Here we stand, p.63
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Here We Stand, page 63

 

Here We Stand
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  Of course he didn’t. He was taking a calculated risk with a high chance of failure, which could mean anything from getting vaporised to being sent away without a chance of ever negotiating with humans again. If he succeeded, though, he’d have an understanding with a powerful new ally that the Kugin didn’t even know about. He hadn’t worked out the nature of the advantage yet — technology, supplies, reinforcements, another secure base to operate from — but there had to be one.

  Cudik was waiting for him outside and he didn’t look any happier than Bas. A vehicle stood in the courtyard minus a driver, a utility transport of the type used by freight firms, so Cudik intended to drive Nir-Tenbiku to the port on his own, probably to talk him out of going to Opis without anybody else seeing the Halu-Masset in open disagreement.

  “No other luggage, Primary?”

  “I doubt I’ll be staying for long.” Nir-Tenbiku put his bag in the storage compartment and climbed into the vehicle. “I have the essentials for a couple of days.”

  Cudik started the engine. “You could take a concealable weapon, you know.”

  “No, I can’t. I must present myself to the humans unarmed. Besides, we don’t know what they can scan and detect. I can’t begin a successful negotiation with a lie, especially after what’s happened.”

  Cudik didn’t answer. He drove out of the city down one of the road tunnels that ensured large delivery vehicles didn’t spoil Rouvele’s illusion of existing in a more elegant era. Nir-Tenbiku sat staring at the road ahead, the green tunnel lights streaking past him on either side, and tried to look confident.

  Yes, he was afraid. Trying to establish relations with a new civilisation was the right thing to do, but he wasn’t the most competent person to do it. He’d talked himself into it because he felt he’d sat out the real dangers all his life, either cosseted as a child or cocooned as an adult in his well-appointed office in a picturesque city. A Jattan man was expected to face danger when it presented itself, and if necessary to sacrifice himself for the common good the way Gan-Pamas had done. Nir-Tenbiku couldn’t back out now. All he could do was hope that his ancestors were with him and would put a spiritual hand on his shoulder to stop him doing anything disastrously wrong.

  “Primary, forgive me for being disrespectful, but I think you’re being monumentally selfish,” Cudik said suddenly. He corrected the vehicle’s path with the occasional vague gesture. Nir-Tenbiku wished he’d pay more attention to the road conditions. “We’re approaching a critical time and you have a job to do — to be a Tenbiku heir, a symbol of legitimacy and hope. I know how responsible you feel for Gan-Pamas’s death, but he had a job to do as well, and it wasn’t personally collecting armaments, so now we have no procurement minister. This is why the Kugin think we’re reckless idiots. All this manly self-sacrifice for no good reason.”

  “Cudik, the Kugin think we’re all suicidal fools because the Protectorate officer class actually is.”

  “This is the very worst time to die for personal honour, Primary.”

  “I have no plans to die.”

  “We have loyal officers who would do this willingly.”

  “Cudik, I’m not fit to lead Jatt if I can’t face the same dangers that our troops will.” Cudik just wasn’t going to give up. Nir-Tenbiku didn’t like pulling rank, but he was worried that he’d lose his nerve if he didn’t stop this tidal wave of reasonable arguments. “Ingram knows who I am. She’s spoken to me. She knows I regret what happened on Opis. We already have some kind of rapport, or else she wouldn’t have behaved so properly about Gan-Pamas’s remains. This isn’t the time to send some random commander to make diplomatic contact.”

  “And what if they do kill you?” Cudik asked. “What are we supposed to do then, ignore it? Open a war on another front? Send a strongly-worded communiqué to Ingram? Those are more problems you’ll leave us with.”

  “You’ll carry on, and not be distracted by what happens to me,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “Can we focus on getting to Mekuvir safely, please? Have you filed a flight plan?”

  “Of course. As far as traffic control here is concerned, we’re going to Vezhy again. It’s always passed off without incident and there’s no reason to think today will be any different.”

