Cauldron of Ghosts – Snippet 07
“Yeah, they’re still mad that Haven restarted the war with Manticore before the ink on our mutual defense treaty had barely dried.” He shrugged. “On the other hand, because we made no effort to get them to join the hostilities, they aren’t that mad. Certainly not enough to take the risks involved in producing a major rupture with us. So, everyone agreed to one of the time-honored diplomatic code messages. ‘You don’t get an ambassador, you louses. Just a high commissioner etc., etc. So there.’ I think that’s aimed more at the Star Kingdom than us.”
“Star Empire,” Sharon corrected him. She ran fingers through her hair. Short hair, these days. She’d dyed it a nice auburn color since he’d seen her last and cut it back quite a bit. Truth be told, he preferred her hair longer. But that was an age-old tug of war between men and women that men invariably lost once a relationship congealed. Yuri might not be the sharpest pencil in the box when it came to romantic relationships, but he wasn’t obtuse enough to venture into that mine field.
“I think you’re probably right about Manticore,” she said. “The Erewhonese love their subtle ploys and gestures. ‘See? We made it real clear to Haven that they’re in the dog house, the rotters.’ I’m not sure how much good it’ll do them, though.”
“Might be quite a bit. The Star Empire’s current prime minister is as sophisticated as they come and he’s probably familiar with Erewhon’s somewhat peculiar mores. And for sure and certain the Winton dynasty will pay attention. They’re no slouches themselves when it comes to hints and veiled messages. You wouldn’t think a royal lineage would have that much in common with a long line of gangsters, but there it is.”
“Ha! If Victor we’re here, he’d say they were cut from exactly the same cloth — so why shouldn’t they speak the same patois?”
That brought a few seconds’ worth of silence. Then Yuri sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I still don’t like the basta — man, but I have to admit I was glad to find out he was still alive. It’s like the old saying: ‘yeah, he’s a ruthless son-of-a-bitch, but he’s our ruthless son-of-a-bitch.”
“Are you still holding a grudge, Yuri? La Martine was years ago.”
“He told them to break my nose. On purpose!”
“He sure did. That made you a bloody mess — and may very well have kept you alive.”
Impatiently, Yuri shook his head. “I understand the logic, Sharon. I still don’t like the man. He gave you a beating, too. I was madder about that than I was about my nose. Still am.”
“Are you aware that he’s been a consistent influence — no small one, either — boosting your career? Mine, too. Ever since La Martine. I’m pretty sure he’s the main reason you got this posting. Kevin Usher listens to him. So does Wilhelm Trajan, although” — she grinned, here — “I don’t think he does so nearly as cheerfully as Kevin does.”
Yuri looked a bit guilty. “Well… Yeah, I sort of figured that out a while ago. Look, I’m not saying my attitude toward Cachat is rational. It’s probably not. Okay, for sure it’s not.” Stubbornly: “I still don’t like him.”
The com unit on the wall chimed, indicating someone desired a connection.
Sharon punched the acceptance key. The screen came to life.
Seeing the familiar face on the screen, Sharon said: “Walter. I assume you called to talk to Haven’s new ambassa — ah, high commissioner and — ”
“– and envoy extraordinary and whatever other twaddle terms we need to keep up appearances.” Walter Imbesi gave Radamacher a quick, almost perfunctory smile. “Actually, no. I’d been planning to give you a day or so to — ah, renew acquaintance — before bothering you with business. But something’s come up that we think is pressing. As in really pressing.”
Both Sharon and Yuri sat up straight. “Which is…?” said Yuri.
“It seems Victor Cachat is back from the dead. Presumed dead, rather. Anton Zilwicki also. I have been asked to convey to you the government’s displeasure at not being informed of Cachat’s survival. Given that we are formally allied, they feel they should have been notified. If not at once, certainly in less time than two months.”
“The ship they used to carry the message to me was an Erewhonese vessel,” said Sharon. “Are you seriously going to claim you didn’t get the news as soon as I did?”
“I grant you we learned the fact of their survival as soon as you did. The government’s displeasure stems from your failure to formally notify them and provide any further details..”
Yuri decided to let Sharon keep handling things, even though it would normally be his job as ambassador. (Fine. Envoy extra-crispy etc., etc., but in practice it came to the same thing.) But he’d just arrived and hadn’t been fully briefed. More precisely, he hadn’t been briefed at all. Well, leaving aside carnal matters that were none of anyone else’s damn business.
Sharon obviously agreed, since she spoke without hesitation or so much as a glance in his direction. “Let’s translate that statement out of diplomatese, shall we? The triumvirate that runs the show — we’ll skip all the silly stuff about ‘the government’ — is ticked off but since they’re probably not that ticked off — yet, anyway — they sent you as their spokesman since you don’t officially have any political position or power — we’ll all agree not to collapse in riotous laughter here — and so they figure coming from you it’ll have less of an edge to it.”
Sharon shrugged. “It was Victor’s order not to divulge anything, and he’s my boss.”
