In Nadir's Shadow Read online

  Looking down at the auditor, Kirill shook his head.

  "He took it, and he threw it against the wall. Splat! Then he took me aside and beat me. Do you know why he did that?"

  This time, Kirill nodded, but Koldan didn't seem to notice: "While he was fighting for us, I was playing with clay, getting better at it. But playing with clay doesn't help anyone. I was doing nothing. Just wasting time, when I could have been learning something, or getting stronger. Do you understand?"

  Kirill nodded again. Koldan stood up, a glimmer of contempt on his face. "You're not doing him any favors, letting him play like that. You don't want him to end up being useless. He should be playing Tactics with other kids."

  She looked down and bit her lip as she nodded.

  He sat down in the center of the white, semi-circular couch, forcing her to sit at the edge. "Doctor Ermolei has been abusing his medical authority to support activity harmful to the Commonwealth. Are you aware that he tampered with prenatal test results, allowing defective fetuses to finish gestation? Or that he continued to alter their test results after they were born, ensuring they escaped detection and correction?

  Shura felt the blood drain from her face. "That's... horrible," she managed, looking away and trying to disguise her fear as shock. "No, I had no idea."

  He watched her for a while. "What was your relationship with Doctor Ermolei like?"

  He knew, the bastard. He knew everything already. All this was just to get an early confession.

  She almost told him everything then, but for a glance at Kirill. He'd been watching them, distress plain on his face, and when she looked, he gave her a single shake of his head. She didn't know how much he'd understood, but there was no mistaking the plea in his eyes. Somehow, she faced Koldan and tried to affect a frown. "What do you mean?"

  He sat back and lifted a hand. After a moment's inspection, he lowered it and started picking at the skin around his nails with his other hand. "Apparently, he had intimate relationships with several women in this community whose children he failed to correct. It appears that these women were unaware that they were not the only ones he was intimate with." He leaned forward. "Were you intimate with Doctor Ermolei?"

  "No!" The lie burst out like a reflex, triggering a wave of adrenaline. After that, the rest came easily. "Of course not. He was just our doctor. Kirill liked him, and it's hard enough to get him to do anything. I had no idea anything was wrong."

  "Hm." Koldan nodded and sat back again. "Of course, you understand that any parents who collaborated with him will be subject to very severe treatment in order to discover everything they know about the crime. And that's prior to being censured. The Commonwealth has laws to ensure our continued survival, and their violation has to be met with serious consequences." He looked again at the hand he'd been picking at and raised it to his mouth, biting at the loose skin.

  In spite of herself, Shura said, "What's going to happen to him?"

  "I can't say for sure. After he has confessed his crimes in detail, he will likely be attached to High Risk Operations and expended."

  She recalled their last conversation in his office, Ermo's admission and his breakdown in combat, and fought to distract her emotions. She wasn't ready to deal with her feelings for him.

  "You seem distressed. If there is something you want to confess, I can guarantee you there will be no better time for you than now."

  Realization rode on a sharp breath to flood her body. All this time, she'd been waiting for her lie to explode in her face. Now she knew, with a wild surge of relief, that he wasn't sure yet. He'd hoped she would give herself away, but he didn't have enough reason to collect her. Not yet.

  She shot him a glare. "Yes, I'm distressed. Work called half an hour ago and I'm sitting here talking to you instead of getting ready to go. Since you knew my son's name, I assume you know where I work?"

  He nodded. "Communications Network Maintenance."

  "Then I'm sure you understand that if they called me to go in, it's probably urgent. Is there anything else you wanted to ask me?"

  His eyebrows raised, he inspected his mangled fingers. "No, I think we are done for now."

  She stood and preceded him to the door. Once outside, he half-turned and said, "If I think of anything else, I will call on you." That thin smile again, then he was gone, his silent compatriot following him down the hallway.

  Chapter Four

  Khariton's wet hair felt cold on his head as his escort led him through the complex, passing through several sets of secured doors. Traffic became more sparse after each one. When the man finally stopped, it was before a large door flanked by two other guards and marked "Supreme Command Conference Room - No Unauthorized Access." His escort muttered something under his breath. After a moment, the door slid open. "Enter." Khariton did as he was told.

  The room could hold well over a hundred, with tall ceilings making it seem even larger, but only five people awaited him. Three men and two women sat or stood around a massive display unit commanding the center of the room, each wearing a light blue version of the standard military uniform. Off to the side, he saw clusters of access terminals, and a large table with several dozen chairs and another large display unit.

  "Khariton, come on in." The man who spoke underscored his greeting with a smile and a jovial arm wave. His smile was an easy one, despite deep lines on his wide, bronze cheeks, and white streaks in his black hair and the thin, perfect beard that lined his jaw. The ones that had been seated now stood, and the five formed a semi-circle as he approached.

  "I'm sure you have some idea of where you are and who we are, but I think introductions are in order nonetheless. I'm Prokhor. This is Pelageya." He indicated a stocky, white-haired woman. She leaned forward with her hands behind her back, and tilted her head before offering a firm nod.

