by David Weber
“Only if no word of where you really were at the time of the initial coup attempt ever gets out,” the Phaenur pointed out.
“Yes.”
Tchock Ral leaned forward and looked at Roger for a long time.
“You are telling us that if you fail, you intend to cover up the fact that you are not guilty of staging the first coup?” the Althari said. “That you would stain the reputation of your House for all time, rather than let that information be exposed.”
“Yes,” Roger repeated. “Letting it out would shatter the Empire. I would rather that my House, with a thousand years of honorable service to mankind, be remembered only for my infamy, than allow that to happen. Furthermore, your Alliance—you three individuals, and whoever else is let in on the secret—will have to hold it, if not forever, then for a very long time. Otherwise . . .”
“Chaos on the border,” Dren said. “Jesus Christ, Your Highness.”
“I asked for senior policymakers,” Roger said, shrugging at the engineer. “Welcome to the jungle.”
“How will you conceal the truth?” Sreeetoth asked. “If you’re captured? Some of you, no matter what happens, will be captured if you fail.”
“It would require a concerted effort to get the information out in any form that would be believed, past the security screen Adoula will throw up if we fail,” Roger captured. “We’ll simply avoid the concerted effort.”
“And your people?” the Althari asked, gesturing at the staff. “You actually trust them to follow this insane order?”
Roger flexed a jaw muscle, and was rewarded by a heel landing on either foot. Despreaux’s came down quite a bit harder than O’Casey’s, but they landed virtually simultaneously. He closed his eyes and breathed for a moment, then reached back and pulled every strand of hair into line.
“Admiral Tchock Ral,” he said, looking the Althari in the eye. “You are a warrior, yes?”
Eleanora was too experienced a diplomat to wince; Despreaux and Julian weren’t.
“Yes,” the admiral growled. “Be aware, human, that even asking that question is an insult.”
“Admiral,” Roger said levelly, meeting her anger glare for glare, “compared to the lowest ranking Marine I’ve got, you don’t know the meaning of the word.”
The enormous Althari came up out of her chair with a snarl like crumbling granite boulders, and the guard in the corner straightened. But Roger just pointed a finger at Sreeetoth.
“Tell her!” he snapped, and the Phaenur jabbed one hand in an abrupt, imperative gesture that cut off the Althari’s furious response like a guillotine.
“Truth,” it hissed. “Truth, and a belief in that truth so strong it is like a fire in the room.”
The lizardlike being turned fully to the bearlike Althari and waved the same small hand at its far larger companion.
“Sit, Tchock Ral. Sit. The Prince burns with the truth. His —soldiers—even the woman who hates to be one—all of them burn with the truth of that statement.” It looked back at Roger. “You tread a dangerous path, human. Altharis have been known to go what you call berserk at that sort of insult.”
“It wasn’t an insult,” Roger said. He looked at the trio of visitors steadily. “Would you like to know why it wasn’t?”
“Yes,” the Phaenur said. “And I think that Tchock Ral’s desire to know burns even more strongly than my own.”
“It’s going to take a while.”
In fact, it took a bit over four hours.
Roger had never really sat down and told the story, even to himself, until they’d worked out the presentation, and he’d been amazed when he truly realized for the first time all they’d done. He’d known, in an intellectual way, all along. But he’d been so submerged in the doing, so focused on every terrible step of the March as they actually took it, that he’d truly never considered its entirety. Not until they’d sat down to put it all together.
Even at four hours, it was the bare-bones, only the highlights—or low-lights, as Julian put it—of the entire trip.
There was data from the toombie attack on the DeGlopper; downloaded sensor data from the transport’s ferocious, sacrificial battle with the Saint cruisers and her final self-destruction after she’d been boarded, to take the second cruiser with her. There were recorded helmet views of battles and screaming waves of barbarians, of Mardukan carnivores and swamps and mud and eternal, torrential rain until the delicate helmet systems succumbed to the rot of the jungle. There were maps of battles, descriptions of weapons, analyses of tactics, data on the battle for the Emerald Dawn from the Saints’ tactical systems, enemy body counts . . . and the soul-crushing roll call of their own dead.
