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  Wen-Ling Chung from Hong Kong spoke up, “But, Alichin, that would dishonor you and you would lose face.”

  “Not really, although anyone outside this circle would react as you have, Wen-Ling,” Ali replied. “A banishment for poor judgement provides President Nogal with logical justification for getting me out of the picture and gives him an excuse for making apologetic sounds to various governments about my behavior while promising to rectify things.”

  “An interesting suggestion, Alichin. It deserves serious consideration,” President Nogal’s image replied.

  “You’re becoming extremely devious, Alichin. May I compliment you?” Wen-Ling Chung said with a slight bow of his head.

  “It’s a perfect cover story for sending him back into space,” Vaivan said. “Ali’s being watched now. In fact, he’s targeted.”

  “There’s no question about it. I don’t like it, but…” Ali didn’t mention the railway platform attempt or the Killer ERG in his cottage. He looked around and said levelly, “I’m leaving for Ell-Five as soon as possible.”

  “Let me have your itinerary when you know it,” Ursila Peri said from L-5.

  “I will.” Ali said this with a tone of voice and inflection that revealed his dislike for the political connivings of Earth people.

  “Is your report completed, Alichin?” Rayo Vamori asked his son.

  “It is. Any questions?”

  “Yes.” It was Kariander Kokat Dok of Topawa Finance & Investment Bankers, Ltd. He got heavily to his feet. He was a large and pudgy man with soft features and a mode of attire that was extravagant in this group. Ali had introduced him as an uncle on his mother’s side—not his mother’s brother but the husband of his mother’s sister. The English language doesn’t have the proper terms to express the relationships within such large families. My first impression was that Kariander Dok enjoyed to excess a profligate life style quite unlike the people around him. The earring in his left ear lobe would have marked him as a sado in America, but I didn’t know if the custom held in the Commonwealth. His wife, Tanyo Nogala Dok, showed none of the traits of the opposite side of what was usually a pair. I rather doubted that any psychological deviation of that sort could exist in Ali’s family, so I was probably getting the wrong signals again.

  Kariander Dok continued with a pleasant smile, “Alichin, are we facing the possibility of invasion? Surely you must have some thoughts on this.”

  Ali replied thoughtfully. “Santa Fe caused me to re-evaluate our adversaries. They’re more dangerous than we originally thought. Their careful and complete casting and orchestration of the Santa Fe conference tells me they didn’t want us to go along with it in the first place. They don’t want co-operation. They don’t want to negotiate. They intend to eliminate us as competition. It’s a common practice in the business world. But I don’t believe we face a military threat. Why? Because they can’t control every aspect of world opinion, and it wouldn’t be in their best interests to invade and conquer a small nation like the Commonwealth.”

  I got to my feet and called out, “Ali, as an outlander, may I make an observation?”

  Ali looked at me and remarked, “You’re an outlander only if you think you are, Sandy. We always appreciate hearing the viewpoint of a newcomer who may not be enamored by the prevailing logic. What do you see here that I don’t?”

  “First, I agree you’ve been brought under economic pressure, but it isn’t intended to eliminate you as competition,” I remarked.

  “Is an armed conflict scenario more probable?”

  “Yes. Consider a historic analog. When the Meiji put Japan on the road to industrialism, they found themselves without native raw materials necessary for an industrial state. They could have obtained those by negotiation, but they didn’t know how to negotiate because they were still a feudal culture accustomed to using military force instead. Europeans and Americans had developed and were dependent upon the same resources the Japanese needed and threatened to take. Europe and America reacted by denying those materials. The final blow came when the United States embargoed trade and cut off eighty percent of Japan’s petroleum. The Japanese then believed they had no recourse but military action, which they took.”

  “What has ancient history got to do with what’s happening now?” Kariander Dok broke in.

  “If history doesn’t repeat itself, at least the patterns of history do! I’ve heard the Commonwealth referred to as ‘the Japan of the tropics,’ ” I told him.

  “Are you implying we’d go to war with the Tripartite and the PetroFed?”

  “No, my analogy was intended to point out that the economic pressures being applied to the Commonwealth aren’t necessarily a prelude to elimination of the Commonwealth ascompetition, but to actually destroy what presently exists here as a perceived threat. This will probably be done in a way we least expect. The United States, Japan, Bahia, or the Saudis won’t attack you. You aren’t a military threat to them. What your adversaries really want is to carve up the Commonwealth among your covetous neighbors who may be called upon to carry out the military actions. I know nothing about what you’re doing except what I’ve heard here tonight, but that’s the way I see it. What more can I tell you than what I’ve observed? It’s free advice that’s cost you nothing, and it may be worth just that,” I told them and sat down.

  The General spoke up, “Rayo, he may be right. Abiku, it would be wise to put the Landlmpy and Airlmpy on a higher level of readiness, but don’t activate the Citlmpy yet because it would reveal we’re anticipating someone to move against us. Let things develop first. Implement Phase Two and accelerate it. Alichin, proceed with the space aspect at once. Kevin, your captains should be alerted to expect SMAT.”

