Conquistador

INTERLUDE

Salvatore Colletta smiled and spread his hands. “Hey, Cap’n,” he said. “It’s just a bit of an accident, eh?”

John Rolfe reined in his temper. That shouldn’t have been particularly difficult; he’d been brought up with the belief that self-control was the first mark of a gentleman. There were several open scowls down the long table, and some of the fine china coffee cups clanked back into their saucers with dangerous force. The heads of all the Families were here, and many of them had their heirs by their sides as Rolfe did, acting as assistants or simply to learn the procedure. It struck him with a sudden shock that four of the Primes were the sons of the men he’d brought in at the founding of New Virginia.

I’m forty-six. Charles is twenty-one, and a father himself. Christ, where did the years go?

“So, no need to get upset,” the Colletta said, still imperturbable.

Although if self-control makes a gentleman, that would mean Salvo was one, too. I doubt he ever says or does anything without thinking twice. He was like that even as a young man, and he’s gotten colder as he gets older. Right now, I feel like pounding the table and yelling.

Rolfe looked out the tall windows and over the green tree-lined streets of the young city named for him, and calmed himself for a moment by watching the distant whitecaps on the indigo waters. Unfortunately, that also reminded him of the reason for this meeting of the committee. When he turned back, his face was a polite mask.

“Mr. Colletta, introducing smallpox to the Hawaiian islands is not a minor matter,” he said, his voice deceptively mild.

The Colletta’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully as they met the deceptive calmness of Rolfe’s leaf-green gaze. There was not the slightest trace of fear in them; Rolfe knew from half a lifetime’s experience that there was nothing on earth that could terrify Salvo, from land mines to a political dogfight. There was plenty of respect there, though. Salvatore Colletta fought to win, not to make points.

“Hey, it’s not like I did it deliberately,” he said, spreading his hands. “Giovanni, tell the Old Man.”

Rolfe’s eyes turned to the Colletta’s eldest son, hiding a trace of sympathy behind a quirked eyebrow. Growing up with Salvo as your father would be enough to drive anyone crazy. Young Giovanni—equivalent to John, and John Rolfe was the boy’s godfather—was taller and fairer than his father, a legacy of his Prussian mother. He spoke with stolid earnestness that could have concealed anything.

“Sir, we loaded a full cargo of Selang-Arsi wares in Toushan.”

That was this world’s equivalent of northeast China, near FirstSide’s Yingkou, inhabited by a weird mixed people the scholars said spoke Tocharian, whatever that was.

He’d never found the time to look into it further; the trans-Pacific trade had never been very important, until now, and he’d let the Collettas handle it. He’d been prepared to let them have Hawaii, too—if it proved possible to take it over without much effort. He’d made it clear that he would not approve annexation if it took a big garrison to hold the place; the Commonwealth still had less than sixty thousand people. Australia had seemed more important in the long run, thinly inhabited and rich in gold.

Giovanni went on: “The cargo included several hundred tons of assorted textiles—silks, cotton, wool and wool-and-silk rugs. We used some as presents with the Hawaiian chiefs. I’m told that’s probably how the disease spread.”

Rolfe nodded noncommittally and looked over at Solomon Pearlmutter. The Pearlmutter looked in turn at his son, who’d studied medicine on FirstSide and worked with the University of New Virginia’s medical department.

“Abraham?” the Pearlmutter said.

“Sir,” the younger man replied. He leaned forward to look at Rolfe. “Yes, that’s probably what happened. I’ve examined the cloth. There are scab fragments containing live virus in some of the wool blankets and rugs. Unless it’s exposed to bright sunlight, high heat or extreme cold, the smallpox virus can last indefinitely on something like that. The moderate temperatures and high humidity in a ship’s hold would be ideal.”

The Colletta shrugged again. “Hey, we didn’t cry when all the local Injuns dropped dead of flu and measles and menin-whatsis, did we? This is just another accident, only from China instead of FirstSide.”

Rolfe bit back, No, we didn’t cry. And we didn’t infect them deliberately, either. Back in the 1940s he’d been vaguely aware from high school history classes that European diseases had wrought havoc in the New World, but nobody had suspected just how much havoc.

I don’t pretend to be a humanitarian, but there are limits, he thought. I’m perfectly prepared to take advantage of the plagues, but not to start them with intent. I don’t think there’s anything that Salvatore wouldn’t do, just for the sake of convenience.

Saying that aloud would mean an irreparable break between the two Families, which would endanger the stability of the whole Commonwealth. He’d need solid evidence to challenge the Colletta or impose any sanctions on the Family. As Chairman, he could order an investigation… on the other hand, there would also be hell to pay politically if he put Gate Security onto the matter, unless he came up with damned solid proof. There was always a little murmuring among the other Families about the Rolfes’ dominant position.

And if I know anything about Salvatore Colletta, I know he wouldn’t leave evidence lying around. Salvo isn’t the only one who knows how to pick his fights.

He looked at young Abraham Pearlmutter. “What are the effects in Hawaii likely to be?”

The young man spread his hands. “From what I’ve read of similar virgin-field outbreaks in FirstSide history, and from the photographs and notes from Hawaii, we can expect at least a fifty percent die-off there. Probably more; this is hemorrhagic smallpox, the type with the highest mortality. It seems there was a simultaneous outbreak of chicken pox spread by contact with some crewman with shingles, and if so then the die-off in Hawaii could be as high as ninety percent. That’s including the usual secondary effects, lack of nursing because so many are sick, unburied bodies producing other diseases, disruption of the food supply, and so forth.”

