“That would be unworthy of you. That, my lord, has always been the base of the power of the Order. No one ever really knows who we are.”
“At times I wonder if it is all a hoax. You have your disgusting Shiv that you’ve bred, a few foolish priests in their white robes, and actually little if anything else.”
“If that was the case, why did you venture fifty million in gold to us against your brother? Why did you ensure my elevation in order to have that debt canceled. If you did not fear us, you would have slain the last Grand Master, slain me, and burned our temples, but you did not. Why?” ‘Yasim looked back over the railing. Yes indeed, why? he wondered. Why not kill him now? I know he plans eventually to kill me and seize the throne.
“You’re thinking about killing me because you fear that I am plotting to kill you.”
Yasim looked at Hazin and then slowly extended his hand. “For once, just for once, a moment of peace between us.”
“You were the one who started this line of conversation, my lord.”
“Enough, Hazin.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“I know what would happen if I slew you. The needle would find me.”
Hazin said nothing.
“Damn, how we slaughter each other,” Yasim sighed. “My brother. I remember our youth, my first teacher, the eunuch Galvina. How I loved him.”
Hazin laughed softly. “Sire, he was one of us.”
Startled, Yasim looked over at him.
“There was some serious bidding for a while between those who wanted him to kill you and those who did not. Obviously those who did not won.”
“Damn you,” Yasim whispered.
“Go on, though, sire, your story.”
The emperor nodded. “Galvina tried to teach me never to love those of my blood. That all my brothers, my cousins—we would turn upon one another in the end. It had always been that way, for our race will tolerate nothing less than the strongest, the most ruthless upon the golden throne. The weaker barbarian clans to the north might allow an eldest son to rule and force the others to bow, but we of the Kazan needed ruthlessness.
“In my heart I rebelled, for I loved my brother Hanaga, and I knew there was a time when he loved me. Remember the incident when we were but cubs out sailing in the harbor and the boat overturned?”
Hazin nodded.
“I got tangled in the sails and went under. It was Hanaga who saved me. He could have left me to drown and thus have one less rival, but he saved me.”
“He was honorable in his way.”
“What was it like to kill him?” Yasim asked.
“It was the task assigned by the Grand Master. It was not for me to have feelings about it. I did as the Order required of me, an act that you were to pay for. So do not look at me that way, sire. It was you who, in the end, held the knife. I but gave him his release.”
His words cut deeply, and Yasim lowered his head. “Galvina the eunuch was right: love no one.”
“It has always been that way, it must always be that way.”
“Tell me, what have my surviving cousins offered you?”
“To kill you?”
“Yes?”
“Not as much as you have to keep you alive.”
“Damn all this. It is waste, contemptible waste.”
“Sire, it is our way. Show weakness, and you will die.” Yasim looked at him in surprise, wondering if here, for an instant, was genuine counsel, advice freely given, without calculation.
“Go on, I sense you wish to say more, Hazin.”
“Sire, we have been trapped on our islands for thousands of years. Until two hundred years ago, we did not have the knowledge, the ships capable of spanning the vastness of this sea, until the coming of the Prophet and his companions. They gave us the knowledge to begin the revolution that has taken us, in a hundred years, from ships of wood to ships of steel, from ships of sail to the power of the great engines below these decks.
“Now we can expand, and we must. I believe something has happened with the Portals. There were the Prophets, and now we find that the leader of the Bantag, their Qar Qarth came from another world—I suspect the same as the Prophets. This place is the meeting point between worlds.
“Sire, that I will tell you is part of the plan of the Order, to gain the Portals, to unlock them, to control them. For whoever does that first will survive. Whoever fails will perish.”
“And whoever controls them will have the power to rule,” Yasim interjected.
. “The Order answers to you, sire. They would be yours.”
Yasim smiled. “And the Shiv?”
“It started as an experiment, nothing more. We bred pets for our amusement, even our affections. We bred beasts to give us milk. The barbarians to the north bred horses that came from the human world to fit their size. Why not breed humans as well?”
“There is something I have never felt comfortable with concerning that.”
“Why?”
“They are intelligent. You’ve read the writings of Ovilla.”
Hazin laughed. “That they just might have souls? Nonsense.”
“They are self-aware, Hazin.”
“Perhaps horses are, too, but horses do not make guns, ships, machines that fly. The humans to the north breed wild, like beasts. I seek perfecting them and then the harnessing of them to our needs.
“With the Shiv we present two things to the humans who defeated our cousins. The first is the threat of them. They are unstoppable in battle and will fight with superior cunning. Second, they offer a hope that will weaken the will to resist.
“It will appear that we offer a way to end conflict. A way for humans and our race to live together.”
“Under your order.”
“Which answers to you,” Hazin replied quickly.
Yasim smiled. “Go on.”
“As the Republic is defeated and the Hordes to the north are placed under your banner, your cousins will be diverted, and in that time your throne will be secured. The internal wars will be forgotten in an external war of conquest. That has been the bedevilment of the Kazan for a thousand years.
