Union Alliance - Cyteen. Part 1

Cyteen.

by C.J. Cherryh.

THE HUMANE REVOLUTION.

"The Company Wars": #1 Reseune Educational Publications: 4668-1368-1 approved for 80+

Imagine all the variety of the human species confined to a single world, a world sown with the petrified bones of human ancestors, a planet dotted with the ruins of ten thousand years of forgotten human civilizations-a planet on which at the time human beings first flew in s.p.a.ce, humans still hunted a surplus of animals, gathered wild plants, farmed with ancient methods, spun natural yarns by hand and cooked over wood fires.

Earth owed allegiance to a mult.i.tude of chairmen, councillors, kings, ministers and presidents; to parliaments and congresses and committees, to republics, democracies, oligarchies, theocracies, monarchies, hegemonies and political parties which had evolved in profusion for thousands of years.

This was the world which first sent out the starprobes.

Sol Station existed, a much more primitive Sol Station, but altogether self-sustaining; and favored with a system of tax remission in return for scientific benefit, it launched a number of ambitious projects, including the first large-engine star-probe, and ultimately the first crewed pusher-s.h.i.+p cl.u.s.ter toward the near stars.

The first of the pusher-modules was of course the venerable Gaia, Gaia, which was to deliver the Alpha station-component at the star known at that time as Barnard's, and leave thirty volunteer scientists and technicians in what in those days meant inconceivable isolation. They would build their station out of the star's expected system-clutter of rock and ice, perform scientific research and maintain long-distance communication with Earth. which was to deliver the Alpha station-component at the star known at that time as Barnard's, and leave thirty volunteer scientists and technicians in what in those days meant inconceivable isolation. They would build their station out of the star's expected system-clutter of rock and ice, perform scientific research and maintain long-distance communication with Earth.

The first concept had been disposable pushers, hardly more than robotic starprobes; but human pa.s.sengers mandated an abort-and-return capacity which, considering all the possibilities for disaster, was negotiated finally to mean a full-return capacity. That led to the notion of a crewed pusher-module to stay at Barnard's should the star prove impossibly deficient in raw materials necessary for self-sufficiency of the Alpha module, in which event Gaia Gaia might remain for a number of years, then strip the station to the essential core and return the mission to Earth. If the star proved a viable home for the station, might remain for a number of years, then strip the station to the essential core and return the mission to Earth. If the star proved a viable home for the station, Gaia Gaia would remain only a year or so until the Alpha Station module was fully functioning and stable in its...o...b..t. Then it would return to Sol with its tiny complement of crew and surrender the would remain only a year or so until the Alpha Station module was fully functioning and stable in its...o...b..t. Then it would return to Sol with its tiny complement of crew and surrender the Gaia Gaia module to a second mission, which would, after refitting, go out again with such supplies as trace minerals and materials which the infant station might not have available. Equally important with the supplies, those early pioneers theorized, was the human link, the rea.s.surance of face-to-face contact with other human beings across what in those days was an inconceivably lonely expanse of s.p.a.ce. module to a second mission, which would, after refitting, go out again with such supplies as trace minerals and materials which the infant station might not have available. Equally important with the supplies, those early pioneers theorized, was the human link, the rea.s.surance of face-to-face contact with other human beings across what in those days was an inconceivably lonely expanse of s.p.a.ce.

Earth, with years' advance warning via the constant data-flow from Gaia Gaia and Alpha Station that the mission was abundantly successful and that and Alpha Station that the mission was abundantly successful and that Gaia was Gaia was returning, trained a replacement crew and dutifully prepared the return mission. returning, trained a replacement crew and dutifully prepared the return mission.

