The Sentinel (The Sentinel Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

“You’d better come out here, Captain,” Smythe said. “That signal we’ve been sending out? We just got an answer.”

Chapter Five

“Who else has heard this?” Li asked. His heart was thumping.

“Nobody, Commander,” Swettenham said.

Li poised his hand above the console, ready to play it again. Better still, to hurry back to his quarters and listen to it in private. To listen to it again and again. Eleven years, and everything he knew—or
thought
he knew—upended in 137 seconds of audio. It shocked him, and now that he’d heard it, he wanted to listen again, to hear the words of that strange dialect translated by the computer, the contact with outsiders. With the unknown. With their salvation.

Careful, Li. You’ll turn into an Opener. And you can’t afford that. Not now.
 

“Shall I play it again, sir?”

“Yes,” Li said carefully, betraying no emotion. “No, hold on. Nobody? Not even Hillary Koh?”

“No, sir. She provided the code, and heard a few snippets, but the computer was churning away to get the whole text, and Koh is off shift now. Probably asleep.”

“What snippets, exactly?”

Li couldn’t help but glance over his shoulder as he asked this, though nobody would have possibly followed them into the uncontrolled climate here in the bowels of the water processing system.

Curving pipes crowded the tight corridor, twisting this way and that like the intestines of a star leviathan. A constant hum filled the air: the sound of water in pipes, the occasional knocking from cavitation as pressurized fluid passed through improperly calibrated valves. The heat and humidity made Swettenham’s glasses slip down.

He pushed them back up and peered myopically at Li. “Why, sir?”

“Answer the question, Swettenham. What exactly did Koh hear?”

“Sorry, sir. I was just wondering what you’re afraid of. Um, let me see. The salutation only. We deciphered that first. Then Koh went off shift, and I kept on without her. That was a few hours ago.”

“A strange time to take a break. Right when you’re about to get a message from an unknown civilization.”

“We’d been working almost two days straight,” Swettenham said. “Anyway, she had it cracked—the code was working. Sir, what exactly are you afraid of?”

“Of factionalism, of course. I need time to process this before the Openers and the Sentry Faction start fighting over it.”

“What is there to fight about? This settles matters. You’re answering, of course. Right, sir?”

“Dammit, Swettenham. I’m losing my patience. Your job was to translate, not second-guess me, and not to grill me like you’re my superior.”

Li paused as a particularly loud gush of water flowed through the large green pipe on which they stood. The unmistakable odor of methane briefly colored the air before the filters carried it away. Missized valves, leaky seals, and knocking pipes—sooner or later they’d need actual repair and replacement.

“Sorry, sir. Shall I play the message again?” Too much eagerness in Swettenham’s voice.

“Yes, one more time.”

The engineer touched a button on his console, and the translation came directly into Li’s ear through the com link. Swettenham, listening to the same message, widened his eyes. His mouth hung open slightly and he breathed deeply, like a man hearing the chime of bells in an ancient temple, and not a rough translation as spoken through a cool, neutral computer voice.

Open transmission

Greetings, Singaporean Imperium,
 

My name is Captain Jess Tolvern of HMS Blackbeard of the Royal Navy of Albion. I serve at the pleasure of the Admiralty, under Admiral James Drake, and in the service of my king, His Royal Majesty King James the Fifth.

Albion was formed from a colony of settlers from the so-called Anglosphere in the early days of the Great Migration. Our language is a modern dialect of English, and our form of government is a monarchy supported by a parliament divided into two chambers. We have three principal colony worlds, but maintain extensive trade relations with two other groups: the Ladinos and the New Dutch.

Our kingdom exists on the opposite end of the Hroom Empire, the tall, bipedal alien race given to sugar addiction that has been suffering the depredations of Apex, a birdlike species that fights wars of extermination and . . .

