Between the Stars by John Maddox Roberts, Eric Kotani

grin unchanged. "How did it go?" he asked.
    "Not bad," Derek said, "I've been hired on with security at third-level pay with full seniority. And he's picking up Cyrano 's payment schedule." Thhe look on is cousin's face was worth all the trepidation.

FOUR

    Shevket leaned over the green baize and carefully plotted his shot. His right hand swung in a brief, precise arc. The stick slid between the gloved fingers of his right hand, and the leather tip struck the cueball on its outer surface in a perfect line with its center of mass. The white ball rebounded from two cushions and struck another white ball, this one with two black spots. The spotted ball caromed off another rail and clicked elegantly into a red ball. He stood back and lightly stroked the leather tip of the stick with a cube of blue chalk while he planned his next shot.
    Larsen stood patiently, awaiting his turn. He had no interest in the game and did not play it well. Shevket was a man of action and preferred to speak while moving about and performing some function, preferably competitive. Larsen was willing to put up with it, if in the meantime the Turk would speak his mind.
    "Carstairs," Shevket said, sighting along the cue stick. "He has to go. The man has stayed around too long. He is in our way."
    "Carstairs did not reach his present eminence by being soft," Larsen said. "He has not stayed there by being foolish. He has dealt with attempted coups in the past, always successfully." He flicked imaginary lint from his impeccably tailored Saville Row sleeve. He detested Shevket, who was an uncultured beast from a part of the world not distinguished for its devotion to humanitarian behavior. However, the Turk was invaluable as an enforcer.
    "Carstairs now is not the man he once was. In any case, he came to power in an easier world, when people still believed in a better future. He is accustomed to gaining his ends through political maneuvering, and that's a thing of the past. Only force counts now." He made another perfect three-cushion shot. "He was never a military man. He never understood the needs of the military."
    "Yet he used the military quite efficiently," Larsen pointed out. "He had no difficulty in bending the generals to his will."
    Shevket's next shot was a bit too forceful and he missed the red ball by a fraction of an inch. "The military system of four decades ago was weak and corrupt." He placed his stick on a rack, apparently no longer interested in the game. "In those days, the upper ranks were held by political officers—old cronies of whatever Secretary General was in power. That was why he could manipulate them. It is also why they were so easily defeated in the First Space War."
    "The First?" Larsen's dark eyebrows arched. "Since it was the only space war, why this numerical distinction?"
    "Don't be obtuse," Shevket said. From a shelf in the billiard room he took his riding whip and slipped his hand through its wrist thong. With infinite care, he placed his hat at exactly the proper angle. His gloved fingers left no mark on its gleaming obsidian bill. "It was Space War One because there will be another, and soon. I've completely reformed the military. My officers are superbly trained. They hate the offworlders with intense passion. They are also perfectly loyal and willing to undertake any mission of conquest upon which I order them."
    "In other words, they are fanatics?"
    "Exactly. But they cannot be kept waiting forever. I have forged an army of conquest, and such an army will disintegrate from sheer boredom without worlds to conquer. Come, our luncheon guests await."
    As they left the billiard room, their bodyguards fell in behind them at a discreet distance. Shevket's wore the black uniform of his elite guard. Larsen's were anonymous men and women in civilian clothing.
    The Great Palace of the United Nations overlooked Lake Geneva. It was a grandiose structure, architectural propaganda designed to impress the citizenry with the majesty