Authors: C. J. Cherryh
He didn’t want to believe it. He didn’t want to deal with it. He’d never wanted to play life-and-death politics. But all sorts of desperate thoughts had nudged their way from the nether side of his brain, where they now established a well-defined architecture and a set of connections.
If Gide had mistakenly died in the attack, Earth would bluster and moan and threaten, and ultimately do nothing about it, since, public face, Earth well knew the hazards of truly ham-handed interference in the Outside, and most specifically at Concord, of all places.
But if someone on the Treaty Board was reckless enough to in-sinuate an office onto Concord, it was clearly in hopes that their pretense of hysterics and self-protection would dissuade Apex and the
ondat
from objecting too much to a fracture of the very Treaty they allegedly watchdogged.
And if things had shifted this much in the Treaty Board, that body had a great deal to learn about Apex. It was very possible, if Apex decided to counter this move, that Gide would be dead within the year, Dortland with him, accidentally, of course, neatly folding the new office, an unnegotiated folding as it had been an unnegotiated establishment—and he’d have to explain it all to the 3 2 0 • C . J . C h e r r y h
next Earth ship that called. He could trust Brazis—enough, but not far enough that he was willing to be the first Apex-supported Earth governor in history.
If he let it all play out that way, he could be in for a rough ride.
But the alternative was dire. He could well see Earth, under the aegis of what began to look like a newly partisan Treaty Board, begin to play a dangerous third side in
ondat
-human politics, or thinking to do so—possibly getting a presence onto more than one station, creating yet other offices to trouble governors all over Outsider space. If the Treaty Board had gotten actively into politics, no one on Earth stopping them, it meant Earth now didn’t trust the governors they themselves had put in office over unwilling populations in the Outside.
Apex had already spoken, via Brazis, a clear warning, hard, clear words.
Worse, they were undoubtedly going to hear from Kekellen once a report about this new office filtered through the translators.
God, maybe
Kekellen
would nix the idea.
Now
there
was a thought.
Apex would object to Gide setting up here—but Earth, who’d take anything Apex objected to as a very good idea, would think very differently if
Kekellen
rose up suddenly and objected. Earth had to count on Kekellen taking ages to understand something had changed. It notoriously took decades to negotiate any change of procedure with the
ondat,
in the delicacies and difficulties of translation, and while Kekellen usually ignored Earth’s small shifts in policy—this—
This might prove different, if Kekellen understood that what they did marked a change in Earth’s representation out here.
He was incredibly tempted to send his own message to Kekellen, now, before that ship left dock, both to pour oil on those dangerous waters personally and to urge Kekellen to protest before worse happened.
A dangerous, provocative move, to send a message to Kekellen without going through the experts. But his experts were, he had to recall,
licensed
by the Treaty Board.
Oh, that was nice. His translators were about to come under
Gide’s
jurisdiction, and operate at his say-so.
Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 3 2 1
Not
an acceptable situation.
What he contemplated, however—God, it was dangerous.
The
ondat
could take exception, take action, not even limited to Concord . . .
But it might be the most important act of his governorship—to protect Kekellen and the Treaty itself from what looked more and more like his overthrow and the establishment of a new Earth authority out here, at an outpost that meant the difference between peace and war.
What would he say to Kekellen, if he dared? What could he say to Kekellen, without overmuch abstraction, if he could gather the personal courage to risk his comfort, risk his life—risk his station’s existence, for that matter? He had a wife and daughter to think of.
They had their home, their comforts. He would have the illusion of power lifelong, if he kept his mouth shut and minimized his interference with Mr. Gide, and Brazis, and all the likely agents in a prolonged power game. Or if he strung things along in a series of compromises . . . lose a little, gain a little, playing a tight and narrow game, surrounded by Earth-staffed agencies he could no longer trust . . . he might survive and keep everybody alive, if he used his head. It was a terrible risk, to take direct action. To talk to the
ondat
—
But he had the official translation lexicon, among the books behind his desk. His computer could arrange acceptable syntax, and it routinely did that, when he needed to skim an incoming message. If he just picked the words cautiously and kept to solid concepts . . . not going into the network to tip off the experts as to what he was doing . . .
The rest of the sandwich lay untouched. He stared at the bubble world, chasing thoughts through this and that maze of official protocols, and threat, and weighing not only the possibility of detection after the fact—but before it.
He could do it. He
might
pull it off.
He could at least see if he could compose anything reasonable.
He surfaced his keyboard on the desk and made a cautious initial effort.
Reaux to Kekellen. Gide comes from Earth ship. Someone attacks Gide.
Reaux thinks the attack is a trick. Gide wants power on Concord. Reaux
3 2 2 • C . J . C h e r r y h
asks Gide to leave, but Gide won’t go. Gide’s office on Concord will be
rival Earth office. Concord needs your help to stop Gide.
The computer worked for a second or two with that input and came up with
ondat
script, and a corresponding translation:
Reaux
to Kekellen. Gide comes from Earth ship. Attack on Gide unknown origins. Reaux says subterfuge. Reaux says Gide wants govern Concord.
Reaux says Gide go. Gide says Gide not go. Gide makes hostile Earth office on Concord. Reaux says Concord wants Kekellen help, wants
Kekellen stop Gide.
A little further editing. Get that word
hostile
out of there.
The computer digested it and spat up something he halfway dared put his name on.
Something that could absolutely ruin him if it got to the wrong hands.
God, could he even trust Ernst?
He ate an antacid. One of the twelve-hour kind. He didn’t rate himself reckless or stupid, and on one level, sending this message was beyond stupid, it was criminal. It put him and his family at terrible risk. It put the whole station, the whole situation with the
ondat,
at risk. Their weapons had taken out a planet. A space station, in their territory, was negligible. The end of everything.