The message continued like this, giving what seemed to Li to be unnecessary information. The first time, he’d been impatient to get to the why of the missive, but now he realized why the woman was so wordy. The Albion captain shared all of this information for his benefit, for his translators. That way he’d understand terms like “Hroom” and “Apex,” for which there was no connection between her dialect and the Old Earth version of English. It helped explain how Swettenham, Koh, and the brute computational power of the computer were able to give such a precise, and hopefully accurate, translation.

. . . We are aware of the fate of your people, and wish to help the survivors any way we can. Unfortunately, we have just survived an encounter with the enemy and are in no position to continue the fight. We request repairs and wish to share tactics and weapons. Only working together with various human and Hroom factions can we defeat an enemy that will otherwise leave the sector a burning cinder, its civilizations exterminated, its sentient races extinct.

Please send a response as soon as possible so we can effect a rendezvous.

End transmission

“Give me five hours with Hillary Koh and I’ll have a response,” Swettenham said the moment the recording had ended.

“I haven’t decided yet that there will
be
a response, and if there is, you and Koh won’t be the ones to compose it.”

“I didn’t mean that, I only meant we’ll be ready to reverse translate whatever you—wait, what do you mean you haven’t decided?” The engineer’s voice climbed in pitch until it was competing with the whine of fluid gushing through the smaller pipes. “They’re friendly. You heard it.”

“They certainly
claim
to be friendly. It could be a trap.”

Swettenham shook his head vigorously. “Oh, no. I know what you’re thinking, and I know what Apex does, but there’s no way they could fake this. They’d have to know Old Earth English, then they’d have to come up with a plausible path to put something together that sounds like a modern dialect, complete with vowel shifts and word changes. This sounds exactly like what you’d expect to hear. You couldn’t fake this.”

“Apex is clever. They no doubt have their own linguists.”

“And teach someone to be fluent. Can the birds even make human sounds like that?”

“Or take someone captive,” Li said, “and force her to record a fake distress message. Or they could have easily intercepted the message and are waiting to see if anyone answers. Those are only the most obvious risks.”

Swettenham didn’t respond right away, but licked his lips and blinked rapidly. He was looking for some way to refute this, Li could see, and at last he nodded, seeming to settle on something.

“But we have to take a chance.”

“That’s your rebuttal? That we’ll take our chances with fate? This isn’t a game of liar’s dice.”

“Commander! The Albion woman said ‘the fate of your people.’ You know what that means. My God, you must.”

“I do not, Swettenham, and neither do you.”

“They know something, something that has happened to Singapore, and it’s terrible news, it’s the worst possible news.” The man reached out and grabbed Li by his uniform. “It’s over, Commander, we’ve lost! We have to team up with these people or we’ll be exterminated.
Extinct
, she said.”

“Wartime hyperbole.” Li removed the man’s hands from his uniform. “If you continue this hysteria, I’ll have you locked in solitary confinement. If you spread news of this, you will be in violation of Directive One.”

“I never knew,” Swettenham said, taking a step back until he was pressed against the pipes. “You’re like your sister. I thought you were different. I thought you would see.”

“I haven’t made a decision yet,” Li said. “But until I have, nothing has changed. Is that understood?”

The gleam returned to the man’s eyes. Hope, returning. Well, there was one good thing about Engineer Dong Swettenham—he was not harboring any secret conspiracies. The man’s every emotion was written on his face.

“Yes, sir. And thank you, sir.”

“For what?” Li gestured for the man to follow him up the passageway. They walked on the large green pipe like it was a walkway.

“For trusting me with this. It is the most interesting work that has come to me in eleven years. By far. I won’t let you down.”

“I know you won’t, Swettenham.” Li felt himself warming to the engineer again. “And I promise I’ll make my decision soon. The ship is still coming our way, there’s time. Meanwhile, lock down the message. Nobody else is to have access to it but you, me, and Hillary Koh. I suppose Koh will have to listen to it, won’t she?”

“Of course.” Swettenham nodded. “Yes, I’ll keep quiet. You can count on me. Just don’t . . . don’t wait too long, all right?”

