“I understand. May I authorize station leave?”
“For up to six of your crew at a time—but make sure you always have a full watch on board.”
“That’s the accepted procedure, Chancellor.”
“Fine. Report to me on ship’s status daily at noon.” She turned her gaze on Berberon. “Ambassador?”
“Ready.”
“Then let’s go visiting.”
Waiting for them at the end of the access tunnel was a fresh-faced lieutenant wearing the gold eagle’s feather emblem of the command staff on the collar of his blouse. “Chancellor Sujata, Ambassador Berberon,” he said with a slight bow. “I’m Lieutenant Baines. Commander Wells asked me to extend his greetings and to escort you to his office.”
Oh, no, Harmack—the game doesn’t start until the field is level
, Sujata thought. She summoned up her best baleful look and released it full force on the lieutenant. “Has saluting a superior officer gone out of fashion on this station, mister?”
Taken aback, Baines blinked twice, then offered a brisk salute. “My apologies, Chancellor.”
“Accepted. You can show us our quarters now.”
“But the Commander said—”
“Commander Wells will understand that the Ambassador and I have just completed a long leg in the craze and would need an opportunity to unwind and acclimate ourselves. Now—which way?”
Baines frowned unhappily. “I don’t know, Chancellor. We’ll have to stop at Operations.”
“Fine,” she said briskly. “Let’s go.”
At Operations they picked up the housing officer, a sunken-cheeked man of forty who seemed faintly annoyed at the inconvenience of having to leave his desk. He led them in silence through the central section to Blue Wing, then up three levels to a dormitory block.
“Chancellor Sujata, this room has been cleared for you,“the housing officer said, opening a door marked 301 and then stepping aside.
“And what about the Ambassador?” she asked as she brushed by him and into the room.
“The next room on this side of the block—303.”
Stopping at the foot of the single bed, Sujata gave the room and its furnishings a protracted silent scrutiny, then turned to the housing officer. “I don’t know—is anything larger available on-station?”
“No, sir. A room this size is usually a quad.“Pursing her lips, Sujata nodded. “This will do, then. Now, where is my office?”
The housing officer exchanged worried glances with Baines. “I was only given authority to allocate housing space—”
“Do you expect the Chancellor of the Service to live out of her suitcase and work out of her quarters?” Sujata asked with heavy irony.
Baines drew a deep breath and answered for the housing officer. “No, Sir. Will you excuse us while we see to the arrangements?”
“Of course.” This time Baines remembered to salute, and the housing officer followed his lead. “Testing the waters?” Berberon asked with a grin when they were alone. “No,” Sujata said, settling down on the edge of the bed.“Stirring them up a bit.” Berberon’s grin widened. “Speaking of water, I
would
like a real shower, if you think we have the time.”
“Go ahead,” Sujata said. “Wells will wait.”
Baines was back within half an hour. Berberon was still enjoying the relative comforts of his quarters, and Sujata did not disturb him. She went with Baines back to the central section, where he showed her a five-by-three-metre cubicle with the hopeful attitude of a real-estate agent showing off a choice property.
En route they had passed enough other office areas for Sujata to be able to gauge what amenities the station boasted in that regard. “This is acceptable,” she said after glancing around the room briefly. She gestured toward the desk. “This terminal—will I have full access to the station library through it? Fleet deployments, general and command logs—”
“No, Chancellor. Only safe-room terminals—”
“See that it gets such access.”
“I can’t do that, Chancellor. Only the Commander—”
“Lieutenant,” Sujata said with exaggerated patience, “please make an effort to think before you speak. I am Chancellor of the Unified Space Service. I have final administrative authority over every action taken by any Branch. There can’t be any question about
my
clearance, now can there? Or do you think that I should need to go to the Directors and ask permission to see the information I require to carry out my responsibilities?”
“No—” Baines said hesitantly.
“Then my access code in your system should reflect that, yes?”
“I only know that—”
“Lieutenant—” Sujata said warningly.“I don’t have the authority to change access parameters myself. But I’ll convey your request—”
“Order.”
“Your order to those who can.”
