The Shadow of Saganami

The Convention President shrugged.

'I don't really blame him for that. If you people had enmeshed Dresden in your cozy little empire against our will, I'd probably resent you just as much as he does. The only real difference between Westman and me is that, first, I believe Bernardus when he tells me how he first conceived of the Trade Union, and why. And, second, whatever his real motives-and yours-might have been, annexation by Manticore represents the greatest single opportunity, and not just in economic terms, which has ever fallen the entire Cluster's way. I'm willing to forgive an awful lot to capitalize on that opportunity. But Westman's too focused on the old equation to realize how completely it's been changed.'

'That's basically what Bernardus said,' Alquezar said. 'I suppose I follow the analysis intellectually. It's just that the mindset which can ignore all of that is so far away from the universe I live in that I can't get my understanding wrapped around the possibility it can even exist. Not on any emotional level.'

'You'd better,' Krietzmann said bleakly. 'In the end, I think he's more likely to succeed in killing the Constitution than Nordbrandt is.'

'Really?' Alquezar cocked his head. 'I don't think I disagree with you, but I'd like to hear your reasoning.'

'How much reasoning's involved?' Krietzmann grunted. 'Oh, all right.'

He leaned back in his own chaise lounge, cradling his beer mug.

'At the moment, O my esteemed fellow conspirator, you have about sixty-two percent of the delegates in your vest pocket. And Nordbrandt's extremism's actually pushed about ten percent of that total into your corner, I'd estimate. But Tonkovic and Andre Yvernau-and Lababibi-have an iron lock on the other thirty-eight percent. They've got most of the Cluster's oligarchs, aside from the delegates you and Bernardus can deliver from the RTU planets, and Nordbrandt pushed about ten percent of them away from your side and into Tonkovic's pocket when she punched the economic warfare button. Most of them could care less what happens on Kornati... as long as it doesn't splash onto their own comfortable little preserves. But with her blowing up banks and shooting bankers, not to mention the local oligarchs, her particular version of destabilization threatens to spill over into other systems, and they're not about to sign on to anything that would, as they see it, hamper their existing political and law-enforcement machinery for dealing with neo-bolsheviks and anarchists on their own worlds. And, since it takes a two-thirds majority to vote out a draft Constitution, as long as she can hold on to the five or six percent of the delegates you still need, she can stonewall the entire process and try to extort concessions out of you. Out of us .'

'We agree so far,' Alquezar said as Krietzmann paused to sip beer. 'But that still doesn't explain why you should think Westman's more dangerous than Nordbrandt.'

'Oh, don't be Socratic, Joachim!' Krietzmann said a bit impatiently. 'You know as well as I do that Aleksandra Tonkovic and Samiha Lababibi have absolutely no intention of actually blocking the annexation. If they do kill the Constitution, it'll be by accident, because they genuinely believe that line Aleksandra was spouting right after Nordbrandt's first attack-that Manticore won't let the process fail. I think they're both-especially Aleksandra-too prone to view the Star Kingdom through the distortion of their domestic political experience, but that's how they see things. At the moment, at least. But if anything ever happens to crack that sublime confidence of theirs, they'll probably stop holding out for impossible demands and settle for the best fast, down-and-dirty compromise they can get.

'But if Westman pisses off enough of your oligarchs-the ones you and Bernardus roped up and convinced to support the annexation in the first place-we're screwed. If he ever convinces enough of them that he and people who think like him can inflict serious damage on everything the Trade Union's managed to build up, a significant percentage of them-possibly an outright -majority-would switch over to Tonkovic's side in a heartbeat, and you know it. And if they do, they'll shift the balance drastically. Not just here at the Convention, either. If Rembrandt and San Miguel and the rest of the RTU planets start opposing annexation, instead of supporting it, it's going to fail.'

'You're right,' Alquezar sighed after a moment. 'That's another reason Bernardus went home to Rembrandt. He wanted Vaandrager out of the chairmanship before she could build a support bloc strong enough to challenge his control or get herself too deeply burrowed into the system government. Because she's exactly the sort to do what you're afraid of, especially if Westman can convince anyone outside his home system to throw in with his Montana Independence Movement.'

'So,' Krietzmann said, 'what do we do about it?'

'If I had the answer to that one,' Alquezar replied sourly, 'I wouldn't need to worry about Aleksandra and Samiha. I could just wave my magic wand and fix everything!'

'Well, we're going to have to come up with something .'

'I know. I know.' Alquezar drew on his cigar again. 'I sent a memo to Baroness Medusa this afternoon, right after the dispatch boat from Montana got here. I expressed very much the same concerns you just have, and I suggested to her that it might be time for Her Majesty's official representative here to take a more... direct approach.'

Krietzmann looked at him with a hint of uneasiness, and the San Miguelian shrugged irritably.

'It's not an ideal solution, even if she does step in, and I know it. The problem is, I think we're fresh out of ideal solutions, Henri.'

* * *

'... not an ideal solution, Milady,' Gregor O'Shaughnessy said, 'but I'm afraid of the way the situation's escalating.'

'Madam Governor,' Rear Admiral Khumalo said heavily, 'I must reiterate my concerns about becoming overly involved on the local level in the Cluster's politics.'

'With all due respect, Admiral,' O'Shaughnessy shot back a bit sharply, 'you were the one who wanted to intervene against Nordbrandt after the first Kornati bombing in Karlovac.'

'Yes, I was, Mr. O'Shaughnessy,' Khumalo rumbled. 'But that was rather a different situation from this, as I hope you'll admit. Nordbrandt is a killer, a murderess on a mass scale. Dropping Marines onto Kornati, assuming the local planetary government invited us to do so, to hunt down a cold-blooded, calculating killer would be one thing. Dropping Marines onto Montana to go after one of its most prominent citizens, who's apparently well on his way to becoming some sort of folk hero-or antihero-and hasn't killed a a stray dog yet, much less members of the local parliament, would be another thing entirely.'

'But we're already engaged there on a day-to-day basis,' O'Shaughnessy said. 'We've had a presence in the system-and, arguably-a responsibility to support President Suttles' government ever since he gave us permission to station your support ships there. For that matter, we could provide the support direct from those ships.'

'Those ships are neither designed for nor capable of providing that sort of support,' Khumalo said frostily. ' Ericsson is essentially nothing more than a freighter hull wrapped around machine shops and storage for spare parts. Her entire complement's under two hundred-technicians, not combat personnel. And Volcano's only an ammunition ship, with an even smaller crew. They've got military-grade impellers, compensators, and particle shielding and minimal sidewalls, but they aren't warships and they are totally unsuited to this sort of task. Even assuming that asking any of our ships to perform that task was a good idea. Which it isn't.'

'I think— ' O'Shaughnessy began, but Dame Estelle raised her hand. He closed his mouth, looking at her, and she smiled crookedly.

'In this instance, Gregor, Admiral Khumalo has a point,' she said. 'A very good point, in fact. There'd be substantial local popular support if we intervened in Split. So far, Nordbrandt's still at the stage of evoking far more horror, revulsion, and repugnance than widespread support. She's done a lot more damage to her own planet than Westman has, and she's made it perfectly clear she's escalated her strategy of pure terror to go after anyone who 'collaborates' with us or the elected Kornatian government on any issue, not just the annexation.

'She's using a sledgehammer, a brute force approach. Westman's using a rapier. So far, at least, his target selection's had exactly the opposite effect from Nordbrandt's. As far as I can see, there's no immediate danger of his turning around Montana's support for the annexation, but he's more likely to have that effect in the long run than