Return to Camerein

by Rick Shelley

  “Our conflict must be bad for business as usual for the Council,” William said.

  Ian was surprised, almost shocked, at the tack the prince was taking with Tritesse. It seemed most undiplomatic, and most unlike William. He was always the model of proper behavior.

  “Again, that was not meant as a criticism, Colonel. I have long had great respect for your regiments. You know that I have paid you several visits previously.”

  “Yes, sir. We have even met before.”

  William nodded. “On at least two different occasions, as I recall. The one was when I watched your regiment go through a training exercise. The other, I believe, was a reception here.” The prince’s recollections were not spontaneous. He had reviewed notes made during his earlier visits to make certain that he would recall anyone he should remember.

  “Yes, sir.” Colonel Tritesse relaxed visibly, apparently pleased that the prince remembered.

  Ian hid his smile. At one time, such a device would have affected him the same way. But Ian had seen enough to make the affectation transparent. He now considered most of diplomatic usage transparent affectation.

  “I fear that I let myself wander,” William said, moving back toward the colonel. “You were telling us of the tentative schedule, I believe.”

  “Yes, sir. The representatives of the Confederation of Human Worlds will arrive shortly, and be housed at the far end of Council Headquarters. This evening at 20 hours, the General will host a state dinner for the principals from both delegations, that is, yourself, your aide, and the formal members of your negotiating team. The General feels that the more relaxed atmosphere of a dinner is perhaps the most advantageous forum for introductions, before the first business meeting tomorrow.”

  Dirigent had only one general at a time. He was both chairman of the Council of Regiments and head of Dirigent’s civilian government. The General (a formal title on Dirigent) was elected for a six-year term by the Council of Regiments, which was composed of the colonels commanding the fourteen regiments, from among their own number. At present, the General was Alvonz Partifinay, who also retained his colonelcy of the 11th Regiment.

  “I have no doubt that the General is correct,” Prince William said.

  “You had me worried for a moment there, sir,” Ian said after Colonel Tritesse left the suite.

  William smiled. “How so?”

  “For a time, it appeared as if you were purposely baiting the colonel, trying to get his goat, and I couldn’t understand why you might be doing that.”

  “I was not baiting him at all, I assure you. I was just trying to pierce through any preconceptions he might have had. Lower the altitude. Make him think of us as individuals rather than merely interchangeable tokens of a foreign power.”

  “You think that might be important?”

  “It’s important to me. We do want to retain the goodwill of the Dirigenters. And I don’t want to be a faceless diplomatic facade to the man who will likely be our intermediary in any number of routine ways while we are here. I want our dealings to be human to human—friend to friend, if possible.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sit down and relax, Ian,” the prince said, gesturing to one of three sofas in the room.

  “Dirigent society is far more complex than you mightimagine,” the prince said after both were seated. “You see a colonel and think strictly in military terms, or naval terms. A colonel is equivalent to a naval captain, and you have very definite ideas about what that means, correct?”

  “Correct, sir.”

  “Colonel Tritesse is that, of course, but he is also one of the fourteen men who decide on everything pertaining to the Dirigent military establishment, and one of the fourteen men who decide who shall govern the entire world. Rather than being equivalent to any of the Marine colonels or Navy captains of your experience, he is more a combination of cabinet minister, privy counselor, and member of the House of Lords wrapped into one package that bears the facade of the colonel. He wields more real power than any one person on Buckingham. His Majesty and the Prime Minister acting together might almost come close to his power.”

  Ian waited a few seconds before he said, “Well, I knew he wasn’t the doorman at the Royal Albert.” That was one of the best hotels in Westminster, Buckingham.

  William guffawed. It was a moment before he was able to contain his laughter. “It’s been a long time since you caught me out that way, Ian.” He wiped at the corner of one eye.

  “If they came all of the time, they’d lose their effect,” Ian said, fighting to keep from laughing himself.

  The prince shook his head slowly as he stood. “I think we could both do with a drink, Ian, and then a chance to kip out for an hour or so. We’ll all need to be on our best behavior at the General’s dinner tonight. We’ll need to keep our porcelain faces on no matter what any of the Feddies might say or do.”

  There were no diplomatic faux pas that evening. Past the introductions, there was virtually no direct contact between members of the two delegations. The dining table was wide enough that the men on opposite sides would have required the mythic ten-foot poles to span it, and long enough thatthey would have needed a moment to go around to get at one another.

  Prince William sat at the center of one side of the table, with his counterpart, Secretary of State Yoshi Ramirez, across from him. Each was flanked by an aide and one of the Dirigent colonels. All of the regimental commanders were present. The General sat at one end of the table. His deputy, the commander of the 1st Regiment, was at the other end.

  There were no women present, either as officers or with their husbands. No woman had ever risen to command one of the Dirigent regiments. Few were allowed even in the ancillary arms of the military establishment, which set Dirigent apart from the practice in both Commonwealth and Federation. Knowing the strictly patriarchal makeup of Dirigent’s leadership, neither of the delegations included women among the principal negotiators.

