Bit of Analysis: HH Crown of Slaves

[Ahriman238]

Crown of Slaves, when Eric Flint joined the Honorverse party and the first spin-off series. Less about big space battles, more about espionage, politics and interstellar intrigue. First though, the short stories 'From the Highlands' and 'Fanatic' for background.

As Amos Parnell is coming to Earth to tell his story, Helen Zilwicki is kidnapped. Her father Anton is an intelligence analyst and computer-geek assigned to the Manty embassy and, spurned by his superiors, sets out to investigate and rescue his daughter on his own. We actually met both Zilwickis in SVW, when Momma Zilwicki died to save their convoy from Peep raiders. At the same time, Victor Cachet, a young StateSec agent assigned to the Peep embassy almost fresh from the SS Academy, goes to Marine Colonel Kevin Usher for help because his boss just ordered a young girl's kidnapping. Let's see where we go from here.

"I wasn't making a wisecrack. I was stating a simple fact. I despise Oscar Saint-Just and I've never made a secret of it. I've told him so to his face. Twice. Once before the Revolution, and once after." Usher shrugged. "He didn't much seem to care, one way or the other. You can say that much for Saint-Just—he doesn't kill people out of personal spite. And I'll grant you that he isn't personally a sadist—unlike most of the people working for him."

-snip-

"But I decided it would be best if I made myself scarce. So, after a time, I took the commission they offered me in the Marines and volunteered to head up the security detachment at the embassy on Terra. Six months' travel, it is, from here to the People's Republic. The arrangement suits me fine. Saint-Just too, apparently."

Why Kevin Usher, a Hero of the Revolution who killed the head on InSec, is now a drunken has-been Marine as far from Haven as he can get and still wear the uniform.

"Durkheim's been dealing with the Mesans. And their cult sidekicks here on Terra. That stinking outfit called the Sacred Band."

Silence. Usher stared at his drink for a few seconds. Then, in another swift motion, drank half of it in one toss. "Why does that not surprise me?" he murmured.

Because you're cynical, Usher. The agencies involved in the actual snatching.

"Don't you even care?" he demanded, hissing. "For the sake of—"

"Ah! Stop!" Usher flashed him that wicked smile. "Don't tell me wonderboy was about to call on the deity? Rank superstition, that is—citizen."

Victor tightened his jaws. "I was about to say: 'for the sake of the Revolution,' " he finished lamely.

"Sure you were. Sure you were."

Surprise, surprise, the People's Revolution hates religion.

"Did you know you were being followed?"

Victor was startled, but he had enough self-control to keep from turning his head. "Shit," he hissed, momentarily losing his determination to avoid profanity.

The thin smile came back to Usher's face. "I will be damned. I do believe you are the genuine article, wonderboy. Didn't know there were any left. How well can you take a punch?"

The non sequitur left Victor's mind scrambling to catch up. "Huh?"

"Never mind," murmured Usher. "If you don't know, you're about to find out."

Best way to look like you weren't being friendly, start a bar fight.

Even at a glance, anyone familiar with the subtleties of Manticoran society would have assumed the admiral was a member of the nobility—and high-ranked nobility, at that. The intelligence captain who sat across the desk from him thought that the small, tastefully-subdued pin announcing Young's membership in the Conservative Association was really quite unnecessary.

The pin was also against Navy regulations, but the admiral clearly wasn't concerned about being called on the carpet for wearing it while in uniform. The only Manticoran official who outranked him on Terra was Ambassador Hendricks. As it happened, the Manticoran Ambassador to the Solarian League was in the same room with the admiral and the captain, standing by the window. And, as it happened, the ambassador was wearing the identical pin on his own lapel.

Conservatives get their own party pins instead of everyone having a lapel flag. Admiral Young, no relation to the North Hollow Youngs? Like Pavel?

"—can't believe SS is so arrogantly insane to pull something like this. On the eve of Parnell's arrival here on Terra!"

Admiral Young nodded. "They're going to be suffering the worst public relations disaster they've ever had here in the Solarian League. The last thing they'd do is compound it by murdering a fourteen-year-old girl."

Even to himself, the captain's voice sounded thick and hoarse.

"I keep telling you," he snarled, no longer even bothering with military formalities, "that this is not a Peep operation. Or, if it is, it's a rogue operation being conducted outside of the loop. There's no way of telling what the people who took Helen might do. I have got to have leeway to start investigating—"

"Enough, Captain Zilwicki!" snapped the ambassador. "The decision is made. Of course, I understand your concern. But, at least for the moment, all of our attention must be focused on the opportunities presented to us by Parnell's arrival here on Terra. As a professional intelligence officer, rather than a worried father, I'm sure you agree. We can play along with this Peep diversionary maneuver easily enough. What we musn't do is allow it to actually divert us."

"And mind your manners," growled Young. The admiral leaned back even further in his chair, almost slumping in it. "I've made allowances for your behavior so far because of the personal nature of the situation. But you are a naval officer, Captain. So you'll do as you're told—and stay within the boundaries of military protocol while you're at it."

The word from on high. Good thing Anton is such an obedient subordinate.

"Kidnapping a man's daughter and using her as a threat is about as far removed from 'stable' as I can imagine. Even if the father involved submitted completely, the situation would be impossible. If nothing else, in his anxiety the father would push the campaign too quickly and screw it up. Not to mention the difficulty of keeping a captive for a long period, on foreign soil where you can't simply toss her into a prison. And you'd have to do so, because under those circumstances the father would insist on regular proof that his child was still alive and well."

Why it's foolish to begin a long-term misinformation campaign, as Anton's superiors are convinced this is, by taking hostages.

"Everything about this operation smacks of amateurs who are too clever for their own good. Oil mixed with water. The ransom note is archaic. Yet the door's modern security devices were bypassed effortlessly.

"Idiots," he said softly. "They'd have done better to burn it open. Would have taken a bit of time, with a modern door. But as it is, they might as well have left another note announcing in bold letters: inside job. Whoever they were, they had to have the complicity of someone in the complex's maintenance staff. Within twenty-four hours, if they move fast—and they will—the Chicago cops can get me profiles of everyone who works in this complex along with the forensics results. I don't think it'll be that hard to narrow the suspects down to a very small list."

A lead, and yes, they left a handwritten ransom note. Putzes.

The Solarian League's capital city liked to boast of its public transportation system. Yet Victor had noticed that none of Chicago's elite ever used it.

So what else is new? He consoled himself with thoughts of the inevitable coming revolution in the Solarian League. He had been on Terra long enough to see the rot beneath the glittering surface.

Definitely a rottenness, not sure I trust the SS man's objectivity on the imminence of revolution though.

He glanced down. The person pressed so closely against him—too closely, even by capsule standards—was a young woman. From her dusky skin tone and facial features, she shared the south Asian genetic background which was common to a large number of Chicago's immigrant population. Even if it hadn't been for the lascivious smile on her face, beaming up at him, he would have known from her costume that she was a prostitute. Somewhere back in the mists of time, her outfit traced its lineage to a sari. But this version of the garment was designed to emphasize the woman's supple limbs and sensuous belly.

Nothing unusual, in the Old Quarter. Victor had lost track of the number of times he had been propositioned since he arrived on Terra, less than a year ago. As always, he shook his head and murmured a refusal. As a matter of class solidarity, if nothing else, Victor was never rude to prostitutes. So the refusal was polite. But it was still firm, for all that.

He was surprised, therefore, when she persisted. The woman was now practically embracing him. She extended her tongue, wagging it in his face. When he saw the tongue's upper surface, Victor stiffened.

Speak of the devil. Mesa's genetic engineers always marked their slaves in that manner. The markings served the same purpose as the brands or tattoos used by slavers in the past, but these were completely ineradicable, short of removing the tongue entirely. The marks were actually part of the flesh itself, grown there as the genengineered embryo developed. For technical reasons which Victor did not understand, taste buds lent themselves easily to that purpose.

Meet Ginny. Mesan slaves have barcodes with their alphanumeric designation grown on their tongue. Totally irremovable without expensive biosculpt or a replacement tongue, even cutting it out and regenerating will keep the code, it's genetic. Also the best way of identifying genetic slaves.

Victor spent the remaining minutes of their trek simply studying his surroundings. Chicago's Old Quarter—or "the Loop," as it was sometimes called, for no reason that anyone understood—was famous from one end of the Solarian League to the other.

Rich or poor, the culturally inclined habitués of the megametropolis' Old Quarter rubbed elbows with their more dangerous brethren. Over the centuries, the Loop had become the center of the Solarian League's criminal elite as well as every brand of political radical.

Chicago drew all of them like a magnet, from everywhere in the huge and sprawling Solarian League. But since respectable Solarian society generally refused to acknowledge the existence of such things as widespread poverty and crime, the bureaucrats who were the real political power in the League saw to it that the unwelcome riffraff was kept out of sight and, and much as possible, out of mind. As long as the immigrants stayed in the Loop, except for those who worked as servants, they were generally left alone by the authorities. Within limits, the Loop was almost a nation unto itself. Chicago's police only patrolled the main thoroughfares and those sectors which served as entertainment centers for the League's "proper" citizens. For the rest—let them rot.

The Old Quarter ghetto, and some of the divisions in Sollie society.

"She's quite something," he pronounced.

Usher smiled. The same thin, wicked smile that Victor remembered. "Yeah, I know. That's why I married her."

Seeing Victor's wide eyes, Usher's smile became very thin, and very wicked. "There's no mention of her in my file, is there? That's lesson number one, junior. The map is not the territory. The man is not the file."

Ginny is Kevin's wife, and this will be the first of many lessons in tradecraft Victor gets from Kevin.

"The Sacred Band," he growled. "The 'Scrags,' as they're sometimes called. The genetic markers are unmistakable." He turned away from the window and stared down at the martial artist. "You've heard of them?"

"They're supposed to be a fable, you know," replied Tye. "An urban legend. All the experts say so."

Zilwicki said nothing. After a moment, Tye chuckled dryly. "As it happens, however, I once had one of them as a student. Briefly. It didn't take me long to figure out who he was—or what he was, I should say—since the fellow couldn't resist demonstrating his natural physical prowess."

"That would be typical," murmured Zilwicki. "Arrogant to the last. What happened then?"

Tye shrugged. "Nothing. Once his identity became clear, I told him his company was no longer desired. I was rather emphatic. Fortunately, he was not quite arrogant enough to argue with me. So he went on his way and I never saw him again."

"One of them works in this building," said Zilwicki abruptly. "His profile leaps right out from the rest of the employee files. The bastard didn't even bother with plastic surgery. The bone structure's obvious, once you know what to look for, even leaving aside the results of his medical exams. 'In perfect health,' his doctors say, which I'm sure he is. The man's name is Kennesaw and he's the maintenance supervisor. Which explains, of course, how he was able to circumvent the apartment's security."

To most, Scrags are historical trivia, the monster under the bed or an urban myth. If you do know about them, they tend to stand out, having been created by Ukrainian geneticists as idealized Slavs with exaggerated racial features: really high cheeks, wide jaw, dark hair, yellowish skin.

"It's not something Manpower advertises," chuckled Anton harshly. "As much effort as those scum put into their respectable appearance, you can understand why they wouldn't want to be associated in the public mind with monsters out of Terran history. Half-legendary creatures with a reputation as bad as werewolves or vampires."

"Worse," grunted Tye. "Nobody really believes werewolves or vampires ever existed. The Final War was all too real."

The Scrag's rep on Old Earth.

"As for the Sacred Band itself, the attachment to Manpower is natural enough. For all that they make a cult of their own superhuman nature, the Scrags are nothing more today than a tiny group. Manticoran intelligence has never bothered to investigate them very thoroughly. But we're pretty sure they don't number more than a few dozen, here in Chicago—and fewer still, anywhere else. They're vicious bastards, of course, and dangerous enough to anyone who crosses them in the slums of the city. But powerless in any meaningful sense of the term."

He shrugged. "So, like many other defeated groups in history, they transferred their allegiance to a new master and a new cause. Close enough to their old one to maintain ideological continuity, but with real influence in the modern universe. Which the Mesans certainly have. And, although Manpower Inc. claims to be a pure and simple business, you don't have to be a genius to figure out the implicit political logic of their enterprise. What the old Terrans would have called 'fascism.' If some people can be bred for slavery, after all, others can be bred for mastery."

Manpower/Mesa and the Scrags, like chocolate and peanut butter.

"I still don't understand. Why is Manpower doing this? Do they have some personal animus against you?"

"Not that I can think of. Not really. It's true that Helen—my wife—belonged to the Anti-Slavery League. But she was never actually active in the organization. And although not many officers go so far as to join the ASL, anti-Mesan attitudes are so widespread in the Navy that she didn't really stand out in any way. Besides, that was years ago."

Manticore and Haven, and especially the navies of both, are virulently anti-slavery. Elsewhere, it's officially banned, unofficially tolerated.

"One of the advantages to looking the way I do, Robert—especially when people know I used to be a 'yard dog'—is that they always assume I must be some kind of mechanical engineer. As it happens, my specialty is software. Especially security systems."

Tye's face crinkled. "I myself shared that assumption. I've always had this splendid image of you, covered with grease and wielding a gigantic wrench. How distressing to discover it was all an illusion."

Anton may look like a dumb mound of muscle, but he's an expert spy based mostly on his mad hacking and computer security skills. Which he's now turning against his bosses suspecting, correctly, that the aristocratic twits are in bed with Manpower.

Zilwicki smiled crookedly. "Sorry. Occupational hazard for a cyberneticist. Modern technology makes disposing of a human body quite easy, Robert. Any garbage processing unit in a large apartment complex such as this one can manage it without even burping. In the Star Kingdom, we just live with that reality and the police do their best. But you Solarians are addicted to rules and regulations. So, without any big public fanfare having been made about it, almost all publicly available mechanisms which utilize enough energy to destroy a human body also have detectors built into them. If you don't know about them, or don't know how to get around the alarms, simply shoving a corpse into the disposal unit will have the police breathing down your neck in minutes."

He tapped a final key and leaned back, exuding a certain cold satisfaction. "They may have killed Helen, but they didn't do what I most feared—killed her right away and shoved her into the building's disintegrator."

There was silence for a moment. Then, speaking very softly, Tye said: "I take it you have—just now—circumvented the alarms."

"Yeah, I did. For the next twenty-fours, nothing disintegrated in this building is going to alert the police. And after the alarms come back on, it will be far too late to reconstruct anything at all—even if you know what you're looking for."

The megascrapers of the honorverse disintegrate garbage in bulk, else it would get unmanageable. Which makes it stupidly easy to dispose of the bodies. The Manties just live with it, the Sollies alarm the garbage chutes if anything organic with roughly the right mass and shape gets dropped in.

"Lesson number—what is it, now?—eight, I think. A reputation for being a drunk can keep you out of as much trouble as being one gets you into." He padded to his couch and sunk into it. "I've got a high capacity for alcohol, but I don't drink anywhere near as much as people think."

Kevin Usher is like that, masks beneath masks, all of them real enough to be totally believable.

"But now everything's changed." Usher rose. Again, he began pacing about in the small living room. "Harrington's escape from the dead—not to mention the several hundred thousand people she brought out of Hell with her—is going to rock the regime down to its foundations. Durkheim knows damn well that Saint-Just's only concern now is going to be holding on to power. Screw public relations. There isn't any doubt in his mind—mine either—that once Parnell arrives Bergren will officially defect." His lips twisted into a sneer. "Oh, yeah—Bergren will do his very best 'more in sorrow than in anger' routine. And he's good at it, believe me, the stinking hypocrite."

Durkheim came up with this whole Rube Goldberg plot to kill Bergen and maybe Parnell, and blame Manpower and their Manty patsy, Zilwicki. Since everyone knows Haven is the one star nation that hates Manpower more than the Manties, only a handful will believe they could ever collude even in exchange for future... considerations.

For a moment, Usher's thoughts seem to veer elsewhere. "Have you ever dug into any of that ancient Terran art form, Victor, since you got here? The one they call 'films'?"

Victor shook his head. For a brief instant, he almost uttered a protest. Interest in archaic art forms—everybody knew it!—was a classic hallmark of elitist decadence. But he suppressed the remark. All of his old certainties were crumbling around him, after all, so why should he make a fuss about something as minor as that?

Cinema may be two thousand years old and no one has made a new movie in centuries, but among the hardcore fans it will never die. Even if it is decadent and elitist.

"Durkheim is certainly betting on it. So he'll move quick and see to it that Bergren's killed before he has a chance to defect. And he'll just hope that using Manpower and their local Scrag cult to do the wet work will distract suspicion from us. We Havenites do, after all, have our hands cleaner than anybody else on that score. That much is not a lie."

The one way Haven is better than Manticore, though they're both among the only serious opponents to slavery, the others being Erewhon (which is in the Manticoran Alliance) Beowulf and the Renaissance League here in Sollie space.

He squinted at Victor. "Do you really know anything about the Scrags?"

Victor started to give a vigorous, even belligerent, affirmative response, but hesitated. Other than a lot of abstract ideological notions about fascistic believers in a master race—

"No," he said firmly.

"Good for you, lad," chuckled Usher. "Okay, Victor. Forget everything you may have heard. The fundamental thing you've got to understand about the Scrags is that they're a bunch of clowns." He waved a hand. "Oh, yeah, sure. Murderous clowns. Perfect physical specimens, bred and trained to be supreme warriors. Eat nails, can walk through walls, blah blah blah. The problem is, the morons believe it too. Which means they're as careless as five year olds, and never think to plan for the inevitable screw-ups. Which there always are, in any plan—much less one as elaborate as this scheme of Durkheim's. So they're going to foul up, somewhere along the line, and Durkheim's going to be scrambling to patch the holes. The problem is, since he organized this entire thing outside of SS channels, he doesn't have a back-up team in place and ready to go. He'll have to jury-rig one. Which is something you never want to do in a situation as"—another dry chuckle—"as 'fraught with danger,' as they say, as this one."

The problem with Scrags. They're tougher than you, stronger, usually faster et al. And they know it. So they count on their enhanced abilities to get them out of trouble, don't plan ahead a lot, don't consider other people a legitimate threat usually. Constantly underestimating the opposition is a weakness, though, that no amount of superior physical abilities can make up for. Hence doing things like leaving handwritten ransom notes because they can't be bothered to learn to do things properly.

He dropped his arms. "The reason for that build is because he's a weightlifter. Good enough that he could probably compete in his weight class in the Terran Olympics, which are still the top athletic contest in the settled portion of the universe."

Usher frowned. "The truth is, though, he probably ought to give it up. Since his wife died, he's become a bit of a monomaniac about the weightlifting. I imagine it's his way of trying to control his grief. But by now he's probably starting to get muscle-bound, which is too bad because—"

The wicked smile was back. "—there ain't no question at all that he could compete in the Olympics in his old sport, seeing as how he won the gold medal three times running in the Manticoran Games in the wrestling event. Graeco-Roman, if I remember right."

Usher was grinning, now. "Oh yeah, young man. That's your genius boss Raphael Durkheim. And to think I accused the Scrags of being sloppy and careless! Durkheim's trying to make a patsy out of somebody like that."

The Olympics are still going, though it seems like each star nation and maybe each world holds their own games. Anton is an Olympic wrestler, along with a naval officer, computer hacker and all-around vengeful super-spy.

"Okay, young Victor Cachat. We have now arrived at what they call the moment of truth."

Usher hesitated. He was obviously trying to select the right way of saying something. But, in a sudden rush of understanding, Victor grasped the essence of it. The elaborate nature of Usher's disguise, combined with his uncanny knowledge of things no simple Marine citizen colonel—much less a drunkard—could possibly have known, all confirmed the shadowy hints Victor had occasionally encountered elsewhere. That there existed, somewhere buried deep, an opposition.

"I'm in," he stated firmly. "Whatever it is."

Usher scrutinized him carefully. "This is the part I always hate," he mused. "No matter how shrewd you are, no matter how experienced, there always comes that moment when you've got to decide whether you trust someone or not."

Victor waited; and, as he waited, felt calmness come over him. His ideological beliefs had taken a battering, but there was still enough of them there to leave him intact. For the first time—ever—he understood men like Kevin Usher. It was like looking in a mirror. A cracked mirror, but a mirror sure and true.

Usher apparently reached the same conclusion. "It's my Revolution, Victor, not Saint-Just's. Sure as hell not Durkheim and Tresca's. It belongs to me and mine—we fought for it, we bled for it—and we will damn well have it back."

