Wolf Among the Stars-ARC (20 page)

“Granted. But our hangar decks house a number of armed ships, which we are now deploying inside the field. They are admittedly no match for
Broadsword
, at least not individually, and probably not even collectively. But their combined firepower, added to the station’s, against a ship that is stunned by surprise . . .” Valdes let the sentence trail off.

“You’re forgetting
City of Osaka.
Her prize crew also know the truth.”

“Fortunately, Captain Taylor is keeping her in very close formation with
Broadsword.
She too will be destroyed.”

“But your own crew is still aboard her, as prisoners!” Rachel cried.

Valdes’s expression was puzzled, as though he honestly couldn’t see the relevance. “But they are only humans. Da Silva, here, was the only one of us aboard her.” His voice took on a tone of mocking irony. “It is unfortunate that we must take these measures to maintain secrecy. After all, as will soon become clear, we are the best friends the human race has ever had!”

“What in God’s name do you mean by that?” demanded Rachel.

“Especially,” Reislon interjected, “considering the rather extraordinary lengths you have taken to conceal yourselves from your human ‘friends’ here in the outer Solar system.”

“Speaking of which,” said Andrew, “I’ve been observing things carefully since the moment we came aboard this station. I’ve reached certain conclusions about your technology.”

“Oh?”

“Nothing I’ve seen here looks any more advanced than what we’ve got, if that. And it’s certainly not as advanced as cutting-edge Lokaron stuff. Yet your ships’ cloaking system—let alone the system you’ve described for this station—is beyond anything any of us have. Why this discrepancy?”

“The discrepancy is actually a matter of divergent paths of development, which reflect differences between our race’s psychology and both of yours. Technology, after all, is merely the servant of deep-seated predispositions. In order for you to understand, I must give you some background.”

Please do.
Andrew found himself wondering why Valdes was telling them all this. Maybe, after decades of unrelieved subterfuge, he had a pent-up need for frankness. That wouldn’t have been a plausible reason if Valdes had been human . . . but he had, after all, alluded to fundamental psychological differences. Maybe this was one of them.

“Our race, as you are aware, is a physically feeble one, and we arose on a planet with great numbers of very formidable predators. Before we became toolmakers, our only advantage was our protean physical nature. It was our tool for species survival. This shaped our evolution. We are biologically programmed to seek concealment—hence the path our technology has taken—and work through others rather than directly.

“Some time ago we achieved space flight. We were horrified to discover that we had emerged into a galaxy dominated by the Lokaron. Our home system is not far, as interstellar distances go, from a frontier of Lokaron space. Fortunately, the main currents of Lokaron expansion have been on other frontiers. But it is only a matter of time before they discover us. This danger must be eliminated.”

Beside him, Andrew sensed Reislon stiffening at the off-hand tone of Valdes’s last sentence.

“But,” Andrew surmised, “you found that your good old time-honored techniques didn’t work. You can’t masquerade as Lokaron, due to their size.”

“Actually, there’s more to it than that—certain fundamental differences of biochemistry. But you’re quite correct, as far as you go. We cannot infiltrate the Lokaron. We can, however, infiltrate humanity, which has now become a player in the Lokaron interstellar order. So our strategy is obvious: we will use the human race as our instrument.” Valdes flashed his most charming politician’s smile. “We intend to make humanity the galaxy’s dominant race!”

For a space Valdes visibly relished the stunned silence he had created.

“And how will you accomplish this?” Andrew finally managed to ask.

“We’ve been at it for a while. Our operations in the Sol system began not long after the Lokaron discovered you.”

“So you were somehow behind the Eaglemen, with their anti-Lokaron agenda?”

“Oh, no, we had nothing to do with them. At that time, we were still observing and infiltrating with great caution, without taking any overt action. You see, we are extremely thorough—”

“And cowardly.”

“If you insist on putting it that way,” said Valdes evenly. “We
were
involved in the Jihadist insurgency of 2039. Our original plan had been to use radical Islam as our instrument for unifying Earth and expelling the Lokaron. We still think it has real possibilities—and it‘s so perfectly controllable! We’ll continue our efforts to cultivate it and make it the dominant force in human culture. But we acted prematurely. The insurgency failed, and for now we’ve resigned ourselves to working within the Confederated Nations of Earth. It at least can be influenced—”

“For which purpose you infiltrated and now control the Black Wolf Society?” queried Reislon.

