Under the Yoke

by S. M. Stirling

  He took off his hat with his rein-hand and wiped the back of his wrist across his forehead, feeling the slight tug at his salt-wet hair as the arm touched the thong of his eyepatch. His scalp turned cool for an instant as the wind ran fingers through the sweat-damp mass, then warmed as it dried. He laid the hat on the saddle and looked aside at his wife, admiring the strong chiseled curves of her face. The family likeness was strong, even though they were merely fifth cousins; his branch of the family had left the inland plateau of southern Africa only a generation after the land-taking, a younger son heading north to the territories wrested from the Turks during the Napoleonic struggle.

  The blood runs strong, though, Edward mused. Not just in looks, his mind added, remembering the War. He had never risen higher than Tetrarch, never wanted to: Tanya had been a Cohortarch of the Guards before her twenty-fifth year. So beautiful and so dangerous, he thought.

  He had still felt awkward around Citizen women when they met back before the War, both off their home ground, visiting the ancestral von Shrakenberg estate of Oakenwald south of Archona. Doubly so before this glamorous stranger, already with a prize from the Central Gallery for her paintings. A grin lit his face at the memory of that first wild coupling in darkness amid the clatter of falling brooms and buckets; emerging with clothes carefully straightened to find an amused authence alerted by the noise. Letters, visits… The coming of the War had been obvious by then, they had hurried to have their immortality, no time to take up land and build first—"Auric fo' yo' thoughts, love," she said gently.

  "Oh, rememberin' our youth," he said.

  She raised a brow, replied in a mock-aged quaver. "Ahh, yes, hand me m' shawl, sonny…" A return squeeze at his hand. "Good times, darlin'."

  "Bettah to come," he said. "Leastways the War's over."

  Tanya nodded around at the fields. "Good to have a place of our own," she said quietly. A chuckle: "Remembah that Fritz sayin', 'Happy as God in France'? I can see what they meant. One problem, though."

  "Hmmm?"

  "No Wayfarer-Guest fo' the namin' feast."

  He frowned. "We could arrange it," he pointed out.

  "No, no, it's supposed to be a genuine stranger. Someone passin' by, representin' the Race in general an' treated as one of the guests of honor. First on the invited list arrive tomorrow, an' still no passers-by. Frontier problem."

  That was the problem; Citizens were still a thin scatter of pioneer planters in the Loire valley, without the town populations that would provide through-traffic later.

  "Put someone out on the road to flag down cars?" he guessed.

  "Done, love, but all we've got so far today is passin' serfs and people on official business that won't wait."

  "How old is this Lola-cursed custom, anyhows?" he said.

  "Gods know, an' they don't tell. Frey's prick, my daddy was christened in a church, with a plain dinnerparty afterwards," she said frankly.

  Edward stared. "In a church?" he asked incredulously. "That yo nevah told me, love."

  Tanya shrugged in embarrassment. "Oh, not that they were believers or anythin', darlin'. Just, ah, conservative, it wasn't all that uncommon then, 1890's, remember. I suspect this Wayfarer thing's not much older than yo' or I; custom has to start somewheres, though." Another shrug. "Someone will turn up; there's forty million of us, after all. One isn't too much to ask."

  Frederick Kustaa braked the Kellerman mini to a halt on the embankment road, steering over to the verge.

  The sudden quiet struck ears numbed by the rush of air past the open windows, the pink-ting of gravel thrown up by the wheels, and the dull roaring of the burner. Metal pinged as it cooled, and the fan sank to a gentle sough as the engine's feedback system signaled reduced demand for steam. He looked back over his shoulder; nothing on the long stretch of road behind him, nothing ahead since the two staff cars had whipped by fifteen minutes ago. Silently, he cursed the chance that had brought them up behind him just before the turnoff; under no circumstances did he want any Draka to see where his car had left the main road.

  "We are unobserved?" the man in the back seat said. A thick Austrian-German accent; Professor Ernst Oerbach was a balding man in his forties, looking incongruous in a servant's livery of dark-brown trousers and high-collared jacket.

  More at home in sloppy tweeds, Kustaa thought: the man was almost a caricature of a Mittcleuropan Herr Doktor of physics. At a pinch he could pass for a medical man swept up in the conquest and sold cheap to a crippled Draka veteran.

