The AID had failsafes against expressing certain ideas in the presence of their masters. Not that a Darhel minded if somebody died. Billions did it every day. They just wanted no implications, ever, that they were directly, causatively involved. It was an indication that his employee was very slightly smarter than most humans, and confirmed that hiring him had been a good choice.
“Yes, I understand,” the machine replied.
“Good. Apropos of nothing,” the Tir’s voice was silky, melodious to the point of sublime, “there was a large unit of Galactic and local professional killers who disappeared from north of here recently. At the time, I requested that you ignore the matter. I have changed my mind. You will look into it.”
For what must have been the millionth time, Tir Dol Ron cursed the Aldenata and how very little it took to invoke the release of Tal, the lethally blissful hormone that locked a Darhel into catatonia until he died — usually of thirst. To have to use primitives with so little control over -
He turned his mind away from forbidden thoughts and dismissed his less-stupid-than-average employee.
Cleanup would now proceed in the present intolerable situation. The intriguers had destroyed an entire Darhel business group. Tir Dol felt an icy chill go up his spine. This was beyond serious. This was a threat. He had his AID plot ship schedules and collate his findings, transmitting them to the courier on station and ordering its dispatch to the most time-efficient locations and route. He used a billing code, under a standing contract, that would split the courier charges among all Darhel Groups thus informed.
Tir Dol Ron was possessed of a major treasure in the Sol System. There were a very, very few altars of communication left behind. The Tchpth, curse the folth-leavings, flatly refused to either build more or even indicate whether or not they knew how. They were open enough about using regular communications channels via ship that the Darhel had a debate among themselves about whether they knew or not. The fact remained that because of the sensitivity of Earth to the anti-Posleen effort, one of the very few devices for genuinely real-time communication between worlds had been sited here during the war. It was not real-time accessible. Instead, it was sited on Earth’s moon as a location much less susceptible to annoying intriguers. They might not be able to kill sophonts any more than he could, but property was another matter. One would hope its irreplaceable nature would protect it but, alas, that had not been the case in the past. Chances were not taken.
He had two choices. He could transmit to the altar itself from here and accept both time lag from Earth to moon and risk of interception and decoding, or he could go there himself and transmit directly. The matter was serious enough that security vastly outweighed haste. He instructed his AID to book him a seat on the next shuttle up.
Chapter Seven
“What happened to Darin?” the Himmit asked.
“Oh, he ran into a claymore about two weeks later,” Papa said.
“That’s how most of your friends end up,” the Himmit noted.
“Unfortunately true,” Papa said. “Not that I’d call Darin a friend. Just one of the guys on the teams.”
“You have had a remarkable ability to avoid being killed, given your life experiences,” the Himmit said. “Statistically amazing, in fact.”
“This is right good brew,” Papa said, taking another sip. It was, too. He’d had a lot of beer in his time but this was very good. And he did not begin to recognize it. “Don’t suppose you’ll tell me where it comes from?”
“Nowhere accessible to you,” the Himmit said. “And I, unfortunately, do not have any more.”
“Well, then, I’ll have to make it last,” Papa said, belying that by taking another sip. “But since we ain’t got much more and I don’t tell stories well without something to wet my whistle, I think I’ll tell you one that will not only pay for this trip, but for this very fine brew you have provided.”
“I am eagerly awaiting it,” the Himmit said.
“And you’ve got lots of ears,” Papa replied, grinning. “The thing is… I want you to understand… Soldiers tell stories. Sometimes they… exaggerate.”
“All stories, of the necessity of communication, contain some element of fiction,” the Himmit said. “I personally doubt the one about the CS.”
“Truth,” Papa said, placing his hand over his heart.
“I do not doubt that the patrol was killed,” the Himmit said. “That would be the outcome of the method. It was the packing into orifices. There was insufficient material.”
“Well, all of ’em weren’t like that,” Papa admitted. “But that factoid makes the story better.”
“Elements of fiction,” the Himmit replied. “When we transmit our stories, we avoid all such elements. However, we relay your stories precisely as given. With the caveat that they contain some element of fiction.”
“Point accepted,” Papa said, taking a sip. “But what I want you to understand is that this story is truth. Pointed, complete, truth. There’s nothing worth exaggerating in it. But you’re not going to believe a word.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the story of when I met a vampire.”
He paused.
“I’m waiting for you to say something like, ‘Pull one of the other ones, it’s got bells on.’ ”
“Why?”
“You believe in vampires?” Papa said. “I know I didn’t. ’Til I met one.”
“I accept the possibility of there being of such condition as you would refer to him or it as a vampire.”
“Interesting response,” Papa said, musingly. “Given that I don’t think there’s anything you Himmit don’t know.”
“Very little.”
“Well, I’ve never told this story to anybody,” Papa said. “And all the rest of the guys who saw it… Well, they ain’t around no more. That statistical thing you mentioned. And we didn’t tell anybody, even in the debrief. It’s not something you admit. So this is a story that nobody’s got. Must be worth something.”
“Agreed.”
“We was doing an op in Europe,” Papa said, sitting back in his chair. “Which we didn’t do much as it was hard to get there. But the European networks had just gotten screwed to hell by the invasion. And there was this guy working in one of the Austrian defense bases… The Texans had a law at one point: A guy who just needed killin’.”
“Most of your stories surround such people.” The Himmit had learned that Papa needed a certain amount of prompting for his stories to flow.
“Yeah,” Papa admitted. “He was a fairly minor logistics officer. But he had his fingers on a lot of stuff. And he looked incompetent. So stuff that was needed one place ended up in the wrong place, usually meaning that some unit that desperately needed it lost a battle and a bunch of soldiers got killed. The usual way that the Darhel worked in the war. And since the war. He wasn’t incompetent, though. He was too consistent. And, hell, we had his money trace and some of his orders from the Darhel. Taking him out was practically a mission from God.
“Problem being that he was in the St. Polten PDF. It wasn’t a line defense base, it was one of the rear area support bases for the Vienna Defenses.”
“I know of it.”
“Basic plan was as simple as you could get for taking out someone in a major defense base,” Papa said. “Go in as an American liaison team. Since the bases were occasionally under attack, you could carry weapons on base. Find the target. Take him out in his quarters. Extract as if nothing had happened. We had passes for the base, uniforms, weapons, covers. I hate it when you have to depend on somebody else for all that, somebody you don’t have any knowledge of. But it was all good.