Fire with Fire(82)

“Mr. MacGregor, why should we be surprised by an aftermath of neglect? Did the Spaniards remain as game wardens for the horses they left behind? No: empires rise and empires fall, and in their wake they leave fragments of their long-forgotten actions and ambitions. The main ruin on Dee Pee Three may be just such a fragment.”

“And so what about our old masters? Are they all dead and gone—or tarrying around some distant star, ready to re-adopt us if we find our way back home to them?”

“Possibly. Or possibly, they’d just see us as a species gone feral. And of course you all know what we do to feral dogs.”

“Oh,” said MacGregor. Who fell as deathly quiet as the rest of the room.





Chapter Twenty-Three

ODYSSEUS

Gaspard was the first to break the long silence. “Mr. Riordan, I wish to return to the less esoteric matter of your experiences on Delta Pavonis Three. It is said that you are the first person to encounter an exosapient—but in fact, you are not: correct?”

“Technically, correct. However, as far as I know, I am the first human to communicate with an exosapient—unless you consider Mr. Bendixen’s shotgun a communication device. In which case, it surely does bear out the axiom that the medium is the message.”

“Er . . . yes.” Gaspard cleared his throat. “I wonder if you could tell us what happened after your encounter with the Pavonian.”

“Certainly. I decided that I couldn’t risk normal communication channels anymore. So I activated the orbital beacon/transceiver that Lieutenant Brill had given me and called in a Commonwealth military assault boat, which extracted me within the hour. I was flown directly back to Downport, where I spent the next three days preparing for my journey back home.”

“‘Preparing’?”

“Yes, Mr. Gaspard: I suspected that the threat to me would not end when I departed Shangri-La. After my last chat with the head archaeologist, I surmised that well-groomed versions of Mr. Bendixen would be following me all the way back to Earth.”

“Hmm . . . I recall reading that there was also a final exchange between you and Mr. Helger, just before you spoke to the archaeologist.”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“In which you threatened a great deal more than simple interdiction of traffic and messages.”

“That is true.”

“On what grounds?”

“On the grounds that I had to force him to end his campaign of xenocide, sir.”

Gaspard moved back an inch: Caine couldn’t tell if it was from his words or his tone. “Xenocide? I’m afraid I don’t understand why you—”

“Then I will explain it—sir. Admiral Silverstein gathered detailed orbital images of Site One immediately after I was extracted. Thermal lookdown showed a number of humans, all in pairs, pushing well north of the main site, and in the direction of my encounters with the locals.”

“Prospectors?”

“I doubt it.”

“What then?”

“Hunters. CoDevCo was trying to finish the program that Mr. Bendixen had started.”

“What program do you mean, Mr. Riordan? I do not follow you.”

Caine was sure Gaspard did, but he wanted it on the record. “They were trying to exterminate the Pavonians, Mr. Gaspard. Before I arrived, it was clear that they had already hunted them like animals and killed them by the dozens. If CoDevCo was going to have a free hand developing Shangri-La, it had to eliminate all evidence that they existed. And once they began that campaign, it became more urgent that they complete the job.”

“Why?”

“Because there was overwhelming evidence that the Pavonians were not merely an interesting species: they were intelligent. Which meant that, in any practical sense of the word, CoDevCo’s crime was not environmental abuse: it was premeditated mass murder. And the only way CoDevCo could cover it up was to get rid of all the evidence and all the witnesses. That meant every single Pavonian—and me. So in my last conversation with Mr. Helger, I mentioned that he might want to consider voluntary cessation of those activities, lest he be brought before the Hague for the equivalent of crimes against—well, not humanity, but intelligent beings.”

“And this worked?”

“The hunter teams returned to Site One. The Pavonians were not molested after that.”

“And so it has been concluded that it was CoDevCo that tried to kill you aboard the Tyne?”

Nolan interrupted. “Mr. Gaspard, that investigation is ongoing and the confidentiality essential to that process precludes discussing it in this forum.” He stood up. “Ladies and gentlemen, our time together has just about come to an end.”