House of Steel: The Honorverse Companion

by David Weber

  She shook her head again, her expression grim.

  “The most dangerous error a foreign policy maker can commit is to assume the people on the other side of a confrontation, whether it’s a peaceful competition or an active war, are ‘just like us.’ That, under the surface, they share the same basic values, the same view of the galaxy. And, even more dangerous, that they interpret events, relationships, and opportunities the same way we do. Because the truth is, Joe, that not everyone does . . . and the Peeps don’t. In more ways than I can count, they live in a completely different galaxy from ours simply because their starting position, their objectives, and the way they see events are so different from ours. They’re perfectly capable of doing things you and I would both agree—agree without any reservations at all—are insane, given the alternatives, the advantages of dealing openly and peacefully with their interstellar neighbors. And they’re capable of that because they’re starting from a different place and operating under a totally different set of constraints. Constraints and objectives—and beliefs—which make what you and I would agree are fundamentally irrational decisions completely rational, even inevitable.

  “You’re right that it takes a big stick to allow someone to speak softly—and be heard—by a masked thug who makes his living through armed robbery. Unfortunately, you also have to convince the thug in question that you not only have a big stick, but that you’re prepared to use it. And sometimes, more often than you or I would like, the only way you can convince someone who’s willing to make a living through armed robbery and mayhem to worry about your stick is to actually hit him with it, because until you do, he won’t believe you’re willing to.”

  “She’s doing quite well, I think,” Allen Summervale said judiciously as the broadcast went to commercial break. He looked across the comfortable sitting room at his monarch. “In fact, she’s doing better than I would, given the fact that I can’t stand Dunleavy.” The Prime Minister smiled without much humor. “Unlike a lot of his fellows, I think he’s completely sincere in his beliefs. Arrogant and closed-minded, perhaps, and totally convinced of his own rectitude, but sincere and genuinely concerned about how many people will get hurt in any war against the Peeps. He’s desperately determined to prevent that from happening—I have to give him credit for that, however irritating I personally find him. The problem is that he’s walled that sincerity of his in with so many preconceptions reality just can’t get through to him, and this in a man who’s been shaping the Liberals’ foreign policy for decades! Not to mention how damned supercilious he can be with anyone who dares to disagree with him, given his own indisputable brilliance. In his presence, I have a tendency to forget about our splendid traditions of freedom of speech and open, civil debate. In fact, I might as well admit he tends to make my pistol hand twitch.”

  Roger snorted harshly, then tipped his chair back and shrugged.

  “You’re right, she is doing well,” he agreed. “On the other hand, both of them are doing what Mom used to call preaching to the choir. I’d like to think Hillary’s going to convince at least a few more people to see reason, but I’m afraid most people have already chosen their positions on this issue.”

  “Yes and no,” Cromarty disagreed. Roger looked at him, and the Prime Minister shrugged. “There’s a lot in what you’ve just said, but I don’t think opinion’s as set in ceramacrete as quite a few pundits predict. All our polling suggests there’s still an ongoing, gradual shift in our direction, and the Star Kingdom’s support for you personally is stronger than it’s ever been. Even those who’d be happier if we were ‘less confrontational’ trust you to make the right call in the end more than they trust Lebrun, or Summercross, or Macmillan, or any of the others. There’s a lot of dissatisfaction about how much the Fleet’s costing, and the tension between us and the Peeps has been growing long enough there’s a lot of fear and a lot of pessimism, but according to all our data, a clear majority—not a very big one, I’ll admit, but a majority—of registered voters agree with you.”

  “Oh?” Roger cocked a sardonic eyebrow at his chief minister. “That’s why the treaty with Zanzibar sailed through so easily, is it?”

  “There’s less support for building this ‘Manticoran Alliance’ of yours,” Cromarty conceded. “Rachel and I both told you there would be. An unfortunately large percentage of your subjects agree with the Conservative Association that entangling ourselves in defensive commitments to small star nations that could never hope to resist Peep aggression on their own is dangerously provocative and actually weakens our own position by burdening us with additional strategic commitments. And, of course, there’s another largish—although smaller—percentage that agrees with Dunleavy, at least where the Alliance is concerned. If we persist in drawing that ‘line in the sand’ Hillary mentioned, aren’t we simply daring the Peeps to step across it? Those who disapprove, disapprove for a whole host of different reasons, though. They may constitute the majority, but it’s an . . . incoherent majority, while a plurality—and a growing plurality, at that, according to all our tracking data—agrees with your reasoning on the Alliance.”

  “Which isn’t helping us one bit where the Association and Liberals are concerned.”

