Sister Time-ARC Read online

  "So are we to respect the Posleen next?"

  "Interesting question, despite your ironic tone, but one for another day. The course of study for your immediate future is Humans. First lesson. Forget 'insane' unless you are talking about an organism that is a mentally damaged individual of its species. Alien and damaged are not the same thing. The thought patterns and behaviors of a healthy individual in a species are the way they are because they served an evolutionarily positive function for that species. Yes, there are evolutionary dead ends, but too often we Indowy say 'insane' when what we really mean is 'not like us,' " the clan head lectured.

  "Humans have tried, many times, social structures very similar to our way. The results have been abysmal—for the sole reason, I believe, that they are not us. Your first assigned reading for discussion tomorrow is Bradford's chronicles of the Plymouth Colony. You may use my translation; get it from my buckley. As you read, keep in mind that these were mentally healthy humans, of a high degree of ethical development for the species, virtually all of whom deeply believed a way like ours would work and wanted it to work. Do not make the mistake of assuming it failed because of a few aberrants who sabotaged it. Instead, look at how application of a system that would have worked for Indowy served the whole. Our whole premise for why our way is moral is how it serves the whole," he emphasized.

  "First lesson—always evaluate Human species' sanity in terms of how their systems of social organization serve the whole of that society. It is Human societies that are their analogues of our Clans, not their 'families.' Families are incorrectly classified in the literature as proto-clans. In this assignment, think of them as breeding groups, instead. That analogy is usually, but not always, more apt than the proto-clan one. We will study why and when later. For a start, the O'Neals are a bit more of the exception than the rule. I find I am usually most correct when I think of the entire O'Neal Bane Sidhe as now folded into Clan O'Neal. Usually, I think of the Human Father Nathan O'Reilly more as a senior clan planner serving at the pleasure of the O'Neal Clan Head. It is very close to accurate, and often the best approximation for Clan Aelool purposes."

  "I do not understand. The Human Planner O'Reilly's leadership in the Human component of the Bane Sidhe considerably predates the split," his apprentice said. "He is accepted as being of senior rank to the O'Neal."

  "True. Yet if it came to an unresolvable policy dispute, the organization would not further split. Instead, Human Planner O'Reilly would choose to relinquish his position, unhappily but without external pressure, in favor of the candidate preferred by the O'Neal. By our standards, all the O'Neal Bane Sidhe are O'Neals. Hence the name. However, for some reason specifying this to him distresses the O'Neal, although he clearly takes full responsibility for all the others. Witness that there is a second O'Neal Bane Sidhe base on Earth. It is his own home, run directly by him. The 'Edisto Island' base. The terminology bothers him, apparently out of something the humans call 'modesty.' It is no use calling it that to him—modesty is an attribute he does not believe he possesses. I humor him, the Indowy Beilil humors him, as must you. I learned this, by the way, from the Sunday annexation. Clan O'Neal is the most vital Human society to the Galactic future, and we must carefully nurture it in a healthy direction. Clan Aelool and Clan Beilil consider the Plan entirely remapped by this unexpected development of Clan O'Neal as a growing Human 'society.' More or less. Alien minds are alien—the clan to society analogy is not exact. Second lesson for the day. Inflexibility in the face of large situational changes is a counter-survival trait for the whole. A bit of Human wisdom, 'No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.' "

  He sighed, "No, do not shrug it off because of the barbaric phrasing. We Indowy, and all we Galactic races, do that far too much. It means one cannot plan wisely if one does not adapt to large situational changes. How can the Humans be rightly considered such irredeemable barbarians if they have wisdoms they can teach us?"

  "I am not wise enough to dispute with the wise, Clan Head, but I respect that as a Clan Head with your expertise, you may best judge if you yourself are. Particularly regarding Human xenology."

  "In this, I am quite certain that I am correct. Quite, quite certain indeed. Consider the Himmit and Tchpht . . . unconvinced, but cautiously interested in our research, so long as we manage it as safely as possible. The Tchpht's Human xenopsychology researches take a more direct, active interest in the Michelle branch of Clan O'Neal. Which has implications for some other developing situations, beyond your level of study."

  "That explains much of Clan Aelool policy on a level I can understand. Thank you, sir."

  "Come. Allow me to show you some of the work we do here."

  The Indowy Aelool entered a room decorated in colors and patterns that offended the young Indowy's eyes, and would have similarly affected all of his species. The Aelool had equipped the room with odd, unexplained Human devices. He donned a Human-style garment, cut to his size, that covered much of his photosynthetic surface. Then he picked up a flat ceramic disk with brown rectangular solids of food, covered by a clear Human plastic. All of this was quite bizarre. If he had not known better, and if the matter were not unthinkable, the young Indowy would have feared for his Clan Head's rationality.

  "All of this presentation is necessary. Especially the 'apron.' " He gestured to the Earth-cloth garment. "Come," he said again, carrying the disk in his hands as he left the odd room, walking down to the moving box humans preferred to decent bounce tubes.

  "These foods, by the way, are completely ethically clean. They are also metabolically enhanced as I described, obviously," he said.

