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"No, thank you. Please feel free to refresh your own glass, though."
"Not just now, thanks," Theisman told her, and waited until she'd seated herself before he sat facing her. "How can I help you, Citizen Secretary?" he asked in a courteous tone while the bodyguards stationed themselves behind her.
"I wanted to discuss Citizen Rear Admiral Tourville's actions," she replied, and he felt a fresh stab of alarm, for her voice was cold and the flatness was back in her eyes.
"In what respect, Ma'am?" His whiskey-abused stomach knotted, yet he managed to keep the wariness out of his voice and expression. But it was hard, and Ransom's next words made it even harder.
"I'm not at all happy about his obvious attempt to consign his prisoners to military custody," she said.
"I'm not certain I follow your reasoning, Citizen Secretary," Theisman said as calmly as he could. "His prisoners are already in military custody, and he did report their capture and seek confirmation of his intention to transfer them direct to Tarragon."
"Don't play games with me, Citizen Admiral." Ransoms voice was colder still, and she smiled thinly. "Loyalty to one's subordinates is an admirable quality, but you know what I mean. This Harrington is scarcely an ordinary prisoner of war, and you and Tourville both know it. Her capture is a political factor of the first importance. As such, her disposition is a political, not a military, decision!"
"But, Citizen Secretary," Theisman tried, "under the Deneb Accords..."
"I'm not interested in the Deneb Accords!" Ransom snapped. She leaned forward and glared at Theisman. "The Deneb Accords were signed by the Legislaturalists, not the representatives of the People, and the People aren't bound by archaic remnants of the plutocratic past, not when they're locked in a fight to the death with other plutocratic elitists! This is a war of ideologies, and there can be no compromise between them. Why can't military officers realize that? This isn't another one of your 'warrior' clique's wars against 'honorable enemies' or 'fellow officers,' Citizen Admiral! It's a class war, a revolutionary struggle in which the sole acceptable outcome is not just the defeat but the annihilation of our enemies, because if we fail to wipe them out this time, they'll surely crush us and reimpose their exploitative rule once more. The one thing, the only thing, that matters is winning, and only people who have the political vision and willpower to admit that offer any chance of survival. Well, the Committee of Public Safety has that vision, and we refuse to throw away any tool or option which can help us win just because of some useless scrap of paper we never signed!"
Thomas Theisman wondered if the inhaler had actually worked after all, for her fervor sounded completely genuine. But that was ridiculous... wasn't it? What she'd just said was entirely in line with the Republic's official propaganda line, yet surely the woman responsible for presenting that line had to know better than to believe it herself!
"I can't disagree in theory, Citizen Secretary," he said carefully, "but I feel there are some practical consequences, tactical ones, not matters of fundamental principle, which must also be considered."
Ransom's mouth tightened ominously, but she didn't interrupt, and he kneaded his throbbing temple with one hand and went on even more cautiously.
"Specifically, Ma'am, it seems to me that the rank and file of the Manticoran Navy actually believe in the system for which they're fighting, and they see the Deneb Accords as an important part of that system. If we violate..."
"Nonsense!" Ransom broke in impatiently. "Oh, no doubt many of the enemy's prewar professionals do believe that drivel. After all, they're mercenaries who were stupid enough, or brainwashed or greedy enough, to volunteer to serve their imperialist exploiters for pay! But since the war started, their navy's been forced to recruit from the masses of the People. As the fighting goes on, more and more of their total manpower will have to be conscripted, just as ours is, and the conscripts won't believe the elitists' lies. They'll realize they're being sacrificed in a war against their own kind for the profit of their natural enemies, and when they do, they'll turn on their overlords just as we turned on ours!"
Theisman flinched. He couldn't help himself, for he'd just discovered a terrifying secret: Cordelia Ransom actually believed her own propaganda.
He sat very still, wishing he'd picked any other night to get drunk, and made himself draw a deep mental breath. She can't really believe it, he argued with himself. Or can she? Is it really possible that she actually believes what she tells the Proles?
No, he decided. She was a master at manipulating the Mob, and she'd shifted ground too quickly in the early days, changed course too rapidly in response to the Mob's unformed, changeful urges and desires. She'd been too successful at running in front of it, trying to anticipate its next lunge, to be a true ideologue.
But that only tells you what she was, Thomas. She's had years since then, years to put her own imprint on what the Mob wants. She's not really anticipating its direction anymore; she's shaping that direction.
His roiled stomach clenched at that thought, yet there was a fundamental conflict between the images of the cynical manipulator he was certain she was and the passionate ideologist who could believe the line she'd just spouted. The woman who dragged bodyguards everywhere to prove how important she was and whose propaganda ministry shaped and forged its lies to support any claim the Committee cared to make made an even more unlikely paladin of the proletariat than Thomas Theisman did. She had to know she was lying, or she couldn't have done it so consistently and well.
But there was another possibility, one almost as frightening as it was probable. After so long in a position of unchecked power, after so many years of being able to make the official truth over into whatever image she pleased, could it be that she'd lost the ability to recognize the actual truth? Theisman had known officers from powerful Legislaturalist families who'd fallen prey to a similar blindness. They'd known the situations described in their reports to the Admiralty bore only casual relationships to the truth, yet given their family positions, no one had dared to challenge those reports. And over the years, they'd come to operate on two separate levels: one in which they lied to their superiors to protect their private little empires, and another in which they genuinely believed they could make something true simply by saying that it was so.
Who in the People's Republic could tell Cordelia Ransom she was wrong? She had no peers, aside from Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just, and the whole suppressive force of the Office of State Security stood behind her. It was high treason to question the gospel as preached by Public Information, for God's sake!
The madness went even deeper than he'd suspected, he thought shakenly. At least one member of the triumvirate which ruled his star nation had come to see its enemies through the distorting prisms of her own invention, and she was actually making decisions, decisions which could mean the life or death of the Republic, on that basis!
"I can't speak for every officer in the Navy, Citizen Secretary," he said after a pause he hoped hadn't stretched dangerously long, "but I can speak for myself when I say that I've never doubted that military policy must be subject to civilian control."
He chose his words with exquisite care. He had never been in more danger in his life, and he knew it. But somehow someone had to shake Ransom back into accepting a policy which contained some vestige of reason, and he seemed to be the only spokesman available. His nausea and pounding head didn't help, and his palms felt clammy, yet fear gave his thoughts a razor sharpness as he continued.
"My concern with the observance of the Deneb Accords stems from my own reading of the attitude of the Solarian League’s inspectors and, if you'll pardon my saying so, of the relevant political direction I have, in fact received." All of which, he reflected, was true enough, although not in the way Ransom had in mind.
"What 'relevant political direction'?" Ransom demanded suspiciously.
"Public Informations official statements have always emphasized that the PRH will treat its prisoners 'properly' a definition which most star nations apply to actions in keeping with the provisions of the Deneb Accords. It was never specifically stated that we would act within those limitations, but that certainly appeared to be implied, and I do know that several Solarian League representatives with whom I've spoken attached that interpretation to our statements. And while I realize disinformation has a critical role to play in wartime, I've received no directives to suggest our intention in this case was to mislead. Under the circumstances, the only conclusion I felt I could draw was that I was, indeed, to consider the Accords binding upon my actions and those of my subordinates. I certainly wasn't prepared to risk conflicts with the Committee's apparent intentions by instructing my officers to adopt any other position."
"I see." Ransom leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, and cocked her head once more. "I hadn't thought of it in those terms, Citizen Admiral," she said after a moment, in much less chilling tones. "You raise a point which the Committee clearly hasn't considered in sufficient detail. A coherent, top-down announcement will be required if we expect our commanders to know just what policy is, won't it?" She pursed her lips, then nodded slowly. "Yes, I can see that. In fact, I wonder why I hadn't seen it already? We've certainly recognized the need to clearly enunciate other policy changes. I see Secretary Saint-Just and I obviously have to sit down and thrash this one out, as well, in order to promulgate the proper directives."
"I'm sure the Committee will make the right decision, Ma'am." At least, I hope to hell Pierre and Saint-Just will overrule you, anyway! "May I make an interim suggestion to govern our actions in the meantime, however?"
"Certainly," Ransom said almost graciously.
"Thank you." Theisman carefully refrained from wiping his brow and tried to sound reasonable and confident but nonconfrontational, with no sign of the agonizing care with which he chose his words. "On a purely pragmatic level, I think it would pay us to apply the Accords to the general population of POWs without requiring, or allowing, local military commanders to make decisions to the contrary without specific directions from above." He raised a deprecating hand as she opened her mouth. "I'm not suggesting that political decisions won't have to be made in some individual cases, but I see three major advantages in relying on the Accords in most cases.
"One is that the military requires some general policy upon which to base its actions. I realize our commissioners will be available to advise us, but without such a general policy, we'll find ourselves in a position in which every system, fleet, task force, and squadron commander and his commissioner will have to set their own individual policies. I'm afraid the only possible outcome of that could be chaos. If, on the other hand, we continue to use the Accords as a primary guide, local commanders can make their decisions on that basis to ensure consistent dispositions of captured personnel. Where deviations from that policy are properly indicated, appropriate political direction can always be transmitted to the commanders in question at a later time."