“Unfortunate,” Rolfe murmured, then went on: “And here?”

“Well, sir, there’s one hundred percent smallpox vaccination among the New Virginian population, of course. We managed to contain the spread among the nahua workers here by quarantine, and my people are vaccinating them all right now. A few hundred are dead or dying. But some of them managed to steal horses and run before we could identify all the infected individuals, and if any of the wild tribes take them in”—another shrug—“it could run all the way from the Pacific to the Atlantic and bounce back from the Arctic down to South America, the way the earlier plagues did. The native population is very much thinner on the ground now than it was back in the forties, of course, which might interrupt transmission. But this is a very nasty and persistent pathogen; it can sit for years on a blanket or piece of leather. And these days a lot of the inland Indians have horses, which lets them move around faster, and trade blankets, so infected individuals and things they’ve touched spread the virus further before they die. It’ll probably kill at least half of any previously unexposed population, and more likely up to nine-tenths. Small groups might be wiped out altogether as they fall below the minimum numbers for viability.”

His father winced visibly. The best estimates were that the native populations of the Americas had already gone down by more than three quarters in the twenty-odd years since the Gate opened; by over ninety percent here on the West Coast, where fresh pathogens kept seeping through the Gate despite decontamination. There had been epidemics of everything from measles to malaria to viral meningitis, and a fresh variety of flu every couple of years. Old World childhood diseases and minor maladies were mass killers here in the Americas and the isolated Pacific islands, just as they had been in FirstSide history after Columbus. The Pearlmutter Family had pushed for medical missions, once the scale of the thing became obvious, but that had been a drop in a bucket. You couldn’t vaccinate a thousand tiny bands of nomads, most of whom ran at the first sight of a New Virginian.

Rolfe tapped his VMI class ring against the smooth mahogany of the table, a habit of his when he’d made up his mind.

“Very well,” he said. “No use crying over spilt milk. That leaves the question of Hawaii. The probable depopulation does make annexation a simple matter, since we don’t have to consider a policy change. As the Colletta has pointed out, the islands would be useful as a base for trade in the Pacific, and to produce tropical staples like coffee and sugar we’re currently using valuable Gate transit to import.”

Salvatore Colletta’s eyes narrowed again. He might not have much formal education, but Rolfe had found he had an instinctive grasp of small-group conspiratorial politics—particularly when someone was about to put the shaft in.

“But,” the head of the committee went on, “since we’re all anxious to avoid any appearance of impropriety, and in recognition of the burden the Collettas have borne so far, I think we should declare the Hawaiian islands to be Commission properties, governed directly as common land, like Rolfeston and the gold-mining districts. Subsidiary landed properties and development franchises on the islands to be granted on the usual investment and lottery basis for those Families who wish to apply; and with reservation of some choice areas to the Collettas, as recompense for their patriotic willingness to open up this new territory. And we should certainly look favorably on the Colletta’s request for a grant in the Owens Valley by way of compensation.”

“I second the Rolfe’s motion,” the Pearlmutter said quickly.

The Colletta opened his mouth. Rolfe cut in smoothly, “Of course, if the committee doesn’t have a consensus, we could refer the matter to the House of Burgesses.”

Salvo looked as if he’d just swallowed a green persimmon, rather than been reminded of a mistake. He had been loudly against establishing a representative body at all, however limited its powers, and that had cost him badly in the elections. His own affiliates had voted for his candidates, of course, but few others. The Rolfes had a bigger affiliation and had done much better among the unaffiliated free-agent Settlers, which in turn gave them more clout on the committee. And it was highly unlikely that Salvo would want to set a precedent for giving the Burgesses more authority. He subsided, visibly relaxing back into his chair.

“Motion has been seconded,” the clerk droned—he was a young scion of the Kimmels; nobody but members of the Thirty Families attended Central Committee meetings. “All in favor? Carried by acclamation. Let the will of the Commission be recorded as…”

Salvatore Colletta lingered after the other Family heads and their scions had left; John gave his son an imperceptible nod, and the younger Rolfe followed Colletta’s heir out the door. The two older men looked at each other for a moment, and then Rolfe shrugged.

“Fine boy… young man… you have there, Salvo.”

The Colletta was wearing one of his Milanese silk suits today, and Rolfe had to admit that he carried it off well; he’d gained a good deal of smoothness over the years that had put a sprinkling of gray in his raven-black hair.

“And the same for yours, Cap’n,” he said.

Their eyes met, and said much more than either of them intended to lay out in words. But then, we always understood each other well, even back in Baker Company, Rolfe thought. We haven’t necessarily liked each other, but we certainly knew how the other man’s mind worked. Which is a commentary on one or the other of us, or possibly both. Aloud, he went on: “They do seem a bit… quieter than we were at their ages.”

“Hey, Cap’n, we was condotierri, at their ages,” Salvo said, with that charming grin he’d always had at hand when he needed it. “Running mule-trains upcountry and fighting off wild Injuns an’ icing big shots and bosses on FirstSide who tried to muscle in on our action. These boys, they’re studying to step into our shoes. They’re civile, not wild men like us.”