Island Worlds (28 page)

Thor let out a long-pent breath when he saw Linde. "All the automated defense systems are taken care of," she reported. "They're helpless now." She glanced at the gurney, gasped and turned pale. "Is that Shaw?" she said. "I thought they wanted him alive! How could they do that to anybody?"

Thor put an arm around her as he reholstered his pistol. "They wanted answers and he wouldn't talk. Stubborn bastard. He's alive, after a fashion. "

"Alive, hell," said a croaking voice. "I'm even conscious."

"Martin," Thor said. His voice was steady but tears streamed down his cheeks, "fm sorry, Martin. I'm sorry we couldn't get here sooner. It was a complicated operation."

"They didn't destroy anything but my body," Shaw said. "All the essential things still work."

"The situation is changed, Martin," Thor said. "They want peace. There are crucial decisions to be made, and damn little time."

Shaw couldn't move his head, but his eyes flickered to Natalie and Caterina. "No sedation on the trip back," he said. "I have to keep my wits about me."

"You need weeks of sedation," Caterina said.

"No." The single syllable was final. The best day of my life, Thor thought, I couldn't put that much authority in a whole speech. How can he even be sane after such treatment?

"Natalie," Thor said, "take him back to the frigate. You heard his orders. No sedation." She shot him a poisonous look, but she obeyed.

Mike came in, covered with soot. "Got Hughes," he reported. "Bastard suffered all too little."

"I have no argument with that," Thor said. He nodded toward the corpses of the Party advisers. "I put some slugs into those two myself. But no more killing. They can't fight back and there's no excuse for it."

"For the garrison, all right," Mike said. "But the interrogation team is ours."

"No," Thor said, "I won't—"

"Thor," Mike said, his voice as adamant as Martin's had been, "don't make me kill you, too. I'd hate to explain it to Martin and I wouldn't like it much myself."

"He means it, Thor," Linde said. "They're not worth it."

What the hell, he thought. He was tired of playing by the rules, anyway. "All right, but only the torturers. And I want a full holographic record of this place, and reports from all the freed prisoners. Someday there'll be trials."

"We wouldn't leave anybody to try," Mike said.

Thor looked at him bleakly. "We may need this for our own defense," he said.

"The roughest part," Linde said, "was getting O'Halloran's face to look anxious. It wasn't just putting in the stress lines, it was making it look like they'd been holographically eradicated, but unsuccessfully, so that an experienced observer would still see what they were trying to cover up. That in turn would convey a subliminal sense that the whole production had been put together in a panic, increasing the viewer's anxiety and loss of confidence in the status quo. Compared to achieving that effect, circumventing the internal and external defense systems was a cinch."

Shaw managed a pained chuckle. "A cinch. Subverting the most sophisticated computers in existence was a cinch, she says. Linde, you're a treasure." He was regaining some use of his neck and he turned his head slightly to face Thor. "I need a complete briefing on your Ciano field discoveries. I'm up to hearing about it now. Thor, you needn't hang around while I'm absorbing all this, but we'll need to discuss it afterwards. If it's what I think, we're now at one of the major turning points of history. The future of all mankind will depend upon what we decide and accomplish over the next few years."

Only Martin, Thor thought as he left, could make such a statement sound like simple fact instead of pompous speechifying. They were on the return cruise, EOS and Defiance ships together, on this leg of the journey. Thor was headed for a rendezvous with the ships that would bear the peace delegation to the talks on Mars. As for the Defiance people—he wasn't really sure. Much would depend upon what Martin decided in the next few days. Thor did not regard Shaw as his prisoner.

He found Caterina alone in the galley. "I was hungry," he said. "Thought I'd hunt up a snack."

She waved to the keyboard of die food synthesizer. "Help yourself. I'm amazed you have any appetite, after being in with Martin. And after that, after seeing what they've done to him, you still plan to talk peace with the Earthies!"

He keyed some shrimp tempura and a bulb of coffee. He was beginning to see something that should have been plain to him long ago, a fact to which he had been blinded by emotional infatuation: Caterina was really pretty silly and immature.

