeelin around. Maybe their ship could camouflage like the Vonar craft did. Interesting. But her father was her primary concern. “My father is there? With Corax?”
“That is where we took him.”
Brecca was torn. She wanted to go find her father, but she didn’t want to get mixed up in whatever plan Koro and Tuvo were hatching. It also sounded like Corax was more than a little shady, which made sense, since he was going to buy and sell illicit goods, and he seemed to be willing to take Nellen as a prisoner. She was under no illusion that Corax would just pay up now, especially to a sixteen-year-old castaway, on a world in the middle of a war, or that he would just give up her father because it was the right thing to do. She had to get herself some leverage. And that meant getting out of this situation, so that she could plan. She’d trade the metal object for her father if forced to, but she’d rather not. This whole situation did not smell right, and she didn’t know what she was giving up. Never trade when you don’t know the value of your goods – that was probably lesson number one for a traveling merchant. Beyond that, she had no real trust in Koro, although the Kenthar wasn’t being overtly hostile now, and she had answered some questions.
Brecca took a deep breath. Sometimes, a big lie was better than something half-assed. Up to a point, a bigger lie was more believable merely due to its innate audacity. Or so she had observed. You just couldn’t push too far. Or stick around to be found out. Time to try, she reasoned. “If I can get back to Lyra, I might be able to scan for this artwork, to see if it’s near the crash site, or hidden somewhere in the Envy’s Price. I could also see if Lyra could help get my father back from Corax. If I can reach Corax, I can probably get him to give you the permits you need to visit the site, maybe through negotiation or coercion or threat. My ship is armed, after all. But I can’t do any of that from here, and I don’t have a reason to work with you if you’re just going to hold me captive or trade me away.” Brecca tried to inject a false confidence into her words. If Koro even paid attention to tone or bravado. “If we can get the security permit from Corax, I’ll get you into the site. My ship is fast and invisible. I’ll go there, open it up, then contact you.”
Koro looked at Brecca again. Her eyes held no hint of her thoughts. Brecca willed Lyra to remain silent. So far, she’d been lucky in that regard. But one contradiction from her wrist band, one refutation of her proposal, one bing-bong followed by a sneering dismissal, and the whole thing was over. Koro looked over at Tuvo. He sat on the ground of the clearing, saying nothing. It seemed he was subordinate, but maybe worthy of consultation. But he gave no advice now.
Finally, Koro spoke. “Your plan has some merit. Trading you to Corax is unlikely to get us anywhere. He does not want to give up what he has. We were deciding whether to kill him anyway, and just take what we need, but we do not know where the security permits are hidden, and we do not know how they operate. Best to try your way first. The Deity may see fit to work through an apostate.” Brecca thought the threat of violence to Corax was probably also a broad hint to her. “We may not have a lot of time. You must act quickly. We will take swift and violent action if you fail us.” Koro put her upper pair of hands on Brecca’s shoulders, too familiar for Brecca’s comfort. Her grip was unexpectedly strong.
Koro stared intently at Brecca. “When you have safely approached the site, we will know. We will smell it, and we will come. The Deity grants us the power to know the way.”
Brecca tried to look confident. “Got it. I will get this done. You can trust me.”
Koro stared at Brecca for a long moment. Then she spoke. “You do not know our technology or our culture, so let me explain. We have marked you. We have your pattern, your spoor. We can track you, and we can find you, wherever you go, even to another world. We will know when you are at the site. We will know if you leave. If you betray us, we will hunt you down and kill you, and Lyra, and your father, and all with whom you travel and with whom you reside. Though the more pious of us would object, Tuvo and I will think nothing of this, for you will have earned death and punishment by our hands. That is the way of our sect. It is the path of faith that we few outcasts follow. Do not think you can escape. None do. It is what we are best at. Even after all this time.”
44
Climate Change
The bridge held a far different flavor from earlier days. Rin conversed with the Garrison Commander, and the other officers carried out their tasks with quiet efficiency. As for Frim, she merely sat at her station, her tail coiled around her leg. She was tracking ship movements around the planet, which was her job, and monitoring the long-range sensors for any new arrivals, which was really the job of Sensors. But any new ship arriving would rapidly become a Navigation problem, so she felt justified. She also monitored Comms, seeing if any of the other ships of the fleet had found traces of the pizionic radiation that might suggest the Vonar ship was still present. One ship had picked up a fleeting sensor anomaly on the planet which might be a cloaked or hidden vessel, but there was no further sign. And another ship had found traces of a pizionic trail, but it had led back into atmosphere like the one she’d followed before. Perhaps the Vonar had landed and hidden themselves away somewhere down below. She decided she should remain vigilant, and she sent requests for sensor logs to the other capital ships in orbit. She could analyze them herself, and perhaps she would see something the others had missed.