But the crew of Gaia, of Gaia, subject to relativistic effects, running into an information stream indicating greater and greater changes in the Earth they had left, had become more at home in the s.h.i.+p than in the mainstream of a Terran culture gone very alien to them. Their sojourn on Sol Station was intensely unhappy, and they re-occupied subject to relativistic effects, running into an information stream indicating greater and greater changes in the Earth they had left, had become more at home in the s.h.i.+p than in the mainstream of a Terran culture gone very alien to them. Their sojourn on Sol Station was intensely unhappy, and they re-occupied Gaia Gaia by a surprise move which immensely disconcerted station authorities, but which finally won them their s.h.i.+p and relegated the replacement crew to waiting on the next pusher-craft. by a surprise move which immensely disconcerted station authorities, but which finally won them their s.h.i.+p and relegated the replacement crew to waiting on the next pusher-craft.

Other crews of further missions reached the same decision, regarding themselves as permanent voyagers. They considered their small s.h.i.+ps as home, had children aboard, and as star stations and attendant pushers multiplied, asked of Earth and the stations only fuel, provisions, and the improvement of their s.h.i.+ps with larger compartments, more advanced propulsion-whatever had become available since their last docking.

Star-stations at half a dozen stars linked themselves by the regular pa.s.sage of such s.h.i.+ps. But in the isolation of those days in which messages traveled at mere light-speed and s.h.i.+ps traveled slower still, every station was at least four or five years time-lagged from every other human habitation, be it s.h.i.+p or station, and learned to exist in these strangely fluxing time-referents which were impossibly alien to the general population of Earth.

The discovery of intelligent life on the planet at Pell's Star, the star Earth once called Tau Ceti, was more than ten years old by the time the word of it reached Earth. The dealing of human beings with the Downers was more than two decades advanced by the time Earth's elaborate instructions could arrive at Pell; and it was much longer before Terran scientists could reach Pell, up the long route that led them station by station into a human culture almost as foreign to them as were the Downers.

As it is difficult from our viewpoint to imagine Earth of that time, it was virtually impossible for Earth to comprehend the reasoning of s.p.a.cers who refused to leave their s.h.i.+ps and who, in their turn, found the (to them) teeming corridors of Sol Station chaotic and terrifying. It was virtually impossible even for Sol Station to understand the life of their contemporaries in the deep Beyond-contemporaries whose culture was built on history and experiences and legendry that had much more to do with the hards.h.i.+ps of life in remote stations and famous s.h.i.+ps, than with events in a green and chaotic world they saw only in pictures.

Earth, beset with overpopulation and political crises largely attributable to its ancient rivalries, had nevertheless flourished while it was the focus of human development. The unexpected rush of stationers to new construction at Pell, following the prospect of abundant biostuffs, a native population primitive and friendly, and exploitable free-orbiting resources, became a panic flood. Stations between Earth and Pell shut down, disrupting the trade of the Great Circle, and creating economic chaos on Earth and Sol Station.

Earth reacted by attempting to regulate-across a ten-year time lag: Terran politicians could not readily conceive of the economic strength the remaining stations might achieve, given the unification of population that rush to Pell had created. The concentration of population and the discovery of vast resources combined with the psychological impetus to exploration . . . meant that Earth's now twenty-year-old instructions arrived in a situation in such rapid flux even a month's lag would have been significant.

Earth found itself increasingly isolate, subject to internal pressures from a faltering trade system, and in a desperate and ill-advised action imposed a punitive tariff which led to smuggling and an active black market; which in turn led to a sudden fall-off of trade. Earth's response was the declaration of most-favored-status for certain s.h.i.+ps; which led in turn to armed hostilities between s.h.i.+ps from Earth and s.h.i.+ps which had not been built by Earth and which did not hold any allegiance to its convolute and wildly varying politics.

Further, Earth, convinced that emigration of scientists and engineers from Sol System was feeding the s.p.a.cer cultures with the best and brightest and robbing Earth of its best talent, slammed down an emigration ban not only on travel from Earth and Sol Station, but on further moves of citizens in certain professions from station to station.

Gaia made her last trip to Earth in 2125, and left, vowing never to return. made her last trip to Earth in 2125, and left, vowing never to return.