He paused until Ransom nodded grudgingly. "And the other advantages?" she asked.
"The second one," Theisman said, "is the propaganda opportunities adherence to the Accords would provide, and, conversely, the dangers which might arise from an official, wholesale abandonment of them. The Accords are important to the decision-making segments of both the Alliance and the Solarian League. Without admitting that those decision-makers are the legitimate representatives of the People..." but without admitting that they aren't, either! "...we can't deny the objective reality that they are making the decisions at this moment. Among those decisions are the ones under which we're receiving clandestine support from certain elements within the League. If we denounce the Accords, those supporting the war against us will certainly attempt to portray us in the worst possible light for domestic consumption, which could have the twin effects of stiffening the Manties' wills and providing them with additional leverage with which to attempt to cut off the aid we're receiving from the League.
"If, on the other hand, we continue to abide by the Accords' stipulations, we can present ourselves as the natural allies of the people of the Star Kingdom. Remember that only about twenty percent of captured enemy personnel are officers, Citizen Secretary, and not even all of them come from the aristocracy or plutocracy. Put another way, at least eighty percent of the prisoners who profit from our observance of the Accords will come from the other classes of Manticoran society. By emphasizing that we treat our prisoners as the Accords provide, we'll reassure our natural allies among the enemy's population that we'll treat them well if they surrender... or come over to our side."
"Hm." Ransom rubbed her nose for a moment, eyes hooded and thoughtful, then nodded slowly. "There's certainly something to that, Citizen Admiral," she conceded. "Of course, if we make that our official position, we'll have to be very selective in the instances in which we don't comply with all of the Accords' ridiculous provisions. If we're not, Manty propagandists will certainly fasten on the individual cases in which we make other... dispositions as proof that we're lying."
"That may be so, Ma'am." Of course it is, you twit! That's why I suggested it, Theisman thought, but no sign of it showed on his face. "I'm simply offering you my own perspective on the matter."
"I understand that, Citizen Admiral. But you said there was a third advantage?"
"Yes, Ma'am. Put simply, it's a question of reciprocity. If we treat their captured personnel well, we have a basis for demanding that they treat our people well. In effect, they'll have to treat their prisoners at least as well as we treat ours or find themselves losing ground in the propaganda war, and I think that's worthwhile for two reasons. First, I feel we have a moral responsibility to see to it that the personnel fighting the People's war are treated as well as possible under all circumstances, including their capture by the enemy. Second, our Navy's morale will be stronger if our personnel feel they'll be well treated in the event that they fall into enemy hands."
He started to list yet another reason to hope for reciprocal good treatment of POWs, but stopped himself in time. Pointing out to the Secretary of Public Information that the Manties had so far captured ten or fifteen times as many Republican personnel as the PRH had captured of them wouldn't be the smartest thing he could possibly do.
"I see," Ransom said again. She propped her elbows on the arms of her chair and steepled her fingers under her chin, regarding Theisman through opaque eyes, and he looked back steadily, trying to ignore the churning of his stomach. "I must say, Citizen Admiral," she went on after several silent moments, "that I'm impressed by the reasoning behind your arguments. It's a pity you've been so, ah, apolitical previously. We could make use of a flag officer with your insights."
"I've been apolitical because I don't feel suited to a political career," Theisman said with a generous ten thousand percent understatement.
"I'm not so certain of that," Ransom mused. "You certainly seem to have a keen grasp of the propaganda aspects of the situation!"
"I'm flattered that you think so, Ma'am, but I'm not sure I can agree," Theisman replied. He was very careful not to add that the fact that she thought he had "a keen grasp" of anything to do with the present situation said a lot about the faultiness of her own grasp of it. "Actually, I'm sure that if you consider it you'll realize my observations all relate to what I see as the military implications of our policy on the Accords. I'm concerned with things like not jeopardizing our contact with the Solarian Leagues technical experts, or strengthening the enemy's will to fight or weakening our own. I'm afraid that beyond that point, my grasp of the overall political and economic dimensions of the war are limited. Remember our discussion on the day you arrived here? My entire adult life and career have been within the military community, not society at large, and I feel very strongly that I should stay with the trade I know best in a war like this."
"Perhaps you're right," Ransom said. "Frankly, in light of your record in the field, we might be unwise to try moving you back to the capital system. The war effort requires political direction for success, but it also requires officers capable of translating that direction into successful action on the battlefield."
Theisman gave a nod that was half bow but said nothing, and she lowered her hands to run them up and down the chair arms.
"You've given me quite a bit to think about, Citizen Admiral," she said. "I may have been hasty in dismissing the Accords as useless. Mind you, I still see no reason we should consider ourselves bound by obsolete agreements drafted by our class enemies if it's to our advantage to discard them, but you've certainly gotten me to think about the unwisdom of doing so without careful consideration of the consequences."
Theisman nodded again. His stomach was a solid knot as tension combined with too much cheap whiskey, and the strain of keeping it out of his voice and expression made him want to throw up. But it looked as if his effort had been worthwhile, and he tried very hard not to think about all the other ways someone like Ransom could produce disasters... or atrocities.
"At any rate," she said more briskly, pushing up out of her chair, "this is clearly not the time to unilaterally denounce them." The relief Theisman felt at those words made his knees so weak he had trouble standing to match her movement, but she wasn't done. "And for the instances in which violating them is indicated," she added, "we'll have to be careful in our justifications, you're certainly right about that, Citizen Admiral."
It was fortunate for Thomas Theisman that she was turning toward the door as she spoke, for it meant she missed the flash of pure horror which flickered across his face despite all he could do.
"Yes," she went on thoughtfully as he made himself escort her courteously to the door, "this is going to take some thought. Perhaps what we should do is centralize all POW decisions. We could adopt a policy under which the names of captured personnel are provided to the League inspectors only from central HQs. For that matter, we could restrict the inspectors' contacts and unescorted movements to the planets where we put those HQs, couldn't we?" Her voice brightened. "Of course we could! We can take the position that it's a matter of our own military security and that doing things in an orderly, organized fashion will actually make it easier for us to assure our POWs receive proper care. We'll even be telling the truth! Of course," she flashed another of those icy, hungry smiles, "it will also mean we'll never have to admit ever having even seen the... inconvenient prisoners. What a pity we didn't think of all this before! It certainly would have simplified the present situation."
Theisman swallowed bile as the Secretary of Public Information paused at the door to shake his hand warmly.
"Thank you very much, Citizen Admiral!" she said enthusiastically. "You've been a tremendous help to the war effort. If you have any other valuable ideas, please share them with me!"
She gave his hand another squeeze, smiled brightly, and left, and Thomas Theisman barely made it to the head before he vomited.
Chapter Twenty-One
"Not just now, thanks," Theisman told her, and waited until she'd seated herself before he sat facing her. "How can I help you, Citizen Secretary?" he asked in a courteous tone while the bodyguards stationed themselves behind her.
"I wanted to discuss Citizen Rear Admiral Tourville's actions," she replied, and he felt a fresh stab of alarm, for her voice was cold and the flatness was back in her eyes.
"In what respect, Ma'am?" His whiskey-abused stomach knotted, yet he managed to keep the wariness out of his voice and expression. But it was hard, and Ransom's next words made it even harder.
"I'm not at all happy about his obvious attempt to consign his prisoners to military custody," she said.
"I'm not certain I follow your reasoning, Citizen Secretary," Theisman said as calmly as he could. "His prisoners are already in military custody, and he did report their capture and seek confirmation of his intention to transfer them direct to Tarragon."
"Don't play games with me, Citizen Admiral." Ransoms voice was colder still, and she smiled thinly. "Loyalty to one's subordinates is an admirable quality, but you know what I mean. This Harrington is scarcely an ordinary prisoner of war, and you and Tourville both know it. Her capture is a political factor of the first importance. As such, her disposition is a political, not a military, decision!"
"But, Citizen Secretary," Theisman tried, "under the Deneb Accords..."
"I'm not interested in the Deneb Accords!" Ransom snapped. She leaned forward and glared at Theisman. "The Deneb Accords were signed by the Legislaturalists, not the representatives of the People, and the People aren't bound by archaic remnants of the plutocratic past, not when they're locked in a fight to the death with other plutocratic elitists! This is a war of ideologies, and there can be no compromise between them. Why can't military officers realize that? This isn't another one of your 'warrior' clique's wars against 'honorable enemies' or 'fellow officers,' Citizen Admiral! It's a class war, a revolutionary struggle in which the sole acceptable outcome is not just the defeat but the annihilation of our enemies, because if we fail to wipe them out this time, they'll surely crush us and reimpose their exploitative rule once more. The one thing, the only thing, that matters is winning, and only people who have the political vision and willpower to admit that offer any chance of survival. Well, the Committee of Public Safety has that vision, and we refuse to throw away any tool or option which can help us win just because of some useless scrap of paper we never signed!"
