Man O' War, стр. 5
"You know, Dad," he said quietly to the air, "this is not the way things were supposed to work out."
Hawkes had entered the military at eighteen, a compensatory donation of time to the government to repay their "beneficence" in allowing him to keep his own property after his father's death. At the age of twenty-two, he had gone directly into the diplomatic corps, encouraged by Val Hensen, his commanding officer, to make the move straight out of his military tour.
He scored a number of remarkable coups in his time, most of them in his youth. Sent from one violent field post to another, he had crafted honest, carefully deliberated judgments between warring factions, carving out a name for himself as a trustworthy man of high morals.
Right, his cynical side chided. And you've spent the rest of your life since then trying to live up to it.
You know the only reason they kept sending you from one trouble spot to another, came another level of his brain. They just kept hoping you'd get yourself killed.
Holding his drink on high, his tone filled with bitterness, Hawkes growled, "Well, here's to me. I sure showed them, didn't I?"
After a while, the people above the ambassador finally learned their lesson. Seeing he was too stubborn to be cowed or bribed or in any other way turned to playing their game, they put him outside of it. He had gained too much notoriety to be simply dismissed, so from then on, Hawkes was posted only in tranquil positions, ones where he could not harm the ambitions of those above him.
In 2067, however, circumstances forced a dispute between the governments of Australia and Deutcher Chocolate, International, formerly known as the country of New Zealand. Back in the early forties, Deutcher had gone through all the proper legal negotiations to buy out the at-the-time struggling country's controlling interests in itself. Its citizens were offered jobs, certain health and security benefits, etc., and after the United Nations had handed in its usual rubber-stamped approval, Deutcher went from being simply an international corporate power to being one with its own post office, treasury bonds, and yearly military-buildup allotment.
That was all well and good. But twenty-five years later, Deutcher ran out of arable land of its own to turn over to cocoa farming. They offered to buy or lease vast tracts of Australia, but their offers were all rejected. Then an invasion was hinted at, and the two countries' shared coasts found themselves hosts to massing troops and their equipment.
After that, a clever legal attache somewhere in the bowels of the Deutcher chain of command came across a near-century-old economic agreement. It was a showpiece kind of thing, one made between New Zealand and Australia for the benefit of an American president with foreign aid to grant, and who needed political points in return. Everyone knew it was a worthless document, meant only as a justifier and nothing more.
"What is it everyone knows and no one can prove?" Hawkes asked the air in a quiet whisper. ' 'Oh, I remember now, that would be . . . the truth."
The lawyers who got their hands on the old agreement decided it gave them every right to seize lands in Australia, and presented it to the Americans for their opinion. Or, more specifically, to the majority leader of the United States Senate, one Michael Carri. Carri was a twenty-three-year man whose war trunk contained hefty contributions from scores of buyers seeking to own their part of the American government.
"And," Hawkes muttered to himself, "Deutcher's helped buy all your elections since the beginning—right, Mick? And so you made the offer to send down an American mediator. One who would come with express instructions to make sure the tide turned in favor of your boys. Whether they had the slightest right to what they wanted or not."
When the situation had first grown explosive, Senator Carri had stepped forward and offered to send an American to be the case's supreme arbitrator. The U.N. backed the idea at once. Deutcher had agreed instantly.
The Australians, seeing everyone lining up against them, sensed their disadvantage. They refused the offer, then threatened to boycott the conference and prepare only for war. When the U.N. asked what it would take to get them to the conference table, they had demanded the right to name the appointee.
Everyone agreed. Hawkes was the one chosen to accept the appointment. It was not what anyone else involved wanted, but they had no choice other than to accept. Deutcher sputtered, but they could offer no reasonable objection to Hawkes. Realizing they could not block the ambassador's appointment simply because he was honest, the corporation put on its most pleasant face and agreed.
Hawkes had been pulled from his assignment at the time—a post he actually had learned to enjoy, one for which he had worked long and hard—and was sent to the highly touted peace conference to evaluate the situation.
Yes, he thought cynically, draining his tumbler, as always—go in, calm everyone down, see what's going on, hear all the demands, look everything over, judge all the evidence impartially and fairly, and then render the verdict you were told to in the first place.
Finishing his drink, he banged his glass back on the tabletop. As he did there was another lightning flash at the shutter, one that coincided with a cannonade of thunder. The plane rocked violently. Hawkes's papers and his tumbler were all thrown to the floor. Sighing, he pushed himself up out of his chair to attend to the mess.
At the same time, a knock came at his door. His call for whoever it was to enter brought him one of the plane's air force crew. She was an attractive officer, with intelligent eyes and a pleasing smile. Highly trained, she was capable of flying fighters or commanding deep-space missions. Yet because of her looks, she