by Baen Books
“Which is what brings me here today.”
She paused, and Ambart leaned back in his own chair, elbows propped on the armrests while he steepled his fingers under his chin. He regarded her thoughtfully for several seconds.
“Why?” he asked simply.
“Because just as with our own citizens, no other star nation is going to believe what I say,” she told him levelly. “They’re going to judge me, and my Republic, and the Constitution I’ve sworn to restore, by what I do. And that means I can’t simply do what’s expedient. There’s an ancient phrase from Old Terra: ‘Purer than Caesar’s wife.’ If the Republic means to earn back any sort of interstellar legitimacy, then its actions—my actions, my decisions and policies—have to demonstrate that I’m ‘purer than Caesar’s wife’ when it comes to interstellar relations. I can’t afford ambiguity, can’t afford anything that even looks like a continuation of Legislaturalist or Committee of Public Safety practices and duplicity. Opponents and rivals will twist anything they can to portray my Administration as the same old People’s Republic with no more than a change in labeling. I can’t—I won’t—give them a single extra piece of ammunition if I can avoid it.”
“I see.”
He lowered his hands, clasping them across his abdomen, and smiled faintly.
“Since you’ve been candid enough to bring up your predecessors’ perhaps somewhat less than stellar record of human rights abuses and . . . acquisitiveness, I suppose I might be candid enough to admit that I’ve acquired a rather better understanding of the interstellar realities than those predecessors would have preferred. Would it shock you to learn that not all of the State Security personnel sent here to keep an eye on us truly were stalwart paragons of the Revolution, immune to . . . inducements from certain of my own people?”
“Frankly, given the quality of the people who worked for StateSec, I’d be astonished if they had been.” Her voice was desert dry. “In fact, I was more than a little astonished Secretary Theisman managed to get Administrator LePic and his people here before one of those ‘paragons of the Revolution’ sold its location to one of the SS holdouts.”
“I’ve met the Admiral several times now,” Ambart said. “Before I met him, I probably would have shared your amazement. Now, though . . .”
He shrugged, and Pritchart nodded.
“I agree,” she said. “But that rather brings me to the point of my visit. You see—”
“Please.” Ambart raised one hand, his tone courteous as he interrupted her. “Allow me to speculate upon your purpose for a moment.”
She paused, then nodded and sat back in her own chair.
“As I say, not only were certain StateSec personnel amenable to persuasion, but there’s a certain downside to using political prisoners to kick start a planet’s economy. As a consequence, I’ve managed to educate myself on the realities of the People’s Republic—and, if you’ll excuse me for saying so, on the degree to which you appear to differ from them—rather better than Citizen Pierre or Citizen Saint-Just would have preferred.
“I was completely sincere earlier when I mentioned just a few of the uncountable ways in which the People’s Republic has improved the lives and the happiness of my people here on Sanctuary. If you’ve never lived in a society in which people routinely die of appendicitis, like my own grandfather did, or of diabetes—in which no one even dreams there might be a vaccine against cancer or what I believe they used to call Alzheimer’s—you can’t possibly appreciate the true magnitude of those improvements. So even though it had become apparent to me that the People’s Republic was far from the epitome of interstellar justice it had portrayed itself as, I felt very little resentment. It’s true that the independence of my dynasty was sharply curtailed when we became a Havenite protectorate, but in absolute terms, compared to our pre-protectorate position, we’re as much better off as our poorest subjects.
“My point is that Hereditary President Harris and Chairman Pierre—even Chairman Saint-Just—had a legitimate claim to have enormously improved almost every aspect of life here in Refuge. Not only that, they did it without directly intruding—not excessively, at least—into the personal lives of our people. They were prepared to allow us to retain our own law codes, our own customary usages, so long as we accepted our position as their secret arsenal.”
“And your position as second-class citizens in your own star system,” Pritchart said bitterly. “I’m not unaware of the extraterritoriality demands the People’s Republic has made on your people.” She gestured at the armed bodyguard standing at her own shoulder. “And I’m not unaware of the restrictions placed upon some critical aspects of your educational system. Like the ones which forced you to acquire that understanding of interstellar realities through . . . unofficial channels, let’s say.”
The shirkahna pursed his lips and cocked his head, rather like a bird considering some interesting tidbit. Then he shrugged.
“True enough,” he conceded. “In fact, a growing number of our intelligentsia have been murmuring quietly about that very point for the last few years. It’s only murmuring, so far at least.” He smiled slightly. “Trust me, my family’s secret police have had several centuries of experience telling the difference between genuine unrest and simple intellectual unruliness. For the vast majority of our people—well over ninety-five percent, I’d estimate—it remains a nonissue, in most ways. As long as the intrusion into our customs remains limited, it should stay that way.
“Yet I was never sure how long the intrusiveness would remain limited. You see, I had gotten at least a glimpse of the truth behind the façade they presented to us. For the moment, our value to them was both enormous and impossible to doubt and their arrangements here seemed to be working very well for them. But what would happen if someday that was no longer true? What would happen on the day my subjects began demanding the sort of self-determination about which our modernized education system has, as you just pointed out, been remarkably silent?”
