The End of All Things (33 page)

I smiled. “You are correct that there is someone on the other side of this door, Commander. It’s not another CDF soldier, however. It’s just my friend Hart Schmidt, who is a diplomat, not a killer or a torturer. He’s on the other side of the door primarily because he’s running a recording device—an unnecessary thing, as I am also recording this conversation with my BrainPal.”

“You’re not worried about me trying to kill you and escaping,” Tvann said.

“Not really, no,” I said. “I mean, I
am
a CDF soldier. You may know from your own experience that we are genetically engineered to be faster and stronger than unmodified humans. With all due respect to your own prowess, Commander, if you attempted to kill me you would be in for a fight.”

“And if I did kill you?”

“Well, the door is locked,” I said. “Which kind of puts a damper on your whole escape plan.”

Tvann did the Rraey equivalent of a laugh. “So you’re not afraid of me.”

“No,” I said. “But I don’t want you to be afraid of me, either.”

“I’m not,” Tvann said. “The rest of your species, I am afraid of. And of what might happen to me if I don’t speak to you now.”

“Commander, allow me to be as candid with you as you have been with me.”

“All right, Lieutenant.”

“You are a prisoner of the Colonial Defense Forces. You are, in point of fact, a prisoner of war. You were captured having taken up arms against us. You, either directly or by the orders you gave, killed many of our soldiers. I will not torture you, nor will I kill you, nor will you be tortured or killed while you are on this ship. But you have to know that the rest of your life is going to be spent with us,” I motioned around, “and in a room not much larger than this one.”

“You are not inspiring me to be forthcoming, Lieutenant.”

“I can understand that, but I’m not finished,” I said. “As I said, the rest of your life is very likely to be as our prisoner, in a room about this size. But there is another option.”

“Talk to you.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Talk to me. Tell me everything you know about Equilibrium and its plans. Tell me how you got ten human colonies to agree to rebel against the Colonial Union. Tell me what the endgame is for your organization. Tell me all of it, start to finish, and leave nothing out.”

“In return for what?”

“In return for your freedom.”

“Oh, Lieutenant,” Tvann said. “You can’t possibly expect me to believe it’s within your power to offer that.”

“It’s not. As you’ve implicitly noted, I’m just a lieutenant. But this offer doesn’t come from me. It comes from the highest levels of both the Colonial Defense Forces and the Colonial Union’s civilian government. Disclose everything, and when this is all over—whatever this is, whenever it’s over—you’ll be handed over to the Rraey government. What they do to you is another kettle of fish, assuming that they have something to do with Equilibrium at all. That said, if you’re especially forthcoming, we can make an effort to have it seem like we didn’t know what an excellent intelligence asset you were. That we thought you were just some common military commander.”

“But I am,” Tvann said. “The scope of my orders were limited, and focused on this mission.”

I nodded. “We were pretty sure you were going to try that,” I said. “And who could blame you? There’s no percentage for you letting on any more than you had to. But we know something you don’t think we know, Commander.”

“What is that, Lieutenant?”

“Commander, does this ship seem familiar to you in any way?”

“No,” Tvann said. “Why should it?”

“No reason,” I said. “Except for the small detail that you’ve been on it before.”

“I don’t believe so.”

“Oh, believe it,” I said, and then looked up toward the ceiling. “Rafe, have you been listening in?”

“You know I have,” said a new voice, from the speaker. A translation, in a slightly different voice to differentiate it from my translation, followed almost immediately afterward.

“Okay, good,” I said, and looked back to Tvann. “Commander Tvann, I would like to introduce you to Rafe Daquin, our pilot. Or more accurately, I would like to reintroduce you, as the two of you have met before.”

“I don’t understand,” Tvann said.

“You don’t remember me?” Daquin said. “I’m hurt, Commander. Because I remember
you
very well. I remember you threatening to blow my ship out of the sky. I remember you shooting my captain and first officer. I remember you talking with Secretary Ocampo about the best way to murder my entire crew. Yes, Commander. I have a whole heap of memories with you in them.”

Tvann said nothing to this.

