The End of All Things: The Fourth Instalment Read Online Free Page B

that would just intimidate the other colonies,” Balla said.
    “Or anger them,” Hart said.
    “Or inspire them to stick to their guns, as it were,” I said.
    “‘Stick to their guns’ is a curious phrase to use,” Balla said. “Because they don’t have any. The Colonial Union has all the weaponry on its side. Whether they’re inspired or angry or both, the colonies can’t miss the Colonial Union’s message that the party’s over.”
    I glanced over to Abumwe.
    “Unless Equilibrium has been talking to these other colonies as well,” she said.
    “Right,” I said. “Equilibrium is small so it has to maximize its impact. It has to go for gestures that make a splash. It’s something they learned from us.”
    “How so?” Abumwe asked.
    “Like when we fought the Conclave over Roanoke,” I said. “It’s four hundred alien races, all with their own military reach. We couldn’t possibly take them on ship-to-ship. So when we wanted to destroy it, we lured them into a trap we devised, destroyed their grand fleet by subterfuge, and waited for the fallout to take down the Conclave.”
    “There is the minor detail that the plan didn’t work,” Balla said. “The Conclave survived.”
    “But the Conclave wasn’t the same after that,” I pointed out. “Before Roanoke, the Conclave was this dauntingly large force that was impossible to fight. After Roanoke, there was an open rebellion and there was the first assassination attempt on General Gau, their leader. Those tensions never went away, and Gau was in fact later assassinated. We were there for it. You can lay out a path from Roanoke to Gau’s death. The Conclave today is what the Colonial Union made it. Which also means in some way the Colonial Union helped create the conditions that make Equilibrium possible.”
    “And now Equilibrium is shaping the Colonial Union,” Abumwe said.
    “It’s certainly making the effort, yes.”
    “There is some irony to that.”
    I nodded at this. “And the thing we have to remember is that it’s doing it for its own purposes.” I pointed in the direction of the very small room in which we were currently keeping Khartoum’s prime minister. “Okada and his government got sold a bill of goods by Equilibrium, which attacked us. But it’s not Equilibrium who is being punished, it’s Khartoum.”
    “When you lay down with dogs, you get fleas,” Hart said.
    “Yes. I’m not defending Okada’s act. He and the planet wouldn’t be in the position they are today if he and his government hadn’t let Equilibrium through the door. But Equilibrium got what it wanted out of the exchange. More Colonial Union oversight means more resentment of the Colonial Union, not just here, but everywhere that finds out about it.”
    “The Colonial Union holds a virtual monopoly on information,” Balla said.
    “It did,” I agreed. “It doesn’t anymore. And, leaving aside the general philosophical issue with a single source bottlenecking every bit of communication for its own purposes, that presents its own problems.”
    “Like Equilibrium creating its own version of events here on Khartoum and presenting it to the other colonies,” Abumwe said.
    “Right again,” I said. “Which goes back again to my point about Equilibrium maximizing its efforts. It doesn’t take a lot for them to leverage mistrust of the Colonial Union into the appearance of being a fair dealer to the colonial worlds.” I pointed to Abumwe. “You said we don’t have much time. I think it’s more correct to say that we’re already out of time. Equilibrium is almost certainly already out there selling its version of events, and when it shows a feed of all our ships floating above the surface of Khartoum, that’s just going to act as confirmation to the rebellious colonies.”
    “How do we know about the rebellious colonies?” Balla asked.
    “The Colonial Union is not entirely without friends on the colony worlds,” Abumwe said. “Or in their