I began, ‘Without my credentials and the letter of introduction from the Council, I must try to explain my mission using my own words. I trust that you will find this acceptable?’
What harm could it do? He nodded and reached for his wine.
I continued. ‘Deucalion is only one planet in a confederation numbering over a hundred, spread throughout the galaxy.’
Okay, that was a slight exaggeration. Including the Casian settlements and Earth, the number of inhabited planets that we were aware of at the time was four. But I needed to put the seeds of doubt in his mind. An alliance of a hundred-plus planets ranged against him, versus the satisfaction of driving spikes into the brains of a few more Espers – even a megalomaniac like Hartman had to think twice before messing about with that equation. ‘Our policy is never to interfere with the political structures of non-aligned planets, but rather to cooperate with the existing leaders, to help them in any way we can, using our considerable resources and experience. If this is of interest to you, as Minister Plenipotentiary, I am empowered to negotiate a preliminary treaty with you, on behalf of the Federation – one that is, if I may be so bold, far more advantageous to you than to the Federation.’
He said nothing, but he was still listening.
With my opening gambit on the board, I moved forward into the strategy phase.
38
The Weakest Link
Brook’m Marshes
Northern Corridor
Seventeen Days’ Journey North of the Woods
January 25, 3384ad
ERIN’S STORY
– About four days, give or take. It really depends on the weather and the level of Guard activity.
Armin was staring at the skyline, as he answered my question. We were watching the sun setting in a pool of blood behind a line of dark tree silhouettes and I was hoping it wasn’t an omen.
The blood, I mean.
– From here on in, it starts to get dangerous, he continued – I think more to himself than to me.
Like it wasn’t dangerous before. I kept the thought to myself. Sort of pointless, really, with Min around.
– Of course it was dangerous before, but we’re not talking about a few half-arsed traps, here. We can’t hide in the trees and move at night any more – we’ll be right in among them. And no offence, Erin, but you and your friends blend in about as well as a cow in a pigpen.
You had to love him. We’d left Thomas’s hut behind earlier in the day. He’d filled our backpacks with bread and smoked fish, home-churned cheese and a pot of his amazing honey. And a knife each, forged and crafted in his hut, and sharpened to a razor-edge. Each knife was sheathed in a worked-leather scabbard, its silver-chased handle a heart-stopping work of art. Still, I was reluctant to take it. My upbringing, I guess.
But Thomas insisted. ‘T’ain’t ye world, Erin. T’old rules don’ ’pply here. Them ’s is out there’ll gut ye soon’s look ye in’t eyen. Them ’s is afear’d a dyin ’s firs’ t’go. ’Cept fer them ’s is afear’d a killin’. Cain’t get precious, girl. Life’s cheap, ’n’ ye stays dead a dang long time when t’breathin’ stops ’n yer starin’ at t’lid.’
He was right, of course, but you don’t change the habits of a lifetime in a few days.
I resisted the urge to pull the blade out and examine it again. I guess one part of me was growing afraid of the other part of me – the shadowy stranger who had slipped out from behind a lifetime of conditioning, the secret part of me that was fascinated by the idea of it.
Bran felt no such conflict. As an Esper, he was as reluctant to hurt another as the next, but he’d spent his entire life confronting the odds, in a world where the slightest miscalculation meant death – or capture and torture at the very least.
I watched him slide the dagger out of its leather sheath and brandish it in an imaginary fight.
Could he actually use it on another human being? I was certain he could. Especially if the other guy was wearing a black hood and a copper necklace. And Alek and Reggie would probably use theirs, if they were trapped in a corner, with no way out. Leana, too. She had proved that during her escape from the Archives.
And Sharonne? I honestly couldn’t say. She was far stronger than she appeared, and her actions in the basement of the Fortress de Vries had shown her ability to respond under pressure.
Still – stabbing someone with a dagger? Her refinement and training and the contrived code of manners she had absorbed since birth, made her look soft, but she was Family and that made her about as strong-willed and determined as anyone I’d ever met.
When it came to a fight, it struck me that I might well end up being the weakest link. I guess part of me still held on to the vague hope that we might be able to accomplish a miracle without a battle – which I still didn’t see how we could possibly win.
The thing they don’t teach you about leadership in Officer Prep is how to make decisions that go against your core values. I guess they trust in the power of your Ethics training to illuminate the right path.
From memory, though, I don’t think any of the Ethics tutors ever spent any time in a place as savage and contradictory as the one we now found ourselves in.
But I suppose, in the end, that was the real test of the training.
BRAN
The rain is falling in sheets, but it barely registers. Bran is far too busy staring up at the total impossibility of what he is seeing, to be concerned by a little rain.
The wall of the Citadel is sheer and almost featureless. Constructed in a time when nothing was impossible, it speaks of a power so absolute that it could only be expressed through sheer size and grandeur.
The mountain of smooth Plascrete in front of them is 400 metres long in either direction. It soars 30 metres straight up, before the first window breaks its perfection, then four storeys of windows, spaced at precise intervals, lead up to a sweeping terrace, that looks out over the entire landscape.
