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           STONE DOGS
                    #3 in the Draka series

                    S.M. Stirling


TIMELINE OF THE DOMINATION OR THE DRAKA AND THE
TERRAN DISPERSAL

  1947— Fisson power reactors; breeder reactor under
construction.

  1948- Frederick and Marya Lefarge born, Hospital of the
Sacred Heart, New York.

  1954— Yolande Ingolfsson born, Claestum Plantation, Italy.
Myfwany Venders born, Arethustra Plantation, Sicily.

   1955- Ramjet suborbital missile exceeds Mach 8. 1959- First
scramjet flight to orbit.

   1961- Space stations.
First " perscomp " marketed in Alliance, by Pacific Cyber
Systems

   1962- Manned moon landings; first permanent Lunar
settlements.

   1963- Successful activated transfer of mammalian genes,
Virunga Biocontrol Institute.
Alliance tests nuclear-fission pulsedrive vessel. First-generation
drive, using modified tactical weapon and graphite-sheathed
steel thrust plates.
Domination tests pulsedrive.

   1964- Alliance, Draka expeditions to Asteroid Belt, Mars.
High-boost probes to Venus, Mercury, outer planets launched
from Earth Orbit.

  1965- Magnetic catapult launchers on Luna, supply of
minerals to orbital fabricators in zero-G.

  1966- First free-electron laser boost to orbit from Earth.

   1968-9-Two-ship Van Riebeck expedition to Jupiter; one lost.
First Apollo-group (Earth-crossing) asteroid captured, brought
into Earth orbit.

   1970- Second-generation pulsedrives; subcritical plutonium
pellets compressed by collision from railguns. Liquid reaction
mass used to cover carbon-carbon/steel thrustplates.
Permanent Draka settlement on Mars; orbital stations, mining
operations on Martian moons.

  1973- Space-generated solar power beamed to Earth via
microwaves.

  1975- Secession of Indian Republic from Alliance for
Democracy. Draka conquest of India.

  1980- Third-generation pulsedrives; fission pellets
compressed by lasers
Fourth-generation pulsedrives; deuterium-tritium fusion pellets
imploded by laser/electron beam system.

  1989- First planet-based fusion reactor, Nova Virconium,
Mars.

   1996- Fifth-generation pulsedrive; deuterium-boron-II fusion
pellets.


                    PROLOGUE
VIRUNGA BIOCONTROL INSTITUTE
WEAPONS RESEARCH DIVISION
WEST RIFT PROVINCE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
MARCH 1, 1969


   "This is the first series," the project manager said; a stocky
brown-haired woman in her thirties. The wall lit up with a
three-dimensional rendering of a virus molecule. It was
color-coded, black and scarlet. "Yo'see how we've replaced —"

   "Doctor Melford," the Senator said, with soft courtesy. The
other members of the audience turned slightly to catch his
words. "We've all absorbed as much technical information as
possible from the prep-files, and while I'm sure the computer
projections would be very interestin', perhaps… ?"

   He was a tall man, eagle-faced, with silver-streaked blond hair
and mustache, conservatively dressed in indigo velvet and white
lace. There was no impatience in his posture, leaning back at his
ease in one of the two dozen swivel chairs that lined the little
auditorium. Still, the woman in the white lab coat flushed
slightly, coughed to cover it; her fingers moved on the controls.

   "Well," she said. Her vowels had a rather crisp tone, an East
African accent; she had been born in these highlands. "Well, here
are the recordings of the chimp results."

  The screen blanked for a moment and split. "The left is our
control sample, an' the right is the Series 24 D group."

   Two enclosures, sealed under glass but green with flowers and
trees, like giant terrarias. The left showed a group of
chimpanzees foraging, grooming, playing; one male reared up on
his hind legs and then ran screaming down a slope, flailing the
ground with a bamboo, a threat display. On the right, nearly the
same.

  "This is an hour after the introduction of the activating
factor; yo' understand, there has to be stress fo' the altered
enzyme chain to… Ah, here."

   One of the chimps in the right-hand group had snatched a
palm-heart from her neighbor. The victim rolled back and bared
her teeth, then suddenly leaped. Both animals went over in a blur
of limbs and grass and shrieking.

   "This is highly atypical, yo' see. Chimps do fight to the death,
but very seldom—yes." The victor had risen, the blunt
almost-human face wet with blood; she was dancing on the
dying animal's form, with leaps and arm-waving. The others
were visibly agitated, hooting and moving back and forth in
distress. Then two more began to fight; a mother picked up her
infant and slammed it on the ground, over and over, until a big
male leapt on her back and began tearing…

   The Senator watched, stony-faced amid his silent aides. The
plainly-clad woman at the heart of the other clump laughed
aloud. A minute passed, and nothing living remained on the
right-hand screen. To the left, a picture of the innocence before
the birth of man.

   "It seems," he said, "that yo've been makin' progress, Doctor."

   She nodded eagerly." 'Specially since yo' got us the new
computer," she said, one hand caressing the row of pens in her
breast pocket with a nervous gesture.

   The Senator smiled for the first time. "Thank the Yankees; it
was the best we could steal," he said dryly. "How confident are
yo' that these-here results can be transferred to humans?"

   "Very, yes," the geneticist nodded. "Chimps are the best
possible test subjects, they're so close to us. Ninety-eight percent
genetic congruence, only five million years since the last common
ancestor, which… Yes. We've managed to move the focus of the
infection from the immune to the limbic systems without'n
much trouble; the original affected the neurological… Well, it
wasn't much trouble. The problem is gettin' it activated with the
sort of arbitrary external stimulus yo' wanted, sir. We've gotten
promisin' results usin 'particular frequencies of strobe-lightin',
the grand mat trigger effect, yo' know? The endorphine response
is modified into a feedback loop. That still needs work."

   The woman to the Senator's left spoke, in a flat Angolan
accent: "What's y're success rate?" She was younger than the
Senator, perhaps forty-five, head of a committee in the House of
Representatives that attracted little public attention.

  Melford nodded at the right-hand screen. "Ovah 99%; no
point in 'finin' it down further until we moves to human
subjects."

  "In y' professional opinion, is this project go or no-go?"

   "Go." A decisive nod. "Provided we get the necessary fundin'
an' personnel. Mo' work on the vector—we're still relyin' on blood
to blood—and the secondary keyin' sequence. Four years, eight
maximum an' well have it on-spec."

   "Chiliarch," the Senator said. A man in the olive-green
uniform of the Security Directorate spread his hands and laid his
fingertips on the desk before him.

   "It's tight. Jus' this one facility, an' the Institute's normal
activity is good cover. The computer's not physically connected
to any datalink. Nothin' certain in my line of work, but I'd bet
mah tender pink ass this'un can be kept close. Until operational
deployment, of course."

    "Ah." The Senator dropped his chin onto the steepled fingers
of both hands, and the lids drooped over his narrow gray eyes.
"Doctor, what about keepin' it from the Yankees when we deploy
it against the Alliance?"

   "Well." A frown. "Well, they're not as, ummm, sophisticated at
biotech as we are. Those Luddite fanatics of theirs who keep
protestin' every time they try to use somethin', and then again
they can't test humans to destruction the way we can. Sloppy.
Still, they've got some good people."

   She paused. "Very unlikely fo' the virus to be discovered —I'm
assuming nothin' goes wrong with the clandestine operations
side. We'd have trouble findin' that bug iff'n we didn't know
what to look for. These retroviruses are cunnin' critters at
concealin' themselves, and we've tweaked it until even the
immune system is completely fooled. Yo'd have to puree the
subject's nerve tissue an' do a congruent-DNA sample test
series… unless it was activated, of course. That'd produce gross
abnormalities and yo' could follow them back. It's less a disease
than gene-surgery, really."

  The Senator looked across to his colleague; she nodded and
spoke: "What'll yo' need?"

   "Ummm, more funding. More personnel, as Ah said. And
experimental subjects, of course. Several hundred humans,
assorted gender an' age in the postpubescent range, prefrably the
same ethnic mix as the target population. Very delicate to get it
contagious but with a failsafe turn-off. Don't want it becomin' a
global pandemic, do we?"

   "Wodan, no," the Senator said. "Well, Doctor Melford, certain
othahs will have to be consulted, but unofficially I think yo' can
take it that the project will be approved fo' further development."
He rose. "Service to the State."

  "Glory to the Race," the scientist answered absent-
absentmindedly as the audience left; she was keying the machine
again, reviewing the additional resources that would be needed.

  "Well, how do y' like it?"

  "Nice view," the Senator said, nodding down from the terrace
toward the lake and drawing on his cigarette.

   The Virunga Biocontrol Institute was built in the hills
overlooking Lake Kivu, at the southern edge of the Virunga
range. A century old now, almost as old as Draka settlement in
these volcanic highlands. Low whitewashed buildings of
stone-block, roofs of plum-colored tile, almost lost among the
vegetation; the gardens were flamboyantly lovely even by the
Domination's standards, fertile lava soils and abundant rain and
a climate of eternal spring. National park stretched north and
west, to the Ituri lowlands: haunt of gorilla and chimp, elephant
and hippo and leopard; of the Bambuti pygmies also, left to their
Old Stone Age existence.

   Plantations stretched widely elsewhere across the steep slopes,
green coffee and tea and sheets of flowers grown for
air-freighting elsewhere; the air was scented with them, cool and
sweet. The city of Arjunanda lay two thousand feet below by the
waters, turned to a model by distance: buildings white and blue
and violet with marble and tile, avenues bordered with
jacaranda and colonnades roofed in climbing rose and
frangipani. Even the factories and labor-compounds that ringed
it were comely, bordered by hedge and garden. Sails speckled the
waves, and they could see the pleasure boats beating back
toward the docks, and dirigibles lying silvery in the waterfront
haven.

   "It's a famous beauty-spot," the woman said with elaborate
sarcasm, indicating the sun setting behind the mountains to
their right, amid clouds turned to the colors of brass and blood.
"No mo' games, man."

   He flicked the butt of the cigarette over the railing. Like her,
to be cold even when she's angry. You can see why our enemies
nicknamed us " snakes," looking at her. The burning speck fell
like a tiny meteor, to lie winking for a second before one of the
Institute outdoor serfs arrived to sweep it up.

  "It might work," he said quietly.

  "It will work. This time yo' suspicions of biotech don't wash.
And this project was mah price fo' supportin' yo' pet schemes."

  "Granted."

   They gave each other a glance of cool mutual hatred and
turned again to the view beneath. Shadow was falling across the
city and the lake as the first stars appeared above. The
streetlights of Anunanda flicked on in a curving tracery, and the
lamps of the plantation manors scattered down the hills. An
airship had cast off from the haven, and the thousand-meter
teardrop rose from darkness into light as it circled, bound
northward with cut flowers and electrowafers, strawberries and
heavengrape wine.

  "Have yo' ever wondered," the Senator said meditatively, "why
we Draka love flowers so?"

   The woman blinked, her fox-sharp face shadowed in the dim
glow. "No, can't say as I have," she said neutrally. "Why?"

    "They're safer to love than human bein's," he said
thoughtfully. "An' unlike humans, they deserve it." He turned.
"I'll be in contact aftah I speak to the Archon."




                 CHAPTER ONE

   Representatives of the Alexandria Technological Institute
today announced that the fetal-transplant process has been
cleared for Citizen use after extensive testing. "Ova may now be
stored indefinitely in frozen form, either before or after
fertilization, then warmed and implanted in either the donor or
a host-mother." Eugenics Directorate officials are enthusiastic
about the technique, which they say removes the last biological
constraints on the reproduction and improvement of the Citizen
population. Clinics offering transplant services will be
established throughout the Domination; healthy serf wenches to
act as host-mothers will be provided for those who have none
suitable in their own households. In addition. Citizens with
outstanding mental and physical characteristics will be asked to
make contributions to sperm and ova banks. Once brought to
term in host-mothers, the Infants will be offered for adoption
into selected Citizen families or raised in the Education
Directorate's existing orphanages. It is expected that over the
next twenty years, these measures will at least double the present
Citizen birthrate of 24 per thousand, enabling Citizen women to
do their reproductive duty to the Race without interfering with
their military and other commitments. Even greater
improvements are to be anticipated shortly, when
gene-engineering becomes practical.
                                               Alexandria Herald
                                                     May 8, 1962




CLAESTUM PLANTATION
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY
PROVINCE OF ITALY
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
SEPTEMBER 1, 1964


   Eric von Shrakenberg paused at the edge of the steps, looking
up at the constellations of the northern hemisphere. This was the
north front of his sister Johanna's Tuscan plantation manor; the
stone pathway wound up to the crest of the hill under ancient
trees, oak and cypress and chestnut. They had been here long
before the Eurasian War, but the new masters of Europe had
changed the patch of forest to suit their tastes. He could hear the
tinkle of water ahead, smell the damp scents of new-cut grass
and flowers; roses, he thought, opening their blooms to the hot
Italian night. Sweat tickled his flanks under the linen of his
djellaba robe, under the leather of the shoulder-holster harness
beneath it.

   For a moment, he considered going back to the birthday
party, rather than seeking out his sister and her husband. No, he
decided. The people were salt of the earth, no doubt about that.
Local planters, of course, overseers, Combine and League execs
from the nearby towns… not many of them personally known to
him. And face it, provincial, he thought. And politics keeps me
in Archona too much, and Johanna and Tom seem to have
grown on to this place like a pair of barnacles.

   He would not have thought it of her, or of Thomas Ingolfsson
either, when the man had been a neighbor and a friend and a
rakehell fighter pilot in his sister's squadron, back during the
War… Well, time and marriage and children do change us, he
thought, and walked up the steps. The stone was smooth and
warm and slightly gritty under his bare feet.
  "Shhhh, Lele!" Yolande Ingolfsson hissed.

   The night was quiet on this side of the hill; the house was
visible only as a glow through the treetops ahead of them, the
noise of the guests less than that of the crickets and nightjars
and the slow rubbing of branch and thicket. Away to her right in
the valley were the lights of the Quarters, but the party there
would have ended sooner, the plantation-hands had to be back at
their work tomorrow, getting ready for the vintage.

   The serf girl beside her looked subdued. Yolande sighed to
herself as she squirmed on her stomach past the topiary bush.
This whole birthday party for Ma had been boring. The gifts
were stupid stuff, mostly: statues and paintings and jewelry, or
Combine shares and like that. She gritted her teeth. And her
cousin Alexandra von Shrakenberg had been put in charge of the
children's part of the celebrations, and that was… was…
impossible, she decided; that was the word. Being ten was
impossible, too.

   Alexandra's only thirteen, that's only three years older than
me, she thought resentfully. Stuck-up. Because she was in Senior
School; all she could talk about was the serious things they had
to study and the boring love affairs at school and how her
parents' estate in France was prettier than Claestum…

   Yolande heard voices and string-music from uphill. There was
a waist-high circle of clipped hedge ten meters before them. Her
eyes estimated the ground the way the instructor at school told
the children. The slope here was down from the wooded crest,
and to the north; there was an artificial stream coming down,
falling through a stepped marble trough in a chuckling tumble.
Cypresses on either side, opening out into circles around the
pools, each with its benches and flowerbeds, and the hedges
around those. So.

   She looked back at Lele. The serf girl was nearly her age. Deng
the foreman's daughter, one of Yolande's birthday presents,
given to her like a puppy five years ago. I'm getting too old to
play with serfs, Yolande decided. Tantie Rahksan's son Ali had
been fun, always ready to climb and stuff, but he had gotten all
sullen and close-mouthed lately. Lele was better, but she was so
weak and slow… All serfs were, of course. Yolande sighed
imperiously, then led the way at a stop-motion leopard crawl
toward the hedge; they were on clipped grass, which made it
easier to move quietly. Reconnaissance was fun; there was a
thrill to spying on the grownups, and you could hear things they
wouldn't say in front of a child.

   Dew chilled her chest and stomach as she crawled; mouth
open and breathing light and regular, the way the trainers said.
Test your path, touch it lightly. Don't look at anything bright, it
cripples your night-vision. She reached the hedge, rolled under
the bench and curled her body to lie under it, a hand's-breadth
back from the prickly leaves; it was whitethorn, not the shaggy
multiflora used for field-boundaries out in the working part of
the plantation. Lele followed more clumsily; they lay head to
head, feet pointing in opposite directions along the circle.
Yolande applied her eye to a natural gap.

   Ooops, she thought. It was her mother and father, sitting at
their ease in the pool; a housegirl was on one of the inner
benches in the background, strumming on a mandolin. The pool
itself was a circle of white-and-green marble two meters across,
with water entering and leaving by the top and bottom ends.
Tantie Rahksan was there, too, laying out a tray with wine and
fruit and a waterpipe. That was unusual: Tantie had been with
Ma forever, and she never did menial's work. Supervised the
house staff, and she had run the nursery before the Ingolfsson
children were of school age. She was quite old, too, nearly as old
as Ma, nearly forty. From Afghanistan; you had to look in the
history books for that, it wasn't there any more.

   Oh. Tantie Rahksan had drawn her tunic over her head, and
gotten into the pool, too; all she had on was a string of beads
around her waist. It was funny, she didn't look all that old. Field
wenches were just solid and brown and lumpy when they were
forty, and the ones in the Great House got fat, mostly, but
Rahksan was all curvy still. Her breasts floated up when she sat
between Yolande's mother and father, handing them each a glass
of wine. They drank some, and gave Rahksan sips out of their
glasses, and passed the mouthpiece of the waterpipe back and
forth. Yolande made a face; kif, she could smell it. Children
weren't supposed to use it; she had snuck a quick puff once, and
it had just made her feel heavy and sleepy.

    I'd better leave, she thought. Pa was kissing Rahksan, and Ma
was touching her breasts. Tantie Rahksan was sort of squirming
and making sounds, and her hands were stroking the Draka on
either side of her. Yolande felt her ears burn, as if they were
turning bright red at the tips, and a weightless feeling in her
stomach. There were books and tapes about sex in biology class
at school, of course, but children weren't supposed to watch, and
it was really impolite, and Ma might strap her if she found out.

   Yolande looked up, and met Lele's wide eyes. She laid a finger
across her lips and prepared to squirm backward, when she
heard a voice from beyond the other side of the pool.

   Trapped! she thought. A tall man at the north side could see
the stretch of lawn they must cross to get to the next downslope
terrace. Oh, boy, I'm really going to get into trouble now!
Longingly, she thought of her bed in the tower room and the
new Young Draka's Illustrated Odyssey Uncle Eric had brought
her. Oh, shit, that's Uncle Eric!



   "Oh. Sorry," Eric said, seeing that his sister and
brother-in-law were busy, and half-turning to go.

   "No matter," Thomas Ingolfsson said. "Just amusin' ourselves.
Settle in, if yo' were lookin' fo' us."

   "Was at that," Eric said. Rahksan emerged dripping from the
pool to take his robe; he looked her over with reminiscent
pleasure. Still a fine figure of a wench, he thought, remembering
times on the ancestral von Shrakenberg estate in southern
Africa. She gave him a pouring smile and folded the cloth by the
pool's curb, the Tolgren 10mm neatly on top.

   "Ahh, that feels good," he said as he sank in across from the
pair. The cool water seemed to wash more than his skin, relaxing
tensions he had not known were there. He ducked his head under
and threw the wet hair back from his forehead. "Good to slow
down fo' a while, too," he continued, lying back against the
glass-smooth marble and sliding down on the underwater shelf
that acted as a seat.

  "No more news about Sofie?" Johanna said, taking up her
wineglass.

   "Thank yo'," Eric murmured as Rahksan waded across with
another for him. "No, not since this mornin.Those lung
transplant operations are still tricky…"

   "Wouldn't have minded if yo'd stuck it in Archona," Johanna
said' Eric nodded gratefully; his sister had always liked Sofie,
even though his wife came from what passed as a lower class
among the Citizen caste.

  "Yo' know Sofie, wouldn't hear of it," he said. A scowl:
"Wouldn't stop smokin', either."

   Tom shrugged. "If'n I knows our Sofie"—his voice made an
attempt at a hoarse soprano—" People who expect to live a long
time don't join the paratroops, and if I hadn't done that I
wouldn't have met Eric. And think that clinches the argument."

   "Well, now she's goin' to quit," Eric said, and for a moment
his voice went entirely flat. Then he shook off the mood. " Relief
to get away from all the politics, too."

   "Well, Archona is the capital," Johanna said. "Some grapes,
Hahksi… which is why I stay away from it as much as I can." She
cocked an affectionate eye at him. "Yo' know, brothah dear, I
always figured Pa pulled in his polit'cal debts to get yo' the
Senatorial seat just so yo' could write those damn subversive
novels without gettin' a pill from the headhunters."

  A Senator had a certain immunity from the Directorate of
Security, even for offenses that would merit a pistol-bullet in the
back of the head for an ordinary Citizen.

   Eric turned his hands up from the edge of the pool and raised
the palms. "Think that's how he thought about it." Eric's own
war record had not hurt, but that was something he preferred
not to remember. "I… it's a matter of responsibility." He grinned.
"Service to the State," he added.

   "Glory to the Race," they muttered back, in the obligatory
formality.

   "Well, just between thee an' me, the headhunters are still
tryin' to trip me up. Tried to block me from the Science and
Technology section of the Strategic Plannin' Board, but failed."

   "Oh, ho, we are movin' up in the world," Tom said. "Why,
though?"

   "Well, partly… yo' heard of Louise Gayner? SD Merarch, 'fore
she retired. Representative from North Angola, now. Has it in fo'
me, personal. Damn it, the headhunters spend half their time
tryin' to steal research from the Yankees; how do they expect us
to apply it, if'n we don't make mo' use of the serfs? We've got to
keep this creakin' anachronism of a social system workin'
somehow. Field hands don't need to know how to read,
factory-serfs can do without it. Even ordinary Janissary infantry
soldiers could, though it's inefficient and we're givin' them all
basic now. Bookkeepers an' secretaries and technicians, we could
get away with rote-learnin', but times are changin'. Computers
and space between them, they're the frontier of power… less than
a hundred million Citizens in the Domination, a billion and a
half serfs, we need millions with real education—"

   He stopped, relaxed once more. "Sorry, didn't mean to launch
into a campaign speech." Though it wouldn't hurt to have
friends in the local sections of the Landholders' League and the
Party, he thought. That brought sadness; would there never be a
time again when he could wholly discard his work? Probably not
, he decided.

   "Tell me bout' it," Johanna said. "Just got one of those tiny
brains ourselves; wonderful, if we didn't have to have the League
send round a technician every month. Speakin' o' space," she
continued, "how we doin'?" She looked up; was there an edge of
wistfulness there? Eric suspected flying the family plane did not
leave his younger sister completely satisfied…
    "Not bad, not bad at all. The scramjets are workin', and the
Technical Section people say the next lot will even be as safe as
Russian roulette. That giant magnetic catapult dingus on Mt.
Kenia is on schedule. And we're copyin' that Yankee pulse-drive
thing. Sounds insane, throwin' atomic bombs out behind yo' ship
fo' propulsion, but evidently it works."

   He yawned, slightly tired, slightly disoriented still from the
long flight up. Always a little bewildering, to go from winter to
summer. It made you conscious that you really did live on the
surface of a globe. Eric glanced up; none of the new moving stars
in Earth's firmament was visible just now, but they were there.
The Alliance and his people had two orbital platforms each now,
and the tiny new stations on the moon. It changes your
perspective, he thought. How I envy those youngsters up there.

  Johanna sighed. "Better be gettin' back to bed," she said. She
and her husband rose, and Rahksan moved to towel them down
and hand them their clothes.

   "Mistis?" Eric looked up; the Afghan was crouched by her
owner's feet, fastening the sandals. "Mmmm… maybe Mastah
Eric want an attendant here?"

  Eric smiled. "Don't let me deprive y'all," he said politely. There
was a rustling sound; the Draka froze and reached out for their
gunbelts. A moment passed.

    Tom laughed, and snapped fingers for the serf with the
mandolin. "Fox, or a rabbit. Haven't had bushman trouble here
fo', oh, seven, eight years… Yo' stay here then, Kahksi; we can
always teach Elizabetta heah a new tune," he said. Johanna
chuckled and threw an arm around his waist.

   "See yo' in the mornin', brothah," she called over her shoulder
as they left.

   Rahksan moved the refreshments closer and slid into the
water again. "Masta Eric, yo' hasn't changed one li'l bit," she
said, half chidingly. He smiled at the familiar accent. It was the
serf dialect of the Old Territories, below the Zambezi, the speech
of his childhood, the sound of home.
    "Neither have yo'," he said. Not quite true: the full breasts no
longer stood out without benefit of buoyancy, and there was a
little gray in the strong coarse black hair. And genuine
friendliness in the curve-nosed, roundly pretty face. More
warming than any number of younger and more comely bodies,
when you could not know the thoughts behind the eyes. "I means
up here," she said, touching him on the forehead. "Yaz still
thinks too much, Mastah. Hurts yaz inside." She grinned, slow
and insolent, and the hand stroked teasingly down to grip him
below the water and knead. He put his hands around her waist,
and she swung to face him, knees astride his waist. "And I knows
how to make yaz stop thinkin',f whiles," she whispered.



   They nearly heard us, Yolande thought, forcing herself not to
shake. She had been glued to the hedge while they spoke; this
was great stuff, about spaceships—and then Lele had nearly
spoiled things by trying to crawl away too soon. I'm going to
switch her, Yolande decided, glaring at the abashed half-Chinese
serf. She had never actually beaten Lele, but… Oh. I'd have to tell
Ma or Tantie Rahksan why I wanted to switch her. Children
had no disciplinary authority over servants, even their own, until
well into their teenage years. I'll just yell at her.

   She put her eye back to the hole in the hedge. Tantie Rahksan
and Uncle Eric were face to face, moving. Just then the serf gave
a cry, and her feet came out of the water, locking around the
man's lower back. He stood, water cascading off the linked
bodies, and Tantie Rahksan had her hands dug into his
shoulders and her head right back… I had really better go,
Yolande decided. This wasn't at all like the pictures. It's
confusing and scary and their faces look so… fierce, she
thought, squirming back.

   Below the lower terrace, they rested for a moment. Yolande
looked up, through the moving leaves. Stars, she thought. That
would be something.
From: CLAESTUM PLANTATION DISTRICT OF Tuscany
TO: BAIAE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF CAMPANIA
PROVINCE OF ITALY
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
SEPTEMBER 1, 1968


  It's too crowded in here, Yolande Ingolfsson thought irritably.

   The crowding was not physical. The van was an
Angers-Kellerman autosteamer from the Trevithick Combine's
works in Milan, a big six-wheeler plantation sedan like a
slope-fronted box with slab sides. There were five serfs and one
young lady of landholding Citizen family in the roomy cabin; the
muted sound of the engine was lost in the rush of wind and
whine of the tires. None of them had been this way before.

   Young Marco the driver was chattering with excitement, with
stolid Deng sitting beside him giving an occasional snarl when
the Italian's hands swooped off the wheel. The Oriental was a
stocky grizzle-haired man of fifty, his face round and ruddy. He
had been the House foreman since forever; Father had brought
him from China when he and Mother came to set up the
plantation, after the War. Saved him from an impaling stake, the
rebel's fate, or so the rumor went, but neither of them would talk
about it. Bianca and Lele were bouncing about on the benches
running along either side of the vehicle, giggling and pointing
out the sights to each other.

   Not to me, Yolande thought with a slight sadness. Well, she
was fourteen, that was getting far too grown-up to talk that way
with servants.

   The van had the highway mostly to itself on the drive down
from Tuscany, past Rome and through the plantations of
Campania; Italy was something of a backwater these days, and
what industry there was clustered in the north. There was the
odd passenger steamer, a few electric runabouts, drags hauling
linked flats of produce or goods. Nevertheless the road was just
as every other Class II way in the Domination of the Draka, an
asphalt surface eight meters broad with a graveled verge and
rows of trees on either side; cypress or eucalyptus here, but that
varied with the climate.

   Fields passed, seen through a flicker of trunks and latticed
shadow slanting back from westering sun, big square plots edged
with shaggy hedges of multiflora. Fields of trellised vines, purple
grapes peering out from the tattered autumnal lushness of their
leaves; orchards of silvery gray olives, fruit trees, hard glossy
citrus, and sere yellow-brown grain stubble. Fields of alfalfa
under whirling sprinklers, circles of spray that filled the air with
miniature rainbows and a heavy green smell that cut the hot
dust scent. Melons lying like ruins of streaked green-and-white
marble tumbled among vines, and strawberries starred red
through the velvet plush of their beds.

   Arch-and-pillar gateways marked the turnoffs to the estate
manors, hints of colored roofs amid the treetops of their gardens.
Yolande felt what she always did when she saw a gate: an
impulse to open it. Like an itch in the head, to follow and see
what was there, who the people were, and what their lives were
like. Make up stories about them, or poems.

   Silly, she thought. People were people; plantations were
plantations, not much different from the one she grew up on.

   Words and surfaces, hard shiny shells, that was all you could
know of people. Yet the itch would not go away. You thought that
you knew what they were like, especially when you were little;
then a thing would happen that showed you were wrong. She
shivered. Like that time years ago at the party; she had been
peeking down through the banisters when Mother and the
stranger began quarreling. Their voices had gone hard, then very
quiet. The man began a motion to hit Mother, and the slap of
her hand on his forearm was very loud.

   A second before the main hall had been noisy with talk and
music, then quiet had gone over it, rippling the way wind did
through ripe wheat. Yolande had watched her mother's face go
strange, very still and smiling. Not moving at all, even when the
others talked and then some houseserfs came with her gunbelt
and the man's. The two of them had walked out the French doors
into the garden, Pa and a friend with Mother, two guests with
the one who had tried to hit her. Two shots, so quick, before she
had time even to be afraid, to think that Mother might be dead.
Then she and Pa had come walking back through from the
garden; Mother was laughing, and she had her arm around his
waist. Some of the house servants had come in carrying the
stranger on a folding garden chair; there was blood glistening
and seeping from a pressure-bandage on his stomach, and his
face looked yellow and waxy.

   Yolande shook the memory aside. It was just because it was
so sudden, she reminded herself. Duels were-not that
common—years could go by without one—and the insult had
been gross. I was too young to understand.

   The senior maidservant Angelica was sulking, but she was
quite old, twenty at least, probably missing somebody back
home. It would have been good to have someone to talk to,
reading in a car had always made her nauseated. Lele gave a
giggle that was almost a squeal at something the other
maidservant, Bianca, said, and Deng turned back to scowl at her.
Lele stuck out her tongue at him, but lowered her voice. Lele was
Deng's get; usually it was anybody's guess who fathered a
housegirl's children, but the foreman was the only Oriental on
the estate. You could see it in the saffron-brown tint of her skin,
the delicate bones and the folds at the corners of her hazel-tinted
eyes.

    The Draka girl leaned back with a sigh, feeling heavy and a
little tired from the going-away party last night. She had the rear
of the autosteamer to herself, a semicircle couch like the fantail
of a small yacht. Nearly to herself: her Persian cat Machiavelli
was curled up beside her. He always tried to sleep through an
auto drive; at least he didn't hide under a seat and puke
anymore… The windows slanted over her head, up to the roof of
the auto, open a little to let in a rush of warm dry afternoon air.
She let her head fall back, looking through the glass up into the
cloudless bowl of the sky, just beginning to darken at the zenith.
Her face looked back at her, transparent against the sky,
centered in a fan of pale silky hair that rippled in the breeze.

  Like a ghost, she thought. Her mind could fill in the tinting,
summer's olive tan, hair and brows faded to white-gold, Mother's
coloring. Eyes the shade of granulated silver, rimmed with dark
blue, a mixture from both her parents. Face her own, oval, high
cheekbones and a short straight nose, wide full-lipped mouth,
squared chin with a cleft; Pa was always saying there must be elf
somewhere in the bloodlines. She turned her head and sucked in
her cheeks; the puppyfat was definitely going, at long last. She
was still obstinately short and slight-built, however much she
tried to force growth with willpower.

   At least I don't have spots, she mused with relief. Her first
year at the new school, and her first in the Senior Section, as
well.

   "Bianca, get me a drink, please," Yolande said, shifting
restlessly and stretching. The drive had been a long one, and she
felt grubby and dusty and sticky; the silk of her blouse was
clinging to her back, and she could feel how it had wrinkled.

  The air had a spicy-dry scent, like the idea of a sneeze.

   Yolande sipped moodily at the orange juice and watched as
the auto turned south and east to skirt the fringe of Naples: just
a small town now, badly damaged in the War, and afterward
most of the non-historic sections had been torn down. The low
bulk of Vesuvius was ahead of them, twin peaks notching the
broad cone of the volcano, and the road swung west toward the
impossible azure blue of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Her mouth was dry
despite the cold drink. She handed the glass back to the servant
girl and wiped her palms down the sides of her jodhpurs, hitched
at her gunbelt, ran fingers through the tangled mass of her hair,
adjusted her cravat.

   "Bianca, Lele, my hair's a mess," she said. "Fix it." There was
a sour taste at the back of her mouth, and a feeling like hard
fluttering in her stomach.

   The two servants quieted immediately and knelt on the
cushions to either side of her. The feeling of their fingers and
brushes was familiar and comforting, even if it hurt when they
tugged at the snarls. Yolande used the forced immobility to
practice the breathing exercises, driving calm up from the body
into the mind. There was something oddly soothing about having
your hair combed, a childlike feeling of trust.

   Don't fidget, she told herself as the tense muscles of her
shoulders and neck eased. It's serfish. It was emotional to be
frightened of going to a new school; they weren't going to hurt
her, after all. Children and serfs were expected to be emotional; a
Citizen ruled herself with the mind. Bianca was humming as she
used the pick on the end of her comb to untangle a knot.
Yolande's hair had always been feather-soft and flyaway.

   The school was on the Bay itself, surrounded by a thousand
hectares of grounds. A chest-high wall of whitewashed stone
marked the boundary, overshadowed by tall dark cypresses; the
van slowed as they passed through the open wrought-iron gates
and past the gatekeeper, bowing with hands over his eyes as the
law commanded. Then the wheels were crunching and popping
on the gravel of the internal road. Lawns like green-velvet plush
spread around them, flowerbanks, clusters of stone-pine, oak,
clipped hedges of box and yew. A herd of ibex raised their
scimitar-homed heads from a pool, muzzles trailing drops that
sparkled as they fell among the purple-and-white bowls of the
water lilies.

   "Turn right," Yolande said, unnecessarily; there was a servant
in the checkered livery of the school directing traffic.

   The sun had sunk until it nearly touched the horizon, and the
light-wand in the serfs hand glowed translucent white. More
servants waited at the brick-paved parking lot, a broad expanse
of tessellated red and black divided by stone planters with
miniature trees. The van eased into place, guided by a wench
with a light-wand who walked backwards before them, and
stopped; Yolande felt the dryness suddenly return to her mouth
as she rose.

   "Well," she said into air that felt somehow motionless after
the unvarying rush of wind on the road. "Let's go."

   Deng pushed the driver back into his seat. "Not you, Marco,"
he said.

  The younger man gave him a resentful glare but sank down
again. Deng was not like some bossboys, he did not use the strap
or rubber hose all the time, but he was obeyed just the same. He
flicked a match-head alight between thumb and forefinger as he
climbed down from the cab, lighting a cigarette and puffing with
grateful speed, then undamped the stairs beneath the side door.

   Yolande ignored the acrid smoke and the stairs as well,
stepping out and taking the chest-high drop with a flex of her
knees. The servants followed more cautiously, passing the parcels
and baggage out to Deng and taking his offered hand as they
clambered down the metal treads. The Draka girl stood looking
about as the pile of luggage grew. There was activity enough, but
nobody seemed particularly concerned with her. An
eight-wheeler articulated steamer was unloading a stream of
girls; that must be a shuttle from Naples, the ones coming in
from the train and dirigible havens.

   They were all dressed in the school uniform, a knee length
belted tunic of Egyptian linen dyed indigo blue, and sandals that
strapped up the calf. She felt suddenly self-conscious in her
young-planter outfit, even with the Togren 10mm and
fighting-knife she had been so proud of. They were mostly older
than her; all the Junior Section would have arrived yesterday.
Their friends were there to greet them, hugs and wristshakes and
flower-wreaths for their hair…

   Yolande swallowed and forced herself to ignore them, the
laughter and the shouts. A few private autos were unloading as
well, sleek low-slung sports steamers, and two light aircraft in an
empty field to the east. Tilt-rotor craft, civilianized
assault-transports; as she watched one seemed to tense in place,
the motors at the ends of the wings swinging up to the vertical.
The hum of turbines rose to a whining shriek and brown circles
appeared in the grass beneath the exhausts as the long propellers
blurred. Burnt kerosene overwhelmed the scents of steamcar
distillate, flowers, warm brick. Then the airplane bounced five
hundred meters into the air, circled as the engines tilted forward
to horizontal mode, shrank to a dot fading northward.
Navigation lights blinked against the pale stars of early evening.

  She blinked; in half an hour it would be past Sienna. Past
Badesse, past home. Over the tiny hilltop lights of Claestum; her
parents might look up from the dining terrace at the sound of
engines. Tantie Rahksan with her eternal piece of embroidery…
Moths would be battering against the globes, and there would be
a damp smell from the pools and fountains. Warm window-glow
coming on in the Quarters down in the valley, and the sleepy
evening sounds of the rambling Great House. Her own bedroom
in the west tower would be dark, only moonlight making
shadows on the comforter, her desk, airplane models and old
dolls and posters…

   This is ridiculous, she scolded herself, working at the knot of
misery beneath her breastbone. The quarrel at the old school
had not been her fault; even if somebody had to leave, it should
have been Irene, not her. Would have been, if they had not
valued peace over justice.

  "Hello."

  She looked down with a start; a girl her own age was standing
nearby, hands on hips and a smile on her face.

  "You're Yolande Ingolfsson, the one from up Tuscany way?"

    She nodded, and grasped the offered wrist. Then blinked a
little with surprise, feeling a shock as of recognition.

  I must know someone who looks like her, she thought.

   "Myfwany Venders," she was saying. "Leontini, Sicily. I'm in
yo' year, and from out-of-district, too, so I thought I'd help yo'
get settled."

   The other girl was a centimeter taller, with brick-red hair and
dark freckles on skin so white it had a bluish tinge, high
cheekbones, and a snub nose; big hands and feet and long limbs
that hinted at future growth. She grinned: "I know how it is.
They pitched me in here last year and I went around blearing
like a lost lamb. It's not bad, really, once y' get to know some
people."

  "Thank yo'," Yolande replied, a little more fervently than she
would have liked. Myfwany shrugged, turned and put thumb and
forefinger in her mouth to whistle sharply. "It's nothing,
veramente. Let's get the matron."




  "Missy."

   Yolande stretched and turned over, burrowing into the
coverlet.

  "Missy. Time to get up."

   That was Lele with the morning tray. She was wrapped in a
robe, her own half-Asian face still cloudy with sleep.

  "Thank you." The Draka yawned and stretched, rolled out of
bed, and drank down the glasses of juice and milk.

   It was still quite early, with only a faint glimmer of light
through the glass and drapes along one side of the bedroom. She
walked over and drew back the curtains, yawning again, and
walked out onto the terrace. This section of the school faced the
sea, with a series of garden-terraces running down to the beach.
The sun was behind her, still hidden by the hulk of the inland
mountains; a mild breeze was setting in from the ocean, smelling
of salt, oleander, rosemary. Gray-blue water stretched to meet
dark-blue sky; Jupiter and Venus were fading overhead, and
lights winked from the water. A hydrofoil ferry going out to
Capri, fishing boats, a tall-masted freighter raising sail; above,
along the horizon, were the long hale-shape of a dirigible and the
distant pulsing of engines.

   Yolande stretched again, turned back into the bedroom. The
white-and-green marble tiles were cool under her feet. She
worked her toes into the Isfahan carpets and looked around. It
was not large, twenty feet by fifteen, part of the usual five-room
Senior School suite. Schools had the same facilities, but they
were not built to a set pattern. Pale-blue stone walls, plenty of
room for anything she wanted to put up; some of her hangings
and pictures were still boxed in corners. She walked through the
olive-wood door and down the corridor. Different marble on the
floor, patterned in geometric shapes. Doors: a study, a lounge,
cupboards, a washroom. A room for her servants; she had
checked that last night.

  Mother's voice in her mind's ear: You make their choices. It's
your responsibility.

   A vestibule, before the outside door. Deng and Marco were
waiting, ready for the trip back to the plantation. The Oriental
bowed slightly, and the younger man looked down and flushed.
Yolande blinked in puzzlement, then realized she was naked. Oh,
she thought. Serfs were strange about that sort of thing.
Especially here in the New Territories; Marco had not been up
from the Quarters long, and that mostly in the garages.

   "We leaving now, Mistress Yolande," Deng said, crumpling his
cap in one hand and bowing again. His eyes flickered past her, to
Lele…

    "A quick journey back and a happy return," Yolande said.
"Tell the Mastah and Mistis I'm well settled in, not to worry, I'll
call soon. Give Tantie Rahksan a kiss fo' me." She felt the
familiar wince of guilt; she was a terrible correspondent, missed
her parents bitterly, could never seem to remember to call…
Home was a prison that you longed to escape, and your safe
warm place as well; seeing Deng go was like losing another bit of
it. "Don't yo' worry either, Deng, I'll take good care of her." She
parted his shoulder; it was like tapping the edge of a boulder.

  "Thank you, Missy," he said, with a rare smile.

   She could remember him smiling that way when he played
tossup games with her, when she was a toddler; now her eyes
were level with his. The two men left, and the door closed with a
sough.



   The other score or so of girls in her Year and section were
already gathering in the courtyard, dressed like her in rough
cotton exercise tunics and openwork runner's sandals, talking
and yawning and helping each other stretch. Baiae School was
laid out in rectangular blocks running inland from the water's
edge; it was slightly chilly in the shade of the colonnade that ran
around three sides of the open space, and the sun was just rising
over the higher two-story block at the east end. The low-peaked
roof was black against the rose-pale sky, and the sound of birds
was louder than the human chatter. In the center of the court
was a long pool; water spouted from a marble dolphin, and she
could feel a faint trailing of mist as she walked out into the
garden beside it among the flowerbeds and benches.

   A few heads turned her way as she rummaged among the
equipment on a table. Weights for the ankles, and to strap
around her wrists; she bound back her hair with a sweatband,
and sniffed longingly at the smells of coffee and cooking that
drifted over the odor of dew-wet grass and roses. No food for an
hour or two yet.

   "Ingolfsson!" It was Myfwany Venders, the redheaded one who
had greeted her at the parking lot. "Come on over here, meet the
crew." The girl from Sicily continued to her knot of friends: "This
is Yolande Ingolfsson, down from the wilds of Tuscany." She
turned to the newcomer. "This is — "

   Yolande struggled to match names with faces as the
introductions were made; it was important, she was the outsider
here. Most of the others were from south-central Italy, daughters
of planters and overseers, civil servants and Combine execs. A
few from farther away — that was government policy — from the
French and Spanish and Balkan provinces, even from the older
territories on the south shore of the Mediterranean. Most
humiliatingly taller than her, why was she still short…

  "Look out," Myfwany muttered. "It's Bruiser and the Beak."

   Two adults were walking toward them from the
administration block at the head of the courtyard. A woman in
white cotton pants and singlet with a towel around her neck;
stocky-muscular, broad in hips and shoulders, big-busted for a
Draka, with a hard flat face and golden-brown hair. The man
beside her was much taller and almost thin, with a close-cropped
mat of black hair shot with silver and a face that would have
been handsome except for the eagle swoop of his nose. He was
stripped to the waist and his body looked wiry and very strong,
long ropy muscles moving easily under tanned skin.

  "Teachers," Myfwany continued, sotto voce. "Married. She's
Unarmed Combat and Hand Weapons, he's Firearms and
Tactics."

   The students fell silent. "Keep stretching," the woman said,
walking and appraising. "Some of you need it." The man
dropped forward, caught himself on three fingers and a thumb
and began doing one-handed pushups. His wife stopped in front
of an apprehensive-looking girl and poked her below the ribs
with one finger. "Too much pasta this summer, Muriel. Yo'll
regret it."

   Well, she is a bit plump, Yolande thought. Not fat, but with a
smoothed-at-the-edges look, serfish. Stupid to let yourself go like
that over the holidays; it just made school harder… and you lost
respect, too.

  Myfwany held out linked hands. "Hamstring?" she said.

   "Thanks." She swung the heel of her right leg into the other's
fingers. "Higher," she said, rolling back the toes and laying the
ball of her foot in line with the shin, kicking position. Myfwany
bent her knees and raised it slowly until Yolande's foot was
pointing at the sky. That brought their faces close together, and
she whispered:

  "What're they like?"

   "Beak's not bad," the redhead whispered back. "Used to be a
tank commander in the Third. His classes are pretty interesting.
Bruiser's fair even with her own daughters, but sort of strict.
Doesn't much care for excuses; she was in a recon cohort."

   The former scout-commando came to stand behind the new
girl. "Good extension there," she said. "Try the other leg."
Yolande switched feet. "Well, yo' limber enough. Here." Her
accent was flat and a little nasal, north-Angolan or Katanga.
   Yolande shook out her legs and took the offered hand; it was
like gripping a piece of carved wood. She squeezed as strongly as
she could, admiring the thick wrist and smooth flat ripple of the
teacher's forearm.

   "Not bad," the instructor said, releasing her. "Stronger than
yo' looks; little ones fool yo', sometimes."

   The girl's ears burned. Why does everyone have to comment
on my height? she thought.

   "Right, fo' all the new ones here, I'm Vanessa Margrave, and
this is my husband Dave." The man dropped onto the fingers of
both hands and flicked himself upright, using the strength of his
arms only.

   "That's Miz Margrave to yo' little horrors. We're goin' to get
on fine, as long as certain things are remembered. Back home on
Pappy's plantation, yo're all princesses an' the apple of every eye.
Here, we learn discipline." She grinned, and a few of the girls
swallowed nervously. "Yo've all had seven years of the basics; now
Mr. Margrave an' I are responsible fo' turnin' y'all into killin'
fighters. Yo' will do it, and all become credits to the Race. And in
the process, yo' will suffer. Understand?"

  "Yes, Miz Margrave!" they chorused.

   "Now, it's six kilometers befo' breakfast, and I'm hungry.
Let's go."



   Yolande hesitated at the entrance to the refectory, one of
several scattered throughout the complex. There were seven
hundred students at Baiae School, half of them in the Senior
years, and Draka did not believe in crowding their children. In
theory you could pick the dining area you wanted, from among
half a dozen. In practice it was not a good idea to try pushing in
where you were not wanted, and she had tagged along with
Myfwany's group from the baths where they had all showered
and swum after the run.
   I feel like a lost puppy following somebody home, she thought
resentfully. Back at the old school she had had her recognized
set, her own territory. Here… Oh, gods, don't let me end up a
goat, she thought. Yolande knew her own faults; enough adults
had told her she was dreamy, impractical, hot tempered. School
was a matter of cliques, and an outcast's life was just barely
worth living.

   The dining room was in the shape of a T, a long glass-fronted
room overlooking the bay with an unroofed terrace carried out
over the water on arches. Yolande hesitated at the colonnade at
the base of the terrace, then closed the distance at a wave from
one of Myfwany's friends. There were four of them, five with her,
and they settled into one of the half-moon stone tables out at the
end of the pier. It was after seven and the sun was well up,
turning the rippled surface of the bay to a silver-blue glitter that
flung eye-hurting hints of brightness back at her like a moving
mirror, or mica rocks in sunlight.

    There was shade over the table, an umbrella shape of
wrought-iron openwork with a vine of Arabian jasmine trained
through it. The long flowers hung above their heads translucent
white, stirring gently in the breeze that moved the leaves and
flickered dapples of dark and bright across the white marble and
tableware. Yolande stood for a moment, looking back at the
shore. You could see most of the main building from here,
stretching back north. It was a long two-story rectangle like a
comb with the back facing Vesuvius; the teeth were enclosed
courtyards running down toward the sea. The walls were pale
stone half-overgrown with climbing vines, ivy or bougainvillea in
sheets of hot pink, burgundy, and purple.

   Formal gardens framed the courts and the white-sand beach.
At the north end of the main block another pier ran out into the
water from a low stone boathouse; little single-masted pleasure
ketches were moored to it, and a small fishing boat that supplied
the kitchens with fresh seafood. Beyond that she could see a pair
of riders galloping along the sea's edge, their hooves throwing
sheets of spray higher than the manes.

   "Pretty," she said as she seated herself.
  "Hmmm? Oh, yes, I suppose it is," Myfwany said, pressing a
button in the center of the table. "Everyone know what they
want?"

  "Coffee, gods, coffee," one of the others said as the serving
wench brought up a wheeled cart.

   Yolande sniffed deeply, sighing with pleasure. The scent of the
brewing pot mingled with the delicate sweetness of the flowers
over their heads and the hot breads under their covers, iodine
and seaweed from the ocean beneath their feet, and suddenly she
was hungry. For food, for the day, for things that she could not
know or name, except that they made her happy. She looked
around at the faces of the others, and everything seemed clear
and beautiful, everyone her friend. Even the serf, a swarthy
thick-set woman with a long coil of strong black hair; the
identity number tattoo below her ear showed orange as she bent
to fill the cup, and the coffee made an arc of dark-brown from
the silver spout to the pure cream color of the porcelain.

   "Thank yo'," she said to the servant, with a bright smile. "I'll
have some of those—" she pointed to a mound of biscuits,
brown-topped and baked with walnuts —and the fruit, and some
of those egg pies."

   "Grapefruit," Muriel said sourly, watching with envy as the
others gave their orders and Yolande broke a roll. It steamed
gently, and the soft yellow butter melted and sank in as soon as it
was off the knife. The plump girl had lagged badly when they
sprinted the last half-kilometer of the run, and bruised herself
doing a front-flip over one of the obstacles. The wench put two
neatly sectioned halves before her. "I loathe grapefruit."

   "Then don't be such a slug, Muri," Myfwany said ruthlessly,
looking up from a clipboard. "You were doing quite well last
year, and then spent all summer lolling about stuffin' yo'self with
ricotta and noodle pie."

   Somebody else giggled, and Muriel's face went scarlet; her
expression went from sullen to angry, and then her eyes starred
with unshed tears.
   "Honest, Muri, everyone's just tryin' to help—" one girl began.

   There was a rattle of crockery as Muriel pushed her half-eaten
plate away, rose, and left at a quick walk that was almost a run.
Myfwany scowled at the girl who had tittered.

   "Veronica Adams, that was mean."

   "Well, I didn't call her a slug, anyway."

   "An'I didn't laugh at her. Are we her friends, or not? I thought
yo' two were close."

   Veronica frowned and pushed strips of chicken breast and
orange around her plate. "Oh, all right." she muttered. A
moment later: "I'll tell her I'm sorry." A sigh. "It's just… all the
trouble we went to, an' she slides back down the hill when we
stop pushin'."

    "Things aren't easy fo' her," Myfwany continued, expertly
filleting her grilled trout. Aside, to Yolande: "Her parents are
religious."

   Yolande kept silent for a moment, biting into the biscuit and
catching a crumble beneath her chin with the other. Myfwany
was obviously the leader of the group, and it would not do to
offend… not while she was on probation.

   There was a slight taste of honey and cinnamon to the pastry,
blending with the richness of the butter and the hot morsels of
nut. The egg pies looked good, too, baked in fluffy pastry shells
with bits of bacon and scallion; she ate one in three swallows,
feeling virtuous satisfaction. Her body felt good and strong and
loose, warmed from the run and the swim, relaxed by the
masseur's fingers.

   It would not do to look tongue-tied, either. She swallowed,
looked up and raised a brow. Religious… That was unusual,
these days. "Aesirtru?" she asked. You still found a scattering of
neopagans about, though even in her grandfather's time it had
been mostly a fad.
   "No, worse. Christians."

   Yolande made a small shocked sound, one hand going
unconsciously to her mouth. Very unusual, and not altogether
safe. Not forbidden, precisely. After all, only a few generations
ago most Draka had been at least nominal Christians. But now…
it was enough to attract the attention of the Security
Directorate. Believers were tolerated, no more, provided they
kept quiet and out of the way and gave no whisper of socially
dangerous opinions; the secret police took the implications of
the New Testament seriously, more so than most of its followers
ever had. And it could kill any chances of a commission when
you did your military service, even if the krypteia could do no
more to you than that.

   She felt the eyes of the others on her. "Well, she's a Citizen,"
she said with renewed calm, undoing her hair and shaking it out
over her shoulders. The sea breeze caught it and threw it back,
trailing ends across her eyes. "She's got a right to it, if she wants
to."

    Myfwany smiled with approval. "Oh, it didn't take," she said,
waving her fork. "That's part of the problem, we talked her out of
it last year—partly us, some of the teachers helped— and then
when she went home it was one quarrel with her parents after
another, and she was gloomin' all the time. She'll snap out of it."
Another hard look at Veronica. "If we help her."

   "I said I'd say I was sorry," the girl snapped back, then bridled
herself with a visible effort. Softly: "I am sorry." She was
broad-shouldered, with a mane of curly dark-brown hair and the
sharp flat accent of Alexandria and the Egyptian provinces.
"What's today?"

   "Intro Secondary Math 8:00 to 10:30," Myfwany said,
glancing back at the clipboard. "Classical Lit from 10:45 to 12:15.
Historical Geography till lunch, rest period, and then we're back
to Bruiser and The Beak. Shouldn't be too bad, Beak's givin' us a
familiarization lecture on rocket-launchers today."

   "Moo," the third girl said. "Secondary Math." Yolande fought
to remember the name. Mandy Slauter. Tall and lanky and with
hair sun-faded to white, pointed chin propped in one hand.
"Tensor calculus, an' Ah had trouble enough with basic. Euurg,
yuk, moo."

   "Y'can't make flying school without good math," Myfwany
said, reaching for a bunch of grapes from the bowl in the center
of the table. She stripped one free, flicked it up between finger
and thumb and caught it out of the air with a flash of white
teeth. To Yolande: "Yo've fallen in among a nest of would-be
spacers."

   They all gave an unconscious glance upward. It had only been
a few years since the first flights to orbit, but that was a strong
dream. Only a few thousand Draka had made the journey beyond
Earth's atmosphere as yet, and rather more Americans, but it
was obvious that the two power blocs who dominated the planet
were moving their rivalry into space. There would be thousands
needed when the time came for their call-up in half a decade.

   Yolande flushed. "Me, too," she said. "Both my parents were
pilots in the War." With shy pride: "Pa was an ace. Twelve kills."
Some of the others looked impressed. Thank you, Pa, she
thought. Well, it was impressive.

   Mandy shrugged. "But tensor calculus… Sometimes Ah'd
rather just settle fo' the infantry. Not so much like school,
anyway." She reached for a passionfruit, cracked the mottled
egg-shaped shell, and dumped the speckled greyish contents into
her mouth.

   "How can yo' eat those things with your eyes open?" Veronica
said. "They look like a double tablespoon of tadpoles glued
together with snot." In an aside to Yolande: "Mandy's boy-crazy
already, that's why she's considerin' the infantry." The pilot corps
was two-thirds female, while the ground combat arms had a
slight majority of men.

  Mandy laughed and raised the fruit rind threateningly. "Ah
am not boy-crazy—"

   "Aren't we all a little old fo' food-fights?" Myfwany said,
looking at her watch. "Class time."
                 CHAPTER TWO

   … sorry it took so long to write but it's been a bit of a whirl.
The school is very pretty here on the bay, and my rooms are fine.
I checked on the servants' quarters and food and everything, like
you said. Bianca complains about the cooking but that's just
because it's Neapolitan, and they all have trouble understanding
the Italian around here (so do I) which isn't like Tuscan at all.
The school servants can mostly speak English anyway, since they
come from all over. A lot of them can read, too. The classes are
about like the old school on Elba, but we've got a really tough
Unarmed Instructor and I'm learning a lot. You have to or she
thumps you, which I suppose is fair.

   The other girls are mostly nice and I've made some friends
already, especially Myfwany and Muriel and Veronica and
Mandy. People are calling us the Fearsome Five, and we're all
going to try for pilot training and the space program. Can I
invite them up to home for the Novembers?

   Anyway, I miss you all the time. Mother, and Pa, too, and
Edwina and Dionysia and even John but don't tell him or he'll be
even worse than he usually is. And Tantie Rahksan and Deng,
too, and the house and everything.
                                                             Love,
                                                           Yolande

   P.S. The stables are pretty good here, so could you send down
Foamfoot? The school hacks have all got mouths like saddle
leather.
                   Letter from Yolande Ingolfsson to her parents
                                      Dated: October 21st, 1968
                                From Contemporary Poets Series
                                         Trackways of the Heart
                                   Archona Press, Archona, 1991
BAIAE SCHOOL
DISTRICT OF CAMPANIA
PROVINCE OF ITALY
DOMIMATIOTI OF THE DRAKA
SEPTEMBER 18, 1968


   The classroom was comfortably cool, even though the day was
growing sultry in the hours after noon. Half the frosted-glass
panels of the inner wall were folded away, leaving gaps between
the slender pillars of white-streaked rose marble; beyond was the
shade of the inner colonnade, and hot white light on the
courtyard's gardens and fountains. Yolande still fought to stifle a
yawn; there was a feeling of drowsiness to the hot air. It smelled
of cool stone, seawater, and the summer-scent of pine resin
baking out under the unmerciful sun. Her eyelids fluttered down,
and she brought herself back up with a jerk. It had been like that
since her periods started a year before. Wild energy, and then
sleepiness in the middle of the day; despair and happiness
switching on and off like a light-switch.

   And I don't even have breasts yet, she thought resentfully,
looking down at a chest still almost as flat as a boy's. She looked
over at Mandy, in the next desk. She already looks like a woman
and she's tall, too. It isn't fair!

   Myfwany hissed at her and she rose as the teacher walked
briskly through the colonnade, followed by a serf with a double
armful of books and papers.

  "Make yo'selfs comfortable, girls," the instructor said. There
was a rustle as they sat again. "Just leave it all, Helga," she
added to the servant.

   How elegant she looks, Yolande thought, watching the
teacher as she arranged the materials. Sort of distinguished.
Sixtyish, with graying brown curls cropped close to her head;
slender, with a scholar's well-kept hands and an athlete's tan,
dressed in a long gray robe with a belt of worked silver
vine-leaves. And a miniature gold circlet pinned over her heart;
the corona aurea, the Archon's highest award. Awed, Yolande
wondered what it was for. Usually for
bravery-above-and-beyond, or some really important
accomplishment for the Race.

   "Service to the State," the teacher said formally.

  "Glory to the Race," the students murmured in perfunctory
unison.

    The class was a little over average size, twelve pupils seated at
desks of African flame-cedar in irregular clumps across a floor
tiled in geometric patterns of blue and green, facing the rear wall
and the teacher's station.

  "I'm Catherine Harris," she said, sitting with one hip on the
edge of the green malachite slab that was her desk.

   There was a big display-screen on the wall behind her, one of
the new crystal-sandwich types; she touched a control on the
desk and it lit with a world map in outline. The smaller screens
on the students' desks came alive as well, slaved to the master
control. Countries were shown in block colors: black for the
Domination, with the Draka firelizard sprawled across it, and
shades of green for the nations of the Alliance.

    "Well start with a regression. This is the situation today, with
more than half the world under the Yoke." All Africa, all Europe,
all of mainland Asia except the southern peninsulas running
India-Malaysia-Indochina. "Now before the Eurasian War, in
1940." The area of black shrank; now the Domination was mostly
Africa, with the Middle East and Central Asia and only a toehold
in the eastern Balkans. The names of vanished lands reappeared
on the screen: Germany, France, Russia, China.

   "Now 1914, before the Great War. Which, difficult as it may
be to imagine, infants, I can remember." Muffled laughter, and
the screens showed Africa alone in black, with outliers in Crete
and Cyprus and Ceylon. "Ten-year intervals back to the
beginning." The dark tide receded, from the western bulge of the
continent and from the interior. 1800, and Egypt went pale. Two
decades more, and there was nothing but a tiny black spot
around Cape Town in the extreme south.
   Yolande stirred uneasily at the sight. The sequence was
familiar, but showing it in reverse was not. Usually the maps
started with the tiny speck, and then it flowed irresistably
forward. Doing it this way seemed vaguely… improper, somehow.
She glanced at the servant, who was sitting on her heels by the
side of the desk, hands folded neatly in her lap and eyes cast
down. A wench in her twenties, blond and with a
Germanic-looking pallor, very pretty—what Pa would call a
hundred-auric item—with the serf-number standing out orange
beneath her ear.

   I wonder what she thinks of the course, the Draka girl
thought suddenly. The wench must have heard it dozens of
times. Some people said serfs didn't think at all, except about
things like food and sex and their work, but that wasn't true. Serf
children played quite freely with the offspring of the Great House
when they were young, and Yolande had learned all their gossip;
the stories, whose mother yelled and hit, and whose father drank
too much smuggled grappa. Deng thought a lot, he was really
smart even if he wasn't very talkative. Rakhsan, Mother's Afghan
maidservant, she could tell you things about times way back
before the War. It was the older fieldhands who kept so quiet,
never speaking unless you asked them something, the ones old
enough to remember the War and the times right after it, the
purges and the camps.

   "… Sure yo're quite familiar with it," the teacher was saying.
"What I'm goin' to teach is the realities beneath it. Question:
how did we get from that,"—she moved her head toward the
screen—"to this." A hand indicated the school.

  Myfwany raised her palm. "We won, Miz Harris," she said,
and there was another muffled giggle.

   Harris smiled herself, and reached into the folds of her gown
for a gunmetal cigarette case. "Pardon the bad example," she
said sardonically at their round-eyed stares. Draka of their
generation did not often smoke, at least not tobacco.

  "I was raised befo' we knew it was bad for yo'. Yes, Myiwany,
we won. But war isn't the explanation, it's the result. We're a
warrior people, and our weakness is that we tend to think too
much of battles and not enough of the things which lead up to
victory. There are problems that don't yield to the butchershop
logic of the sword. Yo' can say a man dies because his heart
stops, but it doesn't explain. We need to know the why."

  She turned slightly, leaning back against the desk and
cupping her right elbow in the left hand. "School is trainin', and
not just to fight."

   "Yo', girl." She pointed at Mandy. "How many Draka are
there?"

  The tall girl started. "Hum, ah, sixty million? Roughly." Under
her breath: "I hope. Moo."

  "Fifty-eight million, nine hundred and twenty thousand-odd.
How many serfs?"

   "Lots, ah, a billion and a half?"

   "Correct. So we're about three percent of the total; that's not
countin' the billion or so wild ones in the Alliance countries. It's
not enough to be strong an' fierce, good fighters. Necessary, but
not enough; to use the old cliche', we aren't a numerous people
and nobody loves us. We have serfs enough in the Janissary
legions for brute force, to carry rifles and die. Yo' are Citizens,
and need to be able to think."

   A meditative puff. "History is process; like dancin', or an
avalanche. Sometimes it's… too ponderous to move, just grinds
on regardless. Sometimes it balances delicately, and a minor
push can turn it. Other times, yo' can turn even a pretty heavy
movement with a small force by findin' the right lever to magnify
yo' strength."

   "That's how we dominate. Leverage… and this class is goin' to
teach yo' how the process works. Look to either side of the
screen, now."

   Murals flanked the two-meter square of the display panel, a
landscape of hills rocky and steep and covered with the
olive-green scrub bush of southern Africa. A labor-gang was
building a road through it, black men in leg-hobbles swinging
picks and sledgehammers; others pushed wheelbarrows full of
crushed rock, chipped granite blocks for the curbs, pulled stone
rollers beside yoked oxen. Draka worked with surveyor's
transepts and spirit levels to mark the course, swung their whips
over the bent backs of the serfs, sat mounted and armed to
guard.

  "Question," the teacher said. "Date this mural and place it."

    Yolande blinked at it, dredging at her memory. No powered
machinery, just ox-wagons and horses. Probably before the
1820s. Her eyes switched to the right, a close-up of a horseman.
Canvas-sided boots, baggy leather pants, a coarse cotton shirt,
and a jerkin of zebra-hide; long yellow hair in a twisted braid
down his back to the waist. A saber at the belt, and a saw-hilted
flintlock pistol in his right hand, double-barreled and
clumsy-looking. Two more in holsters at his saddle-bow, and a
fourth tucked into the high top of a boot. The long-barreled
musket slung across his back was the same as the heirloom
antique Mother had brought north from her family's plantation
in the far south, a Ferguson breech-loader.

   Her hand went up. "1790s?" she said, when the teacher
glanced her way. "Uhhh, somewhere north of the Whiteridge?
Limpopo valley, I think." Myfwany glanced her way, and Yolande
caught the thumb-and-forefinger gesture of approval with a
flush of pleasure.

   "Excellent," Harris said. She looked down and tapped again at
the controls set in the stone, and a map of Africa appeared on
the screens. It jumped as the focus shifted, narrowing down to
the southeastern corner of the continent, and a red dot
appeared. "1798, in the Northmark." That was the province
north of the Limpopo. "Not far from where I was born, just south
of the Cherangani mountains. A wild place and time."

   Yolande looked at the man in the picture again. There was a
trick she knew, of getting inside someone's head. You had to
think really hard, and imagine you were wearing their skin,
feeling what they felt. Sometimes it worked; sometimes you
could even put it down in words, and that was the most magical
feeling there was. She fixed her eyes on the face in the picture,
made herself forget that it was pigments on a flat surface.

   There was pale stubble on his cheeks, and she could see the
sheen of sweat on it; the hand that held the pistol was
tight-clenched, with half-moons of black under cracked nails. He
would stink, of sweat and leather and gun-oil and sulfury black
powder, and his hands would have the sweet-sour pungent smell
of brass from the hilt of his sword. It was a good picture… no,
not a picture, that's how he looked.

   Eyes slitted, they would be flickering ceaselessly back and
forth. At the laborers, there were hundreds of them, big
muscular men with heavy hammers and picks in their hands.
Captured warriors, not meek born-serfs. At the dense bush all
around; rough stumps and edges where it had been cut back
from both sides of the road, but it rose dense enough to block
sight within javelin-cast. She felt the unseen hating black eyes on
her back, and pink-palmed hands gripping the hafts of
iron-bladed spears. Trapped in close thornbush country, eight
shots and then hand-to-hand with cold steel…

   "Ah, I see yo' understand," Harris said softly as she blinked
the present back into her eyes and met the teacher's.

   Yolande's mouth was dry, and she drank from the glass of
lemonade beside her screen. "No radios or tanks, no helicopter
gunboats or automatic weapons. Tell me, how did you place it?"

    Yolande willed the sour taste of fear to leave her mouth. The
feelings lingered just below the surface of her mind, an
adrenaline-hopping intensity of focus, of anger and ferocity.
"Ahh… it couldn't be earlier. The way they're wearing their hair,
and the zebra-skin. But that's an early-model Ferguson, my
Mother's got one just like it, see how the trigger-guard has only a
little knob to turn it and open the breech? Later on they made
them with a bigger handle sticking down from the buttstock."

   "To increase the rate of fire," Harris said. "We were the first
to adopt the breech-loader, because it shot further an' faster.
Gatling came to the Domination, because we'd use his
invention… because we were always outnumbered, and had to be
able to kill them faster than they could charge. Right, now
someone else. Which is the richest continent? Yo', Veronica."

  "Uh, Africa?"

   Harris grinned. "Sorry, trick question. Wealth is a subjective
quantity. Fo' example, the Congo river generates as much
hydropower as the whole of North America… if yo' can get at it,
through jungles crawling with diseases."

   Her hand reached to the screen controls again. "This is a
disease map of Africa, before we cleaned it up. Sleeping sickness.
Ngana. Malaria. Yellow fever. Dengue fever, river blindness,
bilharzia. Now well overlay it on the political sequence-map I
showed befo'. Muriel, what do you see? Patterns, remember.
Process."

   A frown and a long pause from the student whose parents
followed the proscribed faith. "The south's healthiest, the areas
south of Capricorn. Then the high country all the way north and
east to the Ethiopian provinces, then the far north."

  "Right. Now the sequence again."

   "They… they overlap. Not always, but the conquest starts in
the south, then leaps 'way north to Egypt, then it goes across
North Africa and in both directions down the rift highlands. For
a long time, anyway."

   "Good, Muriel. Most of this part,"—Harris' finger indicated
the western coast of Africa—"is a deathtrap for Caucasians
without modem medicine. It ate them alive. Now, when was the
first European settlement at the Cape?"

  Yolande raised her hand again. "1654, Miz Harris. The
Dutch."

   "Right, the Dutch East India Company. Feeble little colony,
and after a hundred and fifty years there were only ten thousand
of them. Why?"

  "They weren't interested in it?"
   "Right again, they never sent mo' than a few hundred
colonists; it was so healthy that they multiplied fast. Some of us
are descended from them, though they got swamped pretty
quick. Next significant date."

  "1779," Myfwany said. "The British annexed the Cape."

  "Conquered. The formal annexation was in 1783 after the
Peace of Paris. But our ancestors were already arrivin'."

   The screen flashed a montage: American Loyalists being
driven from their homes by revolutionary mobs, Loyalist
regiments and their families boarding sailing ships as the British
evacuated Charleston and Savannah and New York, Hessian
mercenaries sitting idle in camp as the war for which they had
been hired wound down.

    "Question: with about twenty thousand fightin' men—it was
all men in those days—our forebearers conquered a half-million
square miles of southern Africa in about a decade. We've seen it
was possible partly because the environment didn't loll them; but
two generations later, it took a hundred thousand men two
decades to conquer North Africa for us… with better weapons an'
organization, too. There were two million strong an' warlike
blacks in the southern provinces. Why were they relatively easy
to break to the Yoke? Yes, Berenice."

  "Mmmm, blacks are stupid an' backward?"

   Harris laughed. "A comfortin' lie that was obsolete when I was
yo' age girl." She called up the world map again. "Whats the
most relevent fact about that area, all things considered? Think
about it Berenice."

"It's… far away from everywhere?"

   "Correct. As far as yo' can get , failin' Austrailia. Societies
grow and develop by compitition, same as species, only the
process is Lamarckian not Darwinian.The inhabitants of this
area are barely neolithic, cept' for havin' iron spears and hoes.
No political unit larger than a few villages, no written language,
no horses, no wagons, an' a magical-ritual world view. Four
thousand kilometers of mountain, jungle, and fever-bush
protection; than three millennia of progress arrived overnight by
ship, with the result that they became our cattle."

   She glanced at her wrist. "Class over. Fo' the next, I want a
short essay, outlinin' why plantations became the standard rural
unit." A hard look. "I do not want a rehash of chapter 7," she
added, tapping the brown jacketed text before her. The
Domination: A Historical Survey. "Yo' own thoughts. Give yo' a
hint: look at where the most of the Loyalists came from. Then
look at the figures in the appendix on soil fertility an' erosion in
the far-southern provinces, and the demographics chapter. See
yo' Thursday, girls. Service to the State."

   "Glory to the Race," they answered. The desks hummed and
began to spit printouts of the maps the
teacher had summoned into the receiver trays.



   Wheeee! Yolande thought, slowing to a handstand on the
parallel bars. Her body was straight as a plumbline, toes pointed
to the ceiling and arms a rigid Y on the hardwood poles. Then
she let her weight fall back, a long swoop that accelerated like a
sling's circuit into speed that pulled the blood out of her head,
flung her up and her hands came off the bars and she twisted in
midair, body whirling like a top. Slap and her hands were back
on the bar, almost in the same position but facing the opposite
direction.

   Five, she thought. That was enough; her arms were starting to
tire. There was no sense in risking an injury. Instead she spread
her legs in the air and lowered her feet, placing them neatly just
behind her hands. The damp skin touched oak; she took a deep
breath and sprang, backflipping in the air and landing on the
balls of her feet, knees bending slightly to take the shock as she
touched down on the hard rubbery synthetic of the palaestra's
floor.

   There was applause. Startled, Yolande looked up as she
reached for a towel. Several of the other girls had stopped and
were clapping, halting for a moment the stick-fighting or free
weights or exercise machines that their individual programs
prescribed. She blushed and bent her head to dry herself off; she
was slick-wet with sweat from face to feet, a familiar enough
sensation and rather agreeable. The embarrassment was not,
and she was glad that the exertion-glow would hide it. She
finished and drew on the rough cotton trousers and singlet,
pulling the drawstring of the pants tight with fingers that
trembled slightly. Half irritation, half a pleasure that was almost
painful…

   I am good at the bars, she thought. I just wish… it's nice to
be good, but I wish it didn't make you stand out. Why can't I
ever just fit in…

   "Not bad," Margrave said. The instructor was dressed in
pankration practice-armor, shiny black leather and synthetic,
and a padded helmet with protective bars across the face. "Ever
thought of trying for the Games?"

   "Yes, Miz Margrave," Yolande said. The Domination had little
in the way of professional sports, but amateur athletics had high
prestige. She had daydreamed it, standing on the rebuilt plinth
at Olympia with the golden olive-wreath resting on her hair…
but that would mean giving up all her spare time, and… "There
are too many other things to do."

   Margrave nodded, and jerked a thumb over her shoulder at
the rack of pankration equipment on the far wall. "Such as that.
Suit up, I'd bettah check yo' style."

   Yolande swallowed dryly and trotted to obey; that was one of
the rules, you ran everywhere. This palaestra was a severly plain
box two stories high and open on one end to face a turf
running-track and a long vista of fields and woods; the interior
was finished in white tile, with mirrors and stretching-rails
around most of the perimeter, climbing-ropes and rings
dangling from the ceiling. "Thanks," she muttered to Myfwany,
as the other girl helped her on with the armor.

  "Level?" she asked the instructor as they faced off.

  "Full contact far as yo' concerned," Margrave said. "Startin'…
now."

   Yolande dropped into fighting position, feet at right angles
and knees bent. Breath in through the nose, out through the
mouth. Muscles relaxed; you could make yourself faint with
exhaustion in minutes if you tensed. The weight of armor, boots,
and gloves was familiar; you never practiced without them, for
protection's sake and because real-world fighting wasn't done in
gym clothes. The teacher quartered, and Yolande responded with
a pivot on her front foot. Don't let the opponent push you back,
she reminded herself.

   A kick. Straight hop-kick forward, toward her stomach. She
moved into it, parrying with her left hand and swiping upward
with her left elbow towards the chin… No, that was a mistake,
Margrave was too tall…

   The teacher's kicking leg had come down aside, leaving her in
a wide horse-straddle stance. Her hands clamped down on
Yolande's arm, elbow and shoulder; she hip-twisted to leave her
right leg as a trip-bar and threw the student forward and down.
That was simple enough, so simple that she could think while
reflex ingrained since her fifth year rucked her head down and
made her throw herself with the motion. Time slowed as she fell.
Impact on the shoulders. Rolling to break the hold, rolling
forward curled into a ball to preserve momentum.

   "Can't get up fast enough," she muttered, vocal cords
following thought without conscious intervention. She was
watching between her own feet as she rolled, watching the
teacher's machine-fluid rush after her. Slap, and her forearms
went down on the mat in a neat V; her body curled on top of
them, its own weight coiling it back like a spring. A hunnh of
effort, and she drove both legs back, toes curled towards her
shins and heels together.

   They struck, heelbones driving into the teacher's solar plexus.
That hurt, she thought; it was like kicking a concrete-block wall,
and it jarred every bone in her body down to the small of her
back. Move, move. Margrave was folding backwards bending at
the middle, moving like a stone dropped into thick honey.
Yolande let the impact stop her own body in mid air, curled her
knees towards her chest and roll-bounced upright. The teacher
was just straightening; the girl swung forward in a flying scissor,
pumping the left knee up for momentum and then down as the
right foot whipped around in a torquing circle, aimed for—

   Blackness.



   "She's all right," a voice was saying. Yolande blinked and
started to shake her head. That was a mistake, and she was
barely able to contain the surge of nausea that followed. Flecks of
glitter drifted past her retinas, and her vision quivered as hands
undid the helmet and slid her head free.

  A finger peeled back one eyelid, while a hand clamped her
head steady. "Good—even dilation. No concussion."

   A cool cloth touched brow and cheeks: Myfwany. "Yo' were
just out fo' a sec," she said, her voice anxious. Margrave removed
her own practice helmet and threw it to one side, leaning
forward again to probe at Yolande's neck and shoulders with
expert fingers.

  "Nice work. Iff'n I hadn't had the breastplate yo' might have
put me out with that back-kick. "

  "Sorry," Yolande mumbled, squinting against the multiple
images. Margrave grinned.

   "Nevah say sorry fo' doin' it right." She looked up to the circle
of students. "That was the right move. 'Specially against superior
weight an' strength. The follow-up was the problem; those-there
high-jumpin' kicks don't do it, 'less'n the other side's
immobilized anyways. Don't get fancy." Margrave came up on
one knee, leaned over with elbow on thigh.

    "Good work, Ingolfsson," she continued. "Yo' really pushed me
a little. Rest easy fo' a while." To the others: "Right, pick partners
an' face off. No contact."
   It was full dark now on the beach, and the driftwood fire
crackled, sending sparks flying up with sharp popping sounds.
The flames were blue and red and orange, a white-crimson over
the bed of coals below; the smell was dry and hot. Inland the
trees and shrubs rustled, shadows dark and moving against the
lesser dark of the sky. The waves were breaking in a foam of
cream, glittering in starlight and moonlight, surge and retreat.
The sound of them was like heartbeat in her ears, like lying
beside some huge and friendly beast. Out beyond her friends
were still diving and playing, flashes of white bodies otter-sleek
among the water. Their voices dropped into the warm dark, no
louder than the cicadas and nightbirds.

   Yolande laid her head on her knees and wiggled her toes over
the edge of the blanket. The powdery white clung to them like
frosting; she tapped her feet together and felt the grains trickle
down her insteps, tickling or clinging where the skin was still
damp from her swim. Looking up, the moonpath lay on the
water like silver, almost painfully bright. The stars were sparse
around the moon, abundant elsewhere; the lights of men were
far too few to dim them. A faint glow west across the bay was
Naples, and she could make out the long curve of the coast by the
wide-scattered jewels that marked the towns and manors of her
people. Elsewhere the shore was quiet and lightless, fields and
groves and orchards.

   She lay back on the striped wool and smiled, stretching her
arms above her head. Stars… there was a trick to that. A mental
effort, and the velvet backdrop with its glowing colored lights
vanished; instead there was depth, an endless dark where great
fires hung burning forever amid the slow-fading hydrogen roar
of creation. Her lips parted, and she felt a sensation that might
have been delight, or a loneliness too great to bear; she forced
herself to hold the wordless moment, mind suspended in pure
experience. Moisture gathered slowly around her eyes, trickling
in warm salt streaks down the wind-cooled skin of her temples.

  "Woof!" Mandy's voice. "I'm turnin' into a prune. Come on!"

  Yolande started as the others dashed out of the ocean, wiping
away the not-quite-tears with the back of her wrist. They ran
past her to the freshwater fountain at the edge of the beach,
laughing and splashing each other around the stone basin as
they sluiced off the salt. The darkness closed around as they
threw themselves down on the blankets about the fire; now it
was a hearth, the tribe's fortress against the night. Myfwany sat
cross-legged beside her, leaning back on braced palms. She was
still breathing deeply from the swim; from Yolande's position her
face was shadowed against the backlit dark-red curtain of her
hair. The drops of water that ran down her flanks glistened with
the rise and fall of her chest, changing from blood-crimson to
lemon-yellow.

   "You're quiet, 'Landa," she said. "Head still troublin'?"

  "Mmmmm… no. Hammerin' great headache yesterday,
couldn't hardly move this mornin'. Now it's just a bit stiff all
ovah. No, I's just lookin' at the stars and thinkin'."

    Myfwany probed at her neck, tracing the cords down to her
shoulders; she shivered slightly at the touch, still cold and wet."
'S right, stiff," Myfwany said definitely. "Maybe swimmin' wasn't
such a good idea. Muriel, give me a hand? Roll ovah, 'Landa."

   Yolande turned onto her stomach and laid her cheek on her
crossed hands, feeling a painful warmth in her stomach.
"Thanks," she muttered. Massage was usually serfs work,
although everybody learned it; it was something you did for close
friends, a sign that status was put aside. Two pairs of hands
began to work on her, one starting on the soles of her feet, the
other where the neck-muscles anchored on the base of her skull.
She felt uncomfortable for an instant, as the pressure made her
aware of soreness she had been ignoring, then surrendered to the
sensation.

  "Y'all bein' mighty nice," she said sincerely. Myfwany snorted,
and Muriel laughed and slapped her lightly on the calf.

   "Yo' the one bruised the Bruiser," Mandy said. She was
kneeling by a basket across the fire, rummaging within. "Never
seen her move so fast; mean of her to thump yo' head, though."

   "No, that's the point," Myfwany said. "Bruiser had to move
fast, an' react automatic-like."

   "Jus' so —Veronica, watch where yo' puttin' that dirt! I's got
scallops in heah!"

   The stocky girl had been raising the fine sand in double
handfuls, letting it trickle down over her body. She laughed and
bent backward from her kneeling position until her head
touched the blanket behind her, a perfect bow, stretching.

   " 'Salright," she said as she rose. A sigh. "Ah jus' love this time
of year. Perfect, just cool enough fo' a fire, but not cold. Look!
There it is!"

  She raised a hand. They followed the gesture, and saw a
moving star crawling slowly across the southern horizon.

   "That our'n or their'n?" Mandy asked. The Domination and
the Alliance had both put up another dozen orbital platforms in
the last few years; the rivalry was pushing development hard.

   "Ours," Myfwany said, sinking back on her elbows. "Oh, ours."
Her voice became dreamy. "I wonder… How do the stars look
from there?" To Yolande: "What were yo' thinkin' of,
starwatcher?"

   "Lots of things," Yolande said abstractedly. "How we can't see
the stars, jus' the light they sent long ago. Like readin' a book,
hey? An'… how far away, an' how perfect."

   "Perfect?"

   "There's no right or wrong with them," Yolande continued,
almost singsong, whispering. "No lovin' or hatin'; they just…
are."

   They were silent for long minutes, each staring upward past
the fire-glow and the dancing sparks.

  "Well," Mandy said, her hands moving again in the basket.
"Who's fo' lemonade, and who's fo' wine?"
  "Mmmm, I'll take the wine," Yolande said.

  "Lemonade first, I'm too thirsty fo' drinkin'," Myfwany said.
"That enough, 'Landa?"

  "Feels nice," she replied.

   Veronica and Mandy were making skewers from a pile of
willow-switches, sharpening the ends and threading on pieces of
scallop and shrimp wrapped in bacon; they handed the limber
sticks around, with wicker platters of soft flat Arab bread, and
glasses. The five girls drew closer to the fire. Yolande sat up,
watching the flames. The breeze had picked up slightly, and
gusts of it blew the tongues ofcolored flame toward her. She
sipped at the wine as the bacon sizzled and dropped fat to pop
and flare on the white coals; it was cool from the earthenware
jug, rather light, slightly acidic. A southern vintage, she thought,
probably from Latium.

   "Strange," Muriel said, hugging her knees and leaning back,
letting her head fall against Veronicas ' shoulder.

  "What?" Mandy asked.

  "I was thinkin'… Here we are. In twenty-odd years our own
daughters will be here, or someplace like here. Maybeso raaht
here; maybeso doin' and thinkin' just what we are. Strange."

   "What brought that on?" Myfwany said. She brought the
skewer close, examined the seafood critically, and used a piece of
the flatbread to pull it off. "Mmm, these are good."

   "I was… I was thinkin' about history class. An' about the
things Ma and Pa used to tell me, yo' know, those religion
things." Muriel stuck the butt-end of her skewer into the sand
and rolled the wine-cup between her hands. "I mean… if yo'
believes all that, the God stuff, then,"—she frowned —"then it
would all look different. It would be comin from somewheres,
and goin to somewheres. Like-so a story, hey? An' if yo' don't
believe it, then it's… all sort of, well, it just happens."

  "Iff'n yo' believes it, we're all goin' straight to hell," Veronica
laughed, giving a light tug on Muriel's brown curls.

   "Pass the wine, will yo', hey?" Yolande said. There was a clink
of stoneware. "Thanks, Mandy. Well, the way Harris says it, it's
the story of the Race; where we came from an' where we're
goin'."

   Muriel rested her chin on the edge of the cup. "That sort of
depends, don't it? I mean, the Race didn't have to happen;
Harris says so herself. History's a story leadin' up to us, but only
on account we happened. If the Yankees killed us all off, then it'd
be a story about them, an' we'd just be part of history,"."

   "But we did happen, an' the Yankees aren't goin' to win; we
are," Myfwany said definitely.




   Yolande chuckled. "So the story has an endin' and a meanin',
because we're tellin' it." A pause. "Us here, too. It's… true
because we make it true, eh? So we tell history like ouah own
story, like we was writin' it. Like God."

  The others looked at her. "Say, that's really pretty clever,"
Myfwany said.

  Yolande flushed and looked down into her wine cup,
continuing hastily. "Speakin' of which, what are we goin' to do
once we've conquered the Yankees?"

  Myfwany laughed. "My brothah, Billy? He likes the Yankee
movies; says the girls look nice. Says he's goin' buy a dozen when
we put the Yoke on them."

  "Euuu, yuk, boys," Mandy said. "Ooops, this is overdone…"

   "Ah thought yo' liked boys," Veronica said. She bent her head
to whisper something in Muriel's ear, and the other girl giggled
and worked her eyebrows.

   Yolande looked at Veronica and flushed again; the
Alexandrian girl was no older, but she had definite breasts, and
the dark-brown hair between her legs was thick and abundant. It
made her conscious of her own undeveloped form again. And…
strange about sex and things, she mused. When yo' young, yo'
know about it an it isn't all that interesting and all of a sudden
it's scary and important. She shook her head; at least there was a
while before she had to worry about that sort of thing. Freya's
Curse, I hate being shy!

    "I do like boys," Mandy said. "At least, I sort of like the idea of
'em. But they still sort of yucky, too. Yo' know, my brothah
Manfred, he only a year older than me, an' he's got ouah cook
pregnant? Ma found him ridin' her in the pantry, an' cook's
thirty, with a bottom a meter across an' a mustache. I mean,
we're not planters, we've only got a dozen houseserfs, but Pa
bought him a regular concubine when he turned thirteen, and
still he goes an' does things like that." She brooded for a
moment. "Yucky."

    "My Ma," Yolande began, "says it's on account of they don't
have enough blood." She grinned at their blank looks and held
out a hand, palm-up, then slowly curled up her index finger. "Yo'
know, all the blood rushes to they crotch, their brains shut down
fo' lack of oxygen, an' they stop thinkin'?"

   There was a moment of silence, and Yolande felt a flash of fear
that her joke had fallen flat. Then the laughter began and ran for
a full half-minute, before trailing off into teary giggles.

   "Aü, that's a good one," Muriel said. She glanced up at the
stars again. "When we've beaten the Yankees, we'll put up mo' of
those power-satellites my Pa's workin' on."

   "Build cities on the moon !"

   "Turn Venus into anothah Earth!"

   "Give Mars an atmosphere!"

  "Hollow out asteroids an' fly 'em to Alpha Centauri!" The
comments flew faster and faster, more and more outrageous,
until everyone collapsed into giggles again. Myfwany rose, and
pulled out a velvet case from their bundles.
  "This is your'n, isn't it,Landa?"

  "Yes—careful!" Yolanda took the long shape in her hands; they
moved toward it with unconscious gentleness. "It's a mandolin."

  Muriel whistled between her teeth. "An' Archona's a city. Old
one, hey?"

   "My great grandma's," Yolande said. She put the pick between
her teeth while she arranged the case across her lap, then settled
the instrument and slipped it onto her hand. "On my Ma's side;
she Confederate-born. Had it fancied up some…" She tuned it
quickly; the strings sounded, plangent under the fire-crackle
and shhhhh of the waves. The wood was smooth as satin under
her fingers, the running leopards inlaid in ivory around the
soundbox as familiar as her own hands.

  "Well, give's a song, then," Myfwany said.

  "I don't sing all that well—"

  "C'mon," Mandy said. "Well all join in."

   "Oh, all right." Yolande bent her head, then tossed it as the
long pale ripple of her hair fell across the strings. She swept
through the opening bars, a rapid flourish, and began to sing: an
alto, pure but not especially strong.
Twas in the merry month of May
When green buds all were swellin',
Sweet William on his deathbed lay
Fo' love of Bar'bra Allen—


   The ancient words echoed out along the lonely beach;
everyone knew that one, at least. They all had well-trained voices
as well, of course; that was part of schooling. Myfwany's sounded
as if it would be a soprano, rich and rather husky. Muriel's was a
bit reedy, and Veronica's had an alarming tendency to quaver;
Mandy's was like her own, but with more volume. They finished,
gaining confidence, and swung into "Lord Randal" and "The
Wester Witch."
  "What next?" Veronica said. "How about something
modern?"

  "Alison Ghoze?" Muriel said.

  Mandy made a face.

    "Oh, moo. Call that modern? It's a hundred years old; modern
iff'n yo' count anythin' after the land-takin'."

   "I—" Yolande strummed, forced the stammer out of her voice.
"I've got somethin' new, care to hear it?"

   The others nodded, leaning back. Calm. Breathe deep. Out
slow. She began the opening bars, and felt the silence deepen; a
few seconds later and she was conscious of nothing at all but the
music and the strings.

  It ended, and there was a long sigh.

   "Now, that was good," Myfwany said. She half-sang the last
verse to herself again:

"An we are scatteriris of Dragon seed On a journey to the
stars!
Far below we leave—-fo'ever
All dreams of what we were."


  "Who wrote that, anyways?"

  "I—" Yolande coughed. "I did."

  They clapped, and she grinned back at them. Mandy laughed
and jumped to her feet.

  "C'mon, let's dance—Muriel, get yo' flute out!"

   The silver-bound bamboo sounded, a wild trilling, cold and
plangent and sweet. Yolande cased her mandolin and joined the
others in a clap-and-hum accompaniment. The tall girl danced
around the outer circle of the firelight, whirling, the colored
driftwood flames painting streaks of green and blue across the
even matte tan of her skin and the long wheatblond hair. She
spun, cartwheeled, backflipped, leaped high in an impossible
pirouette, feet seeming to barely touch the sand.

   "C C'mon, yo' slugs, dance!" she cried.

… as we dance beneath the moon
As we dance beneath the moon!"

   Myfwany came to her feet and seized Yolande's hand in her
right, Muriel's in her left. "Ring dance!" she said. "Let's dance
the moon to sleep!"




   "Oh, wake up, Pietro," Veronica said, kicking the serf lightly
in the side. He started up from the grass beside the little electric
runabout and loaded the parcels as they pulled on their tunics
and found seats.

  "Do y' know," Mandy said, tying off her belt, "that the Yankees
wear clothes to go swimmin'?"

   Veronica made a rude noise. "And fo' takin' baths, too. "

   "No, it's true, darlin'," Muriel said. "My Pa visited there, an'
they do." She outlined the shape of a bikini. "Like underwear."

   "Strange," Myfwany said. They settled in for the kilometer
ride back to the main buildings; nothing else moved on the
narrow asphalt ribbon of the road, save once an antelope caught
in the headlights for an instant with mirror-shining eyes. It was
much darker now after moonset, and they rode with an air of
satisfied quiet.

  "Go into Naples tomorrow?" Veronica said. Tomorrow was a
Sunday, their only completely free day.

  "Fine with me," Mandy said; Muriel nodded agreement, and
Myfwany nudged Yolande with an elbow.
  "How bout' it?" she said casually.

   "Why—" Yolande smiled shyly; this was acceptance, no longer
tentative. "Why, sho'ly."

   The runabout ghosted to a silent halt by the eastside entrance.
They made their farewells and scattered; Yolande blinked as she
walked into the brighter lights of the halls and colonnades. It was
after twelve and there were not many about; twice she had to
skirt areas where the houseserfs were at their nightly scrubbing
and polishing. Her own door, looking more familiar now
somehow.

   "Missy?" That was Bianca, yawning and blinking up from a
mat by the entrance, tousled in her nightgown. Machiavelli
yowled and circled until she picked him up; the cat settled in to
purr as she rubbed behind his ears, sniffing with interest at the
shrimp scent on her fingers.

   "Jus' turn down the bed, put this stuff away, then go to sleep,"
Yolande said, padding through to her bedroom. How do I feel?
she asked herself, with relaxed curiosity. Tingly from the swim,
tired from that and the dancing. Relaxed.… Happy, she decided.
Maybe that's part of growin'. When you were a child happiness
was part of the day, like sadness over a skinned knee or sunlight
on your face. Then one day you knew you were happy, and that it
would pass.

   "Tomorrow's also a day," she muttered to herself, setting the
cat down on the coverlet. She yawned hugely, enjoying the
ready-to-sleep sensation; that was odd, how it felt good when you
knew you could rest, and hurt if you had to stay up. The bed was
soft and warm; she nuzzled into the pillow, and felt the cat
arranging itself against the back of her knees. "Tomorrow.".




               CHAPTER THREE

  The War? We didn't think about the War while it was on. We
thought about the next mission, then staying alive for the next
five minutes. Get back and we thought about sleep or food or a
cigarette, or getting laid. Maybe about "after the War," but that
was a daydream… but when It was really afterward, yes.

   Then we thought about It. Something as big as the Eurasian
War can't be understood from the inside, not while you're in the
belly of the beast. What did we think? We were… shocked, I
suppose. We were a more matter-of-fact generation than yours,
you know. You youngsters have grown up with things getting
really strange —yes, you're tired of hearing that. The War was
something new under the sun though; there'd never been a world
war in an Industrialized world before. A tenth of humanity died
in those seven years, that's just numbers, but we up at the sharp
end, we saw it. Worse than that because it was concentrated, no
fighting on our soil, thank Wotan, not much on the Yankee's,
either. Elsewhere, though, by '46 it was a enamel house. I'm not
using a metaphor, you could travel hundreds of miles and not get
out of sight of human bones. You'd see a city, and someone
would say it was Shanghai or Minsk or Bruges or Heidelberg, but
It was all rubble. Just mounds of dirty brick and stone with bits
of reinforcing-rod standing out. Sometimes melted by
firestorms, and the stink. Freya bless… tens of thousands,
hundreds of thousands of bodies down under the buildings,
smothered by the fire or nerve-gassed.

   We were tired, by the end, very very tired. Tired and sick of it.
Gods know, we're not a squeamish people, but… It changes you,
that much killing, first you stop even thinking about alternatives.
Life in the abstract loses its meaning, then your own life does.
Life and death, good and bad, it all starts to blur.

  It takes a lot of rest to recover from. If you ever do.
                                       From: Notes to My Children
                                     Journal of Thomas Ingolfsson:
                                                       April, 1950



CLAESTUM PLANTATION
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY
PROVINCE OF ITALY
APRIL, 1969


   The aircar was a Trevithick Meerkat, a little crowded with six.
Shiny new and smelling of fresh paint and synthetics; civilian
production had just gotten under way, and they were still
expensive enough that only the more affluent Citizens could
afford them. Yolande, Myfwany, and Mandy were squeezed into
the backseat, with Muriel in the front and Veronica on her lap,
careful not to jostle the driver. He was a serious-looking young
serf, thin and very black, flying cautiously. Trained at the
Trevithick Combine's works in Diskarapur in the far south; a
pilot and two mechanics had come with the aircraft.

   "Oh, hurry up, boy," Yolande said irritably, as he banked the
car into a circle at a thousand meters and began a slow descent,
the ducted-fan engines turning down for lift. They had been slow
getting away; the eight-month academic year was ending, and
the Baiae landing fields had been crowded. Of course, an aircar
like this could be driven by road and take off from any
convenient open space, but serfs operated machinery by the
book. Her hands itched to take the controls; this was all
fly-by-wire, you couldn't redline it, the computers wouldn't let
you…

  "Just yo' parents to home?" Veronica asked, turning her head
and resting it on Muriel's shoulder.

   "Mmm-hm," Yolande replied. "Edwina and Dionysia both
turned eighteen last year; they in Third Airborne, stationed near
Shanghai. John would've been out, but they picked him fo'
officer's trainin'." That meant an extra year's active service
beyond the usual three, or possibly more. "He might be back on
leave soon, though… Ma said her cousin Alicia's up from the
south; she's in textiles, Shahnapur. Just got divorced, up here
restin'-like. May move up."

  The sound of the fans altered as they came to a halt a hundred
meters up and lowered with a smooth elevator sensation.

  "Oooo, woof, nice," Mandy said from her right, as their
descent gave a slow panorama of Claestum manor. "I like it when
they use the old things."

   There were admiring murmurs as the aircar extended its
wheels with a cling-chung, and Yolande felt a warm glow of pride
like sun on bare skin. They had landed at the southern entrance
of the main building, where the road widened into a small plaza
after its winding journey up from the Quarters and through the
gardens. Ahead was the house complex, and the tall oaks and
chestnuts that crowned the hill and tumbled down the northern
slope.

   It is pretty, she thought, trying to look at it as a stranger
might. Her parents had laid out the Great House in the shape of
a U along the south-facing slope, with its apex open to the woods
at the crest. Both flanks were old Tuscan work from the pre-War
town, each ending in a tower; weathered red tiles and
sienna-colored stone overgrown with flowering vines. The newer
buildings knitted them together, and the southern end of the U
was closed by a curved block in classic Draka style; two stories of
ferroconcrete sheathed in jade-green African marble. Fluted
pillars of white Carrara ran from the veranda past the
second-story gallery to end in golden acanthus leaves at the roof,
and the windows behind were etched glass and silver.

   "Oh, it's all right," Yolande said casually, as the gullwing doors
of the aircar soughed open. She put a hand on the rim of the
passenger compartment and vaulted out.

   Home, she thought, swallowing. It smells like home. Green,
after the filtered pressurized atmosphere of the aircraft; the
mildly warm fresh-green scent of a Tuscan spring. Odors of
stone, dust, flowers, water from the two fountains that flanked
the wrought-iron gates into the central courtyard. The piazza of
checkered brick beneath her feet was where she had learned to
ride a bicycle, the trees flanking it were ones she had watched
grow. Her parents had been waiting beneath the gate, out of
reach of the miniature duststorm an aircar made in landing.
They came forward as their daughter's friends clambered out of
the Meercat. Yolande swallowed again and drew herself up
calmly, cleared her throat.
   "Hello, mother, father," she said. One of the housegirls behind
the Landholders was coming forward with a curtsy, bearing a
courtesy tray with a carafe and glasses. Yolande smiled with a
flush of pleasure. There would be a formal greeting; her parents
were treating her friends as adults, not casually as children.

   "Service to the State," her father said. He was a stocky man
and rather short for a Draka, no more than 175 centimeters,
dressed in planter's working clothes: boots and loose chamois
trousers, cotton shirt and gunbelt, and a broad-brimmed hat in
one hand. Hazel eyes, and gray streaks through seal-brown hair
and mustache. "Thomas Ingolfsson, Landholder, pilot, retired,"
he continued.

   "Johanna Ingolfsson," her mother took up, handing out the
glasses and raising her own. "Landholder, pilot, retired. Glory to
the Race." She was a finger's breadth taller than her husband: a
wiry-slender blond woman in her forties with a handsome
hatchet face and scarring around her left eye, dressed in a long
black robe with bands of silver mesh at neck and throat. They all
poured out the ceremonial drops and sipped, murmuring the
formula. The wine was a light, slightly sweet white; not the
clasico vintage that was Claestum's pride, but that was a red
dinner wine and unsuitable as an aperitif. "Well, do the honors,
daughter."

   "Myfwany Venders, Arethustra Plantation, Sicily," she said.
Myfwany clasped forearms with both the elder Ingolfssons.
"Mandy Slauter, from Naples; Veronica Adams, Two Oaks
Plantation, Lusitanica; Muriel Quintellan, Haraldsdal
Plantation, Campania."

   Her parents went through the ritual gravely. Then her mother
turned to her and smiled, spreading her arms. " But't' yo' are still
my baby 'Landa, hey?"

   Yolande flung herself forward, and felt the familiar slender
strength of her mother's arms around her, pressed her face into
the hard curve of neck and shoulder. It smelled of soap and a
faint rose perfume and the clean summery odor of Johanna's
body, the scent of comfort and belonging. "Hello mama," she
whispered. "Thanks awfully." Her mother held her out at arm's
length.

  "Yo' are fillin' out," she said. Yolande grinned with pride, then
gave a whoop of surprise as hands gripped her under the arms
and swung her in a circle.

  "Y'are indeed, but still bird-light," her father said, laughing
up into her indignant face.

   "Daddy! Put me down!" He laughed again, giving her a toss;
she felt the strength in his hands as he lowered her, gently
controlled and as irresistible as a machine.

   "Greetin's, child," he said. To the others: "Y'all will fo'give me,
ladies; I've got an overseer gone and broke her leg, and fo'
hundred hectares of vines to finish prunin', while my wife lazes
about." He nodded and strode down the plaza, where a groom
led a horse forward.

    "If he thinks wrestlin' with that accountin' computer and
those League bureaucrats—" Johanna shook her head. "Well.
Friends of my daughter, y'all are to consider Claestum yo' own,
and make yo'selves to home. Veronica an' Muriel, I'm puttin' yo'
together?" The friends were standing hand-in-hand; they
exchanged a glance and nodded, smiling. "East tower, then; yo'
servants an' baggage arrived safe last sundown. Or pick another
if it doesn't suit; one thing this stone barn's not anyhow short of,
it's space. 'Landa, I'm puttin' y'other two friends directly either
side of yo' old rooms over't'' the west tower. Rahksan heah will
settle yo' in, and see y'all at lunch."



    "Oh, it is good to be home," Yolande said, throwing her
gunbelt on a table and sinking into a wicker chair. "Shut up, eat;
iff'n I'd taken yo' by air, yo'd have puked."

   Machiavelli looked up from the cushions of the chair opposite,
giving her a cool green-eyed stare of resentment before
ostentatiously grooming. He had been sent ahead by train with
her luggage and maids, and would be a while forgiving her. The
Oraka girl shed her boots with a push of instep against heel, and
let them drop; she peeled off her socks with her toes and rubbed
the sole of each foot down the drill fabric of the opposite
pants-leg.

   Rahksan laughed, scooping up the holstered pistol and
nicking it neatly on the stand beside the door before picking up
the boots. "Good to have yaz back, Mistis 'Landa," she replied,
examining the scuffed heels." T cat Ah could do without."

   Yolande sighed, linked her fingers behind her head and
stretched, wiggling bare toes against the edge of the reading
table as she watched the serf drop the footwear outside the
entranceway to the corridor and begin unpacking the hand case
she had brought with her in the aircar. She could feel her mind
settling into the familiar spaces, at rest with every cranny of the
rooms that had been hers since she moved down from the
nursery. There was the old tower above, with its spiral staircase;
the rooftop aerie, a private study below, then her bedroom. This
lounging room on the ground floor, lined with bookcases and the
tapestries Uncle Eric had looted from Florence during the War
and given for her namingfeast. Her desk, over there in the
corner; a video screen, her own retrieval terminal to the House
computer, the new digital sound system she had gotten for her
thirteenth birthday. Chinese rugs on the gray-marble tiles of the
floor, glowing in the bright morning light that streamed through
the glass doors of the terrace.

   Rakhsan came back from taking her toiletries through into
the bathing rooms. Yolande looked at her more closely. The
Afghan had been a fixture of her life as long as she could
remember. Ma had been given her as a present by an uncle when
they were both five, to raise as she might a puppy or a kitten, a
ragged girl-child pulled out of the rubble of a gassed village
during the conquest of her wild and mountainous homeland. She
was a short woman, round-faced and curve-nosed and slightly
plump, big-breasted and hipped, with curling dark hair still
glossy despite the silver streaks.

   "Yo' lookin' good," the young Draka said affectionately.
Rahksan had done much of the day-to-day rearing of the
Ingolfsson children, and supervised the serf nursemaids.
"Younger, or at least thinner."

    "Tanks kindly, Mistis," Rahksan said, running a complacent
hand down from silk blouse to pleated cream-colored skirt. With
a slight grimace: "Had to live on rabbit-food, an' swim ever' day
'til I thought mebbeso I'd grow fins, but I shed five kilos." A sly
wink. "Certain person said it'd be all lonely nights iff'n I didn't."

   Yolande smiled and closed her eyes, surprised at her own brief
embarrassment. She had always known that her mother slept
with Rahksan occasionally, at least since she was old enough to
be conscious of such things at all. It was nothing unusual. For
that matter her father had probably sired Rakhsan's own son; he
had the look. But it's sort of uncomfortable to imagine Ma and
her actually… doing it, she thought. And it still sounded a bit
strange to hear "Mistis" instead of the child's title of "Missy."

   "How's Ali?" she asked, changing the subject. "Drink, please.
Yo'self, too."

   Rakhsan slapped her forehead. "Ali! That boy!"

   There was a sideboard near the stairs with a recessed chilling
unit, the usual. The serf poured two glasses of lemonade, handed
one to Yolande, and sank gracefully to her knees, sitting back on
her heels; it would not have been fitting for her to use the chair,
of course.

    "Ah swear he do things jus''t' grieve his ma —" She shrugged.
"Do mah best fo' him, and whut do Ah git? Trouble an' gray
hairs. He workin' in the House stables now." A sniff, and
grudging admission. "Doin right well, Mastah say he natural
with horses, mebbeso Head Groom somedays. Still, he doin'
field-hand work when he coulda lived clean an' been clerk o'
somethin', here in't' House."

   She drank, and rolled the cup between her palms. "I tell him
yo' 'quires, Mistis, tank y' kindly."

   Yolande cleared her throat. "Did Myf… did my friends like
they rooms?" she asked.
   "Why, sho'ly," Rahksan said blandly, finishing her juice and
rising to replace the etched-glass tumbler on the counter; her
back was to Yolande for a moment. "They all settled in good." A
pause. "That Mistis Myfwany, she a fine young lady," she
continued. "Mos' particulah interested in yo', Mistis, ask
questions an' all." Another pause. "Powerful pretty, too."

  "We're good friends!" Yolande snapped. "All of us," she added.

  "Did Ah says different? A body'd thinks mebbeso yo' was
sweet on somebody…" She turned, a wide grin flashing white
against her olive face.

  "Oooo—!," Yolande half rose, flushed with anger, then sank
back, joining helplessly in Rahksan's laughter. "Yo' impossible,
Rahksan!" she said, throwing a pillow.

   "No, jus' impudent an' triflin'; comes a' havin' wiped yo' butt
an' changed yo' diapers…" The smile softened. "Didn' mean hurt
yo' feelings, sweetlin'," she said warmly, laying, a hand on her
shoulder.

    "Yo' didn't," the girl said, throwing her arms around the short
woman's waist and laying her head on the comforting softness of
her bosom. "Oh, Tantie Rahksan, maybe I am sweet on her, a
little… I don't know, it's all mixed up, don't know what I want."
A sniffle that broke into a sob. "Why can't everything be simple,
like it used to?"

    "There, chile, there," Rahksan replied, stroking her hair. "My
little 'Landa growin' up, is all." She hummed softly in her throat,
rocking the Draka girl for quiet minutes. "Some day yo' looks
back on this as y' happy an' simple time. Be happy in it; growin'
is painful sometime, but believe me, bettah than agin'." A rueful
chuckle. "Tings works that way, sweetlin'. Wait fo', five years an'
yo' starts gettin' interested in boys, now that complicated. They a
lot mo' different."

   Yolande giggled tearily and made a mock-retching sound. The
serf bent and kissed the top of her head. "Y'change y' mind
somedays, girl. They necessary, an' mighty nice in they own way.
Anyways, take things as they come. Here."
   The serf produced a handkerchief, and proceeded to wipe
Yolande's face. The girl surrendered to the childlike sensation,
but reclaimed the linen to blow her own nose. She was
grown-up, or almost, after all.

   "Thanks, Rahksan," she muttered. "Sorry I was so silly."
Looking up, she saw the blotch her tears had made on the front
of the other's blouse, and winced with embarrassment. "Didn't
mean to be such a waterin' pot." That prompted remembrance:
she felt in her pocket. "Got somethin' fo' yo' in Palermo last
month."

   Rahksan unwrapped the tissue and opened the small blue
jeweler's box. "Why, Mistis 'Landa!" she exclaimed, lifting out
the locket. It was a slim oval of pale gold rimmed in pearls, on a
slender platinum chain. She opened it, holding the cameo up to
the light; a Classical piece in the modern setting, translucent
white against indigo blue glass, a woman's head wreathed in a
spray of tiny gold olive-leaves. "That beautiful, sweetlin'; nice to
remember y' ol' Tantie Rahksan."

   "I'll nevah fo'get yo', Rahksan," she said quietly.

   "Well." The serf put the chain around her neck, then bent to
kiss Yolande on the forehead. "Whenevah y' needs somebodies''t'
talk to… o' cry on, Mistis… Ah'm theah." A glance at her watch.
"Bettah get goin'. Mastah John's rooms need a check; them
useless bedwenches of his neglects things somethin' aweful. That
Colette, particular."

    Yolande watched her leave and finished the lemonade, vaguely
ashamed of the display of emotion. I'm too old for tears, really…
The sadness was gone, though. Now she felt truly relaxed; this
was her home ground, after all. She undid her cravat and pulled
it loose to finish wiping her face, then tossed it aside, undid the
top button of her shirt, and held the Egyptian linen away from
her skin. I am filling out, she thought with satisfaction. Not
much, but then Ma wasn't much bigger, and she was the most
beautiful person in the world. What had she said? "Anything
more than a handful is a waste." Curious, she touched the
smooth shallow curve with the pads of her fingers. In biology
class the teacher said breasts were mostly an ornament, like a
peacock's tail. The touch had a sort of shivery feel to it, almost
like an itch.

   Her fingertips brushed across the pointed pink cone of the
nipple, and she jerked the hand away; it was the sort of sensation
that could feel good or bad, depending. Too strong, anyway.

   She rose to her feet and paced, letting her hand trail across
the bookshelves. Good friends here; Gulliver's Travels, her Alice
Underland and Looking-Glass World, family heirlooms in
smooth leather and stamped-gilt titles. Some she could
remember her mother reading to her at bedtimes; others she
had discovered herself. The old books had a rich scent all their
own, leather and the glue of their bindings and a slight hint of
dust that reminded her of summer afternoons. She opened one
and smiled to herself; there was a vine-leaf still pressed where
she remembered, brown and gossamer-fragile. They had seemed
so big, then, filling her lap, the smooth paper with the dyed
edges transparent gateways to wonder. Veme, Stevenson,
Lalique, Halgelstein, Dobson. Illustrated histories, and the
Thousand and One Nights; most of all horse books: riding,
breeding, showing.

   There were models on the shelves as well, from the time when
flying had won co-equal place in her heart with the stables. Early
machines: Pa had gotten the model of the Ahrinian for her; it
was nearly a hundred years old and had been made when the
first war-dirigible was launched. An odd looking machine,
cigar-shaped with the spiral wooden framework dimpling the
fabric covering, and big room-fan type propellers jutting out
from the gondola. Miniatures of her parents' Eagle fighters, from
the Eurasian War. Pencil-slim twin-engined planes, perfect down
to the blackened exhaust-trails behind the big prop engines and
the kill-marks on the wings; they had been going-away gifts from
their ground crews. A plastic suborb missile she had put
together herself from a kit: a slender sinister black dart. And a
scramjet fighter, long slim delta shape banking in frozen motion
on its stand. She touched that, symbol of freedom from earth V
bounds and gravity's pull.

   There were data-plaques piled beside her terminal. Yolande
grimaced at the size of the stack of the palm-sized wafers, in
school colors; enough to keep her busy several hours a day. She
put her palm against the screen for the identity check and
pushed a wafer into the slot beside it. The machine chimed:
Introduction to Evolutionary Ecology. Text and pictures
flickered by, moving diagrams showing energy-flows,
reconstructions. Feathered dinosaurs and ground-apes from
Olduvai—and space for the data she would be entering, answers,
and essays. That would be interesting, at least, but mind and
body rebelled at the thought of more study now.

   She turned through the open glass doors to the ground-level
terrace instead, and reached overhead to grip the steel bar just
outside. Moodily she began a series of chin-lifts, stopping at fifty
to hang with her knees curled close to her chest and controlling
her breathing to a deep steady rhythm. Bruiser said it was the
best way to clear your mind for thinking: let the muscles soak up
and burn the hormonal juices the body tried to cloud your mind
with. It's a good remedy for confusion, she thought wryly. If I
could be sure what I'm confused about.

   "Hio,'Landa." The terrace outside her rooms ran all along the
west front of the building, but her section was separated by a
carved-stone screen that ran out to the low balustrade.
Myfwany's face leaned around it, smiling. "Want company, or yo'
set on devolvin' into a gibbon?"

    "C'mon ovah," Yolande said. She raised herself to chest-height
against the bar, counting twenty slow breaths, then dropped to
the ground, acutely conscious of her rumpled state. "Everythin'
all right?"

   "Better than that," Myfwany said, swinging around the
balustrade. "Been lookin' forward to seein' yo' homeplace quite
some time, now. Can't know a person till you've seen where they
come from, hey?"

   The other girl had shot up these last six months, and
flat-footed on the tile pavement Yolande's eyes were level with
her nose. She had changed already, into a round-necked
cream-silk sleeveless shirt and fawn trousers; there were
bracelets in the form of curled snakes pushed up on her upper
arms, and a fillet of the same silvery metal holding back the red
curls that fell to her neck. They walked to the balustrade
together, leaning on the stone and looking down. Yolande cast a
covert eye to her side, admiring the way the platinum snakes
seemed to ripple as the muscle moved beneath the freckled skin
of Myfwany's arms.

  "Utilities an' such?" the redhead asked, nodding downslope.

   The hill fell away gently to the northwest. There was a strip of
lawn three meters below them, then terraces behind low brick
retaining walls, flowerbanks and cypresses, fountains and
stairways. At the base of the slope the buildings began, two rows
of them built back into the slope so that the pale yellow tile of
their roofs made steps leading down to the pool at the bottom.
They were half-hidden from here by the trees planted about
them, chestnuts and oaks.

   "House stables, toolsheds, garages, some sleepin' quarters,"
Yolande answered. Most of the housegirls bunked in the attics,
but not the garden staff. The plantation's transformer was down
there, too; electricity came in by underground cable, brought
down from the hydro plants in the mountains. She laid a hand
on Myfwany's. "Thanks… thanks fo' comin' along, Myf. Missin'
goin' to yo' home, and all. Would've been lonely, without."

   Myfwany turned her hand palm-up and squeezed for a
moment before releasing the other girl's fingers. "No great
sacrifice," she said quietly, not looking around; she smoothed the
wind-tossed hair back from her face. "Got to get it cut… My
stepmother an' me don't get on so well, anyhows."

   Yolande tried to imagine what it would be like, for her mother
to die and a stranger take her place, and shivered. "Come on,
there's time for a swim befo' lunch."



   There was a shout from the pool. Johanna Ingolfsson looked
up from her papers, and saw her daughter balanced on her
red-haired friend's shoulders. The other girl reached up; they
clasped wrists and Yolande did a slow handstand, grinning
downward through dangling strands of wet blond hair.

   "Now!" she said.

   Myfwany pushed up and Yolande twisted, doing a complete
360 turn before arrowing into the water headfirst. Johanna
nodded approvingly as the sleek body eeled along the bottom of
the pool for a dozen meters before breaking surface and
crawl-stroking for the far end. Myfwany followed. They paused
for a moment, treading water and hyperventilating, then dove
for a game of subsurface tag. Johanna quirked a lip. Not the only
type of touching friend Myfwany has in mind, if I can still read
the signs, she thought.

    "Looks like my youngest might make a pilot; got the reflexes,
at least," she said musingly. "About time, the first three bein' in
the ever-lovin' infantry of all things."

   Rakhsan chuckled; she was sitting on a cushion at the bottom
of the lounger, embroidering a circle of silk held in a wicker
frame. "Mebbeso she pick the Navy, eh, Mistis?"

   Johanna snorted and reached for the glass of cooler. The
outdoor pool was set along the eastern flank of the Great House,
along the outer rim of the terrace built up and out from the
hillside. It had been convenient; the space beneath provided
room for things best tucked away, the heat-pump system, the
fuel-cell for the war-shelter deep in the rock beneath the manor,
the armory, a laundry… a pleasant place for an outdoor lunch, as
well. One hundred meters by twenty-five, with a basic pavement
of black onyx marble they had gotten cheap after the War,
stripped from ruined palazzi in Sienna. The rough stone of the
wall behind them was overgrown with bougainvillea, bright now
with pink-purple garlands; low limestone troughs held banks of
clematis, pearl rhododendrons, azaleas; there were stone bowls
with topiaries and small trees, or lilac bushes for the scent.

   The older Draka returned her attention to the documents.
There had been another change in the League accounting
procedures for olive-oil delivery, specifically the extra-virgin first
pressing Tuscan that Claestum produced for the restaurant
trade. The Landholders' League bureaucrats never seemed to tire
of searching for the perfect paperwork solution.

   "Lady Freya bless," she muttered. "Some day the civil service
will grow right over the Domination like-so coral on a reef, an'
we'll all freeze in place." She made a notation, signed and
snapped her fingers. "Guido, take these an' give them to the
bookkeeper; we have to have written acknowledgment from the
Florence office, tell her that." Next thing would be to do a check
on the irrigation piping in the orchards, hands-on work, but that
could wait until after lunch.

    Stretching, she looked back at the pool. Yolande was sitting
on the edge of the little island at its center; there was a
two-meter high alabaster vase in the center of that, with water
cascading down from a spout in its center. She was smiling and
swinging her legs, talking to Myfwany as she floated nearby;
Johanna could hear their laughter over the sound of the
fountain. Her mother turned her head to the other lounger
where… Mandy Slauter, that was her name. Lying up on one
elbow under the dappled shade of the pergola, fanning herself
with her hat; a nice enough girl, a bit citified, but it was good
that Yolande was making friends outside Landholder circles.
Some people liked to pretend it was still 1860, but the
Domination had changed; unless you were prepared to rusticate
all your life, connections in the urban classes were essential.

   Johanna nodded in the direction of the pool. "They two seem
to get on very well," she said. Mandy nodded. "Are they sleepin'
together yet?" she continued casually.

   Mandy blinked and coughed, would have squirmed if
etiquette permitted. "Ah, Miz Ingolfsson, they, ah, that is—"

   Johanna's cousin spoke without raising her eyes from the
book in her lap. "Gods, Jo, y' always were as subtle as a
steamtruck. Spare the girl's feelin's, hey?"

   Johanna chuckled; adolescent affairs were a long-standing
tradition for Citizen-class women, but there was an ancient
convention of not mentioning them before adults. Probably a
survival from times when such things were strongly frowned
upon, but it had been silly even in her youth. "Younger
generation's less discreet than we was, Alicia," she said. To
Mandy: "Hard though it is to imagine, girl, I went to school, too.
Jus' inquirin'."

  "Ah, no. I don't think so," Mandy said. Under her breath:
"Moo."

   "Well, as they please," Johanna said contentedly.

   Yolande had never been very popular at school in her younger
years: too much the loner and dreamer. It was reassuring to see
her fitting in so well and making friends. A lover was only to be
expected given her age, although Johanna had never thought
much of the hothouse-romance atmosphere of Senior School
herself. In theory it was supposed to be emotional training for
adulthood, but she had never seen the point in falling in love
with someone you couldn't marry. Not that school sweethearts
necessarily drifted out of touch; ex-lovers who were godmothers
and unofficial aunts to each other's children were a staple of
Draka life… But it was all no preparation for how different men
were.

   Well, I was always eccentric, she mused comfortably.
Deciding who you were going to marry at sixteen was
decidedly unusual, even if he was a neighbor's son. She smiled
down at Rakhsan; that was an entirely different matter, of
course. As the Roman poet had said, it was pleasant to have it
friendly, easy, and close at hand… friendly especially, otherwise it
just wasn't worth the trouble, usually.

  Rahksan smiled back, laying aside her embroidery. "Yo' got
anythin' fo' me to do, next hour or two, Mistis?" she asked.

   "No, not particular, Rahksi. Why?"

   "That boy of mine," she said. "Wants particulah to have a talk
with me, says it impo'tant. Allah, most of the time he don' give
me the time of day, an' now he jus' has to have a chat."

   Johanna pursed her lips; Rahksan's son was a classic pain in
the fundament. Spoiled from house-rearing, restless as a cat on
hot tiles, and sullen; a lot of young serfs went through a stage like
that, particularly the males, but he was considerably worse than
average. It was no help that Ali had been sired by Tom.
Contraception had been more difficult then, and Rahksan
careless about it; the three of them had been play-pleasuring,
and the Afghan had decided to keep it on impulse. Not that
half-Draka bastards were uncommon, but mostly they grew up in
Quarters and it made no particular difference. Ali had run tame
in the manor; looking at it from his point of view, she supposed
it was natural enough for him to be more discontented than
most. To make it worse, he was completely besotted with Colette,
her son John's new French concubine.

   Who is a gorgeous mantrap and a teasing bitch of the first
water, Johanna thought sourly. The wench had been a present
from her cousins Tanya and Edward, who had a plantation west
of Tours in the Loire valley; John certainly hadn't
complained—he indulged the wench—but his mother was
beginning to think her kin had unloaded a troublemaker.
Tanya's bloody sense of humor, she mused.

   "Rahksi, that boy needs some serious talkin'-to," she said.
"Half a dozen times I've talked Tom out of kickin' his butt good
an' proper. Fightin', drinkin'; he's first-rate with the horses, but
he's back-talked the head groom enough to get anyone else triced
up to the frame fo' ten-strokes-an-' one. Freya, honeybunch, I
cain't let him ruin discipline." Bending the rules too far for a
favorite was an invitation to trouble.

    "Ah knows, Mistis." A deep sigh, and the serfs brows drew
together. "Blames myself, really do. Too easy on that chile; I get
set to rake him down, an' then remembers him so little an' sweet.
He too land treated, never reminded strong of his place; it better
iff'n y' learns that young."

   Rahksan looked suddenly older; Johanna sat up and gave her
a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. "Isn't easy bein' a mother,
Rahksi. Don't worry, we'll straighten him out."

   The Afghan shrugged and smiled ruefully. "I'll tells him yo'
threatenin' to sell him to the mines," she said.

  Johanna snorted. "Bettah use somethin' he'll believe," she
replied. The Ingolfssons and her own von Shrakenberg clan had
definite ideas about managing their serfs; they did not sell them
to strangers, except as punishment for some gross crime like
child-abuse. Such extreme measures had not been necessary on
Claesrum since the brutal days of the settlement, right after the
War. Besides which it would break Rahksan's heart, which was
not to be contemplated.

   "Say we might send him down to the boats fo' a year," she
continued. Claestum had a part-share in a tuna-fishing business
on the coast, run in cooperation with a half-dozen neighboring
estates. The Landholders oversaw their hired managers carefully,
but it was rough work.

   Rahksan winced slightly and made a palms-up gesture. "Tell
yo' true, Mistis, I've thought on that. Might do him good't'see
how soft he's had it, an' get him away from his momma's skirts.
But—"

   "I know, he's yo' own and yo'd miss him." Johanna rested one
of her own hands on the serfs. "Look, Rahksi, this just an idea.
Tom was sayin' Ali makes a terrible houseboy but might do well
as a soldier; we could get him a Janissary postin', if he
volunteered."

   And it would be just what he needs to make something of
himself, she thought. The boy's strong an' smart enough, it's the
attitude's the problem. An induction camp's hard-bitten Master
Sergeants had no interest in the anguished sensitivities of the
adolescent soul, or anything else beside results.

   "Eehh." Rahksan bit her lip. "That generous, but they mighty
rough an' he ain't nohow used to it." A talented serf could rise far
in the military. Not just to non-commissioned rank in the
subject-race legions; Janissaries had opportunities for
education, training of every sort. There were ex-Janissaries
throughout the serf-manned bureaucracies that ran the
Domination, below the level of the Citizen aristocracy. "Though…
I wouldn't see him much, that way," she finished softly.

  "Rahksi," Johanna said seriously. "He's not yo' little boy no'
mo'. Ali's a grown buck, an' he has to learn to look his fate in the
eye. He cain't hide behind yo' fo'ever. Else he'll do somethin' we
can't overlook, an'…" She shrugged. "Ahhh, well, run along an' try
reasonin' with him. But think about it. Well talk it ovah mo'
tonight."

   Johanna put the matter out of her mind as Rahksan left; time
enough later. She could hear Olietta directing the wenches
setting the table behind her, and glanced at her watch. 1258
hours; Tom would be in from the fields any time now. It was a
house rule that the family ate together; otherwise you might as
well be living in a hotel.

   "C'mon, yo' two!" she called to the girls in the pool.



    "That was fun," Yolande said, as they slid out of the water.
The verge was covered in the same blue-and-green New Carthage
tiles as the pool; they felt warm and slick under her feet, and the
dry air cooling on her wet skin. It had turned out to be a
not-quite-hot day, just right for outdoors.

   " Twas," Myfwany agreed. "I'm nevah goin' be able do that
circle-flip like yo' can,'Landa."

   Yolande grinned with pride as the servants came forward with
towels; Bianca and Lele, her own. The deep pile of the cotton was
a pleasure in itself, smelling crisply fresh and slightly of the
cherry-blossoms they had been laid on in the
warming-cupboard. She had always rather enjoyed being dried;
there was less distraction than when you had to do it yourself,
and after a swim it made you feel tingly and extra clean. Like
wearing new-laundered underwear, only it was your own skin.
She reached down and absently patted Lele's head as the
Eurasian serf worked over her feet.

   "How's Deng?" she said.

