Cherryh, C J - Alliance-Union 08 (118 page)

"You assuredly know now why I have taken extreme precautions to prevent this tape from seeing Archives. It's potentially deadly. Never mind my reputation. Your own safety is in question, and if you use that famous wit of yours, you will look to that to the exclusion of all else.

"Above all, keep power out of the hands of people you would want to protect. Out of a hundred thirty-three years of living, love, that's the highest wisdom I can come to.

"I'll keep you posted. Abban may make many of these flights. I don't trust regular communications. Don't you.

"Above all, take this for a storm-warning. I'm taking excellent care of myself. I've given up my few vices for your sake, to buy you time. Remember my offer.

Position yourself carefully, and don't be careless with your associates. Justice, guilt and innocence are irrelevant. Motivation and opportunity are the things you have to watch. Nothing else has any validity."

"Endit."

She sat still a long while.

"Log-off," she said finally.

And got up and went back to the bedroom.

Florian waked when she came in. Or had never been asleep.

She got in beneath the covers. And stared into the dark.

"Is there trouble, sera?"

"Just Giraud," she said, and rolled over and put her arm around him, burrowed down against his shoulder, smothering the anger, fighting it with all she had. "God. Florian. Do something, will you?"

B/1: Ari senior has a message.

Stand by.

Ari, this is Ari senior.

You've asked about power.

That's a magic word, sweet. Are you alone?

AE2: Yes.

B/1: You are 18 years old. You are legally adult. You have authority of: Wing Supervisor; Alpha Supervisor.

You have flagged for systems surveillance: Denys Nye; Giraud Nye; Petros Ivanov; Yanni Schwartz; Wendell Peterson; John Edwards; Justin Warrick; Jordan Warrick; Gustav Morley; Julia Carnath; Amy Carnath; Maddy Strassen; Victoria Strassen; Sam Whitely; Stef Dietrich; Yvgenia Wojkowski; Anastasia Ramirez; Eva Whitely; Julia Strassen; Gloria Strassen; Oliver AOX Strassen; and all their associations.

Additionally you have flagged for exterior surveillance and newsservice monitoring: priority one: Mikhail Corain; Vladislaw Khalid; Simon Jacques; Giraud Nye; Leonid Gorodin; James Lynch; Thomas Spurlin; Ludmilla deFranco; Catherine Lao; Nasir Harad; Andrew McCabe; and all their households.

Do you wish to add or subtract?

AE2: Continue.

B/1: Ari, this is Ari senior.

You are monitoring inside and outside Reseune. You hold economic and administrative power inside Reseune with a rating of: excellent performance.

I advise against any move against Administration on the grounds of: chronological age.

NewsScan profile indicates No security anomaly within Reseune's internal surveillance. Do you disagree?

AE2: No.

B/1: You've asked about power. There are three parts to that. Taking it. Holding it. Using it. Taking it and holding it are very closely related: if you pay less attention to the second than to the first you are in trouble, because the same dynamics that put you in power will operate as well for someone else against you.

Let me tell you: physical force will only work on lower levels. Don't discount it. But the most effective way to power is through persuasion. This means psych, personally applied, and massively applied. If you have followed my work this far, you understand when I say that the press is one of the most valuable tools you will have to work with.

There are at least three possible situations with the press. A, Completely free; B, Free in some areas, controlled in others; C, Completely controlled. In the first instance, the press is vulnerable to direct manipulation; in the second, vulnerable to direct manipulation in some areas, but vulnerable to tactics which increase public distrust of official information; in the third state, rumor is potentially more powerful than the press, and with an efficient organization you can equally well turn that situation to your advantage. Which of the three do you estimate is the case?

AE2: The second.

B/1: Analysis indicates a period of unrest.

Intersection of data indicates reason for concern.

Your NewsScan profile is: low activity; predominantly favorable. Consider carefully the effects of a change in this profile at this time.

Always respect the power of public opinion. Need I say that to a Reseune-trained operator?

Remember that change in social macrosystems operates rarely like earthquake, more frequently like subsoil ice, deforming the terrain in general ways, by gravity and topological constraints. The potential for cataclysmic events is comparatively easy to figure: figuring the precise moment or trigger of fracture is not; while the temporal component in slow change is relatively easy to figure, the total direction of change is complex, involving more individual action. Politicians frequently ride the earthquakes; while Reseune has always operated best in the subsoil, slowly, with frequent small adjustments.

I distrust such models. But I trust I am giving them to an adult who understands me.

I urge you consider the changes in Novgorod and in Cyteen in your own lifetime, and in mine, and in Olga's. I predict they will be extreme, and I urge you watch several areas.

a) An early problem will be the pressure of CIT population increase, particularly in Novgorod, particularly on stations such as Esperance and Pan-Paris, which do not lie on the routes of proposed expansion: eventually CITs will find that jobs are not as easy to come by, and that will lead to increased power for the Abolitionists who call for the cessation of azi production.

b) Interstellar government having its capital resident in a world-based city is increasingly fraught with problems, however much the situation has been advantageous to Reseune. It may in your lifetime produce difficulties and threaten Union: placing the capital specifically at Novgorod instead of Cyteen Station exposed Union politics to Cyteen influence and to Cyteen economics in ways which I do not think healthy. Be alert for that sentiment. It will come, though perhaps not in your lifetime.

