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  "Don't bother," said Zilwicki. "I've run models close enough to those in the past. Even assuming the worst case variant—a private company run by a single individual with no internal restraints of any kind, which doesn't resemble Manpower at all—you still won't get numbers anything like this. These are the sort of outlays measured against possible gain that you only get from governments. And aggressive governments, at that. The sort led by your Alexander the Great types. Not bean-counters."

  "Why in the world would you have taken the time to develop such models?" asked Cachat. "I can't think of any reason to do so."

  Zilwicki clucked his tongue. "That's because you have the limited horizons and stunted vision of someone who's spent his whole life in the hall of mirrors. I didn't do it for intelligence reasons, Victor. I did it back in my yard dog days, so I'd have a gauge for businesses that submitted bids."

  "And you're certain about this, Anton?" asked Web.

  "Yes. There's simply no way to explain Manpower's recent behavior unless you introduce major non-commercial factors into the equation. The same's probably true for Jessyk and Technodyne, by the way, although we're not sure about that yet. But we don't think there's any question any longer that it's true about Manpower. Especially when you add this latest data concerning Monica to the information we already had. A corporation would no more behave like this than a corporate employee would behave like Ronald Allen."

  Du Havel leaned forward, planted his hands on the table, puffed out his cheeks, and then blew out the air. "Well. I will be damned."

  "We may all be," said Jeremy. "What do you think is happening then?"

  "The simplest explanation," replied Victor, "is that the recent reverses suffered by Manpower and some other powerful Mesan corporations has driven the so-called Mesan 'government' to actually begin acting like one. If that hypothesis is true, then what we've actually been seeing are not Manpower operations but Mesan operations using Manpower as a cover."

  Web cocked his head and looked at Cachat with a quizzical expression. "You don't seem too convinced by that explanation."

  Victor shrugged. "It can't be ruled out. It's the simplest explanation, and the most famous of all dictums applies to intelligence work also."

  "Oh, I know that one!" said Berry cheerily. "You're talking about Occam's Razor."

  "Which is what?" asked Ruth, with some asperity. Her extensive knowledge of political and military matters did not extend to a solid grounding in the history of philosophy.

  "I'm forgotten the exact words," said Berry. "But the gist of it is that whenever you're presented with two or more possible answers to the same question, always pick the simplest answer. It's the one mostly likely to be correct."

  Web, who was quite familiar with Occam's Razor, had sat silently through the exchange. When Berry finished, he said: "But you're skeptical, Victor."

  "Yes. I am." Cachat nodded at Zilwicki. "So is Anton."

  Du Havel now looked at Anton. "Why?"

  Zilwicki scowled. It wasn't much of scowl, actually, but it didn't take much given Anton's blocky face for him to resemble a very peeved dwarf king. "It's a fuzzy matter, admittedly. But I just find it too hard to believe that a planetary 'government' with the history of Mesa's could suddenly start operating as smoothly and efficiently as they seem to have been doing."

  "I think it's just about impossible to believe," said Victor. "That so-called 'government' on Mesa has a lot more in common with the board of directors of a company than it does with a normal government."

  Du Havel thought about it. There was certainly a lot of truth to what Victor was saying. The political structure of Mesa was essentially that of a corporation in which all free citizens owned voting stock. Slaves, of course, were permanently barred from ever owning voting stock. Indeed, they were barred from owning anything. Officially, at least. In practice, they were usually allowed to keep some personal belongings, just as in practice they were often allowed to earn some money on the side in various petty enterprises.

  The CEO of Mesa was elected by the General Board of the star system. Membership on the board was split between the star system's major corporate entities and members elected by the free citizenry as a whole. The balance of power was unambiguously in the hands of the board members appointed by the major corporations, however. Elective members constituted only one-third of the General Board's total membership; the other two-thirds were appointed by the corporations on the basis of the percentage of the government's taxes which each corporation paid. Because Manpower was far and away the largest single corporation, and, indeed, provided almost sixteen percent of the government's total tax base, its appointees dominated the General Board and normally determined who would hold the office of CEO.