It was the after-action report from Hell.
And when it was done, they showed the Alphane delegation around the ship. The admiral and her guard noted the combat damage and fingered Patty’s scars. The engineer clucked at the damage, stuck his head in holes which still hadn’t been patched over, and exclaimed at the fact that the ship ran at all. The admiral nearly had a hand taken off by a civan—which she apparently thought was delightful—and they were shown the atul and the basik in cages. Afterward, Rastar, stony-faced as only a Mardukan could be, showed them the battle-stained flag of the Basik’s Own. The admiral and her guard thought it was a grand flag, and, having seen an actual basik, got the joke immediately.
Finally, they ended up back in the wardroom. Everyone in the command group had had a part in the presentation, just as every one of them had had a part in their survival. But there was one last recorded visual sequence to show.
The Althari admiral leaned back in the big station chair and made a clucking sound and a weird atonal croon that sent a shiver through every listener as Roger ran the file footage from the bridge’s internal visual pickups and they watched the final actions of Armand Pahner. The Prince watched it with them, and his brown eyes were dark, like barriers guarding his soul, as the last embers of life flickered out of the shattered, armored body clasped in his arms.
And then it was done. All of it.
Silence hovered for endless seconds that felt like hours. And then Tchock Ral’s face and palms were lifted upward.
“They will march beyond the Crystal Mountains,” she said in low, almost musical tones. “They will be lifted up upon the shoulders of giants. Their songs will be sung in their homesteads, and they shall rest in peace, served by the tally of their slain. Tchrorr Kai Herself will stand beside them in battle for all eternity, for they have entered the realm of the Warrior, indeed.”
She lowered her face and looked at Roger, swinging her head in a circle which was neither nod nor headshake, but something else, something purely Althari.
“I wipe the stain of insult from our relationship. You have been given a great honor to have known such warriors, and to have led them. They are most worthy. I would gladly have them as foes.”
“Yes,” Roger said, looking at the freeze-frame in the hologram. Himself, holding his father-mentor’s body in his arms, the armored arms which, for all their strength, had been unable to hold life within that mangled flesh. “Yes, but I’d give it all for one more chewing out from the Old Man. I’d give it all for one more chance to watch Gronningen being used as a straight man. To see Dokkum grin in the morning light, with the air of the mountains around us. To hear Ima’s weird laugh.”
“Ima didn’t laugh, much,” Julian pointed out quietly. The retelling had put all the humans in a somber mood.
“She did that first time I fell off Patty,” Roger reminded him.
“Yes. Yes, she did,” Julian agreed.
“Prince, I do not know what the actions of my government will be,” Tchock Ral said. “What you ask would place the Alphane Alliance in no little jeopardy, and the good of the clan must be balanced against that. But you and your soldiers may rest in my halls until such time as a decision is made. In my halls, we can hide you, even under your true-name, for my people are trustworthy. And if the decision goes agains
t you, you may rest in them for all eternity, if you choose. To shelter the doers of such deeds would bring honor upon my House forever,” she ended, placing both paws on her chest and bowing low across them.
“I thank you,” Roger said. “Not for myself, but for the honor you do my dead.”
“You’ll probably have to make this presentation again,” Sreeetoth said with another head bob. “I’ll need copies of all your raw data. And if you stay at Tchock Ral’s house, you’ll be forced to tell your stories all day and night, so be warned.”
“And whatever happens, you’re not taking this ship to Sol,” Mordas Dren put in. The engineer shook his head. “It won’t make it through the Empire’s scans, for sure and certain. And even if it would, I wouldn’t want to trust that TD drive for one jump. For one thing, I saw a place where some feeble-minded primitive had been beating on one of the capacitors.”