“I trust you’ll show enough initiative to do so without needlessly troubling the Director. As recently as he’s arrived on-station, I’m certain he has enough important business to occupy him.”
“Yes, sir.”
Left alone, she posted a message to Berberon telling him where to find her and then settled back to wait. Shortly before Berberon joined her, the terminal began to treat her queries more responsively.
“Do you think they really gave you access to everything?“Berberon asked skeptically when he had heard the story.
“No,” Sujata said in a relaxed tone. “But they probably opened up everything they thought I would know they were hiding—which is exactly what I wanted to see. Sit down and let’s go through it.”
What little amusement they had derived from confounding the station bureaucracy vanished quickly as they learned of the destruction of
Munin
and the subsequent mobilization. Their long faces grew even longer as they studied the timetable.
Falcon
was due to survey Mizar-Alcor in just two days,
Kite
to reach Phad shortly afterward. The Triads would begin hitting their final wave-off points within the week, beginning with Triad One at Alphecca. A month later they would begin their assaults.
“No wonder he didn’t mind us catching up to him,” Berberon said somberly. Her lips a small, tight line across her face, Sujata gave no reply. For the next two hours she silently studied record after record, report after report, her attention never wavering from the terminal, her concentration never breaking.
“All right,” she said finally, pushing back from the desk.“I’m ready.”
“Going to invite him down here?”
Sujata shook her head. “Those kind of games won’t rattle Wells. No, I’ll go to see him.”
“I, singular?”
“This time,” she said, and reached for the com key. “Lieu tenant Baines—this is Chancellor Sujata. To my office, please.”
The folds of her
daiiki
flaring out behind her, her face a mask of determination, Sujata strode into the outer office of Wells’s suite with Baines at her heels.
“Which door?” she asked, slowing momentarily to let Baines come up beside her.
“Commander Wells’s office is straight ahead,” Baines said, then looked to the puzzled aide-de-camp, who had risen half out of his chair at their entrance. “Is the Commander in?”
“You can’t—” the aide began, but Baines silenced him with a look and a cutting motion of his left hand.
“This is Chancellor Sujata,” Baines said sharply.
The aide, saluted in slow motion, as though his confusion had driven motor functions to a lower level of priority. “Yes,“the aide said meekly. “The Commander’s with Mr. Shields.” Baines nodded. “Should I wait for you here, Chancellor?“he asked, turning back to Sujata.
“No,” she said with a shake of the head. “I don’t know how long this will take. You may go. But consider yourself still on call.”
“Yes, sir,” Baines said, saluting.
Some of the conversation had clearly filtered through the door, for both Wells and the stranger who had to be Shields were both staring in the direction of the door when Sujata entered. For a long moment no one spoke. It was as though Sujata and Wells were trying to stare the other down, while Shields suspiciously sized up the newcomer.
“Leave us, Philip,” Wells said at last.
Shields glanced back and forth twice between Sujata and Wells, then frowned crossly and stalked out with his head lowered. As the door closed, a faint, wry smile creased Wells’s face. “Welcome to the Perimeter, Chancellor.”
“If I thought you really welcomed my presence, I’d thank you,” Sujata said, circling to the right, her eyes locked on Wells’s.
“Why shouldn’t I welcome you?” Wells asked, easing a step to his left and resting his hands “on the back of a chair._ “Can we dispense with the fencing?” Wells slipped around to the front of the chair and settled himself in it. “Certainly,” he said.“I’m here to find out why you’re doing this. I’m here to find out why the Triads are on their way to attack the Mizari.”
“Is it such a mystery?” Wells asked, raising his hands and turning them palms-up. “They’ve destroyed one of our vessel sand, in the process, murdered one of our most revered statesmen.”
“An old ship and a forgotten hero. Does that justify the deaths of millions on both sides?”
“There’s no deterrence if they don’t know what we can do,” Wells said firmly. “Since we have no way “to tell them, we have to show them. We can’t let what they did go unanswered. Do sit down. Chancellor—”
Sujata ignored the invitation. “Why is it necessary that we answer with warships? Why not send an ambassador ship instead, a new
Pride of Earth
?”