"Spare me your indignation, Cat. He's a grown man and he knew what he was in for if he ever got caught."

"How can you be so cold-blooded? And I saw the tears on your face when you knew what had been done to him! Now you act as if the Earthies were in the right!"

"I was saddened at what had been done to an old friend. But what do you think would happen if you dropped one of your rock bombs on a civilian target? It's not like a fight in space where almost everybody dies cleanly or comes out unhurt. Thousands of people would be just like him or worse, whole hospitals full of them, maimed and crippled for life. They wouldn't all be grown people, either, or hardened fighters. Children, old people, mothers and noncombatants of every sort, and they'd stay in those hospitals for years after the war is over and forgotten by everybody else."

"But they began this!" she insisted. "They're forcing these measures on us!"

"It's always the other side's fault. And it's always cleaner when you do it from a distance. Do you think it makes any difference to a maimed victim whether his injuries were inflicted deliberately by a torturer or by some idealistic idiot who set the coordinates for a piece of rock from a hundred million kilometers away?"

"It's different," she insisted.

"No it isn't. Ask Martin. He'll tell you so."

She shoved herself out of the galley in a rage. His tempura appeared and he dipped it in the glutinous soy sauce that had been developed for zero-gee. It was excellent, but he found himself craving a good steak. It was a shock to realize how many years it had been since he'd eaten a steak.

"A shame," Martin said, "that the anti-matter drive won't do all you'd hoped. It has one practical application, though."

"Of course," Thor said. "And I knew it would occur to you immediately. The anti-matter bomb. Forget it, Martin."

"Thor, shame on you. A weapon like that has far more applications than merely blowing things up. This is now a part of your diplomacy. Armed might is as much a part of the diplomatic process as clever talk and double-dealing. The fact is, we don't need the armed might, but they do. At least, they need the appearance of that might."

"What?" Caterina said.

"Got no idea what you're talking about, Boss," Mike agreed. But Thor grasped the point instantly. For the first time in days, he smiled.

"But enough of that," Martin went on. "We now have our opportunity to buy time. We need time for Linde to fully develop the star drive."

"Don't go on unwarranted assumptions," Linde cautioned. "As it looks now, I should be able to develop the drive, but nothing is one hundred percent certain. A glitch could turn up and the whole thing might be impracticable."

"That has to be taken into account," Shaw agreed. "All we can do at the peace talks is forestall the next war. But another war will come, believe me. Since there is the possibility that the next war will wipe out all life on Earth and in the outerworlds, we should start sending out expeditions as soon as possible."

"Using the antimatter drive," Linde said, "even going to the Alpha Centauri system would take a hundred generations."

"Before the war," Shaw said, "there would have been no takers. Not now. Many of the outerworlders have suffered enough. And who better to undertake such a voyage than asteroid colonists? They'll be living in the same environment most of them have known all their lives. The planets are as remote to them as asteroids are to Earthies. For most, there will be little change in their lives, assuming the asteroid colony undertaking the journey is provided for self-sufficiency. The only significant change will be in the view outside, and that will be very gradual."

"But to be cut off from communication and contact with other asteroids," Natalie said. "That would be hard."

"We can maintain communication with them by maser beam. It's slow, but the best we have at the moment. I'll probably crack the problem of superluminal communication first, at which time communication with the generation expeditions will become instantaneous. Should I perfect superluminal matter transmission, we can send them the technological data to make their own. Better yet, we could send them engineers and hardware so that they could continue their voyages without all the wait."

"And there's no need for them to go alone," Thor pointed out. "A number could take off together, headed for the same destination. They could maintain contact throughout the voyage. That would provide backup in case of emergencies, as well. "

"No doubt about it," Shaw said, "after this war, there'll be a great many people looking for a better place to live."

SIXTEEN

A hand was shaking his shoulder. Slowly, reluctantly, Secretary-General Jameson began to wake up.

"You're being buzzed by General Gulmen's office," Teresa said.

