The ethos effect, p.44
The Ethos Effect, page 44
“He was close to three hundred years old. He created IIS two hundred years ago, when it became clear that his first attempt to shift the course of Revenant history had failed.”
“His first attempt?”
“He was the last prophet—the one who immolated himself in the Temple and ended the Coalition-Revenant War. He didn’t, really, but that was the impression he left.” Nynca swallowed. “He kept trying, using economic pressure, force... you’ve seen it all. Half the independent systems in the Arm wouldn’t exist today without him and IIS.”
“But... all those people...?”
“He grew up in the first Great War. You must have read about it—where the Revenants sent millions of missionary troops across the Arm in troids. They sent millions. Their casualties were never totaled, but it was estimated that the Revenant systems lost over two hundred million young men and women in fifty years. The Coalition lost thirty million, or more. His sister—the Salya is named after her—was killed when a troid attack wiped out all civilians in a system being terraformed. It wasn’t the only system treated that way by the Revenants.”
“But... five hundred million?”
“How many systems have been taken over by the Revenants in the last two years—that you know of?”
“Five, six...”
“And what happened to those who don’t want to become Revenants?”
“They’re marginalized.”
“Marginalized. That’s a polite word, Van.” Nynca’s voice hardened. “What it means is that they lose their businesses, their jobs, and their homes. Sooner or later, they lose their lives. Most of them aren’t executed. They just lose so much they wish they were. That still leaves millions who die in one way or another.”
Van was silent.
“Trystin ... he saw that beginning to happen again. The Coalition didn’t want another war... they didn’t want to deal with another thirty or forty million people lost. The Argentis didn’t either. Both built up their forces, but no one wanted to go to war to save the Keltyr, or the Samarrans, or the Nraymarans, or Beldorans, or the Aluysons, or in a few years, the Scandyans. And that wasn’t the only danger. What about your Republic? Wasn’t it already leaning toward an alliance with the Revenants? That’s what your reports indicated. The RSF felt they couldn’t survive unless they made an alliance. How many people died or will die in those systems? Are their deaths any less important because they died in small groups or alone one at a time?” Van was silent.
“What was he supposed to do, after everyone forgot what happened the last time? What was he supposed to do, when what he had attempted before had failed, and when everyone else stood around waiting? When IIS reported to everyone— we sent that information to every major government—and no one did anything except wring their hands?”
“And he felt it was his responsibility?”
“He hated the idea of his being responsible for their current culture. About ten years ago, he began to feel that by ending the war the way he had done he’d just made matters worse. That was when he built the Elsin, then commissioned the Joyau. He looked for someone like you for almost that long.”
“Like me?”
“You’re more like him than you know, Van.”
“If you’re worried—”
“I’m not worried about you saying anything. You wouldn’t. He asked me to make sure you understood if he didn’t get back. But he was only being gentle. He knew he wouldn’t be back. You’re the new managing director of IIS.”
“Me? Why me? I’m still wrestling with... the magnitude of what he did. You’re his great-great-granddaughter.”
“You’ve left out several ‘greats’ there, even if I was named for his mother.” Her voice was dry again. “You’re not the only one wrestling. I argued against it. But I didn’t have the answer to his last question.” She paused. “He just asked, ‘Who else will act for all the innocents that the Revenants will kill or destroy? Tell me, Nynca, who else will act?’ That’s what he asked.” She looked hard at Van. “I didn’t have an answer. Do you? Is it right... Gramps would have asked if it were ethical... to allow hundreds of millions of people to lose their freedoms and their lives because to stop it would require an equal or greater cost? Are principles only weighed by bodies alone? Is it not ethical to act ethically if it causes pain and suffering? You tell me before you judge him.” Van stepped back.
“I can’t judge,” she added in a low voice. “I know I couldn’t do what he did. But I didn’t stop him because I couldn’t refute him. But I couldn’t do it.” She looked at Van. “I can plan for IIS, and I can support you, and I will. But... I’m not meant... I can’t do what you and Gramps did.”
“I don’t know that I could do—”
Nynca laughed, harshly. “You already have. It’s just on a smaller scale. I’ve read the reports on the Scandyan embassy affair and the Regneri incident.”
“Isn’t the threat...” Van let the words trail off.
“It’s not over. It’s never over. Who will make sure that the Argentis, or even the Coalition, don’t pick up the mantle of divine support?”
“Mantle of divine support?”
“That’s what he called it—the illusion that a culture is the chosen one, that its members can do no wrong.”
Van could appreciate that terminology. He’d seen enough of that, both with the Revenants, and even in the Republic, especially lately.
“You need to get to Perdya to assure everyone that IIS will continue. We’ll be leaving in two hours. The Coalition will be watching us closely, but they’re allowing both in- and out-system transport.”
“Thank you.” Van studied Nynca, and the chill she projected. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know that he’d planned to deliver his device ... personally. I’d just never thought...”
“You couldn’t have known. I’ve worked with him for years, and I didn’t know. I knew he was more and more worried about the Revenants, and what they stood for, and about what they were doing to all cultures.”
