Despite her frustration, Maya had to agree.
Now, don’t waste any more of your time on their senior officials, Sarah suggested. Feel around the room and try reading their assistants and subordinates instead. I think that you will achieve much more satisfactory results.
Maya looked around her and finally chose a rather nondescript middle-aged woman, seated off to the right and just behind the ESN Director. She seemed to be Castraa’s assistant, and was hurriedly taking down notes as the talks went on.
This time, her results were markedly different; as Maya focused her talents on the woman, she was able to get past her surface emotions and straight to what she was thinking. Her thoughts were in direct response to what her superiors were doing and saying.
At that particular point in the exchange, the Sisterhood’s Ambassador was bringing up the subject of the new naval base being constructed outside of Nuvo Bolivar. Work on Claire d’Layne was running behind schedule and the Ambassador wanted Ernan’s assurance that her government would commit more resources to completing the Sisterhood installation on time.
“The Republic is quite aware of its obligations,” Ernan was saying. “We are doing all that we can to honor the terms of the Peace Treaty. But you have to be aware, Madame Ambassador, that our economy is still in the process of recovering from the war, and we simply don’t have the resources to meet the timetable you’ve set.”
The assistant’s thoughts revealed the lie immediately. Thanks to her position as the aide to the ESN Director, Maya’s target knew the truth. Although there was a certain level of hardship involved, most of the delays had been deliberate and avoidable. The woman was also quite happy about this state of affairs. She didn’t want the base finished any more than her superiors did.
Maya promptly reported this to Sarah. Ernan’s lying, she thought to her. They could go a lot faster and they’re dragging their feet. The assistant knows all about this and she’s cheering them on.
Sarah smiled. Very good work, Maya. Now do you see the work-around for their cunning little device, and the lesson that we can learn from it? Not everyone in an organization can be as well guarded as its leadership, and lesser functionaries are often the most ignored, and the least protected. That same leadership must entrust many of its secrets to such subordinates, and that is the fatal crack in their armor. Make sure to identify the aide, will you? We may be able to turn her to our purposes given the right amount of Santaj.
Maya nodded, and resolved to read the woman’s name tag when the break was finally announced. Then she moved on to the next assistant, this time a man working for the Commerce Secretary.
In his case, the process of reading him was almost childishly easy. He had the unmistakable aura of a glass addict, albeit in the early days of his slavery, and although the drug muddied his thoughts, she was still able to follow them clearly.
She reluctantly marked him down in her mind as another person that she would have to identify for Sarah. Without having to ask, she knew that her companion would consider him the ideal candidate for ‘turning’, and she only hoped that she would not be the one tasked to deal with him. It was bad enough to have touched his mind momentarily. Pushing the unpleasant memory of his mental ‘taste’ away, Maya moved on, seeking out others.
Finally, their first break was announced. Seeing that Castraa’s assistant was moving towards the refreshments, Maya rose and made her way over to her. As soon as she was close enough to manage it, she committed the name on her tag to memory. Then she realized that someone else was watching her and radiating an aura of intense interest.
It was another man, whom she recalled seeing at the opposite end of the room. He had been sitting near the Secretary of Commerce and appeared to be his subordinate. Taking her cup of kaafra in hand, she walked past him and confirmed this fact, and his name.
The feelings coming from him were so strong that she decided to read him--and instantly had to fight the urge to draw her needlegun and shoot him dead on the spot. At that exact instant, he was entertaining a rather vivid fantasy of her performing oral sex on him, dressed only in her leather boots. She hid her disgust behind a forced smile, and then made certain to ‘accidentally’ stumble and spill her scalding cup right down the front of his pants. Not only did this cause him a rewarding amount of pain, but it also put a rather abrupt end to his sordid mental picture show.
While he limped off towards the nearest restroom, she moved on.
The last person that she chose to read was also a man, and she had selected him primarily because of the way he was dressed. Like the others, he was also an assistant, this time to the ETR’s Secretary of Defense. His clothing however, was much more expensive than what his peers were wearing.
