She remained kneeling, to avoid him having to stand. Ibrahim leaned himself back against the wall, collar open and shirt rumpled. Looking, to Sandy's curious interest, suddenly a man. Flesh and bone, dishevelled, tired and newly woken from sleep, instead of the formal, implacable figure of authority to which she'd become accustomed. He leaned his head back and fixed her with a heavy-lidded gaze, an arm hooked about an upraised knee for support.
"What compelled you to join the mission in Junshi?" he asked, direct and to the point, as always.
Sitting on her heels was uncomfortable, and pulled at recently sore muscles she did not want pulled. She shifted to sit on her backside, arms about drawn up knees, mirroring her boss.
"I don't know." Ibrahim evidently didn't believe that. She sighed, lightly. "Vanessa. The whole team. I was nearby, I wanted to see that they were okay, or if I could help. As it turned out, I could."
She half expected a reprimand. A warning against breaking procedure, or upsetting the local cops.
"It was well done," he said instead. Not elaborate praise. But coming from Ibrahim, it was better than a medal. And she was surprised at how pleased she was to hear it. "What did you think of the operation in total?"
"Fortuitously successful," she replied, analysis reflexes kicking in, knowing well what Ibrahim expected from her. "Highly chaotic, far too disorganised, far too little chain of command. It worked this time because the opposition were poorly trained and equipped, all they had on their side was motivation. Against more formidable opposition I feel the operation would more likely have failed than succeeded, with losses suffered and the objective not completed."
"Hmmm." Ibrahim nodded, lips pursed. Appearing hardly surprised at the assessment. Thoughtful. "Suggestions?"
"Streamline," she said automatically. "Individual Tanushan departments appear generally competent. The CSA is mostly so, and SWAT in particular. SWAT Four is as good a strike team as I've seen, among straights-that's my unbiased military opinion. The police function well enough, and all the in-betweens do their jobs effectively. There's just too many of those in-betweens. Cut the numbers by a half to twothirds and you'll have a force that functions with the absolute minimum of wasted energy, and the maximum possible focus upon the mission at hand. Right now, everyone's just getting in each other's way."
Ibrahim said nothing for a moment. It was a moment longer before she realised he was smiling. To her astonishment, the smile grew broader. He restrained it with difficulty, and put hand-to-mouth, like a man with a troublesome cough. Sighed, heavily, and fixed her with a look of as pure and genuine amusement as she'd ever seen from him, head back against the wall.
"If only you could help me run this agency," he explained. "I have this argument constantly with my political superiors. I am frequently informed ..." with heavier sarcasm than she'd ever heard him use, "... that my views on the operational brief of the CSA, and thus its structural requirements, are out of step with the current political trends." Sandy blinked. His eyes fixed on her with tired bemusement. "Less muscle, more analysis. In this information age, I am told, the emphasis should be upon prevention. I attempt to convince them that human beings cannot be prevented from anything. That, most of all, is a legacy of their information age-people will do what people will do, in all their varied, wonderful and not-so-wonderful extremes, and no amount of prevention, short of dictatorship, can stop them. But this is what happens in a society run by technocrats and utopian idealists. They fear the chaos, but the chaos is life." A shrug. "A city must be allowed to live. A people must. And I fear most of all that the present alarmist climate may precipitate far more prevention than is war ranted. As a student of history yourself, Cassandra, you would know the dangers of too much prevention."
Sandy repressed a smile. "I've only read a little, sir. I haven't been alive long enough to read more. But I've seen the beginnings of a League autocracy at work in a system that always lauded democracy even more strongly than the Federation. I know what you're saying."
"Indeed." Ibrahim nodded, amusement lingering in his lidded gaze. "All bureaucracies intend to create order, Cassandra. That is their nature. Too little order is to be feared. Too much order, even more so. Alternative possibilities are necessary, but too many of the wrong kind can be dangerous. The balance is delicate. And so I distrust my own professional nature. It haunts my sleep."