Thomas Theisman wondered if the inhaler had actually worked after all, for her fervor sounded completely genuine. But that was ridiculous... wasn't it? What she'd just said was entirely in line with the Republic's official propaganda line, yet surely the woman responsible for presenting that line had to know better than to believe it herself!
"I can't disagree in theory, Citizen Secretary," he said carefully, "but I feel there are some practical consequences, tactical ones, not matters of fundamental principle, which must also be considered."
Ransom's mouth tightened ominously, but she didn't interrupt, and he kneaded his throbbing temple with one hand and went on even more cautiously.
"Specifically, Ma'am, it seems to me that the rank and file of the Manticoran Navy actually believe in the system for which they're fighting, and they see the Deneb Accords as an important part of that system. If we violate..."
"Nonsense!" Ransom broke in impatiently. "Oh, no doubt many of the enemy's prewar professionals do believe that drivel. After all, they're mercenaries who were stupid enough, or brainwashed or greedy enough, to volunteer to serve their imperialist exploiters for pay! But since the war started, their navy's been forced to recruit from the masses of the People. As the fighting goes on, more and more of their total manpower will have to be conscripted, just as ours is, and the conscripts won't believe the elitists' lies. They'll realize they're being sacrificed in a war against their own kind for the profit of their natural enemies, and when they do, they'll turn on their overlords just as we turned on ours!"
Theisman flinched. He couldn't help himself, for he'd just discovered a terrifying secret: Cordelia Ransom actually believed her own propaganda.
He sat very still, wishing he'd picked any other night to get drunk, and made himself draw a deep mental breath. She can't really believe it, he argued with himself. Or can she? Is it really possible that she actually believes what she tells the Proles?
No, he decided. She was a master at manipulating the Mob, and she'd shifted ground too quickly in the early days, changed course too rapidly in response to the Mob's unformed, changeful urges and desires. She'd been too successful at running in front of it, trying to anticipate its next lunge, to be a true ideologue.
But that only tells you what she was, Thomas. She's had years since then, years to put her own imprint on what the Mob wants. She's not really anticipating its direction anymore; she's shaping that direction.
His roiled stomach clenched at that thought, yet there was a fundamental conflict between the images of the cynical manipulator he was certain she was and the passionate ideologist who could believe the line she'd just spouted. The woman who dragged bodyguards everywhere to prove how important she was and whose propaganda ministry shaped and forged its lies to support any claim the Committee cared to make made an even more unlikely paladin of the proletariat than Thomas Theisman did. She had to know she was lying, or she couldn't have done it so consistently and well.
But there was another possibility, one almost as frightening as it was probable. After so long in a position of unchecked power, after so many years of being able to make the official truth over into whatever image she pleased, could it be that she'd lost the ability to recognize the actual truth? Theisman had known officers from powerful Legislaturalist families who'd fallen prey to a similar blindness. They'd known the situations described in their reports to the Admiralty bore only casual relationships to the truth, yet given their family positions, no one had dared to challenge those reports. And over the years, they'd come to operate on two separate levels: one in which they lied to their superiors to protect their private little empires, and another in which they genuinely believed they could make something true simply by saying that it was so.
Who in the People's Republic could tell Cordelia Ransom she was wrong? She had no peers, aside from Rob Pierre and Oscar Saint-Just, and the whole suppressive force of the Office of State Security stood behind her. It was high treason to question the gospel as preached by Public Information, for God's sake!
The madness went even deeper than he'd suspected, he thought shakenly. At least one member of the triumvirate which ruled his star nation had come to see its enemies through the distorting prisms of her own invention, and she was actually making decisions, decisions which could mean the life or death of the Republic, on that basis!
"I can't speak for every officer in the Navy, Citizen Secretary," he said after a pause he hoped hadn't stretched dangerously long, "but I can speak for myself when I say that I've never doubted that military policy must be subject to civilian control."
He chose his words with exquisite care. He had never been in more danger in his life, and he knew it. But somehow someone had to shake Ransom back into accepting a policy which contained some vestige of reason, and he seemed to be the only spokesman available. His nausea and pounding head didn't help, and his palms felt clammy, yet fear gave his thoughts a razor sharpness as he continued.
"My concern with the observance of the Deneb Accords stems from my own reading of the attitude of the Solarian League’s inspectors and, if you'll pardon my saying so, of the relevant political direction I have, in fact received." All of which, he reflected, was true enough, although not in the way Ransom had in mind.
"What 'relevant political direction'?" Ransom demanded suspiciously.
"Public Informations official statements have always emphasized that the PRH will treat its prisoners 'properly' a definition which most star nations apply to actions in keeping with the provisions of the Deneb Accords. It was never specifically stated that we would act within those limitations, but that certainly appeared to be implied, and I do know that several Solarian League representatives with whom I've spoken attached that interpretation to our statements. And while I realize disinformation has a critical role to play in wartime, I've received no directives to suggest our intention in this case was to mislead. Under the circumstances, the only conclusion I felt I could draw was that I was, indeed, to consider the Accords binding upon my actions and those of my subordinates. I certainly wasn't prepared to risk conflicts with the Committee's apparent intentions by instructing my officers to adopt any other position."
"I see." Ransom leaned back in her chair, crossed her legs, and cocked her head once more. "I hadn't thought of it in those terms, Citizen Admiral," she said after a moment, in much less chilling tones. "You raise a point which the Committee clearly hasn't considered in sufficient detail. A coherent, top-down announcement will be required if we expect our commanders to know just what policy is, won't it?" She pursed her lips, then nodded slowly. "Yes, I can see that. In fact, I wonder why I hadn't seen it already? We've certainly recognized the need to clearly enunciate other policy changes. I see Secretary Saint-Just and I obviously have to sit down and thrash this one out, as well, in order to promulgate the proper directives."
"I'm sure the Committee will make the right decision, Ma'am." At least, I hope to hell Pierre and Saint-Just will overrule you, anyway! "May I make an interim suggestion to govern our actions in the meantime, however?"
"Certainly," Ransom said almost graciously.
"Thank you." Theisman carefully refrained from wiping his brow and tried to sound reasonable and confident but nonconfrontational, with no sign of the agonizing care with which he chose his words. "On a purely pragmatic level, I think it would pay us to apply the Accords to the general population of POWs without requiring, or allowing, local military commanders to make decisions to the contrary without specific directions from above." He raised a deprecating hand as she opened her mouth. "I'm not suggesting that political decisions won't have to be made in some individual cases, but I see three major advantages in relying on the Accords in most cases.
"One is that the military requires some general policy upon which to base its actions. I realize our commissioners will be available to advise us, but without such a general policy, we'll find ourselves in a position in which every system, fleet, task force, and squadron commander and his commissioner will have to set their own individual policies. I'm afraid the only possible outcome of that could be chaos. If, on the other hand, we continue to use the Accords as a primary guide, local commanders can make their decisions on that basis to ensure consistent dispositions of captured personnel. Where deviations from that policy are properly indicated, appropriate political direction can always be transmitted to the commanders in question at a later time."
He paused until Ransom nodded grudgingly. "And the other advantages?" she asked.
"The second one," Theisman said, "is the propaganda opportunities adherence to the Accords would provide, and, conversely, the dangers which might arise from an official, wholesale abandonment of them. The Accords are important to the decision-making segments of both the Alliance and the Solarian League. Without admitting that those decision-makers are the legitimate representatives of the People..." but without admitting that they aren't, either! "...we can't deny the objective reality that they are making the decisions at this moment. Among those decisions are the ones under which we're receiving clandestine support from certain elements within the League. If we denounce the Accords, those supporting the war against us will certainly attempt to portray us in the worst possible light for domestic consumption, which could have the twin effects of stiffening the Manties' wills and providing them with additional leverage with which to attempt to cut off the aid we're receiving from the League.
"If, on the other hand, we continue to abide by the Accords' stipulations, we can present ourselves as the natural allies of the people of the Star Kingdom. Remember that only about twenty percent of captured enemy personnel are officers, Citizen Secretary, and not even all of them come from the aristocracy or plutocracy. Put another way, at least eighty percent of the prisoners who profit from our observance of the Accords will come from the other classes of Manticoran society. By emphasizing that we treat our prisoners as the Accords provide, we'll reassure our natural allies among the enemy's population that we'll treat them well if they surrender... or come over to our side."
"Hm." Ransom rubbed her nose for a moment, eyes hooded and thoughtful, then nodded slowly. "There's certainly something to that, Citizen Admiral," she conceded. "Of course, if we make that our official position, we'll have to be very selective in the instances in which we don't comply with all of the Accords' ridiculous provisions. If we're not, Manty propagandists will certainly fasten on the individual cases in which we make other... dispositions as proof that we're lying."
"That may be so, Ma'am." Of course it is, you twit! That's why I suggested it, Theisman thought, but no sign of it showed on his face. "I'm simply offering you my own perspective on the matter."
"I understand that, Citizen Admiral. But you said there was a third advantage?"
