“I apologize again, Brigadier,” the man said patiently. “The fact remains, the New America Project is not compromised, as far as we know. Time to saturation remains on schedule and then we will be in an unassailable bargaining position.”
Lefarge smiled with a carnivore’s expression. “Certainly we will. After we’ve pounded their strategic installations into glowing rubble and destroyed everything they have off Earth—” He paused at something sensed between the other two. “There’s been a change of plan?” he said, in an even tone.
Donati looked down at his linked fingers. The agent spoke in the same smooth tone.
“No, of course not. Your Project will finally give us the top hand, and we’ll use it, never fear. Not in an all-out surprise attack, of course. That was ’70s strategy. We’ll demonstrate it; with the balls cut off their space defense capacity, they’ll have no choice effectively but to surrender. With guarantees for the personal safety of their top people, of course.”
“Ah.” Lefarge glanced over at the other OSS officer. “General Donati, is it just this suit, or are they all fucking insane out there on the West Coast?” He glanced back at Forsymmes. “Are you? Completely fucking insane, that is?”
The agent’s tone grew slightly frosty. “Brigadier Lefarge, I’m going to charitably assume that your personal . . . background and losses have made you somewhat unbalanced on this subject. Are you aware, my dear sir, of what even one hypersonic surface skimmer could do to a major city? Even given the most optimistic possible projections, the Project could only disable eighty percent of their space-based systems, less on Earth. That’s primarily the defensive systems, at that. The Project’s little photonic bug can’t fit into anything smaller than a shipcomp core, and the enemy use more distributed systems than we do, which can be decoupled from their core computers. They would still have some capacity to operate their ships by manual linkage, and their installations. Furthermore, even if we wait three years, some of the older backup cores would be uninfected. They are not, as you pointed out, fools. We will show them they can’t win an exchange, and offer terms.”
Lefarge shook his head in sheer wonderment. “You . . . somebody thinks the Snakes are going to be deterred by casualties! You look old enough to remember the fall of India, even if you haven’t read any history. Perhaps you recall them shooting the top fifteen thousand officials of the Indian Republic’s government in batches, on the steps of the goddamn Archonal Palace, and broadcasting it worldwide? How many millions more were slaughtered or chemically brainscrubbed?”
“There’s no need to spout propaganda at me, Lefarge!” Forsymmes snapped.
“Oh. Then maybe you’ve tuned in to their public execution channel? Impalements in living color; I’m told the breaking-on-the-wheel is—”
The agent sighed with elaborate patience. “Brigadier, I’m fully aware of the enemy’s contempt for other people’s lives. We are talking about putting their own lives at risk.”
“And maybe you think it’s a myth their troops commit suicide rather than surrender? What about Fenris?”
“The so-called doomsday bomb? Nobody’s ever been able to prove that it’s active; evidently a bluff.”
Donati intervened. “In any case, we’re talking in a vacuum, here,” he said mildly. “None of us are exactly at policy-making level, are we?”
“No, that’s true,” Lefarge said calmly. The discussion became technical.
“Lefarge, do you really want to be taken off the Project?” Donati asked, turning to his subordinate as the door closed behind Forsymmes.
“No, sir, I do not,” Lefarge answered.
The black eyes probed him. “If you don’t, I’d better not see another performance like that,” the general warned. “Stoddard’s protégé could get away with things because Stoddard had been here longer than God and knew where all the skeletons were buried. They were terrified of him, from the chairman and the president on down . . . at least the chairman was; I don’t know if Hiero’s scared of anything. Herself, probably, like all the rest of us. But—and this is the important but—her attitude to the constitutional relations between the Presidency and the Alliance is correct to a fault. Hell, Fred, the president knows Allsworthy’s a horse’s ass as well as you or I do. But he’s the boss man.”
“We’re neither of us a General Stoddard,” Lefarge agreed. “Does that mean we have to swallow this horseshit?”
Donati shrugged and lit a thin black cheroot in an ivory holder. “As far as it goes. You know the ACI, they like to use scalpels where a sledgehammer’s needed.”
“Christ, Anton, that so-called strategy of theirs could lose us a dozen cities—if we’re lucky. Fenris is as real as this table.” He rapped his knuckles on the wood.
“You know that. I know that. The people in San Fran, they don’t believe it because it’s . . . ‘fucking insane,’ to their way of thinking.”
“Not to a Snake . . . Yeah, Anton, I know—” He shook his head. “Of course, we could be in a use-it-or-lose-it situation before that. If the cover goes, or they spring their surprise on us, whatever it is. What do you think our Great Leaders will do then?”
“If the Project’s cover’s blown? Back off, if it’s before saturation point. Dither a little and then use it, after that. If the Snakes attack first, everything gets used.”
“I wish Stoddard were here. You going to the funeral?”
“Yes.” Donati drew on the cheroot, his hollowed cheeks giving a skull cast to the thin face. “I never thought he’d die, you know?” There was compassion in his voice as he continued. Everyone had known Lefarge and the old man were close. “I’m glad you made it back before the end; it was so sudden . . . What did you talk about?”
“Nothing. Personal things.” And Nelson’s eyepatch, Lefarge thought with chill satisfaction, as the other man nodded agreement. A soldier’s duty was obedience, but there were other duties. I’m glad Uncle Nate reminded me of that, he thought. It would have been a lonely burden to bear alone.
“And, Fred, remember you’ve gotten out of touch with the institutional balance while you had your head up there in the clouds all these years. Stoddard kept the wolves off your back while you pushed the Project through.” He rose and crossed to the sideboard. “Scotch?” Lefarge accepted the glass. “Here’s to him.” They clinked glasses. “You’re going to have to walk a little smaller, for safety’s sake. The view’s great, but there are disadvantages to having your head in the clouds, you know.”
It’s still better than having it rammed up your ass, Lefarge reflected, as he raised the glass in bland acknowledgment.
“We’ll all do our jobs,” he said. Whether the suits want me to or not.
DRAKA FORCES BASE ARESOPOLIS
MARE SERENITATIS, LUNA
MARCH 26, 1998: 1100 HOURS
There were dozens of launch sites around Aresopolis, and swift linear-induction subtunnels to all of them. Yolande chose to exercise a Commandant’s privilege and use the central dome exit when possible, and to travel aboveground. They left from another of those privileges, a small private villa on the lip of one of the natural terraces that rimmed the crater. It was daywatch, and the sky was set to a bright blue-green that dimmed everything but a ghost outline of the three-quarter Earth, and the unwinking fire of the sun. The house gleamed white and blue and its roofs russet-red; the walled hectare of garden smelled of damp earth and plants from the nightwatch rain.