Kinsella (Kinsella Universe Book 1) (27 page)

“Howie, the only sovereignty ‘lost,’” she made air quotes around the last word, “is sovereignty you don’t currently have... that is, outside the atmosphere.  All the Federation can do if they don’t like what some government does is to decertify them.

“It’s ships from governments not with the program that would be at risk.

“It’s back to carrots and sticks.  The biggest carrot is off-world travel.  The biggest stick is its absence.  Can you imagine what would happen to a country in this day and age if you could shut off its foreign trade?”

Bob nodded.  “Australia understands that well enough, Steph.  I hate to do this, but we’re going to have to ask you to leave again.”

Steph shook her head.  “Look, you don’t have to apologize.  All I want to do here is be heard.  I want this idea to have a chance at being implemented.  Compared to that, not having access to private conversations between world leaders is no big.”

She waved a half salute and left.

Late the same evening Steph was back.  “I saw the response to the French proposal,” she told the two.  “I could see from the French envoy’s reaction that he didn’t expect you to agree and then run with it.”

“It caught them flat-footed.  They made a token objection about sovereignty and putting too many eggs in one basket, but that put them arguing against their own proposal.  At this point no one wants to go to the mat about where the lines run on the organization chart.  At some point that will become the main focus and every bit as bitter as any negotiation ever is,” Howie explained.

“We need something to focus people’s attention on what we’re doing,” Bob suggested.  “So far the negotiations, for most people, mean absolutely nothing.  Not very many Australians care at all about off-planet colonies.  They are not engaged.”

“Neither is the average American, although the conservative blogosphere is rumbling about loss of sovereignty.  Black helicopters are back,” Howie lamented.

Stephanie laughed.  “Probably no aircraft type has been hit as hard as the world of helicopters.  They were always noisy and difficult to fly.  Marginal aircraft, for the most part.  Howie, do you remember what Admiral Delgado said on the day you gave him the Space Service?”

“He said a number of things.”

“About his excitement at watching an F-16 lift vertically off a carrier deck.”

“I remember that.  I used to drive hot jets.  I was tempted to invite myself for a demonstration, but there never seems to be enough time.”

“Sir, you should make time.  You also might want to find a new Navy Liaison; the one you’ve got now isn’t a patch on John Gilly.”

“I have to agree,” Howie told Steph.

“Sir, one thing you have to understand about naval admirals: they are not in the business of letting grass grow under their hind ends.”

The PM laughed first, followed by the President.  “I like that,” Howie told Steph, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye.  “Grass growing under admirals.”

Stephanie had been patient and when he finished she smiled wickedly at them.  “You didn’t hear John mention to Delgado that torpedoes, some of them, are propelled by gas turbines.”

“Gas turbine is a red flag phrase, right?” Howie asked.

“Yes, indeed.  The Air Force had a good laugh about the Navy hanging new versions of the Mark 48 torpedo, two of them, from the wings of an F-16.  The Navy had the last laugh, of course.  They’ve been shooting holes in some of the inner belt asteroids, sir.”

“I’m impressed,” the President told her.  “And here I thought the Space Service had no spacecraft, just stuff they borrowed and no weapons.”

“Sir, it takes a lot of courage to fly a modified F-16 outside the orbit of Mars and back, particularly with tons of explosive strapped to your wings.  But, that’s really secondary, sir.”

“Secondary, Steph?” he said, reminding her obliquely to be informal.

“Sir, the Mark 48 torpedo is nuclear-capable.”

The two heads of state looked at Stephanie as if she’d grown horns.

“They haven’t tested a warhead, have they, Howie?” Bob asked anxiously.

“Bob, this is the first I’ve heard of this.”

“Like I said, Howie.  The Navy is made up of a number of competing groups.  Since John Gilly did so well, and was a carrier captain, the carrier proponents got to send you another man.  Except the new guy has never served on another class of vessel, and while he was a pilot, he flew COD aircraft... the Navy’s package express delivery service.  He can’t stand subs and he doesn’t like fighter jocks.”

