The Human Division Read online

  “I’m sure you did,” Rigney said. “Our problem is that we suspect whoever ambushed the Polk and your ship at Danavar got information about the Polk’s mission from us. Same with that wildcat colony in Bula territory.”

  “Got the information from the CDF?” Coloma asked.

  “Or from the Department of State,” Egan said. “Or both.”

  “You have a spy,” Coloma said.

  “Spies, more likely,” Egan said. “Both of those missions are a lot of ground to cover for one person.”

  “We needed a way to pinpoint where the leak was coming from, and how much they knew. So we decided to go fishing,” Rigney said. “We had a decommissioned spacecraft, and after your actions with the Clarke, we had a spacecraft crew without a ship. It seemed like an opportune time to cast out a line and see what we came up with.”

  “What you came up with was a bomb that would have destroyed my ship and killed everyone on it, including your fake Earth mission,” Coloma said.

  “Yes,” Egan said. “And look what we discovered. We discovered that whoever tried to sabotage you has access to confidential Colonial Defense Forces research. We discovered whoever it was has the ability to access communications through Colonial Defense Forces channels. We discovered they have access to CDF shipyards and fabrication sites. We have a wealth of information that we can sift through to narrow down the person or persons selling us out, and to stop it from happening again. To stop anyone else from dying.”

  “A fine sentiment,” Coloma said. “It glosses over the part where I and my crew and your people all die.”

  “It was a risk we had to take,” Rigney said. “We couldn’t tell you because we didn’t know where the leaks were coming from. We didn’t tell our people, either. They’re all retired CDF and people who occasionally do work for us when someone being green would be overly conspicuous. They know there’s a chance of death involved.”

  “We didn’t,” Coloma said.

  “We needed to know if someone was going to try to sabotage that mission,” Rigney said. “Now we know and now we know more than we ever have before about how these people work. I won’t apologize for the actions we took, Captain. I can say I regret that the actions were necessary. And I can say that I’m very glad you didn’t die.”

  Coloma stewed on this for a moment. “What happens now?” she asked, finally.

  “What do you mean?” Egan asked.

  “I have no command,” Coloma said. “I have no ship. I and my crew are in limbo.” She motioned at Egan. “I don’t know what your final inquiry has decided about my future.” She looked back at Rigney. “You told me that if I completed this mission successfully, I could write my own ticket. I can’t tell if this was a successful mission, or even if it was, whether your promise is any more true than anything else you’ve said to me.”

  Rigney and Egan looked at each other; Egan nodded. “From our point of view, Captain Coloma, it was a successful mission,” Rigney said.

  “As for the final inquiry, it’s been decided that your actions at Danavar were consistent with the best traditions of command and of diplomacy,” Egan said. “You’ve been awarded a commendation, which has already been placed in your file. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” Coloma said, a little numbly.

  “As for your ship,” Rigney said. “It seems to me you have one. It’s a little old, and being stationed on it has been seen as a hardship post. But on the other hand, a hardship posting is better than no posting at all.”

  “Your crew is already used to the ship by now,” Egan said. “And we do need another diplomatic ship in the fleet. Ambassador Abumwe and her staff have a list of assignments and no way to get to them. If you want the ship, it’s yours. If you don’t want the ship, it’s still yours. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you,” Coloma said again, this time completely numbly.

  “You’re welcome,” Egan said. “And you’re dismissed, Captain.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Coloma said.

  “And, Captain Coloma,” Rigney said.

  “Yes, sir,” Coloma said.

  “Give her a good name.” He turned back to Egan, and the two of them fell into a conversation. Coloma walked herself out of the door.

  Balla and Wilson were waiting for her outside Rigney’s office. “Well?” Balla said.

  “I’ve gotten a commendation,” Coloma said. “I’ve been given a ship. The crew stays together. Abumwe’s team is back on board.”

  “Which ship are we getting?” Wilson asked.

