Mikli trickled smoke from his nostrils. His lazy voice continued: ‘Now, of course, the Federation authorities have had your report to alarm them further, as well as one or more actual nuclear explosions.’
‘What?’ Terai bellowed, and Wairoa stirred in his corner.
Mikli nodded. ‘Yes. It happened about the same time as Jovain’s coup and all the interesting action that followed, so there was no chance to notify you. I didn’t hear about it myself till I’d returned home. But, yes, Mong observers picked up clear traces of atmospheric detonations in a high latitude and west of them. They notified the Maurai, who confirmed it. Communications have been super-tip-top hush-hush. Mustn’t poke the anthill unnecessarily, at least not before the party responsible is identified beyond doubt. Otherwise the devil alone knows what would come of the global hysteria that’d follow.
‘Meanwhile, the Federation is rushing additional personnel to its Inspectorate in the Union. Its fleets are converging from around the planet to Awaii – closest major base to us, and we are the most obvious suspects.’
‘You are guilty,’ Terai said in a flat voice. The effort not to seize the creature before him and kill shuddered through his body.
‘Well, you and I know that, but where’s the clinching proof?’
Mikli retorted smugly. ‘What shall the Inspectorate search for, and where? Whom shall the Navy attack? A new war against the Northwest Union would be essentially a war against innocent bystanders, who’d fight but not have had the least part in … Orion. It would drag on as long as the last one did, or longer, because you’re not mobilized for it as you were then, and – in the absence of anything except allegations – it would be unpopular at home.’
Terai swallowed. He felt sick. Everything he had heard was correct: not true, if ‘true’ meant ‘honest,’ but correct. He remembered learned professors in Wellantoa who described the Power War as militarism gotten out of hand – oh, yes, nuclear generators could never be permitted, but the abandonment of that project could have been negotiated. He remembered commentators and preachers who denounced the continued Maurai presence in the Northwest as cultural imperialism, a boot stamping down on the very diversity that the Federation claimed to treasure. He remembered demonstrations by the youthful and their graybeard imitators, many of them affecting bits of Northwestern garb, in favor of peace and freedom, which they seemed to think they had invented; some had jeered at him when he happened to be in uniform. (And he remembered youth in cities of the Union, aping Maurai fashions.) More to the immediate point, he remembered talking with mature and sober tribal leaders, from end to end of Oceania, who wondered if the cost of patrolling the world was not falling too heavily on their folk.…
But no matter that. The fact was that while the Maurai chased shadows, and maybe even put an army back on the mainland, the Wolves and whatever allies were theirs would keep busy; and it seemed they had begun testing their instrumentality of damnation.
Wairoa’s words crackled dry through Terai’s despair: ‘A question, Karst. How do you know the Mong detected a blast and informed the Maurai, if this has otherwise been kept secret?’
Taken aback, Mikli said, ‘Intelligence operations,’ in a tone less cocky than usual.
‘Furthermore,’ Wairoa pursued, ‘why where we sent from Yuan in your custody? Why should the Yuanese trust Norrmen with something so major as interrogating us?’
Recovering his balance, Mikli grinned. ‘Well, yes, we have succeeded in getting cooperation there.’
‘From certain Yuanese officers only. Else the whole world would know of an alliance, or at least a partnership, between the former enemies.’
Mikli stubbed out his cigarette and reached for a fresh one. ‘You’re smarter than I supposed, Wairoa Haakonu.’
‘Infiltration,’ the hybrid said. ‘Not by your nugatory government, but by Wolf and whatever other Lodges are in the plot. You have had twenty years. The polks are no longer nomadic war bands where everybody knows everybody else; they have members widely scattered, who move wherever circumstances may take them individually. You could introduce agents who could pass for Mong and work their way up – Injuns, Asian-descended Norries, or some of the actual Mong who still live here and there in your eastern Territories. Or white men, for that matter; the Mong are a heterogeneous lot. You could bribe, you could blackmail, you could convince sincere people that helping you was in the best interest of their countries. You wouldn’t try for the top echelons; that would be too risky, especially given the regimental hierarchy and merit system. But you could have your agents in place at nexuses through which information and command pass – your sleepers, your whole network to call upon at need. The Mong are naive to a pitiful degree. You and your kind are not.
