Democracy's Might

Chapter Eighteen

Lord Pompey Cicero knew that he was considered stodgy and unimaginative. It wasn’t something that bothered him, not when he considered the other family members of his generation. Only a handful were really interested in anything other than enjoying themselves and not all of those could be trusted with anything significant. When he’d taken up a position in the family’s security force, he’d known it was a vote of confidence from the Family Head — and an acknowledgement that Pompey wouldn’t seek pleasure at the expense of the family.

It had been relatively simple picking a possible rebel target before Morrison, although he had to admit that he’d nearly gotten it wrong. Passion had lurked in a nearby system for a week before the courier boat had arrived, warning the system authorities that the rebels had attacked Tyson. Cursing his own oversight, Pompey had brought the drive online and flickered into the Tyson System even before Gwendolyn had climbed out of her bunk. He didn’t want to know what she was doing, but they’d spent as little time together as possible while they’d been on the ship.

Gwendolyn came onto the bridge and took a seat, watching as the rebel shuttle approached their starship. Pompey didn’t really like her; she might have had a mind like a steel trap, but she was almost terrifyingly ambitious. Given enough time, she might even be able to put together a challenge to the Family Head. Pompey knew that competition was one of the sources of strength, yet this was no time for competition. The Empire itself was at stake.

“So,” Gwendolyn said, running her fingers through her long blonde hair, “are we there yet?”

Pompey rolled his eyes. It was quite possible, he knew, that the rebels would simply take them captive and try to ransom them back to the family. Kidnapping an aristocrat bore the death sentence, but the rebels could hardly be executed twice. By now, they’d probably earned at least five or six death sentences apiece.

“Yes,” he said, simply. “I suggest that you try to restrain yourself when they board the ship. I do not believe they will feel inclined to defer to you.”

He gave her a sharp look. She wore a long white dress that was near-transparent in all the right places. It would be hard to imagine anything less like a diplomat… unless, of course, she wanted to be underestimated. The Thousand Families were heirs to a rejuvenation technology that could have a man of two hundred look barely twenty, but they did tend to disregard youth. Gwendolyn might well have profited, in the past, by looking young, nubile and innocent.

“And I’d tell you to change, if we had time,” he added. “But they’re almost here.”

A dull thump echoed through the hull as the shuttle docked with the forward airlock. The hatch hissed open a moment later, allowing the Marines to step into the ship. They looked alert, Pompey noted, although there was something about their movements that suggested they were very new or that they’d had very limited training. But there had always been a shortage of Marines, even before questions had been raised about their political reliability. It would have been easy for them to take control of a number of starships and start a revolution.

“Welcome onboard,” he said, calmly. “Please, make yourself at home.”

“Please remain where you are,” the Marine ordered. “Is there anyone else onboard this ship?”

“No,” Pompey said. Gwendolyn had started complaining, after the second day, that there was no one to do the hard work of cooking, cleaning and washing clothes. Pompey had taken it in his stride. Besides, his clothes were relatively simple. “We’re alone.”

The Marines didn’t take his word for it, unsurprisingly. Two of them remained on the bridge, not quite pointing their weapons at Pompey and Gwendolyn, while the remainder searched the ship from end to end. They didn’t find anything; Passion was unarmed, designed to be operated by a single person, as long as the automatics held out. Eventually, the Marines placed the entire ship into shutdown mode and led the two visitors into the shuttle. Inside, their bodies were thoroughly scanned, then confirmed clean. Pompey had even removed the implanted weapons he’d been given when he’d qualified as a security officer.

“Take a seat,” the Marine ordered, pointing to a pair of metal chairs. “We’ll have you on the superdreadnaught soon enough.”

Pompey nodded. Gwendolyn, for a wonder, kept her mouth shut. The Marines were being fairly decent, under the circumstances. If Pompey had been in charge of supervising unexpected guests, he would have searched them more carefully. But that would have been inconsiderate.

He smiled inwardly as the shuttle disengaged from the starship. They’d made it — and they’d made contact with the rebels. Now the ball was in Gwendolyn’s court.

“Interesting,” Colin commented, as the two newcomers were escorted out of the shuttle and marched towards the conference room that had been put aside for the meeting. “What do you think they want?”

“Lord Pompey and Lady Gwendolyn, both from the Cicero Family,” Mariko commented. It was rare to hear her speak at all, certainly not before Daria. “Both quite young, in age as well as body. Pompey is twenty-seven, according to the files; Gwendolyn is twenty-two. I think they’re probably rated as expendable if the talks go badly wrong.”

She paused. “But the Family Head is also unusually young,” she added. “He might be more flexible than the others.”

Colin nodded. It did make a certain kind of sense. The Thousand Families were dominated by the elderly, many of whom had allowed themselves to ossify mentally. It was true of the Imperial Navy too, he knew. The Admirals at Luna Base were often old enough to be Colin’s grandparents, but they still refused to retire gracefully and allow the young to move up and take their places.

“You clearly didn’t waste your time,” Daria said. “What else did you pull from the files?”

