if we still need it in a year, we will have lost. We have an awful lot of planning in front of us, people—we need to unleash every last bit of our potential. As of now, I’m dropping the last community use limits. The ‘underground’ economy will have access to everything except the most critical security automation.”
Yes!Gonle grinned across the table at Qiwi Lisolet, saw her grinning right back. So that was what Qiwi had meant by “soon”! Nau went on for some seconds, not so much making detailed plans as undoing this and that stupid rule that had kept operations so hobbled over the years. She could feel the enthusiasm building with every sentence.Maybe I can start afutures market on groundside trade.
The meeting ended on an incredible high. On the way out, Gonle gave Qiwi a hug. “Kiddo, you did it!” she said softly.
Qiwi just grinned back, but it was a wider smile than Gonle had seen her wear in a long time.
Afterward, the four visiting peons walked back up the hillside, the last of the sunlight throwing long shadows before them. She took a last look behind her before they entered the forest.Presumptuous, this park. But stillit was beautiful, and I had something to do with it. The last light of the sun showed from under far clouds. It might be Nauly manipulation or the random outcome of the park’s automation. Either way, it seemed auspicious. Old Nau thought he manipulated everything. Gonle knew that this sudden, final liberalization was something the Podmaster might try to stuff back in the bottle later on, when imagination and sharp trading was more a risk than the alternatives. But Gonle was Qeng Ho. Over the years, she and Qiwi and Benny and dozens of others had chipped away at the Emergents’ tight little tyranny, until almost every Emergent was “corrupted” by the underground trade. Nau had learned that you win by doing business. After the Spider markets were opened up, he would see there was no advantage to stuffing freedom back in the bottle.
Tomas Nau’s second meeting was later in the day, aboard theInvisibleHand. Here they could talk, far from innocent ears. “I got Kal Omo’s report, Podmaster. From the snoops. You fooled almost everyone.”
“Almost?”
“Well, you know Vinh—but he didn’t see through everything you said. And Jau Xin looks… dubious.”
Nau glanced a question at Anne Reynolt.
Reynolt’s reply was quick. “Xin is one we really need, Podmaster. He’s our only remaining Pilot Manager. We would have lost that pinnace if not for him. The ziphead pilots glitched when they saw the cavorite orbit. Suddenly all the rules had changed and they just couldn’t deal with the situation.”
“Okay, he’s a secret doubter.” There was no help for that really. Xin had been near the operational center of too many things. He probably suspected the truth behind the Diem Massacre. “So we can’t ice him, and we can’t fool him, and we’ll need him at the bloodiest stage of the job. Still… I think Rita Liao is a sufficient lever. Ritser. Make sure Jau knows that her welfare depends on his quality of service.”
Ritser gave a little smile, and made a note.
Nau scanned Omo’s report for himself. “Yes, we did quite well. But then, telling people what they want to believe is an easy job. No one seemed to catch all the consequences of pushing the Schedule forward five years. There’s no way we can pull a smooth network takeover now, and we need an intact industrial ecology on the planet—but there’s no need for the whole planet to participate. Right now”—Nau glanced at the latest reports from Reynolt’s zips—“seven Spider nations have nuclear weapons. Four have substantial arsenals, and three have delivery systems.”
Reynolt shrugged. “So we engineer a war.”
“A precisely limited one, one that leaves the world financial system intact and controlled by us.” An exercise in disaster management.
“And the Kindred?”
“We want them to survive, of course—but weak enough that we can bluff full control. We’ll throw a bit more ‘good luck’ their way.”
Reynolt was nodding. “Yes. We can tailor things. Southland has long-range missiles but is otherwise backward; most of its population will be hibernating through the Dark. They’re very frightened of what will be done to them by the advanced powers. Honored Pedure has plans for taking advantage of that. We can make sure she succeeds—” Anne went on, detailing what frauds and miscues could be implemented, which cities could be safely murdered, how to save the Accord sites that held resources the Kindred did not yet have. Most of the deaths would be delivered by their proxies, which was just as well, considering the sorry state of their own weapons systems…. Brughel was watching her with a certain bemused awe—the way he always did when Anne talked like this. Dispassionate and calm as ever, yet she could be as bloody-minded as Brughel himself.
Anne Reynolt had been a young woman when the Emergency came to Frenk. If history were written by the losing side, her name would be legend. After the Frenkisch military had surrendered, Anne Reynolt’s ragtag partisans had fought on for years—and not as a fringe nuisance. Nau had seen the Intelligence estimates: Reynolt had tripled the cost of the invasion. She had taken an inchoate popular opposition and come within a hairsbreadth of defeating the Emergency’s expeditionary force. And when her cause had ultimately failed—well, enemies such as that were best disposed of quickly. But Alan Nau had noticed that this enemy was peculiar to the point of uniqueness. Focusing the higher, people-oriented skills was normally a losing proposition. The very nature of Focusing tended to leave out the broad sensibilities that were necessary to manage people. And yet… Reynolt was young, brilliant, with an absolute dedication to principle. Her fanatical resistance was like nothing so much as a ziphead’s loyalty to its subject matter. What if shecould be profitably Focused?
Uncle Alan’s long shot had paid off. Reynolt’s only academic specialty had been ancient literature, but Focus had somehow captured the more subtle skills of her accidental career: warfare, subversion, leadership. Alan had kept his discovery carefully out of sight, but he had used this very special ziphead over the following decades. Her skills had helped establish Uncle Alan as the dominant Podmaster of the Home Regime. She had been a very special gift to a very favored nephew….
And though he would never admit it to Ritser Brughel, sometimes when Tomas looked into Reynolt’s pale blue eyes… he felt a superstitious chill. For a hundred years of her lifetime, Anne Reynolt had worked to undo and suppress everything that was important to her unFocused self. If she wanted to cause him harm, she could do so much. But that was the beauty of Focus; that was the reason the Emergency would prevail. With Focus you got the capabilities of the subject without the humanity. And given attentive maintenance, all the ziphead’s interest and loyalty stayed squarely on its subject matter and its owner.
“Okay, get your people on it, Anne. You have one year. We’ll probably need a major vessel in low orbit during the final Ksecs.”
“You know,” said Ritser, “I think the groundside of this is working out for the best. With the Kindred, one or two guys are in charge. We’ll know who to hold responsible when we give orders. With that pus-be-damned Accord—”
“True. There are too many autonomous power centers within the Accord; their nonsovereign-kingship thing is even crazier than a democracy.” Nau shrugged. “It’s the luck of the draw. We have to take what we know we can control. Without the cavorite, we’d have another five years of slack. By then, the Accord would have a mature network, and we could take over everything without anyone firing a shot—more or less the goal I’m still hoping for in public.”
Ritser leaned forward. “And that is going to be our biggest problem. Once our people realize this is a major Spider fry and their special friends are the main course—”
“Of course. But handled properly, the final outcome should appear to be an unavoidable tragedy, one that would have been much more horrible without our efforts.”
“It will be even trickier than the Diem thing. I wish you hadn’t given the Peddlers increased resource access.”
“It’s unavoidable, Ritser. We need their logistical genius. But I will withhold full network processing from them. We’ll bring out all your security zips, do really intense monitoring. If necessary, there can be some fatal accidents.”
He glanced at Anne. “And speaking of accidents… is there any progress on your sabotage theory?” It had been almost a year since Anne’s maybe-accident in the MRI clinic. A year and not a sign of enemy action. Of course, there had been precious little evidence before the event, either.
But Anne Reynolt was adamant. “Someone is manipulating our systems, Podmaster, both the localizers and the zipheads. The evidence is spread through large patterns; it’s not something I can put into words. But he’s
