Shadow of Freedom

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Excuse me?”

Stephen Westman, of the Montana Westmans, tipped back his spotless white Stetson the better to raise both eyebrows at the rather unassuming looking man who’d just been shown into his office.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any kind of documentation to support this tale of yours?” he went on.

“No, Mr. Westman,” his visitor admitted. “Not that you’drecognize, anyway.”

“Ah, I see. You have some kind of code word or secret handshake Admiral Gold Peak will recognize, but for some reason you need me to introduce you to her.” He shook his head, blue eyes hard. “Mister, I realize it wasn’t so very long ago I got played like a fiddle, but you know, even a Montanan can learn. Hell, even a Westman can learn if you use a big ’nough cluestick!”

“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” the visitor said with a puzzled expression. “I was just given your name as a person to contact here on Montana who might have the connections—and be willing—to put me in touch with the senior Manticoran naval officer in the system. All I need is the opportunity to speak to whoever that is. If that’s this ‘Admiral Gold Peak,’ then that’s who I need to talk to.”

Westman frowned. He’d never seen this stranger before, and he couldn’t place the man’s accent. The fellow had just turned up in the office he maintained here in the Montana capital of Brewster, shown credentials identifying him as a purchasing agent for the Trifecta Corporation, and announced his interest in acquiring Montanan beef for export to the Mobius System. Given that Mobius was little more than a hundred and ninety light-years from Montana—about two T-months for a normal bulk hauler, but barely three T-weeks for the faster ships that served the passenger and perishable goods trades—the idea actually made quite a lot of sense. According to the purchasing agent, the cost of beef in Mobius, where livestock producers were few and far between and even genetically engineered cattle had adapted only poorly to the local environment, was about ninety Manticoran dollars a kilo, as opposed to considerably less than three dollars a kilo here on Montana. Mobian beef wasn’t especially good, either, whereas Montana’s beef had a galaxy-wide five-star quality rating (and quite a few gourmands would have given it six stars, if they’d been allowed to), and interstellar freight rates were ridiculously cheap. He could easily afford to pay Westman five or six times the spaceport delivery price on Montana and still show a five or six hundred-percent profit.

From what little Westman knew about Mobius, it seemed unlikely the typical Mobian was going to be able to afford prices like that. There were probably enough transstellar employees and their flunkies to make it a viable long-term proposition, though. And that wasn’t really his problem, either way, so he’d flown into Brewster to meet with the man. At which point the “purchasing agent” had sprung his surprise.

Question is, is he really as pig ignorant about my little dustup here on Montana as he’s pretending? Seems unlikely, if I’m s’posed to be willing to act as his introduction, but let’s be fair, Stevie. Montana’s not exactly the center of the known universe as far as people living somewhere else are concerned. Things might’a got just a little garbled in transmission.

The real problem, he admitted to himself, was that he had been played like a fiddle by “Firebrand,” the Mesan agent provocateur who’d offered to provide his own resistance effort with weapons for his campaign to prevent Montana from becoming part of the Star Empire of Manticore. He’d done some stupid things in his life, but right off hand, he couldn’t think of any which had been stupider than that one. For one thing, he’d been wrong about the Manties. For that matter, he’d even been wrong about Bernardus Van Dort, and that had been a really unpleasant pill to swallow. But what he found even harder to forgive himself for was accepting Firebrand at face value. When he’d discovered he’d actually been working with something as foul as Manpower, Incorporated…

Come on, Steve, he told himself. Even if this fella knows all about your bout of temporary insanity, nobody’d be stupid enough to try and suck you in the same way twice. Well, maybe they would if they really knew you, but assuming they’d figure you actually have a working brain, they wouldn’t try to set you up the same way all over again. But still, this whole thing sounds loonier than a tenderfoot trying to cross the Missouri Gorge on foot.

“’Scuse me for asking this, Mr. Ankenbrandt, but you said somebody gave you my name because I might ‘be willing’ to sort of introduce you around. Exactly why did whoever it was seem to think I might be willing to do any such thing? And what made ’em choose me over all the other lunatics on this planet?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to either of those questions,” the purchasing agent replied. “Except for the obvious, that is.”

“Obvious?” Westman chuckled sourly. “Pardon me for saying this, but nothing about this strikes me as ‘obvious.’”

“Sorry.” Ankenbrandt smiled briefly. “What I meant was that Trifecta really is interested in exploring the market in Mobius for Montana beef. That means nobody’s going to ask any questions about my happening to meet with somebody who exports beef from Montana. Aside from that, I really don’t know why they put your name on my list of contacts.”

