Here We Stand, page 38




The gate might even enable them to get away with an attack in Esmos if nobody knew where it had come from.
Hredt preferred the emphatic warning. Humans would need provocation to do that, though, and he knew them well enough now to realise they’d need proof that a previously unknown force was actually hostile. Their hesitation and soul-searching over how to deal with Gan-Pamas had shown that. And they weren’t going to get that proof until it was too late.
While he was trying to work out the Jattans’ intent credibly enough for Ingram, Solomon called him via Curtis’s comms.
“The freighter’s identified a relay in Esmos,” he said. “So if your assessment’s correct, it would be too risky to target the Jattans there. But at least it confirms it’s the opposition.”
“That’s unfortunate,” Hredt said. “Although you could use the gate and never be identified.”
“They’d probably guess it was us, even if they didn’t know how we did it.”
“Do you have any objections to me monitoring the probe for a reply?”
“Not at all,” Solomon said. “I put a drone in place to pick up audio. I’ll give you access as well.”
Hredt continued examining their limited options. It all depended now on whether Nir-Tenbiku responded and what he had to say. Perhaps he’d be happy with just this ship and would never bother Nomad again, but Hredt doubted it, and only fools based their strategy on the best outcome. He had to plan for the worst.
If the opposition was serious about kicking out the Protectorate, it couldn’t afford to waste resources fighting an extra enemy. It would be even more reluctant if that enemy looked like the vanguard of a much larger expeditionary force. He knew what he needed to do. He also knew that it was the one thing Solomon opposed completely, and Chris thought was insane; opening the sector to a lot more humans by giving them proper FTL technology. Even Ingram and Marc wanted to delay that.
Hredt started doing some projections. He understood the difficulties of accommodating large numbers at short notice, so the Caisin gate wasn’t appropriate this time. But the longer they left it to give Earth the data to manufacture its own drives, the more they put themselves at risk of being outnumbered and destroyed. He couldn’t let that happen to them, and he couldn’t let it happen to his commune either. They rose or fell with Nomad.
But everyone — Chris, Ingram, Jeff, Commander Searle — had said it would take Earth ten years to build ships, even if they were given precise instructions and only had to follow them. Ten years was too long. And what did they base that figure on? Whatever it was, humans had never had the advantage of teerik expertise before, and that would make all the difference. Hredt was sure he could cut that lead time in half, and maybe even shave it down to three years.
It still wasn’t immediate, but Nir-Tenbiku might not be able to respond immediately either. Perhaps that was why he’d sent a probe instead of a task force: he might not have had the vessels to do it.
Hredt was now about to disobey Ingram’s wishes — and Solomon’s — and hand the technology to Earth. But he knew he had to do it in the same way that he’d found the nerve to do all those other things he’d never imagined, like approaching the humans for help in the first place. Perhaps his recklessness then had come from the declining level of drugs in his body, but those decisions had turned out to be right. He’d be right again. Nomad couldn’t face what was coming on its own.
Now he had a project to plan, and that was what he did best. He needed to know three things — who to provide with the technology, because there were blocs like APS that treated Nomad as an enemy; whether the recipient could actually build ships; and how much to tell them about where this technology came from. Humans weren’t aware yet that other intelligent species existed. They’d spent a lot of time imagining that they did, but the reality might be too much of a shock for them at a time when he needed them to focus on building ships. Jeff had told him how first contact would have meant years of negotiation and diplomacy under normal circumstances. Nomad would end up dying from bureaucracy and delays.
There was only one nation Hredt felt he could entrust with the technology. Britain was still free of die-back, it had its own small space programme, mostly devoted to spy satellites, and it had proved it was what Ingram called decent — it was willing to evacuate the stateless Americans from Ainatio and give them sanctuary. It had also produced people like Chief Jeff, Marc, and Ingram. Hredt felt he knew exactly what Britain was.
He spent the rest of the day studying the most recent data he could find on British industrial capacity and working out where he could shorten the construction process. He could make sure he was available at all times to talk them through the more difficult engineering work, and they need never know he was an alien. He also knew exactly who to contact, because he could still access the comms log for the assay probes currently orbiting Earth and pull the data from Marc’s previous calls to his contact in the British government.
It might prove hard for Britain to build the ships, but Hredt would give them the technology anyway. They were probably the most capable after APS, and APS was to be kept as far from Opis as possible.
It was all working out. Everything was clear. Hredt even felt confident enough to send some of the Earth probes to do reconnaissance and assess how much industrial activity was currently happening in Britain. Eight hours later, he had the outline of a production programme to go with the FTL documents he’d already drawn up for Ingram. The one problem he still faced was placing the call to Marc’s contact without Solomon knowing.
For a moment, he felt terrible for planning to do this to the people who’d saved his commune. But this was still his technology, and he had the right to do as he liked with it. In that case, he’d use it where it could do most good for them and for his commune, because a few thousand people, no matter how willing to fight and even with the advantage of the Caisin gate, were ludicrously outnumbered here.
