Chapter Thirteen
FAR ORBIT, SIGMA DRACONIS TWO (“HOMENEST”)
Tlerek Srin Shethkador’s new first officer, Zharun Ptaalkepsos was announced to be passing the inner security check to the Srin’s quarters just as he finished ordering his notes for the Reification contact that he had promised to the Autarchs a week ago. They were eager for news regarding the state of negotiations between the Aboriginal humans and the Arat Kur; Shethkador was loath to share it.
He also knew that Ptaalkepsos would, once again, have no pleasing developments to report. Hardly a surprise: having no official standing in the peace talks, Shethkador could do nothing more than communicate separately with the parties, attempting to sow discord and doubt between them by misrepresentation and intimation. However, the diplomats of both sides were evidently accomplished enough that they had proven mostly immune to such attempts at manipulation. The Arat Kur delegation had stopped replying to his messages at all; he could not even be sure they were receiving them.
The humans were led by a canny krexyes of an admiral-turned-diplomat named Vassily Sukhinin who had proven far more troublesome. He actually responded with leading questions of his own. And so Shethkador had determined that this bearish Aboriginal was attempting to gather data on Ktoran policy and strategy indirectly. No doubt the hoar-headed Russian had a team of intelligence personnel examining all their exchanges, trying to deduce what Shethkador had been trying to achieve with his queries and assertions, what useful misconceptions and presuppositions he was trying to inculcate in the Aboriginal leadership. The Srin now kept those exchanges quite brief. That did not make them any more useful, simply less likely to impart intelligence to the Terran enemy.
The entry chime sounded. Shethkador sighed, rose, stretched. “Enter.”
Zharun Ptaalkepsos entered briskly. “Honored Srin, what is your bidding?”
“Have you decrypted the latest communiqués from our informers in the Terran Fleet?”
“I have.”
“Summarize.”
“Yes, Fearsome Srin. One of our agents in the enemy fleet came across a report indicating that an Aboriginal remote sensor may have detected the out-shift of the destroyer Will Breaker under the command of Olsirkos Shethkador’vah, thirteen weeks ago.”
Shethkador prevented himself from starting. Was that truly possible? Will Breaker had not shifted until she was over fifty AU beyond Sigma Draconis’s heliopause, too distant for Aboriginal sensors to detect such a relatively subtle anomaly. “Are you sure they were not simply projecting the point of shift, based upon Will Breaker’s preacceleration track?”
“I am certain, Dominant One. The report included exacting measurements of the neutrino bursts and gravitic distortion pulse in the precise location of Will Breaker’s shift. And at the precise time, as well.”
Shethkador frowned. Could the humans have planted passive sensors out that far, to be able to detect an out-shift? Unlikely, although they had been in system for many months now. Or could they have received the information from someone else—? “Does the report identify the platform that collected these readings?”
“No, Fearsome Srin. And the delay between the time the readings would have been collected and the relative tardiness of the report is strange.”
Yes, it is strange, unless the sensor readings were not collected by the Aboriginals at all, but by the meddlesome Dornaani Custodians. Who could easily have been far enough out in the system, or have sensors powerful enough, to detect and analyze the shift signature of Will Breaker as Olsirkos had taken her to observe and report on the apparent human incursion at Turkh’saar. And who might have delayed relaying the sensor readings to the humans. Or perhaps the humans received them immediately, but elected to hold them secret for some time, hoping that they would then fail to attract any special attention when included in routine reports. And if that was the case, then the Aboriginals were clearly aware of how deeply Ktoran collaborators had entwined themselves into the intelligence and communications apparatuses of their fleet.
Either way, this was not a complexity that Shethkador wished to bring before the Autarchs. They were impatient and disgruntled enough. Besides, until there was more concrete intelligence on the source of the Aboriginal sensor data, it did not warrant report.
Shethkador stood. “I am finished with you,” he pronounced in the general direction of his first officer. “Now escort me to the Sensorium. I must confer with the Autarchs.”