  Rayo Vamori nodded at each recommendation his father made. If I was watching a “kitchen cabinet” of Commonwealth politics at work, it was obvious who the leader was.

  “Should we sit tight and see how well their boycott works?” Vaya Delkot of Vamori Free Space Port wanted to know. “Or should we embargo them?”

  “Let’s get some feedback on that,” General Vamori suggested. “Trip, what about it?”

  Trip Sinclair thought for a moment before he answered. “I’d recommend business as usual, General. Except for goods already in the pipeline, the Tripartite may be able to make the boycott stick if not by financial pressures then certainly by political moves. However, a certain amount of trade will go on because not all large companies have Tripartite connections and can work around the restraints. According to my preliminary estimate, we can expect an initial sixty percent reduction in activity from North and South America and perhaps as much as seventy-five percent from Japan. I can’t estimate Europe at this time, but maybe Heinrich can.”

  Von Undine got to his feet so the video sensors could zero on him better. “I would anticipate an almost complete embargo of European activity through Vamori Free Space Port.”

  Hudyadha-ben-Mukhalla put in from Dhahran, “Not all European commerce is under Tripartite control. The Spanish and Scandinavians will continue to send their trade through you. My best estimate for Europe is about sixty percent reduction, in line with Skinner Sinclair’s estimate of the Americas.”

  “You forget the leverage possessed by the Tripartite in nations such as mine,” Missamaghadi Phalonagri in Madras remarked. “Powersats owned by Tripartite-controlled firms provide India with a large percentage of its electrical power.”

  “We know that, Missam, but I’ll cover India’s critical baseload.” That came quietly from Shaiko Stoak, CEO of Commonwealth Glaser Space Power, Inc.. He was there in Karederu Center with his wife, Nyala Nogalu Stoak. I began to realize the extent to which this megafamily was interlinked.

  Wen-ling Chung added from Hong Kong, “We have the capital required for Phase Three. Trip, will Babson & Bowles or Rogers-Gates be willing to bid?”

  “Babson & Bowles won’t; Lyle Babson’s a member of the Tripartite energy subcouncil. Neither will Rogers-Gates or Bozly Eng
ineering in Seattle because of Tripartite-backed engineering projects in-house,” Trip Sinclair replied.”I’m worried about RIO’s reaction,” Captain Kevin Graham remarked from the space port. “Our captains are concerned that PowerSat, InPowSat, and InSolSat powersats could have their power beams diverted to the American beam weapon stations on orbit…and we know where every one of them is stationed even though the Aerospace Force tried to hide them in inclined Clarke orbits.”

  That was Top Secret information! How had the League of Free Traders found these battle stations, shrouded as they were with hard stealth technology?

  Ursila Peri reported from L-5, “I don’t know if the powersat crews would carry out an order to redirect power beams to military battle stations. Whether the Aerospace Force has plans for a military takeover of the powersats is another matter, but such an attempt would put them in confrontation with the RIO teams on the powersats.”

  I knew something about that. It was covered by the highest possible security classification, and it was difficult for me then to even consider revealing it, so thorough had been my Aerospace Force indoctrination over the years.

  “That remains the big unknown in Phase Three,” The General pointed out. “Alichin, it will hinge on how well you perform in Phase Two.”

  “I know.”

  “Anything else?” Rayo Vamori asked.

  “Be on guard,” Vaivan repeated her warning.

  “We will,” Rayo promised for the assembled group. “The Commonwealth Commerce Congress will meet on telenet at thirteen hundred hours Zulu time tomorrow. Any conflicts?”

  “You always get me up at the crack of dawn,” Trip Sinclair complained with a broad American grin.

  “And it is late at night for us,” Wen-ling Chung told him.

  “Someday everyone but the farmers will operate on Universal Time regardless of the position of the sun in the sky,” The General observed.

  “We do that already,” Ursila Peri remarked from L-5.

  As the meeting broke up, family members with children in Karederu Center collected offspring from various rooms where they were either asleep or playing. Others moved to put away equipment and check the kitchen to be sure that the robots had cleaned and stored the eating equipment.

  “Sit down,” Ali told me, indicating a group of chairs gathered around a low table.

  “Heinrich, can you join us?”

  “I’d like to, Alichin, but I have an urgent appointment with Muller. He’s to call me at twenty-one hundred hours from Ottawa, and I can’t keep him waiting.” Von Undine seemed anxious to leave and did so without further ado.

  The General and Vaivan joined the circle around the table. Tsaya offered me a tall-stemmed glass of a very dry white wine. I thanked her, and she replied softly with lowered eyes. I surmised she was shy, but with her natural beauty she didn’t need to be retiring.”Well, Sandy?” Alichin asked as I sipped the wine. “Do you understand what we’re doing now and why we need a person like you?”

  The wine was smooth and its modest ethanol content would certainly relax me. “Frankly, no,” I admitted. “I haven’t the benefit of the background you take for granted.”

  “What don’t you understand?”

