Robert Frezza - [Colonial War 02]

by Fire in a Faraway Place (epub)

  “If this is the case, Anton, I am even more surprised that they did not accept your offer to resign,” Ebyl articulated.

  “Accepting Anton’s resignation would have been a face-saving compromise,” Haijalo said.

  “1 do not understand,” Ebyl responded.

  “It might mean that they don’t like the political solution that we crafted and want us to help them with something unusually damned mean,” Harjalo explained. “Or maybe it’s something worse.”

  Vereshchagin stuck the disk from Mizoguchi out of his pocket and inserted it into the vehicle’s stereo system. As he listened to Mizoguchi’s voice, his face hardened. Although the voice was Mizoguchi’s, the flavor of the words as he described the unsuccessful operation on his eyes and talked about his family’s distress at his injury was not. The recording quality was poor, with a noticeable hiss. The bland phrases were jarring.

  Isolated from Earth by time dilation and distance, Vereshchagin wanted from Mizo a candid appraisal of the political events that were happening on Earth. Things changed over the years, and the Variag had learned not to trust everything he heard from official sources. Political news was the one thing that wasn’t on the disk.

  He ejected it with a jab of his finger and stuck it in Matti Harjalo’s pocket. “Mizo must have put something more on this than platitudes. Have Timo Haerkoennen work on it until we find out what it is that he could not tell us openly.”

  Haijalo set his mouth tightly. They finished the trip in silence.

  BACK AT ADMIRAL HORIl’s TEMPORARY HEADQUARTERS, SUMI

  erupted as soon as the staff members cleared the room. “Vice-Admiral, I protest! You had that fox-faced foreigner in the palm of your hand and let him go!”

  “Governance, Sumi, consists of plucking the goose without killing it. Effective governance involves securing the most feathers from the bird with the least amount of hissing. We have the terrorist movements to contend with.” He held up his hand. “It would take you months to duplicate Lieutenant-Colonel Vereshchagin’s efforts. In my estimation, the situation here requires a .‘Winter Campaign of Osaka.’ Unless you resolutely disagree, this is the strategy that we will employ.” Sumi’s jaw tightened. Bowing perfunctorily, he left the room. In 1614, the moats and palisades of Osaka castle were eight and three-quarters miles around and bristling with heavy ordnance; they stood between Ieyasu Tokugawa and domination of Japan. Besieging the fortress, Ieyasu negotiated with the defenders, simultaneously gripping their throats and stroking their backs. Negotiating a settlement that involved tearing down the castle’s outer defenses, he easily seized the castle the following summer, making “A Winter Campaign of Osaka” into a proverb.

  “It is good that we have an enemy here,” Horii said to the walls of the room. “Otherwise, it might be necessary to invent one.”

  Wednesday(309)

  SENIOR COMMUNICATIONS SERGEANT TIMO HAERKOENNEN CURSED

  softly, and mostly he cursed former lieutenant Hiroshi Mizoguchi.

  Hiroshi Mizoguchi, the second son in a one-position corporate family, had been a lieutenant in B Company until he was blinded by a mortar shell. Vereshchagin had sent him home on the assault transport Shokaku, with a dozen other severely wounded and one hundred and fifty Afrikaners being transported for their role in the rebellion.

  Unless Mizoguchi had had an operation on his head to stuff it with rocks, there should have been something more on his disk.

  Haerkoennen looked at his assistant.

  “Maybe Mizo taped it under duress. Or maybe he lost his nerve,” the assistant speculated. “Or maybe somebody switched tapes.”

  “We’ll talk about maybes after we check through every sound,” Haerkoennen replied.

  AS THE BEYERS FAMILY SAT FOR SUPPER, HANNA BRUWER NOTICED

  that the look on her husband’s face would curdle milk. “I had to talk with farmers about their taxes, so what went wrong with your day, Raul?”

  Sanmartin smiled and absently stroked her arm. “I had Ssu run a batch of the newspapers that Admiral Horii brought through the computer for me.”