Welcome to the Resistance, Victor. Seems there are a number of old revolutionaries who aren't quite happy how the revolution turned out. The obvious ones were purged long ago, the smart ones are still here, waiting.

Kennesaw sensed his assailants' approach as he was opening the door to his apartment. Like all of the Select, his hearing was incredibly acute, as was the quickness with which his mind processed sensory data. Before the attack even began, therefore, he had already started his pre-emptive counterassault.

Enhanced hearing and faster sensory processing part of that 'superman' package.

His target was the older and more slightly built of the two men. Kennesaw almost laughed when he saw how elderly the man was. One blow would be enough to disable him, allowing Kennesaw to concentrate on destroying the thick-set subhuman.

But the kick never landed. Somehow, Kennesaw's ankle was seized, twisted—off balance now—

—his vision blurred—an elbow strike to the temple, he thought, but he was too dazed to be certain—

—agonizing pain lanced through his other leg—

—his knees buckled—

And then a monster had him, immobilizing him from behind with a maneuver Kennesaw barely recognized because it was so antique—even preposterous. But his chin was crushed to his chest, his arms dangling and paralyzed, and then he was heaved back onto his feet and propelled through the half-open door of his apartment.

On their way through, the monster smashed his face against the door jamb. The creature's sheer power was astonishing. Kennesaw's nose and jaw were both broken. He dribbled blood and teeth across the floor as he was manhandled into the center of his living room.

By now, he was only half-conscious. Anyone not of the Select would probably have been completely witless. But Kennesaw took no comfort in the fact. He could sense the raging animal fury that held him immobile and had so casually shattered his face along the way.

First fight between a Scrag and two baseline humans. Not an impressive showing, and variations on this scene will repeat on every Scrag that doesn't pull his head from his rectum and take his enemies seriously.

"You're only a 'superman,' Kennesaw, if you compare the average of the Sacred Band to the average of the rest of humanity. Unfortunately, you're now in the hands of two men who, in different ways, vary quite widely from the norm. Partly because of our own genetic background, and partly due to training and habit."

The problem of trying to 'idealize' humanity, there's an awful lot of variations and factors, so you can't be automatically superior in everything thanks to genetics.

"I'm not sure how well this is going to work. I'm sure he's got an absolutely phenomenal pain threshold."

So am I, but they're not here to question him, they're here to dispose of one of the men who took Helen.

[Mr Bean]

Have to say I look forward to your discussion of Fanatic, the story that sold me on Victor Cachet. From the Highlands got me interested but Fanatic does an excellent job of selling our well intentioned psychopath and makes the actions in Crown of Slaves seem perfectly sane from such a mad genius.

[Ahriman238]

Have to say I look forward to your discussion of Fanatic, the story that sold me on Victor Cachet. From the Highlands got me interested but Fanatic does an excellent job of selling our well intentioned psychopath and makes the actions in Crown of Slaves seem perfectly sane from such a mad genius.

Yes, here he goes from driven, well-intentioned but basically clueless spy, to a man among men and stone cold operative. It's like the world's shortest bildungsroman.

Then before his next appearance he's suddenly gone from a competent, tested, spy to the man who stares down Saint-Just, makes Honor uncomfortable by being in the same room, and dares Masadan extremists to their face to match their fanaticism to his and blow them all up already or go home.

All of the reasons I listed in my first honorverse thread why Honor isn't a Mary Sue? None of these apply to Victor Cachat. But I can forgive it all, just because Fanatic is so damn awesome.

[Mr Bean]

Have to say I look forward to your discussion of Fanatic, the story that sold me on Victor Cachet. From the Highlands got me interested but Fanatic does an excellent job of selling our well intentioned psychopath and makes the actions in Crown of Slaves seem perfectly sane from such a mad genius.

Yes, here he goes from driven, well-intentioned but basically clueless spy, to a man among men and stone cold operative. It's like the world's shortest bildungsroman.

Then before his next appearance he's suddenly gone from a competent, tested, spy to the man who stares down Saint-Just, makes Honor uncomfortable by being in the same room, and dares Masadan extremists to their face to match their fanaticism to his and blow them all up already or go home.

All of the reasons I listed in my first honorverse thread why Honor isn't a Mary Sue? None of these apply to Victor Cachat. But I can forgive it all, just because Fanatic is so damn awesome.

The masks breaks at the end of Fanatic and you see the boy beyond. Victor excels at playing a role and has the right temperament and personality to make it work. He's still a boy in Fanatic it's just the kind of boy he is... well it's rather fucked up. And Crown of Swords has an excellent moment to demonstrate this transition. (The interrogation in the Wages of Sin) It's something I still hope to see on screen some day because of how visceral it is.

[Ahriman238]

"The truth is, Kevin, I really am kind of"—sigh—"wet behind the ears." He scowled. "It hasn't helped any that Durkheim hasn't given me any really important assignments since I got here, fresh out of the Academy. All he's used me for is routine clerical stuff and as an occasional courier. My knowledge of fieldcraft is really pretty much book-learning. If I was putting together a back-up team to clean up a mess like this, I'd want an experienced field agent in charge of it."

"You don't think like Durkheim does," replied Kevin. "You're still thinking in terms of making the assignment work. For that, sure, you'd want a real pro." He shook his head. "But don't ever forget that Durkheim is a bureaucrat, first and foremost. His central concern—now and always—is going to be his position within the power structure, not the needs of the struggle. When a job goes sour, his first thought is going to be: cover my ass. And for that, ain't nothing better than a dumb young greenhorn—especially one who has a reputation for zealotry."

Cachat's role in this, he's Durkheim's messenger to Manpower, and the fall guy in case it all explodes.

Kevin looked away for a moment, thinking. "What I imagine he'll do is give you a squad of experienced SS troops, with a citizen sergeant in charge that he trusts. Someone with some familiarity with the Old Quarter—the upper levels, at least. You'll be told that the Scrags have run wild—went ahead and kidnapped a Manty officer's daughter, the maniacs. He'll probably claim they were simply supposed to search his apartment and panicked when they found the girl there."

Usher waved his hand. "Yeah, of course the story's ridiculous. Why didn't they just kill her on the spot? But he won't be expecting you to scrutinize his story for logical fallacies."

By now, Victor had caught up with Usher's thought train. "So I take this squad into the Loop with orders to find the girl and get her back." His face tightened. "No. Not get her back. Just—"

"He won't give you that instruction, Victor. No matter how zealous or naive he thinks you are, Durkheim's not dumb enough to think he can tell a youngster to murder a girl in cold blood without creating possible problems. No, he'll tell you the job is to rescue her. And kill the Scrags while you're at it. But the citizen sergeant will see to it that the girl doesn't survive."

"Or me either."

Fall guys who can defend themselves and make counter-accusations are just inconvenient.

Virginia had been born—bred—on Mesa. C-17a/65-4/5 was the name on her tongue. The label, it might be better to say. The "C" line was one of Manpower Inc.'s most popular breeds, always in demand on the market. Sex slaves, in essence. "17" referred to the somatic type; the "a" to the female variant. Her genotype had been selected and shaped for physical attractiveness, and for as much in the way of libidinal energy and submissiveness as Mesa's gengineers could pinpoint in the genetic code. Which, of course, was not much—especially since the two desired psychological traits tended to be genetically cross-linked with a multitude of opposing characteristics. One of which, unfortunately, was a type of intelligence popularly characterized as "cleverness." As a result, a high percentage of C-lines had a tendency to escape captivity once they left the extreme security environment of Mesa itself.

Ginny's number, C-line are sex slaves, 17 should be 'Southwest Asian' phenotype, a for gender, 65th batch. I wonder if all their slaves are grown in batches of five? Tweaked for libido and submissiveness, which is harder than it sounds, these can be very environmental, which brings us to...

To combat that tendency, and in an attempt to "phenotypically induce" the desired submissiveness, the developing C-lines were subjected to a rigorous training regimen. Manpower's engineers, of course, had an antiseptic and multisyllabic jargon phrase to describe it: "Phenotype developmental process." But what it amounted to, in layman's terms, was that C-lines were systematically and continually raped from the age of nine.

"The worst of it," Virginia mused, "is that there wasn't even any real lust involved. No emotion at all. The rapists—sorry, the phenotype technicians—have to be chemically induced to even get an erection." She actually managed a giggle. "Sometimes, looking back, I almost feel sorry for them. Almost. I don't think there exists anybody in the galaxy as bored with sex as those people."

"Nine?" Victor asked shakily.

She shrugged. "Yeah. It hurts. A lot, in the beginning. And it's even worse for the b-variants. Those are the boys."

We'll learn later a lot of Mesan GE-ing works like this. It's not precise, and there are a lot of environmental factors, so while they'll give slaves a predisposition towards certain things, the rest is brutal training and inhumane discipline, until even the thought of rebellion large or small fills them with terror and all the square pegs fit neatly into the round holes. Some exceptional slaves still manage to escape this brutal life, though.

At one time, Victor would have winced. Now, he simply growled his own satisfaction. He knew the incident she was referring to. It had been one of the most famous exploits of the Ballroom, and one which had produced a gale of official outrage. The Solarian League's Executive Council met in an elaborate palace. As part of the palace's decor, there was a statue in the center of the antechamber. The statue was a human-sized replica of a gigantic and long-destroyed ancient monument called the Statue of Liberty. The Council members had not been amused to arrive one day and find the naked body of a "phenotype engineer" impaled on the statue's torch, with a sign hanging around his neck which read: Hoist on his own petard, wouldn't you say?

Enter the Audubon Ballroom, a group of former slave "terrorists" who live to bring down hell on Manpower, all their clients and brokers and cutouts. In this case, the guy was a "phenotype engineer" for C-lines who decided to vacation in Chicago, which everyone knows is the payground of the Ballroom and particularly their leader, Jeremy X.

All the AB members take X as a surname, in honor of Malcom X. Likewise the Ballroom is named for the place Malcom X was shot and killed. Lots of slaves, not given names at birth choose them from history and black literature. But the AB members don't want to be Douglass, or Morrison, Dubois or even MLK, they want to wreak bloody vengeance on their oppressors, end of story.

He took a deep breath. "I still think the tactics are counterproductive."

Virginia smiled slyly. "That's what Kevin says, too." The smile faded. "I don't know. I suppose you're right. But—"

She took her own deep breath. "You don't know what it's like, Victor," she said softly. There was a hint of moisture in her dark eyes. "All your life you're told you're inferior—genetically. Not really human. You wonder about it yourself. Sometimes I think the way I put on such a slutty act is just because—" No hint, now; the tears were welling. She wiped them away half-angrily. "So maybe you and Kevin are right. All I know is that after I saw that body I felt a lot better about myself."

Another part of the program, if you're a slave you aren't really human. Just a convincing replica they whipped up in those tubes over there, and they'll tell you this and treat you like this as long as it takes to get the message across.

The grin, of course, was lascivious. Whatever the reality of their relationship and repartee, Victor realized that Ginny was a far more experienced field agent than he was. Except for that one brief teary-eyed moment, she had never once broken cover. Any of Durkheim's men who was following them would be quite certain by now that Victor Cachat had finally abandoned his stiff and proper ways. Another puritanical revolutionary undone by the fleshpots of Terra. Join the club.

And so, just as Usher had planned, it would never occur to them that the same Victor Cachat was getting a better introduction to the Loop and its secrets than they'd ever gotten.

Smart man that Usher, and his wife too. Layers upon layers, building a cover for Victor and familiarizing him with the operations area all at once.

He liked Ginny, he realized. There was something clean at the center of the woman, which came like fresh water after the murky filth he had been plunged into. And, although he wasn't sure, he thought she liked him also. Victor had had few friends in his life, and none at all since he left the Academy. For all his stern devotion to duty, he realized, he had been suffering from simple loneliness for a long time.

For all her constant teasing about sex, they really are good friends and nothing more.

"Why would Young launder money? From what you've told me, the man's so rich he doesn't need to supplement his wealth."

"Money," hissed Anton. "Money's not this bastard's vice, Robert. He wasn't trying to cover up his income. He was covering his expenses."

"Oh." Tye's nostrils grew a little pinched, as if he were in the presence of a bad smell.

"So were most of the people on this list," continued Anton. "And, I'm pretty sure, most of the people on that list of Hendricks' I turned up earlier. Although that'll take some time to determine, since the ambassador was quite a bit less careless than Young was."

What, Young was dirty? But he seemed so honest! And what will you do with proof of your boss visiting and investing in Manpower brothels, Anton?

The Manticoran officer scowled. "And there's another stupid Sollie expression. I've asked six of you people since I got here, and nobody can tell me who this 'Rube Goldberg' fellow was supposed to have been."

Tye chuckled. But Anton noted, a bit sourly, that he gave no answer himself.

-snip-

"Sorry," he choked. "I misspoke. Calling that woman 'Satan' is quite unfair, actually. Hecate would be more accurate. Or Circe, or maybe Morgana."

Tye scowled. "What woman? And are you trying to get even with me by using meaningless Manticoran expressions? Who the hell are Hecate and the others? I'm not a student of the Star Kingdom's mythology, you know."

He scowled even further, hearing Anton's ensuing laughter. The more so, no doubt, since Anton didn't bother to explain the source of the humor.

-snip-

"What's 'the Infernal Regions'?" demanded Tye. "A province of the Star Kingdom? And what do you mean: you probably despise her?"

Anton didn't bother to answer the first question. As for the other, he shrugged.

"I've never actually met her. But her reputation, as they say, precedes her."

Tye cocked his head. "Nice expression, that. 'Her reputation precedes her.' Another old Manticoran saying?"

Yes, but not in the original Klingon. Seriously, it strains credulity that so many expressions survive two millennia into the future, even more so that they're actually speaking English as written and spoken in our time.

Muhammad's visit had been brief. He hadn't even come into Anton's apartment. He had just handed him the packet, scowling, and said nothing more than: "I am not going to ask where you got five pairs of shoes, Anton. Not unless I find the feet that used to fit them." Then he left.

Anton had read the data immediately, of course. That had taken no time at all, practically. The data was crystal clear: the owner of the shoes had—recently, and probably frequently—been in the lower depths of the Loop. Below the densely populated warrens, in the labyrinth of tunnels and passageways which marked the most ancient ruins of the city.

Anton's cop friend has analysis on the dirt from his carpet, giving them an idea where to go. Not sure I mentioned this yet, but yes this all takes place in Chicago, capital of the Solarian League and Old Earth planetary government. Though apparently they've filled in and built over Lake Michigan.

When she broke through the wall, Helen was astonished. She had long since stopped actually thinking about escape. She had kept digging simply to keep herself occupied and control the terror.

Been skipping most of Helen in captivity but she's been digging at the wall with some sharp shards of rock for three days now. She's still not out, tomorrow she will widen the hole, but it's a start and she's no helpless damsel but a future naval officer.

Her butler—Isaac insisted on the title, though it was absurd—seemed every inch the perfect servant. He rattled off the aristocratic titles without a trace in his voice of Isaac's utter hatred of any and all forms of caste society. He even managed to wear the traditional menial's costume as if he had been born in it.

Which, of course, he hadn't. As was the custom of escaped Mesan slaves, except those who joined the Audubon Ballroom, Isaac had taken a surname shortly after obtaining his freedom. Isaac Douglass was now his official name, Isaac having chosen the most popular surname for such people, in memory of Frederick Douglass. But he had been born V-44e-684-3/5, and the name was still marked on his tongue.

Isaac Douglass, butler to Countess Catherine Montaign. Isaac is a V-line, a combat model, and serves as Cathy's bodyguard as much as her butler. Genetic slaves are usually much shorter than other people, unless there's a concrete reason it should be otherwise, a combat or heavy labor model, or some C-line variants for those who prefer that phenotype. Maybe it's to make it harder for slaves to overpower slavers, maybe to make them easier to recognize or for the sheer psychological advantage of towering over them al their lives.

Like all Gryphon highlanders, Anton Zilwicki detested the aristocracy in general—and the left wing members of it with a particular passion. No one in the Manticoran aristocracy was further to the left than Lady Catherine Montaigne. Even hardcore Progressives like Lady Descroix considered her "utopian and irresponsible." Countess New Kiev, the ultra-doctrinaire leader of the Liberal party, had once denounced her on the floor of the House of Lords as a "dangerous demagogue."

Meet Cathy Montaigne, Countess of the Tor and one of only three Manty aristos ever barred from the House of Lords. In this case because of her hard-line on slavery and suspected ties to the Audubon Ballroom.

"Point two. The action itself—kidnapping, for God's sake—is completely out of whack with the supposed result. I'm an officer in naval intelligence, true, but my specialty is technical evaluation. My background's in naval construction. I was a yard dog before my wife was killed. After that—"

He paused for a moment, forcing his emotions under. "After that, I transferred into the Office of Naval Intelligence." Another pause. "I guess I wanted to do something that would strike the Peeps directly. Unlike Helen, however, I was never good enough at naval tactics to have much hope of climbing to a command position in the fleet. So intelligence seemed like the best bet."

Lady Catherine cocked her head. There was something faintly inquisitive about the gesture. Anton thought he understood it, and, if so, was a bit astonished at her perspicacity.

He smiled ruefully, running his fingers through his coarse mat of hair. "Yeah, I know. 'And how many barrels of oil will thy vengeance fetch thee in Nantucket market, Captain Ahab?' "

She returned the smile with a great, gleaming one of her own. Her eyes crinkled with pleasure. "Good for you!" she exclaimed. "A rock-hard Gryphon highlander who can quote the ancient classics. I'll bet you learned to do it just so you could show up the Manticore nobility."

Anton's history and job at the embassy, plus classical references.

"Lady Catherine, I will say this bluntly. Almost every aristocrat I know—sure as hell Ambassador Hendricks and Admiral Young—screws up when they try to understand the Peeps. They always look on them from the top down, instead of the bottom up. If they're right-wing, with a sneer; if left-wing, with condescension. Either way, the view is skewed. The Havenites are people, not categories. I'm telling you, this kind of personal attack on a man's family is so utterly beyond the pale that I can't imagine any professional Peep intelligence officer authorizing it. Not a field man, at least. It just—" He paused, setting his jaws stubbornly. "It just isn't done, that's all. Not by us, not by them."

War is fought by people. Really, really scared people sometimes, with a commissar looking over their shoulder and fingering his gun. Still, like the Navy's continual arguments against abusing prisoners, the targeting dependents thing will lead to escalations and is ultimately a game no one can win.

"As for State Security . . ." Another pause; then: "The thing is much more complicated, Lady Catherine, than people realize. The image most Manticorans have of State Security is that they're simply an organization of goons, thugs and murderers. Which"—he snorted—"they certainly have plenty of, God knows. Some of the foulest people who ever lived are wearing SS uniforms, especially the ones who volunteer for duty in concentration camps."

Seeing the countess' little start, Anton nodded. "Oh, yes. You didn't realize that, did you? The fact is, ma'am, that State Security allows its people a lot more latitude in choosing their assignments than the Peep navy does. Or the Manticoran navy, for that matter. It's quite a democratic outfit, in some ways, as hard as that might be to imagine."

Why shouldn't they be, it probably simplifies Saint-Just's life to let the right ah, temperaments find the right jobs, rather than have someone like Cachat break down after getting sent to Hades.

"But it makes sense, if you think about it. Whatever else Oscar Saint-Just is, he is most definitely not stupid. He knows full well that his precious State Security is a—a—" When he found the metaphor he was looking for, Anton barked a laugh. "A manticore, by God! A bizarre creature made up of the parts of completely different animals."

Again, Anton started ticking off his fingers. "A goodly chunk—undoubtedly the majority, by now—are people who joined after the Revolution looking for power and status. They've got as much ideological conviction as a pig in a trough. A fair number of those are former officers in the Legislaturalist regime's secret police. That's where you find your pure goons and thugs."

Another finger. "Then, there are a lot of young people who join up. Almost all of them are Dolists, from the lowest ranks of Havenite society. Some, of course, are just sadists looking for a legitimate cover or angry people looking to inflict revenge on the so-called 'elites.' " He shook his head. "But not most of them, ma'am. Most of them are genuine idealists, who believe in the Revolution and can see the gains it's starting to bring their own class—"

Lady Catherine started to interject a denial but Anton drove over it.

