“Well, I don’t know,” Colin put in. He was the oldest. Since he would therefore be the next Firstman, family custom had kept him from joining the service. (Hugh McCormac had only succeeded when his elder brother was caught in a sand hell and died childless.) Perhaps his planetographic researches in the Virgilian System had not satisfied every inborn impulse. “You weren’t here, Father, when the revolution reached Nova Roma. But I saw crowds — plain, kindly citizens — hound Snelund’s political police down the streets, catch them, string them up, and beat them to death. And it felt right. It still does, when you think what they’d done earlier.”
“Snelund himself’ll be a while dyin’, if I catch him,” John said hotly.
“No!” McCormac snapped. “You’ll not sink yourself to his ways. He’ll be killed as cleanly as we kill any other mad dog. His associates will have fair trials. There are degrees of guilt.”
“If we can find the lice,” Bob said. McCormac thought of the wilderness of suns and worlds where his life had passed, and said, “Probably most will succeed in disappearing. What of it? We’ll have more urgent work than revenge.”
They rode silent for a while. The trial debouched on one of the steplike plateaus and joined a paved road to Windhome. Soil lay deep, washed down from the heights, and vegetation flourished, in contrast to a few dwarf bushes on the eroded slopes. Trava decked the ground almost as luxuriantly as it did the seabed. Mainly it was fire trava here, the serrated leaves edged with scarlet; but the sword kind bristled and the plume kind nodded. Each type was curling up for the night as temperature dropped, to form a springy heat-conserving mat. Trees grew about, not only the low iron-hard native sorts but imported oak, cedar, and rasmin. The wind carried their fragrances. Some ways to the right, smoke blew from a farmer’s stone cottage. Robotized latifundia weren’t practical on Aeneas, and McCormac was glad of that; he felt in his bones that a healthy society needed yeomen.
Colin clucked to his horse and drew alongside. His sharp young face looked unhappy. “Father—” He stopped.
“Go ahead,” McCormac invited.
“Father … do you think … do you really think we can pull it off?”
“I don’t know,” McCormac said. “We’ll try like men, that’s all.”
“But — makin’ you Emperor—”
McCormac felt anew how pitifully little chance he’d had to speak with his nearest, since his rescuers brought him home: too much to do, and each scant hour when something wasn’t clamoring for attention, the body toppled into sleep. He had actually stolen this one day.
“Please don’t imagine I want the job,” he said. “You haven’t been on Terra. I have. I don’t like it. I was never happier than when they reassigned me back where I belong.”
Imperial routine, passed over his mind. Rotate careerists through a series of regions; but in the end, whenever feasible, return them to the sectors they came from. Theory: they’ll defend their birthhomes more fiercely than some clutch of planets foreign to them. Practice: when revolt erupted, many Navy personnel, like civilians, discovered that those homes meant more to them than a Terra most of them had never seen. Problem: if I win, should I discontinue the practice, as Josip doubtless will if his admirals win?
“But why, then?” Colin asked.
“What else could I do?” McCormac replied.
“Well … freedom—”
“No. The Empire is not so far decayed that it’ll allow itself to be broken apart. And even if it were, I wouldn’t. Don’t you see, it’s the single thing that stands between civilization — our civilization — and the Long Night?
“As for armed protest, it might stimulate policy changes, but the Imperium could not pardon the ringleaders. That’d invite everybody with a grudge to start shooting, and spell the end as clearly as partition would. And besides—” McCormac’s knuckles stood white where he grasped the reins — “it wouldn’t get Kathryn back, if any hope remains of that.”
“So you aim to preserve the Empire, but take it over,” Colin said quickly. His desire to guide his father’s thoughts off his stepmother’s captivity was so obvious that McCormac’s heart writhed. “I’m with you. You know that. I honestly think you’d give it new life — the best Emperor we’ve had since Isamu the Great, maybe since Manuel I himself — and I’m layin’ not just me, but my wife and son on the board for you — but can it be done?” He waved at the sky. “The Empire’s that huge!”
As if at a signal, Virgil went down. The Aenean atmosphere held no twilight worth mentioning. Alpha and Beta Crucis blazed forth, then almost instantly thousands more and the frosty bridge of the Milky Way. The land mass on the right became utterly black, but Lavinia silvered the sea bottom under the left-hand cliffs. A tad-mouse piped into the mordant wind.
