A Rising Thunder

hadn’t meant to launch it! Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t believe he did that, now did he? Not only that, but thirteen-second lag or not, the rest of his damned fleet was firing full broadsides at you on its heels! I understand that realizing you gave the order to kill that many people has to make you sick to your stomach. It makes me want to puke, and I didn’t have to give it. But the only ones responsible for what happened to Filareta and the people under his command are whoever arranged to get him sent here and — assuming there’s any basis to all this speculation in the first place — whoever got to his tac officer. Not you; not me—them!”

She looked around the conference room and saw the agreement in every other face. More than that, she tasted the agreement, and her brain knew they were right. Maybe someday she’d be able to accept that as easily as they did. But even if that day came, she would never be free of the soul-deep regret, she felt at this moment.

Silence lingered for several moments, then Pritchart cleared her throat.

“How do you think the League is going to react to all this?” she asked the group at large.

“Poorly?” Tourville suggested with a sour smile.

“Oh, I think you can take that for granted,” White Haven agreed. “And I don’t think it’s going to be a very good idea for us to suggest Mesa somehow manipulated Filareta into firing.” He rolled his eyes. “Even if anyone in Old Chicago was willing to entertain any evidence which might support our ‘ridiculous conspiracy theory paranoia’ in the first place, we don’t have any evidence. We’d play straight into Abruzzi’s hands if we handed him that kind of propaganda hook.”

“And there are plenty of Sollies ready to go along with him,” Elizabeth agreed sourly, then gave herself a shake and drew a deep breath. “Not that I suppose I can blame them, really, given the official party line, Solly newsies’ well known impartial reporting, and how ridiculous the whole notion still seems to me sometimes!”

“The fact that we can’t blame them for it doesn’t keep their refusal to entertain the truth from being inconvenient as hell,” Pritchart observed even more sourly. “And the fact that Tsang is going to get to Old Terra with what happened in Beowulf well before anybody in Old Chicago finds out what happened out here isn’t going to help one bit. The Mandarins are going to have at least a few days to start drumming up anti-Beowulf sentiment before word of what happened to Filareta lands on them like a nuke, and just imagine what the ’faxes are going to be like then.”

“Not exactly something we didn’t anticipate,” Benton-Ramirez y Chou sighed. “Mind you, we’d all have been happier if Tsang had been bright enough to back down without Admiral Truman having to take a hand.”

“At least she was smart enough not to pull a Crandall or a Filareta,” Honor observed grimly.

“Or else Mesa didn’t have time to get to anyone on her staff,” Tourville muttered.

“They can’t get to everybody, Les,” Theisman said pointed out a bit tartly.

“And they can’t predict every situation,” Yanakov added, nodding his agreement with Theisman’s observation. “Tester knows they seem to do a better job of anticipating and manipulating than I’d like, but there have to be limits somewhere. And, frankly, the last thing we can afford is to actually succumb to — what was it you called it, Hamish? ‘Ridiculous conspiracy theory paranoia’?—and start seeing Alignment machinations behind everything that happens.”

“Either way, Honor has a point,” Benton-Ramirez y Chou observed. “Nobody got killed in Beowulf, and as the President says, they won’t have a clue what happened to Filareta until the first newsies get to the Sol System from Manticore. So they’re going to come out like attack dogs, without any idea of the next bit of news in the pipeline. I’m not sure how that’s going to play with League public opinion, but I’m pretty damned sure that when word of Filareta’s disaster reaches Old Chicago, things are going to go to hell in a handbasket. I wouldn’t be too surprised if some of the real lunatics don’t press for direct military action against Beowulf.”

“Some of them are going to see your actions as real treason, Mr. Director,” Yu pointed out. “They’re not going to worry about constitutional niceties, and they are going to be looking for someone to blame, especially when they find out what happened to Filareta. If there’s any justice in the galaxy, they’ll blame Kolokoltsov and Rajampet, but it’s been my observation that justice is conspicuous by its absence when it comes to politics and entrenched, self-serving regimes.”

“We have had just a little experience of our own with that, haven’t we?” Pritchart said wryly, but she was looking at Theisman, not Yu. “On the other hand, Tom, I remember something you said about Kolokoltsov and Frontier Security.”

“Something I said?” Theisman’s eyebrows arched.

“Yes. It was while we were discussing the implications of the Battle of Spindle and how the Sollies might react. I said something about how little impact Solarian public opinion ever has on the League’s decisions. Do you remember what you said to me?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“I think this is pretty nearly a direct quote, actually,” she told him. “As I recall, you said, ‘The citizens of the People’s Republic didn’t have any real political oversight over its bureaucracies, either. A situation which changed rather abruptly when the Manties’ Eighth Fleet came calling and Saint-Just got distracted dealing with that minor threat.’”

There was silence for a moment, then Benton-Ramirez y Chou nodded.

“That’s becoming a steadily more likely scenario,” he said grimly. “And that’s hard.” He shook his head, his expression sad. “I’ve known the League was rotten at the core for almost my entire life, but it was still the Solarian League. It was still the heir of all Mankind’s greatness, and for all its warts, it was still my star nation. And now this.” He shook his head again. “Now it looks like I ‘m going to be directly party to the actions which bring the whole tottering edifice crashing down. And I can’t be sure we’re not doing exactly what those Mesan bastards want us to be doing.”

“The last thing we can afford to do is allow ourselves to be paralyzed for fear we might be doing what they want, Uncle Jacques,” Honor said quietly, almost gently. “Judah’s right about that. And I know you. For that matter, I know Beowulfers. If it comes down to doing what you think is right or sacrificing your most basic principles to preserve a system as corrupt as the League’s proving it is, I know what you’re going to decide.”

“Always so black-and-white for you Manties,” her uncle teased her gently, and Elizabeth chuckled.

“And you decadent Beowulfers always trying to convince us that you see only shades of gray,” she riposted.

“Well, usually, that’s what it is.” Benton-Ramirez y Chou’s tone was suddenly much more serious. “But sometimes, it isn’t, and my long, tall niece here has a point.” He smiled a little sadly at Honor. “Comfortable or not, when those ‘sometimes’ come along, the only coinage history seems willing to accept is our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Tell me again how maneuvering Beowulf into a false position was supposed to help us, Innokentiy. I seem to be having a little trouble following the logic.”

Omosupe Quartermain’s voice was uncharacteristically harsh, and her blue eyes were hard as she glowered at Innokentiy Kolokoltsov across the table. The two of them sat in a high security conference room in an unusual private, face-to-face meeting with neither their colleagues nor a single aide present, and the permanent senior undersecretary of commerce was not a happy woman.

“I think it still is going to help us in the long run,” Kolokoltsov replied patiently. “I don’t say it worked as well as I hoped it would, because it sure as hell didn’t. And I don’t know if it’s going to help us enough, either, but please remember that I never said it was a good option in the first place. I only said it was the best one available to us.”