"Battalion … attenshun!"

Major General Vincent Hawthorne scanned the line as the troops arrayed before him snapped to shoulders. He felt a cool shiver of delight at the sound. The Fifth Suzdal, "Hawthorne's Guards," stood arrayed before him. With access to blue dye gained by trading with the Asgard, the Army of the Republic was gradually adopting the traditional uniform of their mentors—sky-blue trousers, navy-blue four-button jacket, and black felt slouch caps. The sight of his regiment dressed in the cherished blue made his heart beat faster. He looked up at the colors snapping in the breeze, his gaze lingering on the shot-torn standard of the regiment emblazoned with the names of half a dozen hard-fought battles.

Deployed next to them was a company of sailors wearing the blue trousers, blue-and-white-checkered shirts, and white neckerchiefs of the navy, with Admiral Bullfinch proudly standing in front of them in his finest double-breasted blue frock coat, his handsome features made exotic and slightly dangerous-looking by the black eye patch.

As the train drifted to a stop, venting steam, the band gave a single ruffle and flourish as befitted the commander of the armies, and then broke into "Battle Cry of Freedom."

Vincent, joined by Bullfinch, turned and walked to the last car and, coming to attention, saluted as Andrew stepped out onto the platform. Andrew, smiling, snapped off a salute to the colors and then to Vincent and Bullfinch. He climbed off the train, and walked down the line of troops, followed by Pat and Emil, who peered curiously at the men, as if looking for a telltale cough or a sign of fever.

"The men look good," Andrew stated, loud enough so his words could be heard, "but then again, I wouldn't expect anything less from the old Fifth."

Behind the line of troops Andrew saw the crowd of curious onlookers, the hundreds of railroad men, dockhands, shipbuilders, and factory workers who were laboring at what was now the railhead of the eastward expansion of the Republic. As they left the platform Andrew smiled at Vincent.

"It's been how long?"

"Four months since I was last in Suzdal."

"Good to see you, Vincent."

"And you too, sir. My family?"

"That poor girl," Pat laughed. "Good heavens, is she pregnant!"

"She's all right, isn't she?" He looked at Emil.

"Don't worry. Another two months. She's doing fine."

"Maybe you should stay out here another year and give her some rest," Pat interjected.

Vincent fixed his old friend with a cool stare, and Pat held up his hands in surrender.

"Ah, those Quaker sensibilities of yours. All right, but good heavens, the way you make babes I'd think you were an Irishman."

"How's my father-in-law?"

Andrew shook his head.

"Our president is proving to be a president."

"He's a pain, he is," Pat interjected. "Wants to cut the budget again, divert rail development back into Rus, and Marcus agrees—as long as it means extra lines inside Roum. And he wants to cut the training and field assignment of new troops down to one year from two."

"Damn! We need it out here," Vincent replied sharply. "We're nearly a thousand miles past Roum now, in the middle of nowhere. I've only got five thousand mounted patrolling a frontier more than five hundred miles across to the east and another five thousand on the defensive line to the south. They could slip ten umens through that cordon and be halfway here before we'd even notice."

He nodded toward the two hundred fifty men lined up to receive Andrew. "And look at those boys. I've got exactly twenty-two vets with this battalion. The rest of them are recruits who were underage kids when the Merki came. We need two years to get them in shape before sending them into the reserve. What the hell is Kal thinking?"

"Ah, politics, my lad," Emil interrupted. "Remember now, they're voters back home, not a bunch of terrified peasants with the bogeyman at the gate. The danger's past, at least according to some in Congress. The Merki are scattered, the Tugars have gone east, and the Bantag are a thousand miles away and supposedly moving east as well. The wars are over, and they don't need us old soldiers now."

"And it's another four hundred miles to the capital of the Nippon," Andrew replied. "Four hundred miles of rail and bridges, to Kal's thinking, can help link a lot of towns together before the next election. The votes are back there, not out here. Kal's party is facing opposition, and that's their complaint. And getting across that next river thirty miles ahead. That's a mile of bridging, and Ferguson's talking about a thousand-foot span in the middle. That same material could build a dozen rail bridges back home."