"Sorry, ma'am—it has. Don't ever think otherwise. A lot of people in Manticoran intelligence thought the Havenite empire would collapse, after the Revolution." He snorted. "Especially in the diplomatic service. Bunch of upper class snobs who think poor people are nothing but walking stomachs. Sure, Rob Pierre's war has brought Haven's Dolists a lot of bloody grief—not to mention that he's even frozen their stipend. But don't think for a moment that those Dolists are nothing but mindless cannon fodder. For them, the Revolution also meant lifting the Legislaturalists' hereditary yoke."

Some improvement or at least hope for the Dolists and the Proles, genuine idealists in StateSec. Oh, and StateSec, and Peep society in general is a bit more complicated than most people realize, there are factors and groups defined by more than social class.

"Cathy, trust me on this. There are fissure lines running all through Havenite society. State Security is no exception. Oscar Saint-Just knows that as well—hell, better than—anyone in the universe. Except maybe Rob Pierre himself."

He leaned forward, extending his hands. "So he's careful to keep the sheep separated from the goats. More precisely—since no one has still been able to nail down telepathy—he lets the goats and the sheep separate themselves. The thugs volunteer for the concentration camps, and the young idealistic firebrands head for the front lines. Which, for spies, means places like Chicago."

He nodded toward the window. "And that's mostly the kind of State Security out there. In the lower ranks, at least. Tough, yes—even ruthless. But I know they weren't the ones who took my daughter."

Self-sorting minions!

"However dictatorial and brutal they are, the Peeps are also ferocious egalitarians. You can get executed in Haven for arguing too hard in favor of individual merit promotion." Again, he quoted from the classics: " 'All animals are equal even if some animals are more equal than others.' There's no room in there for hereditary castes—especially slave castes!—or for genetic self-proclaimed supermen."

He sighed heavily. "And, in all honesty, I have to say that in this, if nothing else, the Peeps have a pretty good track record." Another sigh, even heavier. "Oh, hell, let's be honest. They have an excellent track record. Manpower doesn't go anywhere near Havenite territory. That was true even before the Revolution. Unlike—"

"Unlike Manticoran space!" interjected the countess angrily. "Where they don't hesitate for a minute. Damn the laws. The stinking scum know just where to find Manticoran customers."

Manticore may have outlawed slavery, and even be serious about enforcing it, though there are enough customers to keep the slave-ships coming to Manticore. But Haven? They're basically communists, the Mesans are basically genetic facists, you do the math. StateSec can send all the idealist young goons after them.

"Don't say it, Anton! I know the Navy officially suppresses the slave trade. Even does so in real life, now and again. Though not once since the war started. They're too preoccupied, they say."

Anton scowled even more deeply. Cathy waved her arms again. "All right, all right," she growled, "they are preoccupied with fighting the Peeps. But even before the war started, the only instance where the Navy ever hit the Mesan slave trade with a real hammer is when—"

Both of them broke into wide grins, now. The news of the incredible mass escape from the Peep prison planet of Hell was still fresh in everyone's mind.

"—when Harrington smashed up the depot on Casimir," she concluded. The countess snorted. "What was she, then? A measly lieutenant commander? God, I love impetuous youth!"

Anton nodded. "Yeah. Almost derailed her career before it even got started. Probably would have, if Courvoisier hadn't twisted some Conservative admirals' arms out of their sockets. And if—"

He gazed at her steadily. "—a certain young and impetuous left-wing countess hadn't given a blistering speech on the floor of the House of Lords, demanding to know why the first time a naval officer fully enforced the laws against the slave trade she wasn't getting a medal for it instead of carping criticism."

Don't believe this incident has yet made it into any stories, but it seems as a lt. Commander, pre-Fearless (Hawkwing?) Honor smashed up a major Manpower depot and got called on the carpet for it.

Cathy smiled. "It was a good speech, if I say so myself. Almost as good as the one that got me pitched out of the House of Lords entirely."

Anton snorted. Although membership in the Manticoran House of Lords was hereditary, not elective, the Lords did have the right under law to officially exclude one of its own members. But given the natural tendency of aristocrats to give full weight to lineage, it was very rarely done. To the best of Anton's knowledge, at the present moment there were no more than three nobles who had had their membership in the Lords revoked. One of them, the Earl of Seaview, had been expelled only after he was convicted in a court of law of gross personal crimes—which all the members of the Lords had long known were his vices, but had chosen to look the other way over. The other two were Honor Harrington and Catherine Montaigne, for having, each in her own way, deeply offended the precious sensibilities of Manticore's aristocracy.

So there, three lords barred, Honor for shooting an old-money lord in a legal duel after he cheated, Seaview for 'gross personal crimes' everyone knew about what was willing to let slide until proof was presented, and Cathy for being a pain on this one issue and cozying up to wanted terrorists.

"You are—have been for years—one of the central leaders of the Anti-Slavery League. And by far the most radical. That's why you've been here for years, in what amounts to exile." Anton's words, for all the Gryphon slurring, came out like plates from a stamping mill. "So don't tell me you don't know him."

"Never been proved!" she exclaimed. But the protest was more in the nature of a squeak.

Anton grinned. Like a wolf, admiring the grace of a fox. "True, true. Consorting with a known member of the Audubon Ballroom—any member, much less him—is a felonious offense. In the Star Kingdom as well as anywhere in Solarian territory. You've been charged with it on four occasions. Each time, the charges were dropped for lack of evidence."

They tried to link Cathy to Jeremy X four times and failed to prove the connection, but of course, Anton is here because he wants to give a message to Jeremy X, whose playground is the part of Chicago where his daughter was taken, a man with a violent reputation but a code of honor.

"You can tell him I'll give him this, in exchange for his help. I've spent the past two days hacking into the embassy's intelligence files to get it."

Anton's grin was now purely feral. There was no more humor in it than a shark's gape. "When I broke into the personal records of Young and Hendricks I hit the gold mine. I didn't expect either one of them to be stupid enough to have direct financial dealings with Manpower, and they don't. Technically, under Manticoran anti-slavery laws, that would lay them open to the death penalty."

Cathy's left hand was still clutching her throat. With her other hand, she made a waving gesture. "That's not the form it takes, in the Star Kingdom. Slavery's an inefficient form of labor, even with Manpower's genetic razzle-dazzle. No rich Manticoran really has much incentive to dabble in slave labor unless they're grotesquely avaricious. And willing to take the risks of investing in the Silesian Confederacy or the Sollie protectorates. Our own society's got too high a tech base for slavery to be very attractive."

"You might be surprised, Cathy—you will be surprised—at how many Manticorans are that stupid. Don't forget that the profit margin in Silesian mines and plantations can be as high as the risk." Anton shrugged. "But you're basically right. Most of the Star Kingdom's citizens who deal with Manpower do so from personal vice, not from greed."

Cathy's face was stiff, angry. " 'Personal vice!' That's a delicate way of putting what happens on those so-called pleasure resorts." She stared at the package in Anton's hands. Her next words were almost whispered. "Are you telling me—"

Anton's shark grin seemed fixed in place. "Oh, yeah. I was pretty sure I'd find it. That whole Young clan is notorious for their personal habits, and I'd seen enough of the admiral to know he was no exception." He held up the package. "Both he and the ambassador have availed themselves of Manpower's so-called 'personal services.' Both of them have invested in those 'pleasure resorts,' too, using Solarian conduits. Along with lots of others, for whom they acted as brokers."

There's not a lot of call in a modern industry for unskilled muscle-force, so chattel farm workers aren't where a lot of the money from slavery comes in, though Mesa does sell them. No, it's the combat, skilled labor and especially sex slaves that sell. And Anton just got his hands on the master list for Admiral Young, the Ambassdor and their whole Manticoran network, including many wealthy aristos.

Do you suppose Jeremy X will be interested in that?

Cathy stared at the object in Anton's hand. Innocuous-looking thing, really. But she knew full well what would happen once Jeremy got his hands on it. Jeremy had come into the universe in one of Manpower Inc.'s breeding chambers on Mesa. K-86b/273-1/5, they had called him. The "K" referred to the basic genetic type—in Jeremy's case, someone bred to be a personal servant, just as Isaac's "V" denoted one of the technical combat breeds. The "-86b" referred to one of the multitude of slight variants within the general archetype. In Jeremy's case, the variant designed to provide clients with acrobatic entertainment—jugglers and the like. Court clowns, in essence. The number 273 referred to the "batch," and the 1/5 meant that Jeremy was the first of the quintuplets in that batch to be extracted from the breeding chamber.

It's true, Jeremy X was bred to be an acrobat, juggler and jester. They gave him a very quick mind, agility, dexterity and exceptional hand-eye-coordination. Jeremy took all of these things and used them to become one of the deadliest gunmen in the honorverse.

Strip away the pseudoscientific claptrap and what it amounted to was:

We breed the embryos in artificial wombs, making the best guess we can based on their DNA; and then we spend years torturing the children into proper alignment. Making the best guess we can.

Because only so much of a person's personality and skills is genetic, it's important to Manpower that they control the environment absolutely. This is one reason genetic slavery is so terrible, it takes years of torture to make a proper slave.

And, within limits, it worked—usually. But not always, by any means. Certainly not in Jeremy's case. Within less than a week after his sale, he had made his escape. Eventually, he arrived on Terra, through one of the routes maintained by the Anti-Slavery League. Within a day of his arrival, he had joined the Audubon Ballroom, probably the most radical and certainly the most violence-prone group within the general umbrella of the anti-slavery movement. Then, following the custom of that underground movement—whose membership was exclusively restricted to ex-slaves—had renamed himself Jeremy X. Within a short time, he had risen to leadership in the Ballroom. Today, he was considered one of the most dangerous terrorists in the galaxy. Or, to many—herself included, when all was said and done, despite her disapproval of his tactics—one of its greatest freedom fighters.

But if anyone could get Captain Anton Zilwicki's daughter back alive, it would be Jeremy X. Certainly if she were held captive in the Loop. And if, in the months and years which followed, a number of Manticore's most prominent families found themselves attending an unusually large number of funerals, Cathy could not honestly say the prospect caused her any anguish. Rich people who trafficked in slavery for the sole purpose of indulging their personal vices would get little in the way of mercy from her.

Jeremy's history, and yes, nobody on that list is getting special treats from Santa for being such good boys and girls this year.

"Oh, yes. Satisfy my curiosity, Anton. Earlier, you said there were three types of people in State Security. But you never got around to explaining the third sort. So who are they?"

"It's obvious, isn't it? What happens to a young idealist, as the years go by and he discovers his beloved Revolution is covered with warts?"

Cathy frowned. "They adapt, I imagine. Get with the program. Either that or turn against it and defect."

Anton shook his head. "Many do adapt, yes. The majority of them, probably. And when they do they are often the most vicious—just to prove to their superiors, if nothing else, that they can be counted on. But almost none ever defect and there are a lot of them who just fade into the woodwork, trying to find a corner where they can still live. Don't forget that, from their point of view, the alternative isn't all that attractive."

Actually, I bet this is one of the larger groups. People who didn't realize what they were signing up for and try to keep their heads down.

"But don't think the Peep propagandists didn't make hay while the sun was shining, Cathy. At least until Cordelia Ransom decided that there was more propaganda value in having Harrington 'executed.' " Anton scowled. "That whole stinking Pavel Young affair was plastered all over every media outlet in the Havenite empire, for weeks on end. Hell, they didn't even have to make anything up! The truth was stinking bad enough. A vile and cowardly aristocrat used his wealth and position to ruin an excellent officer's career. Even paying for the murder of her lover—and getting away with it until Harrington finally cornered him into a personal duel. And then, when she shot him in self-defense after he violated the dueling code, the Lords blamed her? Because she shot him too many times?"

Evil, craven Manticoran elitists. In fairness, Manticore contains it's fair share of both evil and stupidity, it's not as though everything bad said about them is baseless.

[Kingmaker]

Seriously, it strains credulity that so many expressions survive two millennia into the future, even more so that they're actually speaking English as written and spoken in our time.

This is something that is pervasive throughout works by both Weber and Flint, and it's really damn jarring. It's not just expressions, either. People regularly drop historical references in everyday conversation to events that are a thousand years in the past now. Arguably, that's at least vaguely justifiable if you assume that 2000 years into the spacefuture everyone is an obsessive history nerd.

It's even worse in the Safehold series.

Not sure I mentioned this yet, but yes this all takes place in Chicago, capital of the Solarian League and Old Earth planetary government. Though apparently they've filled in and built over Lake Michigan.

Does it actually state they've filled in Lake Michigan? I recall from one of the other HH novels that they've built up from the Lake, but nothing suggested it was actually gone.

[Simon_Jester]

[Will respond to the next big post later]

Why Kevin Usher, a Hero of the Revolution who killed the head on InSec, is now a drunken has-been Marine as far from Haven as he can get and still wear the uniform.

That said, man's got balls of granite.

I mean, how many people in Nazi Germany could claim they'd told off Himmler, twice?

Best way to look like you weren't being friendly, start a bar fight.

Ayup. Victor bears this in mind for later reference. Nothing like beating the crap out of someone to convince others you hate them.

To most, Scrags are historical trivia, the monster under the bed or an urban myth. If you do know about them, they tend to stand out, having been created by Ukrainian geneticists as idealized Slavs with exaggerated racial features: really high cheeks, wide jaw, dark hair, yellowish skin.

And with a lot of the strengths and character defects of, say, Augments from Star Trek.

The megascrapers of the honorverse disintegrate garbage in bulk, else it would get unmanageable. Which makes it stupidly easy to dispose of the bodies. The Manties just live with it, the Sollies alarm the garbage chutes if anything organic with roughly the right mass and shape gets dropped in.

Protip: Don't dump 200 pounds of meat scraps from your restaurant in the disintegrator all at once.

On the other hand, how exactly do you monitor the possibility of someone putting the body into the disintegrator in pieces?

"Lesson number—what is it, now?—eight, I think. A reputation for being a drunk can keep you out of as much trouble as being one gets you into." He padded to his couch and sunk into it. "I've got a high capacity for alcohol, but I don't drink anywhere near as much as people think."

Kevin Usher is like that, masks beneath masks, all of them real enough to be totally believable.

This particular trick reminds me of Kimball bloody Kinnison. Him and Usher would probably get along pretty well.

Cinema may be two thousand years old and no one has made a new movie in centuries, but among the hardcore fans it will never die. Even if it is decadent and elitist.

Side note: I imagine most of the classics have been (repeatedly) remade as 3D works. I'm pretty sure all the surviving Greek plays have been made into movies, after all.

The problem is, since he organized this entire thing outside of SS channels, he doesn't have a back-up team in place and ready to go. He'll have to jury-rig one. Which is something you never want to do in a situation as"—another dry chuckle—"as 'fraught with danger,' as they say, as this one."

The problem with Scrags. They're tougher than you, stronger, usually faster et al. And they know it. So they count on their enhanced abilities to get them out of trouble, don't plan ahead a lot, don't consider other people a legitimate threat usually. Constantly underestimating the opposition is a weakness, though, that no amount of superior physical abilities can make up for. Hence doing things like leaving handwritten ransom notes because they can't be bothered to learn to do things properly.

Also, enhanced intelligence... not helpful if you don't stop to learn tradecraft. No human, however intelligent, can think of everything relevant to something as complicated as espionage. Not without prior training and a disciplined, prepared mind.

Bit of a character derailment here, though- Usher lecturing Victor Cachat of all people on how undesirable it is to have to improvise backup plans for a risky operation on the fly.

The Olympics are still going, though it seems like each star nation and maybe each world holds their own games. Anton is an Olympic wrestler, along with a naval officer, computer hacker and all-around vengeful super-spy.

To be fair, he's a prolong recipient and probably very experienced at what he does. And frankly, his naval career has mostly involved him practicing the other skills he's good at, particularly computer systems and intelligence analysis.

First fight between a Scrag and two baseline humans. Not an impressive showing, and variations on this scene will repeat on every Scrag that doesn't pull his head from his rectum and take his enemies seriously.

To be fair, said Scrag had killed people with his bare hands before. The problem is, his superior physique plus the training and combat skills of a thug let him mop the floor with other thugs who lack his physique... but they don't save him against someone who is trained to take down the strongest, toughest people around. He's a superman, but not the Superman.

Someone with the Scrag's genes and serious, intense combat training would be pure hell on wheels... as we see examples of in some later novels.

Yes, here he goes from driven, well-intentioned but basically clueless spy, to a man among men and stone cold operative. It's like the world's shortest bildungsroman.

Then before his next appearance he's suddenly gone from a competent, tested, spy to the man who stares down Saint-Just, makes Honor uncomfortable by being in the same room, and dares Masadan extremists to their face to match their fanaticism to his and blow them all up already or go home.

To be fair, those events take place spread out over about five years of in-story time. Which really is enough to turn fairly inexperienced men into hardened killers, even allowing for months spent flitting around the galaxy in relatively slow-moving starships.

[Also note that Victor's only real super-traits are his acting ability (hence daring the Masadans to blow them all up), and his unflinching willingness to do whatever he thinks is the proper course of action. In other respects he's not superhuman or anything, he just acts quickly because he doesn't flinch or think twice before doing improbable and ballsy things, if he thinks those are the tactics that will get him what he needs.]

[Simon_Jester]

"The truth is, Kevin, I really am kind of"—sigh—"wet behind the ears." He scowled. "It hasn't helped any that Durkheim hasn't given me any really important assignments since I got here, fresh out of the Academy. All he's used me for is routine clerical stuff and as an occasional courier. My knowledge of fieldcraft is really pretty much book-learning. If I was putting together a back-up team to clean up a mess like this, I'd want an experienced field agent in charge of it."

Cachat's role in this, he's Durkheim's messenger to Manpower, and the fall guy in case it all explodes.

To be fair to Cachat, it's implied that StateSec training is a hard school, so he's not an absolute cretin when it comes to fieldwork, the way the Scrags are.

It is later asserted (not sure when this begins, probably not in this story) that Cachat makes extensive use of training simulators to practice those skills that can be simulated. Not sure exactly what does and does not qualify as 'simulatable,' but it's strongly implied that VR combat drills are a part of it, which may help to explain how Cachat can do what he does at the climax of the story.

Another part of the program, if you're a slave you aren't really human. Just a convincing replica they whipped up in those tubes over there, and they'll tell you this and treat you like this as long as it takes to get the message across.

Conversely, the brutal violence of the Audubon Ballroom serves a psychological end for many free slaves: on some visceral level, it convinces them that their tormentors die just like anybody else, and that the stream of brutality and death from slavemakers to slaves is not a one-way street.

Because it's hard to feel genetically inferior to someone you just saw blown up or impaled- as our baseline-human protagonists are learning in combat against the Scrags.

Yes, but not in the original Klingon. Seriously, it strains credulity that so many expressions survive two millennia into the future, even more so that they're actually speaking English as written and spoken in our time.

This is arguably true.

On the other hand, people were still speaking Latin 1400 years after the fall of Rome- it's only been 1400 years in Manticore's frame of reference, remember that their original colonists spent a lot of the time in cryo.

"They make a desert and they call it peace." "Let them hate, as long as they fear." We still talk about "stoics" and occasionally "epicures," about how "the die is cast" or "I came, I saw, I conquered."

Quite a few Roman expressions are still part of our language, either quoted directly or indirectly. A lot more of them were part of the language a century ago when 'classical studies' as we now call them was a routine part of school curriculum. Despite the fact that unlike modern English, virtually no original sources survived the centuries in Latin except for repeatedly-transcribed manuscripts and oral educational traditions. Whereas modern English has vast libraries of written and audio recordings that will preserve pieces of it for a long time.

And unlike the relationship between the English-speaking world and Rome, old Earth is the only single ancestral home the Manticorans ever knew. Its history and culture are in a real sense that of their own ancestors, so I'm not surprised that their educated population makes a study of it.

Anton's cop friend has analysis on the dirt from his carpet, giving them an idea where to go. Not sure I mentioned this yet, but yes this all takes place in Chicago, capital of the Solarian League and Old Earth planetary government. Though apparently they've filled in and built over Lake Michigan.

Part of the lake, at least. Starship and antigravity technology make waterfront traffic and shipping less valuable, and real estate in a major city is always expensive enough that the city would build out onto the water if it could.

