"I don't think there's much else I want to ask," I said, standing up.
"I will obtain further details," Rhodane informed me.
I left that place, clamping down on my need to vomit.
13
The first five hilldiggers were built during the first twenty years of the War and it was this effort that pushed the economy of Sudoria into collapse. The Planetary Council plutocrats had of course gathered to themselves a huge proportion of Sudoria's wealthy and lived sybaritic lifestyles utterly at odds with the famine and want experienced by the majority. The revolt, when it came, was led by workers in the space industry and by Fleet personnel returning groundside. Chaos ensued and many of those sybarites turned up in the Komarl, bolted to rocks with the kind of fixings used in the construction of hilldigger skeletons. Things settled down a little, but there was much argument about what kind of regime should come next, how wealth should be distributed, who should be in charge of what…The list just kept growing. The old planetary parties began scrabbling for power, and some infighting ensued. The people lost focus and indulged in some rather silly squabbling. The fifty-megaton Brumallian warhead that annihilated the city of Cairo-Desit came as a timely reminder. It took just ten days to form Parliament after that.
— Uskaron
Harald
Feet thundered on the deck plates, the racket of machinery was constant. A hot metal smell permeated the air, as did the drifting smoke from welding whose arc flashes lit the interior of the engine galleries. Standing on a high catwalk, his guards deployed around him, Harald was hardly aware of this commotion. He instead stared at the code scrolling down in one segment of his eye-screen, while clenching and unclenching his hand to stretch his fingers inside the control glove. One of the other two screen segments, either side of this main one, held his cracker programs, worms and viral decoders—a toolkit he had built up over many years of breaking into Fleet com. He began working the glove, selecting out lines of code to copy and then apply his programs to, before dropping the results through analytical sieves. It soon became evident to him that Lambrack was using a standard randomising protocol, but obviously running a book code behind that, for the third screen divided itself into blocks displaying parts of images, and from the speaker issued something sounding like an alien tongue. He made the obvious selection—Uskaron's damned book—and felt a cynical contempt when two more screen sections lit up to show Captains Davidson and Lambrack, and their voices became clear.
Lambrack: "… to come over to his side. In a way I admire that. It shows a degree of ruthlessness we need in an Admiral, but I still cannot agree with his obvious intent. The purpose of Fleet is to defend Sudoria, obeying the dictates of Parliament. If we follow Harald, we'll end up with a military dictatorship."
Davidson: "I understand that probability, but wonder if that is really his intent. It could be that he feels, as do many in Fleet, that Parliament is making a mistake in its dealings with this Polity."
Lambrack: "Maybe our politicians are making a mistake, but it's theirs to make. Yet think about it. Sudoria's defence is not weakened by Combine continuing to run those defence platforms. The only question is one of centralised command, which is always preferable in conducting a war. Do you think that is a question worth internecine conflict—worth killing our own people over?"
Davidson: "It won't necessarily come to that."
Lambrack: "Davidson, you're only giving him the benefit of the doubt because he cleared your way to the Captaincy of the Resilience. Don't be naive. He's manipulating you."
Davidson: "But he still could have killed me rather than Grune."
Lambrack: "No one would have believed you guilty and Grune innocent. This way, all the other Captains who were wavering are more likely to take Harald's side."
And so Lambrack continued to work on Davidson. Harald began recording their exchange in case anything useful to him arose. With Lambrack being a long-established and respected Captain, Harald could not employ the same peremptory justice he had used against Grune, but with the present recordings he had sufficient to bring the man before a Fleet court. The problem would be extracting him from his ship, and that Harald did not have time for currently. However, there was an alternative.
Harald wiped the code screens and put through a direct call to Captain Lambrack. Watching the man, he saw him glance to one side and frown.
"We'll have to cut this now, Davidson. It seems Harald would like to speak to me. Just consider all I've said. We will need to act quickly and decisively to prevent an all-out firefight with Orbital Combine."
Harald would have liked Lambrack to elaborate on that, but the man cut his connection with Davidson, then his image appeared alone.
"Admiral Strone, what can I do for you?"
"I note," Harald replied, "that you and Captain Davidson have been rather stretching the definition of the 'diamond formation'."
"We wished to conduct a private conversation," replied Lambrack.
The two ships had pulled back only a little way, to a position where they could use com lasers without any possibility of interception of laser reflection from their own hulls. Harald had not intercepted the lasers; he had simply subverted Davidson's onboard com system remotely. It would certainly come as a surprise to many hilldigger Captains just how well he had penetrated the security of their ships, both informationally and physically.
"I have to wonder what you needed to talk about that required such privacy," he said.
"Yes, I imagine you do."
Harald knew he was not going to get anywhere with this so decided to take a new tack. "No matter. We have some more immediate concerns that I'll get to in a moment. But first, I understand that your brother is a senior researcher aboard Corisanthe II and that you have recently been in communication with him?"
Lambrack glanced to one side, then returned with, "I note this is not encoded com. A rather shoddy attempt to smear my name, don't you think?"
"You misunderstand me. How could I use such a fact to smear your name when my own sister ranks so high aboard Corisanthe Main? I am merely seeking to confirm some rumours concerning equipment recently moved from II to Main."
"Equipment?"
"Weapons."
"That's not the kind of thing my brother and I would discuss."
"Then what do you discuss?"
"Our recent conversation centred around events in Parliament and how they may affect us both. I imagine this was a subject raised by many officers in Fleet who have relatives in Combine and on Sudoria itself. Or rather, it was something undoubtedly raised until you restricted communication."
Harald awarded Lambrack that point and smiled and nodded for the benefit of those who would certainly be watching this or would view a later recording. Inside he seethed, however. By not pretending loyalty to Harald or his aims, Lambrack placed himself in an unassailable position. Harald could accuse the man of sedition, but that would only cause more problems than it would solve.
"It's an unfortunate situation and of course I would perfectly understand any reluctance you might have to obey any orders putting members of your family in danger."
"I have not disobeyed any of your orders, Admiral Strone," replied Lambrack firmly.
"No, you haven't as yet."
"Are you implying that I intend to?"
"I would never question your loyalty to Fleet."
"I am so glad. Now what were these 'more immediate concerns'?"