“Or the day when your subjects began to question just who ought to own everything they’ve built over the last thirty T-years or so,” Pritchart said quietly, and he nodded.
“Or on that day,” he agreed. “Mind you, I can see the argument that none of that building—certainly none of it outside our own atmosphere—could possibly have happened without the People’s Republic’s massive investment of education, technology, and money. It isn’t unreasonable for the people who made its construction possible to be the ones who own it.”
“Your people may feel that way now,” Pritchart said. “They may even be right to. But ultimately, it wouldn’t exist without all the sweat and effort and human capital Sanctuary’s provided, either. And quite aside from that, your star system’s natural resources were there long before the Peoples’ Republic discovered you or invested a single credit in Refuge. Whatever might be true of the infrastructure that’s been built since, they ought to belong to you, not to outsiders.”
“I will confess that that thought has crept through my mind a time or two,” he admitted. “I’m not quite as blind to our own contribution to the Bolthole complex as my earlier remark might have suggested, and I’ve wondered more than once, over the years, how Chairman Pierre or Oscar Saint-Just might have responded if my people began asking the same question. I’m afraid I didn’t like the conclusions I reached.
“Then Admiral Theisman . . . rearranged things. I found myself with a new and totally unknown power structure to deal with, so I set about learning what I could about him, as well. And about you, when you became President. So I wasn’t quite as surprised by your remarkably courteous request for a meeting as you might have assumed I’d be.”
“You weren’t?” Pritchart asked, watching his expression, listening to that measured exposition in something suspiciously like fascination.
“No.” He shook his head. “You had to come, Madame President. Whether you were sincere in your protestations renouncing the People’s Republic’s imperialis
m or not, you still had to come. Either to explain to me—courteously, no doubt, but firmly—why despite your complete commitment to individual rights and the sovereignty of star nations it would be impossible to extend those same rights and sovereignty to my star system. Or to explain to me that those rights simply didn’t apply to Refuge. Or to lie to me, and to promise me that they did—or would, as soon as humanly possible—while you saw to it that nothing of the sort actually happened. Or—” his eyes sharpened suddenly “—to tell me that they did apply . . . and that you were prepared to make them available to Refuge immediately.”
Pritchart winced internally. The shirkahna was even more astute—and better informed—than she’d assumed he would be.
“You’re exactly correct,” she said after a moment. “In fact, I came here to discuss a variant of one of those with you. And not, I’m afraid, the final one.”
“Ah?”
He regarded her calmly, and she squared her shoulders and met his gaze.
“I have two mutually conflicting problems,” she said. “As I’ve said, unless I’m prepared to demonstrate by my actions that the Republic of Haven is no longer the People’s Republic of Haven, no one will believe it isn’t. But my second problem is that Baron High Ridge, the Manticoran prime minister, is clearly unwilling to negotiate an actual peace treaty. At the moment, he’s excusing his delay on the basis that he’s not sure which of the competing regimes will end up in control in Nouveau Paris. In fact, all of our sources suggest Manticore is quite confident that under Secretary Theisman’s direction of the war, my administration will be the last one standing. If High Ridge had any intention of negotiating at any time, he’d already have opened at least preliminary conversations with us. He hasn’t, and that’s incredibly stupid of him. Whatever happens, the Republic of Haven isn’t going to just disappear, so anyone with a measurable IQ should realize how much to Manticore’s advantage it would be to engineer what they call a ‘soft landing’ for an administration that doesn’t want to continue the war. One that isn’t going to come looking for vengeance in another fifteen or twenty T-years.”
She paused until the shirkahna nodded. No one whose dynasty had ruled for as long as Ambart’s could fail to grasp the points she was making.
“We believe his . . . intransigence has a lot to do with the military advantage the Royal Manticoran Navy and its allies currently enjoy. He doesn’t see any reason he has to negotiate, because the tactical and strategic imbalance is so vast that there’s nothing we could do to compel him to.”
Ambart nodded again.
“And that’s the reason my administration can no more afford for Bolthole’s existence or location to become known to the Manticorans than Pierre and Saint-Just could have. The Manties have intelligence assets in all of our known shipyards; we’ve identified many of them, but there have to be far more we haven’t. If we were to begin laying down starships capable of fighting their starships toe-to-toe in any of those yards, they’d know about it long before the first ship was completed. And if someone like High Ridge knew about it—”
“I believe the applicable term would be ‘preemptive strike,’ Madame President,” Ambart said.
“Precisely.” She nodded.
“And you’re confident your adversaries don’t have those intelligence assets here in Refuge.”
“We’re as close to certain of it as intelligence matters ever get,” she said flatly. “If they knew enough about Bolthole to have infiltrated any of their spies into it, the Royal Manticoran Navy would already have come calling on you. Which, I’m afraid, could still happen if they find out about it,” she finished unflinchingly.
“So Refuge has become even more important to you than it was to the Legislaturalists or to the Committee.”
