It wasn’t something Motela Kolhammer was expecting, but the probability was always there. Capone didn’t have to be a genius
to work out where the attack force was heading after Arnstat.
The tactical display was coming on line, supplemented by information from the Yosemite voidhawks. The news that the hellhawks
had departed was extremely welcome. Though even without them New California had a prodigious defence network; its strength
had determined the ultimate size of the attack force. So far, none of the platforms had fired.
“I’ll listen to him,” Kolhammer said. “But I want our deployment to continue as planned.”
“Aye, sir.”
The
Illustrious
aligned one of its communication dishes on Monterey.
“So you’re the admiral, huh?” Al Capone asked once the link was established.
“Admiral Kolhammer, Confederation Navy. Currently commanding the attack force emerging above New California.”
“I guess I must have frightened you people, huh?”
“Guess again.”
“I don’t think so. I got it right first time, pal. There’s one fuck of a lot of you. That means you’re running scared.”
“Interpret our emergence how you choose. It is of no relevance to me. Did you wish to surrender?”
“Blunt son of a bitch, ain’t you?”
“I’ve been called many things, that’s one of the milder observations.”
“You killed a lot of people on Arnstat, Admiral.”
“No. You did. You backed us into a position where we had no alternative but to respond appropriately.”
Al grinned brightly. “Like I said, I frightened you. That’s a big tough decision your Assembly must have made, sacrifice an
entire planet just to whack me. Taxpayers ain’t gonna like that, no sir. You’re supposed to be protecting them. That’s your
duty.”
“I’m very aware of my duty to the Confederation, Mr Capone. I don’t need you to tell me that.”
“Have it whatever way you want. Thing is, I’ve got an offer for you.”
“Go ahead.”
“You’re gonna shoot off a shitload of artillery at us, right. I mean, it’s gonna be like the fucking Alamo in here.”
“You’ll discover my intentions soon enough.”
“We’ve got over a million people up here, more if you count all us poor lost souls; but certainly a million flesh-and-blood
bodies. Plenty of women and children, too. I can prove that; there’s stuff my technical guys can send you, lists and records
and such. Do you really want to kill them all?”
“No, I do not wish to kill anybody.”
“That’s good, we can talk about that.”
“Talk quickly.”
“Pretty simple; I ain’t gonna jive-ass you. You’ve already decided you’ll give up New California just to get rid of me. Well,
I gotta tell you, I’m real flattered. That’s one hell of a price to put on a single guy’s head, you know. So in return, I’m
gonna do you a favour. I’ll send all my people down to the planet, all the possessed here in Monterey and the other asteroids,
everyone in the fleet, the whole goddamn lot of them. Then when we’re all down on the ground, we’ll take the planet away.
This way nobody gets hurt, and you get back all the hostages I’m keeping up here. I’ll even throw in the antimatter as well.
How does that grab you, Admiral?”
“It grabs me as fundamentally unbelievable.”
“Hey shit-for-brains, you want a bloodbath that bad and maybe I’ll just give the order to butcher all the hostages right now,
before your weapons ever reach us.”
“No. Please don’t. I apologise. What I should have asked was, why? Why are you making this offer?”
Al leaned in closer to the sensor transmitting his image to the
Illustrious
. “Look, I’m just trying to do what’s right here. You’re going to kill people. Maybe I pushed you into that, maybe not. But
now it’s here, I’m trying to stop it, I ain’t no goddamn maniac. So I offer you a way out that leaves both of us looking good.”
“Let me get this straight, you are proposing to ferry every possessed down to the planet, disarm your fleet and hand back
the asteroids?”
“Hey, slow but smart. You got it. In return for letting us keep our bodies, we leave and don’t bother you again. That’s it.
End of story.”
“Moving that many people down to the planet would take some time.”
“Emmet, my guy, he says about a week.”
“I see. So while my ships sit out here doing nothing, what guarantee can you make that you’re not simply trying to pull another
Trafalgar strike against us under cover of this withdrawal?”
Al gave him the
look
. “That’s fucking low, pal. What’s to stop you shooting when we’re halfway through evacuating and I got fewer ships to give
my people covering fire?”
