Mallory knew little of Dakota, the one planet those genetically-engineered humans had made their own after their exile. It was part of the Fifteen Worlds, one of a pair of habitable planets orbiting Tau Ceti—the less inviting one. From what Mallory did know, Dakota was even more xenophobic and insular than the rest of the Fifteen Worlds.
Considering how close it was, Mallory wondered how large a population of Dakota expatriates lived on Bakunin. He also wondered if it was only her father that carried a genetic engineer’s legacy and how much of Kugara’s genome was artificial.
Finally, there was Jusuf Wahid who came from Davado Poli, a small world that was a remnant of Epsilon Indi’s aggressive expansion two hundred years ago; the wrong location and history to be a Caliphate agent. Still, Mallory couldn’t help being suspicious of him; even though logic dictated that if the Caliphate was trying to be covert here, it would do its best to use an agent who wasn’t an obvious Muslim.
But was there a reason for the Caliphate to be covert? As far as Mallory knew, they had no reason to suspect that the Church knew about the transmissions from Xi Virginis, so they would have no reason to hide their own interest.
Last, there was Mosasa himself. The man was tattooed and jeweled like a pirate from another century. And, according to Nickolai, he was as nonhuman as the tiger. Mallory didn’t know exactly what that meant. The cursory research he had been able to do on his potential employer
If Mallory had deigned to risk a more aggressive investigation, tracking down associates and so on, rather than keeping a low profile in his hotel room, he suspected he might have uncovered a few interesting explanations for Mosasa’s apparent longevity.
Wahid muttered something about wanting to know who he was working with.
“Well, you know now. If you want to leave, you can be replaced.”
Wahid gave Mosasa a wide smile. “Don’t mind me. It’s all good.”
Mallory shook his head. Wahid was the kind of wiseass that annoyed him, especially in a military setting.
“Thank you.” Mosasa turned to face all of them. “If you could all take your seats, there are contracts to sign, and then a short briefing.”
After Mallory put his alias and genetic signature to a single sheet of cyberplas containing the most pithy legal document he had ever read, Mosasa stood between his seated mercenaries and the shadowed tach-ship and described the mission.
“This is primarily an intelligence gathering mission,” Mosasa told them. “There have been a number of political, economic, and scientific anomalies appearing throughout known human space for at least the past five years standard. I have traced the source to an area of space in the vicinity of Xi Virginis—”
“What do you mean ‘anomalies’?” Wahid asked.
“Has everyone read the nondisclosure clause?”
That had been one of the pithier parts of the agreement. It simply warned that if the signatory leaked any details of the job, operational or otherwise, Mosasa reserved the right to shoot whomever leaked.
When everyone confirmed they understood that particular detail, Mosasa continued.
“To explain these anomalies, I need to explain some history. I assume you are all a little familiar with the Race and the Genocide War?”
The reference to the Genocide War was a complete non sequitur to Mallory. Of course he was familiar with it. Occisis was founded during that war, a war started covertly by the amoeboid Race decades before humanity reached for the stars. When the Race was discovered manipulating human affairs on Earth, the result was an accelerated spread to the stars and the rise of the twenty-first century United Nations as one of a series of despotic Terran governments.
The founders of Occisis were the survivors, and nominal victors, in mankind’s first interstellar war, a war that ended with the near extermination of the first alien species humans had contact with. Since the war, no member of the Race had been allowed off its homeworld. As far as Mallory knew, the old United Nations battle stations still blasted anything that attempted to fly in or out of the Procyon system.
“That’s all ancient history,” Wahid said.
“A little over four hundred years,” Mosasa said, “not quite ancient.”
“But there’s a point to you going over this?” Wahid asked.
