The Iron Tactician Read online

  The airlock had cycled by the time they arrived. When it opened, Merlin was not surprised to find only two members of the boarding party inside. There would not have been room for more.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said, making a flourishing gesture of invitation. ‘Come in, come in. Take your shoes off. Make yourselves at home.’

  They were a formidable looking pair. Their vacuum armour had a martial look to it, with bladed edges and spurs, a kind of stabbing ram on the crowns of their helmets, fierce-looking grills across the glass of their faceplates. All manner of guns and close-combat weapons buckled or braced to the armour. The armour was green, with gold ornamentation.

  Merlin tapped his throat. ‘Take your helmets off. The worst you’ll catch is a sniffle.’

  They came into the ship. Their faces were lost behind the grills, but he caught the movement as they twisted to look at each other, before reaching up to undo their helmets. They came free with a tremendous huff of equalising pressure, revealing a pair of heads. There were two men, both bald, with multiple blemishes and battle-scars across their scalps. They had tough, grizzled-looking features, with lantern jaws and a dusting of dark stubble across their chins and cheeks. A duelling scar or similar across the face of one man, a laser burn ruining the ear of the other. Their small, cold-seeming eyes were pushed back into a sea of wrinkles. One man opened his mouth, revealing a cage of yellow and metal teeth.

  He barked out something, barely a syllable. His voice was very deep, and Merlin caught a blast of stale breath as he spoke. The other man waited a moment then amplified this demand or greeting with a few more syllables of his own.

  Merlin returned these statements with an uneasy smile of his own. ‘I’m Merlin,’ he said. ‘And I come in peace. Ish.’

  ‘They don’t understand you,’ Teal whispered.

  ‘I’m damned glad they don’t. Did you get anything of what they said?’

  ‘They want to know why you’re here and what you want.’

  The first man said a few more words, still in the same angry, forceful tone as before. The second man glanced around and touched one of the control panels next to the airlock.

  ‘Isn’t war lovely,’ Merlin said.

  ‘I understand them,’ Teal said, still in a whisper. ‘Well enough, anyway. They’re still using the main Havergal language. It’s shifted a bit, but I can still get the gist. How much do you want me to pretend to understand?’

  ‘Nothing yet. Keep soaking it in. When you think you’ve given it long enough, point to the two of us and make the sound for “friend”.’ Merlin grinned back at the suited men, the two of them edging away from the lock in opposite directions. ‘I know; it needs a little work, doesn’t it? Tired décor. I’m thinking of knocking out this wall, maybe putting a window in over there?’

  Teal said something, jabbing one hand at her chest and another at Merlin. ‘Friendly,’ she said. ‘I’ve told them we’re friendly. What else?’

  ‘Give them our names. Then tell them we’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge of that planet you mentioned.’

  He caught “Merlin” and “Teal” and the name “Havergal”. He had to trust that she was doing a good job of making her initial efforts seem plausibly imperfect, even as she stumbled into ever-improving fluency. Whatever she had said, though, it had a sudden and visible effect. The crag-faced men came closer together again and now directed their utterances at Teal alone, guessing that was the only one who had any kind of knowledge of their language.

  ‘What?’ Merlin asked.

  ‘They’re puzzled that I speak their tongue. They also want to know if you have a syrinx.’

  ‘Tell them I have a syrinx but that it doesn’t work very well.’ Merlin was still smiling at the men, but the muscles around his mouth were starting to ache. ‘And tell them I apologise for not speaking their tongue, but you’re much better at languages than me. What are their names, too?’

  ‘I’ll ask.’ There was another halting exchange, Merlin sensing that the names were given grudgingly, but she drew them out in the end. ‘Balus,’ Teal said. ‘And Locrian. I’d tell you which is which, but I’m not sure there’d be much point.’

  ‘Good. Thank Balus and Locrian for the friendly reception. Tell them that they are very welcome on my ship, but I’d be very obliged if the others stopped crawling around outside my hull.’ Merlin paused. ‘Oh, and one other thing. Ask them if they’re still at war with Gaffurius.’

