“And we have duties to our corporations,” he managed. His throat felt dry. They’d crossed a line. He’d have to do . . . do what? Push for immediate impeachment? Or something more drastic? They were entering uncharted waters. “Your Majesty . . . the corporations are the geese that lay the golden eggs. If you kill them, if you even weaken them, there will be no more golden eggs.”
“And what happens,” the king asked reasonably, “if the Commonwealth dies?”
“We have to save what we can,” Peter countered. “Your Majesty . . . only a third of the member worlds are net gains to our economy. And even they are quite limited. The war cost us all.”
“And the chaos in the Theocratic Sector?” The king tapped the table. “What happens when that spills back into our sector?”
“We will deal with it when it happens,” Peter said. “But, right now, it is very much a minor problem.”
“We shall see,” the king said. He stood, indicating that the interview was over. “Thank you for coming, Your Grace. It is good to know where we stand.”
“Indeed,” Peter said. That was another threat. He’d bet his life on it. He wondered, suddenly, if he’d even be allowed to leave the palace. If the king was prepared to push matters . . . he might take the risk. But it would be absolutely insane. “I ask you, seriously, to rewrite the bill.”
“I cannot,” the king said. “We made commitments.”
“You made the commitments,” Peter said, tiredly. “Your father, Your Majesty, made sure to get Parliament to back the commitments. You did not. You stood up and made a whole series of promises you should have known you couldn’t keep. And now you’re looking to us to pull your chestnuts out of the fire. And we can’t do it.”
He bowed, then turned and walked out of the room. The equerry met him, her pretty face completely expressionless, and led him back to the aircar. Peter could hear the noise from the protest as he stepped onto the landing pad, despite the forcefield around the palace. They were shouting about unfair competition and demanding an immediate end to foreign work permits. Definitely the newly unemployed, then. It was going to get a lot worse before it got better.
The driver glanced back at Peter as he climbed into the car. “Where to, sir?”
“The mansion,” Peter said absently. There was no point in going back to the Houses of Parliament. “I have work to do.”
He keyed his terminal as the car rose into the air and headed over the city. “Yasmeena, clear my appointments for the rest of the day,” he ordered. “Call Masterly and Masterly to my office; tell them I want them to look at a set of financial and economic projections. And then inform Israel Harrison that I need to talk with him as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” Yasmeena said. She sounded reassuringly confident, as always. “Which projections are those?”
“The king will be sending them to us,” Peter said. He hoped the king would send them. It wasn’t as if he had anything to gain by keeping them a secret. Peter could understand why someone would cover up unfavorable facts, but why classify something that gave you an edge? Who knew? The projections might be so favorable that opposition to the budget would just melt away. “Assuming he does, I want them assessed as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
Peter closed the connection, then forced himself to think. He’d underestimated the king; no, he’d underestimated his determination to push the budget forward despite a near-united opposition. Peter could see his logic, he could understand his reasoning . . . but the cold hard truth was that the kingdom simply couldn’t afford the king’s proposal. They couldn’t fund the projects, they couldn’t borrow money . . . no, it couldn’t be done. And the king was stubbornly ignoring economic reality in favor of . . . of what?
He thinks he has a duty, Peter thought. The Commonwealth was worth preserving, if it could be preserved. But could it be preserved? The cost of building up and maintaining the prewar system had been bad enough. Now they were a great deal worse. And yet, we have duties too.
He stared out over the city. It looked peaceful, now that the protesters were behind him. But he couldn’t help wondering how much trouble was simmering down below . . .
. . . and just how long it would be before the trouble exploded into the open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
AHURA MAZDA
“No change, Admiral,” Lieutenant Kitty Patterson said. “Deep Space Shipping is refusing to hire out its freighters unless they’re guaranteed a heavy escort, guaranteed reimbursement for any expenses, and guaranteed profits.”
“Which they’re not going to get, because they’re moving refugees,” Kat said. She had yet to find a planet willing to pay for the privilege of taking refugees. “Can we not offer them time-and-a-half?”
“They found that unacceptable,” Kitty told her regretfully. “And we can’t go much higher without exceeding our discretionary funds.”
This wasn’t a problem during the war, Kat thought grimly. But now, everyone is counting the pennies.
She rubbed her forehead. She’d hoped that matters would improve during the voyage from Asher Dales to Ahura Mazda, but, if anything, they’d only gotten worse. The local population was panicking and demanding protection, protection she was in no position to provide, while independent shippers and interstellar corporations were steadily pulling out of the sector. Her staff hadn’t been able to round up enough transports, even independent tramp freighters, to even begin to make a dent in Dorland’s population. And the constant threats of having half of her fleet withdrawn back to Tyre were making it impossible to draw up any long-term plans.
“Send a message to Tyre requesting permission to exceed our funds,” she ordered. There had been a time, hadn’t there, when she’d just needed to sign some paperwork to release the money. But now . . . how was she expected to get anything done? “Are we still due to receive a replenishment convoy?”
“Yes, Admiral,” Kitty said. “They . . . ah,
