Conference Room 24-1, Interstellar Relations
Secretariat Building, Geneva, Old Earth
Three hundred forty light-years away from the Federated Worlds, the late-afternoon sun of an Old Earth day threw long bars of golden sunlight into the small conference room on the top floor of the Interstellar Relations Secretariat building on the outskirts of Geneva.
The room was empty except for a small table and a scattering of chairs. Two people were seated at the end closest to the window, the spring sun enjoyably warm on their backs. Giovanni Pecora had his head in his hands, the frustration obvious.
“You know, Marta,” he said despairingly, “I don’t think a single fucking word we’ve said here today to those Hammer bastards has had the slightest effect. They really are the most stiff-necked and obstinate people in all of humanspace. We’ve always been prepared to consider compromise, but the Hammer? Never. I was afraid that this mediation might be a waste of time, and so it’s turning out. I’d give it another week, maybe two, tops.”
Marta Diallo, Pecora’s deputy secretary responsible for the Hammer Worlds and one of the very few people in the Fed Worlds with a deep understanding of the Hammer psyche, nodded. Her frustration was obvious.
“Well, Giovanni, there was a chance, I suppose,” she said. “Small one, maybe, but there was a chance. If the Hammer had publicly blamed the whole affair on Digby and made the necessary apologies, then they might have been able to save enough face to look at the compromise positions we proposed.” Diallo sighed deeply, running her hands through thick black hair as if to push away the problem. “But I’m afraid that Polk’s intervention has blown that chance out of the water. Why he wouldn’t blame Digby is beyond me. He had his boss put up against a wall and shot, after all, and we’ve got Digby locked up, so who the hell’s going to argue?”
She paused for a moment before continuing. “No, stupid me. We know why, and it’s the age-old reason. Domestic politics is why he wouldn’t put Digby in the frame. Digby was a Merrick man, and everyone knows it. Blaming Digby is as good as blaming Merrick. But putting the blame on us gives Polk his best and probably only chance to gut the opposition and rally support behind himself as leader of the Hammers. I hate to say it, Giovanni, but unless we get something positive out of them at tomorrow’s session, and I don’t believe we will, I think there is a real risk that this is going to slide into full-scale war.”
“I’m very much afraid you are right, Marta,” Pecora said gloomily. “God’s blood! Another Hammer war? Just what we all need right now. Interstellar trade’s a bit soft at the moment, and one thing’s for sure: A war between us and the Hammer will push things right over the edge.”
Diallo shook her head. “Well, at least we’ll have some help. I got an update from the Frontier desk yesterday. They think it’s almost certain that Frontier will support us if we need them. There were a lot of their people on the Mumtaz. It was their terraforming package the Hammers stole, and I think it’s fair to say they owe us big-time.”
Pecora nodded. “I’ve seen the report. I’m going to send a high-level team to Frontier. We need to start tying things up.”
“We do,” Diallo said. “It’s the Sylvanians I’m worried about. They look soft.” Diallo’s face turned grim as she continued. “Though you’d have to ask why they wouldn’t support us.”
“Three words, Marta: tactical nuclear weapons. They remember Vencatia and Jesmond. They’re scared shitless the Hammer won’t hold back next time. Every survey confirms it, I’m sorry to say, and the appeasers are riding the wave.”
“Jeez, Giovanni. Surely they’re smarter than that. Can’t they see that now’s their best chance to put an end to the Hammer problem once and for all? Lot of economic upside for them and everyone else if the Hammer economy can be freed up and the instability in interstellar trade reduced. I see the insurers are already applying a war premium to traffic inside 100 light-years of the Hammer.”
If it were possible, Pecora looked even more depressed. He shook his head.
Diallo cursed under her breath as she got to her feet and started to pace up and down the room. She’d had enough of the Hammer to last her ten lifetimes. “Makes you want to cry, Giovanni. Bloody Polk. If the rebels on Commitment and Faith could have made life difficult for another few months, he might have been forced to make some concessions. But as you say, blaming us made the rebels look unpatriotic, and you can’t give a man like Polk that sort of advantage and still hope to win. Poor bastards. The INTSUMs don’t paint a pretty picture of what’s been going on.”
Diallo fell silent.
She’d seen the INTSUMs with their vids of streets lined by lampposts, each with a dead rebel hanging by one leg, the gloating vidnews reports as yet another heretic guerrilla group was hunted down and exterminated, the haunting images as the families of Merrick supporters-men, women, and children, all guilty by association-were dragged away to whatever awful fate awaited them. The images would live in her mind forever.
The surveys showed that it wasn’t just Feds who’d begun to ask how much longer humanspace could tolerate such a psychopathic society in its midst. But one thing was sure: All Polk had done was postpone the happy day when the Hammer Worlds would self-destruct or the long-oppressed people of those unhappy worlds would finally overcome the forces ranged against them and throw the Doctrine of Kraa where it belonged: into the rubbish bin of history.
Diallo’s arms went up as she tried to stretch the sick tiredness out of her body. “For what it’s worth, Giovanni, I think crushing the uprising on Faith has convinced Polk he can do the same to us. I hate to say this, but the more I think about it, te more I think that’s what the stupid bastard has in mind. I might rerun some of our sim scenarios to see what that might mean for us. And we need to follow up on those reports from Commitment that the so-called heretic opposition is not as ineffective and fragmented as the Hammer would have us believe. If it comes to a fight with Polk, we’ll need to be signing them up on our side.” She sounded exhausted.
A dispirited Pecora nodded in tired agreement. “We’ll do all of that, Marta. Come on. Let’s give Nikolas Kaminski and his people a call. I think a serious chat, a very serious chat, over a few drinks is called for. I’m going to ask him to set up a time for us to talk to the secretary-general. I’m rather afraid we’re going to need the Alliance’s support. Come on.”