Originator (6 page)

Raylee sighed and stared at the floor. Of course she knew. Dammit. “Thanks for the warning,” she said.

“Oh, it's not a warning. It's an observation. And if you don't like the people who are doing it to you, then I'm your worst enemy.” She got up. “I have to go, apparently there's someone I have to meet.”

“Why'd you kiss him?” Raylee blurted. Silly thing to ask, but she was tired, and it was on her mind.

“Because I can,” said Sandy.

“You can do a lot of things.”

“So can Ari,” Sandy replied. “But apparently, he'd rather do them with you.” Raylee gazed at her, frowning. And was astonished when Sandy kissed
her
on the forehead and left.

They sat in the briefing room, the most secure place in all FSA HQ. Director Ibrahim, Sandy, Assistant Director Hando, Ari. There could have been many more, but Ibrahim was determined to keep the numbers down to the absolute minimum. Chief Shin was reportedly frantic that he had no asset in the room and was making all kinds of calls and threats. Soon Fleet would be as well, no doubt. Then others.

Hando poured tea. Their guest took it politely, no milk or sugar. Hando passed around to others. Coffee for the Director, always.

“So, Cai,” said Sandy. Lead, Ibrahim had told her. She had had previous contact and was also a GI. Ari had had more direct previous contact, but Ari was not “strategic.” In the scheme of things, Sandy was somewhat superior. “How are you?”

“I'm very well,” Cai said mildly. “How are you and the children?”

“Wonderful,” said Sandy. “They're adjusting very well.”

“I'm pleased to hear it.”

“And your friends?” Sandy asked, sipping her own tea as it came to her.

Cai smiled. “My friends are doing very well also.”

It was quite absurd. Pleasantries and euphemisms were fine, but Cai's “friends” were the Talee, the only other intelligent race in the galaxy, at least that humans knew of. Not only did he work for them, they'd made him, using the same technology that the League had borrowed to make the first human GIs, then called their own. The same technology, only a far more advanced version.

“I hope I have not upset anyone by being here,” Cai added. “That was not my intention.”

Sandy glanced at Ibrahim. Cai had just turned up, thirty minutes ago, on
their doorstep. And had apologised to everyone for inadvertently getting in their way just now.

“Not at all,” said Ibrahim. “In fact, we're quite pleased to see you. I'm sure you're aware of my personal desire, and the desire of many in the security apparatus here, to make communications links between our peoples more permanent.”

Cai nodded. “I'm aware. But you are likewise aware that my . . . people . . . are not so sanguine.”

“Can you explain why not?” Ibrahim pressed.

“No. Revealing the nature of their concerns could reveal the nature of broader circumstances. Circumstances that the Talee would rather not share.”

It was paranoid in the extreme. Some analysts familiar with it expressed frustration. Sandy, for her part, thought it quite prudent, now in particular. Events at Cresta demonstrated that humans were capable of extreme action, exacerbated now in the League by an evolving crisis that was at least as much psychological as it was technological. A truly intelligent race might want to watch its step with such unstable aliens. And a peaceful intelligent race might just, in keeping their distance, be expressing a more genuine concern for human well-being than the more emotionally satisfying embrace that some humans appeared to desire.

“Cai,” Sandy resumed, “you were talking to a League splinter group agent at a football game. Why?”

“I'm afraid I can't say.”

“Okay,” said Sandy. “If it's going to go this way, I'm not going to waste any more time asking what you're doing here and trying to connect those answers back to Talee strategic intentions. Obviously that's not going to get us anywhere.”

Cai inclined his head slightly, and sipped tea.

“Let's move this to another level,” said Sandy. “You chose to reveal yourself to us. You did not need to, you could have stayed quiet and none of us would be the wiser. Why?”

“There are things I would like to discuss with you,” said Cai. “With all of you.”

“Good,” said Sandy, somewhat relieved. “Because if there's not, I'd really
rather be home with my kids.” Hando gave her a warning look. Ibrahim might have smiled, very faintly.

“Cresta,” said Cai. “You are all in great danger.”