But on another—what happened once Gide settled in? Could he even stay in office, once every enemy he had, Lyle Nazrani leading the pack, immediately threw their support to Gide and manufactured charges to bring him down and raise Gide to more and more prominence? He had organized enemies. He could see a challenge not just to him, but to the governorship, leading to the Treaty Board office de facto taking over, with Nazrani and crew power-grabbing all the way.
Which meant Apex would get involved, and then things would get dicey with Kekellen, just the same. With the same result, more slowly, more inexorably, with no way to claim it was a single mistake.
He had this one chance to nip the whole situation in the bud, a short, sharp action that didn’t let Gide’s organization, like contamination itself, spread through his whole establishment and create more Dortlands.
He had some confidence he
knew
Kekellen’s reaction. If he could Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 3 2 3
get the message through, and do it quietly. If it went bad—if it went bad, he could put himself on the line, say it was his mistake.
His and only his.
What he sent certainly couldn’t go through the compromised phone system, wide open to that ship. They could stop his message cold.
For secure communication resources, he had Dortland. He had Ernst. He had a handful of hired guards who didn’t know the systems.
And he had Jewel. He had Jewel Sanduski, and he had Brazis.
He
could
get the message out, right under the Earth ship’s nose.
“Ernst?” He used the intercom. “Is Mr. Dortland available?”
“He left a written report, sir, and said he’d be back in an hour.”
One down. One out of the way.
“Bring his report in. And bring Jewel with you.”
“Yes, sir,” Ernst said, and broke off to do that.
Less than a minute and Ernst brought Jewel, and simultaneously laid Dortland’s report on his desk, for his eyes.
It said:
Your daughter is reported to have changed her appearance radically. The bearer of her card was arrested within the last quarter hour but
proved to be a female petty thief, who claims to have picked it up, dropped
on the street.
The antacid wasn’t at all sufficient.
In the other matter, we have analyzed the shell fragments. The
launcher is a simple tube, locally procured out of Concord Industries. The
shell is more exotic, likely out of Orb, where several such attacks have
been directed at law enforcement. It was imported. We are checking customs records.
Did he believe that? He believed Dortland already knew damned well where that shell came from.
We have recovered Stafford’s coat,
the note said further.
It shows
residue of blood and explosion. We are checking the origin and integrity
of the blood. We have six witnesses who put Stafford on Blunt Street traveling toward Grozny, and have agents in that area, but several locals have
manufactured misleading sightings. This is common practice in that district when authorities seem to be tracing an individual. We discount these
reports. The sightings we do trust are around 12th and Lebeau.
We have interviewed Stafford’s mother, who claims not to have heard
3 2 4 • C . J . C h e r r y h
from her son, and his father, who says as far as he knows young Stafford
is in the Outsider office complex. We discount his report as ignorance of
the situation, but have sent an official inquiry to Brazis. Other relatives
claim no knowledge and assume Stafford is at work. The sister alone remains elusive. We have received massive disinformation as to her whereabouts and threats have been issued against our agents.
We have agents on guard in Ambassador Gide’s vicinity. He is reported asleep.
Also, one Gifford Ainsford Ames, aged 54, approached the
Southern Cross
ramp claiming to have information about irregularities in the
arena design selection as motive for the attack on Gide and asking for protection from pursuit, claiming your office has persecuted him. Medical
records indicate he has evaded treatment for a mental condition for the
last two weeks. Arresting officers have taken him to the hospital, and we
have assigned an agent on that case for a concluding report.
Damn. He knew about Ames. An architect, and a cyclic depressive with a penchant for drink. His arena design hadn’t been accepted, and he’d thrown a screaming fit in the offices.
One part of his madly racing brain said damn, he didn’t want the word
arena
mentioned in Earth’s agents’ hearing; and another said fine, so let a lunatic pitch his fit on that topic on Earth’s threshold. Nazrani’s complaints, recorded with that ship, would lose credibility in consequence.
And Dortland stopped him. Which meant Dortland didn’t want that on record, either. So where was truth?
But at a certain remove—he didn’t care. He didn’t give a damn.
He had had all the doubts his mind could hold. He had laid his course.
He looked up at Jewel, feeling himself inexplicably short of breath, about to do something he never could have envisioned doing. At a certain stage of his life he might have considered Judy and Kathy, but they had both distanced themselves from him—deserted him, if he consulted his gut. And fixing this mess was up to him.
To get his necessary moves past Dortland, whose agents could intercept and stifle a message from his communication system, just like that ship, he counted on one conduit, his opposite number in the Outsider government—the very man he should be most ner-
Fo r g e o f H e a v e n • 3 2 5
vous about trusting . . . and the one whose physical lines were the most immune to that ship out there, and to Dortland. Everyone considered that Outsider communications flowed almost universally by tap, immune to anything but physical eavesdropping on the sender. But there were internal office nets, well shielded. And a few shielded outside lines, which Outsiders guarded jealously, absolutely licensed to protect themselves and their communications from that ship and from Dortland, by force of arms if need be.
On a station riddled with surveillance, Brazis had the physical lines he needed.
“Ms. Jewel.”
“Jewel.”
“Of course.” Outsider names. No Ms. He copied the computer file, Kekellen’s letter, and gave it to her. He wondered where the bugs in his office did reside. But the kind he had to fear now were the kind that could focus their pickup through several walls, the highly professional and elaborate kind that Dortland commanded.
“It’s important the Chairman understands my official position. Extremely.”
“Yes, sir,” Jewel said, and took the item into her keeping, in a button-purse she wore at her waist, clearly understanding where that was supposed to go.
“I’m sending Ernst to walk you home. With thanks to Brazis for your help. I hope you’ll convey that, personally. Take care.”