The Back Channel Read online

  “And if we destroy it, we’ll be at war with the Colonial Union,” Sorvalh said.

  “Or something close enough to it,” Gau said. “The humans know they are in a bad position, Hafte. They are dangerous animals on the best of days. Poking at them right now is going to go poorly for everyone involved. I want this problem solved privately before it becomes a public problem.”

  Sorvalh smiled. “I imagine this is where I come in.”

  “I’ve opened up a back channel to the Colonial Union,” Gau said.

  “And how did you do that?” Sorvalh asked.

  “Me to our envoy in Washington, D.C.,” Gau said. “Him to John Perry. John Perry to a friend of his in the CDF Special Forces. And so on up the chain of command, and back down again.”

  Sorvalh gave a motion of assent. “And my job is to meet with the back channel.”

  “Yes,” Gau said. “In this case it will be someone of lower rank than you—apologies for that, the humans are twitchy.” Sorvalh offered up a hand expression signaling acceptance and lack of concern. “It’s a Colonel Abel Rigney. He’s not of especially high rank, but he is very well placed to get things done.”

  “You want me to show him this list and let him know we know about the CDF soldiers,” Sorvalh said.

  “What I want you to do is scare him,” Gau said. “In your own special way.”

  “Why, General,” Sorvalh said, and gave the appearance once more of being shocked. “I have no idea what you mean.”

  General Gau smiled at this.

  “Well, he was certainly a tall fellow, wasn’t he?” Sorvalh said, looking up at the statue in the Lincoln Memorial.

  “Tall for a human, yes,” Colonel Rigney said. “And especially tall for his time. Abraham Lincoln was president of the United States well before humans made it out into the universe. Not everyone had good nutrition then. People tended to be shorter. So he would have stood out. Among your people, Councillor Sorvalh, he’d be considered something of a runt.”

  “Ah,” Sorvalh said. “Well, we are generally considered tall for most intelligent races we know of. But surely there might be some humans as tall as a Lalan.”

  “We have basketball players,” Rigney said. “They are very tall for humans. The tallest of them might be as tall as the shortest of you.”

  “Interesting,” Sorvalh said, and kept looking at Lincoln.

  “Is there someplace you would like to go to talk, Councillor?” Rigney asked, after allowing Sorvalh her moment of contemplation.

  Sorvalh turned to the human and smiled at him. “I do apologize, Colonel. I realize you are indulging me by meeting me here at a tourist attraction.”

  “Not at all,” Rigney said. “In fact, I’m glad you did. Before I left Earth I lived in this area. You’re giving me an excuse to visit old haunts.”

  “How wonderful,” Sorvalh said. “Have you seen any of your family and friends while you’re here?”

  Rigney shook his head. “My wife passed on before I left Earth, and we never had children,” he said. “My friends would all be in their eighties or nineties now, which is old for humans, so they’re mostly dead, and I don’t think the ones that are living would be too pleased to see me bounding in, looking like I was twenty-three years old.”

  “I can see how that might be a problem,” Sorvalh said.

  Rigney pointed at Lincoln. “He looks the same as when I left.”

  “I would hope so!” Sorvalh said. “Colonel, would you mind walking as we talk? I walked down the Mall before I got here and I passed someone selling something called ‘churros.’ I should like to experiment with human cuisine, I think.”

  “Oh, churros,” Rigney said. “Good choice. By all means, Councillor.”

  They walked down the stairs of the Lincoln Monument and toward the Mall, Sorvalh walking slowly so as to keep Rigney from having to jog to keep up. Sorvalh noticed other humans looking curiously at her; aliens on Earth were still a rarity, but not so rare now in Washington, D.C., that the people there would not attempt nonchalance. They stared equally at the green human next to her, she noted.

  “Thank you for meeting me,” Sorvalh said to Rigney.

  “I was delighted to,” Rigney said. “You gave me an excuse to visit Earth again. That’s a rare thing for a CDF member.”