Isaac Douglass, butler to Countess Catherine Montaign. Isaac is a V-line, a combat model, and serves as Cathy's bodyguard as much as her butler. Genetic slaves are usually much shorter than other people, unless there's a concrete reason it should be otherwise, a combat or heavy labor model, or some C-line variants for those who prefer that phenotype. Maybe it's to make it harder for slaves to overpower slavers, maybe to make them easier to recognize or for the sheer psychological advantage of towering over them al their lives.

I'm more than a little surprised Manpower even has combat slaves. Modern warfare in the Honorverse doesn't encourage people to custom-grow their own cannon fodder, I'd think.

Then again, from what we later learn about the Mesans, they may have needed the combat lines as a testbed for some genetic ideas they did not intend to later implement in a bunch of slaves...

Anton's history and job at the embassy, plus classical references.

We also get a basic outline of his career- his physical training is a lifelong hobby; his computer and IT skills were the core of his job at a shipyard. Then he switched over to intelligence analysis and did that for about ten years before we see him here in this story.

And unlike a real life person who had built up this kind of experience (and who'd probably be 50 years old or so) he's still in his prime physically because of prolong.

This helps to explain where multi-talented characters come from in the Honorverse; if you have intelligence, drive, and potential you can reach the peak of human ability in a lot of careers within 10-20 years... and just being able to do that three or four times in a row before your body starts to quit on you makes you hell on wheels by any normal human standard.

Of course, as the prolong era goes on you expect a lot of humans to spend fifty years working at a job they love and get really really good at it, and the advantage of these jacks-of-all-trades will diminish...

Some improvement or at least hope for the Dolists and the Proles, genuine idealists in StateSec. Oh, and StateSec, and Peep society in general is a bit more complicated than most people realize, there are factors and groups defined by more than social class.

I suspect this is Flint's influence. Where Weber leans moderately right-wing on the American political scale, Flint is very different; I gather he's been involved in outright communist politics. While he has his faults and unrealisms, he does at least help take other Baen authors and bring them back to sanity when they take the Fox News version of their own story's politics too far.

So we get a lot less of the "greedy faceless Havenite welfare drones" from here on out.

He nodded toward the window. "And that's mostly the kind of State Security out there. In the lower ranks, at least. Tough, yes—even ruthless. But I know they weren't the ones who took my daughter."

Self-sorting minions!

I don't know to what extent this is true of real-life secret police and totalitarian 'elite' organizations. You can see it to some extent in, say, the split between the Waffen SS who formed actual army units versus the units that manned the concentration camps. But I'm pretty sure there was a lot of cross-flow between the two groups, and certainly no one in either side of the organization could claim clean hands.

Don't believe this incident has yet made it into any stories, but it seems as a lt. Commander, pre-Fearless (Hawkwing?) Honor smashed up a major Manpower depot and got called on the carpet for it.

Some indications the story was later published as Let's Dance in a book I own but am unlikely to dig up soon: In Fire Forged.

So there, three lords barred, Honor for shooting an old-money lord in a legal duel after he cheated, Seaview for 'gross personal crimes' everyone knew about what was willing to let slide until proof was presented, and Cathy for being a pain on this one issue and cozying up to wanted terrorists.

Yeah; the Lords are pretty goddamn dysfunctional when you get right down to it.

It's true, Jeremy X was bred to be an acrobat, juggler and jester. They gave him a very quick mind, agility, dexterity and exceptional hand-eye-coordination. Jeremy took all of these things and used them to become one of the deadliest gunmen in the honorverse.

He also tells some pretty decent jokes, if you're into his kind of humor.

Seriously, it strains credulity that so many expressions survive two millennia into the future, even more so that they're actually speaking English as written and spoken in our time.

This is something that is pervasive throughout works by both Weber and Flint, and it's really damn jarring. It's not just expressions, either. People regularly drop historical references in everyday conversation to events that are a thousand years in the past now. Arguably, that's at least vaguely justifiable if you assume that 2000 years into the spacefuture everyone is an obsessive history nerd.

This is not entirely unprecedented in real life. Again, people were making routine references to events from classical warfare and history quite recently, and in some circles they still do.

Some ancient battles are such excellent instances of a tactical or strategic principle that they remain part of the textbooks (Cannae and encirclement, for instance). Many ancient political schemes were broadly similar to those today (sometimes we still talk about a military man with political ambitions who sees himself as the man to come riding in and fix everything as prone to 'Caesarism.')

20th century AD Earth is no more remote from the 20th century PD in the Honorverse than we today are from Rome. Arguably less remote.

It's even worse in the Safehold series.

I gave up entirely on the Safehold series. Too drawn out, too long, and those cutesy misspelled names make my eyes hurt.

[phongn]

Rich or poor, the culturally inclined habitués of the megametropolis' Old Quarter rubbed elbows with their more dangerous brethren. Over the centuries, the Loop had become the center of the Solarian League's criminal elite as well as every brand of political radical.

Chicago drew all of them like a magnet, from everywhere in the huge and sprawling Solarian League. But since respectable Solarian society generally refused to acknowledge the existence of such things as widespread poverty and crime, the bureaucrats who were the real political power in the League saw to it that the unwelcome riffraff was kept out of sight and, and much as possible, out of mind. As long as the immigrants stayed in the Loop, except for those who worked as servants, they were generally left alone by the authorities. Within limits, the Loop was almost a nation unto itself. Chicago's police only patrolled the main thoroughfares and those sectors which served as entertainment centers for the League's "proper" citizens. For the rest—let them rot.

The Old Quarter ghetto, and some of the divisions in Sollie society.

Darkly enough, some things appear to never change. Chicago - today - is a very compartmentalized city, with much of the police work containing the most violent neighborhoods and more or less letting them rot.

This is something that is pervasive throughout works by both Weber and Flint, and it's really damn jarring. It's not just expressions, either. People regularly drop historical references in everyday conversation to events that are a thousand years in the past now. Arguably, that's at least vaguely justifiable if you assume that 2000 years into the spacefuture everyone is an obsessive history nerd.

Books are read by humans? There's an old saying that science fiction is more a reflection on when the work was made than a view on the future.

[Crazedwraith]

Plus 'your reputation precedes you' is hardly the kind of expression that is hard to grasp nor is it based on any kind metaphor which can be out of date, like say; 'getting the cart before the horses'.

Just flat out using the expression is better than say Star Wars were you use the expression and then mangle it with sci-fi-y terms. (like 'like a vibroblade through nerfbutter!' or something.)

[PKRudeBoy]

Seriously, it strains credulity that so many expressions survive two millennia into the future, even more so that they're actually speaking English as written and spoken in our time.

This is something that is pervasive throughout works by both Weber and Flint, and it's really damn jarring. It's not just expressions, either. People regularly drop historical references in everyday conversation to events that are a thousand years in the past now. Arguably, that's at least vaguely justifiable if you assume that 2000 years into the spacefuture everyone is an obsessive history nerd.

It's even worse in the Safehold.

Honestly, officers and the nobility are probably two groups that you're most likely to find obsessed history nerds. The former because military history provides a bridge to more general history, and the latter because history is the thing that sets them above the masses.

[Terralthra]

Yes, but not in the original Klingon. Seriously, it strains credulity that so many expressions survive two millennia into the future, even more so that they're actually speaking English as written and spoken in our time.

This is arguably true.

On the other hand, people were still speaking Latin 1400 years after the fall of Rome- it's only been 1400 years in Manticore's frame of reference, remember that their original colonists spent a lot of the time in cryo.

"They make a desert and they call it peace." "Let them hate, as long as they fear." We still talk about "stoics" and occasionally "epicures," about how "the die is cast" or "I came, I saw, I conquered."

Quite a few Roman expressions are still part of our language, either quoted directly or indirectly. A lot more of them were part of the language a century ago when 'classical studies' as we now call them was a routine part of school curriculum. Despite the fact that unlike modern English, virtually no original sources survived the centuries in Latin except for repeatedly-transcribed manuscripts and oral educational traditions. Whereas modern English has vast libraries of written and audio recordings that will preserve pieces of it for a long time.

And unlike the relationship between the English-speaking world and Rome, old Earth is the only single ancestral home the Manticorans ever knew. Its history and culture are in a real sense that of their own ancestors, so I'm not surprised that their educated population makes a study of it.

Some linguists theorize that the advent of near-universal literacy and archival will result in a much more static language.

Seriously, it strains credulity that so many expressions survive two millennia into the future, even more so that they're actually speaking English as written and spoken in our time.

This is something that is pervasive throughout works by both Weber and Flint, and it's really damn jarring. It's not just expressions, either. People regularly drop historical references in everyday conversation to events that are a thousand years in the past now. Arguably, that's at least vaguely justifiable if you assume that 2000 years into the spacefuture everyone is an obsessive history nerd.

This is not entirely unprecedented in real life. Again, people were making routine references to events from classical warfare and history quite recently, and in some circles they still do.

Some ancient battles are such excellent instances of a tactical or strategic principle that they remain part of the textbooks (Cannae and encirclement, for instance). Many ancient political schemes were broadly similar to those today (sometimes we still talk about a military man with political ambitions who sees himself as the man to come riding in and fix everything as prone to 'Caesarism.')

20th century AD Earth is no more remote from the 20th century PD in the Honorverse than we today are from Rome. Arguably less remote.

My grandfather, a Lt. Colonel in the USAF in Korea and Vietnam eras, was nicknamed "Cassius" by his military peers for his ambition and drive. That's a nickname that's at least 500 years old, and based on events that are 2000 years old.

[Kingmaker]

Honestly, officers and the nobility are probably two groups that you're most likely to find obsessed history nerds. The former because military history provides a bridge to more general history, and the latter because history is the thing that sets them above the masses.

Again, it's not so much that someone does it, but that everyone does and does it constantly. And for some reason, have a hard time coming up with topical historical references that occurred between 2000 AD and the present. You know, the intervening two thousand years of history.

[Ahriman238]

The megascrapers of the honorverse disintegrate garbage in bulk, else it would get unmanageable. Which makes it stupidly easy to dispose of the bodies. The Manties just live with it, the Sollies alarm the garbage chutes if anything organic with roughly the right mass and shape gets dropped in.

Protip: Don't dump 200 pounds of meat scraps from your restaurant in the disintegrator all at once.

On the other hand, how exactly do you monitor the possibility of someone putting the body into the disintegrator in pieces?

This also occurred to me. I suspect there's zip all they can do, which is probably a large part of the reason the alarms are secret. The system is too easy to circumvent if you know it's there.

First fight between a Scrag and two baseline humans. Not an impressive showing, and variations on this scene will repeat on every Scrag that doesn't pull his head from his rectum and take his enemies seriously.

To be fair, said Scrag had killed people with his bare hands before. The problem is, his superior physique plus the training and combat skills of a thug let him mop the floor with other thugs who lack his physique... but they don't save him against someone who is trained to take down the strongest, toughest people around. He's a superman, but not the Superman.

Someone with the Scrag's genes and serious, intense combat training would be pure hell on wheels... as we see examples of in some later novels.

Yeah, the hard part is getting over themselves. Once they start taking other people, training and planning seriously they're formidable as hell. Of course, relatively few Scrags ever make this transition.

Yes, here he goes from driven, well-intentioned but basically clueless spy, to a man among men and stone cold operative. It's like the world's shortest bildungsroman.

Then before his next appearance he's suddenly gone from a competent, tested, spy to the man who stares down Saint-Just, makes Honor uncomfortable by being in the same room, and dares Masadan extremists to their face to match their fanaticism to his and blow them all up already or go home.

To be fair, those events take place spread out over about five years of in-story time. Which really is enough to turn fairly inexperienced men into hardened killers, even allowing for months spent flitting around the galaxy in relatively slow-moving starships.

[Also note that Victor's only real super-traits are his acting ability (hence daring the Masadans to blow them all up), and his unflinching willingness to do whatever he thinks is the proper course of action. In other respects he's not superhuman or anything, he just acts quickly because he doesn't flinch or think twice before doing improbable and ballsy things, if he thinks those are the tactics that will get him what he needs.]

[/quote]

A bit less than a year, actually. His next appearance is Fanatic, though you could argue that has as much a role in shaping Cachat into the man he'll be when we finally get to the book.

[Simon_Jester]

Again, it's not so much that someone does it, but that everyone does and does it constantly. And for some reason, have a hard time coming up with topical historical references that occurred between 2000 AD and the present. You know, the intervening two thousand years of history.

They do do it, however. Like the routine references to the Final War?

Also, honestly, I think this is a very acceptable practice for a writer. Would we really rather strip out all the classical, medieval, and industrial-age Earth references, and replace them with completely made up sayings and historical references of Weber/Flint's own devising? Would that make the setting seem more real and captivating?

I doubt it; Weber (and Flint) aren't that good.

Plus, Weber would feel compelled to give us eight paragraphs of exposition about the background behind each of his made-up quotations.

Yeah, the hard part is getting over themselves. Once they start taking other people, training and planning seriously they're formidable as hell. Of course, relatively few Scrags ever make this transition.

Their ancestors who fought in the Final War probably did have that training; the problem is that their 'present-day' descendants of the early 20th century PD aren't part of an organized body large enough to acquire it.

A bit less than a year, actually. His next appearance is Fanatic, though you could argue that has as much a role in shaping Cachat into the man he'll be when we finally get to the book.

Well, what I mean is that Fanatic is one year after From the Highlands, but that Crown of Slaves (when we see Victor as REALLY pulling out all the super-badass stops) is several more years after that. Years during which Victor was presumably heavily involved in the chaos of the Havenite Civil War; if that wouldn't harden a man I don't know what would.

[Terralthra]

Mentions of previous military actions are brought up, but do remember that it's a conceit of the setting that interstellar war on this scale hasn't been done, ever, and even battles approaching the size of the average RMN/PRN scuffle mid-war are hundreds of years ago.

[Ahriman238]

Isaac's soft laughter joined Jeremy's cackle. Staring from one of them to the other, Cathy felt—as she had often before—like a fish stranded out of water. For all the years she had devoted to the struggle against genetic slavery, and for all the closeness of her attachment to the Mesan ex-slaves themselves, she knew she could never see the universe the way they did. There was no condemnation of them in that knowledge. Just a simple recognition that no one born into the lap of privilege and luxury, as she had been, could ever really feel what they felt.

But neither was there any condemnation of herself. Decades earlier, as a young woman newly entered into the Anti-Slavery League, Cathy had been a typical guilt-ridden liberal. Like many such women, she had tried to assuage her guilt by entering a number of torrid affairs with ex-slaves—who, of course, had generally been quite happy to accept the offer.

Jeremy had broken her of that habit. That, and the guilt which lay beneath it. He was already quite famous when she met him, a romantic figure in the lore of the underground. Cathy had practically hurled herself upon him. She had been utterly shocked by his blunt and cold refusal. I am no one's toy, damn you. Deal with your guilt, don't inflict it on me. Stupid girl! Of what crimes could you possibly be guilty, at your age?

It was Jeremy who had taught her to think clearly; to separate politics from people; and, most of all, not to confuse justice with revenge or guilt with responsibility. And if Jeremy's conclusion had been that he would have his justice and enjoy his revenge too—why not? As long as you know the difference—he had enabled her to do otherwise. Unlike most youthful idealists, Cathy had never "grown wiser" with age. She had simply become more patient. Close friends and comrades, she and Jeremy had become over the years, for all their long-standing and often rancorous quarrel over tactics.

The long, odd relationship between Cathy Montaigne and Jeremy X.

"You're mixing apples and oranges. Or, to put it better, retail with wholesale." He held out his left hand, palm up, and tapped it with his right forefinger. "As long as my comrades and I only had the names of the occasional Manticoran miscreant, now and then, justice was impossible. Even if we'd gotten the bastards hauled into court for violating Manticore's anti-slavery laws, so what? You know as well as I do what the official stance of the Star Kingdom's government would be."

Now, he did a sing-song imitation of a typical Manticoran aristocrat's nasal drawl: " 'Every barrel has a few bad apples.' "

Cathy thought the imitation was a lot better than his earlier mimicry of Zilwicki's Gryphon basso. Which was only to be expected, of course—he'd been in Cathy's company often enough, and she herself spoke in that selfsame accent. She'd tried to shed it, in her earlier days, but found the effort quite impossible.

Jeremy shrugged. "There was no way to prove otherwise." His eyes gleamed pure fury for a moment. "So better to just kill the bastards. If nothing else, it made us feel better—and there was always the chance that another upcoming piglet would decide the risk wasn't worth the reward. But now—"

With such a long, detailed list they can create a scandal that will drive the slavers deep into hiding.

"Everything will come together perfectly," Jeremy chortled, still rubbing his hands. "With Zilwicki's list in our hands, we'll be able to kick over the whole barrel and show just how deep the slave-trade infection really is." He spread his hands, almost apologetically. "Even in the Star Kingdom, which everybody admits—even me—is better than anywhere else. Except Haven, of course, but those idiots are busily saddling themselves with another kind of servitude. So you can imagine how bad it is in the Solarian League, not to mention that pustule which calls itself the Silesian Confederacy."

The League and the Sillies have slavery far, far worse than the Star Kingdom, naturally.

"Nobody will believe—"

"Me? The Audubon Ballroom? Of course not! What a ridiculous notion. We're just a lot of genetically deformed maniacs and murderers. Can't trust anything we say, official lists be damned. No, no, the list will have to be made public by—"

-snip-

"Oh! Oh! The witch is back!
The witch is back! The witch is back!
Oh, woe! The witch is back!
The wickedest witch
In the wo-orld!"

In other words, Cathy's going to return the list, and with it make her stunning comeback to Manticoran politics.

"Harrington's back from the grave, Cathy. Don't you understand—yet—how much that changes the political equation?"

-snip-

"Cut it out," she muttered. "New Kiev has a death lock on the Liberals."

"Not after Zilwicki's list gets made public!" cried Jeremy gleefully.

Cathy's eyes widened, and her head came up. Her mouth formed a perfect round O of surprise.

Jeremy laughed. "Are you still such a naif? Do you really think the only traffickers in human misery sit in the Conservative Association?"

O.

"You are! Ha!" Jeremy was back to cackling and hand-rubbing—the whole tiresome lot. "Oh, sure—New Kiev herself will be clean as a whistle. Descroix, too, most likely. But I'll bet you right now, Cathy—don't take the wager, I'll strip you of your entire fortune—that plenty of their closest associates will be standing hip deep in the muck. Won't be surprised if that whole stinking Houseman clan's in up to their necks—with each and every one of the self-righteous swine oinking sophisticated gobbledygook to explain why slavery isn't really slavery and everything's relative anyway."

Excellent opportunity for a newer, cleaner leader to emerge for the Liberal Party.

Cathy hissed. "I hate those people."

Jeremy shrugged. "Well, yes. Who in their right mind wouldn't? But look at it this way, Cathy—"

He spread his arms wide, theatrically. Christ on the Cross. "I'm giving up the pleasure of shooting each and every one of the slaving bastards. Justice before vengeance, alas. If I shoot even one of them they'll make me the issue. So you can console yourself, as you sit through endless hours of rancorous debate in the House of Lords, with the knowledge that you finally won me over to the tactics of nonviolence."

From his armchair, Isaac hissed. Still standing in crucifix position, Jeremy wiggled his fingers. "Only in the Star Kingdom, comrade. That still leaves us the Solarians and the Silesians for a hunting ground."

I love Jeremy, he can do overblown drama and dry understatement.

Cathy glared at him. "Aren't you forgetting something, you great political strategist?"

Jeremy dropped his arms. "Finding Zilwicki's daughter? In the Loop?"

He cocked his head at Isaac. Simultaneously, both men stuck out their tongues, showing the mark.

Like two cobras, spreading their hoods.

The Ballroom, when practical, show their tongue barcodes before killing people. A statement of defiance and everything a slaver needs to know about why he is about to die.

The first few hours of her escape were a nightmare. The world Helen had entered was lightless chaos, as if the primordial ylem were made of stone and dirt and refuse. She realized soon enough that she had entered some kind of interconnected pockets of open space, accidentally formed and molded over the centuries, branching off from each other with neither rhyme nor reason beyond the working of gravity on rubble and debris.

-snip-

It proved to be the light cast through some kind of ancient aperture. A drain grille, she thought. But it was impossible to be sure. The metal which had once spanned that hole had long since rusted away. The reason she thought it had been a grille was because the area she was looking into, standing on tiptoe and peering over the bottom lip, seemed to be some kind of ancient aqueduct or storm drain. Or—

Yuck. A sewer.