Such confessions to her from Ibrahim were not unknown. She sometimes wondered if he were testing her moral judgment. Searching for her agreement or otherwise. Or merely seeking her comprehension. Comprehension of what, she was not sure. Of moral dimensions, perhaps. Of complexities. Perhaps he worried, as did many members of the Senate and Congress, that she did not fully appreciate the human delicacies of the Callayan democratic system. Or maybe he felt that he understood better than most the pressures that she was under from the workings of that system, and sought only her understanding. And, perhaps, her forgiveness.
"Good that I woke you then," she said lightly, "if your sleep was so troubled."
Ibrahim smiled, and ran a hand over tired, angular features, rubbing his eyes and stifling a yawn. Afghani features, from the hawk nose and prominent cheekbones to the cut of his trimmed beard.
"Did you meet Ambassador Yao?" he asked.
"I did." And in the expectant silence that followed, "He seems civil enough. Pleasant, actually. He appeared very pleased to see me."
"What did you discuss?"
"Very little, actually. He was busy with meetings-financiers and bankers, he said." She paused. "Most of my time was spent in discussion with a high-designation League GI. The same GI whom I tracked from the Zaiko Warren to the Cloud Nine establishment, the one who shot me." A moment's sombre consideration from Ibrahim. No great surprise. Doubtless Ari had already briefed him on the salient points. And probably a great deal more besides. More, certainly, than Ari had chosen to share with her.
"How high a designation?" Little to her surprise-the man rarely missed a thing.
She took a deep breath. "GI-5182-IT. He said." More sombre consideration. "Attached to the Internal Security Organisation, League version of the FIA. That's why I never knew he existed, I never had full access to ISO files. It never occurred to me that the military was not the only department drawing resources from Recruitment."
"Do you think there may be more GIs in the League intelligence circles? High designation or otherwise?"
Sandy let out a small sigh. "I suppose it's possible. Ramoja wasn't forthcoming on that. Or rather I didn't have time to ask him, the Junshi situation cut our time short." And to Ibrahim's querying look, "That's his name, Mustafa Ramoja. Rank of Major. He said."
Ibrahim's lips moved slightly, as if replaying the name in his mind. A slight concentration, as if in some mild bemusement, eyes momentarily distant.
"Does the name mean something to you, sir?" she ventured.
"No. No, I merely wonder at the apparently random selection of GI names ... he is a man of African appearance, then?" More of Ari's briefing.
She nodded. "West African, yes." Handsome bastard, too ... but most GIs were. "The implied cultural affiliations don't appear to hold much significance for him, however. As with most GIs. I'd been hoping for more enlightenment from an Intel GI, though, outside the intellectual vacuum of Dark Star."
"As you yourself are enlightened?"
"I don't consider myself European, sir." A faint smile. "And as for my name, my verbal Russian begins and ends with `Nyet."'
"In Russia itself, of course, you would be Kresnova. Being female." The musing surprised her. Ibrahim did not muse often. Though, he was bleary-eyed with sleep, propped seated against the wall on the cushions that made up his temporary mattress ... it appeared to have taken an edge off his usual, authoritative formality. He smiled at her. "Do you know that there are some in Parliament who bear President Neiland ill-feeling for appointing me as CSA director, mostly because of my Pashtun heritage?"
"Really?"
"Of cours
e, there is little racism on Callay ... but ethnic grudges apparently do not qualify for classification. My people have long been warriors-when motivated to put down their ploughs and spinning wheels. Frequently bloody, self-destructive, misguided warriors at that. This heritage continues to be celebrated in the old country today, I hear. It makes the local pacifists nervous. Perhaps they fear I will declare a Jihad on them all, declare sharia law and begin issuing fatwas against my most vocal critics."
"Will you?" With amusement.
"I had considered it, in my darker moments." A faint smile. "I value my heritage, Cassandra. It is a part of me, and I by no means claim the stereotypes entirely misguided. As a GI yourself, I think perhaps you understand how I feel. It is no sin to be a warrior, Cassandra. It merely depends on the cause."
