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Authors: Gardner Dozois

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BOOK: Galactic Empires
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“Why did he do it?”

“What?”

“I don’t understand his motivation.”

“To liberate Merioneth from Dynasty oppression,” Christabel recited viciously. “And the bastards won!”

“Yes, they did, but
Fiech
didn’t. He was utterly committed to his cause, so much so that he perpetrates one of the worst atrocities in modern history. One that almost killed his precious movement stone dead. People were repelled by what he did. Even his old colleagues realized that was too much, which is why they quickly got professional. That’s how they won. Continuing to wipe out the Dynasty kids and keep bystander bodyloss to an absolute minimum was smart. It bought pressure to bear exactly where it was needed. Yet Fiech will never see the end result, he’ll never live on his free, liberated Merioneth. Motivated people simply don’t commit suicide, which is effectively what he’s done. By the time he comes out of suspension, the Commonwealth won’t be recognizable, even if it still exists. Damnit, we’ll probably all be post-physical by then. He’s sacrificed himself for something he’ll never know. That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Fanatics never make any real sense to anyone except themselves. Don’t look for logic here, you’ll only be disappointed.”

“There
was
logic behind this. I just don’t understand it yet. And that bothers me. It means we’ve overlooked something. Whoever set this up expended a huge amount of effort. The Directorate ran checks on every planetary medical database in the Commonwealth. Nobody has any record of the doppelganger’s DNA, which is extremely unusual for this day and age. The nearest we can do is identify family traits; he has ancestry within a mix of Celtic, Northern Spanish, and Saudi ethnicities. We found what we believe is a possible cousin on Piura; it was certainly the closest genetic match. But the poor girl didn’t recognize Dimitros. I ran her family tree as best I could, but if he’s on it, I couldn’t tell. We just don’t know who he is. If we can’t find out, then he’s either the most important man in the Merioneth independence movement, or an absolute nobody. I don’t believe either.”

“Maybe you’re right with the first one, and his pals in the Free Merioneth Forces are planning on springing him out of suspension just before CST shuts the wormhole.”

“Not going to happen. Nothing and nobody can break into the Justice Directorate suspension facility.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Paula saw a nervous-looking Aidan appear at the top of the Main. She smiled. “What I always do; keep the file open, solve the case properly.”

Christabel followed her gaze. “Of course, you always get your man.”

“Yes. Always.”

WHAT PAULA FOUND OUT

Nelson Sheldon was right about the timing. Twenty-one months after Fiech’s court case, and three weeks after a planetary referendum officially denounced as a shambolic farce by Intersolar observers, the senator from Merioneth stood up in the Commonwealth Senate to declare that her planet was regretfully withdrawing from the Intersolar Commonwealth to “pursue our future independently.” The Speaker wished her well, and there was a chilly silence as the Merioneth delegation dramatically walked out of the full chamber. CST immediately announced that the wormhole link to Merioneth would be withdrawn in three months, leaving enough time for anyone on the planet who didn’t wish to be Isolated to return to the Commonwealth.

Out of a population of seventeen million, the number wanting to remain part of the Commonwealth was just over nine million. It took an awful lot of trains running round the clock to bring them out. Which made travel to Merioneth extremely easy, with an inbound train arriving every ten minutes. When Paula caught a train to Baransly, the capital, three weeks before the wormhole was due to be shut, she was the only passenger in first class. Most of the carriages were vehicle carriers. Emigres favored big trucks crammed full with their possessions. Local shipping companies were charging a fortune to transport containers of larger items. And the emergent national government was getting difficult about letting industrial machinery leave. The latest batch of restrictions covered all types of agribots; a lot of farmers were heading back to the Commonwealth.

Paula stared out of the long window as they emerged through the wormhole’s pressure curtain. It was winter outside, with flecks of snow drifting through an iron-gray sky. The landscape here outside the capital was arranged into neat fields given over entirely to row after row of some vine equivalent, with brown leafless stems stretched along wire frames. Hundreds of small agribots rolled slowly down the lines, their ply-plastic tentacles pruning the vines back to their regulation two-meter length.