"What's he want at this hour?" Jameson asked rhetorically. He rolled over and hit the audio-only plate. His staff knew all about Teresa, but no sense giving them any more fuel than necessary. Even his wife knew about her, not that she'd dare say anything.

General Gulmen appeared in the screen, his face unshaven and his uniform rumpled. Whatever it was, Jameson thought, it had hauled his chief of staff out of bed as well.

"I'm sorry to bother you at this hour, sir," the Turk said, "but the news is urgent. Rebels have raided our maximum-security facility at Elba and seized Martin Shaw from custody."

Jameson sat straight up. "What?" he shrieked. "Why wasn't the raid repelled? How could they have gotten Inside without the failsafes killing all the prisoners?"

"We don't know yet, sir," said Gulmen. "It looks as if the rebels are in possession of some new form of technology, one that can circumvent our best computer systems."

"Or," Jameson said, "it might be that there are traitors among us." Jameson knew that there were traitors all around him. He had had several executed recently. Nobody could be trusted totally.

"I am sure that that is not the case here, sir," said Gulmen, his beard-shadow beginning to gleam with sweat.

"It had better not be, General," Jameson said. "I want a full report in the morning." He snapped off the communicator.

What now? He sat on the edge of the bed and ran a hand through his thinning hair. Teresa knelt behind him and began massaging his shoulders. She was a fine secretary and a much better mistress, but right now he needed expert advice. "Honey, give me some wake-up and then get me Carstairs."

She passed him a thin, blue disk with a damp pad on one side. "You should take it easy with this stuff," she warned. "You've been using two or three doses a week, and that's too much."

He pressed the pad against the inside of his elbow and the drug shot through his skin and into his bloodstream. Within seconds, he felt the weariness drop away. "I need to be on my toes. I have enemies all around me and I can't afford to be caught napping." He rolled the depleted disk between thumb and forefinger and flipped it into a waste disposal. It winked like a firefly and disappeared.

Carstairs appeared on the screen. He was clean-shaven, seated at his desk, and his clothes immaculate. What time-zone was he in, Jameson wondered. Then he realized that it was the same one he was in. Didn't the man ever sleep?"

"Yes, Mr. Secretary-General?" Carstairs had made no effort to spruce up for his boss. His sleeves were rolled above the elbows and there was an orderly litter of papers and printouts on his desk. Obviously, he was too busy for inessentials.

"Tony, something serious has happened." Hastily, he sketched out what he knew about Shaw's escape.

"Bloody hell," Carstairs said, disgustedly. "A quid to a bob it was Thor Taggart sprung the barstid." At times like this, Carstairs' Liverpool origins came through.

"Shall we cancel the peace talks?" Jameson asked.

"No!" Carstairs held up a palm. "You'll do no such thing. We must have this armistice. The rebels are telling us that they know it, too. Cheeky barstids are going to rub our noses in the fact. No matter. Let 'em get cocky. All we need is time. Once we have things under control here, we'll be after 'em again. Next time, we'll be prepared and we won't be listening to a pack of admirals who've spent the last thirty years with their arses parked in armchairs and agreeing with each other at cocktail parties. Revenge is a dish best eaten cold, Mr. Secretary-General. No, we go on with the peace talks as planned and we make no mention of Shaw. From here on, he doesn't exist."

"And the ban on delegates from the Ciano-Kuroda-Taggart-Sousa clan?"

"Forget it. Let 'em send who they want. They'd just do it anyway and we'd lose face when they defied us. We'll just refuse to recognize anyone from the Defiance party. No mention of Shaw. As far as we're concerned, he's dead. Might well be, at that. Even if he's alive, he won't be causing anybody any trouble for a long time. Our inquisitors weren't gentle with him."

"That's how we'll play it, then," Jameson said. "Good night, Tony." He switched the set off. It always made him feel better, talking with Carstairs. The man never panicked, always landed on his feet, always had the right answers. Jameson lay back on the bed, reassured and at peace. Now that he was wide awake, what was there to do? He reached for Teresa.

