by David Weber
“I didn’t say it would ‘work out’ for Zhyou-Zhwo.” Sarmouth smiled slightly. “What I said is that there’s a logical model for it, and that’s true. Of course, as Cayleb’s become fond of saying ‘logic is an organized way of going wrong with confidence.’”
“Thank you, Doctor Kettering,” Rock Point growled, and Sarmouth raised his glass in salute.
“The point here, though,” he said, “is that North Wind Blowing and Snow Peak could care less if it works. They just want Zhyou-Zhwo to go off in a corner and play with it as a way to keep him from doing something a lot worse.”
“Um.” Rock Point sipped his own whiskey appreciatively while he thought about it.
When Alfred von Tirpitz and Kaiser Wilhelm came up with the notion, they’d called it the “risikoflotte”—the “risk fleet.” Like most of the rest of nineteenth-century Old Terra, Wilhelm had believed it was the British Navy which had allowed Great Britain to build the greatest empire in human history. And, on the face of things, it was hard to fault the world’s reasoning. The corollary, that only offsetting that maritime power could give anyone else a fair shot at empire, might have been more suspect, but it, too, had seemed reasonable at the time. Yet Imperial Germany would never be able to outbuild the Royal British Navy; that was a given. So, how did an ambitious imperialist neutralize the unfair advantage all those ships had bestowed upon his imperial cousins?
Von Tirpitz, who’d had a love-hate relationship with all things British, had provided his emperor with an answer. Germany couldn’t build a navy big enough to fight the Royal Navy and win, no. But it could build a navy big enough to give Great Britain one hell of a fight. A big enough fight, perhaps, to erode the Royal Navy’s supremacy and allow the British Empire’s other competitors to snatch away Britannia’s crown. And if Germany built a navy that size, Britain would be loathe to risk the consequences of an actual war with Germany. Hopefully, the risikoflotte would force Great Britain to support Germany diplomatically—or, at least, to not actively oppose German diplomacy—without ever firing a shot.
It hadn’t quite worked out that way.
“Do you think they can actually convince Zhyou-Zhwo he could build a navy big enough to make us break a sweat?” the duke asked finally.
“I think they can convince Zhyou-Zhwo—temporarily, at least—of anything that suits his prejudices,” Sarmouth said seriously. “And at the moment, this suits his prejudices.”
“To be fair, we’re in a bit of a different position from Great Britain,” Rock Point said slowly. “We don’t really have a single strategic center. Or peripheral areas we can risk, for that matter. Chisholm and Corisande aren’t India or the China Station, and we don’t have Japan to watch our back in the Pacific, either. We’d have to maintain sufficient forces on distant stations to protect our core citizens.”
“Like I say, a logical model.” Sarmouth shrugged. “Personally, I don’t think they have a chance in hell of pulling it off, but look at it this way—it plays perfectly into the Nahrmahn Plan. Just think of how the shipbuilding programs in Germany ‘grew’ Krupp! Of course, old Alfred couldn’t hold a candle to our Ehdwyrd, but that wasn’t his fault.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Rock Point acknowledged.
“And so far, the Nahrmahn Plan does seem to be working,” Sarmouth pointed out rather more somberly. “Not as well as any of us would like, especially given the way Siddarmark seems to keep stuttering along. But any Archangel that comes back now’s going to find the cat well and truly out of the bag. Maybe not in terms of technology, but at least as far as industrialization is concerned.”
“The problem, of course, is that the aforesaid Archangel may not care,” Rock Point pointed out grimly, and Sarmouth nodded.
The clock continued to tick, and the earl knew Rock Point felt the coiling tension just as much as he did. In a little over one month, it would be Year of God 914. If the “Archangels” truly meant to return exactly a thousand years after the Day of Creation, they would arrive on God’s Day—which was the traditional anniversary of the Day of Creation and always fell on the thirteenth day, the third Wednesday of the month, in 915. Even allowing five months’ leeway either side, that meant they could turn up as early as February 915 or, at the latest, by February 916.
That wasn’t a lot of time.
Silence hovered for several seconds, and then Rock Point chuckled suddenly. The sound was harsh, and Sarmouth cocked his head.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re right about the Nahrmahn Plan,” Rock Point told him. “About the way a Harchongese ‘risk fleet’ would help push it along, I mean. And, for that matter, about the way it’s working in places like Dohlar, Silkiah—even Desnair—not just here in Charis. But a thought just occurred to me. What we’ve been doing—?”
