by David Weber
“And now they’re outing Victor, I take it?”
“Trying to,” said Anton. “It’s pretty flimsy stuff so far, and”—he jabbed a thick finger at the HD screen—“I don’t think there’s any Mr. Damn-the-bastard Wright equivalent on this panel. It’s mostly been a pillow fight between Shrill Charlene and the other woman. Her name’s Florence Hu and she’s more or less the Liberal Party voice on the panel.”
Cathy sniffed. “Emphasis on the ‘less,’ if you please.”
“They’re swinging at each other plenty fiercely,” Anton continued, “but how much damage can you do with a pillow? The simple truth is that none of them know very much about Victor to begin with. That includes Yael Underwood whom I also have daydreams about meeting in a dark alley someday.”
Thandi slid onto the couch next to Victor and patted his hand. “Don’t let it bother you so much, dear. It’ll be over soon enough.”
Victor’s expression, amazingly, got more gloomy still. “I’m afraid not,” he said.
“Oh, come on. These so-called ‘news talk shows’ have the attention span of a gerbil. By next week—”
“Victor is all they’ll be talking about,” said Anton. “Well . . . might take a bit more time than that, depending on this and that and the other. There are some ways, Thandi, in which you don’t know Victor that well. The reason for that sourpuss expression on his face isn’t because of what’s on the HD screen now. It’s because he knows what he ought to do next and he really, really, really doesn’t want to do it.”
Victor grunted. “The reason for the sourpuss expression, as Anton puts it, is because I find his ability to figure out what I’m thinking distressful as well as disturbing. He’s getting better at it, too, to make it still worse.”
Thandi frowned. “What are you talking about?”
Berry, now standing next to her, looked back and forth between the two men. “Look at ’em. It’s like they belong to some sort of weird club. You know, the sort of goofy super-exclusive fellowship that’s got stupid secret handshakes.”
Ruth suddenly sat up straight and clapped her hands. “Oh, my God! That’s brilliant, Anton and Victor! It’s absolutely brilliant!”
She jumped to her feet and began pacing back and forth, gesticulating in a manner so vigorous it was almost wild. She came within a centimeter of knocking over a very expensive-looking vase perched on a side table. “You’ll have to get approval, of course. Might even have to go all the way to President Pritchart. But she’s an ex-spook herself so she’s bound to understand why it’s such a great idea.”
Striding back, she passed by Benton-Ramirez y Chou and waved her hand at him. “He’ll have to sign on, too, obviously. But I can’t imagine that’ll be a big problem.”
Jacques looked up at Thandi and Berry. “What are they all talking about?”
Thandi shrugged. “Got no idea. Spook-think doesn’t come naturally to me. Victor, would you care to enlighten us?”
She pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Perhaps I should rephrase that. If you don’t explain yourself I’m going to take up a new aerobic exercise. It’s called the Cachat Curl.”
“Can I watch?” asked Berry.
Victor raised his hands in a gesture that combined exasperation and surrender. “Given that there’s clearly no way to avoid publicity about . . .” (A deep breath, here.) “. . . me, we should run with it. Turn it to our advantage.”
“Pile it on with a shovel,” chimed in Anton. “As thick and treacly as we can. Make sure the news outlets are obsessed with the story and for as long as possible.”
He looked at Jacques. “You’ll have to help. To make the scheme work right, we’ll need to create a double for Victor. Um. Me, too, I guess.”
“No ‘guess’ about it,” said Victor. “Yes, you, too.”
Anton chuckled but didn’t look away from Jacques. “They’ll have to be sheathed with our DNA, I’m thinking, not just nanotech body-transformed. Just in case someone manages to pick up trace residues. We won’t expose them to the media directly, of course, since that would require them to be able to act like we do as well as looking like we do.”
“God help the universe,” muttered Thandi.
“That would get . . . tricky,” Anton went on. “But it doesn’t matter. Once we leak Victor’s entire history to the press—and we do know where all the bones are buried—”
“Oh, so many many bones,” chortled Ruth, still striding. “God, the media will go wild!”
