Charles Gannon - Raising Caine

Rulaine’s voice dragged like a lame dog, moving in a direction it had to go, but wanted very badly not to. “I’m not sure Downing really had a choice then, either, Caine.”

“Why? Was he under some kind of gag order?”

“He didn’t have to be under any order, Caine. He simply had to read the strategic tea leaves.”

Riordan turned. “What sort of bullshit are you talking, Bannor?”

“No bullshit; straight, hard facts, Caine. Come on, think it through. First of all, they needed you at Sigma Draconis. Downing knew that, and he was right. If it hadn’t been for you, would we have found out that the Ktor were human? More to the point, would we have learned it in time to keep that bastard Shethkador from tricking us into bombing the Arat Kur out of existence? You were the linchpin that day, Caine; your presence was the indispensable variable.”

“Bullshit.”

“You can say ‘bullshit’ all you want, and wear that combination of real and false modesty all day long, but you know I’m telling the truth. You smelled the lie that Shethkador was peddling; you pieced it together. That was the moment we stepped back from xenocide, Caine — and not a moment before. And you’re going to tell me Downing wasn’t right to have you there? But he had to have you in that room undistracted by the knowledge that your lover was frozen on death’s doorstep light-years away, and your son was a veritable orphan.” Bannor, seeing Riordan paralyzed by the terrible truth of his words, stopped abruptly, hung his head to stare at his tightly clasped hands.

It was Phil Friel who broke the silence with a sigh. “And within twenty-four hours, you were meeting with Yiithrii’ah’aash. And within another four, we were being scraped together into this legation. So when was Downing supposed to tell you, Caine? Was there ever a reasonable moment, a moment when you didn’t need all your attention and faculties, both for yourself and for the mission?” He paused. “I don’t know Downing, but withholding this information doesn’t sound like something he chose to do: it sounds like something he had to do. And then the rush of events did the rest.”

Riordan did not remember returning to his seat, was not sure how long he’d been sitting there before he looked up and said, through a tight, parched throat, “I’d like to be alone.” And then he was lost again: lost in one image after another of Elena, occasionally interspersed with the one photo he’d ever seen of his son Connor.

Out of the silence, as if happening at the other end of a long tunnel, he vaguely heard a chair leg scrape on the floor, then Dora’s voice. “Hey, you.”

It was Karam who answered. “Me?”

“You see anyone else sitting where I’m looking? Let’s go get dinner. And don’t get any ideas. I’m just hungry, is all.”

Karam must have risen and left with her. At some point the others did as well.

Riordan didn’t see or hear them leave; all he could see was Elena.

* * *

Mriif’vaal accompanied Yiithrii’ah’aash to the flight operations section of the Third Silver Tower. They approached the waiting shuttle in silence. Yiithrii’ah’aash sent forth a thin wave front of amity pheromones, and turned to board and begin his journey back to the Tidal-Drift-Instaurator-to-Shore-of-Stars and, ultimately, human space.

“Yiithrii’ah’aash, a question, if I may.”

Yiithrii’ah’aash turned back toward Mriif’vaal. “Of course. You have been most silent today, and I have not wanted to distract you from your thoughts.”

“They are not thoughts so much as they are concerns. Anxieties, even.”

Yiithrii’ah’aash’s interlaced his tendrils, made sure that his posture was relaxed. “Please share these with me; perhaps I may help.”

“My gratitude, Yiithrii’ah’aash. The events surrounding the humans, and particularly Caine Riordan — I am not sure I understand all the consequences of the choice we made to preserve his life by applying the ancient theriac.”

Ah: Mriif’vaal is both subtle and wise. He will be an excellent Prime Ratiocinator, when his day comes. “What consequences do you fear or foresee?”

“My reservations are not specific, but general.”

“Please elucidate.”

“Gladly, Yiithrii’ah’aash. I have never before encountered so many safeguards against the use of any resource that is at our disposal, and so many limiting protocols for its application. Even our employment of nuclear weapons has fewer, or at least less narrow, constraints. And yet, the danger one would presume to necessitate such extreme precautions is nowhere evident in the action of the theriac itself.”

Clever. Excellent. But I may not fully satisfy your curiosity, and so apologize for the lie of omission that I must now employ. “The consequences of the theriac are difficult to foresee; they may take different forms, it is said. However, we created these potential problems by acting hastily in bringing the humans to us.” That we had no good alternative to that haste is a separate matter. “What I commend to your further consideration is this: what problems we may have made for ourselves, and for Caine Riordan, by raising him from near-death with the theriac are in the future. Obversely, we had to act to solve urgent problems that beset us in the present. And Caine Riordan was, and remains, the key to their solution. In short, there was no choice. Besides, Mriif’vaal, beyond his utility to our purposes, Caine is also a great friend to our species and will prove even more so in the years to come, I foresee.”

Mriif’vaal buzzed faintly. “And you are fond of him.”

Yiithrii’ah’aash’s neck wiggled. “And I am fond of him. But beyond any personal feeling in the matter, there is the need for our two species to be Affined. A powerful need.” Yiithrii’ah’aash paused, let that pause alter the tenor of the conversation as he resumed with a casual, almost speculative tone. “I, and others, have been contemplating how the humans both problematize and adorn our macroscopic perspective of the universe, and how that points toward a long-term solution to our current problems. In contemplating the humans, I find myself unfurling tendrils of logic into the fibers of the cosmos as it is revealed to us through our challenges.”

“And what does this reflection show you?”

Yiithrii’ah’aash was silent for a second, elected to answer Mriif’vaal’s question with one of his own. “It is odd, is it not, how each of the sapient species in this region of space has a special talent?”

“I am not sure I perceive your meaning.”

“It is as though the way our own species has distributed our need for different skills over our taxae and subtaxae recalls and resonates with the cosmos’ own distribution of special talents and abilities among the other species we have encountered.” He sent a final wave of affinity pheromones at Mriif’vaal. “You might contemplate this, in quiet moments.”

Not daring to say more, Yiithrii’ah’aash dipped his neck in farewell, turned and boarded the waiting shuttle.

Brenlor glanced at Ayana Tagawa, the only Aboriginal who was still on the bridge of the Arbitrage . “Your shift-plot is sufficient. Leave us.”

The small Asian female nodded her way into a reasonable bow that never did become fully submissive, Nezdeh noted. She is the best of them and the most dangerous. And having lost one of our two Intendants and two near-Evolved, we need her even more than before. That does not bode well.

Arbitrage ’s preacceleration burn caused them all to lean slightly toward the aft bulkhead; in eight hours they would terminate thrust and engage the shift drive to the system designated as G-22-26. But after that…Brenlor had not announced their subsequent course, which made Nezdeh nervous. His decisions had improved recently, but he had closeted himself over the matter of their further destinations and ultimate objective. Thus shielded from counsel, Brenlor would decide their fate. Possibly disastrously.