Chapter 16

Anxious days followed Loo-Macklin’s final broadcast. Chaheel spent his hours roving about the vast structure that was the center of UTW government, marveling at the use of metal where the Nuel would have used organic polymers, enjoying the views of the city, luxuriating in the special quarters which had been prepared for the use of very important Nuel visitors. He was constantly seen in the company of the Nuel ambassador himself, and so no one commented on his presence in sensitive places or questioned his right to be there.

Somewhere below the hundredth floor was buried the immense computational heart of the United Technologic Worlds, the final, inorganic arbiter of all government arguments and decisions. Working in conjunction with it, were the much smaller but far more numerous semiorganic computers which helped the intricate networks of families govern the Nuel worlds. Together they mapped strategy and considered options.

Despite Loo-Macklin’s revelations, the Tremovan armada continued its steady plunge toward the civilized worlds.

Chaheel was in the vaulted command chamber on the day when both massed fleets were to come within short detection range of one another. Then maneuvering would begin in earnest. The ships would be unable to see each other, even with the aid of powerful telescopes. Even at sublight speed, where physics dictates such fighting must take place, ships remained impossibly far apart until actual combat was joined.

“Truly will we know what our future is to be before this day is over.” The ambassador surmised, staring up at the main viewscreen, which occupied the entire wall and was three stories high.

Currently it showed two clusters of slowly shifting lights: white for the approaching Tremovan and mixed red and green for the united Human-Nuel forces.

“Detection, mark,” a technician’s voice boomed over a speaker. The lights moved, changing position only ponderously on the screen but in reality at unnatural speed. There was a pause.

“Positioning,” repeated the human voice. “Phase one,” echoed the gurgling voice of a Nuel technician. A longer pause followed. The observers on the floor below the screens stared and waited.

“Still positioning,” announced the two voices … and then, jubilantly in both languages, “Turning. Enemy forces are turning. Slow wheel through four degrees one half arc of space. They are definitely turning!”

The shift was not immediately perceptible on the huge screen. Parsecs away out in a vast open area of space where suns were thin, out between two arms of the galaxy, the huge Tremovan fleet had begun to turn away from the massed forces confronting it. Several hours passed before the announcers were able to declare it with finality.

“Observers and officers,” the twin voices said, “enemy fleet is retiring toward Shapely Center. Exact course unpredictable. It appears they are taking evasive action. Velocity of retreat precludes pursuit.”

There was some heated arguing to punctuate the wild cheers and shouts that filled the chamber. Despite the poor chances of overtaking the retreating enemy there were those among both human and Nuel staffs who argued for following, in order to administer a drubbing the Tremovan would not forget.

Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed. It was pointed out that while the conservative Tremovan apparently were not ready for a fight with a powerful and prepared opponent, if attacked they would have no choice but to fight. Thus far not a single sentient had died, not a missile or particle beam had been unleashed in anger. No, the Tremovan might elect not to attack, but they would most certainly defend. The outcome of such a battle could not be predicted. A standoff would result in a victory for the Tremovan, for they knew the location of the UTW-Family worlds while human and Nuel remained ignorant of their enemy’s home.

In brief, the Master Computer finally declared portentously to the hawks of both races, better not to push your luck.

Chaheel saw the Nuel ambassador conversing with a member of the Board of Operators, the latter recognizable by his haughty air and gilded coveralls. After a while the first father rejoined Chaheel and the subambassador.

“It has been decided that truly will the joint fleets remain at station until we are absolutely sure these Tremovan are not attempting some intricate circumferencing maneuver. As soon as the linked computation systems of both governments agree, the main forces will be withdrawn. A group of monitoring warships will remain in position, and construction will begin immediately on a complex network of automatic surveillance stations. These Tremovan could not surprise us this time. We shall make truly certain they can never do so in the future.”

It had been a momentous day, one of those rare days that appear in bold type in the history books, a day for men and women to speak of fondly in their dotage.

“Verses untold will be composed to celebrate this occasion,” said the subambassador. “The Si in particular will gain much in reverence, for this Lewmaklin is claimed as one of their own.”

For the wrong reason, Chaheel wanted to say, then decided it would be tactless.

