eyes, she suddenly understood the seriousness of what she was undertaking. If these people were to turn on hers, no Mallory would ever again know freedom. The fear that welled up within her at the thought only served to fuel her determination: she must not fail.
“Yes,” she said, taking a deep breath and staring Reza right in the eye, which took much more willpower than she had imagined it might. Not to look at him, but to occasionally look away. “I am Enya Terragion, a member of the Mallory Party Committee. I am empowered to speak with you on their behalf.”
“You are the ones who sought to ambush my troops at the spaceport?” Reza asked, curious to know if she would speak the truth. If she did not…
Enya did not hesitate. “Yes. We feared that you had come to further oppress us, and the Committee decided to try and defeat you before you could add your firepower to that of the Territorial Army.”
She heard a quiet snort off to one side, and turned to see a hulking black man who looked quick as a tiger, shaking his head as he turned back to whatever he had been doing.
“I believe Mister Hawthorne is saying that you were very… fortunate, Enya Terragion,” Reza said, “that such an incident was avoided.”
Enya nodded somberly. “We realized that today, when you destroyed the mountain. All of our people near the spaceport would have been killed, would they not?”
“If not all, probably most,” Reza said simply. It was a fact beyond dispute. “I am glad things turned out differently.” He smiled. With his eyes.
Enya blinked, trying to break the mesmerizing hold he seemed to have on her. “What do you intend to do here on Erlang?” she asked quietly. “Will you help Belisle herd us into the mines?”
“That depends on you,” Reza said as Zevon, as if on cue, poured coffee for Enya. Suspicious that it was a trick, she only looked at it. Reza reached over and took a sip to prove it was safe, forcing the bitter liquid down his throat. He had always hated coffee. He set the cup back down on the table.
“My orders,” he said through the bitter aftertaste, “are to ensure that the flow of minerals from the mines to Confederation shipyards continues without interruption. As I am sure you are aware, Erlang is virtually irreplaceable to the shipyards in this sector.” He looked at her pointedly. “Those are my orders. How I carry them out is largely up to President Belisle… and you.”
“Meaning what?” she said coldly. She pushed the coffee away. “That Belisle calls your superior and orders you to do his bidding, and we are worse off than ever before?” She shook her head. “Do not play games with me, captain. We are willing to talk with you, but we will not sacrifice everything for which we have lived and suffered without a fight. We know that you blew up the mountain to frighten Belisle, and perhaps us; you succeeded on both counts. But what are we to do now that you have put the fear of God in us all? Our only real weapon is our willingness to work the mines, and it is a weapon we are ready to use, and will use – to the death, if necessary – if it is forced upon us.”
Reza’s brow furrowed in thought for a moment before he spoke. “I pledge to you, as I have pledged to my Marines, that we will not turn upon your people, no matter our orders.” Not surprisingly, disobeying orders was almost a Legion tradition, and it did not grieve Reza to ignore orders that conflicted with either his instincts or sense of rightness, corrupted with Kreelan influence as some thought it was. Good fortune, however, had seen to it that he had only rarely had to act in such a fashion. “My people are warriors, not murderers, and I will be perfectly honest with you: my mission cannot succeed without cooperation from both your people and Belisle.”
Enya twisted her face into a scowl of skepticism. “And how,” she said, “are we to go about doing that?”
His green eyes fixing her like a deer in a beam of light, he said, “Your people and Belisle will negotiate, and quickly. The plans you make shall be your own. I will guarantee neutrality. You will do what all humans seem to love to do: you will talk. You will reach a consensus.”
“And if we don’t?”
Reza shrugged. “Then you both shall suffer. If your workers strike or destroy the mines, you destroy Erlang’s greatest defense against the Kreelans, which is providing raw materials to the shipyards for building warships that can protect you. As rich as your world is, by colony standards you have almost no ground defenses against a fleet assault. Worse, your Territorial Army seems more adept at police actions than waging war against the Empire. You would also push Belisle to vengeance, and his wrath would drive him to murder. The Territorial Army would be unleashed to slaughter Mallorys on a scale that I could not prevent.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, Belisle has every interest in keeping the mines open, regardless of the cost. Erlang’s economy and his own wealth depend on it. More than that, he cannot leave here with such blood on his hands. He will be exposed as a petty tyrant, a criminal and – if it comes to it – a mass murderer. No planet in the Confederation would take him.”
Enya shook her head. “Belisle will never agree to it, no matter how little or how much we ask of him. The lines of hatred run too deep.”
“He has no choice.”
There was hope, she decided. There was terrible risk, but no more than they faced already. Mallorys had already placed charges on all but the smallest mines, enough explosives in the right place to collapse the shafts and destroy much of the equipment. But if the mines were destroyed, there would be no limits to Belisle’s retribution. And the outcome of a civil war between the Mallorys and the TA was not worth a moment’s contemplation.
“On behalf of my people,” she said formally, “I accept your offer of neutrality and negotiations with Belisle. What are we to do?”
To his visitors, Belisle appeared furious, yet resigned to the fact that the time for change had finally come. Having arrived in one of the armored skimmers, again escorted by two of Walken’s tanks, the Mallory representatives had walked into the president’s conference room and taken their appointed seats opposite their Ranier counterparts. Reza stood at the end of the table.
“I wish to make perfectly clear my position in this matter,” he said. “I now act as an impartial third party mediator to your dispute until the proper authority has arrived from the Confederation Government.”
“And who might that be?” Belisle asked, smugly thinking that he already knew the answer: a full regiment of Marines who would answer to
“Someone who is much more adept at these matters than am I,” Reza said. “General Counsel Melissa Savitch.”
Belisle’s mouth hung slack as the blood drained from his face. “That’s not possible,” he squeaked.
The Mallorys, as well, were stunned.
“Isn’t she the senior Confederation Counsel?” Enya asked incredulously. “Flattering as it is, why would she take an interest in this matter? Because of the mines?”
“No,” Reza said, shaking his head. Melissa had stayed in touch with him over the years, and had become a welcome and cherished face in his small circle of friends. She had risen steadily until she had reached the pinnacle of achievement in her chosen field, now designated the highest-ranking member of the Confederation’s judicial wing. “It is because I asked her to come, and she agreed. It is good fortune that she was on a visit to Nathalie when my message reached her. She will be here in five days. I am acting local counsel until she arrives.”
“You bastard,” Belisle suddenly spat. “You bloody freak.”
“You test my impartiality, sir,” Reza said coolly, but the look in his eyes was close to what Belisle had seen just before his own likeness on the face of Haerding Mountain had disappeared.
For a moment, Belisle did not know what to do. But then he remembered what Borge had told him before about anything done being undone easily enough.
Reza looked at him suspiciously, his mind ringing with alarms of intended treachery. But until Belisle exposed his intentions, Reza could not be sure, nor could he act. He decided that he would be very careful with this slippery serpent.
“Mr. Mallory,” Reza said to the leader of the Mallory Party who represented two-thirds of the souls on this planet, “please, sir, begin.”
Slow and rocky though it was, they took their first steps upon the road toward a true democracy.