“Especially when we leak the Ballroom footage of the Old Town gunfight,” said Anton.
Victor made a noise that sounded like a vehement protest strangled before it took actual form in words. Anton gave him a sideways look. “Of course we have to release that, too. It’ll be the icing on the cake, Victor. You know it as well as I do.”
The Havenite agent’s expression had passed beyond gloomy by now and had entered the territory shared by sullen rancor and spread the misery. “I’ve never seen that footage, but it’s got to include Jeremy as well as me.” He gave Cathy a sharp look. “Yes?”
“Well . . . yes, it does. Right at the end.”
“He gunned down at least four of the bastards, as I recall. So let the damned media get their first actual look at what the expression ‘galaxy’s most deadly terrorist’ actually means.”
“That’s . . . probably a good idea on its merits, now that I think about,” said Anton.
As they’d been talking, Jacques’ head had gone back and forth between them. Now he raised his hands.
“You’re making me dizzy. I don’t understand—” He broke off sharply, his eyes widening. “Oh, dear God in Heaven. That’s . . . brilliant.”
Thandi started whistling tunelessly. “If anybody thinks I can’t turn the Cachat Curl into a general-purpose workout routine, you’d best start thinking again. What the hell are you all talking about?”
Jacques pointed at Victor and Anton, moving his finger between them. “First, we start creating doubles for them at the same time as we’re putting them through the body-transformation and sheathing. Second—oh, somewhere around next week, as soon as everyone’s off to Beowulf, we start feeding little tidbits to the media. But we don’t stretch it out too long, because we want a big splash. A really big splash. Then we dump everything. Give Underwood as much material as he got when he did the Zilwicki exposé—what was it? two years ago?”
“Three,” replied Anton.
“Hey!” said Berry. “It wasn’t an ‘exposé.’ It was pretty positive, actually.”
“Positive, negative—it doesn’t matter,” said Jacques. “It’s just got to be explosive and exciting.” He now looked at Montaigne. “I haven’t seen this footage you’re talking about. Is it . . . ?”
“Explosive and exciting?” She looked as if she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Let’s put it this way. Victor gunned down at least a dozen State Sec goons and Scrags. Jeremy did for the rest. There was one badly wounded survivor. Donald X—no, I guess he’s Donald Toussaint now—shot him dead. That’s on the footage too.”
“We can probably cut that part,” said Anton.
“Why?” asked Victor. “Donald won’t care. Who’s going to charge him—or me, or Jeremy—with anything? The people with legal jurisdiction are the authorities on Terra. Given the current situation, they’ve got enough on their plates. I don’t think they’re going to be dredging up the Manpower Incident and sending out extradition notices.”
Anton grunted. “True. Keep going, Jacques.”
By now, Benton-Ramirez y Chou was on his feet along with Ruth, although he wasn’t pacing. “It’s brilliant. The media will go wild. I’m just starting to grasp at all the ramifications. For one thing . . .”
He looked down at Anton, and then at Cathy. “I know the basic facts about the Manpower Incident. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think it’s fair to say that Victor saved the lives of your children.”
“There’s no doubt about it,” said Anton.
“Yes,” sa
id Berry. “I was there myself, although I didn’t see the actual shooting.”
Jacques nodded. “You’re all probably too close to it to see it for what it’s worth in propaganda terms. Right at the point where the leaders of Manticore and Haven are trying to convince their own populations that it’s time to end the galaxy’s bloodiest and bitterest war—and meeting a lot of resistance—we get a story splashed all over the media—first here in the Star Empire, then in the Republic of Haven—that tells how a young Havenite StateSec agent saved the lives of three Manticoran children—one of whom is now an officer in the fleet and another of whom is the newly crowned queen of the new star nation of Torch—and began a friendship and later a partnership with the father of those children—who’s himself a well-known figure in the Star Empire—”
Ruth snickered. “Captain Zilwicki, Scourge of the Spaceways.”
“—that led eventually to the uncovering of the evil masterplan of the Mesan Alignment. Who, among their many other crimes, are the ones responsible for instigating the war between Manticore and Haven and keeping it going.”
