"I see your point." A hesitation. "May I ask you a personal question, Excellence?" At his nod, she proceeded: "I've got the usual Intelligence summaries on you… and I've read your novels. Within limits, I received the impression of an intelligent and empathetic man. Which leads to certain questions."
Eric turned in his swivel chair and poured a measure of brandy into a balloon snifter, turned back, paused to swirl the liquid and sniff, sip.
"I assure yo', they've occurred to me as well," he said meditatively. "Why, in essence, don't I retire to my estate and let the world rave as it will?" He felt his lips twist into the semblance of a smile. "Well, in all honesty, Madam President, why don't yo'? It's in the nature of an ambitious politician to imagine all alternatives to himself are disaster. I flatter mahself I'm right."
"Duty," she said. "I'm… not indispensable, but there are worse people to occupy this chair. For my children, my nation, and for the cause of freedom, if that doesn't sound too pompous."
Eric laughed harshly. "Yo' Americans have been a lucky people, on the whole… what convenience, to have national interest an' high-soundin' ideals so congruent!" He made a gesture with the glass. "Forgive a slight bitterness. Leavin' aside the question of whether morals are objective reality or cultural artifacts, I'm left with some similar motivations. I have children, grandchildren. And my people. As my fathah once said to me, yo' nation is like yo' children; loved because they are yours, not necessarily because they deserve it. Moral judgment—that has to be made in the context of political and historical reality, not some imaginary situation where we start with a tabula rasa."
"Even in politics, surely moral choices are an individual's responsibility?"
"A true difference of national temperament, I think. Iff'n a Draka thinks of choice at all, it's as constrained within narrow bonds; human beings make history, but they don't make it just as they choose." He laughed again, this time with more genuine humor. "Interestin' question, whether perception is the result or cause of social reality…" He set the snifter down and leaned forward. "One thing is sure. Either of us would start the Final War if we thought it was the right choice. And neither of us wants to be forced into that decision prematurely. Which leaves us with certain common difficulties."
"Bueno,I am glad you realize this. This conflict—it has gone on so long, both sides, they have accumulated serious vested interests with a stake in waging it. Organizations, bureaucracies, careers are invested in it; power, vast profits. Always these push toward its intensification. We have a common interest then, in not allowing the instruments of policy to set our policy."
"True." He nodded decisively. "Very true. Although, hmunmm." He rubbed his chin meditatively, then decided to speak. It was no secret, after all. "Madam President, remember always that there is no true symmetry between our positions, here. There is an element in the Alliance which seeks to simply grow around and beyond us, reduce us to an irrelevance." She nodded. "This is precisely what much of our strategy has been designed to prevent. The border tensions, the convention we have allowed to grow up that there is no peace beyond Luna… It is yo' dynamism we fear. The tension inhibits it, forces yo' into military an' security measures where we can compete mo' easily."
Hiero's mouth clamped in a grim line. "Si. So my analysts tell me. Let me warn you then, Excellence. This policy has its own dangers. Firstly, it makes the task you have, of restraining your military, more difficult. Secondly, both our societies are becoming dependent on resources and manufactures from space; this entails massive activities and investments beyond the Earth-Moon system. In turn, these create interests whose voices cannot be ignored. Also… when only explorers and pioneers were at risk, nothing vital was threatened by clashes in deep space. Now we are approaching the point where vital matters of national security are endangered in the heavens. We would not tolerate an invasion of Burma or England. Should we then regard Ceres as less?"
"Correct," Eric said, with soft precision. "As you point out, my task of control is mo' than yours; nor would I modify our tradition of decentralized decision makin', even if I could." He sighed. "A world bound in chains of adamant, that's our legacy. The stalemate becomes ever less stable. If nothin' else, inaction would give my opponents too much opportunity. The fact that I'm presented with an insoluble dilemma, and they know it, will not restrain them from takin' political advantage of it."
