Free Shadow of Victory - eARC by David Weber

tendrils had not yet penetrated, one far enough from the League that it would have time to create—and maintain—a democracy that meant something and had the strength to resist the sort of exploitation the Creswell Combine had represented. That was what the youthful demonstrators in Náměstí Žlutých Růží had wanted to remind every Chotěbořian about…and everyone could see how well that had worked out.
    “They can’t keep a lid on this forever, Zdeněk,” he said harshly, once he was confident he had his anger mostly under control. “They just can’t.”
    “Until someone repeals the state of emergency, they damned well can,” Vilušínský said bluntly, “and you know it.”
    “Hruška never meant that to last this long!” Šiml snapped.
    “Then he frigging well should’ve included a sunset clause when he issued the decree.” Vilušínský turned his head to spit on the ceramacrete floor. “Not that Cabrnoch and Žďárská—or Siminetti!—would’ve paid much attention to it if he had.”
    Šiml glared at him for a moment, but then his shoulders slumped and he nodded wearily. He’d been there—in fact, he’d been a member of President Roman Hruška’s cabinet—when the initial decree was issued. Even then, he’d seen where it was likely to end, and his protests were one of the reasons Minister of Public Safety Jan Cabrnoch’s chief of staff, Zuzana Žďárská, had made it so abundantly (if privately) clear that his services as Minister of Agriculture were no longer required. It would undoubtedly be wise of him to seek a new career in the private sector, under the circumstances. And if he was unwilling to take her friendly hint, more…strenuous methods of persuasion would be found.
    Which was why he’d been a very poorly paid professor of agronomy at Eduard Beneš University for the last fifteen T-years.
    “I wonder sometimes what we did to piss God off,” he said finally. His voice was heavy, his expression tired. “We probably could have handled just the damned bugs!”
    “Probably. No,” Vilušínský shook his head, “we did handle the komáři in the end. Whatever else, you have to give Cabrnoch at least that much. That targeted nanotech was a brilliant move, and he did find a way to get it built.”
    “Sure he did. And it was based on the R&D my people did—them and Public Health! Do you think anyone remembers that? And how did he pay for it?”
    “I didn’t say he came up with the solution, and I didn’t say it came cheap. But if you’d asked most of our fellow citizens at the time whether it was worth it, you know damn well what they would’ve said! For that matter, they did say it.”
    “But it opened the door to Frogmore-Wellington and Iwahara!” Šiml protested.
    “So? You expected people with dying kids to think that was a bad exchange? Especially after Reichart got done with us?”
    Vilušínský shook his head again, but his expression had turned gentle, and he reached out to lay one hand almost apologetically on his friend’s arm. Adam Šiml had lost his wife, Kristýna Šimlová Louthanová, his teenaged son, and both of his infant daughters to the komáři . If anyone on Chotěboř could understand the point Vilušínský had just made, it was Šiml, yet his own devastating grief only fanned his fury when he thought of how the world his wife and children would never see again had been betrayed by its own elected leaders.
    Chotěboř had scarcely been on the cutting edge of technology. It was too far from the heart of the Solarian League for that. But it had possessed at least a decent medical establishment, and it had been native Chotěbořian researchers—his team, although he’d been given his walking papers before the solution was announced—who’d come up with the targeted nanotech to deal with the komár hnědý rybniční , the ubiquitous “nuisance” insect pest which had mutated into such a deadly disease vector. Yet the Chotěbořians had