McCormac said: “The revolution has to have a leader, and I’m its choice. Let’s have no false modesty. I control the Cabinet on the principal world of this sector. I can prove by the record I’m the top Naval strategist the Empire has. My men know I’m strict about things that matter, compassionate about the rest, and always try to be fair. So do a hundred planets, human and nonhuman. It’d be no service to anyone if I claimed different.”
“But how—” Colin’s voice trailed off. Moonlight glimmered along his leather jacket and off his silver-mounted saddle.
“We’ll take control of this sector,” McCormac told him. “That’s largely a matter of defeating the Josipist forces. Once we’ve done it, every significant community in a ten-parsec radius will come over to us. Afterward … I don’t like the idea myself, but I know where and how to get barbarian allies. Not the few Darthan ships I’ve already engaged; no, really wild warriors from well outside the border. Don’t worry. I won’t let them plunder and I won’t let them settle, even if they’ll swear allegiance. They’ll be hirelings paid from tax monies.
“The whole Imperial fleet can’t ever come against us. It has too many other duties. If we work fast and hard, well be in shape to throw back whatever does attack.
“Beyond that — I can’t predict. I’m hoping we’ll have a well-governed region to show. I’m hoping that will underline our message: an end to corruption and tyranny, a fresh start under a fresh dynasty, long-overdue reforms … What we need is momentum, the momentum of a snowball. Then all the guns in the Empire can’t stop us: because most of them will be on our side.”
Why a snowball? jeered his mind. Who knows snow on Aeneas, except a thin drift in polar winter?
They rounded a cluster of trees and spied the castle. Windhome stood on what had once been a cape and now thrust out into air, with a dizzying drop beneath. Lights glowed yellow from its bulk, outlining dark old walls and battlements. The Wildfoss River brawled past in cataracts.
But McCormac did not see this immediately. His eyes had gone to the flat Antonine horizon, far below and far away. Above a last greenish trace of sunset, beneath a wan flicker of aurora, burned pure white Dido, the evening star.
Where Kathryn worked, xenologist in its jungles, till that time I met her, five years ago (no, three Aenean years; have I really been so long in the Empire that I’ve forgotten the years of our planet?) and we loved and were married.
And you always wished for children of your own, Kathryn, dyuba, and we were going to have them, but there were always public troubles that ought to be settled first; and tonight — He thanked his iron God that the sun of Llynathawr was not visible in those latitudes. His throat was thick with the need to weep. Instead, he spurred his horse to a gallop.
The road crossed cultivated fields before it reached Windhome’s portal. A caravan of itinerants had established itself on the meadow in front. Their trucks were parked aside, lost in gloom; light from the castle fell only on gaily striped tents, fluttering flags, half-erected booths. Men, women, children, packed around campfires, stopped their plangent music and stamping dances to give the lord of the manor a hail as he rode by. Tomorrow those tatterdemalion wanderers would open their carnival … and it would dr
aw merrymakers from a hundred kilometers around … though the fist of the Imperium was already slamming forward.
I don’t understand, McCormac thought. Horseshoes rang in the courtyard. A groom caught his reins. He jumped to the ground. Guards were about, the new-come Navy personnel and the liveried family retainers strutting with jealous glances at each other. Edgar Oliphant hurried from the keep. Though McCormac, as Emperor, had raised him to admiral, he hadn’t yet bothered to change the captain’s star on either shoulder. He had merely added a brassard in the Ilian colors to the tunic that snugged around his stocky form.
“Welcome back, sir!” he exclaimed. “I was ’bout to dispatch a search party.”
McCormac achieved a laugh. “Good cosmos, do you think my boys and I can get lost on our ancestral lands?”
“N-no. No, sir. But ’tis, well, if you’ll ’scuse me, sir, ’tis foolish for you to run loose with not a single security escort.”
McCormac shrugged. “I’ll have to endure that later, on Terra. Leave me my privacy a while.” Peering closer: “You’ve something to tell me.”
“Yes, sir. Word came in two hours ago. If the admiral, uh, the Emperor will come with me?”