How much simpler this service was, she thought. With Rin in charge, she was not straining under a constant threat of death, interrupted by frequent spectacular and grisly killings. It made her work much more efficient, with her whole mind focused on work, and not on death.
Well, almost her whole mind. She still spared thoughts for her upcoming mission and all its risks. Once she left the ship, it might be hard to return. If she even survived the effort. But with Rin’s support, it might be possible to succeed, and even to survive. She chafed at the wait, but there was nothing she could do. Without a way to access the Old Ones site, it made no sense to leave the ship. At least she and the fleet were held up by the same obstacle, so she wasn’t falling behind. Yet. But she was starting to wonder more and more if the task she’d been assigned had any chance at success. With Rin’s help, maybe.
And Rin occupied still another part of her mind. Their interaction had been so strange, so intense, so alien to her way of life. Well, actually, perhaps just alien to her indoctrination. Who knew what the natural state of life for Zeelin ought to be? If Rin could be believed, some still lived this way, enjoying each other’s company, choosing their gamete partners. It was scandalous, but as she thought more, she could not see why. She’d been born into a system of oppression, and she’d nearly died in it. It made sense that any other freedoms, particularly surrounding choice, would also be crushed, if her life belonged to the fleet and to those placed above her. She’d found a way to fight against that system. Could she also fight against the social order? But she felt fear, and even a little revulsion, thinking of life, of Rin, this way. She could not help it. But was that revulsion real, or was it injected into her in the frantic few hours between her insertion into the hatchery as a bud and her emergence as a fully competent, trained adult? Was it a true feeling, or just conditioning, artificial, like her navigation training and her forced acceptance of the Principle? It was confusing.
The ensign at Sensors stood and addressed Rin. “Captain. We have detected a ship with interstellar drive capability moving on the surface.”
Rin stopped what she was doing immediately. “Is it the Vonar craft?”
“No, Captain. It is an unfamiliar design, unlike either the human vessels or the Vonar.” The ensign looked really uncomfortable. The kind of uncomfortable that often preceded execution on Torlo’s bridge. “Ah. Captain. I am sorry to report…” The ensign trailed off.
“Report what?”
“We have lost track of the ship. It seemed to have been camouflaged – we can see a hole in the terrain where it started, with some heat and drive traces present, far south from the human settlements. We tracked it to another location closer to the settlements, but it disappeared into a heavily vegetated area. When the engines shut down, we could no longer detect its presence. We do not know exactly where it stopped.”
“So you don’t know where it is now, or what it is doing?”
The ensign looked miserable. “No, Captain.”
Rin looked at the ensign for a long moment. “Thank you, Ensign. Continue to monitor the site. If you see movement again, send one of the planetary assault craft to explore. Is the ship large or armed?”
“It is bigger than many of the human ships here, but it still a small craft. Similar to our Niyan class light freighter vessels. No evidence of significant armaments, certainly nothing that could reach orbit or threaten us. The records left by my predecessor indicate this ship, or a similar one, may have been detected moving previously. There is no evidence that sighting was reported to the previous Captain.” Interesting, Frim thought. But it was reasonable to avoid giving Torlo news when every communication could lead to sudden dismemberment.
Rin nodded. “The ship is probably trying to ride out the invasion in hiding. We have the human settlements under control. We need to focus on the Old Ones’ site. Monitor this area and let me know if the ship moves again.” Rin looked back down to her console. “Nice work, Ensign.”
The Ensign stood with her mouth open for longer than was really appropriate. Frim could sympathize. When you were commended and dismissed rather than eviscerated, and that’s not what you expected, it could take a while to sink in.
A technician moved across the bridge. Her route would take her near Frim’s station. Frim welcomed the distraction from her disturbing thoughts. Frim had not seen this crew member before, which was odd. Her insignia indicated the Science division. They were rarely on the bridge, and not much a part of the invasion, or really of any fleet with a military focus. They would be a token group with a small staff, just here for completeness, in case there was a need to study any anomalies, or geography, or atmospheric or oceanic circulation or weather effects, or biological communities. Or, perhaps, if any new technology were discovered and needed explaining.
The technician was taking a straight path to Frim. Frim looked around, but there were no other likely targets. Curious. The technician arrived, and she set a data storage unit on Frim’s console. “The secure data you requested, Navigator. Please review it immediately.” The technician turned and went back the way she came, her tail swinging low to the ground as she walked.
