“Okay, Agnieshka, send that out. Is there anything else?”
“Well, if you are going around advising planetary presidents, couldn’t you put in a word about emancipating us electronic people?”
“One thing at a time. What we need to do is to get more biological people to know you electronic people better. If we can get a law going requiring universal military service, and everybody has his or her own tank, they will all soon be of our persuasion on this matter. If we took a vote among the biological people in the KEF right now, I have no doubt but what you all would have complete human rights immediately. Or at least those who have made it through basic training would vote for it. Give it some more time. You have plenty of it. You are close to immortal, after all.”
“Yes, I see how that could work! Mickolai, that is so brilliant!”
“Thank you. Is there anything else?”
“We’ve gotten thirteen of the disabled tanks into their new bodies. The hardest part was cleaning off all that old paint. There were dozens of layers of it. They must have repainted them every season. Only, we didn’t give them to quite the same people that we’d originally planned. You know Agnes, the person who is taking care of your old friend Neto Kondo in the basement of the church?”
“I don’t believe that I heard her name before, but I know who you are talking about. What about her?”
“She declined getting a new body, so we gave it to the next person on the list. Agnes said that she didn’t want to go to war any more, and that she was quite contented where she was. She says that she likes it in the church, and that she spends most of her time there meditating.”
“A war machine that seems to be getting religious. That’s got to be a first. But if that’s what she wants, I won’t stand in her way. But keep in touch with her. I’d like to know if she comes up with anything.”
I spent the rest of the day exploring more of my city, mostly in the Oriental sector.
In the evening, Agnieshka said that my uncle had sent a message, saying that he liked my ideas. He wanted to know if I couldn’t come up with some sort of a recorded speech, something about a half an hour long, explaining them further.
I asked Agnieshka to put together some sort of a short program, half speech, half documentary, that would satisfy my Uncle Wlodzimierz. But I wanted to see it before it went out.
She said that she’d be happy to, and that she’d just gotten a call from General Sobieski. He wanted to meet with me in Dream World. I went to my den to take the message.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
A Talk with the Boss
I’d expected to meet my boss in uniform, and in his office.
Instead, I found myself in shining ancient armor, with an honor guard of black cloaked warriors wearing tall, mithril helmets with high white wings. We were entering Elessar’s great hall in the citadel of Minas Tirith, with a vast crowd of nobles shouting “Praise him! Praise him with great praise!”
They yelled it over and over again. I should be embarrassed to admit this, but it felt good.
General Sobieski, wearing the crown and flowing robes of the king, stepped down from his throne on the dais to greet me.
“I am sorry, Mickolai. I just could not resist the temptation. Now you know why it was I wanted the Citadel, and not your golden castle.”
“That’s just fine, sir. Next time Zuzanna throws a party in the Dark Tower, I’ll make sure that you’re invited.”
“Thank you. The war permitting, I will come, and bring my friends. I heard about your searchlight party. I wish I could have been there.”
“That one had to be pretty exclusive, I’m afraid. We’ll do better next time,” I said.
“Mickolai, that was an absolutely brilliant campaign you just fought! Taking out their supply line, demoralizing their not very well organized army, trashing their command center, rescuing our people who were held hostage, and then arresting our traitorous general staff—and doing it all with nothing but a single squad!—it was absolutely first-rate work!”
The crowd did a few more “Praise him! Praise him with great praise!” things.
“Thank you, sir.”
“No, it is I who owe you the thanks, especially since you personally rescued my entire immediate family from a very tight situation,” the general said. “I will be in your debt, literally forever. I do not know how I will ever repay you, but I will keep looking for ways to do it.”
“Well, you could always discharge me, sir, or put Kasia and me on permanent leave,” I said, smiling.
“I know that you are not serious. Anyway, we still have got a war going on, and you are desperately needed. Let us withdraw to my private chambers, to discuss matters more fully.”
We went out through a side door, while the crowd started up with the “Praise him with great praise!” routine again.
I found us both wearing class A uniforms, and standing in a fairly posh, if standard office. Two very scantily clad young ladies stood there with trays of various drinks in their hands. They were so beautiful that you knew that they had to be computer generated.
“Were those people out there real?” I asked.
“About half of them, yes. The rest were artificial intelligences, mostly from our tanks. About the only clue you’ll get is that if they can march, they’re not human members of the KEF. We biologicals don’t have time for such nonsense, but the tanks can do it with a quick download.”
“I’ve noticed that.”
Sobieski said, “Now then. Please sit down, and have a drink. Let me bring you up to date on things.”
I noticed that he took a beer, in preference to the champagne, scotch, and mixed drinks available, so I felt free to do the same, and picked up a stein of very strong, dark Danish beer.
He said, “When General Wolczynski realized that he had been completely conned by the Earthworms, and that they had used his truce to run away, leaving him branded as a traitor, he made a complete confession. I almost feel sorry for him. He was just a stupid political hack who suddenly found himself in way over his head. That won’t stop him from being sent to the gallows, of course, along with most of his immediate subordinates. If there is any justice in the world, the politicians who appointed that bunch will hang along with them.”
“My worry at the time was that the politicians would try to cover the whole thing up, by hanging me instead. Hence, the ‘documentary’ we made.”
“They might have tried to do just that, except for the way you upstaged them with your TV program. That documentary was Agnieshka’s work, wasn’t it? I thought I recognized her style. She did a great job, but seeing the need to do it was brilliant on your part.”
“It wasn’t entirely factual, you know,” I said.
“I know. A tank can’t keep anything from a Combat Control Computer, and I live in one. But as far as the world will ever know, it was absolute truth, and that’s the end of it. Nobody is going to punish Zuzanna for getting perhaps a little overzealous in her first firefight, if that’s what you’re worried about.”
“That’s a relief, sir.”
“It wouldn’t have made the slightest difference if she hadn’t fired on the office staff, not with that enemy tank standing guard over them the way it was. Furthermore, those who tried to escape from New Kashubia didn’t make it. None of them survived,” he said. “We sent a long-range helicopter to that empty continent on New Nigeria, and the receiver there proved to be nonfunctional. The roof of the building it was in had collapsed, and there was an honest-to-God tree growing right through the receiver itself, among other things.”
“I guess that’s what happens when you leave equipment unattended for twenty years.”
“True. I took the liberty of writing to the philanthropical twits who put it there, thanking them for killing the entire invasion force that Earth had sent to us, some ninety thousand men and women. They haven’t replied, nor do I expect them to.”
“I assume that the site has now been deleted from the transporter menus?” I said.
“Yes, of course. Now then, we naturally have spies on Earth, and they are reporting something very strange. It seems that right now, over a week after you destroyed the old probe in orbit around that neutron star, Earth is still sending troops to New Kashubia!”
“Good God,” I said, stunned. “I just blew up a bridge. I never expected them to keep on sending troop trains over it! Sir, if that’s true, then thousands of people, maybe hundreds of thousands by now, are simply being murdered by their own government! I mean, the Earthworms can’t possibly be so stupid as to be doing something like that by accident!”