And, also, the one who has to sit in meetings with anxious politicians, listening to them wring whatever appendages they wring about The End of All Things. In this case, Ristin Lause, the chancellor of the Grand Assembly of the Conclave, an august political body that I was always aware of having a grammatical redundancy in its title, but nevertheless not to be ignored. Ristin Lause sat in my office, staring up at me, for I am tall, even for a Lalan. She held in her hand a cup of iet, a hot drink from her planet, which was a traditional morning pick-me-up. She had it in her hand because I offered it, as was customary, and because she was, at a very early time on the clock, my first meeting for the sur, the Conclave’s standard day.
“In truth, Ristin, are you ever not concerned that our union is on the verge of collapse?” I asked, and reached for my own cup, which was not filled with iet, which to me tasted like what might happen if you let a dead animal ferment in a jug of water in hot sunlight for an unfortunately long period of time.
Lause made a head movement which I knew corresponded to a frown. “You are mocking my concern, Councilor?” she asked.
“Not at all,” I said. “I am offering tribute to your conscientiousness as chancellor. No one knows the assembly better than you, and no one is more aware of the shifts in alliances and strategies. This is why we meet every five sur, and I am grateful we do. With that said, you do proclaim concern about the collapse of the Conclave on a regular basis.”
“You suspect hyperbole.”
“I seek clarity.”
“All right,” Lause said, and set down her iet, undrunk. “Then here is clarity for you. I see the collapse of the Conclave because General Gau has been pressing for votes in the assembly that he shouldn’t be. I see it because his enemies have been pushing votes to counter and undermine the general’s power, and they are losing by smaller margins with each outing. For the first time there is open dissatisfaction with him, and with the direction of the Conclave.”
“For the first time?” I said. “I seem to recall an attempted coup in the not ancient past, brought on by his decision not to punish the humans for the destruction of our fleet at the Roanoke Colony.”
“A small group of discontents, trying to take advantage of what they saw as a moment of weakness on the part of the general.”
“Which almost succeeded, if you recall. I remember the knife coming down toward his neck, and missiles immediately thereafter.”
Lause waved this away. “You’re missing my point,” she said. “That was a coup, an attempt to wrest power from the general by extralegal means. What I see now, with every vote, is the power and influence—the moral standing—of the general being whittled away. You know that Unli Hado, among others, wants to put the general to a confidence vote. If things progress, it won’t be long until he gets his wish.”
I drank from my cup. Unli Hado had recently challenged General Gau’s actions dealing with the human Colonial Union, and been knocked back when he asserted evidence of new human colonies that turned out not to exist—or more accurately, they had been so thoroughly removed from their planets by the Colonial Union that there was no hard evidence they had ever existed. Those colonies had been quietly removed at General Gau’s request; Hado had been fed the outdated information on their existence in order to be made to look like a fool.
And it had worked; he had looked like a fool when he attempted to call out the general. What I and the general had underestimated were the number of other assembly members who would willingly continue to follow a fool.
“The general isn’t a member of the assembly,” I said. “A confidence vote wouldn’t be binding.”
“Wouldn’t it?” Lause said. “The assembly can’t remove the general from the leadership of the Conclave, no. There’s no mechanism for it. But you understand that a no confidence vote on the general is the fatal crack in his armor. After that General Gau is no longer the beloved, and almost mythical founder of the Conclave. He’s merely another politician who has overstayed his welcome.”
“You are the chancellor of the assembly,” I noted. “You could keep a confidence vote on the general from reaching the floor.”
“I could,” Lause agreed. “But I could not then keep the confidence vote on me from reaching the floor. And once I was out of the way, Hado, or more likely one of his more pliable lieutenants, would ascend to my position. The general’s confidence vote would not be avoided, merely delayed.”
“And what if it were to happen?” I asked, setting down my cup. “The general is not under the illusion that he will be the head of the Conclave forever. The Conclave is meant to survive him. And me. And you.”
Lause stared at me. In point of fact, as Lause had no eyelids, she was always staring. But in this case it was with intent.
“What is it?” I said.
“You have to be joking, Hafte,” Lause said. “You have to be either joking or oblivious to the fact that it is General Gau himself who has kept the Conclave together. It’s loyalty to him and his idea of the Conclave that kept it from falling apart after Roanoke. It was loyalty to him that allowed it to survive the coup attempt that followed. The general knows this at least—he made everyone swear personal loyalty to him. You were the first to swear it.”
“I also warned him of the dangers of doing it,” I said.