Ecolitan Prime (Ecolitan Matter)

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “I fear my understanding is limited.”

  “Oh, Lord Whaler, you’re still the cautious one. I can’t blame you. If there was a lot you didn’t know about us, there was more we didn’t bother to look up on you. A senior practicing scholar of the Ecolitan Institute, flawlessly fluent in at least five languages, including Panglais. A man considered one of the brighter economists on Accord and who is a trained military specialist who normally spends an hour a day practicing hand-to-hand combat. No wonder you looked bored and restless! We had it all in the file and didn’t bother to notice the inconsistencies once you blundered in, stumbled over your tongue, and bored the devil out of us all.”

  She grinned at him, and there was no mistaking the openness of the humor.

  “Before we could figure that out, you make fools out of some very competent security agents, among others, and the media starts asking us very embarrassing questions.

  “Lord Whaler, loyal and obtuse, stumbles along trying to explain that ‘he is trying to help,’ but no one is interested. The faxhounds keep asking about bombings, secret agents who failed, jurisdiction, and why the Empire can’t get its act together when Imperial industries are suffering. Now we have a trade agreement which gives the Empire sufficient short-term gains to quiet everyone, while reinforcing Accord’s long-term position and independence.”

  Nathaniel cleared his throat. Loudly. “Too kind, much too kind, gracious Lady—”

  “And,” Marcella plunged on, “since the treaty doesn’t cost the Empire too much and avoids the possibility of getting involved in another ecological war, no one is about to admit that a bumbling and stumbling Envoy from a third-rate system is really an extraordinarily capable agent from the only independent, first-rate power of a nongovernmental nature. Besides, and this is strictly personal, it serves Janis right.”

  The Ecolitan relaxed fractionally. Marcella wasn’t talking about the real military aspects behind the treaty, but she’d definitely picked up on the power of the Institute, which was interesting since most of Accord’s House of Delegates didn’t understand that. And since Marcella didn’t have to bear the final responsibility, as Janis might, she would let things slide.

  “I guess that’s it, Lord Whaler. Don’t be too surprised to hear from me.”

  The screen blanked.

  Nathaniel shook his head.

  He supposed he ought to feel sorry for Janis Du-Plessis. She was out-classed by virtually everyone, from Mydra to Marcella to Sylvia, who, in her own quiet way, was the class act of the lot.

  Sylvia!

  He glanced around the console, then jabbed at the controls, letting his fingers flicker over the keyboard to pick out the information he needed.

  He smiled as the screen printed up the answers he was hoping for.

  While he waited for the system to dredge up the last responses to the questions he had posed, he looked out again through the wide window, out at the mountains in the distance, at the blue of the sky, and at the thunderclouds piling up over them.

  The intercom buzzed.

  He ignored it while the screen scripted out the last of the clearances he had requested.

  “Whaler,” he muttered, “you’re assuming a lot.”

  He shook his head.

  “You’re also being impetuous, which is not at all healthy in your line of work.”

  Having refused to persuade himself, he committed the clearance numbers and codes to memory, then, as an afterthought, jotted them down on a note sheet, which he folded carefully and placed in his belt pouch.

  That done, he stabbed the intercom stud.

  “Lord Whaler, the Marine Guard will be arriving shortly.”

  “Thank you, Mydra. I’ll let you know the final arrangements shortly.”

  He tapped out another number, one he wasn’t supposed to know.

  “Ferro-Maine…Lord Whaler!”

  “Nathaniel,” he corrected softly, taking in Sylvia’s face, the wide clear gray eyes, and the strand of dark hair dropping over her forehead.

  “What…can I do for you?”

  “Where are you?”

  “At the office…you know that…that’s where you called,” she stammered. “I thought you were leaving.”

  “I am. That is, I may be shortly. Please stay where you are, dear Lady.” He grinned happily and broke the connection. On the screen he could see the confusion running across her face as her image faded.

  “Mydra, please have my luggage delivered to the shuttle port by the Marines and tell them that I will meet them there.”

