Free The Duke Of Uranium by John Barnes

he’s needlessly obscure around you, all the time, and you’ve utterly proven my point. I suppose that you thought that what we wanted you to do was go to Fermi—that’s where we’re nearly certain that Sesh is being held—and then, what? Oh, say, infiltrate the palace guard, scale a sheer wall twenty meters high, locate and rescue Princess Shyf from the chief malph just as he’s about to rape her, carry her away half-naked from twenty armed men, shoot your way into the spaceport, and escape in a hijacked warship?”
    “Now that you mention it, that does sound toktru silly, masen? But Uncle Sib said I wouldn’t be ransoming her, I’d be going and getting her, so I thought I’d at least be sneaking her out, and if something went wrong—”
    “Oh. Well, then, perhaps you weren’t quite as silly as you sounded. But in any case, what we need here is not so much heroics as calm common sense, because it’s really merely a very ordinary kind of situation in the politics between nations. Princess Shyf was kidnapped as part of an elaborate power struggle, with several different players in the game; we’re going to get her back by making someone trade for her.
     
    Which that someone will willingly do—because what we have to trade is very valuable.
    “Your job is mostly to go to the right person and make the offer. Since you might have to improvise, we’re going to give you enough information to be able to improvise reasonably well. So we’ll start with discussing who the sides are. What do they tell you about social engineering, in school, these days?”
    “Pretty much what they tell us about underage sex and illegal drugs. No one’s supposed to do it, officially everyone deplores it, and toktru everyone does it every chance they get.”
    “You’re more socially alert than I ever thought you were—that covers the attitude of society toward social engineering, very thoroughly,” Uncle Sib said. “Hypocrisy is the great lubricant of social intercourse.
    Well, by now you must have realized that I’m not just a retired soldier and businessman.”
    “Well, I dak that we’re rich, or you have a big expense account from somewhere. I noticed that you got me trained early to keep quiet about anything I saw or heard at home. I kind of thought maybe you were a spy. And all those little games you had me playing, about deception and deduction and things like that, and the way you made me work the Disciplines so hard, made me speck maybe I was being groomed for the family business.”
    “Not a bad guess, but wrong,” Sib said. “And now that we’re sitting here in a room that is thoroughly bugswept, and there’s reason to tell you, I will. Gweshira and I are members of a social engineering zybot. I had always kind of hoped you’d want to join, later on, and perhaps you will, if you ever manage to acquire any interest in politics, economics, society, culture, or any concern other than clothes, sports, and girls.”
    “He’s healthy, Sib,” Gweshira protested, green eyes flashing. “That’s what a teenager should be interested in. Give him time.”
    Sib shrugged. “At his age I’d already belonged to a revolutionary underground, been arrested for inciting a riot, joined the secret police, and claimed political asylum on a sunclipper. But I suppose everyone has to get through adolescence in their own way. Anyway, Jak, it so happens that our social engineering zybot has very good reason to intervene on behalf of Princess Shyf—Sesh, I mean, she’s no doubt still Sesh to you. You happen to be a logical person for us to use to free her, and so we’re going to talk to you about who we are, what we do, and what we need you to do, because you’ll need to know all of that. So I want you to at least promise to try to listen and follow what we tell you, because it’s vital for Sesh.”
    “I’ll try,” Jak said. “Toktru. I will.” He felt a sinking sensation; he’d never been any good at paying attention to