‘Ye-e-es, I daresay also that when their legitimate officers imagined they were dealing with your government, its representatives were Wolves, who passed on to Vittohrya what they saw fit, and no more. Congratulations on a bad job well done.’
The sheer purposefulness of it – twenty years! – broke over Terai like surf.
Plain to see, Mikli did not like to be on the receiving end of talk. He rose. ‘Well,’ he snapped, ‘you may get a chance to ask further, when you’ve rejoined your friends of our little forest excursion.’
Terai hunched his shoulders against whatever blow would land next. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Why,’ Mikli taunted. ‘Iern Ferlay has enrolled under our banner, and Plik is inevitably tagging along. My home is in Laska, where we’re going to need better security arrangements, so I’ll come too. Why not keep the old gang together? We shouldn’t hold you here any longer anyway, what with the Inspectorate dashing about like so many waterbugs. We’ll take you with us. Pack up. We leave in an hour, while this helpful fog lasts.’
He turned and went into the next room. The door slammed behind him. For a while both Maurai were mute and motionless. Then Wairoa said slowly, in the language of their home: That is an evil man. Not simply an opponent. He radiates evil. Can’t you smell it?’
‘No,’ said Terai. ‘But I believe it.’
He stared into the cold formlessness outside before he finished, ‘I’ll get word back. I will, or die.’
3
Clouds drove low across Dordoyn. Their grayness veiled the heights and turned somber the hues of autumn on the steeps beneath. Wind wailed, a sound as cold as the air itself. Damp odors blew about, in between spatters of rain. Roads had become rivers of mire, squelching to weary hoofbeats.
More than ever, Castle Beynac seemed to belong here. The modern additions looked dream-unreal against those stark old walls and towers. Riding from Port Bordeu, Ashcroft Lorens Mayn had come to yearn for warmth, firelight, ease, and he was no weakling. He had chosen to fare in this manner with his retainers so that the pysans could see their new castlekeeper and feel assured that he meant them well. They had given him flinty stares and returned none of his genial gestures. Now he wondered how much comfort awaited him at journey’s end.
A reception committee stood outside the gate, wrapped and hooded. They had mustered an honor guard, too, which was encouraging – militiamen in uniforms and crested helmets, daggers at belts, pikes, crossbows, and rifles at shoulders. Lorens urged his horse to a final canter up the approach, drew rein, and lifted an arm in salutation. From visits in earlier days, he recognized faces. The first officer, Iern Ferlay’s fellow Clansman Hald Tireur, waited in the forefront, his back and time-plowed countenance held stiff. The secretary, a young groundling named Ans Debyron, waited nearby, a parchment in his hands, no friendliness in his face either … or in any of those confronting the newcomers.
At Lorens’ back, a score of mounts snorted, stamped, and came to a halt. He counted the men before him: twice the number of his, two dozen among them armed. Wishing to avoid provocation, he had confined weapons in his party to knives, a few pistols, and four lances that were mainly for display of pennons.
‘Greeting, Clansmen and goodfolk,’ he said. ‘
Peace and welfare be yours.’ Wind seized the formality and scattered it like the dead leaves that tumbled past.
‘Greeting,’ responded Hald. ‘May I ask your name and errand?’
Dumbfounded, Lorens could merely exclaim, ‘You know me!’
‘These witnesses require your name and errand, sir.’
Some point of Dordoynais law or custom? This is not gentle Bourgoyn, where Faylis and I played as children amidst the vineyards. ‘I am … Ashcroft Lorens Mayn, colonel in the Terran Guard, lately made castlekeeper of Beynac and environs. I have come to assume my duties.’ Impulse: ‘You knew that! I called ahead, after you received written notification –’
‘We have received no notification of your appointment according to ancient usage. Therefore we have received no notification at all.’
