Barhu took a deep breath. It smelled of hot fur and droppings.
“Actually,” she said, “I have a different proposal.”
She laid it all out, with a written prospectus, with notes and a small map, with pawns to shuffle about in the light of the Brain’s trembling hands.
“The controlling entity will be invested in Falcrest. I will put in place a board of governors and a proper Falcresti man as face of the organization. It will be a joint-stock concern of the unlimited liability mode—this means that shareholders are responsible for paying the company’s debts, if the company itself fails. This will be done partly because people think unlimited companies are more powerful, but primarily to assure lenders that they will recover their loans even in the event of a collapse.
“The Emperor of Falcrest will grant us a special total monopoly to pursue trade with the western Oriati coast and the Black Tea Ocean beyond—your homeland. Mister Cairdine Farrier, my patron, will be coerced into using his considerable financial and nautical resources to give the concern some starting capital. Falcrest’s navy will be induced by political means to supply ships and security. Tau-indi Bosoka, Kindalana of Segu, and Abdumasi Abd will provide the diplomatic and mercantile influence required to arrange passage through the Segu archipelago. You will provide rutterbooks and pilots to lead Concern shipping to viable ports.
“As a subsidiary, a second, limited-liability concern will be invested in Aurdwynn. This Vultjag Trading Concern will handle movement of cargos north and south along the river Inirein, particularly trade with the Stakhieczi Necessity.
“I’ll call your attention to the numbers here, at the top of the prospectus. This is my estimate of the annual raw revenue generated by the concern, not accounting for loans, our own investments, leveraged futures, and other financial instruments. I assure you it’s quite accurate.
“This adjacent number is my estimate—a conservative one, I might add—of the percentage of total world trade, by value, which would fall under this concern’s monopoly. I know that thirty-five percent is a very large number. Again, I assure you it is realistic.
“And here is the percentage of Falcrest’s total economy which I believe we could ultimately entangle in the well-being of our concern. I expect we will pass the fifty percent mark within ten years.
“Once we have made our initial stock offering, I anticipate a frenzy of speculative trading: This speculation will be driven by the basic soundness of the concern’s position—we have a monopoly on a highly profitable trade, after all. I will drive speculation by issuing credit to investors, allowing them to buy stock through an installment plan. Details if you want them.
“This is where we begin to get tricky. Financial power means we’ll have considerable access to the Twelve Ministries and Six Powers. We’ll be able to buy our way into Parliament and raise our own merchant navy. But my ultimate goal is complete capture of Falcrest’s wealth, and to do that, we need to access the personal fortunes of the Suettaring elite.
“To secure that access, I plan to make my trading concern into a tax haven. The wealthy will not want to pay a share of their hard-won fortunes to Parliament. I will offer them a simple way to avoid it. Moving the money into my concern, and from there into Oriati Mbo, will place it beyond taxable reach. It can be invested in various assets there, and they can recover it whenever they want thanks to the, ah, fluidity of the Oriati hawala trust-banking system.
“It won’t escape your notice that moving this money into Oriati Mbo places it in range of your use. We can skim, launder, and misplace funds to meet whatever requirements you have. You will be able to buy all the metals, materials, and supplies required for an effective war. In effect, the total wealth of Falcrest will become your personal lending bank.
“And when the time is right, when I send the signal, you will strike. Not at Falcrest—a land invasion across the Occupation would be disastrous, a crossing of the Tide Column suicidal—but at the trade.
“There will be no Oriati civil war. No second Armada War. No Kettling. No democide and disaster. Let me make a bubble. Let me fill it with all Falcrest’s strength. And then help me burst it.”
The Brain’s trembling hands clasped together. Darkness fell, except in the pool of uranium fire around her face.
“You want to be a tyrant,” she said.
“I prefer the term tycoon,” Barhu suggested.
“No. You will be a tyrant. You will be a creator and protector of tyranny. Do you understand what Falcrest does to us, if they have the access given by trade? Trim is outlawed. Family land is bought up and turned to cash crops. Children are worked in the fields. Men are killed and their killings blamed on their own conduct. Women are stripped of their children and brought into prostitution. Their sons are soldiers. Their daughters are sent as maids to the houses of the rich. You are asking me to open our doors to a pack of rabid dogs.”