  The Aelool asked his buckley PDA a question in a Human language. Fabulous collaboration between the humans and Tchpht, that. The collaboration aspect was unwitting on the part of the humans, of necessity, but still a fabulous invention. Ridiculously fragile and short-lived, but so incredibly inexpensive! Aelool had assured him that it genuinely did not attempt to spy on you. His Clan Head apparently believed it. Amazing.

  He spoke no further as he led his younger clan brother into areas frequented by humans. The young Indowy made every effort to copy his senior's mannerisms, ruthlessly suppressing all natural fear and, especially, thought of fear.

  They approached a Human of that even the youngster had no difficulty identifying as a female, treated for proper longevity or very young adult, in excellent health. Her head tendrils were a pale, silvery yellow and fell to her shoulders. The colorful parts of her eyes were a clear, bright blue.

  "Miss O'Neal. my favorite test subject! I am most happy to see you. May I offer you a brownie?" The Clan Head pulled back the flexible plastic, which stuck to itself awkwardly, and presented the disk of food to the woman.

  "Oooh. Thanks, Aelool." She picked up a brown square and began munching rapidly. Her smile tried to cover the teeth, but with imperfect effect since she was eating the food.

  He tried to look away, and kept his gestures under control, but could smell the stink of his own fear pheremones begin to waft into the air. Fortunately, he had been told, humans could not scent or recognize them. This one's nostrils flared, though, in a way that made him doubt his information. Still, she seemed thoroughly preoccupied with the food.

  "Walnuts and chocolate chunks? You're getting good at this Aelool. I don't know why you picked this for a hobby, but I approve!" Again, she grinned around a mouthful of the food, bits of which stained her white teeth brown. "Do you mind if I?" She picked up four more squares eagerly, disappearing down the hall as if afraid he might take them back.

  After she was out of sight and out of hearing, Aelool muttered softly to him. "Completely ethically clean food. Completely nutritionally adequate to maintain her. How much meat do you think that Human will consume today?"

  "Your wisdom vastly exceeds mine, sir. I admit I have no idea. I presume at this stage of your researches you are choosing the more ethically advanced humans?"

  The Indowy Aelool's ears and eyes quirked in sup
pressed mirth, "Childling, that was Miss Cally O'Neal."

  The dump of fear pheremones overwhelmed him as he shook in sudden reaction, "You brought me near—"

  "Please. You were perfectly safe. Miss O'Neal has never killed an Indowy. Such drama. You yourself saw that she was only interested in how much of the clean food she could take without offending me." He made their race's equivalent of a shrug. "Do you see why I am convinced of my researches? To answer my own question, Miss O'Neal will almost certainly consume no meat today. She is concerned about keeping excess fat deposits off of her body, so monitors her caloric intake carefully. She will consume a few cups of bean broth, with no caloric enhancement—without enhancement, it has virtually no calories for them. She much prefers these 'brownies' to the meat. It really is that simple. I could provide similar clean foods, high in lipids and sugars, and persuade her to replace large amounts of her meat intake—completely on her own initiative. She would feel no deprivation. To the contrary, she would feel guilt for consuming so much 'junk food.' "

  "Junk food? It is better food! Um—doesn't she have two, very large, excess fat deposits?"

  "Oh, those. Those she has little choice about—an evolutionary adaptation to attract males. I gather she is unusually well adapted," he said. "Remember, she does not know the bean squares will keep her healthy. By the time I have the Human Nathan O'Reilly tell her the truth about the food—with me at a safe distance, far away, of course—she will be angry for a few seconds to a few days before laughing and asking for more brownies. By then, she will have accepted that she likes the taste of the improved, clean foods and will not imagine bad tastes into them."

  "You told her she was a test subject. Why would she be angry?"

  "She thought I was joking."

  "Why? No, never mind, sir. I have a different question. Human males are the more aggressive. You mentioned that Human males are less fond of the beans in the brownies?"

  "Quite true. However, I have not yet explained the Human male fondness for another metabolically challenging, high food-value, ethically clean broth made from fermented seeds. Let me tell you about 'beer.' " The head of Clan Aelool led his young protege to a convenient, civilized bounce tube, carefully securing the rest of the experimental food for the journey.

  Chapter Ten

  Four men and one woman gathered around a hologram in a stale-smelling galplas room. Six enhanced information manipulation units sat ranked on ancient folding tables along the walls, hard-wired out through secure data cables that ran through ductwork in each wall. Each machine's buckley port was uncharacteristically empty. Each showed signs of recent and regular cleaning, each showed signs of age in black lines of dirt ingrained in the casing's few small seams. Each was still a cutting edge application of Tchpht technology, being between seven and twenty years old. More accurately, cutting edge of what the Crabs had been willing to release to any Galactic anywhere. Human cyberpunks being less hidebound than Galactics, each was still more innovative in small ways than anything Indowy or Darhel had. They made up in creativity anything they lacked in Darhel institutional infotech experience. The cybers presumed, of course, that the Himmit had perfect working copies. The Frogs' espionage capabilities on all fronts were so good that the cyber division of the O'Neal Bane Sidhe had the private opinion that even the Tchpht had no idea how much of their tech the Himmit had quietly stolen. After all, why would the Himmit risk provoking the Tchpht to increase security? One of the cybers primary and highly covert projects was to find and keep secure a good enough story to buy whatever information the Himmit had acquired on the slab.