“And who might this ‘they’ be?”

“I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to disclose that to anyone except the senior Manticoran officer in-system.” Ankenbrandt’s tone sounded genuinely apologetic.

“I see.” Westman studied the Solarian narrowly. “And if I should happen to turn all suspicious and hand your out-world ass—if you’ll pardon my language—over to the Marshal Service with the recommendation that they just purely investigate the hell out of you?”

“I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” Ankenbrandt said. “It wouldn’t be a pleasant experience, and they wouldn’t find anything anyway. On the other hand, it could get me, and a lot of other people, into a lot of trouble if the wrong people back in Mobius were to hear about it. And to be honest, I don’t think the Manties would be very happy with you if that happened.”

Damned if he doesn’t sound like the real deal, Westman reflected. And from his expression, I think he’s telling the truth about how much trouble he could get into back home. He’s mighty insistent on how bad the Manties’re going to want to talk to him, too. Even if they don’t know he’s coming!

“Well,” he said out loud after a moment, “I’m afraid if you want me to introduce you to Admiral Gold Peak, you’re out of luck. I’ve met the lady, but she and I don’t frequent the same circles.” Ankenbrandt’s expression fell, but Westman continued unhurriedly. “Just happens, though, that I do know at least one Manty officer who’d be able to get you in to see her. Assuming, of course, you can convince him that’d be a good idea.” The Montanan smiled slowly. “Mind you, he doesn’t convince real easy, and he’s just a mite on the stubborn side himself. ’Fraid that’s about the best I can do for you, though. Interested?”

Ankenbrandt was obviously torn. He turned and looked out the office windows for a good fifteen seconds, clearly thinking hard, then turned back to Westman.

“If that’s the best you can do—and if you’re willing to go that far for me—I’ll take your offer and be grateful,” he said.

“Fine.”

Westman tapped his personal com awake, entered a combination from memory, and turned to look out the windows himself, waiting. It took a little longer than usual for the connection to go through, then he smiled out at the passing air cars of downtown Brewster.

“Howdy, Helen,” he said, and his voice had grown much warmer. “Tell me, would it happen the Commodore—and you, of course—would be able to join me at The Rare Sirloin for dinner in a couple of hours, say?” He listened for a moment, still looking out the window, and snorted. “No, I haven’t gone back to my wicked ways, young lady! But”—his expression sobered—“it ’pears somebody else may have something along those lines he wants to talk about.” He listened again. “I don’t mind holding,” he said then.

He stood at the windows, whistling softly, for several seconds. Then—

“Yes?” He listened again, then nodded in satisfaction. “Fine! Tell the Commodore I appreciate it, and I’ll see both of you then. Clear.”

He deactivated the com again and turned to the Solarian.

“Well, there you go, Mr. Ankenbrandt. You’ve got your meeting. Just bear in mind that neither the Commodore nor I are real fond of people who try to play us for fools.”

* * *

“Yes, Aivars? What can I do for you?” Michelle Henke asked.

“This is going to sound a little strange, Ma’am,” Sir Aivars Terekhov said from her com display.

“There’s a lot of that going around lately,” she replied dryly.

“I meant, it’s going to sound even stranger than most of what’s been happening,” he explained with a slight smile, and she raised her eyebrows.

“You fill me with dread. Go ahead.”

“Well, Ensign Zilwicki and I had dinner down on Montana with an old…acquaintance of ours an hour or so ago. And that acquaintance had brought along a guest with an odd request. It seems—”

* * *

The admittance signal chimed, and Michelle Henke glanced over her shoulder at Master Sergeant Massimiliano Cognasso. Master Sergeant Cognasso—Miliano to his friends—was scarcely accustomed to hobnobbing with flag officers who also happened to be third in line for the imperial throne. He was, however, a twenty-T-year veteran of the Royal Manticoran Marines, and while he might not have been precisely comfortable, he didn’t seem all that distressed, either.

Nor did the real reason for his presence seem especially flustered. The treecat on Cognasso’s shoulder had his head up and his ears pricked as he turned to look at the inner side of the cabin hatch, but although the very tip of his fluffy tail was kinked up in a question mark, it was also still and alert. There were exactly two treecats in Tenth Fleet, as Michelle had made it Gervais Archer’s business to discover. That was actually an amazingly high number, given how few treecats adopted humans, but only Cognasso and Alfredo had been close enough for Gervais to get them aboard HMS Artemis in time for this meeting.

“Are you two ready, Master Sergeant?” Michelle asked, and Cognasso nodded.

