“How so? Our best chance of carrying out Timber Pony has just been eliminated.”
“I am by no means as certain of this as you are. I have never been convinced that the ploy of inserting a disguised assault team was the most attractive—or promising—method of executing the plan. It was, to use a human idiom, a piece with too many moving parts. If one failed, the machine would not function when needed. Consequently, the vulnerability to both routine mishaps and competent enemy screening were too great to ensure acceptable odds of success.” Alnduul paused. “I know you are reluctant to pass the responsibility—and risk—of completing the mission to individuals, Richard Downing. I am, also. But with the primary delivery alternative canceled, we have little choice but to ensure that all the assets remain within striking distance.”
“Of course, this means we will have to insert special data into the infiltration unit updates to try to nudge our remaining delivery assets in the right direction.”
“You are sure that Captain Corcoran and Major Patrone would not obey a direct order to move into greater proximity to the target?”
Richard shook his head. “They would not, and we have no way to embed such an order in the updates, let alone know if they received it.”
“Then you are correct. We must embed data that entices them to collapse on the target area. But we must take more extreme measures in the case of Caine Riordan. Look.” Alnduul gestured into his extraordinarily lifelike holosphere of the coastal shallows north of Jakarta. A filament-thin spindle of green light twirled and shone, moving slowly away from the perfectly rendered landmass. Two other spindles—one yellow, one cyan—were still on the landmass, one at the western edge of the city, the other on the east. Alnduul pointed to the green spindle. “Riordan.”
Richard frowned. “He didn’t run until we ensured he was trackable by the Arat Kur.”
Alnduul seemed to feel the veiled accusation in Downing’s tone. “True. But we had to act as we did. If, as you suspect, he had become part of the resistance, that presented two dangers to his participation in Case Timber Pony. Firstly, he could have been killed either in combat or in prison, unless he was captured by the Arat Kur.
“Secondly, even if he was captured and survived, as an active insurgent, his diplomatic status would have been revoked, thereby eliminating his unique access to the enemy headquarters. Logically, therefore, his resistance activities had to be terminated and we had only one such method at our disposaclass="underline" making him intermittently detectable to the Arat Kur. Enough to convince him to desist his actions, but not enough to lead to his death.”
“I will point out that it may have almost come to that on one or two occasions.”
“Richard, like his namesake Odysseus, Riordan is not easily deterred from his plotted course of action. Consequently, balancing the threat levels necessary to effect a change in his behavior is a delicate and difficult task.”
Downing folded his hands. “And Riordan didn’t react as you predicted, either. Rather than surrendering himself to the Arat Kur without any mention of his guerilla activities, now he’s actually trying to leave Indonesia. Despite the danger of crossing the fifty-kilometer maritime limit.”
“Which is why we must once again make him detectable to the opposition. That they may herd him back in the direction of the target.”
Richard’s lunch moved unpleasantly in his stomach. “And once again, he could be killed.”
Alnduul’s nictating lids cycled once, slowly. “It is possible, but unlikely. The blockade enforcement units are expected to search any questionable boats and investigate before resorting to overt force of any kind.”
“The key words there are ‘expected to.’ I don’t like that risk. Where are our other delivery assets?”
Alnduul gestured to the other two spindles of light in his holosphere. “Captain Corcoran and Major Patrone continue to collapse on the target area, but not so steadily or directly that we may be sure they will be in sufficient proximity. And they do not have Riordan’s unique access to the target. So we must take this step. We must have every asset as proximal as possible.”
Downing rubbed his forehead. “Yes, I know. Particularly since none of them is even under our bloody control. Not even in contact. Hardly the way the plan was supposed to go.” Understatement of the century. Case Timber Pony has been cocked up ever since the Arat Kur EMP strike enabled all my assets to give me the slip…
“And yet, Richard, you foresaw that the assets might move in the needed direction even if left to their own devices. As occurs now.”
“Yes, but the accuracy of that conjecture is less the result of psychological insight than it is dumb luck. They could have done anything, once they were out of my control.”
Alnduul’s mouth twisted very slightly, his fingers drooped a bit. In a human, his would have been a wan, rueful smile. “Do you truly believe that any plan involving the behavior of sentients can be so reliably controlled?”
Downing scoffed at the thought. “Evidently not.”
Alnduul gestured at the holosphere. “And yet, here are the assets, moving in generally the right direction.” His mouth-twist became more pronounced, “Sometimes, Richard, we are most in control of situations when we cease trying to force our direction upon them. Rather than struggling to shape the flow of gathering currents, it is often better to simply be carried by and work with them.”
“So we’re playing at judo, now?” Downing grinned crookedly. “Dōmo arigatō, sensei.”
Alnduul’s innermost eyelid nictated. “I am not well acquainted with that language, but I believe the correct response is Dō itashimashite.”
Downing looked away before his smile widened. Bloody alien wiseacre.
Chapter Thirty-One
The gap between the burlap cover and the wicker rim of the basket in which Caine lay provided a clear, if narrow, view of the sleek Arat Kur interceptor as it shot past, heading northwest. Trailing slightly behind, two bulky Hkh’Rkh tilt-rotors, their under-wing pylons bristling with weapons pods, slowed and half transitioned to vertical, turning around the boat in a lazy circle before reangling their props for level flight and roaring after the interceptor.
Caine breathed again, instantly regretted it. The thin littering of fish around him—the false cargo with which he had been told to cover himself—had not been fresh when the boat left Pakis ten hours ago. A day in the hot equatorial sun had not improved their aroma. Or, by dint of close association, his.
The burlap cover came back. A dark, wizened face framed by wispy white hair poked halfway into the basket. At first Caine couldn’t be sure if he was staring back at a man or a woman, but the voice left no doubt. It was—incongruously for Malays and Indonesians—a gravelly bass. “Hai bro’. Lagi ngapain?”[1]
Caine smiled, was careful to extend his right hand, and replied, “Senang berjumpa dengan anda, Pak.”[2]
The Indonesian—Javanese by the accent—started back with genuine surprise, but also a smile. A stream of fluid bahasa gushed out of him, half of it aimed at the dozen or so persons sheltering in the shade of the starboard gunwale.
Caine shook his head as several of them murmured polite greetings. “Maafkan saya,”[3] he apologized. “English?”