Part 3 (1/2)
”You don't have the experience to handle this,” scoffed Borda quietly. ”Marcus Surina-”
”Marcus Surina was a buffoon. He hid behind his family name and his reputation with the drudges. But this man, this Natch-he has no family to lose.
He has no reputation to uphold. This man wil outthink and outplot your armies until the end, Borda. No, there is only one person capable of defeating Natch.”
”And who is that?”
”Himself.”
Len Borda slumped perceptibly and turned back to the sea, looking old and careworn-but not before Magan caught the briefest s.h.i.+mmer in the high executive's eye.
Magan felt a sudden nibble of doubt at his ankles. Al his experience with Borda had taught him that the high executive was a creature of pa.s.sion rather than forethought, a short-term planner. But why then did he occasional y see that knowing glimmer in Borda's eye? Was it just the nostalgia of the grizzled veteran watching the young protege come into his own? Or could it be that Borda's ardor was merely artifice? Was that how Borda had bested al his would-be supplanters over the years?
The high executive stood for a long time without speaking. His s.h.i.+p had returned to calm seas, but the fog around them had only thickened. There was no sound but the soft, rhythmic lapping of oars on seawater, the distant cry of a gul .
Final y, Borda spoke. ”I would like to offer you a compromise.”
Magan said nothing.
”New Year's Day is just a convenient symbol,” continued Borda, his voice disarmingly matter-of-fact. ”We chose that day to protect the markets, didn't we? To cus.h.i.+on the financial impact of the announcement. But the real financial impact won't come until the new year's budget goes into effect on the fifteenth of January.” The high executive stood up straight, brushed something off his col ar. ”So I'l give you two and a half weeks. Prove to me you can handle this crisis, Magan. Bring MultiReal under the Council's control by the fifteenth, and I wil abide by our agreement.”
Magan could feel his mind whirling like a difference engine, calculating odds, extrapolating possibilities. ”And how do I know I can trust your word this time?” How do I know I won't end up at the bottom of a river, like the last lieutenant executive who tried to bargain with you for succession?
”What choice do you have?” said Borda.
”Don't delude yourself,” said Magan, his voice keen and deadly as a razor. ”This decision isn't yours to make, not anymore. You don't think I'm the only one eager to plant a black code dart in your skul , do you? The only reason you sit in the high executive's chair to this day is because I al ow it.”
For the first time in the conversation, Len Borda smiled. It was a horrid expression, the hungry grin of a carnivore. ”Spare me the pity of Magan Kai Lee,” mocked the high executive. ”I don't need it.”
And then, without warning, the SeeNaRee dissolved away. Magan found himself standing no longer on an ancient British sloop-of-war, but in a modern office arranged with the strictest military discipline. Two tables, a smattering of chairs, windows with a view of the globe below. Standing in a semicircle around him were four Defense and Wel ness Council officers who had been hidden in the virtual mist. Their dartguns were drawn and aimed at Magan. As the lieutenant executive regarded them with a cool eye, he felt the barrel of another dartgun press into the back of his neck.
”I give you until the fifteenth of January to take possession of MultiReal,” said Len Borda, his voice larded with triumph. ”If you do, we have an agreement. If you don't ...” The officer behind Magan pressed the dartgun barrel deeper into his flesh.
Magan kept his face neutral, determined to show no trace of emotion or hesitation.
”You're not giving me anything, Borda. The Council wil have control of MultiReal by the fifteenth, and you wil relinquish the high executive's chair-one way or the other.”
He turned without being asked, and the officer with the dartgun at his neck turned with him. Magan strode calmly to the elevator. Four of the officers sheathed their weapons as he pa.s.sed, but the one at his back never let the nozzle of the dartgun stray from Magan's skin, even as he accompanied the lieutenant executive onto the lift.
When the doors closed and the elevator began its ascent to the main level, Magan fired off a secure Confidential Whisper to the man at his back.
”Keep that dartgun right where it is until I'm off the elevator,” he commanded. ”Then send someone to find Papizon and Rey Gonerev. Tel them I need to see them.”
Ridgel o nodded. ”As you wish, Lieutenant Executive.”
5.
