Children of the Fleet Read online

  The man at the desk smiled sarcastically. “You know nothing about us.”

  Dabeet decided not to mention that he knew the man on the phone was Brazilian. That alone might guarantee that Dabeet would be killed, once he proved to be useless. “I know something about the International Fleet,” said Dabeet. “They aren’t staying out of all the little wars that are poised to start in the next while because they have no authority. If they wanted to enforce the hegemonic peace, they’d do it. Why don’t they? Because they want Earth to be filled with warfare.”

  Two seconds of silence.

  “What do they gain from that?” asked the man on the telephone.

  “Refugees. People who have lost everything, who have fled their homes, and need a place to go. The IF will offer them that place—on colony ships headed for the empty Formic worlds, and then to the new planets they expect to discover and colonize.”

  The man at the desk smiled. “Do you seriously expect us to believe that—”

  But the man on the phone interrupted. “I can see that this will be the outcome, if not the purpose, of their policy.”

  “Lots of little wars, or a handful of big ones,” said Dabeet. “That’s why they let all the Battle School children go home—no, made them go home, even though there were some who would rather have stayed with the Fleet. So that the wars would not be quick, decided by military hardware and raw numbers. Instead, clever commanders will face each other, and the armies and navies will maneuver all over the map, creating more and more refugees with every move they make.”

  “So you think that we are the puppets of the IF,” said the Brazilian on the phone.

  “Of course you are. Kidnapping me was just one more instance of falling into the IF’s trap.”

  Desk Man was not buying it. “You give MinCol far too much credit—he has no authority within the Fleet, he’s merely a vestigial part of the Hegemony.”

  “So it is meant to seem,” said Dabeet, thinking more deeply into this story as he talked. “But the vast treasury of the Fleet has not been returned to the nations that paid it as taxes and assessments, has it? That money is being used to build ships. Not warships, but colony ships. Exploration and colonization are the primary activities of the IF. How important is the Minister of Colonization to such a fleet?”

  “So he comes all the way to Earth so that he can tempt us to kidnap you,” said Desk Man scornfully.

  “You saw my test scores, or why else would you have taken the Minister’s bait?”

  “You think that MinCol really means to take you after all?” asked the Brazilian.

  “I think that MinCol is still testing me,” said Dabeet, adopting the military title for Graff. “If I can’t talk you out of keeping me or killing me, then I’m not the boy he wants.”

  “But the decision isn’t yours,” said Desk Man. “No matter how you plead.”

  “This doesn’t depend on my being persuasive. This depends on your recognizing the truth when someone tells it to you—even if it’s an eleven-year-old boy.”

  “What truth is that?” asked the Brazilian.

  “The IF doesn’t care who wins these wars on Earth. The IF doesn’t care if your nations are swallowed up or destroyed. But you do.”

  “Yes,” said Desk Man, “we do.”

  “You have me in hopes that I’ll help you win your war. But in the process, you’re being funded by a much larger nation—and whether you win or lose, how much independence do you think you’ll have?” Dabeet decided to roll the dice on telling them what he had figured out. “I know, I know, Brazil has no imperial ambitions. But suppose your little nation chooses a government that no longer wants to be so cooperative with Brazilian foreign policy? Brazil has to act in its own interest. Right now, Brazil’s interest coincides with your own. Whatever happens militarily, however, you will be a tool of Brazilian foreign policy, and you will produce refugees to fill the IF’s colony ships. Which aspects of this were part of your plan for your nation’s future?”

  Neither Desk Man nor the Brazilian spoke. For at least half a minute, which felt like forever.

  “I have the plan you need,” said Dabeet.

  “Your plan,” said Desk Man, “is to sow distrust between our patron and ourselves.”

  “His plan,” said the Brazilian, “is to point out to us that no matter what we do, the IF will get what it wants, and nobody else will.”

  “You will,” said Dabeet. “There are nine nations capable of launching rockets at escape velocity, without having to use the shuttle system that is still controlled by the IF. These rockets are intended to launch scientific and communications satellites. But what if one of them could send a payload out to L-5, where the Fleet School hovers?”

  “Are you that desperate to get to Fleet School?” asked Desk Man.

  “I’ll already be at Fleet School,” said Dabeet. “You will not only let me live, you’ll return me to Indiana, and, because I passed this test, the Minister of Colonization will take me up to Fleet School. I’ll be there, ready to cooperate with your venture.”

  “And what, exactly, is this venture supposed to be?” asked the Brazilian.

  “Think about what Fleet School represents. The best of the children of the Fleet are there. An attack on the station doesn’t have to ‘succeed,’ it only has to take place. No nation will claim credit for it. The only message the mission will give to the IF is this: If you continue to abandon Earth to endless warfare, then you will not remain untouched by war.”

  “This hypothetical expedition is expected to fail,” said Desk Man.

  “The mission will succeed no matter what happens, because the IF can’t absorb such a blow. It will have to come to Earth and exert authority, and once it has taken that step, it will have no choice but to restore the Hegemony and guarantee the peace as it did during the Formic Wars.”