  "I hope we are," he said aloud, pushing down the reversing-lever and turning the little car in a U. It handled well, very much like an American autosteamer of the same class, say a Stanley Chipmunk. More of a driver's auto, less in the way of auxiliaries, but it was solidly built and the standard of the machining was beautiful; the Domination had never developed Pittsburgh's liking for planned obsolescence.

  The American flogged his mind to keep awake as they drove east once more; his eyes were sandy with fatigue, and his mind and tongue felt thick with it. He looked at his watch: ten to seven in the afternoon. No, 18:50 hours, he reminded himself doggedly, pulling the ragged edges of his cover-personality's protective blanket back up about himself. You're a Draka, they use the twenty-four hour system all the time. The Loire turned gently amid islands of warm gold sand and green willow, a hypnotic glittering as the sun sank behind them, soothing and lulling… He jerked his head up and wound down the window, letting the warm air blast at his face. Hot and a little humid, but nothing like a Midwestern summer, and the smells were different, more varied.

  The fields beside the road were turning to the harvest; big fields of tasseled corn, sheets of sunflower and chrome-yellow rapeseed, wheat gold-brown and flecked with blue cornflower and red poppies. Grain rippled in long slow billows, dusty yellow sunlight catching the flowers so that they glowed like jewel-chips afloat on an ocean of molten bronze. Pasture was a faded green, until they passed a hayfield being mowed by half a dozen horse-drawn cutter-bars; that was a darker alfalfa color, and the scent struck home with a memory of warm barns and the weight of a pitchfork in his hands. There were orchards, cherries and peaches and others he could not identify, and vineyards, the grapes showing blue-purple among the big forest-green leaves, hanging from the trellis-wires along which the vines were trained. The land seemed more wooded than it was, the slow rise to the north hidden by lines of trees high enough to cut the horizon.

  "How it has changed," Ernst said, and the American could feel the headshake in his voice.

  "You were here before?" Kustaa said, grateful for the conversation; he had not wanted to force it.

  "In the '20's; I was doing some work at the Curie Institute, and friends took me on a… pilgrimage. Just this time of year, as well." A long silence. "If it was not for the river and the lay of the land, I would not recognize it. All this"—he waved his hand—"was small farms, with scattered houses and little barns. Small fields, vegetables, and the flowers, so beautiful… little inns where we stopped, and had wine and crayfish soup and hot bread; there was Madeline, I remember, and Jules, he was a good friend, and Andre… We were young, the Great War was over and such madness could never come again, we would make the world anew with the power of Science. Jules would tell me that first we must learn how to design a just and rational society, and I would say that no, first we must tap the power of the atom to free men from the poverty of nature so that they could afford to be humane."

  He laughed. "And now all anyone wants of me is means to destroy," he said, "Turn this"—he nodded at the landscape outside the auto—"into a poisoned wasteland. It is not my world, this place of fire and ice you young men must inherit."

  "Doubts, professor?" Kustaa said lightly. Unseen by the man behind him, his lips tightened; this was only bare-bones possible with the civilian willing.

  "No. No doubts, my young friend; these Draka," and his lips twisted at the word, "they have the souls of reptiles and their Domination is a cancer. That they have
atomics is bad enough, but fusion… there is no way to prevent them forever, nobody can declare secret a law of nature, but yes, I believe your United States, your Alliance, should have it first. If only because you are less likely to unleash it."

  Unfortunately true, Kustaa thought with bitterness. There was a long pause before the Austrian spoke again.

  "Yet you also used atomics on a city of men," he said softly. "Human beings flashed to shadows on the concrete, children burned alive, cancer, leukemia, sterility. The warlords of Japan were evil men, but can that justify…"

  "You have a better way, Professor?" Kustaa asked sharply.

  "No." A sigh. "No, I do not, if I did I would not be here, ja? Ruthlessness drives out restraint, as bad money drives out good, until we are left using madness against madmen, with the death of all that lives as a prize; such is this Todentantz of a century of ours." Another pause. "I am glad to be old, my friend, very glad indeed."

