Torch of Freedom

Zachariah's expression sobered.

'Really, Jack,' he said in a much more serious tone, 'I'm curious. I know you see a lot more on the operational side than I do, but even what I'm hearing through the tech-weenie channels is a bit on the scary side.'

Jack regarded his brother thoughtfully for a moment, then picked up his sandwich, took a bite, and chewed reflectively.

Zachariah probably had heard quite a bit from his fellow 'tech-weenies,' and it probably had been more than a little garbled. Under a strict interpretation of the Alignment's 'need-to-know' policy, Jack really shouldn't be spilling any operational details to which he might be privy to someone who didn't have to have those details to do his own job. On the other hand, Zachariah was not only his brother, but one of Anastasia Chernevsky's key research directors. In some ways (though certainly not all), his clearance was even higher than Jack's.

Both of them, Jack knew without false modesty, were definitely on the bright side, even for Mesan alpha lines, but Zachariah's talent as a synthesizer had come as something of a surprise. That could still happen, of course, even for someone whose genetic structure and talents had been as carefully designed as the McBryde genome's. However much the Long-Range Planning Board might dislike admitting it, the complex of abilities, skills, and talents tied up in the general concept of 'intelligence' remained the least amenable to its manipulation. Oh, they could guarantee high general IQs, and Jack couldn't remember the last representative of one of the Alignment's alpha lines who wouldn't have tested well up into the ninety-ninth-plus percentile of the human race. But the LRPB's efforts to preprogram an individual's actual skill set was problematical at best. In fact, he was always a little amused by the LRPB's insistence that it was just about to break through that last, lingering barrier to its ability to fully uplift the species.

Personally, Jack was more than a little relieved by the fact that the Board still couldn't design the human brain's software reliably and completely to order. It wasn't an opinion he was likely to discuss with his colleagues, but despite his complete devotion to the Detweiler vision and the Alignment's ultimate objectives, he didn't really like the thought of micromanaging human intelligence and mental abilities. He was entirely in favor of pushing the frontiers in both areas, but he figured there would always be room for serendipitous combinations of abilities. Besides, if he was going to be honest, he didn't really like the thought of his theoretical children or grandchildren becoming predesigned chips in the Alignment's grand machine.

In that regard, he thought, he had a great deal in common with Leonard Detweiler and the rest of the Alignment's original founders. Leonard had always insisted that the ultimate function of genetically improving humanity was to permit individuals to truly achieve their maximum potential. Whatever temporary compromises he might have been willing to make in the name of tactics, his ultimate, unwavering objective had been to produce a species of individuals, ready and able to exercise freedom of choice in their own lives. All he'd wanted to do was to give them the very best tools he could. He certainly wouldn't have favored designing free citizens, fully realized members of the society for which he'd striven, the way Manpower designed genetic slaves. The idea was to expand horizons, not limit them, after all.

There were moments when Jack suspected the Long-Range Planning Board had lost sight of that. Hardly surprising, if it had, he supposed. The Board was responsible not simply for overseeing the careful, continually ongoing development of the genomes under its care, but also for providing the Alignment with the tactical abilities its strategies and operations required. Under the circumstances, it was hardly surprising that it should continually strive for a greater degree of . . . quality control.

And at least both the LRPB and the General Strategy Board recognized the need to make the best possible use out of any positive advantages the law of unintended consequences might throw up. Which explained why Zachariah's unique, almost instinctual ability to combine totally separate research concepts into unanticipated nuggets of development had been so carefully nourished once it was recognized. Which, in turn, explained how he had wound up as one of Chernevsky's right hands in the Alignment's naval R&D branch.

Jack finished chewing, swallowed, and took a sip of his beer, then quirked an eyebrow at his brother.

'What do you mean 'on the scary side,' Zack?'

