CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Venus Futures Corporate HQ
City of Olympia
Old Terra
Sol System
Terran Federation
January 11, 2553
“I hate this,” Simron Murphy said quietly, looking out the aircar’s side window.
“I know,” her father replied. “It’s not like we have a lot of options, though.”
She turned her head to look at him, and despite her own residual anger at him, a pang went through her as she saw the worry in his eyes. He wouldn’t have let anyone else see it, but there were fresh lines around his eyes, and she reached across to pat his knee.
“He really has put you in an awful position, hasn’t he?” she asked with a crooked smile.
“I think you might say that, assuming you were given to massive understatement.” Kanada’s smile was considerably tarter than hers. “And I’m not going to pretend I’m not thoroughly pissed off with him, Simmy!”
“Of course not.” She squeezed his knee, then sat back. “But I’m not going to pretend—not when it’s just us, anyway—that I’m not proud of him.”
“Proud of him?” Kanada looked at her. “Everything our family’s built over the centuries is about to come down in ruins, Simmy! And that may be the least of it, given the mess in the Cyclops Sector. If the rest of the Five Hundred decides to blame him for that, too—!”
“You know as well as I do that all the charges against him were trumped up out of whole cloth,” Simron said rather more sharply.
She held his eyes with her own, and, after a moment, he grimaced and looked away.
“Maybe you’ve got a point,” he half muttered. “But why did he have to bring the storm down on all of us? On Venus Futures? On our entire family?”
“Because—” she said levelly “—the Five Hundred is just as corrupt as all of its critics have ever said it was. And that includes us.”
“Corrupt?” Her father’s head whipped back around. “You think I’m corrupt, Simmy?”
“I think we both are.” Her tone never wavered, but her blue eyes were somber. “I think the entire Five Hundred is. I think the entire Federation is, and we—you and I and Venus Futures—are part of the same system. We didn’t ask to be. But the truth is, Father, until Terry rubbed everyone’s nose in it, I was just as oblivious to the corruption around me as anyone else.”
“Simmy, I never—”
“Father, Father!” She shook her head and reached up to touch his cheek. “On a personal level, you’re one of the most honest men I know, but you are part of the system. You were born into it. It’s the only universe you’ve ever known, and you accept its ground rules because they’re the only ones you’ve ever been able to play by. And, to be honest, you’re very, very good at gaming the system, making it work for you. So am I, because you’re also a wonderful teacher, which means I know how to make the system work, too. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t corrupt. And that doesn’t mean that all those Fringe Worlds who resent the hell out of what happens to their families and their kids don’t have a point. Of course they do! That’s the real reason the Five Hundred has to destroy Terry, and you know it!”
Kanada stared at her. For a moment, neither spoke. Then he inhaled deeply.
“Obviously I’m not a wonderful enough teacher,” he said. “If I were, you wouldn’t be as crazy as your husband!” He shook his head. “Even assuming you’re right—and, to be honest, you probably are—that doesn’t change what we’re up against right now. The only way we’re going to survive is to throw Terry out of the aircar. You know that. Even if Rajenda talks him into coming home peacefully, the rest of the Five Hundred can’t let his example stand—especially after Bellerophon—no matter what.”
“It can’t let his example stand unless…something changes the equation,” Simron said, and his eyes widened.
“Simmy—”
“Father, you’re the one who told me the Five Hundred—excuse me, Prime Minister Schleibaum’s Government—was sending Alaimo out to ‘deal with’ Bellerophon. No matter what happens with Terry and New Dublin, Cyclops has already turned into a disaster zone, and letting Alaimo turn Bellerophon into another Gobelins will only make the disaster even worse! In fact, it’s the stupidest thing we could have done!”
“I admit the thought of ‘another Gobelins’ turns my stomach,” Kanada said, “but I don’t know that there was another solution, another answer that was any better!”
