Final Inquiries (7 page)

"Okay," Hannah said. "Evaluate. Cold and calm--and assume they can hear us, record us, translate later."

"We don't know anything secret," Jamie objected. "We don't know anything at all."

"Yeah, but let's keep good habits," Hannah said. "Maybe we know more than we know. Talk. Carefully."

"Okay," Jamie said. He paused for a moment. "Brox wouldn't have given us that history lesson if it didn't have anything to do with the case," he began. "And they--whoever 'they' are--wouldn't have sent Brox to brief us if the
Kendari
weren't involved--and they wouldn't have come to BSI--and us--if
humans
weren't involved."

"So," said Hannah, "the obvious conclusion is that whatever case we're meant to deal with involves humans and Kendari and the Pentam System--or at least it might affect negotiations about the Pentam System."

"Two
planets,
Hannah. Two whole habitable
planets.
Maybe a pair of Earth-plus tropical paradises--or maybe one is a frozen iceball that's barely warm enough at the equator, and the other is so hot that only the north and south poles are survivable. It doesn't matter. Two
worlds
that people can live on without building domes or underground habitats. Plus which, lots of people care who
doesn't
get Pentam. That tells me that, somehow, Pentam has strategic value. And Brox has as much as told us the list of candidates for who gets Pentam is down to humans and Kendari."

"So?"

"So what if solving the case--whatever the case is--gets in the way of humans claiming two whole worlds? Or suppose cracking the case gets in the way of keeping the
Kendari
from snatching them? And let's just bear in mind that our old dear honorable friend and enemy Brox 231 is playing the game for the same stakes we are--but he has a
lot
more information than we do. He's going to have all the same motives, or temptations, or whatever you might want to call it, to bend the case his way--and he's starting the game with a lot more chips and much better cards, than we have."

Hannah frowned. "Or if you really want to dream up nightmares, suppose the case concerns a minor infraction by our standards, by human standards. To them it's a crime against civilization--but to us it's a parking ticket. Would it really be the right choice to make if we did
everything
by the book--and cost the human race two planets? Would bending the rules enough to keep the Kendari from getting them, and endangering us, necessarily be wrong, bad, and evil?"

Jamie shook his head. "Listen to yourself. If
I
made that paranoid and worried a speech, what would you tell me?"

"Something like there's never any way of knowing for certain how things will play out in the long run--or even the short run. And that mostly things don't work out the way you expected anyway."

Jamie nodded and grinned back at her. "So you might as well play it all as straight as you can, because playing dirty might not work out as well as you think."

"Okay," she said. "So maybe the moral is there's no point in overthinking this thing."

"But let's not underthink it either," said Jamie. "We can't assume things will be what they seem to be."

"Agreed. But there's something else," said Hannah. "Brox is
scared.
And maybe more than that. In shock. He's hiding it well, and it's always tough to read a xeno's body language and expressions, and he's doing a terrific job of playing it cool--but even so, it's plain enough that something has him really, really worried. Something
bad
has already happened--and something worse might."

There was a sudden lurch, and a bump, then the command sphere was falling away from the navigation dome port. Both Hannah and Jamie dropped heavily onto the deck, Jamie falling forward and Hannah sitting down very abruptly. Cursing and grumbling, Jamie got up on his hands and knees, then shifted around to look up at the rapidly receding view of the stars. "Now what?" he asked.

In a moment, they were through the first hatch, and, as best Hannah could judge, heading back the way they had come. "Well, we moved forward to get as far as possible from the propulsion system when it lit, and to do a visual navigation check. Now the check is complete, and the engines are off, so the safest place to be is back where we were."

"If Greveltra is that worried about safety, maybe he should be a little more careful about knocking us over," said Jamie. He sat down on the deck facing Hannah as the command sphere banged and clattered its way through the system of shafts and hatches.

"The SubPilot is not worried about
our
safety," Hannah said. "Just his."

