Charles Gannon - Fire With Fire

“We shall be ready,” Downing promised.

“And we shall remain vigilant. I shall contact you soon again.” Alnduul’s image faded.

“Twenty minutes?” Hwang mused. “That’s not a lot of time.”

“That’s the idea,” replied Downing. “We don’t want to give the assassins enough time to have another go at us.”

Elena let out a long sigh. “A few hours ago, I wondered how long it would be before the Accord came apart.”

Trevor looked over at her. “And now?”

“Now I wonder how long it will be before we’re at war.”

Visser shook her head. “ Nein , Elena: we already are.” She sent a sideways glance at Riordan. “What happened to Caine was the first shot, I think.”

“Or just a warning, perhaps?” Durniak offered.

“More likely a promise of what is to come,” Elena said grimly.

Visser nodded. “ Ja , that is what I am afraid of.” She closed her eyes. “Which means I have failed.”

Wasserman waved dismissively. “Hey, you weren’t alone here, Ambassador. We all blew it.”

Caine cocked an eyebrow-which only called greater attention to his blood-streaked eyes. “No, none of us ‘blew it.’”

Wasserman’s chin jutted at Caine truculently. “Have you seen any other human delegations on this station? If not, then we’re the bozos who screwed up.”

“No, we didn’t, Lemuel-because we never had a chance in hell of succeeding.”

Thandla shook his head. “We could have allied ourselves with the Ktor.”

“Yeah, but would they have allied themselves with us ?”

Durniak shrugged. “They assured us of their support.”

“Sure they did. But so what? I’ll bet they offered their support to every race they thought might turn against the Dornaani.” Caine spread his hands. “Let’s assume for a moment that the Ktor wanted an alliance with us more than with any of the other races. A crucial question remains: an alliance against whom? The Dornaani? The Slaasriithi? The Arat Kur-who, if they make war on us alone, would get spanked and sent home by the Custodians? An alliance with the Ktor is meaningless because the only real danger to us is the Ktor. Which means we’re not talking about an alliance at all: we’re talking about extortion, a protection racket.”

“Well,” Thandla shrugged, “that still might have been to our advantage. It might have slowed down the avalanche of events which seem to be overtaking us now.”

“No, Sanjay, buying ourselves time by masquerading as a Ktoran ally still won’t enable us to close the tech gap between us and them quickly enough. And I doubt we could have conned them, anyway: trying to out-lie professional liars rarely works. Besides, if we were cowering in the Ktor’s kennel, they’d probably turn right around and remove the only folks who might be able and willing to intervene if the Ktor do decide to eat us instead of keep us as pets: the Dornaani and the Slaasriithi.”

“Who’ve done nothing to help us, so far,” added Visser.

Caine shrugged. “I suspect it’s in their nature to avoid conflict as long as possible.”

“You mean, until it’s too late to help,” Wasserman sneered. “And I just love the way they’ve rewarded our fine, upstanding morals. Using your analogy from the other night, we took the higher road and played the part of Churchill: we stood up to the bad guys. Except it turns out that the Dornaani have happily taken on the role of Chamberlain and have hung us out to dry, trying to preserve ‘peace in their time.’”

“That could be what happens,” admitted Caine, “but I think the possibility that the Dornaani might fail us is a whole lot lower than the probability that the Ktor mean to consume us.”

Visser’s smile looked labored, broken. “You are trying to be kind, Caine, but we failed. The fault is ours.”

“Failure and fault are two different things, Ambassador.” Caine leaned toward her. “You came here expecting a tea party and found yourself in a diplomatic death match. It was already half over, with the long-term pros jockeying for their final positions. We didn’t even know the boundaries of the ring, much less the rules-and we didn’t have the power or the knowledge to change the outcome.”

Downing smiled. “So what you’re saying is, there’s no shame in losing a rigged game. True enough, I suppose. But did we have to lose by such a margin? From a security perspective, we have utterly failed our planet.”

Caine looked up, spoke slowly. “That depends upon how you define ‘security,’ Richard: do you mean ‘survival at any cost’-including slavery-or ‘living as a self-determining species’? If by security you mean nothing more than physical survival, then you’re right: we failed. We had another option: we could probably have survived as slaves.”

“Slaves?” Opal sounded horrified.

Caine shrugged. “If we had to fight off the Ktor alone, I’m pretty sure the endgame would be thralldom or extinction.” He looked around the group. “But if by security you mean preserving our speciate right to what a bunch of guys in wigs once labeled life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then you all made the best choice you could.”

Visser shook her head, closed her eyes. “And so that is the report I’m to make to the world leaders: we didn’t like the certainty of remaining alive on our knees, so we chose the possibility of being killed on our feet?”

Caine shrugged. “That’s the report you have to make, because that’s what we did. If they blame you for choosing that option, then they’re not worthy to be our leaders. And then thank God we were here instead of them.”

Downing checked his watch. “There are some last practical matters to address. The group that is going straight home in this module will not be going directly to Earth, but out to the Belt for debriefing. Your cryocells will be-”

Le Mule sat far back in his chair, arms folded. “No way,” he snapped.

Richard curbed his annoyance. “I beg your pardon?”

“You heard me. But I’ll say it again, with emphasis: no fucking way. When I came on this mission, I didn’t agree to sell my body-or soul-to the guvmint, so they sure as hell can’t keep shuttling me around from one windowless hole to the next. And now cold sleep, too? Why? The Dornaani brought us here without it, so why-?”

Downing rapped his knuckles on the table: Wasserman flinched, shut his mouth with a snap. “If you haven’t noticed, Alnduul has intimated that he will help us in ways that exceed the comfort level of his superiors. And, possibly, exceed his own authority.”

“And your point?”

“My point, Mr. Wasserman, is that putting the passengers in cryocells gives him a much freer hand to help us.”

“Huh?”

“Bozhemoi!” exclaimed Durniak. “Truly you do not see? Alnduul has made it clear that he is on our side. So much so that he might do more than just ship us home.”

“Like what?” asked Opal.

Downing steepled his fingers. “I suspect he intends to put a covert payload inside our own cargo containers in this module. He can’t put it on the Dornaani ship that is taking the second group to Barnard’s Star: too much chance that his own people will stumble across it.”

Trevor looked eager. “So you’re saying that he wants our people in cold cells so they won’t see him load the ‘special cargo’?”

Downing shrugged. “I’m saying that if Alnduul intends to do anything that exceeds his authority, he can’t tell us openly. And if our passengers aren’t awake to see what he does, then they can’t leak any information about it-even to Alnduul’s own people. Plausible deniability, and all that.”