  Two string quartets took turns providing music. The only speech was a short one of welcome by General Partifinay. The introductions were formal. The width of the table prevented handshakes or other physical contact. The presence of live music limited the opportunities for casual table talk.

  “I’m not certain if I understand the General’s idea of an informal meeting,” Ian told the prince after they had returned to their suite. “For as much real contact as there was, we could as easily have stayed on Buckingham and they on Union.” Union was the capital world of the Federation.

  “I got that impression myself, Ian,” William said. “Still, it gave us a chance to look each other over. It always helps to have any chance to size up the other fellow before you roll up your sleeves and start the real work.”

  “That Ramirez is certainly an ordinary-looking fellow.”

  William laughed. “You’re starting to sound like a right proper aristocrat, Ian. You’ll have to watch that. I doubt that your wife would appreciate having to order more starch in your collars.”

  “No, she wouldn’t. But … I don’t know. After seven years of war, you get to thinking of the enemy one way, and then you come face to face with one of their leaders and … no horns, no pitchfork and red hide. He’s just a bloke who looks as if he could be a bus conductor or dustman.”

  “As long as you don’t suggest that to his face, Ian. But that’s what these talks are about, getting to think of the other chaps as ordinary blokes like us, not as archvillains who are out to perform the most murderous perversities on the galaxy.”

  “Even if that’s the way they’ve been acting for the past seven years?”

  “Especially then.”

  “I don’t know if I’m that much the diplomat, sir. I’ve been fighting them too long.”

  “It’s either buck up and play this diplomatic dodge, or continue fighting them until everything is a shambles. Just remember that when one of them gets your dander up.”

  The table that the negotiators met across early the nex
t morning was narrower than the dining table of the night before, and only half as long. People could make themselves heard from one end to the other without shouting. The room spanned the main wing of Council Headquarters from courtyard to outer wall on the second floor. Either end consisted of floor-to-ceiling windows, with only narrow mutton bars supporting the expanses of glass. The table was of a dark red, almost purple, wood, highly polished.

  Five representatives of the Federation sat on the north side of the table, with Secretary of State Ramirez in the center. Five representatives of the Commonwealth sat on the south, with Prince William in the middle. On either side, there were additional members of the negotiating teams who stood or sat farther back, close enough to provide information for their principals or to run errands.

  General Alvonz Partifinay sat at the east end of the table, with the morning sunlight shining over his shoulders, casting his shadow halfway down the table. He had three of his colonels as well as a number of other officers and servants on hand, some close, others scattered about the room.

  Introductions were repeated. The General stood to welcome them all and to give a few opening remarks.

  “It might seem strange to some,” he said, “that the people of a world whose economy is tied so strictly to military affairs should take an active part in trying to end a war in which it has no part. There also might be some who would say that we wish to end the war between the Confederation of Human Worlds and the Second Commonwealth solely because that fight prevents us from conducting our own affairs as we might like. Both would be wrong.”

  The General did not read from a prepared text, but Ian quickly gained the impression that the General was reciting a carefully scripted speech, that he had memorized exactly what he wanted to say, and had no doubt rehearsed it, allowing his colonels to critique both the text and his delivery.

  “We of Dirigent and the Dirigent Mercenary Corps do not glorify warfare or killing on any scale. We offer our services to those whose cause is just but whose means is not equal to the needs of the moment. We fight as economically as possible, both in matters of financial cost and, far more urgently, in terms of our people. We deplore flagrant waste, especially of human life.

  “We regret to see a vast war fought unnecessarily, particularly when neither side appears to have the power to prevail. If this war is carried to its inevitable conclusion, both sides will suffer horribly. Both sides will be spent, obliterating any good that has come from your centuries of peaceful governance. If you insist on fighting until both sides are exhausted, financially ruined, and morally void, then in the era to follow there will be more call for our services than we could hope to fill, more than we would ever want to attempt.

  “You have a clear choice. You can find the means to end hostilities while something of value can be salvaged ofthe civitizations” and societies that have arisen over the centuries of peace, or you can lead your governments, worlds, and peoples to disaster on a scale never before seen in human history.”

  The General paused for several minutes. Since he did not sit, neither Prince William nor Secretary Ramirez spoke or rose. The General looked at the faces along both sides of the table. Before he resumed his speech, he cleared his throat and took a long drink of ice water.

  “Each of you have queried about the order in which you would speak this morning. Since I offered no alternative, you agreed to leave that to my discretion. I could have tossed a coin, or otherwise left the order to chance, but I chose not to do so. As I am the neutral host of these talks, perhaps chance were best given the onus of saying who speaks first. Obviously, it would do no good to have both talk at the same time in order to avoid giving one side or the other even this minimal precedence.

  “The Confederation of Human Worlds asserts that this war is a civil war, a matter of it exerting legitimate sovereignty over rebellious worlds. The Second Commonwealth asserts that it and its member worlds are themselves sovereign, that the Confederation of Human Worlds has no just claim to sovereignty over them, and that they were the victims of unprovoked aggression. The Second Commonwealth asserts that it has fought only in self-defense, protecting its people and worlds from that aggression, and that it has every right and duty to do so.

