Final Inquiries (9 page)

"Activating launch sequence," said Greveltra in his bland, flat, expressionless voice.

There was a blinding flash of light and suddenly the shaft was filled with a storm of lightning bolts that flared around the sphere, engulfing it without touching it. The walls of the shaft flashed past in a blur, and, in less than a heartbeat, the sphere was flung into clear space.

They were looking upward and backwards along their line of flight at the massive spherical bulk of the
Eminent Concordance
--or at least the ninety-nine-point-ninety-five percent of her that was her massive propulsion module.

The sheets of lightning blazed up out of the launching shaft, seemingly unwilling to release the command sphere, their crackling fires dancing and reflecting on the polished golden surface of the great ship.

Greveltra swung the command sphere about, pointing it along its direction of travel, straight at the planet itself, directly overhead.

They were moving fast enough that Tifinda was growing visibly larger moment by moment. Jamie made a rough guess at their distance from the planet and realized they had to be moving at something like a hundred thousand kilometers an hour, straight at the planet. If Greveltra suddenly keeled over and the command sphere flew on as it was and impacted the surface at their present speed, at minimum the energy release would be comparable to a large nuclear weapon. He decided a few prayers for the health of their pilot and the continued proper functioning of their ship might be in order.

Jamie felt a few muscles straining and decided he had gotten tired of craning his neck to look directly overhead. He sat down on the deck, pulled off his gear vest, bunched it into a lumpy makeshift pillow the same way Hannah had, and lay down flat, his head on the vest. He could be astonished and overawed just as handily while flat on his back.

Hannah glanced down at him, saw what he had done, and lay down next to him, her head on her own vest. For a bizarre moment, Jamie was irresistibly reminded of camping trips in the mountains, lying back, looking up at the sky, and sharing the teenage equivalent of deep thoughts with his camping buddy. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" he half muttered, more to himself than to Hannah.

"Huh? What?"

Jamie chuckled and shook his head. "Nothing. Never mind."

"Glad you can find something to laugh about," Hannah said. "Do you have any idea how fast we must be going?"

"Yes," said Jamie. "But I don't see any point in discussing it." He glanced over at Brox, who had sat himself down and was calming watching the incoming planet. Jamie decided the Kendari was out of earshot and spoke to Hannah in low tones. "Do you have any useful guesses about what we're going to find down there?"

It was Hannah's turn to chuckle. "Yes, but I don't see any point in discussing it."

"Okay, you got me there."

"Seriously though--my guess is that there was some sort of bad accident involving humans and Kendari, and maybe Vixa or some other species." She gestured toward Greveltra. "The way
he
drives makes that easy to believe."

"Why do you say accident? Brox used the term 'crime scene.'"

"A bit of sloppy phrasing. I say accident because Brox is the enemy--but Brox isn't acting hostile. He's not angry at us, at humans. If anything, he's oddly sympathetic. So something caused us and them trouble, but no one is to blame. And it happened at exactly the wrong time, just when everybody is about to sit down and sign the deal. They want a joint investigation to smooth it all over, confirm no one was at fault, and have a nice signing ceremony."

"Hmmph. Well, maybe." The planet was getting bigger by the minute. Maybe a hundred thousand kilometers an hour was a low estimate. It looked as if they were heading for the daytime side, toward a part of the globe where it was roughly late afternoon. The cloud cover hid whatever was there. "I think that's optimistic.
Really
optimistic. The kind of rush they've put together here seems a little too panicky for that. And yeah, Brox seems friendly, but he's
scared
as well. I still get the sense not just that something bad
has
happened, but something even worse still
might
happen."

The planet had swollen to fill the entire upper hemisphere of the command sphere. Jamie had to turn his head to one side to catch a glimpse of the Great Ring, and even that vanished as he watched.

"Brox!" Hannah called, without getting up or taking her eyes off the terrifying view overhead. "Maybe now we're close enough that you could at least tell us where we're going. It's on the planet, not on the Great Ring. That much we've figured out. Give us something more."

