Shadow of Victory - eARC (22 page)

September 1921 Post Diaspora

“I can understand why you might be a little…puzzled. And obviously it wouldn’t be very smart of you to simply take my word for it that I’m one hell of a nice guy. On the other hand, we’re not going to get anywhere if we both just stand here with the pulsers in our pockets aimed at the other fellow.”

—Damien Harahap to Tomek Nowak,

Lądowisko, Planet of Włocławek

Chapter Nineteen

“Good afternoon, Ensign Zilwicki.”

Helen turned towards the voice as the maître d’ showed her into the restaurant’s main dining room. Quillen’s was one of the city of Thimble’s better eating places, and its prices reflected that. But it was also close enough to both Governor Medusa’s mansion and Augustus Khumalo’s dirtside headquarters to be popular with the Navy.

“Lieutenant Archer,” she said, nodding courteously to the red-haired, green eyed senior-grade lieutenant. He was seated at one of the restaurant’s prized corner tables with one of the few people in Spindle Helen had gotten to know fairly well, and she smiled at his companion. “Ms. Boltitz.”

“Would you care to join us?” Archer said. “We’ve only just placed our orders.”

“Thank you, Sir,” she said, although she had to wonder if she’d have been inviting any third wheels in his place. Admiral Gold Peak had been back in Spindle for less than two full days, after all, and she’d spent most of the first day coping with the results of the Battle of Manticore. Helen knew how much Commodore Terekhov had hated telling her about it, and Archer, as her flag lieutenant, had been just as frantically busy as his boss. He couldn’t possibly have had the time to pick up the social threads here in Spindle, and if she’d been male and had a friend who looked like Helga…

Be nice, Helen, she cautioned herself. After all, he is Admiral Gold Peak’s flag lieutenant. There could be all kinds of legitimate business reasons for him and Helga to grab a quick lunch together. She snorted mentally at the thought. Oh, I’m sure it’s “just business!”

“What’s this ‘Ms. Boltitz’ about, Helen?” Helga asked with a raised eyebrow as the maître d’ pulled out Helen’s chair. “Have I offended you somehow?”

“No, but this is sort of a formal venue,” Helen replied, waving one hand at the crowded restaurant about them.

“And it would have been grossly disrespectful of the Ensign to allow herself to lapse into informality in the presence of an officer of such towering seniority as myself, Helga,” Archer said sternly. “I’d’ve thought you knew that!”

“How do you fit that head of yours into a beret, Gwen?” Helga asked.

“It’s difficult…difficult,” he replied mournfully. “I have to have it sized up at least twice a week.”

Helga chuckled, and he smiled at her, then turned back to Helen.

“I know we haven’t had the opportunity to really introduce ourselves to each other, Ensign Zilwicki,” he said. “On the other hand, we’re probably going to spend a lot of time liaising with each other, so I thought that it might be a good idea for us to get to know one another. I didn’t realize you and Helga had already met, although given another six months or so it probably would’ve occurred to me that the two of you must have, given what she does for Minister Krietzmann and what you do for Commodore Terekhov.”

“It probably really would have, Helen,” Helga told her earnestly. “He’s very quick that way for someone with a Y-chromosome.”

“And you’re grossly disrespectful to someone of my advanced years, Helga,” he said severely.

“Oh, forgive me!”

Helen smiled as she unfolded her napkin, draped it across her lap, and reached for the printed menu. She knew they were deliberately using their banter to put her at ease, but it was also clearly natural to them, and she was glad. Helga seemed like one of the nicest people she’d ever met, and the warmth in her eyes when they rested on Lieutenant Archer was obvious.

Helen allowed her own eyes to consider Archer thoughtfully while she considered what she’d been able to learn about him. Lieutenant Gervais Winton Erwin Neville Archer—no wonder he preferred the nickname “Gwen”—was probably six or seven T-years older than Helga. That made him ten T-years older than Helen herself, although he seemed as unconcerned by that as by the difference in their ranks. He had red hair, eyes as green as Helga’s, and a snub nose. Given that he was a third-generation prolong recipient like Helen, he looked like Helga’s kid brother, but there was nothing “brotherly” about his body language as he sat beside her at the table. He was also, as the second of his numerous given names indicated, a distant cousin of Countess Gold Peak and Empress Elizabeth, although he was obviously—and thankfully—immune to the towering sense of entitlement common to too many aristocrats of Helen’s acquaintance. And, unlike many a Gryphon Highlander, she’d met quite a lot of those aristocrats.

