The Unincorporated Woman (47 page)

Padamir Singh was not present, but if Sandra O’Toole could count on Rabbi and Hildegard, she would need only one more Cabinet member to start dictating policy. Not that she would be so forward about it. She’d have her allies propose it and get it passed from the shadows. That’s how the game was played.
Gather your power slowly until one day everyone realizes that you’re in charge
. J.D.’s face went ashen as another more portent thought surfaced.
By the Prophet, that’s how the Chairman took over GCI
. Her thoughts were quickly drowned out by the raucous cheering that broke out as Sandra O’Toole, President of the Alliance, stood up and began to speak.

AWS
Lincoln
,
Gedretar Shipworks, Ceres

J. D. Black waited in the unfamiliar captain’s quarters of the AWS
Lincoln
. The ship had been in dry dock, undergoing repairs for damage sustained in the Long Battle, and so had only a skeleton crew to man her. Fleet Intelligence was ruthless in making sure that no surprises were added to a ship in repair, which meant that the AWS
Lincoln
made an ideal locale for conversations best kept dark. And unlike Alliance security, which reported directly to Kirk Olmstead, Fleet Intelligence reported to Admiral Sinclair and therefore bore fanatic loyalty to Admiral Black.

As J.D. waited for her guests to arrive, she thought back to Jupiter Park. The naming of the dead had been going on for four days now and showed no sign of abating. A person or persons would ascend the short ramp and stand where the President had stood and given her speech a few days earlier. Some would pause, some would cry, but everyone had a name to honor. Then they’d point to someone else in the crowd and exit the dais on the side opposite the one they’d entered. Every minute of every hour of every day, it had continued. An order had finally been given to seal the park, allowing people out but not in. There had been some grumbling, but everyone understood. Life had to continue. The war effort had to continue.

It was the sheer power of the … the—J.D. wasn’t sure what to call it, event? ceremony? happening?—that she found so compelling and terrifying. Allah was in that park. As J.D. was living and breathing, Allah was beside her when, overwhelmed, she’d called out Manny’s name, and he was there when Omad had called out Christina’s. J.D. believed that the Almighty was standing beside every person who rose up to that platform and cried out the names of their martyred. And now she was afraid. Afraid of the woman she’d placed into power and of the woman whose fate she would now have to decide—if it wasn’t too late already.

A dulcet voice signaled the arrival of J.D.’s guests. Marilynn Nitelowsen and Eleanor McKenzie entered, both bearing the look of utter exhaustion.

“Well, this has got to be good,” gushed Eleanor, making herself comfortable in the nearest available seat. “Why else call a member of the Intelligence Committee
and
your liaison to the President into a dry dock security setting?”

Marilynn continued to stand at attention until invited to sit by her commanding officer.

“I assure you,” averred J.D. as both she and Marilynn sat down, “it is.”

Eleanor leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. Her raised left brow was the only indication of her impatience.

“I think I may have to kill the President,” blurted J.D., proving once again that very few were better than she at getting straight to the point. Both Marilynn and Eleanor remained mute if not a little slack jawed.

“Because she gave a good speech?” Eleanor finally managed, sarcastically. “Justin gave them all the time, and I don’t ever recall you wanting to kill him.”

“Justin was not a threat to the Alliance.”

“And O’Toole is?” challenged Eleanor, practically laughing as she did.

Marilynn’s only response had been to lean forward, placing her now clasped hands on her crossed knees. Her look, however, was anything but humorous.

J.D.’s face remained implacable. “My god, Eleanor, she’s been President for barely two months. Two months, and she’s already got a real power base in the Cabinet. Even my fleet liaison—” J.D. shot Marilynn a cold look. “—is falling under her spell.”

If Marilynn felt anything from the slight, she kept it to herself, though the knuckles on her clasped hands did appear a shade whiter.

“And the common people of the Alliance,” declared J.D., “well, they practically worship the air she floats in.”

“Please get to your point,” insisted Eleanor.

J.D.’s eyes glowered. A brief exhalation of air escaped her nose, as if she were a bull readying to charge. “I have not fought this war to keep Hektor Sambianco and his ilk out only to have them replaced by a woman with the political acumen of the Chairman, the oratorical skills of the Unincorporated Man, and the seeming intentions of a megalomaniac!”