'Oh, I'm not talking about any hardware surprises, if that's what you're thinking,' Zachariah assured him. 'As far as I know, the Manties didn't trot out a single new gadget this time around. Which, much as I hate to admit it'—he smiled a bit sourly—'actually came as a pleasant surprise, for a change.' He shook his head. 'No, what bothers me is the fact that Manticore and Haven are cooperating on anything. The fact that they managed to get the League on board with them, too, doesn't make me any happier, of course. But if anybody on the other side figures out the truth about the Verdant Vista wormhole . . .

He let his voice trail off, then shrugged, and Jack nodded.

'Well,' he said, 'I wouldn't worry too much about the Manties and the Peeps being in cahoots.' He chuckled sourly. 'As nearly as I can tell from the material I've seen, it was more or less a freelance operation by a couple of out-of-control operatives improvising as they went along.'

Zachariah, Jack noted, looked just a bit skeptical at that, but he really didn't have anything like a need to know about Victor Cachat and Anton Zilwicki.

'You're just going to have to trust me on that part, Zack,' he said affectionately. 'And I'll admit, I could be wrong. I don't think I am, though. And given the . . . intensity with which the operatives in question have been discussed over in my shop, I don't think I'm alone in having drawn that conclusion, either.'

He took another bite of his sandwich, chewed, and swallowed.

'At any rate, it's pretty obvious no one back home in Manticore or Nouveau Paris saw any of it coming, and I think what they're really doing is trying to make the best of the situation now that they've both been dragged kicking and screaming into it. Which, I'll admit, is probably easier for them because of how much both of them hate Manpower's guts. It's not going to have any huge impact on their actions or their thinking when we get them to start shooting at each other again, though.'

Zachariah frowned thoughtfully, then nodded.

'I hope you're right about that. Especially if they've got the League involved!'

'That, I think, was also improvisational,' Jack said. 'Cassetti just happened to be on the ground when the whole thing got thrown together, and he saw it as a way to really hammer home Maya's relationship with Erewhon. I don't think he gave a good goddamn about the independence of a planet full of ex- slaves, at any rate! He was just playing the cards he found in his hand. And it didn't work out any too well for him personally, either.'

Zachariah snorted in agreement, and Jack grinned. He didn't know anywhere near as much as he wished he did about what was going on inside the Maya Sector. It wasn't really his area of expertise, and it certainly wasn't his area of responsibility, but he had his own version of Zachariah's ability to put together seemingly unrelated facts, and he'd come to the conclusion that whatever was happening in Maya, it was considerably more than anyone on Old Earth suspected.

'Personally, I think it's no better than a fifty-fifty chance Rozsak would actually have fired on Commodore Navarre,' he went on. 'Oversteegen might well have—he's a Manty, after all—but I'm inclined to think Rozsak, at least, was bluffing. I don't blame Navarre for not calling him on it, you understand, but I wouldn't be surprised if Barregos heaved a huge sigh of relief when we backed down. And now that Cassetti's dead, he's got the perfect opening to repudiate any treaty arrangement with this new Kingdom of Torch because of its obviously ongoing association with the Ballroom.'

'Can you tell me if there's anything to the stories about Manpower having pulled the trigger on Cassetti?' Zachariah asked.

'No,' Jack replied. 'First, I couldn't tell you if I knew anything one way or the other—not about operational details like that.' He gave his brother a brief, level look, then shrugged. 'On the other hand, this time around, I don't have any of those details. I suppose it's possible one of those Manpower jerks who doesn't have a clue about what's really going on could have wanted him hit. But it's equally likely that it was Barregos. God knows Cassetti had to've become more than a bit of an embarrassment, after the way he all but detonated the bomb that killed Stein himself and then dragged Barregos into that entire mess in Verdant Vista. I'm pretty sure that at this particular moment Barregos views him as far more valuable as one more martyred Frontier Security commissioner than he'd be as an ongoing oxygen-sink.'

'I understand, and if I pushed too far, I apologize,' Zachariah said.

'Nothing to apologize for,' Jack reassured him . . . more or less truthfully.