“Prior to the coming of the Prophet, the wars were at least contained, the destruction limited, but even you will admit that within the last two generations, the carnage has become unsustainable. The weapons have become too destructive, too powerful.”
“Yes, I know that. I believe my brother Hanaga did, too.”
“What happened at Bukara, for example.”
Yasim wondered if there was an accusatory tone in Hazin’s voice. He had leveled Bukara, which had gone over to his cousin Tagamish. Over two hundred thousand had died.
“They had given a sacred pledge of support and then betrayed it. That was always our custom.”
“Before, you would have slain but the leaders of the city and their retainers. The entire city, though?”
“War changes. The city was a base. Its factories in the hands of a rebellious cousin unacceptable, and we could not hold it. Destruction was the only answer.”
“That is my point,” Hazin replied. “You did what was necessary, but that necessity is destroying us, while eventually the Republic of humans will expand until it is too late.”
“Visha started the change. We have reached the limits within our empire. So we expand.
“Your Shiv, though, I wonder what they will lead to.”
“Perhaps we should try the same experiment with our own race,” Hazin said, his voice barely a whisper.
Yasim felt a wave of revulsion, and he wondered if his reaction showed.
“Seriously, my lord. Why not? Allow our strongest, our most fit, our most brilliant to breed.”
“The rest?”
“There are ways to discourage them, or if need be prevent them.”
“Impossible.”
“Is it?”
“You’ve contemplated this?”
“I contemplate all things possible,” Hazin said with a smile.
Yasim slowly shook his head.
“You might see differently someday. But as for the Shiv, we have several alternatives. They were simply an experiment that has proven fruitful. Now we shall unleash them upon the North. If the Republic breaks apart, which I suspect it will after the first onslaught, they can rule. Then, if we actually achieve a gate, we can push them through and see what the results are.”
“Or slaughter them all,” Yasim said quietly.
Hazin smiled. “Yes. Once they’ve served their purpose, that might be necessary. You see, there is always the prospect that the experiment will work too well, that they just might be superior. That is why I suggest what I do as to our own race.”
“My original thought, Hazin, was to kill you now, to sink the transports. Your words push me.closer to doing it.”
“Majesty, never whisper your inner thoughts too loudly.”
“Damn you.”
“We are locked in an embrace, sire. You fear me and that is wise. I need you, for never would the families of the blood accept a base-born bastard such as me as emperor. If we understand that, together we can have our arrangement.
“Believe me, sire, kill me, slaughter all the Shiv, and there will still be another such as I, and yet another behind him, or her. Always remember the old adage that it is better to have an enemy that you know beside you than an enemy that you do not know behind you.”
Yasim turned away, hands clasped behind his back, and walked to the far end of the bridge. The staff who had been gathered there respectfully withdrew through a hatchway into the cramped quarters of the weather bridge.
The scum is right, he thought. War is the eternal nature of the race, but if it continued internally, we would eventually annihilate ourselves while the humans to the north inherit the planet. If I ever breed a son, I want to hand him an empire, not a smoking ruin.
Yet will he ever rule? Will there be a Hazin standing behind his shoulder with a hidden needle of poison? If I have more than one son, will they slay one another as I’ve slain my brothers?
He looked back at Hazin, who was leaning over the railing, back turned.
This war against the Republic, I must win it swiftly, he realized. Let my cousins be in the forefront, kill off as many of them as possible, and let the others think it was for glory, promising the survivors more and yet more to drive them forward.
And then annihilate the Order once the war is won.
As Emperor Yasim of the Kazan contemplated these ideas, little did he realize that his rival, standing but forty feet away, was contemplating the exact same path.
“You did what?”
Qar Qarth Jurak flung down his cup and stood up to face the courier.
“My Qarth wishes to report that a regiment of the Yankee horse riders has been destroyed.”
“By all the Ancestors, that is not what I ordered. I said, hold them at a distance.”
“My Qar Qarth, they were within an hour’s ride of our column of yurts. It was either that or submit to slaughter. I was there. They deployed into battle order, weapons drawn, and were preparing to attack.”
“Which regiment?”
The courier, bowing, went back to his lathered mount and pulled out a flame-scorched yellow flag and handed it to Jurak.
“Third Regiment, Army of the Republic,” Jurak read. He balled the flag up and tossed it to the ground.
That was Keane’s regiment. He remembered the brass number on the boy’s collar. If the boy was dead, then the full fury of the father might very well be unleashed.
“Did you kill all of them?”
“Not yet all. Some of them gained a hilltop, but surely they are all dead by now. We could see that the only ammunition they had was what they carried on their horses. The wagons were taken. The other half of the regiment came up to support them and fell into the second trap. All of them died.”
Jurak looked around at those gathered about him. More than one was grinning with delight, a few venturing to approach the courier to slap his shoulders. One of them ceremonially offered him the gift of his knife, the traditional present for a bringer of glad tidings.
“This means we are at war,” Jurak announced.
“We were never at peace to start with,” one of the Qarths growled. “We merely waited until a new generation could be bred to avenge their fathers.”
