Spinneret

by Timothy Zahn

  “Except with the Orspham,” Barner noted. “They seem more interested in finding a M’zarch ship to shoot up. Have you figured out yet what you’re going to do about all of them?”

  Meredith grimaced. “Not yet. It’s obvious we’re going to heed some protection, if only to keep the M’zarch from taking another crack at us. The only problem is making sure the guards we pick don’t decide at some point that robbery would pay better.” He shook his head. “Never mind that for now. We can afford to string them along for a while longer. Did you really want me here to discuss the harvesting, or is this more from Hafner’s people?”

  “The latter.” Barner unfolded a map and indicated the new areas of crosshatching. “They’ve eliminated three more hills and most of the ridge that overhangs that end of the Dead Sea. “

  “Um. Still using that sonic echoing gadget Brown’s people cobbled together?”

  “And hoping slabs of cable material don’t play games with sound waves as well as electric fields, yes. So far nothing that looks like a cavity has shown up.”

  “Have they talked to Dr. Chang’s team about that? I don’t know if they’ve done any sonic studies on the cable, but they should be able to rig up something.”

  “Probably could.” Barner hesitated. “I don’t really think Hafner’s people want Chang in on this, though.”

  “The hell with what they want,” Meredith growled. “We’ve got a set of experts here and we’re going to use them. What does Hafner think this is, some new version of keep-away?”

  “I don’t think Dr. Hafner cares that much, himself. But some of his people—well, resent the way Chang just came in and took over up at the cable site.”

  For an instant Meredith remembered how Captain Witzany had reacted to that same event. “This whole place better start remembering that Astra is a territory of the United States, not some free and independent country. You’ll send a messenger to Chang this afternoon to ask about the cable’s sonic characteristics.” He caught the objection in Barner’s eyes and mentally backed up a step. “You don’t have to tell him why we want the information, though.”

  “That’ll help.” Barner pushed the map to one side, replacing it with a sheaf of photo enlargements. “Dr. Hafner also took an extensive set of photos of the area and suggested we try shape analysis on the hills. I think it might be worth a try.”

  “Yeah.” Meredith picked up the top photo, glanced at the one beneath it. “Unfortunately, it would mean putting all this on the computer, and I’m still not sure I want to risk that.”

  Barner shrugged. “I’ll admit my knowledge of computers is limited, but it seems to me that if you tore out the entire remote-access system the thing should be secure enough. No one’s going to eavesdrop on buried fiberop cables from thirty thousand kilometers, and the machine itself should be adequately shielded.”

  “‘Should be’ is about as far as I get, too. Given our truly abysmal ignorance of the local state of the art in such things, it’s not very reassuring.” The colonel dropped the photo back onto the stack. “You might as well put all these into your booby-proofed file. I’m going to have to get back to Unie—some sort of silly resolution Carmen Olivero told me the council was taking up this afternoon. Keep me informed on Harrier’s progress.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Heading back outside, Meredith paused beside his car and peered for a moment toward the south. Two harvesters were visible in the fields, working to bring in the meager crop. Nearly thirty percent of the plants had died under the shock of having their trace metals twice yanked out of their soil. I hope the Celeritas is bringing plenty of extra food, he thought, climbing behind the wheel and starting the car. And lots of spare fuel, too.

  The last speech—Perez’s, as usual—was already in progress when Meredith finally showed up, choosing a chair by the door instead of joining the others at the table. Carmen shot a brief look of annoyance his direction and then returned her attention to Perez and the other faces around the table. The outcome, unfortunately, was no longer really in doubt. From previous speeches and the accompanying applause, it was clear that at least six of the ten councillors were strongly in favor of Perez’s resolution, and of the four remaining only two were definitely against. She’d hoped to at least get a tie situation, where she would have the deciding vote, but it was obviously not going to happen.

  Perez sat down, and Carmen waited for the applause to run its course. “Further comments?” she asked. “Then we’ll proceed directly to a vote. All in favor … ?”

  The tally was a solid seven to three. Suppressing a grimace, Carmen turned to Meredith. “Colonel, the Council of Astra calls on you to issue an order barring all but Astran citizens from approach or examination of Mt. Olympus, the cable lying north of Wright, and all alien technology and artifacts that may be subsequently uncovered. Specifically, this order is to include both those members of Dr. Chang’s group already on Astra and the various alien representatives currently in this solar system.”

  “Request denied,” Meredith said briskly. “Any other business you want me here for?”

  A ripple of displeasure went around the table, and Carmen braced herself for the inevitable outburst. But Perez kept his poise.

  “I’m afraid you don’t understand, Colonel,” he said calmly. “This is one resolution you’re not going to simply sweep away into a corner somewhere. We’ve done our homework on this one: I have petitions signed by seventy-two percent of the inhabitants of Ceres that support this resolution, and other councillors have similar proofs of support from their districts. The Spinneret belongs to Astra, Colonel, and neither you nor the faceless bureaucrats in Washington are going to take it away from us.”

  Meredith regarded him coolly. “You have a remarkably poor memory for certain facts of life, Perez, such as those dealing with your citizenship and my authority here. I’m at perfect liberty to ignore anything you or your seventy-two percent have to say—and if you get rude about it I can toss the lot of you into detention.”