   "Still poorly, Mistis. Gives many tanks fo' the crystallized
ginger yo' sent up last month." Lele looked up and grimaced.
"Says he hasn't seen any since China. I tried it. I kin see why."
Yolande laughed and held up her arms for the serf to slide the
Moorish-style striped djellaba over her head. The fine-textured
wool settled against her skin like a caress, and she ran her
fingers through the damp mass of her hair to spread it over her
shoulders.

   The serfs gathered up their towels and left; Myfwany looked
up from adjusting her belt-tie. "Yo've got wonderful servants,"
she said sincerely, shaking back the wide sleeves. Disciplined
obedience could be bought from any good labor agent, but
enthusiasm was not as common. "Spirited but not spoiled."

   "My parents' doin'," Yolande said in disclaimer. "They had the
hard part, back right after the War. Had to kill a few, even; but
now we go six months at a time without so much as a floggin';
Pa doesn't hold with whippin' much, says it's the last resort of
stupidity an' failure."

   "Good teacher still needs good pupil," the other girl replied
with a slow smile. "Yo've got the nature, like Marsala wine:
strong but sweet."

   Yolande smiled back, and then the expression faded. There
was a feeling like cold under her breastbone, yet it was hot as
well, cramping her lungs. She could feel her lips paling, and her
arms and legs wanted to tremble; her vision grayed at the edges
until Myfwany's face loomed in a tunnel of darkening night.
There was a moment when the whole surface of her skin seemed
to prickle, drum-tight, then the world snapped back to normal.
Or almost normal; the hot-chill sensation in her stomach settled
lower and faded to warmth, and she put a hand to the side of her
head, gasping for breath.

  "Yo' all right? " 'Landa?" Myfwany's voice was sharp with
concern, and she gripped her friend by the shoulders.

   "I—yes, just felt funny fo' a second." She shook her head.
"Little scary… must've held my breath too long underwatah.
Anyways, let's go eat; I'm starvin'." She had, suddenly, a
bottomless hollow feeling almost like nausea. It was worrying,
even if they had only had rolls and fruit with their coffee that
morning. No run, after all, and only a couple of hours in the
water…
   A serf struck with quiet precision at a tiny bronze gong by the
table. Another seated herself at a harp nearby and began to play
softly as the Draka assembled. The table was near the house wall,
the usual rectangular slab of polished stone on curved
wrought-iron supports, shaded by oleanders. Yolande dropped
into her wicker chair and grabbed at a roll from a basket,
breaking the soft fresh bread and eating it without benefit of
butter. The taste was intoxicating, and she finished it off and
took another, more slowly. Muriel and Veronica had arrived,
looking sleekly content; they nodded around the table as they
drew their chairs closer.

   "Where is yo' father?" Johanna asked, as the serfs handed
around the first course; it was iced beet-and-cucumber soup, for
a warm day. "And are they starvin' yo' down at that school,
child?"

   "Mmmph," Yolande said, then swallowed to clear her mouth.
"No, I just had a… really strange sensation. It's funny, I was
lookin' at Myfwany an' thinkin' on how nice she is, then all of a
sudden my head was swimmin', and my knees felt watery and my
skin went cold an' I broke out in a sweat; and then my stomach
felt strange. Figured I must've not noticed how hungry I was…
What are y'all laughing at?" she concluded with bewildered
resentment.

   Her mother had put fingertips to brow and her shoulders
shook. Aunt Alicia was coughing into a napkin; Myfwany looked
back and forth between them, blinked in understanding, and
then focused on carefully pouring herself a glass of white
Procanico wine. Mandy looked at her owl-eyed.

   "Y'are joshin', 'Landa?" she asked, and turned to Veronica and
Muriel. "She is joshin', isn't she? Please, tell me, nobody could be
that ignor—"

  "Johanna!"

   It was her father's voice, from the french doors that gave onto
the terrace from the main house.

  "Look-see who I've brought to lunch!"
   "… so it turned out they were just Keren tribesfolk who
wandered across the border," her brother was saying. "It's pretty
wild there in south Yunnan, mountain jungle. Of course, they
could have been Alliance operatives pretendin to be tribesfolk, so
we turned them over to the headhunters." He grinned and buffed
his fingernails. "And my tetrarchy got extra leave fo' stumblin'
across them. Scramjet shuttle to Vienna, overnight dirigible to
Milan, caught the train to Florence an' so forth."

   The soup was removed and the next course arrived: seared
sea-scallops with asparagus, stuffed Roman artichokes and
truffled walnut oil, then insalata in cumin vinaigrette and a
paella salad on the side. Plain country food; her parents
disapproved of the modern Orientalizing fashion of bits and
pieces of this and that, saying it was bad for the digestion and
distracted the attention from the real pleasures of dining and
conversation. Hunger satisfied, she touched a finger to her
wineglass for a refill and watched the others. John was getting
respectful attention in his description of an impromptu
tiger-hunt in the rhododendron thickets of the Yunnan
mountains, up on the Nepalese border. Mandy was drinking it
in, with her chin resting on her hands.

   Well, he is pretty dashin', Yolande thought critically, glancing
at her brother. Tall and long-limbed, which showed to advantage
in garrison blacks. Russet colored hair and close-cropped beard,
straight high-cheeked features and gray eyes against
brown-tanned skin, set off by tasteful ruby ear-studs and the
silver-niello First Airborne Legion thumb-ring.

   "… so I ought to be able to squeeze in a week here to home,"
he finished.

   Johanna signed for the serf to remove her plate and lit a
cigarette. "Well be havin' some people over next Tuesday, if yo'
haven't lost the taste fo' countryside jollifications… I'm goin' over
the orchards this afternoon. They're in bloom; why don't yo'
come along and help show Yolande's friends about?"

   "Hmmm." The serfs were bringing coffee and deserts,
blueberry lemonade sorbets and almond flan with fruits and
cheeses. "Actually, mother, I had somethin' else planned fo' this
afternoon. Glad to, tomorrow. Sorry." He grinned un repentantly.

   Yolande looked up at the harpist. Colette, her name was. A
gift to John on his twenty-first birthday from the von
Shrakenbergs of Chateau Retour, over in what had been France;
they were kin, first cousins on her mother's side and more
remotely on her father's, as well. The wench's mother was a
serf-artist of note, a singer trained pre-War at the Paris
conservatoire. Colette had inherited some of the talent, and her
looks as well. Tall, slender, dancer-graceful; softly curled hair the
color of dark honey to her waist, and huge eyes of an almost
purple violet. Priceless, and faultlessly trained, but Yolande had
never liked her; conceited, given to dumb insolence, and
unpopular with the other servants, which was always a bad sign.
Except for a few of the bucks hopelessly infatuated with her, of
course.

   The serf met the Draka girl's eyes for a moment, smiled with
an almost imperceptible curve of the lips, then dropped her gaze
to the instrument. Sunlight worked in flecks through the flowers
overhead and patterned the white samnite of her gown.

   Yolande's father laughed. "Give the boy a few hours to… settle
in, darlin'," he said. Johanna smiled and slapped her son on the
shoulder.

   "Don' wear yo'self out befo' dinner, then," she said as he rose.

   "If there's anythin' left of yo' tomorrow, yo' might help with a
problem, son." Thomas Ingolfsson said. "We've been losin' sheep,
over to Castelvecchi."

   "Ah! His son turned back, alert. "Wolves? Wildcats?"

   "Leopard, from the sign." Yolande saw her father's eyes
narrow in amusement at the sudden prickle of interest around
the table. "Yes, they must finally be breedin' enough that they're
spreading out of the Apennines."

   The upper hill-country had been stripped bare of population
after the War; that was standard practice, for security reasons
and because such areas were seldom worth the trouble of
cultivation by Draka standards. The Conservancy Directorate
had reforested most of the abandoned lands, and introduced
appropriate wildlife. The Italian reserves were still not as rich as
North Africa's, where a hundred and fifty years of care had left
the mountains green and teeming with game, but there was
enough to allow limited culling. Draka loved hunting with a
savage passion, and were preservationists accordingly, but
letting the big cats into densely populated farming country was
excessive even by their standards.

  "In fact, the Conservancy people said go ahead an' take them,
not worth the trouble of trappin'."

   John sat down again; behind him, Yolande noticed Colette
playing with an irritated vehemence.

  "I could ride over tomorrow morning with the dogs; take
Menchino and Alfredo… Join me, Pa?" he said eagerly. "Ma?"

  His parents shook their heads reluctantly. "Winnifred went
and broke her arm, can't spare myself," Thomas Ingolfsson said.

   At John's frown, Johanna added: "Can't come myself either;
we're sortin' the yearling colts fo' the Sienna show. Tell yo' what,
though, Johnny, why don't yo' take Yolande and her friend
Myfwany P."

   "Thanks—" Myfwany and Yolande began in chorus, then broke
off with a giggle. John opened his mouth to say what he thought
of taking his baby sister and an unknown teenager along on a
leopard hunt, caught his mother's eye, and nodded.

   "Glad to, sprout. An' yo' too, Miz Venders," he added.

   "Thanks awfully," Myfwany said. "No leopards on Sicily yet,
an' my elder sister got one down in Kenia last year an' she's
always on about it."

   Johanna turned smoothly to the other girls. "Best not to
cluttah up a huntin' party too much; I'd be honored if y'all would
come with me and assist at selectin' the yearlings, we're rather
proud of our ridin' stock here at Claestum… An' to be sure,
pickin' out one each fo' yo'selfs, as well."

   Mandy smiled with delight. John-boy, you still can't compete
with horses, Yolande thought satirically. Muriel and Veronica
were enthusiastic as well: of course, they like anything they can
do together. She suppressed envy and hunted a last blueberry
around her plate.

   "I'm sure there'll be one left yo'll find suitable, Miz Venders,"
Johanna continued." 'Landa's been half-livin' in the stables since
she was knee-high, she can help yo' pick."



   "That was beautiful," Myfwany said.

   They were riding their horses through the Quarters, but
blossom from the orchards still clung to their shoulders and hair.
Yolande could see them starring the other's dark-red mane, pink
cherry and white of apple and peach; the blossom season had
overlapped this year, which was a little unusual.

   "Y-" Yolande cleared the stammer from her throat with an
effort. "Yo' are beautiful."

   "No," Myfwany said fondly, looking around. Side by side with
their boots touching, they were just close enough for private talk.
"I'm good-lookin', just. You are beautiful." A smile quirked her
mouth as the other girl shook her head in a spray of flowers.

    A companionable silence fell, and Yolande enjoyed the feeling
of communicating without speech. The roofs of the Great House
were just visible on the distant hilltop, over the cypresses and the
outer wall of the gardens; some plantations tucked the serf
village away out of sight, but the Ingolfssons were Old
Domination and not shy about the foundations of their wealth.
The cottages were native stone, tile-roofed and closely spaced
along brick-paved streets; shade trees flanked the lanes, and
each four-room house stood in a small patch of garden,
vegetables and often enough a few flowers. It was getting on
towards evening, and the Quarters were noisy enough to drown
the clop-clatter of hooves and the occasional metallic kiss of
stirrup-irons.

   Heads bowed towards the riders from passing serfs, dutiful
routine deference to the Landholder and her daughter, curiosity
towards the guests. Folk were back from the fields and the
compulsory evening shower, work-gnarled older men in
shapeless overalls, short thickset women brown as berries and
seemingly built of solid muscle. Younger ones with enough
energy left to throw jokes and snatches of song at each other as
they scattered to their homes. Children played run-and-shout
games along the sidewalks, or helped their mothers carry home
baskets of round loaves that gave off the tantalizing scent of fresh
baking. Cooking-smells came from the cottages, tomato and
garlic and hot olive oil. They reined in to the little plaza where
the lane joined the main road to the manor, and Yolande called
to her mother:

   "Ma!" Johanna Ingolfsson reined up. "Ma, Myfwany and I'll go
right around to the stables an' walk up."

   The Landholder raised one brow; the grooms could take their
mounts from the Great House steps just as well. A touch at her
stirrup made her look down; Rahksan was there, and gripping
her ankle. She frowned slightly at the lapse in decorum and bent
low to listen to an agitated whisper.

   "Please yo'selfs, girls," Yolande's mother said after a moment.
She extended a hand; the serf gripped her wrist, put a foot on
the toe of Johanna's boot and swung up pillion behind her
owner. The Landholder looked around, abstracted. "Two hours to
dinner," she finished, and touched heels to her horse. There was
an iron clatter of hooves as Johanna and their friends spurred up
the road.

   Myfwany and Yolande walked their horses across the square.
There was a small fountain in the center, Renaissance work
salvaged from some forgotten hill-town. The public buildings of
the Quarters lined the pavement, the larger houses of the
Headman and senior gang-drivers, the school, the infirmary, the
bakery, and baths. There was a church as well, a pleasant little
example of Tuscan baroque reassembled here at some little
expense, and another building that served as a public-house with
tables set outside; a few workers sat there over a glass of wine or
game of chess. Serfs never touched money, of course, but
Claestum had an incentive-scheme that paid in minor luxuries
or tokens accepted at the inn. Farming is skilled work, Yolande
remembered her father saying. Difficult, and easily spoiled.
Needs the carrot as well as the stick. She nodded to the priest in
his long black gown and odd little hat as they passed, and he
signed the air.

   "Funny," Yolande said, as they turned their mounts left to the
laneway that skirted the base of the hill. "Nothin' much has
happened today, but it feels special, somehow."

   "Know what yo' mean, 'Landa." Myfwany ran her hands
through her hair and rubbed them together, shedding bits of
petal. "Smell."

   Yolande leaned her head to the other's extended hand; it
carried hints of soap and leather, overlain by the spring-silvery
scent. Like a ghost memory of the orchard, tunnels of white froth
against black branches, sun-starred with water diamonds and
rainbows from the sprays. Her heart clenched beneath her ribs
and she felt suspended, floating in a moment of decision like the
arch above the high-dive board. She bent to kiss the soft spot
inside the wrist, and felt cool fingers brush across her lips.
Glanced up, and their eyes met.

   The moment passed and they laughed uneasily, looking
around. The garden wall was still on their right, whitewashed
stone along the gravel of the road. The lawns were a vivid green
beyond it, trees and flowerbanks, groves and summer-houses,
ponds and statues. Hedges and onyx-jade cypresses gave
glimpses of the workaday area to their left, barns and pens,
round granaries and the sunken complex of the winery, smithies
and machine-shops. The sun was sinking behind the Great
House and they lay in the shadow of its hill, an amber light that
turned the dust-puffs around their horses' hooves to glinting
honey-mist. They passed under an arched gate and Yolande
waved her riding-crop to the one-armed man who bowed from
the veranda of the cottage next to it.

   "Evenin', Guido," she said, as they passed. A boy had run
ahead, and they turned downslope into an area of low
stucco-coated stables and paddocks fenced in white board. The
horses side-danced a little at the smell of home and feed, eager
for their evening grooming and mash. Yolande smoothed a hand
down the neck of her mount as stablehands came up to take the
reins.

  "Nena, Tonio," Yolande said as they swung down.

  "Mistis Yolande," they replied. "Buono ride, Mistis?" Tonio
continued, with a flash of white teeth against olive-tanned skin.

   "Tolerable good," Yolande said, grinning back. Both Draka
gave their mounts a quick once-over before turning over the
reins, and Yolande slipped a piece of hard sugar to hers. Slipping
into local dialect: "Did that barn-cat have its kittens?"

  The young man shrugged and spread his hands apologetically,
but his sister dipped her head. "Stable four, Mistis," she said.
"Up in the loft, I heard it."

   Myfwany looked at her with raised brows; the patois on her
family's Sicilian estate was different enough to be a distinct
language.

  "Cats?" she said.

  "Kittens," Yolande replied. "Have a look?"



   "Meeeroeuuu," the cat said warningly. It had been reasonably
polite, but it was not going to tolerate strange fingers touching
the squirming, squeaking mass of offspring along its flank.

   The two young Draka backed away on hands and knees across
the loft's carpeting of deep-packed clover hay. It had a sweet
smell, still green after a winter's storage. They flopped back on
the resilient prickly softness; the long loft of the stable was
almost night-dark, the last westering rays slanting in through
the louvered openings above them. Yolande stretched, feeling the
breathless heat as a prickle along her upper lip. There were soft
sounds of shifting hooves through the slatted boards beneath,
and the clean smells of well-cared-for horses. There were a dozen
of the long two-story stables here below the hill: personal mounts
for the Landholders and their retainers, used for the routine
work of supervision, or the hunt or pleasure-riding.

   Yolande turned on her side, watching her friend's face and
probing at her own feelings. Happy, she decided. Myfwany's face
was a pale glimmer in the darkness, her eyes bright
amber-green. Scared.

  "Yes," she said, to a question not spoken in words.

   They moved together, embraced. Yolande gave a small sigh as
their lips met; a shock went over her skin, like the touch of the
ocean when you dove into an incoming wave. Their arms pulled
tighter, and her mouth opened. She tasted sweat-salt and mint.

   "Gods," she murmured, after an eternity. "Why did we wait so
long? I'd've said yes months ago. Didn't yo' want to?"

   Myfwany chuckled softly. "Almost from the first," she said,
and laid her hands lightly on the other's flanks. "Beautiful,
muscle knitted to yo' ribs like livin' steel. I waited because the
time wasn't right." Yolande shivered as the hands traced lightly
up to her breasts.

   Voices from below, jarring. Yolande fought down a surge of
anger; what did they have to do for some privacy, go check into a
hotel? A dim light shone up through the floorboards; the voices
of serfs, angry and quarreling.

  "Send them away," Myfwany breathed into her ear.

  Yolande controlled her breathing and crawled toward the big
square hatchway that overlooked the tack-room; a little light was
coming up from below, a hand-lantern's worth. Not that it was
any serfs business what she did or with whom or where, but she
was suddenly tooth-gratingly conscious that the estate rumor
mill would be passing news of every straw in her hair and
undone button before morning. Whoever it was—sundown was
after plantation curfew, and there had better be a good excuse
for this, or somebody was going to be sorry and sore. She
recognized the voice as her head peered over the timber frame of
the trapdoor, and the anger left her like a gasping breath:
Rakhsan, and her son Ali. She was five meters above their heads;
it was unlikely in the extreme that they would look up. Myfwany
caught her tension and froze beside her.

   Ali's voice, speaking Tuscan. A tall young buck, in groom's
breeches and shirt and boots, tousled brown hair. He had run
tame with the House children when she was younger, a little
rambunctious but fun. Sullen past his early teens, with that
buried-anger feel you got from some serfs, always quarreling
with the other houseboys. Semi-serious trouble once or twice,
pilfering or breaking curfew. A friend of his beside him in
driver's livery; she hunted for the name: Marco. Understudy pilot
for the aircar.

   Rahksan put the lantern down and stood with her arms
crossed. Underlighting should have flattered the well-kept
prettiness of the serfs face, but somehow brought out the High
Asian cast of the strong bones. The voice was as familiar as her
own mother's to Yolande, but the tone was one she had never
heard the Afghan use. Flat, level, uninflected; she replied in the
Old Territory serf-dialect.

   "Ah'," she said. "This isn't trouble yo' in. We not talkin'
whippin' here, we not talkin' sniffin' around Masta John's
bedwench an' havin' her laugh at yaz." She leaned forward, and
her clenched fists quivered by her sides with throttled intensity.
"Goin' bushman means death, boy. The greencoats ties yo' to a
wheel an' breaks yo' bones slow with an iron rod, an' then they
rams the stake up yo' ass an yaz dies, it kin take days, the crows
pick out yo' eyes an'—" Her voice broke and she grasped for
control, panting. "Oh, Ali', my baby, my chile, please listen to
me."

   Ali jerked; Yolande could sense threads of argument reaching
into the past, like walking into a play halfway through. "I—It's
worth the risk, to be free."

   "Free." Then there was emotion in the woman's voice, an
anger and hopeless compassion. She pressed her fists to her
forehead for a moment, then looked up. "Ali," she said, her voice
calmly serious. "We beyond gamin' an' twistin' words to make
points. This the time fo' truth."

   Marco made an impatient sound; Ali cast him an appealing
glance and gestured before returning his gaze to his mother and
nodding gravely.

  "Did I have a magic stick, I'd wave it an' send yo' to England.
Break my heart to lose yo', son, but I'd do it. Yo' happiness that
impo'tant to me. Does yo' believe me?"

   "Yes, Momma," he said, with warmth in his voice.

   "But I don have no magic stick!" She buried her hands in her
hair. "Allah be merciful, whats can I say to a boy of nineteen? Yo'
doan' believe yaz can die…" Rahksan stepped to her son and
reached up to take his face between her palms. "Ali, my sweet,
my joy, I knows yo' full of pride an' shame. What yo' think, I says
cast them out 'count it makes trouble fo' me?"

   She kissed his brow. "Son, that sort o' hard pride, that fo'
Draka; an' I wouldn't be Draka iff'n I could, I seen what it make
them into. It ain' no shame to be serf! We not serf 'count of bein'
bad, or worthless, it just… kismet, our fate." She paused, licked
her lips, continued. "Mebbeso the Mastahs take the world, like
they dreams. Mebbeso they loses, an' then they dies, on 'count
they don' accept they can ever lose. Win or die, every one; think
on it, boy, does yaz see strength or weakness in that? Whatevah
happen, we still be here. That the honor an' pride of serfs; to live.
We is life, boy. Yo' wants pride… Look at this place. Who built it?
We did, our folk. Who builds everythin', grows everythin'? Our
folk. We is the world. That cause fo' pride."

  "Momma…" Ali gestured helplessly. "Momma, maybe… you
could be right, but I can't, I just can't. Please, come with us. I
want you with me there, Momma; I want to see you free, too. I
know it's risky, but maybe they won't catch us."
   "Oh, son," she said, in a voice thick with unshed tears. "They
caught me long ago. I'm bound with chains softer an' stronger
than iron. I'd send yo' if I could, but my life is here."

   "Don't listen to her, Ali!" Marco burst in. "She's a Draka-lover.
Be a man!"

   Rahksan straightened and glared at Marco, glanced him up
and down. "Man?" she said with slow contempt, and the Italian
flushed. "Big man, makes his momma an' poppa stand an' watch
while the headhunters break his bones, an' they gots to watch
and cain' do nothing."

   Her voice went whip-sharp. "Yaz poppa, Marco, he a man.
Live through the War, an' help yo' momma live. Right
afterwards, they was hard times, plenty folks dyin'; yo' poppa
keep othahs from gettin' theyselves killed, riskin' a night-time
knife in't 'back to do it. Then I hears him myself, talkin' to the
mastahs, respectful an' firm, askin' fo' let-up so's the rest don' do
nothin' foolish. There're Draka who'd've skinned him fo' that.
Ours wouldn't, but how he know then? He settle down with yaz
ma,'t' make the best of what fate give him; yo' doan' think that
take a man? Works hard, helps her raise their chillen. That a
man. Yo'? Yaz not even much of a boy."

   Marco clenched a fist, would have swung it at the beginning
of any movement. "Julia and I can never have children of our
own," he rasped, and his flush of anger Bided to white around his
mouth. "Is a man supposed to lie down for that?"

   Rahksan touched her stomach. "Yo' don't have chillen, boy.
We do. Julia, she can go down't' the clinic ever' six months, same
as any wench on the plantation, an' get a shot. I does, regular.
She fo'get o' don' care, have her two while she a housegirl, so they
ties her tubes. Mebbeso yo' wants to get six mo' with her to prove
yaz a man, then see them sold off to the serf-traders when they
turn fourteen? The Ingolfssons don' breed us fo' market. An' I
notice Julia ain't here, hmmm?"

   Rahksan extended a finger toward him, and he flinched.
"Marco, like I said, I'm no Draka; so I won' take no pleasure in
seein' yo' die. But I savin' my sorrow fo' yo' folks. My boy Ali here,
he bein' bull-stupid, but it honest stupid. Yo' doin' this outa bent
spite, lyin' to yo'self an' draggin' my son in to make yo'self feel
bettah about it. Mebbeso yaz got cock, balls, an' voice likeso a
jackass, but that don' make yo' much of a man't' my way a'
thinkin'."

   She turned back to Ali. "Tell me honest, son. Bring it out. Yo'
agreein' with his opinion of yo' momma what bore you?"

   "I—" The boy's eyes hunted back between them. "You—" He
stopped, then the words burst free. "You love her children, you
always have, better than you love me; it was smiles and stories
for them, and lectures for me! Isn't that being a Draka-lover?"

   "Ali." Rahksan forced her son's head back toward her. "Yo' my
son. Nine months beneath my heart, inside my body. Blood an'
pain when I bore yo', an' the midwife laid yaz on my belly. My
milk fed yo'. Yo' the dearest thing in all the world to me! Iff'n I
been hard on yo' sometimes, that love, too, tryin' to teach yaz
how to live. Loves yo' mo' than life."

   She took a deep breath. "No, I'm not a Draka-lover. Yes, I love
the Mistis' children. They children, Ali." She put her hands
beneath her breasts for a moment. "One I gives suck to. All I
cleans, an' picks up when they cries. Holds they hands when they
learnin' walkin'. Plays with. Hears they babblin' an' first words.
Comforts when they skins they knees o' they pet rabbit dies;
same's I did with yo'. Woman who don' love a chile aftah all
that, she don have no lovin' in her heart!" A wry smile. "There
some othah Draka I likes, o' anyway respects; that not 'lovin' the
Draka.' As fo' the Mistis,—" a shrug, "—we best friends, always
have been."

   Ali spoke with ragged calm. "How can you say that, say that
you're the friend of someone who owns you, uses you, who—" He
paused, continued almost in a mumble. "I can't… can't stand to
see them touch you. It makes me feel ashamed."

   "Oh, chile," she sighed. "How can she and I be friends? It ain't
easy, is how. I a serf, Ali; I cain' change that, neither can she. She
own me; law say she can sell me, whup me, kill me. Forty years
in't' same house, same room mostly, how often yo' thinks we gets
riled with each othah? How often she work to hold her hand?
How often I make myself not use that to hurt her? She still a
Draka, chile, an' that mean arrogant as a cat an' near as cruel,
sometime, 'thout even' knowin' it."

   She paused, made a sound halfway between laughter and
pain. "As to touchin'… Ali, I knows it shockin' to every boy't learn
this, but mothers don' stop wantin' and needin' when they has
their sons. Fo' the rest—look at me, Ali. No, look at me."

   He obeyed. "I is forty an' four, Ali. Still right comely, but there
dozens, mebbeso hundreds, younger an' better-lookin would
dearly like to get on right-side with the mastahs be lyin' down
with them. Why yo' think Mistis still want me An' I her, Ali.
'Cause we has likin fo' each other; knows each other to the bone.
The pleasurin' nice, but it comfort, too and bein' with someones
yo' shares memories with."

   Rahksan crossed her arms on her chest and continued calmly.
"Love yo', son. Give my life fo' yaz, but I won't lie about what I is,
o' pretend to bein' ashamed of it. Nevah did find a man I wanted
full-time; wish I had, might have been bettah fo' yo' to have a Pa.
But I didn't, an' there nothin' wrong with takin' what's available
along the way."

   "Now, Ali," she continued. "It's time, son. Fo' my sake… an' fo'
yo'rn… give this up. Please. It madness. I wants to see yo' happy,
see yo' give me grandchildren. Iff'n yo' cain' be happy here, there
other places; we can work somethin' out, but I can't let yo' kill
yo'self, Ali."

   Marco stiffened in suspicion. "She's betrayed us, turned
informer!" he snapped. "Quick, get the ropes! We can get her to
the car, it's two hours until that black bastard Nyami is back,
I've got the keys, hurry!"

   Rahksan hurled herself forward, gripped her son in a fierce
embrace. "Allah, be merciful—Ali, Ali, I'd die fo' yo'; I'd give yo'
up an' never see yo' again iffn yo' had a chance to do this crazy
thing. Ah, god, yo' crackin' my heart in two!" The last was a
wail, and tears were running down the face she raised to her son.
"Even kill yo' love fo' me, my chile. Even that I'll do fo' yo'. "
   Marco grabbed for her. Ali's arms were around his mother,
uncertain whether to comfort or confine. Rahksan struggled
against both of them, or shuddered in her weeping. Above them
the two Draka girls tensed as one, ready for movement, but
Yolande's hand pressed her friend back. There was someone at
the door of the stable.

   "Well." The serfs froze, the footsteps halted by the stable
doors, and a hand flicked on the lights. The horses stirred,
whickering and stamping in their stalls. Yolande slitted her eyes
to make out the figure in the entranceway: her mother, still in
the black riding leathers. The silver rondelles on her gunbelt
shone like stars against night, and her face seemed to float
detached as she skimmed the broad-brimmed hat aside. The
boots went tk-tk across the brown tile as she walked to within
arm's reach of the serfs. There was a cigarette in her left hand;
the other stayed near her gunbelt, the fingers working slightly.

   The Draka spoke again, in a tone of flat deadliness. "Take—
those—hands—off-—her."

   The two young men released Rahksan and stepped back
reflexively; Ali's eyes followed his mother as she moved to the
side, tears running down a face that might have been carved in
olivewood. Then back to the Landholder, standing stock-still
with explosive movement packed ready beneath her skin.

  Johanna spoke to Rahksan, with infinite gentleness. "Yo' don't
have to watch this, Rahksi."

  "Yes, I do, Jo. It my fault. This my punishment."

   Johanna nodded. Even then, Yolande felt shocked at
Rahksan's use of the first name without honorific; a privilege
that could only be exercised in strict privacy. Her eyes turned
back toward the two serf males. Evidently they were no longer
considered witnesses.

   The Landholder blew meditative smoke from her nostrils as
she stared at Marco. When she spoke, the tone was almost
conversational.
   "Buck, yo' are just too stupid to live. Plannin' to take that
lumberin' cow of an aircar to England? Yes?" Marco gave a
frozen nod. "Across the heaviest air defenses in the world? Boy,
they can see a bird movin'. England? Yo'd be lucky to make it
halfway to Florence. Lucky to be blown out of the air, mo' likely
forced down. Free out of Ingolfsson hands then, into Security's."

    The serfs flinched at the mention of the secret police, and
Johanna nodded. "Try convincin' them yo' don't know anythin'
political. Talk to the scalpels, an' the wires, an' the drugs. Three
weeks, maybe they'd believe yo' and send yo' to the Turk." They
flinched again at the obscene nickname for the impaling stake.
Marco was shaking now, white showing around the rims of his
eyes.

   The Draka sighed. "Haven't had to have a killin' on Claestum
since befo' yo' birth, boy. I really regret this." Her voice became
more formal. "One choice that can never be taken away, an'
that's to die rathah than live beneath the Yoke Marco, as yo'
owner an' an arm of the State, I hereby judgt yo' a threat to the
welfare of the Race and so, unfit to live," she said. The serf made
the beginnings of a motion, perhap: an attack, perhaps only an
attempt to flee.

   Even to the Draka watching from the loft what followed was a
blur, a dull smack of impact and Marco was sinking to the floor
clutching his groin, face working soundlessly.

   She pulled it, some reflexive corner of Yolande's mind
thought. Otherwise there was no room for thought, for
movement, scarcely even for breath. Heartbeat hammered in her
ears.

   "Yo' should listen to yo' momma, boy," she said quietly to Ali
with voice full of calm, considered anger." 'Stead of to Marco,
who can't even commit suicide on his ownsome without takin'
his friends with him. Gods preserve me from friendship like
that-there. Understand me, boy? Louder, I cain't hear yo'."

   "Yes, Mistis." A breathy whisper.

   "Are yo' listenin to me, boy?"
  "Yes, Mistis."

   "Nineteen years old, Freya… Forty years yo' mothah and I've
been together, Lord, forty years. Youth an' age, night an' day,
war an' peace…" She touched the scars around her left eye where
the ridges stood out under the overhead floodlights. "She helped
put me togethah again aftah this. Helped midwife my children,
an' I was there when yo' were born. Incidental, I was there when
yo' were conceived, too." A shake of her head. "Yo' momma
worth ten of yo', buck. Mo' guts, mo' brains, mo' heart." Very
softly: "Times was, when she was the only thing kept me from
freezin' solid."

   She leaned forward, and her index finger tapped him on the
nose; from above, Yolande could see him jerk at the touch, and
the sheen of sweat on his skin. Her mother's voice became
calmer still:

   "So she's what's kept Old Snake off yo' back, many a time.
She's why I'm bendin' strict law, accordin' to which the Order
Police should be here now. Bendin' it enough that I'd be in some
considerable shit myself if it came out. But we comin' to the hard
place, boy, between wish and will and duty, the place where I got
no choices left. Rahksan dear to my heart, but I live here; my
children do, my husband, my kin. I can't keep a mad dog in my
household, or sell it into someone else's. Are yo' an Ingolfsson
serf, or a wild bush-man? No, don't look at her, or him. This is
the narrow passage; here there's no brothah, no friend. Decide."

  A long pause.

  "Yes, Mistis."

  "Louder, boy."

  His voice cracked. "I am yours, Mistis. Mercy, please!"

   Johanna nodded, and her mouth twisted as at the taste of
some old bitterness. "Gods damn yo', Ali, why couldn't you have
thought on that befo' things come to this? We nevah asked fo' yo'
likin', just obedience. Now I have to kill part of yo' to save the
rest." Almost kindly: "I know yo' sorry now, Ali. I know yo'
frightened. It's not enough, now; yo' a brave boy, an' stubborn.
Fear isn't enough, because it don't last. Yo' has to show me, and
show yo'self, right down where yo' soul lives, who an' what you
are," Her face nodded toward the wall. "Pick up that shovel, an'
come back here."

   Ali's face had gone gray-pale with understanding; he
stumbled to the wall, took the long-handled shovel from the rack.
Marco had risen to his feet, still clutching at himself. His breath
whooped between clenched teeth. Johanna moved again, kicking
twice with delicate precision. The point of her boot drove into
Marco's solar plexus and straightened his body up in paralytic
shock. The edge flicked up into his throat, and he dropped to the
floor bulge-eyed, jerking and twitching.

   "Kill him, Ali." The Draka drew her pistol; the chunky shape
of crackle-finished steel glittered blue-black. "If not, I'll make it
quick."

  Rahksan turned her back, hands over her face. The shovel
went up, hesitated. Ali was shaking almost as much as his friend,
who strained to draw air through a half-crushed windpipe and
made noises that were part pleading, part choking. Strengthless
hands rose from the floor to ward off the iron.

   "No!" Ali screamed. The shovel swung down and struck,
clanged. Marco's body jerked across the floor like a
broken-backed snake. Rahksan twitched where she stood, as if
the impact had been in her. "No! No! No!" Another blow, and
another; it took six until the other man stopped moving and Ali
was able to drop to his knees in the blood and vomit himself
empty.

   "Serf." Johanna's voice cut through the spasms, and Ali
looked up, wiping at tears and blood and vomit on his chin.
Horses moved and whinnied in the stalls, frightened by the scent
of death. There were voices in the distance, and other lights
coming on. The Draka's face might have been carved from some
pale wood; she gripped the side of his head, hair and ear, and
jerked him close.

   "Yo' bright enough to understand that yo've found the way to
compel me, to hurt me; by makin' me hurt yo' mothah through
you. Look." She jerked his head around, forcing him to face
Rahksan. "Is it worth it? That's yo' doin'." Another twist, toward
Marco. "So is that," Back eye-to-eye.

   "Now. This is what happened. Marco went crazy, and
attacked yo' momma. Yo' had to hit him, an' it was all ovah by
the time I got here. Nobody will say otherwise; go get Deng, an'
the priest. They'll fetch the Mastah and do what's needful. Get
out of here, boy. Remember, and don't yo' ever make me do this
again."

   He stumbled out into the awakening night. Johanna's calm
evaporated; she threw the cigarette down with a gesture of
savage frustration and ground it out beneath her heel as she
slammed the pistol back into its holster.

  "Shit, shit, shit!" she swore venomously. Then, gently:
"Rahksan."

   The other woman turned from the wall and let her hands fall.
Her face had crumpled, and there were fresh lines beside her
mouth. "Did we have to?" she asked, in a thin small voice. "Oh,
Allah, Jo, did we have to?"

  "Rahksi—" Johanna held up her hands, a helpless motion.
"There wasn't time… another hour, an' too many would have
known. I'm sorry, I'm truly, truly sorry. There was nothin'—He
had to learn, Rahksi, it was that or kill him."

   Rahksan nodded as the tears spilled quietly down her cheeks.
"I know, Jo. I should've taught—" Then she was moving,
stumbling forward into the outstretched arms.

  "Oh, Jo!" They clung fiercely, and Rahksan's gray-shot head
was pressed against Johanna's throat. She was sobbing, a harsh
raw sound of grief that shook her like a marionette in the
puppeteer's fist.

    "It'll be all right, Rahksi, my pretty, shhh, shhh," Johanna
said, stroking her hair. A moment. "Cry fo' him, Rahksi. Cry fo'
all of us. I wish I could. "
   "My baby, Jo, my baby!"

   "I won't let anyone hurt him, I promise. Shhh, shhh."

   Yolande felt an overwhelming guilt and grief, sensed Myfwany
stirring likewise beside her. Her skin crawled; this was
something they were never meant to see, something that was
wrong to see, something that could never be forgotten. They
shared a single appalled glance and began cat-crawling
backward, using the growing clamor to fade into the welcoming
night. Behind and below them the two figures remained locked
together, the Landholder's cheek resting atop the serfs head as
she crooned wordless comfort.




                 CHAPTER FOUR

    Contrary to hoary myth, the Domination is not
antitechnological; after all, it began its industrialization at about
the same time as the United States. The lower "social visibility"
of its cities and factories was partly due to the sheer size of its
inhabited area, and more to the fact that they developed under
the sponsorship and control of the landed gentry, rather than as
alien incursions in a rural world. Nor is the more recent myth of
an anti-scientific bias in Draka culture wholly accurate. The
autosteamer, the dirigible airship, the turbocompound engine
and—characteristically—the machine-gun are all Draka
inventions, after all. It is true that until the Eurasian War the
Domination imported many of its research and development
personnel; also true that in certain areas of pure research,
particularly physics and electronics, they still depend on pirated
American research to a substantial degree. However, we should
remember that in some fields—biotechnology above all— the
Domination remains a world leader. Its process and heavy
industry, capital goods production and basic transportation are
all highly efficient. Draka engineers and technologists are second
to none, if not their pure researchers.

   Why then the widespread belief in a ruralist anti-urban
Domination? The most obvious reason is the lower per-capita
output and productivity of the Domination's economy. But
"productivity" is anything but a neutral, objective term; instead,
it is culturally determined. The Draka maintain a huge
unmechanized farming sector because it is, in their terms, highly
rational. Shifting to mechanized agriculture would simply
transfer serfs from field labor to making and servicing farm
machinery, or into supplying and servicing the resulting
industrial workers. The net result from the viewpoint of the
Landholders, would be to transfer income from landed to
industrial capital Increase the drain on the planet's
non-renewable resources, and decrease the gentry's quality of
life. That it would also greatly increase the overall standard of
living is, from a Draka point of view, utterly irrelevant; to a
Draka, the reason for having industry is to meet the military and
security needs of the State, and that the Domination's economy
does very well. Here we meet another cause of
misunderstanding: the aesthetic and conservationist. Many
Alliance citizens assume the importance the Domination
attaches to environmental controls implies an antitech attitude
similar to our "deep ecologists."

    The social roots of Draka environmentalism are wildly
different from ours. First this is an aristocrat's conservationism;
a collective projection of the Landholder's desire to preserve and
improve the family estate. Second, the Draka are long-term
thinkers by tradition and inclination. Third and most important
they can afford it An economy where industrial productivity is
high but even skilled labor very cheap has a greater disposable
surplus for sewage-plants and underground transmission lines. It
is significant that the one area where the Domination is grossly
inferior to the Alliance is in the production of modest consumer
durables—our dominant sector, and the driving motor of our
economy. There is very little environmental impact to a lavish
standard of living when it is confined to a fly-speck of
aristocracy; it would never have occurred to a Draka to invent
the dishwasher. Here the fundamental truth of the myth we have
been demolishing becomes apparent The Draka are perfectly
capable of research and innovation, but a few specialists aside,
they do not like it. The Draka elite would have been perfectly
satisfied if all technological progress had come to a halt in, say,
1910; they have continued to fund research heavily for
power-political reasons, not any dynamic internal to their own
society. The Draka innovate in response to a perceived need;
when the need is satisfied, they stop. Our restless worship of
change for its own sake is alien to them alien and repugnant. In
a Domination-ruled world, progress would probably gradually
taper off and cease within a few generations.

  Only the Alliance can take humankind to the stars.

           The Mind of the Draka; a Military-Cultural Analysis
           Monograph delivered by Commodore Aguilar Ernaldo
                                U.S. Naval War College, Manila
                     11th Alliance Strategic Studies Conference
                                                Subic Bay, 1972



CLAESTUM PLANTATION
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY
PROVENCE OF ITALY
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
APRIL, 1969



  "Mistis."

   Yolande stirred and blinked her eyes; Lele was at the foot of
her bed, touching the mattress to wake her. Machiavelli was
there, too. The cat rolled, flexed its feet in the air and tucked
itself into a circle on the other side, tail over nose.

  I wish I could do that, Yolande thought, swinging her feet out
and taking the juice, yawning and stretching.

   "Momin', Lele," she said, rising and walking over to the
eastern window and leaning through the thickness of the stone
wall. There was just a touch of light over the trees, and the last
stars were fading above. The air was cool enough to raise bumps
on her skin, but there were no clouds. It would be a warm day,
and sunny.
   "Terrible about Marco, Mistis," Lele said. News spread fast on
a plantation. "Whatevah could he want to hurt Rahksan fo'?" She
began laying out Yolande's hunting clothes. There was
indignation in her voice; violent crime was very rare in the
countryside. And Rahksan was very much a mother-figure to the
younger housegirls, which said a good deal. Favorites were not
always so popular.

   "Who knows?" Yolande said, forcing the memory out of her
mind and starting her stretching exercises; she felt sluggish this
morning, and sleep had come hard in the dark loneliness. She lay
down on the padded massage table, and felt the blood begin to
flow under the serfs impersonally skillful hands.

   "Ali quite the hero, Mistis," Lele continued in a dreamy tone,
pausing to rub a little scented oil into her palms. Rahksan's son
was popular with the younger wenches, too, for entirely different
reasons.

   "Lele, be quiet," Yolande snapped. The serf subsided, quelled
as much by the sudden tension in the young Draka's muscles as
by the tone. "Is Mistis Venders up yet?"

   "Yes, Mistis," the serf replied. "She—" There were foot-steps,
and Yolande turned her head to watch as her friend climbed the
stairs. She was already dressed in hunting clothes, boots and
chamois pants, pocketed jacket of cotton duck with leather pads
at the elbows, wrist-guards and a curl-brimmed hat.

  "How y' feelin', sweet?" Myfwany said softly.

   "Pretty good," Yolande replied, and realized it was true,
suddenly. The achey feeling was gone, and her body was rested
and loose. She arched her back against the masseuse's fingers,
sighing with contentment as her friend perched one hip on the
table by her shoulder and began braiding her hair with swift deft
motions.

  "Ever taken the big cats befo'?" Myfwany said.

   "Nnnno," Yolande replied. "Little harder there on the small of
the back, Lele… No, just wildcat. Foxes, of course, an' wolves now
and then. Plenty of deer. John has, though, lion an' tiger an'
leopard, gun an' steel-huntin' both." Her people usually took
game smaller than Cape buffalo on horseback, with javelins or
lances, terrain permitting.

   Lele finished the massage, carefully rotating knees and ankles
to ensure suppleness, and brought the clothes. Yolande turned to
look over one shoulder; Myfwany was watching her dress with
frank pleasure, still half-sitting on the table with one leg
swinging. Draka had little body-modesty—the nudity taboo had
been dying in her grandmother's day—but the feeling of being
watched with desire was strange. I like it, Yolande decided. It
was like being stroked all over with a heated mink glove, tingly
and comforting and exciting at the same time.

   "Ready fo' some huntin'?" she asked, buckling the broad
studded belt and bolstering her pistol. Automatically, her hands
checked it; ejected the magazine, pressed a thumb on the last
round to make sure it was feeding smoothly, worked the action,
reloaded, snicked on the safety, and dropped it back into the
holster, clipping the restraining strap across behind the
hammer.

  "Ready fo' that, too," Myfwany said. "Where's that brothah of
yours?"

   "C'mon, let's go roust him out; much longer and the sun will
dry out the scent."

   They clattered down the stairs, jumping four or five at a time
with exuberant grace. Out through her rooms and down the
corridors, past the sleepy early-morning greetings of the House
staff, up and about their sweeping and polishing. They passed
through the library complex, a series of chambers grouped
around an indoor pool, two stories under a glass-dome roof;
galleries ran back from it, lined shoulder-high with books,
statuary, paintings. This had always been one of her favorite
indoor parts of the manor, for reading or music or screening a
movie; last year they had gotten a Yankee wall-size
crystal-sandwich unit, the first in the region.

  Off to one side a group of serfs was sitting about a table
littered with papers, printout, coffee-cups, and trays: the senior
Authorized Literates, managerial staff at their morning
conference.

   "Hio, Marcello," Yolande said, waving them down as they
made to rise. That still felt a little strange. "No, go on with yo'
breakfasts, everybody."

   Marcello was Chief Librarian, a lean white-haired man in his
sixties who had been a university professor before the War.
Normally that meant Category 3m71, deportation to a
destructive-labor camp, but her mother had thoughtfully
snapped him up from a holding-pen while scouting out the
estate on recovery-leave in '42. Yolande returned his smile; he
had been an unofficial tutor of sorts when she was younger. Not
that she was under house-staff direction anymore—no Draka
child was once he turned thirteen and carried weapons— but
there were fond memories. She nodded to the others she
recognized: the paramedic from the infirmary, the
schoolteacher—these days, even a plantation taught one child in
five or so their letters—and the librarian's son and daughter,
understudying as replacements in the usual way.

   "We're off huntin'," she said to the elderly Italian serf. "Tell
the Lodge we'll be there in bout' half an hour, an' have somethin'
sent to the armory, coffee an' a snack, will you?"

   "Gladly, Mistis," he said. "I'll see to it." His accent was odd,
much crisper than the usual serf slur, and as much British as
Draka in intonation; she remembered some of the neighbors
saying he talked too much like a freeman for their taste. He
hesitated, then continued:

   "Will, ah, any of the Family be at the funeral, Mistis?"

   Yolande scowled, then forced her features straight and her
mood back to where she wished it. "No. I wouldn't think so, all
things considered."

   Usually the Landholders of Claestum put in a brief
appearance at such affairs, as a token of respect. The other serfs
at the table exchanged glances, then returned their eyes to their
plates and documents. Some estates would have hung an
attempted murderer's body up in the Quarters for the birds to
eat, as an example.

   "John's through here," she continued, as they came out an
arched doorway and into a long arcade. Cool air and dew from
the gardens to their right; they cut through, and into her
brother's rooms. "Hio, Johnny?" she called.

    The lounging room was empty, with only the sound of moving
water and music playing. A Cerraldson piece, quiet and
crystal-eerie, the Conquest Cantata. Yolande had never liked it,
it always made her think of the way serf-women cried at
gravesides, which was odd since the sound wasn't anything like
that. But somehow there was laughter in it, too… The outer room
of John's suite was larger than hers, since he used it for
entertaining, and surfaced on three sides with screens of
Coromandel sandalwood inset in jade, mother of pearl, ivory,
and lapis; they could be folded back to reveal the cabinets,
chiller, and displays. The furniture scattered around the
lavender-marble floor was mostly Oriental as well; there were a
few head-high jade pieces, Turkestan rugs, and a familar bronze
Buddha in the ornamental fishpond that ran through the glass
wall into the garden beyond.

   " Slug-a-bed!" Yolande said indignantly. "An' there he was,
goin' on about how we should make an early start. Come on,
Myfwany, we'll tip him out an' throw him in with those ugly
carp."

  There was a colonnade through the garden, which was mostly
pools and and lilies. "Ah, 'Landa, maybe we should call ahead—"
Myfwany said as they pushed through carved teak doors and
down a hallway.

   "Johnnnny!" Yolande chorused, clapping her hands as they
turned past the den into the bedroom. "C'mon, yo' big baby,
sun's shin in' and we got an appointment with a kitty-cat! Oh."

   John Ingolfsson was sitting half-dressed in one of the big
black-leather lounging chairs. Colette was kneeling across his
lap, and wearing nothing but anklets sewn with silver bells. They
chimed softly as her feet moved. Her owner's mouth was on her
breasts, and her hands kneaded his shoulders; the tousled blond
hair fell backward to her heels as she bent, shuddering.

   She gave a sharp cry of protest and opened her eyes as John
raised his head and looked at his sister with an ironical lift of
eyebrows.

   "Yo'might knock, sprout," he said dryly, lifting the wench
aside and setting her on her feet as he rose. "Or even, iff'n it isn't
askin' too much, use the House interphone."

   Yolande tossed her head, snorted and set her hands on her
hips. "All afternoon, all night an' yo' still can't think of anythin'
else?"

   She eyed the huge circular bed. John's other two regular
wenches, Su-ling and Bea, were there in the tangled sheets. Bea
was sitting, yawning and rubbing her face, smiling and making
the slight courtesy-bow to the two Oraka girls. She was a big
black woman, Junoesque, older than John, a present from
relatives in the southlands given when he turned twelve. Yolande
nodded back. She had always rather liked Bea; the wench was
unassuming and cheerful and unsulky about turning her hand to
ordinary work. Su-ling made a muffled sound and burrowed
back into the sheets. Well, who could blame her…

   "Should see what we'uns had to make do with in those border
camps," John said. He stretched, naked to the waist, showing the
classic V-shape of his torso. Smooth curves of rounded muscle
hard as tile moved under tanned skin, like a statue in oiled
beechwood. Not heavy or gross, the way an over-muscled serf
who could lift boulders might be; graceful us a racehorse in
motion. She felt a glow of pride. Even by Citizen standards, he
was beautiful.

   "Men," Yolande continued. "Hmmmph. It's a wonder we let
yo' vote."

   Colette was standing panting and ignored, sweat sheening her
long taut dancer's body. Yolande caught a glare of resentment
from the huge violet eyes, frowned absently at her. The serf
glanced deliberately from Myfwany to Yolande and back, smiled
ironically and made the full obeisance from the waist, palms to
eyes and fingers to brow. The Draka girl gritted her teeth. The
wench needed a good switching; John spoiled her.

  "Colette did sort of distract me," he was saying mildly. "Meet
you in the armory in, oh, no mo' than five minutes."

   "Sho'ly, John," Myfwany said, touching Yolande on the arm.
She giggled as they left the bedroom, flapping one hand up and
down in a burnt-finger gesture. "Oh, hoo, hoo, quite a sight!" she
said.

  Yolande blinked surprise at her. "Who, Colette?" she asked.
"Needs a belt taken to her rump."

   "That might be interestin', but I was thinkin' of yo' brother,
sweet, in an aesthetic sort of way," Myfwany said, twitching at
the other's braid. "Yo' a good-lookin' family."

   "I'll tell him yo' thinks so," she said, grinning slyly. "I mean,
seein' as Mandy's makin' moon-eyes at him already…"
Myfwany laughed and slapped her, shoulder. "Don't yo' dare;
swelled heads runs in yo' family, too."



   The armory was a single long room on the lower level, a
twenty-by-ten rectangle smelling of metal and gun-oil, and of
coffee and hot breads and fruit from the trays on the central
table. The kitchen-wench had put it down and scuttled out;
ordinary serfs were not allowed past the blank steel door with its
old combination-lock and new palm-recognition screen. There
were no windows, only a row of glowsticks along the ceiling.
Military-model assault rifles along the left wall, a light
machine-gun, machine-pistols, helmets, body-armor,
ammunition, communications gear and nightsight goggles.
Benches at the rear held the tools of a repair shop. Ismet sat
there: a big balding ex-Janissary, the plantation's gunsmith and
one of the four licensed armed serfs on Claestum, although he
was technically State property, rented rather than owned.
   The hunting gear was on the other wall. Broad-headed boar
spears, javelins, crossbows, shotguns. And rifles of the type
Draka thought suitable for game when cold steel was
impractical, double-barreled models.

   "Here," Yolande said. "This is my other Beaufort style… unless
yo'd like somethin' heavier?"

    "No, 8.5mm's fine fo' cat, I think," Myfwany said, popping a
roll of melon and prosciutto into her mouth and dusting her
hands together. She accepted the weapon and looked it over with
an approving nod, thumbing the catch that released the breech;
it folded open to reveal the empty chambers. The barrels were
damascened, the side-plates inlaid with hunting scenes in gold
and silver wire, the rosewood stock set with figures in ivory and
electrum.

  "Nice piece of work, really nice. Sherrinford of Archona?"

   "Mmmm, yes," Yolande said, taking down her other rifle. They
were part of a matched set, and Sherrinford worked only by
appointment; you had to be born a client. Over-and-under style,
like a vertical figure-8; her parents thought that made for better
aim than the more usual side-by-side. She watched as her friend
snapped the weapon closed and swung it up to dry-fire a few
times. How graceful she is.

   Her brother finished taking down three bandoliers. "I'm usin'
the 9mm, but 8.5's fine as long as yo've got the right cartridge. A
big male leopard can go full manweight, an' we're talkin' close
bush country here. These're 180-grain hollowpoint express,
ought to do it. There's a range with backstop at the lodge,
Myfwany, so yo' can shoot-in on that gun."

  "Lovely," Myfwany said.

   The balloon tires of the open-topped Shangaan hummed on
the pavement as they wound east from the manor. The road was
like the broad-base terraces on the hills, and the stock-dams that
starred the countryside with ponds: a legacy of the Land
Settlement Directorate and the period when the estate had been
gazetted, right after the War. The labor-camps were long gone,
and the work of the engineers had had time to mellow into the
Tuscan countryside. Babylonica willows trailed their fierce green
osiers into the water, and huge white-coated cattle dreamed
beneath them with the mist curling around their bellies.
Roadside poplars cast dappled shade, and the low stone walls of
the terraces were overgrown with Virginia creeper.

   "I like this time of year," Yolande said. "It's… like waking up
on a holiday mornin'."

   She inhaled deeply; the air was still a little cool as the sun rose
over the Monti del Chianti to the east. The olives shone
silver-gray, and the vineyards curved in snaking contour rows of
black root and green shoots along the sides of the hills; the
shaggy bush-rose hedges were in bloom, kilometer upon
kilometer of tiny white flowers against the lacy thornstalks. Their
scent tinted the air, joining smells of dust, dew, the blue genista
and red poppies that starred the long silky grass by the roadside
verge, the scarlet cornflowers spangled through the undulating
fields of wheat and clover. The air was loud with wings and
birdsong, plovers and wood doves, hoopoes and rollers. The
white storks were making their annual migration southward,
and the sky was never empty of them in this season.

   "It's beautiful any time of year," John said; he was at the rear
of the fan tail-shaped passenger section of the steamer. Yolande
looked up; his voice was completely serious, different from the
bantering tone he usually used with his youngest sister. "Yo love
this place, don't yo', John?" she said.

  He smiled, shrugged, looked away. "Yes," he replied musingly.
"Yes, I do. All of it."

   They were passing through the lower portion of the estate, as
close to flat as any part of Claestum, planted in fruit orchard,
dairy pasture, and truck gardens. A score of three-mule plow
teams were at work, sixteen-hand giants with silvery coats and
Roman noses, leaning into the traces with an immemorial
patience. The earth behind the disk-tillers was a deep chocolate
color, reddish-brown, smelling as good as new bread. The work
gangs were there already, unloading flats of seedlings from steam
drags, pitchforking down the huge piles of pale-gold wheat straw
used for mulch, spreading manure and sewage-sludge from the
methane plant, or wrestling with lengths of extruded-aluminum
irrigation pipe. Some of them looked up and waved their conical
straw hats as the car passed; the mounted foremen bowed in the
saddle.

   "Y' know," he continued, and shifted the rifle in the crook of
his arm, "we say 'Claestum,' and think we've summed it up. It all
depends who's doin' the lookin'. A League accountant looks at
the entry in her ledgers and sees forty-five hundred hectares,
yieldin' so-and-so many tonnes of wheat and fodder, x hundred
hectoliters of wine and y of olive oil per year. Security's District
Officer down't' Siena calls up the specs on a thousand-odd serfs
an' checks fo' reported disorders. An ecologist from the
Conservancy people thinks in terms or" —a flight of bustards
soared up from a sloping grainfield and glided down to a
hedgerow—"that sort of thing."

  "Ma and Pa?" Yolande said. Damn, can't get to know your
own brother until you grow up, she thought.

   "They see it as something they made," he replied. "Almost as
somethin' they fought and broke. I can understand it; every time
they look out they can say, 'we planted these trees,' or 'it took five
years of green-manurin' to get those upper fields in decent tilth.'
Pa told me once it was like breakin' a horse; yo' had to love the
beast or you'd kill it in sheer exasperation."

   "And yo', Johnny?" she continued softly, careful not to break
the mood.

   "It's… home," he said. "Some people need that feelin' of
creation. I don't. I love… it all; sights and smells and sounds, the
people an' the animals and the plants and… oh, the way the sun
comes over the east tower every mornin', the church-bell
soundin'— Shit, I'm no poet, sprout; yo're the only one in the
family with ambitions in that direction."

   He smiled ruefully. "I suspect I love this place mo' than any
individual, which may say somethin' about yours truly. At least,
a community an' place is longer-lived than a person. I won't
change anythin' much, when it's mine. A bit of tidyin'-up here
and there, maybe bring in a herd of eland, it'd do well…"

   "Mr. Ingolfsson?" Myfwany asked.

   "John," he said.

   "Thanks, John… I was wonderin', don't mean to pry, but if yo'
like it here so much, why did yo' volunteer fo' officer trainin'?"
Everyone started equal in the Citizen Force, three years
minimum and a month a year until forty, but not everyone
wanted to prolong their spell in uniform.

   "Payback," John said, opening a thermos of caffe latte and
passing it around. Myfwany made an inquiring sound as she
accepted a cup of the coffee.

  "I pay my debts," he amplified. The road was winding
upwards again, through fig orchards and rocky sheep-pasture
dotted with sweet chestnut trees.

   "Down at that school, they're probably fillin' y'all up with yo'
debt to the Race and the State." He shrugged. "True enough. I
likes to think of it on a mo' personal level. A plantation can feel
like a world to its own self, but it isn't. It only exists as part of the
Domination. The Race makes possible the only way of life I know,
the only world I feel at home in, the only contentment I can ever
have."

    He laughed. "Not least, by controllin' change. It must be
powerful lonely to be a Yankee; by the time one of them is
middle-aged, everythin' they grew up with is gone. Like havin'
the earth always dissolvin' away beneath yo' feet. Cut off from yo'
ancestors an' yo' descendants both. Here, barrin' catastrophe, I
can be reasonable sure that in a thousand years, what I value will
still exist."

   "It's here because Ma and Pa an' others like them fought fo' it,
bled fo' it. A decade of my life is cheap payment. I wouldn't
deserve this unless I was ready to die fo' it, to kill fo' it." He
blinked back to the present, and the gray eyes turned warm as he
smiled at his sister. "It'll always be here fo' yo', too, sprout, when
yo' come back from that space-travellin'."
    The lodge was pre-War Italian work, only slightly modified;
the plantations fronting the hill nature-reserve maintained it
jointly, part of their contract with the Conservancy Directorate
to manage the forest. Vine-grown, it nestled back into the
shadow of the hill, flanked by outbuildings and stables and a few
paddocks surrounded by stone walls. The huntsmen were waiting
in the forecourt, with the horses and dogs, beside a spring-fed
pool. A dozen liondogs, the type the Draka had bred to hunt the
big cats in the old African provinces: black-coated, with thick
ruffs around their necks and down their spines. Massive beasts,
over a meter at the shoulder and heavier than a man,
thick-boned, with broad blunt muzzles and canines that showed
over the lower lip. They rose and milled as the car stopped,
straw-yellow eyes bright with anticipation, until a word from the
handlers set them sinking back on their haunches in disciplined
silence.

   "Menchino, Alfredo," John said, nodding. The huntsmen were
brothers in their early thirties, one fair and one dark, with the
slab-sided, high-cheeked faces of the Tuscan peasantry.

   "Master John," Menchino said, making the half-bow as the
Draka stepped down from the car and the driver pulled away in
a chuff of steam and sough of pneumatics. There was a smile on
his face; hunting was the brothers' religion, and John Ingolfsson
had been a devout fellow-worshipper since he was old enough to
carry a rifle.

   "Missy—" Alfredo began. "Mistis," he corrected, as she
frowned and tapped her gunbelt in reminder of her adult status.
Adult as far as serfs were concerned, at least. A slight glance out
of the corner of his eye to the other serf, the hint of a shrug; she
suspected it was the thought of two young females going after a
dangerous beast. Italian serfs were funny about things like that,
and Ma said it would take another generation or two to really
break them of it.

   They had learned not to let it show some time ago, of course.
  "Well probably be back fo' lunch," Yolande said to the
middle-aged housegirl on the veranda. "Myfwany, yo' pick y'
mount?"

    The serfs lead the horses over, and the Draka checked their
tack. Light pad-saddles, with molded-leather scabbards for their
rifles; the huntsmen had much the same, though without the
tooling and studs. The two Ingolfssons and their guests slid their
weapons into the sheaths and fastened the restraining straps.
Their pack was sitting quiet, but the dogs knew what that
meant; tails began to beat at the gravel of the drive, and deep
chests rumbled eagerness.

   "I'll have the dapple," Myfwany said, reaching for the bridle of
a spotted gray mare. It blew inquisitively at her, and politely
accepted a lump of brown sugar. She turned eyes bright with
excitement to her friend. "Less'n yo'd rather?"

   " 'S fine," Yolande said, gathering her own reins and vaulting
easily into the saddle one-handed. The brown gelding
sidestepped, then quieted as she gathered it in and pressed her
knees. She ran a critical hand down its neck, checking the
muscle tone, and turned an eye on the others. They were fresh
but not rambunctious, which meant the lodge staff had been
exercising them properly.

  "Keep the dogs well in hand," John said to the huntsmen.
"They not used to anythin' bigger an' meaner than they are."



   "That's it!" John said, reining in on the bank of the little
stream. The sound of the pack had changed, the deep gerrr
-whuffi barking giving way to a higher belling sound. "They've
sighted."

   "Less'n they've taken out after a deer." Myfwany grinned,
reaching down beyond her right knee. The rifle came out of the
scabbard with an easy flip, and she rested the butt on one thigh.
The other Draka followed suit.

  One of the Italian serfs snorted, and the other coughed to
cover it. John laughed. "Not this pack," he said. "Not when we
gave them a clear scent."

   They heeled their horses down the slope in a shower of gravel
and dust. Two hour chase had brought them deep into the high
hills; the Monte del Chianti were mountains only by courtesy,
more like steep ridges, few more than a thousand meters high. It
was just enough to keep the air comfortably crisp as the morning
turned clear and brilliant. The forest was shaggy and uneven,
part old growth, much new since the conquest; you could see the
traces of old terracing, or the tumbled stones of peasant houses.
Oak and chestnut covered the lower slopes, with darker beech
and pine and silver fir above; feral grapevines wound around
many, and there were slashes of color from the blossom of
abandoned orchards.

   This spot was cool under tall black pines, full of their chill
scent. There were poplars along the stream; the mounts stepped
through cautiously, raising their feet high as horseshoes
clattered on the smooth brown rocks. Spring rains and sun had
brought a brief intense flowering where sun reached through the
trees; the far slope was too thin-soiled to carry timber, and it
blazed with wild field lilies, grape hyacinths, and sheets of
purple-and-yellow crocus. Yolande rose slightly in the stirrups as
the gelding's muscles bunched to push it up the hillside in a
series of bounds. The bruised herbs raised a sharp aromatic
smell, of sage and rosemary and sweet minty hyssop that shed
anthrophora bees and golden butterflies in clouds before the
horses' hooves.

   "Hiyaaaaaaa," Yolande shouted, as they broke onto an open
ridgeline and swung into a loping canter. One of the serfs
sounded a horn, taaa-brrrt, and the sound of the dogs rose to a
deep baying roar; the prey was treed or at bay. She could feel the
blood pounding in her ears, and the wind cool after them; it
tugged her hat down and blew streamers of pale hair free of her
braid, flickering at the corners of her vision. The horse moved
between her knees like a beating heart, a long weightless rocking
and then the rhythmic thumping of hooves, snort of breath, a
creak of leather, and rattle of iron.
   "Whoa-hey," John said. The dogs were raving, just out of
sight ahead, and then the voice of one rose to a shrill scream of
pain, cut off sharp as a knife. Another sound, a wild saw-edged
snarling shriek that never came from a canine mouth, and the
cries were echoed and re-echoed as if from stony walls, fading to
a harsh far-distant clamor. Yolande's horse laid back its ears and
shook its head slightly, and she tightened her legs to reassure it.

   The horses slowed to a fast walk as they went under the shade
of a stand of tall fir, then again as they emerged into a semicircle
of open space surrounded on three sides by trees. The ridgeline
was broken here, with a steep slope that turned into a cliff ten
meters high. The spot had been improved slightly, the sort of
thing the Conservancy Directorate did to encourage the game: a
spring had been dug out halfway up the cliff and funneled
through a stone lion's mouth, leaping out to feed a pool and the
trickle that drained down toward the creek. A big maple grew
out of the cliff near the spring, thick twisted roots gripping at
the rocks like frozen snakes, the trunk sweeping out almost
horizontally and then flaring upward. Six of the liondogs were
leaping and calling beneath the trunk; five more were clustered
around the base of the tree.

   "Merda!" Alfredo swore. One of the pack was lying at the base
of the slope, still twitching but with its intestines hanging gray
and pink out of its rent belly. It was plain enough what had
happened. The five dogs at the tree were barking frantically
toward the dense foliage farther out, making short dashes out
the broad sloping surface of the trunk and then retreating, as if
daring each other. Through the leaves the hunting party could
see a flash of brown and orange, and the yowling screech of the
leopard. Only one dog could approach at a time. A liondog might
outweigh a leopard, but its jaws alone were no match for the big
cat's claws and speed.

   "Call them in, Alfredo," John said, without taking his eyes off
the tree.

   The Draka all dropped their reins, and the horses froze into
well-trained immobility. Nervous, though, and sweating with it,
their eyes rolling at the scent of carnivore so close. Alfredo blew a
series of notes on his horn, and his brother rode among the dogs
snapping his whip. They milled, bellowing, then drew back with
a rush, standing in a clot with their muzzles raised toward the
tree. Discipline kept them motionless and quiet, but there was a
straining eagerness in their posture, and they shifted weight
from foot to foot as unconscious whines of frustration slipped
between their fangs.

   Yolande worked her mouth, suddenly conscious of its
dry-dryness . The glade grew quiet; there was the soft
background surf-sound of air through the trees, and the
incongruously soothing rush of water into the pool, the small
noises of the horses and dogs, and for a moment the fading
echoes of Alfredo's horn. Gods, this is exciting, she thought. The
branches shook as the leopard moved restlessly, then settled, and
she could see its amber eyes peering through the leaves. Exciting.
Quiet outside, inside a torrent of feelings: pity for the dead
lionhound, awe and pity for the great deadly beast twenty meters
away. The peculiar combination of sorrow and deep happiness
she always felt hunting, but raised to a new level, an aliveness
that seemed to reach out to encompass every speck of dust in the
slanting beams of light, every movement of leaf and shadow. As if
she could track the bees by their humming, or know every rock
and crevice of the cliff…

   "Fist fo' it," John said easily. He drew his binoculars
left-handed and focused. "Hooo, lordy, that's a big one. He-cat,
old an' mean. He not happy at all." Her brother laughed softly
with pure pleasure as he returned the glasses to their case at his
saddlebow. "Sprout, yo' first."

   They both beat their left fists through the air, then opened
them simultaneously.

  "Scissors beats paper, towhair," John said. "Miz Venders?"

   "Myfwany," she corrected, raising her hand. "One, two,
three—"

   The girl's hand came out closed: rock. The young man's was
scissors again; he swore good-naturedly.
   "Yo' win, Myfwany. Remember, he'll come down fast; that's,
oh, thirty meters. Ten in the leap from the tree, then a couple
bounds to us. Got it?"

   "Mmmmm-hm," the redhead said. There were two spots of
crimson high on her freckled cheeks as she kicked one leg over
the neck of her horse and slid down, then went to one knee. The
muzzle of the rifle stayed pointed half-down, and rock steady.
The breeding pairs for the Italian leopards had been imported in
the late '40s from the Atlas and Kayble mountains, and not
much hunted since; they would have little fear of men. Still, it
was possible this one knew what a gun meant; if nothing else, the
scientists used dart-guns for tagging specimens. She was equally
careful not to stare directly at their prey.

  "Yo' next, sprout."

   Yolande brought her right leg over the low horn of her saddle,
rested her left hand behind her and eased herself down to the
ground. The springy turf gave beneath her boots; it was a long
way down, a fifteen-hand horse and a short person. She dropped
the reins, which meant "stand still" to a gun-trained mount, and
brought her Sherrinford to high port. Her brother waited a few
seconds and then dismounted, careful to make no abrupt
movements.

  "Menchino," he said, in the same soft, conversational voice.
"Take yo' rifle, circle around and come up behind that tree. Don't
shoot less'n yo' has to. Iff'n yo' has to, don't hesitate."

   "Grazie, Mastah," the serf said; some Draka might have sent
him up there unarmed. He drew his own plain single-shot
hunting weapon and dropped back to follow the edge of the trees
around the clearing and approach the maple from behind.

   "Spread out," John continued. The two Draka fanned out
from Myfwany, leaving her directly facing the tree. Alfredo
snapped leashes to the collars of the lead dog and bitch, drawing
them to one side to anchor the pack. They could all hear the
leopard moving restlessly in the branches, a coughing grunt and
an occasional snarl, glimpses of patterned hide.
   "Mastah, there's a cave back here," Menchino called from the
dense scrub at the base of the slope. The soil was thin there, but
the rock was damp with seepage and carried dense thorny
maquis, rock-rose and broom. "Sign and scat."

  "Lair," John called. "Ignore it." He waited until the huntsman
was well-positioned at the base of the tree. "Can yo' see him?"

  "Yes." There was a tight quality to the serfs voice. "Jesu and
Maria, Mastah, he's a big one. Two and a half meters long, easy."

  "Good. Now send him down."

   Menchino shouted and began kicking the underbrush around
the base of the tree; he roared insults, waved his arms, skated
rocks out toward the thicker branches. Yolande wiped her hand
on her jacket and took a firmer grip on the rifle. To a cat, noise
and motion were threat; it would probably break forward. And
predators were more sensible than humans, they were dangerous
when cornered or where their young were concerned, but they
rarely attacked something except in self-defense or to eat.
Leopards were an exception sometimes, though… The serf fired
his rifle into the air; then she could hear the hasty sounds of his
reloading. Again.

   That brought the cat out into the open, out along a
thigh-thick branch that had only a tuft of leaves at the end.
Flowing out, liquid metal in motion, then halting blinking in the
sun. The light seemed to catch fire on its coat, hot spotted gold
rippling like living metal, and the tawny pools of its eyes with the
pupils slitted against the sun.Wotan, it is a big one, she thought
delightedly. The North African breed were larger than the
sub-Saharan variety, but this was exceptional even so. An old
male, one ear chewed to a stump. Not a happy one, either; the
head was forward and the ears laid back,the tail lashing.
Menchino fired again, in to the upper branches of the tree, and
cut twigs pattered down.

   That's decided him, Yolande thought, with a pins-and-needles
sensation that ran down to the small of her back. The long body
froze, tail extended and rigid, and then the haunches moved,
settling and gripping. She could see the muscles bunch,the claws
extend and dig in to the rough pale bark. The leopard screamed.

   And leapt. An impossible distance out from the branch,
soaring as if in flight. Myfwany's rifle came up, seeming to drift
with deceptive calm of a motion that is fast but very smooth. The
muzzle halted, steady, and the flat crack of the heavy game
round broke the air with a startling suddenness. The yellow
grace recoiled in midair hitting the tall grass with an audible
thump; it thrashed, sending stalks and wildflowers and divots of
turf flying amid a wild squalling that set the horses shuddering
and the liondogs growling like thunder. Then it was up again,
flowing like swift water across the open ground, stretching and
bunching. Yolande brought her own weapon up, and saw the
fangs barred in the V of the backsight. Myfwany fired again, and
the predator seemed to stumble with a grunt, fall, sliding into
the ground shoulder-first, tumbling end-for-end, then lying still.
Time began again.

   "Wait fo' it!" John called. They waited, in a moment that
seemed forever. Yolande met her friend's eyes, bright in a flushed
face, and felt a shock that seemed to run down to the pit of her
stomach.

    Myfwany glanced away. "He's not breathin'," she said, slightly
hoarse. Yolande looked at the leopard; it was smaller, somehow.
The eyes and mouth were open, the tongue lolling like a pink
flag; blood pooled out, and there were flies on it already. She
walked over to Myfwany, putting a hand on her shoulder, and
together they looked down at the dead leopard. It was a little
past its prime, marked with the scars of its prey and of mating
fights, but still sleek and strong. Triumph and a huge sorrow
mixed to make a feeling that was wholly pleasure; she took a
deep breath and let it out in a sigh, letting the moment pass with
it.

   John came up and clapped Myfwany on the back. "Nice
shootin'," he said heartily." 'Cross the loins with the first round,
an' right through the lungs with the second," he continued,
pointing out the wounds with his toe. "Want to skin him out?"

   "Nnnno," the redhead said, breaking open her rifle and letting
the spent brass tinkle down to ping on rock and bounce off the
warm skin of the cat. Loosening the sling, she hung it
muzzle-down across her back. "I'll water the horses, iffn yo' don't
mind."

   The young man nodded, slung his own weapon and drew the
long clip-pointed Jamieson from its sheath along his leg. The
honed edge glinted in the morning sunlight, a line of silver along
the blackened steel of the narrow blade.

   "Alfredo, give me a hand," he said, kneeling and holding the
hilt in his mouth while he rolled back the sleeves of his hunting
jacket.

    Yolande let the barrel of her rifle fall back onto her right
shoulder, reaching left-handed for the reins of her mount
Myfwany collected the other four, soothing them with words and
a firm stroking hand on nose and neck, leading them carefully
around the bloody bodies of dog and leopard. They shied slightly
at the smell as they passed, then quieted a little; the wind was
from the hillside, and she thought it must still carry the dead
cat's scent, if it had been denning here. She gathered the reins
and pulled her horse's head around, following her friend.

   "Masta! Look out!" Menchino shouted.

    She looked up, and for a second perception warred with
knowledge; the leopard was dead, but a leopard was charging
toward her from the shrub beyond the pool. Running in long low
bounds, the tail swinging to balance it, fluid and sure. Menchino
fired from above, and his bullet kicked dust and spanged off
stone by the animal's side. It swerved slightly, the platter-sized
feet spreading and gripping in automatic adjustment; swerved
toward Myfwany. The horses were rearing and neighing.
Myfwany's hand was tangled in their reins; she was fighting to
free it, clawing with her other for the pistol by her side. Alfredo's
rifle was still in its scabbard on his saddle; John's was across his
back, and his hands busy with the skinning.

   Yolande felt the reins burn through her left palm. The
Sherrinford's muzzle came forward as she yanked at the stock
with her right hand, but slowly, so slowly, caught in air thick as
honey. Only the leopard was moving at normal speed, the bounds
lengthening. Myfwany's face was chalk-pale, the green eyes
enormous. Slap and the forestock of her rifle hit her palm, hold
the breath squeeze the trigger. Bam! and recoil hammered at her
shoulder, another spurt of dust by the cat's forefeet, and now it
was rising in the final leap, head high, Yolande let the muzzle
drop again straight-on shot ran through her head and bam!

   Then she was running toward the tangled figures on the
ground, rifle held high by the barrel, shouting wordlessly. She
swore as she ran, every muscle tensing for the single blow, then
froze. The leopard was not moving, but neither was Myfwany…
Yolande dropped the rifle heedlessly, buried her hands in the
cat's ruff and strained backward, heaving at a limp unresisting
weight that was like a roll of damp canvas; the animal's bones
and sinew moved in their natural courses, but flopping loose
without a directing mind, hampering. She heaved it half off the
other girl and dropped to her knees, hands smoothing
blood-matted hair back from blood-slicked skin.

    "Myfwany !;" she said frantically. "Oh, gods, Myfwany, are yo'
all right, please be all right, I tried, oh please, I love yo', please!"

   " Phffth," Myfwany said, spitting blood to one side. The
matted lashes fluttered open. "It's—pfhth—not my blood, an' get
this thing off me!" She kicked and shoved, freeing herself, then
sat up and caught at Yolande's shoulders. "And I love yo', too."
Suddenly they were laughing, embracing, with kisses that tasted
of rank blood and fear and joy.

   "Touchin'," John said, dryly and a trifle breathlessly. The girls
broke apart and rose, leaning on each other. Yolande's brother
heaved the animal over on its back. "Female, nursin'." The teats
along its belly were enlarged. "In through the lung, an' a perfect
heart-shot," he continued. "Dead in the air."

   Myfwany gripped Yolande harder, and gave way to a single
deep shudder. "Felt like someone fired it at me like a cannonball,
an' it was sprayin' blood."

   Yolande felt her stomach knot with fear-nausea, and pushed it
down; there had been no time before, and now it would be
foolish. She slipped her arm down to rest around Myfwany's
waist, unwilling to break contact, unwilling to let go the concrete
feeling of life.

  "Bet there's kits in that-there cave," she said.



   The leopard cub mewled, and Machiavelli danced back from
the box that held his fascinated regard, hissed, then turned tail
and bolted up the tower stairs. Yolande heard Myfwany laugh,
and gripped harder at the stone of the balustrade, biting at her
lip and choking back a sob.

  "Sweet, what is it?" Myfwany asked.

   Yolande turned, to see her framed by the opened French doors
of the lounging room; behind her the servants were scurrying
out. The afternoon wind blew up from the gardens, cuffing with
warm soft hands at red hair still damp and dark from the baths,
plastering the thin cloth of the robe to her body.

   "I—" she breathed deeply, winning back control. Her head felt
light, only vaguely connected to the rest of her. "I just realized
again, yo' might have died, Myfwany. Yo' might be gone, right
now."

   "So." The other smiled, warm and fond; then her expression
grew serious, and she stretched out her hands toward the other,
palms up. "Come to me. I'm here."



  The cub was looking doubtfully at the bottle. Yolande looked
up from fastening her eardrops as it hissed.

   "Come on, eat, yo' little moron!" Myfwany said, pushing the
bottle toward the spotted form. It tumbled backward in the
blankets, crowding toward the back of the improvised cage the
plantation carpenter had knocked together for them. The huge
amber eyes were opened wide, and it made a pathetic gesture of
menace with the too-large paws.
   "Oh, the poor thing!" That was Sofia, Myfwany's maid. She
reached toward the leopard and yanked her hand back, sucking
at the scratches and spitting curses in Sicilian.

   "Here," Yolande said, laughing. She picked up the comforter
from the rumpled sheets of her bed and threw it over the cub,
then clamped the wriggling form through the thick fabric while
the others tucked it into a bundle.

   "Now, let's get the head free… right. Give me the bottle
darlin'…" The cub was glaring and hissing again; she waited
until it quieted a little, then dribbled milk on its muzzle. It
squalled, but licked its fur as well, and she could almost see it
pause mentally at the warm almost-familiar taste. "There, little
tiger, that's bettah, isn't it?" Yolande moved the rubber teat
closer, then gently brushed it against the cub's lips. It hesitated,
then began to suck strongly; she let it feed for a moment, then
brought the fingers of her other hand close enough for it to smell,
rubbing along its jaw.

  "Lele, Sofia, that's how y'all does it," she said. "Ready to go
down to dinner, darlin'?"

   "Sholy, love," Myfwany replied. The word was still new enough
to send a stab of pleasure. "How do I look?" She stood and
turned, holding out her arms.

   They were both dressed in evening wear, the neogrecian
gowns that had been standard formal dress for Citizen women
since the Classic Revival a century and more ago. The draped
and folded chiton still felt a little strange; children did not wear
such. The right shoulder was bare, and the end-fold hung over
the left elbow. Myfwany's was a warm bronze color, edged in a
turquoise that matched her eyes. Yolande had decided to stick
with ivory-cream; ash-blonds tended to look washed-out in
anything lighter.

  "Yo' look wonderful," Yolande said, running her fingers gently
down the other's neck. "Ready to face the music?"
  "I didn't know yo' meant it literally," Myfwany said.

   Dinner was indoors today, it being still a little cold for dining
on the terrace after sunset. The two girls had halted in the
corridor outside the lounge where the family gathered before the
evening meal, and they could hear the sound of harp and flute
through the tall carved-ebony doors.

   "Oh, yo'," Yolande said. Then: "Oh, yo'." She made a few
last-minute adjustments to the hairpin in the psyche-knot above
her left ear. "I'm nervous. I mean, I feel, yo' know, different."

   "Love, yo' didn't have a big 'V fo' 'virgin' stamped on y'
forehead, anyhows." Myfwany smiled heavy-lidded, and leaned
forward to plant a gentle kiss on the skin between Yolande's
breasts, above the drape of her gown. "Besides, it's only fifty
percent deflowerin'."

  "No fair, I cain't grab when we're all dressed up!" Yolande
whispered, then chuckled.

  "What's so funny?"

    "Well… It wasn't like I expected. I mean, I knew it was a
pleasure, everyone's always goin' on about it, but I didn't expect
it to be so much, oh, fun. Like a tickle-fight, hey? An' I feel so
much bettah."

   Myfwany joined in her laughter. "I think that depends on who,
sweet," she said, and held out a hand. "Shall we go in?" Yolande
took the hand in both of hers. "Myfwany, I want yo' to know
something. As long as our names are spoken together, I'll never
do anythin' to make yo' ashamed of me."

  "Nor will I," Myfwany said, equally grave. They linked arms
and turned.

   The door swung open easily with a hand-push against one of
the silver lion's heads that studded the night-black Calamander
wood, into a space more dimly lit than the corridor. The room
within was a long L-shape; the inner wall held bookshelves and a
huge fireplace, the outer Flemish tapestries between tall
windows. Cedar logs burned with an aromatic crackle, their light
ruddy on the couches, settees, and low tables. The serf musicians
were gathered unobtrusively in a corner, the Draka grouped
around the hearth: her father and mother and brother, of course,
and Aunt Alicia; her friends from school; the three overseers.
This was a semi-formal occasion, to celebrate the successful
hunt.

   "Greetin's," her father said with a slight bow, raising his
brandy-snifter. "Honor to our leopard-killers." He was smiling,
but there was real pride in the gesture.

   Yolande nodded back to the stocky figure in the dark velvet
jacket and lace cravat, feeling a rush of love. The others raised a
polite murmur and joined the toast before resuming their
conversations. A housegirl brought round a tray of aperitifs, and
the girls accepted glasses of chilled white wine with their free
hands as they joined the loose grouping around the fire. She
sipped, marveling at the tart refreshing taste, the sensual
pleasure of fire-warmth on her skin; everything seemed new,
everyone sharing her joy.

   "Congratulations again," John said, taking a wafer dabbed
with beluga from a passing servant. He looked at their linked
hands. "On all counts."

   Her mother looked up from a lounger; she had been talking to
Rahksan, who sat beside her on a stool working listlessly at her
inevitable embroidery.

   "Well, here's a cat that's found its way into the dairy," she said
dryly. "Took long enough."

   "Mother," Yolande said, with a sound halfway between
affection and exasperation.

  Veronica had been leaning against the mantelpiece. "An'
about time," she added, grinning.

   Myfwany leaned closer to give Yolande a loss on the cheek.
"My sentiments exactly," she said aloud. In a whisper: "They just
teasin', sweet."
    "Don't I know it," Yolande replied, and realized that this time
at least she did not mind; her heart knew as well as her head did
that the words were without intent to hurt. Today nothing could
diminish happiness, except the knowledge that today must end.

   She looked down at Rahksan; the serfs face was drawn tight
around the eyes and mouth, a look of suffering. Poor Tantie. She
gave her friend's arm a squeeze.

Just a second, love," she murmured, then crossed to sit on the
lounger. "Y'all right, Tantie?" she asked softly, putting a hand on
her shoulder. The official story was that Rahksan had been
attacked, which would account for her being shaken. The Draka
girl grimaced mentally at the memory of the scene in the stable,
then put it aside with adolescent ruthlessness; nothing seemed
strong enough to cast a shadow on the changing of her life.
"Anythin' I can do fo yo'?"

   "No, thank y' kindly, Mistis 'Landa," Rahksan said. Some life
returned to her face, and she reached up to pat the girl's hand. "I
jes' need a little time, is all."

   "Which reminds me, time fo' an announcement," Johanna
said casually. "In recognition of his quick and decisive action,
Rahksan's son Ah' is bein' recommended as a candidate fo' State
service, an' will be leaving in two months fo' preliminary testin'
at the Janissary base in Nova Cartago."

   There were raised eyebrows among some of the Draka. The
number of recruits needed was limited in these days of peace,
and there was fierce competition for the available slots among
the one and a half billion of the serf population.
Recommendation was a privilege usually only given to
exceptionally deserving cases, and Ali had been notorious as a
troublemaker, aside from this latest incident. Of course, the
Janissaries were not house serfs or field-hands, and qualities
which made a man unsatisfactory on a plantation could be
valuable in the armed services…

  Rahksan nodded deferentially to the congratulations,
murmuring thanks. "I jes' hope he do well, Mistis," she said to
Johanna. "He never goin' be happy here, that sure. Maybeso this
the makin' of him." She blinked, her lashes wet. "But I don' see
much of him now, that sure too."

   "Hey, don' be sad, Tantie," Yolande said, concerned. "He get
leave now an' then, yo' sees him as often as Ma sees me or
Edwina or Dionysia or John."

   A sigh. "That true." The Afghan smiled, wearily but with
genuine warmth. "Congratulations fo' yaz an' y' friend, Mistis
'Landa. Good to see m'other chile's growin' strong an' happy."

  "Thank yo', Tantie," Yolande said, touched.

   Her mother reached out a finger and touched Rahksan's
cheek, taking up a teardrop. "Speakin'of children, why don't yo'
go an' talk to y' boy some, Rahksi?" Johanna looked up to meet
her husband's eye; he nodded slightly, smiling. "See yo' later this
evenin'."

   The Landholders and their guests walked through into the
dining room—one of the smaller ones; there would be no point in
eight people losing themselves in the halls meant for
entertainment. This was spacious enough but cozy, a round
rosewood table and sideboards; the white linen and burnished
silverware shone beneath the chandelier, and the housegirls were
laying out the appetizers: smoked salmon and foie gras and
oysters nestling in beds of crushed ice. Yolande found herself and
Myfwany seated to the right of her parents, the senior positions.
The smells suddenly made her mouth water; it had been a long
day, and she had skipped lunch.

   "My, that looks good," she said, as the serf laid salmon and
capers on her plate. Another poured the first wine, a Valpolicella
the color of straw. She sniffed, sipped.

   "Fifteen an' hollow legs," Johanna said. "Children… Oh,
speakin' of which, Tom an' I have anothah announcement." She
reached across and took her husband's hand. "We're havin' some
mo'."

   Yolande choked on her wine. Myfwany thumped her back, but
she could still hear John's glass hit the table with a heavy chunk
as she coughed.

   "Yo' what, ma?" she gasped. She was the youngest of the four,
and had had fifteen years of hearing Johanna's fervid relief that
that particular duty to the Race was complete.

   "Loki yo' say!" her brother added, with a snort. "That's a
surprise."

   Her father laughed, deep and rich. "Soul of the White Christ,
everyone's Methuselah to their offspring," he said leaning back
and grinning at their discomfiture. "Frig and Freya, boy, yo'
goin' so slow on the grandchildren, we thought we'd show yo'
how."

   "An' we're not exactly too old yet," Johanna said, raising a
brow. Then, relenting: "Yo' youngsters do tease easy. Oh, we not
doin' it personal; that would be too risky at my age, certain-sure.
Not to mention barbaric an' uncomfortable. We had a couple
dozen frozen ova stored by the Eugenics people, just goin' have
them warmed up and borne by host-mothers, brooders. Finally
they figured a way of havin' the unpleasant part done by the
serfs." A bland look at Yolande. "Provided yo' approves, of
course."

   "Certai— Oh, mother," Yolande said, casting an appealing eye
at her friends. It was bad enough being teased by your
contemporaries, but parents were much worse. She saw
suppressed laughter, as her schoolmates examined their plates
or the ceiling.

   "It'll be nice to have babies around again," she said. That was
true enough; babies were even more fun than kittens. "An'
they're no bother, after all."

  "Sho'ly will be nice," Johanna agreed, nodding. "The Eugenics
people talkin' about improvements, as well. Now, about the party
next week—"
                 CHAPTER FIVE

  DATE: 07/06/67
FROM: Techspec IV Camot Alden
Virunga Biocontrol Institute
Project (Classified)
West Rift Province


   TO: Techspec VIII Carmen Fougard
Archona University
Biocontrol Department
Archona Province



   RE: Project (Classified)
Viral Coding Subsection
Ituri Retro-66b6-03


  [Technical data deleted by order of Security Directorate.]

   … and I tell you, Cammie, when I saw the specs on that virus I
nearly fainted, and then I nearly heaved my breakfast Damnedest
retro-virus complex you ever saw—even managed to work its way
into the lymphatic matter. Dormancy period—you won't believe
this—up to ten years! The wild version would just rip the shit out
of a human immune system; anyone who got it would be wide
open for opportunistic infections. From the anthro evidence and
the analysis of cognate primate carriers (green monkeys, mainly)
I'd say it crossed over into the Ituri population Just about eighty
to a hundred years ago. I'll be fucked if I know how, you'd need
some sort of blood exchange, or body fluids at least.
Human-human transmission would be easier, not pneumatic or
contact but sex would do it. Possibly even an insect vector. The
thing that gives me nightmares is the thought that it might have
broken out into the general population when we swept the blacks
there out into the compounds. They were just starting to do
blood transfusions In the 1880s, so we might have got it and
back then they'd have had no earthly prayer of beating it they
couldn't even have identified it. Could have been the Black Death
all over again. The gods' own luck most of those went into
destructive-labor camps.

   Of course, it's lucky some survived in the Ituri pygmies, too.
Anyway, its given us a ten-year jump on the SD project This is
the perfect source of our basic viral carrier—particularly since
there are direct neurological effects. Once you finish tweaking
this, it'll be like a ripe fig stuffed with botulism.

              Biopsych Warfare: An Interdisciplinary Approach
                   by Professor Colin Demoreaux von Sternheim
                             Archona University Press, Archona
                                                          2004



PROVINCE OF SARMATIA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
CRIMEAN MILITARY RESERVE
AIR TRAINING SECTION
15,000 METERS
MARCH 10, 1973


   "Beep. Beep. Beep." The missile lock-on warning repeated
itself with idiot persistence, a drone in the silenced cave-world of
the pilot's helmet, sharper than the subliminal moan of the
engines.

   "Shit," Yolande muttered to herself, throwing the aircraft into
a series of wild jinks and swerves, just enough to keep the beeps
from merging into the continuous drone of launch.

   She was half-reclining in the narrow cockpit of the Falcon VI
turboram fighter, immobile in a hydraulic suit that cushioned
her against acceleration and a clamshell couch that left nothing
mobile but fingers and head. The sky above her was blue-black
through the near-invisible canopy, here on the fringes of space;
ahead was the smooth semicircle of crystal-sandwich screen, the
virtual control panel with its multiple information displays.
Mach 3.5 and climbing, and nothing on the fucking screens,
nothing at all.

   It was a testing exercise, another name for sadistic mental
torture. They might have programmed an error into her
machine. Or simply cut the input from its electrodetectors; it
was resentfully acknowledged that the Alliance was ahead in
ECM and sensor-technology, and this could be a test of how she
would deal with that in combat. Her lips curled away from her
teeth behind the facemask. The Domination was not behind in
engines and materiels, so use that…

   Her hands moved on the pressure-sensitive pads inside the
restrainers. The Falcon pitched forward and power-dove,
straight down. Something soft and heavy and strong gripped her
and pushed, pushed until she could feel the soft tissues trying to
spread away from her bones and gray crept in at the corners of
her eyes. The suit squeezed, fighting the G's and pressing the
blood back toward her brain, but nothing could make it easier to
breathe or stop the feeling that her ribs were about to break
back into her chest. Mach 4, and the altimeter unreeled; 15,000
meters was not far at these speeds. The indicator hesitated in its
maddening beep, then resumed.

   "Now!" she yelled to herself, and yanked at the pads, pulling
the Falcon up in a wrenching curve that stressed it to ten tenths
of capacity. The pressure grew worse, crushing, vision fading,
hands immobile but the AI would continue the curve, hold
Wotandammit hold don't grayout not now you stupid cow—
The red telltales blinked back to amber; Mach 3.8, 6,000 meters,
half the altitude gone in seconds. The orthodox maneuver, and
not good enough, the lock-on was still sounding and altitude was
so much easier to lose than regain. Airbrakes. Dump velocity,
emergency mode, cycle the vent. The high-pitched roar of the
ramjet faltered, stopped.

   The airplane shuddered, thrumming, rattling her teeth,
ramming her body forward against the clamshell as it slowed;
not as good a fit as a body-tailored squadron unit would be.
Might be, if she passed. Her mind drew a picture of how it would
look from outside: the long oval of the fighter's fuselage, the
stubby forward-swept wings, edges flexing and thuttering as the
spoilers popped open along the trailing edge.

   Far below serfs in the plantations of the Kuban valley paused
for an instant at the flash of silver overhead, the rolling
crack-crack as the fighters passed, then bent again to the
immemorial rhythm of their hoes; it was a familiar thing, and
the bossboys were watching.

   Mach 1 and dropping. Lost him—shitshitshit! The scanning
warning started up again, the beeps coming closer and closer
together. The rubber taste of the mouthpiece was bitter against
her tongue; he must be close now, very close. Still nothing on the
detectors.

    "Override stops," she said. The computer acknowledged with
a patterned light, releasing its control of maneuvers that
threatened the integrity of the aircraft. Threatened to leave me
as long greasy smear on the landscape, she thought, and pushed
it away.

   Fingers moved, like an artist's on the piano.
Left-two-right-one-one. Fractional seconds, time floating by so
calm, so leisurely. Touch, touch, crack the vent and bleed air into
the turbines for low-altitude boost. Bring the vectored-thrust
louvers online, still closed. Now.

   The fighter flipped up, presenting its belly to the axis of flight.
In the same moment the underside jets cut in, superheated air
pumping out like retrorocket thrust. Shock struck, like hitting a
brick wall, and this time she did grayout, felt the jolt of the
medicomp pushing stimulant into her veins. Something in the
airframe pinged audibly, and a warning light began strobing
crimson.

   And something flashed by outside, above, a streak from one
side of the sky to the other. "Eeeeeeeeeeeehaaaaaaa!" she
shrieked exultantly, and pushed at the throttle. Speed crawled
back up, then the ram cut in, building to maximum thrust, and
the giant was back on her chest. Too low for optimum burn, too
rich a mixture, the ramjet sound was wrong, thready. But the
enemy was on her screens now, the thermal signature of a
ramscoop engine centered in the weapons section. He had still
been declerating when she did the kick-up; Yolande's Falcon
must have disappeared from his board as if teleported out.

   The release of tension was like neat brandy on an empty
stomach, like orgasm after a long teasing tumble.

   "Die, yo' shit, fuckin' die!" she screamed happily. Closing,
closing; the rearward sensors were less powerful than the ones in
the nose, and her own ECM would help. Visual range, nothing
fooled the ol Eyeball Mark I, they were both accelerating fast but
she had the edge. A touch and the gunsight sprang out on the
weapons screen, with the green blips at the lower corners; a
Falcon had two 30mm Gatlings at the wing-roots, a concession
to the dogfighting days. Not going to give him a lock-on
warning, she thought. Closer still, and she remembered her
mother's advice: an ace is someone who climbs right up the
enemy's asshole before they shoot.

    He dodged, too late and too point-blank now. Her fingers
danced on the pads, and the slim form of the fighter was one
with her, dancing in sky. The triple line of the vents filled the
sight, and she fired. Ping-ping-ping, and the computer stitched
a line of hitmarks across the instructor's fuselage; his own
machine went rock-steady and began a careful circle back to
base, sign that the AI had acknowledged defeat and taken
control for landing. Yolande pulled her own plane back and drove
for the upper levels.

  She was halfway through the second victory roll when the
weakened tail-vanes blew.




   "That was without any shadow of doubt, the most stupid,
arrogant, purely moronic thing yo've done, in a course of study
marked by mo' than its share of fuckups, Ingolfsson."

  Yolande swallowed. The ejection had produced instant
unconsciousness; the next thing she remembered was the
murmur of Russian as the fieldhands lifted her out of the pod,
their broad weathered faces whirling against a nauseatingly
mobile sky. A day in the infirmary had taken the worst of the
sting and ache away, but her neck still felt as if it had been
wrenched all the way around twice and every vertebra in her
back seemed to have been squashed into its neighbor. The
medicomp weighing down her right forearm clicked and
dribbled something into her veins, and the pain behind her eyes
eased—the physical pain. Her stomach twisted, and she could
taste acid at the back of her throat. Clammy sweat ran down her
flanks from the armpits, and the light fabric of her garrison
blacks was a clinging burden.

   "Yes, ma'am," she said, bracing to attention and staring over
the head of the seated Chief Instructor; she fixed her eyes on the
crossed flags behind the desk. The national Sag, the Drakon, a
crimson bat-winged dragon on a black background, clutching
the slave- fetter of mastery and the sword of death in its claws, a
green-silver-gold sunburst on the shield across its chest. The Air
Corps banner, the skull of an eagle in a circle of gold on black,
with flames in its eye-sockets.

   The Chief Instructor's office was a plain white room in what
had once been the Livadiya Palace, here in Yalta, looking out
over the garden and with a view down to the Black Sea. The
Livadiya was more than a century old, once a resort for Russian
nobles. The time of the Czars had passed, and it had been a
playground for the more exalted of the Soviet nomenklatura. The
Eurasian War came, and now for thirty years the Crimean
peninsula had been a training reserve of the Directorate of War.

   "Well, have yo' anythin' mo' to say fo' y' self?" Merarch
Corinne Monragon was a small woman, no taller than Yolande;
in her fifties, with an ugly beak nose and a receding chin and
gray hair streaked with an indeterminate mousy color. There
was an impressive array of ribbons over the left breast of her
garrison blacks: the Flying Cross, for more than six confirmed
kills in air-to-air combat, and the Anti-Partisan medal.

   Freya, not a washout. Disgrace, at this stage. Everyone
carefully avoiding talking about it, not-friends commiserating.
Two years driving some lumbering gun-truck groundstrike
monstrosity with damn-all chance of space training. No chance
of being posted to the same base as Myfwany. Black edged in
around her sight.

   "Ah…" Yolande pulled on her training, clamping inwardly on
the tremors that threatened to make her voice shake. Her face
was expressionless, save for the beads of moisture along her
hairline, and that could have been the crash-trauma. The
windows behind the big desk were slightly open on a pale winter
noon gray with cloud, and chill damp air cuffed at the heavy silk
of the banners, slid across her face.

  "Ah, I won, ma'am."

    The officer sighed and touched a screen on the desk before
her. "Records, Ingolfsson, Yolande, pilot-trainee." She examined
it in silence for a moment, then looked up.

   "There is that, Ingolfsson. There is also this." Her hand tapped
the screen. "Which contains good news an' bad, apart from the
good-to-passable academics." She folded her fingers and leaned
forward, the nose with its pearl stud like the beak of a bird of
prey. "The good is that when yo' good, yo' very, very good indeed;
a shit-eatin', bird-stompin' wonder of a pilot." The merarch's
voice rose slightly. "And when yo' bad, yo' is fuckin awful!"

   Another sigh. "So this time, yo' suckered the best
pilot-instructor we got. Wonderful. Then yo' turned a
1,750,000-auric trainer into a large, smokin' hole in a cherry
orchard outside o' Krasnodar by doin' acrobatics—just didn't
notice the air-frame alarm, eh? We have an enemy to shoot
down our aircraft, Ingolfsson, but yo've decided they don't
deserve the privilege, eh? Well."

   Wotan, Yolande thought, impressed despite herself. That was
half the price of a fully-stocked plantation. Some imp of the
perverse spoke in her ear: They aren't going to dock it out of my
pay, are they, ma'am?

   The instructor took a deep breath. "Well, yo' application fo'
scramjet or deep-space trainin' is, of course, denied." Those
postings were reserved for people with squadron experience.
   "I suspect if it weren't fo' yo' friend Venders's steadyin'
influence, yo'd have washed out into ground-support work, or
even the infantry, a while ago." A pause which grew long. The
five friends who had entered pilot-selection training were down
to three now; Muriel and Veronica had transferred out. "As it is,
yo've made it. Just. Barely. See the adjutant fo' yo' orders; the
usual two months' leave, then report fo' squadron service."

   "Yes, ma'am!" Yolande threw a cracking salute, right fist to
chest. Calm. Why do I feel so calm?

   "An' Ingolfsson?"

   "Ma'am?"

   "Flyin' fighters isn't a game, Ingolfsson. I know there's a killer
instinct somewheres inside of yo'; find it. Or it may turn out to
be avery good thing fo' the Race that we have a deposit of yo'
frozen ova, understand?" She rose and came around the table.
"Congratulations," she said, and they exchanged the wrist-grip
Draka handshake. In her other hand was a box with Pilot's
rank-tabs.

    "Thank yo', ma'am." The ruby bars clipped onto the epaulets,
and she tucked the old silver cadet's pins into a pocket of the
tunic. Yolande forced her face to graveness as she pulled the
peak-billed cap from her shoulder strap, unfolded it, and settled
it home on the regulation recruit's inch-long haircut.

   Now I can grow it long enough to comb, she thought
gleefully, as she did a smart about-face and marched into the
outer office, past the desks and the gray-uniformed serf
Auxiliaries. Out into the corridor, past the two motionless
Janissaries, like giant insects in segmented impact-armor and
visored sensor helmets. She looked down; her hands were
shaking. I didn't even notice, she thought. She concentrated a
moment; the floating feeling at the back of her skull diminished.
Down the arched colonnade, thin rain falling on tiles and potted
trees on her left, bas-reliefs of the Eurasian War on her right
through more offices, into a waiting room.

   Her pace picked up as she saw Mandy and Myfwany, turned
to a jog as they saw her grin and wave. Then she was running,
dodging tables and people in uniform, and flinging herself into
the air, heedless of the jar to her bruises.

   "Wuff!" Myfwany caught her in midleap, Yolande wound her
legs tight around her friend's waist and propped her elbows on
the hard muscle of her shoulders. "Why, Cadet Ingohsson,
someone might think yo'd had good news."

   Yolande clasped hands behind the redhead, as close-shaven as
her own, and kissed her. It turned long and passionate, until she
felt herself as breathless as in a high-G turn, lost in touch and
scent and taste. Taste of salt, as two tears slid down her cheeks
to the meeting of their lips. She turned her head aside and
buried it in the collar of the other's uniform.

  "Yo' hurtin', love?" Myfwany whispered into her ear.

  "No. Happy. Well be together." Her hug turned fierce.

   "Oh, moo," Mandy said. "Y'all are always at it. Good news, yo'
make out. Bad news, yo' make out. Nothin' else to do, yo' make
out. C'mon fellas, we've all gotten through Selection, let's go
celebrate."

   Yolande unlocked her legs and slid down to stand. "Well," she
said huskily, smiling up into Myfwany's turquoise-green eyes.
"Myfwany an' I could celebrate by goin' back to our room an'
fuckin' our brains out—oof." She broke off as the blond jabbed
her under the ribs with her fingertips.

   Myfwany laughed. "Do we complain at the boys y' always
draggin' in?" she said.

  "No, y' all steal 'em," Mandy said.

   "That's not fair, we just borrowed a few; they are reusable, yo'
knows," Myfwany replied. "Anyways, yo' know what they say:
"Men fo' amusement, women fo' pleasure, cucumbers fo'
ecstasy.'"

  Yolande sighed, closed her eyes, and leaned into her friend's
side; they were just the right height for that, about a handspan's
difference. As far as she was concerned, Mandy could keep the
men—it was as often uncomfortable as enjoyable—but she
supposed Myfwany was right, you had to broaden your
experience. I guess I'm just a prude, she thought regretfully. For
that matter, she didn't much like sleeping with serfs, either; it
was always difficult to tell whether they really wanted to, and if
they didn't why bother?

  "There's always the Flamingo Feather," Mandy said.



    The Crimea had been taken by amphibious assault in the fall
of '42, early in the War, and had become a major base area for
the drive west, since the harbors had fallen relatively intact.
Between the Germans and the Draka and the general chaos,
there had been little of the native population left; when the
European section of the Eurasian War wound down in '45, it had
seemed sensible to make it a military reservation, and the
remaining locals were moved out to provide labor on the wheat
plantations of the Ukraine. There were mountains, plains,
seashore, forest, and steppe, a reasonable facsimile of a
Mediterranean climate along the southern shore for barracks,
and every other type of weather and terrain within easy reach.
Recruit-training became the major occupation as the settlement
of the lands west of the Volga proceeded, and the Citizen
population built up.

   So the Crimea was not really part of the Province of Sarmatia;
not really of any specific location. It was Army, an island in the
archipelago, a way-station in the Domination's largest
institution, and a cog in the slaughterous efficiency that had
conquered two-thirds of the human race. That meant more than
barracks and armories.



   "Hoppin' tonight," Mandy said, as they pushed through the
bead curtain. The Flamingo Feather was an aviator's hangout, a
dozen linked public rooms with the usual facilities, palaestra and
baths and bedrooms.
    "Everybody glad to be off restriction," Myfwany replied. Few
Draka used enough of anything to endanger their health; it was
stupid, and illegal besides. Pilot-trainees were on an altogether
stricter regimen, enforced by the medical monitors they wore at
all times; there were even restrictions on sex, leading to a good
deal of resentful graffiti about the Orgasm Police.

   Yolande looked down on the sunken room. There was a haze of
blue smoke under the rooftop lights, a little tobacco,
considerably more Kenia Crown ganja. Tables scattered around
the edges, a dais for the musicians and singer; dancers going
through their paces in the center. Big murals on the walls,
holograph-copies. She recognized one: it had been done by her
mother's uncle's daughter Tanya, who had been a cohortarch in
the Archonal Guard until '45. Gray shattered buildings under
gray sky, with a column of tanks going through, mud squelching
up from under their treads. Hond III, mid-Eurasian War models.
The hatches were open, and the Draka crews showed
head-and-shoulders out of the turrets. Wrapped and muffled
against the cold, looking with a weary and disgusted boredom at
the skeletal corpses lying rat-gnawed along the avenue.

   "Euugh," she said, as they handed their rain-cloaks to the serf
and walked down the stairs. She had seen her share of
bodies—Draka children were taken to public executions fairly
early to cure them of squeamishness—but this was just purely
ugly. "I like that one bettah." The other side was a picture-holo A
tropical beach, palm-fringed, backed by jade-green sugarcane
and dark-green mountains beyond; the sun was setting over a
stretch of purple sea speckled with white foam-crests, in a
riotous banner of clouds in cream, gold, and rose."Nosy-Be, isn't
it?"

   They found an unoccupied table in a nook, settled back in
against the cushioned settees. The attendants had seen their
new-minted Pilot's bars; this was Graduation Week, after all. A
bucket of ice with a bottle of champagne appeared, and
finger-food, grilled spiced prawns and crawfish.

  "I think so," Myfwany said. "Which raises the interestin'
point, where do we go after the Great Escape?" The next two
months would be the longest leave they would have before they
mustered-out on their twenty-second birthdays.

   Yolande halted with the glass halfway to her lips and set it
down again on the smooth stone of the table. "It's real," she said
dazedly. "It just hit me, we're adults." Her eyes were wide, and
she felt a slight tug of alarm. The speeches and parades would
come later that week, but it was official enough NOW. "We can…
oh, we can vote. Get elected Archon."

   She took a gulp of the wine, then slowed down as the chill
piquant sweetness hit her mouth.

   "Watch the sacrilege there, that's Old Klik," Myfwany said,
and took up the game as she sipped at her own. "Or we can get
called out in a duel. At least while we're not Active Service."

  "Apply fo' a land-grant. Or get married," Mandy said,
propping her chin on a hand with a distant look.

   The other two exchanged glances; their friend had been
getting an awful lot of letters from Yolande's brother John. It was
a bit May-September, but the difference in ages mattered less as
they grew older.

   "Well, not much point in that," Yolande said. "Yo've got to live
in barracks fo' the next twenty-six months at least. Not really
practical to have children, either."

   "Oh, I don't know," Myfwany said. "Use a brooder fo' the
children. These days, no need to incubate yo' own eggs. But it's
true there's no point in marryin' until yo' can set up house
together; I wouldn't consider it fo' another three, five years,
myself."

  Yolande felt a chill that ran down her spine and settled under
her ribcage. With too-familiar effort of will she shoved it aside
and sprang up. "C'mon, love, let's dance," she said.
"Shadowdance."

   Myfwany grinned back at her, the strong-boned young face
the most beautiful thing in the world. "Sure, sweet," she said.
   They rose and threaded their way hand-in-hand to the dance
floor, their soft boots rutching on the tessellated mosaic of the
surface. The band were just setting up for a new number:
Hungarian Gypsies by their look, and in native costume, playing
violin and flute and czembalom, something like a
hammer-dulcimer. Except as horse-handlers, Gypsies made poor
workers, but they were fine entertainers and the leisure
industries had bought up a good many of them. The lights
dimmed. The music began low and sweet, with a swinging hit;
then it grew wilder, sorrowful, and with a hint of dark empty
places and wind through faded grass. The singer stepped up to
the edge of the dais and began a soft throaty lament; the hoop
earrings bobbed against the toffee-colored skin of her neck, and
the multicolored silk flounces of her dress glittered.

   The two Draka stood face to face and extended their arms
until their hands touched, very lightly, at the fingertips.
Shadowdancing was a development of the martial arts, originally
a method of training in anticipating another's movements.
Yolande half-closed her eyes and let the music take her, the
gentle pressure on her fingertips, the whole-body sense of the
other. They turned, circling, swooping, bending, the lead passing
from Myfwany to Yolande and back with each dozen heartbeats.
She felt the boundaries of her self blur; motion was uncaused,
unthought, total control merging into total abandonment of will.
The tempo picked up, and they were whirling, leaping, then
suddenly slowing to half-time and a languorous drifting. It was a
pleasure halfway between flying and making love, and like both it
translated you outside yourself. They slowed almost to a halt,
palm against palm on either side of their faces, feet skimming
the tile with cat-soft precision.

   The music stopped, and Yolande returned to herself with an
inner jerk, like walking down a step that wasn't there. Sensation
returned, and she knew she was breathing deeply, felt the prickle
of sweat on her skin. The other dancers had emptied a circle
around them, and a few were applauding. Myfwany was close
enough for her to watch the pupils contract from their
concentration-flare, close enough to smell the clean warm scent
of her body, like summer grass and fresh sheets.
  "I watched you, not the teacher, all that long summer's noon
Though he taught Leonardo, with loving respect,

   I was blinded by knowledge of where we'd be soon And my
eyes wandered dazed on the curve of your neck.

   Oh, statues and portraits, now to me you're a part of my
golden Myfwany; kisses and art."



AIRCAR
100 KM SOUTH OF NANTES
LOIRE DISTRICT, TOURAINE PROVINCE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
APRIL 5,1973


  Nantes in ten minutes, Yolande thought, banking the aircar
north toward the Loire estuary and beginning the descent.
Chateau Retour in another fifteen after that.

   The little aircraft dipped smoothly; the whole top was set
transparent down to waist-height, crystal-sandwich luxury.
Poitou wheeled beneath them, broad squares of plowland and
vineyard and straight dusty roads, patterned with the shadows of
a few fleecy white clouds on this bright spring morning. She had
a temptation to swoop down and barnstorm—the aircar was as
responsive as a fighter at low altitude—but resisted it with a
caressing motion on the sidestick that waggled the wings.

   She is a honey, the Draka thought happily. A six-seater
Bambara, Archona-made by Dos Santos Aerospatial. The very
latest, twin ceramic axial flow turbines, vectored-thrust VTOL,
variable-geometry wings that could fold right into the oval
fuselage. Supersonic, just barely, though she ate fuel like a stone
bitch if you tried to cruise above .9 Mach; obscenely comfortable
by comparison to any sort of military issue. The four rear seats
were recliners, swivel-mounted around a table-console and bar.
Myfwany's parents and hers had clubbed together to buy it for
them, as a graduation present.

  Myrwany and she had spent the first month of their furlough
traveling in the Bambara. Money was no problem; they had the
basic Citizen stipend now, their pilot's pay, and their families
had put them on an adult's allowance from the joint enterprises,
about as much again. Yolande looked over her shoulder at her
lover, curled asleep on one of the rear seats with her hand under
one cheek. It had been like school holidays again, only better,
with nobody to tell them what to do. They had rented a little
island for a week. Sleeping during the hot days, watching
impossibly lurid sunsets, spearfishing, grilling their catch on the
long empty white beach while the surf hissed phosphorescent
under the huge soft stars, making love by moonlight and lying
entangled under the palms until dawn. Visiting distant relatives
had been fun, too: the parties and sports, the cities and
museums and galleries and plays. Giving each other
presents—Myfwany had found her a signed first edition of
Ravens in a Morning Sky in Damascus, and Yolande had dug up
a Muramachi blade someone had left in a dusty shop in
Shanghai.

   The serf sitting behind her craned to see the semicircle of the
control panel, smiling a little uncertainly as the Draka caught
her eye. Jolene, dammit, remember the name, Yolande told
herself. Jolene had been their latest impulse-buy. They had
picked her up at an auction in Apollonaris, on the coast of
western Africa, two days ago. Yolande frowned a little; it had
been Myfwany's idea, and in her opinion it was a bit reckless just
to buy a serf like that. Ingolfssons did not sell their human
chattel except for gross and deliberate fault, which meant you
had to be careful.

   Mind you, traveling from base to base, they would need at
least one literate bodyservant, someone in Category IV or V,
trained to handle communications equipment and secretarial
business. Jolene was well educated and beautifully trained,
creche reared and certified by Domarre & Ledermann, who
specialized in high-skilled and fancy items. Very pretty besides,
in a broad-nosed, high-cheeked Mandingo fashion—and pilots
had a certain status to maintain in their personal gear. Skin the
shade of ripe eggplant, almost purple-black, with natural
yellow-blond hair and eyes like hot brass, the result of some sport
of wandering genes. Yolande rather liked her; she was eager to
please without being fawning, glad to be in good hands, and
charmingly agog at seeing the world beyond the strait confines of
the creche.

   "Nantes control, this is A7SD24, approachin', requestin'
clearance fo' in-district release," the Draka said, touching the
smooth surface of the control panel. "Headin' upstream to
Chateau Retour plantation."

   "Is that—" the voice hesitated, as the ground-sensor
computers queried the machine's. "Greetings, Citizen." A French
accent, some serf technician. "Feeding clearance data for
approach routes; central control under two thousand meters."

   "Ovah to AI," Yolande said, lifting her hand from the stick.
The aircraft turned east and then north to enter the in-city
approach path, sliding down an invisible line in the sky and
weaving its way among the busy low-level traffic over the Loire
estuary. A Bambara did not extend to that sort of computer, but
Nantes ground control would be handling it from here. She
nodded toward the other forward seat. "C'mon up front, iff'n yo'
like," she added.

   "Thanks kindly, Mistis," Jolene said, sliding forward and
buttoning her blouse; she and Myfwany had been necking in a
desultory sort of way until a little while ago. Alertly, the serf
studied the controls. She was a Category V Literate, authorized
to operate powered vehicles, but this board was all-virtual,
touch-sensitive simulations of dials and screens, and that was
just now coming in for the top-line civilian market. "May I?"

   At Yolande's nod, a slender black finger touched the upper
quadrant of the central screen. She ran through the menu
quickly until a map of Nantes appeared; then another of the
Loire valley as far east as Tours. A light flicked on the bank of the
river.

   "This where we stayin', Mistis?"

   "Fo' a few days. Meetin' my second cousin Alexandra an' my
brothah John, a friend name of Mandy, family gatherin',"
Yolande said. "Then up east a ways, boar-hunt."
   The aircar was slowing down to 500 kph and banking in for
the approach path; you could always tell when a computer was
flying… Jolene touched the screen again and hesitated until the
Draka signed permission with a flick of her wrist. The sale
contract from Domarre & Ledermann scrolled up.

   "800 aurics?" Jolene said, disappointment in her voice. Ten
times what a prime unskilled laborer cost, but less than might be
expected for a special item like her.

   "Notice," Yolande said, indicating two clauses. "We suckered
them. See, a buy-back option fo' yo', and a first-purchase option
on any of yo' children." At the serfs questioning look, she
continued: "We're… my family doesn't sell, 'cept in-house."

  "Oh." The serf looked relieved.

  Probably afraid we'd just picked her up for the holiday,
Yolande thought.

  Then, after a pause: "Yo' don't intends to breed me, either,
Mistis?"

  "Not fo' sale, anyhows, or if yo' don't want. Like children?"

   "Oh, yes," Jolene said, with a shy smile. "I helped out in the
nursery a lot at the creche. I;"—another hesitation —"I was sort
of hopin' to be a nurse, had some of the trainin', but…" She made
a gesture towards herself. The startling hair hung halfway down
her back in a mass of loose curls; she had the long-limbed
African build, slender neck, high firm breasts, buttocks that
.were rounded but showed the clench of muscle in the tight
trousers. Carefully exercised, with a pleasant glow of youthful
health.

   Yolande nodded; not much chance the Agency would sell her
at three hundred aurics as a medical technician when they could
get two or three times that for a fancy.

   "Well," she said, "we might find yo' work in a plantation
infirmary, later. Plannin' on keeping yo' with, while we're in the
Service."
   "Thanks, Mistis, I was… hmm, I was afraid I hadn't been
pleasin'."

   "Oh. that," Yolande shrugged. "Don't worry, that's my fault.
I'm sort of inhibited that way. Need to get to know yo' better
befo' it works proper fo' me. Myfwany certainly enjoyed yo'. Not
the main reason we bought yo', anyhows."

   Reassured, the serf smiled. "Glad to hear it, Mistis. I's lucky."
At Yolande's questioning look: "Nightclubs and suchlike were
biddin' on me, too." She made a slight face. "Rather belong to
folks I can get to know personal… Glad to get the auction an'
such ovah with's well, I mean, the waitin' once yo' passes
eighteen an' all. .- . . We meetin' yo' old servants down theres,
Mistis?"

   The Draka nodded; the other staff were nearly as important to
a fresh purchase's life as the owners, and just as much a matter
of potluck. She thought for a moment; as Pa used to say, a little
consideration went a long way in getting first-rate service.
Besides that, as Ma always said, serfs were inferiors, but inferior
people, not machinery; there was no point in making their lives
more difficult than necessary.

    "Lele, my maid, she won't give yo' any trouble," Yolande said
judiciously. "Sensible wench. Sofia, she's Myfwany's, she gets, ah,
a little jealous sometimes." In fact, Yolande thought that deep
down there were times when Sofia got jealous of her, which was
ridiculous beyond words. Pitiful, in fact. "Don't stand any
nonsense, and I'm sure yo'll make friends soon enough." That
prompted another thought. "Oh, remind me when we get in, I'll
have yo' cleared with Central Communication to call back to yo'
creche, talk to yo' friends there when yo've a mind to."

   "Oh, thank yo', Mistis," Jolene said, her face lighting.

   There was a stirring behind them. "Thanks fo' what?"
Myfwany asked. The serf rose and slid back into the body of the
aircar; Yolande heard a brief yelp-giggle before her friend sank
down in the bucket seat, yawning and rubbing her hands over
her face and hair, the red locks now just long enough to curl.
They exchanged a brief kiss before the other Draka turned to run
a quick eye over the displays.

   "Damn, down to twenty-five percent, need to refuel again,"
she said.

  "Could be worse; they could have made this thing run on
hydride 'stead of kerosene," Yolande said, and laughed.
Turboram and scramjets ran on hydrogen compounds.

  "Not until they build 'em orbit-capable… What's so fanny?"

   "Oh, nothin'. Just happy, is all. Wishin' this holiday could last
fo'ever." She stretched with her hands over her head, watching
the other's green eyes narrow in a silent grin. Myfwany's face had
more freckles now, and a faint golden bloom that was as much of
a tan as her complexion and Sola Screen would allow, much
lighter than Yolande's toast-gold. The flight-school pallor and
gauntness were gone; she looked relaxed, fit, sleeker.

   "Know how yo' feel, love," Myfwany said gently, brushing the
back of her hand on the other's cheek. "Though we'd get bored
with it, soon enough."

   A beep from the machine, and they looked back to the board.
The middle of the main screen had switched automatically to an
underbelly shot, showing a city center of garden-green
interspersed with roofs of umber tile and black slate. It shifted as
the aircar banked, and then a message flashed: Manual control
below one thousand.

   "Jolene, number between one and ten," Myfwany said, and
looked at Yolande. "I'm six."

  "To'," Yolande said.

  "Mistis Yolande wins," Jolene said; her voice was slightly
muffled, as she pressed her face against the side of the canopy.

   "Shit," Myfawny replied good-naturedly, and sat back.
Yolande let her hand fall on the sidestick. "Initiath V sequence,"
she said, and touched the consol. "Manual."
   "Cleared, Citizen," the Nantes control answered; a trifle
grumpily, she thought. Probably prefer me to let the computer
do it. Fuck that.

   She throttled back to 400 kph, and the wings slid forward to
right-angles with the fuselage. The river wound below them, blue
shimmer marked with the gold teardrop-shapes of sandbars and
the metallic silver of shallow water. Levees flanked the wandering
braided stream, although the level was down from the
wintertime floods; Yolande brought the aircar down to three
hundred meters, close enough to see details. Much greener than
Tuscany, where you could sense the earth's dry hard bones even
in the rains. They passed over Samur on its white cliffs, the pale
stone of the castle blinding in the morning light; then the banks
sank lower, only subtle changes in crop and growth showing
where the sandy flood-plain gave way to upland gatine.

  "This it?" Myfwany asked.

  "Mmm-hmm," Yolande replied.

   Unmistakable, an old chateau built in checkerboard of white
stone and red brick, with black Angers-slate roofs; four towers,
and a big pool-reservoir behind the Great House with
landscaped banks. The Quarters were to the east, the cottage
roofs almost lost among the trees. Around the manor grounds
were blocks of orchard, pink and white froth of apple and apricot
and peach; dairy pasture down by the river, green-blue wheat
and dark-green corn farther north, and long low slopes of
vineyard black-shaggy with new growth. A hoe-gang looked up as
they passed, faces white under the conical straw hats, then bent
again to their work.

   "There's the House landin' field," she continued. A square of
asphalt among trees, on the border between the manor gardens
and the croplands. She touched the transmitter control.

  "Chateau Retour, Yolande here," she said.

  "Mistress Ingolfsson." A serfs voice, the plantation radio
watch. "Please—"
   "Hiyo." A Citizen… yes, Aunt Tanya. A courtesy aunt,
Yolande's mother's first cousin technically. "Y'all cleared. Yo'
stuff arrived yesterday."

   "Thanks, Tanya. See yo' in a bit."

   The near-inaudible whine of the turbines altered, as the
slotted louvers beneath the aircar's body cycled open. Motion
slowed, turned sluggish as the Bambara dropped below
aerodynamic stallspeed and shifted to direct vertical lift. The
inship systems balanced it effortlessly, and Yolande began to
relax her grip on the pistol-trigger throttle built into the control
column. It didn't require much in the way of piloting, really, just
a steady hand…

    And memory, she thought, reaching out to touch the bypass
fan initiator. There was a chung sound from behind the
compartment, and a lower-pitched toning as the engines
transferred some of their energy to pumping cool air through the
lift-nozzles. Ceramic turbines were adiabatic, they ran hot. Hot
enough to melt metal; that was what made them efficient. Also
hot enough for the exhaust to damage an asphalt landing-stage,
and Edward and Tanya von Shrakenberg would not appreciate
that.Sometimes I think I need a computer just to keep the
relations straight, she thought idly.

   The altimeter unreeled. She touched another part of the
smooth glassy surface before her, and the wings folded back and
in, disappearing in their slots as the wheels lowered. Engine
noise mounted, and wisps of dust flew off the smooth pebbled
surface of the stage. An indicator blinked as the wheels touched
down. Yolande touched the groundmode button, and the console
rearranged itself; Bambaras were theoretically road and
surface-water capable, although she felt that was a needless
flourish.

   The canopy above them split into three segments and half
retracted to the rear. Air poured in, spring-chill and fresh,
smelling intensely of blossom, greenery, very faintly of burnt fuel.
Quiet struck, the ears ringing with the engine's silence after so
many hours. Nothing was louder than the ping of cooling metal;
there was the murmur of wind in trees, birdsounds, no
backround city-sound of engines. She had missed that country
quiet, these last few days.

   The landing field had a low hangar at one end, overshadowed
with trees and vine-grown; Yolande could see a twin-engine
winged tilt-rotor craft within, a couple of ducted-fan aircars.
Plantation servants were already loading a dolly with the
suitcases from the Bambara's luggage compartment. She and
Mvfwany rose, buckling their gunbelts and donning the
Shantung silk jackets they had picked up in China. That
prompted a thought; Yolande looked back and saw Jolene
standing and staring about with an expression of half delight
and half bewildered terror, the small carrying-case that held all
her lot in one hand.