Word of what the courier had reported was spreading like wildfire through the encampment. A shaman began a chant to the heroic dead, calling on the Ancestors to greet them with drink and the flesh of cattle, a chant not heard in the camp for over twenty years. The chant was picked up, other voices joining in. A nargas sounded, its deep brazen tone chilling, awe inspiring.
Jurak stared at the fire, kicking the glowing embers with The toe of his boot.
So it has begun, he realized. In the morning they might think differently, though. We must push hard, outrun their pursuit and gain the mountains, then pray that the ambassador of the Kazan spoke the truth, that an army will land bringing with it the weapons we need to survive.
He lowered his head. He had liked the boy. A pity he was dead. A pity for this entire damned world. He wondered what the elder Keane was actually thinking. Would he be motivated now by hate? Would he seek out his old foes, but this time slay them all? Or would it now be the other way around, that the Bantag shall join with the Kazan and slay the Republic and all who lived there?
Either way, he felt, I shall lose, and my people, the Bantag, shall lose.
FIFTEEN
“Now remember, you clear the deck and keep your nose down, let her drop. You’ve got over thirty feet to play with before leveling out. If anything goes wrong and you have time, push her to starboard. That way when you go in the drink you’ll be off to one side and not get plowed under by your ship.”
Adam Rosovich, with Theodor by his side, paced in front of the pilots and gunners gathered around him on the deck. A brisk wind was up, whipping his hair, and he turned into the breeze.
“We’ve got a good thirty-knot blow running between the ship and the wind. You shouldn’t have any problems.”
He looked around at the pilots. More than half of them were graduates of this year’s class from the academy. Most of the rest had come out a year or two ahead of him. One of them had been his senior cadet commander when he had been a first-year plebe. It felt strange to be giving advice and orders to them. The new captain’s bars pinned to his collar seemed ponderously heavy, and in a way he felt like a fraud. He had gained the rank simply because he had been available and done all this first. Granted, he would admit to himself that he was a damn good pilot. But the technical side of it had actually captivated him during his work with the Design Board, and besides, it was a hell of a lot less suicidal than the assignment he now had.
“Finally, we’re trying something different here than what you trained for on land. When you clear the aft deck for landing, if you don’t touch down and snag, we want you to give it full power and get the hell up again, then go around.”
“Full power?” one of the Goliath pilots asked incredulously. “What the hell are you talking about? You should cut throttle completely and if need be nose it in.”
“Sir,” Adam replied quietly, staring at the pilot who was five years his senior and commander of the squadron on Perryville.
There was a momentary pause as the pilot looked around at his comrades for support. Finally he showed a trace of a definite grin. “Yes, I’m waiting for a logical answer, Rosovich.”
“Look, O’Reilly. Let’s say you’re tenth in line coming back from the strike. We’re pushing the planes forward after they land. You miss your approach, go drifting down the deck, throttle off, nose down, but you keep missing the snag wires. Where the hell do you wind up? You plow into the next plane in line, maybe two or three of them. You chop open a fuel tank, that new benzene fuel goes spraying around, and suddenly the whole ship is on fire.
“Mr. O’Reilly, therefore, if you miss the approach, the landing o
fficer is going to wave you off. You obey him, by God. You hit the throttle, bank to port, and get the hell out of the way.”
“All right, Adam. But another thing, that damn benzene. One bullet and it explodes. At least kerosene just bums. What the hell is the Design Board trying to do to us?”
Theodor stepped in front of Adam, ready to confront the anger that had been simmering ever since the new burners for the engines and the new fuel had been revealed.
“It’s a question of energy and weight,” Theodor said. “With benzene you get a lot more heat per pound of fuel. Weight is crucial, gentlemen. You might have to push this out to maximum range, and the benzene fuel will give you an extra fifty miles, which might make all the difference in this flight. I don’t like the risk any more than you do.”
“You’re not flying it,” someone whispered from the back of the group.
Theodor bristled, but it was Adam who stepped forward.
‘Any man here who dares to question Theodor’s bravery better step forward right now.”
No one moved.
, “You know what he did in the last war. Does anyone want to challenge that?”
There was no response.
“All right then. Everyone get ready for a go around.”
A groan went up. Theodor looked over at Adam, but said nothing.
“And remember, for the first time we’re all doing it with full loads.” He pointed at the lined-up aerosteamers. Each of them had a barrel strapped underneath filled with sand.
Actually, all the planes would be lighter than when they did it for real. The guns on the Falcons were empty, and the fuel load was just enough to take them around on the exercise. There simply wasn’t enough wind to get them off otherwise.
The group broke apart, the ten pilots who were flying headed for their aerosteamers, which were packed onto the deck. The pilots of the second group drifted off to stand along the side railing.
Adam looked up at the bridge, caught the attention of Admiral Petronius, saluted, then pointed a clenched fist forward. Petronius wearily shook his head, finally saluted back, and turned away.
Theodor laughed softly. “You know, there’s a lot of debate up on that bridge about who is actually in command on this ship.”
Down to the Sea Page 28
