Fall Revolution 4: The Sky Road

Almaty are
investigating, and so far there seem to be no indications of foul
play.’ She shrugged. ‘That, of course, is hard to
prove, these days. However… Georgi Yefrimovich had a great
deal of responsibility -’ she gestured vaguely at Andrei
Mukhartov, the International Affairs Commissar ‘ –
and in the circumstances, natural causes do seem
likely.’
    Myra sighed. ‘Yes, I appreciate that. And I appreciate
what all of you have said to me. Let me say for the record that
personally I don’t accept that Georgi’s death was
anything but an assassination.’
    She faced down the resulting commotion.
    ‘However,’’ she continued, ‘I
don’t ask or expect any of you to take this as more than a
suspicion. At the moment, even the question of who might benefit
from it is very unclear – if Georgi was murdered, it might
have been by one side or the other. Possibly some elements in the
space movement saw him as an obstacle to their… diplomacy.
Possibly some forces opposed to the space movement thought
we’d think exactly that, and had him killed as a
provocation. Or maybe, just maybe, his heart gave out. Whatever
– it’s come at a bad time for us.’
    Mukhartov grunted agreement.
    After a moment of gloomy silence Valentina spoke again.
‘We’ve all studied your message,’ she said.
‘What’s your own suggested course of
action?’
    ‘We try to stop them, of course. Damned if I want the
fucking UN back on top of us, let alone one controlled by the
goddam space movement and its proxies.’
    Valentina leaned forward. ‘For my part,’ she said,
‘I agree with your assessment. We have to be ready for the
new situation in which the space movement controls the ReUN, and
with it the Earth Defense battlesats. But ‘ she hesitated a
moment, sighed almost imperceptibly, and continued ‘
– I think that the death of Georgi, the understandable
suspicions this has aroused, and the, ah, unexpected and
unauthorised increase in labour-camp output may have given your
response a… subjective element’ Ko-zlova glanced
around the table. ‘The coming shift in the balance of power
can’t be stopped by us, or by anybody. The most we’ve
been able to do -thanks to Georgi’s diplomacy – has
been to help keep Kazakhstan neutral, with a tilt against the
takeover. Even they wouldn’t take direct action against it,
though God knows Georgi tried to persuade them to. They assured
us they just didn’t have the clout, and I believe them. Now
you seem to be suggesting that we throw our weight, such
as it is, against it. My own view is that we’d accomplish
more by staying neutral. It could work to our advantage
- if we accommodate ourselves to new realities in good
time.’
    Myra unfroze her face. ‘Get in on the winning side, you
mean?’ she suggested lightly.
    Yes, exactly,’ Kozlova said. She seemed encouraged by
Myra’s response, or lack of response. ‘After
all,’ she ploughed on, ‘we ourselves are in a way
part of the space movement, we go back a long way with it, and
the Sheenisov are as much a threat to us as the barbarians and
reactionary governments are to some other enclaves. Frankly, I
think we should put out some diplomatic feelers to the other side
before the crunch, which as you correctly point out is a matter
of days or weeks away. And we’re not exactly in a position
of strength at the moment. So there is indeed a certain urgency
to our decision.’
    ‘Interesting,’ Myra murmured. ‘Anyone
else?’
    Denis Gubanov (Internal Security) broke in sharply. ‘The
Chair spoke in her message of states being suborned and
subverted. I don’t think we should let ourselves become one
of them! Whatever the rhetoric, and the propaganda of
inevitability, it’s obvious what’s going on.
Imperialism took a severe blow with the fall of the Yanks, but
the blow wasn’t fatal, worse luck. Monopoly capital always
finds new political instruments, and the space movement,
so-called, has proved an admirable vehicle.’ He
snorted,briefly. ‘Literally – a launch vehicle!
Through it, the rich desert the Earth. Why should we help them on
their way?’
    ‘More to the point,’ said Sherman (Trade
and Industry) , making his disdain for Denis’s rhetoric
emphatically clear, ‘there is the question of what we will
do for a living when the camps are worked out.’
    ‘We could always – ’ began Kozlova, as
though about to say