Two
• • • • •
They were two, at a shielded location, the coords of which had been provided by the sixth member of the team.
They having established that their location was secure, Sye Mon opened the case which held his equipment, unfolded it carefully, and began to adjust the various tiles and wires.
Though he had seen it before, Bon Vit eyed the device with deep misgivings. It had no natural seeming, no form from which one might predict its function or utility. Merely a wire framework, and tiles slotted in, seemingly at random.
“Can you not simply call them on comm?” Bon Vit asked, only half meaning it as a joke.
Sye Mon glanced up, a smile glinting at the edge of his face.
“They reject our technology, deeming their own superior,” he murmured, reaching again to the case and withdrawing a second folded wire frame.
“In truth, the Department could not retrofit all, so they are formed in groups of six and linked together by their native protocols. One is also fitted with a modern comm, by which orders are received. It then transmits those orders to the others in its pod.”
Bon Vit moved his eyes from the confusion of tile and wire to Sye Mon’s face.
“But you do not speak to the leader.”
The other man met his eyes.
“You understand, it was the Department’s decision, which of a pod of six was leader. A determination made for the convenience of the Department and its operatives. Orders are…often obeyed, but not always. Pods tend to remain together, but they do not wholly tend to remain within the Department’s care.”
This was, so Sye Mon had told the others of the strike team, the reason why he believed he had a credible chance of recalling the Old Tech war machines the Department had gathered together, and denying the Commander use of them.
Something moved in the framework nearest to Bon Vit; perhaps a spark had jumped from one tile to another. A heartbeat later, there was a similar—exact?—reaction inside the other framework.
“Ah,” breathed Sye Mon. “Now, let us see.”
* * *
There had been much moving and resetting of tiles in the first framework, Sye Mon’s fingers nimble amid the wires. The second framework, he touched not at all, but frowned as if the shifting patterns conveyed sense—bitter sense, at that.
At long last, he sat back, face a grim mask, and turned to Bon Vit. He made as if to speak, then merely closed his eyes, one hand rising, fingers forming the pilot-sign for abort lift.
“What’s amiss?” Bon Vit demanded. “Will they not be recalled?”
Sye Mon opened his eyes.
“Cannot be recalled,” he said. “The Commander is before us, and has a mission locked in.”
“You said that not all obey,” Bon Vit said after a moment.
Sye Mon opened his eyes.
“That is true. Finding those who are not inclined will take time, but…”
“But?” Bon Vit repeated, when Sye Mon said nothing else.
“But the effort will have to be made. My correspondent—” He waved a hand in the direction of the two wire frames. “My correspondent did not feel able to share the coordinates of the target with me, but I believe we may make an educated guess.”
“Indeed,” Bon Vit said grimly. “Indeed.”
• • • ✴ • • •
Sye Mon sat back on his heels, shaking his head. He’d been in intense negotiation, via the tile racks, for close to two hours. His face was pale, lined and drawn, his hair stuck in sweat-soaked strands to his forehead.
Bon Vit, who had been watching over him this while, leaned forward and put a glass of cold water into his partner’s hand.
“Drink this,” he murmured. “I’ll make you a mug of the yeast.”
The yeast was a Terran concoction, called by them ’mite—and provided nutrition in a concentrated form. It was unparalleled as a restorative, and tasted the very devil, but Sye Mon made no protest, as he had on a previous occasion, nor asked instead for tea. Rather, Bon Vit received a worryingly subdued “Yes,” as a reply, and nothing more.
He returned bare moments later to find Sye Mon still sitting on the floor, his back against the wall, legs stretched before him, the empty glass at his side. His color was somewhat improved, and his hair was sticking up in spikes where he had apparently run his fingers through it.
He received the mug with a careful inclination of the head, and a pale smile that grew somewhat wider when Bon Vit took a place on the floor facing him.
“No need for that, is there?” he asked.
Bon Vit looked up from considering his mug and its contents. “If we’re to be on the same level, I prefer the floor than picking you up into a chair.”
“That’s fair,” Sye Mon conceded, and raised his mug with a feeble flourish. “To saving the universe!”
Bon Vit raised his mug in answer. “I will drink to that, since drink we must, though I thought it was Korval we were saving.”
They drank, draining the mugs in one go, which was the only sane way to consume the yeast.
“Gods, that’s awful,” Bon Vit said with a shudder.
Sye Mon drew a hard breath, and put the mug aside.
“I had thought it was ourselves we were saving,” he said, “which is universe enough for me.”
“I concede. Are we very likely to? Save the universe, that is.”
“Well. There hangs a tale. My contact outright refuses the coordinates for Secondary Headquarters as a legitimate strike zone.”
Bon Vit’s stomach clenched.
“I thought it was eager for a fight of its own.”
“Indeed, indeed. However, the new Commander of Agents has apparently learned somewhat from the mistakes of her predecessor. She took the precaution of setting safe zones, which the Department’s devices may not attack. One of those is Secondary Headquarters.”
“Can the programming not be overridden?”
“Possibly, with time, and patience, and the cooperation of the subject. None of which we have, alas. In the meanwhile, it is an article of faith with my contact that any of them who attempt to ignore the directive and move against a safe zone, will immediately be decommissioned. This would appear to be an internal preset.”
“Then we have failed,” Bon Vit said grimly. “What now, to save the universe?”
Sye Mon settled his shoulders against the wall, looking suddenly weary.
“We vary,” he said. “There is an avenue we might pursue, to some good. My contact is, as the Terrans have it, spoiling for a fight. It feels its restrictions keenly, nor is it alone in this. I am promised a force to amaze, do I but provide a target outside of the safe zone.”
“Old Tech promises you this,” Bon Vit said. “Do we believe it?”
Sye Mon sighed.
“We had been prepared to believe it when we wished for them to go against Secondary Headquarters,” he pointed out.
“If we vary,” Bon Vit continued, “we will leave the strike at the Commander and Headquarters solely in the care of our teammates, who are expecting a two-pronged attack.”
“And yet we have all known from the start that any one of us might fail. The essential parts of the plan are that one of us at least does not fail, and that the Department is rendered moot.”
This, Bon Vit conceded, was true. It only mattered that the Department was destroyed; how or by whom were meaningless details. None of the Six had expected to survive this mission—no, not even the one of them seemingly safe on Surebleak.
“I agree,” he said. “To deny the Commander a victory, to deprive her of her devices—that is a blow worth striking. When do we move?”
Sye Mon smiled wryly.
“As soon as my contact and I agree upon a rendezvous point, and the appropriate command lines.”
Carefully, using the wall for support, he got to his feet. Bon Vit rose with less effort, and stood ready to catch him, should it be needful.
“My contact has been told to await my call, in four hours. Thus, I will shower, and nap, eat, and be as able as I may, when I make contact.”
“It is well,” Bon Vit said, with a side glance at the tiles and racks strewn around the floor.
“Leave them,” said Sye Mon; “they will be needed soon enough. If I may, Comrade—rest you, also. I feel that when we do move, it will be suddenly, and at full speed.”