He started rubbing his hands. “Not to mention that Victor was part of the underground opposition that eventually overthrew the Saint-Just regime. Oh, God, it’s brilliant. The media will slobber over it for weeks. And by the time they finally start tiring of it . . .”
He lowered his hands and grinned. “The doubles will be ready to go to work. We trot them out from time to time in front of the media—never too close and not too often, just enough—to give the impression that Cachat and Zilwicki are both neck-deep in whatever oh-very-hush-hush scheming is being done by the authorities—the authorities here, you understand, and later on Haven and maybe Beowulf—while they’re actually almost eight hundred light-years away . . . On Mesa, which is the last place anybody would think they’d gone to.”
Thandi rubbed a hand over her face. “Okay, now I get it. What you’re proposing is basically a diversion. A whopping big diversion.” The hand came away. “You’re right. It’s brilliant. But we’ll need a double for me also. I’m too prominent a figure to just vanish. If people see my double engaging in what looks like discussions with my Manticoran counterparts, they won’t think anything of it. That’s exactly what they’d expect to see.”
Anton and Victor looked at each other. “She’s right,” said Victor. Anton nodded.
So did Jacques. “We’ll include you in the mix, then.” He thought for a moment. “Anyone else? This Yana person, perhaps . . .”
“No,” that came from Victor and Thandi simultaneously.
“Nobody will notice if Yana just disappears,” Thandi elaborated. “We need to give her a body transformation and a genetic sheath since she was on Mesa with Victor and Anton. But she doesn’t need a double.”
“The same’s true of Steph Turner,” Victor added. “That’s assuming she agrees to come at all.”
Jacques pulled out his com. “Okay. So who makes the call? And who do we start with?”
Victor and Anton exchanged looks again.
“There’s something a little scary about that,” mused Cathy.
“You think?” That came from Berry. But she was smiling when she said it.
“We need to start with President Pritchart,” said Anton. He pointed at Victor. “He is actually very disciplined, believe it or not. He won’t—can’t—agree to this without the approval of his superiors. And given that they’re bouncing his official status around, there’s no one except Pritchart who could sign off on it. As for who should make the call . . .”
Victor pulled out his com. “I’ll do it. I’d rather Jacques did, but . . . a special officer beards his own commander-in-chief.”
“Eloise Pritchart does not have a beard,” said Cathy.
Victor’s gloomy expression was back. “Stick around,” he said, as he keyed in some numbers. “By tomorrow she may have.”
His face got the slightly vacant look of someone who’s talking to someone far away. “This is Special Officer Cachat. Would you please pass on to President Pritchart that I need to speak with her as soon as possible.”
After a moment, he continued: “Yes, I know she’s very busy. This is important.”
Another moment passed. Victor rolled his eyes. “Yes, thank you.” He turned off the com. “Wasn’t it Shakespeare who said, ‘first thing we do, we kill all the bureaucrats’?”
Cathy shook her head. “No. It was lawyers.”
“He got it wrong, then.” He put the com away. “I wouldn’t hold out great hopes that I’ll be able to see her anytime soon. The president’s gofer—excuse me, assistant executive director—made it pretty clear that I was a nuisance with delusions of grandeur.”
“Is that so?” Jacques took his com back out. “Let me try, then.” He entered some numbers and within a short time got the same slightly vacant expression.
“This is Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou, Third Director at Large of the Planetary Board of Directors of Beowulf. What is your name, please?”
A few seconds passed. “Well then, Assistant Executive Director Hancock. I need to speak to President Pritchart.”
A few seconds passed. “I didn’t say I needed an appointment, Ms. Hancock, I said I needed to speak to President Pritchart. If you require an explanation of the word ‘now’ I can have it provided for you by my cousin. That would be Chyang Benton-Ramirez. He’s the Chairman of Beowulf’s Board of Directors.”
A few seconds passed. “Thank you, Assistant Executive Director Hancock.”
To the people around him he said: “She’s getting her.”
