It was useless to think of resistance. Even more so to think of rebellion, or exposing the Brotherhood; it had been exposed a dozen times, and it did not matter. In more than one century investigators had managed to publish books with most of the details of the Brotherhood, its origin, many of the membership, even some of the signs of the Craft. They hadn’t mattered. The books were not believed. They were buried under a mountain of disinformation, the tale-tellers ignored if outsiders, silenced if initiates. Outright rebels like Frederick Barbarossa and Lenin were crushed. Invincible, secret beyond secret, the conspiracy at the heart of all conspiracies and secret orders, the Brotherhood went on. Just at the moment it took the form of the ARM and Buford Early, and demanded that certain individuals vanish in the dangerous, bandit-haunted wastes of the Jotuns. That, at least, was easily arranged, with willing tools who knew nothing of what purpose they served.
“Go.” He turned, nodding to the attendant who had caught the spilled wine. “See to your hurts.”
He kept his voice curt, but the man sensed the approval. When the time comes to silence Gruederman, I will send that one, Hirose decided. None of Gruederman’s band could be allowed to live, of course. They would be no loss to anyone.
“It’s a very tempting proposition, Herr Early—or should I say Herr General Early?—but I’m afraid it’s not what I had in mind at the present time,” Claude Montferrat-Palme said.
His current mistress set a tray between the two men and withdrew; she was a spectacular blond in red tights and slashed tunic; and Early’s eyes followed her out of the lounge with appreciation. Low gravity could do some interesting things for the human figure, things only prosthethics or special effects could accomplish on Earth. Belters were usually too spindly to take advantage.
They were meeting on Montferrat’s home ground, the manor-house of his grudgingly restored estate. Grudgingly, since his allegiance to the Resistance had been so late and politic, but the conversion had been spectacular when it came. Also he turned out to have used much of the graft that came the way of a collabo chief of police for München to help refugees, most of whom had showed their gratitude in electorally solid ways… Rather surprising me, Montferrat chuckled inwardly. Sometimes I wish the world would not keep chipping away at my cynicism so. You needed the vigor of disillusioned youth to maintain a really black, bitter cynicism. In his seventh decade and settling into middle age, Claude felt a disconcerting mellowing effect.
Early leaned back, coffee cup in one hand and brandy snifter in the other. “Excellent,” he said after sipping at one and then the other. Continuing: “I’m surprised you’re not interested, Herrenmann. You struck me as an ambitious man.”
“Pleasant to meet someone who appreciates the finer things,” Montferrat said, swirling the amber liquid in his snifter and inhaling the scent. Most of the plutocrats who founded Wunderland had been German or Netherlander or Scandinavian; his Montferrat ancestors were a French exception, and they had worked long and hard to establish the true vines of Cognac on this property. Along with the coffee plantations, things were possible in Wunderland’s climate that were not on earth.
“And I am ambitious, Herr General,” he went on, setting it down and taking out his cigarette case.
Early accepted one of the cigarillos, and they both lit from the candle on the table. The big room was dimly lit, letting in moonlight and warm garden scents through the tall louvered windows on three sides. Blue smoke drifted up toward the molded plaster of the ceiling.
“Strange you should be willing to risk all this, then,” he said, waving an arm at the outer wall; taking in the mansion and estate beyond, in spirit.
“If you mean the inheritance of the Nineteen Families,” Montferrat said, blowing a smoke ring, “it’s already more-or-less lost. And in any case, what business is it of yours?”
“I’m merely advising General Markham, as liaison with the UN Space Navy,” Early said mildly.
“Advising him that his dreams of returning Wunderland to the pre-War status quo can be accomplished,” Montferrat said dryly. “Absurd. For a variety of reasons, good and bad, the Families were too closely involved in running the planet during the Occupation. Their rule is doomed, even if the Provisional Government’s Gendarmerie has stopped the rioting and looting against them.”
“You haven’t thrown in with the Democrats, either,” Early pointed out.
“No, because I recognize a certain fine Terrestrial hand behind them—you’ve been puppeting the new Radical Democrat party too—financing it, in fact.”
“You’ll never prove a word of that,” Early replied.
“Of course not; I’m not entirely sure what you and your masters are after, but you’re certainly no fool. There isn’t even enough evidence to convince Markham, and he’s a clinical paranoid, I wonder his autodoc doesn’t fix him. My best guess is that you want to use Markham to restore order, infiltrating our military in the process—then use him to discredit the aristocrats completely with his ham-handed repression. Thus leaving the field to the Radical Democrats, who want a constitution that’s a carbon copy of Earth’s—complete with a technological police. Which the experience of the UN shows is equivalent to handing the government over to the technological police, since to control technology in a modern society you have to control everything.”
For a moment the mask of affability slipped on Early’s face, and Montferrat felt a slight prickling along his spine. How much of that is genuine? he thought. The man is ancient, for Gott’s sake. At least three times older than himself… and he ought to be sitting wheezing in a computerized wheelchair in the Strudlebug’s Club back on Earth. Secrets of the ARM.
“You are ambitious,” Early said softly. “I’d hoped to talk you out of this party you’re promoting.”
“Many people are involved with the Centrists,” Montferrat corrected; Early waved his hand.
“Please, I know the signs of secret influence when I see them.” For some reason he grinned at that. “Separatism is not a viable alternative.”
“Independence is,” Montferrat said. “And Wunderland—the Alpha Centauri system—is going to be independent. Of the kzin, and of Earth and the UN.”
“You’d better be sure you’ve got ample bargaining power before you sit down to bargain with me,” Early warned.
“Oh, exactly, my dear General. Which is why, as you will have noticed, I’m not bargaining with you now.”
Unexpectedly, Early laughed; it was a deep rich sound, thick as chocolate. “You aren’t, are you?” He took another sip of the brandy. “Well, in that case—perhaps you could expand on the remark you made at dinner, about local performance techniques and classical Meddelhoffer?”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“He’s not human,” Jonah gasped, flopping down on a rock and watching Hans swing along up the mountainside.
Bigs rolled a baleful eye at him as he lay prone in the track, twitching expressive eyebrows; Spots carefully poured water from a plastic container over his body, from head to the base of his tail. Then he trudged down to the small stream and poured several more over his own head before returning to repeat the process with his brother: Both kzin were panting, their tongues lolling, the palms of their hands and feet and their tails oozing sweat. Those were the only ways kzinti had to shed excess heat; Kzin was a cooler planet than Earth or Wunderland. Besides…