“Birthings will be dedicated to this moment,” agreed the ambassador. “This is a Day of Names.

“Now work will begin to expand and improve the fleets. Human and Nuel knowledge will be combined to produce the most powerful spacecraft the nothingness has yet experienced. If we have to confront these Tremovan a second time we will be the ones in the position of confident superiority.”

They were strolling toward the exit, intent on an evening meal (Chaheel finding himself famished … he’d forgotten to eat) when a human woman came running past them. Her eyes were wild with excitement and she was shouting.

“He’s alive!”

She stopped in the middle of the room before anyone; high officer, politician, programmer, human or Nuel, thought to question her credentials. Her uniform was not military or operator. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the message she brought.

“He’s alive!”

Word spread rapidly around the vast war room. Finally someone thought to check for confirmation. A communications tech high up on the second catwalk pulled out his earpiece and yelled joyfully down toward the floor.

“It’s true. He’s alive.” He threw the sensitive aural pickup high into the air, not caring what any superior might say. “Kees vaan Loo-Macklin lives!”

An explosion of exhilaration suffused the room with a mental glow the likes of which Chaheel had never felt before. Human and Nuel participated in the celebration with equal enthusiasm. As a trained psychologist he was doomed never to enjoy such outbursts because his brain was too occupied with recording and examining them.

Details of this minor resurrection filtered throughout the chamber as fast as communications was able to decipher them. The special engines, which had been built into the Tarsis, hadn’t been quite special enough, or else the Tremovan pursuit craft had been a trifle faster than anticipated. It had been subject to attack (which everyone had seen evidence of during Loo-Macklin’s broadcast) and pursuit (which they had not).

The Tarsis had managed to evade complete destruction, however, dodging and hiding until the Tremovan encountered the massing Human-Nuel fleet. At that point all alien craft had turned back, including those seeking the Tarsis.

By that time the research ship was a near-derelict, pitted and hulled by repeated near-misses, able to crawl through space only at sublight velocities. Under normal circumstances it would have drifted helplessly out of the galactic disk. Circumstances in that section of space were anything but normal by that time, though, not with thousands of warships filling a tiny corner of the firmament.

A Nuel vessel taking up position at its assigned coordinates near the upper curve of the outermost warsphere had fixed on the Tarsis’ feeble request for help. More than half its crew had been killed. Most, including Loo-Macklin, who’d lost an arm and was near death from loss of blood when rescue finally arrived, had been wounded.

The Nuel surgeons had worked on him for hours, with the assistance via transcom of human surgeons elsewhere in the fleet. Stitching, repairing, and replacement of missing parts which had been shot away required the most delicate work. The Nuel were better at that than their human counterparts.

A prosthetic arm replaced the old one. Blood was analyzed and duplicated (the Nuel are especially facile with fluids). Skin was relaid.

It took a fleet decision to finally make the news known. No officer would take the risk of announcing Loo-Macklin’s survival until it was assured.

Both on a personal as well as professional level, Chaheel found the events, which followed, to be of particular interest. Gratitude, the gratitude of many races, rained down on the man who had deceived the governments of both in order to save them.

The main body of the conjoined fleet returned to bases, dispersed to active reserve status. An impressive wall of security monitor stations was erected along the edge of the galactic arm facing the stars from whence the Tremovan had emerged.

As it is wont to, the general citizenry soon forgot its proximate Armageddon and returned to living and dying and the plethora of ordinary activities, which fill life in between. Business quickly resumed its rapid pace, as did the underworld.

Nuel and human commerce quadrupled in an impressively short time. The informal alliance forced on both governments by the Tremovan threat was now cemented permanently with taxes and tariffs, notices and exchanges, government officials, and the gloriously hollow pronouncements of bureaucrats.

The first step in the actual merging of government functions took place when the Family Board of Ten was created. Chosen to sit on this prestigious panel of decision-makers were five Nuel, four humans and one Orischian.

For the post of Arbiter, who would have an eleventh and tie-breaking vote, a human was selected. He tried to refuse the position. Interracial acclaim forced him to accept. The nomination, after all, had been unanimously approved by both the Master Computer, functioning under the aegis of the Board of Operators, and the Nuel Council of Eight.

