Crown of Slaves

Parisian's breakfast, which ran heavily toward grains instead of…

'What is that, anyway?'

'Blood pudding, Erewhon style,' said Naomi cheerfully. 'They make it by-'

'Never mind! I can probably guess, not that I want to.'

Naomi and Ginny exchanged the sort of glances which culinary sophisticates exchange in the presence of stick-in-the-mud louts.

By the time Naomi was finished, Ginny was perched on the foot of the bed, sitting cross-legged. She was wearing a version of a kimono, this morning, which was every bit as immodest as her usual wear. Victor was puzzled by the choice, in fact, since maintaining the cover seemed singularly useless under the circumstances.

He said as much; and, once again, found Naomi and Ginny exchanging the same irritating glance.

'And what are you two being so superior about now?'

Ginny shook her head. 'I worry about you sometimes, Victor. All this travel you've done, these past few years-and it hasn't broadened your horizons one single bit. We're about to start a menage a trois, dummy. How else are you going to have Naomi keep hanging around, with me in tow?' She made a face. 'I am not getting drunk every night just to keep a cover going, especially when you insist on wasting the opportunity.'

Victor's eyes widened. Naomi chuckled throatily. 'Great minds think alike, obviously. Mine and Ginny's, that is. It'll work just fine, Victor. I'm well-known in Erewhon's haute monde for being bisexual- not that that's anything unusual here, this planet's almost as easygoing that way as Beowulf-and by now anybody will believe anything about Ginny's preferences. So the three of us can keep seeing each other, anywhere and any time, and nobody will wonder about it. In fact-'

She cocked an inquisitive eye at Ginny. Ginny smiled and shook her head. 'No thanks. I don't actually sleep around on Kevin, despite the act. It's not even because he'd get jealous. To be honest, I'm not sure he would, he's such an oddball. It's just…' Her face lost all expression.

'Um.' Naomi winced. 'Yeah, I can imagine. If I'd been brought up in Manpower's slave quarters, I probably wouldn't have any interest in sex at all.'

Ginny shrugged. 'It's not that bad. Still, if I ever had any notion that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, I lost it long ago.'

Naomi rose, holding the tray, and padded over to the table where she set it down. Completely oblivious, so far as Victor could tell, to the fact that her lush figure was half-spilling out of the hotel robe. He found it somewhat unsettling. For all that he knew his relationship with Naomi was fundamentally political, Victor still found it impossible to be that casual about intimacy. Not for the first time in his life, he felt like a country bumpkin.

Having set down the tray, Naomi turned around. She was smiling.

'Not that I'd actually mind-you're pretty cute, Victor-but I hope I'm right in assuming that the two of you are here to establish a private liaison with Erewhon. Or else I'll be wasting a lot of sweat, politically speaking.'

Ginny cocked her head. 'Yes, we are. But-who exactly is 'Erewhon,' Naomi? Or am I wrong in assuming that you're… ah, working, on behalf of your uncle?'

'No, you're right. But don't assume that because Walter's got no official position that he won't get listened to.'

Now that they'd moved onto political ground, Victor felt more at ease. He understood the way Erewhon's government worked better than Ginny did. Between her own sharp wits and the fact that she was Kevin Usher's wife, Ginny's grasp of interstellar politics was acute. But she rarely spent the time in study that Victor did as a matter of routine. In the end, when all was said and done, Ginny was an amateur at this business and he was a professional.

'I understand that,' he said. 'What I don't understand is why the families in power didn't send someone to, ah-'

'They're not as smart as my uncle, for starters. But even if they were, they'd have hesitated. Everybody on Erewhon is furious with the Star Kingdom-its government, at least-for the way they've been treating us the past few years. Just about anywhere you go, now, you'll hear the same wisecrack: 'With Manticorans as allies, who needs enemies?' But the families running things at the moment are noted for being cautious. So even if they'd figured out what you're really doing here, they'd probably have privately asked my uncle to serve as the go- between anyway. 'Plausible deniability,' and all that.'

