The Chosen

The waiter arrived at last, and laid a bowl of the famous Borreaux fish stew before him; trivalves in their shells, chunks of lizard tail, pieces of fish, all in a broth rich with garlic, tomatoes, and spices. It smelled wonderful; it would have been even more wonderful if the waiter hadn't had a rim of grime under his thumbnail, and the thumb hadn't been dipping into the stew. Jeffrey forced himself to ignore that, and what the kitchen was probably like; he poured himself a glass of white wine and tore a chunk of bread off the end of a long narrow loaf. Say what you liked about the Unionaise, they did know how to cook.

And it was a damned unlucky chance that Chosen officers, and Gerta of all people, happened to be right here when he was expecting-

A small, slight man came up to Jeffrey's table and sat, taking off his beret and stubbing out a villainous- smelling cigarette in an ashtray. His eyes flicked sideways toward the Chosen three tables away.

'They can't hear us,' Jeffrey said. 'And we're facing away.'

So that they couldn't lip-read. Offhand, he thought that the two male Chosen were straight-legs; Gerta certainly wasn't, though, and might well have been trained in that particular skill. As to what they were doing here. .

'And we have business,' Jeffrey went on, spooning up some of the fish stew. 'Damn, but that's good,' he said mildly.

'Vincen Deshambre,' the thin man said. Jeffrey took his hand for a moment. 'Delegate of the Parti Uniste Travailleur.' He slid a small flat envelope out of his jacket and across the table.

'Colonel Jeffrey Farr,' Jeffrey replied, reading it.

He spoke fair Fransay, and read it well; the Union del Est had been the Republic's main foreign enemy until a generation or so ago, with skirmishes even more recently. Santander military men were expected to learn the language, for interrogations and captured documents, if nothing else.

Vincen looked over again at the table with the Chosen. 'Bitches,' he said, his voice suddenly like something that spent most of its time curled up on warm rocks.

Jeffrey looked up, raising his eyebrow. Only one of the Chosen could possibly qualify.

'Not the foreigners,' Vincen said. A light sheen broke out across his high forehead, up to the edge of the thinning hair. 'They're just pirates. If we were united, we could laugh at them.'

I don't think so, Jeffrey thought. Alone, the Union against the Land of the Chosen would be a match between the hammer and the egg. Not quite as easy a victim as the Empire had been, of course. For one thing the terrain was worse, for another it was farther away, and for a third the country wasn't quite so backward. Still, I see his point. And the Land wasn't about to simply invade the Union. That would mean war with Santander, and the Chosen weren't ready. . yet.

Neither was Santander.

'Those whores are what's wrong, them and those like them.'

Jeffrey did a quick scan across the other table, then turned and let Center freeze the picture in front of him, magnifying until they all seemed to be at arm's length.

'I don't think they're professionals,' he said.

Vincen flushed more deeply; it was a little disconcerting to see a man actually sweating with hate.

'Elite,' he said, using the Fransay term for the upper classes. 'Merdechiennes are losing their power, so they call in foreigners to prop it up for them.'

'Well, two can play at that game,' Jeffrey said.

The Unionaise gave him a sharp look Santander had taken several substantial bites out of the western border of the Union, in the old wars. Jeffrey smiled warmly.

'We're not territorially expansive. . not anymore, at least.'

Of course, much of the western Union was an economic satellite of the Republic these days, and the Travailleur-Worker-party didn't like it one little bit. Despite the fact that without that investment, its members would still be scratching out a living farming rocks as metayers, paying half the crop to a landlord.

Vincen grunted. 'As you say. We have the evidence now. General Libert is definitely in correspondence with Land agents. They offer transport for his Legion troops back to the mainland.'

Center called up a map for Jeffrey. The Union del Est covered a big chunk of the southern lobe of Visager's main continent, between Santander and the sort-of-republic of Sierra. South of it wasn't much but ocean right down to the south polar ice cap, but there were a series of fairly substantial islands, some independent, some held by the Republic or the Union.

'Libert's on Errif, isn't he? That's quite a ways out, seven hundred kilometers or so. Can't your navy squadron in Bassin du Sud keep him bottled up?'

The Legion were the best troops the Union had, and mostly foreigners at that. They were the ones who'd finally beaten the natives on Errif, after a war where the Union regulars nearly got thrown back into the sea And there were large units of Errifan natives under Union officers on the islands too, now. They'd probably be about as tough fighting against the Union government as they had been in the initial war.

'The navy is loyal to the government, yes,' Vincen said. 'But the Land, they offer air transport if there is a matching military uprising on the mainland.'

Jeffrey whistled silently, remembering the air assault on Corona in the opening stages of the Imperial war. Can't fault the Chosen on audacity, he thought. Errif was a lot further from their bases. Overfly the Union, he thought, calculating distances. They could at that; the Landisch Luftanza had a concession to run a route that way. Refuel at sea, from ships brought round the continent in international waters. Yes, it's possible. Just. You had to be ready to take chances in war; otherwise it turned into a series of slugging matches. Big risks could have big payoffs. . or disaster, if things went into the pot.

'Why don't you recall him and jail him?' Jeffrey asked. 'Before he has a chance to rebel.'

Vincen clenched his fists. 'Because this coalition so-called government has even less balls than it has brains!' His half-howl brought stares from the tables around them, and he lowered his voice. 'Us, the damned syndicalists, the regional autonomists-everyone but the twice-damned anarchists and separatists, and name of a dog! We have to keep them sweet, too, because we need their votes in the Chambre du Delegats.'

He made a disgusted sound through his teeth, hands waving. Unionaise were like Imperials that way: tie their hands and they were struck dumb as a fish.

'Last year, we could have arrested him. Arrested all the traitors in uniform. What did our so-called government do? Pensioned half of them off! Gave them pensions wrung out of the workers' sweat, so that they could plot at their leisure.'

''Never do an enemy a small injury,'' Jeffrey quoted. 'Old Imperial saying.' Very old, from what Center said.

Vincen's small eyes were hot with agreement. 'We should have executed the lot of them,' he said. 'Now it's too late. The government is holding off on General'-he virtually spat the word-'Libert in the hopes that if they don't provoke him, he'll do nothing.'

'Stupid,' Jeffrey said in agreement. 'They're also probably afraid that if they send troops to arrest him, they'll go over to him instead.'

Vincen nodded jerkily. 'There are loyal troops-the Assault Guards, for instance-but yes, the ministry is concerned with that.'

'Which brings us down to practicalities,' Jeffrey said. 'If there is a military uprising with Land support, what exactly do you plan to do about it?'

'We will fight!'

'Yes, but what will you fight with?'

The little Unionaise linked his fingers on the table. 'We have confidence that part of the army at least will remain loyal. Beyond that, there are the regional militias.'

Jeffrey nodded. He had no confidence in them; for one thing, they had even less in the way of real training than the provincial militias back home. Some of the states of the Union were run by the conservative opposition parties, and thereby pro-Chosen. Even in the ones that weren't, too many of the militias were under the influence of local magnates, almost all of whom supported the conservative opposition parties, as did the Church here. The