  The shuttle would send back fake telemetry to hide the fact that it was emerging from spacefold at Vezhy and then continuing to the outer planets, but Esmosi traffic control wouldn’t care even if they knew. As long as nobody brought trouble to Esmos, imported dangerous cargo, or illegally exported national art treasures, they could do as they wished.

  The vehicle emerged from the tunnel into the daylight of a partially cloudy afternoon. The spaceport was on the northern coast, two prefectures away, and from there Nir-Tenbiku would be taken to rendezvous with one of the corvettes kept in a maintenance orbit around Mekuvir, an uninhabitable outer planet in Vezhy’s system. The Protectorate’s navy never bothered to venture that far out, which was just as well, because keeping even the modest fleet of the Maritime Force of Jatt supplied and trained was a difficult and expensive business, as was maintaining the vessels without a proper home port.

  Nir-Tenbiku remained surprised that the crews hadn’t given in to boredom and frustration after years of waiting for the war. Whenever he visited the ships, he was reminded how reliant he was going to be on the Protectorate commanders loyal to him on Dal Mantir, not because his own forces were inferior but because the navy and the troops being trained for the landings were so limited in what they could be seen to do. If they were spotted on exercises, it would be disastrous, so their time was spent mostly in simulations. They would have to find somewhere else to rehearse the operation.

  Perhaps he could persuade Ingram to rent some remote area of Opis to him. Now that would be worth having.

  Today’s mission to drop him off was the first real task the corvettes had faced since arriving on station. It wouldn’t test them in combat, but at least one crew would feel that real things were finally starting to happen in their career of make-believe revolution.

  “Storms,” Cudik said as he drove through the gates of the spaceport. It was quieter than usual. “Oh dear. Look at the meteorological warnings.”

  The signs around the entrance indicated a forecast of storm-force winds, heavy rain, and thunderstorms, and warned that flights might be affected for a while, but Nir-Tenbiku was ready to risk a little bad weather. Cudik parked the vehicle as close to the hangar as he could and the two of them slipped in through a side entrance to start the shuttle.

  “I’m impressed that you can still fly one of these,” Nir-Tenbiku said, fastening his safety harness.

  “I did my national service. You never forget. It’s all automation now anyway.” Cudik did the pre-flight checks like a professional and taxied the shuttle out to the allocated launch pad. “I didn’t mean that as criticism, by the way.”

  “I didn’t think you did. But I’m finally doing my duty.”

  Everybody who knew Nir-Tenbiku’s true identity also knew that he’d never undertaken the compulsory three years of military service that every other Jattan boy on Cer Clen was obliged to complete. It was too risky to expose him to the possibility of discovery, and his father had been rich enough to buy him an exemption without raising suspicions. But Nir-Tenbiku still felt humiliated by it, no matter how understanding the Halu-Masset and his entourage were.

  “That’s no reason to risk your life now,” Cudik said.

  “You’re not going to give up, are you?”

  “I’ll express my opinion until the last moment, Primary, in the hope that you’ll see sense.”

  “Save your breath, my friend.”

  Nir-Tenbiku hadn’t been cooped up with a member of his cabinet on a journey for a long time. It was hard to make small talk when they were a handful of people living in close proximity with very few external contacts. There was nothing left to talk about. After a rough take-off buffeted by winds, Nir-Tenbiku was content to be silent and let Cudik concentrate on laying in a course to Mekuvir the old-fashioned way, just to prove to himself that he still could. It was a couple of hours before he said anything.

  “Have you got a plan, Primary?”

  “Be more specific.”

  “What do you hope to get out of meeting the humans today, if they don’t shoot you on sight? What are you going to offer them? We start at a disadvantage by not being a functioning government with the ability to hand out largesse.”

  “Mining rights when we’re back in office,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “Special trade deals. But it depends what they offer us. The more I think about it, the more I’d rather be granted permission to rent land for a base on Opis than have their military support.”

  “Modest ambition, then.”

  “Cudik, you know how this goes. In negotiations you have to know what you really want and the point at which you’ll walk away. Between those two points is what you’ll accept.”

  “They’ll be neutral,” Cudik said. “They’ve made it clear that they don’t want to get involved.”

