The End of All Things #2: This Hollow Union Read online

  “That’s odd,” Lowen said. “The last time I saw Harry, there were exploding starships, too.”

  “It’s coincidental,” Wilson said, looking at Lowen and then at me.

  I smiled at him. “Is it?”

  PART THREE

  “I didn’t expect you to challenge me so much on my request to come back alive,” Tarsem Gau said to me, as I entered his office after the rescue mission.

  Tarsem’s private office was, as ever, cramped; after years in spaceships and their tiny spaces Tarsem still felt most comfortable in close quarters. Fortunately I was not claustrophobic, and I agreed with the political wisdom of his personal office being smaller than that of even the most undistinguished Conclave representative. The office was even smaller than the one given to the human envoy, which I suspect might shock Ms. Byrne. Fortunately Tarsem kept a sitting pedestal for me so I did not have to crimp my neck.

  “If you don’t want me to almost die, you shouldn’t task me to missions where dying is a real possibility,” I remarked, sitting. “Or at the very least don’t put me on missions where the pilot is a mad Fflict.”

  “I could have zim disciplined, if you would like.”

  “What I would like is for you to give zim a commendation for quick thinking and admirable piloting, and never put me on another of zis shuttles.”

  Tarsem smiled. “You have no sense of adventure.”

  “I do have a sense of adventure,” I said. “It’s overawed by my sense of self-preservation.”

  “I don’t mind that.”

  “Nor do you seem to mind testing the proposition, from time to time.”

  “I don’t want you to be bored.”

  “I am, alas, never that,” I said. “And now with chatty preliminaries out of the way, I want to impress upon you what an utter disaster this entire event has been for us.”

  “I thought it went rather well,” Tarsem said. “The humans were saved, the Odhiambo was successfully destroyed without collateral damage to headquarters or other ships, and thanks to the actions of your mad Fflict in rescuing the stragglers, we remain in the good graces of Earth, and even got a tiny bit of credit with the Colonial Union diplomats for rescuing one of their own.”

  “A thin skin of self-congratulation on a rather messy pudding,” I countered. “Which includes the very likely fact of an enemy action against the Odhiambo in our own space, which we neither saw coming nor could defend against, the fact that now we are no longer able to keep separate the humans from the Colonial Union and the Earth, as we intended to do for these discussions, and the fact that all of this plays perfectly well into the plans of those who are even now gathering against you in the Grand Assembly.”

  “I seem to recall you arguing to save the human diplomats,” Tarsem said. “And me taking that advice.”

  “You were going to attempt to save the diplomats regardless of what I advised,” I said, and Tarsem smiled at this. “And the decision to save them was more important than mere politics. Nevertheless, saving them will be seen by your enemies as proof of your regard for the humans, not a sign of basic decency.”

  “I don’t see why I should care how they see it. Anyone with intelligence will understand what happened.”

  “Anyone who isn’t blinded by ambition and frustration with the Conclave will understand it. But those who are blinded will choose not to see it, as you well know. They will also choose to see Colonials rescuing the earthlings as hugely significant, which it is.”

  “You don’t think any ship so close would have made the attempt to rescue those diplomats?”

  “No,” I said. “I think the humans might have made the attempt regardless. These particular humans, at the very least.”

  “You think well of the Colonials.”

  “I think well of Ambassador Abumwe and her team, including their CDF liaison,” I said. “I wouldn’t trust their government with a cooking fire, and I don’t advise you do, either, no matter what comes out of Ambassador Abumwe’s mouth in your meeting with her.”

  “Noted,” Tarsem said.

  “Even the two sets of humans arriving within a serti of each other will be augured as consequential,” I said, returning to the topic at hand. “And this was an easily avoidable blunder, as I warned you not to meet with the Colonials.”

  “And if I had not agreed to, then all the humans would likely be dead because our rescue mission might have failed. And you dead with them, I might add.”