He paused, eyebrows arched, until Sarmouth nodded for him to continue.
“The Nahrmahn Plan’s our own risikoflotte, Dunkyn,” the duke said very, very seriously. “I’m not saying we have a better strategy. I’m just saying that that’s what it is. Oh, not because we could fight the bastards and hope to do much more than scuff their paint—we’d be in a lot worse mess than Scheer at Jutland if we tried that!—but because what we’re betting on is that they’d have to do so much damage to Safehold to eradicate what we’ve done that they’ll decide to throw in the towel. If I’d thought I could suggest a better approach, I damned well would have—don’t think I’m not saying this isn’t the best one we’ve got. I’m just saying, well—”
He shrugged.
“That when our illustrious German ancestors tried their variant on the plan it didn’t work out very well, you mean?” Sarmouth asked dryly.
“More or less.” Rock Point nodded.
“I can never thank you sufficiently for sharing that thought with me,” Sarmouth said. “And here I thought I was going to sleep tonight!”
“Always here for you, Dunkyn,” Rock Point said with another, much lighter chuckle. “Besides, I don’t like to complain, but too much sleep always leaves you loggy and so cranky in the morning.”
MARCH YEAR OF GOD 914
.I.
Boardroom, Trans-Siddarmark Railroad, Siddar City, Republic of Siddarmark, and Royal Palace, City of Cherayth, Kingdom of Chisholm Empire of Charis.
“Good morning, Zhak!” Dustyn Nezbyt said, smiling and crossing the boardroom with a hot cup of tea in his left hand while he extended his right to Zhak Hahraimahn. “Talk about your miserable weather—!”
“It is pretty bad,” Hahraimahn agreed with a certain fervency, clasping forearms with him.
March was still winter, and Siddar City was still Siddar City. The city’s workers’ endless battle against snow clearance was clearly in a losing phase, at the moment, and Hahraimahn crossed to the Charisian-style iron stove built into the conference room’s old-fashioned hearth. He held out his hands, warming them above the heat rising from the coal-fired stove while he listened to the wind blustering about the eaves.
“The streetcars are still running … for now,” he said over his shoulder. “It’s looking pretty bad, though. I’m not sure we’ll have a quorum today, after all.”
“Can’t say I’m really surprised. Tea?”
“Please!” Hahraimahn rubbed his hands together harder, and Nezbyt chuckled as he crossed to the side table where carafes of tea steamed gently over the spirit burners.
“Real tea? Or cherrybean?” he asked.
“Do I look as effete as you? There is no ‘tea or real tea.’ There is only cherrybean and pale, muddy water, especially in weather like this! And don’t dilute it with any of that cream or sugar.”
Nezbyt chuckled again, poured, and carried the second cup across to the shorter, stockier Hahraimahn. Hahraimahn took it gratefully and sipped. Then he turned his back to the stove, looking across the boardroom at its handsome furnishings. An enormous painting of one of the TSRR’s steam automotives thundering across a mountain trestle bridge dominated the decor. Mahtylda Ne
zbyt had suggested the artist, and while Hahraimahn wasn’t prepared to back her judgment in all things, this time she’d been right. The painting caught the majesty and energy of the Republic’s rapidly expanding rail net almost perfectly.
It would have been nice if everything else about the TSRR’s operations had gone as smoothly as picking an artist. Of course, no one could put something this size together without making a few mistakes, hitting a few rough spots.
“The weather may not be an altogether bad thing,” he said now, still looking at the painting. “Mind you, I’ll be really pissed if I came seven blocks in the middle of a blizzard and we don’t have a quorum, anyway! But there’s something I wanted to mention to you before the meeting.”
“Oh?” Nezbyt sipped more tea, looking at him across the rim of the cup.
“Zhaikahbsyn buttonholed me at the club Thursday. He’s not happy about some of the contracts.”
“Really?” Nezbyt rolled his eyes ever so slightly, and Hahraimahn grimaced.
“I know he’s been complaining about quite a few things, but I think he’s genuinely beginning to be a little alarmed.”
“Zhak, Zhaikahbsyn’s always going to be ‘a little alarmed’ over something! And he’s not exactly at the heart of the stock market or any of the banking cartels.”
Hahraimahn nodded at Nezbyt’s point. Points, really.
