The Coalition Man

by Alec Saracen

Grey Hawk, meanwhile, was staring at nothing, which meant she was watching something on the inside of her eyeballs. Even so, Zhai could feel the prickly force of her contempt for him. It stung more than he was willing to admit. He'd expected her to hate what he represented – but despite the ideological gulf between them, he actually rather liked the brash young Liberator, rude and dismissive though she was. It was a shame that the feeling wasn't mutual.

  Eight minutes and forty seconds after the appointed time, two nondescript cars pulled into the parking lot. Zhai's three protectors tensed, ready for action. One car pulled up directly next to theirs, the other taking up position on the other side so that the middle car, the meeting place, was sandwiched between them.

  “If I get into that car and it blows up,” Zhai said to Ceq, “Thier lives. You are expressly forbidden from killing him in retaliation. Harod will need him alive to finish the job.”

  Ceq shook her head. “No promises, boss.”

  Zhai sighed. “Fine. You two, stop her from killing Thier.”

  Umbiba and Grey Hawk glanced at each other, then at Ceq, then back at Zhai. Neither said a word.

  “Oh, suit yourselves,” Zhai said, and opened the door. The parking lot was cool despite the sweltering heat of the day. He blinked in the gloom, rolled his neck, and left the car. The bruise on his flank, still tender, pulsed hotly as he stood up.

  The other cars remained motionless. Clearly, he was expected to enter first.

  Oddly, Zhai found that he had no fear at all.

  He felt for the door handle on the middle car and opened it. It was unlocked. He opened it, climbed inside, sat down, and pulled it shut behind him. The car was filthy, its carpeting full of grit and stripes of dust and dirt, and its seats were scratched and discoloured from years of use. A mint air freshener was covering up a faint bitter smell that Zhai thought might have been stale vomit.

  He waited. Nothing exploded.

  At last, the door diagonally across from him opened and Grigori Thier climbed in.

  He was wearing a rumpled shirt and jeans, which on any other politician would have looked like clumsily playing the everyman. Thier, however, pulled it off, probably because he always dressed like that. He settled down in the seat opposite Zhai with a grunt, swinging the door down behind him to seal the two of them in.

  Thier seemed to have aged a few years since Zhai had last seen him. His hair was more grey than black, and his hairline, already retreating, had apparently stolen a march overnight. Deep, immovable lines scored his face, and he hadn't shaved in a couple of days.

  Their eyes met, and Zhai studied his opponent. Thier's eyes were like storm clouds, a grey so dark they were almost black, and they had an aquiline fierceness to them that Zhai recognised straight away. It answered the last lingering question he had about Thier's motivations. The man believed.

  “Well?” Thier said. “I'm here. You've got what you want. Say your piece, Ambassador.”

  All right, Zhai thought. Message received, loud and clear. Bullshit-free zone.

  “I apologise for forcing your hand, Doctor Thier,” Zhai said.

  Thier shook his head with a jerky, decisive motion. “I'm not a doctor any more.”

  “Yes, I know it was stripped from you – but anyone can see that the alleged plagiarism was falsified.”

  “I'm not a doctor any more,” Thier repeated, his tone unchanged. Zhai recognised the warning.

  “Very well – Mr Thier,” he said. “I'll get down to it: we're on the same side.”

  Thier's eyes didn't waver. “No, Ambassador Zhai, we're not. Don't insult me. I know what you are. I know what I am. We are not of a kind.”

  He couldn’t argue with that. “Very well. At the moment, then, we both want ResTore to succeed in ousting Chang and restoring democratic, constitutional rule to Tor.”

  “I'm not interested in your political games,” Thier said tersely. “We won't be a means to your end.”

  Zhai sighed. This was becoming predictably difficult. “Mr Thier, I won't deny that I'm acting in the interest of the Consolidationists in the Coalition. We favour an independent Tor, preferably one which wants nothing to do with the Coalition, or the Confederation, or anyone else.”

  That sparked interest, as if lightning had flashed behind Thier's clouded eyes.

  “And why do you want that?” he asked. “Not the Consolidationists. You.”

