The Insurrection

The Peaceforcer skimmer slid down onto the Govern- ment House roof just at sunset. (at least, Zephrain A was setting. Zephrain B remained high in the sky, glowing as a very tiny sun or a very bright star, depending on how one chose to view it.) A Marine major in undress dark-green trousers and black tunic stepped onto the roof to meet the brown-uniformed Peaceforcers who emerged from the skimmer. With punctilious formality--the two services wasted little love on one another he took custody of their prisoner, addressing her with a noncommittal "ma'am." Whether Li Han was a captain or an admiral--comor, in fact, whether an admitted rebel and mutineer was entitled to a military rank at all--cominvolved political questions the major preferred to leave to older, wiser, and better-paid heads.

Li Hah looked even smaller than usual between her to guards. They towered above her, and their combined body weight outmassed her by a factor of almost five. Her cheeks were slightly sunken (the food at the prison compound was adequate, but not always appetizing), emphasizing her clean facial structure, and she moved with her habitual grace, thanks to a rigidly self-imposed exercise schedule, but she looked like a child in an adult's pajamas in her standard-sized gray prison garb.

The major eyed the unprepossessing little figure with a measure of curiosity mingled with contempt-anything less like a Navy flag officer was hard to imagine.

Until she opened her mouth.

"Good evening, Major" she said crisply. "You may escort me to the Governor-General." The major's hand was halfway into a salute before he caught himself. He managed to maintain his military bearing, but there was a brief pause before he mumbled, "This way, ma'am." comle turned on his heel and led the small, ramrod-straight figure to the elevator, glaring at any of his subordinates who looked like they might even be thinking of smiling.

Prisoners were rare in warfare against alien species--comthe only sort of war the TFN had ever fought.. Not only did ship-to-ship combat generally result in the a

Hence, the Federation's Navy's codes, both for treatment of prisoners and conduct when captured, were badly underdeveloped. As senior prisoner, Han had been forced virtually to reinvent the whole concept of a POW doctrine. She'd beer-offered parole and freedom of the planet, as befitted her rank, but she'd refused, electing to stay with her fellow prisoners.

But she'd attacked her problems and theirs with all the compassion and ruthlessness which made her what she was.

Now, nine months later, the captured Republican perso

But once the immediate perso

As fall gave way to the short, mild winter of Xanadu's temperate zones, Han realized the irony of her success. She'd given her subordinates purpose and unity while she herself fretted like a captive bird against the maddening inertia and monotony of her captivity. Only once had there been any excitement to vary the soul-crushing boredom of her life.

Han's experience with governments in general, and particularly with those serving the purposes of the Corporate Worlds, had not been happy. So when she was summoned to meet a Ms. Miriam Ortega, Provisional Grand Councilor for Internal SecuriWill of the Rim Systems, she was prepared to confront yet another bored, insensitive bureaucrat.

But Ms. Ortega had begun by gracefully dismissing the camp commandant, effectively placing the entire interview off the record, which was not typical of the red tape-worshiping automatons Han associated with "government" outside the Terran Republic.

It was both a shrewd and a generous gesture, Han had thought, and felt herself warm towards the other woman. She thawed further as they discussed camp conditions and the needs of the prisoners, and it was heaven to talk to someone new after months of the same faces!

Especially to someone like this irreverently intelligent woman wRh her earthy sense of humor. Han had worked hard for the serene devotion to duty which was hers, yet she'd paid a price of loneliness along the way. Now, as she talked with Miriam Ortega, she felt the attraction that opposites often exert, and it was hard to remember they were enemies.

When it was time for her to go, she'd risen with regret. Yet before she left, she'd fumbled to frame an awkward question, despite her fear that it might shatter the precarious rapport she'd found with her "enemy." "Ms. Ortega,; I couldn't help wondering.

.. with your last name. Miriam Ortega, had stopped her, answering the question before she could complete it.

"He was a man of strong principles and he died acting On theresa pretty good way to go, I think." Then, with another smile, "I hear you've very nearly done so several times!" and the thawing process was complete, the rapport no longer forced.

Han was stu

To be sure, he had been out of contact with his wife for over three standard years. But.

Han had never met Natalya Nikolayevna Trevayne, but the woman's flawless beauty had been the subject of frequent comment by envious male officers and ostentatiously indifferent female ones, and there had never been a whisper of a hint of infidelity in all the Fleet gossip. Surely Miriam Ortega, however striking in her own dark, very individual way, couldn't possibly be Trevayne's type! And yet.., was it her imagination, or had a certain humorous warmth ept into the other's voice whenever she spoke of "the Governor-General'?

Then, with the onset of spring, came the summons which had taken her from the compound for the first time in half a year. Now, walking under guard through the corridors of Government House, she concentrated on looking unconcerned as she wondered why Trevayne had sent for her.

They came to the suite of offices from which Ian Trevayne ruled the Rim Systems. Han and her intelligence officers had spent considerable effort piecing together a schematic of the Provisional Government, and she sometimes thought it might have been designed by the legendary pre-space engineer Goldberg. Most of the day-to-day administration devolved on the departments headed by the members of the Grand Council, who were members of the Rim Legislative Assembly and so responsible to it.

But they worked forand in the name of Governor-General Trevayne, who, even though he was the sole member of the executive branch, wasn't even a member of the Assembly, much less responsible to it. He was responsible directly to the Federation Legislative Assembly on Old Terra--with which he was only infrequently and circuitously in touch by some means Han had yet to uncover. It was one of those legal tangles which homo sapiens secretly and guiltily loves, she'd decided, but it worked.., as her present captivity demonstrated all too well.

The major ushered her through the bustling outer offices and knocked at the Governor-General's private office doors. A voice from within called admittance, and the major pushed the old-fashioned doors open and stepped back, coming to a sort of half-attention as she passed him. He closed the doors quietly, not without a sigh of regret.