“In other words, we have to trust each other.”
“Bet your ever-loving ass.”
“Very well. My ships will not launch any offensive while your evacuation is in progress. And Mr Capone?”
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“No problem. You just be sure and tell everyone back home that I ain’t no cracker-barrel fishball. I got me some style.”
“Of course you have. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
Al leaned back in his chair and switched off the super telephone machine. “No, guess you wouldn’t,” he said contentedly.
Jezzibella stood in the bedroom doorway. She wore a blue towelling gown loosely over her green wrappings, helping to make
her look slightly more human and not so much like a plastic version of the Tin Man out of Oz.
He shot to his feet. “Hey, you shouldn’t be out of bed.”
“It doesn’t make any difference if I’m lying down or not. The packages work either way.” She walked slowly across the lounge,
barely flexing her knees. Lowering herself into the chair was difficult. Al made a real effort not to go over and help, he
could see how much doing it all by herself meant. Toughest girl in the galaxy.
“So what have you been doing?” she asked. The voice was muffled through the slit in her mask package.
“Putting a stop to all this crap. My guys, they can scoot down to the planet and get home free.”
“I thought so. That’s very statesmanlike of you, baby.”
“I got a reputation to keep, you know.”
“I know. But Al, what happens when the Confederation finds out how to bring planets back? I mean, that’s what all this was
about, wasn’t it? Standing up to them on their home ground.”
He reached over the table and gripped her hands. The fingers were sticking out from the end of the packages, allowing him
some genuine contact with her skin. “We lost, Jez. Okay? We were so goddamn good, we lost. Go figure. We frightened them too
much. I had to make a choice. The fleet can’t fight this admiral off. No way. So letting the planet go is the smart way to
deal with it. The way I see it, my guys get years more living in their bodies. At least. And the Confederation longhairs ain’t
gonna risk bringing them back until they’ve found a way of giving us new bodies, or something. They’d just start the whole
thing over. Who knows, maybe New California can vanish from the next universe, too. There’s a lot of things can happen. This
way, nobody dies, we all win.”
“You’re the best, baby. I knew it right from the start. When do we go down?”
Al squeezed her fingers a little tighter, looking into her face. He could just see her new eyes through the green package,
like she was wearing swimming goggles, only they were full of liquid. “You can’t, Jez. Christ, your medical stuff only just
works up here. Where New California’s headed, who knows what’s going to go bust. You’re healing up real good now, all the
docs say so. But you need more time to get perfect. I ain’t gonna allow nothing to interfere with that.”
“No, Al, I’m going with you.”
“Wrong. I’m staying here. See, we’ll still be together.”
“No.”
“Yeah.” He sat back, and waved an arm round in a gesture that took in the whole asteroid. “Done deal, Jez. Someone’s got to
stay here and keep the space weapons going while the guys fly down to the planet. I don’t trust that motherhumping admiral
none.”
“Al, you can’t operate the SD platforms. For fuck’s sake, you don’t even know how to work the hotel air conditioner.”
“Yeah. But the admiral don’t know that.”
“They’ll catch you. They’ll expel you from that body. It’ll be the beyond for the rest of time. Please, Al. I’ll work the
SD platforms. Be safe. I can live as long as I know you’re safe.”
“You’re forgetting something, Jez: everyone forgets, except maybe good old brown-nose Bernhard. I’m Al Capone. I ain’t scared
of the beyond. Never was. Never will be.”
______
The voidhawk from New California arrived just as First Admiral Aleksandrovich’s flyer touched down. It meant he could walk
into the Polity Council meeting primed with some good news—always a good negotiating position to be in.
His first surprise came at the Polity Council chamber door. Jeeta Anwar was waiting outside for the navy delegation.
“The President has asked me to inform you that no aides are required for this session,” she said.
Samual Aleksandrovich gave Keaton and al-Sahhaf a bemused glance. “They’re not that dangerous,” he said jovially.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Jeeta said.
