Torch of Freedom

enormous floor-to-ceiling picture window. The view out over downtown Shuttlesport, the capital of both the Maya System and of the Maya Sector from the governor's hundred and fortieth-floor office was stupendous, but Rozsak had seen it before. And at the moment, he had rather too many things on his mind to pay it the attention it deserved as he followed the governor across to the window.

'Hell with Haven!' He snorted, settling into his regular seat and watching the governor do the same. 'Nobody back in Nouveau Paris knew what was coming any more than we did! Oh, the Republic's signed off on it after the fact, but I suspect Pritchart and her bunch feel almost as much like they've been run over by a lorry as anyone on Manticore. Or Erewhon, for that matter.' He shook his head ruefully. 'Nobody's told me so officially, but I'll be very surprised if Cachat doesn't wind up running all of Haven's intelligence ops in and around Erewhon. After all, given his recent machinations, he's probably the only person who really knows where all the bodies are buried. I don't often feel like I've been caught in someone else's slipstream, Oravil, but he's got to be the best improvisational operator I've ever run into. I swear to you that he didn't have any more notion going in of where this was all going to come out than anyone else did. And like I say, unless I'm badly mistaken, no one in Nouveau Paris ever saw it coming, either.' He snorted again. 'As a matter of fact, I'm pretty damned sure not even Kevin Usher would've turned him loose on Erewhon if he'd suspected for a minute where Cachat was going to end up!'

'Do you think he's going to be a problem down the road?' Barregos asked, rubbing his chin thoughtfully, and Rozsak shrugged.

'He's not really a lunatic, or even a loose laser head, for that matter. In fact, I'd say our friend Cachat has a good bit in common with a warmhearted rattlesnake, if the simile doesn't sound too bizarre even for me. Although, to be fair, Jiri's really the one who came up with it. It's apt, though. The man tries hard to hide it, but I think he's actually extraordinarily protective of the people and things he cares about, and his response to any threat is to remove it—promptly, thoroughly, and without worrying all that much about collateral damage. If you convince him you're going to be a threat to the Republic of Haven, for example, it'll almost certainly be the last thing you ever do. The only thing likely to get you killed quicker would be to convince him you're a threat to one of the people he cares about. Which, by the way, is a very good reason we should never, ever, in even the remotest back corner of our minds, think about eliminating Thandi Palane just to tie up the loose ends of Ingemar's assassination. I'll admit, I wouldn't want to do it anyway, but it didn't take me very long to realize that bad as Cachat's reaction might be, he wouldn't be anywhere close to the only enemy we'd make in the process. Trust me on this one, Oravil.'

His voice was unusually sober, and Barregos nodded in acknowledgment. Warnings from Luiz Rozsak were best heeded, as several no longer breathing people the governor could think of right offhand might have testified. Assuming, of course, that they hadn't been no longer breathing.

'On the other hand,' the rear admiral continued, 'if you aren't a threat to someone or something he cares about, he's perfectly prepared to leave you alone. As far as I can tell he doesn't hold grudges, either—which may be because anyone he'd be likely to hold a grudge against is already dead, of course. And he recognizes that sometimes it's 'just business' even if interests he does care about are getting pinched a bit. He's willing to be reasonable. But it's always best to bear that image of a rattlesnake basking in the sun in mind, because if he does decide you need to be seen to, the last thing you'll ever hear will be a brief—very brief—rattling sound.'

'And Zilwicki?'

'Anton Zilwicki is just as dangerous as Cachat, in his own way. The fact that he's got even better contacts with the Audubon Ballroom than we'd thought gives him a sort of unofficial, 'rogue' action arm all his own. It's got a lot less in the way of a formal support structure than Manty or Havenite intelligence, but at the same time, it's less likely to worry about the sorts of constraints star nations have to bear in mind. It's a lot more likely to leave its back trail littered with body parts, too, and it's got one hell of a long reach. He's smart, and he thinks about things, Oravil—hard. He understands just how dangerous a weapon patience is, and he's got a remarkable facility for pulling apparently random facts together to form critical conclusions.