  In addition to the appointments Manpower could make in its own right, it had carefully concealed (or, at least, carefully never mentioned) relationships with other major Mesan corporations, through which it controlled the appointment of still more members of the General Board. For example, the Jessyk Combine was officially an independent corporation which appointed 4.5% of the General Board's members, but those appointments were actually controlled by Manpower. If their suspicion that a similar relationship existed with Mesa Pharmaceuticals, that would give Manpower control of—or influence over, at least—another 9.5% of the General Board. Between just those three nominally independent corporations, the Directors of Manpower probably controlled thirty percent of the General Board of the star system outright.

  Under the Mesan Constitution, the CEO had to be selected from among the members of the General Board, which virtually guaranteed that he would come out of the ranks of the corporate appointees. And he was, indeed, the chief executive officer of the star system, in fact, as well as name. He served at the pleasure of the General Board, and no CEO could hold office continuously for a period greater than ten T-years, but while he held office, his power was effectively unlimited, and all decisions of government policy were made in a top-down fashion from his office, through an executive branch staff answerable directly to him. His budgetary proposals had to be approved by the General Board, but they were usually confirmed without a great deal of debate. In fact, the (extremely rare) refusal by a General Board to endorse the current CEO's budget proposals was the equivalent of a vote of no confidence, and terminated that CEO's term of office immediately.

  It was certainly not a political structure that lent itself to suppleness and risk-taking. So far as that went, Du Havel agreed with Victor. On the other hand, he thought Cachat's egalitarian political philosophy sometimes blinded him—partially, at least—to certain realities.

  Governments run along corporatist lines were actually fairly common in the galaxy, and Mesa was by no means the sole example. As originally established, for instance, the original Manticoran government had been set up in a very similar fashion. True, it had change extensively over the centuries, but change was the one true constant of human institutions, when one came rdown to it, and many another star nation had evolved into a corporatist form, rather than away from one.

  And, done properly, they worked just as well as any other system. Which was to say, never perfectly, but often more than well enough to get by with.

  Beowulf was a case in point, actually, since it also had a corporate political structure which mirrored its economic structure. The shareholders who owned all of the stock in the Corporation (which, in turn, owned the entire Beowulf System) elected a Board of Directors and Corporate officers, who then ran the Corporation and were responsible for providing necessary public services to the citizens of Beowulf. This structure had persisted, essentially unchanged, for the better part of five hundred T-years, and was retained in outer form even today, to some extent. Yet Beowulf's government was quite capable of behaving like a genuine national state, and not just a squabbling oligopoly.

  That said, Du Havel thought Cachat was probably right. The key difference between Beowulf and Mesa was slavery. About seventy percent of Mesa's popula
tion were slaves. That crude and simple demographic reality placed its stamp on every aspect of Mesan society. True, the thirty percent of Mesa's population who were not slaves enjoyed a high degree of individual civil liberties and were quite well provided for by the various corporations for whom they worked in what amounted to a patron-client relationship. In no small part, though, that represented a payoff from the corporations to their clients as a way to help defuse any inclinations towards abolitionism.

  That "payoff" mentality was probably unnecessary, since the notion of a Mesan Anti-Slavery League boggled the mind, but it was indicative of the fundamental paranoia which the institution of slavery bred in its slaveowner class. That paranoia also extended itself—with considerably greater justification—to suspicion of outside "troublemakers." While free Mesan citizens enjoyed relatively high degrees of civil liberty, there were specific areas in which those liberties were extremely restricted. The security organs of Mesa enjoyed virtually carte blanche authority in any matter impinging upon the institution of slavery, and they were ruthless in the extreme with any suspected abolitionist. The majority of Mesan citizens had no objection to this, since they, like their corporate overlords, lived in fear of the specter of servile rebellion and generally supported any measure they believed would make that rebellion less likely.

