The Masters' Gambit, page 15
part #20 of Robotech Series
The servant kowtowed and was dismissed. Shimada's steely eyes scanned the table. "Remarks." "He's lying. He doesn't have the disk," someone said. "He is goading us."
"He expects us to lead him to the hackers. All of us will be under surveillance."
Kan-san nodded gravely. "The matter is far from closed. Let the next round of our 'contest' begin at once."
"The Invid Regent is dead," Elder Nimuul said with significantly less emotion than the pronouncement should have warranted. Fallagar and Hepsis flanked him, their facial expressions unreadable. "Killed on Optera," Nimuul continued, "in a hand-to-hand contest with Breetai Tul."
The Masters' raptorlike eyes remained fixed on the transsignal sphere that had resolved in the command center of the flagship, but their thoughts rippled and streamed from one mind to the next. Shaizan spoke for the
triumvirate. "Then our reascendancy is assured, Elders. We need only retrieve the Protoculture matrix and the Fourth Quadrant is ours once more."
Nimuul scowled. "Your optimism is premature. The death of the Regent is further evidence of the Earthers' tenacity and innate talent for warfare."
"The Earthers, Elder? When you said Breetai, we assumed—"
"Breetai's Zentraedi forces serve Earth, not Tirol. Listen carefully: Optera was the stage for a decisive battle between the Sentinels and the Invid, as well as between rival blocs of the Robotech Expeditionary Force. The data you amassed on Earth languages enabled us to interpret exactly what occurred. The rebel group, under the leadership of a Human named T.
R. Edwards, fled Tirol with an organic computer the Invid had left behind when they occupied our world. This Edwards and his Ghost Squadron were intent on usurping the Regent's power, and using Invid forces to defeat the Sentinels, the Zentraedi, and a separate group of REF loyalists. But Edwards was himself defeated, and the Invid, deprived of their regent, surrendered. All data concerning these events will be transsignaled to your ships."
"Where are these Sentinels now?" Shaizan asked.
"They are returning to Tirol, aboard a ship called the Ark Angel.
Scientists and support personnel of the REF await them in Tiresia." "Our city," Bowkaz said on an angry note.
"No longer," Nimuul amended. "All of Tirol belongs to Earth." "All the more reason to make Earth ours."
The three Elders shook their heads. "The planet is not a prize worth winning," Nimuul said. "The Regent is dead, but the Regis and her warrior children are alive. Even now, her sensor nebulae comb the Fourth Quadrant for signs of the Flower of Life. The moment she is alerted to the Flower's rooting on Earth, she will come, and there is no force in the galaxy that can stop her. Excepting the Protoculture matrix, Earth holds no salvation for us." The blue-haired Elder paused, then asked, "Have you established
contact with the machine intelligence that governed Zor's fortress?"
"We have, my lords," Dag answered. "The computer was removed from the fortress prior to an attack led by Khyron Kravshera in which the fortress was destroyed. The computer has high confidence that the Protoculture matrix survived the devastation, but it has not been able to determine the location of the fortress's burial site. An Earther named Zand has programmed the machine to speak with the voice of Zor himself."
"Is that all it told you?" Nimuul demanded.
Bowkaz addressed the question. "When we commanded the machine to speculate on how our flotilla might fare against Earth's strategic capabilities, it requested access to our databanks."
The Elders were silent for a moment. "Do you trust it?" Fallagar wanted to know.
"Not entirely," Bowkaz told him. "Though we have reason to believe that Zor may have bequeathed the machine a measure of the Compulsion you placed upon him."
"Allow the computer access to whatever it requires," Nimuul replied after a long moment. "It matters little if the machine has its own agenda. Reveal our might, and make the Earthers aware that years will pass before Breetai's ship returns to Earth. In the meantime, it is crucial that you learn where Zor's fortress is interred, so as to narrow the focus of our attack, should it come to that."
As one, the Masters bowed their heads.
"In addition, it is advisable to encourage Zor's clone to go online with the machine his donor devised. If some part of Zor resides in that machine, it is conceivable that the interface could rouse something in the clone's cellular memory, enabling it to fashion a second Protoculture matrix."
