“No Aenean constable has right to so much as propose that.”
“But Aeneas rebelled and is under occupation,” Desai said in his mildest voice. “Let it re-establish its loyalty, and it will get back what autonomy it had before.” Seeing how resentment congealed her eyes, he added low: “The loyalty I speak of does not involve more than a few outward tokens of respect for the throne, as mere essential symbols. It is loyalty to the Empire—above all, to its Pax, in an age when spacefleets can incinerate whole worlds and when the mutiny in fact took thousands of lives—it is that I mean, my lady. It is that I am here about, not Ivar Frederiksen.”
Startled, she swallowed before retorting, “What do you imagine I can do?”
“Probably nothing, I fear. Yet the chance of a hint, a clue, any spark of enlightenment no matter how faint, led me to call you and request a confidential talk. I emphasize ‘request.’ You cannot help unless you do so freely.”
“What do you want?” she whispered. “I repeat, I’m not in any revolutionary group—never was, unless you count me clerkin’ in militia durin’ independence fight—and I don’t know zero about what may be goin’ on.” Pride returned. “If I did, I’d kill myself rather than betray him. Or his cause.”
“Do you mind talking about them, though? Him and his cause.”
“How—?” Her answer faded out.
“My lady,” Desai said, and wondered how honest his plea sounded to her, “I am a stranger to your people. I have met hundreds by now, myself, while my subordinates have met thousands. It has been of little use in gaining empathy. Your history, literature, arts are a bit more helpful, but the time I can devote to them is very limited, and summaries prepared by underlings assigned to the task are nearly valueless. One basic obstacle to understanding you is your pride, your ideal of disciplined self-reliance, your sense of privacy which makes you reluctant to bare the souls of even fictional characters. I know you have normal human emotions; but how, on Aeneas, do they normally work? How does it feel to be you?
“The only persons here with whom I can reach some approximation of common ground are certain upper-class Townfolk, entrepreneurs, executives, innovators—cosmopolites who have had a good deal to do with the most developed parts of the Empire.”
“Squatters in Web,” she sneered. “Yes, they’re easy to fathom. Anything for profit.”
“Now you are the one whose imagination fails,” Desai reproved her. “True, no doubt a number of them are despicable opportunists. Are there absolutely none among Landfolk and University? Can you not conceive that an industrialist or financier may honestly believe cooperation with the Imperium is the best hope of his world? Can you not entertain the hypothesis that he may be right?”
He sighed. “At least recognize that the better we Impies understand you, the more to your advantage it is. In fact, our empathy could be vital. Had—Well, to be frank, had I known for sure what I dimly suspected, the significance in your culture of the McCormac Memorial and the armed households, I might have been able to persuade the sector government to rescind its orders for dismantling them. Then we might not have provoked the kind of thing which has made your betrothed an outlaw.”
Pain crossed her face. “Maybe,” she said.
“My duty here,” he told her, “is first to keep the Pax, including civil law and order; in the longer run, to assure that these will stay kept, when the Terran troops finally go home. But what must be done? How? Should we, for example, should we revise the basic structure altogether? Take power from the landed gentry especially, whose militarism may have been the root cause of the rebellion, and establish a parliament based on strict manhood suffrage?” Desai observed her expressions; she was becoming more open to him. “You are shocked? Indignant? Denying to yourself that so drastic a change is permanently possible?”
He leaned forward. “My lady,” he said, “among the horrors with which I live is this knowledge, based on all the history I have studied and all the direct experience I have had. It is terrifyingly easy to swing a defeated and occupied nation in any direction. It has occurred over and over. Sometimes, two victors with different ideologies divided, such a loser among them, for purposes of ‘reform.’ Afterward the loser stayed divided, its halves perhaps more fanatical than either original conqueror.”
Dizziness assailed him. He must breathe deeply before he could go on: “Of course, an occupation may end too soon, or it may not carry out its reconstruction thoroughly enough. Then a version of the former society will revive, though probably a distorted version. Now how soon is too soon, how thoroughly is enough? And to what end?
“My lady, there are those in power who claim Sector Alpha Crucis will never be safe until Aeneas has been utterly transformed: into an imitation Terra, say most. I feel that that is not only wrong—you have something unique here, something basically good—but it is mortally dangerous. In spite of the pretensions of the psychodynamicists, I don’t believe the consequences of radical surgery, on a proud and energetic people, are foreseeable.
“I want to make minimal, not maximal changes. They may amount to nothing more than strengthening trade relations with the heart stars of the Empire, to give you a larger stake in the Pax. Or whatever seems necessary. At present, however, I don’t know. I flounder about in a sea of reports and statistics, and as I go down for the third time, I remember the old old saying, ‘Let me write a nation’s songs, and I care not who may write its laws.’
“Won’t you help me understand your songs?”
Silence fell and lasted, save for a wind whittering outside, until the tadmouse offered a timid arpeggio. That seemed to draw Tatiana from her brown study. She shook herself and said, “What you’re askin’ for is closer acquaintance, Commissioner. Friendship.”
His laugh was nervous. “I’ll settle for an agreement to disagree. Of course, I haven’t time for anywhere near as much frank discussion as I’d like—as I really need. But if, oh, if you young Aeneans would fraternize with the young marines, technicians, spacehands—you’d find them quite decent, you might actually take a little pity on their loneliness, and they do have experiences to relate from worlds you’ve never heard of—”
“I don’t know if it’s possible,” Tatiana said. “Certainly not on my sole recommendation. Not that I’d give any, when your dogs are after my man.”
“I thought that was another thing we might discuss,” Desai said. “Not where he may be or what his plans, no, no. But how to get him out of the trap he’s closed on himself. Nothing would make me happier than to give him a free pardon. Can we figure out a method?”
She cast him an astonished look before saying slowly, “I do believe you mean that.”
“Beyond question I do. I’ll tell you why. We Impies have our agents and informers, after all, not to mention assorted spy devices. We are not totally blind and deaf to events and to the currents beneath them. The fact could not be kept secret from the people that Ivar Frederiksen, the heir to the Firstmanship of Ilion, has led the first open, calculated renewal of insurgency. His confederates who were killed, hurt, imprisoned are being looked on as martyrs. He, at large, is being whispered of as the rightful champion of freedom—the rightful king, if you will—who shall return.” Desai’s smile would have been grim were his plump features capable of it. “You note the absence of public statements by his relatives, aside from nominal expressions of regret at an ‘unfortunate incident.’ We authorities have been careful not to lean on them. Oh, but we have been careful!”
The tenuous atmosphere was like a perpetual muffler on his unaccustomed ears. He could barely hear her: “What might you do … for him?”