McCormac tried to give his sons a rueful look. He was secretly not sorry to have his awareness taken from the orbit into which it had fallen — again.
The ancient dignity of the Firstman’s office had vanished of recent weeks in a clutter of new gear: communication, computation, electronic files and scanners. McCormac sank into a chair behind his battered desk; that at least was familiar. “Well?” he said.
Oliphant closed the door. “The initial report’s been confirmed by two more scouts,” he said. “The Imperial armada is movin’. ’Twill be here inside three days.” It made no difference whether he meant the standard period or the 20-hour rotation of Aeneas.
McCormac nodded. “I didn’t doubt the first crew,” he said. “Our plans still stand. Tomorrow, 0600 Nova Roma time, I board my flagship. Two hours later, our forces depart.”
“But are you certain, sir, the enemy won’t occupy Aeneas?”
“No. I would be surprised, though, if he did. What gain? My kinfolk and I won’t be around to seize. I’ve arranged for the enemy to learn that when he arrives. What else can he make a prize of on Aeneas, till the fighting’s past? Whoever wins in space can mop up the planets soon enough. Until then, why commit strength badly needed elsewhere, to grip a spearwasp’s nest like this world? If he does occupy, then he does. But I expect hell leave the Virgilian System the instant he discovers we aren’t trying to defend it, we’re off to grab the real trophy — Satan.”
“Your screenin’ forces, however—” Oliphant said dubiously.
“Do you mean protection for offplanet bases like Port Frederiksen? A light vessel each, mostly to guard against possible casual destructiveness.”
“No, sir. I’m thinkin’ of your interplanetary patrols. What effect ’ull they have?”
“They’re just Darthan mercenaries. They have no other purpose than to mislead the enemy, gaining time for our fleet,” McCormac said. Have I really not made it clear to him before now? What else have 1 overlooked since the avalanche hit me? — No, it’s all right, he’s simply been too engaged with administrative details on the ground, “A few vessels posted in local space, with orders to attack any Josipist craft they may spot. Those’ll be scouts, of course, weakly armed, easily defeated. The survivors among them will carry the news back. I know Pickens’ style of thinking. He’ll be convinced we intend to make a fight of it at Virgil, and proceed ultra-cautiously, and therefore not detect us on our way off to Beta Crucis.” Oh, good old Dave Pickens, who always brought flowers for Kathryn when we invited you to dinner, must I indeed use against you the things I learned when we were friends?
“Well, you’re the Emperor, sir.” Oliphant gestured at the machines hemming them in. “Plenty of business today. We handled it how we could in Staff, but some items seem to require your attention.”
“I’ll give them a look-over right away, before eating,” McCormac said. “Stay available afterward, in case I need to consult.”
“Aye, sir.” Oliphant saluted and left. McCormac didn’t retrieve the communications at once. Instead, he went out on a balcony. It opened on the cliff and the rich eastern bottomlands. Creusa, the inner moon, was about due to rise. He filled his lungs with dry chill and waited.
Nearly full, the satellite exploded over the horizon. The shadows it cast moved noticeably; and as it hurtled, he could watch the phase change. Drowned in that living white light, the Antonine appeared to get back its vanished waters. It was as if phantom waves ran across those reaches and surf beat once more on the foot of Windhome ness.
You used to say that, Kathryn. You loved these moments best, in the whole year of our world. Dyuba, dyuba, will you ever see them again?
VII
When Virgil showed a perceptible disc without magnification, Asieneuve went out of hyperdrive and accelerated inward on gravs. Every sensor strained at maximum receptivity; and nothing came through save an endless seething of cosmic energies.
“Not so much as a radio broadcast?” Flandry asked.
“Not yet, sir,” Rovian’s voice replied.
Flandry turned off the intercom. “I should be on the bridge myself,” he muttered. “What am I doing in my — your cabin?”
“Gatherin” intelligence,” the woman said with a faint smile.
“If only I were! Why total silence? Has the whole system been evacuated?”
“Hardly. But they must know the enemy’ll arrive in a couple days. Hugh’s a genius at deployin’ scouts. He is at most things.”
Flandry’s gaze sharpened on her. Too restless to sit, too cramped to pace, he stood by the door and drummed fingers on it. Kathryn McCormac occupied the chair. She appeared almost calm.
