Even a newly enlarged and promoted mouse setting out to bell a cat has enough sense to do it with the wind in his sails.
7
Gallanti was not thrilled to see him.
"For God's sake!" she snarled, as soon as he was ushered into the stateroom she used for her command quarters when not on the bridge. "The maniac hasn't even left orbit yet and you're already here to give me grief?"
"There is no God," Radamacher informed her serenely. "Mention of the term is expressly forbidden in StateSec regulations."
That brought her up short. Her eyes rolled and Yuri could sense the woman's notorious temper rising. But he'd already gauged his tactics before entering the room, and knew what to do.
"Oh, relax, would you?" Radamacher gave her a wry smile—he had a superb wry smile; people had told him so over the years hundreds of times—and eased his way into an armchair. "For God's sake, Citizen Captain Gallanti, just once can you assume we're adults instead of kids in a schoolyard? I didn't come here to play dominance games with you."
That threw her off her stride, as he'd suspected it would. Gallanti stared at him, her mouth half-open. The stocky blonde's heavy brow was frowning more in puzzlement now than anger.
Yuri pressed the advantage. "Look, as you said: The maniac hasn't even left orbit yet. So let's take advantage of all the time we've got to get everything straightened up before he comes back. If we work together, we can see to it that by the time he returns—that'll be at least six weeks, more likely eight—not even that fanatic can find anything wrong any more. He'll blow on his way and we'll have seen the last of him."
Gallanti was as notorious for her suspiciousness as her temper. Her eyes narrowed. "Why are you being so friendly, all of sudden?"
He spread his hands. "When have I ever not been friendly? It's not my fault you don't know me. I couldn't very well invite myself over to your staff dinners, could I?" He left unspoken the rest of it. Although you could have, Exalted SD Captain—if you hadn't been such a complete snot toward every officer in the task force since you arrived on station.
Gallanti's heavy jaws tightened. That was embarrassment, at first. But, like anyone with her temperament, Gallanti was not fond of self-doubt, much less self-criticism. So, within seconds, the embarrassment began transforming into anger.
Yuri cut it off before it built up any steam. "Let it go, will you? If you think you can't stand the maniac, try getting a beating at his hands." He fingered his still somewhat swollen jaw, opening his mouth to let her see the missing front teeth. He'd already begun regeneration treatment, but the gap was still obvious. And Yuri had rebandaged his nose before leaving his cabin, taking care to make the dressings as bulky as possible.
That did the trick. Gallanti managed a half-smile of tepid sympathy; then, flopped into the chair behind her desk.
"Isn't he something else? Where in creation did the Citizen Chairman dredge him up from? The Ninth Circle of Hell?"
"I believe that's the circle reserved for traitors," Radamacher said mildly, "which I'm afraid is the one fault you can't find in the man. Not without being laughed out of court, anyway. It's been a while since I read Dante, but if I recall correctly, intemperate zealots were assigned to a different level."
Gallanti glared at him. "Who's Dante?" Without waiting for an answer, she transferred the glare to her desktop display.
"As soon as I'm certain that bastard's into hyper-space, I'm sending off a purely blistering set of dispatches by courier ship. I can promise you that! Vesey is doing the same." Half-spitting: "We'll see what's what after they find out on Haven what the maniac's been up to!"
Radamacher cleared his throat delicately. "I would remind you of two things, Citizen Captain Gallanti. The first is that it will be at least six weeks before we can expect any answer, travel times being what they are between La Martine and the capital. I'd guess more like two months. StateSec is going to study all the dispatches carefully before they send back any reply."
She was still glaring at him. But, after a couple of seconds, even Gallanti seemed to realize that glaring at a man for simply stating well-known astrophysical facts was foolish. Grudgingly, she nodded. Then, summoning up her still-moldering anger and resentment, spat out: "And what's the second thing?"
Yuri shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't share your confidence that Nouveau Paris will be very sympathetic to our complaints."
That was a nice touch, he thought. In point of fact, Yuri Radamacher's name did not and would not appear on a single one of those "blistering dispatches." But, as he'd expected, a woman of Gallanti's mindset was always prepared to assume that everyone around her except lunatics would agree with her. So she took his casual mention of "our" complaints for good coin. That helped defuse her anger at his questioning of her judgement.
"Why not?" she demanded. "He had almost a dozen StateSec officers shot—"
"The figure is actually seven," Yuri countered mildly, "the rest were StateSec security ratings. Muscle, to put it crudely. And every single one of them was guilty—there's no doubt about this, Citizen Captain, don't think there is—of the most grotesque crimes and violations of StateSec regulations. You know as well as I do that Nouveau Paris will stamp 'fully approved' on each and every one of those summary executions."
Again, he cleared his throat delicately. "You'd do well not to forget that the Special Investigator is also—has also, I should say—sent dispatches of his own. I happen to know—never mind how—that those dispatches included a large sampling of the pornographic record chips found in the personal quarters of Jamka and his confederates. I don't know if you've seen any of those records, Citizen Captain, but I have—and I can assure you that the impact they will have on StateSec at the capital is not—not not not—going to be: 'why did Cachat blow their brains out?' The question is going to be of quite a different variety. 'Why was none of this reported prior to Cachat's arrival—especially by the commanding officers of the superdreadnoughts where the criminal activity was centered?'"
Finally, something seem to penetrate Gallanti's armor of self-righteousness. Her face paled a little. "I wasn't—damnation, it was none of my affair! I command an SD, I'm not assigned to the task force! Jamka was a people's commissioner—assigned to the task force—not someone under my command."
Try as she might, the words lacked force. Radamacher shrugged again.
"Citizen Captain Gallanti—do you mind if I call you Jillian, by the way, while we're speaking privately?"
Gallanti hesitated. Then, nodded her head brusquely. "Sure, go ahead. As long as it's private. Ah—Yuri, isn't it?"
Radamacher nodded. "Jillian, then. Look, let's face facts. We've all got our excuses, and you and I both know they aren't flimsy ones—not, at least, if you're willing to live in the real world instead of Cachat's fantasy one. But..."
He let the word fall into silence. Then:
"Face it, Jillian. Real world excuses always come up short against fantasy accusations whenever the fantasist can point to real crimes. So let's not kid ourselves. Cachat's rampage is going to go down very well in Nouveau Paris, don't think it won't." In a slightly cynical tone of voice: "Out of idle curiosity, I once did a textual analysis of several of our Citizen Chairman's occasional speeches to StateSec cadre assemblies. Back when he was still Director of State Security. Outside of common articles like 'a' and 'the,' do you know which word appears the most often?"