And he doesn’t have the drawl, either. Thank God.

A real live waiter appeared at her elbow to take her order and she considered the menu for a moment.

“Is the Montana sirloin shipped fresh, or has it been frozen?” she asked.

“At Quillen’s?” The waiter looked deeply offended by the very thought.

“Then that’s what I’ll have, extra rare,” she told him. “Just saw off the horns and show it the fire—briefly. Baked potato with sour cream and chives, and a side salad. Bleu cheese dressing. And do you have iced tea?”

“I’m afraid not, Ma’am.” This time the waiter looked confused rather than offended, and she shook her head with a smile.

“Then just bring me a carafe of hot tea, lots of sugar, and a couple of tumblers of ice.”

“Of course, Ma’am.”

“Oh, and a couple of slices of lemon, too,” she added.

“Certainly, Ma’am.”

He disappeared and Helen looked back to see her table companions regarding her with quizzical expressions.

“Hey, they’d better get used to serving iced tea,” she said. “I picked up a taste for it from the Graysons I’ve met—like Lieutenant Hearns, Helga—and she’s not the only Grayson serving with us right now.”

“I can see that,” Archer said. “It’s your cooking instructions that seemed a bit…colorful.”

“What?” She frowned, then snorted. “Oh, you mean the ‘saw off the horns and show it the fire’ bit?” He nodded, and she chuckled. “Sorry. I’m afraid I’ve been corrupted. That’s the way Stephen Westman always orders it.”

“Really?” Archer smiled. “Somehow I’m not surprised. Everything I’ve heard suggests Mister Westman’s a…larger than life character.”

“That’s definitely one way to describe him,” Helen acknowledged.

“That’s what I thought. Admiral Gold Peak wanted to meet him when we were in Montana, but there wasn’t time. I hadn’t realized you’d met him, though.”

“Commodore Terekhov assigned me as Mister Van Dort’s personal aide while the Nasty Kitty played diplomatic tennis between Spindle, Split, and Montana. Mister Westman and I got to know one another pretty well during his meetings with the Commodore and Mister Van Dort.”

Archer nodded, and she decided not to mention how much—and how painfully—she’d reminded Westman of Suzanne Bannister Van Dort, his best friend’s sister…and Bernardus Van Dort’s long-dead wife.

“Good. That gives me something else to pick your brain about.” Archer shook his head. “Admiral Gold Peak’s devoured every report she could get her hands on about events here in Talbott, and she’s had me read ’em, too. She figures the more I know about them the better when it comes to handling her schedule. And Helga’s been a goldmine about Dresden and things here on Spindle, but you were right there while Van Dort and Sir Aivars talked Westman into laying down his guns, and he still seems to carry a lot of clout on Montana. Anything you can tell me about him would be more than welcome, Helen.”

“Really?” Helen sat back, thinking, then shrugged. “Well, the first thing anyone needs to know about Stephen Westman is that he’s a Montanan. They’re all a little crazy, but he’s crazier than most. In fact, he’s almost as crazy as a Gryphon Highlander. I think he and my father would get along really well…assuming they didn’t kill each other first. I remember the first time he met with us, and—”

* * *

That Frugoni’s a tough little bastard, Damien Harahap reflected with more than a trace of admiration as he closed the file. I wish I’d been able to meet his brother-in-law, but that old saying about judging somebody by the company he keeps probably comes into play here. A man like Frugoni wouldn’t play second fiddle to someone he didn’t think deserved his support…and allegiance. That says one hell of a lot about Allenby right there.

Which it did, of course.

He closed and security-locked the file. He’d let a couple of T-weeks pass before he went back for the final edit of his analysis of Swallow. It was always a good idea to let his thoughts settle and put a little distance between events and his considered judgment of them. But the
Факел
was approaching their next port of call, and it was time he turned his attention to the next system on his list.

This one was going to be tougher, he thought. Bardasano’s people had created a credentialed cover that would make it absurdly easy to get into the system without being flagged as a potential subversive by the local security forces, but contacting the system’s real subversives wasn’t going to be easy, since first he had to figure out who the hell they were.

There had to be some, of course, however well hidden they might be. Even the most cursory examination of Włocławek made that clear. Although the material from Bardasano’s analysts was a lot sketchier than anything he’d had going in on Swallow, they’d pulled together a comprehensive summary of the local power structure and political equation that could have served as a checklist for any regime intent on radicalizing its eventual executioners. It was just that those same analysts hadn’t been able to point Harahap at any recognized contact point for the anti-regime movement which had to be bubbling away somewhere. And for all his cover’s good points, it was likely to create a few initial trust issues where any such movement was concerned.