A general wave of rebellion and mutiny swept through the stars; stations were mothballed and deserted; probes and missions sought further stars not only with economic motive now-but because there were more and more people anxious to move outward, seeking political freedom before restrictions came down.

Viking Station and Mariner sprang into existence as stationers found even Pell too too vulnerable to Earth's influence and as Pell's now established economy afforded less opportunity for highly profitable initial-phase investment. vulnerable to Earth's influence and as Pell's now established economy afforded less opportunity for highly profitable initial-phase investment.

By 2201 a group of dissident scientists and engineers sponsored by financial interests on Manner founded a station at Cyteen, about a world vastly different from Pell. The brilliant work of one of those scientists combined with the economic power of Cyteen's new industries sent the first faster-than-light probe out from Cyteen in 2234, an event which altered the time-scale of s.p.a.ceflight and forever changed the nature of trade and politics.

Cyteen's early years were characterized not only by a burst of growth and invention unparalleled in human history, but, ironically, by the resurrection of long disused technologies out of s.h.i.+p archives: combustion engines, gravity-dependent processing, all to save soft-landing the enormous ma.s.s-requirements of a full-scale terrestrial development. In addition, there were new on-planet technologies specific to Cyteen, to create pockets of breathable atmosphere in the otherwise deadly environment-all this effort because Cyteen represented a major biological opportunity for the human species. It had no intelligent indigenes. It did have a varied and entirely alien ecosystem-virtually two ecosystems, in fact, because of the extreme isolation of its two continents, differing significantly from each other but vastly different from Earth and Pell.

It was a biologist's paradise. And it offered, by its absence of intelligent life, the first new cradle of terrestrial human civilization since Earth itself.

It was not politics alone which led to the Company Wars. It was the sudden acceleration of trade and population mobility, it was the stubborn application of outmoded policies by Terran agencies out of touch with the governed, and finally it was the loyalty of a handful of specially favored Terran merchanter captains attempting to maintain a fading trade empire for a motherworld which had become only peripheral to human s.p.a.ce.

It was a doomed effort. Cyteen, no longer alone in the Beyond, but mother-world itself to Esperance, Pan-pans, and Fargone Stations, declared its independence from the Earth Company in 2300, an action which, reported now with the speed of the Faster-Than-Lights, prompted Earth to build and dispatch armed FTLs to bring the dissident stations back into line.

Merchanters quickly fled the routes nearer Pell, thus reducing the availability of supplies, while Earth itself, even with FTL technology, was by no means able to supply the ma.s.s requirement of its fleet over such distances. Over a span of years the Earth Company fleet degenerated to acts of piracy and coercion which completely alienated the merchanters, always the Earth Company's mistake.

The formation of the merchanters' Alliance at Pell established the second mercantile power in the Beyond and put an end to Earth's attempt to dictate to its scattered colonies.

Surely one of the more ironical outcomes of the War, the Treaty of Pell and the resulting economic linkages of three human societies, drawing on three vastly different ecosystems, now exist as the driving forces in a new economic structure which transcends all politics and systems.

Trade and common interests have proven, in the end, more powerful in human affairs than all the wars.h.i.+ps ever launched.

CHAPTER 1.

It was from the air that the rawness of the land showed most: vast tracts where humanity had as yet made no difference, deserts unclaimed, stark as moons, scrag and woolwood thickets unexplored except by orbiting radar. Ariane Emory gazed down at it from the window. She kept to the pa.s.senger compartment now. Her eyesight, she had had to admit it, was no longer sharp enough, her reflexes no longer fast enough for the jet. She could go up front, b.u.mp the pilot out of the chair and take the controls: it was her plane, her pilot, and a wide sky. Sometimes she did. But it was not the same.

Only the land was, still most of the land was. And when she looked out the window, it might have been a century ago, when humankind had been established on Cyteen less than a hundred years, when Union was unthought of, the War only a rumbling discontent, and the land looked exactly like this everywhere.

