A Forest of Stars - Kevin J. Anderson [216]
“The production lines are up and functioning again, Mr. Chairman.” Pellidor stood at the doorway, looking uneasy but contrite. “Shifts are working overtime to make up for the drop in productivity.”
“We’ll never make up for it,” Basil said. “We’ve lost not only momentum, but trust. Peter planted an insidious seed of doubt. After getting trounced at Osquivel, after losing the Golgen survey mission, we desperately needed some kind of hope, and what does Peter do? He adds the paranoia that these Soldier compies might be turned against us.”
Pellidor commiserated. “The very idea is outrageous, sir.”
Basil frowned at his expediter. “Actually, it’s not. You’re smarter than that. If King Peter hadn’t raised a genuinely legitimate question, he would not have had such an impact.” He slammed his fist on the projecting desktop, but accusing numbers continued to shine up at him from database distillations. “In truth, we don’t know exactly how the Klikiss subsystems work to the last detail. We don’t know what happened to the original race. Peter isn’t the only one who’s ever felt those worries.”
Pellidor looked confused. “But if you have similar doubts, Mr. Chairman, why did you insist on restarting the production lines?”
Basil strode to the wet bar and dumped the coffee, rinsed the cup, then refilled it with fresh dark brown liquid. The smell alone was enough to revitalize him. “Because using the Klikiss robots is the lesser of two evils, obviously. Restoring the confidence of our people is more important than worrying about possible treacheries.”
Pellidor accepted the Chairman’s statement. It was his job. “Then what should we do about King Peter, sir?”
“For a while, I suppose we could just drug him into submission. I’m sure the Hansa has pharmaceutical experts who can turn him to putty. But I need him to react, to cooperate, to be convincing. Without charisma, his ratings fizzle to nothing.” Sighing, Basil scanned reports. “I’ve got a lot invested in that boy…but sometimes you have to cut your losses.”
Ever since returning from the Moon, he’d been too upset with Peter even to speak with him. He had instructed the royal guards that the King was to be confined to his quarters. All royal public appearances were canceled. “If he’s going to act like a child, then I will send him to his room.”
Luckily, his recent wedding offered a convenient excuse. Peter and his lovely bride, Estarra, were taking several days for a private honeymoon in the royal wing. Various emergencies had delayed their “special time” for a few weeks, but now they had gone into “happy seclusion.” The general public would enjoy imagining what the young royal couple must be doing in their opulent bedchambers, and no one would ask questions for a while.
Still deeply disturbed, Basil shook his head. “The Hansa gave that young man everything on a silver platter. Without us, he’d still be a street urchin, hungry all the time, living in a cramped box with a large family.” He clenched his teeth. “Why does he insist on biting the hand that feeds him?”
Basil sipped his coffee, recalling Peter’s increasing rudeness and defiance, especially after the abortion decree—going so far as to humiliate the Chairman in public at the royal wedding. And humiliation was not something a man in quiet power could endure. Yes, the King had had plenty of chances.
Peter’s bold defiance at the compy-fabrication facility went beyond Basil’s ability to fix cleanly. Yes, the Hansa had issued statements to reassure the public about the safety of the Soldier compies, insisting that the King’s questions had been resolved so that production could continue. But the doubts had been planted.
Pellidor remained silent as Basil stared at the data screens, pondering a thousand problems. While the Spiral Arm was at war with seemingly invincible aggressors, he simply didn’t have time to mitigate Peter’s troublesome bull-in-a-china-shop actions. “Summon the key planetary representatives and the upper-echelon Hansa officials. It’s time for another meeting, a secret