A few hundred kilometers to the north, the Honorable Anthony Carstairs sat back in his chair. For the ten thousandth time, he cursed the fate that had forced him to use an incompetent boob like Jameson as figurehead for the Party. Well, that might not be necessary much longer. Elective politics were almost a thing of the past, so who cared if the boss had a toothpaste-ad smile. Soon it would be time to dump Jameson and take that seat himself. Or maybe not. How could he run things if he had to shake hands and cut ribbons all the time? But Jameson! Why couldn't he have someone like young Taggart to run the public end while he took care of business?

He reached into his desk and took out a flat bottle of Glenfiddich. He poured a gill and knocked it back. There was a lot to be said for keeping a low profile. He smiled to himself as he remembered how he had bagged the cartel headed by Murdo McNaughton. Old Murdo had looked very surprised when Party police had arrested him and hauled him away. The cartel had been useful in the early days and Carstairs hadn't minded letting them think that they were using him.

But he hadn't forged a world government to turn it over to a pack of bloated plutocrats to milk for their own sordid profits. They had sought guarantees of protection, freedom from competition, monopolies. What they had received had been confiscation, nationalization and prison terms or execution. He despised them even more than he despised the old free-market capitalists. The old breed, that still flourished in the outerworlds, at least had guts and weren't afraid of risk and competition. Murdo's kind had pretty much done what the old Marxists had never been able to do—destroy the centuries-old system of free enterprise. They loved the labels and poses of the capitalist entrepreneurs, but they were so terrified of actually risking their money and dealing with competitors that they had been willing to establish a world government and foment a war just to protect themselves.

Well, Anthony Carstairs wanted that government and that war, too, but for different reasons. He knew that Earth was headed for a reign of utter barbarism within two generations if something didn't pull the increasingly fragmented population together and give it a common direction. The world state and the war was the only answer, and the Party was the only mechanism capable of bringing about salvation. It was tough on the outerworld colonies, but they were only a tiny minority of mankind. In any case, as far as he was concerned, anyone who abandoned the motherworld to her problems and went off to seek safety in space had no call on the sympathy of those left behind.

Enough of these ruminations. He was wasting time. "Marley!" he bellowed to the outer office. "Make up printouts on all the EOS leadership, an executive summary on the history of the war to date, and find a copy of Silverstein's Treaties and Armistice Negotiations. Set up a lunch appointment with General Gulmen in London and have the printed material in my briefcase by evening. I'm heading for Mars for a few days and I need the material to study up on during the trip."

"Right away, sir." The exhausted second-shift secretary began to key the required documents, looking forward fervently to his boss's departure for Mars. Didn't the man ever sleep?

The conference hall beneath Ares City was not large by Earth U.N. standards, but it was a huge indoor area for Mars. It had once been a subterranean oxygen tank for the surface settlements. Though long obsolete, it had been by turns a gymnasium, a barracks, and now a conference hall. The morning session was over and the delegates were breaking for lunch.

"The advantage of a near-dictatorship," Carstairs was saving to Thor, "is that you can tell the diplomatic corps to shift their bleedin' arses and show some results or take their ease in prison. Left to themselves, they'd still be arguing over the shape of the conference table and we'd have bugger-all accomplished."

"The negotiations have to be a little protracted," Thor said, "or the folks back home won't believe we're serious. " The two sat in spindly Martian chairs near the open bar-restaurant adjoining the conference area. It was part of the public relations established for the peace talks that prominent members of the negotiation teams were to be seen publicly socializing every day, to give the illusion that the entire process was open and that there were no secret meetings or deals. Nothing could have been farther from the truth, but the pose had to be maintained. The fiction served the useful function of allowing the delegates to feel each other out and get acquainted.

The informal chat between Carstairs and Thor, minus sound, was being holographed by a team from World Network and another from Fu's pirate outfit. Jameson had protested the presence of Fu's network at the conference, but Eos had threatened to broadcast their holos of the torture facilities at Elba, and the Secretary-General had backed down. The Earthies were by no means humanitarian in their attitudes toward the outerworlds, but they lacked the stomach to face the uglier realities of the war.

