The day was blustery enough to raise whitecaps on the ocean out beyond the Alph estuary, but Waterside was shielded from the wind, and the wan light of Zephrain A was reasonably warm. At any rate, Ian Trevayne hardly noticed the weather as he sat sprawled in one of the wrought-iron chairs on his terrace, eyes closed, absorbing sunlight and Scotch.
"You look exhausted," commented Miriam Ortega from the other chair. "Don't burn yourself out with overwork."
"Thank you, Mother," Trevayne sighed without opening his eyes.
Miriam gave an unseen smile. The jape held a larger grain of truth than its speaker knew.
It had taken time, but Trevayne had come to an emotional acceptance of what his forebrain had told him from the first about their relationship. The woman in her thirties he had known was dead. They could no longer be lovers. But there could be no escaping—even if they had wanted to escape—the knowledge that they had been lovers. Their love would always be there, imperishable and incorruptible, but now it was of a different quality. And she herself had been startled by the realization that it held, on her side, an undeniable element of motherliness. But, why, she had asked herself, should it be so startling? After all, he was younger—both biologically and in terms of total conscious life experience—than either of her sons.
Motherly, hell! she thought. It ought to be grandmotherly. But then her eyes rested on the reclining body, a younger version of the one she had known so well. All right, maybe not grandmotherly. That's a little much. In fact, maybe not even entirely . . . . Oh, stop that, you dirty-minded old biddy!
She took a sip of her own Scotch. "You know, you got me hooked on this stuff. I used to be considered a cheap date in my youth. But for the last eighty years I've had to pay through the nose for the genuine article, imported all the way from some island on Old Terra."
"And quite rightly, too!" Trevayne opened his eyes, sat up, and took a patriotic pull on his drink.
"I should have billed the trust, all those years," she said accusingly.
"Then I would never have been able to afford this place," Trevayne retorted.
They grinned at each other. She had had the advantage of years in which to prepare herself for the situation into which he had been abruptly thrust. But they'd both had some adjustments to make. Now they had, in their own ways, both come to terms with the realities of their relationship. The earlier perplexities were gone, leaving a deep and uncomplicated comfort in each other's company.
"At any rate," Trevayne continued, "you've had your revenge with the 'refresher courses' I'm having to undergo. You're bloody right about me being exhausted!"
"I know there's a lot to cover."
"And not enough time to cover it in. I'm being hurried through all the technology that's new to me without being given a chance to assimilate the theory underlying it."
"But you're at least getting a grasp of the capabilities, aren't you?"
"Oh, yes. I know what things will do, even if I don't always understand how they do it. And I suppose that's all I really need to know. I'm not expected to be a technician. The applications—the tactical possibilities—are going to be my business. And I've begun to have a few ideas. . . ." Trevayne's eyes lost their focus as his mind started to slip into a realm of vast spaces and vaster energies, of whirling abstractions representing gigatons of metal and thousands of lives, knitted together into coherency by threads of technical parameters.
"Well, that's good," said Miriam, hastily hauling him back. "Because things are happening. In fact, that's what I'm here to tell you about. The Terran Republic Navy task force for the counteroffensive is en route now. And it's going to pay a call here at Zephrain in two weeks." She paused and watched Trevayne's expression. It was as ambivalent as she had expected. Ever since the failure of Cyrus Waldeck's attempt on Bellerophon, he had been insistent that the Republic's aid must be accepted unreservedly. And yet . . .
"Well," he finally said, a little too briskly, "this should be quite an occasion. The first major reinforcement from the reb— from the TRN."
"And its first-ever peaceful appearance in this system," she added for him with a smile. "All you remember are the not-so-peaceful ones."
"Yes. And unlike everyone else in the Rim Federation, I remember them as recent events." Trevayne fell into a silence that Miriam hesitated to break. His eyes held a brooding expression that was incongruous on such a youthful face.
You became a legend by smashing those two invasions, Ian, she thought. And the first one included a certain Lieutenant Commander Colin Trevayne, who had joined the Fringe rebellion. The son who alone remained of a family that had otherwise been vaporized when the rebels nuked the civilian housing at Jamieson Archipelago on Galloway's World.