  “But what will this expedition do—besides die with disinformational notes in their pockets?”

  “A sensible plan would be to take over the entire station without harming any of the children. A message is sent to the IF. Then the invaders seize one of the Fleet School shuttles and take it back to Earth, with a few dozen children aboard, along with the surviving members of the expedition.”

  “So the IF won’t shoot it down,” said Desk Man.

  “The IF doesn’t have to worry about publicity,” said the Brazilian. “So they can shoot it down and write off those children as casualties of war. They could claim that we exploded the shuttle.”

  “They could do that,” said Dabeet, “except that they do have to worry about publicity. Nobody is more suspicious of official statements from the high command than soldiers and junior officers are—they know from experience that most of what the high command says is bullshit. So if the IF high command wishes to retain their lofty offices, and to have the loyalty and obedience of the soldiers and officers under them, they will proceed with great caution. They would far rather see your expedition get back to Earth, if it means the children survive, than to punish it, if that would harm the children.”

  “You’ve never been in the IF,” said Desk Man, “so you have no idea what they—”

  “You know he’s right,” said the Brazilian. “You know that your own military functions exactly that way.”

  Again, silence. Desk Man might disagree with the Brazilian, but it would do him no good to argue with him, or even show Dabeet that he was frustrated. If he was. Desk Man was good at keeping his face blank. Or else Dabeet wasn’t skilled enough in reading facial expressions to be able to read him.

  “It’s quite possible,” said the Brazilian eventually, “that the child is right about the IF setting a trap for us. I don’t think they’re interested in catching and punishing us, as long as we return the boy—in this, his situation exactly parallels what he says of the Fleet School hostages we would take, if we were insane enough to pursue his plan.”

  “So all of this was for nothing,” said Desk Man.

  “N
ot at all,” said the Brazilian. “We have made the acquaintance of a remarkable child, and we can only hope that he’s as big a source of irritation and inconvenience for MinCol as he has been for us.”

  “Setting him free is a mistake,” said Desk Man. “If we intend to use his plan, and he ends up in Fleet School, he can warn them of what’s coming.”

  Dabeet chuckled. “Why would I do that?” he asked.

  “Why wouldn’t you?” asked Desk Man.

  Dabeet unbuckled his seat belt, stood up, and leaned on the desk, so his face wasn’t far from Desk Man’s. “I don’t like the Minister of Colonization. I really don’t like his having rejected me for Fleet School unless I passed this dangerous test. If I fail, I’m either a captive or I die—so if I live, tell me what it is that I owe to MinCol? Loyalty? He had no loyalty to me.”

  “This feeling will pass,” said Desk Man.

  “The IF is manipulating Earth,” said Dabeet, “at great cost to all nations, including yours. When your people start dying in the wars that are coming, how quickly will your rage at the IF ‘pass’?”

  Desk Man remained silent until the Brazilian spoke. “Here’s what we’ll do, my young friend. If you get taken up to Fleet School, then you will find a way to open an entry point on the outside of the station. Choose a spot that will face Earth while the door is open.”

  “And you’ll be watching?” asked Dabeet.

  “Let’s say you do it twice. Open it for a period of time, close it for the same period of time, then open it again. That will tell us that you are capable of helping us, on a schedule, and that we still have your loyalty.”

  “A traitor can open a door,” said Desk Man.

  “Once we know that there’s a door that might open,” said the Brazilian, “we’ll decide whether to risk the lives of a team of soldiers in order to pursue your insane plan. If we can figure out a way to approach the station undetected, and if we think the plan will have the outcome you predict, and if the situation on Earth becomes as dire as you claim to believe it will, then we’ll consider your plan. If we decide to proceed, we’ll find a way to let you know the day and time of arrival, and you will be there to open the door.”

  Dabeet nodded and sat back down. “If Victor and Imala could find a way to approach the Formic scout ship in the First Formic War, then surely you, with much greater knowledge of the technologies and practices of the IF than they had of the Formic ship, will find a way.”

  “Pois é. You’re just like MinCol, full of little tests for other people to pass, if they can. Now the airplane that you are on will turn around immediately, because there’s still plenty of fuel to make it back to the airport you left from.”

  “They’ll be watching that airport,” said Desk Man.

  “Of course they will,” said the Brazilian. “You’re counting on that, because as soon as you realized that someone had smuggled an unconscious child on board the plane, you turned around to return him. You had nothing to do with his being kidnapped, and you are horrified and embarrassed that your airplane was used for such an evil purpose.”

  “Where was he supposedly hidden?” asked Desk Man.

  “Be resourceful,” said the Brazilian. “If you can’t figure out a plan, get the boy to come up with one. He’ll go along with all this, at least until you refuel and take off again. Won’t you, Dabeet Ochoa?”

  “I will,” said Dabeet. “It’s in the interest of every party to this conversation to demonstrate good faith and loyalty—to each other, not the IF or the local authorities in Indiana.”

  “It has been no pleasure at all doing business with you,” said the Brazilian. “And, just so you know, I’m not a Brazilian.”

