“The Syndics certainly know more about the aliens,” Rione added to the group. “But that knowledge has apparently been kept very close, and even the existence of the aliens kept secret from most Syndic citizens. Only the Syndicate Worlds’ highest leaders may know everything there is to be known. We’ve found nothing in captured records.”

“Are they human?” Tulev wondered.

“I don’t think so,” Geary answered. “If they were human, why would the Syndics have kept them secret? And how could another human power strong enough to hold the Syndics on a border exist without us knowing something? They would have had to come from somewhere.”

“Not human.” Tulev shook his head. “How do they think? Not like us.”

“Surely we can still figure out their intent,” Desjani insisted.

Duellos was frowning in thought. “My grandmother taught me an ancient riddle when I was quite young. That riddle might help us understand what we’re dealing with.”

“Really? What is it?”

Duellos paused dramatically. “Feathers or lead?”

Geary waited, but nothing else came. “That’s it?”

“That’s it. Feathers or lead?”

“What kind of riddle just asks you to chose between two things?” Cresida asked, then shrugged. “I give. What’s the answer?”

“It depends.” Duellos smiled as everyone looked aggravated. “The one asking the riddle is a demon, you see. The demon chooses which answer is right. In order to guess the right answer, you have to know what the demon thinks it should be that particular time.”

“How are you supposed to know what a demon thinks?” As soon as Geary said the words, he got Duellos’s point. “Like the aliens.”

“Exactly. How do we answer a question posed by something that isn’t human, when we have no idea what the question means or what the ones asking it want the answer to be?”

“And what do they expect from us? Honor or lies?” Captain Cresida asked. Everyone turned to look at her. “Who have these aliens been in contact with? The Syndics.”

Rione nodded. “Whose leaders have broken every agreement made with us, even when abiding by those agreements would have been in the long-term interests of the Syndicate Worlds.”

“The Syndic leaders don’t think long-term,” Duellos pointed out. “Short-term gain is all that matters to them.”

Geary shook his head. “Would they have been stupid enough to use those kinds of tactics against an alien species that clearly has technological superiority over the human race?” He saw the answer on every other face in the room. “Yeah. Maybe they would have.” After all, those same leaders had repeatedly broken agreements with this fleet, even knowing that the fleet could easily retaliate by wiping out entire worlds.

“The superior technology would have been irresistible bait for them,” Rione observed bitterly. “They would have been willing to try to acquire it by any possible means, leaving the aliens to conclude that the human race could not be trusted. Anything the aliens have done could have been seen by them as defensive, a means to neutralize humanity.”

“But if the Syndics were dealing with aliens,” Cresida argued, “and unsuccessfully dealing with them apparently because they’ve never surfaced with any technology far in advance of the Alliance except the same hypernet we got, why would they turn around and attack us? We know from the disposition of Syndic hypernet gates on the far border that the Syndics fear the aliens. Why start a war with us?”

“Because they were surrounded?” Duellos offered. “The Alliance on one side and these aliens on the other side. That leaves the Syndicate Worlds pinned between two powers. They must have feared being crushed between us once we learned of the existence of the creatures.”

“Then why start a war with us?” Cresida demanded. “Why make their nightmare come true?”

Geary shook his head. “During peacetime, Alliance ships traveled through Syndicate Worlds’ space. Only occasional warships carrying out diplomatic missions, but more frequent freighters. Alliance citizens also traveled through the Syndicate Worlds on business or pleasure. Any of those might have found clues to the existence of the aliens or been contacted by them directly.”

“Well enough, sir, but starting a war to prevent occasional Alliance traffic through their territory seems like massive overkill. It’s not like the Syndics ever invited much Alliance shipping into their areas of control. They could have choked it off completely using any number of excuses, and what could the Alliance have done? Besides, how could they know the aliens wouldn’t attack them while they were involved in fighting the Alliance?”

Duellos shrugged. “Maybe the Syndic leaders thought they could defeat us quickly.”

“That’s irrational!” Cresida objected. “Even the Syndic leaders couldn’t have been so stupid as to believe they could do that!”

“They thought the Alliance would crack under the first blows,” Desjani cut in. “That we wouldn’t have the spirit to rebound from the initial losses and hit back.”

“We don’t know that,” Rione replied with a slightly but unmistakably dismissive tone. “That was the argument used to rally the Alliance after the first attacks. That was why the Alliance made the most of whatever heroic examples existed, as proof that any such Syndic belief was wrong.”

Which was where the legend of Black Jack Geary began. Fighting to the last against overwhelming odds. A heroic example to inspire everyone else. Geary tried not to notice everyone not looking at him.

Tulev shrugged. “It may have been a useful rallying argument for the Alliance, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true,” he suggested with a glance at Desjani, whose eyes had narrowed in response to Rione’s tone. “What other explanation exists?”

“Perhaps they reached some sort of agreement with the aliens,” Rione suggested. “Doubtless planning to go back on it as soon as they’d dealt with us.”

“What kind of agreement?” Geary wondered, his mind going back to a time that was the recent past for him but a century old for the others here. “A nonaggression pact might temporarily secure their border with the aliens, but the Syndics couldn’t have decisively beaten the Alliance. They didn’t have military forces large enough to overcome the sheer size of the Alliance, any more than the Alliance could muster enough force to defeat the expanse of the Syndicate Worlds. We knew that as well as they did. That’s why the surprise attacks, including the one in Grendel, came as such a shock.”

“Maybe there’s the answer,” Desjani declared, her expression shadowed with an emerging idea. “What everyone’s been saying made me think of something.” She tapped some controls and an area of space that Geary found heartbreakingly familiar was displayed above the table. “Alliance space along the frontier with the Syndicate Worlds,” Desjani explained to Rione as if she couldn’t be expected to recognize a display of the area, causing Rione’s expression to harden slightly this time. “I’ve spent some time recently studying the start of the war. This shows the initial Syndic attacks a century ago. Shukra, Thabas, Diomede, Baldur, Grendel. Why did they hit Diomede instead of Varandal? Why Shukra instead of Ulani?”

Geary frowned. He didn’t know this, hadn’t ever known it, because he had been lost in survival sleep since that first Syndic surprise attack at Grendel. In the months after his awakening, he’d avoided studying the early Syndic attacks closely since he still felt the pain of knowing his crew from those days had all died in either that battle or later battles or, if lucky, from old age, while Geary’s survival pod drifted among the other debris of battle at Grendel. “Good question. I just skimmed those events and assumed they must have hit the Alliance base at Varandal.”

“They didn’t,” Duellos confirmed, studying the display. “Varandal was a major base back then as well?”