Balance Point (14 page)

TWENTY-TWO

When Mort felt the two humans approach, he was reclining on his side on the deck plates of his space within the
Gateway
nest, plucking with a foreclaw at the clean-picked ribcage of a once-frozen yearling woog. Most of the rest of the woog he hadn’t even skinned. Mort’s appetite lagged, and his principal purpose in plucking the ribs was to amuse himself by producing sounds of varied pitch.

Gateway
remained at rest within the larger nest Mousetrap, even as other nests like
Gateway
came and went, and Mort’s eagerness to continue toward home grew with each departure and dull meal. He understood that the delay was in part an accommodation to him, because the modifications made to the
Gateway
forced changes in the travel patterns of the many moving nests. Regardless of the cause of his impatience, the prospect of physical visitors uncharacteristically stimulated him.

The pair entered through the bulkhead hatch, and he recognized Kit and felt her excited demeanor well before he saw the visual cue of her distinctive pale forelock.

The other human moved forward upon a half shell that floated like a leaf upon pond water.

Such constructions preserved mobility for lame or old humans, and this human’s forelock had grayed with age.

“Kit! Howard?”

“Mort,” In the presence of another human, Kit spoke to Mort aloud, but her tone in his mind at this moment reminded him of his mother’s tone when she had caught him playing with his food. Worse, Kit’s forelimbs were crossed over her mammaries, and her eyes had closed down to slits, gestures which in combination indicated disapproval. He glanced at the bare, bloody ribs. How had Kit known?

Kit spoke again. “Do you know where Jazen is?”

“I do not.”

“Don’t you dare lie to me!”

He sat back to display affront. “I do not lie! You did not ask whether Jazen had recently visited with me here. Or whether he received word while we were together that his life mother lies ill and near death on Yavet. Or whether he asked my advice whether he should go to her. Or whether I advised that he should go, which I did. Or whether he then left this place, agitated, which he did. However, if you do ask, those will be my responses.”

Kit raised both foreclaws to her head, then turned away, shaking it. “Sonuvabitch! Damn, damn, damn, damn!” She faced him again. “You call yourselves an intelligent species. But you were stupid enough to let him go, just like that?”

“I considered intervention. But Jazen is determined once he has reached a decision. And a loving son
should
go to his mother when she is in need. Jazen is a very loyal and loving human.

Kit paused, inhaled. “Yeah. I’ve never met a more stubborn dickhead. I’ve also never met a more loyal and loving human being.” Kit nodded. “Okay. Can you find him?”

“Will you reconsider mating with Jazen again if I do? The initial purpose of his visit was for consolation. He was emotionally devastated that he had lost you forever. Kit, the love Jazen feels for you is beyond even that which he feels for his mother.”

“Oh.” Kit straightened, then she shook her head. “This isn’t about . . . that.”

Howard’s leaf glided forward. “Mort, you know that Jazen’s and Kit’s and my job goes beyond our relationship with you.”

“Of course. Both the Trueborn Earthmen and the Yavi expend a disproportionate percentage of their respective Gross Planetary Products on what you euphemistically call defense. Of many unendearing human behaviors, I find killing one another not for food least endearing.”

Kit stepped forward. “Mort, you’re smart enough to understand Gross Planetary Product. So you’re smart enough to know that Trueborns make mistakes, but we’re different from the Yavi.”

He knew that Kit’s job had included killing other humans not for food. So did Jazen’s. Mort also knew that each of them did that job because each believed more humans would live than would die because it was done.

He swept the woog carcass aside, to remove any barrier between himself and the two humans. The gesture was designed to signal impending frank communication. “Kit, never worry about that. I do understand the difference.”

Howard slid into the vacated space.

He had always been puny, even among humans. But now his downcast posture reflected an inner weakening palpable to Mort. In her last months, his mother had displayed similar weakening.

“Mort, I may have recently made one of those mistakes Kit mentioned.”

“Humans make frequent mistakes, Howard.”

Howard shook his head. “No, I may have really screwed the pooch this time.”

