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The sudden switch to praise startled Ogilve. It was all the more disconcerting because the words were spoken in exactly the same cold tone of voice. Not even that, Jean-Pierre realized. It wasn't cold so much as emotionless. Cachat just seemed to be one of those incredibly rare people who really were indifferent to anything beyond their duties.
From the expression on her face, he thought Genevieve was just as confused as he was.
"Well. I'm glad to hear it, of course, but . . ." Her face settled stonily. "I assume this is a preface to questioning my loyalty."
"Do you react emotionally to everything, Citizen Admiral? I find that peculiar in an officer as senior as yourself." Cachat planted his hands on the desk, the fingers spread. Somehow, the young man managed to project the calm assurance of age over an admiral with three or four times his lifespan. "The fact that you were an admiral under the Legislaturalist regime naturally brought you under suspicion. How could it be otherwise? However, careful investigation concluded that you had been made one of the scapegoats for the Legislaturalist disaster at Hancock, whereupon your name was cleared and you were assigned to a responsible new post. Since then, no suspicion has been cast upon you."
Seemingly possessed of a lemming instinct, Genevieve wouldn't let it go. "So what? After McQueen's madness—not to mention Jamka found murdered—"
"Enough." Cachat's fingers lifted from the desk, though the heels of his palms remained firmly planted. The gesture was the equivalent of a less emotionally controlled man throwing out his arms in frustration.
"Enough," he repeated. "You simply can't be that stupid, Citizen Admiral. McQueen's treachery makes it all the more imperative that the People's Republic finds naval officers it can trust. Do I need to remind you that Citizen Chairman Saint-Just saw fit to call Citizen Admiral Theisma
The mention of Thomas Theisma
Genevieve seemed to be settling down now. To Ogilve's relief, she even issued an apology to Cachat.
"Sorry for getting personal, Citizen Special Investigator." The apology was half-mumbled, but Cachat seemed willing enough to accept it and let the whole matter pass.
"Good," he stated. "As for the matter of Jamka's murder, my personal belief is that the affair will prove in the end to be nothing more than a sordid private matter. But my responsibilities require me to prioritize any possible political implications. It was for that reason that I had Citizen Commissioner Radamacher and Citizen Captain Justice placed under arrest. Just as it will be for that reason that I am going to carry through a systematic reshuffling of all StateSec assignments here in La Martine Sector."
The StateSec officers in the room stiffened a bit, hearing that last sentence. Cachat seemed not to notice, although Jean-Pierre spotted what might have been a slight tightening of the Special Investigator's lips.
"Indeed so," Cachat added forcefully. "Ru
His eyes stopped ranging the bulkheads and settled on the StateSec officers. "That practice now comes to an end."
Jean-Pierre Ogilve had occasionally wondered what Moses had sounded like, returning from the mountain with his stone tablets. Now he knew. Ogilve had to stifle a smile. The expressions on the faces of the superdreadnoughts' officers were priceless. Just so, he was certain, had the idol-worshippers prancing around the Golden Calf welcomed the prophet down from the mountain.
"Comes—to—an—end." Cachat repeated the words, seeming to savor each and every one of them.
3
Ironically, the cabin which Yuri Radamacher was taken to by the guards after he left Cachat's presence was larger and less austere than his own aboard the commodore's flagship. That was always one of the advantages to serving aboard an SD, where living space was far more ample. This didn't quite qualify as a "stateroom"—at a guess, some nameless StateSec lieutenant had been ousted to make room for him—but it was still a more spacious cabin than the one Yuri had occupied aboard Ogilve's PNS Chartres.
Still and all, it was only a ship cabin. After the guards left—locking the door behind them, needless to say—it didn't take Yuri more than five minutes to examine it completely. And most of that time was pure dithering; the psychological self-protection of a man trying to keep the little shrieks of terror in the back of his mind from overwhelming him.
Soon enough, however, he could dither no more. So, not having any idea what the future held in store for him, Yuri sagged into the compartment's one small armchair and tried to examine his prospects as objectively as possible.
The prospects were . . . not good. They rarely were, for a StateSec officer placed under arrest by StateSec itself. Even the fig leaf of a trial before a People's Court would be dispensed with. State Security kept its dirty linen secret. Summary investigation. Summary trial. Often enough, summary execution.
On the plus side, while he and Admiral Chin and Commodore Ogilve had become a very close team over the past few years—exactly the sort of thing State Security did not like to see happening between naval officers and the StateSec political commissioners assigned to oversee them—they had always been careful to maintain the formalities in public.
Also on the plus side, while they had received vague feelers from Admiral Esther McQueen, they had been careful to keep their distance. In truth, they never had belonged to McQueen's conspiracy.
On the other hand . . .
On the minus side, there wasn't much doubt which way the admiral and Jean-Pierre and Yuri would have swung, in the event that McQueen had succeeded in her scheme. None of them particularly trusted McQueen. But when the alternative was Oscar Saint-Just, the old saw "better the devil you know than the devil you don't" just didn't hold any water. Anybody would be better than Saint-Just.
He tried to rally the plus side again. It was also true, after all, that they had never responded to McQueen's feelers with anything that could by any reasonable stretch of the term be characterized as "plotting."
Or so, at least, Yuri tried to tell himself. The problem was that he'd been an officer in StateSec for years. So he knew full well that Saint-Just's definition of "reasonable characterization" was . . . elastic at best. The fact was that there had been some informal communications between McQueen and Admiral Chin over the past year or so, which Ogilve and Radamacher had been privy to. And if the messages sent back and forth had been vague in the extreme, the simple fact of their existence alone would be enough to damn them if State Security found out.