"Give me a break, Helen," he said, chuckling. "The real problem here is your provincialism, not mine. The ins-and-outs of the political fine points here on Manticore only seem of galaxy-shaking importance to you because you were born here. Your backyard looks like half a universe, because you have no idea how big the universe really is. Abstractly, you do-but the knowledge has never really sunk into your bones."
He paused, giving the slowly approaching captain another glance. Still plenty of time, he decided, to continue the girl's education.
"The Star Kingdom is a polity of five whole settled planets in only three star systems, since Trevor's Star's annexation-and assuming you can call Medusa a 'settled planet' in the first place. Even with San Martin added, your total population does not exceed six billion. There are five times that many people living in the Solar System alone-or Centauri, or Tau Delta, or Mithra, or any one of several dozen of the Solarian League's inner systems. The 'Old League,' as it's popularly known. The Solarian League as a whole has an official membership of 1,784 planets-that's not counting the hundreds more under Solarian rule in the Protectorates-which exist in a volume of galactic space measuring between three and four hundred light-years in diameter. Within that enormous volume, there are literally more stars than you can see here at night with the naked eye. No one has any idea what the total population might be. The Old League alone has a registered population of almost three trillion people, according to the last census-and that census grossly undercounted the population. No serious analyst even tries to claim they know how many more trillions of people live in the so-called 'Shell Worlds' or the Protectorates. I leave aside entirely the untold thousands-millions, rather-of artificial habitats scattered across thousands of solar systems. Each and every one of which star polities has its own history, and its own complex politics and social and economic variations."
The captain and Cathy were getting close, now. It was time to break off the impromptu lecture, since he still needed to know the reasons for Helen's bemusement at Oversteegen's appearance at the event.
"Let me just leave you with the following thought, Helen: It's only been since the human race spread across thousands of worlds that political science has really deserved the term 'science'-and it's still a rough-and-ready science at that. Sometimes, it reminds me of paleontology back in the wild and woolly days of Cope and Marsh, battling it out over dinosaur bones. If nothing else, the preponderance of the League in human affairs skews all the data. But at least now we have a range of experience that allows us to do serious comparative studies, which was never possible in pre-Diaspora days. But that's really what someone like me does. I look for patterns and repetitions, if you will. The number of individual star systems whose political details I'm familiar with is just a tiny percentage of the whole. The truth is, I know a lot more about ancient Terran history than I do about the history of most of today's inhabited worlds. Because that's still, more often than not, the common history we use as our initial crude yardstick."
Suitably abashed, the girl nodded.
"And you still haven't explained-in terms I can understand-why you and Cathy are so surprised that Captain Oversteegen showed up. Or, for that matter-given the surprise-why she invited him in the first place."
"Oh. It's because he doesn't looklike High Ridge by accident. He's part of that whole Conservative Association bunch of lousy-well. The crowd I don't like, let's put it that way. Cathy hates them with a passion. He's related to the Queen-distantly-on his father's side, but his mother is High Ridge's second cousin. As his looks ought to tell anyone who lays eyes on him!"
Du Havel nodded, the picture becoming clearer in his mind. He was more familiar with Manticore's politics than that of most star systems, naturally. Even leaving Catherine Montaigne aside, Manticore played a far more prominent role in the Anti-Slavery League than its sheer weight of population would account for. He understood the nature and logic of the Conservative Association well enough, certainly. It was an old and familiar phenomenon, after all, as ancient as any political formation in human affairs. A clique of people with a very prestigious and luxurious position in a given society, who reacted to anything which might conceivably discommode them with outrage and indignation-as if their own privileges and creature comforts resulted from laws of nature equal in stature to the principles of physics. Very fat pigs in a very plentifully supplied trough, basically, who attempted to dignify their full stomachs by oinking the word "conservative."
Given that W.E.B. Du Havel considered himself, by and large, to be a conservative political theorist-using the term "conservative" loosely-he found the phenomenon not only understandable but detestable.
"Bunch of lousy swine will do nicely, Helen. But you can't confuse the individual with the group. Does Oversteegen himself belong to the Conservative Association? And, if so, why did Cathy invite him? And, if so-and having invited him nonetheless-why did he choose to come?" He gave the large crowd a quick overview. Diehard members of the Liberal Party, for the most part-and the ones who weren't, with not more than a handful of exceptions, departed from the Liberals to the left of the political spectrum. "I'd have thought that as likely as a Puritan agreeing to attend a witches' Sabbath."
"What's a 'Puritan'?" she asked. "And why would witches-silly notion, that-hold a soirée on- Never mind." Cathy and the captain were almost there. Quickly, Helen whispered: "I don't think he's in the CA. Truth is, I don't know much about his own personal opinions. Not sure many people do. But-"
A last, quick, hissed few words: "Sorry. You'll have to find out the rest from him, I guess."
A moment later, Cathy was making the introductions. And Web Du Havel began getting his answers.
He was delighted, of course. Except that, within a few minutes, he was back to silently cursing his ridiculous costume.
There was no way to roll up the sleeves!
Chapter 5
"Been wantin' t' meet you for years," the captain stated, speaking in a drawl which Du Havel immediately recognized. Not specifically, of course-the galaxy had easily ten times as many dialects and verbal mannerisms as it did languages and inhabited worlds. But he knew the phenomenon for what it was, since it, too, was as ancient as privilege. Members of an elite group-"elite," at least, in their own minds-almost invariably developed a distinctive style of speech to separate themselves from the common herd.
Oversteegen, smiling thinly, gave the crowd his own quick overview. "Only reason I agreed t' come t' this Walpurgis Night of prattlin' political heathens."
He bestowed the smile on Cathy, widening it a bit. "Present company excepted, of course. I've long had a grudgin' admiration for the Countess here-former Countess, I suppose I should say. Ever since the speech she gave at the House of Lords which got her pitched out on her ear. I was there in person, as it happens, observin' as a member of the family since my mother was indisposed. And I'll tell you right now that I would have voted for her expulsion from the Lords myself, had I been old enough at the time, on the simple grounds that she had, in point of fact, violated long established protocol. Even though, mind you, I agreed with perhaps ninety percent of what she'd said. Still, rules are rules."