Howie sighed heavily.  “I tried to make it clear to John why I valued him so highly.  Because he wasn’t interested in telling me what I wanted to hear, and above all, he didn’t tell me what he thought I wanted to hear.  The new guy hardly talks at all, and when he does, he kisses my ass.”

“You had an aide like that?  And you let him go?” Bob said, wheezing with laughter.

Howie glared at him and Bob settled back.  “Sorry, I’d kill for someone like that on my staff.”

“So, the bottom line is that the Space Service is flight testing weapons and weapons systems, is that it, Steph?”

“Yes, Howie.  I’m glad you said it that way, because a modified F-16 isn’t going to be able to cut it for any useful extra atmospheric work, except in emergencies.  However working with a number of companies, the Space Service will have a half dozen ships of their own flying by the end of the year.  They will have weapons that have been tried and tested.”

She could see Howie was upset.  “I should have known,” the President said simply.

“Yes, sir.  But sir, you fire people.  To the fearful, that means you might fire them for giving you bad news.  In spite of the fact that you’ve only fired people for not telling you things, or getting them wrong.”

“Damn it!  It’s Howie!”

“Yes, sir, of course, sir.  Would you like me to leave the two of you alone to discuss what you’re going to do?”

He opened his mouth and shut it.  After a pause, Howie shook his head and turned to the PM.  “I realized Steph was playing me from the first time we met.  But, I thought, she was going where I wanted to go, so no harm, no foul.

“Since then I’ve learned the meaning of ‘slippery slope.’  Steph, executive decisions are just that.  Surely you understand?”

“Howie, one day I will be standing over the shoulder of an earnest young man or woman.  I will tell them to shoot.  And a dot on their screen will be turned into incandescent gas, along with every man, woman and child aboard.  And make no mistake, Howie, our enemies will make sure that we’ll know everything significant about those who die.  We’ll see their pictures, we’ll learn about their lives.”

“In the first Gulf War I dropped bombs on innocent women and children.  It happens.”

“And did you whisper to yourself ‘If only I had the ear of the President, we could do this better?’”

He looked away.  “Maybe.”

The Australian laughed.  “I wasn’t even in the military and I thought that!”

“All I’m asking, sir, is to be heard.  I’m satisfied with that.  But, like anyone else, I wouldn’t mind the big jackpot — being in on the final decision.”

“Not yet,” he told her.

Both men were startled when Steph stood up, came close to the President and leaned up to kiss him on his cheek.  “And you’ll understand, then, why some day I’ll be standing on that deck, giving that order, with you out of the loop?  And more than anything, that’s what I want from this meeting?”

She turned and left without another word.

Bob spoke softly.  “There’s an old saying: ‘Rather beard the lion in his den, than the poet amongst his pens.’  Clearly, the wag hadn’t met a professor of physics.”

Howie shook his head.  “My problem is her motivation.  She just wants to slide under the radar.  Her idea of heaven is if no one knows her name a hundred years from now.”

“She’s leaving it to us to hog the limelight,” the PM said, agreeing.  “Why does it bother you so much that she doesn’t seek fame?”

“Bob, we both know we took our jobs with one eye on the history books.  I’m uncomfortable with someone who so clearly — and coldly — forgoes that.”

“Howie, men — and women — do things for different reasons.  We know that; it’s the foundation of political power.  Be it position, title, power, money — there’s always something.  There are those, however rare, who seek their legacy in making things happen.  She’s right, you know.  If she was famous, she couldn’t do this.  How many reporters, do you think, are asking her for interviews?  I mean, she led the first manned interstellar expedition and she’s virtually unknown.  She’s...”

He stopped talking suddenly and his face went gray.  “Dear God!”

“What?”

He turned away and walked to a window and looked out.

“What?” Howie repeated.