  Perez didn’t bat an eye. “It wouldn’t be nearly as neat and tidy as you make it sound. If you don’t throw Chang’s group out immediately, I can guarantee there will be rioting—and this time I won’t be trying to hold anyone back.”

  Meredith didn’t move or change expression, but suddenly Carmen had the uncomfortable feeling that perhaps Perez had pushed the colonel a shade too far. “In such a case, Mr. Perez,” Meredith said, his voice deadly, “neither would I.”

  “Of course,” Perez said. “And you would win … but only temporarily. Because signs of civil strife down here could very possibly persuade one or more of the aliens out there that we needed some strong, neutral hand on us—strictly for our own good, of course—and take the appropriate action.”

  The room was very quiet. Meredith never flinched or broke eye contact with Perez, but Carmen sensed his frosty silence was a simple lack of any answer to that. After a few seconds Perez pulled a thick folder from the stack of papers in front of him and added to it a copy of the Council’s resolution. Standing, he stepped over to Meredith and offered him the bundle. “I think you’ll find, Colonel,” he said, “that above all else we must present a united front if we’re going to survive here.”

  Tight-lipped, Meredith got to his feet and accepted the papers. “We’ll see,” he said shortly. With a single glance at Carmen he turned and left the room.

  Carmen licked her lips. “This meeting is adjourned,” she said, banging her makeshift gavel with rather more force than necessary and immediately turning her full attention to loading her briefcase. The others took the hint and began packing their own paraphernalia without protest and with a minimum of quiet conversation. She waited until the last sounds of footsteps were cut off by the closing door before permitting her chosen expletive to come out.

  “Agreed. And I apologize.”

  She looked up, startled, to find Perez sitting quietly in the chair Meredith had recently vacated. “I thought you’d slithered o
ut with the others,” she snarled.

  He shrugged. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. And that you understood why I’m doing what I am.”

  “I’m fine,” she bit out, getting to her feet. “And you don’t need to explain the finer points of blackmail technique to me, thank you.”

  She tried to step past him, but he rose and took her arm, and before she knew it he had steered her back to the table and seated her again. “You’re angry because you don’t agree with my methods,” he said, sitting down next to her. “But I’m afraid it’s a simple fact of history that the only way a ruling class is ever persuaded to share power is through violence—either actual or threatened.”

  “So why don’t you just go ahead and ally yourself with one of those aliens out there and do the job right?” she said bitterly.

  He sighed. “I’d hoped you would grow to understand what I stand for better than that. Don’t you see?—I’m not trying to exchange one inequity for another. Astra can be this century’s version of the Americas, a place where people can come to escape the foolish rigidity of Earth politics. But that can’t happen as long as we’re simply a transplanted chunk of the U.S.”

  “And what are you going to feed all these tired, huddling masses when they get here?” she shot back. “We can’t even grow enough to feed the ten thousand people we’ve got.”

  “We can feed them anything they want—up to and including imported caviar. Or haven’t you considered what our Spinneret cables might sell for?”

  She shook her head. “Your ideas of marketing show the same shallow thinking your politics do. If the cable turns out to be really useful it’s not going to be ours much longer, not with all those warships circling overhead.”

  “We can handle them,” he assured her. “Playing big powers off against each other is a skill the Third World is well acquainted with.”

  She laughed, a short, derisive bark. “Oh, terrific. You scramble to get us free of American politics and instead turn us into a transplanted Yugoslavia spending all of our energy juggling the local superpowers. What a great improvement.”

  She had the satisfaction of seeing him struggle to fight down his own anger. “The position the Spinneret has put us in isn’t my fault, Carmen. I don’t like it better than you do, but sitting around wishing things were different won’t change anything.” He paused. “I’m sorry, though, that you can’t slough off that middle-class upbringing long enough to see things from the point of view of the less fortunate. I see I’ve been wasting my time with you.”

  So all of it had been deliberate. She’d wondered about that, ever since his message to Meredith through her had started this whole Council mess. “You flatter yourself,” she said, again getting to her feet. “It’s you and your methods, not any sort of upbringing, that’s soured me on your planned Utopia.”

  “Carmen—”

  She shrugged off his hand. “And as long as you’ve got all the answers, consider what all your huddling masses are going to do for a living once they get here. Or are you just going to distribute the Spinneret income evenly and let people sit around all day like overgrown parasites? If that’s your idea of a satisfying existence, you’re more foolish than I thought.” With that she turned and strode out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  She was outside the building and halfway back to the admin complex before her anger cleared enough for her to think straight again. She slowed down, looking at the dull adobe buildings around her as she walked. After living in modern military bases, Astra had always seemed almost like a throw-back to the 1800s to her … but never until now had she noticed its complete vulnerability, both to external and internal attack. What, she thought miserably, am I going to do?

  On one level the question was trivial; on another, impossible. She would certainly go and see Colonel Meredith immediately, offering whatever assistance she could to block Perez’s power grab. How that end could be accomplished, though, was another matter entirely.

