Тим Пауэрс - Bugs and Known Problems

“I will confess that that thought has crept through my mind a time or two,” he admitted. “I’m not quite as blind to our own contribution to the Bolthole complex as my earlier remark might have suggested, and I’ve wondered more than once, over the years, how Chairman Pierre or Oscar Saint-Just might have responded if my people began asking the same question. I’m afraid I didn’t like the conclusions I reached.

“Then Admiral Theisman… rearranged things. I found myself with a new and totally unknown power structure to deal with, so I set about learning what I could about him, as well. And about you , when you became President. So I wasn’t quite as surprised by your remarkably courteous request for a meeting as you might have assumed I’d be.”

“You weren’t?” Pritchart asked, watching his expression, listening to that measured exposition in something suspiciously like fascination.

“No.” He shook his head. “You had to come, Madame President. Whether you were sincere in your protestations renouncing the People’s Republic’s imperialism or not, you still had to come. Either to explain to me—courteously, no doubt, but firmly—why despite your complete commitment to individual rights and the sovereignty of star nations it would be impossible to extend those same rights and sovereignty to my star system. Or to explain to me that those rights simply didn’t apply to Refuge. Or to lie to me, and to promise me that they did—or would, as soon as humanly possible—while you saw to it that nothing of the sort actually happened. Or—” his eyes sharpened suddenly “—to tell me that they did apply… and that you were prepared to make them available to Refuge immediately.”

Pritchart winced internally. The shirkahna was even more astute—and better informed—than she’d assumed he would be.

“You’re exactly correct,” she said after a moment. “In fact, I came here to discuss a variant of one of those with you. And not, I’m afraid, the final one.”

“Ah?”

He regarded her calmly, and she squared her shoulders and met his gaze.

“I have two mutually conflicting problems,” she said. “As I’ve said, unless I’m prepared to demonstrate by my actions that the Republic of Haven is no longer the People’s Republic of Haven, no one will believe it isn’t. But my second problem is that Baron High Ridge, the Manticoran prime minister, is clearly unwilling to negotiate an actual peace treaty. At the moment, he’s excusing his delay on the basis that he’s not sure which of the competing regimes will end up in control in Nouveau Paris. In fact, all of our sources suggest Manticore is quite confident that under Secretary Theisman’s direction of the war, my administration will be the last one standing. If High Ridge had any intention of negotiating at any time , he’d already have opened at least preliminary conversations with us. He hasn’t, and that’s incredibly stupid of him. Whatever happens, the Republic of Haven isn’t going to just disappear, so anyone with a measurable IQ should realize how much to Manticore’s advantage it would be to engineer what they call a ‘soft landing’ for an administration that doesn’t want to continue the war. One that isn’t going to come looking for vengeance in another fifteen or twenty T-years.”

She paused until the shirkahna nodded. No one whose dynasty had ruled for as long as Ambart’s could fail to grasp the points she was making.

“We believe his… intransigence has a lot to do with the military advantage the Royal Manticoran Navy and its allies currently enjoy. He doesn’t see any reason he has to negotiate, because the tactical and strategic imbalance is so vast that there’s nothing we could do to compel him to.”

Ambart nodded again.

“And that’s the reason my administration can no more afford for Bolthole’s existence or location to become known to the Manticorans than Pierre and Saint-Just could have. The Manties have intelligence assets in all of our known shipyards; we’ve identified many of them, but there have to be far more we haven’t. If we were to begin laying down starships capable of fighting their starships toe-to-toe in any of those yards, they’d know about it long before the first ship was completed. And if someone like High Ridge knew about it—”

“I believe the applicable term would be ‘preemptive strike,’ Madame President,” Ambart said.

“Precisely.” She nodded.

“And you’re confident your adversaries don’t have those intelligence assets here in Refuge.”

“We’re as close to certain of it as intelligence matters ever get,” she said flatly. “If they knew enough about Bolthole to have infiltrated any of their spies into it, the Royal Manticoran Navy would already have come calling on you. Which, I’m afraid, could still happen if they find out about it,” she finished unflinchingly.

“So Refuge has become even more important to you than it was to the Legislaturalists or to the Committee.”

“Unless I’m prepared to accept the Manticoran refusal to negotiate, yes. And I can’t accept that.” She shook her head. “Not only do I owe the Havenite star systems currently under Manticoran occupation the protection of my government, but if the Manties won’t even negotiate with us, how long can I maintain the pretense that my administration really is the Republic’s legitimate government? A government powerless to even end the unjust wars of its predecessors? A government so ineffectual—so irrelevant—its adversaries won’t even talk to it?”

She shook her head again, and those topaz eyes were dark as night.

“It isn’t only foreign perceptions that concern me, Shirkahna Ambart. There are millions—probably billions —of Havenites who were horrified by the Committee’s overthrow. People whose power, whose wealth, whose influence disappeared or was severely damaged when Admiral Theisman deposed Saint-Just. People whose patriotism is invested in the People’s Republic of Haven’s military might and imperial accomplishments. And, even worse, people who simply see an opportunity to fish for personal advantage in the chaos. Who don’t care about restoring the Constitution. Who see only the chance for them to become the decision-makers, the ones with all the power, and the hell with the rule of law or individual rights.

“If I can’t convince the rest of the Republic’s citizens that I’m the legitimate President and that my administration is a legitimate, effective government, the bottom-feeders will see their opportunity. And if they take it, they can destroy everything Admiral Theisman and I are trying to accomplish.”

“And this High Ridge’s… intransigence, I believe you called it, is likely to convince them they do see such an opportunity?” Ambart murmured, but the question was actually a statement, and she nodded.

“I want to believe that whatever is motivating him represents a temporary situation. That he has a domestic objective, and that once he’s accomplished it, he will negotiate with us. I can’t afford to plan and operate on that basis, though. For that matter, even if it’s true, it’s entirely possible that attaining his domestic objective will take long enough to create the situation I’m afraid will destroy my domestic objective of restoring genuine representative government to the Republic.”

She paused, letting that settle for a moment, then leaned back in her arm chair and laid her forearms along the armrests.

“What I would like to do—what I need to do, if I’m going to demonstrate that the restored Republic genuinely respects interstellar law—is to acknowledge Sanctuarian sovereignty here in Refuge. I need to announce the discovery of your people to the galaxy at large. I need to withdraw all of those Havenite ‘advisors’ and ‘administrators’ who are actually controlling your educational system and every facet of your economy. And, above all, I need to transfer ownership of the Bolthole Complex and all of its supporting infrastructure to Sanctuarian ownership. It’s the right thing to do, it’s the moral thing to do, it’s the legal thing to do, and from a purely pragmatic viewpoint, if I did that and then announced it to the entire galaxy, it would absolutely demonstrate that we are no longer the People’s Republic of Haven.