  “Ah, but Kugad might not allow them that luxury. They have the stolen prototype prenu. It’s hard to say it’s nothing to do with you when you’re caught with the proceeds of the crime.”

  “So why didn’t you ask Ingram more about the ship? Gan-Pamas said it was there. They didn’t end up with a commune of teeriks and a prenu by chance, and Gan-Pamas must have known more than he committed to his message, because what else could have made him head to Opis?”

  “I didn’t press Ingram because she would probably have cut me off,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “Those are questions to be put in person. And we’ll never know how Gan-Pamas found out where the ship was, but we might be able to piece together something from what Ingram tells me.”

  “You’re optimistic that she’ll give you an audience.”

  “I can only ask.”

  “Primary, if I were trying to lure you out of Esmos on behalf of the Protectorate so that I could assassinate you,” Cudik said, “this is how I would do it. You’d never be fooled by a direct invitation, but a rebuff from the humans would convince you of their honesty. It would explain everything. The Protectorate allows the prenu to be hijacked, the humans drop a hint so that Gan-Pamas can find Opis, and then they send information to tempt you to visit. We have no way of proving Gan-Pamas was the author of that message at all.”

  Nir-Tenbiku couldn’t fault Cudik’s logic, but it didn’t sound feasible. And he knew Gan-Pamas’s style too well. The message was real.

  “The Protectorate’s too rash and the Kugin don’t feel the need to be devious,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “You can find an infinite number of ways to explain anything if you have enough time on your hands.”

  He couldn’t let this erode his determination. He understood Cudik’s fears, and he also knew when the man was using his skill for inducing them in others. He’d been very good at psychological warfare. By the end of the day, though, Nir-Tenbiku would be in Opis space and he’d have the answers he needed. He just had to keep his nerve.

  When the shuttle finally emerged from spacefold and the corvette Steadfast returned Cudik’s signal, Nir-Tenbiku was relieved. He’d be in the scout vessel and clear of the ship with only his thoughts for company within a few hours. If Cudik raised any more doubts about the wisdom of this, he might well concede, and then he’d have not only shown he couldn’t keep his word, but also revealed a susceptibility that might be exploited again at some point in the future, when the issue wasn’t his welfare but the matter of who ruled Jatt.

  Steadfast’s commander met them on the hangar deck. He had an Oruan family name — Nesh — and an accent that confirmed he’d been raised in the province. Nesh had finished his service in the Protectorate navy’s coastal division five years ago, so Nir-Tenbiku knew he’d seen his share of skirmishes against smugglers at sea, and wasn’t squeamish about killing fellow marbidars. He was loyal, and he had a reason. His family, ore merchants, had lost everything when the Protectorate sold the nation into degrading vassalage.

  “Your ship’s ready, Excellency,” Nesh said. “And if you’d prefer a pilot to accompany you, we’re ready too.”

  “Thank you, Commander, but it’s best if I go alone.”

  “We’ll be standing by to pull you out if anything goes wrong, then.”

  “Thank you, but don’t stand by too close, will you? The point is that I show goodwill by not turning up with a warship.”

  “Of course, Excellency.”

  Nir-Tenbiku turned to Cudik. “I’ll be on the mess deck if you need me.” It was his way of asking Cudik to leave him alone and not nag him further. “Do you mind if I talk to the crew, Commander?”

  Nesh bowed his head politely. “Please go ahead.”

  The flight had been timed for Nir-Tenbiku to arrive on Opis around midday, which he could reasonably assume would mean Ingram’s base was fully operational. Arriving during the hours of darkness might seem like an attack. He now had a few hours’ transit time to use wisely, and rather than retreat to a day cabin and rehearse a few lines that he would probably deviate from anyway, he decided it was best spent talking to the crew. It was good practice to be an approachable leader and show his concern for his armed forces, but he also wanted to remind himself why he was doing this.

  The crew of Steadfast weren’t serving for the pay or to learn skills for later employment in civilian life. They could all have had more comfortable and safer lives if they’d returned to Dal Mantir or the colony worlds they came from and enlisted with the Protectorate instead. They were here because they were willing to take a risk to restore something they cherished, even those who didn’t remember it but whose grandfathers did. That said something for the enduring power of Jattan identity.