"We need that bridge," Vincent snapped. "Forward projection. That was the whole idea, which we agreed upon if the Bantag should turn north. We fortify the narrows south of Roum between the Inland Sea and the Great Sea, use that as a barrier. But even that's more than a hundred fifty miles across, and the rail to that position still has eighty miles to go. By God, sir, if they should come at us from that direction, how in hell are we to hold a front, with the railhead so far in the rear? We'll lose it all, and if the army deploys out, we'll lose that as well."

Andrew nodded in agreement. "I think we'll get the appropriation to finish running the rail line south, but that's it."

Hawthorne threw up his hands in exasperation. "Sir. It's not just that. We need a rail line running parallel to where we want to fortify. We need stockpiles of equipment there. And I've been screaming for half a year to build a new airship base down there. If we base our air fleet out of there, build that airship resupply vessel that Bullfinch here has been talking about, we might even be able to push an airship into their territory."

"Provocative act, there," Pat said dryly.

"Provocative or not, it needs to be done," Bullfinch interjected. "I'd like to see an airship in there right now, especially up that river. You saw the report I forwarded about that escaped slave the sloop picked up. They're building ships up there, sir, and here we've barely got a proper naval base and nothing much more than an anchoring spot down on the defensive line."

"I'm still arguing for it, Admiral, but we have to face facts. The money, the resources are stretched beyond the breaking point. If we had not been blessed with a damn good harvest last year, which gave us some surplus to trade with Cartha, we'd be in the barrel now. Everyone in Congress is screaming internal improvements first. They need more harvesting machines, every congressman is crying for a rail line to his town and the hell with wasting track in the wilderness, and the pensions for disabled soldiers are staggering."

"Then push on to Nippon and get them allied with us," Vincent shot back. "That could be another ten corps worth of troops, and damn good ones at that. I've been there. I know."

"And it was your report, I think, that scared some people in Congress," Emil replied. "Remember, Rus lost half its population in the wars. There's barely seven hundred thousand still alive. Roum outnumbers them nearly two to one. But Nippon has more people than Roum and Rus put together."

"Precisely why we need them," Vincent replied heatedly. "We could double the army. At best we'll get a corps out of the Asgard and it will take years to get them adapted. Right now they're next to useless except as raiding troops and scouts."

"Vincent! And here you're married to the president's daughter," Emil said with a shake of his head. "Don't you get the political ramifications? If we bring Nippon in as a state of the Republic it'll control half the seats in Congress. Come next election it might even be able to put a president in."

Vincent shook his head angrily. "To base a cutback decision on that is obscene. The ideal of the Republic is that all men are created equal regardless of race. Didn't we join the Army of the Potomac for that? Lord knows, I did, even though I was a Quaker. We fought and a hell of a lot of our comrades died for an ideal. Now let's live up to it."

"Idealism," Pat interjected with a smile. Vincent flinched and then saw the admiration in Pat's eyes.

"Me bucko, you're a wonder. Too bad not everyone is as high-minded and book-learned as you."

Andrew smiled at Pat's words. Shortly after he had joined the army in '62, Colonel Estes, the first commander of the Thirty-fifth, had snapped, "Just what the hell am I supposed to do with a book-learned professor?"

And now look at me, he thought with a twinge of irony. General of the Armies. The life and death of human civilization on this insane world resting on my shoulders for nearly eight years. He fully agreed with Vincent.

"There'd still be the balance in the Senate, though," Vincent finally replied. "Nippon will get only five seats, the same as Asgard, once it becomes a state of the Republic, and Rus and Roum will each hold their fifteen and ten seats."

"Well, now," Emil replied, as if lecturing a student, "so what? Right now the balance is there between Roum and Rus even though Roum controls the House by virtue of population. But the alliance between us, so far, is one of blood spilled on the battlefield, and we still trust each other. Nippon is an unknown. Maybe after the next presidential election, when Kal is secure for six more years, maybe then we'll push the railhead, but not before."

Vincent looked at Andrew appealingly. "You wrote the bloody Constitution. Didn't you see this?"

"I figured it might be a possibility," Andrew replied. "That's why we put in that the two founding states of the Republic, Rus and Roum, each had more senators than the five granted to new states as they join. We'll maintain control in the Senate for a long time to come, but it's the House that will be up for grabs if Nippon joins us, and that has them spooked."