Two hundred years ago the first colonists had come to this unlikely star, made the beginnings of the Station, and come down to the world.

Forty-odd years later the sublight s.h.i.+ps were coming in, few and forlorn, to try to convert their structure and their operations to faster-than-light; and time sped up, time hurtled at translight speeds, change came so fast that sublight s.h.i.+ps met s.h.i.+ps they took for alien-but they were not: it was worse news for them. They were human. And the game was all changed.

The stars.h.i.+ps went out like seeds from a pod. The genetics labs upriver at Reseune bred humanity as fast as it could turn them out from the womb-tanks, and every generation bred others and worked in labs breeding more and more, till there were people enough, her uncle had said, to fill the empty places, colonize the world, build more star-stations: Esperance. Fargone. Every place with its own labs and its own means to breed and grow.

Earth had tried to call her s.h.i.+ps back. It was all too late. Earth had tried to tax and rule its colonies with a hard hand. That was very much too late.

Ariane Emory remembered the Secession, the day that Cyteen declared itself and its own colonies independent; the day the Union began and they were all suddenly rebels against the distant motherworld. She had been seventeen when the word came down from Station: We are at war. We are at war.

Reseune bred soldiers, then, grim and single-minded and intelligent, oh, yes: bred and refined and honed, knowing by touch and reflex what they had never seen in their lives, knowing above all what their purpose was. Living weapons, thinking and calculating down one track. She had helped design those patterns.

Forty-five years after the Secession the war was still going on, sometimes clandestine, sometimes so remote in s.p.a.ce it seemed a fact of history-except at Reseune. Other facilities could breed the soldiers and the workers once Reseune had set the patterns, but only Reseune had the research facilities, and it had fought the war in its own dark ways, under Ariane Emory's directorate.

Fifty-four years of her life. . . had seen the Company Wars over, humanity divided, borders drawn. The Earth Company Fleet had held Pell's Star, but the merchanters of the newly formed Alliance had taken Pell and declared it their base. Sol had tried to ignore its humiliating defeat and go off in another direction; the remnant of the old Company Fleet had turned to piracy and still raided merchanters, no different than they had ever done, while Alliance and Union alike hunted them. It was only hiatus. The war was cold again. It went on at conference tables where negotiators tried to draw lines biology did not, and make borders in boundless, three-dimensional s.p.a.ce-to keep a peace that had never, in all Ariane Emory's life, existed.

All of that might not have been yet. It might have been a hundred years ago, except that the plane was sleek and fine, not the patch-together that had run cargo between Novgorod and Reseune: in those days everyone had sat on bales of plastics and containers of seed and whatever else was making the trip.

Then she had begged to sit by the dusty windows and her mother had said to put her sunscreen on, even so.

Now she sat in a leather seat with a drink at her elbow, in a jet snugly warm inside, immaculately maintained, with a handful of aides talking business and going over their notes, a noise just barely enough to get past the engines.

No traveling nowadays without a clutter of aides and bodyguards. Catlin and Florian were back there, quiet as they were trained to be, watching her back, even here, at 10,000 meters and among Reseune staff whose briefcases were full of cla.s.sified material.

Much, much different from the old days.

Maman, can I sit by the window?

She was anomalous, child of two parents, Alga Emory and James Carat. They had founded the labs at Reseune, had begun the process that had shaped Union itself. They had sent out the colonists, the soldiers. Their own genes had gone into hundreds of them. Her quasi-relatives were scattered across lightyears. But so were everyone's, these days. In her lifetime even that basic human thinking had changed: biological parentage was a trivial connection. Family mattered, the larger, the more extended ... the safer and more prosperous.