  “If the Liberals weren’t feeling the heat, Your Majesty, Lebrun wouldn’t have sent Dunleavy to carry water for him like this.” Cromarty waved at the HD, where the commercial break had just ended. “They have access to the same polling data we do. I think they’re interpreting some of it rather differently from the way I would, but they know their base in the Commons is continuing to erode on this issue. That’s why they’re arguing the point so passionately, and I expect Lebrun to try to make his opposition to the Alliance’s ‘dangerous entanglements’ the keynote of his foreign policy position in the next election. The Conservatives don’t care about public opinion, you’re right about that, because by this time they don’t have any representation to lose in the Commons, and peers don’t have to stand for election. But Macmillan and Sheridan can both see the writing on the wall as clearly as Lebrun can, and unlike him, they’re not willing to ride their Commons seats down in flames over a matter of doctrinaire ideology.”

  “Maybe so,” Roger acknowledged after a moment. “But I don’t like the way Macmillan’s backing Lebrun over the notion of giving the Peeps ‘more access’ to Basilisk. And I’m not especially confident that the reason she is doesn’t have a little something to do with under the table outside encouragement.”

  The King raised his right hand, rubbing thumb and first two fingers together in an ancient gesture Cromarty wished he could misinterpret. Or disagree with, for that matter.

  “On the face of it, it’s not an unreasonable request on the Peeps’ part,” he observed in a carefully neutral tone. “They are sending a lot of freighters back and forth to the League through the Junction, even if they aren’t trading with us very much. And they probably do have a legitimate interest in the Silesian trade if they’re going to be passing through the Junction in the first place.”

  “Sure they do.” Roger grimaced. “And for that matter, Summercross is right that every ship they send through the Junction pays us the transit fees we’re using to help build up the Navy against them. But you know as well as I do that one of the reasons they’re ‘passing through the Junction’ is to keep as close an eye as they can on what’s going on here in the Star Kingdom. For that matter, both ONI and SIS are sure they’re snagging data dumps from agents right here on Manticore in the process. And that doesn’t even consider how much they want to keep the San Martinos aware of their presence by routing a few billion tons of shipping through Trevor’s Star every year. Not to mention the fact that those freighters they’re sending back and forth to the League are basically payoffs to people like Technodyne in return for the technology they can’t produce anymore. They’re nervous about the R and D they know about, and they’d be a hell of a lot more nervous if they knew about Gram. That’s the reason they’re grabbing every bit of
tech from Technodyne they can, whatever that asshole Kolokoltsov is saying. You know that as well as I do, too. Their so-called legitimate trade in Silesia’s a money loser for them, too, now isn’t it? In fact, it’s basically only a way for them to cover at least the majority of their information-gathering expenses as they go swanning through Manticoran space with those remarkably sensitive ‘civilian grade’ sensor suites their freighters mount!”

  Cromarty was forced to nod. The People’s Republic was so short of interstellar currency reserves that it had resorted to what amounted to a barter relationship with several of the larger Solarian transstellars. As Roger had pointed out, Technodyne of Yildun was an excellent case in point. As one of the Solarian League Navy’s major contractors, Technodyne had access to virtually all of the SLN’s latest hardware. And, despite the League’s stringent controls on the export of first-line technology, even the “export” tech the SLN had signed off on was substantially better than anything the People’s Republic could have produced internally after so many decades of self-inflicted infrastructure damage.

  And, unfortunately, the PRH seemed to be waking up—some, at least—to the fact that Manticore’s warfighting technology was better than its was. Manticoran intelligence, civilian and military alike, suggested the Peoples Navy still hadn’t figured out how far behind the RMN’s actually deployed hardware it was, far less how far behind Gram and the rest of the Star Kingdom’s “black” R&D it was, yet it was clearly making a push to improve its position.

  Possibly the fact that the Andermani Empire had finally bought the Astral Energetics’ version of the laser head and put it into service in 1872 had something to do with that. All indications were that Astral’s weapon was markedly inferior to Section Thirteen’s latest variant, yet the mere fact that the Andermani possessed it at all represented a closing of their capability gap vis-à-vis the Star Kingdom. Fortunately, Emperor Gustav appeared to have little interest in distracting Manticore from its concentration on Haven, at least at the moment, but the IAN’s introduction of the weapon into open service had to have spurred Havenite interest in acquiring an equivalent capability. At the moment, there was no evidence Technodyne had a laser head design to sell, but like most Solarian transstellars, Technodyne had never worried all that much over abiding by export restrictions if the customer could meet its price. That being the case, there was no reason to think it would hesitate to acquire a licensed version of Astral’s design and happily sell it to the PRH, especially since the SLN didn’t even seem to have noticed its existence. The League certainly hadn’t made any move to prevent its proliferation, at any rate. Yet.

  Even if that changed, Technodyne wouldn’t care as long as it didn’t get caught by someone it couldn’t buy off, and that sort of Solarian arms inspector no longer existed. And if the Peeps were short on hard currency, Technodyne could work with that, as well. After all, the Peeps had all those political prisoners to provide the labor force they needed, which meant they were actually able to deliver raw and semi-refined materials to Technodyne—via the Junction, of course—more cheaply than Technodyne could have purchased the same materials from a source in the League. All indications were that Technodyne was bleeding the Peeps’ ruthlessly, but it was a cost they could bear, at least for now.