Hiero tapped a finger to her lip in polite skepticism. "I am to endure provocation from you, because if I do not, another even less restrained would take your place?" She continued with heavy Irony: "The whip is not so bad; fear instead my brother who will use scorpions?"
"I see yo' point. So both of us looks for a means to break the stalemate; I don't suppose it's much consolation that I would use it with regret, while anothah in my shoes might do it with Naldorssenian glee and invocations of the Will to Power. But be careful, be very careful, Madam President. Neither of us wishes to destroy the planet. Don't rely too much on secrets—such as yo' New America project, out there in the asteroids. Conveniently on the opposite side of the Sun from Earth, most of the time, eh?"
She was shaken for a moment, he was sure of it: a thousand tiny signs said so. Then she rallied.
"Or your Stone Dogs, si."
It was his turn to feel a hand squeezing at the arteries in his chest. Control yourself, you fool, he said behind a smiling mask. Ah… she didn't match my disclosure of her project's location. Only a half-dozen knew the full to most of those charged with implementation. And don't start flailing about to discover her source. The effort itself could tell them too much. Overwhelmingly probable they have discovered only that it is a secret, and important.
He glanced polite inquiry. "Stone Dogs… an old nickname fo' our Janissary infantrymen. Perhaps a code name? I can't very well follow every project, of course." Their eyes met in perfect understanding of the game of bluff and double-bluff. "Well, we all have our little surprises," he said. "Tell me, do yo' ever suspect what yo' subordinates aren't tellin' yo'?"
She gave him a glance that was half ironic, half a reflection of shared fear. He remembered times when he had lain awake sweating with that particular horror, the worst of which was that there was no way to disprove it. A successful deception ploy was invisible by definition, and thinking of it too much that was the road to paranoia and madness.
"It has been, ah, interesting," the president said at last.
"At least that. Perhaps in another few months."
"Of a certainty. Excellence."
"Madam President."
The holo vanished, and Eric waited a long moment with the heels of his palms to his eyes before he touched a control on the desk. "Shirley," he said. "Send in the estimates, would yo'?"
His eyes sought the curtains. The sun had fallen… Perhaps next week there would be time for a visit home. Stop reaching for the carrot, donkey, he told himself brutally. Bend your neck to the traces and pull.
President Carmen Hiero shook her head thoughtfully as the aides bustled about, rearranging the room.
"The poor man," she murmured, in her mother's language.
"Ma'am?" the Secret Service agent said.
"Nothing, Lindholm," she said, standing. It had been a long day, and there was a dull pain in her lower back. And more dull pains to be endured at dinner, she thought wryly. For a moment she looked again at the air the transmission had occupied. "Nothing that matters… in the end."
NOVA VIRCONIUM
COMMAND CENTRAL
HELLAS PLANITIA, MARS
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
NOVEMBER 17, 1991
Eerie, Yolande decided, watching her own image on the screen, on the bridge of the Imperator, the latest fourth-generation cruiser-carrier, flagship of the 2nd Trans-Lunar flotilla. Watching an image of myself watching images, she decided. Ghosts of ghosts… out there so far away, six months ago.
A dozen cruisers, plus the new stingfighter auxiliaries many of them carried. Dispersed so far that the rep
orts took long seconds to arrive, almost as long as the blue-white visual signatures of nuclear explosions. Battle became a slow and stately dance, until the distances closed; then inertia made the commitment final, and the exchange of energies grew too swift for human reflexes to follow. Lovely. Long enough for every doubt, then- no time to do anything at the end. She turned up the sound.
"Forward vessels reportin'… Wotan, look at the particle-beam intensities!" Data flowed across a screen.
"Well," she heard her own voice replying, "now we know the linear accelerators are dual-purpose. Pull them back if they aren't already." The big fixed installations had more punch than any ship, more than any ship's shielding could take. Not to mention neutral-particle beams, which were hard to shield against at all. "Report on the minor vessels, Tac Eval."
"Nothin' like as good as the stingfighters, but there are so many of them," the flotilla Tactical Evaluation Officer had said.
