Charles Gannon - Raising Caine

“Commodores, you are both on; the line is encrypted and private.”

Encrypted and private? Hmmm— “Commodore Cameron, glad to hear from you.”

“Just Steve, please, Commodore Riordan.”

“Then it’s Caine, Steve. What can I do for you?”

“Firstly, I wanted to update you on what we found at Site One.”

“Incriminating evidence?”

“The mother lode. Apparently, the clever fellow they had running the show when you visited, Helger, was summoned home when it was anticipated that Shangri La was going into a deep freeze as far as profit-making was concerned. The drongo who took over was nowhere near so shrewd about what information he kept and what he didn’t. We have full records of ‘secure’ communications and cypher keys from CoDevCo’s top brass, instructing a resumption of Site One’s campaign of ‘indigenous wildlife elimination,’ in which the locals are definitively listed. And this after they were designated a protected species by the Hague, pending a scientific measurement of their sapience. CoDevCo has screwed itself well and good, Caine.”

“Couldn’t happen to a more deserving pack of jackals,” Caine observed. “But you wouldn’t need a cypher on this line to tell me that. What’s coming down the path towards me, Steve?”

There was a short silence. “You must have majored in reading between the lines, Riordan. But you’re right. You’ve got a situation inbound.”

“Big trouble or little trouble?”

“Might not be trouble at all. Or it might be worse trouble than I can imagine. Only you’d know.”

“Me? Why me?”

“Because the trouble asked about you by name. Seemed to expect he’d find you here.”

Ah. “So you got a call from Richard Downing.”

“I did. Seems he came in-system two days ago, behind the further gas giant, had the codes to override our remote sensors out there. I didn’t even know that was possible.”

“Richard can do a lot of things that don’t seem possible. What else?”

“Asked about you, what your mission was, showed me credentials even more extraordinary than yours. A lot more extraordinary. And he’s on his way to see you.”

“When?”

“About twenty minutes from now. He’s putting down at Site One. Good luck, Caine.”

The line went dead. Twenty minutes before I have to deal with Richard Downing? Well, that just makes my day.

Karam’s voice was back. “Caine, group coming in from the west. Traveling tight, casual pace. Looks like Yiithrii’ah’aash, his party, maybe three others.”

“Okay. Alert the rest of the watch; we don’t want any friendly fire foul-ups. And spin up the fans; we’ve got a date back at Site One.”

* * *

When Downing emerged from the dust kicked up by the vertifans of his shuttle, Caine and Yiithrii’ah’aash were waiting for him. Alone. Downing motioned for his security escort to stay back, resumed his approach.

“Richard,” Caine called to him. “I’d like you to finally meet Prime Ratiocinator Yiithrii’ah’aash of the Slaasriithi Great Ring, with whom I believe you coordinated our legation’s journey to Beta Aquilae.”

Downing started to put out his hand, was about to pull it back, hesitated again when Yiithrii’ah’aash extended his tendrils. “I have become accustomed to your ways, Mr. Downing, and am pleased to make your personal acquaintance. You obviously received our message.”

“In fact, Ambassador Yiithrii’ah’aash, I was already in transit when it arrived, but was able to divert here to Delta Pavonis.” He glanced at the worn ramp leading up into Puller . “I take it you have found what you came for?”

“Indeed. It is gratifying to find such swift rapport with our distant kin despite the passage of so much time. We feared that the estrangement would be greater, that perhaps their pheromones had become hopelessly recidivistic. But the markings upon Caine Riordan gave us countervailing hope. After all, if the mark impressed upon him here was still recognizable — and powerfully so — to us, we had reason to conjecture that ours might still be recognizable to them.”

He waved at Puller . “Three of the locals you call Pavonians have consented to come with us. It is a brave thing they do; their people have not ventured beyond this valley for many generations. However, their myth tells them that we are all from the stars, and they wish to see the home of the biota that gave rise to them. They shall be honored among us and, if it is not objectionable to you, we shall return to repatriate any others that might wish it, once our respective governments have agreed to the conditions under which that might occur.”

“I am sure that can be arranged swiftly, Ambassador,” Downing affirmed with a nod. “We have no desire to keep you and your distant relatives apart any longer than absolutely necessary.”

The Slaasriithi’s neck dipped very low and remained so for several seconds before he raised it and spoke again. “Ultimately, we have humanity’s curiosity to thank for our reunification. Naturally, all intelligence arises from curiosity, from exploring novel solutions to problems. But only humanity avidly, even restlessly, seeks out so many challenges and mysteries. For you, nothing calls more strongly than the unknown, or so it seems.”

“Thank you,” said Caine, unsure of what else to say. “But it’s a shame that your reunion must take place under the likely shadow of war.”

Yiithrii’ah’aash’s neck wiggled slightly. “I suspect we would not have realized our need of the indagatorae until such a threat arose, so there may be an unavoidable connection between the approach of strife and our desire to reembrace our lost taxon. Which we shall now undertake to restore.”

“But it will require some time to breed sufficient numbers of indagatorae, won’t it?”

Yiithrii’ah’aash’s sensor cluster focused on Caine. “‘Sufficient numbers?’ I am uncertain what you mean.”

Downing stepped in. “Enough to field an army or expand your naval formations.”

Yiithrii’ah’aash stared at them for a long time. “I am sorry; you misperceive. We do not need the indagatorae to breed an army. As you say, that would take too long and we lack the requisite skills to train such forces in time, or at all.”

Riordan felt adrift. “Then why do you need the indagatorae?”

Yiithrii’ah’aash waved tendrils to take in everything around him. “To act as our liaisons to those members of the macrocommunity who are soldiers already. That is, the indagatorae will be our liaisons to humanity.”

Caine had stepped backward before he realized he had done so. “You mean, you consider us part of your community? And that our role is to be your soldiers?”

“All things are part of the community of life. And all have their roles.”

And our role is to die for you? Wait just a goddamned minute— But Caine remembered that he was a diplomat, and that the Slaasriithi would be unlikely to see the situation in those terms. “Assuming we are even willing to take up that role, there is a further complication: you Slaasriithi shape your community without consulting all its members. Without anything like a referendum.”

Yiithrii’ah’aash did not blink. “That is true,” he said.

“And you presume we would be willing to be enter into that kind of relationship?”

“Caine Riordan, I have clearly alarmed you. Be calmed: we presume nothing. But we have observed, with great clarity, just how deficient we are in warfare. The speed with which your species is willing to destroy assets in order to achieve objectives — such as the way you prevailed upon me to destroy Disparity’s antimatter depot to hamper the efforts of the Ktor — is utterly alien to us. We acknowledge our limitations. But we also see areas where we may make fair and balanced contributions in exchange. We may assist you in accelerating the speed with which your green and brown worlds become self-sufficient. We have technological capabilities which may be selectively shared. We may construct various defensive and sensor systems and ROVs that shall aid your forces, or allow you to secure vast areas without wasting precious personnel to do so. These contributions are merely the treetops of a deep forest of possibilities, and we shall explore all of them together.”