The Game of Empire df-9

by Poul Anderson

  Diana sniffed and tossed her head as much as she could under these conditions. “I can take care of myself, thank you. Do you know of anything yonder that might be Foredweller remains?”

  “In my traffickings I have seen curious sights, and heard tell of others. Once we’re there, I will ask more widely and more closely, until I have a goal or three for you.”

  She gave him a hard stare. “Why do you want this?”

  “Well, as a trader who smells trouble uptime, I need better information—”

  She laughed. “Let’s not play pretty games. Nobody can overhear us. You’re no more a simple packman than I am. I’ve known for years. What you really are, it wouldn’t’ve been polite to ask … ’til now.”

  He joined an acrid mirth to hers. “Hai, little friend of the universe, you are your father’s daughter! … I suspected that you suspected. Certain remarks you made, looks you pierced me with, already ere your limbs lengthened—not what a child shows the son of her mother’s associate when he’s come back from an adventure and put her on his lap to tell her about it … Aye, trusting you to keep silence, I admit to turning an honest credit now and then by keeping my senses open on behalf of your father’s corps. Is that terrible?”

  “Contrariwise,” she replied enthusiastically. “The Navy staked you, didn’t it? I never really believed what you said about the pirates.”

  “Well,” he growled, miffed, “we can talk further another time. What matters this evening is that devils are loose. They know me too well on Daedalus. But who would be wary of an innocent old priest and his young girl companion, wandering about on a purely religious expedition?”

  Diana tensed. “What’d we really be doin’?”

  “Essentially, distracting attention from me. I have business I want to pursue, best not discussed here. You two will be conspicuous without posing a threat to anybody.”

  She scowled. “I can’t just use him.”

  “You’ll not.” Targovi spread his hands. “Who dares say there are no Ancient relics along the Highroad River and—on islands beyond? Already millions of years ago, that must have been a good place to settle. I’ll help you gather information about it.”

  She bit her lip. “You tempt me. But it isn’t right.”

  “Think why I do this,” he urged.

  “Why?”

  “Because everything I have seen, heard, discovered on Daedalus shouts a single thing. Admiral Magnusson plans to rebel. His forces will hail him Emperor, and he will lead them in an assault on Gerhart’s.”

  Silence fell, save for wind, sea, and ship. Diana clutched the rail of the crow’s nest, which was pitching violently, and stared horizonward. Finally she said low: “No big surprise. Olga’s Landin’, too, has been abuzz with rumors. People are mainly afraid of an Imperial counterattack. I’ve lined up several hidey-holes for myself. But prob’ly that’s foolish. Why should anybody strike Imhotep? We’ll simply wait the whole thing out.”

  “You care not about revolt and civil war?”

  Diana shrugged. “What can I do about it? ’Twouldn’t be the first time it’s ever happened. From what I’ve heard, Olaf Magnusson would make a fine Emperor. He’s strong, he’s smart, and he can deal better with the Merseians.”

  “What makes you believe so?” Targovi asked slowly.

  “Well, he … he’s had to, for years, in this borderspace, hasn’t he? When things finally blew up, it wasn’t his fault. He met them and gave them a drubbin’. They respect strength. I’ve heard him blamed for not followin’ up the victory and annihilatin’ their fleet, but I think he was right. The Roidhun might not have been free to forgive that. Didn’t you often advise me, always leave an enemy a line of retreat unless you fully intend to kill him? As is, we’re back at peace, and the diplomats are workin’ on a treaty.”

  “Ah, you are young. Myself, I have lost faith in the likelihood of water spontaneously running uphill, teakettles boiling if set on a cake of ice, and governments being wise or benevolent. Tell me, what do you know about Admiral Magnusson?”

  “Why, why, what everybody knows.”

  “What is that? Spell it out for me. I am only a xeno.”

