Yolande opened one eye and grinned. "It's rare but not unknown," she said. More seriously: "Marya, I know you've never accepted the Yoke, not in yo' heart. But yo' behavior's been impeccable for more than twenty years, which means my obligation is to treat yo' as a good serf. I… seriously violated that, back when." Her smile turned rueful. "I'd consider letting yo' go, were it practical. Or just giving yo' a cottage on the Island and letting yo' live out y' years." She owned one of the Seychelles islands outright, but seldom visited it.
"Mistis? May I speak frankly?" Yolande nodded, and the serf continued. "You don't feel in the least, ah, disturbed about enslaving me, but using this,"—she raised the controller cuff—"makes you feel, mmm, guilty?"
Yolande linked her hands behind her neck. "Slightly
ashamed
, not guilty; such a bourgeois emotion, guilt." She frowned. "Not about—yes, enslavin' is the correct term, I suppose—no. Yo' not of the Race; I am. My destiny to rule, yours to obey and serve.
Obedience and submission: protection and guidance. Perfectly proper."
The Draka studied the serfs face, which had taken on the careful blankness of suppressed expression. "One reason besides Gwen I've kept yo around, not off somewheres clerkin' or something. Yo' so
different
. It's refreshin', keeps me on my toes mentally, like doin' unarmed practice against different opponents. Here." She snapped open a case on the table beside her, brought out two pair of reader goggles. "I'm promotin' yo' to Literate V-a."
That gave unlimited access to the datastores. Except for information under War or Security lock, of course, and Citizen personal files; it was the classification for top-level civilian-sector serfs. Very rare for someone not born in the Domination.
Yolande tossed the other pair to Marya and put on her own; they had laser and micromirror sets in the earpieces, so that you saw the presentation on an adjustable "screen" before your eyes.
She sighed again.
One more time at the data, and maybe I
can make sense of them.
Planet AC-IV: Codename
Samothrace
Samothrace is terrestroid to a high degree. Diameter is .97
Standard, and density indicates a metallic core with a shell of silicates, as with Earth. Atmospheric analysis shows an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, with somewhat higher concentrations of the noble gases and slightly less water vapor; there is a small icecap in the north polar region, although none in the south. Continental outlines are compatible with a plate-tectonic model; land area is 40% of total rather higher than Earth, but there is no large mass comparable to Africa/Eurasia at present. Surface area is markedly concentrated in the north Temperate Zone. There are twin satellites, each of roughly .5 the size of Luna; these have been provisionally named
"Thoreau" and "Emerson." Current planetographic theory indicates that the observed data can only be accounted for by a developed biosphere based on sea- and land-growing photosynthetic plants, presumably with analogs to the animal phyla as well. There is, however, no indication of intelligent life: no industrial-era changes in the atmospheric composition, no observable engineering works or large-city lights, and certainly no space travel or even modulated emissions in the electromagnetic communications wavelengths. However, the Committee wishes to point out that even space-based VLT 1 and electromagnetic scanners have their limitations, and an investigation of Earth from similar distances would have revealed no indications of intelligent life as recently as 1800.
Furthermore, while the oxygen-rich atmosphere indicates roughly similar patterns of biological development very wide differences in detail are to be anticipated.
Leaving aside the outer planets and what orbital perturbation indicates is a substantial population of asteroids, there are four other large rocky masses. The three inner ones appear to be roughly comparable to Mercury: subterres-trial in size, and airless. Beyond Samothrace, at 1.7 AD, is another planet of approximately .57 Standard diameters, showing signs of a predominantly carbon dioxide-inert gas atmosphere at a surface pressure equivalent to the 5,000-meter level on Earth; there are also indications of liquid water and water vapor. Mars is the obvious parallel in the solar system, but this planet—preliminary name "Jefferson"—is nearly twice the size and rather closer to the primary; conditions more closely resemble the current theory's picture of Mars several billion years ago. Terraforming operations would be much simpler than the ones projected for Mars, however.
