What remained of Jefferson’s high-tech weaponry was guarded by civilian police and from what Simon could tell, based on Sonny’s taps into various security systems in weapons bunkers and ammunition stores, an appalling amount of equipment and ammunition was quietly disappearing. The money from black-market trading was doubtless falling into the pockets of officials in charge of a security force that was literally stealing the planet blind.
And every sorry-assed bit of it was driven by POPPA’s political agenda. The party was absolutely correct when it said Jefferson couldn’t afford to pay thousands of soldiers for sitting in barracks doing nothing. The policies already enacted by Vittori Santorini’s elected minions were bankrupting Jefferson’s government at a dizzying pace. The subsistence program alone couldn’t be sustained, not even if it remained at its present enrollment, which it wouldn’t do. Every new environmental regulation passed into law tightened the choke-hold on Jefferson’s failing industries. Every new round of layoffs swelled the ranks of the unemployed forced to rely on subsistence payments. It was a downward spiral that was already out of control.
Since something had to be cut to pay for it, POPPA had chosen to close the military bases and disperse thousands of soldiers and their families back into the civilian population. It looked, on the surface, like a massive savings, which was exactly what POPPA was claiming. Unfortunately, that claim was a lie. Fewer than ten percent of the soldiers cut adrift had been able to find jobs. So they’d signed up for public subsistence allowances, which were — by Simon’s calculation — costing the taxpayers twenty-eight percent more than it had cost to keep those soldiers on active military duty.
But subsistence payments were essentially invisible, wrapped into the already enormous expenditures for food and housing, while the cost of maintaining the bases and the soldiers was highly visible. Gifre Zeloc could point with pride to the millions saved by closing the bases, without ever needing to admit that the tax drain was now far worse. That kind of sleight-of-hand was POPPA’s stock in trade.
When POPPA’s upper echelons finally realized how much red ink they were bleeding — and how much more they would bleed as time marched inexorably forward — they would be forced to make cuts in the subsidy payments. And with millions of people accustomed to and dependent upon a free ride, there could be only one possible outcome.
Utter disaster.
Which brought his thoughts inexorably to Nineveh Base and the reason for its reprieve. It was being turned into a police academy. Not just any police, either, but an elite new unit of federal officers. Five thousand of them, to be exact, drawn from the ranks of POPPA’s most loyal supporters. They would constitute a “politically safe” cadre of men and women who could be ordered to do pretty much anything and be relied upon to see that it was done. Vittori Santorini understood exactly how fanatical devotion to a cause could be harnessed and put to work.
Simon had gained access to the dossiers of the officers chosen for training, as well as the profiles of the new instructors. The first red-flag warning that had jumped out at him, setting Simon’s teeth on edge, was the family history section of those dossiers. Not one of the five thousand officers was married. Not one had children from extramarital relationships. They had no close family ties to anyone. No particular reason for loyalty to anyone or anything but POPPA and its ideology. He didn’t like the pattern that was forming. Didn’t like the training program outlined. Didn’t like the implications about POPPA’s future plans. Frankly, in fact, the whole thing scared him pissless.
More disturbing — downright chilling, in fact — was the total lack of news reports on what was happening at Nineveh Base. Whatever POPPA was up to, they were being mighty secretive about it. And he genuinely hated the fact that his wife and daughter would be sharing the base with the kind of people about to become their new neighbors.
He and Kafari had quarreled again, last night. She still refused to leave Jefferson. He could tell she was scared, as scared as he was. Any sane person would have been. The damage being wrought was so insidious, so smoothly presented, so glibly rationalized, so skillfully obscured by flashy political rallies and spectacular public entertainment, it was difficult for the average person to realize just how much manipulation was occurring, much of it artfully subtle. POPPA was conducting the seizure of power with the same skillful distraction tactics employed by really talented pickpockets. The analogy was apt, since most Jeffersonians didn’t even realize they were being robbed.
Simon had been duty-bound to file reports with Sector Command, but the likelihood that Sector would interfere was as remote as the likelihood that POPPA would voluntarily relinquish its increasingly strong grip. Sector had more serious fish to fry. The war front had shifted away from Jefferson, but only because there were no longer any human worlds beyond the Void in need of protection.
That there were no Deng worlds nearby, either, was of scant comfort. The three-way war had eradicated the populations of some seventeen star systems that were now vacant property. Much of that real estate had been burned to radioactive cinders, something Simon knew entirely too much about, first-hand. The Melconians weren’t taking advantage of the situation, either, apparently because the fighting was so fierce elsewhere, they couldn’t commit the resources necessary to move in with their colonies. Apparently, the Deng were fighting a losing battle just to hang onto their inner worlds.
Things were grim when one counted blessings in such negative terms.
That thought brought his gaze back to his computer, where the message he had been expecting had finally appeared. It had taken POPPA’s leadership five and a half years to gain the nerve to take the step represented by that message, but they’d finally put together the same information Simon had about the shifting battle front beyond the Silurian Void. They had acted within hours of the realization that the war was no longer in their back yard.
Gifre Zeloc’s message was short and to the point: “Deactivate your Bolo. Now.”
Simon had no choice. That fact rankled bitterly. There was no possible justification he could offer for defying that order. He would not, however, obey it until Kafari had returned home. Sonny was a friend. An uneasy friend, with whom very few people could ever relax, but a friend nonetheless. For Simon, it was different. Shared experience of combat changed a man, changed the way he felt about a battle partner whose guns and war hull stood between his frail human self and the world-shaking roar of modern fields of slaughter. When death set the very wind ablaze, when life hung on the spider-silk thread of electronic reflexes, a man’s fear of his Bolo burned to ash and scattered itself across the stars. What replaced it…
He was going to miss Sonny more than he had ever dreamed possible.
“Simon,” the familiar voice jolted him out of his complex misery, “Kafari is on final approach. Her aircar will land at Yalena’s daycare center in two minutes.”
“Thanks,” he said, voice stricken with emotion that choked the sound down to a whisper.
“I will only be sleeping,” the Bolo said, his own voice strangely hushed.
In that single, excruciating moment, Simon wanted to put both arms around his friend and just hang onto him, for a moment or a lifetime. His arms were too small to hold the immensity of his feelings, let alone the vast and poignant honesty that was his friend. His only friend, besides Kafari. He closed his eyes against the pain, wishing for a moment that he could pour out the misery like last night’s bath water, leaving himself empty and at peace.