Torch of Freedom

Erewhon.' Rozsak's artful professorial manner would have fooled most people, since most people wouldn't have been able to recognize the gleam of humor in his dark eyes. 'It should have worked,' he continued, 'but there was a degree of acidity I hadn't counted on. Oh, the meal was satisfactory, of course. Don't misunderstand me. Still—'

'Given the fact that you're the only person I know who makes Châteaubriand at all, and that your degree of fanaticism in the kitchen can be truly terrifying, I'm amazed to hear you saying something like that,' Barregos interrupted. ' 'The meal was satisfactory'? You mean you're willing to admit that? Dear Lord, the end of the universe is at hand!'

Both of them chuckled, and the governor shook his head. It always amused him that Rozsak, supremely confident in so many ways, was never truly satisfied with his own culinary efforts. He truly was constantly experimenting, tweaking, tinkering with ingredients, and he was far and away his own sternest critic.

Of course, he doesn't have a lot of other potential critics, does he? Barregos thought. It's not a side of him he shares with a lot of people, after all. I wonder why he keeps it so private? Because it's the one real escape he allows himself and sharing it would make it less of an escape somehow? Because the domesticity of it would be so at odds with his hard-as-nails, tough-minded, cynical admiral public persona?

'Well,' Rozsak said, almost as if he'd just read his guest's mind, as he reached for his wine glass, 'given the way things are heating up, I've discovered that I need to relax in the kitchen just a bit more than I used to.'

'If one of the side effects is producing meals like this,' Barregos replied, keeping his tone light as he reached for his own wine, 'maybe it's a pity I haven't kept you under more pressure all along.'

'Oh, I think you've managed quite nicely in that respect,' Rozsak reassured him, and the two of them snorted almost simultaneously.

'Speaking of Erewhonese vegetables—'

'Roots, Governor. Roots,' Rozsak corrected. 'Like onions.'

'Speaking of Erewhonese plant life,' Barregos said with a stern look, 'how are our other Erewhonese ventures coming?'

'On the financial side, you really need to discuss that with Donald and Brent,' Rozsak said rather more seriously. 'My impression is that so far we've had enough cash to cover everything.'

An arched eyebrow and rising inflection turned the last sentence into a question, and Barregos nodded.

'There's actually turned out to be even more cash in the till than I'd expected,' he replied. 'I don't think we can siphon any more out of our official budget without risking questions from Permanent Senior Undersecretary Wodoslawski's minions at Treasury, but it's rather impressive how much some of the transstellars' local management has been willing to kick into my 'discretionary fund' for those 'subscription ships' of yours. And even better, Donald's managed to arrange things so that a good seventy percent of our total costs look like—and are, for that matter—good, sound investment opportunities.' He shrugged. 'We're still racking up a pretty impressive debt, but Donald and Brent are both confident we'll be able to service the interest and pay down the Sector's own public debt within no more than five to ten T-years.'

'I'm glad to hear it.' Rozsak cut another morsel of beef and chewed it slowly, then swallowed.

'I'm glad to hear it, but unless I'm pretty badly mistaken, our expenditure curve is about to start climbing steeply. Chapman and Horton are ready to start laying down their first locally designed SD(P)s. Which means, of course, that we're about ready to start doing the same thing. Discreetly, of course.'

'Oh, of course,' Barregos agreed. He smiled tightly. 'The first half dozen of those were factored into the numbers Donald and Brent discussed with me last week, though.'

'They were?' Rozsak sounded surprised, and the governor chuckled.

'Actually, we ended up owning a considerably larger chunk of Al Carlucci's new shipbuilding capacity than we'd anticipated.' Barregos' chuckle segued into a grimace. 'Having Pritchart and Elizabeth go back to shooting at each other hasn't helped the local economy. It probably wouldn't have helped things anyway, but I don't suppose anyone in Erewhon was really surprised when Manticore hammered them with that increase in transit fees.' He snorted. 'Actually, I'd imagine that if anyone in Maytag was surprised by anything it's that Manticore didn't smack them on the wrist even harder.'

