The Commonwealth Saga 2-Book Bundle (79 page)

“May I join you?” Ramon asked.

“Please do,” Justine said. There was no sign of Isabella. Nor Patricia, she realized.

One of the house staff brought Ramon a pot of fresh English breakfast tea. Justine remembered introducing him to that drink, she always found it the best way to start the day. Coffee was too abrupt for her.

“I may have an idea that would smooth the way to move the agency to High Angel,” Ramon said.

Justine and Campbell exchanged a brief look. Everyone was remarkably well briefed this morning, she thought. It was barely thirty minutes since she’d updated Gore.

“We’d certainly appreciate anything which could help,” Campbell said.

“Parallel development. You continue building the first five scoutships at the Anshun facility, while the High Angel shipyards are being put together. That would provide the whole agency concept with the kind of positive outlook which the African caucus can support.”

Campbell was surprised by the notion. “I suppose that would work. There certainly wouldn’t be any of the delays which we’re resistant to. But it would also incur much greater start-up costs than we envisaged.”

“You should speak with Patricia, but I think you’ll find Doi’s team is open to raising the budget to accommodate us.”

Justine waited until they’d all finished eating before cornering Ramon as he walked back to his cabin. “What did she offer you to achieve that little strategic alignment?”

“Who?”

“Patricia.” She so nearly said Isabella.

“The original agreement was that Buta supplies the new High Angel shipyards. It is a logical extension for the construction companies to be awarded the support contracts as well.”

“Smart move,” Gore said later. “Support contracts can ultimately be worth more than construction in the long term. Which I guess is what we’re looking at here.”

“I’d love to know which one of them suggested it,” Justine said.

“Me, too. I’m becoming concerned by just how much money Doi is prepared to sign over. I’m not denying it will be good for us, but it shows a degree of desperation I hadn’t expected from her.”

“I’m not surprised at all,” Justine said. “She’s using this to buy herself the election, and it’s all paid for by tax money. She’s a politician, what did you expect?”

“More subtlety. The senators will know what’s happened here, even if the electorate doesn’t care. If it turns out the Dyson aliens are no threat, then the amount of money she’s offered the starflight agency is excessive and they’ll react to that. It’s not like a politician to support something so radical so wholeheartedly; they safeguard their own careers before anything.”

“But you’re the one that claims the Dysons will prove hostile, and we’ll need to evolve the agency into a navy.”

“I know. But I’m not standing for election. There’s a small part of me that’s tempted to sink this whole venture here and now.”

“What? You have to be joking.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t. But something’s not right.”

“Care to be more specific?”

“I can’t. I’ve analyzed this all night, compared it to a dozen similar guiding weekends this family has been involved with. There’s nothing tangible except my gut feeling.”

“You’re just worried about what the Halgarths will pull. They’ve been biding their time ready for this moment when the rest of us have reached a broad agreement, then they’ll make their bid.”

“Maybe you’re right. I hope so.”

Justine got the opportunity to find out soon enough. There was a general “progress review” meeting scheduled for midmorning. They held it in the library. It was Larry who requested it be limited to those who held level one Commonwealth security clearance. That meant Justine herself only just scraped in, due to her directorship of several companies that supplied equipment to Directorates that avoided the public view. But it certainly excluded everybody’s partners and aides, along with Isabella. There was a short sharp argument at the door when she was turned away. Patricia came in looking slightly flustered. Everyone inside had heard what the girl had shouted.

“Sorry about that,” Patricia said as she sat at the table.

Justine stifled her own smirk, seeing quite a few others doing the same. As soon as the doors were closed, Thompson stood up. “I expect this to be the final session for this weekend. We all seem to be in broad agreement over the principal structure which the agency will follow. This gives us a chance to iron out any final problems; I’m sure none of us want any show-stoppers at this stage. I for one have a number of Senate votes to attend on Monday, and I’d appreciate getting to them.” He sat down beside Gore, whose polished gold face turned expectantly to Justine.

“The major development this weekend seems to be moving the agency’s primary base to High Angel. Given that we’re foreseeing that it, or possibly a navy, will be in operational status for a long time, it does make sense and certainly has our family’s approval. Does anyone disagree?”