"Some warriors will invent causes," Sandy said quietly, "in the absence of obvious ones. Perhaps humans are a race of warriors at heart, always searching for something to fight for."
"Perhaps." Ibrahim's smile faded slightly. "Most people's greatest strengths are also their greatest failings, after all."
"I once read a writer's opinion that humans impose narrative upon everything, and conflict is the base substance of all narrative. Thus we cannot help but find conflict wherever we go."
"I disagree." The smile fully returned. "Narrative is everywhere. And we are its subject." And switched the subject before she could puzzle over that one ... "How smart do you reckon this man Ramoja to be?"
"Man," Sandy noted. Not "GI." Politeness, she reckoned. And more, a clear statement of respectful non-discrimination. She welcomed it.
"He's a clever GI, no question. Illegally clever, by League laws. Like me."
"As clever as you?" With eyebrows raised. Sandy restrained a smile, and glanced briefly at the floor.
"As clever as me," she repeated, with mild irony. Halfway embarrassed at the praise. She didn't get embarrassed often. "I don't know, sir. How clever am I?" Meeting his gaze questioningly.
"Far more clever than any of those who would hate you, I have no doubt. That covers a good portion of the supposedly brightest minds on Callay." And Sandy found time to be glad that it was a physical impossibility for a GI to blush. "Cassandra. Did Ramoja attempt to recruit you back to the League?"
Sandy sighed. No sir, Ibrahim never missed much at all.
"Yessir." Shifted her posture, hooking an arm about her opposite leg as the tension strain began to ache once more. "Generally speaking. He attempted to convince me that the new government has changed things. That I could serve in the ISO instead of Dark Star, where things are supposedly better." Pause. "That people would always hate me in the Federation, and I should give up on ever trying to be accepted here."
"And what did you tell him?"
Sandy spared him a moment's consideration, eyes narrowed in thought. Worried, Mr. Ibrahim? Or just obliged by higher powers to keep checking my loyalty for your reports?
"Sir, Vanessa loves me." Quietly, in the subdued hush of the darkened office. Light drifted slowly beyond the windows, a flyer arriving at a nearby pad, running lights blinking. "SWAT Four mostly likes me. A lot of others in SWAT do too, I think. There are people in CSA Intel whom I genuinely believe I can call friends, or could, given some more time to get to know each other. The President likes me, whatever her more ruthless political tendencies. Some of her staff do. You yourself, and the Assistant Director, have shown me nothing but support and respect. And just today I met some ordinary Tanushans ... if that isn't a total oxymoron ... who were utterly delighted to make my acquaintance and pledged to help me out in any way they knew how, if necessary.
"Sir, that's a hell of a lot more friends than I ever had back in the League. In some respects the ... the emotional intensity was greater with my old Dark Star team. But less, too, because there was so little of my other life that they could even understand if I tried to talk to them about it. And the straights more or less kept to themselves.
"I ... I don't know if I can honestly say I'm emotionally committed to the Parliament, or the laws, or whatever. But to the people ... or at least to those people, and the aspects of the society that made them who they are ... that's something I'd love to belong to, sir. I'm committed to that. Entirely so."
"There are people here who would kill you, Cassandra, if they could." Sombrely, his lidded, dark eyes effortlessly penetrating with something that felt like ... wisdom, she supposed. The calm, effortless application of knowledge and reason. It held her utterly unmoving. "There are religious radicals, some of them from my own faith, who regard your very creation as a blasphemous act before Allah. There are technophobes who simply cannot comprehend that a person of inorganic construction could ever be worthy of the basic concepts of humanity we hold so dear. There are politicians with votes to be won by fanning the flames of ignorant hysteria. There are academics with reputations to be made by criticising the precedent your presence sets for Callay and the Federation more broadly. And there are a great many ordinary Callayans who know only what they're told, or what they see on the broadband news and entertainments, and simply find the concept of what you are frightening, for any number of reasons, some of them reasonable, many of them not. You know all of this. Do you tell me now that you were never, and will never be, tempted by his offer?"
