A person ought to be careful what he asked for. He might get it.
Dag Korin. General Dag Korin. Chan was irritated by him already, and the man had hardly spoken a word.
It wasn’t his age, though the General, hero of Capella’s Drift, looked about a hundred and ninety-nine years old. It was his boots. Ceres gravity was so weak that you couldn’t clatter or stamp on the floor. Chan had tried it, and reaction bounced him high into the air.
But Dag Korin could do it. He must have magnetic soles. He could march up and down on the hard floor of the Ambassador’s main office, and every step produced a brain-piercing crash.
And now he was starting to talk, too. Not just talk, lecture, not in an old man’s voice but in brazen and stentorian tones that resonated off the ceiling and the bare walls and right through Chan’s fragile skull case.
“I share completely Mr. Dalton’s dislike and utter distrust of the aliens.” Crash went the boots, as the General made a sharp about-turn. “We do not want them with us in our expedition to the Geyser Swirl. What are they, after all? A Pipe-Rilla is no more than an oversized praying mantis, an ugly creature put together from lengths of leftover drain pipe. An individual member of a Tinker Composite has less brain than a horsefly. It takes ten thousand of them together to match a human in intelligence! As for the Angels, to my eye they have always looked as though they belong in a stewpot with other vegetables.” Crash, crash went the boots. “And when it comes to the human virtues, of courage and nerve, what do we find? We find them wanting. The aliens — allthe aliens — are the most craven, cowardly, fainthearted — if they even have hearts — pusillanimous, fearful, shivering, timorous beings imaginable. The idea that such objects should be able to limit human access to the universe via the Link Network is so totally outrageous that it takes my breath away.”
Chan felt like saying, but I worked with those aliens on Travancore, and I liked them. I like them still. I just don’t want them in the way if things get sticky in the Geyser Swirl and we have to protect ourselves.
He didn’t have the strength to speak, and General Korin was just hitting his stride.
“However, we must not allow our natural disgust with these meddling beings to interfere with our primary goal. First, we will cooperate with them in our journey to the Geyser Swirl, so as to produce an end to the quarantine. Then we must assure our permanent access to the Link Network. We must learn how it was that they were able, twenty years ago, to place the embargo on us. I am told that will be much easier to do once we are again using the Link Network on a regular basis. And beyond that, we must pursue our long-term plan: to assert our dominance, to establish a pax Solis everywhere within the Perimeter — and then extend that perimeter.”
No point in mentioning to the General that there was already peace everywhere within the Perimeter. Well, almost everywhere. Let’s say, everywhere that humans were not in control. And Chan had no objection to increasing the human sphere of influence; he was in fact in favor of it, provided there was something in it for him. But did Korin have to be so loud about the matter, so early in the day? Chan took a drink of cold water.
How long would it take the expedition to reach and explore the Geyser Swirl? That started another thought. It wasn’t just Dag Korin, it was also the other crew members of the Hero’s Return . Who would they be, and what would they be like? Chan expected a battle regarding the composition of the crew. There would be room for far more people than the three apparent incompetents running the Mood Indigo. The General would surely propose some absurd collection of his military minions.
One of Korin’s own candidates was in the room. She sat at the back, as far from the General as possible. She must have heard him speak before. She had been introduced by Dougal MacDougal at the beginning of the meeting, but Chan could not recall her full name. Dr. Elke Somebody. Some kind of scientist proposed by the General. She had shaken hands with Chan and stared down at him — she was very tall and blond and anorexic-looking — as though he was some kind of slime-mold at the bottom of a pond. Her last name had an `s’ at the beginning, which she had spoken with a slight lisp. Th-iry , that’s what it sounded like.
That was it: Elke Siry ; a proposed crew member in need of a good square meal, but otherwise an unknown so far as Chan was concerned. Just as Dag Korin was a partial unknown. That was bad. One thing you learned, the hard way, was that before you went into a dangerous situation you needed to know your companions inside and out.
Not only that, if you had any sort of choice you didn’t let other people decide your teammates. You picked them yourself. Your ass was going to be on the line, not Dougal MacDougal’s or any other Ceres bureaucrat’s.
Chan had recognized that from the start. He had sent the word out. But where were they? He had not heard back from a single one. So much for so-called old friends. They were as bad at keeping in touch as he was. On the other hand, could he be sure his messages had reached them?
Crash, crash. Loud, foghorn voice, rivets driving into his skull. “…If, indeed, the story of a new Link point in the Geyser Swirl, previously unknown to the Stellar Group and not created by them, is true. Suppose that we are being lured to the Geyser Swirl. Suppose that the aliens …”
Chan was as suspicious of motives as the next man, but he couldn’t compete with this. Who could Dag Korin possibly be shouting at? Not Chan Dalton, who sat just a few feet away. Somebody on the far side of the Moon, judging from the volume of sound. Crash crash , turn, quick march back across the polished floor.
Chan couldn’t stand any more. He lurched to his feet, almost overbalancing in the negligible gravity of Ceres. “Excuse me.”
General Korin halted in mid-stride and mid-sentence. He stared at Chan with impatient eyes. “Do you have a question?”
“Yes. What makes you think that anything the aliens have told us about this is true?”
Korin stared. It must be a novelty, finding someone more paranoid than he was. “Are you suggesting—”
“Yes, I am. I think that every single thing we’ve been told by the aliens about events in the Geyser Swirl is a lie. When we go there, we must be prepared to deal with any form of chicanery and deception. I have not met the crew you are proposing for the Return , but do they include specialists in trickery and bluffing, or in the fine art of the double cross?”
Chan could read the look on the General’s face. Surprise and suspicion, giving way to conviction and accusation as Korin turned to Dougal MacDougal.
“Dalton is quite right. We must be prepared for every form of misinformation from the aliens. As for our crew, Dalton, you are looking at it. I believe that this expedition will be best served by a minimal and flexible force. You. Me. And Dr. Siry. The ship runs itself. Are you suggesting that we need more military?”
“Of course not. So far as I know, solar military doesn’t have specialists in deception and bluffing. I don’t know where you would find people like that. But I know where I will.” At least, I know where I’ll be looking for them . “Give me one week — no, make that ten days — and permit me unlimited travel around the solar system. I will find the men and women we need.”
“Civilian government workers?” Dag Korin’s tone implied that he would rather work with a complement of toads.
“Not quite that.”
“But they have experience operating in a highly structured and defined environment?”