"Permission to come aboard, Admiral?"
Andreï, accompanied by Pallas, had just passed through the Intricated Gate that had been installed for the occasion on the Alké's command deck. Tohil and Ravzan greeted him gravely, as did all the officers standing at attention.
Admiral Tohil nearly took him into his arms and settled for placing a hand on his shoulder.
"You are welcome. Quite a journey, old friend." "Did you discover anything at the end of the world?" Ravzan asked with curiosity.
Andreï offered a somewhat weak smile to all the officers, greeting them with a slight inclination of his head.
"I would appreciate giving you a privileged debriefing, to you two first, Admirals, in order to respect the chain of command."
Tohil led the group through the Endymion's corridors. When they passed sailors and officers, the latter displayed a stunned expression at the sight of Andreï, who kept his eyes fixed on the floor.
"Have you charted a geographical route to Earth?" Andreï asked out loud in the corridor.
"Yes," Ravzan replied.
"We are currently around a system we named Monte Cristo. An ideal planet for cultivation, so pleasant that we actually had to consider the possibility that some might mutiny in order to stay here forever. We used the two Alexandrites still in our possession, our computational Xeno, and a scientific team to chart an optimal route."
"How long until we reach our objective?"
They passed through the door of a communications room formerly used for relations with high command. Andreï made sure to close it carefully to secure their conversation. As they were taking their seats around the table, while Rav was explaining that, with the Derive choke points, it would take two to three weeks, Andreï cast a look at Pallas. She drew from her jacket a black contraband automag and swiftly aimed it at Ravzan—though not swiftly enough, alas: Tohil hurled himself in front of the Admiral and drew a weapon of his own, a clearly transient sidearm that wrapped around his hand and glowed with light.
"Lower your weapon, officer. Unless you aim for the head or the heart—and since none of us is equipped with a transient shield—we can survive your shot. I guarantee that if I pull the trigger on my side, you'll be vaporized."
"Tohil," Andreï explained, "Ravzan works for the Aleph. Step aside so we can finish this."
"That's absurd!" Rav exploded.
"For heaven's sake…" "Andreï, have you got water sloshing around in your skull, by the Blind Gods! Ravzan is the founder of our entire resistance effort! You know what? He defended you tooth and nail while I thought you were the last of the idiots! It pains me to say it, but he's done far more for our resistance against the Aleph than I have…starting with putting up with me. Good grief, what did you encounter at the end of the world for them to turn your head inside out!"
"Tohil," Pallas said, "Ravzan is an Android hosting the emulated personality of Charity, a survivor of Lodovico, unwaveringly loyal to the Aleph."
"What?"
"My friend Tohil," Ravzan admitted, "Pallas is partially right. I am an Android."
Tohil took a step sideways but kept his weapon trained on Pallas. He looked Rav up and down.
"That is a major breach of protocol, I admit it. But I was killed by a stupid terrain accident just after being appointed ship captain. I couldn't bear it. I came back…but this Charity story is nonsense."
"Shoot him," Andreï sighed. "It's not like he's going to die."
"Andreï, what has gotten into you?" Tohil nearly begged. "Let's not dither."
"You heard him, he's an Android—congratulations on your investigation—but he is not a traitor."
"He sent the New Horizon not into the infinitely small, but on a journey to find the Aleph."
Tohil reeled from the revelation, yet strangely, it made sense. Many small questions unasked, unresolved, buried, all snapped into place with this hypothesis. Ravzan opened his arms as a sign of peace.
"The New Horizon expedition was a failure, and it more or less matches such a scenario, but it's a coincidence, I swear."
"And the Leonardo top-secret request to retrace a year of Drift 6?" Pallas asked.
"Captain Andreï, I'm beginning to understand," Ravzan declared, a victorious smile on his lips. "It's to her, to Pallas, that you entrusted this investigation, isn't it? Ah, now everything makes sense. Tell her, Pallas. Tell her about your true mission."
"Tohil, lower your weapon, and Pallas, shoot him," Andreï said in a weary tone. "We have so much work."
"Captain Andreï, I have great faith in your abilities…but I always knew you were unstable. Oh, you are certainly a very interesting man, but have you never wondered—in your soaring ego—why brilliant Pallas, Empty Eyes Alpha, stayed with you all these years? Because I personally ordered her to. She was spying on you."
"Is that true, Pallas?" Tohil asked.
Pallas nodded, with a bit of resistance. Andreï sat down nonchalantly at the table, as if two people weren't on the verge of shooting each other.
"It doesn't matter," Andreï said. "Andreï, Pallas is a disciple of the Grip. Search her room. You'll certainly find cult objects. She is a disciple of the Grip just like the Aleph. She managed to make you believe the opposite of reality, Captain: it is she who serves the Aleph. Finally, open your eyes! I am the fiercest opponent of Garen Antor!"