"Can't you convince Kal?"

"Oh, eventually."

"The damn thing's nuts," Vincent stormed, his voice growing louder. "During the war we got what we needed and the hell with politics. This damn Constitution will get our asses in the wringer."

Andrew, in a fatherly fashion, put his hand on Vincent's shoulder and led him off the platform, beyond the hearing of their three comrades and the troops deployed along the depot siding.

"If I ever hear you say that in public again I'll strip you of command," Andrew said quietly. "Do I make myself clear, General?"

Vincent looked straight up into Andrew's eyes. "But, sir, you see the problem it's created."

"Do I make myself clear, General?" Andrew repeated, his voice growing hard.

Vincent stared at him, wanting to raise a protest, but the growing anger evident in Andrew's eyes stilled his voice. He snapped to attention. "Yes, sir."

Andrew knew that several of Vincent's men had overheard the comment and were now watching the dressing-down. He had to maintain discipline but at the same time not cause Vincent to lose too much face.

"You are not in McClellan's army, Mr. Hawthorne. That talk might have been tolerated back in sixty-two but it will never be tolerated here. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir."

He now raised his voice slightly so the men, who were undoubtedly straining to catch every word, would hear. "I don't care if you are the best fighting general in the army. When it comes to this issue, in this country, the military must take its orders from the civilian government, like it or not. That is the oath we swore to uphold."

Vincent nodded, his face turning red.

"Fine. We understand each other, then."

"Yes, sir. I apologize, sir."

Andrew nodded. Handling Hawthorne was always something of a tricky job. There was, of course, the political connection. Though Kal would never interfere in the way Vincent was disciplined, he knew that the boy—after all, he was only twenty-seven— could not help but feel that the presence of his father-in-law gave him certain leverage.

Beyond that, Vincent simply was the best he had. His defense of the center at the second and third day of Hispania was now the stuff of legend. One of the most popular paintings to emerge from the war was that of Vincent standing like an immovable rock on a flatbed car, the Merki host storming around him. The painting rivaled Showalter's Last Stand as the most popular illustration hanging in bars throughout the Republic.

Andrew hoped that there would come a day when Vincent became general of the armies. He mused on that for a moment and found the thought troubling. But it was an option that might become necessary before much longer. Though Pat could possibly fill the post, he did not have the charismatic appeal of Vincent, especially with the Roum, who viewed Vincent as their hero as well for his defense of the palace during the Cartha War. If it came to that choice, Pat could serve publicly as direct commander of all Rus troops but in private he would be the brake and steady hand, a Hans for a new general.

Hans. Again the troubling memory. Wish you were here, old friend, Andrew thought sadly, and then he focused again on Vincent. The boy would need more grooming, especially when it came to his temper and his often impetuous actions.

"Fine. We understand each other, then," Andrew said again, letting his voice go softer.

"Yes, sir, we do."

Andrew could sense the embarrassment in Vincent's tone. Good, let it stay there for a while.

He looked back at Bullfinch, who had respectfully withdrawn while his friend was being chewed out. "Mr. Bullfinch, shall we start this inspection tour?"

"Aye, aye, sir."

Pat chuckled at the nautical terminology, feeling, as most soldiers did, that the vocabulary of sailors was nothing but an affectation.

"How much time do we have before the meeting with the Nippon military liaison?"

Vincent pulled out his pocket watch. "We have a couple of hours, sir. Last report from the telegraph station said he crossed the river shortly after dawn. We should have plenty of time."

Though Andrew still wore the pocket watch given to him by the men of the Thirty-fifth after he was wounded at Gettysburg, he didn't even bother to wind it anymore. The days on this planet were fifty minutes shorter, and trying to reset the timing had caused endless confusion. A team under Chuck Ferguson, the scientific wizard who, perhaps more than anyone else, had helped to save them all, had worked out a new twenty-four-hour standard after endless debate about going to a ten-hour rather than twenty-four-hour day, just how long was a second, and should there be sixty or a hundred minutes in an hour. In the end, no matter how illogical it really was, the Republic had adopted the twenty-four-hour day, with the seconds just slightly shorter than back home to make up the difference. One of the new watchmakers, a former Rus artillery major, had offered to regear Andrew's watch, but he had yet to get around to having it done. Besides, he realized, one of the prerogatives of command was that he could simply rely on his staff for the time.

