Timothy Zahn - Conquerors' Pride

Bronski looked at Eisen again, got a puzzled shrug in return. "I don't understand," he said to Sholom. "What are you talking about?"

"Celadon, of course," Sholom said quietly. Suddenly the dreaminess was gone from his face; and in its place was the same guilt-tinged fear that Cavanagh had seen in Fibbit's threading of him. "It was the surge from a massive solar flare. That's all it was. Coming up just as the Pawolian ships sprung their trap. It came up behind them, you see, just as they left the protective cover of the planetary umbra. They couldn't see it coming, of course—they were in the umbra. A million-to-one coincidence. Maybe a billion to one."

"Sir?" Eisen put in urgently, jerking his head toward Cavanagh. "I don't think civilians should be hearing this."

"It's all right," Bronski said, his voice grim. "Anyway, it's already too late. Go on, Mr. Sholom. What happened then?"

Sholom's lip twisted. "What do you mean, what happened then? It killed them, of course, that's what happened then. All that radiation surged right up through the drive nozzles where there weren't any dipole protection fields. And then it just bounced around inside the ships. Focused and concentrated by all that superdense metal and liquid reflectors that were there to keep radiation out." He gazed out at nothing. "Bounced around until it killed them."

Bronski's face was that of a man walking through a graveyard at midnight. "Are you saying," he asked quietly, "that CIRCE doesn't exist?"

Sholom shook his head. "It doesn't. It never did. I figured it out, you see. I wondered why no one had even heard of something like that being in development until it was announced after Celadon. It was because there was never anything. I figured it out. But I didn't say anything."

"Why not?" Cavanagh asked.

Sholom shook his head again, his eyes filling with tears. "It was keeping the peace; don't you see? It was the threat of CIRCE that kept the Pawoles from fighting. It kept the Yycromae from fighting. It kept everyone from fighting."

"It's not going to keep the Conquerors from fighting," Kolchin said.

Sholom closed his eyes. "I know," he murmured. "I know. Perhaps NorCoord should have admitted it a long time ago. Such pride, to think they could use a myth to ensure peace. Such foolish, foolish pride..."

He trailed off, and for a long minute the room was silent. Cavanagh stared at the old man, the pounding of his heart like the sound of the universe crashing down around him. CIRCE had given him his life once, ending a war that might otherwise have killed him. Later it had given him hours of fear as he waited for it to begin the series of wars that would rip the Commonwealth apart and burn civilization down to ash. And then, three weeks ago, it had once again given him hope. Hope, this time, that the unstoppable Conquerors could in fact be stopped.

And none of it had been real. None of it.

Bronski took a deep breath. "Is he stable yet? Eisen?"

Eisen's eyes seemed to come back from a long way away. "Yes, sir, he'll be fine," he said, the words coming out with difficulty.

"All right," Bronski said. "Everyone in this room is hereby remanded to full quarantine confinement. Get that strap off him—"

"Wait a minute," Lee cut him off as Eisen set to work on the medic box. "You can't lock us up like junior officers, Brigadier. As a member of Parlimin VanDiver's staff—"

"Shut it down, Lee," Bronski advised him. "At the moment I don't care a Meert's moltings who or what you are. You're going into quarantine until I can find out whether any of this is true. And what the hell we do if it is."

"There'll be records," Cavanagh murmured. "Radiation records from the NorCoord ships at the battle. Brigadier, what about my daughter? I cant just sit back and do nothing when she's in danger like this."

"I'm sorry, Lord Cavanagh, but I've got no choice," Bronski gritted. "And to be perfectly honest, after that little private talk of ours on Phormbi, you were for the lockbox anyway. Eisen, go out and get Cho Ming off the door."

"Yes, sir," Eisen said, getting up and heading for the door.

"You're making a serious mistake, Brigadier," Lee said, biting out each word. "You can't make a parliamentary aide simply disappear."

"I can and I— damn!" Abruptly, Bronski grabbed for the inside of his jacket—

And froze there, his face stiff and unreadable, his eyes focused on something over Cavanagh's shoulder. Chest tightening again, Cavanagh turned to look.

Kolchin was standing there quietly, Eisen's limp form on the floor at his feet, Eisen's flechette gun in his hand. Pointed at Bronski. "Nice and slow, Brigadier," he advised. "Pull your hand out. Empty."

"Are you insane?" Bronski hissed, easing his hand away from his jacket again. "You can't get away with this."

"Lord Cavanagh needs to see to his daughter, sir," Kolchin said mildly. "He can't do that locked up in a quarantine cell."

"He's going to be there for life if you don't put that gun down," Bronski snarled. "Cavanagh—tell him."

Cavanagh looked at Kolchin. Bronski was right, of course. It was insane to think he could do anything for Melinda.

But to be locked up, unable to do anything at all, while the Conquerors began a war around her... "The Jutland fleet tried to stop the Conquerors," he reminded Bronski, stepping up beside him and carefully relieving him of his concealed flechette pistol. "They couldn't do it. If CIRCE is really nothing more than a well-crafted myth, we're going to need some brand-new approach to fighting them."

"And you're the one who's going to come up with this genius weapon?" Bronski bit out. "And while on the run from every cop and Peacekeeper in the Commonwealth? Get back on the ground, Cavanagh."

"The Commonwealth's going to have more pressing problems than chasing down a single fugitive," Cavanagh said. "Especially since there are a lot of people who are going to wonder why you're bothering with me. Don't worry; neither Kolchin nor I will say anything about what we've heard here today."

Lee took a step toward him. "Let me come with you," he said.

Cavanagh shook his head. "Sorry, Mr. Lee. Whatever the truth about CIRCE, massive panic is the last thing the Commonwealth needs right now. I can trust Kolchin to keep this to himself; I'm afraid I can't say the same about you and Jacy VanDiver. I'd put a double guard on him, Brigadier, if I were you."

"You're making a mistake, Cavanagh," Bronski said quietly. "A big, big mistake."

"It wouldn't be the first time. Kolchin, should I try to find something to tie them up with?"

Five minutes later they were ready to go. Two minutes after that, Kolchin having arranged for the guard at the door to join the group inside, they were driving down the street in Bronski's car.

"What about Hill?" Cavanagh asked as Kolchin maneuvered through the Mrach traffic. "Should I risk giving him a call?"

"Better not," Kolchin said. "Even if Bronski's people have left him his phone, odds are they'll be tapping into any messages that come into it. Besides, he'd never be able to sneak out without Fibbit noticing and kicking up a fuss."

Cavanagh nodded heavily. "So we're back to the Phormbi escape plan. Just a couple of days late."

"And with a lot more people on our tail." Kolchin threw him a hard look. "Sir, I want to make sure you understand what we're getting into here. We've become fugitives now; and I can promise you it won't be fun. If you want to go back, we can do it. I acted without orders; you'll still be pretty clean."

"They'll still lock me away," Cavanagh reminded him. "Bronski's already said he was going to do that. Anyway, I'm already in serious trouble over what Aric and Quinn did. What's a few more years added on to my sentence?"