  Kustaa remembered his family in the primary target zone; remembered the microfilm in his belt, and what rested in the baggage trunk of the autosteamer. This time he slammed his hand against the pressed-steel panel of the car door, hard enough to skin a knuckle. The sharp pain jolted him back into alertness; how long had it been since he slept?—Christ, two days now. Fear returned with thought, the waiting between his shoulderblades for sirens and shots. He almost stamped on the throttle when the two figures stepped out into the road to flag him down by the tall stone gates. The men leaped aside with a yell as the Kellerman leaped forward with a spurt of dust, then slammed to a halt.

  Kustaa heard Ernst's quick surprised curse in German as he shoved home the brake and the cylinders exhausted with a quick hiss-chuff! The older man's forehead thumped against the back of the seat, and his own nearly slammed into the padded surface of the wheel. He sat, shaken, staring at the sign that hung in chains between the gateposts:

  CHATEAU RETOUR PLANTATION

  EST.1945

  EDWARD AND TANYA VON SHRAKENBERG,

  LANDHOLDERS

  "That's it, by God," he mumbled. "That's the one." Now the problem was gaining entry to the household. The fabled planter hospitality would do him some good, his wounded-veteran status more, but… he remembered the notice in the local paper, this christening party or whatever it was. Maybe they haven't got the last guest, yet.

  The two men with branches came cautiously to the driver's side of the car; French by their looks and dress, serfs certainly by the numbers on their necks.

  "Maître," one said, and shifted into barely comprehensible English, obviously picked up from Draka or Domination-born serfs:

  "Mastair, pleez to 'company moi, a l' Great House, to be guest?"

  Kustaa croaked, and waved a suitably imperious hand at Ernst, who responded with accented but fluent French. The serfs face cleared from its frown of concentration, and he poured out a torrent of response accompanied by hand-waving.

  "He says that you are bidden to the house as a guest, for a naming-feast, master," Ernst said.

  Kustaa hid his grin; the nearest thing most Draka had to a religion was a belief in the destiny of the Race, but they had as much need for ceremonial as any people. There had been a Nietzsche-and-Gobineau-inspired attempt to revive Nordic paganism back in the 1890's, but it had failed even more dismally than the later Nazi efforts, only a scattering of swearwords surviving to mark it. Customs like this helped fill the gap; he supposed they also built communal solidarity. The Citizen caste was thinly scattered and would need some sort of structure to ensure a minimum of social intercourse. Which makes them less suspicious of a passing fellow-Draka, which I will take full advantage of, he thought.

  The other serf suddenly slapped his forehead, pushed the first aside and bowed, presenting a square of cardboard pulled from his pocket. Kustaa took it with a grunt of relief, read the flowing cursive script. It was handwritten, in a neat old-fashioned copperplate penmanship familiar from his study-courses:

  Edward and Tanya von Shrakenberg bid the passer-by to be Wayfarer-guest at the naming feast of their newborn twins, now to be welcomed to the Race. If your duties allow, enter for the sake of the blood we share and join in our celebration of kinship, standing as honored guest for all brothers and sisters of the Dragon breed. Let the bond of past, present and destined Future be renewed!

  We expect the feast to last three days from tomorrow morning.

  Be welcome; our house is yours.

  "Shit," Kustaa whispered, remembering to turn it to a cough at the last minute. Our luck is in at last, he thought with hammering glee. The recognition-Codes sounded through his head.

  The manor house of the plantation was an old French chateau; he glanced indifferently at the bulk of towers, the eighteenth-century additions, more recent construction. There would be time to memorize the floor-plan later, he thought, climbing stiffly out of the Kellerman, time when his brain was functioning on something less than reflex. He slung the battle-shotgun from the boot beside his seat and looked about. They had halted in a gravelled yard in front of the arched entrance that cut between two round towers and through the bulk of the building; he could see hints of courtyard and garden through the dim arched recess and the wrought-bronze gates that closed it. His mouth tasted of chalk, and his feet seemed to float over the rock and dry dusty pinkish earth of the drive as he moved to unlock the baggage compartment at the front of the auto.

  Ernst's small cardboard case. His own luggage, carefully faked by the OSS; two fold-and-strap bags of ostrich leather and aluminum framing with the gold stamp-marks of Foggard of Alexandria. A marula-wood case for the shotgun; he took that himself as servant's hands reached for the other luggage.

