from you, Secretary. About Equilibrium.”
“Of course.”
“Will you give it?”
Ocampo didn’t answer this. Instead he stepped forward onto the beach, into the water that rushed up to surround his feet and make them sink just a little into the sand. Despite myself I smiled at this; it really was a good simulation that I had thrown together.
“I’ve been thinking about why it was I became part of Equilibrium,” Ocampo said. He looked back at me as he said this and grinned. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant, I’m not going to try to make this a monologue of disillusioned nobility that you will have to politely nod through. At this point I can admit that much of the reason I did was ambition and megalomania. That is what it is. But there was another part of it, too. The belief that the Colonial Union, however it had gotten that way, was antithetical to the survival of our species. That every other species we know had come to associate humanity with duplicity, savagery, ambitious cunning, and danger. That this is all that we would ever be to them.”
“To be fair, none of the rest of them are exactly angels,” I said.
“True enough,” Ocampo said. “Although the response to that is how much of that is them dealing with us. The Conclave brought together four hundred species of spacefaring beings into a single government. We can barely get any to tolerate us. It does suggest the problem is not them, but us, the Colonial Union.”
I opened my mouth to respond; Ocampo held up a hand. “It’s not the right time to debate this, I know. My point is this, Lieutenant. For whatever reasons, I aligned myself with Equilibrium; independent of that, the problem of the Colonial Union remains. It’s toxic to itself. It’s toxic to humanity. And it’s toxic to our survival in this universe. I’m going to help you if I can, Wilson. At this point there is no reason not to. But you have to understand that unless something happens to the Colonial Union—something big, something substantive—then all we’re doing here is kicking the can just a little further down the road. The problem will still exist. The longer we wait the worse it gets. And it’s already almost as bad as it can get.”
“I understand,” I said.
“All right. Then ask your question.”
“After Daquin attacked Equilibrium headquarters the organization pulled out from there.”
“Yes. The location was no longer secure, obviously.”
“We need to know where its new headquarters is.”
“I don’t know,” Ocampo said. “And if I did know definitively, they wouldn’t use it, because they would have assumed that you would have extracted the location from me.”
“Then I would like a guess, please.”
“Equilibrium is a relatively small organization but the emphasis here is ‘relatively.’ It can operate from a single base but that base has to be relatively large and also recently abandoned, so that its systems can be brought back up to operational capacity quickly. It needs to be in a planetary system that’s either friendly to the Equilibrium cause, or recently abandoned, or not heavily monitored outside of core worlds.”
“That should cut down on the number of available military bases,” I said. “At least that’s something.”
“You’re limiting yourself,” Ocampo said.
“How?”
“You’re thinking like a soldier, and not an opportunistic scavenger, which is what Equilibrium is. Or still is, for the moment.”
“So not just military bases,” I said. “Any sort of base with the requisite infrastructure.”
“Yes.”
“And not just of species obviously aligned with Equilibrium.”
“Right. They would know you’d already be looking at those. They’d want something that’s in the Colonial Union’s blind spot.”
I considered this for a minute.
And then I had a really truly stupendously far-fetched idea.
My computer simulation must have accurately replicated my Eureka moment, because Ocampo smiled at me. “I
“Of course.”
“Will you give it?”
Ocampo didn’t answer this. Instead he stepped forward onto the beach, into the water that rushed up to surround his feet and make them sink just a little into the sand. Despite myself I smiled at this; it really was a good simulation that I had thrown together.
“I’ve been thinking about why it was I became part of Equilibrium,” Ocampo said. He looked back at me as he said this and grinned. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant, I’m not going to try to make this a monologue of disillusioned nobility that you will have to politely nod through. At this point I can admit that much of the reason I did was ambition and megalomania. That is what it is. But there was another part of it, too. The belief that the Colonial Union, however it had gotten that way, was antithetical to the survival of our species. That every other species we know had come to associate humanity with duplicity, savagery, ambitious cunning, and danger. That this is all that we would ever be to them.”
“To be fair, none of the rest of them are exactly angels,” I said.
“True enough,” Ocampo said. “Although the response to that is how much of that is them dealing with us. The Conclave brought together four hundred species of spacefaring beings into a single government. We can barely get any to tolerate us. It does suggest the problem is not them, but us, the Colonial Union.”
I opened my mouth to respond; Ocampo held up a hand. “It’s not the right time to debate this, I know. My point is this, Lieutenant. For whatever reasons, I aligned myself with Equilibrium; independent of that, the problem of the Colonial Union remains. It’s toxic to itself. It’s toxic to humanity. And it’s toxic to our survival in this universe. I’m going to help you if I can, Wilson. At this point there is no reason not to. But you have to understand that unless something happens to the Colonial Union—something big, something substantive—then all we’re doing here is kicking the can just a little further down the road. The problem will still exist. The longer we wait the worse it gets. And it’s already almost as bad as it can get.”
“I understand,” I said.
“All right. Then ask your question.”
“After Daquin attacked Equilibrium headquarters the organization pulled out from there.”
“Yes. The location was no longer secure, obviously.”
“We need to know where its new headquarters is.”
“I don’t know,” Ocampo said. “And if I did know definitively, they wouldn’t use it, because they would have assumed that you would have extracted the location from me.”
“Then I would like a guess, please.”
“Equilibrium is a relatively small organization but the emphasis here is ‘relatively.’ It can operate from a single base but that base has to be relatively large and also recently abandoned, so that its systems can be brought back up to operational capacity quickly. It needs to be in a planetary system that’s either friendly to the Equilibrium cause, or recently abandoned, or not heavily monitored outside of core worlds.”
“That should cut down on the number of available military bases,” I said. “At least that’s something.”
“You’re limiting yourself,” Ocampo said.
“How?”
“You’re thinking like a soldier, and not an opportunistic scavenger, which is what Equilibrium is. Or still is, for the moment.”
“So not just military bases,” I said. “Any sort of base with the requisite infrastructure.”
“Yes.”
“And not just of species obviously aligned with Equilibrium.”
“Right. They would know you’d already be looking at those. They’d want something that’s in the Colonial Union’s blind spot.”
I considered this for a minute.
And then I had a really truly stupendously far-fetched idea.
My computer simulation must have accurately replicated my Eureka moment, because Ocampo smiled at me. “I
Similar Books