Months slid by, time infected with a droll normalcy. Nothing was heard of the Tremovan though the watch was maintained vigorously by tireless robotic eyes and ears. Commerce flourished in the heady atmosphere of interworld peace. Nuel and mankind drew ever tighter together.

Despite his protests, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, one-time bullywot and apprentice vaper, was chosen to a second five-year term as Arbiter. When at last at the healthy but advanced age of eighty-seven he refused to stand for yet another term, his retirement from public life was noted by celebration, the bestowing of great honors, and much acclaim. They would have made his birthday a holiday, save that no one knew when it was, the proposed honoree included.

Chaheel Riens had retired to a mildly rarified position within the Nuel Academy of Mental Sciences. He had reached Nuel late middle-age when he put in his request to see the Great Man. Somewhat to his surprise, it was granted. But then, he thought, Loo-Macklin should have plenty of free time on his tentacles these days.

He had not changed his home. An entire moon had once been offered him for a residence, but he’d chosen to remain on his little island off the coast of Evenwaith’s southern continent.

The sea has not changed at all either, Chaheel thought as the marcar whisked him across the marching breakers. At least some things are constant.

The island’s security system was somewhat less in evidence than it had been those many years earlier when he’d first visited the sanctuary. He doubted it was less efficient for being less visible. The island still lived, in the sense that traffic in both directions was busy and constant. Although he had “retired” from public life, Loo-Macklin’s commercial interests were basically intact and still had to be seen to.

Even the meeting room was basically the same: the furnishings, the sweeping window that overlooked the ocean, the well-polished wood mosaic floor.

Then he was facing Kees vaan Loo-Macklin once again. He was not shocked by the human’s appearance. After all, he’d been a familiar figure on the media screens of both the UTW and the worlds of the Families for nearly half a century now.

The massive upper torso seemed to have shrunk slightly. The muscled arms were thinner and the flesh beneath the clothing perceptibly looser. Still, the man moved about energetically, if a little slower than years ago. The artificial skin covering the metal fingers of his artificial left hand and arm reflected slightly more light than the other arm. That was the only thing to hint that his arm was beryllium up to the shoulder.

Loo-Macklin extended a hand to exchange fluids and Chaheel responded. Beyond the signs of surface wasting, the man looked to be in excellent health. His hair was more than half gray now. Another ten years would see it all turned only slightly brighter than a Nuel’s skin.

“Do you remember,” Chaheel Riens said quietly, “when I last stood before you in this same room, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin?”

“I would think that of the whole race of the Nuel, you at least have the right to call me by my familiar name alone, Chaheel Riens. That was quite some time ago.”

“Do you remember it, Kees?”

“Of course I remember.” The human’s voice had not shrunk in tandem with the body. It remained as sharp and distinctive as ever, as did those half-closed turquoise eyes. Sleepy, always he feigns sleep and disinterest, Chaheel thought.

Loo-Macklin smiled slightly. “As I recall, you had come here to kill me. You left feeling differently about me.”

“Truly.” Chaheel slid toward the window-wall, squatted and regarded the constant movement of the ocean. “So many webs and deceits had you enveloped yourself with that truth was hidden from both the families and your own kind. And from myself also, of course.”

“All those elaborate fabrications were needed, Chaheel. I explained why many years ago. You saw why it was necessary, at the same time as everyone else.”

“Did I? Sometimes I wonder.”

“As you are a psychologist, it should be more obvious to you than anyone else. Our two races are now bound together in peace and by the strings of mutual alliance in order to counter any threat from outside the UTW or the Family Worlds.”

“Truly are they tightly tied together. Many years I’ve spent considering why.”

Another man might have grown exasperated with the psychologist’s obstinate refusal to accept the obvious. Not Loo-Macklin.

“Do you deny that the alliance has been of benefit to both peoples?”

“No. Nor can anyone deny it has been a boon in particular to a single individual named Kees vaan Loo-Macklin.”

“Why should I deny it? War is bad for business, despite what a few primitives of both our races might think.”

“Oh, business, yes, truly!” Chaheel gurgled with bitter delight. “You have spent several terms as the Arbiter of the Council of Ten, overseeing the course of government for both races. Through this you have been able to cement your position as not only the most powerful and wealthy single entity in this part of the galaxy, but the most respected and honored as well.