It is possible in the future that for reasons presently unforeseen, Novgorod may diminish in power and influence within Cyteen and consequently pose less problem, but I doubt it: geography favors it and the presence of Union government fattens it. I foresee it clinging to the government by every means possible, including dirty politics and gerrymandering which could threaten Union. Particularly beware the intersection of a) and b) or b) and c).

c) The discovery that Reseune has tampered with social dynamics at Gehenna and elsewhere could create widespread panic and distrust of Reseune's influence.

d) The mere potential for Earth's further intervention in Alliance affairs or outside human space, acts as a destabilizing force in Alliance-Union relations; an actual or perceived threat from that quarter could worsen relations.

e) The opportunity for major gains by political opposition during the interregnum of your guardians, and the death and defeat of various of my own allies in the interim, will likely effect the rise of major new political forces, some of whom may well be radically Abolitionist. I predict that within a decade or so of my death Mikhail Corain will be viewed as too moderate to control his own allies, and it is foreseeable that a more radical figure will unseat him, possibly changing the Centrists considerably. Particularly look to the effects of your own emergence into public life. I had enemies. You will face opposition which may have superstitious roots, in fear of the unknown, in fear of you as a political force, and in fear of what the science which brought you into being could mean—to a society only recently adapting to rejuv. Uncertainty of any sort creates demagogues.

f) A major new discovery of non-human intelligence might destabilize the situation I left, and might come at any time. I urge you press for expansion in safe areas and for necessary precaution against hostile contact. We do not know our time limits and we are scarcely stable enough in my time to deal with that eventuality.

g) There may be major divergences from my policies inside Reseune, and there exists the chance that you have either made personal enemies on-staff or that you are perceived as standing for policies others oppose.

h) A major breakdown could occur within a designed azi population, or there may be major difficulties in CIT-azi integrations within a given population. I hope this does not come to pass, but my best estimate of a problem area would be Pan-Paris, where economic constraints and military retirees may pose hardships: next most likely: Novgorod, in the third generation . . . where the old rebel ethos of the founders of Union may well find difficulty mixing with the Constitution-venerating descendants of the wartime worker-azi, and where population pressures and Cyteen's ability to terraform new habitat on that site may run a narrow race indeed.

I hope time has proven me wrong in some of these things.

But I urge you to study these situations and to prepare responses to them, before you make any move on your own.

Avoid precipitate action: by this I mean, don't be too quick to take what you're not ready for; don't be so late that you have to move hastily and without adequate groundwork.

Power of any kind lays heavy responsibility on you; and it changes your friends as it changes the way your friends regard you. Do not be naive in this regard. Do not assume. Do not overburden your friends with too much trust.

Above all remember what I said in the beginning: respect the power of public opinion.

NewsScan shows mention of you: 3 articles in last 3 months.

Mention of Giraud Nye: 189 articles in last 3 months.

Mention of Mikhail Corain: 276 articles in last 3 months.

Mention of Reseune: 597 articles in last 3 months.

Mention of Paxers: 1058 articles in last 3 months.

Continue?

AE2: Base One, give me the nature, location, and time of Ari senior's last entry into the House system.

B/1: Working.

Entry by TransSlate; 1004A, 2404: 10/22: 1808.

AE2: Give me the location and time of Ari senior's death.

B/1: Working.

1004A.

Autopsy ruling: 2404: 10/22: 1800 to 1830 approximate.

AE2: 1004A is the cold lab in Wing One basement. Correct?

B/1: Correct.

AE2: Who else has accessed this information?

B/1: No prior access.

AE2: Replay entry.

B/1: Working.

Order: Security 10: Com interrupt: Jordan Warrick, all outgoing calls. Claim malfunction. Order good until canceled.

AE2: Base One, is that the last entry from Ari from any source?

B/1: Working.

Affirmative.

AE2: Base One, at what time did Jordan Warrick enter Wing One basement security door on 10/22, 2404?

B/1: Working.

Wing One basement security door coded 14. Jordan Warrick's key accessed D14 at 1743 hours, that date.

AE2: Departure, same visit?

B/1: 1808 hours, that date: duration of visit: 25 minutes. . . .

AE2: Record current session to Personal Archive. Give me the full transcript, Autopsy, Ariane Emory; all records, Jordan Warrick, keyword: Emory, keyword: trial; keyword: murder; keyword, hearings; keyword: Council; keyword: investigation.

"The first bill on the agenda is number 6789, for the Bureau of Trade," Nasir Harad said, "Ludmilla deFranco, Simon Jacques co-sponsors, proposing restructuring of the Pan-Paris credit system. Call for debate."

"Citizens," Mikhail Corain said, lifting his hand. "For the bill."

"Finance," Chavez said. "For the bill."

"Move to forgo debate," Harogo said, "in the absence of opposition."

Corain cast a look down the table, toward Nye, who had reached for his water glass.

It was a bargain, the time-saving sort. The acquiescence of the Expansionists in the move designed to take pressure off the ailing Pan-Paris central bank, the promise of military contracts, the private assurance that Reseune would grant more time on the considerable sum Pan-Paris owed—of course it would: Pan-Paris was Lao's central constituency and the bill was the first step in a long-proposed settlement on the Wyatt's Paradise-Pan-Paris loop that called for a fusion-powered station at Maronne Point, where there was only dark mass, but enough to pull a ship in.

There were four bills lined up, Expansionists falling all over themselves after decades of opposition, finally diverting funds from the slow construction of Hope to the more immediate difficulties of home space and a trade loop that had gotten, since the War, damnably short of exportable commodities.

Major construction, finally, beyond the rebuilding of stations damaged in Azov's desperate push in the last stages of the War; beyond the endless restructurings of debt and adjustments necessary when the merchanters associated into Alliance and left Union banks holding enormous debt.

Seventy years later, a policy shift to save that trade loop became possible only because the special interests that had blocked it suddenly discovered there was nothing left to do.

"Move to suspend debate," Harad said in his usual mutter. "Second?"

"Second," Corain said.

"Call for the vote."