"If for no other reason than to distract us from the view a little bit," Jamie suggested.

"Yes, certainly. We are headed toward what amounts to the planetary capital, though that's not exactly accurate. The city bears two names, which are not interchangeable, but are based on the city function to which one is referring. The correct name must be used at all times in order to avoid giving offense. The city is called Rivertide when referred to as a home, a place to live, and the Grand Warren of the Conclaves--or simply the Grand Warren--in the context of being the seat of power."

"And where in the Grand Warren are we going?" Jamie asked. "I mean, assuming we live through atmospheric entry?"

"I share your nervousness and discomfort. For what it is worth, Greveltra has a perfect safety record as a pilot. Our first destination is a building in the center of the city. You will submit yourself there."

"Submit ourselves for what? Approval? Accreditation?"

"Formally, you are submitting yourselves to the will of the Preeminent Director of Tifinda. 'Accreditation' is close enough. I have heard some of the humans refer to it as hazing or initiation--or ritual intimidation, which I gather is much the same thing in some human organizations. Think of it as a welcoming ceremony--though perhaps not the most enjoyable one you have ever attended.

"Once that formality is complete, we will travel in a smaller vehicle to the diplomatic quarter of the city--I should say
a
diplomatic quarter. It is an isolated section where the representatives of lower-ranking races are invited to house themselves. Perhaps 'diplomatic ghetto' would be a more descriptive term."

"Let me guess. The human and Kendari embassies are in that zone."

"Right next to each other," said Brox. "Each diplomatic mission has an assigned piece of land, in adjoining walled compounds."

"Why did they put us right next to each other?" Hannah asked. "They'd have to know your government and mine don't get along."

"You would have to ask the Vixa that question. For what it is worth, we do not inconvenience each other as much as you might think. The walls are high."

"How big are these compounds?" Hannah asked.

"I'm told the human compound is about the size of a city block in Center City. The Kendari compound is slightly larger."

"A city block is a pretty fair size," said Jamie.

"Not so large when you consider that both embassies have fairly large staffs, and that all personnel must be housed in that space, along with all provisions, equipment, and so on. And also consider that our hosts often confine the staffs of the embassies to their respective compounds for security reasons, or for no specified reason at all."

"And you've been posted to the Kendari embassy, right?" Jamie asked. It wasn't exactly much of a deductive leap, given the circumstances, and how much Brox knew about the situation on the ground.

"Yes. Thanks to you two."

"What?"
That
was a surprise. "How do you mean?"

"After I collaborated with the two of you on Reqwar, it was noted in my file that I had demonstrated a capacity--even an aptitude--for working with humans. And so when the Inquiries Service established a sort of Kendari-human security liaison office at this embassy, I was assigned to it."

"Kendari-human liaison office? To do what?"

"It is a joint office, staffed by Kendari Inquiries Service Inquirists and human Bureau of Special Investigations agents, who work together so as to prevent undesirable incidents."

"Hold it!" Hannah protested. She stabbed a finger up at the swelling bulk of the planet. "There are BSI agents at the human embassy already?"

"Yes," said Brox. "Three of them."

"Then why did you send for
us
?" Hannah demanded.

But Jamie knew. "Because they're all suspects," he said. "Or because they're all dead. Whatever happened killed them all."

Brox was silent for a moment before he answered, in a flat, careful, neutral voice. "They are not dead," he said.

"This just got worse, Brox," said Hannah. "Much, much worse."

"I agree," said Brox.

Jamie looked at Brox, at Hannah, at the planet looming ever larger overhead, and knew the question he had to ask. "But it's going to get even worse than this, isn't it, Brox? How much worse
will
it get?"

Brox said nothing, did nothing, showed nothing.

It was the loudest silence Jamie had ever heard.

FIVE

ESCORTS

Ambassador Berndt Stabmacher peered out the window--or more accurately the porthole--of his living quarters aboard the grounded United Human Government Embassy Ship
Kofi Annan.
Of course, "living quarters" wasn't quite accurate, either. What the devil
did
you call it when you ordered your entire staff--and yourself--into solitary confinement in the various small and impossibly cramped compartments aboard a grounded spacecraft that served as your embassy's emergency evacuation system?

