Thick carpets covered the flagstone floors, and the walls were hung with war and hunting trophies. The furniture—long tables and benches—were as solid as anything else in the hall. Necessary, when an acceptable way for a Bhor to deliver a categorical syllogism's conclusion was with a knobkerrie.
This was a high-strategy preliminary planning session. Listening intently, and sipping only non-alk drinks (although Otho kept looking thoughtfully at his great stregghorn and a barrel of the deadly stuff on a nearby table) were Freston, who represented Sten's minuscule conventional military force; Ida; Wild, who would carry as much or as little of Sten's plans as he chose to the loose group of smugglers and confidence men who considered Wild's advice worth taking; Otho, who, even though he had formally retired as Head of the Bhor Council to serve as a mercenary soldier under Sten, was still regarded by the Bhor as an elder statesman; Kilgour and Cind, Sten's closest aides; and Rykor. No one except Cind and Alex knew about Sr. Ecu, and that the Manabi were now part of the conspiracy to overthrow the Emperor. Rykor would report whatever was necessary to
Ecu, back on Seilichi, who hopefully would never be publicly seen as one of Sten's chesspieces.
"Here's what we want to do, and forgive me if I get a little obvious. So far, we have the Empire in a reactive position. We want to keep things that way as long as possible, because the minute we slow down, we'll get squashed like bugs.
"We'll hit the Emperor every chance we get—but we don't ever want to hit him in the predictable places. The bastard is smart, and he's got people almost as smart working for him.
"So we'll bash him in unexpected places..."
"Like K-B-N-S-O," Otho rumbled approvingly.
"Right. Any of you who come up with wide-open targets like that, feel free to add them to the pot. We'll also want to be hitting the Empire in embarrassing places as well. For instance, if anybody knows where the Empire's main supplier of toilet paper is, that could be a viable target.
"We won't be able to hit him with a knockout, but maybe we can dazzle his ass with some fancy footwork and jabs and get him to stumble over his own feet, in which case we'll kick hell out of him while he's down.
"We want the damage to be as public as we can make it We want to make him look like a mess. I'll stick with the stupid hand-combat comparison—I want him to be wandering around leaking blood from some good solid eyebrow slashes. Fat lips. A shiner on each eye. An ear chewed off. Like that.
"If we can get him mad, that's all to the good. I don't think he's that stupid, but we can try. When we're thinking of these raids, also consider how they'll play to anybody who might be an ally. For instance, we've already got two Honjo ships. Believe me, their actions will be quietly praised on their home worlds. With any luck, we can get the Honjo to declare openly for us, if we can convince them the Emperor's a loser. Rykor's handling that, and the rest of the propaganda, which we'll get back to in a minute."
Sten broke off for a minute, and drained his mug of tea.
"The second priority will be AM2. We want to steal it, destroy it, divert it. I'm operating on the premise that the Emp is the only one who knows where it comes from, or how to make it if it's synthetic. Fine. We're gonna mess with that capability. And we want to take as much of Anti-Matter Two as he's trying to give his toadies, and pass it along to our allies. We'll get specific about that later.
"Kilgour will be running the intelligence end. So anything you pick up on AM2, even if it's a weird rumor that it's really the Emperor's crap and smells like attar of roses, put it in for analysis and possible addition to the databank.
"Same deal for anything on the Emperor himself. Any stories about where he came from, what he's done, girlfriends, boyfriends, sheep, goat, or octopi he used to get romantic with back in the dark ages... anything, anything, anything. This is a critical part of the whole campaign, and we'd like to keep it fairly quiet that we're putting together a personality fiche on the Emperor. So don't be putting anything in writing to your intelligence staffers. It'd be too easy for our Eternal Opponent to start a disinformation campaign as an ambush.
"Don't ever forget—the Emperor himself is our target. We're going to capture him if we can, and convince him to see the light if we can. But more likely, we're going to have to kill him. That's also sub rosa, of course."
"Sten?" It was Freston.
"GA."
"Right now the Emperor is staying on Prime. The few times he's been ofrworld have been unannounced and on the run. Is that right, sir?"
"Aye," Alex agreed. "Th‘ lad's holed up in his wee castle. Which i' a stronghold Ah dinnae think w‘ can take on an' reduce."
"Agreed. We've got to smoke him into the open."
"Good luck," Wild said cynically. "He did not get to where he was by doing what anyone wanted him to do."
"We're still going to try. More in a shake on that.
"We want him out, in the field, where we can nail him. And once he's in the open, we'll smash him."
"Admirable," Ida said. "But my vitsa'll want some nice specifics before we start wadin‘ through the gore. Such as how we're gonna winkle the clottin' Emperor out of his nice, safe shell."
"Rykorr
"We're going to embarrass him out," Rykor said. "First you gentlebeings will set the stage. Make his forces appear foolish. Make his generals and admirals appear incompetent. Every time you can win an engagement, that victory will be publicized. Publicized on two levels.
"The first is the open one. We must tell the truth, no matter how painful it is. With luck, the Emperor will play into our hands with luVpwn propaganda. One of the many faults the Em-peror has evinced of late is a large and growing ego. If anyone questions this, look at his Imperial stupidities in the Altaic Cluster.
"Egomaniacs, just like power-seekers, can never be satisfied. So we hope that the Emperor's people will take any victory or accomplishment, and go big with it. The technique is called the Big Lie, and the theory behind it is that if you tell a great enough falsehood, the listeners will, at most, argue over its size, not over its truth.
"This is correct in some instances, but not when its practitioners are completely watchdogged. And every time they blow trumpets for their latest untruth, someone points that out immediately—using nothing else but the truth. The eventual result will be that all information from that Big Lie's parents will be questioned and disregarded, which is just what we plan to do with the Emperor.
"But our side must always tell the truth."
"A frightenin‘ concept," Alex said.
"Don't worry, Mister Kilgour. That's only with white propaganda—stories that clearly emanate from our side. Gray and black... you'll still have the ability to try to outlie even the Emperor himself."
"Ah dinnae ken i‘ Ah'm that bonnie... but Ah'll gie i' a wee shot."
"As for black propaganda," Rykor continued, "this is what Sten was referring to earlier. We shall spread some awesome rumors. Stories that the Emperor in fact never returned. If we can get him out of Arundel, and present at a battle, rumors will spread that he was killed in that battle. There will be stories that he is mentally, morally, or even physically crippled. We shall play to the worst of human male fears in that particular area."
"Small things," Otho rumbled. "The Emperor is a warrior. He cares not if there are back-alley rumors he is a eunuch."