Baransly itself was a sprawl of housing estates and industrial zones clustered around a commercial center that had already started to put up skyscrapers. The architecture was a little bleak and functional perhaps, but the city’s size was an excellent example of successful development for a world that had only been open to settlement for eighty years.

By the time the train reached the marshaling yard outside the station, there were signs of law and order beginning to break down. Streets were clogged with abandoned cars and vans. The crates and boxes that they’d carried were now strewn everywhere, broken open to spill their contents onto the icy enzyme-bonded concrete. It was as if the goods of a hundred department stores had been scattered across the district by a real live cargo cult god. Gangs of kids and some adults were foraging the bounty. Then the train drew into the marshaling yard itself, and Paula’s view of the city vanished behind walls of metal containers stacked taller than the surrounding buildings, all waiting shipment out. Men in thick jackets with the Merioneth Nationalist Party logo on their sleeves patrolled the aisles.

The train drew in at one of the ten platforms under the cover of a sweeping green crystal canopy. Every square meter of the platforms and concourse was occupied by a bad-tempered crowd. Armor-clad CST security guards patrolled along narrow clearways, their angler guns carried prominently.

Paula slipped off the carriage to be greeted by Byron Lacrosh, chief aide to the prime minister, Svein Moalem, who was also leader of the Merioneth Nationalist Party. Byron and an armed police escort guided her down one of the clearways. A large limousine took them from the CST station to the Parliament building along roads that were still being cleared of discarded vehicles. Every few minutes, they passed crews of men and bots lifting cars onto big tow trucks.

“You won’t need to worry about mining any new metal for a few years,” Paula observed.

“Material resources aren’t our prime concern,” Byron Lacrosh said. “We hope to establish a culture that isn’t as technology-based as the Commonwealth.”

“You’re going to go the agrarian route?”

“We favor divorcing ourselves from the consumerist monoculture that dominates the Dynasty-ruled worlds, yes. We don’t shun technology, we just don’t see the necessity to incorporate it in every aspect of life.”

“Appropriate sustainability, then?”

Byron gave her an interested look. “You understand the philosophy?”

“It’s hardly new. My birthworld is based on it.”

“Oh yes, of course. I’d forgotten where you came from, Investigator Myo.”

The Parliament building was a concrete and glass monstrosity, intended as a vigorous statement of a new planet’s identity and prosperity. The result was the kind of design-by-bureaucrat-committee that Paula always found depressing, representing the exact opposite of the ethos it had originally been commissioned to promote.

Svein Moalem’s office was on the fifth floor, with a curving glass wall that opened onto the hanging rose garden-famous locally for its cost overruns and leaky troughs. He sat behind a dark desk made from native kajawood. A broad-shouldered man ten years out of rejuvenation, with a neatly trimmed beard-following current local tradition. His light blue eyes were strongly contrasted with dark skin and mousy hair. Paula saw tiny luminescent green lines flickering along his cheeks to curve around the back of his neck. More OCtattoos shone on his hands. When she ordered her inserts to scan the office, she found a considerable amount of encrypted electromagnetic traffic emanating from him, or, to be exact, from the necklace of flat opals he wore. It was the kind of emission level she usually associated with sensory drama actors, allowing the Unisphere audience to experience their body’s sensations. The two people, a man and a woman sitting in front of his desk, were also broadcasting an unusually large amount of data, from similar necklace arrays. Paula suspected that every aspect of her interview was to be recorded and analyzed. A high-capacity cybersphere node was discreetly incorporated into the floor-to-ceiling bookcase behind the desk, but apart from that and several security sensors, she couldn’t detect any other active hardware. Not that she expected any weapons to be active.

“Thank you for agreeing to see me, Prime Minister,” she said.

Svein Moalem nodded graciously but didn’t get up. He gestured to an empty chair directly in front of his desk. “I asked for two representatives from the Attorney General’s office to be present.”

Paula glanced at the two lawyers flanking her as she sat down. “I’m not here to arrest you. In fact, nobody really knows if the Intersolar Commonwealth has jurisdiction here at the moment. You’ve declared independence, and we’ve agreed to recognize it in three weeks’ time. Anything between those dates is a very gray legal area.”