  What was he, then, Portuguese? Angolan? Neither country had the means to do what he was doing. But … of course he was Brazilian. He was simply warning Dabeet that whatever else he said or did, he’d better not implicate Brazil in this. Dabeet would decide, when the time came, whether to comply with this request. “No one ever thought you were, sir,” said Dabeet.

  It took Dabeet about five minutes to find a space on the plane that he could fit into, concealed. Since this was a diplomatic aircraft, there were plenty of stowage areas for smuggling weapons, bombs, drugs, or whatever else needed the protection of a diplomatic pouch while it was delivered. Dabeet picked one that was inside a bench seat in the less-comfortable part of the plane where, presumably, persons of lesser status were transported. It was flattering to realize that he had been given fairly good treatment, compared to how it might have been.

  Dabeet spent fifteen minutes of the return flight inside that bench, so that if there was a forensic examination, traces of his presence would be found. Then he came back out, enjoyed the meal he was served, and talked enough with the crew that despite their strict reticence, he learned that the nation of origin for Desk Man and his officers was Ecuador.

  But of course this information was probably not a slip at all, but the cover story they had been told to let him “discover” for himself. Other comments, much more oblique, led him to suspect a country with mountains much lower than the Andes, and lots of coastline not far from those mountains. He suspected either Panama or a Caribbean island—and from the facial features and skin color of Desk Man and his officers, Dabeet concluded that they were not from a Caribbean island. Panama then, or maybe Costa Rica. But of course he might be wrong and they could be from Argentina for all he knew. Or it might be the plane’s crew—and perhaps the plane itself—that originated in Panama, while Desk Man was, in fact, from Ecuador. Or Mexico. Possibly Venezuela, because Mother might not have been lying about that.

  Thus did Dabeet pass the time on the way home, refusing to anticipate what would happen to him once he was turned over to the American authorities. He would be interrogated, of course, so he would have to act like a confused child who could remember almost nothing because of the effects of the drug he’d been given. But he would have to be true to his own character, because he was known, and if he didn’t exude the same level of confidence—no, be honest now, arrogance—that he normally displayed, someone might suspect he was deliberately hiding something.

  What, exactly, was MinCol testing here? Was it enough that he got the plane turned around and saved his own life? Or was he expected to have figured out more than he had? Was the real test going to be how honest and forthright he was when the IF sent someone to debrief him?

  If Dabeet couldn’t even be sure of his captors’ country of origin, how could he hope to outguess the manipulations of a man like Minister of Colonization Hyrum Graff?

  4

  —I can see that it might appear to you that this was some kind of test, and it was, in a general sense. And while I recognize that my coming to see you might have called undue attention to you, it was certainly not my plan to expose you to any kind of danger.

  —I suppose, then, that I passed the test “in a general sense.”

  —I wonder how you managed it, since they went to a lot of trouble to abduct you, only to return you without receiving anything in return.

  —Perhaps you should regard the decipherment of that conundrum as your test. In a general sense.

  —I can think of several solutions to the puzzle that do not redound to your credit.

  —How odd. I can’t think of any. But perhaps we can trade information.

  —I’ve already told you everything I know about your parentage. Except your father’s actual identity, which you have no need to know.

  —No, it’s a new question. A small one. I don’t believe for a moment that my father, whoever he is, was involved with my kidnapping. Yet the principal said that the man who came to claim me passed the DNA test, affirming that he was my father.

  —Oh, Dabeet, do you really need me to answer that?

  —My assumption now is that the DNA test that the principal mentioned consisted of a sum of money being passed to him from a foreign agent.

  —The principal is being detained until we can determ
ine whether that is true. He might have been under duress. He claims, of course, that he was taken completely by surprise by the gas attack on the two of you. But he has no plausible reason for having brought you to his office in the middle of lunch hour.

  —“Until we can determine”?

  —Because you are a child of the Fleet, the IF is participating in the investigation.

  —So my status as a child of the Fleet has been openly declared at my school?

  —To the local police, but I’m sure they’ve already mentioned it at Conn. Thus you are vindicated to the faculty and students who thought you and your mother were falsely claiming Fleet status.

  —I’m ashamed that it matters to me, but it does.

  —You’re ashamed that you were ashamed? Soon you’ll be ashamed of being ashamed of being ashamed. This will have no happy ending.

  —I assume that my captors were allowed to leave.

  —The airplane is, technically speaking, a diplomatic pouch. The local authorities had no authority to inspect it or, for that matter, detain it.

  —But the IF does what it likes.

  —At our first indication of interest, Fleet inspectors were invited to enter. They were shown a compartment under a seat that contained, not only your DNA from sweat and skin, but also the residue of various drugs, explosives, and other munitions. Also three species of animals that it is illegal to traffic in. But I assume you weren’t actually confined there?

  —No, they had me in a very comfortable seat. Only when they had decided to return me did we need to find a place to make it appear that I had been hidden on board, and then I needed to be confined there long enough to leave those traces that you found.

  —How did you persuade them to return you instead of making you disappear over the Atlantic?

  —I assumed that we were over the Caribbean.