Starfist: Wings of Hell (30 page)

Daly thought for a moment and then said, “Come on, Mr. Miner, let’s go see the general.”

“Mr. Miner, I’m very busy,” General Carano said, lowering his feet to the floor, taking the cigar out of his mouth, and looking daggers at Daly for having interrupted him, especially by bringing the feather merchant unannounced into his sanctum. Daly only nodded, indicating the general should let Miner speak. “Well, what is it, goddammit?”

“General, I apologize to you, Ensign Daly, everyone, for being an asshole.”

Carano’s mouth fell open with surprise. From where he was standing Daly winked and let one side of his mouth curl in a smile. He
knew
there was something odd about the old boy this morning.

“You
what
?”

“Apologize, General. I apologize and promise to cooperate fully with your officers from now on.”

General Carano stood up. “Well. Miner, you were injured in the air raid, weren’t you?”

“Not seriously, a few bumps and scratches, but my wife was killed. So was my secretary, poor kid. She was engaged to be married.” He paused to catch his breath. “So, I know this is all for real now. Your measures were necessary. We have to fight these bastards and I want to do everything I can to help you. And that was brilliant of you, sir, to build those revetments for the Marines.” He shook his head in admiration. “Saved the day after the navy screwed up like that, leaving all their planes out in the open.”

Now it was Carano whose face flushed slightly, but without missing a beat, he came barreling around his desk and stuck out a hand. “I am deeply sorry for your loss, sir. Apology accepted. Forget everything after ‘hello.’ We start a new slate as of right now.”

Miner turned to Daly and held out his hand. “Same here,” Daly replied, shaking the hand.

“And now, would you join Ensign Daly and me in a cigar?”

“Thanks, General, some other time, when we have the time. But I really have to be off. I’m addressing my employees this morning, telling them it’s necessary we get behind you 150 percent. I really don’t think that’s necessary, not after the air raid, but I want them to know where I stand. You’ll have to excuse me, sir.” Miner turned at the door and faced the two. “But first thing after I leave here is, I’m going to see your provost marshal, Colonel Raggel, and give him my apology, too.”

“Mary Baker Eddy’s dried-up old dugs,” Colonel Raggel exclaimed. “This has been a morning of surprises! Did you know old Smelt Miner was just in here,
apologizing
for the way he’s acted, and promising me his full support? He even showed up in General Carano’s headquarters and apologized to
him
! We may just win this war if this shit keeps up. And now you two—”

“I’ll be dipped in shit!” Sergeant Major Steiner exclaimed, shifting an unlit cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other.

“Well, sorry, sir, but we figured you should know.”

“Yeah. Well, Sergeant Queege, you do know that your application for transfer to the Marines will be automatically canceled.”

“I’ll be a monkey’s uncle!” Steiner exclaimed.

“I know, sir,” Queege replied. “I hate the thought of reneging on General Aguinaldo, but I’ve thought this over for a long time now.”

“He’ll understand.”

“I’ll be jerked off at the next battalion formation!” Sergeant Major Steiner growled.

“Top!” Colonel Raggel turned to Steiner with a freezing look on his face.
“Please!”
But the old sergeant major only grinned broadly, chomping vigorously on his cigar. Raggel turned back to the two standing before him. “Sergeant Oakley, what do you say?”

“Best idea I ever heard.”

“Tell me, Sergeant Queege, why now?”

“Um, well, sir…” Queege paused, so long the silence almost became embarrassing. “Well, sir, it just is, you see,” she continued at last, “I—I don’t want to be one of those ‘nymphs on the shore’ no more.”

“All right,” Colonel Raggel sighed, as he stood up and put on his cover. “Sergeant Major!”

“Yes, sir!” Steiner removed the cigar from his mouth.

“Get my shotgun! We’re going over to see the chaplain and get these two fools married.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“…and so, Madam President, in view of your blatant disregard for the Constitution of this Confederation, your running a secret war on the world known as Kingdom, expending the precious lives and treasure of our people, which was the direct result of a devastating conflict on the world called Ravenette, which you have promised to rebuild but so far have done nothing substantial toward fulfilling that promise, in view of these and your many other horrendous missteps, in view of your efforts to divert attention from your mistakes and malfeasance in office by creating a false hysteria over the so-called ‘threat’ posed by these alien entities hardly anyone but your minions have ever seen, would you please tell the people of this Confederation why, then, they should return you to the office of the presidency?”

