by David Weber
"Are you serious? They're going to assassinate Assem- bl.vwoman MacTaggart!" "Yes! That is--I think so." Dieter squirmed in fresh uncertainty.. "All I really know is that there was a lot of talk. You know hypothetical discussion about how "convenient" it would be if something happened to her. I -comI tried to oppose it, but I don't have the influence I had his "Who's going to do it and when?" Ladislaus snapped.
"Tm not even positive they are going to do it," Dieter said anxiously. "I think... I think it's Francois Fouehet's project. I don't know when or how." "Is that all you have for meThat" "Yes. Except... except Francois said something about how dangerous Granyork can be." "My God!" Ladislaus paled and reached for the disconnect, then paused, his eyes on the wretched man before him. "Mister Dieter, I thank you. What was between us is no more." Dieter's miserable expression lightened slightly as he recognized the formal renunciation of challenge.
"Thank you," he whispered. "And for God's sake, don't to et them kill her! I never dreamed --was He stopped and chopped his hand at the pickup.
For a moment, he became the man he once had been.
"Enough! Protect her, Mister Skjorning. And tell her.., tell her I'm sorry." "I will. night." Ladislaus cut the circuit and immediately punched for another, staring at his watch. With any luck and normal Granyork traffic, Fionna had not yet reached the Met.
"Goodness, Chris, I don't believe we've ever made such good time," Fionna remarked as the ground car slowed.
"I think you're right, Chief," the young security man agreed, his eyes flickering over the smartly dressed crowd before the opera house.
"Stop, thiefi" Fionna and Felderman swung to face the shout as a running man suddenly burst from the crowd and snatched at the purse of the wife of Hangchow's chief delegate. His course carried him close to Fionna, and she punched her bodyguard's shoulder sharply.
"Stop him, Chris! That's Madam Wu's pursel" "Yes, ma'am!" ,Felderman lunged after the thief, his long legs gaining ground quickly, and Fionna watched for an instant, then felt something like a chill on the nape of her neck. She turned, and her eyes widened as she saw two men approaching her. She'd never seen them before, but something in their purposeful expressions woke a warning deep inside her. She felt an instant of helpless panic as a terrible premonition struck--replaced in an instant with icy calm.
She knew better than to turn and run.
There was no time to resummon Chris. The thoughts flicked through her brain like lightning, yet her reactions were even faster. Her hand darted into her bag. Her fingers found the butt of the needler. She didn't try to draw the weapon; she simply raised the bag and pistol together.
The killers were from the world of Shiloh. They hadn't expected their tarset to be armed; still to ess had they allowed for the reac'taon speed a high-grav planet instills. But they could not mistake her movements, and they were the best money could buy.
The thunder of two compact machine pistols buried the high, shrill whine of the needler.
Fionna was lying on the sidewalk. It hurt-- God, how it hurt!--and she whimpered a little at the terrible pain. She lay in a puddle of something hot, and she felt a gentle hand under her head, raising it to slip some sort of cushion behind it.
She opened her eyes. It was Chris Felderman leaning over her, she thought confusedly. But why was he crying?
"Chris?" The voice was hers, but she'd never heard herself sound so weak. Something dribbled down her chin, and she realized it was blood. She felt only a distant curiosity at the thought.
"DD-ON'T try to talk, Fionna. Please!
The medics are coming." "M--medics?" She blinked at him. A mist was rising from the pavement, obscuring her vision, and the temperature had fallen. Then she understood, and she managed a weak smile. "Don't think.., it'll matter.., much," she whispered.
"It will! It will!" Chris sobbed, as if saying it could make it so.
"May--maybe." She knew better, but it struck her oddly detached brain as needlessly cruel to tell him so. "What about--That' "DeadVery he whispered fiercely. "You got "em both, Chiefl." "Ggood." The mist was much thicker, and she was much, much colder. Yet the darkness beyond the mist seemed suddenly warm and inviting. It wouldn't hurt so much there.., but she had something left to say, didn't she? She cudgeled her fading brain, then her bloody mouth smiled up at Chris. Two police floaters screamed to a halt, but she ignored them as she gripped his hand. "C,--give... Lad... my love," she murmured. "And @u.. tell him.., tell him... I got them b--" The light went out of her universe forever.