  "Arsenim." The balding man stood hunched over, head trust forward as he examined Khariton. His face, all angles and sharp lines, held no warmth or welcome. The former head of the Core Guild was the latest addition to the upper five, chosen by the other four after Supreme Commander Odet's ship exploded in transit.

  "Makari." Tall and severe, with soft grey hair framing her heart-shaped, golden face, the woman gave him a slow, deliberate nod.

  "And this is Irakliy."

  Strong-jawed and powerfully built, the Commonwealth's highest authority stood taller than anyone in the room. His age showed in the lines on his sand-colored cheeks and the bright white hair he kept in a ponytail, but his posture was straight and his eyes full of calm strength. "Welcome," he said, his voice deep and strong. "It's good to meet you in person. You're here because we have a job in mind for you, an important one. We're going to give you some background information first, and then we'll tell you what we hope you'll do for us. Shall we sit?"

  Irakliy led the way to the display unit in the center of the room and sat in one of the chairs around it. The others followed his example, and Khariton took the seat Prokhor indicated for him.

  "Do you need anything? Food or drink?" Irakliy said as he slid into his seat.

  Khariton felt like he was in a dream. "No, sir."

  "Good. Then let's get started. Prokhor, do you want to go ahead?"

  Prokhor slid his hands into the control gloves in his chair and activated the display before them. A color-coded star map materialized in the air, portraying the Commonwealth's five inhabited worlds and thirty-seven strongholds alongside separate frames with long lists of data about military units, natural resources and industry, population and social statistics, economic projections, and other subjects Khariton couldn't immediately identify.

  "What you see before you is the Commonwealth, by and large. If you were to examine this long enough, I'm sure you would figure out everything I'm about to tell you, but I'll speed things up a bit. Simply out, we stand on the edge of defeat. Over the past year, we have lost eight fortified outposts and three colonized worlds―more than we lost in the hundred years before that. The titans, the
backbone of the fleet, have suffered severe losses. Only fifty-three remain operational, out of seventy-four just over a year ago. Both of these disasters can be attributed to a change in the enemy's tactics―a change that eliminated an advantage we had been exploiting since the first years of the war." Prokhor's tone was calm and matter-of-fact, but Khariton noted an undercurrent of deep tension.

  "What do you know about the PRISM cores that power the titans?" Pelageya asked him.

  "Perpetual Resiliency Incitement and Sublimation Mechanism," Khariton replied automatically. "They were built before the Exodus as the product of reverse engineering technology salvaged from a crashed floater ship. The research was lost in the evacuation, and we haven't managed to duplicate it." He hesitated. "May I ask a question?"

  Pelageya nodded.

  "By studying captured alien technology, we designed and built a revolutionary power source that is essentially inexhaustible. According to records, this took place over a few decades. Yet in almost a thousand years since, with the benefit of working examples designed by our own species, we haven't been able to understand the technology well enough to build more. That is highly improbable. Is it true?"

  She glanced at Arsenim, who ignored her and kept his dour gaze on Khariton. "You're not the only one to notice the incongruity. The official story is as you told it, but no, it isn't true. The truth is a lot less kind, to everyone." She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the counter before her, and folded her hands. "Khariton, given your line of work, you understand the need for discretion. What I'm about to tell you, you may never repeat outside this room. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "We did not build the PRISM cores. We stole them. And they were never meant to be used as power sources." She paused and searched his face. He saw compassion in hers, mixed with anxiety; she didn't know how he would respond to her words. She said, "They are cocoons. Floater cocoons. Each holds the essence of a few dozen of their kind. It's how they transition from their incorporeal phase to the physical. Floaters repeat this cycle without end, as far as we've been able to tell. They are born into a physical body, they live until the body dies, then they exist as incorporeal entities until they are born again." She sat back. "When the floater ship crashed on Nadir, our ancestors either didn't realize, or chose to ignore, that the cocoons were a form of life. Tests revealed that they repaired themselves when damaged, generating vast amounts of energy in the process. Once they found a way to harness that energy, they finally had enough power to work around the light speed barrier. We don't know why the floaters took almost a hundred years to show up and try to get their cocoons back, but by then, we'd navigated the stars and colonized other worlds, and we weren't willing to give that up. They were tougher than we thought; they drove us off Nadir. The rest you know."

  Khariton nodded slowly as new information filled in the gaps in his knowledge. Questions that had bothered him for years found answers as the cases he'd worked on filed through his mind. "This change in tactics you mentioned refers to the floaters' recent willingness to destroy our titans. I noted the enemy's proclivity for capture once, but I was told not to speculate on the subject."

  "It was our only edge," Makari said in a silvery voice. "Because we knew the enemy didn't want our titans destroyed any more than we did, we were able to hold them hostage against the enemy. They would try to board and capture them, which exposed their forces. We've spared no effort making this hard for them, and we've considered the possibility that those efforts are what drove them to abandon board-and-capture tactics in some situations."

