They had been here for nearly half a standard year, and the demands on his time and attention had been unending. But they had made unexpectedly good progress in reestablishing their base of operations, because so much of the technology they had left behind still remained intact—because unlike all the Summer Queens before her, Moon Dawntreader had not ordered everything dumped into the sea. All they had had to do on many of the surviving systems was replace the microprocessors that the Hegemony had destroyed by high-frequency signal transmission at the Departure.
That had meant that more of the equipment they’d bought here with them could be spared to make their lives comfortable, more like what they had been used to back on Kharemough. That hadn’t hurt morale any among his staff and advisors. He was sure it had helped him push his arguments that the technological progress achieved in their absence should be allowed to continue: that besides creating good will, it made economic sense, that it pushed all their own plans ahead of schedule.
“I’m engaged in a precarious balancing act here. It’s going to be vital to keep as much cooperation as I can going on both sides.” If it isn’t impossible.
“So far it seems to be going all right,” Jerusha said. “Moon … the Queen, and most Tiamatans are reassured because you haven’t suppressed what they’ve done. But so far it’s been simple, because there aren’t that many offworlders here. Things are going to start getting more complicated as you open Tiamat up. When are you going to start permitting unregulated civilians back? When do the flood gates open on trade and contact—?”
He wiped his hands on the sponge beside his plate. “Because we’re ahead of schedule, I plan to start letting a trickle in as early as next month. We’ll gradually expand the flow, to try to keep things stable. I want to keep underworld elements out for as long as possible; I don’t want Carbuncle to become what it was before—a convenient resort for the scum of the galaxy.”
“That was Arienrhod’s doing, mostly,” Jerusha said. She leaned forward. “She let them hide under the wing of her ‘independent rule’ so we couldn’t get at them, because she enjoyed watching the Blues squirm. You won’t have that problem with the new Queen.”
He nodded, swallowing down a glass of juice, startled by the sudden, pungently familiar flavor of a fruit he had not tasted in over a decade. “I know, thank the gods. But there are other ways of gaining influence and control, even when your influence isn’t welcomed with open arms … you know that as well as I do, and better than the Queen does.” Ways and means even Jerusha PalaThion had never dreamed of. He looked up again. “I want to minimize the kinds of culture shock we’re going to have when access to trade goods becomes easy, and real greed sets in—”
“Are you talking about Tiamat, or everybody else?” Jerusha asked.
“I’m talking about everybody—including the Tiamatans. That was the other reason I wanted to meet with you today. I wanted to ask you whether you’d consider becoming my Chief Inspector.”
Jerusha straightened up, staring at him in disbelief. “Are you serious?” she murmured. She laughed abruptly. “Of course you are. You wouldn’t ask me that for the hell of it. But, why?”
“Because of all the things we’ve just been talking about,” he said. “We go back a long way, you and I. We know where we stand with each other.” He smiled briefly. “You’ll never be afraid to give me a straight answer… . Too many of my people are unknown quantities to me, or not the ones I would have chosen to fill the positions they hold. I need people around me—at my back, if you will—that I can trust and rely on, in order to make this work.” In order to survive. “I need the kind of help only you can give me. This police force is inexperienced in dealing with Tiamatan society. I trust Vhanu, my Commander of Police, with my life; he’s worked with me for years. But he doesn’t know Tiamat yet… . And frankly, in some ways, he reminds me of me.” He smiled, ruefully; remembering his service on Tiamat, how long it had taken him to learn this world’s lessons.
Jerusha nodded, and he saw that she understood. “I’ve met with him several times,” she said. “I’ve seen the resemblance.”
“Then you can see why you’d be invaluable, not only to the force, but to him.’
She leaned back again in her seat. She was silent for a long moment. “Have you discussed this with him?”
Gundhalinu nodded.
“How does he feel about it?”
“He’s against it,” he said, giving her the truth.
“And how do you think the force is going to tolerate having a woman—a renegade, a traitor, no less—forced on them as Chief Inspector?”
“Are you a renegade, or are you a retired Police Commander with years of invaluable foreign service experience? … Am I a failed suicide, or a Hero of the Hegemony1’ It all depends on what kind of spin you put on it, Jerusha.” He smiled slowly, and shrugged. She looked at him, mildly incredulous. “As far as your being female, Kharemoughis will give you less grief about that than your own people did. There are several women on the force, and I hope to recruit more, in time.”
She looked down, biting her lip absently, considering.
“You’ve never been someone who walked away from a challenge.” He pressed her, driven by the urgency of his need to have her support.
“True enough,” she murmured, with some of the steel he remembered showing briefly in her grin. And he saw her eyes come alive as she thought about it. But she looked down again, shaking her head. “I can’t. Thank you for asking me, BZ. But I can’t do it.”
“Why?” he asked, controlling the sudden frustration that made him want to shout it. “Why not?”
“Because the Queen needs me. She depends on me… . For all the same reasons you want me working for you. I can’t be loyal to both of you. You can’t rely on someone with divided loyalties.”
He leaned forward, his hands twined between his knees, tightening. “Work for me, Jerusha,” he spoke each word like a solemn pledge, “and you won’t have to have divided loyalties.”
She stared at him for a long moment; while he realized, suddenly and gladly, that this was not simply something that he needed … it was something that she needed, too. “Gods …” she murmured. “Let me sleep on it, BZ. I can’t accept something like this without having time to think it through.”
“Take whatever time you need.” He nodded, feeling the tension loosen in his shoulders. “Just tell me you won’t reject the idea out of hand.”
“No,” she said, rising from her seat. “No, I won’t.”
“Will you be speaking to—to the Queen?” He barely kept himself from calling her by name. He got up from his own seat.
“I expect so.” She nodded, looking at him curiously.
“Tell her for me that I’ve gotten my people to accept a temporary moratorium on the hunting of mers, while we conduct further studies. I don’t know how long it’ll hold. The Central Coordinating Committee back on Kharemough is giving me hell about this; tell her it’s the best I can do for now.” “She’ll be glad to hear it. I am, too. Thank you. I know the kind of pressure you mean—gods, it must be worse when there’s hardly any time-lag on interference from the home office. I know how much they want the water of life; I know how hard it is to stop them from getting what they want. I know … I tried it myself, once.”
He grimaced. “I wish the Queen understood that. She’s been pushing hard for rapid change, and for a ban on the hunts at the same time, in every meeting we’ve had at the palace … too hard. I’ve tried to make her see that we have to take this a step at a time; Tiamat has to be lifted up to a certain level of technological competence before it can qualify for full equality among the Hegemony’s worlds. Change just for the hell of it will only leave everyone worse off then before. And the Hegemony doesn’t like something-for-nothing trade, any more than Tiamat does.” “She understands that,” Jerusha murmured. “But she also understands that the Hegemony came here thinking of her people as barbarians—and they aren’t. She’s willing to compromise, and meet the Hegemony halfway with her demands, if they’ll meet her there. She only wants to make sure the Hegemony understands that her viewpoint and theirs are not the same one. The Hedge has always had a ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable’attitude about this world. …”