    And getting goosebumps. Yolande snapped her fingers for the
serfs attention, then took her hand and laid the palm against the
screen. "Scan, identify," she said. That would access the personal
file from the Labor Directorate net. "Well have to have the
plantation seamstress run yo' up a few outfits, Jolene."

   The two Draka vaulted out of the aircar; the compartment
was only chest-high above the pavement, not worth the effort of
opening the door, and Jolene clambered down more slowly to
where Myfwany could grip her at the waist and swing her to the
ground. Yolande could feel the residual heat of the jets on her
legs through the linen of her trousers as she flipped up an access
plate and touched the panel within. The canopy slid back above
the passenger compartment and flashed from clear to mirror to
a dull nonreflective black.

   "Thumb here, Jolene," Yolande said, and keyed. "All right,
yo've got vehicular access." Not to the controls, of course. Raising
her voice, she called one of the porters: "Yo', boy." The stocky'
middle-aged French buck looked up from laying a cylindrical
leather case of hunting-javelins on top of the pile of baggage and
bowed. "See this wench to our rooms along with the rest of our
things."

   "Yolande Ingolfsson, kitten-adopter, small birds rescued to
order," Myfwany said fondly, as they strolled arm-in-arm to the
pathway that lead to the manor.
   "I'll spoil my half an' yo' can flog the othah," Yolande replied
dryly.

  "Nothin' wrong with a kindly heart, love," Myfwany said, and
yawned again, stretching. "Now let's lunch."




                   CHAPTER SIX

    The Protracted Struggle is as clear-cut an example of a
struggle between good and evil, freedom and slavery, as human
history affords. Or to put it another way, never have two so
clearly antithetical worldviews stood in such immediate
opposition. At stake is not merely political power, but the power
to define and in a sense, create the human race. That this is so
indisputable. That it has hazards for us of the Alliance is not so
generally realized. Because the cause we represent and fight for
is so indisputably good, there is a widespread tendency to
assume that our actions are necessarily correct This is perilously
close to the Draka ethical maxim that to desire an end is to
desire the means necessary to achieve it. Consider how some of
the institutions we have come to take for granted might appear
to generations before the Eurasian War: compulsory national
Service for both sexes, for example; a peacetime military of over
20 million; a single police-intelligence-counterintelligence
agency, the OSS, with an unaccountable budget of over five
percent of our collective GNP. This is not to say that these
measures were not necessary; simply that we should not assume
therefore that they are good in themselves.

   We must also beware of the tendency to define ourselves solely
in opposition to the enemy. Much of the neopuritanism of the
postwar years, only now fading, was the result of Draka
counterexample. More seriously, popular revulsion at the
Domination's eugenic and biocontrol experiments has seriously
hindered our own research In these areas. Knowledge is power, a
fact which the Draka keep in mind only too well; it is in the use
to which power is put that the ethical element resides.
                    from: Notes to a History of the Human Race
                                   Norton Mewsby-Wythe, Ph.D
                                         Oxford University Press
                                                           1994




BOMBS AWAY TAVERN
ALLIANCE SPACE FORCE ACADEMY
SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
ALLIANCE FOR DEMOCRACY
AUGUST 25, 1969
0100 HOURS



  "Hey, Freddie! I say, Freddie old man!"

   The voice bellowed inches from Frederick Leferge's ear, and
was barely audible. The Bombs Away was the trainees'
watering-hole of choice, and the graduation party was still going
strong; the quieter spirits had mostly left with their families in
the afternoon. Every table was full, and the bar was packed six
deep; smoke drifted under the pinon-pine rafters, about half
tobacco, and the air was solid with the Yipsatucky Sound music
roaring from the speakers, the noise of several hundred strong
young male voices. Speaking every language of the Alliance,
though English and Spanish predominated…

   "What?" Lefarge screamed back, halting in his forward-tackle
drive toward the beertaps. The air was solid with smell, too,
sweat and sawdust and liquor.

   It was "Randy Andy" McLean, a transfer student from the
British national military, and a few years older than the run of
students; it was common for candidates to take lateral transfers
into the direct Alliance service. Short, slight, unbelievably
freckled, and newly-assigned Junior Power Systems Engineer on
the Emancipator. That was the first and to date only example of
the second generation of pulsedrive spaceships, a plum posting
for a new-minted Academy graduate; McLean had been
celebrating his success ever since the assignments were
announced, or drowning his sorrows at the prospect of joining
an all-male branch of the Service. The pulsedrive ships were
opening the area beyond Luna to Alliance exploration and
development, and the cruises tended to be long.

   "I say, who are those two stunners waving at you, you dog?"
he continued. The Scot's nickname was not undeserved, and
represented a real achievement in Santa Fe, with its heavy
surplus of young men.

   Stunners? Lefarge thought. He had a few friends among the
female tenth of the Academy's student body, but he wouldn't
consider any of them worthy of that particular appraisal;
besides, they were supervised like Carmelites, and none of them
would be here tonight. Santa Fe was a
government-research-military town, families and young single
men mostly…

  "Excuse me!" he bellowed at his two nearest neighbors,
putting his hands on their shoulders and levering his feet to
knee-height off the ground. There were two young women
waving at the cantina's courtyard door.

   "Well?" McLean said. Lefarge began to laugh, and pulled his
friend closer by the high collar of his uniform jacket. "It's my
sister," he shouted into the other man's ear.

  "You lie!" A pause for thought. "Well, who's her friend, then?"

  "My godfather's daughter, we grew up together!"

   The redhead's face fell, and the native burr showed under his
carefully cultivated Queen's English. "Yer a fookin' traitor to the
Class of '69 and men in general, ye know," he said with
mock-bitterness. They worked their way steadily toward the
door, and the trace of cooler air that found its way in.

   "Well, I can still introduce you," he said in a more normal
tone. "Just watch your step, Randy, or I'll break the offending
hand."
   "That bloody Unarmed Combat prize went to your head,"
McLean said, pausing to adjust his jacket and pull the white
gloves from his belt. "Lead on, old chum, and fear not: once a
McLean, always a gentleman."

   "Meaning you never pay your tailor.Marya! Cindy!"

   His sister gave him a quick strong embrace and a kiss on the
cheek. They were twins, and looked it, the same high-cheeked
oval face, straight nose, dark-gray eyes, black hair, long-limbed
build. She was three inches shorter than his six feet, with a
graceful tautness that suggested dance classes and gymnastics;
her hair was in a plain ponytail, and she wore a
sneakers-jeans-windbreaker outfit that made her look far
younger than her twenty-one years.

   He turned to Cindy Guzman and put his hands on her
shoulders. "How's Mexico City?" he said softly. She was nineteen
and… McLean's right, he thought breathlessly.Stunner.
Anglo-Mayan looks, olive skin and greenish hazel eyes, hair the
color of darkest mahogany. Figure curved like—-down, boy! he
told himself sternly. Remember Don Guzman and his machete.
Cindy's father had been a submariner in the Eurasian War and
after had retired a Commodore… and had never abandoned
certain of the attitudes he learned as a farmboy in Yucatan.

   Not that my intentions aren't of the most honorable, he
thought dismally. Lieutenants just can't marry. Not if they had
any concern for their careers, and while he would be willing to
risk it, Cindy would not. Captains could marry, of course. That
had been a considerable element in his academic success. A good
report never hurt.

    She hugged him and exchanged a long but frustratingly
chaste kiss. "Mexico City's still as crowded and nasty as ever,"
she said. It was the fourth-largest city in the United States, after
all, and the postwar growth had been badly handled. "Luckily, I
don't have to leave campus very often. Who's your friend?"

   "The Honorable Andrew McLean of McLean, fifth of that ilk,"
Lefarge said. McLean bowed with his best suave smile, somehow
suggesting a kilt, with gillies and pipers in the background.
Cindy and Marya extended their hands, found them bowed over
and kissed rather than shaken.

   "Och aye, an' my friend Frederick, he wasna joking when he
said that here would be two flowers fairer than any the
Highlands bear," he said.

   Lefarge smiled, remembering his friend's description of the
family's seldom-visited ancestral hall, late one night after a few
beers:

   Built by cattle thieves for protection against other cattle
thieves. Och, it's this ghastly great drafty stone barn, uglier than
Balmoral if that's possible, and if y' ken Balmoral… the land?
Bluidy pure. Heather, beautiful and useless. Great-great-great
gran'ther drove out all the crofters and tachsmen in the
Clearances and then found it wouldn't even feed sheep to any
purpose. We've lived off renting the deer-shooting and the odd
bit of loot ever since.

   "Shall we find a table?" Lefarge said. The Bombs Away had
several outdoor patios.

    "Ah, Fred, Cindy wanted to go back to the hotel. She's staying
with Maman, and doesn't want to be out late." Marya made a
slight shooing sign with her fingers as she spoke. There was
something puzzling in her face as she looked at McLean, as well;
it was too smoothly friendly. His sister was not a naturally
outgoing girl… Well, it had been nearly a year, and people
changed.

   "Andy," he said, slapping the smaller man on the shoulder.
"Be a brick, would you, and see Cindy back to her room. She's
staying with my mother," who you know is a dragon— "and I'm
sure she'd appreciate it." And I know where you live, you
cream-stealing pirate.

   "A pleasure and an honor," the other graduate said, extending
his arm and sweeping a bow to Marya. "Until we meet again."

   Brother and sister watched them go, then moved out onto the
patio. This was an old building, Spanish-Mexican in its core; the
original had been built in adobe brick around a courtyard, then
extended to an H-shape later.

   "Uncle Nate's here," Marya said quietly. "With his working
hat."

   "Oh." Lefarge felt a chill shock run into his belly, like the
moment before you went out the door on a parachute drop.
Nathaniel Stoddard had taken turns with Commodore Guzman
in being the father they had never known; he was also General
Nathaniel Stoddard, Office of Strategic Services… and now their
commanding officer as well. "Let's go."

   The older man was sitting at a table in the outer courtyard,
hard up against the wrought-iron fence; it was dark there, with
only candles in glass bubbles on the tables. Stoddard rose with
old-world courtesy as they approached, a lanky figure in a
conservative houndstooth-tweed suit and dark blue cravat; as
Eastern as his Bay State accent. The face was pure New England
as well, long and bony, with faded blue eyes and gray-streaked
sandy hair; the face of an extremely mournful horse. There was
an attache case with a combination lock on the table before him,
half-open; Lefarge caught sight of equipment he recognized, a
detector-set that would beep an alarm if any of the active
long-range snooper systems were trained on them. The younger
man glanced up quickly at the parking lot visible through the
grillwork: it was full of Academy student steamcars, battered
Stanley Jackrabbits and cheap Monterrey Motors Burros; also a
few very quiet, systematically inconspicuous men.

  Marya, Fred," Stoddard said, shaking hands with them both.
They sat: a waitress in synthetic-fabric pseudo-Southwestern
cowgirl costume brought coffee for the younger pair.

  "Anytheek for you, sir?"

   "Nh-huh," Stoddard said, touching his glass of water. "Fine,
thank you."

  "Mike's not here?" Lefarge asked. Stoddard's only son was Air
Force, stationed in Asia, but he had been planning to take leave.
Marya's face froze, and Lefarge looked up in sharp alarm.
   "There was a brush over the South China Sea," Stoddard said.
He was staring at his water, voice flat. "Trawler out of Hainan
lost its engine, drifted into Draka-claimed waters; one of their
hovercraft gunboats came out after it. We sent in fighters, so did
they. Mike's wingman reported him hit." A pause. "Missing,
presumed dead. Hopefully dead." The enemy recognized no laws
regarding treatment of prisoners; their own military were
expected to fight to the death.

  "Oh, Jesus, Uncle Nate," Lefarge said, crossing himself.

  His sister followed suit. "Jesus."

   Stoddard raised the glass to his lips; the hand was steady. The
homely face was emotionless as he sipped, but there was an
infinite weariness in it.

  "How's Janice?" His daughter-in-law.

   "In Hawaii with the baby, waiting for news," Stoddard said,
and sighed slightly. "So, Fred, you'll see I couldn't make the
graduation ceremony."

  Lefarge nodded slightly, groping within for a reaction; grief,
anger, hatred. Nothing, he thought. I must be dazed. There were
continual border skirmishes along the line that divided the
Domination from the Alliance; even in space, recently. But that
was like traffic accidents or cancer; you never thought of it as
something with a relation to you, you and the people you knew.

   He was a good joe, Lefarge thought. Bit too solemn, but he
always put up with me. He remembered the older boy patiently
explaining to the visiting New Yorker how to use a fly rod, and
letting him hold a safely unloaded birdgun. Later Mike and
Uncle Nate and he had gone on long hunting trips up to the
Maine woods, and—

  "Jesus," he said again, shaking his head.

   The sky above was clear and full of stars; this city was at seven
thousand feet, and for too small for the lights to dim the sky the
way they did at home, in New York. When he had lain in the
hammock on the veranda at the Maine cottage, Mike and his
father had taught him constellations. There was a far-off growl
like thunder, only it did not end; another star was rising, from
the mountains to the northeast. Rising on a pillar of light, laser
light, into the sky: a cargo pod from the launcher at Los Alamos.
He followed it with his eyes, up toward the moving stars. Space
platforms, and these days weapons platforms armored in lunar
regolith. Suddenly the stars were very cold; reptile eyes, staring
down with ageless hunger.

  "Ayuh," Stoddard said. "To work."

   Only someone who had known him all their lives could have
seen through the mask of calm; Lefarge did, and now anger
(flushed warmth into his skin. Stoddard would grieve in the
manner of his land, with a silent reserve that encysted the pain,
preserving it like a fly in amber.

   His hands were sliding a file out of the attach case. "First, one
thing, Fred. Do you still want the Service?"

   Lefarge nodded, slightly surprised; that commitment had
been made long ago. Not that the OSS recruited openly; to his
classmates and most of his instructors, he was just one more
astronaut-in-training, with a specialty in cryptography and
information systems. One who went somewhere else for the
holidays, most of the time. Plus a more-than-fair halfback…
Concentrate, he reminded himself. An astronaut could not afford
to let anything break his mind's grip on a problem, and neither
could an Intelligence agent.

  "Then look at this," Stoddard continued.

   He pushed an eight by eleven glossy across to Lefarge. The
younger man took it up and inclined it towards the candle, then
accepted a pencil-flashlight. His lips shaped a soundless whistle.
Ultra-chic, somewhere between twenty and thirty. In a strapless
black evening gown, a diamond necklace emphasizing the long
slender neck without distracting from the high breasts beneath.
Smooth, classic-straight features, dark blue eyes, glossy brown
hair piled high; one elegant leg exposed to the knee by the slit
gown, with a daring jeweled anklet. Holding a champagne glass
in one gloved hand, gesturing with the other, laughing. At some
sort of function; black suits, very expensive dresses. An
old-looking building, with a Georgian interior.

   "European?" he said. She had that look. Millions had made it
out of Western Europe during the last phases of the Eurasian
War; his own mother had, in 1947, although that had been a
special case. The Draka serf identity-tattoo on the neck could be
surgically removed. "In London, recently?" Toddard nodded with
bleak satisfaction.

   Marya spoke: "Marie-Claire Arondin; that's actually her
name. Elder brother is Jean-Claude Arondin; refugee from Lyon.
Got out in '48, officially, stowaways in a cargo container aboard
a dirigible. Established a machine-parts business in London, and
made a fair go of it, despite occasional alcohol problems. The
sister went to English schools, latterly a fairly expensive boarding
establishment. Did her National Service as an assistant nurse in
a West End hospital; the alcohol-rehabilitation ward, where she
made some… interesting contacts." His sister's voice had a dry
tone he recognized; someone reciting from a file.

   "Set up a small dressmaking concern after studying design at
the University of London; soon, not so small, due to discreet gifts
from several prominent men with whom she became discreetly
involved." Her right hand was resting in her lap; the fingers of
the left tapped the table. "A very classy and high-priced
courtesan, if you examine the record."

  "Agent?"

    Stoddard nodded. "Ayuh. Her brother was a sleeper—he died
in '66—and she was trained in London. Financed very carefully
from the Security Directorate's cover-assets in the Alliance." The
British capital was the world center of espionage and fashion, if
of little else these days. "The usual thing, pillow talk leading to
compromise, then blackmail to keep it coming."

  "How did—?" he stopped; if there was a need-to-know, he
would be told the method of discovery.

  "Her mother was still in the Domination; that was their lever.
She died. We started suspecting one of Marie-Claire's… clients,
when one of our sources on the other side turned up data only he
could have leaked."

   Stoddard slid another package across the table. Lefarge broke
the seals and pulled out the first envelope. It was a set of
assignment orders, in his name.

   "Assistant Compsystems Officer on the Emancipator!" His
eyes narrowed. "This had to come from the Service, right?"

  The general nodded wearily. "Because she told us the latest of
her conquests, Fred," he said, with a tired disgust in his voice.
"Open the next package."

   Lefarge obeyed with fingers suddenly gone clumsy. There had
to be a reason he, of all people…

   Lieutenant Andrew McLean, RN, Alliance Space Force. "Oh,
shit, God, Andy would never sell out!"

    "He didn't," Marya said, an impersonal pity in her tone. "She
met him at some social affair when he was on leave from
Portsmouth, before he transferred here, and hit him like a tonne
of cement. Far too expensive for him, and she guided him to
some of the best clipjoints and casinos in Britain. Then found
'friends' to tide him over with loans, then… By the time she let
the hook show, he was in over his head." She hesitated. "She told
the debriefers she's convinced he's in love with her, as well. Gave
him a long story about the threats the Security Directorate were
holding over her family, that sort of thing."

   "It doesn't matter," Stoddard said quietly. "For money, for a
promise of Draka Citizenship, for love… it's treason, Fred."

  "Why hasn't he been arrested?" Lefarge said, but felt the
knowledge growing in his gut, a cancer of nausea.

   Stoddard nodded. "We turned Arondin, and the Security
Directorate doesn't know it. Won't for several years, during
which we'll feed them a careful mixture of accurate data and
disinformation… but the stuff she's been getting from McLean
has a short halflife, Fred. Nothing too important yet, but the
Emancipator is the best we have. He can't return from that
cruise, and it has to look like an accident. You're the best-placed
operative."

  Lefarge opened the rest of the sealed packages. An Execution
Order. "I… don't like it," he said hoarsely.

    "I don't like it either," Stoddard said. "The personal approval
of the Alliance Chairman and a quorum of the High Court… It's
still a secret trial, and that wasn't what this country was founded
for." More gently: "And I know he was your friend, Fred."

   "He was." Lefarge slammed his fist into the wall beside him,
then looked in shock down at his own bleeding knuckles. "The
bastard, the stupid, stupid brains-in-balls bastard."

   Marya looked away. Stoddard continued. "Can you do it?"
Lefarge pressed his fingertips into his forehead. Could he kill a
friend, a man who trusted him? Another thought twisted the
knot below his stomach tighter. He would have to live at close
quarters with him. Laugh at his jokes, pass the salt, never let
show that anything was different…

  "I can," he said. And that was a bitter thing to know about
himself, as well.

   Marya relaxed, and brought her right hand up from under the
table. Lefarge's eyes widened; there was a gun in his sister's
hand, an ugly stubby little silenced custom job. For the first time
in his life, he felt his jaw drop with surprise; she flushed and
looked down. Stoddard reached out and slipped the weapon into
his own hand, pointed it out into the night and pulled the
trigger.

   Nothing. The young woman's head whipped around, and she
gave the general an accusing stare. "You claimed there was
evidence he might be involved!" she said.

   "Circumstantial evidence," the general replied. He snapped
the clip out of the weapon and thumbed the square rounds of
caseless ammunition out. "He was a close friend of someone we
knew had gone over. Actually, I never doubted him."

    He smiled bitterly. "Fred, you just passed a test. Your test is
willingness to eliminate McLean. This little charade was hers.
Marya was lucky; the information we gave her about you wasn't
real. We just needed to see how she would react if it was real."
The expression lost all resemblance to good humor. "This is what
I told you, long ago. This business of ours, it takes… a different
sort of courage from a soldier's. A soldier,"—his voice stumbled
for a moment—"may have to sacrifice his life. More is asked of
us; we get the danger without the glory, such as that is. For us,
there's the dirty business that has to be done; we may have to
sacrifice a friend, a brother… our own sense of honor." He slid
the material back into the attache case, stood. "I'll be in touch."

   Stoddard left by the back gate, walking toward an
inconspicuous steamer. Two of the silent men followed, one
taking the wheel. There was an almost imperceptible whump of
water hitting a flash-boiler, and the vehicle slid away.

  "Shit, what a night," Lefarge said, a shakiness in his voice.

   "Shit." A hand fell on his, and he looked up to meet his sister's
eyes. "Would you have shot me?"

  "If I thought you were a traitor?" she said, gaze level. "Yes."
The eyes glimmered suddenly, in starlight and moonlight. "I'd
have cried for you after… but yes."

  The moment stretched. "Thank you," he replied. Their fingers
met and intertwined. "Merci, ma soeur," he said again, in their
mother's native tongue.

  Presently he sighed. "Look… can you drop me back at
Maman's hotel? I'd… like to see Cindy again."

  "I understand. It's not far from mine."

  "But not the same hotel as Maman?" he said, with a faint
smile.

  His sister's was more wry. "Maman's never going to accept
that I don't have a vocation, Fred," she said.

   "Christ, when the Sisters sent that bloody delegation around
to explain you were a perfectly good Catholic, just not suited—!"
It was an old anger, a relief to slip into it.

    Marya shrugged. "Hell, I might as well be a nun, the chances
I'm going to get in this line of work… Fred, Uncle Nate told me a
little bit more about how he got Maman out of France, back in
'47."

   "Oh?" Thank you for changing the subject, he thought. I need
something to calm me down first. "Her resistance work and so
forth?"

    "Fred… Maman was in the Resistance, all right. But she
wasn't Uncle Nate's contact. She wasn't supposed to come out at
all."

   "What? Look, I know there was an agent in place, I'm named
after the man, but—"

   "Shh. That nun that Maman told us about, Sister Marya? She
was the Resistance contact. Maman just got dumped in the same
place, bought out of a Security Directorate pen in Lyons by a
planter. She… found out about the operation they were on—you
can guess it was weapons research—and… well, threatened to
blow the cover unless she was pulled out of there. The whole
extraction phase went sour; your namesake was killed, so was
the nun… Had to kill themselves, rather. Maman's considered it
her fault, ever since."

   "Mary mother. No wonder she was so set on getting you into
the Order!"

  "Expiation, and more than that, Fred. There wasn't any
husband killed by the Snakes."

  "You mean she wasn't pregnant then?" He blinked
bewilderment. Maman? Maman had an affair after she got to
New York? He had never seen his mother miss Mass or
confession in all his life; and he still remembered the thrashing
she had given him when she caught him with that
women's-underwear catalog under the bed.

  "Yes, she was… We're half-Draka, brother."

   For a moment Frederick Lefarge saw gray at the corner of his
vision, and then his skin crawled as if his body were trying to
shed it. Oh, it made no legal difference; by Domination law, only
those born of Citizens on both sides were of the ruling caste.
But— He made a wordless sound.

   "I know," Marya replied. "I threw up when I heard; I've had a
week or so to get used to the idea now. But you can see why, why
she's never looked at another man, why she was so dead set
against me going into intelligence work. Any sort of field where
there was a chance I might be captured." She pressed the button
for the waitress. "I think you need a stiff one; then I'll drive you
over."



  "Cindy, Cindy!"

  "Honey, what is it?" Shock and concern, and fear of what
could have harrowed him so.

  "Hold me, will you? Just hold me."




               CHAPTER SEVEN

    In theory, the Alliance for Democracy began as just that: an
alliance of sovereign democracies— some, such as the Empire of
Brazil democratic by courtesy only. In fact, it was an arm of
American policy, the creature of the United States. By 1941 all
Europe and most of Russia were under German control- Japan
had taken Hawaii invaded Australasia, and was raiding the
coastal U.S. as far south as Panama. The Domination of the
Draka was mobilized, visibly awaiting an opportunity to jump.
Britain, her Indian dependency and the Australasian Federation
were glad to follow the American lead; the only choice was to be
eaten alive by one or the other of the predators. South America
had known it lived on American sufferance since the U.S. finally
pushed its borders to the Isthmus of Panama in the 1860s. When
the Eurasian War ended with the Domination in control of
three-quarters of the planet everyone realized that the Alliance
had to be made permanent; the alternative was the Draka labor
compounds and a serf identity-tattoo on the neck.

   Paradoxically, it is the transformation of the Alliance into a
quasi-state which has caused our present problems with the
Indian Republic. Member nations retain considerable autonomy,
but the Grand Council and Assembly of the Alliance now control
interest rates and other macroeconomic levers as well as setting
military policy. For most members, this has been opportunity
rather than hardship; the low-tax, minimal-regulation approach
which even the Democratic Progressive party here in the U.S.
embraces has proven widely popular. Some feel too popular, as
the rocketing growth-rates of the smaller members of the
Alliance erode the relative dominance of the United States. India
has proven the exception to the general rule, mired down by the
fanatical unwillingness of its religious groups to coexist and by
the Fabian socialism its ruling class inherited from the British.
Despite prosperous enclaves such as Bombay, most Indians
remain subsistence peasants, the last large group of peasants in
the world. Poverty breeds demagogic charges of exploitation and
cries of "corruption" by American "materialism." The growth of
neo-Qandhian pacifism, with its claim that the nuclear balance
of terror is absolutely immoral, is especially worrying.

   And the Domination, with its usual cold cynicism, is actively
fishing In these muddied waters.
               The Indian Republic Achillies Heel of the Alliance
                                               by Ernesto Perrez
                                          U.S. Weekly Chronicle
                   Nation's Bilingual Newsmagazine Since 1912
                                           Managua, Nicaragua
                                               November 1 1972
NEW YORK CITY
FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT
DONOVAN HOUSE
NOVEMBER 20, 1972



  "Not going to the Inauguration, general?"

   Nathaniel Stoddard snorted without turning from the window
and brushed at his mustache. It was nearly solid gray now, only
streaked with sandy brown, like the rather untidy mop of hair he
kept in an academic's shag-cut. Getting older, he thought. Older
and creakier and more weary… Is it time to retire? He probed
at himself, with the same ruthless analysis he might have used
on an agent under strain. No. Still flexible, not making too many
mistakes. You couldn't overvalue yourself either; if you were
indispensable, you weren't doing your job properly.

  "Work to do," he said, in a voice that carried the flat vowels
and drawl of Boston. "The OSS never sleeps."

   Frederick and Marya Lefarge were waiting patiently in their
seats, still in tropical kit, looking a little rumpled from the
two-hour flight from India, a little worn from tension and
sleeplessness. Harder than they had, after the work he had put
them through these past four years. Easy with each other, and
that was important; this had been their first mission together.
There were jobs a team like this had an advantage in.

   "And its agents don't get any sleep either," Fred was saying.
"Here we are, just off the Calcutta shuttle, and you don't even
give us time to stop off at O'Toole's for a beer."

   Donovan House was at the northern edge of the Federal
District, the series of interlinked squares and parks that
occupied the center of Manhattan island. More and more of the
capital's swelling bureaucracy was being moved out to Long
Island or the Jersey shore, but the Office of Strategic Services
preferred staying close to the centers of executive power. This
office was twelve stories up, overlooking Jefferson Avenue; from
here you could see north and south to the Hudson and East
rivers. The parade was still moving down the six-lane avenue,
between sidewalks and buildings black with the crowds. Paper
confetti spun through the air, and the noise was loud even
through the sealed double-glazed panes. Another flight of
fighters went by ten thousand feet up— contrails and a brief
silvery flash—and their sonic booms rattled the furniture.

  My, aren't we noisy today, Stoddard thought.

  The marching youth groups were past, the cheerleaders and
bands, the cowboys and vaqueros and Hibernians… Troops now.
Squat tanks with their long cannon- swiveling in hydraulic pods
above the decks, APCs, huge eighteen-wheeler tractors drawing
suborb missiles on mobile launchers.

   It's a good thing the infantry aren't marching, he thought
dryly. Messy, after all those horses.

   He took a sip from the coffee cup in his hands, thankful for
the warmth. Thankful that he was inside, and not out there in
the raw weather; it was damp and cold, the sky stark blue with
streamers of cloud. An aircar went slowly by outside the window,
down the length of the procession: a light open-topped model
with ABS markings, and six ducted-fan propellers in swivel
mounts spaced around the flattish oval body.

   The drone of its engines hummed through the air between
them, and he could see the blue tinge to the faces of the televid
crew in the little four-seater.

  "Better you than me, friends," he said.

   "Sir?" Marya's voice, cool and neutral. In a juster world,
maybe she would be my successor, Stoddard thought. She's…
not harder than Fred. Cooler, less of a closet romantic. This line
of work will do that for a woman. But then, in a juster world
she wouldn't have had the extra toughening.

  Stoddard grinned at his proteges. "Just feeling each and every
one of my sixty-eight years, Fred, Marya," he said. "And glad I'm
not out there courting arthritis." The use of the first name had
become a signal between them to drop formality.
   They were all in the wolf-gray uniforms of the Alliance
military today: high green collars and epaulets and the American
eagle on their cuffs. Frederick Lefarge had a captain's bars, his
sister Marya a lieutenant's. The older man a general's oak-leaf
clusters, although his position here made his authority nearly
equal to that of a member of the Alliance Combined Staff.

    "Not missing the distinguished company?" Frederick had a
little more accent than his sister's, Academy mid-American, with
a slight trace of East Coast in the vowels; Stoddard noted
absently that a linguist would immediately place him somewhere
between New York and Baltimore. "The Pope's there."

  "And all sixty-two State governors," Stoddard said, turning
back to his desk.

   It was severely plain, like the rest of the office. Plain dark
wood, in-out baskets marked "hate" and "love" a telephone, a
scriber, the screen and keyboard of a retriever terminal. There
was a table and settees for guests, bookshelves that held a
mixture of mementos, leather-bound volumes and color-coded
ring-binders. Two paintings on the walls, New Hampshire
landscapes by Fairish, the chilly perfection of his late period.
And two photographs on the desk: one of a plain middle-aged
woman and three children standing beside a weathered saltbox
home, the other of a young man in a flight suit. That was
bordered in black.

    Stoddard gave it a glance as he sank into the swivel chair and
filled his pipe. "And the College of Cardinals," he continued
between puffs. "The Chief Rabbi, Her Honor the Mayor, half the
Alliance Grand Council, the Combined Chiefs, His Majesty
Georgie the Fifth, the Prime Minister of Australasia… bit of a
dog's breakfast. Not to mention the speeches."

   "Bilingual, yet," the other man said, sitting by the table and
reaching for a manila folder. "It would make more sense to have
them in French or Yiddish, in this town. Or deep Yorkshire."

    Stoddard nodded, blowing a cloud of aromatic blue smoke. A
fifth of the United States was Spanish-speaking, but that was
mostly in the states carved out of old Mexico. New York had
always been a polyglot city; the great magnet during the
immigrant waves of the 1890s and 1920s, then the primary
center for the millions of European refugees just after the War,
the lucky ones who made it out before the Draka had the coasts
of Western Europe under firm control. The English were the
latest wave all along the Atlantic coast; the British Isles were the
Alliance's easternmost outpost, and not a very comfortable place
to live, these days. It was a little embarrassing, for an old-stock
Yankee. He could remember when a British surname was an elite
rarity here; now every second waiter, hairdresser, and
ditchdigger was a new-landed Anglo-Saxon. Not to mention
prostitutes, pimps, street-thugs, and the gangs who were
pushing the Mexicans and Sicilians out of organized crime…

   "Well, India's patched up for the moment," Frederick Lefarge
said, riffling the folder. "That little scandal about Rashidi and
the hamburger killed the Hindi Raj party deader than Gandhi."
He laughed sourly. "Why didn't he smuggle something safe, like
heroin? For a Hindi nationalist, running a clandestine beef
trade…"

   Marya frowned. "Well, I was mostly working with the Indra
Samla people," she said. "They were ready enough to believe the
bad about Rashidi. Too many Moslems in his background,
besides him being their main rival. Still and all, a lot of them had
trouble believing he could make a blunder that big."

  "Double-blind," Stoddard said. "He didn't. We framed him."

  The captain sat bolt upright. "Jesus! If that ever gets out—"

   Stoddard took another draw on his pipe. "You were the test,
Fred. You took a first-rate team there for the investigation; if you
couldn't find our sticky fingermarks, who could?"

   The younger man shook his head and pursed his lips slightly.
"I don't… It's not what we're supposed to do."

  "What's the alternative?"

   "He would have won the election. And left the Alliance." A
long pause. "How could he be so… stupid's an inadequate word.
Are the Snakes bribing him?"

   The general gestured with the stem of his pipe. "Fred, Marya,
when you've been in harness as long as I have, you'll learn two
things: first, human beings don't have to be stupid to act
stupidly, they just need to feel strongly about something. Second,
conscious evil is actually quite rare, even rarer than deliberate
hypocrisy."

   He cradled the bowl of his pipe between the heels of his
hands. "Rashidi is no fool, he's just convinced that American
influences are sapping and undermining Hindu culture." A
shrug. "He's right, too."

  "Did he think the Snakes would be better?"

   Stoddard smiled sourly. "Actually, there are some similarities
between their system and the old Indian caste setup, and the
doctrine of karma is the most diabolically effective mechanism
for keeping the lower classes in order ever invented… No, the
Hindi Raj people certainly didn't want a Draka conquest—they
weren't insane. They thought a neutral India could stand off the
Domination by itself—with unacknowledged help from us—and
successfully industrialize behind tariff barriers without having to
accept the, hmmm, culture of individualist rationalism, isn't
that the way Rashidi used to put it?"

  "That's insane."

   "No, just wishful thinking. Actually, there are only two
possible alternatives for human beings on this planet now. Us
and the Domination. One is going to utterly destroy the other
and incorporate everything else. It's one of the truths everybody
knows and nobody says. The nationalists in India simply refuse
to believe it, because believing that would mean that they cannot
have what they most want."

  "Stupidity."

   Marya had leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes; now
she opened one and chuckled. "Brother, while you were out
playing astronaut,"—he winced slightly—"I've been doing more
straight political work. Your training's made you overestimate
the role of rationality." A wry grin. "Also, you've never had an
observer's chance to see how stupid most men are with their
pants down."

   Stoddard nodded. "Not stupidity, humanity. Which means
this is a battle won, not a war. The discontents continue, and
they will find another vehicle."

   Lefarge shook his head. "Hindi Raj is a dozen quarreling
fragments; the Progressives will win the next three elections
without trouble." A wolfs grin. "And some of those fragments
were being paid off by the Snakes. We can use that if they start
building momentum again. So much for deliberate evil."

   "A rather petty evil. I've got the reports, and none of them
were selling anything vital." He leaned back and blew a smoke
ring at the ceiling. "Grafters like that are the political equivalent
of tax frauds. They cheat, relying on the fact that most people
don't, so they keep their money and get the benefit of the
services, too… The Draka lose there by their own racial
prejudices. They may not care about the color of the people they
enslave, but they do when it comes to granting Citizen status.
Best bribe they have. That's the way they got Ekstein."

  "The filthy little traitor," Frederick Lefarge said, flushing with
anger. "Even so… I've never understood how he could do it. Why
would anyone want to become a Snake?"

  "Captain, now you're allowing prejudice to blind you." A
gentle laugh. "If you don't mind me asking, when did you lose
your virginity, Fred?"

  He blinked in surprise, then smiled reminiscently. "Junior
High. I was fifteen."

   "Ekstein never did."

   "I'm not surprised."

   Stoddard nodded. "He was an obnoxious, ugly, sweaty little
toad with all the inherent appeal of a skunk and an
overcompensated inferiority complex as big as all outdoors.
Smelled like a skunk at times, too. No friends, and no female in
her right mind would have touched him without being paid,
which he was too terrified to do. Also one of the most unhappy
and lonely young men I've ever met. It's the reason he went into
electronics design; that was something he could do without
face-to-face contact and get a certain degree of respect for. It
was our fault the Draka were able to contact him; they gave him
a palace in France and a harem. Not your idea of paradise or
mine, but Ekstein's happy."

   Marya made a tsk sound. "We should have fixed him up. I
would have, if I'd been his case officer… even have volunteered
myself, which shows you my devotion to duty." She raised an
eyebrow at her sibling's discomfort. "Tool of the trade, Captain
Brother Sir… Who did we have working on him?"

   "A Sector Chief, ex-Sector Chief now, domestic surveillance.
Very sincere fellow. Baptist." They all winced. "It was slick, I
must admit. Off to England for a design conference, and the next
thing we know his bed hasn't been slept in."

   "I suppose it's too much to hope he stopped producing over
there in the Snake-farm," Fred muttered.

  "Ayuh. Tapered off a mite at first, then better than ever. The
Maxwell and Faraday Combines are rushing his latest
microwafer designs into production on a maximum-priority
basis, or so our sources tell us."

   "Damn!" The younger man shook his head again. "It was our
job to prevent it… and I always hate to see them get their hands
on our technical secrets. Technology's our big advantage over
them, after all."

   "Particularly the sapphire-silicon and gallium arsenide stuff
they're doing up on the orbital platforms," Marya put in. "And
Ekstein was in that up to the zits on his earlobes."

   Stoddard shrugged. "We're ahead in some respects. Those
tanks out there,"—he pointed with the stem of his pipe towards
the window—"we copied from Draka designs. Same with our
small-arms. They're ahead in mining, ferrous metals, some
machining, basic transport equipment. About equal in
aeronautic power systems. Way ahead in biotechnology. We've
got a commanding lead in agricultural machinery, synthetics,
electronics, particularly circuit-wafers." He smiled sourly. "And
in household appliances."

   Fred flushed, opened his mouth to speak and paused, after a
glance at his sister's relaxed form. "Wait a minute, general. I
know your methods; you're trying to get me to think through
something by pretending to defend the Snakes."

   "Draka. That's one part of the lesson, son: calling them
'Snakes' is a way of denying that they're human beings. Which
leads to underestimating them, which is fatal."

  "They don't act like human beings."

   "They don't act like us." Stoddard dug at the bowl of his pipe
with a wire. Meditatively, he continued: "Ayuh. It's a handicap
for you in the younger generations, growing up in so uniform a
world." He shook his head. "Just the fact that you can go
anywhere on the globe and get by in English makes it a different
planet from the one I grew up on. It's made us, hmmra, not less
tolerant, but less used to the concept of difference. One of the
reasons I sent you to India was to meet people who were
genuinely alien in the way they thought and believed, seeing as
the rest of Free Asia's gotten so Westernized…."

   Fred ran a hand over his crewcut. "It did that, general. Do you
know, some of those Muslim types wanted to secede from the
Alliance so they could declare a jihad against the Sna… against
the Domination? Crazy."

   "Just different; when you really believe that dying in battle
gains you instant admission to Paradise, it gives you a different
perspective. Also, they're quite right that nobody in the Western
countries gave a… rat's ass—isn't that the younger generation's
expression?—about them until the Draka attacked Europe. As
long as it was niggers and wogs and chinks and ragheads going
under the Yoke…"
  The other man winced. "Ancient history, though try
convincing those stupid bastards of that."

   "Fred, Fred… historical amnesia is an American weakness.
Most people have a longer collective memory. The Draka
certainly do."

  "Quite true," Marya put in, without opening her eyes. I spent
more time with Maman and the refugees, Fred, while you were
out proving how assimilated you were. You wouldn't believe
some of the things they raked up and threw at each other; stuff
nobody but history professors knows here."

  "Don't Draka have any weaknesses?"

  Angry, but controlling it well, even tired at he is, Stoddard
decided. Good.

   "Certainly," he said. "They don't understand us, not even as
well as we—some of us—understand them." He laid the pipe
down and leaned forward, laying his hands on the blotter. "They
could have lulled us to sleep so easily, so easily… Fred, the great
American public doesn't like being confronted with evil, or with
a protracted struggle. We're not a people who believe in tragedy;
history's been too good to us. Evil is something we conquer in a
crusade, and then everybody goes home a hero."

   Lefarge snorted, and his mentor nodded. "Yes, I know, but
we're professionals, Fred. And you have personal reasons to keep
the truth fresh. All the Draka would have to do is ease up, tell
some convincing lies, and we'd have our work cut out for us
keeping even a minimal guard up."

   A sour twist of the mouth. "You wouldn't remember it, but
there were substantial numbers who refused to believe the truth
about Stalin, until Hitler and the Draka between them released
the pictures and records of his death camps. The Draka could
have railroaded our credulous types just as easily. Instead they've
virtually flaunted what they are, and pushed at us every chance
they got. Trying to scare us, but Americans don't scare easily. It's
the flip side of our weakness; we're the Good Guys, and therefore
have to win in the end. All the stories and the movies and the
patriotic pablum the schools dish out instead of history prove it.
God help us if we ever lose a big one; we'd probably start
doubting we were the Good Guys after all."

  "I thought you said the Draka were smart?"

    "Ayuh. Very smart, and very, very tough. But they don't
understand us; some of them do, intellectually, but not down
here." He touched his stomach. "Our reactions don't make sense
to them, emotionally, any more than theirs do to us, and
they're… a little less flexible. They know it, they repeat it to
themselves, but it's… hard… for them to really believe anyone
could fudge a power contest, could want to fudge one. For them,
life is lived by the knife. That's reality for them. They believe in
enemies; they don't have our compulsive need to be liked. For a
Draka, if you've got an enemy you destroy or subjugate them; it's
their lifework. Subconsciously, they assume that everybody else
is the same, only weaker and less cunning."

   Fred grinned wolfishly. "The way we assume that deep-down
everyone is just plain folks, and you can always make a deal and
square the differences, and the guy in the black hat either
repents or gets shot five minutes before the hero's wedding?
That's the point of these Socratic dialogues you've been putting
us through?"

   "More like Socratic monologues, I'm afraid," Stoddard said.
"Also the temptation is, when we realize somebody isn't like that,
to hate them. Which interferes with the task at hand."

  "Elucidate, as you Ivy League types would say."

   "The task of wiping every last Draka off the face of the Earth,"
Stoddard said calmly, and touched a control on the surface of his
desk. A printer began to hum, and pages spat out into a tray
with a rapid shft-shft sound.

  The younger man snorted. "Glad to hear you say it, Uncle
Nate; the sweet reason was beginning to wear a little."

   The general paused with his finger on the control. "Ayuh, not
so sweet, Fred." A pause. "I grew up in a world where the Draka
were a blot, not a menace. I've had to watch the Domination
grow like a cancer, metastasizing. Watch my children,"—he
paused again, face like something carved out of maple—"nieces
and nephews and their children grow up in the shadow of it."

   His eyes met the younger man's. Frederick Lefarge had seen
danger. Leading an incursion-team ashore in Korea, to snatch a
fallen reconnaissance-drone from the coastal hills. Once on the
surface of an asteroid, when a friend turned around and saw his
hands reaching for the air-controls of the skinsuit. Never quite
so strongly as now, in the gentle horsey face of the New
Englander. There had been Stoddards who signed the Mayflower
compact, stood at Bunker Hill, helped break the charge of the
Confederate armor at Shiloh. Certain things you shouldn't
forget about Uncle Nate, he reminded himself. The memories
were real, visiting the New Hampshire farmhouse, snowball
fights and treeforts and sitting in the kitchen with Uncle Nat and
Aunt Debra… and this was real, too. Every man had his god;
Stoddard's was Duty, and he would sacrifice both the Lefarges to
it with an unhesitating sorrow, as he had his own son, as he
would himself.

   Stoddard blinked, and the moment passed. "It doesn't pay to
get emotional about it, is all. You'll be happy to know the Ekstein
problem is what I want you working on. He has to go."

  "I thought you were sorry for him, general?"

   "I am. What's that got to do with the barn chores? I've
selected a partner for you, too; Captain Lefarge will be your
backup on this one."

  "Captain Lefarge?" Marya sat bolt upright at that.

   "You deserved it," Stoddard said. He pulled a small box out of
a drawer. "This job has a few compensations, anyway."And
here's the Ekstein file," he continued. "All but the eyes-only
portion. Marya, you covered this before you left for India."

   "Yes, sir, partially." Marya said. "Need to know," she added to
her brother. "He's really quite formidably good. And I attended a
few lectures of his at the Institute."
  Frederick looked a question at the general.

   "MIT, their Reserve Training Program." Fred nodded, he had
known that much. "We wanted her to qualify as an electronics
specialist, microwafer design and compinstruction both." Fred
blinked surprise; it was not at all common to be an expert in
designing computers and in the instructional sets that ran them
as well.

   "We put the captain through MIT under an assumed name,
and fudged the physical records on her military service; enough
to keep the Security Directorate from tagging her with a routine
border scan."

  "You have been a close-mouthed little sister," Fred said.

  "Need—"

   "I know, I know. Why do you think I never asked where you
were, when you dropped out of sight for three months at a
time?" The general's last words sank home. "We're going in?" he
asked sharply.

   "Certainly." Stoddard rose and walked to the window again.
"You'll both be in for intensive briefing, starting Monday. Take
the next few days off, rest. This may get messy, but we certainly
can't afford to let them keep Ekstein much longer." The general
looked aside at the black-bordered portrait of his son, whose
F-91 had taken a seeker-missile over the Pacific. Just a skirmish,
border tension… and a valuable indication that the Alliance
electronic counter-measures were not as good as they had hoped.
"Not much longer at all."



VON SHRAKENBERG TOWNHOUSE
ARCHONA, ASSEGAI BOULEVARD
ARCHONA PROVINCE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
NOVEMBER 21, 1972
  "Gayner's next," the assistant said.

   Senator Eric von Shrakenberg tipped his chair back from the
desk. "Spare me," he muttered, rising and pacing with a smooth
graceful stride.

    It was a warm summer's afternoon, and the windows of the
office room were open on the sloping gardens that overlooked the
city below. The von Shrakenberg townhouse was old; the core of
it had been built around 1807, in the time of his
great-great-grandfather, when Archona had been new. He tried
to imagine it as it had been then, a vast rocky bowl on the
northern edge of the great plateau; olive-green scrub, dense
thickets of silverleaf trees around the springs and the Honeyhive
River. A chaos of muddy streets and buildings going up by fits
and starts, mansions and hovels and forced labor compounds,
bars and brothels and fitting-out shops for the miners and
planters, the hunters and slavers and prospectors pushing north
into the great dark bulk of Africa.

   "Why exactly do yo' detest Gayner, suh?" the assistant asked.
She was just back from the yearly reserve-maneuvers of her
Legion in the Kalahari, bronzed-fit with rusty sun-streaks
through her black hair. "Apart from her bein' a political enemy."

   "Why?" Eric stroked a finger over his mustache in an
unconcious gesture of thought. "Because she's totally ruthless,
insanely ambitious—personally, as much as for the Race— and
has no more scruples than a crocodile."

  "Yes, but what does she want? And… we're idealists?"

   "No, Shirley, we're utterly unscrupulous for the greater good,"
Eric said, smiling without turning. At fifty he was a generation
older than his assistant, dressed in a gentleman's day-suit: jacket
and trousers of loose cream-silk brocade trimmed in gold, ruffled
shirt and indigo sash, boots and a conservative ruby stud in the
right ear. The clothing brought out the lean shape of his body:
broad shoulders tapering to slim hips. The long narrow skull
bore faded blond hair worn in an officer's crop, short at the sides
and back, slightly longer on top. His eyes were gray, set over high
cheekbones in a face that was handsome in a bony beak-nosed
fashion.

   "What does Gayner want? I suspect she doesn't know herself;
at a minimum, all this."

   He nodded out the windows. The reception office was on the
second story, and beyond lay Archona. It had long outgrown the
original site; there were twelve million dwellers now, Earth's
greatest city. Hereabouts were mansions and gardens, like this
the townhouses of country gentry, used when business or politics
brought them in from their plantations for a few weeks; for the
whirl of social life in season as well. Tile roofs set amid green on
the low slopes below him, red and plum-colored, the flash of
sunlight on water or marble. Quiet residential streets, lined with
jacaranda trees as municipal law required. A mist of purple-blue
in this blossom-time, spreading down over the hills and into the
valley below and up the far slope, kilometer after kilometer.
There were few tall buildings, and those were for public use.

   The blue haze of the flowers sank into the languorous
sienna-umber tint of the high-summer air, giving a translucent
undersea look, as if the Domination's capital were Plato's lost
Atlantis still living beneath the waves. At the center the House of
Assembly loomed, a two-hundred meter dome of stained glass on
thin steel struts, glowing like an impossible jewel amid its
grounds. From there the Way of the Armies ran east to Castle
Tarleton, west to the Archon's Palace, each set on the bordering
rim overlooking the old city. He could recognize other
landmarks: the cool white colonnades of the University, the
libraries and theaters, pedestrian arcades lined with shops and
restaurants… gardens everywhere, small parks, streets lined with
marble-and-tile low-rise office structures. More parks beneath
the tall pillars of the monorail. A train slashed by with the
smooth speed of magnetic induction.

   There was little noise, a vague murmur under the nearer
sound of children playing. Draka hated blaring sound still more
than crowding, and even in the central streets voices and feet
would be louder than traffic. The air smelled freshly of garden,
hot stone, water; there was only the faintest underlying tint of
the vast factory-complexes that sprawled north of the freemen's
city, the world of the Combines and their labor compounds.
Decently hidden away, so that nobody need visit it except when
business took them there. His mind filled in the other hidden
things: the vast engineering works that brought in water from
the Maluti mountains and the headwaters of the Zambezi a
thousand kilometers away, the nuclear power-units buried
thousands of feet below in living granite… He had known this
city all his life, and still the sight was enough to catch at the
breath.

   "What wonders we've built and dreamed," he said softly. The
aide leaned closer to listen. "Wonders and horrors…" Above the
horizon tall summer clouds were piling, cream-white and hot
gold in the fierce sunlight. Aircraft made contrails high
overhead, and the long teardrop shapes of dirigibles drifted
below. "Gayner… it's a melodramatic word, but she lusts for
control over the Race. And she'll never have it, because to rule
them she would have to… love this world we've built. And to do
that she'd have to understand it, understand how beautiful and
how utterly evil it is…"

  "Suh?"

   "Forget it," Eric said. "Just keepin' up my reputation as a
heretic." He turned, and his face went as cold as the flat gray
eyes. "At seventh and last, I hate Gayner because she's a
distillation of our bad qualities without our savin' graces; like a
mirror held up to the secret madness of our hearts." A pause.
"And if she and hers had their way, there'd be nothing human on
this earth in a hundred years. Things that walked on two legs
and talked, but nothin' we'd recognize."



   Louise Gayner snapped the box-file shut and sank down in the
rear seat of the runabout. It was a hired vehicle rented by the
month. She preferred them: less bother than maintaining your
own. Her house was temporary, too, a modest four-bedroom
rental in the eastern suburbs. Archona was not her home; she
was city-bred, but from the west coast, Luanda. And not
interested in luxury for its own sake.
   Unlike some I could name, she thought sardonically as the car
turned under the tall wrought-iron gates of the mansion. The
wheels rumbled on the tessellated brick of the drive, a louder
sound than the quiet hiss on asphalt.

   Five hectares; the von Shrakenbergs had arrived early, and
kept wealth and power enough to preserve what they took. A
slope, on the southern side of the basin that had sheltered the
original city. Generations of labor had turned the stony ground
into a fantasia of terraces and tiled pools, fountains, patios.
Native silverleaf and yellowwood, imported oaks and paper birch
towered to give shade, and the high wall that surrounded the
estate was a shape beneath mounds of rose and wisteria. The car
soughed to a halt before the main entrance.

   "Why are we bothering?" her assistant said, as they emerged
into the dazzle of sunlight, then gratefully forward into the shade
of a huge oak.

    Gayner flicked her wrists forward to settle the lace, adjusted
her gunbelt. "It's like dancin', Charlie," she said flatly. "Yo' have't'
' git through the steps. Speakin' a' which—"

   The half-moon of the drive was fronted by a last stretch of
rock-garden, with topiaries in pots. The stairway ran up the
middle of it, polished native granite casting sun-flecks back at
them; dark foreshortened strips of shade lay slanting across it,
from the Lombardy poplars along the edges. Servants came
forward as they disembarked, one to show the driver the way to
the garages; two more knelt smoothly to offer glasses on trays.

   Gayner looked down at them, holding her gloves in her right
hand and tapping them into her left. Wenches, a matched set;
about nineteen, their movements as gracefully polished as the
silver and crystal in their hands. One an ash-blond Baltic type,
the other the gunmetal black of a Ceylonese Tamil, both in tunics
of colorful dashiki, hand-embroidered cotton from the Zanzibar
coasts.

   The two Draka took the wine and poured out ceremonial
drops before sipping. The aide's eyebrows rose. "Constantia," he
said.
   Sweet, with a lingering aroma as of flowers. Priceless; there
was only one estate which produced it, down in the Western
Cape province, and that was preserved as a historical landmark
by the Land Settlement Directorate. Gayner smiled grimly as she
replaced the glass; it was all faultless Old Domination manners,
emphasizing that they were guests of the house. The finest of
welcoming cups, presented with art… but no Citizen to greet
them, subtly reminding her of status. Von Shrakenberg was a
senator, she merely a committee-head of the House of Assembly.
He a retired Strategos, a paratrooper four times decorated, while
her military service had been with the Security Directorate. Her
family moderately obscure Combine execs and bureaucrats,
descended from rank-and-file Confederate refugees; his among
the oldest in the Domination. The von Shrakenbergs had been
mercenaries in British service during the American Revolution,
and they had arrived in the then Crown Colony of Dralda with
the first wave of Loyalist refugees. And every generation since
had produced a leader, in war or politics or the arts.

   "Up," she said to the serfs. They rose with boneless grace and
led the way, up the steps and into the colonnaded veranda, into
the cool shade past the ebony doors. A house-steward bowed
them in; he was elderly, a dark-brown man with a staff of office
that he had probably borne for thirty years. Estate-bred, she
decided; he had the look common in the southern Police Zone.

   "Mistis, Mastah," he said, with a deferential smile. "My Masta
bids yo'z free of his house. Does yo' wish to be shown to the
reception room at once, oah is there anythin' yo' desire first?
Rest, refreshments?"

   "No," she said dryly. "It's excellent wine, but we didn't come
here to drink." Tempting to keep the senator waiting, but
childish. Nor did she wish more conversation with this
relentlessly polite serf, who spoke far too much like a Citizen for
her taste.

  He bowed again. "A case has been sent to yo' cah, Mistis…
This way, if it please."

  Through rooms and courtyards, up a spiral staircase.
Portrait-busts in niches, von Shrakenberg ancestors from the
time of the Land-Taking on.

   Dead men, she thought flatly. All long dead; as useful as a
plantation-hand's fetish.

  Or perhaps not. Dead as human beings able to help or harm;
powerfully alive as myths. The question being, is von
Shrakenberg using the myths or being used?

  The upper corridor ran the length of the building, glassed at
both ends, with a strip of skylight above. The steward swung the
door wide, stepped in to announce them.

   "My Mastah, the Honorable Louise Gayner, Representative for
Boma-North," he said. "Centurion Charles McReady, of the
Directorate of Security."




  "Gayner," Eric said.

   They had met often enough at official functions that no more
was necessary. She was a slight woman, a decade younger than
he. Reddish-brown hair, hazel eyes, a sharp-featured foxy face,
freckled and with a pallor that spoke of a life spent indoors.
Nothing soft in her stance, though; she had the sort of wiry build
that always seemed to quiver on the brink of motion. Dressed
with almost ostentatious plainness in pale-green linen, no more
than a single stickpin in her cravat. A statement, in a way; so
was the gun. Not an ornamental dress weapon. A Virkin custom
job, worn higher-slung than usual and canted forward in a
cutaway holster, the molded grip polished with use. A duelist's
weapon, and the four tiny gold stars set into the crackle-finished
black metal of the slide were a reminder of the ultimate
argument in Draka politics.

   Well, I'm not the only one who can deliver a hint, he thought
with self-mockery, rising to grip forearms.

  "Von Shrakenberg," she replied. "Kind of yo''t' make time fo'
me, Senator."
   Did I always dislike that Angolan accent? It was ugly, a nasal
rasp under the usual soft-mouth drawl of the Domination's
dialect of English… but that might be subconscious transference
from the decade they had spent in political sparring.

  "No trouble at all," he said.

   Which was true enough; VTOL aircars cut the commuting
time to his family's plantation to less than an hour. Not like the
old days… ox-wagons then, a once-a-year trip. Moving the
capital here from Capetown had been the first of the notorious
Draka faits accomplis; the British Governor-General had
protested all the long wagon-journey through the mountains of
the Cape and across the high-veldt plateau. Unavailing protests,
since the local Legislative Assembly held the power of the purse,
a purse England needed desperately while locked in its
death-struggle with Napoleon.

   The two leaders' aides were laying out papers, treating each
other with rather less courtesy than their elders. Eric watched in
amusement as they bristled; his assistant was visibly looking
down her well-bred nose, and the Security officer responded…
exactly as you'd expect, the senator thought. He looked to be the
sort of thug-intellectual the headhunters usually recruited,
anyway.

  "About the legislative docket—" Eric began, and halted as the
doors swung open again.

   "Oh, sorry, pa." A group of Draka adolescents in tennis whites
or the loose bright-colored fashions the younger generation
favored. Eric's smile turned warm as he greeted his eldest.

   "A last-minute appointment, Karl," he said. Turning to
Gayner: "My son, Karl. His aunt Natalia,"—the politician blinked
at the teenaged girl until she remembered that Eric's father had
remarried late in life—"my sister's daughter Yolande, and her
friend Myfwany, down from Italy." Eric's eyes swung back to
Gayner, narrowed slightly.

   "Karl," he continued, "Miz Gayner and I were just about to
discuss somethin' private. Why don't you and yo' friends show
Centurion McReady an' Shirley around fo' about an hour or two?
We should be through by then, and we can be down to
Oakenwald by dinnertime."

  Gayner stared back at him for an instant, then gave an
imperceptible nod to her subordinate, waiting until the door
shut before speaking.

  "What's y' game, von Shrakenberg?"

   " An end to games," Eric replied. He walked to the desk,
pressed a switch beside the retriever screen. "Private; my word
on it."

  Gayner inclined her head: "I believe yo'," she said neutrally.
Fool was left unspoken.

   "Gayner, between us we command the largest single
voting-blocs in the Party… That's our power, and that's our
danger."

  "Party unity's an overworked phrase," she said.

   "Because the Front has been in power too long; the other
parties are shadows. Which means that everyone who wants
office or powah crowds in, which undermines unity. But
contemplate the consequences of an open split, an' an electoral
contest."

   She nodded warily. At the very least several years of
uncertainty, while the factions settled who had most backing
among the Citizen population. And it might not be her own
group who came out ahead…

  "What do y' propose?" Gayner said.

    Eric seated himself across from her and leaned forward,
tapping one finger on the papers. "On the budget an' the next
six-year plan, we can compromise easily enough. It's all
technical, after all. I still think yo' radicals are too ready to
approve megaprojects. The Gibraltar dam worked out, but we're
still patchin' and fittin' on the Ob-Yenisey diversion to the Aral
Sea… Still, well let it pass. We agree on shiftin' mo' of the
military appropriations to the Aerospace Command; we can
compromise on the amount. Let's get on to the real matters, an'
start the horse-tradin'."

   She tapped paired thumbs and looked aside for a moment. "Y'
right, dammit." A long pause. "Of the truly difficult… the new
Section fo' serf education an' selection."

  "Yo' don't think it'll work?"

  "Too well. We're concerned with the long-term implications."

    Eric sighed and rubbed a hand across his face. "Look, Gayner,
the pilot program has been yieldin' excellent results; that's why
we got the votes to put it through. We need mo' specialists, we
can't raise them all from childhood in creches, an' psychological
testing is a crude tool at best. Competition an' selection are
necessary if we're to get results; we can only substitute quantity
fo' quality so far and no further." A hard smile. "Or do yo' really
think we can point to this one or that an' say: 'Drop the hoe, lay
down that jackhammer, now go an' write compinstructions fo'
our missile computers?'" He shrugged. "We've always picked out
the mo' promisin' serfs for further trainin'. This just systematizes
it a little mo' than the Classed Literate system."

   "What about those who get some trainin' and then aren't
selected? What about 'rousin' expectations we can't satisfy?"

   "That's what the Security Directorate is fo'; let the
head-hunters cut off a few mo' heads, then. Thunor's balls,
woman, we need those serfs trained! If fo' nothin' else, to
increase automation. We've always tried to keep the urban
workin' class small as possible, here's our chance."

   Reducin' total numbers at the cost of buildin' up the most
dangerous section. The fields we're talkin' shouldn't be serf work
at all, nohow. We Citizens're producin' too many architects, too
many so-called artists who sit an' draw their stipends and
create.' "

  Eric raised his hands, palm-up. "This is an aristocratic
republic, not a despotism," he said dryly. "Citizens are free to
pick they own careers, providin' they do their military service.
We get enough career soldiers, enough administrators. Even
enough scientists, usin' the term strictly. It's routine skullwork
that's unpopular, and which we're short of. A matter of choice…
unless yo' were plannin' on makin' some changes?"

   "That'd be electoral suicide." Fo' now, she continued to herself
with a tight smile of hatred.

   Eric nodded. "Which is why that program has solid backin'
among the independents," he said. "Not much of a concession fo
yo' faction to drop their opposition. Brings us to the court
reforms."

   "An that's a matter of principle," she said. "That proposal
isn't popular. Citizens have rights, serfs do not. At most,
privileges revocable at will. If administrative changes are
necessary, let the owners an' Combines make them."

   "Well," Eric said softly. "Nobody's proposin' to let the serfs
have access to our courts, or to limit the power of owners. Or to
limit the rights of Citizens in general." The Code of 1797 had
given the free Draka as a body power of life and death over every
individual of the subject races; the privilege was jealously
guarded. "All that we're askin' fo' is a set of tribunals to regulate
ordinary administrative punishments by serf supervisors. Not fo'
convicts or labor-camp inmates; just fo' the labor force in
general."

   "Why?"

"Because as it stands every little strawboss can do as they
fuckin please!" He gathered control of himself. "An' if yo' thinks
that don't impact on productivity and worker morale, talk to
somebody in any of the industrial branches." Eric's finger
brushed at his moustache in a quick left-right gesture. "Harsh
regulations can be lived with, harsh enforcement, but there has
to be some regularity to it."

   "It still sounds like rights to me," Gayner said with soft
stubbornness, watching him closely. "An' it sets up mo' classes
within the serf caste; we've got too many as it is. I can see why
Janissaries an' Orpos need special treatment, but extendin' it
beyond that is bad policy, whatevah the payoff." She waited, still
as a coiled mamba, before proceeding silken-voiced. "That's
what I believe… an' on this issue, I've got the independents
behind me, I'm thinkin'."

   Her paired thumbs tapped together. "It's quid pro quo time,
von Shrakenberg. What're yo' givin' me, to take back to my
people when they ask why we're not fightin' yo' in caucus?"
Silence stretched. "I want the Stone Dogs, an' I want the trial run
on the psychoconditionin'."

   "No." His voice was quiet, a calm that matched his face and
the relaxed stillness of his body. "I'm willin' to have yo' new toy
used as an alternative to the traditional drugs-an'-lobotomy fo'
incorrigibles, but no mass application an' no accelerated
research."

   Her palm cracked down on the teakwood. "Gods damn, von
Shrakenberg, yo' the one always goin' on about catchin' up
technologically; biochemicals an' genetics are ouah strengths,
an' yo' fight every time we try to apply them!"

   "Incorrect. I pushed as hard as yo' fo' eugenic improvement of
the Race, and fo' the reproductive techniques. I'd've thought that
would count fo' somethin', especially fo' those not inclined to the
traditional methods."

   Eric watched with satisfaction as Gayner flushed. She had
never married, or borne children herself—which was odd, since
according to his reports she was heterosexual to the point of
eccentricity for a Draka woman… As little as a decade ago
voluntary childlessness would have ruled out a serious political
career, but now one's duty to the Race could be done by proxy,
via a deposit of frozen ova with the Eugenics Board.

   "An' as far as the long-term genetics projects fo' the serfs are
concerned, I'm all fo' them as long as they're selectin from
within the normal range. Wotan knows we've been scatterin'
Draka genes among the wenches fo' generations; breedin' the
serfs for bidability might make… harsher measures… less
necessary. But I say no to lowerin' general intelligence, an' no to
direct intervention to remove the will."

  "Why?" she asked; he thought he heard genuine curiosity in
her voice, beside the hard suspicion.

   "Well." He inclined his head toward the obligatory bust of
Elvira Naldorssen, the Domination's philosophical synthesist,
and the copy of her Meditations that rested beside it. "What did
she say? That it was the mark of humanity to domesticate
subsapient animals, and of the Race to domesticate humanity?
We rule our human cattle—though they outnumber us forty to
one, though even most of our soldiers an' police are serf
Janissaries—by dominatin' their wills with ours. Where's the
pride of the Race, if they're not human beings, with potential
wills of their own?"

   Gayner rose and walked to the opposite wall, looking at the
pictures hanging there. Portraits of Eric's parents, of his wife
and children. One of a serf wench, a Circassian in a long white
dress.

   "Yo' know," she said slowly, without turning, "that argument
goes ovah well with the dinosaurs in yo' group; even with some of
my people… Tickles their vanity. Yo' and I both know it's bullshit.
Which leaves me with the question, why do you use it? I think yo'
soft, von Shrakenberg, Weak-stomached. The serfs are organic
machinery, no mo', and runnin' them all through a conditional'
process would eliminate major problems an' costs. I know, I
know,"—she waved an unstated objection aside—"there's still
unacceptable side effects on ability. But those are just technical
problems. Genetic manipulation to remove the personality is
even mo' promisin'. Y' real objection is squeamishness. Soft, I
say."

   Eric rose, too. "Yo' not the first to think that, Gayner," he said
flatly. "Those that did, mostly found I could be as hard as was
necessary."

   " P'haps so," Gayner said. Her gaze had gone to a battle scene
beyond the portraits. It showed the ruined mountain-pass village
Eric's Century of paratroops had held against two days of
German counterattacks, back in the opening stages of the
Eurasian War. "This-heah certainly covered up yo' earlier
peccadillos." She jerked a thumb at the picture of the Circassian.
Eric winced inwardly; she had been his boyhood concubine, and
he had sent the child she died bearing out of the Domination. To
America, to freedom… to the hereditary foe of the Race.

  It hasn't helped that little Anna grew up to be a prominent
novelist, he thought between irritation and pride. He had had
works of his own win prizes; it seemed to run in the blood.

   "I hope yo' not threatenin' to bringin' that up again," he said
dryly. The Archon of the time had publicly said his action in the
pass had saved the Domination ten thousand Citizen lives; and
the Draka were a practical people.

   "Oh, no, I'm makin' no threats," she said. She turned, and her
eyes slid over him from head to toe. "There's an old rumor, that
the Security Directorate tried to have yo' arrested 'by
administrative procedure,' right after that there battle. Befo' yo'
became the untouchable hero with the corna aurea, of course.
Even sent an officer to do it."

   "His mission was classified," Eric said with the ease of long
practice. There were very few left who knew the truth of what
had happened… By the White Christ, was it really twenty-six
years ago? "In any case, moot; he shouldn't have wandered
about an unsecured combat zone."

    "Two Walther 9mm slugs," Gayner agreed. Another pause. "I
used to wonder about how my brother died," she continued,
approaching with steps that were soundless, leaning on the table
until her face was inches from his. "But yo' know, fo' the last
fifteen years I haven'twondered who fired that pistol, at all."

   Eric kept his face motionless. Inwardly he felt a chill wariness
that reminded him of going into close bush-country after
leopard.

  "I presume," she continued, moistening her lips, "that this
means yo'll agree to the Stone Dogs project, von Shrakenberg?"
With an effort of will Eric forced himself to clear his throat and
speak.

    "Quite right, Gayner. It's still insanely risky, but it does
oppose our strength to Alliance weakness, an' if war does come,
it'd be invaluable. I was hesitatin' because I thought it might
provoke the conflict itself, if they discovered it."

   She nodded, still without taking her eyes from his face; the
intentness of it was akin to love, a total focusing of attention on
another human being. Her pupils expanded, filling the light
hazel of her eyes with pools of black, and the small hairs along
his spine struggled to stand.

   "That's agreement in outline, then. I'll get my people to drop
their opposition to the trainin' and tribunal motions; yo' agree to
puttin' the Stone Dogs through the Strategic Plannin'
committee; we shelve the chemoconditionin' trials. Agreed?" He
nodded. "Let's have our subordinates draw up the draft
proposals, then. I'll be goin'."

   "Wait." She turned; he was standing at unconscious parade
rest, with his hands clasped behind his back. "Yo' think I'm soft.
What's more, yo' think the Domination's gone soft, don't yo',
Gayner? Not like the hard, pure days back in the '50s?"

  "In danger of it," she said, with her hand on the handle of the
door.

   " Yo' should read some history, Gayner; about what things
were like just befo' the Great War, when we'd had two
generations of peace… but think on this, Gayner. Let's do a
best-possible-case heah; let's say the Stone Dogs work, an' we
destroy the Yankees. Cast yo' mind forward of that, say we've
pacified them; say the Domination is coterminous with the
human race, as we've always dreamed. Whose policies do yo'
think the Race will find most agreeable then?"

    She blinked at him in surprise for a moment, then relaxed.
"Well, then, we'd have only our personal matters to attend to,
wouldn't we? In any case, by then other… hands may be at the
tiller. A very fond, an' very anticipatory farewell, von
Shrakenberg."
   She swept out the door, and Eric went to his desk, sat,
thumbed the record switch and dictated a digest of the
legislation to be drafted. He flicked it off, thought for a moment,
then thumbed it again:

    "Note to Shirley. We've won, two out of three," he said. "Why
is it that I don't feel too happy about this?"




               CHAPTER EIGHT

   In considering the Domination, the biological metaphors of
mutation and evolution come irresistibly to mind. Not simply in
terms of the popular image of an anachronism surviving past its
time, as if in a Vemlan romance where dinosaurs were found in
an Amazon swamp. It is more useful to think in terms of
alternative possibilities. Probabilities, rather evolution is a
probabilistic phenomenon, it depends on chance. The path taken
is not the only possible one, nor even necessarily the most likely.
We are now fairly certain that a flurry of cometary impacts was
responsible for the extinction of the widespread and successful
dinosaurs. Of course, if we were confronted now with the
dinosaurs as they were then, we would have no trouble in
handling them. But then, they faced no real competition from
our remote ancestors; and if they had been spared the hammer
from the skies, what bipedal tool-user might have evolved to gaze
curiously starward with reptile eyes? Likewise, the particular
form of society that developed In early-modem Europe spread
and seized the habitats of other cultural "species," aborting the
possibilities of their evolution… except in the singular case of the
Domination, where an eccentric fragment of that expansion was,
by a political and military accident as arbitrary as the fall of
comets, given time and space to grow.

   We are not confronted with an archaic society that somehow
has survived unchanged; if that were so, we could be as confident
as humans with rocket-launchers faced with tyrannosaurs.
Instead, we are faced with the evolved descendant of another
type of society—a far more serious matter. To use another
analogy, consider the human brain. We are a recently arrived,
cobbled-together species. Our humanity resides in the outer,
forward layer of our brains; below that is the mammalian brain,
below that the reptile, the amphibian. So too the Domination.
The rulers of a slave society might not have chosen a path of
change and development of their own accord; the satisfied rarely
do. But confronted with the necessity of either changing or
becoming first a helpless irrelevance and then prey, they did
change. Unwillingly, haltingly, incompletely, but with each
challenge a new layer was added to the pristine simplicity of the
original social organism.

   Without time for assimilation, or full integration. On the
primary conquest society of estates worked by slaves was applied
the monstrous machine-tyranny of the First Industrial
Revolution; on that the iron bureaucracies and armies of the age
of steel and petroleum. The process continues to this day.
           The Mind of the Draka: A Military-Cultural Analysis
           Monograph delivered by Commodore Aguilar Emaldo
                                U.S. Naval War College, Manila
                     11th Alliance Strategic Studies Conference
                                                Subic Bay, 1972



NEW YORK CITY
FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT
LIMITED STATES OF AMERICA
NOVEMBER 20, 1972


  "Good to be back in the old home town," Marya said.

   They were strolling along Seventh, away from the
Inauguration crowds. The blustery day had begun to clear, with
patches of bright sky between the tall buildings. Around here
they were mostly from the '20s and '30s, Mechanist style,
stepped back like wedding cakes and capped with
anodized-aluminum spires. Nobody noticed two more officers
out for a post-parade stroll, not in this town; take away the
military and the bureaucrats, and it would be a minor
port-city— although he would have expected a woman with
Marya's looks to attract more notice. He glanced aside at her,
and his eyes narrowed; she had shortened and chopped her
stride, hunched shoulders, made subtle changes in the set of her
head and the way she carried her arms. Years older, and five
notches down on the turn-your-head scale.

   Excellent, he thought. Maybe this will work, after all. It was
going to be a finesse operation, - not a smash-and-grab. The
almost open warfare of the '50s and '60s had given way to more
subtle methods.

   "You still think of Nu Yawk as home?" he said lightly. Do I? he
thought. Not really. America was home; the whole Alliance,
perhaps. He glanced up at the half moon, just visible against the
cool blue of the sky; it was only a few years since the last of the
old coal plants had closed down, but the air was already cleaner.
Thank God for the breeder reactors.

   "Yes," she said. They stopped by a stand and bought hot
salt-pastry with mustard; the vendor took their change, thanked
them in broad Lancashire and touched his cap. "Oh, yes, it's
home." She gave him a wry smile. "I'm glad we're together on
this one, too, Fred. Scared shitless, of course, but glad. Not that I
blamed you for getting out of the house as much as you could,
and after I left home, well…"

   He shrugged. "I was glad to get off to the Academy, soon after
that."

   "Naturellement," she said. "That's… one reason this is still
home. I'm afraid some of that stuff Maman tried to hammer into
us took, with me." A bitter laugh. "Homesick for a country that
no longer exists… and New York is as close to France as you can
get, these days."

  European refugees and their children were common enough;
nearly ten million had made it out before the end in '44, or in the
confusion just after the Draka reached the Atlantic. Most had
moved on to the United States, and many had stuck here in New
York City, grouped in their enclaves, organizing around their
newspapers and cultural societies… bitter, aging people, facing
the long slow drain as their children and grandchildren broke
free into the greater world beyond. The Pacific basin cities, and
now space: that was where the action was.

   Marya squinted down at the pastry and took a meditative
bite. "Remember her insisting that we speak French at table?"

   Fred rubbed fingers across his forehead. They sat down on a
bench in a postage-stamp corner park, bare but beautiful with
the spare lines of winter roses and a single stone urn, a legacy of
Mayor Olmstead's obsession with gardening, back in the last
century.

  "And I'd yell at her that I was an American—except I got so
mad I yelled it in French?"

   "I was angry, too. Oh, I know I didn't show it… Well, the
convent school was all right, until she started pushing me about
becoming a postulant. It was a good school, anyway; they didn't
skimp on the math; no boys to hog the equipment the way it
happens in the public system. Christ, though, I got mad when
she wouldn't let me go to slumber parties with the other girls, or
out to the sock hops and the soda fountain. Forever penned up in
that apartment with those frowsty-smelling old ladies and men
in berets, talking about avant-la-guerre." '

   She wiped her hands. "Yet, you know, Fred, she was right.
You'll talk English with Cindy when you have kids. And in a
generation or two, the only people left on earth who speak
French will be serfs. Nobody will read it but linguists and
historians. Maman and the others, they had this continous
feeling that nobody really understood. Even here. Nobody except
each other."

  "They know so little of it," she continued, nodding to the
passers-by.

   Fred jerked his head in agreement as he looked out at the
street and its traffic. The Stanleys and Hashimotos slid by, low
hum of electrics and quiet machine-whir of closed-cycle steam.
The crowds thronged the sidewalks and the glassed overhead
walkways that laced the upper stories, burst floodlike from the
subways. Conservative fashions, canary-yellow suits and white
cravats, snap-brim fedoras, pleated skirts and padded shoulders
and four-color shoes. Quieter than he was used to; New York had
always been a staid well-mannered town, the civil-servant
mentality, and there was nothing like the driving energy you felt
in the Pacific Rim cities, far from the closed and guarded
Atlantic. But even here most people thought little about the
Domination. Yes, it was terrible; they tsk-tsked over atrocity
photos, ate up secret-agent dramas where straw-men Draka
were invariably defeated by Yankee ingenuity…

   "That's about the level of their interest," he said sourly. There
was an Odeon across the street, old and shabby but with a
brand-new crystal sandwich display. SEX SLAVES OF
ARCHONA, it screamed, showing a platinum-haired starlet in
implausible lingerie cowering on a bed with the shadow of a
whip falling across her. "Funny, if they're showing someone
getting hurt, it's always a blond. When they show a black serf, it's
a Janissary or a policeman."

   "We brunettes are obviously an inferior race," Marya said, as
she rose to throw the napkin in the wastebin; the usual obsessive
New Yorker neatness. I guess this really is still home to her. To
his surprise, she laughed outright at the marquee.

   "Maman still gets really upset at that sort of thing; spits in the
street and crosses to the opposite side. Not surprising, all things
considered." More seriously: "Particularly after she opened up to
Anna about what happened to her; a lot of it was in The Kisses of
the Enemy, remember the sensation that one made?"

   Fred nodded. Anna von Shrakenberg was uniquely well-placed
to write a novel set in the Domination, having been born there
herself, a serf concubine's bastard.

   "Maman admired the book," he said. For certain someone
would have told him if Marya and their mother were talking
enough to discuss that sort of thing. "Even if she couldn't read it
more than a page at a time. But when ABS-Pathway started
sniffing 'round' for a movie contract Anna had to spend a solid
day convincing her she wasn't going to sell out. You know," he
considered meditatively, "I've always wondered… You're a lot
closer to Maman than I ever was, really. You fought with her less.
Why was it you were the one who ended up barely talking? Not
that Maman and I can really talk, but she tries."

   She gave a sigh. "Because she and I were more alike. She
didn't try to live through you, and I had to fight harder to break
away. Good old Latin double standard, too…" A pause. "How do
we loll Ekstein, by the way?"

   Fred suddenly felt the chill of the November afternoon, and
turned up the collar of his uniform greatcoat. "Well, we'll have to
be careful how we use local assets. Remember Paris."

   She winced. That had been in 1951, just after her fourth
birthday, but nobody in the OSS was going to forget. A team had
gotten into the household of the Draka military governor of
northern France and poisoned her and her staff at a banquet.
Felice Vashon had been an animal even by Draka standards; the
idea had been as much humanitarian as anything, a threat to
restrain the worst mass-murderers.

   "Bad tradecraft," she said. "Even worse psychology." The
Domination's aristocrats did not respond well to threats, and the
Security Directorate had caught some of the locals who helped
insert the OSS specialists. Ten thousand serfs from the pens and
compounds of Paris had been impaled along the avenues, dying
slowly on wooden stakes rammed up the anus. "Remember
Barcelona, come to that."

   Barcelona had risen against the Yoke in '52; hundreds of
Citizens had died, and the last survivors had been pulled out by
helicopter. An hour later, the city had gone up in a gout of
radioactive flame.

   "The Snake idea of riot control, a one-megatonne sunbomb,"
he said.

   "Necessary, from their point of view," Marya said
dispassionatly. "They probably hated to do it, in their own
backyard. Europe was shaky then, still primed to explode at the
slightest sign of weakness. I doubt that they'd do that now,
especially since the locals are all owned by somebody. Vested
interests, you see."

  He laughed. "You have been around Uncle Nate a lot recently,
Captain Sister. I recognize that detachment."

    "Detachment?" She turned and looked at him. "Actually, I've
been researching more of the family history." She reached inside
her greatcoat, carefully tore a strip of gum in half and began to
chew. He noticed suddenly that her nails had the slightly lumpy
appearance of a reformed biter. The Mexican habit of
gum-chewing had been spreading north since smoking went out
of fashion.

   "She never told you? Maman wouldn't. She saved that for
Anna, more than got into the book. Anna told me; we're still
friends. There… was a gang-rape in Lyon, when Maman was
arrested; her and her little sister. Didn't know we had an aunt,
did you? Still over there, under the Yoke."

   A long silence. "Detached? No, I'm not in the least detached.
I'm going to warn you straight up, brother, what I am is a
fanatic. A reasoning fanatic. I've got a debt to collect."

  "Remind me never to establish a credit account at your bank,
ma soeur," he said. "Lunch?"

   "Why not. As long as it isn't the canteen," she replied.

  That's the problem with a French mother, it sort of spoils
you for fast food, he thought.



CHATEAU OF MOULIN
PROVINCE OF TOURAINE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
FEBRUARY, 1973


   The chateau was south of the Loire, in the Sologne; a
nobleman by the name of Philippe du Moulin had built it five
centuries before. For most of the time since it had been a
hunting seat, for the Sologne was an area of poor acid soils, of
marsh and forest. When the Draka came they decided that the
effort of reclamation was not worth the cost. Too many richer
lands lay desolate, their tillers dead in the slaughterhouse
madness of the Eurasian War; the remaining French peasants
were deported elsewhere, or set to planting oak trees. For two
decades the mansion lay empty, until the Security Directorate
needed a place of refuge for a defector with very specific tastes.



   "Here he is," the Farraday Combine representative muttered
with throttled impatience. "At last."

   The Tetrarch from the Directorate of Security shrugged and
raised her hands in a gesture of helplessness, then let them fall
back to the surface of the table. There were three terminals and
keyboards built into it, the only outward sign of modernity in the
room with its tapestries and suits of plate armour.

   "Hi!" David Ekstein said, as he bounded in. The Security
officer winced and looked away. Not quite so disgusting as he
was, she thought resignedly.

   "Dave, it's really impo'tant not to keep people waiting," the
officer said.

   "Oh, gee, sorry, Cathy," Ekstein replied. He was in his
mid-twenties but already the wiry black hair was thinning on
top: a short man with a sticklike figure that turned pudgy at face
and waist and buttocks. Acne-scars, and his skin was still wet
from the pool, mottled brown from the sunlamps. Bitterly, she
told herself that the defector probably thought he was fitting in
with Draka custom by coming to the business meeting in a black
pool-robe…

   Tetrarch Catherine Duchamp Bennington gritted her teeth
and smiled back at him. Officially she was Security liaison here.
Actually, I'm bear-leader to this little shit, she thought. Much of
her effort was spent keeping him away from Draka. He was
officially an honorary Citizen, but half an hour in normal society
would have left him with a round dozen challenges to pistols at
dawn.
   Not that he was nasty, just… like a damned smelly fat puppy,
she thought. Providential that a castle in France had been his
private daydream, so they could immure him in the middle of
this hunting-preserve. Even better if they could have stuck him
in an SD property in Africa or Russia, but the orders were for
soft-hand treatment. You could see why. Creativity was so
delicate a quality, and this slug was a hothouse flower of the first
order.

  "Meiling was playing handball with me, and I really wanted to
win," he continued.

   At least that was going well. The Directorate had bought him
two dozen concubines, every one of them from the top creches
and with special training to boot. The Domination wanted full
value from David Ekstein, and the wenches were leading him
with patient subtlety into healthier habits. He had already lost a
good deal of weight. It was unlikely that Ekstein would ever be
anything remotely resembling what a Citizen should be, but with
luck, in a few years and fully dressed he could avoid arousing
actual disgust. His social skills had been marginal at home and
were nonexistent here, but with careful management that could
be handled. The Eugenics people had a sperm deposit in their
banks, anyway.

   "So, what's your problem?" he continued, rubbing his hands
and turning to the exec. "I thought those designs were pretty
good, really." Servants bustled in with trays of coffee, fruit, and
breakfast pastries.

   "Ahhh—" the exec began. The electrowafers were excellent,
and had opened up a whole new range of near-space
applications, not to mention the eventual civilian uses. "Well,
we're havin' real quality problems. Seventy percent rejection
rate, even on our best fabricators, an' we needs those wafers."
He caught himself just in time, not mentioning the use to which
the sensor-effector systems would be put. The American—the
ex-American, he reminded himself—-was a defector, after all,
and quite startlingly naive politically, but it was better not to
remind him of certain things without need.

   Ekstein frowned, took the data cartridge from the man and
slipped it into the table unit. His hands skittered over the
keyboard and the ball-shaped directional control; Bennington
noted how their clumsiness vanished, turning to fluid skill. "Hey,
no problem," he said after a minute. "It's the amorphous layer
that's causing it. You're getting uneven deposition. How do
you—"

   Tetrarch Bennington tuned out the technical discussion and
stared moodily out the mullioned windows of the salon. It was a
cold bright morning outside; the courtyard's brick pavement was
new-swept, white snow in the mortar-grooves between
herringbone red brick. Gardens laced with white-ice hoarfrost,
fairy-silver grass, and black treetrunks beneath hammered-metal
branches, flowerbeds pruned back and dormant beneath their
coats of mulch-straw. The edge of the forest was a black wall,
and the surface of the moat clear gray ice. It would be warming
soon, though. She. was a bananalander from Natealia, born in
Virconium, and the clear freshness of the Northern spring never
failed to enthrall.

   "Oh," the exec was saying. She glanced up with a start. Her
coffee had gone cold, and she signed for the serf to bring
another.

   "Oh, well… Why didn't we think of that?" He looked down at
the screen, rubbing his brow in puzzlement.

   The American grinned. "Hey, man, it always looks that way.
That should get you down to, hmmm, fifteen percent rejections,
easy. Null-G applications of amorphous silicon deposition are
tricky; it's not my specialty, you know, but I think that's the way
to go. Especially with EV channels and particle-stream etching,
you know."

   "Many thanks, suh," the exec continued, as the terminal
downloaded the details into his attach case and clicked
completion. He shook hands with the ex-American. "Service to
the State."

  "Have a nice d—h, Glory to the Race," Ekstein replied.

  The room fell silent as the exec left. There was a crackle from
the big fireplace, a glimmer of flamelight, and pale winter sun on
polished stone and wood. Ekstein sighed, shifting restlessly and
then moodily taking another croissant. The serf moved in deftly
to sweep up the crumbs around his plates. She was a pert little
thing, in a uniform of short skirt and white cap and bib-apron
that had been another of Ekstein's eccentricities. He ran a hand
up her thigh, but half-heartedly, even when she leaned into the
clumsy caress and smiled.

  That's a bad sign, Bennington thought. He's not screwing
anything that moves, anymore.

   "What's the matter, Dave?" she said quietly as the serfs left.

  He slumped in the chair, hands resting loosely between his
knees.

  "Oh, I don't know," he said, frowning. "I… I feel lonely, I
guess."

   "Hmmm, I thought yo' were lonely befo'," she replied. Every
word and gesture was going down on record for the SD psychs to
mull over, but you had to get a personal gestalt to really know an
individual. Besides, he was like a puppy; you wanted to see him
wag his tail. "Yo' girls not givin' satisfaction?"

   "No, no, they're great!" he said. "Meiling and Bemadette
especially." His face puckered a little. "Yeah, I was real lonely.
Only… Well, sometimes Bernie and Izzy and Pedro would come
over, and we'd have beer and peanut-butter-and-jelly
sandwiches, and play Knights and Sorcerers on my old Pacifica. I
sort of miss it, I guess. I can play against myself here, but it's not
the same."

  He looked up, and his eyes were misty. "Say, Cathy, maybe
you could get me an online terminal, and I could patch into Pan
Net? Then I could play them remote."

   Bennington sighed inwardly; you had to swat a puppy if it
piddled on the rug, but it wasn't pleasant. She forced a warm
smile. "Mmmm, Dave, I don't think we could do that. I mean, the
other end wouldn't allow it." Probably true, and no way the SD
would let an OSS op get a line on this prize.

  He blinked. "Look," she continued, "yo've been workin' too
hard, Dave. What say, in a month o' two, we fly down to Nova
Cartago or Alexandria. We'll go out to some of the nightspots,
meet a few "carefully selected—"people, relax, hey?"

   He nodded, halfway between interest and listlessness. She
crossed around the desk, put an arm about his shoulders. "An' in
the meantime, we'll have cook make us up some
peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches,"—Mother Freya, the things
I do for the Race—"an' yo' can teach me how to play Knights and
Sorcerers, Meiling and Bemadette will sit in."



OSS STATEHOUSE
STATE OF VIRGINIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
JANUARY, 1973


   "Goddammit, my brains are going to run out my nose!"
Marya said, and grunted as she bench-pressed the weights again.
"Ninety-nine, one hundred." The link-rod fell back into its rest
with a clang. She took a deep breath; the room smelled of sweat,
hers and others, of oil and machinery and the straw matting on
the floor. The lights were sunlamps, to give them the appropriate
tan, and the walls were lined with mirrors.

   "That's, 'Gods curse it, mah brains is goin' run out mah nose,'
" the instructor said. "Repeat it, Lefarge."

   She lay back on the padded exercise bench and repeated the
sentence in Draka dialect, turning her head to watch the
instructor. He was a defector from the Domination, about twice
her age: an unremarkable man, medium-brown hair and eyes
and an outdoorsman's weathered face. He was doing one-handed
chinups while he listened with a slight frown of concentration on
his face.

  "Bettah," he said. "But remembah, don't drawl too much.
Brains is buh'rains, not braaains. The dialect has roots
hereabouts, but it's changed in different directions since the
1780s. Over to the cycle."

   She groaned and swung herself up, walking over to the fixed
exercise cycle. Her sweatsuit was soaked and chafing; she wiped
her face on the corner of the towel around her neck. Her brother
was using the Unitorso machine beside it, with his forearms
against the vertical spring-loaded bars, pressing them in to his
chest, holding, then slowly out again. The muscles of his chest
and stomach stood out, moving fluidly beneath the fair skin.
Marya felt a sudden sharp stab of affection, oddly mixed with the
sort of aesthetic admiration you might feel for a statue or a
sunset.

   Damnation, she thought dismally. The number of eligible
males around was small, and seemed either gentlemanly or
disinterested. A man could marry outside the field, as long as the
wife didn't mind not being told a lot of things. For a female
agent, another agent was about the only game in town. It's like
being tall, she thought. You have to go for the tall boys, but the
short girls poach on them, too.

   Of course, she could start asking them herself… Her mouth
twisted wryly. Sex was a tool of the trade, and she was sure
enough she could do anything required in that line, but somehow
it was different in a social setting. Benefits of a Catholic
upbringing. Shit.

   The instructor had finished his second sequence of fifty and
dropped lightly to the ground, landing silently on the balls of his
feet. He was dressed as they were, in loose felted cotton exercise
clothing and soft shoes, but he seemed to flow as he walked.

   "Get to it," the Draka said. "Yo' wind needs it." He stopped by
Fred, looked him up and down appraisingly. Then he seemed to
blur, and his fist struck the man low in the belly. Marya winced
at the hard smack, and her brother doubled over with a grunt.
His hand had come down to block and stayed suspended
three-quarters of the way to completion.

  "Better," the Draka said, then chuckled. "Back home, they'd
envy me mah chances, gettin' to beat up on Yankees fo' a livin'."
  Marya pedaled grimly. "If yo' loves us so much, why're yo'
heah?" she enunciated carefully.

   The Draka looked at her. "Good. Treatin' yo'r's' right, now."

   It isn't a lack of expression, she thought, puzzled. Like most
Draka she had seen, the instructor somehow gave an impression
of stillness even when he was moving. Ah. No unintentional
gestures, she decided. The hands moved only when he wanted
them to, and the body stayed rock-still unless ordered to move.
No twitches, jerks, shifts.

   "It was a mattah of circumstances, luck an' opportunity," he
continued. "I's an only chile, and mah mothah died early. Pa
away most all the time, no relatives near. Raised by serfs mo'
than most, didn't fit in well at school. Eventually realized that all
the people I really cared about had numbahs on they necks, and
that I was spendin' my life grindin' them down." He grinned, a
gaunt expression. "Had an opportunity to get out, took it.
Doesn't mean I've got any particular affection fo' Yankees or
Yankeeland. The air stinks, everythin's ugly, there's no decent
huntin', and the people are soft an' contemptible."

   He checked the medical readouts built into the cycle:
heartbeat, respiration, neurological profile. "Good enough. Two
of you are gettin' as near passable as yo' ever will in the time
available; toward the top of the bottom one-fifth of Citizens. Pity,
yo've both got good potential. Bettah than average."

   Fred was using the Unitorso again, the mark of knuckles a
fading red mark on his stomach below the solar plexus. "If…
that's… so… why're we… so… godsdamned… rotten?" he asked,
careful to keep his tone neutral.

   The Draka looked up at him. "Time," he said. "Y'all didn't
start early enough; that affects y' whole system. Bone-density, fo'
example, basic body-fat ratios, metabolic rate an' so forth. Mah
genes is no more than middlin', athletics-wise, but y'all will never
catch up. If yo'd been in the agoge from age five, yo'd be notable
excellent."
ABOARD AIRSHIP DOULOS
APPROACHING NANTES AIRHAVEN
LOIRE DISTRICT, TOURAINE PROVINCE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
APRIL, 1973


   Frederick Lefarge had not flown by airship since he was a
child; in the Alliance countries lighter-than-air was used mainly
for freight, these days. The Domination had its own turbojets
and scramjets, but simply attached less importance to haste, and
neither of the Powers allowed overflights by aircraft of the other.
London-Nantes was the sole passenger link between the Alliance
and Europe, maintained by the Transportation Directorate; the
Alliance had accepted the arrangement, but insisted that only
slow and easy-to-monitor dirigibles be used.

  "Welcome home, Mastah, Mistis," the serf customs clerk said,
handing him and Marya the forms.

   The ferry dirigible was still at five thousand feet, time enough
to complete the paperwork and to spare, but the American
agents had come early to the lounge. That was in character for
their personas, Draka eager to be home.

   It is a comfortable way to travel, he mused. But it gives you
too much time to think. He had been learning something of the
nature of fear, this trip. Swift flashes, like the moment they
passed the barricades in London and stepped onto territory that
was Draka by treaty. The first green Security Directorate
uniform, with the skull patches on the collar. Watching the
Channel dwindling away below. A slow gnawing; every moment
increased the danger, and there were a lot of moments to come.

   Still, dirigibles are comfortable. Particularly compared with
being strapped into a windowless hypersonic tin can, boring
through the stratosphere at Mach 12 with the leading edges
cherry-red. The Doulos was a teardrop of fiber-matrix composite
five hundred meters long; near the bow a semicircular strip of
the lower hull had been made transparent, as windows for the
main lounge. The clear synthetic curved sharply outward for
nearly two stories above his head, and from his seat at the edge
of the deck he had a view that would have made an agroaphobe
cringe, straight down. Countryside for the last few hours, and
now the broad greenbelt that always surrounded a major Draka
city. There were a quarter million people in Nantes.

   None of the jumbled mixed-use fringe you saw in the Alliance;
plantation fields, then parks and public gardens and manicured
forest. Transport-corridors, more rail and less highway than he
was used to. The industrial sector was to the east, along a section
of the river that had been dredged for shipping. Anonymous
factories with their labor-compounds of three-story flats grouped
around paved courts. Shipyards bristling with overhead cranes,
warehouses, all along an orderly gridwork of paved streets and
rail sidings. Some of the streets were tree-lined; that grew more
numerous towards the west, in residential districts reserved for
the serf elite of technicians and bureaucrats. Then the Citizen
quarter, a cluster of public buildings and a scatter of homes
wide-spaced amid gardens.

  He turned his attention to the paper:

  Name. Antony Verman

   Place and Date of Birth. Archona, 1947: a Citizen population
of over two million, which cut down the chance of meeting
someone who should know a personality that existed solely as
pits and spots in a read-only optical memory bank. Quite a good
cover; they had worked hard to slip it into the files.

   "Flagged," the instructor had said. "If the Security
Directorate checks it, they'll get a warning you're War
Directorate Military Intelligence; the War Directorate will be
told you're a krypteia hotshot."

  The Domination's two armed services liked each other only
marginally more than either loved the Alliance, and talked no
more than they had to. Of course, the cover would still not stand
up to detailed investigation; there were too many records, in too
many separate files.

  Military Service. Infantry, XXI Airmobile; as close to
anonymous as you could get.
   Occupation. Ceramic design consultant; luxury manufactures
like that were generally handled by small businesses, not the
omnipresent Combines. A designer was doubly independent, was
more free to be a rolling stone with no connections. Better still to
have no occupation, but without a good excuse a person who just
lived on their Citizen stipend was a figure of some suspicion and
contempt, and would attract attention when traveling.

   Purpose of visit abroad. Reviewing samples of American
ceramics, of course. There was an interesting collection in the
memory of the impeccably Draka Helot-IV analogue/ digital
personal comp in his attache case, and anyone making inquiries
would find a string of design studios and shops with perfectly
genuine memories of the two young Draka. That had been the
beginning of their assignment, seeing if they could fool
Americans first. And pass the critical gaze of the Draka defectors
who had been their final instructors, in everything from
etiquette and gossip to fighting-style and sexual technique.

   He glanced aside at his sister. Tradecraft's good enough to
fool me, he thought. They had both had minor cosmetic implants
to make their faces unrecognizable to anyone who knew their
genuine identities, hormone treatments to change their body-fat
ratios, but it was more than that. Most of all the look, the
hard-edged glossy feel of one of the Domination's elite. Not even
just Draka; looking at her with his persona's eyes he could place
her, city-born, probably from the southern provinces.

   He finished the form and snapped his fingers for the serf. The
lounge was growing a little crowded. Two hundred or more;
thirty or so Draka, settling in around them, and the rest from the
Alliance, mostly Americans and English. Some on business,
others well-heeled tourists prepared to pay highly for sights and
experiences only the Domination could offer; Fred looked at
them with a distaste most of the Citizens around him seemed to
share. The Domination allowed a trickle of closely-supervised
visitors, as much for the Intelligence opportunities as for the
Alliance dollars they brought.

   There was a subliminal change in the vibration of the hull; he
looked back and saw the big turbocompound engine-pods
swiveling. Distant pumps went chunk-whir, compressing
hydrogen to liquid and draining it into the insulated tanks along
the keel. Fred's mouth was dry as he felt the slight
falling-elevator sensation of descent; he sipped at his glass of
sparkling mineral water. They were over the airhaven now,
passing rows of dirigibles in their cradles, acres of concrete and
rail. The tall cylinder of the docking tower was ahead of them,
and the Doulos slid toward it with the calm precision of
computer piloting.

   Contact, and a dying of machine-noise that had been
imperceptible before. More movement but with a different feel,
heavier than the cushiony grace of lighter-than-air, as the
airship established negative buoyancy and sank into its cradle;
more chunking noises, as the fuel and gas lines connected. The
scene outside sank to four stories above ground level, then
pivoted slowly as the cradle turned the airship and drew it
toward the waiting terminal. There were three others with their
noses locked into the huge cone-shaped depressions in the giant
building's wall. The Doulos glided into the fourth docking bay
and halted; there was a whine as a ten meter broad section of the
forward window slid up.

  "Let's go," he said.



   Home—In a way, Marya thought, as they walked through the
gate into the terminal. France. The country where we were
conceived.

   Although this terminal was post-War, pure Domination.
Probably built in the early '50s to a standard pattern. A huge
barrel-vaulted passenger terminal, the coffered ceiling in pale
blue and silvergilt tiles; the walls were murals, landscapes, the
floor streaked gray marble. Pillars around the walls, trained over
with climbing plants. The Citizens' section of the great building
was relatively small; most of the traffic was over the other side of
the low stone balustrade. There it was busy, swarming even.
Most of the serfs there were in overalls of varying cut, livery,
color-coded Combine suits with identifying logos on the backs.
Or uniform, green for SD internal-security, dove-gray for the serf
component of the Directorate of War. Management level,
authorized to travel alone.

  And a coffle, forty or fifty people crouched within a rope
barrier. Young adults with children, and a few ranging up to
middle age, in cheap cotton overalls or blouses and skirts. They
were mostly dark, with high cheeks and slant eyes:

   Asians, brought in from the main resevoir of surplus labor in
the Far East. Nantes was a shipbuilding center, and Intelligence
said that the submarine yards were being adapted to produce
components for the second generation of Draka pulsedrive
spaceships. the nuclear-powered deepspace vessels were more
like ships than aircraft, no need to shave ounces when total
payloads were well over five thousand tonnes.

   Enough. Not your mission. She forced herself not to notice
how a woman grabbed her child and winced as a guard walked
by with a shockrod. They walked across to an information kiosk.
The clerk covered his eyes and bowed, then smiled.

   "Yo' will, masters?" He pronounced it mastaire; a Frenchman.
A little overweight, unremarkable. The number stood out below
his ear, glaring. His fingers hovered over a keyboard below the
stone-slab counter; there was a screen on their side as well.

   "Hotel Mirabelle," Fred said. "And a car, please. Fourseater,
suitable fo' country drivin'. And a weapons store."



   "Phew," Fred muttered. His sister could read his thought:
Made it. Another milestone: nothing flagged on the Security net
attached to their identities.

   Marya stopped with him at the bottom of the stairs, and took
two glasses of mineral water from a refreshment stand. They
drank, hardly noticing the taste except that it wet dry throats.
Looked about: they were in a broad corridor, open to the
roadway in front and lined by shops at their back. The serfs who
moved about them mostly looked to be personal servants on
errands, or airship haven staff. Steamcars were pulling up and
leaving, parcel-delivery trucks, boxy little electric town
runabouts. The Draka they saw were largely travelers, intent on
their destinations.

   Safe, she thought; or as safe as they could be on enemy soil.
That had been something it took the OSS a long time to learn:
that an agent was safer and more effective posing as a Citizen
than as a serf. It went against common sense. There were so
many more serfs, but most of them were plantation hands, or
compounded workers; they just didn't move very much. Most of
the ones who did travel were tightly integrated into some
organization, known faces, and for a serf the Domination was a
bureaucratized labyrinth, with monsters waiting at every corner
to eat you if you made a wrong step…

   Whereas a Citizen had fewer day-to-day constraints than the
average American, if you didn't count things like the right to
open a newspaper. Once that had mattered little, when the
Domination and its ruling caste were smaller. But the Citizen
population was no longer the tiny tight-knit band it had once
been. Seventy-odd million was more than enough to be
anonymous if you kept moving and avoided your supposed
hometown.

  They returned the glasses and walked into Sanderton's Arms
and Hunt Supplies.

   It was big, cool, and dimly lit; the aisles were separated by low
glass-topped display cases, the ceiling covered in stained-glass
hunting scenes while the floor bore plain sisal mats that rutched
under their boots. Spotlights flooded the examination tables,
granite columns with polished teak tops; there was a slight scent
of well-kept machinery. Marya glanced over the merchandise in
the displays and wall-racks with professional appraisal; to her,
weapons were tools but not particularly interesting otherwise. A
wide selection of sidearms. They would have to pick up some;
their lack of gunbelts had attracted a few glances. The hunting
weapons themselves were single shot rifles or double-barreled
models, bolt-action repeaters in light calibers for small game,
bird-shotguns. Spears, lances, various types of knife and bow.

  Their needs were otherwise. "The proprietor, please," Marya
said to one of the attendants. Most of those looked to be
decorative, young women in short tunics. One of them whispered
to an older man, black, shaven-headed, and massive; he bowed
and used a desk phone.



  Frederick Lefarge made a minuscule sign with his fingers: I'll
deal with this one.

   His eyes were appraising the… shopowner, he supposed. A
Draka, of course, in this line of business. Well past fifty, in loose
trousers and a sleeveless shirt. Tall and deeply tanned, face
square and with an outdoorsman's weathered look. A formidable
collection of scars; the American's eye picked out shrapnel on the
arm and shoulder, a well-done reconstruction job on cheek and
jawbones, a missing finger from the left hand, and what looked
to be knife-scars on the torso. Impressively springy, despite the
age that had turned the body gaunt and stripped any smoothing
of subcutaceous fat from the long muscles. No gun at his waist,
but a long knife strapped hilt-down along his right flank.

  "Donal Green," the man said, gripping their wrists. "Trooper,
Special Tasks, Long-Range Reconnaissance, retired. Late of
Mobaye-North."

   That was a province north of the Congo river, thinly settled.
Probably a hunter; it would go with the military specialty. There
was an interval for the usual pleasantries. The black came up
behind the Draka, and waited with something of the same
relaxed patience.

   "What can I do fo' y'all, Citizens? Sidearms?" Fred had an
uncomfortable feeling that the remote brown eyes were
recording them both inch by inch. It prickled between his
shoulderblades; machinery was tireless, but it only asked the
obvious questions, and it had no intuition. Every contact with a
potential informant risked bringing those uniquely human
facilities into play.

  "Yes, please. Just back from a trip outside the State." To
Draka, there was only one. "We're doin' some huntin', as well," he
said.

    "Ah." Genuine interest in the Draka's eyes. "Local? We've got
some fine boar, deer, wolf, and leopard territory hereabouts. Or
if y' all're interested, my family runs a wild-country outfit down
in Mobaye-North."

   "Sorry. We're booked, fo' the Archangel Reserve."

   More than a little interest now. "Tiger?"

  "No, bushmen." The ideal cover story, for someone buying
what they needed.

   There were still bands of partisans, Finnish and a few
Russians, in the great taiga forests that stretched from the
northeastern Baltic up into the Arctic Circle: bushmen, in Draka
dialect. The OSS even had contacts with them, few and sporadic,
when a submarine could elude the ever-improving surveillance.
Few Draka had ever wished to settle in those remote and
desolately cold regions, and even the timber Combines worked
only the most accessible parts. The military had hunted down
the most dangerous bands in the early '50s, and as for the rest…
a Citizen who wanted game more exciting than any on four legs
could book a tour. It even made sense, for a people who hunted
lion with cold steel. One of the many ways used to keep the edge
from rusting in an era of peace.

   Not peace, he told himself. Just an interval between battles.

  To the Draka, there would be no peace until they ruled the
human universe. Or until we kill the last one.

   "Lucky yo'!" Donal Green said. "Y'all be wantin' somethin'
special, then… Price range?"

   "Show us what yo've got," Fred replied.

  A wide grin. "As it just so happens… Bokassa, fetch the new
models." He led them to one of the examination tables. "Now.
we've gotten a shipment of the latest stuff. They're retirin' the
Improved Model Holbars now, yo've probably heard, replacin' it
with a caseless round? Well, the prototype production run got
sold, and bought up an' customized down in Herakulopolis."
That was the bridge-dam-city across the straits of Gibraltar.

    The black man arrived with a case, folded it back. His master
lifted the weapon within free.

   "Lot of it's space-made," he said. In appearance it was a
virtually featureless rectangular box; there was a barrel at one
end, with a thinner rod above, and a cushioned buttplate at the
other; a pistol-grip below, and a stubby telescopic sight above.

   "Loads from a cassette, two hundred rounds," Donal
continued, and slid a long box through an opening just above the
buttplate. "Three-point-five-millimeter, but hypervelocity,
prefragmented tungsten slug, designers say it'll only come apart
in a soft target. Barrel's a refractory superalloy, an' it has a linin'
of single-crystal diamond."

   A smile. "They tryin' to use that fo' spaceships, thrust-plates,
but even in vacuum and micrograviry it's stone tricky. Thissere's
an intermediate use. Charge the first round by turnin' this knob
in a complete circle. The slide here sets cyclic rate, up to two
thousand rpm; at that, yo' gets a three-round groupin' less than
twenty-five-millimeter apart at eight hundred meters. Max
effective range bout' one thousand. Here," he continued,
unloading the weapon, "sight on somethin'."

   Fred took the weapon in his hands; it was superbly balanced,
although it felt a little odd to have the action right by his ear and
the grip halfway down the rifle. No heavier than the
Springfield-12's he had trained on, lighter than the IM
Holbars-Ts the Domination was using now. The sight lit as his
eye came into line, with the peculiar glassy brightness of
electro-optical imaging… and a red dot in the center of the field.
The Draka heard his surprised grunt.

   "Laser sightin'," he said. "Where it falls, there yo' hit.
Frequency filter in the sight, yo' can see it an' the target can't.
Adjusts fo' range, as yo' up the magnification."

   "Excellent, well take two," the American said calmly, fighting
down his glee. This was an advantage a Draka agent wouldn't
have anywhere in the Alliance.

  "Ah… I'm afraid they're six thousand Aurics each."

    He pretended a wince; quite a sum, by Draka standards. A
little more than the basic Citizen stipend. And a standard
low-skilled serf could be bought for a hundred and seventy-five.

   "Hmmm… well, yo' want the best, goin' after bushmen. They
do have rifles, aftah all. Yes, two. An' the usual; nightsight
goggles, some light body armor."

  "Well, the measurin'-rooms are this way—"



  "Jesus, I just can't believe it was that easy," Marya said.

   Her brother laughed, guiding the Bushmaster down the access
ramp and onto the road marked City Center. That tone meant
she had completed the sweep; the instruments in their
perscomps were swift and thorough. For the moment he felt
good, relaxed and strong and confident. The air rushing in
through the opened window was cool, smelling of brackish river
and warm asphalt pavement; the greenery and bright-colored
buildings of the freemen's city showed ahead.

  "No… Did you know, there was a time when you could get
guns like that back home?"

   The road was four-lane and raised on a five-meter
embankment, narrower than a limited-access route in the US;
more steamdrags, more buses, fewer private cars. And the
Domination used rail transport more than his people. A
checkerboard of streets was passing on either side, residential
from the look of them. Brick-built walkups, patterns of red and
white, an occasional square of decorative tile. Elite housing,
individual family apartments for the literate class of industrial
serf. Sidewalks, trees lining the streets. He could see the odd
building that looked like a church, others that might be schools
or stores… No, ration centers, the goods would be distributed
rather than sold. It might almost have been an older suburb of
an American city…

   Marya touched his arm. There was an iron cage hanging at
one of the intersections below, with a man in it, almost level with
them. The sign wired to the bars read saboteur, there was a
crowd of children gathered below, watching or throwing rocks.
At first he thought the man inside was dead— nothing so skeletal
could be alive—but then one of the stones bounced through the
bars and a stick-arm waved.

   "Shit," he said softly. Pictures were not like the real thing.
Something prickled at his eyes, and he turned them back into
the windstream as the car went past. His head just rotted on his
shoulders. He couldn't have been watching us.

   "You were saying?" Marya continued. He glanced aside at her:
flawlessly composed. Of course he couldn't see past the dark
sunglasses…

  "You're a cool one," he said.

   She turned her head to look at him, smiled. He felt a slight
chill wash away the nausea. "I'm saving it up," she said.

  "Yes… oh, the guns. Back before the War, you could buy
military-style rifles, handguns, the lot. The Constitution, you
know: 'A well-regulated militia…' the right-to-bear-arms clause."

   She frowned in puzzlement. "Oh, you mean the Army Reserve?
Well, even, these days, a lot of them keep the personal weapons
at home."

   "No, nothing to do with the military. Those are under seal and
inspected pretty often, anyway. Not just people in hunting clubs,
either. Anybody. Cheap pistols, sawed-off shotguns, the lot."

   She shook her head. "Live and learn… I know why the Draka
always carry iron, they want to be able to kill at any time. What
possible use could—" A shrug. "Never mind. Let's check in, and
then well start working magic on the hotel infosystem." She
pulled off the sunglasses and chewed meditatively on one
earpiece. "Because I suspect magic is what well need."




                CHAPTER NINE

   A tenth of the human race died in the years 1939-1946; after
the Eurasian War. the total population was barely 2,500,000, no
more than it had been in 1920. Growth in the postwar period
was quite slow, and unevenly distributed. In the Domination,
there were continuing decreases in the serf population of the
newly conquered territories until the late 1950s, due partly to
continuing partisan and guerrilla warfare, and partly to sheer
despair. As living standards improved and the memory of past
freedoms faded, growth recommenced at a modest level; this was
accompanied by a continuing geographical shift with China and
to a lesser extent Western Europe, Russia, and Central Asia/
Western Sibe-expansion was greatest in Iberia-Morocco, due to
the Herakulopolis project and In east-central Europe, Russia and
Central Asia/ Western Siberia. There was also a substantial
relocation of agricultural labor eastwards, especially to the vast
Irrigation developments of Central Asia. The Citizen population
of the Domination increased fairly rapidly in the postwar period,
from c. 40,000,000 In 1946 to approximately 60,000,000 by
1970; thereafter, growth was more rapid and the total
approached 110,000,000 by the mid 1990s. Much of the
Increase was in the new territories taken in the Eurasian War.

   In the Alliance the picture was much more complex. The
United States, after a brief postwar "blip," showed steady but
slow growth, tending to level off after the 1970s; totals reached
220,000,000 by 1995. There was also a steady shift from rural
to urban areas, and from the eastern and north-central to the
southern and western states. Mexico City, for example, went
from 1,000,000 in 1946 to 4,500,000 by 1990, causing severe
problems of housing and water supply; Los Angeles showed even
more remarkable growth, from 550,000 to 2,000,000 in the
same period. South America's growth was more rapid, but the
fall-off after 1970 more pronounced. In 1995, the four Nations of
the southern American continent totaled 230,000,000, larger
than the US for the first time, over half of those being in the
Empire of Brazil. Japan's gruesome war losses were never fully
replaced, and the island Nation stabilized at approximately
70,000,000 in the 1980s. Britain's population declined, and the
Australasian Federation increased. In dose synchronization;
equality (in the 40,000,000 range) was reached by 1990. The
most startling demographic change was the steep decreases in
birthrates in the Asian members of the Alliance; the Indonesian
and Indo-chinese Federations reached steady-state by the 1980s.
Tragic India continued to grow rapidly, reaching a peak of
300,000,000 In 1975; the casualties of the Incident and the
mass sterilizations and deportations which followed reduced this
to 200,000,000 and falling by 1995.

   The last factor to become significant In this era was the
creation of significant human populations off Earth, first in orbit
and on Luna, and then in the remainder of the Solar System.
Starting with a few hundred in 1965, growth was proportionately
extremely rapid, and by 1996 total resident population beyond
Earth's atmosphere reached perhaps 3,500,000-4,000,000, the
majority in the Earth-orbit/Luna complex, with the asteroid belt
following closely and Mars last. The remainder were outposts of
great future potential but limited size; of the extraterrestrial
settlements, the Domination accounted for approximately 60%
and the Alliance the remainder.
                                    World Population Geography
                          Alliance Post Secondary Standard Texts
                                              Ch. 1: An Overview
                                  Democracy Press, San Francisco
                                                            1997
HOTEL MIRABEAU,
MAMTES LOIRE DISTRICT,
TOURAIME PROVINCE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
APRIL 4, 1973


   God, that thing's ugly, Marya thought, looking at the
ghouloon. The transgene animal was big, for one thing, about
three times her brother's weight. Basically a giant dog-headed
baboon, four-footed most of the time but able to walk or sprint
on its hind legs. The thumbs on feet and hands were fully
opposable, and the forehead was high and rounded. The
biocontrollers of Virunga had started with Simien mountain
baboons, then added something from leopard and gorilla and
the jag hand… but there was more than an animal's intelligence
behind those eyes. Human genes as well, a mind that knew itself
to be aware and could think in words. It wore a belt, and a long
knife and pouch.

    They were in one of the dining courtyards of the hotel, out
under the mild midmoming sun; little fleecy clouds went by
overhead, like something out of a Fragonard painting. Her
brother and her and the Draka they had met: Alexandra
Clearmount, a woman in her thirties, nearly their own age: a
geneticist. The ghouloon was of the first "production batch." It
had attracted a good deal of attention, although Draka
considered it ill-bred to stare; the serfs were frankly terrified of
it.

   "… mass production," she was saying. "So costs ought to come
down pretty steadily. The War and Security Directorates've got
large orders in already."

   "They can be used in combat?" Fred sounded politely
skeptical. A waitress brought their platter of shrimp and
crudites.

   "Fo' some things. Not much technical aptitude, not intelligent
enough, but they'll make killer infantry. Eh, Wofor P." She
laughed and tossed a shrimp.

    The ghouloon caught it out of the air with one hand, holding
it between finger and thumb and sniffing curiously. Then he ate
it, exposing intimidating fangs, and a long pink tongue washed
the black muzzle. "Wofor good fighter," he said. The voice was
blurred but understandable. "Wofor brave. Wofor smart." He
slapped at his chest with his hands, a drumlike sound.

   For a moment Marya's eyes met the bronze-gold slit-pupiled
gaze of the transgene; she could see the lids blink, and the wet
black nose ruffle slightly to take her scent. Abomination, she
thought. That was what the Church taught, and for once she
agreed wholeheartedly. The Draka woman was talking to Fred
again, leaning forward with interest.

   Lucky, Marya thought. Lucky that they had stumbled on
someone heading for the Sologne forest-preserve. The
Conservancy Directorate usually rented out the hunting rights to
the smaller preserves to groups of neighboring Landholders, in
return for maintenance work. Very economical, but it made it
difficult for an outsider to get a permit, and Draka law and
custom were not easy on poachers. This Clearmount had
connections with the local planters—she might even be a
relative, Marya thought ironically—and could get them into a
hunting party. Even more lucky that she's interested in Fred
and not his sister. Not that she wasn't prepared to make the
supreme sacrifice, but… better him than me.

   Citizen sexual mores were a tricky subject. Their instructors
had gone into detail, tracing it back to child-rearing patterns…
One thing Draka had never been was puritans; sadomasochistic
hedonists, that was the term the psychs used. The boys had
concubines from puberty on, or casual sex with any serf woman
they wanted; that was a tradition dating back to their Caribbean
origins and beyond. Not many pious middle-class Protestants in
the bloodlines of this nation. Citizen women had been legally
barred from any contact with serf males until quite recently,
though, and it was still socially unacceptable. Given the
sex-segregated boarding schools, the Draka neoclassicism and
the near-total lack of erotic inhibition otherwise, she supposed a
tradition of homoeroticism was natural enough. For that matter,
young women generally wanted more romance in the mixture;
that didn't seem to hit men until true adulthood. So young Draka
women faced a perpetual shortage of interested men. Marya's
mouth quirked, remembering her own teenage years.

   I always suspected courtship was something adolescent
males put up with because it was the only way to get laid, she
thought. This more or less confirms it.

   Draka teenage boys got all they wanted, and tended to be
profoundly indifferent to females of their own caste, who could
say no. So girls were thrown back on each other; they were
supposed to grow out of it in their early twenties, theoretically.
Most did, to the extent of marrying and bearing children;
granted, there was really strong social pressure to do that, as
well. The agent grinned to herself. The Draka woman's come-on
to Fred had been disconcertingly blunt. That's logical, too. In the
Alliance countries sex was something that women had and men
wanted, and men had to conform to the indirect approaches
women preferred. Here, precisely the opposite.

   I wonder what hunting boar with a spear is like? she
thought meditatively.



SOLOGNE HUNTING PRESERVE
PROVINCE OF TOURAINE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
APRIL 10, 1973 1030 HOURS


   "Shit?" Myfwany said, reining in her horse. "What a complete
cockup!"

   Yolande nodded agreement, switching her reins to the
spear-hand and wiping her hair back from her forehead with the
other. The rain had given way to a steady drizzle, just enough to
keep them soaked and replenish the low mist drifting through
the trees. They had halted in a clearing, a hectare or so of
knee-high purple heather amid old-growth oak; the chill cut to
the bone beneath the leather and wool of their hunting clothes.
Discomfort could be ignored; they were also lost, which was
rather more frustrating. She reached for her hunting-horn and
blew, a dull rooo-rooo-rooo sound through the endless patter of
rain on leaf. The air was raw and full of the smell of marsh,
vegetable decay and wet horse.

   "Hear that?" she asked, standing in the stirrups and cupping
a hand to an ear. Their mounts stamped and blew, shaking their
heads in a jingle of bridle and bit. Beyond it, far and far, came
the belling of hounds.

  "Sa," Myfwany said, her head coming up. "Think they caught
the scent again?"

   "We can hope. C'mon, this way." The Sologne was a
half-million hectares of wilderness, but the keepers tended to the
paths at least.



SOLOGNE HUNTING PRESERVE
CHATEAU OF MOULIN
PROVINCE OF TOURAINE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
APRIL 4, 1973
1000 HOURS


   "Out!" the Security Tetrarch said. The serf flinched back from
the deadly quiet of the tone. "Yo' brainless slut, yo' supposed to
keep track of him!"

  Mei-ling swallowed and straightened. "Mistis, Mastah Dave
doan' like it, when we keeps him too close. We supposed to make
him happy, aren't we? Anyways, Bernadette with him."

   The greencoated secret police agent looked down at her
control board and keyed a sequence. "Then why isn't she carryin'
her transponder? Oh, hell." Another touch on the board.
"Decurion, turn out the ghoulooris, let's see them earn their
keep. No alarms, our little electronics wizard don't like the bars
of the cage showin'." She stood, shrugging into a waterproof
jacket. "Come on, wench. Show me where they might have gone."



   "Where the hell have yo' been?" Mandy asked, as Yolande and
Myfwany reined in. John looked up from overseeing the serf
huntsmen who were rigging the nets between the big beech
trees, waved, went back to work.

   "Where have we been?" Myfwany grinned and waved at the
surrounding forest. "Y'all were supposed to keep everyone in
sight or hearin' of the dogs. Fo' that matter, where the hell are
we now?"
   A faint shout came from the woods ahead. The trees were tall
here, thirty meters or more, but widely enough spaced that
patches of underbrush flourished, spiny thorn and witch hazel.
They all swung down, dropping their reins. Yolande swallowed
and took a firmer grip on her boar-spear; it was a head taller
than she, with an oval head as broad as her hand and a steel
crossbar beneath to prevent a tusker from driving itself up the
shaft to gore a hunter. The nets made a deep funnel, with them
at the apex… it was a slightly disconsolate feeling, as the servants
led the mounts away to safety.

   Damn, but I'm still light for this, she thought. No more than a
hundred fifty tall; strong for her weight, but wild pig had heft.
"Shut up, yo' crybaby," she whispered to herself under her
breath, inaudibly. Aloud:

   "Where are those citybred, the ones Alexandra picked up?"
There was a slightly patronizing note to her voice; the pair had
seemed nice enough, but she thought her cousin could do
better… and had been a little undiscriminating, since her
divorce. Oh, well, not everybody can find the right one, she
thought charitably, sparing a quick glance for Myfwany. They all
faced the gap in the net, spreading out to twice arm's length, just
close enough to give support. A horn blew ahead of them, and
John came trotting back towards them.

   "Don't know," Mandy said with a shrug. John stopped to give
her a brief hug before taking center position; Yolande noted how
they were almost of a height, now. Mandy's really filled out, she
thought, with a slight envy. I'm always going to be like a sylph
beside her. And it looked as if she might be a sister-in-law…

   "Alexandra lost track of them herself, an' said she was goin'
lookin'."

  "Shit. Oh, well, could be worse. Could be rainin'."

   The wind picked up, blowing into their faces, and the cold
drops came more thickly.

  Myfwany laughed. "Yo' had to say it, eh, sweetlin'?"
  "Sign!" John said sharply.

   They fell quiet, leveling their weapons in a two-handed grip.
The boarhound pack was in full cry not two hundred meters
ahead, and then there was an enraged squealing sound. The dogs
stopped. No fools they, Yolande thought, as the squeal sounded
again, closer. No way of telling which way the boar would go,
either. Wild pigs were omnivores, like people; much more likely
to go looking for trouble than a meat-eater like wolf or lion. She
stamped the rough-soled boots deeper into the slippery leaf mold
and emptied her mind, letting her vision flow. The tips of the
bushes quivered, against the wind.

  "He's breakin'," she called.

  " Got him," John said, grin white against his tan.

   He moved slightly forward from the line. The bushes tossed
again, and the pig came out. He stood motionless, three-quarters
on, watching them with tiny red eyes. The massive head was held
close to the ground, and the curved tusks stood up like daggers of
wet ivory. Bulky and bristling, the shoulders moved behind as
weight shifted from one cloven hoof to another. The pink snout
wrinkled as the animal tried to take their scent; an organic
battering-ram twice the weight of a heavy man, knife-armed,
faster than a horse and many times as intelligent. The dogs
bayed again, nearer; the shouts of the huntsmen ran beneath
that harsh music, and the sound of their horns racketed from the
trees. John leveled his spear and moved forward, dancer-light.

  "Come on, yo' ugly son-of-a-bitch," he crooned. "Get past me
and yo' home free. Come on."

   The boar seemed to sink lower against the wet grass and
heather of the forest edge. Then it moved, springing forward as if
shot from a catapult, stumpy legs churning the leaf mold, and
nose down to present nothing but weapon and heavy bone.
Yolande's breath caught as her brother took two swift strides
forward, poised the spear, thrust. Another squeal, louder, full of
pain and rage; blood bright under the wan sun, and John was
pushed back two bodylengths before he could brace the iron butt
of the boarspear against the ground. The animal stumbled, and
she could see its mouth wide open in a spray of blood and saliva;
then it went to its knees for a second, but the hind legs were still
pumping it forward. Mandy closed in to the side. Her spear
lifted, body and weapon a perfect X across raised arms, braced
legs. Yolande saw the point dip, then vanish into the boar's ribs
with a precise snapping thrust.

   "Hola!" Yolande cried, and saw her friend's rapt smile as she
and the man pushed the beast backward, still fighting. Words
formed in her mind; half-consciously she began to work them
into form. Arms together/blood and love—. "Ware!" Myfwany
shouted.