“Who is? Us in this room? Callay? The Federation?”

“Humanity,” said Cai. Silence in the room. “Cresta was a V-strike. Two percent light, quite deliberate. It came out of jump within the system shields, no defensive system could have stopped it.”

“Wait,” said Hando, “we don't know that detail yet. How do you . . . ?”

“Their ships jump faster,” said Ari. Leaning back in his chair, dark hair, long face, leather jacket. Normally those hands fidgeted, scratched an imaginary itch, played with a stylus. Now, they held a mug of tea, unmoving, like his gaze. “He already knows. Could have known a week ago. And then went and talked to a League splinter group agent. An agent who didn't know Cresta was dead. You couldn't tell him that.” The corner of his mouth twitched. “You were profiling, weren't you? Psych profile? Some kind of parameter matrix?”

Cai sipped tea. Not looking at Ari, not avoiding, not denying. Just waiting.

“You're scared League's going nuts,” Sandy summarised. “You're scared the uplink technology they've been using is accelerating sociological disorder faster than anyone anticipated. I'll bet you were doing more than just psych-profiling, you were finding out what he knew; you can uplink-hack anyone you like. If you have some information pertaining to the imminent destruction of other human worlds, we'd certainly like to know.”

“Nothing I can talk about.” Sandy pushed back in her chair with exasperation. Hando looked at her with concern, worried she pushed too hard. Ibrahim just watched. “But I did come here with one thing I have been authorised to speak of.”

“One thing,” Sandy repeated. “Better than nothing, I suppose.”

Cai looked down in his cup. A handsome face, like all GIs were handsome. Wide features, firm. Young but not youthful. Perhaps natural mid-twenties . . . like herself. Sandy wondered how the Talee had chosen this form as their template. No shortage of human bodies floating in space during the war, well preserved. Exact features could be randomised, so he wouldn't look exactly like someone deceased—and attract attention that way—in human company.

“The Talee,” said Cai, with calm deliberation, “are a post-extinction-level-event species. Self-inflicted.”

Boom. And just sat there and watched the humans all stare at each other. All except Ari, who muttered with possibly inappropriate triumph, “I fucking knew it!” And stared at Cai. “About three thousand years ago, right?”

Cai nodded.

“Big” didn't describe the revelation. Humanity had waited centuries for more news on the Talee. Possibly someone already knew, possibly League already had figured it out, their space directly adjoining the Talee's as Federation space did not. But this was the first time the Talee, even through a synthetic representative, had chosen to reveal something this large about themselves. Talee motivations had eluded scientists, strategists, sentiencemodellers, and thinkers for generations. Now, finally, came the tantalising sense of long-awaited answers slipping into place.

“So you understand why Cresta might cause us some alarm,” said Cai.

“How much alarm?” Ibrahim asked.

Cai fixed him with a sombre, lidded stare. “It changes things. Not dramatically, and not quickly, as nothing changes quickly with the Talee. But you might notice, I am here. Revealing things.”

Ibrahim nodded, as deadly serious and intent as Sandy had ever seen him. “Please, continue.”

Cai took a breath. “It took Talee civilisation perhaps a thousand years to recover. Most of the population was dead, on most worlds. On the homeworld, none remained. Only on colonies did some survive. It was clear to surviving generations what had happened; historical memory shifts and changes but cannot be entirely erased when the ruins of old civilisation remain all around. All of the new Talee race were all too clear on what had come before and been destroyed.

“Eventually those survivors built up their civilisation enough to reclaim their technological heritage, and then to reclaim the stars. They rejoined with other surviving Talee civilisations, on other colonies, and those moments are amongst the most powerful and emotive of all Talee history. If you can imagine.”

“I'm not certain that we can,” Ibrahim said quietly.

“The homeworld was resettled,” Cai continued. “Biological engineering began to try to put things back as they were, to restore ecosystems still unre-covered after all those centuries. That work continues today. Good progress
has been made, but there remains more to be done. Talee have a word for the extinction-level-event, perhaps the best and most obvious translation is “catastrophe.” Catastrophe studies are prominent in Talee centres of learning. What you would call historians pore over it. Scientists examine it. Geologists look for traces in rocks, and biologists in water and plant matter. Conversation cannot avoid it. It is everywhere.”