“Unless I’m prepared to accept the Manticoran refusal to negotiate, yes. And I can’t accept that.” She shook her head. “Not only do I owe the Havenite star systems currently under Manticoran occupation the protection of my government, but if the Manties won’t even negotiate with us, how long can I maintain the pretense that my administration really is the Republic’s legitimate government? A government powerless to even end the unjust wars of its predecessors? A government so ineffectual—so irrelevant—its adversaries won’t even talk to it?”
She shook her head again, and those topaz eyes were dark as night.
“It isn’t only foreign perceptions that concern me, Shirkahna Ambart. There are millions—probably billions—of Havenites who were horrified by the Committee’s overthrow. People whose power, whose wealth, whose influence disappeared or was severely damaged when Admiral Theisman deposed Saint-Just. People whose patriotism is invested in the People’s Republic of Haven’s military might and imperial accomplishments. And, even worse, people who simply see an opportunity to fish for personal advantage in the chaos. Who don’t care about restoring the Constitution. Who see only the chance for them to become the decision-makers, the ones with all the power, and the hell with the rule of law or individual rights.
“If I can’t convince the rest of the Republic’s citizens that I’m the legitimate President and that my administration is a legitimate, effective government, the bottom-feeders will see their opportunity. And if they take it, they can destroy everything Admiral Theisman and I are trying to accomplish.”
“And this High Ridge’s . . . intransigence, I believe you called it, is likely to convince them they do see such an opportunity?” Ambart murmured, but the question was actually a statement, and she nodded.
“I want to believe that whatever is motivating him represents a temporary situation. That he has a domestic objective, and that once he’s accomplished it, he will negotiate with us. I can’t afford to plan and operate on that basis, though. For that matter, even if it’s true, it’s entirely possible that attaining his domestic objective will take long enough to create the situation I’m afraid will destroy my domestic objective of restoring genuine representative government to the Republic.”
She paused, letting that settle for a moment, then leaned back in her arm chair and laid her forearms along the armrests.
“What I would like to do—what I need to do, if I’m going to demonstrate that the restored Republic genuinely respects interstellar law—is to acknowledge Sanctuarian sovereignty here in Refuge. I need to announce the discovery of your people to the galaxy at large. I need to withdraw all of those Havenite ‘advisors’ and ‘administrators’ who are actually controlling your educational system and every facet of your economy. And, above all, I need to transfer ownership of the Bolthole Complex and all of its supporting infrastructure to Sanctuarian ownership. It’s the right thing to do, it’s the moral thing to do, it’s the legal thing to do, and from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, if I did that and then announced it to the entire galaxy, it would absolutely demonstrate that we are no longer the People’s Republic of Haven.
“But because of High Ridge’s . . . arrogant, stupid, shortsighted blindness, I can’t do it. This is the only place Secretary Theisman and I can possibly build the fleet that might make High Ridge pay attention to us. I can’t give that away, however much I might wish to.”
“I see.”
Ambart regarded her thoughtfully for endless seconds. Then his nostrils flared.
“Among the other things I’ve learned about through those unofficial channels of mine is the Solarian League,” he said. “In particular, about its ‘Office of Frontier Security.’” He smiled thinly. “I’m reasonably certain your predecessors would have been even more unhappy to discover that I’ve learned about OFS, given the way it’s behavior with the ‘transstellars,’ I believe they’re called, mirrors what’s happened here in Refuge.”
Pritchart hid another mental wince. A rather deeper one, this time, given how well taken Ambart’s comparison was. But the shirkahna wasn’t finished.
“The difference between Frontier Security and its arrangements, as I understand them, and what you’ve just said to me, Madame Presid
ent, is quite profound, actually.”
“It is?” Surprise drew the question from her, and his smile broadened.
“Yes,” he replied.
Her raised eyebrows invited him to continue, and he shrugged.
“Madame President, I believe you mean every word you’ve said. Oh,” he waved one hand in a brushing away gesture, “I’m sure that even you are likely to . . . shade meanings, even unintentionally, but you’re refreshingly different from most Sanctuarian politicians and every System Administrator the Legislaturalists or Pierre ever sent us. You actually believe what you’re saying, and you’ve actually tried to tell me the truth.”
“I do. I have.”
She couldn’t keep the surprise at his analysis out of her voice, and he chuckled.
“You may get over it in time,” he told her almost reassuringly. “At the moment, however, you’re still too much the revolutionary and too little the self-seeking politician to make a satisfactory liar.”
“I’m not entirely sure you mean that as a compliment,” she said.
“Oh, I do. For now, at least, and not simply because it makes it much easier for me to discuss matters such as this with you.” His expression had sobered. “Humans have lived on Sanctuary for almost thirteen hundred years, Madame President. We’ve seen a great many wars, a lot of politics, in that time. I’m not as unaware as you might think of the enormity of the task you’ve undertaken in seeking to reform something like the People’s Republic, and you’re right. You can’t succeed in real reform without breaking the pattern of the political leaders who allowed it to become so corrupted in the first place. And despite any of the People’s Republic’s transgressions against the people of Sanctuary, I want you—I need you—to succeed. Despite everything, we owe far too much to Haven for me to want any other outcome than to continue in a mutually beneficial relationship with a reformed Republic.