The throng filling the Salmi waterfront had the voice of surf on a gravel beach: harsh, sometimes louder or softer, but never silent. A mindless, inhuman snarl.
The bridge of the protected cruiser McCormicA; City was crowded as well. Many of those present were civilians whose only business was to speak with Commodore Maurice Fair, Officer Commanding the First Scouting Squadron. The situation didn't please Fair. Captain Dundonald, the flagship's captain, was coldly livid, though openly he'd merely pointed out that die admirals bridge and cabin in die aft superstructure would provide the commodore with more space.
Farr sympathized with his subordinate, but "subordinate" was the key word here. He had no intention of removing himself to relative isolation while trying to untangle a mares nest like the evacuation of Santander citizens and their dependents from Saliiii. Farr was sleeping in the captain's sea cabin off the bridge, forcing Dundonald to set up a cot in the officers' library on the deck below.
"Commodore Farr," said Cooley, spokesman for the captains of the five Santander freighters anchored in die jaws of the shallow bay that served Salini for a harbor,**I want you to know that if you don't help us citizens like your orders say to, you'll answer to some damned important people! Senator Beemody is a partner in Morgan Trading, and there's other folk invorvea who talk just as loud, though they may do it in private."
Three of the other civilian captains nodded meaningfully, though grizzled old Fitzwilliams had the decency to look embarrassed. Fitz had left the navy after twelve years as a lieutenant who knew he'd never rise higher in peacetime. That was a long time ago, but listening to a civilian threaten a naval officer with political consequences still affected Fitzwilliams in much the way it did Farr himself.
"Thank you, Captain Cooley," Farr said. "I'll give your warning all the consideration it deserves. As for the specifics of your request…"
He turned to face the shore, drawing the civilians' attention to die obvious. The Salini waterfront crawled with ragged, desperate people for as far as die eye could see. The McCormick City and two civilian ferries hired by tibe Santander government were tied up at die West Pier. A hundred Santander Marines and armed sailors guarded die pierhead widi fixed bayonets.
Behind them, the six staff members of die Santander consulate in Salini sat at tables made from boards laid on tresdes. The vice-consuls poured over huge ledgers, trying to match die names of applicants to the register of Santander citizens widiin die Empire.
The job was next to hopeless. No more dian half die citizens visiting die Union had bothered to register. The consulate staff was reduced to making decisions on die basis of gut instinct and how swarthy die applicant looked.
Every human being in Salini-and there must have been diirty thousand of diem as refugees poured south as the shockwave ahead of unstoppable Chosen columns-wanted to board those two ferries. Fait*s guard detachment had used its bayonets already to keep back die crowd. Very soon tiiey would have to tire over die heads of a mob, and even diat wouldn't restrain desperation for long.
"Gentlemen," Farr said, "the warehouses on Pier Street might as well be on Old Earth for all the chance you'd have of retrieving their contents for your employers. If I landed every man in my squadron, I still couldn't clear the waterfront for you. And even then what would you do? Wish the merchandise into your holds? There aren't any stevedores in Salini now. There's nothing but panic."
Fair's guard detachment daubed the forelocks of applicants with paint as they were admitted to the pier. It was the only way in the confusion to prevent refugees from coming through the line again and again, clogging still further an already cumbersome process.
A middle-aged woman with a forehead of superstructure gray leaped atop a table with unexpected agility, then jumped down on the other side despite die attempt of a weary vice-consul to grab her. She sprinted along the pier. Two sailors at the gangway of the nearer ferry stepped out to block her.
With an inarticulate cry, die woman flung herself into the harbor. Oily water spurted. One of the Santander cutters patrolling to intercept swimmers stroked to the spot, but Farr didn't see her come up again.
"There's a cool two hundred thousand in tobacco aging in die Pax and Morgan Warehouse," Cooley said. "Christ knows what all else. Senator Beemody ain't going to be pleased to hear he waited too long to fetch it over."
This time he was making an observation, not offering a threat.
Salini s Long Pier was empty. The two vessels along the East Her, itself staggeringly rotten, had sunk at their moorings a decade ago.
The wooden-hulled cruiser Imperatora Gitdia Moro still floated beside the Navy Pier across the harbor, but she was noticeably down by the stem. The Moro had put out a week before along with the rest of the Imperial Second Fleet under orders from the Ministry hi Ciano. The Second Fleet was a motley assortment. Besides poor maintenance and inadequate crewing levels, all the vessels had in common was their relatively shallow draft. That made operation in the Gut less of a risk than it would have been for heavier ships, since the Imperial Navy's standard of navigation was no higher than that of its gunnery.
The Moro had limped back to her dock six hours later. She hadn't been out of sight of the harbor before her stem seams had worked so badly that she was in imminent danger of sinking. Now her decks were packed with refugees to whom the illusion of being on shipboard was preferable to waiting on land for Chosen bayonets.
The Moro's crew had vanished in the ship's boats, headed across the Gut to Dubuk in Santander. Farr couldn't really blame them. Those men were likely to be die fleet's only survivors-unless die odier vessels had cut and run also.
A steam launch chuffed toward the McCorrmck City's port quarter, opposite the pier. A Sierra flag hung from die jackstaff. Diplomats? At any rate, another complication on a day that had its share already. For the moment, Captain Dundonald's crew could deal widi die matter.
The remaining civilian present on die bridge was the one Farr had sent armed guards to summon: Henry Car-gill, Santander's consul in Salini and die official whose operations Farr was tasked to support Turning from the bridge railing-brass at a high polish, warmly comforting in the midst of such chaos-Farr fixed his glare on die haggard-looking consul.
"Mr. CargOl," Fair said, "if we don't evacuate diis port shortly diere will be a riot followed by a massacre. I have no desire to shoot unfortunate Imperial citizens, and I have even less desire to watch those citizens trample naval personnel. When can we be out of here?"
"I don't know," die consul said He shook his head, dien repeated angrily, "I'm damned if I know, Commodore, but I know it'll be sooner if you let me get back to the tables. I'm supposed to be spelling Hoxley now- for an hour. Which is all die sleep he'll get till midnight tomorrow!"
Cargill waved at the waterfront. The refugees stood as dynamically motionless as water behind a dam-and as ready to roar through if a crack appeared in the line of Santander personnel.
"They're coming from the north faster than we can process the ones already here," he continued. "Formally, I have orders to aid the return of Santander citizens to the Republic. Off the record, I have an expression of the governments deep concern lest large numbers of penniless refugees flood Santander."
A party of armed men had pushed their way through the crowd to the pierhead. Fair tensed for a confrontation, then relaxed as the guard detachment passed die new arrivals without even painting their foreheads. There were women among them, and unless the distance was tricking Farr's eyes, some of the men wore portions of Santander Marine dress uniforms.
Cargill bitterly quoted, " 'The Ministry trusts you will use your judgment to prevent a situation that might tend to embarrass the government and draw the Republic into quarrels that are none of our proper affair.' The courier who brought that destroyed the note in front of me after I'd read it, but I'm sure the minister remembers what he wrote. And the president does, too, I shouldn't wonder!"
Fair looked at die consul with a flush of sympathy he hadn't expected to feel for the man who was delaying the squadrons departure. Consular officials weren't the only people who were expected to carry the can for their superiors in event an action had negative political repercussions. "I see," he said. "I appreciate your candor, sir. I'll leave you to get back to your-"
Ensign Tillingast, the McCormick City's deck officer, stepped onto the bridge widi a look of agitation. -Behind him were a pair of armed marines and a bareheaded civilian wearing an oilskin slicker.
Tillingast looked from Fair to Captain Dundonald, who curtly nodded him back to the commodore. Farr commanded the squadron, but he didn't directly control the crew of the flagship. He tried to be scrupulous in going through Dundonald when he gave orders, but the natural instinct of the men themselves was to deal direcdy with the highest authority present in a crisis.
"Sir, he came on the launch," Ullingast said, "I thought I should bring him right up."
The stranger took off his slicker and folded it neady over his left forearm. Under it he wore die black-ana-silver dress uniform of a lieutenant in the Land military service, with the navy's dark blue collar flashes and fourragere dangling from his right epaulet. To complete his transformation he donned the saucer hat he'd carried beneath the raingear.
"I am not of course a spy," the Land officer said with a crisp smile to his surprised audience. He was a small, fair man, and as hard as a marble statue. "The ruse was necessary as we could not be sure the animals out there-"
He gestured toward the crawling waterfront.
"-would recognize a flag of truce."
Drawing himself to attention, he continued, "Commodore Fair, I am Leutnant der See Helmut Weiss, flag lieutenant to Unterkapitan der See Elise Eberdorf, commander of die Third Cruiser Squadron."
He saluted. Farr returned the salute, feeling his soul return to the stony chill diat had gripped it every day of his duty as military attache in die Land.
"I am directed to convey Unterkapitan Eberdorfs compliments," Weiss said, "and to inform you that she is allowing one hour for neutral shipping to leave die port of Salini before we attack."
"I see," Fair said without inflection.
The ships of Farr's squadron were almost as heterogeneous a group as die Imperial Second Fleet. The McCormick City was a lovely vessel-6,000 tons, twenty knots, and only five years old. She mounted eight-inch guns in twin turrets fore and aft, widi a secondary battery of five-inch quick-firers in ten individual spon-sons on die superstructure. The Randall was five years older, slower, and carried her four single eight-inch guns behind thin gunshields at bow and stern. Farr was of the school that believed armor which wasn't at least three inches thick only served to detonate shells that might otherwise have passed through doing only minor damage.
At least the RandaU's secondary battery had been replaced with five-inch quick-firers during the past year. Guns that used bagged charges instead of metallic cartridges loaded too slowly to fend off torpedo attack.
The Lumberton was older yet, with short-barrelled eight-inch guns and a secondary battery of six-inch slow-firers that had been next to useless when they were designed-at about die time Farr was a midshipman. Last and least, the Waccaehee Township wore iron armor over a wooden hull much like the poor Imperatora GtuUa Moro across the harbor. She'd never in her career been able to make thirteen knots.
"Attack what?" Captain Dundonald said. "Good God, man! Does this look like a military installation to you?"
Lieutenant Weiss chuckled. "Yes, well," he said. "You must understand, gentlemen, that though it will doubtless take a year or two to reduce the animals to a condition of proper docility, we must first close the cage door. Besides, die squadron needs target practice. We were escorting the transports at Corona."
He eyed the Moro. The brightly clad refugees gave the impression that the ship was dressed in bunting for a gala naval review of the sort the Empire had so dearly loved. "From what those who were present at Corona say, the Imperial main fleet wasn't much more of a danger than that hulk will be."
Farr tried to blank his mind. The image of shells slamming home among the mass of humanity on die Moro was too clear, it would show on his face. And if he spoke, something unprofessional would come out of his mouth.
"Commodore-" said a breathless Ensign Tillingast, bursting onto the bridge again.
"Ensign!" Farr shouted. "What die hett do you think you're doing, breaking in on-"
"Your son, sir," Tillingast said.
"Jeffrey?" Farr blurted. He wished he could have the word back as it came out, even before John Hosten stepped through the companionway hatch.
John was limping slighdy. He'd lost twenty pounds since Farr last saw him; and, Fair thought, die boy had lost his innocence as well.
"Sir, I'm sorry," John said. "I became separated from Jeffrey in Ciano. He was in Corona when-"
John appeared to be choosing his words with as much care as fatigue and sleeplessness allowed him. Farr had seen his son's eyes flick widiout lighting across Weiss' uniform.
"When we last spoke," John resumed, "Jeffrey intended to present himself to a Chosen command group. He felt association widi Land forces was of more benefit to his professional development and that of die Republic's army than remaining widi the Imperials would be."
Lieutenant Weiss allowed himself a tight smile. Captain Dundonald ostentatiously turned his back.
"I'm confident diat so long as my sons live, they'll do their duty as citizens of die Republic of die Santander," Farr said, his voice as calm as a wave rising on deep water. "As will their father."
If at full strength-probable since Weiss said diey hadn't seen action-the Land's Third Cruiser Squadron would be four nearly identical modem vessels. They were excellent sea boats and faster than even die McConrtick City-unless dieir hulls were foul; don't assume the enemy is ten feet tall, though be prepared in case he is.
On die other hand, die cruisers were small ships, less dian 3,000 tons standard displacement. The ten ten-centimeter quick-firers each carried in hull sponsons were no serious gunnery threat to Fair's squadron… but the three torpedo tubes were another matter. Corona had proved how effective Chosen torpedoes could be.
"lieutenant Weiss," Farr said. "I have orders to give to my command before I reply to your message. I'd like you to remain present so that you can provide your superior with a full accounting."
Weiss clicked his heels to emphasize his nod.
"Commander Grisson," Fair said to his staff secretary, "Signal the squadron, 'Under way in ten minutes.'"
That was a bluff. His ships had one or at most two boilers lighted to conserve coal at anchor. Peacetime regulations… Still, Eberdorf had kept her cruisers over the horizon, so by the time Weiss returned with Farr's reply more than the "hours deadline" would have passed.
"Make it so, Ryan!" Dundonald snapped to his own signals officer, staring wide-eyed from the wheelhouse. The McCormick City's captain had no intention of standing on ceremony now.
"Gentlemen," Farr continued to the freighter captains watching from the starboard wing of the bridge, "as senior military officer present, I'm asserting federal control over your vessels. You will dock-"
"You can't do that!" Captain Cooley said.
"I have done it, Captain," Farr said without raising his voice. "And if you want to return to Santander in the brig of this vessel, just open your mouth once more."
Cooley started to speak, took a good look at the commodore's face, and nodded apology.
Bells rang through the McCormick City's compartments. A gun fired a blank charge as an attention signal; yeomen tugged at the flag halyards, relaying the commodore's orders to the rest of the squadron.
"You will take on board as many civilians as possible," Farr resumed. "By that I mean as many as you can cram on board with a shoehorn. I don't care if you've only got a foot of freeboard showing-it's just eighty miles to Dubuk and the forecast is for calm. Mr. Cargill-"
"Yes." There was a trace of a smile on the consul's worn visage,
"Your personnel will direct civilians onto the transports. Any processing can be done after we dock in Dubuk. rfi leave you forty men for traffic control, which I trust will be sufficient."
"Giving those poor Wops their lives back should be sufficient in itself, sir," Cargill said. "Thank you."
"The remainder of the shore party will be broken down into five twelve-man detachments, Grisson," Farr said. "They will board the federalized transports in order to aid the civilian crews in recognizing naval signals."
"In view of the need for haste, sir," Grisson said, "I assume the signal detachments will proceed directly to their new assignments rather than returning to their home vessels to deposit their sidearms?"
"That's correct," Farr said. Grisson was a nephew of Farr's first wife; a very able boy.
"Commodore," Captain Fitzwilliam said, "I don't guess I've forgotten the signal book in the twenty years I been out. Don't short your gun crews for the sake of the Holyoke. We'll be where you put us."
Farr returned his attention to Lieutenant Weiss. The Land officers face had somehow managed to become even harder and more pale than it had been when he arrived.
"Lieutenant," Fair said, "I regret that I will be unable to comply with Commander Eberdorfs request because it conflicts with my orders to aid the consular authorities to repatriate Santander citizens from Salini. As you've heard, I've taken measures to streamline the process. I'm afraid the loading will nonetheless continue until after nightfall."
Weiss' eyes were filled with cold hatred. Farr suppressed a wry smile. His own feeling toward the Chosen officer were loathing, not hatred.
"Until the process is complete, I must request that Land military forces treat Salini as an extension of the Republic of the Santander," Fair continued. With age had come the ability to sound calm when the world was very possibly coming apart. "I regret any inconvenience this causes Commander Eberdorf or her superiors. Do you have any questions?"
"I have no questions of a man who doesn't know his duty to his country, Kommodore," Weiss said.
"When I have questions about my duty, Lieutenant Weiss," Fair said in a voice that trembled only in his own mind, "it will not be a foreigner I ask for clarification."
Weiss began to put on his oilskins methodically. His eyes were focused a thousand miles beyond the bulkhead toward which he stared.
The freighter captains had been exchanging looks and whispers. Now Captain Cooley spat over the railing and said, "Commodore? The rest of us reckon we can figure out naval signals, too, until this business gets sorted out back home."
He nodded toward die waterfront and added, "Only don't count on that lot being on board by nightfall. If we're not still at the dock at daybreak, then my mother's a virgin."
The Land officer strode for the companionway without saluting or being dismissed.
"Lieutenant Weiss?" Farr called. Weiss stopped and nodded curdy, but he didn't turn around.
"Please inform your superior that if she's dead set on having a battle," Farr said, "we can offer her a better one than her colleagues appear to have found at Corona." Weiss trembled, then stepped down the companion-way.
Farr had never felt so tired before in his life. "Commander Grisson," he said, "Signal the squadron, 'Clear for action.'"
"This is the first time I've seen Corona, Jeffrey," Heinrich said "The regiment dropped north of town and we never had occasion to work back." He chuckled. "Not such a tourist attraction as I'd been told."
A tang of smoke still hung in the air ten weeks after Land forces overran the city. Work gangs had cleared the streets, using rubble from collapsed structures to fill bomb craters, out there'd been no attempt to rebuild.
There was no need for reconstruction. Trie port city's surviving civilian population had been removed from what was now a military reservation closed to former citizens of the Empire.
Corona was the node which connected the conquering armies to their logistics bases in the Land. Protege's from the Land performed all tasks. Labor here was too sensitive to be entrusted to slaves who hadn't been completely broken to the yoke. Convoys of vehicles were pouring up from die docks: steam trucks, Land military-issue mule wagons, and a medley of impressed Imperial civilian transport pulled by everydung from oxen to commandeered race horses. There was Uttie disorder; military police were out in force directing traffic, wands in their hands and polished metal brassards on chains around their necks. Troops marched by die side of the road, giving way to Heinrich and Jeffrey on their horses. The Chosen officer exchanged salutes with his counterparts as they passed, running a critical eye over die Protege" infantry.
It wasn't the smoke that made Jeffrey Parr's nose wrinkle as he dismounted and handed die reins to die Prote"ge" groom who'd run at his stirrup from the remount corral at die edge of town. Nobody'd made an effort to find all the bodies in die wreckage eidier. Some of them must be liquescent by now. Well, he'd smelled plenty of other dead DC-dies in the past weeks. Humans weren't as bad as horses, and nothing was as bad as a ripe mule.
"So," die Chosen colonel said with a grin, '1 hope our honored guest found his tour of our new territories to have been an interesting one?"
"Radier a change from die round of embassy parties I expected when I was posted to Ciano, that's true, Heinrich," Jeffrey said. Part of him wanted to bolt for the gangplank of the City ofDubuk, the three-stack liner chartered by the Santander government to repatriate its citizens through Corona. There was no need to do that. Heinrich liked him.
And, God help him, he liked Heinrich. The blond colonel epitomized the virtues the Land inculcated in its Chosen citizens: courage, steadfastness, self-reliance, and self-sacrifice.
You don't have to hate them, lad, said Raj Whitehall in Jeffreys mind. Just crush them the way you would a scorpion.
Though Jeffrey'd seen plenty to hate as well.
Jeffrey lifted the rucksacks paired to either side of his saddlehorn and threw them over his left shoulder. He'd picked up his kit on the move. Clothing, mostly; all of it Land-issue. Life with Heinrich's fire brigade was dangerous enough without being mistaken for an Imperial infiltrator. He'd replace it on board if possible. Already late arrivals boarding the Dubtik were giving him hard looks.
"Very luxurious, no doubt," Heinrich said, eyeing the liner critically. "Well, I don't begrudge you that I'm looking forward to a transient officers' hostel with clean sheets tonight myself. And a few someones to warm them with me, not so?"
The City of Dubuk's whistle blew a two-note warning: a minute till the gangplank rose. Crewmen were already taking aboard lines preparatory to undocking. If Jeffrey had missed this ship, he would have had to take a freighter to the Land and there transship to Santander. At least for the present the Chosen had embargoed all regular trade between their newly conquered territories and the rest of Visager. a pity, that, said Center, but clandestine supply routes into die area will be sufficient to support our low-intensity guerrilla operations.
Jeffrey was very glad he was here to board the Dubttk. After the campaign he'd just watched, he didn't want to be around the Chosen any longer than necessary.
"Thank you for your hospitality, Heinrich," he said. "And your help in getting me here in time to save a long swim home."
Heinrich laughed and leaned from his saddle to clasp Jeffrey Chosen-fashion, forearm-to-forearm with hands gripping beneath one another's elbow. "An excuse to take my troops out of the field," he said as he straightened. "I'm not the only one who appreciates a little rest and recreation."
The Dubuk's whistle blew its full three-note call. Heinrich kicked his horse forward so that its forehooves rested on the gangplank. The animal whickered nervously at the hollow sound. A sailor on the deck above shouted a curse.
"Go then, my friend," Heinrich said. He smiled. "And tell the person who just spoke that if his tongue wags again, I will ride aboard and add it to my other trophies."
Jeffrey started up before someone on shipboard said the wrong thing in trying to clear the gangplank. He knew Heinrich too well to take the threat as a joke.
Nor would I count on the fact he likes you making much difference in the way Heinrich carries out his duties, lad, Raj said. Nor should it, of course.
A middle-aged civilian and the Dubuk's purser waited for Jeffrey at the head of the ramp. Their grim expressions faded to guarded question when they viewed the diplomatic passport he offered them.
Jeffrey tugged the sleeve of his Land uniform tunic. "I was in the wrong place when the fighting broke out," he said in a low voice. "If you can help me find the sort of clothes human beings wear, I'd be more than grateful."
"Jeffrey, my friend?" Heinrich called as he let his nervous horse step back. A hydraulic winch immediately began to haul the gangplank aboard. "When you have rested, come visit me again. These animals wifi be providing sport for years, no matter what the Council says!"
Jeffrey waved cheerfully, then moved away from the railing. If Heinrich could no longer see him, he was less likely to shout something that would put Jeffrey even more on the wrong side of an us-and-tiiem divide with everyone else aboard the City of Dubuk. "Needs must when the Devil drives," he murmured to the men beside him.
"You're related to John Hosten, I believe, sir?" the civilian asked in a neutral voice. his name is beemer, Center said, he is deputy director of the ministry's research desk, though his cover is consular affairs.
"John's my brother," Jeffrey said thankfully. "Stepbrother, really, but we're very close."
Beemer nodded. "I'll see about replacing your clothes, sir," he said. To the purser he added, "Fenington? I only need one of the rooms in my suite. I suggest we put Captain Fair in the other one. I know hisbrother."
The purser still looked puzzled, but he shrugged and said, "Certainly, Mr. Beemer. Captain Farr? That'll be Suite F on the Boat Deck. Would you like a steward to take your luggage there?"
The City of Dubuk blew a deep blast. The pair of tugboats on the vessel's harbor side shrilled an answer. Their propellers churned water, taking up the slack in the hawsers binding them to the liner.
Jeffrey hefted his saddlebags with a wan smile. "Thank you, I think I'll be able to manage on my own," he said. "If you gentlemen don't mind, I'll watch the undock-ing from the bow."
"Of course," said Beemer equably. "I hope you'll have time during the trip to chat with me about your recent experiences."
"Whatever you'd care to do, captain," the purser said. "So far as the crew of the City of Dubuk is concerned, this is an ordinary commercial voyage. We're here to assist you."
Jeffrey paused. "For a while there," he said, "I didn't think I'd ever see home alive."
And that was the truth if he'd ever told it. He bowed to the two men and walked forward. The deck shivered with the vibration of the tugs' engines.
Center? he asked. Did Dad think Eberdorf would attack the harbor while he was there?
There was no chance of that, lad, Raj said. Commander Eberdorf spent the past three years at a desk in the navy ^8 central offices in Oathtaking. She's too politically savvy to start a second major war while the first one's going on.
The City of Dubuk swayed as she came away from the dock. The lead tug signaled with three quick chirps.
But did Dad know that? Jeffrey demanded. your father does not have access to the database that informs your decisions-and those of raj, Center replied after a pause that could only be deliberate, nor does he have my capacity for analysis available to him. he viewed the chance of combat as not greater than one in ten, and the risk of all-out war resulting from such combat as in the same order of probability.
Jeffrey put his hand on the wooden railing. It had the sticky roughness of salt deposited since a deckhand had wiped it down this morning.
Dad thought the risk was better than living with the alternative.
At the time Jeffrey's link through Center had showed him the scene on the bridge of the McCormick City, his own eyes had been watching Heinrich and two aides torturing a twelve-year-old boy to learn where his father, the town's mayor, had concealed the arms from the police station.
The ship swayed again, this time from the torque of her central propeller as she started ahead dead slow.
I was so frightened… but I'd never have spoken to Dad again if he'd permitted a massacre like the ones I watched.
I had men like your father serving under me, Raj said. They could only guess at the things Center would have known, but they still managed to act the way I'd have done.
The City ofDubuk whistled again, long and raucously, as all three propellers began to cnurn water in the direction of home.
I've always thought those people were the greatest good fortune of my career. Raj added.
Gerta Hosten spat in the dry dust of the village street "Leutnant, just what the flk do you think you're doing?" she asked.
"Setting the animals an example!" the young officer said.
"An example of what-how to show courage and resistance?" she asked.
The subject of their dispute hung head-down from a rope tied around his anHes and looped over a stout limb of the live oak that shaded the village well. He spat, too, in her direction, then returned to a cracked, tuneless rendition of "Imperial Glory," the former Empire's national anthem. Two hundred or so peasants ana artisans stood and watched behind a screen of Prote"g6 infantry; the town's gentry, priests, and other potential troublemakers had already been swept up. The packed villagers smelled of sweat and hatred, their eyes furtive except for a few with the courage to glare. The sun beat down, hot even by Land standards on this late-summer day, but dry enough to make her throat feel gritty.
Gerta sighed, drew her Lauter automatic, jacked the slide, and fired one round into the hanging man's head from less than a meter distance. The flat elastic crack echoed back from the whitewashed stone houses surrounding the village square and from the church that dominated it. The civilians jerked back with a rippling murmur; the Prote'ge' troopers watched her with incurious ox-eyed calm. Blood and bone fragments and glistening bits of brain spattered across the feet of the Protege" who had been waiting with a barbed whip. He gaped in surprise, lifting one foot and then another in slow bewilderment.
"Hauptman-"
"Shut up." Gerta ejected the magazine, returned it to the pouch on her belt beside the holster, and snapped a fresh one into the well of the pistol. "Come."
She put her hand on the lieutenant s shoulder and guided him aside a few steps, leaning toward him confidentially. Young as he was, she didn't think he mistook the smile on her face for an expression of friendliness; on the other hand, she was a full captain and attached to General Staff Intelligence, so he'd probably listen at least a little.
"What exactly did you have planned?" she said.
"Why… ammunition was found in the animal's dwelling. I was to execute him, shoot five others taken at random, and then burn the village."
Gerta sighed again. "Leutnant, the logic of our communication with the animals is simple." She clenched one hand and held it before his nose. "It goes like this: 'Dog, here is my fist. Do what I want, or I will hit you with it.'"
"Yo, Hauptman-"
"Shut up. Now, there is an inherent limitation to this form of communication. You can only bum their houses down once-thereby reducing agricultural production in this vicinity by one hundred percent. You can only loll them once. Whereupon they cease to be potentially useful units of labor and become so much dead meat… and pork is much cheaper. Do you grasp my meaning, boy?"
"Nein, Hauptman."
This time Gerta repressed the sigh. "Terror is an effective tool of control, but only if it is applied selectively. There is nothing in the universe more dangerous than someone with nothing to lose. If you flog a man to death for having two shotgun shells loaded with birdshot, he probably simply forgot them- then what incentive is left to prevent them from active resistance?"
"Oh."
The junior officer looked as if he was thinking, which was profoundly reassuring. No Chosen was actually stupid; the Test of Life screened out low IQs quite thoroughly, and had for many generations. That didn't mean mat Chosen couldn't be willfully stupid, though- over-rigid, ossified.
"So. You must apply a graduated scale of punishment Remember, we are not here to exterminate these animals, tempting though the prospect is."
Gerta looked over at the villagers. It was extremely tempting, the thought of simply herding them all into the church and setting it on fire. Perhaps that would be the best policy: just kill off the Empire's population and fill up the waste space with the natural increase of die Land's Proteges. But no. Behfel ist behfel. That would be far too slow, no telling what the other powers would get up to in the meantime. Besides, it was the destiny of the Chosen to rule all the rest of humankind; first here on Visager, ultimately throughout the universe, for all time. Genocide would be a confession of failure, in that sense.
"No doubt the ancestors of our Protege's were just as unruly," the infantry lieutenant said thoughtfully. "However, we domesticated them quite successfully."
"Indeed" Although we had three centuries of isolation Jbrthat, and even so I sometimes have my doubts. "Carry on, then."
"What would you suggest, Hauptmann?"
Gerta blinked against the harsh sunlight. "Have you been in garrison here long?"
"Just arrived-the area was lighdy swept six months ago, but nobody's been here since."
She nodded; the Empire was so damned big, after the strait confines of the Land. Maps just didn't convey the reatery of it, not the way marching or flying across it did.
"Well, then… let your troopers make a selection of the females and have a few hours recreation. Have the rest of the herd watch. From reports, this is an effective punishment of intermediate severity."
"It is?" The lieutenant's brows rose in puzzlement.
"Animal psychology," Gerta said, drawing herself up and saluting.
"Jawohl. Zwm behfel, Hauptman. I will see to it."
Gerta watched him stride off and then vaulted into her waiting steanicar, one hand on the rollbar.
"West," she said to the driver.
The long dusty road stretched out before her, monotonous with rolling hills. Fields of wheat and barley and maize-the corn was tasseling out, the small grains long cut to stubble-and pasture, with every so often a woodlot or orchard, every so often a white-walled village beside a small stream. Dust began to plume up as the driver let out the throttle, and she pulled her neckerchief up over her nose and mouth. The car was coated with the dust and smelled of the peppery-earthy stuff, along with the strong horse-sweat odor of the two ProtЈg6 riflemen she had along for escort.
Wealth, I suppose, she thought, looking at the countryside she was surveying for her preliminary report. Warm and fertile and sufficiently well-watered, without the Land's problems of leached soil and erosion and tropical insects and blights. Room for the Chosen to grow.
"We're in the situation of the python that swallowed the pig," she muttered to herself. "Just a matter of time, but uncomfortable in the interval." That was the optimistic interpretation.
Sometimes she thought it was more like the flies who'd conquered the flypaper.
"Mama!"
Young Maurice Hosten stumped across the grass of the lawn on uncertain eighteen-month legs. Pia Hosten e waited, crouching and smiling, the long gauzy white skirts spread about her, and a floppy, flower-crowned hat held down with one hand.
"Mama!"
Pia scooped the child up, laughing. John smiled and turned away, back toward the view over the terrace and gardens. Beyond the fence was what had been a sheep pasture, when this house near Ensburg was the headquarters for a ranch. Ensburg had grown since the Civil War, grown into a manufacturing city of half a million souls; most of the ranch had been split up into market gardens and dairy farms as the outskirts approached, and the old manor had become an industrialist's weekend retreat. It still was, the main change being that the owner was John Hosten… and that he used it for more than recreation.
"Come on, everybody," he said.
The party picked up their drinks and walked down toward the fence. It was a mild spring afternoon, just warm enough for shirtsleeves but not enough to make the tailcoats and cravats some of the guests wore uncomfortable. They found places along the white-painted boards, in clumps and groups between the beech trees planted along it. Out in the close-cropped meadow stood a contraption built of wire and canvas and wood, two wings and a canard ahead of them, all resting on a tricycle undercarriage of spoked wheels. A man sat between the wings, his hands and feet on the controls, while two more stood behind on the ground with their hands on the pusher-prop attached to the little radial engine.
"For your sake I hope this works, son," Maurice Fan-said sotto voce, as he came up beside John. He took a sip at his wine seltzer and smoothed back his graying mustache with his forefinger.
"You don't think this is actually the first trial, do you, Dad?" John said with a quiet smile.
The ex-commodore-he had an admiral's stars and anchors on his epaulets now-laughed and slapped John on the shoulder. "I'm no longer puzzled at how you became that rich that quickly," he said.
If you only knew, Dad, John thought. wind currents are now optimum, Center hinted.
"Go!" John called.
"Contact!" Jeffrey said from the pilots seat, lowering the goggles from the brow of his leather helmet to his eyes. The long silk scarf around his neck fluttered in die breeze.
The two workers spun the prop. The engine cracked, sputtered, and settled to a buzzing roar. Prop-wash fluttered the clothes of the spectators, and a few of the ladies lost their hats. Men leaped after them, and everyone shaded their eyes against flung grit. Jeffrey shouted again, inaudible at this distance over the noise of the engine, and the two helpers pulled blocks from in front of the undercarriage wheels. The little craft began to accelerate into the wind, slowly at first, with the two men holding on to each wing and trotting alongside, then spurting ahead as they released it. The wheels flexed and bounced over slight irregularities in the ground, Despite everything, John found himself holding his breath as they hit one last bump and stayed up… six inches over the turf… eight… five feet and rising. He let the breath out with a sigh. The plane soared, banking slowly and gracefully and climbing in a wide spiral until it was five hundred feet over the crowd. Voices and arms were raised, a murmured ahhhh.
The two men who'd assisted at the takeoff came over to the fence. John blinked away the vision overlaid on his own of the earth opening out below and people and buildings dwindling to doll-size.
"Father, Edgar and William Wong, the inventors," he said. "Fellows, my father-Admiral Farr."
"Sir," Edgar said, as they shook his hand. "Your son's far too land. Hah0 the ideas were his, at least, as well as all the money."
His brother shook his head. "We'd still be fiddling around with warping the wing for control if John hadn't suggested moveable ailerons," he said. "And gotten a better chord ratio on the wings. He's quite a head for math, sir."
Maurice Farr smiled acknowledgment without taking his eyes from where his son flew above their heads. The steady droning of the engine buzzed down, like a giant bee.
"It works," he said softly. "Well, well."
"Damned toy," a new voice said.
John turned with a diplomatic bow. General McWriter probably wouldn't have come except for John's wealth and political influence. He stared at the machine and tugged at a white walrus mustache that cut across the boiled-lobster complexion… or that might be the tight collar of his brown uniform tunic.
"Damned toy," he said again. "Another thing for the bloody politicians"-there were ladies present, and you could hear die slight hesitation before the mild expletive as the general remembered it-"to waste money on, when we need every penny for real weapons."
"The Chosen found aerial reconnaissance extremely useful in the Empire," he said mildly, turning the uniform cap in his fingers.
McWriter grunted. "Perhaps. According to young Farr's reports."
"According to aft reports, General. Including those of my own service, and the Ministry."
The general's grunt showed what he thought of reports from sailors, or the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Research Bureau.
'They used dirigibles, you'll note," McWriter said, turning to John. "What's the range and speed? How reliable is it?"
"Eighty miles an hour, sir," John said with soft politeness. "Range is about an hour, so far. Engine time to failure is about three hours, give or take."
The general's face went even more purple. "Then what bloody f… bloody use is it?" he said, nodding abruptly to the admiral and walking away calling for his aide-decamp.
"What use is a baby?" John said.
"You're sure it can be improved?" the elder Farr said.
"As sure as if I had a vision from God"-or Center- "about it," John said. "Within a decade, they're going to be flying ten times as far and three times as fast, I'D stake everything I own on it."
"I hope so," Fair said. "Because we are going to need it, very badly. The navy most of all."
"You think so, Admiral?" another man said. Farr started slightly; he hadn't seen the civilian in the brown tailcoat come up.
"Senator Beemody," he said cautiously.
The politician-financier nodded affably. "Admiral. Good to see you again." He held out a hand. "No hard feelings, eh?"
Farr returned the gesture. "Not on my side, sir."
"Well, you're not die one who lost half a million," Beemody said genially. He was a slight dapper man, his mustache trimmed to a black thread over his upper lip. "On the other hand, Jesus Christ with an order from the President couldn't have saved those warehouses, from my skipper's reports… and you're quite the golden boy these days, after facing down that Chosen bitch at Satini. "We can offer her a better one than her colleagues appear to have found at Corona,'" he quoted with relish. The senator's grin was disarming. "What with one thing and another, grudges would be pretty futile. And I have no time for unproductive gestures, Admiral. You think we'll need these?"
"Damned right we will. Knowing your enemy's location is half the battle in naval warfare. Knowing where he is while he doesn't know where you are is the other half. We've relied on fast cruisers and torpedo-boat destroyers to scout and screen for us, but the Chosen dirigibles are four times faster than the fastest hulls afloat. Plus they can scout from several thousand feet. We need an equivalent and we need it very badly, or we'll be defeated at sea in the event of war."
"Which some think is inevitable," Beemody said thoughtfully. "I'm not entirely sure-but the news out of the Empire certainly seems to support the hypothesis. Admiral. John."
"People can surprise you," Farr said reflectively as the senator moved through the crowd, shaking hands and dropping smiles.
"Beemody knows when to jump on a bandwagon," John said. "And he's big in steel mills, heavy engineering-a naval buildup will be like a license to print money, to him. And he's no fool; I've done enough business with him to know that."
"Darling," Pia's voice broke in. She hugged his arm; the nursemaid was behind her with the child. "Fadier." Her eyes went up to the aircraft that was circling downward above them. "I would love to do that someday."
John put an arm around her shoulders. "Maybe in a few years," he said. "Here comes Jeffrey."
The plane ghosted down, seemed to float for an instant, then touched with a lurching sway. The Wong brothers ran out to grip the wingtips and keep its head into the wind; other workers brought cords and tarpaulins to stake it down. Jeffrey Farr swung down from the controls, pulling off his helmet and waving to the cheers of the crowd. He vaulted the fence easily with one hand on a post, then walked towards his father and stepbrother. One arm was around the waist of a Eretty dark girl who clung and looked up at him, lughing.
"I see you've already found a way to profit from the glamour of flight, Jeff," John said, bending over her hand.
"Too late," Jeffrey replied. "Meant to tell you, you're going to be best man."
John looked up quickly, to find Pia laughing at him.
"Some things even the wife of your bosom doesn't tell you," he said resignedly.
And I told Center not to tell you, either, Raj said. There was a smile in the disembodied voice.
"Well, I haven't told Mother yet, either," Jeffrey said There are limits to even my courage."
"I'm sure your mother will be delighted," the elder Farr said, bending over Lola's hand in his turn. "But not surprised, after the last year. The Empire has conquered both her sons, it seems."
Pia's face went rigid for an instant, and then she forced gaiety back to it. "A fall wedding, perhaps?"
Jeffrey nodded. "And John won't escape mine- although I should bar him from the church, the way he got hitched without me there, the inconsiderate bastard."
John chuclded. Tm sure you could see it as vividly as if you'd really been there," he said dryly. "How does she fly?"
"Too businesslike, that's your problem." Jeffrey shrugged. "Sweet, for a machine that underpowered. Very maneuverable, now that the movement of the flaps is extended. The canard keeps the stalling speed low, but I think it'll have to go when you move to an enclosed cockpit; the eddy currents around it close to the ground are tricky. Apart from that, she needs a better engine and something to cut the wind."
"And you must make a speech about it," Pia said, putting her hand through John's elbow.
"Damn," he muttered, looking at the assembly.
About fifty people. Important people, high-ranking military officers, industrialists, reporters for the major papers and wire services, politicians on the military committees.
"It is part of your job," Pia said relentlessly.
John sighed and straightened his lapels. Nobody had ever said the job would be agreeable.
"So much for reports that it could not be done," Karl Hosten said, looking down at the summaries.
Gerta Hosten closed her own file folder with a snap. "Well, sir, it was scarcely a secret that powered heavier-than-air flight was possible. We are here, and not on ancient Terra, after all."
"But our ancestors did not arrive in winged vehicles with propellers," the Chosen general said with a sigh.
Gerta looked up with concern. There was more white than gray in her foster-father's face now, and his face looked tired even at ten in the morning. Duty is duty, she reminded herself. Not all the work of conquest was done out on the battlefield.
She was back in Corpenik for a while herself. There wasn't much in the way of fighting left in the Empire- former Empire, now the New Territories-for one thing, and for another she was pregnant again, enough months along to rate desk duty for a while. The whitewashed office in the General Staff HQ building was on the third floor; she could see out over the courtyard wall from here, to a vast construction site where gangs of slave labor from the New Territories dug at the red volcanic earth of the central plateau, filling the warm damp air with the scent of mud. Some office building, she supposed; bureaucrats were a growth industry these days. The Land's government had always been tightly centralized and omnicompetent, and there was a lot more for ft to do. Or it might be factories. A lot of those were going up, too.
She looked down at the folder. "According to John's report, the Santies are going to push these heavier-than-air craft mainly because their experiments with dirigibles have been such a disaster."
General Hosten nodded and pushed a ringer at a photograph. It was a grainy newspaper print, showing the ghost outline of a wrecked and burned airship strewn across a bare grassy hillside with mountains in the distance.
"I am not surprised. Success or failure in airship design is mostly a matter of details, and an infinite capacity for taking pains is our great strength."
Whereas our great weakness is obsession with details at the expense of the larger picture, Gerta thought, silently. There were things you didn't say to a General Staff panjandrum, even if he was your father.
"Still, we'll have to follow suit," Gerta said "Dirigibles are potentially very vulnerable to aircraft of this type, and they could be very useful in themselves."
Karl nodded thoughtfully, running a finger along his heavy jawline. "I wilt raise the matter in the next staff meeting," he said. "The Air Council must be informed, of course." Looking down at the folder: "Johan has done good service here."
He was frowning, nonetheless. Gerta noted the expression and looked quickly away. Not completely comfortable with it, she thought. Didn't expect Johnny ever to be false to a cause, even for the Chosen. She agreed, for completely different reasons, but again, it wasn't the time to mention it.
"Sir, the next item is the Far Western Islands appropriation."
Karl nodded and opened the file. "It seems clearcut," he said. "The islands have a climate that is, if anything, more difficult than the Land; the distance is extreme"- over eight thousand miles-"and the value of the minerals barely more than the cost of extraction."
Gerta licked her lips. "Sir, with respect, I would strongly advise against abandoning the base there at present."
Karls eyebrows rose. "Why? It scarcely seems cost-effective, now that the Empire is ours.'* "Sir, the Empire is poor in minerals, particularly energy sources. Our processing industries here in the Lanowifl be expanding dramatically and the petroleum in the Islands may come in very useful. Besides, I just don't like giving up territory we've spent lives in taking."
He nodded slowly. "Perhaps. I will take the matter under advisement. Next, we the report on our agents in the Union del Est." He smiled bleaWy. "Trie Republic of Santander is not the only party who can play the game of stirring up trouble on the borders."
"Fuck it!"
Jeffrey Farr swore into the sudden ringing silence within the tank. The only sound was a dying clatter as something beat itself into oblivion against something equally metallic and unyielding.
He pushed up the greasy goggles and stuck his head out of the top deck. Black oily smoke was pouring up out of the grillwork over the rear deck; luckily there was a stiff breeze from the east, carrying most of it away. The rest of the four-man crew bailed out with a haste bred of several months experience with Dirty Gerty and her foibles, standing at a respectful distance with their football-style leather helmets in their hands.
Jeffrey climbed down himself, conscious that he was thirty-one years old, not the late teens of the other crewmen. Not that he wasn't as agile, it just hurt a little more; and he was tired, mortally tired.
"Filter again?" said the head mechanic of Pokips Motors, the civilian contractors.
"I think," Jeffrey replied, spitting the smell of burning gasoline and lubricating oil out of his mouth and taking a swig from the canteen someone offered. "Then that tore a fuel line or broke the oil reservoir."
The military reservation they were using was on the southern edge of the Santander River valley, two hundred miles west of the capital. A stretch of flatland, then some tree-covered loess hills leading down to the floodplain, ten thousand acres or so. A holdover from days before land prices rose so high; this was prime corn-and-hog country-cattle, too-aU around. Most of this section was now torn up by the jointed-metal tracks of Gerty and her kindred, and by the huge wheels of the steam traction engines that winched them home when they broke, down, which was incessantly. Gerty was the latest model a riveted steel box on tracks, about twenty feet long and eight wide, with a stationary round pillbox on top meant to represent a turret. The engineers were still working on the turret ring and traversing mechanism, and hopefully close to finishing them.
Th' prollem is," the mechanic said, "yer overstrainin' the engines somethin' fierce. Got enough horsepower, right enough-two seventy-five-horsepower saloon-car engines, right enough. But the torque load's more'n they wuz designed to stand."
"Well, we'll have to redesign them, won't we?"
Jeffrey kept his voice neutral. The man was trying his best to do his job; it wasn't his fault that engineering talent was so much thinner on the ground here in the western provinces of Santander. It was yeoman-and-squire country here, and always had been. Outside the eastern uplands, manufacturing was mostly limited to the port cities and focused on maritime trade and textiles. The problem was that this was prime tank country; the provincial militias here were actually interested in the prospect of armored warfare. Nobody but a few dinosaurs like General McWriter thought much of the prospects of horsed cavalry anymore, not after what had happened in the Empire.
Jeffrey felt his skin roughen. The machine guns flickered in his mind, and tie long rows of horsemen collapsed in kicking, screaming chaos…
"Transmission," he said. "We need a more robust transmission.'' "What've yer got in mind?"
Jeffrey pulled out a diagram. "Friction plate," he said. "It's not elegant, but I think it won't keep breaking like this chain drive setup. like you say, these tanks just have too much inertia for a system designed for three-ton touring cars."
"Hmmmm." The mechanic studied the diagram. "Interestm'."
He looked up at Gerty. A couple of his men had gotten the engine grille up and were spraying water on the flames flickering there.
"How'd them Chosen bastids keep theirs going?" he asked. "Heavier'n this, I hears."
"They use steam engines and mostly they don't keep going," Jeffrey said. "We need something reliable enough to do exploitation as well as breakthrough."
The mechanic looked down at the diagram again. "Need some fancy machinin' fer this."
"Hosten Engineering can do you up a model, and jigs," Jeffrey said. "They've got the plans."
John Hosten leaned back in the chair and sipped his lemonade. Oathtaking was hot, as usual, and sticky-humid, as usual, and toe air was thick with coal smoke. The hotel was dose by the docks; they'd extended hugely since his last visit, new berths extending further into what had been coastal forest reserve and farmland. In fact, he could see one freighter unloading now from this fourth-floor veranda. It was a smallish ship of fifteen hundred tons, swinging sacks of grain ashore with its own booms and steam winches. As he watched the net fell the last four feet to the granite paving blocks of the wharf. Half the bottom layer split, spraying wheat across the stone and into the harbor. Screams and curses rang faintly as the cable paid out limply on top of the heap. Stevedores scurried about, overseers lashing with then-rubber truncheons. Eventually a line formed, trotting off with the undamaged sacks on their backs. Others started sweeping up the remainder with brooms and dumping it in a collection of boxes and barrels.
God, I'm glad I don't have to eat that, he thought silently. In mis heat and humidity, they'd be lucky not to get ergot all over it.
He nodded towards the dock "You'd get less spoilage if you moved to bulk-handling facilities," he said mildly. "Elevators, screw-tube systems, that sort of thing."
Gerta Hosten raised her eyes from the diagrams before her. "We're not short of labor," she said, with a smile that didn't reach the cold, dark eyes.
Meaning they are short of the type of labor that bulk transport would needy Raj said thoughtfully.
An image drew itself at the back of John's consciousness: short, dark-skinned men with iron collars around their necks loading a train-an unbelievably primitive train, with an engine like something out of a museum, an open platform and a tall, thin smokestack topped with sheet-metal petals. Each staggered sweating under a bundle of dried fish secured in netting, heaving it painfully onto tihe flatcars. Other men watched them, soldiers with single-shot rifles mounted on giant dogs. Occasionally a dog would snap its great jaws with a door-slamming sound and the laborers would shuffle a little faster.
Who needs wheelbarrows when you've got enough slaves? Raj said with ironic distaste. We got over that, eventually. Thanks to Center. and to you, raj Whitehall, Center replied.
John reached into the inner pocket of his light cotton jacket and took out his cigarette case. From what he'd described, the centralized god-king autocracy Raj Whitehall had been born into had been almost as nasty as the Chosen-more desirable only because Center and Raj could put their own man on the throne and use that as the fulcrum to move society off dead center. There -seem to be more wrong paths than right, he thought. correct, high-coercion societies locked in stasis alternating with barbarism are the maximum probability for postneolithic humanity, Center observed dispassionately, the original breakthrough to modernity on earth was the result of multiple low-probability historical accidents, observeLater we may have time for lectures., Raj observed. Meanwhile., John has a job of work to do.
Gerta looked up again, stacking the reports neatly on the hotel room's table, and took a long drink of water.
"This… Whippet?"
"It's a type of racing clog," John said helpfully.
"This Whippet looks like a very useful panzer, if you… if the Santies can get it working," she observed.
'True enough," John said. 'There's a lot of controversy. The western provinces are pushing it, but the easterners want more effort to go into aircraft. And they have most of the internal-combustion manufacturing capacity."
"Yes, I read the speech of this… Senator Darman? The representative from Ensburg, in any case-you thoughtfully supplied it with the latest reports. 'I put my faith in our mountains'; a very colorful phrase."
Her strong, calloused fingers turned the sheaf of papers over. "Now, this, this Land-Cruiser, it's going to give the Army Council's engineers hives."
The blueprints on the table showed a massive boxy machine, mounting a six-inch gun on its centerline, a two-inch quick-firer in a turret above, and six machine-guns in sponsons on either side.
"What a monstrosity," she went on. "If the Santies are having trouble making the Whippet go, how do they expect this… this thing to move?"
John leaned forward. A lot of work, mostly Center's, had gone into the Land-Cruiser. It was no easy task to design something beyond Visager's current technological level, but just beyond, close enough that competent engineers would be kept busy on the tantalizing quest for this particular Holy Grail. Disinformation was much more than simple lying.
"Each bogie has its own engine," he pointed out.
The huge machine rested on four bogies on either side, each riding on a pivot with bell-crank springs. "See, there's a drive train run through this flexible shaft coupling, and then through meshed gears to the toothed sprocket here between the load-bearing wheels."
"Porschmidt will love this. Unfortunately."
Drake At John's glance she went on: "The new head of Technical Development. He's brilliant, but he keeps trying to make bad designs good instead of junking them-he'd rather design three force pumps and an auxiliary circulation system into an engine rather than just turn a part over to keep it from leaking. You should see what he did to the heavy field gun. It's enough to make a Test of Life examiner cry. He's the sort who gives engineering a bad name; convinced that just because it's his, his shit doesn't stink."
"Well, if the Republic's wasting its time, so much the better," John said with a smile.
"Yfl. Only, is the Republic wasting its time, or are you wasting ours?"
John kept the expression on his face genial, as his testicles tried to climb back into his abdomen. It was impossible to have a cold sweat in Oathtalong's climate, but you could feel clammy-nauseated.
"Gerta, man soester, do you think so little of me?"
"Johan, nan brueder, I think very highly of you. I think somehow you're fucking Military Intelligence up the butt and making them like it." She grinned, and this time the expression went all the way through. "But you're giving us so much real information to sweeten the pot that I can't convince anyone of it… yet."
She sighed, relaxed, and put die documents away in her attach^ case, spinning die combination lock. Then she poured some banana gin from the carafe into her water, and a dollop into his lemonade. "Now I'm officially off-duty."
He sipped; the oily-sweet kick of die distillate seemed to match the surroundings, somehow. And one wouldn't affect his judgement noticeably.
"So, I hear you've adopted a child," Gerta said.
"Yes. See, I am practicing Chosen custom, as far as I can." They both laughed. "How's your youngest?"
"A shapeless lump of protoplasm, the way they all are at that age," Gerta said.
She pulled a picture from her uniform tunic. A baby looked out, with one chubby hand stuffed in its mouth; the fuzzy background was probably a Protege wetnurse, from the linen bodice.
"Young Sigvard. That's four, now; I think I've done my duty by the Chosen, don't you? It's an interesting experience, pregnancy, but I wouldn't want to overindulge."
"And the adoptees?"
"Good children, every one," Gerta said. "The one good thing about desk duty is that I get to see more of them; they've been practically living in Father's house most of the time, the last two years, what with the war."
John produced a snapshot of Pia and Maurice junior; Gerta looked at it critically. "Sound enough stock," she said… which was a high compliment, by the standards of the Land.
"I hear Heinrich made brigadier?"
"Ya, same dispatch-and-notice list that bumped me to full colonel," Gerta said, leaning back and stretching. "They added another six divisions to the regular roster, lots of new hats to go around. Especially with all the demotions and such after the Campaign Study."
John nodded. The General Staff had high standards; there had been a lot of shaking up after the campaign in the Empire. Mere success wasn't good enough…
Mark of a good army, lad. Raj said. Anyone can learn from his mistaken. It takes sound doctrine to be able to learn from winning.
"Enough other compensations to go around, I suppose," he said aloud.
Gerta chuckled. "Well, the Council has been handing out estates fairly liberally. Mostly in the west, around Corona, to start with. Too much unrest for it to be safe for us to scatter ourselves around widely, just yet." A shrug. "We'll deal with that in due course."