Brox came around the corner and looked from one of them to another. "Is your private conversation over? Am I intruding?" he asked in Lesser Trade Speech.

Hannah glanced at Jamie. He shrugged. "I think we're done," she said. "We sort of came to the conclusion that if we left out guessing, we wouldn't have much to talk about. Speculating too hard might do us more harm than good."

"I am glad to hear it," Brox replied. "It makes what I have to say at least somewhat easier. We will be making the transit-jump very soon. We had basically agreed that I would brief you on the case itself once we had completed the jump, were safely in the Tifinda System, and there was no longer even a theoretically possible way for anyone back in the Center System to monitor the conversation. On reflection, I feel it would be best for the case if I did not brief you at all before you examine the crime scene. I wish you to see it without any chance of your being influenced or unintentionally misled by something I said."

"Brox! Come on!" Jamie protested. "We're going crazy not knowing anything."

"I assure you that I sympathize. Even so, I ask you to endure this period of frustration. I believe you will understand and agree with my choice to let you perform a completely unbriefed examination of the crime scene evidence. Our transit through the Tifinda System to our destination will be somewhat shorter than our outward passage through the Center System. We will reach our destination in approximately another three hours."

"That's going to be a long time to wait," Hannah said.

"Not so long as it will seem," said Brox. "And I believe it will save time, and effort, in the long run. And, quite frankly, it will protect me from any later accusation of trying to influence you unduly."

Jamie was about to protest further, but Hannah caught his eye and shook her head. "Brox is right, Jamie. We just got done agreeing that we could get misled by our own speculations. If Brox wants to make sure we don't get pointed in the wrong direction because of something
he
says, that's just more of the same. Let's do a nice, clean, unprejudiced examination of the evidence. Go in cold, without preconceived notions."

Jamie frowned. "All right," he said. "But I'm not happy about it. I guess we just have to wait it out."

Hannah laughed. "So we'll sit in the dark with nothing to do and nothing to see while going at ninety-odd percent of the speed of light, and while setting the all-human record for transit between two planets in different star systems. Maybe between two planets, period. You ever hear of anyone getting from, say, Earth to Mars in under four hours?"

Jamie looked surprised. "No, come to think of it."

"Anyway, it's going to be a lot less boring than the one-or two-week flights we usually have to take," said Hannah. "That's got to count for something."

"I appreciate your understanding," said Brox.

"We'll ask a favor or two of you sometime," said Hannah, glad that she had been able to get Jamie more or less mollified. And, after all, Brox had given up some information. Either by accident, or because he saw no reason to deny the obvious any longer, he had at least admitted there was a crime scene--and therefore that a crime had been committed. And he had reinforced that admission by referring to evidence to be examined.

It was remarkably little to go on, but clearly it was all they were going to get. Hannah leaned back against one of the nameless machines that lined the corridor and shut her eyes. "Might as well get some rest, Jamie," she said. "Not much else to do. Besides, once we get there, I've got a feeling we're in for a long, hard day."

Hannah heard Brox snort in a Kendari sort of equivalent to a laugh, but she didn't bother opening her eyes.

"That much," said Brox, "I think I can confirm without prejudicing the case. We should all get some rest."

The
Eminent Concordance
raced through the darkness and toward the dangers and mysteries ahead.

FOUR

SHOUTS OF SILENCE

Hannah managed to make a sort of lumpy pillow out of her equipment vest. She then accomplished the even more unlikely feat of lying down, propping her head up on it, and dozing off right there on the deckplates.

It sometimes seemed to Jamie that Hannah and he took turns at being able to shut down and sleep. Jamie couldn't imagine sleeping right then and there, no matter how much sense it made to be rested for whatever lay ahead. Never mind. One of them ought to be awake to keep watch in any event. And if Hannah could sleep, and he couldn't, then it only made sense that he take the duty.

