disheartened than I expected."
"What does it mean for Darkover?" Mikhail did not particularly care what
happened to the Federation, which remained an abstract conglomeration of places
he had never seen or, in many cases, even heard of. No matter how much
Marguerida or Lew told him about it, it remained more imaginary than real in his
mind. More to the point, after he had received the great matrix stone, he had
realized that he would never be able to travel off-world, as he had longed to
when he was younger. So, although he remained interested and even curious,
Mikhail had discovered that it pained him to talk about faraway planets he would
never see. He was envious that Marguerida had traveled so extensively, and
sometimes he even resented his wife's travels a little, enough that that feeling
shamed him a good deal.
Lew shook his head. "I cannot guess. The Terranan might imagine we can be
brought to our knees by the removal of their technologies, by closing the port
and withdrawing."
"That's ridiculous-we've never had any use for their technology! It would
probably be a blessing for us if they left."
Lew gave a gruff chuckle, a slight growling noise in his throat, like a bear
trying to laugh and failing. "Bodies politic are rarely logical, Mikhail."
"Then how can they function?"
His father-in-law looked thoughtful for a moment. "They run on ideals and power
struggles-often political movements are born of ideals, but deteriorate into
power struggles, megalomania and the dissolution of the very ideals which gave
birth to the political movement in question. Here, I believe, the ideal is that
everyone in the Federation will be alike-without diversity-and that it is
possible to achieve consensus by decree. The Expansionists believe that this can
be achieved by everyone agreeing to do it their way, the Expansionist way. And
since they have experienced strong opposition, they are seeking to force their
'ideals' down people's throats."
Mikhail frowned over this. His mind felt soggy, but he was glad of this
distraction, this unwieldy problem to focus on, however poorly. "I am not sure I
understand you. Do you mean to say that these people really believe that they
can coerce entire planets to give up their customs, to be just like Terra? That
is the most ridiculous thing I have heard in ages."
"I know-it sounds impossible. But I don't think you have any idea of how
powerful the effect of propaganda can be on a populace, because Darkover has
never experienced the effect of constant newsfeeds, which only tell what the
government wishes its citizens to know. It has happened over and over in human
history, like some recurring nightmare."
"Tell me." Over his father-in-law's shoulder, he watched Donal come to
attention, and knew his paxman was listening intently. He felt a flutter of
pleasure, the better for being completely unexpected. Donal had wisely chosen to
make Danilo Syrtis-Ardais his model, and realized already that his task was much
more than merely guarding the person of Mikhail Hastur. With time and
experience, Donal would become a wise advisor. Oddly, this notion comforted
Mikhail more than he would have thought possible.
Lew Alton made a kind of grunting noise, a familiar prelude to the conveying of
information. Oddly, the ordinariness of the sound, and the anticipation of the
words to follow soothed Mikhail's frayed nerves. At least this was the same.
"First, someone in power announces things are going to hell in a handcart, and
that the reason is the fault of some group or tribe or opposition party. Morals
are decaying, or parents are not rearing their children properly. They propose
that the answer lies in reformation, in everyone behaving according to some
ideal that suits their notions of a good society. They demand conformity, and
anyone who does not submit is regarded as a potential enemy, if not an outright
traitor. It has happened in our own times, on places like Benda V, about thirty
years ago, for instance."
"I've never heard of that planet." There were several hundred members in the
Federation, and Mikhail had only read extensively about twenty or thirty. But
although he was quite well-informed for someone who had never left Darkover, it
always made Mikhail feel terribly ignorant when a planet was mentioned he knew
nothing about. It was rather silly, since there were so many planets in the
Federation, and even widely traveled people like Marguerida and Lew did not know
about all of them.
"I'm not surprised, since it is a pretty out-of-the-way place. Here is what
happened, as well I can recall. The Orthodox high priest announced he had had a
vision from God, that the only way to save the planet from utter destruction was
to wage a holy war against all members of the Church of Elan, which were the
rivals of the Orthodoxy, and had become very powerful on Benda. They were
accused of everything from poisoning the grain to murdering Orthodox babies and
drinking their blood. And since the media was controlled by the Orthodox, this
resulted in a planet-wide bloodbath. About sixty million people were slaughtered
in a three-month period-men, women, children."
Mikhail was stunned. "But didn't the Federation intervene? I mean, I thought
that was something they were supposed to do in . . . such situations?"
