“Ergo, word gets passed from the throne to various powerful, handpicked men. The facts about Snelund’s governorship are to be suppressed as much as possible, the investigation of them delayed as long as possible and hampered by every available trick when finally it does roll. Yes. I’d begun to suspect it on my own hook.”
He frowned. “But a scandal of these dimensions can’t be concealed forever,” he said. “Enough people will resign themselves to having Snelund for a gray eminence that his scheme will work — unless they understand what he’s done out here. Then they might well take measures, if only because they fear what he could do to them.
“Snelund isn’t stupid, worse luck. Maybe no big, spectacular warriors or statesmen can topple him. But a swarm of drab little accountants and welfare investigators isn’t that easily fended off. He must have a plan for dealing with them too. What is it?”
“Civil war,” she answered.
“Huh?” Flandry dropped his cigaret.
“Goad till he’s got a rebellion,” she said bleakly. “Suppress it in such a way that no firm evidence of anything remains.
“He’d soonest not have this fleet win a clear victory. A prolonged campaign, with planets comin’ under attack, would give him his chaos free. But s’posin’, which I doubt, your admiral can beat Hugh at a stroke, there’ll still be ‘pacification’ left for his mercenaries, and they’ll have their instructions how to go ’bout it.
“Afterward hell disband them, long with his overlord corps. He recruited from the scum of everywhere else in the Empire, and they’ll scatter back through it and vanish automatic’ly. He’ll blame the revolt on subversion, and claim to be the heroic leader who saved this frontier.”
She sighed. “Oh, yes,” she finished, “he knows there’ll be loose ends. But he doesn’t ’spect they’ll be important: ’specily as he reckons to supply a lot of them himself.”
“A considerable risk,” Flandry mused. “But Krishna, what stakes!”
“The Merseian crisis was a grand chance,” Kathryn McCormac said. “Attention bent yonder and most of the local fleet gone. He wanted Hugh out of the way ’cause Hugh was dangerous to him, but also ’cause he hoped this’d clear the path for tormentin’ Aeneas till Aeneas rose and touched off the fission. Hugh was more’n chief admiral for the sector. He’s Firstman of Ilion, which puts him as high on the planet as anybody ’cept the resident. Our Cabinet could only name him an ‘expert advisor’ under the law, but toward the end he was Speaker in everything save title and led its resistance to Snelund’s tools. And Aeneas has traditionly set the tone for all human colonies out here, and a good many nonhumans besides.”
Life flowed back. Her nostrils flared. “Snelund never looked, though, for havin’ Hugh to fight!”
Flandry ground the dropped butt under his heel. Presently he told her, “I’m afraid the Imperium cannot allow a rebellion to succeed, regardless of how well-intentioned.”
“But they’ll know the truth,” she protested.
“At best, they’ll get your testimony,” he said. “You had a bad time. Frequent drugging and brain-muddling, among other things, right?” He saw her teeth catch her lip. “I’m sorry to remind you, my lady, but I’d be sorrier to leave you in a dream that’s due to vaporize. The mere fact that you believe you heard Snelund tell you these schemes does not prove one entropie thing. Confusion — paranoia — deliberate planting of false memories by agents who meant to discredit the governor — any smart advocate, any suborned psychiatrist, could rip your story to ions. You wouldn’t carry it past the first investigator screening witnesses for a court of inquiry.”
She stared at him as if he had struck her. “Don’t you believe me?”
“I want to,” Flandry said. “Among other reasons, because your account indicates where and how to look for evidence that can’t be tiddlywinked away. Yes, I’ll be shooting message capsules with coded dispatches off to various strategic destinations.”
“Not goin’ home yourself?”
“Why should I, when my written word has better odds of being taken seriously than your spoken one? Not that the odds are much to wager on.” Flandry marshalled his thoughts. They were reluctant to stand and be identified. “You see,” he said slowly, “bare assertions are cheap. Solid proofs are needed. A mountain of them, if you’re to get anywhere against an Imperial favorite and the big men who stand to grow bigger by supporting him. And … Snelund is quite right … a planet that’s been fought over with modern weapons isn’t apt to have a worthwhile amount of evidence left on it. No, I think this ship’s best next move is to Aeneas.”
“What?”
“We’ll try a parley with your husband, my lady. I hope you can talk him into quitting. Then afterward they may turn up what’s required for the legal frying of Aaron Snelund.”
VI
The star Virgil is type F7, slightly more massive than Sol, half again as luminous, with a higher proportion of ultraviolet in its emission. Aeneas is the fourth of its planets, completing an orbit in 1.73 standard years at an average distance of 1.50 astronomical units and thus receiving two-thirds the irradiation that Terra gets. Its mean diameter is 10,700 kilometers, its mass 0.45 Terra, hence gravity on the surface equals 0.635 g. This suffices to retain a humanly breathable atmosphere, comparable on the lowest levels to Denver Complex and on the highest to the Peruvian altiplano. (You must bear in mind that a weak pull means a correspondingly small density gradient, plus orogenic forces insufficient to raise very tall mountains.) Through ages, water molecules have ascended in the thin air and been cracked by energetic quanta; the hydrogen has escaped to space, the oxygen that has not has tended to unite with minerals. Thus little remains of the former oceans, and deserts have become extensive.
The chief original inducement to colonize was scientific; the unique races on the neighbor planet Dido, which itself was no world whereon a man would want to keep his family. Of course, various other kinds of people settled too; but the explorer-intellectuals dominated. Then the Troubles came, and the Aeneans had to survive as best they could, cut off, for generations. They adapted. The result was a stock more virile and gifted, a society more patriotic and respectful of learning, than most. After civilization returned to the Alpha Crucis region, Aeneas inevitably became its local leader. To the present day, the University of Virgil in Nova Roma drew students and scholars from greater distances than you might expect.
Eventually the Imperium decided that proper organization of this critical sector demanded an end to Aenean independence. Intrigue and judicious force accomplished it. A hundred years later, some resentment lingered, though the ordinary dweller agreed that incorporation had been desirable on the whole and the planet supplied many outstanding men to the Terran armed services.
Its military-intellectual tradition continued. Every Aenean trained in arms — including women, who took advantage of reduced weight. The old baronial families still led. Their titles might not be recognized by the Imperial peerage, but were by their own folk; they kept their strongholds and broad lands; they furnished more than their share of officers and professors. In part this was due to their tendency to choose able spouses, regardless of rank. On its upper levels, Aenean society was rather formal and austere, though it had its sports and holidays and other depressurizing institutions. On its lower levels there was more jollity, but also better manners than you could find on Terra.
Thus a description, cataloguing several facts and omitting the really significant one: that to four hundred million human beings, Aeneas was home.