  What all that meant, however, was that the formally democratic aspects of Mesa's governmental structure were basically just that—formalities. That was quite unlike the situation on Beowulf, where the population as a whole—that is to say, its citizens—had final control of the government.

  While Web had been ruminating, the rest of the people in the room had kept silent. Partly out of personal respect, and partly for the practical reason that Du Havel was Torch's prime minister. If any decisions were to be made today, he'd have to be in favor of them.

  "I don't fundamentally disagree with your assessment, Victor. Or yours, Anton. I could quibble here and there, but that's what they'd be. Quibbles."

  "Right, then," said Jeremy. He took a seat next to Berry. The other people in the room recognized the signs—symptoms, you could almost say. Jeremy X was ready to start making decisions. "What do we do?"

  "We don't do anything—if by 'we' you're including Torch or the Ballroom," Anton replied. "We've already agreed that Mesa's gotten agents here. So we have to start small and . . . call it 'quarantined.' "

  "Who, exactly, is 'we,' then?" asked Du Havel.

  "Initially, just three of us." Anton jabbed a thumb at his chest, and then pointed to Victor and Ruth. "Me. Him. Her. It's the only way we can be sure we're completely evading any Mesan double agents. And then, if and when we need backup, we'll use Ganny Butre and her people."

  "And just how do you propose to get into Mesa?" Jeremy demanded. "Or I should say, vanishing from sight once you do. There's no way you'll be able to do that without using at least some of the Ballroom's contacts on Mesa."

  He cocked his head. "So. How exactly do you plan to get around that problem?"

  "By using one member of the Ballroom as our liaison, and one only. Saburo. He knows a number of Ballroom contacts on Mesa and"—Zilwicki's jaws tightened—"given what happened to Lara, we figure he's as trustworthy as anyone this side of Whatever Saints Might Be."

  Jeremy pondered the matter, for a moment, and then nodded. "Good plan, I think. I assume you'll leave Saburo behind, though, when you do the actual penetration?"

  "Oh, yes," said Victor. "Trying to smuggle him into Mesa would be an order of magnitude harder than smuggling ourselves in. The one thing that Mesan police forces watch for like hawks is any attempt by ex-slaves to penetrate their security."

  "True enough. For you and Anton, though, the real trick will be vanishing once you get onto the planet." He smiled. "And do please note that I'm not asking you how you plan to do that."

  They smiled back. And said nothing.

  Web didn't even try to figure out the espionage technicalities. He was far more intrigued by another issue. "Leave aside security," he said. "Am I the only one here who thinks it's downright weird that you propose to form an elite corps—no more than three of you; four, if you count Saburo—of secret agents, made up of Manticorans and Havenites?"

  Berry grinned. "It is weird, isn't it? Given that they're officially at war with each other."

  "Technically, I've got dual citizenship now," said Ruth stoutly. "So I figure I count as a citizen of Torch, not a Manticoran."

  That claim was . . . dubious. To begin with, while Torch recognized dual citizenship, the Star Kingdom didn't. Not for anyone, much less a member of its own royal house. Granted, under the circumstances, the Manticoran government had been willing to look the other way when Ruth took out Torch citizenship. Leaving that aside, nobody in their right mind—and certainly not Victor Cachat—doubted for a moment that Ruth would never act against Manticore's interests.

  Cachat looked uncomfortable. Zilwicki, on the other hand, seemed quite relaxed. "We can chew on the legalities until the heat death of the universe. What matters,though, is that if we're right, then Manpower and Mesa are engaged in a lot deeper game than we thought they were. And whatever else may be true, the one thing that's sure and certain is that their intentions will be hostile in the extreme toward both Haven and Manticore."

  Victor spoke up. "Which means that whatever we uncover, we're going to have to share it and—what's almost certainly going to be the biggest problem of all—convince both Haven and Manticore that our assessment is accurate. There will be no way to do that without both Anton and me being involved from beginning to end."

  "I can see that," said Jeremy, nodding. "But . . . ah, I hate to remind another person of his duty, Victor, but I thought you were the head of Haven's intelligence not only here on Torch but also on Erewhon. 'Chief of station,' I think it's called."