Reseune was her inheritance. Hence this jet, not not a commercial airliner. No hired plane, either, and no military jet. A woman in her position could call on all these things; and still preferred mechanics who were part of the Household, a pilot whose psych-patterns she was sure of, bodyguards who were the best of Reseune's designs. a commercial airliner. No hired plane, either, and no military jet. A woman in her position could call on all these things; and still preferred mechanics who were part of the Household, a pilot whose psych-patterns she was sure of, bodyguards who were the best of Reseune's designs.

The thought of a city, the subways, life among the clerks and techs and cooks and laborers who jostled one another and hurried about their schedules to earn credit. . . was as frightening to her as airless s.p.a.ce. She directed the course of worlds and colonies. The thought of trying to buy a meal in a restaurant, of fighting crowds to board a subway, of simply being on a topside street where traffic roared and people were in motion on all sides-filled her with an irrational panic.

She did not know how to live outside Reseune. She knew how to arrange a plane, check out the flight plans, order her luggage, her aides, her security, every little detail-and found a public airport an ordeal. A serious flaw, granted. But everyone was due a phobia or two and these things were far from the center of her worries. It was not likely that Ariane Emory would ever face a Novgorod subway or a station's open dock.

It was a long, long while before she saw the river and the first plantation. A thin ribbon of road, finally the domes and towers of Novgorod, a sudden, remarkably sudden metropolis. Under the jet's wings the plantations widened, the towers of electronic screens and precipitators shadowed the fields and traffic crawled along the roads at ground-bound pace.

Barges chained down the Volga toward the sea, barges and pushers lined the river dockage past the plantations. There was still a lot of the raw and industrial about Novgorod, for all the glitter of the new. This side of it had not changed in a hundred years, except to grow bigger, the barges and the traffic becoming ordinary instead of a rare and wonderful sight.

Look, maman, there's a truck.

The blue of woolwood thicket blurred by under the wing. Pavement and the end-stripes of the runway flashed past.

The tires touched smoothly and the jet came rolling to a stop, for a left turn toward the terminal.

A little panic touched Ariane Emory at this stage, despite the knowledge that she would never get to the crowded hallways. There were cars waiting. Her own crew would handle the baggage, secure the jet, do all these things. It was only the edge of the city; and the car windows would permit vision out, out none in.

All those strangers. All that motion, random and chaotic. In the distance she loved it. It was her own creation. She knew its ma.s.s motions, if not its individual ones. At a distance, in the aggregate, she trusted it. At close range it made her hands sweat.

Cars pulling up and a flurry of hurrying guards in the security entrance of the Hall of State said that it was no mere senatorial arrival. Mikhail Corain, on the balcony outside the Council Chamber, flanked by his own bodyguards and aides, paused and looked down on the echoing stone lower floor, with its fountain, its bra.s.s railings on the grand stairway, its multiple star-emblem in gold on the gray stone wall.

Imperial splendor for imperial ambitions. And the chief architect for those ambitions made her entrance. The Councillor from Reseune, in company with the Secretary of Science. Ariane Carnath-Emory with her entourage, late, dependably late, because the Councillor was d.a.m.ned confident of her majority, and only deigned to visit the Hall because the Councillor had to vote in person.

Mikhail Corain glared and felt that speeding of his heart that his doctors had told him to avoid. Calm down, they were wont to say. Some things are beyond your control.

Meaning, one supposed, the Councillor from Reseune.

Cyteen, by far the most populous of the ent.i.ties in the Union, had consistently managed to capture two two seats in the executive, in the Council of Nine. It was logical that one of them was the Bureau of Citizens, which meant labor and farming and small business. It was not logical that the electors in the sciences, far and wide across the lightyears Union reached, with a dozen eminently qualified potential candidates, persisted in returning Ariane Emory to the halls of government. seats in the executive, in the Council of Nine. It was logical that one of them was the Bureau of Citizens, which meant labor and farming and small business. It was not logical that the electors in the sciences, far and wide across the lightyears Union reached, with a dozen eminently qualified potential candidates, persisted in returning Ariane Emory to the halls of government.