Imbesi pursed his lips. “The conclusion I come to is that Cachat thought gaining a few weeks of secrecy was important enough to risk irritating an ally. Fine. The few weeks have now gone by — so we can move to the critical question, which is what did he and Zilwicki discover that warrants these extreme measures?”
He waved his hand again in a gesture which, though dismissive, was not small at all. “And please spare me the usual drivel about ‘the needs of security,’ Sharon. I’ve gotten to know Victor Cachat rather well over the past couple of years. Perhaps unusually for someone in his line of work, he’s not obsessive about secrecy.”
“Generally, no. You’re right. But in this instance” — Sharon spread her hands in a gesture that simultaneously conveyed I speak the solemn truth and it’s out of my hands anyway — “he told me nothing in the first place.”
Imbesi was silent for a few seconds. Then, pursed his lips. “You’re not lying, are you?”
He looked at Yuri. “I know what happened on La Martine, High Commissioner Radamacher. We compiled an extensive file on the affair — on anything involving Victor Cachat’s history, once it became clear how large a presence he was going to have for us. One of the conclusions I drew from the affair was that Cachat has an almost eerie sense for selecting his subordinates. The two of you — others — and then he gives them lots of leeway and doesn’t micromanage. Some people might even accuse him of recklessness, in that regard. But I don’t know of any instance where his judgment has proven faulty.”
Yuri had to fight a little to keep an expressionless face. He really didn’t like Victor Cachat. But as much as any person alive he knew just how capable the man was. Fiendishly capable, even. But Yuri didn’t doubt at all whose fiend he was: Haven’s, as sure as any law of thermodynamics.
So he was just as surprised as Imbesi to learn that Cachat hadn’t told Sharon what he’d learned and where he was going with it. They hadn’t talked about it, simply because… Well, more pressing matters arose. But he’d assumed that would be part of the briefing Sharon would give him afterward.
The Erewhonese politician’s assessment was quite correct. Cachat was supremely confident in his ability to select his assistants, and then he didn’t second-guess himself.
He hadn’t even told Sharon?
Imbesi said it for him. “So all hell’s about to break loose.” He nodded, more to himself than anyone else. “I’ll let the triumvirate know. Sharon, High Commissioner Radamacher — ”
“Call me Yuri, please.”
“One moment, Walter.” Sharon leaned forward a little. “As long as we’re on the subjects of secrecy and all hell breaking loose, when can we expect a briefing from you regarding the new relationship you’ve forged with Maya Sector? Congratulations, by the way. You’ve come up in the galaxy. You used to launder money and now you’re laundering superdreadnaughts.”
She smiled sweetly. “Seeing as how we’re allies, as you just pointed out.”
There was no reaction at all on Imbesi’s face in response to those comments. Which were obviously something else Yuri needed to be briefed on.
After a moment, Imbesi just said: “I’ll have to get back to you on that. Have a pleasant day.”
The screen went dark.
“I can’t remember feeling like such a complete ignoramus since I was twelve,” Yuri complained. “When I got called on in class to enumerate the noble gases and I didn’t have a clue what the teacher was talking about. Since when did chemical elements have an aristocracy?”
“If Victor we’re here.” Sigh. An apostrophe indicates that something has been left out, so putting the missing letters back in, this becomes “If Victor we are here.” That’s completely meaningless. I hope there’s time to fix this before publishing; this particular illiteracy is particularly annoying to me.
It’s the apostrophe that’s extraneous. And the last I heard (which was two days ago, from a Weber post on his site) they still hadn’t gotten the last three chapters to Baen, and were already late getting to the printers. So I suspect the chances of anyone fixing it are small to approximately zero.
Hopefully, what Eric gave me to post is an early version because I’ve spotted problems that will be seen in later snippets.
John Roth, OF COURSE it’s [it is] the apostrophe that’s [that is] extraneous. It’s [It is] just that this illiteracy is so easy to get right (a simple rule with a single exception that is so extraordinarily rare that you are unlikely to encounter it in a lifetime of writing), that I just can’t understand why anyone ever gets it wrong, much less something that must have had at least one cursory edit before being published as a snippet.
People make mistakes. In my life, I’ve only known two people that did anything perfectly; one was my mother and the other was a secretary at the first place I worked.
There’s a reason why major publishers have intake editors (slush pile readers), editors, copy editors and proofreaders – it isn’t that they like to pay unnecessary people to sit around and not do anything useful.
My point was that at least a couple of pairs of eyes must have looked at it, so someone should have caught it. If you know the rule, it stands out like a sore thumb. You don’t have to be perfect to notice something that screamingly obvious.
I’m not sure what you mean in your second paragraph. Are you saying that Baen is not a major publisher and doesn’t have that array of reviewers? If so, I’ve suggested a way to help with that, but nobody seems much interested.
You also need to remember that Weber currently does most of his “writing” using a speech recognition program. I’m guessing, the speech-to-text guessed wrong about parts of speech (because that stuff is *hard*) and put the wrong version of the homophone in.
It’s not a homophone; the two forms are pronounced differently (yet another reason why it stands out like a sore thumb). It does explain why so many other errors creep in.
