Peter blinked. He’d wanted to get to the point, but like that . . . ?
He composed himself. “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Your Majesty,” he said carefully. “Right now, the budget proposal is unacceptable.”
“Unacceptable is a harsh word,” the king said placidly.
“Yes,” Peter agreed. “But it is also an accurate one. The kingdom cannot afford to meet the spending commitments you propose. Nor can we keep taxation at its current level without risking economic disaster. We have to staunch the bleeding before we bleed to death.”
He had to struggle to keep his frustration out of his voice. The king had to know that his proposed budget was never going to pass. Everyone from the Royal Corporation’s trustees to talking heads on the datanet had drawn the same conclusion. The king had to listen to the trustees, didn’t he? Peter was sure the Royal Corporation was in the same boat as the rest of the corporations. Cavendish might merely be the first to fall. If the crash was bad enough, the rest of the corporations would quickly follow.
Uncharted territory, he thought.
“I appreciate that you are focused on financial affairs,” the king said quietly. “However, as the monarch of the kingdom and the Commonwealth, I have to remain focused on the larger picture. In the short run, my analysts project there will indeed be some pain from implementing the budget; in the long run, they assure me that our economy, our interstellar economy, will be on a stronger footing. Furthermore . . .”
He took another sip of his coffee. “Furthermore, there are other issues involved than simple money. Peter . . . are you aware of the stresses and strains threatening to tear the Commonwealth apart? We do not want the member worlds to feel alienated from the Commonwealth, let alone Tyre itself. They made sacrifices to win the war too.”
Peter looked back at him, as evenly as he could. “Would they be happier if we made the promises and then broke them, or if we simply never made the promises at all?”
“Commitments were made,” the king said. “And not just the ones I made. My father was able to convince his parliaments to make and underwrite promises to the original set of member worlds. Those promises have to be kept.”
“The Commonwealth Charter is not a suicide pact,” Peter observed. “And the blunt fact remains that we are on the cusp of an economic recession. We need to cut back, now, before it’s too late.”
“And then what?” The king nodded to the protesters. “Will we dump uncounted millions of people onto the streets? Because we will, you know.”
Peter scowled. “I suppose we could build a few hundred new superdreadnoughts,” he said, dryly. “It would keep dockyard workers employed, would it not? But what would we do with them afterwards? Who is going to want to buy more superdreadnoughts? Even if the member worlds wanted to buy a superdreadnought or two, they wouldn’t be able to run them without . . .”
The king cut him off. “That’s why I’m suggesting a massive investment in industrial nodes right across the Commonwealth,” he said, sharply. “There will be work for everyone.”
“I see your logic,” Peter said. It made a certain kind of sense, if one failed to understand where tax actually came from. “But we simply don’t have the cash to pay for it. And we’ve gone over this again and again and again!”
“My analysts say otherwise,” the king said, sharply.
“I’d be very interested in seeing that analysis,” Peter said, resisting the urge to snap back at him. “Because my analysts say that even trying to implement the budget will push us over the edge. And even if we’re lucky enough to avoid immediate disaster, revenue will be down so significantly that we’ll suffer another revenue shortfall next year.”
The king looked at him for a long moment. “Are you saying no?”
Peter looked back at him. “I’m saying the budget will not pass through the Houses of Parliament,” he said flatly. “And even if it does, your planned taxation will not raise enough funds to pay for your pet projects.”
“And you’ll resist me,” the king said. “You . . . you will stop me from saving us from a far greater disaster.”
Peter stiffened. “If I have to,” he said. “Perhaps it would be better to come to some kind of compromise. If the budget was to be modified . . .”
“Rewritten, you mean,” the king said.
“Yes,” Peter said. “Right now, it will not pass.”
“I have a duty to the kingdom,” the king told him. “And I will do whatever I have to do to uphold that duty.”
Peter felt ice running down his spine. Was that a threat? The big corporations wielded immense economic power, but . . . could the king threaten them? It was possible, he had to admit. Too many people in the navy owed their positions to the king. The orbital defense network was under Parliament’s control, as per the original agreements, but the king might have been meddling there too. And . . .
He kept his face impassive with an effort. How had his father managed to handle the king?
“And we have duties to our corporations,” he managed. His throat felt dry. They’d crossed a line. He’d have to do . . . do what? Push for immediate impeachment? Or something more drastic? They were entering uncharted waters. “Your Majesty . . . the corporations are the geese that lay the golden eggs. If you kill them, if you even weaken them, there will be no more golden eggs.”
“And what happens,” the king asked reasonably, “if the Commonwealth dies?”
“We have to save what we can,” Peter countered. “Your Majesty . . . only a third of the member worlds are net gains to our economy. And even they are quite limited. The war cost us all.”
“And the chaos in the Theocratic Sector?” The king tapped the table. “What happens when that spills back into our sector?”
“We will deal with it when it happens,” Peter said. “But, right now, it is very much a minor problem.”
“We shall see,” the king said. He stood, indicating that the interview was over. “Thank you for coming, Your Grace. It is good to know where we stand.”