  The fact that the state owned every Havenite freighter in existence helped hold down costs, as well, he supposed. But Roger was right about the capability of the sensor suites built into the Peep freighters passing through the Junction or trundling about the Manticoran Binary System itself to deliver or pick up cargoes. They were spy ships, plain and simple, and their presence only underscored Roger’s wisdom in setting up Project Gram on Weyland, where those sensor suites never got a peek at any of the hardware Jonas Adcock and his people were beginning to surreptitiously test in the Unicorn Belt.

  And it helps that Klaus Hauptman’s such a stiff-necked bastard, too, Cromarty reflected. The man holds grudges like a Gryphon Highlander, and he absolutely loathes Summercross and Lebrun. Doesn’t stop him from doing business with Summercross, or even North Hollow, but that’s just business, and he doesn’t trust any of them any farther than he could jump without counter-grav. The man might as well have the Star Kingdom’s coat of arms tattooed across his backside when it comes to national security, and it’ll be a cold day in hell before anybody in the Association or the Liberal Party hears a single word out of him about the toys he’s been building for Gram over the last couple of T-years.

  “You’re probably right, Your Majesty,” he acknowledged out loud. “But unless we’re prepared to call Nouveau Paris on it, it’s going to be hard to make a case for denying them the access they’re asking for. We don’t have to give them favored-star nation status, but we’re going to need something more than ‘because you’re rotten people’ if we’re not going to give them at least the same degree of access we give everyone else.”

  “Oh, we’ll give it to them, all right,” Roger said with an unpleasant smile. “But I’ll have my kilo of flesh from Summercross and Lebrun first.”

  “Your Majesty?” Cromarty’s expression was wary, and Roger’s smile turned still colder.

  “I should never have accepted all the stipulations and restrictions the two of them insisted on when we annexed the terminus,” he said, and it was Cromarty’s turn to grimace in agreement.

  Roger had been right about the Opposition’s inability to stop him from making his infant daughter the Duchess of Basilisk, but they’d held out for a generous grab bag of concessions before they’d agreed to acquiesce and make Parliament’s approval unanimous. The offer to make that approval unanimous in return for those selfsame face-saving concessions had been more than Roger and his ministers had been able to resist, given the emphatic way it had countersigned the Crown’s new policy where control of the Junction’s termini was concerned. Unfortunately, no one had repealed the law of unintended consequences, and the restrictions which had resulted had grown steadily more irksome over the past decade.

  “The infrastructure in Basilisk—in the system itself, especially in Medusa orbit, not just on the terminus—is growing even faster than I expected,” Roger continued. “It’s more valuable to our economy and more tempting to someone like the Peeps—or Gustav—than I anticipated, too, and thanks to the way we pussyfooted around with Summercross and Lebrun, we don’t have the wherewithal in-system to look after it properly. So I think it’s time we stamp the entire terminus with a big, shiny Manticore.”

  “In what way, Your Majesty?”

  “I’m going to create a formal naval station in Basilisk. It’s going to be a standing naval presence.” Cromarty looked faintly alarmed, and the King shook his head quickly. “Oh, I’m not going to renege on our promise not to fortify the terminus, Allen! Not that I wouldn’t like to, you understand, but there’s only so much blood in the turnip, and if I have to choose between a few more ships-of-the-wall and fortifying the Basilisk Terminus, I’m afraid I’m going to have to opt for the wallers. But that doesn’t mean we can’t permanently station a division of cruisers and a squadron of destroyers or so in Basilisk to keep an eye on things. And on any ‘civilian Peep freighters’ that happen to pass through. And if people like Summercross and Lebrun happen to get the message that we’re through rolling over for the Peeps because we’re somehow responsible for being the ‘reasonable’ ones, I’m just fine with that, too.”

  Cromarty managed not to wince, but it was hard as he contemplated the screams of protest bound to come at him from both left and right when he announced this little decision. On the face of it, it should have been a complete nonissue, but both the Conservatives and the Liberals were going to recognize Roger’s challenge, his warning that he was through deferring to their sensibilities, and that was going to guarantee an ugly reception. But over the past twenty T-years, he’d learned to recognize when there was no point trying to talk Roger Winton out of something.

  Besides, he thought, he’s right. It is time we made that messa
ge of his crystal clear, and not just to the Peeps.

  “Very well, Your Majesty,” he said aloud, “I’ll have a word about it with Abner and Admiral Styler this afternoon.”

  May 1878 PD

  “SO,” KING ROGER III SAID, reaching down to ruffle Crown Princess Elizabeth Adrienne Samantha Annette Winton’s feathery curls gently, “was it a good birthday?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Elizabeth replied emphatically, leaning back against her tall, broad-shouldered father and smiling up at him. She was a slender, small-boned child—she took after her mother in that respect—but muscular, with a passion for soccer and horses. As far as he could tell that equestrian fixation was something every girl child ever born shared, but she seemed to have caught a more intense case than most.