“It strikes me more strongly than most, because our family-oriented government differs from those of human history, Kees. Differed, I suppose I must say. We have never been ruled by the equivalent of what you call emperors and dictators.”

“I’m no dictator,” insisted Loo-Macklin. “I’ve never exercised nor demanded absolute power.”

“Naturally, not. That would be bad for your public image. For your perceived altruism. The term is perhaps invalid: the reality is not. You have as much power as you choose to exercise.”

“Not any more. I retired, gave up the post of Arbiter years ago.”

Chaheel enjoyed the throw rug’s struggles with his cilia. The material was designed to respond to the weight of human feet and cushion them accordingly. It was having difficulty with the Nuel’s hundreds of supporting appendages. He pressed down savagely.

“Reality, Kees. I am something of a student of reality. You say you have no more power, yet I know for a fact that Karamantz, the Nuel first mother who is the current Arbiter, owes her office to the influence of your commercial interests.”

“I have no control over Karam. She’s a fine administrator. One of your own kind. She makes her own decisions.”

“And occasionally calls on you for ‘advice,’” added Chaheel sarcastically.

Loo-Macklin moved to his desk, sat down behind it and folded his hands across his lower abdomen. He had not developed an abdominal skirt, as some older humans did. Such extra flesh was not a mark of beauty among Homo sapiens.

“I’d be wasting my experience and shirking my duty to both races if I selfishly turned down requests for advice. I have a lot of accumulated knowledge to share.”

“Oh, the proportions of the farce!” Chaheel muttered in Nuel, turning in an irritated circle. “End this, Kees. Have yourself declared Emperor of the Human-Nuel alliance and dispose of the sham! Think not to fool me, I’ve watched you for too long. The government makes many decisions you have no say in, because you choose not to. It does nothing you do not approve of. Why hide behind this veil of false modesty? It fits not your character.”

“It pleases me,” the industrialist said in response to the psychologist’s accusing outburst, “to keep out of the public eye.”

“Truly? Tell me, Kees, what if I were to take my conclusions, my sociographics and computer results, to the board responsible for monitoring government activities? To the moralists and lovers of freedom?”

“Wouldn’t make any difference,” Loo-Macklin replied calmly. “Even if they believed you and you roused them to action, they couldn’t do anything. You might find a few allies among other social scientists, but the inhabitants of over a hundred worlds have come to think of me as sort of a father figure. I have a hundred and sixty billion friends, Chaheel. I don’t think your theoretical course of action would bring you anything but grief.”

“You’re still nothing but a professional vaper, a killer,” said Chaheel. “You’re acknowledged a legal, but that’s superficial. That doesn’t change what you are inside. You’ve killed whenever necessary to protect your interests. Now you’ve murdered the freedom of two races.”

“My, the grandiose gesture. It fits not your character,” he said mockingly. “On the contrary, human and Nuel have greater freedom now than ever. The freedom to move between the worlds of their neighbors without trailing fear behind them or pushing prejudice before them.”

“Tell me, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, does that mean anything to you? Does that matter, or is it just an incidental by-product of your personal ambitions? It’s power and control you’ve always sought. If you could have accomplished your ends by having human and Nuel war against one another, would you not have incited such a war? The Tremovan forced you to impose peace. It became necessary for ‘business,’ not necessarily desirable.”

“It’s true that I did consider the results of war at one time. As you point out, though, it was important to encourage peace and alliance.” Something strange, Chaheel thought. Something strange in that always enigmatic smile-expression of his. Missing something important am I?

“This honor you accept, this posture as savior of both races, is all sham. I had your psychological profile correct from the beginning, from that day when you witnessed the Birthing.”

“I always thought you did, Chaheel. Worried about you from that same day. ‘There,’ I recall telling myself, ‘is one mighty dangerous and smart Nuel.’”

“Tell me,” said the psychologist, “what would you have done if someone had believed my story of suspicious transactions between you and the Tremovan, had acted on it years before you were ready to betray them and thus force the alliance?”

“Ah, the Tremovan,” the industrialist/killer laughed softly.