The asteroidal bodies…
From:
The Alpha Centauri System Fifth Study Committee
Summary
Recruit Orientation and Introduction
New America
Project Level III
Most Secret
July 17, 1997
CENTRAL OFFICE, ARCHONAL PALACE
ARCHONA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
MARCH 27, 1998
1700 HOURS
"Sweet—Mother—Freya,"
Yolande said, looking wide-eyed at her uncle. Rank and station, the slight residual awe this office evoked, all vanished. "Shitfire!"
Footnote #1 Very Large Telescopes, including the 10-kilometer Farside instruments.
"Both appropriate," he said, rising stiffly and walking to the sideboard. "So is a drink… Arch-Strategos."
For a moment even the news she had just heard could not block a stab of concern.
He looks so much
older
. Nearly eighty, but with modern medicine that was only late middle age. Still straight, but he moved with care, and the lines were graven deeper into the starved-eagle face, below the thick white hair. It was a killing job, this; his pallor was highlighted by the dark indigo of his jacket and the black lace of his cravat. Then the immensity of what she had heard swept back, and she felt her stomach swoop again.
My teeth want to chatter.
She accepted the glass and knocked half of it back; eau-de-vie.
The warmth spread in her belly, and she closed her eyes to let the information sink in.
"Uncle, this is the best news I've had since… Loki, I don't know."
"Is it?" He sank down behind the desk. "Is it really?"
Yolande looked up, met the cold gray eyes, and refused to be daunted. "Uncle Eric—Excellence—I've spent the past decade dead-certain convinced that we were headin' fo' the Final War without a
prayer
of comin' out on top. Yo' just gave me hope fo'
myself, not so important. For my children and the Race, rather more so!"
He nodded and rested his face in his hands for a moment before raising his drink.
"Now yo' know, daughter of my sister, what only a dozen other people outside Virunga Biocontrol know—and we've kept the ones who worked on the project locked up tighter than a headhunter's heart." For an instant his voice went flat-soft. "Yo'
realize, even the
suspicion
that yo'
might
reveal this would mean a pill?"
Yolande one hand in a gesture of acceptance. A bullet in the back of the head was an occupational risk, at the highest levels of command and power. "And when is acceptable-saturation?" she continued.
"Well…" Uncle Eric seemed oddly reluctant. "This year, accordin' to projections. No way to be absolutely sure, so they put a large margin of error in. Didn't want a wholesale infection; that would increase the chance of detection too much. We coded a stop; it replicates a certain number of times and then goes noninfectious. Then we used unknowin' vectors for the various targets: their command an' control echelons, Space Force and so forth. There may be some spillover to the bulk of their military, even civilians, but not much. Yo' little brush beyond Luna gave us a random sample that fitted right in with our best-case hypothesis."
"Trigger?" she said.
"Coded microwave; resonates, activates it. Irregular period beyond that, but once it starts, stress accelerates the process."
"No way of shieldin'?"
"Not unless yo' know. Heavy tranquilizers an' psychotropics can mitigate the effects, until the thing cycles itself out; takes about four, five days iff'n the subject is restrained that way. But even so, yo' not worth much in that condition. Questionin' the test subject indicates it's like… a combination of
Berserkergang
and paranoid schizophrenia, with some mighty nasty hallucinations thrown in. Works best on the highly intelligent."
Yolande sipped again at the fiery liquid, imagining the consequences. In the crowded workstations of a battle platform, in the tight-knit choreography of a warship's control center. A hard grin fought its way toward her face, was pressed back.
"Effectiveness?" she asked.
"Depends… they're more automated than we are, but they still haven't cut humans out of their action loops, not at the initiation stage. Given surprise, an' an all-out attack along with it, the projections indicate we could take out their Earth-orbit capacity to about ninety percent, and still come through with enough of our own to block what little of their offensive strength survived.
We've built redundant, fo' exactly that purpose."
"An," Yolande exclaimed. "The Militants, they must know, too!
That's
why they're confident enough to talk openly about startin' the Final War."
"Their top triumvirate. Gayner was in on it from the beginnin'. The rest, no, of course not. They're just the bloodthirsty nihilistic loons they come across as."
"Shitfire," Yolande whispered again. The alcohol seemed to slide down her throat without effect. "Gayner nearly lost it right there on the viewer when yo' got the reelection vote, back in '97,"
she said.
