"Still," he went on musingly. "
Why is that
involved… when we know that it was our little surprise that caused the incident with the stingfighter?"
"Let's put it this way," Lefarge said grimly. "The
Stone Dogs
, whatever they are, are as closely held as… the Project. What's the Project? Our ace in the hole. Now, what's wrong with this picture?"
The agent winced slightly. "I say, bad show. Well, not our affair, what? There's no compromise of the Project; they'll go over that stingfighter's core, but their standard search models won't find a thing." He thumbed through the file. "We are getting some interesting data, from the deep-cover agent with the Commandant of Aresopolis." He laughed. "A deep-cover agent between the covers, eh? From the pillow-talk, she must be fantastic—"
Lefarge was dimly aware of Donatei wrestling him to a standstill, of the ACI man scrambling backward snarling, with a hand inside his jacket.
"
That's my sister you're talking about, you son of a bitch!"
he shouted. Coming back to himself, shuddering, smelling the sudden reek of his own sweat.
Inch by inch, they relaxed. "Look, Fred," Donatei said. "He didn't know, all he saw was a code description, he's got no need to know, he
wouldn't
know if you hadn't blown up!"
"Right," Lefarge said, shaking off the arm and straightening his jacket.
Breathe. In. Out.
He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and split the package, wiping his face down with the scented cloth and sinking back into his chair.
"I apologize. Brigadier," the ACI agent said.
"Accepted. You had any experience inside, Operative Forsymmes?" The other man shook his head. "Then don't make comments about those who have to operate in the snake farm.
For your information, my sister was missing-in-action in India in '75. She contacted the OSS again, on her own initiative.
Twenty-four years in there!"
"I apologize again, Brigadier," the man said patiently. "The fact remains, the
New America
Project is not compromised, as far as we know. Time to saturation remains on-schedule, and then we will be in an unassailable bargaining position."
Lefarge smiled with a carnivore's expression. "Certainly we will. After we've pounded their strategic installations into glowing rubble and destroyed everything they have off Earth—"
He paused at something sensed between the other two. "There's been a change of plan?" he said, in an even tone.
Donatei looked down at his linked fingers. The agent spoke in the same smooth tone.
"No, of course not. Your Project will finally give us the top hand, and well use it, never fear. Not in an all-out surprise attack, of course. That was '70s strategy. We'll demonstrate it; with the balls cut off their space defense capacity, they'll have no choice but effectively to surrender. With guarantees for the personal safety of their top people, of course."
"Ah." Lefarge glanced over at the other OSS officer. "General Donatei, is it just this suit, or are they all fucking insane out there on the West Coast?" He glanced back at Forsymmes. "Are you? Completely fucking insane, that is?"
The agent's tone grew slightly frosty. "Brigadier Lefarge, I'm going to charitably assume that your personal… background and losses have made you somewhat unbalanced on this subject. Are you aware, my dear sir, of what even one hypersonic surface-skimmer could do to a major city? Even given the most optimistic possible projections, the Project could only disable eighty percent of their space-based systems, less on Earth. That's primarily the defensive systems, at that. The Project's little photonic bug can't fit into anything smaller than a shipcomp core, and the enemy use more distributed systems than we do, which can be decoupled from their core computers. They would still have some capacity to operate their ships by manual linkage, and their installations. Furthermore, even if we wait three years, some of the older backup cores would be uninfected. They are not, as you pointed out, fools. We will show them they can't win an exchange, and offer terms."
Lefarge shook his head in sheer wonderment. "You…
Somebody
thinks the
Snakes
are going to be deterred by
casualties?
You look old enough to remember the fall of India, even if you haven't read any history. Perhaps you recall them shooting the top fifteen thousand officials of the Indian Republic's government in batches, on the steps of the goddamn Archonal Palace, and broadcasting it worldwide? How many millions more were slaughtered or chemically brain-scrubbed?"
"There's no need to spout propaganda at me, Lefarge!"
Forsymmes snapped.