  “It’s convenient how the Earth has become a neutral ground to both of our governments,” Sorvalh said.

  Rigney winced at this. “Yes, well,” he said. “Officially I am not allowed to be pleased by that particular development.”

  “I understand entirely,” Sorvalh said. “Now then, Colonel. To business.” She reached into the folds of her gown and produced the manuscript and handed it to Rigney.

  He took it and looked at it curiously. “I’m afraid I can’t read this,” he said, after a moment.

  “Come now, Colonel,” Sorvalh said. “I know perfectly well that you have one of those computers in your head, just like every other Colonial Defense Forces member. What is the ridiculous name you call them?”

  “A BrainPal,” Rigney said.

  “Yes, that,” Sorvalh said. “So I am confident that not only have you already recorded the entire content of that paper into the computer, it has also rendered you a translation.”

  “All right,” Rigney said.

  “We aren’t going to get anywhere, Colonel, if you are going to insist on fighting me on even the simplest of things,” Sorvalh said. “We would not have opened up this back channel if it were not absolutely necessary. Please do me the courtesy of presuming I am not on my first mission of diplomacy.”

  “My apologies, Councillor,” Rigney said, and handed back the document. “I’m in the habit of not revealing everything. Let’s just say my automatic reflexes kicked in.”

  “Very well,” Sorvalh said, took the manuscript and then placed it back into the folds of her gown. “Now that you’ve undoubtedly had time to scan the translation, you can tell me what was written on the document.”

  “It was a list of uninhabited planets,” Rigney said.

  “I question that modifier, Colonel,” Sorvalh said.

  “Officially speaking, I have no idea what you are talking about,” Rigney said. “Unofficially, I would be very interested in knowing how you developed that list.”

  “I am afraid I must keep that a secret,” Sorvalh said. “And not just because I was never told. But I assume now we can dispense with the polite fiction that there are not, in fact, ten human colonies where they should not be.”

  “Those aren’t sanctioned colonies,” Rigney said. “They’re wildcats. We can’t stop people from paying spaceship captains to take them to a planet and drop them there without our permission.”

  “You could, I am certain,” Sorvalh said. “But that’s not the issue at the moment.”

  “Does the Conclave blame the Colonial Union for the existence of these wildcat colonies?” Rigney asked.

  “We question that they are wildcat colonies at all, Colonel,” Sorvalh said. “As wildcat colonies typically do not have Colonial Defense Forces soldiers in their mix of colonists.”

  Rigney had nothing to say to this. Sorvalh waited a few moments to see if this would change, and then continued. “Colonel Rigney, surely you understand that if we had wanted to vaporize these colonies, we would have done it by now,” she said.

  “Actually, I don’t understand,” Rigney said. “Just as I don’t understand what the gist of this conversation is.”

  “The gist, as you say, is that I have a personal message and a bargain for the Colonial Union from General Gau,” Sorvalh said. “That is to say, it comes from General Gau in the capacity of his own person, and not General Gau, leader of the Conclave, a federation of four hundred races whose combined might could crush you like a troublesome pest.”

  Colonel Rigney’s face showed a flicker of annoyance at this assessment of the Colonial Union, but he quickly let it go. “I’m ready to hear the message,” he said.

  “The m
essage is simply that he knows that your ‘wildcat’ colonies are no such thing and that under different circumstances you would have received notice of this knowledge by having the fleet show up at their doorstep, followed by other reprisals designed to strongly dissuade you from further colonization attempts,” Sorvalh said.

  “With respect, Councillor,” Rigney said, “the last time your fleet showed up at our doorstep, it didn’t end well for your fleet.”

  “That was the second-to-last time,” Sorvalh said. “The last time a fleet of ours showed up at your doorstep, you lost the Earth. Beyond that, I think you and I both know that you will not get a chance to repeat your exploits at Roanoke.”

  “So the general wishes to remind us that normally he’d vaporize these colonies,” Rigney said.

  “He wishes to remind you of it to make the point that at this time he has no interest in doing that,” Sorvalh said.

