'Factor Blenrott put him at the door of the pantry with orders not to permit anyone to disturb you, Stephen,' Piet explained dryly. 'That's why I had to come fetch you myself. And speaking of that, the others are probably waiting for us.'
Stephen grimaced with disgust at his own conduct. It doesn't matter how you feel or why you feel that way, you don't take it out on innocents. In this respect at least, Kaspar Blenrott was surely an innocent. 'I'll make it up to him,' he muttered again.
He fell into step a half pace behind Piet and as much to the side. In this gathering, there was no need for the shoulders and grim visage of Stephen Gregg to clear the way.
Guillermo was on Piet's other flank. Stephen, for reasons he didn't care to examine, gestured Captain Sarah Blythe up between them so that they walked in clear association into the hushed assembly room.
ISHTAR CITY, VENUS
August 10, Year 26
1653 hours, Venus time
Sal Blythe was personally acquainted with only a handful of the folk gathered in the assembly room. Captain Willem Casson was a contemporary of her father's; not a friend, exactly, but a man who'd sat with the Blythes in a dockside tavern, speaking of voyages to the Reaches in which he searched for worlds whose pre-Collapse wealth was not yet claimed by the Federation or the Southern Cross.
The other attendees Sal knew to speak with were bankers, every one of them. People from whom she'd raised-more often tried to raise-money for this or that requirement of the
Piet Ricimer mounted the dais in a light flurry of applause. Sal knew of the two men already on the dais, though they were too powerful for her to have had any dealings with. Councilor Duneen headed the Bureau of External Relations; he was said to be Governor Halys' chief advisor on matters of foreign policy. Duneen was much of a size with Piet Ricimer and less than a dozen years older. The councilor moved with grace and an easy assurance of his own great power, but there was a fire in the soul of the space captain that the courtier lacked.
Alexi Mostert stood beside Duneen. His brother, Siddons Mostert, was in the front rank below, along with Stephen Gregg and many of the most powerful shipping and financial magnates on Venus. Alexi rated the dais because for the past three years he'd been Chief Constructor of the Fleet, the man primarily responsible for the design and building of state warships.
The Mosterts were able and intelligent men who'd expanded a modest shipping firm into the spearhead of trade from Venus. Alexi's purpose-built warships were handy and powerful, each of them supposedly more than a match for one of the much larger vessels of the North American Federation.
Supposedly: the truth wouldn't be known until the outbreak of open war between Venus and the Federation. That test couldn't be long coming, however, if the result of this gathering was what Sal expected it to be.
Ricimer bowed to Councilor Duneen, then called to the assembly in a ringing voice, 'Fellow citizens, fellow patriots-I could tell you how serious a threat the Free State of Venus faces today, but I prefer to yield to a man who can speak far more eloquently. I give you Fiscal Walter Beck, until recently the Federation's chief representative on Lilymead and the man responsible for executing President Pleyal's orders there!'
The curtain behind the dais rustled to pass Beck, flanked by a pair of tough-looking sailors. The guards were a dramatic effect: Beck wasn't a threat to anyone. The fiscal had aged a decade in the days since Sal last saw him. The governor's interrogators didn't appear to have physically harmed him, but his skin was gray and his eyes faced a future in which there was no hope.
'I received orders from Montreal, signed by the president and authenticated with his code,' Beck said. His tone was singsong because he'd repeated the story so frequently. 'The papers being passed around the room are true copies of those orders. They required me to seize all Venerian vessels which called at Lilymead, despite the announced lifting of the embargo on foreign ships trading with us. The orders stated that the North American Federation had need of Venerian ships and particularly their guns for a Fleet of Retribution that would finally end the rebellion of Venus against the proper rule of President Pleyal.'
The words, though familiar by now and spoken without affect, stabbed like cold steel through Sal's chest. The North American Federation, which five years before had incorporated the Southern Cross in a lightning sweep, had twenty times the population of Venus and drew on the resources of a hundred colonial worlds. If that power were focused, how could the Free State of Venus survive?
Beck shuffled away at the end of his practiced spiel and disappeared behind the curtains with his guards. A servant offered Sal a copy of the orders captured with the fiscal on Lilymead. Sal took the sheet absently, though God knew she'd studied the original long enough as the
Councilor Duneen stepped forward with a fierce, solemn expression and said, 'Individual citizens of Venus have been harmed by this action of President Pleyal. Two ships were captured on Lilymead, four others have failed to return from similar voyages to Federation colonies in Near Space, and'-he nodded in Sal's direction-'the vessel which escaped to give the alarm was damaged in the Feds' treacherous attack and lost the value of its cargo. In all cases, the interested parties will receive Commissions of Redress by the grace of Governor Halys, authorizing them to recoup their losses from the citizens and facilities of the North American Federation. There is another dimension to this event, however.'
The room was tensely still as Duneen gazed around his audience. Many of the folk assembled had spent most of their lives grasping for profit. There was a leavening of sharks like Ricimer, like Casson; men who'd fought the Federation already and whose hope had been open war in which all Venus fought together to smash the tyranny of President Pleyal.
Both groups waited in a hush for the words they'd been assembled to hear. No one who opposed the government's plan had been invited; but, as with guests at a wedding, everyone present knew that the future might bring disaster.
'Governor Halys,' Duneen continued, 'has determined to send a squadron to retrieve the vessels unlawfully held in Federation ports. She will provide two ships from the State service, but there will be many opportunities for patriotic citizens to join in the expedition for the usual share of any profits accruing from the voyage. I won't discuss the details of the makeup and outfitting. That will be in the hands of the man Governor Halys has appointed as General Commander of the squadron: Captain Piet Ricimer!'
The cheer that greeted the announcement was spontaneous and general. Rather, almost general. Stephen Gregg stood at the base of the dais in part-profile to Sal behind him. Gregg's face was expressionless. Only the one gray eye Sal could see had life, a terrible glee that shocked her more than the muzzle of the Fed's revolver touching her head had done.
'Gentlemen and ladies,' Piet Ricimer called, his voice riding with the enthusiasm instead of trying to overshout it, 'through the generosity of Factor Blenrott, there are tables against the back wall here and separate rooms for those who would prefer to deal amongst themselves in greater privacy. I suggest we break up now and see how we can best put profit and patriotism at the service of the Lord God Almighty!'
Bowing again to the company, Ricimer strode at a swinging pace toward the table where Guillermo already waited. Stephen and the Mosterts fell in behind him. The gathering broke into a score of discussions milling like eddies of bubbles beneath a flume.
A young man in severely muted tunic and trousers-probably an agent rather than a principal-matched his step to Gregg's and began to talk earnestly. As the fellow spoke, he gestured with a notebook open to a page of numbers in column.
'Yes, but is that FOB Ishtar City, or for orbital loading?' Stephen replied in a coolly precise voice. 'If it's orbit then yes, we might well be interested.'
He didn't sound like the swashbuckling killer that common report held Stephen Gregg to be. He didn't sound like the tortured man Sal had met in the pantry, either.
If Sal tried to see Councilor Duneen in his palace office, she would have to bribe her way through phalanxes of attendants. Here there were only a few magnates with the councilor. On the strength of Duneen's nod to her in his presentation, Sal decided to ask how and when her Commission of Redress would be issued.
