War World X: Takeover (61 page)

American intelligence was fond of referring to him as “The Wolf”, the literal translation of the Russian root word of his name,
volk
. Volkov was aware of this and despised the Americans for it. This was his only indulgence in emotions toward anyone except his son’s daughter, Illyana, and on her, he was a doting grandfather.

He was doting now, reading the reports of Illyana’s dismal standing of twenty-third in the track and field events on the likewise humiliated Earth-sponsored CoDominium Olympics team.

“Who is this Becca Royce person?” Volkov asked as he read the newspad with his morning coffee. The Olympics were being held in Rio de Janeiro, and the images made him think of blue water, white beaches, golden sunshine and round, tanned asses, all of which on most days would normally put any Russian’s mood over the moon. But not Volkov, and certainly not today.

He looked up at the Supreme Chairman of the CoDominium Council, Mikhail Utkin, who stood before Volkov’s desk with his hands sweating, his feet aching and his back doing both.

Even so, Utkin was prepared. His own staff was charged with maintaining Utkin at a high level of usefulness to Volkov, and they had briefed him about the Secretary’s tendency to focus on his granddaughter’s achievements, or lack thereof.

“A Havener, Comrade Secretary,” Utkin answered. “Qualified for her colony’s team last year, excelled in training at the colonial University. Haven is a small colony moon, nominal American protectorate status, no representation in the CoDominium Senate, prime relocation site for undesirables from all over Earth. Originally an independent body colonized by religious fanatics, then received corporate sponsorship by an American mining consortium, and Haven soon became—”

“
Eb tvoi mat’
, Utkin, what are you, the fucking Encyclopedia Britannica?” Volkov looked back down at the newspaper and flipped the page; Germans were starving in Berlin and the redistribution was sparking food riots in Rome.
Two cheerful pieces of news in one day
, Volkov mused, distracted. He hated Germans and Italians almost as much as he hated Americans.

“Utkin, I don’t give two shits about some capitalist dumping ground for CoDo trash, I want to know
who is this Becca Royce bitch?
”

Volkov had finished with a shout, now he lowered his voice. “One of yours?” he asked in a conspiratorial tone.

Utkin knew what the Secretary meant; anyone who had worked with the pig would know. He let out an even breath. “I don’t believe so, Comrade Secretary.”

Volkov looked up from beneath shaggy white eyebrows. “You are sure? ’Becca’; that’s short for Rebecca, I think. Isn’t Rebecca a Jewess’ name? Don’t all you kikes stick together?”

Utkin had spent his life in the Soviet bureaucracy, had risen to a position of power in the Party sufficient to be appointed to the Supreme Chair of the CoDominium Council, even if only as a cat’s-paw to this two-legged dung heap seated before him. Utkin had not lasted so long nor progressed so far by having a thin skin, but rather a smooth one that kept him moving along in a survivable if oily fashion, in and out of the labyrinth of insults and suspicions and betrayals and disappearances and purges that had always furnished all Russian halls of power, Czarist or Communist.

“I believe the Royce girl was raised in a cult known as the ‘Harmonies,’ Comrade Secretary. They were the original settlers of the Haven moon. No clear relation to any Earth-based religions, though some parallels with Buddhism have been noted.”

Volkov snorted. “Whatever,” he mused. “This Royce girl is giving every other colony fits. She’s breaking records right and left, she passes every drug screening with flying colors—I don’t think this brat even drinks tea—and she’s doing it all for the benefit of some outer space gulag I wouldn’t bother to piss on if it were on fire.”

Finished with his tirade, Volkov tapped his finger on the desktop as he collected his thoughts, and resumed.

“Well. She’s a farm girl and she’s not an American, so that is enough for me to forgive her for being any stripe of mytho-religious nut-job. Christian, Buddhist…” He looked up at Utkin and grinned. “Even a Jew.”

Volkov’s smile froze at Utkin’s obvious lack of appreciation for his witty remark. “Oh, now, don’t pout,
Mischa
, we’re all comrades in the glorious Reformed Soviet, I’m just busting your balls.”

Volkov closed the paper, sat back and looked up at the corner of his office ceiling.

Utkin waited patiently for whatever instructions Volkov was about to impart.

