Which meant they were absolutely essential. When the Manties hammered the SLN into wreckage yet again—when the carefully primed "spontaneous rebellions" broke out in a dozen places simultaneously in the Verge as the League Navy's reputation crumbled, and when the score of Frontier Security governors who'd been carefully prepared by their own versions of Aldona Anisimovna followed the example of the Maya Sector and unilaterally assumed emergency powers in order to "protect" the citizens of their sectors—the men and women around this table with Albert Detweiler would emerge as the leaders of a new interstellar power.
The Alignment's strategists had picked the name for that power—the Renaissance Factor—decades ago, and the exquisitely orchestrated crescendo of disasters would "force" them into taking steps to protect their own star systems from the tide of anarchy. They wouldn't call themselves a star nation—not immediately—but that was what they would be. And, in the fullness of time, when it was obvious to the entire galaxy that they were simply responding to the catastrophic, totally unanticipated disintegration of the League, they would finally, regretfully, exercise their constitutional right to secede from the League and formally assume their position as a sovereign star nation.
A star nation which had grown solely out of their emergency association to stave off collapse. On which had nothing at all to do with Mesa . . . and which would painstakingly avoid anything that could be even remotely construed as a eugenics policy.
Until, that was, the rest of the galaxy discovered that the Renaissance Factor had become exactly what it called itself—the reinvigorated successor of the Solarian League, at least as big and powerful as the League itself had ever been, and dedicated, indeed, to the rebirth of humanity in a new and glorious future of potential fully realized at last.
Albrecht Detweiler wasn't at all certain he himself, even with prolong and the "natural" longevity engineered into his genes, would live long enough to see that day arrive. But that was all right, for he was seeing something even more important. He was seeing this day, when centuries of sacrifice, planning, and unceasing labor had finally come to fruition and forced the path of human history into the rightful direction from which the sanctimonious Beowulf Code and the human race's hysterical reaction to Old Earth's Final War had diverted it so long ago. None of them would live long enough to see the completion of the journey upon which their entire species had just unknowingly set out, but every one of them knew it would come, and that they —they and their ancestors—were the ones who had made that so.
"We all know why I can't," Albrecht Detweiler repeated softly. "But when the eleven of you stand up and announce the Factor's existence, believe me, I'll be standing right there with you. And I can't think of anyone I could possibly be prouder to have representing all of us."
Chapter Forty
"Yes, Denis?"
Eloise Pritchart tried—tried hard— not to sound irritated as Denis LePic's face appeared on her com display, but LePic had known her too long and too well for her to fool him. Besides, even a saint (which Eloise Pritchart had never pretended to be) would have been irritated by a call which came in exactly one hour and seventeen minutes after she'd finally gotten to bed.
"I'm very sorry to disturb you, Madam President," he said, rather more formally than he normally addressed her when the others weren't present, "but I thought about it very carefully, first. Technically, there's no reason I had to screen you right this moment, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that you'd never forgive me if I waited till morning."
"I beg your pardon?" Pritchart's topaz eyes had narrowed intently.
"You may remember that we've all been concerned about a certain intelligence operative who'd dropped out of sight?"
He paused, and the eyes which had just narrowed flared wide.
"Yes," she said rather more slowly, "as a matter of fact, I do remember. Why?"
"Because he's just reappeared," LePic said. "And he has a friend with him. And the two of them have a new friend—one I think you're going to want to talk to yourself."
"And is Sheila going to be willing to let me into the same room with this 'new friend' of his?"
"As a matter of fact, I think she's likely to pitch five kinds of fit at the mere prospect," LePic said a bit wryly. "But since I'm quite positive Kevin is going to want to be there, as well—not to mention Tom, Wilhelm, and Linda Trenis—I feel fairly confident about your security."
"I see." Pritchart gazed at him for several seconds, her her mind accelerating to full speed as it brushed off the remnants of sleep. "Tell me," she said, "did our friend find his new friend where we thought he might?"
"Oh, I think you could say that, Madam President. Not only that, but he's a very impressive new friend. I've only managed to skim the report our wandering lad finally got around to delivering, but based just on what I've seen so far, I think I can safely you're about to discover that just about everything we thought we knew we don't. Know, I mean."
Pritchart inhaled deeply as LePic's expression finally penetrated fully. What she'd mistaken for humor, possibly even amusement at having awakened her, was something else entirely. A mask. Or perhaps not so much a mask as a thin surface veneer of calm, a fragile shield for the shocked echoes of a universe turned upside down still rumbling around somewhere deep inside him.
"Well, in that case," she heard her own voice saying calmly, "I think you'd better go ahead and start waking up a few other people."
* * *
"So, our is wandering boy returns, I see," Eloise Pritchart murmured, an hour later, as Victor Cachat, a troll-like man who looked suspiciously like the officially deceased Anton Zilwicki, and a sandy-haired, hazel-eyed man were escorted into the Octagon briefing room. "Welcome home, Officer Cachat. We'd been wondering why you hadn't written."
Somewhat to her surprise, Cachat actually colored with what looked a lot like embarrassment. It probably wasn't, she told herself—that would be too much to hope for, although she couldn't think of anything else it might have been—and turned her attention to the young man's companions."And this, I take it, is the redoubtable Captain Zilwicki?"
If Cachat might have looked a little embarrassed—or harried, at least—Zilwicki, despite the fact that (as a Manticoran) he was in the very presence of his enemies, didn't. In fact, he didn't really look like a troll, either, she admitted. He actually looked more like a granite boulder, or perhaps an artist's model for a mountain dwarf. The grim, dangerous sort of mountain dwarf. If he felt any emotion at this moment, it was probably amusement, she decided. Well, that and something else. An odd fusion of emotions that were almost like grim triumph coupled with singing anxiety, all under the control of iron self-discipline. It was the first time she'd ever actually laid eyes on the Manticoran, and he was even more impressive in person than she'd expected. No wonder he and Cachat made such a formidable combination.
"I'm afraid the galaxy at large thinks you're, well, dead , Captain Ziliwicki," she said. "I'm pleased to see the reports were in error. Although I'm sure quite a few people in Manticore are going to be just as curious to know where you've been for the last several months as we are about Officer Cachat's whereabouts."
"I'm sure there are, too, Madam President." Zilwicki's voice was exactly the deep, rolling one she would have expected out of his physique. "Unfortunately, we had a little, um, engine trouble on the way home. It took us several months to make repairs." He grimaced. "We played a lot of cards," he added.