A closer inspection revealed that his wristwatch was also pricier than what his salary should have allowed him to own. Instead of focusing his attention on her, his eyes were only for Sarah, and his thoughts had nothing to do with sex. He was thinking about money. A great deal of money, and what he might be able to trade with the Sisterhood to get his hands on it.
Cagnót, she exulted. Jackpot! The break was concluding, and she returned in triumph to take her place beside Sarah.
So, what do you have for me my little lioness? the woman asked. Did you bring us some juicy little scraps of meat to feast on?
Maya kept her expression bland, but inwardly she was grinning from ear to ear. Three good ones, plus the woman you had me check on.
She related her findings.
It came as no surprise that Sarah had been monitoring the entire thing, and had a correction to add.
You did very well, but there are actually four that are worth our interest. The final candidate is the older woman, the one working for the ESN Director.
Maya didn’t believe her. She’s completely against us! Didn’t you hear me when I told you she was cheering about all the delays?
I did, Sarah answered. I also know that she is just as ‘turn-able’ as the rest, and just as useful. The only question is ‘how’ to achieve that. Everyone has some weakness, Maya, and a good agent finds it, and uses it to her advantage.
Now, let us return to our initial task. The Ambassador will be touching on our upcoming trade agreements and Thermadon wanted us to pay special attention to what these leaders actually intend rather than what they say.
Presidential Palace, Nuvo Bolivar, Magdalla Provensa, Esteral Terrana Rapabla, 1048.07|13|07:91:65
Sanda Ernan looked up from the railing of her balcony at the Presidential Palace and watched as the Pallas Athena flew by, high overhead. In the darkening sky of evening, the great warship was only a bright pinpoint of light, and Ernan had no idea that she was looking at the very vessel that had once carried her away to Thermadon, and changed her destiny forever.
Nor would she have cared. All that really mattered now was that it was a Sisterhood ship, in orbit over her capitol. She had seen a lot of Sisterhood ships since the war, standing watch over the Republic like guards in a prison.
She had also been a fool. She knew this now. In her zeal to see the leadership of the ETR turned over to the capable hands of women, she had managed to forget one important fact; where men were ruthless, women were far worse--especially when it came to dealings with their own sex.
Now the Republic was paying the price for her naiveté. Her kindest critics called her a ‘tool of the Sisterhood’ and a puppet, and they considered her administration nothing better than a bad joke. Others though, had branded her a traitor, and her image had even been burned in effigy during some of the most recent public protests.
She had also made herself some powerful enemies. The Rightists dearly wanted to replace her with their own candidate, Tereysa Rivarra. If Rivarra managed to unseat her, Ernan harbored no illusions about the outcome. The Rightists would create a police state that would do everything the Sisterhood told it to do, including and especially, smashing all dissent. Her nation, as she knew it, would die.
Ernan’s gaze trav
elled out over the Capitol, trying to spot something on the skyline that would cheer her. Instead, her eyes fell on the bright lights of Claire d’Layne Naval Base. Even though it was only half completed, it still managed to cast its blight over her city.
Her advisors had informed her that when it was complete, it would be second in size only to the great naval headquarters on Rixa, and she had no trouble believing this. The sprawling complex occupied a huge swath of land to the northeast of the city, and eventually, it would employ upwards of 16,000 civilian contractors and host over 165,000 sailors and Marines.
And Claire d’Layne was only one of the many new Sisterhood bases that had sprung up overnight around the Republic. Altamara, La Escal, Riarivas, and even Estraddar, the former headquarters of the ETR’s Navy, had all become sovereign Sisterhood territory. The way things looked, they would stay that way for a very long time, if not forever. Unless things changed, she reflected.