At another time, and another moment, she might have taken a long, agonised pause for consideration before replying. Now, she found herself smiling. A subtle, dangerous little smile, amusement in her eyes.
"I like the chaos," she said softly. "Chaos suits me. It helps me think. Makes me feel alive. People have crazy ideas. And wonderful ones too. I think it's connected, you can't have one without the other." The smile grew a little broader. "So I can't really complain that people hate me. They also love me, or find me fascinating, or confusing, or terrifying ..." She gave a light shrug. "I'll cope. I'll be fine. In a fluid society, people can always change their minds."
"Precisely what the League hopes," Ibrahim returned. She shrugged again.
"Sure, maybe I'm doing the League a favour ... if I could get Callayans to like me at least a little. Change their attitude toward biotech. But I don't care either way. People will be people. And I'd much rather be here than locked into some League institution, watching from afar. At least people here know how to have fun."
Ibrahim was very amused. His eyes gleamed in the dark, lips smiling broadly. She couldn't remember having seen him so amused before. Lately, there hadn't been much to be amused about.
"Is Callay going to break away from the Federation, sir?" she asked directly. It seemed the right time to venture the question. Ibrahim smiled faintly.
"Cassandra, I could not tell you if I knew. But it is impossible to know regardless, there are so many talks proceeding between so many different power factions with unpredictable interests and hidden agendas." He thought for a moment. "Many are hung up on the question of Governor Dali. I feel he is the key. If he would testify as to the extent of the FIA's crimes, and the Grand Council's complicity, it would certainly swing the present negotiating position of President Neiland and all the Federation member worlds in their arguments with the Federalists."
Sandy frowned. "If Dali told what he knew, and what he was involved in ... surely that would strengthen the breakaway vote? If Dali's testimony proved that the entire Federation system is implicated in the FIA's crimes, wouldn't that create the two-thirds majority here that Neiland needs for Callay to break from the Federation?"
"Or," said Ibrahim, nodding slowly, "create enough of a scandal back on Earth itself to force the Grand Council to a major review of itself. Possibly a review of the entire Federation system. It wasn't meant to be like this, Cassandra, Earth was not meant to have as much power as it presently has within the Grand Council and the Federation bureaucracy in general. The war put all the extremists in charge, just like in the League, and centralised all power around the Earth bureaucracy. The war has ended, but, on both sides, the damage continues."
&
nbsp; Sandy thought of Captain Teig. And all the people killed at last month's Parliament Massacre, and other accompanying bloodbaths. And of the contracting calamity that was the League economy right now, as the restructuring swept through the old wartime centralisation like a wrecking ball-the travel-delayed news reports of mass layoffs, bureaucratic collapse, criminal gangs and even food riots, on some of the unluckier worlds. And she remembered certain Old Earth sayings about chickens coming home to roost ...
"So reform of the Federation is possible, too?" she asked, still frowning. "As opposed to breaking away?"
Ibrahim gave a gentle shrug against the wall at his back.
"Breaking away is difficult. Politicians look for compromise. It certainly seems possible." No idle comment that, Sandy was sure. She stared at him closely for several long seconds. "But Dali is the key. And he has not been at all cooperative, he merely waits for the injunction to end so that the Earth delegation here can take him back to Earth, and Federal Jurisdiction. He needs to say nothing to us, and he knows it.
"Can the injunction become permanent? Can we actually win and keep him here?"
"It's possible." He didn't sound very optimistic. "Callayan law versus Federal law. Federal law usually triumphs. But these are extraordinary times, setting extraordinary precedents. In law, precedents are everything."
Damn it was tiring, trying to hold all these factors, these possible outcomes in her head. Had civilian societies always worked like this? It amazed her that they didn't all collapse in disaster more frequently. It seemed like any person trying to keep things running would soon become like a juggler tossing too many balls-eventually one would slip, the rhythm would break and the whole lot come crashing down.
Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel (v1.1) Page 33
