And now everybody was looking at him again. Geary felt a sudden nostalgia for the old days, when he was just another officer, able himself to look toward whoever had gotten stuck with having to deal with whatever mess had arisen. But ever since the Syndic surprise attack at Grendel, ever since the days in Grendel leading up to that attack, everybody had been looking to him. Funny how he hadn’t gotten used to it.
He had known that the aliens might move. Now he had a specific situation to deal with, and a fleet that had finally won its war but would soon learn that another enemy needed to be faced.
There was someone else Geary could ask questions of, though, and he turned to face Boyens. “Why there? Why that particular star system? Why do the aliens want it first?”
“Because of where it is.” Boyens called up a display of that region of Syndic space, pointing to a star at the border with the aliens. “Midway Star System has that name because it’s so well positioned relative to other stars. From Midway, ships can jump directly to eight other star systems. It’s an excellent waypoint.”
Geary felt his jaw tighten as he studied the display. “Which makes it the defensive hinge for that entire sector, doesn’t it? If the aliens control Midway, they can threaten those eight other star systems and force their evacuation. The entire border defense falls apart.”
“One of the eight star systems is already under alien control, but that’s pretty much right. Too many star systems would be within jump range for us to defend. We’d have to fall back all along the border until we could establish a new line where jump ranges limited the number of star systems directly threatened.”
“We?” Costa asked sharply.
Boyens flushed slightly. “I meant the Syndicate Worlds.”
“There isn’t any Syndicate Worlds now.”
“That situation isn’t settled yet, especially in places like the border, but if we have to, we’ll form a new grouping of star systems along the border. We can’t afford to let that area break apart. Individual star systems couldn’t muster the resources to defend the region.”
“By ‘we,’” Rione said, “you mean this time the populations of the star systems in the border area.”
“That’s right.” Boyens glared at the display. “Whatever’s left of them after this. Look, I know how you feel about us, and how you feel about me. But we have a common enemy here, a reason to stand together.”
“Why are they your enemy?” Sakai asked. “How has the Syndicate Worlds dealt with this enigma race?”
“I don’t know everything that’s happened,” Boyens insisted, “especially in the early years a century ago. I know we’ve been trying to learn their secrets, but as far as I know, we’ve never succeeded.”
“You provoked them,” Costa charged. “And now you want us to save your sorry souls from the fates you brought upon yourselves.”
“I don’t know everything we’ve done! But what does it matter? Whatever it was is history, done and gone beyond changing. Now, today, countless innocent humans will suffer if you don’t do something.”
Rione had been tapping controls softly and finally looked at Boyens. “It appears that if this star system is taken by the aliens, you’ll have to abandon more than twenty other star systems in order to reestablish a defensible border.”
Boyens stared at the display, then nodded. “Something like that. Several billion people would have to be pulled out.”
“Do you have enough shipping to do that?”
“In the border region? No. In all of Syndic space? I don’t know. I doubt it. We can’t draw on it now anyway.”
“What happens to humans left on planets the aliens occupy?”
“I don’t know. Nobody knows. There’s never been any contact, any evidence, any trace of them. Everything we sent in to try to find out something vanished itself without any trace as well.”
No one spoke for a while, then Rione turned her face to Geary. “Do we have a choice?”
“What do you think of that ultimatum?” Geary asked in reply. “Does it match what the other CEO said about it?”
“Yes. Blunt, direct, unequivocal, and not a thing in it that provides any clues to how the aliens think. It could have been drafted by a human.”
“Maybe it was, since the Syndics don’t know what happened to humans captured by the aliens.”
Sakai stared at the text of the ultimatum. “Prisoners? Slaves? Servants? Guests? Pets? If only we knew which of those applied.”
“You forgot ‘dead,’” Rione said in a quiet voice. “In any number of possible ways. We need the answer to that question. Without it, we have no way of knowing if peaceful coexistence is possible.”
“Peaceful?” Costa asked scornfully. “Whatever they are, peace seems unlikely. You saw what they did at Kalixa! They’re inhuman!”
Rione gazed back at Costa. “I recall some who argued we should use the hypernet gates as weapons despite knowing the devastation they would cause. The former leaders of the Syndics did make such a decision. Were these aliens to turn out to be human, it wouldn’t bring me any comfort.”
Costa flushed but directed her attention back to Geary. “Well, Admiral, what will you do?”Give thanks that I never got involved in politics. Outwardly, Geary just gestured toward the ultimatum and the star display. “I want to talk to some of my officers before I make any decisions.” He started to get up, then focused on Boyens again. “Is there anything else you can tell us? The more I know, the more likely I am to decide to go to the aid of those people.”
“My people,” Boyens muttered. “I’ve told you what I know. Except one thing. You’ve accused us of provoking the enigma race, of causing their hostility toward humanity. I told you that I don’t know what the Syndicate Worlds did in the first decades after contact, and that was the truth. But our orders for the last decade at least have been to avoid doing anything that might incite the aliens, anything that might increase tensions or cause problems. I always believed that was because we couldn’t afford to fight on two fronts at once. Maybe there was another reason. But we haven’t done anything in a long time.”
“Perhaps these aliens have long memories,” Sakai said.
Boyens stared at him, then nodded. “Maybe. I won’t swear nothing happened. But I don’t know of anything. Certainly nothing recent.”
“There are compartmentalized activities,” Rione noted. “Actions kept from the knowledge of even those operating in the same regions. Would you have known of those?”
Geary could see the hesitation in Boyens. He didn’t need an interrogation cell to know the Syndic CEO was trying to make up his mind whether or not to lie. But, finally, Boyens shook his head. “No. Not necessarily. But why would anyone have done such a thing?”
“Why did the Syndicate Worlds start the war with the Alliance?” Geary asked.
Boyens met his eyes. “I don’t know. I guess they thought they could win. I don’t know why they thought that.”
“Surely there is speculation among Syndicate Worlds’ CEOs as to the reasons?” Rione said.
“Not all that much. It doesn’t matter. Didn’t matter. It mattered a century ago, when they made the stupid decision to start the war. If we talked about it, that’s all we said. It was stupid. But the reasons the war started ceased to matter a long time ago. We were stuck with it, that was all, and nobody knew how to stop it.” The Syndic CEO lowered his head, but not before they saw his pained expression. “Believe me, some of us wanted to stop it, but since we didn’t know how, we had to keep fighting.”
“Thank you. Admiral, will you have your Marines escort CEO Boyens back to his room?” Rione waited until Boyens had left with his escort, then sighed. “My advice is to go to the defense of the former Syndic border. If we let it crumble, and allow these aliens to establish control of numerous former Syndic star systems, the mending may be beyond every capability the Alliance possesses.”