More than that. To a position which she had held for fifty years, fifty d.a.m.ned years, fifty d.a.m.ned years, during which she had bribed and browbeaten interests on Cyteen and every station in Union and (rumored but never proved) in Alliance and Sol as well. You wanted something done? You asked someone who could get the Councillor of Science to arrange it. What were you willing to pay? What would you take in trade? during which she had bribed and browbeaten interests on Cyteen and every station in Union and (rumored but never proved) in Alliance and Sol as well. You wanted something done? You asked someone who could get the Councillor of Science to arrange it. What were you willing to pay? What would you take in trade?

And the d.a.m.ned Science electorate, made up of supposed intellects, kept voting her in, no matter what the scandals that attached to her, no matter that she virtually owned Reseune labs, which was legally equal to a planet planet in Union's government, which did things within its walls that countless investigations had tried (and failed, on technicalities) to prove. in Union's government, which did things within its walls that countless investigations had tried (and failed, on technicalities) to prove.

Money was not the answer. Corain had money. It was Ariane Emory herself. It was the fact that most of the population of Cyteen, most of the population of Union itself, had come in one way or another from Reseune; and those who did not, used tapes . . . that Reseune devised.

Which that woman . . . devised.

To doubt the integrity of the tapes was paranoid. Oh, there were a few who refused to use them; and studied higher math and business without them, and never took a pill and never lay down to dream what the ma.s.ses clear across Union dreamed, knowledge pouring into their heads, as much as they could absorb, there in a few sessions. Drama-experienced as well as seen. . . at carefully chosen intensity. Skills-acquired at a bone and nerve level. You used the tapes because your compet.i.tion would, because you had to excel to get along in the world, because it was the only way to know things fast enough, high enough, wide enough, and the world changed and changed and changed, in any human lifespan.

The Bureau of Information vetted those tapes. Experts reviewed them. There was no way any subliminals could get past them. Mikhail Corain was not one of the lunatic fringe who suspected government com-tapping, Alliance poisoning of cargoes, or mind-enslaving subliminals in the entertainment tapes. That sort of purist could refuse rejuv, die old at seventy five, and live off public works jobs because they were self-taught know-nothings.

But d.a.m.n it, d.a.m.n d.a.m.n it, that woman kept getting elected. And he could not understand it. it, that woman kept getting elected. And he could not understand it.

There she was, getting a little stoop to the shoulders, allowing a little streak of gray to show in the black hair, when anyone who could count knew she was older than Union, on rejuv and silver-haired under the dye. Aides swarmed round her. Cameras focused on her as if there was no other center to the universe. d.a.m.n bony b.i.t.c.h.

You wanted a human being designed like a prize pig, you asked Reseune. You wanted soldiers, you wanted workers, you wanted strong backs and weak minds or a perfect, guaranteed genius, you asked Reseune.

And senators and Councillors alike came to bow and sc.r.a.pe and mouth politenesses-Good G.o.d, someone had brought her flowers.

Mikhail Corain turned away in disgust, plowed himself a way through his aides.

Twenty years he had been sitting as head of the minority party in the Nine, twenty years of swimming against the tide, gaining a little now and again, losing all the big ones, the way they had lost the latest. Stanislaw Vogel of the Trade electorate had died, and with the Alliance violating the treaty as fast as they could arm their merchant s.h.i.+ps, the Centrists ought to have been able to carry that seat. But no. The Trade electorate elected Ludmilla deFranco, Vogel's niece. Moderate, h.e.l.l, deFranco was only steering a careful course. She was no less an Expansionist than her uncle. Something Something had changed hands. Someone had been bought, someone had tilted Andrus Company toward deFranco, and the Centrists had lost their chance to install a fifth member in the Nine and gain the majority of the executive for the first time in history. had changed hands. Someone had been bought, someone had tilted Andrus Company toward deFranco, and the Centrists had lost their chance to install a fifth member in the Nine and gain the majority of the executive for the first time in history.

