The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier: Guardian (11 page)

His hatch alert chimed.

Trying to not look too relieved at the diversion from administrative tasks, Geary spun in his seat to face the hatch and tapped an entry authorization.

He had half hoped it might be Tanya, visiting to snatch a few moments of being together without being under the eyes of the entire crew, or maybe Rione, ready to spill a few more clues about her mysterious secret orders. Instead, the hatch opened to reveal the earnest and melancholy face of Emissary Charban. “Have you a few moments, Admiral?”

“Certainly. Come on in.” He didn’t hesitate to offer his time, as he would have much earlier in the mission. Charban had come aboard
Dauntless
tagged as an aspiring politician, a retired general who had been sorely disillusioned about the usefulness of violence in accomplishing anything as he watched men and women die and little change. But Geary had come to see that Charban was not a fool or a phony. He was a tired man who had seen too much death but could still think and reason well enough to spot things that others could not.

Increasingly, Charban had emerged as the primary point of contact with the Dancers, even Rione giving way to him. Dr. Setin had complained about that before the fleet entered the gate at Midway.
“Why is an amateur being given preference in dealing with this alien species?”

“Because the alien species keeps asking specifically to deal with him,”
Geary had pointed out. He knew that thanks to reports from Setin’s associate Dr. Shwartz.

“He is an amateur. We have spent our entire academic careers preparing for communication and contact with a nonhuman intelligence!”

“Yes, Dr. Setin, I understand. I will look into the matter and see what should be done.”
Dr. Setin had spent an academic career preparing to communicate with a nonhuman intelligence but, ironically, wasn’t able to identify a classic human bureaucratic brush-off when he received one.

“May I speak with you about the Dancers?” Charban asked Geary as the emissary entered the stateroom.

“Have a seat. I hope this is good news.”

Charban grimaced as he sat down opposite Geary. “The experts tell me I am wrong.”

“Then you’ve got good grounds for thinking you may be right,” Geary said. “Dr. Shwartz told me those academic experts, herself included, spent their entire careers up until now theorizing about intelligent aliens, and now that they’ve finally encountered the real things, they’re having trouble adjusting to the fact that the realities aren’t matching a lot of their theories. What in particular is this about?”

“Our attempts to communicate better with the Dancers.” Charban’s expression shifted into exasperation, then worry. “I am not certain they are being cooperative.”

Having had the same suspicion growing in him for a few weeks now, and not happy at all with the idea that the Dancers might not be playing straight with their human contacts, Geary was less than thrilled to hear that someone else shared his worries. He took a deep breath. “Explain, please.”

“It’s hard to explain an impression,” Charban complained. “Not scientific at all, I am told. You know we have been making slow progress in communicating with the Dancers.
Very
slow progress.”

Geary nodded. “They’re so very different from us that the slow progress isn’t surprising anyone. We have such a huge gap to cross between our species in order to establish the meaning of words and concepts. But I have been wondering why even the basic concepts are coming so slowly.”

Charban smiled crookedly. “You’ve been reading the reports from our experts,” he noted. “That is all true. But . . .” He paused, frowning in thought. “I have the impression that the Dancers are deliberately slow-pedaling the process, that it is taking far longer than it could if they went at the pace of which they are capable.”

“Do you have any impression why?”

“You’re taking me seriously? Thank you.”

“Emissary Charban,” Geary said, “you’ve proven remarkably good at grasping the way the Dancers think. You figured out why the enigmas fear us so. You explained Kick behavior before any of the rest of us figured it out. You have a talent for this. Of course I am taking you seriously.”

This time Charban’s smile was genuine. “I thank you again. It has been a humbling and frustrating experience for me since leaving the military, Admiral. Diplomats and politicians know much I do not and yet seem to miss things obvious to me. Our experts in nonhuman intelligent species have a vast formation of advanced degrees following them around, yet often circle around answers instead of seeing them.”

