The Serrano Succession Read online

  "She spoke of you." It was not a question. Casimir tented his hands and looked over them at her. "Did you agree?"

  "I told her it was too soon," Luci said. "I'm only—"

  "The age that two Landbrides were invested, in the old days. A year older, in fact, than Silvia." Luci had never heard of Silvia, though she had, like all the children, memorized a hundred years of Landbrides Suiza. "It may be that having her designate you Landbride-to-be would help—that plus your marriage to a Vicarios would prove that the Suizas were not involved in interstellar politics."

  Chapter Five

  Hobart glared at Oskar Morrelline, former head of the Morrelline branch of his sept. "You were outmaneuvered by Venezia," he said. "That fuzzbrained sister of yours cost us market share and dropped profits twenty-eight percent—"

  "It's not my fault," Oskar said. "If—"

  "Oh yes, it is." Hobart interrupted smoothly. "Your daughter Ottala—what is it with the women in your family, anyway?—goes haring off to Patchcock and gets herself killed. That's what started it—a daughter you didn't control any better than Bunny controlled Brun—"

  Oskar had flushed an ugly color; Hobart enjoyed that as he always enjoyed exercising power. "No, Oskar. I can't trust you to do it right, whatever it is. I cannot give you a Ministry. In a few years, I expect the public climate will change, and then, perhaps, we can find something for you."

  "You expect my vote but you aren't giving me anything?"

  "I expect your vote because you know where your advantage lies. Even if they had it to give, you would get nothing out of that clique Bunny ran. And they do not have it to give, not anymore."

  Oskar glared, but subsided, as Hobart had known he would. Oskar was a blusterer, but if that didn't work he had no second weapon. Hobart always had a second weapon—and a third and a fourth, he thought to himself. He changed his tone, and went on; if Oskar could get it through his head what the problem really was, he might be useful.

  "Whoever controls the rejuvenation process controls everything—as long as the public doesn't rebel against rejuvs. We must take steps against the Ageist conspiracies; the shortlifes, if they realize the danger they're in, outnumber us at this point and could be dangerous."

  "But Venezia says—"

  "Venezia is a fool. Yes, something had gone wrong there, something serious. A Benignity spy, if I understand the little that's been declassified. But it's not as bad as all that. Women are so excitable, not to mention sentimental, and Venezia in particular—"

  Oskar nodded eagerly; Hobart smiled to himself. How the Morrelline brothers hated having Venezia in charge! "All she ever did was play with pottery—" Oskar said.

  "Quite so. How could she know anything about the real world? She could not be expected to realize how many lives would be disrupted—prematurely ended, with the shortage of rejuvenation drugs—because of her finicky insistence on exact procedures."

  "But Hobart—how do we get it back? How do we get her out of there?"

  Exactly the opening he'd hoped for. "By doing precisely what I tell you," Hobart said. "I need your support at all the Grand Council sessions; I will let you know what I need you to say, and how to vote. With more sympathetic, more cooperative Ministers, we should be able to ease dear Venezia back into her supportive role."

  "She won't like it," Oskar said, puffing out his plump cheeks.

  "I don't care whether she does or not," Hobart said. "I am not going to let one woman stand in the way of progress for the Conselline Sept." He looked forward to that moment, probably more than Oskar did. Venezia had been a constant nuisance at sept board meetings, poking her nose into all sorts of inconvenient corners. He'd had to roust her out of his own offices more than once, where she chatted up the clerical staff and wheedled who knows what out of them. She seemed to think she had a moral mission to clean up the whole sept.

  "Our responsibility to the whole Familias . . ." she would say, while Hobart ground his teeth. They had no responsibility to the whole Familias; they had a responsibility to Family shareholders. Period. He wasn't going to urge her to go on making faulty drugs. Bad for business, and people would be watching carefully. Beyond that, though, it wasn't their business to be saints, if that's what she had in mind.

  "If Kemtre had not been a weak man, none of these disasters would have happened. He drugged his son into stupidity, and then created those damned clones."

  "I don't see that cloning is such a bad thing."

  "No, nor do I, except that we have a rapidly growing population anyway. We don't need clones; we need sensible strong men who know how to handle the hysterics. No offense." He eyed Oskar, but Oskar didn't mind if Hobart called his sister hysterical. "Now, Oskar, I want you to have a word with the Broderick Institute, and tell them to do their homework a little better—"

  "The Broderick Institute? What have they done?"

  Sometimes he wondered if Oskar had a brain. Venezia, for all her impracticality, had wit enough. "Oskar, the Broderick Institute is where Dr. Margulis works." Oskar still looked blank. "The same Dr. Margulis whose report on the so-called bad drugs coming out of Patchcock started a near panic in the market—"

  "Oh—that Dr. Margulis. But I thought—"

  "He's come up with more—the man is a closet Ageist, I'm sure, just looking for any excuse to scare people away from rejuvenation. Broderick has given him free rein for the past fifteen years, and look what that so-called independent research has led to. It's cost you, and me, and the whole Familias. He needs to be controlled; at the very least, someone needs to do impartial research showing how beneficial rejuv is. And since the Conselline Sept provides over two-thirds of the money to support the Broderick Institute, they need to be reminded of the importance of truly even-handed science."

