If the Washington regime’s situation was really that precarious, then they would surely know it too. What didn’t feel right was that they should choose such a moment for the strike against the mission, which didn’t affect the military situation but could easily have the result of outraging the Hyadeans and dividing them to the degree that effective intervention became impossible, just when the East appeared to be in most need of it. It didn’t make sense.
Or was he simply refusing to face that everything the Hyadeans he had come to know as friends had striven for, and finally achieved at the cost of today’s tragedy, had been for nothing? For if the collapse of the Union was imminent with or without any action on the part of the population of Chryse, then all that Luodine, Orzin, Wyvex, and the others had hoped to bring about was happening anyway.
Cade’s phone beeped. It was Marie. Her voice was low but tense. “Roland. I’m still with Clara. Something’s come in that you ought to hear about. Can you get up here?”
“Sure.” He cut the connection, hesitated, and then stood up. “They want me for something,” he said to the Hyadeans. As he walked to the door, he was conscious of their stares following him. He had the strange feeling of abandoning them, as if they were his charges. It was ridiculous.
Clara’s office was on the floor above. With the two women were Chester Di Milestro, a Los Angeles-based aide to President Jeye, and Major Gerofsky from the military liaison, both of whom Cade had met earlier. One of the screens on the wall next to Clara’s desk showed the east central Pacific with colored lines plotting courses of naval units. Another held a frozen head-and-shoulders picture of an officer with lots of braid on his cap, addressing the camera. “It’s big, Roland,” Clara said without preamble. “Admiral Varney—commander of the lead carrier force. He’s defected.”
Cade looked from one to the other. “What do you mean?”
Di Milestro answered. “He issued a proclamation two hours ago, saying he took an oath to defend Americans, not attack them. If the other carrier groups continue on their present course, he will consider it his duty to oppose them with all the force at his disposal. It means he’s with us.”
Gerofsky waved a hand at the map. “Look—the red there. Varney has turned his force ninety degrees. He’s steaming east, converging with the Asian fleet from Hawaii to head them off. With land-based air from Mexico, that sews it all up.”
Marie came across and gripped Cade’s arm. Her face was ecstatic. “Isn’t it incredible news, Roland! You heard about Texas. Now they’re expecting Canada to come in at any moment—close the northern edge all the way to the Atlantic. It would have to be all over then! We’ve won!”
“It’s a bandwagon,” Clara said. “And it’s rolling.”
Cade searched their faces. They were all intoxicated with the news. And they could be right, too. . . . But still he couldn’t quite bring himself to share it. He sensed again the same relentless certainty and refusal to be deflected that he had seen in Beijing. Yet something kept telling him it felt wrong.
“What’s the matter, Roland? I’d have expected to see a little more excitement,” Marie said. Of course she was being swept along with it too. She was still the revolutionary. Everything which, for years, she had endured dangers and hardship for, seen her friends die for, was happening.
Cade wasn’t sure what to say. He pictured again the four faces that he had just left in the room on the floor below. “I don’t know. . . . I guess maybe because it’s our bandwagon,” he answered.
“I’m not sure I follow,” Gerofsky said.
“Us. . . . Terrans.” Cade made a motion with his head to indicate the direction he had come from. “What about those four downstairs? They put everything on the line too, and today they lost everything. It seems as if they’re about to be left behind in the dust and forgotten, while we all go on a binge of self-congratulations.” But even as he spoke, he knew it was just words to fill the space. It wasn’t the reason.