“Trade is a spear you can wield, too! Trade is a vital part of Oriati history! Don’t you remember White Akhena and the Mzicane, the time of unrest? How did she hold the Ivory Stool once she had seized it? Control of the riverine trade in Mzilimake! Control of the exchange of coastal ivory for inland minerals!”
“White Akhena has a will. White Akhena chooses to conquer. Her new methods of war send the conquered fleeing into new lands and they become conquerors in turn. She devises these methods. One woman with a will, and the people who choose to follow her. I am there, and I watch her change the world. And if she isn’t terrified of creating an heir who will supplant her, she creates a dynasty. But she is.”
King’s balls. Barhu was arguing history with an immortal.
“You can’t think Akhena could have succeeded in her conquests if she had nothing to gain by conquest!” Her voice climbed to that old plaintive cry: why doesn’t the universe know I’m right? “Why is Lonjaro the greatest power in the Mbo? Because it controlled the Tide Column and the gold-for-salt trade with Mzilimake! Why did the Armada War strangle the whole Mbo, if not for loss of the Tide Column, the end of sea commerce between Devi-naga and the western nations? The material conditions of trade dictate the movement of power!”
“In the ideology Falcrest has taught you.”
“In objective reality!”
“I’ve lived long enough to hear all sorts of ideas called ‘reality.’ ” The Brain sighed. “Baru, I fear Falcrest’s subtlety, and their ways of perverting your intent. We lose everything by opening ourselves to their trade. You see it happen to Taranoke. Why would it be any different now?”
“Because this time I’ll be in control. We’ll turn Falcrest’s strength back on them!”
“You are the one in control. One woman. And if you die of appendicitis? If you trip and fall and lose your memory?”
“I won’t,” Barhu sputtered. “Listen, the best way to break a mill is to jam up the machinery!”
“The best way to break a mill is to burn it down, Baru.”
“Not if you want to keep building mills and making flour! The reason Falcrest is winning is because its ways are stronger! I can steal that strength!”
“But it is still Falcrest’s strength. It is still that monstrous pillaging force which treats people like coin and coin like people. And if you try to wield it you are seduced by it. Take Alu into your body instead. Consecrate yourself into my trust.”
“Damn you,” Barhu hissed. “I can do so much more than carry a plague and die young. Don’t you see? The concern that rules this new trade could be mightier than the Republic itself! And I will own it all! I can force Falcrest to give justice to those it’s conquered!”
“Nothing you own by Falcrest’s means is owned by anything but Falcrest. When you think you possess them, that is when they possess you.”
“You sound like a woman I know,” Barhu said, thinking of Tain Shir.
“Yes, I do, don’t I?”
“Money.” Barhu tried to press the desperation from her tone. “A trade route so fertile it’ll make the old
Lonjaro gold markets look like a tin scrap exchange. You’ve seen nothing like it in a thousand years. You never had the ships. You never had the chemistry to keep the crews alive. You never had the power to dredge the harbors or to secure the trade circle for your use. I can do these things for you. I can put you on the same financial footing as an empire. Let me make this wonder for you.”
“Why do I want a bank? I come unto the peoples of Oria to fulfill our promise. The prophecy that we would return when they needed us most. Does prophecy need wages?”
“I told my secretary once”—poor Muire Lo, who she’d abandoned—“that any rebellion not built on pure faith or rabid hate needs money. Maybe you can operate on pure faith. Maybe your followers can operate on rabid hate. But what about the people whose loyalty you need to earn? The Princes of the Mbo, the artisans who make your weapons, the merchants who keep your armies fed—you know all this, damn you! You know the world won’t just answer to your will!”
“But it shall,” the Brain said, with a smile that put Barhu’s soul to ice. “The world does answer to my will, Baru. You know it soon. You see me at the head of mighty armies, and emblazoned upon ships, and clasped at the throats of the fearless dead. I am many places at once and I do not need one single coin or gem to do it. There are things more powerful than money in this world. I am born to the signs of whirlwind and geyser, black moon and cicada scream. I do not pay to become messiah. The world makes me so.”