   Another boar had followed in the footsteps of the first; it
broke cover, grunted uncertainly at the scent of blood, then
angled around the struggle. Myfwany sidled off, and Yolande
moved away from her, closing the beast's escape-route. She could
see its eyes roll from one of them to the other, and a hoof pawed
at the ground. Is it a little smaller than the other one? she
thought. Maybe. Wotan, I hope so. Myfwany was beside her;
unthinkable to flinch. Yolande could feel the coiled vitality of it,
like raw flame. Then it was coming at her, bouncing off tensed
hindquarters, and there was no time for thought of anything.

   Keep low. From above a boar was all bone and leather and
gristle-armour over its vitals. She stooped, crouching, spear held
underhand. The ashwood shaft was smooth on the sharkskin
palms of her gloves, and the broad point seemed to follow a
scribed curve to the juncture of neck and shoulder.

   "Haaaaaaa!" she hawk-screamed, and the point bit. Then the
weight of it struck her through the leverage of the spear, and it
was like running into a wall at speed, like trying to stop a
steamcar. "Ufff!" she grunted, and found herself scrambling
backward. Then she went over on her tailbone, white pain
flowing warm-chill across the small of her back. The spearhead
was half-buried in the tough muscle and blood welled around it,
but the beast was pushing her backward with her backside
dragging, squealing ear-hurting shrill and hooking savagely at
her feet as they dangled within striking distance of the tusks.

   "Hold him, hold him!" Myfwany shouted, racing alongside
and trying to find a target for a lunge.

   "Yo' fuckin try it!" Yolande was half-conscious of screaming.

    The spearshaft wrenched her from side to side as the boar
lunged and twisted, it was as if she was on the end of a ruler
somebody was pounding against trees and dirt with negligent
flicks of the wrist. With a supreme effort she threw her weight
down on it, using the impetus to draw her feet back and up; the
tusk clipped her heel, sending her body sprawling sideways. At
the same instant the butt of the spear dug into the turf, caught
in the crook of a root. The boar staggered, squealed again as its
own momentum drove the razor-edged steel deeper into its body.
Instinct brought its head around, as it tried to gore this thing
that bit it. She could smell it, heavy and rank.

   Myfwany moved up beside her, throwing herself forward. The
wet metal gleam of her spearhead met the taut curve of the
animal's neck. The Draka went to her knees as jugular blood
spurted down over the bar of the weapon and along the shaft,
and the boar seemed to grow lighter. Yolande panted with a
sudden joint-loosening rush of unacknowledged terror as the
beast's death-tremor shuddered up the spear. It sprawled,
toppled over on its side; the little savage eyes grew misted. She
rose, feeling exhaustion and bruises for the first time, braced her
foot on the animal's body and tugged the spear free. There was
blood speckled on her lips, salt-tasting.

  "Wuff." Yolande leaned on the spear and hugged Myfwany
one-armed. "Wuff!" Her friend returned the embrace.

   "Yo' had me frightened for a moment, there, Yolande-sweet,"
she said.

   "I had me frightened," Yolande replied, laughing with relief.
Suddenly she broke free with a whoop and tossed the spear up
into the air, then rammed it point-first in the earth and kissed
the other heartily. "Makes yo' feel alive, don't it?" she asked,
when they broke free. She looked over to her brother. "Shouldn't
we be about findin' the others? I could use a nice long soak an'
dinner in front of the fire."
   Frederick Lefarge swung a hand behind himself, palm-down.
Stop. Marya halted, then eased forward to follow the pointing
muzzle of his assault rifle.

   Ah, she thought. Barely perceptible at waist-height, a line of
light. Laser light, only showing because of the mist; modern
systems were selective enough to take that and not trip until
interrupted by something more substantial. And beyond that at
ankle height a camouflaged sensor clipped to a tree,
capacitordetector. She went to one knee and swung her
backpack around before her; it had been her responsibility to
come ahead and cache their equipment. Not difficult to "lose"
themselves in the woods, not when everyone else was following
the sound of the dogs.

   This would be the difficult part. She stripped off her gloves
and flexed her fingers to limber them before assembling the
apparatus. A light-metal frame to hold the clamps, so. Close the
circles of wire around the beams, so. Her finger hesitated on the
switch, then pressed. A modest green light flashed once on the
black-box governor. Marya exhaled shakily, letting her palms
rest on the cold damp leaves. She looked up, and the cold drizzle
was grateful on her cheeks.

   Her brother slapped her once on the shoulder, and they
nodded. Marya caught up her rifle and followed as he hurdled
the gap in the sensor chain she had created.



   The two OSS agents froze in unison at the hoarse cries from
the path ahead. Then voices, a man and a woman's, laughing.
These woods were more open than those outside the guarded
perimeter; they had had to halt half a dozen times to identify
and disarm sensors. Marya slowly drew a map from a pocket on
the side of her leather hunting-trousers and glanced at it,
nodded to the other American. They were right on target… if the
information they had received from the underground was
correct. If not, there might be nothing waiting for them but a
Security Directorate capture team.

   Frederick Lefarge stepped through the last screen of brush.
The rain had stopped, but there were puddles on the flagstones
of the pathway; beyond it he could see banks of flowers, and then
a screen of hedge marking a pavilion. It was obvious enough
what the pair had been at; the woman had mud on her knees
and was still adjusting her underwear, the man fastening his
belt. For a moment Lefarge felt a surge of panic; this did not look
like David Ekstein. Too thin, too tanned, the complexion too
clear… then the bone-structure showed through. The other man's
face was liquid with surprise as he stared at the two figures in
hunting leathers.

   "Hey," he said, drawing himself up. "This is my place!" A
neutral Califonian accent. Then, as if remembering a lesson: "Uh,
Service to the State, Citizens."

  Lefarge felt himself smile, and saw the other man flinch.

  "Glory to the Race," he said, and the smile grew into a grin.

   The serf girl nodded to the two agents, then stepped back. He
stepped up to Ekstein, pushed the muzzle of the rifle into the
defector's stomach and fired twice. Recoil hammered the weapon
into his hand, augmented by the gases cushioned in flesh.
Ekstein catapulted backward, jackknifing, the leather of his
jacket smouldering. Back and spine fountained out in a spray of
bone, blood, and internal organs; the air stank of burned flesh
and excrement. The body fell to the earth and twitched, was still.

   So simple, he thought. Always a surprise. So different from
the viewer, rarely any dramatic thrashing around, no last-gasp
curses, not with a wound like this. The body fell down and died,
and it was over. A whole universe within a human skull, and then
nothing. Jesus, I hate this job. It was done. Now they must
escape; the easy way, if they could get back to the hunting party,
or the hard way, switching identities and oozing out through the
underground net.

  "Merci." That was the serf woman. "Et moi aussi."
  "What?" he said sharply in French, looking up. She was
young, barely in her late teens; cool brunette good looks, face
unreadable as she looked down into Ekstein's final expression of
bewilderment.

   "Now me," she said, looking up at him. "Surely you were told,
monsieur? If you do not I must contrive it, and they will suspect
everyone if I suicide. Most are blameless—I am the underground
contact here—but that will not spare them interrogation, and I
know too much."

  He felt his mouth open, and the muzzle of the rifle drooped.
"Merde! Nobody said a word about that to us!"

   She swallowed, and he saw a slight tremor in the hands that
smoothed back her disordered hair. "Please, quickly." She turned
her back, looked up into the wet sky with fists clenched by her
side. "There is not much time before he is missed."

  "I—" Lefarge felt himself lock. There was white noise in his
mind, caught between must and cannot. Marya stepped past
him, with a soft touch on his arm.

   "As you wish," she said to the serf girl, an infinite tenderness
in her voice. "As you wish."



  "I wish we hadn't had to drop the rifles," Marya said. The rain
was lifting, finally this time by the rifts in the clouds. Their
horses had been waiting where they were left, damp and restless
and turning large brown eyes full of reproach on the humans.

   Frederick Lefarge shrugged, guiding the big animal with the
pressure of his knees; Draka used a pad -saddle and an almost
token bit. It would be like carrying a "guilty" sign to have the
weapons when the police came around. Not that either of them
could stand a close questioning, but if they could slip back into
the hunting party… They walked the mounts out into the open;
out of the continual patter of moisture from the wet canopy
above, but the air was colder where the wind could play. Six cars,
parked along the verge. Two big steamtrucks for the horses and
dogs, two vans for the huntsmen, two tilt-rotor dual-purpose
jobs for the people… Draka, he told himself. Don't get too much
in character.

   The tall fair teenager was leaning against the open door of one
aircar: Mandy, the just-graduated pilot. And his Draka persona's
lady-love, Alexandra, supervising the loading of two dead boar;
her ghouloon attendant lifted one under each arm and slung
them casually into the bed of the truck. The van jounced on its
springs under the impact, and the American felt a slight
crawling sensation across his shoulders and down the spine.
That things as strong as a gorilla, he reminded himself. Rather
stronger, in fact, and much faster. It snuffled at its hands, licking
away the blood and turned to its owner; standing erect it was
easily two meters tall.

   "Eat?" it said, in that blurred gravelly tone. "Eat?"

   Alexandra laughed and slapped it on one massive shoulder.
The sound was like a palm hitting oak wood. "Later," she said,
and the transgene bobbed its head in obedience, tongue lolling
and eyes turning longingly toward the meat; drops of rain spilled
from the coarse black fur of its lionlike mane.

   He turned a grimace into a smile as she looked up at him and
waved. It would not do to appear unenthusiastic. Actually, it had
been interesting, at least the sex had. That was like coupling
with a demented anaconda. The smile turned into a rueful
chuckle; it was also the first time he had been called "charmingly
shy" in bed.

  "Hiyo!" he called, as he and Marya handed their boarspears
down to the servants. "Sorry we got separated."

   "Whole damn party did, Toni," Alexandra said. "John's out
gatherin' them all up, with Yolande and her girlfriend. Ah'm
gettin' hungry as Wofor."

   "Wofor eat," the ghouloon said.

  "I—" Mandy began, and was interrupted by a chiming note.
She leaned in to take the microphone of the aircar's com unit.
"Wonder what the headhunters're sayin'?" she said curiously.

   The American felt a sensation like an ice-drill boring through
the bottom of his stomach. That was the Security-override
alarm. Casually, he whistled the first bar of "Dixie," the
code-signal. Marya swung down from her horse and turned
toward the aircar; he slid the pistol from his gunbelt and
checked it. A late-model Tolgren, 5mm prefragmented bullets,
caseless ammunition and a 30-round horizontal cassette
magazine above the barrel. He slipped the selector to
three-rounds and set the positions of the Draka in his mind. The
youngster leaning into the lead aircar. Alexandra ten meters
back, by the steamtruck. The serfs could be ignored, they would
hit the ground at the first sign of violence and stay there.

   "Not bushman trouble 'round here?" he said, with a skeptical
tone.

   "Gods, no," Alexandra replied. Her hand had gone to the butt
of her sidearm automatically, but it dropped away again as she
twisted around to look toward Mandy. "I's born not a hundred
clicks from here."—news to me, the American thought—"and the
last incident was the year I born."

   Time went rubbery, stretching. His body felt light, almost like
zero-G, every movement achingly precise, the outlines of things
cut in crystal. Mandy was speaking again.

  "Oh, moo. Some sort of escape or somethin' from a
head-hunter facility. Everyone's to stay put an' report movement
until further notice. Eurg, mo' waitin' in the rain."

   "Damn," the American said. "And I's real anxious to get out of
here."

    Wofor gave a growl, and Alexandra began to run back, a
casual movement that turned blinding-fast as her peripheral
vision caught the muzzle of his Tolgren. Even then, it cleared the
holster before the flat brak of his weapon stitched a line of
fist-sized craters from breastbone to throat. Falling, she was
falling away in a mist of blood and roar the ghouloon leapt from
the rear of the steamtruck, its great hands outstretched and jaws
opened to nearly ninety degrees. Flying toward him, the huge
white-and-red gape, and two pistols fired in the background and
he was levering himself backward off the horse. Inertia fought
him like water in the simulator tank, back at the Academy. Then
he was toppling, kicking his foot free of the stirrup.

    The horse shied violently at the ghouloon's roar and the crack
of the firearms, enough to throw him a dozen paces further as he
fell. Damp gravel pounded into his back, jarring, but he scarcely
noticed. Not when the the transgene struck the horse at the end
of its flight; the big gelding went over with a scream of fear, and
for a moment the two animals were a thrashing pile on the
surface of the road. Just long enough to flick the selector on his
pistol to full-automatic and brace it with both hands. Wofor rose
over the prostrate body of the horse, looming like a black
mountain of muscle and fur, yellow eyes and bone-spike teeth.

   Even with a muzzle brake, the Tolgren was difficult to control
on full-automatic. The American solved the problem by starting
low enough that the first round shattered a knee and letting the
torque empty the magazine upward into the transgene's center
of mass. Wofor's own weight slewed him around when the knee
buckled, and the massive animal slammed into the ground at
full-tilt, a diagonal line across his torso sawn open by the
shrapnel effect of the prefragmented bullets. The earth shook
with the impact. Lefarge yelled relief as the pistol emptied itself,
screamed again as the ghouloon's one good hand clamped on his
ankle. Dying, it still gripped like a pneumatic press, crushing the
bone beneath the boot leather and dragging his leg toward the
open jaws. The human twisted, raised his other leg and hacked
down on the transgene's thumb with the metal-shod heel of the
boot; once, twice and then there was a crackling sound. He
rolled, pulled free, came to his feet with a stab of pain up the
injured limb.

  Boot will hold it, he thought with savage concentration, as his
hands slapped another cassette into the weapon.

   Marya was running down the line of cars; the blond Draka lay
on the ground, her hands to her belly. Lefarge hobbled forward,
felt a stab of concern at the spreading red stain on the side of his
sister's jacket.

    "Just a graze, first car in the row, go, go, go," she shouted. At
each car she paused just long enough to pump three rounds into
the communicator; even so, she was in time to help him into the
first as he hop-stepped to safety.

   "Let's go," he snarled, wrenching at the controls as she
tumbled through the entrance on the other side. The turbines
shrieked and the aircar rose on fan-thrust, just high enough to
clear the treetops before he rammed the throttles forward. The
SD would not shoot down a planter's car, not until they got
confirmation, and Marya had delayed that a vital fifteen
minutes. At worst, a clean death when a heatseeker blew their
craft out of the sky; at best, they would make it.

   "We did it," he breathed. Something slackened in the center
of his body, and pain shot up the leg from the savaged ankle.

  "We—did," Marya replied. She was fumbling in the first-aid
box. "We… did."



   "I didn't know that," Yolande said, looking down at the body
of her cousin.

   The eyes stared empty upwards into the rain, and the steady
silver fall washed the blood pale-pink out of the sodden cloth.
The ambulance took off with a scream of fans; Mandy would be
in that, and John riding beside her. Myfwany put an arm about
her shoulders.

  "Yo' couldn't, sweet," she said. "Iff'n Alexandra couldn't tell,
how could yo'? Y' hardly met them."

   "Oh?" Yolande shook her head, and indicated the ghouloon;
Wofor was not quite dead, though far beyond help. He had
crawled the ten yards from the broken-backed horse with one
good arm and one leg, trailing the shattered limbs and most of
his blood. Now he lay with his head at Alexandra's feet, and
Yolande crouched to shelter his head from the rain.
    "Not that," she said softly, as the last trickle of sound escaped
the fanged mouth and the labored breathing stopped. Her hand
indicated the ghouloon, touched its muzzle. A bubble of blood
burst at the back of its throat. "I didn't know these could cry, is
all."




                   CHAPTER TEN

   Draka serfdom is legally a rather severe form of chattel
slavery, much like that of Classical times, except that there is no
manumission. In terms of institutional history it descends from
the plantation system of the Caribbean and the southern
portions of the 13 Colonies, as absolute a system of bondage as
any. However, there is slavery and slavery; slave status is a
different thing in a society where the institution is rare and
marginal than in one where it is nearly universal. In the
Domination, over 93% of the total population are serfs; serfs
labor in immense numbers as fieldhands, miners, factory
workers, and domestic servants. But they also work as soldiers
and police, foremen and boss-boys, machinists and clerks and
bureaucrats. Existence in a mine compound can be very grim;
plantation life depends on the whim of the owner, but is tied to
the seasons and their demands as in any unmechanized farming
system; domestic service is absolute personal subordination. The
bulk of the urban working class have seen a slow improvement in
their conditions since the Eurasian War—families now have
rooms of their own, rather than bunks in a barracks, for
example—but their work is long and their lives monotonous and
closely disciplined, more by serf administrators than by the
Citizens themselves. Their world is one of impersonal
bureaucratic regulation.

   For the ambitious or lucky there is the possibility of
advancement in the military, the police, the technical and
administrative services of the Combines or the State. Bright
young men and women are picked out and educated, and those
already at the top of the heap make strenuous efforts to see that
their children do likewise. The rewards are great more
interesting work and shorter hours, leisure, power. The top
echelons enjoy a living standard comparable to the wealthy of
the Alliance countries if not to the Citizens: large homes, privacy,
even servants. Of course, the unsleeping gaze of the Security
Directorate rests on them more closely than any others, and a
single slip can mean death.
            The Mind of the Draka: A Military Cultural Analysis
            Monograph delivered by Commodore Aguilar Emaldo
                    U.S. naval War College, Manila 11th Alliance
                                   Strategic Studies Conference
                                                Subic Bay, 1972



NEW YORK CITY
FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
DECEMBER 31, 1975


  "Should auld acquaintance be forgoooot—"

    "I hate that bloody song," Frederick Lefarge muttered, taking
another sip of his drink. The room was hazy with smoke, and
flickering light and music came through the door from the
dance-floor; the room smelled of tobacco and beer. More and
more of the patrons at the bar were linking arms and swaying,
attempting a Scottish accent as they sang.

  It reminds me of Andy. Forget that.

   O'Grady's was supposed to be picturesque, a real Old New
York hangout and Irish as all hell. The wainscotting was dark
oak, and the walls of the booths were padded in dark leather as
well; there were hunting prints on the walls, and landscapes. It
was crowded as all hell tonight, and noisy, but Cindy had swung
a private booth just for them; some noncom friend of her dad's
ran the place. The food was better than passable, and the sides of
the booth made conversation possible. There was a viewscreen
on the opposite wall, showing the crowds outside in Jefferson
Square, and the big display clock on the Hartmann Tower. Ten
minutes to midnight, and the screen began flashing between
views. Different cities all over the Alliance, Sao Paulo, London,
Djakarta, Sydney. The Lunar colonies—they could almost be
called cities themselves, now—and the cramped corridors of the
asteroid settlements. A shot from low orbit, the great curve of
Earth rolling blue and lovely.

   "Don't be such a grouch, honey," Cindy said, and nibbled at
his ear. Lefarge laughed and put an arm around her waist,
always a pleasant experience. "You were happy enough after
dinner."

  "There were just the two of us then," he said.

  "Grrr, tiger!" Another nibble on his ear. "And I've got some
news for you, darling."

  "What?" he asked, raising the glass to his lips.

   Cindy Guzman had had only two glasses of white wine with
seltzer, but there was a gleam in her eye he knew of old. She was
sitting in a corner of the booth, looking cool and chic in the long
black dress with the pearl-and-gold belt. Her legs were curled up
under her; the glossy dark-red hair fell in waves over her
shoulder, and the diamond-shaped cutout below the yoke neck
showed the uppper curve of her breasts. The glass in his hand
halted and he sat motionless, utterly contented just to look. She
gave off an air of… wholesomeness, he thought. Which was
strange, you expected that word to go along with some
thick-ankled corn-fed maiden from the boonies, not the brightest
and sexiest woman he had ever known. It was like a draught of
cool water, like… coming home.

   "Miss?" Lefarge started slightly. It was old Terrance Gilbert,
the proprietor, a CPO on one of Cindy's dad's pigboats, back
when. He gave the young woman a look of fond pride, and
Lefarge one of grudging approval. "Will there be anything else,
Miss?"

  "Not right now, Chief," Cindy said. "Happy New Year."

  "And to you, Miss. Sir." Lefarge was in uniform tonight, the
Major's leaves on his shoulders; the owner nodded before he
disappeared into the throng.

  "Finish your drink, darling," Cindy said.

  He sipped. "What was the news, honey?" he asked.

  "I'm pregnant."

   He coughed, sending a spray of brandy out his nose; Cindy
thumped him on the back with one hand and offered a
handkerchief with the other.

  "The devil you say!"

   "Dr. Elaine's sure," she said tranquilly. "Aren't you happy? We
will have to move up the wedding, of course."

   She flowed into his arms, and they kissed. Noise and smoke
vanished; so did time, until someone blew a tin horn into his ear.
Cindy and he broke from their clinch and turned, he scowling
and she laughing. It was Marya and her current boyfriend—
cursed if I can remember his name… yeah, Steve. Wish she'd
pick a steady—in party hats and a dusting of confetti.

   "It isn't 2400 yet," Marya said, sliding into the other side of
the booth. Her face was flushed, but only he could have told she
bad been drinking; there was no slur in her voice, and the
movements were quick and graceful.

   She's a damned attractive woman, Lefarge thought. In a
strong-featured athletic way, but there were plenty of men who
liked that. Plenty who liked her intelligence and sardonic humor,
as well, but she seemed to sheer off from anything lasting. Hell,
this isn't the time to worry.

   They all turned to watch the screen again; it was coming
around to time for the countdown to midnight. It blanked, and
there was a roar of protest from the crowd, redoubled when an
NFS newscaster appeared. Sheila Gilbert, he remembered;
something of a star of serious news analysis, a hook-nosed
woman with a patented smile. She looked… frightened out of her
wits, he thought suddenly. And it took something fairly hairy to
do that to a professional like Gilbert. There was a sudden feeling
like a trickle of ice down his stomach to his crotch: fear. Lefarge
and Marya glanced at each other and back at the screen.

  "… President Gupta Rao of the Progressive Party has
committed suicide."

  "Shit!" Lefarge whispered.

   "I repeat, the President of the Indian Republic has shot
himself; the body was found in his office only two hours ago. The
suicide note contains a confession, confirmed by other sources in
the Indian capital…" More shouting from the customers, but less
noisy; Lefarge strained to hear, and then the volume went up.
"… Hindi Raj militants have documentary proof that OSS agents
were responsible for planting the information which led to the
Hamburger Scandal and the disgrace of late Presidential
candidate Rashidi. Riots have been reported in Allahabad and
—"

   It was a full ten seconds before Lefarge felt Cindy's tugging on
his arm. Gently, he laid a finger over her mouth and looked at his
sister.

  "We'd better —"

   "Attention!" The civil-defense signal came on the viewer,
cutting into the newscast. "Alliance Defense Forces
announcement. All military personnel Category Seven and
above please report to your duty stations. I repeat—"


DRAKA FORCES BASE ANTINOOUS
PROVINCE OF BACTRIA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
JANUARY 14, 1976
1500 HOURS


  " Tent-hut!"

  The briefing room was in the oldest section of the base; built
fifty years before, when this had been part of newly-conquered
northern Afghanistan. Built for biplanes, ground-support craft
dropping fragmentation bombs and poisongas on the last
badmashi rebels in the hills, when the Janissary riflemen had
flushed them out. Yolande blinked at the thought: two
generations… her own parents squalling infants, way down in the
Old Territories. Her birthplace still outside the Domination… A
few banners and trophies on the walls, otherwise plain
whitewash and brown tile.

   Fifty years from biplanes to the planets, Yolande thought as
she saluted. Not bad.

  "Service to the State!"

  "Glory to the Race." A crisp chorus from every throat.

  "At ease." The hundred-odd pilots sank back into their chairs.

    The hooting of the wind came faintly through the thick
concrete walls, and the air was crackling dry. There was very
little outside that you would want to see. Pancake-flat irrigated
farmland hereabouts, near the Amu Darya, and the climate was
nearly Siberian in winter; even more of a backwater than Italy,
unless you were interested in archaeology. The hunting was not
bad, some tiger in the marshes along the river, and snow leopard
in the mountains. Quite beautiful up there, in an awesome sort
of way; the Hindu Kush made the Alps look like pimples.
Otherwise nothing to do but fly and study, almost like being back
at the Academy. She and Myfwany had both passed their
Astronautical Institute finals last month, and could expect
transfer soon. Now that would be something…

  "The balloon's going up day after tomorrow."

   The squadron-commander grinned at them with genial
savagery. Her nickname among the pilots was Mother Kali, and
not without reason. There was a collective rustle of attention.
Yolande felt a lurch below the breastbone, and reached out to
squeeze her lover's hand.

  "Here's the basic situation." The wall behind her lit with a
map of the Indian subcontinent; the Domination flanked it to
the north and west, the Indian Ocean and the ancient Draka
possession of Ceylon to the south.

   "The Indians pulled out of the Alliance last week, aftah the
headhunters revealed the little nasty the Alliance OSS pulled on
they last election… but it's almighty confused. Burma—" an area
in the lower right corner shaded from white to
gray—"counterseceded back to the Alliance, and there was
fightin' in Rangoon. Alliance seems to have won, worse luck.
We've stayed conspicuously peaceful,"—a snicker of laughter ran
through the room—"which put the secessionists firmly in power
in New Delhi. Just long enough fo' the ground an' air units the
Indians were contributin' to the Alliance to transfer their
allegiance to the new Indian Republic, but not long enough fo'
them to settle their share of the orbital assets. We've recognized
the new government, an' they've reciprocated. Nice of them."

   Another wave of chuckles. "Which means as of the present,
everybody has recognized the new government as sovereign.
But," The squadron commander tapped her pointer into a gloved
hand. "But, the Alliance hasn't yet signed a defense treaty with
the Republic, which has no credible nuclear strike force or
defenses. We've got a window of opportunity; now we're goin'
jump through, shootin'. Calculation is that the Alliance will run
around screamin' and shoutin' and do fuck-all fo' the week or so
we need to overrun India. We'll carefully avoid any provocation
elsewhere, or in space. Now, befo' I proceed to the tactical
situation, any questions?"

  "Ma'am?" A man's voice, from the seat on the other side of
Myfwany.

   Yolande turned to look at him. Pilot Officer Timothy
Wellington; a slim man of middle height, with a conservative
side-crop and a seal-brown mustache, a jaunty white scarf
tucked into his black flight-overall. She gritted her teeth and
fought back a flush. Not that he was a bad sort. City boy, from
Peking; knowledgeable about the visual arts, worth talking to on
poetry. She had even quite enjoyed the several occasions when
Myfwany had invited him over for the night. I just wish he'd
learn not to presume on acquaintance, she thought. Also that
Myfwany would slap him down more often. He had been
hanging around entirely too much lately.

   "What if the Alliance treat it as an attack on they own
territory?" Wellington said.

  The commander shrugged. "Everybody dies," she answered.
"Any other questions?"

   He sat down and leaned over to whisper in Myfwany's ear; she
turned a laugh into a cough. Yolande keyed her notebook and
poised to record, elbowing her friend surreptitiously in the ribs.
This is important.

   "Our role will be to interdict the medium-high altitudes.
We're doin' this invasion from a standin' start, can't mobilize
without scaring the prey back into the Yankee camp. We expect
the Alliance to continue feedin' the Indians operational
intelligence. No way we can complain of that as hostile activity.
Our preliminary sweep will be—"



   "Woof!" Myfwany said, as they cleared the doorway. "And to
think, only yesterday I was complainin' on how dull everythin' is
around here!"

   Yolande nodded, standing closer for the comfort of
body-warmth. "Some of that schedulin' looks tricky; we're
dependin' hard-like on the groundpounders takin' the forward
bases."

    She stretched. "Well, let's go catch dinner." Their squadron
had always been theoretically tasked with neutralizing Alliance
turboram assets in India… in the Final War nobody had been
expecting. This won't be the Final, she told herself firmly.
Images of thermonuclear fire blossoming across Claestum
painted themselves on the inside of her eyelids, and she shivered
slightly. Nobody's that crazy, not even us. I hope.

  "Ah—" Myfwany hesitated, then leaned against the corridor
wall. "Ah, actually, sweetlin', Tim sort of invited me ovah to his
quarters fo' the evenin' and night. Yo' don't mind do yo'?"

  "Oh." Yolanda swallowed. A pulse beat in her neck. "Mmmm,
was I included in the invite?"

  "I'm sure Tim wouldn't mind 'tall iff'n yo' wants to , sweet."

  "I——" Yolanda looked aside for a moment. "Let's go then."



CENTRAL INDIAN FRONT
15,000 METERS
JANUARY 16, 1976
1400 HOURS


    "Shitshitshit," Yolande muttered to herself. Myself and the
flight recorder, thought some remote corner of her mind.

   The canopy of the Falcon VI-a went black above her for an
instant. Automatic shielding against optical-frequency lasers—
the Alliance platforms in LEO had decided that that did not
constitute intervention, and all the Draka orbital battlestations
could do was to respond in kind. She banked, and acceleration
slammed her against the edge of the clamshell, vision graying.
The Indian P-70 was still dodging, banking; they were at Mach
3, and if he went over the border into Alliance airspace the
battlestations would not let him back in. There was no way to
dodge orbital free-electron lasers; they could slash you out of the
sky in seconds… as the Alliance platforms would do to her if she
followed the Indian too far.

  "Bing!" Positive lock on her Skorpion AAM.

   "Away!" she barked. The computer fired, and the Falcon
shuddered, on the verge of tumbling as the brief change in
airflow struck. The canopy cleared, and she had a glimpse of the
missile streaking away. Then her fingers were moving on the
pressure pads; cut thrust, bank-turn-dive, and the red line on the
console map coming closer and closer. Closer, too close.
  The squadron override sounded. "Ingolfsson, watch it."

   "I am, I am," she grunted, feeling the aircraft judder. Blood
surged under the centrifugal pull, and she could feel a sudden
sharp pain at the corner of one eye, a warm trickle; a bloodvessel
had burst. Fuckin insane, these things aren't designed for this
limited airspace. Like playing tackleball on a field of frictionless
ice, with instant cremation the penalty for touching the sides. A
turboram could cross India from edge to edge in thirty seconds
or less.

  The calm voice of the machine. "Impact on target. Kill."

   There was no time even for exultation. "Myfwany, yo' pickin'
up anythin'?"

   "Not in our envelope." Her voice was adrenaline-hoarse. "Yo'
gettin' too low, 'Landa."

  "Tell me."

   The edges of the wing-body were starting to glow cherry-red,
and the sensors told the same story. ionization was fouling up
her electrodetectors, too; she might be too fast for the
low-altitude turbojet fighters, but anything optimized for the
thicker layers that happened to be in the right position would eat
her.

  "Come on, yo' cow," she muttered to the aircraft. "Up we go."

   The ground was shockingly close, and she was still far too
fast. All right, double Immelman and up. Her fingers cut thrust,
and the aircraft flipped. C-force snapped her head back, and for
an instant she was staring at the maplike view of the
subcontinent below. A point of blue-white light blinked against
the brown-green land, and the console confirmed it. .5 kiloton. A
blast of charged particles. Radiation bomb. A nuke warhead
designed to maximize personnel damage, wouldn't want to mess
up the new property, d shitfire I'm glad I'm not down there…

  Pulling up, six G's, seven. Nose to the sky, open throttle and
here we go, fangs out and hair on fire, heeeeeeee-aaaaah. Feed
thrust, overmax; speed bottoming out at Mach 1.7 and climbing,
2.1, 2.2, 2.8. The screens showed Myfwany closing in to wing
guard position. And—damn. The canopy went black. Petty. Very
petty.

   The squadron commander broke in again. "No bogies, I
repeat, no bogies our quadrant. Good work. Check fungibles."

   Her eyes went back to the console. "Fuel .17, no Skorpions.
Full 30mm drums." Close combat was proving to be something
of an anachronism.

   "All MK units, all MK units, squadron is cleared fo' alternate
E-17, mark an' acknowledge."

   The exterior temperatures were not falling the way they
should; they must be tweaking the laser up there. Yolande spared
a moment's snarl for the invulnerable enemies above. Your day
will come, pigs. E-17 came up on the landscape director, down
by her left knee; northern Punjab, enemy base. Status showed
heavily watered runways, fires, no actual fighting and low
radiation count, but massive damage to the facilities. No
runways, vertical landing, she thought unhappily. Which meant
no takeoff at all, until the unit support caught up with them;
that would burn the last of the fuel. The follow-up waves would
be using their base back in Bactria, logical but unpleasant.

   "All MK, take yo' birds in," the commander's voice continued.

   Yolande felt a vast stomach-loosening rush of relief, and
pushed it back with a savage effort. "It isn't ovah 'till it's ovah,"
she told herself. Aloud: "Acknowledged."



   "CRACK."

   Marya Lefarge threw herself flat and rolled, over the edge of
the wall. The ditch was two meters down, but soft mud. She
leopard-crawled, did a sprint and forward roll over a bank of
shrubs, fell to her belly again, rolled down a short slope and
raised her pencil-periscope to look back. Smoke, smoke rising
against the far blue-white line of the Himalayas that towered
over the Punjab plains. Sunset already beginning to tinge the
snowpeaks with crimson. The line of the retaining wall, and…
helmets. Enemy, ridged fore-and-aft and with two short
antennae at the rear. Their IV and millimetric scanners would be
looking for movement, for human-band temperature points.

    Two Draka troopers had vaulted down from the terrace. The
building above it had been the HQ offices of Chandragupta Base;
now it was burning rubble, after the cluster-shell hits. The
troopers were bulky and sexless, visored helmets and articulated
cermet armor; they went to their stomachs and scanned back
and forth across the flat runway before them. Nothing moved on
it, nothing except the smoke and flames from smashed aircraft
that had been caught on launch; one had gotten into the air
before the homing missile hit, and its ruins sprawled across half
a kilometer. The air was heavy with the oily smell of burning fuel
and scorched earth.

   There were smashed revetment-hangars across the way.
Something was moving there. A trio of low beetling shapes
moved out onto the pavement, their gun-pods swiveling; light
tanks. The two Draka infantrymen rose and trotted towards
them, and more followed over the retaining wall. They moved
with impressive ease under their burdens of armor and
equipment, spreading out into a dispersed formation. Good,
Marya thought. They'll be concentrating on the link up. She
waited a hundred heartbeats, then a hundred more. Waiting was
the worst. Running and shooting you didn't have time to be
frightened… Mission first, she reminded herself. A bollixed-up
mission to save remnants from the worst disaster in decades;
there was data in the base computers which must not be allowed
into enemy hands.

   Marya rose into a crouch. She was wearing a standard
Alliance base-personnel grey coverall, with Indian markings.
That fitted her cover identity; the bomblet launcher in her hands
did not… Runway to her left and rear, hectares of it, swarming
with enemy troops now. HQ complex ahead, and she would just
have to take her chances. A deep breath, and now. She sprinted
back along her path, leapt, caught the lip of the wall and rolled
over it. Nothing on the way back, nothing but a steamcar in the
middle of the gardens, bullet-riddled and… not empty. A body
lying half-out the driver's door, a pistol in one hand. She moved
quickly from one cover to the next, feeling lungs hot and taut
despite the dry-season cool of the air.

   In through the front doors, and there were more bodies,
enough to make the air heavy with the burnt-pork-and-shit stink
of close combat. Past the front offices, and the light-level sank to
a dim gloom, shadows moving with uneven flamelight. She
stopped in a doorway long enough to pull the filter over her nose
and mouth, then froze. Steps coming down the hall, booted feet.

   Sorry if you're a friendly, she thought, and plunged out into
the corridor with her finger already tightening.

   Schoop. The launcher kicked against her shoulder, and the
35mm projectile was on its way as the Draka assault rifle came
up. Marya went boneless and dropped, as the round impacted on
the center of the soldier's breastplate. That was a
ceramic-fiber-metal-synthetic sandwich… but her bomblet was
shaped-charge. The finger of superheated plasma speared
through the armor, through vaporizing flesh, splashed against
the backplate. Body fluids turned to steam and blew outwards
through the soft resistance. Marya threw herself upright and ran
forward; she tried to leap the corpse and the spreading puddle
around it, but her boots went tack-tack on the linoleum for a
minute afterwards.

   Nothing moved as she tracked through towards the command
center. Critical window, she thought; the moments between the
assault-landing and the arrival of the Intelligence teams. Soldiers
had a natural preference for dealing with the things that might
shoot back at them, and so might leave an area already swept
lightly guarded. She turned another corridor, came to a
makeshift barricade. The bodies beyond were Indian, a scratch
squad of office workers and one perimeter guard in infantry kit;
they bore no wounds, but lay as if they had died in convulsions.
Marya's skin itched, as if insects were crawling under it. Contact
nerve agent, she thought, and put an antidote tab between her
back teeth. That might work…
   The stairs that led down into the control center were ahead. It
would be guarded, but… She turned aside, into an office. It was
empty, with a cup of tea still on the desk and the screen of the
terminal flickering, as if the occupant— Ranjit Singh, from the
nameplate on the door—might return any second. A quick
wrench with her knife opened the ventilation shaft. The
American pulled a pair of lightmag goggles out of a pocket and
slipped them over her head. Darkness vanished, replaced by a
peculiar silvery flatness. Marya slung the bomblet-launcher down
her back, took a deep breath, and chinned herself on the edge of
the ventilator.

  Just wide enough, she thought. Just.



   The Draka working over the base computer had the gearwheel
emblem of Technical Section on her shoulder; so did the two
gray-uniformed serf Auxiliaries helping her. They were all in
battle-armor, though, a technical commando unit tasked with
front-line electronic reconnaissance. Marya could see them all,
down the short section of vertical shaft; she was lying full-length
in the horizontal passageway above, with only her head out. That
ought to make her nearly invisible from below, with the wire
grille in the ceiling between her and them. And… yes, movement
just out of sight. Probably troopers, guarding the tech. The
peripheral units of the Alliance computer were open, and boxes
of crackle-finished Draka electronics set up about it, a spiderweb
of plug-in lines and cross-connections.

  The OSS agent strained to hear.

   "Careful, careful!" the Draka was saying. "Up ten… Fo' mo'.
Right, now keep the feed modulated within ten percent of those
parameters, and she won't blow when Ah open the casin'."

   Another figure, a middle-aged Indian in uniform, with his
arms secured behind his back. A bayoneted rifle rested between
his shoulderblades, jabbed lightly.

  "Yes, indeed," he babbled in singsong English. "That is the
way of it."
   Too bad. The black-uniformed Tech Sec specialist pulled the
visor of her helmet down and took up a miniature cutting torch.
Cracking the core unit, Marya thought grimly. The embedded
instruction sets of a central computer and the crucial
hard-memory were physically confined in its core, even on
civilian models. This was a maximum-security military Phoebos,
and it would be set to slag down unless you were very careful.

   Careful is the word, Marya thought. This mission was
important enough to make her expendable… but there was no
point in being reckless. Her lips moved back from her teeth
behind the mask. What was it Uncle Nate used to say? "A good
soldier has to be ready to die. A suicidal one just leaves you with
another damned empty slot to train someone for."

   If I push the launcher over the edge at arm's length, she
thought, and then drop the satchel charge right away, the
ceiling should shelter me from most of the blast. That would
certainly take care of the mission, now that the Draka had
conveniently opened up the armored protection around the core.
Then I can go back up the shaft, and try and make it out.

   Soundlessly, she whispered: "And maybe the horse will learn
to sing."

   Millimeter by millimeter, she inched backward until only the
end of the launcher tube was over the lip of the vertical shaft.
Her other hand brought the explosive charge up, plastique and
metal and soft padded overcase. It scraped gently against the
tube wall in the narrow space between hip and panel, and the
sound seemed roaringly loud. No louder than the beat of blood in
her ears. Stupid, stupid, a voice called at the back of her mind.
You volunteered, you're too stupid to live, you could be home
now.

  "Fuck it," she said, and pulled the trigger.

                               ***


  "Mistis—" the Janissary decurion began, as the canopy of
Yulande's fighter slid back and she rose from the opening
clamshell restraints. The cool air of the Indian night poured in lit
by a swollen moon and the lingering fires. Then eye-drying
warmth as the inflow crackled across the fuselage of her aircraft.
The Draka picked up her ground-kit, machine-pistol, and
helmet. There were a half-dozen figures in infantry armor, with a
flat cart of some sort.

   Then the serf soldier's voice altered. "Mistis Yolande!" He
saluted and flipped up the faceplate of his helmet.

  Yolande stared for a moment; it was an unremarkable face,
heavy beak nose and olive complexion… then memory awoke.

  "Ali?" she said. "Rahksan's Ali?"

   His grin showed white as she stepped up onto the rim of the
cockpit and jumped down, careful to avoid the savage residual
heat of the leading edges.

  "The same, Mistis. Swears it like home leave to see yo'."

   "Freya bless, small world," she continued, and gave him a
light punch on one shoulder. Her gloved fist rang on the
lobster-tail plates of his armguard. The legion blazon on it
showed a hyena's skull biting down on a human thighbone; that
was the Devil Dogs, one of the better subject-race units. "An' yo'
comin' up in it, Ali. I tells yo' ma, first thing."

   His fist rang on the breastplate as saluted again, then noticed
his squad glancing at each other. Myfwany's Falcon lifted its
canopy.

   "Ah, Mistis, we got field-shelters set up over to there." He
pointed, and she saw prefabricated revetments on an uncratered
stretch of runway. Two big winged tilt-rotor transports, as well;
one began reving for takeoff as she looked. "We's gotta get y'
plane towed ovah there. Yo' support team's comin' through, later
tonight. We's got perimeter guard."

  "Myfwany, yo' remembers Ali, from Claestum?" The redhead
came up, with a bounce in her stride, despite the sweat that
plastered the curls to her forehead. "Coincidence, hey?" The
squad was hooking the cart's towing hitch to the nose of her
aircraft. "Carry on, decurion; nice to know mah bird's in good
hands."

   "Eurrch," Yolande said. "C'mon, love, why don't we turn in?"
Most of the squadron was there, but it would be a day or two
before they had anything to do but stay out of the way. In the
meantime, they had been assigned quarters. The original
occupants certainly had no need of them…

   The prisoners were being held in a messhall; sorted in groups
by rank and age, in squares marked off by colored rope. The
guards were Security Directorate, Intervention Squad specialists,
but there were a fair number of Draka making inspection;
Citizen officers of the Janissary legion, pilots from their outfit,
others. She looked at the captives with mild distaste; they had
been stripped of their uniforms as a precautionary measure, and
secured with the old-style restraints, chain and rod links that
bound elbows and wrists together behind the back. Indians,
mostly. Base techs, the sort of work that was done by unarmed
Auxiliaries in the Domination's armed forces. A few had the
glazed look of shock, or docilizing drugs; most were openly
terrified, even crying.

   "Yo' can turn in iff'n you wants to, 'Landa," Myfwany said. She
was smiling, and there was a glitter to her eyes; Yolande
swallowed past a hollow feeling. I love you dearly, but there are
times when you make me angry enough to spit, sweetheart, she
thought resignedly.

  "Oh, all right," Yolande said. "Let's take a look."

   They walked down the edge of one of the green-rope
enclosures. Green for lowest-priority, younger specimens. She
supposed they would be sold off, after the fighting, or sent to
work camps, something of that sort. Her nose wrinkled; they
stank of fear, and from the pungency, some had pissed
themselves. Across the room there was a high scream. Yolande
looked up and saw the Security troopers dragging an older
prisoner out of the red-corded pen for interrogation. A paunchy
type in his fifties, already babbling. Glad they're not doin it in
public, she thought idly. Headhunters, eurgh. Necessary work,
she supposed, but disgusting.

  "This one looks interestin'," Myfwany was saying. "On yo' feet,
wench."

   Yolande looked back. The prisoner had risen easily despite the
restraints. In her late twenties, she estimated; much
lighter-skinned than most of the others. Good figure, very nice
muscle tone for a serf; cropped black hair, expressionless dark
eyes… The neck was number-bare, that looked unnatural. Sixty
aurics basic, Yolande thought. Depending on where she's sold,
of course.

   "Who're you?" Myfwany asked the serf. Silence, and then the
Draka struck. Crack. The open-handed blow rocked the
prisoner's head back; Yolande was surprised she kept her feet.
Sighing, she glanced aside. Myfwany gets too rough with them,
sometimes, she thought unhappily. Of course, this one was feral
and had to be taught submission, but still…

  "Marya Lenson." Crack. A backhanded blow this time.

   "That's Marya Lenson, Mistis, serf." The Security guard
glanced up, came over idly twirling the rubber truncheon by the
thong around his wrist.

  "Mistis." The serfs voice stayed toneless-flat.

  "Indian?" Myfwany put a finger under the serfs chin, turned
her head sideways. "Europoid, I'd swear."

  "My parents were from California, Mistis."

  Myfwany turned to Yolande. "A Yank! What say we sign this'n
out and play with it, 'Landa?" she said.

   Yolande sighed. "Oh, come on, sweet," she said exasperatedly.
I hope we're not going to have a fight, like we did when you
wanted Lele. It had taken two days of not speaking to each other
before Myfwany realized she was serious about letting the
servant say no. "Where's the fun in that?"
   "We can use aphrodizine," Myfwany said impatiently.

  "Eurg." Not that the aphrodisiac didn't work, but… "Look,
sweet, yo' just got after-fight jitters. Yo' don't really want to—"

   Myfwany released the serf and spun to confront her friend.
"Look yo'self," she hissed. "I'm not yo' keeper, Ingolfsson, and yo'
not mine. Yo've got somethin' better to do, go do it." The green
eyes turned heavy-lidded. "Tim or someone be glad to help me
out."

   Yolande felt shock close her throat. This was fear, not the hot
sensation of life-danger up in the clouds, but dread coiling at the
pit of her stomach. She forced a smile.

    "Oh, don't get so heavy bout' it, love!" A glance aside at the
serf. Myfwany'll probably get tired fairly soon. "Iff'n' yo's set on
it, certainly." Not as if there was anything actually wrong with
it, after all. You have to compromise on differing tastes. "Let's…
let's take a walk an' check on the birds, first, hey? Get some fresh
air."

   "Sure, 'Landa-sweet," Myfwany said. She smiled and took the
other Draka's hand. Yolande felt the knot in her stomach melt.
Or most of it, she thought. Oh, well. "I've got a rotten temper.
Don't know why yo' puts up with me, sometimes."

   She called the guard over, palmed the identifier clipped to his
belt. "Send this one ovah to our quarters, would yo'?"



   Frederick Lefarge felt the sweat trickle down from the rim of
his helmet, itching under the armor and camouflage smock. He
glanced at his watch; 2000 hours. The pickup squad was in a
stand of tall pale-barked trees not far from what had been the
perimeter wire of Chandragupta Base. A dozen of them, with
nothing but their fieldcraft and two boxes of very sophisticated
electronics to keep them out of the tightening Draka net. Two
were wounded, and he didn't think Smythe was going to make it,
he'd been far too close to a radiation bomb yesterday, when the
rest of them had been sheltered in the cellar. Vomiting blood was
not a good sign, at least.

  "Sor." Winters, the Englishman. Professional NCO in the
Cumberland Borderers before transfer to the OSS special forces.
Very reliable. "Sor, it's past time."

   She isn't going to make it, he thought. Either she's dead or
she should be. He fought down the hot flash of rage, let it mingle
with fear until it became something cold and leaden in his gut.
Something that would not interfere with the job at hand… He
remembered a moment in Santa Fe, and the pistol in Marya's
hand unwavering upon him. We always knew the price, he
thought. Go with God, ma soeur.

   And her mission accomplished—the explosion in the base HQ
proved that—but nothing beyond. He raised the visor of his
helmet and bent to the eyepiece of the spyglass. There were
pickups all over the operational area, where his men had left
their optical-thread connectors. The fires were mostly out now.
Those had been from the initial blitz, suborb missiles with
precision-guided conventional explosives. Dibblers for the
runways, earth-piercers for the hardened weapons points, then a
rolling surf of antipersonnel submunitions. The assault-troops
had come on the heels of those—1st Airborne Legion, Citizen
Force elite troops, but they had moved out once the area was
secured, now there was a brigade of Janissaries doing
clear-and-hold. And support personnel, Intelligence, transports,
two squadrons of low-altitude VTOL gunboats, another of
Falcons.

   And now they think it's secured, he thought grimly. Time to
disabuse them.

   "Hit it, Jock," he said.


   ***


   "And we—" Myfwany stopped. "What the fuck was that, Ali?"

  They and the Janissaries were standing outside a dugout. The
explosion was a kilometer away, across the base. A flash, and the
muffled whump a second later, a ball of orange flame rising into
the soft Indian night. The troopers went into an instinctive
crouch, and Ali cursed, rolling back into the sandbagged slit and
reaching for the groundline com.

  "Suh?" he said. "Post Six, second tetrarchy—shit, it out!"

   Another explosion, and another; a rippling line in an arc
along the perimeter opposite them. Yolande and Myfwany
exchanged a glance and pulled on their ground-helmets, slipping
down the visors and turning the night to a pale imitation of day.
Each had a tiny dot of strobing red light at the lower left-hand
corner; jamming. Then a real explosion; the two Draka threw
themselves flat at the harsh white glare. Even reflected around
the edges of their visors it was enough to dazzle, and the
shockwave lifted them up and slammed them down again hard
enough to stun and bruise on the unyielding pavement.

   Yolande heard one of the Janissaries shouting. "Nuke? Dec,
was that a nuke?" Her eyes darted down to the readout on the
sleeve of her flight suit. No radiation above the nervous-making
background already there, and a spear of blue-white flame was
already rising from behind the broken hangars. Secondary
explosions bellowed, like echoes of that world-numbing blast.

  "No, it ain't," Ali was saying. "That the fuel store."

   Liquid hydrogen and methane, Yolande realized. High-energy
fuels for high-performance craft, difficult to transport. One of
the reasons the attack plan had made this base a priority target
in the first place. And—

   "The birds!" she shouted to Myfwany. Fatigue and worry
vanished in the rush of adrenaline, at the thought of the
turboram fighters caught helpless on the ground. The Falcons
were two thousand meters distant, behind the parked
assault-transports.

  Myfwany nodded. "Ali, yo' tasked with that?"

  The burly Janissary was climbing back out of the revetment.
He hesitated for a moment; he was, but having two Citizens
along out of the regular chain of command was not a good idea…
The two Draka women saw him shrug and nod, accepting what
could not be changed.

   "Let's go," he said. "Marcel, Ching, Mustafa, come with me.
Brigitte, Nils, Vlachec, hold the position an' report when the com
comes back up."



   "Now!" Frederick Lefarge kept to one knee and watched the
dozen OSS special-ops troopers scurry by. In toward the base
that now swarmed like a kicked-open termite mound. Their only
chance…

    He rose to his feet and followed. There they were, ten Buffel
tilt-rotor assault transports, standing ready with their turbines
warm. Nobody around them but unarmed ground-crew. The
Alliance soldiers could charge on board and take off in ten
different directions; the Draka IFF would hesitate crucial
seconds before overriding their own electronic identification…
and the battle was still a chaos of Draka and Indian-held pockets
from here to Burma. Just insane enough to have some chance of
success. The Springfield-15 seemed light as a twig in his hands;
his gaze hopped across the flat expanses of the airbase, watching
for movement. There. Light armor, moving out of laager in the
vehicle park, coasting toward them with air-cushion speed. His
hand slapped a switch at his waist.



   "Down!" Yolande shouted, when the lines of fire erupted
upward out of the stand of trees to their right. She and Myfwany
threw themselves apart and forward without breaking stride; she
could hear the light impact of her lover's body on the concrete,
and seconds later the pounding slam of the Janissary heavy
infantry hitting the pavement.

  The weapon that had fired was some sort of rocket
automortar; she watched the trajectories arch and then plunge
back down. Down toward the trio of Cheetah hovertanks that
had been approaching them; a hundred meters up the
self-forging warheads exploded in disks of fire, sending
arrowheads of incandescent metal streaking for the thin
deck-armor of the Draka tanks. The impacts were flashes that
would have been dazzling without the guard-functions of her
visor. The air-cushion vehicles bounced down as if slapped by the
hand of an invisible giant, then exploded in gouts of fuel-fire and
ammunition glare. Hot warm air struck her like a pillow, and a
pattering rain of cermet armor and body-parts began to fell
around the soldiers of the Domination.

   " 'Landa!" Myfwany called. "Look right, are those hostiles?"
Yolande halted and went to ground, conscious of the others
following the pilot's extended arm.



   Frederick Lefarge threw himself to the ground and rolled to
one side as the group running on an intercept vector with his
opened fire. Muzzle flashes strobed before the silvery
light-enhanced shapes of enemy soldiers. Shrapnel flicked at his
exposed legs and arms, nothing serious, but he could feel the
blood trickle behind the sharp sting. Can't stop for a slugfest,
went through him. His special-forces unit were only lightly
armored, and there was no cover on this artificial concrete
desert.

    "Eat this!" the OSS trooper beside Lefarge cried, flipping up
to his knees and firing a grenade from the launcher beneath the
barrel of his S17. It burst with an orange flash behind the enemy
firing line; one of the rifles stopped, and there was a scream of
pain. Then a chuttering flash from directly ahead;
machine-pistol, not the louder growl of a T-7. The trooper who
had fired pitched backward, torn open. Lefarge snapped off a
burst toward the source and began leopard-crawling forward.
Another sound came from near where he had fired, a scream
that raised the tiny hairs along the back of his neck.

   "Keep them occupied!" he shouted to his men, heading for the
cockpit ladder of the Buffel. It had a 25mm Gatling in its chin
turret; if he could reach that…
   "Keep them occupied!" a voice shouted. Yolande ignored it,
braced behind an overturned supply-cart.

  "Myfwany?" she called, looking over to where the other Draka
had snap-fired last. "Hey, Myfwany?"

  There was no movement. A long shape lying motionless on the
concrete; impossible to see detail at this distance.
Machine-pistol resting on the ground, no movement.

   "Myfwany?" Yolande said, this time a whisper. Then she was
moving, a sprint that leaned her almost horizontal to the ground.
She forward-rolled the last five meters, rolling in beside her
friend. "Myfwany?"

   The body moved into her hands, infinitely familiar, utterly
strange. Moving loosely, slack. Blood flowing down her hands
from the band of black wetness across Myfwany's chest. Bits of
soft armor, bits of bone and flesh; something bubbling and
wheezing. Yolande tore off her own helmet, to see by natural
light. There was enough to show the lashes flutter across the
amber eyes, focus on her. The lips below moved, beneath the rills
of blood that covered them. Perhaps to say a name, but there
was no breath left for it. She slumped, with a total relaxation as
the wheezing stopped. Yolande felt a sound building in her
throat, and she knew that everything would end when she
uttered it

  .

    The firefight hammered through the darkness; Lefarge flipped
his visor up for better depth-perception and ran crouching. He
was almost on the two Draka before he saw them. Lying on the
pavement, one with the utter limpness of the newly dead, the
other holding her. His rifle swung round, clicked empty; the
magazine ejected itself and dropped to the runway with a hollow
plastic clatter. For a moment only the eyes held him. Huge,
completely dark in a stark-white elfin face daubed with blood,
framed in hair turned silver by the moonlight. They saw him;
somehow he knew they were recording every detail, but it was as
if no active mind lived behind them. Then he was past, his feet
pounding up the aluminum treads of the transport's gangway.
    "Hunh!" Marya jerked awake, surprised that she had slept at
all. Dawn was showing rosy through the window; the air smelled
of cool earth, explosives and fire and dead humans. And the door
had swung open.

   A Draka stood there. One of the ones who had looked her over
in the prisoner pen earlier. Short, slender, and blond. Different;
her uniform was smoke-stained, grimy; there were speckles of
dried blood across her face. The face… the eyes were huge, pupils
distended with shock. The American felt a clammy sensation:
not quite fear, although that was in it. As if she was in the
presence of something that should not be seen… The dead-alive
eyes focused on her, and Marya saw a spray-injector in the
other's hand.

   "It's yo' fault." The words came in a light, soft voice. Almost a
whisper, and in utter monotone. "I was weak, squeamish. She
wanted to play with yo', and I didn't, so I got her to go fo' a walk,
thought she'd fo'get the idea. She's dead. I saw his face… he's not
here. They got some of the planes, but she's ddddd—" A brief
stutter, and the marble perfection of the face writhed for an
instant, then settled back. "Dead."

   The Draka touched the controls of the injector, held it to her
own neck and pulled the trigger. Shuddered. A degree of life
returned to the locked muscles of her face as she lowered it and
changed the controls.

   "This is fo' yo'," she said, her voice slightly thick now.
"Relaxant, muscle weakener, maximum safe dosage of
aphrodizine." The cold metal touched Marya on the arm, but she
scarcely felt the sting of the injection. It was impossible even to
look away from those eyes, like windows into a wound.
Something flowed across her mind, warm and sticky, pushing
conciousness back into a room at the rear of her head. Finders as
strong as wire flipped her onto her stomach and began to
unfasten the restraints.

   "We're goin' to have a sort of celebration in memory of her,
just this once," the Draka said. "And then I can think up
somethin' else for yo' to do."




              CHAPTER ELEVEN

   NEGOTIATORS REACH AGREEMENT [NP5]. Sources close
to the Alliance Chairman's office reported today that a
negotiated settlement to the clashes with the Domination in the
asteroid belt is within reach. "We've reached a mutual standoff,"
our source said, in response to questions. "We can each inflict
about the same amount of damage, but without strategic results.
It probably wouldn't have started except for the upsurge of
popular anger after the Indian Incident."

   Details remain to be settled, but the basis of the agreement is
said to be a mutual recognition of the status quo; no armed
action is to take place as long as neither side attempts to enter
"zones" of varying size around the present points of occupation
in the belt. While complex, these arrangements will essentially
give the Alliance control of about 75% of the material orbiting
within the proclaimed limits of the "belt" (an area defined
roughly as the space between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter),
and an even higher proportion of the highly valuable larger
objects. Free transit to the outer system will be guaranteed for
both parties. Space Force experts insist that this agreement
gives the Alliance a considerable victory. As economic and
military activity beyond Earth increases geometrically, demand
for the resources available in the asteroids will soar. The Draka
hold on the Satunian and Jovian moons does not offer
comparable advantage, while Mars, Venus, and Mercury are too
heavy-gravity to be of immediate use.
                                            The New York Times
                                                World In Review
                                          Sunday, August 15, 1977
TRANSIT STATION SEVENTEEN
MASAHD, PROVINCE OF HYRCAMIA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
JANUARY 23, 1976


   Marya Lefarge looked up. The train was slowing, and there
was a stirring in the cramped darkness. It had been three days
on the train. That was the first thing she had been aware of since
the drug-haze lifted: being pushed off the truck and onto the
train in Kabul. West and north since then; smooth steady hum of
wheels on welded rail. Cold, but not freezing, and they all had
thick rough overalls. Ration bars, water enough for drinking, and
a chemical toilet. The forty prisoners were a mixed bag from all
over India, city-folk mostly, with a fair sprinkling of military.
None past middle age or younger than their teens.

    The smell was not too bad, now that the dociline had worn off
the last cases, enough that they could clean themselves and use
the toilet; natural leaders had taken charge, gotten the car
organized and arranged rosters to look after the incapable. Sleep
had been difficult; the metal floor was hard and many screamed
in their sleep. And the nightmares were bad— Forget that.
Watch and wait, opportunity would come. She put her eye to a
crack along the doorframe. The railcar was well-made but old,
much-repaired. Nobody challenged her post by this drafty spot.
Obviously the car had been made for its present purpose;
impossible to break out of without cutting tools… There had
been mountains outside, for a while, then flat desert. Now it was
afternoon, and they were traveling along a river valley. Wide flat
fields, wheat and alfalfa stubble, or cornstalks, thinly drifted with
snow; boundaries were poplar trees, and she could see occasional
piles of irrigation pipe by a crossroads.

   A road ran by the right-of-way, plain black asphalt;
steamtrucks passed now and then, sometimes a private car. The
traffic was thickening, and now they were passing through a belt
of open parkland. Other rail tracks converged, until they were in
a broad field of them. Other trains, too; freight cars, flatbeds
with standard-sized cargo containers. A set of double-decker
cattle cars, loud and odorous with their bawling freight. Like us,
she thought, and smiled savagely, pulling the handcuffs taut
between her wrists. Military traffic, logistics trucks and armored
personnel carriers chained down to flats, moving east;
reinforcements for India, probably. The open fields beyond the
rail gave way to buildings, low-slung factory types, gray concrete
with skylights; she might almost have been in a textile town
somewhere in Ohio.

    Darkness; they were in a covered station-building. Marya
worked her way back into the crowd. A rattle outside, and they
all blinked at the harsh fluorescent lights. There was a blast of
slightly warmer air.

   "Out, out, everybody out," an amplified voice shouted. Marya
could see the plank barricades on either side of the door; the rest
of the train was invisible noise.

   Hands reached in and dragged the nearest through; the rest
crowded to follow. Marya kept to the center of the mass, head
slightly down so as not to attract attention, eyes flickering to
collect data. Study everything. Knowledge is survival. They
were being herded down wide bleak-lit corridors of concrete
block, between lines of guards. Not armed, not police; serfs in
boots and gray wool overalls, swinging hard rubber truncheons.

   "Stop!" The end of the corridors, a gate.

   Collisions, cursing, blows directed at random. Through a
stamped-steel door into a room with multiple exits, and a
green-uniformed Orpo guard running a reader over the
bar-coded plastic labels stapled to the breasts of their overalls.
More greencoats along the wall behind him, and these had
machine-pistols and shockrods in their hands.

   "Left," the man said, and gave her a shove; she staggered into
another prisoner. A gateway there, with an observation camera
and some cryptic letter-number code above, stenciled on the
bare concrete. In front of her a young man turned, tried to run
back; one of the Orpos stepped forward and slashed at him with
the shockrod. He shrieked and convulsed, falling face-first to the
floor.

   "Pick him up, freshmeats," the guard snarled at the two
prisoners nearest. "Or yaz get fuckin' same!" The Orpo was a
short wide-shouldered man heavy with muscle, a flat snub-nosed
Slavic face and shaven skull that gleamed in the bright lights.
Marya darted forward and bent to help the fallen man; someone
else took the other arm, and they carried him, dazed, into the
next room. Blood was running down his face from the broken
nose, but after a dozen paces he was able to walk.

  "That's it." Another bellow and the steel grille slammed shut
behind them. "Line them up."

   This time they were in a rectangular room a hundred meters
by twenty. There was no immediate roof; instead the walls ran
up three times a man's height and ended in steel walkways with
guards pacing along them. Far overhead were girders and
panels, like a warehouse, with arc-lights glaring down.
Squinting, she could make out more cameras, and what might
be automatic guns. Certainly gas dispensers. Hands shoved at
her, and she returned her attention to the ground level. There
were twenty turntable-mounted chairs along the opposite wall,
like dentist's chairs without padding, each surrounded by
instruments swung out on jointed booms from the chairs. A serf
technician waited by each—neatly dressed serfs this time,
without the bruiser-muscular look of the others she had seen
since the train.

   The guards were forming them up in lines of five in front of
each chair, between painted white marks; there was a fair
amount of shoving and shouting, but with two greencoats for
each line it went quickly. For the first time she had time to
notice the smell of the place, a combination of locker room and
factory and slum police station, cheap soap and disinfectant and
fear. And old concrete and metal; this place had been here for a
long time, generations. She could see discolorations in the floor,
places where partitions and wiring had been changed.

   "Shuck to the waist," a guard shouted. The guards
demonstrated on those first in line; overall unzipped and allowed
to fall back. Marya complied, feeling her skin roughen in the dry
chill. A few resisted, and there was the sharp frying-bacon sound
of shockrods in action, choked moans from throats clamped
tight. Echoes from above, off the roofing; this whole vast
building must be divided into chambers like this.

  "First rank, to the chairs." Marya swallowed dryly and looked
away, realizing what this must be. There were unidentifiable
machine sounds… Some of those waiting stared at the process
before them, others at the ground or their feet or the walkways
above. Few would meet her eyes.

  "Next!"

  She walked forward, feeling detached, feeling the pulse
beating in her throat and ears. Maman never had her number
removed, she remembered. She could live with it. So can I.

   The chair was more cold plastic. Bands fastened around her,
and a helmet-like arrangement came down over her eyes. The
technician fiddled with a screen and keyboard fixed to the rear
of the chair as it tilted back.

   "Keep y' eyes open," he said. A singsong accent under the
Draka slur, probably local. Something flickered at her eyes;
retina scan. Marya felt a tug at the loose fabric bunched around
her waist; that must be the serf feeding the bar-coded tag into
his machine. "Blood sample next," he said; she could hear a yawn
through it. Something sharp stabbed her in the forearm, then a
cold medicinal-smelling spray. "Spread y' hands on th' grips." A
hum; finger and palm prints.

   A metallic sound, and a cold bar of metal touched her neck
below the right ear. "This hurts," the bored serfs voice continued.
More clamps immobilized her head.

   "Ssss!" That forced out of her before she could clench her lips
together.

   More cries of pain along the line of seats, someone wailing.
Cold stabbing along the bar pressed to her skin, then the bar of
metal swung away, and another medicinal spray; this time it
stung sharply, with a sensation that did not go away. The hood
swung up, and she squinted at the lights. The technician was
rummaging in a bin by his keyboard, full of dull-metal bracelets.
They were jointed; he put two around her wrist before grunting
satisfaction and snapping one closed. It was about half an inch
thick and two broad, featureless except for a small jack-receptor
hole on the upper edge. He plugged a lead into that, and she
could hear him keying behind her; then the jack was removed,
replaced with a threaded plug. The auto-tattooing machine
hummed and extruded a piece of paper. The technician peeled
off its backing and slapped it adhesive-down on her arm.

  She looked down. marya-I33M286.

   The guard overseeing the room put the megaphone back to
his mouth, as the bands released her. "Up!" he barked, and she
stood beside the chair. "Dress." The twenty newly
neck-numbered serfs zipped their overalls. "Yaz numbers is onna
tag. Learn 'em quick." A cage door on the opposite side of the
long room opened. "Out through there, move, move, move."
Marya forced her hands down, not to touch the patch of rawness
on her neck.



   About three hundred of us, Marya estimated. It had taken an
hour for the big room to fill; this one was square, under the same
warehouse roof. Absolutely blank, except for a waist-high dais
and comp terminal at one end. Four of the big steel-mesh doors,
one in each wall. No chairs, of course. No talking allowed; one
prisoner had persisted, and the guards had picked her up and
thrown her into the wall, just hard enough to stun, and the
shockrods were always there. There was another white line
around them on the floor; the prisoners had learned enough to
treat it like a minefield. Marya had worked her way to the second
line from front with slow, careful movements. They're going to
give us some sort of information, she decided. I'll get it all, and
make my own use of it.

   This place had the depressing regularity of a factory; it was
designed to make you feel like sausage-meat. That is
information, too. The door behind the dais opened, and two
more Orpos stepped up on it, one going to the terminal; she laid
a hand on the screen, then made a few keystrokes. A tall woman,
hard to tell age with the shaven head. The uniform was a little
more elaborate, with a sidearm and complicated equippment on
a webbing belt; she had the traditional metal gorget around her
neck on a chain. Chain-dog, Marya remembered. That's what
the serfs call the Order Police. Appropriate.
   "All of them supposed to understand talk," Marya heard her
say to her companion. Talk must mean English. She filed the
datum away.

   "Right." The voice boomed out over the huddled crowd,
amplified now. "Listen up, cattle." The face scanned them; tight
skin stretched over bone, a white smile. "Y'all are serfs. I'm a
serf. There are serfs and serfs; y'all are cattle, I'm yo' god,
understand?" An uneasy silence. "Yaz all from India. Yaz here
because our noble mastahs," Marya's ears pricked; was that a
note of sarcasm? Listen. Wait.—"are souvenir hunters. That
what yaz are. Trinkets. We shippin' yaz fo' that. Sometimes,
trinkets get broke."

   The Orpo jerked a thumb towards one of the crowd. Marya
recognized the young man she had helped earlier, with dried
blood caked on his lower face and the nose swollen. A Bengali,
slight and dark and with a nervous handsomeness apart from the
injury, about twenty. A junior officer in the Indian ground
forces, from his mannerisms. The crowd parted to leave him in a
bubble of space as the guards closed in, shoved him roughly to
the edge of the dais. The Orpo noncom had lit a cigarette; now
she flicked ash off the end and looked down at the Indian.

  "Just in case yaz thinkin' y'all too valuable to hurt," she said,
and nodded.

   The guards moved in; Marya could see their elbows moving,
hear the heavy thuds of fists striking flesh. A moment, and the
young man was hunched over when they parted, dazed. The Orpo
with the cigarette nodded again, and her companion on the dais
stepped forward, pulled a wire loop from his belt and bent to
throw it around the man's neck. Marya drove her teeth into her
lower lip and made herself watch.

   The greencoat grunted and lifted the slight Bengali youth
without perceptible effort, holding the toggles of the strangling
wire out with elbows slightly bent. The youth bucked, heels
drumming against the dais, made sounds. His face purpled
under the brown, tongue and eyes bulging, sounds coming from
him. From behind her, too, she could hear vomiting. A stain
spread down the front of the Bengali's overall, and she could
smell the hard shit-stink as his sphincter released; see the thin
smile on the executioner's face as he jerked the wire free of the
man's neck and cleaned it lovingly with a handkerchief. Blood
trickled down Marya's chin.

   I will remember you, too, my friend, she thought grimly.

   "Yaz nothin'," the amplified voice continued. Gray-suited
attendants came in, threw the corpse on a wheeled dolly and
took it away. The door slid shut behind them with an echoing
clang. "Y'all barely worth the trouble of keepin' alive. Yaz cattle,
meat, dogshit. Understand?"

   The man who had used the wire noose bellowed: "That's Yes,
thank yo', ma'am, apeturds!"

  Marya opened her mouth and shouted with the others. Words
are nothing, she told herself.

   "One lesson, an' it all yaz need. Do what y' told. Anything y'
told, anythin' at all. Right now yaz total worthless; with hard
work an' tryin', mebbeso yaz work up to just worthless.
Understand?"

  "YES, THANK YOU, MA'AM!" the prisoners screamed.
Someone behind Marya was crying again, slow racking sobs.

   "Oh, one mo' thing." The Orpo noncom pulled a flat
crackle-finished box from a pouch at her waist; it was roughly
the size of a pocketnovel, and a miniature keyboard showed
when she opened it. "Them pretty-pretty bracelets. They new.
Space research, monitors. Traze yaz anywheres, identify yaz to
the comps. Take readin's, heartbeat. And a little nerve hookup,
inductor. Right to a center in yaz brains, if y' got any." Her
lingers stabbed down on the controller.

   PAIN. Marya fell limp and boneless to the floor and her head
cracked on the concrete and the skin splitting was wonderful
because for a single fractional second it blocked the PAIN but
then there was nothing but the PAIN and there had never been
anything but PAIN and her heart and lungs were frozen and
death would be wonderful but there was no death only PAIN
onandonandonandonandon—

   It stopped. Marya drew breath, screamed, blood and tears
and mucus covering her face, and then she curled around herself
and hugged the hand with the controller bracelet and laughed
because it stopped and the bleeding from her cheek was heaven
and the stabbing behind her eyes was better than orgasm and
the sensual delight-that it had stopped and she knew she could
never feel pain again because that had been pain not the pain of
anything not surgery without anesthetic not grief not longing not
fear, it had been everything and nothing and pure, purest simple
pain.

   "Up and quiet, or I give yaz anothah five seconds. Now, wasn't
that wonderful!" A shriek. "Understand?"

  "YES, THANK YOU, MA'AM!"

  They were all up, quiveringly silent. All except for one woman
who lay motionless while the serfs with the dolly came and
removed the body, and some of the others looked at it with envy.

    "Most places, it's bettah to live than to die. Here, we can make
it bettah to die than to live. Remembah that, cattle."



   The van doors opened. "Out," the serf guard said. Marya slid
forward and looked around; they were in the Citizen section of
Mashad. Startling after five days in the blank steel and concrete
of the Transit station. The guard pushed her ahead, through a
revolving door into a hotel lobby. Warm. The first real warmth
since Kabul, and a fear worse than the gnawing anxiety of the
cell came with it. Across the ornate marble-and-tile splendors of
the lobby; the walls were sections from the mosques that had
once made this city a wonder of Islamic architecture. An
elevator, bronze rails and fretwork, that took them up five
stories. Down a corridor, past through a teakwood door. Her
mouth was paper-dry again; she called up strength from the
reservoir within.

  But what do I do when it's empty? she thought for a moment.
Then: Never.

   A serf came to meet them in the vestibule, a room of pale
glossy stone walls and floors covered in rugs of incredible colors.
She was odd enough to snap Marya's attention aside for a
moment; a black woman with yellow eyes and a flamboyant
mane of butter-blond hair, in a white robe. There was pity in the
brass-colored eyes, and in her soft voice.

   "I'm sorry," she said, after signing the invoice the driver
presented. "I'm really sorry. I… tried."

   More corridors, then out into a double-storied lounging room,
massive inlaid furniture and a glass wall looking out over a
cityscape coming alive with evening lights, reflected on the
falling snow. A Draka waiting in a reclining chair, smoking a
water-pipe, dressed in a striped djellaba with the hood thrown
back. The face from Chandragupta Base. Thinner, with dark
circles under the huge mad gray eyes; Marya lowered her own to
hide the sudden stab of fury she felt.Looks older. Marya knew the
lines that grief drew. Good.

   "Stop," the Draka said. "Look at me, serf." Marya looked up.
"I'm Yolande Ingolfsson. Remember me?"

   "Yes, Mistis," Marya said with equal softness. A smile
twitched at the Draka's lips. The American swallowed a sour
bubble at the back of her throat.

   The black serf spoke, hesitantly. "Mistis—"

  "Jolene," Yolande said, "I heard yo' out. I said no. Now if yo'
don't want to watch, get out. I'm not angry with yo'. Yet."

   The African bowed silently and left; Marya could hear her
steps quickening to a run.

   "Take off the overall, and stand ovah there," Yolande
continued. Marya moved to obey, found herself in the middle of a
three-meter rectangle of clear plastic sheeting; the rug scratched
underneath it, feeling bristly-soft to her bare feet. "Oh, it's good
to see yo' again. Took a while, gettin' leave, and I don't have long
until I have to report to the Astronautical, but it's good to see yo',
Yank. Yo' fault, it is."

   "Now," the Draka continued. "There's somethin' I want from
yo'. Guess?"

   Marya looked up sharply. The other's eyes were fixed on her
with a curiously impersonal avidness.

  "Are you… going to abuse me again, Mistis?" she asked flatly.
There was no sign of a drug injector.

   Yolande chuckled; it had a grating sound. "Oh, not that way.
That was a special occasion… No, there's something else I want
yo' to do fo' me. It was yo' fault, aftah all."

   Her free hand pulled something out of a pocket in her robe.
Crackle-finished in black, the size of a small book. Opened it.
Marya felt herself begin to tremble, heard a moan. Knew that in
a moment she would beg, and felt a brief stab of shame that she
felt no shame, because nothing was worse than that.

   "What—" she choked, swallowed to clear her mouth of saliva.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked, clamping her hands
together to halt the shaking.

  Yolande opened the controller and poised her finger. Her eyes
met the American's, and Marya could feel them drinking.

   "I want yo' to scream," she said, and pressed down.



NEW YORK CITY
DONOVAN HOUSE
FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT
JANUARY 21, 1977


   "I still say it stinks, General," Frederick Lefarge said. His body
somehow gave the impression of tension, even when he sat
relaxed in the stiff government-issue office chair.
   Nathaniel Stoddard nodded, considering the man who sat
across from him. Thinner, he thought. And not just in body. Pale
as well, with the pallor that comes from long months inside a
submarine, or a spaceship.

   "I agree, but…" He pressed a spot on the desk screen, and a
thinfilm rectangle slid up along one wall.

   "India hurt us," he said quietly. "Not so much physically— it
was the sinkhole of the Alliance—but in our souls. Our first
major brush with the Domination, and we lost. Granted it was
the Indians' own damn fault; that disinformation campaign
wouldn't have produced secession if they hadn't been completely
irrational about it. Granted, but we still lost, and another three
hundred million went under the Yoke."

   He rapped the desk with his knuckles. "First, we needed a
victory, and the asteroid agreement is that. What we have to
guard against is not treason, that's the enemy's problem. What
we have to fear is defeatism; the turning-away from useful work
into hedonism, because people don't think there is a future.
That's the real danger, in the short term."

   "I'd rather have kicked the Snakes out of the belt and
everything outward."

   Stoddard shook his head. "Not feasible, Colonel. It was
turning into a struggle of attrition, and they outnumber us." He
produced his pipe, took comfort from the ritual of lighting it.
"Nor can we fight full-scale near Earth, not anymore. India took
us to the brink of that, and it's only the sheer insanity of Draka
ruthlessness that let it get that far." He puffed. "Now, list for me
the positive aspects of these miserable few years."

   Lefarge shrugged. "The Alliance will stand, now."

   Stoddard nodded; the constituent nations had agreed to a full
merger of sovereignty. A pity in a way—he had always regretted
the increasing uniformity of life in the Alliance— but necessary.

  "And not just among the electorate, either." His expression
became wholly blank. "Now, I'm about to tell you something that
requires complete commitment. If I'm not satisfied by your
reactions from this point on, then the only way you will leave this
building is as a corpse."

   Lefarge sat upright, a slow uncoiling motion. His eyes met the
other man's for a long moment.

  "You're serious," he said flatly.

  "Never more so. Want me to continue?"

  The moment stretched. "Yes."

   Stoddard cupped the bowl of the pipe. "We—that is, the
permanent staff just below the political level—we've become
convinced that if things go on as they are, we're headed for the
Final War. If only because the limits of the Domination's ability
to adapt to technical progress are on the horizon, and they'll
bring everything down in wreck rather than see us reduce them
to irrelevance."

   Lefarge smiled. "Then the only alternatives are annihilation or
surrender?"

   "Surrender is annihilation, certainly for freedom, probably for
humanity," he said, nodding agreement. "And the Final War is
annihilation, too, It's the seeping realization of that that's been
paralyzing our leadership echelons." He touched another spot on
the screen, and a starfield lit the rectangle that hung from the
ceiling.

  "Tell me, Fred, what do you know about fusion power?"

   Lefarge blinked narrow-eyed at the older man. "Controlled?
Still a ways off. Plasma-confinement, we just reached breakeven,
possibly a workable reactor by the turn of the century. Inertial
confinement shows some promise. Solid-state tunneling
reactions are tricky and we still don't understand them; much
longer."

   "Look at this, then." A schematic appeared, a huge sphere
with a tube protruding from each end, like a straw through an
orange. "Build a big sphere; doesn't matter much of what, as
long as it's thick enough. Throw fusion bombs in through this
magnetic catapult. Set them off; we've got an electron-beam
system that looks likely to work, but uranium's cheap off-planet
these days. Bomb goes off, vacuum, no blast. Just radiant energy;
shell absorbs the energy, you extract the energy, then beam it
anywhere you want via microwave. Simple, robust, nearly as
cheap as solar past Mars…"

   "Useful," the younger man said without relaxing his lynx
stare. "Particularly in the belt. With that, we could really set up a
self-sustaining system, and fast. But that isn't what you had in
mind."

   "No. Incidentally, we think the Draka are using a much cruder
form of this to mine ice from Sinope or Himalia, off Jupiter."
Another tap on the screen. The artifact that appeared this time
was a simple tube of coils and large-scale industrial magnets
floating free in space, contained by the outline of an enormous
box. "What's buried in New Mexico and eats power?"

  "Linear accelerator…" His hands gripped the rests of his
chair. "Antimatter, by God!"

   "Right the first time, give the man a cigar." The stem of the
pipe pointed. "And that's the first of the secrets you'll be
expected to guard. You think, Fred. Think."

  Slowly. "It can't be for bombs. We've already got bigger
weapons than we can use." A pause. "Spaceship drives?"

   A nod. "Paahtly. The ultimate reaction drive. We've tested
models with the minute amounts we've made here Earthside. A
great advantage, even over the improved pulsedrive models we're
working on. Even over the fusion models that well have in a
decade."

   "But not enough," Lefarge said. "It'll never be enough, a better
weapon, more weapons, even when we've got a lead we're too
gutless to use it."

   The general frowned. "Fred, the price of open war is too high.
And getting higher! They can at least copy what we do." He
shook his head, waited for a second, then summoned up another
image. "All right, look at this."

   This was a spaceship, with an outline he recognized beside it
for comparison; a Hero-class deepspace cruiser, the type he had
been operating out of in the Belt. Those had a 7,000-tonne
payload… and this one was dwarfed by the model beside it. A
huge cylinder, basically; a wheel and a ball at one end, at the
other a long stalk and a cup.

   Awareness struck him. "Judas Priest!" he wheezed. "A
starship!" For a moment he was a boy again, watching Bat
Markam, Alliance Future Patrol, planting the blue-and-gold on a
planet of green-tentacled aliens… Then his teeth skinned back.
"Shit." A bolthole.

  "How do you feel about the idea, Fred?"

   "Jesus…" He ran a hand over his face. "General, could we do
it?"

   A shrug. "Ayuh. Theory's all right, the engineering is big but
nothing radical. Have to test the drive, but the math works.
Alpha Centauri in forty years. And, Fred, they've been looking
that way with the Big Eye." That was the fifty-kilometer reflector
at the L-5 beyond Lunar farside. "There's a planet there."

   The excitement surged again, mixed sourly with bitterness at
the back of his throat. "Inhabitable?"

   "Mebbe. Mebbe not. It's got an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere,
water vapor, continents and oceans… Yes, the definition's that
good. A little smaller than Earth and further out; and the orbit's
funny, what you'd expect." The Centauri system had three stars;
that must be complex. "A Mars-type as well, subjovian gas
giants, moons, asteroids we think from the orbital data. A planet
by itself isn't enough these days." More slowly: "How do you feel
about it, Fred?"

  Unconscious of the general's stare, the younger man rose and
paced, running a hand through his close-cropped black hair.
"Christ. I love it; that's something I've dreamed since I was a kid.
When the news flash came through about the Conestoga
reaching orbit, I was on my first date, you know? Sheila
Washansky. Her folks were away for the afternoon, we were on
the couch upstairs, I had my hand up her skirt and the TV on
downstairs—and I dumped her on the floor, I got up so fast.
Never even noticed her walking out the door. Thirteen, my first
chance to score, and I never noticed: that shows you how I feel."

   He stopped and drove a fist into one palm. "And I hate it, the
idea of running away. Even as a last resort," he swung towards
the general.—"It is a last resort, isn't it?"

  "Ayuh."

  "Just to get a few hundred clear—"

  "More like a hundred thousand, Fred."

   At his surprise, Stoddard continued: "The other side aren't
the only ones who do technological espionage. They've about
perfected a reduced-metabolism system that works; down to less
than one percent of normal. Our biology people say they can
work out the remaining bugs without using their methods." They
both grimaced slightly; one reason the Domination made faster
progress in the life sciences was its willingness to expend
humans.

   "So the passengers age less than a year. Crew in rotation; no
more than five years each. Seeds, animals, frozen animal ova,
tools, knowledge, fabricators… all the art and history and
philosophy the human race has produced. Enough to restart
civilization; our civilization. America was started by refugees,
son. What's your say?"

   Lefarge nodded once, then again. "Yes. As a last resort,
because too much is at stake. It's not as if the resources were
crucial. The Protracted Struggle isn't going to be tipped by a
percent here or there."

  Stoddard sighed with relief, and his smile was warm.
   Hell, that's Uncle Nate's smile, Lefarge noted with surprise.

   "Fred, you just past the test," he said, coming around the desk
to lay a hand on his shoulder. "And I can't tell you how glad I
am."

   "Test?"

   "Yes. Look, Fred, we've got lots of anti-Draka fanatics; the
Domination produces them like a junkyard dog does fleas.
They're useful; that's one reason India cost the Draka the way it
did. But fanatics are limited; they can't really think all that well,
not where their obsession is concerned, and they aren't reliable.
They've got their private agendas, which is fine if they happen to
coincide with the command's, and if not—" He shrugged. "This is
too big to risk."

  Lefarge nodded slowly. "And I've just shown I'm not a fanatic?
General, don't bet on it."

  "Mebbe there's a difference between that and a good hate."
He made a production of refilling the pipe. "Well, that was a big
enough secret?"

   "Oh, sure." Lefarge grinned like a wolf. "Out with it." Another
secret, went through him. And this one has to be a weapon.
Something that can well and truly upset the balance.

   "Nh-huh. You are going out there. With a promotion to
lieutenant colonel. Security chief, overall command with War
Emergency Regulation powers. The rank will go up as the Project
builds up."

   Lefarge whistled silently. War Emergency Regulation. Power
of summary execution!

   "You see, Fred, you're perfect. Good technical background;
good record with the OSS. Known to be space-trained. But not
prominent enough to make the Security Directorate flag you,
particularly. Not more than they watch fifty, a hundred thousand
other officers." There were twenty million in the Alliance
military.
   "Just the right type to be put in charge of a
middling-important project. Like a fusion-power network for the
asteroid belt; like an antimatter production facility. Like a fleet
of antimatter-powered warships. Layers like an onion; by the
time, which God forbid should ever happen, they come to the
New America,"—Lefarge nodded at the name—"you'll be senior
enough to oversee security work on that."

  "And?"

   Stoddard leaned backward against the desk, cupped an elbow
in a hand. "And that's as much as anyone on Earth knows, except
me, thee, and a few technical people. Damned few know that
much. The technical people will be going out with you; they'll
brief you when you get there. All the Chairman and the President
know is we're doing something, and the appropriations are in
the Black Fund."

   "Yeah. Everyone's feeling rich these days." Even with the
military burden, taxes had been cut and cut again in recent
years, as wealth flowed in from new industries and from space.
Economists kept warning that the budget surplus would wreck
the economy if prices went on flailing the way they had. "They
won't miss it."

   "You'll get everything you need. We're encouraging
development of the belt, you may have noticed, and doing it
hard. That'll give more background to camouflage you, and more
local resources to draw on in the later stages. This project is
going to be a black hole, and you're the guardian at the event
horizon. Nobody comes back. Nobody and nothing. Except you,
occasionally, and you report verbally to me or my successor. I
don't tell anyone anything. Not until it's ready."

   For a moment, for the first time in a year, Lefarge felt pure
happiness. Then he hesitated, reached into his uniform jacket for
a cigarette. Have to give this up again, he thought. At least until
whatever habitat we build gets big enough.

  "Any news?" he asked softly. They both knew he could only
mean his sister.
   "Fred—" Stoddard returned to his chair, fiddled with the
controls. "All we've been able to learn is that she's alive, they
haven't penetrated her cover, and she's been bought up by a pilot
officer who was there." He leaned forward, sorrowful and
inexorable. "No, Fred, no. We will not expend assets—
people!—trying to pull her out. And we won't try to trade for her,
because we have to keep what bargaining power we have for
situations where it's really needed."

   There was more emotion in the old man's voice than Lefarge
had heard in many years. "Fred, I love you both as if you were my
own, you know that. Marya's tough and smart. It's not
inconceivable she could get out. Or die trying. Until then, the
only help, the only protection she has is that cover story. You will
not endanger it, understood?"

   "Yes. Yes, sir." Lefarge straightened, set his beret on his head.
"I'm to report in a week? Well, if you'll excuse me, sir, I intend to
go take advantage of the time. First, by getting very drunk.
Safely, alone."

   Stoddard sighed and dropped his face into his hands as the
door closed. I cannot weep, he thought. For if I do, will never
stop.



CLAESTUM PLANTATION
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY
PROVINCE OF ITALY
MAY, 1976

   "Yolande? "

   She stopped, caught between impatience and sick relief at the
excuse for delay. It was John, looking grimmer than she had seen
him in a long time, since Mandy got back from the last
operation, in fact. Jolene was behind him, trying to make herself
invisible. Yolande stopped, sighed, rubbed a hand over her
forehead.

   "Yes, John?"
   He faced her, looked aside for a moment, then directly into
her eyes.

    "There's somethin' I'd like to discuss with yo', sister," he said.
A nod in the direction of the plain door ahead; they were in a
little-used section of the manor, only sketchily finished at all,
suited for the use she had put it to. "That serf of yours, in
particular."

   The day was warm, but Yolande felt her skin roughen under
her field jacket. "That's… not somethin' I care to discuss,
brother," she said carefully, eyes on his face. The dappled
sun-shadow patterns from the tall window at her back fell across
the hard tanned planes of it, bleak and angry.

  "I care to discuss it," he said. "Not just fo' myself. Fo' our
parents, yo' sisters, for Mandy."

   She opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated. The look on
his face was enough to bring her out of self-absorption, with a
prickle of feeling that it took a moment for her to recognize.
Danger. This was the wrong context, the wrong person; this was
her brother, Johnnie… and a very dangerous man, an extremely
angry one. A cold-water feeling, a draft of rationality through the
hot, tight obsession these rooms had come to represent.

   "All right," she said, impatiently. "Say yo' say."

   "Not here. In there."

  Yolande blinked, conscious of her lips peeling back.
Unconscious of her hand dropping to the butt of her sidearm,
until she saw him copy her motion with flat wariness.

   "If that's the way yo' want to discuss it, 'Landa."

   "I—gods, Johnnie!" She shook her hand loose. "All right,
then." Her back went rigid at the thought of another seeing this
with her. She pushed open the door.

    The American serf had been sitting at a table, picking
listlessly at the wood. She looked up at the sound of the door
opening, and scuttled to the far corner of the room; her hands
caught up the tablecloth in passing, held it tented out in front of
her as she scrabbled to push herself back into the stone.

   "Noooooo," she said. They could see her mouth through the
thin fabric, open in an O as round as her eyes. "Nooooooo.
Ahhhhhhhh. Nooooooo." The serfs face looked fallen in, as if
something had been subtracted from it, and her arms were
wasted.

   Yolande swallowed and turned her back; it was different,
seeing it with John there. Suddenly she felt herself seized, the
back of her neck taken in a grip as irresistible as a machine,
turning her about.

   "Look at that!" John said. "That is what I wanted to… This
can't go on, 'Landa, it cannot. I will not allow it. None of us will."

   The serf was making a thin whine, clutching the tablecloth to
her with arms and legs, rocking. Yolande reached back, used a
breakhold on the thumb to free herself, spun to face her brother,
panting.

   "Yo' disputin' my right to do as I will with my own?" she
grated.

   "Not on my land!" he roared, the sound shockingly loud. "Not
in my family's home!" John reached over and pulled her pistol
free, grabbed her hand, pressed it into her palm.

  "Kill her, if that's what yo' want. Or get rid of her. Or if yo'
want to keep actin' like a hyena, "get yo' gone."

  Yolande looked at the weapon, up at her brother, her eyes
hunting for a chink in his rage. "Are—" She fumbled the weapon
back into its holster. "Are yo' tellin' me I'm not welcome in my
family's home?" she said, in a small high voice.

   "My sister Yolande is always welcome here," he said flatly.
"My sister wouldn't do that,"—he jerked his head at the moaning
serf—"to a mad dog. It's your property… Don't yo' understand,
'Landa, yo' doin' this to yo'self. Every time yo' think of Myfwany,
yo' takes it out on that poor bitch. Does that ease yo' pain? Does
it? Isthat,"—he pointed again— "what yo' want your memories
attached to? Yo've got to start livin' again. Not just goin' through
the motions."

   Yolande turned, braced her hands against the wall. Something
inside her seemed to crumble, and she felt an overwhelming
panic. Gods, he's right. I'm poisoning all I have left. That
couldn't be right. It's her fault … Or is it my fault?

  "All right," she said dully. "All right." His hand touched her
shoulder gently, and she turned into his embrace. "All right." Her
neck muscles were quivering-rigid, but her eyes stayed dry.

   "Yo' want me to handle gettin' rid of her?" he asked.

   She straightened, wiped her hands down her trouser legs,
looked over at the serf. Appraisingly, this time. "No," she said
calmly. "Yo' right. I won't use the controller on her any more. I'll
try and have her patched up… but I'm not lettin' her go. Lettin'
go isn't my strong point, brother. But thank yo'. Thank yo' all." A
nervous gesture smoothed back her hair. "Iff'n she recovers, I'll…
Oh, I don't know. Find somethin' else fo' her to do. That enough."

   He nodded. "Welcome back."

   She laughed, quietly bitter. "Not yet. Just startin', maybe." A
glance at the sunlight. "I've got the afternoon, befo' I have to take
the car in." She was on short-leave. "See yo' at dinner."



   I am Marya.

   "Oh, y' poor hurt thing."

   Gentle hands were lifting her, holding a glass to her lips. She
recognized the hands, the scent; they were surcease from pain.
Black hands, sweet voice.

   I am Marya Lefarge.
   "C'mon, honey, we gets y' to the doctor. Give y' somethin' to
sleep. Mistis isn't goin' do that no mo', she was just crazy,
honest, no more."

  I am Captain Marya Lefarge.

   She was walking into a place that smelled half medicinal, half
of country air, warmth. Children were playing outside, she could
hear them. She was lifted into a soft bed; a pill was between her
lips. Drowsy.

  "No more painmaker, no mo'."

   I am Captain Marya Lefarge, and nothing can hurt me.
Because beside that there was no pain. She had felt the worst
thing in the world, and she was still alive. Nothing can hurt me.
I will remake myself. However long it takes, I will.



   "Ah, Myfwany." The turf had healed over the grave, on the hill
across from the manor. It was lonely here, not many graves in
the Ingolfssons' burying ground yet… She looked up to the next
space; that would be hers.

   "I wanted to die, Myfwany, for… it seemed like a long time. Or
to go away, go away from it all. And I had to keep goin', keep on
doin' things. The things we talked about, the Astronautics!
Academy, qualifyin'. So dry , it was like I was dead, dead on my
feet and rottin', and nobody could notice. They say it heals… Oh,
do I want it to?"

   Yolande hugged her knees to her and laid her head on them;
one hand smoothed the short damp grass. Somewhere she could
feel a pair of warm green eyes open, somewhere in the back of
her mind.

   "Yes, love, I know. I takes things too much to heart." A rough
laugh. "Yo' wouldn't have gone… hog-wild with that Yankee, the
way I did. It should've been yo' that lived that night, love."

  The Draka rose, dusting off her trousers. "I promise I'll do
bettah now, Myfwany-sweet. Somehow I'll find a true revenge fo'
yo'. And…" Her eyes rested on the far hills. I think it would be
better if I could weep, at least alone, she thought. "I'll live, as
yo'd have said. Make the memories live, somehow." Her eyes
closed, and she felt scar-tissue inside herself. Scars don't bleed,
but they don't feel as well, either. "Goodbye fo' now, my love. Till
we meet again."


EUGENICS BOARD NATALITY CLINIC
FLORENCE
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY
PROVINCE OF ITALY
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
SEPTEMBER, 1976


   "Now, shall we proceed, Citizen?" the doctor asked politely.
He had glanced at the medal ribbons as she came into the office,
and Yolande suspected he would look up her record again as
soon as she left. A tall thin wiry man with cropped graying dark
hair and brown eyes, with a Ground Command thumb-ring.
Technical Section, she decided.

   The office was a large room near the roofline of a converted
Renaissance palazzo down near the Arno; the windows looked
away from the river, out to the Cathedral with its red-and-white
candystripe Giotto belltower and the green mountains beyond. It
was cheerfully light, white-painted with a good tapestry on the
inner wall, bright patterned tile floors, rugs, modem inlaid
Drakastyle furniture. There was a smell of river and clean warm
air from outside, faint traffic noises, the fainter sound of a group
of brooders counting cadence as they went through their
exercises.

  "The brooder I sent in is satisfactory?" she said.

   The doctor kept his eyes steady on hers as she turned back
from the window, but could not prevent an inward flinch. You
saw suffering in his line of work, but not like that.

  "A little underweight, but otherwise fine," he replied, calling
up the report. "The psych report indicates stabilized trauma,
surprisin' recovery. Hmmm, primagravida… good pelvic
structure, but are yo' sure a licensed Clinic breeder wouldn't do?"
Yolande shook her head wordlessly. "The technicians report
she's… hmmm, seems to have been under very severe stress.
Good recovery, as I said, no biological agent; still, I'd swear she's
been sufferin' from somethin."

   "She has," Yolande said, with a flat smile.

   "What?"

   "Me."

   The doctor opened his mouth, shut it again with a shrug. It
was the owner's business, after all. "Well," he said after another
consultation with the screen. "We adjusted her hormone level, so
she's ready fo' seeding anytime. Now, as to the clone." He paused
delicately.

   Yolande lit a cigarette, disregarding his frown. The new
gene-engineered varieties of tobacco had virtually no
carcinogens or lung-contaminants, and the soothing was worth
the slight risk.

   "I'd think it was simple enough," she said. The glassy feeling
was back, a detachment deeper than any she had ever achieved
in meditation. "My lover was killed in India. I want a clone-child,
with this wench as brooder."

   "Tetrarch Ingolfsson… yo' do understand, a clone is not a
reproduction? All the same genes, yes, but—"

   "Personality is an interaction of genetics an' environment, yes,
I am familiar with the facts, doctor." She sank into a chair. It
was odd, how the same physical sensation could carry such
different meanings. The smooth competence of her own body; a
year ago, it had been a delight. Now… just machinery, that you
would be annoyed with if it did not function according to spec. "I
realize that I'm not getting Myfwany back." Something surged
beneath the glass, something huge and dark that would shatter
her if she let it. Breathe. Breathe, calm.
   The medico steepled his fingers. "Then there's the matter of
the Eugenics Code."

   She stubbed out the cigarette and lit another. "I'm askin fo' a
clone. Doctor. Not a superbeing."

   "Yes, yes… are yo' aware of the advances we've made in
biocontrol in the last decade?"

  Yolande shrugged. "I've seen ghouloons," she said. "Bought a
modified cat awhiles ago."

   He smiled with professional warmth. "If yo'll examine
that-there screen by yo' chair, Citizen." It lit. "Now, we've had
the whole human genome fo' some time now, identified the
keyin' and activation sequences." His face lit with a more
genuine warmth, the passion of a man in love with his work.
"Naturally, we're bein' cautious. The mistakes they made with
that ghouloon project, befo' they got it right! We're certainly not
talkin' about introducing transgenetic material or even many
modified genes. Or makin' a standard product."

   Double-helix figures came to three-dimensional life on the
screen. "Yo' see, that's chimp DNA on the left, human on the
right. Ninety-eight percent identical, or better! So a few changes
can do a great deal, a great deal indeed." Seriously: "And those
changes are bein'… strongly encouraged. Not least, think of how
handicapped a child without them would be!"

  "Tell me," Yolande said, leaning forward, feeling a stirring of
unwilling interest beneath the irritation.

   "Well. What we do is run analysis against the suggested norm,
an' modify the original as needed. Saves the genetic diversity,
hey? With yo' friend—"

  His hands moved on the keyboard, and Myfwany's form
appeared on the screen; it split, and genecoding columns ran
down beside it. Yolande's hands clenched on the arms of the
chair, unnoticed despite the force that pressed the fingernails
white.
   "See, on personality, we're still not sure about much of the
finer tuning. We can set the gross limits—aggressive versus
passive, fo' example, or the general level of libido. Beyond that,
the interactions with the environment are too complex. With yo'
friend, most of the parameters are well within the guidelines
anyway. So the heritable elements of character will be identical
to an unmodified clone."

  "Next, we eliminate a number of faults. Fo' example," he
paused to reference the computer, "yo' friend had allergies.

   "We get rid of that. Likewise, potential back trouble…
would've been farsighted in old age… menstrual cramps… Any
problems?"

   "No." Even with feedback and meditation, those times had
been terrible for Myfwany; Yolande had only been able to suffer
in sympathy. The child—Gwen, she reminded herself— Gwen
would never know that useless pain.

   "Next, we come to a number of physical improvements.
Mostly by selectin' within the normal range of variation. Fo'
example, we know the gene-groups involved with general
intelligence… Genius is mo' elusive, but we can raise the testable
IQ to an average of 143 with the methods available. Fo' your
clone, that would mean about fifteen percent up; also, we've been
able to map fo' complete memory control, autistic idiot savant
mathematical concentration, and so forth. On the athletic side,
we build up the heart-lung system, tweak the hemoglobin ratios,
alter some of the muscle groups and their attachments, thicken
an' strengthen the bones, eliminate the weaknesses of
ligaments—no mo' knee injuries— and so fo'th."

  "The result?" Yolande said.

   "Well, yo' know, a chimp is smaller than a man… and many
times stronger. After the 'tweaking,' the average strength will
increase by a factor of four, endurance by three, reflexes by two,
twenty-five percent increase in sensory effectiveness. Greater
resistance to disease, almost total, faster healin', no heart
attacks… slightly lower body-fat ratio… perfect pitch,
photographic memory, things like that."
   "So." Yolande's chin sank on her chest. She had wanted… He's
right. Gwen has to have the best. As I'd have wanted for
Myfwany. "And?"

   "Well, this is the most advanced part. We've been able to
transfer a number of the autonomic functions to conscious
control… Not all at once! Imagine a baby bein' able to control its
heartbeat! No, we're keyin' them to the hormonal changes
accompanyin' puberty, fo' the most part. Like any Citizen child
learns, with meditation an' feedback, only it'll be easy fo' them,
natural, able to go much further. Control of the reproductive
cycle. Heartbeat, skin tension, circulation, pupil dilation, pain…"

    He looked at the screen. "Yo' friend was in fine condition, but
she had to fight fo' it, a lot of the time, didn't she? Your Gwen,
she'll be able to set her metabolic rate at will. Eat anythin', and
it'll be easy to stay in prime shape."

   Yolande remembered Myfwany sighing and turning the
dessert menu face-down. A wave that was dark and bitter surged
up, closing her throat. This is absurd, she thought, squeezing her
eyes shut for a moment before nodding to the man to continue.

   "A lot of human communication's by pheromones: sex,
dominance, anger, fear. We increase the conscious awareness of
'em, an' make the subjects able to deliberately govern their own
output." He grinned. "Ought to make social life real interestin'.
That's about it, 'cept fo' one thing." A weighty pause; Yolande
endured it.

   "We've been lookin' into agin', of course. No magic cures, I'm
afraid. The whole system isn't designed to last. Normal
unimproved variety, yo' and me, Tetrarch, we wear out at a
hundred an' twenty absolute maximum. Modern medicine can
keep us goin' longer, maybe right out to the limit by the time
you're my age, but that's it. Then,"—he shrugged—"yo' know that
Yankee story, about the steamcar made so well everythin' wore
out at once?"

   Yolande felt herself snarl at the name of the enemy, hid it with
a cough, nodded.
    "Best we can do is stretch it. To about two hundred fifty years
fo' the next generation."

  Her eyes opened wide; that was something worth boasting
about. "Show me," she said.

   The column of data beside the figure of Myfwany
disappeared; a baby's form replaced it. The infant grew, aged;
limbs lengthening, face firming. Yolande stared, caught her
breath as it paused at fourteen, eighteen, twenty. Oh, my darlin'!
something wailed within her.

   No. Not quite the same; the computer could not show the
marks experience laid on a human's face. A few other minor
changes, fewer freckles, slightly lighter hair. If you looked very
closely, something different about the joints, in the way the
muscles grouped beneath the skin.

   "Gwen," she whispered to herself. For a moment the
responsibility daunted her; this was a twenty-year duty she was
undertaking, not a whim. A person, a Draka, someone she would
have to play parent to as long as they lived. Give love, teach
honor. Then:

   "Yes. I understand, Doctor; that's entirely satisfactory."

   She paused. "Just out of curiosity, what's planned fo' the serfs
along these lines?"

   He relaxed. "Oh, much less. That was debated at the highest
levels of authority, an' they decided to do very little beyond
selectin' within the normal human range. Same sort of clean-up
on things like hereditary diseases. Average the height about 50
millimeters lower than ours. No IQ's below 90, which'll bring the
average up to 110. No improvements or increase in lifespan,
beyond that, so they'll be closer to the original norm than the
Race. Some selection within the personality spectrum; towards
gentle, emotional, nonagressive types. About what yo'd expect."
He laughed. "An' a chromosone change, so that they're not
interfertile with us any mo'; the boys can run rampant among
the wenches as always without messin' up our plans."
  "Yes," she said again, interest drifting elsewhere. "When can
we do it?"

   "Tomorrow would be fine, Tetrarch. The process of modifyin'
the ova is mostly automatic. Viral an' enzymic, actually…
Tomorrow at 1000 hours?"



   Yolande looked down into her brandy snifter. It was her
second, and she could barely remember tasting it. Barely
remember tasting the meal, or even pushing the food around the
plate; the gelato lay melting before her. It no longer seemed like
treason that the body carried on; it was treason that the mind
healed, kept trying to involve her in things. She took another sip,
welcoming a numbness that was easier imposed from without
than within. I have to watch this, some distant part of her mind
told her. Myfwany's honor was part of her now; she bore it in
trust. She must be faultless, at least in the eyes of the world and
the Race, or that trust would be disgraced.

    She looked up; it was full dark, here on the terrace beside the
Amo. Little was left of the prewar town this close to the river,
little except the timeless arcs of the bridges. Her people had
turned the banks into parks and pleasanoes like this little
outdoor restaurant; light globes on cast-iron stands were
scattered among the tall dark shapes of the cypresses and the
lush late-summer flowers. A few boats went by, and she could see
folk strolling the colored-brick walks, hear low talking and
music. Above, the stars were out, and the sickle moon. It was still
warm enough to bring a slight prickle under the armpits of her
uniform tunic.

   Yolande strained her eyes. Was that a light, just across the
line of the Lunar terminator? She decided not. Someday the city
her folk were building there would be visible from Earth, but not
yet. There were moving lights aplenty above, though; one to the
west that might be a laser-lift from the Herakulopolis launcher
at the Straits of Gibraltar.

  It's there I should be, she thought. Out where there's
something to do. Where there's an enemy to kill. You could
forget a great deal, in war. Even loneliness.

   "Excuse me, Tetrarch," a voice said. Yolande brought her eyes
down and saw a man standing respectfully near the other side of
the table. About her age, with an Aerospace Corps thumb-ring.
Unremarkable, with close-cropped hair a dark-blond color, blue
eyes, skin the startling white of someone not exposed to sunlight
for some time. "Mind if I join you? Teller Markman, Centurion,
Drive Officer on the Conqueror."

   She blinked. That was the deep-space probe, the fourth Jovian
expedition; it had just barely avoided the Americans on its
return through the Belt. Yolande looked him up and down; he
raised a brow at the coldness of it, then relaxed as she smiled
lopsided.

   "Why not?" she said. There were worse distractions.



   "Sorry," Teller Markman said, easing out of her and away.
Yolande gave him a final squeeze and unwrapped her legs from
around his.

  She sighed and rolled onto her back, stroking the knuckles of
one hand down his cheek.

   " I mmmm, no, don't apologize, yo' were a complete
gentleman," she said dreamily. Freya, I'm tired. I think I could
sleep now. They were in her room at the hotel; it was dark,
except for the light and breeze that leaked in around the curtains
from the balcony. Odd, how a man's sweat smells heavier than a
woman's. "I usually don't, not the first time with someone;
always did enjoy givin' it as much as gettin'." A long yawn.
"That's the closest I've come since India, anyways. Stopped tryin'
altogether, fo' a whiles."

   He offered an arm, and she curled closer.

   " Want me to stay?" he asked.

   "Yes, thanks. Nevah did like bein' alone after." And you're
actually quite sweet. Far too many Draka males acquired bad
habits, brought up on serf wenches, but Teller hadn't even
wanted to enter, until she told him to. Then again, there isn't
much in the way of bedwench on a long cruise, is there? He had
had some fascinating stories to tell, things that didn't get into
the official records.

  Teller hesitated for a moment. "Mmmm… like to stay in
contact?"

   Would I? she thought. The immediate impulse was to lash
out, to defend her solitude. Pull yourself together, she scolded
internally. Myfwany wouldn't want me to live a hermit.
Wouldn't be good for the child either, the effects on me.

    "Yes, Teller, I think so. Understand, though, I'll be honest with
yo', a few things yo'd better know. First, do things work out well,
it'd be my first time keeping company with a man fo' mo' than a
single time. I'm about sixty-forty the other way, I think."

  "I thought so, rathah," he said. Well, that would have been
obvious from some of her responses; still, it was perceptive. "I'm
not in a hurry, iff'n yo' not, Yolande."

   She nodded against the resilient muscle of his shoulder and
ran a hand over his chest; so strange…

   "The othah, thing, let's keep it straight from the beginnin',
this is just friendly-like. My lover who died in India, she was the
one and only fo' me."

   He nodded into her hair. "I understand." Yolande chuckled to
herself; was that relief? Well, I think we suit each other's needs
for a while, friend Teller. And I think we will be friends.

   "Feel like talkin' about it?" he continued.

   She sighed and closed her eyes. "Not much, but I should," she
said. "Or so the alienist says. Besides, what is there to talk
about, but what your mind turns on? "Clonin", well, I think it's
the right thing to do."
   "Surprised yo' bein' so easy on this wench," Teller remarked.

    "Oh—" Yolande stirred a little uneasily. "Well, she was at fault,
but not to blame, y'know? It's a weakness of mine, I'm too easy
on my serfs, I'll admit. Not with that one, though; I think I broke
her mind with the controller. Trouble was, it made me feel like
shit. Seeding her womb may quiet her down, and it'll be a way of
her makin' amends without actually hurtin' her. Don't know if I'll
let her nurse it, though. Depends on how she turns out."

   "Don't think it's weakness, just a delicate sensibility," Teller
said gallantly." 'Sides, serfs aren't machinery, and I don't much
like those who treat them like they were. They have to obey, an'
be punished if they don't. Beyond that, no harm in kindness." He
stretched. "Want to sleep?"

   "Hmmm. Actually, not yet."



   Yolande looked up as the serf walked into the room. Marya
was dressed in a disposable paper shirt; the medical technician
pulled it off and pushed her toward the couch. It was at the
center of the room, surrounded like a dentist's chair with
incomprehensible machinery, near a curved console with
multiple display screens. The room was deep within the Clinic,
far from the morning sun; the American captive's eyes blinked at
the harsh overhead lights, reflected from gleaming white tile and
synthetic. Her eyes darted from the doctor, busy at the console,
to the other serf meditech in white who waited by the table.

   She started uncontrollably as she saw Yolande rise from the
corner.

   "Nhhh!" she gasped, then clenched her teeth, staring at the
palm-sized controller clipped to the Draka's belt. Her left hand
hugged the left wrist to her stomach, as if she could bury the
controller cuff on it into her flesh, away from the radio
commands.

  Yolande forced herself to watch the flinch, the eyes gone wide
and white around the iris. I should be enjoying this, she thought,
hating her weakness. Remembering the American's
stubbornness. Instead it made her faintly nauseated, like a
wounded dog. The faint medicinal-ozone smell of the Clinic was
a sourness at the back of her mouth.

   " Marya!" she said sharply. "Yo' won't be punished, as long as
yo' obey. Do as these people tell yo'."

  "Mmmmistis," the serf stammered. Docile but
quivering-tense, she waited while the other technician laid a
paper sheet on the table, then climbed onto it and lay back.

    "Feet in the stirrups," the serf technician said. "Thatsa-right,
little momma, this no hurt ata-all." She buckled the restraints at
neck, arms, waist, knees, and thighs. "Now, we geta you ready for
the visitor." She began to rig a visual barrier below the serfs
neck.

   "No," Yolande said, walking closer. The serf looked up with a
respectful dip of the head. "No, I want her to see it all."

   The meditech looked towards the doctor, mimicked his slight
shrug. "Si, Mistis." She touched controls instead, and the
equipment moved. The couch bent into a shallow curve, raising
Marya's shoulders and buttocks. The stirrups moved apart and
back with a slight hydraulic whine, presenting the serfs genitals.

  "Thisa no hurt," the meditech repeated. She pulled down a
dangling line, attached it to Marya's throat.

   The doctor looked up from his screens. "She's
hyper-ventilatin' and on the edge of adrenaline-blackout," he
said dryly, giving Yolande a resentful look. "One cc dociline." She
could read his thought: Damned amateurs messing up a
medical procedure.

  Fuck you, she thought back.

   Marya's straining relaxed a fraction, and sanity returned to
her eyes. Good, Yolande thought. It would be terrible if she went
mad.
    " Wwwwhat—?" the serf shook her head angrily, as if trying to
fling the stammer out of her mouth. "What are you doing to
me?"

   Yolande rested a hand on her stomach. "Seeding yo' womb,"
she said quietly, looking into the other's eyes. "Myfwany left me
her ova. They don't have the egg-mergin' technique mastered yet,
or I'd do that. So we're clonin' her; yo're to bear the egg."

   The serf froze for a moment, then began to throw herself
against the restraints, hard enough to make them rattle; it took
Yolande a moment to place the sound she was making. A growl.
The two meditechs frowned without looking up from their
instruments, and the doctor swore aloud.

    "Prey's prick, Tetrarch!" His hand touched the controls. "Two
cc dociline, an' if yo' don't stop interferin', I won't be responsible
fo' the procedure!"

   Yolande nodded, but spoke once more to the serf. "Marya."
She raised the controller box; the anger drained out of the serf,
and she whimpered. "If the pregnancy an' nursin' go well, I won't
use this on yo' again. If they don't, I'll lock it on until yo' die!
Understand me, wench?"

  A frantic nod. Then Marya's eyes darted down as the
meditech touched her.

   "Dona you worry, little momma," the meditech was saying
from between the serfs legs. "This just take a momento." She had
an aerosol can in her hand; with careful, swift movements she
applied a thick pink foam to the genital area and lower stomach.
"Now just wait a minute."

   "Nnnnno!" Marya bit at the corner of her lip. Yolande looked
up; the other meditech had rolled her sleeves back to the elbow
and thrust both hands into a claver. There was a flash and hum,
and when the technician withdrew them they were covered in a
thin film that glistened like solidified water where the highlights
caught it. "Allll right, Antonia," she said.

   "Hnnn!" from the serf on the table. Yolande followed her eyes;
the meditech was wiping off the foam with cloths that had a
sharp medicinal smell, moving down from belly to anus; the hair
came with it. The Draka could see the muscles of Marya's belly
and thighs jerk as the tech followed with a clear sharp-smelling
spray. The pinkly naked flesh gleamed.

   The serf with the molecular-film gloves replaced her
co-worker. "Whata you think we win the bridge tournament?"
she said casually, spreading the subject's vulva with her left
hand. With her right she ran an experimental finger into
Marya's vagina. "If that crazy Giuseppe no—Jesus-Mary-Joseph,
she tight like stone!"

   Yolande pushed down with the flat of her hand. "Marya,
relax," she said in a clear, clipped tone. After a long moment she
felt the serf loosen into obedience.

   "Thank you Mistis, thata better," the meditech said. Her
companion handed her an instrument like a speculum, giving it
a quick spray of lubricating oil from another aerosol.

   "Agg. Nhhhhnng." Marya's voice, as the meditech inserted it
with a series of deft, steady pushes. She gave the threaded dilator
at the base two turns and hooked fold-out supports over Marya's
thighs to hold it in place.

  "Please! God, please!"

  The doctor whistled through his teeth. "Catheter now,
Angelica," he said.

   "Giuseppe, he crazy like fox," the other tech said, unreeling
the end of a spool of what looked like black thread from a
machine on casters. It rolled near. "Here. He say you play too
cautious, you lose alia time."

   The gloved meditech threaded the tip of the catheter through
the instrument and into Marya. "Master Doctore?"

   "Good, anothah ten millimeters. Careful now. Very slowly."
Yolande stroked Marya's stomach and watched the wild, set eyes
that stared down between her legs. "Good, that's it."
   "Hmmm. Acidity balance good, uterine wall looks good…
getting a reading… Let's boost… All right, here we go."

  Yolande looked down at the shuddering body on the couch,
imagining a tiny form with red birth-fuzz lying in her arms; she
smiled, and for a moment the weight of hatred lifted.

   "Blastocyst's in the uterus. That's the egg in the womb to you
laypeople," the doctor chuckled. "All right, Tetrarch, one seeded
brooder. Virtually certain to take, anyway. Leave her here until
tomorrow, she ought to be immobile. Intend to bring her back fo'
the bearin'?"

   "No," Yolande said, with a slight smile. "We've got a perfectly
good midwife on our plantation. Look at me, Marya." The serf
looked up, licked her lips. Wisps of hair were plastered to her
brow, and Yolande pushed them back with one finger, and
touched her navel with the other hand. "Yo're going to bear
Gwen fo' me, Marya, an' suckle her. That's how yo' serves me and
the Race, now. Understand?"

   The serf jerked slightly. The meditech had withdrawn the
speculum and catheter; the two technicians laid a cloth over
Marya's crotch and adjusted the stirrups so that her legs were
together with knees up. One waited patiently with a blanket,
while the other stripped the thinfilm gloves from her hands. The
doctor rose.

   "Yo' can pick her up tomorrow. Unless yo'd care to sit with
her."

   "No," Yolande said. The meditechs draped the blanket over
the serf, rucking it around her neatly and freeing one hand next
to a plastic cup of water. "No, I've got a date." This was better
than inflicting pain, but she did not want to stay and watch.
"And Marya here needs to be alone with her thoughts, hey?"




             CHAPTER TWELVE
   SUPERCONDUCTORS TO BE MANUFACTURED IN SPACE
[NPS] It was announced today from Alliance Space Force
headquarters In Monterrey that earlier, unconfirmed reports of
the manufacture of room-temperature superconductors on the
Freedom One orbital platform were true. Intelligence sources
indicate that similar work is being done by the Domination's
space-fabrication researchers, and in any case the process has
proven to be so simple that any competent materials engineer
could rediscover if given a sample.

   The implications of this discovery are profound. Space Force
spokesman Josepha Sherman said. The midrange
barium-copper-oxygen-rare earth superconductors, which were
discovered in the late 1950s and require liquid-nitrogen cooling,
have already found many applications. The new compounds have
unlimited current density capacities, and remain
superconductive up to the antiferromagnetic transition
temperature, in the area of 330 degrees Celsius. While they
require zero-gravity processing, the materials required are
common, and eventually the superconductors will be no more
expensive than aluminum cable. Applications in electric motors,
power transmission and storage, transportation and computers
are obvious and revolutionary. Others too numerous to mention
will be found; for example, with the new materials shielding
against solar-flare radiation becomes much easier.
                                      Space and Science Digest
                                    "New Materials from Space"
                                               March 20, 1966



SOUTH WIND WAITING ROOM
CASTLE TARLETON, ARCHOHA
ARCHOHA PROVINCE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
MAY 3, 1982
  "Candidate Centurion Yolande Ingolfsson, please."

   Yolande laid down the perscom board and nodded at the
Auxiliary who stood waiting, hands folded and shaven head
bowed. The South Wing was part of the original core of Castle
Tarleton, two-story quadrangles of native sandstone and granite.
These were buildings erected as garrison-fortress against
tribesmen armed with spears; now the descendants of those
tribesmen swept the floors, and decisions made here sent
warriors and ships to fight beyond the orbit of the moon.

   And determine the fate of junior officers, she thought
nervously as she rose and settled the peaked cap on her head,
following the serf out the yellowwood door and down the outside
corridor. This hearing was something of a formality, for the
members of the Assignments Board would have arrived at their
decision days ago. Not a formality for me! And I can still fuck it
up.

   The corridor was the usual type in the Old Territories, solid
wall on one side and arches on the other that looked in on the
courtyards, on fountains and trellises and plants in giant stone
pots. The inner wall bore trophies of arms and banners, faded
cloth rippling in the thin highland air, noon sunlight bright on
the old polished iron; shovel-headed Nguni spears and coats of
Dervish chainmail, Mauser rifles and Spandau machine-guns. It
was a perfect early-fall day, dry and warm with only a few high
clouds. Yolande fought down a childish impulse to stop and
check the alignment of her tunic or the polish on her boots; the
garrison blacks were as immaculate as attentive servants could
make them, and it was irrelevant anyway.

   An antechamber of pale honey-colored stone, scattered with
massive desk-consoles of polished granite; tall windows flooded
it with sunlight, the smell of plants and cleaning-wax and old
stone, a hint of the great city beyond. There was no sound save
for the tictic of keyboards and two sets of bootheels. The final
door was twice her height, dark red marula wood studded with
copper rivets the size of her fist. Two Janissaries stood on either
side, bulky and faceless in their impact armor and face-shield
helmets; they snapped to attention as the doors swung open and
the Auxiliary bowed her in.

   "Candidate Centurion Yolande Ingolfsson, Aerospace Force,
detached!" the serf announced.

   The doors slid shut behind her with a soft shnnnnk. The great
chamber beyond was dark save for the far wall, and her eyes took
a moment to adjust. The picture before her was a hologram, a
planetary shot taken close off Jupiter. The great banded disk
hung against the black, stripes of blue-white and orange, the
huge brick-red swirl of the Great Red Spot to the lower right.
Tiny globes against it were two moons, sulfur-colored Io and
silver-bright Europa. For a moment too slight to halt her stride
she was light-minutes from Earth, hanging in zero-C before the
viewport and lost in the vision of storm-clouds greater than
worlds.

   The Board was seated at a horseshoe-shaped dais of black
stone with its open end toward her. She came to a sharp stop,
clicked heels and saluted, fist to breast.

  "Service to the State!"

  "Glory to the Race," came the reply.

   She stood at an easy parade rest with her hands clasped
behind her back and boots apart; the Arch-Strategos was in the
center, the two lesser officers at either side visible with trained
peripheral vision. Smoothly, mind took control of body, slowing
her breathing and heartbeat, easing the constriction in her
throat. There might be—probably were— medical sensors trained
on her. They expect you to be nervous, she thought. And to
control it well.

   "Greetings, Centurion," the Arch-Strategos said. He was an
old man, an unmoving gaze whose pouches and wrinkles she
could just barely see by the reflected light of the hologram. The
voice was dry and cold, somehow papery, suggesting a whisper
despite the conversational tone and amplification.

  "We are here to review your record and future service," he
continued. The hands moved over the screen in front of him;
with a shock, Yolande realized he was blind.

   The rustling voice continued. Now she could detect an
Alexandrian accent, sharper-voweled than most, crisp and hard.
Folk of that city were prominent in highly technical branches of
the Forces.

   "Excellent but uneven record at the Yalta Academy;
academics slightly better than passable, flight record in the top
five percent; personnel evaluation as 'possibly lacking in
necessary ruthlessness.' Squadron service unremarkable until
Indian Incident. Exceptional combat record in the later stages of
that conflict. Southern Cross award, second class. Exceptional
record since then, first-class honors from the Astronautical
Academy course, faultless deep-space ratings since." A pause.
"Evidently the events in India supplied a motivation lacking
before."

   Yolande felt sweat break out in a prickle along her upper lip,
forced memories down beneath the surface. Later, later.

   "Therefore, you are approved for promotion to the grade of
Cohortarch in the service of the Directorate of War, least
seniority."

   A wave of relief made Yolande's skin itch, as if it had life of its
own and wanted to crawl free and dance. This was the critical
point in a career officer's progress, when you learned if you were
tracked for command or not. A Cohortarch in the Citizen Force
ground-troops commanded a unit of five hundred, or equivalent.
Rather more in the Aerospace Command, where crews were
rarely all-Citizen. This was the beginning of accomplishment, of
her life's work of vengeance.

   "Congratulations, Cohortarch," the general continued. "Now,
do you have any requests as to your next assignment?"

   Now what does the scary old bastard want? she thought
frantically. Then: best give them the truth. "Deep-space warship
assignment," she said crisply, from the iron mask of her face.

   "Ah." A long wait. "Why?"
  "Service to the State, sir. The best opportunity to inflict
damage to the enemies of the Race."

   "Commendable," the Arch-Strategos said; was it possible
there was a tinge of humor in his voice? "Be warned, Cohortarch.
You are on the verge of rank sufficient to hold independent
command. The killing lust which is essential in a simple warrior
of the Race, even in a junior officer, must now be controlled by a
self-discipline more strict than any superior's orders." A long,
considering wait. "What is the purpose of harming the enemies
of the Race, Cohortarch?"

  Oh, shit. He's wondering about my record from the alienist.
"Suh, to break them to our Yoke."

  "And?"

   "Suh… when the last enemies are enserfed, there is no limit to
the accomplishments of the Race! The transformation of human
nature and the solar system—" She had let enthusiasm creep into
her voice; a calculated move, but true still. That had been her
dream in the long ago, and Myfwany's. She had simply
underestimated the blood needed to accomplish it.

   A chuckle. "Well enough. Simply remember this: that a
premature resort to the Final War will not produce the Final
Society. It will kill this planet."

   "We do have a command for you, Cohortarch Ingolfsson. Two
cruisers of the Great Khan class, the Batu and the Suhotai. And
several cargo and research craft, modified from vessels of the
same category."

   Glory, glory! Yolande thought, keeping the same even, steady
rhythm of breath. Her old ship, the Subotai, where she had been
Squadron Exec; Teller must have gotten rotation to something
bigger, a base command maybe. And another ship; the Fleet was
expanding as rapidly as the orbital construction nexus could
manage, but this was something else again.

  "Suh!"
  "Regard the far wallscreen, Cohortarch."

   Her eyes flicked up to the holo; it was an older shot, probably
from the first manned expedition to Jupiter back in '69. That
had been a near-disaster, but others had followed, and it was
almost a routine voyage now. The screen changed to a north-pole
overview of the solar system out as far as Saturn.

   "Cohortarch, it's become a truism because it's true: who rules
space, rules Earth. Orbital sensors and weapons continually
improve; even now they could destroy a single tank, or ten
thousand. Soon they will be able to strike an individual soldier at
will. We and the enemy race to outbuild each other; but weapons
imply factories, power sources, mines, the whole structure of
support necessary for that… There are a hundred thousand of the
Race and their servants beyond Earth's atmosphere, and we hope
to increase that by a factor often in the next decade. Must if our
goals are to be achieved. There is a problem."

