Berry's eyes widened. "How do you know who-?"
She bit off the words. It was already obvious, just from the quickness and efficiency with which the slaves had organized themselves over the past day, that she'd drastically underestimated their sophistication. She really didn't know that much about the inner workings of Manpower's genetic slavery, she now realized, especially from the vantage point of the slaves themselves.
Juan smiled crookedly. "What? Did you think we were all foot-shuffling illiterates? Something out of the history books?" For all that he was obviously trying to keep any anger out of his voice, Berry could detect the traces of it.
"This is the modern galaxy, Princess," he elaborated, shaking his head. "Even the combat and heavy labor lines have to know how to read and write. And most of us are trained for fairly complex work. We have to be, whether the scorpions like it or not."
Scorpions. She'd now heard that term at least a dozen times. It was the way the slaves referred to their Manpower overlords.
Kathryn waved a hand, indicating the members of the steering committee. "Several of us belong to the Audubon Ballroom, Princess. The Ballroom's been organizing slaves for at least ten years now."
Seeing the unspoken question in Berry's face, Kathryn also smiled crookedly. "How do you think? Some of us-I'm one of them, so's Georg over there-volunteered to let ourselves be recaptured. So we could start organizing on the inside of the scorpion nest."
Berry tried to imagine the degree of courage involved. That… she could do. But she knew she could never-not in a lifetime measured in centuries-match the sheer hatred that lurked under the terms.
Scorpions. In their nest. God help Manpower if they ever fall into the hands of their slaves. They'll be as merciless as demons.
Can't say I blame them any, of course.
Berry cleared her throat. She had to remind herself not to tell them that "the Countess of the Tor" was, in point of fact, her mother.
"Yes, that was she. Except she's not a countess any longer. She gave up the title so she could run for a seat in the House of Commons. And, yes, that was Web Du Havel standing next to me."
"Good for her," grunted the one named Georg. "She's always been the best of the lot, in the Anti-Slavery League. My opinion, anyway. Not sure what I think of Du Havel. We're all proud of him, of course, but… I think he's something of an appeaser."
"Let's leave politics out of this, shall we?" suggested one of the other slaves, a stocky man somewhat older than the rest. Berry had been given his name, but couldn't quite remember it. Harry, or Harris-something like that. The man gave Kathryn and Georg a somewhat frosty look. "We're not all members of the Ballroom, I'll ask you to remember. Personally, I think very highly of Professor Du Havel."
Kathryn raised her hand in a pacific gesture. "Take it easy, Harrell. Georg wasn't trying to start a debate, I'm sure. We can leave that for another time."
"Assuming there is one," muttered Georg. He glanced at the shattered surveillance equipment. "Easy enough to break that. But unless we can figure out a way to break into the rest of the ship, we're so much meat waiting for the slaughter."
Berry cleared her throat. "Uh. Are you sure we can't be spied on, any longer?"
The response she got was a lot of rather unfriendly looks.
Right. Stupid question. "Scorpions," remember? They probably spent two hours crushing every little functioning piece they could find.
"Never mind," she said hastily. "The point is… well. I'm not actually a captive here. Well. I mean, yes, I am-right now. But there's an assault team on its way to deal with that. The real reason I came over was to serve as a decoy. Keep the Masadans preoccupied-me and Victor, that is-while Thandi and her women take them out."
She stopped, suspecting her account fell somewhat short of coherence.
"Who's 'Victor'?" Georg demanded immediately. Suspicion didn't exactly "drip" from the words. But it did seep noticeably.
"Victor Cachat. He's an agent-of some kind, I haven't figured out the details-for the Republic of Haven."
Kathryn's eyes widened. "I know him!"
The other slaves fixed their gazes on her. Kathryn shrugged. "Well, not exactly. I wasn't there myself-where it happened-but I was on Terra at the time. So I never met him personally, but Jeremy X told me about it afterward."
That was apparently enough. Most of the slaves sitting at the table had wide eyes, as did several of the ones standing about.
"Him?" asked Georg, a bit shakily. "The guy who massacred all those Scrags at the Artinstute?"
Berry had to bite her tongue. She had been there. Close by, anyway, even if she hadn't witnessed the killings herself. But her sister Helen had, and had given Berry a detailed description of it later. She hadn't realized that the incident had become so famous among Manpower's slaves-although, now that she thought about it, it was hardly surprising that it had. That day in Chicago-the so-called "Manpower Incident" which had begun with Victor Cachat's killing spree in the underground-had seen the wholesale destruction of Manpower's headquarters on Terra, as well as whatever Scrags the Ballroom had managed to get their hands on throughout the city. Which had been several dozen of them, by all accounts.
The butchery had been great enough, her father had told her a year or so later, to eliminate almost entirely the Scrag presence on Terra. Anton estimated that the survivors-which was most of them, he thought-had emigrated afterward to other planets. It had undoubtedly been one of the Audubon Ballroom's greatest triumphs-and a story which any Manpower slave would cherish.
But, again, Berry had to remind herself that she was "Princess Ruth"-who'd been several hundred light-years away at the time. So, she tried to act as innocent and naïve as she could.
"Yes, I believe that's correct. Him."
Whatever suspicions might have existed were clearly gone, now. It was as if the name "Victor Cachat" were a magic talisman. It was a bit disorienting, at first, until Berry realized that over the past few years she'd fallen into the habit of looking at the universe through Manticoran eyes. To her, more than anything, "Victor Cachat" was an agent of the Republic of Haven-and hence, basically, an enemy.
But the war between Manticore and Haven meant little to Manpower's slaves. And, even if they were inclined to take sides in the affair, she suspected they'd be more likely to incline toward Haven. True, the Star Kingdom had a better reputation than most, when it came to the issue of genetic slavery. In fact, Manticore had signed onto the Cherwell Convention almost forty T-years before the Republic had. It also had the prestige of being the homeland which had produced Catherine Montaigne, who was perhaps the Anti-Slavery League's most glamorous leader. But, against that, there was the fact that Manticore was ruled by an hereditary aristocracy-something which was bound to rub the wrong way against people yoked into a harsh caste system-whereas Haven had a reputation throughout the galaxy for being a bastion of egalitarianism.
The fact that the Havenite regime under the Legislaturalists had been even more dominated by its own hereditary elites than the Star Kingdom, or that under Pierre and Saint-Just it had also been a bastion of savage political repression… simply wouldn't register very much on most slaves. Nor, Berry admitted frankly to herself, would they have cared much anyway. She'd lived herself, all of her life until Anton and Helen rescued her, under the conditions of "personal freedom" which were supposedly enjoyed by Terrans. In the real world, what that meant if you didn't come from "the right people" was that your life was sheer misery. The only freedom she'd ever enjoyed had been the freedom to starve.