Bandiagara, Part 4a
What do you do when there is nothing left to see? Ip sends a wave.
"I'm like to kill you myself, I see you again."
"You won't. There is nothing left to see."
It was a dramatic statement. Overly dramatic, really. But he had truly felt that way at the time. He'd even asked. "You lost everything in that battle. Everything you had, everything you were. How did you go on?" Malcolm Reynolds had given him an answer that was not an answer, and yet it answered everything. "You still standing there when the engine starts, you never will figure it out."
How did he go on? He…went. He went on, and in going on, he figured it out.
He did not officially exist. He had no rank, no name. And his mission as an Operative of Parliament no longer existed. Secrets had not been his concern. Keeping them had been. The government dealt in keeping its secrets. Corporations thrived on keeping their secrets—and buying, selling, and trading on the secrets of others. River Tam had known a secret. More than one. River Tam had been his purpose.
Malcolm Reynolds uncovered the secret of Miranda—the truth that burned up River Tam's brain—and told it to the 'Verse. Was it still a secret if the whole 'Verse knew? Did it still concern him to keep it? How many times did you get in trouble because of secrets and lies? Keeping River Tam's secret had been his purpose. Finding her to keep her hid. He had found her…and her secret found him. There was nothing left to see. Chan 'eil càil an so a' faicadh, in an obscure, dead language of Earth-that-was.
There were advantages. If there was nothing left to see, there were no traces. You couldn't revoke the high security clearance of someone who wasn't there in the first place. You couldn't deny the existence of someone who, like the Government Academy, did not officially exist, because to deny him, you had first to acknowledge that he existed.
He studied Malcolm Reynolds, no longer for the purpose of tracking him and running him to ground. He wanted to know how to exist when everything was lost. Malcolm Reynolds seemed to have mastered the art. Reynolds knew not just how to exist when all was lost, but how to learn to live again. The Operative learned to value his independence.
When he made the decision to let the Tams go and help Reynolds refit, he set his own new course, hardly aware at the time of just what a radical course adjustment he had made. If it was no longer his prime directive to keep the secret of Miranda, then, was it not important to uncover what had happened at Miranda?
He had been an Operative of Parliament. The question now became: which faction of Parliament? He became aware, as he hadn't before, of parties in opposition. Not political parties: the factions had little to do with overt political affiliation. As he used his unrevoked security clearances to do research, the common thread emerged. There were those whose pockets were lined with funds from an unnamed, but deep and powerful source, and those whose pockets were not so lined. Very few persons or entities had funds of that magnitude, and few had so many favors to ask of the government.
Blue Sun.
All the signs pointed that way. But the question was how to connect the signs, how to build a case. Then how to bring down the shadowy colossus that bought the politicians it needed to run the government on its behalf. And further, how to bring it down without leaving a void to be filled by opportunists infinitely worse.
The Operative did not exist. Not officially. There was nothing left to see. Chan 'eil càil an so a' faicadh. He stayed unseen, and left the seeing to others. He placed his observers carefully. The important thing was to select the right ones. He studied them, to know what they were, where they came from, what they needed, what they wanted, what they could do when the time came to act. And then to place them in the environment that let them do so, just as he intended they do.
Malcolm Reynolds.
It was essential that Reynolds be unaware of his hand in the operation until the right moment. Reynolds was a loose cannon—but the Operative had found that that was just what he needed. Someone unpredictable—the Blue Hands couldn't tell where the man was headed next, and that was infinitely to his advantage. Let Reynolds track his own way—there was no telling what the man would find, and the Operative could follow, correlate, and analyze what Reynolds turned up. The Operative would only intervene when necessary to keep Reynolds out of the clutches of the heavy hand of the Alliance, or the more menacing entity that controlled the purse strings. Intervene only enough to keep Reynolds acting freely, so that the Operative could observe him.
Intervention had been necessary on Persephone, when Reynolds's odd sense of honor got him into trouble with the slave-owning branch of the Purse Strings. The Operative had made sure that Harrow was the magistrate and Ficker was the prosecutor. Ficker was subject to persuasion by his political supporters, and much easier to manipulate than someone without political ambitions and vulnerabilities. The Operative had blocked Ficker's access to Reynolds's military record, and records from the internment camp for defeated Browncoats. He also obfuscated any connection between Reynolds and the Tams. Ficker had not uncovered the thread. Ficker was limited to the paperwork fed to him by Blue Sun agents, and when he tried to reconnect with those who had sent him the indentures to request further information, strangely he was unable to reach them. That gave Reynolds's allies a chance to catch up.
