Between the Stars (17 page)

"I lied!"

There was a tremendous uproar and he felt himself jerked backward. It was Ulric, glaring furiously from between frosty eyebrows and mustache. "Let's get you out of here, you young fool, before they tear you to shreds. '' Along with a team of family strongarms, Ulric hustled him outside the chamber and into a clan-owned bar that catered largely to ship's crews. There they could watch the proceedings in a large holo wall.

"Does everything get done in bars out here?" Valentina asked.

"Not everywhere," François told her. "But on Avalon, yes. Who wants an office when you can be comfortable instead? Besides, we're the biggest booze producer in the Confederacy, so it's good for business."

For the first two hours of the session, Sieglinde told the delegates of her discoveries. She used more detail than she had the evening before, and she was interrupted frequently. By the end of it pandemonium reigned.

"You know," Ulric said, "they're seeing all this on Earth."

"With about a twelve-minute delay," Derek said. "But then, how could we ever keep any of this secret now?"

In the holo, a delegate in a dazzling white turban had seized the initiative. "Professor Taggart, how do we know that these claims of yours are not just so much fantasy-spinning?"

"For one thing, Ali,"she said, "I'm here in Avalon and you're in Deryabar, way the hell over on the other side of the sun, but we're talking without any time lag. That proves that I've cracked the superluminal communication problem, something most of my colleagues claimed to be impossible.''

"Now that's impressed them," Derek said proudly. "They can't argue with that."

"They can and will," Ulric countered. "But I think they'll come around. This can't be ignored for long."

"How many do you think will vote to leave?" Valentina asked.

"Two-thirds," Derek said, confidently.

"Half," Ulric said. "Maybe as high as two-thirds, but I doubt it. Some are too attached to the system, especially the religious settlements. There'll even be those who actually want to stay and fight a war."

"But," Valentina asked, "can people just vote to leave the Confederacy?"

"Certainly," said François indignantly. "It's the first article in our constitution."

"It's hard to believe," she maintained, "that a nation would be sure to include a formula for its destruction in its very constitution."

"Didn't you notice the motto over the
Althing
entrance?" Antigone asked. "It says 'The state exists for the people, not the people for the state.' A good many of the asteroid worlds never even joined the Confederacy, although the texts on Earth would have it other wise. They prefer a grand conspiracy of offworlders against the motherworld."

The debate in the
Althing
raged for hours. The group in the bar watched attentively for a while, then started playing poker. In the midst of a hand, Derek glanced at the holowall.

"Dealer takes two. How do you—"

"What is it?" Ulric asked impatiently. He held two pair, kings over jacks.

"Do we have a camera in there?" Derek said.

"Yes, why?"

"Get it back on that woman who was just talking, the one from Atlantis." The picture swiveled to the woman, who was now speaking to someone beside her. "There. Two rows behind her, three spaces to the left. Get a closeup of that man."

The picture zoomed and Valentina hissed. "It's him! Vladyka!"

Frantically, they left the table and rushed toward the
Althing
chamber. Ulric barked rapid-fire orders into a handset. François scooped up the table stakes.

Daniko Vladyka was in his element. He had come to enemy territory, and now he was going to kill his victim in the assembly of the enemy's leaders and then get away clean. It would be a work of art. He saw that the Kornfeld woman had changed from her Pellier disguise. She now more closely resembled the descriptions he had heard from witnesses.

The weapon he had chosen for the assassination was perfect—undetectable to any but the most advanced search. He was almost disappointed that no one had searched him as he had entered the chamber. Not even an elementary frisking! It was all too amateurish for words.

The aiming device was implanted in his right eye, so beautifully designed and perfectly miniaturized that he was unaware of it until it was activated. The laser generator was located inside his rib cage, its beam conducted along an optical fiber under the skin of his arm. It emerged from beneath the nail of his right forefinger. When he locked on target, all he had to do was point casually and activate. The invisible beam would do its work in perfect silence.

Nobody would notice what he had done. There were people pointing at her and shouting everywhere. He had several exit routes planned, each of them with a number of handy spots to don a new disguise in case some busybody should, by a fantastic chance, run a holo of the event and somehow spot him. It was almost beneath him to take such precautions against these innocent lummoxes, but a professional had to be thorough.

Kornfeld stood to make another address. She seemed to have most of the assembly on her side now. He hadn't been paying the slightest attention to her speeches or the debate. It wasn't his job. The dramatic moment was correct. He activated. The sighting device in his eye framed her face, the frame blinked when it was on target, an intense spot of blue light appeared between her eyes. He raised his hand and extended it.

Then his concentration was broken by something unbelievable. There was a tingling in his left hand. The chrono on his middle finger was vibrating in a simple, unmistakable pattern. There had to be something wrong, but the message was clear: Abort Mission.