He had failed. He'd failed his planet and himself, but, far worse, he had failed Fionna.
Chris Felderman thought the failure was hsts, but Ladislaus knew. The entire surviving Beaufort delegation was in shock, but the others had managed somehow to keep going. Not Ladislaus.
He remembered their childhood on windy, purple seas under the orange Beaufort sun.
Remembered sailing and' fishing, the first time she stood for office as a seaforcer, the day she convinced him to seek the new Assembly seat. "I need someone to watch my back, Lad," she'd said, and for ten years he'd done just that-- until he to et her go out onto a street on the birthworld of Man to be gunned down in her blood like an animal.
His teeth ground together on the agony of memory, and suddenly a single, dear thought stabbed through his brain like an ice pick.
The Federation wasn't worth Fionna's life.
Four and a half centuries of human history had come down to this, he thought bitterly, looking at the banner-hung walls and marble floors. To this holodrama showpiece, this mausoleum dedicated to dead ideals and housing a government whose members connived at murder.
His broad face went grim. Fionna was gone, and with her went her dream. There would be no transition, no gradual change. Wifhout her, the Fringe bloc was leader- less, headless, already splintering in rage as the local authorities sought uselessly to link the dead assassins to someone anyone--but the tracks were well buried.
The killers had been Fringers, not Innerworlders, but the Outworlds knew who had hired them.
Ladislaus had Dieter's confirmation, though his oath meant he couldn't use it. His fellows didn't need it, for the Fringe knew its enemies well. Yet there was no proof, and. without proof, there was no guilt. Without guilt, there was no punish- ment; and without punishment, the Fringe would shatter in incoherent fury and be swept aside by the Corporate World machine. He saw it coming, and he was glad.
Glad!
He rose and pressed his attention button, and there was a moment of silence as the delegate from Xanadu looked down from the giant screen and reeoguized who sought l[fffulffilllffiilllll! recognition.
"Mister Speaker," the delegate said slowly, "I yield to the Honorable Assemblyman for Beaufort." Ladislaus Skjorning's grim face appeared on the master screen, and the chamber fell silent. In ten years, he had never sought the floor.
"Mister Speaker!" His voice was harsh, with little trace of his habitual accent, and he felt a stir around him as he put aside his mask at last. "I would like clarification on a point of law, Mister Speaker." "Certainly, Mister Skjorning," Haley said, his face compassionate.
"Am I not correct, Mister Speaker?" "Yes... yes, you are. But no formal charges were ever filed--was "Precisely, Mister Speaker." Ladislaus' face was bleak.
"No formal charges were filed--just as no formal charges have been flied over the death--the assassstnatston -comof Fionna MacTaggart. But in the earlier case, I believe, there was substantial evidence of guilt, was there not? Is it not true that his colleagues ruled that, as an assemblyman, he was immune from prosecution for ant crime under the Constitution?" "Yes, Mister Skjorning," Haley said softly. "I am very much afraid that was the case." He drew a deep breath and gripped the dilemma by its horns. "May I ask the purpose of your questions, sir?" "You may." Ladislaus drew himself up to his full height, towering over the other assemblymen like an angry Titan. "It is only this, sir; just as there was no prosecution then, there will be none now. Because the
men who murdered Fionna MacTaggart are in this very chamber!" The Chamber of Worlds exploded as the words were spoken at last. The Speaker's gavel pounded, but Ladislaus grabbed the volume control on his console and wrenched it to full gain. His mighty bass roared through the tumult, battering the delegates' ears.
"Fionna MacTaggart was murdered by the political machine headed by Simon Taliaferro!" Confused shouts of outrage and approval echoed from the floor, but Ladislaus thundered on. "Fringe World fingers pulled those triggers, but Corporate World money bought them! It may never be "proved," but Francois Fouchet planned her murder because she stood in the Taliaferro machine's way!" His savage words shocked the Assembly into silence at last, but for a handful of shouted denials from the Corporate World seats, and Ladislaus slowly turned down the volume.