"Fine, then. Let's go see Mr. Bullfinch's new ship."

Following Vincent and Bullfinch's lead, Andrew fell back in with Emil and Pat, both of them watching Vincent, who stayed several feet ahead. Andrew could see that Pat wanted to make a wisecrack, but he shook his head.

"Ah, youth," Pat muttered, loud enough for Vincent to hear. Vincent turned angrily, and Pat, with a smile, went up and slapped him on the shoulder, moving him forward and away from Andrew.

"They'll make a good team," Emil said softly. "Reminds me of you and Hans."

Andrew smiled and nodded as he watched the two of them, Pat's hand on Vincent's shoulder and Vincent obviously pouring out his frustration. As they walked down the main street of the town that had sprung up around the railhead and port, Andrew could not help but feel a certain sense of awe.

At one of the sidings a crew was unloading cut railroad ties off a narrow gauge line that ran northward for fifty miles up into the forest, where a steam-powered mill operated. The laborers were a mixed lot of Rus and Roum, with a few Cartha refugees and Asgard thrown in. He could hear the polyglot language they spoke, a mixture of medieval Russian and ancient Latin, with a fair sprinkling of English, especially for military and technical terms. Gates, the editor of the Republic's most popular paper, Gates's Illustrated Weekly, had even written a couple of articles speculating that because of the rapid rise in literacy, the speed of transportation, and the mixing of formally isolated societies through the army and politics a new language might eventually emerge.

The laborers paused upon seeing Andrew, and several of the men came to attention, snapping off salutes.

Andrew smiled and saluted in turn.

"Bloody Seventh Murom!" one of them shouted. "Twenty-third Roum," another chimed in proudly as he pulled up his sleeve to show a jagged white scar. Andrew waved in reply.

"Roll his sleeve, and bare his scars, and say these wounds I won on Chrispen's Day."

Andrew felt a cool shiver of memory at Emil's words, remembering young Gregory's stirring recitation of Henry V on the second night of Hispania when all believed that the battle was lost.

Another one lost, he thought sadly. Gregory had disappeared the spring after the end of the war while on patrol down the western coast of the Great Sea. It was a frustrating blow. He had shown so much promise, having acted as corps commander for what was left of the old Third. Interestingly, his avocation had given him much fame as well. In the months after the battle he had been called upon repeatedly to appear on the stage, playing Henry V to critical acclaim.

Andrew gazed at the veterans, who were now standing around the lumber pile, talking in an animated manner, the veteran of the Seventh Murom starting to pull his shirt up while the Asgard workers watched with obvious envy.

"It's about the only good thing that comes out of a war," Emil said. "It united us like nothing else ever could. That, and the fact that we won, of course."

"Let's hope we don't forget it too soon."

With a piercing shriek a train at the far end of the rail yard announced that it was leaving, the engineer playing out the first bar of an bawdy Roum tavern song on the whistle. The train lurched forward, pulling a long line of empty flatcars that had most likely been loaded down with rails when it came east. Andrew watched the train as it slowly built up speed and thundered past. The brass work on the engine was polished to a brilliant gleam, "City of Roum" painted in bright red letters beneath the cab. The engineer, posing like a highborn lord, leaned out of the cab and saluted as he passed. The engine was one of the new 4-6-0 designs, rated at just over 1,500 horsepower, twice what the main engines in use during the war had been capable of.

The string of fifteen cars behind the engine rattled past and switched onto the main line heading back west.

"You know, I can almost see their point," Emil said. "Day after day, trains heading out into unknown, carrying the wealth of Rus. More than two hundred fifty thousand tons of iron and steel since the end of the war. That could go to a lot of other things right now."

Andrew didn't reply as the train passed the switch and started the climb toward the low ridge to the west of town. Here was the edge of the frontier. He imagined it was a fair mimic of the frontier back home on Earth. The town had a rough-hewn look about it, smelling of unwashed bodies, fresh-cut pine lumber, horses, ship's tar, and cheap liquor. There was even a form of buffalo out in this part of the steppe, bigger, some of them almost elephant-size and covered with fur. They looked like elephants, with their long trunks, and Andrew wondered if they were native to this world or somehow had been imported from another planet, perhaps even from Earth thousands of years ago.

