Free Raising Caine - eARC by Charles E. Gannon Page A

the latter began—he found the incomplete cluster he sought: the Autarchs of the Ktor.
    Who were slightly more than fifty-five light years distant.

Chapter Seven
    Far orbit; Sigma Draconis Two
    Davros Tval Herelkeom, senior of the five Autarchs who had made themselves available, acknowledged Tlerek’s contact: “Your signal is clear, Srin Shethkador. Your House sends its compliments and anticipates a report of success.” Which was a strange greeting in that this affirming welcome should have come from Tlerek’s great-uncle once removed, the Tval Kromn Shethkador, who was present in the group. On the other hand, if these walking fossils are strongly split among themselves at the moment, it might be deemed an unacceptable entreé to House-domination if both Shethkador voices become preeminent in this counsel.
    Tlerek sought a tone of response that was at once direct, assertive, and tinged by the annoyance he felt over the resolution of the war upon Earth. “Regrettably, I must disappoint the anticipations of both my House and the Autarchs. The Aboriginals stayed their vengeance against the Arat Kur home world, largely because they discovered my identity as homo imperiens .”
    A long pause, and then a contentious, angry query from Beren Tval Jerapthere. “You have failed?” Beren’s inquiry bordered on effrontery.
    “ I did not fail, but I report failure. Do you wish my report on the conclusion of the war?”
    Beren became peremptory. “Yes, at once.”
    “I am pleased to comply. The fleets of the so-called Consolidated Terran Republic successfully misled the Arat Kur and Hkh’Rkh into believing that their initial attack upon Barnard’s Star was a genuine surprise which decimated their formations. This was a ruse. The human fleets reappeared after the invaders divided their forces and were committed deep within the gravity well of Home, or, as the Aboriginals call it, Earth. Aided by a Dornaani computer virus introduced through a joint Custodian-Aboriginal clandestine operation, the forces of our proxies were neutralized or eliminated, with many of their hulls falling into the hands of the ‘Terrans.’”
    Davros Tval Herelkeom resumed control, somewhat archly,of the contact. “Current disposition of enemy forces?”
    “I am unsure, but the most technologically advanced of the Aboriginal fleets are currently here in far orbit about the Arat Kur Homenest, which has surrendered to them.”
    “They surrendered?”
    “Yes. You may recall my prediction that I would lose the ability to mislead each side into believing that the other was obdurate in their hostility if the Aboriginals discerned my true speciate identity. Which they did.”
    Ruurun Tval Tharexere, oldest of the Autarchs and of his unity-obsessed House, entered his observations into the contact. “This is most unwelcome news.”
    “With all respect, Autarch, the course of events followed my misgivings as players follow a script. The Aboriginals detected the forensically inconclusive waste-emissions from the false environmental suit and that, in conjunction with the military and diplomatic peculiarities of the conduct of the conflict, led one of them to hypothesize my true species.”
    Beren’s resentment and rage were palpable through the contact: he had been the architect of many of the stratagems that had gone awry. “You would blame our plans, our technicians, for your own failures? Failures against Aboriginals?”
    “Instruct me, Autarch: how were these my failures? Did I not point out the risks in the suit’s design and the underlying xenobiological conceits? And did I not predict that the Aboriginals had an excellent chance of defeating the Arat Kur?”
    “Yes, but their defeat was an acceptable outcome if it created an opportunity to entice the Aboriginals into wholesale genocide. The ostracization they would have faced for that act would surely have pushed them in our direction, and so, under our dominion.”
    “And I warned, did I