“Okay. So.” Volkov said, and leaned forward again. “All this other business of the CoDo Council this week, you handle that on your own. You know the status of our operations, what we want done in our Antarctica developments and the relocation quotas we’ll need for workers for the St. Ekaterina colony. Get those handled as first priority when the CoDo Senate reconvenes.

“But this week, I want the CoDo Olympics Committee to throw a party in the Olympic village. Make sure all the athletes attend. If the games have to go on an extra day, that’s fine, too; the Brazilians can use the extra money. And make sure the entire Haven team attends, but especially this Royce girl.”

Utkin was about to ask why the Secretary General of the Communist Party of the Reformed USSR, one of the two most powerful men on fifty planets, would bother himself with a party for a sixteen-year-old girl from a backwater, relocation-hellhole moon. A moment later, he had his answer.

“Get an agent to talk to this girl, a good-looking one. Have them talk to her parents if they are with her, her chaperone otherwise. Let her know we’ll set her family up with a
dascha
and a farm in Yalta if they want one, or an apartment in Moscow if they’d prefer. Or both, I don’t care. I suspect they won’t, either, once they have the opportunity to come and live on Earth instead of staying on that rock, that… what did you say it was called?”

“Haven, Comrade Secretary.”

Volkov rolled his eyes. “Whatever. If the weather in Rio has seduced her utterly, then we’ll make them the same offer for living in Cuba, but she stays on the Russian Olympic team for the next eight years. She can compete for St. Ekaterina colony.” Volkov looked at Utkin and squinted, thinking.

“No,” he said finally. “No agent.”

Utkin waited until Volkov completed his thoughts as Utkin knew he would.

“I think I’m going to get some sun,” the Secretary said as another blast of snow scoured the windows behind him.

PLUTOCRACY

Earth, The White House, United States: 2082 A.D.

“So Haven colony comes out of nowhere, kicking ass and throwing off all the odds, and suddenly betting on the Olympics is fun again.”

“But still illegal, sir.” The Secretary of State replied as a Navy orderly poured more coffee into the boss’s 16-ounce mug with the ornate eagle-emblazoned seal.

“Oh, yeah, Keach, illegal as hell,” agreed the President of the United States. He grinned. “Which of course makes it more fun.” He tossed a soft foam basketball across the room into a net over one window of the Oval Office. “Nothing but net,” he mused aloud.

“Any of your people at State talk to her, yet, Adam?”

“Only at the reception. I’m told she’s a nice kid, tall for her age. Strong as an ox.”

President John Holt glanced back at the newspaper with the picture of a young athlete from Tabletop colony at the finish of the women’s 100 meter. The kid looked like a goddamn skinned antelope, every muscle and tendon looking like it was lasered out of bronze and sprayed with oil; she was sweating like a racehorse. Gasping for breath, her features were stretched in a rictus showing enough teeth to reinforce the racehorse simile. Half a meter ahead of her, Becca Royce’ nicely-developed bosom was parting the tape at the finish line; she almost looked distracted.

“Media has started referring to Haven as ‘The Little Moon That Could’,” Holt said, and shook his head. “Jesus. Does
anybody
in the news have
any
shame anymore?”

“I have to wonder about genetic manipulation,” the President continued. “But if it was going to come from anyone, I’d have expected it from Sauron colony. But they can’t compete in the games anymore, so who? The French? Or the Russians? Hard to believe a backwater like this Haven place would have a eugenics project we didn’t know about.”

Secretary of State Adam Keach shook his head. “Very doubtful, sir. Haven is a poor colony. Smaller GDP than Puerto Rico. Since it hit the CoDominium Eminent Domain list, a lot of forced relocation has gone there. Just last year the Russians dumped about 20,000 Afghans in the mountain regions.”

“Afghans”, the President said under his breath. “The Russians were messing with them before you and I were born. When I was in grade school, they were our problem. Now the Russians have them back again.” He looked up at Keach. “Seems they’re taking the opportunity to settle a lot of old scores.”

Keach shrugged. “Better them than us, sir.”

“Well. Be that as it may. Do we want this kid?”

Keach frowned, thinking. “It’s a safe bet the Russians do. The Sauron colonial government was always a huge embarrassment to them; an American colony with a home-grown socialist model that’s run by capitalists where everybody works and everybody is wealthy. Having a bright young Communist athlete around to break all the Sauron records in future events would be just the sort of thing that appeals to them.”