Kit raised her foreclaw. “Ignore the metaphor. Howard’s saying he’s afraid that he made an error in judgment in his job that could lose the Cold War. And he needs your help to unscrew the pooch.”

Mort eyed Howard. “I have helped humans assure that Bartram Cutler was foiled and punished. I have helped humans learn about me. I will not help humans kill one another not for food.” Mort turned to the woog carcass, licked a bone.

Kit spoke not aloud, but he heard, “Mort, principle’s a great soapbox to stand on. But Howard’s backed into a corner here. Don’t make him turn this car around.”

The human habit of punctuating vital thoughts with obscure metaphors exasperated him. But he felt both in Kit’s and Howard’s minds the warning she meant to give him.

Mort turned toward the two humans and planted all six limbs firmly on the deck plates. Then he lowered his head so that all three of his eyes stared into theirs. He bared his teeth, then snarled.

It was a posture he assumed at home only on those rare occasions when a lesser predator, or a scavenging scrounger, challenged him over a kill, and it always got results.

Howard did not disappoint him. Mort’s roar shook the frail old human’s leaf, and Howard retreated, small eyes wide. Kit stepped back a pace, but then held her ground.

Mort thought, “Howard, you can prevent me from returning home in time to fulfill my life obligation. Even if you do, we will survive and flourish, as we have for thirty million years. Your own species’ flawed tribalism has barely survived for thirty thousand years. So I will not entangle us in your mistakes. Is that clear?”

Kit stepped forward again. “Mort, Jazen’s blundering into a trap that could get him killed. Whether you help or you don’t, and whether Howard likes it or not, I’m going to do something about that or die trying. I understand you don’t care about human politics. Hell, most
humans
don’t. But I thought you cared about Jazen and me. We care about you.”

Mort looked away, as though he would find an answer to his dilemma in the blank alien walls that confined him. Despite his bold threat display to Howard and Kit, he didn’t know what he should do, really.

Unlike Mort and his cousins, humans were opaque to one another. But because humans were individually puny, they depended on one another to survive. So humans were forced to trust or mistrust one another blindly, at worst, or based on imperfect knowledge, at best. Human relations therefore were largely a painful series of mistakes, misunderstandings, lies, and sometimes treachery. Humans trusted and cared for each other not because they were perfect, but because they had no other choice.

Now that he had become part of Jazen’s and Kit’s lives, and they of his, he had no choice either.

“Very well. How may I help?”

Kit paused, then stepped forward.

Mort grimaced in anticipation of what the humans referred to as a hug, but when Kit’s forelimbs wrapped round his paw and he felt her face in his fur, the tactile sensation of contact with another individual not food seemed almost pleasant. Perhaps physical maturity was nearer than he had thought.

Kit stepped back. “Mort, if you don’t know where he is, can you find him?”

“I will try.”

Howard said, “How did he find out about this?”

“He read a leaf.”

Kit and Howard looked at one another, and she said aloud, “He said he was gonna check his P-mail.”

Kit looked back at Mort. “You’re sure the ill person was his life mother?”

“He spoke ‘Orion.’”

Kit turned to Howard, tilted her head to convey puzzlement. “But you said the problem was his birth mother and father. Not the midwife who raised him.”

Howard puckered his lips. “The source reported receipt by the subjects of a secure communication at a drop point maintained—”

Kit rolled her small eyes, which indicated exasperation. “Source? Drop point? Howard, Jazen and I have taken bullets for you more than once, remember? Cut the need-to-know crap. Speak English. And speak fast. Time’s not slowing down while we’re sitting here on our asses.”

Howard shifted himself on his leaf, expelled breath. “Jason Wander and Mimi Ozawa, Jazen’s birth parents, have been working for us casually, off and on, since they retired from the service after the War.”

“Jazen’s mother was a starship captain, Howard! You let her run around the universe as a spy emeritus?”

“There was no Cold War when I made that decision, Kit. Jason Wander and Mimi Ozawa made sacrifices beyond telling during their service lifetimes. It’s fair to say that the human race may owe its continued existence to Jason and to Mimi, even if no one knows it. They earned the freedom I gave them.”