Part of the reason the analysts hadn’t been able to pick out a contact point here was that they lacked the degree of access, they’d had in Swallow because none of the League’s transstellars had a finger in the Włocławek pie…yet. A couple were poking around the opportunities Włocławek offered, but so far the system’s corruption—which was at least as bad as anything even a Solarian transstellar could have contrived—was entirely homegrown, and the failed reforms of the Ruch Odnowy Narodowej had only made it worse.

Much worse.

That sort of thing seemed to be inevitable when reformers were captured by the system. Harahap couldn’t have counted the number of “National Renewal Movements” he’d seen end exactly the same way. In fact, it seemed to happen most often in the systems most desperately in need of reform. Probably because that was where one could always find someone most determined to protect the status quo by spreading around the corruption. Even the most fiery of firebrands—his lips quirked at his own choice of nouns—was a human being, and he’d yet to meet a human being completely immunized against avarice and the taste of power. Once reformers allowed themselves to be bought, they were almost always worse than the corruption they’d originally pledged to fight, and the current ugly unrest over the shoot-down of an air bus full of kids was one more indication that that was exactly what had happened in Włocławek.

Ziomkowski’s real mistake was not purging the local kleptocracy, he thought now. But that was because he was a reformer, not a revolutionary. He thought political power would be enough to “fix the system” without realizing the system itself was the problem. If he’d been ready to take a page from Rob Pierre and send a few thousand people to the wall, confiscate a few hundred fortunes, he might actually have achieved something. As it was…

Harahap’s problem was a lot simpler than Włodzimierz Ziomkowski’s had been, because his employers didn’t care whether the system was fixed or blown up, just as long as the effort to do the fixing—or blowing up—was sufficiently spectacular. They’d prefer for it to fail, and he understood why, but the locals were more than welcome to succeed, as far as he was concerned. In fact, in his opinion, Bardasano and her “Alignment” had gotten at least part of their strategy wrong. Discrediting the Star Empire in the Verge probably would go a long ways towards undermining its ability to engineer additional Talbott-style annexations, yet “proving” Manticore’s guilt as a successful provocateur would do the Manties far more damage in the League.

When word of Operation Janus reached Old Chicago, Kolokoltsov, MacArtney, and the other Mandarins would seize the propaganda coup in both hands. They’d gleefully portray Manticore as a corrupt, expansionist, treacherous, imperialistic star nation, and the softheaded Core World idiots who bought OFS’ self-billing as “a galactic force for good” would eat it up like candy. But the Mandarins would also recognize the danger a successful Operation Janus represented to what OFS really did in the Verge, and that would be intolerable to them. That was the ball upon which Bardasano and her superiors should be keeping their eye. Given the r interstellar balance of power, the Solarian League was the only player with the potential to actually destroy Manticore. Anything that didn’t motivate the League to do just that was dissipated strategic effort, however inherently worthwhile it might be on a purely tactical level.

Maybe it is, he told himself, reopening the Włocławek file and running his cursor down the index. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to pull it off in the end. And Bardasano’s insistence that Janus has to target at least a few star systems with no Solarian presence is smart, really smart. It puts the “Manties’” efforts even further out in the open, and it’s going to make any of the other corrupt local system governments very wary of—and pretty damned hostile to—any extension of Manticoran influence into their backyards.

He chuckled softly at the thought, and not just because he was a craftsman who respected good workmanship. No, Damien Harahap remembered his own childhood, and anything that made someone like the Włocławek Oligarchowie sweat was just fine with him.

Just remember you’re not here to make sure they succeed, Damien, he reminded himself.

* * *

Tomek Nowak frowned thoughtfully as the utterly nondescript off-worlder walked down the old-fashioned sidewalk from the front door of Szymański i Synowie and turned right onto the pedestrian way.

The fellow might not look like much, but he did seem to get around…and to such interesting places. Szymański and Sons was far from the largest vendor of medical supplies in the city of Lądowisko. It was one of the capital’s oldest firms, and it had somehow evaded the voracious appetite of the Oligarchia, but its market share had shrunk drastically over the last several decades. Nonetheless, it remained the primary supplier of the Siostry Ubogich, and the needs of Szpital Marii Urbańskiej and its satellite campuses outside Lądowisko were enough to keep its doors open.