"Yes, Ma'am. Put simply, it's a question of reciprocity. If we treat their captured personnel well, we have a basis for demanding that they treat our people well. In effect, they'll have to treat their prisoners at least as well as we treat ours or find themselves losing ground in the propaganda war, and I think that's worthwhile for two reasons. First, I feel we have a moral responsibility to see to it that the personnel fighting the People's war are treated as well as possible under all circumstances, including their capture by the enemy. Second, our Navy's morale will be stronger if our personnel feel they'll be well treated in the event that they fall into enemy hands."
He started to list yet another reason to hope for reciprocal good treatment of POWs, but stopped himself in time. Pointing out to the Secretary of Public Information that the Manties had so far captured ten or fifteen times as many Republican personnel as the PRH had captured of them wouldn't be the smartest thing he could possibly do.
"I see," Ransom said again. She propped her elbows on the arms of her chair and steepled her fingers under her chin, regarding Theisman through opaque eyes, and he looked back steadily, trying to ignore the churning of his stomach. "I must say, Citizen Admiral," she went on after several silent moments, "that I'm impressed by the reasoning behind your arguments. It's a pity you've been so, ah, apolitical previously. We could make use of a flag officer with your insights."
"I've been apolitical because I don't feel suited to a political career," Theisman said with a generous ten thousand percent understatement.
"I'm not so certain of that," Ransom mused. "You certainly seem to have a keen grasp of the propaganda aspects of the situation!"
"I'm flattered that you think so, Ma'am, but I'm not sure I can agree," Theisman replied. He was very careful not to add that the fact that she thought he had "a keen grasp" of anything to do with the present situation said a lot about the faultiness of her own grasp of it. "Actually, I'm sure that if you consider it you'll realize my observations all relate to what I see as the military implications of our policy on the Accords. I'm concerned with things like not jeopardizing our contact with the Solarian Leagues technical experts, or strengthening the enemy's will to fight or weakening our own. I'm afraid that beyond that point, my grasp of the overall political and economic dimensions of the war are limited. Remember our discussion on the day you arrived here? My entire adult life and career have been within the military community, not society at large, and I feel very strongly that I should stay with the trade I know best in a war like this."
"Perhaps you're right," Ransom said. "Frankly, in light of your record in the field, we might be unwise to try moving you back to the capital system. The war effort requires political direction for success, but it also requires officers capable of translating that direction into successful action on the battlefield."
Theisman gave a nod that was half bow but said nothing, and she lowered her hands to run them up and down the chair arms.
"You've given me quite a bit to think about, Citizen Admiral," she said. "I may have been hasty in dismissing the Accords as useless. Mind you, I still see no reason we should consider ourselves bound by obsolete agreements drafted by our class enemies if it's to our advantage to discard them, but you've certainly gotten me to think about the unwisdom of doing so without careful consideration of the consequences."
Theisman nodded again. His stomach was a solid knot as tension combined with too much cheap whiskey, and the strain of keeping it out of his voice and expression made him want to throw up. But it looked as if his effort had been worthwhile, and he tried very hard not to think about all the other ways someone like Ransom could produce disasters... or atrocities.
"At any rate," she said more briskly, pushing up out of her chair, "this is clearly not the time to unilaterally denounce them." The relief Theisman felt at those words made his knees so weak he had trouble standing to match her movement, but she wasn't done. "And for the instances in which violating them is indicated," she added, "we'll have to be careful in our justifications, you're certainly right about that, Citizen Admiral."
It was fortunate for Thomas Theisman that she was turning toward the door as she spoke, for it meant she missed the flash of pure horror which flickered across his face despite all he could do.
"Yes," she went on thoughtfully as he made himself escort her courteously to the door, "this is going to take some thought. Perhaps what we should do is centralize all POW decisions. We could adopt a policy under which the names of captured personnel are provided to the League inspectors only from central HQs. For that matter, we could restrict the inspectors' contacts and unescorted movements to the planets where we put those HQs, couldn't we?" Her voice brightened. "Of course we could! We can take the position that it's a matter of our own military security and that doing things in an orderly, organized fashion will actually make it easier for us to assure our POWs receive proper care. We'll even be telling the truth! Of course," she flashed another of those icy, hungry smiles, "it will also mean we'll never have to admit ever having even seen the... inconvenient prisoners. What a pity we didn't think of all this before! It certainly would have simplified the present situation."
Theisman swallowed bile as the Secretary of Public Information paused at the door to shake his hand warmly.
"Thank you very much, Citizen Admiral!" she said enthusiastically. "You've been a tremendous help to the war effort. If you have any other valuable ideas, please share them with me!"
She gave his hand another squeeze, smiled brightly, and left, and Thomas Theisman barely made it to the head before he vomited.
Chapter Twenty-One
The guards aboard the shuttle wore the black tunics and red trousers of State Security, not Navy green and gray or the brown and gray of the People’s Marines, and there were more of them. In fact, there was as many guards as there were prisoners, each of them with a flechette gun and the expression of someone who would enjoy using it.
Honor sat straight and still, with Nimitz a stiff, motionless weight in her lap, and tried to hide behind an assumed calm as hard, hostile eyes bored into her back. It wasn't easy, and her mask had slipped when the SS guards arrived to replace the naval escort she'd expected. Nor had the prisoners remained together for their trip planet-side, for this shuttle held only her own staffers and the more senior of Prince Adrian's commissioned personnel. The rest of McKeon's officers and the senior noncoms Tourville had been ordered to deliver to Barnett were in a second shuttle, following behind this one, and a corner of her brain wondered if they would be reunited after landing.
She didn't know, but she almost hoped not, for they would be better off as far as possible from whatever the Peeps planned for her. She knew that now, for the emotions whipping through the shuttle roared and echoed within her, and she understood exactly why Nimitz was such a knot of tension. The anxiety and fear of her fellow prisoners, their helpless ignorance as they waited to discover what their futures were, would have been bad enough, but she also felt the emotions, and anticipation, of the StateSec thugs.
And thugs they were, she thought grimly, fighting to hold onto her stability and maintain her pretense of calm while the fear of others fed her own. Manticore's intelligence agencies had analyzed State Security and its role in maintaining the Committee of Public Safety in power, and Honor had seen ONI's reports. For the most part, Admiral Givens' analysts had been more concerned with StateSecs impact on the operations of the People's Navy than with how it functioned within civilian society, but even ONI's summary reports had noted that the SS had recruited its members not just from the elements which had been the most disaffected under the old regime but from the now defunct Office of Internal Security, as well. InSec's enforcers and executioners had been professionals, not ideologues. They'd been willing enough to shift allegiance to the new regime and teach its minions their trade, and their new colleagues had learned their lessons well. In fact, they'd learned to surpass their instructors, for they'd had lots of practice.
One reason for the Legislaturalists' fall was that their repression had been... uneven. One week they might make dozens of troublemakers disappear; the next, the government might grant a general amnesty to curry favor with the Dolists. But unevenness was a mistake the Committee of Public Safety had no intention of making. Cordelia Ransom herself had proclaimed, "Extremism in the defense of the People is the first responsibility of the State," and not a day passed without StateSecs doing its best to live up to that instruction. Even the official Peep news channels made no bones about State Security's deliberate use of terror against "enemies of the People", who, after all, deserved whatever they got.
Honor hadn't questioned the accuracy of those ONI reports, yet neither had she thought their implications through. If she had, she would have realized what sort of people were required to embrace that sort of action.
She realized now. She couldn't help it, for their emotions beat in upon her like jeering demons, whispering malevolently in the back of her mind. The red fangs of hunger radiated from some of them, jagged with the need to prove their own power by grinding others under their heels. There was a sickness in that appetite for cruelty, one that turned Honors stomach, yet there was worse, as well, for some of the guards standing behind her felt no hunger. They felt nothing when they looked at Honor and the other prisoners. She and her people might have been so many insects for all the emotion those guards would feel if the order were given to murder them all, and the deadness of their feelings carried a charnel reek more horrible than the most savage sadism. They were no longer human themselves. They had become automatons, and whether they'd been drawn to State Security because they'd always been sociopaths, or whether they had been dehumanized into sociopaths mattered not at all. When their gazes rested upon her, she felt the chill anticipation coiling behind their eyes. All the shuttle guards knew what had been planned for Honor, and she didn't have to be told what it was to know it had nothing at all to do with the Deneb Accords. The fierce delight of the haters told her that. Yet the other ones, the dead ones, were even more frightening, for they waited with the cold-eyed patience of pythons. There was little eagerness in their emotions, but neither was there any hesitation... and there was no pity at all.
The shuttle buffeted gently as it entered atmosphere, and Honor closed her eyes, resting her hands on Nimitz’s warm softness. She wasted no effort hoping for the best. Not any longer.
Thomas Theisman glanced at Citizen Rear Admiral Tourville from the corner of one eye. Ransom had summoned Tourville, Honeker, Bogdanovich, and Foraker to face her even before she'd ordered Harrington and the other prisoners brought down from orbit. Theisman had been excluded from that meeting, but the normally fiery Tourville had emerged from the hour-long session white-faced and taut, and Honeker had looked equally shaken. Theisman hadn't been able to decide how much of Tourville’s tension had been fear and how much fury, but he'd entertained no such doubts where Honeker was concerned, for the Peoples Commissioner had looked outright terrified.