Smiling tolerantly, Wells shook his head. “The only way to negotiate with them is from a position of strength.”
“Why does mutual survival have to be negotiated?” she demanded. “The concept of war is predicated on the belief that there are worse things than being dead. Nothing is worse than being dead.”
“Would you rather that we were in a position where we had no choice but to submit to their demands?”
“What could they want from us? What could the Weichsel have given them?”
“Nothing less than the Galaxy, it would seem. Would you rather they simply overwhelmed us?”
“No, but I don’t think that’s the choice. How hard you’ve worked this last century to meet them in battle!” she said earnestly, extending a hand toward him, then snatching it back. “How little you’ve done to embrace other possibilities. We haven’t talked to them. We don’t even know if we can talk to them.” She opened her arms wide, which the loose-sleeved robe made into a dramatic gesture. “All we really know of them is what they did. We don’t know what their reason was. We don’t know if the conditions that prompted them to, do it are still in place.”
“Come, now, Chancellor. Isn’t it obvious that they operate from an incompatible ethic?”
“We have to believe that they’re enough like us to understand. We have to believe that there’s another answer.”
Wells twisted sideways in his chair and hooked his folded hands over one knee. “We have no reason to believe that—which is why we have to be ready to destroy them.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Sujata turned half away and cast her gaze downward. “You’re more than ready,” she said angrily. “You’re eager. It’s time to drop the fiction of deterrence. What you really want is to lay waste to their world and their culture.”
Wells came up out of his chair and took a step toward her.“Neither the Weichsel iceship nor
Munin
posed any threat to them, and both were destroyed without warning. Isn’t it clear that there can never be any rapprochement between their kind and ours?”
“They are
just
like us,” she said sharply, turning on him.“They have one set of rules for treating those they consider brothers, and a second set for ‘the others.’ Why can’t we just recognize each other’s right to exist?”
“This isn’t about existence. It’s about empery.” Wells turned away and stared out the greatport at the stars of the Ursa Major cluster. “We might be willing to concede them what they occupy. They might even be willing to do the same for us. But how much of what no one holds will they be willing to grant us? Or us them?” He looked back over his shoulder at Sujata. “I’ll give you the answer to that one—neither side will give away anything until we know what it is we’re giving, and maybe not then. No, Chancellor. Our survival is predicated on their destruction.”
The words of the provider, over and over. “So you believe. And a few weeks from now you’ll give them reason to believe the same. But do either of you know if you’re right?”
“I do,” he said with simple confidence.
Frowning, Sujata circled the room clockwise, forcing Wells to turn away from the greatport to keep her in sight.“And how will you carry out your intent?
Munin
was barely within the heliosphere of the Alphecca system when it was attacked. How much time did it have, two minutes, three? The Triads won’t get close enough for their wreckage to fall on the Mizari, much less their weapons.”
It was Wells’s turn to cross his arms over his chest defensively. “In fact, Chancellor, our analysis
A
of the attack on
Munin
has made us more confident, not less.
Munin
had no defensive systems, no energy-absorbing shield, no systems hardening. A Triad would have survived that attack. Even a recon ship would have come through it in good shape.”
Sujata realized that it was a mistake to have begun arguing tactics, but she could not go back. “And if the Mizari used only as much force against
Munin
as was necessary to destroy it, if they’re capable of much more?”
“The weapons and energies used in the attack on
Munin
were consistent with our models of the attack on the Weichsel,” Wells said stiffly.
“The same principle applies. You still only know what they did, not what they’re capable of.”
“We’re not fools, Janell. The recon ships are going in first. We’ll adjust our tactics according to what they learn.”
“I have a more fundamental adjustment in mind,” Sujata said, her eyes boring into his. “Cancel the attack orders. Bring the fleet back.”
Wells did not flinch from her gaze. “No,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Commander Wells—you’ve gone a half step over the line,” she said, drawing closer to him. “That’s not too far for you to step back.”
He shook his head. “It has always been the responsibility of those who most clearly perceive the danger to respond to it. I didn’t plan
Munin
’s intrusion. But I would be remiss in my duties if I did nothing in its wake. Not to move against the Mizari would be the reckless act now.”