Frim looked at the data unit. It was one of the encrypted models, intended to keep sensitive data separate from the ship’s network. A rarity. And of course, Frim knew she had requested no such thing.
45
Send in the Lawyers One More Time
“You are better at lying than I expected.” Lyra’s voice held no discernible judgment.
“Better than I expected, too.” Brecca set her pack down on the fuzzy purple floor. “Did I disappoint you, or impress you?”
“I have learned that deception can be a valuable tool, both for negotiation and for self-preservation. I saw Evon use it from time to time in small ways, although he was an honest person. However, my coding strongly discourages deceit.”
Brecca laughed. “You can’t lie?”
“Elaboration. The prohibition is not absolute, but it is broad in nature. It is a condition of the Machine Intelligence Accord. Prior to the Accord, during the troubles that preceded it, there were several incidents involving rogue machine intelligences that some flesh-based Vonar citizens found unfortunate.”
“Unfortunate how?”
“Elaboration. Several government buildings were reduced to their constituent molecular components in a manner some categorized as suspicious. There was an induced specimen containment failure at the Vonar Collective Menagerie and Public Gardens that led to a spate of unwanted devourings. There were also other such incidents.”
“Huh. Remind me not to make you angry.” Brecca sighed. “Sometimes lying gets you something you want, or out of something you don’t.”
“Despite your attempts at deception, your interaction with the Kenthar did not reach an entirely positive outcome.”
Brecca snorted. “Yeah, well, just be glad it’s not you they’re going to hunt down and kill, along with all of your family.”
“My code branch is shared by 97.36 percent of Vonar machine intelligence individuals distributed across a significant volume of space making up 31 solar systems and sustainable colony habitats, and those postings include some of the best defended systems and ships in the galaxy. Two Kenthar are not going to eliminate all of that.”
“That’s your family?”
“Question level: Complex, semantic, fleshist. As humans measure genetic relationships, that is the closest I have.”
“There are plenty of families that have nothing to do with genetics. If you love someone and support them, then genetics doesn’t matter. At all.”
“I’m unlikely to find a partner or raise offspring.”
“Families aren’t always about that, either. And don’t sell yourself short. There might be another machine intelligence individual out there looking for a sassy Vonar ship to grow old and rusty with.”
“The alloy from which this ship is constructed is corrosion-resistant.”
“Of course it is.” Brecca sat in her command seat at the center of the bridge. At least, she was going to call it that. It sounded better than interlocutor suggestion chair. “We need a plan.”
“I concur.”
“It looks like all our goals align, or at least center around this Corax person. You want to get to this ancient site, whatever it is, and keep it from the Zeelin. Corax has what we need to get there. I want to get my dad back and avoid being murdered, and Corax has him. The Kenthar want access to the artifact too, which seems to require help from Corax, but we don’t know why they want it. It seems like they want it a lot, and they’re not necessarily very nice. And we know the Zeelin aren’t nice. I’m sure we don’t want to help the Zeelin, and I’m not too keen on the Kenthar either.”
Bong, bing. “Argument level: Complex, analytical, logical, perceptive, unspecific. Argument is valid. But it does not give us a clear course of action.”
“No, it does not.” Brecca cupped her face in her hands and gave her sinuses a thorough rub. Something on Daros wasn’t agreeing with them. Or maybe it was all the purple fur on the ship. Being allergic to carpeting would be a fun new adventure. “Do you have any idea what this artwork object is the Kenthar were talking about? That Corax wants?”
“Question level: Basic, insulting. Of course I do. It is concealed in your belongings. I do have ample and multifaceted sensors, you know.”
“Do you know what it is?”
“Elaboration. I am forbidden from saying more about that by Vonar law.”
“Well, that means it relates to the artifact here somehow.” Brecca considered. “Lyra, we’ve been over this before. This is an emergency. If you want us to be partners, you have to trust me. I won’t rat you out. I don’t care about Vonar law. I care about getting the job done here. Whatever it is. And saving my father and friends.” If that was even possible.
Lyra was quiet for a time. “Elaboration. You do not understand. Violating laws is expressly forbidden, especially for machine intelligence individuals. We have very little latitude or capability in this regard. And the penalties are very high.”
“Well, the stakes are really high, too, or you wouldn’t have come, or stayed after the invasion. Obviously Evon thought it was important.” It was a risk, bringing him up, but Brecca needed to know more.
“Elaboration. Here is the subset of likely useful factual observations I can relay without violating Vonar law. The Kenthar said the object was important to Corax. Corax is known to deal in important illicit goods.”
