Rarely for him, MacDougal was caught off balance. “You mean — you do not want me to dismiss Commander Mondrian and Commander Brachis?”
“No indeed.” The topmost frond of the Angel went into slow but wide-ranging oscillation. “That cannot be.
“But then the record—”
“There must be no record. The subject for discussion is a question so serious that it can be pursued only in full closed hearing. For this, we invoke our ultimate Ambassadorial privilege.”
Even as the Angel spoke, an opaque screen was flickering into existence around the atrium. The lighted areas around the four Ambassadors were visible for a few seconds more, then there was nothing in the center of the Star Chamber but a ball of scintillating darkness.
Luther Brachis stepped forward to stand next to Esro Mondrian. The two men were alone, outside the dark sphere. Within it sat the four Ambassadors of the Stellar Group. Their earlier meeting had been the first full audio and visual meeting in twenty-two years. Now came the first Closed Hearing in more than a century.
Chapter 2
Mondrian and Brachis had clearly been excluded from the Ambassadorial meeting. Just as clearly, they had not been given permission to leave the Star Chamber. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do.
That should have been no problem. With overlapping areas of jurisdiction, the two men had a thousand points of shared responsibility and a hundred disputes to settle.
But not today. They remained speechless, Brachis pacing and Mondrian sitting in brooding silence, until after two long hours the opaque screen shivered away. The atrium mat it revealed had only two places occupied. The Pipe-Rilla and Dougal MacDougal were still in position, but the Angel and the Tinker Composite had vanished. Even MacDougal’s presence was debatable. He sat crumpled in his seat, like an empty bag of clothes from which the occupant had been spirited away.
The Pipe-Rilla gestured to Brachis and Mondrian to step forward. “We have reached agreement.” The high- pitched voice was as cheerful as ever, but that was no more than an accident of the production mechanism. The Pipe-Rillas always sounded cheerful. The nervous rubbing of forelimbs told a different story. “And since the others are gone, and your own Ambassador appears to be indisposed, it is left to me to tell you the results of our discussions.” The Pipe-Rilla gestured around her, at the two empty places and then at the shrunken, miserable figure of Dougal MacDougal.
“What happened to him?” asked Brachis.
“There was a point of dispute between your Ambassador and the Ambassador for the Angels. The Angel has forceful means of persuasion, even from a distance of many lightyears. I do not understand them, but Ambassador MacDougal will — I trust — recover in just a few of your hours.” The Pipe-Rilla waved a clawed forelimb to dismiss the subject. “Commanders Brachis and Mondrian, please give me your closest attention. I must summarize our deliberations, and our conclusions. First, on the subject of your own blame …”
Mondrian and Brachis froze while the Pipe-Rilla stood, head bowed, for an interminable period. If a human had done such a thing, it would have been by design. But with a Pipe-Rilla …
“All the Ambassadors agree,” said the Pipe-Rilla at last. “You are
Brachis glanced at Mondrian.
There had been a shift in the Pipe-Rilla’s posture, and its voice reflected the change. It was too gabbling and jerky to be understood without translation, and
“Ambassador MacDougal has agreed,” went on the Pipe-Rilla. “B-beginning at once, there will be created a new group within the department of Human System Security. It will be of a form peculiar to human history … a
“As a
“Anabasis,” said Mondrian softly. “We need to review our translation boxes. I don’t know what she means, but I’ll bet that’s not it — the original Anabasis was a military expedition, one that turned into defeat and retreat. Not a good omen.”
The Pipe-Rilla took no notice of their exchange. She was in serious trouble of her own, limbs moving spastically and her narrow thorax fluttering. “The Anabasis,” she whistled, on a rising note. “It will be headed by Commander Mondrian, who has principal responsibility for the problem, assisted by Commander Brachis. Your t-task will be simple. You will s-select and t-train Pursuit Teams, to find the — location of — the Morgan Construct. You will follow it to — wherever it is hi — ding.” Now even
The Pipe-Rilla was gone. The Link was broken, the Star Chamber atrium empty except for the huddled form of Dougal MacDougal.
Brachis turned to Esro Mondrian. “What in the name of living hell was all that about?”
Mondrian was rubbing his cheek and staring at the chromatic flicker of the dying Link connection. “I guess she couldn’t stand it. None of them can. No wonder they had to have a Closed Session, and a secret vote.”
“Couldn’t stand
“Come on, Brachis. You know the prime rule of the rest of the Stellar Group as well as I do.
“Yeah. As stupid a damned rule as I ever heard.”
“Maybe. But that’s the way they think of it — true at the individual level, and even more true at the species level.”
“So?”