That actually could be smart, she had to admit it. Centrists attracted the violent fringe elements, people like the Paxers and the Abolitionists, whose major agenda had gone from a unilateral peace in the Company Wars on the one hand, and an abolition of all azi production on the other. The Paxers and the Abolitionists had, as a curious side agenda, the terraforming of Cyteen, which they thought would break the power of Reseune, and thatwas how those fringe groups had found an ideological home in the Centrist Party.
But let Corain of Citizen shift the political focus to “jobs for Fargone,” and snuggle up to Science, and watch the fringe elements scramble to cope with that.
The first Ari had created her, she’d said, to keep watch over her projects–among which was Gehenna, and maybe, yes, she supposed, that could include Eversnow, even if it wasn’t, like Gehenna, populated.
So, well, maybe Yanni didn’t deserve spacing.
A sudden expansion of Reseune interests out on the fringe of human space–a whole new strand of stars. New frontiers. A commitment to expansion–and to Expansionism, with all it stood for, and all the dangers in the deep unknown…
Was sheready to open that door to the universe and deal with whatever lay out there? Was she, for that matter, going to be as Expansionist in her own career as her predecessor had been? She didn’t know. Decisions were coming down on her too early…and she was about to be stuck with this one: there were ways for her to undo everything except the dispersal of the Earth genome into an alien, living world.
But Defense, by all reports, had already done that part, even including higher lifeforms.
“I’m not sure, Yanni. I’m still not sure. Tell me why.”
“A planet with only microbes to recommend it is interesting, but we have samples.”
“All right. Keep going. Why now?”
Yanni took a sip of wine. “Here’s the urgency in it. The War’s over; that used to be our cohesive factor, as a nation: we had to stop the Earth Company So now Union’s teetering somewhere between an amalgam of star‑stations and a fully formed state, and there’s power to be had, power Reseune holds virtually solo. Reseune keeps Union going in a specific direction, keeps a momentum, or God knows what it would do. The Council may govern, but Reseune still makes the rules that govern azi, and azi are still, and for a few centuries more, the source of the population base.”
“That’s supposed to end.”
“Not yet. And this is the reason. As long as we expand into new frontiers, CIT births won’t keep up with the need for population; azi go on being born, and Reseune goes on making the rules, the newest population goes on voting our way, and we’ll always outvote the Centrists and keep them from clustering all our assets around one vulnerable planet. Plus we retain our police power, where azi are concerned, and we remain a clearing‑house for information that most of the citizenry doesn’t even wantto know, but which could come back on their heads. We don’t know what the future holds, but it’s a sure bet the Centrists know less than we do. Earth is out of serious play in human politics for at least a century. It can’t even get a consensus together to manage its trade relations, and right now they see us as an endless source of funds and invention, so they don’t actually have to solve any of their problems. They sell us their antiquities, their artwork, their unique biologicals, and we make the worst of their politicians drunk with money and importance. The only thing they really badly want, we won’t sell them.”
That, of course, was rejuv. On a populous planet like Earth, it could be a disaster. And she saw Yanni’s point: left with nobodyto make a decision not to trade in it, it would have happened, and Earth would have collapsed.
“Earth won’t move until it’s uncomfortable,” she murmured, quoting. The rest of what Ari One had said was: It won’t make any decision until at least three of its factions combine.“So where do you see things going for us all? Another war?”
“Alliance has its own problems, transitioning from a collection of merchant captains to a government making law for two worlds. It’s set Pell off limits. It saw Gehenna as a potential resource, but now they know it’s a time bomb. So they came out of the War owning twoplanets they don’t want to touch–partly noble ethics. But this is the important part: partly it’s the paralysis of not havinga ReseuneLabs to make informed decisions, and they refuse to ask us what to do with Gehenna orPell. Their R&D was always driven by the likes of LucasCorp’s operation, all profit, no long‑range planning–ecological disaster in the making. Plus their two planets both have higher life to worry about. Our two worlds don’t. Right now they can’t do anything about what we do.”
“But,” she said, “Cyteen’s biosystem produces rejuv, and we can’t jeopardize that by terraforming here. Go over strictly to lab production and it drives up the cost of something everybody has to have for most of their life–so you create a class who can live for a century and a half being young, and separate them from the people who can’t afford it.”
Staff brought the next course, grilled fish, with citrus. It took a moment. And she was annoyed with staff, who should have waited for a signal. Probably the fish would have seriously overcooked. But she needed a stern talk with staff about interrupting. A very stern talk.
“So,” she said, after the obligatory compliments, and several bites further on.
“So,” Yanni said, perfectly composed.
“So I’m following everything you’re saying, and it makes sense. But why are you personally voting for terraforming Eversnow this fast? What if there’s something as important as rejuv down there? Something we can’tmake in a lab?”
“One reason: Reseune’s continued existence, its power to make decisions, aboveboard or in secret, is the core of all Union stability. Without us, Union falls apart. That’s not arrogance. That’s fact. Right now, Union isn’t populous enough to avoid fragmentation. Decisions are being taken. Some really stupid ideas are current in politics, and some damned selfish ones. Reseune is at a low ebb of power, during my interregnum, so it’s perceived–because I’m not an Emory, a Carnath, or a Nye–not even a Warrick. I’m an unknown, and it’s widely perceived I’m merely a footnote, filling time between Denys Nye’s control of Reseune–and your taking the office, for which all the Centrists are busy bracing themselves. They perceive me as weak, someone they can get concessions out of–before you come in. But on this one matter, on this, I am passionate. We need the expansion of human space to go on holding the power to make decisions; we need labs to extend our reach to other places, labs, incidentally, out of immediate view of Centrist leadership here on Cyteen…but I’m not advertising that feature of the plan. We may still find biologicals we can develop at Eversnow; and the experience will be invaluable; but right now, and in the immediate future, we need the expansion of our loyal voting base, before some short‑sighted, over‑content business interests on Cyteen Station and in Novgorod break up Reseune and let us fall behind the Alliance. Fatally so. In which case I guaranteeyou there’ll be another war. We need to hedge our bets by spreading outward. Concerns for microbes take second place. The way Earth is managing its affairs currently, we may be using your predecessor’s genetic Arks to recover what they lose.”
“And what if we lose something like rejuv because we rushed in and messed up a place we don’t wholly know?”
“We could lose something, yes. But we know what we gain. A power base. And whatever we mess up there, it won’t be us. The Centrists envision a planet they can live on in billions, like Earth, the great fantasy. They see this project as a foot in the door of that science. We get the Centrists involved faroutside the understanding of their comfortable power base on Cyteen, and we edge their children closer and closer to our point of view. The Long View…in this case, from a standpoint of distance from the center of Union. We get their kids involved in this project. We turn the Centrists into our asset. They go for the profit out there, being people with families they want to support–and we go on as we are, controlling colonization. There are other worlds beyond Eversnow. But we can’t reach them without stepping stones. Trade drivesexpansion. Trade drives us. And the Treaty of Pell meant our trade pays a price, it may have meant peace, but Alliance is getting fatter on a share of our trade. And some of those merchanters are using the profit to update armaments–the way some of our warships nowadays run a little cargo–of a medical and emergency nature. The Treaty may someday break down on that point. We have to get other options, we have to maintain our economic push that keepsus stronger than the Alliance, or see the consequences.”