Edward M. Lerner by A New Order of Things Page B

the Snakes relied on radar, rather than, say lidar, the laser-based equivalent, I’d be seeing radar pulses from them now. Not happening.”
    “So the Snakes agreed to a secret rendezvous with the UP—a secret meeting they then arranged for us to discover. And we , by my newsflash, caused the traffic jam that diverted the minimal UP military presence out here to traffic duty.” She grimaced. “I don’t like being manipulated.”
    “Nor I.” He tapped the old hat, last physical reminder of the former ship Lucky Strike , firmly into place on his head. “But we know now what they did, and they don’t know we know.
    “I only wish I saw a use for our new knowledge.

    The return flight to Callisto was as uninteresting as the meeting that it followed. Art tuned out the unproductive rehashing, luxuriating in the simple pleasure of an upholstered acceleration couch. The more he mused, the more he suspected the Snakes had choreographed the session. Today’s purposelessness was too at odds with all his experience with Pashwah.
    The Snakes could easily have provided their guests a glass-partitioned room with a shirtsleeve environment—had they wanted to. Instead, when the UP delegation clustered at the airlock, many of their spacesuits flashing low-oxygen alarms, the Foremost had asked if they should next convene on a human vessel. It had not surprised Art that Chung quickly accepted. Was the inhospitality purposeful? All inference, alas.
    And Chung … could he be any more officious and petty? Sure, Art sometimes did not know when to stop pushing, but rejecting expert assistance was dumb. Well, he remained an ICU exec, although he was officially on leave of absence. It would be interesting to see what supplies the Snakes requested. Art was a big enough person to expedite things from behind the scenes, despite Chung’s snit.
    The ICU was an official resource for the delegation; Art’s coded inquiry to his deputy and acting replacement didn’t technically violate mission protocol. The shuttle was nearly back to Callisto when Kelly Daumier’s answer arrived from Luna. Per Pashwah—the original, not the starship’s clone— no orders had been placed by the ETs. Kel promised to keep him apprised.
    After many decades of active interstellar trade, surely the Snakes planned to buy some of their supplies. Maybe they simply hadn’t placed their orders yet, or, wily trader that Pashwah was, maybe she was ordering anonymously in hope of getting better prices.
    Or, an ever suspicious corner of Art’s mind whispered, perhaps the goods so urgently needed weren’t commercially available. Subtle discouragement of return visits to the starship, of which very little had been seen. Secret rooms. Urgently needed supplies but no visible attempt made to purchase them. The still unexplained choice of Jupiter by the Snakes.
    It all fit with K’vithian interest in humanity’s secret antimatter program.

    “Too many answerless questions.” Bartoth spoke for what humans considered Galactic Trading Consortium: clan Ortoth Ra. Other subagents signaled their concurrence. The Great Clans, or at least their trade representatives, were in rare harmony.
    Pashwah could only agree. Despite saturation coverage of the UP visit to the starship, neither the post-meeting ambassadorial news conference nor the nonstop media speculation addressed their nagging questions. What was the still-unstated purpose of the starship’s mission to human space? Was arrival so near humanity’s unannounced—but, to the persistent, undisguisable—antimatter factory coincidental or intentional?
    And why would her clone not communicate? Yes, messages came from Jupiter, generally requests to search the human infosphere for very specific items. These queries were invariably stilted and terse. Guarded. Some had odd card-playing references. Feeling oddly maternal, Pashwah hoped the Foremost did not blame the clone for her refusal to release any funds.
    For clan Arblen Ems