Fire With Fire

That stopped her. “My obligations? To whom, or what?”

“To your father: his life, his work, his legacy.”

“Richard, you’ll have to come up with a more compelling recruiting pitch than some vague-”

“Elena, this isn’t my idea, and this isn’t my pitch.”

“Oh? Then whose is it?”

Richard allowed himself to smile. “The request was made by a group calling themselves the Dornaani.”

Silence. God, how I do love shutting them all up. And those priceless, confused expressions. Except Caine, damn him. Those suddenly wider eyes: he’s already half-guessed what I’m leading up to. Nolan was right about him.

Opal was the first to speak. “Who or what are the Door-Nonny? Secret society? Rock band?”

“No, Major. The Dornaani are exosapients.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

ODYSSEUS

Exosapients. Of course. “That’s why you had this meeting scheduled right behind Nolan’s memorial service. And that’s why you had it on Mars. It’s all cover for this briefing, and puts us in a spot where there’s far less press and far fewer possibilities for intelligence leaks.”

Downing nodded. “I’m afraid so.”

Judging from Trevor’s face, Nolan’s son still wasn’t sure that he had heard what he had just heard about exosapients. Opal was that much further behind the leading edge of the culture-shock wave. “What do you mean, ‘exosapients’? You mean, the critters-er, folks-that Caine met on Delta Pavonis?”

Caine shook his head, kept his eyes on Richard. “No. These are different. Not from Dee Pee Three. They’re what you and I grew up calling ‘aliens.’”

Opal gaped, then grinned-still not believing, he guessed: “Oh, you mean little green men. ‘Take me to your leader’ and all the rest?”

Downing shook his head. “They’re rather more a gray olive-drab, according to the single image they relayed. And they do not wish to be taken to our leaders. Nor do they expect our senior leaders to be taken to them. They are calling for a delegation to attend a meeting that is part induction ceremony and part summit.”

Opal’s grin became open-mouthed disbelief. “You’re serious.”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

Caine noted that Elena was the first to recover, pick up the earlier threads. “And these-Dornaani-asked for me to attend this …meeting?”

Downing shrugged. “Not by name; they simply asked for an adult child of Nolan Corcoran.”

Now it was Elena’s turn to be flustered. She looked around the table, as if their eyes were accusing her of something. “Well-send Trevor. He’s part of your organization now, anyway. And he’s military, so he’ll be of interest to them-and of use to you. Good grief, I’m just a semiotic anthropologist-”

Downing smiled. “I seem to recall that your appointment to the State Department is as one of the section heads of the xenoculture analysis task force.”

Trevor leaned back. “So, I’m off the hook?”

“No. We can’t know which of you they will consider Nolan’s best representative, so I need both of you. And, Trevor, you will also be the delegation’s unofficial expert in military technology. And we will definitely need a pair of eyes and ears that are dedicated to immediate security. So that’s your other job. And since we need at least two people watching our backs, we’ll be taking Major Patrone, as well.”

“Whoa, wait a minute. You’re taking me to meet ET? I don’t think so.”

“Major, I think so, and I say so.”

“And what is my essential expertise for this mission?”

“That you can help keep us out of trouble and can follow orders.” Downing’s head was suddenly very stiff and erect upon his neck. “You all seem to think that this assignment is voluntary. With the exception of Caine and Elena, you are active duty members of the United States Armed Forces and these are your new orders. End of discussion.” Caine could tell from the pause that Downing had saved him for last. No reason to wait for it.

“So let me guess; I’m coming along, too.”

“Of course.”

“What happened to my new life of freedom, Richard?”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to take that up with the President, Caine.”

Oh, shit. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that President Liu is formally asking you to serve your country, the Commonwealth, and your planet by accepting the position of Senior Negotiator of the Deputation.”

Caine sighed, then nodded. “Okay. But-fair warning-I’m no politician.”

“And no one is asking you to be one. You will not make policy; that is for other members of the delegation. Your role is as liaison; you are the conduit for contact and exchange.”

“So I get to make the introductions at the cocktail parties?”

“No: you get to decide how and when to communicate with the other species at the meeting.”

“Other species? As in, many species?”

“There are five, counting the Dornaani.”

Caine felt the urge to throw up. “Richard, I don’t have the training for this sort of thing.”

“Neither does anyone else. And you are the only human who has ever handled a first-contact situation. And successfully, I might add. There are no other meaningful credentials for such a role-an assertion which was made by the Confederation task force that determined the complement of the delegation three weeks ago. Indeed, you were the only nominee for Senior Negotiator.”

Great. “Lucky me.”

“Actually, I think you’d be rather honored, given some of the people who nominated you.”

Caine wanted not to ask, but he couldn’t resist. “Who?”

“Ching. Sukhinin. Visser. MacGregor. And even Gaspard.”

“What? Did they reconvene Parthenon just to decide how to staff the delegation?”

“More or less. The delegation had to have representation from each bloc, and staffed by people who had sufficiently high clearance. And two had to be senior enough politicos to make diplomatic decisions, on the spot, if need be.”

“And who are those two?”

“Visser accepted the first chair on the delegation. Durniak is joining us as her advisor and second chair.

“The rest of the team are all leaders in their respective fields. Bernard Hwang was tapped to be our expert in life sciences. Lemuel Wasserman-yes, the nephew of the inventor of the Wasserman drive-will be our engineering and physics analyst. And Sanjay Thandla is going to be our expert in IT, data management, and robotics.”

“What?” Opal sounded distressed. “No assistants? Who’ll go get our coffee?”

“We will. No assistants. That was the decision made by the commission, since the Dornaani restricted us to a ten-person delegation.” Downing leaned back. “Questions?”

I’ve got to ask. “Richard, why did the Dornaani contact us now?”

“They didn’t say. But I have a hypothesis: convenience. The Dornaani indicated that we will not be the only first-time participants at this convocation.” He frowned. “What troubles me is that the Dornaani also indicated that they make first contact soon after a species has achieved interstellar travel capabilities. I think it odd that they have two new races standing for membership during a single gathering.”

Caine nodded. “I agree. Very odd.”

Opal was looking back and forth between them. “Okay, I give up; what’s odd about having one meeting instead of two separate ones?”

“If Caine and I are thinking similarly, that is not what we find suspicious, Major. Rather, it’s the fact that two separate species would be attaining interstellar capability at almost exactly the same time.”

“Okay, I see your point: the odds are really against that kind of timing. But then how do the ruins on Dee Pee