  Diana flushed. “Don’t get sarcastic.” Calming: “Well, if you insist. He was born on Kraken … m-m … forty-some Terra-years ago. It’s a hard, harsh planet for humans. They grow tough, or they die. An independent lot; their spacefolk trade outside the Empire as well as inside, clear to Betelgeuse or Merseia itself. But they give us more’n their share of military recruits. Magnusson enlisted young, in the Marines. He distinguished himself in several nasty situations. Durin’ the dust-up with Merseia at Syrax, he took command of the crippled ship he was aboard, after the officers were killed, and got her to safety. That made his superiors transfer him to the Navy proper and send him to the Foundry—the officer school in Sector Aldebaran. It has a fierce reputation.”

  “What did he do during the last succession crisis?”

  “Which one? You mean the three-cornered fight for the throne that Hans Molitor won? Why, he—m-m, his age then—he must’ve been at the academy yet. But the accounts I’ve seen tell how he did well when a couple of later rebellions needed squelchin’, plus in negotiatin’ with the Merseians, so you can’t say he hasn’t been loyal. In fact, he’s seldom visited Terra and never played office politics, they say, but he’s risen fast regardless.”

  “It did no harm that he married a Nyanzan heiress.”

  “Oh, foof! You’ve got to have money to go far in the service, civil or military. I know that much. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her.”

  “That is the official biography. What have you learned about him as a person?”

  “Oh, just the usual sort of thing you see on the news. No, I’ve also talked with some of the boys who serve under him. What they tell sounds all right to me. He does seem pretty humorless and strict, but he’s always fair. The lowliest ranker who deserves a hearin’ will get it. And he may be curt in everyday life, but when he unrolls his tongue—” Diana shivered. “I caught his speech last year, of course, after he’d saved us from the Merseians. I still get cold prickles, rememberin’.”

  “A hero, then,” said Targovi down in his throat.

  Diana’s gaze sharpened. “What’s wrong?”

  “Best I say no more at this stage,” he demurred. “I could be mistaken in my fears. But ask yourself what elements—criminal, mayhap—could be conspiring to take advantage of chaos. Ask yourself what harm I can work on any innocent party by helping uncover the truth, whatever the truth may prove to be.”

  “Um-m-m.” She stared out beyond the sunset. “Persuadin” Axor—because I will not fool him, Targovi, though I could maybe shade the facts a trifle—m-m-m … Yes, if I said Daedalus is a better huntin’ ground for him, and we’d be wise to get there while we’re sure we can, and you’ll take us because you’re sort of interested yourself—I think that would satisfy him. You see, he really does believe in goodness.”

  “Which you and I are not certain of. But we are certain of evil,” said Targovi. His tone had gone steely. “You might also, Diana Crowfeather, consider the cost of a civil war launched by your hero. Destruction, death, maiming, pain, grief, billionfold. You are more compassionate than I am.”

  Chapter 4

  The home of Admiral Sir Olaf Magnusson lay in the desirable tract a hundred kilometers north of Aurea. It was small, and the interior austere, for a man of wealth and power. But such was his desire, and any decisions he made, he enforced. The only luxuries, if they could be called that, were a gymnasium where he worked out for at least forty minutes in every fifteen hours, and an observation deck where he meditated when he felt the need. Naturally, his use of these was restricted to times when he was there, which had not been many of late.

  He stood on the deck and let his gaze range afar—a tall man, thickly muscular, with wide, craggy features, heavy blond brows over sapphire-blue eyes, thinning sandy hair. The face was tanned and deeply lined; its
left cheek bore the seam of a battle scar which he had never troubled to have removed and which had become a virtual trademark. What he saw was a vast sweep of land and sky. Close by, the land had been terraformed, planted in grass, roses, hollyhocks, Buddha’s cup, livewell, oaks, maples, braidwoods, and more, the gardens of an empire brought together around human houses. Beyond was primeval Daedalus, trees and brush, leaves a somber, gleaming green, never a flower. Those were not birds that passed above, though their wings shone in the evening light as the wings of eagles would have. The sun, sinking west, had begun to lose its disc shape. Haze dimmed and reddened it enough for vision to perceive that, because the rays came through ever more air as it dropped below what should have been the horizon. Golden clouds floated above.