Bogdanovich and Foraker had been at least as pale as their superiors, but there'd been a subtle difference between the two of them. The stone-faced chief of staff was clearly frightened, though he had it under better control than Honeker did. The ops officer, on the other hand, looked like a woman who wanted to strangle people with her bare hands. For all her fabled lack of social graces, Shannon Foraker was no fool, and she clearly had herself under iron self-control, but her long, narrow face's utter lack of expression only made the murderous fire in her blue eyes more obvious.
And now it was time for the macabre circus to play itself out, and Theisman spared a thought for Warner Caslet as the shuttle settled onto its pad. Caslet had been even more upset by Harrington’s probable fate than Theisman himself. Indeed, he'd been angry enough to storm into Theisman’s office and protest it openly in front of Dennis LePic... and in language no commissioner could possibly overlook. Yet LePic had overlooked it. He must have, for Caslet hadn't been arrested, and Theisman had done his best to protect his ops officer by ordering him out on an inspection tour of the system's perimeter sensor platforms. It's not much, he told himself bitterly, but the way things are going, just keeping Warner out of StateSec's clutches has to count as a major victory!
The shuttle grounded and opened its hatch, and Theisman realized State Sec had already taken over custody of the prisoners. The uniforms of the disembarking guards were unmistakable, and the shuttle bore the hull number of PNS Tepes. More than that, the guards who surrounded the pad were also SS, without a single Marine or Navy uniform in sight. There were a lot of them, too, and they were armed to the teeth. Then again, the SS was always armed to the teeth. Its troopers never went anywhere except in pairs, and they never went anywhere unarmed... which said a great deal about their paranoia, how they were regarded by the People they nominally protected, or perhaps both. Theisman’s lip wanted to curl in contempt, but there was no room for contempt today. Not when he was afraid he knew why those guards were present in such strength.
He glanced across the terminal to where Ransom stood in casual conversation with Citizen Captain Vladovich, Tepes' captain. Vladovich’s presence was one more thing to rasp Theisman’s raw nerves, for the man should never have been promoted to his present rank. Theisman knew that from personal experience, for he'd sat on the last prewar promotion board that had rejected Vladovich's promotion to lieutenant commander... for the seventeenth time. The man had spent over twenty-six T-years as a lieutenant. Even in a navy in which Legislaturalist connections were required for promotion above captain, almost three decades in grade should have given the man a hint that he was in a dead-end career. And he had been. His undeniable ambition, drive, and experience had made him just too valuable to be ordered to retire, but the nasty stripe of sadism running through his personality had put any promotion to higher rank out of the question. He took too much delight in tormenting those junior to him, always in ways which didn't, quite, violate the letter of the regulations. That was something the Legislaturalists were prepared to tolerate only in one of their own, and much as Theisman himself had resented the Legislaturalist stranglehold on the senior rank ladder, he'd been more than happy that Vladovich would never climb it. Of course, Vladovich had never understood the true reason for his lack of promotion. He'd convinced himself it was due solely to the fact that he wasn't a Legislaturalist. Indeed, he'd actually come to believe, not simply claim, but genuinely believe, that he was the subject of a vendetta, a deliberate plot to exclude him from higher rank lest his capability and skill embarrass the Legislaturalists about him.
Under the old regime, that had been merely pathetic. Under the new, it made him a natural for service in the SS's paramilitary arms. For all his flaws, he did have a firm basic grasp of naval realities, and his ardor in rooting out and destroying "enemies of the People" was legendary. Unfortunately, he seemed to have learned nothing at all about the responsibilities of command. He was rumored to be unpopular, even with other StateSec personnel, and from reports, he ran Tepes as if the ship were his personal property and her crew (aside from his favorites) were his serfs. No doubt he was always careful to cloak his attitude in the proper platitudes about service to the People, but his particularly nasty type of favoritism and the way he played one faction of his crew off against another turned Theisman’s stomach. And it was incredibly stupid, as well. Vladovich probably believed there was no chance his command would be called to battle like a normal fleet unit, but if it ever happened, he was going to find himself wielding a grievously flawed weapon, Theisman thought grimly. A crew whose own captain set its members at one another's throats would go into battle with both hands tied behind its back, crippled by lack of cohesion, and Vladovich didn't even seem to realize it.
But at the moment he looked every inch a battlecruiser’s captain, allowing for the black-and-red State Security uniform, as Ransom chatted with him, apparently oblivious to the HD crew recording every instant of the day. Her back was turned to the windows, and the shuttle pad beyond them, in an elaborate show of disinterest, and Theisman clenched his jaw. Such obvious theatrics would have been amusing in someone with less power; in Cordelia Ransom they were terrifying. For she wasn't someone without power, and there was a message in her body language. She would not have made her contempt for the prisoners being brought to her so blatant, not with the cameras running, if she'd had any intention of treating them with respect, and Vladovich’s smile of anticipation only confirmed the citizen admiral's dread.
He turned away from the two of them, gazing back out the window as the captured Manticoran and Grayson personnel emerged from the shuttle and were prodded roughly into a single file. Their guards marched them across the pad's ceramacrete apron and up the escalator to the terminal, and Theisman's eyes narrowed as he recognized the woman at the head of the line. He would have known that tall, athletic figure even without the cream-and-gray 'cat in her arms, and he inhaled deeply as he recognized the broad-shouldered senior captain immediately behind her. Alistair McKeon. Another Manticoran Thomas Theisman knew, and one whose good opinion he valued. What would McKeon think of him after today? It wasn't Theisman's fault, and he knew it, and part of him felt a fresh, terrible spasm of anger, this one directed as much at Harrington and McKeon as at Ransom. It was irrational, and he knew that, too, but still he felt it. They were going to judge him, just as he would have judged them if the roles had been reversed. And, as he would have, they would feel only contempt for him, for unlike him, they had never found themselves trapped between duty to themselves and duty to a star nation which had fallen into the grip of maniacs.
That was why he felt that dreadful flash of anger. Because however deeply his impotence shamed him, it was real. Because he longed to be worthy of their respect, and could not be. And because he knew there was no point even attempting to defy Ransom. Defiance could achieve nothing beyond dooming him beside Harrington, and even though a tired, angry part of him insisted he could do far worse than die in such company, the rest of him knew better. Impotent as he might be in this moment, it was his duty to remain alive and do what he could, anything he could, to mitigate the excesses of the madmen.
He knew that now, and a cold corner of his brain wondered why so few repressive regimes seemed to realize that they themselves created the rebels who must ultimately destroy them. How could someone like a Cordelia Ransom or a Rob Pierre, after taking advantage of that very blindness in the Legislaturalists, fail to recognize it in themselves?
The line of prisoners reached the top of the escalator, and Theisman's thoughts chopped off as one of the guards turned Harrington towards the large VIP lounge in which Ransom and her court, willing and unwilling, waited. The SS trooper used the butt of his flechette gun, none too gently, to direct his prisoner, and they were close enough now for Theisman to see and recognize the snarl on Alistair McKeon's face as the gun butt smacked Harrington's shoulder. But strong as it was, McKeon's obvious anger was less frightening than the utter lack of expression of the green-uniformed man beside him. The cut of his uniform labeled him a Grayson, which made him one of the "Marines" who were obviously Harrington's armsmen... and no doubt explained the dangerous tension churning within him. Theisman had seen that sort of nonexpression before. He knew what it meant, and the helpless spectator trapped within him begged the auburn-haired Grayson not to lose control. Surrounded by so many heavily armed guards, the consequences of a berserk attack could only be a massacre.
A growled command brought the prisoners to a halt and, for the first time, Theisman forced himself to meet Honor Harrington's eyes.
If possible, she looked worse than he'd dreaded, and he bit his lip painfully. Her face was even more expressionless than her armsman's. The only times he'd seen her before in person had been during and immediately after the Republic's first disastrous Yeltsin operation. Her left eye had been covered by an eye patch then, and the entire side of her face had been crippled from her wounds, yet even so, it had been more expressive than today. Now it showed nothing, not fear, not hope, not defiance, not even curiosity. But it was only a mask, and a poor one, at that, and Theisman was shocked by what hid behind it. He'd been prepared for anger, for contempt, even for hatred; what he saw was fear. Worse than fear, it was terror, and with it came desperation.
He tasted blood as his teeth sank into his lip with involuntary strength. In her situation, he knew he would have been afraid, yet he hadn't expected Harrington to show it so clearly. But then he saw the way her arms cradled her treecat, the hopeless protectiveness of her body language, and he understood.
"So." The single, flat word jerked his eyes away from her. Cordelia Ransom had turned from her conversation with Vladovich to regard the prisoners, and her blue eyes were as contemptuous as her voice. Her lip curled as she swept her gaze across the line of prisoners, and then she sniffed disdainfully. The dismissive sound carried clearly in the silence of the lounge, and Theisman saw more than one POW stiffen angrily.
"And who might these be, Citizen Major?" Ransom asked the senior SS guard.
"Enemies of the People, Citizen Committeewoman!" the major barked.