"Your will be done, Elders," Shaizan said. "Can you specify when we will next hear from you?"
Nimuul shook his head. "We are repairing to Hayden IV in an effort to determine why Exedore Formo has become so interested in the Awareness." The Elder made a fatigued sound. "The world is coming apart. Tirol fallen;
Praxis obliterated; Peryton's curse lifted; the Invid Regent dead; the Sentinels victorious; the Awareness awakened; the Zentraedi bearing offspring . . . We must have the matrix at any cost, lest the glory of the Tiresian race is eclipsed from the galaxy."
"Where to, sir?" Rolf Emerson's driver asked when the limousine had been cleared through Fokker Aerospace's forbidding front gates.
Emerson met the woman's questioning gaze in the rearview mirror, then turned his face to the tinted side window. "Major General Aldershot's office."
Founded during Reconstruction as a launch and reentry facility for shuttles servicing the factory satellite and named for the Robotech War's most celebrated mechamorph, Roy Fokker, the base encompassed several thousand acres of treeless plateau south-southeast of Monument City. It was home to the Tactical Air Force and the Cosmic Units, along with various experimental facilities and an industrial complex. The military accords of 2019 and 2022 had granted supervision of the place to the RDF, but what with the formation of the Earth Defense Force and the subsequent blurring of distinctions between the RDF and the Army of the Southern Cross, there was some question as to who controlled what areas of the base. RDF presence was stronger on Fokker than anywhere else on the surface, and Skull One—Roy Fokker's Veritech—still hung suspended from monofilament cable in the administrative center. But many of the base's immense hangars were packed with Logans, Hovertanks, and similar mecha engineered for the Army of the Southern Cross.
Rolf had an office in the administrative center, though he usually worked out of his office in Terrestrial Defense headquarters in Monument City. Typically, months would pass without his visiting Fokker, and now here he was back on base for the second time in a week.
The driver guided the limousine along the two-lane road that ringed the facility, past the shuttle gantries, "Destroid Depot," and the administrative center, with its luxury-hotel facade and four-story atrium.
Aldershot's office was ten minutes further along, on the top floor of a sprawling structure officially known as the Defense Force Operational Headquarters, although more commonly referred to as the RDF Canteen.
At once old-fashioned and bionic, Aldershot was seated at his antique desk when an aide admitted Emerson to the office.
"Shall I take this visit as a sign that you want to throw in with us?" Aldershot asked bluntly. "Or are you here to reiterate the warning you delivered to Major Fredericks and Lieutenant Satori?"
Emerson hadn't spoken to Aldershot since the clandestine meeting in Monument City, and the major general's anger was transparent. "Nigel, suppose we leave it that I've your best interests in mind. Will you hear me out?"
Aldershot fingered his waxed mustache, then gestured to the chair alongside the desk. The room smelled faintly of pipe tobacco, and the view out its tall, fixed-pane windows overlooked the South Gate shuttle and VT landing strips.
"Leonard knows," Emerson said. "He doesn't have all the details, but he knows enough to discern what you have in mind."
Aldershot's eyes began to narrow in suspicion.
"No, he didn't hear it from me. He didn't have to, the way you've been carrying on, juggling mecha deployments and troop assignments . . . You didn't think you'd actually be able to pull this off without his knowledge?"
Aldershot shook his head slowly. "We expected this. Though I must admit, I wish he could have been kept in the dark a while longer." He looked at Emerson. "I appreciate your informing me."
"There's something else. You know I made a trip up the well."
"To the factory, yes. At the time, I thought you had come to your senses and were making the trip on our behalf. Then I learned that you'd been sent for. I assume the trip had something to do with their unexpected silence."
"It did."
"Well, I'm sure this can't be about additional supplies. Hell, as it is they barely touch what we send them. They seem to want to live like animals."
