THE portion of the firstborn generation of Barsk that established the Caudex based their entire existence on a single core belief: the Alliance wanted every last Eleph and Lox—every man, woman, and child—dead and gone. They believed the bureaucracy responsible for transporting all the galaxy’s Fant to Barsk had only enacted the beginning of a plan, putting them all in one spot to facilitate their eventual annihilation. Margda’s Compact had forged a truce of sorts, but it was at best a stopgap; it bought some time for the Fant, but not safety. The Caudex resolved to use that time to best advantage, to develop plans to ensure they survived at any cost.
Sometimes the Alliance’s contempt for anything and everything touched by Eleph or Lox worked to the advantage of the Fant. Eight hundred years earlier, when the first waves of resettlement had begun—before the tone of the relocation had grown darker—among the many ships ferrying Fant to their new home on Barsk were commercial spacecraft owned and operated by Fant concerns on Marbalarma and Kensington, Venango and Slon, Dramblys and Passyunk. In the rush to be done with the unwanted Fant, these vessels slipped off the grid, ostensibly kept in active service to transport latecomers, which went on for most of a decade. When the planet’s pharmaceutical treasure trove opened, these same ships provided some support for building Barsk’s space elevator and orbiting satellite. But then, under the guise of “business as usual,” various agents of the new forming Caudex purchased every Fant ship and began hiding them throughout the system, powering down all nonessential energies and limiting personnel to the barest of crews. Alliance licensing databases showed all of them as decommissioned, sold to other concerns, or crashed on the surface of one of the moons of Barsk and destroyed.
Instead they merely waited.
After two hundred years, everyone had forgotten the ships even existed. By then, other projects had begun to bear fruit and the Caudex found themselves in preparation to return Fant to the larger galaxy in a way no one expected. One by one the sleeping ships powered up, took on cargo and passengers from Barsk, and vanished.
* * *
KLARCE sat in the Speaker’s chair on the bridge of Cerulean, formerly Oberon’s Treat, a refurbished shipping vessel now serving the Caudex as an emergency transport. It had docked with Cahill’s Absence, a seeming derelict of a private vessel, the sort traditionally associated with corporate directors of world-spanning financial concerns. A search of Alliance records would reveal the craft had been stolen six hundred years earlier, reported as lost and destroyed. Instead it wound up here, floating on the edge of a solar system seemingly devoid of life. More than a thousand years earlier an Alliance Patrol craft surveyed this section of space and found it wanting. It held no useable planets, just a lone gas giant with several unpromising moons. The Patrol ship traversed the system from one end to the other, filed their report, and kept going in search of more welcoming worlds. Standard Patrol procedure involved always looking outward and never so much as glancing back.
The policy suited the Caudex just fine.
Though Cahill’s Absence was dead in space, it was also large enough to contain a much smaller vessel, once assorted bulkheads had been cut away and all equipment removed. The ship wasn’t so much a derelict as an empty husk. Inside its dead skin hung an unmarked two-man scout ship that was very much alive.
A tenday ago it looked doubtful the same could be said about one of the scout ship’s crew. A routine bit of repair work in the gap between the ship’s surface and the Cahill’s Absence’s inner hull had gone horribly wrong, all but crushing Damace, the Fant handling the repair. He survived, but required medical attention beyond both the equipment of the scout ship and the expertise of his crewmate. The specifics had passed quickly through channels all the way to the Quick Council on Barsk back in its distant star system. As protocol dictated, a rescue vessel had been dispatched. Owing to the injured ethernaut being one of Klarce’s younger brothers, she had set another protocol aside and insisted she be part of the rescue crew.
No signal, no electromagnetic energy of any kind, had come from Cahill’s Absence or the small ship it contained, and the Cerulean had transmitted none. After docking with the derelict, it affixed a transfer umbilicus to the long-blown hatch, and transferred a five-person team—three medical personnel, an engineering specialist, and a replacement crew member who brought up the rear towing four crates of supplies. They swam into the space between the ship in a ship, aware of the irony of their location, and then boarded through the inner vessel’s airlock. It was snug for a while, then the medicos brought Klarce’s brother back to the umbilicus in an emergency capsule. The engineer disconnected the umbilicus, waved a go-ahead to Cerulean, and remained behind with the replacement ethernaut as the transfer tunnel retracted. Back onboard their ship, the medical team secured their patient in a bare bones infirmary far superior to what had existed on his original ship.