  “But…Lord Whaler! You can’t do that!”

  “Dear Mydra…I have to…but don’t worry. Not this time.”

  He was already moving toward his private quarters and the outside exit when he tapped the intercom stud.

  By the time he raced through the quarters and into the corridor toward the drop shaft, he was nearly running. He slowed only after he was actually dropping toward the concourse and the tunnel train station below.

  The platform concourse at his destination station—the Imperial Senate Tower—was moderately crowded but melted away from him as he marched toward the lift shaft.

  “Seem to draw back from an Ecolitan on the march,” he mused as he watched a number of citizens edge away from his path.

  Sylvia’s office was only fifty meters from the exit stage.

  “Lord Whaler, how good to see you,” burbled Charles, the friendly receptionist, half rising from his chair and leaning toward a small panel on the console.

  Nathaniel reached the man before Charles’ hand could hit the warning plate.

  “This is a friendly visit, Charles,” announced the Ecolitan as he hoisted the other away from his console.

  “Friendly?”

  “As a matter of fact,” noted Nathaniel, he tapped the flat plate labeled, F-M.

  “You’re here? Here?” asked Sylvia on the small screen.

  “Nowhere else. Do you want to come out or invite me in?”

  “I’ll be right out.”

  Nathaniel returned his full attention to Charles and set the receptionist down in a swing chair away from the main communications console.

  “Lord Whaler?”

  “Yes, Charles.”

  “Why…I mean…to what do we owe…?”

  “To a happy occasion, I hope.”

  Nathaniel kept his eye on the console and on the portal from the staff offices, wondering if he should have charged all the way through, hoping that Sylvia wasn’t ducking out whatever back ways existed.

  “Happy time?”

  “I hope,” the Ecolitan added under his breath, wondering what he was doing literally hours before he was to catch his shuttle home.

  His head snapped up at the whisper of a portal.

  Charles looked at the console, then at Whaler, and decided to stay put.

  Sylvia was wearing the same blue and white trimmed tunic she had worn when they had gone sightseeing together. Did he smell the faint tang of orange blossoms? What was he seeing in those gray eyes?

  He shook his head.

  “I’m impressed. You came to say good-bye in person.”

  Her voice was polite, but he could sense an undercurrent, exactly what he couldn’t identify.

  He shook his head again.

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t?”

  “Not to say good-bye.” He shifted his weight, looked at her for a long moment, then at the floor, before finally taking the slip of notepaper from his belt and handing it to her.

  She unfolded it.

  “This is supposed to mean something, dear Envoy?”

  “Nathaniel,” he corrected automatically. “Sylvia, you know I’m not good at speeches…and there’s not much time—”

  “So don’t deliver a speech. Say what you have to and go.”

  “Those codes represent your visa, your clearance, and your immigration permit to Accord.”

  From the corner of his eye, Nathaniel could se
e Charles’ mouth drop wide open.

  “Me…an ex-Imperial agent?”

  “No. You…the person…the woman…Flamehell! We’ve got less than three hours to catch the shuttle.”

  “For what?”

  “For Accord. For us.”

  Sylvia smiled, and her expression was guarded. “Why us?”

  “Because I want you to come with me!”

  The guarded look was replaced with a fuller, yet somehow more tentative smile.

  “You haven’t asked me.”

  “Would you please come with me?” He finally managed to grin himself. “Even if you hadn’t planned to emigrate for a few more years yet?”

  “But I’m scarcely—”

  “Sylvia.”

  “Yes.”

  Without realizing what he was doing, Nathaniel reached for her, only to find she had the same thing in mind. They collided in mid-step, grabbing at each other to keep from falling.

  “I think this time you beat me to it,” he murmured in her ear.

  “Not now. We’ve only got three hours to catch the shuttle.”

  She kissed him slowly full upon the lips and then stepped back from his arms.

  Charles shook his head from side to side as the tall man and the dancer walked from the office, hand in hand.

