“It sounds plausible, I suppose,” Bondarevsky said, dubious. “But you’re ascribing an awful lot of power to these people. What do they need a coup for, if they’ve already got such a long reach?”
“They’re powerful, but so far they have to operate very carefully, and from the shadows. And they didn’t keep all of their original membership when they started this new phase. I’m convinced Dave Whittaker died because he couldn’t go along with this new plan.” Tolwyn slumped back in the chair again. “At least I hope that’s why. I’d like to think that, in the end, he really was the same man I remembered.”
“But they still want to use you?”
“I think so. I’m pretty sure they see me as a figurehead to give their regime an air of respectability. And look how they’ve set me up for it! They can blame the court-martial and my subsequent disgrace on the short-sighted civilian government. When they sweep into power I’ll be the military man who was the victim of the civilian leader’s meddling, rescued and reinstated by the saviors of the Confederation.”
“MacArthur,” Bondarevsky said. “A lot of people would have supported him after he clashed with Truman in the Korean War.”
“Exactly,” Tolwyn said. “I suspect I’d only last long enough to give them time to get a grip on things. Then some ‘enemy of the people’ would assassinate me, paving the way for tighter control and more repression.”
They’re still playing a dangerous game. You don’t have much left to lose by airing what you know.”
“Ah, but right now I’m so thoroughly discredited that nobody would believe me without some damned convincing proof. And these people play dirty, Jason. Why do you think I sent Kevin out here ahead of me? I figured he’d be the first one they’d target if they thought I was getting dangerous to them. Out here they can’t touch him. I think.”
“Okay, I see all of what you’re saying. But I’m still not sure where Karga fits in to all this, or why we should risk our people in what looks like a lost cause.”
“Come on, man, think.” Tolwyn sounded exasperated. Terra’s one hope is if the situation here in the Landreich doesn’t develop the way the conspirators have planned it. If we can just hold Ragark back, stop his invasion scheme, we not only save the Landreich, we also buy time to fight the conspiracy. They can’t mobilize without Ragark’s fleet orbiting Landreich after a bloody campaign that violates the Treaty in a big way. And that supercarrier is our last chance to hold the Cats back. Without it, Kruger doesn’t stand a chance. We have to get her back in service, Jason. Without her, we’re not just looking at the end of the Landreich. We’re looking at the fall of the Confederation to a pack of tyrants a hell of a lot worse than Thrakhath ever would have been. He would have exterminated the human race…but this lot will do worse. They’ll extinguish everything we believe in, turn the Confederation into a tyranny, maybe ignite a civil war. Better to the fighting the Cats than to live to see a military junta deciding the fate of mankind.“
Bondarevsky didn’t respond right away. His eyes were on Tolwyn’s shadowy figure, but he was focused on something infinitely farmer away…Terra.
All the arguments against proceeding with Goliath were still there. It would be dangerous even to complete the survey, much less to attempt to disarm the self-destruct system so they could start repairs on the Karga. And the job was going to be even bigger than they had supposed, given what they had seen so far. Just understanding enough of the Kilrathi design philosophy to know how to attempt those repairs was going to be murder…
An idea stirred.
“Maybe there’s a way we can balance out the odds against us,” he said slowly. “Maybe…”
“What do you have in mind?” Tolwyn asked, his interest clearly piqued.
“I just realized, sir, that we have access to a collection of genuine experts on Kilrathi ship design. They might be able to help us disarm that destruct system…and they could certainly help us with the repair job.”
“The Kilrathi you picked up from the planet? Why should they work for our side?”
He thought back to his conversation with Graham and Murragh, and smiled. “Maybe this time, Admiral, it’s us who’ll be joining their side for a change.”
“Go to it, then,” Tolwyn said with a smile.
Saluting, Jason withdrew and Geoff turned his chair, the darkness enveloping him. There was so much more he could have told Jason; the fact that he had engaged in half-truths with a fighting officer he respected more than any other who had ever served under him was troubling. There was part of him that wanted to pull Jason all the way in, to reveal all about the Genetic Enhancements program that was the conspiracy within a conspiracy but he knew that Jason was too much of a straight arrow for that.
Tragic, so damn tragic, that in order to save what we love we so often have to destroy it. It was warriors like Jason who had ensured that the Confederation survived when so many others had given up hope, or worst yet would knowingly destroy it for their ambitions yet what I contemplate will most likely be resisted by ones like Jason.
Is this my own ambition, my own vanity, Geoff wondered. It was a troubling thought. There was the constant gnawing strain that the G.E. project, the virus hidden within the bacteria of Belisarius, was perhaps the greatest moral outrage of all. Yet there was no longer an alternative. That was the hidden truth Whittaker had revealed in their meeting, a truth which he had kept from Jason. Belisarius was simply the Trojan Horse that would be destroyed, and then the real plan would be hatched.
And the Landreich, all the Border World systems. That was the conflict to come against either the Confed or the Cats, which would be the platform for the G.E. project to be unleashed. That was why this carrier had to be saved, to provide the nucleus of an effective resistance so that the wheels within wheels would later turn.
Geoff sighed and, reaching under his chair, he took the bottle which he had hidden when Jason had come in. Taking a long drink he stared off, wondering. I know Jason would say no if he knew all the truth. Does that tell me something? An inner voice whispered the warning that indeed, if Jason did reject it, his rejection meant it was wrong. And if it is wrong for him then is it for me? God, why am I doing this? He thought of the new ones who even now were secretly in training, pilots like Seether. Seether, what would Jason think of him, this new generation, this new breed of Overman which I am helping to create.
Overman-strange, Whittaker had told me to read Nietzsche to find the hidden truth of the program. I did and I believed in spite of my moral outrage. That was the trouble, you could be outraged yet there was a terrifying logic to Nietzsche that could not be denied. The only answer to the logic of Nietzsche was the logic of a higher order of good that transcended his frightful world view. Thirty-five years of war in this universe had all but burned out the last idealistic dream of a higher order of good. There was, he feared, only one answer left-that if we are to survive in this universe we must be the Overman.
For beyond the Cats there were other enemies, far more terrifying, far more powerful and implacable. And if the Cats could come within a hairsbreadth of destroying us, what did that bode for humanity a hundred years from now? For surely they were coming and most assuredly we would be destroyed.