In the beginning, she had actually welcomed the Sisterhood’s military presence, but now, two years later, she had come to detest these bases and all that they represented. Her own military was in tatters, and although it was slowly rebuilding, she knew that it would never be more than a modest force, fielding equipment that was several generations behind its powerful neighbor. It had been reduced to a ‘defense force’ and its loyalty, divided as it was between the Loyalistas and the Rightists, was suspect at best.
The economy was just as fragile. To buy their military aid and fight off the Hriss, the Sisterhood had insisted on exorbitant amounts of precious metals and other natural resources. Now, in the name of ‘reparations’, their demands on the Republic had tripled, and all she could do was agree and open up her nation’s veins a little wider.
That, and watch as the value of the Paysoli continued to plummet. Even the ETR’s own banking system had lost confidence in it. The Sisterhood Credit was now the preferred medium for any major transactions, and the financial district in Thermadon called the tune.
Thanks to my blindness, the Republic has become what Gaul had been to Imperial Rome, she thought bitterly. Reduced and enslaved. A vassal state. How I hate the Sisterhood.
A familiar voice interrupted her unhappy train of thought. It was her administrative assistant. “Madame President?” the woman said, “The Director of the ESN has arrived.”
Isabaal Castraa had scheduled an appointment with her immediately after their meeting with the Sisterhood Ambassador. As much as Ernan wanted to, this briefing was too important to put off. Castraa was one of the few women that she still trusted, and who still trusted her.
She returned to her office.
“So, Isabaal,” she said. “Tell me what you have.”
“We know for certain that Ms. n’Jan’s associate, Ms. n’Kaaryn was engaged in some kind of espionage activity,” Castraa answered. “So far, we haven’t received any proof that indicates that they got anything of value.”
Ernan rubbed her temples tiredly and watched as her spymaster played the vid for her. It showed Maya as she walked around the room during their meeting, overlaid with displays of her body’s heat signature and bioelectric field. These increased whenever the young woman was near certain people, and although the Republic still hadn’t deciphered all of the secrets of the psiever, the ESN knew what these devices could do. They had even managed to intercept the ultra-low frequency radio signals that the implants sent and received. But so far, the encryption that Sarah and her RSE associates employed was too strong for even their best cryptographers to break.
The only success that the ESN had enjoyed so far had been the wire mesh that she and other key government officials wore under their scalps. So far at least, they appeared to be proof against the Sisterhood’s psionic eavesdropping.
Compared to the results that the Sisterhood spy machine had managed to achieve, these were paltry gains at best. Since it had established its Embassy, the capitol was teeming with agents, double agents, and informers, and the Dann were starting to become a serious thorn in everyone’s side. They had emerged from their slums to become valuable assets for the RSE, and they would give Sarah n’Jan all the means, and the muscle, to see her nefarious schemes to completion.
From the outset, Ernan had known that Sarah had been some kind of intelligence agent, but she had never guessed at her full capabilities. Only since becoming President had she learned that N’Jan was not only an agent, but one of the Sisterhood’s best--and it’s most ruthless. The sympathetic stranger who had whisked her away to the glittering wonders of Thermadon, was actually an accomplished murderess, and a manipulator on a level that would have made Machiavelli blush.
She also had little doubt that the woman’s apprentice, Maya n’Kaaryn, was following closely in her dark footsteps. Naturally, the ESN had already assigned people to track both women, but she suspected that this would be more akin to an old earth gazelle following the trail of the lionesses that hunted them, than the other way around. They had already lost dozens of good agents trying to spy on less talented RSE members.
“Do we have any word from our friends?” she asked as the vid concluded.
“Yes, Madame President,” Castraa answered. ”We are still attempting to plant information in the Sisterhood’s media, but I’m sorry to say that we’re continuing to encounter a great deal of resistance.”
Ernan glowered. With the onset of the occupation, the Sisterhood press had been severely restricted in what it could report and where it could go. Media representatives were limited to ‘green zones’, and always accompanied by military handlers. Only ‘approved’ material ever made it past their censors.