  “You wouldn’t have sent me on the rescue mission if the Colonials hadn’t been there,” I pointed out. “And if the humans from Earth were dead that would indeed be tragic, but it would not then be leverage for your enemies.”

  “The fact their ship was destroyed in our space would be.”

  “That’s something we could finesse with findings and if necessary with resignations. Torm Aul would not be pleased to be out of a job but that’s easily dealt with.”

  “This line of conversation is the sort of thing that makes me smile when people who don’t know you praise your gentility to me,” Tarsem said.

  “You don’t keep me around for gentility. You keep me around because I don’t lie to you about your situation. And your situation is now worse than it was when we woke up this morning. It’s going to get worse from here.”

  “Should I send both sets of humans away?”

  “It’s too late for that now. Everyone will assume you’ve had clandestine meetings with both groups and your enemies will intimate you had that meeting with both at once, because they are functionally the same in their eyes.”

  “So no matter what, we’re damned.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes we are. Although as always I am merely providing you with information. It’s what you do with it that counts.”

  “I could resign.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said, I could resign,” Tarsem said. “You said before that I was most effective when I was building the Conclave, when I was a symbol of a great idea, and not an administrator of a bureaucracy. All right, fine. I resign, stay a symbol, and let someone else be the administrator.”

  “Who?”

  “You could take the job,” Tarsem said.

  “What in this benighted universe gave you the impression that I would ever want it?” I asked, genuinely shocked.

  “You might be good at it.”

  “And I might be appalling at it.”

  “You’ve done pretty well so far.”

  “That’s because I know my talents,” I said. “I’m the advisor. I’m the councilor. I’m occasionally the knife you slide into someone’s side. You use me well, Tarsem, but you use me.”

  “Then who might you suggest?”

  “No one,” I said.

  “I’m not going to live forever, you know. Sooner or later it has to be someone else who is in charge.”

  “Yes,” I said. “And until that moment I’m going to make sure it will remain you.”

  “That’s loyalty,” Tarsem said.

  “I am loyal to you, yes,” I replied. “But even more than that I am loyal to the Conclave. To what you’ve built. To what we’ve built, you and I and every member state has built, even the stupid ones who are now trying to tear it apart for their own gain. And right now, being loyal to the Conclave means keeping you where you are. And keeping certain people from making confidence votes in the Grand Assembly.”

  “You think we’re that close to it,” Tarsem said.

  “I think a lot matters in how the next few sur play out.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “At this point you have to take Ambassador Abumwe’s report,” I said. “You have yourself locked into that action.”

  “Yes.”

  “Abumwe expects to make it to you directly.”

  “She does,” Tarsem said. “I imagine she expects you will be there, as well as Vnac Oi, either in person or via surreptitious listening device.”

  “She does not expect the report to stay priv
ate for long.”

  “These things rarely do.”

  “Then I suggest getting to that point a little earlier than expected,” I said.

  * * *

  “You still think this is a good idea,” Vnac Oi said to me.

  “It’s a useful idea,” I said. “This is a thing separate from good.”

  Oi and I sat in the far reaches of the Grand Assembly chamber, on a level typically reserved for observers and assistants to representatives, the latter of whom would occasionally swoop down into the inner recesses of the chamber, like comets in a long-term orbit, to do their representative’s bidding. Normally when I was in the chamber I sat on the center podium as Tarsem did his regular question-and-answer period, counting heads. This time, Tarsem was not on the podium, and I wanted a slightly different vantage for the head counting.

  The Grand Assembly chamber was filled. Tarsem sat, alone, on the bench usually reserved for the chancellor and her staff; for this particular address the chancellor had been demoted to her usual representative bench and her staff milled at the level just below mine. I saw some of their expressions; they were vaguely scandalized by their demotions.

  On the level below that were the humans. The Colonial Union diplomats sat on the side of the arc; the humans from Earth filled the other side. There was a substantial gap between them.

