“A single unidentified ship with extraordinary capabilities, making apparently random, motiveless and highly successful raids on several Commonwealth systems…Is that enough?”
“Yes, thank you, Commander, that’s excellent….So again, what brought your ship to Isis?”
“Faith had made eight attacks on the Commonwealth. The last two were on ex-Sakhran systems, Bast and Anubis, so it was thought that Isis and Horus might be next. The Department deployed an Outsider to each of them. I got Isis.”
“Or we got you….Thank you, Commander.”
There were glances and shufflings of paper among the figures at the table. The sun Isis streamed through the curved bay window. It was now almost directly overhead, and its white-gold light drew dust motes circling up to the ceiling. The window showed the city outside; it was breathtakingly beautiful. Only very occasional hints of its smell penetrated the large room’s climate control.
“Commander Ansah.” This was Second Voice, from yesterday. “Department Of Administrative Affairs…Is that a euphemism?”
“It’s a less than completely accurate description of the Department.” She spoke the words with exaggerated carefulness, in a gentle mimicry of the way a politician or lawyer would speak them. It drew some smiles, as faint as her own, from a couple of those at the table; though not from Second Voice.
“Your orders from the Department. Did they give you absolute freedom of judgement and action in the event of an engagement?”
“You know they didn’t, or none of this would have happened. In particular, the city outside wouldn’t be smelling like it does.” She took care to keep any inflexion out of her voice.
“Just answer the question, please.”
“No, my orders didn’t give me absolute freedom of judgement and action in the event of an engagement. Or any freedom of judgement and action.”
“And we’ve heard that you’re absolutely...”
“…absolutely bound to honour the letter and spirit of the Department’s orders, in every detail. Yes; you’ve heard that.”
“Was your ship assigned to a task force of five Isis ships?”
“Yes.”
“What were the ships?”
“There were four heavy cruisers, and…”
“Yes, go on, Commander. Say it. And?”
“And the battleship Thomas Cromwell.”
“Yes, that’s the pile of radioactive rubble that’s still in orbit above us and fouling up our communications, isn’t it?”
“Over two hundred people died on that ship. I think,” Ansah said carefully, “that you didn’t mean to sound so dismissive.”
“I had friends and colleagues among those two hundred, Commander.”
“I think,” the Chairman said, “this would be a good time to adjourn for lunch. It’s been a long morning. I suggest we reconvene in ninety minutes.”
Chairs scraped, heels clacked on the parquet, and voices resumed then receded.
The Chairman continued sitting for a moment after everyone left. He was thinking about the wording of Ansah’s orders, and her apparent indifference about where she stood trial. The wording of her orders was unusually explicit and constraining; someone would have to be primed to ask her why. As to her indifference about where she stood trial, he’d initially thought she was being theatrical; now, he wasn’t sure.
Desertion and Cowardice. It seemed a simple case when he first read the pleadings, and that should have warned him. Most things, he had learned, were not simple when you saw them up close.
They took her in an unmarked flier to the De Vere Highlands, a few miles north of the city. Highlands was something of an exaggeration: they were more like gently rolling hills, but they did give a good view of De Vere and its surrounding countryside. They landed in Marling Park, a small formal garden, far enough into the Highlands to make it unlikely that there would be many lunchtime visitors from the city. Ansah walked at leisure, taking in the view, and the Sakhran maintained a discreet distance.
De Vere was an elegant, formal city of white marble and stucco, with palladian architecture, piazzas, colonnades and garden squares. It was the legislative and financial centre of Isis 2, and of the whole Isis system. It was not the biggest city, but was arguably the most beautiful and well-kept; though almost everywhere on Isis 2, city or parkland or country, was beautiful and well-kept. The De Vere Highlands were just far enough, and high enough, to afford a pleasing view of the city’s more expensive districts, without seeing the stains on its buildings or smelling its air.
The Sakhran took out his lunch: dried shredded meat in a leather pouch. He caught up with her and offered her a piece. It tasted vile, as she expected, but she smiled her thanks. Again she thought, Those Wonderful Hands.
Thirty seconds later, she was still chewing. She considered discreetly spitting it out when the Sakhran wasn’t watching her, but realised there was never a moment when he wasn’t watching her; so she steeled herself, swallowed it, and signalled her relish to him. Deadpan, he acknowledged with a brief nod. She walked on.
A little further, she encountered two families—four adults and five children—picnicking under some wireweave trees. The Sakhran momentarily grew wary, but nobody even looked at Ansah, much less recognised her. This was not surprising. Outsider officers kept low public profiles, and in any case Ansah was supposed to be already heading back to Earth for her trial.
She genuinely didn’t care where her trial was held. Its outcome was inevitable, as inevitable as that stupid engagement where five stupid ships had stupidly believed that they could go up against Her. Those five ships had been more than just a task force, they were actually the bulk of Isis Fleet: quite a large Fleet, considering the size of Isis, but that reflected the wealth and political connections of the system’s leading citizens. Isis attracted such people.
The Commonweath’s most characteristic state was one of orderly turbulence, in which Fleets played a central part. Its twenty-nine solar systems had all kinds of conflicts: political, religious, cultural, historical, economic. The last one tended to be the root of the other four, so that trade wars between the systems often blew up into real wars. Hence the Fleets, which were funded partly by the systems themselves and partly by Earth. Earth used its funding to dispense favours, create obligations, and play the systems against each other.
Most of Isis 2’s wealth came from its finance houses and banks. Of the four ex-Sakhran systems in the Commonwealth, Isis had by far the highest per capita income and standard of living, if you excluded Sakhrans from the calculation. And it showed, not least in the view of De Vere which Ansah was admiring.
The exclusion of Sakhrans from the calculation also showed in the view; unlike the other ex-Sakhran systems, Isis almost ghettoised Sakhrans in residential areas outside the cities. The irony was that Sakhrans themselves preferred living separately. The authorities had preferences of their own: they preferred that Sakhrans’ relative poverty, and their blocky functional buildings, be kept at a distance. Accusations of racism, which came regularly from other Commonwealth systems, were mainly but not entirely justified.
Mainly But Not Entirely. Most things, Ansah reflected, were not as simple close up. Her time on the Sirhan had taught her that. When you look close up, simple issues pass out of focus, dissolving into Ifs and Buts. She even sensed that the Chairman might be realising this; there were things she had noted, detailed nuances of his voice and body language…
No, enough of that. The outcome of this trial is inevitable.
She suspected that the Department had already forgotten Isis and was concentrating on how to defend Horus, where She’d probably appear next. There were rumours that they were sending Foord there. It made sense; Foord was the second best of the nine. The best was Anwar Caal, who commanded the Albert Camus, leadship of the Outsider class, but they’d keep him in reserve; if Foord failed at Horus, Earth would be next.