“Yes, but why would they? In order to travel to other worlds, the Ktor had to leave their own first. That makes it a certainty that, long before being able to mine other worlds, they had to evolve the equivalent of plastics using their own methods and resources. Meaning, by the time they had access to fossil fuels, they would no longer need them.”
Caine nodded. “And we would certainly expect to see some use of their own plastic equivalents in their artifacts.”
Hwang shrugged. “It’s what one would expect. But almost every piece of their machinery scans—and looks—like something we ourselves would have manufactured.”
“Like something we ourselves—?” And Caine felt his mind stop, spin, access a piece of data that he knew was significant even before he could reason out why. He found himself seeing the wisps of vapor curling away from Apt-Counsel’s life-support unit, found himself hearing his words again: “Since the Arat Kur have not seen Ktorans any more than your race has, you yourselves could manufacture a device such as my suit to dupe them.”
Caine stood up slowly. “Of course. Jesus Christ, of course.”
Hwang rose. “What—?”
Caine did not hear the rest; he was already through the doorway, heading straight for Apt-Counsel, but not seeing him. Instead he could almost see pieces of the puzzle in the air before him, coming together, revealing probable answers.
Sukhinin saw Caine approach, smiled, raised a hand. “Gospodin Riordan, we were—”
Caine didn’t even look at him, but came to within a meter of Apt-Counsel before stopping. “Ambassador Apt-Counsel, you have been kind enough to share your insights regarding Arat Kur military procedure and mindset. I wonder if you would be kind enough to indulge one more request for your counsel. At this point, what would you recommend we do?”
The treads on the Ktoran life-support unit reversed briefly, as though a reflex to back up had been overridden at the last second. “As a general principle, I would recommend that you adopt a policy of patience and lenience toward the Arat Kur. But I must concede that, logically, I don’t see how you can extend any more patience and lenience than you already have.”
“Ambassador Apt-Counsel, if I didn’t know better, I’d say it sounds like you’re agreeing that we should exterminate the Arat Kur. As their ally, I’d expect to you to arguing steadfastly against such an outcome.”
“I did so as long as I had arguments that might reasonably stay your hands. I have consistently pleaded for clemency and patience, but with each passing day, your control over the Arat Kur grows increasingly uncertain and they remain obdurate and uncommunicative. Your leaders believe their antipathy to be unremitting and thus conclude that the Wholenest would launch a genocidal reprisal against you, if given the chance. I would suggest alternate perspectives if logic revealed any. But it does not.”
“So you assert that humanity would be the target of a genocidal reprisal if we were to spare the Arat Kur?”
“It is a common-sense projection. You have reproduced the virus which can decimate their race. You also possess examples of their technology and will soon have reverse-engineered those systems with the greatest strategic significance, achieving near or full military parity with them. This means that if they are to strike back, they must do so soon, and with great finality: enough to cripple your civilization to the point of being unable to return to their Homenest.”
Caine nodded slowly. “And then there’s the unspoken variable, the one which no one told us about before all this started: the Arat Kur fear of humans in particular.”
Apt-Counsel’s translator made a sound that mimicked a sigh—poorly. “Sadly, this is true. And since the Accord forbids member-races from revealing information pertaining to any race other than itself, only the Arat Kur could reveal that they identify homo sapiens as the destroyer race of their prehistory.”
“A belief which made them extremely dependable allies, didn’t it?” Caine asked. “They were already committed to the outcome you desired: cripple Earth. And their misguided motive for doing so—preventing the return of the human destroyers—meant that no cost was too great, no subterfuge too base, no act too extreme. You were able to recruit a race of fanatics.”
Sukhinin’s frown had nearly pulled his eyebrows beneath his brow line. “Are you saying the Ktor put the war in motion with the final objective of exterminating us?”
“Maybe not extermination. But bashing us back a few centuries? Sure. It was only logical that they’d try again.”
Visser snapped, “What was their first attempt, then?”
“Their first attempt was the Doomsday Rock, Ms. Visser. You’ve read the classified reports. Now ask him about it.”
Visser looked at Apt-Counsel, whose empty arm servos whirred faintly, like an amputee trying to shrug with a missing shoulder. “I am not disposed to discuss such wild accusations.”
Visser edged forward, not breathing. “Do you deny it?”
“I am not disposed to discuss it.”
Sukhinin was transitioning from pink to red. “Shto? I have seen the briefings and Downing’s recent speculations, but—is this possible?”
Caine rubbed his chin. “That would be a good question to ask Nolan, or Arvid Tarasenko. They both had years to think about the implications of discovering that an alien mass driver had been used to push the Doomsday Rock at us. Oh, but wait. They’re both dead—and both within forty-eight hours of us announcing the existence of possibly hostile exosapients at the Parthenon Dialogs. Strange coincidence, that.”
Sukhinin shrugged. “Yet, autopsies showed that both men did die of natural causes, Caine.”
“That’s not quite accurate. The autopsies were not definitive. They simply discovered nothing that our medicine recognizes as foul play. So ‘natural causes’ was the default finding, particularly after investigations into their deaths found no evidence pointing to the typical rogue’s gallery of terrestrial actors: rival states, megacorporations, terrorists.” He looked pointedly at Apt-Counsel. “But in the last few weeks, I’ve started wondering if we were looking too close to home, all along.”
“And how is it that we could have had a hand in these events?” the Ktor asked.
“I’ll get to that in a moment, Ambassador Apt-Counsel. But first I want to understand why it’s equally acceptable to your plans to have the Arat Kur eliminated instead of us.”
Darzhee Kut’s claws clacked in sharp surprise. “What are you saying, Caine Riordan?”
“Well, look at where we’re all standing and how we got here, Darzhee Kut. First, you invade our world, and the Ktor are your advisors behind the scenes. But when your campaign goes to hell in a handbasket, who are the Ktor helping now? And they’re not merely helping us, Darzhee Kut. In the past thirty minutes, Ambassador Apt-Counsel has been justifying, exonerating, even indirectly encouraging us to unleash a plague that could wipe out your whole race. Now why would he do that—unless this was always a part of his plan?”
Apt-Counsel sounded amused. “First I am attempting to exterminate humanity, Mr. Riordan. Now I am attempting to exterminate the Arat Kur. Please make up your mind.”
“Oh, there’s no contradiction there, Ambassador Apt-Counsel, because, as I said, I think either outcome would suit Ktor’s long-term strategy.”
Visser shook her head once. “Where is the sense in that, Mr. Riordan?”
“Admittedly, the sense is hard to see—unless you step back from the trees of current events to survey the larger forest of what lies ahead. Which provides the perspective from which we can ask this question: What if the Ktor are not so much worried by humanity, or the Arat Kur, but by a synergy of the two?”