But then, she had done little except sleep, between his first talk with her and this one. It had gone far toward healing her in body and, he hoped, at least a small distance toward knitting the wounds that had been torn in her mind. The time had, however, given him a bad case of the crawlies. It had been no easy decision to race ahead of the fleet, the whole way at top quasispeed, bearing his prisoner to the rebel chieftain. He had no hint of authority to negotiate. His action could only be defended on the freest imaginable interpretation of his orders; wouldn’t it be valuable to sound out the great insurrectionist, and didn’t the wife’s, presence offer a windfall opportunity to do so?
Why does it bother me to hear love in her voice? Flandry wondered.
He said, “My own genius is in glibness. But that won’t get my stern out of the sling if this maneuver doesn’t show some kind of profit.”
The chrysocolla eyes beneath the amber bangs focused on him. “You’ll not make Hugh yield,” she warned. “I’d never ask him to, no matter what. They’d shoot him, wouldn’t they?”
Flandry shifted his stance. Sweat prickled under his arms. “Well — a plea for leniency—”
He had seldom heard as grim a laugh. “Of your courtesy, Commander, spare us both. I may be a colonial, and I may’ve spent my adult life ’fore marriage doin’ scientific studies on a breed of bein’s that’re scarcely more concerned with mankind than Ymirites are … but I did study history and politics, and bein’ the Fleet Admiral’s lady did give me a lot to observe. ’Tis not possible for the Imperium to grant Hugh a pardon.” Briefly, her tone faltered. “And I … ’ud rather see him dead … than a brain-channeled slave or a lifelong prisoner … a crag bull like him.”
Flandry took out a cigaret, though his palate was scorched leather. “The idea, my lady,” he said, “is that you’ll tell him what you’ve learned. If nothing else, he may then avoid playing Snelund’s game. He can refuse to give battle on or around those planets that Snelund would like to see bombarded.”
“But without bases, sources of supply—” She drew a shaken breath. It bulged out the coverall she wore in a way to trouble Flandry. “Well,
we can talk, of course,” she said in misery. The regained strength fell from her. She half reached toward him. “Commander … if you could let me go—”
Flandry looked away and shook his head. “I’m sorry, my lady. You’ve a capital charge against you, and you’ve been neither acquitted nor pardoned. The single excuse I could give for releasing you would be that it bought your husband’s surrender, and you tell me that’s unthinkable.” He dragged smoke into his lungs and remembered vaguely that he ought soon to get an anticancer booster. “Understand, you won’t be turned back to Snelund. I’d join the rebellion too before permitting that. You’ll come with me to Terra. What you can relate of your treatment at Snelund’s hands, and his brags to you … well, it may cause him difficulty. At a minimum, it ought to gain you the sympathy of men who’re powerful enough to protect you.”
Glancing her way again, he was shocked to see how the blood had left her face. Her eyes stared blank, and beads of perspiration glittered forth. “My lady!” He flung the cigaret aside, made two steps, and stooped above her. “What’s wrong?” he laid a palm on her brow. It was cold. So were her hands, when his slipped as if of themselves down her shoulders and arms. He hunkered in front and chafed them. “My lady—” Kathiyn McCormac stirred. “A stimpill?” she whispered.
Flandry debated calling the ship’s medic, decided not to, and gave her the tablet and a tumbler of water. She gulped. When he saw the corpse color going and the breath becoming steady, it rejoiced in him.
“I’m sorry,” she said, scarcely audible above the murmur of the ship. “The memory bounced out at me too quick.”
“I said the wrong thing,” he stammered, contrite.
“Not your fault.” She stared at the deck. He couldn’t help noticing how long the lashes were against her bronze skin. “Terran mores are different from ours. To you, what happened to me was … unfortunate, nasty, yes, but not a befoulin’ I’ll never quite cleanse me of, not a thing makes me wonder if I really should want to see Hugh ever again … Maybe, though, you’ll understand some if I tell you how often he used drugs and brain-scramblers. Time and again, I was trapped in a nightmare where I couldn’t think, wasn’t me, had no will, wasn’t anything but an animal doin’ what he told me, to ’scape pain—”
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