Klarce had no medical training. Her only assistance would have been to hover over the team and glower inspirationally. Instead, she remained in the Speaker’s chair and along with the captain watched the video feed as the experts she’d brought attempted to stabilize Damace for transport. She’d taken koph once her brother’s capsule came over and when the captain signaled she reached out for the nefshons of her brother’s recent crewmate, connected to him as easily as she might greet someone walking down the boardway.
“Hello, Porlie. Cerulean’s captain informs me Damace looks as ready for transport as he’s going to be.”
In her mind, Klarce sat in the all-purpose room of a two-man scout ship hanging on the edge of space, all its systems shut down save passive sensors mounted on the surface of the derelict around it, for all the world like a little fish wriggling in the belly of a larger one that had swallowed it and died of the action. She shook her head, dismissing thoughts of dying, and instead looked at the person sitting next to her. Porlie was a male, twenty-something Lox, whom she’d known for most of his life. He faced her in an identical hammock chair.
“Thank you for coming so quickly, Klarce, I’m so sorry—”
She waved him to silence and his ears fell back and stilled. “The Caudex looks after their own, whether back home on Barsk or out in space. You know that.”
“Yes, of course, but … thank you for coming yourself.” He cleared his throat, sat up straighter. “Councilor, if you’ll hold, I’ll reach for the operator on the other side.”
“I’d appreciate it. We all want to get Damace home.”
“Understood, Councilor. Quick as I can.”
She watched as Porlie’s eyes unfocused, as he spoke to Damace’s replacement and authorized the transmission of a coded signal. Back on her own bridge, the captain’s eyes would be watching for the result, as the pieces of a disassembled portal came together and powered up. The code changed daily. Four people in the entire galaxy knew it and one of them was unconscious in the infirmary. She could force her way onto this ship, but even a member of the Quick Council couldn’t violate the security protocols necessary to keep them all safe.
Porlie looked up to her. “Portal diagnostic comes back green on all lights. Hold, please. Reaching for the operator.”
His eyes closed again and somewhat ironically the nefshon construct of his body slumped. Like her, Porlie was a Speaker. Every Caudex vessel possessed at least one, along with sufficient supplies of koph to ensure that untraceable, point-to-point communication could take place instantly across the vast distances between stars. The Alliance’s Patrol built and established massive and permanent portals throughout the galaxy as the means of allowing their ships to skip the space between inhabited solar systems. The Caudex had created their own, considerably smaller, gateways. They then quietly spent centuries moving these new portals into position, and once arrived, they deactivated and disassembled them until need dictated otherwise. Without a working portal, anyone seeking to enter this system would spend many years doing so and provide plenty of warning to the Fant here.
Klarce waited. It was an odd thing to watch another Speaker in mindspace reach out to connect with a third. The moment dragged on and then Porlie was back. A third Fant joined them in the shared illusion of mindspace, an older Eleph who had probably requested the duty for the relief the lack of gravity brought to her aging body.
“Hello, Councilor Klarce. Porlie. Nice to see you both. Right on schedule. The portal on this end has been activated and is standing by. There are no other vessels insystem at this time, and according to the agent on the other side of our Alliance portal no one is within three days of coming through. We’re ready for your return at your convenience.”
“Thank you, Jenna. I’ll inform the captain here. A moment.”
Klarce shook her awareness free of the nefshon venue and lifted her head. Cerulean’s captain sat at the command station, watching her.
“We have clearance to proceed, Captain.”
She nodded. Klarce glanced at the instrument panel showing a newly opened portal on this end. Unlike an Alliance portal which never shut down, Cerulean had awaited Klarce’s confirmation there was an open gateway on the other end. The captain snapped her trunk at the Eleph sitting at helm. “You heard the councilor. Thread the needle and take us through.”
As the vessel hurtled toward the portal, Klarce slipped back into conversation with the agents guarding either side of it. “We’re on our way now. Porlie, standard procedure. When Jenna tells you we’ve successfully cleared her side, power yours down and disassemble until you get the next call.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Jenna, same deal. After we’ve come through, shut it down.”
“Klarce,” said Porlie. “Take care of Damace.”
She blinked back a tear. “Like you have to ask.”