"But let it pass," he said very softly, his amplified voice echoing in the silence. "We of the Fringe have learned our lessons well. We cannot tuna to this Assembly for justice; the Assembly is the tool which took our rights. But let that pass, too. Let all of it pass. It doesn't really matter any more, because when you killed Fionna --was his eyes burued across at the New Galloway delegation his-comand when these other Innervorldersstet you kill her, and demanded no accounting, you also killed this Assembly. You're dead men's shadows in a hall of ghosts, and you will wake one morning to find that you are all alone here.... his His voice trailed off, and an icy hush hovered as he started to turn away. But then he paused. His fists clenched at his sides, and when he turned back to the pickup the muscles in his cheeks stood out like lumps of iron in a face reduced to elemental hatred by loss and rage.
"But happen to be one last service this putrid Constitution have the doing offor Fionna," he said thickly. "Happen to be a Fringe Worlder can claim a Corporate Worlder's protection!" They were still staring at him in eomCusion as he vaulted the low railing of his delegation's box.
Members surged to their feet as his long legs flew over ten meters of marble to the New Zurich box.
Fouehet saw him coming and lunged up, his hand snaking into his coat, but Ladislaus was too fast. Muscles trained in a gravity thirty percent greater than Old Terra's--almost forty percent greater than New Zurich's--hurled him into the New Zurich delegation, and his right hand locked on Fouehet's wrist. His fingers closed like a vise, twisting, and Fouehet sreamed as his wrist shattered like crushed gravel.
Ladislaus jerked the moaning Corporate Worlder to the front of the box, his left hand scything a New Zurich aide contemptuously aside, and his bull voice roared through the tumult. "Happen to be"-- he shouted, tears streaming down his bearded checks--"even a Fringe Worlder can find justice if he make it for himsehq" His left hand gripped the back of Fouehet's neck while the entire Assembly rose to its feet in disbelief.
COUNCIL OF WAR "My friends!" Simon Taliaferro raised his glass and beamed at the men and women seated around the conference table. "I give you victory!" Agreement rumbled as glasses were lifted and drained, but Oskar Dieter left his on the table and felt dull, smoldering anger burn in the pit of his belly. His eyes were narrowed to knife-hard sharpness as they sought to strip away the false joviality which always shrouded Taliaferro's inner thoughts. How had he worked so long with him without realizing exactly what he was?
"Yes, my friends," Taliaferro continued, "much a I regret the death of Francois Fouchet, his murder his martyrdom--has assured our victory.
I received the latest projections this morning." He beamed at them like a fond uncle. "Within two months--three at the outside--our majority will be sufficient to assure approval of the Amalgamation?
The rumble of approval was even louder, and Dieter felt a chill breeze whistle around the corners of his soul. The Amalgamation was but the first step of the plan he and Taliaferro had worked out years before, but Dieter had always regarded it as a theoretical exercise, a sort of?what he' in ease the opportune moment ever arrived. He'd never really believed that they would succeed. Nor would they have... without murder.
He stared into his glass. The media, with its customary voracity for sensationalism, had arrived even before the medical examiner, ahd Dieter's heart chilled as he recalled the pathetic figure lying almost neatly in the wide, dark pool of blood. The assassins hadn't bled as much as she; men who die instantly bleed very little.
Dieter had watched those news shots with a sort of self-flagellating fascination. He'd tried to prevent it, but his efforts had been too little too late, and for all that he'd striven to stop it, it was also his unforgivable stupidity which had made the act inevitable... and stripped him of the power to forbid it.
He looked up from his glass with a bitter half-smile. Fouchet's death had restored him, however temporarily, to the ranks of the Corporate World autocrats on Old Terra. He lacked the power and prestige which had once been his, but there was no one else to speak for New Zurich, so his fellows had been forced to accept him once more, at least unstil the New Zurich oligarchs replaced him. Yet he was an outcast, now; more so even than they realized. He understood the dreadful attraction he held for them--the near hypnotic fascination of a tainted man whose career lay in wreckage. But they seemed unaware how deep the taint truly went.
"Of course, we all regret the terrible events which. led to this," Taliaferro was saying smoothly, "but one cannot deny that the entire crisis is tailor-made for our Heeds." "Maybe," Hector Waldeck rumbled. The chief delegate from Christophon was a choleric man, and his face flushed as he spoke. "No doubt the Amalgamation will pass, Simon, but what about Skjorning? The bastard's a damned savage!
He ought to pay for what he did, by God!" Dieter's mouth twisted behind his hand as others murmured agreement. They were all so sanctimonious about Skjorning's act what about what they had done? They knew the truth about Fionna's death, yet Waldeck was so smugly self-righteous he could demand punishment for Skjorning!