  For Eric, Phyllis, and Alex

  “Though fraud in other activities be detestable, in the management of war it is laudable and glorious…”

  Niccolò Machiavelli

  [pre-Ecollapse writer…dates unknown]

  “Conflict is always rooted in ecology, and rational scholars spend careers denying this precept, because it precludes the possibility of cultural transcendence.”

  Kristen Janes-Cornet, Compilations of the Primes

  “The most cost-effective war is that waged by others on their own lands at their own cost. Strive always for such…”

  Fleet Admiral Gorham, Memoirs

  “A good economist is worth a dozen spies and two fleets. Unfortunately, the fleets and spies are far easier to come by.”

  Alexi Lederman-Meier, Economics of Conflict

  PROLOGUE

  SECESSION, ECOLOGIC (3647–48)

  THE WAR LEADING to the independence of the Coordinate of Accord [See also Ecologic Rebellion, Accord, Ecolitan Institute].

  During the years 3645–46, Imperial relations with the Fuardian Conglomerate became increasingly strained, and a number of colony systems protested the ad valorem and ad personam taxes levied by the Empire to support the infrastructure necessary to restrain the Conglomerate. Among the discontented colony systems were those of Accord (Imperial Sector Five) and Sligo (Imperial Sector Seven).

  Accord used high-technology sabotage and commando tactics to destroy key military fueling and staging bases (Haversol, Cubera, Fonderol) at a time when the majority of Imperial forces were deployed in Sector Two to counter the perceived Fuardian threat. The Accord sabotage limited to an even greater extent the ability of Imperial warcraft to reach Accord’s isolated location on the Parthanian Rift.

  Unable to deal with potentially extended conflicts on three fronts, the Empire reduced Sligo, where casualties exceeded fifteen million, despite an initially published estimate of only three million [See Lies for the Popular Good]. Following the Empire’s destruction of Sligo and all installations in its system, the provisional government of Accord launched a successful ecologic attack on Old Earth in 3647, primarily using the resources of the Ecolitan Institute [See The Black Institute].

  The resulting Ecollapse eventually fragmented the terran ecology. The Empire retaliated by sending a full fleet to the Accord system. Innovative and suicidal tactics developed and spearheaded by Ecolitan [later Prime] James Joyson Whaler [See Wright-Whaler Controversy] resulted in the total destruction of that Imperial fleet in late 3647.

  The Fuardian Conglomerate then unveiled a new series of warships of performance and armament vastly superior to existing Imperial craft [See CX Affair] and seized former Imperial systems in Sector Two (the Three System Bulge).

  With the Empire weakened by the increasingly unstable political climate and mounting death toll from the Ecollapse on Old Earth, the potential of further ecological devastation from the Ecolitan Institute, and the clear technological superiority of the Conglomerate, Emperor Jynstin II recognized the independence of Accord and shifted all Imperial forces and battle groups to Sector Two, leading to the Truce of Tierna. Under the Truce, the Conglomerate retained the Three System Bulge, except that the then-undeveloped system of Artos was ceded to New Avalon, and the Empire ceded the undeveloped system of D’Sanya to Chezchos, later the Federated Hegemony.

  The perceived failure of the monarchy led to the Senatorial Reformation [See N’Trosia Catalyst] and the political restructuring of the Empire…

  Dictionary of Imperial History

  K. J. Peynon

  New Augusta 4102

  I

  FILLED WITH THE faint odors of oil, hot metal, and recycled air, the down-shuttle from Accord orbit control to Harmony was less than half full. In the left front couch sat a tall sandy-haired man wearing the formal greens of an Ecolitan. On his left uniform collar was a black-and-green lustral pin—a gift from the Emperor of the Hegemony of Light, more commonly known as the Terran Empire. The pin was a contradiction in terms because the substance of the lustral represented a small fortune and the form was a miniature of the crest of the Ecolitan Institute. Beside the Ecolitan sat a dark-haired woman in a blue jumpsuit.