  Zhai opened his mouth and closed it, suddenly feeling sweat prick his brow. The more he looked, the more Thier's eyes looked uncomfortably like the vortex of the Void, endlessly deep and roiling. Though it wasn't a small car, Zhai began to feel claustrophobic. He could sense immense intelligence in Thier, so much that it seemed to leak out of the man and complicate the air itself.

  “I don't know,” he said, trying to turn his own uncertainty to his own ends. Let Thier believe that he agonised over the big picture. As he spoke, he realised it was true. Truth was leaking into his lies, which made a change. Usually his lies infected the truth. “To prevent another galactic war, I suppose. One that will make this one look like a skirmish.”

  Thier's hands, clasped on his lap, shifted infinitesimally. “Why?”

  Zhai flushed everything from his eyes, hoping Thier would appreciate honesty. Truth. Tell the truth, he told himself. “To prevent human suffering,” he said.

  Twins, that sounded fake even to him.

  “I'd like to believe you're that noble.” Thier's voice was icy. “But you're not, we both know that. I see you for what you are, Ambassador. Perhaps you were something once, before the Coalition squeezed you dry. Now? You're empty. False. I pity you, though I don't blame you. You were made.”

  Zhai didn't answer. What was there to say to that? 'You're wrong'? 'I disagree'? No. Thier had his opinion, and Zhai wasn't going to change it. Thier hadn't even meant it as an insult. From his point of view, it was simply fact.

  This was not going well.

  Uncomfortable, Zhai resisted the urge to shift in his seat. The way to reach Thier wasn't through his ideological walls. It was around them. Zhai took the first route he could.

  “Can I ask you a question?” he said.

  *

  “I don't know,” Ceq said. “Can you? Liberators can do a lot of shit. Like toasters. How are your question-asking circuits?”

  Grey Hawk let the weak jibe fall flat. “Why do you work for Zhai?”

  The bodyguard sniffed, dragged a sleeve across her nose. “He pays me.”

  “So if anyone else paid you the same, you'd work for them?”

  “Not anyone.”

  “Who wouldn't you work for?”

  “You.”

  “Good thing I'm not asking you to, then,” Grey Hawk said, smiling. All she got in reply was a glare. Umbiba, who was intently watching the window for any sign of trouble, glanced back in irritation. “I'm curious. Really. You're not with the SSA or a private agency, so there's nothing holding you back from finding another client. You'd have takers. I saw you save the ambassador from that sniper drone. V-sight, right?”

  Ceq made a show of looking away. Grey Hawk pressed on.

  “It's impressive. Anyone with enemies would be happy to have you watching their back. I just want to know: why Zhai? What does he offer you?”

  “You talk a lot,” Ceq said, inspecting her fingernails.

  “Give me an answer, and I'll stop talking.”

  Ceq eyed her balefully. “I don't quit on people,” she said eventually. “They fire me or die. I don't quit.”

  “Why?”

  “You've got to want them to live.”

  Grey Hawk pounced on the opening. “See, that's the part I don't get. Why Zhai? Why do you want him to live? How much do you know about him? What about his enemies?”

  “Doesn't matter who wants him dead,” Ceq said, looking away again into the cavernous gloom of the parking lot. Grey Hawk watched the dim reflection of her eyes in the window. “Or why. Just that they do.”

  “But you want him alive,
” Grey Hawk said. “You said so yourself. Why him, after what he's done?” Ceq's reflected eyes flicked her way, alight with undisguised curiosity. Grey Hawk was struck by a sudden realisation.

  Maybe she didn’t know.

  It had been before either of them were born, after all. Anyone plugged into galactic politics knew – but Ceq hated politics. She had no interest in history. Was she working for Zhai without knowing what he had done on Naro, all those years ago?

  Let's find out, she thought.

  If Zhai thought he could pull the truth of Grey Hawk into the light, she could do the same to him. Let's see how you like it, Ambassador. Let's see your dirty laundry.

  “You do know, don't you?” she said, with a false certainty that became real as soon as she said it. “About Naro.”

  Ceq said nothing. Umbiba refused to look round.

  “He never told you,” Grey Hawk said. “Did he?”

  Silence, which was as good as confirmation.

