David Weber - The Shadow of Saganami

"They are, Aivars," Van Dort said. "Very nice people-in their own, deliberately rough-hewn way. They're generous, gracious to guests, and incredibly stubborn."

There was something about his tone, some tiny shadow in his expression, that came and went so quickly Helen wasn't certain she'd actually seen it. If she had, no one else seemed to have noticed it, and he went on briskly.

"I've already contacted President Suttles and Chief Marshal Bannister. I can't say Bannister seemed delighted to see me on his com, but we have a bit of a personal history that probably explains his initial reaction. Once I explained to him why we were here, he got rather more enthusiastic. Not hopeful, but willing, at least, to give it a try. And, as I'd hoped, Westman's been to some pains to establish a communications link to the system government. If Westman will agree to meet with me at all, Suttles and Bannister think they can probably arrange the details within the next two or three days."

"I hate to have to ask this, Mr. Van Dort," Terekhov said after a moment, "but my intel files say Trevor Bannister and Westman have been friends literally since boyhood. Is it your impression after speaking to Bannister that we can rely on his loyalty to the government?"

"Captain," Van Dort began in a surprisingly sharp voice, "that question is simply-"

He chopped himself off and closed his mouth for a moment. Then he shook his head.

"Personal integrity is the single most important ingredient in the Montana honor code, Aivars." His voice was very level, as if he were making a special effort to keep it that way. "Nothing's more central to their notion of honorable conduct, and both Westman and Bannister are honorable men. If Bannister sympathized with the MIM deeply enough to aid Westman's operations, he would've resigned his office and joined Westman openly." He smiled crookedly. "Not the most effective possible approach, I suppose, but Machiavelli wouldn't have been able to give his book away on Montana." His smile vanished. "I think that's one reason they resented Ineka Vaandrager's negotiating techniques so deeply."

"It sounds like we could have worse honor codes to deal with," Terekhov said. He looked as if he were about to add something more, but instead, he shrugged and turned to Captain Kaczmarczyk.

"Given what Mr. Van Dort's just said, Tadislaw, I think we need to reconsider our security arrangements for any meeting."

"Sir," the Marine began, "with all due respect for Mr. Van Dort, and accepting that everything he's just said about the Montanans is completely accurate, it's still my responsibility to see to it that-"

"I know what you're going to say, Major." Terekhov's voice was just a bit crisper. "But we're here to help negotiate a peaceful settlement, or at least a cease-fire. And we're not going to manage that if we offend local leaders or suggest we believe they'll act dishonorably. More to the point, perhaps, everything we've seen from Mr. Westman suggests that he does take his personal integrity seriously. Under the circumstances, if he promises a safe conduct, I'm not going to a meeting with him surrounded by battle-armored Marines bristling with plasma rifles and tribarrels. Nor am I going to insist that he come here."

He and the Marine locked eyes for a moment, and then Kaczmarczyk nodded.

"Aye, aye, Sir," he said levelly. "For the record, I'm not at all happy about exposing you or Mr. Van Dort to any unavoidable risk. But that's your decision, not mine. I hope you won't object, however, if I provide the tightest security I can within whatever guidelines you're willing to agree to? Navy captains and Crown envoys aren't exactly considered expendable assets, you know."

He did not, Helen noted, comment on the expendability or lack thereof of midshipwomen attached to the said Crown envoy as an assistant.

"I find this latest news from home disturbing," Aleksandra Tonkovic said in a low voice. "Very disturbing. The destruction, the deaths, the degree of panic…" She shook her head slowly. "To think that a handful of murderous lunatics could to this much damage to an entire planet. It just doesn't seem possible."

"It doesn't take a huge army to create panic when the people in it are willing to murder civilians in job lots. And the focused attention of the news media can make even a relatively small terrorist organization seem far larger than it is… Madam President," Baroness Medusa said.

Tonkovic's eyes flicked to the Provisional Governor's face as Dame Estelle addressed her not as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention but rather as the Kornati head of state. Dame Estelle looked back steadily for a heartbeat or two, then continued in the same measured tones.

"Nonetheless, it seems evident from this latest series of attacks, and from Colonel Basaricek's reports, that the FAK's membership is, in fact, larger and more widespread than previously believed. Admittedly, they had weeks to plan and implement this most recent operation, but it took more manpower-and better pre-attack intelligence-to set it up than earlier reports indicated they should have."

Silence hovered between them until, after several moments, Tonkovic shrugged slightly.

"Yes," she acknowledged. "There are more of them than we'd thought. There must be. We already knew they had a tight cellular organization. Now we're beginning to suspect Nordbrandt must have done at least some of the preliminary organizational work before the annexation plebiscite ever came along. We always knew she was a nationalist extremist. We just never suspected she might have been building up an organization like this all along. No doubt she initially intended it as a defense against Frontier Security."

"No doubt," Dame Estelle agreed, noting once again that Nordbrandt had obviously hit a deeper nerve with the economic side of her terrorist platform than any of the Cluster's oligarchs really wanted to admit. Even now, Tonkovic seemed constitutionally incapable of admitting that the discontent which had fueled Nordbrandt's original recruiting drive clearly stemmed from a much broader spectrum of issues than the annexation plebiscite alone.

"The fact that they're more deeply entrenched and apparently more numerous than we'd suspected, however," the Kornatian continued, "gives added weight to our request for reconnaissance support and modern weapons for our security forces. I know we've discussed the pros and cons of direct Manticoran military intervention, but I continue to believe there's much point in the arguments coming from Vice President Rajkovic and the Cabinet against launching a full-scale military effort. We can deal with Nordbrandt's butchers ourselves, if we only have the tools to find her and the weapons to defeat her once we do. But we do need that support, and I believe also that some evidence that the Star Kingdom stands with us at this moment would be psychologically very beneficial to the vast majority of Kornatians who continue to support the annexation."

"I don't disagree," Dame Estelle replied. "However, to be brutally frank, Madam President, there seems to me to be a slight discrepancy between your request, as Kornati's head of state, for assistance from the Star Kingdom and your position, as Kornati's chief delegate to the Convention. On the one hand, you're requesting that we send assistance to your planet, making our support for your government clear, while on the other hand, you are insisting in debate here that the preservation of full local autonomy necessarily means full integration of your star system into the Star Kingdom isn't possible."

Tonkovic's lips compressed, and despite her years of experience as a politician, anger flickered in her green eyes. The Provisional Governor simply sat, hands folded loosely on the desk before her, and waited.