"Yes, I know. The taxes collected from the planets of the Federation are
supposed to be used to maintain the Spaceforce, so that they can keep events
like this from ever happening. However the real function of the Force is to keep
Terran coffers full, to see that trade is not disrupted, that taxes are
collected, and that resources continue to flow to Terra. They did not intervene
because it was decided that it was a planetary matter, not a Federation one. So
for the past three decades, as far as I know, Benda has been a theocracy where
everyone spies on everyone else, and you can be executed for belching during
services. These, I understand, take up at least four hours of every day.
Needless to say, this has created great economic hardship, because if you are
stuck in church, you can hardly be tending your fields or selling your goods,
can you? And the loss of all those poor folks who belonged to the Church of Elan
did not help either, since they were productive members of the community."
"Sixty million? That is three times more than the entire population of
Darkover!" Mikhail stared at Lew, unable to quite believe what he had just
heard. "And no one tried to fight back?"
"Mikhail, anyone who risked that was going to die." He sighed again, seeing the
incomprehension in Mikhail's eyes. "I know-you cannot really grasp this sort of
thing because it is beyond your experience. Darkover is a very special world,
and one of the wisest things Regis ever did was to keep us out of the Federation
except as a Protected Planet."
"When I was younger, I always thought he did it to keep people like my mother
happy, or at least quiet!" Mikhail let himself chuckle softly at the ridiculous
thought of Regis making so momentous a decision just to appease Javanne Hastur.
She was never qu
iet, and now she would come to Comyn Castle and make his life
miserable. He did not feel he had the strength to stand up to her intrigues and
passions just now.
Lew nodded, as if he understood what Mikhail was thinking perfectly well. "He
felt it was potentially too costly, that Darkovan culture would not survive if
we embraced Terranan values completely. The plain truth is that we don't need
the Federation. What do you think would happen if there was no longer a
Federation presence here, Mik?"
"As far as I can see, if the Federation pulls out there would not be any more
Big Ships, and the hospital at HQ would cease to exist. The Terranan would not
pay us for the lease on the spaceport any longer. Not that they have been any
too consistent with the payment in recent years." After a moment's reflection,
he added, "And Marguerida would no longer be able to procure coffee at
exorbitant cost for her occasional pleasure. It is a shame that we have never
been able to cultivate the plant on Darkover." Mikhail had never taken to
coffee, but he knew his wife loved the strange, bitter stuff. "None of that
seems too earth shattering to me."
Lew chuckled. "That is a fairly good assessment of the impact, since the
Federation controls the spaceways. There are quite a number of intersystem
trading companies, but between the stars, one must have the technology of the
Big Ships, and only the Terranan have that and guard it jealously. As for the
other, the lease is about to end, and Belfontaine was trying to jigger Regis
into concessions, as he should. It is part of his job."
Mikhail found himself amused at the memory of the excuses for the lateness of
the payments that had been offered. "Regis told me that Belfontaine had
suggested that when the lease is renewed, that Darkover should pay the
Federation for maintaining a base, instead of them paying us. He got a big kick
out of it." It hurt to remember that, but it touched his heart at the same time.
It made him remember Regis' smile-his smile had always been one of his greatest
assets.
"That's true enough, and I will never forget the look on Belfontaine's face when
I had the pleasure of telling him the answer was a definite no. But, Mikhail,
what economic effect would the Terranan leaving have on us?"
"Well, not much, I believe. The Trade City would certainly lose considerable
business, and the pleasure houses would not be happy. Lady Marilla's pottery
would not be exported any longer, but the Aillard and Ardais Domains would
survive. We haven't really developed much trade, have we? I suppose that is why
the Terranan want us to be a member world instead of a protected one, so they
can market their products. We don't produce enough food to export, and we don't
have enough metal to build ships or other things. Marguerida says that the sand
up in the Dry Towns would be useful for silicon-based technologies, but somehow
I can't imagine a factory in Shainsa. Besides, if I understand the process
correctly, it would need a lot of water, and there isn't any to spare in that
region.
"No, there is not. And that is one major problem with adopting Terran ways-the
impact on the ecology would be tremendous and devastating. You have never seen a
manufacturing world, but I have. The air is thick with smoke and foul smells,
and the people live in wretchedness. We don't have slums on Darkover-you don't
even know what that means, do you? Believe me, Mik, the poorest family on
Darkover lives better than many people on advanced worlds. We are a marginal
world, for which we should be thankful, because if we had more obvious
resources, we would be more attractive to interlopers. Our timber would be hewn,
exported to places we never heard of, our crops taken to feed people on other
planets, and when the land would no longer support our populace, because the
rivers were full of silt, we would either be abandoned or forced to pay enormous
prices for food from other planets."