  "Won't they complain about academic freedom?"

  "They're not a university; they're a privately funded research facility. If you're tactful, they'll get the point without blowing up. That's your job."

  Oskar left, finally, and Hobart puffed air out explosively. Idiots. He was surrounded by idiots and incompetents, and they all wanted something from him. He glanced at his desk and told his secretary to send in Pedar Orregiemos. Another idiot. Minor family, major nuisance, but also a born bootlicker, and those could be useful.

  Pedar came in looking smug about something. Hobart had no time for Pedar's self-congratulation. Besides, he would be even smugger, with more reason, very shortly.

  "We have a problem coming up," he said. Pedar's expression shifted quickly from smugness to concern. "As you know, I was elected temporary Speaker at the emergency Council meeting immediately after Lord Thornbuckle's assassination." Pedar nodded. "The next meeting will be crucial. If we are not to lapse back into the ineffective vacillation of the previous administration, if we're to meet the challenges that threaten us, we need to take action quickly. Will you help me?"

  "Of course," Pedar said. "What can I do?"

  "In the long run, you can be my Minister of Foreign Affairs." Hobart paused, and enjoyed the sight of Pedar completely silenced, for once. He had not expected that high an honor . . . good, then he would be the more willing to earn it. "But not immediately: first there are changes in the bylaws which need to be approved. I'll give you the texts; I want your analysis of the probable response."

  "Of course; right away."

  "I'm calling the next meeting almost immediately; it would be unethical not to have a general meeting as quickly as possible." Pedar nodded like a child's toy. Did he even grasp the importance of that? Did he realize how critical the timing was, how this haste would work to Conselline advantage? For an instant, Hobart thought of explaining it to him, sharing some of his data on Family movements, his basis for knowing who could attend, and thus how the votes would go. No. Better not let even Pedar know how much he knew.

  Hobart went on. "After that meeting, I'll be making some ministerial changes; Foreign Affairs will be high on that list, but I can't give you an exact date. What yo
u must understand is where the real threat is." Hobart leaned closer. "It's not war, no matter what anyone says. We're large, strong, healthy, with a vigorous military—well, mostly vigorous. Anton Lepescu was more than a little crazy, but that doesn't mean all his ideas were bad. He had the right idea about the military and war, for instance. If he'd been assigned to the rescue mission, do you suppose we'd have had any problem with leftover terrorists?"

  Pedar shook his head; Hobart allowed himself a smile.

  "Of course not," he went on. "He'd have made sure there weren't any. None of this idiocy of bringing back hundreds of women and children—born troublemakers, every one of them. And to whom do we owe that diplomatic and political problem? Bunny Thornbuckle's friends, the Serranos. Who, as we all know, have no direct loyalty to any of the Chairholding Families."

  "Well, but, Hobart, none of the Fleet families do now—"

  "Not directly, not now, but they did in the past. That's my point. I've read history; I know what's supposed to have happened. But how do we know that the Serranos weren't involved in the massacre of their patron Family? What proof do we have?"

  Pedar looked surprised, then thoughtful. "I hadn't ever considered that. But they're powerful . . ."

  "Yes. Thoroughly entrenched. And I'm sure there are decent, loyal soldiers among them. But overall, their influence is questionable. We need a Fleet we can count on to crush any opponent, protect our shipping, protect the new worlds we need to open for our colonists."

  After Pedar left, Hobart stared out the window, musing. His brother Guilliam had always been the pet of the family. Everyone loved Guilliam; Hobart had suspected his parents of having that easy charm built into Guilliam's genes, while he—he had been given the steel-hard core Guilliam lacked. He had been designed as the unloved workhorse, who was to stand back, walk behind, and do all the difficult tasks that were too much for Guilliam.

  People still talked about Guilliam. Too bad about poor Guilliam, they said. Hobart knew what they really meant—too bad that they had to deal with him instead of his softer brother. Guilliam took no part in Family business—hadn't since their parents died, when an escalation in his addiction to starplex-tree resin resulted in permanent brain damage which even rejuv could not repair.

  Guilliam would not be at the next Council meeting, any more than he'd been at the others. And on Hobart's side . . . he ran through the list again, ticking names off his mental list. The minor Families—Derringer, Hochlit, Tassi-Lioti, all that crowd, were yammering now for leadership, and would probably follow anyone strong enough. Harlis Thornbuckle, Bunny's own brother, wanted control of Bunny's estate bad enough to deal . . . though he probably wasn't trustworthy in the long run. If Kevil Mahoney had been capable, he might have talked some of the waverers into the other camp, but he was still in the medical center, and the opposition was no more than a confusion of Barracloughs, more intent on fighting over leadership within their sept than on threats from without. Since Mahoney wasn't on his side, just as well not to have him active at all. In the future, he expected to talk Mahoney over; the man needed a power base. It was purely an accident that he had been Bunny's friend; he could just as easily be Hobart's friend.

