Jeffrey Carver - Eternity's End

I wasn’t thinking of your crew.

“In any case,” YZ/I said, steepling his fingers, “due credit to you for a well-executed infiltration. We must guard our perimeter better, in the future. We had no idea that Flechette was being flown by you and the Narseil. But you came—wisely probing through the intelnet, and you triggered one of our signal points—and so we made contact. And here we are.” YZ/I spread his hands.

Legroeder took a moment to absorb it all. There seemed no point in further denial. He exhaled slowly. “What about the—” he hesitated, struggling to say the word, “ underground?”

White light rippled up YZ/I’s shoulders and neck. He puffed from the cigar. “As I said—here we are.”

Legroeder’s mouth opened, closed. “You?”

YZ/I extended his hands. “Us. The underground—such as it is. Ready to undertake change for the betterment of the Republic, and so on. But—” he cautioned “—not too publicly. There are people—” and for an instant, the monitors behind him filled with faces; one of them was Lanyard “—who might regard this as sedition, and use it as a pretext for attempting to seize power.” YZ/I raised his chin. “Question. Are you ready to talk?”

Legroeder let his breath out, stunned. He glanced at Tracy-Ace; in her eyes there was only serious business, no sign of the playful lover. “Why did—you wait so long?” he stammered finally. “Why didn’t you talk to me right away? Why are the Narseil down there in jail, while I’m—?” He didn’t finish the question.

YZ/I’s face flickered. “Do you feel that the Narseil are being mistreated, after what you’ve seen elsewhere?”

Legroeder swallowed. It was true that they, and he, were being treated far better than anything he’d ever seen at DeNoble.

“We don’t accommodate everyone so well. But we needed time. Time to get to know you. Find out what kind of a man you were. TA here was entrusted with that job.” He grinned, all teeth.

Legroeder felt blood rushing to his face. Tracy-Ace gave her head an almost imperceptible shake. It wasn’t just that, she seemed to be saying. Or was it, You fool …

“We brought you here,” YZ/I continued, “partly to talk to you and your Narseil friends on matters of common interest—and partly because we have a job we think might interest you.”

Legroeder barked a laugh. “Why would you think I’d be interested in a job , if you knew what I went through at DeNoble?”

YZ/I carefully stuck the cigar back in his mouth and talked around it. “But there was also what came after, yes?”

“Meaning what?”

YZ/I shrugged. “All those attempts on your life on Faber Eridani? Who do you think was responsible for that? And for your being framed for the attack on Ciudad de los Angeles ? And the attack on Robert McGinnis?”

Legroeder felt weakness and rage mixed into one. “Are you claiming responsibility?” He wanted to look at Tracy-Ace, and found he could not. Say no. At least say she wasn’t involved .

“Me?” YZ/I replied. “Rings, no! Not my way of operating. Not at all. And certainly counterproductive to what I hope to do.”

Legroeder slowly began to breathe again. “Then who? I take it you know.”

“I know in general terms.” YZ/I waved his cigar in a circle. “For starters, I imagine it was Centrists, not Free Kybers, who did the actual deeds. Kyber- sympathizing Centrists, mind you. Not connected with Ivan.”

“Then who were they connected with?”

YZ/I extended a hand toward the back of his working alcove. A holoimage appeared in the wall, showing a raider stronghold. Not Ivan. It was reminiscent of the stronghold from which Legroeder had escaped, in Golen Space. “This particular outpost is run by a boss by the name of Kilo-Mike/Carlotta,” said YZ/I. An image of a dark-haired, heavily augmented woman appeared, giving Legroeder a shudder. YZ/I nodded toward the image. “KM/C and I don’t get along too well. But KM/C has a great many connections in the Centrist Worlds—particularly, as it happens, on Faber Eridani. She—”

“Wait a minute,” Legroeder said. “Connections I could see. But why would anyone on the Centrist Worlds have the slightest sympathy for pirates? Unless they’re getting a kickback—”

YZ/I snorted. “Of course, they’re getting kickbacks. But that’s not what turned them into sympathizers.”

“Then what—?”

YZ/I took a puff on his cigar. “Betrayal.”

Legroeder remembered El’ken recounting the Centrist betrayal of the Narseil. But he didn’t think that was what YZ/I meant. “What do you mean?”

“Betrayal of their own world’s vision and purpose!” YZ/I thundered. He interrupted himself. “Christ, I’m being a poor host. TA, could you grab a couple of chairs for yourself and the rigger? Thank you.” He paused again to study the burning end of his cigar. “A fanatical sense of betrayal. And they’re right. The Centrist Worlds defeated the Kyber worlds—not us , but the worlds our ancestors came from—in the War of a Thousand Suns. You know that, right?”

Legroeder nodded, ignoring the implied insult.

“And then, having won among other things the right to be first out to the Well of Stars, what did they do?” YZ/I shook with rage. “You tell me!”

Legroeder hesitated. “Not much, I guess. There were some surveys.” And meanwhile, drawing inward while rebuilding, regaining prosperity. And then… nothing. Isolationism.

YZ/I snorted contemptuously. “They won their racist war, then congratulated themselves and sat on their fat asses! Did they take risks to explore the worlds they claimed they were fighting for the right to colonize? NO! ” He stuck the cigar back between his teeth again. “So that is what our fleet is going to do now. Seems pretty clear they’ve abdicated any right—” He stopped and glared. “What?”

Legroeder wondered why he was even arguing with this man. Nevertheless… “The Centrists wouldn’t even have won that war—if you can call it winning—if they hadn’t betrayed the Narseil. Turned their backs on an ally and made a deal with the enemy.” The enemy they hated. The enemy that was more implant than human . “And if they hadn’t broken up their rigging partnership with the Narseil, maybe we would be on our way to the Well of Stars right now.”

YZ/I grinned. “You learned from El’ken and McGinnis. Very good. You know, I was sorry to learn of McGinnis’s death. He was a worthy man.”

“Yes, he was,” Legroeder snapped. “And if you knew what those people were doing, why didn’t you stop them?”

YZ/I stubbed out his cigar in a receptacle behind him. “I didn’t say I could control them, for Almighty’s sake. Just that I knew about them. KM/C has a lot more people on Faber Eridani than I do. And believe me—those sympathizers are very angry about their world’s failure to act. Angry enough to collaborate with their supposed enemies, the Free Kyber. Imagine that.”

Yes, imagine, Legroeder thought numbly. Imagine consorting with the Free Kyber. He met Tracy-Ace’s gaze for a fraction of a second and jerked his eyes back to YZ/I.

“Some of them are in positions of authority, where they can make a pretty good show of opposing Free Kyber activity—”

“You mean piracy?” Legroeder asked carefully.

“Whatever.” YZ/I waved a translucent hand. “All the while turning a blind eye to it. How do you think the Free Kyber fleets have been assembled so quickly? These are isolated outposts—many of them embedded in the Flux as we are, with practically no access to raw materials! That’s why we need to colonize! We know we’re living on borrowed time!” He paused. “You know, there’s an old proverb, ‘Where there’s no vision, the people die.’ Well, all the vision has gone out of the Centrist leaders. But there are others who haven’t lost it.”