This Hollow Union

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  To William Dufris and Tavia Gilbert, and any other audiobook narrator who might work in the Old Man’s War universe. Thanks for giving these characters a voice.

  PART ONE

  “I have to tell you that I am deeply concerned that our union is on the verge of collapse,” Ristin Lause said to me.

  It’s been said, and I suspect largely by people who are not terribly fond of me, that I, Hafte Sorvalh, am the second most powerful person in the known universe. It’s certainly true that I am the confidant and closest advisor of General Tarsem Gau, the leader of the Conclave, the largest known political union, with over four hundred constituent member species, none of whom number less than one billion souls. It is also true that in my role as confidant and advisor to Tarsem, I have a great deal of choice in terms of which things to bring to his attention; also that Tarsem chooses to use me strategically to solve a number of problems he would prefer not to be seen involved with, and in those cases I have a wide amount of personal discretion in solving the problem, with the full resources of the Conclave at my disposal.

  So yes, it would not be inaccurate to say that I am, indeed, the second most powerful person in the known universe.

  Note well, however, that being the second most powerful person in the universe is very much like being the second most of anything, which is to say, not the first, and receiving none of the benefits of being the first. And as my position and status derive entirely from the grace and need of the actual most powerful person in the universe, my ability to exercise the prerogatives of my power are, shall we say, constrained. And now you know why it is said of me by the people who are not terribly fond of me.

  However, this suits my personal inclinations. I don’t mind having the power that is given to me, but I have only rarely grasped for it myself. My position has come largely from being usefully competent to others, each more powerful than the next. I have always been the one who stands behind, the one who counts heads, the one who offers advice.

  And, also, the one who has to sit in meetings with anxious politicians, listening to them wring whatever appendages they wring about The End of All Things. In this case, Ristin Lause, the chancellor of the Grand Assembly of the Conclave, an august political body that I was always aware of having a grammatical redundancy in its title, but nevertheless not to be ignored. Ristin Lause sat in my office, staring up at me, for I am tall, even for a Lalan. She held in her hand a cup of iet, a hot drink from her planet, which was a traditional morning pick-me-up. She had it in her hand because I offered it, as was customary, and because she was, at a very early time on the clock, my first meeting for the sur, the Conclave’s standard day.

  “In truth, Ristin, are you ever not concerned that our union is on the verge of collapse?” I asked, and reached for my own cup, which was not filled with iet, which to me tasted like what might happen if you let a dead animal ferment in a jug of water in hot sunlight for an unfortunately long period of time.

  Lause made a head movement which I knew corresponded to a frown. “You are mocking my concern, Councilor?” she asked.

  “Not at all,” I said. “I am offering tribute to your conscientiousness as chancellor. No one knows the assembly better than you, and no one is more aware of the shifts in alliances and strategies. This is why we meet every five sur, and I am grateful we do. With that said, you do proclaim concern about the collapse of the Conclave on a regular basis.”

  “You suspect hyperbole.”

  “I seek clarity.”

  “All right,” Lause said, and set down her iet, undrunk. “Then here is clarity for you. I see the collapse of the Conclave because General Gau has been pressing for votes in the assembly that he shouldn’t be. I see it because his enemies have been pushing votes to counter and undermine the general’s power, and they are losing by smaller margins with each outing. For the first time there is open dissatisfaction with him, and with the direction of the Conclave.”

  “For the first time?” I said. “I seem to recall an attempted coup in the not ancient past, brought on by his decision not to punish the humans for the destruction of our fleet at the Roanoke Colony.”

  “A small group of discontents, trying to take advantage of what they saw as a moment of weakness on the part of the general.”

  “Which almost succeeded, if you recall. I remember the knife coming down toward his neck, and missiles immediately thereafter.”

  Lause waved this away. “You’re missing my point,” she said. “That was a coup, an attempt to wrest power from the general by extralegal means. What I see now, with every vote, is the power and influence—the moral standing—of the general being whittled away. You know that Unli Hado, among others, wants to put the general to a confidence vote. If things progress, it won’t be long until he gets his wish.”

  I drank from my cup. Unli Hado had recently challenged General Gau’s actions dealing with the human Colonial Union, and been knocked back when he asserted evidence of new human colonies that turned out not to exist—or more accurately, they had been so thoroughly removed from their planets by the Colonial Union that there was no hard evidence they had ever existed. Those colonies had been quietly removed by General Gau’s request; Hado had been fed the outdated information on their existence in order to be made to look like a fool.

  And it had worked; he had looked like a fool when he attempted to call out the general. What I and the general had underestimated were the number of other assembly members who would willingly continue to follow a fool.