  And it wasn’t easy to recruit. Every post had to be filled by word of mouth, every candidate’s background thoroughly checked to weed out Protectorate agents, although the current Jevez regime didn’t behave as if it regarded the opposition as a serious threat, just an irritant. Perhaps that was one of the advantages of taking a very long time to exact revenge. The Protectorate thought they’d buried their treachery in history and were in the clear.

  “Is this it, Excellency?” one of the engineers asked. “Are we going to see action soon?”

  “I don’t know,” Nir-Tenbiku said. “The presence of these humans could change everything. We shall see.”

  “And nobody else knows they’re here.”

  “It seems so.”

  “What if they’re worse than the Kugin?”

  It was a good question. “If they are, we can’t do anything about it, but they’ll at least keep the Kugin busy. And the Protectorate. So they may still be a blessing even if they’re tyrants.”

  Nir-Tenbiku longed for a world of clearly-defined right and wrong where he didn’t have to think in such labyrinthine terms. But he’d been raised from childhood to be a politician and a diplomat, and that had to be his lens on the world, even if he wasn’t as prone to convoluted thinking as Cudik. As he shared a pot of his Esmosi floral tisane with these sailors, he realised this conversation was as near to purity of cause as he was ever likely to get. The crew were clear about their motive; the Common Welfare Party had removed an elected government, it had sold the independence of Jatt to the Kugin, and that was a crime that demanded justice be done. It was simply wrong.

  Nir-Tenbiku hoped the Jattans living on Dal Mantir wanted to see that wrong put right as much as he believed they did. The fight for Jatt would happen on the surface of Dal Mantir, not in space, and his forces wouldn’t be an invading army, but a catalyst for an uprising on the ground.

  This was Nir-Tenbiku’s whole strategy. His own relatively small force would do two things; it would attack specific government targets in Jevez, and it would activate the sleepers in the Protectorate’s armed forces and strategic industries to rise up, and that would be the point at which the general population would be encouraged to shut down the country and become ungovernable. They didn’t have to take up arms. They simply had to stop cooperating. Was it a gamble, relying on Jattans he had no direct control over to form the bulk of the liberation force? Yes, but it was also an answer. If he couldn’t command the support of those people in the first place, he’d never hold Jatt in the long run. They’d show they didn’t want the return of a free nation.

  Nir-Tenbiku would never spell that out to the rest of the Halu-Masset, because it sounded cowardly after all these years of planning, but he didn’t want to be an unwelcome leader. If the majority of Jattans preferred to remain Kugin subjects, Jatt was no longer the country he’d thought it was or that his grandfather had fought for. He wasn’t sure what he’d do next if it turned out that they liked their subjugated lives and rejected his restoration, though. His existence would be over, his life wasted, and he had no heir. He had no meaning or purpose beyond that point.

  Well, that certainly wasn’t the right frame of mind to be in for his appeal to the humans. He took his leave of the crew and spent half an hour in the scout vessel’s cockpit familiarising himself with the few controls he needed to use before he felt the vibration in the deck that signalled the emergence from spacefold.

  Cudik and Nesh showed up on the hangar deck. Nir-Tenbiku switched on the video feed and looked upon Opis for the first time. Whatever the humans’ home world was like, it had to resemble this to make it worth building an outpost here. It was still a quarter of a day away at sub-light speeds, but he could see it was blue with oceans and wreathed in white cloud. It was rather like Dal Mantir.

  “Are you sure you’re happy doing this without a pilot?” Cudik asked.

  “Of course I am. The only manual activity I have to undertake is triggering the automation and getting myself in and out of the seat.”

  He’d approach Opis with Steadfast safely out of sight and open a communications link. If Ingram refused to meet him, or launched an attack, he’d activate a single control for a rapid escape in the opposite direction. If he persuaded her to let him land, the ship’s automation had coordinates set for an open area beyond the base and would take care of that as well. Nir-Tenbiku would have been able to do it himself if he’d served his conscription period. It mattered more than ever to get this right without needing the navy to rescue him.

 
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