  Ssu, a retired senior censor, was Suid-Afrika’s most capable political analyst.

  “Once again, in our humble and collective opinion, it’s an 80 percent probability that what the Japanese people are reading is being censored pretty thoroughly, and it’s a 100 percent certainty that what came in with the task group was run through a filter. The only thing I believe is the economic numbers. Stock prices are up, earnings are not, and productivity is down. If you ask three different professors of economics what that means, you’ll get four different answers, but I think it means Earth’s economic system is being monkeyed with more than usual, and it frightens me.”

  “Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas, ” his wife added promptly. “The love of money is the root of all evil.”

  Sanmartin sighed. While serving with a unit on Earth that stressed “samurai virtue and Roman discipline,” he had picked up the habit of quoting Latin tags on every conceivable occasion. Bruwer had cured him of the practice by adopting it.

  “Have you two thought about what we should do if Admiral Horii decides to turn the government back over to USS?” Albert Beyers interjected before his wife couid come in and tell him to stop talking business at the table.

  “As they used to say, Viva el Rey, y muera el mal gobiemo. Long live the king, and death to a bad government,” Sanmartin commented. “We might even get away with it.” He touched Vroew Beyers’s battered table with a finger, reflecting that with much of Suid-Afrika’s history made around it, it ought to end up in a museum someday.

  “What about the troops Horii brought, how good are they, sir?” Tom Winters, Bruwer’s secretary cum bodyguard, asked, old habits dying hard.

  ‘The Japanese are well trained, but inexperienced.” San-martin grimaced. “Manchurians are tough and tend to get used for dirty jobs. We used to joke that you could tell the Manchurians had been through when your garbage had been picked over and your dogs were pregnant.”

  His wife shook her head and kicked him under the table. Beyers chuckled. “Hanna, you will never make a politician out of him if he keeps telling jokes like that.”

  “No, I’m half-serious,” Sanmartin protested. He thought for a minute. “I don’t like them. What I mean is, I think if someone ordered them to go out and rape babies, they’d do it. And they’d probably enjoy it.”

  Hanna Bruwer closed her eyes. “Enough! No more politics,” she said forcefully, as Betje Beyers entered carrying a soup tureen. Hendricka walked solemnly at her side holding the hem of her dress.

  Nicknamed the “Ice Princess” by both her friends and detractors, Bruwer was a former teacher hired to support

  Vereshchagin’s battalion as a translator. It was a poorly kept secret that she had pushed Albert Beyers into supporting Vereshchagin during the uprising; and Beyers had appointed her interior minister in his provisional government.

  Married and pregnant, she had run in Suid-Afrika’s first election and had won despite or perhaps because of her reputation as Beyers’s hatchet man. The man she ran against had boasted that he was old enough to be her grandfather. She had cut him to pieces with the remark during the campaign.

  In Suid-Afrika’s first assembly, she had been elected speaker, partly because she was the only aspirant for the post who could be trusted not to steal the smoke off a hot fire, and partly because she was Hendrik Pienaar’s granddaughter. Pienaar had been the only successful rebel general, and no one quite forgot that Hendrik had been gunned down for having the courage to say that the rebellion had failed—and had arranged to take most of the people who disagreed along with him. What Bruwer believed in, she believed in passionately, and as a politician she accepted no favors and gave no quarter.

  Joining hands with Vroew Beyers, she said, “We will now pray, preferably for peace.”

  Thursday(309)

  THE COMPLEX JUST NORTHEAST OF PRETORIA WAS SUID-AFRIKA’S

  main m
anufacturing facility, producing everything from light machine tools to household appliances to cheap fuel alcohol for the planet’s vehicles. Striding its narrow corridors toward the central conference room, Daisuke Matsudaira took pride in its dimensions. He paused at the door to finger his narrow tie, and then walked into the room followed by his aides. The USS executives around the conference table, all Afrikaners, rose obediently when he entered.

