“You talk of your colleagues in charge of the defensive systems,” Sorofieve said. “But who is in charge of them?”
— And so to the point.
Yawiyuen gave a little bob-shrug. “Nobody is.”
“Somebody has to be,” Sorofieve insisted.
“Why?”
“Well,” Sorofieve said, “how do they know what to do?”
“Lots of training,” Yawiyuen told him.
“But when? When do they know what to do? Who directs them, who decides when it’s time to stop talking and start shooting?”
“They do.”
“They do?” Sorofieve sounded incredulous. “You let your military decide when to go to war?”
— Our sub-master hasn’t done his homework, has he? Sal sent to Liss.
— He may have read, she replied. — He didn’t believe.
Saluus had done as much research as he could into the Dwellers. Amazing how little he’d known. He was smart, well-educated and extremely well-connected and yet he’d been near-shamed by how little he’d known about the creatures that his own species shared the system with. It was as though, having realised how little the Dwellers were concerned with or cared about them, Ulubine humanity had decided to pay them back in the same coin. And this in a Seer system, with more inter-species contact than any save another half-dozen or so similarly favoured, scattered through the galaxy. Yet even here most people didn’t know or want to know much of anything about the Dwellers. There was a large minority who did, but they were seen as slightly embarrassing — nerdy alien-fans. Facing the threat they were, desperately needing the Dwellers’ help, how short-sighted they all seemed now.
And reading up on Dweller society proved the truth of one old cliche for sure: the more you learned, the more you realised how little you knew. (An image of the planet, Liss had suggested when he’d first tried to articulate this feeling; unending depths.)
“Of course our military decide when we go to war,” Gruonoshe said, calm again. “They’re the experts.”
“I think that, if I might be allowed to ‘butt in’,” Chief Seer Meretiy said from his gascraft, “the point at issue is our different ways of looking at our two societies’ military capacity. We -that is, humans, and perhaps one might even presume to speak in this for the whole Mercatoria — regard our military as a tool, to be used by our politicians, who of course rule in the name of all. Conversely, our Dweller friends regard their military as an ancient and venerable calling for those with the relevant vocation, an institution to be honoured for its antiquity which has, almost as an afterthought, the duty of defending Dweller planets from any outside threat. As such, they are like what one might term a ‘fire brigade’, and a volunteer fire brigade, at that, for which no political clearance or oversight is required for it to spring into action, you see? Their raison d’etre is to respond as quickly as possible to emergencies, no more.”
— Fuck me, that actually made a sort of sense, Liss sent.
Just those first two words, delivered in her voice, with her so close behind him, gave Sal the start of an erection. He wondered how strong gravity had to be for hard-ons to become impossible.
“Fire brigades have… leaders, captains, don’t they?” Sorofieve said plaintively, looking from Meretiy to Saluus. “We might talk to them. Mightn’t we?”
Yawiyuen did the little bob-shrug again. “Absolutely not.”
“But we need to!” Sorofieve almost wailed.
“Why?”
“That thing even looks fast,” Guard-General Thovin said, gazing out at the sleek, dark ship from one of the requisitioned liner’s viewing galleries. The stars swung around them. “It have a name?”
“Hull 8770,” Saluus told him. “The military will give it a proper name when it’s time to hand it over. Though it’s a prototype, probably not suitable for full military service.”
“Desperate times,” Thovin said, shrugging, picking something from between his teeth. “Probably get used for something. Even if it’s just a missile.”
That’s what you think, Sal thought. “We haven’t quite got to that stage yet,” he said. They were alone. Thovin had suggested a stroll through the mostly empty ex-civilian ship.
“Think we’re wasting our time here, Kehar?” Thovin swung round to look at Saluus, his near-neckless head raised and tilted to him.
“Talking to the Dwellers?”
“Yes. Talking to the fucking Dwellers.”
“Probably. But then our friend Fassin Taak is probably wasting his time — if he’s still alive — looking for this Transform that probably doesn’t exist.”
“He was your friend, wasn’t he?” the Guard-General said, eyes narrowing. “Old school pals. Right, isn’t it?”
“Yes, we went to school and college together. We’ve kept in touch over the years. Matter of fact, probably the last bit of R and R he got before delving into Nasq. was at my house on Murla.”
“Straight to Guard academy for me,” Thovin said, changing tack again and looking away at the dartlike ship floating in space just outside. “That your escape route, is it, Kehar?” he asked innocently.
Not quite as stupid as you look, are you? Sal thought. “Where to?” he asked, smiling.
“The fuck out of harm’s way, that’s where,” Thovin said. “Keep your head down during the Starveling occupation. Return when it’s safe.”
“You know, I hadn’t thought of that,” Sal said. “Why, are you going to make me an offer for it?”
“Wouldn’t know how to fly it. “Course, you do, that right?”
It was no secret that Saluus had flown the Hull 8770 here himself. He was a capable enough pilot. Anybody could be with a little training and a modicum of computer help.
“Frees one of our brave boys for the front line,” he told Thovin, deadpan.
“Be funny if we won against the invaders, or the Summed Fleet lost. Eh?”
“Hilarious.”
“Think we’ll get anything out of the floats?”
“I think our Dweller pals have probably given us all we’re ever going to get, but it’s still worthwhile keeping on looking.”
“Uh-huh? You think?”
“Maybe the crew of one of their hyper-weapons will suddenly decide it’d be fun to defend Sepekte just for the sheer hell of it, or one of the scouts down in Nasq. will find the Transform, or Fassin Taak will just appear with it and we can all escape down a wormhole or bring in Summed Fleet ships from wherever we want. Who knows?”
“So we’re not wasting our time here?”
“No, probably we are. But what else could we be doing? Filling sandbags?”
Thovin almost smiled. ‘Course, if they did suddenly turn up with some fancy super-weapon ship, maybe we wouldn’t need to build warships any more, eh?”
“I’m sure Kehar Heavy Industries could happily switch to building nothing but cruise ships.” Sal looked round the viewing gallery they stood in. “I can see a few areas fit for improvement just standing here.”