Future Shock, page 19
“How long do I have to decide?”
“I’d suggest deciding quickly,” Boswell said. “The first datapacket needs to be delivered today.”
“I’ll read the files ... we’ll read the files,” Cao said. “And then let you know.”
“You can stay in this compartment, as long as you need,” Boswell said. “And for what it is worth we are genuinely sorry.”
Cao believed him. It didn’t matter.
He took the datapad and forced himself to read, skimming the summary quickly and then digging into the files themselves. If anything, Boswell had understated the case. Cao was going to lead a major revolt that tore a vitally important star system out of Chinese hands, setting off a series of falling political dominos that would culminate in the collapse of the entire regime. There was no way in hell his government would leave him alive. Not now. Horror washed through him as he realised how many other names there might be in the files, ticking time bombs just waiting to explode. This was his own file, his own shadowy future that would never be. What about everyone else’s file?
“I have a family,” Cao said, quietly.
“We’ll do what we can for them,” Boswell said.
Cao tasted bile at the back of his throat. He had a duty to his country and yet ...
“I have to go back,” he said. If he went home, if he took the files with him ... if he showed his loyalty and returned, perhaps his family would be safe. Perhaps. It wasn’t anything like certain and yet ... perhaps the crisis thirty years in the future could be headed off, perhaps the government could save the country by taking measures now. Perhaps ... “I know my duty.”
“They’ll kill you,” Anderson said.
“Maybe.” Cao was too numb to be angry. Anderson was a war hero in the other timeline. Cao was a traitor. “But I know my duty.”
Anderson glared. “How do you know it won’t make matters worse?”
Cao made a face. “What do you mean?”
“If you go back home, they’ll kill you,” Anderson pointed out. “They’ll purge everyone they can identify in the files as a potential rebel. A climate of hatred and fear will be created, one that will provoke others to rebel in the conviction they will be named in the files, sooner or later, or their name will be inserted by one of their enemies. You might do China a final service by leaving.”
“At the cost of my family,” Cao snapped. Americans! They had no sense of something greater than themselves. “And the state I swore to serve.”
Anderson flushed. Cao pressed on.
“And if I go back, I can try to convince the government not to crack down,” he added, tapping the datapad. “If we can prevent the mistakes of the last timeline, the original timeline ...”
“If.” Anderson met his eyes. “My government wasn’t very happy about any of this. Do you think yours will be any happier?”
“I have to try,” Cao said. “If I go face the government, my family will be spared.”
“I hope you’re right,” Anderson said. “I really do.”
***
“Poor bastard.”
Hamish glared at the hatch, through which Cao had departed only a moment ago. The Chinese officer was heading to his death, and every last flicker of human decency Hamish possessed was urging him to call Cao back, to convince him to stay and force the issue if he remained stubbornly determined to go back home. And yet, Cao was right. Going home now, walking to his death, was the only way to save his family. There was just no guarantee it would work.
He shuddered. It simply wasn’t fair. . His alternate self had been a war hero. Cao’s was a traitor. Hamish didn’t believe the Chinese Government would leave Cao alive, certainly not outside a work camp, once they knew what he’d done. Would do. It wasn’t fair and it wasn’t right and ...
“They’ll kill him,” he said, quietly.
He felt sick. America had her problems, but China was far – far – worse. The entire country resembled an insect colony, with the population kept under constant surveillance and dissidents removed – unpersoned – before they could contaminate the rest of the country with their ideas of a better way to live. The elite lived like princes, the rest struggled to survive ... there was a little social mobility, true, but not enough. The analysts had been predicting collapse within decades. So far, they’d been wrong.
Anger burned within his gut, anger and shame and guilt. Of course Cao had a family. The Chinese Government mandated marriage for naval officers, arranging them to entrap promising young men in a web of obligations that could easily turn into a stranglehold if the youngster stepped out of line. Cao might love his wife and children, or he might resent her mere existence, yet ... he couldn’t leave them behind. Hamish had heard the horror stories, they all had. The wives and children of deserters received the punishment their husband and father would have received, if he’d taken it like a man.
His thoughts mocked him. The Chinese Government would do whatever it had to do to remain in power, no matter if it had to purge thoughtcriminals and rebels who were not – yet – guilty of anything. They’d want to change the future before it was too late ... a question echoed in his mind, one he didn’t want to look at too closely for fear of the answer. Would he strangle six-year-old Adolf Hitler? Would he snap the neck of five-year-old Osama Bin Laden? Would he kick Sir Travis Mortimer off a cliff? The man had come very close to death as a youngster, if he recalled his history correctly, and it wouldn’t take much for the man to meet his doom before committing any of his ghastly crimes. Would he kill someone who would grow up to be a great villain? They’d be children! They’d be innocent!
Hitler killed millions of people, his thoughts pointed out. Surely it’s worth getting a little blood on your hands, even the blood of an innocent child, to save those millions?
Sure, his thoughts answered. That’s exactly the kind of argument the Chinese will use to justify murdering Cao. And his entire family.