  Matsudaira took his seat at the head of the table and accepted papers from the aide carrying his briefcase. “Sit down, gentlemen. I am Daisuke Matsudaira. I am your new director. We will now sing the company song.” After they did so, he said, “You now will explain to me the present status of USS corporate operations on this planet.”

  “Yes, Planetary Director,” a tall, cadaverous man with close-cut brown hair said.

  “And you are?” Matsudaira demanded.

  “Jooste Deiselmann. Mining operations director and acting planetary director until your arrival. Lieutenant-Colonel Vereshchagin returned Heer Hosagawa, the former mining operations director, to Earth four years ago.” He added by way of explanation, “Heer Hosagawa made the mistake of violating the local election campaign contribution laws a little too flagrantly.” “I see,” Matsudaira said slowly.

  A man to Matsudaira’s left spoke up. “Actually, he tried to bribe the treasury minister. Fairly crudely. The minister was not amused. I am Niklaas Van Reenen, light metals.” Ostensibly ignoring Van Reenen’s unseemly outburst, Matsudaira made a note to himself, then asked formally, “Heer Deiselmann, how do you rate our operations here?”

  “This year, for the first time in seven years, USS has the potential to actually make money here. We have scaled back most of our marginal efforts and consolidated our operations into four directorates instead of the previous nine. Despite the government’s stiff environmental-damage assessment, mining and energy operations will show a small profit this year, and I project small profits for the next three years as we phase in pollution-control equipment.”

  “And what of our other operations?” Matsudaira muttered, deliberately studying the balance sheets in front of him so that he would not have to meet Deiselmann’s eyes.

  “Industrial operations will show a substantial profit this year, which is largely attributable to our joint ventures and to increased productivity from Complex. However, construction and transportation operations will fail to produce a profit, and agricultural and forestry operations will post significant losses.” “And why is this?” Matsudaira demanded peremptorily. “Because of the land taxes and the environmental-damage assessments that the government imposes, it is uneconomical for us to continue to hold title to large, low-yielding tracts of land. There is currently no off-planet market for agricultural products, and the local market is fiercely competitive. Although we have sold off 46 percent of the land holdings that remained to us after the government survey, it would be prudent for us to sell our remaining agricultural land to individuals who are prepared to farm it intensively. We have refrained from doing so until we received approval from Earth. With regard to construction and transportation operations, this division has been too large and inefficient to compete for smaller jobs.” “We will not retrench our operations. We must expand!”

  Matsudaira said firmly. “It is incumbent upon us to increase our market share rather than show cowardice at this juncture. How is it that our small competitors receive financing?”

  “The government has a development fund, and they have made it known that they will provide loans at market rates to credit-worthy concerns that the banks refuse to finance.” Deiselmann began tapping the end of his pen against the table, without realizing that he was doing so. “The banks have concluded that it is in their best interests to provide credit to our competitors.”

  Matsudaira took a gulp of water from a glass handed to him by an observant aide and asked silkily, “How is it that you have allowed the government to do this?”

  Deiselmann smiled for the first time. “After the mistakes made by the iate Planetary Director Tuge and by Heer Hosagawa, our ability to influence the government has been limited. In fact, the government has made efforts to further competition at our expense.”

  “This cannot be allowed to continue. Conceding market share is weakness which imperils the company,” Matsudaira shouted. “The fate of the Suzuki zaibatsu shows the dangers that we face. When hard times came, her enemies withdrew money from her banks and spread malicious gossip. When the banks were forced to suspend loans, the House of Suzuki fell to pieces, and Yone Suzuki’s enemies feasted at her table.” Matsudaira thrust his finger out like a sword. “You think that our company is stable, but I tell you it has many, many enemies. I tell you that continued instability here will be a source of malicious gossip. Business is war, and in war there are many casualties. A steady, assured supply of the metals this planet produces is essential, and the situation here has been a source of weakness in our company’s fortress walls.”

  The stolid Afrikaners around the conference table waited for him to finish his tirade.

