She shook her head, looking at him. “You aren’t wise enough to think you know the answer or wise enough to think you know there isn’t an answer. Which means you’re probably far wiser than the others. And you’re the most powerful piece on the board.”
“A piece you would, however, be willing to sacrifice,” Geary said.
“Only if necessary. And I would feel bad about it afterwards.”
He couldn’t help smiling at her sardonic reply. “You wouldn’t feel bad for long. Tanya would kill you.”
“Very likely, yes. Though I’m sure that your captain would prefer to have grounds for murdering me that didn’t involve your death.” Rione went back and sat down, rubbing her forehead with one hand. “I haven’t been able to figure out something that’s very important, and you’re the only person on this ship I can talk to about it. I was able to confirm from their reactions that all three of the senators on this ship know about the new warships being built despite public declarations that new construction was halted when the war ended. That means that Suva and Costa, who are ideological opposites, agreed to the project. What rationale convinced both of them that a new, secretly constructed armada was a smart idea?”
“They don’t see eye to eye on much,” Geary agreed, looking back at the depiction of Sol Star System. “But they appeared to find some common ground when the Dancers returned that man’s remains to Old Earth.”
“That won’t last,” Rione said. “More importantly, they both must have signed off on that secret armada some time ago, well before the Dancers gave them reason to rethink their attitudes toward others.”
“Senator Sakai voted for it, too, I think. Did they tell you who would command that secret force?”
Rione gave him a demanding look. “No. Do you know?”
“Sakai told me it would be Admiral Bloch.”
She didn’t answer for almost a minute, then shook her head, looking pained. “Why? Why did the Grand Council agree to such a thing? It doesn’t make sense. Bloch manufactured for himself a reputation as a great fleet commander, a reputation I believe was unsupported by actual ability, but even if they still believe Bloch could be a match for you, they know that Bloch had been planning a coup before the Syndics captured him. If that attack on the Syndic home star system hadn’t been a disaster that led to your assuming command and his being captured, if Bloch had won that battle, had defeated the Syndics, he would have turned his victorious fleet against his own government. The Grand Council was desperate enough for victory that they were willing to risk that.”
“And you would have done your best to kill him even though it would have meant your own death as well.”
“I thought my husband was dead in the war. I didn’t have anything else to live for except preserving the Alliance. And, yes, you’ve never asked, but some of my fellow senators knew what my intent was. I was their fail-safe to stop Bloch.” Another long pause as Rione thought. “They must believe that this time they have some other means of ensuring he doesn’t betray them. But what?”
Geary sat down again across from her, catching her eyes with his own. “While we were at Midway, we heard firsthand about some of the tricks the Syndics employed to keep their high-ranking individuals in line.”
“No,” Rione said, shaking her head again. “Costa would have signed off on tactics like holding Bloch’s family hostage, but Suva never would have agreed to that. Neither would Sakai. It would have to be something the entire Grand Council would support, and I have no idea what that might be.”
“We’ll have to find out.”
“I’ll do my best.” For a moment, before the feelings were masked, anguish could be seen in her eyes. “For the Grand Council to openly move against you, when you’ve done nothing but support the Alliance, would be irrational. But I no longer have confidence in my own ability to understand the motivations of the Grand Council. You created a condition they had never experienced and never imagined facing. Peace. They are flailing for answers and, I suspect, acting out of fear rather than reason. I have no doubt that you could beat Bloch in a fight even if you were badly outnumbered, but that would mean civil war. If it comes to that, it could create damage to the Alliance too great for anyone or anything to repair.”
“There’s always duct tape,” Geary suggested in what he knew was a weak attempt to lighten their shared worries.
That brought only a thin smile from her. “As much as it impressed the Dancers as humanity’s finest achievement, I doubt that even duct tape could repair the Alliance if it broke that badly. Who do you think is behind the attacks on us here?”
“Lady Vitali said the money was coming from outside Sol Star System.”
“I believe she is right,” Rione said. “But from where?”
“The Shield of Sol ships were after not just this ship but also the Alliance senators aboard her,” Geary pointed out. “Since those senators represent a wide range of different views, targeting all of them would imply a source somewhere in Syndicate Worlds space.”
“Possible, but unlikely. Syndic space is much farther from here than Alliance space is, and Alliance space is far from close.” All trace of humor had fled again as she looked steadily at him. “I admit I was surprised by the boldness of the attempted strikes at you today. I shouldn’t have been. There are powerful people in the Alliance who would willingly sacrifice their purported friends and allies in the name of some supposedly higher purpose. That’s an old trick in crime and politics, to include some of your own people among the casualties in order to make yourself seem among the victims. We joked about my doing that to you, but I wouldn’t because I think you’re the only hope the Alliance has. Others, though, think you are either in the way of their preferred solution or the source of the danger. While Black Jack was dead he made a marvelous martyr for the government, serving exactly as needed. Don’t delude yourself. There are those who would prefer to return to the days when they could use Black Jack to their own ends because he was, they thought, safely dead and unable to act on his own. You truly do not know which of those people can be trusted in anything.”
Geary sighed, looking down for a moment, then back up to catch her eyes again. “If I can’t trust anyone, why should I trust you, Victoria?”
“I didn’t say you couldn’t trust anyone. You’ve got your captain. As for me, I’m not asking you to trust me because I’m some paragon of virtue upon whom the light of the living stars shines with special warmth. You know I’m not.” The thin smile was back. “No. You can trust me for the same reason I decided to trust Lady Vitali. Self-interest. I want to save the Alliance, and I believe that only a living Black Jack can make that happen.”
It was uncomfortably close to what Tanya had told him at the ancient wall, and he had learned that on the rare occasions when those two women agreed on something, he had better listen. “Just how do I make that happen?”
“By staying alive. Without that, nothing else is possible.”
Three
Hours crawled by as Dauntless held orbit near Old Earth and Tanya Desjani grew steadily more ill-tempered.
Her outlook had not been improved by the responses of two of the Alliance senators aboard the ship. Senator Costa had scowled when first told of the missing officers. “Is this going to delay our return to Alliance space?” The silence that had followed her question brought a slight flush to Costa’s face before she made an inadequate attempt at a dignified retreat.
Senator Suva had not done much better, her first reaction being “You’re not going to charge those two officers with a crime, are you?”