The Lotus Eaters

don't see them using them on their own base country. The things aren't terribly useful, anyway; and didn't the Yithrabi terrorists prove that when they set one off by accident in their own capital?

Capital . . . capital . . . I can see myself marching proudly through the capital after I have won the war here. I can see myself at the helm of Gaul, tugging its strings, while Gaul tugs the Tauran Union's strings, the TU runs the World League, and the World League shits on the damned Columbians of the Federated States.

Of course, the trick will be to make sure that United Earth is not in a position to pull my strings. Well . . . half the trick, anyway. I still need to find a way to convince the TU to support me.

I wonder if the Balboans, themselves, wouldn't assist in that. That would be a help.

Rome, Province of Italy, Old Earth

Marguerite breathed a small sigh of relief when the SecGen agreed, 'I can shave a little more off the top for maintenance of the Peace Fleet. But you have to understand; my position depends in good part on not asking too much in the way of sacrifices, and on giving the people that matter what they want. Why, after all, do you suppose I let the Azteca and the Orthodox Druids get away with their insanities?'

The SecGen uttered a curse. 'Why, oh, why can't those morons be like the Caliph of Rome, on the other side of the Vatican? He, at least, is a sensible man, an atheist.'

Wallenstein ignored that. As a member in good standing of the Reformed Druidic faith, she didn't really approve of the Caliph or his cynical manipulation of his diminishing faithful. Changing the subject back, she said, 'If you can't provide what the fleet needs quickly—'

'—I can't—'

'—Then we'll have to bring it forward in packets.' Marguerite chewed on her lower lip for a time, thinking hard. 'I really need to keep the Peace Fleet on station around Terra Nova . . . hmmm . . .

Marguerite's eyes brightened. 'Well . . . the colonization fleet is still in orbit around the moon.'

'No one's looked to those ships in centuries, Marguerite,' the SecGen said.

'I know,' she nodded. 'But things in space, at least the things that aren't being used, don't deteriorate much. Those ships will probably work still. Besides, we don't need all of them, just enough to run a regular shuttle service to the Peace Fleet. I can do some juggling of personnel in the Peace Fleet to man a shuttle service . . . even enough to bring the colonization ships back on line.' She laughed, a trifle bitterly. 'Why not? I've got ships around TN operating off skeleton crews to reduce the wear and tear on life support. I've others that are half-cannibalized. I have those crews doing make-work on Atlantis Base because there's no place in space to put them.'

'Well,' the SecGen said, 'as you get your fleet running again you will run short of people.'

'No,' she shook her head. 'That won't be a problem. It isn't going to happen so fast that we can't train new people.'

Furiocentro Convention Center, Balboa City

'Training is going to be a problem,' Carrera said. 'Reservists and militia will be cheaper than regulars, with reservists serving only seventy-five days a year and militia thirty or so. That's still expensive and still more troops out in the field than we have training areas for, despite the major maneuver areas at Lago Sombrero, the Guarasi 'Desert,' and Fort Cameron. We also need to bring about thirty to thirty-five thousand new people to the colors a year for the foreseeable future. And they're going to have to do their initial training on the Isla Real, the only place we have facilities for it. Obviously, there's not room out there for you and them both.

'So you and your units are going to be moving to casernes on the mainland. Which we have to build. Which we have to find and buy land for. Which is also going to be expensive as hell.

'Fortunately, Presidente Parilla—' Carrera gave a nod to Raul, sitting between McNamara and Fernandez, the Intel chief, in the front row—'has offered to let us use, more or less permanently and more or less without restrictions, a great deal of the nationally owned land to establish major training areas.

'This will, I imagine, piss off the world's environmentally conscious and sensitive class to no end.'

Carrera's tone and smile said all that needed to be said about his deep and abiding lack of concern for the sentiments of those environmentalists. Oh, yes, he had set aside some funding for the preservation of the endangered trixies, but that was more personal than environmental in motive.

'And you have to be wondering where all the extra troops are going to come from. We already have some substantial numbers of legionaries from every state in Colombia Latina. In fact, we take in a couple of thousand Spanish-speaking foreigners a year and have almost since we started, eleven years ago. Those numbers have to go up. A lot. As do the numbers we take in from Balboa itself.

'And at this point, I'd like to ask the President to the stand to explain some legal and political changes. Presidente Parilla?'

Carrera came to attention as soon as Parilla stood. Following his cue, all the military types present did likewise, while the civilians, such as there were, simply shut up and stood a bit straighter.

* * *

Fernandez, sitting next to Parilla's vacated chair, fumed, He's giving too much away. There are half a dozen people here on the Tauran Union's payroll that I know of. How many more are there that I have no clue to?

On the plus side, I'll find out about at least a couple more that I don't currently know about when they go scurrying to inform their masters of what's been said here. That's something, I suppose.

Fernandez was right to be worried, if only because intelligence and counter-intelligence was his job. For that