A hologram of a castle hovered above the table at which sat Caruthers and the deputy director of OSI for Direct Action. The picture was fuzzy, out of focus, as if the taker either had a very poor lens or was moving rapidly at the time the picture was taken.
"I think we should nuke the place right now," said Caruthers.
"The President has said no," answered the deputy director, shaking his head, "not until we've tried everything else. I asked. I insisted. He still said no. The secretary is still trying to convince him otherwise."
"Fuck. Send a battalion of Rangers?"
Again the DDDA said, "No. And you yourself know better. The preparations for any such operation will only guarantee that, instead of a company of security troops being around the place, there would be a division. That; and that if they haven't dispersed their research, they would quickly."
"I don't know that that's true," Caruthers said, "but even accepting that it is—"
"We might get them in, but we'd never get them out. Moreover, the Han insist on being in on this. They don't trust us with having what's in that castle any more than we would trust them. And we
"A small special ops team?" Caruthers asked. "Maybe one of the private outfits?"
"We thought about those," the DDDA answered. "And they might be doable. But a spec ops team would be too big to infiltrate through any of the ingresses we have. And a private contractor simply can't be trusted with something of this magnitude. The Swiss have already told us to fuck off: Neutrality
"Well," Caruthers admitted with a shrug, "Old Bongo is about due to be pulled out of South Africa. And I've got another kid with the right background for the mission."
"Your baby, then," the deputy director said. "I'll see if I can't get the Han to get us some better pictures."
Castle Noisvastei, Province of Baya, 28 Rajab, 1536 AH (25 May, 2112)
Ling and Petra sat on the walkway around a tower on the side of the castle facing the other one, far below. There was a chainlink fence around the walkway, as there was for all the other towers and battlements of the castle. Girls in fits of depression, and houris were endemically depressed, had been known to throw themselves off in the past, before the fencing had gone up. This was, of course, bad for business.
The lower castle was a bustle of activity. Not only was a new wall and fence being put around it, but concrete was being poured around the outside for additional rooms, workmen—all apparently
"A better whorehouse to compete with us, do you think?" Petra asked.
Ling didn't take her gaze from the place even when she answered, "No."
Ling seemed strangely uncommunicative. Since she was Petra's only real friend among the houris, this bothered the younger girl. Still trying to make conversation, she said, "They're doing an amazing amount of work."
"Yes," Ling agreed, "and apparently doing it well."
Montreal, Imperial Province of Quebec, 9 June, 2112
"That was very well done, John," Caruthers said, as the rebels were herded out of the apartment on Papineau Avenue not far from where it intersected with St. Catherine Street. Once, those routes had borne French names or been listed in the French style: Avenue Papineau and Rue Ste. Catharine. The United States, however, had never once since the beginning of the occupation shown any sympathy whatsoever for Quebec's distaste for cultural assimilation. French was not taught in the schools. Neither was in permitted to be on display in shops. Street names were right out. And if people spoke it at home, if that caused their children to be less than fluent in the imperial tongue, English? For that there were the knocks on the door and arrests in the night.
Habeas corpus did not apply to imperial provinces.
"It was a waste of a year of my life," Hamilton said. "Those people weren't rebels; they were poseurs, Marxist idiots caught up in the drivel of a century ago." Hamilton stopped speaking as one of the "rebels"—a lovely, tall, dark-blond girl named Hélène—stopped to glare at him, resisting the shove of the escorting officer. She looked terribly disappointed and terribly hurt. They'd been bedmates for the last six months and she had never suspected he was working for the other side. Hamilton looked ashamed.
Caruthers noticed. "What is it with you and tall blondes, anyway? Oh, never mind.
"John, we've been tolerant before and we suffered for it, badly. This is what 'zero tolerance' means."