But the distaste passed almost as soon as it arrived. Whatever that broad low channel was, lined with still-solid masonry on all sides, it was an escape route. Besides, even if it had once been a sewer, it hadn't been used as such in many centuries. Other than a small, sluggish little rill running down the center of the age-darkened channel, the aqueduct/storm drain/sewer was as dry as a bone.

Helen's loose. But it doesn't take her long to run into trouble.

The club-holder was starting to rise when the Owl By Night crushed him from existence. Master Tye would have scolded Helen for using that Owl—keep it simple, child!—but he could not have chided her for the execution. Beak and talons had all found their mark, and in just the proper sequence.

The man still alive joined his fellows in death three seconds later. Again, the Scythe; and again, the Scythe.

Helen kills two attackers with her bare hands.

The boy, she thought, was probably not more than twelve years old. Hard to tell, due to his bruises and emaciation under the rags. The girl was perhaps Helen's own age. But that was even harder to determine, despite the fact that she wore no clothing at all. The girl didn't have bruises so much as she seemed a single giant bruise.

Helen meets two urchins held captive by the men she just killed, Berry and Lars and sort of adopts them.

"It was a rogue Peep operation. And you've been in touch with the Peeps. The ones who aren't pleased with the rogue."

Jeremy started. Something in the expression on his face led Anton immediately to a further conclusion.

"No," he rumbled. "I've got it backwards. The operation was outside of normal channels, but it was no rogue who ordered it." His grin was now utterly humorless. A murderous grin, in truth. "It was Durkheim, wasn't it? That stinking pig. And the ones you have contact with are the real rogues."

There was no expression at all on Jeremy's face. His pale gray eyes, staring at Anton, were as flat as iron plates. Slowly, he swiveled his head and looked at Cathy.

"Tell me again," he rasped.

"You're too fucking smart for your own good," she snickered. She beamed upon Anton. "He's such a clever little man. But he always has to poke the wild animals, and sometimes he forgets to use a long enough stick." Her smile was very approving. Very warm, in fact. "Congratulations, Anton. It's nice to see him get bitten for a change."

Nobody can accuse Anton of being dumb. Kevin Usher has contacts in the Ballroom.

"Ah, but you wouldn't, Captain. Would you, now? It's that highland sense of honor moves you. You'd keep the knowledge that there was an opposition amongst the Peeps to yourself, and not pass it on to your superiors."

Anton snorted. "We've known for years that there was disaffection among the Havenites."

Jeremy's gaze didn't waver. After a moment, Anton looked away. "But, yeah, this is the first time there's ever been any concrete indication that it extends into SS. And the first time—given the relatively small size of the Peep contingent here—that we could probably pinpoint the individuals."

It's good intel, but probably not worth alienating the men who are helping him retrieve his daughter.

"And good it is, boyo! Because it'll be those selfsame wretched rotten Peeps who'll get your daughter. Not you or me."

Anton goggled him.

Imp. "Oh, yes—for a certainty. We've other fish to fry."

The retrieval plan is Cachat killing the retrieval team before they can kill him, with the Ballroom for support. Meantime, Cathy will be holding an anti-slavery rally as a cover for all the strange folk running around the Loop.

There was more ferocity than genuine humor in Victor's suppressed grin. The Scrags were notorious, among other things—the females as much as the males—for their predatory sexual habits. Victor had no doubt at all that they had planned to rape the Zilwicki girl when her immediate purpose was served. Before killing her.

Now, looking at the corpses, the thoughts of the Scrags were not hard to read. Easier said than done . . .

Another reason everyone who knows they're real hates the Scrags.

The Scrags had now collected in a body around them, staring at the tracker in the sergeant's hand. For all their strutting swagger, and their pretensions at superhuman status, the Scrags were really nothing much more than Loop vagabonds themselves. They were clearly intimidated by the technical capacity of the SS device. During the hours in which they had organized a search for the girl after discovering her escape, before they finally admitted their screw-up to their Mesan overlords, the Scrags had accomplished absolutely nothing. After they found the bodies and the lean-to, the girl's trail seemed to have vanished.

"Can we follow her?" Victor asked. "Or them?"

Fallon nodded. "Oh, sure. Nothing to it. Won't be quick, of course. But—" He cast a sour glance at the nearby Scrags. "Since they at least had the sense to come to us before too much time had gone by, the traces are still good. Another couple of days, and it would have been a different story."

Chem-tracer can pick up scents after days.

As he watched the rally, Anton was struck by the irony of his situation. He really didn't approve of this kind of gathering. For all the stiff-necked belligerence of Gryphon's yeomanry toward nobility, the highlanders were very far from being political radicals. They were a conservative lot, when all was said and done. That was especially true of the large percentage—perhaps a third of the population—which belonged to the Second Reformation Roman Catholic Church, a sect which retained its ancient attitude of reverence for monarchy and obedience to authority in general.

Anton himself had been raised in that creed. And if his continued membership as an adult was more a cultural than a religious habit—his basso was much sought after by church choirs, and he enjoyed singing himself—his career as a naval officer had done nothing to weaken his traditional political attitudes. A strong monarchy resting on a stout yeomanry—that was Moses and the prophets, for Gryphon highlanders. Their quarrel with the nobility was, in a sense, the opposite of radicalism. It was Gryphon's nobles, after all—not the commoners—who were continually seeking to subvert the established order.

Background on Gryphon and Crown Loyalists.

Something of his discomfort must have shown in his posture. Sitting on one of the benches next to him, far up in the galleries, Robert Tye leaned over and whispered: "I'm told this sort of thing is contagious. Spreads like an aerosol, I believe."

Anton gave him an acerbic glance. Tye responded with a sly smile. "But perhaps not, in your case," he murmured, straightening back up. " 'My strength is as the strength of ten, because my heart is royalist.' "

Just amused me.

His military training recognized the subtle but ferocious security which protected the Countess of the Tor. Anton spotted Isaac immediately, standing at the foot of the speaker's platform. Cathy's "butler"—who was actually her chief bodyguard—had his back turned toward her. His attention was entirely given to the crowd packed near the podium. Within seconds, Anton spotted several other people maintaining a similar stance. He recognized none of them, but he knew that they were all either members of the Audubon Ballroom or other organizations of Mesan ex-slaves in alliance with the Ballroom.

The sight made him relax a bit. The genetic slaves who escaped from Manpower's grip and made their way to the Loop were the lowest of the low, by the standards of Solarian society. For all the League's official egalitarianism, there was a taint which was attached to those genetically manipulated people. Subhumans, they were often called in private.

The Old Quarter's other immigrants—who constituted, of course, a vastly larger body of people than the ex-Mesans—were by no means immune to that bigotry. Indeed, some of them would express it more openly and crudely than any member of the genteel upper crust. But if those immigrants shared the general attitude that the ex-slaves were the lowest of the low, they also understood—from close and sometimes bitter experience—that there was a corollary.

The hardest of the hard. Not all of the blows which Jeremy X and his comrades struck fell on the rich and powerful. A time had been, once, and not so many years ago, when a Mesan ex-slave had to fear pogroms and lynchings in the Old Quarter. The Audubon Ballroom had put a stop to that, as savagely as they felt it necessary.

The wonderfully egalitarian, democratic Solarian League is not so much for the genetically inferior. Lynchings and pogroms that only stopped when the Ballroom started carrying out reprisals.

Part of it, he decided, was precisely because she was a Manticoran aristocrat. If the Star Kingdom had a certain reputation for arrogance and snobbery among the huge population of the Solarian League, it also had a reputation for—to a degree, at least—living up to its own standards. Quite unlike, in that respect, the officially egalitarian standards of the League itself. The Sollie upper crust and the comfortable middle classes on the Core Worlds could prattle all they wanted about democracy and equality, and sneer at the "reactionary semi-feudalism" of the Star Kingdom. The immigrants packed into that amphitheater knew the truth.

In the far-off and distant protectorate worlds from which they had come—fled, rather—the iron fist within the Sollie velvet glove was bare and naked. The protectorate worlds were ruled by the League's massive bureaucracy, whose institutional indifference was married to the avarice of the League's giant commercial interests. If none of those protectorate worlds was precisely a hell-hole, a modern equivalent of the King Leopold's Congo of ancient legend, they did bear a close resemblance to what had once been called "banana republics" and "company towns." Neocolonialism, many of the previous speakers had called it, and even Anton did not disagree with that characterization.

The Star Kingdom's reputation abroad, and the first mention I can find of the ruthless exploitation of the Verge. There's a whole lot of ugly beneath the shiny façade of Solarian society.

For all that her own motivation was clearly one of simple morality, Cathy did not appeal to that. Rather, as cold-bloodedly as any Machiavellian politician devoted to Realpolitik, she examined the logic of slavery—especially slavery which was connected to genetic differentiation. Her speech was filled with a multitude of examples drawn from human history, many of them dating back to the ancient era when the planet on which she now stood was the sole habitat of the human species. Time and again, she cited the words of such fabled sages as Douglass and Lincoln, showing how the logic of genetic slavery was nothing new in the universe.

Two things, in particular, struck Anton most about her speech. The first was that the woman had obviously, like many exiles before her, taken full advantage of her long years of isolation to devote herself to serious and exhaustive study. Anton had been aware, vaguely, that even professional scholars considered the Countess of the Tor one of the galaxy's authorities on the subject of "genetic indentured servitude." Now he saw the proof of that before his own eyes, and reacted to it with the traditional respect which Gryphon highlanders gave to any genuine expert. The Liberal and Progressive Manticoran aristocrats whom Anton had encountered in the past had repelled him, as much as anything, by their light-minded and casual knowledge of the subjects they so freely pontificated about. Lazy dabblers, was his opinion of them. His former wife Helen's opinion had been even harsher, for all that she considered herself a Progressive of sorts. There was nothing of that dilettantism in the woman standing at the podium.

The second thing was the target of her speech. Although Cathy was focusing on the plight of the Mesan slaves, her words were not addressed to them but to the big majority of the audience in the amphitheater—who were not Mesans. The point of her remarks—the pivot of them, in fact—was her attempt to demonstrate that any waffling on the issue of genetic slavery by any political movement which demanded justice for its own constituents would surely undermine its own cause.

Cathy's expertise and her speech.

He hesitated for not more than a second or two. His jaws tightened with decision.

Here. Now.

Victor hefted the flechette gun in his hands. Except for one of the Scrags, Victor had the only flechette gun in the party. Everyone else was armed with pulse rifles. As casually as he could manage, he looked over his shoulder and studied the soldiers and the Scrags following him. Quickly, easily—an officer doing a last inspection of his troops before he led them into combat. He spotted the Scrag holding the other flechette gun and fixed her location in his mind.

"Citizen Sergeant Fallon and I will take the point," he said. His voice sounded very harsh, ringing in his own ears. The other three soldiers in the SS detachment, hearing the announcement, seemed to relax a bit. Or so, at least, Victor hoped.

Fallon cleared his throat. "If you'll pardon me saying so, sir, I think—"

Whatever he thought went with him. Victor leveled the flechette gun and fired. He had already set the weapon at maximum aperture. At that point-blank range—the muzzle was almost touching Fallon when Victor pulled the trigger—the volley of 3mm darts literally cut him in half. The citizen sergeant's legs, still connected by the pelvis and lower abdomen, flopped to the ground. Fallon's upper body did a grotesque reverse flip, spraying blood all over. The Scrags standing near him were spewed with gobbets of shredded intestine.

The butt of the gun came up to Victor's shoulder quickly and easily. He took out Citizen Corporal Garches next. Other than Fallon, she was the only combat veteran in the Peep detachment. The other two were simply typical SS guards.

A burst of flechettes shredded Garches. Victor's aim moved on, quickly. The Scrag holding the other flechette gun came under his sights. The woman was standing paralyzed. She seemed completely in shock. One of her hands, in fact, had left the gun and was wiping pieces of Fallon from her face. An instant later, her face was disintegrated, along with the rest of her body above the sternum.

Victor Cachat's first real fight, and the man has a positive gift for mayhem.

Victor had never been in combat, but he had always taken his training seriously. He had never stinted on the officially mandated hours spent on the firing range and the sim combat tanks. Indeed, he had routinely exceeded them—much to the amusement of other SS officers.

Dimly, he heard the Scrags shouting. He ignored the sounds. Some part of his mind recognized that the genetic "supermen" were beginning to react, beginning to raise their own weapons, beginning—

No matter. Victor stepped into their very midst, firing again and again. In close quarters, a flechette gun was the most murderous weapon imaginable. The weapon didn't kill people so much as it ripped them apart. In seconds, the underground cavern was transformed into a scene from Hell. Confusion and chaos, blood and brains and flesh spattering everywhere, the beams from wildly swinging hand lanterns illuminating the area like strobe lights.

Deadliness of a flechette gun in close-quarters. Cachat religiously pursues physical and firearms training, even as many StateSec officers like to skim by.

Victor ignored it all. Like a methodical maniac, he just kept stepping into them. Almost in their faces, surrounded by their jerky bodies. Twice knocking rifle barrels aside to get a clear shot himself. He expected to die, in the instant, but he ignored that certainty also.

He ignored everything, except the need to slay his enemies. Ignored, even, the plan which he and Kevin Usher had agreed upon. Victor Cachat was supposed to spray the Scrags with a single burst of automatic fire. Just enough to scatter them and confuse them, so that the Ballroom would have easy pickings while Victor made his escape.

It was insane to do otherwise. If the Scrags were not trained soldiers, still and all they were genetically conditioned warriors with superb reflexes and the arrogance to match their DNA. Suicide to stand your ground, lad, Kevin had told him. Just scatter them and race off. See to the girl. The Ballroom will take care of the rest.

But Victor Cachat was the armed fist of the Revolution, not a torturer. A champion of the downtrodden, not an assassin lurking in ambush. So he thought of himself, and so he was.

The boy inside the man rebelled, the man demanded the uniform he had thought to wear. Say what they would, think what they would.

Officer of the Revolution. Sneer and be damned.

Victor waded into the mob of Scrags, firing relentlessly, using the modern flechette gun in close quarters like a rampaging Norseman might have used an ax. Again and again and again, just as he had trained for in the years since he marched out of the slums to fight for his own. He made no attempt to take cover, no attempt to evade counterfire. Never realizing, even, that the sheer fury of his charge was his greatest protection.

But Victor was no longer thinking of tactics. Like a berserk, he would meet his enemies naked. The Red Terror against the White Terror, standing on the open field of battle. As he had been promised.

He would make it so. Sneer and be damned!

The shots went true and true and true and true. The boy from the mongrel warrens hammered supermen into pulp; the young man betrayed wreaked a war god's terrible vengeance; and the officer of the Revolution found its truth in his own betrayal.

Sneer and be damned!

The defining moment that made this wet-behind-the-ears, well-meaning young zealot into Victor Fucking Cachat. When he accepted what Usher told him, that it's his revolution, not any of the mass-murdering hypocrites on the Committee's.

With the agility of the acrobat he had been brought into the world to be, Jeremy sprang over the rubble and landed lightly on his feet. Then, bounding forward like an imp, he hefted the handguns which were his favored weapons. One in each hand, as befitted his version of the court jester, gleefully calling out the battlecry of the Ballroom.

"Shall we dance?"

The Scrags who had managed to survive Cachat's fire just had time to spot the capering fool, before they were cut down. Court jester or no, Jeremy X was also, in all likelihood, the deadliest pistoleer alive. The shots came like a master pianist's fingers, racing through the finale of a concerto with a touch as light and unerring as it was thunderous. The sound was all darts flying and striking. There were no screams, no groans, no hisses of pain. Each shot was instantly fatal, and the shots lasted not more than seconds.

Not one of the Scrags managed so much as a single shot at Jeremy. The only moment of real danger for him came at the very end, as the last Scrag fell to the ground. His body one way, his head another. Jeremy's shot had severed the neck completely.

Jeremy found himself looking down the barrel of Cachat's flechette gun. Jeremy was the last thing still standing in the chamber, and the young SS officer had naturally brought the deadly weapon to bear on him.

You're late, Jeremy. Battle-cry of the Ballroom, and Jeremy's skill in a gunfight.

Motion anew, a girl's blurring feet. Racing across a field of carnage as if it were a meadow; skipping through havoc as easily as they would have skipped through grass.

"Daddy! Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

"It's an odd sort of place, this universe of ours," mused Jeremy. He smiled at the comrade at his side. "Don't you think?"

Donald X was cut from more solemn cloth, as befitted such a thick creature. F-67d-8455-2/5 he had been, once, bred for a life of heavy labor. "I dunno," he grunted, surveying the scene with stolid satisfaction.

"Master Tye! Master Tye!"

"Seems just about right to me."

Daughter struck father like a guided missile. Jeremy winced. "Good thing he's a gold medalist. Else that's a takedown for sure."

Father and daughter reunited. F-line for heavy labor, again with the 'out of five' batch numbers, I'm now positive this is standard. I don't know what the d in the gender slot represents. Neuter? Following a and b with sterile versions of both genders?

Your plan worked perfectly, Rafe. Beautiful! They'll make you a Hero of the Revolution. In private, of course. Just like they did with me.
Yeah, it was damned near as perfect an operation as I've ever seen—and I'll make sure to include that in my own supplemental report to Gironde's.
You'll be glad to know that the Ballroom's sweep of the Loop seems to have damned near wiped out the Scrags completely. Lord, that was a stroke of genius on your part!
Between the confusion caused by the rally at Soldier Field—all those people crowding through the streets and alleys—and their own efforts to catch the girl, the Scrags all came out of their hideyholes. Well . . . No doubt there's a few left. Not many.
Oh, yeah. You're a genius, Rafe. Just like you planned, the Ballroom wiped out the Scrags in one day. And the girl's safe, of course, so you got us out of that mess. Can you imagine? The nerve of those Manpower bastards! Trying to set us up as the patsy, figuring everybody would believe anything about Peeps now that Parnell's arriving.
He arrives today, you know. Just after the Mesan assassination squad gets arrested by the Sollies we tipped off. You tipped off, I should say. Credit where credit is due.
"Of course, there isn't the horde of newscasters waiting at the dock for him that everyone expected. Plenty of them still, needless to say. But half of the Sollie casters are in the Loop, covering what they're already calling the Second Valentine's Day Massacre. Good move, Rafe! Everything about your plan was brilliant."
"Yeah, brilliant. And after the final masterstroke, which—" The man glanced at the door. "—should be coming any moment now, you'll go down in history as one of the great ops of all time."
"Well, there it is, Rafe. Time for you to put the capstone on your career. Just like you foresaw, Manpower saved its real pros for the attack on the embassy. Here they are, raring to go. 'Course, we got Bergren out already, so they're walking into a massacre. Just like you planned."
"Such a damn pity that you insisted on leading the ambush yourself, instead of leaving it to the professional soldiers. But you always were a field man at heart. Weren't you, Rafe?"
"Hero of the Revolution! Posthumous, of course."

Usher's gloating to Durkheim. Apparently Bergman was to be assassinated when Manpower mercs stormed the embassy, with only Bergman and some rookie marine guards in place.

He had been drugged, he suddenly realized. And with that realization came another. He knew the drug itself. He couldn't remember its technical name, although he knew that it was called the "zombie drug." It was so easy to use as an aerosol. He remembered thinking that his office had grown a bit muggy, and that he'd intended to speak sharply to the maintenance people. Highly illegal, that drug. As much because it left no traces in a dead body as because of its effects. It broke down extremely rapidly in the absence of oxygenated blood.

Zombie drug, allowing Usher to shove a gun into Durkheim's hand and literally throw him towards the enemy. Sic transit Raphael Durkheim.

[Simon_Jester]

I love Jeremy, he can do overblown drama and dry understatement.

Say what you will about Manpower, Jeremy would make a damn good court jester. Of course, he's very very puckish... and Puck is not a supernatural entity you'd really want to cross.

Victor Cachat's first real fight, and the man has a positive gift for mayhem.

Victor had never been in combat, but he had always taken his training seriously. He had never stinted on the officially mandated hours spent on the firing range and the sim combat tanks. Indeed, he had routinely exceeded them—much to the amusement of other SS officers.

Dimly, he heard the Scrags shouting. He ignored the sounds. Some part of his mind recognized that the genetic "supermen" were beginning to react, beginning to raise their own weapons, beginning—

No matter. Victor stepped into their very midst, firing again and again...

