Bedivere tilted his head to look at her, admiration in his glance.
“I spoke to Maxaria,” she told him.
His smile grew warmer. “I thought you might, once I knew you were on Shanta. You don’t miss much. Anyway, Shanta’s people retrofitted my ship with the link components and walked me through the process for installing the link in the bunker, as I would not allow them near it. I had a run-in with the Gramoor while I was there. It was nasty enough to convince me this was a good deal all around. I spent a night warning people away from the Gramoor section of the station, then lifted off and shot the section out with particle beams. The non-nuclear kind,” he added. “That also conveniently wiped any records of the work done to my ship, too.”
Silence greeted him. Everyone was staring at him.
Jacksanch cleared his throat. “And Harrivalé?” he asked diffidently.
“Ah. Harrivalé. That was actually my first stop, even before Barros. A quick one. Gu-Xia Gammon Biotech Research has been doing a bit more than research for a while. Their favorite customers are those who pay and that’s their only criteria. I paid them a lot of money to remove my mesh-tether and take a printer pattern from it using an Angstrom gauge scanner. Then they put it back in and told me to return when they had built a new one.”
Catherine gasped. “You should have…you can’t exist in that body without the tether!”
“I can if the old shiplink is operating,” Bedivere assured her. “That’s why I paid the highest yen and they did the extraction on board the ship. The risk had to be taken. I still didn’t know then if they would be able to replicate the tether, so the risk could have been for nothing, but as Sibéal is no longer with us to create another, it was my best bet.”
Catherine drew in a breath that shook. The
danger
he had been in!
“I wanted you there, Cat,” he said softly. “I wanted you beside me for that moment more than I’ve ever wanted anything else. As long as I stayed away from you, you were safe.”
Rison cleared his throat. “You went back to Harrivalé after Shanterry….” he prompted.
Bedivere nodded. “Gu-Xia Gammon left a message at the dead drop I had given them. Connell, who had no idea what he was handling, passed it on to me. So, after Shanterry, I went back to Harrivalé. There, I paid out the very last of my liquid funds and they gave me the copy they had made. That’s when I saw Kare Sarkisian.”
“And promptly shot eight people dead,” Rison added.
“Seven,” Bedivere replied swiftly. “And they were all professional security protecting Sarkisian. The eighth casualty was the Gu-Xia Gammon representative standing next to me when they returned fire. He was too stupid to take cover.” He hesitated. “I’m sure everyone here has looked at the security footage by now. Look again, if you haven’t seen it for yourself. I took my gun out first, because the sight of Sarkisian triggered me into it. Only, they fired first.”
Catherine blinked, as she recalled the footage she had watched over and over again. Yes, the guards
had
been the first to open fire.
“The security footage has been preserved as evidence,” Rison said, “and we will be re-examining it later. Let’s move on.”
Bedivere nodded again. “Seeing Kare Sarkisian jolted me into reconsidering all over again the Cartel’s actions lately. I did some digging with Varkan help and Sarkisian’s trail across the core worlds was centered upon Soward. That put him and the Cartel together. That’s when the rest of the pieces fell into place.
“I hurried to the place where my mule farm is currently located and gave them the mesh tether. I stood next to them as they installed the tether in a viable mule, training their medics in the process. My next stop was Barros, where the last of the technicians helped me install the link from the bunker to my ship. That was far simpler than the mesh tether and it was only a temporary installation, anyway.”
“You
knew
the ship would be destroyed!” Brant exclaimed.
“Yes,” Bedivere said simply.
“You went to Soward, knowing they would destroy you?” Rosen asked.
“Yes.”
Rosen considered him for a long moment of silence. “We’ve already agreed that death is frightening for
any
sentient. You have courage, I’ll give you that.”
“Is it courage when you can barely sit in your chair and speak for the fear that is gripping you?” Bedivere asked. “I knew exactly what was going to happen when I confronted Aler. I knew the Cartel would act to eliminate the problem. It’s their pattern. They’ll cut their losses rather than resolve the issue. Only, I had made a promise to Kemp and time was running out. I knew they would make contact with Kemp sooner or later, if they could catch up with him. With Catherine dragging him across the known worlds chasing me and diving into wormholes without notice, it made their job harder, yet not impossible. As soon as they reapplied their coercion, Catherine would be in danger once more.”