Haggel Kutmoi had never made a finer speech. The applause echoed down the light-years, but there, in the Great Hall of the Confederation Congress, where the final presidential debate was taking place, it shook the rafters. Delegates and viewers began to chant “Haggel! Haggel! Haggel!” over and over again. It was the wrap-up of the long series of contentious debates, the concluding broadside, and it had been delivered in classical oratorical style. Kutmoi bowed toward Chang-Sturdevant, faced the audience, and raised his arms in victory. Even members of Chang-Sturdevant’s own party joined in the applause. It was a moment of pure elation for Kutmoi, who saw an electoral landslide coming his way. He’d had “the old bitch,” as he called the President in private, on the defense the whole time and now he had her on the ropes.

Chang-Sturdevant stood bracing herself against the podium, her face calm but haggard, waiting for the commotion to subside so she could speak. A strand of hair had somehow come loose from her coiffure and hung down one side of her face and a small rivulet of perspiration had started creeping down the other. It was fortunate she did not use makeup very heavily or it would have started running in the heat under the hot lights—and in the crushing verbal blows of Kutmoi’s concluding remarks. Out of the corner of her eye she glanced over at him as he stood there, face flushed with victory, arms raised over his head, a grin splitting his face almost from ear to ear, and saw her defeat writ large in the ballot boxes.

The debate monitor, newscaster Dean Hollowhed, asked for order but the applause, chanting, shouting, and stomping continued for some time. Finally the hall grew quiet through sheer exhaustion. Hollowhed turned to the President and announced gravely, “Madam President, you have two minutes to respond.”

Chang-Sturdevant stood there silently for a full ten seconds before saying anything. “When I first ran for this office I thought it was the noblest thing I’d ever done,” she began. “Now I wish only to conclude the business I’ve begun and yes, leave the agony of this office behind me. Yes, I have made mistakes—”

This was met with a resounding chorus of boos from the chamber and shouts of “You bet you have!” and “Quit now, before we kick you out!”

“I have made mistakes,” she repeated. “They are on my head and mine alone!
Anyone
who holds this office will make them. But I tell you this now, as long as I wear the mantle of this presidency, I shall
never
let my personal fate obscure my duty in the face of the grave and imminent threat to our species—”

“Yeah, yeah,” people shouted, “we’ve heard all that before!”

“—that is now upon us,
that is now upon us,
to obscure my duty to fight this menace—”

At this point the audience went wild with shouts of derision and calls for Chang-Sturdevant to step down from the podium. The roar washed over her as she stood there and she knew that she had just lost the debate, that she had just delivered the worst speech of her career.
Well, okay,
she thought,
if I’m going to go down, I’m going down in flames.
She nodded calmly at Hollowhed, who called again for order. The clock on her two minutes had stopped so she still had time to finish what she’d now determined to say. She held out her arms and shouted, “Let me speak! Let me speak!” but this time there was no hesitation in her words, only calm resolution. Chang-Sturdevant smiled and brushed the errant strand of hair away from her face. She stood there patiently and gradually quiet was restored throughout the Great Hall.

“Anyone among you who thinks that the war now being waged on the world known as Haulover is a subterfuge I have cooked up to divert attention from my mistakes, anyone who does not think the invasion of Human Space by the aliens we call Skinks is not the gravest threat to the existence of humanity in all of its history, anyone, my friends, who is not willing to stand up and fight these things with every weapon at his disposal,
that person is either a goddamned fool or a goddamned traitor!
” She turned and faced Haggel Kutmoi, extending a rigid forefinger directly at him and said, in a calm, deliberate tone of voice, “And the best I can say about you, Senator, is that you are a goddamned fool.”

The Great Hall erupted into pandemonium.

Sanguinious Cheatham, Haggel Kutmoi’s campaign manager, gave the senator a hearty thump on the back. “Brilliant! You’ve got her! You destroyed her! The old hag is in your bag and so is the fucking election!” Kutmoi had never seen Cheatham so elated, probably because he realized now that his appointment to the Supreme Court, along with Chang-Sturdevant and the election, was also in the bag.

Kutmoi mopped the perspiration off his face. Well, he had delivered the coup de grâce to the old bitch, that’s for sure. “But damn, that last remark, calling me a goddamned…” He shook his head. “It was like someone walked over my grave.”