  He had no need of Teal to translate the answer to that particular part of his query. Balus – or perhaps Locrian – made a hawking sound, as if he meant to spit. Merlin was glad that he did not deliver on the gesture; the intention had been transparent enough.

  ‘He says,’ Teal replied, ‘that the Gaffurians broke the terms of the recent treaty. And the one before that. And the one before that. He said the Gaffurians have the blood of pigs in their veins. He also says that he would rather cut out his own tongue than speak of the Gaffurians in polite company.’

  ‘One or two bridges to build there, then.’

  ‘He also asks why they should care what you think of the ones still on your hull.’

  ‘It’s a fair question. How good do you think you’re getting with this language of theirs?’

  ‘Better than I’m letting on.’

  ‘Well, let’s push our luck a little. Tell Balus – or Locrian – that I have weapons on this ship. Big, dangerous weapons. Weapons neither of them will have ever seen before. Weapons that – if they understood their potency, and how near they’ve allowed that ship of theirs to come – would make them empty their bowels so quickly they’d fill their own spacesuits up to the neck ring. Can you do that for me?’

  ‘How about I tell them that you’re armed, that you’re ready to defend your property, but that you still want to proceed from a position of peaceful negotiation?’

  ‘On balance, probably for the best.’

  ‘I’ll also add that you’ve come to find out about a syrinx, and you’re prepared to discuss terms of trade.’

  ‘Do that.’

  Merlin waited while this laborious exchange was carried on. Teal reached some sort of critical juncture in her statement and this drew a renewed burst of angry exclamations from Balus and Locrian – he guessed they had just been acquainted with the notion that Tyrant was armed – but Teal continued and her words appeared to have some temporary soothing effect, or as best as could be expected. Merlin raised his hands in his best placating manner. ‘Honestly, I’m not the hair-trigger type. We just need to have a basis for mutual respect here.’

  ‘Cohort?’ he heard one of them say.

  ‘Yes,’ he answered, at the same time as Teal. ‘Cohort. Big bad Cohort.’

  After a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing, Teal turned to him: ‘They don’t claim to know anything about a syrinx. Then again, I don’t think these men necessarily would know. But one of them, Locrian, is going back to the other ship. I think he needs to signal some higher-up or something.’

  ‘It’s what I was expecting,’ Merlin said. ‘Tell him I’ll wait. And tell the other one he’s welcome to drink with us.’

  Teal relayed this message, then said: ‘He’ll stay, but he doesn’t need anything to drink.

  ‘His loss.’

  While Locrian went back through the airlock, Balus joined them in the lounge, looking incongruous in his heavily-armoured suit. Teal tried to engage him in conversation, but he had obviously been ordered to keep his communications to a strict minimum. Merlin helped himself to some wine, before catching his own pink-eyed reflection and deciding enough was enough, for now.

  ‘What do you think’s going on?’ Teal asked, when an hour had passed with no word from the other ship.

  ‘Stuff.’

  ‘Aren’t you concerned?’

  ‘Terribly.’

  ‘You don’t look or sound it. You want this syrinx, don’t you?’

  ‘Very much so.’

  Balus looked on silently as his hosts spoke i
n Main. If he understood any part of it, there was no clue on his face. ‘But you seem so nonchalant about it all,’ Teal said.

  Merlin pondered this for a few seconds. ‘Do you think being not nonchalant would make any difference? I don’t know that it would. We’re here in the moment, aren’t we? And the moment will have its way with us, no matter how we feel about things.’

  ‘Fatalist.’

  ‘Cheerful realist. There’s a distinction.’ Merlin raised his empty, wine-stained glass. ‘Isn’t there, Balus? You agree, don’t you, my fine fellow?’

  Balus parted his lips and gave a grunt.

  ‘They’re coming back,’ Teal said, catching movement through the nearest window. ‘A shuttle of some sort, not just people in suits. Is that good or bad?’

  ‘We’ll find out.’ Merlin bristled a hand across his chin. ‘Mind me while I go and shave my beard.’

  ‘Shave your tongue while you’re at it.’