* * *
KLARCE allowed herself a sigh of satisfaction as the ship entered the edge of their home star system on the opposite end from the Alliance portal that provided access for the ships that docked at the station above Barsk. Under the watchful eye of her primary assistant she’d taken an extra dose of her meds—reasonable given the stress of the trip—and then allowed Temmel to guide her through Cerulean’s labyrinth of corridors to the infirmary. They joined the medical team and together headed to the bay where they transferred her brother’s capsule to a shuttle. Moments later, with Temmel in the pilot’s seat and after receiving permission from the ship’s captain, they slipped from the larger vessel and dove unobtrusively deeper into the system. In only a couple of days she would have Damace back on Barsk and the unnamed island’s best physicians would restore him to full health. That was the plan. Nothing in the rescue mission had required her presence. It was all sentimentality, and now it was time to set such thoughts aside. She slid into the empty copilot’s seat and nodded to her assistant.
While she’d been on the bridge of the Cerulean, Temmel had himself made use of koph to get in touch with other members of her team back on the island and prepare a schedule for her review. She glanced through it now, the usual endless list of tasks, organized into sections showing which she could delegate, delay, or ignore, and which demanded her immediate attention. The life of a member of the Full Council.
Taking an unscheduled trip on a rescue run had put her well behind, and placed a burden on the rest of the Quick Council. They’d grumble, Sind worse than all the rest, but they also understood her motivations and it would pass. She’d have done the same for any of them.
“None of these can wait upon landfall?” She scowled at her assistant’s list of critical items. Just because she had to wait days to get home didn’t mean she wanted to bore herself with trivial make-work. She handed the list back to him. “Summarize!”
Temmel flipped through the document, unperturbed by her petulance. “The early projections from the physicist’s work are promising though the power required to operate the prototype-in-progress appears daunting. He’s been informed of the problem and insists there’s a trivial fix. Also, his handler is requesting authorization to begin longevity treatments on him. She believes his potential contributions will more than justify the expense.”
Klarce snorted. “Does she now? Hasn’t he only just arrived?”
“Yes, but she’s been tracking his work for a tenyear and believes he’d have made a breakthrough long since if he’d had funds and a proper engineering team to turn his theories into a working prototype.”
“Huh. And does she have any inkling what kind of argument I’ll receive from the Full Council over this? Every person we add to that program is another enormous drain on our resources. What is she thinking?”
Temmel pressed his lips together, eventually nodding when he realized her question hadn’t been rhetorical. “Perhaps … she’s considering the loss if he expires before finishing the work after so much effort to bring him along to this point.”
“No, she’s right. It’s just … his theories are extreme. Anyone qualified to evaluate them acknowledges he’s out there beyond the edge of the understandable. If he’s right, then our security takes a vast leap forward. But what if he’s not?”
“Surely then we’re not worse off than we are at present. Still secure, and simply out those resources we invested in the attempt.”
“You think I should authorize the treatment?”
“Ma’am, with respect, I’m not qualified to have an opinion.”
She snorted again. “My grandmother’s snot you’re not. What have I been training you for if not to assume my seat on the Quick Council one day. Not only do you have an opinion, you have the luxury of it not carrying any responsibility, yet. So out with it. What do you believe I’m missing here?”
Clearing his throat, Temmel let his ears drop back in earnest. “Have you met him?”
“Met him? What? No, of course not. You’ve pored over every moment of my schedule for years now. When was I supposed to meet him?”
“You should. I’ll try and make some time in your schedule. Perhaps you can attend a lecture, or I should ask him to do one, a colloquium or some such. I heard him, years ago when I was on assignment on Taylr. Hearing him talk about his work, it was unlike anything I’d experienced.”
“So he’s a charismatic lecturer.”
“No, ma’am. He’s a physicist whose skills and insights have allowed him to glimpse something beyond our universe and bring the sense of it back with him. Assuming he’s a suitable candidate for longevity, I can’t imagine anyone who would benefit the Caudex more by another few decades of productivity.”
Klarce’s snort turned to a smirk. “More than me? My name will be up for consideration in a few years. Do you think his work constitutes a greater contribution than my own?”
Temmel embraced the temerity she’d suspected lurked within him and said, “It’s not for me to say, ma’am, but the physicist is unique and as you’ve observed, you expect to be replaced. By me.”
“Fine. I look forward to stepping down after a long and triumphant career. Maybe I’ll retire to Wella or Nita, sit on my porch and spoil grandchildren with before-dinner sweets until my years catch up with me, while this physicist lives on and on. Approve the request, but tell his handler I want to see some preliminary findings. I’ll need them when I have to beat back the noise of the other councilors about this.”
She watched him make a note of the decision.
“What’s next on your list?”
“The Aleph, Margda’s chosen.”
“What about him?”
