The Rebel Worlds

Pickens moistened his lips. “Individuals like us shouldn’t count. Not when millions and millions of lives—”

“But they belong to individuals too, correct? And if we serve ourselves, we serve the Imperium simultaneously, which we swore to do. Let us have no bleeding-heart unrealism. Let us get on with our business, the scotching of this rebellion.”

“What does the governor propose?”

Snelund shook a finger. “Not propose, Admiral. Decree. We will thresh out details later. But in general, your mission will be to keep the war fires burning. True, our critical systems must be heavily guarded. But that will leave you with considerable forces free to act. Avoid another large battle. Instead raid, harass, hit and run, never attack a rebel group unless it’s unmistakably weaker, make a special point of preying on commerce and industry.”

“Sir? Those are our people!”

“McCormac claims they’re his. And, from what I know of him, the fact that he’ll be the cause of their suffering distress at our hands will plague him, will hopefully make him less efficient. Mind you, I don’t speak of indiscriminate destruction. On the contrary, we shall have to have justifiable reasons for hitting every civilian target we do. Leave those decisions to me. The idea is, essentially, to undermine the rebel strength.”

Snelund sat erect. One fist clenched on a chair arm. His hair blazed like a conqueror’s brand. “Supply and replacement,” he said ringingly. “Those are going to be McCormac’s nemesis. He may be able to whip us in a stand-up battle. But he can’t whip attrition. Food, clothing, medical supplies, weapons, tools, spare parts, whole new ships, a navy must have them in steady flow or it’s doomed. Your task will be to plug their sources and choke their cha

“Can that be done, sir, well enough and fast enough?” Pickens asked. “He’ll fix defenses, arrange convoys, make counterattacks.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Yours is a single part of the effort, albeit a valuable one. The rest is to deny McCormac an effective civil service.”

“I don’t, uh, don’t understand, sir.”

“Not many do,” Snelund said. “But think what an army of bureaucrats and functionaries compose the foundation of any government. It’s no difference’ whether they are paid by the state or by some nominally private organization. They still do the day-to-day work. They operate the spaceports and traffic lanes, they deliver the mail, they keep the electronic communication cha

He smiled wider. “Confidentially,” he said, “the lesson was taught me by experience out here. As you know, I had various changes in policy and administrative procedure that I wished to put into effect. I was only successful to a degree, chiefly on backward planets with no real indigenous civil services. Otherwise, the bureaucrats dragged their feet too much. It’s not like the Navy, Admiral. I would press an intercom button, issue a top priority order — and nothing would happen. Memos took weeks or months to go from desk to desk. Technical objections were argued comma by comma. Interminable requests for clarification made their slow ways back to me. Reports were filed and forgotten. It was like dueling a fog. And I couldn’t dismiss the lot of them. Quite apart from legalities, I had to have them. There were no replacements for them.

“I intend to give Hugh McCormac a taste of that medicine.”

Pickens shifted uneasily. “How, sir?”

“That’s a matter I want to discuss this afternoon. We must get word to those planets. The little functionaries must be persuaded that it isn’t in their own best interest to serve the rebellion with any zeal. Their natural timidity and stodginess work in our favor. If, in addition, we bribe some, threaten others, perhaps carry out an occasional assassination or bombing — Do you follow? We must plant our agents throughout McCormac’s potential kingdom before he can take possession of it and post his guards. Then we must keep up the pressure — agents smuggled in, for example; propaganda; disruption of interstellar transportation by your raiders — Yes, I do believe we can bring McCormac’s civil service machinery to a crawling, creaking slowdown. And without it, his navy starves. Are you with me, Admiral?”

Pickens swallowed. “Yes, sir. Of course.”

“Good.” Snelund rose. “Come along to the conference room. My staffs waiting. We’ll thresh out specific plans. Would you like a stimpill? The session will probably continue till all hours.”

They had learned of him, first on Venus, then on Terra, then in Sector Alpha Crucis: voluptuary he was, but when he saw a chance or a threat that concerned himself, twenty demons could not outwork him.

XI

Kathryn estimated the distance from Thunderstone to Port Frederiksen as about 2000 kilometers. But that was map distance, the kind that an aircar traversed in a couple of hours, a spacecraft in minutes or seconds. Aground and afoot, it would take weeks.

Not only was the terrain difficult, most of it was unknown to the Didonians. Like the majority of primitives, they seldom ventured far beyond their home territory. Articles of trade normally went from communion to communion rather than cross-country in a single caravan. Hence the three who accompanied the humans must feel their own way. In the mountains especially, this was bound to be a slow process with many false choices.

Furthermore, the short rotation period made for inefficient travel. The autochthons refused to move after dark, and Flandry was forced to agree it would be unwise in strange areas. The days were lengthening as the season advanced; at midsummer they would fill better than seven hours out of the eight and three-quarters. But the Didonians could not take advantage of more than four or five hours. The reason was, again, practical. En route, away from the richer diet provided by their farms, a noga must eat — for three — whatever it could find. Vegetable food is less caloric than meat. The natives had to allow ample time for fueling their bodies.

“Twenty-four of us humans,” Flandry counted. “And the sixteen we’re leaving behind, plus the good doctor, also have appetites. I don’t know if our rations will stretch.”

“We can supplement some with native food,” Kathryn reassured him. “There’re levo compounds in certain plants and animals, same as terrestroid biochemistries involve occasional dextros. I can show you and the boys what they look like.”

“Well, I suppose we may as well scratch around for them, since we’ll be oysting so much in camp.”

“Oystin’?”

“What oysters do. Mainly sit.” Flandry ruffled his mustache. “Damn, but this is turning into a loathsome fungus! The two items I did not think to rescue would have to be scissors and a mirror.”

Kathryn laughed. “Why didn’t you speak before? They have scissors here. Clumsy, none too sharp, but you can cut hair with them. Let me be your barber.”

Her hands across his head made him dizzy. He was glad that she let the men take care of themselves.

They were all quite under her spell. He didn’t think it was merely because she was the sole woman around. They vied to do her favors and show her courtesies. He wished they would stop, but couldn’t well order it. Relationships were strained already.

He was no longer the captain to them, but the commander: his brevet rank, as opposed to his lost status of shipmaster. They cooperated efficiently, but it was inevitable that discipline relaxed, even between enlisted men and other officers. He felt he must preserve its basic forms around himself. This led to a degree of — not hostility, but cool, correct aloofness as regarded him, in distinction to the camaraderie that developed among the rest.