The scene was a famous park, near Nevasa City. Probably too near Nevasa City.
“Commander,” Ran said as he sat/collapsed into the cushioned armchair on his side of the desk. “They were innocent people. Most of them were innocent.”
“If you want innocent, Colville,” Commander Kneale snarled, “then think about the five passengers killed when those bastards tried to hijack the Empress! D’ye think it was any different aboard the Brazil?”
Kneale stood up, clenching his hands together as though he was trying to crush something between his palms. His face distorted with anger and self-loathing. “Those five passengers were our business, yours and mine. And we failed them, Ran Colville.”
Ran gestured toward the bulkhead where he’d seen the crew of strangers installing equipment before the Empress undocked from Earth. “What’s back there, Hiram?” he asked quietly. “Behind the kids playing and the false panel.”
“An autopilot,” Kneale said. He sat down, looking surprised at having found himself standing. “With an override that takes precedence over the ordinary systems on the bridge. As you already guessed.”
Ran nodded. “And you would have done the same thing,” he said. “Hidden behind the false wall of your suite and programmed the Empress of Earth to crash into Sonderburg on Grantholm. Or Nevasa City, whichever.”
“Not exactly,” Kneale said emotionlessly. “I was told that when the ship had a full load of the troops from the hijacking planet, it would enter sponge space and never return. If that’s really what the autopilot was programmed to achieve, then something went wrong.”
He licked his tight lips. “It’s possible,” he added bleakly, “that government officials lied to me.”
He raised his eyes to the vision of the Empress lowering herself onto Nevasa in all her unique splendor. “There were provisions for the—officer in charge of operation to escape by lifeboat. I doubt Commander Cunha left the Brazil. I certainly would have ridden the Empress down if a similar—error—had occurred. If it hadn’t been for you, Ran, and Ms. Holly; and some few others.”
“Sir,” Ran whispered, “it could be a million people died. There were better ways. Earth could have sent a fleet to Nevasa. This was a government problem, not the company’s.”
“Who do you think installed this equipment?” the commander snarled, thrusting an angry thumb toward the bulkhead’s false innocence. “You know Federated Earth can’t play galactic cop openly. The voters would never stand on it, and every ex-colony from here to the Rim would be up in arms at the idea.”
“They hijacked—”Ran offered.
“Prove it!” Kneale retorted. “The Brasil is gone, the Empress of Earth would have been gone—prove which of the warring parties hijacked her. Or either of them!”
“It’d have come out,” Ran said. He rose and turned so that he didn’t face the commander’s fierceness. “They couldn’t hide her—either ship—once they used her to ferry troops for an invasion.”
Holographic farmers worked terraced fields in the area of Bu Dop, across the planet from the steaming crater that was now Nevasa City. The embassy official he’d met . . . Susan. She was going to Bu Dop, she’d said.
“And the guilty party would pay an indemnity to Trident or Consolidated, whichever,” the commander rejoined. “And they’d release the passengers, probably, from some detention camp on a planet nobody ever heard of, where they’d have enough food and most of them would have survived. For years! And Federated Earth wouldn’t take military action, because the villains had apologized, hadn’t they? And it was all the former government anyhow. And—”
Ran turned to face him. Kneale too was standing.
“—they’d do the same goddamned thing again, and other people would, and star travel would never be safe for any peaceful purpose ever! Isn’t that true, Ran Colville?”
Ran licked his dry lips. “Yes,” he said. “I suppose it is.”
He drew in a deep breath. “Who knew about this?” he asked.
“I did,” said the commander. “And you’ve guessed. One or two members of the Company’s board of directors. A few people—very few—in the bureaucracy of Federated Earth. None of the elected officials.”
Kneale looked up at his ceiling image again. His tone softened. “The installers wouldn’t have known what they were doing, though it’s possible that some of them have guessed by now also. What I’m quite sure of . . .”