The Insurrection

"And ff they act as what you've called them--if they truly are barbarians and choose to seek vengeance rather than relief--they will not use those ships and weapons in self-defense. Oh, no, ladies and gentlemen! If the Fringers are barbarians, you will find those ships here, striking the I

"So get down on your knees," he finished.

"Get down on your knees and pray you were wrong." H cut the co

Dieter looked up and saw what he'd known he would. Simon Taliaferro was pressing for recognition, his shoulders hunched, his face bitter.

He had no choice but to respond, and Dieter knew that if his security showed the tiniest chink, he himself was a dead man.

"The Chair," Haley said, "recognizes the Assemblyman from Galloway's World." Taliaferro appeared on the screen, and his face shocked Dieter. The compelling strength had waned, and the arrogance was mixed with desperation. It struck him suddenly that Taliaferro had actually never considered this possibility. That he, too, had missed the significance of the drone's date. That he'd brushed aside Dieter's warnings about the Fleet simply because his blind, overweening confidence had never considered the chance of failure.

But though Dieter might hate him, Simon Taliaferre had cut his way to power with courage as well as conspiracy, and he gathered his shaken will to respond.

"Ladies and Gentlemen of the Assembly," he began, his formal courtesy somehow pathetic after Dieter's contempt. "My friends. The Assemblyman for New Zurich--was he drew a deep breath. "The Assemblyman for New Zurich may be right. Perhaps we have lost more Fleet units since the... mutiny. But it changes nothing. Nothing? He shouted the last word, and suddenly he seemed to find fresh strength. Dieter recognized the signs. Like himself, Taliaferro was unleashing his anger, letting fury sustain him.

"We are still the Federation, and they are still barbarians! Even if they have every ship in Frontier Fleet, even if they have every dispersed unit of Battle Fleet--even if they have the Zephrain Fleet base xfl--whichat of it? Before they can injure us, they must come to us, ladies and gentlemen! They must fight their way through For.-tress Command: They must deal with the remaining strength of Battle Fleet.

They must deal with the Reserve, ladies and gentlemen. Fifty percent of Battle Fleet--,fifttJust percent -comis in mothballst How will they deal with that when we mobilize it? Even if they have Zephrain, surely the base perso

"Let them come against us, ladies and gentlemenl It will prove that I was right--that we were right--whichenough we called them barbarians! Driven to it?

Poppycock! This is a coldly calculated act of treason. This is--must be--the end product of a long and careful conspiracyl We have driven them to nothing--but we tostdrive them. We will drive them to destruction and retribution! Our worlds are safe behind our fortifications; their worlds will lie open to our attack when the Fleet is fully mobilized!

Let us teach them the true meaning of war, my friends!

Let us cauterize this cancer of conspiracy in the only way they understand--with the flames of war and iron determination!" It took all Dieter's strength to keep his dismay from his face. He'd shaken Taliaferro, but the Gallowayan was rallying his forces, and without the Outwodds not even a IswRE-CRO unified' bloc of Heart Worlds and the few Corporate World moderates could fight the political steamroller Taliaferro controlled.

"And ff it is a long war, what of it?" Taliaferro demanded hotly. "We have fought long wars before and come back to victory. We will do it again!

We have the strength to crush these traitors-it is only a matter of mobilizing that strength! My friends! As chief of delegation for Galloway's World, I place the combined building capacity of the Jamieson Archipelago--the greatest concentration of industrial might in the Galaxy--unreservedly at the service of the Terran Federation! Let us see how the rebels like that!" A roar greeted his words--the desperate roar of a panicked crowd which suddenly sees salvation.

Dieter hammered his call button, but Taliaferro ignored him as he ignored Speaker Haley's urgent, amplified pleas for calm, smilirg fiercely out at the shouting, clapping delegates. He'd done it. He'd salvaged victory, and his career from the very teeth of disaster.

And in that moment of heady political triumph, the sealed doors flew open and the Sergeant at Arms raced down the aisle, followed by the red cloak of the Lictor General. A shockwave of quiet fa

The two men hurled themselves up the steps to Haley's side, and only later did Dieter come to recognize the blind providence or the brilliance of David Haley--which had left the Speaker's mike open. Every ear in the Chamber of Worlds heard the message the Lictor General gasped into Haley's ear.

"A message from Galloway's World, sir!

It-it's terrible! Skywatch HQ is gone! A dozen destroyers blown apart! And the Jamieson Archipelago!" "What about the Archipelago?" Haley's question was sharp. "Gone, sir! The yards, the Fleet base, half the Reser-vation-just.., gone, sir. It was a nuclear strike..." The Lictor General's voice trailed off as he realized the microphone at his elbow was live, but no one noticed. Every eye was on Simon Taliaferro as he swayed, his swarthy face pale, his eyes blank, and stumbled silently away.

Yet whatever they paid him, it wouldn't be enough. again. Not with the shipping fees those Corporate World vlasti extorted from the Fringe. For thirty years he'd harvested his wheat and spikebalm, and still he was perpetually in debt to the shipping lines.

He glanced up at the clouds. His grandfather had always claimed Novaya Rodina's steppes were almost as beautiful as Old Russia's, but for the color of the sky. Fedor wouldn't know; he'd seen only recordings from the motherworld, and he'd always suspected they touched the things up a little--surely no sky could be that blue!--comb he knew his own sky well. He only hoped he finished his plowing before the storm struck.

Thoughts of the weather turned his mind to the storm ripping through the entire Federation. He couldn't believe the tales coming out of Novaya Petrograd! Did those madmen think they were all back in the days of the tsar? That the Federation was run by Rasputin? And who were thetj, these men who called themselves "Kadets" once more? Kerensky?

Trotsky? Fedor had no more love for the Corporate Worlds than the next man, but the Federation was the Federation! It had risen from the flames of Old Terra's Great Eastern War and reached out to the stars, protecting its people as it placed them on worlds light-years from their birthwodd. It was the Federation of Howard Anderson and Ivan Antonov. Four centuries it had stood---what were a hundred years or so of mistakes against that? And Novaya Rodinans were Russians: they knew a thing or two about endurance.

But these crazy Kadets---to Madness!

Even ff they sue-ceeded, where would his wheat go? There had to be some form of foreign exchange--comand who in the Fringe needed foodstuffs? What Fringe farming world could sell Novaya Bodina the manufactured goods she needed?