   The picture changed again, shadings of different colors
blotching the orbits.

   "Energy and Lunar materials are cheap, and now available in
large quantity to both us and the Alliance. The limiting factors
are those things which must either be brought from the outer
system, or out of Earth's gravity well. The latter is prohibitively
expensive, not simply in money but in foregone opportunities.
Until now, both Powers have had ample supplies from the few
cometary bodies we have been able to capture, and from the two
Apollo asteroids. The Alliance are now starting to receive the
first major shipments from the asteroid belt proper, which they
largely control."

   "We are not yet short of metals, although more would be
welcome. Unfortunately, we are short of volatiles, water, carbon,
nitrogen." A half-seen shrug. "Too many projects attempted at
the same time; intoxication with the gigantic possibilities of
space. Or simply hubris, our national weakness… especially the
Aresopolis project on Luna. Useful, a monument to the Glory of
the Race, but dependent on our undertakings in the Jovian and
Saturnian moons. These are behind schedule. The distance is far;
the difficulties, great."
   Yolande remembered the radiation belts and their effect on
superconductor shielding; ice-volcanoes; equipment designed for
the Inner System failing in an environment given only the most
cursory study because there was no time for the sort of in-depth
investigation really needed. The sort that would find the lolling
surprises before they struck. Instead, full-scale exploitation as
soon as the cargo-capacity was available, and learning by
disaster. Loneliness in outposts where the sun was merely the
brightest star, despair, madness, death by fire or cold or suicide.

    "We will triumph there, our Will prevail, but time presses.
Now, while the Yankees point their so-admirable farside
reflector at other stars, we have been… alert. There is a body
falling inward from beyond the belt." A line traced inward,
crossed the path of Earth well behind the globe's passage, before
heading out again. "It is only two kilometers in size; very dark,
quite cold, off the plane of the elliptic. Unnoticed until now.
Without intervention, it will bypass us by a considerable margin.
Later in its approach, extreme measures would be necessary. But
if we can capture it now…"

  "Suh?" A two-kilometer rock was still big.

   "A new method. A modification of the pulsedrive, using
half-megatonne fusion bombs; we have no lack of those. The
experts assure me that it can be brought into a stable, if
eccentric, orbit around the Earth. Then they may settle their
quarrel as to whether it is a burnt-out comet or an asteroid
proper." A slight change in the wintry voice. "A small asteroid,
by cosmic standards. Megatonnes of what we so desperately
need!" The slow, calm tone again. "It is our estimation that if we
establish possession, and maintain an escort, the Alliance will
not intervene." More formally: "Cohortarch; do you accept this
assignment?"

   "Yes, suh'!" It would mean many months away from Earth…
away from Gwen. Forget that. It was something that needed
doing, and they wouldn't have picked her if she weren't the best
qualified. Even with expansion at the present rate, postings like
this were not handed out to all and sundry.

  Nor would she ever get anything better than dirtside
anonymity if she turned this down.

  The officers on the dais leaned their heads together for a
moment, whispering. Their leader spoke:

   "It is the order of this Board that Cohortarch Yolande
Ingolfsson be appointed to the command of Task Force Telmark
IV. You are to report to Draka Forces Base, Platform Sky Lord
Six two days from this date, for familiarization with the vessels
and crew under your command; to depart thence for the Apollo
asteroid Telmark IV approximately two weeks from this date,
determine its composition and arrange, in coordination with
Merarch Doctor-Professor Henry Snappdove of Technical
Section, for its expeditious transfer to Earth orbit. And, of
course, to cause such other harm and loss to the enemy as is
compatible with the first objective."

  "There is one more thing," the Arch-Strategos said before she
could salute. This time his voice was almost human. "I note from
your file that you haven't reproduced."

  For a moment Yolande bristled, then relaxed. It was his
business; a high commander's business was the welfare of the
Race. And it was a compliment.

  "I have a daughtah, suh, Gwendolyn Ingolfsson."

   "She is adopted, and her genetic material is that of…"A pause
to consult the screen: "Myfwany Venders, killed in action in
India in 1975." Slight surprise. "A clone."

   The wash of loss was fainter now, faint enough that she could
feel what was underneath it: rage, and guilt.

   "Suh. I had planned to seed a brooder with ova of my own
befor' departin'." Well, she had thought about it.

   "Excellent. I have read your poetry collections, Cohortarch."
Was he smiling? "Both A Grief Observed and Colder Than the
Moon. Your Archon's Prize was well deserved. The Glory of the
Race is accomplishment, and beauty is as much so as power.
Dismissed."
  Yolande felt her ears turn red. "Service to the State!" she
barked, to cover the confusion. Would have sworn the old
deathfucker had Helium-H for blood, she thought, as she clicked
heels and saluted with fist to heart. Well, well.

  "Glory to the Race."



   The family was waiting for her in the ringroad plaza by the
south side of the Castle Tarleton grounds. Her brother John and
Mandy, sitting at a table under an umbrella and talking. Looking
exactly what they were, Landholders in from the provinces, down
to the broad-brimmed hats and conservative Tolgren 5mm's…
David, their latest infant, cooing and gurgling in the arms of
stout Delores, his brooder-nurse; Jolene, Lele… and Marya, with
Gwen. Gwen.

   "Momma! Momma!" The small red-headed form bounced
erect and ran toward her, toddler's tunic flying. "Momma!" She
leaped up.

  "Ooof." She was heavy, for a five-year-old; that was the denser
bones. Incredibly strong. Yolande grabbed her under the armpits
and swung her in a wide circle, laughing up into the face that
smiled back at her.

  "Zero-G!" the child cried. "Zero-G, momma!"

   Yolande darted a look of apology at her brother, and tossed
her daughter up with a swoop-catch. "There yo' go, spacer!
And—one and two and three and dockin' maneuver." She gave
the child a smacking kiss and hugged her.

  Gwen's arms tightened around her neck, and she pressed her
head against her mother's. "Love yo', momma," she said.

  "Love yo', too, my baby Gwennie," she said.

  "I am not a baby! I'm Gwen," she replied firmly.

  "Indeed yo' are, light of my life." Yolande signed to Marya.
"Here, now stay with yo' Tantie-ma for' a minute, an' hush."

   John and Mandy were smiling indulgently at her, hands
linked.

   "I gathah the news is good," her brother chuckled. Mandy was
using her beltphone to call for the car; the family had rented the
latest for their stay in Archona, a superconductor-electric with
maglev capacity on the few stretches of road relaid for that
luxury.

  "Yo' are lookin'," Yolande said, buffing her nails, "at the
newest Cohortarch in the Directorate of War."

   "Well, well, well, we Ingolfssons are movin' up in the world,"
he said, with a swift hard embrace. John had never been more
than a Tetrarch, or wanted to be. He and Mandy did their
Territorial Reserve duty, and that was enough distraction from
Claestum and its folk. "Even as I dragged yo' appalling offspring
through the zoo and amusement park. Wotan's stomach, the
things they do with rides these days! While Mandy shopped the
estate into bankruptcy; we'll need a Logistics Lifter to get the
loot—"

   He winced theatrically as the tall blond woman dug him in the
ribs. "Gwen didn't enjoy those rides half as much as yo' did," she
said. "Do I quarrel with yo' gettin' every toy Biocontrol dreams
up fo' the credulous planter? Like those steakberries?" John
winced more sincerely; the high-protein meat-mimicking fruit
had proven a beacon for every vermin, pest, scavenger, and grub
in Italy. Their son began to cry softly. "I could scarcely take Davie
along with yo' and Gwen, now could I?"

   They glanced over to the nurses. Delores was just lifting a full
breast out of her blouse and brushing the engorged brown nipple
across the infant's mouth; she rocked the child and crooned,
smiling, as he suckled.

  "That reminds me, yo'-know-who dropped a broad hint it'd be
appreciated if I had anothah befo' shippin' out. Hmmm, Gwen?
Yo' likes a little brothah or sistah to play with?"
   The girl had been seated on Marya's lap, watching the adults
and ignoring her cousin with five-year-old disdain. "Can't play
with a baby," she said practically. "They just makes messes an'
sleeps."

   Yolande laughed, and glanced an inquiry at her brother and
sister-in-law. Mandy nodded. "One more's no problem, 'Landa.
Freya knows, what with ours and the two new ones ma an' pa are
havin', we gettin' to be more of a tribe than a family."

   Yolande's mother had borne four children naturally, but
seemed to prefer the new method wholeheartedly.

  "I'll have to pick a brooder," she said.

  "No problem… 'Ship out'?" her schoolfriend said.

   Yolande shrugged, spread her hands and looked from side to
side in the universal Draka gesture for secrecy. Not that the
Security Directorate needed to have spies hiding behind bushes
these days.

  "Be gone fo' quite some time. Months, leastways."

   Gwen made a protesting sound, frowning and pouting,
blinking back tears. Yolande moved over toward her on the stone
bench, smoothing the copper hair back from her brow.

  "Now, where's my big brave girl?" she said gently. "Momma
has her work, an' I'll bring yo' back another piece of a star,
sweetie." Gwen had been just old enough after the last voyage to
understand that the light pointed out in the sky was where her
mother had been, and the lump of rock from Ganymede was her
most precious possession.

   "I don' want a star. I want momma!" She tugged on Marya's
hair. "Tantie-ma, tell momma she cain' go!"

   "Hush, Missy Gwen. You know I can't tell your mother what to
do." The serf wrapped her arms around the child and made
soothing noises.
   "Now, don't be a baby, Gwen," Yolande said. "Momma doesn't
have to leave fo' a week yet,"—which was forever to a child this
age—"and when I go, yo' can come up to the station with me,
how's that? Right up above the sky." No more risky than an
ordinary scramjet flight, these days, and she could probably
swing it.

   "And yo'll have Uncle John and Auntie Mandy and Tantie-ma,
too, and all the friends yo' makes at school next year. Oh," she
continued, looking up at Marya. "I meant to tell yo'. I've posted
bond, yo're moved up to Class III Literate." That meant
non-technical and non-political literature, and limited computer
access to menu-driven databanks; the classics, as well, most of
them.

   Marya looked down, flushing. "Thank you, Mistis," she
whispered. For an instant Yolande thought she caught
something strange and fierce in the wench's expression, then
dismissed it. Must have been boring, nothing much to read, she
thought. Should have done this before. Gwen subsided, looking
up with nervous delight at the thought of flying to orbit.

  "Well, what have we planned?" Yolande asked.

   "Lunch," John said. "Then the Athenaeum, then dinner at
Saparison's. Then there's a Gerraldson revival at the
Amphitheater, the Fireborn Resurrection, and Uncle Eric used
some pull to get us a box. We'll drop the children off first, of
course."

   "Nnooo, I think Gwen might enjoy it," Yolande said,
considering. "The dancin', at least. Marya can keep her quiet, or
take her out in the gardens if not." And it would be a treat for
Marya as well; she had been behaving well of late. Gwen was
certainly devoted to her, which was a good sign.

   The electrocar had hissed up on the smooth black roadway a
dozen meters away. The main processional streets of Archona
had been the first public places in the solar system to be fitted
with superconductor grids, just last year. Their car floated by the
curb, motionless and a quarter meter above the roadway as the
gullwing doors folded up; it still looked a little unnatural to
Yolande for something to hover so on Earth, without jets or fans.
She reached out for Owen's hand, and the child took it in one of
hers and offered the other to Marya. Their eyes met for a
moment over the child's head, before they turned to walk behind
the others.Strange, Yolande thought. Life is strange, really.



   "I did it! Cohortarch, independent command, I did it!"

   Jolene looked up smiling as Yolande collapsed backward onto
the bed in her undertunic, the formal gown strewn in yards of
fabric toward the door. The room was part of a guest suite in the
von Shrakenberg townhouse, beautiful in an extremely
old-fashioned way; inlaid Coromandel sandalwood screens in
pearl and lapis, round water-cushioned bed on a marble dais
with a canopy, a wall of balcony doors in frosted glass etched
over with delicate traceries of fern and waterfowl. They were
opened slightly, letting in a soft diffuse glow of city light cut into
fragments by the wind-stirred leaves of ancient trees; it smelled
of water, stone and frangipani blossoms, and the air was just
warm enough to make nakedness comfortable.

   "Congratulations, Mistis… again," the serf said.

   Yolande shook her head wordlessly; it had been a perfect
evening, after a stone bitch of a week shuttling from one
debriefer to the next and wondering what the Board would say.
Her mind still glowed from the impossible beauty of Cerraldson's
music… Why had he killed himself, at the height of his talent?
Why had Mozart, for that matter? And this mission, it was the
perfect opportunity, for so many things. She rolled onto one
elbow and watched Jolene. The serf was sitting on a stool before
the armoire, brushing out her long loose-curled blond mane,
dressed in a cream silk peignoir that set off the fine-grained
ebony of her skin. And also showed off the spectacular lushness
of her figure; the black serf had filled out a little without sagging
at all. The Draka grinned.

  "Yo' pick out a father fo' the new baby, Mistis?" Jolene asked.
"That nice Masta Markman?"
   Yolande chuckled. "No, not this time. We're giving it a
raincheck fo' a while; different postin's." Teller had been a good
choice for an affair; interesting and friendly without trying to
get too close. "Myfwany's brother agreed to release sperm from
the Eugenics banks when I asked. As fo' yo', wench, yo' just miss
the variety." She and Teller had tumbled Jolene together a few
times, and the wench had been enthusiastic.

   "Mmmh." Jolene said, meeting her owner's eyes in the mirror
as her hands brushed methodically. "It was nice." More
seriously: "Nice to see yo' smilin' agin, Mistis."

   Yolande shrugged, sighed. "Ah, well… Yo' can only grieve so
long. Gwen deserved better, little enough she sees of me." Work
could keep you busy, hold the pain at bay until it faded naturally;
work and the things of daytime. Nights were worst, and the
moments when the protective tissue seemed to fall away and
everything came back raw and fresh. "Grief dies, like everythin'
else." For a moment, her mind was beyond the walls, under the
unwinking stars. Except hate. Hatred is forever, like love.

   Jolene rose, arranged the armoire table, bent to pick up the
gown and fold it, swaying and glancing occasionally at the Draka
out of the corner of her eyes. Yolande watched with amusement,
lying on her stomach with her feet up and her chin in her hands.

   "Oh, fo'get the play-actin' and come here, wench," she said. "I
know what yo' want." Jolene sank down on the padded edge of
the bed and Yolande knelt up behind her, reaching around to
open the buttons of the silk shift and take the serfs breasts in her
hands; she traced her fingers over the smooth warmth of them
and up to Jolene's neck, down again to tease at the pointed
nipples. Her own desire was increasing, a soothing-tingling
whole-body warmth.

   "Mmmm, feels nice… Mistis? Mmm—" as Yolande ran her
tongue into the other's ear. "Mistis, yo' picked the brooder yet?"

  "Freya, yo' feel good. Up fo' a second." She drew the garment
over the serfs head and tossed it aside. "Yo' first. The brooder?
No, I'll look at the short list when we get back to Claestum."
There were always plenty of volunteers to carry a Draka child; it
meant a year of no work and first-rate rations at the least, often
the chance of promotion to the Great House, personal-servant
work or education beyond birth-status. Being a child-nurse as
well as brooder was a virtual guarantee of becoming a pampered
Old Retainer later. "Lie down."

   The serf lay back and Yolande straddled her, running her
hands from the black woman's knees up over thighs and hips,
circling on the breasts and starting over. Jolene arched into it,
squirming and making small relaxed sounds of pleasure. Yolande
savored the contrasting sensations, the firm muscle overlaid with
a soft resilient layer of fat. Not flabby, but so different from a
Draka, she thought.

   "Yo' do this with the brooder, Mistis?" Jolene asked through a
breathy chuckle.

   "Maybe," Yolande said, running her fingernails up the other's
ribs. That brought a protesting tickle-shiver. "If she's pretty an'
willin'. I'm goin' pick her for hips, health, an' milk, not
fuckabiliry."

   She leaned herself forward slowly, until they were in contact,
hips and stomach and breasts, then kissed her. Mint and wine,
she thought languidly. There were times when this was exactly
what you wanted: friendly, slow and easy. It might be the creche
training, but with Jolene she always felt affection without the
risk of the wench getting excessively attached, which was
embarrassing and forced you to hurt them, eventually.

  "Mhhh… I'd… I'd like to do it, Mistis," Jolene said. "Have yo'
baby."

   Startled, Yolande rose up on her hands and looked down into
the other's face. "Why on earth?" she said. The movement had
brought her mound of Venus into contact with the serfs, and she
began a gentle rocking motion with her hips; the other slipped
into rhythm.

  "I… like babies, Mistis."

  " Hmmm. Up a little harder. Yo' can have yo' own, any-times;
take a lover or a husband, I don't mind."

   "Thanks kindly, Mistis, not yet. I hopes to travel with yo'
sometimes, see them faraway places. But yo' away lots next little
while. An'… well, yo' knows I gets friendly with Marya? No, not
like this, just she don' have many to talk to. Other Literates at
Claestum sort of standoffish, 'specially with her." Yolande winced
slightly, remembering her early treatment of the wench. It would
mark Marya with dangerous misfortune, in the eyes of most.

   "Then, she don't have much to talk about with, with the
unclassed." The vast majority on a plantation, illiterate and
forbidden even the most limited contact with information
systems.

   "Marya good with babies, but Gwen gettin' to be a holy terror;
we kin,"—she ran her hands down her owner's flanks, gripped
her hips to increase the friction of the slow grind— "kin help
each othah. 'Sides," she said, raising her mouth to the Draka's
breasts, "I like the idea."

   "Mmmm. All right, I'll take yo' in to the Clinic and have yo'
seeded. Now shut up an' keep doin' that."



    Bing. The bedside phone. Yolande raised her mouth from
Jolene's. "Shit." Bing. Bing. Bing. "It isn't goin' away." Not that
it was all that late; she had only been back from the
Amphitheater two hours.

   Her left hand went to the touchplate, keying voice-only. Her
right stayed busy; not fair to stop now. "Yes?" she said coldly.

    "Uncle Eric here." An older man's voice, warm and assured.
"If I'm not interrupt—"

   Jolene shuddered and stiffened, crying out sharply once and
then again.

   "Ah, even if I am, niece, I've got a gentleman here I think yo'd
like to meet, an' some matters to discuss. Half an hour in the
study? Strictly informal."

   "Certainly, Uncle Eric," Yolande said, breaking the
connection. "Senator, possibly Archon-to-Be, war hero, Party
bigwig, darlin of the Aerospace Command,
he-who-must-be-obeyed by new-minted Cohortarchs,shit," she
muttered, looking down. Jolene was smiling as she lay with her
eyes closed, panting slightly. "Got to go fo' a while, sweet wench,"
the Draka said.

   Jolene's eyes opened. "Half an hour, the bossman said," she
husked, swallowing. "Five minute shower, five minutes fo' a
loungin' robe and sandals. Ten-minute walk; that leaves ten
minutes. No time to waste, Mistis-sweet, yo' just lie back there
an' put yo' legs over my shoulders."

   Yolande threw herself back and began to laugh. I wonder, she
thought in the brief moment while thought was possible, I
wonder what he has to say?



    The study was book-lined, with the leather odor of an old
well-kept library; there was a long table with buffel-hide chairs,
and another set of loungers around the unlit hearth. A few
pictures on the wall: old landscapes; one priceless Joden Foggard
oil of Archona in 1830 with a smoke-belching steamcar in front
of this townhouse; a nude by Tanya von Shrakenberg. A few
modern spacescapes. The doors to the patio had been closed, and
the room was dim; a housegirl was just setting a tray with coffee
and liqueurs on the table amid the chairs. There were three men
waiting for her. Uncle Eric; nearly sixty now, and looking… not
younger, just like a very fit sixty; the hatchet-faced von
Shrakenberg looks aged well. His eldest, Karl, thirty-six and a
Merarch already, like a junior version of his father with a touch
of his mother's rounder face and stocky build; also with more
humor around his eyes.

   They rose, and she saw the third man was still in evening
dress rather than the hooded djellaba robes she and her hosts
were wearing. A rather unfashionable outfit, brown velvet with
silver embroidery on the seams and cuffs, and a very
conservative lace cravat. An unfashionable man, only fifty
millimeters taller than she, broad-built and bear-strong; you
could see that he might turn pear-shaped in middle age among
any people but Draka. A hooked nose, balding brow, and a brush
of dark-brown beard.

   "Greetin's," she said politely, gripping his wrist. "Service to
the State."

   "Glory to the Race," he replied; the return grip was like a
precisely controlled machine. His accent was Alexandrian, like
the Board chairman this morning, but with a human pitch and
timbre. And a hint of something else, unplaceable.

   "Doctor Harry Snappdove, my niece, Cohortarch Yolande
Ingolfsson," Eric said, with a smile at her well-concealed
surprise. "I am on the Strategic Planning Board, Yolande," he
said.

   They all sank into the chairs; the housegirl arranged the
refreshments and left on soundless feet.

   "I felt," her uncle continued, "that it was time yo' and I
started… talkin' occasionally on matters of importance, beyond
the purely social."

   His voice was genial as they sipped at the chocolate-almond
liqueur, and the other two turned politely toward her, but for a
moment Yolande felt as tense as she had before the
Appointments Board. Then the mellow contentment of her body
forced relaxation on her mind, and she sent a thought of silent
gratitude to Jolene.

   "Hmmm. Ah, Uncle… am I to presume I'm bein' invited into
the infamous von Shrakenberg Mafia?" The factional struggles
within the Party had been getting fiercer these last few years,
and it was well-known who led the controlling circle of the
Conservative wing.

   Eric laughed soundlessly. "Wotan, are they still callin' it that?"
Seriously: "Yo're reaching the point where political
commitments become necessary." Yolande nodded slightly; that
was almost true. The Domination had never been able to afford
real nepotism; you had to have plenty of raw talent to get
promoted. Still, it had never hurt to have family and Party
connections.

   "The Party is goin' to split soon," he continued. Yolande felt a
cold-water shock at the casual tone, the equally casual nods of
the other two. The Draka League had always been there in the
background of her life, like the atmosphere.

  "How?" she asked.

   "Oh, along the present factional lines. About thirty percent to
my Conservatives, maybe twenty to twenty-five to Gayner and
her Militants, the rest to the Center group; the Center will pick
up what's left of the other parties, the Rationalists and so forth.
Melinda,"—she thought for a moment before realizing he must
mean Melinda Shaversham, the present Archon—"hates the idea;
she'll probably end up with the rump, the Center, and try to hold
things together. The Center have the largest numbers, but they're
short on organization an' leadership. Well prob'ly have an
unofficial Center-Conservative coalition, fo' a while at least. The
long-term struggle will be fo' the Center's constituency."

  "Well, if yo' lookin' fo' my vote, Uncle Eric—" she began
dubiously. He shook his head.

   "Somethin' far mo' fundamental, Yolande." He paused,
looking down into his glass for a moment. "One thing the
Militants don't lack, it's leadership: McLaren, Terreblanche, and
Gayner. A thug, a loon, and a loony thug, but smart."

  "Call themselves Naldorists, don't they?" she said.

   Karl's snort matched his father's. "Naldorssen's been dead
since 1952," he said decisively. "The Militants just wave her
name, since we've all had her Will-To-Power philosophizing
shoved down our throats in school."

   "Well, son, she did put it mo' coherently than Nietzsche, even
the formulations he made after he migrated to the Domination
and calmed down," Eric said charitably. "And the Militants do
have a point. All that trans-human stage of evolution thing was
mystical drivel when Naldorssen made it up, back when. With
modern biocontrol, it could happen." His mouth twisted slightly.
"Under the adjustment to circumstances mealymouthin', what
the Militants have in mind is reorganizin' the human race on a
hive-insect specialization model."

  "Gahh," Yolande said. Maybe I should have been following
public affairs more carefully.

  "Bad biology, too," the professor said. "The hive insects
haven't changed an iota in seventy million years."

  Karl laughed sourly. "Precisely Gayner's definition of success.
Not surprisin'; the icebitch's never had an original idea of her
own, anyways."

   "But we live in a more challenging environment than insects
do," Snappdove mused. "And… intelligence doesn't necessarily
imply a self-conscious individual mind, y'know. Let the Militants
get in control for three, four generations, and it'd be a positive
disadvantage, even for the Race. We'd end up as empty of
selfhood as ants."

   "Lola on ice," Yolande said, alarmed. "I have been out of
touch. Well, off Earth an' busy. Don't tell me the electorate is
buyin' this?"

    "Not directly, but then the Militant inner circle aren't spellin'
it out in those terms," Eric said. "And it appeals to our national
love of unchanging stasis, and the basic Draka emotion."
Yolande looked a question. "Fear."

   "Oh, come now, Uncle—"

   "Why else would we have backed ourselves into this social
cul-de-sac?" He rolled the liqueur glass between his hands. "Ever
since the Landtaking, we've been in the position of a man runnin'
downhill on a slope too steep to stop; got to keep going, or we fall
on our face an' break our necks. Individual relationships aside,
don't delude yo'self that the serfs as a group like us as a group.
They don't. Why should they? We enslave them, drive them like
cattle; because if we did any different, they'd overrun and
butcher us."

  Yolande looked from side to side, not a conventional gesture
but genuine alarm.

   "Don't worry," her uncle said dryly. "This place is swept daily
by technicians personally loyal to me. It works, or I'd be dead."

   "Well…" Yolande gathered her thoughts. "It's true, some
aspects of the way serfs are treated is… unfortunate." She
remembered deeds of her own. "I gathah yo'd like to increase the
scope of those reforms yo've introduced, the serf tribunals an'
such?"

   Eric nodded. "Yes; but those are strictly limited.
Administrative measures, really. They regularize the way serfs
treat serfs… perhaps not so minor a mattah, since we use serfs fo'
most of our supervisory work. It's certainly improved morale and
efficiency, among the Literates… and they still provide the
Headhunters with the most of they work. An ex-slave in America
once said that a badly-treated slave longed fo' a good master,
and a slave with a good master longed to be free… Not entirely
true thank Baldur the Good, or even mostly, but often enough to
be worrisome. No, the long-term solution is to eliminate or
reduce the fear. Do that, make the Citizen caste absolutely sure
they're not in danger from the serfs, an' genuine reform becomes
possible."

   "Yo' see," he continued, leaning forward with hands on knees.
The dim glowlight outlined the craggy bones of his face. "Yo' see,
an outright slave society like ours is a high-tension solution to a
social problem. Extreme social forms are inherently unstable;
ours is as unviable as actual democracy, because it's as
unnatural. It's too far up the entropy gradient. We have to push,
continually, to keep it there. Remove the motive of fear and
necessity, an' the inherent human tendency to take the path of
least resistance will modify it. Eventually—perhaps in a thousand
years—we'd have… oh, a caste society, certainly. An
authoritarian one, perhaps. But somethin' mo' livable fo'
everybody than this wolf-sheep relationship we have now. A
better way out than Gayner's beehive, fo' certain. That's almost
as bad as annihilation."

   "Leavin' us Citizens as sheepdogs instead?" Karl asked
rhetorically.

   Eric grinned at his son. "Don't quote me back at mahself, boy.
But yes, the human race will always need warriors and explorers,
leaders even."

   Yolande paused, picked up a brandied chocolate truffle and
nibbled on it. "Uncle, with all due respect, Ah don't see how yo'
could remove the necessity fo' strict control. It's been… well, the
root of everythin'. Except by turnin' the serfs into machinery o'
ghouloons."

  Eric's grin became almost boyish. "We use go-with, on the
Militants," he said. Yolande frowned in puzzlement; that was an
unarmed-combat term, a deception-ploy which used an
opponent's weight and strength against themselves.

  "Yo've been in contact with the Eugenics people, fo' your
daughter?" She nodded.

   "The Militants thought they'd fought through a favorable
compromise, a first step. We suckered them. Look—what are the
biocontrollers removin' from the serf population? It'll take
centuries more than the changes they're making in the Race, but
what? Not intelligence; they're increasin that, by eliminatin' the
subnormal. Not creativity; Lola's tits, we don't know what causes
that an' I suspects we never will, same as we'll never have a
computer that does mo' than mimic consciousness. We're just
removin'… that extra edge of aggressiveness that makes a
warrior, from the subject races. We all know serfs that be no
menace however free we let them run, right?"

   "And Draka who aren't much mo' dangerous," Karl laughed.

    Eric acknowledged it with a nod. "So, eventually… no fear. Not
that the serfs would be without bargainin' power; they'll still
outnumber us by eighty to one, and we'll still be dependent on
them… but we could let the balance shift without bein terrified
it'd shift all the way. And think of what we could do if we didn't
have to keep such tight clamps on their education an' such!"

   Snappdove made a vigorous gesture of assent. "Better
evolutionary strategy than Gayner's," he said. "More flexible.
Couldn't count the number of species that've hit extinction by
being overspecialized. Not that specialization's altogether bad;
have to strike a balance."

   She sipped at the drink again. Silence stretched into minutes.
"Uncle Eric… Senator… yo've always been good to me, and honest
with me. I'll be honest with yo'; it sounds good, and mo' or less
what I've been thinkin', though I haven't articulated it. I've
Gwen's future to think of, and my other children. But on foreign
policy, as I understand it, the Militants stand fo' absolute, well,
militancy. And that's my position, too, I… have reasons." She
stopped, feeling her own fragility.

  "Oh, so do we," Karl said.

   "Absolutely. Political equations don't figure as long as the
Alliance is in it," Snappdove rumbled, combing his beard with
his fingers. "Adds too much tension and anxiety."

    "Yes, I'm afraid so," Eric sighed. "I wish… well, we live as we
must, and do what is necessary. Our prim'ry obligation is to our
descendants, aftah all. As to the Yankees… well probably have to
kill most of them." He set his glass down. "Gods, how sick I am of
killin'!"

   "I'm not," Yolande said grimly. To herself: Is there anything I
value more than that revenge? Gwen, perhaps… A ghost opened
green eyes at the back of her mind and whispered. Don't borrow
trouble, 'Landa-sweet. Or torment yourself with decisions you
don't need to make.

   "Which brings us to the secondary mattah of Task Force
Telmark IV," Eric said. "Incidently, Arch-Strategos Welber is one
of us."

  Us, Yolande thought. So we make irrevocable decisions,
without a spot you could stop and say—"Here. Here I did it."
She shivered slightly; the trip to Archona had been difficult
enough when only an Appointment Board was at stake. Now she
had joined a political cabal, and Draka politics was a game
played by only one rule: rule or die.

   "We—the inner circle of the Conservatives, that is—want to
win the Protracted Struggle very, very badly. In the interim,
we've got to be seen to wage it effectively; one hint of softness an'
the Militants will be over us like flies on horse-shit. This is an
impo'tant mission. I think you can handle it. Wouldn't have
recommended yo' fo' it, otherwise."

   A wolfs expression. "Doesn't hurt that yo' a von Shrakenberg
relation, from the Landholder class… and have been seen
extensively in my company these past days. Politically profitable
glory fo' all. If yo' win, that is. Fail, and it's a setback fo' me." And
a disaster for you, girl, went unspoken between them.

   "M-ha," Snappdove said. "Very important. If that object's
what we think, our materials problems in the Earth-Moon area
will be solved for the better part of a decade, without having to
cut back on anything. By which time the outer-system projects
will be on-line. Finally."

   "We were over-hasty," Karl agreed. "Whole space effort has
been. Those early scramjets, they were deathtraps." He shook his
head. "Both sides. The Yankees kept trying to model the airflows
with inadequate computers, and we, we built a gigawatt of
nuclear power stations, used the whole Dniester for cooling, to
get that damned Mach-18 quarter-scale windtunnel. And we still
had disasters."

    Snappdove spread his hands. The gesture triggered something
in Yolande's memory, and suddenly she could place the overtone
to his accent. East European; his family must be one of the rare
elite given Citizen status after the conquest. Scientists, mostly;
that would explain a good deal.

   "We needed the lift capacity, if we were to develop near-space
in time," he said ruthlessly. "The only other way to orbit was
rockets, and they are toys. Even those first scram-jets could carry
six tonnes to orbit; now they're up to fifty."
   "The early pulsedrives were almost as bad," Yolande said. "We
lost a lot of brave people, using them in the outer system."

   Snappdove smiled at her, and to her astonishment began
quoting poetry. Hers: The Lament for the Fallen who Fall
Forever, part of the Colder Than the Moon collection. It had
used a literary conceit, a fantasy, that the quick-frozen bodies
retained a trickle of consciousness in their supercooled brains:

   "And those graveless dead drift restless,
In the emptiness of space
Who died so far from love and home
And the blue world's warm embrace…

   "But now those problems are largely solved," he continued.
"What remains is engineering. Wonderful engineering, though!"
He warmed, eyes lighting. "Perhaps that is why we of Technical
Section support the good senator… Did you know we have
funding for the first Beanstalk project, now?"

  "Ah?" Yolande said. That was news. "Where?"

   "Titan!" He made the spreading-hands gesture again at her
raised eyebrows. That was a cutting-edge project, lowering a
cable from geosynchronous orbit and using it to run elevators to
the surface. Daring, to put it on one of the moons of Saturn…

   "Logical," the professor insisted. "The gravity there, that is
nothing, only .14G, but the atmosphere is thicker than Earth's,
and the problems of operating on the surface horrendous, lasers
or mass-drivers out of the question. But a Beanstalk, that gives
us even cheaper transit, and once we do—nitrogen, methane,
ethane, hydrogen cyanide, all types of organic condensates! It
will take nearly a decade, but even so, once completed we can
pump any desired quantity of materials downhill to sunward.
Better we had concentrated on Saturn's moons in any case; the
distance is greater but the environment less troublesome than
Jupiter." The giant planet had radiation belts that were
ferociously difficult even with superconductor-magnetic
shielding.

  "Energy would be a problem, wouldn't it?" Yolande
speculated. This is part of the bait, she thought without
resentment, looking at her uncle sidelong. They know my
dreams. That was politics, and the dream was shared.

  "Well," Eric said easily, "there we've taken a tip from the
Yankees. Here, look at this."

    He slid a folder of glossy prints across the table to her. She
flicked through them rapidly. They were schematic prints for
some large construction; zero-G, or it would have collapsed.
Circular, with two… large railguns? at either side.

   "What is it?" she said.

   "Somethin' the Yankees fondly believe is secret," Eric said,
then glanced at his son. "Need to know," he added.

   The younger man rose. "Goodnight, all," he said cheerfully.
"I've got company waitin', anyhows. Less intellectual but mo'
entertainin'."

   Eric waited, then continued. "Example of how it's easier to do
things in space," he said. "We still haven't got a workin' fusion
reactor here on Earth. This is one—in a sense. Big empty sphere
with heat exchangers an' superconductor coils in the shell.
Throw two pellets of isotopic hydrogen in through the railguns,
splat. Beam-heat at the same time. Hai, wingo, fusion."

  "Ahmmm," Yolande said thoughtfully. "Sounds like what
we're plannin' fo' the next-generation pulsedrive." A pause.
"Crude, though, as a power source. Mo' like what we'd do. And
why do they need nonsolar power sources in the Belt?"

   "Yes," Snappdove said. "Patented
brute-force-and-massive-ignorance method, very Draka… but it
will work. Even useful for industry—the sun is fainter out there,
microwave relay stations for the power… also typical of our
methods. Here." He pulled out another of the prints, showing a
long rectangle of some thin sheet floating against the stars. "And
what our sources in the Belt say is being subcontracted for."

   She read the list. "Superconductor coils… wire… tungsten."
  "Linear accelerators," Snappdove said. "Not for mass-driving,
not for research. Antimatter production."

   Yolande blinked. "Is it possible?" she said. "I thought… wasn't
there an accident, a whiles back?"

   "Tech Sec facility in the Urals." Eric nodded. "Equivalent of a
megatonne sunbomb. Discouraged us no end. Engineerin'
problems in laser coolin' and magnetic confinement, but
antimatter is an old discovery on a laboratory scale, back as far
as the 1930s. Mo' sensible to do it in space, though. Question is,
why so secret?"

   "Weapons?" she thought aloud.

   "What point? We've already got weapons mo' powerful than
we dare use here on earth. Oh, yes, tactically useful in deep
space. Even better as a propulsion system, iff'n it can be
managed, the ultimate rocket, yes. Still, it's puzzlin'. This has to
be a long-term project, an' expensive as hell. The maximum
security approach makes it even mo' expensive an' slow. Fifteen
years even to start on large-scale production. Probably mo'; it's
doable but all sorts of problems. They'd put it in the Belt,
certainly." The Alliance was encouraging "home-steading" there
by every means possible. "We're goin' to deuterium-tritium
fusion pellets fo' pulsedrives soon, then deuterium-boron 11.
That's almost as efficient, all charged particles. They can't be
goin' to this much trouble just to build a better pulsedrive fo'
warships."

   Snappdove snorted. "We have a pilot project, at the
Mercury-Shield Platform." That was a research settlement,
orbiting in the innermost planet's shadow. "Developing a plan to
mass-produce solar power farms for near-sun use. Easily
adaptable to powering antimatter production, perhaps early
next century. We do the usual, wait for the Yankees to solve the
tricky problems, steal their development, rejig it for our needs.
They get a little ahead but not much."

   "So it can't be just what it seems," Eric said grimly. "Not just
a power source for Belt settlement, not just a try fo' better drives.
There's a big secret here. The sort that I have nightmares about,
knowin' some of our big secrets."

  "Well… yes, Uncle Eric, but what's my part in it? I thought the
High Command was sendin' me to grab a rock?"

   "Aha," Eric said, with a mirthless laugh. "A rock comin from
fairly close to where a lot of Alliance personnel have been goin.
And not comin' back, never. Now, we have information on a
launch."




           CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  PRIVATE ENTERPRISE IN SPACE

   In a speech today to the north American Enterprise Institute,
Commerce Secretary Ingrid Lindqvist called on the
entrepreneurs of the Alliance to contribute to the humanization
of space. Secretary Lindqvist noted that while pulsedrive ships
will always be expensive, they are rapidly Increasing in number
and efficiency, while solar-sail and plasma drives (given the
falling price of superconductor accumulators) put the system as
far out as the asteroids in reach with a modest investment given
the tax credits and subsidies recently approved by the Alliance
Grand Senate and the national governments, no more than the
price of a merchant ship of moderate size. "Our entrepreneurs
and companies are already present in strength in the orbital
habitats and Lunar bases. Their diversity is our strength; we
summon them to the contest for trans-Lunar space as well."

   Under the new New Homestead Act (Alliance Grand Senate,
Legislative Session 1976-77), private parties will now be able to
claim any body within the interdicted Alliance zones provided
they can develop it in a reasonable time. Survival equipment and
surplus plasma-drive—equipped cargo shuttles suitable for
conversion will be made available at Ceres Base. Facilities at the
Alliance military outposts and scientific stations have now
reached the point where full-time residence is possible, including
centrifugal-gravity habitats for periodic exercise and
child-bearing.

    The larger asteroidal bodies will require intensive capital
investment, but given cheap solar-powered vacuum refining
methods, many smaller bodies will be accessible to partnerships
or even individuals. Guaranteed markets exist, first with the
Alliance government projects, then in Earth-Lunar space.
Secondary activities, from manufacturing and food to services of
all types, are expected to grow exponentially. Secretary Lindqvist
added: "We have a crucial advantage here. We can trust our
people with small spaceships, and appeal to the profit motive.
What Draka Citizen will endure a prospector's life? And if they
send out serfs, what is to prevent defection?"
                                                  Capital Monthly
                                              Chicago Union Press
                                                      July 11. 1977


LOW EARTH ORBIT PLATFORM
FRONTIER FIVE
ALLIANCE SPACE FORCE
MAY 6, 1982

   Earth turned beyond the dome like a giant blue shield,
streaked with the white of clouds, glowing softly with an intense
pale light. The western coast of North America was on the edge
of vision, turning toward night, and the sunlight glittered on the
ocean through a scattering of cirrus. There were scattered spots
of light across the surface, above the last azure haze of
atmosphere, moving or drifting in orbit. Spidery cages of
aluminum beam extended in every direction in a latticework
that linked powersails, broadcast rectennae, machinery of less
obvious purpose. Further out were docking arms of tubing
connected to the main pressure-modules behind them; two held
passenger scramjets, long melted-looking delta aircraft,
featureless save for the big squarish ramjet intakes under the
rear of their lifting-body shapes.

   It was an old story to Frederick Lefarge. He twisted in the air
to watch his wife's face instead. How did I ever luck out like
this? he thought. The pale chill-blue light washed across the
hazel-green of her eyes, the mahogany hair and olive-bronze skin.
Tears glistened at the corners of her eyes.

    "Listen," she said softly. Her voice had an accent that was a
blend of her mother's South Carolina drawl and her father's
Spanish-Mayan; soft and lilting at the same time. "You can hear
it."

  "What?" he said.

  "The music of the spheres," she answered, then scrubbed the
back of her hand across her eyes.

  A bell pinged. "All passengers, flight Hermes-17A, forty
minutes to final call. Forty minutes to final call"

  "Damn, I wish you'd change your mind," he said fiercely.

  "Honey," she replied, smiling. "How many times have we been
over this? I wouldn't be anything but a burden for the next
month; need-to-know, remember?"

   She nodded to the scattering of people on the floor and sides
of the domed lounge. Lefarge felt the familiar vertigo-inducing
twist of perception, and now he was looking down, with the great
curve of Earth above his head. A ground-ape's fear of falling
passed through him unnoticed, and he studied the others.
Several dozen. You could tell the Space Forcers and old
stationjacks, and not just by their clothing; to them a floor was
just another wall, and they used the ripstick pads on feet and
knees and elbows to negotiate their way with innocent disregard
for orientation. You never saw them drifting free without a
handhold, either, like that hapless woman wearing a skirt of all
things, thrashing in midair until a crewman anchored a line
from the reel at his belt and leaped out to her.

   Most of the rest were those who would be leaving on the
Pathfinder. Forty of the eighty, come for a last look at the home
that none would see again for years, many never again. The
majority were young, more than half men, technical workers of
every type. He saw tears, laughter, raucous good humor, nervous
excitement among the handful of children. There was a
scattering of older folk, married couples solemn with the thought
of what this meant. His own two daughters were already aboard
the Pathfinder, sleeping in their cocoon-cribs in Cindy's cabin.
His stomach twisted at the thought.

  "You'd be aboard a warship, if you waited," he said.

   Cindy sighed. "Honey, it's important I get to know some of the
project people without… well, without you around." There were a
dozen recruits for the New America project aboard, the rest were
leaving at Ceres. But only one who has any inkling of the real
project, he thought. In time, in time. Patience.

   His wife was continuing: "Free people don't like living under
War Emergency Regulations, Fred. For things to work right,
they've got to want them to work right, and for that they've got
to see you as a human being, not some all-powerful bureaucrat.
What better way than to get to know your wife and children, on a
three-month voyage? There's only a few thousand people in the
whole belt, darling, and a few hundred on the Project. We're
going to be a real small town for a long while." Quietly. "Let me
do my part for this too, Fred."

  Cindy was cleared for the third-level version of the Project,
but he suspected she had guessed more.

  "It isn't safe," he said.

   "Darling, it's safer than coming out on the cruiser. It's been
years since there was a clash in the Belt, isn't it? And the only
incidents have been between warships."

    He ran a hand through his hair, sighed. "Okay, okay, you
convinced me before. The only thing the Snakes have scheduled
is an expedition out to Jupiter, anyway." Pulsedrive warships
were still not common, and mostly very fully occupied.

   "And we will get to Ceres about the same time," she continued
with gentle ruthlessness. His ship would be leaving much later,
but the Ethan Allen was a new-launched pulsedrive cruiser,
vastly more powerful. This would be her shakedown trip, in fact.
  "All right, Cindy! I just hope Captain Hayakawa understands
how important a cargo he's hauling."

   They linked hands, and she pulled herself closer, putting an
arm around his waist and her head on his shoulder. The hair
that drifted up around his nose was short-cropped (nothing else
was practical in zero-G), but it shone in the Earth-light, smelling
faintly of Colorado Mist shampoo and flowers. Her gaze went
back out to the curve of the planet above.

   "Well," she said, "he is carryin' part of something precious."
At his glance, she added: "Hope, for our tired old mother there.
Up here, where there's room to breathe." She dimpled. "Even if
there isn't much air…"

   "You're a romantic," he laughed. Somberly: "And the Snakes
are here, too."

   She nodded. "Like our shadows," she said, sadly. "Or like an
ancient set of armor with nothing inside but a corpse that's
rotting and pitiful and thinks it's alive, walking and clanking and
lolling and trying to eat…"

   "For a nice person, you've got a way with images," he said,
shivering slightly at the thought. It was appropriate, though. The
Domination was something that should have died a century ago.
And it's my job to bury it, he thought as they turned and braced
their feet against the cross wire.

  "Gently does it, honey," he said.

   They pushed off, floating down the ten meters to the deck; he
kept his arm around Cindy's waist as they twisted end-for-end
and landed. The ripstick on their slippers touched down on the
catch-surface of the floor, with a tack sound as the miniature
plastic hooks and loops engaged. The crew supervisors from the
Pathfinder were shepherding their passengers into one of the
radial exitways. As they passed the dogged-open pressure door,
he had another flash of twisted perspective, and now they were
at the bottom of a long well five meters broad, lit by strips, with
handholds in regular receding rows. It was lined with
close-cropped green vines, part of the air system, and a
contribution to the eternal rabbit protein of the spacer's diet.
The joke was that you shouldn't leave gravity if you couldn't face
rodent.

    Or there was fish, of course. Frontier Five had a big
watertank, like most industrial-transit stations with a
population over a thousand; all you had to do was take a
multitonne lump of Lunar silicon and point mirrors at it, inject
some gas and continue to heat. Voila, as Maman would say. An
aquarium, a convenient heatsink regulator and fuel store. You
could rent a facegill and go swimming there, if you didn't mind
sharing the water with trout and carp… the other inevitabilities
of life in space…

   Why am I thinking about this? he asked himself as they
passed a junction and caught a main-tube beltway. Cindy
snuggled closer as they rode the strip of conveyor. Incoming
traffic passed them on the left, and there was another set above.
They could see the heads of the passengers whipping by three
meters beyond. Because it's a distraction, that's why, he
thought.

   The departure lounge was thronged. Most of the exit
docking-tubes led to the thrice-daily Luna shuttles, off to the
moon-settlements of Freetown and Britannia, and New Edo. One
of the larger tubes had a rosette of four MPs in Space Force blues
hanging around it; they snapped his colonel's bars a salute, and
the three men eyed Cindy with respectful appreciation.

   Washington and Simon Bolivar were in, he remembered,
downlined with skeletal crews for new thrustplates and repairs to
their drive feed systems. The Ethan Allen was up at one of the
L-5 battlestations, doing final calibrations on her drive and
getting the auxiliary comps burned in; it was policy to keep as
much of the deep-space fleet as possible away from Earth. Too
many heavy lasers and beam-weapons between here and the
moon, too many missiles and hardened launchers, too may
sensors. A warship needed room to be effective…

   Another exit, with the circular railing guard and a
crew-woman in Trans-American silver. Briefly, his mouth
quirked; the early skinsuits had been that color, for insulation.
Someone had wanted to call the Space Force the Silver Service,
back then, until a tabloid came up with the inevitable "Teapots
in Space" headline. The display beside her was flashing: Flight
Hermes 17A—Trans-Am Ship Pathfinder—now boarding for
Ceres.

   "This is it," he husked.

  Cindy stood for a moment, then siezed him in a grip that
nearly tore him loose from the deck. "I'll miss you, honey," she
whispered, her forehead pressed into his chest. "Vaya con dios,
mi corazon." Tears drifted loose and drifted like minor jewels;
one landed on his lips, tasting of salt.

   "I'll miss you and the tykes, too," he said, his own voice a little
husky. Stepping back, he held her hands for a moment. "Go on
then, have them all charmed silly by the time I get to Ceres!" he
said.

   "Will do, Colonel, sir," she said, smiling and wiping at her eyes
with a tissue. She put a hand on the rail and stepped over,
pulling herself down the access tube feet-first to keep him in
view a moment longer.

   "Shit," he whispered to himself, as she passed out of sight.


CLAESTUM PLANTATION
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY
PROVINCE OF ITALY
DOMINATION Of THE DRAKA
MAY 7, 1982


   "Well, Myfwany," Yolande began.

   The graveyard was empty now, save for the dead and her.
Gwen had come, to solemnly lay her handful of wildflowers on
the turf; she was down by the bottom of the hill now, playing
with Wulda, their new ghouloon. He had been expensive, but her
daughter was entranced; she could hear the happy high-pitched
shrieks from up here, see the girl doll-tiny with distance and
perched on the transgene animal's shoulders as they romped by
the car. For the rest there was silence, and the warm sweet
smells of early summer in Italy: cut clover, wild strawberries
from the hedgerows. Bees hummed among the banks of
trembling iris that lined the flagstone pathways.

   "Gwen's growin' like a weed," Yolande continued quietly. She
was kneeling by the headstone, a simple black basalt rectangle
with name and dates inlaid in Lunar titanium; she thought
Myfwany would have liked that. "And gods, she's smart. I love
her mo' than I can tell, sweet. Goin' to be tough and fast like yo',
but sunnier, I think."

   She paused for a minute. You could see a long way from here,
between the trunks of the big oaks and cypresses. Over the vale
and the morning mist, past the terraced vineyards to the Great
House shining in its gardens, into the bluegreen haze of the hills
beyond.

   "I'm havin' a baby, by yo' brother Billy," she said. "Took Jolene
in fo' the seeding yesterday… don't know exactly why she
volunteered, maybe she misses yo', too, darlin'." Suddenly
Yolande pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes. "Oh, gods, I
miss yo' so! I try, sweet, I try but I'm not strong like yo'… I wish
yo' could tell me what to do." A shaky laugh, and she lowered her
hands. "I know, darlin', I'm bein' soppy again like you used to
say. Hated hearin' it then, and now I'd give mah soul to hear yo'
rake me over the coals again. I've gotten a new command,
though, love."

   She rose to her feet. Her voice whispered. "And I swear, by yo'
blood below my feet, Myfwany, I'll make them pay fo' yo'. Pay,
and pay, and pay, and it'll still never be enough." Aloud:
"Goodbye fo' now, my love. Till we meet again."

   She turned to walk down the hill; there was the flight to
catch. Why don't I cry? she thought. Never, here. Why?



LOW EARTH ORBIT
NEAR LAUNCH PLATFORM SKYLORD SIX
ABOARD DASCS SUBOTAI
MAY 23, 1982


"… drive systems at one hundred percent," a voice was saying in
the background. The last of the checklist.

   Yolande leaned back in the big crashcouch. Only the elastic
belts were buckled across her skinsuit; the massive petal-like
sections of the combat cocoon had folded back into the sides.
The bridge of Subotai was dark, lit mainly by the screens spaced
around the perimeter of the eight-meter circle. A dozen stations,
horseshoes standing out from the walls with a crashcouch in the
center, all occupied. Her own in the center portside of the axial
tube, surrounded by sections of console like wedge-shaped
portions of a disk. Dozens of separate screens—physical
separation rather than virtual, for redundancy's sake. Light blue
and green from data readouts, pickups, graphs and schematics.

   "Subotai on standby," said the First Officer, Warden Fennore;
she had voyaged with him before.

   A screen before her flicked to the face of Philia Garren,
captain of the other warship. "Batu on standby," she said.

  "Marbis on standby."

  "Sappho on standby."

"Crassus on standby."

  "Alcibiades, on standby."

   Cargo-carriers: the heart of this mission. A substantial
proportion of the Domination's fast heavy-lift capacity, originally
built for work around the gas-giant moons. She tapped for an
exterior view. The Telmark IV flotilla were stationary a bare
kilometer from Sky Lord Six and perhaps ten from each other,
touching distance in these terms. The armored globe of the
launch-station swung before her, with the 200-meter tubes of
the free-electron lasers around it like the arms of a spider. The
other ships… Yolande allowed herself a moment of cold pride at
the power beneath her fingertips.

   "Status, report," she said. And there was a certain queasy
feeling, before any mission. Like having eaten a little too much
oily food—and it was worse this time. This time everything was
her responsibility…

   "Time to boost, three minutes and counting," the First Officer
said.

    She looked at the other ships. The Batu was a twin of her own.
Two hundred and fifty meters from the bell of the thrust plate to
the hemisphere dome of the forward shield; most of that
machinery space open behind a latticework stretched between
the four main keel-beams. The heat dumpers, running the length
of the keels and the drive lasers; the long bundles that held the
plutonium fuel-pellets; the jagged asymmetric shapes of
rectennae, railgun pods, Gatling turrets, launch-tubes. And the
cylindrical armored bulk of the reaction-mass tank, with the
smaller cylinder of the pressurized crew-zone half embedded in
it. The transports were blockier, squat, similar propulsion
systems but without the weapons, more reaction mass… A
pulsedrive could run on just the fission reaction and the
byproducts, but that was bad for the thrustplates and
squanderous of fuel.

   All of them clamped to strap-on boost packs, of course. It was
not very nice to fire off a pulsedrive just outside the atmosphere;
the EMP would destroy electronics over half a continent.

  "Cleared for boost, Sky Lord Six," she said.

  "Guidance lasers locked. All locked. Excitement phase
beginning."

  An amplified voice, that would sound throughout the flotilla.
"STAND BY FOR ACCELERATION. STAND BY FOR
ACCELERATION. FIVE THOUSAND SECONDS, MAX AT
ONE-POINT-SEVEN-EIGHT G. TEN SECONDS TO BURN.
COUNTING."

  She gripped the rests, let the fluid resilience of the couch
enfold her. Far behind her back the supercooled oxygen in the
strap-on booster would be subliming under the first teasing
feathertouch of the station's lasers. A pulse to vaporize—

  Whump. The Subotai massed 14,000 tonnes with full tanks;
now that moved with a faint surge, growing as the magnetic
equalizers between thrustplate and hull-frame absorbed the
energy. And another pulse to turn vapor to plasma—

   WHAMwhummpWHAM—too fast to sense, building to
hundreds of times per second as the lasers flickered. The exterior
view showed long leaf-shaped cones of white flame below the
strap-ons, and the ships were beginning to move. Weight pressed
down on her chest, building; the acceleration would increase as
mass diminished. It was nothing compared to flying atmosphere
fighters, but it went on much longer… 5,000 seconds of burn.
Very economical, to save their own onboard reaction mass. It
was liquid O 2 and dirt-cheap here near Luna where the mines
produced it as a by-product; more precious than rubies out
where you needed it, at the other end of the trajectory. Even
more economical to save on the tiny plutonium-beryllium-plastic
pellets that powered a pulsedrive. Full load for a Great Khan
cruiser was half a million pellets, which meant six tonnes of
plutonium.

  The world had been mass-producing breeder reactors for
twenty years, to fuel ships like this.

   Minutes stretched, and the pressure on her chest increased.
She breathed against it, watching the time blinking on half a
dozen screens and remembering. Other launches; her first… only
six years ago? Assistant Pilot Officer, then. Not quite a record for
promotion. There had been casualties, and a massive expansion
program, and not everyone wanted space assignments… Uncle
Eric had pulled strings to get Gwen allowed up for the launch,
and she had actually been quiet when they showed her the ships
through the viewport; there was one who was definitely going to
go spacer herself.

  The stars were unmoving in the exterior view, but the station
was dwindling. Dwindling to a point of light, against the curved
shield of Earth; that shrinking to a globe. Other spots of light
around it, some things large enough to be seen: station
powersails, then a real solar sail half-deployed near a
construction station. Ten minutes, and the planet was much
smaller. The terminator was sweeping over the eastern
Mediterranean. Dusk soon at Claestum. Jolene was there, with
Yolande's child below her heart; she remembered holding the
serf's hand in the Clinic. Pinpoint lights from the darkness over
Central Asia; possibly launches from the laserlift stations in the
Tien Shan. City lights. Very faint straight lines on the northern
and southern edges of the Sahara; one of the few things you
could see from this distance were the reclamation projects.

   The moon was swelling; they would use it for slingshot effect,
about an hour after the burn stopped. Back in… '62, it had been,
she remembered how exciting, the first moon landings. Going
out with ma and pa on the terrace at home, the servants
unfolding the 150mm telescope, ma showing her how to spot the
tiny flame. The Yankees ahead—may they rot—but only by a few
months. Strange-looking clunky little ships, hand-assembled
around those first primitive orbital platforms. A dozen figures in
black skinsuits and bubble-helmets climbing down the ladders in
dreamlike slowness to plant the Drakon banner on the moon; she
had stayed up past her bedtime, glued to the viewer, and no one
had objected.

  "How far we've come," she murmured. Only a single
generation. Of course, we had incentive. Ten percent of GNP for
decades could accomplish a great deal.

   The First Officer responded to her words rather than the
meaning. "Making eight kps relative, Cohortarch," Fermore said.
'Twelve hundred seconds of burn to go; then a quick whip-round
and it's a month to Mars. Minimum-burn, for pulsedrives. And
you could pick up reaction mass, at the Draka station on
Phobos."

  She felt the weight of the sealed dataplaque over her breast.
Sealed orders, and there were only six others in the flotilla who
knew, of more than six hundred; she would tightbeam the
course-change when they were a week out. A profligate
trajectory, since it was necessary to deceive the enemy until the
last minute, burning fuel and mass recklessly, but the prize was
worth it.



BETWEEN THE ORBITS OF EARTH AND MARS
ABOARD DASCS SUBOTAI
JUNE 18, 1982


   The wardroom of the Subotai was small and cluttered; it
doubled as an exercise chamber, up here just below the bowcap
of the cruiser. They would be a long time in zero-G, and the
hormone treatments did only so much to slow calcium loss. Just
now Yolande and Snappdove had it to themselves, their feet
tucked into straps under a table. There was a lingering smell of
sweat in the air, under the chill freshness the life-support system
imposed.

   "Your health," Yolande said, raising her bulb and sipping
lemonade through the straw. Flat, but carbonated beverages in
zero-G were an invitation to perpetual flatulence. Such are the
trials we face pushing back the frontiers of the Race, she
thought dryly.

   Snappdove's beard had been clipped closer, for convenience in
the helmet-ring of his skinsuit. "Our success!" he said, clinking
his bulb against hers with a dull tump of plastic. "Not to
mention our wealth."

  "The news good as all that?" Yolande said.

   "The core samples are all in now," the scientist said.
"Definitely an ex-comet, somewhat larger and less dense than we
thought… ah, there is so much we do not know! Always we
discover theory-breaking facts faster than we can make plausible
theories, out here." He shook his head ruefully. "Ex-comet, or at
least something that came from the outer system, sometime.
Complex orbital perturbations, collisions… Comet, asteroid—we
impose definitions on nature, but nature does not always agree."

  Yolande sighed inwardly. She had not had much time to get to
know the head of the expedition's Technical Section crew—they
had only been here five days and he had been madly busy, but it
had been enough to know that he was unstoppable. A true
natural philosopher, out of time, she thought. The facts
entrance him because he can think about them, not necessarily
because they're of any use.

  "Yo' have a theory?" she said. _

    "Hmmm. Hmmm. Crude, but… several passes into the zone
between Earth and Mars resulted in the loss of the outer layer of
volatiles, various ices. The process was fairly gentle—I doubt if
the Object ever came within 1.1 AU of the sun—and the solid
material, the organics and silicates, were not thrown off. Instead
it formed a protective crust; there must have been a truly
unusual amount of such heavier materials. This was through
many passes, you understand. Perhaps asteroidal material was
incorporated. Now, though, we have a fairly complete crust,
there may be some sublimation still, but nothing drastic." The
slight foreign overtone to his accent became stronger as his
animation grew. "We will have to be careful; ammonia or
methane could still be present."

  "The composition?" she asked, reigning in impatience.

   "As favorable as could be hoped!" He spread his hands.
"Carbonaceous outer layer, rock and organic compounds. Under
that… ice! Over abillion tonnes of ice. Dirty ice at that, many
complex hydrogenated compounds. And—an additional bonus—a
rocky core with high concentrations of platinum-group metals.
At a guess, the Object did encounter asteroidal material. At
some time, the ice softened enough that… well, never mind." He
chuckled, and parked the drink in the air to rub his palms. "My
so-aristocratic colleague, has it occurred to you that we are now
very, very rich?"

    Yolande blinked. Why no, it hadn't, she thought. "Point-O-one
percent of the value divided by… two hundred and thirty Citizens
is that much?" A moment's pause. "Oh, I see what yo' means."

  "Yes, indeed. This discovery will power our space-based
development for half a decade."
   The commander of the flotilla nodded, mildly pleased. Not
that she had ever wanted for money; few Citizens did, and she
less than most. Still, it would be pleasant; she was of
Landholding family but not landed… A land-grant was free, but
that meant raw territory you had to spend a generation licking
into shape. Nothing like the opportunities her parents had had
in Europe after the Eurasian War. With enough money you could
get one of the rare plantations for sale, or pay for someone else to
oversee development. A heritage for her children; and then, it
would be useful to have an Archona townhouse…

  "Can we move it?" she added practically.

  "If it is possible, my crew can do it," Snappdove said with
another chuckle. "They are well motivated, even the serfs."

   Glory, she supposed, as well as wealth, for the Citizens. The
serfs would get the satisfaction of exercising their specialties;
these would be mostly Class V-a Literates already, many
creche-trained for the military. And privileges, apartments,
guarantees of education for their children. They would be eager
for success, too.

   "It is my ambition to get through a project without a single
execution," Snappdove said, echoing her thoughts. "And yes, we
can move it, I think. Monomolecular coating, reflective, to
decrease the heat absorption. Single-crystal cable webbing. Then
we set up that thrust plate—beautiful piece of work, astounding
things they do with cermet composites these days—and it only
has to last a month. Then boom! and boom!, we use our bombs.
Earth orbit, very eccentric one, but the details after that are not
our concern."

  She nodded. "Sounds good," she said. "Very good."

   He sighed happily. "Yes, every year the size of project we can
accomplish increases. Geometrically. Did I tell you, we have
nearly completed the long-range feasibility study for
terraforming Mars?"

  Her ears pricked. For a moment, she was back on the dark
beach below Baiae School, lying around the campfire and
watching the moving stars and dreaming of what they would do.
Myfwany…

   "No," she said hastily. Gods, how it sneaks up on you, she
thought dismally. Work, more work. That's what I need.

  "Oh, yes. We float big mirrors near Mars, melt the icecaps.
Much water and C0 2 there. More mirrors, increase the solar
heating. Then we blow up Callisto—"

   "Wotan and the White Christ!" she blurted. That was one of
the major moons of Jupiter. "That's biggah than Luna!"

   He nodded, and ran ringers through his beard. "But ice, only
ice; much more than we need for Mars. And there is no limit to
how big we may make our bombs. We drop pieces on Mars…
comets also, if convenient. Already the atmosphere will be
thicker and warmer. Water vapor increases the greenhouse
effect; tailored bacteria and algae go to work cracking the
oxides, the sun splits water vapor. An ozone layer. Nitrogen we
get from various places, Titan… In a long lifetime, there is
breathable air, thinner than Earth, higher percentage of oxygen.
Then we build the Beanstalks, and work begins on the ecology;
not my field. Many small seas and lakes, about half the surface."

   His eyes stared out beyond the bulkhead. "And then we bring
in serfs to till the fields… strange, is it not?"

   "No," she said frankly. "Should it be?" For a moment she
imagined condors nesting on the slopes of Martian canyons
longer than continents, forests five hundred meters tall…

   He snorted. "A matter of perspective. Me, I will buy an estate
in perhaps south China, for my children. And a block in the
Trans-Solar Combine, they have contracts in the project."
Another shrug of the massive shoulders. "All this is moot. We
must finish with the Alliance, first."

   Yolande grinned. It was a much less pleasant expression than
the intellectual interest of a moment before. "To business, then.
Can yo' get me retanked on reaction mass? I ran it down
somethin' fierce, matchin' velocities here."
  "Oh, yes. Trivial. Do you wish water or liquid oxygen?"

   "Hmmmm. No, we're rigged fo' 02, we'll go with that. How
long?"

   "Two days for your ship, and one to rig the stills. A week for
the rest of the fleet."

   "Do it, then. First priority. We need the intelligence data on
that Yankee ship." And an installment payment on the debt they
owe me, she thought. A small, small payment on a very large
account.



ABOARD TRANS-AMERICAN SHIP PATHFINDER
EARTH-CERES
JUNE 12, 1982


   The lounge of the Pathfinder had acquired a certain
homeyness in the month and a half of transit, Cindy decided. It
was on the second-highest of the eight decks in the pressure
section, a semicircle on one side of the core tube, across from the
galley and stores. One corner was posted with drawings and
projects; she and several of the other mothers held classes for the
children there, around the terminal they had appropriated.
Young Alishia Merkowitz showed real talent in biology; she really
should talk to the girl's parents… There was a big viewer, but the
passengers generally only screened movies or documentaries; the
sort who moved to the Belt didn't go in for passive
entertainment.

   There was a group mastering the delicate art of zero-G darts,
another arguing politics. The coffee machine was going, scenting
the air; it looked odd, but you did have to push the water
through here. A courting couple were perched by the sole
exterior viewport, but they were holding hands, oblivious to the
spectacle of the stars. Two young men were building a model
habitat from bits of plastic—scarcely a hobby, they were
engineers and had a terminal beside them for references. She
could catch snatches of their conversation:
   "… no, no, you don't have to use a frame and plating! Just boil
out the silicates, inject water, heat and spin and the outer shell
will…"

  Dr. Takashi moved his piece. Cindy Guzman Lefarge started
and returned her attention to the go board.

   "Oh, lordy, Doctor," she said. "You're never going to make a
go player of me."

   "You show native talent," he said, considering the board. It
was electronic, and they were using light-pencils to move the
pieces; the traditional stones were a floating nuisance in space.

   "I'm surprised you don't play the captain," she said, frowning.
A quarter of her pieces were gone… which still left her with more
than her opponent, who had started with a substantial handicap.
But far too many were nearly surrounded.

  "Ah." He smiled; Professor of Cybernetic Systems Analysis
Manfred Takashi was a slim man, fifty, with dark-brown skin
and short wiry hair. "Captain Hayakawa is impeccably polite,
but I doubt that he would welcome social contact. Not from me."

  Cindy raised her brows. "Well, he is fairly reserved. I would
have thought, though, you being Japanese—"

   The professor laughed. "Half Japanese, my dear Mrs. Lefarge,
half Japanese. Even worse, half black."

   The woman winced, embarrassed. Overt racial prejudice was
rare these days in the cities of North America, even more so in
space. Of course, some of the family in the South Carolina low
country were still unhappy about her mother's marriage to a
Maya from Yucatan, even a much-decorated naval veteran of the
Pacific campaigns back in the Eurasian War.

   "Actually," the man continued, "it is an interesting change. In
Hawaii it was the Japanese side of my heritage which created
problems."

  She nodded. The Imperial occupation in the early '40s had
been brutal, and the angers had taken a long time to dissipate.
Even now some of the older generation found it difficult to
accept how important Japan had become in the councils of the
Alliance.

   "You must be eager to get to work, on,"—she lowered her
voice—"the Project." Best to change the subject.

   "Indeed." He turned the light-pencil in his hands. "I—"

   Trhannnng. The sound went through the hull, like an
enormous steel bucket struck with a fingernail. Conversation
died, and the passengers looked up.

   "Attention!" the captain's voice. "We have suffered a
meteorite impact. There is no danger; the hull was not breached.
I repeat, there is no danger. All passengers will please return to
their cabins until further notice."

   "I must get back to Janet and Iris," Cindy said, rising briskly.
She forced down a bubble of anxiety; a meteor strike was very
rare—odd that the close-in radars had not detected it. "Continue
the game after dinner, Professor?"

   "I hope so," he said quietly, folding the board as he stood. "I
sincerely hope so."



   "Distance and bearing," Yolande said.

   "100 k-klicks, closing at point-one kps relative," the sensor
officer said.

   Yolande could feel the strait tension in the ship, a taste like
ozone in the air. A week's travel. Overcrowded, since she had
dropped off most of the ship's Auxiliaries who handled routine
maintenance and taken on another score of Citizen crew from
Batu. The main problem with Draka was keeping them from
ripping at each other. Constant drill in the arcane art of zero-G
combat had helped. And now action. Not that the pathetic
plasma-drive soup-can out there was any menace to a cruiser,
but they had to capture, not destroy. Much more difficult.

  "Bring up the schematic," she said. They would not detect the
Subotai for a while yet; her stealthing was constructed to deceive
military sensors.

   Two screens to her left blanked and then showed 360 degree
views of the Alliance vessel, Pathfinder. A ferrous-alloy barrel,
basically, the aft section holding a reaction-mass tank and a
simple engine. An arc broke the mass into plasma, and magnetic
coils accelerated it out the nozzle, Power from solar-receptors or
a big storage coil. Thrown out of earth-orbit much as the
Subotai had been, then additional boost from a solar sail. That
was still deployed, square kilometers of .05-micron aluminum
foil, rigged on lines of sapphire filament; but soon they would
furl it and begin velocity-matching for Ceres. A long slow burn;
plasma drives were efficient but low-thrust.

   Would have begun their burn, she corrected herself. It was
odd, how vengeance always felt better beforehand than after…
Sternly, she pushed down weakness. There was a duty to the
Race here, and to her dead. If she was too fainthearted to long
for it, then nobody else need know.

   Yolande reached out a hand; that was all that could move,
with the cradle extended and locked about her. The couch turned
on its heavy circular base to put her hand over the controls. The
schematic altered: command and communication circuits
outlined in color-coded light. Provided this is up-to-date—

  "When's their next check-in call?" she said.

  "Five minutes."

   There were no Alliance warships nearby or in favorable launch
windows, but it was important not to give them more warning
time than was needful. She wanted to have Subotai back with
the flotilla long before anything could arrive; this was direct
provocation, and it could escalate into anything up to a minor
fleet action. Probably not. Still…

  Her fingers played across the controls. "Here. See this
rectenna? Throw a rock at it first. Time it to arrive just after
they report everything normal."

   "Making it so," the Weapons Officer said, keying. "Careless of
them, all the comm routed though that dish." A low chuckle from
some of the nearer workstations.

   "They like to mass-produce," Yolande said. A light blinked on
one of her monitor screens, echoing the Weapons Officer's. On
the outer hull a long thin pod would be swiveling.

   "Monitoring call," the Sensor Officer said. "Standard garbage,
messages to relatives." She paused. "Coded blip. Recordin' fo'
future reference." A minute passed. "End message."

   "Fire," Yolande said. A cold-flame feeling settled beneath her
breastbone. The first attack on Alliance civilians since the Belt
clashes.

   The light blinked red. "Away," the Weapons Officer said. In
the pod, two charged rails slammed together. A fifty-gram slug
rode the pulse of electromagnetic force, accelerated to ninety
kilometers per second. "Hit." The target would have vanished in
a puff of vapor and fragments.

   "No transmission from target, monitoring internal systems."

   "With all due respect to ouah colleagues of the Directorate of
Security," Yolande said, "I'm not takin' any chances that they got
the plans exactly right. We'll cripple her first on a quick fly-by,
then get within kissin' range. Drive, prepare fo' boost; pass at
one kps relative, then decelerate an' match at five klicks.
Weapons, cut the sail loose, hole the control compartment, wreck
the drive." A plasma jet could be a nasty weapon in determined
hands. "Cut the connections to the main power coil." There were
megawatts stored in that, and if it went non-superconducting all
of it would be converted to heat, rapidly. "Then we'll see."

   "Odd they don' have no suicide bomb," the assistant weapons
officer said, as she and her superior worked their controls.

   "Too gutless," the man replied. "Ready to execute."
  "Drive ready to execute."

  "Make it so," Yolande said.

  The speakers roared: "PREPARE FOR ACCELERATION. ALL
HANDS SECURE FOR ACCELERATION. TEN-SECOND BURN.
FIVE SECONDS TO BURN. COUNTING. "

   Somewhere deep within the Subotai pumps whirred. Precisely
aligned railguns charged as fuel pellets were stripped from the
magazines, ten gram bundles of plutonium-239 and their
reflector-absorber coatings.

  "BURN."

   The pellets flicked out behind the cruiser. Her lasers struck
and the coating sublimed explosively, squeezing. Fission flame
bloomed, flickering at ten times per second. Nozzles slammed
liquid oxygen into the carbon-carbon lined hemisphere of the
thrust plate to meet the fire, and the gas exploded into plasma.
The superconductor field-coils in the plate swept out magnetic
fingers, cupping and guiding the blaze of charged particles into a
sword of light and energy, stripping out power for the next pulse.
The thrust plate surged forward against its magnetic buffers.
And the multi-thousand-tonne mass of the warship moved.

  "Burn normal. Flow normal at fifty-seven percent capacity.
Point nine-eight G."

  "Comin' up on target. Closin'. Preparin' fo' fire mission.
Execute."

   Needles of coherent light raked across the lines that held the
sail to the Pathfinder. The single-crystal sapphire filaments
sublimed and parted in tiny puffs of vapor, but no change
showed in the giant bedsheet of the sail; it would be hours before
the vast slow pressure of the photon wind made a noticeable
difference. It was otherwise with the Pathfinder itself. A dozen
railgun slugs sleeted through the control chamber, and the
steel-alloy outer hull rang like a tin roof under hail. The missiles
punched through and out the other side without slowing
perceptibly, leaving plate-sized holes; the edges shone red as air
rushed past, turning to a mist of crystals that glittered in the
unwavering light of the sun. Light flickered briefly within as
systems shorted and arced.

   Other slugs impacted the nozzle of the plasma drive, turning
the titanium alloy to twisted shards. A finger of neutral particles
stabbed, cut across the lines that connected the arc to the main
power torus. Pathfinder tumbled.

   "STAND BY FOR ZERO GRAVITY." The subliminal thuttering
roar of the drive ceased, leaving only the quiet drone of the
ventilators. "STAND BY FOR MANEUVER." Attitude jets
slammed with twisting force, and the cruiser switched end for
end. "STAND BY FOR ACCELERATION. EIGHTEEN-SECOND
BURN. THREE SECONDS TO BURN. BURN." Longer and
harder this time; they were killing part of their initial speed and
matching trajectories as well. The sound was duller, more mass
going onto the thrust plate.

   "Matched, closin'," the Drive Officer said. The attitude jets
fired again, briefly. "Stable in matchin' orbit, five-point-two
klicks."

   Yolande keyed the exterior visual display, switching to a
magnification that put her at an apparent ten meters from the
Alliance vessel. "Well done," she said to the bridge; it looked
precisely as she had specified. "Ah," Flames were stabbing out
from parts of the can-shaped transport, and the tumbling slowed
and stopped. "Nice of him." She hit the control, and the combat
braces folded away from her with a sigh of hydraulics. "Number
One, boardin' party to the forward lock. Sensors?"

   "She's dead in space, apart from those attitude jets. Internal
pressure normal except on the control deck, that's vacuum.
Doan' think much damage to internal systems."

  "Weapons, connectors away."

  " Makin' it so. Off."

   Two of her screens slaved to the Weapons station showed a
rushing telemetered view of the enemy vessel, as the tiny rockets
carried the connectors. Their heads held pickups and sundry
other equipment; mostly, they were very powerful
electromagnets. The cables themselves were no mere ropes:
optical fibers, superconductor power-lines, ultrapure metal and
boron and carbon, armored sheathing, the whole strong enough
to support many times the cruiser's weight in a one-C field.

   "Ah, human-level heat sources in the control chamber. Three,
suited. Multiple elsewhere in the hull."

   "Very well," Yolande said. "Maintain position, prepare to
grapple when the target's secured." That was doctrine, and only
sensible. The Subotai and her crew represented an unthinkable
investment of the resources of the Race.

   She rose, secured her boots to the floor. "Number Two, carry
on. Boardin' party, I'll be with yo' shortly."



    Janet had been squealing with excitement when Cindy
returned to the cabin, Iris solemn and earnestly trying to
remember what she had been told about emergency drills. It was
still hard to believe, how different twins were; or how complete
and yet alien a personality could be at five…

   Then they both quieted, sensing her seriousness. She zipped
them quickly into their skinsuits; Fred had paid out-of-pocket
for those luxuries, rather than rely on bubble-cocoons, and now
she blessed the extravagance as she worked her way into her
own. These were civilian models, little changed from the original
porous-plastic leotards the first astronauts had worn. The fabric
was cool and tight against her flesh, with a little chafing at groin
and armpits where the pads completed the seal. She helped her
daughters on with the backpacks, then checked her own; the
helmets could be left off but close to hand, for now. God forbid
they should have to use them, but if they did every minute could
count.

   "Come on, punkins," she said, guiding them to the pallet that
occupied most of the stemside wall of their cubicle and strapping
them in. "Mommy's going to tell you a story."
   They settled in on either side of her; she had just begun to
search her memory when the sound came. A monstrous ringing
hail, like trip-hammers in a forging mill, toning through the
metal beneath and around them, like being inside a bell. The
Pathfinder was seized and wrenched, the unfamiliar sensation of
weight pulling at them from a dozen different directions, inside a
steel shell sent bounding downhill. The locking bolts on the door
shot home with a metallic clangor, and even over the ringing of
the hull she could hear the wailing of the alarm klaxon and the
slamming of airtight doors throughout the ship. Her skin
prickled.

  "Mom! Mommeee!" Janet shrieked. Iris had gone chalk-pale,
her eyes full circles, and her panting was rapid and breathy.

   "Meteor swarm, O sweet mercy of God, let it be a meteor
swarm!" she whispered under her breath. Their stateroom was
the first-class model, with a porthole. The light that stabbed
through it into her eyes was like mocking laughter; there was
only one thing in the human universe that made that actinic
blue-white light, that spearhead-shaped scar across the stars. A
nuclear pulsedrive.

   "Shhh, shhh, mommy's here, darlings." She used hands and
voice and quieted them to whimpering by the time the reaction
jets fired and the ship shuddered back to stability. Just in time,
she found a moment to think. I'm feeling sick and Iris looks
green. They were all on antinausea drugs, and it took some
powerful tinkering with the inner ear to override those.

   The Pathfinder drifted and steadied. Cindy looked out the
port again, blinking against the afterimage of fire that strobed
across her sight, against the tears of pain. Then she jammed her
knuckles into her mouth and bit down, welcoming pain to beat
down the stab of desperation, the whining sound that threatened
to break free of her throat. The shape that drifted model-tiny
there was familiar, very familiar from the lectures she had
attended before signing on with the Project—she was the
Commandant's wife as well as a biologist. A Draka cruiser, the
third-generation type. A Great Khan, and the only things in the
solar system which could match it were a month's journey away.
   Cindy Lefarge felt the world greying away from the corners of
her eyes, a rippling on her skin as the hairs struggled to stand
erect. Bile shot into the back of her throat, acrid and stinging as
she remembered other things from those lectures. No. A voice
spoke in the back of her mind, a voice like her grandmother's. Y'
got yore duty, gal, so do it! She had the children to protect.

   "Jannie, Iris, listen to me." The small faces turned towards
her, pale blue eyes and freckles and the floating wisps of black
hair. "You girls are going to have to be very brave for mommy.
Just like real grown-up people, so daddy will be proud of you.
This is really, really important, you understand?"

   They looked up from where her arms cradled them against
her shoulders. Iris nodded, swallowing and clenching trembling
lips. Janet bobbed her head vigorously. "You bet, mom," she
said. "I'm gonna be a soldier like dad, someday. So I gotta be
brave, right?"

   She pulled them closer. Twin lights sparkled from the Draka
cruiser, seeming to drift toward her and then rush apart in a V.
She closed her eyes, waiting for the final wash of nuclear flame,
but all that came was two deep-toned chunnng sounds. The
Pathfinder jerked again, rotating so that the Domination
warship was out of her view. The overhead speaker came to life
with a series of gurgles and squawks, then settled into the voice
of Captain Hayakawa; calm as ever, but a little tinny, as if he was
speaking from inside a skinsuit helmet.

   "Attention, please. We have been attacked by a Draka
deepspace warship. The engines have been disabled, our
communications are down, and the sail has been cut loose. The
main passenger compartment has not been holed, I repeat, not
been holed. Please remain calm, and stay in your cabins. This is
the safest place for all civilians at the moment."

  "Ceres and Earth will soon detect what has happened and."

   "SKREEKKKKKAAWWK."—" The noise built to an
ear-hurting squeal and then died.

  Cindy Guzman Lefarge bent her head over those of her
children and prayed.



  "Assault party ready," the Centurion from Batu said.

   Yolande nodded assent as she secured the straps on the last of
her body armor. It was fairly light (weight didn't matter here but
mass certainly did); segmented sandwiches of ablative antiradar,
optically perfect flexmirror, sapphire thread, synthetics. Not
quite as much protection as the massive cermet stuff heavy
infantry wore on dirtside, but easier to handle. She settled the
helmet on her shoulders, checked the seal to the neck-ring, and
swiveled her eyes to read the various displays. She could slave
them to the pickups in any warrior's pack, call up
information—the usual data-overload.

   The boarding commandos were grouped in Hangar B, the
portside half of the chamber just below the nosecap of the
cruiser. The Great Khans carried one eighty-tonne auxiliary, but
it was stored in vacuum on the starboard, leaving B free as a
workspace where systems could be brought up and overhauled in
shirtsleeve conditions. Both hangars connected with the big axial
workway that ran through the center of the vessel right down to
the thrust equalizers, nine-tenths the length of the ship. Now this
one was crowded with the score of Draka who would put this
particular piece of Yankeedom under the Yoke.

   Her lips drew back behind the visor, and she slid her hand
into the sleeve of the reaction gun clipped to her thigh. A faint
translucent red bead sprang into being on the inside of her
faceplate as she wrapped her fingers around the pistol grip,
framed by aiming lines. The bulk of the chunky weapon lay
rightside on her arm, connected to her backpack by an armored
conduit. It was dual-purpose: a jet for short-range maneuvering
and a weapon that fired glass-tungsten bullets and balanced
them with a shower of plastic confetti backwards.

   "Right," she said, over the command push. "Listen, people.
There were certain things that had to be repeated, even with
Citizen troops. "This is a raid; we want intelligence data, not
bodies or loot. Go in, immobilize whoever you find, get theys up
to the big compartment just rearward of the control deck. Then
we'll sweep up everythin' of interest, and get out." Make it fast,
make it clean, do not kill anyone less'n yo' have to, do not waste
any time. Service to the State!"

   "Glory to the Race!"

   "Execute." There was a prickling feeling all over her skin as
the pressure in the hangar dropped; nothing between her flesh
and vacuum but the layer of elastic material that kept her blood
from except the woven superconductor radiation shield and the
armor and the thermal layer and boiling— —oh, shut up
Yolanda, she told herself. An eagerness awoke, like having her
hands on the controls of a fighter back in the old days.

   The pads inside her suit inflated. Combat-feeling: a little like
being horny, a little like nausea, a lot like wanting to piss. Her
surroundings took on the bleak sharpness of vacuum, but she
knew the unnatural clarity would be there even if there was air.
Donar, I could have the suit monitor my bloodstream and tell
me how hopped-up I am, she thought.

   The Centurion's voice. "By lochoi!"

   Hers was first. "Follow me," she said, taking a long shallow
dive through the hangar door. Out into the access tunnel, three
meters across, a geometric tube of blue striplights and
handholds two hundred meters sternward of her feet. She
pointed her reaction gun toward the open docking ring over her
head and pressed once. Heated gas pulsed backward; she
stopped herself with a reverse jolt at the exit and swung around
to face the enemy ship, adjusting perception until it was below
her. The dark, slug-dented surface of the control deck swam
before her eyes, jiggling with the distance and magnification.
She fixed the red aiming-spot on the surface and reached across
to key the reaction gun.

   Locked strobed across her vision. "Slave your rg's to mine,"
she told the others, crouching. It would adjust the thrust nozzle
to compensate for any movement short of turning ninety degrees
out of line, now. Yolande took a deep breath. "Let's—go."
  The hull of the Alliance ship thunked dully under their boots,
sound vibrating up her bones for lack of air.

  "Let's take a look," she said.

  "Yo'." A crewman slid a long limber rod through one of the
impact holes.

   She called up a miniature rectangle of vision keyed to the
fiber-optic periscope, fisheye distorted but it would do. Dark,
with the chilly silver look of light-enhancement. A drifting
corpse, legs missing at the knee where flesh and skinsuit had
fought a hypervelocity missile and lost badly. Grains of
freeze-dried blood still drifted brown nearby. Wrecked
equipment, a very elementary-looking control system, none of
the fabled Alliance high technology. Of course, they want to
build these cheap and quick, she thought. The Domination had
no equivalent class of vessel; the closest were unmanned
freighters. The Draka economy did not produce the same set of
incentives as the Alliance's nearly laissez-faire system.

   "Patch to their com," she said. A sound of voices in some
Asian-sounding language; well, everybody who could have gotten
a ship command would speak English. "Y'all in there," she said.
"Surrender. Last chance."

   Silence. She shrugged, looked up at the warrior who was
preparing their entranceway, made a hand signal. That one
finished drawing the applicator around the shallow dome of the
spacecraft's nose. It had left a thick trail of something that
looked very much like mint toothpaste.

   "Secure." They backed off, tagged lines to protuberances on
the surface. The Pathfinder was built smooth-hulled because
that eased fabrication, but there were fittings a-plenty. "On the
three."

  "One. Two. Three."

  A flash of soundless light, and the hull flexed slightly to push
her up to the limit of the line. Then the cap of steel was floating
away, dark against the mirror-bright surface of the sail; it would
strike it, before the film could sweep away on the breeze from the
Sun. The warrior nearest the giant circular hole freed a grenade
from her belt and tossed it in, a flat straight line like nothing
that could be done planetside. There was another pulse of light.

   "Storm!" Yolande shouted, and the Draka slid forward,
throwing themselves into the hole.

   Thung. Yolande twirled in midleap to land feet first on the
deck. A figure in a foil-covered skinsuit was thrashing, ripped by
the shards from the grenade; his blood sprayed out, and she
could see the scream behind his transparent bubble-helmet. Her
eyes skipped, jittering. Another Alliance suit, rising from behind
a spindly crashcouch, something gripped in both hands. The red
dot pivoted toward him, but before she could fire the man's torso
exploded in a corona of red and pinkish white. The bullets from a
reaction gun were tungsten monofilament in a glass sabot; they
punched through hard targets, but underwent explosive
deformation in soft.

   "Shit," she swore, seeing the rank-tabs on the man's
shoulders. "That was the captain." Yolande batted a lump of
floating something away from her faceplate with a grimace;
zero-G combat was messy. Two others were zipping the wounded
man into an airbag and doing what crude first aid they could.

    "Labushange, Melder, stay here. Pull the compcore and see if
y' can patch through to log memory. Anderson, take the door."
That was a hatch in the middle of the floor. "Pressure-lock it."

   The warrior knelt and focused on the door, calling up a
schematic to show the vulnerable spots in his faceplate. Two
others peeled the covering off the base ring of a plastic tent and
slapped it adhesive-down on the deck around the hatch. The
lochos stepped inside, zipping it over their heads.

  "Got it," Anderson grunted. "Ready?"

  "Go," she snapped.
    He locked his boots to the deck and pointed the gauntlet gun.
It flashed twice, and translucent confetti drifted back to join the
particles already rising out of the hole above their head, mixed
with a haze of blood. The deck sparked with impact and glittered
with a new plating of molten glass, and there was the blue flicker
of discharge. Yolande kicked the lockbar of the door; it slammed
down with blurring speed, and air roared in to bulge the tent
over their heads.

   "Bulalal" she shrieked, and dove through the opening into
light.



  "Shhhh," Cindy said again.

   There had been sounds, clanging, shouts, screams, a sharp
ptank-tank rapping she could not identify, even pistol shots. I
wish I'd taken the gun, she thought desperately. She had had the
usual personal-defense training in school, though her national
Service had been in the research branch; even the worn old high
school submachine-gun would have been something…

  Probably just enough to get us all killed, she thought bleakly.
Even worse was the knowledge that that might be the best thing.

   The locking bar of the door moved a half-inch back and forth.
She started, then unstrapped the children and pushed them back
into the farthest corner of the cabin, bracing herself in front of
them with her arms across the angle of the wall. There was
silence for a second, then a bright needle of flame spat from
beside the door. It swung open; she had a brief glimpse of the
boot that kicked it, before a thin black stick poked in. A figure
bounced through two seconds afterward and stopped itself with
one expert footblow against the far wall. The fluted muzzle of a
weapon fastened to the right arm pointed at her; she crowded
her daughters farther behind her body.

   Another head came through the doorway, then a body
likewise strapped around with pieces of equipment. They were
both in skinsuits and some sort of flexible armor that was a dull
matte black, but a line of silver brightness showed along a
scratch on one's chest. She swallowed through a mouth the
consistency of dry rice-paper and tried to keep her face from
twisting. Then they unlatched their helmets and pushed them
back against their backpacks.

   The first Draka she had ever seen in the flesh. For a moment
she was surprised that they looked so much like the pictures.
These two were both men, young, hair cropped close at the sides
and slightly longer on top. One had a stud earring, the other a
rayed sunburst painted about an eye— hard faces, scarcely
affected by the usual zero-G puffiness, all slabs and angles,
almost gaunt. The first one spoke, in a purring drawl hurtfully
reminiscent of her mother's… No, more archaic-sounding, with a
guttural undertone.

   "All cleah." That into the thread-and-dot microphone that
curved up from the neck-ring of his suit. "Yes, suh, these're the
last. We'll get 'em secured an' up to the lounge."

   "Yo'," he said. "Out of the skinsuit. The picknins, too."

  The words flowed over her mind without meaning. Can't be,
can't be, was sounding somewhere inside her. Bad movie.

   "Shit," the man said in a tired voice; it sounded more like
"shaay't." He reached across to do something to the weapon, and
a red dot sprang out on the wall beside her head. It settled on her
forehead for a moment, then shifted to the outer surface.

   Bang! ptank. A hole the breadth of her thumb flashed into
existence in the steel, and there was a shower of something
flakey and glittering from behind his elbow. A brief whistling of
air, before the self-sealing layer in the hull blocked it off. The red
dot settled between her eyes again.

   "To't' count 'a three, wench. One. Two—"

   Trembling slightly, her hands went to the seals of her suit,
then hesitated. My god, I'm only wearing briefs under this. The
Draka made a gesture of savage impatience, and she stripped
out of the clinging elastomer. "Help the picknin," he snapped.
   "Come on, punkins," she said. The girls were staring
enormous-eyed at the two Draka; Iris's lips were caught between
her teeth as she fought rhythmically against her sobs. "We have
to do what the man says."

   "Mom!" Janet said, scandalized. "Those—those are
strangers!"

   The red dot settled on her daughter's face. Shoulderblades
crawling, Cindy put herself between the gun and Janet, taking
her by the shoulders and shaking her. "Come on, you silly girl,"
she forced herself to say, harshly. "Quickly."

   The Draka in the doorway held up what looked like a medical
injector. "Docilize?" he said to the other.

   "Na, quicker if we let her handle the sprats," he said. "Don'
have time to fuck around." He looked at her, up and down, and
grinned. "Pity. Maybe latah." Reached out, quite casually, and
grabbed her crotch.

  Cindy closed her eyes and gritted teeth. Then something
windmilled by her and struck the Draka with a thump. It was
Janet.

   "You bad man! Leggo my mom! Leggo!" The five-year-old was
clinging to the man's harness with one hand and trying earnestly
to punch him with the other, while her feet flailed at his
stomach. "You let go, or I'll kill you!" Iris started to scream, shrill
high-pitched sounds like an animal in a trap.

   The Draka snarled, rearing his head back and raising the arm
with the gun to club at Janet. Cindy felt a great calm descend as
she readied herself; reach down and immobilize the left hand,
strike up with the palm under his nose…

   A hand snaked in with the injector and pressed it against
Janet's side. It hissed, and the girl slumped; not unconscious,
just drifting with her eyes half-closed. The Draka with the
drug-gun laughed and reached around her to plant the muzzle
against Iris's neck.
  "Dociline," he said to her as the screaming stopped. "Trank.
Haa'mless." To his companion: "Let's get on with it."

   She huddled back with her children as they ransacked the
cabin, giving the comfort of skin against skin that was all she
had to offer. The two warriors went systematically through the
tiny closet and the bulkhead containers. Cindy noticed what they
took: books, letters, dataplaques, her new Persimmon 5 portable
perscomp that Fred had got from the PX, all stuffed into a
transparent holder. One of them came across her jewelry, but
that went into a pouch at his belt.

   "Right," the one with the face-painting said when they had
finished. "Yo'. Hold out y' arms. Togethah." A loop went around
her elbows, painfully tight; she could use her hands, but
awkwardly. "Now, listen good. Yo' take the picknins, and we're
goin' up to the top level. An' wench—any trouble an' we kill yo'
spawn. Understand?" She gave a tight nod. "Go."

   Cindy gathered her daughters with slow care; they had curled
into fetal positions floating near her, and it would be easy to
bruise them if she moved too quickly. She kicked her feet into
the ripstick slippers on the floor and began to step out into the
corridor. The man who had groped her earlier reached out one
hand and stripped the briefs off her with a wrench as she went
by.

    "Later," he said.



   "Is that the last of them?" Yolande asked, as the woman
steered the two children into the lounge.

   "Yes, ma'am," the Centurion said."Cept fo' the one who gave
us trouble."

   "Number Two," she said. "Target secured. Reel her in an' run
a tube over to the airlock on this level."

    "Makin' it so, Cohortarch. Twenty seconds to commencement.
"
   "Silence !" she called to the crowd of prisoners through the
exterior speaker on her helmet. "Everybody brace themselfs."

   There were about eighty of them, milling about at the far end
of the grubby lounge. Most had been wearing skinsuits, and so
were nearly stripped; she looked at them with disgust. This is the
enemy? Flabby, soft-gutted rubbish, she thought. A few had
been docilized. Those thumped painfully against the wall when
the ship lurched again, and so did a few of the fully-conscious
ones. Sheep. There was an almost imperceptible feeling of
sideways acceleration for a few minutes, and then the cables
went slack; the Subotai would be backing off with her attitude
jets, to reestablish zero relative motion.

  "Line them up," she continued.

   Her troopers moved in, prodding with their gauntlet guns. A
moment of trouble from two young men, stocky-muscular; they
looked like they played—what was that absurd Yankee sport?
Football? A flurry of dull thudding sounds and they were against
the wall with the others, one clutching his groin, the other a
flattened nose that leaked blood in drifting red globules. Three
more figures floated up through the central hatch. A wounded
Draka with a long cut through the belly-section of her armor,
hands to a pad over the wound, helped by a comrade. Then a
prisoner trussed hand and foot. Hand and elbows, rather; one
forearm ended in a frayed stump covered in glistening spray seal.
Typical gauntlet-gun wound.

  "What happened with him?" the Centurion asked.

   "Had a fukkin' sword," the wounded Draka said, between
clenched teeth. Soft impact-armor gave excellent protection
against projectiles, but very little against something sharp and
low-velocity. "Under his pallet covers. I blew his hand off on the
backswing."

   "Careless," the Centurion said. There were clanging noises and
voices from the background, as the tube was secured and the
airlock opened on the temporary seal between the two vessels.
"McReady, get her back to sickbay. Bring up the rest of the
bodies."
   Yolande reached up to remove her helmet, wrinkling her nose
at the proof that some of the prisoners had lost control of their
bowels. She looked at the one-handed man. Black-Asian, she
guessed, about fifty. Wiry and strong, stone-faced under her
gaze. Shock, part of that calm, but that was one with a hard soul.
It would not do to underestimate them all; few of the Alliance
peoples were natural warriors, but they could learn, and the
Americans in particular had a damnable trader's cunning that
made them capable of all manner of surprises. I wish they
hadn't brought the picknins. She pushed the children's sobbing
below the surface of her mind. Now—



   Cindy forced herself to take her eyes off the raw stump of
Professor Takashi's hand. She tried to imagine what that would
feel like, failed, raised her eyes to his face. He was smiling; that
was almost as shocking as the wound.

   The Draka commander was removing her helmet. A woman,
she saw without surprise. The face was huge-eyed, triangular,
delicately feminine, haloed in short platinum-colored hair. Then
the eyes met hers, and she shivered slightly.

   "This one?" the Draka said, to the man holding Takashi.

   "Cybernetic Systems Analysis," the guard said.

   "Lucky fo' us yo' didn't get killed," the woman said genially.

   The dark man shook his head, smiling more broadly. "Not
so—ah!," he shook once, slumped. The guard cursed, felt for his
pulse.

   "Dead," he spat. "Must've taken something."

   The commander turned back toward the prisoners. "Listen,"
she said, and all fidgeting died away. The voice was deliberately
pitched rather low, so that they would have to strain to hear it; it
was soft,naturally light, Cindy thought.

   "Yo' will, startin' at the right, go one by one to that table." She
pointed to one where a group of Draka were going through the
identity documents of the passengers. "Yo' will - state yo' name
and profession, and answer all other questions. Then go back to
that end of the line. Understood, serfs?"

   There was a rustling, and they glanced at each other. The
Draka waited for a moment, then continued in a tone of weary
distaste.

   "Stubborn. Fools. All right… Who's a Yankee heah? I have a
special and particular dislike of Yankees." The big eyes slid down
the line. Gray, with a rim of blue. Colder than any I've ever seen,
Cindy thought. She could almost have preferred a sadist's glazed
sickness; it would be less intelligent.

   The eyes settled on the Merkowitz family. A gloved finger
pointed. "They two slugs look repulsive enough to be Yankees.
Fetch me the pretty little bull beside them, an' make a steer of
him."

   A dozen of the Draka had been hanging ready by the opposite
wall. Two crouched and sprang, blurring across the lounge,
twisting end-for-end and landing one on either side of young
David Merkowitz with balletic gracefulness, they grabbed his
arms and leaped again, releasing him just before they touched
down. The warriors let their legs cushion impact like springs,
coiling; the teenager from Newark landed against the wall with a
soggy impact. Stunned, he floated for an instant until they
spreadeagled him on a table. Others moved in to hold and
secure; one of the Draka reached over her shoulder and drew
something as long as her forearm.

   Cindy felt a glassy sense of unreality as she recognized the
tool. It was a cutter bar, a thin film of vacuum-deposited
diamond between two layers of crystal iron-chrome. Alliance
models had the same backward-sloping saw teeth, although they
did not come to the sort of wicked point this one did.

   The Draka spun the tool in the air, a blurring circle, then
reached in. The hilt slapped into her palm—bravado; that edge
would go through fingers as if they were boiled carrots. She
raised it in mocking salute to the prisoners and swaggered over
to the boy; one of those holding him had stuffed a cloth into his
mouth to muffle his screams, and was holding up his head so
that he could not help but see.

   The Draka with the cutter bar paused, turned, slashed the
edge down on a metal table-frame. The steel tube parted with a
ringing sound, and the woman smiled. She smiled more broadly
as she pulled off the undersuit briefs, wet one finger and drew it
up young Merkowitz's scrotum and penis. He convulsed and
made a sound that was astonishingly loud; she gripped the
testicles in her left and and raised the knife with taunting
slowness.

   "No." That from the man at the head of the line. He moved
forward towards the table with the interrogators. Cindy looked
at the Draka commander, who had been hanging relaxed,
smoking a cigarette and looking up at the ceiling; the American
saw a slight tension go out of the enemy commander's shoulders.

   "Very well," the short blond woman said. "Hold it there, cut
him if any of the rest make trouble." The Draka with the cutter
bar lowered the weapon and waited, loose-alert as she faced the
prisoners. Her other hand stayed on the teenager, stroking
lightly. He began to weep.



  "Name."

   Yolande looked aside at the prisoner. A wench in her late
twenties, with two picknins floating near; the children had been
shot with dociline and were just coming to, still muzzy and
vague. She was ruddy-olive, quite good looking in a slimmish
sort of way, spirited from the calm tone she used, which was a
relief. The sniveling from some of the others had been
nauseating, even for feral serfs—especially when you considered
that she had not done anything of note to them yet. Not that this
whole business was very pleasant, at all; necessary, but
distasteful. Find it easier to kill them from a distance, eh? she
thought, mocking herself. To desire the end is to desire the
means.
   "Cynthia Guzman Lefarge," the wench was saying. She was
the last of them. "My daughters Janet Mary and Iris Dawn.
Master's degree in Applied Biosystems from the University of
Anahuac in Mexico City. Going out to meet my husband on
Ceres; that's his picture there."

   Yolande looked at the timer display on the sleeve of her suit.
Less than an hour from boarding, good time. A disappointment
that the compcore had been slagged, but only to be expected.
Still… She looked down at the picture in the booklet.

   "Wait." Her hand slashed down.Impossible. She could feel
herself start to shake as she looked at it. Impossible. With an
effort greater than any she could recall, she took a deep breath.
One. Another. The shaking receded to an almost imperceptible
tremor in her fingers as she lifted the record book. Square face.
Dark eyes. Dress uniform, not the mottled night-fatigues. Same
face, the same face, the Indian night and its hot scents, the smell
of Myfwany's blood. The broken body in her arms, jerking,
mumbling the final words around a mouth filled with red. Gone.
Gone forever, dead, not there, gone. The face in the night.

   "Sttt—" She cleared her throat. "Stop." Her voice sounded
strange in her ears. She leaned toward the wench, seeing with
unnatural clarity every pore and feature and hair. There was a
sensation behind her eyes, like a taut steel wire snapping.

   "That's enough," she said. The tone of her voice had a high
note in it, but it was steady. Somewhere, a part of her not
involved in this was proud of it.

   "Separate the prisoners," she said, without taking her eyes off
the picture. "The aft section is cleared out? All the children, put
them down there. Decurion, get a working party, transfer
supplies from the foodstore; it's on this level. Enough, then weld
the door shut, get the picknins down there and weld the hatch to
this level shut. Wait, that wench and that wench,"—she pointed
at two of the mothers, ones who had listed no occupation—"with
the children. Move. No, not these two picknins, leave them with
the wench here."

  There was a shift, movement, kicks and thuds and shuffling,
wailing. A bit of confusion, before the prisoners realized that to
Draka serfs were only children up to puberty. Yolande turned to
consider them, the booklet gripped tight in one hand. "Docilize
the adults," she said. Breathe. In. Out. "Shift them across." She
keyed her microphone. "Number Two, how's the mass transfer
goin'?"

   "Should have the last of it in our tanks in 'bout ten minutes,"
he said. "Back up to sixty percent. Everythin' all right?" That in a
worried tone; he must be able to sense something. Later.

   "Good," she replied. "I'm sendin' ovah the prisoners, docilized.
Repressurize Hangar B, secure them to the floor. Make
arrangements fo' minimal maintenance until we get back to the
task fo'ce." There would be plenty of room there; inflatable
habitats had been brought along. "Set up fo' a
minimum-detection burn."

   She turned to the Centurion. "Get those bodies," she said.
"Transfer them to the cold-storage locker on this level. Strip
everythin' else out, 'cept cookin' utensils, water an' salt,
understand?" He nodded, impassive; she had a reputation for
successful eccentricity.

  Yolande reached back over her shoulder and drew the cutter
bar, handling it with slow care. She walked toward the American
woman, and held the booklet up beneath her face.

    "I know yo' husband, wench," she said, almost whispering.
"It's an hereditary trust to hate all Americans," she continued.
"But he… took somethin'… that I valued very much. So much so
that iff'n I had him in my hands, not a lifetime's pain could pay
fo' it." She halted, and waited immobile until the sounds of
movement had died away behind her. The last of the work party
shoved the mass of cans and boxes through the main hatch and
into the cabin area beneath, then welded the hatch with a sharp
tack of arc-heaters. Then there were only she and the Yankee and
the two drugged children. Forget them, they were his.

   "So tell yo' husband, tell him my name. Yolande Ingolfsson,
tell him that. Tell him to remember the red-haired Draka he
killed in India; tell him hell curse that day as I've cursed it, and
mo'. Because befo' I come fo' him, I'm goin' to take everythin' he
values and loves, and destroy it befo' his eyes; his ideals, his
cause, his nation, his family. And then I'm not goin' to kill him,
because… Do yo' know what the problem is, with killin' people,
slut? Do yo' know?"

   Silence that rang and stretched, with her eyes locked to the
honey-brown of the prisoners. "Answer me!" Yolande touched
the cutter bar to the other's cheek. Skin and flesh parted, a long
shallow cut; blood rilled out, misting across her eyes. Carefully,
carefully. The other woman gasped, but did not move. "Answer
me."

  "I don't know."

   Yolande moved the cutter to the other cheek, sliced the same
controlled depth. "Because being dead doesn't hurt. It's in livin'
that there's pain, wench." Another silence. "Do yo' understand?
I'm leavin' yo' here. Lots of space. Plenty of water. Air system's
good fo' two months, easy, an' they should be here fo' you in, oh,
minimum three weeks, maximum seven. Yo' can even leave, iff'n
walking buck-naked in vacuum dosen't bother yo'."

  "But, but, how shall I feed my children?" the other asked.

  Yolande forced herself not to look at the slight drifting forms,
pushed the image of Owen's face aside. Instead she smiled, and
saw the American flinch as she had not at the touch of the knife.

  "Try the meat locker!" she shouted, and leapt for the exit.

   Twenty-nine days later, Colonel Frederick Lefarge was the
first of the boarding party from the Ethan Allen through the
airlock of the Pathfinder. His eyes met those of his wife.

  They screamed.



          CHAPTER FOURTEEN
   DRAKA OFFICER CONVICTED IN ABSENTIA [NPS] The
Alliance Global Court today announced that Yolande Ingolfsson,
an officer in the Domination's Aerospace Force, had been
convicted in absentia of war crimes and crimes against
humanity during the notorious Pathfinder incident. Testifying at
the trial were…
                                            San Francisco Tribune
                                                 Editorial Section
                                                  January 3, 1983



  MERARCH YOLANDE INGOLFSSON RECEIVES
SOUTHERN CROSS [CMS]

   When asked her opinion of the laughably presumptuous
sentence recently passed on her by a group of feral serfs styling
themselves a "court" Merarch Ingolfsson responded with
amusement. "They've already tried to kill me, and come off
rather the worse for it." she said, on the steps of the Palace.
"They're welcome to try again."

   Our heartiest congratulations to Merarch Ingolfsson and her
kindred, and our gratitude for showing that this frontier
province has become a breeding-ground of the true Drakon
spirit.
                                                  Leading Article
                                            Nova Italia Magazine
                                     Florence, District of Tuscany
                                        Domination of the Draka
                                                 January 15, 1983



CERES BASE
SPACE FORCE MEDICAL CENTER
JULY 20, 1982


  "How are the children?"
   Frederick Lefarge reached up and touched the handhold over
the door. It was a pressure-door, and the wall around it was
rock; the hospital was in the oldest section of the base, put in a
decade ago when the Space Force had burrowed into the heart of
the rock to put five hundred kilometers between their sick and
an attack from space.

   The specialist laid a hand on his shoulder. "We think… no
permanent damage," he said. "It's a miracle. Your wife used the
Dyleaze from the medical chest to keep them asleep most of the
time; it's one of the more recent ones, genuine sleep, not
unconsciousness. Just woke them up occasionally for fluids, and
they… did get some protein, after all. A year of complete rest,
with no stress, appropriate hormonal treatments, and there
should be no physical ill effects except for a little growth lag. And
children are resilient, Colonel."

   Lefarge swallowed again. "And my wife?" he husked.

   The doctor looked aside. "Much worse. We've taken her off the
critical list, but—" He looked back at the officer. "We can correct
most of the cosmetic damage, replace the teeth with buds
eventually. I'll be honest with you: she came as close to terminal
coma as you can get and not actually die. There's kidney and
liver failure, loss of function from other internal organs, possible
neurological damage. The medics on the Ethan Allen did their
best, and believe me, you were right to risk high acceleration."

   "Was I?" Lefarge said wearily.

   "Your wife would have died if it had taken longer to get here,"
the doctor said bluntly.

   "I have extraordinary authority," Lefarge said. "I used it —and
because of that, the Allen may not be back in the inner system in
time, if she's needed." The solitary non-disaster about all this is
that Hayakawa managed to kill himself before they could
question him in depth. So the Project isn't compromised. "They
had shifts going around the clock on Washington and her sister
when we left… What's the prognosis?"

   "We're bringing her back up to full metabolism for a day," the
doctor replied, tone clinical once more. "Then down to fifty
percent for six months. That way we may be able to restore
function, or failing that get her well enough for transplants. I
warn you though, Colonel, she's never going to be very strong
again. Certainly, you won't be able to have any more children.
And there may be irreversible loss of brain function, aphasia, or,
other complications. Not to mention psychological damage and
trauma. Thank Cod that isn't my department."

  "Let me see her," he said, waiting for the other's nod before
ducking through.

   Little of Cindy's body showed through the forest of tubes,
wires and blinking screens. The room was silent save for minor
noises of machinery, pumps and compressors. Most of the body
functions had been taken over by the support mechanisms, to
give the wounded organism a chance to recover. Her head was
held in a padded brace, with only a nasal tube to hide what had
happened. What he saw was nearer to a skull than a human face;
the eyes were sunken, and wrinkled lips collapsed over an empty
mouth. What hair was left was wispy and snow-white. He stood
by her side and bent to kiss the brow with infinite tenderness.

   Her eyes opened. Lefarge darted a glance at the doctor; the
specialist checked the screens, exchanged a whispered word with
the technician at the monitoring station and nodded, turning his
back.

   "Love… you." The words were feint and distorted, but the
delirium was gone. "Girls?"

   "I love you, too, honey," he said. "The doctor says they're going
to be fine, you hear? Just fine."

   The eyes closed again, the lids transparent and papery like an
old, old woman's. "I… had… to," she said, a word with each
fluttering breath. "Put… them… out… the… lock."

  "Honey?" He wondered if her mind was wandering again.

  "The… bodies… right… away," she said. "Didn' go… away."
Her voice grew a little stronger, shriller. "They… floated outside…
the ports… so hungry."

   He swallowed. The Draka didn't put them out the airlock
after they'd killed them. Oh, sweet Mother of God.

  He looked down at the purpled bruises on his wife's arms,
where she had tapped her own veins.

   "Don't… tell them, ever." He nodded. "Told them… made
soup." She sighed, and closed her eyes once more. He waited,
was almost ready to leave.

   "Message," she said at length. "You have to… hear." He bent
his head to her lips.

  "Sleep now," he said when she was finished. "Sleep now,
honey. Get well."

  The doctor sighed as he rose. "Well, no worse… six months
minimum. Then we'll bring her up… Have to transfer to a spun
habitat then, anyway; the costs of zero-G would start
outweighing the benefits—"

  He looked at the colonel's face and stopped, shocked.



BETWEEN THE ORBITS OF EARTH AMD MARS
ABOARD DASCS SUBOTAI
JUNE 30, 1982


   "Makin' remarkable progress, Merarch-Professor," Yolande
said. They were teleconferencing, and the astroengineer was
suited up; she could see segments of construction material
behind him.

   He waved a dismissive hand. "These are the heat dispersers,"
he said. Composite honeycomb sandwich, laced with
superconductor on the interior, the same system that pulsedrive
ships used; superconductors had the additional useful property
of maintaining a uniform temperature throughout. Of course,
this was a pulsedrive, it just used fusion bombs instead of
10-gram pellets. "We should start assembling the thrust plate
soon."

  Yolande linked through a view of Hangar B; the
near-motionless forms of the prisoners were arranged in neat
rows around the shrouded equipment. Skinsuited Auxiliaries
were hosing the area down and hauling off the inert bodies; it
had gotten quite noisome, with sixty drugged humans and a
week's worth of high-G boost.

  "We got yo' some additional labor," she said. "I know they
don't look like much, but most of them have trainin' in zero-G
construction an' so forth. Well have to give a few to the
headhunter to disassemble, of course."

   "Good, perhaps it will keep him away from me," the scientist
said, with an obscene gesture for any possible monitors.

   "Well put controller cuffs on them, maybe minimal-dosage
dociline," Yolande continued. "You'll have to supervise them
closely, but it ought to come out positive."

  "Certainly. Hmmm, what to do with them when the project is
completed?"

   "Oh… take them back to Luna, I suppose. Maybe the political
people can trade them off fo' somethin, or we can just sell them."
Alliance-born serfs had a substantial curiosity value, for their
rarity. "Hand them out as souvenirs, whatevah."

  "Not to mention hostage value," her executive officer said.
"Too much Yankee heavy iron in the Belt, fo' my taste."

  Yolande chuckled. "Well, there are enough of our units further
out," she said.

  "Long ways off."

   "Not so far as yo' might think," she said, and laid a finger
along her nose. "Between yo', me an' the Strategic Planning
Board, there are a few surprises fo' the damnyanks in this. Fo'
one, we've got high-impulse orbital boost lasers in the Jovian
system, which we're pretty sure they don't know about. Multiple
strap-ons, hey? Iff'n the damnyanks move, our cruisers can leave
station around Himalia, boost on strap-ons with low mass." A
pulsedrive ship could make much better acceleration with less
reaction mass in her tanks—while the fuel lasted. "Do a
quick-and-dirty burn to Mars orbit, arrivin' with dry tanks."

    She called up a map of orbital positions. "An' notice, just right
fo' a quick stopover at Phobos to fill up? So unless the
damnyanks is willin' to get here empty, leavin' them between us
and the outer fleet, with nothin' to maneuver with—in which
case we'd wipe them, then proceed to mop up the Belt piece by
piece—they just naturally have to keep their iron floatin' out
there by Ceres and Pallas."

   "Ahhh," the exec mused. "Nice. That still leaves them with
three Hero-class here in the inner system, though."

   "Update?"

  "Ethan Allen still boostin' fo' the Pathfinder like there was no
tomorrow." He frowned. "Faster than we could, unless they're
burnin' out their thrust plates."

   "Well, the Heros have the legs on a Great Khan, but we've got
mo' firepower. Anyways, that'll put her out of the picture fo' a
whiles. The two in Earth orbit, we may have to see off. Note we're
floatin' next to a fuel depot, though. Also, I've got a few ideas
bout' usin' some of our industrial equipment. Reminds me, staff
conference fo' 1200 tomorrow, we'll go ovah it. Three weeks to
encounter, minimum. Wants yo' there, too, Professor."

   "Service to the State," he said formally.

   "Glory to the Race," the two officers answered.

   Yolande yawned. "Time to turn in, Number Two," she said,
rising from the crashcouch.

   "Just one thing, ma'am," he murmured as she passed his
station; the offwatch was handling the bridge, minimum staff.
   "Yes?"

   "Back there… when yo' saw those bodies come out the airlock,
I was set up for a minimal-burn boost back to the flotilla. Yo'
took us on a max speed trajectory, got us here dry. That was like
hangin' up a big sign ovah the whole system pointin' to the
Pathfinder. Why do it that way, ma'am?"

   Yolande glanced at her fingernails. "Oh, better tactics.
Impo'tant not to leave the Object unguarded." She thought again
of the sleeping faces of the two children.Yankee children, she
reminded herself again, but… "Or call it as close as I could get to
changing my mind."



   The commander's quarters of a Great Khan were luxurious, by
Aerospace Command standards. Two cubicles, a tiny one for
sleeping, a slightly larger one to serve as an office. A few pictures,
the ones she took everywhere: her parents, siblings, three shots
of Gwen, and her favorite of Myfwany. That showed them on the
beach at Baiae, mugging and smooching for the camera… She
sighed and finished stuffing her uniform into the cleaner slot;
the black coveralls never got quite as ripe as the skinsuits, thank
Baldur. Somebody keyed the door for admittance.

   "Come in," she said.

  The hatch swung out into the companionway. "As ordered,
ma'am." It was a rating, with one of the prisoners.

  "Oh. Oh, yes; just leave her here, thank yo'." The rating
pushed the slight figure in through the hatch and dogged it.

   "Alishia Merkowitz, aren't yo?" Yolande asked.

   "Yyyes, Mistis." A tiny whisper. About fifteen, Yolande
estimated. Thinner, after a week spent comatose, but looking
rather better for it; olive skin, curved nose, full lips. Still slightly
damp from the hosing. "Please, don't hurt me!"

   "Relax, I'm not gain to hurt yo'." The captive huddled in the
far corner of the office-space, twice arm's reach away, and stared
at her huge-eyed, flicking an occasional glance about in an
unconscious search for escape. "Or do anythin' else to yo',
either." Which puts me in a decided minority, wench.

   Yolande sighed. Let's see… Oh, she'd probably be more
comfortable wearing something. "That's a locker behind yo,"
she said. "Open it, hand me one of the overalls. Yo' can wear one
of the spare shirts until I requisition some Auxiliary stuff fo' yo'."

    The girl obeyed; she stepped into the clothing and Yolande
pressed the seam closed. Actually quite pretty, but far too
frightened, she thought, watching her struggle into the shirt and
tie off the bottom. "Right. Now, that's sternward." She pointed to
the padded floor of the cubicle. "Those black things are covers fo'
the restraints. Iff'n yo' hear the acceleration warnin', get there
fast, understand? Don't go near the terminal, or anythin' else
with the circled-cross symbol on them, because they'll activate
yo' controller cuff if you touch them," The prisoner cringed; they
had already had the pain-device demonstrated along with the
initial obey-all-orders-call-everyone-master lecture. "The nearest
head is out that door with the red stripe uppermost, turn left,
two hatches down. Now, stay out of my way."

   Yolande hooked her feet under the terminal and activated,
calling up the schematics for the Alliance Hero class; heavy
cruisers in enemy terminology, although they massed slightly less
than the Great Khans. Risky design philosophy, in her opinion.
Not enough separate weapons systems, and too many
interdependent elements in the beam-weapon guidance routines;
fine when everything went perfectly, but dangerous and hard on
damage control in action. She began to whistle silently through
her teeth as she worked. The prisoner sank into the background
of her consciousness; a Draka was used to being observed. A
homelike sensation, since she had never been so much alone as
on these deep-space voyages. It was several hours later when a
bell chimed.

   She yawned and stretched. "Time fo' bed," she said. The
American girl flinched again. Yolande grinned. "I said I wasn't
goin' to," she chuckled, as she leaned head and shoulders
through the hatchway and rigged her sleeping net. Any flat
surface would do in zero-C, but you needed something to keep
you from drifting around when you moved in your sleep. "Yo' use
the office floor. Draw the acceleration restraints out to max and
lock them over yo', crisscross. Here. Like this."

   She pulled herself through the hatch and swung around to
fasten the net over herself; the bedroom cubicle was more or less
useless during acceleration, but even a pulsedrive ship spent the
vast majority of its time coasting. As she dimmed the lights, she
could hear a hiccoughing sound from the other cubicle; crying,
mostly in relief, she thought. Oh, Freya, she thought. I hope she
doesn't keep that up.

   "Mistis?"

   "Yes?" Yolande sighed.

   "What's… what's going to happen to us?"

   "Depends. We'll put y'all to work until we head back insystem.
Most probably trade y'all back, fo' somethin' or other." More
sniffles in darkness. "To yo', nothin' bad, so long's yo' stays close
to this cabin. Lot of bored, horny Draka out there, wench, so be
careful."

  "Can, um, can I ask a question?" Silence. "Why… why are
you… doing this for me?"

  Yolande smiled wryly into her private night. That is
complicated, and I'm not interested in explaining it. To you, or
myself. "Call it an offerin' to the gods of mercy," she said softly.
"Lola knows, they get few enough. Go to sleep, girl."



   "Status," Yolande said.

   "Unchanged," the Sensor Officer said. "No relative motion."

   "Good." An odd situation to describe as static, she thought
ironically. Bass-ackwards to the end of beyond.
    Not too untypical of a space-warship action, though. She
looked at the screens again. An exterior view would have shown
nothing but bright dots moving against the fixed stars, if that…
The battle-schematic was much more accurate. A fixed dot, the
asteroid; the regular five-minute pulses of its monstrous drive
flaring back towards Earth. The flame was only partly shaped by
the magnetic fields of the thrust plate; those forces were still too
vast and wild for Earth's children, and it hid a good deal behind
it from most sensors. An excellent place for her to conceal the
vulnerable transports.

   Yolande grinned like a shark in the darkness of the command
center. Subotai and Batu were falling back toward the flotilla,
with the two Alliance cruisers in pursuit; all on free-fall
trajectories, with their thrust plates presented to the enemy.
That was the most heavily armored portion of a pulsedrive ship,
built to withstand near-miss nuclear explosions. And the drive
was the most dangerous weapon in itself; chasing a deepspace
warship was a chancy proposition, since getting too close would
mean self-incineration. Once you got within a certain distance,
in a one-on-one there was virtually no choice but to flip end for
end and coast until something changed the situation. You could
disengage, of course, but that meant backing off and freeing your
opponent from the menace of the nuclear sword.

   Perfect, she thought. The Draka warships had drawn the
Alliance craft on just enough; the enemy vessels were slightly
faster than hers, and more nimble, but they were farther from
base and so obliged to be sparing with their burns. A perfect
matching-velocity flip, which meant they must pursue or quit,
and pursue precisely in line with the Draka ships for fear of
presenting a vulnerable flank. The asteroid was coming up
rapidly; the fog of energetic particles around it negated her
enemy's superior sensors, too; she did not need to detect much,
here.

   "Distance," she said.

   "Two hundred twenty klicks. Transit of asteroid in
seventy-one seconds, ten klicks clearage." Just enough to avoid
the worst of the fusion-bomb explosions.
   Nothing for it but to wait; all the orders were given, the
personnel ready. Sweat soaked into the permeable fabric of her
skinsuit, under the armpits and down the flanks, chill in the
moving air the ventilators sent across her body. Sixty seconds.
Life or death decided in one minute; victory and glory, or eternal
shame. Genius, or a goat. Which I wouldn't be there to see.
Bones of the White Christ, this sort of thing sounds better in
retrospect. Adventure is somebody else in deep shit far, far
away.

    Fifty seconds. Snappdove had thought she was insane, for a
while. Maybe I was. Dammit, they are pressing home their
pursuit. The Alliance wanted to damage her; the only way to do
it was to chase her cruisers off far enough that they could do a
firing pass at the asteroid and its workforce as they turned and
fled themselves. A two-body problem with only one solution.

   Ten. Five. The pursuers maintaining position with beautiful
precision; those were good ships and well-trained crews. Three.
Two. Past.

  "Now!" she shouted, superflously.

   "DECELERATION," the speakers sounded. It wrenched at her,
throwing her to forward against the combat cocoon. Reaction
mass was being vented from the forward ports, run through the
heat dumpers to vaporize. Not nearly so powerful as the drive,
but enough to check their headlong flight. The main drives of the
Alliance craft lit in a brief blossom of flame, just enough to
match.

   And the asteroid was turning. A mass of billions of tons is
very difficult indeed to move out of its accustomed orbit; it had
taken dozens of fusion weapons to spend that much energy. It is
much easier to pivot such a mass about its center of gravity;
while the hydrogen-bomb flare had hidden them, the cargo
vessels had nestled their bows into holes excavated in the rock
and ice of the asteroid's crust. A cruiser could not have done it
without self-destruction, but the haulers had been modified to
act as pusher-tugs at need. Now four drives flared, and the
lumpy dark potato-shape pivoted with elephantine delicacy.
Toward Subotai's pursuer, blinded by its own drive for the
crucial seconds. Fusion blossomed behind the rock's assigned
stern, and the products of it washed out tens of kilometers;
charged particles, gamma radiation striking metal and sleeting
through as secondary radiation and heat. Through shielding,
through the reaction-mass baffles around the command center;
tripping relays, overloading circuits, ripping the nervous systems
of the human crew as well.

   "MANEUVER." Subotai flipped end-for-end.
"DECELERATION" The main drive roared, a deeper thrumming
note as it poured reaction-mass onto the plate and spat out
fission pellets at twice the normal rate. The cruiser slowed with a
violence that stressed the frame to its limits, as if the ship were
sinking into some yielding but elastic substance. Crippled, the
Alliance vessel overshot. Weapons lashed out, at ranges so short
that response-time was minimal. From both directions, for the
wounded ship was not yet dead.

  "Overheat, disperser three."

  "Gatling six not reporting."

  "Penetration! Pressure loss in reaction baffle nine."

   "Wotan, get that missile, get it,get it." Rising tension, until
the close-in Gatlings sprayed the homing rocket's path with
high-velocity metal. It exploded in a flower of nuclear flame, and
the radiation alarms shrilled.

   Yolande felt the cruiser shake and tone around her, like a vast
mechanical beast crying out in pain. Sectors flicked from green
to amber to red on the screens; but the Alliance ship was
suffering worse, its defenses shattered.

   "Hit!" Railgun slugs sleeted into the Washington's heat
dispersers. "Hit!" Parasite bombs dropped away from the
Suhotai's stern, into the neutron flux of the drive; their own
small bomblets detonated, and the long metal bundles converted
energy into X-ray laser spikes.

  "She's losing air," the Sensor Officer reported. "Overheat in
her reaction mass tanks—pressure burst—losing longitudinal
stability—she's tumbling!"

   Lasers raked across the enemy; armor sublimed into vapor,
and the computers held the beams on, chewing deeper. The
particle guns snapped; sparks flickered along the cartwheeling
form of the Alliance cruiser. Then the exterior screens darkened.

   "Something got through," the Weapons Officer said softly,
and consulted his screens. "Secondary effects… her fuel pellets
just went."

   A cheer went through the Suhotai, a moment's savage howl of
triumph.

  "Stow that!" Yolande snapped. "Sensors, report."

   "The Bolivar's breaking and runnin' fo' it, ma'am." Only
sensible; with two ships to her one, the Draka could bracket and
overwhelm her.

  "Damage Control?"

