“You do follow up,” offered Commander Salucar, motioning to the small round table set almost beside the wide window. Four chairs circled the table.
“I do my best.” Van settled into a chair that did not offer a view of the garden below.
“Why, might I ask, did you take so long getting in touch?” asked Salucar. “Because—”
“You’re Keltyr?” Van laughed.
“Or a woman?”
“No. I can assure you that neither had anything at all to do with my slowness. I started with the Scandyans.”
“Is that all?”
“Almost,” Van admitted.
She frowned, then nodded slowly. “You worried about the potential Keltyr-Taran conflict?”
“I’m worried about all conflicts, but I can’t pretend that I understand Scandya, and I thought it best to start there.” He glanced at the dark-haired commander. “You’ve been here longer than I have. What do you think about yesterday’s demonstration?”
“The demonstrations are a way of allowing expression of deeply held and contrasting views without paralyzing the political system. Premier Gustofsen has to allow them, or he risks losing control of the assembly.”
“They seem rather violent…”
“They are. The Scandyans can be a violent people. They don’t have outlets for aggression in their social structure, and historically they engaged in some form or another of military action, often among themselves. Civil war would be a disaster, now, and they know it. They remember the civil war all too well and don’t wish to repeat that, either—”
“Civil war?” Van didn’t recall anything like that.
“They call it the war for independence, but it was probably more of a civil conflict than a true rebellion against outside control. Byrnedot was trying to work out a peaceful separation, and the Argentis were willing. The secessionists didn’t want a peaceful separation. They wanted to use the separation as an excuse to seize the assets of those with close ties to Silvium. The backlash was so great that the settled Argentis remaining on Scandya managed to create a power base through the Conservative Democrats. At first, they were the minority party, but in the last century, they’ve gained more and more power, because, frankly, they make more sense. The Liberal Commons have been looking for other allies.”
“The Revenant tie?” suggested Van.
“That’s the strongest, but I doubt that it’s the only one.” Salucar paused. “If I might ask…why are you here? Beyond the obvious that you were ordered here.”
“With Commander Cruachan’s death, they needed someone here quickly, and I was close to being ready for a transfer to other duty. I think they also wanted a military man without a diplomatic outlook here.” The truth—or partial truth—was better than an evasive answer, and Van had the feeling that Salucar would know instantly if he were lying.
She smiled. “You like to use the truth, don’t you?”
“I’ve never had much choice,” Van replied. “Most people can tell when I lie.”
“A man who knows his limits is the most dangerous of all.”
“That’s a Lederman-Maier quote,” Van noted.
“It’s a good one, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know.” Van chuckled. “I’ve known some very effective liars. That just isn’t one of my skills.”
“I’m sure you have others.” Salucar’s voice was dry. “What do you intend to do as attaché? Go to receptions? Write analyses? Or are you here to further the RSF expansion?”
“I’m already doing the first two. I’ve certainly not been instructed on the third, and, even if I were, I doubt that I’d be very good at it, not in diplomatic means. And I no longer have a cruiser at my command. So I don’t have a great deal of firepower.” Van smiled. “What about you? Are you here to foil anything that the Republic might attempt?”
“But…of course!” Salucar laughed heartily. “And I’ll do so with the ships I don’t have, the diplomatic access denied to Kelt women, especially by the Revenants, and with the feminine deviousness that I never inherited.”
“We seem to have similar problems,” mused Van. “How soon before the Revs and the Argentis come to blows over Scandya?”
“They have been for twenty years. The blows are mostly economic—except for the concealed confrontations on the fringes of border systems. They both want to control the politics and the economy while allowing Scandya to appear independent for the moment. The Argentis know they can’t take actual control, but the Revs aren’t under that constraint. They took over Samarra last year and Aluyson this year. Probably, by next year, they’ll take another, and be working on subverting three or four others, either by outright economic takeover, or by fomenting an internal civil war, or by supporting whatever local political party will weaken the system the most. It could even have been here, except the Scandyans seem to understand that for now. At least, they keep electing Gustofsen. In the interim, he’s trying hard to keep both the Keltyr and the Republic from slowly being squeezed out by the Argentis and the Revs, but we’re still being played off against each other.”
“Do you have a solution for that?” asked Van.
“No more than you do,” she replied.
“Then…why did you almost insist on this meeting?”
“Why not? You seemed bright. I don’t see any point in conflict between our governments. That will only cost us and strengthen the Coalition, the Revs, and the Argentis. Even if they conflict, there’s little point in our doing so personally.”
“You think that the RSF will listen to me?”
“No. But sooner or later, you’ll be able to act. You’re the kind that does. That’s why the RSF doesn’t know what to do with you. They figure that they might need you sometime, and so they keep moving you around so that you don’t do too much damage in the meantime.”
“You’re very flattering.” Van managed a heavy dose of irony.
“You prefer deviousness, you wonderful man?” Salucar opened her eyes wide, batting her eyelashes