Bile rose in his throat. Cao was a good man. He’d done well during the hasty preparations for departure and deployment, and he would have gone on to do well during the battle ... the battle that had never taken place. And then he’d turned into a traitor. Or a freedom fighter. It rather depended on who won the war. The records were in front of him. He didn’t want to look.
Fuck, he thought, as an officer appeared at the hatch. Boswell spoke briefly to him. Hamish barely noticed. If we had never met these fucking ships ...
He tried not to feel guilty, but ... How many other surprises were lurking in the historical records? The question nagged at his mind time and time again, a mocking reminder that something could go wrong – seemingly randomly – at any moment. What might blow up his future – his new future – at any point? How many of his officers and crew were going to lose everything, because of something they hadn’t done? Not yet. Perhaps not ever. History had already changed, and now it had changed again and ...
Hamish swallowed, hard. He could take the datapad and tap in dozens, perhaps hundreds, of names. His officers and crew, politicians and celebrities and ... he shook his head. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know. How could he look someone in the eye knowing they’d committed a terrible crime, ten years in the future ... except they hadn’t committed it! They might never!
Boswell rejoined him. “I’m sorry about the delay.”
“You do realise you’ve sent him to his death?” Hamish tried and failed to keep the bite out of his tone. “They’re going to kill him!”
“He had the right to choose,” Boswell said. “The others will have the same chance.”
Hamish glared at him. “You didn’t have to share that with anyone!”
“We did,” Boswell said. “Access to future knowledge was part of the deal. We couldn’t withhold it ...”
“Then deepfake it,” Hamish argued. “You have all the computing power you need to put together a convincing fake ...”
“And when they get clear proof we’re being dishonest, and they will, what’ll happen then?” Boswell shook his head. “We gave him the best chance we could. And he might just convince his government to listen.”
Hamish snorted. “The Chinese Government is easily the most fascist system in history,” he said, tiredly. “They’re not going to change ...”
“Even if they know their system is doomed?” Boswell met his eyes. “We let him take all the data with him ...”
“They’re not going to change,” Hamish said. “Authoritarians never do. They’ll do everything they can, save for giving up one little fragment of power. They won’t give their people any freedom ... fuck! They’re probably going to cripple their fucking military with political commissioners, after this display of future independence! I ... I wish I’d never found your ships!”
Boswell said nothing for a long moment, then stood. “I understand that you are upset ...”
“Really.”
“Yes.” Boswell leaned forward. “I could tell you that our arrival saved countless lives – and it did. I could tell you that our arrival gives humanity a fighting chance against the Killers – and it does. I could tell you many things, but ...”
“You have the power to smash the Chinese Government,” Hamish interrupted. “Why don’t you?”
“Because we don’t have the firepower to do it without inflicting millions of casualties,” Boswell said. “Nor do we have the groundpounders needed to occupy China afterwards. Given time, China will reform. As will the rest of the world.”
“History has already changed,” Hamish snapped. “There’s nothing determined about the course of the future, is there? For all you know, you might have ensured the survival of the Chinese Government instead!”
“I doubt it.” Boswell leaned back in his chair. “They never adapted. That was the core of their problem. They never adapted. And that won’t change even with knowledge of the future.”
“Really?”
“Yes,” Boswell said. “Like you said, they’d have to give up power. And that’s the one thing they can’t give up.”
Chapter Twenty: HMS Vendetta, 2308
“They’re very much like us, aren’t they?”
Y’Opohan allowed himself a toothy smile as he studied the data his crews had hacked from the planetary datanet, a system so creaky he had no idea why anyone thought it was remotely secure. There were so many gaps in the system, so many ways to get in and extract information without being detected, that his intelligence staff had an embarrassment of riches. They’d downloaded thousands upon thousands of files, from open-access history records to top secret government archives, so many that even the most advanced analysis software at his disposal was completely overwhelmed. He’d kept the crew downloading anyway, piling up vast amounts of data that would have to be sorted or discarded a few years down the line. It was only a matter of time before Captain Boswell managed to get the locals to tighten up their data security, perhaps even reinforce it with modern technology. Unless he was pillaging the local datacores too ...
He felt his smile grow wider as he studied the files. The contemporary humans weren’t the self-righteous humans he knew, but beings little different from the Zargana Empire. They dressed it up differently, he noted, yet at base their attitude was practically identical. The mighty had the right to do as they pleased, because they were mighty; the weak bent the knee, serving their superiors without complaint. Earth was smaller than Zargana Prime, he observed, but the basic principle was still the same. The Great Powers bullied and exploited the smaller powers mercilessly, placing their interests ahead of any abstract principles; the weaker powers fumed helplessly, even as they made concession after concession at gunpoint. The Great Powers had no qualms about punitive strikes, if the weaker powers tried to object. It was astonishing how reasonable local rulers became when they realised they could be smashed flat from orbit and they had absolutely no way of resisting.
Hypocrites, he thought. Dealing with the Terran Federation was an exercise in patience, particularly when the humans started babbling about their moral superiority over just about everyone else. They were so self-righteous about their principles that they forgot the first rule of existence: there are no rules. The universe was red in tooth and claw. You were either strong enough to defend yourself or you were weak, targeted by everyone strong enough to take whatever you had and keep it for themselves. You could be the victim or the victimiser, and if you happened to be the former ... you were at everyone’s mercy. You grew from this poisoned soil, and yet you have the nerve to lecture us?