“You fool, have you ever known a great leader that didn’t have wealth behind her? What are you going to do? March hordes of your starving believers across the Mbo to Falcrest? How will you cross the Tide Column with no boats? How will you cross the Butterveldt without supply trains? Falcrest will burn down every field and forest in your path and watch the vultures finish you. Didn’t you tell me that Falcrest scared you? Didn’t you fear their ability to capture the future? I am giving you a piece of that future! Here! A chance to place me, a woman who despises Falcrest, in command of the greatest trade Falcrest has ever seen. And all I want from you is a map, an agreement, and a chance for both of us to leave this place alive!”
The Brain listened quietly. When Barhu was finished, she asked a question.
“Can you name one difference between your plan and Falcrest’s total victory, except that in your plan you are in charge?”
“Of course I can!” Barhu sputtered. “My plan uses trade to benefit everyone, not just Falcrest!”
“Isn’t that precisely what Falcrest says when it comes to trade? Isn’t that what they say when they come to your island?”
“If we are going to deceive Falcrest, then of course our plan needs to seem like it benefits Falcrest until the crucial moment.”
“And if you are not there for the crucial moment? My plan doesn’t require a mastermind, Baru. I believe in the Oriati people. All I do is to give them a symbol, and a choice. Something to remember when Falcrest comes slithering out of the grass with promises of ease. Something that says: do as I did. Choose death over surrender. Save your souls from bondage.”
“Choose death? Is that what you want? You won’t outlive this voyage, so no one can?”
Her ghostly face showed Barhu pain, exhaustion, rapture. “I outlive this voyage as long as I am remembered. Even if the line of Incrisiath goes extinct, the world knows I stood against Falcrest.”
“No one will remember your ship disappearing on some faraway island! My plan lets your people live! Not just the people on this ship but everyone who would die in war, and in outbreak, and in retaliation! If you love your people, then save them!”
“I will not save my people to live in slavery.”
“I’m not offering slavery! I’m offering an end to Falcrest’s power! I’m offering to butcher their empire, and to do it right!”
The Brain was silent. Her left hand caressed the lines of her trepanation hatch. She stood like that, in thought, while Barhu panted like a dog.
Then the Brain turned to the darkness.
“Well?” she called. “Do you believe she’s telling the truth? She truly opposes Falcrest?”
And Aminata’s voice came back, hollow with grief:
“Yes. I do. She does.”
THE END OF ASH
Federation Year 912: 23 Years Earlier
In Kutulbha Harbor, beside ruined Kutulbha in Segu Mbo
That night, as the party on Kangaroo Principle smoldered on into the sordid after-dark hours, as the ash sky roiled over the ship full of Oriati Princes and the Falcrest guests who had received their surrender, Tau did what they thought Kindalana would want them to do.
What Kindalana would actually have wanted them to do was to put serious critical thought into the way the Princes managed their grief by holding a party to “repair the cheer of their generation” on a luxury palace-ship, while the common people ashore picked through wet ash for the bones of their children.
What Tau-indi did, instead, was offer their hand to Cosgrad Torrinde in marriage.
“Oh, child.” Cosgrad put a hand out between them, to secure the space, and his other hand covered his mouth, his laugh or frown or absolute disgust. “I can’t marry you!”
Tau-indi had not very much expected to be laughed at. They had just rescued Cosgrad from a shouting match about the merits of maggot treatment, where his accent and his ignorance of nagana made him sound like a fool, and lured him off into a guest cabin with whiskey and the promise of nasty gossip about Cairdine Farrier.
“It’s not a love match,” Tau-indi said, sitting in the stuffed chair, arms crossed, legs crossed, very practical, very adult. “I’m not a child, Cosgrad. And it’s a war tradition from centuries ago, actually, when the Maia took spouses from our royalty. Those spouses became ambassadors.”