“Almost nothing about them specifically,” Mariko admitted. “The files rarely hold detailed information on non-naval personnel.”

There was a tap on the hatch. Colin tapped his console and the hatch opened, revealing the Marines and the two newcomers. He deactivated the monitor screen and stood as the newcomers were shown into the compartment, studying them both carefully. There was an air of competence around Pompey that he would have found reassuring, if they’d been on the same side. He was bland, utterly inoffensive… and his eyes were observing everything. It was impossible to escape the feeling that, young as he was, Pompey was a formidable man.

Gwendolyn was younger, wearing a dress that showed her assets to best advantage. Colin couldn’t help a flicker of attraction, which he fought down ruthlessly. Gwendolyn had clearly dressed to short-circuit their minds and it was working. Her face was perfect, the result of genetic engineering or cosmetic surgery, her hair shone like the sun. But her eyes were flickering everywhere, drinking in the entire compartment. No matter what she looked like, he realised, she was very capable at her chosen field. Her family had chosen its emissary very carefully.

“Welcome onboard,” Colin said, once the newcomers had sat down and the Marines had withdrawn. “I trust you’ll understand if we choose to forgo protocol for diplomatic meetings. It has been so long since they were actually necessary that we were unable to discover what the protocol actually was.”

Gwendolyn gave him a smile that was surprisingly sweet. “I quite understand,” she agreed, warmly. “Protocols have been out of date for centuries.”

Colin fought down the urge to snort rudely. The Empire’s idea of diplomacy boiled down to pointing a gun at someone who had something the Empire wanted and ordering them to hand it over — or else. And there had never been any hesitation about applying the stick if the carrot failed, assuming there was a carrot. There had been no attempt to bargain with Jackson’s Folly and her daughter worlds, even though it would have cost the Empire nothing to try to dicker. The Thousand Families had once owned the biggest stick in the known universe. Applying it had become second nature.

He studied Gwendolyn for a long moment, then smiled. “Let’s be blunt,” he said. “Why are you here?”

Gwendolyn placed her fingertips together and leaned forward, calling attention to her cleavage. “My family feels that we should attempt to open lines of communication,” she said. “There may be grounds for a mutually acceptable compromise.”

Colin lifted his eyebrows, deliberately exaggerating the gesture. “Our objective is to replace or reform the Empire,” he said. “That would include splitting up the Thousand Families into more manageable entities, at the very least, and removing all the laws they created to boost their own position at everyone else’s expense. I confess I have no idea what your family would consider a mutually acceptable compromise. Our goals are in complete opposition to yours.”

“Thank you for being blunt,” Gwendolyn said. She gave him a charming smile. “You must realise that destroying something the size of the Empire will be difficult. I do not believe that you have a significant advantage in firepower, even if you do have the assistance of the Geeks and Nerds. The further you move from your bases, the harder it will be to support your offensive.”

She was right, Colin knew, although they’d raided enemy bases for supplies. Tyson alone had given them enough missiles and spare parts to keep the offensive going for months, unless missile expenditures skyrocketed. Which might well happen, he had to admit. The closer they got to Earth, the more heavily defended worlds they would have to reduce or occupy. It was quite possible that the offensive would grind to a halt just short of Earth.

“You might be surprised,” he said, instead. He schooled his expression to remain calm, wondering just how good she was at reading people. It was possible that she had more experience than a standard intelligence officer. The Thousand Families could afford the best training for their children. “But what is your point?”

“Either way, a long war would be utterly devastating and whoever won would have to spend years picking up the pieces,” Gwendolyn said. “Economic ties would shatter, planets would starve… I believe you know the possible consequences. And the aliens would take advantage of our distraction to attempt to turn on us…”

This time, Colin snorted out loud. There were ten intelligent races known to exist, apart from humanity, and nine of them were effectively helpless, kept under such firm control that they couldn’t even build anything more dangerous than a steam engine. The tenth race had vanished long ago and no one had seen a trace of them since then. Unless there was another race out in the Beyond with an Empire that matched humanity’s — and he doubted it, because the Empire wouldn’t have hesitated to brand them a threat if they existed — aliens were no threat to humanity.

And humanity had exterminated two intelligent races…

“I think we both know that the aliens are in no position to turn on us,” he said, finally. “It is far more likely that they will be exterminated in the crossfire.”

Gwendolyn didn’t show any overt response to his rudeness. “The costs in both financial and personnel terms of a long war will be devastating,” she said. “I believe we can agree on that point, can’t we?”

“Perhaps,” Daria said. She leaned forward, crossing her arms under her ample breasts. “But the costs of allowing the Empire to exist are also devastating.”

“We don’t doubt that you feel that way,” Gwendolyn said. “However, you must ask yourself if it is really worth the cost of bringing us down if you bring yourself down at the same time.”

Colin tapped the table. “I confess that verbal fighting doesn’t interest me nearly as much as starship combat,” he said, rubbing his forehead. “We will provisionally concede your point.”