  Merlin had just finished freshening up when the lock completed its cycle and the two suited individuals came aboard. One of them, wearing a green and gold suit, turned out to be Locrian. He took off his helmet and motioned for the other, wearing a red and gold suit, to do likewise. This suit was less ostentatiously armoured than the other, designed for a smaller frame. But when the figure lifted their helmet off, glanced at Locrian and uttered a few terse words, Merlin had no difficulty picking up on the power relationship between the two.

  The newcomer was an old man – old, at least, in Merlin’s reckoning. Seventy or eighty years, by the Cohort way of accounting such things. He had fine, aristocratic features, accented by a high, imperious brow and a back-combed sweep of pure white hair. His eyes were a liquid grey, like little wells of mercury, suggesting a sharp, relentless intelligence.

  Officer class, Merlin thought.

  The man spoke to them. His voice was soft, undemonstrative. Merlin still did not understand a word of it, but just the manner of speaking conveyed an assumption of implicit authority.

  ‘His name is ... Baskin,’ Teal said, when the man had left a silence for her to speak. ‘Prince Baskin. Havergal royalty. That’s his own personal cruiser out there. He was on some sort of patrol when they picked up our presence. They came at full thrust to meet us. Baskin says things come out of the Way now and then, and it’s always a scramble to get to them before the enemy.’

  ‘If Locrian’s spoken to him, then he already knows our names. Ask him about the syrinx.’

  Teal passed on Merlin’s question. Baskin answered, Teal ruminated on his words, then said: ‘He says that he’s very interested to learn of your interest in the syrinx.’

  ‘I bet he is.’

  ‘He also says that he’d like to continue the conversation on his cruiser. He says that we’ll be guests, not prisoners, and that we’ll be free to return here whenever we like.’

  ‘Tell Prince Baskin ... yes, we’ll join him. But if I’m not back on Tyrant in twelve hours, my ship will take action to retrieve me. If you can make that sound like a polite statement of fact, rather than a crudely-worded threat, that would be lovely.’

  ‘He says there’ll be no difficulty,’ Teal said.

  ‘He’s right about that,’ Merlin answered.

  Part of Prince Baskin’s cruiser had been spun to simulate gravity. There was a stateroom, as grand as anything Merlin had encountered, all shades of veneered wood and polished metal, with red drapes and red fabric on the chairs. The floor curved up gently from one end of the room to the other, and this curvature was echoed in the grand table that took up much of the space. Prince Baskin was at one end of it, Merlin and Teal at the other, with the angle of the floor making Baskin seem to tilt forward like a playing card, having to lift his head to face his guests. Orderlies had fussed around them for some time, setting plates and glasses and cutlery, before bringing in the elements of a simple but well-prepared meal. Then – rather to Merlin’s surprise – they had left the three of them alone, with only stony-faced portraits of royal ancestors and nobility for company. Men on horses, men in armour, men with projectile guns and energy weapons, both grand and foolish in their pomp.

  ‘This is pure ostentation,’ he said, looking around the room with its sweeping curves and odd angles. ‘No one in their right mind puts centrifugal gravity on a ship this small. It takes up too much room, costs too much in mass, and the spin differential between your feet and head’s enough to make you dizzy.’

  ‘If the surroundings are not quite to your taste, Merlin, we could adjourn to one of the Renouncer’s weightless areas.’

  Prince Baskin had spoken.

  Teal cocked her chin to face him. The curvature of the room made it like talking to someone half way up a hill. ‘You speak Main.’

  ‘I try.’

  ‘Then why ...’ she began.

  Baskin smiled, and tore a chunk off some bread, dipping it into soup before proceeding. ‘Please join me. And please forgive my slight deception in pretending to need to have your words translated, as well as my rustiness with your tongue. What I have learned, I have done so from books and recordings, and until now I have never had the opportunity to speak it to a living soul.’ He bit into the bread, and made an eager motioning gesture that they should do likewise. ‘Please. Eat. My cook is excellent – as well he should be, given what it costs me to ship him and his kitchen around. Teal, I must apologise. But there was no deception where Locrian and Balus were concerned. They genuinely did not speak Main, and were in need of your translation. I am very much the exception.’