“Ah,” I said. “See. Now you’re remembering after all. This is the
Chandler,
Commander. The ship you took. And the ship you lost. Well, maybe not you
specifically,
but Equilibrium. We know you were on it. And we know you’re not just some field commander. No, sir. You’re a key member of the Equilibrium military. And your presence on Khartoum, leading the forces that shot our people out of the sky, isn’t just luck of the assignment draw. You’re here for a reason.”

“How is it that you’re here?” Tvann asked me.

“How do you mean?”

“Your ship thwarted the attack on the CDF ship that responded to the Khartoum rebellion,” Tvann said. “How did you know? How did you get here to stop it?”

“We had inside intelligence.”

“From whom?”

“From whom do you think?” I said.

“I’ll give you a hint,” Daquin said. “It’s the guy I stole from you when I made a break for it.”

“Secretary Ocampo has been very forthcoming,” I said. “When Khartoum declared its independence, he suggested to us that there was a good chance that there might be a trap laid for any ship that responded. The
Chandler
happened to be near skip distance—and the Colonial Union didn’t want to inflame things by sending a large contingent of CDF ships—so we got the call.”

“Thanks for grafting those weapons systems back onto the ship,” Daquin said. “They came in handy.”

“Secretary Ocampo,” Tvann said. “No doubt
forthcoming
because you’ve put his brain into an isolation chamber.”

“You’re not really going to go there, are you?” Daquin said. “Because I have news for you, pal. You don’t have much high ground to stand on with that one.”

“If you have Ocampo you don’t need me,” Tvann said, to me. “Ocampo has far more operational knowledge than I ever did. He was a primary architect of our plans.”

“We know,” I said. “We have all his records. The thing is, we also know
you
know we have all his records. You have to have assumed that once Rafe absconded with the secretary. Which means Equilibrium can’t use them anymore. You have a new game plan, one that’s being carried out on an accelerated schedule. Ocampo can make educated guesses. But we need more than educated guesses at this point.”

“I’m captured,” Tvann said. “They’ll know to change their plans.”

“You’re not captured,” I said. “You’re dead. At least that’s what they’ll think. You and every other Rraey, obliterated beyond identification, and
before
identification. And you died completing your objective of luring the Colonial Union into a trap—and making it look like Khartoum was responsible for the attack. That was a nice touch, by the way.”

Tvann was silent again.

“That’s our communication plan—everything that’s coming out of us is pinning it on the Khartoum government. So as far as Equilibrium knows, it’s still game on for the latest plan. We’d like you to tell us the plan.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Then you better get used to walls,” Daquin said.

“Rafe, why don’t you sign out for a bit,” I said.

Daquin signed out.

“You’re not the first Rraey I’ve ever met,” I said, to Tvann, after Daquin had departed.

“I’m sure you’ve killed many in your time,” Tvann said.

“That’s not what I meant,” I said. “I mean that I knew another Rraey as a person. A scientist named Cainen Suen Su. He, like you, was captured by us. I was assigned to him.”

“To guard him?”

“No, to assist him. We worked on several projects together with him as the lead and me following his direction.”

“He was a traitor, then.”

“I don’t know that he would disagree with you,” I said. “He was aware that in helping us, his knowledge could be used against the Rraey. Nevertheless he did help, and in the course of time, he also became a friend. He was one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met. I was honored to have known him.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died.”

“How?”

“A soldier, who was also his friend, killed him at his request.”

“Why did he ask to die?”

“Because he was dying anyway,” I said. “We’d introduced a poison into his blood and the daily antidote he was given was increasingly less effective. He asked his friend to end his suffering.”

“The suffering you had imposed on him in the first place.”

“Yes.”

“Lieutenant, if there is a point to this discussion of yours, I’m afraid it has entirely escaped me.”

“Cainen was an enemy who became a friend,” I said. “And despite the terrible thing we had done to him—and yes, it was terrible—he still chose to find friendship among us. I’ve never forgotten that.”

“I do not think we will be friends, I’m afraid.”

“I’m not asking for that, Commander,” I said. “My point in telling you this is to let you know that, at the very least, I don’t see you merely as an enemy.”

