Westman's mouth twitched. It looked, Helen thought, as if the Montanan had felt a sudden urge to smile back at Van Dort. If he had, he managed to suppress it quite handily, though.
"Speaking as Baroness Medusa's representative, then," Van Dort continued, "I've been instructed to ask you to set forth your exact objections to the annexation of the Montana System, at the freely voted upon request of its citizens, by the Star Kingdom of Manticore. I realize you've published your manifesto, and knowing Montanans, I have no doubt that it honestly represents your convictions. What Baroness Medusa would like to do is to give you the opportunity to expand upon your manifesto's statements. She hopes, frankly, to open a direct dialogue. To give you a channel through which both of you may straightforwardly set forth your views and opinions. Whether or not this ultimately achieves anything is, of course, impossible to predict. But Baroness Medusa feels, and I believe with reason, that without such a dialogue, there's no hope at all of arriving at a negotiated resolution of the current situation."
"I see," Westman said after frowning for several seconds. Then he shook his head-not in rejection, but to indicate a certain dubiousness, Helen thought.
"That all sounds very reasonable," the guerrilla leader went on. "But I'm just a mite skeptical. And, truth be told, it's a mite difficult for me to forget who you are. You just mentioned freely voted upon requests, but everybody in the Cluster knows the entire annexation plebiscite came out of Rembrandt. And that you personally were the driving force behind it, at least at first. I hope you won't take this wrongly, but that tends to taint the whole notion in my eyes."
"I don't blame you," Van Dort said calmly. "As I said, I'd prefer not to debate all of the past strains and tensions between Montana and the RTU. I will acknowledge freely, however, that the RTU's policies were part of a carefully planned strategy to build the economic power of the RTU's member systems as rapidly as possible. In pursuit of those policies, we did some things which, quite frankly, were one-sided and unfair to other systems. Montana was such a system, and, as such, you have every right to resent and dislike us.
"I regret the fact that all of that's true, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't do exactly the same again under the same circumstances. This entire Cluster's been looking down the barrel of Frontier Security's pulser for a long time now. I saw that coming even before OFS started looking our way, and I came up with the RTU as the best strategy to protect my own homeworld. I didn't think there was any way I could hope to protect anyone else, so I didn't try to. But the discovery of the Lynx Terminus changed all that.
"My point is simply this: the policies which made Rembrandt an economic aggressor were intended to defend Rembrandt. When I saw an opportunity for an even better defensive -strategy-annexation by the Star Kingdom-I leapt at it. And, in the process, I finally did find a way I could hope to protect the rest of the Cluster. You may not believe that was my motivation, but it was. And whether it was or not, and all personal considerations aside, you should consider the advantages and disadvantages of the proposal not on the basis of where it originated, but on the basis of what it can mean for your own world and your own objectives. That's what Baroness Medusa's asking you to do-and the reason she hopes to open a dialogue with you."
"I see." Westman sat back, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.
"I see," he repeated. "Unfortunately, at the moment, it seems to me that my objectives and Baroness Medusa's are mutually exclusive. I don't want Montana to join the Star Kingdom; she wants to annex it for her Queen." He shook his head again. "Not a whole lot of room for compromise there, I think."
"I don't believe I said anything about compromises, Mr. Westman." Westman's eyebrows rose, and Van Dort smiled again, thinly, this time. "Assuming your own government remains committed to seeking annexation, and assuming the Constitutional Convention drafts a Constitution which is mutually acceptable to our citizens and Manticore, Montana will become a member of the Star Kingdom."
Westman's eyes flashed, but Van Dort met his fiery gaze steadily.
"That isn't meant to sound gratuitously confrontational," the Rembrandter said. "However, the fact is that, like any guerrilla movement, yours can only succeed if a significant percentage of the Montanan population decides to support it. Without that, your movement is ultimately doomed, and the question simply becomes how much damage you do to your own star system and, indirectly, to the Star Kingdom at large before it's ultimately suppressed."
"I expect you might find the amount of damage we can do more than you'd care for," Westman half-snapped.
"Baroness Medusa finds the damage you've already done more than she cares for. But that doesn't mean the Star Kingdom isn't prepared to absorb even more damage if it must. And, I repeat, the Star Kingdom will only be involved in attempting to forcibly suppress your actions if the majority of your fellow Montanans continue to desire to become citizens of the Star Kingdom. Should that be true, however, and should an acceptable Constitution be drafted and approved by the Manticoran Parliament and the legislatures of the Cluster's member star systems, the Star Kingdom will commit whatever resources are necessary to bring an end to violence here on Montana."
"Better listen to him, Steve," Chief Marshal Bannister said shortly. "So far, you're up against me, and I'm basically a cop. If the annexation goes through and you're still blowing things up, or, even worse, having shootouts with me and my people, the Manticorans will send in Marines. And those Marines'll have battle armor, orbital surveillance systems, armored vehicles, and all the things I don't have. You're good. I'll admit that. In fact, I think you may be better than I am. But you're not good enough to stand up to that kind of an opponent. Especially not if everyone else is rooting for the other side."
Westman's face tightened. It looked to Helen as if he would have liked to reject what both Van Dort and Bannister had said. But the man was obviously too realistic to fool himself. Yet there was something in his eyes. Something that seemed to suggest at least a kernel of doubt.
I wonder, she thought. Does he have access-or think he has access-to some sort of off-world support? Something that might give him an edge, or at least some kind of equalizer, against modern military hardware? But if he does, where the hell is it coming from? And where the hell is Daddy when I need a super-spook?
"Whether or not I can win in the end is one thing," Westman said after a few, tense seconds. "Whether or not what I believe in requires me to try is something else. And whether or not this planet will be worth annexing after we're done is still another something else."
"Forgive me, Mr. Westman," Captain Terekhov said, "but I believe you're missing part of Mr. Van Dort's point."
"Which is?" Westman asked.
"What Baroness Medusa is trying to tell you, Sir," the Captain said calmly, "is that the amount of damage is immaterial. The Star Kingdom isn't interested in annexing Montana because of the wealth you don't have. Obviously, in the long term, we believe Montana, like all the Cluster's star systems, will become more prosperous and represent a net economic gain for the Star Kingdom as a whole. But, to be perfectly honest, the Lynx Terminus represents the only powerful selfish reason for us to be involved in this region, and there are many countervailing reasons why we shouldn't be here. At the possible expense of belaboring a point, the entire question of annexation only arose after the citizens of the Cluster requested it. The Star Kingdom's commitment to the annexation of Montana is a moral one, not an economic one. Damage can be repaired. Destroyed facilities can be rebuilt. The legal and moral obligations of a government to protect its citizens-both in their persons and property and in their right to live under the government of their choice-aren't negotiable."