“Madam, I don’t expect you to cover up anything. I came to New Augusta assuming we had a mutual economic problem which could be solved. I have been assaulted twice, not counting the attempt by your guard to incinerate me when he failed to stop me from getting through to you. My calls to you—and I have called several times—have apparently not gotten through. In return, your calls to me were blocked when I was in my office waiting for them.
“Just this afternoon, someone successfully bombed my office. Fortunately, I was walking out the door at the time, but there were two explosions. Either someone, or several parties, is taking a great deal of explosives to warn me to depart, or they merely want to eliminate me. I care for neither possibility.”
The hard expression on Janis’ face softened.
“I can understand your concerns, but I don’t understand why all…this…violence…is involved with a simple trade matter.”
“I was hoping you could tell me. The Ministry of Commerce is interested. The Imperial Senate is interested, and for all I know, so are those planting the bombs.”
“The Ministry of Commerce?” she snapped. “They don’t have any business in trade terms with independent systems outside the Empire.”
The pieces came together with a click.
“I think they’re interested in the impact changes in the trade terms will have on Imperial commerce. What about the Senate?”
“That’s got to be Courtney again, always wanting the last word on everything before the terms are even considered. I can take care of that.” The fire in her eyes indicated she intended to try.
“I think you have everything in hand,” he offered, rising from the pilot chair.
“Lord Whaler, you still haven’t told me why your entrance had to be so violent.”
“I don’t know. One reason might be that the Commerce Ministry has no confidence in the process and would like different terms. That’s one guess. But it is only a guess.”
He frowned.
“Is there any way you could register our proposal in your records, so that it could not be erased? Even if anything happened to you?”
“Are you suggesting something?”
“No. But I wasn’t attacked for nothing, and you just told me that you did not know the guard who attacked me.”
“I see what you mean. If the effort was to cut us out, we really don’t have it until it’s in the data banks under seal. Certainly, registering it couldn’t hurt and might well reduce the…uh…unpleasantness.”
She sat down at the console again, rapidly touching keys, placing the proposal facedown across the screen in order.
A soft chime sounded.
“We’re done. Locked in and sealed.”
Nathaniel bowed.
“You have been gracious at a time when few have been and more helpful than you can possibly imagine.”
“You do me honor.” She flushed, color momentarily replacing the flat ivory of her skin.
“No more than is your due.”
A long moment passed before the Ecolitan cleared his throat.
“We still need to deal with some leftover unpleasantness. I suggest two things. First, that you escort me to your private drop shaft. That way I can get to the tunnel train level without going through the main concourse. Second, that you return here and find the guard lying in the middle of the office. You will, of course, be most upset and call Imperial security.”
“I was coming back and found him?”
“Exactly. He’ll be out for several hours. He can’t possibly explain what happened without being probed. So he’ll have to invent some excuse, which will say he was investigating something when he was stunned, and he doesn’t know what happened.”
Nathaniel dragged the man into the middle of the reception area while Janis locked her console and office.
The rust and tan corridors to the private drop shaft of the senior staff and Ministers were deserted, the lights at half level.
“This doesn’t go down to the tunnel train level, just to the Ministry vehicle concourse, you know.” She touched the drop plate.
“Can I get to the trains?”
“Yes, but you’d have to walk back through the tower and another gate to catch the public shaft.”
“Hmmm…” He pulled at his chin.
“Why don’t I just send you back in a Ministry pool car?”
“That would be appreciated.”
He couldn’t see Janis doing him in, not when she had nothing to gain.
The electrocougar from the Ministry of External Affairs seemed identical to the one he had ridden in from the Commerce Ministry, with the same plasticloth hard seats, except for the colors of the car and the driver’s uniform.
His driver was a petite black girl, perhaps the youngest driver he’d had.
He watched Janis standing at the dispatch point as the electrocougar whispered into the tunnel.
“Isn’t she too old for you?”
The question jarred him.
“Oh…I suppose so…if it were personal.”
“Business this late? You’re an outworlder. You’re used to working longer.”
“How about you?”
“Way to get credits after classes. Besides, after-hours drivers usually just sit. Good time to study. Where you from?”
He wondered if she worked for someone. It didn’t matter.
“Accord.”
“Should have known from the black. Don’t always apply what you learn when you see it in real life. You don’t look like you poison planets.”
“I never have. We haven’t done anything that severe in centuries.”
“How come you’re here?”
“Trade talks.”
“How come that’s not in the faxtabs or casts? That ought to be big news.” She grinned impishly, and Nathaniel caught it in the reflection from the front bubble. “Planet poisoners here to talk trade.”
She dropped the grin. “Guess that’s unfair. Professor Ji-Kerns says we’ve done worse to some systems, but he’s a man.”
Nathaniel ignored the slam to his sex.
“What are you studying?”
“Second year in law. Out-space legal systems. We haven’t gotten to Accord yet. Working on Halston.”