“All cultures? In reaction to them, you mean? That people can become exactly the same as their enemies in outlook and action?”
“You see? You understand.”
“But... me?” Van said again.
“You’re best for the job, and someone has to do it. Besides, it’s what Gramps wanted.”
“I wasn’t looking...”
“I know.” Nynca paused. “I’m not angry at you. I’m not angry at him. But I’m angry that things have to be the way they are.”
That Van understood.
He just sat in the console chair, looking at nothing, long after Nynca had left.
In time, there was a tap on the door. Van sensed Eri beyond. “Come on in, Eri.”
The diminutive tech stood there. “I wanted to tell you, ser...”
“I’ll need a new tech?” Van asked gently. She nodded. “I have done this long enough.” Van also understood that.
After Eri left, he began to pack a duffel, almost in a daze, knowing that was a luxury that he could not long indulge.
How could Trystin... all those millions? He frowned, shaking his head. On the other hand, how could he not...?
Were there any answers? Real answers?
JUDGE
Chapter 74
Van eased the Joyau back out-system, checking the systems. Once more, he realized that he had no torps left, not a one, and there were at least two more cruisers headed out after him and the Salya.
Van studied the monitors, then pulsed, Interrogative status?
Had to improvise here... everything’s go. Countdown beginning at sixty... fifty-nine, fifty-eight...
The numbers marched down slowly, and Van struggled to recall... something... there was something wrong about those numbers, something he should know. He glanced around the cockpit, familiar and yet unfamiliar... trying to remember...
... thirty-six, thirty-five, thirty-four, thirty-three, thirty-two...
The transmission from the Elsin broke off, and the Elsin had vanished.
And Van knew, his eyes frozen as the shipnet called up in his mind the energies flaring off the sun Jerush... and the wave fronts that would scour the planet of Orum clean of all life, and freeze the jumpships in place, unable to leave the system...
Could he jump the Joyau? After what would happen, could he?
He wanted to think, to come up with another answer. But it was already too late, and the black-white timelessness of jump washed over him.
Van sat up, soaked in sweat, breathing heavily.
Slowly, he swung his feet over the side of the luxurious bed in the top-floor apartment, and sat there for a time, trying to slow his heart and his breathing.
The same nightmare, seemingly every night.
But Van hadn’t known ... just as he hadn’t known about the Fergus... or the Collyns.
“Should you have known? Shouldn’t you have guessed?” he murmured to himself. But a nova device?
After several moments, he stood, then walked from the bedroom out into the sitting room, moving to the wide south window. Most of the city of Cambria looked dark, even in the damp winter, because the lights were designed to shine out and down, and not upward in a way to be visible from the sixth floor of the IIS building.
Ethics? How could Trystin have talked so much about ethics? Yet Dad Cicero had warned Van about men who trumpeted their ethics. Yet until the end, Trystin had acted for what Van might have called the greater good. It was better to destroy Revenant raiders than to allow them to terrorize systems that could not defend themselves. It was better to help businesses and small multis in ways so that they could compete and hold off, if not surmount, the subsidized and state-supported competition from Revenant institutions.
But... did that inevitably lead to... something like the Jerush flare?
Trystin had said that the technology was Farhkan. Did that mean ... could they have somehow programmed the older man to destroy the Revenant home system? Trystin hadn’t seemed programmed, not in the way that the clones in Scandya had been.
Van paced away from the window, still damp with sweat, then turned back.
Could he honestly continue to manage IIS? Could he not? What would happen to all the independent systems... or to the fringe planets even in the Argenti or Hyndji loop... if someone, something like IIS, didn’t offer another alternative?
Or was that mere self-justification?
Van took a deep breath.
He hadn’t done any of the things that plagued him in nightmares. Was he having the nightmares because he hadn’t acted after he had learned? But what could he have done besides what he had? Walking away—from the RSF, from IIS—that didn’t make things better. It was a meaningless symbolic act, as if to say that Van wasn’t responsible. Was the guilt in what he felt because he hadn’t seen and should have—and should have acted?
Just as he hadn’t seen, or hadn’t wanted to see, what had been happening in the Republic until it had been too late?
Van slowly looked from side to side and back again, his eyes facing the window, but not really seeing the city or the darkness beyond.
Chapter 75
In the late morning of fiveday, Van sat at the conference table in the ISS Cambrian office, in the position where Trystin had once seated himself. Van still didn’t feel like the managing director of IIS, even after more than a week in Cambria, but everyone looked to him as that, probably because Nynca had made it absolutely clear that Van was indeed the managing director. Van had checked the records, and Trystin had only made the changes in the leadership contingency plan for IIS a month before his death—and he’d never told Van.
Van wondered if they all would have looked to him had they known of the nightmares and doubts that plagued him. Then he could see from the lines and the darkness behind Nynca’s eyes that at least some of those demons tormented her as well. And Eri had simply left IIS, claiming her stipend.
“I’ve read your report,” Van began, looking at Laren, the dark-haired woman in charge of research in Cambria. “It’s good.” It was good, even if Van didn’t like the facts it contained. The Jerush system was uninhabitable, and would be for years, if not centuries, even with remedial planoforming. Uninhabitable... such a clean word to use after the death of over five hundred million people.