  “And why not?” Rigney asked.

  “Because,” Sorvalh said.

  “Really?” Rigney said, stopping his walk. “‘Because’ is the reason?”

  “The reason is not important,” Sorvalh said. “Suffice to say the general doesn’t want to have a fight over these colonies at the moment, and it’s a good guess that you don’t, either. But there are those in the Conclave who would be delighted to have a fight over them. That’s something neither you nor the general wants, although almost certainly for different reasons. And while right now the only two people in the Conclave political caste who know of the existence of that list are the general and me, I have no doubt that you know enough about politics to know that secrets don’t stay secret long. We have very little time before the content of that list makes its way into the hands of those in the Conclave who would be thrilled to take a torch to your colonies, and to the Colonial Union.” Sorvalh started walking again.

  After a moment, Rigney followed. “You say we have very little time,” he said. “Define ‘very little.’”

  “You have until the next time General Gau is required to take questions from the Grand Assembly,” Sorvalh said. “By that time, the warmongers of the assembly will almost certainly know of the existence of at least some of the colonies, and that CDF soldiers are at them. They will demand the Conclave take action, and the general will have no choice but to do so. That will happen in thirty of our standard days. That would be about thirty-six days on your Colonial Union calendar.”

  “So much for the message,” Rigney said. “What’s the bargain?”

  “Also simple,” Sorvalh said. “Make the colonies disappear and the Conclave won’t attack.”

  “This is easier said than done,” Rigney said.

  “This is not our concern,” Sorvalh said.

  “Supposing that there were Colonial Defense Forces soldiers at these colonies,” Rigney said, “wouldn’t simply removing them be sufficient?”

  Sorvalh looked at Rigney as if he were a slow child. Rigney understood enough of the look to put up his hands. “Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t think it through enough before it came out of my mouth.”

  “These colonies aren’t supposed to exist,” Sorvalh said. “We might have been willing to overlook them if they had genuinely been wildcat colonies, at least until they got too large to ignore. But these are known to have CDF soldiers in them. They will never not be targets for the Conclave. They have to be gone before we have to officially take notice of them. You know what the consequences are otherwise, for both of our governments.”

  Rigney was silent again for a moment. “No bullshit, Councillor?”

  Sorvalh didn’t know the word “bullshit” but guessed at the context. “No bullshit, Colonel,” she said.

  “Nine out of ten of those colonies won’t be difficult to evacuate,” Rigney said. “Their colonists are standard-issue disgruntled Colonial Union citizens, who have vague ideas about freedom from the tyranny of their fellow man or what have you, or simply don’t like other people enough to want to have the company of more than about two hundred other of their own kind. Six of these colonies are near starvation anyway and would probably be happy to escape. I would, in their shoes.”

  “But then there is this other colony,” Sorvalh said.

  “Yes, then there is this other colony,” Rigney said. “Do your people have racists? People who believe they are inherently superior to all other types of intelligent people?”

  “We have some,” Sorvalh said. “They’re generally agreed to be idiots.”

  “Right,” Rigney said. “Well, this other colony is made up almost totally of racists. Not only against other intelligent races—I shudder to think what they would think of you—but also against other humans who don’t share their same phenotype.”

  “They sound lovely,” Sorvalh said.

  “They’re assholes,” Rigney said. “However, they are also well-armed, well-organized, well-funded assholes, and this particular colony is thriving. They left because they didn’t like being part of a mongrel Colonial Union, and they hate us enough that they would probably get off on the idea that by going down in flames, they would consign us to hell as well. Extracting them would be messy.”

  “Is this actually a problem for the CDF?” Sorvalh asked. “I don’t wish to be unpleasantly blunt about this, but the CDF is not known for being an institution that cares deeply about those whom they crush.”

  “We’re not,” Rigney said. “And when it comes down to it, we’d get them out, because the alternative would be grim. But in addition to being well armed, well organized and well funded, they’re well connected. Their leader is the son of someone high up in the CU government. They’re estranged—she’s mortified that her son turned out to be a racist shithead—but he’s still her son.”