“Indeed,” Peter said. That was another threat. He’d bet his life on it. He wondered, suddenly, if he’d even be allowed to leave the palace. If the king was prepared to push matters . . . he might take the risk. But it would be absolutely insane. “I ask you, seriously, to rewrite the bill.”
“I cannot,” the king said. “We made commitments.”
“You made the commitments,” Peter said, tiredly. “Your father, Your Majesty, made sure to get Parliament to back the commitments. You did not. You stood up and made a whole series of promises you should have known you couldn’t keep. And now you’re looking to us to pull your chestnuts out of the fire. And we can’t do it.”
He bowed, then turned and walked out of the room. The equerry met him, her pretty face completely expressionless, and led him back to the aircar. Peter could hear the noise from the protest as he stepped onto the landing pad, despite the forcefield around the palace. They were shouting about unfair competition and demanding an immediate end to foreign work permits. Definitely the newly unemployed, then. It was going to get a lot worse before it got better.
The driver glanced back at Peter as he climbed into the car. “Where to, sir?”
“The mansion,” Peter said absently. There was no point in going back to the Houses of Parliament. “I have work to do.”
He keyed his terminal as the car rose into the air and headed over the city. “Yasmeena, clear my appointments for the rest of the day,” he ordered. “Call Masterly and Masterly to my office; tell them I want them to look at a set of financial and economic projections. And then inform Israel Harrison that I need to talk with him as soon as possible.”
“Yes, sir,” Yasmeena said. She sounded reassuringly confident, as always. “Which projections are those?”
“The king will be sending them to us,” Peter said. He hoped the king would send them. It wasn’t as if he had anything to gain by keeping them a secret. Peter could understand why someo
ne would cover up unfavorable facts, but why classify something that gave you an edge? Who knew? The projections might be so favorable that opposition to the budget would just melt away. “Assuming he does, I want them assessed as quickly as possible.”
“Yes, sir.”
Peter closed the connection, then forced himself to think. He’d underestimated the king; no, he’d underestimated his determination to push the budget forward despite a near-united opposition. Peter could see his logic, he could understand his reasoning . . . but the cold hard truth was that the kingdom simply couldn’t afford the king’s proposal. They couldn’t fund the projects, they couldn’t borrow money . . . no, it couldn’t be done. And the king was stubbornly ignoring economic reality in favor of . . . of what?
He thinks he has a duty, Peter thought. The Commonwealth was worth preserving, if it could be preserved. But could it be preserved? The cost of building up and maintaining the prewar system had been bad enough. Now they were a great deal worse. And yet, we have duties too.
He stared out over the city. It looked peaceful, now that the protesters were behind him. But he couldn’t help wondering how much trouble was simmering down below . . .
. . . and just how long it would be before the trouble exploded into the open.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
AHURA MAZDA
“No change, Admiral,” Lieutenant Kitty Patterson said. “Deep Space Shipping is refusing to hire out its freighters unless they’re guaranteed a heavy escort, guaranteed reimbursement for any expenses, and guaranteed profits.”
“Which they’re not going to get, because they’re moving refugees,” Kat said. She had yet to find a planet willing to pay for the privilege of taking refugees. “Can we not offer them time-and-a-half?”
“They found that unacceptable,” Kitty told her regretfully. “And we can’t go much higher without exceeding our discretionary funds.”
This wasn’t a problem during the war, Kat thought grimly. But now, everyone is counting the pennies.
She rubbed her forehead. She’d hoped that matters would improve during the voyage from Asher Dales to Ahura Mazda, but, if anything, they’d only gotten worse. The local population was panicking and demanding protection, protection she was in no position to provide, while independent shippers and interstellar corporations were steadily pulling out of the sector. Her staff hadn’t been able to round up enough transports, even independent tramp freighters, to even begin to make a dent in Dorland’s population. And the constant threats of having half of her fleet withdrawn back to Tyre were making it impossible to draw up any long-term plans.
“Send a message to Tyre requesting permission to exceed our funds,” she ordered. There had been a time, hadn’t there, when she’d just needed to sign some paperwork to release the money. But now . . . how was she expected to get anything done? “Are we still due to receive a replenishment convoy?”
“Yes, Admiral,” Kitty said. “They . . . ah, it hasn’t been canceled yet.”
“We may have to hold the ships in the sector long enough to complete the evacuation,” Kat said. It wasn’t a good solution, but it would have to do. “And, if we can’t find anywhere else for the refugees to go, we’ll ship them back here. There are a few islands that would provide living space, for the moment.”
Kitty looked doubtful. Kat understood, all too well. A semipermanent enclave of refugees on Ahura Mazda would require semipermanent protection, if they weren’t armed to the teeth. But there weren’t many other options. Dorland’s farmers simply weren’t suited to life on a space habitat, even though it would have been the easy place to put them. Putting them on an asteroid colony might well be nothing more than a death sentence.
They might have to learn, she thought. Is there anyone in this wretched sector that isn’t looking out for number one?
She dismissed Kitty, then turned and strode over to the window. Smoke was rising in the distance, signifying yet another bombing. The local insurgents had been coming out of the woodwork over the last few weeks when they’d heard that there was a Theocratic fleet running around the sector. They seemed to believe that Ahura Mazda would be liberated at any moment. Kat’s lips twitched. Perhaps she should encourage the rumors. Insurgents who came into the open generally ended up dead. And the marines were already using the bodies to trace their families and break open insurgent cell after insurgent cell.