  Sylvia glanced sideways at Nathaniel as the Ecolitan fidgeted in the hard passenger seat of the Coordinate shuttle.

  “Iffy approach,” he said.

  “And yours haven’t been?” The slender and dark-haired woman offered a smile.

  “Mine?”

  “Yours.” The smile broadened.

  “Which kind are you referring to?” he countered, trying not to grin in return.

  “Any kind, most honorable envoy.”

  “I’d hope mine, especially in shuttles and needle-boats, were less rocky,” he finally said, squelching a frown as the buffeting shuttle tossed him against his harness.

  “Do all pilots find other pilots’ approaches questionable?”

  “Probably. We hate being passengers.”

  “It sounds like you’re all control addicts.” She offered a softer smile.

  “That’s probably true, too.”

  “I still wonder.” She shook her head. “This is so sudden. I hadn’t planned to emigrate so soon. And certainly not to Accord. Your clearance officers on the orbit control station—they barely looked at me. Do all Ecolitans have that kind of power?”

  “Hardly.” Nathaniel laughed. “It wasn’t me, but the Prime Ecolitan’s access codes.”

  “Just codes? Could any Ecolitan do that?”

  “Not unless the Prime gave him the codes.” The sandy-haired man swayed in the seat as the shuttle banked onto what Nathaniel hoped was the final approach. “They’re held tightly.”

  “Does that happen often?”

  Nathaniel shrugged. “Every few years, maybe. This was important to us.” Still, he had trouble believing his mission as an agent/official envoy was over, and that he had actually managed to avert what could have been an interstellar war between the Coordinate of Accord and the Empire. Although he’d sweated and worried, especially when it had looked as though the Imperial fleet had been ready to deploy, now it seemed almost too easy…and as if he’d missed something. He refrained from shaking his head. At least he’d gotten Sylvia off Old Earth. But did she want off?

  “You’d already gotten the trade agreement before you left Old Earth,” Sylvia continued. “You didn’t need me. Why was I important to your mission? Or afterwards?”

  “Because I think so.” He grinned. “Because you made it all possible, and because—”

  “Please remain in your seats. Shuttle Beta is on final approach to Harmony. Please remain in your seats.”

  “—you’d be an asset
to the Institute.”

  “They’d take me on your recommendation?”

  “Not automatically, but I can’t recall when the recommendation of a senior professor was last rejected.” He cleared his throat and raised his voice above the roar of the landing engines. “That’s because we don’t make many, and we’re held responsible.”

  “How many have you made?” Sylvia asked with a smile.

  “You’re the first. I don’t know of any professor, or even the Prime, who’s made more than three. Some never have.”

  Her eyes dropped to the green of the bulkhead before them. “You make me sound extraordinarily special, and I’m not.”

  “You’re not? How many people would have had the background, the understanding, and the willingness to help me—and to prevent the deaths of billions of human beings?” And that was just where an interstellar war could have led.

  “I’m not that special.”

  “We’ll talk about that later, Ms. Ferro-Maine,” Nathaniel said as the shuttle’s tires screeched on the permacrete of Accord and he lurched against the harness. “Way too rough…” he murmured more to himself than Sylvia.

  Even before the shuttle lurched to a halt, prompting another sour look by Nathaniel, the announcement hissed through the passenger compartment.

  “Please pick up your bags or any luggage on the way out of the shuttle. You are responsible for carrying your own luggage unless you have made prior arrangements. Please pick up your luggage on the way out.”

  “Self-sufficiency begins from the moment you set foot on the planet, I see.” After the final lurch, Sylvia eased out of her harness and stood, stretching.

  Nathaniel watched for a moment, enjoying her grace, still half-amazed that she had not been good enough for a professional dancing career on Old Earth.

  “Dancing takes more than grace.”

  “How did you—”

  “You’ve said it enough, especially every time I stretch.” Another warm smile crossed her lips. “Time to become pack animals.”

  “With what little you brought?”

  “I had very little time to choose, as you may recall?”