The Coalition forces, with assistance from the spinward Argenti fleets under General Marti, had defeated the Revenant fleets and destroyed most of the ships. A joint Argenti-Coalition task force was administering the Coalition “protectorate” over the former Revenant systems.
All that, Van could understand and accept, if reluctantly. What he had trouble accepting was the joint Coalition-Argenti decision to allow the Republic of Tara, scarcely a Republic any longer, to complete its annexation of the defenseless Keltyr systems.
“Thank you,” Laren replied.
“What I don’t quite understand is why the Coalition forces allowed the Republic to annex all the Keltyr worlds.”
Laren glanced from Van to Nynca, then to Joe Sasaki, before responding. “Everything collapsed so suddenly. We were left with all the Revenant systems, and no one wanted them to rebuild in the same mold. That meant resources being spent on governing the central Revenant systems—for years to come. The Republic fleets were drawn up in good order and suggested the compromise. No one wanted to fight another series of battles, and the Argentis didn’t want the Coalition annexing the Keltyr systems, and we didn’t want the Argentis expanding there. Then there was the power vacuum problem...”
“That’s the problem that, before the Revenant defeat, neither the Republic nor the Keltyr were strong enough by themselves?”
Laren nodded.
“So some genius on the Coalition general staff decided that allowing the Republic to consolidate all the Keltyr systems would keep them occupied and build up a counterforce to the Argentis.” Van snorted. “And the Argentis agreed to it for the same reason—to keep the Coalition from becoming too strong.”
“Essentially, yes.”
“Idiots. Didn’t they see that the Republic is just a smaller version of the Revenants, except with even less ethics, and without a religious foundation?”
“I thought you didn’t care for the Revenants’ religious base,” said Joe Sasaki, his voice expressing puzzlement “I don’t” Van replied. “Neither did Trystin. But believe it or not some systems can be even worse.” And the Republic was headed that way.
“No one else wanted to get involved,” added Laren. “Not in a major way. The Hyndjis reasserted their claims to some independent systems like Beldora and Goilhen. The Argentis did the same spin ward. We did with the areas near Keshmara.”
Van nodded slowly. “We can’t change what the space forces did. Not immediately, and not directly, in any case. So we’ll have to change our focus. We’ll start with reestablishing or strengthening our offices in the newly independent systems that have been taken over by the Hyndjis or the Argentis—or by the Coalition. Once our ships are operable. That shouldn’t upset anyone in the Coalition, should it?” He looked to Nynca.
“No.”
“No,” replied Laren.
“I don’t think so,” said Sasaki.
“When will the Joyau be ready?” Van looked to Joe Sasaki.
“Not long after you will be. The External Commerce Subcommittee of the Assembly has asked that you testify on the activities of IIS two weeks from tomorrow.”
“About what?”
Sasaki shrugged. “The invitation is general. I think they want some assurance that you will remain as closely linked to the Coalition as Trystin was.”
“I don’t exactly have a choice. I’m persona non grata in the Republic. I might even be on an assassination list.”
“I wouldn’t mention that.”
“I don’t intend to.” Van looked around the room. “What else?”
“Do you want to commission a replacement vessel for the Elsin?” asked Joe.
“Yes. But we probably can’t handle that kind of credit drain immediately.” Especially not with major repairs needed for both the Joyau and the Salya, neither of which was capable of an interstellar jumpshift until Aerolis finished a great deal more work—and IIS paid a significant amount of credits. “We also don’t have anyone to command it. I can’t team what I don’t know about Trystin’s job and find that person at the same time.”
“We could offer a commission, with construction beginning in a year,” suggested Joe.
“How long will it take to build the ship?”
“Three years ... could be four.”
“How about a commission, with a modest deposit, for Aerolis to begin construction sometime between a year and eighteen months from now?”
“We could do that.”
“Then we should.” Van was acting on instinct, but with the unsettled state of the Arm, he had the feeling that he and Nynca would be hard-pressed before long.
“We’ll also need to change the credit arrangements for a number of offices, the ones in systems affected by the protectorate and settlement terms...”
A good hour passed before the meeting ended and Van returned to his office with Nynca.
Once there, she looked at Van. “You didn’t mention an assassination list before.”
“Trystin suggested I go back and look into the background of the Republic. I did.” Van went on to explain most of what he had found, including the Revenant-like coup and the transfer of command to the “dead” Commander Baile.
“No wonder you weren’t pleased with the Coalition decision. What do you think we should do?”
“For the moment, I’ll have to treat the Republic in the same way Trystin treated the Revenants. I’m certain they know I’m connected to IIS, and that would put anyone we sent there in danger. We’ll just have to manage the offices left in the Republic through communications and intermediaries—if we can. The way the Republic is trying to confiscate outside assets, it’s not a place where I’d recommend doing much business. Or trying. Not until matters settle, if they do, and until we’ve cleaned up the other messes.” Van looked at Nynca. “You’re the director of planning. What do you think?”