  They had enjoyed a remarkable lack of success, though not through lack of stories. It was practically impossible to protect a good enough story against penetration by the Frogs—nicknamed for the terrestrial amphibians they resembled. Purplish and bulbous when in the open having a conversation, the Himmit were racial cowards, a trait moderated only by their cheerfully insatiable curiosity for what they called good stories. They had an extraordinary ability to reshape their bodies and repattern them to match their surroundings, and to move silently. Their natural camouflage ability was to a chameleon's what a Formula 500 race car was to a little red wagon. They were also so harmlessly amiable that it was impossible to stay angry with one.

  The cyber operations security director described the continuing attempt to protect information from the devilishly effective little bastards as "good training."

  The walls in the room were a nasty putty color. One corner was glaringly different, the bright purple walls covered with acid green spirals. It hurt Tommy's eyes, but he had to admit that Cassandra was one hell of a cracker. Despite her penchant for collecting desk toys that, together, moved like a set of demented clocks, he'd never seen a system she hadn't been able to poke half a dozen different security holes in. The purple stuff was obviously painted on, since it was already flaking at the uneven edges. Galplas had never been designed to take paint. What would've been the point? It could be tuned to any color you wanted—at least, it could at installation. Galactics weren't much for anticipating change. Sometimes it seemed like they barely tolerated it at all.

  Tommy Sunday shook himself and got his attention back on track. Cally was going over the layout of Fleet Strike Operations Training Headquarters. "They put the archival library on this section of the flats. It's not just a machine room tightcasting to the troops' AIDs. Fleet Strike learned a few lessons from the war. All of its more interesting material is secured within the system and accessible only by physically cabled-in terminals. In practice, that means you sit down in a study couch, scan in your fingerprint or swipe your temporary ID, and plug in the buckley you checked out from the front desk on your way into the building. The building is, unofficially but strictly, a no-AID area. The in-house buckleys all carry a bright-blue stripe up the back, just as a reminder not to cross-connect the two. There's a manned desk at the door to tactfully ensure the protocol is followed. Questions?" She paused, clearly knowing the question wouldn't be rhetorical.

  "Yeah, I'll bite. How are we getting into their system?" Schmidt Two looked over at Tommy, raising an eyebrow. The male assassin was on the opposite side of the table from Cally, as far away as he could get without being rude. Tommy hoped they could shelve their tension before the run. He didn't like complications within the team.

  "Go on." Cally nodded at the big man.

  "Fine. When I left Fleet Strike in 2031, I hadn't been approached by the Bane Sidhe yet, but I'd gotten used to having extensive access and didn't want to lose it. It was a big chance and could have gotten me shot if they'd caught me at it, but I fooled Fleet Strike's systems into thinking I was on a long-term deep cover investigations mission. That I was a sleeper." He held up a hand when Papa would have spoken.

  "I know, I know, Fleet Strike's mission was and is Human versus Posleen, not Human versus Human. They have almost no cloak and dagger operations, of course. The key word there is almost. They have, rarely, had some internal high drama—investigating misappropriation of funds, diversion of resources, corporate bidding scandals, things like that. There was a billing category for it, a protocol for the systems to deal with such an agent, and that was all I needed. Especially since I told it I was too secret for it to pay me, which let me, after the fact, disable the linkage to the payroll and accounting systems. When I got through tinkering, the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing. I cross referenced against the standard reports . . . uh . . . your eyes are glazing over. I covered my tracks, okay?" When he talked about computer geeking, it was possible to see the skinny, dark-haired kid from Fredericksburg inside the linebacker's son.

  "If they hadn't broken out their own data storage from the Darhel's main AID network in 2019, I never would have been able to manage it. I'm sure it's duplicated in the Darhel's databases somewhere, but there's never been anything to bring one insignificant sleeper agent to their attention. Not that I know of, anyway. I had dumped large chunks of AID code into some harmle
ss-looking duplicate files on a first generation pre-production system right after the Rabun Gap incidents. I was pissed, Iron Mike was pissed, we were all pissed. The plan was to analyze it later and I had cooperation from the rest of the 555th ACS. We did some sleight of hand with partial files I don't need to get into. Anyway, I used the back door I built to dump my files so I could use them in my private sector work. That's the only time I ever accessed it, but I never shut it down. The system should, and I stress 'should,' still think I'm in Fleet Strike if we tickle it right," Sunday said.

  He took a chance and stole one of the really yummy smelling brownies Cally had sitting on a napkin in front of her, ignoring the dirty look she shot him. He'd have to ask where she'd found them, since chocolate was one of those luxury goods at one hell of a premium on base since the split. It was far more available on the island, given the proximity for smuggling. Maybe he could get her source to part with the recipe for Wendy. These were good.

  "Unless they caught you last time, in which case it will bring all hell down on our asses," the red-haired fireplug of a man spat neatly into a chipped stoneware mug that was missing its handle.