  Olaf Magnusson did not really see this, unless with a half-aware fraction of his mind. Nor was he rapt in the contemplation of the All that his Neosufic religion enjoined. He had striven to be, but his thoughts kept drifting elsewhere, until at last he accepted their object as the aspect of the Divine which was set before him tonight.

  Strength. Strength unafraid, unhesitant, serving a will which was neither cruel nor kind but which cleanly trod the road to its destiny … He could not hold the vision before him for very long at a time. It was too superb for mankind. Into his awareness there kept jabbing mere facts, practicalities, things he must do, questions of how to do them—yes, crusades have logistic requirements too—

  A footfall, a breath reached his hearing. He swung about, his big frame as sure-footed as a fencer’s or a mountaineer’s, both of which he was. His wife had come out. She halted, a meter away. “What’s this?” he demanded. “Emergency?”

  “No.” He could barely hear her voice through the cold, whittering breeze, as soft as it was. “I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have interrupted .you, except that it’s getting late and the children are hungry. I wondered if you would be having dinner with us.”

  His basso rasped. “For something like that, you break in on my devotions?”

  “I’m sorry,” she repeated. Yet she did not cringe, she stood before him in her own pride. And her sadness. “Ordinarily I wouldn’t. But since you are going away for a long while at best, and God knows if you will ever come back—”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  Vida Lonwe-Magnusson smiled a bit. “You’d never have married an idiot, Olaf, no matter how much money she brought with her. Allow that I’ve gotten to know you over the years, in part, and I follow the news closely, and have studied history. What date have you set for the troops to spontaneously proclaim you Emperor? Tomorrow?”

  Surprised despite himself, he gave her a long look. Unflinchingly, the brown eyes in the black face returned it. The slender body in the simple gown stood straight. They were excellent stock on Nyanza, their ancestors as ruthlessly selected by a hostile nature as his had been, although the oceanic planet had prospered afterward more than cold and heavy Kraken ever could. Among his thoughts when he was courting her had been that a crossbreeding should produce remarkable offspring. Warmth touched him from within. “I wanted to spare you anxiety, Vida. Maybe what I actually did was cause you needlessly much. I never doubted your loyalty. But the fewer who knew, the better the odds. Premature disclosure would have been disastrous, as you can surely understand. Now everything is ready.” “And you are really going through with it?”

  “You will be Empress, dear, Empress of the stars we never see on Daedalus.”

  She sighed. “I’d rather have you … No, self-pity is the most despicable of all emotions. Let me only ask you, Olaf, here at the last moment, why you are doing this.”

  “To save the Empire.”

  “Truly? You’ve always had the name of a man stern but honorable. You gave your oath.”

  “It was the Imperium that broke faith, not we who fought and died while noblemen on Terra sipped their wine and profiteers practiced their corruptions.”

  “Is war the single way to reform? What will it do to the Empire? What of us, your people—your family—if you draw away our defenses? You kept this sector for Terra. Now you’ll invite the Merseians to come back and take it.”

  Magnusson smiled, stepped forward, laid hands on her waist. “That you needn’t worry about, Vida. You and the children will be perfectly safe. I’ll explain in my proclamation, and details will go into the public data banks. But you need just think. This sector is my power base. Until we’ve occupied and organized significant real estate elsewhere, this is where our resources and reserves are. And the Patrician System is the keystone of it. Nearly every other set of planets in the vicinity is backward, impoverished, or totally useless to oxygen breathers. That’s why the base is here, and the industries that support it. Gerhart’s first thought will be to strike at Daedalus, cut me off from my wellspring. So of course I must leave enough strength behind to make that impossible, as well as to back my campaign. The Merseians will know better than to butt against it. I promise!”

  “Well—” She shivered, stiffened, and challenged: “What else do you promise? Why should anybody go over to your cause, besides your devoted squadrons? Oh, I’m not saying you would be a bad ruler. But who can possibly be good enough to justify the price?”

  “You have heard me talk, both at home and in public,” he said. “I don’t claim to be a superman or anything like that. Conceivably, a better candidate exists. But where? Who else will make the Imperium strong and virtuous again?”