On the way back to the hoverbird docks, Magan took a detour to see the statue of Tul Jabbor. The atrium where the statue resided was the one place in DWCR whose location never changed. The statue itself was a smal -scale replica of the one standing in the center of the epony-mously named Tul Jabbor Complex in Melbourne. A thick man with mahogany skin atop a tal pil ar. No matter where you stood, some holographic trick caused Jabbor's gaze to always meet you head-onand left you constantly standing in his shadow. This was as unsubtle an architectural metaphor as Magan had ever seen.
The founding father of the Defense and Wel ness Council needed no caption, but bold block letters at his feet did pose a question.
DO YOU ACT IN JUSTICE?.
The locution had always seemed peculiar to Magan. Acting in justice, not for or with justice. As if justice were merely a vehicle you might ride to a particular destination, and the terrain you trammeled to get there was nothing more than dirt under your wheels.
Certainly Tul Jabbor had treated justice that way. He had dramatical y expanded the Council's power by going after erstwhile supporters like the OCHRE Corporation; some even suspected he had signed Henry Osterman's death warrant. Then again, Jabbor had come to power in a world without precedents, a world simultaneously drunk with the possibilities of bio/logics and desperate to avoid repeating the horrors of the Autonomous Revolt.
But Len Borda? Borda had two hundred years of Council history to guide him, with every manner of high executive from Par Padron the Just to Zetarysis the Mad as object lessons. He should have known better. Instead, Borda was ever wil ing to sacrifice principle for pragmatism, ever ready to steer justice down the muddy, unpaved path.
And you? the lieutenant executive asked himself, kneeling in silence before the statue of Tul Jabbor. Are you forcing Borda to step down because he's made a mockery of Par Padron's ideals? Or are you just afraid to wake up at the bottom of a river?
Magan Kai Lee was a man of reason and principle, or so he told himself. He had been drawn to the Defense and Wel ness Council by its discipline, its rigidity, and its stability when compared to the life of the diss-or so he told himself.
Now, after watching Len Borda use the Council as a blunt instrument of self-preservation for years, Magan was contemplating the ultimate move against the very discipline, rigidity, and stability that had brought him here in the first place. And that contradiction sat in his mind like a poisonous flower with everexpanding roots.
But Magan couldn't al ow Len Borda to repeat the mistakes he had made with Marcus Surina, could he? Wasn't there a higher principle at work here that needed defending?
Do you act in justice?
Papizon and Rey Gonerev caught up to him in the hal way, no simple feat in an orbital fortress whose constantly s.h.i.+fting corridors rendered geography meaningless.
”We spotted Natch an hour ago,” said Papizon as he moved into step behind Magan like a hoverbird merging into traffic. ”He's on a tube train, headed north out of Cisco.”
The lieutenant executive ground his teeth together. ”And you didn't think to look there before we raided his apartment?”
Papizon shook his head. He was immune to criticism. In fact, he seemed to have been inoculated against most forms of human expres sion altogether. Sometimes Magan wondered if Papizon was real y some sublevel engineer's attempt to circ.u.mvent the harsh Al bans in place since the Autonomous Revolt. If so, one couldn't have picked a more peculiar vessel: lanky, storkish, brown eyes not quite symmetrical and permanently half-lidded.
Rey stepped up to Papizon's defense. ”We did check there, Magan,” she said. ”We swept half the tube trains in the Americas yesterday. Natch was definitely not on that tube line.”
Magan gave the Blade an appraising look. She had pointedly not fal en half a step behind him like Papizon, but walked at his side like an equal. A message meant not so much for him as for the other Council officers in the hal way-the ones she would be jousting with someday when it was Magan's turn to step down from the high executive's seat.
Papizon: ”So are we going to try to pick him up again?”
”No,” said Magan, shaking his head. ”Just keep an eye on him for now-and make sure he knows we're doing it. Make his life unpleasant.”
”Unpleasant,” his subordinate echoed with a nod, then slipped down a side corridor and disappeared. Making Someone's Life Unpleasant had been honed to a science at the Defense and Wel ness Council, and Papizon was a true authority on the subject. Unpleasantness meant snooping programs that left clear traces of their presence. It meant ghostly figures that fol owed you on the periphery of your vision. It meant a few unexplained transactions in your Vault account, too smal to be of consequence yet too large to go unnoticed.
”And me?” said the Blade.
”You,” replied Magan, ”wil be planning the main attack on this fiefcorp master. I don't care how much you spend-you have the coffers of the Defense and Wel ness Council at your disposal. We need unprecedented coordination.