He wasn't about to unblock the Captain's credit account, although it would have been easy. Easy, but it would reveal his existence to the opposition. Easy, but it did not serve his purpose. If the Captain were in funds, it would allow him to rest. He wouldn't keep moving, and the Operative wanted him to keep moving. It would be most illuminating to allow Reynolds the means of uncovering the answer himself, and it would be especially enlightening to see what he did once he knew.
And then there was Shadow. Now that was a most fascinating development, and one that the Operative had not anticipated. He had not known until Reynolds discovered it. Follow the money. Linthicum extraction on Shadow represented vast quantities of money. Whoever was running the operation had access to enough money to corrupt large numbers of politicians. Enough to buy a political faction, to pay off local and federal law enforcement, to purchase a legal department to obfuscate, to buy judges and legislators, and to hire extra-legal protection. Reynolds would not rest until he found out what was going on there. And the Operative waited with bated breath to see what he would uncover.
Reynolds was the key. How strange that so many rivers found their confluence in this one man.
. . .
Dr Ip was on the bridge, sending a wave to someone on the cortex. Mal was aware that the young scientist kept in touch with his thesis advisor from graduate school, Dr Rao, and that he was collaborating with her on the grav anomaly experiment currently underway in Serenity's cargo bay. Ip also seemed to have several other regular correspondents. The young fellow mostly saved his lengthy waves for their planetside stops, for which Mal was grateful, as ship-to-world communications were somewhat expensive, even though Ip was careful to cover costs for his waves. Most waves were also traceable, and it disquieted Mal to no end to think that the Feds might be able to track and intercept Serenity on the basis of a crewmember's chats with friends, should it occur to them to do so. Most of Serenity's people were very spartan in the sending of waves—half of them had no family or friends to speak of outside the ship, or none that they were not estranged from. Inara sent and received many waves, but she always used the independent cortex feed in her shuttle and communicated through Guild channels that were protected by at least one layer of encryption. Mal didn't want to initiate any kind of frank discussion with Dr Ip as to why he wished to avoid drawing the attention of the Alliance to Serenity, and the young man didn't abuse his waving privileges, so an uneasy balance had been attained.
Mal approached the bridge as Ip was concluding his wave. Mal had no particular wish to intrude on Ip's personal conversations, but it was time for him to relieve the helm. "Let me know when you find out," said a male voice. "I will. 再见 Zàijiàn," Ip replied, and cut the communication. Mal entered the bridge and glanced at the cortex screen to see a "communication closed" sign with an unusual symbol in it, rather than the more typical wave ID. Something about that voice—it was familiar somehow, but Mal couldn't place it. And he sure as 地狱 dìyù didn't recognize the symbol on the screen.
"All done with your wave, Ip?" Mal asked casually. "I'm not interrupting, am I?"
"Oh, no, not at all, Captain," Ip smiled ingenuously. "I was just done." He stood up and ceded the seat to Mal.
"Curious symbol," Mal said conversationally, indicating the symbol that remained on the screen. "That one of your regular correspondents?"
"Yes, Captain," Ip replied. "He's sort of a mentor to me."
"University professor?"
"Oh, no. He's a Buddhist monk. A missionary."
Mal raised his eyebrows.
"I met him some time ago, when I was traveling the Rim, before I joined Serenity. He may not be a trained scientist, but he has been most helpful to me. I can discuss all sorts of issues with him, he gives sage advice, and he asks just the right sort of questions to help me direct my inquiries—my scientific inquiries," Ip clarified.
"He have a name?" Mal asked, gesturing at the screen, "or he just go by this unpronounceable symbol?"
Ip smiled. "He has a name. It's Brother Khan Ale Cal an So oh fukkit."
Had Mal just heard Ip swear? Granted the fellow's name was a mouthful, didn't blame him for using a symbol if his folks had hung a handle on him a mile long.
"That's his name," Ip replied to Mal's unspoken question. "Took me several tries even to say it, and I'm probably not pronouncing it right. It's in some ancient language from Earth-that-was, some Buddhist language, I suppose. Fortunately, he lets me call him Khan Ale Cal."
"Khan Ale Cal. Huh. I woulda swore I recognized that voice, but…"
"He told me he's met you."
"Really?" Mal had met a lot of people. Many of them in circumstances he wouldn't care to revisit—the Alliance internment camp, jail cells on various worlds, contacts for some of his more unsavory business. Still, he couldn't place the voice. "I don't know any Khan Ale Cal. Not sure I know any Buddhist monks either." He turned his attention to the helm, releasing the autopilot and running the standard system checks, dismissing Ip from the bridge. He did not dismiss the incident from his mind, however, but filed it away for later perusal. There was something about that voice.
. . .
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.
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glossary
Chan 'eil càil an so a' faicadh [There is nothing left to see (Scottish Gaelic)]
再见 Zàijiàn [Goodbye]
地狱 dìyù [hell]
Would you be more suspicious? What's that Operative up to?