Jack Campbell: Dreadnaught

Duellos hadn’t yet left and turned a questioning look on him. “Why just a lot of you, Admiral Lagemann? Why not all of you?”

“Because we’ve learned enough about things at home to expect that, with the war over and the military shrinking, we’ll all be retired as soon as we get there.” Lagemann smiled ruefully. “That’s not quite the imagined future we hung on to in that Syndic labor camp. We’d somehow get home or escape, then lead the fleet or the ground forces in great victories, like Black Jack returning from the dead.” He grinned at Geary. “Sorry. Old saying.”

“I keep running into them,” Geary replied.

“But,” Lagemann continued, “I think the majority of us will be content with how things have changed. There are plenty who will not be happy, who will want to challenge the state of affairs and how the government is doing things. I have to admit, I don’t understand why the government made it a priority to liberate us. We’re going to create a lot of problems when we get home, but at least by taking us along on this mission, you delayed that happening by several months.”

Something struck Geary then, a realization that he hoped didn’t show. Why did we have to pick them up before we went on to alien territory? Why did the government want them with us on a mission facing unknown hazards and the real possibility of lost ships? If something went wrong, if we were delayed getting home, if ships were lost, if disaster happened, I wouldn’t be the only inconveniently alive hero the government would no longer have to worry about.

Navarro wouldn’t have set that up. I don’t think Sakai would have. Who hoped for it, though? Who in the government and who in fleet headquarters, who surely don’t want to deal with lots of resurrected senior officers any more than the government does?

Rione knew that was part of it. That’s why she looked that way when she realized her own husband had been caught in it. But as far as I know, she’s done nothing to further it happening. She isn’t helping much, but she’s not sabotaging us either.

The pieces of the puzzle were beginning to form partial pictures, and he didn’t like the image at all.

This jump required tweaking the jump drives a bit to get some extra range out of them. The fleet jumped while the two groups of enigma warships were still joining up a light hour distant.

“May I speak with you, Admiral?” General Charban sat down in the offered seat in Geary’s stateroom, looking around with a wry smile before speaking. “Not much, but it’s home, eh? Strange how we can attach ourselves to even a utilitarian stateroom or headquarters complex, isn’t it? Humans find home wherever they are. I have an idea, Admiral Geary,” he added, switching the subject abruptly. “A possible means for finally getting some agreement with the enigma race on the basis of mutual self-interest.”

“I can’t wait to hear it,” Geary replied.

“I was considering a few things, including what Dr. Shwartz said at our last fleet conference about the inconsistency between what the enigmas said at Midway and their actions since then. It may be that we made a fundamental mistake in assuming those words represented the actual motivations of the enigmas.”

Geary rested his chin on one hand, regarding Charban. “Why would they have lied to us about what they wanted, about what was motivating them?”

Charban smiled slightly. “When you speak to men and women serving in the fleet, do you talk about cost-benefit ratios and the need to enhance stockholder benefits and reduce costs to the government? Or do you talk about what you believe matters to them?”

He followed where that question led. “You think the enigmas at Midway were giving us an explanation for their actions they thought we would understand or accept.”

“Yes. Any exterior agent watching the war would have focused on our struggles for control of star systems. For control of territory. And property does matter to us even though it is not the most important thing for most humans. What I think the enigmas were doing at Midway, and have done since, was giving us the justifications they thought we would find plausible. Instead of giving their real reasons, they gave us reasons they expected us to expect.”

Charban hunched forward, speaking more intensely. “Consider how private they are, how they give away nothing about themselves. Why would they offer their true reasons at Midway? Why would they tell us what they really wanted?”

“Good question.”

“I was led to this while thinking about the humans held prisoner by the enigma race,” Charban continued. “From a human perspective, there wasn’t anything surprising about the aliens wishing to know more about us. But was that really the alien motivation? Were they researching how humans acted because they were curious, or simply because they saw us as a threat?”

Geary nodded as he thought about that. “For humans, it would be both. Even if they weren’t a threat, we’d want to know more about another intelligent species.”

“Because we’re curious!” Charban leaned forward a little further. “There was discussion some time ago about the human obsession with sex, and that is indeed a major aspect of us. And, of course, we fight wars over property as well as other causes. But there’s another characteristic that defines us, perhaps even more so. We are curious. We want to know things. What’s at the next star? How does this thing work? Why does the universe act the way it does? No matter what we learn, there’s always more we want to know. We confront anything from the perspective of wanting to know more about it. Now, what is the primary characteristic of the enigma race as far as we have been able to determine?”

“An obsession with staying private, hidden.” Geary took a sudden deep breath. “We want to know more, and they don’t want anyone knowing anything. Matter and antimatter. We’re the neighbors from hell as far as they’re concerned. Is that why they attacked us?”

“It may be. I’ve reviewed the records the Syndics provided us,” Charban continued. “As far as I can tell, the Syndics never approached the enigma race on the basis of ‘we’ll leave you alone.’ They did the natural thing for humans, sending out exploration missions into enigma space, though the Syndics didn’t then know it was enigma territory. And they planted bases and colonies, pushing farther into enigma space. Once the Syndics discovered the aliens, they tried to learn more about them, talk to them, and probably tested their defenses. And we’ve done pretty much the same kind of thing. We tell them we want to talk, to get to know each other, and that is exactly what they most fear and dislike about us. Look what we’ve done here. A mission of exploration, to learn things about them. That’s a normal desire for us, but to the enigma race it must look like the ultimate act of aggression.”

“We promise to leave them alone?” Geary asked. “Ignore them completely, never try to penetrate their territory again, never try to learn any more, never try any contact?”

“It’s worth a try. But there are two other things. First, we need to imply that our curiosity will never be satisfied if we think they are still holding any human prisoners. We will keep looking. If they want us to start pretending that the universe ends where their territory begins, the enigmas will have to cough up any other humans they still hold.”

“Excellent idea,” Geary approved.

“Thank you, though my fellow emissary helped me come up with that.” Charban paused, looking as if he were tasting something unpleasant. “The other thing. The enigmas have chosen to use military options against us. I think it possible that they will continue to attempt military solutions until we’ve demonstrated they can’t win that way.”