Backup, they called it. Hredt was making sure they had it, even if it wasn’t as immediate as it should have been.
By the time someone came looking for him, he was well into the production plan. Turisu squeezed into the cockpit and stared him down, head cocked to one side.
“You turned your radio off and I don’t think you’ve had anything to eat,” she said. “What are you working on?”
“Trying to understand what’s happening on Earth.” Technically, that was true. He didn’t have to be geographically specific. “I’m using the ship’s comms, so it’s not hard to locate me.”
“Have you eaten, though? You get strange when you don’t eat.”
It was incredibly benign nagging. It was almost kind. Turi had always been snappy and argumentative even before the issue with medication, but now she was remarkably relaxed. Chief Jeff had noticed. Hredt wondered whether her dose was now too high.
“I’ll eat when I’ve finished my calculations, Turi. Thank you for worrying about me.”
“The humans have contacted the Jattans, haven’t they?”
“Yes.”
“They can be so stupid.”
“They’re just doing what they know, as we all would.”
“This is why you’re studying Earth again. You’re preparing to send them back to safety.”
“I have to be ready for anything.”
The Turi he’d grown used to would have been furious about all this, but she just seemed disappointed with human naivety. He hoped she wasn’t too sedated to do her job properly.
“Don’t forget to eat, then,” she said, and left.
Hredt worked for another hour and took a break. There’d been no word from the Jattans, so either they hadn’t received the message yet or they were deciding what to do about it. Hredt went back to the compound to eat, flying short distances when he had enough space to take off, just to ease himself back into exercise.
The house was silent now that his grandsons were accompanying other commune members to learn their skills. In a normal commune back in Kugad, they would have been gone forever now and he’d never have seen them again. Whatever happened next, the one thing he wouldn’t regret was having his true family around him.
He finished his meal quickly, disposed of his medication bar, and flew back to the hangar in short bursts. Rikayl appeared out of nowhere and glided alongside, probably hoping to play.
“Busy!” he said. “Need fun.”
“Later, Rikayl. I have work to do.”
“Always busy.” Rikayl rasped his disapproval and flew away, gaining height until he was circling overhead to keep watch on the base. He’d learned not to venture too far from the perimeter now. It might have been because the base had as many interesting things to watch as the Opis wilderness, although there was nothing for him to hunt.
When Hredt got back to the hangar, Solomon was looking around as if he was killing time while waiting for him. He resembled the farm dogs sniffing trees. Hredt had learned not to comment on that because Jeff said Solomon saw his alter ego as a different, more elegant kind of animal.
“Still no response from the Jattans,” Solomon said. “But they might not be checking transmissions at the moment.”
Hredt had been out of communications range once he left the ship, so it wasn’t unusual for Solomon to update him. But he had the feeling it was about a little more than that. Solomon was aware at some level of all comms and sensor activity, and he’d know — or he’d find out when running routine checks — that Hredt had separated a unit from the probe swarm orbiting Earth for his own use. It was often hard to work out what Solomon was aware of at any one time, as his role seemed to be more of an overseer managing non-sentient emanations connected to himself. Those slaved dumb AIs, as the humans called them, were the units that did the specialist tasks like translation and directing engineering bots.
Ah. That might be a good way to get a call to Earth past his scrutiny.
“It could take them some time.” Hredt decided to go on the offensive in the most polite way. “Do you have any more detailed charts of Britain, please?”
“Are you looking for somewhere in particular?”
“If Tev and his family don’t thrive here and need to return to Britain, where will we place them? And it has to be Britain, because they daren’t go back to Fiji. If our strategy with the Jattans backfires, where do we place evacuees if we need to get them away from this sector in a hurry? I realise you could do it, but I need to be able to do it too. We have no idea which of us would survive if we’re attacked.”
It was a reasonable question. It just didn’t happen to be the one he wanted an answer to. Solomon stared at him with that eyeless snake-head camera.
“It’s a good point,” he said. “I’m sure Captain Ingram’s considered that, but you’re the gate expert.”
“I’m sure we’d agree a location with the government in advance, but if time doesn’t allow it, it would be a terrible tragedy if the evacuees were shot on arrival. I know Britain is always on alert for invaders.”
“I’ll find some charts and give you access,” Solomon said. “They’ll be some years out of date, but Marc might have more recent data from British spy satellites.”
“Thank you. I also need to put the probe through repair and diagnostics soon, because we’re overdue a maintenance cycle, so I’ll do that by separating individual segments rather than taking the whole net down. We can’t afford to be out of contact with it yet.”
Hredt wasn’t sure if that allayed Solomon’s inevitable suspicions, but it seemed to have satisfied him for the time being. It wouldn’t divert him for long, though. Hredt now had to speak to Marc’s contact in the government as a matter of urgency.