Well, the Alliance've certainly learned about arming their minor vessels, she reflected. There had been dozens of them around the secret project base; it was a major enterprise, with active traffic, at least outside the habitats where enemy personnel went in and nobody came out. None of the smaller vessels was up to military standards, and they were slow. But with the big installation lasers to provide emergency boost, and her own ships trapped in this narrow sliver of orbit, the warships did not have enough hands to swat them.
"Batu's hit!" Flotilla Damage Control. Another stream of numbers, energy input and missiles from the enemy battle stations. "She can't—" Half a dozen screens went blank. The light-signature arrived seconds later, secondary explosions. "Gone, Merarch."
Yolande closed her eyes in remembered pain. Teller's ship. Another friend. Another debit in your bill, Yankee.
"Withdraw." She heard her own voice say it, and the bile-taste was back. There had been a vibration of protest on the command bridge of Imperator. "This was a reconnaissance in force, and we've learned what we came to find out." That their New America project is important enough to warrant defenses as tough as Ceres—or Mars. That they're willing to spend lives like water to keep us off, even to keep us from pointblank observation. "No point in expendin' further resources. The Great Khan's're to cut trajectories fo' open space.Imperator and Diocletian will cover."
That had been the best decision; the deuterium-tritium pulsedrives gave the new ships longer continuous boost envelopes than the older cruisers could match. And were less vulnerable to combat damage, as well. Besides that, she hated to send warriors into a risk she did not share… It had been time to break off anyway, the Alliance fleet was burning their thrust-plates to get into action distance.
"End replay," she said, as the recording began to show the needlefires of the drives.
The office wall blanked for a second, then returned to a view of the outside. Command Central was actually burrowed far back into the basalt near the edge of the great lowland basin of the Hellas Planitia, but her favorite view was of the expanding base above.
Almost a city, now, she thought with pride. The late-evening sky was pink with the dust-haze and ice-crystals of the thin Martian atmosphere. Yolande could make out the disk of the setting sun, only two-thirds the size it would be from Earth. And the larger but dimmer circle of the first of the orbital mirrors. Just a proof-of-concept pilot project, concentrating the sunlight on a few hundred square kilometers around this equatorial base, but it had already made a difference in the nighttime temperatures.
"Record, fo' the Strategic Plannin' Board," she continued, standing with her back to the desk. "Note to previous reports. The other conclusion that we should draw from this is that the Yankees are spreadin' through the Belt like a cancer metastasizing through the bloodstream. Not only is this a long-range danger in itself, but it hampers every other operation of ours. Takin' direct counteraction may be impractical, but we should squeeze harder on their lifeline back to Earth-Luna, up their costs, an' cut into the profit margins of all those two-denarius outfits they're allowin' into space. Well worth any countermeasures, since we're not vulnerable to the same economic pressures."
A long pause, considering. "I know it's not my department, but the headhunters should be usin' the opportunities this presents to speed up their infiltration of the New America project, and the other nasty surprises they may be brewin' fo' us there. Hans, come in."
The door hissed open, and her secretary walked in. His shaved head made a token bow. He was a serf Auxiliary, of course; Dutch, if she remembered correctly. But there was less formality out here on the frontier, too much work to be done to waste time.
"Hans, take the recordin', dress it up suitable, plug in the numbahs. Just to remind them, add the latest graphics of increased enemy traffic flows, Belt-internal—I don't know how much the Statistical Section gets through to the Board— and have it on my desk Monday."
"Consider it done, Merarch." The Auxiliaries had the privilege of addressing their superiors by title.
She thought for a moment. "I won't be in tomorrow." Saturday; Yolande usually put in at least a half-day. "Oh, your son's gettin' married tomorrow, isn't he? To that systems tech?"
Hans bowed again, more deeply, smiling slightly. The serf was several years older than she, a longtime veteran of the Martian base. Old enough to have fathered the first generation to reach maturity; there were only a few so far, of course, but population was building up rapidly.
