Faced with that look of Zhao Chen's, which held all things lightly.
Song Qingshan was taken aback a moment, and eyed him doubtfully,
as though guessing whether what this man had lately been through had not worked some sudden enlightenment in him.
As to sudden enlightenment: there are indeed men in whom, after they have been through certain things, a change comes that overturns heaven and earth.
Above all soldiers upon a battlefield.
For life and death are what can change a man most of all.
"Let us leave these things. Is there anything you would like to talk of? You seem to me a man curious about nothing whatever," Song Qingshan said, turning the subject of his own accord.
Zhao Chen looked at him. "What is this banquet truly for? If it is no more than dividing the small universe's resources. The Alliance's high men might perfectly well confer by screen, or the Council might simply decide it. To hold a banquet at such a time. And to call the commanders of every fleet to attend besides. Though it is little more than half a day from first to last. This is wartime; and half a day wasted may yet make certain of our deaths upon the battlefield count for nothing."
Hearing the challenge in Zhao Chen's tone,
Song Qingshan drank off a mouthful and said heavily: "So you have seen through it too. Just so. To my mind it is nothing but dogshit. The fighting is not even done, and there they sit thinking of banquets and the parceling out of resources. Laughable!"
Zhao Chen looked at him, and waited for him to let out more of the inside of it.
"That brother of mine does not agree to it either, in fact. Though I have no liking for him, I know his temper, and he would never in the world agree to such a thing. But… the Alliance is not so united as it looks from outside."
Song Qingshan smiled at his own expense. "To the outside eye, after that civil war the Alliance went through. Every power under the Alliance is held in my brother Song Chen's hand, and the Song family is become the first house of this universe? Wholly and utterly wrong. For that civil war did not in truth let Song Chen clear away every power that would not obey him. You must understand there were strong middle parties among them; and though they took no direct part in the civil war. They quietly gave the side each favored certain resources of war. How should Song Chen not know of such things? Only, after the civil war the whole Alliance was very weak. To scrape the bone and draw out the poison altogether was more than the Alliance could bear. With many urging him, Song Chen could only leave those hidden powers standing for a time. And set up the present Star Alliance Council. To look at it, the Council ought by rights to be held in Song Chen's hand. At the first it was indeed so. But with time. The old state of the Alliance, where every man raised his own banner upon his own hill, came back out of the ashes. Power after power appeared, chiefly among those great families that were once the middle party. Because they had preserved their own strength through that civil war. One waning while the other waxed, they naturally became the great houses second only to the Song. And the Song family having become the first house, the rest will naturally draw together without thinking, and stand against you. Which is how matters stand now. The Song faction with Song Chen at its head; and the conservative faction, made up chiefly of those who were once neutral."
By this point the drink before Song Qingshan was gone.
He ordered another.
And went on in the same mocking vein: "Why do I call them conservatives? Because at every turn they put a foot in Song Chen's way. Song Chen would mount a great invasion of the small universe; they oppose it, and hold it over-hasty. Song Chen would attack the other side's universe; they oppose it, and hold that peace is precious and the thing may be talked out. Song Chen would raise the armaments budget; they oppose it, and hold that the Alliance has not yet recovered from that civil war of a few years past. And that it is no time to raise the armaments budget. You must understand that this secret operation of ours was in fact ordered me by Song Chen direct. The Council was not told, and the conservatives knew nothing whatever of it. Otherwise they would never have agreed, and there would have been wrangling without end. So Song Chen gave me the order outright. The plan went smoothly, and won us a vast advantage in the larger reckoning, which is how we come to stand where we do. Had we failed. One may imagine well enough what the end of it would have been."
At the end of all this,
Zhao Chen laughed inwardly: so this Song Chen, for all his outward splendor, had troubles enough in fact.
"If these conservatives stand so much in the way. Why not clear them out?" Zhao Chen asked.
There was something cold and dark in Song Qingshan's eyes. "How should he not wish to? By what I know, Song Chen has meant to move against them several times over. Only the moment was never right. The first time he meant to move was not long after the civil war, when he would have cleared away those families that stood in his way. But then came the aliens' great invasion, and it would not do to raise up a second civil war. After that, the second time he meant to move was when the alien threat had been checked for the time being. But hard upon it came the appearance of the small world. Which put Song Chen's clearing-out off again. And so we come to the present."
Zhao Chen said lightly, "It seems this Leader Song Chen has no great luck."
"And this time, those conservative great houses have most likely marked what the Leader thinks of them. And know they must do something. In force of arms they are no match for Song Chen. But they hold the resources. And if there be added to that the resources the small world is to give them. Then, when Song Chen would move against them again, he will have to weigh it well. Which is why they press for a conference now, and for every man to be present. They are borrowing the weight of the occasion!" said Song Qingshan.
Zhao Chen nodded; he understood the conservatives' thinking.
They meant to make themselves a thing within the Alliance too great to fall.
So long as they held resources enough, that was enough to hold the Leader to terms.
You would move against us?
Very well; you must weigh whether you can take over every resource point of these families of ours in the turn of a hand.
And if you cannot.
Yes: we cannot beat your fleets.
But we can destroy every industrial installation at those resource points, star gates and star ports besides.
For a third of the Alliance's resources are at present bound up with these conservatives.
Break that supply, and to mend it takes first an outlay of capital, and then time.
But at this present stage, with the aliens invading and the other world threatening,
what you, Song Chen, lack is time.
A shameless means.
But one must own it answers very well.
"Still, I fancy this banquet will not be so simple a thing. There is a good play coming." A sly smile showed on Song Qingshan's face.
Zhao Chen narrowed his eyes. "You mean to say… the Leader… has something in hand?"
"That fellow Song Chen has a great temper on him. Held to terms again and again by that pack of old things. He will not swallow it forever. Once, twice, and you bear it. Three times, four times, and you bear it still. Which means that hereafter you must go on bearing it!" Song Qingshan said, and pitched forward onto the table.
Zhao Chen stared.
Good grief, surely the man's head for drink could not be as bad as that.