“What of it there is left.” We drank, then he leaned heavily on the leather chair’s arm. “I’m a sight, I know it. You cover it no better than anyone else. They all think I’m going to flop down dead at any moment. I won’t, I promise you.”

“I’d like you to keep that promise, my lord.”

“I will.” His eyes twinkled. “I read your report on the Helen situation. Why is it you feel compelled to make your reports read like potboilers?”

I blushed. “All that dry ‘the subject did this and that’ is boring. It doesn’t get across what I experience out there. I get sent out to infiltrate and work from within, and that’s not clinical or surgical. It’s messy. I’m pretty sure Hector and Pep are feeling bad about trusting me.”

“You’re probably correct.” He sighed. “I excised the last bit from the report before I sent it to Zurich. Once you left CDRF custody your report ends.”

“Yes, my lord.”

Victor sipped a bit more of the Irish whisky, smiled, then regarded me again. “I know you well enough to know you don’t like how the Helen situation resolved itself. I refused Lady Lakewood’s first few entreaties to bring you back, but I need you here, for as long as I can have you. You were being wasted on Helen.

“I don’t know how much Janella was able to tell you, since there are things we didn’t know when we sent her out, and there is a lot of intelligence we’re not broadcasting in any way. It would be devastating. The damage that could be done by panic alone would be irreparable. We actually think that’s what the enemy wants.”

I nodded. “No clue as to who it is?”

“Unfortunately, no. One of the leading theories is it’s the Word of Blake trying to strike again, but Stone pretty much wiped them out. We know there are a few pockets in what was the Free Worlds League, but those who’ve taken Blakism to heart won’t cause much trouble for a while. They’ve devolved their own societies so they’re barely above the Stone Age. They’re searching for a new form of technology that will be liberating and uplifting, but they spend most of their time fighting disease and insects that devour their crops.”

I drank a bit and let the whisky slowly trickle fire down my throat. “If not them, then who? The peace was good for everyone. I do know that the Capellan Confederation’s leader always spouts revolutionary rhetoric, but he’s been all growl and no fang.”

Victor’s eyes hardened. “Daoshen Liao is not someone to be underestimated at any cost. He is undoubtedly smarter than his father was, is tainted by his aunt’s madness, and negotiated a settlement with Stone that allowed him to preserve his dignity and an illusion of power. The problem is that Daoshen is very much an illusionist and has done much over the last twenty years to create this aura of invincibility. Reports from the CapCon are very rare, but it looks as if the grid’s collapse has given him a chance to crack down on enemies and tighten his grip on power.”

The old man shook his head. “That being said, however, none of the Successor States, to our knowledge, possessed the troops and ships needed to stage the raids that took the grid down. Worse yet, having hit, they have pulled back. I think they anticipated old hatreds coming to the fore again, and are willing to let us tear ourselves apart, so they can just sweep in and take over.”

I set my glass down as my guts knotted up. “Then what I saw on Helen was pretty mild?”

“Like a match to a supernova, Mason.” Victor tossed off the last of his whisky. “The Inner Sphere is smoldering and unless we can put out the hot spots right now, it will reach a flashpoint and everything will be lost.”

Knights’ Hall, Santa Fe

North America, Terra

Prefecture X, Republic of the Sphere

8 December 3132

I got up from my chair and found the whisky bottle where I normally kept it, then returned and refilled his glass.

He smiled up at me. “My doctors would tell me this isn’t good for me, but I’ve outlived a number of them. My cousin Morgan used to take a dram of scotch before he’d go to sleep.”

I glanced at my chronometer. “It’s not quite that late, my lord.”

“I’ve not been sleeping much anyway.” He sighed heavily and I could see the weight of events settle on him. I had no doubt that dealing with the communication grid’s collapse had exhausted everyone, but Victor appeared to be wearied by it. In his lifetime he had seen what had been believed to be an endless cycle of war and peace, then the cycle was broken. Stone’s reformation ushered in an unparalleled era of peace and it might well have appeared to him that, unlike his peers, he might die peacefully.

Weary though he may have been, Victor Steiner-Davion possessed a keen intellect and hunger for knowledge. Michaels, in his biography, suggested that Victor’s greatest strength had been his ability to learn. When responsibility was thrust upon him he had been trained to be a soldier, but he managed to learn to be a politician and a ruler and a diplomat. His enemies never recognized that, given enough time, he would learn enough to be able to defeat them; yet he had done so time and time again.

He sat me down and began to ask me many questions about my time on Helen. While the whole problem of who had been behind Handy and why did dominate the conversation, he also zeroed in on how the people were dealing with the stresses tearing at The Republic. “Do you think, Mason, were power brokers to leave things alone, that the people would be content to do so as well?”

I had to think about that for a moment or two, and took the time to refill my glass as I did so. Setting the bottle down, I turned my back to the small bar and leaned there, watching him. “Well, my lord, the common folks are concerned about keeping a roof over their heads, food in their bellies and some basic creature comforts. As long as they don’t have any evidence that someone else is trying to do them out of something they think they’ve earned, they tend to make do. When it appears they’re losing something they’ve been counting on, or that has been promised to them, that’s when they grumble and protest. The crew I worked with was happy with hard work, good beer, Tri-Vid fights and fun. When PADSU started to threaten those things, they began to react.

“It’s the way it is with dogs, I think. A dog’s head comes up and his hackles rise before he growls. And he growls before he snarls and snarls before he bites. Without someone agitating out there, we’re at hackle stage. Get folks stirred up and you have growls and snarls.”

Victor accepted that and we spoke more about what I’d heard concerning power factions in Prefecture III which, on a world like Helen, was less than might have been hoped. Katana Tormark’s resignation as the military leader of the Prefecture had caused a stir, but most folks liked her replacement, Tara Campbell of Northwind. I’d seen no evidence of anyone like Tormark or Jacob Bannson trying to curry favor or garner power though, as Victor aptly pointed out, either could have been Handy’s paymaster.

“If I’d thought it was Bannson, I would have asked for more money. He can afford it.”

Victor smiled at that remark, then bade me accompany him back to his chambers in the Hall. I offered him my arm, not because he needed it, but out of friendship, and he accepted it. We walked along slowly and he leaned both on my arm and the cane, though not as heavily as I might have expected.

We reached his chambers easily enough and discovered a dinner already waiting for us. The old man had glanced up at me with a twinkle in his eyes. “I know how you detest DropShip rations and, unfortunately, your Lady Lakewood will be dining with Consuela Dagmar and my granddaughter, Nessa, as she is debriefed on the situation on Helen. I hope you do not mind my ambushing you this way.”