Samual considered making a fuss; he didn’t like that kind of surprise being thrown at him. If nothing else, it told him the
coming meeting was going to be unusual, and probably disagreeable. Having his aides with him couldn’t stop that. “Very well.”
The second surprise was how few ambassadors were sitting around the big circle of antique sequoia in the council chamber.
Three in total, representing New Washington, Oshanko, and Mazaliv. Lord Kelman Mountjoy was also present. Samual Aleksandrovich
gave him a cautious nod as he sat to the left of Olton Haaker.
“I don’t believe you have a quorum here,” he said mildly.
“Not of the Polity Council, no,” President Haaker said.
Samual didn’t like the man’s stilted voice; something was making the President very nervous. “Then please tell me what this
meeting is.”
“We are here to formulate future policy towards the possessed situation,” Kelman Mountjoy said. “It’s not something the old
Confederation is capable of addressing satisfactorily.”
“The old Confederation?”
“Yes. We are proposing a restructuring.”
Samual Aleksandrovich listened in growing dismay as the Kulu foreign minister explained the reasoning behind the core-Confederation
idea. Stopping the slow spread of possession, strengthening the defences of the key star systems. Establishing a solid, economically
stable society capable of finding an overall solution.
“Do you propose including the Edenists?” Samual asked when he’d finished.
“They were not receptive to the concept,” Kelman said. “However, since they have a reserve position along very similar lines,
their ultimate inclusion is highly probable. We would have no problem continuing to trade with them, as they are by and large
immune to the kind of infiltration that results from quarantine-busting flights.”
“And they supply every Adamist world with energy,” Samual said scathingly.
Kelman managed not to smile. “Not all,” he said softly.
Samual turned to the President. “You cannot allow this to happen, it is economic apartheid. It transgresses every ethic of
equality which the Confederation represents. We must protect everybody alike.”
“The Navy isn’t even capable of doing that now,” Olton Haaker said sadly. “And you’ve seen the economic projections my office
compiled. We cannot afford the current level of deployment, let alone sustain it for any reasonable length of time. Something
has to give, Samual.”
“In effect, it’s already given,” Kelman said. “The attack on Arnstat and New California was an admission that we can no longer
afford to indulge the current status quo. The Polity Council chose, and you agreed, that we had to lose those planets in order
to help safeguard the rest. The core-Confederation is the logical conclusion of that development. It safeguards our entire
race by ensuring that there will always be a part of it free from possession and able to search for a solution.”
“I find it interesting that your proposal safeguards only your part of the human race. The rich section.”
“Firstly, by ending the unrealistic level of subsidy our worlds extend to stage-two star systems, they will also contract
and therefore become safer. Secondly, there is no point in the richer star systems impoverishing and weakening themselves
when to do so will not result in a solution. We have to address the real facts, and do so with resolution.”
“The quarantine works. In time, and if everyone pools their intelligence data, we can end the illegal flights. There is no
more Organization; Capone has surrendered New California to Admiral Kolhammer.”
“These arguments are the ebb and flow in the tide of obsolete politics,” Kelman said. “Yes, you’ve nullified Capone. But we’ve
now lost Earth. Mortonridge has been effectively liberated, but at a shocking price. Zero-tau can de-possess someone, but
the released body will be plagued with cancer and tie up our medical facilities for years. This has all got to stop. A line
must be drawn under the past in order to free our future.”
“You approach this as if possession is the whole problem,” Samual said. “It is not, it is a spinoff from the fact we have
immortal souls and some of them are entrapped in the beyond. The answer to this—how we learn to live with such knowledge,
whatever it is—must be embraced by the entire human race; from some delinquent mugger on a stage-one colony planet right up
to your king. We have to face this as one. If you split us up, you cannot reach and educate the very people who are most likely
to be blighted by this revelation. I cannot agree to this. I will not agree to this.”
“Samual, you have to,” the President said. “Without funding from the core-Confederation worlds, there can be no Navy.”
“Every planetary system funds the Confederation Navy.”
“Not equally, they don’t,” said Verano, the New Washington ambassador. “Between us, the worlds proposing to form the core-Confederation
provide eighty per cent of your overall funding.”