Cenotaxis by Sean Williams Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sean Williams
botched and you retreated. Both of us failed, that time, but it was your hesitation that did us both in. Why did you take so long? We'd have been spared a full year of war if you'd moved when you were supposed to."
There is little satisfaction in the thought of less war for those on the losing side, so I say nothing. Let him come to his own conclusions about each individual campaign. I am more concerned with the larger picture—and this is something Alice-Angeles and the Apparatus also fail to grasp. What is one munitions dump in the long arc of the war, one planet when the fate of an entire galaxy is at stake, and one man against the long-term survival of the human race?
These are the thoughts that consume me.
"Sometimes I wonder," Bergamasc will say, "if you were hard to catch because your tactics were brilliant, or if your movements were completely random."
"God always has a purpose."
"I've yet to see it."
I think about what he has said in his future and my past. Not about the deadline, for to me that is meaningless, but his accusation that I haven't tried hard enough to put myself in his shoes. Could that be true? I certainly spent a great deal of time trying to anticipate his tactics and motives. That, however, is not the same thing. Late in my captivity, our conversation is dominated by his theories about the Apparatus and his inability to accept my true nature. Perhaps I have paid too little attention to who he is and what he needs. After all, he will be the one holding the gun to my head, if I fail to satisfy him.
But how can I satisfy someone who refuses so stubbornly to accept the truth? What more will it take? He has it all now, except for the Apparatus, and while I retain that bargaining chip, he surely won't do anything too drastic.
Unless he's decided that the value of the chip has now exceeded the irritation of my continued existence. Or I have fascinated him so much that he's willing to test me to the point of destruction. Which way has Imre Bergamasc, would-be Prime Minister of Earth, fallen?
I do not know him well enough to answer, so the problem remains.
Perhaps there is something I have missed. Perhaps my assumption that I've told him everything is incorrect. I probe my memories of the days we have shared, he and I, from that first exchange of words the day he arrived in orbit, with the engines of his army outshining the stars. I lay the recollections before me like pieces of a puzzle, fragmented and jumbled as they came to me.
The day passes. My uncertainty lingers.
Our times in captivity vary greatly. There was no torture for Imre Bergamasc in Lop Nur. He was treated civilly when Alice-Angeles and the others finally caught up with us, shaken but unharmed. We regrouped and loaded as much as we could into the five remaining vehicles. Only when we were ready to leave did I take a moment to greet our captive.
He stepped out of the six-wheeler with elegant control, a man smaller than I with a shock of white hair and slender limbs. Two troopers brought him to a halt five paces from me. His wrists were bound in front of him, and his blue gaze flicked from face to face until he saw me. Then he straightened.
"I've seen your picture, Dennis Jasper Murphy," he said without a trace of unease on his face. "Glad to finally make your acquaintance."
"Call me Jasper. The feeling isn't mutual."
I held the dead man's switch tightly in my left hand while the rain thundered relentlessly into the mud between us. We didn't step any closer to each other than that.
"Shall I kill him?" asked Alice-Angeles.
"Why?"
"With him dead, the war ends."
"One of his generals would take over. Motivated by a genuine grievance, they'd fight even harder."
"Quite right," Bergamasc agreed. "The last thing you want is Helwise on your case."
I remembered the cold-faced woman who would interrogate me in the future of that moment. He didn't know that I knew her, but he spoke as though I ought to. That psychological game, I
There is little satisfaction in the thought of less war for those on the losing side, so I say nothing. Let him come to his own conclusions about each individual campaign. I am more concerned with the larger picture—and this is something Alice-Angeles and the Apparatus also fail to grasp. What is one munitions dump in the long arc of the war, one planet when the fate of an entire galaxy is at stake, and one man against the long-term survival of the human race?
These are the thoughts that consume me.
"Sometimes I wonder," Bergamasc will say, "if you were hard to catch because your tactics were brilliant, or if your movements were completely random."
"God always has a purpose."
"I've yet to see it."
I think about what he has said in his future and my past. Not about the deadline, for to me that is meaningless, but his accusation that I haven't tried hard enough to put myself in his shoes. Could that be true? I certainly spent a great deal of time trying to anticipate his tactics and motives. That, however, is not the same thing. Late in my captivity, our conversation is dominated by his theories about the Apparatus and his inability to accept my true nature. Perhaps I have paid too little attention to who he is and what he needs. After all, he will be the one holding the gun to my head, if I fail to satisfy him.
But how can I satisfy someone who refuses so stubbornly to accept the truth? What more will it take? He has it all now, except for the Apparatus, and while I retain that bargaining chip, he surely won't do anything too drastic.
Unless he's decided that the value of the chip has now exceeded the irritation of my continued existence. Or I have fascinated him so much that he's willing to test me to the point of destruction. Which way has Imre Bergamasc, would-be Prime Minister of Earth, fallen?
I do not know him well enough to answer, so the problem remains.
Perhaps there is something I have missed. Perhaps my assumption that I've told him everything is incorrect. I probe my memories of the days we have shared, he and I, from that first exchange of words the day he arrived in orbit, with the engines of his army outshining the stars. I lay the recollections before me like pieces of a puzzle, fragmented and jumbled as they came to me.
The day passes. My uncertainty lingers.
Our times in captivity vary greatly. There was no torture for Imre Bergamasc in Lop Nur. He was treated civilly when Alice-Angeles and the others finally caught up with us, shaken but unharmed. We regrouped and loaded as much as we could into the five remaining vehicles. Only when we were ready to leave did I take a moment to greet our captive.
He stepped out of the six-wheeler with elegant control, a man smaller than I with a shock of white hair and slender limbs. Two troopers brought him to a halt five paces from me. His wrists were bound in front of him, and his blue gaze flicked from face to face until he saw me. Then he straightened.
"I've seen your picture, Dennis Jasper Murphy," he said without a trace of unease on his face. "Glad to finally make your acquaintance."
"Call me Jasper. The feeling isn't mutual."
I held the dead man's switch tightly in my left hand while the rain thundered relentlessly into the mud between us. We didn't step any closer to each other than that.
"Shall I kill him?" asked Alice-Angeles.
"Why?"
"With him dead, the war ends."
"One of his generals would take over. Motivated by a genuine grievance, they'd fight even harder."
"Quite right," Bergamasc agreed. "The last thing you want is Helwise on your case."
I remembered the cold-faced woman who would interrogate me in the future of that moment. He didn't know that I knew her, but he spoke as though I ought to. That psychological game, I