Ignoring the spectacular view of the Grand Warren on the horizon, he scanned the skies instead. There wasn't any way to know from which direction they would come, or even if they would come at all--but what else was there to hope for? There wasn't any,
couldn't
be any, Plan B. He had barely been able to convince Diplomatic Xenologist Flexdal 2092 to accept the current proposal--or, as he had no doubt Senior Special Agent Milkowski would put it, the current humiliation.

Never mind. Stabmacher was more than willing to risk his career and his life--all their careers,
all
their lives--in exchange for preventing a war. To stop such wars was the very essence, the core purpose of diplomacy. Especially a needless and pointless war that would likely have no winners and many losers.

No winners?
Maybe that wasn't quite true, if you took into account the groups that sat back and watched the opposing sides cripple each other, possibly even destroy each other. No one could stop them from scooping up everything the combatants hadn't managed to destroy.

He turned from the porthole, sat down at the tiny foldout desk, and blinked vacantly. He was tired. Exhausted. Worn to a nub. He yawned mightily and scratched at his bristly chin. There were a fold-down sink, a fold-down couch, and some amazingly awkward sanitary arrangements in the compartment, none of them anywhere near satisfactory. He longed for a proper night's sleep, or even just a nap. He wanted a meal, a shower, and a shave, and not necessarily in that order. But such things were trivial. A day or two of confinement and discomfort would be a remarkably small price to pay, a real bargain, if it stopped a war before it started.
A very small price indeed,
Ambassador Stabmacher told himself.

But someone had already paid a far higher price.

The command sphere broke through the bottom of the highest cloud deck and flew into clear air at about ten thousand meters, though a lower layer of clouds hid the ground from view.

At Brox's suggestion the three of them had moved out to the perimeter of the sphere, where their view of the horizon would not be blocked by the banks of nameless machines. With the outer hull of the ship turned transparent, the world was on display at their feet. They could see everything--but at the moment, all "everything" amounted to was the layers of cloud above and below.

The sphere began to slow down as it approached the lower cloud deck, then, in the blink of an eye, they were in the clouds, and the universe outside was a formless grey nothing. A heartbeat later, and they had broken through the last of the overcast, and the city of the Grand Warren, of Rivertide, was laid out before them. The command sphere paused where it was, about two thousand meters up, affording them a long and admiring look at the city.

It was Oz, Oz inside a three-quarters-sphere dome, a dome so graceful, transparent, and ethereal it barely seemed to be there at all. It was gleaming towers, lofty spires, broad avenues, elevated travelways linking the buildings, shimmering lights, the bustle of aircars and groundcars in purposeful motion--a full-scale, brought-to-life, all-expectations-met rendition of a city of the Elder Races, the archetype of what every schoolchild on every human world was convinced that every city on every xeno planet should be like, must be like.

Plenty of the Elder Race cities Hannah had seen were run-down affairs, almost as much partially-occupied archeological sites as they were functioning settlements. But the Grand Warren showed no signs of decrepitude. It was the very embodiment of vigor, confidence, power, and purpose.

"This is
their
capital city," said Brox. Then he pointed south toward a dusty quarter of low, flat buildings. "And that is
our
capital city. Or more accurately, that is the zone of their capital that
we
are allowed to move about in without excessive restrictions. But you will see more than enough of it soon enough."

The command sphere flew on toward the city. It entered the central-city dome through a portal midway up. Looking down from inside the dome, the Grand Warren reminded Hannah irresistibly of the canyoned streets of midtown Manhattan, with swooping ramps and elevated roadways and buzzing, darting aircars thrown into the mix. Everything about what she saw spoke of grandeur and power. The streets were full of life and activity, hustle and bustle--but all of it was strictly ordered. All the ground vehicles moved at precisely the same speed. The Vixa she could see walking along moved in packs, in groups, that marched along in more perfect unison than any precision drill team back on Earth.