A genuine laugh, I believe, Chaheel thought. Over the years he had become acutely sensitive to human mannerisms.

“Yes. You betrayed them as you threatened to betray us. Three races at one time or another betrayed. The character of our savior!”

“I can’t say for certain what I would have done, Chaheel. Had you killed, I suppose.”

“I thought as much.”

“Nothing personal. I like you, Chaheel Riens.”

“I am not flattered. None of your murders are personal. You may have emotions, but they do not involve themselves in those slaughterings you deem necessary.”

“Why recriminate based on events passed? Everything worked out as planned. I would truly have missed you. You were the pin around which a great deal pivoted, Chaheel Riens. I needed you alive and suspicious. It was the timing, which was important. I wanted your story believed, at the proper moment.”

Chaheel’s thoughts stumbled, forced him to backpedal mentally. “You … you wanted my story believed? Then that means that you wanted …”

“You to have the information. Truly. You remember the voluble computer programmer who first piqued your interest, the one who so kindly supplied you with the proof of your suspicions about me? The one who told you about the additive plot?”

Chaheel Riens searched his memory. “Thomas Lindsay. But there was no additive plot. You had him killed to protect your plan to deceive the human government on the Families behalf.”

“Yes, but he was no renegade from my company. He was sent to seek you out and give you that information.”

“And still you had him killed.”

“It was necessary to maintain the fiction.”

“But that means that you wanted me to come to you and try to kill you.”

Loo-Macklin nodded. “Then it was necessary that you return to your ship, uncertain of my true motives but persuaded that I was still working on the Families’ behalf. Then the message your commander intercepted arrived and you were compelled to return to Evenwaith and take a position where you could keep watch on me.”

“You had the commander and the others killed.”

Loo-Macklin said nothing.

“The information on the Tremovan which I ‘discovered’?”

“You have discovered many things, Chaheel Riens. You are persistent.”

“All arranged, all planned by you. For why?”

“Isn’t that obvious? So that when the Tremovan fleet was detected, your previously ignored accusations and suspicions would lend validity to their presence.”

“That means you had to know well in advance when the Tremovan were going to attack. But at the time …”

He stopped. Kees vaan Loo-Macklin was laughing. Chaheel had never seen him laugh before and he was fascinated and appalled all at once. No one else had ever seen Loo-Macklin laugh long and hard either. No one ever would again.

“Always the Tremovan! I thought you would have it by now, Chaheel. Your instincts were always correct, always! It was your range which let you down.”

“I do not understand, Kees.”

“You will. I promise you. I owe you that much. I’ve used you for too many years.”

He turned and touched several contacts in sequence. A whirring noise filled the huge room as somewhere large motors came to life. Chaheel tensed.

Across the room to his left a panel was sliding upward into the wall. Behind it stood a large, globular body some twelve feet tall. Its golden scales glistened in the light that poured in through the window-wall and multiple black eyes gleamed like cabochons of malevolent onyx. It stepped out into the room, the weight of it clicking against the polished wood floor at the terminus of the carpet.

Chaheel Riens started to back away from that towering, threatening shape. Then something caught his eye and he hesitated. The Tremovan had stopped. It balanced on the floor, utterly motionless, turning neither right nor left and showing no sign of life.

He looked with one eye toward the desk, keeping the other on the massive alien form in case he’d guessed wrongly. Loo-Macklin was still smiling at him.

“Yes, it’s a mechanical simulacrum. You’ve forgotten, a lot of people have forgotten, that both as legal and illegal I was deeply involved with the business of entertainment. It was the foundation of my legal fortune. I’m still heavily tied to the interworld entertainment industry, with interests in nearly every subfield.

“My engineers have become very sophisticated. Nuel bioengineering added a completely new aspect to the business.” He gestured at the Tremovan. “This imposing fellow was built by my people thinking it was intended for one of the many amusement parks I operate throughout the eighty-three worlds.”

“But surely you didn’t plan to kill …” Chaheel cut himself off. How many people had actually seen a Tremovan? There were reports, many reports, but …

I’m the only one, he thought dazedly. I, and those officers on my monitoring ship.

No wonder he had them all killed.