The minutes crawled by as Jamie sat on the deck, with nothing to do but think of all the questions that Brox wouldn't answer, all the guesses it wouldn't be smart to make.

"What's it like making a transit-jump on this ship?" Jamie asked Brox, more for the sake of conversation than anything else.

On a human-built ship, a jump was never completely routine. Transiting safely from one star system to another required incredible power and precision. The slightest inaccuracy in navigation could endanger the ship or disorient the crew. Transit-jumps could produce all sorts of strange effects, from weird lighting flooding the ship's interior to power surges that blew out equipment or scrambled computer systems. BSI ships tended to fly on poorly charted routes, which meant they ran into more severe effects more often. BSI ships flew jumps with as many systems as possible powered down, braced, as much as possible, for whatever trouble came their way.

"Transit-jump? I believe we have already made it," Brox replied evenly. He stood up and trotted a few steps closer to Greveltra's pilot station, then returned. "Yes. As best I can read the displays, we have already made the jump, and we are currently in the Tifinda System." He sat down again, tucking his four walking legs under him and wrapping his tail around his body. He stretched out his arms and twisted his neck one way, then the other, the very picture of bored patience. "We will be there soon enough," he said. "Based on what happened on my flight from Tifinda to Center, I can tell you that very little will happen until we are almost there--and then it will all happen at once, very quickly."

So. What was regarded as the most dangerous part of the trip for a human starship was so routine, so safe, so unremarkable on a Vixan ship that they didn't take any special precautions. You couldn't even tell that it had happened.

"If it's of any comfort to you," said Brox, "I find it all as intimidating as you do."

"I didn't know Kendari could read minds," Jamie said.

"We can't, as you know perfectly well. But I
have
been trained to read human expressions--and yours weren't exactly hard to read just now. The only difference between you and me at the moment is that I have already made one complete trip on this ship today, and we're getting close to the end of my second. And, of course, that I have been on Tifinda, and dealing with the Vixa, for some time. Even being stunned by the sheer power of this ship--and all their other technology--wears off after a while. Even being scared can get boring for a Kendari."

Jamie laughed. "For a human too, if it comes to that."

"It is a danger we must guard against," Brox said in a more serious tone. "Just because we have lost interest in a danger, that does not mean the danger has lost interest in us."

"Well, at least we'll never get bored being scared of each other," Jamie said. "Humans and Kendari, I mean."

"Are humans really frightened of us?" Brox asked, almost seeming surprised. "I suppose I knew that, intellectually, but it never really struck me as an emotional fact. We're frightened of
you,
of course--and also, I might add, very angry and annoyed."

"Annoyed? Why?"

"That isn't obvious? We arrived out in galactic society, or whatever you want to call it, just a few twelves of years before you did. We look back on that brief period as a lost golden age of promise. We weren't just one of two Younger Races. We were
the
Young Race among all the Elder Races, the
only
Young Race. Special. The first New Race of sentient starfaring beings to emerge in many thousands of years. In fact, it had been so long since a new sentient species was located that most of the Elder Races had assumed that the process of emergence was completed. We were unique, and of interest.

"Some of them took to calling us the Last Race. Their studies proved that 'the wave of evolutionary fervor'--that was their favorite phrase--that had produced all the sentient races had reached its end. We were the last dot on the graph, the last to appear. We were to be cherished, prized, protected.

"And then humans emerged, and the novelty was gone. Suddenly all their theories were wrong--and Elder Race scientists don't like to be proven wrong any more than Kendari scientists--or human ones, for that matter.

"Somehow or another, they seemed to take it out on your people, and mine, almost as if we had evolved, developed spaceflight, then star travel for no other reason than to make them look foolish.

"Since
you
appeared they have to explain away everything they got wrong. Some of them have decided you
humans
are merely the last aberration, the Last Race. Some have taken to assuming that there are any number of other Younger Races out there, bound to appear at any minute. But that position requires that they admit their mistake.