“Your last showdown was rather disappointing, Admiral.”
A tic vibrated one comer of Pickens’ mouth. “The governor has my resignation.”
“And has not accepted it. Nor will.”
“Sir!” Pickens’ mouth fell open.
“Be calm.” Snelund shifted his tone from delicate sarcasm to kindliness, his manner from idle humor to vigilance. “You didn’t disgrace yourself, Admiral. You just had the misfortune to clash with a better man. Were you less able, little would have been salvaged from your defeat. As matters went, you rescued half your force. You lack imagination, but you have competence: a jewel of high price in these degenerate times. No, I don’t want your resignation. I want you to continue in charge.”
Pickens trembled. Tears stood in his eyes. “Sit down,” Snelund invited. Pickens caved into a chair. Snelund kindled another cigaret, tobacco, and let him recover some equilibrium before saying:
“Competence, professionalism, sound organization and direction — you can supply those. I will supply the imagination. In other words, from here on I dictate policies for you to execute. Is that clear?”
His question lashed. Pickens gulped and croaked, “Yes, sir.” It had been a precision job for Snelund, these past days, making the officer malleable without destroying his usefulness — an exacting but enjoyable task.
“Good. Good. Oh, by the way, smoke if you wish,” the governor said. “Let me make clear what I plan.
“Originally I counted on applying various pressures through Lady McCormac. Then that dolt Flandry disappeared with her.” A rage that boiled like liquid helium: “Have you any inkling what became of them?”
“No, sir,” Pickens said. “Our intelligence section hasn’t yet succeeded in infiltrating the enemy. That takes time … Er, from what we can piece together, she doesn’t seem to have rejoined her husband. But we’ve had no word about her arrival anywhere else, like maybe on Terra.”
“Well,” Snelund said. “I don’t envy Citizen Flandry once I get back.” He rolled smoke around in his lungs until coolness returned. “No matter, really. The picture has changed. I’ve been rethinking this whole affair.
“What you propose, letting McCormac take most of the sector without resistance while we wait for help, is apparently the conservative course. Therefore it’s in fact the most deadly dangerous. He must be counting on precisely that. Let him be proclaimed Emperor on scores of worlds, let him marshal their resources and arrange their defenses with that damnable skill he owns — and quite probably, when the Terran task force comes, it won’t be able to dislodge him. Consider his short interior lines of communication. Consider popular enthusiasm roused by his demagogues and xenagogues. Consider the likelihood of more and more defections to his side as long as his affairs run smoothly. Consider the virus spreading beyond this sector, out through the Empire, until it may indeed happen that one day he rides in triumph through Archopolis!
Pickens stuttered, “I, I, I had thought of those things, Your Excellency.”
Snelund laughed. “Furthermore, assuming the Imperium can put him down, what do you expect will become of you and, somewhat more significantly from this point of view, me? It will not earn us any medals that we allowed an insurrection and then could not quench it ourselves. Tongues will click. Heads will wag. Rivals will seize the opportunity to discredit. Whereas, if we can break Hugh McCormac unaided in space, clearing the way for my militia to clean out treason on the planets — well, kudos is the universal currency. It can buy us a great deal if we spend it wisely. Knighthood and promotion for you; return in glory to His Majesty’s court for me. Am I right?”
Pickens moistened his lips. “Individuals like us shouldn’t count. Not when millions and millions of lives—”
“But they belong to individuals too, correct? And if we serve ourselves, we serve the Imperium simultaneously, which we swore to do. Let us have no bleeding-heart unrealism. Let us get on with our business, the scotching of this rebellion.”
“What does the governor propose?”
Snelund shook a finger. “Not propose, Admiral. Decree. We will thresh out details later. But in general, your mission will be to keep the war fires burning. True, our critical systems must be heavily guarded. But that will leave you with considerable forces free to act. Avoid another large battle. Instead raid, harass, hit and run, never attack a rebel group unless it’s unmistakably weaker, make a special point of preying on commerce and industry.”
“Sir? Those are our people!”
“McCormac claims they’re his. And, from what I know of him, the fact that he’ll be the cause of their suffering distress at our hands will plague him, will hopefully make him less efficient. Mind you, I don’t speak of indiscriminate destruction. On the contrary, we shall have to have justifiable reasons for hitting every civilian target we do. Leave those decisions to me. The idea is, essentially, to undermine the rebel strength.”
Snelund sat erect. One fist clenched on a chair arm. His hair blazed like a conqueror’s brand. “Supply and replacement,” he said ringingly. “Those are going to be McCormac’s nemesis. He may be able to whip us in a stand-up battle. But he can’t whip attrition. Food, clothing, medical supplies, weapons, tools, spare parts, whole new ships, a navy must have them in steady flow or it’s doomed. Your task will be to plug their sources and choke their channels.”
“Can that be done, sir, well enough and fast enough?” Pickens asked. “He’ll fix defenses, arrange convoys, make counterattacks.”
“Yes, yes, I know. Yours is a single part of the effort, albeit a valuable one. The rest is to deny McCormac an effective civil service.”
“I don’t, uh, don’t understand, sir.”
“Not many do,” Snelund said. “But think what an army of bureaucrats and functionaries compose the foundation of any government. It’s no difference’ whether they are paid by the state or by some nominally private organization. They still do the day-to-day work. They operate the spaceports and traffic lanes, they deliver the mail, they keep the electronic communication channels unsnarled, they collect and supply essential data, they oversee public health, they hold crime in check, they arbitrate disputes, they allocate scarce resources … Need I go on?”
He smiled wider. “Confidentially,” he said, “the lesson was taught me by experience out here. As you know, I had various changes in policy and administrative procedure that I wished to put into effect. I was only successful to a degree, chiefly on backward planets with no real indigenous civil services. Otherwise, the bureaucrats dragged their feet too much. It’s not like the Navy, Admiral. I would press an intercom button, issue a top priority order — and nothing would happen. Memos took weeks or months to go from desk to desk. Technical objections were argued comma by comma. Interminable requests for clarification made their slow ways back to me. Reports were filed and forgotten. It was like dueling a fog. And I couldn’t dismiss the lot of them. Quite apart from legalities, I had to have them. There were no replacements for them.
“I intend to give Hugh McCormac a taste of that medicine.”
Pickens shifted uneasily. “How, sir?”
“That’s a matter I want to discuss this afternoon. We must get word to those planets. The little functionaries must be persuaded that it isn’t in their own best interest to serve the rebellion with any zeal. Their natural timidity and stodginess work in our favor. If, in addition, we bribe some, threaten others, perhaps carry out an occasional assassination or bombing — Do you follow? We must plant our agents throughout McCormac’s potential kingdom before he can take possession of it and post his guards. Then we must keep up the pressure — agents smuggled in, for example; propaganda; disruption of interstellar transportation by your raiders — Yes, I do believe we can bring McCormac’s civil service machinery to a crawling, creaking slowdown. And without it, his navy starves. Are you with me, Admiral?”