Date Point: 12y6m AV
Diplomatic Starship Rich Plains, Orbiting Cimbrean-5, The Far Reaches
++????++: <Alarm;Priority> [broadcast;observer_10142059; Meme_Sequence17974645]
Every Igraen agent in the Hierarchy had spent time as an Observer before being selected to undergo their evaluation period as a Zero ahead of finally being inducted into the Hierarchy itself. The work was tedious and demeaning, but it supposedly instilled patience and winnowed out those too fickle to properly serve the needs of the species.
The Observers did just and only that: they observed. They did not have the override codes to assume control of their host, nor any authority within the Hierarchy structure but they were utterly essential. The Hierarchy, after all, numbered at most in the low thousands and had done so only a few times in their history.
This, compared to millions of potentially important individuals who might know and see things that the Hierarchy might wish to learn. Individuals such as the Guvnurag diplomat Furfegrovan.
The observer riding in Furfeg’s implants had been monitoring the Guvnurag’s thoughts and had noted a chain of reasoning that it felt warranted inspection by a more senior agent. It had kicked the meme-sequence upstairs to its over-observer, which had in turn forward it to the observation overseer.
The thought chain was easily summarized: ‘The human is up to something.’ This alone warranted analysis, especially in light of the sophisticated decision tree that underpinned the opinion, and so the overseer immediately brought the analyzers into play.
Analyzers were the second tier of the structure atop which rested the Hierarchy’s agents. Observe, Analyze, Act. All Agents spent time as an Analyzer as well before they finally made it to their Zero-trial.
Analysis of the meme-sequence led to its immediate graduation to needing Agent intervention. It was forwarded to the junior receiving agent monitoring the diplomatic operation, who instantly handed it to the senior agent.
The entire process took place during the ringing silence that followed Ambassador Hussein’s simple question.
“What must we do?” he repeated himself, leaning forward on his cane and peering over his glasses. “Tell us. My species is listening, gentlebeings. Reveal to us what it is we must do to earn your trust, and it will be done.”
Hierarchy prediction algorithms ran ahead of that question, sending questing tendrils of probability-math into the future in search of the plausible outcomes, the desirable outcomes, the disastrous outcomes. Nodes of possibility were found, key branches in the conversation to come were mapped.
Hussein did not stand—indeed, the act seemed beyond him at this point—but he did shuffle forward and perch owl-like on the edge of his seat. “Tell us,” he repeated, softly.
With a fully mapped probability matrix in place, the Hierarchy’s critical objectives were injected and work began on what sequence of words and actions might bring them about. First and foremost, the objective of driving a permanent wedge between ordinary sapients and all forms of deathworld life.
One of the Guvnurag erupted to his feet, flaring a furious red. “There is nothing!” he spat. “The homeworld would be untouched if not for your kind, and you dare ask us to trust you? You… you blunder off your diseased planet and rot everything you touch, and then you ask for forgiveness? There is nothing, Ambassador! Nothing that you can do! Do not even ask!”
The probability space shrank and stretched, dozens of Hierarchy programs watched every subtle facet of Hussein’s body language as he took the tirade with patient sadness.
“…Then why am I here?” he asked, eventually. “Is this sentiment universal? Diplomacy never fails, sir; People fail it. It falls to us at these moments to have the strength to-”
“Your *‘strength,’*” one of the other dignitaries interrupted, spurred by the Agent in her brain, “crushes us all.”
“Strength can do that,” Hussein agreed. “Or it can hold off the crushing blow. Strength is never a problem, gentlebeings. Strength solves problems, and it now falls to us to be strong for both our species’ sakes.”
”And what problems have you solved, Ambassador Hussein?” Furfeg asked, quietly. He was unaware of his status as the only Guvnurag in the room whose actions were entirely uninfluenced by Hierarchy demons. There always needed to be at least one, to act as a barometer for how other uncontrolled life forms would behave.
Hussein considered that for a long moment. “That is a fascinating question, Your Excellency. Answering it in detail would require I place all of you in great danger, and that, obviously, cannot stand. So I will answer it as best I can: we have ensured the continued survival of ourselves and others.”
