Federations

When he was sure the message was sent, he returned to his sleeping space and let himself think again about Kim and Pai and Pahu, about his grandchildren, about his wife’s new husband and what children they might have. What he did not let himself think about was the possibility of returning to Earth to meet these babies as adults and try to find a place among them as if he were still alive, as if there were anyone left on Earth for him to know and love.

• • •

The answer did not come for a full twelve hours. Mazer imagined with amusement the struggles that must be going on. People fighting for their jobs. Filing reports proving that Mazer was insane and therefore should not be listened to. Struggling to neutralize Graff—or suck up to him, or get themselves assigned as his immediate supervisor. Trying to figure out a way to fool Mazer into thinking they had complied without actually having to do it.

The answer, when it came, was from Graff. It was a visual. Mazer was pleased to see that while Graff was, in fact, young, he wore the uniform in a slovenly way that suggested that looking like an officer wasn’t a particularly high priority for him.

He wore a captain’s insignia and a serious expression that was only a split second away from a smile.

“Once again, Admiral Rackham, with only one weapon in your arsenal, you knew right where to aim it.”

“I had two missiles the first time,” said Mazer.

“Do you wish me to record—” began the computer.

“Shut up and continue the message,” growled Mazer.

“You should know that your former wife, Kim Arnsbrach Rackham Summers—and yes, she does keep your name as part of her legal name—was instrumental in making this happen. Because whenever somebody came up with a plan for how to fool you and me into thinking they were in compliance with your orders, I would bring her to the meeting. Whenever they said, ‘We’ll get Admiral Rackham to believe’ some lie or other, she would laugh. And the discussion would pretty much end there.

“I can’t tell you how long it will last, but at this point, the IF seems to be ready to comply fully. You should know that has involved about two hundred early retirements and nearly a thousand reassignments, including forty officers of flag rank. You still know how to blow things up.

“There are things I already know about selection and training, and over the next few years we’ll talk constantly. But I can’t wait to take actions until you and I have conferred on everything, simply because there’s no time to waste and time dilation adds weeks to all our conversations.

“However, if I do something wrong, tell me and I’ll change it. I’ll never tell you that we’ve already done this or that as if that were a reason not to do it the right way after all. I will show you that you have not made a mistake in trusting this to me.

“The thing that puzzles me, though, is how you decided to trust me. My communications to you were full of lies or I couldn’t have written to you at all. I didn’t know you and had no clue how to tell you the truth in a way that would get past the committees that had to approve everything. The worst thing is that in fact I’m very good at the bureaucratic game or I couldn’t have got to the position to communicate directly with you in the first place.

“So let me tell you—now that no one will be censoring my messages—that yes, I think the highest priority is finding the right replacement for you as battle commander of the International Fleet. But once we’ve done that—and I know that’s a big if—I have plans of my own.

“Because winning this particular war against this particular enemy is important, of course. But I want to win all future wars the only way we can—by getting the human race off this one planet and out of this one star system. The Formics already figured it out—you have to disperse. You have to spread out until you’re unkillable.

“I hope they turn out to have failed. I hope we can destroy them so thoroughly they can’t challenge us for a thousand years.

“But by the end of that thousand years, when another Bugger fleet comes back for vengeance, I want them to discover that humans have spread to a thousand worlds and there is no hope of finding us all.

“I guess I’m just a big-picture guy, Admiral Rackham. But whatever my long-range goals are, this much is certain: If we don’t have the right commander and win this war, it won’t matter what other plans anybody has.

“And you are that commander, sir. Not the battle commander, but the commander who found a way to get the military to reshape itself in order to find the right battle commander without wasting the lives of countless soldiers in meaningless defeats in order to find him.

“Sir, I will not address this topic again. But I have come to know your family in the past few weeks. I know now something of what you gave up in order to be in the position you’re in now. And I promise you, sir, that I will do everything in my power to make your sacrifices and theirs worth the cost.”