  Oblivious to his audience, Matsudaira laid his hand on a stack of papers. “This instability cannot continue. I will rectify it, no matter what cost. Our first concern must be to increase our control of industrial production and construction operations so that we can either exert pressure on the government to make it recognize our legitimate interests or replace it with a more harmonious government. To do so, we must wage an unremitting campaign. My staff has begun preparing a detailed plan. Our first step will be to attack firms which have interjected themselves into the building trade. We must divert assets and cripple them, regardless of cost.”

  A rim man in spectacles protested immediately. “Heer Matsudaira, we cannot divert teams. We have several large projects under contracts guaranteed by the Johannesburg municipal government. If the construction falls behind schedule, the burgemeester will revoke our performance bond. Heer Matsudaira, you simply cannot do this.”

  Matsudaira looked down at the seating chart his aides had prepared. He said coldly, “Heer Langermann, you have a defeatist attitude. Your employment is terminated. Please leave this building immediately. Your things will be sent to you.” Slowly, insolently, Langermann pushed back his chair and left the room.

  “I trust I have made my point. Is there anyone else in this room with a defeatist attitude?” Matsudaira asked.

  Van Reenen glared at him. “Matsudaira-san. With all due respect, you are an ass! You have just cost industrial and energy operations its best plant manager.”

  “Van Reenen, is it? You are also fired!”

  “You cannot fire me,” Van Reenen said boldly, “I don’t work for you. I am chief executive officer of one of your subsidiary operations, one of many such subsidiaries, I might add. It is very difficult for United Steel-Standard to market products under its own name on this planet.” He showed his teeth in what might have been a smile. “I can only be fired by my board of directors. The man you fired had a golden parachute built into his contract and is entitled to take away the profits his division made for the last year.”

  Deiselmann added glumly, “Heer Van Reenen is correct, and even worse, to meet our production schedules, we will probably have to ask Heer Langermann back as a consultant. If you terminate his contract, it means that we won’t show a profit for at least three quarters.”

  “We will break his contract! Where is our general counsel?” Matsudaira said, looking around the room.

  “We don’t have a general counsel. It was contracted out. A lot of things were contracted out.” Van Reenen laughed. “As for breaking Langermann’s contract, short of throwing out the three years’ worth of laws and buying up the court system, you can’t. For several years now, every contract this corporation has entered into has been written with a great degree of care. After your predecessor got himself shot for treason against the

  Imperial Government, this corporation has not had nearly as much bargaining power as you m
ight imagine. There have been a lot of changes.”

  Deiselmann held up a twenty-rand note apologetically. “The company is not even permitted to circulate its own currency anymore. The government’s central bank prints our money, now.” When the last embers of the Afrikaner rebellion were dying, Vereshchagin did a curious thing. He took Major Kolomeitsev, Major Henke, and two dozen of his best noncommissioned officers and sent them to manage USS operations. While Henke concentrated on setting up military production facilities at Complex, the Iceman systematically screened managers and employees, reassigning the misplaced and terminating the inept and unwilling, in line with his philosophy that 5 percent of the people create 95 percent of the problems.

  In doing so, the Iceman eliminated whatever remaining influence USS had over its workers. Vereshchagin completed the process by shipping out virtually all of the company’s Japanese executives, allowing Afrikaners to replace them.

  As Deiselmann told Matsudaira politely but pointedly, “We have laws here now, Heer Matsudaira, and USS has had to bend to those laws. Indeed, we have been pleased to follow them.”

  Friday(309)

  iT WAS LATE IN THE EVENING, AND HARALD BREYTENBACH WAS AB-

  sently skimming an article in a professional journal when his telephone rang.

  He picked it up. “Hallo. ”

  “Liberty,” a voice intoned on the other end.

  Breytenbach exhaled deeply. After he calmed himself, he said in Afrikaans, “All right. What can I do for you?”

  “Is your car parked out in front of your house?” the other person asked in the same language.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “Do not ask. You have no need to know. You do not want to know. Go out and make sure that it is not locked. In about an hour, go ahead and report it as stolen to the police. We will leave it where it can be found.”