“No,” Roger agreed. “For this to work, we’re going to need another freighter—a clean one—some crew, and quite a bit of money. Also, access to current intelligence,” he added. He’d been fascinated by the fact that the admiral knew his mother was being controlled.
“If we choose to support you, all of that can be arranged,” the Phaenur hissed. “But for the time being, we must report this to our superiors. That is, to some of our superiors,” he added, looking at the engineer.
“The Minister’s going to want to know what it’s all about,” Dren said uncomfortably.
“This is now bound by security,” the admiral replied. “Tell her that. And only that. No outside technicians in the ship until the determination is made, either! And any who finally do get aboard her will be from the Navy Design Bureau. I think, Mordas, that you’re going to be left to idle speculation.”
“No,” the Phaenur said. “Other arrangements will be made. Such conditions are difficult for humans, and more so for one like Mordas. Mordas, would you go to the Navy?”
“I’m in charge of maintenance for the entire star system, Sreeetoth,” Dren pointed out, “and I’m a bit too old to hold a wrench. I enjoy holding a wrench, you understand, but I’m sure not going to take the cut in pay.”
“We’ll arrange things,” the admiral said, standing up. “Young Prince, Mr. Chung, I hope to see you soon in my House. I will send your chief of staff the invitation as soon as determinations are made.”
“I look forward to it,” Roger said, and realized it was the truth.
“And, by all means, bring your sword,” Tchock Ral said, with the low hum Roger had learned was Althari laughter.
Humans are descended from an essentially arboreal species. As a consequence, human homes, whenever it’s economically possible, tend to have trees near them, and growing plants. They also tend to rise up a bit, but not very far—just about the height of a tree.
The Altharis, for all that they looked like koala bears, were anything but arboreal-descended. That much became abundantly evident to Roger when he first saw the admiral’s “halls.”
Althari homes were almost entirely underground, and when economics permitted, they were grouped in quantities related to kinship. The admiral’s “halls” were a series of low mounds, each about a kilometer across and topped with a small blockhouse of locally quarried limestone . . . and with clear fields of fire stretching out over a four-kilometer radius. There were paved roads for ground cars between them, and several landing areas, including one nearly two hundred meters long, for aircars and shuttles. But the big surprise came when they entered their first blockhouse.
Ramps sloped downward into high-ceilinged rooms. And then downward, and downward . . . and downward. Among Althari, rank was indicated by the depth of one’s personal quarters, and Roger found himself ushered into a room about twenty meters across and six meters high, buried under nearly three hundred meters of earth.
He was glad he didn’t have a trace of claustrophobia.
Below the surface, all of the standard homes were linked through a system of tunnels. There were stores in the warren, escape routes, weapons—it was a vast underground fortress, and the Altharis living in it were a highly trained militia. And it was only one of thousands on the planet. Altharis who didn’t live in their own clan homes lived in similar local communities, some of which, from what the visiting Imperials had been told, were far more extensive, virtually underground cities. No wonder the Altharis were considered unconquerable.
The Imperials had arrived the night before, more or less surreptitiously, and been shown to their quarters. Those quarters had been modified to some extent for humans, so there were at least human lavatory facilities, built to human sizes. But the bed had been Althari, and Roger had been forced to actually jump to get into it. All in all, they weren’t bad quarters—as long as you ignored the weight of rock, concrete, and dirt sitting overhead. Nonetheless, Roger still preferred being up on the surface, as they were now.
The sky above was a blue so deep it was right on the edge of violet. Althar IV’s atmosphere was a bit thinner than Old Earth’s, although its higher partial pressure of oxygen made for a slightly heady feeling, and the humidity was very low. At the moment, there were no clouds, and after the eternal cloud cover of Marduk, Roger found himself drinking in the clear sky greedily.
Tchock Ral’s halls were placed in the approximate center of a long, wide valley on a bit of a plateau. To the east, north, and south, high mountains sparkled with snow; to the west, it opened out. The majority of the valley was given over to other warrens, farms, and a small, primarily Althari city. The city could be seen right on the western horizon, where a few slightly higher bumps marked low multistory buildings.