“Yes, but nonetheless, they will insure my reputation is protected from unfair allegations.”

“Allegations are for tabloid shows. I’m only here to ask questions.”

The green lines under Moalem’s beard scintillated. “As a friend of the Commonwealth, I’m happy to oblige; we have nothing to hide from you. And of course, who can resist your personal notoriety? So let’s get started, shall we? I can spare you thirty minutes.”

“I am the appointed investigator for the Dimitros Fiech case. Did you know him, Prime Minister?”

“I know of him, sadly. His misguided organization was one of the main inspirations behind setting up our Nationalist Party. Of course, we completely repudiate the use of violence to achieve independence.”

“So you didn’t know him personally?”

“No. My party’s goals were achieved by legitimate democratic ends.”

“I accessed the report from the observer team on your referendum. They wouldn’t agree.”

“Biased vitriol from those who have a vested interest in our continuing dependence and integration with their monoculture.”

“Whatever. Fiech and his colleagues proved exceptionally resourceful, and they certainly learned quickly from their mistakes. He is the only member of the Free Merioneth movement we have apprehended so far. What they did required a large amount of money, at the very least. Is your government aware of where that finance originated from?”

“Your pardon, Investigator, but right now the Treasury department has more pressing concerns than examining bank transactions from two years ago. Little matters like making sure we have a valid currency in place for the cutoff. You understand.”

“Their money must have originated here.”

“I’m sure you’re right. If we find out in the next three weeks, we’ll be sure to inform your Directorate.”

“Could it have come from the same source as your Party’s money?”

“We are not dignifying that with an answer,” the female lawyer said sternly.

Svein Moalem gave Paula a small mocking shrug to say
Out of my hands
.

“You set up your party after Fiech’s organization had already won Isolation from the Dynasties,” Paula said.

“Interesting allegation, Investigator.” Moalem glanced at the female lawyer. “Do you have proof of this?”

“At the moment, I’m purely interested in motives. As someone who embodies the Isolationist dream, can you tell me why Fiech sacrificed himself?”

“I’m sure old Earth history is full of martyrs, all neatly documented, if you are that interested. But I suspect he believed as I do. And those who truly believe in the cause of freedom will go to any lengths to see it become reality. I commend his bravery, though, of course, I cannot condone his method.”

“Yet his methods secured your goals.”

“They helped focus the imaginations and aspirations of everyone on this planet. He woke us up to the oppression we labored under.”

“I don’t believe the people of this planet are inspired by monstrous violence. Over a hundred and thirty people suffered severe bodyloss on the Nova Zealand plane alone. Your citizens would want justice for them and all the others whose blood was spilled.”

“Justice, yes. But we equally disapprove of the vengeance we’ve seen your Directorate unleash.”

“Excuse me?”

“Who did you find guilty of the Nova Zealand crime, Investigator? Not the person who pulled the trigger, at least not the whole person. The man you have in your suspension facility lived a different life on that day. Your prisoner is not guilty of bringing down that aircraft. You hold a prisoner of conscience. A patsy whose sole purpose is to satisfy the masses to the benefit of your political masters.“

“Dimitros Fiech committed that crime,” Paula said, doing her best to hold her temper in check. She knew that the prime minister was provoking her, trying to throw her off track. “There is no question of that.”

“So already we see the difference between your culture’s rigid nature and our more liberal, progressive quality. Your laws cannot adapt to new circumstances.”

“Fiech’s memories are an alibi, nothing more. It’s no different from using cellular reprofiling to change your facial features.”

“It is completely different; it is his mind. The mind of the person you have suspended knows that he was on Ormal during the crime. You said it yourself in the deposition: He knows his office screwed up sending him there, he knows he paid the taxi fare in Harwood’s Hill, he was the person who watched the land roll past through the plane’s window, he was angry and frustrated when he arrived at the resort, he tasted the vodka at the airport bar, he fancied the redheaded stewardess who helped him on the plane, he had the hangover. That was Dimitros Fiech. Nobody else.
His
personality. Him! Your imprudent freedom fighter was someone else.”

BOOK: Galactic Empires
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