A Rising Thunder

the Royal Manticoran Navy and its allies only a single wormhole transit away. That was bad enough, but according to his agents within the Assembly, it appeared the system delegations of Strathmore, Kenichi, and Galen were strongly inclined to recommend that their own star systems follow Beowulf’s example! He didn’t know if any of them had actually made their recommendations yet, but their system governments certainly seemed angry enough to take the plunge once they did, especially if Beowulf succeeded in its defiance of the entire League, and the thought was terrifying. The average population of the four star systems was over six billion, and the decision of twenty-four billion Solarian citizens to withdraw would be a body blow to the federal government’s authority and prestige.

No, he thought, not to the federal government, but to the federal system. To us, sitting right here. And, damn it, sometimes I think they’d be right! But what other alternative is there? We can’t reform a system that’s been in place for the better part of a thousand T-years on the run. Especially not in the middle of a military and constitutional crisis! The entire League would come apart! Before we can fix the League’s problems — assuming anyone can fix them — we have to hold it together long enough to be fixed.

“Well, personally, I don’t think your silver lining’s especially bright,” MacArtney said sourly. “I’ve been hearing from a lot of people who aren’t any too happy about the invasion highway Beowulf offers if the Manties decide to come after us right here. For that matter, I’m not too crazy about it either!”

“The worst thing the Manties could possibly do — from their perspective, not ours — is to attack the Sol System.” Kolokoltsov barked a laugh. “In fact, I wish they would! It’s the one thing I can think of practically guaranteed to get all the Core Worlds lined up to back us!”

“You really think so?” Agata Wodoslawski sounded doubtful. “I mean, if they — and the Havenites, too; let’s not forget them — were to take out Old Terra, you don’t think that would terrify the rest of the League into throwing in the towel?”

“Only in the shortest possible term,” Kolokoltsov said positively. “Personally, I think it would convince most of the other Core Worlds that the Manties and their friends are just as expansionist and arrogant as we’ve been telling them they were all along. It would sure as hell knock any notion of distant, plucky little neobarbs defending themselves against Solarian aggression on the head and turn them into cynical imperialists striking at the very heart of the greatest star nation in human history! The most likely thing for the rest of the Core Worlds to do in that case would be to sue for a cease-fire just long enough to figure out how to build matching missiles of their own, then hammer this ‘Grand Alliance’ flat, and the Manties have to know it.”

He shook his head and looked straight at MacArtney even as he spoke to Wodoslawski.

“I don’t see the Manties wanting to pump that kind of hydrogen into the fire, Agata. Not unless we drive them to it. For that matter, I don’t see Beowulf wanting to piss off so many of its neighbors by allowing that sort of attack. Whatever happens to the League, eventually Beowulf’s going to have to live with the star systems around it again. If the Beowulfers stick that kind of knife into the League’s back, most of those star systems are going to be gunning for them once the smoke clears and the tech imbalance has leveled out again.”

“Assuming the damned Beowulfers are smart enough to figure that out,” MacArtney grumbled.

“I think they are,” Kolokoltsov said with just a bit more confidence than he actually felt.

“Maybe so,” Wodoslawski said, “but there are other factors to consider. Like what’s going to happen if someone else decides to follow Beowulf’s example on this one. It could turn out Beowulf’s only the first drop of rain, and if that happens, we may find out just how badly screwed we really are.”

Kolokoltsov grimaced and decided — again — not to mention his agents’ reports about Beowulf’s neighbors. There’d be time for that once he’d been able to confirm the accuracy of those reports. But the permanent senior undersecretary of the treasury had a point, and he nodded as he was forced to concede it.

“That’s one of the things I’m hearing about from the transstellars, too,” MacArtney said. “They’re all worried that even if the Manties don’t use Beowulf to go after the League from the inside out, Beowulf’s example is going to cause other Core Worlds to decide to sit this one out. That’d be bad enough, but what happens when the Shell hears about this?” He shook his head. “You know that even a lot of the League members systems out there aren’t all that fond of our policies. I won’t say they feel as exploited as the Protectorates and the Verge, but they know we’ve consistently favored the Core World economies over their own. And a lot of them are a hell of a lot closer to Manticore and Haven than they are to us, even leaving the wormhole network out of the equation. If they see us starting to shed Core Systems, what’s to keep them from deciding to jump ship and look for a better deal out of the Manties, too?”

What you mean, Nathan, Kolokoltsov thought, is that your buddies in the transstellars are worried about somebody’s seceding from the League and nationalizing their investments. That’s what they’re really worried about. And it’s what they’re turning the screws on you about, too. They could care less whether or not the entire Shell stays in the League as long as it went on being business as usual for them! Which it won’t, of course, if the people they’ve been exploiting for so long see a chance to get out from under them.

He nodded gravely once more, keeping his thoughts out of his expression. And the truth was that what MacArtney was describing would become an all too plausible scenario if things went all the way south on them. For that matter, Kolokoltsov had entertained the occasional nightmare about what would happen if the transstellars started trying to cut deals with the Manties. Given the way their tentacles completely permeated the League, they could do an enormous amount of damage if they decided to throw in openly — or, possibly even worse, clandestinely — with the Manties and Havenites. He had no idea how likely the Manties would be to accept an offer like that, but he never doubted that the “loyal and patriotic” men and women who ran the transstellars would make it in a heartbeat if they thought it would benefit them. Which meant he had to keep them happy — or as happy as he could, at least — too.

Wonderful.

“I think Nathan has a point,” Omosupe Quartermain said. She didn’t much like MacArtney, and she didn’t sound very happy about supporting him, but the permanent senior undersecretary of commerce was probably the only person hearing more from nervous transstellars than he was. “I just have this feeling the avalanche is still accelerating,” she continued, looking around at the holographic faces of the electronic conference room. “It’s only going to get worse and worse, at least for the immediate future, and if we don’t do something to at least slow it down, we may run out of time to do anything else.”

Wodoslawski looked at her colleague, and Kolokoltsov’s heart sank as the permanent senior undersecretary of the treasury nodded slowly. The nature of Wodoslawski and Quartermain’s responsibilities meant the two female Mandarins ended up supporting one another more often than not, and Kolokoltsov didn’t like the way he thought this was headed.

“What would you like us to do to try and slow it up, Omosupe?” Malachai Abruzzi asked.

“I don’t know,” Quartermain admitted. She raised her right hand, waving it in an uncharacteristically helpless, worried gesture. “I just know that if we let Beowulf do this, if we just stand back and wave goodbye, we’re establishing a precedent. The exact kind of precedent Nathan’s worrying about where the Shell systems are concerned. Right this minute, the jury’s still out on whether or not Beowulf really does have the constitutional right to leave. But if we let them go, aren’t we saying for all the galaxy to see that they do? And if they do, then every member system does!”

“Maybe, but the simple truth of the matter is that we can’t stop them,” Abruzzi pointed out with unwonted gentleness. “They’ve got to have a hundred or so Manty SDs sitting on top of the Beowulf Terminus right this minute. After what happened to Filareta, we all know what would happen if we got into shooting range of them, too.” He shrugged. “That constitutes a pretty conclusive rejoinder as to whether or not we have the ‘right’ to stop them, I’m afraid.”

“But the fact that we can’t stop them doesn’t mean we have to condone their actions,” MacArtney said, his expression mulish.

“Meaning what?” Kolokoltsov asked.

“Meaning we don’t have to admit their actions are legal.” MacArtney tapped an index finger on his desk for emphasis. “We can condemn them, announce that they’re illegal, and that we intend to take firm action at the earliest possible moment.”