Jo Clayton - Shadow of the Warmaster

Jamber Fausse looked at the screen, then from one Outsider to the other. “What’s he know you don’t?”

She pushed the chair around so she didn’t have to keep stretching her neck. “Obviously he thinks he can take her away from me.”

“Can he?”

“How the hell do I know? All I can do is scramble this Brain so radically he couldn’t possibly straighten it out before she drops in Horgul.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Jamber Fausse looked down at his hands; he held them palms up, thumbs out, fingers cupped in fingers; he looked at them as if he read Parnalee’s mind in the lines and folds. “He may be crazy, but he’s no fool. Has to be something else.”

After a moment’s strained silence, Quale said, “Monarch class Warmaster. The youngest it could be is ten thousand, more likely around fifteen. My Slancy was built around then. Rummul Empire Trooper. The Rummul were the ones that built most of the Warmasters, so she could know something about them. We never bothered purging Memory; matter of fact, some of the bits in there have been useful for this and that, so when she needed more capacity, we just added it on. Del, you think you could punch a line to her without him knowing?”

“He’ll know something’s happening, not what.”

“He knows that now, with you cutting him off like this.”

“Your point. Give me room, this is going to get delicate at times, I’ll let you know when I’m ready to link.”

Kinok skritched two of ves tentacles together, sounding ves irritation at being drawn away from an erotic rite ve was performing with vesself and ves new Kahat and a drivehead. After some more strident grumbling which the infant Kahat didn’t bother translating, ve allowed vesself to be talked into a degree of reasonableness.

“Call up Oldest Memory for me,” Quale said. “Reference Monarch Class Warmaster.”

“You are not getting involved with that fancy, are you?”

Quale blinked. The words were dismissive, but Kinok somehow managed to infuse the light tenor of the translator with a degree of wistful longing more appropriate to the romantic hero of some operatic fantasy. He opened his mouth, intending to explain what he planned to do with the Warmaster, changed his mind before more than a croak got out. He’d run into difficulties before with Kinok, over things that seemed eminently reasonable to him but which slammed into one or more of the Paem’s peculiar religious and moral tenets. Killing the Warmaster meant killing her drives and he was willing to bet that Kinok would object strenuously to being connected in any way with the death of a set of drives. He thought about the voice tone. Especially if the Paem was getting his roots in a twist about this particular set. Erotic passion did weird things to the panter; he winced as a few of his own more idiotic obsessions went floating across his mind. “Not involved,” he said. “Just pull together everything you can find and squirt it over to us, we’ll keep the line open.”

“It is in progress,” the translator said. “How much longer is Slancy staying at this place?”

“Getting bored, Kinok?”

“Ve-who-speaks is never bored; only a stupid mind, a mind gross and unspiritual grows bored. Ve-who-speaks merely wishes the answer to an ordinary question.”

“Ah. Not so ordinary. With luck, two three days, maybe four.”

“That is heard with pleasure. Ve-who-speaks will prepare the blessings and ready our Slancy for the run.”

“Get her ready for trouble, too, Kinok my friend. We might have a hot welcome when we shift out of the insplit.”

“Ve-who-speaks has had our Slancy listening. Her ears have tingled not once. Ve-who-speaks believes those on that world still do not know that they have visitors.”

“That could change fast.”

“There is something you are not telling ve-who-speaks, Swar. Tell it.”

“Things are happening onworld, Kinok; we’ll be finishing up our collecting with the Imperator’s Palace. That’s bound to be noisy.”

There was a cool silence from the speaker. On the screen, Kinok’s plummy scattered eyes had a skeptical glitter that Quale had no difficulty reading. There were going to be some difficult days ahead. Damn all idiot religions, they never caused anything but trouble for everyone around them, believers or not. He heard the ting that announced the arrival of Slancy ’s data and suppressed a sigh of relief.

“Talk to you later, Kinok; we’ve got some clearing up here.”

“… redundancy,” Aslan translated, sliding into the summary at the end of the dataflow, her voice husky, dry as her throat. Elmas Ofka sat in the kingchair, her eyes fixed on the great screen, on words she couldn’t read, numbers she couldn’t decipher; faced with Parnalee’s defection and the unhappy realization that he’d used her fears and prejudices to undercut her and threaten everything she was fighting for, she’d swung back to a tooth-end trust in Aslan. “It is rumored,” Aslan continued, “that even the mainBrain is duplicated; if it is damaged seriously enough, a sisterBrain takes charge. Oh, I see. Forget that, Hanifa, just me realizing what Parnalee is up to. Um, yes, these rumors call her the Dark Sister because she is supposed to be programmed to attack without cease until the ship prevails or is destroyed. Analysts studying the Warmaster have reported that they are unable to discover any clues to the location or even the existence of the Dark Sister. Some believe that the tales about her are put out to heighten the terror factor and its demoralizing effect on the enemy. These discount the rumors and believe that the Dark Sister exists only in the minds of Rummul information officers. There is nothing in Memory to substantiate either conclusion.” She drew a dry tongue across dry lips. “That’s it,” she said, “that seems to be everything that Quale’s ship knows about Warmasters.”

She watched her mother shut down the flow, pleased to be finished with the awkward job of translating technical details into a language that didn’t have reasonable equivalents, not all that happy with what she’d read. She wasn’t convinced by the disclaimers at the end. Like Jamber Fausse said, Parnalee might be crazy, but he wasn’t stupid. There were some hazy dark rumors floating like smoke through University subfiles, unsubstantiated speculation about the intent and purpose of that institute of his. Hmm, she thought, maybe I can talk Chancellor DizZawbawka into hiring Mama to worm in there and find out what Omphalos is hiding, he’s got a kink about secret societies. This is a note you don’t write down, woman, but you don’t forget it either. She smoothed her hand across her mouth and watched Elmas Ofka, interested in the Dalliss’ reaction to what she’d heard.

Elinas Ofka pinched thoughtfully at her lip. “There is a second Brain,” she said. “There has to be. Can you find it, Adelaar yabass?”

“I can try.”

Quale chuckled; he was sitting at a down station, feet resting on a pile of empty medpacs, arms folded across his chest. “You need stroking, Del? Hah! you know how good you are.”

“I also know the work of several of those analysts in that report; they might be a long time dead, but if they couldn’t find anything, it either wasn’t there or I’m likely to find the far side of Beyond before I trip over the clone.”

“And didn’t I not so long ago hear you say that this Brain is big, powerful and dumb? Dumb. That was the word you used, wasn’t it? And didn’t I hear you say we’ve learned considerable since this ship was built?”

“Quale, don’t play shitgames with me. It’d take a Memory the size of the one on University to record what you don’t know about penetration. What about a real game? A wager. Double your fee against no fee on whether the clone is actually there and I find it.”