Though it didn't really seem to help much.
"All right, Thandi. I've got a full count now. I'm pretty sure it's accurate-close enough, anyway. You should be facing Abraham Templeton and eight others."
"Cut 'em down by almost three-fourths, did you? Thanks. But you might want to consider those numbers, before you condemn others for being too ruthless."
He took a long, deep breath. "The Manticoran soldiers accounted for a dozen of them. But there's a difference anyway, Thandi, and you know it. For me, there's a purpose. For your precious captain, just his own ambition."
She said nothing in response. What could she say, really?
Victor didn't know the full story yet-though he'd make sure to find out-but at least one mystery had been cleared up. Hieronymus Stein had not been murdered by Manpower, after all. He'd been murdered by Templeton and his religious goons working on the side. Not for their own purposes, but simply because they'd been hired to do so by Captain Luiz Rozsak-and now Rozsak had ordered Thandi to eliminate the witnesses.
Why? Victor was quite sure it was part of a scheme by Rozsak to advance his career. Probably by displacing Cassetti as Governor Barregos' indispensable man, because Victor was fairly certain that the order had been given by Cassetti. The governor himself probably knew nothing about it. By all accounts, Cassetti was utterly unscrupulous-and just the sort of man to come up with an elaborate scheme like this one. Kill Stein, throw the blame on Manpower-and then use that to drive forward Maya Sector's growing alienation from the Solarian League. Get the Renaissance Association's political backing as a result of Stein's murder, and…
Yes, it all made sense to him. Cassetti would have been the one. Cassetti, dreaming of the days when he could be the right-hand man-and possibly the successor-to the leader of an independent star nation richer and more powerful than any in the galaxy except the Solarian League itself. With the Solarians half-paralyzed by the fact that it had been Manpower's overweening arrogance and brutality which seemed to have been the final straw to lead to the revolt.
A clever scheme-and, like almost all such, too clever. Cassetti had overlooked the possibility that the man he'd chosen to do the "wet work" might turn it against him, when the time came.
Victor slowed down a bit. He was nearing the exit, and didn't want to be spotted by Abraham Templeton and his men as they left the gaming hall. Hiding was going to be more difficult now, because most of the panicked mob had managed to flee from the hall. He spotted a particularly elaborate gaming table with a central tower of some kind, and trotted over to stand behind it. The tower's flamboyant, coruscating lights would hide him from sight.
There, as he waited, he completed his calculations. It all came easily enough, since he'd already understood that Rozsak's ambitions would probably lead him to have a favorable response to Victor's overture. All that was really new was that Victor now understood that Rozsak had been responsible for the Stein assassination. Which…
Yes, yes, shocking. But Victor had overcome his initial surge of anger, and was thinking cold-bloodedly again. The truth was that Rozsak's actions would make him all the more willing to go along with Victor's scheme. Nor would Cassetti interfere. For both of them, Victor's plans for Congo would work splendidly. Giving them-whichever won out in their own internecine conflict-an even greater moral luster to drape over their personal ambitions.
So be it. Victor could live with foul tastes. He'd lived with Oscar Saint-Just for years, hadn't he? What the revolution required of him, Victor would give.
Flairty would go down, then. Victor swallowed the taste and ignored it thereafter.
He found himself now wondering what it all tasted like for Thandi Palane. Just as foul, he suspected. He hoped so. The woman was coming to occupy more and more of his thoughts, whether he wanted it or not.
On the planet below, other people were dealing with the taste of things.
"What the hell is going on?" Cassetti's voice was practically screaming in Captain Rozsak's earbug.
Luiz glanced at Lieutenant Commander Watanapongse, who gave him a little thumbs up. The recording was being made.
The Solarian Navy captain eased back in the armchair in his suite. "I don't know, exactly. From the garbled reports I've been getting, Sir, it sounds like the Masadans have run amok. I warned you, if you recall, that it was dangerous using them."
"They were all supposed to be taken out afterward!"
"And I also told you that 'taking out' over forty armed and dangerous men was no picnic, unless you wanted me to bring down the fleet and level half of Erewhon's capital. Assuming I could have fought my way through the Erewhonese Navy-which I couldn't possibly have done, anyway. All I've got is what amounts to a commodore's flotilla. They've got ships of the wall in orbit here, Ingemar. They'd have swatted me like a fly."
The lieutenant governor was silent. What could he say, after all? The entire scheme depended, among other things, on maintaining public approval for the high moral stature of Governor Barregos. Starting a war with a neighboring star nation would undo all the gains of the Stein killing-and then some.
When Cassetti's voice came back, it was in its normal cold and calculating tone. "All right. Point taken. Spilt milk and all that. But what do you suggest we do now?"
"I may have it taken care of already, Sir. The one good thing about Templeton's rampage is that it got him off the planet. It'll be a lot easier to take him out where he is, without too much in the way of collateral damage. And whatever such damage there is, Templeton's own actions will be blamed for it anyway."
"True enough. I hope you've got somebody good handling the thing."
"The best, Sir, when it comes to that kind of operation. The very best."
Cassetti cut off the transmission without so much as a final word of salutation.
"Rude bastard," muttered Rozsak. He studied the very fancy looking recording machine on the center table. The thing made him a bit nervous, as any such state-of-the-art electronic equipment tended to do. Rozsak had been burned too many times by the promises of research tech weenies, whose "miraculous" new designs so often failed the test in actual combat.
But he'd had no choice. Not surprisingly, Cassetti had insisted on using the very best communication devices for this very black operation-and such devices were extremely difficult to unscramble for a recording.
Watanapongse didn't share the captain's skepticism. "Damn, I love this gadget," the intelligence officer practically crooned. "Worth all that we paid for it. Listen to this."
He pressed a control and the conversation came back, the words as clear as anyone could ask for.
Captain Rozsak grunted. "Add it to the other recordings, then."
Watanapongse grinned. "Governor Barregos will have a fit when he finally finds out what his precious lieutenant governor has been doing in his name. Word of it ever gets out, Barregos is ruined. And-if you'll pardon the flattery, Sir-I think you've done a brilliant job of making it clear to anyone who listens that you tried to talk Cassetti out of it."
Rozsak smiled. "I didn't try too hard, of course. But, yes, I did. And I also made it clear enough in those recordings that I was assuming all along that the governor had given Cassetti the go ahead."
He clasped his hands over his midriff and gazed complacently at the device. Yes, it was too fancy. But, on the other hand, sometimes "too fancy" worked.
"And I will be shocked, naturally-shocked, I tell you-when I finally discover that Cassetti was operating all on his own. I'll have no recourse but to make a full report to the governor-call it a confession, if you will, since everyone trusts a man who confesses-of the entire sad affair. Also pointing out, needless to say, the best way to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear."