Poul Anderson - Flandry 14 - The Game Of Empire

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THE GAME OF EMPIRE

Poul Anderson

[03 feb 2003—scanned by Wickman99]

[04 feb 2003—proofed for #bookz]

To James P. Baen—Writers aren't supposed to say anything pleasant about editors

or publishers, but the fact is that in both capacities Jim has done very well by me,

and been a good friend into the bargain.

Chapter 1

She sat on the tower of St. Barbara, kicking her heels from the parapet, and looked across

immensity. Overhead, heaven was clear, deep blue save where the sun Patricius stood small and fierce at

midmorning. Two moons were wanly aloft. The sky grew paler horizonward, until in the east it lost itself

behind a white sea of cloud deck. A breeze blew cool. It would have been deadly cold before her

people came to Imhotep; the peak of Mt. Horn lifts a full twelve kilometers above sea level.

Westward Diana could see no horizon, for the city had grown tall at its center during the past few

decades. There the Pyramid, which housed Imperial offices and machinery, gleamed above the campus

of the Institute, most of whose buildings were new. Industries, stores, hotels, apartments sprawled raw

around. She liked better the old quarter, where she now was. It too had grown, but more in population

than size or modernity—a brawling, polyglot, multiracial population, much of it transient, drifting in and

out of the tides of space.

"Who holds St. Barbara's holds the planet."

That saying was centuries obsolete, but the memory kept alive a certain respect. Though ice bull

herds no longer threatened to stampede through the original exploration base; though the Troubles which

left hostile bands marooned and desperate, turning marauder, had ended when the hand of the Terran

Empire reached this far; though the early defensive works would be useless in such upheavals as

threatened the present age, and had long since been demolished: still, one relic of them remained in Olga's

Landing, at the middle of what had become a market square. Its guns had been taken away for scrap, its

chambers echoed hollow, sunseeker vine clambered over the crumbling yellow stone of it, but St.

Barbara's stood yet; and it was a little audacious for a hoyden to perch herself on top.

Diana often did. The neighborhood had stopped minding—after all, she was everybody's friend—and

to strangers it meant nothing, except that human males were apt to shout and wave at the pretty girl. She

grinned and waved back when she felt in the mood, but had learned to decline the invitations. Her aim

was not always simply to enjoy the ever-shifting scenes. Sometimes she spied a chance to earn a credit

or two, as when a newcomer seemed in want of a guide to the sights and amusements. Nonhumans were

safe. Or an acquaintance—who in that case could be a man—might ask her to run some errand or ferret

out some information. If he lacked money to pay her, he could provide a meal or a doss or whatever. At

present she had no home of her own, unless you counted a ruinous temple where she kept hidden her

meager possessions and, when nothing better was available, spread her sleeping bag.

Life spilled from narrow streets and surged between the walls enclosing the plaza. Pioneer buildings

had run to brick, and never gone higher than three or four stories, under Imhotepan gravity. Faded,

nearly featureless, they were nonetheless gaudy, for their doors stood open on shops, while booths

huddled everywhere else against them. The wares were as multifarious as the sellers, anything from

hinterland fruits and grains to ironware out of the smithies that made the air clangorous, from velvyl fabric

and miniature computers of the inner Empire to jewels and skins and carvings off a hundred different

worlds. A sleazy Terran vidplay demonstrated itself on a screen next to an exquisite dance recorded

beneath the Seas of Yang and Yin, where the vaz-Siravo had been settled. A gundealer offered primitive

home-produced chemical rifles, stunners of military type, and—illegally—several blasters, doubtless

found in wrecked spacecraft after the Merseian onslaught was beaten back. Foodstalls wafted forth hot,

savory odors. Music thuttered, laughter and dance resounded from a couple of taverns. Motor vehicles

were rare and small, but pushcarts swarmed. Occasionally a wagon forced its way through the crowd,

drawn by a tame clopperhoof.

Folk were mainly human, but it was unlikely that many had seen Mother Terra. The planets where

they were born and bred had marked them. Residents of Imhotep were necessarily muscular and never

fat. Those whose families had lived here for generations, since Olga's Landing was a scientific base, and

had thus melded into a type, tended to be dark-skinned and aquiline-featured. Men usually wore loose

tunic and trousers, short hair, beards; women favored blouses, skirts, and braids; in this district, clothes

might be threadbare but were raffishly bright. Members of the armed services on leave—a few from the

local garrison, the majority from Daedalus—mingled with them, uniforms a stiff contrast no matter how

bent on pleasure the person was. They were in good enough physical condition to walk fairly easily under

a gravity thirty percent greater than Terra's, but crew-people from civilian freighters frequently showed

weariness and an exaggerated fear of falling.

A Navy man and a marine passed close by the tower. They were too intent on their talk to notice

Diana, which was extraordinary. The harshness reached her: "—yeh, sure, they've grown it back for me."

The spaceman waved his right arm. A short-sleeved undress shirt revealed it pallid and thin; regenerated

tissue needs exercise to attain normal fitness. "But they said the budget doesn't allow repairing DNA

throughout my body, after the radiation I took. I'll be dependent on biosupport the rest of my life, and I'll

never dare father any kids."

"Merseian bastards," growled the marine. "I could damn near wish they had broken through and

landed. My unit had a warm welcome ready for 'em, I can tell you."

"Be glad they didn't," said his companion. "Did you really want nukes tearing up our planets? Wounds

and all, I'll thank Admiral Magnusson every day I've got left to me, for turning them back the way he did,

with that skeleton force the pinchfists on Terra allowed us." Bitterly: "He wouldn't begrudge the cost of

fixing up entire a man that fought under him."

They disappeared into the throng. Diana shivered a bit and looked around for something cheerier than

such a reminder of last year's events.

Nonhumans were on hand in fair number. Most were Tigeries, come from the lowlands on various

business, their orange-black-white pelts vivid around skimpy garments. Generally they wore air helmets,

with pressure pumps strapped to their backs, but on some, oxygills rose out of the shoulders, behind the

heads, like elegant ruffs. Diana cried greetings to those she recognized. Otherwise she spied a centauroid

Donarrian; the shiny integuments of three Irumclagians; a couple of tailed, green-skinned Shalmuans;

and—and—

"What the flippin' fury!" She got to her feet—they were bare, and the stone felt warm beneath

them—and stood precariously balanced, peering.

Around the corner of a Winged Smoke house had come a giant. The Pyramid lay in that direction, but

so did the spaceport, and he must have arrived there today, or word of him would have buzzed

throughout the low-life parts of town. Thence he seemed to have walked all the kilometers, for no public

conveyance on Imhotep could have accommodated him, and his manner was not that of officialdom.

Although the babel racket dwindled at sight of him and people drew aside, he moved diffidently, almost

apologetically. Tiredly, too, poor thing; his strength must be enormous, but it had been a long way to

trudge in this gee-field.

"Well, well," said Diana to herself; and loudly, in both Anglic and Toborko, to any possible

competition: "I saw him first!"

She didn't waste time on the interior stairs but, reckless, scrambled down the vines. Though the tower

wasn't very tall, on Imhotep a drop from its battlements could be fatal. She reached the pavement

running.

"Ah, ho, small one," bawled Hassan from the doorway of his inn, "if he be thirsty, steer him to the

Sign of the Golden Cockbeetle. A decicredit to you for every liter he drinks!"

She laughed, reached a dense mass of bodies, began weaving and wriggling through. Inhabitants

smiled and let her by. A drunk took her closeness wrong and tried to grab her. She gave his wrist a

karate chop in passing. He yelled, but retreated when he saw how a Tigery glowered and dropped hand

to knife. Kuzan had been a childhood playmate of Diana's. She was still her friend.

The stranger grew aware of the girl nearing him, halted, and watched in mild surprise. He was of the

planet which humans had dubbed Woden, well within the Imperial sphere. It had long been a familiar of

Technic civilization and was, indeed, incorporated in Greater Terra, its dwellers full citizens. Just the

same, none had hitherto betrod Imhotep, and Diana knew of them only from books and database.

A centauroid himself, he stretched four and a half meters on his four cloven hoofs, including the mighty

tail. The crown of his long-snouted, bony-eared head loomed two meters high. The brow ridges were

massive, the mouth alarmingly fanged, but eyes were big, a soft brown. Two huge arms ended in

four-fingered hands that seemed able to rip a steel plate in half. Dark-green scales armored his upper

body from end to end, amber scutes his throat and belly. A serration of horny plates ran over his

backward-bulging skull, down his spine to the tailtip. A pair of bags slung across his withers and a larger

pair at his croup doubtless held traveling goods. Drawing close, Diana saw signs of a long life, scars,

discolorations, wrinkles around the nostrils and rubbery lips, a pair of spectacles hung from his neck.

They were for presbyopia, she guessed, and she had already noticed he was slightly lame in the off hind

leg. Couldn't he afford corrective treatments?

Why, she herself was going to start putting money aside, one of these years, to pay for

anti-senescence. If she had to die at an age of less than a hundred, she wanted it to be violently.

Halting before him, she beamed, spread arms wide, and said, "Good day and welcome! Never

before has our world been graced by any of your illustrious race. Yet even we, on our remote and lately

embattled frontier, have heard the fame of Wodenites, from the days of Adzel the Wayfarer to this very

hour. In what way may we serve you, great sir?"

His face was unreadable to her, but his body looked startled. "My, my," he murmured. "How

elaborately you speak, child. Is that local custom? Please enlighten me. I do not wish to be discourteous

through ignorance." He hesitated. "My intentions, I hope, shall always be of the best."

His vocal organs made Anglic a thunderous rumble, weirdly accented, but it was fluent and she could

follow it. She had had practice, especially with Tigeries, who didn't sound like humans either.

For an instant, she bridled. "Sir, I'm no child. I'm nine—uh, that is, seventeen Terran years old. For

the past three of those I've been on my own, highlands and lowlands both." Relaxing: "So I know my way

around and I'd be happy to guide you, advise you, help you. I can show testimonials from persons of

several species."

"Hraa … I fear I am in no position to, m-m, offer much compensation. I have been making my

way—hand-to-mouth, is that your expression?—odd jobs, barter—at which I am not gifted—anything

morally allowable, planet to planet, far longer than you have been in the universe, chi—young lady."

Diana shrugged. "We can talk about that. You're in luck. I'm not a professional tourist herder, chargin'

a week's rent on the Emperor's favorite palace to take you around to every place where the prices are

quasar-lofty and expectin' a fat tip at the end." She cocked her head. "You could've gone to the

reception center near the Pyramid. It's got an office for xenosophonts. Why didn't you?"

"Gruh, I, I—to be frank, I lost my way. The streets twist about so. If you could lead me to the

proper functionaries—"

Diana reached up to take him by the rugged elbow. "Wait a bit! Look, you're worn out, and you

don't have a pokeful of money, and I can do better by you than the agency. All they really know is where

to find you the least unsuitable lodgings. Why don't we go in where you can rest a while, and we'll talk,

and if I only can steer you downtown, so be it." She paused before adding, slowly: "But you aren't here

for any ordinary purpose, that's plain to see, and I do know most of what's not ordinary on Imhotep."

He boomed a chuckle. "You are a sprightly soul, no? Very well." He turned serious. "It may even be

that my patron saint has answered my prayers by causing me to blunder as I did. M-m-m … my name is

Francis Xavier Axor."

"Hm?" She was taken aback. "You're a Christian?"

"Jerusalem Catholic. I chose the baptismal name became its first bearer was also an explorer in

strange places, such as I hoped to become."

And I. The heart jumped in Diana's breast.

She had always sought out what visitors from the stars she could, because they were what they

were—farers through the galaxy—O Tigery gods, grant that she too might someday range yonder! And,

while she agilely survived in Old Town's dog-eat-dog economy, she had never driven a harder bargain

with a nonhuman than she felt that being could afford, nor defrauded or defaulted.

Orders of magnitude more than she wanted any money of his, she wanted Axor's good will. He

seemed like a darling anyway. And possibly, just barely possibly, he might open a path for her …

Business was business, and Hassan's booze no worse than most in the quarter. "Follow me," she said.

"I'm Diana Crowfeather."

He offered his hand, vast, hard, dry, warm. Wodenites were not theroids, but they weren't herpetoids

either; they were endothermic, two-sexed, and viviparous. She had, however, learned that they bred only

in season. It made celibate careers easier for them than for her species. Thus far she'd avoided

entanglements, because that was what they could too readily become—entanglements—but it was getting

more and more difficult.

"An honor to meet you," Axor said. "Hraa, is it not unusual for such a youthful female to operate

independently? Perhaps not on Terra or its older colony planets, but here—Not that I wish to pry.

Heavens, no."

"I'm kind of a special case," Diana replied.

He regarded her with care. Neither of her parents having been born on Imhotep, and both being tall,

she was likewise. The gravity had made robust a frame that remained basically gracile; muscles rounded

the curves of slim hips and long legs. Weight had not yet caused the small, firm bosom to sag. Her head

was round, the face broad, with high cheekbones, tapering down to the chin; a straight nose flared at the

nostrils, and the lips were full. Her eyes were large, gold-flecked hazel, beneath arching brows. Black

hair, confined by a beaded headband, fell straight to the shoulders. A thin blouse and exiguous shorts

showed most of her tawny-brown skin to the sun. Belted at her right side was a little purse for oddments,

at her left a murderous Tigery knife.

"Well, but let's go," she laughed. Her voice was husky. "Aren't you thirsty? I am!"

The crowd yielded slowly before them, turbulent again, less interested in the newcomer now that he

had been claimed than in its own checkered affairs.

Inside, the Sign of the Golden Cockbeetle amounted to a room broad and dim. Half a dozen men,

outback miners to judge by their rough appearance, were drinking at a table with a couple of joygirls and

a bemusedly watching Tigery. The latter sipped from a tube inserted through the chowlock of her air

helmet. The whine of its pumps underlay voices. While oxygills were far better, not many could afford

them or wanted the preliminary surgery, slight though that was. Diana didn't recognize the individual, but it

was clear from her outfit that she belonged to another society than the one around Toborkozan. The

group gave Axor a lengthy stare, then went back to their talk, dice, and booze.

The Wodenite ordered beer in appropriate quantity. His biochemistry was compatible with the

human, barring minor matters that ration supplements took care of. Diana gave a silent cheer; her

commission was going to be noticeably higher, percentagewise, than on distilled liquor. She took a stein

for herself and savored the catnip coolness.

"Aaah!" breathed Axor in honest pleasure. "That quenches. God bless you for your guidance. Now if

you can aid my quest—"

"What is it?"

"The story is long, my dear."

Diana leaned back in her chair; her companion must needs lie on the floor. She had learned, the hard

way, how to rein in her inquisitiveness. "We've got all day, or as much more as you want." Within her

there hammered: Quest! What's he after, roamin' from star to star?

"Perhaps I should begin by introducing myself as a person, however insignificant," Axor said. "Not

that that part is interesting."

"It is to me," Diana assured him.

"Well—" The dragon countenance stared down into the outsize tankard. "To use Anglic names, I was

born on the planet Woden, although my haizark—tribe? community? tuath?—my people are still

comparatively primitive, nomads in the Morning Land, which is across the Sea of Truth from the

Glimmering Realm to the west where the Terrans and the civilization that they brought are based. My

country is mostly steppe, but in the Ascetic Hills erosion has laid bare certain Foredweller ruins. Those

were long known to us, and often as a youngster did I regard them with awe. In the past generation,

news of them has reached the cities. Watching and listening to the archaeologists who came, I grew

utterly fascinated. A wish flowered in me to learn more, yes, to do such delving myself. I worked my way

overseas to the Glimmering Realm in hopes of winning a merit scholarship. Such is common among the

literate Wodenites. Mine happened to come from the university that the Galilean Order maintains in Port

Campbell."

"Galilean Order—hm—aren't they, um, priests in the Jerusalem church? I've never met any."

Axor nodded in human wise. "They are the most scientifically minded organization within it. Very

fitting that they should conduct studies of Foredweller remains. While under their tutelage, I was

converted to the Faith. Indeed, I am ordained a Galilean." The slow voice quickened. "Father Jaspers

introduced me to the great and holy thought that in those relics may lie an answer to the riddle of the

Universal Incarnation."

Diana raised a palm. "Hold on, please. Foredwellers? Who're they?"

"They are variously known on the worlds as Ancients, Elders, Others—many names—The

mysterious civilization that flourished in the galaxy—apparently through far more of it than this fraction of

a single spiral arm which we have somewhat explored—vanishing millions of years ago, leaving scanty,

glorious fragments of their works—" Dismay quavered in the deep tones. "You have not heard? Nothing

like it exists anywhere in this planetary system? The indications seemed clear that here was a place to

search."

"Wait, wait." Diana frowned into the shadows. "My education's been catch-as-catch-can, you realize,

but—M-m, yes. Remnant walls and such. Rumors that the Chereionites built them once, whoever the

Chereionites are or were. But I thought—um, um—yes, a spaceman from Aeneas told me about a lot of

such sites on his planet. Except Aeneas is small, dry, thin-aired. He figured the Old Shen—that was his

name for them—they must have originated on a planet of that type, and favored the same kind for

colonization."

"Not necessarily. I venture to think that that is simply the kind where remnants are best preserved.

The materials were as durable as the structures seem to have been beautiful. But everything in our

cosmos is mortal. On airless globes, micrometeoroids would have worn them down. On planets with

thick atmospheres, weather would do the same, while geological process wrought their own destructions.

However, sometimes ruins have endured on terrestroid worlds, fossilized, so to speak. For example, a

volcanic ashfall or a mudslide which later petrified has covered them. Something like this happened in the

territory now covered by the Ascetic Hills of Woden. Since, the blanketing soil and rock have been

gnawed away by the elements, revealing these wonders."

Axor sagged out of his excitement. "But you know of nothing anywhere in the Patrician System?" he

finished dully.

Diana thought fast. "I didn't say that. Look, Imhotep is a superterrestrial planet, more than a third

again the surface area of Daedalus—or Terra—not much less than that next to Woden, I'll bet. And even

after centuries, it's not well mapped or anything. This was just a lonely scientific outpost till the Starkadian

resettlement. Tigeries, explorin' their new lands—yes, they tell stories about things they've seen and can't

account for—But I'd have to go and ask for details, and then we'd prob'ly have to engage a watership to

ferry us, if some yarn sounded promisin'."

Axor had recovered his spirits. "Moreover, this system contains other planets, plus their larger

moons," he said. "I came here first merely because Imhotep was the destination of the tramp freighter on

which I could get passage. The colonized planet sunward, Daedalus?"

"Maybe. I haven't been on Daedalus since my mother died, when I was a sprat." Diana considered.

Resolve thrilled along her nerves. She would not knowingly lead this sweet old seeker on a squiggle

chase, but neither would she willingly let go of him—while hope remained that his search could carry her

to the stars.

"As long as you are on Imhotep," she said, "that's the place to start, and I do know my way around

Imhotep as well as anybody. Now for openers, can you explain what you're after and why you think you

might find a clue here?"

She drained her stein and signalled for more, Hassan brought a bucket to recharge Axor's mug as

well. Meanwhile the Wodenite, serene again, was telling her:

"As for the Foredwellers, their traces are more than an archaeological puzzle. Incredibly ancient as

they are, those artifacts may give us knowledge of the Incarnation.

"For see you, young person, some three thousand standard years have passed since Our Lord Jesus

Christ walked upon Terra and brought the offer of salvation to fallen man. Subsequently, upstart

humankind has gone forth into the light-years; and with Technic civilization has traveled faith, to race after

race after race.

"About such independently spacefaring beings as the Ymirites, one dares say nothing. They are too

alien. It may be that they are not fallen and thus have no need of the Word. But painfully plain it is that

every oxygen-breathing species ever encountered is in no state of grace, but prone to sin, error, and

death.

"Now our Lord was born once upon Terra, and charged those who came after with carrying the

gospel over the planet. But what of other planets? Were they to wait for human missionaries? Or have

some of them, at least, been granted the glory of their own Incarnations? It is not a matter on which most

churches have ventured to dogmatize. Not only are the lives, the souls, so different from world to world,

but here and there one nevertheless does find religions which look strangely familiar. Coincidence?

Parallel development? Or a deeper mystery?"

He paused. Diana frowned, trying to understand. Questions like this were not the sort she was wont

to ask. "Does it matter? I mean, can't you be as good a person regardless?"

"Knowledge of God always matters," said Axor gravely. "This is not necessary to individual salvation,

no. But think what a difference in the teaching of the Word it would make, to know the truth—whatever

the truth may be. If science can show that the gospel account of Christ is not myth but biography; and if it

then finds that his ministry was, in empirical fact, universal—would not you, for example, my dear, would

not you decide it was only reasonable to accept him as your Saviour?"

Uncomfortable, Diana tried to shift the subject. "So you think you may get a hint from the Foredweller

works?"

"I cherish hopes, as did those scholars who conceived the thought before me. Consider the immense

timeline, millions of years. Consider that the Builders must have been too widespread and numerous, too

learned and powerful—yes, too wise, after their long, long history—to be destroyed by anything material.

No, surely they abandoned their achievements, as we, growing up, put away childish things, and went on

to a higher plane of existence. Yet surely, too, they nourished a benign desire to ease the path for those

who carne after. They would leave inscriptions, messages—time-blurred now, nearly gone; but perhaps

the writers did not foresee how many ages would pass before travel began again between the stars. Still,

what better could they bequeath us than their heritage of Ultimate Meaning?"

Diana had her large doubts. Likewise, obviously, did others, or Axor wouldn't have had to bum his

unpaid way across the Empire. She didn't have the heart to say that. "What have you actually found?" she

asked.

"Not I alone, by no means I alone. For the most part, I have merely studied archaeological reports,

and gone to see for myself. In a few instances, however—" The Wodenite drew breath. "I must not

boast. What I deal with are the enigmatic remains of occasional records. Diagrams etched into a wall or a

slab, worn away until virtually blank. Codings imprinted in molecules and crystals, evocable electronically

but equally blurred and broken. Some, nobody can comprehend at all. Some do seem to be astronomical

symbols—such as signs for pulsars, with signs for hydrogen atoms and for numbers to give periods and

spatial relationships. One can estimate how those pulsars have slowed down and moved elsewhere, and

thus try to identify them, and thence the sun toward which a record conceivably points …

"On a barren globe five parsecs from here, amidst the tailings of a former mining operation, I found

clues of this kind. They appeared to me to whisper of the sun Patricius."

Axor broke off, crossed himself, stared into remoteness.

After a while Diana made bold to speak again. "Well, your … your reverence, you needn't despair

yet. What say we establish ourselves in town for a few days? You can rest up while I arrange

conferences and transportation and so forth. You see, nothin' has turned up in the mountains; but Tigeries

do tell about islands with what may be natural formations but might also be ruined walls, except that

Imhotep never had any native sophonts. If that doesn't work out, I can inquire among spacefolk, get us

passage offplanet, whatever you want. And it shouldn't cost you very heavily."

Axor smiled. The crocodilian expanse of his mouth drew a shriek from a joygirl. "A godsend indeed!"

he roared.

"Oh, I'm no saint," Diana answered. He couldn't be so naive as to suppose she had immediately fallen

in love with his cause—though it looked like being fun. "Why do I offer to do this? It's among the ways I

scratch out my livin'. We got to agree on my daily wage; and I'll be collectin' my cumshaws on the side,

that you don't have to know about. Mainly, I expect to enjoy myself." To mention her further dreams

would be premature.

Axor put spectacles on nose to regard her the better. "You are a remarkable young being, donna

Crowfeather," he said, a surprisingly courtly turn of phrase. "If I may ask, how does it happen you are

this familiar with the planet?"

"I grew up here." Impulsively, perhaps because she was excited or perhaps because the beer had

started to buzz faintly in her head, she added: "And my father was responsible for most of what you'll

see."

"Really? I would be delighted to hear."

It was generally easy to confide in a chance-met xeno, as it was not with a fellow human.

Furthermore, Axor's manner was reassuring; and no secrets were involved. The whole quarter knew her

story, as did Tigeries across reaches of several thousand kilometers.

"Oh, my father's Dominic Flandry. You may have heard of him. He's become an Admiral of the Fleet,

but forty-odd years ago he was a fresh-caught ensign assigned to the planet Starkad, in this same sector.

Trouble with the Merseians was pilin' up and—Anyway, he discovered the planet was doomed. There

were two sophont races on it, the land-dwellin' Tigeries and the underwater Seafolk; and there were five

years to evacuate as many as possible before the sun went crazy. This was the only known planet that

was enough like Starkad. It helped that Imhotep already had a scientific base and a few support

industries, and that Daedalus was colonized and becomin' an important Naval outpost. Just the same, the

resettlement's always been a wild scramble, always underfunded and undermanned, touch and go."

"The Terran Empire has many demands on its resources, starting with defense," said Axor.

"Although one must deplore violence, I cannot but admire the gallantry with which Admiral

Magnusson cast back the Merseian attack last year."

"The Imperial court and bureaucracy are pretty expensive too, I hear," Diana snapped. "Well, never

mind. I don't pay taxes."

"I have, yes, I have encountered tales of Admiral Flandry's exploits," said Axor in haste. "But he

cannot have spent much time on Imhotep, surely."

"Oh, no. He looked in once in a while, when he happened to be in the region. A natural curiosity. My

mother and he—Well, I keep tellin' myself I shouldn't blame him. She never did."

Once Maria Crowfeather had admitted to her daughter that she got Dominic Flandry's child in hopes

that that would lead to something permanent. It had not. After he found out on his next visit, he bade a

charming, rueful goodbye. Maria got on with her own life.

"Your mother worked in the resettlement project?" Axor inquired tactfully.

Diana nodded. "A xenologist. She died in an accident, a sudden tidal bore on a strange coast, three

standard years ago."

Maria Crowfeather had been born on the planet Atheia, in the autonomous community Dakotia. It

had been among the many founded during the Breakup, when group after ethnic group left a

Commonwealth that they felt was drowning them in sameness. The Dakota people had already been

trying to revive a sense of identity in North America. Diana, though, kept only bits of memory, fugitive

and wistful, about ancestral traditions. She had passed her life among Tigeries and Seafolk.

"Leaving you essentially orphaned," said Axor. "Why did nobody take care of you?"

"I ran away," Diana replied.

The man who had been living with Maria at the time of her death did not afterward reveal himself to

be a bad sort. He turned out to be officious, which was worse. He had wanted to marry the girl's mother

legally, and now he wanted to put the girl in the Navy brat school ' on Daedalus, and eventually see to it

that she wed some nice officer. Meanwhile Tigeries were hunting through hills where wind soughed in

waves across forests, and surf burst under three moons upon virgin islands.

"Did not the authorities object?" Axor wondered.

"They couldn't find me at first. Later they forgot."

Axor uttered a splintering noise that might f be his equivalent of a laugh. "Very well, little sprite of all

the world, let us see how you guide a poor bumbler. Make the arrangements, and leave me to my data

and breviary until we are ready for departure. But can you give me an idea of what to expect?"

"I'll try, but I don't make any promises," Diana said. "Especially these days. You didn't arrive at the

best time, sir."

Scales stirred above the brow ridges. "What do you mean, pray?"

Grimness laid grip on her. She had ignored the news as much as possible. What could she do about

it? Well, she had mentally listed various refuges, according to where she would be when the trouble

exploded, if it was going to. But here she was committing herself to an expedition which could take her

anyplace, and—"That ruckus with the Merseians last year was just a thing off in space," she said. "Since,

I've kept hearin' rumors—ask your God to make them only rumors, will you?—Sir, we may be on the

edge of a real war."

Chapter 2

On Daedalus, the world without a horizon, a Tigery was still an uncommon sight, apt to draw

everybody's attention. Targovi had made an exception of himself. The capital Aurea, its hinterland,

communities the length of the Highroad River as far as the Phosphoric Ocean, no few of the settlements

scattered elsewhere, had grown used to him. He would put his battered Moonjumper down at the

spaceport, exchange japes with guards and officials, try to sell them something, then load his wares into

an equally disreputable-looking van and be off. His stock in trade was Imhotepan, a jackdaw museum of

the infinite diversity that is every planet's. Artifacts of his people he had, cutlery, tapestries, perfumes;

things strange and delicate, made underwater by the Seafolk; exotic products of nature, skins, mineral

gems, land pearls, flavorful wild foods—for the irony was that huge Imhotep had begotten life which

Terrans, like Starkadians, could safely take nourishment from, whereas Terra-sized Daedalus had not.

For a number of years he had thus ranged, dickering, swapping, amusing himself and most whom he

encountered, a generally amiable being whom—certain individuals discovered too late—it was

exceedingly dangerous to affront. Even when tensions between Merseia and Terra snapped asunder,

sporadic combats erupted throughout the marches, and at last Sector Admiral Magnusson took his

forces to meet an oncoming armada of the Riodhunate, even then had Targovi plied his trade unhindered.

Thus he registered shock when he landed in routine fashion a twelvemonth later, and the junior port

officer who gave him his admission certificate warned: "You had better stay in touch with us.

Interplanetary traffic may be suddenly curtailed. You could find yourself unable to get off Daedalus for

an. indefinite time."

"Eyada shkor!" ripped from Targovi. His tendrils grew stiff. A hand dropped to the knife at his side.

"What is this?"

"Possible emergency," said the human. "Understand, I am trying to be friendly. There ought to be a

short grace period. If you then return here immediately, I can probably get you clearance to go home.

Otherwise you could be stranded and unable to earn your keep, once your goods were sold and the

proceeds spent."

"I … think … I would survive," Targovi murmured.

The officer peered across his desk. "You may be right," he said. "But we may not like the ways you

would find. I would be sorry to see you jailed, or gunned down."

The Tigery looked predatory enough to arouse qualms. His resemblance to a man was merely in the

roughest outlines. He stood as tall as an average one, but on disproportionately long and powerful legs

whose feet were broad and clawed. Behind, a stubby tail twitched. The torso was thick, the arms and

their four-fingered hands cabled with muscle. The round head bore a countenance flat and

narrow-chinned, a single breathing slit in the nose, carnivore teeth agleam in the wide mouth. Beneath the

fronded chemosensor tendrils, eyes were slanted and scarlet-hued. The large, movable ears were

scalloped around the edges as if to suggest bat wings. Fur clothed him in silkiness that had now begun to

bristle, black-striped orange except for a white triangle at the throat. His voice purred, hissed, sometimes

growled or screeched, making its fluent Anglic an outlandish dialect.

He wore nothing at present but a breech-clout, pocketed belt, knife, and amulet hung from his

neck—these, and an oxygill. Its pleated pearly ruff lifted from his shoulders at the back of the head,

framing the latter. Strange it might seem, to observe such a molecularly-convoluted intricacy upon such a

creature, and to recollect what chemical subtleties went on within, oxygen captured and led into the

bloodstream through capillary-fine tubes surgically installed. Yet it gave him the freedom to be barbaric,

where he would else have been encumbered with a helmet and pump, or have perished. His kind had

evolved under an air pressure more than nine times the Terran.

"I think your efforts might fail," he said low. Easing: "However, surely naught untoward will happen.

You are kind to advise me, Dosabhai Patel. You wife may find some pleasant trinket in her mail. But

what is this extremity you await?"

"I did not say we are bound to have one," replied the officer quickly.

"What could it be, does it come on us?"

"Too many wild rumors are flying about. Both naval and civil personnel are under orders not to add to

them."

Targovi's chair had been designed for a human, but he was sufficiently supple to flow down into it. His

eyelids drooped; he bridged his fingertips. "Ah, good friend, you realize I am bound to hear those

rumors. Were it not best to arm me with truths whereby I may slay them? I am, of course, a simple,

wandering trader, who knows no secrets. Yet I should have had some inkling if, say, a new Merseian

attack seemed likely."

"Not that! Admiral Magnusson gave them a lesson they will remember for a while." Patel cleared his

throat. "Understand, what happened was not a war."

Targovi did not overtly resent the patronizing lecture that followed, meant for a half-civilized xeno:

"Bloody incidents are all too common. It is inevitable, when two great powers, bitter rivals, share an

ill-defined and thinly peopled buffer zone which is, actually, an arena for them. This latest set of clashes

began when negotiations over certain spheres of influence broke down and commanders in various

locations grew, ah, trigger-happy. True, the Roidhunate did dispatch a task force to 'restore order.' Had

it succeeded, the Merseians would undoubtedly have occupied the Patrician System, thereby making this

entire sector almost indefensible and having a salient deep into the Empire. We would have had to settle

with them on highly disadvantageous terms. As you know, Admiral Magnusson beat them back, and

diplomats on both sides are trying to mend things … No, we are in no immediate danger from outside."

"From inside, then?" Targovi drawled. "Even we poor, uprooted vaz-Toborko—aye, even the

vaz-Siravo beneath their seas—have learned a little about your great Empire. Rebellions and attempted

rebellions have grown, regrettably, not infrequent, during the past half century. The present dynasty itself,

did it not come to power by—?—"

"The glorious revolution was necessary," Patel declared. "Emperor Hans restored order and purged

corruption."

"Ah, but his sons—"

Patel 's fist struck the desktop. "Very well, you insolent barbarian! Daedalus, this whole system, the

Empire itself were in grave peril last year. Admiral Magnusson rectified the situation, but it should never

have arisen. The Imperial forces in these parts should have been far stronger. As matters stood, under a

less brilliant commander, they would almost certainly have been smashed." He moistened his lips. "No

question of disloyalty. No lèse majesté. But there is a widespread feeling on Daedalus, especially among

Navy personnel, that Emperor Gerhart and his Policy Board have … not been well advised … that some

of the counsel they heeded may actually have been treasonable in intent … that drastic reform has again

become overdue. The Admiral has sent carefully reasoned recommendations to Terra. Meanwhile,

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