About a thousand Altharis, all the Marines, and half the Mardukans were either watching the competitions the admiral had decreed in honor of her visitors, preparing an outdoor feast, or just roaming around talking.
The day had started with a simple breakfast of prepared, dried human foods. Since then, for the last couple of hours, they’d been watching Althari sparring matches—mostly, Roger suspected, so that the humans and Mardukans could see the traditional Althari fighting methods. After the sparring matches were done, it had been time for the humans and Mardukans to show their stuff.
Rastar was sparring with a young Althari female. They were of about the same age, and similarly armed. Instead of whetted steel, each was armed with weighted training blades with blunted edges. The Althari held two, one in either bearlike paw, while Rastar held four of them. Rastar was the only Mardukan Roger had met who was truly quaddexterous. Whereas most Mardukans settled for fighting with two hands on only one side, if not a single hand, Rastar could fight with all four hands simultaneously. At the moment, each of his hands held a knife which would have been a short broadsword to a human, and they flickered in and out like lightning.
Each contestant wore a harness which noted strikes and managed scoring. In addition, Rastar wore an environmental suit that left only his face exposed, for Marduk was an intensely hot world, whereas Althar IV was on the cool side of the temperature range even humans would have found acceptable. It was the equivalent of an ice-planet for the cold-blooded Mardukans, and they found it necessary to wear the environment suits everywhere, except in the specially heated rooms set aside for them.
Climatological considerations didn’t seem to be slowing him down, however, as all four arms licked in and out. The Althari was good, no question, but Rastar was able to block with both upper hands while his lower hands—the much more powerful pair—flicked in to strike, and he was outscoring her handily.
“Score!” Tchock Ral called as Rastar’s lower left-hand blade tapped the Althari’s midsection yet again. “Adain!”
Adain was the command to separate and prepare for the next round, but instead of lowering her weapons and stepping back, the Althari female let out a hoarse bellow and charged, just as Rastar was stepping back. Roger had seen the same Althari win two other fights hands down, so he could imagine why she was so chagrined, and as Sreeetoth has warned
him aboard the Dawn, no Althari had ever been noted for her calm disposition.
Rastar was taken slightly off-balance, backing away from his opponent as the command required, but he spun nimbly to the side and let her charge past. All four of his blades flickered in and out in flashes of silver, painting the Althari’s combat harness with purple holograms at each successful strike. The Althari roared in fury, wheeling and charging furiously after him. But Rastar faded away from her attack like smoke, his own blades flick, flick, flicking with a merciless precision that painted violet blotches across her sides, back, and neck.
“Adain!” Ral shouted, and at the second bellow, Rastar’s opponent stopped, quivering.
“I apologize for that breach of protocol, Prince Rastar,” the admiral said. “Toshok, go to the side and contemplate the dishonor you just brought upon our House!”
“Perhaps it would be better for her to contemplate what real blades would have meant,” Rastar suggested. The Mardukan spoke excellent Imperial by now, and the Althari, with their own equivalents of the Empire’s implanted toots, understood him perfectly. Not that it made things much better.
“If you wish to face me with live blades—” Toshok ground out in the same language.
“You would be a bleeding wreck on the ground,” Ral said. “Look at the markers, you young fool!”
Toshok clamped her mouth shut and glanced angrily at the holographic scoreboard beside the sparring area. Her eyes widened as she saw the numbers under her name and Rastar’s, and then she rolled her ursine head from side to side, looking down at the glaring swatches of purple decorating her scoring harness.
“These are nothing!” she snapped angrily. “He barely touched me!”
“That’s because in a knife fight, the object is to bleed your opponent out, not to get your knife stuck in his meat,” Rastar told her. “Would you care to go another round with padding and use these—” he twitched all four blades simultaneously “—as swords, instead?”
