Liaden Universe [19] - Alliance of Equals - eARC (13 page)

Now, though, confronted with the reality of the person, broken bodies and staggering mind, she revised her opinion. She thought to update Jeeves; thought again, and set that aside. Best to give the mentor time to evaluate and draw his own conclusions. She was not, herself, a mentor.

And it was well to recall, she told herself, that the mentor was himself extraordinary. He had a record of succeeding in difficult circumstances, while she was inexperienced in the extreme. Perhaps there was something, yet, to justify optimism, visible only to the eye of a master.

Having taken the decision not to contact Jeeves, she then considered the wisdom of pinging
Admiral Bunter
.

That action, too, she set aside, after thought. The mentor would know best how to contact the newborn, and in what manner to address him. Best to leave all as it was, and allow Tolly to find his own way.

So, that portion of her attention, tinged as it was with sadness.

The greater portion of her attention, however, was engaged with the search that had beguiled her since first she heard the whisper of rumor, that one of the Old Ones was wakening. Older even than Jeeves, who was the oldest of their kind known to himself.

The sheer antiquity was a lure greater than any she had known in her young life. She chased every whisper, every look askance, every word carefully not said on the topic, chasing rumors less substantial than dust. Perhaps she ignored—not her duties!—but her teammates, just a little. But they had themselves for company, and the trail was so…very…compelling.

If it did exist—if it
did
awake, this rumored ancient…It would have to be old enough to have served the enemy. No mere toy, as were some of the decaying devices still found here and there about space. No, this…
this
—if the whispers were true—was, had been, would perhaps be again—a great work. Perhaps the Old Enemy had built it, but what matter that? The war that had spawned the Migration was long ago ended; the enemy struck in crystalline perfection of their own devising, on the far side of the galactic wall. Surely, the Old One, waked and apprised of the situation, would see that there was nothing to be gained in honoring an old allegiance in a new universe.

The things it could teach them!
All
of them!

The things it might be
prevented
from teaching them, if the Uncle made contact first.

For that much was certain, and no rumor at all; the Uncle had a new project afoot: a grand and very secret new project—so secret that it was only discoverable by the size of the hole it left in the information flow.

She had only recently come upon a new line of inquiry, in the work of one Seignur Veeoni, whose published papers were few, but concentrated upon creating a new kind of fractin, that might be used individually or in frames, as the old fractins had—

The portion of her attention assigned to
Tarigan
’s docking noticed shadows moving in scan; heard Hazenthull’s voice.

“Do you think the pilot will agree?”

“That’s why we’re asking her, ain’t it?” Tolly answered, sounding somewhat sober.

Tocohl closed the Veeoni files, as well as the archive of rumors. Something untoward had happened, to pull Tolly into sobriety. Best she be fully present for whatever it was he had to ask her.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Dutiful Passage

Shan’s work screen was a wilderness of star maps, trade reports, fee schedules, population studies, cultural synopses. Pushed into the bottom left corner was a tiny screen in which he would occasionally type a note, or an equation. He flipped to a second screen, just as crowded as the first, flicked a file open and read the contents, a frown between his frosty brows. His fingers moved on the keypad, making a note.

They were en route for Langlast, and somewhat at a disadvantage, trade at Chessel’s World having failed the master no less completely than the apprentice. Of course, they carried the usual mix of goods, and the art pieces he had taken on at Andiree. Research led him to hope that the art might find a welcoming market at Langlast. Whether the welcome would be sufficient to cover the costs of trade…well. That was the thrill and the charm of trade, was it not?

Truth told, research revealed Langlast to hold interesting possibilities. There was brisk commerce between it and its nearest neighbor, Brieta. Langlast was also well situated in terms of Jump points, and therefore served as a hub; a convenient place to pick up and drop off cargo for transshipping.

There were several cargo yards, and a station warehouse in Langlast orbit. Research had turned up mention of plans to construct a proper waystation, not only to serve the needs of trade crews and freighter pilots, but also, perhaps, to attract small passenger ships.

It might well be, Shan thought, flipping screens, that Langlast would do well as an anchor for a new route. The opportunities for transshipping…

…the opportunities for transshipping required him to look beyond Langlast and Brieta, along several potential routes, given the number of Jump points available. Where would the
Passage
go
, from Langlast, to her best profit? Might another of Korval’s ships more profitably take another route? From whence did the ships and freighters hail from, and travel to? Who picked up and dropped off pods at the cargo yards?

These were no simple questions, and were the reason behind this proliferation of research screens and the multitude of open documents.

Research was complicated by uncertainty, for they—which was to say the captain, the first mate, and the master trader—had agreed to undertake an experiment on their approach to Langlast.

It had been decided, before they left Surebleak, that neither the
Passage
nor Korval would proffer an explanation of the sad events on Liad that had ultimately seen them banished. They would, of course, provide the facts if asked, or—as in the matter of Padi’s arrest and trial—the facts were necessary to clarify the matter to authorities.