  "No," he croaked as they touched the other piece that filled most of the compartment, a box like a small steamer-trunk with handles at the corners, securely locked, plain steel freshly painted in dark green. His mind saw the markings underneath:

  Technical Section: Weapons Research Division. DO NOT TOUCH—RADIOACTIVE AND TOXIC. With the purple skull-and-bones symbol to add emphasis.

  Even without markings, it would provoke too much curiosity if the serfs tried to lift it; there were a dozen sealed tubes of raw plutonium oxide inside, each slotted into its holder. Plutonium is heavy, and the lead tubes and multiple lead-foil baffles of the shielding were even more so. The sight of it made him sweat, and he slammed down the lid with unnecessary force.

  "L' auto a parkin', Mastair?"

  He started and wheeled; the Frenchman jumped back with stark terror on his face, mouth working as if he was about to burst into tears. The sight of it turned Kustaa's stomach into a tight knot of nausea, adding to the sour taste at the back of his mouth.

  I'm a strange Draka, he reminded himself. I could blow his head off with this scattergun and get nothing worse than a fine and a tongue-lashing for destroying other's property. More reluctantly: No, not exactly. These planters are paternalists, in their way; they'd call out anyone who did that and kill them on the dueling field, the way an American might beat up someone who shot his dog. I'm a special case, with immunity to the usual sanctions. And he would look wild, dusty and tousled from the drive, unshaven, eyes glaring and red-rimmed from lack of sleep.

  The American straightened and forced himself to calm, plastering a smile on his face as he detached the control-locking key and handed it to the man. A garage would be as safe a place as any, for the next little while. He had to sleep. And the cargo would be ready to move.

  Ernst came to his side. "Horses," he muttered.

  Kustaa nodded jerkily, hearing the sound of hooves. Galloping; two half-dressed children leaped their mounts over a lane-gate on the west side of the chateau and pelted on behind it, yelling. He rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was seeing straight; then two adults followed more sedately, pausing to let a servant dismount and open the white-painted board gate before cantering over to him and dismounting. A man and a woman, he saw, both in planter's countryside garb. The man piratical with an eyepatch and sc
arred face; about Kustaa's own height, tow-colored streaks through short butter-yellow hair. Wedge-shape build from shoulders to hips, the usual Draka combination of startling muscle definition and swift controlled movement. Dangerous-looking, even without the marks.

  The woman stood with a hand on the man's shoulder, the riding-crop hanging by its thong from her right wrist tapping against one boot. Hard and mannish-looking to American eyes, like most Citizen women, bronze-blond hair cut in a short pageboy; gymnast's figure but long limbs and broad in the hips and shoulders, smaller bust than an American woman with her build would have had. They both wore the standard gun-belts with holstered 10mm automatics, pouches, long bowies at their left hips and slender daggers rucked into boot-sheaths. The weapons were finest-quality and customized, inlay and engraving on the pistols, checked hardwood knife-handles. But still eminently practical, and they both wore thumb-rings also, with surfaces chased to represent the knuckles of a mailed fist: the Archonal Guard.

  Don't underestimate them, Kustaa thought, stepping forward. Nothing to arouse suspicion, nothing.

  "Service to the State," he said, in a rasping croak. Damn, much more of this and my vocal cords will be injured, he thought with exasperation. His left hand flipped back the crushed-velvet lapel of his jacket, showing a seven-pointed star of turquoise and red gold; his right waved Ernst forward.

  "Glory to the Race," the two Draka replied in unison, their eyes dipping to the insignia, then back to his face with respect and sympathy. Kustaa's mind flicked back to his instructor, the Draka defector who had drilled him on basic etiquette.

  "Remember most Citizens don't just wear uniforms, they see combat," she had said, waving the cigarette for emphasis. "Auxiliaries do the scutwork. A Category III disability is somethin' we all risk; everyone has a subconscious reason to follow the custom of treatin yo' like a tin god. Yo'tt have to beat off the women with a stick, an men will buy yo' drinks an' listen to yo' war stories, or leave yo' alone iffn yo wants. Y' can get away with bein' considerable eccentric, too, 'specially with a headwound.