And you knew his ship was there, among those whose obliteration you were orchestrating.
"Anyway, Ian," she said at last, "you're right about it being a major occasion. There's going to be a big-deal reception for the senior TRN officers at Government House."
"Which I will of course be expected to attend," he said quietly.
"Of course," she echoed, just as quietly.
Only a brief silence passed before he tossed off the last of his Scotch and smiled at her. "Well, I've been wanting to talk to someone about this new 'devastator' of theirs."
At six supermonitors, eleven superdreadnoughts, three assault carriers, eighteen battlecruisers, and assorted lesser ships, the TRN contingent was a little on the light side to be called a task force. "Task group" was a title it might have worn more comfortably. But there was general agreement that no useful public-relations purpose would be served by minimizing the Terran Republic's contribution to the Rim's war effort.
The newcomers slid peacefully into the system their grandparents had tried and failed to fight their way into, and took up orbit around Xanadu. A major ceremony of greeting in space had been rejected in favor of moving such displays to the surface, where all the amity would be on full display for the populace. So the TRN brass were transported down to Prescott . . . in RFN shuttles.
Since becoming the seat of government for an interstellar nation (however stubbornly the Rim Federation resisted calling itself that) rather than for a single system, Government House had necessarily undergone expansions and renovations. Most notably, a reception room and dining hall now extended back into what had been formal gardens. Here the Rim's new allies would be wined and dined.
Trevayne arrived as late as possible, or perhaps just a tad later than that. The reception room was already crowded with formally dressed VIPs and suffused with a low hum of conversation. It was as impressive as he had been led to believe: an enormous square chamber with a predominantly gold color scheme enhanced by the melting light of great chandeliers. The walls were lined with furniture of antique elegance, alternating with marble-topped side tables. A wide, shallow flight of steps descended to the equally vast dining hall, through whose thirty-foot windows the remains of the formal gardens could be glimpsed in the twilight.
But what caught Trevayne's attention was the flag of the Terran Republic, draped on a wall in honor of the guests. It was something he'd never thought to see on Xanadu.
Ah, well. Times change, he philosophized. He studied the ebon banner with its gold starburst, and the bloodred creature—a manifest zoological impossibility—that coiled around the star. Trevayne had always wondered about that last.
"There you are!" Miriam Ortega emerged from the throng. "Come on over here. I want you to meet the Republic commander. And she's eager to meet you!" Was he imagining things, Trevayne wondered, or was there a twinkle of mischief in her eyes?
He allowed himself to be led across the floor, pausing repeatedly to acknowledge greetings and to snag a glass of champagne from a waiter. Ahead was a cluster of TRN full dress uniforms—a rather elegant confection of deep-blue and white, edged with gold, in a traditional military style. A figure emerged from the group.
Trevayne's lower jaw didn't quite hit the golden brown–carpeted marble floor.
Good God! he thought, amid his roaring mental chaos. She's come back to haunt me!
But no, of course it wasn't Li Han. Li Han must be in her 120s and a fleet admiral. This woman with rear admiral's insignia appeared no older than Trevayne himself did—not that that necessarily meant anything in this day of antigerone treatments. And she was taller than Li Han. (Actually, almost everybody was taller than Li Han.) And her features held a hint of the aquiline look traditionally associated with Japanese noble families, while Li Han's were uncompromisingly Chinese.
For all that, the resemblance was eerie. Perhaps, he thought, it was the eyes. As a rule, eyes described as "black" are actually dark brown. But Li Han's were literally black. And so were the eyes that now met his with frank curiosity. They were exactly like the eyes he had once stared into in a comm screen, hoping that their owner would give him an excuse to kill her.
"Admiral Trevayne," he heard Miriam Ortega say, "allow me to present Rear Admiral Li Magda of the Terran Republic Navy." Her voice was formal, but there was no longer any doubt about the nature of that twinkle.
She'll pay, Trevayne thought darkly. He inhaled his champagne and glanced around rather desperately for a waiter. Seeing none, he extended his hand. "Li Magda?" he managed, with a stress on the surname.
