Tactical Error (6 page)

“What is that?”

“First, it is now your responsibility to tell her.”

“Oh, nice!” Tregloran complained. “What is the second
thing?”

“When you do put her out, be sure to lock all the doors.”

Consherra turned to afford him a medium-range dirty look. “I think
that what troubles him most is that he does not want to have to put her off the
ship in the first place.”

“Oh, I know that,” Velmeran agreed. “I indicated that I am
sympathetic with the problem, but that I have no better answer except to say
that it is his own fault for getting involved with someone from a different
species.”

Tregloran looked puzzled. “Yes, that is exactly what I thought you
were telling me.”

The discussion was mercifully concluded by the arrival of the lift at the
bridge, and they arrived sooner than the visitors from the Methryn would have
anticipated. Valthyrra, who had been conspicuous in her remarkable silence,
bent her camera pod around to peer at the lift. Her own had not run so smoothly
and swiftly even after her last overhaul. A moment later she happened to glance
outside the lift into the bridge just beyond, and she was captivated. She
drifted along, heedless of her companions, staring in rapt fascination. It was
just like her own, but it was so new and bright and... neat. Really neat.

Tregloran made quick introductions all around. Curiously enough, this was
the first meeting between Velmeran and Theralda Vardon. He had rescued her from
the museum in the port of Vannkarn more than two decades earlier. She had at
the time been dormant, only a single memory cell remaining from the vast
network of memory storage units and processors that formed the sentient
computer systems of the Starwolf carriers. This was actually the second ship to
carry the name and personality of the Vardon, the original having been
destroyed over sixteen thousand years before.

Velmeran was curious to discover just how much of the original Theralda
Vardon actually remained, and whether or not she still remembered one very
important piece of information. Legend, or rumor, had always insisted that she
had been the last ship to know the location of lost Terra. Valthyrra, who was
old enough to have known the first Vardon, thought it likely, although not even
Theralda was old enough to have been there herself.

Tregloran completed the introductions with his first officer Denna, a tall,
rather dark Kelvessan with a surprisingly shy, even self-effacing smile;
commanding a completely new ship had taught both her and her young commander a
lot about being humble. Theralda had her camera pod bent completely around,
staring at the captivated Valthyrra.

“She will probably refuse to leave until you show her engineering and
the main fighter bays,” Velmeran said softly. “I suppose that we
should get on with this little meeting. Perhaps one of the smaller conference
rooms...”

“Yes, or we could just hang curtains from her and use her for a
hatstand,” Tregloran added, just to see if she was listening.

“Oh, certainly,” Valthyrra agreed, returning – with some
effort – to the here and now. “We might just as well retire to one
of the conference rooms and get started.”

“An excellent suggestion,” Velmeran agreed, amused.

Such meetings in the conference rooms located behind the bridge of the
Starwolf carriers were a common occupation for most of those present, meetings
that would often lead to major defeats for the Union. Keflyn had contrived to
sit in on a few of the most recent meetings on the Methryn, following along as the
second to her pack leader, Baressa. The group from the Methryn sat on one side
of the oval with Tregloran and his first officer on the other. Denna looked
rather lost and intimidated by such exalted company, and frankly fearful of the
Aldessa.

“Well, I know what the question is,” Theralda began. Her
presence was through the camera pod at the end of the sort boom hung over the
center of the table, currently rotated around to watch her visitors. “I
have some good news and some bad news. No, I do not know the location of Terra,
at least not accurately. I have a lead. Not a conscious lead, but the location
of a world that is very important to finding Earth, in some way a stepping
stone on the way.”

“But you do not recall the specific importance of this world?”
Velmeran assumed.

“No, not specifically, although I do think that it was an important
base to the early Starwolves. I remember being given the coordinates of this
world from Meykenna Haldayn and she told me that she had been refitted here,
but the conversation exists in my current memory only as a fragment. I think
that this world may have been Alameda, the original location of Home Base
before it was removed to Alkayja in the heart of the Republic, and was
abandoned at the same time that Terra was lost.”

“I hope that there is something there now,” Velmeran prompted.
He and Consherra both noted some vagueness to Theralda’s personality, a
small lack of spontaneity and a sense almost as if her mind had a tendency to
wander. Her personality programming had obviously not survived intact in that
one memory cell, and she was still filling in the missing pieces. After a
year’s time, she seemed to be doing very well for herself. Once she was
speaking, she seemed normal enough. Her tendency toward the melodramatic was a
trait she shared with all her sister ships. Velmeran found it refreshing to
note that some things had never changed.

“Even allowing for five hundred centuries of planetary drift, there is
only one planet it could be,” she explained, turning her camera pod to
the large viewscreen on the wall to one side of the table. A simple schematic
of the Union and Republic space came up. “It is located here, in
territory held by the Republic but near to Union space. This was once quite
near a fairly active region of human space, near the center of that one cone of
human expansion that led into what was to become Union space. But those were
ancient colonies, dating well before the Act of Unification, and they were all
destroyed in the early years of the war. It has always been a remote region of
the Republic.”

“Remote?” Consherra asked. “It is almost off the
chart.”

“That is hardly surprising,” Valthyrra commented. “We know
that the Republic was struggling to survive in those days. When Terra was lost,
they withdrew to their major colonies that had not been ravaged by the war,
those most remote from Union space. I would guess that Terra herself would lie
somewhat nearer to the heart of the present Republic, and deeper in from the
regions of Union space.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Theralda agreed, continuing this duel of
the data processors. “Of course, Home Base was later severely damaged in
an attack by a Union assault force that had wandered upon its secret location
entirely by chance. That led to the destruction of the computer libraries that
held a considerable amount of this old but no longer important information,
such as the location of former major worlds like Terra and Alameda. And yet,
while those worlds were abandoned for reasons that even I cannot guess, I
do
know that the evacuation was sudden and quick, and that the Union never
completely destroyed them or attempted to hold or plunder them.”