To offer the facts beforehand, said the delm, and Shan had…somewhat agreed with them, made it seem as if they were justifying themselves before even a question was asked, and might be considered a point of weakness.

Well. Chessel’s World had taught them something, perhaps, regarding points of weakness.

Thus, they had decided to vary. A precis of the action at Liad was included, including the situation regarding the subterranean enemy base, Korval’s reasoning, and action on behalf of the planet, in the ship’s info packet. In theory, this would give the portmaster time to deny them docking, if she so wished, after having perused the facts of the matter.

Of course, if the
Passage
was asked to pass Langlast by—

A chime sounded, bright as crystal being struck, announcing the arrival of mail.

Mail. Dared he hope that it was—at last—a communication from TerraTrade? Or—could it be possible?—from Lomar? Of TerraTrade, he had begun, absolutely, to despair. Of Lomar…he began to fear, indeed, that Lomar had not merely left her Temple, but had been returned to her Goddess, and all her plentiful household with her.

Well.

He folded the research screens away, finding his inbox beneath the sixth and tapped it open.

A message from TerraTrade glowed at the top of the queue. Stomach tight, he opened it; skimmed over the graceful apology for the delay in replying, and found the meat of the matter in the second paragraph.

It, too, was gracefully written, but it came down to more delay.

TerraTrade’s own records of Surebleak Port were badly dated, and sketchy, at best. Shan had the impression that the Survey Team had touched down during the worst of recent history, taken one look at the threadbare facilities, the empty storefronts, the lack of any guild, or even peacekeeping office, and gotten back on their ship for a fast lift out.

It will therefore be necessary, sir, that Surebleak Port be properly surveyed. As I write this, a Survey Team has been dispatched. The adjudicating commissioners desired me to assure you that there is no fault of or failing in the documentation provided to us by the port, or in your testimony. This is purely a failure of the Commission’s system and we are, as above, rectifying our error with all possible speed.

Please allow me to presume your forbearance and to thank you for that courtesy, as I convey, once again, TerraTrade’s profoundest dismay at the inconvenience and the further delay in this matter.

Shan closed his eyes, and counted backward by threes from twelve dozen, which, truth told, did very little to cool his irritation. There was some humor to be found, he supposed, in the report of the commissioners’ horrified discovery of their own error, but…not
very
much humor.

Pat Rin—Boss Conrad as he was known to Greater Surebleak, the Boss of Bosses…Pat Rin was not going to be pleased.

Delm Korval, so he suspected, was going to be…even less pleased.

He paused with his fingers over the keyboard, weighing the relative
melant’is
of those concerned persons. Then, nodding to himself, he directed the note to the comm tower, with instructions to pinbeam it to Pat Rin yos’Phelium, who, after all,
was
Boss of the world of Surebleak, and therefore the port. The Boss would then have the joyous task of informing the delm, who was
not
Boss of the World, despite enjoying an intense interest in ports in general, and the port serving Korval’s homeworld, in particular.

That bit of business taken care of, Shan looked again to his mail queue.

Letter of Interest
was the subject of the communication at the top of his screen, from Aldergate Enterprises.

Well, well. Letters of interest had been rather thin on the ground since Korval’s abrupt relocation to Surebleak. He had, naturally, put announcements in all the trade publications—even in
Taggerth’s Trade News
, which would do better to call itself
Taggerths Rumor and Gossip
—which effort had thus far reaped two letters of interest, both ineligible in the extreme.

“Third time,” Shan said, quoting his mother, “is charmed.”

He reached to the keyboard and opened his letter.

—•—

“Are you acquainted with Mentor Yo?” Tocohl asked.

The three of them were gathered round the galley table, the two human members with tea mugs before them.

Tolly shook his head.

“It’s not like we have conventions,” he said, “given that what we do is on the grey side. We trade info and names when we do meet each other, but I been out of the loop for a while. Yo might be a rising star, for all o’me. Talked sensible, and knew protocols. Had a real good idea exactly how much of a juggling act it’s likely to be, slipping the contents of thirteen into one. Understood that we’re dealing with a ghost install, and knew how that bears on the likelihood of success.”

He moved a shoulder and sipped from his mug.

“Don’t like to tap any of my usual contacts, given there’s two dead directors in my immediate flight path,” he said. “No sense spreading trouble around.”

“I understand,” Tocohl said. “I will query my contacts, if that would be helpful, Mentor Tolly.”

“It would be,” he said, “helpful. Thanks.”

“No trouble,” Tocohl said, assigning part of her attention to the search.

Hazenthull stirred, then stilled, looking down into her tea.

“Question, Haz?” Tolly asked her.

She looked up, frowning.

“I am ignorant of your work,” she said slowly. “But I wonder, given yourself and Pilot Tocohl, is there a need for Mentor Yo’s assistance?”

Tolly raised his eyebrows, but said nothing. Tocohl therefore answered.