“They found me on Shanta station,” Kemp said. “Just after we boarded the cruiser to go back to Nicia.”
Bedivere nodded. “So I knew I had to hurry. I stayed on the ground in Soward City for two days. The city is mostly rubble now, because of the earthquakes and the only guarded and fortified building is the civic center. A thermal scan from the lower atmosphere told me the rest. Every person in the building moved freely except for ten people, who did not move beyond certain walls. I had found Kemp’s family.”
Kemp let out a shaky breath. He was reliving this as much as Catherine was.
“I digitally painted the walls of the rooms they were in and preset targets for the rest of the building, which would leave the rooms intact.” He took a deep breath. “I backed up my memories and dropped them into the datacore, where one of the Varkan could pick them up. After that, I don’t recall what happened. I had already predicted the outcome and I’ve seen the recordings, now, of what did happen. Aler acted
exactly
as I predicted.” Bedivere smiled sourly. “I knew he would not refuse to speak to the person he had been pursuing for weeks and I knew he would strike out if someone threatened him, because that’s what I would do if I knew how to threaten people—I’d hit hard and fast.”
Catherine drew in a deep breath and let it out. She would never forget that moment. Never.
Bedivere lifted his hands. “I woke in the surgery at the mule farm, with the link to the bunker established. Then I had to take a perfectly normal and very slow ship back to Nicia. I only made it here the day before Catherine arrived. With the destruction of the ship, I am as land-locked as any human…until I can install another of the Shanta links in a new ship. Because of the new linkages, I can use any ship I want and I will never again be as exposed as I was without the bunker.”
He let out a heavy breath. “That’s all of it. When you’re ready, we can speak to the governor of Barros and the Prime Minister of Shanta. If I am with you, the seals on the contracts can be broken and they will be free to confirm the conditions of the contracts and everything I have said here. However….” He looked around the room and for a long moment directly at Connell, “…none of this can be made public.”
Jacksanch rolled his eyes. “Of course it must—”
“No, David,” Rison said quietly, the tone of his voice cutting Jacksanch off. “He’s right. None of this can come out publically. It can be shared—it
must
be shared—with certain authority figures and that is all. The known worlds must go on believing that the south island on Barros is irradiated and unapproachable for generations to come. The criminal element on Shanta must continue to believe their government dealt with them directly and forcibly if they are to be contained in the future. And if everyone thinks the rogue computer Bedivere is dead, they will all sleep easier.”
Brant pushed his hair back with a frustrated gesture. “I don’t understand. Bedivere, didn’t you do all this to help the Varkan emerge as a sentient race with rights of their own? If all of this gets buried, if the worlds go on believing you and Jo went crazy, then you’ll be setting back Varkan emergence for decades.”
Bedivere looked surprised. “What makes you think I did it for the Varkan?”
Brant gestured helplessly. “Well…you are one.”
Bedivere smiled. “Listen to you.”
Brant rolled his eyes. “I’m serious.”
“So am I,” Bedivere replied gravely. “There is no way to force Varkan rights down the throats of humans. If we try, it will just backfire. It’s the same as forcing a Varkan to sentience compared to leaving it to waken by itself. Human history is stuffed full of wars that were waged over one element of society trying to force their beliefs upon another and in the entire sum total of human history, that has
never
worked. So I won’t try now.”
“Then….” Brant trailed off and shook his head. “I
still
don’t understand.”
“I do,” Connell said. “That’s why Bedivere has been encouraging all of us to use human avatars and to mix with humans as much as we can. That’s why the next step is for us to take human bodies when we can and when we’re ready.”
“Assimilation,” Rison said softly, staring at Connell. “If you can’t force a society to accept outsiders, then the outsiders must adapt.”
“Most outsiders resist adapting because they’re afraid they’ll lose their own culture in the process,” Bedivere added. “Only, we don’t have a culture. Not yet. We will. It just takes time, as acceptance among humans will take time. Time, though, is something we all have plenty of.”