They were manipulators and users because it had never occurred to them to be anything else. The Legislative Assembly was no government; it was a tremendous, fascinating toy, a machine whose buttons and levers disgorged ever more wealth, ever more power, and ever more intoxicating triumphs.
Sorrow filled him. The Corporate Worlds had spent trillions of credits and decades of political effort to master that machine, and when the growing Fringe population threatened their control, they'd moved ruthlessly to crush the opposition--all as part of?the game." For all the time and effort they spent plotting and planning, they were even blinder than the insulated Heart Worlders, for they saw Fringers only as obstacles, not as people, and certainly not as fellow citizens. They saw them as pawns, dupes--cartoon caricatures cruelly drawn by habitual contempt and denigration.
"No, Hector," Taliaferro said firmly.
"We don't want to punish him--though I certainly share your outrage!" He managed to sound quite sincere, Dieter thought bitterly, and revised his earlier estimate. Some of these people were evil, however you defined the term. "But despite what we feel, we must remember that Skjorning's accusations can be made to work for ns rather than against us. We need to use him, not indict him." "Crap," Waldeck said harshly. "I want that murderous bastard stood up against a wall and shot!
We need to teach these barbarians a lesson especially the Beauforters!" Dieter saw a few sardonic smiles.
Christophon's medicinal combines had tried hard to move in on the doomwhaling industry, and Beaufort's government had slapped them down with a sort of savage delight. Waldeck's fellow oligarchs hadn't taken that well, nor had they cared for the loss of prestige they'd suffered.
"No, Hector," Taliaferro repeated more forcefully. "In fact, I intend to oppose any effort to try him on civil charges. We need him gone, trne, but we can arrange that without a civil trial-Zand we damned well better after the insane charges he made in the Chamber! If we come down as hard as he deserves, his supporters will scream that it's part of a cover-up, and some of the Heart Worlders might believe it. Besides, if we can send him home in disgrace, it'll undermine the Fringe far more effectively, n
ot to mention the approval our forbearance will win from the liberals." "But--was "Listen to me, Hector," Taliaferro said. shply. "All our projections say that as soon as Skjorning's gone, scores of Fringer delegates will resign in protest. They'll take themselves out of the picture and give us an absolute majority. But ff we make him a martyour the Fringe'll close ranks to 'avenge" him. It'll be as bad as having MaeTaggart back!" "I don't like it," Valdeck grumbled.
"Nor do I, but the Amalgamation is what matters." "Is it?" Dieter was more surprised than any of the others to hear himself speak. Eyes swiveled to him, filled with a sort of cold curiosity, but Taliaferro's eyes weren't cold. They were fiery with contempt. "Of course it is, Oskar," the Gallowayan said, sweet reason sugarcoating the disdain in his voice. "You worked as hard as anyone else to arrange it." His tone added the unspoken qualifier "before you lost your touch," and Dieter flushed. But his chin lifted, and he looked around with a sort of calm defiance which was new to him.
Sydon was a cobra, every bit Taliaferro's equal. And then he remembered his drugged insult to Fionna. Was his damned prejudice speaking again?
But, no, there was no comparison between Fionna and Amanda Sydon. They both happened to be women, but Fionna had also happened to be human.
"You know what I'm talking about, if you'd care to accept the truth, Amanda," he said quietly.
"The truth," she sneered, "is that the Fringe won't even know what hit it for at least ten yearsff they manage to figure it out then! With our majority, we'll control the post-amalgamation reapportionment.
We'll gut them, and they'll stay gutted for fifty years!" "Fifty?" Dieter allowed himself a chuckle.
"Amanda, you obviously don't know as much about the demographics as you think." He felt spines stiffen as he threw his challenge into her teeth, filled with a courage based for a change on conviction rather than convenience. "It won't be fifty years, dear; if the Fringe population curves hold steady and the borders continue to expand, it'll be more like a hundred and fifty years." He glanced at Taliaferro amid a hiss of indrawn breaths as the others heard the true figures for the first time, and the fury burning behind the fixed joviality amused him. So Simon hadn't wanted his minions to know the full extent of his ambition? Was he afraid even they might see the result?