A cheer went up, the bridge suddenly full of people clapping each other on the back, shouting, laughing, yelling. Dianne did not join in. Instead she sat there, stock still, staring straight ahead, letting the celebration go on without her. One of them. They had got one of them.
First blood, she told herself. The first tiny victory, the first time anyone in the Multisystem had managed to so much as muss the enemy’s hair.
Now all they had to do was do it about another hundred thousand times, and they’d all be safe.
The last of the decoy bombs homed in, and exploded, and the thing from inside the CORE vaporized. She turned and looked toward her second-in-command as he watched the death—not of an enemy, but of a complex and ancient life-form. She could see that in his eyes. All the Charonians were trying to do was stay alive, just like anyone else. That’s what he’d tell her. Maybe there was something wrong about celebrating a death—any death, even a CORE’s.
“Gerald,” she said.
“Hmmm? What?” He blinked, turned toward her, his face pale and quiet. He knew how close it had been, too. He knew it could have been the ship that died, probably would be the next time. “Yes, I’m sorry. What it is, ma’am?”
“Secure the ship from battle stations,” Dianne said. “Prepare to return to previous course.” She punched up the shipwide intercom circuit. “All stations,” she said in a tired quiet voice. “Now hear this.”
How to say it? What was it they needed to hear?
“Now hear this,” she said at last. “We are still alive. Repeat, we are still alive. That is all.”
Twenty-one
Acceptable Losses
“When we repelled the attack on the Solar System, we destroyed Pluto and Charon as a way to save all the other worlds, and lost all contact with Earth as a consequence. We told ourselves that half a loaf—the seven surviving worlds of the Solar System—was better than none.
“But suppose you were part of the half a loaf that got sacrificed? For you, it wouldn’t seem like that much better a deal.”
The Autocrat moved his pawn forward to the third rank and leaned back in his chair. Sondra Berghoff did not react, did not lean forward, or rub her hand on her chin. Instead she stared, motionless, at the board. She had always regarded herself as a pretty fair player, but the Autocrat was head and shoulders above her. And yet there were flaws, weaknesses in his game. She had never met his equal for being able to think three—or five, or eight—moves ahead, and he was remarkably skilled in seeing the board as a whole.
But for all of that—perhaps because of all that—the Autocrat often failed to see the small details, the little things, sometimes even the obvious things. If it did not lead to infinite opportunities in five moves, he paid it little mind. The only times she had managed to beat him had been the times she had found the little moves that did not seem to lead to many possibilities—for sometimes one possibility was all that mattered.
She moved her sole surviving rook down the length of the board and set it down in the eighth rank. “Checkmate,” she announced. The Autocrat looked up in surprise. “So it is,” he said. “So it is indeed. I must say it is a pleasure to get a real game out of someone. Almost worth the trip to Plutopoint all by itself.”
“Why can’t you get a good game of chess back on Ceres?” Sondra asked.
“People are afraid I’ll execute them if I lose,” the Autocrat said, in a calm, matter-of-fact way as he set the board up for a new game.
Sondra was not sure whether to laugh or to be shocked. Was he joking, or had he or some predecessor established a reputation as a terrible loser? She never quite knew what to make of the Autocrat. Well, she had to say something in reply, and somehow, professing shock did not quite seem polite. “Well, then,” she said, in as light a tone of voice as she could manage, “I suppose it’s lucky for me I’m outside your jurisdiction.”
“Ah, but you are well inside it,” he replied. “The Autocrat’s jurisdiction has no set bounds or borders. I am required to see after the good of the Asteroid Belt and its people in all times and all places. I assure you that, if I ordered you executed, being outside the Asteroid Belt would be no defense for you at all.”
“For the crime of beating you at chess?”
“For any reason, if I judged you to be a danger to justice or peace. On at least one occasion one of my predecessors executed a man for precisely the crime of winning at chess, under rather peculiar circumstances involving a dishonorable wager with a third party. Not a pleasant story, and not one with which to mar the present evening.” It was not the first time that the Autocrat had tossed a story of mysterious death and execution into the conversation, and Sondra could not help but notice that the Autocrat had never offered any assurance that he would not order someone executed.
Quite the contrary, she had been left with the clear impression that the crew of the Autarch was trained and ready to shoot holes in anyone at a moment’s notice, should the Autocrat give the order. No doubt it was all meant to be very unsettling, and it certainly was.
But for all of that, she liked the Autocrat. There was something a bit sinister about him, but so too was there something warm and approachable. He reminded her of a strict but fair father, relentlessly firm with his children, quite ready to give them a dispassionate spanking if they needed it. “Another game, Autocrat?” she asked.
“No, I think not,” he said, standing up. “You are improving a trifle too quickly for me,” he said. “You are learning how to beat me, and I think perhaps I should give you a day or so to forget what you have learned.” He crossed the wardroom and looked out the porthole to the huge and gleaming oval of the Ring of Charon, now almost edge-on as seen from the Command Station.
“Do you think I plan to take over this station?” he asked in a rather casual tone of voice.
“Sir?”
He turned and looked back at her. “You heard the question. Surely the possibility crossed your mind when a heavily armed and uninvited guest overstayed his welcome. I was supposed to leave here quite some time ago. Do you think I plan a takeover?”
“The possibility has occurred to me, yes,” Sondra said, choosing her words very carefully. “Some of the staff are more than a little concerned. But I think you wish us to fear you, wish our backers on the Moon and Mars to fear what you might do. You want to show that you could take this station, control the Ring of Charon. But you do not—and did not—intend to carry out the threat.”
“I see,” the Autocrat said. “And why would I pursue this course of action?”
“To strengthen your hand at the bargaining table. To make everyone else a bit more eager to please you. To force everyone to come up with a solution to the problem of a monopoly source of gravity beams.”
“Will your friends in the Inner System now come to the table before there is a crisis?”
“I think so. You certainly have their attention.”