"Indeed?"
Ransom walked slowly down the line. But no, Theisman reflected, "walk" was scarcely the word. She swaggered down the line. She strutted, and he was suddenly ashamed of the image she projected. Didn't she even begin to realize how shallow and petty, how stupid, she made herself look? Or how her contempt could affect the members of the Republic's Navy? Whatever else her prisoners were, they had fought openly and with skill for their own star nations, just as Theisman had fought for his, and when Ransom spat upon their courage and their dedication, she spat upon his. And what had she done to earn the right to treat them with contempt? What enemies had she faced in combat? Even as an insurrectionist before the coup, she'd been a terrorist, a bomber and assassin; a murderer, not a warrior. Perhaps she didn't see it that way, but that couldn't change the reality. And because it couldn't, her theatrical contempt belittled her, not them, whether she could see it or not, and her own HD crews were recording it all. All too soon it would be broadcast all over the Peoples Republic, and after that it would just as surely find its way onto the airwaves of the Manticoran Alliance and the Solarian League, and he ground his teeth at the thought.
But there was nothing he could do except stand there, his own face like stone, and watch as Ransom stopped in front of McKeon.
"And you are?" she asked him coldly, as if he were the senior officer present. For an instant he said nothing, and his gaze flicked to where Harrington stood at his side. She didn't look back at him, but she nodded, ever so slightly, and he inhaled sharply.
"Captain Alistair McKeon, Royal Manticoran Navy," he grated in tones of hammered iron. His gray eyes glittered with anger, but Ransom only sniffed again and swaggered down the entire length of the line. Then she returned to her original position, and the HD crew shifted around to get her profile as she pointed at Harrington.
"What's that animal doing here, Citizen Major?" she demanded.
"It belongs to the prisoner, Citizen Committeewoman."
"And why hasn't it been removed?" Ransom's voice was softer, almost silky, and her lip curled in a hungry smile as she watched her victim's eyes. Not a muscle twitched in Harrington's face, but Theisman sensed the way her muscles coiled still tighter as Ransom savored her power like some rare vintage.
"We were instructed not to remove it, Citizen Committeewoman," the SS major told her. "Its owner is the senior prisoner, and we were instructed to allow her to keep it."
"What?" Ransom looked at Tourville, and arctic ice glittered in her blue eyes. There was more than triumph in her expression now, and Theisman’s heart sank, for he was suddenly certain what was coming. She was going to pay Tourville off for his efforts to protect Harrington by taking the treecat away and having it destroyed in front of the cameras, he thought sickly. He was sure of it... but he was also wrong, for his suspicions fell short of what Ransom actually intended.
"Did I hear you identify this woman as the senior military prisoner, Citizen Major?" she asked softly.
"Yes, Citizen Committeewoman!"
"Then there's been some mistake," Ransom informed him, eyes still locked on Tourville’s white face. "This woman isn't a military prisoner at all."
"I beg your pardon, Citizen Committeewoman?" the citizen major said, and if anything had been needed to prove his entire conversation with Ransom was a cruel charade, his tone supplied it. The words were right, but there was absolutely no surprise in his voice, and Theisman tensed as several of the citizen majors troopers shifted position ever so slightly behind the prisoners.
"Of course not," Ransom said coldly. "This woman is Honor Harrington, Citizen Major. I double-checked the records just this morning, and there's a civilian arrest order out for her. One which predates the outbreak of hostilities." Even Harrington twitched in surprise at that, and Ransom grinned viciously.
"Honor Harrington," she said very precisely, "was arraigned for murder following her deliberate, unprovoked destruction of the unarmed Republican freighter Sirius in the Basilisk System eleven years ago, Citizen Major. She was offered the opportunity to defend herself in court, but she rejected it and her plutocratic masters refused to surrender her for trial, which left the Ministry of Justice no choice but to order her tried in absentia. She was, of course, convicted... and the sentence was death."
She stared into Tourville’s eyes, and the citizen rear admiral's fists clenched. His own eyes whipped to Harrington for a moment, then back to Ransom. Theisman felt his fury and agonized shame and willed him desperately to keep his mouth shut, but Tourville had been goaded too far.
"Citizen Committeewoman, I must protest!" he grated. "Commodore Harrington is a naval officer. As such, she..."
"She is not a naval officer!" Ransoms voice cracked like a whip. "She is a convicted murderer, Citizen Rear Admiral, and you would do well to remember that!"
"But..."
"Be careful, Citizen Rear Admiral. Be very careful."
Ransoms voice was suddenly soft, and Honeker surprised Theisman by reaching out and gripping Tourville’s elbow. He hadn't thought the people's commissioner had that much courage, or concern for Tourville, but the pressure of his fingers seemed to remind the citizen rear admiral he wasn't the only one in Ransom's sights. Bogdanovich and Foraker were in as much danger as he, with less seniority to protect them, and he clamped his jaw shut.
Ransom watched him for several seconds, then nodded slightly.
"Better," she said, and turned back to the senior guard, dismissing Tourville as beneath her attention. "Now, Citizen Major," she said. "Since the warrant for this woman's arrest and execution is a civilian order, she's hardly a matter of concern for the military, is she? Whatever unhappy events may subsequently have transpired between the People Republic and the Star Kingdom of Manticore..." her tone made the last four words into expletives "...can have no bearing on the decisions of the civilian judiciary in time of peace, nor can a naval uniform be permitted to shield its wearer from the prewar verdict of a civil court. I believe Section Twenty-Seven, Subsection Forty-One of the Deneb Accords addresses that very point." She darted a swift glance at Theisman, who managed, somehow, to keep his hatred from his expression.
"In fact," she went on, "Section Twenty-Seven specifically states that the military status of individuals is nullified if they've been convicted of a civil crime before the commencement of hostilities... which means this woman isn't a military prisoner at all. So it's fortunate you and your people, as representatives of the People's civilian legal system, are here to take charge of her, isn't it, now?"
"Yes, Citizen Committeewoman!" The citizen major snapped to attention and saluted. "What are your orders?"
Thomas Theisman’s teeth ground helplessly as Ransom smiled at the SS thug, for he knew what she was going to say. And it was his fault, he thought bitterly. No doubt she would have found a way to do what she wanted anyway, but he was the one who'd argued for observing the forms of the Deneb Accords, and the most sickening thing of all was that she'd cited them correctly. Section Twenty-Seven, Subsection Forty-One had been inserted after the Kersey Associations war against the Manitoban Republic. The Kerseyites' so-called government had put several dozen convicted Manitoban murderers into uniform for "special operations" against their home world and then claimed their status as prisoners of war protected them, if captured, from the execution of their sentences. Of course, the Kersey Association had been little more than organized pirates and murderers themselves, but their abuse of the Accords had led to their postwar modification in an effort to close the loophole the Kerseyites had exploited. And now another band of murderers was going to use that modification for its own twisted purposes, Theisman thought sickly, and the legal farce of that prewar "trial" would make it all technically legal.
Honor sat straight and still, with Nimitz a stiff, motionless weight in her lap, and tried to hide behind an assumed calm as hard, hostile eyes bored into her back. It wasn't easy, and her mask had slipped when the SS guards arrived to replace the naval escort she'd expected. Nor had the prisoners remained together for their trip planet-side, for this shuttle held only her own staffers and the more senior of Prince Adrian's commissioned personnel. The rest of McKeon's officers and the senior noncoms Tourville had been ordered to deliver to Barnett were in a second shuttle, following behind this one, and a corner of her brain wondered if they would be reunited after landing.
She didn't know, but she almost hoped not, for they would be better off as far as possible from whatever the Peeps planned for her. She knew that now, for the emotions whipping through the shuttle roared and echoed within her, and she understood exactly why Nimitz was such a knot of tension. The anxiety and fear of her fellow prisoners, their helpless ignorance as they waited to discover what their futures were, would have been bad enough, but she also felt the emotions, and anticipation, of the StateSec thugs.
And thugs they were, she thought grimly, fighting to hold onto her stability and maintain her pretense of calm while the fear of others fed her own. Manticore's intelligence agencies had analyzed State Security and its role in maintaining the Committee of Public Safety in power, and Honor had seen ONI's reports. For the most part, Admiral Givens' analysts had been more concerned with StateSecs impact on the operations of the People's Navy than with how it functioned within civilian society, but even ONI's summary reports had noted that the SS had recruited its members not just from the elements which had been the most disaffected under the old regime but from the now defunct Office of Internal Security, as well. InSec's enforcers and executioners had been professionals, not ideologues. They'd been willing enough to shift allegiance to the new regime and teach its minions their trade, and their new colleagues had learned their lessons well. In fact, they'd learned to surpass their instructors, for they'd had lots of practice.
One reason for the Legislaturalists' fall was that their repression had been... uneven. One week they might make dozens of troublemakers disappear; the next, the government might grant a general amnesty to curry favor with the Dolists. But unevenness was a mistake the Committee of Public Safety had no intention of making. Cordelia Ransom herself had proclaimed, "Extremism in the defense of the People is the first responsibility of the State," and not a day passed without StateSecs doing its best to live up to that instruction. Even the official Peep news channels made no bones about State Security's deliberate use of terror against "enemies of the People", who, after all, deserved whatever they got.