“Yes, Ma’am,” he replied.

“Good.” Michelle smiled, then looked at the treecat. “And remember, Alfredo. We don’t want him to know if you catch him in a lie.”

The ’cat raised his right hand, signing the letter “Y” and “nodding” it up and down, and Michelle nodded back. Then she pressed the admittance stud on her desk and sat back as Chris Billingsley led Sir Aivars Terekhov and a civilian stranger into her day cabin.

“Commodore Terekhov and…guest, Milady,” Billingsley announced formally, and Michelle rose behind the desk and extended her hand.

“Sir Aivars,” she said, speaking a bit more formally than usual herself.

“Admiral Gold Peak,” he replied, shaking her hand firmly. “Thank you for agreeing to see us so promptly, especially under such unusual circumstances.”

“Ah, yes. ‘Unusual,’” she repeated. “That does seem an appropriate adjective. And this”—she transferred her gaze to the civilian at Terekhov’s side without extending her hand—“must be the mysterious Mr. Ankenbrandt.”

“Yes, Admiral.” Ankenbrandt gave her a small bow.

He was one of the most unmemorable people Michelle had ever seen: well dressed and well groomed, but with an almost mousy look. The sort who was obviously a numbers kind of person, a master of the internal dynamics of a corporate office, perhaps, but not the kind who got out much.

That was her first thought, but then her eyes narrowed slightly. According to Terekhov’s briefing, Michael Ankenbrandt hadn’t known a thing about her before the commodore agreed to get him in to see her. He hadn’t even known the Manticoran fleet commander’s name, much less who she was related to. Yet even though he was obviously more than a little nervous, he was also composed. There was anxiety in his eyes, perhaps, but not a trace of panic.

“So what can I do for you, Mr. Ankenbrandt?” she inquired, pointing at the pair of chairs arranged to face her desk.

She glanced up at Billingsley and nodded in dismissal while her guests sat. The steward gave her a grumpy look—obviously, he didn’t much care for the thought of leaving her with a stranger in an age of nanotech assassinations—but he didn’t argue. He did exchange a speaking look with Master Sergeant Cognasso before he withdrew with what he probably thought was reasonable gracefulness, however.

Michelle did her best to ignore the exchange, although her lips twitched ever so slightly as she gazed at Ankenbrandt attentively.

“The situation’s a bit…awkward, Countess Gold Peak,” the civilian said after a moment. “To be frank, when I left Mobius, no one had any idea there might be a fleet presence this powerful at Montana. This was supposed to be just an intermediate stop on my way to Spindle and Baroness Medusa.”

Despite herself, Michelle’s eyebrows rose, and he shook his head.

“As I said, it’s awkward. Under the circumstances, though, I felt I had no choice but to dust off one of the optional plans I was given when I left.”

“Optional plans?” Michelle repeated.

“The people I represent have been in communication with the Star Empire for some time now, Admiral,” Ankenbrandt said levelly. “It’s been an indirect communication, through some fairly roundabout conduits, and I don’t know whether or not you’ve been briefed on it from Manticore’s end.”

His rising tone made the last statement a question, and Michelle shook her head.

“To be honest, Mr. Ankenbrandt, what I know about the Mobius System is minute, to say the very least. And nobody in Spindle—or anywhere else—has briefed me on anything where the system’s concerned.”

“I was afraid that would be the case.” Ankenbrandt sighed. “I hoped I might be wrong, though.”

“Why?” Michelle asked bluntly.

“Because I’m afraid time is running out for Mobius,” Ankenbrandt replied flatly. “If you’d been briefed, you might be prepared to do something about that. Since you haven’t been…”

His voice trailed off, and he shrugged heavily.

Michelle looked at him for a moment, then glanced at her desktop display. It was set to mirror mode, showing the reflections of Master Sergeant Cognasso and Alfredo, and she reached out to fiddle with a crystal paperweight engraved with the hull number of her first hyper-capable command. An instant later, Alfredo casually laid his left true-hand on Cognasso’s head.

So whatever else is going on, this fellow at least thinks he’s telling us the truth, she thought. Which is all just as mysterious as hell, isn’t it, Mike? Oh, the joys of senior flag rank!

“No, I haven’t been briefed,” she said calmly, tipping her chair back and resting her elbows on its arms so she could steeple her fingers under her chin. “If you’d care to tell me what’s going on, though, I’m more than willing to listen. Whether I’ll be prepared to believe you, or to act on whatever you have to say, is another matter, of course. So, on that basis, is there something you’d care to tell me about?”