“You will understand, Lieutenant, if I’m not convinced that this fact does anything for me at all.”

“Of course.” I stood up. “Just understand that it can. If you want it to. In the meantime, give consideration to what I’ve asked for. Let me know when you’re ready to talk.” I started for the door.

“Aren’t you going to put that back on me?” Tvann said, pointing to the shock collar on the table.

“You can put it back on if you want,” I said. “But I wouldn’t if I were you.” I opened the door, leaving Tvann to stare at the collar on the table.

*   *   *

“Are you going to kill us?” Specialist Ketrin Se Lau asked me. The two of us were in the same room I had previously been in with Tvann. The room had been reset. Lau was not wearing the shock collar; he’d never been given one.

“Lieutenant Lee promised you that we wouldn’t, if her report to me is accurate,” I said.

“That was her. You are someone new.”

“Do you think we’re going to kill you, Ketrin?” I asked.

“Humans aren’t well known for being kind to their enemies,” Lau said.

“No, I suppose not,” I admitted. “No, Specialist Lau. We’re not planning to kill you, or Commander Tvann.” I watched as relief spilled over the Rraey’s body. “In fact, what we’re hoping to do, after all of this is done, is return you to your government.”

“When?”

“I’m not going to lie to you, it’s going to be a while,” I said. “We have to get to the end of this current conflict. In the meantime you’re going to be our guest.”

“You mean prisoner.”

“Well, yes,” I said. “But within that framework, there’s a lot of latitude for how you are treated.”

“I don’t know anything important,” Lau said. “I’m a specialist. I was only told specific things about my own job.”

“We know that you don’t know anything above your pay grade,” I said. “We don’t expect you to know the secret plans of Equilibrium.”

“Then what can I tell you that I didn’t already tell your Lieutenant Lee?”

“I’m interested not so much in what you know as I am in what you’ve heard. Rumors and speculation and things like that. We’re both soldiers, Ketrin. Although we’re different species I think we probably share one thing in common: Our jobs are boring most of the time, so we spend a lot of time bullshitting with our friends. I’m interested in the bullshit.”

“I don’t know that word, but I think I know what it means.”

“‘Bullshit’? Yes, I think you probably do. I’m also interested in you, Ketrin.”

“How so?”

“Your experience with Equilibrium,” I said. “Beginning with the very simple question of: How did you get involved with them in the first place?”

“That’s your fault,” Lau said. “Humans, not you specifically. Our wars with you went poorly for us, particularly after the Obin, who had been our allies, turned on us. When that happened we lost planets and lost power, and our military shrank. Many former soldiers were out of work. I was one of them.”

“There are other lines of work.”

“Lieutenant, when we lost planets, we had an influx of people to our remaining worlds. There were no jobs to be had. You and the Obin didn’t just shrink our military. You killed our economy. I’m originally from a colony planet named Fuigh. We don’t have that planet anymore. I was relocated to Bulni. Jobs there mostly went to native Bulnians.”

“Got it.”

“So when I was approached by a former commander of mine about Equilibrium, I didn’t spend any time thinking about it. I was being offered a job and a chance to use my skills. The pay was excellent. And I got to leave Bulni, which I hated.”

“I understand that.”

“If you are planning to attack any planet of ours, let me suggest Bulni first.”

I grinned. “It’s not on our agenda at the moment, but I’ll keep it in mind. How long have you been with the Equilibrium?”

“I don’t know your time measurements.”

“Tell me in your years, I’ll make the adjustments.”

“About six years, then.”

“Which is about five of ours. Which is a long time.”

“It was steady work.”

“Right,” I said. “My point is that we only started learning about Equilibrium very recently. It’s a long time for your organization to be flying under our radar.”

“Maybe you’re not very good at intelligence.”

“That might be it,” I allowed. “But I like to think there’s something more to it than that.”

Specialist Lau did the Rraey equivalent of a shrug. “The organization was always small and focused and decentralized until very recently. For the first couple of years I didn’t even know there was a larger organization. I only worked with my team.”