David Weber - Torch of Freedom

For the first time since he'd met Victor Cachat, an actual expression came to the Havenite's face. It was a very faint expression, true, but between that little frown and the slight pallor, Jack knew the reference had registered.

Zilwicki was frowning at Cachat. "Does that mean anything to you?"

"Yes," Victor said softly. "Something Kevin's suspected—" He shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't talk about it, Anton. This is one of those places where the interests of my star nation and yours probably aren't the same."

Anton nodded, and looked back at McBryde.

"Okay. And what do you want in exchange? Keep in mind, Jack, that because of the—ah—unusual nature of this partnership between Victor and me, neither one of us can offer you asylum in our own systems. Eventually, I imagine you'll probably wind up on Erewhon, or somewhere in Maya Sector. For the time being, though, you'll be sequestered on Torch and I can pretty well guarantee that one of the very first people who'll be talking to you is Jeremy X. He's not likely to be friendly, either."

A slight smile came to Zilwicki's face. "There won't be any physical stuff, though—you know, beatings, torture, that sort of thing—and you won't even be subject to poor living conditions. My daughter will see to that; and would, even without me talking to her. But there won't be anything fancy or luxurious. Not for several years, at a guess."

Jack wasn't surprised by any of that. And . . . didn't care. Not any longer.

"It's a deal," he said. He took a chip out of his vest pocket and slid it across the table. "Here. I made this up as a sort of . . . good will gesture, I suppose you'd call it. It doesn't have any technical stuff on the assassination technique itself. As I say, the best understanding I have of it myself is only what you might call an informed layman's grasp. Basically, though, it's a new approach to medical nanotech, only this one's virus-based and does replicate on its own."

He saw the surprise—and alarm—in all three of his listeners' eyes, and shrugged.

"I don't know how they arranged it, but everything I've seen from the operational side stresses that they're confident they've built in a control mechanism to keep it from getting away from them. And that they need a DNA sample of the intended 'host' before they can design the weapon for a given mission."

"And what does it do? " Anton asked almost softly.

"It basically builds its own dispersed architecture, bio-based computer," McBryde replied levelly. "It taps into its host's neural system, but it's totally passive until the host encounters whatever triggering event was preprogrammed into it. At that point, it . . . takes over." He waved one hand vaguely, clearly frustrated by his inability to describe the process more clearly. "As I understand it, it can only be programmed to carry out fairly simple, short term operations. It does have some limited AI function, apparently, but not very much. And it can't override the host's own efforts to reasser control of his voluntary muscles indefinitely. No longer than four or five minutes, apparently."

"Which is long enough, obviously," Victor said grimly. He regarded McBryde for several silent seconds, then tapped the chip on the table between them. "And this is?"

"Well, let's just say that when I started thinking about how well I could explain this thing to you, I realized the answer was 'Not Too Damned Well,' " McBryde replied with a slight smile. "So it occurred to me it might be as well for me to provide any supporting evidence I could. That"—he indicated the chip—"is the best version of that supporting evidence I was able to get my hands on without tripping too many internal lines. It's the report of the field agent who supervised the Webster assassination. It includes names, places, and dates . . . and also describes the hack of the bank records he used to implicate the Havenite ambassador's drive. Plus the elimination of the hacker who carried it out. I imagine there's more than enough in there that can be corroborated from the Old Earth investigation, once you know where to look."

"I imagine there is," Anton agreed. He picked up the chip and tossed it into the air, then caught it and tucked it into a pocket. McBryde was almost certainly correct about that, he thought, and glanced at Cachat, one eyebrow arched. The Havenite nodded ever so slightly, and Anton looked back at McBryde.

"The day after tomorrow suit you?"

Jack shook his head. "I can't. Well, I could, but it'll take at least another day to get Herlander ready and, besides, I can put the extra time to good use by covering our tracks on the way out." He smiled thinly. "Of course, I imagine you've already done the same—and please note that I'm not asking what or how—so I figure between your schemes and mine not even Bardasano will be able to figure out how we got off the planet."

"I hate waiting for the sound of a second shoe's hitting the floor," Admiral Osiris Trajan grumbled. None of his three dinner guests responded. First, because he hadn't directed the comment specifically to one of them, but, secondly, because they'd both been with the admiral long enough to recognize a rhetorical statement when they heard one.

Apparently, though, it wasn't quite as rhetorical this time as they'd thought it was, and he looked across the table at the auburn-haired, gray-green-eyed woman in the captain's uniform sitting opposite him.

"How about you, Addie?" he asked. "Are you feeling a bit less than perfectly cheerful about this whole thing?"

"Ours not to reason why, Sir," Captain Adelaide Granger, the commanding officer of Trajan's dreadnought flagship, replied with a wry grin. She wiped her lips with her snow-white napkin and arched one eyebrow quizzically at the admiral. "Might I respectfully inquire what has aroused the Admiral's ire at this particular moment?" she asked.

Trajan gave something which sounded suspiciously like a snort and wagged his head at his flag captain.

"You'll come to no good end, Addie," he warned her. "Trust me, you're not irreplaceable, you know."

"No, Sir," she agreed equitably. "But—again, with the utmost respect—given the Admiral's own . . . foibles, finding a replacement and beating her into shape would probably take longer than the Admiral would care to invest in the project."

This time, the other two officers seated at the table noted with relief, there was no doubt about Trajan's amusement. All three of his subordinates admired and respected Trajan—he wouldn't have been selected as Task Force Four's commanding officer if he hadn't been widely regarded as one of the Mannerheim System-Defense Force's two or three best flag officers. Normally, he was also an excellent boss. But there was no denying that he had his moods, and frustration tended to make him more than a little . . . prickly. Fortunately, Captain Granger had been something of a personal protégé of his for quite some time, and she'd developed a deft touch for defusing any serious irritation on his part. That would have been enough to make her presence welcome to Trajan's staff even if she hadn't been such a clearly superior officer in her own right.

"You're probably right about that," Trajan agreed with his flag captain now, and tossed his own crumpled napkin onto the table beside his empty plate. "About how long it would take, that is, of course," he added. "That bit about 'foibles' is scarcely applicable in my own case, however."

"Of course not, Sir," Granger said gravely. "I must have misspoken somehow."

"That happens sometimes to lesser mortals, or so I hear," Trajan observed, and it was Granger's turn to chuckle.

"Nonetheless," Trajan went on a moment later, in a considerably more serious tone, "I'm not happy about this entire op. I never have been, and I haven't gotten any happier in the last four or five T-months, either."