A Deepness in the Sky

Reynolt was nodding. "Yes. We can tailor things. Southland has long-range missiles but is otherwise backward; most of its population will be hibernating through the Dark. They're very frightened of what will be done to them by the advanced powers. Honored Pedure has plans for taking advantage of that. We can make sure she succeeds—" Anne went on, detailing what frauds and miscues could be implemented, which cities could be safely murdered, how to save the Accord sites that held resources the Kindred did not yet have. Most of the deaths would be delivered by their proxies, which was just as well, considering the sorry state of their own weapons systems....Brughel was watching her with a certain bemused awe—the way he always did when Anne talked like this. Dispassionate and calm as ever, yet she could be as bloody-minded as Brughel himself.

Anne Reynolt had been a young woman when the Emergency came to Frenk. If history were written by the losing side, her name would be legend. After the Frenkisch military had surrendered, Anne Reynolt's ragtag partisans had fought on for years—and not as a fringe nuisance. Nau had seen the Intelligence estimates: Reynolt had tripled the cost of the invasion. She had taken an inchoate popular opposition and come within a hairsbreadth of defeating the Emergency's expeditionary force. And when her cause had ultimately failed—well, enemies such as that were best disposed of quickly. But Alan Nau had noticed that this enemy was peculiar to the point of uniqueness. Focusing the higher, people-oriented skills was normally a losing proposition. The very nature of Focusing tended to leave out the broad sensibilities that were necessary to manage people. And yet...Reynolt was young, brilliant, with an absolute dedication to principle. Her fanatical resistance was like nothing so much as a ziphead's loyalty to its subject matter. What if shecould be profitably Focused?

Uncle Alan's long shot had paid off. Reynolt's only academic specialty had been ancient literature, but Focus had somehow captured the more subtle skills of her accidental career: warfare, subversion, leadership. Alan had kept his discovery carefully out of sight, but he had used this very special ziphead over the following decades. Her skills had helped establish Uncle Alan as the dominant Podmaster of the Home Regime. She had been a very special gift to a very favored nephew... .

And though he would never admit it to Ritser Brughel, sometimes when Tomas looked into Reynolt's pale blue eyes...he felt a superstitious chill. For a hundred years of her lifetime, Anne Reynolt had worked to undo and suppress everything that was important to her unFocused self. If she wanted to cause him harm, she could do so much. But that was the beauty of Focus; that was the reason the Emergency would prevail. With Focus you got the capabilities of the subject without the humanity. And given attentive maintenance, all the ziphead's interest and loyalty stayed squarely on its subject matter and its owner.

"Okay, get your people on it, Anne. You have one year. We'll probably need a major vessel in low orbit during the final Ksecs."

"You know," said Ritser, "I think the groundside of this is working out for the best. With the Kindred, one or two guys are in charge. We'll know who to hold responsible when we give orders. With that pus-be-damned Accord—"

"True. There are too many autonomous power centers within the Accord; their nonsovereign-kingship thing is even crazier than a democracy." Nau shrugged. "It's the luck of the draw. We have to take what we know we can control. Without the cavorite, we'd have another five years of slack. By then, the Accord would have a mature network, and we could take over everything without anyone firing a shot—more or less the goal I'm still hoping for in public."

Ritser leaned forward. "And that is going to be our biggest problem. Once our people realize this is a major Spider fry and their special friends are the main course—"

"Of course. But handled properly, the final outcome should appear to be an unavoidable tragedy, one that would have been much more horrible without our efforts."

"It will be even trickier than the Diem thing. I wish you hadn't given the Peddlers increased resource access."

"It's unavoidable, Ritser. We need their logistical genius. But I will withhold full network processing from them. We'll bring out all your security zips, do really intense monitoring. If necessary, there can be some fatal accidents."

He glanced at Anne. "And speaking of accidents...is there any progress on your sabotage theory?" It had been almost a year since Anne's maybe-accident in the MRI clinic. A year and not a sign of enemy action. Of course, there had been precious little evidence before the event, either.