  His voice dropped, became vibrant: “And Vida, I will make up for lives lost, by orders of magnitude. For I will hammer out an end to this senseless, centuries-old conflict with the Roidhunate. The Merseians aren’t monsters. They’re aggressive, yes, but so were we humans in our heyday. They’ll listen to men who are strong, as I’ve shown them I am, and who are reasonable, as I will show them I am. It has already happened, on a smaller scale. The galaxy has ample room for both our races.

  “Will not a dream like that appeal to worlds gone weary?”

  There was a stillness that lengthened. The sun began to spread itself out in a red-golden arc.

  Vida laid her head against her man’s breast. He closed his arms about her. “So be it,” she whispered. “I’ll hold the fort as best I can. You see, I often think it’s foolish, but the fact won’t go away that I love you, nor do I want it to.”

  “Good girl,” he said into the fragrance of her hair. “Sure, let’s enjoy a family dinner.”

  That would be a chance to re-inspire his sons.

  Chapter 5

  Moonjumper toiled out of Imhotep’s gravity well, but once in clear space her gravs had the force to boost her across to Daedalus in less than fifty hours, at the present configuration of the planets. Within the potbellied hull, Targovi considerately maintained both weight and pressure at Terran standard, and wore his oxygill. Having put the ship on full automatic, he joined his passengers in the saloon. That was an elegant word for a dingy cabin into which Axor must coil himself while Diana perched on the table.

  They had dimmed the lights and were looking in wonder at a viewscreen. It showed the receding globe, luminous white and blue-green; three ashy-silver moons; crystalline blackness aswarm with fire-gems that were stars; the radiant road of the Milky Way. “God will always be the supreme artist,” rumbled the Wodenite, and crossed himself.

  Targovi, who was a pagan if he was anything, fingered the charm suspended at his throat. It was a small turquoise hexagon with a gold inlay of an interlinked circle and triangle. “Supreme at surprises, too,” he said. The longing surged in him. If this miserable tub of his had a hyperdrive, if he could outpace light and seek the infinite marvels yonder!

  Yet a planet could keep presenting a person astonishments throughout his lifetime. The trick was to avoid any that were lethal. “It were wise to make sure you twain know what to expect when we arrive,” he declared. “Daedalus has its uniquenesses. Diana, I would have to crawl over our friend to reach the cooler. Will you open it and serve us? You’ll find meat,
beer, cold tea, bread for yourself and for the Reverend if he wishes.”

  “I wish you’d remembered to stow some fruit,” she complained mildly. “I do love frostberries, and promised F. X. a taste.”

  “There may be some in Aurea, imported.” Targovi bounded to the table and curled up near the girl. He could do things like that in a low gee-field, and was so used to the gill that it was no nuisance. But he did need to keep active, lest his flesh go slack. He braced himself against what was going to hurt. “Let me not forget to supply you with money, unless Axor has more left him than I believe. You’ll be buying all your food, as well as most other things. Food can get expensive on Daedalus, and you may be faring for many a day.”

  “Ah … I have heard, yes, I have heard that the native life is inedible by us,” Axor said.

  Diana, busy improvising a sandwich, nodded. “None is known that’s poisonous, nor any disease we can catch,” she told him, “but the flip side of this is that we get nothin’ out of whatever we eat. Plant and animal kingdoms evolved there too, but not like yours or mine or Targovi’s. Proteins with d-amino acids, for instance. Here.” She handed him the sandwich. It was hefty, but vanished in his maw as a drop of water vanishes on a red-hot skillet. She whistled and set herself to carve him a piece of the roast—about half.

  “Thus it was necessary to introduce Terran and similar plants, later animals?” he inquired.

  “Aye,” Targovi said, “the which wasn’t easy. Plants need their microbes, their worms, a whole ecology ere they can flourish. And the native life wants not to be displaced. And it is adapted to the environment. Every patch of soil to be cultivated must first be sterilized down to bedrock—radiation or chemicals—and then the new organisms patiently nurtured. And meanwhile the old ones keep trying to reconquer it. Aquaculture is harder still.”