* * *

“I’m sorry, Milady, but that’s got to be the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard of,” Aploloniá Munming said some hours later. Then she seemed to realize what she’d just said and shook her head. “Scratch that. We’ve been hearing some pretty damned ridiculous things generally over the last few months, and it seems an appalling number of them are more accurate than we’d like. So let’s just say I find this Ankenbrandt’s story a bit difficult to accept.”

“I’d put it a bit more strongly than that, myself, Admiral Gold Peak,” Rear Admiral Mickaël Ruddock said.

The red-haired, blue-eyed Ruddock commanded the second division of Munming’s superdreadnought squadron, and he was even more bluntly spoken (if possible) then Munming, Michelle reflected. That could be because he was on the smallish side and felt a little defensive about his lack of centimeters. Or, even more likely, it could be because he was a Gryphon highlander…and on the smallish side.

“I’d be inclined t’ go along with Admiral Munming and Admiral Ruddock,” Michael Oversteegen mused out loud, “if Alfredo and Master Sergeant Cognasso hadn’t vouched for him.”

“I thought the same thing,” Michelle admitted, sipping from the steaming mug of coffee Billingsley had deposited on the briefing room table at her elbow. “But Alfredo does vouch for him. Whatever else he may have been doing, he wasn’t lying. And Alfredo also confirms that his anxiety over what’s going on in Mobius is genuine.” She shrugged. “However bizarre it sounds, Ankenbrandt really is playing messenger for a bunch of people who’ve been—or who think they’ve been, anyway—in contact with and receiving clandestine support from the Star Empire.”

“Forgive me, Ma’am,” Cynthia Lecter said, “but that’s crazy. I mean, from the timetable he’s described, they’ve been in contact with us since before Commodore Terekhov even sailed for Monica.” She nodded respectfully in Terekhov’s direction without ever looking away from Michelle. “We had absolutely no interest in this region at that point. Why in God’s name would we have been making clandestine contacts with a resistance movement directed at Frontier Security?”

“Now, now, Cindy,” Michelle corrected, waving an index finger gently. “It’s not a resistance movement against OFS. It’s a resistance movement against this President Lombroso. He’s just an OFS lackey, not the real thing, like they have in Madras.”

“That doesn’t change my point, Ma’am,” Lecter replied with a certain respectful asperity. “It would still have been an incredibly foolish, risky, ultimately pointless thing for us to have done. And if we had been doing anything of the sort, and if Baroness Medusa really knew about it, do you think she would’ve sent us out here without at least mentioning it to you?”

“No, Cindy, I don’t,” Michelle said calmly. “That doesn’t mean they haven’t been in contact with somebody, though. And it doesn’t mean they don’t believe it’s Manticore they’ve been talking to.”

“But…what would be the point?” Lecter asked almost plaintively.

“Aivars?” Michelle invited, looking at the tall, blond commodore.

“The same points you’re raising occurred to me when I first heard Ankenbrandt’s story, Captain Lecter,” Terekhov said, looking down the table at Michelle’s chief of staff. “In fact, I was inclined—especially in the absence of a treecat lie detector of my own—to write him off as either a complete crackpot or a Frontier Security plant trying to suck us into a misstep. Frankly, I’m still not completely ready to dismiss the second possibility. Even if he believes he’s telling us the truth, he and all of his friends in Mobius could’ve been set up by OFS for that very purpose. On the other hand, as you pointed out yourself, there’s the timetable. I can’t see why Frontier Security would have been worrying about setting anything like this up before we ever crossed swords with Monica.

“As I say, I was about to write him off when Ensign Zilwicki suggested a third possibility to me. I realize some people”—he carefully refrained from looking in Admiral Munming’s direction—“may be inclined to wonder if her father’s…radicalism, let’s say, might affect her judgment. I don’t happen to think that’s very likely in her case, but even if it were, her suggestion still made a lot of sense to me.”

“And that suggestion was, Sir Aivars?” Munming asked, but she was eyeing him intently, and her tone suggested she’d already figured out where he was headed.

“Ensign Zilwicki suggested that it’s possible we—and, for that matter, the resistance people in Mobius—are being set up, but not by Frontier Security. As she pointed out, it’s obvious from Crandall’s movements that Mesa must have put her into play at the same time they started providing battlecruisers to Monica. Which, just coincidentally, would have been about the same time Ankenbrandt says his resistance organization was initially contacted by ‘Manticore.’ Or, for that matter, the time somebody began talking to Mr. Westman here on Montana and Nordbrandt in Kornati.”