"Not anymore," Emerson said. "They're requesting permission to leave orbit. Leonard has already been apprised, and the Senate is expected to vote on the matter by early next week. I expect they'll be allowed to go—if only in the interest of closure for those of us on Earth."
Aldershot smoothed his mustache again. "This could be a major setback in our plans. We were hoping to make use of the factory as a staging area for strikes against the orbital weapons platforms, if need be." The general frowned. "But why do they want to leave after all these years? Don't tell me they're afraid of getting caught in the middle, between us and Leonard?"
"They couldn't care less," Emerson told him. "Most of them would just as soon see us rot in hell for the way they were mistreated during the Uprisings. No, Nigel, they're leaving because the Masters are nearer than we thought."
All the smugness left Aldershot. "How near? I've heard nothing from Liberty or any of the forward observation bases about UCTs—"
"The Zentraedi are going by 'feeling'—a kind of sixth sense. They claim there's a direct correlation between distance and the strength of their feelings, but they're unable to quantify it."
"But, good Christ, Emerson, are they talking millions of miles or parsecs?"
Emerson shook his head. "Here's a better one: Is the SDF-3 in pursuit?"
The major general stared at him. "And if they are, why haven't they made contact with us?" He muttered a curse. "Could the REF and the Masters have passed each other en route? Is that the sort of thing that can happen in hyperspace?"
"The only person who could possibly answer that is on the SDF-3. But no matter what, I think we have to assume that the ship is either incapacitated or destroyed. It's high time we faced the fact that the UEG is Earth's only hope."
Aldershot's hands clenched. "This changes everything, Rolf." Emerson
was midway through a relieved exhale when Aldershot added, "We'll have to make our move ahead of schedule."
Emerson gaped at him. "That's your answer? And if the Masters' ships are cloaked somehow? If they've had us under surveillance, and have only been waiting for the right moment, waiting for us to lower our guard or grow so enmeshed in internecine squabbling that we won't even see them coming?" He stood up and slammed his fist down on the desk. "Have I been wasting my breath on you, Nigel?"
Aldershot stiffened, then showed Emerson a contrite look. "I'm sorry, Rolf. But there are too many of us already committed to this—Masters or not. I'm going to recommend that we go in one week."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Emerson wanted Dana treated like any cadet in the Academy, and yet he was the first one to come to her aid every time she stepped out of line—which was more times than I could begin to name. The thing is, we all knew that she had to be there. If nothing else, she was a constant reminder of the fact that Earth had fought a war with an alien race, and that that race's makers were probably on the way.
Remark attributed to one of Dana Sterling's fellow Academy cadets, as quoted in Major Alice Harper Argus (ret.), Fulcrum: Commentaries on the Second Robotech War
Terry Weston accepted the ritual cup and set it down on the table in front of him. He gave the cup a counterclockwise half turn before lifting it to his nose with his right hand, elbow thrust outward, his left hand cupped over it to focus the scent. He then inhaled three times, listening, as the Japanese put it.
Small and exquisitely wrought, the cup contained a cylinder of glowing charcoal buried in ashes of pond lily seeds, which were chosen for their odorlessness. The surface of the ashes bore an intricate pattern that indicated the season and the form of the contest. Obscuring most of that pattern was a square of quartz, atop which rested a small piece of incense, koh—a sliver of exotic wood, saturated with fragrant oil. It was Weston's turn to identify the incense by smell.
The utterly silent room in which he and a dozen others sat was already heady with the mingled scents from previous rounds; some kyara—elegant and sophisticated—others sumontara—provocative and argumentive. The one under Weston's nose was certainly more forward than kyara, though neither rustic nor boorish enough to be considered manaban. It had an almost cinnamon quality, austere, upright, and clerical—suggestive of the sasora type. He decided that the incense came from a type of scrub oak
native to the hill country of central Thailand. Mentally, he composed his identifying haiku, wrote it in kanji on his notepad, and passed the cup to the old woman seated to his right.