"You're right," the captain said calmly, "to shift the debate onto Pallas."
Andreï stood, grabbed the automagn from Pallas' hands as she looked at him with pleading eyes.
Then he fired into Ravzan's torso, blowing, in a detonation, a large hole in the psyche storage and management system. Charity would probably be reactivated in the After if she didn't ping a LE within a few months.
Tohil was breathless, but he could not bring himself to shoot Andreï.
"I have absolute trust in my officer Pallas. Absolute. The day she shoots me, it will be because I have become an enemy akin to the Aleph, and I will trust her judgment. Espionage doesn't matter, nor does the Grip. Pallas is a part of me."
Pallas opened her eyes wide as she heard him speak of her in such terms.
"I should have done this from the beginning," Andreï admitted. "But I wanted to benefit from the element of surprise, I didn't want him to transmit information to the Aleph. Well done, Tohil, for the transient sidearm. I wouldn't have bet on that."
Alerted by the noise, two security officers knocked on the door, and Andreï got up to reassure them and explain the situation in two words. Asking for absolute secrecy, he instructed them to make sure he—Ravzan—was neither active nor retaining any memory.
"You trust those two?" the captain asked when the door closed. "Uh…yes."
"Tohil, sit down, gather your thoughts, and turn the page. Ravzan lied to you from the beginning. He stayed because here—he, or rather she, Charity—could best serve the Aleph. And the Intricated Gate on the Alecto was yet another means of keeping a hand on us. He cleverly played the role of someone yielding to everything to infiltrate our plans, but he led us by the nose. I know you're a wholehearted man, and that you loved this persona Charity created for you. I'm giving you two minutes."
Andreï sat again and buried his head in his hands. Pallas probed him: he was asleep. A sleep of less than forty seconds, when Tohil resumed speaking:
"All right, Andreï, I've digested it."
"No, of course not," Andreï said, raising his head, his eyes hazy. "But speed is all that matters—we'll mourn later."
"I can help you if necessary," Pallas offered.
"Don't touch my head, psi. Why are you in such a hurry? It's been…more than a year that we've done nothing but wait."
"Because Ravzan, who probably has one or two accomplices aboard, was informing the Aleph in one way or another. From the moment he's no longer able to inform him, or contact his accomplices, the clock is ticking. If the Aleph learns we've taken his key piece, we lose the crucial advantage we have."
"Yes, but in the corridor, everyone heard we were heading to Earth. And we need two weeks, Captain. It's going to be very tight."
Andreï straightened up and displayed a starmap of Derive on the communications screen.
"I spoke of the journey to Earth for a reason, Admiral—so that everyone believes that's our destination. But we are not going to Earth. Gather the entire Stellar Fleet. Find two helmsmen of absolute reliability and bring them here for a full psyche scan by Pallas. We must be ready to launch both a spatial and a terrestrial assault."
A planet wrapped in clouds appeared on the screen. Only a few peaks rose above them.
"Our destination will be Caliban," Andreï murmured. "At most two Drift jumps. We must be there in two days at the latest."
"Caliban, the frontier planet of the League?" Tohil exclaimed. "But on it, there are…there are…"
He seemed to be searching for information he had never had.
"Uh…why Caliban?"
"I haven't given you my debriefing, but here it is: we went to the end of the Universe and we did not meet the Blind Gods; we met what appear to be the Travelers. Powerful beings, perhaps stronger than the Transients, who invested the Aleph with his powers. We have reason to believe they are now on Caliban, or at least that on Caliban lies something we cannot describe but that is called the Gates of Empyree. We must go there to meet the former or find the latter in order to have any hope of countering the Aleph. It's thin, I agree, nebulous, certainly, but it's our best chance."
"You'll have to tell me that more slowly once we're underway," Tohil said. "But you, the one they call the champion of strategy—two Endymions and the entire Resistance Fleet, that's not discreet, is it? You'd rather need…a small ship."
"Oh, we'll do reconnaissance. If Caliban is the small League planet we've always known, with a few Shareplaces in orbit, we'll mount an invisible expedition. But I fear the Aleph sees his fate as very tied to this planet, and that we'll find him on our path. In that case, I prefer to tell you the truth plainly right now so that you are prepared: we will use the Resistance Fleet as a sacrificial shield to cover the expedition on Caliban."
Tohil lifted his head. He seemed more exhausted by these last five minutes than by the entire past year.
"You've changed, Andreï. You've become dark. The pacifist I once knew would not have sent ten thousand men to their deaths in pursuit of a mystical idea."
"The Wau Order no longer answers, we have no possibility of negotiation, we face a crushing balance of power, and the Alecto expedition brought back a meagre harvest. I am backed into a corner, Admiral. But that does not mean we are going to lose the game."