Gwendolyn smiled, brilliantly. “Then you will hear us out?”

“Get to the point,” Colin growled. “What are you offering us?”

“We would be prepared to listen to your concerns,” Gwendolyn said. “And we would handle them…”

Colin laughed, humourlessly. “And you’d like us to surrender our ships on your word alone?”

“There are reforms we could make,” Gwendolyn pointed out. “Reforms that would eliminate the need for a revolution…”

“But you would be asking us to trust that you would make those reforms,” Colin countered, sardonically. “Do you expect us to just trust you?”

“Not particularly,” Gwendolyn said. She shrugged, her face suddenly serious. “Right now, the Thousand Families are the glue that holds the Empire together. We control almost all of the Empire’s industry, much of the Imperial Navy and employ a very large percentage of the population. There are so many people under our control that even we couldn’t tell you just how many work for us, directly or indirectly. That is the truth of the edifice we have built up over a thousand years.”

Colin nodded, impatiently. “I know,” he said. “The point is certainly repeated often enough, isn’t it?”

Gwendolyn met his eyes. “Let us assume that you succeed,” she said. “The Thousand Families are shattered. What happens to the billions upon billions of people who work for us, directly or indirectly, if you bring that mighty edifice tumbling down?”

Daria coughed. “What happens to the billions upon billions of your victims if the edifice is left in place?”

Gwendolyn ignored her, focusing her attention on Colin. “We can reform the system, slowly and gently,” she said. “That will not bring it falling down, thus avoiding billions of people being thrown out of work and left to starve. But if you destroy the system…”

“People will suffer,” Colin snapped. “We get the point.”

He stared at Gwendolyn, daring her to look away. “What do you have to offer us?”

“We don’t yet know who will win,” Gwendolyn said. She didn’t look away; instead, she met his eyes evenly. “But we know that you might attain a decisive advantage. In that case, we would like to propose a compromise. We will surrender political power in exchange for being allowed to retain our economic power. It will give us time to adapt to the reshaped universe without tossing billions of people onto the streets.”

“Interesting,” Colin observed, finally. “And this is an offer from all of the Thousand Families or just yours?”

“Ours, for the moment,” Gwendolyn said. “We believe that the others would consider the compromise if the alternative was certain destruction.”

Daria smirked. “And what is to stop us sharing the recording of this meeting with the rest of the aristocracy?”

“Why, nothing,” Gwendolyn said. “Except, of course, there will be no further talks. Either you lose, because you were too stubbornly prideful to talk and compromise, or you win and the Empire shatters, forcing you to put it back together. And you know the consequences of that will be, at the very least, an interstellar dark age. Will you be able to hold even the Core Worlds together if the Thousand Families are gone?”

“I see,” Colin said. “You are here, then, not to open talks, but to discuss the possibility of talks. Talks based on us winning or losing or gaining a decisive advantage.”

“Essentially,” Gwendolyn said. “The Thousand Families will not talk to you, let alone compromise, until they are convinced that further fighting would be pointless.”

Colin rubbed his forehead, again. “And what,” he asked, “is to stop us from turning on them later?”

“We have no idea how you plan to reform the economic sphere,” Gwendolyn said. “The propaganda we picked up from the underground before we left Earth was very much a mixed bag. But we know it will take years for the economy to adjust to the chance, let alone allow competitors to rise up and threaten us. You can surrender your starships, but we cannot surrender our control over the economic levers of power.”

“We could simply take your industrial nodes,” Daria pointed out. “What’s to stop us from doing that, My Lady?”

Gwendolyn didn’t show any reaction to Daria’s tone. “The Empire’s economy depends on thousands of pieces functioning smoothly together,” she said, simply. “Yes, you could seize control of a handful of industrial nodes. You still wouldn’t be able to run them without rebuilding the entire network from scratch. Even convincing people that they couldn’t trust you to respect private property would do considerable damage. It will take you years to replace the system, by which time we will have adapted — or died out.”

Colin gave her a long considering look. “You believe your people will die out?”

“I believe that the Thousand Families will have to adapt,” Gwendolyn said. “If specific families fail, they will be replaced by their competitors and vanish into nothingness.”

“Thank you for coming,” Colin said, dryly. He wasn’t sure if he was sincere or not. “You two will be granted private quarters, but you will be under restriction. Should you cause any trouble, you will both go out the airlock.”

He called for the Marines, who took the two ambassadors away.

“Well,” Daria said, once the hatch had closed. “That was interesting.”

“Very interesting,” Colin agreed. “I wish Hester was here. She could do a better job of sorting out what they told us.”

He looked down at the desk, thinking hard. If Gwendolyn and Pompey were to be trusted — although Pompey hadn’t said a word — there were already cracks appearing in the Empire’s united front. Who knew how best it could be exploited? But, at the same time, they would have to be careful. Gwendolyn was clearly far more experienced in deceit than Colin himself.

“True,” Daria agreed. She smiled, but there was no real humour in the expression. “We’ll have to be careful they don’t talk us into signing the future over to them.”