The Shadow of Saganami

to Manticore for them to waste time trying to bluff us? About the only thing I can say for you, Andrieaux Yvernau, is that you're not a whole lot stupider than my own political lords and masters.

'If that's the case, what do we do about it?' she asked, rounding her eyes and giving him her best 'troubled-but-trusting' expression.

'We treat it as a bluff,' he said decisively.

'I beg your pardon? Didn't you just say it was more than that?'

'Of course. But if we stand fast, tell them we're prepared to reject their demands even at the risk of their abandoning the entire process, we'll be able to use Medusa's own policy against Alquezar and his so-called 'moderate' cronies. They're already terrified we're going to pull the house down around their ears. I say we convince them that's exactly what we'll do unless they meet us at least half way. And once they're convinced of that, we offer them the compromise platform I've been working on all along. They'll be so scared, so desperate to do anything to save the annexation, that they'll accept the compromise rather than call our bluff and risk losing everything.'

'And if they do decide to 'call our bluff' and count on the portion of the Alexander statement that says Manticore will pick and choose which of the Cluster's systems it will annex and which it will exclude?'

'There are two possibilities, assuming-which I, for one, don't-that these frightened little minds have the fortitude to go eyeball-to-eyeball with us. One is that Manticore's genuinely willing to exclude and abandon our star systems, despite the diplomatic fallout of such an action. The second is that our governments back home will disavow our positions and cave in, making the best deals they can with Alquezar after removing us from our delegations.

'Personally, I don't think the Manticorans have the balls to go through with the exclusion. And, even if they do, I don't see them allowing Frontier Security to snap us up. The Manties couldn't afford to see their new systems here in the Cluster invaded by cysts of the League. So whether it's what they want to do or not, they'll have to include us under the same security umbrella as their possessions here. That's why I'll recommend to my government that even if everyone else signs up like good little peasants, we refuse.'

'And if they don't?'

'If they don't, then they disavow my actions,' Yvernau said unflinchingly.

Lababibi rather doubted he could really visualize a situation in which his government might actually do that. His personality was too fundamentally arrogant for him to believe on any emotional level that even the universe itself could ultimately fail to do his bidding. And there was probably an element of desperation in his disbelief, as well. His final refuge was to deny the reality of the threat bearing down upon him. Yet whether or not he could fully accept the possibility of his political demise, he was at least intellectually aware of the possibility. And so, in his own way, he was showing considerable political courage. Of a nasty, contemptuous sort, perhaps, but still courage.

Which was quite possibly the single virtue he possessed.

'Have you discussed this with the other CLP delegates?'

'With the majority of them.'

'And they said-?'

'I got a generally positive response.'

Meaning at least a quarter of them told you to take a hike , she thought. The problem was, her fellow Spindalian oligarchs were unlikely to agree with that sane quarter. They'd undoubtedly be willing to take Yvernau's second option when his bluff failed, but Lababibi felt no particular desire to obey their instructions to refuse to surrender only to have them disavow her when it didn't work.

My God. He may actually be able to produce the votes he needs to try this insanity simply because people are too frightened to face their home political establishments without trying it!

'So when do you plan on laying this... strategy before the Convention?'

'Tomorrow or the next day. I still have one or two people I need to talk to, first.'

'I see.'

'And do you think the Spindle System will stand with us?'

'I'll certainly discuss it with my Cabinet and the legislature's leadership this afternoon,' she assured him. 'Frankly, at this point, I wouldn't venture to predict what they're likely to say. All I can tell you at the moment is that so far they've been very firm about supporting the CLP position ever since Nordbrandt started killing people.'

'Then I'll take that as a good sign,' Yvernau told her. 'And now, if you'll forgive me, I have to go. I have an appointment with the Rembrandt delegation.' He smiled thinly. 'I don't think Van Dort's control is quite as firm as he believes. And since he's off running errands for Medusa like a good little brown-noser, he's not exactly around to keep them in line anyway, is he?'

* * *

'So what do we do about Yvernau's latest brainstorm?' Henri Krietzmann asked.

'Nothing,' Joachim Alquezar replied with a nonchalance which had to be at least partly assumed, Krietzmann thought.

'He might actually get those stupid dinosaurs to stand up in front of the glacier with him, you know,' the Dresdener pointed out.

'In which case they'll be found a thousand years later with buttercups frozen in their stomachs,' Alquezar said scornfully. 'That's the best they'll be able to hope for-to stay frozen exactly where they are while the rest of us sign up with Star Kingdom and leave them in our dust. But that's not what's going to happen.'

'No?'

'No. I give it ten T-years, twenty-five at the outside, before they get themselves tossed out of office by a new crop of political leaders who'll come begging, hats in hand, to be allowed to join the Star Kingdom on our terms. I don't think any other result's possible, in the long term. Not when they see what membership in the Star Kingdom's going to do for our economies and our citizens.'

'I think you may be being overly optimistic,' Krietzmann said, his eyes troubled. He raised his left hand, the one with the missing fingers, in an exasperated sort of wave. 'Unless we're willing to embargo their economies, they'll still share in any general economic improvement in the Cluster. Not to the same extent, maybe, but I'm afraid they may see enough domestic improvement to keep a lid on things a lot longer than you're predicting.'

'Perhaps they will,' Alquezar conceded. 'And if they do, I'll be very sorry for the rest of their population. But all we can do is the best we can. And, to be brutally frank, Henri, our fundamental responsibility's to our own star systems. We can't justify endangering our own people's future out of concern for the consequences of the actions of a handful of self-interested, self-absorbed, self-serving political parasites in other systems.'

* * *

It was a beautiful late morning. She looked up at a blue sky, swept by orderly lines of blindingly white clouds and polished by a brisk easterly wind, and felt the sheer, vibrant energy of the day. It danced on her skin like some sort of elemental life force, and she leaned back in the chaise lounge on the townhouse roof, closed her eyes, and tilted her face up to the sun.

With her eyes closed, she could forget-temporarily, at least-the political crisis. Just as she could forget the extra guards, armed now with the latest in off-world weapons, either directly from Manticoran stores or from weapons captured from the FAK base camp, who stood watchfully at the corners of the rooftop terrace.

Nordbrandt was still out there, she thought. Rajkovic and his vulture allies were circling, ready to try their luck at a judicial coup d' tat , and the terrorists' 'great leader' was still uncaught, unpunished. She was undoubtedly planning yet another attack, but could Kornati's so-called political leadership be bothered to do anything about it? Not until they'd finished the gladiatorial circus of the impeachment attempt.

A part of Aleksandra Tonkovic's brain was aware she was being unfair-where finishing off the FAK was concerned, at least. Rajkovic and his cronies knew Nordbrandt was still alive, still active. That was the reason the detachment of Manty Marines was still camped at the spaceport, providing surveillance and security. It was going to take more than simple planning and good luck for Nordbrandt to get through that security umbrella, and Tonkovic