It was a crus.h.i.+ng disappointment.

And there, there in the hall downstairs, in the middle of the sycophants and all the bright young legislators, was the one who had pulled the strings money could not pull.

Political favor, then. The unprovable, untraceable commodity.

On that, the fate of the Union hinged.

He entertained the most terrible fantasy, not for the first time, that somehow, on the steps outside, some lunatic might run up with a gun or a knife and solve their problem at one stroke. He felt a profound disturbance at that thought. But it would reshape the Union. It would give humankind a chance, before it was everlastingly too late.

One life-weighed very little in those scales.

He drew deep breaths. He walked into the Council chambers and made polite conversation with the few who came to commiserate with the losers. He gritted his teeth and walked over to pay his polite congratulations to Bogdanovitch, who, holding the seat of the Bureau of State, chaired the Council.

Bogdanovitch kept his face absolutely bland, his kindly, white-browed eyes the image of everyone's grandfather, full of gentility and civility. Not a trace of triumph. If he had been that good when he negotiated the Alliance settlement, Union would own the codes to Pell. Bogdanovitch was always better at petty politics. And he was another one who lasted. His electorate was all professional, the consuls, the appointees, immigration, the station administrators-a minuscule number of people to elect an office which had started out far less important than it had turned out to be. G.o.d, how had the framers of the Const.i.tution let themselves play creative games with the political system? The 'new model,' they had called it; 'a government shaped by an informed electorate.' And they had thrown ten thousand years of human experience out the hatch, a d.a.m.ned bunch of social theorists, including, including including Olga Emory and James Carnath, back in the days when Cyteen had five seats of the Nine and most of the Council of Worlds. Olga Emory and James Carnath, back in the days when Cyteen had five seats of the Nine and most of the Council of Worlds.

"Tough one, Mikhail," Bogdanovitch said, shaking his hand and patting it.

"Well, will of the electorate," Corain said. "Can't quarrel with that." He smiled with absolute control. "We did get the highest percentage yet."

Someday, you old pirate, someday I'll have the majority.

And you'll live to see it.

"Will of the electors," Bogdanovitch said, still smiling, and Corain smiled till his teeth ached, then turned from Bogdanovitch to Jenner Harogo, another of that breed, holding the powerful Internal Affairs seat, and Catherine Lao, who held the Bureau of Information, which vetted all the tapes. Of course.

Emory came sailing in and they left him in mid-sentence to go and join her claque. Corain exchanged a pained look with Industry, Nguyen Tien of Viking; and Finance, Mahmud Chavez of Voyager Station, Centrists both. Their fourth seat, Adm. Leonid Gorodin, was over in a grim confluence of his own uniformed aides. Defense was, ironically, the least reliable-the most p.r.o.ne to rea.s.sess his position and s.h.i.+ft into the Expansionist camp if he conceived near-term reasons. That was Gorodin, Centrist only because he wanted the new Excelsior-cla.s.s military transports kept in near s.p.a.ce where he could use them, not, as he put it, 'out on our backside while Alliance pulls another d.a.m.n embargo. You want your electorates hammering at your doors for supplies, you want another hot war, citizens, let's just send those carriers out to the far Beyond and leave us depending on Alliance merchanters. . . .'

Not saying, of course, that the Treaty of Pell, which had agreed that the merchanters' Alliance would haul cargo and build no wars.h.i.+ps; and that Union, which had built a good many of those haulers, would maintain its fleet, but build no s.h.i.+ps to compete with the merchanters . . . was a diplomatic buy-off, a ransom to get supply flowing again. Bogdanovitch had brought that home and even Emory had voted against it.

The stations had pa.s.sed it. The full General Council had to vote on it, and it got through by a hair's breadth. Union was tired of war, that was all, tired of disrupted trade, scarce supplies.

Now Emory wanted to launch another wave of exploration and colonization out into the deep Beyond.