“Our experts in nonhuman intelligent species,” Geary said dryly, “had never actually known anything about any real nonhuman intelligent species until they joined us on this mission. When it comes to real aliens, you seem to have a feel for the right answers.”

“Would you recommend me for a position working with such aliens?” Charban asked. “I should tell you that our experts would be very put out by an amateur like me getting such a job over them.”

“All of our experts?”

“Not Dr. Shwartz.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. Dr. Shwartz seems to be unique among them in recognizing that real-life experience can sometimes be more valuable than academic degrees. But understanding the Dancers is a unique challenge.”

Charban frowned. “I don’t know why the Dancers would be delaying more open communications with us. I don’t have a sense of ill intent. I don’t have any sense of any reason. What I do have is a feeling that they are choosing to go slow on this.”

Geary looked toward the star display, thinking. “If they can understand us better than they are letting on . . .”

“It is my feeling that is the case.”

“But are keeping their own speech with us at basic levels . . .” Geary shook his head. “That would mean they can understand what we’re saying but would be pretending not to be able to tell us things.”

“Yes.” Charban nodded toward the star display. “And what would they not want to tell us?”

The potential answers to that question were almost infinite. Geary shook his head once more. “If they think in patterns, as you and Dr. Shwartz suggested, they might be seeing a pattern they don’t want to tell us about. What kind of questions are they being asked?”

“All sorts of things. Basic information about themselves, about other alien species, scientific and technical questions, what they know of us, and how long they’ve known of us.” Charban shrugged. “Pick your possible secret.”

“But the experts disagree with you?”

“Yes. Except Dr. Shwartz. She listens. I don’t know if she agrees, but she’s reserving judgment.”

Geary caught Charban’s eyes. “Tell me your gut feeling. When we take the Dancers back with us to Alliance territory, should we regard them as a potential danger?”

“My gut feeling, Admiral, is that they’ve already been to Alliance space, that they’ve been watching us for a long time. If they meant to harm us, as the enigmas did, I believe they have had opportunity. Instead, I
think
they have been studying us. They—” Charban broke off speaking, showing dawning realization. “That could be it. If they’ve been watching us, they may have seen a pattern. Something involving us. A pattern or patterns that are still playing out.”

An odd sense of cold ran down Geary’s back. “Something they see coming. Something they don’t want to tell us.”

“It could be.” Charban spread his hands. “Telling us might change the pattern. Change what we do and how we do it.”

Geary leaned forward and adjusted the view of the star field, expanding it to include all of human space. “We know what’s happening to the Syndicate Worlds right now. We know some of the strains the Alliance is under.”

Charban nodded slowly. “And we know that pattern from human history. Great empires, powerful alliances, grow and flourish, then weaken and fall. And afterwards, cultural and political fragmentation, wars, declines in population, standards of living, scientific progress, and much else.” His smile now seemed wan and tentative. “I would not wish to tell any friend of mine that sort of prophecy for their future.”

“They don’t know us, General. Not that well,” Geary said, scarcely noting that he had referred to Charban’s old rank rather than his current position as emissary. “Patterns can change. They can be altered.”

“They can.” Charban laughed. “Is that the Dancers’ secret? They believe they know what we should do, but if they tell us, it will change what we do? Or they do not know what we will do but do not wish to influence our actions? The Observer Effect, applied to relations to alien species.”

“The Observer Effect?”

“Sort of an offshoot of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle and Schrödinger’s cat.”

“I see,” Geary said in the way that conveyed that he didn’t, in fact, see at all.

This time Charban smiled. “A dissolute youth spent partly in the realms of physics left me with bits of knowledge. Basically, the Observer Effect says that the act of observing something alters the outcome. It’s been proven in physics. Even with particles like photons. If you’re watching them, they act differently. It’s very strange, but it’s true. Social scientists still debate whether that concept also applies to their work. But if the Dancers believe that what they tell us can change what we do, they might be slow-pedaling communication for just that reason.”