  Prokhor cut in, "But the reality is that we've been developing new technologies since the war started, and none of those were ever enough to make the floaters give up on recovering their cocoons. For whatever reason, as of about a year ago, they seem to have finally decided to end the war at any cost. And we're finding out, after centuries of fooling ourselves, that we can't stand up to the floaters in an even fight."

  "It certainly seems catastrophic," Khariton said.

  Prokhor cleared his throat. "It's actually much worse than that. The military aspect is only part of the picture. Our civilization is utterly exhausted. We've enacted every credible resource-saving measure to support our military operations. We even grow babies in labs, because our people aren't having enough children―as you well know, since you're one of them. We've been forced to reduce our people to little more than drones, just so our species can survive."

  "And it's because of these measures that we persist," Arsenim cut in, his voice cold and precise. "I certainly don't imagine the enemy has done anything less. Besides, some inefficiencies have been allowed to linger, Prokhor, at your own insistence."

  "Whatever little productivity we lose because a few individuals here and there secretly keep traditions alive is well worth it. There is more to us than mere survival." Prokhor gave a humorless chuckle. "Once there was, anyway."

  "Khariton, you know of the High Risk Operations Service," Pelageya said. "What you don't know is that there is a massive surplus of volunteers for this service. The surplus exceeds the number of people currently serving in the HROS. Applicant surveys consistently list hopelessness as the most common reason for signing up. That, to me, captures the severity of our situation better than anything else."

  Arsenim leaned towards her. "They still represent only a minuscule percentage of the working population. You're overstating the problem."

  Pelageya raised her eyebrows, but didn't look at him. "Small, but growing."

  "May I ask another question?" Khariton ventured.

  "You can ask any question you want, whenever you feel the need to ask it," Irakliy said with a smile. "As I'm sure you've realized by now, the point of this part of the meeting is to educate you."

  "Thank you, sir. You have described the challenges to our survival. What actions have you taken to meet them?"

  Arsenim looked at Prokhor. "Not shy, is he?"

  "He's sitting right there," Prokhor said with an icy glance. "Besides, I think you read him wrong. To answer your very pertinent question, Khariton, we haven't been idle. Most Fleet Commanders already figured out what was happening, but we've disseminated a few examples of tactics that have been successful. Most take advantage of the enemy's assumption, still common, that we believe they're still trying to capture our titans." Prokhor paused before continuing, and Khariton detected a hint of discomfort in his tone: "We've also mounted a fairly risky mission behind enemy lines with the objective of acquiring more PRISM cores."

  Khariton considered. "Some were left behind in the Exodus?"

  "Right you are," Prokhor said with a smile. "Ninety-six cocoons were taken from the crashed ship, but only eighty-four were in Commonwealth possession once the dust had settled. There is no record of why they were left behind, or even where, precisely. We assume they were kept in a shielded location, and that's why the floaters never detected them."

  "How do we know they didn't find them?"

  Arsenim answered him, his tone inviting a challenge: "The record is unambiguous. The enemy left Nadir almost immediately, once they realized that we had abandoned it. The cores are there. A ship has been sent to find them, and bring them back here. Spaceframes are already under construction, a new generation of titans that will be powered by these cores. We will use these to stabilize the front and regain lost territory."

  "That's one option," Irakliy said. "We're considering another, and it involves you."

  All five Supreme Commanders watched him in silence. Seconds later, the parts fit together in his mind, but what they formed was so outrageous he had to double-check his reasoning. "You want me to negotiate," he said in a soft voice. "Negotiate a peace with the floaters, using the unused cocoons as leverage."

  Makari looked at Irakliy. "You were right about him."

  Prokhor said, "The analyst unit you've been working with is one of several formed with the sole purpose of finding an individual with the mental detachment required to w
eigh cost versus gain, without involving emotion. The homeworld scenario you worked on was your final test."

  "But by no means the only one," Makari added. "You've been observed constantly over the last few years. One thing that qualified you was the fact that you never took narcotics, even though we made it relatively easy to obtain them and condoned their use."

  "Suggesting I felt no need to escape from reality," Khariton said tonelessly. There was a question in his mind, one he already knew the answer to, but for once he felt like asking, anyway. "When did you select me for this process?"

  After a moment of silence, it was Irakliy who answered: "You were conceived and raised for this specific purpose."

  "Am I alone?"

  "You are the seventh prospect to successfully complete the program," Irakliy said.

  "What happened to the others?" Khariton said.

  "They're now serving the Commonwealth in other ways," Irakliy replied. "Their analyses will be made available to you, but to summarize, each one gave the same recommendation: in order to survive, humanity must abandon the war and escape to new homes, as many and as distant as possible. In other words, they reached the same conclusion we did."

  Prokhor leaned forward. "Khariton, you must understand that this isn't a task that someone can simply be trained for. We are the final authority in the Commonwealth, and we don't know where to start. Are they even willing to consider making peace, since they have such a strong advantage now? We assume they are, because for a thousand years, they refused to destroy our titans, even though it allowed us to stalemate them again and again. We know they place enormous value on their cocoons, and they know as well as we do that we won't lose this war without destroying every last cocoon we possess. But we don't know for certain if they consider peace an option.