“As you said, Justine, we’re all in broad agreement with what’s been negotiated this weekend,” Larry Halgarth said. “The High Angel move, the preliminary work for navy defenses; my family will certainly add its rubber stamp to all this.”

“Here it comes,” Campbell murmured to Justine.

“However, there is one facet to all this planning which has been overlooked.”

“What’s that?” Gore asked sharply.

“Giving the navy an offensive capability. If, God forbid, the Dysons do turn out to be hostile, simply sitting underneath force field domes and hoping they’ll go away isn’t realistic. We would have to carry the fight into their territory.”

“Just hold on a minute here,” Gerhard said. “Since when have we included invasion in our hostile encounter scenarios? All my briefings have concentrated on possible clashes over colonizing new stars in the direction of the Dyson Pair. In other words it’s all going to be down to agreeing on the direction and limits of expansion. And that’s assuming they do want to expand.”

“They filled an entire solar system,” Larry said. “Their culture is just as expansion-based as ours, if not more so. Make no mistake about it, the two of us will meet out there in space.”

“They’re seven hundred light-years away,” Ramon said. “And it’s a big galaxy. Defensive capability is only going to be a sop to public opinion anyway, at least that was my understanding.”

“That’s very comforting. But what if we really need it?”

“Why?” Campbell asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Ramon was right in saying that any future clash with them will be over establishing borders to our respective spheres of colonization. Any navy we create will be a long-term venture. I doubt we’ll need it within a century. There isn’t exactly a rush to fill up phase three space like there was with one and two—more’s the pity. Even if they expand at our rate, we’d be in phase five or six space before the possibility of clashes arose.”

“And if they don’t stick to your timetable?”

“Then we stop at phase five space in that sector, and continue outward everywhere else. Like Ramon said, it’s a big galaxy.”

“Somebody was so concerned about them, they tried to quarantine them off from this big galaxy. And we’ve seen for ourselves how aggressive they are. That tells me we have to prepare for trouble.”

Campbell regarded him as a teacher would a particularly awkward pupil. “What do you think they’ll invade us for, exactly? If they want mineral or chemical resources, they can get them from any star system. Energy? Their fusion systems looked more advanced than ours. There is no economic or logical reason for them to invade us, especially not with a navy in place. It’s a deterrent.”

“Fine, then make it a working deterrent. Give it some teeth.”

“What sort of teeth would you like it to have?” Justine asked. “I take it this is why you wanted everyone here to be security cleared?”

“Yes.” Larry nodded at Natasha Kersley.

“My Directorate has been reviewing the data which the
Second Chance
came back with,” she said. “You were right to say their fusion systems are more advanced than ours. So are their force fields. If Captain Kime hadn’t pulled back, we estimate that the
Second Chance
would have been destroyed within a minute of their missiles reaching attack range. The only thing that saved them was the FTL capability. If we are going to confront the Dyson aliens in the future, even if it is solely to establish boundaries, we will need a lot more firepower than we’ve carried so far.”

“Then we’ll scale things up for the next generation of ships,” Campbell said. “Increase the force field strength. Provide more power to the atom lasers and plasma lances.”

“They will do the same,” Natasha said flatly. “And their shipbuilding capacity is much greater than ours will be for the foreseeable future. Their entire civilization is based around spaceflight and manufacturing ships, we cannot win a contest to scale things up. What we need to do is take this to the next level, and develop a new generation of advanced weapons.”

“Such as?” Gore asked.

“The theoretical concepts which my Directorate studies are need-to-know only.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to examine the idea,” Thompson said.

“What my family would like to see is Natasha’s Directorate transferred to the starflight agency’s defense office,” Larry said. He looked at Patricia. “That will require an executive order.”

“I can probably arrange one,” she said.

“It would need to be integrated with the rest of the Commonwealth’s security arrangements,” Rafael Columbia said.

“The rest of them?” Patricia repeated warily.