Cheatham shook his head vigorously and waved a forefinger in front of Kutmoi’s nose. “No, my dear Mr. President-elect, no, no, no! That was the
worst,
positively the worst thing she could have done! No politician in history who used the Lord’s name in vain in a speech has ever survived and the old broad did it
three
times in
two
sentences! Delightful!” he chortled.

“Well…” Kutmoi agreed reluctantly.

“Cheer up, old man, cheer up! Your performance out there was spectacular tonight. We’re on our way to the top!”

“Well, I’ll tell you one thing, Sanguinious, we’d better make sure our skirts are clean or—”

Cheatham waved his hand dismissively. “Posh! Don’t worry. Sure,” he said with a shrug, “we’ve all had to cut a few corners in our time, but let me tell you, old boy, after her demonstration out there tonight, even if she could prove you’d committed murder and incest, and she can’t, you’d still be untouchable after tonight.” He laughed. “The public would see that as a mere peccadillo compared to her stumbling performance.”

“I don’t consider that very funny, ‘old boy.’” Kutmoi was referring to “murder and incest.” “And I’ll tell you one thing and don’t ever forget it, Mr. Campaign Manager,
never
write the Old Girl off. That old pussy has her nine lives and we would be fools to think she doesn’t still have claws. Now I want you to be sure that any irregularities we might’ve committed during this campaign are brushed way, way under the rug. You understand what I’m saying?”

“Of course, Senator, of course,” Cheatham said soothingly. “Not just under the rug but in the bag, deep in the bag. Trust me.”

“Well, that was three
goddamn
s in two sentences spoken before all the citizens in Human Space, Suelee.” Marcus Berentus sighed and shook his head. “Not to mention a personal attack on your political opponent that I believe makes your closing remarks unprecedented in the history of electioneering.”

“Well, I meant what I said and said what I meant, Marcus, and
that
is also unprecedented in politics.”

“How well we know.”

Chang-Sturdevant took a big sip of Scotch. “And that bastard, Kutmoi!”

“Please, Suelee, whatever you do, don’t add that word to your repertoire next time you make a speech!”

“He is going to destroy us all, Marcus. He is going to open the gates to the barbarians.”

Marcus was quiet for a long interval. “Yes, you’re right,” he agreed at last. “And we have to do everything we can to stop the sonofabitch.”

“I hope,” Chang-Sturdevant said with a laugh, “
that
word doesn’t slip out, too.”

“Knowing you, love, it just might,” Berentus laughed. “But name calling won’t stop this man. We’ve got to expose him for what he really is and prove to the
voters
that electing him spells their doom.”

“Easier said than done, Marcus.” She stared into the bottom of her glass. “I could always have him assassinated,” she mused.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

“Just joking, Marcus, just joking.” She toyed with that loose strand of hair. “I can’t use an instrumentality of my government to dig into Kutmoi’s shady past and his current dealings,” she mused. “If I did, everyone would think I abused the taxpayers’ money to keep myself in office and whatever we dug up would be suspect.”

“Yes, then what you need is a ‘consultant,’ a private investigator or an investigative reporter, and I have just the man.” He snapped his fingers.

“And who might that be?”

“Jack Wintchell.”

In the fifty years Jack Wintchell had been digging dirt for the Confederated News Network, he had learned that when searching for corruption, you follow the money. That had made him a top-notch muckraker. Usually he worked several stories at one time. He had been interested in Haggel Kutmoi for quite a while before Chang-Sturdevant’s now very unusual exchange, but the note from Marcus Berentus had whetted his journalistic scalpel. Wintchell had ruined many reputations in his time but now he saw a chance to derail a sure-thing presidential candidate. He had also been working on several juicy stories exposing Chang-Sturdevant, which he now abandoned in favor of this lead.

Jack Wintchell did not particularly care for Chang-Sturdevant or her presidency. His personal opinion of her was that she was a bumbling fool who badly needed retirement. But he respected Marcus Berentus, whom he knew from a short stint as a personnel officer in the wing where Berentus was a fighter pilot during the Third Silvasian War. He had come to respect Berentus for his valor and his total lack of pretension. All the man wanted to do in those days was fly. The tougher the mission the more he liked it. But when back on the ground he displayed none of the disdain aviators usually show toward nonrated officers, especially those in personnel. After one long, boozy night in the officers’ club, the two had become unlikely friends, and that friendship had lasted through the years as each rose in his career.