The opening talks had been mere establishments of relative position. The U.N. maintained that there was no war, merely the suppression of some insurrections by malcontents calling themselves the Confederacy. The U.N. had magnanimously agreed to listen to grievances from the representatives in order to bring about a cessation of hostilities.

The Confederate party held it equally self-evident that they were the duly appointed representatives of a sovereign state, the Confederacy of Island Worlds, and that they were there to hammer out a peace treaty between two nations, including territorial borders and orbital zones of sovereignty.

The U.N. delegation began to protest the presence of national flags on the table before the Confederate delegation, and the playing of the Confederate national anthem at the opening of each session. For them to countenance such trappings, they argued, would be a
de facto
recognition of Confederate sovereignty. Carstairs passed the head of the U.N. delegation a note telling him to shut up and get on with business. Meekly, the delegation complied.

The two parties spent the first five days making their rhetorical announcements of political and ideological position. This was for consumption at home. Far more valuable had been the informal meetings at which the delegates had become acquainted well enough to be able to negotiate confidently when the time came. Both governments wanted a peace agreement and no messing around.

For the Earth First Party, the crucial question was face. Even powerful governments could fall if they lost face and were humiliated publicly. The Earth First world hegemony was rickety, indeed. The capture of Shaw was to have been its face-saving coup, but the Confederates had not cooperated.

"By the way," Thor said, "Yuri Pereira is hosting a dinner this evening at his villa. I know that Secretary-General Jameson has been invited, along with Miss Kornfeld and me. We'd be delighted if you could attend as well."

"I'd be honored," Carstairs said. Progress at last! As he returned to his quarters, Carstairs wondered again just who the intriguing Miss Kornfeld was. She was pretty, but it wasn't like Taggart to drag a mistress along to the talks. She was witty and charming, but sometimes she seemed to blank out in the middle of a conversation and just wasn't there any more. He would have suspected drugs, but when she snapped back she was fully lucid.

In his apartment he was about to call Jameson, then called his intelligence chief instead. Colonel Tagliotti, in civilian clothes, appeared on the screen. "Yes, Mr. Carstairs?"

"Giuseppe, what have you found out about this Kornfeld bint? I'll give you odds she's no secretary."

"Most disturbing person, sir. Every test we have identifies her body language as that of a native-born Martian colonist. Chemical testing of skin samples we've been able to take bears this out. But there are no records of her ever having lived here. "

"Ridiculous," Carstairs said. "There have been complete records of every colonist here since the founding of the settlement."

"The mere lack of records is the least of it. There was a couple named Kornfeld who died in the Barsoom riots. They seem to have had a child, but no record of its birth or schooling exists. We questioned several university teachers who remembered her as an exceptionally brilliant student, a prodigy. When they tried to find their records of her, they found nothing. We suspect that she may be Chih' Chin Fu's mysterious assistant who was active on Luna."

Things clicked into place and Carstairs smiled ruefully. "And some genius subverted the impregnable computers controlling Elba. Thank you, Colonel." He clicked the set off. Why did the outerworlds have all this talent? It was part of the Earth's major problem. If people with brains like that had stayed home, the motherworld might not be in such dismal shape. He keyed Jameson's villa.

"Hello, Tony," Jameson said, heartily. "I take it you're calling about the big do at Pereira's tonight. I didn't like the idea of accepting an invitation from a pack of outerworld upstarts, but the Chief of Protocol says its politic to accept."

Carstairs held his exasperation in check. God give me patience, he thought. "Sir, I think this is where they're going to make their serious proposal. The preliminaries are over with and now we can sit down with the important members of their delegation and work out the real peace agreement."

"Exactly," Jameson said, as if that was what he had been thinking all along. Shameless bugger probably thinks it was his idea by now, Carstairs thought. He switched off and began to outline what he was going to say to the Confederates.