Bob looked at him.  “Once, long ago, after I won my first election, I told my wife I wasn’t a brave man.  I avoided military service, having no desire to risk my life when bullets were flying around.  Australians are fond of service with bullets flying around.

“She laughed at me.  ‘You just told me that one day you want to be Prime Minister.’  Well, I had.  And she looked me in the eye and said, ‘And just how many politicians have been murdered over the last few decades?’”  He looked at Howie.  “It seemed to me to be a reasonable risk; I have guards and all, right?

“Howie, she just said it.  One day, she, or someone like her, will have to pull the trigger.  That’s the real bottom line of this whole thing.  Besmirch.  That’s the operative word here.  Besmirch.  She doesn’t want to besmirch the exploration of space with events of a particularly hard nature that might become necessary.  Benko and Chang are safe; they’ll never be close to a decision like that.  And, if Stephanie Kinsella has any say in it, we won’t be either.

“We will have a Fleet, only it will be a Federation Fleet.  It will be organized, more or less like Kinsella wants.  If not now, as what happened to your Space Service, eventually.  And one day, when someone has to pull the trigger — as we are all sure it will have to be pulled — the repercussions will rise up in the Fleet, to the Federation.  Not to us.  Not to our individual nations, but to something grander and bigger than all of us.  A group, who, Kinsella willing, that has been designed to take the heat.”

“I’m not afraid of giving such an order,” the President mused.

“Nor would I hesitate.  But that’s not the point.  If either of us had to do it, it would get all wrapped up with hundreds of years of our history and related baggage.  Questions would be raised about all sorts of issues — not necessarily having to do with why it had to be done.  She’s right.  The focus has to be on the Federation and its Fleet.  They have to be seen to independent of all of us.

“I would have no objection if she stayed for our ‘executive’ executive sessions.”

“I don’t suppose I have any valid objections, either.  Still, you have to admire one slick operator!”

“Howie, Australia has thirty-two nuclear weapons.  Technically they aren’t weapons, since they are disassembled.”

The President blinked in astonishment.  “And you’re telling me this because?”

“Because one reason you’ve never heard about it, is that any Australian PM who admitted to having a hand in secret nukes could kiss his job goodbye.  But we all have.  The day the Fleet is established and has some ships, I’ll announce we’re giving them all to the Federation.”

Howie exhaled long and slow.  “And it doesn’t bother you that she either knew or guessed, and that you are doing exactly what she wants?”

“Just as it never bothered you to shower her with a couple of billion dollars and a nuclear reactor.  She did what she said she would.  She delivered the bacon.  Dear God, I hope she delivers the bacon on this off-planet stuff.”

Howie wiped his face with both his hands, looking down.  “You’ll pardon me if I hope she never has to deliver on her promise to shoot.”

“Except I hope if she has to, she will.  And Howie, from here on out, I’m on her side.  I’ll do anything I can to facilitate that outcome.”

In the lounge, Stephanie lifted her feet and put them on a coffee table, sipping on her ice tea.  Charlie looked at her.  “You’re suddenly smug.”

Stephanie Kinsella cocked her head to one side and then shrugged.  “Sometimes I get carried away with my own importance.  I don’t suppose you have a slave handy to whisper in my ear: ‘You are mortal, not a god.  A woman, no more.’”

“Does that mean the conference isn’t going like you hoped?”

“No.  Actually, the opposition wasn’t as formidable as I expected.  With few exceptions, everyone sent the second string.”

“So, you’re smug, right?”

“I’m getting what I want.  There are days I revel in it.  Then I realize what it is I want and I want to hide myself away in a closet so I never have to face myself in the mirror.”

Charlie Rampling sighed.  “I’m not stupid, Steph!   When I sit down and think about what you’re up to, the things you’re doing, I go ‘Sheesh!  I couldn’t do that!’”

“Do you know what Admiral Delgado told me the other day?”