Crown of Slaves

Chapter 47

Berry found it difficult not to wince, watching the Mesan perso

Those people were the survivors of the savage slave rebellion which had erupted on Congo as soon as word began to spread that the space station had been seized by...

Whoever. It didn't matter, really, as long as they were anti-Mesan. Congo had been a prison planet, in essence. Once all of the really powerful military forces at the disposal of Mesa, including the kinetic missiles with which the planet could be bombarded in case of extreme necessity, had been taken out of the equation, the Mesan perso

Not even close. Those overseers who did try to stand their ground had been overwhelmed—and their weapons turned to the use of killing other overseers. Not just "overseers," either. Anyone —even a child—associated with "Mesa" or especially "Manpower" had been under sentence of death, everywhere on the planet's surface. A sentence which had been imposed immediately, mercilessly, and in some cases accompanied by the most horrible atrocities.

There had been some exceptions, here and there. Mesans whose duties had not involved discipline over the slaves, especially those who had established a reputation for being at least decent, had been spared in a number of cases. There was even one instance where an entire settlement of Mesan scientists and pharmaceutical technicians and their families had been protected by an improvised slave defense guard against slaves coming in from the outside.

But, for the most part, any Mesan who hadn't gotten himself quickly enough to one of the enclaves where armed Mesans had been able to fort up and hold off the slaves until the surrender was negotiated had simply been slaughtered. The entire surface of the planet had been engulfed, for two days, in a wave of pure murder.

And it hadn't taken long for the word to spread, either—nor the further word that the space station was now in the hands of the Audubon Ballroom, which had simply poured fuel on an already spreading conflagration. Death to Mesa. Death to Manpower. Now.

Once again, Berry realized, the economic reality of slavery based on a high level of technical advancement had manifested itself. There were simply too many ways for literate slaves, in a modern technical society, to gain access to information once the opportunity arose. Which it had, in most cases, when dumbfounded slaves suddenly saw Mesan overseers and staff perso

Death. Death. Death. All of them! Now!

In some cases, the departing Mesans had had the foresight to destroy the equipment. But, more often than not, in their panicky haste to simply flee for a refuge, they had neglected to do so. And, once the com centers had started falling into the hands of the slaves, the slaves had rapidly begun establishing their own communication network across the planet. This was a rebellion which had all the pitiless rage of Nat Turner's—but whose slaves were very far from illiterate field hands. They had organized themselves just about as quickly and readily as the slaves on Felicia had done, after Templeton's seizure of the ship. And, like the slaves on Felicia, there had been enough undercover agents of the Ballroom to serve as an organizing and directing catalyst.

Berry drew a long and shaky breath. It was over now, at least—and, at least, she could remind herself that she had been the central figure in ending the slaughter. Before the second of Congo's twenty-seven-hour days had passed, she'd been able to establish contact with all the remaining Mesan enclaves, as well as the major slave organizing centers, and negotiate a surrender. Her terms had been simple: In exchange for their lives and whatever personal possessions they could carry, provided they surrendered immediately and made no attempt at sabotage, any Mesan who wanted to leave the planet would be allowed to do so with no further harm. Under Solarian Navy escort, and into the safekeeping of the Solarian Navy. She'd even offered to place the Felicia at the disposal of the Solarian Navy, to provide the needed transport.

That last decision had been one she'd made with some reluctance. As with everyone involved during those long weeks, Felicia had come to occupy a special place in her heart. She'd even been the one to give the ship her new name: Hope, she'd called her, repeating the name until she simply drove under all the competing names. Of which Vengeance had been the most popular.

She'd had to drive over even sharper opposition to get everyone's agreement to her proposal to use Hope as the transport for the departing Mesan perso

Let the swine make the trip in cubbyholes aboard Solarian warships.

The children, too?

Those are not children. Those are young vipers.

No. NO. There isn't enough room for all of them. Leave any behind...

Vipers.

Damn you, Jeremy! I will not be crowned standing in a lake of blood and vomit! End the slaughter now! NOW, do you hear!

It had been the first clash of wills between her and Jeremy. And...

She'd won, to her surprise. Mostly because, she decided afterward, even Jeremy had been a little shaken by the horror. Especially after one particularly savage group of slaves had gleefully broadcast a transmission which recorded for posterity the execution of three overseers. Insofar as the antiseptic term "execution" could be applied to death by torture.

Web had helped, adding his quiet and calm reasoning to her own stubborn fury.

"We must end it now, Jeremy—as quickly as possible, whatever it takes—or we will suffer a monumental disaster in public relations. Bad enough that recording will be used by Manpower from now on, every chance they get. If we can at least demonstrate that the new government did everything in its power to bring the butchery to a halt, we can contain the damage. In the end, most people will accept the spontaneous fury of rebelling slaves. They will not accept the cold-blooded callousness of established power. Let them have the Hope ."

Rozsak had even helped. "I'll see to it you get the ship back, after we've transported the survivors."

Whether the Solarian captain would make good on the promise, remained to be seen. But now, as she watched the last survivors filing toward the waiting shuttles, Berry found herself not caring any longer. The Hope was a small price to pay, to end this.

Even worse than the expressions on the faces of the survivors, in some ways, were the expressions on the faces of the Ballroom members—any ex-slave, really—who stood near her watching them leave.

Pitiless. Utterly, completely pitiless.

Berry understood the reasons for that, true enough. There were many recordings in their possession now, which the triumphant slaves had seized. Some of them official recordings made by the Mesan authorities, but many of them private recordings left behind by now-dead or evacuating Mesan perso

Let Mesa try to use their few recordings of slave atrocities. Now that it was over—had been ended, as all could attest, as quickly as the new government could manage it—Mesa's propaganda campaign would be buried under an avalanche of their own recordings. Already, Berry knew, the galactic media's representatives in-system were practically salivating over the material. It was all... disgusting, really. But she could accept "disgusting," for the sake of the future.

That same future, moreover, was clear as crystal to her. She understood now, deep in her belly, everything that Web Du Havel had once explained to her and Ruth about the dangers which faced a successful slave rebellion. Fury and rage and hatred might be necessary to create a nation and drag it screaming and fighting out of the womb of oppression and cruelty, but they could not serve as its foundation. Those emotions, for a society as much as an individual person, needed to be leached away. Lest they become toxic, over time, and lead to madness.

It was odd, in a way. Berry herself had once had to go through that experience, after Anton had taken her from Terra's underground and brought her to Manticore. At Anton and Cathy's insistence—though Berry herself had protested it was an u

She knew that her therapist had told Anton, after it was over, that Berry was perhaps intrinsically the sanest individual she'd ever treated. But "sanity" was not a magic shield against the universe's cruelties. It was simply a tool. The same tool she would now spend decades using, to do what she could to heal a new nation.

She turned her head and looked up at Jeremy, standing to her right. He avoided her eyes, for a few seconds. Then, sighing, looked down at her.

"All right, lass. You were right. Although if that damn Solarian captain doesn't return the Hope..."

"You'll do nothing," she said. Proclaimed, rather.