– From up there you could see for miles.
Reggie’s face is washed with rain, but she cannot look away from the sheer immensity of the building. She is touching Alek’s hand, unconsciously – something she never does when there are others around.
Erin is speechless. She shakes her head slowly from side to side, as if the Citadel’s size has suddenly brought home to her the impossibility of what they are about to attempt.
– It’s what’s kept them in power for a thousand years. Bran sends the thought, then waits until she breaks the spell of the wall and turns to him. I mean, who’s going to even think about bringing that down?
– Everything has a weakness, Bran. She is staring straight at him, as if the determination in her eyes might be enough to render the words true. She looks along the wall in both directions, then back at him. Sometimes, you don’t have to bring the whole thing down to expose it. Do you notice what the guards are doing?
– What guards?
– Precisely. The place is impregnable. What’s the point of standing guard on a bloody mountain? Even a fly couldn’t scale that wall.
– And your point is?
– Her point is, says Armin, that the weakness we’re looking for isn’t on the outside; it’s on the inside. When you’re so powerful and feel so safe that you only place your guards at the gates, because that’s your only small point of weakness, well, you tend to get lazy. You forget that the weakest part of any defence isn’t the walls – or even the gates. It’s the people inside. It’s your whole superior attitude.
He is speaking from experience and from his mind-tone, the experience was not pleasant.
‘It’s even bigger than I remember it.’ Unaware of the thought-spoken conversation taking place beside her, Sharonne speaks. She is remembering the ordeal of childhood visits to the seat of Hartman power. ‘This was the only place I can remember ever feeling small. And it had nothin
g to do with the walls.’
‘How many times did you come here?’ says Erin.
‘Eight, maybe ten, between the ages of five and fifteen. After Adam left, my father would never let me accompany him on the trips. I think he probably heard the rumours that Adam was living up here – there are always plenty of people willing to sell a secret if the price is right – and I guess he didn’t want me talking to him. In case I was corrupted.’
‘But—’ A small frown worries Erin’s forehead. ‘There’s one thing I don’t understand. If Adam came north, if he’s living at the Citadel, how could your father not know? Wouldn’t Hartman tell him? I mean, from what you say, they meet regularly. Wouldn’t they, you know, talk?’
Sharonne smiles a little sadly. ‘It must be nice to come from where you come from, Erin. No, they would not talk. Not about Adam, at least. He made his choice. He broke with the Family. My father would never make the first move to find him. His pride would simply not allow it and Hartman would know that.
‘Father might accept him back, if he begged a little, but he would never go looking for him. He would never ask. Besides, even if he did want to know, Hartman would probably decline to tell him. In the end, it is all about power. And Hartman is a creature of power. Power is all he knows and all he cares about.
‘The Families have absolute power over the people in their domains. That is the way it has always been. And the Hartmans in turn have power over the rest of the Families. Not absolute power, perhaps, but enough to control the alliances and make most of the rules that the other Families enforce. And as head of the Hartmans, Bainbridge Hartman is – well, in the old days, they would probably have called him king.
‘But all kings know that power is not a given. It must be exercised and it must be secured.
‘Adam wasn’t the first child of one of the Families to find his way to the Citadel, in defiance of his father. A life of privilege is not as perfect as you might think. And for Hartman, such a situation would be a godsend.
‘Think about it. He wants to shore up his power. The best way to do it is to have intelligence on all the Families – their strengths, their weaknesses, their ambitions.
‘Befriending a young man who has just abandoned everything gives you power over him. It provides you with a source of inside information that it would be expensive, or impossible, to buy. But, more importantly, it also gives you leverage, should his father become reluctant at any time to play the game by the Hartmans’ rules. Not to mention the fact that if the father were to die – say, of “natural causes” – your influence over the next head of the Family would be considerably enhanced.
‘No, I don’t think Bainbridge Hartman would be in any hurry to discuss Adam’s whereabouts with my father.’
Erin’s mind is in gear. She leans back against the gentle tilt of the immense wall and looks into Sharonne’s eyes. ‘Can you get in contact with him? Adam, I mean. Do you think he’d want to meet with you?’
‘That’s two very different questions, Erin. Of course he’d want to meet with me. He’s my brother and—’ The hint of a smile sneaks into the corners of her mouth. ‘Neither of us had anyone else, when we were young. I think leaving me alone was the only thing that stopped him going years earlier. As for contacting him, that might be a bit harder. If he is living in the Citadel, he’s not likely to make his way outside very often, and we can’t exactly go knocking on the front gate to ask for him.’
‘As a matter of fact, Sharonne,’ Erin looks up again at the wall, ‘that’s pretty much exactly what I had in mind.’
PART FOUR
THE SILENT REVOLUTION
The secret to success is to know something nobody else knows. Aristotle
39
To Deceive the Deceiver
The Citadel
January 30, 3384ad
ADAM
‘We should not ignore the fact that it might be a test.’ Before continuing, Adam watches Hartman pace the floor. Today, he looks more like a caged animal than the land’s most powerful man. ‘I mean, these people can cross space, Bainbridge. They can fly.’
