Changer of Worlds

testily, and Fontein very carefully didn’t allow his surprise at his superior’s acid tone to show.

It was very unlike Saint-Just to reveal that sort of irritation, and the citizen general felt a sudden chill. One thing which made Saint-Just so effective was his ability to think coldly and dispassionately about a problem. If personal anger was beginning to corrode that dispassion in Esther McQueen’s case, her time could be far shorter than she guessed. Worse, Fontein wasn’t at all sure he was prepared to dismiss her concerns, whatever Saint-Just thought. He’d had too many opportunities to see her in action, knew how tough minded she was. And, he admitted, had seen her physical and moral courage much too close-up for comfort during the Leveler revolt. He might not trust her, and he certainly didn’t like her, but he did respect her. And if there was any basis to her fears, then however rosy things looked at this moment, the People’s Republic might find in the next few months that it needed her worse than ever.

“I didn’t say she was right, Oscar.” Fontein was careful to keep his voice even. “I only said I think most of her concern is genuine. You asked me if I’m suspicious of her and a part of my answer is that I think a lot of her reluctance to charge ahead with Bagration was unfeigned.”

“All right.” Saint-Just puffed air through his lips, then shook himself. “All right,” he said more naturally. “Point taken. Go on.”

“Beyond her apparently genuine concerns over her orders, I really can’t say she’s given me much to work with,” Fontein said honestly. “She staked out her claim to authority in purely military affairs the day she took over the Octagon, and she works her staff, and herself, so hard that even I can’t manage to sit in on all the meetings she has with planners and analysts and logistics people and com specialists. She works best one-to-one, and no one could fault the energy she brings to the job, but she’s definitely got a firm grip on the military side of her shop. You probably know that even better than I do.” Since, he did not add aloud, you were the one who told me I had to let her get a grip on it. “I don’t like it, and I never did. Nor have I made any secret about how much I don’t like it. At the same time, she has a point about the need for a single source of authority in a military chain of command, and the results she’s produced certainly seem to have justified the decision to bring her in in the first place.

“I don’t think she’s been able to sneak anything past me, but I can’t rule it out. As I say, no one could possibly keep pace with a schedule as frenetic as hers. There’ve probably been opportunities for side discussions I don’t know anything about… and I still haven’t figured out how she made her initial contacts before the Leveler business, when all’s said. I have a few suspicions, but even knowing where to look—assuming I’m right and I am looking in the right places—I haven’t been able to come up with any hard evidence. That being the case, I’m in no position to state unequivocally that she hasn’t managed to do the same thing again at the Octagon.

“And let’s face it, Oscar, she’s charismatic as hell. I’ve watched her in action for years now, and I’m no closer to understanding how she does it than in the beginning. It’s like she uses black magic. Or maybe it’s a special kind of charisma that only works with military people. But it does work. She had Bukato out of his shell within weeks of taking over, and the rest of the Octagon’s senior officers followed right behind him. And she managed to send Giscard and Tourville out ready to take on pseudogrizzlies with their bare hands, even though you and I both know from Eloise’s reports that Giscard was suspicious as hell of her reputation for personal ambition. If anyone could inspire one of her subordinates to risk trying to do an end run around me to set up some clandestine line of communication, she’s the one. I haven’t seen a single trace of that, or I’d already’ve been in here bending your ear about it, but we can’t afford to take anything for granted with a woman like her.”

“I know.” Saint-Just sighed and tipped his chair all the way back. “I was never happy about bringing her in and giving her such a long leash, but, damn it, Rob was right. We needed her, and however dangerous she may be, she produced. She certainly produced. But now—”

He broke off, pinching the bridge of his nose, and Fontein could almost feel the intensity of his thoughts. Unlike almost anyone else in State Security, Fontein had read the doctored dossier Saint-Just had constructed when McQueen was brought in as Secretary of War. He knew exactly how that file had been manicured to make McQueen look like the greatest traitor since Amos Parnell—indeed, to brand her as a previously undetected junior partner in the “Parnell Plot”—if it became necessary to remove her. Unfortunately, Parnell was back among the living after Harrington’s escape from Cerberus and spilling his guts to the Solly Assembly’s Committee on Human Rights, and —

