Fire With Fire

“Logical, but no; we approached you and explained the situation. And you agreed to sit on the story.”

“Then why the hell did you coldcell me?”

“You were not put in suspension by us, but by security operatives that were-well, ‘loaned’ to us. They saw you preparing to enter my superior’s suite, surmised that you had lied when you agreed not to file your story with IINN, and were instead trying to steal evidentiary documents. They stunned you, tried to contact us directly, couldn’t.”

“Why?”

Downing sighed. “Security blackout; we were on the Far Side. Only communiques of national urgency.”

“So they didn’t know what to do with me.”

“Well, we learned later that some wanted to kill you.”

“Kill me?”

“Yes.”

“Christ sakes-kill me over an antimatter plant?”

“No. Over what it was built to enable, which you had started hypothesizing shortly after your arrival.”

Which put those hypotheses in Caine’s one-hundred-hour dead zone, along with the other lost memories of his time on the Moon. But a vague recollection-perhaps a wild guess from his prelunar investigations-teased a conjecture into existence. Antimatter: gram for gram the most potent energy source known. Not good for weapons, since its containment requirements make it much harder to work with than radioactives. So why would anyone need all that antimatter in one place, at one time-?

Caine blurted it out before he confirmed his thinking. “Interstellar travel: you were creating the power supply for a starship.”

Downing nodded. “The antimatter plant was merely the handmaiden to Project Prometheus: the first attempt to achieve supraluminal travel.”

“But-unless physics have changed in the last thirteen years-it’s not possible to exceed the speed of light.”

Downing wagged a finger. “I didn’t say supraluminal velocity; I said supraluminal travel.”

Caine understood. “Quantum entanglement, wormholes, electron tunneling: you needed the energy to generate a field effect that could get around the relativistic limits.”

Downing smiled. “Yes.”

“And did it work?”

Downing leaned back, considered the windowless walls. “Rather. We are currently in the Junction system. Technically, it’s still listed as Lacaille 8760. But only astrographers use that label, now.”

Caine had to focus-hard-in order to stay on track: “Okay: so on whose authority did you coldcell me?”

Downing seemed to retract into himself for a moment: whatever was about to come out was apparently kept deep within. “I am-call it the executive officer-for the Institute of Reconnaissance, Intelligence, and Security. IRIS, for short. Officially, it is a civilian think tank housed at the Naval War College.”

“And unofficially?”

Downing resisted the same retractile reflex he’d combated a moment earlier. “The Institute coordinates the actions of, and analyzes data gathered by, the world’s various intelligence services.”

Caine stared, then shook his head. “No, I don’t buy that: intelligence organizations would never cooperate that closely.”

“Not knowingly. Which is why IRIS exists: to provide an invisible intelligence locus that is aware of, and able to coordinate responses to, our new global crisis.”

“How can something be a ‘global’ crisis if only your handful of analysts are even aware of it?”

“If something endangers the whole world, then it’s a global crisis-regardless of whether one or one million persons are aware of the danger.”

“Okay, so what the hell can cause a secret global crisis?”

“When we realized that Project Prometheus was going to succeed, we started considering the possibility that, if there was another intelligent species, they might have an FTL drive, too. At first it was just a worrisome hypothesis. But now-”

“Now you’ve found something. Out here.”

“Yes-on Delta Pavonis Three. But we can’t investigate it with any of our contacts in the military or intelligence services, not without drawing attention to both the site and the Institute. So we need you to go there- on your own-and report back on what you find.”

Caine considered this rather surreal scheme and quickly arrived at three possible alternatives. Firstly, he might be hallucinating-in which case he had nothing to lose if he agreed to go looking for exosapients.

If, on the other hand, he was not hallucinating, Downing could be either lying or telling the truth-but whichever it was, he and whoever he worked for were serious enough to abduct and coldcell Caine for a very long time. Which meant if Downing and Company were lying, and Caine refused to cooperate, then their newly defrosted American was of no further use and had to be disposed of. So Caine had to appear to cooperate, if only to buy enough time to escape.

Or, lastly, it was possible that Downing was telling the truth-in which case there was so much at stake that Caine could not, in good conscience, refuse. So all logical roads seemed to lead to cooperation, albeit by very different paths.

But damn it, Caine didn’t like being impressed labor, and he didn’t have to make Downing’s job easy. So his answer took the form of a grudging mutter: “I’ll think about it.”

However, that attempt at gruff defiance came out pathetically slurred: “Althinka bowt.”

Caine started, stared at Downing-and discovered the tall Englishman was becoming a dark gray silhouette, shrinking against the burgeoning, burning lights. “Whu-wuzhapn me?” Caine mumbled.

And then the world contracted, sank, and he plummeted down into the black hole that it became.

MENTOR

Downing checked the monitors attached to Caine’s chair as two orderlies eased the tall, unconscious American into a gurney.

“How is he?” asked Nolan’s voice from speakers hidden behind baffles in the debriefing chamber’s matte black walls.

Downing nodded toward the concealed observation booth. “Passed out. Again. But he’s doing better than yesterday. Pupil dilation and contraction rates are back to normal. So are his EEG and the levels of his acetylcholine, serotonin, potassium, and endorphins. I daresay he’ll remember most of today’s conversation.”

“Did he recall any of yesterday’s session?”

“No, nor of the two days before that. Riordan’s brain chemistries were too imbalanced to form true memories. Until now, that is. Huzzah and hooray.”

“All good news, so why the bitter tone, Richard?”

Downing dismissed the orderlies with a wave. “I’m bitter because he’s here, Nolan. What happened to him on Luna was a mistake.” Downing checked his dataslate. “This is the third time our conversation got as far as his intentions when he came to Perry City. Three times we’ve monitored his vitals, and watched his behavior, as he talks about it. Not once has there been the faintest hint of duplicity.”

Downing tapped the slate: it added the day’s results to the cumulative data. “And he bloody well didn’t hatch a scheme to steal plans from us on the spot: he’s too clever for that kind of amateurish idiocy. But most importantly, it is utterly out of character for him: he had access to some very sensitive materials, over time. He never once spilled those beans-not even when he stood to make quite a tidy profit.” Downing stalked back into the spartan observation room as he finished. “Whatever Riordan was doing outside your suite thirteen years ago, Nolan, it wasn’t to break in and steal secrets.”

“No,” Nolan said quietly, “probably not.”

“Very well. Now let’s leave aside the trifling moral quandary of sending a perfectly innocent man on a covert mission to the far reaches of interstellar space. Let’s stay on practical considerations.” Downing sat and crossed his arms. “Riordan’s not suited for covert operations. And I do not mean his skills: I mean his character.”

Corcoran, avoiding Downing’s eyes, scanned the day’s bio data. “What’s wrong with Caine’s character?”