For the average woman in the Sisterhood, the situation in the ETR seemed like a small affair, and the ongoing battles with the Loyalistas, nothing more than isolated police actions against disorganized criminal gangs. They had no idea of just how large their nation’s military presence really was, or how bloody things actually were.
If they did find out, Ernan and her advisors were certain that there would be a public outcry. This was the only key that they really had to defeating the Sisterhood. Throughout history, wars had been won and lost on the basis of public support.
The stumbling block was finding women who were willing to risk incarceration to tell the story. New laws enacted by the Supreme Circle called for hefty fines and jail time for anyone violating ‘national security concerns’. This, and the unwitting support that the hawks in the Circle received from the public, had given even the most intrepid journalists reason to pause.
“What about T’Tallya?” Ernan asked. This was another potential area of support. Senatrix t’Tallya, who had a reputation for liberal views, had secretly expressed her interest in helping them, and had even tried to convene hearings about the military operations in the ETR. It hadn’t gotten off the ground, but it had at least been a hopeful sign.
Castraa shook her head. “She still won’t come forwards with any public disclosure and her powerbase is small. I think we’ll have to look to our upcoming guest for any progress in this area. My sources assure me that she could offer us the opening that we have been hoping for.”
Ernan gave her a mordant smile. “Perhaps.” Then, “So, how does our opposition fare?”
“They’re still balking at the idea of sharing power,” the spymistress answered. “Or letting you keep your head on your shoulders for that matter. They do seem to be more receptive to the idea of a cease fire however. I think that with a little additional persuasion, they’ll be willing to focus all their anger on the Sisterhood and leave us alone.”
“Finally some good news,” Ernan remarked, brightening slightly. For months, the ESN had been trying to broker a peace between the Loyalistas and her government. If they could be convinced to cooperate, it would not only give her own people the chance to rest and recuperate, but might even provide enough impetus for the Sisterhood media to accept the risks and run with the story.
If.
A bit of wisdom that had buoyed her
during her days as a feminist revolutionary, came to mind. The first time she had heard it had been as a little girl and it had come from the lips of her paternal grandmother, when they had lived together in the small desert town of La Callia Oraa,
“The masqyara, the ‘death mask’ beetle, is a tiny thing,” the old woman had told her, “and it doesn’t seem to be very strong. But it has a powerful poison, and when it swarms with other beetles, it can destroy creatures much larger than itself. Mark that, Sanda; just because you are small, and feel powerless, doesn’t mean that you really are. Tyrants count on you forgetting this, and they fall when you remember it.”
Compared to the Sisterhood, the ETR was also a small thing, she reflected. And just like the masqyara beetle, it too had its sting.
Central Magnorail Line, USSNS Pallas Athena, Battle Group Golden, Topaz Fleet, In Orbit, Nuvo Bolivar, Magdala Provensa, Esteral Terrana Rapabla, 1048.07|14|03:75:12
In addition to its Lift system, the Pallas Athena also used an internal magnorail train to allow personnel and material to move through the ship in a timely manner. There were three main lines, running fore and aft down the middle of their respective decks.
The largest and busiest of these was the central line. It ran the length of deck 5 and was serviced by communal trains and flat cars which travelled through the very heart of the ship, delivering passengers and equipment to each of the main Lifts.
In Katrinn’s case, travelling the central line was part of her route to an appointment. She was scheduled to speak with the Engineering Chief and the Storesmistress on deck 4 to resolve an argument over the air scrubbers serving bulkheads 3 through 10. Their efficiency had recently dropped below an acceptable percentile, and to address the problem, the Engineer had decreed that they should be taken offline, and the area sealed off until the problem could be diagnosed.
Which had given birth to the dispute; the Storesmistress wanted to use the space for overflow from their latest resupply shipment. Now this would be denied her, and as the Commander, and the ‘Living Last Word’, it was Katrinn’s job to listen to both officers, and arrive at a settlement that worked for everybody.
Sisterhood of Suns: Daughters of Eve Page 8