  The quiet burp of a distant sonic boom penetrated her thoughts, and she looked westward in time to see a shuttle drop toward Martello Base. An alien delegation? It could be nothing else; it would still be a couple of weeks before any kind of reaction to the M’zarch attack could arrive from Earth. Quickening her step, Carmen changed direction to head for Unie’s docks. The colonel would almost certainly have gone to the base to greet the visitors, and she saw no particular point in sitting around his office until he came back. Besides, which—it suddenly occurred to her—as moderator of the Council her visible support of Meredith in any discussions might help short-circuit Perez’s scheme to promote disunity.

  The armed guard waiting at the docks was a surprising but welcome addition to the scenery; apparently, Meredith was taking Perez’s threats seriously. Carmen half expected to be denied access to the boats, but her military ID proved acceptable, and soon she was guiding a roaring motorboat up Splayfoot Bay toward Martello.

  There were ten of them in all, and the names on their identification papers were as prestigious as any on the UNESCO listing. They sat quietly, for the most part, some of them gazing out the window at the Martello landing area or the hills of the mainland to the east.

  The four UN officials accompanying them had equally prominent names, but not anything like the scientists’ patience as Meredith went through their credentials one by one. Possibly, he thought, they felt insulted that he’d chosen to meet them in Major Brown’s office instead of ferrying them to Unie and his own. Perhaps he should have; the trip would’ve given him that much more time to think.

  Finally, he could stall no longer. “I must say, first of all, that Astra is honored by your presence,” he said to the scientists as he returned their papers. “Under other circumstances you would be most welcome … but I’m very much afraid you may have made this trip for nothing.”

  “Would you care to explain, Colonel?” Ashur Msuya said, his voice cold. Meredith had never before met the man, but his virulent anti-West oratory had for years been one of the main rallying points for what little unity the African Bloc was ever able to muster. He’d been merely the head of the Mozambique delegation when Meredith had left for Astra, but his credentials were now identifying him as Assistant Undersecretary for Trusteeship and Non-Self-Governing Territories—a change in position Meredith found more than a little suspicious.

  “It’s actually rather simple, Mr. Msuya,” the colonel said, turning slightly to face the other. “I’ve been given command of Astra—all of Astra—by the United States government, and there’s no legal way I can relinquish that authority to you or anyone else without direct orders from my superiors or from President Allerton.”

  Msuya smiled thinly. “Yes, I rather expected you to quote regulations of one sort or another. However, Astra is United Nations territory, and we don’t need the Pentagon’s permission to withdraw the mandate your government has given. If you insist on being legalistic, I can also argue that the Spinneret and its cable are alien devices not really part of Astra at all, and that your mandate does not include them. Either way, we wind up in control of the Spinneret.”

  “Mr. Msuya, again I say that without orders I can’t simply take your word for that—and all these papers still boil down to being your word. Now, if our regular supply ship brings me such orders, that’ll be a different matter. But until that happens …” He shook his head.

  One of the scientists cleared his throat. “Suppose your ship doesn’t say anything one way or the other?”

  “Then I’ll send a message back with her captain describing your mission and requesting instructions. The round trip would take about six weeks, I’m afraid.”

  “Our ship could bring you a response in eight days,” Msuya pointed out. “It’s an advanced craft—one of two the Ctencri have given the UN.”

  “Interesting. How much is Saleh paying for them?”

  “They were free gifts.”

  Sure they were, Meredith thought. “Of course,” he said aloud.
“But I’d prefer using American ships for any such messages.”

  Msuya leaned back in his seat and regarded Meredith coolly. “In other words, you choose to stall. All right, have it your way. I trust you’ll at least be willing to find accommodations for the scientific team down here while they work on the cable. I and my delegation can stay aboard our ship if you’d prefer.”

  And here was where the organic fertilizer was going to hit the fan, Meredith thought with a sinking feeling. He had no intention of letting a group of foreign nationals get at the Spinneret cable, UN instructions or no. “I would be honored to host these distinguished ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “but as for examining the cable, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.”

  “Colonel Meredith.” With deliberate movements Msuya rose from his chair and stepped up to the edge of the desk. “It’s clear you don’t care that your career is being endangered by your uncooperative attitude; I presume that if I had an armed force of troops available you would be equally contemptuous of your life. But I tell you right now: you are now endangering your entire country. We know you have U.S. scientists here studying the cable; failure to grant equal access to us will raise serious questions as to American intentions. It could easily lead to an immediate embargo of all alien goods and technologies to both you and the U.S.—and I assure you that the embargo will be an airtight one.”

  He paused for breath, and Meredith moved into the gap. “I understand your concerns,” he said, “but I can assure you we have no intention of withholding information on the cable from anyone.” He shifted slightly in his chair, wondering what he was going to say next; and as he did so the paper in his coat pocket crinkled. A gift from heaven, and he grabbed it with both hands. “But I think you’ve jumped to a false conclusion. It’s not a matter of American versus UN scientists; the fact is that all non-Astrans are going to be barred from the cable, at least for now.” Pulling out the copy of the Council resolution Perez had given him, he handed it over.