I disagree, but it really does depend how lazy I’m being. I’ll concede it’s less cut-and-dried than their, there, they’re.
I used to work in prepress (creating the files to go to the printer) for a place that did it for math and science textbooks. We always had at least two different editors proof everything, plus the editors at the publisher.
Most pages had at least 2 and sometimes up to 4 rounds of corrections. Even then, some small errors still made it through to the print run.
Now I’ll admit being a bit confused about time sequence. At the end of Chapter 4 of ART, they decide to head for Haven and send a copy of everything to Torch. At the end of Chapter 5 of CoG, Princess Ruth is notified that they’ve resurfaced. Now we learn that Erewhon has known they’ve been back for two months, and nobody told Princess Ruth?
This is a bit unfortunate. In 20th century English and diplomatic protocol, ‘high commissioner’ and ‘ambassador’ are exact synonyms. Commonwealth countries exchange high commissioners instead of ambassadors.
Australia has a high commissioner in Ottawa and an ambassador in Washington. They have the exactly same powers, functions, responsibilities, and immunities..
The chapter would make sense if Haven had a chargé d’affaires or a minister at Erewhon. As it is, it’s dangerously close to a schoolboy howler.
No, havinmg a chargé d’affaires would not be better, in fact it would ruin the point – which is that Haven has someone who has all the same powers, functions, responsibilities, and immunities as an ambassedor…he just isn’t called an ambassedor.
Alan, I tend to give Dave and Eric a pass on this sort of thing, over 2000 years terms and there meanings may change.
It’s a bit like David Drake translating to modern measures and weights in his RCN series.
It’s the grammar and continuity things in books that gets under my skin.
These novels are written in the English of the 21st century, not the language of 2000 years hence. I have no problem with new meanings either, but there needs to an apologetic for it. This is just a case of insufficient research, like having an admiral commanded by a lieutenant.
He should have used charge d’affaires as they present their credentials to the foreign minister rather than the head of state.
This sort of thing has occurred between Saudi Arabia and Thailand since 1989, after the so called blue diamond affair.
Among former diplomats (admittedly a smaller group than former military) this reads like: ‘Admiral Smith snapped to attention as a voice announced ‘Corporal on deck!’
Or, like having a Vicar above an archbishop, bishop, etc? ;)
Was it the red queen who said ” words mean what I say they mean?” Weber writes a work of fiction. He defines the difference between ” high commissioner’ and ‘ambassador’ for the period of his story. The mere fact that his definitiodifferfrom current usage is irrelevant and objections to it are a mere quibble.
It was Humpty Dumpty:
==========================
‘There are three hundred and sixty-four days when you might get un-birthday presents —’
‘Certainly,’ said Alice.
‘And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!’
‘I don’t know what you mean by “glory”,’ Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. ‘Of course you don’t — till I tell you. I meant “there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!”‘
‘But “glory” doesn’t mean “a nice knock-down argument”,’ Alice objected.
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master — that’s all.’
Alice was too much puzzled to say anything; so after a minute Humpty Dumpty began again. ‘They’ve a temper, some of them — particularly verbs: they’re the proudest — adjectives you can do anything with, but not verbs — however, I can manage the whole lot of them! Impenetrability! That’s what I say!’
‘Would you tell me please,’ said Alice, ‘what that means?’
‘Now you talk like a reasonable child,’ said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. ‘I meant by “impenetrability” that we’ve had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you’d mention what you mean to do next, as I suppose you don’t mean to stop here all the rest of your life.’
‘That’s a great deal to make one word mean,’ Alice said in a thoughtful tone.
‘When I make a word do a lot of work like that,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘I always pay it extra.’
‘Oh!’ said Alice. She was too much puzzled to make any other remark.
‘Ah, you should see ’em come round me of a Saturday night,’ Humpty Dumpty went on, wagging his head gravely from side to side, ‘for to get their wages, you know.’
(Alice didn’t venture to ask what he paid them with; and so you see I can’t tell you.)
Quibbling matters. I recommend you attend an editorial conference some time. You will see sustained, combative and intense quibbling. Weber actually does something quite different from your claim. He uses ‘high commissioner’ in the sense of ‘chargé d’affaires’ without an apologetic to explain why the meaning of ‘high commissioner’ has changed.
It is particularly weird because the high commissioner title does not express diplomatic protest, it actually expresses diplomatic closeness.
Pakistan, South Africa and other places have been expelled or suspended from the Commonwealth of Nations at various points in their history. One of the markers for this is recalling high commissioners and replacing them with ambassadors.
I’m not sure any author would be all that happy invoking Humpty Dumpty as a literary authority, whether Humpty is quoted in his own right or mistaken for the Red Queen.
Maybe the point here is that there isn’t a difference in the Honorverse either, but changing the job title sends one of those subtle diplomatic messages that goes over the rest of our heads with a gentle whooshing sound. Like the one Terry Pratchett says he likes to hear as a deadline goes past.
Persons who wish to spend their life quibbling are welcome to do so.
Quodlibetarians of the Universe, Unite!
You have nothing to lose but your time.
And dyslexics of the universe, untie!
Bleek!