“They were unlivable,” Keflyn reminded them needlessly.

“Exactly,” Theralda agreed. “But we now know the probable
location of the planet Alameda, and somewhere on that world may still exist
important clues for finding Terra herself.”

“Yes, a brilliant deduction,” Valthyrra approved.

“Thank you very much,” she responded amiably, turning her camera
pod toward the Methryn’s probe and dipping her lenses as if taking a bow.
“Now I do not expect such clues to be obvious, unfortunately. I recall no
record of the climate of Alameda before it was abandoned, but it is now a
mountainous, heavily forested world just recovering from a long, hard ice age,
with great sheets of continental glaciers still in retreat. It is really too
cold for human habitation, but has since been settled as a Feldenneh
colony.”

“Feldenneh?” Velmeran asked, surprised. The Feldenneh was a race
feral in appearance, long-lived, and intelligent, but not very populous, quiet
and very peaceful in nature. They had no sympathies for the Union, but their
home world and colonies were within Union space and so subject to its dictates.
“That makes this a Union-held colony by default.”

“Yes, but there is no Union representation, diplomatic or military, on
the planet,” Theralda explained. “The colony was only settled in
the past decade, and there is still only the one, main settlement. The
Feldenneh are not great explorers, which would explain why they have not found
traces of any previous settlement.”

“That and the effects of heavy glaciation,” Valthyrra added.
“Continental glaciers can sweep away the ruins of even extensive modern
civilizations in a relatively short amount of geologic time.”

“A most astute observation,” Theralda approved.

“You are most gracious,” Valthyrra purred with delight, dipping
her own armored camera pod.

“Oh, enough!” Velmeran exclaimed, smiling. “You two are
incorrigible. It seems to me that we have discovered this lead only just in
time. If there are any remaining ruins, the Union would know about it soon
enough. I suppose that you have not been there yourself.”

“No, we dare not,” Theralda agreed. “The presence of a
Starwolf carrier, or Starwolves in general, would call undue attention to
this planet. I would not care to have to fight the Union for possession of this
world, once they learn of its importance. And above all else, I would not have
them discover the location of Terra before us.”

“Yes, that is what I have to do!” Keflyn declared suddenly.

When everyone turned to stare at her in mystification, she made a vague
shrugging gesture and sat down self-consciously.

Velmeran thought he understood what she was talking about. “Yes, your
premonition that you have some important task to perform. You assume that I
should send you to this colony, to find out what you can.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, that does sound like a good
idea.”

Velmeran turned to Venn Keflyn, sitting back on her tail to one side of the
table. “Have you had anything to do with this?”

“We had discussed the nature of premonitions earlier,” she
agreed. “Since my people are not subject to such admonitions, it is not
my problem.”

That left Velmeran to contemplate what he had’accomplished by having
this Valtrytian on his ship for the past twenty years. They were full of
advice, but they never seemed to give any of it.

He glanced at his daughter. “Could you give me one good reason why I
should agree to such a thing?”

“I can give you five,” Keflyn answered. “First, you have a
ship to care for and cannot go yourself. The same is true for Consherra, and
for Commander Tregloran. And Lenna Makayen is previously occupied. And it was
my idea in the first place.”

“And give me one good reason why I should send you instead of one of
the experienced members of my special tactics team like Baress?”

“Because I want to go?”

Velmeran considered that for a moment, watching her closely. “I
suppose you can go, if you are smart enough to figure out a way to get yourself
on that planet undetected.”

Keflyn thought about that for a long moment. “Well, there is a colony
on that planet, and that means a supply ship of some type. The Feldenneh have
always been supportive of the Starwolves. A colony that small might not be
served by a regular freight line or a company ship, and that would mean a
small, independent freighter. The independents have always been on our side as
well, since we protect their shipping from Union monopolies. I suppose that we
could work something out.”

“Now that is an interesting suggestion,” Tregloran remarked.
“Theralda, would you happen to know anything about that?”

“Oh, I just might,” the ship replied, as pleased with herself as
her Commander was that they had anticipated this. “The ship that services
the colony is the
Thermopylae
, a small, very old, and slightly
impoverished Free Trader under the command of a Jon Addesin. She makes this run
every six weeks, since the Feldenneh colony is presently exporting a fair
amount of specialty wood products back to their own worlds. If arrangements can
be made quickly, you can be on that next run.”

“Are you still interested in going?” Velmeran asked.

“Oh, certainly,” Keflyn insisted. “I mean, it could hardly
be dangerous, compared to Lenna’s expeditions. And it would be nice to
see other worlds outside the Methryn for once.”

Kanis was a neutral world, at least in theory. A cold, mountainous planet of
dark forests, it supported only a small population that thrived on the export
of one luxury item, the immense, soft pelts and downy wool of the native
langies, beasts of small wits and large tempers. Being independent of Union
rule, there was no trade monopoly for that one product, and Free Traders shared
the market with smaller Company ships. Since it was now late summer in the
north and late winter in the south, the second of the biannual export of wool
and pelts was still weeks away. There would be no Company ships down in the
port of Kalennes or orbiting the planet itself, nor had there been in several
months.

Kanis was a favorite world of the Starwolves, both because of its cool
climate and its relative unimportance to the Union. It was one of the rare
worlds where they could come for port leave and not have to wear their heavy
armor, or fear attack from fanatics and assassins. Of course, the benefits were
mutual. The constant presence of Starwolf carriers in the skies above this
world helped to insure that the Union maintained an attitude of polite
indifference. And with every ship in the Wolf fleet calling here for brief
vacations, as well as the regular patrols of the Methryn, Kanis was the best
protected independent world in Union space.