“Then there was no Tremovan ship, no transmission between you and them?”

“Of course not, Chaheel. I was talking to my toy here, sequestered far out in free space where he couldn’t be easily traced.” He touched contacts and the huge alien form promptly tipped over and executed a headstand. It remained in that position while Chaheel Riens gaped at it.

“What if all these elaborate falsehoods had failed to provoke me properly?” he finally asked, feeling not like an experienced scientist but like a laboratory animal. “What if I’d failed to return to Evenwaith to study your actions, for example, and had returned home instead?”

Loo-Macklin shrugged. “I had backups in mind, other ways and means. But I was counting on your personal drive and intelligence, your intense curiosity, not to mention your suspicions about me and my motives, to drive you to seek further. You didn’t disappoint me, Chaheel Riens. The success of the Human-Nuel alliance is partly due to your efforts, even if you didn’t know what you were doing.”

“Used. You have used me truly, Loo-Macklin. My whole life has been toyed with in your service.”

“Consider the end results, though. Your part in all this will be made known some day. Your family will be proud of your accomplishments, of the important events of history you played a part in. Even if you were something less than an active participant in planning those accomplishments.

“I used the Nuel. I used my own race. Why shouldn’t I use a single brilliant psychologist?”

“Confirmation,” Chaheel was muttering. “You needed someone to give confirmation.” He switched both eyes to the human. “This Tremovan-thing is false. What of the Tremovan armada?”

“Oh, that,” Loo-Macklin said easily. His fingers touched other controls.

The alien resumed its feet and backed up into its cubbyhole. The panel slid down, concealing it once again. Nearby, a screen lowered from the ceiling, came to life. It was vibrant with stars against which distant flecks of bright light moved slowly, traveling from right to left. The outlines of tiny ships slowly became discernible.

“With a little imagination it’s not hard to build an alien,” he explained. “If you can do that, why not an entire fleet of aliens? When you’re talking about detection over distances that are in parsec multiples, it’s possible to fool a lot of people in a lot of ways.

“Put a small but hot engine in a multiplier envelope of opaque mylarmer and to long-range detection equipment it will give the appearance of a ship. Expensive, but workable. Four thousand and several odd are much more expensive, equally workable.

“The components were manufactured in separate plants on different worlds. Final assembly took place out in space, by a small crew of very loyal engineers.”

“I didn’t think you trusted anyone.”

“I had holds of one sort or another on every one of them.

It’s not necessary to voice threats when the subject is already aware of them. That sort of thing’s for illegals fond of dramatics.”

Chaheel let one eye favor the panel, which concealed the Tremovan simulacrum. “So the whole business was truly faked. Fleet and threat as well as the original transmission. There never was a Tremovan attack. There was no reason for human and Nuel fleets to mobilize together.”

“Indeed there was,” Loo-Macklin shot back. “Unless you can get the military personnel of two groups working together, it doesn’t matter how many treaties and professions of friendship two governments concoct.” At a touch, the “fleet” of lights vanished from the screen, which promptly slid back up into the ceiling.

“All this sprang from your imagination, then?”

“Every bit of it.” The industrialist did not seem particularly proud of having created and carried off the greatest fraud in human history. “Every bit, except for one thing.”

“What’s that?” Chaheel Riens did not care much anymore.

“There is a race called the Tremovan. My ship made the discovery of Tremovan frequencies. Their worlds do lie generally toward Shapely Center. They are completely and utterly dedicated to warring upon their neighbors.

“The difference is that they’re not nearly as powerful, yet, as my simulated fleet made them out to be. They’re not a danger to either human or Nuel, yet. But they can and likely will become powerful enough to pose such a danger. That’s why it was important to establish a UTW-Family alliance now. Now both races will be ready to deal with the Tremovan when they break out of the Center. There will be no war with the Tremovan for some time. When there is, the alliance will be capable of dealing with it.”

Chaheel was desperately trying to keep up, to keep truth and falsehood separated. “But when contact is finally made, the Tremovan will be treated as enemies because of this supposed earlier attack, when in fact they’ve made no such attack.”