“That could be.” Geary gave Charban a questioning look. “The Dancers might have been watching us for a long time, watching us fight that war for the last century. But they only intervened very recently, during the battle with the enigmas at Midway Star System.”

“The difference is that now we know we’re being observed,” Charban said. “However long they have been watching us, we weren’t aware of it before. Once we came to them, arriving in a star system where their ships were, that fundamental fact changed.”

“That could be it,” Geary agreed. “Or is that too simple an answer? Keep doing your best to find out.”

“I always do my best, Admiral.”

As Charban got up and turned to go, Geary stopped him. “Emissary Charban, if you had received secret orders from the government, would you tell me?”

Charban looked Geary in the eyes and nodded. “I wasn’t sent to do anything to mess you up, Admiral. I think I was sent in the expectation that I would mess things up thanks to my lack of political experience and my disillusionment with the ability of weaponry to resolve issues short of genocide.”

“If they expected you to just cause trouble for me, you’ve exceeded expectations in the right way as far as I’m concerned.”

The emissary grinned. “It’s not so hard to do when the bar is set so low.”

“In this fleet, it’s harder to set the bar lower than
politician
,” Geary said. “I wish more people would realize how much someone like Victoria Rione has contributed to what we’ve achieved. And how much someone like you has contributed.”

“Thank you, Admiral.” Charban shook his head. “But I don’t think I’ll ever be a politician. I thought I wanted to do that, but after working with the Dancers, I want to continue doing that a lot more.”

“I’ll do my best to see that you are allowed to continue doing that. Who would have guessed that a career leading ground forces troops would have suited you so well for dealing with different sorts of minds?”

Charban, halfway out the hatch, turned and smiled again. “My career involved a lot of interaction with the aerospace forces, and the fleet, and Marines. If you want to talk about different sorts of minds, all of those were good practice for trying to understand alien ways of thinking.”

The hatch closed behind Charban, and Geary turned back to his work.
Results of fleet mess facility cleanliness inspections. Ancestors help me.
Even at the best of times, concentrating on that kind of important but tedious matter was difficult. Right now . . . “Emissary Rione, are you free to talk?”

“Your place or mine?” her image asked as it appeared near his desk.

“This is fine.” For once he didn’t have to be too worried about someone’s intercepting a conversation. “How is Commander Benan?”

“Sedated.”

“Uh . . .”

“And you’re wondering why I’m not in tears of despair because my husband is under sedation?” she asked. “Because being sedated is the best condition he can be in right now. It keeps him out of trouble, and to be honest, which I know is unusual for me, he’s a lot easier to handle that way these days. And we are on our way back, where, one way or another, we will be able to deal with his condition.”

He regarded Rione’s image, wondering exactly what she meant by “deal with his condition.” To say that she wanted both Benan cured of his mental block and vengeance against whoever had ordered that mental block was to put it mildly. Even after the months he had known her, Geary was still not certain just how far Rione would go to accomplish something she had resolved on. He did know he wouldn’t want to be someone she had resolved to go after. “I promised to get that block lifted, and I will.”

“You’ll threaten the Alliance grand council if necessary? No, you don’t have to promise to do that. I’ll threaten the grand council, and they’ll know I mean it. Were you just calling to see how I was feeling?”

“Partly,” he said. “But I wanted your opinion of the leaders of Midway now that we’ve had a week away from them.”

“You mean Iceni and Drakon, or others as well?” Rione asked.

“Just those two,” Geary said. “The self-styled president and the newly minted general. I think they’re the only ones in that star system who count.”

“I strongly suspect you’re wrong about that. There are hidden currents moving in the star system. I could only observe things from afar, but I am certain of it.”

Geary looked at her dubiously. “Lieutenant Iger’s intelligence team didn’t report anything like that in their analysis of the situation at Midway.”

Her smile was scornful. “Lieutenant Iger is not bad at all when it comes to collecting intelligence, but political analysis? I think you’d be well advised to listen to someone who knows politics from the inside. I also think you already know that since you asked me for my opinion despite Iger’s report.”