  ‘How ...’ Merlin started.

  ‘I was a sickly child, I suppose you might say. I had many hours to myself, and in those hours – as one does – I sought my own entertainment. I used to play at war, but toy soldiers and tabletop campaigns will only take you so far. So I developed a fascination with languages. Many centuries ago, a Cohort ship stopped in our system. They were here for two years – two of your years, I should say - long enough for trade and communication. Our diplomats tried to learn Main, and by the same token the Cohort sent in negotiating teams who did their best to master our language. Of course there were linguistic ties between the two, so the task was not insurmountable. But difficult, all the same. I doubt that either party excelled itself, but we did what was needed and there was sufficient mutual understanding.’ Baskin turned his head to glance at the portraits to his right, each painting set at a slight angle to its neighbours. ‘It was a very long time ago, as I’m sure you appreciate. When the Cohort had gone, there was great emphasis placed on maintaining our grasp of their language, so that we’d have a head start the next time we needed it. Schools, academies, and so on. King Curtal was instrumental in that.’ He was nodding at one of the figures in the portraits, a man of similar age and bearing to himself, and dressed in state finery not too far removed from the formal wear in which Baskin now appeared. ‘But that soon died away. The Cohort never returned and, as the centuries passed, there was less and less enthusiasm for learning Main. The schools closed, and by the time it came down to me – forty generations later – all that remained were the books and recordings. There was no living speaker of Main. So I set myself the challenge to become one, and encouraged my senior staff to do likewise, and here I am now, sitting before you, and doubtless making a grotesque mockery of your tongue.’

  Merlin broke bread, dipped it into the soup, made a show of chewing on it before answering.

  ‘This Cohort ship that dropped by,’ he said, his mouth still full. ‘Was it the Shrike?’

  Teal held her composure, but he caught the sidelong twitch of her eye.

  ‘Yes,’ Baskin said, grimacing slightly. ‘You’ve heard of it?’

  ‘It’s how I know about the syrinx,’ Merlin said, trying to sound effortlessly matter-of-fact. ‘I found the Shrike. It was a wreck, all her crew dead. Been dead for centuries, in fact. But the computer records were still intact.’ He lifted a goblet and drank. The local equivalent to wine was amber coloured and had a lingering,
woody finish. Not exactly to his taste but he’d had worse. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

  ‘And Teal?’

  ‘I travel with Merlin,’ she said. ‘He isn’t good with languages, and he pays me to be his translator.’

  ‘You showed a surprising faculty with our own,’ Baskin said.

  ‘Records of your language were in the files Merlin pulled from the wreck. It wasn’t that hard to pick up the rudiments.’

  Baskin dabbed at his chin with napkin. ‘You picked up more than the rudiments, if I might say.’

  Merlin leaned forward. ‘Is it true about the syrinx?’

  ‘Yes,’ Baskin said. ‘We keep it in a safe place on Havergal. Intact, in so far as we can tell. Would that be of interest to you?’

  ‘I think it might.’

  ‘But you must already have one, if you’ve come here by the Way.’

  Teal said: ‘His syrinx is broken, or at least damaged. He knows it won’t last long, so he needs to find a spare.’

  Again Baskin turned to survey the line of portraits. ‘These ancestors of mine knew very little but war. It dominated their lives utterly. Even when there was peace, they were thinking ahead to the moment that peace would fail, and how they might be in the most advantageous position when that day came. As it always did. My own life has also been shaped by the war. Disfigured, you might say. But I have lived under its shadow long enough. I should very much like to be the last of my line who ruled during wartime.’

  ‘Then end the war,’ Merlin said.

  ‘I should like to – but it must be under our terms. Gaffurius is stretched to its limits. One last push, one last offensive, and we can enforce a lasting peace. But there is a difficulty.’

  ‘Which is?’ Teal asked.

  ‘Something of ours has fallen into the wrong hands – an object we call the Iron Tactician.’ Baskin continued eating for several moments, in no rush to explain himself. ‘I don’t know what you’ve learned of our history. But for centuries, both sides in this war have relied on artificial intelligences to guide their military planning.’