Honor hadn't questioned the accuracy of those ONI reports, yet neither had she thought their implications through. If she had, she would have realized what sort of people were required to embrace that sort of action.
She realized now. She couldn't help it, for their emotions beat in upon her like jeering demons, whispering malevolently in the back of her mind. The red fangs of hunger radiated from some of them, jagged with the need to prove their own power by grinding others under their heels. There was a sickness in that appetite for cruelty, one that turned Honors stomach, yet there was worse, as well, for some of the guards standing behind her felt no hunger. They felt nothing when they looked at Honor and the other prisoners. She and her people might have been so many insects for all the emotion those guards would feel if the order were given to murder them all, and the deadness of their feelings carried a charnel reek more horrible than the most savage sadism. They were no longer human themselves. They had become automatons, and whether they'd been drawn to State Security because they'd always been sociopaths, or whether they had been dehumanized into sociopaths mattered not at all. When their gazes rested upon her, she felt the chill anticipation coiling behind their eyes. All the shuttle guards knew what had been planned for Honor, and she didn't have to be told what it was to know it had nothing at all to do with the Deneb Accords. The fierce delight of the haters told her that. Yet the other ones, the dead ones, were even more frightening, for they waited with the cold-eyed patience of pythons. There was little eagerness in their emotions, but neither was there any hesitation... and there was no pity at all.
The shuttle buffeted gently as it entered atmosphere, and Honor closed her eyes, resting her hands on Nimitz’s warm softness. She wasted no effort hoping for the best. Not any longer.
Thomas Theisman glanced at Citizen Rear Admiral Tourville from the corner of one eye. Ransom had summoned Tourville, Honeker, Bogdanovich, and Foraker to face her even before she'd ordered Harrington and the other prisoners brought down from orbit. Theisman had been excluded from that meeting, but the normally fiery Tourville had emerged from the hour-long session white-faced and taut, and Honeker had looked equally shaken. Theisman hadn't been able to decide how much of Tourville’s tension had been fear and how much fury, but he'd entertained no such doubts where Honeker was concerned, for the Peoples Commissioner had looked outright terrified.
Bogdanovich and Foraker had been at least as pale as their superiors, but there'd been a subtle difference between the two of them. The stone-faced chief of staff was clearly frightened, though he had it under better control than Honeker did. The ops officer, on the other hand, looked like a woman who wanted to strangle people with her bare hands. For all her fabled lack of social graces, Shannon Foraker was no fool, and she clearly had herself under iron self-control, but her long, narrow face's utter lack of expression only made the murderous fire in her blue eyes more obvious.
And now it was time for the macabre circus to play itself out, and Theisman spared a thought for Warner Caslet as the shuttle settled onto its pad. Caslet had been even more upset by Harrington’s probable fate than Theisman himself. Indeed, he'd been angry enough to storm into Theisman’s office and protest it openly in front of Dennis LePic... and in language no commissioner could possibly overlook. Yet LePic had overlooked it. He must have, for Caslet hadn't been arrested, and Theisman had done his best to protect his ops officer by ordering him out on an inspection tour of the system's perimeter sensor platforms. It's not much, he told himself bitterly, but the way things are going, just keeping Warner out of StateSec's clutches has to count as a major victory!
The shuttle grounded and opened its hatch, and Theisman realized State Sec had already taken over custody of the prisoners. The uniforms of the disembarking guards were unmistakable, and the shuttle bore the hull number of PNS Tepes. More than that, the guards who surrounded the pad were also SS, without a single Marine or Navy uniform in sight. There were a lot of them, too, and they were armed to the teeth. Then again, the SS was always armed to the teeth. Its troopers never went anywhere except in pairs, and they never went anywhere unarmed... which said a great deal about their paranoia, how they were regarded by the People they nominally protected, or perhaps both. Theisman’s lip wanted to curl in contempt, but there was no room for contempt today. Not when he was afraid he knew why those guards were present in such strength.
He glanced across the terminal to where Ransom stood in casual conversation with Citizen Captain Vladovich, Tepes' captain. Vladovich’s presence was one more thing to rasp Theisman’s raw nerves, for the man should never have been promoted to his present rank. Theisman knew that from personal experience, for he'd sat on the last prewar promotion board that had rejected Vladovich's promotion to lieutenant commander... for the seventeenth time. The man had spent over twenty-six T-years as a lieutenant. Even in a navy in which Legislaturalist connections were required for promotion above captain, almost three decades in grade should have given the man a hint that he was in a dead-end career. And he had been. His undeniable ambition, drive, and experience had made him just too valuable to be ordered to retire, but the nasty stripe of sadism running through his personality had put any promotion to higher rank out of the question. He took too much delight in tormenting those junior to him, always in ways which didn't, quite, violate the letter of the regulations. That was something the Legislaturalists were prepared to tolerate only in one of their own, and much as Theisman himself had resented the Legislaturalist stranglehold on the senior rank ladder, he'd been more than happy that Vladovich would never climb it. Of course, Vladovich had never understood the true reason for his lack of promotion. He'd convinced himself it was due solely to the fact that he wasn't a Legislaturalist. Indeed, he'd actually come to believe, not simply claim, but genuinely believe, that he was the subject of a vendetta, a deliberate plot to exclude him from higher rank lest his capability and skill embarrass the Legislaturalists about him.
Under the old regime, that had been merely pathetic. Under the new, it made him a natural for service in the SS's paramilitary arms. For all his flaws, he did have a firm basic grasp of naval realities, and his ardor in rooting out and destroying "enemies of the People" was legendary. Unfortunately, he seemed to have learned nothing at all about the responsibilities of command. He was rumored to be unpopular, even with other StateSec personnel, and from reports, he ran Tepes as if the ship were his personal property and her crew (aside from his favorites) were his serfs. No doubt he was always careful to cloak his attitude in the proper platitudes about service to the People, but his particularly nasty type of favoritism and the way he played one faction of his crew off against another turned Theisman’s stomach. And it was incredibly stupid, as well. Vladovich probably believed there was no chance his command would be called to battle like a normal fleet unit, but if it ever happened, he was going to find himself wielding a grievously flawed weapon, Theisman thought grimly. A crew whose own captain set its members at one another's throats would go into battle with both hands tied behind its back, crippled by lack of cohesion, and Vladovich didn't even seem to realize it.
But at the moment he looked every inch a battlecruiser’s captain, allowing for the black-and-red State Security uniform, as Ransom chatted with him, apparently oblivious to the HD crew recording every instant of the day. Her back was turned to the windows, and the shuttle pad beyond them, in an elaborate show of disinterest, and Theisman clenched his jaw. Such obvious theatrics would have been amusing in someone with less power; in Cordelia Ransom they were terrifying. For she wasn't someone without power, and there was a message in her body language. She would not have made her contempt for the prisoners being brought to her so blatant, not with the cameras running, if she'd had any intention of treating them with respect, and Vladovich’s smile of anticipation only confirmed the citizen admiral's dread.
He turned away from the two of them, gazing back out the window as the captured Manticoran and Grayson personnel emerged from the shuttle and were prodded roughly into a single file. Their guards marched them across the pad's ceramacrete apron and up the escalator to the terminal, and Theisman's eyes narrowed as he recognized the woman at the head of the line. He would have known that tall, athletic figure even without the cream-and-gray 'cat in her arms, and he inhaled deeply as he recognized the broad-shouldered senior captain immediately behind her. Alistair McKeon. Another Manticoran Thomas Theisman knew, and one whose good opinion he valued. What would McKeon think of him after today? It wasn't Theisman's fault, and he knew it, and part of him felt a fresh, terrible spasm of anger, this one directed as much at Harrington and McKeon as at Ransom. It was irrational, and he knew that, too, but still he felt it. They were going to judge him, just as he would have judged them if the roles had been reversed. And, as he would have, they would feel only contempt for him, for unlike him, they had never found themselves trapped between duty to themselves and duty to a star nation which had fallen into the grip of maniacs.
That was why he felt that dreadful flash of anger. Because however deeply his impotence shamed him, it was real. Because he longed to be worthy of their respect, and could not be. And because he knew there was no point even attempting to defy Ransom. Defiance could achieve nothing beyond dooming him beside Harrington, and even though a tired, angry part of him insisted he could do far worse than die in such company, the rest of him knew better. Impotent as he might be in this moment, it was his duty to remain alive and do what he could, anything he could, to mitigate the excesses of the madmen.
He knew that now, and a cold corner of his brain wondered why so few repressive regimes seemed to realize that they themselves created the rebels who must ultimately destroy them. How could someone like a Cordelia Ransom or a Rob Pierre, after taking advantage of that very blindness in the Legislaturalists, fail to recognize it in themselves?