The President scowled. “Saurons may embarrass the Russians, but they just plain piss me off. The Sauron colony is rich, arrogant and too independent by half. Did you know they get full autonomy at the end of the decade?”

Keach knew. “That was your predecessor’s idea, John. Several other colonies do, as well. Not your fault and it won’t be your problem. You’ll be opening your Presidential Library by then.”

Holt gave him a look that disagreed. “I’ll still have to live in a world where Planet Skinhead has a vote in the CoDominium Senate.”

“That’s not really fair, John. The Sauron colony is almost as racially diverse as Earth.”

Holt almost guffawed. “Sure, as long as we don’t talk percentages. And the ethnic diversity of the place is melting very quickly into what our people are already calling ‘Sauron ethnicity.’ They can’t quite pick and choose their genes, not yet. But their whole culture revolves around
suitable matches
; arranged marriages, fetal genetic screenings, state-mandated gene therapy and quietly-but-firmly ‘state-advised’ abortion.

“Keach made a conciliatory gesture. “They can rightly claim zero birth defects and the lowest infant mortality rate in the CoDo.”

Holt nodded. “That’s true. But the way they’re getting those numbers would make a certain German chicken farmer of the twentieth century very proud.”

“Mister President, what do you want to do about the Royce girl?”

Holt thought a moment. “Haven’s one of ours, isn’t it?”

Keach looked uncomfortable. “Well… not exactly, no. The Church of New Harmony bought initial settlement rights. It was pretty much left to fend for itself ever since. First the mining consortia strong-armed their way onto Haven; that factionalized the place badly enough, but when the CoDominium created that Bureau of Relocation and started forced deportation to any world that couldn’t prevent it with CoDo Senate votes, the mining groups welcomed the potential for cheap labor with open arms. Now, ‘Haven’ is quite possibly the most inaccurately named colony in human history.”

“Hmm. Sounds like they could use some foreign aid. Have our people on the Hill look into a stimulus package for Haven. See what it needs and send a bunch of it in U.S.-licensed transport. If Haven is breeding people like young Miss Royce, we might want to look into taking this “Little Moon That Could” under the good old Eagle’s wings.”

“With Utkin running the CoDominium Senate this term, getting CoDo Navy assets to carry American aid to a neutral colony is bound to meet with some resistance,” Keach warned.

Holt shook his head. “Then we won’t try. Use all United States vessels. Nothing goes aboard CoDominium Navy transports. That reminds the Russians
and
the CoDo that we can afford this sort of thing with or without the CoDominium. And besides, I want something the American people can see as being all their own government’s doing.”

Holt pulled another foam basketball from a drawer in his desk and set up his shot.

“We’re all getting a little tired of this ‘one world’ stuff.”

TECHNOCRACY

Earth, Olympic Village, Brazil: 2082 A.D.

The host city of Rio de Janeiro had constructed the Olympic village around a central hall built to accommodate news conferences, interviews with the athletes, and speeches by the directors of the Interstellar Olympics Organizing Committee. Inexplicably and with no mention of it in the events calendar, midway through the games, the entire hall had been given over to a sort of “Family of Humanity” celebration. Since the Sauron System no longer sent competitors, but instead oversaw every aspect of the games, most of the attendees had only seen citizens of Sauron colony in their official administrative and largely humorless capacity, so not much was expected in the way of entertainment or cuisine.

But the event was sponsored by the CoDominium, which was this year chaired by a Russian. Few of Earth’s cultures could put on a feast like the Russians, and nobody in the entire CoDominium could throw a party like the Brazilians. The combination made for a memorable evening, and a delicious one.

Arlen Cavor was a third-generation Sauron colony citizen and the Activities Director of the games. An expert in logistics, Cavor’s was the guiding hand behind the flawless progression of every event that occurred outside the purview of his associate, Aishya Broome, Athletic Events Coordinator. Broome was also old-family Sauron colonial, and while Sauron dominance of the games had barred either of them from ever having competed, there were few events for which they could not have qualified, either in their youths or even now.

They stood together in the Host’s Box, an elevated room overlooking the floor of the hall, and watched the proceedings below.