A Planned Improvisation (27 page)

“Her name is Cousin,” Marisea replied, holding the small primate out to him.

“Greetings, Cousin,” Grintz told her and strolled off to his desk.

Marisea made her way to the podium from which Grintz had been speaking and looked out at the assembled Diet. She swallowed hard and began, “Greetings from Earth.”

“All right,” Rebbert admitted to Park several days later, in one of the small meeting rooms inside the Diet Chamber building. “You were right. Introducing Marisea and Tragackack to the Diet was the best possible way to begin Earth’s tenure as a full member of the Diet. She charmed the representatives just as she charmed Grintz and, yes, me too. And Tragackack’s simple statement was seen as becoming and suave modesty. You were a bit wordy though.

“Me?” Park laughed. “I spoke for ten minutes at the most and frankly if I sounded a bit stuffy it was only because I was fairly certain proclaiming ‘Party at my place!’ would not have gone over well.”

“I was kidding,” Rebbert chuckled. “Now who will be Earth’s planetary representative? Marisea?”

“Not hardly!” Marisea told him firmly. “You think I want to be stuck at a desk job?”

“I get out from time to time,” Rebbert pointed out.

“It ought to be Park,” Marisea replied, “or maybe Iris.”

“Neither of us cares to be a career politician either,” Iris told them, “But let this be a lesson, hmm? Sometimes being politically correct is just wrong.”

“Noted,” Rebbert bowed respectfully. “Well, Earth is now officially an interstellar space-faring world and a full member of the Alliance. You are the darlings of the Confederated Worlds.”

“Except for the Premm,” Park pointed out.

“I don’t think we can consider them part of the Alliance any longer,” Rebbert remarked, “They submitted their formal succession from the Alliance yesterday afternoon.”

“Took them long enough,” Park remarked, “but I suppose it took their rep that long to go home and have whatever passes for their government declare war. Did they actually declare war?”

“Not officially,” Rebbert replied. “The Premm are still claiming to have no connection to the dark ships.”

“Plausible deniability,” Park scoffed. “So what is the official Alliance view on succession?”

“Member worlds have that right,” Sartena pointed out.

“And some do leave from time to time,” Rebbert agreed. “Most return after a few years, but we don’t normally lose as many worlds as we did the other day, nor has it usually been under such acrimonious conditions.”

“Most of the time a seceding world is only doing it for political leverage,” Sartena explained. “They leave for a few months or a year and wait for a few enticements to rejoin.”

“Sometimes they get those enticements and sometimes they find the best enticement is the security of belonging,” Rebbert remarked. “It’s all part of the game. At the moment the few
Independent
worlds are watching to see what happens to the Alliance.”

“What is happening?” Park asked.

“That’s why I asked to meet here,” Rebbert told him. “I just got the latest military and political assessment and will be delivering it to the Diet in a few minutes, but I think you ought to know. First of all, the dark ships have been concentrating their attacks on worlds to the galactic east and in the inner sectors. The picture is grim; millions of deaths and if I can believe the reports two planets have been destroyed.”

“Destroyed?” Park asked. “How? Nuclear destruction? Asteroid strike? What?”

“I don’t honestly know,” Rebbert admitted. “Probably neither of those.
 
The captains who discovered the destroyed worlds would have mentioned radioactivity and I expect the locals would have seen a large asteroid coming at least a month in advance.”

“But in what way were they destroyed?” Park asked.

“I’m still waiting for the details on that,” Rebbert admitted, “but they say the worlds had been melted.”

“Without radioactivity?” Iris asked. “Is that possible?”

“Without anything above normal background radioactivity levels,” Rebbert clarified, “and is it possible? Well it seems to be, but I’ll be damned if I know how. I’m calling in scientists, though. Maybe one of them can find a theory that fits.

“Meanwhile, the Premm have declared they are a Holy Empire and have annexed half a dozen nearby worlds,” Rebbert continued.

“Holy Empire has an unwholesome ring to it,” Park remarked. “Were these annexations
 
by the way of a holy crusade?”

“We think so,” Rebbert replied. “It’s hard to say considering we have only the Holy Empire of Premm’s announcements to go by. And the dark ships are raiding almost everywhere. This is the first full-scale war we have suffered in over one hundred millennia.”

“All that because of us?” Marisea asked hesitantly.

“No, of course not,” Sartena assured her.

“Not really,” Rebbert agreed. “This has been coming for a long time. The Premm have been threatening to leave the Confederated Worlds if we did not accept their policy toward the Earth. We thought it was just their way of playing politics. It was, I guess, but we never really took them seriously on that count and the Premm have been members of the Alliance since Earth was first quarantined.”

“Did they join because Earth was quarantined?” Park asked, “or was Earth quarantined because the Premm joined the Alliance?”

“Good question,” Rebbert admitted. “The records don’t say, of course, but I suspect the latter. You did not answer my question, Parker. Will you represent Earth on the Diet?”

“No,” Park shook his head. “I’m no more inclined to be a politician than Marisea is, and I think our rep ought to be a Mer. Humans, Pirates, if you insist, are a very small minority of the Earth’s population and we are partners with the Mer and Atackack, not their leaders. A proper representative must be chosen.”

“But we need an Earthly representative now, Park, for today’s session and to sit here until a permanent one can be chosen,” Rebbert pressed.

“Go ahead, Park,” Iris encouraged him. “Someone has to do it.”

“Why not you?” Park asked.

“I’m not Black Captain McArrgh,” Iris laughed.

“It should be you, Park,” Marisea told him. “You’re the ranking person from Earth at the moment.”

“Damned military chain of command,” Park grumbled. “Oh, all right, I’ll serve on a
pro tempore
basis, but I want Arn and Terius to know I won’t do it on a permanent basis.
Independent
is ready to launch again so she had better be on her way today.”

“As soon as you have a written report for Arn and Prime Terius,” Iris told him. “You can’t leave that to a verbal, you know.”

Park groaned and turned back to Rebbert and Sartena. “So secession is tolerated, but I should hope not aggressive attacks from former members of the Alliance.”

“Of course not,” Rebbert replied. “As we speak, two fleets are on their way to the Premm worlds. They must be neutralized.”

“I don’t think the Premm are our real problem,” Park opines. “It’s their allies we need to attack at the source.”

“True,” Rebbert agreed, “but where do we find them?”

“Don’t know,” Park admitted, “but we’re vulnerable until we do.” He thought about Ronnie’s method for tracking a ship through Other Space. If she said it would work, he was inclined to believe her, but they had not yet tested it. That would have to wait until he could get back to space.

In the meantime, Park knew he was going to be busy on Owatino. Not only would he have to sit in the emergency sessions of the Diet until someone could be sent to relieve him, but he had to buy more ships for Earth. They had more than enough money from earlier settlements to buy several fleets. They could buy far more ships than they had people to man them, in fact. That was something he would put Iris on. She may have been a gunnery officer lately, but she was an engineer and at least understood what Ronnie Sheetz did. Then they had to get back to Earth and shore up their defenses there. Once that was done they could start looking for the source of the dark ships. So much to do!

As Park sat there silently making a mental check list, Cousin walked over and crawled up into his lap. “So, Cousin, what do you think?” he asked her whimsically. The creature made a contented almost purring hum then looked at Park eye to eye and winked. Park laughed. “Marisea did you teach her to do that?”

“No, I think she learned it from watching you, Park,” Marisea replied.

“All right,” Park chuckled. “Let’s see if she can learn to be a politician too.”

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