The line of prisoners reached the top of the escalator, and Theisman's thoughts chopped off as one of the guards turned Harrington towards the large VIP lounge in which Ransom and her court, willing and unwilling, waited. The SS trooper used the butt of his flechette gun, none too gently, to direct his prisoner, and they were close enough now for Theisman to see and recognize the snarl on Alistair McKeon's face as the gun butt smacked Harrington's shoulder. But strong as it was, McKeon's obvious anger was less frightening than the utter lack of expression of the green-uniformed man beside him. The cut of his uniform labeled him a Grayson, which made him one of the "Marines" who were obviously Harrington's armsmen... and no doubt explained the dangerous tension churning within him. Theisman had seen that sort of nonexpression before. He knew what it meant, and the helpless spectator trapped within him begged the auburn-haired Grayson not to lose control. Surrounded by so many heavily armed guards, the consequences of a berserk attack could only be a massacre.
A growled command brought the prisoners to a halt and, for the first time, Theisman forced himself to meet Honor Harrington's eyes.
If possible, she looked worse than he'd dreaded, and he bit his lip painfully. Her face was even more expressionless than her armsman's. The only times he'd seen her before in person had been during and immediately after the Republic's first disastrous Yeltsin operation. Her left eye had been covered by an eye patch then, and the entire side of her face had been crippled from her wounds, yet even so, it had been more expressive than today. Now it showed nothing, not fear, not hope, not defiance, not even curiosity. But it was only a mask, and a poor one, at that, and Theisman was shocked by what hid behind it. He'd been prepared for anger, for contempt, even for hatred; what he saw was fear. Worse than fear, it was terror, and with it came desperation.
He tasted blood as his teeth sank into his lip with involuntary strength. In her situation, he knew he would have been afraid, yet he hadn't expected Harrington to show it so clearly. But then he saw the way her arms cradled her treecat, the hopeless protectiveness of her body language, and he understood.
"So." The single, flat word jerked his eyes away from her. Cordelia Ransom had turned from her conversation with Vladovich to regard the prisoners, and her blue eyes were as contemptuous as her voice. Her lip curled as she swept her gaze across the line of prisoners, and then she sniffed disdainfully. The dismissive sound carried clearly in the silence of the lounge, and Theisman saw more than one POW stiffen angrily.
"And who might these be, Citizen Major?" Ransom asked the senior SS guard.
"Enemies of the People, Citizen Committeewoman!" the major barked.
"Indeed?"
Ransom walked slowly down the line. But no, Theisman reflected, "walk" was scarcely the word. She swaggered down the line. She strutted, and he was suddenly ashamed of the image she projected. Didn't she even begin to realize how shallow and petty, how stupid, she made herself look? Or how her contempt could affect the members of the Republic's Navy? Whatever else her prisoners were, they had fought openly and with skill for their own star nations, just as Theisman had fought for his, and when Ransom spat upon their courage and their dedication, she spat upon his. And what had she done to earn the right to treat them with contempt? What enemies had she faced in combat? Even as an insurrectionist before the coup, she'd been a terrorist, a bomber and assassin; a murderer, not a warrior. Perhaps she didn't see it that way, but that couldn't change the reality. And because it couldn't, her theatrical contempt belittled her, not them, whether she could see it or not, and her own HD crews were recording it all. All too soon it would be broadcast all over the Peoples Republic, and after that it would just as surely find its way onto the airwaves of the Manticoran Alliance and the Solarian League, and he ground his teeth at the thought.
But there was nothing he could do except stand there, his own face like stone, and watch as Ransom stopped in front of McKeon.
"And you are?" she asked him coldly, as if he were the senior officer present. For an instant he said nothing, and his gaze flicked to where Harrington stood at his side. She didn't look back at him, but she nodded, ever so slightly, and he inhaled sharply.
"Captain Alistair McKeon, Royal Manticoran Navy," he grated in tones of hammered iron. His gray eyes glittered with anger, but Ransom only sniffed again and swaggered down the entire length of the line. Then she returned to her original position, and the HD crew shifted around to get her profile as she pointed at Harrington.
"What's that animal doing here, Citizen Major?" she demanded.
"It belongs to the prisoner, Citizen Committeewoman."
"And why hasn't it been removed?" Ransom's voice was softer, almost silky, and her lip curled in a hungry smile as she watched her victim's eyes. Not a muscle twitched in Harrington's face, but Theisman sensed the way her muscles coiled still tighter as Ransom savored her power like some rare vintage.
"We were instructed not to remove it, Citizen Committeewoman," the SS major told her. "Its owner is the senior prisoner, and we were instructed to allow her to keep it."
"What?" Ransom looked at Tourville, and arctic ice glittered in her blue eyes. There was more than triumph in her expression now, and Theisman’s heart sank, for he was suddenly certain what was coming. She was going to pay Tourville off for his efforts to protect Harrington by taking the treecat away and having it destroyed in front of the cameras, he thought sickly. He was sure of it... but he was also wrong, for his suspicions fell short of what Ransom actually intended.
"Did I hear you identify this woman as the senior military prisoner, Citizen Major?" she asked softly.
"Yes, Citizen Committeewoman!"
"Then there's been some mistake," Ransom informed him, eyes still locked on Tourville’s white face. "This woman isn't a military prisoner at all."
"I beg your pardon, Citizen Committeewoman?" the citizen major said, and if anything had been needed to prove his entire conversation with Ransom was a cruel charade, his tone supplied it. The words were right, but there was absolutely no surprise in his voice, and Theisman tensed as several of the citizen majors troopers shifted position ever so slightly behind the prisoners.
"Of course not," Ransom said coldly. "This woman is Honor Harrington, Citizen Major. I double-checked the records just this morning, and there's a civilian arrest order out for her. One which predates the outbreak of hostilities." Even Harrington twitched in surprise at that, and Ransom grinned viciously.
"Honor Harrington," she said very precisely, "was arraigned for murder following her deliberate, unprovoked destruction of the unarmed Republican freighter Sirius in the Basilisk System eleven years ago, Citizen Major. She was offered the opportunity to defend herself in court, but she rejected it and her plutocratic masters refused to surrender her for trial, which left the Ministry of Justice no choice but to order her tried in absentia. She was, of course, convicted... and the sentence was death."
She stared into Tourville’s eyes, and the citizen rear admiral's fists clenched. His own eyes whipped to Harrington for a moment, then back to Ransom. Theisman felt his fury and agonized shame and willed him desperately to keep his mouth shut, but Tourville had been goaded too far.
"Citizen Committeewoman, I must protest!" he grated. "Commodore Harrington is a naval officer. As such, she..."
"She is not a naval officer!" Ransoms voice cracked like a whip. "She is a convicted murderer, Citizen Rear Admiral, and you would do well to remember that!"
"But..."
"Be careful, Citizen Rear Admiral. Be very careful."
Ransoms voice was suddenly soft, and Honeker surprised Theisman by reaching out and gripping Tourville’s elbow. He hadn't thought the people's commissioner had that much courage, or concern for Tourville, but the pressure of his fingers seemed to remind the citizen rear admiral he wasn't the only one in Ransom's sights. Bogdanovich and Foraker were in as much danger as he, with less seniority to protect them, and he clamped his jaw shut.
Ransom watched him for several seconds, then nodded slightly.
"Better," she said, and turned back to the senior guard, dismissing Tourville as beneath her attention. "Now, Citizen Major," she said. "Since the warrant for this woman's arrest and execution is a civilian order, she's hardly a matter of concern for the military, is she? Whatever unhappy events may subsequently have transpired between the People Republic and the Star Kingdom of Manticore..." her tone made the last four words into expletives "...can have no bearing on the decisions of the civilian judiciary in time of peace, nor can a naval uniform be permitted to shield its wearer from the prewar verdict of a civil court. I believe Section Twenty-Seven, Subsection Forty-One of the Deneb Accords addresses that very point." She darted a swift glance at Theisman, who managed, somehow, to keep his hatred from his expression.
"In fact," she went on, "Section Twenty-Seven specifically states that the military status of individuals is nullified if they've been convicted of a civil crime before the commencement of hostilities... which means this woman isn't a military prisoner at all. So it's fortunate you and your people, as representatives of the People's civilian legal system, are here to take charge of her, isn't it, now?"
"Yes, Citizen Committeewoman!" The citizen major snapped to attention and saluted. "What are your orders?"
Thomas Theisman’s teeth ground helplessly as Ransom smiled at the SS thug, for he knew what she was going to say. And it was his fault, he thought bitterly. No doubt she would have found a way to do what she wanted anyway, but he was the one who'd argued for observing the forms of the Deneb Accords, and the most sickening thing of all was that she'd cited them correctly. Section Twenty-Seven, Subsection Forty-One had been inserted after the Kersey Associations war against the Manitoban Republic. The Kerseyites' so-called government had put several dozen convicted Manitoban murderers into uniform for "special operations" against their home world and then claimed their status as prisoners of war protected them, if captured, from the execution of their sentences. Of course, the Kersey Association had been little more than organized pirates and murderers themselves, but their abuse of the Accords had led to their postwar modification in an effort to close the loophole the Kerseyites had exploited. And now another band of murderers was going to use that modification for its own twisted purposes, Theisman thought sickly, and the legal farce of that prewar "trial" would make it all technically legal.