"Yes, Merarch," he said. "The authorization for the quarters came through. Thank you, Merarch."
She made a dismissive gesture. "Yo've given good service, Hans." This was her first major administrative post, and growing so rapidly that the Citizen executive staff were nearly as new to it as herself. Hans had been personal secretary to four Commandant-Governors, since the first minimal complex of bunkers back in '72: an invaluable element of continuity. "I may drop by the wedding fo' a minute or two. Get my car ready, would yo'?"
"At-at once, Merarch," he stammered, flushing with pleasure.
Well, it can't hurt, she thought, stepping into an alcove to change into a surface suit. There was a bedroom suite attached to the office, for the times when the Commandant-Governor had to stay near the levers. I'll just stay for a few moments, any more would make them uncomfortable.
The surface clothing was much less elaborate than a vacuum suit, a pressure-skin with temperature elements. Waste heat was less of a problem on the Martian surface than in space—the climate here on the equator ranged from chilly to Siberian, not counting the winds—but you did need warmth and protection from the UV. Now, out of official mode, Yolande told herself, and glanced at her wrist. 1800; the shuttle was due in an hour.
Gwen! she thought, striding through the open-plan outer office with the bouncy pace that covered ground most efficiently in one-third gravity. Most of the workstations were dark, the Auxiliaries at home except for the evening shift. The few there rose and bowed as she passed; then out into the corridors, past the entrances to the office suites of the Citizen staff; the Commandant's headquarters was the nerve-center of Nova Virconium, after all. Gwen, baby, she thought again. Nikki.
The shuttleport was several kilometers out from the center of Nova Virconium. New enough to include a few flourishes, including a terminal building finished in polished stone surfaces, combinations of colors Earth had never seen. Red in every shade from white-pink to blood-crimson, blue, black, swirling green. With a two-story-high central fountain, not really such an extravagance in a closed system… The VIP lounge was on the upper terrace, skylight ceilings and plants and light airy furniture of locally-grown bamboo; Yolande had an excellent view out over the runways. She suppressed an undignified urge to pace; there were too many official spectators. Sipping at the glass of white wine, she glanced down into the main lobby. Plenty of parents; the Transportation Directorate had advertised the first cruise of their spanking-new fusion-pulsedrive passenger craft as a Reunion Special.
"A milestone, in its way," she said to the aide
in the lounger next to her. Kilometers away across the runways and dug-in hangars a finger of light probed into the sky with a ball of flame at its tip, a vertical-lift cargo pod rising on laser boost.
"Wotan, yes," he said. "Even if the Directorate of War did subsidize it." The liner Sky Treader was to double as a fast transport, in the event of emergency. "Well be gettin' a flood of tourists, next."
"I— Here she comes!"
The Martian orbital shuttle was like nothing else in the solar system. Delta-shaped, but with huge slender wings that could only have flown under this light gravity and tenuous wisp of atmosphere. It swelled from the east, out of sky already gone purple and starlit, its riding lights bright against the dark ceramic of the heatshield. Just then the outline lights of the pathways blinked on, like a great glowing circuit-diagram across the plain, stretching out to the horizon. Daggers of brighter light appeared beneath and about the shuttle: steering jets and final breaking. The flat belly and underwing surface drifted down to maglev distance, fields meshing with those of the runway, and it slid frictionless at half a meter until the gentle magnetic tugging brought it to a halt.
Yolande rose, straightened her uniform. The others in the party bustled likewise as the windowless arrowhead slid its nose into the terminal docking collar. The band made a few preliminary tootles…
"Marya," Yolande said. The serf had been standing at the railing; she turned silently and faded into the background of the welcoming party. The doors below cycled open, and the passengers came through. A big clot of children, which dissolved like sugar under hot water as they scattered to the waiting families. A small group that hung uncertainly near the doors. Yolande recognized Jolene's blond mane first, then Gwen. Another girl next to her, and a smaller form next to Jolene… Nikki.