  “The one we’ve been on,” Coloma said.

  “That old hunk of junk,” Wilson said.

  “Watch it, Lieutenant,” Coloma said. “That’s my ship. And she has a name. She’s the Clarke.”

  EPISODE SIX

  The Back Channel

  “General, let us return to the matter of humans,” Unli Hado said.

  From her seat on the podium behind General Tarsem Gau, leader of the Conclave, Hafte Sorvalh sighed as quietly as possible. When the Conclave was formalized and the Grand Assembly was created, with representatives from every member of the Conclave crafting the laws and traditions of the newly-emerging political entity comprising more than four hundred separate races, General Gau promised that every Sur—every forty standard days—he and those who followed him as executive would stand in the well of the assembly and answer questions from the representatives. It was his way of assuring the Conclave members that the leadership could always be held accountable.

  Hafte Sorvalh told him at the time that as his trusted advisor, she thought it would be a way for the grasping, ambitious members of the assembly to grandstand and otherwise in all senses be a waste of his time. General Gau had thanked for her candor in this as in all other things and then went ahead and did it anyway.

  Sorvalh had come to believe this was why, at these question-and-answer sessions, he always had her sit behind him. That way, he would not have to see the I told you so expression on her face. She had one of those now, listening to the tiresome Hado, from Elpri, pester Gau yet again about the humans.

  “Return to the matter, Representative Hado?” Gau said, lightly. “It seems from these sessions that you never leave the matter alone.” This received various sounds of amusement from the seated representatives, but Sorvalh marked faces and expressions in the crowd that held no levity in them. Hado was a pest and held a minority view, but it was not to say the minority he was part of was entirely insignificant.

  Standing at his bench assignment, Hado moved his face into what Sorvalh knew was a configuration expressing displeasure. “You jest, General,” he said.

  “I do not jest, Representative Hado,” Gau said, equally lightly. “I am merely well aware of your concern for this particular race.”

  “If you are well aware of it, then perhaps you can tell me—tell the assembly—what plans you have to contain them,” Hado said.

  “Which ‘them’?” Gau said. “You are aware, Representative, that the human race is currently divided into two camps—the Colonial Union and the Earth. The Earth is not a threat to us in any way. It has no ships and no way into space other than what the Colonial Union, from which it is now estranged, allows it. The Colonial Union relied on Earth for soldiers and colonists. Now that supply has been cut off. The Colonial Union knows that what soldiers and colonists it now loses, it cannot replace. This makes it cautious and conservative in its expenditures of both. Indeed, it has been said to me that the Colonial Union is now actually attempting diplomacy on a regular basis!” This received more sounds of amusement. “If the humans are actually attempting to get along with other races, my dear representative, it is an indication of just how cautious they are at this point.”

  “You believe, General, that because they play at diplomacy that they are no longer a threat,” Hado said.

  “Not at all,” Gau said. “I believe that because they cannot threaten as they have, they now attempt diplomacy.”

  “The distincti
on between the two escapes me, General,” Hado said.

  “I am well aware of that fact, Representative Hado,” Gau said. “Nevertheless, the distinction exists. Moreover, the main portion of the Colonial Union’s attention at the moment is in a rapprochement with Earth. Since you ask what I plan to do to contain the humans, I will note to you what you should already know, which is that since the Conclave trade fleet carrying Major John Perry appeared over Earth, we have maintained an active diplomatic presence on Earth. We have envoys in five of their major national capitals, and we have made the governments and people of Earth aware that should they choose not to reconcile with the Colonial Union, there is always the option of the Earth joining the Conclave.”

  This caused a stir among the assembly, and not without reason. The Colonial Union had destroyed the Conclave war fleet over Roanoke Colony, a fleet comprising a ship from each member race of the union. There was not a member race in the Conclave that had not suffered a wound from the humans, or that was not aware how perilously close the Conclave came to collapse in the immediate aftermath of that particular fiasco.