  Grey Hawk shrugged. Telling Ceq herself wouldn't be enough. She had to hear it from the horse's mouth.

  “I guess it happened before we were born,” she said. “Ancient history, really. And perhaps he's a new man now. Still, maybe you should ask him about it. See if that changes your mind.”

  “Maybe,” Ceq muttered. In the mirror of the window, her eyes had darkened.

  *

  “I can't stop you,” Thier said, “though I may not answer.”

  Zhai inclined his head. “Reasonable.” He paused, mapping out the conversation routes in his head. “Suppose,” he said, “that your revolution – let's not split hairs, Mr Thier, it's a revolution – succeeds. Suppose Tor is independent, and ResTore ascendant. In, say, two years' time, are you President Thier?”

  Thier had a habit of leaving an uncomfortably long pause before every response, as if he couldn't quite believe how stupid Zhai's words had been.

  “You said you reviewed my doctorate,” he said at last.

  “Yes,” Zhai said, trying hard to recall the details. Thier's professorial air was incredibly effective. Zhai felt like he was sitting hungover in a seminar, and that Thier had asked him to explain two hundred pages of reading he hadn't even skimmed. “It was – a study of various political leaders of the last sixty years, yes? Analysing how their pre-power ideals influenced their actions in office?”

  Thier let him stew for a few seconds, then nodded. “More or less. More precisely, how they did not influence their actions in office. Not a surprising conclusion – though it stirred quite some controversy. People don't like to hear that their leaders shed their ideals at the threshold of power.” He leaned forwards suddenly. “Every – single – time.” The words were almost spat. “So you have my answer, Ambassador.”

  “You don't seek to lead Tor?”

  “No,” Thier said heavily. “I do not.”

  Zhai nodded. “Because you fear that you'll be corrupted by power. That's–”

  Thier thumped a white-knuckled fist on his armrest, silencing him. “I do not fear it, Ambassador, I know it. This is the single overriding function of political systems. They filter out the human. They cannot be led by real people. When the human and the systemic come into contact, the human will be annihilated. Power swamps all.”

  Ah. Zhai began to understand. The strength of Thier's principles was in their simplicity. His world was stark, without nuance. Zhai had no doubt that his scholarship was largely accurate – power did corrupt, after all – but perhaps a life under the heel of the FPA had funnelled Thier's immense intelligence along absolutist lines, creating the FPA's worst nightmare. A demagogic genius. Twins help them.

  Still, the fault lines in Thier's philosophy were obvious.

  “And what about Tor?” Zhai asked. “If you're right, you're standing aside so that someone else can be corrupted. Saving yourself.”

  Thier exhaled slowly and closed his eyes for two heartbeats. When they opened again, the cracks of weariness were beginning to show. “I am.”

  “Then they're condemned, and so is Tor. You're aware of the dangers of power, Mr Thier. Surely Tor would be better off with someone who can at least limit their own corruption.”

  “It would,” Thier said. “Unfortunately, I am a coward.” Zhai scoffed, but Thier held up a hand. “I have made my peace with it, Ambassador. I would gladly die for Tor, as so many people have done in these past few days. My body is only a body. My life is only one life. What I will not do, what I cannot bear to do, is to become President Thier and lose myself. I can see exactly how I fall. I would soon convince myself that I was wrong. I would believe that that my ideals are as strong as ever, that my regime is just and righteous, that I am still the same Grigori Thier I have always been, merely with a different job. That's the worst part of it, Ambassador. I won't know, just as you don't know what you have become. I'll be hollowed out and filled with inhuman machinery, and I won't know a thing about it. And by the time I leave office, I'll have done awful things in the name of a 'greater good' devoid of greatness or goodness, and I will believe that I did the right thing.” Thier's fierce eyes had slid down to his hands as he talked, but now he looked up at Zhai again, the ghost of a smile flickering on his face. It was the first time Zhai had seen him smile. “And then, Ambassador Zhai, then we will be of a kind.”

  The spell broke, and Zhai blinked. Thier had drawn him in with his speech, building stony rhetorical ramparts around the two of them until the rest of the world seemed to fade out of existence, leaving just the two of them, entangled by Thier's words. Now reality came rushing back, and they were two tired old men in the back of a filthy car once more. Zhai breathed in, suddenly aware he'd been holding his breath.