“There couldn’t possibly have been one that was any worse,” she said flatly. “Think about it, Father. I know how smart you are, so think about it! We already know at least some of the Cyclops system pickets have mutinied, and I’ve been thinking back to all those boring conversations of Terry’s. All the times he wanted to talk to me about the Navy and the Fringe but I had something else to think about. And one of the things he told me that stuck in my mind is that two thirds—at least two thirds—of the Navy’s personnel are Fringers. I remembered that when you told me about Alaimo, and I did a little additional research, and I found out he was right. And I also found out that the percentage is even higher for the Marines. Not the Army, but then you and I both know the Army’s real job, don’t we?”
Her eyes challenged him, and he nodded slowly, as if against his will.
“So how do you think that two thirds of our armed forces are going to react if they find out Alaimo’s been sent to ‘Gobelins’ Bellerophon? If this time it’s open and aboveboard? Nobody tries to sweep it under the carpet or deny it really happened?” It was her turn to shake her head. “The genie’s not going back into the bottle this time, Father, and if the Fringe really does go up in flames, it will burn the Federation to the ground. Unless someone prevents that from happening. And that means that at the end of the day, the best the Five Hundred can hope for—what the Five Hundred had damned well better pray for—is that Terry, my husband, can somehow keep a handle on what’s coming out of the Fringe. I’ll be honest—I don’t know if even Terry can pull that one off. But I’ll tell you this. If he can’t, no one can, and in that case the Federation itself is coming apart.”
“You really think it’s…that bad? And that if it is, Terry has a chance to turn it around?”
“I remember something else Terry said to me once.” Simron looked away, gazing out the front windows as Venus Futures’ HQ complex appeared on the horizon. “He told me that the vast majority of human beings always assume that the way things are is the way they’ve always been and always will be. It’s the only world they know, because they never look beyond it. And that, he said, is the real reason for every disastrous political and social shipwreck in human history. The people in positions of power never saw it coming, because none of them were interested in looking for it.
“I thought that was just another example of his…romantic disconnect from the real world. The fact that he loved history more than the present. But I should have been listening, because he’s right. I was no more interested than the rest of the Five Hundred in looking for possible shipwrecks because everything seemed so wonderful on the promenade deck and in the owner’s suite. But he and that incredibly irritating O’Hanraghty were up in the crow’s nest, looking for icebergs, and I think you and I had damned well better hope they and their friends can do something to prevent—or at least…ameliorate—this shipwreck. And that means the last thing we can afford to do is to demonize him. If we back him and any Fringer ‘moderates’ who might be willing to listen to him into a corner, any soft landing for the Federation—and even the Five Hundred—gets a lot less likely. That’s one reason—a big reason—I’ve been fighting so hard to keep this ‘spontaneous statement’ from squirting any more hydrogen into the fire.”
Kanada frowned as the aircar dipped toward the landing pad atop the South Tower. That might have been a reason for her resistance, he thought, but it wasn’t truly the reason. No, the true reason was far simpler: she loved him. That didn’t mean her analysis was wrong, of course, although the possibility that she might be right terrified him, but that wasn’t the reason she was willing to listen to Murphy in the first place.
She loved him.
Well, Kanada loved her. That was the reason he’d supported her version of the statement the Five Hundred demanded of her. What she was willing to say fell far short of what they wanted, but she’d dug in her heels, stubbornly refused to be the obedient daughter of the Five Hundred they wanted her to be. And because he recognized that stubbornness’s invincibility—and because he loved her—he’d fought hard behind the scenes to support her. He’d told himself he had to broker the compromise to protect Venus Futures, and there was a huge, terrifying element of truth in that, but the real reason was that he loved his daughter.
He’d burned a lot of IOUs along the way, and only the fact that the rest of the Five Hundred knew how determined Rajenda was to bring Murphy back dead or alive had let him protect her from the demands of Perrin and the rest of the Commission this long. And that was the most frightening thing of all, he thought, as the aircar touched down on the landing pad, because she was right about the Five Hundred’s probable reaction if Rajenda failed to bring Murphy home in abject surrender and disgrace. And how did he protect her if full panic mode set in among the Five Hundred’s leadership?
