Free The End of All Things: The Fourth Instalment by John Scalzi Page B

to the three of us. “And how completely unsurprising this seems to me.”
    Sorvalh’s audience consisted of Ambassador Abumwe, Ambassador Lowen, and me, as their joint underling for the meeting. Sorvalh had her own underling with her, if one could genuinely call Vnac Oi, the head of intelligence for all of the Conclave, an underling. Sorvalh and the ambassadors were sitting; Oi and I, standing. I was doing a lot of standing in meetings recently.
    We five were in her private study at Conclave headquarters. On the other side of the door, literally and figuratively, were ambassadorial staff and experts and advisors, from Earth, from the Colonial Union, and from the Conclave. If one was quiet, one could feel their combined howling frustration at not being in the room at the moment.
    “May I be honest with you?” Lowen asked Sorvalh. I noted that I found it difficult to think of her as “Danielle” when she was on the job. Not because she materially changed her personality when she was working, but simply out of respect for her position.
    “Ambassador, I believe the point of this current discussion is to be honest with each other, is it not?” Sorvalh asked.
    “I assumed that there would be more of us in the room for this discussion.”
    Sorvalh smiled one of her absolutely-terrifying-to-humans smiles. “I believe each of our staffs thought the same thing, Ambassador,” she said. “But I have always found that there’s an inverse relationship between the number of people in a room and the amount of useful work that can be done. Now that I am the person in charge of things, I find it even more so. Do you not?”
    “No,” Lowen said. “I think you’re right, by and large.”
    “Of course I am. And, Madams Ambassador, I believe that the reason we are here is to have a definitively useful meeting, are we not?”
    “It is to be hoped,” Abumwe said.
    “Precisely,” Sorvalh said. “So, no, Ambassador. I believe we have precisely the correct number of people in the room.”
    “Yes, Premier Sorvalh,” Lowen said.
    “Then let’s not waste any more time.” Sorvalh turned her attention to Abumwe. “You may begin, Ambassador.”
    “Premier Sorvalh, Equilibrium intends to attack the Earth with nuclear weapons and make it appear to the Colonial Union that it is the Conclave that initiated the attack.”
    “Yes,” Sorvalh said. “Vnac Oi here gave me a précis of the report you prepared for us. I assume you are going to ask us for our help in thwarting the attack, seeing that we are meant to be blamed for it.”
    “No, Premier,” Abumwe said. “We want the attack to proceed.”
    Sorvalh reared back slightly at this, looked over to Lowen, and then back at Abumwe. “Well!” she said, after a moment. “This is certainly a bold and unexpected strategy. I’m fascinated to learn how this will be beneficial to any of us, not least the poor irradiated citizens of Earth.”
    “Lieutenant,” Abumwe said to me.
    “We want the attack to proceed because we need to draw out Equilibrium,” I said. “The group is small, driven, and has been difficult for us—any of us—to locate and attack. The one successful attack against the group as a whole was by Rafe Daquin, when he escaped from their control. But other than that they’ve been very good at working in the shadows.”
    “Yes they have,” Oi said. “We’ve purged known Equilibrium operatives, as I’m sure both Earth and the Colonial Union have.” Abumwe and Lowen both nodded here. “But at this point they don’t appear to need any additional operational intelligence to continue their plans.”
    “Or they simply have new allies,” Abumwe said.
    “Either way your man is correct.” Oi motioned at me with a tendril.
    “We found their new base,” Abumwe said.
    “Where?” asked Oi.
    “On Sedna,” I said. “A dwarf planet on the edge of Earth’s solar system. We confirmed it just before Ambassador Abumwe’s ship skipped here.”
    “Then this