"Oh. Then maybe you've tuned in to their public execution channel? Impalements in living color; I'm told the breaking-on-the-wheel is,—"
The agent sighed with elaborate patience. "Brigadier, I'm fully aware of the enemy's contempt for
other
people's
lives. We are talking about putting their
own
lives at risk."
"And maybe you think it's a myth their troops commit suicide rather than surrender? What about Fenris?"
"The so-called doomsday bomb? Nobody's ever been able to prove that it's active; self-evidently a bluff."
Donatei intervened. "In any case, we're talking in a vacuum, here," he said mildly. "None of us are exactly at policy-making level, are we?"
"No, that's true," Lefarge said calmly. The discussion became technical.
"Lefarge, do you really want to be taken off the Project?"
Donatei asked, turning on his subordinate as the door closed behind Forsymmes.
"No, sir, I do not," Lefarge answered.
The black eyes probed him. "If you don't, I'd better not see another performance like that," the general warned. "Stoddard's protege could get away with things, because Stoddard had been here longer than God and knew where all the skeletons were buried. They were terrified of him, from the chairman and the president on down… at least the chairman was; I don't know if Hiero's scared of anything. Herself, probably, like all the rest of us.
But
—and this is the important but—her attitude to the constitutional relations between the presidency and the Alliance is correct to a fault. Hell, Fred, the president knows Allsworthy's a horse's ass as well as you or I do. But he's the bossman."
"We're neither of us a General Stoddard," Lefarge agreed.
"Does that mean we have to swallow this horseshit?"
Donatei shrugged and lit a thin black cheroot in an ivory holder. "As far as it goes. You know the ACI, they like to use scalpels where a sledgehammer's needed."
"Christ, Anton, that so-called strategy of theirs could lose us a dozen cities—if we're
lucky
. Fenris is as real as this table." He rapped his knuckles on the wood.
"You know that. I know that. The people in San Fran, they don't believe it because it's… 'fucking insane,' to their way of thinking."
"Not to a Snake… Yeah, Anton I know."— He shook his head.
"Of course, we could be in a use-it-or-lose-it situation before that. If the cover goes, or they spring their surprise on us, whatever it is. What do you think our Great Leaders will do then?"
"If the Project's cover's blown? Back off, if it's before saturation point. Dither a little and then use it, after that. If the Snakes attack first, everything gets used."
"I wish Stoddard were here. You going to the funeral?"
"Yes." Donatei drew on the cheroot, his hollowed cheeks giving a skull cast to the thin face. "I never thought he'd die, you know?" There was compassion in his voice as he continued.
Everyone had known Lefarge and the old man were close: "I'm glad you made it back before the end; it was so sudden… What did you talk about?"
"Nothing. Personal things."
And Nelson's eyepatch
, Lefarge thought with chill satisfaction, as the other man nodded agreement. A soldier's duty was obedience, but there were other duties.
I'm glad Uncle Nate
reminded me of that,
he thought.
It
would have been a lonely burden to bear alone.
"And, Fred, remember you've gotten out of touch with the institutional balance while you had your head up there in the clouds all these years. Stoddard kept the wolves off your back while you pushed the Project through." He rose and crossed to the sideboard. "Scotch?" Lefarge accepted the glass. "Here's to him." They clinked glasses. "You're going to have to walk a little smaller, for safety's sake. The view's great, but there are disadvantages to having your head in the clouds, you know."
It's still better than having it rammed up your ass
, Lefarge reflected, as he raised the glass in bland acknowledgment.
"Well all do our jobs," he said.
Whether the suits want me to
or not.
DRAKA FORCES BASE ARESOPOLIS
MARE SERENITATIS LUNA
1100 HOURS
MARCH 26, 1998
There were dozens of launch-sites around Aresopolis, and swift linear-induction subtunnels to all of them. Yolande chose to exercise a Commandant's privilege and use the central dome exit when possible, and to travel aboveground. They left from another of those privileges, a small private villa on the lip of one of the natural terraces that rimmed the crater. It was daywatch, and the sky was set to a bright blue-green that dimmed everything but a ghost-outline of the three-quarter Earth, and the unwinking fire of the sun. The house gleamed white and blue and its roofs russet-red; the walled hectare of garden smelled of damp earth and plants from the nightwatch rain.
