The black-haired man nodded. "Thank you. Perhaps, Primus, you might mention what concessions you have exacted from Hanse Davion in return for lifting the Interdiction."
Myndo kept herself from smiling. "Because the Interdiction was initiated in response to an attack by House Davion troops on one of our stations, I have demanded and won an agreement to rebuild that station and to upgrade a number of stations, all at the expense of the Federated Suns."
She allowed the assembly a second or two of murmured comments before she dropped the larger bombshell. "I also have won from the Prince the right for ComStar to station armed forces, 'Mechforces, within the precincts of our stations!"
The other Precentors looked stunned, and Villius Tejh rubbed at his chest as if this time he were succumbing to a heart attack. Myndor raised her chin high. "Yes. We will station troops on every world where we have a station. At first, we will make do with mercenaries, but slowly, over the next ten or twenty years, we will bring our own, 'newly trained' troops into place at the stations. They will be there for self-protection, of course, but they will be there nonetheless. We will expand this policy from the Federated Suns into the other Successor States on a gradual basis. An attack on us in the future—real or created—will mean that an Interdiction by ComStar is far more dangerous than it has ever been in the past."
Anger gathered on Tejh's face like a thundercloud on the horizon. "Jerome Blake bade us to keep our strength hidden so that we could employ it when mankind had ripped itself apart. 'We are the savior, not the warrior; we heal, we do not destroy,' he said."
Myndo's confident smile swallowed his protest whole. "And the aggressor we will not be. We will be a presence that can step in to end the depredations of local tyrants. We can repulse raids and respond to natural disasters. We will be seen as an active agent in protecting the weak and the helpless. In this way, we will train the new generations of people to look to us for salvation even before the dark times begin."
Myndo's dark eyes narrowed. "Mark me. The technological decay Blake predicted will not occur because of Hanse Davion's farsightedness. As technology grows, so grows the power it creates. As in the past, this power will bring moral corruption and another collapse. Instead of waiting for mankind to return to flint knives and bear skins, as Blake feared we would need to do, we need only wait for man's lust for power to doom him. ComStar, in our lifetimes, will be in a position to save mankind from itself, whether it wants salvation or not."
Epilogue
Sian
Sian Commonality, Capellan Confederation (Sian Supremacy)
15 December 3029
A look of despair washed over Romano Liao's face as she entered the throne room and saw her father staring at the screen of the holovid viewer he'd ordered placed near the throne. The image's back glow etched deep lines in her father's haggard face and burned brassy hues into his newly whitened hair. His hands clutched the arms of the throne with the fierce desperation of a drowning man hanging on to a raft. Romano knew that in his battle with the yawning abyss of insanity, Maximilian Liao was losing.
Losing badly.She quickly went to her father's side to get him away from the electronic succubus that had drained him, but she made the mistake of glancing at the screen before trying to shut the machine off. The image seduced her as well.
Hanse Davion, seated behind his desk, dressed conservatively in the dark blue uniform of the Davion Heavy Guards, smiled out at the viewers. The smile seemed genuine enough, with none of the Fox's guile hiding behind those blue eyes. "And so, once again, Maximilian, I wish to thank you very much for taking such excellent care of my good friend, Justin Xiang Allard. I especially wish to express my gratitude for your having brought him to my wedding. That was an unexpected pleasure and a great boon to me. In case you were unaware, Justin has the guts of a laser rifle built into his left arm. A remarkable thing, really. He used it on the island to kill the assassin your daughter Romano had sent to kill his father. A good thing, too, or you would have been placed under an Interdiction, and heaven only knows how that would have hurt your war effort."
Mortification ran through Romano like an electric shock. Unconsciously, her hand rose to her right cheek as she recalled Justin Xiang striking her for trying to kill his father. I should have known then that he was a traitor! Candace must have known all along and used him as her conduit to make an agreement with Hanse Davion. The St. Ives Compact. .. what a laugh!
She stiffened as her father uttered a low moan. In the holovid, the Hanse Davion seated at the desk looked up as another man moved into the frame. "Did I do it well, my Prince?" he asked. The real Hanse Davion nodded beneficently and helped his double out of the chair. Seating himself, the Prince smiled coldly.
"You've wondered all along, haven't you, why I struck at you? He is the reason. Not because you tried to supplant me with him. No, that was an excellent stratagem, and one that nearly worked. For that, I salute you."
The Prince's eyes flashed like arctic storms. "I went after you because you dared, in your attempt to get me, to destroy him. You robbed him of his face, of his memories, of his life. If you could do that, if you could steal from a person all that makes him an individual—claiming it is for the good of the state—there is no telling what other inhuman acts you could justify in your mind. For that, I had to break your power, and that is what I have done."
Hanse glanced out of the frame toward where his double had gone. "We will rebuild him and try to make him whole again. We will do the same with those of your people we have liberated. But for you, and your dreams of being the First Lord of a New League, there is no cure. Good bye."
Anger flashed through Romano at her father's first pathetic sob. She lashed out with her foot, exploding the holovid viewer's picture tube in a green flash of flame. The disk Justin had left behind shot from the machine and rolled into the shadows along the wall. Spinning about, she raised her hand to slap her father out of his weeping, but in his helplessness, he touched even her.
Her hand fell to her side. She mounted the steps to the throne itself and took her father by the elbow. She led him down the steps, then clapped her hands twice. Tsen Shang, his right arm out of the cast that had confined it while the shoulder joint replacement surgery had healed, entered the chamber. He was flanked by two Maskirovka guards.
Shang bowed to her. "How may I be of service, Madam Chancellor?"
Romano smiled at the title. "My father, as you can see, has eluded his nurses again. Please see to it that he is returned to his suite and that he does not get out again." She hesitated for a second, then nodded. "They may restrain him if they feel they must."
Shang nodded. "I will instruct them to use discretion." Leading Maximilian Liao away, Tsen Shang and his guards withdrew from the throne room.
Romano turned and stared at the smoking ruins of the holovid viewer. So smug, so confident. You have lived up to your nickname of "the Fox," Hanse Davion. This I can respect.She smiled cruelly. "Respect, but not forgive."
Romano Liao, Madam Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation, mounted the stairs to her throne. Seated there, alone in the shadowed, silent hall, she contemplated the dark and bloody future of her realm. And she smiled.