   "Ship fully functional. Missin' one Gatling turret. Three dead,
seven injured." Yolande winced inwardly. Shit. "Slow leaks in two
sectors of the reaction mass tank. Seventy-one percent nominal,
Drive full, remainder weapons systems full."

   "Number Two, shape fo' pursuit." There was a momentary
pause in the drive, and it resumed at normal high-burn rates.
Stars crawled across the screens as the attitude jets adjusted
their bearing. "If Bolivar gets back within the orbit of Luna,
they'll do it with dry tanks an' scratches on that shiny new thrust
plate." A pulsedrive ship could move on fuel pellets alone; the
first generation had, using vaporized graphite from the lining of
the plate as reaction mass. It was neither recommended, good
for the frame, nor safe.

  "Oh, and all hands," she said, switching to the command
push. "Well done."
             CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DATE: 12/11/82
FROM: Arch-Strategos Stephen Welber Assignments Board
Supreme QHQ Castle Tarleton, Archona

   TO: Cohortarch Yolande Ingolfsson Commandant Task Force
Telmark IV Trans-Lunar Zone

  RE: Further Orders:

   You are instructed, upon the arrival of the relief force
hereinafter specified, to return with DASCS Subotai to Qeosynch
Platform Padishah-One. You will there select a roster for skeletal
watch-standing while the cruiser Subotai undergoes necessary
repairs and consider yourself at liberty until 01/10/83, when you
will report to this office for further assignment.

  Please convey to all officers and crew of your command the
warmest congratulations of the Supreme General Staff.

  Postscript under personal code:

   Dear Cohortarch: I, the Staff, and—I might add —your uncle,
are extremely pleased with your performance. Not least the
visible rage and frustration it has caused the Alliance; let certain
parties accuse us of being soft on the enemy now! Still, it would
be better if things were allowed to simmer for a while. Your
request for a permanent deep-space command Is accordingly
denied, and in line with what the High Command has in mind
for you, following debriefing you will be assigned for the next
year or two to the Astronautical War College here in Archona.
Then—perhaps—a Staff appointment in the Mars-Jupiter sector.

   Oh, you're getting a medal and a promotion; do try to act
surprised.



SPIN HABITAT SEVEN
CENTRAL BELT
BETWEEN THE ORBITS OF MARS AND JUPITER
JANUARY 4, 1983


   Habitat Seven was the latest and largest of the Project's
constructs, half a kilometer across and two long; nickel-iron was
cheap, and easy to work with big-enough mirrors. Now the
former lump of metal-rich rock was a spinning tube, closed at
either end, with a glowing cylinder of woven glass filament
running down its center. There was atmosphere inside, and part
of the inner surface had already been transformed; gravity was .5
C, as much as was practical or necessary. Grass grew in squares
of nutrient-rich dust, and hopeful flowers. Individual houses
were going up, foamed rock poured into molds; there were
dozens of different floor-plans.

   "Goddamn circus," Frederick Lefarge said. "We're running
this like the bloody Los Alamos bomb project, back in the '40's.
Everything and the kitchen sink."

   "Not really," the man beside him on the polished-slag bench
said. "In the long run, the actual construction will go faster if we
spend the time to get the infrastructure in place." A sigh. "And
even the… fourth Project will require a good deal of preliminary
groundwork. We are going to miss Dr. Takashi very badly, as the
years go by. I am more for the crystals and wafers and wires, me;
he was the instruction set genius."

   "Yes." He looked aside at Professor Pedro de Ribeiro: a
vigorous-looking forty-five, with the usual Imperial Brazilian
goatee in pepper-and-salt and an impeccable white linen suit;
the cane and gloves were, the American thought, a little much.
Very competent man, but… "I'd have thought that was less so for
the final Project than for the rest of the New America
enterprises. It's basically a set of compinstructions, isn't it?"

   "Nao." De Ribeiro's English was impeccable, but it slipped
now and then. "I have been thinking much on this matter, since I
was contacted… and have concluded that we must almost
reinvent the art of information systems here, if we are to
accomplish what we wish." He rested his hands on the silver
head of his cane and leaned forward. "Abandon our assumption
that because we have always done things one way, that is the
inevitable path. Another legacy of the struggle with the
Domination… Tell me, Senhor Lieutenant Colonel, what would
you say to the idea of writing compinstruction procedures on a
perscomp?"

   Lefarge blinked, taken aback. "That's… Well, it would be like
using a shovel as a machine-tool, wouldn't it?"

   "Bim, but only because we have made it so." He tapped the
ferrule of the cane on the ground. "Perhaps computers could only
have started as they did, large machines used for cryptography,
for the handling of statistics. Precious assets, jealously guarded.
They have grown immensely faster, immensely more capable,
even rather smaller—that first all-transistor model in 1942 was
the size of a house! —but not different in nature."

  "Well, how could they be?"

   "For example… it is certainly technically possible to build
central processing units small enough to power a perscomp. Yes,
yes, quite difficult, but the micromachining processes we have
developed for other purposes would do… if there were a strong
development incentive. But our computers were always, hmm,
how shall I say, limited in access. Perscomps were developed
from the other end up, from the machinery intended to run
machine tools, simulations, deal with the real world; only their
instruction storage and the interfacers are digital, and the rest is
analoge. We build them for a range of specific uses, and then
develop the instruction-sets on larger machines; they are loaded
into the smaller in cartridges. Complicated machines such as
space warcraft have a maze of subsystems like that, linked to a
central brain."

   Wild speculation combined with restatement of the obvious,
Lefarge thought. Then: No, wait a minute. We've been too
narrowly focused on immediate problems. The Project's going
to need real ingenuity, not just engineering. "But if we'd gone
the other way… Jesus, Doctor, it'd be a security nightmare! Even
as it is, we have to throw dozens of people in the slammer every
year for illegal comping. There might be… oh, thousands of
amateurs out there screwing around with vital instruction sets.
The Draka could scoop it up off the market! Then think of the
problems if you could copy embedded corepaths and instruction
sets over the wires between perscomps, Lord…"

   The Brazilian nodded. "Exactly! And who would find it more
difficult to adjust to such a world, us or them? We must be
radical, on our Project. That is an example."

   He laughed, as the younger man rocked under the question's
impact. "Also, one of the reasons I have come here. Here we will
be relatively free of the security restrictions—if only because we
are already imprisoned, in a sense! For the first time, a
completely free exchange of ideas and data."

   Another tap at the metallic pebbles of the walkway. "The
thing we wish to devise, it must be more than a set of hidden
compinstructions. It must be a self-replicating, self-adjusting
pattern of information, a… a virus, if you will. One able to
overcome all the safeguards the Draka place on their machines;
the redundant systems, the physical blocks, the many interfaces.
We will have to reinvent many aspects of our art. Takashi agreed
with me; it is better to start with a majority of younger men…
and women, to be sure—ones free of the rather bureaucratized,
specialized approach of other research institutes. And less
dominated by us old men, who are so sure what is possible and
what impossible! The New America, the starship, that is
engineering. Wonderful engineering, many tests, unfamiliar
challenges, but development work. In our Project, we must learn
new ways to think. Ah, the senhora your wife."

   She was walking now, with care and in this half-gravity. The
forgetfulness was diminishing, and the crying fits; there would
be no need for more transplants. The doctors were quite
pleased… Something squeezed inside his gut, as he looked at her.
She looked… a well-preserved forty, and moved with slow, painful
care. Her face had filled out, a little, and she had gained back
some of the weight, if not the muscle tone. The hair was cropped
close, and only half gray; her teeth were the too-even white of
implanted synthetic. Professor de Ribeiro rose and bowed over
her hand.

  "A salute to one so lovely and so brave," he said formally,
bowing farewell to them both.

   Cindy sank down with a sigh, and leaned her head against his
shoulder. He put his arm around hers, feeling the slight tremor
of exhaustion.

   "Should you be up, honey?" he asked gently.

   "I'll never get any better if I don't push it a little. I was with
the girls," she said. "God, they're doing great, darling. Just… I
get so tired all the time." He looked down, and saw that slow
tears were leaking from under closed lids, made wordless sounds
of comfort. "And I feel so old, and useless and ugly."

   "You're the most beautiful thing in the solar system, Cindy,"
he said with utter sincerity. "I've never doubted it for a single
instant."

   She sighed again. "I like the professor. He's on whatever-it-is
that's being hidden behind the New America, isn't he?"

   Cindy laughed quietly, without stirring, as he tried to conceal
his start of alarm. "Don't worry, sweetheart, I haven't been
steaming open your letters… Honestly, I'm sick, not stupid. And
I've had plenty of time to think, and anyway, we're all here for
the duration. I do like the professor; he reminds me of Dr.
Takashi—"

   Suddenly she began to shake, and he turned to hold her in the
circle of his arms. "Oh God, oh God, the end of his hand was
gone and, and, uhhh—"

   "Shhh, shhh," he said. "I'm here, honey, I'll always be here. I'll
never let them hurt you again. Never again." The taste of
helplessness was in his mouth, like burning ash.

   At last she was still again. "Sorry. Sorry to be such a… baby,"
she said, gripping the breast of his uniform.

   "God, honey, you're stronger than I could ever be."

   She shook her head. "I get angry, and then I start feeling so
sorry for everyone." A long pause. "Even her."

   "Now, that's going a bit too far," he said, trying for humor.
Funny, hatred is actually a cold feeling. Like an old-fashioned
injection at the dentist's.

    "No, darling. I tried to think how it would be, if somebody
killed you, you know, what she said…"

  "That filthy—" he bit off the words. "Sorry, honey."

    "They can't help what their… way of life does to them. You
know," she continued, "I think she really didn't want to hurt any
of us, until she recognized your picture. It was as if she just… had
a blind spot, couldn't understand why we weren't doing what she
wanted, as if we were making her fight us. She… had them put
all the other children in safely, with enough to… to eat."

  He held her tighter. "Try not to think of it," he said. "And,
honey, I'd do almost anything for you, except forgive the people
who did this to you."

   "I wouldn't want you to," she said unexpectedly, looking up at
him bleakly. "I don't want you to become like that, eaten up with
hate. But I don't want those people in the same universe as my
children, either. Kill them all, Fred. Whatever you're doing here,
do it."

   The tension went out of her. "I really do feel sorry for them,
though. What a life it must be, without a real home, without
love—without even natural children. That's the first love of all,
for the baby in your arms." Cindy yawned. "I feel sort of sleepy,
Fred sweetheart," she whispered. "Take me home."

  He bent and lifted her with infinite gentleness.



CLAESTUM PLANTATION
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY
PROVINCE OF ITALY
JANUARY 5, 1983
   "Shit, I hope I'm in time," Yolande muttered to herself. She
keyed the console and spoke:

   "Central Mediterranean Control, Ingolfsson 55Z-4, here. Mach
one-point-one at 9,985 meters, permission to commence
descent."

   "CMC here," an amused voice replied; one of the Citizen
supervisors who had been following her dash from the orbital
scramjet port in Alexandria. Being a national hero was proving
more trying than she had expected, but it had its compensations.
"Permission granted, we've cleared it."

   "I'm not goin' need much room," she replied. Her hand hit the
safety overrides not designed for fighter pilots anyway and kept
the wings at maximum sweep-back; the Meercat turned on its
side and dove.

    "Right," she said. "Remember, this fuckin' aircar wasn't built
fo' fighter jocks either." The ground swelled with frightening
speed; she pulled the nose up in a half-Immelmann, vectored the
belly-jets to loose speed, grunted as the craft seemed to hit a
brick wall in the air. "Aaaaand again." The sonic boom must
have rattled windows for kilometers around.

   She shoved the wings forward and hit the spoilers; the speed
wound down toward aerodynamic stall. "A little too much." That
was the Monte Chiante ahead; she banked again, giving a touch
to the throttle and hedgehopping. That was almost a forgotten
sensation; amazing how much faster everything seemed with an
atmosphere and planetary surface to reference from.

   The Great House lay below her, like a model spread out on its
hilltop. Nothing in the front court, and to hell with the
pavement. Yolande rolled the craft in a final circuit of the hill,
brought the vectored thrust fully vertical; the wings folded into
their slots, and she could hear the landing gear extend as she let
the aircar fall at maximum safe descent.

   "God, I hope I'm in time," she said to herself. The canopy
retracted and she vaulted out, hit the ground running, paused at
the main stairs.
   "Hiyo, ma, pa, I'm home. Am I in time?" Her parents glanced
at each other. "Everyone from here to Florence knows yo' home,
after that approach, and yes. Only just. Run fo' it, girl!" her
father said.

   Yolande ran. Through corridors, hurdling furniture, once over
a startled housegirl on her hands and knees scrubbing a floor.
Wotan and Thunor, I'm like lead, I should have worked out in
the high-G spinner more, she thought dazedly as she arrived at
the birthroom door, breathing deeply. A voice stopped her.

  "Clean up! Youa clean up before you come in!"

   Middy Gianelli, no mistaking that bleak voice. Compelling
herself not to fidget, Yolande hurriedly stripped off her uniform
jacket and her boots, slipped on a sterile robe and slippers and
stood under the UV cleanser until the buzzer sounded. Proper
procedure, after all. Almost certainly unnecessary, modern
antibacterials being what they were, but there was no sense in
taking chances with her baby. Suddenly nervous, she stepped
through the door.

  "Ma!." Gwen was on the other side of the table. "Ma, the
baby's comin'!"

   "Hiyo, dumplin'," Yolande said, distracted. "I know… How's it
goin', Jolene?" she continued, stepping to the serfs side.

   "Fine, M—nnnnng," she grunted. The black woman was
resting on the birthing table; it was cranked up to support her
upper body at a quarter from the horizontal, with a brace for her
hips, raised pedestals for her feet; her hands were clenched on
grips behind her head.

   "You shoulda be asking me that, Mistis," the midwife said.
She was an Italian serf, spare and severe; expensively trained, in
her late fifties, much in demand on neighboring plantations. The
Draka had never considered pregnancy an illness, and used
doctors only when something seemed to be going wrong.
"Dilation is complete, the water's justa broke; position normal,
like the scanner said. Nexta time, use this wench again or picka
one who's had her own bambino, it go easier."
  "Glad… yo'… here," Jolene panted.

  "No more talk; I been telling you what to do these six months
now. Breath in, bear down. Yell if it helps."

   The door opened again; Yolande's mother and father came in,
and her brother John and Mandy; none of her brother's children
were old enough to be here, of course; that would not be fitting
until they were near-adult. The serf midwife scowled at the
newcomers, snapped at her assistant-apprentice. Jolene filled
her lungs and bore down with a long straining grunt, again.
Again. Again. Her face and body shone with sweat, and her face
contorted with her effort. Yolande laid a hand on her swollen
belly, feeling the contractions through the palm. Time passed;
Yolande looked up with a start and realized it had been nearly an
hour. The other adults waited quietly; Gwen left her seat and
stood, craning her neck to see around the two serf attendants.

  "Oh, wow, ma," she said. "I can see the head."

   "Quiet, Gwen," Yolande said gently. "Come on, Jolene, yo' can
do it." The contractions were almost continuous now, and there
was pain in the grunting cries.

   She saw the crown of the head slide free of the distended birth
canal, red and crumpled and slick with fluids. The stomach
convulsed under her hand, and Jolene screamed three times,
high and shrill. The baby slid free into the midwife's filmgloved
hands. She cleaned the mouth and nose, then lifted it and
slapped it sharply on the behind; it gave a wail as she laid it
down on the platform, tied and severed the cord, began wiping
the birth bloom, dipping the child in the basin of warm water
her assistant held near. The crying continued as she dried and
wrapped the child and handed it to Yolande.

   "Ah," the Draka breathed, looking down at the tiny wrinkled
form that quieted and peered around with mild, unfocused blue
eyes. "My own sweet Nicholas; I'm goin' call yo' Nikki, hear?"

  Gwen was tugging at her elbow. "Ma, can I see?" Yolande
went down on one knee. "Why do they look so… rumpled up, ma?
Did I look like that?"
   "Just about, honeybunch. They have to squeeze through a
pretty tight place, gettin' out. Here, see how perfect his hands
are? Isn't it wonderful?"

   The girl nodded, then looked aside where Jolene was
shuddering and wincing as she worked to expel the afterbirth.
"That looks like it really hurts, doin' all that. I'll never have to do
that, will I, ma?"

  Yolande spared a hard glance at Marya; what had the wench
been saying to the child?

   "No, of course not," she said to her daughter.

   "No, Missy Gwen," Marya said, in her usual cool tone. "Your
serf brooders will bear your eggs for you, just like this."

   Gwen nodded, and Yolande rose and bent over Jolene. The
serf was still panting, exhausted. She flinched slightly as the
attendants cleaned her, slid a fresh sheet beneath her and wiped
away the sweat before drawing up a coverlet and setting the
controls to convert the birthing table into a bed; she would be
moved later. Still, she smiled broadly as Yolande brought the
small bundle near, reaching out her arms. "Can I?" she said.

  "Of course," her owner replied, laying the infant gently on her
abdomen. Yolande kissed her brow, then looked up to meet
Gwen's eyes. "Remember, we owe Jolene a lot, daughter. We
have to look after her always."

  Gwen nodded solemnly, then gave her mother's hand a
squeeze before she ran over to Marya; standing, her head was
nearly level with the seated serfs.

   How swiftly they grow, Yolande thought. Her daughter
reached forward and hugged the American.

   "Thank yo', Tantie-ma Marya," she said earnestly. "I didn't
realize how hard yo' worked, havin' me. Thank yo'."

   Marya returned the embrace; the other Draka were smiling at
the entirely proper show of sentiment. The serf stroked the red
head resting on her bosom.

  "You are welcome, Missy Gwen," she said. Then looked up,
met Yolande's gaze, looked down at the child. "You are welcome."

   Yolande felt a slight chill, then cast it aside. Hearing things,
she decided, looking down at her son. A rush of warmth spread
up from belly to throat, so overwhelming that her head swam
with it. She was conscious of her family gathering around her,
her father and mother's arms over her shoulders. John was
popping a champagne bottle in the background, and someone
pushed a glass into her hand. She sipped without tasting,
watching the baby lying quietly with the dozing serf. Wondering,
she stroked his cheek, and his head turned towards the touch,
mouth working. "Why, he's an eager little one," Jolene said.
"Mistis, help me?"

   Yolande pulled down the sheet to bare the swollen breasts,
and curled the infant into the curve of her arm so that he could
take the nipple. He sucked eagerly, and Jolene closed her eyes
with a sigh. "They been so sore an' tender. That feels good."

   There was more quiet conversation as the infant nursed, and
then the midwife cleared her throat. "Mastahs, Mistis', this not a
good place for a party. An' this wench and the bambino, they
needa their rest."

   Thomas Ingolfsson rumbled a laugh. "True enough. Out, my
children."



   "… so they sent out Babur, Timur, and Mongke fo' the final
escort," Yolande was saying, some hours later. "The orbit's still
eccentric enough that the damn thing swings outside Luna, so
until we get it corrected, no sense in temptin' the Yankees to try
anythin'."

   "Think they might try anythin' closer?" her brother said
sharply.

  They were taking late lunch in the solarium. Yolande looked
out through the clear crystal onto the winter gardens and the
misty sere-and-green of a Tuscan winter. Rain had moved in,
and falling curtains of silver hid the hills and the twisted black
shapes of the vines. Inside there was a mild warmth, the tinkle of
a rock-fountain, smells of coffee and seafood and fresh breads.
Meditatively, she chewed another mouthful of shrimp.

   "No," she answered, after a pause for thought. "There's too
much at stake in their day-to-day lives that rests on what comes
from near-Earth space. Too many vested interests would scream
at the thought of disruption. Gwen, don't play with yo' food, if yo'
goin' to sit at table with adults." John and Mandy's eldest boy
Eric was down at the junior's end of the table too, looking up
from his plate occasionally with amusing hero-worship in his
eyes; the other Draka children of the household were too young,
and were off behind a screen of vines with their nurses.

  "Yes, ma," Gwen replied. Slightly sulky, which was more like
her; the birth had disturbed her a little. Only to be expected, but
not to be cosseted. It was a natural enough process, after all.

   Yolande sighed. "Well, it all came off reasonably well… except
I hate havin' losses in my command. Score several points fo' us.
That asteroid goin' to be real helpful, next five years or so. Still,
I'm havin' doubts about whether we'll ever make a serious
impact on the Alliance with this denarius-at-a-time policy. What
the alternative is, I don't rightly know. Maybe they'll enlighten
me at the War College."

   "Mo' like to give yo' a severe case of paramathematical
analytical holistic paralysis," her brother said lightly. "You'll be
so aware of the consequences yo'll never do a damn thing again."

  Johanna raised her wineglass. "A toast. To my grandson
Nicholas Ingolfsson; may he serve the State and the Race as
heroically as my daughter!"

   There were laughter and cheers. Yolande smiled, but reached
out and touched the glass. "The wish is appreciated, mother,"
she said seriously. "But no. I've got a different toast." She raised
her own glass. "To Gwen and Nikki's future; by the time they're
grown, may the Race rule from Sol to the Oort Clouds,
unopposed!"

  They clinked glasses.

   Gwen's voice cut in. "But, ma… then who would I have to
fight?" She sounded worried.

   "Gwen, there's always space, an' that's enemy enough fo' all."
A smile. "An' the telescopes say most stars like ours have planets,
with air we can breathe. That means life, maybe with hands and
minds. Yo' goin' to live a long, long time, honeyhunch, hundreds
of years. Yo' and Eric can go out to the stars an' conquer the
aliens." Who will hopefully have nothing better than spears, she
thought. "We've never gotten a message, not for all our looking,
and the Yankees.".

   Eric was gazing at her with a frown of serious thought. "The
Yankees," he began, "they killed Aunt Myfwany." So she had
always been called in this household, as courtesy to Yolande.
"They're really, really bad. I want to kill them all." Gwen nodded
vehemently.

   Mandy and John turned to quell their son, but Yolande raised
a hand. "Ah," she said, closing her eyes for a moment. "Eric,
Gwen, thank yo' both." They were getting to the age of reason,
and should be exposed to as much serious thought as they could
handle. "But—remember this. When y'all are grown, yo' may
have to kill to live. Remember, killin'—killin' people, even if
they're not of the Race—it's not a good thing. We do it because
we must, not because we hate, or because we like it. Eric, yo'
don't hate yo' Tantie-ma Delores, do yo'?"

  The boy shook his head.

   "But she's Italian, and her people fought yo' grandma and
grandpa. Gwen, Jolene's people fought us, long ago. Yo'
Tantie-Ma is… was a Yankee. Don't want to kill her, eh?"

  "Oh, no, ma. I love Marya."

   "So yo' should, punkin. See, we're the Race, the Draka, it's our
place to rule, an' fo' others to serve us and work fo' us. All this
fightin' and killin', it's just because the wild ones don't know it
yet. Once they've been brought under us and we've taught them
that, we should protect them and treat them as gentle as we can,
so they can be happy in their service." Yolande smiled
indulgently as she saw the children's brows knitted in thought.

   "And with that, maybe yo' should both go eat dessert at the
children's table," Mandy said. Eric and Gwen slid from their
chairs and came to give their parents the kiss of courtesy. Eating
with the grownups was an honor but a strain as well, and less fun
than joining their cousins and siblings.

   "Gwen," Yolande whispered into her daughter's ear. "Did yo'
like Archona? Quietly, now."

   "Yes, ma, lots," the girl whispered back, her eyes glistening
with excitement. "There was all sorts of things to do. Can we go
again?"

   "Well, punkin, don't tell anyone yet, but we're going to live
there, yo' and yo' new brother and I, and I'll be home a lot
more." While I'm chained to a desk learning how at be a
Staffer. "And don't worry, yo' can still go to school in Baiae, and
visit here lots." It was only a two-hour trip these days, anyway.
"Now scoot!"

   "Wisdom," her father said, when the children had gone.
"Though there was damn-all fightin' here in Italy, at least." A
laugh. "Bit of partisan trouble afterwards, though. Yo'd be too
young to remember. Mo' like huntin' than combat, just a little
mo' dangerous game."

  Yolande shivered slightly inside herself; she had often
wondered whether her generation had the iron of the ones who
had fought the Eurasian War. India had been a sideshow,
compared to that.

   "That why yo' pushed to let those Alliance types yo' took go?"
John asked. The servants gathered the plates and spread
sweetmeats and pastries; her brother selected a walnut and
crushed it between thumb and forefinger.
   "Well, we traded them, fo' that lot of serf technicians." An
embarrassing incident, when a robot personnel capsule had gone
derelict on the way to the Phobos station; nobody but the
Alliance had been in position to rescue them. "Left them with
egg on they faces, too, when most of the serfs wanted back in."

  Her mother snorted derisively. "Well, did they think we sent
convicts fed on scraps into space?" she said. "Or that we'd select
people without strong ties here to send to a risky frontier zone?"

    "Quite possible they did think that," Yolande said,
remembering. "I talked to some of the prisoners… they adapted
pretty well; we only had to execute two or three…" And none
among the born-serf workforce; Harry was tickled pink about
that. "And they know less about us than we do about them." She
frowned. "Of course, the type we got, near as yo' can translate
they'd be Class IV or V serfs, here. Wotan knows, a serf learns as
little about the Alliance as we can manage. I suppose their
overlords do likewise."

   "Never thought I'd see yo' talkin' down hatred and vengeance,
sist —" John started, as his wife kicked him under the table.

   Yolande's voice turned remote as her gaze. "I—I'll handle the
vengeance, John," she said. "Hopefully, I'll handle the Yankees as
well. Vengeance an' hate… that's my burden, and little joy of it
I've had. None of it will give me back what I lost. That's what I
want to spare our children."

   There was a moment of awkward silence. "I hear yo' took one
of the prisoners in fo', hmmm, personal cultural anthropology.
Good? Wench or buck?" Mandy said, changing the subject with
a joke.

   The elder Ingolfsson's chuckle was strained. Ah, the Race
Purity Laws, Yolande remembered. Fifty years ago, in their
youth, it had been a hanging matter for a Citizen woman to lie
with a serf male—an ancestral habit from which much else
sprang. Contraception and equality of rights within the Citizen
caste had made the law obsolete, and the new style of
reproduction had rendered it outright silly, well before repeal in
1971. It had still been a matter for sniggering jokes when Yolande
was a teenager; she found the younger generation appallingly
casual about the whole matter. Mandy had always thought it
vilely unfair, of course; but then she was just entranced with the
male of the species.

   "Wench," Yolande said, with a mock-severe frown of reproof
at her schoolfriend and sister-in-law. "I'm an old-fashioned girl,
myself. No, actually, I didn't touch her. Nice little thing, might
not have minded keepin' her, but I sort of promised." She
frowned, selected a confection of puff pastry and cream with
fruit. "Coffee, Bianca. Did talk a fair bit; it got right borin' at
times out there." She shook her head. "I'd read about them, of
course. Seen viewers an' such. Still hadn't realized how
downright strange they are. It'll be a relief when they're broken
to the Yoke; the thought of it makes my brain hurt, frankly." She
paused. "Might look little Alishia up, Iff'n she survives the
conquest."

   "Oh," she continued. "I'm goin' to be needin' some staff, fo' the
townhouse in Archona. Probably be based out of there for quite
some time. Need a round score, good cook, assistants, set of
housegirls, the usual. Driver, mechanic… hmmm. Junior nurses,
to help Jolene; she'll be doin' clerical stuff again as soon as she's
up. Glad to buy Claestum stock, if yo' can spare it." The
plantation was actually overstrength; pa had been a little lax
about enforcing birth control in the early years, and the chickens
were coming home to roost. She saw the others exchange a
glance and a smile.

   "Well," said her father. "No problem, but it'd be unwise to
stock a city home all from a plantation. Should buy some locals
as well; maybe from a creche-trainer. Don't usually hold with the
creche product, but yo' Jolene certainly worked out."

   "Eric would help out," Johanna said. She sighed. "It is nice to
see one's children doin' well," she added.

   Yolande caught herself glancing out at the light, steady rain
once more. It would be chill, out there. Misty and muddy, and
the trees would be bare, and the smell would be of wet earth and
rock and vegetation.
    "I think," she said, "I'll get a slicker cape and a horse and go
fo' a ride. Gods, if yo' knew how I'd missed fresh air, and the
hills, and water I didn't turn on out of a tap. And I need the
exercise, we used a 1.5-G spun minihab but it wasn't the same.
Don't wait supper, I'll have somethin' sent up from the kitchens.
See yo' in the mornin', I'll take the baby around then to show the
ghouloons." The gene-engineered guardians trusted scent better
than sight, and far more than words.

   "Have a good time, darlin'," her mother said.

   "And when yo' get back," her father said, to the others'
laughter.



   "Damn, I feel good," Yolande said quietly. The ride had been
just what she needed, cold and physically demanding, a chance
to feel at one once more with the earth that had born her, hour
after hour until moonrise. And it had washed out the last of the
tension from the ride down from orbit, cursing the interminable
delays, the flight across the Mediterranean knowing that half the
Citizens in the western provinces were following by viewer and
smiling. The ride, and a long soak in the baths, and steam and
massage from friendly expert attendants who had known her all
her life. Now she felt alert and sharp-set, ready for her meal.

   Shouldn't take long, she thought, opening the door of her
suite by the tower. The kitchens always had someone on standby,
and it wasn't as if the staff were overworked. You know, she told
herself meditatively, I'm even glad that Yankee bitch made it
alive to Ceres. That news had come through while the Subotai
was making rendezvous with the relief flotilla.

    Though more for the children's sake than hers. I really don't
like hurting little ones, even when it's necessary. Uncle Eric's
right, though; we hurt ourselves more than them if we… get out
of proportion. Her eyes narrowed, lost in thought, as she walked
through the lounging room and up the stairs, dropping her robe.
Even then, she felt a minor surprise when something went away
when you dropped it, instead of floating irritatingly at hand. f
It's her man I want, anyway. I certainly don't regret the grief
I've caused him. And he'll know they were under my hand,for
all. Build the rest o days. Him, I'll kill. The rest of my revenge,
it'll be enough to put the Alliance under the Yoke once and a
better world for mine and Myfwany's children.

   There was a fire crackling in the bedroom hearth, and a meal
laid out on a trolley table next to it. Her favorite, stuffed lobster
with drawn butter, salad, and—

   "Who the hell are yo'?" she asked the wench kneeling beside
the table.

   She rose, wearing a dazzling smile and a ribbon like a
bandolier from shoulder to hip, with a large bow and a card
attached to it. About twenty, raven hair falling to her waist, pale
creamy skin; the straight delicate features and full-curved lips of
a Michelangelo painting. The card was extended in one
slender-fingered hand. Nice fingers, Yolande thought dazedly, as
she unfolded it.

   Enjoy, it read; signed by her kin.

   "I am Mirella… Antonio the gardener's daughter, Mistis? And
I am a gift, to serve you."

   "Is that so?" Yolande said, falling back into the Tuscan of her
earliest years and feeling laughter bubbling up beneath her
breastbone. Those impossible, presumptuous — She shook her
head helplessly. "Is that so, wench? And what do you think of the
idea?"

  "Oh, I wish very much to serve you,"—a coy glance
—"perfectly, in all ways, Mistis."

   "Why?"

  "Well… Everyone knows, you are land, Mistis. And very
beautiful. And…" the smile turned slightly urchin as the rest
came in a rush. "And that you are going to the great city,
Archona, and if I please you I will fly there away from here where
nothing ever happens and see the lovely palaces and everything,
and become a head housemaid before I am old and withered and
not have to clean floors any more, and have a room of my own
and pretty things and maybe even learn to read as they say all
the servants do in the great city. Mistis."

   Yolande sank into the chair, laughing until the tears flowed,
then looked up at the wench's uncertain glance. "Well, Mirella, I
like a serf who's honest. We ought to get to know each other
better, before we settle your life." She patted the cushion beside
her; there was plenty of room. It had been her favorite
curl-up-in-front-of-the-fire-and-read-chair, when she was a
child. "First, sit here and let's see if you like lobster."




             CHAPTER SIXTEEN

    The paradox of our times is that information has increased
more rapidly than the capacity of the sciences to integrate it and
nowhere more so than in physics and cosmology. In the 1950s,
we were still uncertain what lay under the clouds of
Venus—swamps seemed a sound hypothesis— and the "canals" of
Mars had only recently been debunked. Less than a decade later,
spaceships and probes were studying every planet inside the
orbit of Neptune. We exist in a world bear-lead by engineers,
themselves driven by frantic necessity. Our theories are lame,
limping things cobbled together to give some rough framework
and mathematical basis to the huge constructs we make, and the
monstrous puzzles we encounter. And often we ignore vital areas
of research simply because there is so much else to be done that
is immediately promising. For example, only now are we
developing a theory of stellar formation which has any predictive
force, and this decades after the space telescopes proved the
ubiquity of planets. We now know that planets with life—or at
least oxygen-rich atmospheres and liquid water—are fairly
common around stars of the general type of Sol; four have been
confirmed so far within 50 light-years of Earth. Yet there has
been no sustained investigation of Bigetti's Paradox; if life is
common, where are the intelligent aliens?

  A still more glaring example has recently arisen. Ever since
the initial breakthroughs of the decade 1900-1910, we have been
treating the quantum-mechanical paradoxes as useful
mathematical fictions; some amuse themselves with
thought-experiments such as Kubbelman's Rat and its
half-life/half-death state in the sealed box.Now these questions
are rising, as it were, out of the subatomic world and clamoring
for attention—by biting us on the ankle, if nothing else. Our
rule-of-thumb engineers stumbled across high-temperature
superconductivity, and applied it widely, long before an
adequate theory had been produced; we knew that the whole
superconductor was in a single quantum state and left it at that.
Only recently has it occurred to anyone to conduct the basic
experiments necessary to show that quantum phase-shifts can
create non-local events—action at a distance, without interval or
an intervening exchange of particles.

   Now we learn that a piece of superconducting material
changes state instantaneously, regardless of distance. The whole
basis of relativistic physics is shaken, and what is the response
outside the scientific community? "Does this mean better
telephones? Can we make a weapon of it?" What we need most
urgently is a period of tranquillity, in which our species can
assimilate and systematize the breakthroughs of this century.
                                  History in a Technological Age
                               Ch.XX Reflections and Conclusion
                               by Andrew Elliot Armstrang, Ph.D
                                           Department of History
                                San Diego University Press, 1995



CENTRAL OFFICE, ARCHONAL PALACE
ARCHONA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
NOVEMBER 10, 1991



  "That will be all," Eric von Shrakenberg said.

  "Excellence," his aide replied, bowing and leaving.
   Damned insolence of office, he thought with amusement. The
Domination's chief executive was selected for a seven-year term,
with no limits on reelection. Hence the Archonate staff tended to
become used to an incumbent, set in their ways; he was still
running into problems with that, except with the people he had
brought in himself last year. The serf cadre were even worse…

  "Five minutes," the desk said.

   He sighed and seated himself, feeling a little out of place. This
shape of carved yellowwood and Zambezi teak… how many
Occupation Day addresses had he seen it in, from the other side?
On film back during the Eurasian War, on screens of gradually
increasing clarity since. 'Wotlan, fifty years! he thought, looking
around the big room. Not overwhelming, although the view was
spectacular, when the curtains were open; the dome of the House
of Assembly was about half a kilometer away. History-drenched
enough for anybody, he supposed, thinking of the decisions made
here.

   And now I sit here and hold the fate of the human race in my
hands, he thought. If anyone's listening at the other end of these
communicators. Having people obey when he spoke was the
difference between being a leader and an old man in a room. A
fact not commonly known, and it's better so.

  "Incoming signal," the speaker said.

  "Receive."

   A spot of light appeared at head-height beyond the desk. A
line framed it, expanding outward until it outlined a rectangle
three meters by three; the central spot faded, and then the
rectangle blinked out of existence. Replacing it was a
holographic window into the interior of Washington House. Eric
knew it was an arrangement of photons, as insubstantial as
moonbeams, but still wondered at the sheer solidity of it.
Genuine progress, for a change, he thought. You could get the
true measure of an opponent this way, the total-sensory gestalt
read from every minute clue of stance, expression, movement.
The same applied in reverse.
  "Madam President," he said, inclining his head.

  "Excellence," she replied, with meticulous courtesy.

   She may have been added to balance the ticket, but I don't
think the Yankees lost when Liedermann slipped on the soap,
Eric decided. President Carmen Hiero was the second Hispanic
and the first woman to sit in the same chair as Jefferson and
Douglas; before that she had been a Republican jefe politico in
Sonora, still very unusual for a woman in the States carved out of
Old Mexico. Fiftyish, graying, criolla blueblood by descent,
mixed with Irish from a line of silver-mine magnates: that much
he knew from the briefing papers. Old haciendado family, but
not a shellback by Yankee standards; degrees in classics, history,
and some odd American specialty known as political science,
whatever that was. A contradiction in terms, from the title.

  "I regret that I can't offer hospitality," he continued.

   She shrugged. "Debatable whether it would be appropriate,
under the circumstances. I hope you realize how much trouble
with my OSS people I had to go through to allow Domination
equipment here."

   "And the political capital I must expend to let Yankee
electronics in here," he added dryly. "Our Security people are still
more paranoid than yours, not least because it is a field in which
your nation excels us. Still, we can now be reasonably sure
nobody is recording or tapping these conversations." He paused.
"Why did yo' agree, Senora?"

  The black eyes met his calmly. Almost as much
body-language control as a Draka, he thought with interest.
Better than some of us do, actually. I wonder how deep it runs.

   "I suspect my reasoning was much like yours, von
Shrakenberg. The convenience of dealing with essential issues
without the circumlocutions essential where things are said in
public, without the necessary lies of party politics. In addition,
the chance of gaining personal insight into my enemy, set
against the risk of him doing likewise. Well worth that risk.
Always it is better to act from knowledge than ignorance." Eric
nodded, spread his hands in silent acknowledgment as she
continued. "Although, por favor, why did you not request such a
link with the Alliance Chairman?"

   Eric chuckled. "For much the same reason that you would not
have agreed, had Representative Gayner's nominee been sittin' in
this chair."

   Her eyebrows rose slightly. "I would not compare Chairman
Allsworthy to your Militants," she said.

   "Not in terms of policy… a certain structural similarity in
position on our relative political spectra. Perhaps a similarity in
believin' too strongly in our respective national mythologies.
Besides, the American President is still rather mo' than first
among equals."

   It was Hiero's turn to spread her hands silently. Certain
necessary fictions must be maintained even here, he read the
gesture.

    "Turnin' to business," Eric continued, "was it really necessary
to tow those-there gold-rich asteroids into Earth orbit? I admit
it's industrially convenient havin' gold fall to the same value as
tin, but the the financial problems!"

   A thin smile; the Alliance currency was fiat money, while the
Domination's Auric had always been gold-backed. "You could
refuse to trade for gold, and maintain an arbitrary value," she
said in a tone of sweet reason.

   He snorted. "Thus sacrificin' the industrial advantages, and
ending up with all the disadvantages of a metallic standard, all
the problems of a paper-money system, and none of the
compensatin' flexibility," he said. "Between me and thee, we're
movin' to a basket of commodities, although with the general fall
in prices—"

   An hour later, Hiero leaned back. "Well," she said, "all this
indicates several areas of potential agreement." They both
nodded; technical discussions were easy, once the top-echelon
political decisions had been made. "Perhaps we can move on to
others, at later meetings. Certainly we have more of a meeting of
minds than I could with your Militants."

   Or I with Allsworthy, Eric inferred. Quite true; the chairman
had what amounted to a physical phobia towards Draka, taking
the nickname "Snake" quite literally.

   "Please, don't misinterpret," he said softly. "On some issues of
purely… pragmatic impo'tance, perhaps. On mo' fundamental
issues of foreign policy, my Conservatives will follow an
essentially Militant line."

  "Why? If I may ask."

   "Because… Madam President, the internal politics of the
Domination can no way be interpreted in terms of what yo'
familiar with; a word to the wise, to prevent misunderstandin'.
The universe of discourse is too different. To call my faction
paternalistic conservatives an' Gayner's biotechnocrats is a very
crude approximation. Our real differences are on issues of
domestic policy—very long-term domestic policy at that, arisin'
after we dispose of yo'. Or yo' dispose of us, in which case it all
becomes moot, eh? It's extremely impo'tant that we try to
understand the parameters of each other's operations, otherwise
things could get completely irrational."

  "I see your point." A hesitation. "May I ask you a personal
question, Excellence?" At his nod, she proceeded: "I've got the
usual Intelligence summaries on you… and I've read your novels.
Within limits, I received the impression of an intelligent and
empathetic man. Which leads to certain questions."

   Eric turned in his swivel chair and poured a measure of
brandy into a balloon snifter, turned back, paused to swirl the
liquid and sniff, sip.

   "I assure yo', they've occurred to me as well," he said
meditatively. "Why, in essence, don't I retire to my estate and let
the world rave as it will?" He felt his lips twist into the
semblance of a smile. "Well, in all honesty, Madam President,
why don't yo'? It's in the nature of an ambitious politician to
imagine all alternatives to himself are disaster. I flatter mahself
I'm right."

   "Duty," she said. "I'm… not indispensable, but there are worse
people to occupy this chair. For my children, my nation, and for
the cause of freedom, if that doesn't sound too pompous."

   Eric laughed harshly. "Yo' Americans have been a lucky
people, on the whole… what convenience, to have national
interest an' high-soundin' ideals so congruent!" He made a
gesture with the glass. "Forgive a slight bitterness. Leavin' aside
the question of whether morals are objective reality or cultural
artifacts, I'm left with some similar motivations. I have children,
grandchildren. And my people. As my fathah once said to me, yo'
nation is like yo' children; loved because they are yours, not
necessarily because they deserve it. Moral judgment—that has to
be made in the context of political and historical reality, not
some imaginary situation where we start with a tabula rasa."

   "Even in politics, surely moral choices are an individual's
responsibility?"

   "A true difference of national temperament, I think. Iff'n a
Draka thinks of choice at all, it's as constrained within narrow
bonds; human beings make history, but they don't make it just
as they choose." He laughed again, this time with more genuine
humor. "Interestin' question, whether perception is the result or
cause of social reality…" He set the snifter down and leaned
forward. "One thing is sure. Either of us would start the Final
War if we thought it was the right choice. And neither of us
wants to be forced into that decision prematurely. Which leaves
us with certain common difficulties."

   "Bueno,I am glad you realize this. This conflict—it has gone on
so long, both sides, they have accumulated serious vested
interests with a stake in waging it. Organizations, bureaucracies,
careers are invested in it; power, vast profits. Always these push
toward its intensification. We have a common interest then, in
not allowing the instruments of policy to set our policy."

   "True." He nodded decisively. "Very true. Although,
hmunmm." He rubbed his chin meditatively, then decided to
speak. It was no secret, after all. "Madam President, remember
always that there is no true symmetry between our positions,
here. There is an element in the Alliance which seeks to simply
grow around and beyond us, reduce us to an irrelevance." She
nodded. "This is precisely what much of our strategy has been
designed to prevent. The border tensions, the convention we
have allowed to grow up that there is no peace beyond Luna… It
is yo' dynamism we fear. The tension inhibits it, forces yo' into
military an' security measures where we can compete mo'
easily."

   Hiero's mouth clamped in a grim line. "Si. So my analysts tell
me. Let me warn you then, Excellence. This policy has its own
dangers. Firstly, it makes the task you have, of restraining your
military, more difficult. Secondly, both our societies are
becoming dependent on resources and manufactures from space;
this entails massive activities and investments beyond the
Earth-Moon system. In turn, these create interests whose voices
cannot be ignored. Also… when only explorers and pioneers were
at risk, nothing vital was threatened by clashes in deep space.
Now we are approaching the point where vital matters of
national security are endangered in the heavens. We would not
tolerate an invasion of Burma or England. Should we then regard
Ceres as less?"

   "Correct," Eric said, with soft precision. "As you point out, my
task of control is mo' than yours; nor would I modify our
tradition of decentralized decision makin', even if I could." He
sighed. "A world bound in chains of adamant, that's our legacy.
The stalemate becomes ever less stable. If nothin' else, inaction
would give my opponents too much opportunity. The fact that
I'm presented with an insoluble dilemma, and they know it, will
not restrain them from takin' political advantage of it."

   Hiero tapped a finger to her lip in polite skepticism. "I am to
endure provocation from you, because if I do not, another even
less restrained would take your place?" She continued with heavy
Irony: "The whip is not so bad; fear instead my brother who
will use scorpions?"

   "I see yo' point. So both of us looks for a means to break the
stalemate; I don't suppose it's much consolation that I would use
it with regret, while anothah in my shoes might do it with
Naldorssenian glee and invocations of the Will to Power. But be
careful, be very careful, Madam President. Neither of us wishes
to destroy the planet. Don't rely too much on secrets—such as yo'
New America project, out there in the asteroids. Conveniently on
the opposite side of the Sun from Earth, most of the time, eh?"

   She was shaken for a moment, he was sure of it: a thousand
tiny signs said so. Then she rallied.

   "Or your Stone Dogs, si."

   It was his turn to feel a hand squeezing at the arteries in his
chest. Control yourself, you fool, he said behind a smiling mask.
Ah… she didn't match my disclosure of her project's location.
Only a half-dozen knew the full to most of those charged with
implementation. And don't start flailing about to discover her
source. The effort itself could tell them too much.
Overwhelmingly probable they have discovered only that it is a
secret, and important.

    He glanced polite inquiry. "Stone Dogs… an old nickname fo'
our Janissary infantrymen. Perhaps a code name? I can't very
well follow every project, of course." Their eyes met in perfect
understanding of the game of bluff and double-bluff. "Well, we
all have our little surprises," he said. "Tell me, do yo' ever suspect
what yo' subordinates aren't tellin' yo'?"

   She gave him a glance that was half ironic, half a reflection of
shared fear. He remembered times when he had lain awake
sweating with that particular horror, the worst of which was that
there was no way to disprove it. A successful deception ploy was
invisible by definition, and thinking of it too much that was the
road to paranoia and madness.

   "It has been, ah, interesting," the president said at last.

   "At least that. Perhaps in another few months."

   "Of a certainty. Excellence."

   "Madam President."
  The holo vanished, and Eric waited a long moment with the
heels of his palms to his eyes before he touched a control on the
desk. "Shirley," he said. "Send in the estimates, would yo'?"

   His eyes sought the curtains. The sun had fallen… Perhaps
next week there would be time for a visit home. Stop reaching
for the carrot, donkey, he told himself brutally. Bend your neck
to the traces and pull.



   President Carmen Hiero shook her head thoughtfully as the
aides bustled about, rearranging the room.

  "The poor man," she murmured, in her mother's language.

  "Ma'am?" the Secret Service agent said.

   "Nothing, Lindholm," she said, standing. It had been a long
day, and there was a dull pain in her lower back. And more dull
pains to be endured at dinner, she thought wryly. For a moment
she looked again at the air the transmission had occupied.
"Nothing that matters… in the end."


NOVA VIRCONIUM
COMMAND CENTRAL
HELLAS PLANITIA, MARS
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
NOVEMBER 17, 1991


   Eerie, Yolande decided, watching her own image on the
screen, on the bridge of the Imperator, the latest
fourth-generation cruiser-carrier, flagship of the 2nd
Trans-Lunar flotilla. Watching an image of myself watching
images, she decided. Ghosts of ghosts… out there so far away, six
months ago.

   A dozen cruisers, plus the new stingfighter auxiliaries many of
them carried. Dispersed so far that the reports took long seconds
to arrive, almost as long as the blue-white visual signatures of
nuclear explosions. Battle became a slow and stately dance, until
the distances closed; then inertia made the commitment final,
and the exchange of energies grew too swift for human reflexes
to follow. Lovely. Long enough for every doubt, then- no time to
do anything at the end. She turned up the sound.

   "Forward vessels reportin'… Wotan, look at the particle-beam
intensities!" Data flowed across a screen.

   "Well," she heard her own voice replying, "now we know the
linear accelerators are dual-purpose. Pull them back if they
aren't already." The big fixed installations had more punch than
any ship, more than any ship's shielding could take. Not to
mention neutral-particle beams, which were hard to shield
against at all. "Report on the minor vessels, Tac Eval."

  "Nothin' like as good as the stingfighters, but there are so
many of them," the flotilla Tactical Evaluation Officer had said.

   Well, the Alliance've certainly learned about arming their
minor vessels, she reflected. There had been dozens of them
around the secret project base; it was a major enterprise, with
active traffic, at least outside the habitats where enemy
personnel went in and nobody came out. None of the smaller
vessels was up to military standards, and they were slow. But
with the big installation lasers to provide emergency boost, and
her own ships trapped in this narrow sliver of orbit, the warships
did not have enough hands to swat them.

   "Batu's hit!" Flotilla Damage Control. Another stream of
numbers, energy input and missiles from the enemy battle
stations. "She can't—" Half a dozen screens went blank. The
light-signature arrived seconds later, secondary explosions.
"Gone, Merarch."

  Yolande closed her eyes in remembered pain. Teller's ship.
Another friend. Another debit in your bill, Yankee.

   "Withdraw." She heard her own voice say it, and the bile-taste
was back. There had been a vibration of protest on the command
bridge of Imperator. "This was a reconnaissance in force, and
we've learned what we came to find out." That their New
America project is important enough to warrant defenses as
tough as Ceres—or Mars. That they're willing to spend lives like
water to keep us off, even to keep us from pointblank
observation. "No point in expendin' further resources. The Great
Khan's're to cut trajectories fo' open space.Imperator and
Diocletian will cover."

   That had been the best decision; the deuterium-tritium
pulsedrives gave the new ships longer continuous boost
envelopes than the older cruisers could match. And were less
vulnerable to combat damage, as well. Besides that, she hated to
send warriors into a risk she did not share… It had been time to
break off anyway, the Alliance fleet was burning their
thrust-plates to get into action distance.

  "End replay," she said, as the recording began to show the
needlefires of the drives.

   The office wall blanked for a second, then returned to a view
of the outside. Command Central was actually burrowed far back
into the basalt near the edge of the great lowland basin of the
Hellas Planitia, but her favorite view was of the expanding base
above.

   Almost a city, now, she thought with pride. The late-evening
sky was pink with the dust-haze and ice-crystals of the thin
Martian atmosphere. Yolande could make out the disk of the
setting sun, only two-thirds the size it would be from Earth. And
the larger but dimmer circle of the first of the orbital mirrors.
Just a proof-of-concept pilot project, concentrating the sunlight
on a few hundred square kilometers around this equatorial base,
but it had already made a difference in the nighttime
temperatures.

   "Record, fo' the Strategic Plannin' Board," she continued,
standing with her back to the desk. "Note to previous reports.
The other conclusion that we should draw from this is that the
Yankees are spreadin' through the Belt like a cancer
metastasizing through the bloodstream. Not only is this a
long-range danger in itself, but it hampers every other operation
of ours. Takin' direct counteraction may be impractical, but we
should squeeze harder on their lifeline back to Earth-Luna, up
their costs, an' cut into the profit margins of all those
two-denarius outfits they're allowin' into space. Well worth any
countermeasures, since we're not vulnerable to the same
economic pressures."

   A long pause, considering. "I know it's not my department,
but the headhunters should be usin' the opportunities this
presents to speed up their infiltration of the New America
project, and the other nasty surprises they may be brewin' fo' us
there. Hans, come in."

   The door hissed open, and her secretary walked in. His shaved
head made a token bow. He was a serf Auxiliary, of course;
Dutch, if she remembered correctly. But there was less formality
out here on the frontier, too much work to be done to waste
time.

   "Hans, take the recordin', dress it up suitable, plug in the
numbahs. Just to remind them, add the latest graphics of
increased enemy traffic flows, Belt-internal—I don't know how
much the Statistical Section gets through to the Board— and
have it on my desk Monday."

   "Consider it done, Merarch." The Auxiliaries had the privilege
of addressing their superiors by title.

   She thought for a moment. "I won't be in tomorrow."
Saturday; Yolande usually put in at least a half-day. "Oh, your
son's gettin' married tomorrow, isn't he? To that systems tech?"

   Hans bowed again, more deeply, smiling slightly. The serf was
several years older than she, a longtime veteran of the Martian
base. Old enough to have fathered the first generation to reach
maturity; there were only a few so far, of course, but population
was building up rapidly.

  "Yes, Merarch," he said. "The authorization for the quarters
came through. Thank you, Merarch."

   She made a dismissive gesture. "Yo've given good service,
Hans." This was her first major administrative post, and
growing so rapidly that the Citizen executive staff were nearly as
new to it as herself. Hans had been personal secretary to four
Commandant-Governors, since the first minimal complex of
bunkers back in '72: an invaluable element of continuity. "I may
drop by the wedding fo' a minute or two. Get my car ready,
would yo'?"

  "At-at once, Merarch," he stammered, flushing with pleasure.

   Well, it can't hurt, she thought, stepping into an alcove to
change into a surface suit. There was a bedroom suite attached
to the office, for the times when the Commandant-Governor had
to stay near the levers. I'll just stay for a few moments, any
more would make them uncomfortable.

   The surface clothing was much less elaborate than a vacuum
suit, a pressure-skin with temperature elements. Waste heat was
less of a problem on the Martian surface than in space—the
climate here on the equator ranged from chilly to Siberian, not
counting the winds—but you did need warmth and protection
from the UV. Now, out of official mode, Yolande told herself, and
glanced at her wrist. 1800; the shuttle was due in an hour.

   Gwen! she thought, striding through the open-plan outer
office with the bouncy pace that covered ground most efficiently
in one-third gravity. Most of the workstations were dark, the
Auxiliaries at home except for the evening shift. The few there
rose and bowed as she passed; then out into the corridors, past
the entrances to the office suites of the Citizen staff; the
Commandant's headquarters was the nerve-center of Nova
Virconium, after all. Gwen, baby, she thought again. Nikki.



   The shuttleport was several kilometers out from the center of
Nova Virconium. New enough to include a few flourishes,
including a terminal building finished in polished stone surfaces,
combinations of colors Earth had never seen. Red in every shade
from white-pink to blood-crimson, blue, black, swirling green.
With a two-story-high central fountain, not really such an
extravagance in a closed system… The VIP lounge was on the
upper terrace, skylight ceilings and plants and light airy
furniture of locally-grown bamboo; Yolande had an excellent
view out over the runways. She suppressed an undignified urge
to pace; there were too many official spectators. Sipping at the
glass of white wine, she glanced down into the main lobby.
Plenty of parents; the Transportation Directorate had advertised
the first cruise of their spanking-new fusion-pulsedrive
passenger craft as a Reunion Special.

   "A milestone, in its way," she said to the aide in the lounger
next to her. Kilometers away across the runways and dug-in
hangars a finger of light probed into the sky with a ball of flame
at its tip, a vertical-lift cargo pod rising on laser boost.

   "Wotan, yes," he said. "Even if the Directorate of War did
subsidize it." The liner Sky Treader was to double as a fast
transport, in the event of emergency. "Well be gettin' a flood of
tourists, next."

  "I— Here she comes!"

   The Martian orbital shuttle was like nothing else in the solar
system. Delta-shaped, but with huge slender wings that could
only have flown under this light gravity and tenuous wisp of
atmosphere. It swelled from the east, out of sky already gone
purple and starlit, its riding lights bright against the dark
ceramic of the heatshield. Just then the outline lights of the
pathways blinked on, like a great glowing circuit-diagram across
the plain, stretching out to the horizon. Daggers of brighter light
appeared beneath and about the shuttle: steering jets and final
breaking. The flat belly and underwing surface drifted down to
maglev distance, fields meshing with those of the runway, and it
slid frictionless at half a meter until the gentle magnetic tugging
brought it to a halt.

   Yolande rose, straightened her uniform. The others in the
party bustled likewise as the windowless arrowhead slid its nose
into the terminal docking collar. The band made a few
preliminary tootles…

   "Marya," Yolande said. The serf had been standing at the
railing; she turned silently and faded into the background of the
welcoming party. The doors below cycled open, and the
passengers came through. A big clot of children, which dissolved
like sugar under hot water as they scattered to the waiting
families. A small group that hung uncertainly near the doors.
Yolande recognized Jolene's blond mane first, then Gwen.
Another girl next to her, and a smaller form next to Jolene…
Nikki.

  "Let's do it," she said.

   The Martian Rangers decurion saluted with a grin, and called
to his guard-party. They were ghouloons, of course; in surface
suits and armor, but with faceguards swung back. Their muzzles
dipped in unison as they wheeled, split into two lines of fifteen,
and trotted down to take station in four-footed parade rest up
the broad stairway that ran from the upper lounge to the lower.
Yolande moved to the head of the stairs; the band struck up the
Warrior's Saraband, and the decurion turned to the double line
of inhuman fighters.

  "Commandant-Governor's… salute!" he barked, as Yolande
walked down the stairs. The ghouloon troopers threw back their
heads and gave a short barking howl.

   She was close enough to see her daughter's face now: flushed
with a combination of delight and terminal embarrassment, as
the crowd in the main terminal parted. There were cheers and
claps; Yolande had come to the Commandant-Governor's post
with a good reputation, and was popular enough…

  "Ma. Ah, Service to the State."

    "Glory to the Race." Oh, Freya, she looks so much like her,
Yolande thought, with a brief twisting pain inside her chest. For
a moment the years and light-minutes slipped away, and she was
a rumpled teenager alone and lonely on her first evening at Baiae
School. Like that first time I saw her. Gwen was fourteen now—a
little taller than Myfwany had been, a little slimmer. Perhaps
more relaxed about the eyes. My own Gwendolyn, Yolande
thought.

  "Hello, daughter," she said and opened her arms.

  The hug was brief but bruising-strong, the New Race muscles
squeezing her ribs. Yolande released the girl and held her at
arm's length. "Yo' lookin' good, child of my heart." Nikki had
been jittering at Jolene's side; now he tore free and threw his
arms around Yolande's waist, smiling up gap-toothed. She
ruffled the sandy hair and closed her own eyes for a moment;
they were rare, these instants of true happiness. Best to seize
them while you could.

  Nikki was looking sideways at the Rangers. "Decurion Kong,"
Yolande said, "I think my son might like to review yo'
guard-party."

  "Yo' bet, ma!" the seven-year-old said enthusiastically.

   Yolande nodded to her aide, saluted. "I think we can carry on
from here, Tetrarch," she said, and turned back to her daughter.

  "Ah, ma?" Gwen was pulling her companion forward. "This is
my friend Winnifred Makers, I told yo' about?"

   Wide blue eyes, a sharp-featured New Race face, dark-blond
hair. Swallowing a little, but bearing up under the stress of
meeting the planetary-governor mother of her schoolfriend.
Good, thought Yolande, sizing her up. All in order. I don't care
what the younger generation says, it's unnatural to get
involved with boys before you're eighteen. More than good.
They exchanged formal wristgrips.

   "Don't be too intimidated, Miz Makers," Yolande said kindly.
"It isn't a very big planet, and there aren't many people on it
yet." The girl gave a charming smile.

   They turned to walk up the stairs. The ghouloons were
keeping eyes front, but their pointed ears had swivelled toward
the officer and the boy with his earnest questions.

   "Imp," his mother said fondly. "Ah, Gwen, here's yo'
Tantie-ma." Yolande watched, was gratified to see her daughter
give the serf an affectionate peck on the cheek.

  "Glad to see yo' again, Tantie-ma," she said.

  "I'm… glad to see you, too, Missy Gwen," Marya said. There
was a smile on her face, slight but genuine.

  Gwen slapped a hand to her forehead. "Oh, here, I brought yo'
somethin'. Those books yo' wanted, from that store in Archona?
Here's the plaque."



   "This is the best time of day," Yolande said, nodding out the
window of the car. "This and dawn." The sky was still the color of
salmon to the west, with wings of paler color touching the jagged
edges of the cratered highlands.

   They were taking the long route around the city, along a
ring-road of pink marscrete. Out to the left stretched the farms;
those were enclosures two kilometers by one, with chest-high
walls of native rock and inflated arch-coverings of thinfilm,
double-walled envelopes filled with carbon dioxide for insulation.
Most were lit from within, and they could see the shapes of
plants, banana fronds, grape arbors, flowers, a dozen dozen
shades of green, blue, yellow. A few held animals: the inevitable
dog-sized rabbits, pigs, even a small herd of dwarf Ngama cattle.

   "We feed the outer system from here," Yolande said. The
children were supposed to be on a working holiday, from the
volume of complaints in Gwen's letters about the assignments
they had with them. As well to make a few gestures towards
helping their on-site research. "As well as arm and equip it." A
nod to the low mounded shapes of factory buildings on the other
side of the road.

   Winnifred frowned. "But yo' have to ship everythin' up out of
a gravity well, ma'am?"

    Yolande nodded. Off Earth, it made more sense to think in
terms of gravity gradients and delta-V requirements than mere
distance. "Not much of one, and this atmosphere is pretty thin.
We've got a fusion generator now, —the first planet-based one in
the System, too—"and of course the powersats, so launch energy
is even cheaper than in the Earth-moon. There's Phobos and
Deimos fo' materials in orbit, a couple of the Amor asteroids
we've moved as well; the zero-G stuff we fabricate up there.
Other things, it's mo' convenient to do under gravity, like
food-production; easier to battle-harden them, too."

    The best possible shielding was lots and lots of inert matter.
"Also, Mars and Mars-orbit make a great base fo' operations
among the gas-giant moons- Now there's a hostile environment
fo' yo'! But a lot of stuff we need."

   As if to underline her point, a streak of light cut the twilight
out to the southwest, then slowed and dimmed. "That's a load
comin' in, atmosphere brakin' and parachute. Possibly frozen
nitrogen or hydrocarbons from Titan with an ablative shield.
We've got a maglev railway out to the dropyard… All this is just a
trial run fo' the terrafirmin' project, of course. But we expect the
population here to double in the next five years." My term of
office. "There's even Citizen schoolin' available here, now."

   The two girls traded a look of alarm. "Don't worry," Yolande
chuckled. "Wouldn't move Gwen, not from Senior School. Might
bring Nikki out, though." He was riding in the rear car. "Lots of
other projects here: the mass-driver up Olympus Mons,
prospectin'… I've arranged fo' guided tours fo' yo' two, next two
weeks. Should give yo' plenty of material for those papers Gwen
was tellin' me yo' have to write."


  ***


   The Commandant-Governor's Residence had started as a
simple box, back when Nova Virconium had been a glorified
research outpost, and had been added to substantially in the
years since; much of that was domed courtyards, the primary
luxury on Mars. Yolande had laid on the family dinner in her
favorite, the one with the goldfish pond in the center, and the
murals her city's first professional artist had done for her
predecessor. They showed Martian landscapes, as they might
look some centuries from now. A vastly larger Nova Virconium,
streets lined with elongated trees, looking out over a Hellas Sea
speckled white with the sails of pleasureboats. Children running
on grass and flowers beneath birch trees. Skiers vaulting
impossible distances on the slopes of Olympus Mons. The lower
slopes, it was twenty-four kilometers high, and the peak would
be out of most of the atmosphere, even when Mars had seas and
breathable air.

   Yolande smiled and leaned back in the chair, watching the
houseserfs clear away the last of the dishes, sipping at her coffee.
Nikki had gotten sleepy hours ago; not surprising, after an
exciting day. Gwen and her Winnifred had been a delight.
Wotan and Thunor, was I ever that enthusiastic for . . for life?
she thought wryly. I remember it, I think. When does it slip
away? She shook her head, watching as one of the
chrome-yellow carp in the pond leaped. It flipped half a dozen
times end-for-end, then dropped back with what she could swear
was a look of shock. Embedded compinstructions. She supposed
there must be very little in a fish's repertoire of behaviors that
was not instinct. Poor little bastards will need a long time to
adjust.

   It had really been quite nice of the girls to sit talking with her
this long; it was nearly 2400. They had been sharing a stateroom
with four others for the three weeks from Earth; very little
privacy. With a fond sadness, Yolande glanced down the corridor
they had taken. Probably a lot of giggles and whispered
confidences between the kisses, if I recall, she thought wistfully.
Ah well. What had the ancient Greek said, back when? "Comport
yourself fittingly, and age will come not to you, but to another
whom the God has prepared for it?"

   "Bloody liars in bedsheets," she muttered, rising. Most of the
household was quiet; there would be a duty staff on call over in
the public section, and the guards, of course.

   There was a light under the door of Marya's office; she had
proven very competent, handling household accounts, now that
Gwen was too old to need or want a nursemaid in attendance.
Probably screening those books Gwen got her, Yolande decided.
The serf was a fanatic reader, now that she was cleared for it.
Also a churchgoer, which had surprised her owner considerably.
Suitably modified, religion was all very well for the common
ruck, but Yolande had not expected the American to be
superstitious. Ah, well, anything that helps, she decided.
   "Marya," she said, touching a finger to the door.

   The serf looked around, raising her fingers from the keyboard.
Symbols crawled across the screen; probably some game or
other. Marya was not a bad chess player, and even better at go.

   "Yo' go to that church, ovah on Chain and Barracoon, don't
yo'?"

   "Yes, Mistis." She bowed slightly. "I had been planning to
attend the wedding there, your secretary Hans's son. With
permission."

   "Just what I was goin' to mention. The girls and I are goin'
walkabout tomorrow. Gwen'll want yo' along, but that'll be in the
afternoon. We'll pick yo' and Jolene up towards the end of the
reception, when I drop in. Suit?"

    "Thank you, Mistis." She inclined her hair until the black flow
of it covered her eyes.

   "Good to see her again," Yolande continued. "Got a warm
heart, that girl. Glad I let yo' help raise her." The Draka nodded
to the screen. "Certainly hasn't fo'gotten her Tantie-ma…"
Curiosity moved. "Tell me, Marya. How do yo' feel about her?"

   A minute's silence. Yolande saw the other's hands tighten on
the edge of the desk. She suspected that lack of privacy was one
of the things the American had found most difficult to adjust to.
Citizens had little enough, in the Domination, and serfs less. "I
love her, Mistis," the serf said, her voice softer than usual. "It's…
She's the only child I'll ever have, after all."

   True but not the whole truth, Yolande thought, regarding her
quizzically. Marya had always refused to bear children of her
own… And I think that Gwen's the only thing in the Domination
for which you have any affection at all. Understandable, of
course.


   ***
  "One more minute, and then we leave," Yolande said to her
daughter.

   The family party had tactfully arrived just after the party
moved from the chapel to the reception hall. Both were in the
ground floor of a serf tenement. It was fairly well appointed;
these people were elite serfs: Auxiliaries owned by the War
Directorate, middle-level administrators, comp operators,
cartographers, technicians, similar people from the Combines
operating here. The Domination had learned long ago that a
certain amount of privacy and comfort was essential for such,
and these were family apartments with their own kitchens and
even bathrooms. The lower floors held the communal facilities:
game-rooms, viewers, the church, an elementary schoolroom. All
attractively decorated in an amateurish fashion, but some of the
handmade items were skillfully done.

   From the brief glimpse, Yolande decided that the wedding
entertainment was charming as well, in a homemade and rustic
fashion, decorations and refreshments both. Very sedate, but
then this type of serf tended to be quiet-living. The ruck of
compound-dwellers were brutishly unrestrained, having nothing
to lose; when the ferocious discipline of their existence was
relaxed, little interested them but food, sex, alcohol, and kif.
Allowing for elegance, education, and greater resources, there
were similarities in the Citizen outlook on life, and their personal
servants followed suit. These middle strata were strange to both,
and she found them a little baffling. No wonder the headhunters
watch them closest of all, she thought. There had been a
green-coated Orpo, a member of the Order Police, in attendance
until she glared him out.

   Not much he could do when the Commandant-Governor
showed up, she thought ironically. Of course, there are probably
informers and listening devices here. Which was as it should be,
of course. The priest would have been carefully selected and
trained, as well; the Catholics had agreed to that, in order to be
allowed to function in the Domination at all.

  "Why do we have to leave right away, ma? It's sort of fun,"
Owen said.
   "This is their celebration, honeybunch," Yolande said quietly;
they were standing by the door, at the head of the table. "I came
here because Hans is a treasure. It gives him status, yo' see?
More and they'd get uncomfortable. Remember, I don't own
these, the State does."

   She tasted her wine, which was surprisingly drinkable for the
local product, and looked down the trestles. Hans was at a little
distance; he glanced her way and smiled, bowing, and his plump
wife flushed and beamed as Yolande raised her glass in reply. His
son was gangling and blond, the new daughter-in-law petite and
dark, Hindu by her looks; some sort of landing-field maintenance
tech. The guests milled about tables set for a banquet, doubtless
a potluck by the households of the guests; the presents were at
the other end of the streamer-hung room. Yolande had
contributed a diskplayer and a crate of wine, enough to please
without embarrassing.

   The speech had been the usual thing. Brief, praising Hans and
his wife as skilled and valued servants of the Race, hoping the
newlyweds would lead productive lives of service, and their
children after them. Kissing the bride and groom had been no
hardship, they were both quite pretty and radiantly happy… and
now it was time. She looked around for Marya; the serf was over
in a corner, talking to the priest. They both sank to their knees
and linked hands, heads bent together; Yolande frowned at a
vague memory. Isn't that supposed to be some sort of private
rite? she thought. Confession, or confusion or communion or
something? Oh, well. A glance at her watch, and Marya stood.

   Hans came over. "Thank you again, Merarch," he said, and
gave her the full bow, hands over eyes. There was a ripple as the
room followed suit.

   "No problem, Hans," she said, holding up a hand. "I know the
difference between goin' through the motions and really tryin'."
Which had helped her considerably, and this was an important
career stop. "If there's ever any trouble, feel free to ask fo' help."



   "Pretty weddin'," Jolene said, with a sigh.
   Yolande yawned and stretched, wiggling her shoulders against
the pleasant jasmine-scented smoothness of the sheets and
looking up through the ceiling of her bedroom at the
silver-bright circle of mirror in the sky. It kept the night moodily
half-lit, but not enough to dim the stars away from its circle.
Like a moon, she thought. One perfect and un-stained, the first
fresh idea of a moon dropped pure and untouched from the
mind of a god. We did that. That had been the first; the second
was down south, put up just last year, wanning the frozen water
and carbon dioxide of the south pole. It had already made a
difference to the atmosphere, although you needed instruments
to detect it. They were the biggest constructs yet made by
humans, although gossamer-thin.

   "Yo' saw mo' of it," she said. "Everythin' go nice?"

  "Beautiful singing," Jolene said from the foot of the bed.
"They've got a really nice choir. Good fiddler, too, had fun
dancin' befo' yo' arrived."

  "Sorry to drag yo' away fo' nothin'," Yolande replied. Nikki
had charmed Decurion Kang into taking him out with the
ghouloons on a carefully edited training patrol for the rest of the
day, and his mother into allowing it. Kang had confessed that he
was irresistibly reminded of a younger brother, back on Earth…

   "Oh, that was the fun part," Jolene said, and laughed. "I don't
know these here folks well enough to fit in at a feast. Incidentally,
think that nice Mastah Kang had an eye on me."

   Yolande turned a critical eye on the serf. "Yo' lost weight on
the trip out," she said. "It suits."

   Jolene touched her stomach. "Does, doesn't it. Only good
thing about not bein' able to eat." She had never been able to
handle zero-G.

   "Shall I lend yo' to him, then?" That was not something a
junior officer would feel free to ask of a Merarch, frontier
informality or no.

   "Mmmm. Maybe in a while, Mistis." She sighed again, looking
up through the bubble ceiling herself.

   "Pretty."

   "Jolene." She looked around. "Why did yo' never marry,
yo'self?"

   "Oh… wanted to travel around, Mistis. See space, especial,
even if it makes me sick." Not easy; plenty of serfs were assigned
to space, but that was with the military or the Combines. Jolene
had ample intelligence, but had been far too expensive for such
buyers. "That's difficult. Iff'n I got tied down too hard, yo'd have
moved me out of personal service. I've got my Marybeth,
anyhows." A year younger than Nikki; Yolande suspected Teller
was the father, but it wasn't particularly important. "Mastah
Nikki's out like a light. Not surprisin', after tearin' about like he
does… That boy, he must have fusion power somewheres! Settled
Marybeth in down by my quarters, too." A frown. "Yo' know, I
was thinkin'… Folk there at the church, they say Marya goes
regular. Didn't know her to be that religious, back to home,
Mistis."

   "People change," Yolande said, yawning again.

   She was tired, but it was the pleasant fatigue of keeping up
with two high-energy adolescents, not the nagging
brain-tiredness of days spent fighting administrative problems.
With a wry smile, she thought of enemy accounts she had read
that depicted the Domination as a smooth well-oiled machine
moving in perfect coordination. If they only knew. Thank the
Yankees for inventing the computer, otherwise the clerks would
have locked us in rigor mortis, like a fossilized dinosaur. She put
work out of her mind; barring emergencies, that could wait until
Monday. It was a relief to have only household matters to
concern her.

   "It's been, what, better than a year since yo' saw Marya. She's
gotten a little moodier here,'s' much as I've had time to notice.
Good to have an outside interest." The Draka linked the fingers
of both hands around a knee. "What I was thinkin' of, was those
two pretties enjoyin' they weddin' night."
   Jolene tossed back hair silvered by the mirrorlight; her
brass-colored eyes were startling against the shadowed ebony of
her skin. "Well, that we two can do somethin' about, eh, Mistis?"



SPIN HABITAT SEVEN
CENTRAL BELT
BETWEEN THE ORBITS OF MARS AND JUPITER
DECEMBER 28, 1991


  "Aw, dad!"

   Frederick Lefarge looked over at his wife. She was mixing
them martinis, at the cabinet on the other side of the living
room. Dinner was a pleasant memory and a lingering smell of
guinea-chile and avocado salad—God, what did I do to deserve a
good cook, on top of looks and brains?—and he wanted that
drink, and his feet up, and more quiet than two teenaged
daughters promised. On the other hand…

   He glanced sternly at Janet and Iris. "Homework done?" he
said. Gods, they're getting to be young women, he thought.

  Haltertops, yet. And those fashionable hip-huggers… the
damned things looked as if they had been sprayed on.

   "Yeah," Janet said. Well, her marks had been excellent,
particularly the math. It looked as if there was going to be at
least one spacer in the family, if this kept up. Iris nodded. Her
current fancy was composing. Well, at least she was still working
at that, not like the other fads.

   "It's a nice group," Cindy said. She finished shaking the
cocktail pitcher, broke it open deftly and filled the chilled
martini glasses. "From school, and a bunch over from Habitat
Three. You know, the Martins and the Merkowitz kids?"

    Lefarge pushed his chair back. "All right," he said, glancing at
the viewer; it was set on landscape, with a time-readout down
near the lower righthand corner. "But be back by 0100, latest, or
I'll shut the airlock on you for a week, understand?"
  "Thanks, dad!" Janet gave him a quick hug.

   "We'll be back on time, daddy." Iris kissed his cheek. "And
they're playing one of my dance tunes." she whispered into his
ear, giggling.

   He sighed as he watched them fling themselves down the hall
with an effortless feet-off-the-ground twist; they adjusted to the
varying gravity of the habitat's shell-decks the way he and Marya
had to the streets of New York.

   "Next thing you know, I'll be beating off boyfriends with a
club," he grumbled, accepting the drink. "Ah, nice and dry."

   Cindy put hers on the table and went behind the chair. Her
fingers probed at his neck. "Rock. Don't worry, they're sensible
girls, and we've got a nice family town here." He closed his eyes
and rolled his head slightly as she kneaded the taut musics. "At
least we don't have to worry about jüviegroups and trashing or
having them go into orbit over Ironbelly Bootstomper bands,"
she continued.

   Lefarge shuddered. "No, thank God. Sometimes I think the
spirit that made America great hasn't died—just emigrated."

   Cindy laughed and leaned over him; he felt a sudden sharp
pain at the base of his cropped hair. "Hey, cut that out!"

   She held an almost-invisible something close to his eye on the
tip of one finger: a gray hair.

   "You don't have enough of these to be an old fogey yet, honey,"
she said, and kissed him upside-down. Her face sobered.
"Something's really bothering you, isn't it?"

   He reached up to run his hand through her hair, streaked
with silver against the mahogany color, shining and resilient.
"You're too old to be so indecently beautiful," he murmured.
Then: "I have to take a trip back dirtside," he said.

  "Oh. That chair big enough for two?"
   She picked up her drink and settled in against him, curving
into the arm he laid about her shoulders. The silk of her blouse
and skirt rustled, and he smelled a pleasant clean odor of
shampoo and perfume and Cindy. "Uncle Nate?"

    "He's sharp as ever, but not getting any younger," Lefarge said
grudgingly. "You know how it is, anyone in his position so long
makes enemies." The executive positions two or three steps down
from the top in an agency like the OSS were coveted prizes. Not
high enough to be political appointments, but they set policy.
"Those who want his job, if nothing else; the problem is they're
all disasters waiting to happen."

   He paused to take another sip of the martini. "I have to
blather to a couple of select committees. On top of that, Nate's
afraid the new people in charge over in Archona are foxy enough
to let up the pressure. That von Shrakenberg's a cunning devil;
he knows how quickly some of us will go to sleep if they're not
prodded." A frown. "I don't like it, when the Snakes get quiet.
They're planning something. Maybe not now, maybe in a decade;
something big."

   Cindy shivered against him, and he held her closer. "No more
raids, at least," she said. "Oh God, honey, I was so frightened."

   And went straight from your office to your emergency
station and had the rest of them singsonging and playing
bridge, he thought with a rush of warmth. Jesus H. Christ, I'm a
lucky man. Grimly: And we took out a major warship, too. They
may be pulling back their fingers because we singed them,

  "There's something else, isn't there?" she went on.

   "Witch." He sighed. "In the latest courier package from Uncle
Nate." The Project was on the AI-3 distribution list; this was as
secure an OSS station as anywhere in the Alliance, if only
because so little went out. "They're in contact with Marya again."

  "Bad?" Cindy said softly.

  "No worse than before. That Ingolfsson creature's spawn…"
He turned his head aside for a moment, then continued.
"Anyway, Marya's been taken to their main Martian settlement.
Working in household accounts, but even better, she's made
some social contacts with the HQ office workers… just rumor,
gossip, but priceless stuff. Contact's a priest; Christ, it's
dangerous, though!" More softly: "And I miss her, sweet, I really
do."

  "Mmmmh. So do I. She was always like a big sister to me…"

   The diskplayer came on, with a quiet Baroque piece that
Cindy must have selected beforehand. The lights dimmed,
turning the homey familiarity of the living room into romantic
gloom, and a new scene played on the viewer. He recognized that
beach, with the full moon over the Pacific and the swaying
palms. Surf hissed gently…

   "Why, Mrs. Lefarge," he said, looking down at her face. She
grinned. "If I didn't know better, I'd say that a respectable
matron was trying to seduce her husband again."

   She wiggled into his lap. "Why, Mr. Lefarge," she whispered,
twining her arms around his neck. "Why do you think I was so
eager to get the girls out of the house?" She nibbled at his ear.
"And if you are too young to be a fogey, I'm too young to be a
matron. So there."




         CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

   The Protracted Conflict has a brutal simplicity; the Final War
will start the moment either side feels it can attack without
risking unacceptable losses. The Draka definition of "acceptable
cost" is much higher than the Alliance's. These two facts have
driven most human endeavor since 1945, aeronautics included.
Average speeds of 200 mph in 1930 increased to about 400 mph
by the beginning of the Eurasian War. By 1942 prop-engine
fighters had reached their maximum of around 480 mph, but
the first swept-wing turbojets were already in service, and by
1946 maximum speeds of 620 mph were common. German
rocket-boosted experimental aircraft had reached nearly twice
the speed of sound, providing invaluable aerodynamic
information to both the Domination and the Alliance. They had
also launched research into high-altitude rockets, and
rocket-boosted ramjet unmanned vehicles.

   After the Eurasian War ended in a blaze of nuclear fire, the
contending powers were left with weapons of unprecedented
lethality, and inadequate delivery systems. For strategic
purposes, what was needed was a means of striking deep into the
continental heartlands of the enemy with little or no chance of
interception; and the primitive fission and fusion bombs of the
1945-1955 era were massive and clumsy to boot. Jet bombers
were useful for tactical purposes, but were too limited in range
and easy to intercept to be really satisfactory for delivering the
new "sunbombs." Rockets had abundant speed, but inadequate
payload. The solution both sides developed was the ramjet which
was light theoretically simple, and had excellent performance in
the Mach 2 to Mach 7 envelopes. Desperate need drove both
sides to solve the incredibly complex materials and engineering
problems; by the early 1950s, unmanned ramjet missiles
following high-suborbital trajectories at speeds of up to 4,000
mph were in production on both sides.

   These use-once missies pressed the materials technology of
the day to its limits; the Alliance had a lead in precision-formed
refractory alloys, and used it to produce the first reusable,
manned ramjet craft. The Draka "leapfrogged" with fiber-matrix
composites and high-strength ceramics; the Alliance in turn
used its superior computers to successfully model supersonic
airflows and achieve scramjets (supersonic-combustion ramjets)
in the late 1950s. Combined with liquid hydrogen fuel/ coolant
and pure-rocket boost this gave the Alliance the ultimate "high
ground" of orbital capacity. As might be expected, espionage and
frantic catch-up prevented either side from gaining the last
crucial edge needed for assured survival. Once out of Earth's
gravity well, it was clear that the answer to the high-atmospheric
missile was orbital weapons and sensors; these in turn suggested
massive counter-measures. Space-based manufacturing and
energy were obviously necessary, even after laser-launch and
mass drivers became available in the 1960s; this made Luna an
indispensable source of raw materials. Once orbital and lunar
stations were in place, expeditions to deep space became
relatively easy, and neither side could allow the other to
monopolize either the material treasures or the knowledge to be
found there, nuclear-pulse engines opened translunar space, and
beyond the orbit of the moon the Protracted Struggle could and
did flicker into active clashes.

   Perhaps as revolutionary were the spinoffs of this rivalry…
                                    History in a Technological Age
                                by Andrew Elliot Armstrang, Ph.D.
                                            Department of History
                                  San Diego University Press, 1991


We're never going to win this race unless we trip the fuckers
somehow; all this effort isn't doing anything more than bailing
out a sieve. We've got to stop playing to their strengths.
                                    Representative Louise Qayner
                             Minutes of the Long-Range Strategic
                                                  Planning Board
                          Senator Eric von Shrakenberg, presiding
                                       Archona, Archona Province
                                                   April 16, 1962



DRAKA FORCES BASE ARESOPOLIS
MARE SERENITATIS,LUNA
MARCH 25, 1998
2000HOURS


   Yolande turned her head to scan the other side of the Wasp
class stingfigher. This is what it's like to be a ghost, she thought.
She ran her hand through the solid-seeming bulk of a
crashcouch, looked down to see her shins disappear into the
deck. A Wasp had room for exactly two crew, clamped into their
couches for most of the trip. Or what it's like to be a time
traveler. The events she was experiencing were nearly a
thousand hours in the past. She watched the movements of the
pilot's gloved fingers on the rests.

   "Coming up on pod," the pilot said. "Twelve kay clicks and
closing. Status." The wall ahead mapped trajectories and ran
digital displays.

   "Locked," her Weapons Officer said, his voice tight but steady.

  So young, Yolande thought. Gwen will be that old in a few
years. So young.

   "Unauthorized craft, identify yourself." That from a resonator
film somewhere in the cabin. Flat, grating Yankee accent with
the mechanical overlay of a simple AI-interactive system. "You
are on an intercept trajectory to within prohibited distance.
Identify yourself or alter course."

   "Visual," the pilot said.

   "Acquisition," the Weapons Officer replied, and called it up
on the screen.

   A rough cylinder of slag-surfaced metal, surface pocked with
bubbles and lumps from the vacuum-condensation refining
process. A pod at one end with sensors and the guidance system,
and rings of low-velocity hydrazine steering jets, a minimal
course-correction system to send a hundred thousand tonnes of
whatever from the asteroid belt to the Alliance smelters and
factories, here on the Moon and points inward. These days, a
good deal of it might end up on Earth, headed for splashdown
sites in the Sea of Cortes or the Cook Strait or the Inland Sea.

   "Composition," the pilot was saying.

   There was a second's pause and the Wasp's computer replied:
"Iron, fifty percent, nickel twenty-one percent, chromium group,
sixteen percent, tungsten ten percent, fissionables three percent,
volatiles and trace elements."

   Valuable, Yolande thought. The Yankees were stronger in the
asteroid belt; their initial lead in deepspace pulsedrives had
given them an opening they had never relinquished. Much
cheaper to drop heavy elements down into the solar gravity well
than boost them out of Earth's pull and atmosphere, even now
that freight costs were coming down so low. The Alliance would
trade metals for the water and chemicals the Draka took from
the Jovian and Satunian moons, of course, but it was cheaper to
hijack where you could. Better strategy, too, since it hampered
their operations and forced them to divert resources to guarding
their slingshot modules and scavenging the asteroids for scarce
volatiles… She had had a hand in formulating that policy.

   At least it's been better strategy until now. A rectangle
appeared in the "air" in front of her, an exterior simulation of
the two spacecraft. The Wasp drifted, a blunt pyramid tapering
from the shockplate at the rear to the crew compartment at the
apex. Slim tubes rose from each corner of the plate, linked to the
pyramid with a tracing of spars; asymmetric spikes flared out to
guide the parasite-bombs riding in station around the gunboat.
The simulation limned the outlines, since like any warcraft this
was armored in an absorptive synthetic that mimicked the
background spectra.

   "Closing," the pilot said. The outside view showed a
needle-bright flicker behind the gunboat, deuterium-tritium
pellets squeezed into explosion by the lasers. Yolande started,
almost surprised not to feel the acceleration that pushed the
crew back into their cradles. "One-ninah kay clicks, matchin'."

   "Unidentified craft, this is your last warning," the robot voice
droned.

   "Eddie, shut that fuckah up, will yo'?" the pilot said,
exasperated. The man grunted, touched a control surface.

    The control chamber vanished, leaving a blackness lit only by
the face of the investigating officer in the central portion. "That's
it, Strategos," he said, shrugging. "End datalink. The fighter
went pure-ballistic from then until we grappled what was left."
Yolande gestured, and the black turned gray, then faded into her
office. She motioned again.

  "All right," she said, as the rectangle expanded to occupy a
square meter above the surface of her desk. "Give me the record
of the recov'ry action."

   "Well, the Yanks scrambled once they'uns realized what was
happenin'," the Intelligence Section merarch said. The
three-dimensional image lifted a cigarette to its lips. "Two
Jefferson-class patrollers, with six and four gunboats
respectively, in position to do somethin'. Thirty personnel, all
told."

   Yolande nodded: Yankee gunboats were single-crew, and the
Jeffersons had ten apiece. The Alliance military relied more on
cybernetics than the Draka did. "That was all they had within
range."

   Space was large, and even with constant-boost pulsedrive
units it took a long time to get from anywhere to anywhere,
compared with on-planet applications. There were times when
she thought it was more like the situation back in her
greatgrandfather's time, when it could still take weeks to cross
an ocean, months to traverse a continent. Then trouble blew up,
and the soldier on the spot was left with their ass hanging in the
breeze and no way to call for mama.

   "Luckily, we'n's had three Iron Limper corvettes on, ah,
patrol." Corsair duty, her mind added sardonically, using the
crew slang. "This's what happened."

   The view shifted to points and data-columns, a schematic of
the corvettes and their twelve—no, eleven—gunboat outriders,
and the machinery's best guess on the Yankees. The usual thing
for space combat, a long gingerly waiting before a brief flurry of
action. A pulsedrive was sort of hard to hide anywhere in the
solar system unless you had something the size of a planet to
shelter it, but that told you very little except the past position
and a fan of possible vectors. Space-ships were another matter;
between stealthing and datamimic decoys, long-range detection
had always run a little behind the counter-measures.

   "Well, both parties knew they'd have to intersect somewhere
along the trajectory of the cargo pod and the stingray." A section
of the curve that looped in from beyond the orbit of Mars turned
red, the area where either set of warships could match velocities.
"The Yankees went into constant-boost, figurin' to overrun us on
the pass, then go back fo' it. We went silent, coastin'; had the
advantage, comin' out-system from sunward."

  "Ah." She could guess what came next. You could think of a
pulsedrive as a series of micro-fusion bombs and field-shielding
and reaction mass heated to plasma—or as a sword of radiation
and high-energy particles tens of kilometers long.

   That was the Staff way of seeing it. Her imagination flashed
other images on the inner screen of her consciousness. The
matte-black shapes of the Limpers falling outward. A shallow
disk perched on a witch's maze of tubing like some mad oil
refinery, all atop the great convex soup-plate of the pusher. The
dozen crewfolk locked into their cocoons of armor and sensors,
decision-making units in a dance of photonics. Units that
sweated with fears driven down below consciousness; the ripping
impact of crystal tesseract-mines scattering their high-vee
shrapnel through hulls and bodies, blood boiling into vacuum.
The pulse of a near-miss and secondary gamma sleeting invisibly
through the body, wrecking the infinitely complex balances of
the cells. Tumbling in a wrecked ship, puking and delirious and
dying slowly of thirst…

   Fears carried down from the ground-ape; hindbrain reflexes
that twitched muscles in desperate need to flee or fight, pumped
juices into the blood, roiling minds that must stay as calm as the
machines that were master and slave both. Yolande swallowed
past dryness, and used the inward disciplines taught by those
who had trained her for war. The slamming impact of
deceleration; railguns, lightguns, mine-showers, missile and
counter-missile, the parasite-bombs driving their one-megaton
X-ray beams like the icepicks of gods. The drives punching
irresistibly through fields and shieldings; perhaps a single
second for the stricken to know their fate as plasma boiled
through the corridors.

   Silence. Long slow zero-g fading past, waiting for the sensors
to tell you if you were already dead…

  She shook her head. "Hugin totalled." Sheer bad luck, a
parasite-bomb impact just as her drive was cycling out a new
pellet. Twelve dead. "Lothbrok mostly made it." If the biotechs
could repair tissues so riddled. "Ragnar, no losses."

  "A successful engagement," the Intelligence Officer said.
"But…"

   "But we still don't know what the shit happened with
that-there original intercept."

   "Strategos…" The merarch hesitated, then continued.
"Strategos, admitted all we've got is what downloaded to optical
storage befo' they bought it… but somethin catastrophic did
happen. Iff'n I didn't know better, I'd say point-blank parasite
bomb hit, with a chain-fire in the feed tubes fo' the drive. But
there weren't no parasite bombs travelin' with that cargo pod."

  "Incorrect, Merarch. There were five."

   For a moment the man looked blank, then his eyes widened
slightly in shock. Their gaze met in silent agreement: With the
fighter, its own weapons. "This is speculation, an' not to go on
record. Understood?"

   He nodded. They were silent for a moment; his voice was slow
and musing when he continued: "Bout' the prisoners… We kept
them in filterable-virus isolation an' did a complete scan, as per
usual."

   Security had gotten even more paranoid of late, now that
Alliance nanosabotage capacities were approaching the size level
of Draka gene-engineering skills. Not to mention the
ever-present nightmare of dataplague contamination; the
Alliance's superiority in compinstruction was indisputable. The
Domination took what precautions it could—offline back-up
systems for all essential functions, manual overrides, physical
separation—but there were limits to what could be done in an
environment as dependent on computer technology as space.

   "Well, somethin' sort of odd came up. Very damn odd. The
biotechs found somethin' on six of the seven livin' prisoners,
some sort of latent… weeell, virus or somethin back in the central
nervous an' limbic systems. Very tricky, very, they only found it
on 'count the discrepancy in the neural DNA analysis was the
same on each. Wouldn't have found it say, two years ago; it
would have come out as the usual noise-garbage."The cellular
codes of any mammal have far more information capacity than
they need.

   "So we blipped the info to Biocontrol Central." Yolande waited
while the man moistened his lips. "Order came back, freeze in
place. Then about two hours latah, a priority-one command to
wait fo' a courier. One came direct, with orders to turn them
ovah to the headhunters. That an' wipe the data an' fo'get we'd
ever seen it."

   "Castle Tarleton?"

   "No; from the Palace. From the Archon's office, an' under his
personal code." They exchanged another glance; he had placed
his life in her hands with those words. A calculated risk; that
Eric von Shrakenberg was her uncle was widely known. That she
met regularly with him on more than family matters was not.

   "Well." For the first time in the interview, Yolande smiled, a
slow cold turning of the lips. "Well, we can't argue with that."
Normally there would have been a bureaucratic bunfight;
Aresopolis was War Directorate territory, after all. "Not that I
don't love to trip our esteemed colleagues up as much as anyone,
but in this case…"

   She grinned at the thought of the slow disassembling the
Security Directorate would use on the prisoners, and the other
officer turned his eyes aside slightly. Yolande Ingolfsson's feelings
concerning the enemy in general and Americans in particular
were well-known, but still a little disconcerting to meet in
practice.

   The grin faded, to be replaced with something resembling a
human expression. "And, Thomas…" the first name was a signal,
and he leaned forward, an unconcious expression of attention.
"… "I have an odd feelin' about this. That data had better really
disappear. Or I think we might." What data?" he said.

   She nodded. "Ovah. Service to the State."
  "Glory to the Race," he replied formally, and the rectangle
went blank.

   "Fade," she said, and the lights dimmed. "Review, casualties."

   Her mouth thinned; this was a disagreeable chore.
Theoretically, the unit commander… No, she had ordered the
action. The general policy was set higher up, but she made the
operational decisions. It was her responsibility. A figure in the
form-fitting vacuum skinsuit blinked into existence before her,
turning toward the pickup and laughing, bubble-helmet in one
hand. A cat hanging in mid-air beside it, obviously unused to
low-G and falling in spraddle-legged panic. The figure was
young, with fair hair cropped close. Data unreeled below: Julian
Torbogen, born… Very young, only a year older than her oldest. A
face with the chiseled, sculpted look the Eugenics Board was
moving the Race toward, but an individual for all that. The
dossier listed it all: pets, hobbies, grade-evaluations, favorite
foods, friends, love-affairs, hopes (… habitat design is so
complete an art!…), hates.

   Yolande called up the medical image and placed it beside the
laughing youth. Explosive decompression is not a pleasant way
to die, especially combined with a wash of radiant heat that
melts equipment into flesh across half the body. Two-thirds of
the face was still there, enough for the final expression to survive.

   A long moment, and then she closed her eyes and began to
dictate. "Dear Citizens. As your son's commanding officer, I…"



   It took an hour to complete the messages; they were brief, but
it was crucial to give each one the individual attention it was
due. These were Citizens, the hope of the Race. Cells must die for
the whole to live. But we must mourn them, because we are
cells who know what we are. That is our immortality.

    She shook off the mood and rose, calling the lights back to
normal. Coming home, she thought wryly. Half her existence
these days seemed to be spent in illusion and shadows, riding the
silica threads and photon pulses, until she could hardly tell
waking from sleeping.

   "Call Tina," she said to the machines that always listened.
"Brandied coffee, please." Absurd to use a form of courtesy with
a computer, but it was another connection to real life.

   This outer room of her sanctum—was this home? As much as
anyplace, the last five years. A long box-rectangle, her desk at
one end. Lunar-basalt tiles, covered by fur rugs from animals
created by Biotech. Leather-spined books, and shelves of real
wood, expensive on Luna, but Loki knew there were some
compensations for this job. The outer wall was set to a soft
neutral gray for concentration's sake; it was a single blank sheet
five meters by ten, a thinfilm sandwich holding several hundred
thousand thermovalves per square centimeter. It could be set to
display anything at all, well enough to fool even an expert's eye
until you touched, but she was suddenly weary of vicarious
experience. And of the fresh clean recycled air.

   "Transparent and open," she said. It blinked clear and slid up
with a minor shhhh as she walked out onto the balcony.

    That was near the top of the ring wall, a lacy construction of
twisted virryl, filaments of monocrystal
titanium-chromium-vanadium alloy and glass braided together.
Those were words; the reality was smooth curves of jade-green
ice, thin as gossamer, stronger than steel. The sky above was of
the same material, a shallow ribbed dome across the
hundred-kilometer bowl of the crater. A thousand meters over
her head one of its great anchor cables sprang out, soaring up
and away until it dwindled into a thread and disappeared into
the distance; the sky was set to a long twilight now, and she
could just make out the bluewhite disk of Earth. She walked to
the waist-high balustrade, looked out and down.

   The crater was in natural terrace-steps to either side and
sheer cliff below, nothing but air and haze three kilometers to
the tumbled jungle-shaggy hills at the base. To her right a river
sprang out of the rock, fell with unearthly slowness in a long
bright-blue arc until it misted away into rain; a lake gathered
underneath, and the river flowed like silver off through the
mottled greens of the landscape below. Clouds drifted in layers,
silver and dappled with earthlight; they cast shadows over fields,
meadows, forest, roads. There was no horizon, only a vast arch
that melted green into blue. Lights were appearing here and
there; far and far, she could just make out the high spike of the
mountain at the crater's center, bright-lit, with the thin
illuminated streak of the vator-tower rising to the landing
platform on the airless side of the dome.

   "Mistis."

   A presence at her elbow; she took the cup without glancing
around, murmured abstracted thanks, propped one haunch on
the balustrade, sipped. Kenia Mountain Best, diluted with a
quarter of hot cream and a tenth of Thieuniskraal. Warmth and
richness flowed over her tongue, with a hint of bite at the back of
her mouth and down her throat. It was very quiet, the thunder of
the falling water far enough away to be a muted background.
The soft wind that flickered ends of her gray-blond hair about
her face was louder; she ignored their tickling caress. All about
the balcony, rock that had lain lifeless since the forming of the
Earth was covered in rustling vines that bore sheets of pale-pink
blossoms; they smelled of mint and lavender.

   As they had been designed to do. So had the multicolored
birds that flitted through the flowers been designed for the
intricate flutelike song they trilled; farther out a yellow-feathered
hawk banked on four-meter wings and called, a long mournful
wailing. Yolande sipped again, feeling a sensation that was half
contentment, half the repletion that followed the end of a poem.
This was a composition, and she one of its manifold creators;
part of what she had dreamed, as a child looking up at the new
lights in the sky over Claestum. The Glory of the Race was more
than power; that was just the beginning. It was accomplishment;
it was to do.

   She closed her eyes, squeezing them against a flash of old
remembered pain. Myfwany, darlin', if only you could be here
to see it with me, she thought. Then somewhere far back in her
mind a ghost met her gaze with sardonic green: Freya, what a
sentimentalist yo' are, Yolande-sweet, to let me haunt yo' so.
One thing I never aspired to be was the drop of gall in yo' cup;
yo' alive, so live, girl.

   "Such good advice, and as always easier to give than to
follow," she murmured to herself.

   "Mistis?"

   "Nothin', Tina," Yolande said to the serf who squatted at her
feet and peered through the finger-thick rods of the balustrade.

    The wench rose. Tina had a glass of milk in one hand, and a
white mustache of it on her upper lip that she licked away with
unselfconscious relish; then drank more, taking the slow care
needful in one-sixth gravity. Eighteen and softly pretty in a
doe-eyed Italian way, big-hipped, the four-month belly just
starting to show. Yolande smiled and laid a hand on it; the serf
smiled shyly back and put her hand over the Draka's in turn. For
a moment Yolande wondered what it must feel like, to bear a
living child beneath the heart. She was too old herself, of course,
even if there had ever been time, and bearing your own eggs was
eccentric to the point of suspiciousness now, anyway. Strange to
think that she herself was of the last generation of the Race born
of their mother's wombs.

  She rubbed her serfs stomach affectionately. "Time to get yo'
home to Claestum, Tina," she said.

   The later stages of pregnancy did not do well below .3 G; in
theory, regular centrifuge was enough to compensate, but she
did not intend to take any chances at all. Strictly speaking, there
was no need to get involved in the process to this extent; a lot of
people just sent the fertilized ova in to the Clinic and picked up
the baby nine months later. Yolande had always found that too
impersonal; she insisted on being present at the implantation
and the birthing, and used only family servants as brooders,
volunteers from the plantation. It seemed more… more fitting,
somehow. Birth was no less a miracle because the Race had
mastered its secrets, after all. And this was the most important
of all, truly hers and Myfwany's, now that the ova-merging
technique was perfected.

   "Yes, time to get home, Mistis," Tina said with a sigh, leaning
into the caress and looking out over the crater. "I will miss this.
It so pretty."

   And such a vanity, Yolande thought. Oh, not so difficult, not
when you could use fusion bombs and bomb-pumped lasers for
excavation; not when energy poured down in vacuum, to be
stored as pressurized water or liquid metal or in
superconducting rings… Anything local and not too complex was
cheap, given autofabricators, and the whole construct was
basically titanium and glass. Oxygen and silica and light metals
were abundant on the moon; launch-lasers and magnetic
catapults at Gibraltar and Kilimanjaro and in the Tien Shan
were part of the War effort, and might as well be kept to capacity
with cargo loads; an abundance of water and volatiles was
coming in from the outer system. Also, a closed ecosystem was a
tricky thing; the bigger you made it the easier it was to manage.

   Also a chance to put the Drakon's eye up here on the Moon,
looking down, she thought. And wouldn't the Yankees love to
stick a thumb in it.

   Which was why the bulk of Aresopolis was burrowed
kilometers deep into the lunar crust, factories and dormitories,
refineries and chemosynthesis plants, the fardown caverns with
their stores of liquid hydrogen, oxygen, methane, ammonia,
metals, a Pamir's horde gathered from as far out as Saturn. The
orbital battlestations clustering about Earth were largely armed
and built from here; so were the outposts at the L-5 points, the
far-flung bases, Mercury, the Venus study-project, Mars, a
scattering of outposts in the Alliance-dominated asteroids. Half
the two million souls the Domination had sent into space lived
here, in this strange city of warriors and warriors' servants; a
third of them free Citizens, the highest ratio of any city in the
Domination.

   All of them beneath her command—and able, in their leisure,
to come out here to walk naked under living green, swim in
water that bore silverspeckled trout, to fly with muscle-powered
wings as no humans before them had ever done. She flicked the
last droplets from the cup out into the void, watching the long
dreamy slowness of the fall.
   "They say the neoredwoods we've planted down there will
grow a thousand meters tall in another fifty years," Yolande said,
softly. "I'll bring the children here, and we'll rent wings and fly off
the highest branches like eagles." She should still be hale, then,
with modern biotech.

  "Will you bring me to watch?" Tina asked, and snuggled
another question.

   "Yes," Yolande said. "That's a promise. And no, get yo' off to a
nice, quiet bed, wench; mind yo' health."

   The serf left with the long glide-bounce of an experienced
Aresopolite. Yolande lingered for a moment, yawning and rolling
the still-warm porcelain of the cup between her palms. The sky
had gone true-dark, and the hard bright stars were out; the
clouds below reflected blue-silver earthlight back into her eyes.
Moving stars, many of them, and she could see another rising
swiftly to join them from beyond the crater rim, a laser-boost
capsule from one of the emplacements that studded the
mountains around the city. That was one of their functions;
another might be to rip targets as far away as Earth, one day.

    Suddenly she was on her feet, shaken with a wild anger. The
flung cup arched out into emptiness with maddening slowness;
there was nothing on the planets or between that could express
the wash of loathing she felt. They were there, too, the Yankees,
the destroyers of all happiness, the oaf-lump impediment that
stood always in the Race's path. This single city, an ornament
above a fortress, when the Moon might be laced with them like
living jewels. Scorched meat made of lordly golden boys who
should be here playing tag with eagles, or going out to make
green paradise of frozen Mars and burning Venus. Always
intriguing, threatening with their sly greasy-souled merchant
cunning, menacing the future of her blood. Gwen, Nikki, Holden,
Johanna still un-born, whose years ought to stretch out before
them like diamonds in the sun…

   "I will be back with them, in yo' despite," she said in tones
quiet and even and measured. "Everythin' yo' are, well bring to
nothin'; well grind yo' bones to make our bread, and yo' children
will serve mine until the end of days."
   With an effort she turned back into the office. A
consummation devoutly to be wished, she thought. To which
end, I'm going to get Uncle Eric to tell me preciscily whats been
goin' on here.

   "Message:" she said to the sensors. "Strategos Alman Witter,
Vice-Commandant; Allie, I'm droppin' down to HQ fo' the week.
Yo' step in as per, stay on top of the patrol incident an' keep me
posted soonest. Message: Transport, Aresopolis to
Archona."—She looked at her desk: 2140—"departin' 1100 to
1200 tomorrow. Message: private, code follows—"



   "One-hundred-forty-nine, one-hundred-fifty," Marya Lefarge
gasped as she finished the series of situps, and sank back on the
exercise table, panting.

   No more. That finished her daily three-hour program, but
there was a druglike pleasure to exhaustion as hard to fight as
sloth. The 1-G exercise chamber was crowded and close, a slight
smell of sweat among the machinery that glistened in the
overhead sunlamps. The floor had a slight but perceptible curve;
it was a wedge section of a giant wheel spinning deep beneath
Aresopolis. Dual-purpose like most things offplanet, a flywheel
storing energy for burst use, but time here was still limited and
rationed. Most of the occupants were pregnant brooders, wearily
putting in their minimum on exercise bicycles, with a scattering
of others whose owner's credits allowed or tasks required
high-gravity maintenance. Mostly they leafed through
picture-books, listened to music on earplugs or chattered among
themselves, leaving her in a bubble of silence.

   Cows, she thought bitterly, looking at them as she swung her
legs off the table. Then: That's unfair. Not their fault. Some of
them looked back at her out of the corners of their eyes, then
away again. She felt the slight ever-present tug of the controller
cuff on her right wrist, more than enough reason to shun her;
who knew what she had done, to need an instant pain-paralyzer?
Guilt was contagious, especially here, where every word and
gesture was observed by the never-sleeping senses of the
computers and the endless probing vigilance of the AI programs.
   There was a man working with springweights near her who
did not look away. Handsome, younger than she, a Eurasian with
smooth olive skin and bright blue eyes; he smiled, lifted his
brows. Lathe-bodied and strong, he could be anything from a
dancer to a Janissary…

   Why not, she thought, hesitating a second, then shook her
head as she smiled and left, towel thrown over one shoulder. She
felt his eyes on her neck, memorizing her number. Probably he
could reference it through Records, probably he would sheer off
when he learned who owned her.

   And it would be too easy, too easy to make yourself
comfortable with little compromises until there was nothing left.
Better not to start, just as it was better not to talk too much.
When every word could loll, talk meant fear. Fear until you
censored the words, then the dangerous thoughts to make that
easier, then stopped having the thoughts. Better to talk to
yourself, in the safety of your head.

   Marya walked inward from the hub, up steps that gradually
flattened into floor as the centrifugal force weakened and lunar
gravity took over. She ignored the faint ferris-wheel feeling of
disorientation from her inner ears and halted before the gate; it
slid open, and she stepped into the narrow chamber and pressed
her back against the antispinward wall. There was a brief
pressure as the inner ring of the wheel slowed and stopped; the
inner door opened, and she walked through into the hub.

   Showers and sauna were crowded, too, but at least they were
not open-plan. She stripped off the exercise shorts and threw the
disposable fabric into a hamper, nodding to a few persons she
knew as she waited in line for a cubicle, studying herself in the
mirrored walls. Not bad, she decided. Especially for fifty; not
much sagging, although of course the light gravity helped, and
the daily exercise she had kept up as a silent gesture of
self-respect… and the fact that Strategos Yolande Ingolfsson
bought her personal servants top-flight Citizen Level medical
care, which meant the best in the solar system. Viral DNA
repair, cellular waste removal, synthormone implants, calcium
boost, the works. There were strands of silver in her long black
hair, crow's-feet beside her eyes, but for the rest she could have
passed for mid-thirties.

   A woman in her mid-thirties who had borne a child and
breast-fed it. Her fingers traced lightly over the cracked-eggshell
pattern on the taut muscle of her stomach.

   "Not now," she murmured to herself, her eyelids drooping
down as she turned attention within, finding the pattern of calm.
Her gaze was cool as she raised it back to the mirror. Yes, not
bad. That could be important, she thought with cold realism.
Things are moving to a crisis; you've got to know.
Clandestine-ops mode. Think of yourself as a sleeper. She
grinned sardonically at the joke as she stepped into the vacated
cubicle.



  "Sector three, level two," the transporter capsule said.

  The lid hissed up, and Yolande stepped out into the station,
past the unmoving guards. Probably unnecessary; the machinery
would simply not obey unauthorized personnel. On the other
hand, there were ways to fool machinery, and it was not in the
Oraka nature to trust too completely to cybernetics. The Orpos
were the regular pair, and saluted briskly; she blinked back to
awareness of her surroundings and returned it. Downside there
might have been actual physical checks.

   Lucky we're not quite settled enough to start importing
surplus bureaucrats, she thought wearily. Sector Three was
command residence country, Civil, War Directorate, Security
and Combines both; status was being close to the main transport
station. Yolande sighed slightly as she palmed the lock of her
outer door; the inner slid open as the corridor portal cycled shut,
another emergency airlock system. It might have been more
efficient to pack everything close together in one spot, but this
was supposed to be a fortress. Carving rock was no problem
either, not when the original function of Aresopolis had been to
throw material into Earth-orbit to armor battlestations. So the
city-beneath was a series of redundantly-linked modules, any of
which could function independently for a long, long time.
   "Hiyo, Mistis," Jolene said, waiting with a hot lemonade. The
entranceway was a circular room ten meters in diameter, with a
domed roof over a central pool and fountain. The walls were
holopanels between half-columns, right now set to show a steppe
landscape: rolling green hills fading into a huge sky, wind
rippling the grass, distant antelope.

  " 'Lo, Jo," Yolande said, accepting the glass.

   Machiavelli IV came bounding into the room and raced
around the wall to reach her, running with innocent unconcern
across what looked to be empty space and soaring to land on the
foamlava floor by her feet. Two housegirls followed more sedately
with her lounging robe and slippers; Yolande sipped moodily at
the hot sweet-tart liquid while they removed her uniform and
redressed her, moving only to transfer the glass from hand to
hand.

   "We're leavin' tomorrow," she said abruptly. Then, to the
apartment: "Walls, blank." The holo panels dimmed to a neutral
pearl-gray color. Yolande spared them a moment's irritation; she
would have preferred mosaic, but the necessary skills were still
scarce on Luna, and anyway this was the Commandant's
quarters. Furnished rooms, in a sense.

   "Tomorrow, Mistis?" Jolene asked, puzzled. It was a month
before leave was scheduled.

   "I said so, didn't I?" Yolande snapped, then sighed and drew a
hand across her face. "Sorry, Jo. Somethin' came up. Down to
Archona, stayin' with Uncle Eric, then a quick trip up to
Claestum to drop off Tina with John an' Mandy, then back here.
Call it fo' days; just pack an overnight bag an' Tina's things."

   She looked down at the housegirls, kneeling with hands folded
in their laps and eyes downcast; both rather new, and still a little
shy, especially at hearing the Archon referred to as "Uncle."

   "Run along, there's good wenches… I'll take Lele, none of the
other staff." No point in carting a dozen servants along for a
visit, and Jolene hated space travel. "Light supper, an'…"
  The inner door sighed open and shut. Yolande looked over her
shoulder; it was Marya. "… An' set up the chess game fo' after,
Marya."



   King's pawn to knight four, Yolande decided. She moved the
carved-ebony Janissary and leaned back in the lounger, sipping
at the white wine; it was Vernaccia. Checkmate in, hmmmm,
seven moves. She was not doing as well as usual tonight, and it
was getting a little late. Damn, I'm not sleepy, either, she
thought.

   The lounging room was arch-roofed, a relic of excavating
techniques in the early days, back in the mid-1960s; the
Commandant's quarters had been enlarged but not moved as the
city grew. There were a few pictures, some hangings, but she had
had most of the walls left in the natural white-streaked black
rock interspersed with hand-painted azulejos tile; the furniture
was modern and local, spindly shapes of lacquered bamboo and
puff-pillows. The room seemed cavernous and dim now, yet
somehow cramped despite space enough to guest a hundred.
Perhaps it was subliminal knowledge of all those kilometers of
rock above. Yolande stirred restlessly.

   What was it Michelangelo said about Vernaccia? she
thought, sipping again. It "kisses, licks, bites, thrusts, and
stings." There's my subconscious telling me what I want. That
was a little awkward; she had told Tina no… She was not in the
mood for Jolene's friendly complaisance, and the rest of the staff
were unsuitable or too new, too much in awe, to be very
interesting. Maybe a man? That was nice occasionally;
unfortunately, no Citizen she knew well enough was available,
probably. Well, she could have a nightspot send a buck
around—perfectly legal nowadays; the Race Purity laws had been
updated back in the '70s.

   No, maybe I'm old-fashioned, but no. Ah well, there's always
the headset. That brought sleep without chemical hangovers.

  "Mistis." Yolande blinked out of her reverie and saw the serfs
next move.
   "Thought so. Yo' shouldn't be so… schematic about yo' pieces.
See." She took the other's last bishop and indicated the
alternatives. "Neither of us's up to scratch tonight."

   "Ah, Mistis." There was an unusual note in the serfs voice.
Yolande looked up, saw that she was studying a piece held in one
hand. A pawn in ivory, in the shape of a German soldier of the
Eurasian War. "Ah, can I ask you a question?" The fall of her
hair hid most of her face, and the tops of her ears were pink.

  The Draka blinked puzzlement. "Certainly."

  "Were, ah, were you planning on going to bed alone tonight.
Mistis?"

   Yolande's eyebrows rose, and she spoke with a chuckle in her
voice. "Is that an invitation, Marya?" I hope so. Have for years;
wonder what changed her mind?

   A nod. "Well, well, that is a surprise." She cleared her mind
and looked. Rather nice. Not young, but then, neither am I
anymore. It was getting to be a little embarrassing, bedding
teenagers. Granted they were only serfs, still… And I've wanted
you for a while.

  She rose and extended a hand. "Shall we?"



  "Ah!"

   Yolande went rigid as the orgasm flowed over her like waves
of warmth, felt the world swim blue before her eyes. She was
straddled kneeling across the other's shoulders, arched back on
her heels with her shoulders resting on the serfs upraised knees.
Now she leaned forward and sank lower, linking her hands
behind her neck and smiling down at the face between her
thighs. "One mo' time, pretty pony," she said softly, moving her
hips in languid rhythm to the sweet wet friction of tongue and
lips. The serfs eyes were closed below a frown of concentration;
her head moved with the arching of Yolande's pelvis, and she
gripped the Draka's hips with a clench that whitened her
fingernails.

   "Ah. Mmmmmmm." Yolande moved more quickly,
shuddered, locked immobile with a long hiss between clenched
teeth. This time the color went beyond blue to indigo, shot
through with veins of red. She nearly collapsed forward— would
have in normal gravity.

   "Wonderful," she sighed as she eased herself down beside the
other and reached up for the wineglass. Blood pounded in her
ears like retreating drums, and the dreamy relaxation was like
flying in dreams. Marya's eyes fluttered open, dark and
unreadable. Yolande poured the last of the wine on her lips and
kissed her, savoring the pleasant mixture of tastes. The room
was dark except for a wall set to show a landscape of lunar
mountains jagged across the three-quarters Earth; that cast a
pale silver glow over the circular bed. The air was lightly warm,
and she could smell the roses in planters around the walls, musk,
a slight tang of sweat and warm flesh.

   Marya turned on her side and laid her head on her owner's
shoulder; Yolande stroked her back. At least the third-arm
problem is less up here, she thought drowsily.Gods, I haven't felt
this relaxed in months.

   "I'm glad you liked it, Mistis," the serf said, yawning into the
curve where neck met deltoid.

   "Freya, yes. I's so tense without knowin' it, I went off like a
sunbomb. That damn stingfighter's got me tied in knots… can't
figure out how the damyanks did it." She was muttering, half
thinking aloud; absently, she set the glass down on the fused
stone of the headboard and began stroking down Marya's flank.
"And on top of that, those fuckin' prisoners."

  "Why is Biocontrol gettin' into the decision-makin' loop?
They're just a research institute, even if they're so almighty
impo'tant these days.…"

    She paused, hand lingering on the firmness of the other's hip.
"lift yo' knee… Did yo' like it, Marya?" Her fingers trailed down
the inside of the serfs leg and lightly cupped her groin.
   "Couldn't you tell, Mistis?" the other said. She smiled and
rolled onto her back, raising and spreading her legs.

   "Hmmm, I could tell when yo' came; that isn't the same
thing." Yolande slipped her free hand under the serfs neck while
she kneaded softly with the other, rising on one elbow and
bending her head to Marya's breasts. The nipples were dark and
taut, the large aureoles around them crinkled, ridged
smoothness under her tongue.

   "I…" Marya caught her breath as Yolande bit gently. "I
volunteered. This time."

   There was quiet for a few minutes, broken only by the
increasing sound of the serfs panting. Yolande leaned closer,
studying the other's face. The dark eyes were wide, iris swallowed
in the pupil. Ah, nearly, she thought, laughing and increasing
the featherlight pressure of her fingers. Marya's arms went back,
gripping the headboard, as her knees pulled up and wide; the
cords in her neck stood out as she gave a series of gasps and then
a sharp cry.

  "I think maybe yo' do like it," Yolande said. "Pity yo' don't like
me; it increases the pleasure." She wiped her hand on the sheet.

   Marya sighed. "You've been… You haven't been as… strict
with me these last few years, Mistis."

   Embarrassed, Yolande lay back. "Oh… Well, I wasn't thinkin'
straight, fo' a while after Myfwany was killed. Yo' sort of stood fo'
the Yankees, in my mind. But that isn't fair, of course; yo' aren't
a Yankee anymore, yo' my serf. Not fittin' to abuse yo'.
Besides,"—she patted the other's stomach for a second, then took
her hand—"yo' bore Gwen. Not willingly, of course, but yo' still
carried an' nursed Myfwany's clonechild; I couldn't keep up the
hatin' after I saw her at yo' breast, could I?"

   She was silent for a moment, letting drowsy thoughts sift
through her mind. "Still… playin' chess, yo' get to know a person
somewhats." She yawned. "Yo' strange to me. As different as two
bain's of the same species can be. Draka I understand, an' serfs.
Yankees I meet in structured situations, like battle; logic of
objective conditions forces a certain amount of similarity to they
behavior. Most of my serfs like me well enough; I'm a good
owner. Yo'…" She shrugged. "Yo' wasn't raised to think that
way." I think I'm still the enemy, in your heart, she thought.
What do they taste of, the kisses of an enemy?

  "Mistis; take me with you, on this visit?"

  "Why fo?"

   "I…" Marya turned her head away from the one on the pillow
beside her. "You're right, everyone here is still strange to me,
even after all these years; but you less than the born-serfs."

   "Kay," Yolande muttered. She turned on her side and threw
an arm and leg across Marya's body. "Sleep now." Her eyelids
fluttered closed.

   Marya's right arm was free; she raised it in the dim light of
the reflected earth, letting it shine on the imperishable metal of
the controller. Then she brought it to her lips, opening them to
the cool neutral taste, slightly bitter. She lay so, motionless
except for an occasional slow blink, as the hours crept by and the
sweat cooled on her skin.




           CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

   The opening of space was a military measure, but its only
military effect to date has been to maintain the stalemate at a
higher level. The truly revolutionary impact has been, as so often,
the unintended and unforeseen consequences. The most obvious
has been the flow of new materials, products which could not be
produced at all on Earth or only at prohibitive cost. Monocrystal
materials, ultra-pure silica wafers and optical fibers, bearings
and alloys close to the theoretical maxima, room-temperature
superconductors, all are flowing in abundance from the plants
built to sustain the orbital defenses. More surprising than this
has been the sheer scale of developments. In space, our industrial
machine is suddenly relieved of crippling, blinding burdens,
burdens of which we had never before been aware. We have only
recently learned to control nuclear fusion on a planetary surface,
but in space fusion power— the Sun—is freely available on an
unlimited scale. With unlimited power, vacuum, zero gravity,
and no environmental problems, manipulation of materials
becomes vastly simpler. Solar sails and plasma drives make
space transport cheap, while pulsedrive with its constant high
acceleration takes rapid interplanetary travel possible. The flow
of fissionables from the asteroids in turn reduces the cost of
transport- much cruder methods. Involving fusion warhead-type
bombs, can't be used to move massive objects such as comets
and asteroids of moderate size. Scramjets were the first step;
Earth-to-orbit launch with ground-based power sources such as
lasers and magnetic catapults came next. Once significant
manufacturing and mining capacity had been established in
space, growth became exponential. The use of space-generated
power beamed to the surface for launch energy closed the circuit
and cybernetic mass production of solar cells is reducing energy
costs to the point where only the very cheapest hydroelectric
power can compete. From a few hundred in the early 1960s, the
number of humans resident in space grew to perhaps ten
thousand In 1970; hundreds of thousands a decade later; by the
beginning of the 1990s, probably nearly a million. This is the
most significant development in human history since the
American Revolution and its counter-creation of the
Domination. It has altered the terms of the Protracted Struggle;
the two-tiered economy of the Domination has had to contort
itself into knots to adapt to space; and while illiterate slaves on
the Moon tend hydroponic crops in the tunnel-colonies, there are
limits to the process. It has or will soon free humankind from the
threat of complete annihilation which haunted the generation
after the discovery of atomic energy.

   Perhaps most important in the long run, it has freed
industrial civilization from the constraints of the terrestrial
environment. Metals and fossil fuels are nonrenewable, and the
ability of Earth to absorb contaminants and by-products was
already being strained by our present stable global population of
2,800,000,000. The problem of raising the serf population of
the Domination to Alliance standards hardly bears thinking
about—if the terms of reference are limited to Earth. They no
longer are, and there is no longer an argument from necessity for
poverty.
                                 History In a Technological Age
                              by Andrew Elliot Armstrang, Ph.D.
                                          Department of History
                                           San Diego University
                                                    Press, 1995



NEW YORK CITY
HOSPITAL OF THE SACRED HEART
FEDERAL CAPITAL
DISTRICT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
APRIL, 1998


   Nathaniel Stoddard grinned like a death's-head at the shock
in Lefarge's eyes.

  "Happens to us all, boy," he said slowly. "Ayuh. And never at a
convenient time."

   Lefarge swallowed and looked away from the wasted figure,
the liver-spotted hands that never stopped trembling on the
coverlet. I've always hated the way hospitals smelled, he
thought. Medicinal, antiseptic, with an underlying tang of
misery. The private room was crowded with the
medical-monitoring machines, smooth cabinets hooked to the
ancient figure on the bed through a dozen tubes and wires; their
screens blinked, and he knew that they were pumping data to the
central intensive-care computer. Doling out microdoses of
chemicals, hormones, enzymes…

   "I'd have told them to stop trying two years ago, if I hadn't
been needed," Stoddard said. The faded blue eyes looked at him
with an infinite weariness, pouched in their loose folds of skin.
"But if I'm indispensable, the nation's doomed anyway, son."

  Lefarge looked up sharply; that was the first time the old man
had ever used the word to him. He reached out and clasped the
brittle-boned hand with careful gentleness.

   "My only regret is that you couldn't take over my post,"
Stoddard said. "But what you're doing is more important. Janice
and the boy all right?"

   Lefarge smiled, an expression that felt as if it would crack his
cheeks. "Janice is fine. Nate Junior is a strapping rockjack of
thirty now, Uncle Nate. Courting, too, and this time it looks
serious. We'll have the Belt full of Stoddards yet.".

   The general sighed, and closed his eyes for a moment. "The
Project? What do your tame scientists say about the trans-Luna
incident?"

   Well, at least the information's still getting through, Lefarge
thought. I might have known Uncle Nate would arrange to keep
a tap into channels.

   "They…" He ran a hand through his hair, and caught a
glimpse of himself in the polished surface of a cabinet. Goddam.
I show more of Maman every year. His cropped hair was as
much gray as black, now; no receding hairline, though. "Well,
the consensus is that it… mutated. They had to make it so that it
could modify itself, anyway. The trigger is multiply redundant,
but it's just data, and if something knocks out a crucial
piece…"he shrugged and raised his hands. "No estimate on
spread, either. Slow. Maybe ten percent penetration by now, if
we're lucky. Two years to critical mass. Absolutely no way of
telling if there'll be more, ah, mutations. Or if they'll figure it
out." He shrugged again. "The Team says de Ribeiro was right;
we took a… less than optimum path in computer development,
way back when. Too much crash research, too much security.
Though they practically end up beating each other over the head
about what we should have done! Anyway, even the Project can't
redevelop an entire technology. They've pushed the present
pretty well to its limits, and what we're using is the product."

   Stoddard's eyes opened again. "Fred…" He fought for breath,
forced calm on himself and began again. "Fred, don't let them
throw it away. We can't… The Militants will win the next
Archonal election in the Domination. Coalition… we're pretty
sure. War… soon after. Inevitable… fanatics. Think of the
damage if they attack… first. Remember… Nelson's eyepatch."

   Fred felt the hair crawl on the back of his neck. Admiral
Nelson had been signaled to halt an attack; he put the telescope
to his blind eye, announced that he had seen no signal, and
continued.

   A red light began to beep on one of the monitors. Seconds
later a nurse burst into the room.

   "Brigadier Lefarge!" she said severely, moving quickly to the
bedside. "You were allowed to see the patient on condition he not
be stressed in any way!"

  He leaned over Stoddard, caught the faded blue eyes, nodded.
"Don't worry, Uncle Nate," he said softly. "I'll take care of it."

   "Brigadier—" the nurse began. Then her tone changed to one
he recognized immediately: a good professional faced with an
emergency. "Dr. Suharto to room A17! Dr. Suharto to room A17!"
Her hands were flying over the controls, and the old man's body
jerked. More green-and white-coated figures were rushing into
the room; Lefarge stepped back to the angle of the door, saluted
quietly, wheeled out.