  “Understood,” Sorvalh said.

  “As I said, messy,” Rigney said.

  They had arrived at the churro stand. The churro vendor looked up at Sorvalh, amazed. Rigney ordered for them, and the two of them continued walking after they had received their pastries.

  “These are lovely!” Sorvalh exclaimed, after the first bite.

  “Glad you think so,” Rigney said.

  “Colonel Rigney, you’re worried that the only way to get these racist, intractable, asshole colonists is through bloodshed,” Sorvalh said, after she took another bite.

  “Yes,” Rigney said. “We’ll do it to avoid a war, but we’d like a different option.”

  “Well,” Sorvalh said, around her churro, “inasmuch as I am asking you to do this, it would be wrong of me not to offer a possible solution to you.”

  “I’m listening,” Rigney said.

  “Understand that what I am going to suggest will be one of those things that never happened,” Sorvalh said.

  “Since this conversation isn’t happening either, this is fine,” Rigney said.

  “I will also have to ask you to do one other thing for me first,” Sorvalh said.

  “And what is that?” Rigney asked.

  “Buy me another churro,” Sorvalh said.

  “Take another step, xig, and I’ll blow your head off,” said the colonist directly in front of Sorvalh. He was pointing a shotgun at her chest.

  Sorvalh stopped walking and stood calmly at the frontier of the colony of Deliverance. She had been walking toward it for several minutes, having had her shuttle land at the far reach of a broad meadow on which the colony had situated itself. Her gown swished as she moved, and the necklace she wore featured audio and visual devices feeding back to her ship. She had walked slowly, in order to give the colony enough time to muster a welcoming party, and for another purpose as well. Five heavily armed men stood in front of her now, weapons raised. Two more that she could see lay on colony roofs, zeroed into her position with long-range rifles. Sorvalh assumed there were more she couldn’t see, but they didn’t concern her at the moment. She would be aware of them soon enough.

  “Good morning, gentlemen,” she said. She gestured to the markings on their skin. “Those are lovely. Ver
y angular.”

  “Shut up, xig,” said the colonist. “Shut up and turn around and get back in that shuttle of yours and fly off like a good bug.”

  “My name is Hafte Sorvalh,” she said, pleasantly. “It’s not ‘Xig.’”

  “A xig is what you are,” said the colonist. “And I don’t give a shit what you call yourself. You’re leaving.”

  “Well,” Sorvalh said, impressed. “Aren’t you fierce.”

  “Fuck you, xig,” the colonist said.

  “A bit repetitive, however,” Sorvalh said.

  The colonist raised the shotgun so that it was now pointing at her head. “You’ll be going now,” he said.

  “I won’t, actually,” Sorvalh said. “And if you or any other member of your merry band tries to shoot me, you’ll be dead before you can manage to pull the trigger. You see, my friend, while I was walking toward your compound, my starship orbiting above this location was busy tracking and marking the heat signatures of every living thing in your colony larger than ten of your kilos. You’re now all entered into the ship’s weapons database, and about a dozen particle weapons are actively tracking twenty or thirty targets each. If any one of you tries to kill me, you will die, horribly, and then everyone else in the colony will follow you as each individual beam cycles through its target list. Every one of you—and your livestock, and your large pets—will be dead in roughly one of your seconds. I will be a mess, because much of what is inside of your head right now will likely get onto me, but I will be alive. And I have a fresh change of clothes in my shuttle.”

  The colonist and his friends stared at Sorvalh blankly.

  “Well, let’s get on with it,” Sorvalh said. “Either try to kill me or let me do what I came here to do. It’s a lovely morning and I would hate to waste it.”

  “What do you want?” said another colonist.

  “I want to talk to your leader,” Sorvalh said. “I believe his name is Jaco Smyrt.”

  “He won’t talk to you,” said the first colonist.

  “Why ever not?” Sorvalh asked.