“Why did you pick law?”
“Mother, she’s the head of tactics at the Ministry of Defense, wanted me to go to Saskan, but I didn’t like all the rules. Rather make them.”
“Saskan?”
“You know, that’s the Imperial Space Academy where all the Fleet officers are trained.”
“I suppose she, your mother, I mean, doesn’t like your doing this?”
“She doesn’t mind. If I wasn’t meant for the Eagles, I wasn’t meant. This way, I can pretty much pay my own way. That’s important. Lots of youngers don’t, just collect basic and snerch. Guys are the worst, always talking about being Ministers, as if the Ministers ever did anything. Who does the work? You and me.”
Nathaniel nodded, although he didn’t think she was really looking for a response.
“Bet you work for a fancy-pants Envoy. Here you are working, and he’s probably luxing it up. First man I’ve seen working so late since I took the job, and you’re an outworlder. Figures.”
She shook her head.
Nathaniel didn’t bother to correct her misimpression. “I wouldn’t be surprised if anything and everything went on here. Or is it just boring because nothing happens after hours?”
“Pretty dull. Wouldn’t dare to talk to any woman, and I don’t rate standby for a Minister or Deputy. All of them sit and stare, or sit and read. Not like Perky. She’s got the same job at Commerce. I got the idea from her, that is, driving after classes. She’s Class I now, even got Lord Mersen last week.
“Told me the other day she drove three Fleet Commanders back from Defense to Commerce. Nothing like that happens here.”
The car slipped out of the tunnel.
“Want the public or private concourse?”
> “Wherever I’m less likely to get noticed.”
“Public side, this time of day. Still crowded. Be like a tomb on the private side.” A pause followed. “What are you worried about?”
Nathaniel couldn’t help laughing. The girl was one of the first real people, without a mask, that he’d talked to.
“Tell you when I get out.”
“Here you are.”
“Thanks for the ride.”
As he climbed out of the backseat, she poked her head through the top opening in the front bubble.
“You forgot to tell me.”
“I’m the Envoy, and someone keeps trying to assassinate me.”
Her mouth dropped open.
“Not everyone wants those trade talks.”
It was probably unfair to leave it at that, thought Nathaniel as he ducked away and into a public fresher stall on the concourse level.
With the belt detector he went over his clothes thoroughly for tracers or snoops. One minute speck on his collar registered, but it could have retained static charges. Otherwise he seemed clean.
He put on the rust film cloak over his blacks and left the fresher.
A woman talking to another woman on the far side of the corridor looked up as he passed, then looked back at the closing door to the fresher. She began fiddling with her pocket calendar, but centered her attention on the fresher, totally disregarding Nathaniel.
He took the lift shaft to the corridor for the private entrance to the Envoy’s quarters. Under the cover of the cloak, he checked the entrance as he approached. The snoops had been replaced, of course, but they were standard. No energy links to the portal showed.
XXIV
ONCE INSIDE, AS he folded the cloak and surveyed the apartment, he swept the area again. The disabled visual snoop had not yet been replaced.
He marched into the study and eyed the comm unit.
With a sigh, he sank into the all too plush swivel and thumbed for the directory, keying up some background music at the same time. While whoever had links to the comm unit would know what he was asking, perhaps some of the other players wouldn’t get all the information yet.
He tapped out the number for the Diplomatic Reference Library, assuming that it was either automated or operated around the clock. It was both.
“State your interest area.”
“Interstellar law.”
“Choose from among the following…”
The gist of the answer to his long question was that the Ministry of External Affairs had jurisdiction over trade and treaty matters involving nonempire systems.
“Query: authority of the Ministry of Commerce to enforce trade agreements within the Empire…”
The Commerce Ministry could request the Imperial Fleet to apply sanctions.
“Query: does an agreement between a former Empire system and the Ministry of Commerce constitute a legal basis for resumption of Imperial Jurisdiction?”
According to the library computer, there were precedents on both sides.
Nathaniel pulled at his chin, looked down at the screen.
“Query…” What else could he ask? He signed off.
Leaning back in the swivel, he gazed out the window. Sunset would be coming soon, and for the moment he was going to watch it. Maybe think while he watched it, but watch it he would.
A few high and thin clouds dotted the sky, deep blue as he saw it through the panoramic window, and yellow white of the sun was turning golden as it dipped toward the tree-covered hills on the western horizon.
He’d seen the holos of the blighted forests created by the Secession, and the Terran casualty figures in the billions as the result of the ensuing starvation.
He’d also seen the slag that had been Haversol City and holos of the asteroid belt that had been Sligo before the Empire pulverized it.
Both sides were people, people like the girl who had driven him, people like Sylvia, like Marcella, even people like Janis Du-Plessis, who set in motion the bureaucracies that created the violence that appalled them.
The high flare of a shuttle in the distance over the port winked like an evening star early in the sky and was gone.