Lorens struck fist on saddlebow, mastered himself, and said with a mildness that cost him much: ‘Hald, you know these are extraordinary times. This is an area vital to the security of the Domain,’ these wild and rugged hills, shelter for bandits or rebels. ‘Its proper superintendence could not wait on conventional procedures’ when not a single qualified Talence will accept the post under Jovain. ‘The Captain used his emergency power to appoint me. I am the brother of the missing castlekeeper’s wife. My intention is to care for the interests of his family, and especially of the people, your people, Hald. As soon as someone of the blood can be regularized, I’ll step down in his favor.’
‘When will that be, and how many garrisons will you first have set in our midst?’ Hald also must struggle for restraint. His followers stirred and glared. Guardsmen’s knuckles whitened above the grips of their weapons. The officer turned to Ans Debyron. ‘Read the declaration of refusal,’ he said thickly. ‘You drew it up.’
The secretary bowed, stepped forward, and unrolled his parchment. Red and white chased each other across his smooth cheeks. His voice sometimes wavered or cracked. But the words fell forth like stones:
‘Imploring the mercy of Deu, invoking the anims of the Ancestors, we, the men of Py Beynac, assembled on this date of –’
Lorens heard a mumbled curse or two behind him. He sat half listening, feeling less shock than might have been expected, and more tiredness.
‘– old rights confirmed by the Treaty of Périgueux, whereby Dordoyn became a state of the Domain –’ But that was centuries ago. The time is long overpast for Franceterr to be once more a true nation, oneness within Oneness. How dare they set their will against it?
‘– call upon all sons of Py Beynac and their brothers throughout Dordoyn –’ They dare.
‘– do not recognize the authority, under any circumstances whatsoever, to name a person as castlekeeper who is not legitimately a Ferlay –’ Faylis has cast Iern from her, now they cast her from them.
‘– maintain loyalty to the Domain and its established institutions, which include Ileduciel and the Aerogens, while such loyalty be mutual; but violation of law, usage, and rights is treason. We call for a meeting of the Clan Seniors and the heads of the several states, to inquire –’ They aren’t actually rebelling, yet. Skyholm can blast into smoke any army they may field. But what of guerrillas? What of refusal to deal? Skyholm cannot scorch the land itself. That would be an offense against Gaea second only to unleashing the atom; and without supplies from the ground, Skyholm will soon fall from heaven.
‘– wherefore, Ashcroft Lorens Mayn, we ask that you go from us peacefully, but we require that you go.’
He heard out the signatures and titles. Ans withdrew, breathing hard. Lorens formed a smile of sorts. ‘You make things very clear,’ he said through the wind. ‘You are sadly misled, but of course I don’t want trouble and I will return home. Are we offered hospitality for the night?’
‘No,’ said Talence Hald Tireur.
Lorens turned in the saddle to gesture caution at his indignant party and informed Iern’s Clansman, ‘We’ll find an inn. Don’t punish the landlord for receiving us. Let’s keep relations as smooth as may be.’
Hald responded with a brief nod. Lorens brought his horse around for the downward ride. It began to rain in earnest.
4
In the Captain’s lofty office, Jovain peered across his desk and said, ‘This is a grave matter. Perhaps a capital matter.’
The lean, white-haired woman sat unmoved. ‘Then please get to the point, sir,’ she replied. ‘I told you when you summoned me back here, it was a damned inconvenient moment.’
‘You did not explain why, Colonel.’
‘Wasn’t it obvious?’ Vosmaer Tess Rayman asked. He must needs admire how skillfully she modulated her tones. The note of scorn was never quite identifiable as such. ‘My command is as restive as any. The boys know nothing except that your announced intention is to cut down on the military in general and storm control in particular. When, how much, in what ways? Uncertainty is worse than the ax itself. They bitch, they get into trouble off base, they start thinking more about home and kin – the old securities of the regions they came from – than about their service.’ He opened his mouth; she hushed him by lifting a finger. ‘I don’t so much mean pilots and staff recruited from the Aerogens. They’re more conspicuous and more articulate, but the Air Force is just a fraction of their lives. I’m thinking of career personnel, mostly groundling-born, few of them flyers – mechanics, traffic controllers, computermen, electronicians, quartermasters, cooks, the whole underpinning of our organization. Their morale is pretty badly shaken.’