  “We still don’t know what’s in this report,” Oi said.

  “A fact I find very impressive, considering who you are,” I replied.

  “Yes, well,” Oi said, and made a gesture of annoyance. “Obviously we made an attempt.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We tried to infiltrate the Chandler’s system,” Oi said. “We got shunted into a sandbox with a single file on it, with the title ‘For Vnac Oi.’”

  “Dare I ask what was in it?”

  “A video clip of a human exposing its posterior and the words ‘Wait like everybody else.’”

  “It’s nice they thought of you.”

  “It’s less nice that their computer systems are now firewalled too well for us to get into them.”

  “You have other sources in the Colonial Union, I’m sure.”

  “I do,” Oi said. “But not for this. This is why this is not a good idea, Hafte. You have no idea what this human is about to say. You don’t know what damage it can do.”

  “It’s the general’s choice to do it this way, not mine,” I said, which was technically true.

  “Please.” Oi gave me a small look. “This has your smell all over it. Don’t pretend I don’t know who put this idea into his head.”

  “I put lots of ideas into his head,” I said. “And so do you. That’s our role. He decides what to do with them. That’s his role. And look.” I pointed. Ambassador Abumwe had emerged from behind the central point and was moving to the lectern that had been provided for her. “It’s time.”

  “Not a good idea,” Oi repeated.

  “Maybe not,” I allowed. “We’re about to find out.”

  The sounds of hundreds of species of intelligent beings quieted as Abumwe reached the lectern and placed, unusually, several sheaves of paper on them. Usually human diplomats kept their notes on handheld computers they called PDAs. This information was apparently sensitive enough that Abumwe chose to keep it in a format difficult to replicate electronically. Next to me I heard Oi make a sound of annoyance; it had seen the paper too.

  “To General Tarsem Gau, Chancellor Ristin Lause, and the representatives of the constituent nations of the Conclave, I, Ambassador Ode Abumwe of the Colonial Union, send honorable greeting and offer humble thanks for this opportunity to address you,” Abumwe began. In headsets, her words were being translated into hundreds of different languages. “I wish that these circumstances were happier.

  “As many of you know, very recently information has come into the possession of many of your governments. This information appears to detail both historical records relating to Colonial Union activity against many of you, and against the Conclave generally. It also purports to outline future plans against the Conclave and several of your nations generally, as well as against the Earth, the original home of humanity.

  “Much of the information in this report—specifically information relating to past action—is true.”

  There was an eruption of noise in the chamber to this. I understood why and yet I was not impressed. Abumwe had essentially admitted that things we already knew to be true were in fact true; that the Colonial Union had warred against many of us, and against the Conclave. This was not news to anyone, or should not have been. I scanned the room for the affronted, as opposed to the unimpressed.

  “However—however,” Abumwe continued, holding up a hand for silence. “I have not come here to either justify or to apologize for past action. What I am here to do is to warn you that the other information in the report is false, and that it represents a danger to all of us. To the Colonial Union, to the Conclave, and to the nations of Earth.

  “We believe, we have believed, that each of us is the other’s enemy. Let me suggest today that there is another enemy out there, one that threatens human and Conclave nations alike. That this enemy, though small in numbers, has been extraordinarily adept in strategy, using dramatic action for outsized effect, terrorizing each of us while allowing us to believe we are terrorizing each other. That this enemy means to destroy both the Colonial Union and the Conclave for its own dogmatic ends.”

  Abumwe looked up to her staff two levels down from me and nodded. One of them, who I recognized as Hart Schmidt, tapped the PDA he was holding. Beside me Oi grunted and pulled out its own computer. “I’ll be damned,” it said softly, and then was entirely lost into its screen.