  With any luck, no one from Bunny's family would attend this Grand Council meeting anyway. They would expect this one to be unimportant, with a weak Speaker elected to finish out Bunny's term. This was his window of opportunity. He could take hold of the weak, flaccid, rudderless ship of state—catch the winds of time, and take them all to a better future than anyone else saw.

  And he would be taken seriously this time. Not as a substitute for Guilliam, but as the leader he knew himself to be. Young and vigorous, even without rejuv—and when it came time to rejuv, he would know exactly what source to use.

  His scheduler chimed; Hobart silenced it with a snap of the fingers. He toyed with the idea of skipping his exercises for once, but habit had already brought him to his feet. Iagin, the Swordmaster who supervised his own fencing coach, was there for his twice-annual analysis of Hobart's progress.

  The pine-and-sandalwood-scented changing room shifted his mood, as it was meant to, and focussed his attention on his body. Hobart stripped off his business clothes and dropped them into the hamper. His exercise clothes hung on racks . . . today, for his fencing lesson, he chose a skinsuit and the leather armor. His coach didn't approve of leather, but he was in no mood to pamper his coach.

  He glanced at himself in the mirror with satisfaction. Barrel chest, flat belly, well-muscled legs, erect posture, firm mouth. Not a slack, flabby fiber in him, mind or body. A man fit to lead.

  In the exercise room itself, he warmed up with the standard sets, then stretched. As he was twisting himself into a pretzel, trying not to look at himself—he hated these stretches, which were at best undignified—the door opened and the Swordmaster came in. His own coach would not have dared; Hobart had made it clear that he needed no supervision in warm-up. But the Swordmasters were an old, proud breed, and he put up with their arrogance for the sake of their skill. Bunny had never taken up fencing, and had resolutely refused to have a Swordmaster at his estate even when most Families did. Well, and who had just died?

  "Lord Conselline," the Swordmaster said. "Your form needs improvement."

  "Instruct me," Hobart said, proud of conquering a flash of anger.

  The Swordmaster bent and twisted his own body into the stretch, and held it. "You are not keeping the knee straight," he said, from under his arm. "And you are bending the spine too much in the thoracic span, and not enough in the lumbar." He unwound, not red in the face or breathless. "Try again."

  Hobart twisted and tangled himself into the required knot. He knew what it was for, but he disliked it and knew he had been skimping on it for months. The Swordmaster's hands steadied him, and then pushed and pulled . . . Hobart felt a pop in his spine, and the sudden ease of a cramp he had not realized he had.

  "Like that," the Swordmaster said. "You really should let Orris spot you in this for several months."

  "I'll consider it," Hobart said, untwisting carefully.

  "Good. If you are ready . . ." The Swordmaster nodded toward the salle.

  "Is it true," Hobart asked, as they passed through the archway, "that all Swordmasters must have killed with the blade?"

  "It is a tradition," the Swordmaster said.

  Hobart wanted to know what it felt like but could think of no polite way to ask. And which blade? The Swordmasters taught the use of all blades, had mastered all styles.

  Orris held out practice masks, transparent reinforced ceram with touch-signalling circuitry embedded, and the warm-up blades. Hobart glanced at Orris, wondering what he'd told Master Iagin; he suspected Orris of reporting on more than his fencing skill. He did, after all, have to take the occasional call during a lesson, and Orris might have overheard scraps of conversation. But nothing important, he thought. Nothing that would interest a Swordmaster anyway.

  Masked and gloved, with blade in hand, he faced Master Iagin on the strip. The salute—old-fashioned, formal, an utter waste of time, and yet it set the emotional tone for what followed. The initial touches . . . boring, when all Hobart wanted was to get this session out of the way so he could return to his plotting.

  Master Iagin's tip smacked into his faceshield, which flared red. For an instant he could not speak for anger, and then he grunted. "Touch."

  "Your mind wandered, Lord Conselline," Master Iagin said. Behind the arc of gleaming protection, his expression was unreadable—quiet, a little stern, but neither anger nor apprehension.

  "My apologies," Hobart said. This was, after all, one of the reasons he had stayed with fencing, the need to concentrate utterly on what he was doing. But Orris usually gave him a few minutes to settle in. The man had never struck him so early in a session. Still . . . the Swordmaster was who he was, and probably thought fencing was the most important thing in the universe. In his, it may have been. Hobart collected these scattered thoughts, locked t
hem away, and focussed on Master Iagin's blade.

  Just in time, for it flicked toward him again, and his parry was only just enough. He missed the riposte, but by the next parry was able to riposte . . . only to meet Master Iagin's parry and a riposte so powerful it blew through his own and punched him lightly in the chest.

  "Touch," he said, this time more cheerfully. He was not expected to defeat a Swordmaster, only to show that he had been working.

  He had indeed, and his next attack actually achieved a touch. His spirits soared. He had never made a touch on the Swordmaster from seven before. All that work with weights must have done it. Twenty touches—sixteen to the Swordmaster and four to him—then a break to stretch out again before taking up the heavier blades.

  "Your right forearm is definitely stronger, Lord Conselline," the Swordmaster said.

  "Orris has me doing weight work."

  "Good. But I notice that your left arm is still substantially weaker—there should be no more than five percent difference in strength, unless someone has suffered an injury. Have you?"