  What was he going to say?

  What could he say?

  “Perhaps,” Zhai said, already disliking the sentence, “you're more susceptible to corruption than most, and you're unfairly projecting it onto others. Have you ever considered that?”

  “Oh, yes,” Thier replied. “Many times. But how can we truly know others when all we know is ourselves? We must – extrapolate. Townsend knew that: 'I judge the world a glass, and see in it my image.'” He smiled again, mirthlessly. “I see in you my own reflection, Ambassador. Do you see yourself in me?”

  Ten long seconds ticked by in silence. Thier's eyes had lost some of their spark, but they were still magnetically powerful. Thier believed what he said he believed, and Zhai was powerless to alter that faith. 'Faith' was the right word. Thier adhered to his principles fanatically, with all the fervency of religion without an actual religion to inspire it. He was his own religion. In another age, he would have been a prophet.

  Zhai was the one to break the silence, in an attempt to steer the conversation away from long-dead playwrights and back towards the reason he'd come.

  “It doesn't matter,” he said. “We have a common enemy in Chang's government. That's enough.”

  Thier reverted instantly to implacable hostility. “We are not allies, and we never will be.”

  “Even so. We can help you. I can provide diplomatic recognition, if your position strengthens–”

  “You will do more harm than good,” Thier said sharply. “Ambassador, do you understand your own position? Coalition recognition isn't what we want. Recognition by you in particular is poison. If you want to help ResTore, throw your vocal support to Chang. Defend the bloodbath in Landing. Condemn the violent rebels seeking to destabilise civilised society. Extol the virtues of your Coalition in one breath and lecture the ungrateful people of Tor in the next. Let the world know that the Coalition supports Chang, and he'll fall all the faster. Oppose him, and you'll prop him up. As bad as Chang is, Ambassador, he isn't the Coalition. We remember Calce, and Kadera, and Naro.” His eyes blazed with a sudden flame. “Even if you don't.”

  18

  When Zhai climbed back in the car, he looked as composed as ever, but the instant the door closed something seemed to click off inside him. Suddenly, he looked drained.

&nb
sp; “Ceq, what have we got in the cooler?” he asked. Ceq pulled up a panel in the floor and squinted into the white cube behind it.

  “Water, mostly.”

  “Anything stronger?”

  “Uh. Lemonade?”

  “Forget it,” Zhai said, waving a hand weakly. “Let's get back to Macard.”

  “What did he say?” Grey Hawk asked. Outside the window, the ResTore cars were already rolling away.

  Zhai rubbed the corner of his eye with his little finger. “A lot of things. The upshot is that he doesn't want me around, and he thinks I'm just going to get in the way of ResTore's cause. Some alliances are impossible, I suppose.”

  Grey Hawk watched the ResTore cars accelerate out of the parking lot. Blue Bull would be watching, tracking the leadership to their new sanctuary.

  “Yet here we are,” she said.

  “We're different. We both listen to reason. Thier has no interest in it. Twins, he could do with a dose of the Third Primary Principle. He makes you Liberators look sane. No offence.”

  “Believe me, none taken,” Grey Hawk said. Zhai half-raised an eyebrow at the acid that had crept into her voice, but said nothing of it. If you're what sanity looks like, Ambassador, she thought, I'll take my chances with madness.

  Escaping Landing turned out to be easier than entering it. The checkpoints were abandoned, and cars were streaming out of the city in all directions. Only those registered recently in Macard were allowed back into the capital. All others were forcibly overridden by the government transport network and forced to turn around as soon as they came within fifty kilometres of the city. Most of those fleeing Landing bounced off the invisible wall barring them from Macard a few times before giving up and trying Ossaile, which was still open. The roads back were clear.

  Darkness was shuffling in at the fringes of the sky as they approached Macard. The sun had long since been shrouded in grey, and the clouds were beginning to look ominously heavy. Grey Hawk checked the forecasts. Monsoon season was anywhere from two weeks to a month away. The dry season was on its last legs.