“A bluff,” One of the dignitaries scoffed.
“If so, it is one we have committed virtually all of our Dominion Development Credits to ensure, along with a crippling increase in GRA member-nation debt, extensive economic pressure not to mention internal instability. No. This is a threat we are committed to fighting, and we are doomed to fight it mostly in silence. But, alas, I cannot ask your sympathy, and I know beyond doubt that many of the people in this room know of what I am speaking.”
“And is this… problem… actually solved, Your Excellency?” Furfeg pressed.
“No. Nor will it be anytime soon. All of that, however, is merely background. My people are in a fight for the right to exist, and one aspect of our enemy has decided to make an example of your people for their own reasons. This…we are not strong enough to have stopped it. We could only watch, helplessly, as all our oft-mentioned Deathworld might was as nothing before a million evil ships. So, I ask again: what must we do?”
Furfeg’s chromatophores shone with a mix of uncertainty and, even now, the urge to reconcile…and it was on that lone data point that the probability-space collapsed into a narrow channel of forced action.
There were no malicious words or taunting. What would have been the point? Instead, one of the Agents merely triggered a contingency in physical space that had been prepared ahead of this meeting. Its host raised a hand and pointed at the human, and there was a snapping hiss of compressed air.
Hussein had enough time to look down at the nervejam grenade that landed at his feet.
His reply was soft. “…I see.”
He shut his eyes.
Date Point: 12y6m AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Technical Sergeant Martina Kovač
As dates went, Martina had to feel that going to a photo exhibition being thrown by her boyfriend’s ex-girlfriend-slash-adopted-sister was… Surprisingly good actually. It sounded a lot worse on paper than it was in reality.
Ava was looking good these days. Marty doubted she’d ever quite lose that haunted look but she was carrying herself more openly, smiling more, looking less sorry for herself. Her fingertips never strayed far from the soft-haired brown border collie at her side, but there was a determined positive energy around her now. It was a definite improvement.
According to Adam, Ava had approached Folctha’s art galleries about doing an exhibition as a kind of therapy. Marty had no idea what went into being accepted by an art gallery, but she’d done her research and learned that the Ealain Gallery was getting the best reviews by all the right people. Some very serious names, apparently, felt that the place was on its way to becoming a true cultural focus. One critic had called it ‘Folctha’s answer to the Tate Modern,’ and it was high on the list of tourist destinations for visitors to mankind’s first offworld colony.
Art galleries had never been Marty’s thing, though. Too… self-congratulatory. She was an engineer and a scientist at heart, she loved problems and solving problems. The eternal quest to find ever-more subtle ways of evoking an emotion usually left her cold.
Sometimes, though, something came along to make her grudgingly reassess her opinion and Ava’s photography was proving to be such a sometime. Apparently she’d worked closely with the gallery’s curator to tell a story, and they’d succeeded.
The path through the exhibit meandered confusingly, leaving no clear sense of direction. It started, surprisingly, with an image not taken by Ava—a photo taken out in nature by a lake, showing the sunlight making lines of light and dark on Ava’s own naked back while the sun itself was framed by a coil of her soaked hair. You had to know it was Ava, though, as she was looking away from the camera. Frankly, the girl in the picture could have been anyone.
It was a happy image, a warm one, and it held Adam enthralled for so long that Marty was about to tease him about the shadowed edge of a teenage breast just visible between Ava’s arm and her knee when he spoke.
“I remember that day…”
Marty checked the label. “Original image by S. Tisdale…”
“Yeah. Last day we ever swam at the lake. God, she died only a week later…”
Marty took his hand and led him away from it, into the thicket of images that Ava had taken herself. There was a very similar image to the first one at the far end of the gallery, enlarged so that everyone could see that it was there and that it was almost identical to the first one, but hidden behind a curtain of gauze that blurred the details. The winding trail around the exhibit swung close to it, but never behind the curtain. Whatever that image depicted was tantalizingly visible, but never accessible.
“Jack writes to you, right?” she asked.
