The Shadow of Saganami

'Of course you don't,' Alquezar agreed. 'But let me be the one to lock horns with her openly. You need to remain above the fray. Practice polishing your disinterested statesman's halo and leave the down and dirty work to me.' He grinned nastily. 'Trust me, I'll be the one having all the fun.'

'I'll avoid having myself tattooed into your lodge, Joachim,' Krietzmann said. 'But I'm not going to pretend I like Tonkovic.'

'Actually, you know, Aleksandra isn't all that bad,' Van Dort said mildly. The other two looked at him with varying degrees of incredulity, and he shrugged. 'I don't say I like her-because I don't-but I worked quite closely with her during the annexation vote campaign, and at least she's less slimy than Yvernau and his friends on New Tuscany. The woman's at least as ambitious as any politician I've ever known, and she and her political allies are as self-centered and greedy as anyone I've ever met, but she worked very effectively to support the plebiscite. She wants a degree of local autonomy she's never going to get, but I don't believe she has any intention of risking the chance that the annexation might actually fail.'

'Whatever her intentions, she's fiddling while the house burns down,' Krietzmann said bluntly.

'Not to mention encouraging the kind of resistance movements we're all worried about,' Alquezar added.

Van Dort considered pointing out that Alquezar's own CUP's agenda probably did some encouraging-or at least provoking-of its own, but decided against it. There was no real point. Besides, Joachim understood that perfectly well, whether he chose to say so or not.

'Well, that's really neither here nor there right this moment,' he said instead. 'The real question is how we respond to the emergence of organized 'resistance movements.''

'The best solution would be to drive the Convention through to a conclusion before they have the opportunity to really get their feet under them,' Krietzmann said, and both his guests nodded in agreement. 'That's why I'm so pissed off at Tonkovic,' the Convention President continued. 'She knows perfectly well that she's not going to get anywhere close to everything she's asking for, but she's perfectly content to string out the negotiating process as long as possible. The longer she can tie us up, the more concessions she can expect to extort out of us as her price for finally bringing a draft Constitution to a vote.'

'She'd probably say the same about me,' Alquezar pointed out.

'She has said it,' Krietzmann snorted. 'But the real difference between the two of you, Joachim, is that she sees the indefinite delay of a finalized Constitution as a completely legitimate tactic. She's so focused on securing her own platform to protect her own position in Split that she's ignoring the very real possibility that she could delay the Convention long enough for the entire effort to come unglued.'

'She doesn't believe that will ever happen,' Van Dort said. 'She doesn't believe Manticore would permit it to.'

'Then she needs to listen to what Baroness Medusa is saying,' Krietzmann said grimly. 'She's made herself plain enough to anyone who will listen. Queen Elizabeth and Prime Minister Alexander aren't about to force anyone to accept Manticoran sovereignty. Not here in the Cluster, at any rate. We're too close to the League for them to risk incidents with OFS or the SLN unless the local citizenry's support for the Star Kingdom is solid . And they don't really need any of us just to hang onto the Lynx Terminus. In fact, we actually complicate the equation, in a lot of ways. To put it bluntly, we're much too secondary to the Star Kingdom's survival needs at the moment for them to start pouring starships and Marines down a rat hole to suppress resistance to an involuntary conquest.'

'Surely neither the Queen nor the Governor sees this as some sort of conquest!' Van Dort protested.

'No... not yet,' Krietzmann agreed. 'But until we decide the constitutional basis for our formal annexation and send it to Parliament for ratification, there's really nothing Alexander or even the Queen can do. And the longer we spend arguing about it, and the wider we allow our own internal divisions to become, the longer the delay in getting the damned thing drafted in the first place. And if the delay stretches out long enough, or if enough brainless wonders embrace the 'armed struggle' people like that lunatic Nordbrandt are calling for, then what looked like the smooth assimilation of eager new citizens starts to look like the forcible conquest of desperately resisting patriots. Which, I hardly need point out to you two, is exactly how OFS is already trying to spin this for the Solly media.'

'Damn.' Even that mild obscenity was unusual for Van Dort, and he shook his head. 'Have you discussed this with Aleksandra?'

'I've tried to.' Krietzmann shrugged. 'She didn't seem impressed by my logic. Of course, I have to admit I'm a politician from a pretty bare-knuckled school, not a polished, cultured diplomat, and she and I have never liked each other a lot, anyway.'

'What about you, Joachim?' Van Dort looked at his friend, and it was Alquezar's turn to shrug.

'If it's escaped your notice, Bernardus, Tonkovic and I aren't on speaking terms at the moment. If I say the sky is blue, she's going to insist it's chartreuse. And,' he admitted grudgingly, after a moment, ' vice versa , I suppose. It's called polarization.'

Van Dort frowned down into his wineglass. He'd tried to stand as far in the background as he could once the Convention actually convened. There'd been no way he could do that during the annexation vote campaign, but he was well aware that his very visibility had helped to produce what resistance to the vote there'd been. The Rembrandt Trade Union consisted of the systems of Rembrandt, San Miguel, Redoubt, and Prairie, and the RTU had made plenty of enemies in the Cluster. In Van Dort's opinion, much of that enmity had resulted from envy, but he was honest enough to recognize that many of the Cluster's other worlds had more than a little justification for feeling that the RTU had used its economic clout to extort unfair concessions.

Quite a lot of justification, actually, he thought. And I suppose that's my fault, too.

However necessary it might have been to expand the Trade Union's reach and wealth, the legacy of distrust and hostility its tactics had aroused still lingered. People like Stephen Westman, on Montana, had made opposition to the 'continued economic exploitation' of their worlds by Rembrandt and its Trade Union partners a keystone of their opposition to the annexation vote. Of course, Westman had his own, very personal reasons for hating anything Van Dort was associated with, but there was no doubt that a very large number of his fellow Montanans-and of the citizens of other planets in the Cluster-resented the RTU enormously, whatever they thought of the annexation itself. Which was why Van Dort had very deliberately stepped back from public participation in the Convention's actual deliberations here in Spindle. But now...

He sighed. 'I suppose I'd better talk to her.' Krietzmann and Alquezar both looked at him with 'Well, at last !' expressions, and he grimaced. 'I've still got a few markers with her,' he conceded, 'and so far, at least, we haven't developed the sort of antagonism you and she have, Joachim. But don't expect any miracles. Once she's got an idea or strategy into her head, knocking it back out again is all but impossible.'

'Tell me about it!' Alquezar snorted. 'But you've still got a better shot at it than I do.'

'I suppose,' Van Dort said glumly. 'I suppose.'

Chapter Eleven

'Welcome to Talbott Station, Captain Terekhov. Commander FitzGerald.'

'Thank you, Admiral,' Terekhov replied for them both as he shook the rear admiral's offered hand.

Rear Admiral of the Green Augustus Khumalo was three centimeters shorter than Terekhov, with a very dark complexion, dark eyes, and thinning dark hair. He was broad shouldered, with big, strong hands and a powerful chest, although he was becoming a bit on the portly side these days. He was also distantly related to the Queen, and there was something of the Winton look around his nose and chin.

'I sometimes think the Admiralty's forgotten where they put us,' Khumalo went on, smiling broadly. 'That's one reason I'm so glad to see you. Every time they slip up and send us a modern ship, it's a sign they remember.'

He chuckled, and the captain responded with a polite smile. Khumalo waved him and FitzGerald into chairs, then gestured at the slender, strong-nosed junior-grade captain who'd been waiting with him when Terekhov and FitzGerald were shown into his day cabin.

'My chief of staff, Captain Loretta Shoupe,' the station commander said.