Deadliness of a flechette gun in close-quarters. Cachat religiously pursues physical and firearms training, even as many StateSec officers like to skim by.

Also, and this is analyzed more later, Cachat doesn't hesitate before pulling a trigger, doesn't see the firefight as anything more than a tactical problem to solve. That allows him to outreact most opponents, when combined with the reflexes he trains into himself. Plus, well...

It was insane to do otherwise. If the Scrags were not trained soldiers, still and all they were genetically conditioned warriors with superb reflexes and the arrogance to match their DNA. Suicide to stand your ground, lad, Kevin had told him. Just scatter them and race off. See to the girl. The Ballroom will take care of the rest.

But Victor Cachat was the armed fist of the Revolution, not a torturer. A champion of the downtrodden, not an assassin lurking in ambush. So he thought of himself, and so he was.

The boy inside the man rebelled, the man demanded the uniform he had thought to wear. Say what they would, think what they would.

Officer of the Revolution. Sneer and be damned.

Victor waded into the mob of Scrags, firing relentlessly, using the modern flechette gun in close quarters like a rampaging Norseman might have used an ax. Again and again and again, just as he had trained for in the years since he marched out of the slums to fight for his own. He made no attempt to take cover, no attempt to evade counterfire. Never realizing, even, that the sheer fury of his charge was his greatest protection.

But Victor was no longer thinking of tactics. Like a berserk, he would meet his enemies naked. The Red Terror against the White Terror, standing on the open field of battle. As he had been promised.

He would make it so. Sneer and be damned!

The shots went true and true and true and true. The boy from the mongrel warrens hammered supermen into pulp; the young man betrayed wreaked a war god's terrible vengeance; and the officer of the Revolution found its truth in his own betrayal.

Sneer and be damned!

The defining moment that made this wet-behind-the-ears, well-meaning young zealot into Victor Fucking Cachat. When he accepted what Usher told him, that it's his revolution, not any of the mass-murdering hypocrites on the Committee's.

Plus this. Cachat has absolutely no mercy for people he sees as enemies of the revolution. His revolution.

Father and daughter reunited. F-line for heavy labor, again with the 'out of five' batch numbers, I'm now positive this is standard. I don't know what the d in the gender slot represents. Neuter? Following a and b with sterile versions of both genders?

Possibly. On the other hand, the gender designators may be used to contain more information. No sense wasting a letter just to indicate 'male or female' when you could have, say, ten different variations that indicate a variety of different things.

[Ahriman238]

And Epilogue, going to wait on Fanatic until I come to a point where it won't spoil for events in the main book.

"You're dead meat, Zilwicki," the admiral snarled. He waved the chip in his hand. "You see this? It's my report to the Judge Advocate General's office."

Young laid the chip down, with a delicate and precise motion. The gesture exuded grim satisfaction. "Dead—stinking—meat. You'll be lucky if you just get cashiered. I estimate a ten-year sentence, myself."

You know, I think he actually does get discharged from the service? I don't believe he was a Navy man in the book, but it's been a while and the Navy does contract somewhat by that point.

"By your insubordinate and irresponsible behavior, Captain Zilwicki, you have managed to half-wreck what should have been our greatest propaganda triumph in the Solarian League ever." Glumly, the ambassador stared down at the teeming streets and passageways over a mile beneath his vantage point. "Of course, it'll blow over eventually. And Parnell will be giving his testimony to the Sollie Human Rights Commission for months. But still—"

He turned away, adding his own fierce glare to the admiral's. The stocky officer who was the object of that hot scrutiny did not seem notably abashed. Zilwicki's face was expressionless.

"Still!" Hendricks took a deep breath. "We should have been able to start the whole thing with a flourish. Instead—" He waved angrily at the window.

Young leaned forward across his desk, tapping the disk. "Instead, all everyone's talking about is the so-called Peep–Manpower War. Who wants to watch testimony in a chamber, when the casters can show you a half-wrecked Peep embassy and a completely wrecked Manpower headquarters?" He snorted. "Not to mention the so-called"—his next words came hissing—" 'drama' of Mesa's slave revenge. With most of their pros gone, Manpower was a sitting duck. Especially with that terrorist Jeremy X on the loose. Christ, they didn't leave anyone alive over there."

For the first time since he'd entered the admiral's office, Captain Zilwicki spoke.

"None of the secretaries in Manpower's HQ were so much as scratched. Your Lordship."

You know you're doing well when the incompetent desk-jockeys are mad at you. The Ballroom managed to wreck Manpower's public headquarters on Earth after the failed Manpower assault on the Peep embassy. Didn't kill any of the secretaries, but everyone more involved in the slave trade... Well they got what they bloody well deserved.

"You are relieved of your duties and ordered to report directly to Navy headquarters in the Star Kingdom to account for your actions. Technically, you are not under arrest, but that's purely a formality. You will remain in your private quarters until such time as the next courier ship is ready to depart. In the meantime—"

"I'll be leaving immediately, Your Lordship. I've already made the arrangements."

Zilwicki's being ordered home for judgment on his insubordination. Seriously, you ordered you super-spy to do nothing after his daughter was kidnapped and didn't even have him watched? Even if you were afraid of tipping off the kidnappers, you can't act surprised when this is the result.

That moment, the admiral's secretary stuck his head through the door. The admiral had deliberately left the door open, so that the entire staff could overhear his dealings with Zilwicki.

Okay, that's just a dick move.

"Montaigne?" he demanded. "What in the hell does that lunatic want?"

His answer came from the lunatic herself. The Lady Catherine Montaigne trotted past the secretary and into the room. She bestowed a sunny smile on the ambassador. Her cheerful peasant face clashed a bit with her very expensive clothing.

"Please, Lord Hendricks! A certain courtesy is expected between Peers of the Realm. In private, at least."

She removed the absurdly elaborate hat perched on her head and fluttered it. "In public, of course, you're welcome to call me whatever you want." The smile grew very sunny indeed. "Now that I think about it, I believe I once referred to you as a horse's ass in one of my speeches."

The smile was transferred onto Admiral Young and grew positively radiant. "And I am quite certain that I've publicly labeled the entire Young clan as a herd of swine. Oh, on any number of occasions! Although—" Here the smile quirked an apologetic corner. "I can't recall if I ever singled you out in particular, Eddie. But I assure you I will make good the lack at the very first opportunity. Of which I expect to have any number, since I'm planning a speaking tour immediately upon my return."

The Peculiar Courtesies of the Manticoran Peerage.

"Zilwicki, are you mad? You're in enough trouble already!" The ambassador goggled the tall and slender noblewoman. "If you return to Manticore in the company of this—this—"

"Peer of the Realm," Lady Catherine drawled. "In case you'd forgotten."

The smile made no pretense, any longer, of disguising its contempt. "And—in case you'd forgotten—I am thereby required to provide Her Majesty's armed forces with my assistance whenever possible. That is the law, Lord Hendricks, even if that herd of Young swine and your own brood of suckling piglets choose to ignore it at your convenience."

Law obligating Manty nobles to support and provide all reasonable aid to the armed forces when away from home, say some castaways need food and shelter, or an officer needs a ride home. Was a plot point in an earlier short story.

"So—I must see to it that Captain Zilwicki is brought before the Judge Advocate General as soon as possible, to face the serious charges laid against him. And since I was leaving at once anyway, because of my other pressing responsibility to the Crown, I would be remiss in my duty as a peer if I did not provide the captain with transport."

Again, it took a moment for the words to register.

Admiral Young finally stopped gaping. "What 'other' responsibility?" he demanded.

Lady Catherine's eyes grew a bit round. "Oh, you hadn't heard? It seems that the self-destruct mechanism in Manpower's vault failed to operate properly. When those savage Ballroom terrorists wreaked their havoc on Manpower's headquarters, they were able to salvage most of the records from the computers. I received a copy, sent by an anonymous party."

She planted the hat back on her head. "I haven't had time to study it fully, of course—such voluminous records—but it didn't take me more than a minute to realize that the information needs to be presented to the Queen as soon as possible. You all know how much Elizabeth detests genetic slavery. She's said so in public—oh, I can't keep track of all the times! And in private, her opinion is even more volcanic." She shook her head sadly. "Such a hot-tempered woman. I worry about her health, sometimes."

Cathy is a childhood friend of the Queen, for all their politics differ in so many ways they're of one mind regarding slavery. The official story is the vast list of Manticoran peers engaged in the slave trade came from the Mesan's own records, not hacked from Admiral Young's, which would only muddy the waters.

Her hand squeezed Zilwicki's shoulder. "Captain?"

"Your servant, Lady Catherine."

A moment later, they were gone. The two men remaining in the room stared at each other. Their faces were already growing pale.

"Records?" choked Hendricks.

The admiral ignored him. He was already scrabbling for the communicator. In the minutes which followed, while Hendricks paced out his agitation, Young simply sat there. Listening to his chief legal officer explain to him, over and again, that he had neither the legal grounds—nor, more to the point here on Terra, the police authority—to detain a Manticoran Peer of the Realm engaged in the Queen's business.

Heh. The whole kidnapping and resulting scandal from the records shall be known hereafter as the Manpower Incident.

Usher turned away from the railing. "And that's that. Come on, Victor. It's time for Ginny and me to introduce you to a new vice."

Victor followed obediently. He didn't even grimace at the gibe.

"Good lad," murmured Usher. "You'll like it, I promise. And if the elitism bothers you, just use the plebe word for it. Movies."

He leaned over, smiling at his wife. "Which one, d'you think?"

"Casablanca," came the immediate reply.

"Good choice!" Kevin draped his other arm over Victor. "I do believe this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

If introducing an adult to cinema for the first time, Casablanca is a fine choice. Plus, Kevin already dropped a ref to it. Kevin, Ginny and Victor watch to make sure the Cathy and the Zilwickis fly safely off to her yacht.

The door to the salon opened and her father tiptoed in. He spotted her and froze. Helen fought to restrain her giggles. Talk about role reversal.

"So!" she piped. "How was she?"

Her father flushed. Helen laughed and clapped her hands with glee. She had never managed to do that!

The Zilwicki family has expanded from dad and daughter to include Berry, Lars and Cathy. Helen heartily approves of her father's relationship, but that doesn't mean she won't give him a hard time over it, just a little.


So! There's a lot of your needed context and character introductions. You've met the Zilwickis, the Terrible Trio of Peeps, Jeremy and the Ballroom, and even the oft-overrated Scrags. Along with a sort of general introduction to the evils of genetic slavery.

One could argue that's all the foundation you'll need, or more, to understand the book. But the actual book Crown of Slaves takes place simultaneously with War of Honor, itself five years after Ashes of Victory, which I'm working on at the moment. So no harm if we cover Fanatic first.

[VhenRa]

Arguably there is a few more characters left unintroduced when Crown of Slaves begin. Captain Michael Oversteegen is probably the biggest. Our first member of the Conservative Party who isn't a mustache twirler.

[Batman]

I think I can live without getting more of Oversteegen's stupid accent, thank you very much. It must be annoying enough when heard spoken, but in writing? If I have to choose between a useless 20 page infodump that only recaps stuff I've known for 7 books or 4 pages of Oversteegen talking to people, I'm taking the infodump.

[Ahriman238]

Around the time of McQueen's failed coup, shortly after really come two events concerning this plotline. First, Victor Cachat returns home to Nouveau Paris a year after the Manpower Incident. Second is the brutal murder of People's Commissioner Robert Jamka, overseer of Admiral Genevieve Chin, who herself manages all military forces in the relatively prosperous La Martine province.

It seems highly unlikely that such an event would happen at such a time as to free Chin to support McQueen by coincidence, but the new dictator of Haven has about a million problems on his plate. So he assigns Victor Cachat as his Special Investigator, with effectively unlimited powers to root out treason and corruption in La Martine and find Jamka's killers. So our story begins...

The holopic on her desk was that of a State Security officer whose face practically shrieked: fanatic. The fact that it was the image of a young man did not detract from the impression in the least. Coarse black hair loomed over a wide, shallow brow; the brow, in turn, loomed over eyes as dark as the hair. The eyes themselves were obsidian flakes against an ascetic-pale, hard-jawed, tight-lipped, square-chinned and gaunt-cheeked face. Genevieve had no difficulty at all imagining that face in the gloom of an Inquisition dungeon, tightening the rack still further on a sinner. Or shoving the first torch into the mound of faggots piled under a heretic bound to a stake.

First detailed description I can remember of Cachat.

"Is he really as young as he looks, Yuri?" she asked quietly.

The third person in the room, who was leaning against the closed door to her office, nodded his head. He was a somewhat plump middle-aged man of average height, with a round and friendly looking face, wearing a StateSec uniform.

"Yup. Just turned twenty-four years old. Three years out of the academy. Unfortunately, he seems to have done splendidly on his first major field assignment and caught Saint-Just's eye. And now, of course . . ."

Cachat's age, and yes, he really did impress with his work on Old Earth.

She glanced at her desk display. It was dark, at the moment, but she had no difficulty imagining what it would have shown if she'd slipped it to tactical mode. Two State Security superdreadnoughts keeping orbit close to her own task force circling the planet of La Martine.

Admiral Chin's task force was much bigger in terms of ships, true—fourteen battleships on station, along with an equivalent number of cruisers and half a dozen destroyers. And so what? Chin was fairly confident that under ideal conditions she could have defeated those two monsters—though not without suffering enormous casualties. She had the advantage of handpicked officers and well-trained Navy crews, whereas the officers and crews of the StateSec superdreadnoughts had no real battle experience. They'd been selected for their political reliability, not their fighting skills.

But it was all a moot point. The StateSec warships had their impellers and sidewalls up and she didn't. They'd gotten word of Esther McQueen's failed coup attempt in Nouveau Paris before she had, and had immediately gone to battle stations . . . and stayed there. By the time she'd realized what was happening, it had been too late. Any battle now would be a sheer massacre of her own forces.

It had almost been a massacre anyway, she suspected. McQueen's coup attempt had immediately placed the entire Navy officer corps under suspicion; especially any officers who, like Chin herself, dated back to the old Legislaturalist regime.

But when her own People's Commissioner had been found murdered three days before the news arrived . . . As accidental as it may have been, the timing had been unfortunate—putting it mildly!

Timing, Jamka was murdered three days before the coup. Forces in La Martine: 14 BB, 14 cruisers, 6 DD and 2 StateSec SDs. Which have been sitting at battlestations ready to vape the first ship to move since they got word of the coup. It's a bit of a tense situation.

Then, noticing something else, she cawed laughter. "They've removed his belt and shoes!"

Radamacher smiled sourly. "After Pierre was killed, I doubt if Saint-Just is going to overlook any possible danger." He paused the recording and studied it. Then, chuckled. "Is there anything sillier-looking than a man trying to stand at attention in his socks? It's a good thing for him the Committee of Public Safety did away with the old Legislaturalist custom of clicking your heels when coming to attention, or that youngster would look like a pure idiot."

Security around the Great Dictator. The old navy clicked their heels on coming to attention.

"You're a self-possessed young man, Citizen Lieutenant Cachat," Saint-Just murmured. "I approve of that—as long as you don't let it get out of hand."

Cachat simply gave Saint-Just a brisk little nod of the head.

Saint-Just pushed the dossier aside a few inches. "I've now studied this report on the Manpower affair which you brought back from Terra. I've studied it three times over, in fact. And I will tell you that I've never seen such a cocked-up mess in my life."

Saint-Just's right hand reached out and fingered the pages of the report. "One of the pages in this dossier consists of your own record. Terra was your first major assignment, true. But you graduated almost at the top of your class in the academy—third, to be precise—so let's hope you can match the promise."


"Oh, hell," muttered Ogilve.

" 'Oh, hell' is right." Radamacher grimaced. "The top five positions in any graduating class at the StateSec academy require a pure-perfect rating of political rectitude from every single one of your instructors. I graduated third from the bottom, myself."

He jabbed a finger at the recording, which he'd paused again. "And take a look at the kid's face. First time he's had any expression at all. This'll be news to him, you know. He'd had no idea where he stood at the academy, since it's the academy's policy not to let any of the cadets know how they're doing in the eyes of their superiors. I only found out my own standing years later, and then only because I was called on the carpet for 'slackness' and it was thrown in my face. A charge which, you can bet the bank, nobody's ever thrown at this young eager-beaver. Look at him! His eyes are practically gleaming."

Victor meets Saint-Just, a bit on the StateSec academy, including that they don't share class ratings.

Saint-Just was still speaking. "So now you tell me the truth, young Victor Cachat."

Cachat glanced down at the dossier. "I haven't seen Citizen Major Gironde's report, Citizen Chairman. But, at a guess, I'd say he was concerned with minimizing the damage to Durkheim's reputation."

Saint-Just's snort was a mild thing, quite in keeping with his mild-mannered appearance.

"No kidding. If I took this report at face value, I'd have to think that Raphael Durkheim engineered a brilliant intelligence coup on Terra—in which, sadly, he lost his own life due to an excess of physical courage."

Again, that little snort. More like a sniff, really. "As it happens, however, I was personally quite familiar with Durkheim. And I can assure you that the man was neither brilliant nor possessed of an ounce of courage more than the minimum needed for his job." His voice grew a bit harsh. "So now you tell me what really happened."

"What really happened was that Durkheim tried to put together a scheme that was too clever by half, it all came apart at the seams, and the rest of us—Major Gironde and me, mostly—had to keep it from blowing up in our faces." He stood a bit more rigidly. "In which, if you'll permit me to say so, I think we did a pretty good job."

"'Permit me to say so,'" mimicked Saint-Just. But there was no great sarcasm in his tone of voice. "Youngster, I'll permit any of my officers to speak the truth, provided they do so in the service of the state." He moved the dossier a few inches farther away from him. "Which I'd have to say, in this case, you probably are. I assume you and Gironde saw to it that Durkheim went under the knife himself?"

"Yes, Citizen Chairman, we did. Somebody in charge had to take the fall—and be dead in the doing—or we couldn't have buried the questions."

Saint-Just stared at him. "And who—I want a name—did the actual cutting?"

Cachat didn't hesitate. "I did, Citizen Chairman. I shot Durkheim myself, with one of the guns we recovered from the Manpower assassination team. Then put the body in with the rest of the casualties."

Manpower incident as relayed to Saint-Just. Also, Cachat's ability to lie with absolute sincerity, we the omniscient audience know that Usher killed Durkheim, but to protect his friend and mentor, Cachat doesn't hesitate to take the blame.

Again, Radamacher paused the recording. "Can you believe the nerve of this kid? He just admitted—didn't pause a second—to murdering his own superior officer. Right in front of the Director! And—look at him! Standing there as relaxed as can be, without a care in the world!"

Genevieve didn't quite agree with Yuri's assessment. The image of Cachat didn't looked exactly "relaxed" to her. Just . . . firm and certain in the knowledge of his own Truth and Righteousness. She couldn't keep her shoulders from shuddering a little. Just so might a zealous inquisitor face the Inquisition himself, serene in the certainty of his own assured salvation. The fanatic's mindset: Kill them all and let God sort them out—I've got no worries where I stand with the Lord.

Yeah, in case you haven't figured it out, Cachat is the titular fanatic. This is probably the result of his little personal revelation of who he is and what he stands for back on Earth, but he is almost inhumanly self-possessed.

The room was silent for perhaps twenty seconds, with Saint-Just continuing to stare at the young officer standing at attention before him—and the guards with their hands on the butt of their sidearms.

Then, abruptly, Saint-Just issued a dry chuckle. "Remind me to congratulate the head of the academy for his perspicacity. Very good, Citizen Captain Cachat."

The relaxation in the room was almost palpable. The guards' hands slid away from the gunbutts, Saint-Just eased back in his chair—and even Cachat allowed his rigid stance to lessen a bit.

Saint-Just's fingers did a little drum-dance on the cover of the dossier. Then, firmly, he pushed the entire dossier to the side of the desk.

"We'll put the whole thing aside, then. It all turned out well, obviously. Amazingly well, in fact, for an operation you had to put together on the fly. As for Durkheim, I'm not going to lose any sleep over an officer who gets himself killed from an excess of ambition and stupidity. Certainly not when we're in a political crisis like this one. And now, Citizen Captain Cachat—yes, that's a promotion—I've got a new assignment for you."

Cachat tells a bald-faced lie to, and stares down Oscar Saint-Just when the other man is probably at the height of his paranoia.

