The poorly lit, dirty little room must have been some sort of supervisor’s office once, a long, long time ago. Charts and schematics still hung from the walls, discoloured and watermarked. There was an old desk, a steel thing that had probably been manufactured on Earth, and an old holoconsole of a type that Russalka was currently incapable of making because the technology behind it was of limited use and not vital to survival.
Sitting behind the desk was the most wanted man on the planet.
“Hello, Katya,” said Havilland Kane.
CHAPTER FOUR
Total War
Katya was literally lost for words for several long seconds. This didn’t make any sense. Tasya had worked with Kane when Kane — the “great pirate” and “terror of the world ocean” — had been working for the Yagizban. But then Kane had betrayed the Yagizban, and Tasya — a colonel of the Yagizban military, for crying out loud — had stopped being his friend very abruptly. Indeed, there had been some name-calling.
And shooting. There had definitely been shooting.
Yet here they were, the pirate-king and the war criminal, all cosy together. Unless…
Turning to Tasya, she said, “Is Kane your prisoner?”
Tasya looked nonplussed, then she followed Katya’s logic and laughed. “No. Havilland is not my prisoner, nor am I his. We’re working together again.”
“Just like that? I don’t believe it.” She turned to Kane. “The Yags would never work with you. Not after what you pulled on them.”
“Yags, Katya?” He seemed pained. “Yags? Really? You sound like one of those FMA scream sheets.”
Katya had had enough of this already. She’d had enough of it the very second she saw Kane’s face. “Take me back,” she said to Tasya. “I’ve got nothing to say to you, and I’ve got even less to say to him.” She indicated Kane with a perfunctory jerk of her head. “Take me back right now and let me get on with my life without having lunatics like you and scum like Kane in it.”
Tasya raised an eyebrow. “Her diplomatic skills have simply come on in leaps and bounds, haven’t they, Havilland?”
“Katya,” said Kane sharply, “stop behaving like a little brat and listen to me. Do you think we took a risk like coming to Atlantis unless there was a very good reason?”
“Of course there’s a good reason,” said Katya, “but it’s a good reason that profits you and the Yags. I’m not helping either of you. That’s all there is to it. And if you’re not going to take me out of here,” she said to Tasya, “I’ll find my own way.”
Kane grunted with displeasure. He still looked much as she remembered him; in his late thirties, lean, an aesthete in appearance. He always looked as if he should be lecturing in philosophy or literature, not leading a crew of stranded Terrans as his pirate crew around the deep waters of Russalka. He looked a little older now, though. There was grey at his temples that certainly had not been there before. She doubted that was because of the stress of being Federal Enemy No.1; he’d been that for years now and it didn’t seem to bother him very much. There was another, darker possibility — that his long-term dependence on the drug “Sin” was finally taking its toll. Sin was no pleasure; it was a method of enslavement. If Kane didn’t receive regular doses of it, he would slowly die in agony. Even though he had the formula and a steady supply of the stuff, it was hard to believe that having something so terrible in his system could do anything but harm eventually.
“The Yagizban wanted to win,” Kane said. “Me, I just want to stay alive and to keep my people alive.”
“Whoopee for you, Kane. You and every family in this…” She stopped as she fully analysed what he had said. “What do you mean, the Yagizban wanted to win? I was an unwilling spectator to a shooting match with one of those Vodyanoi copies on our way here. I think its crew were still trying to win. All the torpedoes swimming around, they were a strong hint.”
“No,” said Tasya, leaning against the doorjamb. “What you saw was the prosecution of a war. That’s not the same as trying to win it. That’s just not lying down and giving up.”
Katya was having problems with the conversation that extended beyond its location and the other speakers. They were talking as if the Yagizban were at least thinking of giving up. It certainly didn’t sound as if they had much belly for the fight. Kane was ahead of her.
“Don’t think the Yagizba Enclaves are thinking of surrendering. Because they’re not.”
“We can’t,” added Tasya with quiet emphasis.
Katya was still near the door with a strong impulse to leave, but she wasn’t leaving. She would in a moment, she was sure. Any minute now, she’d be gone. Any moment.
Just as soon as she’d found out what the hell they were talking about.
“What does that mean, ‘we can’t’?” she said. “It’s very easy. You say to the Feds, ‘We surrender.’ There’s no big trick to it.”
Kane shook his head. “This war is more complicated than you realise, Katya.”
He reached inside the long coat he always insisted on wearing, even in the temperature and humidity controlled submarine environments, the freak. Mind you, he liked the surface, liked standing around on surfaced submarine decks and on the Yagizban floating platforms, even in the howling cold and rain. She’d seen him do it herself, and it still mystified her even if it explained his attachment to his coat.
She decided she needed a stronger word than “freak” to really sum Kane up. Then she remembered that he was Terran by birth; he was already the most extreme form of freak imaginable.
Meanwhile, the freak in question had found what he was looking for. He pulled a waterproof envelope from his inside pocket, unsealed it and produced several sheets of hard copy. “These documents are all top secret,” he said offhandedly, as if everybody carried secret papers around with them. “The Yagizba Enclaves have already made diplomatic overtures towards equitable terms for a cessation of hostilities.” He looked at Katya. “That means they’re trying to end the war, by the way.”
“I know what it means,” said Katya, although she hadn’t been completely sure.
Unabashed, Kane held up one of the sheets. “This is what they suggested. Immediate ceasefire, normalisation of relations, independence for the Enclaves from Federal authority, and a claim of about an eighth of the planet’s surface.”
“An eighth?” Katya was astounded and disgusted. That sounded like a lot.
“Yes, an eighth. Bear in mind that the Yagizban represent about a quarter of the planet’s human population. An eighth is actually pretty modest. The eighth they want contains no Federal facilities, stations, developed mining sites, or anything else that would need to change hands. It’s untouched apart from what the Yagizban already have there.”
“What has this got to do with me?”
“As a Federal citizen, it has everything to do with you. Did you know the Yagizban had tried to negotiate? No. Their terms sound better than a war, don’t they?”
Katya said nothing. She could see the other sheets Kane had taken from the envelope and scattered on the desk. One of them had the FMA seal in the corner. Kane picked it up.
“This is the Federal response to that olive branch.” He saw her frown and added, “Sorry, that’s an Earth term that apparently didn’t make the trip here. It just means a peaceful overture. Here, read it yourself.” He passed her the FMA document.
She took it and skim read it. Unfortunately, it was couched oddly, full of strange legal terms and skimming it did her no good. With the full knowledge that she had four people watching her as she read, she went back to the beginning and went through it more carefully. The first and obvious thing was that the FMA had dismissed the Yagizban peace plan. Most of the rest of the document was a counter-proposal, but even here some of the terms weren’t very clear to her. There was something about the Yagizban surrendering unconditionally, something about territories and…