He had seldom felt such rage in his life. He was keyed to the highest pitch to perform this assassination, not only as a duty, but as a work of art. Such a perfect moment might never come again. But Daniko Vladyka was a professional, and he lowered his hand. By no gesture had he betrayed his emotions to those standing near him.

There was nothing to keep him in the stifling chamber, so he turned to leave. That was when he noticed the security people closing in. What a bother, he thought. Making his way out through these amateurs would not be nearly the satisfaction that the assassination would have been.

As he entered the short tunnel that led out onto the main concourse, he touched off a smoke bomb that carried with it an overpowering scent of ozone. Amid the uproar this set off, he stepped unseen into a covered tunnel he had mapped out earlier. This led to a tool room that apparently hadn't been used in years. When he stepped out a few minutes later, the smoke was clearing and he had a new face and clothing.

The incident had caused excitement, but no panic. People accustomed to dealing with shipboard fires and breached walls didn't panic easily. The security force looked wildly about, but none spared a second glance for the elderly, professorial man with the silver hair.

THIRTEEN

Vladyka, in
Ivo the Black
, rendezvoused with the featureless ship three hours out from Avalon. His mole in the North Polar port had passed him through, a simple duty for which the man was well compensated on an annual basis.

He was still fuming. What might have been the high point of his career had been thwarted by bad timing. The ship he approached was larger than
Ivo
, a simple cylinder with no marking or lettering whatever. At one time, such craft had been favored by pirates and hijackers.

The ships matched velocity and docked. Vladyka pulled himself aboard the other vessel and drew himself hand over hand along a dimly lit tunnel to the control room. The man inside was as featureless as his ship. He was smallish and wore a dull gray coverall. Vladyka recognized him as Shevket's head of intelligence operations. He'd had no idea the man was even in space.

"What," Vladyka demanded, "is the meaning of this—this
coitus interruptus
of a mission?"

"Calm yourself, Daniko," said Roman Korda. "The general has made many contingency plans. He was monitoring that unspeakable woman's performance back on the motherworld. As soon as he realized the gist of what she was saying, he signaled me to put into effect plan L, and I signaled you to abort. It is now desirable that she remain alive."

"If the general, or you, had signaled an instant later, she would be dead," Vladyka said.
Somebody
had to know how close he had come.

"I knew you could accomplish it, Daniko," Roman soothed, tired as always of having to stroke the egos of temperamental, high-strung field operatives. "But what is the death of one miserable woman? Wait until I explain the general's brilliant plan. You will be responsible for some killings that will be remembered for the rest of human history."

Vladyka was intrigued. "Of course," he said, mollified, "I would never question the general's judgment. Please explain my new duties."

Korda spoke for a long time, and as he did, Vladyka grew more and more excited. By the end of the recitation, he had entirely forgotten about the aborted assassination of Sieglinde Kornfeld-Taggart.

Carstairs stood on a terrace of the Great Palace of the United Nations. He looked down at Lake Geneva, the quiet waters reflecting the perfect blue of the sky. The palace was a marvel of architecture, the setting was perfect, the view was spectacular. It was as if all the efforts of man and nature had been bent to creating one flawless, peaceful place in a woefully imperfect world.

"God, I hate this fucking place," Carstairs said.

"It's a bit different from England," Mansfield agreed cautiously.

"Doesn't look like anybody's ever worked here. I'll bet nobody has since the construction crew left. Give me the docks any day."

"Was this such a good idea, sir?" Mansfield said. Instinctively, he spoke in a low voice. It was futile, since spying instruments could pick up any enunciated sound, and cameras could interpret lip and tongue motions, however subdued.

"Oh, for God's sake, Greg, speak out. If those two slimy barstids hear us, so what? Do you think they'll decide to kill us all over again? We've been assured that this is the one place in the world where you can talk without being overheard, but who knows? It was designed by conspirators to facilitate conspiracies, so maybe it's true, but what of that?"

"It is the first time," Mansfield said, pointedly, "that you've accepted a summons like this. Always before, they came to you. No matter how powerful they were, no matter what absurd title you labored under, they came trooping to your office, hat in hand. That was how everyone that counted knew who held the real power. All the rest was mere stage dressing. "

"Right. Well, things change, Greg. Time marches on. Our boy Shevket is top dog now, for a while, anyway. And here the bugger comes now, all puffed up like a frog full of swamp gas."

Shevket crossed the terrace, closely followed by Larsen. As if on a signal, the rest of his entourage stopped and the two continued until they were within two feet of Carstairs.

"Welcome to Geneva, Mr. Carstairs," said Larsen. "And you also, Mr. Mansfield. We do not see you here often enough."

"Too often for my taste," Carstairs said. "Once a year for the opening session's as much as my stomach can take."

"It's a mistake," Shevket said coolly, "for one who would wield power to avoid the places where power resides. It has been a miscalculation of many rulers who failed. Louis Sixteenth at Versailles, for instance, or Tiberius at Capri."