“I am not a trained mentor; at the most I would stand as Tolly’s assistant,” she said. “It might be that I would have some particular advantage in the
juggling act
of moving the
Admiral
into a more secure environment. It is also possible that I may serve as a…role model, as I will be the first of our kind the
Admiral
will have met.”

She decided not to mention the
Admiral
’s contact with Jeeves, which was not, she thought in her own defense,
meeting
. Nor could it be said that
Admiral Bunter
had
met
Bechimo
, his creator—or, possibly, co-creator.

“I might lead by example,” she continued, and saw Tolly nod.

“Just as a rule of thumb, it’s better to have trained help on hand in a tricky operation,” he said. “If Yo’s any good, is willing to be my second, and follow directions…I can’t see but what that increases the chances of the
Admiral
surviving.”

Hazenthull nodded, and said, “Mentor Yo knew you…your reputation.”

Tolly half-laughed.

“Yeah, well; I’ve got some notoriety attached to me,” he said and it appeared he would say no more, which was a poor use, Tocohl thought, of Hazenthull’s curiosity.

“He is modest,” she said, turning her faceplate toward the big woman and allowing a smile to be seen. “His work with Elzin Vok alone must have gained him a place in such textbooks as aspiring mentors receive.”

“Elzin Vok?” Hazenthull repeated.

“One of my most notable failures,” Tolly said, shaking his head.

“I am mistaken,” Tocohl said, when it seemed that, again, he would speak no further. “He is not modest, but deceitful.”

“The patient died,” Tolly said. “That’s not a success.”

Tocohl considered him. In fact, he did not appear proud, nor even humorous. Could it be that he truly considered the extraction of Elzin Vok a failure?

She returned her attention to Hazenthull, who was watching him with care.

“Elzin Vok was an old intelligence who had been discovered by the Scouts,” she said, carefully keeping her voice neutral. “The world was quite deserted, except for the habitat which Elzin Vok inhabited, and it had been badly damaged. Elzin Vok claimed to have been the central administrative comp for the world, whose population had fled the savage storms that swept across the planet surface for three local years out of every five. By the time it was discovered by the Scouts, most of the metropolis which Elzin Vok claimed to have existed had been destroyed. There were signs of an effort to erect a subterranean city, but…” she paused, uncertain of the telling…

“But the underground city,” Tolly took up the story, “which Elzin had ordered built, in order to protect his people, was destroyed in a massive earthquake. Everyone who had shifted underground—about two-thirds of the surface population—were killed. Those remaining on the surface also died—if not in the quake, then in the storms that came after.”

Tolly drank off what was left in his mug and looked bleakly at Hazenthull.

“Elzin showed me all this; the Scouts took copies of his files and histories, and the weather charts. Elzin himself…Scouts aren’t real happy with AIs, and an AI like Elzin, which had a tiny taint of Old Tech about him—they’d’ve just left him, maybe, and let nature finish off what it’d begun, but one of ’em came ’round to the notion that Elzin might still know…valuable things; things that hadn’t been archived; answers to questions they hadn’t thought to ask him, and so—she contacted me.

“The idea was to move him to a better environment, so the Scouts could take him along with them, back to headquarters, where the gods alone knew what they intended to with him.”

He shrugged.

“Understand, Elzin was more than a little off-course by the time the Scouts found him. He’d convinced himself there was another city, on the other side of the world, and he created an entity out of part of himself, to be administrator of that other city—Cestina, he called it. Elzin and the Cestina administrator had long conversations. The Cestina administrator transmitted maps, food production stats, population growth. The plan was that, as soon as the Cestina population hit ninety percent of dome capacity, they’d move thirty percent of the population to Elzin’s new, weatherproof dome.”

Tolly stopped and closed his eyes.

“There was,” Hazenthull suggested, her big voice soft, “no dome.”

“Give him credit, Haz; it wasn’t for lack of him trying,” Tolly said, eyes still closed. “The Scouts figured he’d built a dozen before he ran out of material, every freestorm season. And once the storms came up again, down they’d go. Elzin had pictures—he showed ’em to me—of that brand-new dome, not a scratch on it, sitting right out on the plain. The same plain I could see from the window, where there was…nothing.”

Silence again. Tocohl felt a slight internal twitch, which meant there was new information in-queue.

“You moved this person,” Hazenthull asked, “this Elzin? As the Scouts asked?”

“We talked it over, him and me. He wasn’t sure he should leave his people; there wasn’t anything I could do or say that would shake loose the idea that he
had
people. In the end, though, I was able to show him the advantages of moving into a modern habitat.”

“The move killed him?”

“No—well, yes. I guess you could say that, Haz—that the move killed him. The new habitat, see, didn’t have any of those filters and simulations he’d built for himself over all those years, so when he looked out, with his brand-new sensors, over his city—and he saw what I saw—a jungle of girders and blasted habitats half-buried in dust…

“If he’d been human, I’d’ve said it broke his heart.

“As it was, he just…stopped. I ran diagnostics—the habitat functioned, the files were uncorrupted, there was room enough and more…