  ***


   The office in Donovan House was much the same, missing
only the few keepsakes Nathaniel Stoddard had allowed himself;
even the Parrish landscapes were still on the wall. Something
indefinable was different, perhaps the smell of pipe tobacco,
perhaps… I'm imagining things, Frederick Lefarge thought, as
be saluted the new incumbent.

   Anton Donatei was holding down Stoddard's desk now.
Lefarge had worked with him often over the years; less so since
the New America project got well underway and he was seldom
on Earth. About his own age, thin and dark and precise, with a
mustache that looked as if it had been drawn on. Competent
record in the field, even better once he was back at headquarters.
But a by-the-book man, a through-channels operator. The other
man in the room was a stranger, a civilian in a blue-trimmed
gray suit and nattey silver-buckled shoes; the curl-brimmed hat
on the stand by the door had a snakeskin band and one peacock
feather. A whiff of expensive cologne; just the overall ensemble
that a moderately prosperous man-about-town was wearing this
season.

   "Anton," Lefarge nodded. He continued the gesture to the
civilian, raised an eyebrow. His superior caught the unspoken
question: Who's the suit?

  "Brigadier, this is Operative Edward Forsymmes, Alliance
Central Intelligence."

   Fucking joy. He is a suit. Still, this was no time to let the
rivalry with the newer central-government agency interfere with
business. San Francisco was capital of the Alliance, and the
Alliance was sovereign. The OSS had been founded as an agency
of the old American government; it was only natural that the
Grand Senate wanted an intelligence source of its own. And the
suits still couldn't find their own arses with both hands on a
dark night.

   Lefarge extended his; the ACI agent rose and shook with a
polished smile. There was strength in the grip; the man had a
smooth, even tan, and no spare weight that the American could
see; thinning blond hair combed over the bald spot, gray eyes.

   "Jolly good to meet you," he said pleasantly. British? Lefarge
asked himself. No. Australasian; South Island, at a guess.
Possibly Tasmanian. A quarter of the British Isles had moved to
the Australasian Federation over the past century, and the
accents had not diverged all that much, especially in the Outer
Islands. "Shall we proceed?"

   The ACI man sat and clicked open his attach case, pulling out
a folder. It had an indigo border, Most Secret. An OSS
code-group for title; the New America designation. Lefarge shot
an unbelieving glance at his commanding officer.

  Donatei shrugged, with a very Italian gesture. "The
Chairman's Office thought the Agency should be involved," he
said in a neutral tone.

    Christ, Lefarge thought with well-hidden disgust. Not enough
that San Francisco was getting involved, but the Agency and the
Chairman's office. The Chairman was an armchair bomb-them-
all , and the Agency were a band of would-be Machiavellis, and
the two never agreed on anything— except to distrust the OSS.

  "Well," he said. "What's the latest on the hijacking incident?"

  Donatei waved a hand to the civilian.

   "Really, quite unfortunate," the ACI man said. "Your boffins
did say that this would be a controllable weapon, did they not?"

   Lefarge flicked a cigarette out of his uniform jacket and
glanced a question at Donatei. "Sir?"

  "Go ahead, Brigadier."

    "It's largely controllable," Lefarge explained patiently,
thumbing his lighter. "Christ, though, look at what it has to
penetrate! We're trying to paralyze the whole Snake defensive
system, not just one installation, you know. That means we have
to get into the compinstruction sets when they're embedded in
the cores of central-brain units; then it has to jump the
binary-analogue barrier repeatedly to spread to the other
manufacturing centers where they burn-in cores. Talking sets
here, not just data. Plus the continual checks they run against
just this sort of thing; they're not stupid." He drew on the
tobacco, snorted smoke from his nostrils. "One replication went
a little off, and responded to a specific-applications attack
command instead of the general-emergency one. If we could get
more original copies into fabrication plants… What've we got on
reaction?"

   The Australasian tapped his finger on the file. "The SD are
running around chopping off heads," he said thoughtfully. "But
rather less than we expected. It seems they had the beginnings of
a tussle over those prisoners of ours they took in the hijacking,
the usual War-Security thing they amuse themselves with… and
then their top politicals stepped in. Closed everything down; shut
off all investigation; had the core from the stingfighter they lost,
and the prisoners, and the bodies, all shipped to Virunga
Biocontrol. We did catch an unfamiliar codegroup; all we could
crack was the outer title. Stone Dogs, whatever that means." He
smiled at the two OSS officers. "You chappies wouldn't be
holding out on us, would you?"

  Lefarge and Donatei exchanged a glance.

   "We've never gotten a handle on it," Donatei admitted. "The
name's cropped up,"—he paused to consult the terminal in the
desk—"five times, first time in 1973. Again in '75, '78, '82. Then
you, which is the first time in nearly a decade. It's about the
most closely-held thing they've got, and all we can say firmly is
that it's tied to Virunga… which might mean something
biological. Or might not."

   "Those damned Luddites!" the ACI man exclaimed. Donatei
and Lefarge nodded in a moment of perfect agreement; the
anti-biotech movement had crippled Alliance research for a
generation. It was understandable, considering the uses to which
the Draka had put the capabilities, but a weakness nonetheless.

   "Still," he went on musingly. "Why is that involved… when we
know that it was our little surprise that caused the incident with
the stingfighter?"

   "Let's put it this way," Lefarge said grimly. "The Stone Dogs,
whatever they are, are as closely held as… the Project. What's the
Project? Our ace in the hole. Now, what's wrong with this
picture?"

   The agent winced slightly. "I say, bad show. Well, not our
affair, what? There's no compromise of the Project; they'll go
over that stingfighter's core, but their standard search models
won't find a thing." He thumbed through the file. "We are
getting some interesting data, from the deep-cover agent with
the Commandant of Aresopolis." He laughed. "A deep-cover
agent between the covers, eh? From the pillow-talk, she must be
fantastic—"
   Lefarge was dimly aware of Donatei wrestling him to a
standstill, of the ACI man scrambling backward snarling, with a
hand inside his jacket.

  "That's my sister you're talking about, you son of a bitch!" he
shouted. Coming back to himself, shuddering, smelling the
sudden reek of his own sweat.

   Inch by inch, they relaxed. "Look, Fred," Donatei said. "He
didn't know, all he saw was a code description, he's got no need
to know, he wouldn't know if you hadn't blown up!"

   "Right," Lefarge said, shaking off the arm and straightening
his jacket. Breathe. In. Out. He pulled a handkerchief out of his
pocket and split the package, wiping his face down with the
scented cloth and sinking back into his chair.

  "I apologize. Brigadier," the ACI agent said.

    "Accepted. You had any experience inside, Operative
Forsymmes?" The other man shook his head. "Then don't make
comments about those who have to operate in the snake farm.
For your information, my sister was missing-in-action in India
in '75. She contacted the OSS again, on her own initiative.
Twenty-four years in there!"

   "I apologize again, Brigadier," the man said patiently. "The
fact remains, the New America Project is not compromised, as
far as we know. Time to saturation remains on-schedule, and
then we will be in an unassailable bargaining position."

   Lefarge smiled with a carnivore's expression. "Certainly we
will. After we've pounded their strategic installations into
glowing rubble and destroyed everything they have off Earth—"
He paused at something sensed between the other two. "There's
been a change of plan?" he said, in an even tone.

   Donatei looked down at his linked fingers. The agent spoke in
the same smooth tone.

  "No, of course not. Your Project will finally give us the top
hand, and well use it, never fear. Not in an all-out surprise
attack, of course. That was '70s strategy. We'll demonstrate it;
with the balls cut off their space defense capacity, they'll have no
choice but effectively to surrender. With guarantees for the
personal safety of their top people, of course."

   "Ah." Lefarge glanced over at the other OSS officer. "General
Donatei, is it just this suit, or are they all fucking insane out
there on the West Coast?" He glanced back at Forsymmes. "Are
you? Completely fucking insane, that is?"

    The agent's tone grew slightly frosty. "Brigadier Lefarge, I'm
going to charitably assume that your personal… background and
losses have made you somewhat unbalanced on this subject. Are
you aware, my dear sir, of what even one hypersonic
surface-skimmer could do to a major city? Even given the most
optimistic possible projections, the Project could only disable
eighty percent of their space-based systems, less on Earth. That's
primarily the defensive systems, at that. The Project's little
photonic bug can't fit into anything smaller than a shipcomp
core, and the enemy use more distributed systems than we do,
which can be decoupled from their core computers. They would
still have some capacity to operate their ships by manual linkage,
and their installations. Furthermore, even if we wait three years,
some of the older backup cores would be uninfected. They are
not, as you pointed out, fools. We will show them they can't win
an exchange, and offer terms."

   Lefarge shook his head in sheer wonderment. "You…
Somebody thinks the Snakes are going to be deterred by
casualties? You look old enough to remember the fall of India,
even if you haven't read any history. Perhaps you recall them
shooting the top fifteen thousand officials of the Indian
Republic's government in batches, on the steps of the goddamn
Archonal Palace, and broadcasting it worldwide? How many
millions more were slaughtered or chemically brain-scrubbed?"

  "There's no need to spout propaganda at me, Lefarge!"
Forsymmes snapped.

   "Oh. Then maybe you've tuned in to their public execution
channel? Impalements in living color; I'm told the
breaking-on-the-wheel is,—"
   The agent sighed with elaborate patience. "Brigadier, I'm fully
aware of the enemy's contempt for other people's lives. We are
talking about putting their own lives at risk."

   "And maybe you think it's a myth their troops commit suicide
rather than surrender? What about Fenris?"

   "The so-called doomsday bomb? Nobody's ever been able to
prove that it's active; self-evidently a bluff."

   Donatei intervened. "In any case, we're talking in a vacuum,
here," he said mildly. "None of us are exactly at policy-making
level, are we?"

   "No, that's true," Lefarge said calmly. The discussion became
technical.



  "Lefarge, do you really want to be taken off the Project?"
Donatei asked, turning on his subordinate as the door closed
behind Forsymmes.

  "No, sir, I do not," Lefarge answered.

    The black eyes probed him. "If you don't, I'd better not see
another performance like that," the general warned. "Stoddard's
protege could get away with things, because Stoddard had been
here longer than God and knew where all the skeletons were
buried. They were terrified of him, from the chairman and the
president on down… at least the chairman was; I don't know if
Hiero's scared of anything. Herself, probably, like all the rest of
us. But—and this is the important but—her attitude to the
constitutional relations between the presidency and the Alliance
is correct to a fault. Hell, Fred, the president knows Allsworthy's
a horse's ass as well as you or I do. But he's the bossman."

  "We're neither of us a General Stoddard," Lefarge agreed.
"Does that mean we have to swallow this horseshit?"

  Donatei shrugged and lit a thin black cheroot in an ivory
holder. "As far as it goes. You know the ACI, they like to use
scalpels where a sledgehammer's needed."

   "Christ, Anton, that so-called strategy of theirs could lose us a
dozen cities—if we're lucky. Fenris is as real as this table." He
rapped his knuckles on the wood.

   "You know that. I know that. The people in San Fran, they
don't believe it because it's… 'fucking insane,' to their way of
thinking."

   "Not to a Snake… Yeah, Anton I know."— He shook his head.
"Of course, we could be in a use-it-or-lose-it situation before
that. If the cover goes, or they spring their surprise on us,
whatever it is. What do you think our Great Leaders will do
then?"

   "If the Project's cover's blown? Back off, if it's before
saturation point. Dither a little and then use it, after that. If the
Snakes attack first, everything gets used."

   "I wish Stoddard were here. You going to the funeral?"

   "Yes." Donatei drew on the cheroot, his hollowed cheeks
giving a skull cast to the thin face. "I never thought he'd die, you
know?" There was compassion in his voice as he continued.
Everyone had known Lefarge and the old man were close: "I'm
glad you made it back before the end; it was so sudden… What
did you talk about?"

   "Nothing. Personal things." And Nelson's eyepatch, Lefarge
thought with chill satisfaction, as the other man nodded
agreement. A soldier's duty was obedience, but there were other
duties. I'm glad Uncle Nate reminded me of that, he thought. It
would have been a lonely burden to bear alone.

   "And, Fred, remember you've gotten out of touch with the
institutional balance while you had your head up there in the
clouds all these years. Stoddard kept the wolves off your back
while you pushed the Project through." He rose and crossed to
the sideboard. "Scotch?" Lefarge accepted the glass. "Here's to
him." They clinked glasses. "You're going to have to walk a little
smaller, for safety's sake. The view's great, but there are
disadvantages to having your head in the clouds, you know."

   It's still better than having it rammed up your ass, Lefarge
reflected, as he raised the glass in bland acknowledgment.

   "Well all do our jobs," he said. Whether the suits want me to
or not.



DRAKA FORCES BASE ARESOPOLIS
MARE SERENITATIS LUNA
1100 HOURS
MARCH 26, 1998


    There were dozens of launch-sites around Aresopolis, and
swift linear-induction subtunnels to all of them. Yolande chose to
exercise a Commandant's privilege and use the central dome exit
when possible, and to travel aboveground. They left from another
of those privileges, a small private villa on the lip of one of the
natural terraces that rimmed the crater. It was daywatch, and
the sky was set to a bright blue-green that dimmed everything
but a ghost-outline of the three-quarter Earth, and the
unwinking fire of the sun. The house gleamed white and blue and
its roofs russet-red; the walled hectare of garden smelled of
damp earth and plants from the nightwatch rain.

   The staff were lined up before the round doorway; they bowed
with hands before eyes as she drew on her gloves, this being a
formal occasion.

   "Good-bye," she said. "Yo've served well, and while I'm gone,
y'all can stay here in the villa servant's quarters an' grounds."
They brightened; it was a rare treat, they were usually only here
when the Mistress was in residence.

   "Maintenance work only, an' Jolene's authorized to draw
supplies fo' an entertainment, yo'selves and a guest each." Cheers
at that.

  She nodded at Jolene. "Keep 'em in order, hey?"
  "Yo' command, Mistis," Jolene said, bending to kiss the
Draka's hand.

   Yolande put the palm under her chin and raised her to meet
her lips. "Be seein' yo'."



   Marya sank back on the cushioned seat beside Tina and
watched the Draka board the airsled. Yolande ignored the steps,
vaulting over the side in a complete feet-uppermost turn that
looked slow-motion in the . 16 C, landing neatly in the bucket
seat; she turned and smiled broadly at Marya, with a wink.

   The serf smiled back. It's like method acting, she told herself
in some cold inner pocket of her mind. You had to construct a
part of you that actually was what you portrayed; only here, you
had to write the role as you went along. Impossible to do
consciously—there was no way to concentrate long or hard
enough; eventually you would slip up fatally. More a matter of
creating and living in a persona. She suspected most born-serfs
did the same from infancy, less consciously; it was impossible to
tell how many retained anything beneath the role, how many
became it.

   Careful, she dosen't expect you to fawn, Marya reminded
herself. Yolande turned to the controls and stretched, cracking
her fingers together over her head before dropping them to the
sidestick. Just keep her happy and relaxed, and she'll keep
talking. Why not? You're only a serf.

   Knowing people was useful in ordinary life, the margin of
survival for a spy, life itself to a serf. Yourself most of all. She
isn't cruel by their standards, Marya told herself. Nor stupid. As
for last night… The shame was less than she had expected;
decades spent in the Domination could not help but rub off on
your attitudes. It wasn't rape. You asked her. And while it was
not something she would have otherwise chosen to do… Face it,
it was physically pleasant. Yolande had been gentle, and took
pleasure in giving pleasure as much as in receiving it—from what
she knew, not something a serf could count on. The irritating
part had been remembering always-to let the other take the
lead. Oh well, call it waltzing.

   No, not unpleasant, she thought, letting her tired body relax
into the cushions. Apart from the lack of sleep, she felt fine; the
body had its own logic. Expecting it, she could handle the
irrational rush of friendliness. That was a common pattern as
well; hopefully, her owner would see no reason to suppress it.
Yolande liked to be liked, even by her chattel, when possible.

  She's not evil, Marya thought with analytical dispassion.
Neither was an apple full of cyanide.

   It was simply too dangerous to be allowed to exist.



   Yolande took the airsled straight up from the courtyard. It
was basically a shallow dish of aluminum alloy built around a
superconductor storage ring, with seats and windshields and
small noiseless fans. Lift and drive were from pivoting vents on
the rim, a dozen of them making the little craft superbly
responsive. She glanced up into the rearview mirror.

   Not the only thing that's superbly responsive, she thought
happily. Freya, but I needed my clock cleaned. That was
different, not as bland as most serfs. More push-back.

   A sensor went ping at three hundred meters: echosounder, of
course. Air pressure here was uniform right up until you ran into
the sky. The aircraft slid forward at sixty kph, beneath a light
scattering of fleecy pancake-shaped clouds.

   There were times when you had to step back from a problem,
turn your mind to something else, before you could see it plainly.
She had climbed the command-chain faster than anyone before
her; native ability, connections, luck, and sustained drive. That
because she had seen that the deadlock on Earth would squeeze
resources into space, where they could at least accomplish
something. For more than a decade, ever since Telmark IV, the
knowledge that there could be nothing better here than a
stalemate at a higher level of violence had eaten at her. Her mind
prompted a list.
   Item: Uncle Eric and the others aren't stupid. They must
realize that as well as I.

   Item: Only something on the order of technological surprise
could break the stalemate. And if it went on long enough, it
would be the Alliance that came up with the winning card. She
grinned at the thought, not an expression of pleasure, but the
outward sign of a hunter's excitement So the Final War had to
come before then—but it would be a disaster, as things stood.
Seemed to stand.

  Item: The Supreme Command knew that, too.

   Item: Commandant of Aresopolis was high enough up the
command structure to be on the verge of the circles that made
policy, political decisions. High enough that she would get hints
of purpose, not just code-verified orders.

   So. Perhaps the incident with the Yankee prisoners was
something significant. Perhaps not; there were a thousand
clandestine programs going on, everything from espionage to
cultural disinformation. But perhaps this was different, and they
had promoted her to the level where they had either to bring her
into the picture or shoot her. Nor could her appointment be an
accident.

  I'm competent, she told herself judiciously. More than
competent; but even so, there are dozens of others with
qualifications as good.

   Uncle Eric and his Conservatives knew where she stood;
foursquare with them on domestic policy. She was a planter and
an Ingolfsson and a von Shrakenberg connection, after all, and
besides that she agreed with them. On the other hand, in foreign
policy nobody could doubt she followed the Militant line; nobody
at all.

   Yolande began to hum softly under her breath. This promised
to be interesting, very interesting indeed, when she got some
data to work with. Her mind felt as good as her body, loose and
light and flexible, ready to the hand of her will like a well-made
and practiced tool. Quite true what the alienists said: celibacy
was extremely bad for you, as bad as going without proper diet
or exercise or meditation, and as likely to upset your mental
equilibrium.

   I must do something nice for Marya, she thought as the
crater slid by below.

   This view always heartened her. Most of the Domination
off-Earth was like being inside a building all the time at best, or
more commonly imprisonment on a submarine. Efficient,
necessary, even comely in the way that well-designed machinery
could be, but not beautiful; difficult to love. Space and the
planets were lovely, but they were unhuman, beyond and apart
from humankind and its needs, too big and too remote. Here
were reminders of what she was fighting for.

   There was a river beneath them, meandering in from the rim,
weaving between broad shallow lakes that had been subcraters
once. Reeds fringed the banks, brown green, except for a few
horseshoe shapes of beach. The water was intensely clear,
speckled with lotus and waterlily, and she could see a fish jump
in a long, slow arc that soared like an athlete's leap. Trees grew
along the shores, quick-growing gene-engineered cottonwood,
eucalyptus, and Monterrey pine, with a dense undergrowth of
passionflower and wild rose.

   Beyond was a rolling plain of bright-green neoltikuyu grass,
the plant of choice for first establishment, rolling in long
thigh-high waves beneath the warm dry air. Beneath that,
earthworms, bacteria, fungi, helping grind dead soil into life
with millennial patience.

   Yolande grinned and sideslipped down to ten meters over the
grasslands. A herd of springbok fled, scattering like drops of
mercury on dry ice, their leaps taking them nearly as high as the
belly of the car. Two grass-green cats a meter long raised
implausible ear-tufts and yowled at her with their forepaws
resting on a rabbit the size of a dog. She banked around them,
slammed over a boulder-piled hillock planted in flattopped thorn
trees that exploded with birds.

  "Mistis." She looked back as her hands straightened the
aircraft and put it on an upward path. Tina was looking green
and swallowing hard.

   "Sorry, Tina," she said. Morning sickness had struck the
brooder hard, and she was still easily upset.

   They flew more sedately across tree-studded plain, then a
section still mostly bare whiteish-brown soil—regolith, she
reminded herself. Vehicles and laborers moved over it in clouds
of dust, spraying and seeding. Then over another waterway, a
stretch of forested hills beyond that curved out of sight on either
hand. The area within was more closely set-tied, networked with
maglev roads and scattered with buildings: lodges, inns,
experimental plots, landscaped gardens. Ahead lay the central
mountain.

    Long ago an asteroid had struck here, carving the crater in a
multi-gigatonne fireball; a central spike half as high as the walls
had been left, when the rock cooled again. For three billion years
it had lain so, with only the micrometeorite hail to smooth the
sides; then the Draka engineers had come. The dome they built
required an anchor-point and cross-bracing; the mountain was
bored hollow, and a tube of fiber-reinforced metal sunk home in
it. That rose from the huge machinery spaces below through the
ten-meter thickness of the dome itself, and the long
monofilament cables that ran in from the circumference melded
into a huge ring kilometers overhead. Yolande looked up, tracing
their pathway. Thread-thin in the distance, like streamers of fine
hair floating in a breeze; swelling, until they bulked like the
chariot-spokes of a god.

    The slopes below had been carved as well, into stairs and
curving roadways, platforms and bases for the buildings, or left
rugged for the plantings and waterfalls that splashed it with
swathes of crimson and green and slow-moving silverblue. The
buildings were traceries of stone and vitryl and metal, like an
attenuated dream of Olympus, slender fluted columns and bright
domes. Yolande brought the airsled in towards the main landing
field, a construct that jutted out in a hectare of flange from a
cliffside. She sighed at the sight of the reception waiting; some
ceremony was inevitable. I am Commandant, after all, she
thought reluctantly, and let the sled sink until it touched the
gold-leaf tiles.

   She touched down. Waiting Auxiliaries pushed up two sets of
stairs, one for her and another for the servants. She stepped onto
the red carpet of the first, and a band struck up "Follow Me," the
anthem of the Directorate of War. A cohort in dress blacks
snapped to attention: human troops, Citizen Force. Her own
Guard Hierarchy. Bayoneted rifles flashed, drums rolled, feet
crashed to the tiles in unison. Not easy to do without kicking
yourself into the air, here, she thought ironically as she saluted
in turn, right fist snapped to left breast.

  "Service to the State!" she called.

  "Glory to the Race"

   The Section heads were waiting, with their aides and
assistants. Aresopolis was still organized like a War Directorate
hostile-territory base, although that was growing a little
obsolete. Commandant, herself. Vice Commandant and
Operations Chief, Alman Witter. Weapons, Power, Lifesystems,
Construction, Civil Administration. The Security commander, in
headhunter green—a surprisingly reasonable sort, she had found,
with a weakness for terrible puns. The Aerospace Command
chief. The civil administrators. In four years she had come to
know them all quite well; twelve-hour office days were something
they all had in common. Except during emergencies, when it was
rather more.

   There's irony for you, she thought. Yolande Ingolfsson was
niece to the Archon, an Arch-Strategos, and scion of two of the
oldest Landholder families in the Domination. Wealthy in her
own right even by Landholder standards, owner of several dozen
human beings directly, and of thousands if you counted interests
in Combine shares and other enterprises. And she actually had
less leisure than a State-chattel serf clerk toiling away in one of
the anonymous offices below her feet, and not much more in the
way of personal freedom. Well, a little more. I have all sorts of
choices. Who I go to bed with, and what clothes I wear. She
looked down at her uniform. Sometimes.
   "For this we conquered the world," she muttered under her
breath, then looked up. The Earth was in well, it would get its
invariant place on the horizon, and she could make out the
shield-shape of North America. Not all the world; it will be
better once we have. Her teeth barred for a moment, and then
she forced relaxation. Ah,well it would get boring with nothing
more to do than swim, hunt, and make love.

   "Strategos Witter," she said formally to her second in
command. "Citizens," to the others, "I expect to be back in about
a week."

   There was the usual exchange of civilities, but only Witter
stayed with her as the metal rectangle rose a handspan and
floated off into the three-story arch in the cliff; there was a mesh
of superconductor laid below the tiles.

   "Thomas was notably uncommunicative about the patrol
incident," he said.

   The skid was moving through a long corridor cleared for her
use into a great circular ball, overlooked by ramps and walkways.
The hall stretched out of sight in either direction, encircling the
launch stations; crowds thronged it, away from the
Orpo-cordoned path to her gate. Arches were traced on the walls,
covered in brilliant mosaics; the sights of the solar system,
mostly. Jupiter banded in orange and white, or the rings of
Saturn against the impossible sky-stalk rising out of the hazy
atmosphere of Titan. A few landscapes from Earth. And endlessly
repeated above, the Drakon with its wings spread over all. She
heard murmurs, foot-slither: a troop of new-landed ghouloons
following their officer, peering about and hooting softly in
amazement. One forgot himself and bounced two meters in the
air, slapping at his chest and shoulders for emphasis as be spoke.

   "Ooooo," he burbled. "Big big. Big."

   "Merarch Irwine had his orders," she said.

   "Meaning, shut up?" the other Draka replied.

   "Not quite. But all is not as it appears, Alman. I'm goin' down
to find out. I may find out something; I may not. In any case—"

   "There are Things We Were Not Meant To Know!" he replied.
The skid stopped before a final door. "Exactly," she said,
stepping off the platform as it sank to the floor. "See yo' next
Thursday."

  "Service to the State."

  "Glory to the Race." She turned to the doorguards. "Scan."

   One of them touched a control; something blinked at her eyes,
like a light flashing too quickly to be noticed.

   "Arch-Strategos?" the tetrarch said. "Ah, ma'am. Yo' serf, the
tall one." Yolande turned; he was indicating Marya. "She's
cuffed, but yo' don't have the controller-activator on yo'."

   "Thank yo', Tetrarch, but I think I'm safe from my housegirls,"
she said dryly, tapping her fingers on her belt. He flushed and
stepped back with a salute.

  "Yes, ma'am," he said. "Straight through, Arch-Strategos

  ."

   "Tell yo' the truth, I'd forgotten the bloody thing," Yolande
said, as they seated themselves.

   "I… never have, Mistis," Marya said, touching the cuff with
the fingers of the other hand.

   The capsule was the standard passenger form, a steel-alloy
tube five decks high. There was an axial passageway with a lift
platform, a control bubble at the bow and a thrust nozzle and
reaction-mass tank at the other. There were the usual facilities,
and a small galley. Nothing elaborate—cargo versions didn't even
have a live pilot—but quick and comfortable. The usual load was
several hundred passengers, although this flight would be hers
alone; a seven-hour flight, under 1 G.

  She sighed and looked around the lounge, empty, save for
herself and Marya; Tina had gone to lie down in water-cushioned
comfort. This was a wedge-shaped section of the topmost
passenger deck, set with chairs and loungers and tables. A long
section of the wall was crystal-sandwich screen. Yolande touched
a control, and the wall disappeared. Smooth metal showed a
half-meter away. Clanking sounds, and it began to move;
magnetic fields were gripping the capsule. They slid sideways
with ponderous delicacy, then into a vertical shaft. A slight
feeling of acceleration, like an elevator. That lasted five minutes,
past more blank metal; they were rising through one of the many
passages that honeycombed the central lift-shaft.

   "Ah." They were out, on the hectare-broad pentagonal metal
cap; flat and empty now, no other launches just now. The dome
stretched around them, and dimly through it she could see the
landscape below. From above and close-by the structure of the
dome was more apparent, the layers of gold foil and conductor
sheathing.

  "Stand by for boost, please."

   She swung the lounger to near-horizontal. Not that the
acceleration would be anything to note. Below her lasers would
be building to excitation phase, mirrors aligning. A rumble, as
the pumps began pushing liquid oxygen into the nozzle. Whump.
Thrust, pushing her back into the cushions, building to
Earth-normal. She sighed again, glanced over at Marya.

   "Marya," she said. The other woman looked up. "What am I to
do with yo'?"

  "What you will, Mistis."

   Yolande laughed with soft bitterness. "What I will? Now,
there's a joke." She brooded, watching the Lunar landscape grow
and shrink behind the windowscreen, the ancient pale rock and
dust, the roads and installations her people had built. "Duty… I
was raised to do what is right; duty to the State, to the Race, to
my family and my friends and to my servants. For the State and
the Race, I've helped preside over a useless non-war that shows
no signs of endin' except in an even mo' useless real war that will
destroy civilization, if not humanity. My best friend I failed… not
least, by failure to let go of grief. My family?"

   She sighed and stretched. "Well, my children have turned out
well. And I've been a good owner to my serfs, with one exception.
Yo', of course. It was wrong to torture yo', hurt yo' beyond what
was necessary to compel obedience. Actin' like a weasel, to
assuage my own hurt."

  "Are…" Marya hesitated. "Are you apologizing to me, Mistis?"
There was an overtone of shock in her voice.

   Yolande opened one eye and grinned. "It's rare but not
unknown," she said. More seriously: "Marya, I know you've never
accepted the Yoke, not in yo' heart. But yo' behavior's been
impeccable for more than twenty years, which means my
obligation is to treat yo' as a good serf. I… seriously violated that,
back when." Her smile turned rueful. "I'd consider letting yo' go,
were it practical. Or just giving yo' a cottage on the Island and
letting yo' live out y' years." She owned one of the Seychelles
islands outright, but seldom visited it.

   "Mistis? May I speak frankly?" Yolande nodded, and the serf
continued. "You don't feel in the least, ah, disturbed about
enslaving me, but using this,"—she raised the controller
cuff—"makes you feel, mmm, guilty?"

   Yolande linked her hands behind her neck. "Slightly ashamed,
not guilty; such a bourgeois emotion, guilt." She frowned. "Not
about—yes, enslavin' is the correct term, I suppose—no. Yo' not
of the Race; I am. My destiny to rule, yours to obey and serve.
Obedience and submission: protection and guidance. Perfectly
proper."

   The Draka studied the serfs face, which had taken on the
careful blankness of suppressed expression. "One reason besides
Gwen I've kept yo around, not off somewheres clerkin' or
something. Yo' so different. It's refreshin', keeps me on my toes
mentally, like doin' unarmed practice against different
opponents. Here." She snapped open a case on the table beside
her, brought out two pair of reader goggles. "I'm promotin' yo' to
Literate V-a."
   That gave unlimited access to the datastores. Except for
information under War or Security lock, of course, and Citizen
personal files; it was the classification for top-level civilian-sector
serfs. Very rare for someone not born in the Domination.
Yolande tossed the other pair to Marya and put on her own; they
had laser and micromirror sets in the earpieces, so that you saw
the presentation on an adjustable "screen" before your eyes.

  She sighed again. One more time at the data, and maybe I
can make sense of them.




            CHAPTER NINETEEN

   Planet AC-IV: Codename Samothrace

    Samothrace is terrestroid to a high degree. Diameter is .97
Standard, and density indicates a metallic core with a shell of
silicates, as with Earth. Atmospheric analysis shows an
oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, with somewhat higher
concentrations of the noble gases and slightly less water vapor;
there is a small icecap in the north polar region, although none
in the south. Continental outlines are compatible with a
plate-tectonic model; land area is 40% of total rather higher
than Earth, but there is no large mass comparable to
Africa/Eurasia at present. Surface area is markedly concentrated
in the north Temperate Zone. There are twin satellites, each of
roughly .5 the size of Luna; these have been provisionally named
"Thoreau" and "Emerson." Current planetographic theory
indicates that the observed data can only be accounted for by a
developed biosphere based on sea- and land-growing
photosynthetic plants, presumably with analogs to the animal
phyla as well. There is, however, no indication of intelligent life:
no industrial-era changes in the atmospheric composition, no
observable engineering works or large-city lights, and certainly
no space travel or even modulated emissions in the
electromagnetic communications wavelengths. However, the
Committee wishes to point out that even space-based VLT 1 and
electromagnetic scanners have their limitations, and an
investigation of Earth from similar distances would have
revealed no indications of intelligent life as recently as 1800.

   Furthermore, while the oxygen-rich atmosphere indicates
roughly similar patterns of biological development very wide
differences in detail are to be anticipated.

   Leaving aside the outer planets and what orbital perturbation
indicates is a substantial population of asteroids, there are four
other large rocky masses. The three inner ones appear to be
roughly comparable to Mercury: subterres-trial in size, and
airless. Beyond Samothrace, at 1.7 AD, is another planet of
approximately .57 Standard diameters, showing signs of a
predominantly carbon dioxide-inert gas atmosphere at a surface
pressure equivalent to the 5,000-meter level on Earth; there are
also indications of liquid water and water vapor. Mars is the
obvious parallel in the solar system, but this planet—preliminary
name "Jefferson"—is nearly twice the size and rather closer to
the primary; conditions more closely resemble the current
theory's picture of Mars several billion years ago. Terraforming
operations would be much simpler than the ones projected for
Mars, however.

   The asteroidal bodies…
       From: The Alpha Centauri System Fifth Study Committee
                                                     Summary
                          Recruit Orientation and Introduction
                                New America Project Level III
                                                   Most Secret
                                                  July 17, 1997



CENTRAL OFFICE, ARCHONAL PALACE
ARCHONA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
MARCH 27, 1998
1700 HOURS


   "Sweet—Mother—Freya," Yolande said, looking wide-eyed at
her uncle. Rank and station, the slight residual awe this office
evoked, all vanished. "Shitfire!"

  Footnote #1 Very Large Telescopes, including the 10-kilometer
Farside instruments.

   "Both appropriate," he said, rising stiffly and walking to the
sideboard. "So is a drink… Arch-Strategos."

   For a moment even the news she had just heard could not
block a stab of concern. He looks so much older. Nearly eighty,
but with modern medicine that was only late middle age. Still
straight, but he moved with care, and the lines were graven
deeper into the starved-eagle face, below the thick white hair. It
was a killing job, this; his pallor was highlighted by the dark
indigo of his jacket and the black lace of his cravat. Then the
immensity of what she had heard swept back, and she felt her
stomach swoop again. My teeth want to chatter.

   She accepted the glass and knocked half of it back; eau-de-vie.
The warmth spread in her belly, and she closed her eyes to let the
information sink in.

  "Uncle, this is the best news I've had since… Loki, I don't
know."

  "Is it?" He sank down behind the desk. "Is it really?"

   Yolande looked up, met the cold gray eyes, and refused to be
daunted. "Uncle Eric—Excellence—I've spent the past decade
dead-certain convinced that we were headin' fo' the Final War
without a prayer of comin' out on top. Yo' just gave me hope fo'
myself, not so important. For my children and the Race, rather
more so!"

   He nodded and rested his face in his hands for a moment
before raising his drink.

  "Now yo' know, daughter of my sister, what only a dozen other
people outside Virunga Biocontrol know—and we've kept the
ones who worked on the project locked up tighter than a
headhunter's heart." For an instant his voice went flat-soft. "Yo'
realize, even the suspicion that yo' might reveal this would mean
a pill?"

  Yolande one hand in a gesture of acceptance. A bullet in the
back of the head was an occupational risk, at the highest levels of
command and power. "And when is acceptable-saturation?" she
continued.

   "Well…" Uncle Eric seemed oddly reluctant. "This year,
accordin' to projections. No way to be absolutely sure, so they
put a large margin of error in. Didn't want a wholesale infection;
that would increase the chance of detection too much. We coded
a stop; it replicates a certain number of times and then goes
noninfectious. Then we used unknowin' vectors for the various
targets: their command an' control echelons, Space Force and so
forth. There may be some spillover to the bulk of their military,
even civilians, but not much. Yo' little brush beyond Luna gave
us a random sample that fitted right in with our best-case
hypothesis."

  "Trigger?" she said.

  "Coded microwave; resonates, activates it. Irregular period
beyond that, but once it starts, stress accelerates the process."

  "No way of shieldin'?"

   "Not unless yo' know. Heavy tranquilizers an' psychotropics
can mitigate the effects, until the thing cycles itself out; takes
about four, five days iff'n the subject is restrained that way. But
even so, yo' not worth much in that condition. Questionin' the
test subject indicates it's like… a combination of Berserkergang
and paranoid schizophrenia, with some mighty nasty
hallucinations thrown in. Works best on the highly intelligent."

   Yolande sipped again at the fiery liquid, imagining the
consequences. In the crowded workstations of a battle platform,
in the tight-knit choreography of a warship's control center. A
hard grin fought its way toward her face, was pressed back.

  "Effectiveness?" she asked.
   "Depends… they're more automated than we are, but they still
haven't cut humans out of their action loops, not at the initiation
stage. Given surprise, an' an all-out attack along with it, the
projections indicate we could take out their Earth-orbit capacity
to about ninety percent, and still come through with enough of
our own to block what little of their offensive strength survived.
We've built redundant, fo' exactly that purpose."

   "An," Yolande exclaimed. "The Militants, they must know,
too! That's why they're confident enough to talk openly about
startin' the Final War."

   "Their top triumvirate. Gayner was in on it from the
beginnin'. The rest, no, of course not. They're just the
bloodthirsty nihilistic loons they come across as."

   "Shitfire," Yolande whispered again. The alcohol seemed to
slide down her throat without effect. "Gayner nearly lost it right
there on the viewer when yo' got the reelection vote, back in '97,"
she said.

   Eric smiled thinly. "One of my mo' pleasant memories. She
was wild to be in this chair when we reached go-level." A harsh
laughter. "What immortality, fo' the Archon who led the Race to
victory in the Final War? Someone in that position could do
anythin', get any program put through. Trouble would be to keep
the Citizenry from electin' him—or her—to godhood."

  "When do we attack?" Yolande said.

   "Yo', too," the Archon said with resigned bitterness. "I've been
hearin' that question with increasin' frequency fo' six months
now. Accompanied by thinly veiled threats, fromGayner and her
cutthroats."

  She looked at him bewildered for a moment, then felt her eyes
narrow. "Why not, fo' Wotan's sake?" she said. "Every moment
we hesitate longer than we have to is deadly-dangerous. Use it or
we risk losin' it."

  Eric gave a jerk of his chin. "Oh, yes. They behind in Biotech,
but makin' slow progress… and computer analysis is basic to
that, too. The rate of increase in computer technology is
slowin'—the experts say it's pushin' the theoretical limits with
known architectures—but it hasn't stopped. Sooner or later,
they'll get a clue; if nothin' else, from the strategic deployment
choices we've been makin'. On the other hand…" He looked up at
her and tapped his fingers on the desk. "This incident of yourn, it
wasn't the bioanalysis of the prisoners that got yo' interested
initially, was it?"

   "No. Somethin destroyed that stingfighter. Some sort of
interference with they infosystems."

   "Our nightmare. And they've been matchin' our deployments.
Increasin' the proportion of orbit-to-ground weapons. Exactly
the sort of thing yo'd put in, if yo' expected to be in a position to
hammer Earth from space with impunity."

   "Wait," Yolande said with alarm. "They could just be matchin'
us tit fo' tat. Their buildup didn't start until well after our
current six-year plan."

   "But it points to somethin they are doin' to us. And…" he
hesitated. "I saw the results of nuclear weapons, in Europe, back
at the end of the last war. Stoppin' almost everythin' isn't the
same as stoppin' everythin'." He looked out through the wall, at
the lights of the city winking on below, and continued very softly.
"Not to mention how many of them we'd have to kill. Not to
mention…" He looked up.

   "Arch-Strategos, the final decision in these matters is mine;
the responsibility comes with the office. We will move when I
authorize."

  Yolande rose and set the peaked cap on her head.
"Understood, Excellence," she said, saluting. Then: "I'm takin' a
week's leave, Uncle Eric. That all right?"

   "Oh, yes. We won't begin the war without you, niece," he said.
"Besides, it'll keep the enemy from wonderin' what yo' doin' back
on Earth."

   Yolande grinned at the sarcasm; it was just like Uncle Eric. A
little too squeamish, she thought. But basically a good man.

  "Service to the State," she said.

  "Glory to the Race," he replied.

   She left, and he turned down the lights, watching the
multicolored glow of Archona below. Minutes stretched, and he
sat motionless. "Glory indeed," he said. His mouth twisted.
"Glory."


SPIN HABITAT SEVEN
NEW AMERICA PROJECT
CENTRAL BELT, ALLIANCE INTERDICTED ZONE
BETWEEN THE ORBITS OF MARS AND JUPITER
MARCH 31, 1998


  "First-rate dinner," Manuel Obregon said.

   Cindy Lefarge nodded thanks and finished loading the dishes
into the washer. She touched a control and the cylindrical
hopper sank into the counter-top. A quiet hum sounded through
the serving window. The Lefarge living-dining area was
open-plan in the manner that had become fashionable in the
'70s, when the price of live-in help rose beyond the budgets of
the upper middle class. It always was, here in the Belt, she
thought with slight cynicism. Amazing how fast domestic
gadgets got invented when it was really necessary. The thought
was a welcome distraction from what would be said tonight. She
picked up the tray with the coffee and carried it around to set on
the table.

   There were six others dining at Brigadier Lefarge's house that
night, four men and two women. Department heads, or in two
cases shockingly not, a few steps further down the chain of
command. They shifted uneasily, buying a few more minutes
passing sugar and cream around until everyone was settled;
these were people of authority, but not military, not
conspirators. Scientists for the most part, or scientific
administrators at least, engineers, used to hard-material
problems and juggling workers and resources. This smelled
political, and not office politics either.

    "All right," Fred said abruptly. Cindy could feel a harshness
behind the tone, the same force that had been hag-riding him
since his return from Earth. There were new lines graven in the
heavy-boned face, down from nose to mouth. "First, let me say
you're all here because I trust you. Your intentions, and your
ability to keep your mouths shut. We've all worked together for…
at least a decade now. You've all shown that you are willing to
cut yourselves off from the outside world to work on the Project
in its various phases." He paused, looked down at his hands for a
moment. "I think most of you who haven't been told have
guessed; the New America is not the only purpose of this
installation."

   Ali Harahap nodded. "Indeed so," he said in his singsong
Sumatran accent, lighting a cigarette that smelled sharply of
cloves. "But what is not said, cannot be betrayed." There were
more nods around the table.

    "Good man." Fred nodded, satisfied. "That was the right
attitude. It isn't anymore. Before I go on, I want to make clear
that what I'm about to say is unauthorized. If this ever gets out, I
could be shot." A slight intake of breath among the others. "And
all of you could be ruined, your careers ended. Does anyone want
to leave?"

   Colin McKenzie laughed shakily and wiped at the sweat on his
high forehead; he was Quebec-Scots, a heavy-construction man.
"Wouldn't do any good, would it, unless we finked? And you're
the OSS rep here, Fred."

   The security chief waited. When a minute had gone by, he
turned to de Ribeiro. "Fill them in, professor."

   "We all know we have been building a starship," he began,
stroking his goatee, "with surprising success—Although the only
way to test it is to undertake the voyage. Scarcely a low-risk
method! Many of you have suspected that the reason for this is
as a last-ditch guarantee against defeat, to preserve something if
the Alliance falls."
   Patricia Hayato nodded. "We've all gotten used to secret
projects," she said. "Since the War, every five years another
group of scientists drops out of sight. The Los Alamos Project
pattern. Mistaken, in my opinion. It sacrifices long-term to
short-term; more suitable for wartime than the Protracted
Struggle."

   De Ribeiro inclined his head graciously. "What is the best
disguise? A disguise that is no disguise at all. Here we hid the
New America within a series of concentric shells of secret
projects, each one genuine. Within the New America, the
ultimate secret. A weapon."

  Hayato threw up her hands. "Oh, no, not some superbomb!"
Everyone else winced slightly; the rain of fission weapons that
had brought down the Japanese Empire towards the end of the
Eurasian War was still a sensitive subject. "Just what we need,
more firepower. What have you discovered, a way to make the
Sun go nova?"

    Lefarge rapped sharply on the table. "Ladies, gentlemen, we've
all been cooped up with each other so long our arguments have
gotten repetitive. Let the professor speak, please."

   The Brazilian examined his fingertips. "We've developed a
weapon that is no weapon—which should appeal to you, my dear
colleague." Hayato flushed; she took neozen more seriously than
the founders of that remarkably playful philosophy might have
wished. "You were quite right; bigger and better means of
destruction have reached a point of self-defeating futility. But
consider what controls those weapons."

   "Dataplague," Henry Wasser said. He was head of the
antimatter drive systems, and worked most closely with the
Infosystems Division de Ribeiro directed. "I always did think you
had too much facility for what we needed."

   De Ribeiro beamed; he had always had something of the
teacher about him, and enjoyed a sharp student. "Exactly." A sip
of coffee. "To be more precise, contamination of the embedded
compinstruction sets of mainbrain computers, the cores." The
white-haired Brazilian sighed. "Their complexity has reached a
point barely comprehensible even to us, and the Domination's
people are somewhat behind." He brooded for a moment. "The
paranoia both sides labor under has been a terrible handicap.
Both in designing our little infovirus, and in spreading it. The
absolute barrier between data-storage and compinstruction…"
Another silence. "Still, perhaps our errors in design have spared
us certain temptations, certain risks. Often I feel that computers
might have been as much a snare, a means of subverting our
basic humanity, as the Draka biocontrol. As it is, we have
reached a limit and will probably go no further—" Lefarge
rapped on the table again, and he started.

   "Si. In any case, it was unleashed perhaps a year ago. It
spreads slowly, from one manufacturing center to another, as
improved instruction-sets are handed out. In the event of war—"
he grinned—"The Draka will find their machines… rebellious."

   "And when enough are infected, the Alliance would move.
That was the original plan." Lefarge looked around the table.
"We're cut off here. Not from the latest fashions or slang; we get
those coming in. But from the movement of thought, opinion,
the climate of feeling. They've relaxed, down there, this past
decade. They've started to think there might be some alternative
to kill-or-be-killed. Fewer and fewer clashes, no big incidents.
The Draka have been cutting back on their ground forces; these
so-called 'reforms'…"

    His fist thumped the boards. "They know enough to see that
tanks aren't going to win them any more wars. And a
better-treated slave is still a slave… Hell, I don't have to tell you
all this. The crux of it is, they've changed the plans, there in San
Fran. They're thinking in terms of an ultimatum; demonstrating
our capacity, then demanding that the Draka back down, accept
disarmament as a prelude to,"—his mouth twisted—"gradual
reform."

   Their eyes turned to Hayato. The lifesystems specialist fiddled
with her cup. "No," she said. "It wouldn't work." Meeting their
regard: "Yes, I know I've made myself unpopular by saying Japan
would have surrendered without cities being destroyed by
nuclear weapons. I still think so. The Domination is a different
case entirely. The old militarist caste in Japan, they could
surrender, sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the nation. The
Draka, the Citizens, their caste is their nation. If that's
destroyed, everything worthwhile in the universe is gone, and
they'd bring the world down with them out of sheer spite. "

  Lefarge turned his hands palm-up. "Anyone think different?"

   McKenzie hesitated, then spoke. "Fred… Look, I'm just a
glorified high-iron man. What the hell do I know? That's what
we've got spooks like you for, and a government we elected, come
to that. Policy's their department."

  Lefarge opened his mouth to speak. Hayato cut in: "That's
bullshit, Colin, and you know it. We've got the power; that means
we have the responsibility to make a decision, one way or
another. And it is a decision, either way."

  He slumped. "I've got kin back on Earth," he said.

   "We all do," Lefarge said. "Every indication of the way they've
configured their off-Earth forces, every intuition I've built up
about Draka behavior, tells me that the Snakes have some sort of
ace in the hole comparable to us. It's a race, and we know for a
fact that they won't hesitate a moment once they're ready; they
aren't going to suffer from divided counsels. That's why we've got
to act. Right, let's have a show of hands."

  One by one, they went up. McKenzie's last of all, but definitely.

  "I hope everybody realizes we're committed? Good, here's
what we do. First, we make multiple insertions of the infovirus;
we're set up for it. Next—"



   Cindy Lefarge held her husband's hand. The grip was strong
enough to be painful, but she squeezed back patiently, waiting in
the silence of the emptied room.

   "Am I doing the right thing?" he asked at last, in a haunted
voice.
  "It's what Uncle Nate wanted, honey," she whispered back.

  "Yes, but… he was an old, old man by that time."

  "And he'd taught you to think for yourself!" she replied
sharply. He looked up, startled, as she continued.

   "You wouldn't be doing this if you didn't think it was right,"
Cindy went on. "For what it's worth, I agree… but you know what
Uncle Nate always said: 'you take the choice, you bear the
responsibility'." More gently: "I can't be sure that what you're
doing is right, Fred. But I'm behind you, and I always will be."

   "I know," he said, and raised her hand to his cheek. His
shoulders were still slumped, as if under an invisible weight. "I'm
left with another question. Is what I'm doing enough?"



INGOLFSSON ISLAND PRESERVE
SEYCHELLES DISTRICT
ZANJ COAST PROVINCE
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
APRIL 2, 1998


   Marya Lefarge shaded her eyes and looked out over the waves.
It was a clear day, and the afternoon sun was white light on the
hammered indigo metal of the ocean; there was enough wind to
ruffle it, throwing foam crests on the waves and up the talc-fine
powder sand of the beach. The endless background hiss of the
light surf was the loudest sound; above her the wicker sunshade
thuttered, and the fronds of the coconut palms rustled over that.

   Out in the water the three Draka were playing, and she could
see their bodies flashing through the surface layers. Then they
were in the shallows, and Gwen and her young man swept
Yolande up between them. They came trotting up the beach with
an effortless stride; New Race muscles could do on Earth what
ordinary humans did in low-gravity.

  She studied them as they washed off the salt under a
worked-bronze waterspout and walked over to the blanket and
deckchairs. You could see the differences better nude and wet;
slight variances in the way the joints moved, the pattern of
muscles sliding under tight brown skin. It was natural; they
could secrete melanin until they were at home under this
equatorial sun or pale to cream white at will; tablets had done
that for Yolande and herself. No body hair, save for the scalp and
the pubic bush. They walked unconcerned over sand that had
made the elder Draka slip on thong-sandals. Yolande moved with
the studied grace of a lifelong athlete in hard training; the
younger pair had the fluid suppleness of leopards.

   Oh, Gwen, she thought. It was easier when you were a child.
A saddening thing, not to be able to wish luck and happiness to
one you loved.

  "Remind me not to play tag with yo' New Race types,"
Yolande was saying, her hands resting on their shoulders. "I
wonder that yo' puts up with us fossils."

  "Oh, we've got time," the man chuckled. He was a handspan
past six feet, with a head of loose white-gold ringlets.

   That they do, Marya thought with a slight shiver in the warm
tropical day. They were in their early twenties, and it would be
two centuries before they showed much sign of age. How can
even Draka bear to cut themselves off from their descendants
so?

   Gwen gave her companion a good-natured thump on the ribs.
"A little mo' respect for my momma, there," she said. "See yo' up
at the house, Alois."

  "Gwen. Miz Ingolfsson," he nodded to the two.

  Yolande threw herself down on the blanket and stretched.
"Nice boy," she said. "Drink, please, Marya."

   Marya smiled to herself as she opened the basket and took the
pitcher from the cooler. Yolande regarded her daughter's
newfound enthusiasm for the opposite sex with tolerant
indulgence, as appropriate for her age. To the elder Ingolfsson,
Marya suspected, men were nice enough in their way, often
pleasing, but with some exceptions basically rather stupid and
prisoner to their emotions. Not an uncommon attitude among
female Citizens… She glanced up and met Gwen's eyes; for a
moment they shared amusement.

  "Ma," Gwen said, taking one of the chairs. "Do me a favor?"

   "Anythin', child of my heart," Yolande said, accepting the
chilled papaya juice. "Thank yo', Marya. Have what yo' like."

   "It's that damned controller cuff," Gwen was saying. Marya
froze for a moment, with a feeling of insects crawling on her skin,
then made her hands busy themselves in the basket.
"Tantie-ma's never said much about it, but it makes my
backbone crawl. Take it off her, would yo'?"

   "Ah." Yolande rose on one elbow and considered the serf. "As
a matter of fact… Hand me that case from the bottom of the
basket, would yo', Marya?"

   There was a thin leather binder about the size of a small book;
the serfs hands shook slightly as she handed it to her owner,
kneeling beside her. She had not noticed it, slipped in among the
bowls and packages and softcover volumes of poetry brought
along for a day by the ocean. Yolande opened it and took out a
slim jack on the end of a coil cord.

  "Hold out yo' hand, wench," Yolande said.

   It was shaking worse as the Draka took it and slid the jack
into an opening on the front edge of the thin metal circlet. The
bright sun darkened and the world blurred before Marya's eyes.
She saw Yolande's fingers touching controls within the opened
binder. There was a tingling in her wrist, and a subdued click.
Marya heard herself whimper slightly as the metal unclasped;
the skin beneath it was very white. Angry, she caught her lower
lip in her teeth as Yolande turned her palm up and dropped the
cuff into it. The metal was still warm from her skin.

  "Do what yo' want with it," the Draka said.

  Marya looked at it. Feeling the tears cutting tracks down her
cheeks, and making herself remember thepain. It had been
twenty-four years, and not a day had passed when she had not
suppressed that memory; now she let the holds crack. The two
Draka were looking politely aside as she rose unsteadily to her
feet and walked out into the light, down to the edge of the water.
The sand was scorching through the thin sandals, the waves cool
as she walked into their knee-high curling. There was an intense
smell of ocean, of iodine from the seaweed along the high-water
mark. A gull went by overhead, shadow against dazzle,
grawk-grawk-grawk. Her arm went back, seeming to drift.
Forward with an elastic snap, and the cuff was soaring until it
was a dot. Hesitating at the top of its arc, then dropping down at
gathering speed. A last plek as it broke the smooth curve of a
wave in a tiny eruption of white.

   Gone. She dropped to her knees and bent forward, heedless of
the ends of her hair trailing in the foam. Gone.



   Yolande looked back to her daughter with a smile. "That
seemed to go well, honeychile," she said.

   Gwen nodded and lay back on the deckchair to spare the serf
intrusive eyes. "Thank yo', ma," she said.

    Yolande shrugged. How strong and beautiful, and how sweet
with it, she thought. It was an ache in the chest, pride and love
beyond bearing. Me and Myfwany—you have the best of us both
, she thought. Of both your mothers. Marya was still down by
the water's edge. Or all three.

  Gwen took a fig from the basket and nibbled. "Almost a
shame to be leavin'," she said happily. "It's been a good three
days, just yo' and the sibs, ma."

   "Liar," Yolande said amiably. "Y'all are indulgin' me, and I
know it. Yo' thoughts are divided about equal between the new
ship an' dancin' the mattress gavotte with Alois; he's likewise,
and polite to me because he's got long-term designs on yo'.
Holden is bored in the manner of six-year-olds, and Nikki,—she
shrugged again; her oldest son was fifteen—"likes it here because
there are a whole new set of housegirls to lay. Plus good
spearfishing."

    Gwen laughed, turning her eyes skyward. "Lionheart's a real
beauty, though, ma," she said musingly. "Gods, when we took her
out fo' the shakedown! Deuterium-boron drives've got it all ovah
the older types, the exhaust's all charged particles." Her voice
took on a dreamy tone. "Fifty thousand tonnes payload, she's
fitted out like a liner! Even a spin-deck at one G. Only- - "

  "Gwen."

  "—two months to Pluto! Granted we'll be there a year settin'
up the base, but—"

  "Gwen, honeychile, I was on the design committee."

  Her daughter laughed and waved acknowledgment. "Sorry,
ma."

   "You've been noble not talkin' shop, Gwen. I recognize true
love when I hears it."

  "And, well, I am sorry to be leavin' yo'. And not… Know what I
mean?"

   "Oh, yes, child of my heart, I know exactly." A long laugh, and
she reached up to squeeze a shoulder. "Fo' reasons too numerous
to state,' I'm feeling first-rate just now. But yo' are always a…
string of lights around my heart, child. Ah, here comes Marya."

   Gwen rose. The serf stopped at arm's length and threw back
her head; she had never stooped, but Yolande thought she saw a
different curve to the neck. "Thank you, Missy Gwen," she said.

  The young Draka embraced her. "Always welcome,
Tantie-ma," she said. "Well—"

   Her mother made scooting motions. "Alois and yo' have
notions on how to spend the afternoon. Honestly, with an
eighteen-month cruise ahead of yo'—"
  "Ma!. "

  "But youth will be served. Or serviced—"

  "Ma!" Mock-indignation.

   "Run along, yo' Tantie-ma and I will find some way to pass the
time." Yolande winked, and thought she caught a hint of real
embarrassment on her daughter's face. One thing that hardly
changes, she thought. It never seems quite natural when the
older generation doesn't lose interest.

  "Strange, Mistis," Marya said, watching the child she had
borne walk away into the palms and oleander and hibiscus.

   "How so?" Yolande turned her attention back to the serf. Her
half-hour by the waves seemed to have composed her, at least.
The coffee-brown synthtan suited her, as well.

   "When… when she was little, she was so helpless as I held her.
Now I can feel how gentle she's being hugging me, and she could
crush me like an eggshell. Strange to remember her so tiny."

  "True enough. Lie down here."

   Marya sat beside the Draka, wrapping her arms around her
shins and laying her head on her knees.

  "You want me?" she said, smiling faintly.

   "Yo' and a snack and a nap befo' dinner," Yolande said. "Settle
for the snack and nap if yo' tuckered out."

  "Not yet," Marya said, with the same slight curve of her lips.
"You have been very… energetic, since Archona."

  "Good news does that to me, and no, I can't tell you what."



CLAESTUM PLANTATION
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY
PROVINCE OF ITALY
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
APRIL 4. 1998


   "Hello, Myfwany," Yolande said, sitting by the grave with her
elbows on her knees. Wind cuffed at the spray of roses.

   There was another nearby, now, her father's. There were a few
clouds today, white and fluffy. The air was just warm enough to
be comfortable sitting still, with an undertone of freshness that
was like a cool drink after the tropical heat.

   "Tina's coming along well," she continued. "Gods, it'll be
interestin' to see what a merger of my genes and yourn comes
out to! With all the little improvements they puttin' in these
days."

    The wind ruffled the outer leaves of the flowers. They were still
a little damp from the sprayer in the arbor where she had picked
them. Yolande leaned forward to smell the intense wild scent.

   "And Gwen… ah, love, yo'd be proud of her. Assistant Com
officer on this new ship, the Lionheart. Exploration voyage,
really; establishin' a study-base for the outer system and the Oort
clouds. Cold out there… Hope it works out for her. Hope she
settles with Alois, he's a good sort."

   She smiled and touched the flowers and the short dense grass.
"And there's somethin' else. Wotan and the White Christ, it's so
secret I hardly dare tell yo', sweet! Gods witness, I'd begun to
despair of the whole Domination, we seemed to be goin'
nowhere, until Uncle Eric let me in on the secret. Been in the
plannin' since,"—she swallowed—"since befo' India. A chance to
put an end to the struggle, once and fo'all."

   Yolande stopped for a moment. This is the most painful
pleasure of my life, she thought. "I'm… worried, though.

   About Uncle Eric. He's… not frightened—it's just so easy to be
indecisive at these levels, love! Always easier not to decide. He
hates the idea of usin' it, takin' the risk. Even of the killin'
involved." Slowly: "I admit it, love, I don't like the idea either.
The fighters… they take they chances, same as I. Always hated
hurtin' the helpless, and as fo' throwin' sunfire across the land…"
she made a grimace of disgust, looking out across the hills of her
birth-country. Birds went overhead, a flock almost enough to
hide the sky for an instant.

   She hammered a fist on her knee. "But what can we do, love? I
could live with the thought of everythin' bein' destroyed, when
there was no choice. Now there is. And the longer we wait, the
worse. Ah, Myfwany, it's so hard to know what's right."

    Shaking her head, she rose and dusted her uniform. "I wish
yo' were here, honeysweet," she said. "I promise… I'll do my best
fo' the children. Goodbye fo' now, my love. Till we meet again."



  "What the hell is that?" Marya exclaimed. "Mistis," she added
hastily.

  "That," Yolande replied, "is the most expensive toy evah
built."

   She had managed to shake most of the crowd of officials at
Florence Airhaven; even the officer from Tech Sec, who was
reasonably interesting when he got onto the yacht's
construction. Enough of crowding back on Luna, she thought,
and besides, she had checked out fairly thoroughly on the
simulators. They were almost alone on the floater; even this
backwater had modernized maglev runways, now. The craft
before them was not something it had seen before, or most other
airhavens in the Domination, either. Ninety meters long, a
slender tapering wedge; the bottom of the hull curved up at the
rear into the slanted control fins. There were control-cabin
windows at the bow, scramjet intakes below the rear edge. And
what looked like a huge four-meter bell pointing backward at the
stern.

   "It's from the test program fo' the fifth generation
pulse-drives, the Rex class. A sliver of afternoon light fell within
the thrustplate, and glittered off the lining. "Synthetic
single-crystal thrustplate, stressed-matrix/mag equalizers,
deuterium-boron-11 reaction. They had two of the first units left
ovah. Decided to try matin' them to a heavy scramjet
assault-transport; first Earth-surface to deepspace craft ever
built, is the result." A Yankee might have junked the test units,
but Draka engineers had a rooted abhorrence of throwing
anything that still worked away.

   "The power-to-weight's good enough yo' could take off on the
pulsedrive," Yolande continued, as they came to the lift and
stepped on board. It hummed quietly and swept them past the
black undersurface heatshield; the top of the craft was dark as
well, but the texture was subtly different. "Though that wouldn't
be neighborly. Actually it's a waddlin' monster in atmosphere,
and mostly fuel tank inside; liquid hydrogen, of course. Got good
legs, though; that reaction is energetic. Yo' could make it to
Mars or even the Belt, iff'n yo' didn't mind arrivin' dry."

    They stepped through the open door. It swung shut behind
them, and she took a deep breath. Filtered air, the subliminal
hum of life-support systems; pale glowpanel light, and the
neutral surfaces of synthetic and alloy. Space, Yolande thought.
Even though they were still on the surface, it had an environment
all its own. She ducked her head through the connecting door
into the control cabin. There were comfortable quarters aft; it
was essentially a very expensive yacht.

   Not that they're likely to become a hot item anytime soon,
she thought wryly. Even discounting the cost of the drive as part
of the research overhead, the Mamba would price in at about the
combined family worth of the Ingolfssons and the von
Shrakenbergs. For now, the Archon and the Commandant of
Aresopolis were assigned one each.

  She returned the pilot's salute. The control deck was
horseshoe shaped, with pilot and copilot forward, Weapons and
Sensors to either side on the rear. Only the two pilots were here
now, of course.

   "Pilot Breytenbach," she said to the number two. "Yo' can go
aft; I'll sit in on this." Yolande grew conscious of her servant
hovering behind. "Well, come in, wench." Marya flinched
slightly, fingering the bare strip on her wrist; the controller cuff
would have shocked her away from activated military comp
systems like this. Yolande saw her take a deep breath and step
forward. Good wench, she thought.

   "That crashcouch," she said, indicating the Sensor station.
She swung herself into the copilot's seat and pulled the restraints
down. "All yourn, Pilot," she said. He nodded briefly, running his
eyes in a last check over the screens.

   "Highly cybered," Yolande said, indicating the control panels
."Less yo' has to fight her —in which case yo' bumfucked,
because those lasers are a joke—"menu-commands to take yo'
anywheres within range."

    She settled back happily. "I'll take ovah out of atmosphere,"
she said. They would be back to the world of the Commandant's
office soon enough. Tech Sec designs a toy, I might as well use
it, she reflected. The big vehicle lifted off the runway with the
peculiar greasy feel of maglev and turned toward the long reach.




             CHAPTER TWENTY

   All human beings are conscious of the process of choice, of
choosing between alternative courses of action. Yet we are also
and inevitably conscious of the limits of choice; if we see a
three-tonne weight falling towards us, we have the "choice" of
jumping or being crushed. Free will may appear absolute in the
abstract but in the real concrete world in which we live it often
seems a mere illusion, a mental construct. My own opinion is
that both propositions are true, and that reality reflects this in a
number of ways. First the constraining situation within which an
individual finds himself is itself the result of countless previous
decisions. It is their sum total forming an interacting field which
we can never escape. So instead of an unconstrained fan
reaching out in all directions, our choices are more in the nature
of a set of tracks within canyon walls. For the most part the walls
are narrow; we can veer a little to one side or the other, but the
main direction is fixed. Moreover, even to use this small degree
of latitude takes effort, to move the "wheels" of our path from
one set of tracks to another.

   Sometimes the canyon walls open out for a time; then the fan
of possibilities spreads, into a delta of radiating alternatives.
Time presses. One or another alternative must be chosen. Once
the choice is made, the course of a life—or a nation, or a
world—is set on a new path. And the choice an individual makes
becomes in turn immutable destiny for others, foreclosing their
alternatives.

    Such changes of path may be the result of continuous effort or
an ever-vigilant readiness to seize the moment Most terrifying of
all, they may be the result of nothing more than raw accident…
                                            Meditations on a Life
                                         by Eric von Shrakenberg
                                          Central Press, Archona
                                                            2003

DRAKA FORCES BASE ARESOPOLIS
MARE SERENITATIS, LUNA
NOVEMBER l, 1998
0930 HOURS


  "Sector Seven, Level Twelve," the transporter capsule said.
The lid hissed open, and Marya stepped out.

   "Ident," the guard said. The room was a narrow box with only
one exit, brightly lit and completely bare, smelling of cold rock.
The guard was in Security Directorate green, battle-armored and
carrying a gauntlet gun; his head turned toward her like a
mirrored globe, her own distorted face reflecting off the helmet
shield.

   She stepped up to the exit and laid her hand against the
screen set in the wall beside it. "Marya E77AI422, property of
Arch-Strategos Ingolfsson, Commandant, on personal errand."

   Her mouth was tissue-paper, and the pulsebeat in her ears
roared louder than trumpets. This was action, covert action. It
was impossible to disguise, impossible to cover, no matter her
skill on the infonet. Recognition sets were embedded in the
central brains, and flagging from a station with this priority was
direct-routed down to read-only memory. It would stand out,
stand out, the minute anyone did a search on her activities
today. Even the most dimwitted Orpo would notice someone
being in two places at once.

   Only for you, my brother, she thought, controlling the
impulse to shudder. The message had been like none she ever
received. Far longer. Not just instructions on a new drop, a new
contact-code; orders to do. The thing she carried at her belt.
Something is very wrong here. Freds never been in the loop
before, neither of us would dare.

   The screen flicked light at her eyes. A laser read the pattern of
her retina; the information sped away as modulated light.
Another scanned her palmprint, the abstract of her voice.
Information flowed into a central computer's ready-storage
peripheral; embedded instruction sets were tripped. Data from
deep storage was copied, run through a translator into analog
form, compared. Another code-phrase tripped a set in the
response machine.

   "Confirmed. Marya E77AI422, property of Arch-Strategos
Ingolfsson, Commandant. Literate Class V-a. Delay, query." The
idiot-savant routines would be calling her owner's private
quarters. Marya breathed in, calmly. That was where the
interception loop she had established would work; or not. The
machine spoke again: "Query, confirmed. E77AI422, proceed."

   The guard nodded. "Confirmed. Present, wench," he said.
Marya turned and bent back her head to bare the serf-tattoo
beneath her right ear. There was a box clipped to the serf
policeman's waist; he pulled free a light-pencil on a coil cord and
ran the tip down her tattoo. The box chirped, encoding her ident
on a dataplaque within; another footprint.

   With a slight hiss, the door opened. Marya noted the
thickness of it, featureless sandwich-armour alloy. The corridor
beyond was plain, but there would be instruments and weapons
in the walls. Another door, and she was out into a vestibule of the
factory; more guards, crewing control-desks. They waved her
through. She walked on, past color-coded doors and more
corridors. Through a transparent tube, over a long room where
workers bent to their micromanipulators and screens. They were
assembling circular electrowafers in tubes, building the preceded
stacks that contained the instruction sets for major computers
and their closed-access internal memories. Others fitted the
pillars of wafers into the rectangular platforms of the logic decks;
she could imagine the submicroscopic tools soldering their
gold-wire and optical-thread connections.

   All familiar enough; the basic technology had not changed in
a generation, despite vast improvements in detail. And I've
heard Draka complain the Alliance isn't introducing as many
refinements for them to steal lately, she recalled. Exterior data
storage, translator/interfacer unit, memory, instruction sets,
logic deck. And beyond this complex, the most crucial area of all,
where the design teams' compinstruction data was turned into
physical patterns for embedding in the cores…

   "Hello," she said to the receptionist in the office area. Polite
but not servile; she was a command-level officer's personal
servant. Not as formally high-status as this expensively trained
technical secretary, but they were both Class V-a's, and her
owner outranked the Faraday Combine exec who ran this
facility. "Is Master MacGregor in? The plant manager?"

   The receptionist looked up from his keyboard, looked Marya
up and down. "Your message?" he said. "Master MacGregor
can't be interrupted, he's in conference."

   He's checking my clothes, Marya thought. Silk shirt, pleated
trousers, jeweled clasps on the sandals and belt. Obviously a
houseserf, equally obvious from someone not to be offended.

   "It's an invitation," she said. "From the Commandant." Marya
held out a folded parchment sealed in gold with the Drakon
signet, then pulled it back when the man reached for it.
"Personal service." That was one of her duties, keeping track of
the obligatory social functions Yolande hated, and seeing that
the invitations were in harmony with the relative status of each
participant. A personal hand-delivery to a Commandatura
reception was just slightly more than MacGregor rated; just
enough that no underling of sense would endanger it.

   "Oh, excuse me." The serfs heavy Arab features knotted.
"Ahhh…" There was a waiting area behind the desk, but that was
for Citizens. "Here, I'll take you to his office. You can wait there,
and give the invitation."

   "Will he be long?" Marya said, with a frown of concern.
"Mistress the Arch-Strategos Ingolfsson expects me back."
Sometime this evening, probably, but the rank ought to make
you sweat. Marya's owner took her lunches at her office, and it
was vanishingly unlikely that her absence would be noted. Even
less likely that anything would be made of it, Marya was
authorized to leave the household and entitled to do so at
discretion, so long as her work was done. But every minute is
another chance to be missed.

   "It's right this way," he continued. She followed; there was
carpet here, muffling even the light sound feet made under
Lunar gravity. He touched the wall, and a section slid upwards;
that's right, lay on the courtesy. He could have made her wait in
the hall, but it was never wise to antagonize one who had the ear
of your superior's superior. She stepped through. A typical office
chamber, big enough for pacing, with a holowall landscape, desk,
workstation. That was activated, notes and papers left carelessly
around the terminal. The release of tension was like nausea or
orgasm. She turned that into a one-two-kneel motion, sinking
down on her heels and closing her eyes, hands and invitation
folded in her lap. The Perfect Servant, concentrated on the task
in hand. Go away, she thought with deadly concentration at the
receptionist. Don't try to make polite conversation, don't offer
me refreshment, go away.

    He did; she waited until the door closed, and sixty heartbeats
beyond. When she rose, it was with a smooth economy of motion
that wasted no second of time, time that she was buying with her
life. There was no turning back; it could be months before she
might have to use the pills carefully hoarded in her room, even
years, but the clock was running from this moment.

   Exec MacGregor had been careless, leaving his terminal up. A
violation of procedure, even here in the heart of a guarded
facility. Even behind a door only those with authorization could
access. She took the dataplaques from the pouch at her waist
and touched the keyboard.

  -Work in progress-, she typed.

   [Core memories. Actuation sequences.] A long string of codes;
she picked out the ones she knew, the ones on the plaque she
should have wiped but could not bear to, the one with her
brother's image.

  Cr-ex 5-5 Btstation orbital: launch sequence. IFF.J There.

   Her fingers moved. -Halt. Memcheck, active-. Then the only
time embedded sets were held in access memory. While they
were being transferred to the cores. Feverishly, she checked the
work-in-progress table on the status of the sets; they were
finished, ready to be templated for the master-pattern in the
assembly hall.

  -Modification,- she typed.

  [Delay.] Seconds of white terror. [Accepted. Load sequence.]

   Marya stared at her hand until the slight tremor disappeared.
She pushed the first of the palm-sized synthetic rectangles into
the receptor.

  -Create parallel file temp:l-

  [File standing.]

  -Load receptor D: seq-

   An almost inaudible whine, as the reader/translator loaded
the contents of the plaque into the virtual space she had created.
Another. Another. There were five of the plaques. Three minutes
in all; now for the difficult part. She gave silent thanks that the
Domination used a standard working compinstruction language.
There were three in the Alliance, not to mention illegals.
  -Run temp:l comparison workfile: Cr-ex 5-5 keyphrase com;
master-

   The screen flickered, as the computer matched the sets.

  [Congruence sector core: code exe.] The master recognition
commands, friend-foe.

  -Mergeset: modify workfile: Cr-ex 5-5 keyphrase com:
master-

    [Merging.] Long seconds, while the machine knitted the new
symbols with the old, matching smoothly where the coded ends
fitted the set. [Complete. Workfile 2temp:1]

  Shit, she thought. It was making duplicate drafts, not
substituting.

   -Compare workfile / workfile 2temp:1-

   [Congruence 99.73 abs.]

   -Wipe workfile-

   [Query?]

   -Wipe workfile-

   [Query?]

   "Oh, shit, shit, shit!" she said. Think. Think, damn you,
wench. What are you, Draka cattle or a human being? The
station and the table around it were littered with paper notes;
this MacGregor was a worrier. Hated to do anything
irrevocable. Calmly. There are only a few ways you can alter
the procedures. Designer compinstruction sets were embedded
as well, after all. A single note at the bottom of a stack, old and
faded, in pencil.

   Mary a gave a shark-grin and returned her hands to the
keyboard.

   -Wipe workfile-
  [Query?]

  -coverass-

  [Execute -wipe workfile-]

  -Load workfile seq all mainmem-

  [Unfind: query? namefile.]

  "I got it, I got it!" Quickly now, but carefully.

  -dename workfile 2temp:1 / rename workfile-

  [Execute -dename workfile 2temp:1 / rename workfile-all.
Wipe wordfile 2temp:1?]

  -command aff-

  [Execute -wipe workfile 2temp:1-]

   Now to check; only an anal-retentive of the first order would
log under a code like this, but… -time/work log coverass
perscode/master-[Query? coverass unrec Logtime/work
MG-A1?] Marya looked at the time display in the lower right
corner of the screen; 09:41, exactly eleven minutes since she
entered the fabrication complex.

   -time/work log thisdate MG-A1-[Inlog 08:00 01/07/98
lastsrk 09:29 dto MG-A1] "Exactly why only designers get these
free-access memories," she muttered to herself. "Too easy to
cheat a little." Her handkerchief dusted across the keyboard, no
use making it easy for the greencoats if things blew soon. A quick
pass across her face left it damp; nothing she could do about the
trickles from her armpits down her flanks.

   I have just condemned myself to death, she thought, as she
fettled back on the floor—can't pollute the Race's holy chair with
my serf ass—and folded her hands. "And I haven't felt this alive
in decades."
   "No, I don't want anything." Yolande snapped, then forced
herself to calm. The housegirl isn't to blame, she thought. It
would be alarming enough that she was back here at the
Commandant's quarters at 1200, only four hours after she left.
The serf was looking at her wide-eyed. Be gentle. They're
frightened when the routine is upset. "Run along, Belinda. I'll
call later if I want lunch."

   The memory of the message from Archona was a sour taste at
the back of her mouth as she stalked past the fountain into the
lounging room. No party planned. Invitation superfluous.

   "He isn't going to do a fuckin' thing," she told herself, lost to
rage and wonder. Months past saturation point on the Stone
Dogs, and no action whatsoever. Be honest with yourself, she
thought, flinging herself down on a couch and staring at the
ceiling. Throwing yourself down was curiously unsatisfying on
the Moon; like punching pillows, there was no thump.

   It's two months into Gwen's voyage. She's out of the inner
system, out of any possible combat. And Gwen was the only one
of her children old enough for military service. Short of a
catastrophe that wrecked the planet, the others would be safe.
The Draka prided themselves on being a foresighted people;
since before her birth they had been building deep shelters, every
plantation and school, city and town in the Domination was
ready. And the facilities had been improved constantly. They
would work, provided there was a living world to return to.

   "All right," she asked herself, coldly realistic. "What can yo'
do, Yolande?"

   Very little. It was bitter knowledge. She knew of the Stone
Dogs, now; perhaps two dozen others did. Could I get in touch…
No. The only others she knew of for certain were Gayner and the
two Militant leaders; they would not trust a niece of the
Conservative boss man. And it would be like shooting Uncle Eric
in the back. Morally unthinkable, and… you did not betray Eric
von Shrakenberg and enjoy the consequences. Perhaps it would
be worthwhile, if there was no alternative. Not until there was no
alternative. She had a year until the Lionheart returned from the
edge of the System. For that matter, Gwen would not thank her
for being sheltered from danger. So she's as stupid as anyone
else that age. No more essential to the State than a hundred
thousand other junior officers. A fine balance, duty to the Race
and to family, but clear in this case.

   "I'll have to fuckin' wait," she hissed to herself, and then
clamped down on her own mind. The Will is Master, she
repeated. Breathe… Presently she won to a degree of calm.

  "Belinda," she said to the air; the housecomp would relay it.
"Lay out a fresh uniform in my changin' room."



  "Marya!" she said, pushing open the door. It had no lock, of
course. "Yo'—"

    The room was empty, and there was no sound from the
others. Yolande stopped, blinking slightly in surprise. Could have
sworn the comp said all servants present, she thought in
puzzlement, looking around. It was a fairly standard
upper-servant's suite, bedroom, sitter opening off the corridor
through a nook, and a bathroom at the rear. The lights had come
on as she entered, but the air had the slightly dead feel of space
not used for several hours. I wonder where she is? It was
annoying; grabbing a quick nooner was not something she did
all that often, and there was nobody else in the household right
now she would feel that relaxed with; Jolene was down dirtside,
visiting her daughter and Nikki back at Claesrum.

  Oh, well. It was no great matter; she turned to go, and then
hesitated. I've never actually been in here, she thought.

    No reason to visit the servants' quarters, really, except a
sudden impulse to surprise… Nothing in the bedroom but a bed
with a quilt coverlet; there was a signed holo of Gwen by the bed,
and a book left open beside it. The sitter was a box-room about
four meters by three, lit by a glowceiling, walls of foam rock and
tile floor covered by throw rugs. A couch along one wall, a couple
of spindly low-C chairs, cushions. The viewer screen, and a
bookshelf with a dozen titles, mostly classics; a row of
dataplaques beside it, with the garish covers of serf
entertainment. The new perscomp on a table, with a chair still
pushed back as if in haste; the screen was dark, but the indicator
was on, something running.

    "Careless," Yolande chuckled, and walked over to it. There was
a wrap-robe on the back of the chair. The Draka picked it up and
brought the cloth to her face; there was a faint scent or Marya on
it. Damn, I wish she was here, Yolande thought, sitting and
picking up the dataplaque lying on the table.

   " 'Serving Pleasure #15," she read, and laughed again. An
erotic-instruction sequence. No wonder she's getting so
imaginative, she thought, flattered. Wonder what's on it.
Impulsively, she snapped it into the port and hit the DIVIDE
command on the keyboard. The perscomp was a fairly capable
one, the type midlevel serf bureacrats were issued. Embedded
accounting, typescribing, datalink and display functions. A
million-transistor logic deck, two hundred thousand bits of core
storage besides, and a plaquereceptor.

   The screen blanked to light-gray, then lit. Yolande watched in
growing bewilderment. Sodomy? Basic Passive Sodomy? she
thought, watching as the instructor showed the young buck how
to brace his elbows on his knees before stepping behind. What in
Freya's name is Marya doing with—

   The screen blanked again, the grunting figures replaced by a
man's face. In an Alliance uniform, with Brigadier's
shoulderboards. American eagle, OSS flashes. Unremarkable
free, square, rather dark, big-nosed; in his fifties, plenty of gray
in the flat-topped black hair, eyes black too, so that the pupil
didn't show. Deep grooves, ridged forehead, the face of a man
hagridden for many years. Yolande heard her own breath freeze
in a strangled gasp, felt a sheet of ice lock her diaphragm.

   Him.

   "Marya, my sister, you must realize from this how desperate
the situation is."

   Him. India. The cool Punjab night, and the missiles arching
up from the trees. Psssft-thud, and Myfwany's graceful stride
turning to a tumbling fall.

   "This plaque must be wiped as soon as you've read it. Likewise
the others. Those most of all. Here are your instructions."

  Him. The face, under the upraised visor. That single glimpse.

   "… je't'aime, ma soeur," the voice concluded. A moment of
blank screen, and the instruction sequence cut back in. She
touched the controls. Her own face reflected dimly in the
darkened screen. Eyes gone enormous, lips peeled back until the
gums showed. A trickle of hoarse sound escaped her throat.

    "His sister. His sister. I've had his sister in my own household
fo' twenty-five years!" A bubble of laughter escaped her, and she
ground her teeth closed on it, feeling something thin and hot
stabbing between her eyes.

   I'm dead. The thought was almost welcome. I'm a walking
corpse. Nothing and nobody could save her from Security after
this. The message had mentioned previous drops; even if nothing
vital—there couldn't be, I hardly talked to her for years until
—"Until she volunteered to play pony, gods damn me for a fool,
why else would she suddenly decide she wants to lie down with
me," she said. And now a sabotage operation.

    I could kill her, Yolande thought. Just one quick bullet, and
call disposal. Or indent for some drugs, get the information, then
kill her. Perfectly legal—no the headhunters would smell
something immediately. The Directorate of Security was an
unofficial arm of the Militants, or vice versa. They watched the
von Shrakenberg connections like vultures around a dying camel.
For an Ingolfsson to kill a houseserf was a break in the pattern, a
red flag that something unusual was going on. They would ferret
it out if it took them a decade.

   No, it was her duty to report this. Put down everything she
knew and suspected, write up a report, then one quick bullet of
apology to the temple. The family will be involved, tolled
through her with dreadful knowledge. A knot like the claws of
something insectile hooked under her ribs. Gwen will be
disgraced.
   Duty—

   "Oh," she breathed. There was a way to use this. A spy you
know about is an asset, not a liability, she reminded herself. A
slow, calm smile touched her lips. It's even personally fitting, she
reflected. He's known I had his sister as my serf. Used her for a
brooder, probably knows she's been serving pleasure. Torture,
to a Yankee. Her hands touched the keys; she would have to find
out what the perscomp was running. Carefully, Yolande,
carefully. She can't suspect, not for a moment.

   This evening.



   "You bit me, Mistis," Marya said.

   Yolande bent and kissed the U-shaped bruise on the inside of
the serfs thigh. The bedroom was dark, and she had set the wall
for a winter landscape in Tuscany.

   "I was excited," she said, lying back. True, by Loki lord of lies.
I didn't expect that. It was odd, she felt no hatred. I suppose I
burned all that out long ago, for her.

   "It usually dosen't take you like that, Mistis."

   "It's the news," Yolande said. "Here, rub my back." She rolled
on her stomach, felt the serfs breath warm on the damp skin of
her neck as her fingers kneaded at the muscles along her spine.

   "What news, Mistis?"

  Yolande made herself hesitate. "Well, it can't hurt now. No
point in bein' overcorrect. Remember the good news I got back
when, in Archona?."

   "I thought it must be important," Marya said calmly, with a
hint of a wink. "Certainly set you at me, Mistis."

    Are her fingers trembling? Yolande thought. Good. Sweat, a
little. Don't stop to think.
   The Draka laughed. "It's our secret weapon," she said. "There
really is one. I always knew they must have somethin' planned…
A biological, to disable the Yankee crews in near-orbit. Really
nice piece of work; codename Stone Dogs. It's a stone killer, too!
Delicate trigger, modulated microwave emission. We go to
War-Condition Alpha tomorrow."

    The serfs hands were shaking now. Yolande put a raised
eyebrow into her voice. "Whats the matter, Marya? Don't worry,
yo' aren't in any danger. Should be a cakewalk, and anyways, this
is the best-defended place on Luna." She pulled the other close
and kissed her. "Think I'll get a landgrant in California, after,"
she continued. "Anyways, stay close to the quarters, the
tubeways'll be closed down." The lights dimmed toward sleepset.

   "On second thoughts, I've got a few things fo' yo' to do. There
may be some surface damage, worst-case. That crate of
Constantia '87 Uncle Eric sent, fo' that cruise on the Mamba."
She felt the serf jerk slightly at the mention of the yacht. "Be a
shame to lose it, even if that damned toy's not here when Gwen
gets back fo' the victory party. Go on out tomorrow, and
supervise strippin' all the personal effects out, bring them back
to quarters. No droppin' hints, now!"



  "What?" Yolande looked up from her desk at the holo image of
Transportation Central, the traffic control nexus for Aresopolis.

  "The Mamba, Commandant. We would have appreciated
notification of a lift!"

   Yolande felt a cold pride at the expression of mild surprise on
her face. Of course, it's a good thing they don't have a medical
sensor going on me, she thought stonily. The face in the screen
was New Race; they could control their heartbeats. She
wondered how it felt…

   "So would I," she replied dryly. "Since I am here, and have
authorized no such mission. Where is the pilot?"

  "I…" The hawk-featured young face took on an imperceptible
air of desperation. She knew the feeling; the sinking sensation of
bearing very bad news to someone far up the chain of command.
"Yo' pilot is in his quarters, Arch-Strategos. That was why we
assumed, ah—"

  "Don't assume, Tetrarch, do. I presume yo've hailed?"

  "Of cou—Yes, ma'am. No response."

   There wouldn't be, Yolande thought. She had very carefully
had all the com systems decommissioned for preventive
maintenance. An investigation would find that significant, but
far too late.

   "Well, well have to assume an unauthorized lift," she said,
frowning with the expression of a high-ranking officer forced to
intervene in trivial matters. "Issue a warnin' to the Mamba and
whoever's aboard, to surrender or be fired upon. Alert the orbital
platforms."

   "Ma'am, it's, ah, the trajectory indicates a boost for transluar
space. Mars is, well—"

   "I'm familiar with orbital mechanics, Tetrarch," she said. "
Stop tormenting the poor boy." Her fingers touched the desktop.
"On that burn, the Belt would be the logical destination. Hmmm.
The Mamba's fairly valuable, but there's nothin' on board we'd
be all that embarrassed fo' the Yankees to get… W'orth a chance
on not scrubbin' it. Dependin' on who's aboard. Get Merarch
Tomlins on the screen, we'll see if we can set up an intercept.

  "

   "Yo' what? Yo' pillowtalked a bedwench that, and then let her
escape?"

  The Archon's image was alone before her. For a moment
Yolande felt a sensation she had not known for many years: raw,
physical fear.

   He looked down at the copy of her report, and the fury on his
face went cold and blank. "This had to be deliberate on yo' part.
Usurpation of command prerogative, as well as treasonous
incompetence."

   "She was an agent, Excellence," Yolande continued
expressionlessly. "If yo'll examine the appendix to that report,
yo'll see we found clear evidence of dataplague sabotage. No way
of knowin' how long this has been goin' on, either." A skull grin
split her face, below eyes that were edged in red. "We went aftah
the Yankee personnel. They planted a, a virus in our comps.
Typical, isn't it?" Her hand twitched slightly as she reached for
the glass of water. "The fact remains, Excellence, that we no
longer have an intercept or strike option on the Mamba. Inside
of three days, the Alliance craft will intercept, and shortly
thereafter they'll know about the Stone Dogs."

   She waited the seconds it took for light to reach Earth and
return, on this most secure of links.

   Eric von Shrakenberg rose behind his desk, and she felt his
will beating on her like waves on a granite headland. "I will have
yo' shot. I will have yo' fuckin' shot!"

   "That is yo' prerogative, Excellence," Yolande said. And I don't
care nearly as much as I thought I would, she realized. Yes, the
body reacted: sweat rolling down from her armpits, muscles
tensing in millennial fight-flight reflex. But somewhere deep in
her soul, she would accept it. "If yo' wishes to relieve the
Commandant of this installation just befo' the… outbreak of
hostilities."

  She saw that ram home. "Use it, or lose it," she continued.

   Silence, for long minutes. At last he looked up again, older
than she remembered. "Why?"

   "I—" A pause, while she considered how it could be said. "I
disagreed with yo' hesitation, but I would have accepted that. On
a professional level. But yo' gave me a weapon, Uncle Eric. And I
decided to use it. Fo'… personal reasons. Love and hate." Another
pause. "And afterward—if there is an afterward—" she laid her
sidearm on the desk, in range of the receptor—"I'll save yo' the
trouble, iff'n it's still important."
    The ancient, weary eyes stared into hers. "The fete of worlds,
fo' personal reasons?" he said, wonderingly.

  "Are there any other kind?" she answered.

   At last: "Go to Force Condition Seven, and await further
orders, Arch-Strategos." With a touch of ironic malice: "Service
to the State."

  "Glory to the Race, Excellence."




        CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  DATE: 01/07/98

   FROM: Supreme QHQ, Castle Tarleton
Archona, Archona Province
by order of His Excellence the Archon Eric von Shrakenberg
Commander of the Destiny of the Race

  TO: All commanders Classification 7-Z and above

  RE: Force Condition Seven


   Be advised that as of this instant the Domination is moving to
Force Condition Seven, as per War Plan Zebra-Kohln. Sealed
orders are to be opened and all prepared measures taken. An
Archonal Decree of War Emergency Status is in effect as of this
communication, and all civil and Security organs are to consider
themselves under the authority of the Supreme General Staff and
the Directorate of War. Where necessary, exemplary measures
may be taken to secure public order and the speedy
implementation of evacuation. The highest readiness must be
maintained, but on pain of immediate execution no hostile
measures toward the enemy are to be taken until the receipt of
orders moving to Force Condition Eight or until the enemy
initiates action.
   This is no drill



DRAKA FORCES BASE ARESOPOLIS
MARE SERINITATIS. LUNA
NOVEMBER 2, 1998
0600 HOURS


   "Whew." Yolande collapsed into the chair. For a few minutes
she forced herself to sit quietly, breathing, letting the wash of
cool air from the vents help her body flush out the hormonal
poisons. Then she reached for the communicator.

   "Staff conference, immediate," she said. "Forcecon 7."



   "… And all nonessential traffic between sectors has been
closed down," the civilian administrator was saying.

   Yolande looked around the table. "Mark?" she said.

    The Aerospace Command Strategos shrugged. "We've moved
all the available units into sheltered orbits," he said. If there was
one thing that a generation of skirmishing in space had shown, it
was that ships were helpless in confined quarters with
high-powered energy weapons.

   "Move them out further," Yolande said. "Outer-shell orbits fo'
the Cislunar Command zone. Sannie, start pumpin' down the
bulk water in the dome habitat, fill the reservoirs."

  "That'll play hell with the Ecology people's projects," she
warned.

   "Don't matter none." The other officers around the table
glanced sidelong at each other; Yolande saw carefully controlled
fear. This was the nightmare that had haunted them all from
their births. "And yes, that means I knows somethin' y'all don't.
Somethin' bad—and somethin' good, too."
   "Now, and this is crucial,"—she paused for effect—"startin' i
mmediately, and while yo' moving to full mobilization, bring yo'
redundant compunits on-net. Then do a physical separation of
the main battle-units, and run simulations of actual
operations—everythin' but the final connections to the weapons
units." She held up a hand to still the protests. "Y'all will find
malfunctions, I guarantee it. Report the make an' number of the
malfunctionin' cores, immediate, to Merarch Willard here, who's
now Infosystems Officer fo' Aresopolis. We'll patch across to
maintain capacity. Believe me, it's necessary."



CLAESTUM PLANTATION
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY
PROVINCE OF ITALY
NOVEMBER 2. 1998


   "Vene, vene, keep movin'!" The serf foreman reached out to
stop a fieldhand family; one of the children was cradling a kitten.
"No livestock in the shelter, drop it." The girl began to cry in
bewildered terror.

   The bossboys were as ignorant as the rest of the serfs, but they
had caught the master's nervousness. John Ingolfsson whistled
sharply to catch the man's attention and jerked his head; the
foreman's rubber hose fell, and the line began moving again as
he waved the serf girl through with her pet.

   Makes no nevermind, the master of Claestum thought,
watching the long column disappearing into the hillside. He
swallowed to moisten a dry throat, pushed back his
floppy-brimmed leather hat, and wiped at the sweat on his
forehead. It was a clear fall day, and still a little hot here in the
valley below the Great House. The shelter was burrowed under
that hill, quite deep; begun in the '50s, and refined and extended
in every year since. This entrance was disguised as a warehouse,
but behind the broad door and the facade was a long concrete
ramp into the rock. The elevators were freight-type, and the
thousand-odd serfs would be in their emergency quarters in
another hour or so. Armorplate doors, and thousands of feet of
granite—

   It should be enough, if we have an hour, he thought. There
was hatred in the glance he shot upward. Nothing but the coded
messages over the official net, but you could tell… I always
grudged the money and effort. Full shelter for all the serfs,
sustainable if crowded; fuel cells, air filters, water recyclers, and
food enough for three years on strait rations. He had had just
time enough to put most of the farming equipment under wraps;
the sealed warehouses held seed grain. There was even room for
basic breeding stock, on the upper level.

   The last of the fieldhands passed through, and the overseer
looked up from the comp screen by the door. "That's the last of
them," she called. Rumbling sounded within, as thick metal
sighed home into slots.

   Silence fell, eerie and complete. Nothing but the hot dry wind
through the trees, and the tinkle of water from one of the village
fountains. He stood in the stirrups and looked around; the land
lay sere and dry with autumn, rolling away in slopes of yellow
stubble, silver-green olives, dusty-green pasture and the lush
foliage of the vineyards. Commonplace, infinitely dear. Yesterday
his only worry had been the falling price of wheat and the
vintage.

   "Run one mo' check," he said. "Wouldn't want to leave one of
they brats out by mistake." The overseer was taut-nervous
herself, but her fingers were steady on the keyboard.

   "All of em."

    "Right." He ran a soothing hand down the neck of his horse as
it side-danced with the tension. "Sooo, boy, easy. Now, let's go
jump in a hole and pull it in aftah us."



WASHINGTON HOUSE
NEW YORK CITY
FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NOVEMBER, 1998
0700 HOURS


   "Could it be a drill of some sort?" one of the figures in the
screen said.

   The Conference Room was nearly empty; the president, and a
few of her chief aides. The Alliance Chairman was in the center
of the holoscreen, with the military chiefs and some of the most
crucial administrators. In theory the other Alliance heads of
government were co-equal, but this was a time for practicalities,
and the American head of state was still much more than primus
inter pares.

   Carmen Hiero forced herself not to sigh in exasperation. "
Amigo, they've started closing down factories and evacuating the
population to the deep shelters," she said. "Look at the reports;
there are abandoned dogs walking through the streets of
Alexandria! You think they're doing this—it must be costing
them astronomically—for a drill?"

   Allsworthy tapped his fingers together and looked to one side,
toward his pickup of the ACI chief. Hiero frowned slightly; she
thought the chairman tended to rely on his Intelligence people
rather too much.Enough, she thought. Listen.

  "Anything congruent? Any reason for it to start now?" the
chairman said.

   The ACI man licked his lips slightly. "Nothing we can spot on
short notice, Mr. Chairman," he said; his face was calm, but the
tendons stood out in the hands that twisted an ivory
cigarette-holder. His Australasian accent had turned slightly
nasal.

   You too, my friend, Hiero thought.

   "But…" he continued. "Well, something jolly odd did happen
yesterday, up on Luna. The Mamba—that's the personal yacht of
their Commandant of Aresopolis—did an unauthorized takeoff
and is running for the Belt. Continuous boost trajectory for
Ceres; should be there in about ten days."
  "That quickly?" Johannsen, the Space Force CINC.

   "Well, it's got one of their new fifth-generation pulse-drives,"
the ACI commander said. "And whoever's piloting it isn't leaving
any reserve for deceleration, we think. They've got two Imperator
class cruisers trying to catch it, and they've been beaming a
series of demands that the Mamba stop, and warnings to
everyone else to stay clear. We've no earthly idea what it's about,
really. The yacht is either unwilling or unable to communicate."

  Hiero leaned forward and touched the query button on her
desk. "Can they catch it? Can we?"

   "No; and yes, if we have something start matching velocities
now. Considerably sooner than it might reach Ceres, if we use
one of the New America's auxiliaries." A collective wince; that
would mean blowing the Project's last line of cover. "Under the
circumstances, I'd say it's justified."

  "I say we do it," Hiero said.

  "Sir?" The ACI man looked to the chairman, who nodded
abstractedly.

   "Ah, sir?" That was Donatei, the OSS chief of staff; he was
looking off-screen, and his fingers were busy. "We do have— yes,
we do have something significant, just now. They're… ah, yes.
Trying very hard to keep it quiet, but our ELINT is picking it up.
They're pulling up their backup comps on… hell, one sector after
another. Running some sort of check program on the central
comps. Then—they've just put out an all-points to their military,
to downline the AV-122 series. That's their most recent
battle-management comp."

   Hiero's own fingers moved; yes, everyone here was cleared for
the fourth layer of the New America project.

  "Is that one of the ones we managed to infect?" she said.
Chairman Allsworthy's question came on the heels of theirs.

   There was a long moment of silence. "Mierda," she whispered.
"A leak."
   Allsworthy grunted, as if someone had hit him in the belly.
"We…" He looked down at his hands. Hiero felt herself touched
with sympathy, and a moment's gratitude that the final decision
was not hers. The life of the planet lay in those palms.
"Recommendations?" he continued.

  "Attack immediately; we're already at Defcon 4," Hiero said.

  "Attack." Donatei, more decisive than usual.

   "With all due respect, Mr. Chairman, that would be
premature." The ACI commander's balding head shone. "If… A
leak in the Project security would not be enough to put them up
to this level of alert. They'd know it would focus our attention;
they'd try and isolate the infected comps clandestinely, so that
we wouldn't know it's been done. There's another factor here, one
we haven't grasped… Maybe the Mamba has the answer.
Whatever it is, God, sir, even if we win with the present
inadequate level of infection in their infosystems, we're talking
hundreds of millions of dead. Everybody, if they use Fenris. We
have to play for time."

   Hiero sat silent, listening to the debate. This was not a
committee, could not be, and she had said what she believed… At
last the chairman raised a hand for silence.

  "We'll present an ultimatum," he said. "How long until the
Mamba is intercepted?"

  "Twenty-four to thirty hours, sir."

   "I authorize immediate interception. Take whatever measures
are necessary. Secretary Ferriera, draft an immediate note to the
Domination; their mobilization is an intolerable provocation and
threat, and we will consider ourselves in a state of war unless
they begin withdrawal by exactly," —his eyes went to a
clock—"1000 hours tomorrow. General Mashutomo, all Alliance
forces to Defcon 5, and proceed on the assumption that
hostilities begin as of the expiration of the ultimatum." He
looked around. "Any questions?"

  Hiero waited until she was sure there would be none, before
she spoke. "No. I disagree with this course of action, but we must
have discipline or we are truly lost." A weary smile. "And I very
much hope I am wrong and you are right, Senor Chairman."



   "Roderigo," she said, as the last of the president's council were
leaving. "Wait a moment." When they were alone. "Miguel and
the grandchildren are still on Ceres. Send a message, tightbeam,
priority. Stay. He will understand."



EAST TENESSEE
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NOVEMBER 3, 1998
1500 HOURS


  "Captain, what the hell is this place?"

   The trooper was nervous. They all were, after the sudden
Defcon Four and the scramble of orders that had sent them
haring off into the hills, away from any news of what was going
on.

    The Ranger officer looked up from his maps; they had walked
the last half-mile, up into the hills. The air was cool here in the
high Appalachians even in summer, chill with winter now the
steep mountain ridges were thick with oak and maple and fir,
the scars of the mines long healed. He had been born not far
away, and he remembered the deep woodland smell of it, a little
damp and musty, deeply alive. There were few enough left who
could call the mountains home. Unforgiving hard country to
scratch a living out of, once the pioneers had taken the first
richness; the timber companies and the coal-miners had passed
through, and then the people had followed, down to the warm
cities and the sun.

   "It's a disused coal mine, son," the captain said. They're
supposed to be independent-minded, he reminded himself. And
they're feeling lost, yanked out of their regular units. Most of
the Rangers were helping with the last crates, up from the
disused road and through the carefully run-down entrance. The
shielding started a little way beyond that, and then the
storerooms and armories. "You married, son? Close relatives?"

   " Nnnno, sir," the soldier answered. He was in his late teens,
with a fluffy yellow attempt at a mustache standing out amid the
eye-blurring distortions of a chameleon suit that covered his
armor. "Not really."

   "Nobody here does," the officer continued. "And in that cave
there's everything we'd need for a long, long time."

   The soldier swallowed. "Yessir. I get the picture." The officer
noted with pleasure that he did not ask if there were other
refuges like this. I suspect so, the captain thought. But neither of
us needs to know. One of the noncoms below called with a
quietly menacing displeasure, and the young Ranger saluted and
turned to go. That gave him a glimpse of the last contingent,
looking unaccustomed to their fatigues and carrying various
items of black-boxed electronics.

  "Girls?" he squeaked, then remembered himself and saluted
again.

  "Technicians," the captain said softly to himself, looking up.
"Edited out of the comps, like all the rest of us. Unlikely to be
missed. Not on paper either, anywhere."

   The last chameleon-suited troopers were following up the
trail, replacing bent branches and disturbed leaves, spraying
pheromone-neutralizers. He folded the map and tucked it into a
shoulder-pouch. It was going to create the biggest
administrative hassle of all time, getting this set up again when
they had been stood down.

  "I hope," he murmured. "I sincerely hope."



NORFOLK. VIRGINIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
MALVINAS SSN-44
NOVEMBER 3, 1998
1700 HOURS

  "Take her down to a hundred meters," the captain of the
submarine said. "All ahead full."

   Commodore Wanda Jackson glanced around the command
center. It was up forward, near the bows of the metal teardrop.
Only half a dozen in the bridge crew, a score more in the rest of
the vessel. The drive was magnetic, superconductor coils along
the length of the hull; most of that was filled with the nuclear
power plant, essential life support, and thirty torps.
Hypervelocity sea-skimmers with multiple warheads, on a ship
that could do better than fifty knots, or dive as deep as the water
went, in most places. The finest class of submarine the Alliance
had ever built, and the last, nearly obsolete.

   "Well, they seem to have found some use for us," she said.
"Number Two." The Executive Officer came to stand by her
chair. "We'll open the sealed orders now." Their squadron were
spraying out from Norfolk like a fan of titanium-matrix
minnows, each with their own packet of deadly instructions.

  "Yes, ma'am."

    Her thumbnail hesitated for a moment on the wax of the seal.
I'm glad we never had kids, she thought; her husband was in
Naval Air, out of Portsmouth. The paper sprang free with a
slight tock sound.

  The commodore's eyebrows rose. "Make course for the
Angolan Abyssal Plain," she said. "Down to the bottom, and
wait."



ABOARD DASCS MAMBA
TRANSLUNAR SPACE
NOVEMBER 4, 1998
0300 HOURS


  "God," Marya muttered. The new trace on the screen was
matching velocities fast.

   She was in the pilot's couch of the yacht, where she had been
since the takeoff. Never leaving it, except for a few dashes to the
head. The floor around her was littered with the wrappers of
ration-bars; it was important to keep up the blood sugar. Sleep
you could avoid, by popping stim, even when you were
accelerating at a continuous 1.3 G. Over forty hours now since
the last sleep, and things were beginning to scuttle around the
edges of her peripheral vision. The icy clarity of her senses was
growing disconcerting, a taunting, on-edge twisting that left you
wondering if the information coming in to the brain was
accurate. Could she really smell so sour already? Am I thinking
straight? The dimmed lights still seemed hurting-bright.

    Her eyes flicked back to the board. The Draka cruisers were
still there behind her, three of them. Not gaining much; this ship
was fast. Grotesquely overpowered, and the hydrogen-boron-11
reaction was fantastically efficient. The first drive that really
didn't need reaction mass; all it produced was charged particles
for the coils to squeeze aft… Those cruisers were
fourth-generation, deuterium-tritium fusion. This much
continuous boost was probably doing their thrust plates no good
at all, they must be using just enough water-mass to protect the
diamond films. Still, eventually they would get close enough to
get parallax and bring their beam weapons to bear.

   An alarm chimed; one of the warships' lasers was impinging
on the Mamba's thrust-plate. Marya's fingers touched the board,
and the magnetic fields twisted slightly against the fusion flame.
The Mamba skittered sideways… The Draka craft were still
light-seconds away, enough to make dodging easy. Missiles and
slugs were out of the question without matching or intersecting
vectors; not enough sustained boost.

   "Oh, shit, no way I can fight this thing," she muttered,
looking over to the vacant couches. One untrained person could
just barely pilot it, on an idiot-proof minimum time, maximum
thrust boost, if they knew the theory and how to stroke
computers. A quarter of the screens were dead anyway, the
comm systems, all of them down, and no time to check why
without getting sliced into dogmeat by the pursuit. In the
meantime she was half-delirious and wholly terrified.

   She laughed. "And I feel great. Fucking wonderfull." Because
she was doing, accomplishing; perhaps only her own death in a
quick flare of plasma, but that would be something. It was
helplessness that was the worst thing about being a slave. Not
abuse, not privation, not the ritualized humiliation; it was not
being able to do anything except what they wanted. This was the
most alive she had felt in twenty years.

   The new trace was still closing. Marya blinked and
recalibrated; her eyes felt dry, but the lids slid up and down as if
lubricated with mercury. Whatever it was was boosting at 2 G to
match velocities, and had been for the better part of a day.
Better than the Mamba herself could do. Again she looked in
acid frustration at the dead comm screens; there was probably
enough information flying back and forth, threats and warnings
and demands, to tell her everything she needed to know. I might
as well put a secondmessage in a bloody bottle and throw it out
the airlock, she thought. 3K klicks and closing at 1k per relative.
Soon they would be in visual distance, as something more than a
point of light…

   "Visual," she muttered to herself, unconscious of speaking
aloud. "Maybe, if they're looking —"

   Impatiently, she called up the maximum magnification and
waited. Presently it appeared, no class of vessel she was familiar
with. For a chill moment she thought it might be another like the
craft she was flying; the tapered-wedge shape was plainly meant
to transit atmosphere. Then she saw the Alliance colors, the
Space Force blazon. Even the name: Sacajawea. It was bigger
than the Mamba as well, corvette sized, a couple of thousand
tonnes payload. Her hand touched a section of the consol.

  Airflight mode

   CURRENTLY IN VACUUM, the computer replied with
electronic idiot-savant indifference to circumstances.

  Airflight mode, landing lights, exterior.
  OPERATIONAL: ON/OFF (Y/N)?

  She touched on. Off. On…



  "Sir."

   Frederick Lefarge looked up from the plotting console. The
Sacajawea was one of a dozen shuttlecraft the New America
would carry, mirrormatter powered, equally suited to
atmosphere or deepspace work. That was easy enough with a
power supply as energetic as antihydrogen. If the New America
ever sailed, it would be a one-way trip with not much hope of
return, and a long time before a functioning economy could be
established at the target star. Her auxiliaries had been designed
to last a century, and do everything from lifting Itilotonne-mass
loads out of a terrestrial-sized gravity well to interplanetary
freighting. This one could cross the solar system and back in
forty days, without refueling.

   And it could fight an Imperator-class cruiser, quite handily;
hence the large bridge crew. Lefarge looked hungrily at the
spread of trajectories on the board before him. Those Snakes
were going to get a very unpleasant surprise, if push came to
shove.

  "Sir?" That was the Sacajawea's captain, Ibrahim Kurasaka.

   "Sir?" Lefarge said in turn. He outranked the other man, but
there was only one commander on a bridge. For that matter, his
manning a board here was irregular, but there were times when
the book didn't matter all that much.

   "Ah… Brigadier Lefarge, I'm getting a damned odd pattern of
visuals from that Snake pleasure-barge."

   "I'll be glad to take a look," Lefarge said. An image blinked
into the center of his screens, and he narrowed his eyes. Not a
random pattern… Suddenly, he chuckled harshly.

  "You didn't go through the national Scouts, did you,
Captain?"

   "No, Brigadier, I didn't," Kurasaka said. He was
Javanese-Nipponese, and the Indonesian Federation had not
been advanced enough for a universal youth-movement back
then.

  "That's an antique system; Morse, it used to be called.
Probably in the datastore; let me… yes." He raised one hand with
enormous effort against the drag of acceleration and began
keying. After a moment: "Oh, my God."



  "Marya, Marya! Ma soeur, ma petite soeur—"

  For a moment she was lost, content simply to hold him.

   Then she pushed herself to arm's length. There was shock in
his eyes, enough that she was startled. Do I look that bad? Forty
hours of stim, but still—

   "Fffff—" Appalled, she stopped. The stammer she had
overcome so long ago was back. Not now, not now! A medical
corpsman was floating down the connecting tube behind her
brother, crowding along the wall to let the squads of Intelligence
types past as they headed for the quick ransacking of the
Mamba that was all the available time would allow. She had an
injector in her hand, and the single-mindedness that went with
the winged staff that blazoned her elbow. Antistim and trank.

   "NNnnnnno!" Marya stutterred, pointing. Her brother
half-turned, cut off the medic's protest with an angry gesture.

  "You need rest," he said. The words were banal, not the tone,
and there were… yes, tears at the corners of his eyes.

  Tears are for later, she thought, and felt a flat calm return. A
deep breath in.

  "Lüi-sten," she said slowly. "Therrre is a bbbbiological…"
CENTRAL OFFICE. ARCHONAL PALACE
ARCHONA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
NOVEMBER 4, 1998
0500 HOURS


   "So." Eric von Shrakenberg looked around the circle of the
table. "Is that the consensus?"

   Louise Gayner snorted and snapped a thumbnail against the
crackle-finish of her perscomp. The others glanced sidelong at
each other; the Supreme General Staff representatives, the
Directors of War and Security, the Council members. No
teleconferencing, not for this. A dozen human beings, and they
were all those who must be consulted in this matter.

  Silence. Nods. At last the head of the Staff spoke:

   "Excellence, we've already lost twenty percent of our capacity
to this damned comp-plague, and there'll be mo'. Must be mo'.
The Stone Dogs are our only hope. If we lose that there's nothin'.
There's no time. Excellence; every moment we wait is a nail in
our coffin."

    The Archon looked down at his fingers. They're waiting for
my decision, my choice. The thought was hilarious, enough so
that he did not know whether laughter or nausea would be more
fitting. All my life I've wanted to set us free, he thought. free
from a way of life based on death. Now my only chance of it is
to inflict more death than the combined totals of every despot
and warlord in the whole mad-dog slaughterhouse we call
human history. My choice. Could it be Yolande's fault? Could it
be anyone's fault that it had come to this, the whole of human
history narrowing down to this point? Ten thousand generations,
living, rearing their children, working, dreaming, going down to
dust, and now… He would say the words, and they would be like
a sword across all time, no matter the outcome. If there were
humans at all, a generation hence, they would call this the
decisive moment. The ultimate power, and in his bands.
   A leader is someone who manages to keep ahead of the pack,
he knew bitterly, feeling the cold carnivore eyes on him. There
was exactly one practical choice he could make, within the iron
framework of the Domination's logic, and the Draka were
nothing if not a practical people. Or he could refuse it, and the
only difference would be that he would be safely dead in twenty
minutes. For a second's brief temptation he wished he could; it
would spare him the consequences, at least.

  No. At seventh and last, I am a von Shrakenberg, and I have
my duty. Besides that, if nothing else it would give Gayner too
much pleasure.

   "Activate the Stone Dogs," he said; his voice had the blank
dispassion of a recording. "Force Condition Eight. Service to the
State."

   "Glory to the Race," came the reply. There was another brief
pause, as if the men and women gathered around the table were
caught in the huge inertia of history, the avalanche they were
about to unloose. Then they rose and left, one by one.

   Gayner was the last. Eric watched her with hooded eyes as she
snapped the perscomp shut; time had scored his old enemy more
heavily than he, for all his extra years. Only traces of red in the
gray-white hair, and there were spots on her hands.

  "Happy?" he said, at last. There was a curious intimacy to a
perfect hatred, like a long marriage.

   "Not particularly," she replied, straightening her cravat. Their
eyes met. "The Yankees… that's not personal. They're cattle."
Then she smiled. "Yo', on the other hand. Ahhh, come the day,
that will make me happy."

   "Nice to know Ah can afford anothah human being such
satisfaction," he said. There was no particular hurry now;
neither of them was much involved in implementation. The snow
was moving down the slope. Still glacial slow, but there was no
stopping it. "Headin' fo y' bunker?"

  "No." She looked up at the wall. "I've got a transsonic waitin'.
I'll sit this one out in Luanda. Home." Gayner looked at him
again. "But don't worry. I'll be back."



DOMINATION SPACE COMMAND PLATFORM
MOURNBLADE
LOW EARTH ORBIT
NOVEMBER 4, 1998
0900 HOURS


  The commander of the battle platform looked up sharply.
"That's the code," he said. His second nodded, confirming. They
were in the centrum of the platform, and the Chiliarch allowed
himself a moment's pride; this was the newest and best of Space
Command's orbital fists.

  "Initiate Zebra," he said.

   There was a heavy tension on the command bridge, but no
confusion, no panic. This was what they had trained long years
for; if any of the operators at their consoles were thinking of
homes and families below, it made no difference to the cool
professionalism of their teamwork.

  "Preparin' fo' launch," the Weapons Officer said.

  The commander touched his screen.

  [Detonation sequence activated]

  "What the fuck—that's not the launch protocol." There was
controlled alarm in his voice. "Weapons, pull that sequence!"

  Frantic activity. "Suh, it's not respondin! The central comp's
not acceptin' input."

  [Ten seconds]

   A warning sent through Security crept into the Chiliarch's
mind. "Dump the core, over to dispersed operation." A sound of
protest from the Infosystems Officer; that would reduce their
combat capacity by nine-tenths. "Do it, do it now."

  "Initiatin'… suh, it won't respond. Null board."

  "Get in there and slag the core, physically, now."

  [Seven seconds]

   Fingers were prying at access panels. Hands tore bunches of
wire free, and sparks flickered blue.

  [Five seconds]

   Sections of screen were going dark. He could see globes of fire
rising and flattening against the upper atmosphere, down below
on Earth. Vortexes of black cloud were gathering.

  [ Three seconds]

   Even now there was no panic. Desperate effort… Impossible,
he decided. The Chiliarch closed his eyes, called up a certain day.
He was small again, and his father was lifting him…

  [Two seconds]… up so high toward the tree…

  [One second]… with Mother smiling, and…

  [ Detonation]



WASHINGTON HOUSE DEEP SHELTER
FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT
NEW YORK CITY
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
NOVEMBER 4, 1998


   "This had better be worth it, compadre," Carmen Hiero said,
fastening her robe. It was the early hours of the morning, and
she reached grumpily for the coffee. Then she saw her aide's face,
and gulped without tasting. "Something more about those
broadcasts?"
   "No, still just harmless modulated signals," the aide said. "But
there's something else… Madam President, the chairman's gone
to the Denver War Room." Thousands of feet under a mountain;
she felt something clutch at her windpipe. That was where the
real decisions would be made, as was right and proper; the
Alliance was sovereign, not the member states. "Please, the
briefing's being prepared." It was a short walk to the War Room;
even after all these years, she still found the salutes a little
incongruous for an elderly Sonoran lady in a housecoat.

  "What's the status?" she asked, sinking into the command
chair. There was a tired smell of cigarettes and stale coffee,
under the artificial freshness.

   "They've gone to Force Condition Eight," the general said.
"Full mobilization. Evacuations in progress; nearly complete, in
fact. Nothing overt, not yet; we're matching, of course. No
panic…" Unspoken, the knowledge that the civil defense
measures were inadequate passed between them. Yes, yes,
general. I did my best. Pray that we will not see how far short
of enough that is.

   "And they're continuing that crazy broadcasting. The experts
say the only thing it's going to affect is the homing sense of
pigeons. Evidently that's in the same range, planetary
magnetism or some such. And… yes, Denver says the Project
people in the Sacajawea did match velocities with the Mamba."

    Hiero nodded. She had always felt that name was a little
ill-omened; Sacajawea had led Lewis and Clark on their
expedition to the northwest. Heroic, if you looked at it from a
Euro-American perspective, but even if the family did not talk
about it, there were indios in the Hiero background. And from
their point of view, of course— She forced her mind back to the
present. Best not to think too much of the past, here and now.
That way lay thinking that somehow she could have prevented
this.

   "They're—" He frowned. "That's odd, they're making a Priority
A broadcast, from the shuttle."

  She snorted. "Get me Orbital Three. Split screen, and call up
the Sacajawea broadcast."

   Reason fought with sick dread. It made no sense-, the balance
had not changed. Von Shrakenberg was still in power over there,
and still a rational man, for a Draka. They had been counting on
that, on him keeping the Militants out until the Alliance was
ready…

   How could they have found out about the Project? she
thought; that was enough to send a stab of pain from the
incipient ulcer through her stomach. "Milk," she said. No. It
must be more. They would know we are not ready.

   "Madam President, we're having a little trouble with the link
to Orbital One," the comtech said, puzzled. "The signal's odd.
Here's the Project broadcast."

   It was Brigadier Lefarge. She sat bolt-upright at the sight of
his expression. "To all Alliance bases and personnel. To all
Alliance bases and personnel. The Domination has engaged in
a,"—his voice paused, as if searching for words—"an act of
bio-psychological—"

   She felt a sudden quietness spread from the tech's desk,
rippling out. "Put them on central screen, and get Orbital One,"
she said. Oh, my children. "Now. Vamos."

   The communications desk of the orbital battlestation came
on, but there was no one behind it. Silence, then a flicker. Then
the image on the screen jumped, to the command deck. A man
turned to look at them, and Carmen Hiero crossed herself
reflexively. There were screams, and one of the techs started
vomiting on her console. The man on the screen wore the
uniform of an Alliance general; there were deep nail-gouges
down the side of his face, and an eye hung loose on a stalk along
his cheek.

   "Urrrrrrr," he said, advancing on the screen pickup. They
could see the body behind him, broken and floating in the zero-G
chamber. Little else; too much blood was coming from the
throat. More floated around the general's mouth. "Aaaaaaaaaa.
" The mouth swelled enormous, and a slick grating sound came
through the speakers; the sound of teeth on crystal sandwich.
The general was trying to gnaw his way to the command room
on Earth. Wet mouth on the screen, and the teeth were
splintering now. Chewing, with shreds of tongue hanging
between the jagged ends. "Ah. ah.gggggg."

   Below her in the War Room the tech was screaming again,
but now he was standing, tearing out handfuls of his hair. The
president lifted her hands against the sight, and the fingers
turned on her. They smiled, showing their fangs. Burrowed
toward her face and began to feed, smiling.

  Pain. That was the first thought. Then, absurdly: So this is
what madness is.

   She stood, floated upward, landed on feet that rooted
themselves deeper than the world. That was terrible, because she
must run, she must hide, the Anglo girls at Mt. Holyoke had
sprinkled brown sugar over her sheets again and—

   —She was walking down the corridor towards the elevators,
and the wall kissed her shoulder wetly. A tech was kneeling in a
corner, hands locked around her feet, shivering with a tremor
that sent waves of blue into the air in time with her whimper.
Hiero pulled her own hands away from her face, feeling the
tendrils stretch and pulse. A man stumbled toward the tech and
squatted before her. He had a fire-ax in one hand, and mass of
bloody tissue in the other; the spurting wound between his legs
showed what it was. He held it out to her, and Hiero wanted to
weep with the numinous beauty of the motion that smelled of
pomegranates.

    Instead she walked into the elevator and keyed for the surface.
It shot upward and inward, compressing her into a fetal curl.
Bones snapped and flesh tore as it masticated her, rolling her
into a ball that it spat out into the corridor. Tissue and
fragments flowed together and she crawled along a carpet that
moaned in pain and writhed away from her. Something grabbed
her and jerked her upright. Insect-stick limbs, oval body, buzzing
wings, centered in a face she knew. What is this monster doing
with Roderigo's face? she thought, and felt rage seep wetly out
her stomach. Words spattered around her, heavy with evil oils.
She lunged forward and it ran, ran before her out onto a balcony
beneath a sky that shivered and thundered.

  Light blossomed, and there was a moment of total clarity as
her melted eyeballs ran down her cheeks. Then—



SEABED, ANGOLAN ABYSSAL PLAIN
MALVANIS SSN-44
NOVEMBER 4, 1998
1005 HOURS

   "Damned fragmentary, Captain," the Exec said. The lines
scrolling up the screen were the long-wave relay from Hawaii.
"What the hell does that mean?"

    "The first part's an all-points from some Space Force johnny,"
Jackson replied, rubbing one hand across the other. She felt a
little off, as if things were blurring at the edges. Christ, I can't be
coming down with the flu now of all times. "The stuff after that
is completely garbled. Rerun the first, the comp ought to have
decoded it by now." That was Nav Command for you, nothing
better to do than cryptography.

   Wanda Jackson read the report over, once and then again,
then turned her head to look at the Exec. Her hand reached for
the controls, and she keyed the general circuit.

   "Now hear this," she said. "All hands. This is the captain
speaking. All hands will proceed to the nearest medicomp and
take the maximum waking trank dose,immediately. Remain
calm. Once you have taken the medication, report to sickbay by
watches."

   The Exec handed her an injector; she pressed it against her
neck and felt a cool bite. A wall of glass came down between her
and the world, imposing an absolute calm. That was close. The
sick feeling at the edge of her vision was still there, but now she
could feel it as something apart from her. The captain touched
another control, this time to sickbay.
   "Dr. Fuentes?" she asked.

   "Si, Capitan," he answered. Dull, heavy tone. Good.

  "Have your psychotropic basket of tricks ready. You
understand?"

   "Si."

   Still with the flat lack of caring; trained reflex would take
over, when motivation was gone. That would be enough, until
they took the counteractants. Paranoia and schizophrenia were
reasonably well understood, and you could suppress the
symptoms quite readily, for a while.

   It would reduce their efficiency, of course. But they could do
the job. Good thing I don't care much what must be happening,
she thought idly, and rose to head down the corridor.



OFF THE COAST OF NORTH ANGOLA
2,500 METERS ALTITUDE
NOVEMBER 4, 1998
1035 HOURS


   "Oh, shit, oh, shit," the pilot of Louise Gayner's aircar was
saying as he fought the controls.

   "Pull yourself together, man," she snapped, and looked down
at her wrist. 1035, November 3rd; not a day she was going to
forget very soon.

   Perhaps that was a little unfair, she thought, as he quieted.
The aircraft was down low, no more than two thousand meters,
and doing better than Mach 2; not bad, considering the
turbulence since the blast front hit. That had probably been
Lobito, considering their position on the coast; a medium-sized
port city. Pity. Thought they'd stick to counterforce. The
weather outside was turning strange, with cloud patterns she
had never seen before. Nothing on the standard channels,
nothing but the roaring static bred by the monstrous
electromagnetic pulses that were rolling around the earth.
High-altitude detonations. Her aircar was EMP hardened, of
course…

   Nothing but cloud above, choppy blue-gray ocean below,
visually. The radar was crawling with images, higher up:
hypersonic craft, decoys, suborb missiles, bits and pieces of this
and that. She swallowed, and realized with a start that her throat
was dry; her flask was steady as she raised it to her lips. Wine
and orange juice; to hell with the doctors. Two more traces,
lower down,fast. From off to the west, only a few kilometers
ahead of them. Something lanced down out of the sky, a pale
finger that touched one of the traces. The explosion was a bright
blink against the sea; the other trace was gone away, over the
horizon.

   "I don't think…" Gayner began. Another dagger from the sky,
this time brighter and more ragged. Ablation track, she thought,
and sipped at the flask again. Missile, trying for the submarine.
As if to punctuate the identification, the sea erupted in a dome
of shocked white, kilometers across. A low-yield fission weapon,
tactical type. "I don't think there's much point in continuing on
to Luanda," she continued.

    The canopy went dark, and showed only the blossoming
sunrise in the east. For a moment there were two suns; Gayner
braced herself, and felt the automatic shockbars clamp down
around her body. "Not much point in trying to reach home," she
whispered. "Well divert east and land in the Kasai." If we make
it.

  A fist struck.



DRAKA FORCES BASE ARESOPOLIS
MARE SERENITATIS, LUNA
NOVEMBER 4, 1998
1200 HOURS


  Yolande Ingolfsson felt the rock tremor beneath her. "What
was that?" she asked sharply. For an instant she felt bitter envy
of the operators crouched over their screens. They had no time to
think.

   "Sector Ten," one replied. "Levels one through eight not
reportin'. Penetrator." That was serf housing, she remembered.
The breakthroughs seemed almost random; the last hit had been
a fabrication plant. This would mean heavy casualties, ten
thousand or better. Crushed, burned, explosive decompression.
Probably fairly quick, at least. It was a good thing that grief was
not cumulative; impossible to really feel more than you did for
an individual. If you could pile one up on top of another, human
existence would be impossible.

   "Incoming." Yolande looked up from her warship-style
crashcouch to the main screen. Another spray was coming into
sight over the mountains, fanning out in blinking tracks. Some
vanished even as she watched, but that quadrant's main
battlecomps were down, the weapons reaching for the warheads
were under individual control.

   "Those three are going to—" The faint vibration again, then a
louder, duller sound. "That's the dome gone."