"You mean this has happened?"
"Absolutely. I know of at least two planets which have been almost destroyed by
the greed of the corporations that owned them, then left to struggle along with
a ruined ecosystem, where the population can hardly feed itself. And since I
left the Senate, there have likely been several more."
"I find that hard to believe. Why? I mean, it seems very short-sighted."
"Exactly. The Federation has kept going through expansion, by finding new
planets to exploit. This has been the policy for the last hundred years, give or
take a decade. But in the last fifty, only a handful of habitable worlds have
been discovered-the rest were places where establishing a new colony would
either be prohibitively expensive, or so unattractive that the only way to get
people there was to ship them out and force them to live there, which is quite
costly. But the basic idea is that restraint is unnecessary. This is the
foundation of the Expansionist philosophy, which is that unlimited growth is not
only possible, but is also desirable. They remain blind to the actuality, which
is that there are fewer and fewer habitable planets to be had in this region of
space. And because the worlds they are exploiting are farther and farther away
from the center of the Federation, the governing of these places becomes more
and more difficult, demanding more and more resources to maintain contact,
longer and longer journeys between worlds, with greater and greater cost to haul
the raw materials home to Terra. So they want the member worlds to surrender
everything they have, and be taxed for it as well. The home world, and a few
other planets have become parasites on the rest of the Federation."
"Taxed to send their food to Terra?" Mikhail knew he was tired, but he was not
sure he had understood his father-in-law.
"Yes."
"But, Lew, that is insane. Why would anyone pay to have their wheat sent
somewhere else?"
"By using the media to convince the population that they derive some benefit
from being taxed and starved at the same time."
"But what possible benefit . . .?"
"They are persuaded that by being taxed to support the Spaceforce, they are
being protected from some imaginary enemy-aliens that are destined to appear in
the skies and conquer them. They do not see that the real enemy has become the
Federation itself. There are, at present, weapons that can reduce a planet to
molten slag in hours, things created to defend against this phantom race, which
are actually being used to keep the member worlds in line. The only thing that
keeps the whole situation from dissolving into chaos is that the expense of such
things is enormous-sending a fleet of ships to destroy a planet costs a great
deal, not to mention that it is poor policy. It is very hard to keep the
knowledge of something that monumental out of the newsfaxes, and it tends to
make other worlds more anxious, rather than more obedient. The Federation has
become rather like a big bully, kicking smaller children around just because it
can. And, until now, the existence of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies has
acted as a restraint on such insane
undertakings."
"Do you think that we will have Federation Marines invading Thendara, then?"
Mikhail was only half serious.
"I hope not. And I do not really expect such an assault, although it could
happen, if someone decided that Darkover had strategic importance. No, the
greatest danger is that the Federation itself will crumble, and that there will
be splinter groups, with their own ambitions for power and dominance. A
planetary governor or some local king with a few captured dreadnoughts could be
real trouble. Or worse, if some admiral in the Force decides to mutiny and go
adventuring for his own profit." There was a grim look on his father-in-law's
face now.
"Do the Terranan know that?"
"Some of them certainly do. There are people within the Federation who have
likely given as much thought to this, over the years, as I have. The problem is,
however, these people have no power and do not make policy. It's probably the
nightmare of the General Staff, that some planet will manage to get hold of
enough armaments to be a threat to Terran security. There have been a few
rebellions in the last fifteen years, planets where the populace revolted, or
the governor went off on his own hook. They have been put down with force, but
with enough restraint to keep things from getting completely out of hand. Again,
it was the function of the Senate to keep things from getting to that point, to
restrain the Premier and the General Staff from making overt war on too many
worlds. But I think you must talk to Herm since his information is more recent
than mine."
"I suppose I must. I just don't feel as if I am ready. Everyone has been telling
me for years how powerful I am because of this accursed ring," he said, making a
fist of his gloved hand. "But I do not feel powerful. I don't have Regis' charm
or cunning, nor his experience, although I have tried to learn all I could."
"You will do very well, Mikhail. Regis believed that, and I do as well."
"I am glad I will have you to advise me, Lew, and Herm as well. And I am even
more glad I do not have the Aldaran Gift because I think that if I could foresee
the future, I would be too frightened to do anything at all. I would give a
great deal to have some of my youthful certainty back again, instead of all