  Victor looked uncomfortable again. "Well . . . yes. But there's a lot of latitude involved." More brightly: "And they've sent out a very competent subordinate. I'm sure she can handle things while I'm gone."

  "And just how can you be so certain she's that good?"

  "Oh, we've worked together before, Jeremy, on La Martine. She did a superb job of organizing the murder of a rogue StateSec officer, and handled the beating I gave her afterward just about as well." Seeing the stares, he added: "Well, I had to have her beaten. Only way to cover her tracks. I learned that from Kevin Usher, the time he beat me to a pulp in Chicago."

  He rose from the table. "And now that we're settled on our course of action—even though most of you don't actually know what it is—I've got to start planning our entry into Mesa. Anton and Ruth still have a lot of data-crunching to do, but they don't really need my help. That sort of thing is, ah, not my forte."

  Du Havel saw that Berry was now looking cross-eyed. It was hard not to laugh. He was quite sure he knew what the young queen was thinking.

  Sure isn't. Victor Cachat's forte is mayhem.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  "Are you sure about this, Victor?" asked Jeremy. "It's a hell of risky way for you to try to get onto Mesa."

  He gave Victor's companion a glance that was not quite skeptical, but close. "And—meaning no offense, Yana—but adding you to this small team seems to me to increase the risk, not lower it."

  The ex-Scrag Amazon gave the war secretary a cool smile in return. A bit hastily, he added: "Not because I doubt your loyalties, you understand. It's just . . ."

  He chuckled softly. "I will say, Victor, if you pull this off you'll have raised the bar for chutzpah about a meter."

  "Who Hutspa?" asked Berry.

  "Miguel Jutspa," said Ruth. "Spelled with a 'J,' not an 'H.' He's a leader of the Renaissance League, one of Jessica Stein's close advisers."

  Web Du Havel smiled. "I think Anton's actually using a Yiddish term, Ruth."

  "What's—"

  "Ancient dialect of German used by Jews. 'Chutzpah'—it actually starts with a 'ch'—means . . ." His eyes got a little unfocused. "There's
no exact translation. It's a wonderful term, really. The closest would be brazen, brash—but with the connotation of breath-taking self-righteousness as well. A good illustration is the old joke about the man who murdered his parents for the inheritance and then, when caught and convicted, argued that he should get a light sentence because he'd been deprived of parental guidance. That's chutzpah."

  Berry looked back and forth between Victor and Yana. "All right, I can see that. Victor and Yana go in as a couple, pretending to be among the very few survivors of the Manpower Incident on Terra—the only StateSec agent and one of the few Scrags who somehow managed to keep from getting slaughtered by the murderous alliance between the Ballroom, Kevin Usher—now the head of Haven's FIS—and a certain then-completely-unknown StateSec agent by the name of . . . Victor Cachat."

  "Look at this way," said Victor. "If anybody presses me, I can give them details about the episode that they've never heard, but which will ring absolutely true."

  Anton laughed softly. "Since, in fact, there were no survivors of that StateSec unit—except you." He looked at Yana. "And it's almost certain that no one has an exact record of exactly which Scrags were killed in Chicago. Some did survive, after all. So why not you?"

  Ruth looked a bit uncertain. "I don't know . . . It would seem to me that there's a risk there. If there were so few Scrag survivors of that incident—and there aren't all that many Scrags in the universe to begin with—isn't there a chance that one of the real survivors will know that Yana wasn't among them? Of course, that's assuming she runs into any such on Mesa, which is probably not likely. Still, it's a risk."

  Yana shook her head. "You don't really understand how Scrag society works, Ruth. The level of what you might call internal belligerence is closer to that of predators than humans. It wouldn't be at all surprising if I'd gotten irritated with other Scrags and gone my own way. And, as it happens, I did spend a fair amount of time on Terra in my younger days, most of it in Chicago. A lot of Scrags do, though, so I'd hardly stand out."