“Recruit Tisdale, you mean?” Adam grinned. “Yeah, he writes to me every week. Says the PT at HMS Raleigh is way easier than what I was givin’ him… hey, this is London, right?”
“You tell me, I’ve never been,” Marty inspected the image he’d stooped to study. It certainly had a strong London-ness to it. In fact, as she looked around she found they were in the middle of a virtual island of London-ness, written in shades of orange, blue and gray-scale. “Gonna be a while before he’s on the team.”
“Five years to finish his Engineering Technician training after he’s done with Basic. God, I’ll be an old man by then!”
“Shut up, you won’t even be thirty.”
“You’ll be though!” Adam shot her his best shit-eating grin, bouncing on the balls of his feet with enough force to be felt through the concrete tiled floor. “Ooolld…..”
Marty slapped his arm and got stinging fingers for it, but she was giggling. “Asshole… Come on, let’s see what’s next.”
Ava’s exhibition really was an emotional journey, and all of it was told in portraits of light and color that tended to focus on one ordinary thing. A decrepit old Lada in Cairo, a forlorn brown rock in the middle of the surprising subtle hues of desert sand. A crown of brambles choking a native Cimbrean tree to death. Every single one was bleak, but… there was something…
It finally clicked for Marty when they reached the far end of the gallery closest to the gauze and she could see what the picture behind was: A recreation of the original image by the lakeshore, with an older Ava still anonymously looking away from the camera.
She leaned back, folded her arms thoughtfully. “Well now. I don’t usually go for art, but this? I like.”
“That means a lot. Thank you!”
They both turned. Ava had managed to sneak up on them during their slow tour around the exhibit, and gave them a shy smile. “It was Bernadette who really put it together, though. I didn’t even see the theme in all these until she brought it out.”
“Bernadette?” Adam asked.
“The curator.” Ava looked around the exhibit. “She must’ve gone through thousands of pictures to narrow it down to just these.”
“I like that you used Sara’s picture,” Adam told her.
“Mm. It was Berna’s idea to recreate it.” Ava looked up at the huge image of herself on the wall. “Is it weird that an exhibition of my photos is framed by two pictures I didn’t take?”
“You’re asking the wrong gal,” Marty confessed. “You modeled nude, though? I dunno if I could do that…”
“Actually, it was a real boost.” Ava smiled. “I might do it some more. Not, like, a glamour shoot but for art reasons? Hell yeah, sign me- sorry.”
The apology was in response to her phone humming inside her purse. She fished it out with a practised ease that said that she got a lot of phone calls at unexpected moments, and had it against her ear in a businesslike flash.
“Ava Rìos…Me cago en Cristo, are you sure?! …Yeah! Yeah, send it over, I’ll meet the crew at Quarterside Park. Right away, Thor. …You too.”
She lowered the phone with a stunned expression.
“Something happen?” Adam asked.
Ava nodded slowly. “…Ambassador Hussein has been murdered.”
Date Point: 12y6m AV
Folctha, Cimbrean, The Far Reaches
Nofl
“The way I see it, you have a choice here. You can be a criminal and a dropout from the Corti Directorate and sink into obscurity…or you could become respected and revered.”
Nofl wasn’t buying it, and said so. “Chief, chief, sweetie! I thought you were a man of principle?” He wasn’t handcuffed—humans didn’t make cuffs small enough for a Corti’s wrists—so he idly traced a lazy finger in an abstract pattern on the steel tabletop they had parked him at, seated atop a couple of thick books. “This political bargaining doesn’t suit you, not at all!”
“I am a man of principle.” Gabriel Arés was in that ridiculous primitive wheeled chair of his again. Why the man persisted in enduring the indignity of a permanently damaged nerve despite Nofl’s repeated offers to help…well, everybody said humans were strange. “Our system of justice seeks fairness and even if you broke the law, your intent matters. It always does.”
“I’m sure that line works with the Gaoians, but I am one of the finest Corti minds alive, darling. Try harder.”
“You got caught.”
“…True.”