‘Already? Nothing has happened yet.’ Jovain frowned. ‘Nor have I heard about this problem.’
‘You wouldn’t have … yet. Sir. A person has to be close to such things – in the beginning – to see. After they explode, anybody can tell, but then it’s too late. We of the officer’s corps have been trying to find ways we might head off trouble and recommendations we can make to the Captain.’
Distracted despite himself (Do I encounter anything but distractions, I who meant to bring a benign revolution?). Jovain tugged his beard and said, ‘Consider reminding them that the armed forces and auxiliaries exist to serve the Domain, not the other way around. If a reduction in size and role is called for, be assured that this will be a phase-out, not a chop-off, and nobody will lose what he or she has earned a right to.’
‘Apart from the meaning of their lives – a meaning they’ll have to seek elsewhere,’ Tess retorted. ‘Your Dignity’ – he realized that she reverted to the principal honorific as a method of emphasis – ‘please bear in mind that a large part of what’s held the peoples and states of the Domain together has been the things they do together.’
Jovain gathered resolution. ‘I am not unaware of that, Colonel. I submit that it is time for us to abandon obsolete institutions and practices and seek new goals. But meanwhile, as for unity –’
He straightened till he felt his back muscles stretch. ‘Let me be frank,’ he said. ‘I believe you deserve no less. There can be honest differences of opinion as to what’s best for the Domain. I respect them. In fact, I’m eager to take them into account, and disappointed at the lack of response to my overtures. But what we must have is unity. Dissent, properly expressed, is one matter. Conspiracy, or outright insurrection, is another.’
‘Indeed it is,’ she said dryly.
That stung. ‘Colonel Tess,’ he snapped, ‘I am giving you the privilege of discussing with me, personally, a very serious question that has been raised about: your actions.’ He drew breath. ‘A warrant of inquiry is out for Talence Iern Ferlay. It has been widely publicized. If he is willfully failing to appear, that makes him a fugitive from the law. If he has not appeared because somehow he came to grief, then whoever withholds pertinent information commits a felony.’ He attempted a smile. ‘I myself wish him well. We’ve had our disagreements, true, but I’m genuinely anxious about him.’
‘Indeed you are, sir.’
Is she being impassive or is she being sarcastic? Ignore that. Attack. ‘Colonel, either he parachuted fro
m here or he fell to his death. There is no third possibility. Our teams ransacked Skyholm and every departing aircraft, as you well remember. Investigators ascertained that a man answering closely enough to his description bluffed his way past a sentry out onto an inspection platform, did not return, and had a parachute. It’s well known that you and he were rather close. Investigators found another guard who, earlier, noticed a certain person carrying off the equipment for such a dive. Depth-recall technique brought out a description which could belong to your son Dany.
‘The inference is obvious,’ Jovain finished. ‘Have you any comment?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Her manner remained cool. ‘This is nothing but hearsay, from a span of time when the whole aerostat was in turmoil and nobody could possibly be a reliable witness to anything – least of all those outsiders you imported.’
Then you deny complicity?’
‘Sir, by the code of the Aerogens, you have no right to ask such questions.’ Tess reared her head more high than before, amidst the relics filling this room.
‘Where is Vosmaer Dany Rayman?’
Tess grinned. ‘How should I know? I gave him a well-earned furlough, and he’s a healthy young bachelor.’
‘You force me to issue a warrant for inquiry for him too.’
‘The Captain of Skyholm has that prerogative.’
‘I can bring charges against you, Colonel.’
‘The Captain of Skyholm may request my superior officers or the Seniors of my Clan to bring charges.’ Tess gave him a moment to consider her precise phrasing. ‘I suggest you refrain, sir. I’ve explained that those so-called statements are worthless. A court-martial, let alone a Clan court, would throw them out like garbage.’
The Clans and the officers stand by their brethren. Acid washed up into Jovain’s gullet and burned. ‘I can arrest you on my own authority, remember.’
‘And hold me for a limited time before I must be tried. Sir, again I don’t recommend it. My associates and I are too busy already, trying to knit an unraveling fabric back together.’
Orion Shall Rise Page 37
