Timothy Zahn - Warhorse

“That’s right,” Ferrol nodded. “It was my guarantee that you wouldn’t rig things so as to snowdrift the data from our wonderful mixed-crew experiment.”

“But you didn’t use it then,” Roman pointed out.

“There was no need,” Ferrol snorted. “The experiment was a disaster, and everyone knew it. If Pegasus hadn’t come out of left field with that calf, Amity would have been decommissioned and you’d have been sent back to the Dryden. We’d have become a footnote in some obscure Starforce report somewhere, and that would have been the end of it.”

“Agreed; but that’s my point. If the data so overwhelmingly supported the anti- Tampy viewpoint, and you were so afraid I’d hide it, why didn’t you take command when we first returned to Solomon after our mission?”

Ferrol opened his mouth; closed it again. Somehow, the question had never even occurred to him. “I don’t know,” he had to admit. “I suppose… well, I suppose I’d decided I could trust you to be honest.”

Roman nodded, an oddly intense look on his face. “And that’s what it ultimately boils down to, isn’t it? Trust. None of us can ever truly know everything, at least not in the sense of personal, firsthand experience. Our knowledge, our opinions, even many of our deepest beliefs—all of them hinge on the reliability of other people.”

“If you’re wondering if my directive is valid—”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” Roman assured him. “Perhaps your former sponsers would repudiate it now, but by the time we’re in a position to ask them our activities here will be a fait accompli. We both know that.”

“Then if you have a point, I’d appreciate it if you’d get to it,” Ferrol growled, the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to tingle. This was it: Roman was about to launch his countermove.

“The point,” Roman said, “is in a black envelope in my desk. Bottom right-hand drawer.”

“You have a Senate directive of your own?” Ferrol asked, trying for a sardonic tone even as a shiver ran up his back.

Roman shook his head silently.

For a moment Ferrol eyed him. Then, steeling himself, he reached down, making sure to keep Roman in his peripheral vision at all times, and keyed open the drawer. The envelope was large and thick and—especially in two gees—remarkably heavy.

And across its flap was plastered a blood-red TOP SECRET label.

He frowned at Roman. “What is this?” he demanded.

“Open it and find out,” Roman told him.

Ferrol looked down at the envelope, wondering vaguely what the penalty was for unauthorized entry. But Roman was hardly the type to pull something so petty as trying to get him into minor bureaucratic trouble this way. With a quick slash of his hand, he broke open the seal and pulled out the folder inside.

And on its cover…

He looked sharply at Roman, a sudden pain shooting through his heart. “Yes,”

Roman said quietly. “It’s the official report on the Prometheus colony. I thought it was time you knew the truth.”

Ferrol stared at the other across the desk, heart thudding painfully. “Where did you get this?” he demanded, his voice sounding strained and hoarse in his ears.

“From the Senate records,” Roman said.

“From your pro-Tampy friends, you mean,” Ferrol bit out. His hands were beginning to tremble; viciously, he jammed his palms against the edge of the desktop to silence them. “So what exactly is it?—just very heavily slanted in their favor, or a straight out-and-out forgery?”

Roman cocked an eyebrow. “You seem awfully vehement,” he said calmly, “for someone who doesn’t even know what’s in the report.”

Ferrol clenched his teeth, the ghosts and memories of Prometheus twisting through his mind and gut. “My parents’ hopes are in there,” he gritted. “Their hopes, and their dreams, and their lives. I know what happened on Prometheus, damn you.”

“Then read it for my sake,” Roman said. His voice was still calm, but there was a hard glint in his eyes. “So that you can enlighten me as to where I’ve been lied to.”

Ferrol held the other’s gaze a moment longer; then, slowly, lowered his eyes to the folder. What was he afraid of, anyway? He knew what the Tampies had done to his world, and no snowpile of propaganda—cleverly packaged or not—could ever change that.

Taking a deep breath, he opened the folder.

From its weight he’d known there was a lot of paper inside; what he hadn’t expected was the sheer variety of types and forms that were represented.

Depositions, official colony records, extracts from several of the C.S.S. Defiance’s logs, transcribed interrogations of some of the Tampies, logistics sheets, descriptions of the evacuation of the colonists, documents and memos written on fancy Senate alter-proof paper, and scientific and medical reports.

A lot of scientific and medical reports.

“There’s an overall summary,” Roman said, “at the beginning.”

Ferrol nodded silently, fingering the pile of medical reports. The top one was for the colony’s director, taken afterwards aboard the Defiance; and as he skimmed through it—

He looked up sharply. “Here’s lie number one,” he told Roman, jabbing his finger down on the report. “This medical report on Billingsham is a complete fraud. He couldn’t possibly have been diagnosed with hive viruses—it’s one of the first things they check for before they clear someone for a new colony.”

“I know,” Roman agreed soberly. “And you’re right, he couldn’t have brought anything like that to Prometheus. No one could have.”

Ferrol stared at him, something hard and cold settling into his stomach. “No,” he said. “No—just forget what you’re thinking. There’s no way he could have picked it up on Prometheus—we were totally clean of hive viruses.”

“Are you sure?” Roman asked quietly.

“Of course I’m sure,” he snapped. “I’ve read the survey team’s report—”

The rest of the sentence stuck in his throat. “No,” he breathed. “No. It can’t be.

Prometheus was certified for colonization. It was certified, damn it.”

Roman nodded, a flicker of pain crossing his face. “Certified, approved, and commissioned. And three thousand colonists sent there… over two hundred of whom have died since then from hive virus accumulation.” He hesitated. “If the Tampies hadn’t gotten you off when they did, it could have been all of you.”

Ferrol’s heart was starting to pound again. “I know what you’re going for,” he snarled. “What you and your pro-Tampy friends are trying to do. But it doesn’t hold together. If there was a hive virus there that the original survey team didn’t pick up on, how the hell could the Tampies have done it? They don’t have any bioanalysis equipment worth dirt—damn it all, they’d been on Prometheus less than two months when they stole the planet and threw us off.”

Roman held out his hands, palms upward. “I don’t know how they figured it out,”

he admitted. “I’m not sure anyone does, really.” He nodded toward the folder. “The follow-up committee’s best guess was that their attunement with natural patterns somehow let them deduce the viruses’ presence. Maybe something like the way Llos-tlaa knew that those creatures on Alpha weren’t going to attack the landing party, even though he couldn’t tell us why. And as for stealing the planet—” he shook his head. “They’re just as susceptible to hive viruses as we are. Prometheus has been abandoned for the past nine years… and is likely to stay that way.”

Ferrol bit hard at his lower lip, uncertainty twisting through him like a helical saw.