Arés smiled and shook his head. “No, this is a grand old tradition we have. It’s called a plea bargain, Nofl, and it’s quite simple. You co-operate and confess to the crime, admit guilt, and you will be treated very fairly. As opposed to merely…well. The local Prosecutor is frankly sick and tired of all the smuggling attempts we’ve foiled, and I think she wants a scalp, if you catch my meaning.”
Nofl considered that entirely plain and unhidden threat. “And what does this attorney of mine that you said would be arranged for me have to say about all this?”
“I don’t know. Would you like to ask her?” Gabriel paused, looked around conspiratorially, and said in a low voice. “Look…you’re not human, so let me just say the correct answer is ‘yes.’ You want to talk to her. Now.”
Nofl considered the chief for several seconds, and then nodded. “Yes please. I would like to speak with my attorney.”
Gabriel nodded, wheeled himself out of the room, and after a tellingly short wait, a tall and robust human female with very long, black hair strode in. She waited until the other humans had left, and then opened her briefcase.
“Mr. Nofl, I am Ms. Bader. As you are alien, let me first say that anything you and I discuss—anything *at all*—is protected and inadmissible in court. There are only three classes of profession where that protection is extended, and in our case, that protection is absolute. Do you understand?”
“What if they… record what we discuss?” Nofl asked, curiously. Even from that first businesslike sentence, the whole affair was beginning to seem rather elaborate.
“The legal concept translates from the Latin as something like ‘tainted fruit of the poisoned tree.’ Anything they learn from such a thing, and all of the descendant products thereof, are not only inadmissible in court but they will themselves have committed a crime. The act of recording this conversation is also illegal. And…as an aside? I would love for them to try. I’d make all of the money.”
Nofl found himself warming to this human. Her attitude was almost Corti, and for an added bonus her suit was immaculately tailored. Corti didn’t wear clothes, but that was no excuse for being fashion-blind. “Very well. Then yes, I indeed smuggled Cruezzir through customs as a personal favor to Myun. She does not know the details. She only wanted me to ‘get some’ to help Chief Arés.”
“How admirable,” Bader said, unconvincingly. “That particular crime carries the maximum penalty of ‘Transportation’ on Cimbrean, which is just a gussied-up English way of saying ‘exile to wherever.’ Which brings us to my question: how would you like to plea?”
Nofl considered it. “Chief Arés was telling me about this bargain he wanted to offer.”
Bader rolled her eyes. “He can’t do that. Only the Prosecutor can, but I have no doubt that rolling tightass coordinated everything with that…with her. But I bet the offer is genuine. He is honest to a fault.” Her tone of voice was…difficult for Nofl to analyze. Admiring? Something about the tone didn’t quite match the words.
“So what are my options, dear?”
Bader snorted derisively through her nose. “Drop the act, Nofl. I don’t think there’s such a thing as a gay Corti.”
“You’re quite right, dear, but can’t a chap be camp for fun?”
She deployed Nofl’s very favorite human gesture—the ‘concession nod.’ Head slightly tilted, mouth in a straight line, eyebrows raised. “A fair point, I guess. But as to your options, you have three: you could plead guilty and throw yourself at the mercy of the court—Don’t. You could plead not guilty, and—” she quickly rifled through her case notes, “—likely be found guilty as charged, and then the Prosecutor would have lots of fun. Sorry. They’ve got fingerprints, video evidence, transport logs…all of it. Yikes.”
Nofl considered this, feeling slightly chagrined. “And the third option?”
“Well…we strike a deal.” She rested her hand under her chin. “Which says something that they’re willing to offer a deal, seeing as they have you dead to rights. You’re very valuable to someone, Nofl. What did you do? And better yet, how can I profit for both of us?”
“Oh, I was just the first-circle professor of regenerative medicine at the Grand University of Origin…” Nofl permitted himself his best impersonation of a winning smile. “You should see my personal banner, it’s taller than I am.”
“…Are you the reason that ‘Warhorse’ character needs a whole sidewalk to himself? Him and his friends?”
“Miss Bader, if I answered that question then…oh wait, everything I say to you is inadmissible, isn’t it?”