“The computer analysis is clear, Chaheel. The Tremovan are incurably warlike. It was necessary to prepare human and Nuel for a war that’s inevitable. There could be no peace. But they are not suicidal. If defeated, they can be absorbed into the community of civilized worlds. Commerce will break down their love of combat. But they will have to be defeated first.

“In order to assure success, it may be necessary for the alliance to attack them first. The Board of Operators and the Council of Eight would never have ordered a preemptive attack. The new Council of Ten will be less hesitant, since they have already been ‘attacked.’”

“Of course, they can always turn to you if their consciences trouble them.”

Loo-Macklin did not bother to try to deny that. “It will be better for the Tremovan, just as the alliance I created by duplicity benefits both mankind and Nuel.”

“It will also truly be better for Kees vaan Loo-Macklin’s personal interests. So you will place the Tremovan, who are not even aware of what you’ve already done to them, under your domination as well. They’ll never know how it happened to them, nor why.”

Loo-Macklin said nothing.

“Tell me something, man,” wondered Chaheel aloud. “When your Tarsis was found drifting and helpless after having been pursued by the nonexistent Tremovan fleet, half your crew was found dead or badly wounded.” He gestured with a tentacle. “You yourself had lost an arm.”

“My crew thought the attack, the fleet, was all quite real. I couldn’t trust the secret to them as well as to the engineers who assembled the false Tremovan ships. They had to act as if the attack was in earnest. I made provisions for a private warship, suitably disguised, to attack us. The explosions everyone saw while I was delivering my warning were real.”

“And how many of your own, trusting people did die?”

“No more than was necessary.”

“And your arm?”

“I was in a heavily shielded part of the Tarsis. The attacking warship had a schematic and did their best to avoid damaging that section. Verisimilitude was vital. I had one of my own people shoot me several times, carefully, while I was sufficiently narcotized to drown most of the pain. My wounds were as real as those received by the rest of the crew.” He looked thoughtful. “An old man did that, on my orders. He died soon afterwards. Of natural causes. His name was Nairn Basright and he was the closest thing to a friend I ever had. Funny. I once offered him the friendship I denied everyone else, and he declined it.” His thoughts returned from the place where they’d been lingering. He flexed his left hand.

“The artificial one works well enough. I don’t really miss the original.”

“Monster. I truly should have slain you when I had the chance. I could do so now.”

“I think not, Chaheel Riens. We are both older and slower and you could not get to me in time now as you might have those many years ago. It’s true I’ve been responsible for the deaths of many people. I killed my first man when I was twenty-two. I neither enjoyed nor disliked it. It was simply something, which had to be done. There have been many deaths since, none of which I enjoyed, nor disliked. All were necessary.”

“One such death to serve personal interests is too many,” Chaheel said, rejecting the argument. He moved close, not to kill but to try and learn. “Why, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin? Not to save humankind and Nuel from each other, surely.”

For the first time, for the last, Chaheel Riens saw something no one else had seen before or ever would again. He saw Kees vaan Loo-Macklin, effective emperor of the worlds of the Families, of the eighty-three worlds of the UTW and perhaps soon of the Tremovan as well, confused and uncertain.

“I think I know why, but even I’m really not positive. What motivates a man, truly? Greed? I care little for money, only for the convenience it bestows. Power? I told the truth when I said I never sought it. Ego? You will not believe me, but I have less ego than most men. Or Nuel.

“I’ve acted and reacted as I have all my life because something has driven me to do so. I remember when I was very young most of all. I did not have what you would call a …” he hesitated, “… a pleasant childhood. I was abandoned by a parent who was not ignorant. That I could have accepted. But she was intelligent, and wealthy. I was simply … an encumbrance on her life style. An object in the way, to be disposed of.

“Subsequent to that I was shunted from place to place. My physical appearance was abhorrent to most people. You should sympathize with that.” Chaheel said nothing, merely listened intently.

“What remains with me, what drove me from my earliest conscious years, was no quest for power, nor for revenge. Those are strong feelings, Chaheel Riens. I lost the ability to feel true emotions before I was seven. It was an emptiness inside me, a feeling of utter helplessness, of having nothing to say about my own destiny. I was treated like an object. So I turned myself into an object. My reactions were purely instinctive, physical.

“I resolved to do two things: to survive, and to ensure that no one, no one, could ever control my life again except myself.”