A former Veritech pilot with the RDF, Weston was approaching thirty, tall and fit, with a craggy face and wavy blond hair that fell to his shoulders. Unlike the kimonoed players on either side of him in the koh dojo, he was wearing jeans and a short-napped pullover. In preparation for the weekly session, he had, as usual, abstained from eating garlic, drinking coffee, and using soap or shampoo, and had removed his rings and bracelets, lest they cause a distraction by coming into contact with the incense-laden cup.
The koh master sat at the head of the table, his implements arranged in front of him: squares of quartz, napkins, wrapped and unwrapped pieces of wood, a poker, a pair of chopsticks, a small set of pincers known as a gingyobasami, and a feather from the wing of a crested ibis, which was used to brush away stray ash adhering to the side of the cup.
"Hon koh taki owarimashita," the sensei said when the incense had been inhaled by the final player. "The koh fire is out."
All that remained was for the identifying haikus to be submitted to the recordkeeper, who would inscribe them on a large sheet of Japanese paper, and for the winners to be announced.
Kohdo, knowledge of incense, had been practiced for mere than a thousand years, and had lent much to sado, the Japanese tea ceremony. Of the six hundred or so scents in the incense pantheon, a skillful devotee could name at least half. The wood itself—all of it imported from Southeast Asia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and other places—was more precious than gold or saffron. Weston's school practiced a type of kohdo founded by samurai in the twelfth century. Tokyo had a second school that had originated with the Imperial family, in which one's arms were held close to the body while listening to the scents.
Kohdo wasn't the sort of discipline Weston would normally have been drawn to; rather, he was under orders to attend the sessions and contests. The source of those orders was Onuma-sensei, the martial arts instructor
under whom Weston had been studying almost since his arrival in Japan three years earlier. Weekly kohdo, zen meditation, leaf-raking, window washing, archery, irezumi . . . Onuma-sensei was Weston's link to all of them.
As it happened, he had scored well in the contest, correctly naming sixty of the one hundred nail-paring-size samples passed around the table. Several of the old hands had achieved better-than-perfect scores by not only identifying the scents but by identifying the samples as core or outer ring cuttings from the donor trees.
Still, the koh master was pleased enough by Weston's performance to comment, as the former pilot was leaving, that Weston's Western face had at last begun to sprout an Asian nose.
It was just past nine P.M. when Weston stepped out onto Yomise-Dori.
The air was chilled and he rolled down the sleeves of his pullover.
The scent dojo was near Ueno Park in Sendagi, which, along with the adjacent neighborhoods of Nezu and Yanaka, made up the heart of the city's surface shitamachi—its downtown. Flattened during the Rain of Death, the area had been rebuilt to suit a Tokyo that hadn't existed in more than fifty years. Houses with rock gardens lined the narrow streets; the restaurants specialized in chuka ryori, Tokyo's version of Chinese cooking; signs above the shop doorways were in hand-painted kana; and the Shinto shrines were vermilion.
Weston ambled along, past sake shops, rice merchants, tofu makers, flower vendors, and barbers, drinking all of it in, thinking vaguely about Monument City, as he was wont to do as Tokyo's autumn approached. He was nearing his favorite nomiya—drink shop—when he heard his name called, and turned to find lanky Wilfred Gibley waving to him from the mouth of a lantern-lit alley. Beside him stood a tall and attractive young woman, nibbling at her thumb. Weston hadn't seen Gibley since they'd dropped LSD together back in their saike zoku days. Gibley had been known as Hongo then, and Weston had been fresh from Monument, looking to come to terms with the tragic death of his fiancée and his lasting hatred for
everyone associated with the Giles Academy—Anatole Leonard, Joseph Petrie, Michael Kingsley, David Myers, Pauline Hall, even the dead Henry Giles himself.
Grinning, Weston walked over to Gibley and clapped him on the shoulder. "Where you been hiding, Hongo? Or do you go by a different name now?"
Gibley traded a quick glance with the girl. "Depends who you ask." He forced a smile. "Terry, this is Misa."
Weston nodded. "That's a pretty name."
"Thanks," she mumbled, furtively averting her gaze.
Weston turned back to Gibley. "I was just going to get something to eat.