She shrugged. "To be honest, I didn't mind it all that much. The pig was usually more interested in his own—ah, hobbies—than he was in doing his job. And since he kept his vices away from me personally, I could pretty much just ignore him and go about my business."

She went back to studying the holoviewer gloomily. The original image of StateSec Citizen Captain Cachat was back. "This guy, on the other hand . . ." She sighed and slumped back in her chair. "Give me a lazy, distracted and incompetent commissioner any day of the week. Even a vicious brute." With an apologetic glance at Radamacher: "Or one like you, that the Navy can work with."

Her eyes moved back to Cachat's image. "But there's nothing worse I can think of than a young, competent, energetic, duty-driven . . . ah, what's the word?"

Radamacher provided it. "Fanatic."

The types of StateSec personalities, as given by the Admiral to her buddy in StateSec, and the benefits of self-absorbed watchdogs.

Two days later, Victor Cachat arrived at La Martine. Eight hours after his arrival, Chin and Ogilve and Radamacher were ushered into his presence. The Special Investigator for the Director had set up his headquarters in one of the compartments normally set aside for a staff officer on a superdreadnought.

A part of Citizen Commodore Jean-Pierre Ogilve's mind noticed the austerity of the cabin. There was a regulation bed, a regulation desk and chair, and a regulation footlocker. Other than that, the compartment was bare except for a couch and two armchairs—both of which were utilitarian and had obviously been hauled out of storage from wherever the previous occupant had put them in favor of his or her own personalized furniture. Official Staff Officer Compartment Accouterments, Grade Cheap, Type Mediocre, Quality Uncomfortable, As Per Regulations.

Cachat's arrival and quarters/office on one of the SDs.

The bulkheads showed faint traces where the previous occupant had apparently hung some personal pictures. Those were now gone also, replaced by nothing more than the official seal of State Security hanging over the bed and, positioned right behind the desk, two portraits. One was a holopic of Rob Pierre, draped in black with a bronze inscription below it reading Never Forget. The other was a holopic of Saint-Just. The two stern-faced images loomed over the shoulders of the young StateSec officer seated at the desk—not that he needed them in the least to project an image of severity and right-thinking.

holoportraits of Pierre and Saint-Just.

As Chin and Ogilve and Radamacher came forward, Special Investigator Cachat's eyes swiveled to Radamacher.

"You're Citizen People's Commissioner Yuri Radamacher, yes? Attached to Citizen Commodore Ogilve."

The voice was hard and clipped. Otherwise it might have been a pleasant young man's tenor.

Yuri nodded. "Yes, Citizen Special Investigator."

"You're under arrest. Report yourself to one of the State Security guards outside and you will be ushered to new quarters aboard this superdreadnought. I will attend to you later."

Radamacher stiffened. So did Admiral Chin and Ogilve himself.

"May I know the reason?" asked Yuri, through tight lips.

"It should be obvious. Suspicion of murder. You were second-in-command to People's Commissioner Robert Jamka. As such, you stood to gain personally by his death, since under normal circumstances you would have—might have, I should say—been promoted to his place."

Cachat's changed a lot, and he doesn't waste time, except when it benefits him to do so.

"Don't take it personally. I am having anyone arrested immediately who might have any personal motive for murdering Citizen Commissioner Jamka."

The hard dark eyes moved to Admiral Chin; then, to Ogilve himself. "That way I can quarantine the possibly personal aspect of the crime in order to concentrate my attention on what is important—the possible political implications of it."

Practical, if you have the power to simply arrest all suspects and then sort things out.

"Now, Citizen Commissioner Radamacher. Name your replacement."

Yuri hesitated. Then: "I'd recommend State Security Captain Sharon Justice, Special Investigator. She's—"

"A moment, please." The loose fists opened and Cachat worked quickly at the console. Within seconds, an information screen came up. Ogilve couldn't be certain, from the angle he was looking at it, but he thought it consisted of personnel records.

Cachat studied the screen for a moment. "She's attached to PNS Veracity, one of the battleships in Squadron Beta. A good service record here, according to this. Excellent, in fact."

"Yes, Special Investigator. Sharon—Citizen Captain Justice—is easily my most capable subordinate and she's—"

The hard, clipped voice cut him off again. "She's also under arrest. I will notify her as soon as this meeting is over and order her to report herself to this ship at once."

Yuri's named replacement is also arrested, as his possible accomplice. His next suggestion is a rank incompetent and dismissed by Cachat, the third actually gets the job until a replacement can be shipped in from the Haven system.

The gesture, this time, was not so minimal. And whether Cachat intended it or not, the easy heaving of the shoulders emphasized just how square and muscular those shoulders were. Much more so than Ogilve would have guessed from the holopic he'd seen a few days earlier. Ogilve was quite sure the man was a fanatic about physical exercise, too. Cachat's frame was naturally that of a rather slimly built man, and the muscle he had added was not massive so much as wiry. But the force of his personality was driving home to the commodore just how ruthlessly this young man would tackle any project—including his own physical transformation.

That much is absolutely true.

"I can tell you that I spent most of my time on my voyage here studying the records on La Martine, Citizen Admiral Chin. And one thing that is blindingly obvious is that the proper distance between State Security and the Navy has badly eroded in this sector. As is further evident by your own anger at my actions. Why should a Navy admiral care what dispositions State Security makes of its personnel?"

Because she cares for her people, including all the "good" StateSec ones. But it is admittedly unusual to find a frontline officer willing to go to bat for her Commissioners.

The State Security officers enjoying the privilege of being seated in the Special Investigator's presence began spluttering outrage. Two of the StateSec officers standing against the wall stepped forward, as if to seize Chin. The admiral herself, despite her age, slid easily into a martial artist's semi-crouch.

It's all going to blow! Ogilve thought frantically, trying to find some way to—

Wham!

He jumped. So did everyone in the room. The palm of Cachat's hand, slamming the desk, had sounded like a small explosion. Jean-Pierre Ogilve studied the Special Investigator's hand. It was not particularly large. But, like the shoulders, it was sinewy and square and looked . . . very, very hard.

For the first time, also, there was an actual expression on Cachat's face. A tight-eyed, tight-jawed, glare of cold fury. But, oddly enough, it was not aimed at Admiral Chin but at the two StateSec officers stepping forward.

"Were you given any instructions?" Cachat demanded harshly.

The two officers froze in mid-step.

"Were you?"

Seriously, I think this is what Miles Vorkosigan would call forward momentum. Also insane, but Cachat effoertlessly controls the room.

"Silence. Whether or not you can handle geometry, your grasp of simple arithmetic leaves much to be desired. Since when do two SDs need to keep their impellers up to handle a task force of battleships and cruisers? Leaving aside the useless wear and tear on the people's equipment"—the words somehow came out in capital letters, People's Equipment—"you've also kept the People's Navy paralyzed for weeks. Weeks, Citizen Captain Gallanti—thereby giving the Manticoran elitists free rein to wreak havoc on the commerce in this sector. All this, mind you, in the midst of the Republic's most desperate hour, when the blueblood Earl of White Haven and his Cossacks are ravening at our door."

Cachat's eyes narrowed a bit. "Whether your actions are the product of incompetence, cowardice—or something darker—remains to be determined."

And now the captains of the SS SDs get it. At least Victor will always have that gift for making friends.

Cachat gestured to the screen. "I spent a portion of my time on the voyage here studying your own records, and those of La Martine since you assumed command of naval forces here six years ago. It's an impressive record. You've succeeded in suppressing all piracy in the sector and even managed to keep Manticoran commerce raiding severely under check. In addition, the civilian authorities in the sector have nothing but praise for the way you've coordinated with them smoothly. Over the past six years, La Martine Sector has become one of the most important economic strongholds for the Republic—and the civilian authorities unanimously credit you for a large part of that accomplishment."

La Martine is in the pink largely because of Chin's good work keeping pirates and commerce raiders out since the war began.

"As for the matter of Jamka's murder, my personal belief is that the affair will prove in the end to be nothing more than a sordid private matter. But my responsibilities require me to prioritize any possible political implications. It was for that reason that I had Citizen Commissioner Radamacher and Citizen Captain Justice placed under arrest. Just as it will be for that reason that I am going to carry through a systematic reshuffling of all StateSec assignments here in La Martine Sector."

The StateSec officers in the room stiffened a bit, hearing that last sentence. Cachat seemed not to notice, although Jean-Pierre spotted what might have been a slight tightening of the Special Investigator's lips.

"Indeed so," Cachat added forcefully. "Running parallel to an overly close relationship between StateSec and the Navy here, there's also been altogether too much of a separation of responsibilities within State Security itself. Very unhealthy. It reminds me of the caste preoccupations of the Legislaturalists. Some are always assigned comfortable positions here on the capital ships in orbit at La Martine"—his eyes glanced about the compartment, as if scrutinizing the little luxuries which he had ordered removed—"while others are always assigned to long and difficult patrols on smaller ships."

His eyes stopped ranging the bulkheads and settled on the StateSec officers. "That practice now comes to an end."

Jean-Pierre Ogilve had occasionally wondered what Moses had sounded like, returning from the mountain with his stone tablets. Now he knew. Ogilve had to stifle a smile. The expressions on the faces of the superdreadnoughts' officers were priceless. Just so, he was certain, had the idol-worshippers prancing around the Golden Calf welcomed the prophet down from the mountain.

"Comes—to—an—end." Cachat repeated the words, seeming to savor each and every one of them.

As long as he's here, Cachat will shake up StateSec, rotating their personnel so everyone gets the crap jobs sometimes.

The prospects were . . . not good. They rarely were, for a StateSec officer placed under arrest by StateSec itself. Even the fig leaf of a trial before a People's Court would be dispensed with. State Security kept its dirty linen secret. Summary investigation. Summary trial. Often enough, summary execution.

No public trials needed where StateSec secrets could leak, they can vanish their own personnel as effectively as anyone.

Also on the plus side, while they had received vague feelers from Admiral Esther McQueen, they had been careful to keep their distance. In truth, they never had belonged to McQueen's conspiracy.

The existence of such feelers could still be construed badly, of course.

Victor Cachat. It would be his decision, now. The powers of a StateSec Special Investigator, in a distant provincial sector like La Martine, were well-nigh limitless in practice. The only person who could have served as a check against Cachat would have been Robert Jamka, the senior People's Commissioner in the sector.

But Jamka was dead, and Radamacher was fairly certain that Saint-Just would be in no hurry to name a replacement for him. La Martine was not high on Saint-Just's priority list, being so far away from the war front. So long as Saint-Just was satisfied that Cachat was conducting the investigation with sufficient zeal and rigor, he'd let the young maniac have his way.

There was something ludicrous anyway about the idea of Robert Jamka serving as a "check" to anyone. Jamka had been a sadist and a sexual pervert. As well ask Beelzebub to rein in Belial.

Powers of a Special Investigator. With Jamka dead, only Saint-Just can censure Cachet, and he is only likely to do so if he decides Victor isn't being rigorous enough.

"This one records the torture and murder of a naval rating!"

Yuri felt the blood drain from his face. He'd heard rumors of what went on in Jamka's private quarters down on the planet, true. But, from the habit of years, he'd ignored the rumors and written off the more extravagant ones to the inflation inevitable to any hearsay. Truth be told, like Admiral Chin, a large part of Radamacher had been thankful for Jamka's secret perversions. It kept the bastard preoccupied and out of Yuri's hair. As long as Jamka kept his private habits away from the task force, Radamacher had minded his own business. It was dangerous—very dangerous—to pry into the private life of a StateSec officer as highly ranked as Robert Jamka. Who had been, after all, Radamacher's own superior.

Jamka's perversions extending to murdering one of his own naval ratings.

"Good God."

"There is no God," snapped Cachat. "Don't let me hear you use such language again."

Again with the enforced atheism.

Right now, we need to finish your investigation. The situation here is such an unholy mess that I can't afford to have an officer of your experience twiddling his thumbs. I'm desperately in need of personnel I can rely on." He jerked a thumb at the sergeant; scowling: "I even had to summon Marines from one of the task force vessels, since I can't be sure which StateSec personnel on this ship were involved with Jamka."

Why there are Marines on a StateSec capital ship, and I'm sure her captain must have loved that.

"You can give me any truth drug you want." He tried to sound as confident as possible. "Well, there's one I have an allergic reaction to—that's—"

Cachat interrupted him. "Not a chance. Among the people implicated in Jamka's behavior—there seems to have been a whole little cult of the swine—was one of the ship's doctors aboard this vessel. I have no idea how he might have adulterated the supply of drugs, precisely in order to protect himself if he came under suspicion. So we'll use the tried and true methods."

Somewhat reliable truth drugs in the honorverse, and why they won't be using them in this case.

The chamber was normally used as a gym for StateSec troopers. In a way, it still was. Insofar as administering a beating could be called "exercise."

He stared, horrified, when he saw the person shackled to a heavy chair in the center of the compartment. It was Citizen Captain Sharon Justice, nude from the waist up except for a brassiere. He could barely recognize her. Sharon's upper body was covered with bruises, and her face was a pulp. Blood was splattered all over her head and chest.

Having the suspects beaten, naturally. Hard to imagine the clumsy, well-meaning kid from the first story doing this.

"Please take a seat, Citizen Commissioner Radamacher. If you're innocent, you have nothing to fear beyond a painful episode which will end soon enough." There was a pulser holstered on his belt. Cachat lifted the weapon and held it casually. "If you're guilty, your pain will end even sooner."

Yuri took some pride in the fact that he made it to the chair and seated himself without trembling. As one of the sergeants fastened the shackles to his wrists and ankles, he stared up at Cachat.

Again, he ignored the Special Investigator's dictum. "Jesus Christ," he hissed softly. "You shot them yourself?"

Again, that irritated little twitch of the shoulders. "We are in time of war, at a moment of supreme crisis for the Republic. The security risk posed by Jamka and his cabal required summary judgement and execution. Their perversions and corruption threatened to undermine the authority of the state here. It did undermine that authority, as a matter of fact, when Jamka's behavior got himself killed."

Yuri had to fight not to let his relief show. Whether he realized it or not, Cachat had just stated that the significance of Jamka's murder was personal, not political—and had done so on the official record.

Oh, he realized it, Yuri. Yuri gets beaten by the Marines and Victor personally executed Jamka's cabal.

—"I believe I have established that Legislaturalist-style cronyism and back-scratching between unfit and corrupt officers will no longer be tolerated in this sector. Indeed, it will be severely punished."

I'd say that's quite well established, yes.

"Have at it, then," said Yuri firmly. For reasons he could not quite understand, he was suddenly filled with confidence. In fact, he felt better than he had in a long time.

****

The feeling didn't last, of course. But, as Cachat had stated, it was eventually over. Through one blurry eye—the other was closed completely—Yuri saw the pistol go back into the holster. And through ears that felt like cauliflowers, he dimly heard the Special Investigator pronounce him innocent of all suspicions. True, the words sounded as if they were spoken grudgingly. But, they were spoken. And properly recorded. Yuri heard Cachat enquire as to that also.

Yuri is cleared of suspicion, ending the first act.

[Simon_Jester]

Around the time of McQueen's failed coup, shortly after really come two events concerning this plotline. First, Victor Cachat returns home to Nouveau Paris a year after the Manpower Incident. Second is the brutal murder of People's Commissioner Robert Jamka, overseer of Admiral Genevieve Chin, who herself manages all military forces in the relatively prosperous La Martine province.

And yes, this is that Chin, the one who got systematically trolled by Sarnow/Harrington's various ambushes and gimmicks at First Hancock because she didn't know about missile pods or the full extent of the Manticoran EW advantage.

Timing, Jamka was murdered three days before the coup. Forces in La Martine: 14 BB, 14 cruisers, 6 DD and 2 StateSec SDs. Which have been sitting at battlestations ready to vape the first ship to move since they got word of the coup. It's a bit of a tense situation.

Point of order: three days before news of the coup arrived. Ship speeds for fast ships in the Honorverse are around 2000c to 3000c, so news travels maybe five to eight light-years a day. Ten light-years a day, tops, for a ship really pushing itself (say, courier boats risking slamming into the iota wall).

If La Martine is astrographically fairly close to Haven (thirty to fifty light-years), then that means the assassination of Jamka occurred before or simultaneously with the coup attempt. Which makes it even more suspicious.

Cachat tells a bald-faced lie to, and stares down Oscar Saint-Just when the other man is probably at the height of his paranoia.

To be fair, it's a plausible lie and he's got the credentials to make it believable. Still, though.

[I will note that historically, people lying to dangerous, paranoid, unstable, suspicious tyrants is hardly unusual, which is usually why they become so damn paranoid, unstable, and suspicious in the first place]

The gesture, this time, was not so minimal. And whether Cachat intended it or not, the easy heaving of the shoulders emphasized just how square and muscular those shoulders were. Much more so than Ogilve would have guessed from the holopic he'd seen a few days earlier. Ogilve was quite sure the man was a fanatic about physical exercise, too. Cachat's frame was naturally that of a rather slimly built man, and the muscle he had added was not massive so much as wiry. But the force of his personality was driving home to the commodore just how ruthlessly this young man would tackle any project—including his own physical transformation.

That much is absolutely true.

Also, long hyperspace voyages give a man a lot of time to get caught up on exercise and study, if he chooses to make use of them that way.

Seriously, I think this is what Miles Vorkosigan would call forward momentum. Also insane, but Cachat effoertlessly controls the room.

I get the feeling those two men would get along spectacularly. Either spectacularly well or spectacularly poorly. But spectacularly.

Having the suspects beaten, naturally. Hard to imagine the clumsy, well-meaning kid from the first story doing this.

Even given everything we later learn. Victor's familiar with the idea that a good beating makes a great cover, because it gives you excellent reasons to be distant from the people who ordered you beaten.

[Terralthra]

Ogilve is also a returning character as well, from the same book in fact. Commander Ogilve commanded PNS Napoleon, a light cruiser, under Admiral Rollins in Short Victorious War. Pretty sure he's a viewpoint (ish) character for one of the Argus dumps.

[Ahriman238]

Besides, he got a full daily report from Sergeant Pierce anyway, concerning the events transpiring on the superdreadnought—indeed, throughout the entire task force. So he saw no reason to venture out into the corridors himself, since he had a perfectly valid medical excuse not to do so. Philosophically—especially with the aid of new bruises added to old saws—he thought that phenomena which went by such terms as "Reign of Terror" were best observed indirectly.

Ned Pierce, one of the Marines who beat Yuri keeps him posted on Cachat's vigorous efforts to root out treason, corruption and incompetence.

Radamacher was just fascinated by the peculiarities of the whole thing. Cachat's actions were like a grotesque Moebius strip concocted in the mind of a torturer. First, Cachat used the Marine contingent from Sharon's own ship to beat her into a pulp. Then, he turned around and consulted with those same Marines with regard to StateSec assignments—and cross-checked the recommendations with the same woman they'd just gotten through torturing!

Utterly insane. Not simply the actions of a fanatic, but of one who was unhinged to boot. It wasn't precisely against regulations for an officer of StateSec to rely on Marines for their recommendations for StateSec staff assignments. But that was only because it never would have occurred to anyone that such a regulation was needed in the first place. It just wasn't done, that's all. As well pass regulations forbidding stars to revolve around planets!

There's a method to Cachat's madness, and even if you've never read this story you're a lot better placed to guess it than Yuri is.

Seven officers and twenty-three crewmen of the Hector Van Dragen arrested, for starters, within the first week. Two officers and seven crewmen from the other SD, the Joseph Tilden. One of those officers and four of the crewmen subsequently executed, after Cachat finished examining the evidence found in their quarters.

The others were routine thieves, slammed with the max penalties.

Radamacher wondered how much of Cachat's ruthlessness was dictated by typical StateSec empire-building. Guilty or not, the net effect of the purge was to completely shatter any residual Jamka network, and to intimidate anyone else from forming a different informal network. Or, at the very least, to keep it well under cover. By the end of his first week in La Martine Sector, Victor Cachat had established himself as The Boss, and nobody doubted it.

Nobody is likely to question that after all the beatings and the shootings.

Any danger of being accused of being a McQueen conspirator was growing more distant as each day passed. Not just for Yuri himself, but for anyone in the task force. By hammering into a pulp the StateSec officers overseeing Admiral Chin's task force—and then declaring them all innocent of any crime—Cachat had effectively sealed the whole matter. Just as, by using task force Marines to do the blood work, he had effectively cleared them of any suspicion also; and, by implication, the naval officers in overall command of the task force. Neither Admiral Chin nor Commodore Ogilve had been subjected to anything worse than a rigorous but non-violent interrogation.