Howard paused to breathe, then he spoke again. “Anyway, months ago we received a report from the source I just mentioned. He reported a meeting between a rich Trueborn and a high-up Yavi. It should have been a red flag.”

Howard shook his head, in the way that signaled frustration, rather than a simple negative. “But we didn’t connect the dots. I
said
I may have screwed the pooch. Two days ago, word arrived from the same source that Mimi and Jason visited their numbered account box to pick up pay and allowances, turn in expense reports. You know how that works. But a P-mail, not from us, was also waiting for them. The P-mail apparently persuaded them that Jazen was alive, and either was on Yavet, or someone on Yavet knew where he was. They asked our source for help in arranging travel to Yavet.”

“And they didn’t ask your permission, obviously.”

“Obviously. We afford personnel in the field wide latitude and encourage initiative. But some smart asses,” Howard focused his eyes on Kit, “have taken initiative to extremes.”

The corners of Kit’s mouth turned up. “I’m sure you mean that in the best possible way.” She frowned. “But Howard, I know how well you don’t pay. Two top-quality scrubs for Yavet on retired military pensions?”

“Jason and Mimi aren’t holo stars. But I imagine they have enough socked away, and they’d sell their blood to see their son.”

“Assuming they left Rand—it had to be Rand, you’re too cheap to do your banking on Funhouse—at the same time your mole at the bank sent the message that ratted them out to you, they’re probably a third of the way to Yavet already.”

“I estimate halfway. The plan that I fear’s targeted them seems redundant and inelegant, but some of the best espionage has been. The Yavi learned, my hunch is from Orion Parker by guile or by torture, how to get a message to Mimi. They could’ve simply fabricated a story that would lure Mimi in. She obviously jumped at the mere possibility that she could find Jazen on Yavet. That’s no surprise if you know Mimi. She can be as headstrong as, well, as you can.”

Howard removed the transparent cover with which he protected his eyes, exhaled upon it, then rubbed it against his integument before replacing it and continuing. “I say ‘mere possibility’ because we know Jazen hasn’t yet told Orion he’s coming to Yavet. We also don’t know whether ‘Orion’ is really still alive, or just a Yavi spoof. But if the Yavi actually could lure Jazen into the net, they would have a real, live bait to dangle before Mimi if it came to that.”

“Howard, do you think maybe Jazen’s not just bait? That he could be an independent prize? He’s done his share of damage to the Yavi.”

Howard shrugged. “So have you. Either way, we need to head him off before he leaves here.” He turned to Mort. “You find him yet?”

“For an instant only. He left Mousetrap two hours ago in the nest called
Iwo Jima
.”

“Crap.” Kit spun back and faced Howard. “But we can still stop him!”

Howard was peering into one of the small leaves humans called handhelds. “No.”

“Whaddya mean, no? Radio
Iwo
and turn her around!”

“Kit, I said I can’t.”

“You’re King of the Spooks! You rerouted
this
starship. You can—”

Howard raised one foreclaw.
“Iwo Jima
entered her first jump four minutes ago. When she pops out on the other side, a line-of-sight radio message would take sixteen years to reach her. The real space distance between the
Iwo Jima
and Mousetrap will just increase exponentially with each succeeding jump she makes. Mort, can you try to reestablish contact with him?”

“Now that I have lost him, it will be difficult.”

“I have faith in you, Mort.”

Kit said, “Howard, you told me a few months ago that luck and faith were crap strategies. And you just told me that good espionage is redundant.”

Howard canted his head. “What is your point, Colonel?”

“Let me chase Jazen.
Yorktown’
s outbound via the same jumps and arrives at Yavet two days after
Iwo
. If
Iwo
runs late, I might head him off. If I can’t head him off before he gets to Yavet, I can link up with him there. And you know the two of us improvise like freakin’ bandits when we’re together.”

“Kit, I’ve recently been ordered by my commander in chief, who is also yours, in case you forgot, to cease covert aggressive operations. I call infiltrating my most headstrong case officer onto Yavet with orders to improvise like a freakin’ bandit covert and aggressive.”