“He’s been researching societal patterns on mixed worlds where Fant lived prior to the transportation to Barsk.”
“And we know this how?”
“Our field agent put a trace on his terminal. It’s as sophisticated a piece of hardware as exists on Barsk, the same model as in your office both at home and in Ulmazh. And as a member of the Committee of Information he has access to any and all data in the Alliance.”
Klarce waved the remark away with a sweep of her trunk. “As an an Aleph-Bearer he theoretically has access anyway, but what’s your point?”
“He’s compiling lists of races which Fant successfully lived among in the past. He published several ‘thought pieces’ in academic journals, hypothesizing ways in which we might find ourselves commingled with various combinations of other races, taking up rational or at least plausible reasons why they might be resistant to the idea and offering up potential solutions. He’s advocating ending our isolation and independence.”
“He’s been out there, you know.”
“Ma’am?”
“He’s left Barsk. It was one of the accomplishments that earned him his aleph. He’s been out there and returned. For more than a full turning of the seasons, Jorl ben Tral lived and worked among several handfuls of other races. No doubt the experience has given him an extremely special perspective on the matter. He might even be right, how would we know?”
“Ma’am? You can’t be serious. What he’s advocating would constitute a potential risk to the security of everything we’ve built!”
Klarce nodded. She held up a hand to forestall anything further; this discussion was one that would only escalate her assistant’s concern. “It’s something the Full Council has discussed as well. But tell me, how have his peers responded to these journal articles? Has he garnered any support among the intellectual elite at Zlorka or elsewhere?”
“Quite the opposite. The most positive reaction has been resistance. At the other extreme, several of his previously close colleagues have denounced him for his reactionary ideas, and a petition had even been circulated demanding the revocation of his tenure on the grounds of moral turpitude.”
“Moral turpitude? That’s not a justification that gets invoked much.” She smiled briefly. “Did the petition gain much traction?”
“Not really.” Temmel consulted his notes. “Ah, a past provost—who had published a brief response of his own, strongly hinted Jorl ben Tral would be better served focusing his talents in other avenues of research—invalidated the petition on the grounds that even though the most, and I’m quoting now, ‘bizarre and wrong-headed direction of inquiry might be construed as demonstrating poor judgment, such a thing is qualitatively different from a reflection of morality, but rather an expression of academic freedom, which should be recognized and protected by all scholars.’ That appears to have been the end of the matter.”
Klarce settled back, lacing her fingers together and bringing her trunk up to rest curled behind one ear. Was Temmel paying attention? It was precisely the things he learned during these conversations that would allow him to grow into a councilor rather than remain a personal assistant. “Here’s the thing about this Jorl ben Tral. He came to our attention when he left the planet, though of course we couldn’t keep a watch on him then. Upon his return—honorable discharge resulting from a personal obligation back on Barsk—he went back under routine passive observation; we labeled him as a special case, someone worth checking up on now and then. His status was later upgraded to active and an agent assigned to him after he’d been marked with an aleph and identified as the Lox whom Margda had mentioned in one of her prophecies. But like most Bearers, his life has been unremarkable, albeit with a few notable exceptions. He returned to his work as a historian and we expected him to remain a quiet academician. The first blip we observed was his decision to associate with and even tutor an abomination. A few years later he was somehow involved with an incident on the space station—which I will note has yielded neither official nor unofficial reports—the upshot of which led to his designation as an Alliance senator.”
“Ma’am, how does a Fant become a senator? I realize we’re technically a part of the Alliance, but Barsk has never sought nor been offered participation in the government.”
“If you’re expecting me to make sense of this for you, I can’t. The whole thing is absurd, not least because this historian has never shown any political leanings at all. Someone is hiding something here, but we’ve found no trace of who or what. And in the years since his appointment there’s been nothing unusual to report. And believe me, we’ve expended considerable resources in the investigation but it proved futile. As a senator, Jorl ben Tral is an excellent academic, which surprises no one. This latest thing you’ve brought me is the first hint of anything subversive from him. He’s been completely apolitical till now.”
“So you’re recommending the council take some action?”
She brought her trunk down and waggled it at her assistant. “These essays of his, they aren’t a concern yet. But they do justify why we assigned a field agent to keep him under observation. Margda singled him out for a purpose, and not knowing why is reason enough for us to watch him. But seriously, do you imagine his idea of reuniting us with even one other race of the Alliance is going to gain any traction?”
Temmel had the good sense to blush. “No, ma’am.”
“Right. What’s next on the list?”