  “I have just authorized my staff to release to Vnac Oi, your director of intelligence, a complete accounting by the Colonial Union of our knowledge of this mutual enemy, a group which calls itself Equilibrium,” Abumwe said. “This group is comprised of members of species unaffiliated with either the Conclave or the Colonial Union, including, prominently, the Rraey. But it also has active in it traitors from other governments and nations, including Tyson Ocampo, former undersecretary of state for the Colonial Union, Ake Bae of the Eyr, Utur Nove of the Elpri, and Paola Gaddis of Earth. Their schemes include, among many others, a planned assassination of General Gau.”

  The chamber erupted in chaos.

  I scanned quickly to where I knew Unli Hado sat. He was up from his seat, screaming. Around him several other representatives were screaming and gesturing at him. I scanned again, to the Eyr representative, Ohn Sca. Sca was pushing past several other representatives, trying to exit the chamber; other representatives were pushing back, trying to force Sca back into its seat. I glanced up to the humans; a couple of the ones from Earth were yelling at the ones from the Colonial Union. In the middle, three figures were leaning into each other, apparently conferring. I recognized them as Danielle Lowen, Harry Wilson, and Hart Schmidt.

  “Oi,” I said, over the din.

  “She’s not lying,” Oi said, still looking at its screen. “About the file, I mean. It’s huge. And it’s here.”

  “Send it out,” I said.

  “What?” Oi looked up at me.

  “Send it out,” I repeated. “All of it.”

  “I haven’t had time to mine it.”

  “You didn’t have time to mine the Ocampo data either,” I said.

  “That’s not a recommendation for sending this out.”

  “The longer you have it solely in your possession, the better position you give those who just now got accused that we are massaging the data, in collusion with the Colonial Union. Send it out. Now.”

  “To whom?”

  “To everyone.”

  Oi’s tendrils danced across its screen. “I don’t think this is a good idea, either,” it said.

  I turned my attention back to Abumwe, who was waiting silently at the lectern. I was beginning to wonder if I should have assigned her a security
detail. I also wondered when she was going to speak again.

  That, at least, was answered momentarily. “None of us is innocent,” she said, forcefully. The chaos began to settle. “None of us is innocent,” she said again. “The Colonial Union and the Conclave, those from Earth and those outside of our governments. All of us have people who saw weaknesses, who saw pressure points, and who saw ways to use our own ways and stubbornness against us. This threat is real. This threat is both practical and existential. If it isn’t met by all of us, all of us are likely to be destroyed.”

  “You are the enemy!” someone shouted to Abumwe.

  “I may be,” Abumwe said. “But right now, I’m not the enemy you should worry about.” She walked off the podium, to a rising chorus of anger.

  * * *

  “How dare you,” Unli Hado spat at Abumwe.

  We were in the conference room adjacent to Tarsem’s public office, the impressive one he used for formal events. In the room were Tarsem, me, Oi, Lause, Abumwe, Hado, Sca, Byrne, Lowen, and Harry Wilson; essentially, representatives of every group called out in Abumwe’s speech. Tarsem had us all pulled into the room immediately after the speech.

  “How dare you,” Hado said again. “How dare you question my loyalty, or the loyalty of my nation to the Conclave. How dare you suggest that any of my people would conspire against it, or conspire with you.”

  “I didn’t dare, Representative Hado,” Abumwe said. She sat at the conference room table, impassive. “I merely told the truth.”

  “The truth!” Hado said. “As if the Colonial Union had ever bothered with that particular concept.”

  “Where is Utur Nove, Representative Hado?” Abumwe asked. “Our information about him tells us that he was a diplomat of some note among the Elpri. If you doubt the information that we’ve provided, why not ask him?”

  “I’m not obliged to stay apprised of the whereabouts of every member of the Elpri diplomatic corps,” Hado said.

  “That may be, but it’s of interest to me,” Oi said. “And I’ve just looked at the cached version of his information. We have Utur Nove allegedly retired for several Elpri years, and offered a sinecure at a research foundation. The foundation’s contact information for Nove has him ‘on sabbatical,’ with no additional information.”