'A seven hundred and fify-percent increase in Junction transit fees, a seventy-five-percent duty on any Erewhonese product in the Star Kingdom, and a seventy-percent capital gains tax on any Erewhonese investment in Manticore strikes me as a pretty substantial 'smack,' ' Rozsak pointed out dryly. 'Especially given the fact that Manticore's been Erewhon's biggest single trading partner for decades.'

'Agreed.' Barregos nodded. 'And its hammered the hell out of the Erewhonese economy, too. Produced its own little system-wide recession, as a matter of fact. On the other hand, I think even Imbesi would be prepared to admit that some sort of Manty retaliation for all the technology that got handed over to Haven was in order, and it could have been a hell of a lot worse. Of course, they've managed to pick up at least some of their losses from increased trade with Haven, but they're suddenly on the other end of the tech imbalance, which is kicking up more than a few problems while their industrial sector tries to retool and adjust. Not to mention the fact that they aren't any too fond of Haven at the moment, either, given who actually fired the first shot that landed them in their current mess.

'At any rate, right now, and not wanting to wish any additional unhappiness on our newfound friends in Maytag, it's offering us quite a few interesting opportunities we probably wouldn't have had otherwise. Among other things, CIG ended up needing a lot more capital investment from our side to get it up and running. That's why we floated that new bond issue back on Old Earth, which is also one of the reasons we're in better economic shape—and in a much better strategic position in Erewhon—at this point than we'd expected to be. Financially, the fact that the Sector was already so heavily invested in Erewhon gave us plenty of cover when the resumption of hostilities meant we had to raise additional capital from sources outside our immediate area. And Treasury was perfectly willing to sign off on the bonds—for the bureaucrats' usual cut, of course.'

He smiled evilly, and Rozsak raised both eyebrows in silent question.

'Well,' Barregos told him cheerfully, 'those same bureaucrats back on Old Earth insisted—positively insisted—that the bond issue in question be underwritten directly by the Treasury instead of the Sector administration. I think it had something to do with . . . bookkeeping issues.'

Rozsak snorted harshly in amused understanding. He wasn't at all surprised that the Treasury Department personnel in question wanted to handle the accounting as much in-house as possible, since it was so much easier to cook their own books (and hide their inevitable peculation) than it was to skim off of someone else's cash flow without detection. But that was merely the Solarian League's basic SOP, and he was still a bit puzzled by the governor's obvious amusement.

'And having them do the bookkeeping helps us exactly how?' the admiral asked after a moment. 'Obviously it does, somehow, but I would've thought that having their fingers directly in the pie would be more likely to sound alarms at their end as we get further down the road.'

'As long as the graft keeps rolling in, they aren't going to care what we're really doing with the money at this end,' Barregos pointed out. 'That's a given, and it's been part of our strategy from the very beginning. But what else it does for us is to make the debt a charge on the Solarian League, not the Maya Sector, and it never occurred to me or Donald that we might be able to get away with that! '

'And?' Rozsak asked.

'And, Luiz, if the day should ever come—perish the thought—when we good, loyal Solarians out here in the Sector should find ourselves in less than full accord with Frontier Security HQ or the Interior Department in general, we won't be the ones responsible for paying the bondholders off. As far as we're concerned, all that dreadful debt—close to sixty percent of our total investment in CIG, will be owed to Solarian citizens, not anyone out here. And the obligation to pay off those bounds, Donald tells me, will also belong to the League Treasury. Which means that as far as we're concerned it will just . . . go away. Poof.'

He smiled beatifically, and despite his own monumental aplomb and self-control, Rozsak's jaw actually dropped a half-centimeter or so.

'And,' Barregos continued even more cheerfully, 'I've just had a memo from one of Wodoslawski's senior