The Desert of Stars (The Human Reach) by John Lumpkin Read Free Book Online

busy operations center, where
dozens of officers and enlisted soldiers hunched over their consoles, watching
shaky helmet camera feeds and barking orders into comms gear. Well put,
Ramesh , Donovan thought, seeing someone’s front door splinter on one of the
monitors . “Out in the nearby communities” is a nice euphemism for “raids.”
    They were there to meet Lieutenant General Tyag Bahadar Singh,
who was regarded as the most influential military officer in India, and widely
thought to be considering a career in politics. He was the senior Indian Army officer
in occupied Punjab, overseeing a large if low-intensity counterinsurgency
operation, as well as keeping the frontier fortified against those bent on
restoring Pakistan to its former borders. And so much of India’s energy has
gone into this and places like it, into maintaining a terrestrial empire at the
expense of an interstellar one, Donovan thought.
    They were taken to a Spartan conference room. The general
kept them waiting for only a minute – a short enough delay that Gregory
couldn’t regard it as disrespect. He came in, wearing fatigues and a holstered
sidearm at his right side. He was tall and thin, wearing the salt-and-pepper,
well-trimmed vandyke that he had made so stylish in the Indian military.
    Pleasantries in English followed, while an orderly served
tea. When she departed, Singh said, “You’re here because you want India’s
help.”
    “We’d like your support in the war,” Gregory said agreeably.
    “What do you mean, ‘support?’” Singh said.
    “You join us as allies against China. You fight with us.”
    The easy out, Donovan observed, was for Singh to protest he
didn’t have the authority to approve such an alliance, which was technically
correct but functionally wrong. But Singh simply nodded, and said, “What does
India have to gain?”
    “Worlds. You’re on the edge of the desert, just as we are,
and India needs more than a single colony planet to ensure its future in
space,” Gregory said.
    “We can bargain with China to stay out of the war,” Singh
said. “They have offered us a wormhole chain already.”
    I wonder if we know that, Donovan thought. It was
news to him, and it would be the first sentence of his report.
    Senator Gregory showed no surprise and said, “You could get
more if you fight.”
    “Or we could lose everything. Your control of Earth orbit
hasn’t won you the war.”
    “We would support your claim on both South Tibet and Aksai
Chin.” The latter was the region of Kashmir still in Chinese hands.
    “At long last. Yes, you certainly would,” Singh said, grinning.
“At a minimum. We would want plenty more.”
    The meeting broke up shortly after that. Gregory and
Singh went into a private conference, and some junior officers took Gregory’s
staff on a tour of the base. Donovan and Ramesh picked each other out for some
back-channel diplomacy and walked over to the flightline. It was a crystalline
January morning, calm and clear.
    “Which wormhole chain did they offer you?” Donovan asked.
    Ramesh shook his head. “It’s largely in Eridani.”
    Donovan grunted. “They want you as a buffer between them and
Japanese space. Europa is grabbing stars in Eridani, too. They will all crowd
you out as time goes on.”
    “We know.”
    “You’ll also have to go through somebody else’s space to get
there from Earth, so they can cut you off whenever they please.”
    “We know that, too. Not much different from our current
situation, routing through Japanese space in Barnard’s Star.”
    “What would it take for you to join us instead?” Donovan
asked.
    “I’m not sure, exactly, because the general isn’t sure,”
Ramesh said. “Some of it depends on whether Russia and Europa join you as well,
which would make our job easier. If the Chinese empire is collapsing, we want
to ensure we are positioned to take advantage of it. Certainly we would insist on
being full partners, with a full share of