  Representative Hado seemed especially incensed. “You would allow into the Conclave the same race who tried to destroy it,” he said.

  Gau did not answer the question directly. Instead he turned and addressed another representative. “Representative Plora,” he said. “Would you please stand.”

  Representative Plora, an Owspa, shambled up on its spindly legs.

  “If memory serves, Representative Hado, in the not-too-distant past, the Elpri and the Owspa shed a significant amount of their blood and treasure trying to eradicate each other from space and history,” Gau said. “How many millions of each of your citizens died because of the hatred between your races? And yet both of you are here in this august assembly, peaceable, as your worlds are now peaceable.”

  “We attacked each other, not the Conclave,” Hado said.

  “I believe the principle still applies,” Gau said, with a tone that suggested he had a hard time believing Hado attempted to make that argument. “And in any event, it was the Colonial Union which attacked the Conclave, not the Earth. To blame the Earth, or the humans who live on it, for the actions of the Colonial Union is to misapprehend how the Earth itself has been used by it. And, to your point, Representative, the longer we may through diplomacy keep Earth from allying itself with the Colonial Union—or joining the Colonial Union outright—the longer we keep the humans from doing any sort of mischief at our door. Is that not what you are asking for?”

  Sorvalh watched Hado fidget. It wasn’t at all what he was asking for, of course. What he wanted was the Conclave to expunge the human race from every crevice it clung to. But it looked for the moment as if Gau had walked him into a corner. Which, Sorvalh supposed, was one of the reasons he had these ridiculous question-and-answer sessions in the first place. He was very good at walking his opponents into corners.

  “What about the disappearing ships?” came another voice, and everyone, including Sorvalh, turned toward Representative Plora, who had remained standing after it had been called on. Plora, suddenly aware that it was the focus of attention, shrank back but did not sit. “There have been reports of more than a dozen ships that have disappeared from systems where Conclave territory borders human territory. Is that not the work of the humans?”

  “And if it is, why have we not responded to it?” Hado said, now out of his corner.

  General Gau glanced back to Sorvalh at this point. She resisted giving him her I told you so expression.

  “Yes, we have lost several ships in the last few Sur,” General Gau said. “They have largely been merchant ships. These are systems where piracy is not entirely unknown, however. Before we leap to the assumption that humans are behind this, we should explore the more likely explanation that raiders—ostensibly citizens of the Conclave—are the cause.”

  “How can we know for sure?” Hado said. “Have you made it a priority to know, General? Or are you willing to underestimate the humans for a second time?”

  This quieted the assembly. Gau had taken responsibility for the debacle at Roanoke and had never pretended other than that he was responsible. But only a fool would press him on the subject, and it appeared that Unli Hado was that fool.

  “It is always a priority for our government to find those of our citizens who are lost to us,” Gau said. “We will find them and we will find whoever is behind their disappearance—whoever they are. What we will not do, Representative Hado, is use the disappearances of these ships to launch into a fight with a people who have shown how committed they are to trying to destroy us when they feel they are cornered and have no choice left but to fight. You ask me whether I am willing to underestimate the humans. I assure you that I am not. What I am wondering, Representative, is why you seem so determined to do so.”

  * * *

  Sorvalh visited General Gau later in his personal office. It was cramped, even if one was not a Lalan, who were a tall species, and Hafte Sorvalh was tall for her species.

  “It’s all right,” Gau said, from his desk, as she ducked through the door. “You can say it.”

  “Say what?” Sorvalh asked.

  “Every time you crouch through the door of this office, you come in, you straighten up, and you look around,” Gau said. “Every time you get an expression on your face that looks like you have bitten into something slightly unpleasant. So go ahead and say it: My office is cramped.”

  “I would say it is cozy,” Sorvalh said.

  Gau laughed in his fashion. “Of course you would,” he said.