“You’re suggesting it’s actually this Mesan Alignment, Commodore?” Roddick said slowly.

“The original notion wasn’t mine, Admiral, but I think it makes a lot of sense. Especially if the rather sketchy information we have so far from home is accurate and Mesa’s been maneuvering us into a shooting confrontation with the League all along. If one of the local régimes or OFS itself were to break a resistance movement, all of whose leaders genuinely believed they’d been instigated, coordinated, and supplied by the Star Empire, how do you think the League would have reacted even before our current confrontations?”

There was silence for several seconds. Then Oversteegen nodded.

“Always did think Helen had a pretty good head on her shoulders,” he drawled. “An’ sometimes a little paranoia’s a useful thing. And speakin’ about bein’ paranoid, does anyone think—assumin’ this little scenario holds atmosphere—that the bastards would’ve stopped with settin’ up one resistance movement?”

“I don’t know about ‘anyone,’” Michelle said, “but I don’t. Assuming, as you say, Ensign Zilwicki’s hypothesis holds atmosphere. And I’m very much afraid it could. For that matter, I’m afraid there’s still worse to come” She cocked her head at the commodore. “Would you care to go ahead and share the rest of your unpleasant ruminations with everyone else, as well, Aivars?”

“I wouldn’t like to take complete credit for them, Ma’am,” Terekhov pointed out. “In fact, once Helen—Ensign Zilwicki, I mean—had gone that far, another rather nasty thought occurred to her. If this really is Mesa, and if they’ve contacted not just Mobius but other independent or protectorate star systems out this way, what happens when the balloons start going up? When OFS and Frontier Fleet move in to put down the ‘rebellions’ and the blood starts to flow? It wouldn’t just be a matter of the PR damage we’d take in the League. Bad enough hundreds or thousands of people would be killed, but if dozens of resistance movements start sending us messengers like Mr. Ankenbrandt, expecting the open assistance and support they’ve been promised, and we don’t deliver, what happens to the tendency for independent star systems to trust us more than the Sollies?”

“Those fucking bastards,” Ruddock said softly, then shook himself. “Sorry about that, Milady,” he said apologetically, “but I believe Commodore Terekhov and—Ensign Zilwicki—have just converted my skepticism into something else.” His eyes hardened dangerously. “You’ve almost got to admire them. Aside from the time they’ve invested in it, look how little it’s cost them to set all this up!”

“That thought occurred to me, too, when Commodore Terekhov first shared this whole fascinating train of thought with me,” Michelle said sourly. “And it leads to an interesting quandary, doesn’t it?”

Heads nodded all around the table, and she inhaled sharply.

“All right.” She sat up straighter, tapping an index finger on the table for emphasis as she continued. “All of this is hypothetical, of course. I’m not going to pretend I don’t think there’s something to it, though. And, to be honest, there are some potential upsides to the situation. For one thing, although I don’t think the strategy ever actually occurred to anyone on our side, it really is a damned good way to force the League to disperse its efforts. That’s one of the things that’s going to make our supposed complicity so convincing to the Sollies when the shit finally gets around to hitting the fan. At the same time, we don’t have any way to know how many other Mobiuses may be ticking away out there. And the truth is that Ensign Zilwicki’s final hypothesis is downright scary. The damage this could do to the Star Empire’s reputation outside the League doesn’t bear thinking about.”

She looked around the table again.

“So we’re going to begin contingency planning now. Especially after how effectively Captain Zavala’s squadron performed in Saltash, I don’t think it’s going to take wallers to support something like Mobius. A destroyer division or a couple of cruisers should be able to handle anything Frontier Fleet’s likely to be able to spare for rebel-thumping. I’m not going to disperse my main combat strength, but I want plans to peel off light forces to respond to any of these ‘Manticore-supported rebellions’ we hear about. We can’t do anything about the ones we don’t know about, and I sure as hell don’t want to encourage even more ‘spontaneous uprisings.’ For that matter, what I’d really prefer would be to turn up in the role of peacemaker before things get too far out of hand. In the real world, that’s not going to happen, though, and we all know it. So the way I see it, in this respect at least, we have no choice but to dance to the Alignment’s music…assuming Mesa really is behind it, of course. I’ve already sent a dispatch boat on to Spindle with my conclusions, and to be frank, I’d be delighted to have guidance from Baroness Medusa and Prime Minister Alquezar before things get even more lively out here. In the meantime, though, I’m not going to let Mesa get away with branding us not just as instigators of rebellion but as the sort of people who abandon our catspaws when the blood actually begins to flow.”