  “The general isn’t a member of the assembly,” I said. “A confidence vote wouldn’t be binding.”

  “Wouldn’t it?” Lause said. “The assembly can’t remove the general from the leadership of the Conclave, no. There’s no mechanism for it. But you understand that a no confidence vote on the general is the fatal crack in his armor. After that General Gau is no longer the beloved, and almost mythical founder of the Conclave. He’s merely another politician who has overstayed his welcome.”

  “You are the chancellor of the assembly,” I noted. “You could keep a confidence vote on the general from reaching the floor.”

  “I could,” Lause agreed. “But I could not then keep the confidence vote on me from reaching the floor. And once I was out of the way, Hado, or more likely one of his more pliable lieutenants, would ascend to my position. The general’s confidence vote would not be avoided, merely delayed.”

  “And what if it were to happen?” I asked, setting down my cup. “The general is not under the illusion that he will be the head of the Conclave forever. The Conclave is meant to survive him. And me. And you.”

  Lause stared at me. In point of fact, as Lause h
ad no eyelids, she was always staring. But in this case it was with intent.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “You have to be joking, Hafte,” Lause said. “You have to be either joking or oblivious to the fact that it is General Gau himself who has kept the Conclave together. It’s loyalty to him and his idea of the Conclave that kept it from falling apart after Roanoke. It was loyalty to him that allowed it to survive the coup attempt that followed. The general knows this at least—he made everyone swear personal loyalty to him. You were the first to swear it.”

  “I also warned him of the dangers of doing it,” I said.

  “And you were right,” Lause said. “Technically. But he was right that at that moment it was loyalty to him that kept the Conclave in one piece. It still does.”

  “We have perhaps moved on from that personal loyalty. That’s what the general has worked toward. What we have all worked toward.”

  “We’re not there,” Lause said. “If General Gau is made to step down then the center of the Conclave falls away. Will this union still exist? For a while. But the union will be hollow, and the factions that already exist now will pull away. The Conclave will fracture, and then those factions will fracture again. And we’ll be back to where we were before. I see it, Hafte. It’s almost inevitable at this point.”

  “Almost,” I said.

  “We can avoid a fracture, for now,” Lause said. “Buy some time and perhaps heal the fracture. But the general has to give up something he wants very much.”

  “Which is?”

  “He has to give up the Earth.”

  I reached for my cup again. “The humans from Earth have not asked to join the Conclave,” I said.

  “Don’t spout nonsense at me, Hafte,” Lause said, sharply. “There isn’t a representative in the assembly who doesn’t know that the general intends to offer Earth significant trade and technological concessions, with the intent of drawing them into the Conclave sooner than later.”

  “The general has never said anything of the sort.”

  “Not publicly,” Lause said. “He’s been content to let his friends in the assembly do that for him. Unless you believe that we don’t know who is working Bruf Brin Gus’s levers on this subject. It’s not been exactly discreet about the favors it can pull from the general now. Or from you, for that matter.”

  I made a note to schedule a meeting with Representative Bruf at the earliest convenience; it had been warned against preening to other assembly representatives. “You think Hado would use any deal with Earth as leverage for a confidence vote,” I said.

  “I think Hado has a hatred of humans that borders on outright racism.”

  “Even though the Earth is not affiliated with the Colonial Union.”

  “That’s a distinction too subtle for Hado,” Lause said. “Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say that it’s a distinction that Hado will not bother to make, either for himself or to others, because it would interfere with his plans.”

  “Which are?”

  “Do you have to ask?” Lause said. “Hado hates the humans, but he loves them too. Because they might get him to the job he really wants. At least he thinks so. The Conclave will have collapsed before he can get much use of it.”

  “So remove the humans, and we remove his lever.”

  “You remove the lever that he’s grasping today,” Lause said. “He has others.” She reached for her cup of iet, saw that it had grown cold, and set it back down again. My assistant Umman popped his head into the room; my next meeting partner had arrived. I nodded to him and then stood. Lause stood as well.

  “Thank you, Ristin,” I said. “As always, our chat has been useful and enlightening.”

  “I hope so,” Lause said. “A final piece of advice for the day, if I may. Get Hado in here the next chance you get. He’s not going to tell you what he has planned, but it’s everything else he says that will matter anyway. Talk to him even briefly and you’ll know what I know. And you’ll know why I worry the Conclave is in trouble.”

  “That is very good advice,” I said. “I plan to take it very soon.”

  “How soon?”

  “As soon as you leave me,” I said. “Unli Hado is my next appointment.”

  * * *

  “I’m worried that the Conclave is being pushed toward destruction,” Unli Hado said to me, almost before I had time to sit down after welcoming him into my office.