"Yes, Admiral," she said, taking his hand. "But my friends call me Mags—though not in my mother's hearing!"
Any illusions based on physical resemblance shattered as though they had been dropped on the floor. Trevayne's imagination failed at the thought of Li Han saying something like that. But . . . "Your mother?" he queried.
"Yes." She nodded. "My mother is First Space Lord Li Han. And may I say, Admiral, that I've heard a lot about you all my life."
"I can just imagine," said Miriam Ortega sweetly. "Actually, Admiral Li, I once met your mother."
Li Magda showed her surprise. "When was that, Madame Chief Justice?" She had, Trevayne decided, been very well briefed.
" 'Miriam,' please. It was after the Second Battle of Zephrain."
"Yes," Trevayne piped up. "Your mother was here on Xanadu at the time, as . . ." He trailed to an embarrassed halt.
"As your prisoner," Li Magda finished for him helpfully.
"I was laboring under the title 'Provisional Grand Councilor for Internal Security of the Rim Systems,' " Miriam explained, rescuing Trevayne. "I was touring the POW camp, and I interviewed her in her capacity as senior prisoner. She seemed to appreciate my interest in conditions there. We got along very well, I thought, although she was extremely—" Miriam sought for the right word. "—earnest."
"That's the general consensus," Li Magda acknowledged sadly. "Mother can never understand why nobody thinks she has a sense of humor. She thinks she's a stitch."
Trevayne wisely refrained from remarking on the commonness of this delusion.
"I think she was also a little embarrassed," Miriam continued. "She correctly inferred from my surname that I was the daughter of Admiral Sergei Ortega, who had died in First Zephrain."
"Oh." Li Magda was silent a moment. "I suppose a lot of people had deaths to get over in those days. My generation will never really know what it was like. But now . . . well, just the fact that I'm here, in this system—"
"Yes," Miriam agreed. "We've very grateful to have you here now."
"Especially," Trevayne interjected, "in light of this new ship class the Republic has developed."
"The devastator, you mean. There aren't any in my task force, as you know; we wanted to get reinforcements here without further delay. But later elements will undoubtedly include them, as they're well into mass production now. I had some input in the design stage."
"Did you?" Trevayne perked up.
Miriam sighed. "I can see you two want to talk shop. And you know, Ian, how hopelessly unmilitary I am. So I'll just go and touch base with a few more people." As she vanished into the crowd, Li Magda's TRN subordinates took the hint and drifted away, still staring at Trevayne with fascination. The two of them were left to themselves in the center of the golden room.
Li Magda spoke first—but not of the devastator. "You know, Admiral Trevayne, I knew intellectually about the . . . circumstances of your revival. So I knew, or should have known, what to expect. But I still can't get used to your being so young, in a physical sense."
"Not an uncommon problem," he replied drily, thinking of some of the high-ranking Rim officers who now found themselves junior to him. "I must say that you also seem quite young for your rank, and considering your mother's age. . . . Ah, that didn't come out very well, did it? Please excuse me. I'm not always this socially inept. Blame it on the fact that I wasn't prepared in advance to meet you."
"Point taken." She laughed. "And it's quite all right. As a matter of fact, I'm sixty-four Standard years old. But I've had access to the full antigerone regimen from an early age, and I'm one of those who take to it very well. Physiologically, I'm only about twenty."
"As am I," Trevayne nodded. "I can understand why my current appearance must be difficult for you to reconcile with all those stories you said you've heard. It's not how one usually visualizes a monster."
"Oh, that's not really how people in the Republic remember you." She paused to frame her thoughts. "I think they regard you as a figure along the lines of Irwin Rommel or Robert E. Lee: a brave, honorable, and, yes, frighteningly capable soldier for the wrong side."
A perceptible moment passed before Trevayne could respond—and not just because it had been a long time since he'd spoken to anyone besides Genji Yoshinaka with any knowledge of Old Terra's history. "Actually, I like to think of myself as having been on the right side."
"Again, point taken," she said ruefully.
"But I must say I find this viewpoint refreshing. The attitude of people in the Rim can be somewhat . . . well . . ." He wondered how to describe near-adulation.