‘And crash.’ Hartman stops pacing. ‘Don’t forget that. They’re not bloody invincible. And they’re the ones in my prison.’ He turns and looks out of the window, staring over the town of Berra.
‘True. And that is your chief advantage. But we do not know them. We do not know what they are capable of doing – or whether we can trust them, and that is why you should not act hastily.’
A slight stiffening in the old man’s spine warns him. When it comes to Hartman, familiarity should never be confused with licence.
Tell him what you think, but never tell him what to think. Advice from Thaddeus Mink. Advice that has kept the old fox safe for years, as Head of Hartman’s Household Guard. Mink is as cruel, programmed and sadistic as any in the Service, but he is smart, too. Not someone to underestimate or someone whose advice you ignore lightly.
‘Not that I would ever try to tell you what to do, of course.’ Adam de Vries recovers. ‘It is just, well, do we really know that they did crash? Perhaps it was staged as part of a test to see how we might treat them. I mean, anyone will cooperate with someone who has more power than they do. It is how you behave when you think they’re helpless that shows them who you really are. You would know better than I, of course, but if anyone were to ask my thoughts, I would suggest we bide our time.
‘Who knows what advantages we could gain from their technology? Who would dare rebel against you then? We have them where we want them, Bainbridge, so why not see what we can get out of them through gentle persuasion. After all, we always have other methods to fall back on if we need to.’
The old man considers, then nods. It is as much of an acknowledgement as he is ever likely to give. ‘And what about these rebels?’ he says, facing the young man and switching the conversation. ‘Anything new?’
Now, Adam de Vries moves across to the window and looks out over the random chaos of the town, at the ants’ nest of industry and activity: the largest single mass of humanity in the entire land. ‘Five hundred thousand people,’ he says, by way of prelude.
It has the sound of a prepared speech, but Bainbridge Hartman is used to that. As a child, Adam spent far too long among the illicit books of his father’s library. He thinks too much, but that is what makes him valuable. His thinking is not channelled – which makes him more insightful than advisors three or four times his age. He sails close to the wind at times and must be kept firmly in place, but he does think. And for that, a little presumptuousness is an acceptable trade-off.
‘Five hundred thousand,’ he repeats. ‘And who can tell which ones are loyal – and which would take up arms against us, if the situation presented itself?’ He turns back to face Hartman, holding the old man’s gaze. ‘I want to set a trap.’
‘A trap?’
He nods.
‘We have a traitor in the Guard. Someone is letting the rebels know our every move. Someone high up, who knows all our plans and perhaps wants to use this rabble to unseat you and take control of the Citadel. We must flush the deceiver out before he can do further damage.’ He smiles. ‘There was a man who lived almost two thousand years ago named Niccolò Machiavelli. He wrote books advising his prince on how to overcome his enemies. No wasted sentiment – and no mercy. You would have liked him, Bainbridge. Anyway, he once wrote that there is no sweeter victory than to deceive the deceiver – and I think I have a plan to do just that.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘The problem is that whenever there is a leak, there are too many suspects. We plan a raid and anyone in the Guard could be warning the rebels. But what if everybody couldn’t warn the rebels, because only one person had the information?’
Hartman looks puzzled. ‘The traitor, you mean? But we don’t know who he is, so how would we feed him the information?’
/> ‘That, Bainbridge, is the beauty of the plan. The betrayal itself reveals him. We feed every member of the Guard above the rank of Commander a different bit of intelligence, then swear them to secrecy on pain of death. If the rebels subsequently act on the information, we know who provided it and we have our spy.’
‘How do we know they won’t talk about it among themselves? In order for it to work, they must all believe the others know too, or they will never take the risk.’
‘Just a bonus. Someone who talks to his fellow Guards after swearing secrecy is as much a traitor as the real spy. If any of the other intelligence leaks out, the loose lips can be culled, along with the spy. All we have to do is persuade them to tell us the names of the ones they told. It will take no time to trace the leak to its source. It may cause short-term pain, but the gain far outweighs it.
‘Machiavelli also said, “There is no avoiding the hard decision; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others – for the one who adapts his policy to the times prospers.” The whispers of rebellion are weak, Bainbridge, but they are getting stronger by the day. I think we have to act immediately, before these rebels become dangerous. Give me permission and I will root out this traitor and tear their identities from him piece by piece.’
Minutes later, as Adam leaves the room, Bainbridge Hartman looks out again at his city. At the hundreds of thousands of potential assassins and rebels.
Let them try to unseat me, he thinks. Let them try.
But the feeling is growing inside him that the tide is building and part of him is seduced by the thought of the power that might be his, if the Other-Worlders were on his side.
An idea strikes him and he smiles broadly. No point in sharing such power with a schemer like Anton de Vries. Especially when his son and heir is so compliant. What was it the boy said?
There is no avoiding the hard decision; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.
‘Guard!’
Dreams of the Chosen Page 24