“You’re very good at helping me understand,” Cosgrad said. His face was, actually, closest to panic—an expression of oh no, why me, why now! “But I can’t. It’s impossible.”
“If you’re unattracted to me, that’s all right. You can have anyone you want. I don’t mind.” Cosgrad was actually very beautiful, in spite or because of his strange severe build and his flat face. But he was older, and a guest, and Tau-indi had seen him very sick, and all that made the thought of sex weirdly impractical: like an itch they didn’t have. “The important thing is the diplomatic connection we’d represent.”
“But we’d have to get married here! Right away! With—with Farrier as a witness, or someone else from Falcrest, to sign the papers. And you’d have to leave your family!”
“Why?”
“Because I’m leaving for Falcrest now!”
“I didn’t know that,” Tau-indi said, stung. “You never told me.”
“I’m going back with the fleet.” Cosgrad fussed guiltily over his shirt. “I have to get to Falcrest as soon as I can. There’s someone waiting for a report on my success. . . .”
“The woman who sent you here.”
“Yes. Yes. And I have to reach her before Farrier. I have to convince her that Oriati Mbo has vital things to teach us in its unaltered, pre-Incrastic state.”
“What things?” Tau asked, warily. “Things about jellyfish? The wet origins of life? Those kinds of things?”
“Things about the body. About the way a thousand years of peace have changed you.”
“Then I’ll go with you to Falcrest, and help you with your work. Mother Tahr can come, too.” Tau-indi took Cosgrad’s wrists. “Please, Cosgrad, if we’re going to stop this, we have to learn about each other.”
Cosgrad’s eyes narrowed. He was furious: not at Tau-indi, but it still burned them. “Tau-indi. Your Highness. Please.” His hands wrapped around their own, hard and fine, certain of their strength. “I love your home. I love this place. It taught me so much. But do you understand that some of your world is just a useful lie? A construct, invented by your ancestors to stabilize society? Even you, Tau-indi . . . even lamen.”
Cosgrad! The man was like lye, he helped you and then he slipped away
when you pressed him. “Trim is real. I’m real.”
“Trim is an ideology of compassion. It’s wonderful. I want to spend a lifetime learning it, finding all the ways it’s altered your bodies. But there are people coming for you who care nothing for your comfort or your peace, understand?” Cosgrad squeezed as he spoke, surely not meaning to, but it hurt, it bent Tau’s hands. “They want to make you want to be slaves. Trim will not save you. Trim might lead you right into them.”
“Cosgrad, take me to Falcrest with you, and I’ll learn how they think.”
“If I had an Oriati bride in Falcrest, and you would have to be a bride,” Cosgrad said, and his voice trembled on the words, “the Judiciary would take me in for reconditioning. You don’t understand what it’s like. I can’t even think about these things. The thoughts will go into me! This is unhygienic!”
And he spoke over whatever Tau-indi tried to say. “Oh, Tau-indi, I wish you could see. Your ancestors were a little like Farrier, in a way. Farrier believes he can fix the world by teaching everyone the right lies. But that’s not the way! That’s not a good true world! A good world is true like a sparrow wing, like a termite mound, like the little cells in a beehive. Its form is its function. It never has to lie. It is the way it is because to be otherwise would be less useful. Less good. That is the measure of a good thing.
“I won’t let Farrier win, you understand? I won’t let him sway Parliament and the Throne. I’m going home to Falcrest to save Oriati Mbo and the whole world from his corruption.”
Take me with you, Tau-indi could say. I want to help.
But Cosgrad didn’t want Tau-indi’s help. Possibly Cosgrad did not even believe Tau could help at all.
Possibly Cosgrad did not even believe Tau-indi was a healthy, properly formed person.
“You’re drunk,” Tau-indi said, so that they would both have an excuse to forget this conversation. “I understand. We’ll talk later.”
Someone spoke. Tau-indi didn’t understand the words, but they recognized the voice. Cosgrad looked up, eyes wild, queue whipping behind his head. Cairdine Farrier stood there in a red waistcoat, shorter than Cosgrad, softer, his eyes deep pits shadowed behind a slim white mask.
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