Gatto

Please spare a thought for Lieutenant General Cesare Gatto, Imperial Marine Corps. Not the most prominent character in Poul Anderson's Technic Civilization History. Not a name that springs to the lips like van Rijn, Falkayn or Flandry. Nevertheless, Gatto has his role.

When Olaf Magnusson leads his fleet to conquer the Terran Empire, Gatto becomes "...the effective ruler of the Patrician System..." (Flandry's Legacy, New York, 2012, p. 269). Because Diana Crowfeather had traveled with the suspect Targovi and because she is young and female, he personally interrogates Diana. He offers her protection in troubled times and also to take her sightseeing when he has the time. She declines but invests "...half an hour in being charming to the general." (p. 274) Later, bored in her hotel room, she begins to regret her refusal but then gets a better offer.

Much later, Diana and her companions present Gatto with intelligence that makes him change his course. He has to arrest an entire local population that has been covertly supporting Magnusson's rebellion. He asks one of their representatives why they have committed mass treason. He himself has committed treason although not against his species. A week later, he must make a broadcast that ends the rebellion. Magnusson was a tool of the Merseians.

So we should not admire Gatto but should perhaps be glad that he did take decisive action when the damning evidence had been brought to his attention.