Lainyl Zhaikahbsyn was the second-youngest member of the General Board. Only Lawrync Ashtyn, one of the two Charisian members, was younger, and like Ashtyn, Zhaikahbsyn was more of an engineer than a banker. A self-made iron master, he’d enthusiastically adopted the Charisian technologies during the Jihad, and he was smart. Shan-wei, but he was smart! Yet a man couldn’t be smart about everything, and Zhaikahbsyn had been wringing his hands over the Republic’s economy for years now. His concerns hadn’t all been simple alarmism, of course. Langhorne knew there’d been more than enough bumps and potholes along the road! But there’d been a lot of Wyvern Little’s falling sky in many of Zhaikahbsyn’s complaints, too.
“I know he’s always looking out for the next downturn,” Hahraimahn conceded. “But I’m hearing some rumbles from other sources, as well. I think this may be something we need to look into, Dustyn. If only so we can tell people like Lainyl we have!”
Nezbyt’s lips had thinned as he listened, but he relaxed—a bit—at Hahraimahn’s last sentence.
“Zhak, TSRR’s the biggest single commercial enterprise in the history of the Republic. I mean, we have thousands—scores of thousands—of shareholders, and we’re operating on a scale no one except Mother Church ever operated on before. I’ll be honest with you, I don’t have a clue—I doubt anyone does—just how many people we actually have working for us at this moment, and the pace and the scale are both still growing. I know things were more … intense during the Jihad, and God knows we were expanding manufactories even faster than we are now. Having a Shan-wei–damned army invading your territory has that effect.”
He smiled sourly, and Hahraimahn snorted in agreement.
“But even then, if you look at the absolute numbers, nobody in the Republic—no single manufactory, not even any single consortium of manufactories—has ever operated on the scale we’re operating on. We’ve got more workers, we’ve got a much bigger cash flow, and we’re snapping up every steel rail we can buy, beg, borrow, or steal. I’ve got to tell you, there’s going to be some skimming and there’s going to be some nest-feathering out there. There has to be, given human nature and the scale of this project. The only things in history that could even compare to what we’re doing are building the high roads and the canals, and both Mother Church and the Republic had the Holy Writ’s instructions where those were concerned. Not only that, the Church had the tithes to pay for them, and everybody involved had centuries to build them. We’re doing this ‘without benefit of clergy’ and our completion date’s only twenty years. We’re going off in way too many directions at once for anyone to stay on top of everything, and that’s likely to get worse once the Silkiah Canal project starts competing with us for management talent—and investors, for that matter! When the bond issue for that hits the markets in September, things will get really crazy.”
“I understand all of that,” Hahraimahn said. “You’re preaching to the choir about the size and the speed of this whole thing. And I agree with you about human nature, too. For that matter, I think Zhaikahbsyn does. But he does have a point when he says the fact that we can’t stop it doesn’t mean we don’t have a responsibility to at least hold it to manageable levels!”
“Which is what we’re doing.” Nezbyt shrugged. “Orlynoh’s helping me keep an eye on things, and I’ll have him sit down and discuss Zhaikahbsyn’s concerns with him.”
Hahraimahn nodded again, in approval. Orlynoh Archbahld was Nezbyt’s executive assistant, another veteran of the Exchequer. He knew his way around facts and figures, and he wasn’t just smart and efficient. He also had the political bureaucrat’s skill set needed to stroke ruffled feathers.
“I’m inclined to wonder, frankly, though,” Nezbyt continued, “how much of Zhaikahbsyn’s concerns have to do with contracts he is or isn’t getting.” Hahraimahn arched an eyebrow, and the chairman waved one hand quickly. “I’m not saying he’s running crying to the General Board to try and make us throw business his way! I don’t think he’d object if we did that, but he knows the Lord Protector and Chamber cut the General Board out of the actual contract-awarding process specifically to prevent any of us from favoring ourselves or our friends, and I think he’s in favor of that. But he’d be more than human if he didn’t feel aggrieved if he genuinely thinks there’s favoritism involved in the contracts that are being awarded … but not to him.”
“That … could be a factor,” Hahraimahn conceded slowly. “I don’t think it is. Or, at least, I don’t think he thinks it is, if you take my meaning. But it could be. As far as I know, all of his manufactories are working at pretty near full capacity right now, but it’s true he’s not expanding as quickly as some of the others. So he may be feeling a little pinched. A little … squeezed out.”