The rhythm of Fontein’s thoughts broke as a sudden insight struck him. Parnell. Was his escape from Cerberus an even larger factor in Saint-Just’s intensified suspicions of McQueen than the commissioner had previously guessed? The ex-CNO’s return to life had definitely shaken a lot of the old officer corps. They’d been careful about what they said and who they said it around, but that much was obvious. And after the victories Twelfth Fleet had produced under her orders, McQueen, for all the Navy’s original wariness about her ambition, was almost as popular with, and certainly as respected by, its officers as Parnell had been. She must seem like some sort of ghost of Parnell to Saint-Just, and the neutralization of her edited dossier had hit him hard.

It was ironic, really. When the time bombs had been planted in that dossier, they’d been seen as little more than window dressing. There’d been no real need for anyone to justify her removal when StateSec had been shooting admirals in job lots for years, since no one in the Navy would have dared raise even a minor objection. The entire purpose had been to provide Cordelia Ransom’s Propagandists with ammunition to dress up the decision and be sure the Republic’s public opinion was pointed in the right direction. But now that McQueen had become so popular with both the public and the Navy, that sort of justification for removing her had become genuinely vital. And just when it had, Parnell had escaped from Cerberus and discredited everything in it.

Saint-Just’s weapon had been knocked from his hand when he most feared he needed it, and perhaps that, as much as his frustration over her refusal to agree with his analysts, helped explain the way in which his habitual self control had frayed in this instance.

“She produced,” Saint-Just went on at last, “but I think she’s become too dangerous for us to keep around. Someone else—like Theisman—can go on producing now that she’s gotten the Navy turned around. And we won’t have to worry about someone like Theisman trying to overthrow the Committee.”

“Does that mean you and the Citizen Chairman have decided to remove her?” Fontein asked carefully.

“No,” Saint-Just replied. “Rob is less convinced she’s a danger. Or, rather, he’s less convinced we can afford to get rid of her because of the danger she represents. He may even be right, and whether he is or not, he’s still Chairman of the Committee… and my boss. So if he says we wait until we either know we don’t need her or we find clear proof she’s actively plotting, we wait. Especially since Bukato will have to go right along with her. Probably most of her other senior staffers, too, which makes it particularly imperative that we be certain the Manties are really on the run before we dislocate our command structure so severely. But I expect Bagration to pick right up where Scylla left off, and if it does, then I think we will have proof we don’t need to hang on to a sword so sharp it’s liable to cut our own heads off. Not when we’ve got other swords to choose from. And in that case, I expect Rob to green-light her removal.”

“I see.” Despite himself, Fontein felt an inner qualm. For all his own reservations about McQueen, he’d worked closely with her for so long that the announcement that she was a dead woman, one way or the other, within months hit him hard.

“I don’t want to rock the boat,” Saint-Just went on. “Not now that Bagration is just kicking off, and certainly not before Theisman gets here and gives us someone reliable to hand Capital Fleet to. And above all, I don’t want to do anything that will make her realize her time is running out. But I think it’s time we started building a dossier to replace the one we can’t use anymore. I want a nice, clean, convincing paper trail to ‘prove’ she was a traitor before she gets shot resisting arrest, and we can’t throw that kind of thing together at the last minute. So I want you to sit down with Citizen Colonel Cleary and begin putting one together now.”

“Of course.” Fontein nodded. There was no chance in the world that Saint-Just would take overt action against McQueen until Pierre authorized it. The StateSec CO’s mind simply didn’t work that way. But it was very like him to attempt to anticipate and put the groundwork in place ahead of time. The collapse of the original “proof” of McQueen’s “treason against the People” only made him more determined than usual.

“Remember,” Saint-Just said firmly, unwittingly echoing Fontein’s own thoughts, “this is only a preliminary. Rob hasn’t authorized me to do a thing, and that means you’re not authorized to do anything except gather information and begin assembling a file. I don’t want any mistakes or unauthorized enthusiasm that gets out of hand, Erasmus!”

“Of course not, Oscar,” Fontein replied just a bit cooly. Saint-Just gave a small nod in response, one with a