Valdes laughed heartily. “You couldn’t be more wrong. We
created
the Black Wolf Society in 2043 to serve as our human front. Our in-depth studies of human history had shown us how useful a criminal organization with a nationalist or racist agenda can be. The early Sicilian Mafia, the Chinese White Lotus Lodge, the Japanese Black Dragon Society . . . yes, we followed our historical models very closely. By now, the Black Wolf controls more of Earth’s vice and illegal activities than anyone realizes—and is wealthier than you imagine.”

“I think I might be able to imagine,” said Andrew, recalling
City of Osaka
and her modifications.

“This, however, is merely incidental. It is how we fund the Black Wolf’s real purpose: to promote human expansionism and militarism. It was through the Black Wolf that we instigated the war with Gev-Rogov.”

“By assassinating the implementer of the Kogurche system,” Reislon stated rather than asked, with an air of vindication.

“That, coupled with a long-term campaign of subtly molding CNE attitudes through influence on the media. This was not too difficult—the human hatred of Gev-Rogov was already there. We’ve merely intensified it, making it even more useful.”

“You,” breathed Rachel, “are madder than the March Hare.”

“In addition to being an essential element of our plan in itself,” Valdes continued, ignoring her, “the war opened up additional advantages. We had certain valuable intelligence sources inside Gev-Rogov. We offered our services to Admiral Arnstein on a clandestine basis. He refused at first, but gradually came around. There were, after all, historical precedents. In World War II, for example, the Allies accepted help from the Mafia during the Italian campaign, and from its Corsican equivalent during the landings in the south of France.”

Andrew heard Rachel draw in her breath with a hiss. He dared not look at her.

“After the war, this enabled us, through the Black Wolf Society, to blackmail him into advancing my career—getting me into the Strategic College, for example. Eventually, though, we slightly overplayed our hand. We upped the ante on the blackmail, pressuring him to declare his support for my candidacy. This, apparently, was his sticking point.”

Reislon spoke up. “Was this, by any chance, around the same time, earlier this year, when I used circuitous routes to convey my suspicions about the Black Wolf Society to him?”

“Yes. The timing was unfortunate. The strain of his guilt had gradually worn him down. After hearing from you, he contacted Persath and then, seeing no way out, committed suicide.”

“No,” Rachel whispered, shaking her head frantically. “No, you lying piece of filth! He was murdered under mysterious circumstances. You told us that yourself.”

“Oh, that was a lie to persuade you to lead us to Reislon, through Persath. Captain Roark here is in a better position to verify your father’s suicide than anyone else. He was the one who discovered the body. He thought I didn’t know that he knew I was lying, and he pretended to believe me for reasons of his own. But he’s known the truth all along.”

“What?” Rachel turned and stared at him.

“Rachel,” Andrew began—and then stopped short, halted by what he saw in her changeable light eyes. They had turned to pure ice, so cold that the chill entered into his own soul. He had never known a human face could contain so much contempt.

“But the Human-Rogovon war was only the first step,” Valdes resumed, dismissing the digression concerning Admiral Arnstein. “We can now proceed with the next step, without the distraction of trying to recover the lost access key. I will be elected president-general of the CNE. Admiral Arnstein‘s endorsement would have been helpful, but it is not essential. For one thing, the Black Wolf Society can provide clandestine campaign funding as well as performing such tasks as voter intimidation and occasional ‘accidents’ to inconvenient individuals. Shortly after my election, I will announce, to general amazement, that I’ve concluded humanity has bitten off more than it can chew in the Lupus/Sagittarius frontier.”

An incredulous laugh escaped Andrew. “How do you suppose your adoring followers will react to such a reversal of all the jingoist rhetoric they’ve been lapping up for years?”

“It won’t matter. Before anyone can recover from the shock, I’ll offer to turn various exclusive concessions we got under the treaty over to Hov-Korth and the other
hovahon
of Gev-Harath. They, of course, won’t be able to resist such a bait.