He looked around at them all. The humans stared back. Indeed, at times in the recent past, Sandy had wondered just how human she actually was, given that the origins of the technology that made her were in fact Talee. But now, confronted with this mesmerising horror, these multiple lost millennia, these untold billions of lives erased, an entire species' future and present abruptly shattered and nearly lost forever . . . she had never felt more human than now. Thank God this was not
her
race being described. Thank God. And with that thought came fear.

“I say this to make you understand—the Talee are concerned, now more than ever. This concern does not come from greed, or from hostile design, or from the desire to interfere for other selfish reasons in human concerns. The concern comes because we fear we may be seeing the fate that once befell ourselves now befalling you.”

Abruptly, Ari leant forward on the table. “Can you prove that it was an uplink-related sociological dysfunction that caused your catastrophe?”

“No,” said Cai. “But it fits the time frame well. And let us say, multiple circumstantial evidence, which I am not at liberty to share, further supports that conclusion.”

“Talee psychology is different,” Ari pressed. “If some of the theories are true, very different. Can you be sure that mass psychological dysfunction will result from the same technological phenomenon, whether the user of the uplinks is Talee or human?”

Here, Sandy expected evasion. Cai's answer stunned her. “Current Talee thinking suspects humans are less susceptible,” he said. “But I might add my own observation—Talee can be . . . how should I say? Pessimistic, about themselves, where the catastrophe is concerned. Self-confidence is lacking, and judgement may be coloured. But yes, the patterns currently observed in the League are broadly similar with what Talee researchers might expect in a Talee population . . . with obvious adjustments to baseline psychological norms.”

“So you're saying that while our species are not psychologically alike, our level of deviance produced by this phenomenon is approximate?”

Cai nodded. “I believe so, yes.”

“Right,” said Ari with hard determination. “Can you stop it?” Cai gazed at him. “In your own species, at least?”

Here again, the evasion. “I cannot say.”

“Cannot? You mean you aren't allowed to, or you don't know?”

“Either,” said Cai.

“That's not good enough,” said Sandy. “You tell your friends that we'll put up with a lot from them, partly because we have no technological choice, and partly because we're genuinely convinced that Talee intentions are not hostile. But if the Talee can see what's unfolding in the League right now, and have even the smallest insights to share about how it might be possible to address it, on a technological level, then they have an absolute moral obligation to share!”

“Cassandra,” said Hando with a faint wince, “please, this is an alien species, morality as we understand it is a very human concept. . . .”

“Talee have morality,” Cai interrupted. “Different, as you say, Assistant Director, but the concept is as fundamental to Talee as to humans. But considerations are different. Reasoning is different. Value structures, prioritisation . . . please, you must understand how difficult this is for Talee to judge. . . .”

“Difficult for Talee?” Sandy replied. Not raising her voice, not yet. “We might be about to lose a good portion of our species. Or worse. And Talee morality says it's difficult for
Talee
?”

Cai stared at the tabletop, lips pressed thin. “Cassandra,” he said then, “this is a dangerous simplification, but I feel that I must. Talee are very hard to convince, on this matter, that they will not simply make things worse.”

“Worse?” asked Sandy. “How could it be worse?”

“Cassandra, when the Talee began to resettle their devastated homeworld, their researchers and scientists began to notice odd little things. Little discoveries, signs of civilisation in a different style or with the wrong timestamp. For a long time these oddities were overlooked. Understand that the catastrophe is the overarching mythology, the legend around which all Talee thought and culture is founded. To challenge the basic presumptions of that myth can be very hard, for even the most advanced mind.

“But finally the patterns of discovery became too compelling, and
researchers from various fields found too many commonalities in their own discoveries for those patterns to be ignored. They began to get together and compare notes, secretly at first, but then with greater and greater confidence. Finally they presented their findings, only when they were certain that the truth could not be refuted.