It was at that point I knew Catford and Siwek would try to have me killed. They’d do it because my plan offended their honor. How fast they would kill me depended upon one factor: Gypsy.

In playing to the other pilots, the Major had failed to play to Gypsy. Clearly Catford was seeing himself as the true leader of our little group, and Gypsy needed to straighten that misconception out immediately. If he didn’t, Catford might just take the resources he’d been given and plunk his own skinny butt on the throne of Basalt. While power might not come from the barrel of a gun, having a ’Mech’s big guns did make hanging on to it a lot easier.

“Major Catford, any dismissal of this plan would be premature. It does have merit and does not obviate your role at all. In fact, it elevates it to one of protector of the people. As you have noted, the other side has talent, and they will certainly deploy it to counter the threats we present. Your opposition to it will be seen as a stroke for freedom, which enhances your position and support.”

Gypsy let Catford chew on that. Gypsy had already picked up on the key point in my plan, which Catford and the others had probably missed. They were all prepared to wipe the government away and impose someone else on the people. My plan focused on the people welcoming the new leader. Not only would this increase stability, but it would also play to the ego of whoever was bankrolling the effort. Yes, he wanted to be king, but how much better to have your adoring peasants beg you to walk all over them than to have to force them onto their bellies.

Catford was sharp enough to realize he’d overplayed his hand. “I still protest this idea as futile, but we shall always be in readiness to salvage the operation here. Mister Donelly will need us, I’m sure.”

Manville, Capital District

Basalt

Prefecture IV, Republic of the Sphere

29 January 3133

If I wanted to try a little more literary pretension I’d note that while we’d been in the meeting clouds had gathered like the furrows on Catford’s brow. I could do that, or I could note that the gathering clouds mirrored my dark mood as I calculated how things were likely to go on Basalt. The simple fact is, however, that the clouds had gathered and had little more import than that.

One of the difficulties that Basalt had faced in trying to become known as a resort destination came from its climate. All of the advertisements described the world as “tropical,” which is advertspeak for humid. This should have come as no surprise for anyone who wanted to venture here and explore rain forests, but oppressive stickiness tends to wear on tourists and eventually makes them irritable.

And judging by Catford’s mood, he’d been here since before I was born.

Gypsy dismissed the meeting and people began to clump and drift. The largest clot formed around Catford. Given the way some of the others looked at that cadre and scowled, I gathered that he’d been handpicking people for his command and they were still looking to curry favor with him. A few other folks spoke with Gypsy, but no one came over to talk to me.

I guess that didn’t surprise me too much since they were warriors and had come to Basalt to ply their trade. This didn’t mean they couldn’t appreciate what I had to offer in my plan, but they weren’t going to commit to it until Gypsy required that of them. Given that they could make an enemy of Catford by being seen as my ally, I took no offense and headed out on my own.

On Basalt, gathering clouds presaged some fairly terrific lightning storms. They were actually spectacular enough to be a tourist attraction, save that they usually were coupled with driving rain. Aside from those who might be visiting from a desert world, rainstorms really were not high on the list of things most tourists want to do.

I caught a hovercab and took it back to the Grand Germayne before the storm broke. I figured that something or someone was waiting for me in my room, so I hit the hotel restaurant for some dinner while my visitor waited. I ordered a filet of troses, which was a troutlike fish the size of a tuna and very good. If packaging Basalt as a tropical paradise did not work, culinary vacations might be a viable alternative.

I couldn’t finish my meal, so I had the leftovers packed up and carried them with me to my room. The thread was still on the ground, so I opened the door, flipped on the light and shut the door behind me. I found no one in the room and no evidence that anyone had been in since Elle departed, not even housekeeping.

My bed had been disturbed, with the covers thrown back, two pillows piled up and the clear impression of a body that had been reclining. Curious, I pressed my hand to the mattress, but it was plenty cold. I didn’t find any short red hairs on the pillow, but I still assumed the outline would have fitted Elle. Why she would have waited for me in bed left me wondering, and none of the answers fit easily, save that she wanted me distracted and not thinking about things I ought to be considering.

My early suspicions that Elle had been Reis’ man inside the GGF had been quashed. Reis had given Janella a complete rundown on his operation, and she wasn’t one of his. Her escape and presence on Basalt with Gypsy suggested they worked as a team, and might well have worked together for a good long time.

On Helen she’d had a tough image going, but that had been shed here. I wasn’t certain if that was because she knew it wouldn’t work with me, and would be challenged by many others among the recruits Gypsy had gathered. The more I thought about it, the more it made sense because, while most warriors were more than willing to acknowledge the equality of women in combat, women who were not warriors—ditto men who were not—were just seen as lesser creatures and dismissed.

And since she wanted to be dismissed, she’d bear extra watching.

Sighing, and with a full belly, I locked the door, stripped off my clothes and slipped into bed. I stretched out, expanding the indentation Elle had left on the bed and fell quickly to sleep. The thunderstorm that raged outside bled a bit into my dreams, transforming natural phenomena into the unnatural sights and sounds of war and yet somehow I slept through it all.

The next morning dawned bright. With the storm’s fury spent, the clouds had dissipated and the city awoke to crews cleaning up the damage rather efficiently. I washed up and headed out, watching them for a bit, then finding a little family diner where I sucked down enough grease and preservatives to lube a ’Mech and keep me in shape to be piloting until I was Victor’s age. That thought actually brought a smile to my face, which the waitress returned along with more coffee and my bill.

I strolled around the city, making mental notes about more targets and found plenty of them. Because of the lightning storms, most power and communications lines had been buried, but junction boxes existed everywhere. Had I a pocket full of plastic explosive and detonators, I could have cut one half of Manville off from the other during a casual walk.

Looking around at the people out shopping and heading to and from work, I saw a lot of happy faces and heard a lot of laughter. These were good people. They probably worked hard, loved their friends and neighbors and were kind to animals. Their lives were pretty good.

And if my plan went into effect, that would change.

I knew my plan would work, and that made me very uneasy. I felt frustrated because I knew there was no way to defend against it. Actually, that’s not true, there was: deny the enemy a reason to attack. If no one had any grievances, they wouldn’t initiate terrorist activity. In our case, the grievance was one of a personal lust for power and money. While lots of folks want those things, few have enough in the way of resources to finance a revolution to acquire more.