“Gev-Rogov will go out of its mind with rage. It regarded that frontier as its sphere of influence until the war with the CNE forced it to reluctantly accept the human presence there. But humanity, which neither the Rogovon nor any other Lokaron can even now bring themselves to take altogether seriously, is one thing: Gev-Harath is another. It’s already the richest and most powerful
gevah
of them all. Gev-Rogov will go to war with Gev-Harath to prevent the transfer. And the lesser Lokaron powers will join them for balance-of-power reasons, not wanting Gev-Harath’s preeminence to turn into outright domination.”

“But the Lokaron don’t fight wars,” Rachel said, shaking her head as though to clear it of the horror of the truth of her father’s death. “Not
real
ones,” she amended. “Sure, they’ve fought lots of small, limited conflicts on the frontiers, but never a general all-out war among the
gevahon
.”

“True. They’ve always avoided that, with their limited, decentralized governments and their constantly expanding frontier where there was room for everyone. For that very reason, they’ve come to regard a suicidal total war as unthinkable. As your own history shows, people who think that way are all the more likely to blunder into such a war.”

Without realizing what it will mean
, thought Andrew with a mental nod, recalling Europe before World War I. He was certain that the Lokaron had no real conception of a high-intensity war fought with today’s military technology. He wasn’t sure he did.

“We will keep the CNE neutral in the war,” Valdes continued, “while working behind the scenes to encourage it to take some adroit pickings from the Lokaron wreckage. At the same time, we’ll manipulate things—through loans and other assistance to the weaker side at any given moment, for example—to keep the war as long-lasting and wasting as possible before the coalition led by Gev-Rogov finally wins a Pyrrhic victory. The victory will grow even more Pyrrhic afterward, as Gev-Rogov cements its hegemony over its erstwhile allies in a series of aftershock wars of the sort that always follow such a conflict. The end result will be an exhausted Gev-Rogov exercising a characteristically ham-handed imperium over the ruins of the Lokaron civilization.

“In contrast, the CNE will remain internally strong—and, in fact, enriched by war profiteering and enlarged by its acquisitions. And at every point its interests will clash with those of the moribund Rogovon empire. Instigating a conflict probably won’t even require much manipulation by us. Given the heritage of hate, war will be inevitable. Its outcome will be equally inevitable: a universal human empire.”

“Controlled from behind the scenes by you Kappainu,” Andrew added.

“Of course. But does it really matter? Humans won’t know it. They can enjoy the fruits of imperialism in blissful ignorance.”

“But we don’t
want
an empire!” blurted Rachel. “We’ve gotten that kind of thing out of our systems. The Earth First Party was the last hurrah of the Totalitarian Era. We’ve learned that what governs best really
is
what governs least. This diabolical scheme of yours can’t possibly succeed.”

“I assure you that it can. Every phase of the plan has been subjected to a rigorous mathematical analysis. All contingencies and variables have been considered.”

“Except one,” Reislon pointed out. “Your projections are based on the assumption that Gev-Rogov will continue to be ruled by its present centralized, brain-dead regime, whose actions are of course perfectly predictable.”

“Yes, that is a necessary precondition. Therefore the elements seeking to overthrow it must be thwarted. That is why learning that you have been working with them, and now capturing you, have been highly desirable fringe benefits of this operation.”

Da Silva spoke up in tones of self-congratulation. “I didn’t dare be too obvious and insist on your presence in
Trovyr
’s gig. Besides, I knew it was unnecessary, because you’d want to come.”

Reislon regarded the two Kappainu. “You evidently know quite a lot about me. But there is one thing you don’t know. It concerns that same gig, which is now under guard on one of your hangar decks.”

“Yes?” inquired Valdes impatiently.

“I booby-trapped it.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

There was no question
but that Reislon had everyone’s undivided attention. Andrew and Rachel simply stared, while Valdes turned a look of angry inquiry on Da Silva.

“He’s bluffing!” the latter protested with the indignation of the wronged underling. “The gig was scanned as it entered the hangar deck, in accordance with standard procedure.”