   A hand closed on her throat. Don't be ridiculous, it's only an
artifact, she told herself.

  "Outside comm?" she asked.

   "Very irregular, from Earth," the officer replied. Yolande
looked over to the main view of the mother planet, routed in
from a pickup well out. Cloud reached unbroken around the
northern hemisphere, and large patches of the south. Even as she
watched a light blinked blue-white against the night quadrant.
Decision firmed.

   "Order to Ground Command," she said. That was the Army
CINC here in Aresopolis—what's left of it, her mind japed at her.
The Damage Control board's schematic of the city showed nearly
half red; the residential sectors were mostly still blue, but much
more of this and there wouldn't be enough afterwards to
maintain the people. And there would probably be very little help
from Earth. "Activate Contingency Horde-Two."
   "Ma'am?" The Tac officer looked up from his board. "Now?"

   Yolande keyed the releases of her combat cradle and stood,
pushing herself up with a brief shove of one hand. "The troops
will be safer dispersed on the surface," she said dispassionately.

   Her chin jerked toward an overview of this area of Luna.
"Most of this garbage is comin' from New Edo. It must be
civilians or reservists, takin' over from incapacitated military
personnel; we didn't get complete exposure fo' this Stone Dogs
thing. That's why it's so irregular an' uncoordinated, we can
almost handle it even crippled up as we are. That bein' so, they
can't noways be in a position to stop us if we go in, dig out their
perimeter on the surface, an' then blast down to get at the
inhabited levels."

  She thought of forests frozen-dead in the dome, and then of
ghouloons hunting the enemy through their own tunnels. There
was a certain comfort in it, dry and chill though it was.

   "Oh, and please to info'm Strategos Witter that I'll be with the
assault brigade." The Tac officer made to protest, shrugged, fell
silent. "Don't worry, Merarch, he'll object, too, but all the policy
level decisions've been taken. This is our last throw. I'm
certain-sure not needed here."



CENTRAL OFFICE, ARCHONAL PALACE
ARCHONA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
NOVEMBER 4, 1998
1700 HOURS


    "Excellence, they're getting some of the birds away," the
liaison officer said pleadingly. "Please, it's important that yo' get
to the shelter."

   Eric von Shrakenberg shook his head. "We didn't expect to
disable all the submarine launchers," he said quietly. "But if they
get Archona, then it's pointless anyway. I'll live or die with my
city… Call it an old man's fancy. Status report."
  The Palace infosystem was excellent. Not that he was in the
command loop, of course. Today he was a spectator.

   Have I ever been anything else? he thought wearily. The lines
traced over the globe. Somewhere outside there was a
mammoth crack, like thunder. Manmade thunder, a laser
burning a trail of ionization through the atmosphere, and a
particle beam following it.

   "We got the sub!" someone shouted. Lines were spearing out
from somewhere off the Cape of Good Hope. "Four skimmers
away." Hypervelocity, low level. "Sweet mercy of the White
Christ, that's Mournblade's sector."

  "The close-in will stop it… One down. Two. Three. Come on,
baby, come on —"

  The voices cut off, as if sliced. An awed voice spoke. "That's
Cape Town gone."

   The mother city, Eric thought. Cradle of the nation. Taste
victory, old fool. Savor it.

   "Status," he said, without opening eyelids that felt heavier
than worlds.

    "Excellence, we've lost… Wotan, we've lost nearly half the
discrete platforms out to L-5. Alliance, ninety percent down an'
falling fast. Freya bless, Excellence, if it hadn't been fo' the Stone
Dogs,"—a quaver, hastily surpassed—"there wouldn't be anythin'
left, Excellence."

    Another stone-shaking roar of manmade thunder through the
walls. Eyes darted to the screens, relaxed; the last salvo had been
at low-orbit targets, ones that were unlikely to respond. Eric
forced his eyes open, onto the screens. Forced his mind to paint
the full picture of what the bloodless schematics meant, through
the hour that followed. Your doing, our responsibility.

  A man was cursing softly. "Oh, shit, oh, shit, that's Shanghai.
Penetrator. Two. Another."
   "Northern hemisphere stations report high-incidence cloud
cover—"

  "I don't believe it," somebody said. Eric looked up; that had
been soft awe, not the hard control that had settled on most.
"London's gone."

   Eric slammed a hand down on the arm of his chair. "Who
ordered that? Get me their name!"

   "Excellence—" the operator looked back over his shoulder; the
New Race control of hormone levels must have slipped,
inattention, because there was a sheen of moisture across his
forehead. "Excellence, they did it themselves."

  Eric sighed and sat back, reluctantly letting go the balm of
anger. "It'll happen, if yo' inflict insanity on those in charge of
nuclear weapons," he said quietly.

   "Multiple detonation, Japan." A toneless voice, lost in
procedure. "High-yield groundbursts. Sublevel." A pause.
"Jacketed bombs. Prelim'nry sensor data indicate
radioactivity—"

    The Archon listened through the figures. "Schematic on
distribution, given projected wind patterns," he said. "Give me
an intensity cline, geography an' timewise." The deepgraven lines
beside his beak nose sank a little deeper as the maps twisted
themselves. "Note to Plannin' Board: we'll probably have to
evacuate the survivin' shelters from the Korean peninsula up
through the Amur Valley, minimum. Draw up estimates." The
Japanese had been true to their tradition, and had taken a good
deal more with them to the land of the kami than their home
islands. They never liked the Koreans, anyhow, he thought.

   Minutes stretched into hours, as the quiet voices and screens
reported. The thunder spoke less often now, outside; more of it
was being directed offensively, into space, to make up for
battlestations left derelict. More and more often his eyes went to
the screens that showed the cumulative effects, graphs rising
steadily towards the red lines that represented estimates of what
the mother planet's biosphere could stand. Conservative
estimates… we think, he reflected.

  At last he spoke. "Strategos, a directive to the Supreme
General Staff. No mo' fusion weapons within the atmosphere.
Kinetic energy bombardment only, on Priority Three targets and
above." Active military installations. "Throw rocks at them."

   "Excellence—" A glance of protest from the Staffs
representative.

   Suddenly Eric felt life return, salt-bitter but strong. "Gods
damn yo', that's our planet yo' fuckin' over, woman!" A dot
expanded over the Hawaiian islands. "There goes 25% of Earth's,
launch capacity! Do it, get them on the blower, do it!" What's a
few more million lives in this charnel house? he asked himself
mockingly. Go on, finish the job.

   "If only it were that easy," he muttered to himself. "If only."
Aloud: "I'm goin' to catch some sleep." Chemicals would ensure
that, and these days they could bring true rest. Whether you
deserve it or not. "Wake me immediately if we get any
substantial info'mation on the Trans Lunar situation."

  Even this day had to end, sometime.



BEYOND THE ORBIT OF MARS
ABOARD DASCS DIOCLETIAN
NOVEMBERS, 1998


   The bridge was still chaotic, but it was a more orderly
confusion now. Merarch Gudrun von Shrakenberg took another
suck at the waterbulb and glanced over at the console that had
housed the main compcore; there was an ozone and
scorched-plastic stink from it even hours after they had crashed
it with two clips from a gauntlet gun. A bit drastic, but it had
worked… Now the circular command chamber was festooned
with jury-rigged fiber-optic cables, and a daisy chain of linked
perscomps floated in the center.

  "Ready?" The Infosystems Officer looked up from his task.
Goddam New Race bastard still doesn't look tired, she thought,
then caught herself. It was amazing how habits of mind stayed
with you, long after the circumstances had made them
irrelevant. Now everything is irrelevant, with two exceptions,
she mused.

   "Ready," he affirmed, and looked down, flexing his hands.

   "Sensor Officer?"

   That one spoke without taking her eyes from screens that had
to be manually controlled. "They're still matching at what they
think is a safe distance." There was a vindictive satisfaction in
the tone, and Gudrun nodded in agreement. Safe distance from
the standard suicide bomb, but not from everything on the
cruiser rigged to go at once.

   She felt very tired, herself. "The rest of the squadron?"

   "Still acceleratin', Cohortarch; looks like they'll be able to
break contact."

   The Stone Dogs had scourged the enemy fleet even more
drastically than the comp-plague had crippled the Draka; it was
the Alliance's civilian jackals who were closing in on the helpless
Diocletian now. Miners and haulers and prospectors, fitted with
a few haphazard weapons and crewed by irregulars . . leathering
like buzzards around a prey they would not dare to approach if it
were hale.

  "Cleon," she said conversationally, "yo' were at Chateau
Retour last leave, weren't yo'? Met my mothah?"

   "Yes, Cohortarch," he said, making a final adjustment.
"Always admired her paintings." And he was probably sincere,
considering what they were about to do.

   That had been a good leave. It would be good to see home
again, she thought. The vintage would be in; the fruity red of
Bourgeuil, the Loire Valley Pinot Noir that smelled ever so faintly
of violets.
  "Actually, I was thinkin' of somethin' she told me about the
Eurasian War. She was in tanks then, the Archonal Guard."

  "Oh?"

  "Yes, they had a sayin'… Is that damn fool still comin' in to
board?"

   The Sensor Officer nodded. "Makes sense, actually. We've
been givin' a pretty good imitation of a dead ship. Be quite a
prize if they could get it."

   The Infosystems Officer made an affirmative sound, then
asked: "About that sayin', Cohortarch?"

   "Oh. 'If yo' tank is out of fuel, yo' becomes a pillbox.' " Her
hand closed on an improvised switch, and her eyes went to the
screen. Nothing fancy, someone had chalked a line on the
surface. When the blip crossed it…" 'If yo out of ammunition,
become a bunker. Out of hope, then become a hero.' Service to
the State!"

  Her finger clenched.

  "Glory to the R—"



CENTRAL OFFICE, ARCHONAL PALACE
ARCHONA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
NOVEMBER 14, 1998


  "So," Eric said, looking at the head of Technical Section.

   The table was more crowded for this conference than it had
been for the final one on the Stone Dogs. "Strategos Snappdove,
what yo' sayin' is basically that we in the position of a man in a
desert with a bucket of water. There's enough to get us to safety,
but we got a dozen holes in the bucket and only one patch."
Somebody actually managed to laugh, until Eric stared at her for
a moment with red-circled eyes.
   The Militant Party's man frowned. "None of the problems
seem insoluble, on the figures," he said suspiciously.

   Eric kept his face impassive; somewhere within him, teeth
were barred. You'll be dancing to our tune for some time,
headhunter, he thought coldly. The wall-screens were set to a
number of channels; one showed the streets outside. Rain was
falling out of season, mixed with frozen slush… We humans may
have earned this, went through him. The plants and the beasts
did not. His hand gestured to the scientist.

   "Ah." Snappdove tugged at his graying beard. He looked as if
he had not slept for a week, and then in his uniform, but that
was common enough here today.

   "Hmm," he continued. "Strategos, you are missing the, ah,
the synergies between these problems." His hands moved on the
table before him, calling up data. They scrolled across one wall,
next to a view of Draka infantry advancing cautiously through a
shattered town. The troops were in full environment suits,
ghosting forward across rubble that glistened with rain. It was
raining in most places, right now.

  "We lost some fifteen percent of our Citizen population," he
went on.

  Unbelievable, Eric thought. Worse than our worst
predictions.

   "And twenty-two percent of the serfs. Three hundred million
in all. But these losses are concentrated in the most highly
skilled, educated components, yo' see? Then again, half our
Earth-based manufacturin' capacity is still operable. But crucial
components are badly hit. And to rebuild, we need items that
can only come from zero-G fabricators: exemplia,
superconductors and high-quality bearings. Not to mention the
electronics, of course."

    "Ghost in the machine," the Faraday exec half-mumbled. They
all glanced over at her. "We still haven't gotten certain-sure
tracers on that comp-plague," she went on, and returned her
gaze to her hands. "May have to close down all the fabricators
commissioned in the last decade—what's left of them—an' start
from scratch."

   Snappdove nodded. "So we need the orbital fabricators. But
we lost mo' than eighty percent of those. And of our launch
capacity. We must rapidly increase our launch capacity, but—"
he spread his hands. "— much of the material needed for all
forms of Earth-to-orbit launch is space-made. And so it goes."

   "Not to mention mo' elemental problems. Miz Lawrence?"

   The Conservancy Directorate chief raised her head from her
hands. "We stopped short of killing the planet," she said dully.
There's someone who looks worse than I do, Eric thought with
mild astonishment. "Just. Lucky the worst effects were in the
northern hemisphere, where it was winter anyways. Even so—"
she waved a hand to the screen that showed freezing rain
dripping on the jacarandas and orange groves."—damn-all crops
this year from anywheres. Not much in the north fo' one,
maybeso two years. Oceanic productivity will be way down, we
got ice formin' in the Adriatic, fo' Freya's sake. Even half normal
will take a decade; it'll be a century befo' general levels are back
to normal." A death's-head smile. "That's assumin' some
beautiful synergism doesn't kick us right ovah the edge."

   Eric looked over to the Agriculture Directorate's
representative. "We can make it," he said, "if the transport
system can get back to somewhere like thirty percent of normal
in a year or two. And if there's no more excess demands, and we
impose the strictest rationin'. We'll have just enough in the
stockpiles to tide us ovah without we have to eat the serfs." A few
hollow chuckles. "We're already freezin' down the livestock that
died. Best we get control of the enemy territory's grain-surplus
areas as quick as may be."

  The Archon nodded to the Dominarch, the head of the
Supreme General Staff. He was coolly professional as he took
over control of the infosystem.

  "Well, we made a mistake tryin' fo' immediate landings in
North America," he said. Casualty figures and losses in
equipment flashed on the wall; his tone became slightly defensive
at the slight but perceptible wince. On the screen beside the
schematic a firelight was stabbing bright tongues of orange-red
through the gray drizzle.

   "Too much of our orbital capacity is out; reconnaissance and
interdiction we don't have. Not all that many organized
fo'mations to oppose us, but we're hurt badly, too; also, we've
had to keep back a lot of troops to maintain order an' help with
relief efforts." He paused. "An' they had a damn good fallback
force waitin'," he said grimly. "Couple of cases, it was like stickin'
our dicks into a meatgrinder. It goin be a long time befo' we get
that area pacified. 'Specially iff'n we have to give priority to
economic uses of our launch capacity. We're occupying a few
strategic areas, stompin' on any major concentrations, an'
otherwise pullin' back. Fo' one thing, we still haven't gotten the
last of those subs."

   Snappdove joined in the general nod; Trincomalee had taken
a hypersonic at short range only yesterday. "In any case, the
survivors in North America would be almost as much trouble in
labor camps," he said. "Making better progress in some other
areas we are, but… these are territories dependent on a
mechanized agriculture. We cannot support it, and the
industries that did we have smashed. Also, ground combat
devours resources we need elsewhere, not so much of material as
of trained personnel."

   "Aerospace?" Eric said.

   A nod from another of the Arch-Strategoi. "Well," she said,
"in Cis-Lunar space, we won—iff'n yo' consider bein' almost
wiped out as opposed to completely wiped out in those terms.
Only Alliance installations survivin' are in Britannia an' New
Edo, with our people from Aresopolis sittin' on them. Aresopolis
came off surprisin' well, which is a good thing because fuck-all
help we goin' give them these next few years."

   "Outer system."

   A shrug. "Excellence, Mars is pretty safe, not least because
what's left of the Fleet is mostly in orbit around it. A lot of them
with their compcores blown. Not much direct damage to the
Martian installations; the comp-plague hit them bad, wors'n
here, but they on a planet, which makes the life support easier.
Trouble is, the Fleet units down are our best, the most modern."
Another shrug. "As fo' the gas-giant moons, we be lucky just to
keep them supplied, and that's assumin' no hostile action."

  "And in the Belt?"

   "We lost. They whupped our ass, Excellence. We hurt them
bad, totaled Ceres, but they've got pretty well complete control in
there now. No offensive capability to speak of, but plenty of
defense, all those tin cans with popguns an' station-based
weapons. And that starship. We don't know much of its capacity,
but we do know its auxiliaries are Loki on wheels; roughly
equivalent to what's left of our Fleet. Less the Lionheart, but
they're out of the picture and runnin' their systems on the
research computers."

  "Dominarch," Eric said formally, "is it yo' opinion that, as
matters stand, we can break the remainin' enemy resistance?"

   The head of the Domination's military looked to either side at
his peers, then nodded. "Depends on yo' definitions, Excellence.
In Cis-Lunar space, not much of a problem, for what it's worth.
On Earth, we can prevent any organized military challenge, yes.
Dependin' on the resources made available," —he inclined his
head towards Snappdove—"we can pacify the last of the Alliance
territories in twenty to fifty years. Pacify to the point of bein'
open fo' settlement; I expect some partisan activity fo' a long,
long time."

   He bit his lower lip and tapped at the table with a stylus.
"Problem is Trans-Lunar space. There's maybe half a million
ferals still left in the Belt, an' they have that starship and the
facility that built it. We have our own antimatter production,
just cumin' on stream near Mercury, but the transport an'
guardin' problems… And they are standin' above us on the
gravity well." A long pause. "All factors considered, yes. We'll
have to devote everythin' we can spare to it beyond survival, but
yes. Certain advantages to bein' nearer the sun, and we do
grossly outnumber them, in production as well. Long, long war of
attrition, though. Possibility of technological surprise, although I
doubt it; rate of innovation was slowin' down even befo' the War,
and they won't have nearly as much to spare fo' research now."

   Eric tapped his fingers together, looking around the table. The
Draka were not a squeamish people, nor easily frightened—but
the magnitude of this was enough to daunt anyone. Myself
included, he thought, and surprised them with a harsh laugh.

   "Come now, brothers and sisters of the Race," he said. "These
are the problems of victory. Think how our enemies must be
feelin'!" He turned to the Dominarch again.

   "Consider as an alternative that we get a year's grace," he
said. "In addition, that that starship actually leaves."

   "Oh. Much better. Same prediction here on Earth; then… oh,
say forty years to mop up the Belt. Still difficult an' expensive,
but it would give us some margin."

   Eric tapped the table lightly. "Here is my proposal. We offer
terms to the remainin' enemies in Trans-Lunar space. The, ah,
New America to be allowed to leave; we can guarantee that with
exchange of hostages an' so forth. They turn ovah the complete
schematics on the comp-plague. In addition, we offer Metic
Citizenship to any who surrender on Luna an' beyond." That
meant civil rights but not the franchise, with full Citizenship for
their children. "Between the ones who leave, and the ones who
take our offer, we cut the problem down to size."

  Shock, almost an audible gasp. The Militants' spokesman
burst out: "Inconceivable!."

   Thank you, Eric thought. Gayner would have been more
subtle, "There's ample precedent, aftah the Eurasian War, fo'
example." Everyone there would be conscious that Snappdove
was the child of such.

   "No precedent fo' that scale. And many of them would be
racially totally unsuitable."

  Eric smiled thinly. "Is there any precedent fo' the size of this
war? Fo' the extent of our losses? Fo the situation? We need
those skills, fo' sheer survival's sake. War to the knife now might
bring down the Domination." He paused at that, for the political
implications to seep home. That's right, think on the fact that
I'm the Archon who's winning the Final War. Who'll be seen as
the prudent one, and who the reckless, if you push this issue.
"As to the cosmetic problem, the Eugenics Board can see that
their children have suitable exteriors." And they will know
which party to throw their support behind, a factor not to be
dismissed.

   "But—letting them establish a colony, on the nearest star; an
insane risk!"

  "Nearest? With a forty-year transit time?" Eric said
mordantly. Heads nodded; most of those here had a reasonably
good idea of the sheer immensity 4.5 light-years represented.
The whole solar system was a flyspeck by comparison. "Strategos
Snappdove?" The Militant flushed, knowing this was collusion
and unable to use the fact.

   "Ah. Well, we estimate that they could take no more than a
hundred thousand, assuming they use our Low-Met process. No
matter how well equipped, this is a very small figure to maintain
a technological civilization, the specialists required… The Belt
itself is not self-sufficient, not really; it is almost impossible to
fully duplicate a terrestroid ecology without a terrestroid
planet… Using worst-case analysis, that is best-case fo' them, a
century after arrival befo' they are established firmly enough to
think of anything beyond bare survival. Therefo' we can expect
no hostile action for a century an' a half, at an absolute
minimum. Mo' probably a century beyond that."

   "Besides which," he went on, "our studies indicate
conclusively that attackn' a defended planetary system is
virtually impossible. Interstellar war at sublight speeds is an
absurdity; so is interstellar government. In two centuries, we'll
be fully recovered, mo' powerful than a strugglin' colony could
possibly be, and I'll stake my life and soul we wouldn't have the
slightest chance of successfully attackin' them. If they did attack
us, we could swat them like mosquitoes. Far mo' rational to put a
fraction of that effort into colonizin' stars further out; which,
incidentally, we'd be doin' as well."

  Eric waited until the expressions showed the argument had
been assimilated, weighted the balance of doubt and acceptance.

   "And finally," he said, "a meta-political point. We Draka have
always lived fo'—not necessarily war—but to excel, to dominate,
to prove ourselves. As far as we can tell, there's no other sophont
race within reach. Leastways, none with a technological
civilization. The universe isn't enough of a challenge, it isn't
conscious; without some rival, even if it's a rival we can't fight
directly, what is the Race to measure itself against?"

   He cleared his throat. That was a good concluding note; he
had shown them just how grim the situation really was, and a
way to simplify it considerably. And besides the practical
reasons, a philosophical one squarely in line with tradition.

  "Well need to study this in far mo' detail, of course." he went
on. "And a number of factors depend on the enemy's reaction.
But I take it we have a preliminary consensus to present to the
Senate and Assembly?"



CENTRAL OFFICE, ARCHONAL PALACE
ARCHONA
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
JANUARY 14, 1999


   The face of the man in the screen was haggard-blank. Eric
suspected that that was more than the psychotropic drugs
thwarting the viral saboteurs at the base of the American's
brain; it would be enough, to see a world perish while you stood
helpless. There is something worse than these ashes of victory,
he thought, moved. Defeat.

   "You are a son-of-a bitch even for a Snake, you know that?"
the American said.

   "Those are the best terms yo' can expect," Eric said, making
his voice gentle. The minutes of relay time were an advantage;
his brain felt gritty with lack of sleep. "Oh, yo' mean my little
offer of Citizenship?" He raised an eyebrow. "Well, yo' can
scarcely blame yo' compatriots—ex-compatriots— on Luna for
mostly fallin' in with it. Considerin' the alternatives."

  "It's not altogether over," the voice from the screen grated.
"We… hold the Belt. We're standing over your head, Snake."

   "The war is ovah. Was over befo' it began, or the human race
would be dead. It couldn't be fought, only finessed. We both
knew that; yo' lost, General Lefarge." For reasons you'll never
know. "Even assumin' yo' support in the Belt stays rock-firm, all
you can do is hurt us befo' we drag yo' down. Which 'we will in
the end; to kill the Race yo'd have to kill Earth. Meanin' two
billion innocents; any one of whom, of course, can exercise the
option of dying on they own initiative any time they wants. In
terms of yo' own ethic, sacrificin' them for victory is one thing.
Deprivin' them all of they personal choice just to make the Draka
suffer mo' is a little questionable, isn't it?"

   "Not as questionable as trusting a Draka's word on allowing
the New America to leave peacefully."

   I've won, Eric thought. It brought a workman's satisfaction, if
no joy. "We don't expect that. What I'm asking is fo' yo' and I to
work out a way which doesn't require that yo' trust us." He
spread his hands. "To be absolutely frank, we don't really have
the capacity to stop y'all, only to make the best departure orbit
unworkable and slow yo' down. Which yo' can send observers to
verify. In any case, my offer has split yo' community. To the
brink of civil war, if yo' refuse this option."

   Slow minutes of waiting. He felt the chill; it was colder than it
should be, here in Archona, much colder. Not too much. Near
the edge, but we pulled back in time. Our Mother is wounded,
but she'll recover, if I can buy her time. Eric used the
opportunity to study the other's face while the message arrived.
That is a dangerous man, he decided. Am I doing the right
thing?

  "We accept, pending the details," Lefarge spat. "And your
sympathy isn't worth shit, Snake." He recovered an icy
possession. "Tell me, though. Why not just offer admission to the
Snake farm to our traitors?"

   Eric spread his hands in concession. "Two… no, three reasons,
Brigadier Lefarge. First, many mo' will take the offer, if they can
salve they consciences by knowin' y'all have a place to go." He
smiled.

   "Sun Tzu said that one should never totally block an enemy's
retreat; retreatin' refugees are less troublesome than a last stand,
at the moment. Second, and this I used with my colleagues, what
are the Draka without an enemy, however distant? We won't be
able to follow y'all anytime soon—that's anothah thing we can
arrange to verify—but we'll know that yo' there. Third, fo' my
private consumption… Well, let's say that the Domination…
forecloses certain options, as a path of human development.
Better that not all the eggs be in one basket, fo' Earth's children."

  A curt nod, and the screen blanked. Eric sat in thought,
watching the chill non-summer rains beat against the window.
Then he keyed the office com again.

   "Put Arch-Strategos Ingolfsson on," he continued. There was
work yet, before he could sleep. "Secured Channel Seventeen, and
leave me, please.

   "

   Yolande looked up from her desk, her hand shaking as she
took another stim and swallowed it dry. Got to watch these, she
thought.

   "Excellence." Wotan, he looks worse than I do. Of course, he's
eighty.

   " Arch-Strategos. This is on Channel Seventeen, yo' can speak
freely. In brief, yo' are relieved and ordered to return to
Archona." The starved eagle face leaned closer to the pickup.
"Seven hundred million dead," he continued quietly. "Includin'
millions of our own people. How does it feel, bein' the greatest
mass murderer in human history?"
   Yolande squeezed thumb and forefinger to the bridge of her
nose. "If this is victory, perhaps defeat is preferable," she said.
"I'm ready fo' yo' firin' squad, Excellence."

   "I've seen defeat just recently, and yo're wrong," Eric said, and
laughed; she shivered slightly. It was the laugh a hanged man
might make. "And I'm not lettin' yo' off so easy as that."

   She looked up, and he was grinning at her.

    "A third of the human species dies, and Louise Gayner
survived; accordingly, I can't spare the 'Hero of the Tunnels.' And
y' are kin, aftah all… I ought to send yo' to Australasia to pacify
it."

   A pause. "No, I'm givin' Gayner that joy; it's butcher's work,
she'll enjoy it. And hopefully do it badly enough to give me an
axe-swing at her neck… No, yo', dear niece, are comin' home to
put the remnants of our space capacities together. We 'need
them, if we're to get this planet back on its feet."

   Another corpse smile. "Just to help, I'm goin' to be sendin' yo'
lots of qualified personnel. We're goin' to be handing out
Citizenship fairly liberal; some millions, as many as I can swing.
Awkward to have them around here—off to yo'. Now yo' can
really learn how to handle Yankees." Flatly: "And that firin'
squad is in abeyance, not dismissed."

   She looked up sharply. "Think about it, niece. I just 'won' the
Final War. I've got a decade at least in which to use that,
politically, and I intend to use it. And yo'… yo' troubles are just
gettin' under way."

   Yolande nodded. It was difficult to care, when you were this
tired. "Was that smart, lettin' the New America go?" she said.
And are the Lefarges escaping me, or have I taken the most
complete vengeance any human being has ever achieved?

   "I think so," he said, nodding heavily. "Keeps us on our toes,
makes sure the Race goes to the stars as well. And… maybe this
victory,"—his mouth twisted at the word—"means Earth is goin'
down a dead end, much as we try to see otherwise. The New
America means an insurance policy fo' our species, at least. See
yo' soon, partner in crime."




       CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

   Could things have turned out otherwise? My father went to
his grave blaming himself for the Fall. Some others who should
have known better still do so. Yet how far can any individual be
blamed or praised for a historical event so large and complex?
Here on Samothrace we have developed an exaggerated idea of
what one person can do, perhaps. An entire solar system with
less than a quarter-million inhabitants will do that' we are on
our own, on a frontier whose homeland has been eaten by time
and history. And our heritage is one of belief in individual
responsibility, the sacredness of choice, in the human being as
the embodiment of humanity. Rightly so; even to the extent of
renouncing the temptations of the trans-human, whether
electronic or biological. We make our own destiny here.

    So we see our history-become-myth in terms of heroes and
villains. My father was a very great man; the New America's
completion is his monument, for without his driving will it
might well never have been ready to carry our saving remnant.
This world is his monument as much as any single man's, for his
leadership in the first terrible years of the Settlement. Yet in
those final months around Sol the lovely and the lost how many
separate acts—of cowardice, heroism, treachery, honor, love,
hate, stupidity, inspiration—went into the making of the Fall?
The past we do not know; the future we cannot. I knew the living
man, and know he never did less than his utmost. Perhaps that
should be added to our new Republic's proud motto: Ad Astra et
Libertas.
                                         A Heritage of Liberty
                                       by Iris Lefarge Stoddard
                                       Adams University Press
                           New Jerusalem, Planetary Republic of
                                                    Samothrace
                                                   Alpha Centauri
                                           2107 AD (109 Dispersal)



                     EPILOGUE I
CLAESTUM PLANTATION
DISTRICT OF TUSCANY PROVINCE OF ITALY
DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA
JUNE 1, 2000


   Yolande Ingolfsson paused and looked back from the entrance
of the graveyard. The hills looked raw, without the ancient olives;
the new plantings were tiny shoots of green, and she could see
the workers still piling the black stumps and branches together
for burning. There were gaps in the fruit orchards as well,
despite all the anticold bacteria, and the sheep were few and
sickly. The winds out of the west had been cold, these past
winters; cold and full of death. But the land would recover, if not
fully in her lifetime; the grass stood green, and the thin rumpled
grainfields were beginning to show yellow with promise. She
shivered slightly, pulling the collar of her coat closer about her; it
would be a long time before Italy was as warm as it had been.

  The grave was a little ragged, neglected when so much else
needed every pair of hands, She knelt and laid the roses on the
shaggy grass. That's all right, she thought, smoothing it with her
hands. There were small white flowers blooming in it; they
smelled of peppermint. It's life, is all.

    "Myfwany," she said, and found herself empty of words for a
long time. The sun moved, and her shadow crept across the
living flowers and the ones she had brought.

   "Myfwany, sweet," she whispered at last. "I don't know what
to say. They're calling me a hero, now. Even Uncle Eric, in
public." She shook her head again. "The world is so full of
mourning, it should make my own griefs seem small. And yet…
I'm lucky,I suppose. Gwen's safe; our children are safe. There's
no war hangin' over they heads now. But," — she beat her fists
together. "Oh, love, did I do right, or did I fuck it all up?"

   Warm wet slid down her cheeks, into the corners of her
mouth. She raised her hand to her face, reached out to lay the
teardrop on the roses. It slid onto the crimson petal, lay
glittering.

   "Oh, honeysweet," she said, her voice shaking with the sobs.
"All the tears I never cried, would they have made a difference?
My love, rest yo' well. Rest ever well. Till we meet again, forever."




                     EPILOGUE II
CONTROL DECK
ALLIANCE SHIP NEW AMERICA
PAST THE ORBIT OF PLUTO
OCTOBER 1, 2000


   "That's it," Captain Anderson said with a sigh. "If we needed
any more confirmation." He eased the earphones from his wiry
black hair; a stocky pug-faced Minnesotan of Danish descent,
and a physicist of note as well as a Space Forcer. "Over to you,
JB," he continued formally.

   The Second Officer nodded and touched a control. Anderson
turned to the gaunt man who stood behind him, watching the
receding light of Sol in the main tank-screen in the center of the
control deck. It was set to show what an unaided eye would see
from this distance: no more than an unusually bright star.

   "So they're keeping their word, for once," Lefarge said softly.
"Not that we left them any choice, the way we had it set up." It
was surprising enough that von Shrakenberg had trusted him to
broadcast the final specs on the comp-plague… He pushed the
complexities out of his mind. It was difficult; that was something
he was going to have to learn all over again, to live for the future.
Cindy would help, and they would both offer what they could to
Marya.
  "They couldn't touch us at this range, anyway," Anderson said
meditatively.

  "That's true," Lefarge agreed. His voice had an empty tone, to
match his eyes. "They'll probably follow, one day. If not to Alpha
Centauri, to other places."

   "We'll be ready," Anderson said, coming up beside him. There
was no other sound besides the ventilators, and the subliminal
tremor of the drive. That would continue for months yet… "Or
we… our descendants could go back, first."

   "No. No, not if they have any sense. There'll be nothing here
worth coming back for; we're taking all the valuables with us. All
that's left."

   The ship's commander cleared his throat. His authority was
theoretically absolute, until they reached the New Americas
destination, and he knew Lefarge would obey as readily as any
crewman. But there was something in that lined face that made
him reluctant to order; it would be an intrusion, somehow.

  "Brigadier—" he began.

   Lefarge looked up and smiled; it even seemed to touch his
eyes, somehow. "Fred," he said. "While we're off duty, Captain."

   "Fred. Look, man, there's no real need for you to stand
watches; yes, you're qualified, and it'll be only five years total."
The bulk of the colonists would be in low-met all the way; there
were five active-duty crews, who would work in rotation. "But it's
at the other end we're really going to need you. Hell, why waste
your lifespan? You're going to have a life's work there, and
barring catastrophe the crew's doing routine. For that matter,
I'm going to have time to finish that novel at last."

   "I think I am going to have a life job, when we get there,"
Lefarge said, nodding. "And to do it properly, I'm going to have
to be looking forward." He met the captain's eyes again, and his
were like raw wounds. The other man had seen more than
enough of grief, these last few months, but it was still shocking.
"So I need time for… thinking. And to get the saddest words in
the English language out of my system." He laughed bleakly at
Anderson's silent question. "If only. If only."




                   EPILOGUE III
OBSERVATION DECK.
DA3CS LIONHEART
NEAR PLUTO
OCTOBER 5, 2000


   The bright dot of the New Americas drive was another star
among many, in the screen that fronted the darkened chamber.
Gwendolyn Ingolfsson hung before it, lost and rapt, unconscious
even of the man whose arm was linked with hers.

  "Oh, gods," she whispered; starlight broke on tears. "How I
envy them!"




                     APPENDIX

  Note to readers: First mention of placenames not common to
our timeline and that of the Domination are given with their
equivalent in brackets, thus: Virconium [Durban, South Africa]

  Excerpts from:

  The Economy of the Domination: Historical and Regional
Perspectives by Sandra de Varga, Ph.D, Department of
Economic Geography, San Diego University Press, 1991.


  Industrial Power Systems and Transportation

   The development of the steam engine followed rather different
paths in the three most important centers of innovation during
the Early Industrial era—Great Britain, the USA, and the Crown
Colony of Drakia.


  Steam Engines to 1850

   The Watt engine had assumed its mature form by the early
1780s; a double-acting reciprocating engine with D-slide valving,
a centrifugal governor, a separate condenser and steam
pressures of no more than 5 psi, capable of delivering
reciprocating or rotary action via sun-and-planet gearing. This
engine was very suitable for the British market, which was small,
coal-rich and had an excellent transport infrastructure by the
standards of the time. Watt engines were extensively exported to
Drakia in the late 1780s, and put to a number of uses in mining
and agricultural processing, particularly sugar milling, and also
in civil engineering—principally harbor dredging.

   However, the Watt engine had serious disadvantages in the
Southern African environment. The coal was abundant and
cheap but the mines were far inland and out of the reach of
water transport; water itself was often scarce and highly
mineralized. Unlike the Americas, there were virtually no
navigable rivers. The centers of economic activity—plantations,
ranches, harbors, gold, coal, and diamond mines—were very
widely scattered, islands in a sea of thinly-populated grazing
country. By 1796 there were over 250 Watt engines at work in
the Drakian colony, a number second only to that of Britain
herself, and these problems were becoming acute. Boulton &
Watt, the manufacturers, were far too distant to understand the
needs of the Drakian market, and uninterested in the sort of
research program necessary to solve the manufacturing
problems involved; after all, they were selling every engine they
could turn out and more.

   It was at this point that Richard Trevithick arrived in
Virconium to take up a post as inspector of steam engines for the
African Mining and Metals Combine. The young Cornish
engineer had little formal education, like many of the
entrepreneur-inventors of the time; unlike them, he also had
virtually no business sense to speak of. What he did have was an
almost instinctive grasp of the thermodynamics and mechanics
of steam engines, and a matchlessly fertile imagination. In
Africa, he found a patron with limitless capital and driving
needs.

   Trevithick's first accomplishment was a simple modification
of the Watt engines used for pumping water and crushing ore in
the Combine's gold mines in eastern Archona province; he
substituted a riveted-iron double flue boiler for the earlier
copper model, inserted the cylinder in the boiler itself, and
tripled the operating pressures. The drastic increases in fuel
efficiency led directly to his promotion to Inspector-General of
Engines for the Combine.

   Shipping shortages produced by the Napoleonic Wars,
coupled with high prices and demand, had already prompted a
coalition of investors to start a coal-fired iron smelting plant on
the site of the future city of Diskarapur [Newcastle, South Area],
where suitable coking coal and iron ore occurred in close
proximity. The colonial Assembly had financed its expansion to
include a Court-process puddling plant and crucible-steel facility
for munitions production; there was a large Wilkinson-type
cannon boring mill, imported from England, as well. The Mining
Combine was sufficiently impressed with Trevithick's talents to
propose a merger, and the setting-up of a Ferrous Metals
Combine which would produce mining equipment—steam
engines in particular.

   Trevithick was in charge of the new operation, and recruited
extensively in the British Isles for mechanics and engineers.
Improved products followed rapidly, particularly since Drakia
was too remote for Boulton & Watt patent-protection lawsuits.
Pressures of up to 25 psi were quickly achieved, and smaller and
more precisely-bored cylinders produced. Trevithick's next
crucial innovation was the external feedwater condensor, which
permitted recycling of boiler water (1799) and the uniflow valve
system, which raised fuel efficiency another order of magnitude
by separating the steam entry and exhaust areas of the cylinder.
By 1800, Trevithick high-pressure single-cylinder engines were
being produced in some numbers and were replacing or
supplementing the Watt engines then in use.
   However, Trevithick was not content with fulfilling his
original mandate. The new engines were now compact and
rugged enough to be a credible power plant for locomotive
purposes. In 1800-1801 Trevithick and his team of assistants
(which included a number of instrument makers familiar with
precision metalworking) produced working scale models of
road-engines and rail locomotives, as well as an experimental
paddle wheel steamboat. The backers of the embryonic Ferrous
Metals Combine were sufficiently impressed to provide funding
for prototype development. While slow and cumbersome by later
standards, the resulting locomotives and "road autosteamers"
were an obvious and vast improvement on animal traction.
Capital from gold production and the export trades flowed into
further investment, and the first production models were in use
by 1803. Steam-powered gunboats on the Nile proved the
military utility of the new engines, and were crucial to the rapid
pacification of the province of Egypt after the uprising of 1803.
Steam dredges of Trevithick's design helped to build the Suez
Canal in 1803-1810, and coastal steamers and harbor tugs.
Steam gunboats pushed Draka control up the eastern coast of
Africa and into Madagascar. As early as 1810, "drags" (steam
haulers pulling wagons) were being used to transport troops.

   The next important innovation was in the fuel and boiler
systems. Power-driven drills had been an early application of
Trevithick's work, searching for underground water in the
extensive arid regions of southern Africa. When Egypt was
overrun, drilling teams began operating in its Western Desert—
and discovered petroleum in the deserts west of
Alexandria,natural gas in the Nile Delta. There were no
convenient coal mines in Egypt, and local engineers quickly
modified their machinery to use at first crude oil, and then
distilled products, as a fuel source. Once the greater convenience
and heat-density of petroleum became apparent, most
road-engines and an increasing number of nautical ones were
converted to liquid fuels. At the same time, "water-tube" boilers
(in which the furnace fire circulates around water-filled tubing
to produce steam) were introduced, lowering the weight and
bulk of boilers.
  Power Distribution Systems


   Meanwhile, Trevithick had not forgotten the special needs of
his original Mining Combine patrons. The gold mines were
quickly running deeper, and this was the hardest of hard-rock
work. While unskilled labor was plentiful and cheap, costs still
rose with depth. Trevithick and the team of apprentices and
subordinates that grew around him experimented with
direct-siting steam drills and borers, as well as with improved
pumping and hoisting systems. However, piping hot steam
without loss of heat (and therefore pressure) proved to be
extremely difficult and dangerous, especially in underground
situations.

   Trevithick (and Edgar Stevens, his principal assistant) turned
to compressed-air systems instead. The basic mechanical
principles were already familiar, and local experiments with
native rubber provided a solution to the problems of gaskets and
flexible connectors. Large reciprocating double-action
compressors were set up, enabling each mine (or later, factory)
to have an efficient central power plant. Hegenerative systems
(using the heat generated during the compression of the air to
warm the feedwater of the steam engines) provided greater
thermal efficiency. Compressed air was stored in central
reservoirs, then distributed by iron piping to dispersed locations
with only minor frictional losses; drills, pumps, winches, and
crushers could be placed as needed and flexibly operated.

   Once developed, this had obvious applications outside
mining. Mobile compressors were developed to power rock drills
and other equipment in road building and construction work;
powered rock-saws drastically reduced the cost of masonry,
despite the lack of trained masons and quarrymen.
Central-factory systems, particularly alter the development of the
rotary-vane air motor in the 1820s, superceded the clumsy,
friction-ridden and dangerous belting and shafting the British
pioneers of the Industrial Age had used. Whole new categories of
machine tool proved possible with the flexible and precise
control which air motors could offer with a simple manipulation
of valves, and powered equipment could now be used in
locations—e.g., the home—where direct steam drive was out of
the question. Air transmission systems had few moving parts
and were easily centrally controlled, leading to low maintenance
costs. Compressed-air auxiliaries greatly simplified the
operation of autosteamers.


  Technology and the Sociology of Industry


    By the 1830s, most Draka mining-industrial plants were using
centralized pneumatic transmission systems, operating at
standardized pressures. Given the vastly superior efficiency of
such systems, the question arises of why the other industrial
countries, particularly Britain, did not follow suit to anything
like the same degree. (For example, several of the larger Draka
cities installed mains systems delivering metered compressed air
via understreet tubes in the 1840s and 1850s; the first European
city to do so was Paris, in the 1880s—and that system was
installed by Draka engineers.) A digression into industrial
organization is necessary to establish the causal links.

   The overwhelming majority of European and American
industrial firms—even in heavy industry—were organized on a
family business basic until well into the twentieth century;
corporations were closely held. Before about 1870, railroads
aside, this was the only form of business organization in those
countries. These firms, mostly small, were obstinately
self-financing, which sharply limited their capital reserves; and
they were almost pathologically averse to debt and the
supervision by banks it entailed. This form of organization
responded quickly and intelligently to shifts in consumer
demand; it was matchlessly efficient at supplying a diverse and
"atomized" market.

    In the proto-Domination, by contrast, industry developed to
serve production rather than consumption; mines, heavy
transportation, the armed forces, the Landholders' League and
its agricultural processing plants, were the primary customers.
The primary demand was for metal goods, principally tools,
rather than the textiles and other end-products which were the
staple of British industry in the period. When consumer goods
manufacture did become important, it was mostly as a part of
the Landholders' League's drive to capture value-added by
following its members' crops "downstream" through processing
to final sale. Even here, orders were "lumpy" by contemporary
standards; for example, the Combines bought standard products
in immense quantity for their basic serf labor forces. After the
League went into cooperative wholesaling/retailing for its
members (at first by mail order), plantation demand was largely
aggregated as well—the League bought uniform goods in bulk,
e.g., agricultural machinery or cheap shoes for fieldhands, later
canned goods and power systems. Thus markets were simple,
and on the whole quite reliable, making it possible to utilize
economies of scale with little risk. The production units were
large, from the beginning, and operated by salaried mangers.
The government, and the especially the League, dominated the
banking system, which served to funnel the surplus capital of
agriculture into concentrated locations.

   Thus Draka enterprises could afford to be of technically
optimum size (indeed, sometimes larger); sales were reliable
enough, and capital abundant enough, that long-term planning
and research became a feature of their operation two
generations before the Germans followed in their footsteps. The
concentration of all money incomes in the top 4%-8% of the
population kept the savings rate extremely high, usually in the
neighborhood of 30%-50% of GNP, which meant an economy
that was both awash with capital and furnished with abundant
opportunities for productive investment. Land, unskilled and
semi-skilled labor, and raw materials were all superabundant
and cheap; the perennial shortage of managerial personnel led to
an early emphasis on higher education—influenced by the
German tradition of many of the early immigrants.

   At the same time, this was not a pure command economy.
Prices were set by the market, which was completely open to
world trade; the high export propensity exerted continual
pressure on even the largest organizations. The consumer and
service sectors that served the Citizen population were
characterized by much smaller individually owned enterprises.
The ideology of the corporate State came later; in the early
period, roughly to 1840, it was a matter of "sleepwalking"
through to a solution to a set of isolated problems. Only when the
essentials were in place did the fact that a system existed
become obvious.

   The result was what the great classical-liberal economists of
the 19th century regarded as an utterly perverse economy: one in
which human beings and their food and clothing were
intermediate production goods, and machine-tools and cannon
end products. To function it required a militarized society
regimented by terror. But for the sort of brute-force,
quantitative, capital-goods intensive industrialization the
Domination needed to power its relentless expansion, it was
ideal.


  Power System Development 1840-1910 Steam
Turbines:


   The low operating efficiency of reciprocating steam
engines was obvious, both intuitively and from the
growing knowledge of thermodynamic and mechanical
analysis in the early 19th century. Even with pneumatic
transmission, the reciprocating action of pistons lost
efficiency every time it had to be transformed into
rotary action, and there were annoying limits to the
size, speed, and power-output of steam pistons.
Attempts at direct rotary engines (steam turbines) were
made in a number of countries, but the manufacturing
difficulties were many. A multi-stage tur-bine was
obviously essential if the expansive power of steam was
to be utilized, but this required precision machining of
unprecedented quality. Furthermore, for maximum
efficiency operating speeds and temperatures whole
orders of magnitude greater than the piston engine
were needed. Wrought and cast iron, and direct-contact
oil lubrication, had sufficed for Watt and even
Trevithick; they were not enough for the turbine.

  However, the Draka did have one advantage in the
race to perfect a working steam turbine. Their extensive
use of pneumatic systems had led to an early interest in
axial-flow air motors, which is to say, air turbines.
While it was much easier to manufacture a workable air
turbine (operating temperatures were low, and for
most uses a relatively low degree of efficiency was
tolerable), the basic operating principles and problems
were quite similar. The development of roller- ball and
air-bearings from the 1840s was largely done in the
course of work on air turbines, and so was the
development of larger precision-machined steel alloy
rotor blades—especially for the large boring machines
used in heavy-artillery manufacture. By the 1860s,
materials technology had advanced to a stage where
steam turbines were a distinct possibility.

   While industrial demand might have provided
incentive enough, it was a military-transport need that
provided the final impetus. Powered dirigible balloons
had been experimented with in Alexandria and
Diskarapur from the 1850s. During the Franco-Prussian
war, the besieged French garrison of Paris improvised
semirigid dirigibles powered by a Draka-made
industrial compressor (reciprocating type) and
propellers driven by air turbines. These were capable of
speeds of up to 60 kph for several hours, and were used
to ferry passengers and messages, and even to bomb the
Prussian artillery; during the Paris Commune, they
were also used to bombard Communard positions
before attacks by government troops.

   This success resulted in desultory research in a
number of European countries (particularly the new
German Empire), and a crash project in the
Domination. Using a single-stage expansive steam
turbine, extensive construction with the
newly-available aluminum alloys, and pneumatic
transmission, dirigible airships proved to be an
expensive but practical weapons system during the
Anglo-Russian war of 1879-1882. Shortly thereafter
heavier models of steam turbine were used to generate
electricity, to power turbocompressors for large-scale
pneumatic systems, and to power ships through
mechanical and pneumatic gearing.


  Internal Combustion Engines:


   The possibility of using combustion gases directly in
the cylinders of a prime mover, rather than indirectly
by heating a working fluid such as steam, had been
theorized as far back as the 17th century. The
attractions—simplicity, since there was no boiler
system, and greater inherent thermal efficiency—were
obvious. Again, manufacturing limitations prevented
widespread use until well into the 19th century. In this
field, French and German researchers established an
early lead; the very efficiency of the central
engine-pneumatic transmission system in the
Domination inhibited research on alternatives. Andre
Charbonneau (1820-1887) and Rudolf Diesel
(1858-1920) established the workability of
internal-combustion prime movers (using a
flame-ignition and compression-ignition system
respectively); by the 1880s, such "gas engines" were in
quite common use in Europe, mostly as single-cylinder
factory engines, especially in steel plants where they
could be run on blast-furnace gas. The German General
Stall's Transport Section, in conjunction with Diesel,
made the first serious application to transportation,
with a compression-innition system for their
experimental dirigibles of the mid-to late-1880s.
Meanwhile the French were perfecting the lighter
spark-ignition engine, leading to the first practical
heavier-than-air flight by Edouard Sancerre in 1898.

   Once alerted to the possibilities, the Domination's
armed forces and Institutes quickly eliminated the
Europeans' early lead in piston-action internal
combustion engines. By the 1890s, Diesel-type engines
(largely of aluminum-alloy construction and running on
a mixture of kerosene and hydrogen gas from the lift
cells) had become the standard engine for dirigible
airships worldwide. The spark-ignition engine was
largely limited to airplanes; there were experimental
applications to automobiles, but the industrial inertia
of 60 years kept the steam engine dominant on the
road, especially considering its greater range of fuels,
ease of manufacture and maintenance, and greater
reliability. However, the greater power-to-weight ratio
of the internal combustion engine did maintain a
certain degree of interest for ground applications,
particularly in armored fighting vehicles.

   The next step was obvious, by analogy from the
progress of steam engines: a gas turbine. The
Domination's researchers first attempted (by about
1900) a "pure" turbine, with a rotary compressor
delivering air to a combustion chamber, whence the
gases exited through an expansive power-turbine. This
proved to be a monumental engineering task, and the
speeds and especially temperatures involved were
beyond the manufacturing technology of the
day—particularly when the corrosivenature of the
combustion gases was considered. Developing an axial
compressor that did not consume more power than it
generated also proved frustratingly difficult. A further
analogy suggested itself, however: the steam
piston-compressor, air-turbine combination which had
always been the mainstay of the Domination's
industrial machine. Using a conventional
compression-ignition cylinder as the gas-generating
unit, a high-pressure gas of moderate temperature
could be obtained, and then delivered through a power
turbine. This gave many of the torque advantages of a
turbine engine, an excellent power-to-weight ratio plus
the fuel efficiency of Diesel's engine. This
"turbocompound" engine was demonstrated on a trial
basis in 1914, and was first applied to war dirigibles in
1917, and to armored fighting vehicles in 1917-1918.
While easier to make than a pure turbine, the
turbocompound was still a formidable proposition;
American and European manufacturers continued to
develop the reciprocating 1C engines, until pure
turbines became available in the late 1930s.


  Electricity:


   By the 1840s, the basic technology of Draka
19th-century industrialization—reciprocating steam
engines, with direct or more commonly pneumatic
transmissions to various machines and
machine-tools—had been established. The next two
generations saw a continuous refinement, increased
efficiency, and vast expansion of scale; installed
horsepower in the Domination probably surpassed that
of Great Britain in the 1850s, and by 1910 it was equal to
that of the United States, or equivalent to Germany,
France, and Russia combined.

   In the meantime, experimentation had shown itself
to be a paying proposition, and the overlords of Drakia
were nothing if not practical men; accordingly, they
subsidized research lavishly. Furthermore,
developments in mechanics and especially in industrial
chemistry were obviously moving beyond the
inspired-tinker stage. Drawing on the partly Germanic
educational tradition of their ancestors, both the
regular universities and the Technological Institutes
(which had originally been craft training centers and
lending libraries) increasingly emphasized direct,
systematic research in well-equipped laboratories. The
largely illiterate and unskilled nature of the industrial
workforce paradoxically reinforced the drive for
efficiency; by mass-production, assembly-line methods
and by "building in" skills into specialized machine
tools, it was possible to substitute rote-trained machine
tenders for the all-around skilled craftsmen of
European countries.

   The next major development in power systems was
electricity. The initial interest was for communications
purposes, and secondarily for electrochemical and
electro metallurgical work. Copper-wire telegraphs
were introduced in the 1820s, and spread quickly, in
the Domination as elsewhere. Long-distance
transmission and underwater cables, however,
required more theoretical work. The University of
Archona [Pretoria, South Africa] succeeded in acquiring
the services of Michael Faraday (born 1791, Newlington,
Surrey, died 1872, Archona, Archona Province) in 1824.
As Director of Electrical Research, he made a number of
discoveries, including the basics of electromagnetic
induction, and the first electric dynamo and electric
motor (1830-33); students under his supervision
perfected the lead-acid storage battery. During the
1830s and 1840s, fresh discoveries included electrolytic
refining of a number of metals (principally copper and
magnesium), electric arc-lights, improved
direct-current motors, and electromagnets. In 1838 a
new industrial firm, the Faraday Electromagnetic
Combine, was established to manufacture and market
the new discoveries; Faraday himself was granted 10%
of the capital gratis, the remainder being supplied by
the government, the Ferrous Metals and Trevithick
Autosteamer Combines, and the Landholders' League
and individuals.

   The combination of dynamo/motor and storage
battery made many applications common, although
pneumatic-transmission systems remained
predominant in most industrial use for several
generations. The dynamo was usually powered by
axial-flow air turbines, which gave the steady
high-speed rotation needed. Carbon-arc lamps quickly
took over the high-intensity outdoor and factory
lighting roles, and by the 1860s incandescent bulbs had
been developed. At roughly the same time small electric
generators became common on autosteamers and
trains, mainly for lighting purposes. Initially, electric
power was generated on the spot in plants, factories
and mines via the existing pneumatic transmission
methods; there was little incentive to develop
central-plant distribution systems until home-lighting
became common, or until electric motors began to
supplement or replace pneumatic transmission—the
latter awaiting the perfection of alternating current
motors in the 1870s.

   The first large-scale electric power development
project was the Quattara Depression Scheme. Located
about 120 kilometers west of Alexandria, much of this
area of salt marsh was hundreds of meters below sea
level. Studies from the 1850s on had reviewed the
possibilities of digging a canal through to the
Mediterranean and tapping the resulting hydraulic
energy, but the distances involved made pneumatic
transmission impractical. In 1878 a hydroelectric
format was selected, and construction began in the
same year; by the mid-1880s, a yearly production of 250
megawatts was reached, climbing to 500 MW by 1890.
Initial applications were mostly electro metallurgical,
particularly aluminum refining by the newly discovered
cryolytic process; large-scale plants were set up on site,
and underground DC power cables were laid to
Alexandria itself. The discovery of natural gas and oil
beneath the half-flooded Quattara, and the growth of
chemical plants associated with the evaporation of
brine, led to further expansion; in the end, to the
explosive growth of the Alexandria connurbation
westward, a solid block of factories, refineries, artificial
harbors and residential developments along the shore
from the Delta to El Alamein.

   With the discovery of the alternateing current motor
and generator (1870s, largely in the US and Germany),
the mercury-arc rectifier for easy conversion of AC to
DC power (Alexandria Technologica] Institute, 1880),
and the Tesla transformer (Archona University, 1891),
large-scale use of electrical power as a general power
source became possible. The concurrent development
of steam turbines provided another suitable prime
mover.

  Developments in the Domination followed a rather
different path than those in Europe and the US. As
usual in Draka practice, a central agency was
established for power generation; the Electricity
Supply Combine, in 1890, with financial backing from
most potential industrial consumers. Distribution
systems within urban areas were mostly AC from about
1895 on. Africa proved to be supera-bundantly supplied
with hydroelectric potential—the Inga falls on the lower
Congo alone had 10% of the potential of the entire
planet—although it was often rather inconveniently
placed.

   The period from 1880-1910 saw continuous
investment in hydroelectric and
hydroelectric/irrigation projects, and continuous
improvements in transmission efficiencies and range of
uses (e.g., electric trains, 1890, fluorescent lighting,
1903, arc furnaces for alloy steel production, 1893).
Comprehensive basin projects for the Orange River
(1884), the Nile (1889), the Chad/ Benue (1893), and the
Congo (1900) were launched, with radical innovations
in high-dam and large-scale water-turbine technologies.
These were long-term projects; the Zambezi-Cunene
scheme, which supplied water for the central Archona
Province industrial zone, irrigated 9,000,000 hectares,
provided deep-lift barge traffic as far inland as Kariba
and generated over 2,000 MW, was started (piecemeal)
in the 1880s and not completed until the 1930s.
Nevertheless, by 1914 the Domination produced over
half the world's electricity, 80% from hydropower, and
had a commanding lead in electrochemical and
metallurgical technology—producing approximately
90% of the world's aluminum and aluminum alloy
production, for example. Supplementary sources of
electrical energy included coal- and natural-gas-fired
steam turbines; North Africa in particular proved very
rich innatural gas, which came on stream in increasing
amounts after the discovery of the Libyan and Saharan
petroleum fields in 1880-1900. Along the Great Rift,
experimental development of geothermal power began
in the last decade before the Great War, and theoretical
studies of deep-ocean convection taps and oceanic
currents as power sources were launched.

   One notable feature of the Domination's power-grid
was the use of compressed-air storage systems to even
out demand. This grew naturally out of the central
compressed-air delivery systems which had preceded
electric power, and which had left a complex of
underground ferroconcrete tanks around most of the
Domination's cities. Since demand for electric power
was irregular on both a daily and seasonal basis, costly
excess capacity had to be kept idle during "off" periods
to meet peak demand. The Draka used the power
generated in the off hours to pump air into the storage
tanks in highly compressed form. When demand rose,
the hot dense air was released through pneumatic
turbines to generate power; there were frictional losses
in the system, but it still allowed savings of up to 25% in
comparison to the cost of keeping additional fossil fuel
plants on standby, and it was more flexible as well.

   Immediately after the Great War of 1919, these
storage systems also proved an ideal way of making
solar-powered electricity generation practical. Solar
water-heating systems had been in operation in the
Domination and the US since the 1860s, and the
constant sunlight of the arid tropics was an obvious
energy source. It was also frustratingly irregular. In the
period 1910-1916, researchers at the Kolwezara
Institute developed a new sun-powered generator:
black-painted insulated pipes, running above parabolic
steel mirrors that were moved by electric motor's to
keep the pipe at the focal point. With a suitable working
fluid, this was an economical method of power
generation, and one that was extremely suitable for
automatic operation and required no nearby water
source. Adding compressed-air storage made it possible
to even out the power flow, and mass-production
brought the cost of the equipment down to levels
competitive with any but the lowest-cost fossil fuel and
hydropower plants; the flexibility of location was an
added advantage. Large areas of low-value desert land
in the tropics and subtropics were available, and long
stretches of remote railroad and many isolated mining
settlements were so equipped. By the 1920s, remote
plantations without suitable hydropower sources were
buying prefabricated units through the Landholders'
League.

   The period after 1919 saw an enormous expansion of
the Domination's power grid as the New Territories
were settled. Hydro developments were very extensive,
often as part of multipurpose flood-irrigation-power
projects. The petroleum resources of the Persian Gulf,
Iran, Central Asia, and Ferghana were also brought
on-stream, but very little of the oil was used for central
power generation; instead, the natural gas was burned
in situ and used as the basis of a very extensive electro
metallurgical and electrochemical complex along the
Gulf.

   The most startling development was the Bosporus
Project. Theoretical studies had been done before the
Great War, and had shown that the Gallipob-Golden
Horn strait between the Mediterranean and the Black
Sea contained two consistent and very powerful
currents, one at depth flowing into the Black Sea and
one on the surface flowing out. From 1920-1937, a series
of enormous underwater structures, a steel and
ferroconcrete grid, was inserted into many miles of the
strait, often in conjunction with elaborate surface
structures amounting to a minor city suspended over
the water. Large low-speed turbines fixed to the
underwater frames were driven by the currents, and
the power transferred to generators by hydraulic
pressure. Initial capacity (1927) was approximately
1,000 MW, and the final total was in the 6,000-7,000
MW range.


  Railways and Road Transport Railways:
  Railways—in the sense of roads with rails and wagons
running on flanged wheels, had been in use in mines for
centuries before 1800. In the 18th century a number of
British coal mines built small railways to link their pits
with water-transport; traction was by gravity or
horse-power. The mines of the Crown Colony of Drakia
quickly adopted internal rail systems, and shortly
thereafter built small surface lines-—to transport ore to
central crushing and smelting plants, or to bring coal
short distances to the fixed engines.

   Application of steam power was an obvious
development, but practically impossible until a better
prime mover than the Watt engine was available.
Trevithick conducted a number of experiments using
the existing mine railways, and once the correct
road-bed was developed (crushed rock, timber crossties
and iron I-section rails spiked to the ties) began
developing locomotives to replace the existing
animal-traction systems. Once the concept was proven
on a local scale, he lobbied for the first main-line
systems; the Archona-Virconium was begun in 1805.
Like all subsequent main-line railways in the
Domination, this was built to a 1.75-meter gauge and
was government owned and operated. The locomotives
were much simpler than the road-engines being
developed at the same time, and the inflexibility of a
fixed route was offset by the lesser rolling friction on
iron rails. Railways were used for traffic between
towns, and for heavy-goods haulage: coal, stone, grain,
metals and so forth. Local distribution from the
railheads was by animal traction, or increasingly by
autosteamer and steam drag. The primary initial
limitation was the shortage of iron rail, but after the
conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars excess capacity in
England and the increasing domestic production
removed this bottleneck.

  Railway mileage. Domination: Railway mileage,
U.S.A.
  1810 50 1810 nil

  1820 500 1820 100

  1830 2,500 1830 1,000

  1840 10,000 1840 3,500

  1850 25,000 1850 12,000

  1860 48,000 1860 40,000

  1870 60,000 1870 50,000

  1880 90,000 1880 100,000

  1890 140,000 1890 195,000

  1900 200,000 1900 230,000

  1910 270,000 1910 310,000



   The Transportation Directorate was organized in
1822, and became the major shareholder in the Drakian
Railroads and Harbors Combine, sole operator of rail
transport outside a few narrow-gauge specialty lines.
Since DR&H quickly became the world's largest single
railroad enterprise under one management, it was a
short step to becoming the world's greatest
manufacturer of locomotives, rolling stock, and other
equipment, however, this was so closely tailored to
local conditions that it had surprisingly little effect on
worldwide practice.

  The first Trevithick locomotive engines had vertical
cylinders driving gear-trains which in turn powered the
wheels. By the mid-1820s, horizontal cylinders linked
directly to cranks on the outside of the driving wheels
had become standard. The Diskarapur Works began
turning out standardized "classes" of locomotive at
about this time, with interchangeable parts. Power and
size gradually increased, with fast-express passenger
trains reaching averages of about 40 mph by the 1840s.
Condenser cars (where the exhaust steam was
recondensed into water to feed the boilers) became an
early feature, as did petroleum fueling in the northern
provinces. Other notable innovations were
pneumatic-powered stokers and air brakes, introduced
in the 1830s. The nature of traffic on the DR&H (mostly
long-distance heavy minerals, coal, and agricultural
products) resulted in innovations in handling and
marshaling techniques, such as "unit" trains and
multiple locomotive use. Railway stations were usually
located on the outskirts of urban areas, with passengers
and goods distributed by autosteamer or later by
mass-transit systems.

   Fast pneumatic-drive express trains were introduced
in the 1850s, with the Cape Town-Archona "Gold Train."
This was powered by a locomotive mounting an
industrial-type three-cylinder uniflow reciprocating
compressor, with a regenerative heat-pump to transfer
the waste compression heat to the feedwater.
Transmission was via axial-flow air motors on all
wheels, including those of the ten passenger cars;
speeds of up to 110 kph were achieved, especially on the
long straight stretches of the interior plateau. The
ultimate development came in the great
trans-continental expresses of the 1890s, the
Apollonaris-Suakim (Atlantic-Red Sea) and
Cape-Alexandria (Indian Ocean to Mediterranean) runs.
These huge passenger specials were radically
streamlined, constructed largely of new alloy-steels and
light metals, and powered by giant steam turbines
driving turbo-blowers; the wheels ran on frictionless
air bearings. Average speeds of 170 kph, with bursts of
up to 200 kph, were achieved.

  The period 1890-1910 saw a further burst of
innovation. The increasing use of electrical power in
industry naturally provoked interest in the
Transportation Directorate. Experiments with electric
locomotives had been going on in a low key since the
1860s, but it was not until large-scale power generation
and long-distance transmission got underway in the
late 1880s that main-line use became practical. The first
line to be electrified (on a 5,500-volt AC system) was,
understandably, the Alexandria-Quattara line, in 1884.
Some sections of the southern network were converted
to electric traction in 1886-90; in particular the
perennially overloaded Archona-Virconium and
Archona-Shahnapur. Electric traction showed
numerous advantages: central power stations were
more efficient than locomotive prime movers, electric'
locomotives could operate well above their rated
horsepower in "burst" mode, and with regenerative
braking they fed power back into the net on downslope
runs. As additional bonuses electric locomotives
required no water supply, were indifferent to altitude
and temperature; they proved to be simpler to maintain
than the various steam engines and, once the
techniques were mastered, easier to build. In 1900 the
25,000-volt overhead system was standardized and a
10-year plan to electrify most of the heavy-traffic main
lines was launched, and by 1914 30% of the
Domination's mileage and 50% of the ton-miles were
electrified. The all-electric Cape Town to Alexandria
express of 1912 maintained an average speed of over 190
kph.

   Direct-drive steam engines remained popular
everywhere, due to their huge numbers and industrial
inertia if nothing else. The European networks
(particularly in Switzerland and other countries rich in
hydropower) had installed significant mileage of
electrified line by 1914, and were experimenting with
direct and hydraulic-transmission diesel systems. The
Americas had some electrification, but were pioneers in
internal-combustion/electric (particularly
diesel-electric) traction. The high-speed diesels
developed for airships in the 1880s and 1890s proved to
be ideal for this purpose, and by 1910 were supplanting
steam engines on fast express runs.
   There were also important advances in fixed way and
rolling stock in the period before the Great War.
Central traffic direction was introduced (Domination, c.
1900; US, a few years later) and made much higher
traffic densities safely possible. The Domination began
converting to ferroconcrete ties and welded rails in the
1890s, re-laying about 40% of their track by 1914 and
making considerable savings in maintenance costs.
Improved suspensions were instrumental in raising
average speeds, and specialized cars of all types grew in
number and complexity. Sealed freight-containers of
standard size were another innovation, originally
(1895) German, but rapidly taken up in other European
countries and the US; they also spread to shipping and
the new intercontinental airfreight services in the same
period.

   Alter the Great War, the Domination's primary
problem was extending its rail net to the 3,000,000+
square miles of additional territory gained in 1914-1919.
A Draka-financed line had been built between Bandar
Abbas and Tehran in 1905-1910, and was within 100
miles of the Russian network in Turkestan at the
outbreak of the war. The Domination also inherited
some 10,000 miles of Turkish and 3,000 miles of
Russian line, although these were of different gauges
and substandard quality. Between 1917-1940
approximately 100,000 miles of line was built to the
1.75-meter, all-welded standard in the new territories.

   Electric traction was also extended, but was risky in
imperfectly pacified areas, as the power lines were easy
to sabotage. Because of this, and for use in areas where
traffic density did not justify the capital cost of
electrification, in 1920-22 a new series of locomotives
using turbocompound-electric power were brought into
service. These gradually replaced the remaining steam
fleet; construction of new steam locomotives was
phased out in the 1940s, and the last engines removed
from service in the 1960s. With advances in power
transmission and construction, the vastly increased
network of the post-Eurasian War period was mostly
electrified; by the 1960s, speeds of up to 240 kph were
common for intercity express trains. Total mileage
exceeded 1,000,000 by the time construction was
complete in 1990.

   Urban mass-transit systems developed concurrently
during the 1850s. After experimenting with
steam-powered street tramcars, the municipal
governments of Archona, Shahnapur, and Alexandria
decided to switch to elevated pneumatic-powered rail
systems. These were supported on ferroconcrete
pillars, and ran with rubber-tired wheels on single
concrete "rails"; essentially a monorail. Propulsion was
supplied by a tube in the fixed way, kept at
overpressure by central pumping stations and with a
longitudinal slit sealed by rubberized fabric. The cars
were attached to pistons in the tubes, fastened to the
bodies by L-shaped bars which lifted and replaced the
fabric cover as they moved. Systems of this type were
built in the larger cities, usually to link suburbs with
central business districts, as "ring roads" around the
urban perimeter, and to shuttle crowds to and from
railway stations, harbors, and later airship havens and
airports. The rights-of-way were usually park zones
(since the system was pollution-free and relatively
quiet) with escalators at widely-spaced intervals. The
original pneumatic system was replaced with electric
motors in the 1880s, and these in turn by linear
induction in the late 1930s.


  Road Transport:


   Trevithick's initial experiments had included both
road and rail engines. Rail quickly proved to be more
efficient for long-distance hulk transport, but initial
capital costs were high, and the fixed rail lines required
a "catchment area" large enough to provide a constant
stream of traffic. Since much of the Domination was
thinly-populated, with most freight (e.g., agricultural
goods) available only seasonally, rail lines were
impractical for local transport. Road engines were the
obvious answer, since they could flexibly collect goods
from scattered locations and "bulk" them at convenient
locations for rail transport. Roads were cheaper to
construct than railways, particularly on the extensive
flat plateau surfaces of the interior, and road-engines
proved to be much better at handling steep grades than
rail. Since roads (especially after the appointment of
John L. McAdam as Chief Inspector) could be built by
chain-gangs of unskilled labor, the advantages were
obvious.

   The original vehicles were simply coaches with
cranked axles driven by steam cylinders; the heavier
models (drags) pulled one or more wagons, while the
lighter and faster models transported passengers and
high-value goods. The spread of condensors freed
autosteamers from their dangerous dependence on
local water, and liquid fuels' gave added range.
Continuous improvements were made in the 1805-1825
period in steering, suspension, gauges and auxiliary
systems; e.g., oil-lamp headlights with mirror backing.
By the late 1820s, autosteamers had become common
enough (a total of over 2,000) that rudimentary traffic
codes became necessary, and there was some export of
luxury models and intercity steamcoaches to Europe
and America. Bad roads (America and central-eastern
Europe) and vested interests (Britain and Europe)
slowed the adoption of steam road-transport outside
the Domination. In Africa neither of these factors were
important, and the expansion of the mining/slaving
frontier into areas where sleeping-sickness (ngana)
made animal transport impossible was a further spur.

   The next major innovation was in transmission
systems. Direct drive to the rear axles was simple but
unreliable, as the necessary long connecting rods and
cranked axles often broke, given the erratic forging
techniques and rough suspensions of the day. The
development of pneumatic power systems for mining
and industry suggested an automotive application. In
1829 Edgar Stevens redesigned a popular light
autosteamer. Instead of power cylinders driving the
wheels, a three-cylinder expansive uniflow compressor
was installed and linked to air motors in the wheel
hubs. All four wheels were independently sprung and
steerable, and all could be powered. A reservoir evened
the supply of compressed air, and there were automatic
venting and shunting systems to prevent overpressure.
The boiler feedwater, as had become standard practice,
was preheated by being used as the cooling-water for
the compression cylinders.

   Fuel consumption proved to be roughly comparable
to the direct-drive models, and the power-to-weight
ratios were drastically improved. Pneumatic
transmission also proved to be much more reliable,
more flexible, and to offer better tractive power on
steep slopes and rough ground, and maximum speed
was increased. The resulting machine was, however,
somewhat more expensive and required more
sophisticated manufacturing techniques.

   Concurrent advances in materials and machine tools
(the universal borer, the turret lathe, planing
machines, and diamond-tipped cutting tools) resulted
in a mutually reinforcing process. As autosteamers and
drags dropped in price and increased in reliability, the
market increased. This permitted increased economies
of scale in production (leading to full-fledged
conveyor-belt mass production with interchangeable
parts by the 1850s), which in turn reduced
costs—including fuel and maintenance as infrastructure
and skills built up— and increased reliability. The
willingness of the Legislative Assembly to vote funds for
road-building and maintenance was a tribute to the
precious importance of powered road transport in the
Domination's growth.

  Another factor pressing for mass-production was the
bulk nature of demand. Private passenger autosteamers
were fairly common, but well into the 1870s remained a
luxury for the very wealthy, even among the Draka
aristocracy. Steam drags for transport purposes, and
steamcoaches for urban mass-transit, were the most
common types, and these were ordered in bulk by
municipal governments and by the embryonic
Combines. The Landholders' League was also a steady
customer; for example, the sugar plantations of the
Natealian coastal zone rarely processed their own cane.
Instead, League-owned heavy drags collected the cut
and bundled cane from the fields and transported the
produce of dozens of plantations to central-powered
crushing mills, a crucial factor in the successful battle
for the world sugar market; by the 1850s, 90% of
Europe's cane sugar, molasses, and rum were Draka
grown. When the more prosperous planters began
buying steamtrucks and drags for their own use in the
1830s and '40s, they almost invariably ordered
standard models through the League's cooperative
purchase program, if only be-cause they could do so on
credit—an early example of hire-purchase.

   Steam road transport spread slowly outside the
Domination-to-be, but it did spread. Besides the
opposition of other forms of transportation, and the
poor quality of roads, there was the problem of climate
(the early autosteamers were very susceptible to
freezing weather, being designed for Africa) and
infrastructure. Until fuel, spare parts, and trained
maintenance technicians were available, there was little
incentive to buy autosteamers; until people bought
autosteamers, there, was little incentive to invest in
infrastructure. The Combines had been able to
introduce the technology gradually, and in any case
they had capital reserves (and government backing)
unmatched elsewhere in a world of Victorian
laissez-faire. Accordingly, the first non-African use of
autosteamers was as toys for the rich in Great Britain;
this almost led to a complete ban in the 1820s, and did
result in punitive speed limits. France then established
an early lead, since it was comparatively large and had
good roads by the standards of the day; Paris was
connected with Lyon, Orleans, Strasbourg and the
Channel ports by autosteamer coach services by the
1830s, although these had difficulty competing with the
railways in later decades. Most European states
gradually copied Draka autosteamer and road-building
technology, and steam power gradually supplemented
horse traction in local transport.

   By the 1850s, autosteamer taxis were common in
most large Euro-American cities (London had over
1,000); a majority of these were imported from the
Domination, but Britain, the United States, Brazil,
France, Belgium, and Prussia had the beginnings of
indigenous industries—see, for example, the crucial
role played by steamcoach schedules in Dickens's
masterpiece The Drood Detective. The technology was
now not very demanding, and any country with an
up-to-date ferrous metals and steam engine industry
could manufacture passable vehicles. In the United
States, with its weak federal government and poor
roads, autosteamers tended to be limited to urban use,
and to prairie-plains areas (such as the Midwest and
the Far West) where flat hard ground was available.
Everywhere, autosteamers were a driving force in
industrial development; machine tools, precision
engineering, lubricants, and bearings, all benefited
from the demand and served as learning-centers for
industrial skills. The prominent roles of smaller
industrial countries such as Belgium (from the 1840s)
and Sweden (1860s) were made possible by the initially
rather small scale of autosteamer output. The fuel
requirements of the new form of transport also
encouraged first process-coal industries (especially in
Germany, where chemical byproducts were important)
and then the French, Romanian and Russian petroleum
producers.

   The Prussian military, always among the most
flexible of European institutions, saw the potential of
steam transport as early as the 1840s; the use of
improvised armored warcars in the suppression of the
revolutionaries in 1848, and the use of railways and
steamtrucks in shuttling troops between centers of
insurrection, were exemplary. At the same time, Britain
and Prussia (both areas characterized by large estates
and labor shortages) experimented successfully with
mechanized traction in agriculture. By the 1870s, some
British landowners and east-Elbian Junkers had
consolidated single farms of up to 5,000 acres worked
by autosteamer traction power and powered
harvesters; these attracted much attention from Karl
Marx and his followers, but remained exceptional. In
the United States, the demands of the Civil War
(1860-1866) transformed the small-scale autosteamer
industries of Pittsburgh and Cincinnatei, leading to the
formation of the predecessors of the great Stanley
Motors, Angleheim, United Autosteamers and Carnegie
companies. The Confederacy remained dependent on
imports from the Domination and Europe, a crucial
handicap after the Union succeeded in closing most of
its ports in 1863-64. Pittsburgh-made warcars, artillery
tractors and steamtrucks, plus limitless numbers of
Mexican conscripts and European mercenaries, ended
the Confederate experiment.

   By the 1880s, with alloy-steel and light-metal
construction, electric light/ignition/heaters and cheap
light-oil distillate from the newly opened fields of
Texas, Ploesti, Baku, and Libya, autosteamers had
become a mature technology. Pneumatic tires gradually
replaced solid models, bodies contained less wood and
more metal, safety glass was introduced… but these
were detail matters. Costs remained high—$1,500 for a
six-seater Trevithick in 1885, equivalent to four times
the average per capita wage even in the US—but steam
transport was gradually replacing the horse and ox
throughout the developed world. The postwar surge in
road construction in the US laid the foundations of
American supremacy in passenger-steamer production,
and by the 1890s America was also the only country to
introduce steam-powered farm machinery on a large
scale; however, this was limited to the large grain-farms
of the Midwest and Great Plains areas. The Domination
had already decided, for a mixture of social and
economic reasons, effectively to ban direct use of
powered traction in agriculture, and lacked a mass
market for light passenger steamers; Europe remained
uneasily poised between the two models. The next great
breakthrough was in production technology rather than
design—the reduction of prices in the US to the point
where, by the 1890s, tens and then hundreds of
thousands of the middle classes could afford the light
four-wheel models pouring out of the Midwestern
factories.


  strong>Air Transport:

   Hot-air and hydrogen balloons were a product of the
1790s, with the experiments of the Montgolfier brothers
in France. While there were some military applications
(e.g., for artillery observation in siege operations) the
lack of directional control limited their usefulness.
Later development of hydrogen-inflated balloons lead
to valuable experience in how to balance ballast and
gas-valving, and in gasbag materials.

   By the 1860s, the steam engine (especially the
automotive types) was making some sort of powered
balloon possible if not practical. Individual inventors
tinkered with a number of models, usually with
Domination-built autosteamer motors, but these
remained one-off curiosities. Several Combines in the
Domination experimented also, but while providing
valuable experience these studies also indicated that a
long and expensive process of trial-and-error would be
necessary before anything useful resulted.

   The first major impetus came during the
Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Paris, which by this time
had an autosteamer and compressor industry of some
size, was surrounded by Prussian troops and under
siege for several months. Powered semi-rigid diriuibles
(craft with a fixed keel but a gasbag whose shape was
maintained by internal pressure) were built to restore
communication with the armies in the field and the
national Government in Bordeaux; these were powered
by automotive engines driving wooden propellors
through air-turbine motors, and provided a
power-to-weight ratio just sufficient for controlled
flight in calm to moderate winds. The dirigibles were
also used for counter-battery fire and artillery
observation, and on a small scale for bombing Prussian
positions. The Prussians retaliated with light cannon,
firing upward and mounted on autosteamers; there
were several dramatic chases cross-country. After the
French government admitted defeat, the Paris
Commune uprising saw the "Versailles" use the two
surviving powered craft to bomb the communards.

   The dramatic role of the dirigibles attracted military
attention in many quarters. The new German Reich
copied the French models, with improvements,
regarding them as principally useful for scouting and
artillery observation. Britain tended to regard them as
"unsporting," and also a menace to sea power, and tried
to have their use banned by international convention.
Small pressure blimps became a curiosity in many parts
of the world, but the high accident rate—particularly on
landing—prevented any widespread civilian use. The
early models were small, few being over 50-80 meters,
and had very limited range and cargo-carrying capacity.

   The Domination's researchers were galvanized by the
news from France. They quickly realized that the
problems of range, speed, and ability to stand adverse
weather could only be solved by a vehicle much larger
than the blimps or semirigids; a hull whose shape was
dependent on internal pressures had sharp limits of
size and weight-bearing capacity, and was also very
vulnerable to bending stresses in the thunderstorms of
the continental interiors. The solution they developed
was an internal frame, covered with a cloth outer
coating and with the gasbags within. The elongated
teardrop shape of the new craft "airships" was based on
that of whales and birds, a bit of inspired empiricism
that later aerodynamic analysis proved right. The basic
frame was made from two spirals of light, strong
laminated tropical woods running in opposite
directions from the nose of the dirigible to the tail; the
spirals were glued together every time they crossed,
with a reinforcing circle of wood on the joint; four to six
internal circular braces and a keel strengthened the
whole. The lower section of the interior was sealed off
to form engine rooms, crew quarters, and cargo holds,
while the interior of the hull was divided into cells for
the gasbags, which were contained by a network of steel
wire.

   Power was provided by a steam turbine, a radical
high-pressure design mostly manufactured from the
new, and as yet very costly, aluminum alloys. This was
coupled to a compressor, which supplied high-pressure
air for six external pneumatic turbine pods driving
large wooden propellors. The fuel was hydrogen from
the gasbags, mixed with petroleum distillate, balanced
so as to have a neutral effect on buoyancy. The
compressor also powered pumps for compressing the
gas into cylinders, and an electrical generator, which
could, at need, crack extra hydrogen from the water in
the ballast tanks along the keel. Steering was via large
cruciform control fins at the rear of the vessel, and
longitudinal control could also be achieved by pumping
ballast water between different tanks. The gondola was
entirely enclosed in the hull, and the bridge was a
glassed-in section of the dirigible's lower nose section.
The nose itself had extra bracing and a large metal
eyebolt for fastening the craft to a mooring tower;
permanant stowage and repair was done in huge
hangars, and the deflated craft was hung from the
rooftree of the hangar while undergoing construction
or maintenance work.

  The first craft were quite small, 200-400 feet in
length, and served mainly for experiment and training;
several were lost, in storms or to fire. Hydrogen proved
inherently risky, but not impossibly so provided careful
precautions were taken to prevent the buildup of an
explosive air-hydrogen mixture inside the envelope of
the dirigible. Maintaining a slight overpressure within
the gondola, and keeping the outer fabric envelope
permeable (so that any escaped hydrogen would
quickly rise and diffuse into the atmosphere) sufficed
to bring safety to acceptable levels. By the time of the
Anglo-Russian War of 1879-1882, the Alexandria
Institute's craft had reached the point where voyages of
some hundreds of miles, carrying payloads of several
tonnes, were routine.

   The Northern War (as the Draka called the conflict)
broke out in the spring of 1879; its basic cause was
Russian pressure on Turkey, and the Czar's desire to
push his frontiers farther south in Central Asia at the
expense of Afghanistan, which was the last of the
Muslim khanates between his dominions and British
India. The Draka were involved first as members of the
British Empire, and secondly because their possessions
in the Mediterranean (Cyprus, Crete, Rhodes, the
Ionian Islands, and ultimately Egypt) would be
menaced if the Russian Empire took Constantinople
and the Straits.

   The war went badly for the British in the first year,
with Russian armies laying Constantinople under siege
and advancing as far as Kabul in Afghanistan; the
Russians were embarrassingly ahead of the hidebound
British armed forces in their application of
autosteamer transport to logistics. The Draka entered
the war only when they were given ironclad assurance
of overall command, whereupon 750,000 Janissary and
Citizen troops were poured into the conflict. The war on
land is outside the scope of this paper, but it was the
conflict in the air that captured the imagination of the
world.
  The first massed attack was launched from Draka
bases on Crete; ten 600-foot Lammermeyer-class
dirigibles bombarded the Russian siege lines around
Constantinople, in conjunction with the landings at
Thessalonika. The Russians had balloons, and a few
French-style semirigids, but nothing like these
purpose-built aerial warships. Subsequent raids on
both military and civilian targets disorganized the
Russian rear echelon and played a substantial part in
the eventual Draka victory. They also brought the
dirigible well and truly into the public eye, and in the
postwar period every major power rushed into dirigible
research, often with catastrophic results.

   The next major steps in dirigible design were the
substitution of aluminum alloys for wood in the frame
and of internal-combustion engines for steam turbines
as the motive power. Both occurred in the mid-1880s,
as the Alexandria Institute's research program pressed
relentlessly for improved efficiency. The first
transatlantic flight (1882) was made in a Northern
War-style craft, crossing between Apollonaris and
Recife, Brazil, where the South Atlantic is narrowest.
This was a spectacular success, but not of much
practical importance, as the fuel and ballast
requirements left little cargo capacity.

   Aluminum had been available for specialty use since
the 1840s, refined by an offshoot of the cyanide-process
gold-refining methods developed for the refractory ores
of the Whiteridge. The early 1880s saw the electrolytic
process perfected, and the Domination proved very rich
both in bauxite and hydropower. Prices fell
continuously, and a wide variety of aluminum alloys
were developed. The first metal-frame dirigibles had
duralumin skeletons and cloth coverings, with internal
gasbags. By 1900, a new type with gas-tight
aluminum-alloy shells, reinforced within by spiral
bracing, had become predominant. With multiple
turbo-compound engines, airships were capable of
speeds in excess of 120 kph, and unrefueled flights of
several thousand kilometers.

  Excerpts from:
"A History of Weapons and Warfare"
by Colonel Carlos Fuete, U.S. Army (Ret,)
Defense Institute Press, Mexico City



  Small Arms Development: The Draka Experience



  [Note on terminology: until roughly the 1820s, the
inhabitants of the Crown Colony of Drakia were
commonly referred to as "Drakians"; after that, as
"Draka." This article follows that usage. ]

  The initial migrants to the Crown Colony of Drakia in
1781-1785 included a number of Loyalist and Hessian
regiments; most of these were stood down when their
members took up the land grants issued by the Crown,
but they remained active in the Militia reserve forces.

   The original armament of the newcomers was a
mixture of breech-loading Ferguson rifles (25%),
muzzle-loading rifles of both the "Kentucky" and
"German/Jaeger" varieties (10%), and ordinary Brown
Bess smoothbores (65%). All of these weapons were
flintlocks, but their performance differed widely, as
follows:

  Brown Bess

  Caliber: .75 inch c.
Weight: 11 lb.
Range: 75 yards effective, 150 maximum
Rate of Fire: 2-4 rounds per minute
Operation: Muzzle-loading

Kentucky Rifle
  Caliber: .50 inch
Weight: 9 lb.
Range: 150-200 yards effective, 400 maximum
Rate of Fire: 1—2 rounds per minute
Operation: Muzzle-loading


  Ferguson Rifle (with round ball)

  Caliber: .45
Weight: 10 lb.
Range: 200-250 yards effective, 400 maximum
Rate of Fire: 6-8 rounds per minute
Operation: Lever-operated screw plug


   The Ferguson rifle, invented by General Patrick
Ferguson (b. 1741, Pitfours, Aberdeenshire, d. 1807,
Cape Town, Crown Colony of Drakia), was obviously for
and away the more efficient weapon. The breech was
blocked by a vertical plug, coarsely threaded like a giant
bolt. The lower end was attached to the front of the
movable trigger guard of the weapon, which had a
wooden handle affixed to the rear behind the hand-grip.
A complete 360-degree turn lowered the plug and
exposed the chamber of the rifle; a ball and paper
cartridge of black powder were then loaded, the
flintlock primed, and the action reversed to seal the
breech. The weapon was then ready to fire.

   The Ferguson rifle—"the gun that broke the
tribes"—had all the advantages of Brown Bess and the
Kentucky rifle, with features uniquely its own. Unlike
the Kentucky rifle, it could carry a bayonet, a factor of
some importance in the 18th century, and unlike Brown
Bess the "sticker" did not interfere with loading. Not
only was its rate of fire substantially better than the
smoothbore, but it could be loaded comfortably while in
the saddle or lying down behind cover. The threaded
plug gave excellent gas sealage, and the lighter bullet
meant that more ammunition could be carried. Unlike
muzzle-loaders, it could not be multiply loaded by
mistake in the confusion and noise of battle. Best of all,
it could be manufactured with the rather primitive
gunsmithing technology of the period; the plug had to
be turned on a lathe, but this was the only unorthodox
part.

   In Europe and America, military conservatism kept
the Ferguson rifle confined to specialist units; the
British army was satisfied with its volley-and-bayonet
tactics, the French enemies never showed any sign of
initiating an arms race, and the Americans preferred
smoothbores and the vastly inferior Hall breechloader
for reasons of national pride and lack of competition.

   The Drakians could not afford such luxuries. Faced
by native opponents capable of fielding armies of tens
of thousands of fanatically brave spearmen, they
needed a weapon that could hit hard, fast, and far.
Armories were established, using skilled gunsmiths
from among the Loyalist population and later European
immigrants, and enough breech-loaders were produced
to reequip the entire militia. Drawing on the experience
of the Dutch colonists before them, the new masters of
the Cape rapidly formed units of mounted riflemen,
supplemented by light fast-moving horse artillery. With
Fergusons, a few dozen colonists were a match for
regiments of black spearmen. Fighting from mobile
wagon-forts, a few hundred could shoot down
thousands without loss to themselves. By the mid
1780s, the Drakian soldier of the early conquest had
taken on the characteristics that were to last for most of
the next fifty years: mounted on a small hardy pony and
leading a string of remounts, equipped with a
Ferguson, two double-barreled pistols, knife, and saber.
Regiments of black slave-soldiers filled garrison and
infantry roles.

  The Ferguson was a weapon of revolutionary
importance, but it was not perfect; for example, the hot
gases eventually eroded the seal between the threads of
the plug and the drilled breech, requiring a new plug
and remachining. It required careful maintenance to
prevent a buildup of fouling in the chamber and barrel,
and the plug had to be wiped and oiled after every use
to prevent corrosion, which could ruin the gas seal.
Prolonged heavy firing could heat the chamber and
cause disastrous "cook off" detonation of the loose
powder during loading. Like all flintlocks, it had a
tendency to misfire, which required a lengthy and
frustrating drill to clear the touchhole, and it was
vulnerable to damp. Furthermore, the round ball used
was very inefficient aerodynamically, limiting range
and accuracy.

   The first important improvement was the McGregor
bullet. Captain Angus McGregor, a North Carolina
loyalist of Scottish background, had been using an
heirloom "stonebow" (crossbow adapted to throw small
stones or lead bullets) to hunt duck on his estate near
Virconium. It occurred to him that the same force threw
a pointed quarrel much further and more accurately
than a round stone; in 1792 he patented a
"cylindroconic-conic" bullet, a short blunt-headed
round with a hollow pointed head. McGregor had
anticipated the effect of reduced air resistance, but not
the even more important reduction of cross-sectional
diameter in relation to total weight.

  Range was increased to 500 yards against individual
man-sized targets, and 1000 against massed
formations; as an added bonus the hollowpoint round
had much greater wounding power than the round ball.
The colonial forces were rapidly converted, since the
only modification necessary was a new type of
bullet-mold. Performance was altered as follows:


  Ferguson Rifle (with McGregor cylindrical bullet)

  Caliber: .45
Weight: 10 lb.
Range: 500-600 yards effective, 1000 maximum
Rate of Fire: 6-8 rounds per minute


   This was the rifle that the Drakian expeditionary
force took north to Egypt in early 1800. Egypt, formally
part of the Ottoman Empire, had been occupied by a
French army of approximately 15,000 in 1798; the force
was originally under the command of Napoleon
Bonaparte, but he had returned to France in early 1800.
At the Battle of the Nile Delta in March of 1800, 6,000
Drakians (mostly Janissary slave-soldiers) faced 9,000
French troops under the command of Jacques Menou in
a flat, sandy area immediately east of the irrigated zone.
The Drakian infantry were deployed in a single-line
formation, flanked by mounted rifles, while the French
attacked in company and battalion columns—relying on
shock action, and preceded by skirmishers. The
Drakians opened volley-fire at 400 yards, firing by
tetrarchies [platoons]. None of the French formations
came closer than 150 yards to the Drakian line, and only
a few of the skirmishers were even able to open fire.
The French columns broke and reformed for the charge
several times, eventually suffering casualties of up 75%;
the crews of the French field-artillery were practically
annihilated before they discovered that the Ferguson
rifles outranged their fieldpieces.

   The battle had begun around dawn; by 1000 hours,
the French were in full flight, pursued by the Drakian
mounted infantry. Less than 200 of the French
expeditionary force ever returned to Europe. Drakian
casualties numbered less than 150, of whom only 30
were free citizens. Oddly, this shattering
demonstration of the superiority of the breech-loading
rifle over the muzzle-loading smoothbore had little
impact on the course of the war in Europe. The
Egyptian theater was remote, and little attention was
paid to it; the details were simply not known.
Furthermore, the contending powers in the Napoleonic
Wars were stretched to the limits of their
manufacturing and logistical capabilities, supporting
armies larger than any Europe had known before. The
British equipped some of their specialist light infantry
regiments (the Royal Greenjackets, for example) with
Drakian-made Fergusons; the French, towards the end,
issued the superior brass-cartridge Pauly-type rifles to
their equivalents. In the postwar cutbacks, innovation
became even slower.

   The final refinement of the Ferguson rifle was the
adoption of percussion ignition in 1804; a copper cap
containing fulminate of mercury was used. The
inventor—a sporting Anglican clergyman by the name of
Forsythe—had been bothered by the delay between
pulling the trigger and ignition in flintlock weapons,
which made wing-shooting birds difficult. Percussion
caps proved useful in military applications because
they were immune to damp (unlike the priming powder
of flintlocks) and because they were much less likely to
misfire—one in several hundred rounds rather than the
one in twenty typical for flintlocks.

   The war faction in the Drakian Legislative Assembly
had succeeded in hanging on to Egypt, despite strong
British efforts to return the territory to Turkey; the
result was war between the British and Ottoman
empires in 1807. Since all available British forces were
engaged in Spain, the Drakians had free rein in the
Mediterranean theater, and seized Cyprus, Crete,
Rhodes, the Ionian Isles, and Tunis. The Peace of
Vienna in 1814 confirmed these transfers, and the
Ottoman Empire renounced its territorial claims in
North Africa in favor of Britain, in return for 1,000,000
British pounds in gold (paid by the Drakians) and a
large loan.


  The T-1 (Teillard-Pauly) rifle: .


  The next step in Draka small arms resulted from the
convergence of two factors: the campaigns in North
Africa, and the immigration of substantial numbers of
French after the fall of Napoleon. The lowlands of
Tunisia had been overrun and occupied without much
difficulty, and by 1820 they had been divided into
plantations and the native inhabitants enserfed.
However, to the west stretched thousands of kilometers
of the Maghreb: plain, mountain, and desert, inhabited
by several million hardy, warlike Arabs and Berbers.
The North Africans were technically backward but not
to the same degree as the sub-Saharan tribes; they had
a literate class, firearms, horses, some cities, and a
tradition of large-scale organization in states and tribal
confederacies. To conquer and pacify this enormous
area required two generations of hard
campaigning—the Berber mountaineers of Kabylia and
the Rif Atlas were not subdued until the 1850s—and the
outnumbered Draka forces needed every advantage
they could get. The Ferguson rifle was vastly superior
to the native weaponry, but something better was
eagerly, sought.

   From 1812-1816 a French inventor, Samuel Jean
Pauly, had worked on the problems of breech-loading
rifles. His solution was a cartridge case with a brass
base that would expand to seal the breech, then
contract when the gas pressure in the barrel fell after
the bullet left the muzzle. This was an almost perfect
solution—the one used for virtually every small arm
from the 1850s on—but rather ahead of its time. In
particular, seamless drawn-brass tubing was expensive
and its quality unreliable. Pauly also invented a
centerfire primer, a percussion cap set into the center
of the rear end of his cartridge.

   Pauly lived and died in France, apart from a brief
visit to England to register a patent. However, his work
inspired two disciples; Dreyse, who developed the
Prussian "needle gun," the first breech-loader to
achieve general issue by a European power, and
Francois Teillard (born Lyon, 1772, died Bon Esperance
plantation, Nova Cartago province, 1842).
   There had been some French immigration to Drakia
in the 1790s; refugees from the slave uprising in Santo
Domingo (many of whom settled on the sugar coast of
Natealia and northwestern Madagascar, then just being
opened to settlement), and aristocrats dispossessed by
the Revolution. Few of these ever returned to France,
but news of how they had prospered in the new land
did. After the restoration of the Bourbons, there was
another wave of French settlers, this time largely to
Egypt and the newly-opened North African territories,
consisting mainly of Napoleonic veterans and their
families, discontented with a drab peacetime existence
or ruined by the fall of Napoleon's Empire. Along with
them came others drawn by the same stream, among
them Teillard.

   Teillard first settled in Diskarapur, in 1816; at that
time it was a rapidly-expanding center of iron and steel
production, and also of machinery and armaments.
Employed as an "overlooker" in a factory
manufacturing Ferguson muskets, he took advantage of
the Ferrous Metal Combine's policy of making facilities
available for after-hours experiments by its technical
staff. (Diskarapur's free population at this time was
only 3,000, and matters were more informal than they
later became.)

   Judging from his surviving notes and drawings,
Teillard attacked the problem of improving on the
Ferguson rifle from two angles. The first was to
eliminate the separation between primer and charge
(loading the round and placing the cap on the vent), and
the second was to find a method of breech sealing which
was as good or better than Ferguson's screw-plug.

   The solution had the simplicity of genius. Teillard
designed a single-piece cartridge, consisting of three
elements. First was a rather long, pointed bullet. This
was set firmly into a tube of stiffened gauze soaked in
nitrate; the tube was then filled with a dough of
moistened gunpowder, and a percussion cap set in a
cardboard disk was placed over the open rear of the
tube. Carefully dried, the round then contained primer,
propellent, and projectile in one piece, was strong
enough to be handled, and was reasonably
water-resistant, due to the shellac then applied to the
exterior.

   The loading and sealing mechanism was equally
simple. A turn-bolt system was used, shaped exactly
like a door-bolt. To load, the bolt was turned up
(unseating a locking lug at the head of the
bolt,immediately behind the chamber) and withdrawn;
the same motion compressed the spring within the bolt
and readied the firing pin. A round was thumbed into
the chamber, and the bolt driven forward and turned
down to lock firmly behind the cartridge. When the
trigger was pulled, the firing pin shot forward and
struck the percussion cap.

    This left the problem of sealing the breech against
the escape of gas; experiment proved that a
metal-to-metal seal eroded quickly. Teillard then
thought of Pauly's solution. Individual brass cases were
impractical, but Teillard developed an alternative. A
brass tube was made, open at both ends; midway
between them was a metal disk, completely blocking the
tube except for a hole in the center exactly the size of
the head of the firing pin. One end of the tube was
threaded, and screwed onto the head of the rifle's bolt.
The other (very slightly smaller in diameter than the
inner end of the rifle's chamber) was open. When the
bolt was pushed forward, the open end of the tube
cradled the base of the cartridge. Upon firing, the hot
gases pressed against the inside of the tube, expanding
it to firmly grip the walls of the chamber with a gastight
seal. When the bullet left the muzzle and the pressure
dropped, the elastic brass contracted, the bolt was
turned and withdrawn, and the whole cycle began
again.

  Together with careful redesign of the bullet, the
results were as follows:

  Teillard-Pauly Rifle (T-1):

  Caliber: .45
Weight: 9 lb.
Range: 800-1000 yards effective, 1500 maximum
Rate of Fire: 8-10 rounds per minute
Operation: Turn-bolt with obturator ring


   Field trials in 1820 produced strong demands from
the commanders in North Africa for more of the new
rifles. The design was not perfect; the cartridges
required moderately careful handling, very rapid fire
could produce "cook-off," and the machining required
for mass production of the weapon stretched the limits
of available technology. After a time the brass cup
became brittle and inelastic; the tube then had to be
unscrewed (with a special wrench kept in a
compartment beneath the buttplate of the rifle) and
replaced. The advantages were so overwhelming,
however, that by the mid-1820s the Draka armed forces
were completely reeqnipped with the new weapon.

   Teillard himself was granted a commendation,
50,000 aurics prize-money, and a 4,000-acre plantation
in the Cap Bon area of Tunisia. After a further
productive decade (during which he developed the
world's first practical revolver and was instrumental in
organizing the Diskarapur Technological Institute), he
retired to his estate to breed horses and experiment
with viticulture. (1) After the adoption of the
Teillard-Pauly rifle, only minor improvements were
made for the next thirty years. The next breakthrough
was the development in the 1840s of techniques for
cheap mass-production of seamless brass tubing; this
was the result of improvements in automotive steam
engines, but had a military application. West and
Central Africa were being conquered, and the hot wet
climate was having unfortunate effects
   Footnote 1. His son, William Teillard, was the author
of Ravens in A Morning Sky, the first notable Draka
novel, as well as other works, and his granddaughter
Cynthia Teillard played an instrumental part in the
campaign forewomen's suffrage.


   on the permeable cartridge of the T-1; also, repeated
attempts to design a workable repeating rifle had
broken down on the fragility of the T-1's ammunition. A
drawn-brass cartridge was perfected in 1847, and the
opportunity was taken to further reduce the caliber of
the weapon. The feed mechanism was a steel box
beneath the bolt, holding eight rounds and with a
Z-shaped spring attached to a riser plate beneath the
ammunition. Moving forward, the bolt "stripped" a
round out of the lips of the magazine and chambered it.
After firing, the bolt was turned, grasping the cartridge
with a wedge-shaped extractor on the bolt face and
withdrawn. As the bolt withdrew, so did the empty
cartridge case, striking a milled "shoulder" and being
flung out of the rifle. With the bolt left back, the
magazine was exposed and could be reloaded, initially
with individual rounds and later with clips of four
rounds in a beveled zinc strip holder.

  Performance was as follows:

T-2 Rifle

  Caliber: .40
Weight: 9.5 lb.
Range: 1000 yards effective, 1800 maximum
Rate of Fire: 10-12 rounds per minute
Feed System: Fixed box, 8 rounds
Operation: Turn-bolt


With the T-2, the black-powder rifle had reached its
ultimate refinement. The disposable cartridge helped
to reduce the heating problems endemic to earlier
models, and also removed fouling from the chamber of
the rifle; it was also virtually unaffected by water. The
only remaining serious problems were those inherent
in the black-powder propellant: fouling of the barrel,
requiring frequent cleaning (difficult in the heat of
battle), and the large output of smoke, which disclosed
the firer's position and could blanket an entire
battlefield.

   The T-2 proved its worth in the final conquest of the
interior of Africa, and in the two major overseas
expeditions of the 1850s, the Crimean War and the
Indian Mutiny. In the first, Draka infantry equipped
with T-2's repeatedly savaged far larger Russian forces
armed with a mixture of muzzle-loading and single-shot
breech-loading rifles. In India, the prompt intervention
of 20,000 Draka troops saved the British position.
(These conflicts also taught the Draka valuable tactical
lessons, particularly concerning the necessity for
dispersed formations and the obsolescence of cavalry
shock action.)


  Machine-Guns: The Gatling Gun


   Richard Gatling (born 1818, Maney's Neck, North
Carolina; died 1905, Archona, Archona Province) was a
Southern-born inventor. His first career was in the field
of agricultural machinery (his seed-drills were
ingenious and widely used). His second began in the
late 1840s, when he developed the first version of the
ten-barreled crank-operated machine-gun that later
made his name famous. Gatling failed to interest the
American government in his invention, and went to
London in the spring of 1850 to test the European
waters. He found little interest, but happened to meet
(in a City chop-house) a junior member of the staff of
the unofficial Draka embassy, Marius de Witt, who had
worked in the Naysmith Machine Tool Combine's
design section in Diskarapur.
   De Witt interested his superiors in Gatling's designs,
and he was encouraged to move to Diskarapur. There,
in cooperation with engineers from the Naysmith and
Ferrous Metals Combines, he quickly perfected his
designs. The new metallic cartridge proved ideal for
this use, and a reliable weapon with a rate of fire in
excess of 600 rounds per minute was quickly produced.
General issue to the Draka armed forces began in 1855,
and Gatling guns were used with devastating effect in
the Indian Mutiny.


  The T-2 in the American Civil War


   The next major test of the T-2 came, oddly enough, in
the American Civil War. While relations with the US
had always been rather chilly, many Draka had family
ties with the Southern states; in addition there were
ideological links, strengthened in the 1830-1860 period
as both the South and the proto-Domination became
conscious of their isolation in an increasingly bourgeois
world. Accordingly, when the war broke out, Draka
sympathy was overwhelmingly pro-Confederate. Direct
intervention was impossible; the Domination was still
formally part of the British Empire, and had only
recently acquired "Dominion" status, with full control
of the Executive branch of government. Furthermore,
the Draka had no navy to speak of; however, they did
have shipyards capable of turning out very modern
steel-hulled steamships. Draka yards built
commerce-raiders for the Confederate government, and
Draka and miscellaneous European volunteers and
mercenaries manned them. Draka blockade runners
funneled huge amounts of aid into the Confederate
ports.

  The American armed forces had started the war with
the Hall-Springfield rifle, a percussion-cap, single-shot
breechloader with a lever action sealed by a
Teillard-style brass obturator. Cheap, simple, rugged
and easy to maintain, this was an excellent weapon of
its type, and both sides used it as the predominant
infantry arm. The Confederacy also received substantial
numbers of T-2's, enough to arm all its cavalry and
many of its elite infantry formations (e.g., the Stonewall
Brigade). These— together with the thousands of
Gatling guns and hundreds of Meercat armored steam
warcars, cast-steel artillery pieces from the forges of
Diskarapur, tinned food from the Cape, and cloth from
the mills of Alexandria—were instrumental in
prolonging the Confederacy's doomed struggle against
the superior numbers and industrial resources of the
North. Not until 1866 did Richmond fall, and the North
lost more than 700,000 dead in the process.


  Smokeless Powder and the T-3/T-4


   Mining had always been an important part of the
Draka economy, and when the Swede Alfred Huskqvist
(b. 1820, Uppsala, d. 1890, Kenia province) (2)
perfected his method of stabilizing nitroglycerin by
absorption, it was quickly adapted as the main
explosive in the Domination's mines. Dynamite (as the
new compound was called) exploded far too readily to
be used as a propellant, but proved to be very suitable
as a bursting-charge in shells. After settling in the
Domination, Huskqvist developed a mixture of
nitroglycerin and nitrocellulose that could be extruded
into various shapes, and which gave a much more
controlled "burn" than black powder. The new
compound was patented in 1872, and known variously
as "cordite" (from the string-shaped pieces initially
used), 'white powder' (from its color) and, usually,
"smokeless" powder. The War Directorate immediately
noted the superiority of the new propellant (less
fouling to build up in the chamber and barrel, no smoke
to give away the rifleman's position, higher velocity,
and flatter trajectory). The first attempt at use was the
T-3, in which double-base smokeless powder was
substituted for the original 250-grain load of
compressed black powder.

   Footnote 2. Huskqvist settled on a coffee plantation
in Kenia province, and the Huskqvist family have
remained as Landholders on the estate ever since.
Huskqvist's daughter, Karen Huskqvist, was the author
of the noted Into Africa.

  Performance was as follows:

  T-3 Rifle

  Ciliber: .40
Weight: 9.8 lb.
Range: 1500 yards effective, 2200 maximum
Rate of Fire: 10-12 rounds per minute
Feed System: Fixed box, 8 rounds
Operation: Turn-bolt


   However, there were serious problems, and the T-3
was withdrawn from service within four years. Recoil
was excessive, and the velocity so high that the bullet
tended to melt in the barrel, lining it with smears of
lead. The rifling also tended to "strip" the exterior of
the bullet.

   Design studies were undertaken, and the
opportunity used to redesign the service rifle from the
ground up. A smaller-caliber weapon was used, since it
was obvious that the higher velocity reduced the need
for a large bullet to achieve severe wounds. The shape
of the bullet was redesigned (a "boat-tail" to reduce
drag), the round itself was made of lead swagged into a
jacket of harder alloy (except for the nose, left bare to
expand inside the target), and the feed mechanism was
altered to a detachable clip with 10 rounds, which made
reloading easier under battle conditions.

  T-4 Rifle

  Calibre: 7.5 mm x 60 mm
Weight: 9 lb.
Range: 2000 yards effective, 2500 maximum
Rate of Fire: 10-12 rounds per minute
Feed System: Detachable box, 10 rounds
Operation: Turn-bolt

   The T-4 was the weapon used by the Draka armed
forces during the Anglo-Russian War of 1879-1882, and
proved to be a war-winner; simple, light, rugged, and
very hard-hitting. Widely copied in Europe (e.g., the
German Mausers of 1888 and 1898), it remained
standard issue until 1906.


  Automatic and Self-Loading Weapons


  While the Gatling gave excellent service, it was
inevitably large, bulky, and heavy, and usually mounted
on a modified field-gun carriage or steel tripod. In
vehicle mounts with an exterior power source its very
high rate of fire and reliability made it nearly ideal, but
for infantry service it had severe limitations.

   After the adoption of smokeless powder, the Draka
Gatlings were modified to fire the new round, but it was
obvious that new possibilities were opened by the new
propellant—especially by its reduced waste residue and
the more efficient "long push" that its slower burn gave
as compared to black powder.

   The first application was in a heavier weapon, a 25
mm automatic cannon designed for armored-vehicle
use and as an antiairship defense. Developed by
Charles Manson of the Army Technical Section in
1882-86, it used a form of blowback operation,
combined with advanced primer ignition. The
breechblock was flanked by two metal arms, themselves
attached to a strong coil spring in a sheath around the
lower barrel of the weapon. When released, the block
was pulled forward by the spring, stripping a shell out
of the metal-link feed belt and firing it slightly before
reaching the full-forward position. The recoil force thus
had to stop the forward intertia of the breech, then
move it backward against the mass of the breechblock,
the two flanking arms, and the force of the coil spring.

   While efficient, the mechanism was not directly
transferable to small arms. It did inspire a good deal of
experimentation, and in 1890 Dr. Alexandra Tolgren, of
the Shahnapur Technological Institute, made the first
serious application of the gas-delayed blowback
principle which was to be the foundation of Draka
small-arms design for two generations.

   The Tolgren automatic pistol used a rimless
modification of the standard 10 x 15 mm
smokeless-powder pistol round adopted in 1881. The
feed device was a 12-round staggered box clip in the
grip. Operation was as follows: the bolt, which was
machined to wrap around the barrel on three sides, ran
forward, chambered a round and fired when the trigger
was pulled. Above the barrel was a short cylinder, the
rear end of which was sealed. A gas port was drilled
through to the barrel, and a piston-head and rod were
inserted in the tube forward of the port. The operating
rod ran forward through a further, slotted portion of
the tube which contained a coil-spring, and at the
forward end was fastened to two steel pins that ran in
grooves back along the outside of the gas tube and
attached to the bolt.

   At rest, the spring held the breech sealed. When
fired, the recoil of the weapon began to blow the bolt
backward, against the force of the coil spring and the
inertia of the bolt and operating rods. These alone
would not have sufficed to keep the breech sealed, but
as the bullet fired, high-pressure gas filled the tube
above the barrel and prevented the piston-head from
recoiling. Once the bullet had left the muzzle, the
pressure in the cylinder dropped and the piston
traveled backwards, forcing the remaining gas into the
barrel. The bolt recoiled, then moved forward again as
the coil spring expanded, stripping another round from
the clip and repeating the cycle.


  Tolgren Automatic Pistol, model 1890:


  Caliber: 10 mm x 15 mm
Weight: 2.6 lb.
Range: 50 yards effective, 100 maximum
Rate of Fire: 60 rounds per minute, theoretical
Feed System: Detachable box in grip, 12 rounds
Operation: Gas-delayed blowback, semi-automatic.


   The gas-delayed blowback system proved to give a
reliable operation, particularly after it became possible
to chrome-plate internal parts subject to gas-wash.

   In 1891, a design team from the Technical Section
decided that the Tolgren action could be scaled-up to
produce a "machine pistol"—a portable, automatic
short-range weapon suitable for police and
close-quarter military use.


  Machine Pistol Mk. I, model 1891:

  Caliber: 10 mm x 15 mm
Weight: 7.5 lb. (with collapsible steel stock)
Range: 150 yards effective, 200 maximum
Rate of Fire: 600 rounds per minute, theoretical
Feed System: Detachable box in grip, 35 rounds
(75-round snail drum for special roles)
Operation: Gas-delayed blowback, selective fire.


  This proved a great success—although somewhat
over-elaborate, as European experience in the Great
War showed that a simple blowback weapon with a
heavier bolt would do quite satisfactorily. It should be
noted that the Draka armed forces initially found little
role for the machine-pistol/ submachine-gun, since
current tactical doctrine envisaged infantry combat at
greater ranges. The Draka War Directorate issued it
fairly extensively to personnel for whom a full-sized
rifle was inconvenient: armored vehicle crews, gunners,
and the women's auxiliary branch. The Security
Directorate found it much more useful, and equipped
about one third of their Order Police with it. No
European power showed any interest until after the
outbreak of the Great War in 1914.

   In 1900 it was decided to develop a full-power
semiautomatic rifle. The Tolgren action was adopted;
there was initially some doubt that a system without
positive mechanical locking of the bolt could operate
using a powerful full-bore rifle cartridge, but
experiments proved the contrary. A notable feature was
the semi-closed bolt; at rest, the bolt was set slightly
back from the closed position. When the trigger was
pulled, the firing pin struck the primer and the bolt was
simultaneously freed to complete its run forward; this
absorbed a considerable share of the recoil and made it
possible to build a very light action. The resulting
weapon, adopted for general service in 1906 and
standard issue until 1936, was the T-5.

  T-5 Rifle

  Caliber: 7.5 mm x 60 mm
Weight: 9.7 lb.
Range: 2000 yards effective, 2500 maximum
Rate of Fire: 25 rounds per minute, theoretical
Feed System: Detachable box, 15 rounds
Operation: Gas-delayed blowback, semi-automatic.


   The T-5 was produced in enormous quantity, over
11,000,000 being turned out during its period of
general issue; no substantial modifications were made,
apart from minor alterations to simplify manufacture.
The action worked very smoothly, and the advanced
primer ignition and semi-elastic "gas cushion" effect of
the delayed blowback gave minimal recoil. The result
was a rifle that was very pleasant to fire, nearly as
accurate as its bolt-action predecessor, and had twice
the firepower. In fact, the T-5 proved to be another
classic weapon, its only drawback being the extensive
machining necessary for manufacture. In the field, it
gave the Draka infantry a density of firepower none of
their opponents could match, particularly in
combination with its companion-piece, the SAW-1.

   The Technical Section team that designed the T-5 also
saw an opportunity to develop the first really portable
machine-gun. Simply modifying the trigger-mechanism
of the T-5 gave an automatic weapon, but magazine
capacity was too small, the barrel tended to
catastrophic overheating (and attendant cook-off), and
the weapon was violently unstable in full automatic
mode.

   Modifications followed. A heavy barrel was fitted,
with a carrying handle and quick-change facility, the
forestock of the rifle being replaced with a slotted metal
guard and grip. A bipod was attached to the
gas-regulator, a straight-line butt and pistol grip was
fitted, and the operating mechanism was made more
robust. In addition, a pawl-and-ratchet belt-drive
device was installed, with provision for quick
conversion to magazine feed. The "Squad Automatic
Weapon, Mark I" could then take the standard
disintegrating link belt feed (usually in 75-round belts
packed in a box that clipped beneath the weapon), or 15
or 30-round box magazines inserted from the top.
Specifications were as follows:

  Squad Automatic Weapon, Mark I model 1907:


  Caliber: 7.5 mm x 60 mm
Weight: 19 lb.
Range: 2000 yards effective, 2500 maximum
Rate of Fire: 600 rounds per minute, theoretical
Feed System: Disintegrating-link metal belt/15- or
30-round box Operation: Gas-delayed
blowback, automatic.


   With these two weapons the Domination fought the
Great War of 1914-1918 and carried the Drakon banner
from Constantinople to Xian.

   The infantry squad of the Great War was equipped
with a mixture of SAW-1's, T-5's, and machine-pistols;
subsidiary weapons included rifle grenades, hand
grenades (stick and "egg" types), flamethrowers,
heavier water-cooled machine guns, and light mortars.
After the winding-down of the Pacification Wars in
1925-26, the Technical Section decided to run a detailed
tactical analysis of the actual operation of these
weapons in the field; the Draka armed forces generally
were anxious to avoid "victory disease" and
self-criticism was being encouraged.

   The T-5 had been very popular with the actual users,
and was widely imitated in the postwar period; the
American Springfield-7 (1927), the British Lee-Shallon
(1921, almost a direct copy), the French MAS, the
Russian Tokarev… In fact, by 1939 the only major power
not to convert to the full-power semiautomatic format
was Germany, where investigators were advocating a
subcaliber compromise weapon.

   Much to their own surprise, the Small Arms Study
Project run by Sven Holbars of the Alexandria
Technological Institute determined that the T-5 was far
from perfect. The average range of infantry combat had
decreased, even in open desert country, and all major
combatants had adopted the Draka/ German system of
dispersed infiltration infantry tactics. The full-power
cartridge was superfluous at ranges within 800 meters,
and 90% of all infantry engagements were at that or
less. Beyond that range, crew-served weapons were
more effective. Furthermore, the venerable 7.5 x 60 mm
made a true selective-fire rifle impossible; a weapon
light enough to be useful was uncontrollable in
full-automatic mode, and the barrel overheated
disastrously.

   The Project therefore decided to "reinvent the
wheel" and design a new weapon from the ground up.
Since the rifle was merely a delivery system for the true
weapon—the bullet— ammunition was the first priority.
The design parameters emphasized the smallest and
lightest possible round which would have good
wounding characteristics within the 800-meter
envelope and would still punch through the average
steel helmet at that range. A small-caliber, high-velocity
round was found to give the best effective combination
of characteristics (a caseless round would have been
even better, but this proved extremely difficult). The
caliber settled on was 5 mm (about .2 inch), with a
bottle-necked 45 mm cartridge case of aluminum alloy.

  The gas-delayed blowback action of the T-5 and
SAW-1 was used for the new rifle. The design was
actually based more on the SAW-1 than on the rifle, as
automatic fire and an integral bipod were part of the
specifications. The feed device was a matter of
controversy; with the 600 rpm cyclic rate envisaged, a
box clip was of doubtful use—it tended to become
unmanageably bulky and unreliable with capacities
over 34-40 rounds. A 75-round disintegrating-link belt,
prepacked in a conical drum, was settled on, using
aluminum for the belt and the feed lips of the drum,
and the new glass-fiber resin for the box itself; the rear
face was made semitransparent, so that the soldier
could see at a glance how many rounds were left.
Performance was as follows:

  Holbans T-6 Assault Rifle, Model 1936

  Caliber: 5 mm x 45 mm
Weight: 9.7 lb.
Range: 800 yards effective, 1000 maximum
Rate of Fire: 600 rounds per minute, theoretical Feed
System: Disintegrating-link metal belt,
75 round drum
Operation: Gas-delayed blowback, automatic; optional
3-round burst.


   Careful engineering and extensive use of
high-strength alloys reduced the loaded weight to less
than 10 lbs.; combined with the low recoil force and soft
action, this made the Holbars fully controllable even
when fired from the hip on full automatic. A bipod was
attached below the gas port, and when not in use folded
into a slot on the bottom of the laminated wooden
foregrip. The stock was a metal frame, with a robust
folding hinge; when collapsed, it lay along the left side
of the weapon. There were post-and-aperture sights,
but the main system was an optical x4 sight; this was
optimized for quick use, and encased in a
rubber-padded "shroud." Most troops carried their
optical sights permanently clipped to the weapon,
although they could be removed with the standard
maintenance tools. Folded, the weapon was only 30
inches long, an important point given the increased use
of armored personnel carriers. The Holbars was usually
carried across the chest on an assault sling.

   A companion SAW-2 was developed concurrently;
this was very similar, but used a 150-round drum and
had a heavier quick-change barrel attached to a
carrying handle. This two-weapon combination was
used throughout the Eurasian war, and remained
standard issue for the Domination's forces until the
early 1970s.

   With the Holbars, the metallic cartridge selective-fire
rifle had reached the endpoint of its development;
detail improvements in materials and performance
were possible, but a fundamental improvement
required a complete redesign. The basic breakthrough
was a successful caseless cartridge—in essence, a
high-tech version of the old T-1. Research began as early
as the 1920s, and continued for forty years in a
desultory fashion. Apart from gas sealage (no longer a
problem with modern machining) the primary difficulty
had to do with ignition and heat-disposal. The metallic
cartridge served not only to seal the breech of the
weapon but to carry off much of the heat of the
combustion. The final answer to the problem was to
abandon the dual-base propellants that had been in use
since the introduction of smokeless powder, and go
over to an actual explosive—previous propellants had
really been very fast burners rather than explosives
proper. To keep chamber pressures within acceptable
limits, the explosive was diluted with a combustible
synthetic, which also acted as a matrix to provide
mechanical strength for the round. The projectile, the
bullet proper, was almost completely enclosed in a
rectangular block of propellant, greatly easing the
design of magazines and eliminating waste space.
Ignition was electrical, and the chemical mix was
designed to be very resistant to heat and shock-wave
detonation,

   At the same time, the traditional
stock-action-magazine-barrel design was abandoned,
and the pistol grip was placed forward of the action.
The buttplate was immediately behind the action (next
to the user's face when the weapon was shouldered),
which posed few problems since there was now no need
to eject spent cartridges.

  The resulting T-7 entered field trials in the
mid-1960s.

  Holbars T-7 Assault Rifle, Model 1971

  Caliber: 4.5 mm x 40 mm, prefragmented, other
options
Weight: 10 lb.
Range: 800 yards effective, 1000 maximum
Rate of Fire: 2000/600 rounds per minute, theoretical
Feed System: 100-round spiral cassette
Operation: Recoil; optional 3-round burst.
  Notes: Most T-7's incorporated a single-shot 35 mm
grenade launcher below the main barrel; this was
loaded from a slot near the buttplate, and there was a
selector switch above the trigger group to change from
regular to launcher.


  Author's Note:


  COMPUTERS AND TECHNOLOGY


   The development of computer technology and
electronics in general followed a rather different course
in the timeline of the Domination. The precocious
development of pneumatic power systems and
machine-tools made Thomas Babbage's mechanical
computer a marginal success in the 1830s, rather than a
marginal failure. Mechanical-analog computing was a
fact of life by the 1840s, controlled by punch-card
memory systems analogous to Jacquard looms. They
were expensive and cumbersome, but they gave a
distinct impetus to many types of research and to
engineering.

  Next, the vacuum tube came along rather earlier, by
about a generation; the same is true for the transistor.
Analog data-manipulation technologies (e.g., for
numerically-controlled machine tools) were therefore
more advanced when digital computing techniques
were achieved. All-digital systems are therefore much
more limited.

   In consequence, the research methods followed by
both Alliance and Domination were quite different from
our history's. The climate of the Protracted Struggle
bred an obsession with security that sharply limited the
flow of information and ideas even in the democratic
nations of the Alliance. It also resulted in a "crash
project" attitude towards research in general; the
result was very quick progress in fields where the
possibilities were known, but less serendipity, less of
the shotgun approach. As an analogy, if there had been
a Manhattan Project attack on polio in our 1950s, the
result would probably have been a magnificently
advanced iron lung. The fact of stable, rather than
expanding, population also altered the market
structure and reduced demand for innovation in the
Domination's timeline.

   Consequently, computers in the timeline of the
Domination developed on a "big brain" basis.
Software—what they called compinstruction sets, or
instruction sets—was "burned in" to central core units,
embedding the program. The central cores were
generally sealed, with their own internal memories; an
interfacer unit translated data from the external
memory storage for the central unit to manipulate. The
thought of "open" programming was rarely brought up,
even as a theoretical possibility—it gave
counterintelligence agencies the willies.

   Personal computers—perscomps—evolved up from
sensor-effector systems like those used on machine
tools, rather than down from big-brain computers. They
too had embedded programs, and they were mixed
digital/analog rather than digital systems. Large,
complex jobs like running a spaceship were handled by
a central brain, which acted as a coordinating node for a
number of perscomp-type subsystems, each handling
something like a weapons mount or fuel-flow monitor.
Note, however, that the sophisticated use of digital/
analog systems was an advantage in some fields like
voice recognition.

   This computer system had built-in limitations. Many
of the embedded programs were very capable, and the
manufacturing facilities in space permitted the use of
quite exotic materials— silicon/sapphire sandwich
wafers, and gallium arsenide—but there was less
innovation and less pressing need for miniaturization.
The existence of heavy-lift missile and orbital launch
facilities alone removed a powerful incentive, and
nothing like the hacker subculture of our timeline ever
emerged. Research was limited to a number of large
companies and government institutes, and the number
of participants was very small, a few thousand at most.
The spillover effect of widespread perscomp use was
restricted, because only the largest central-brain units
could be used for "software" design or programming of
any. sort; new programs were bought as physical
components and inserted into the core. Computer
applications were many and crucial to most aspects of
war and business, but they were vastly less flexible than
in our continuum; by the 1990s, capacities were
approaching a plateau, a dead-end.

   In some respects, this was true of science and
technology generally. The precocious development of
heavy-lift space capacity biased technological
development towards bigger and better applications of
known principles; so did the constant rivalry between
the powerblocs. The overall result was a technology
more powerful than ours, but also rather cruder—as if
the technological visionaries of the 1930s had been
given unlimited funding, and as a result the course of
development had been littered with a series of "roads
not taken" because attention was focused on the
immediately achievable. By the 1960s, there was a
built-in bias (on both sides) towards projects which
were obviouslypossible given massive applications of
personnel and funding. The basic mentality was that of
engineers rather than scientists, and dam-building,
metal-bashing rule-of-thumb engineers at that.

  In the end, the world of the Domination achieved
what might be called "yesterday's tomorrow."