"It seems to me your reading of history's a bit shallow, General," Carstairs countered. "Those were men who inherited their power. The ones who grabbed it for themselves didn't waste their time in decadent old cities full of parasites." He gazed around him at the crowds scurrying about the palace.

"You didn't catch Alexander hanging around the gym iIn Athens, fondling the bare bums of all those ephebes, now, did you? No, he was always out conquering someplace or else up in Pella. Did your old hero, Genghis Khan, sit around stuffing himself with egg rolls in Peking or whatever was the Chinese capital in those days? Not a chance, mate. He stayed up there in Mongolia and pulled the strings. No flock of court eunuchs for him. I think old Napoleon might have made something of himself if he hadn't been so addicted to Paris. If the bugger'd gone back to Corsica and run things from there, the whole world would be speaking French right now."

Shevket reddened but Larsen cut in smoothly. "Why, Mr. Carstairs, your proletarian manner is just a pose! You've been a secret scholar all along."

"Even a poor boy can learn a few things by reading a bit," Carstairs said. "Of course, we draw different conclusions; can't help that. We don't all choose the same way to implement what we've learned, either. Some of us choose to organize working men as a way to power; others prefer to work with criminals."

"Carstairs," Shevket said, his face flaming, "you go too far!"

"Do I now?" Carstairs said. "Perhaps so. After so many years of having the likes of you and all the rest here queuing up to kiss my arse, I might have got too used to being the one who decided what's too far and what isn't."

Larsen and Mansfield went deathly pale, but abruptly Shevket relaxed and grinned. "That is an admission, coming from you. Come along, Mr. Carstairs. There are some things I would like for you to see before we must endure that tedious state luncheon."

"That's fair," Carstairs said. "If you can show me anything interesting about this place, you'll be the first one since I first came here forty years ago."

Shevket and Carstairs crossed the terrrace, Larsen and Mansfield three paces behind them, Shevket's entourage ten paces behind the second pair. They passed through a lavish portal, descended a ceremonial staircase and walked to a balcony overlooking a gigantic room fall of humans and little, rolling robots, all rushing about and shouting like traders in a stock exchange. This, supposedly, was the room where much of the world's political work got done.

"Fine sight," Carstairs said. "Ambassadors, representatives, military attachés, speakers, the works. All of them pretending to be running the world's business. I probably get more work done in an hour over my old telephone than the lot of 'em all year. What am I supposed to see here?"

"Look more closely," Shevket urged. "What do you notice that is different?"

"Seems to be a younger crowd," Carstairs said.

"Very good. We in the Victory party have been clearing out a great deal of dead wood. Bringing a new spirit to the world."

"Also a great many more uniforms in evidence."

"There you have the most important change," Shevket said. "The one part of society that truly matters is at last going to achieve its deserved prominence, unpolluted by the influence of merchants and politicians."

Carstairs laughed uproariously. Shevket grew deadly grim. "Will you share this humor with us, Mr. Carstairs?"

"General, I can't believe you're serious! I've dealt with the military leadership all my professional life, and I've never encountered such a set of scheming politicians as them! You're an intelligent man, General Shevket. You can't seriously believe that a modern military establishment constitutes some sort of pristine warrior elite. They're a bunch of buggers with jobs and careers, and when there's a war, they control a pack of draftees that just want to go home. I've bought and sold your warriors, General, and believe me, they came cheap!"

The two men faced each other across a distance of less than a foot. Shevket kept his hands rigidly behind his back, but his uniformed following leaned forward like a pack of hounds straining at a leash. Larsen and Mansfield stood with their faces professionally bland, but nevertheless with the attitude of men expecting to be struck by lightning.

At last, Shevket spoke. "There will come a time, Carstairs. It is not yet, but it will be soon. Good day, sir!" He spun on an obsidian heel and stalked away, followed by his well-leashed entourage.

"My God, Anthony," Mansfield said, watching the uniformed backs as they disappeared, "you're insane to provoke him like that." He took out a handkerchief and mopped his sweating brow.

"Think so? I don't. I know he wants to kill me. I've known that for months, and so have you. The question is when. Well, Greg, we've learned that the time ain't now! That's worth a bit, right?"

"Anthony," Mansfield said, "I shall never understand your cold-bloodedness in the face of ruthless men like Shevket."

"Not a bit of it, mate," Carstairs said. "I haven't a drop of cold blood in my body. It's all piss and vinegar and adrenaline. I may not show it, but I'm always ready to go for their throats with my teeth."

Mansfield managed a faint smile. "I meant it in the French sense, of course,
sang-froid
. The ability to maintain a calm demeanor in the midst of a mutual desire to kill. But then, I suppose that's why you've run the world for so long, while I and others like me have been your followers."

Carstairs grinned and punched him in the chest. "Come on, we'll lick these bastards yet. Get killed ourselves doing it, of course, but we'll have some satisfaction out of it."