Eleanor nodded as a cruel smile formed at the corners of her upturned lips. “You’ve really become quite the spoiled brat, haven’t you, Janet?”

“How dare you,” seethed J.D.

Eleanor remained unfazed by the admiral’s infamous glower. “Two months ago, you were up in arms about being forced to assume political control of the Alliance. You said, with great conviction I might add, that it would be impossible for you to win the war from behind a desk. That you had to be with the fleet if we were to have any chance of victory. How am I doing so far?”

J.D.’s nonanswer was answer enough.

“Now, I don’t really believe in your god,” admitted Eleanor, “or an afterlife, but I know that you do. And I suspect that our President is more like me, even if she does publicly uphold her faith, so I find it rather remarkable that you cannot see this situation in terms that you’d find appealing.”

“What could possibly be appealing about a tyrant?”

“You needed someone to run the political aspect of the war so that you could run, unimpeded, its military aspect, and you needed that someone fast. You were days, even hours from being forced into the Presidency. And then—”

“And then a miracle,” said Marilynn, finding her voice. She lifted her head slightly to meet J.D.’s troubled eyes. “Admiral, I’m sorry if you’ve felt my loyalties have been divided. I will tender my resignation if you desire and return to the fleet as a bottom-rank spacer, but first I will be heard.”

J.D. tipped her head slightly forward.

“Congresswoman McKenzie is right. The President is the miracle you asked for.”

“Sent by God, then?” J.D. asked with obvious derision.

“Perhaps. Let’s look at the facts: Right about the time you were being tasked with an impossible job—prosecuting the war
and
being pressured to run the government—you take a long shot and release a woman, practically gift-wrapped for you, from a nearly three-hundred-year suspension. In a matter of weeks, this woman, who’s just inherited a fledgling governmental organization
at war
and in abject disarray, begins to run it, or at least her part of it, effortlessly. Now, be honest, Admiral. When was the last time you really thought about the political or civilian side of this struggle?”

“That’s not a fair assessment, Marilynn. I haven’t thought about
anything
except fighting the Long Battle.”

“Bullshit,” decried Eleanor. “If things were falling apart back here, you wouldn’t have had a choice. You would’ve
had
to pay attention. And let’s be clear as to what’s been happening.” Eleanor started counting off points on her fingers. “One, we have a brand-new President in the middle of a crisis. Two, we’ve lost the asteroid belt. Three, we’re—” Eleanor paused for reflection— “Sandra’s
also
helping manage the Diaspora. And just in case you forgot, that is tens of thousands of settlements and hundreds of millions of people all fleeing the Belt at once. Four, we’ve created a brand-new Cabinet
and
had a constitutional crisis when the geniuses in that Cabinet forgot that six positions in a group charged with voting to approve measures doesn’t exactly work when you’ve got an evenly divided argument. And don’t think I haven’t lorded that brilliant snafu over Mosh at every possible opportunity.” Eleanor now grew more serious. “Janet, did you have to deal with any of this, really?”

J.D. reluctantly shook her head.

“Marilynn didn’t report any of these problems to you, because they were not
your
problems anymore. You got what you most desperately needed. And what’s your response? Typical military: you want to kill it.”

Marilynn shot to J.D.’s defense. “That’s out of line, Congresswoman.”

“No,” cut in J.D., her tone far less strident, “Eleanor’s right. That
was
my reaction. I underestimated the President. I underestimated her as badly as I have ever underestimated anyone. And because of that, this woman, this veritable
stranger,
may very well end up running the Alliance.”

“Admiral,” said Marilynn, “if I honestly thought the President was a threat to the Alliance, I’d shoot her myself.”

“It may come to that, Marilynn,” suggested J.D. “We don’t even know what her real motives are.”

“I think we do,” said Eleanor. “You heard her speech in the park. She said she was doing it all for Justin, and I, for one, believe her. I’m not sure why, but I do.”

A long silence followed on Eleanor’s words as J.D. worked through the conversation. Then she said, “I’ll admit, I did want someone to prosecute the war more fully. Funny thing is, I just assumed—with Justin out of the way—it would be me. But the President’s recent vote to pass the VR initiative helps rather than hinders.… I’ll give you that.”