  “Dirigent is not a member of the Second Commonwealth. Neither do we admit the sovereignty of the Confederation of Human Worlds, or any other organization, over us. We have remained carefully neutral in this conflict. But we are not blind. We are not stupid. And we are not so dull as to have formed no opinions, based on excellent intelligence and analysis.

  “Here is my decision on the order of offering introductory remarks, and how I reached that decision.

  “Whatever the merits of the positions of the respectivepowers, it is incontrovertible that this war was started by the actions of the Confederation of Human Worlds. Theirs were the first shots. Therefore, I have decided that the Second Commonwealth will have first opportunity to present its position here. After His Highness, Prince William, Duke of Haven, Special Ambassador for the Second Commonwealth has concluded his remarks, it will be the turn of the Honorable Yoshi Ramirez, Secretary of State for the Confederation of Human Worlds.”

  For a moment after the General sat, Prince William did nothing. He did not speak, did not move. He watched Secretary of State Ramirez across the table. The Federation delegates had all turned to look at Ramirez for instructions. Would they stay and accept the General’s decision, object, or just get up and leave the room?

  Yoshi Ramirez stared back at Prince William, as silent and motionless, as if totally unaware of the way his subordinates were waiting for some hint as to what they should do, or waiting for their leader to express outrage over the General’s remarks. Finally, Ramirez gave a minuscule nod of his head, his eyes still locked on those of Prince William.

  Prince William duplicated the nod, then stood, turned toward the General, and gave Partifinay a deeper nod.

  “Thank you, General. I shall be brief.”

  William read his statement, keeping his eyes on the papers in front of him rather than looking to see how the words were received. At slightly greater length, he repeated General Partifinay’s summary of the Second Commonwealth’s position.

  “We cannot, and will not, accept the illegal and unjust claims of sovereignty made by the Confederation of Human Worlds over the worlds and peoples who are sovereign, independent, and voluntary members of the Second Commonwealth,” William concluded after he had covered the essentials of the Federation’s attacks.

  Yoshi Ramirez took even less time to read his statement.

  “The charter of the Confederation of Human Worlds was established by the governments of Earth who authorized, manned, constructed, and supervised mankind’s colonization of other worlds. That charter, issued seven hundred twenty-seven years ago, in the year 2285 as reckoned on Earth at that time, gives the Confederation of Human Worlds full authority over all planets settled either directly from Earth or from worlds already settled by those whose antecedents came from Earth. A number of worlds have failed to accept that lawful jurisdiction and have rebelled against the authority of the Confederation of Human Worlds. We are not only within our rights to force compliance, we are duty-bound to do so by our ancient and lawful charter.”

  After Ramirez sat, the General stood. He had shown no reaction to either statement. “We will resume this afternoon, after lunch,” he said. Then he left the room. After he was gone, the two sets of delegates were escorted out, in opposite directions. Lunch was two hours away, but those hours would not be spent idly. Partifinay had instructed his own people to talk separately to each delegation, beginning the process of trying to accomplish some movement.

  “There doesn’t seem to be much common ground,” Ian said when he and the prince were out of earshot of their Dirigenter escort. “Nothing has changed since the beginning of the war. We can’t accept their position, and they refuse to consider ours.”

  “One thing has changed, Ian. We’re both here
.”

  “We could be here for the next fifty years,” Ian said.

  12

  David Spencer signaled a halt. A soft whistle with his visor raised brought eyes toward him. After that, hand signals conveyed the essential information. David watched as the platoon sergeants took over, showing men where to move. Even now they had to take care for defense, covering an impromptu perimeter.

  Everyone was tired beyond exhaustion. By David’s estimate, they had walked more than one hundred twenty miles in four days. During the last twenty-four hours, there had always been at least a few men limping, hobbled by leg cramps. Blisters were not getting time to heal properly. And the strain of carrying full combat kit plus extra supplies had sapped every man in the detachment.

  David waited until most of his men were down before he allowed himself to sink to the ground. As soon as the weight was off his legs, his right calf knotted up in a cramp. The onset was so sudden and so intense that he was unable to suppress a grunt of pain. His eyes squeezed shut against the agony. He pressed down with both hands on the knee to straighten out the leg, flexed his right foot to help ease the cramp, and massaged the calf over the knot. The pain was slow to recede.

  A dozen other Marines experienced the same problem.

  The same thing had been happening, with increasing frequency, every time the detachment stopped to rest.

  Anthony Hopewell hobbled over to Spencer and dropped to the ground, carefully stretching his legs. He pulled off his helmet and dropped it next to him. “We’ve just about had it,” Hopewell said. “I hope we’re as close to the hotel as we’ve estimated.”

  “I’m sure we are, Tony. Every landmark matches. That hotel should be about nine hundred yards, that way.” He pointed. “We’ll rest here for a while. I don’t plan to go in until near sunset. That’s about two hours. In the meantime, I want to send two fire teams out, one on either side, to get close enough to observe the hotel and give us some idea what to expect.”