"I think I understand what you're trying to say. And yes, I can definitely understand how it might be that way." She blinked, and abruptly changed the subject. "Anyway, you expressed an interest in the devastator. I don't know how much you already know about it."
"Only the basic statistics. Two million tonnes displacement, and still as fast as a supermonitor—or, I should probably say, no slower than one. I understand, though, that it's even less maneuverable."
"True. But still, with two-thirds again the hull capacity . . . well, let's put it this way. It represents as great an increase in fighting power over the supermonitor as the supermonitor did over the monitor when you introduced it."
"Well, it will be the last quantum leap of that sort. You've run up against an absolute limit: the largest hull that can transit a warp point. It's rather like the United States Navy in the early twentieth century; they couldn't build a battleship too big to squeeze through the Panama Canal." He watched her eyes for the blank look he usually saw when he said something like this. He didn't see it now. But there was something else—a closed look, as though she was withholding something. He was about to probe deeper, but dinner was announced.
He was seated across the table from her, a few seats down, and they were able to exchange no more than occasional bits of conversation. They were both natural centers of attention—Trevayne as he always was, and Li Magda as the living embodiment of the new alliance. So each of them was the focus of a sycophantic cluster of personages too exalted to be brushed off. At least Trevayne wasn't called on to make a speech; the politicians were only too willing to perform that function.
Finally, dinner ended and everyone filed out through the reception room. Trevayne looked around for Li Magda, found himself beside the Terran Republic flag.
"I imagine it must seem strange to see that here."
"I can't deny it, Admiral Li. By the way, perhaps you could answer a question about this flag that's always puzzled me."
"I may be able to. After all, my maternal grandfather was largely responsible for designing it."
"Really?" This woman was, Trevayne reflected, full of surprises.
"Yes. Li Kai-lun was head of the Hangchow delegation to the constitutional convention of the Fringe provisional government, which became the Terran Republic. He chaired the committee that designed a new flag. But what's your question?"
"Well . . ." Trevayne pointed at the creature that sinuously encircled the starburst. "What is that?"
"Oh, that's a doomwhale."
"A . . . doomwhale?" Trevayne echoed faintly, recalling the ferocious thirty-foot-long snakelike denizen of Beaufort's oceans, whose pharmaceutical byproducts had brought wealth—and conflict with the Corporate Worlds—to that harsh Fringe planet.
"Yes. The whole flag, except for the starburst, is patterned on the Beaufort planetary flag, since that was where the Fringe Revolution started."
Trevayne spoke in the painstaking way of someone who feels sure he must be missing something. "Uh, but Admiral Li . . . doomwhales don't have wings."
"The Beauforters pointed that out to my grandfather at the time," she said, deadpan. "He explained that—oh, how did he put it?—the wings 'indicate the sweep and power of our new star nation.'"
"Hmm . . ." Trevayne sounded dubious.
"The Beauforters eventually came around. Of course, they and everyone else wondered why the Hangchow delegates smiled so much afterwards." Seeing that Trevayne was also wondering, she explained carefully. "If you put wings on a doomwhale, it bears a certain purely coincidental resemblance to a—"
"A dragon!" Trevayne guffawed, startling those nearby.
"A lung, as my grandfather would have said," she corrected primly.
"Well, Admiral Li," said Trevayne when he'd gotten his breath back, "you've given me yet another reason for never underestimating your family!"
"I do wish you'd call me 'Mags,' Admiral Trevayne."
"If you don't mind, I think 'Magda' is as far as I'm comfortable with going just yet. I hope you'll be comfortable calling me 'Ian.' "
"All right . . . Ian," she said as though trying it on. A slightly unsteady laugh escaped her. "And you thought seeing this flag here was a strange feeling!" Then she was gone, to rejoin her officers. Trevayne watched her go. At the door, she turned and gave him a smile over her shoulder.
After a moment, he became aware of someone beside him. "So," Miriam Ortega asked innocently, "how did it go?"
"Well . . . she compared me to Irwin Rommel and Robert E. Lee."
"Oh?" Miriam raised one eyebrow into an arc of polite inquiry. "Relative of hers?"
It is a terrible thing to see a grown man cry.