“If the navy is to have an effective defensive role, then the current Commonwealth security Directorates should be brought together to perform the service. The Special Sciences Supervisory Directorate and the Internal Security Directorate could be combined under the aegis of my own Directorate.”

“Isn’t that a little drastic?” Justine asked. “Not to mention alarmist? What relevance is the Serious Crimes Directorate to all this?”

“We’re the ones already fighting this conflict,” Rafael said. “It is my Directorate which is tracking down the terrorists who attacked the
Second Chance
. That act amounts to antihuman treachery as far as I’m concerned.”

Justine sat back in astonishment.
Talk about gung ho.

LET HIM HAVE IT, her father sent to her. IT’S JUST PAPER EMPIRE BUILDING, AND THE AGENCY’S PLANETARY DEFENSE OFFICE HAS TO START WITH SOMETHING.

“I would point out that as Rafael’s Directorate operates on a quasi-secret basis anyway,” Larry said, “the preparatory functions it will be conducting into strategic planetary defense can quite easily be kept quiet under its standard procedures. I believe that was the original recommendation of the ExoProtectorate Council.”

“It was,” Campbell said. For a moment the two of them locked gazes. Then Campbell offered up a small smile. “Well, I have no objections to that. In fact, it’s rather tidy having everything under one roof. Think you can cope with the extra responsibility, Rafael?”

“And the budget,” Gore grunted.

Everyone laughed.

“You can depend on me,” Rafael assured them.

“It makes sense,” Gore said to Justine and Thompson after everyone else had left. “And it was a brilliant piece of maneuvering on the Halgarths’ part, nobody was going to say no that late in the day. Larry effectively split the navy. The Sheldons will have the ships, while the defense side will all be under Rafael’s control. He’s got the budget strings, which puts the DRNG and Buta subordinate to him.”

“And defense will ultimately be the bigger budget,” Thompson said. “We should have seen that coming. The Halgarths keep their dominance of the force field market.”

“The defense budget will only be bigger if the Dysons are a threat,” Justine observed. “I seem to be the only one who isn’t convinced they will be. You two certainly are, and as for Rafael … Jesus, it won’t be long before he’s designing uniforms with nice shiny jackboots.”

“Who’d blame him. All the girls love a sailor.”

“It’s not funny, Dad. This merger gives him a great deal of power. The Directorates were kept separate for a reason.”

“I’ll talk to Patricia and Doi herself when I get back to the Senate tomorrow,” Thompson said. “You’re right about that, Justine. There needs to be an executive review committee for Rafael’s new empire, and his new vice directors will be appointed from other families and dynasties. I’ve got some contacts on the inside of the Directorate who can keep an eye on him as well. Don’t worry, we’ll keep him in check.”

....

Even with his tight-fitting goggles and fur-lined woolen balaclava Ozzie could feel the freezing wind biting his cheeks. It was infiltrating the edge of his hood as he moved his arms back and forth in a smooth rhythm to propel himself forward with the carved bone ski poles gripped in each hand. The repetitive motion was hard work; he’d only been outside fifteen minutes, and already perspiration was soaking into the T-shirt he wore under his checked shirt, sweaters, and icewhale fur overcoat. His skis bobbed over the crisp ice, leaving clear twin tracks behind.

Out here, on the relatively level surface of the vast depression surrounding the Ice Citadel, he could move with a degree of ease, though it was nothing like the speed he used to reach on resort slopes back in the Commonwealth. It would be a lot slower in the forest, he knew. And he’d be hauling a great deal more weight in his backpack as well. Today, he was practicing with about half the weight of what he would be taking when they left for good.

He twisted his body carefully, curving to a halt before jamming his poles into the thin layer of crusty ice. Red sunlight washed down on the desolate landscape, revealing a multitude of small ripples in the frozen ground. At half a mile behind him the Ice Citadel stood aloof from the flat gray land, green light winking steadily from its pinnacle, prickles of crimson sunlight scattered off facets in its hexagonal crystal mirrors. A hundred yards away, Tochee was sliding along efficiently. They’d started calling the alien that now, rather than the tochee. Communication personalized it, at least from the human perspective. Ozzie figured he owed it that much.