Blessed asked, "What's up, Lupo?"
"We need to think about this future." He steepled his fingers. "Kez Maefele suggested I study census reports. I did. Our unskilled and semiskilled employees are mostly nonhuman or artifact. With no reason to stay loyal. Our skilled workers and supervisors run half and half."
"And?"
"Your report ignores the composition of the work force. It could desert us. Particularly given this." He passed out three-sheet handouts.
Blessed glanced at His. "When did this come in?"
Turtle missed the reply. He was engrossed. It was a fleet edict and, therefore, as immutable as natural law.
They wanted five million volunteers. Any Canon citizen who felt capable of surviving the screening.
That alone was enough to alter the shape of the future. But it was just the beginning.
The shocker was a paragraph that extended full citizenship to any resident of Canon space who, never having stood in arms against Canon, claimed it formally.
Nonhumans aboard the Guardships? Could it happen?
Provik asked him, "What do you think?"
"I think this is the most dangerous document you're ever likely to see. It stuns you with the call for volunteers. While you're numb, it codifies what are de facto practices already. It takes a few nibbles at House prerogatives but balances them with hammer blows to the power of Canon's bureaucrats. There isn't one thing there that will offend any significant portion of the population, yet it is a revolution, a legal recognition that Canon is a multi-species entity."
Perplexed, Blessed said, "I don't like this, but it doesn't look that dangerous."
"The next one will be just as gentle. And so will the one after that. Those people see things millennially."
Provik's woman stepped in. "Lupo, VII Gemina just broke off the Web." She looked numb.
Turtle reflected that the Prime certainly enjoyed the occasional ironic twist. VII Gemina!
Provik asked, "Blessed, Cable, is there anything in the system—any system—to give us away?"
"We're clean. Unless they use brainprobes."
"You're sure?"
"There are no oversights," Shike said. "We learned from M. Shrilica."
Two agreed. "I've tested it. They've rewritten reality completely."
"Not quite," Turtle interjected. "You better hope they're as focused on information systems as you. Suppose one of them tunes in a commercial news broadcast? I or my soldiers or our developing defense works get mentioned every day." He had complained before that they had allowed him to become a public figure. No one had taken him seriously.
"A point," Provik said. "I want a news blackout, Two. With sanctions that will make it stick."
Two raised a finger: wait. She had the fingers of her other hand pressed to her ear, listening. Then she said, "They're here about your reports on the Outsiders. They're sending their own experts down."
Provik shrugged. "Give them so much of what they want they can't see anything else."
Turtle told Blessed, "Don't let Midnight know VII Gemina is here. She has friends aboard. She might try to contact them. She does not understand security."
— 109 —
WarAvccat glanced at the screen to his left. P. Benetonica 3. A very old world orbiting an old star. He tried to recall when last he had set foot on a planet. Ages ago. He had been a combat soldier. How would he take it? Often soldiers on-planet experienced a sort of nostalgic melancholy.
He shifted attention to a tentative list of members of his landing party. About the experts there was no doubt. Gemina had picked them. But he was uncertain about the rest. Especially the Guardship soldiers from the chartered Horigawa. Would they be useful?
He had a hunch they might.
What could it hurt? They would expect him to bring an escort.
Aleas joined him. "Want to hear something?" She sounded amused.
"What now?" She had an irreverent sense of humor.
"Our people haven't had any luck getting into the local data pool. They just got an access-unauthorized response, whatever they tried. Till they pissed the system and it told them they'd be arrested and given five years to life at hard labor if they tried to get in again."
That was amusing. "Somebody screwed up?"
"Not really. The probe during our first visit to M. Shrilica warned them they needed better safeguards. You think they'll arrest the whole Guardship if we try again?"
He chuckled."It is useful to know when you've been found out. We'll keep digging. Though it's unlikely we'll find anything now."
"Gemina says it's not Guardship-specific. The Tregessers don't like anybody nosing into their business."
"WarAvocat grunted. "You coming down?"
"Try and stop me."
Lupo and the Ku watched the visitors debark deep in the roots of the Pylon. He had gotten a panic signal from Six, who had met them at the port.... "It's that damned Lieutenant! What the hell is she doing back?"
The Ku bent nearer the screen, shocked. Then he relaxed. "No. That's not the same one. That's a copy."
"Good." Lupo hated to think that more than one had gotten away on V. Rothica 4.
"This is the one to watch," the Ku said. "WarAvocat Hanaver Strate. I'm surprised."
Strate fit Provik's stereotype of a Guardship officer perfectly. "Recognize anyone else?"
"The woman. The apparent companion. As a face in a crowd. I don't know who she is."
Lupo tapped his wrist. "Two. Have they broken into that data system yet?"
"Yes."
"Good." He slipped a receiver button into his left ear, told the Ku, "Monitor the show. Give me any hints you can. Does this Strate have weaknesses?"
"He's lonely. Loneliness is epidemic aboard VII Gemina. Anyone off that Guardship might be vulnerable to a manipulation of that. He's also vain of his personal accomplishments. He's fond of women. As a general rule, don't underestimate him."
"He's the man who beat me in the end space. I plan to be careful."
WarAvocat could not hide his awe of the Pylon. In its frame of reference it was as impressive as Starbase.
He refused to bow to the paranoia that was the consequence of leaving VII Gemina. He let the Tregesser woman put his people into the lift however she would.
Why had they made so little fuss? They had sent only one woman to meet them. She had driven them herself. There were no obvious security arrangements. As far as he could see, there was no effort to keep anything out of sight.
A series of lifts took thern to a reception area that suggested the level was a headwater of power in the Tregesser empire.
The woman palmed a wall plate. A door opened on a vast, mostly brown, and mostly empty room. A woman stood looking out a window. A man sat in a chair, reading. He looked up, put his papers aside, considered them coolly. A second man sat at a work station against the wall to the left, dealing with callers.
"Shoot the bastard," he told one. "The rest will forget the idea." He cut off, switched, said, "Sorry. Family crisis. Look, the injunction will come through. Tell Deccan to concentrate on the lawsuits. For what we pay him he ought to castrate every fatass bureaucrat on Capitola Primagenia. I have visitors, Rash." He cut off, looked them over, lined an eyebrow, came forward. "I see you've kept well, Lieutenant. Welcome back to Tregesser Prime."
"Who the hell are you?" Klass snapped.
"Same winning personality, too."
WarAvocat scowled. He should have warned Klass.
The man said, "I'm Lupo Provik. Head of House security, doer of odd jobs. Today I'm mouthpiece for the Chair. The gentleman there is Cable Shike. He represents Blessed Tregesser, heir to the Chair. The lady is Tina Bofoku, representing Blessed's daughter and her own, Placidia Tregesser. Whom have we the honor of addressing?"