And if she was right about the peril the Five Hundred already faced, did Gerard Perrin or Jugoslav Darković have even the faintest idea of how much worse they could make it? Of how Terrence Murphy would react if something…untoward happened to Simron or their children? If anything happened to them, he would become the Five Hundred’s worst nightmare.
And so, Kanada Thakore realized, would he.
* * *
The producer looked up with a nervous expression as Simron and Kanada walked into the twenty-third-floor studio. Taraneh Mehrian had produced hundreds of video clips and full-length programs for Venus Futures over the years, but never one like this. Never one with Amedeo Boyle and two expressionless security agents standing against the wall, watching her work.
The only person in the entire studio who looked calm was Simron Thakore. She glanced coolly at Boyle and his “security” as she entered, then ignored them completely as she walked past them to the set’s comfortable “casual conversation nook” and paused beside the polished coffee table.
“The couch or the armchair, Taraneh?” she asked in a voice as cool as her eyes.
“The couch, I think, Ma’am,” Mehrian said. “I’ve got the lighting adjusted for that, so if you don’t—”
“The couch will be fine!” Simron assured her.
She settled onto the couch, adjusting the drape of her sari, and waited patiently while Mehrian fussed with her camera and lighting drones. There was really no reason Simron couldn’t have recorded the same statement on her personal data pad, but this particular video clip had to be perfect.
And, of course, Perrin’s lackey has to be here to make sure it is, doesn’t he? she thought, glancing coldly at Boyle.
It took a while, but finally Mehrian nodded in satisfaction—from a technical perspective, at least.
“We ready, Ma’am,” she said. “Just begin whenever you’re comfortable.”
“Fine,” Simron said, and leaned back slightly on the couch, looking into the center of the five drones hovering around her.
“Good evening,” she said then. “For those of you who don’t recognize me, I am Simron Murphy, Admiral Terrence Murphy’s wife. As I’m sure the vast majority of the Federation’s citizens know by now, there are all manner of allegations swirling about where my husband is concerned. Given the realities of interstellar flight and how long it takes for information to get from star to star, it will be some time still before we here in the Sol System can know what’s actually happening someplace as distant as New Dublin. I certainly don’t know any more than any of you viewing this video know. That’s why I’m recording this statement. Because I think it’s important that we not allow our ignorance and uncertainty to get…out of hand.
“Obviously, the conflicting stories about my husband and his possible actions are extremely distressing to me, not simply as his wife but as a loyal citizen of the Federation. I very much want—even need—for there to be an explanation that exonerates him of all the allegations leveled against him. At the same time, I’m aware that the Government has no option but to proceed cautiously and on the basis of a worst-case scenario. So at this present moment, I join with everyone, I’m sure, in hoping and praying for a peaceful resolution to the entire situation. And until we know more, until I’ve had the opportunity to hear my husband’s side of the story, my children and I will continue to pray for his safe return and—if God is good—exoneration.
“I realize it will be months before Prime Minister Schleibaum’s government can know with certainty what’s transpired in New Dublin and the rest of the Concordia Sector. Until that time—until we do know, with certainty—the Government has, of course, my and my family’s full support. My own brother, Rajenda, has been sent to get to the bottom of the conflicting versions, and I promise all of you that no one could be more determined than he to do precisely that. If it should turn out that Terrence has unintentionally—or even intentionally—violated Federation law or his own oath as an officer in the Federation Navy, he will be held fully to account for his actions, and I will—however regretfully—abide by the decisions of the Navy and the civilian courts.
“In the meantime, I ask only that we not rush to judgment until we know what those actions truly were. Thank you.”
She paused long enough for a decent fade, then looked at Boyle with one raised, contemptuous eyebrow.
“I trust that was sufficient?” she said coldly.
From his expression, he clearly wanted to tell her it wasn’t, but his eyes fidgeted away from hers, and he shrugged.
“I think it will do, thank you. For now, anyway.”
“Good. Then I believe we’re done.”
Simron Thakore was the smallest person in that studio, but she strode from it like a Titan.