The problem was doing it without Solomon noticing, at least until the data had been sent. Hredt wasn’t ready. He’d wanted to send more detailed information with the production document, but there wasn’t time now. If he failed at this or Solomon caught him, it might be years before anyone felt it was safe to share the technology with Earth. He’d have to do it now and transmit what he had.
He sat in the cockpit, thinking through his options. Just as Solomon had picked up things from observing teeriks, Hredt had discovered a few tricks by watching Solomon. He could try manipulating the ID code that was unique to individual comms-enabled devices. If he faked Marc’s number, Lawson would recognise it, but it would cause trouble for Marc. All Hredt needed was a few minutes to get Lawson’s attention and send him the data. He’d withhold his own number, connect to the special number that Marc had used to reach Lawson direct, and set the probe to conceal it. Solomon might be able to drill down and find the actual numbers, but if he was monitoring the Earth relay at all, he’d only see the various channels taking data from around Earth. The probe was made up of a number of smaller ones receiving satellite imaging, feeds from entertainment sats, and comms links, and Hredt’s link would be hidden in the latter.
He only needed a head start. He didn’t need to conceal a secret forever. Once the data was with the right person, he’d have nothing more to hide.
Just a lot of explaining to do to some very angry humans.
That’s actually a big risk. But they need our technology. They can’t exploit it on their own, not yet. By the time they can, they’ll have seen sense and they won’t hate me.
Turisu would be furious, though, medicated or not.
Hredt reset the segment of the probe and spent a few moments calming himself before plucking up courage to send it Lawson’s number. He knew he hadn’t thought this through enough, but he’d have to live with the complications.
The calling tone rang and continued for a while. Hredt hadn’t checked the time on Earth, but it was too late to worry about that now. He had to say three things quickly when Lawson finally answered: that he was a friend of Marc’s, that he had more data on drives, and that he would send it right away. If Lawson didn’t think he was a random lunatic and end the call, he’d explain more so that the man understood how important it was to keep the data secret.
“Yes?” a voice said.
Hredt was suddenly terrified. Had he called the wrong man?
“Mr. Lawson?”
“Yes.”
He blurted out his main points, afraid of hearing the link fall silent. “Mr Lawson, I work with Marc Gallagher. I have important data to send to you. I have very little time. Will you hear me out?”
Lawson paused. “I’m listening. Who are you?”
“I’m not able to give you my name,” Hredt said, astonished at how smoothly the story slipped out of him. He’d never thought of himself as dishonest, but he’d had years of experience of telling clients what he wanted them to know rather than facts they probably couldn’t understand. “This follows the material that he sent you. But this is a set of instructions and technical data for a ship with a superluminal drive. FTL. An entirely new technology.”
There was another pause. Lawson seemed to stop and think every time he replied. “Are you one of the Ainatio researchers?”
“This isn’t like Ainatio’s wormhole technology,” Hredt said, dodging the question. “This is several generations on from that.”
“And what would you want for this?”
“To know you’d build it and use it.”
“I see.”
Hredt’s heart was pounding. This man had no idea he was talking to an alien. It was frightening and thrilling, but it also made him feel utterly ashamed. “Mr Lawson, I’ll send you the data and the production plan and you can assess it. If you agree that it’s genuine, you can call back.”
“I don’t see a number for you.”
“Call Marc on the number you used before. But if you decide to go ahead, I’ll make myself available by comms link to help you at every stage of the process.”
“Do you mind my asking why Marc isn’t making this call?”
A little bit of truth would help now. “Because it would put him in a difficult position if I’d told him I was doing this. He would dissuade me from taking the risk. I’d suggest talking to him after you’ve had time to look at what I’m sending you.”
Lawson was quiet again for a few moments. “Very well. I’ll look at the material. Thank you.”
Lawson sounded what Jeff called underwhelmed, as if he had doubts. Hredt tried to emphasise that his motives were genuine. “Marc’s my friend, and he’s done a great deal for us. So this is solely for you. It’s highly confidential. Please stand by for the data.”
Perhaps Hredt had gone too far, but it was said now, and in a few seconds it would be done. He tapped the list of files and then the transmission icon. Unless Lawson and his colleagues dismissed it as a hoax and did nothing with the information, he’d just changed the course of Earth’s history.
It wasn’t the first time, and not even the first time this year. He was making a habit of it.
08
How would we view Solomon if he hadn’t chosen us? He could have decided we were the ones who needed to be left to die. How different is he from Earthmother?
Dr Ingrid Morris, family physician, Kill Line.
Meeting of the Halu-Masset, Cabinet of the Government of Jatt in exile: three days after losing contact with the probe.
“Does this tell us anything at all?”
“That we should approach our new neighbours with caution, Primary,” Cudik said. “But how we approach them at all now is anyone’s guess.”