  I set the wine glass down on the low table. “The whole set-up. What’s this Tripartite you talk about? The PetroFed? You talk as though they’re countries. I know geography, and I don’t recognize them. So who are they? Who’s our opponent?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Bahia maybe, since they’ve got the other free space port. The United States perhaps or maybe even Japan because both nations have strong interests in space commerce. They want a piece of your action that they don’t have because you’re stiff competition for them. Too stiff, probably.”

  General Vamori finished the wine in his glass and set it on the low table too. His put his fingertips together in front of him and said, “As one who’s been militarily educated, Sandy, you naturally think of conflicts as occurring between governments. That may have been true three hundred years ago when the world was run by kings and emperors. But they lost their grip in the nineteenth century when it got expensive to run the world. Do you recall a family named Rothschild?”

  “Didn’t they control the European banking system until the French nationalized the last Rothschild bank in about 1980?”

  “The French government really didn’t do that, but that’s what everyone was supposed to believe,” The General observed. “Do you remember what Anselm Rothschild once said?”

  “I’ve never studied financial history.”

  “Too bad. It’s made the world go round in the past several centuries and it’s the modern reason for the existence of military forces. Anselm Rothschild once stated, ‘Give me the power to issue a nation’s money, and I care not who makes the laws.’ ”

  “How did he rationalize that?”

  “The Rothschilds started out financing local princes,” The General explained. “After about 1800, they started lending money to European governments. Then they saw to it that national affairs occurred so the loans were always paid with interest. In a very short time, the Rothschilds controlled the money supply of Europe. They owned the banks that exchanged various national money tokens.”

  “But how does control of a nation’s money give any political leverage?” I wanted to know.

  “You have a folk-saying in America that I learned in a Phoenix management school: ‘He who has the gold makes the rules,’ ” Ali put in. “When you control a nation’s money, you can tell kings what to do, depose prime ministers, get your friends and supporters elected to office, get wars started against competing financial organizations headquartered elsewhere, and control trade just like an ancient ruler with a castle and warriors commanding a critical point along a trade route.”

  “You’ve got it backwards,” I said. “Military forces exist to protect commerce along trade routes.”

  “You’ve been to Europe?” The General asked.

  I nodded.

  “Remember the Rheinpfalz, the castle built on the island in the middle of the Rhine River by Ludwig von Bayer?”

  “Yes, a very pretty place to build a castle.”

  “Ludwig wouldn’t let a boat go by in either direction unless the captain paid a toll for the privilege of getting past Rheinpfalz without being destroyed.”

  “Well, that’s a special case,” I tried to point out.

  “Oh? Nearly every city in Europe was built at a critical node along a trade route. At the heart of every city is one or more castles controlling a river, a river crossing, or a natural terrain feature. Paris, Luxembourg, Cologne, Geneva, Basel, Vienna, Prague, Berlin—the list includes almost every big city in Europe. American cities are located for the same reasons…”

  “Hold on!” I objected, shaking my head. “Most American cities were built on trade routes, that’s true. But they don’t have fortifications at their centers.”

  “How many American city names begin with the word ‘fort’? The forts are no longer there because they’re no longer needed. Commercial buildings have been built atop the ruins.”

  “You win,” I said. “But you’re now talking about physical control over trade, and we started by discussing non-government control organizations. What are you leading up to?”

  “The Rheinpfalz and Fort McHenry and Ile de la Cite are no longer functioning military installations,” Ali observed, “because governments no longer control the trade routes or the trade that goes on over them.”

  The General quietly tapped his fingers together. “A hundred years ago, control of trade was taken completely out of the hands of politicians and governments by the bankers and financiers because they had the money to make things happen. These financiers learned from the Rothchilds and became the power groups who elected the officials, provided the money when the Treasury went into the money markets for loans, placed their own people in positions of political and commercial power, and remained in the quiet background be
cause it wasn’t to their advantage to take the limelight. Today these power groups have better organization, communications, control, and police power than most national governments.”

  “General, with all due respect, sir,” I remarked carefully, “that sounds like something from Radio Moskva. If the capitalists have indeed taken over, we’d know it from their excesses. There’d have been more wars in the last hundred years.”

  “No, Sandy,” The General said, “I didn’t say there was one big, monolithic power group. There isn’t. There are a lot of different power groups. There’s been continual competition between them to see who’d be in control at any given time. The competition between these power groups is the only thing that’s kept the world from being destroyed in thermonuclear general war because such a holocaust is unprofitable to every power group. Small localbrush-fire wars can often be to the advantage of one power group in its struggle against another, but any war like the two World Wars of the last century is now counterproductive to the purposes of modern power groups.”

  “Those are our adversaries,” Vaivan Teaq said, “not national governments who are only front organizations to maintain obscurity and anonymity for those with the real power. Since the Founders’ War, we’ve been careful not to ally ourselves closely with any major world power group for reasons that should be obvious.”

  “Who are these people?” I wanted to know. I also wanted to believe them because it made some sense although it didn’t track with anything I’d been taught.

  “You never hear of them,” The General replied. “Their credo says their names should appear in the news when they’re born, when they’re married, and when they die. They don’t need and don’t want publicity or recognition. That dilutes power.”

  “Yes, but you’ve hung names on some of the power groups,” I pointed out. “Who are they?”