Li would talk to Koh, but he thought she’d be equally amenable. No doubt she had factional sympathies—didn’t everyone these days?—but surely he could put her off for a few more hours. Better call her in, speak to her in person.

Soon, Li was off the lift and headed in the opposite direction from Swettenham. Li walked down the narrow corridors that led through the power plant and into the storage bays, where he had to thread his way through boxes stuffed with what was mostly munitions. Beneath his feet, shielded by several feet of concrete, were lead-lined boxes holding fissile material. Overhead, bombproofs. Knowing Apex weapons and tactics, they gave him little comfort should there ever be a battle.

Li felt eyes on him from the technicians, inspectors of munitions, and other workers here in the heart of the base. He rarely ventured this deep, finding it too tight, too claustrophobic. After so many years confined, he preferred the biggest spaces he could find, the least clutter, the fewest people. This was undoubtedly the reason they all stared as he passed. They wondered what he was doing down here. But he couldn’t help but worry that they were staring because the news had spread, that everybody—Opener, Sentry Faction, and Neutral—knew.

People had heard, people had talked. They wanted to know what he would do about it. And what would they say when they learned he’d actually translated the message and knew what it contained?

We’ll stay silent.
 

There it was. There was Li’s decision.

He would suppress the contents of the message if he could. If he couldn’t, he’d bring in his sister and Jeremy Megat to organize the Sentry Faction. But there would be no communication with HMS
Blackbeard
, whether the message was real or not. Even if real, the warship was severely damaged, by its own admission. It was far from friendly territory and had already proven itself incapable of fighting Apex. What could it possibly offer the Imperium?

What about what you can offer it? What about helping your fellow humans, your allies against the birds?
 

He pushed these thoughts out of his mind. Winning the war was what mattered. Inflicting maximum damage on Apex. Even if they were the last Singaporeans alive, they would fight to the end, never fall into the enemy’s hands. And they could only do that if they remained undetected.

Li was lost in thought as he continued into the habitation module. He reached his quarters, spoke to the door, and stepped inside when it opened at the sound of his voice. The lights were already on. Two people were inside, waiting for him.

Li stopped and gaped, so startled that someone had broken into his quarters that he didn’t even register at first who they were. The door slid shut behind him and sealed with a sigh.

“Hello, brother,” a woman said, lounging on his couch, arms outspread. Anna.

The other intruder was Jeremy Megat, who stood to one side with his arms crossed, scowling.

“How dare you?” Li said.

“My question to you, Jon. Exactly my question. This is treason, you know that.”

He pointed to the door. “Get out of here.”

“Explain yourself, first.”

“I don’t have to explain my actions to you or anyone else. I am the base commander, and my word is law. Go, damn you.”

“Except when you violate Directive One,” Anna said. “Then you have proven yourself unfit to lead and must be replaced.”

“Directive One does not say what you think it does. In fact, there is no such provision in the military code. That is something you and your faction have concocted.”

“It is an accurate interpretation of Imperium regulations, and we’re enforcing it.”

Li noticed for the first time that Megat was armed with a pistol in a holster. Where had that come from? And how the devil had these two got into his room? The door was coded to his palm print, and his palm print only.

Whatever the answer to those questions, or to how they’d learned he’d translated the message, it was obvious what this was. A mutiny. An overthrow of the military order of Sentinel 3.

Megat took a step toward him, and Li put up his hands. His anger gave way to prudence.

“Listen to me. Before you move, think this through.”

Anna didn’t move from the couch. “We have. Believe me, we act without pleasure. Out of absolute necessity. I respect you as my commander, for the efforts you’ve made to keep Sentinel 3 operational for eleven years. And you are my brother. But you have committed a treasonous act. You are no longer fit to lead.”

“I will have you both arrested,” Li said. “You understand that, don’t you? This display of factionalism will explode into civil war, and you will be the ones responsible for whatever happens. That makes
you
guilty of treason, not me.”

Megat put a hand on Li’s arm. “Don’t make this any harder than it has to be.”