“…yes…” Bader conceded, “But I highly encourage you to exercise discretion. The subtleties of the law here are significant and you’ll no doubt wish to study them after we’ve got your little problem cleared up. In particular the Cimbreaners have an Official Secrets Act which is just…unAmerican, if you ask me.”
“As I understand it, the colony is not American.”
“Their loss,” Bader sniffed. “But while the protection is absolute, that doesn’t mean they won’t try. We have another concept: ‘the process is the punishment.’ Let’s not explore that, hmm?”
“You manage to make law sound almost interesting, Miss Bader. Poisoned fruits and florid language… It’s nearly exciting!”
“Here’s another word you might like. ‘Lawfare.’ I’ll let you ponder that one. Now…shall I begin talks with the Prosecutor, and get you out of this cell? I’m gonna shoot for an admission of guilt, probation of, oh, some term or another…let’s stick to a misdemeanor, yeah. Maybe a fine? Only if I must. Oh, and are you willing to do community service? That might let me sweeten the offer.”
“I suspect,” Nofl hazarded, “That community service is exactly what Chief Arés wants.”
“Oh no, what he wants is justice. He’s admirable that way…” she got that strange look in her eye again, “Anyway. He’ll be happy if the system works like it should. It’s really the Prosecutor we need to worry and she is a bitch lately about…God, everything. Incidentally, I’ve made a small fortune off the Clan males and their constant brawling…”
Nofl gave her a calculating look. “How much are your services going to cost me?”
“This one? It’s free. Public defender working pro bono and all that. After today…” she flashed that distinctive predator smile that only humans ever quite got right. “I’m sure we can work something out.”
“I’m sure we can,” Nofl agreed.
After that, things went remarkably fast. Less than twenty temporal units after she closed her folder and let herself out, Ms. Bader returned. Five minutes after that there was a bustle towards the courthouse, where the Judge, Ms. Bader, and the Prosecutor donned some ridiculous white wigs. There was some highly encoded legal jargon spoken in heated terms…and the agreement was set.
The deal as it was explained to Nofl was really quite straightforward: He would serve one Cimbrean year of ‘probation’ which as he understood it meant a solemn promise not to offend again, on pain of severe punishment. He would perform two hundred hours of ‘community service’ and he would pay a bond of one thousand Cimbrean Pounds, repayable with interest after his year of probation was served, and he would offer one thousand hours of professional services towards the local military establishment.
The only hiccup in the process came when they tried to explain the concept of ‘swearing an oath.’ The whole notion veered deep into the heartlands of deathworld strangeness, onto a region of Nofl’s mental map that was clearly labelled “Madness.”
In the end, mostly in the hopes that by doing so he might get them to stop explaining it, he agreed to swear on a printout of the universal physical constants. What could be more fundamental? He spoke a few simple words solemnly avowing his obedience and agreement, the Prosecutor reluctantly agreed to the contract…and he was let free. Somehow, he really hadn’t expected to end the day as the next best thing to a free Corti.
And waiting outside was Gabriel Arés in his chair with a ‘shit-eating grin’ on his face.
“I told you to plea-bargain, didn’t I?” he asked. It wasn’t really a question.
“Yes, but why darling?”
“Oh, that’s easy. You did wrong but you also did good. We needed to resolve that. And besides…” Arés’ smile changed from ‘shit-eating’ to ‘sheepish.’ “…Who else am I gonna get a nerve treatment from around here?”
Nofl brightened up, genuinely. “…Really? Are you finally ready to leave that dreadful chair of yours behind?”
“Well…I have a sneaking suspicion that I might be a grandfather sooner than later. I…what man wouldn’t want to play with his own grandkids?”
“Much too sentimental, darling,” Nofl flapped a hand at him. “But… fine. Your reasons are yours, I’m sure.”
Arés chuckled. “Guilty as charged I think…” he paused, turned and frowned as a CCS officer in the characteristic high-vis yellow jacket and officer cap jogged up to him. “…Henson? Something wrong?”
“Message from the Governor-General, chief,” Henson said. “He’s called an emergency session.”
“He has? Why?”
“They’re saying Ambassador Hussein is dead, chief…”