Granted, Saint-Just's regime didn't recognize the principle of double jeopardy, so any charges could theoretically be raised again at any time. But even Saint-Just's regime was subject to the inevitable dynamics of human affairs. Inertia worked in that field as surely as it did anywhere else. No one could question the rigor of Cachat's investigation—not with blood and bruises and dead bodies everywhere—and the matter was settled. Reopening it would be an uphill struggle, especially when the regime had a thousand critical problems to deal with in the wake of Rob Pierre's death.

Besides, whatever faint evidence there might once have been had surely vanished. By now, Yuri was quite certain that everyone in the task force who'd had any possible connection to McQueen had done the electronic equivalent of wiping off the fingerprints. Unwittingly—the young fanatic still had a lot to learn about intelligence work, Yuri reflected wryly—Cachat's week-long preoccupation with terrorizing the personnel of the two superdreadnoughts had bought time for the task force. Time to catch their breath, relax a bit, eliminate any traces of evidence, and get all their stories straight.

No double jeopardy in Haven, at least under Saint-Just. So far everyone is looking more and more innocent, with electronic records of McQueen's vague feelers deleted and simple time away from the acts.

Radamacher was also aware that Cachat had made no move against either of the two captains commanding the SDs, even though Citizen Captain Gallanti in particular had made no secret of her hostility toward the young Special Investigator. Neither of the captains had been touched by Jamka's unsavory activities, and neither could be shown to be corrupt. So, punctiliously, Cachat had left them in their positions and did not even seem to be going out of his way to build any case against them—despite the fact that Radamacher was quite sure Cachat understood that the SD commanders would remain a possible threat to him.

Captains of the StateSec SDs remain in place, though the crews are being shaken and well-mixed.

"Except the Special Investigator says it's time to do a role switch. So he's transferring about five hundred people from the SDs over to the fleet, and about twice that number from the fleet over here. Even some Marines, believe it or not. A company's worth on each ship. I'm one of them, in fact."

"Marines? On a StateSec superdreadnought? That's . . . not done."

The salubrious personnel retraining and transfer, or SPRAT. Apparently at least some Old Earth nursery rhymes survive into the far future.

"Okay types." He knew perfectly well that a Marine definition of that term would hardly match Saint-Just's.

And the award for understatement of the year goes to...

"Yeah, that's what Gallanti said. But, as you mighta figured, the SI's a regular walking encyclopedia of StateSec rules, regulations and precedents. So he immediately rattled off half a dozen instances where Marines had been stationed on StateSec capital ships. Two of the instances at the order of none other than Eloise Pritchard, Saint-Just's—ah, the Citizen Chairman's—fair-haired girl."

Yuri's face tightened. He knew Pritchard himself, as it happened. Not well, no. But he'd been close to the Aprilists in his days as a youthful oppositionist, and she'd been one of the leaders he'd respected and admired. But since the revolution, she'd turned into what he detested most. Another fanatic like Cachat, who'd drown the world in blood for the sake of abstract principles. Her harshness as a People's Commissioner was a legend in State Security.

Cachat's intimately familiar with the rules, another thing to occupy those long flights (we'll establish shortly that Haven to La Martine is a three-week trip, double that for civilian traffic). Yuri used to be an Aprilist, the 'honorable' terrorists against the Legislaturists who only attacked cops and government agents. Whose other surviving members after the Committee turned on them, like Kevin Usher and Eloise Prichart, have become central to the growing quiet resistance.

"Are your injuries sufficiently healed to resume your duties?" Cachat demanded. The tone of voice implied a sentence left unspoken. Or do you still insist on malingering, mired in sloth and resentment

One of those occasions where people better answer yes.

"I shall require you to remain on board this superdreadnought. The Hector Van Dragen will be remaining in La Martine orbit while the Joseph Tilden accompanies the task force in its upcoming mission." Cachat scowled fiercely. "I cannot allow the needs of the ongoing investigation to impede the State's other business any longer. Three new incidents of Manticoran commerce raiding have been reported—even a case of simple piracy!—and this task force must be gotten back into action. There being no valid reason for both SDs to remain lounging about while Admiral Chin's task force resumes its work, I am assigning the Tilden to accompany them."

The task force is moving out, with one of the StateSec SDs, and leaving Yuri with the remaining one.

"while I'm no expert on naval matters, Citizen Admiral Chin is. And she assures me that she can find a suitable role for the Tilden. Given her own experience and track record—and the fact that my investigation has turned up no reason to question either her competence or her loyalty—I have ordered Citizen Captain Vesey to place the Tilden under Citizen Admiral Chin's command."

StateSec captain taking orders from a regular admiral? Our boy Cachat really doesn't care for the status quo at all.

Cachat might not be an experienced naval officer. But Radamacher was quite certain that the young man had studied naval affairs just as thoroughly and relentlessly as he did everything else. If so, he'd understand perfectly well that a single superdreadnought attached to a flotilla the size of Admiral Chin's would be outmatched in the event of—ah, "internal hostilities." Especially since—Jesus, is he possibly this Machiavellian?—Cachat had also seen to it that the internal security squads for both superdreadnoughts were now composed of Marines and StateSec troops who got along well with Marines.

While . . .

Jesus Christ. He is that Machiavellian. Now that I think about it, by transferring all the worst elements from the SDs over to the task force, he's split them up and scattered them over three dozen different ships. With no way to communicate with each other, and . . . surrounded by Navy and Marine ratings who'd hammer them into a pulp cheerfully—or shoot them dead—if Chin or Cachat gave the order.

Kevin Usher taught him well, plans within plans.

Which leaves . . .

He couldn't help it. A little groan forced its way through Yuri's lips.

Cachat frowned. "What's this, Citizen Assistant Special Investigator Radamacher? Surely you're not objecting to a new assignment? You just got through assuring me your health had recovered sufficiently."

Yuri is left aboard the Hector as Assistant Special Investigator to root out their problems and present Cachat with a functioning ship when he gets back from his antipiracy cruise.

Radamacher cleared his throat. "I simply wanted to make sure my understanding of regulations is clear. As an assistant now attached to your office, I believe I am no longer in the task force's chain of command. Is that correct?"

"Of course," replied Cachat curtly. "How could it be otherwise? You report to me, and I report to State Security HQ in Nouveau Paris. How could we possibly be responsible to the same chain of command we're investigating?" Impatiently: "An officer of your experience simply can't be that ignorant of basic—"

He broke off. Then, glanced quickly at Sharon Justice. Then—

Yuri couldn't quite believe it, but . . . Cachat was actually blushing. For a moment, the young man looked like a schoolboy.

The moment didn't last long. Abruptly, as if summoned, the fanatic-face shield closed down. Cachat's next words were spoken in a very impatient tone of voice.

"If this involves a personal matter, Citizen Assistant Investigator Radamacher, it is no concern of mine so long as no regulations are broken."

So there is still that awkward, well-meaning kid in there.

Yuri pressed the advantage. "Look, as you said: The maniac hasn't even left orbit yet. So let's take advantage of all the time we've got to get everything straightened up before he comes back. If we work together, we can see to it that by the time he returns—that'll be at least six weeks, more likely eight—not even that fanatic can find anything wrong any more. He'll blow on his way and we'll have seen the last of him."

Gallanti was as notorious for her suspiciousness as her temper. Her eyes narrowed. "Why are you being so friendly, all of sudden?"

He spread his hands. "When have I ever not been friendly? It's not my fault you don't know me. I couldn't very well invite myself over to your staff dinners, could I?" He left unspoken the rest of it. Although you could have, Exalted SD Captain—if you hadn't been such a complete snot toward every officer in the task force since you arrived on station.

Gallanti's heavy jaws tightened. That was embarrassment, at first. But, like anyone with her temperament, Gallanti was not fond of self-doubt, much less self-criticism. So, within seconds, the embarrassment began transforming into anger.

Working on Captain Gallanti, who is already a piece of work. Expected time sans the Fanatic six to eight weeks.

"Isn't he something else? Where in creation did the Citizen Chairman dredge him up from? The Ninth Circle of Hell?"

"I believe that's the circle reserved for traitors," Radamacher said mildly, "which I'm afraid is the one fault you can't find in the man. Not without being laughed out of court, anyway. It's been a while since I read Dante, but if I recall correctly, intemperate zealots were assigned to a different level."

Gallanti glared at him. "Who's Dante?"

Yuri, at least, is a history buff.

"I would remind you of two things, Citizen Captain Gallanti. The first is that it will be at least six weeks before we can expect any answer, travel times being what they are between La Martine and the capital. I'd guess more like two months. StateSec is going to study all the dispatches carefully before they send back any reply."

Three weeks to Haven and three back.

Yuri shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't share your confidence that Nouveau Paris will be very sympathetic to our complaints."

That was a nice touch, he thought. In point of fact, Yuri Radamacher's name did not and would not appear on a single one of those "blistering dispatches." But, as he'd expected, a woman of Gallanti's mindset was always prepared to assume that everyone around her except lunatics would agree with her. So she took his casual mention of "our" complaints for good coin. That helped defuse her anger at his questioning of her judgement.

Gallanti is a fool, a bully and easy to manipulate besides.

"You'd do well not to forget that the Special Investigator is also—has also, I should say—sent dispatches of his own. I happen to know—never mind how—that those dispatches included a large sampling of the pornographic record chips found in the personal quarters of Jamka and his confederates. I don't know if you've seen any of those records, Citizen Captain, but I have—and I can assure you that the impact they will have on StateSec at the capital is not—not not not—going to be: 'why did Cachat blow their brains out?' The question is going to be of quite a different variety. 'Why was none of this reported prior to Cachat's arrival—especially by the commanding officers of the superdreadnoughts where the criminal activity was centered?'"

-snip-

"Face it, Jillian. Real world excuses always come up short against fantasy accusations whenever the fantasist can point to real crimes. So let's not kid ourselves. Cachat's rampage is going to go down very well in Nouveau Paris, don't think it won't." In a slightly cynical tone of voice: "Out of idle curiosity, I once did a textual analysis of several of our Citizen Chairman's occasional speeches to StateSec cadre assemblies. Back when he was still Director of State Security. Outside of common articles like 'a' and 'the,' do you know which word appears the most often?"

Gallanti swallowed.

"The word was rigor, Jillian. Or rigorous. So tell me again, just how sympathetic our boss is going to be when he hears us whining that the fanatic Victor Cachat was too rigorous in his punishment of deviants using StateSec rank to cover their misdeeds."

How receptive Yuri expects Saint-Just to be to the StateSec captain's complaints.

"The whole thing's absurd. The one thing the stinkbug was supposed to do is the one thing he didn't! We still have no idea who murdered Jamka. Somehow that 'little detail' has gotten lost in the shuffle."

Yuri chuckled drily. "Ironic, isn't it? And after Cachat's rampage, we'll never know. But so what? I assume you saw the medical examiner's report, yes?"

Gallanti nodded. Yuri grimaced. "Pretty grisly business, wasn't it? No quick killing, there. Whoever did Jamka was as sadistic about it as Jamka himself. From looking at the holopics of his corpse, I'd almost be tempted to say Jamka committed suicide. Except there's no possible way he could have shoved—"

Yuri shuddered a little. "Ah, never mind, it's sickening. But the point is—you know, I know, anyone with half a brain knows—that Jamka was certainly murdered by one of his own coterie. A falling out between thieves, as it were. So when you get right down to it, who really cares any more who killed Jamka? Cachat shot the whole lot of them, and there's an end to it. Good riddance. You really think Oscar Saint-Just is going to toss in his bed worrying about it?"

Actually, the identity of Jamka's killers is quite relevant, just not how you think. Apparently this man did not die quickly or painlessly.

"I'm not a cop, Jillian. Cachat can plaster whatever labels he wants on me. I don't have the temperament for it. To cover my ass—everybody's ass—I'll find and bust up a few more pissant 'spots of corruption.' On a ship this big, there's got to be at least half a dozen illegal stills being operated by ratings."

"Ha. Try 'two dozen.' Not to mention the gambling operations."

Two dozen stills on a ship of five thousand souls?

Many if not all of such StateSec officers, as the years passed, came to identify closely with their comrades in battle. For someone with Yuri's temperament, the process had been inevitable—and quick.

Gallanti was too dull-witted to grasp that. Oscar Saint-Just, of course, was not. He'd always understood that he held a dangerous double-edged sword in his hand. The problem was that he needed it. Because bitter experience had proven, time and again, that the StateSec commissioners who got the best results in the crucible of war were not the whiphandlers but precisely the ones like Yuri Radamacher. The ones who did not "oversee" their naval comrades so much as they served them as priests had once served the armies of Catholic Spain. Inquisitors in name, but more often confessors in practice. The people just far enough outside the naval chain of command that ratings—officers, too—would come to them for advice, help, counsel. Intercession with the authorities, often enough, if they'd fallen afoul of regs which were intolerant on paper but could somehow magically be softened at a commissioner's private word. Despite the grim "StateSec" term in his title, the simple fact was that Yuri had spent far more time over the past ten years helping heartsick young ratings deal with "Dear John" or "Dear Jane" letters than he had trying to ferret out disloyalty.

Sometimes StateSec officers are good people and soft touches, and this was both expected and desirable to an extent. Yuri in particular is great at forgining connections with the people he's supposed to be looming over.

"Give me free rein aboard the ship," he replied at once. "In name I'll be the 'assistant investigator' scurrying all over rooting out rot and corruption. In the real world, I'll serve you as your commissioner. I'm good at morale-building, Jillian, try me and see if I'm not. By the time Cachat gets back, I'll have a handful of 'suppressed crimes' to wave under his nose. But, way more important, we'll have a functioning capital ship again—and a crew, including all the transfers, who'll swear up and down that the good ship Hector is a jolly good ship and Cap'n Gallanti a jolly good soul."

"And what good will that do?"

"Jillian, give Victor Cachat his due. I'd do that much for the devil himself. Yes, he's a simon-pure fanatic. But a fanatic, in his own twisted way, is also an honest man. The kid's for real, Jillian. When he says 'the needs of the State,' he means it. It's not a cover for personal ambitions. If we can satisfy him that the rot's been rooted out—even that we've got things turned around nicely—he'll be satisfied and go on his way. The fact is that La Martine Sector has been a stronghold for the Republic's economy for the past few years. The fact is that you weren't personally implicated in Jamka's crimes—and Cachat said so himself, in his official report to Nouveau Paris."

The plan and getting Gallanti on board, with one tiny lie of omission.

It was just a fact of life; and now, finally, Yuri Radamacher accepted it entirely. People liked him and trusted him. He couldn't remember a time in his life when they hadn't—or a time when he'd ever repaid that trust except in good coin.

It was odd, perhaps, that he came to accept it at the very moment when—for the first time in his life—he was consciously plotting to betray someone. The woman sitting across the desk from him, whose confidence and trust he was doing everything possible to gain.

But . . . so be it. There was, indeed, such a thing as a "higher loyalty," no matter how cynical Yuri had gotten over the years. Something of the fanatic Cachat had rubbed off on him after all, it seemed. And if a middle-aged man like Radamacher shared none of the young Special Investigator's faith in political abstractions, he had no difficulty understanding personal loyalties. When push came to shove, he owed nothing to Citizen Captain Jillian Gallanti. In fact, he despised her for a bully and a hot-tempered despot. But he did owe a loyalty to the thousands of men and women alongside whom he'd served in Citizen Admiral Chin's task force, for years now—from Genevieve herself all the way down to the newest recruit. So, he'd use his natural skills to create a false front—and then use that front to save them from Saint-Just's murderous suspicions.

And if Citizen Captain Gallanti had to fall by the wayside in the process, stabbed in the back by her newfound "friend" . . .

Well, so be it. If a fanatic like Cachat had the courage of his convictions, it would be nothing but cowardice for Yuri to claim to be his moral superior—yet refuse to act with the same decisiveness.

Like Victor Cachat himself, Yuri Radamacher has a profound realization of who he is and what he believes in.

Yuri snorted. "I need something, people," he pointed out. "Cachat'll be back any time now. I've got a fair number of screw-ups and goofballs on display in the brig, sure. But that's pretty much old stuff by now. About a third of them have almost served their time. And I'm telling you: nothing will soothe the savage inquisitor like being able to show him a freshly nabbed, still-trembling sinner."

"Aw, c'mon, Yuri, the SI's not that bad."

There's some debate on that.

Citizen Major Lafitte cleared his throat. He and his counterpart, a StateSec citizen major by the name of Diana Citizen—her real name, that; not something she'd made up to curry favor with the regime—were sitting side by side on a couch angled next to Yuri's armchair. The two of them, along with Ned Pierce and his counterpart, StateSec Citizen Sergeant Jaime Rolla, constituted the informal little group which Yuri relied on to handle disciplinary matters on the superdreadnought. The SD's executive officer knew about it and had been looking the other way for weeks. The man was incompetent at everything except knowing which way the political winds were blowing. He'd quickly sized up the new situation and—wisely—decided that he'd be a nut crushed between Radamacher's skills and Captain Gallanti's temper if he tried to assert the traditional prerogatives and authority of a warship's XO.

Yuri's command staff, and the gutless wonder that is Hector's XO.

"I must be slipping," he muttered. "How'd I possibly miss this?"

"Working eighteen hours a day at everything else?" Major Lafitte chuckled. "What'd you find, Yuri?"

Radamacher jabbed a stiff finger at the screen. "How in the hell did Alouette pass his required annual spacesuit proficiency test when there's no record he's even been in a spacesuit once in the past three years? And how in the hell did he manage that—when he's rated as a gravitic sensor tech? Isn't external inspection and repair of the arrays sort of part of that specialization?"

Henri Alouette (like the song) a gravitic sensor tech whose been carrying out his own reign of terror on his section mates and chief, allowing him to get away with doing no work. Annual requalification for EVA, which Henri has also been skipping the last few years.

He rubbed the back of his neck. "To be perfectly honest about it—cold-blooded, too—this is damn near perfect. Cachat'll rub his hands with glee over a bust like this one. Beats a penny-ante bootlegging case hands down. Inquisitors, you know, thrive on real sin."

"Aw, c'mon, Yuri—" Ned started again. "The SI's not—"

The sudden burst of laughter from everyone else in the room caused a look of grievance to come over the citizen sergeant's face. "Well, he's not that bad," he insisted.

Radamacher didn't argue the point. At the moment, he was in such a good mood that he was even willing to grant that Special Investigator Victor Cachat probably didn't really match up to Torquemada. His understudy, maybe.

That beating really left an impact, didn't it?

"Won't be hard. Assuming we're right, everybody in the section will fall all over themselves spilling the beans—as long as they're sure that Alouette will get put away for a long time. Somewhere he can't retaliate against them."

"Have no fear on that score. Just going by a minimum reading of regulations, if Alouette has been threatening his mates with violence in order to cover up his skill deficiencies—much less a senior rating like a section chief—he's looking at five years, at least. That's five years served in a StateSec maximum security prison, too, not a ship's brig."

Yuri's face was grim. "That's if he's lucky. But I think Alouette's luck just ran out on him. Because his case will be coming up after the Special Investigator's return, and Cachat has the authority to mete out any punishment he deems proper. Any punishment, people. After I got my new assignment, for the first time in my life I studied carefully all the rules and regulations governing the position of Special Investigator. It's . . . pretty scary. And Cachat's already made crystal clear how he looks on StateSec personnel abusing their positions for the sake of personal gain or pleasure."

Special Investigators can overrule the regs and apply any penalty they damn well like.

Everyone else in the room seemed to share Yuri's grim mood, judging from the sudden silence.

Not for long, though, in the case of the two noncoms. "Hey, Jaime," whispered Ned. "Any chance I could volunteer—just the once—to serve on a StateSec firing squad?"

"S'against regs," Rolla whispered back. "But I'll put in a good word for you."

Yuri sighed. There were times—had been for many years, now—when he felt like a sheep running with the wolves. And wondering when someone was finally going to notice that his moon-howl was distinctly off-key.

For whatever reason, this always cracks me up.

The last third of the story contains a major spoiler for the end of Ashes of Victory, so let me get to it in the main thread first, then I'll wrap this one up.