We might even win this, if we could just keep them popping up, she thought. At the very least, we’d get some breathing space.
She turned back to the starchart, silently wondering which target would be hit next. So far, the Theocrats had managed to avoid systems with StarComs . . . frustrating, but unsurprising. A StarCom could be detected from light-years away. But that would have to change, sooner or later. The enemy fleet would run out of targets that would do nothing more than spread misery across the galaxy. And besides, she had a nasty feeling that the people back home were growing inured to the horrors emanating from the Theocratic Sector. The daily atrocities were a very long way away.
Of course not, she thought. They’re more interested in arguing about the Royal Wedding than considering something important.
She’d done her best to follow the local news, although it was sometimes hard to understand what was going on. Everyone seemed to be hellishly partisan, pushing their own side’s arguments while slandering the other side, while media talking heads seemed to swap sides with monotonous regularity. Perhaps they simply forgot which side they were supposed to be on. She wouldn’t have been surprised. The media had always been slanted towards one side or the other, but now . . . now it seemed to have exploded. The narrative changed every day.
Her terminal bleeped. “Admiral, we have a priority-one StarCom call for you,” Lieutenant Cloud said. “It’s keyed to your personal code.”
Kat felt a flicker of excitement as she sat down at her desk. The king? They’d talked fairly regularly before the crisis started. Or . . . she lifted her eyebrows as she read the details on the display. The call, which was heavily encrypted, was coming straight from Falcone Mansion. And that meant . . .
“Peter,” she said, as her brother’s face appeared in front of her. He looked to have aged twenty years since the last time she’d seen him. “What can I do for you?”
“You can start by assuring me that you’re alone,” Peter said. “Where are you?”
“My office,” Kat said, puzzled and alarmed. Peter was normally polite—achingly polite. He affected an old-time formality that had annoyed her as a child and amused her as a grown woman. “And yes, I am alone.”
Peter looked relieved. “And this call is secure?”
Kat frowned. “It’s as secure as reasonably possible,” she said. Peter was using a family encryption program as well as the StarCom Network’s standard coding. It wouldn’t be completely impossible to decipher, given the nature of the transmission, but even the most powerful computers would take years to unravel the transmission. “This room is alpha-blue secure too.”
“That’s good to hear,” Peter said. “Kat . . . have you been following political developments on Tyre?”
“A little,” Kat said. She’d spent most of her childhood trying to stay away from politics, at least partly because it was her elder siblings’ meat and drink. “I understand that there are problems.”
“You could say that,” Peter said. He made an odd sound. It took Kat several seconds to realize it was meant to be a laugh. “I wish, I really wish, that you’d declined the chance to become a privy councilor. Or that you’d consulted with me first.”
“It was my choice,” Kat said. She hadn’t been used to thinking of Peter as Duke Falcone. Even now, it wasn’t easy to draw a line between the stuffy older brother and the duke. “Father was on the Privy Council.”
“Yes, he was,” Peter agreed. “But no one doubted where his loyalties lay. Where do yours lie?”
Kat felt a hot flash of irritation. “With the Kingdom an
d Commonwealth of Tyre,” she said, allowing ice to creep into her voice. She was no longer the little sister who’d been bossed around by her adult brother. “Peter, I am a very busy person. I have work to do. Can I ask you to get to the point?”
Peter’s lips quirked, although Kat didn’t see the funny side. “There are things we need to discuss,” he said. “Kat . . . the king and Parliament are deadlocked. They simply can’t make any progress. And there’s no chance of that changing.”
“. . . Crap,” Kat said.
“The Opposition may just force a vote on withdrawing forces from the Theocratic Sector,” Peter added. “The king’s men have been stalling, but they’re running out of procedural tricks to delay matters. We might be voting as soon as tomorrow.”
Kat’s blood ran cold. “Peter . . . I need those ships.”
Peter looked pained. “Why?”
“I don’t care about the Royal Wedding,” Kat said. Privately, she was inclined to agree with the people who insisted that the ceremony should be simple and, more importantly, cheap. “I don’t care if Parliament votes funding for the wedding or not. But Peter, having ships out here is important. I’m not sending those requests for reinforcements because I like filling out the paperwork!”
“They’re not going to come,” Peter said. “Right now, it’s more likely that ships that get rotated out of the sector will not be replaced.”
Kat gritted her teeth. The wear and tear on her ships, made worse by her throwing them all over the sector in a bid to catch the Theocrats, would eventually force her to send them back to the shipyards. And her crews would need shore leave too, preferably somewhere where the locals wouldn’t be shooting at them. And . . . she reached for her terminal and tapped a note for her assistant. Her staff would have to look at what they could expect if large numbers of crewmen reached the end of their enlistments. She couldn’t keep them if they wanted to leave.
And I might not be allowed to keep them in the first place, she thought numbly. Too many crewmen were involuntarily dismissed anyway, after the war.
Debt of Honor (The Embers of War) Page 24