Victor nodded. Then, decided he had no choice but to stretch the truth a bit. 'That's about our position. We're not here officially representing President Pritchart, either.' To put it mildly; she'd have kittens if she knew what Kevin was doing. 'But it's fair to say she'd listen carefully to anything we said to her.' She would, too. Then she'd skin Kevin alive.

Naomi was all business, now, moving over to a nearby armchair and easing into it. She even managed, in some weird manner Victor couldn't begin to fathom, to wear her robe like formal business wear.

'That's good enough for a start. Unlike the ruling families, my uncle has made up his mind. He thinks Erewhon's alliance with the Star Kingdom is a losing proposition and that-given the change of government you've had-we'd do a lot better in alliance with the Republic of Haven. But I'll give you fair warning- he'll drive a hard bargain. If Erewhon comes over to Haven, we're in position to give you a lot more in the way of tech transfer than anything you'll get from the Solarians for years to come.'

Victor heard Ginny's sharply indrawn breath. In a way, that was odd, since this possibility was one he and Kevin had discussed in Ginny's presence. But even Victor was feeling a bit light-headed. Naomi had just bluntly put on the table what would, without a doubt, be the greatest intelligence coup Haven had had in years, if it happened. Because of its position as a member of Manticore's alliance, Erewhon had…

EVERYTHING. Well… not quite. But we're pretty sure they've got their hands on the latest Manty compensators and FTL com, just for starters. They aren't as fully up to speed as the Graysons are, but that's only because they had too much infrastructure in place when they signed on with Manticore. They haven't been as aggressive about rebuilding from the ground up, and their hardware was already good enough to get by-better than anything we had, at any rate! But they've still got at least eighty percent of the total Manty package, and that means-

Sweet Jesus. Practically overnight, we'd make up almost all of Manticore's tech edge.

He shook his head, trying to focus on immediate questions. 'What do you mean by a 'hard bargain'?'

Naomi shrugged. With her bosom, wearing a robe that was too small for her, the gesture was… distracting. 'I don't know. You'd have to work that out with my uncle. And then-assuming he was satisfied-he'd have to work it out with the families in power. I can tell you for sure that at the very least they'd insist that the Republic of Haven help us deal with the Congo problem.'

'Deal with it in what way?'

'How about carpet nuclear bombardment?' Ginny snarled. 'For starters.'

Victor grimaced. 'Ginny, most of the people living on Congo are slaves.'

Ginny started to snap a reply; then, took in another breath and nodded abruptly. 'Okay. I take it back. How about a simple war of conquest? Then we shoot everybody except the slaves. Better yet, leave them stranded in that jungle with nothing more than a loincloth and let them die slowly.'

Victor sighed and rubbed his face. 'Congo' wasn't even the name of the planet they were talking about. Not officially, at least. The star manuals listed it simply under a catalog number, and the Mesan corporation whose private property the planet essentially was called it 'Verdant Vista.'

But for everyone else in this portion of the galaxy, the place was called Congo. Victor even knew the obscure historical reference from which the name had derived, a place on ancient Earth called 'King Leopold's Congo.' A colonial hellhole, reborn-and often cited by the Anti-Slavery League and the Renaissance Association as a prime example of the horrors unleashed by the galaxy's toleration of Manpower and Mesa.

Manpower, as it happened, was the Mesan corporation in question and maintained a slave-breeding center there. But the main product of the jungle planet was a variety of pharmaceuticals which were both valuable and difficult to duplicate artificially-and which Congo's owners extracted by using the most savage forms of forced labor imaginable. One study commissioned by the Renaissance Association claimed that the life expectancy of the average slave laborer once they began working on the plantations was not more than six years.

'Please, Ginny,' he said softly. 'Anger will get us nowhere.' He cocked an eye at Naomi. 'I assume Erewhon has