A couple of minutes passed. “Eloise? Jacques here. Something very important has come up. I need to meet with you as soon as possible. I’ll be bringing your Special Officer Cachat with me. Captain Zilwicki as well. And General Palane.”
A few seconds passed. “Splendid. Fifteen-thirty it is.”
He put away the com and glanced at his timepiece. “Okay, we’ve got a little over two hours. We’d best get moving.”
* * *
After they left, Ruth sat back down at looked at the HD. The talking heads were still at it.
“—unfortunate, I agree, but there it is.” Yael Underwood was saying. “We just don’t know very much about Cachat and what little we do know is half-speculation.”
“Boy, are you in for a wild ride,” said Ruth.
Chapter 18
When Steph Turner and Andrew Artlett were ushered into the conference room, they were surprised to find Queen Berry and Princess Ruth waiting for them. There was another person in the room whom they didn’t recognize. That was hardly surprising, since they’d only been in the Beowulfan capital city of Columbia for a short time. Their ship had arrived the previous evening.
“Where’s Victor?” Steph asked. “And Anton? They were the ones who sent me the message to come here right away.”
Andrew pulled out a chair for her and helped her get seated at the table in the center of the room, facing Berry and Ruth and the unknown man. He wasn’t usually given to such gallantries, but he was trying to evade the gazes coming his way. The ones that indicated and what is he doing here?
Recognizing the gazes, Steph said a bit awkwardly: “Andrew, uh, decided to come with me.”
Having sat down by then, Andrew got a little belligerent. “I know I wasn’t invited but I also know Cachat and Zilwicki. They’re up to something. Involving Steph. Which means ‘up to no good,’ most likely. They got a history. So I came along to make sure Steph doesn’t get hustled.”
Berry and Ruth looked at each other, and then at the man Steph and Andrew didn’t know.
“I guess it’s your call,” Berry said to him.
The man chuckled. “Who knows? This whole project is scrambling everybody’s preexisting notions of proper jurisdiction. But I’ll kick it off.”
He swiveled in his seat to face Andrew. “I assume you’re Andrew Artlett, right? The now-famous—in some circles, anyway—starship mechanic who jury-rigged
the repairs on the Hali Sowle that enabled Cachat and Zilwicki to bring back their galaxy-shaking—that’s almost literally true—intelligence from Mesa.”
“What of it?” Andrew demanded, leaning his weight on forearms planted on the table.
Steph put a hand on his arm. “Hon, I think he’s being complimentary. Ease up on the testosterone, will you?”
“Um.” Andrew settled back. The expression on his face was that of a man who was embarrassed but was valiantly refusing to acknowledge the fact. “Um,” he repeated.
“I’m Henry Kham,” the man said. “I’m with . . . Well, for the moment let’s just call it the Inter-Agency Development Team.”
“ ‘Inter’ between what agencies and developing what and who’s on the team?” Andrew demanded.
Steph gave him an exasperated glance. “I think we’ll find out soon enough. Now will you puh-lease let Mr. Kham finish what he’s saying.”
“Um.”
Kham smiled. “The interaction is between a number of organizations representing—so far—four star nations. Beowulf, Manticore and Torch being three of them, which is why we’re here. The Republic of Haven is also involved but they didn’t have a representative available to come to this meeting.”
“Where’s Victor?” asked Steph.
“He’s tied up at the moment.”
A little choking sound came from Berry, followed almost immediately by the same sort of noise from Ruth. Kham gave them an inquisitive glance. “A poor choice of words?” he asked.
“Ah . . .” Ruth shook her head. “No, no. That’s fine.”
Berry murmured something that sounded like except he usually does the tying although Steph wasn’t sure. The young queen’s face was a little puffy, as if she was doing her best to stifle laughter.
Ruth flipped her hand in a shooing motion. “Keep going, Henry. Don’t mind us.”
Kham turned back to Steph and Andrew. “As for the project we’re developing, it’s basically simple. As invaluable as the information Cachat and Zilwicki brought back was, we need more. So we’re planning to insert another intelligence team on Mesa.” He now looked directly at Steph. “And we want to ask you to accompany them.”