His lips twisted into an expression that would make most humans, and even his own crew, back away in a hurry. The contemporary humans were, in many ways, worse than his own ancestors, even by his standards. They preyed on their own people, without the obligations that came with being the lords and masters of everything they surveyed; they drowned themselves in poison, practiced sexual perversions that would have – presumably did – disgust even the notoriously libertine Terran Federation. What did Boswell make of it all, Y’Opohan wondered, as he gazed down from his cruiser onto the cesspit that had given birth to the human race? Did he ask himself if he’d done the right thing, in making contact with the locals? Or did he think he should have vanished into deep space and let history remain on course?
I suppose I’ll never know, Y’Opohan thought, coldly. It was beyond him to feel any sort of sympathy for a human, but still ... History has already been derailed beyond any hope of repair.
His claws flexed. If he’d been in charge of the fleet, there would have been no hesitation. The nine human starships were more than powerful enough to overwhelm the local fleets, even if they were grossly outnumbered. Kill a few battleships – the lumbering designs would be heading to the scrapheap sooner rather than later – carry out a few demonstration strikes against particularly unpleasant local governments, and take over, hammering out a modern tech base while ruthlessly eradicating anyone who dared to get in his way. The Diyang wouldn’t be a problem, not with the right mindset. A handful of long-range ballistic projectiles would permanently deal with them, once slammed into their planets at a respectable fraction of the speed of light. Or a tailored bioweapon. It was a dishonourable way of war, even by the standards of a species that believed the only true honour lay in victory no matter how it was achieved, but he had few qualms about using such methods. The Diyang were doomed, one way or the other. The sooner they were destroyed the better.
But Boswell was too soft to do what must be done.
Y’Opohan did not pretend to understand it. Boswell commanded the nine most advanced starships in the system, making him the most powerful person for hundreds of light-years. Sure, technically, some of the ships weren’t warships, but the technical disparity ensured it didn’t matter. A modern civilian tool could be a devastating weapon in primitive hands. The survey ships might have light weapons, compared to the warships, but they could still take on the heaviest local warships and win effortlessly. Boswell could take over – and he really should. It wasn’t easy to make head or tail of the local government, let alone the media – thousands of channels, broadcasting speculation rather than hard data – but it was clear change was going to come slowly, if at all. Boswell could fix the problems in a moment, if he took over. And yet he was bargaining for a worthless world rather than taking the entire system for himself.
It might give them their only hope of survival, once we reach the homeworld, Y’Opohan thought, coldly. Boswell may have more advanced technology, perhaps, but the empire has far more ships, and more advanced ones than the local humans. And the longer he refrains from taking direct control of the system, the better for us.
He wanted to leave now, but there was a problem. The handful of Federation Navy starships represented the only real threat to his people right now, and they’d have to be disabled, or destroyed, if he was to get clear. John Birmingham would be difficult to handle alone, and she had five destroyers backing her up, with enough firepower to give Vendetta a very hard time. The humans preferred not to craft specialised warships – their cruisers were designed to handle everything from combat to rescue and relief missions – but he knew from experience their ships were not to be underestimated. Simply leaving Sol and running wasn’t an option. He had to make sure John Birmingham couldn’t come after him either.
Boswell himself might not understand the threat, Y’Opohan told himself. But the local humans very definitely will.
His smile widened, once again. The Federation Navy was too used to thinking of itself as the most powerful force in the galaxy. The survivors still did, even after the Killers. They were immensely rich men who hadn’t come to terms with being poor, who hadn’t quite realised they no longer had unlimited credit and bank accounts that could never be emptied, no matter how much they spent. The attack plan Boswell had drawn up made perfect sense, for a modern fleet, but the locals could no more carry it out than a brigade of crawler-mounted cavalry could charge into the teeth of plasma gun fire and expect to come out alive. One might as well order a wet-navy submarine to surface somewhere in the middle of a continent, miles and miles from the sea. It wasn’t going to happen ...
Officer D’Holin twitched, drawing his attention back to her. She was still kneeling in a pose of supplication, waiting respectfully for her superior to speak ... except she was showing traces of irritation, hints she wasn’t quite happy holding her posture. Another thing she’d drawn from the humans, she and everyone else like her. They thought they could abandon the poses of proper respect and submission, that a society didn’t need lessers to prostrate themselves in front of their betters. Fools. Proper respect was the basis of civilisation. She would change her mind once she was in charge herself, he was sure. She’d hardly be the first liberal-minded officer to become a conservative when she found herself reaping the rewards.
Not that she will, Y’Opohan told himself, with a flash of pride. She’d be removed from her post once they reached the empire, reassigned to the motherhood nests where she’d raise the next generation of children. It was for her own good. She’d be far happier as a mother and child attendant, and his ship would run smoother without a handful of fertile females on the command deck. She’ll be back in her proper place before too long.
