Free Shadow of Victory - eARC by David Weber Page B

was never enough cash flow to make them. Despite Frogmore-Wellington’s and Iwahara’s down payment, the ongoing annual income from the leases was a pittance, and because both transstellars saw Kumang as a long-term investment that wouldn’t require developing for at least another fifty or sixty T-years, they were in no hurry to spend any development money until they were good and ready. The Chotěbořians themselves couldn’t capitalize on the abundant potentials of their own star system in order to generate the income to pay off their debts because, effectively, they didn’t own those potentials anymore, and Luis Verner, the current OFS governor—although, of course, his official title was only “System Administrator”—was fine with that. In fact, he’d gone out of his way to quash any Chotěbořian efforts to exploit the fragments of their star’s resources they still owned.
    Šiml wasn’t certain if that was simply part of OFS’ policy to ensure none of their peons ever got out of debt or because it was in line with Frogmore-Wellington’s and Iwahara’s policies, and it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that by now President Cabrnoch and his entire administration were firmly in the pocket of OFS and Kumang’s absentee landlords. Cabrnoch really didn’t have a choice, in a lot of ways. The sheen had started coming off his public image over the last decade or so, when Chotěboř had time to catch its breath and realize just how much of its inheritance had been traded away. By now, he had nowhere to go if he tried to buck his out-system patrons, and he clearly didn’t intend to go anywhere.
    Hruška had remained in office up until seven T-years ago, although he’d become steadily less and less relevant. By the time he’d actually died—of natural causes, as far as Šiml could tell—his vice president had been the system’s effective dictator for almost ten T-years. After Hruška’s death, there hadn’t been even the pretense of a new election. Cabrnoch had simply assumed the office, at which point a great many Chotěbořians had realized the constitution was no longer simply dying, but dead. And that was when the trouble truly began.
    “All right, Zdeněk. You’re right about that. You always have been, whether I like it or not. But this time around, Siminetti and the Safeties have crossed a line. You know as well as I do how our people will react to this; God only knows what’s going to come out of the rest of the planet’s woodwork!”
    “And you’re probably right about that,” Vilušínský agreed. “So I think it’d be a really good idea to get the word out to our cell leaders that they need to sit on anything hasty.”
    “Already in the pipeline,” Šiml said. Then he snorted. “Unfortunately, I think Jiskra may have been a bit too apt when we chose the name.”
    It was Vilušínský’s turn to snort. Šiml had suggested Jiskra—“Spark” in Czech—as the name for their organization for a lot of reasons, including his love of history. As far as Vilušínský had been concerned, the notion of striking sparks made it the perfect choice. But Šiml was right about the…feistiness of their jiskry. Those “sparks” would be only too ready to go looking for tinder after today’s incident.
    “That’s not a bad thing, in most ways,” he pointed out. “You’re right about the need to sit on them at the moment, but it’s about damned time we started actively transitioning into changing our stance, Adam. You know it is.”
    “I do.” Šiml’s face tightened. “I’d hoped we could do more to prepare the ground by nonviolent means, though. And at the moment, I’m afraid we’re just a little short of the tools to do anything else.”
    “Then we’d better start finding someone who can provide them,” Vilušínský said grimly. “And in the meantime, we’d better hope to hell none of our people who were involved in the demonstration point the Safeties in Jiskra’s