In Enemy Hands

builders (although, Pierre suspected, for quite different reasons) only made the situation worse in many ways, but at least it let him play them off against one another, maintaining their 'constituencies' in a delicate, sometimes precarious balance he could force to support his own position rather than undermining it.

'I understand Cordelia's concerns, Rob,' Saint-Just said, answering Pierre’s unspoken appeal after a long, pregnant moment. He tipped back his chair, leaning away from the crystal-topped conference table, and steepled his fingers across his chest in a posture that made him look even more like someone's harmless, nondescript uncle. 'We've spent over five T-years convincing everyone the Navy was responsible for the Harris Assassination, and while we've, ah, removed virtually all the precoup senior officers, putting my commissioners aboard the Navy's ships hasn't won us many fans among their replacements. Whether we want to admit it or not, granting political agents, we might as well be honest and call them spies, veto authority over line officers helps explain the fiascoes the fleet keeps sailing into... and the officer corps knows that, too. When you add all that to the number of officers we've shot or locked up 'to encourage the others,' it could certainly be argued that taking our boot off their necks is a questionable decision, at best... even if it was the Navy that saved our asses from LaBoeuf's maniacs. I mean, let's not fool ourselves here; anyone would have looked good compared to the Levelers. Don't forget that part of their platform called for shooting anyone above the rank of lieutenant commander or major for the 'military-industrial complex's treasonous misconduct of the war.' There's no guarantee the Navy would back us against someone less, um, energetic than they were.'

His tenor was as mild and colorless as the rest of him, yet Ransom's eyes hardened behind their glitter as she heard the 'But' he hadn't quite voiced. Pierre heard the qualification as well, and his own eyes narrowed.

'But compared to our other options?' he said softly, inviting Saint-Just to continue, and the SS chief shrugged.

'Compared to our other options, I don't see a lot of choice. The Manties keep handing our fleet commanders their heads, and we keep blaming them for it. After a point, that becomes bad propaganda as well as bad strategy. Let's face it, Cordelia,' Saint-Just swiveled those nondescript eyes to his golden-haired colleague, 'it gets awfully hard for Public Information to keep rallying public support behind our 'gallant defenders' when we seem to be killing as many of them as the Manties are!'

'Maybe it does,' Ransom countered, 'but that's less risky than letting the military get a foot into the door.' She switched the full force of her personality to Pierre. 'If we put someone from the military on the Committee, how do we keep him or her from finding out things we don't want the military to know? Like who really killed off the Harris government?'

'There's not much chance of that,' Saint-Just pointed out reasonably. 'There was never any hard evidence of our activities... and aside from a few people who had a hand of their own in the operation, there's no one left who could challenge our version of what happened.' He gave a chill smile. 'Anyone who knows anything, and is still alive, could only incriminate himself if he tried to talk about it. Besides, I've made damned sure all of StateSec's internal records reflect the official line. Anyone who wants to challenge all that 'impartial evidence' is obviously a counterrevolutionary enemy of the People.'

''Not much chance' isn't the same thing as no chance at all,' Ransom retorted.

Her tone was sharper than usual, for manipulator or not, she truly believed in the concept of enemies of the People, and her suspicion of the military was almost obsessive. Despite her need to produce pro-war propaganda which extolled the Navy's virtues as the Republics protectors, her personal hatred for it was the next best thing to pathological. She loathed and despised it as a decadent, degenerate institution whose traditions still tied it to the old regime and probably inspired it to plot the Committees overthrow in order to restore the Legislaturalists. Even worse, its persistent failures to throw the enemy back and save the Republic, which was probably at least partly due to its disloyalty, only reinforced her contempt with fear that it would fail to save her, and it was starting to get out of hand. In fact, her increasingly irrational antimilitary biases were a main reason for Pierre’s decision that he needed someone from the military as a counterbalance.

He often thought it was odd that so much of her hatred should be fixed on the military, for unlike him, Ransom had come up through the action arm of the Citizens' Rights Union. She'd spent the better part of forty T- years fighting not the military, which had virtually never intervened in domestic security matters, but the minions of Internal Security, and Pierre would have expected her passionate hate to be focused there. But it wasn't. She worked well with Oscar Saint-Just, one-time second-in-command of InSec, and she never seemed to hold past connections to InSec against any of State Security's current personnel. Perhaps, he thought, that was because she and InSec had played the same game by the same rules. They'd been enemies, but enemies who understood one another, and Ransom the not-so-ex-terrorist had absolutely no understanding of or sympathy for the traditions and values of the military community.

But whatever the source of her attitudes, neither Pierre nor Saint-Just shared their virulent intensity. Enemies of the Committee, yes; they had positive proof those were out there. But unlike Ransom, they could draw a clear distinction between the Committee and the PRH itself, just as they could accept that military failures were not incontrovertible proof of treasonous intentions. She couldn't. Perhaps that was because they were more pragmatic than she, or perhaps it was because each of them, in his own way, was actually trying to build something while Cordelia was still committed to tearing things down. Personally, Pierre suspected it was because her egoism and paranoia were reinforcing one another. In her own mind the People, the Committee of Public Safety, and Cordelia Ransom had become one and the same thing. He who opposed, or failed, any part of her personal Trinity was the enemy of them all, so simple self-defense required her to be eternally vigilant to ferret out and crush the People’s enemies before they got her.

'And even if your cover holds up perfectly,' she went on forcefully, 'how can you even consider trusting anyone from the officer corps? You said it yourself: we've killed too many of them and made too many others, and their families, disappear. They'll never forgive us for that!'

'I think you underestimate the power of self-interest,' Pierre replied for StateSec's commander. 'Whoever we offer a slice of the pie to will have his own reasons to keep us in the saddle. For one thing, everyone will know he had to make some major accommodations with us to get the slot, and any power he has will depend on our patronage. And if we ease up on the officers...'

'They'll think he's the one to thank for it and have even more reason to be loyal to him rather than to us!' Ransom half snapped.

'Maybe,' Pierre conceded. 'But maybe not, too. Especially if we see to it that we put his advice into practice and do it very openly.' Ransom started to open her mouth again, but his raised hand stopped her, for the moment. 'I'm not suggesting that whoever we pick won't get at least some of the credit. For that matter, he'll probably get almost all of it, initially. But if we're going to win this war, we have to enlist our military as something more than slave labor. We've tried 'collective responsibility' with some success, after all,' he smiled thinly, 'knowing your family will suffer for your failures gives you a powerful incentive. But it's also counterproductive, and it produces obedience, not allegiance. By threatening their families, we become as much the enemy as the Manties. Probably even more than the Manties, for a lot of them. The Manties may be trying to kill them, but the Alliance isn't threatening to kill their wives or husbands or children.

'Frankly, it would be irrational for the officer corps to trust us under the present circumstances, and I think our past failures demonstrate that we have to 'rehabilitate' ourselves in their eyes if we expect them to become an effective, motivated, fighting force. We were incredibly lucky that the Navy didn't just stand by and watch the Levelers roll over us. In fact, I remind you that only one ship of the wall, just one, and not even a unit of the Capital Fleet, at that, had the initiative and nerve to intervene. If Rousseau had stayed out of it, you and Oscar and I would all be dead now, and we can't count on that sort of support again without demonstrating that we at least know we owe the people who saved our hides a debt. And the only way I can see to do that is to give them a voice at the highest level, make sure the rank and file know we've done it, and actually pay that voice some attention... publicly, at least.'

'Publicly?' Ransom repeated with a cocked eyebrow and an arrested expression, and Pierre nodded.

'Publicly. Oscar and I have already discussed the sort of insurance policy we'll need if our tame war dog