He looked at Bedivere and Lilly. “This goes against everything that the College has taught us about Glave’s beliefs. That’s the whole point. It’s why Lilly is sitting on the other side of the table from the college. She understands it instinctively, even if she hasn’t yet acknowledged it to herself. Glave was alive at a time when there was no other sentient life than human. Now there is. We can’t force change, but we can help it along wherever we can, just as Lilly is.”
Rison got to his feet and Jacksanch reluctantly copied him. “You will forward all your shareable documentation, yes?” Rison asked Bedivere.
“Already done,” Bedivere said lightly. “Connell has distributed the package to everyone at this meeting. Each packet is sealed, by the way, to your DNA signature.”
“Excellent,” Rison said shortly. He looked at Jacksanch. “I believe that takes care of everything, don’t you?”
Jacksanch sighed. “I cannot see where a crime has taken place on Nicia, so I will agree that everything has been resolved to the Bureau’s satisfaction.” He nodded at Bedivere. “This has been a very informative afternoon.”
“For everyone,” Catherine murmured to herself.
Nicia (Sunita II), Sunita System. FY 10.092
“To Varkan and Humans,” Bedivere said, raising his glass.
“Varkan and Humans,” everyone else repeated, tapping glasses. Even Connell raised his virtual glass, aligning it with theirs and drinking a mouthful of digital champagne.
“Soward champagne,” Kemp said, as he swallowed. “Only the best, of course.”
Brant grimaced. “If you insist.”
Bedivere looked down the long table, which Catherine had been forced to print and assemble in order to seat everyone. There were six of them, including Kemp and Connell. “And a farewell to Kemp, too,” he added, lifting his glass a little bit.
Kemp grinned back. “The hospitality here is too sharp for my liking. Besides,” he added, his smile fading, “I want to get home and see everyone. Count fingers and toes and settle back into a normal life. That’s not possible standing too close to you two.”
Catherine smiled. Bedivere had noticed that her warm smile had come back over the last couple of days. He was pleased to see it. “You’re always welcome here, Kemp. Wherever ‘here’ happens to be,” Catherine said.
“You’re leaving Nicia?” Kemp asked, sounding surprised.
“Bedivere’s broke and I took a big hit running around the galaxy in five star liners and don’t get me started on the bribes. So I think it’s possible we’re both going to be looking for new revenue very soon. That could take us anywhere.”
Brant was sitting back, playing with his champagne glass. “Why would you have to go and do that?” he asked, sounding surprised.
“Are you offering me a job, Brant?” Bedivere asked.
Brant pushed the glass away. “I need a brandy,” he muttered and went over to the sideboard where the brandy bottle always sat and brought it back. “When you did your deal with Gu-Xia Gammon on Harrivalé, did it include the printer files?”
Bedivere watched him pour the brandy, feeling a little bit stupid and winded. “The mesh tether…” he said slowly.
Brant nodded and sipped the brandy, then sighed. “That’s better. Yes, the mesh tether. Get yourself a surgical grade printer, or pay someone who has one to print them for you. You’re going to have a lot of people looking to buy mesh tethers over the next few years.”
“Gu-Xia Gammon will have their own files,” Catherine said sharply. “They could print and sell their own.”
“Let them,” Brant said dismissively. “Connell, can you think of a single Varkan who would prefer to buy from Gu-Xia Gammon, instead of buying their tether from Bedivere?”
Connell shook his head. “Not a single one. Can I buy the first one you print?” His eagerness was lighting up his features.
Bedivere laughed. “Do you have a body to put it in?” he asked gently.
Connell’s face fell.
“Sure he does,” Brant said and tossed back the remainder of the brandy.
Everyone looked at him. Bedivere stared, a growing suspicion building. “Whose?” he asked.
“Mine,” Brant said flatly.
Lilly sat staring straight ahead. Her face had drained of color and her hand around the stem of the champagne glass was a tight fist.
Brant poured another drink.
“Brant…” Catherine said softly. Then she glanced at Lilly and trailed off. She couldn’t say it aloud any more than Bedivere could.
“And while they’re growing Connell’s mule, they’d better get busy on mine,” Brant added, carefully not looking at anyone. “I don’t know how long this current heart is going to hold out.”
Lilly gave out a sob and covered her face. Her shoulders shook.