He went silent. It was quiet in the vast chamber for a long time. When Chaheel Riens spoke again it was without the anger he’d felt on entering. This man, this emperor, this unbelievably powerful individual, deserved his pity, not his hate. He’d lived without family. To a Nuel, no greater crime can be perpetrated on the young.

No wonder Kees vaan Loo-Macklin had evolved as he had. But the psychologist was wrong about one thing. The man was not warped inside. He was simply numb.

“So you’ve spent your whole life,” he said softly, “spent the lives of others, manipulated individuals and worlds and entire races, to ensure that only you would be in control of your destiny. I sympathize truly, Kees. Most truly. But I do not, cannot approve what you have done.

“I am not even certain I believe what you say of these Tremovan’s ‘incurable’ tendencies to war. Why should I? Why should anyone believe anything you say, knowing that whatever you do and say is ultimately because you are acting to protect yourself?

“Where will it cease, Kees? How long must you drag all of civilization along in your wake so that it will not make you feel helpless again? Must you control it in order to ensure that it cannot control you?”

Loo-Macklin’s expression was twisted. “I don’t know, Chaheel Riens. I’ve tried to change what I am. I cannot. I don’t know how. I am what my life has made of me. Wait until I die.”

“Is that supposed to mollify me? Not that that concerns you. What happens then? You are the glue that binds this still young alliance together, this new government you’ve imposed upon men and Nuel.”

“I’m sorry, but that doesn’t concern me. I’ll be finished with it. It will be left to those who live after me to keep it intact.”

“No one else has the ability to do that, not to mention the will or the drive.” Chaheel made a gesture of disgust. “It will all fall apart, this grand, awkward alliance of yours. There will ensue chaos, dissolution, war and worse.”

“I don’t think so, Chaheel. I think that what I’ve built for my own needs will hang together. I believe there are enough individuals of purpose and intelligence to manage it. You, for example.”

The psychologist emitted a grunt of surprise.

“Yes, you. I’d like you to. … I offered you a job once, a long time ago. It was not a real job. You performed services for me you were unaware of. This time I mean to make use of you honestly. I am capable of that, you know. You could be important to our new government.”

“‘Our’ government,” the Nuel murmured sardonically.

“It will be that in truth as well as in name when I am dead. And you will outlive me by many years. Look at the offer dispassionately, Chaheel Riens. Look at it as a scientist. If you are convinced I have done wrong, here is your chance to correct me. The new alliance, the new peace, is it such a bad thing?”

And Chaheel had to admit that it was true. Peace was better than war, no matter the motivation behind its establishing. Commerce was prospering, Nuel and humans and Orischians and Athabascans and all the other sentient races who were part of the new alliance were safer and happier than they’d been since the beginning of interstellar contact between sensitives.

As for the Tremovan, who knew what they were really like or how they might react to real contact with the alliance? That was something for the future, a future which Kees vaan Loo-Macklin was preparing a hundred sixty billion beings for whether they liked it or not.

And yet … and yet … whatever he did, however grandly he lied and cheated and falsified to serve his own private demon, the end results always seemed to benefit the majority of intelligent peoples.

Loo-Macklin was coming around the desk toward him now, turquoise eyes wide open, demanding a response, a reply. He extended a massive hand dry with the wrinkles of age and smiled that peculiar, impenetrable smile.

“I stand openly before you, Chaheel Riens, accused by you of being a murderer of both men and Nuel, a traitor to two races, of using and manipulating individuals to serve only my own desires, of adjusting the future of all to sate my own selfish needs. I deny none of that. Will you therefore come and work for me? I have need of your good advice and your special intelligence. For you see, Chaheel Riens, you are much like me save for one thing. You are moral.

“Knowing all this, can you do anything but come to work alongside me?”

Liar most profound, Chaheel thought. User without compassion. Murderer of innocent multitudes.

Hail the savior?

“All that you say is truth, Kees vaan Loo-Macklin. You are the most monstrously evil, self-centered, cold, and uncaring individual your race has likely ever produced.” He extended a pair of glistening, slime-coated tentacles and exchanged liquid with the man.

“Naturally I will help you in any way I can.”