An almost imperceptible twitch was the only indication of Marilynn’s opinion.

Eleanor shook her head and laughed. “I can’t believe that I’m the one who needs to tell you this, Janet.”

J.D. shot her friend a curious glance. “What?”

The Congresswoman’s weary face suddenly opened up and a warm smile emerged like a flower greeting the morning sun.

“I think you need to have a little faith.”

16 Now You See Me

UHFS
Liddel,
Blockade duty, 6.5 million kilometers inward from Ceres

It had been six months since the Long Battle, and Samuel Trang was glad to finally be back comfortably situated in the command chair of his old flagship. As Trang took in the new digs, he felt a tinge of regret. His “old girl” was no longer that at all. The Martian shipyards had completely reworked the ship in record time, returning it before his admittedly rushed deadline. The UHFS
Liddel
now had upgraded weapons, a more efficient propulsion system, thicker armor, and an internal stability system more suited for atomic blast maneuvering.
But more important,
thought Trang with rueful delight,
my new old girl can now fire out of her ass
.

Trang ran his fingers across the chair’s command tablet, checking the status of the rest of his fleet. He had exactly 330 ships divided into three wings. Each wing consisted of battle cruisers, cruisers, frigates, and auxiliary ships. One wing was to be held in reserve and commanded by a nonentity that Sambianco had insisted on. Trang had agreed, with the understanding that he had the right to boot the President’s sycophant should the shit hit the fan. Zenobia had the Alpha Wing and Trang the Beta. And Gupta—Gupta was far away and getting farther.

Cabinet Room, Ceres

Sandra O’Toole, pleased to discover that her well-honed gift for gab had not deteriorated, led a guided tour of the Cliff House. And as a result of that skill, all her press junkets had taken on an aura of informality. There were luaus along the Cerean sea’s rocky shoreline, hangliding along the capital’s main thoroughfares, and most requested of all, visits to the shrine of Justin’s space suit. The lines always seemed to stretch for kilometers, but Sandra had a way of insinuating whatever group she was leading into the temple without aggravating those who’d patiently waited an eternity. Mouths always dropped as she regaled the groups with Justin Cord’s last moments and her pivotal role in his mysterious disappearance. She wasn’t just living history; she was also the only link to the Unincorporated Man’s enigmatic past and martyrdom.

As often as not, the visitors would ask to touch her as they would the space suit Justin’s clothes had been found in prior to his disappearance. Sandra hadn’t minded the veneration. If it gave the people hope, then she was at least fulfilling part of Justin’s mandate. Over time, and the touch of tens of thousands of hands, the spacesuit had started to become grimy, and so to preserve it, the authorities had shielded all but its now outstretched hand. The reasoning was simple. The glove’s material was significantly more robust than that of the suit. Sandra often smiled inwardly as day after day, hour after hour, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel painting was ironically replayed over and over by the people’s extended fingers to the gloved fingers of Justin’s near empty suit.

*   *   *

“Madam President, that was a masterful performance today,” Padamir said, starting off the meeting. “The press adores you, and that makes my job much easier.”

“Yes,” Kirk said sourly, “let’s all be grateful that the press adores our President.”

The comment passed without much notice. Either because everyone had gotten used to Kirk’s sarcasm or because the room was more crowded than usual. Besides the usual six cabinet members, there was also Kenji Isozaki, Eleanor McKenzie, and Alonzo Chu, Rabbi’s new assistant—all situated at the end of the table where Tyler Sadma was used to sitting in isolation. He didn’t seem at all pleased to be sharing the space with the others. He was still wearing his black outfits, and his expression was still as grim as it had been the day he found out about the death of his niece, Christina.

Sandra, as usual, had taken her seat at the head of the table, and to her immediate right sat Padamir Singh, Mosh McKenzie, and Hildegard Rhunsfeld. To her immediate left sat Kirk Olmstead, Admiral Sinclair, and Rabbi. Eleanor chose not to sit near her husband but shared the end of the table with Tyler, seemingly oblivious of his discomfort. Tyler was notoriously formal with all women, and had it not already been well known how much he loved and valued his wife, it would have been assumed that he was celibate.