  “It’s been commented on by others how small this office is, considering your position,” Sorvalh said.

  “I have the large public office for meetings, and to impress people when I have to, of course,” Gau said. “I’m not blind to the power of impressive spaces. But I’ve spent most of my life on starships, even after I began to build the Conclave. You get used to not a lot of space. I’m more comfortable here. And no one can say that I give more to myself than to the representatives of any of our member races. And that, too, has its advantages.”

  “I see your point,” Sorvalh said.

  “Good,” Gau said, and then motioned to the chair that he clearly had brought in for her, because it matched her physiology. “Please, sit.”

  Sorvalh sat and waited. Gau attempted to wait her out, but waiting out a Lalan is a bad bet on a good day. “All right, say the other thing you’re thinking,” Gau said.

  “Unli Hado,” Sorvalh said.

  “One of the graspingly ambitious types that you warned me about,” Gau said.

  “He’s not going to go away,” Sorvalh said. “Nor is he entirely without allies.”

  “Very few,” Gau said.

  “But growing,” Sorvalh said. “You have me with you for these sessions to count heads. I count heads. There are more of them each session who are either in his orbit or drifting toward him. You won’t have to worry about him this time, or the next, or possibly for several sessions down the line. But if this goes on, in time you will have a faction on your hands, and that faction will be agitating for the eradication of the humans. All of them.”

  “One of the reasons we formed the Conclave was to rid ourselves of the idea that an entire people could or should be eradicated,” Gau said.

  “I am aware of that,” Sorvalh said. “It was one of the reasons why my people gave you and the Conclave their allegiance. I am also aware that ideals are hard to practice, especially when they are new. And I am also aware that there’s not a species in the Conclave who doesn’t find the humans … well … vexing is likely the most polite word for it.”

  “They are that,” Gau said.

  “Do you really believe that they would be that hard to kill?” Sorvalh asked.

  Gau presented an unusual face to Sorvalh. “An unusual and surprising question, coming from you of all people,” he said.

  “I don’t wish them dead, personally,�
� Sorvalh said. “At least, not actively. Nor would the Lalan government support a policy of extinction. But you suggested to Hado they would be a formidable opponent. I am curious if you believe it.”

  “Are the humans able to stand against us ship to ship, soldier to soldier? No, of course not,” Gau said. “Even our defeat at Roanoke, with over four hundred ships destroyed, was not a material blow to our strength. It was one ship out of dozens or hundreds that each of our members had in their own fleets.”

  “So you don’t believe it,” Sorvalh said.

  “That’s not what I said,” Gau said. “I said they can’t stand against us ship to ship. But if the humans go to war with us, it won’t be ship to ship. How many human ships went against us at Roanoke? None. And yet we were defeated—and the blow was immense. The Conclave almost fell, Hafte, not because our material strength had been compromised, but because our psychological strength had. Those ships were not what the humans were aiming for. Our unity was. The humans almost shattered us.”

  “And you believe they could do it again,” Sorvalh said.

  “If we pressed them? Why wouldn’t they?” Gau said. “Throwing the Conclave nations back into war with each other is an optimum result for the humans. It would keep all of us occupied while they rebuild their strength and position. The real question is not whether the humans—the Colonial Union—could attack and possibly destroy the Conclave, if pressed. The real question is why they haven’t tried to do it since Roanoke.”

  “As you say, they have been busy trying to bring the Earth back into the fold,” Sorvalh said.

  “Let us hope it takes them a long time,” Gau said.

  “Or perhaps they have started making war on the Conclave,” Sorvalh suggested.

  “You’re talking about the missing ships,” Gau said.

  “I am,” Sorvalh said. “As tiresome as Representative Hado may be, the disappearance of so many ships near human space is not to be dismissed out of hand.”

  “I don’t dismiss it,” Gau said. “The representative-major for the fleet has our investigators scouring the scenes and the nearby populated worlds for information. We have nothing so far.”