She mimicked his gesture, pointing her own forefinger at him. “Let’s hope neither one of us is foolish enough to force the other to pull the trigger.”
“What do I have to promise to make you feel secure returning to the surface?”
“Your promises mean nothing.” Iceni watched him again, wishing she knew more about the man. “But I do have control of the mobile forces, and I will tell you that if anything happens to me, dead-man programs within their targeting systems will automatically launch a bombardment of the planet using every kinetic projectile aboard these warships.”
“I’d hate to see that happen.”
She couldn’t tell whether or not Drakon believed her. In fact, she hadn’t had the chance to set up such a system. But all that mattered was that Drakon believed she had, or remained uncertain about whether such a system to retaliate for her death existed. “Me, too. I’m glad we understand each other. I’ll be taking a shuttle down soon. I believe a face-to-face conference in a secure location as soon as possible is important. Where will we meet?”
Drakon paused to think. She knew what he was concerned about. If he came to her offices, it would feed the impression that she was superior to him. But if she went to his headquarters to meet Drakon, it would imply that Drakon was ultimately in charge.
“There’s a set of secure conference rooms the snakes maintained partway between your offices and my headquarters,” Drakon finally said. “We already went through them, looking for any snakes hiding out there, but I’ll make sure they’re swept again for snake surveillance gear and booby traps before you land. Is that acceptable?”
It would mean trusting that Drakon and his people would do a good enough job on that sweep. But she would have her bodyguards with her, and they carried their own hidden gear for spotting danger of many kinds. Iceni considered the idea, then nodded. “All right. I’ll notify you when I’ve landed.”
When she stepped off the shuttle Iceni could see Togo and several of her bodyguards waiting at the ramp. Much farther off, soldiers and military vehicles were positioned around the landing area. “Why are they here?” she asked.
Togo made a helpless gesture. “Security and crowd control. They said. They have not attempted to hinder us in any way.”
“We’ll see if that continues.” At least Drakon had shown the courtesy to keep his soldiers at a distance from her rather than placing them so close they might have seemed to be controlling Iceni.
She started walking toward her offices. “How does everything look?”
If Togo had wanted to say everything is fine, it was the perfect opening, but he didn’t respond that way. “Things could be worse.”
As they cleared some of the barriers around the field, Iceni could see the crowds of citizens still filling the streets. The noise from them, which had formed a low-level background hum that Iceni hadn’t really noticed, rose in volume as Iceni came into view. After a tense moment she realized that once again she was hearing cheers. “For me?”
“You are one of the liberators, CEO Iceni,” Togo replied, his expression deadpan. “The citizens are happy that thanks to you the mobile forces are no longer threats but have become guardians of their safety.”
Iceni, moved by a silly impulse, raised one hand to wave and heard the cheers rise a little louder. It felt good, and frightening. “Drakon is calling himself General now. I need a new title. CEO has too many bad connotations, and reeks of the Syndicate Worlds.”
Togo pulled out his hand unit as they kept walking, the bodyguards behind at a discreet distance. He punched in the query and frowned as he read the response. “There are many possible alternatives. Queen?”
“A good job description but that might sound a bit autocratic to the citizens,” Iceni said.
“There is no sense in telegraphing your intent,” Togo agreed. “Governor?”
“Too subordinate-sounding.”
“Prime Minister?”
“First among ministers? No, I need to be first, period.”
Togo consulted his unit again. “The Man.”
“What?” Iceni asked.
“The Man. Archaic. Very archaic.”
“And obviously not me,” Iceni said.
“The Big Cheese. The Big… Kahuna.”
“Are you making these up or actually reading those titles?”
“I am reading them, Madam CEO. How about Czar, Kaiser, or Caesar? The first two were derived from the last.” Togo frowned again. “But they all mean absolute ruler. Leader, Khan, Sheik, Pasha, Sultan, She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed…”
“I like that last one.”
“And it is fitting,” Togo agreed. “But it might cause the citizens to believe that you have simply altered your brand name and intend to rule the same as a CEO.”
“We can’t have them believing that, can we?” Iceni said.
“How about the President? Or First Citizen?”
“That first one is a possibility. How does one become a president?”
Togo consulted the definition. “President describes the position as preeminent and is nonspecific as to the source of authority. It has been used for leaders of entities ranging from absolute dictatorships to societies so populist that they are only one step removed from total anarchy. Calling you the President may be a good choice.”
“President Iceni.” She tried out the title, saying it slowly. “The President, because there are no others. I do like that.”
“May I be the first to congratulate you, President Iceni?” Togo said.
“You may. Let’s go see General Drakon.”
The office building holding the secure conference rooms which had once belonged to the ISS had a nondescript façade. It had no sign or other identification beyond the street number and could have hosted any of a thousand kinds of modest businesses. The ISS had always displayed that two-faced approach to the outside universe. On the one hand, omnipresent and obvious surveillance systems, and headquarters or regional command centers that were large and clear signs of the power and presence of the snakes. On the other hand, lesser facilities hidden in places where they would least be expected, and other surveillance systems designed to be undetectable except by the most sophisticated equipment. The citizens of the Syndicate Worlds had always known that the ISS was there, but they had never known just where the ISS was, making for a powerful mix of justified fear and paranoia.
Inside the offices, though, the snakes had spared no expense. Iceni strolled past the plush furnishings to stand before a floor-to-ceiling virtual window giving a view on a gorgeous stretch of beach. She might have actually been standing near the sand, hearing the muffled, rhythmic roar of the surf on the other side of an actual window. The primary world of the Midway Star System, usually also called Midway, had a lot of beaches, but the nearest of those was over twenty kilometers from this building. Iceni doubted that this view was that of the nearest shoreline. The position of the sun appeared to be about an hour off, and the beach had the looks of one of the many archipelagoes that dotted the surface of Midway the planet, perhaps one of the island chains the ISS had declared off-limits to others so that the snakes could enjoy recreation there with privacy. The small continent on which the city was located, and which was the only other landmass boasted by the planet, had plenty of nice beaches, too; but they almost always had visitors on them since that was one of the few recreations for common citizens that the Syndicate Worlds hadn’t found a way to limit.
The door opened and Drakon entered, followed by two other soldiers. Togo, already seated at the gleaming conference table, murmured subvocally into his mike, and Iceni heard the words clearly through her own pickup. “Bran Malin and Roh Morgan. General Drakon has converted their sub-CEO ranks to colonel. They are his closest and most trusted advisers.”