The Shadow of Saganami

Board of Directors and Isabel was only a cadet, nonvoting member of Jessyk's Board, the younger woman had a much better grasp of the realities of interstellar shipping. And, Anisimovna admitted, of how those realities impacted on the problems-and opportunities-both Manpower and Jessyk confronted.

'So he and his father actually believe they can get the Manties involved in a shooting war with the League.' She shook her head. 'That seems a bit ambitious, even in our circles.'

'But you can see the beauty of the thing from their perspective,' Ottweiler pointed out. There were no human servants present and the private hotel suite was protected by the best Solarian security hardware, so he saw no reason to pretend he wasn't speaking to two of the more powerful representatives of his actual employers.

'Think about it in their terms,' he continued. 'No matter how good the Manties are, they couldn't possibly stand off the entire League Navy. So any shooting war would have to end up with the Manties badly defeated- probably quickly. With any luck, it would mean the outright destruction of their entire 'Star Kingdom,' as well. In either case, the peace settlement would certainly include major concessions from them where the possession and use of the Junction is concerned.'

'Personally,' Bardasano said, a raw piece of some local fish poised in her chopsticks, 'I'm betting Old Man Heinrich is thinking in terms of outright destruction. His son certainly is. Didn't you see him almost salivating over the possibility of a direct military confrontation between Verrochio's units and the Manties? He might as well have had a holo sign painted on his forehead! The possibility that it might slip over into outright war-or that his people could encourage it to 'slip over'-obviously gave his pleasure centers a good, hard jolt.'

'I suppose both he and his father figure OFS would be put in charge of administering Manticore after a crushing military defeat,' Anisimovna said.

'Exactly,' Bardasano agreed. 'And they figure their tame bureaucrats, like Verrochio-or Hongbo, I should say, since we all know who really pulls the strings-would be free to divvy up control of the Junction any way they wanted. And with enough money going into the right pockets...'

She shrugged, then smiled and tapped the elaborate stud in her left nostril with a fingertip before she popped the fish into her mouth.

'I wouldn't exactly be heartbroken if the Manties suffered a mischief.' Anisimovna's tone's mildness fooled no one. 'God knows they've been a big enough pain in the ass for as long as I can remember, even leaving aside our recent little misfortunes in Tiberian and Congo. But it's not as if the damned Peeps aren't just as a big a pain.'

'For that matter, it was even more Haven than the Manties who engineered the Congo fuck-up,' Bardasano said sourly, her smile of a moment before disappearing. The loss of the Congo Wormhole Junction before it could even be adequately surveyed had been almost as upsetting to the Jessyk Combine as the loss of Verdant Vista's slave-breeding facilities and pharmaceutical industry had been to Manpower.

'Agreed,' Anisimovna said. 'Which,' she continued, fixing Ottweiler with her sharp gray eyes, 'is why any solution to our present problems in Talbott which leaves Haven intact is second-best, in our view. We want both Manticore and Haven out of our lives for good. And we don't want any solution that takes out one of them but leaves the other. At least at the moment they're both too busy shooting at each other for either of them to turn their undivided attention to us .'

'Of course,' Ottweiler acknowledged. 'At the same time, though, I'm sure all of us feel just a little anxious at the possibility that Manticore's maintaining a naval presence in Talbott. The Cluster is only a couple of light-centuries from Mesa-almost five hundred light-years closer than the Manticore home system.'

'I doubt any of us are unaware of that, Valery,' Anisimovna agreed dryly. 'No one's arguing that we don't need to chop the Manticorans back down to size and get them the hell out of Talbott. I'm just not prepared to back any plan to provoke a full-scale war between Manticore and the League. Not at this point, at any rate.'

'Still,' Bardasano said thoughtfully, 'Volkhart had a point, even if he didn't come right out and say it. If we succeed in pushing the Manties hard enough by supporting indigenous resistance movements, we could start a process which would slide out of control. Especially if someone like him was busy deliberately trying to provoke an incident serious enough to produce the general war he wants.'

'Only if we let Verrochio and Yucel confront the Manties directly,' Anisimovna said, and smiled unpleasantly. 'I think it's time we suggested to our dear friend Junyan that it might be appropriate to have a word with Roberto Tyler.'

'Junyan? Not Verrochio?' Ottweiler's tone was that of a man making certain he understood his directions, not of a man who questioned them.

'Junyan,' Anisimovna confirmed, and Ottweiler nodded. Vice-commissioner Hongbo was far more deft at the sort of hands-on maneuvering any conversation with Tyler would entail.

'Understood.' Ottweiler sipped at his own drink for a moment, his eyes unfocused as he contemplated possibilities. Then his gaze returned to the here and now and shifted to Anisimovna's face.

'I think I see where all of this is going,' he said. 'But even assuming Tyler's willing to play ball and Hongbo's prepared to give him-or, rather, get Verrochio to give him-the guarantees he'd want, the Monicans don't begin to have the firepower to confront Manticore.'

'That's one reason why I have a private meeting with Izrok Levakonic scheduled for tomorrow,' Anisimovna told him. 'I think I can probably convince TIY to provide a small force augmentation for our friend Tyler.'

'Even after what happened at Tiberian?' This time there was a trace of surprise, possibly even skepticism, in Ottweiler's voice.

'Trust me,' Bardasano said before Anisimovna could respond. 'Technodyne's Directors would sell their own mothers to Aldona for a crack at direct access to frontline Manty military hardware. In a lot of ways, I imagine Izrok would really be happier throwing in with Volkhart. They could steal a lot more tech if they actually took over the Manticore System's shipyards, after all. But I don't think they're very likely to get into a pissing contest with us. And they're too deep into the 'legitimate business community' of the League to act openly on their own.' She shook her head. 'No, they need someone to front for them. An 'outlaw' bunch like us... or like Tyler. So if we ask them, and especially if we're prepared to ante up the cash, they'll come through for the Monicans.'

Chapter Six

'Bogey Three is altering course, Captain! She's coming around... another twelve degrees to port and climbing above us. Acceleration is increasing, too. Call it five-point-niner-eight KPS squared.'

'Acknowledged.' Helen Zilwicki gazed down at the repeater plot deployed from the pedestal of the captain's command chair at the center of Hexapuma's auxiliary bridge. The display was smaller than the master plot at Tactical, but she could manipulate it as she chose, without disturbing the main plot. Now she tapped a command sequence into the keypad on the arm of her chair, and the repeater obediently recentered its display on the icon of Bogey Three.

The Havenite destroyer was indeed sweeping farther out to port, and another keypadded command projected her new vector. She was obviously trying to skirt Hexapuma's missile envelope in order to get at the convoy beyond while her consorts maneuvered together to hold the Manticoran ship's attention. And she was accelerating at over six hundred gravities. Even with the newest generation of Havenite inertial compensators, that meant she was pulling over ninety percent of theoretical max. Assuming her maintenance people knew their jobs, she could risk cutting her safety margin that way, but it was a fair indication of how much importance the Peep force's commander attached to hitting the convoy.

'Status of Bogey One?' she demanded crisply.

'Maintaining profile at two-niner-six KPS squared, Captain,' Paulo d'Arezzo replied from Tactical, his Sphinx accent equally crisp. 'Her wedge is still fluctuating,' he added.

'Acknowledged,' Helen said again. She still didn't much care for d'Arezzo, and the fact that his voice was exactly the sort of musical bass that went with his Preston of the Spaceways face didn't help. But she had to admit Aikawa's friend had been right about the fair-haired midshipman's competence. She would have been happier to