The shadows over the hills lengthened, and the lights in the other towers glowed stronger, and the sun dropped. He supposed he should finish what was necessary, what he could.
Some could wait until morning; some could not.
Seen in perspective, the whole thing was obvious. The Secession itself had created a terrible convulsion for the Empire. Fifty odd systems ripping themselves away, using the Accord grievances as an umbrella for a myriad of reasons, denying the government that had helped them stand alone.
In the beginning, the Empire had hesitated to use maximum force, planet busters, because of the closeness of the ties. It’s hard to murder your cousin because he wants to stand alone, and the internal political outcry that had risen after the First Fleet had busted Sligo had rendered that option unusable.
Four hundred years later, no one thought in those terms. Accord’s allies had gone their own way, some to their own small empires, big enough to give the old Empire pause. And Accord was considered Outie, an outland system. Relations were minimal, sometimes nonexistent, and the question of attacking “relatives” was moot. Twelve generations of Imperial schoolchildren had been raised with horror stories about Accord.
If the Empire decided to use force, no public outcry would be raised, and Accord could count on few allies. In return, the Institute could send out the death ships, and if everyone was lucky, perhaps ten percent of the population of a thousand systems might survive.
The Accord House of Delegates ignored the enormous growth in the massive destruct weaponry of the Empire. The Empire was totally ignorant of the potential biological and ecological disasters created by the Institute and already dispersed to where not even total destruction of the Accord Coordinate systems could stop the rain of lingering death.
From what he’d seen, neither side would believe the other’s power, although Accord had acknowledged the Empire’s fleets somewhat.
So what could he do?
He turned to the console and punched out the office number of Courtney Corwin-Smathers, leaving his own screen blank.
“Courtney here. What’s wrong with your visual?”
“Whaler here. Call off the dogs, Courtney. You’ve made your point. The preliminary terms have been registered officially with External Affairs, and you’ll have to coordinate with Janis Du-Plessis, but I think you can handle that.
“The other thing you should know is that Defense is also playing. We don’t need that, and neither do you.”
“Oh…?”
“I still will have to stay around, making polite speech after polite speech, and committing Accord to nothing until you get your ions flared. Or do you have a better suggestion?”
“Your prudence is commendable, if belated, but Ms. Ku-Smythe might request a quiet elimination if the I.I.S. or the Ministry of Defense haven’t already done so.”
“That’s a chance I’ll have to take.”
He tapped the stud and cut the connection.
His next call went to Marcella’s direct office line. He got a recording with a smiling face.
“I am out at the moment. If you would leave a message, I will return your screen when I return.”
“Whaler here. The Ministry of Defense has decided to shove Commerce directly out of the picture by eliminating me. You might also be interested to learn Alia Herl-Tyre paid off some of my Legation staff to stall you. At the same time, Defense exploded my office and removed one of my staffers. External Affairs thinks you played them for nulls.”
Again leaving his own screen blank, he tapped out Sergel’s private number, and got another recording requesting a message.
“Sergel. You’d better be gone tomorrow, or on your way, or have a damned good story. The External Relations staff knows you played them false, and the Ministry of Defense knows you failed.”
H
e tapped out another number, with a blank screen. He didn’t have a private number, but the External Relations Committee number for Alia Herl-Tyre. Another recording.
“Ms. Herl-Tyre. My name is Nathaniel Whaler, and we haven’t met. Sergel Weintre used to work for the Legation, until he claimed that you were paying him to spy on us, and we discovered that he was also being paid by the Ministry of Defense to spy on you as well as us.
“Under the circumstances, thought you’d be interested.”
With a sigh, he leaned back and touched the wide belt, running his fingers along the side, splitting the layers and removing a thin flimsy.
The code system was crude, but unbreakable without either the flimsy, which would last for less than a standard hour after he touched it, or the Prime’s personal diary, of which there was one copy. The system was one way, but that didn’t matter.
After the ten minutes it took him to code what he needed, he picked up the draft and opened the door from his private quarters to his office. The walls to the staff office still were jagged and bulged in places, although the steel portal door remained untouched.
He palmed the plate, and the portal irised open. The deserted staff section had the lighting at half bright. He slipped behind Mydra’s console, congratulating himself on his professional ease until he barked his knees as he pulled the chair up to the console.
The first job was to send the message to the Prime.
He accessed the direct comm line, feeling the charges ring higher and higher as the message ran out.
He hoped it would get there, and since the Legation was paying for the direct shot, it had a chance.
He staggered out from behind Mydra’s console and back to his own office.
The next step would be trying to break the media blackout on the talks, which he suspected was due to their dull sound, rather than any conspiracy. After all, what self-respecting faxcaster in the capital of the Empire was interested in tariff and exchange terms negotiations between the Empire and a former colony, particularly when the Ministry involved hadn’t told anyone and when the others didn’t want anyone to know?
Ecolitan Prime (Ecolitan Matter) Page 14