  “Well, this is certainly a dramatic way to begin our discussion, Representative,” I said. Umman discreetly slipped back into the office and deposited two bowls on my desk, one closer to me and one closer to Hado. Hado’s was filled with niti, an Elpri breakfast food that would kill me if I attempted to eat it, but which Hado was known to relish. My own bowl had tidbits on it shaped like niti, but made of Lalan vegetable matter. I did not wish to die in this particular meeting. I had other plans for the rest of the sur. I nodded thanks to Umman; Hado appeared not to notice him. Umman slipped back out of the room.

  “I didn’t know that coming to you with a concern would be dismissed as drama,” Hado said. He reached over and fished one of the niti out of his bowl, and then started sucking on it, loudly. I did not know enough about Elpri table manners to decide whether he was being rude.

  “I would in no way dismiss your concerns, as drama or anything else,” I replied. “But you may understand that from my end, leading with the destruction of the Conclave doesn’t leave much room for anything else.”

  “Does General Gau still intend to bring the humans into the Conclave?” Hado asked.

  “You know as well as I do that the general never lobbies a species to join the Conclave,” I said. “He merely shows them the advantages and allows them to ask, if they are interested.”

  “That’s a nice fiction,” Hado said. He swallowed his niti and reached for another.

  “If the humans asked to join the Conclave—if either of the human governments asked to join the Conclave, because as you know there is more than one—then they would go through the same process as everyone else has.”

  “For which the general would heavily place his support for the humans.”

  “I would imagine only to the extent he has done for any of our species, including the Elpri, Representative Hado. You may recall him standing in the well of the Grand Assembly, praising your people at the time of the vote.”

  “For which of course I offer him many thanks.”

  “As you should,” I said. “As should every member state of our Conclave. In point of fact, to date, the general has welcomed every species who has asked to join and was willing to accept the terms of union. I wonder why you would think—if in fact either human government wanted to join our union—that the general would do otherwise.”

  “It’s because I know something about the humans that the general does not.”

  “Secret information?” I said, and reached for one of my own tidbits. “With all due respect, Representative, your track record on secret information regarding the humans is spotty.”

  Hado offered what to anyone else would appear to be a genial smile. “I am well aware that I have a history of falling into the traps that you’ve set for me, Councilor. But between ourselves let’s not pretend that we don’t know what really happened.”

  “I’m not entirely sure I catch your meaning,” I said, pleasantly.

  “Have it your way,” Hado said, and then reached into his vest to pull out a data module. He placed it on my desk between us.

  “Is this your secret information?” I asked.

  “It’s not secret, just not well known. Yet.”

  “Will you give me a précis, or should I just plug it into my computer?”

  “You should look at all of it,” Hado said. “But the short version is that a whistleblower from the Colonial Union has released information on all of the Colonial Union’s military and intelligence operations for the last several of their decades. Including the destruction of our fleet at Roanoke, the attacks on Co
nclave ships and planets using pirated Conclave member trade ships, biological experimentation on Conclave citizens, and the attack on Earth Station.”

  I picked up the data module. “How was this whistleblower able to procure all this information?”

  “He was an undersecretary of the Colonial Union’s State Department.”

  “I don’t suppose this undersecretary is available to us.”

  “My understanding is that the Colonial Union reacquired him,” Hado said. “If the Colonials’ standard practices hold, if he’s not already dead, he’s a brain suspended in a jar.”

  “I’m curious how this information came to you, Representative Hado.”

  “I got it this morning by diplomatic courier drone from Elpri,” Hado said. “The information has been readily available there for an Elprian day. The information was apparently released widely. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re offered the information by others, including your own planetary government, Councilor. Nor would I be surprised if it’s offered to the Conclave itself by the end of the sur.”

  “We don’t know if this information is reliable, is what you’re telling me.”

  “What I’ve read of it—which has been the most recent events, primarily—seems accurate,” Hado said. “It explains at the very least why we’ve been losing trade and cargo ships, and how the Colonial Union has been using them against us.”

  “It might not surprise you to know that the Colonial Union has maintained their own civilian ships have been pirated.”

  “I won’t deny I am not fond of humanity, but that isn’t to say that I think they are stupid,” Hado said. “Of course they would be doing a magnificent job of obfuscating their plans.”

  “And what are their plans, Representative Hado?” I asked.

  “The destruction of the Conclave, obviously,” Hado said. “They tried and failed at Roanoke Colony. They are trying again by using our own trade ships against us.”

  “At that rate they should topple us at about the same time as the heat death of the universe,” I said.