Eric smiled thinly. "One of my mo' pleasant memories. She was wild to be in this chair when we reached go-level." A harsh laughter. "What immortality, fo' the Archon who led the Race to victory in the Final War? Someone in that position could do anythin', get any program put through. Trouble would be to keep the Citizenry from electin' him—or her—to godhood."
"When do we attack?" Yolande said.
"Yo', too," the Archon said with resigned bitterness. "I've been hearin' that question with increasin' frequency fo' six months now. Accompanied by thinly veiled threats, fromGayner and her cutthroats."
She looked at him bewildered for a moment, then felt her eyes narrow. "Why
not
, fo' Wotan's sake?" she said. "Every moment we hesitate longer than we have to is deadly-dangerous. Use it or we risk losin' it."
Eric gave a jerk of his chin. "Oh, yes. They behind in Biotech, but makin' slow progress… and computer analysis is basic to that, too. The rate of increase in computer technology is slowin'—the experts say it's pushin' the theoretical limits with known architectures—but it hasn't
stopped
. Sooner or later, they'll get a clue; if nothin' else, from the strategic deployment choices we've been makin'. On the other hand…" He looked up at her and tapped his fingers on the desk. "This incident of yourn, it wasn't the bioanalysis of the prisoners that got yo' interested initially, was it?"
"No.
Somethin
destroyed that stingfighter. Some sort of interference with they infosystems."
"
Our
nightmare. And they've been
matchin'
our deployments.
Increasin' the proportion of orbit-to-ground weapons. Exactly the sort of thing yo'd put in, if yo' expected to be in a position to hammer Earth from space with impunity."
"Wait," Yolande said with alarm. "They
could
just be matchin'
us tit fo' tat. Their buildup didn't start until well after our current six-year plan."
"But it points to
somethin
they are doin' to
us
. And…" he hesitated. "I saw the results of nuclear weapons, in Europe, back at the end of the last war. Stoppin'
almost
everythin' isn't the same as stoppin'
everythin'
." He looked out through the wall, at the lights of the city winking on below, and continued very softly.
"Not to mention how many of them we'd have to kill. Not to mention…" He looked up.
"Arch-Strategos, the final decision in these matters is mine; the responsibility comes with the office. We will move when I authorize."
Yolande rose and set the peaked cap on her head.
"Understood, Excellence," she said, saluting. Then: "I'm takin' a week's leave, Uncle Eric. That all right?"
"Oh, yes. We won't begin the war without you, niece," he said.
"Besides, it'll keep the enemy from wonderin' what yo' doin' back on Earth."
Yolande grinned at the sarcasm;
it was just like Uncle Eric. A
little too squeamish
, she thought.
But basically a good man.
"Service to the State," she said.
"Glory to the Race," he replied.
She left, and he turned down the lights, watching the multicolored glow of Archona below. Minutes stretched, and he sat motionless. "Glory indeed," he said. His mouth twisted.
"Glory."
SPIN HABITAT SEVEN
NEW AMERICA
PROJECT
CENTRAL BELT, ALLIANCE INTERDICTED ZONE
BETWEEN THE ORBITS OF MARS AND JUPITER
MARCH 31, 1998
"First-rate dinner," Manuel Obregon said.
Cindy Lefarge nodded thanks and finished loading the dishes into the washer. She touched a control and the cylindrical hopper sank into the counter-top. A quiet hum sounded through the serving window. The Lefarge living-dining area was open-plan in the manner that had become fashionable in the
'70s, when the price of live-in help rose beyond the budgets of the upper middle class.
It always was, here in the Belt,
she thought with slight cynicism.
Amazing how fast domestic
gadgets got invented when it was
really necessary.
The thought was a welcome distraction from what would be said tonight. She picked up the tray with the coffee and carried it around to set on the table.
There were six others dining at Brigadier Lefarge's house that night, four men and two women. Department heads, or in two cases shockingly
not,
a few steps further down the chain of command. They shifted uneasily, buying a few more minutes passing sugar and cream around until everyone was settled; these were people of authority, but not military, not conspirators. Scientists for the most part, or scientific administrators at least, engineers, used to hard-material problems and juggling workers and resources. This smelled political, and not office politics either.