The staff were lined up before the round doorway; they bowed with hands before eyes as she drew on her gloves, this being a formal occasion.
"Good-bye," she said. "Yo've served well, and while I'm gone, y'all can stay here in the villa servant's quarters an' grounds."
They brightened; it was a rare treat, they were usually only here when the Mistress was in residence.
"Maintenance work only, an' Jolene's authorized to draw supplies fo' an entertainment, yo'selves and a guest each." Cheers at that.
She nodded at Jolene. "Keep 'em in order, hey?"
"Yo' command, Mistis," Jolene said, bending to kiss the Draka's hand.
Yolande put the palm under her chin and raised her to meet her lips. "Be seein' yo'."
Marya sank back on the cushioned seat beside Tina and watched the Draka board the airsled. Yolande ignored the steps, vaulting over the side in a complete feet-uppermost turn that looked slow-motion in the . 16 C, landing neatly in the bucket seat; she turned and smiled broadly at Marya, with a wink.
The serf smiled back.
It's like method acting,
she told herself in some cold inner pocket of her mind. You had to construct a part of you that actually
was
what you portrayed; only here, you had to write the role as you went along. Impossible to do consciously—there was no way to concentrate long or hard enough; eventually you would slip up fatally. More a matter of creating and living in a persona. She suspected most born-serfs did the same from infancy, less consciously; it was impossible to tell how many retained anything beneath the role, how many became it.
Careful, she dosen't expect you to fawn,
Marya reminded herself. Yolande turned to the controls and stretched, cracking her fingers together over her head before dropping them to the sidestick.
Just keep her happy and relaxed, and she'll keep
talking. Why not? You're only a serf.
Knowing people was useful in ordinary life, the margin of survival for a spy, life itself to a serf. Yourself most of all.
She
isn't cruel by their standards
, Marya told herself.
Nor stupid. As
for last night…
The shame was less than she had expected; decades spent in the Domination could not help but rub off on your attitudes.
It wasn't rape. You asked her.
And while it was not something she would have otherwise chosen to do…
Face it,
it was
physically pleasant
. Yolande had been gentle, and took pleasure in giving pleasure as much as in receiving it—from what she knew, not something a serf could count on. The irritating part had been remembering always-to let the other take the lead.
Oh well, call it waltzing.
No, not unpleasant,
she thought, letting her tired body relax into the cushions. Apart from the lack of sleep, she felt fine; the body had its own logic. Expecting it, she could handle the irrational rush of friendliness. That was a common pattern as well; hopefully, her owner would see no reason to suppress it.
Yolande liked to be liked, even by her chattel, when possible.
She's not evil,
Marya thought with analytical dispassion.
Neither was an apple full of cyanide.
It was simply too dangerous to be allowed to exist.
Yolande took the airsled straight up from the courtyard. It was basically a shallow dish of aluminum alloy built around a superconductor storage ring, with seats and windshields and small noiseless fans. Lift and drive were from pivoting vents on the rim, a dozen of them making the little craft superbly responsive. She glanced up into the rearview mirror.
Not the only thing that's superbly responsive
, she thought happily.
Freya, but I needed my clock
cleaned
.
That was
different, not as bland as most serfs. More push-back.
A sensor went ping at three hundred meters: echosounder, of course. Air pressure here was uniform right up until you ran into the sky. The aircraft slid forward at sixty kph, beneath a light scattering of fleecy pancake-shaped clouds.
There were times when you had to step back from a problem, turn your mind to something else, before you could see it plainly.
She had climbed the command-chain faster than anyone before her; native ability, connections, luck, and sustained drive. That because she had seen that the deadlock on Earth would squeeze resources into space, where they could at least accomplish
something
. For more than a decade, ever since Telmark IV, the knowledge that there could be nothing better here than a stalemate at a higher level of violence had eaten at her. Her mind prompted a list.