'On the other hand, our initial appreciation of him was considerably more thorough than anything we knew about Cachat, so I can't really say he threw us any surprises. And the bottom line is that even with his links to the Ballroom and people like Jeremy X, I think he's less likely than Cachat to reach for a pulser as his first choice of problem-solving tools. I'm not saying Cachat's a homicidal maniac, you understand. Or that Zilwicki is some kind of choirboy, either, for that matter. Both of them are of the opinion that the best way to remove a threat is to remove it permanently, but at heart, I think, Zilwicki is more of an analyst and Cachat is more of a direct action specialist. They're both almost scarily competent in the field, and they're both among the best analysts I've ever seen, but they've got different . . . emphases, let's say.'

'Which, now that they're more or less operating in alliance, makes the two of them more dangerous than the sum of their parts. Would that be an accurate summarization?' Barregos asked.

'Yes, and no.' Rozsak leaned back in his chair, frowning thoughtfully. 'They respect each other. In fact, I think they actually like each other, and each of them owes the other. More than that, they have a major commonality of interest in what's happening in Torch. But at heart, Zilwicki's still a Manty and Cachat's still a Havenite. I think it's possible—especially if the Star Kingdom's and the Republic's foreign relations keep dropping deeper and deeper into the crapper—that the two of them could find themselves on opposing sides again. And that, trust me, would be . . . messy.'

'You said 'possible,' ' Barregos observed. 'Is that the same thing as 'likely'?'

'I don't know,' Rozsak replied frankly, and he shrugged. 'What they have is a personal relationship and, I think—although I'm not sure either of them would be willing to admit it—friendship. And it's complicated by the fact that Cachat's hopelessly in love with Palane and Zilwicki's daughter's become Palane's unofficial little sister. So I'm guessing that the most likely outcome if the coin ever drops between the Republic and the Star Kingdom again would be that the two of them would give each other fair warning and then retire to their corners and try very hard not to step on each other. The wildcard, of course, is the fact that Zilwicki's daughter is also the Queen of Torch. The man's a Gryphon Highlander, too. He's got all the ingrained Gryphon loyalty to the Manty Crown, but he's also got that personal, almost feudal loyalty to family and friends. It may well be he'd give his primary loyalty to Queen Berry, not Queen Elizabeth, if it came down to an outright choice. I doubt he'd ever do anything to harm Manticore's interests, and I think he's equally unlikely to stand by and allow something to damage those interests because of simple inaction on his part. But I also think he'd try to balance Manticore's and Torch's interests.'

'Interesting.'

It was Barregos' turn to lean back, and he clasped his hands in front of his chest, leaning his chin on his thumbs while he tapped the tip of his nose gently with both index fingers. It was one of his favorite thinking poses, and Rozsak waited patiently while the governor considered what he'd just said.

'The thing that occurs to me,' Barregos said at length, eyes narrowing slightly as they refocused on Rozsak, 'is that I don't think Elizabeth would've let Ruth Winston stay on as Torch's assistant chief of intelligence if she wasn't thinking in terms of establishing a sort of backdoor link to Haven. It's obvious she didn't exactly pick High Ridge as her prime minister, after all. I'm not foolish enough to think she's feeling particularly fond of the Republic of Haven—especially since that business at Yeltsin's Star—but she's smart, Luiz. Very smart. And she knows Saint- Just is dead, probably along with just about everyone else involved in that whole op. I don't say I think knowing that's suddenly made her fond of Havenites in general, but I do think that, deep inside, she'd really like to see Pritchart and Theisman succeed in restoring the Old Republic.'

'That's my read, too,' Rozsak agreed. 'However much she may hate 'Peeps,' she's enough of a student of history to know the Republic wasn't always the biggest, hungriest hog in the neighborhood. And however little some parts of her personality might like admitting it, I think she recognizes that seeing the Old Republic come back would be a lot less strenuous—and dangerous—than going back to hog-killing time. Not that I'm prepared to even guesstimate how likely she thinks it is that they will succeed.'

'I imagine we're both rather more optimistic in that respect than she is.' Barregos' smile was wintry. 'Probably has something to do with our not having been at war with the People's Republic of Haven for the last fifteen or twenty T-years.'

'That's true enough, but I'm also inclined to think there's some genuine principle involved here—in Torch's case, I mean—too,' Rozsak said. 'The one thing Haven and Manticore have always agreed on is how much they