“I’ll have a talk of my own with Orlynoh before he calls on Zhaikahbsyn,” Nezbyt promised.
* * *
“He damned well should have a talk of his own with Archbahld,” Ehdwyrd Howsmyn growled over the com. “Just not the talk he’s going to have!”
“I agree, but Archbahld’s more a symptom of the problem than the problem itself,” Nahrmahn Baytz put in from Nimue’s Cave. “If he was all we had to worry about, I wouldn’t worry about it.”
“It’s not an ideal situation,” Cayleb said, looking out his and Sharleyan’s chamber’s window at snow that was even heavier than that falling on Siddar City … although, thankfully, without the powerful winds. “In fact, I’ll go farther than that and say I don’t like the situation. But let’s be fair here. We’ve never liked the way Myllyr set up the Trans-Siddarmark Board. And Nezbyt’s got a point. They’re laying a ton of track, Ehdwyrd. Anything going that fast on that scale is going to be messy. We saw enough of that right here at home during the Jihad, even with honest supervisors—and SNARCs—keeping an eye on things!”
“I know—I know!” Duke Delthak waved both hands. “But this is … this is systemic, Cayleb.”
“It’s always systemic, or else it doesn’t happen,” Sharleyan pointed out. “I’m not trying to downplay anything you’re saying, Ehdwyrd, because the truth is I agree with you. But I think what Cayleb’s saying is that from Nezbyt’s perspective, if it isn’t broken he shouldn’t be trying to fix it. And he doesn’t think it’s broken.”
“I know. And, overall, he may have a point,” Delthak conceded. “After all, the Republic’s entire economy’s in a lot better shape, and Ashfyrd’s announcement that the Exchequer’s finally launching the Canal Consortium bond issue’s bound to help that along. So I have to agree everything seems to be trending upward. It’s just that there are still … management issues, e
specially on the political side, that worry me. The Central Bank’s getting steadily better, but it’s still making things up as it goes along. Its Board of Governors has made its share of missteps, and its enforcement of the new credit regulations is … erratic. Brygs is doing his best—and, by the way, the sheer demands the Bank puts on his time are why he’s relying so much on Paidrho Ohkailee to oversee people like Sulyvyn—and Ashfyrd’s backing him to the hilt. But they’re still training regulators and inspectors. They don’t have nearly enough of them yet, and too many of the ones they do have don’t see any reason they shouldn’t make a little on the side for their efforts. That means there’s still a lot of playing fast and loose at the margins, and it’s going to be a while before they get a handle on that.
“That worries me, but, frankly, completely irrespective of enforcement … foibles, the Bank’s basic policies are too restrictive in some areas. Their demand for collateral and the limits they’ve imposed on debt-asset levels for creditors mean smaller investors are finding it harder to qualify for loans. That’s starving entrepreneurship and the development of the small business sector. But, at the same time, Ashfyrd—and Myllyr, I think—are subscribing to the ‘too big to fail’ mindset where other loan and credit decisions are concerned, and Brygs is working inside their policy directives … even when that can mean looking the other way. The Bank’s granting extensions and exemptions for the consortiums and corporations they ‘can’t afford to lose.’ And if that’s true where something like the Hahraimahn association or Hymphyl Ironworks is concerned, it’s even truer about something like the TSRR.
“I’m concerned about that, for a lot of reasons. For one thing, I think we’re actually seeing an … erosion of the marketplace’s faith in the rule of law, despite the increase in regulations. Siddarmark’s never made a Dohlaran level of commitment to a thorough overhaul of its commercial law codes and patent law. That was one of the things Henrai Maidyn was still fighting for when that idiot killed him. I’ll admit Myllyr and Ashfyrd’ve continued the fight, but not everybody’s onboard with that. What Nahrmahn and I are seeing is a growing willingness to ‘game the system’ as the regulations get more restrictive, coupled with that ‘too big to fail’ attitude which keeps major financial stakeholders from getting hammered the way the little guy does when they get caught gaming it. That means the little guy’s likely to lose faith in the impartiality of the system, which could have … negative implications down the road. For example, Zhermo Hygyns. Now that he’s decided to throw his hat into the ring and challenge Myllyr for the protectorship, this is exactly the sort of issue he’ll fasten on. And he won’t feel particularly constrained by the truth or any kind of faceted analysis when he does!”