Manta's Gift

For that matter, it had been Faraday who'd insisted on cutting the conversation short. Did he have a plan to stop these other humans?

"What if they won't help us otherwise?" Latranesto asked darkly. "We've now told them of our weakness; and on top of that, you've basically told them we don't have the machine they want. We have nothing left to hold them to their promise."

"Not true," Manta said. "We may not have a machine; but we do have the pathway they want.

Besides that, we have Faraday's promise that they will help us."

Latranesto snorted. "The promise of a human. Do you really believe we can trust that?"

"I trust his intentions," Manta said. "Unfortunately, he may no longer have the power to carry out the promises he makes. If this human Liadof is really part of the Five Hundred, she holds more power than Faraday."

"Are these Five Hundred evil?" Pranlo asked.

"Not necessarily," Manta said. "But they have great power, and they've become accustomed to wielding it. Among humans, that's a dangerous thing."

"Then if they're against us, there is no hope," Latranesto said.

"No," Manta said, looking back at the probe. "There's still Faraday. We'll just have to hope he can persuade the Five Hundred to cooperate with us."

"And if he can't?" Drusni asked.

"I trust that he can," Manta said. "If he can't... well, we'll just have to find something else to bargain with. If we can."

"We'll find something," Pranlo said. "You have confidence in Faraday; I have confidence in you."

He flipped his tails. "And while we discuss it, I'm hungry. Let's go find something to eat."

TWENTY-NINE

They found a small discussion room down the corridor that—not surprisingly, given the hour—was unoccupied. Liadof stomped her way inside, with Faraday right behind her. Hesse, grim and silent, followed a distant third.

"Sit down, Colonel," Liadof ordered as she dropped into the chair at the head of the table. "Mr.

Hesse, close the door."

"You're not taking hostages, Arbiter," Faraday said as he sat down at the opposite end of the table.

"Absolutely not."

"I'm impressed by your high moral standards, Colonel," Liadof bit out. "I'm equally impressed by the shortness of your memory. Have you forgotten our earlier conversation?"

"No," Faraday said tartly. "Have you forgotten your own high-ground position? I thought getting the stardrive was your first and only priority."

"There is no stardrive," Liadof said sourly. "You heard him: 'I ca

What else can that mean but that they haven't got anything?"

" 'But after you have broken the barrier, we will take you to the path between worlds,' " Faraday finished the quote. "What's the difference between that and actual hardware?"

"The difference is that if there's no physical stardrive, then there's nothing we can use," Liadof said.

"Some esoteric stargate or wormhole buried deep inside Jupiter may be handy for them, but it's useless to us."

Faraday shook his head. "No. I'm not convinced this is anything but a semantics problem. That statement could just as easily mean that there is a stardrive, but that they're simply not going to let us study it."

"In which case, there's still no point in continuing this process, is there?" Liadof retorted. "Mr.

Hesse, sit down. You're making me nervous."

Silently, Hesse stepped over from where he'd been fidgeting by the door. Choosing a chair equidistant from the two antagonists, he sat down.

"I didn't mean they would never let us study it," Faraday said patiently. "But they clearly want their problem taken care of first."

"Fine," Liadof said. "And I'm willing to meet them halfway. But if it does exist, I want to at least get a look at it before we proceed any further."

Faraday shook his head. "We need to show good faith," he said. "You heard what Dr. Sprenkle said.

If we do that, we can trust Manta to come through on his part of the bargain."

"Can we?" Liadof demanded. "Dr. Sprenkle's opinions notwithstanding, the fact is that we really don't know how Mr. Raimey thinks anymore. If he decides to stiff us, we go home empty-handed."

Faraday leaned back in his seat. "And that's what you're really afraid of, isn't it?" he said. "The fear of looking foolish; of not being able to deliver the hand-wrapped birthday present your faction promised the Five Hundred when they took power."

"My personal political standing is not the issue, Colonel," Liadof said evenly. "And, just for your information, that standing is also not in any danger."

"Then what does it cost you to be magnanimous?" Faraday urged. "Fix the problem for them. Be a hero on Jupiter, and at the same time buy yourself some goodwill throughout the System. All it'll cost will be a couple of nuclear warheads that no one's using anyway."

"And you'll also be demonstrating great foresight," Hesse murmured. "After all, you're the one who asked for the weapons in the first place."

"That's right," Faraday said, pouncing on the idea. If he could just persuade Liadof that helping Manta was in her best interests... "In fact, if you'd like, we could even backdate the radiation studies we're going to do so that you could claim to have noticed the decrease in equatorial output a couple of months ago. You suspected the problem, deduced a solution, and commissioned more study."

"Interesting idea," Liadof said. "Unfortunately, I've already told the Five Hundred and Sol/Guard that the weapons were for a sonic study."

"You could say you weren't yet absolutely sure of the facts," Hesse suggested. "Rather than start rumors, you used the sonic study idea to get the weapons transferred here. If the radiation thing turned out to be a false alarm, you could still use them for the sonic study."

"Very clever," Liadof agreed. "Both of you."

Her face settled into its deep lines. "And all that would cost would be letting you assist me in a lie, which would give you a lever you could use against me for the rest of my life." She shook her head.

"Nice try, Colonel."

Faraday sighed. "Arbiter, what's it going to take to get through to you? I'm not interested in power, or levers, or your destruction. All I want is to open up the universe to humanity, and to do it in a way that lets me sleep at night. Is that too much to ask?"

"You'll have to ask your friend Mr. Raimey about that," Liadof said brusquely, getting to her feet.

"He's the one standing in your way. Excuse me, but I have to get a report ready to send to the Five Hundred."

Faraday took a deep breath. "Then you're going to have a fight on your hands," he warned her. "I'm going to use those nukes to fix Manta's logjam problem. And if you get in my way, I will take you down."

Liadof paused halfway to the door. "Are you insane?" she asked, the skin around her eyes crinkling as she stared at him. "You have no authority here."

"On the contrary," Faraday said. "I'm in complete charge of Project Changeling. You said so yourself less than an hour ago."

"And I can just as easily take that authority back," she said, sounding vaguely bewildered. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen power go to someone's head quite so fast."

Faraday shook his head. "No. Half an hour ago you could have done that, and there would have been nothing I could have done to stop you. But not now. By now, Mr. Beach will have sent the full transcript of our conversation with Manta back to Earth."

"Nonsense," Liadof retorted. "I didn't hear you give any such orders."

"Sure you did," Faraday said. "When they all came in, remember? 'Procedure is by the book,' I told them. I don't know how you did things when you were in charge, but my book always included automatic forwarding of all Jovian conversations."