The thought was intriguing to him, though he would not have debated it too openly back at Bowdoin, since such a theory did fly in the face of accepted religious thought about the age of the planet. There were no records of such beasts. He supposed he could argue that they had simply failed to make the boat and thus were antediluvian.

Several of the flatcars on the train rumbling past were stacked high with cured hides for the new market in fashionable winter coats that was catching on in Rus. Some of the Asgard, led by one of his retired soldiers from the sniper detachment and armed with custom-made heavy-caliber Sharps rifles, were making quite a good living hunting the beasts, providing food for the army and a tidy return shipping the woolly hides back to Rus. It wasn't just the wool, hides, Asgar mead, and changes to the language that were moving on the rails, though. There was something else happening as well, something indefinable.

The historian in him had been musing on this of late. Perhaps it was the frontier that was the definer of a society. It was shaping the America he remembered even before the war. A sense of destiny, a sense of limitless possibilities, even a safety valve for those who couldn't quite fit in with conventional norms. It was interesting to him how many of his old soldiers, men who had been First Corps, the founding unit of the army, had attached themselves to the railroad and moved with it. Maybe they had seen too much, had lived on the edge too long, to go quietly home now. Out here they could be free. Maybe it was the frontier that would define the Republic rather than the notion so many had that the railroad was bringing the definition of what they were into new lands. Perhaps it was that which was triggering the sense of fear in Congress, that things would somehow change even more.

If Congress should put a permanent end to his dream of building a railroad completely around the world, they would retreat back upon themselves. As he walked along with Vincent, the thought crystallized and he realized that perhaps here was part of the answer to why he had decided to come out on an inspection tour. It was to escape from Suzdal, to see what it was they were really doing, and somehow touch it and let it flow into him, reminding him of all that once was. And with it came the chilling thought as well that if they should stop and turn inward again sooner or later the Hordes would win.

As they approached the dockyard Andrew slowed in front of a shed where a new ship was just beginning to take form. Stacks of cured oak were piled outside the building, along with strips of one-inch iron plate. All of it had been shipped from Suzdal, marked and numbered. The crew here had only to assemble it according to the plans.

"Sir, here's our new beauty," Bullfinch announced, and he pointed down toward the water.

At first impression Andrew thought it an ugly monstrosity. His image of ships had been formed in Maine. Bowdoin College was in Brunswick, a major shipbuilding town, and nearby was Bath, famed for its clipper ships. A ship should have masts raked back at a provocative angle, canvas as white as snow to capture the wind. He tried to muster a smile of approval as Bullfinch led him down to the dock.

The crew was lined up along the starboard side, standing on the narrow open deck between the railing and the armored blockhouse. At their approach pipes trilled and the ship's company snapped to attention. Remembering naval ritual, Andrew stepped aboard and turned to first salute the colors, then the officer on deck.

He knew he was expected to give a speech, and so he ran through his short inspiration one, citing the proud record of the navy, then expressing confidence that the men of this ship would carry on the tradition. The hands were dismissed and Andrew surveyed the scene curiously.

"She's an interesting design, sir," Bullfinch stated, taking him forward to stand at the bow so he could have a clear view aft. "She's a twin paddle-wheel design, those twin humps aft, each of them twenty-five feet high, are the armored housing for the wheels."

"I thought screw propellers were better," Emil interjected.

"For deepwater operations I agree, but the Great Sea's an interesting body of water. It's barely been charted. We don't even know yet if you can continue sailing southward on into the Inland sea, down past the Cartha narrows, and somehow eventually swing east and north."

Andrew could sense that Bullfinch was leading up to one of his pet proposals. A ship had already been sent out to explore that possibility and it never returned. There had been no appropriations for another.

"Stick to the question of this ship, Mr. Bullfinch," he said quietly.

"Ah-hmm, of course, sir. As I was going to say, the east coast has a lot of shoals, and approaches to some of the rivers are all but impassable. This ship was designed like some of the ships used during the Civil War. Capable of some deepwater work when necessary, but excellent for poking up rivers, hugging the coast—in general, getting in close. She only draws six feet, is basically flat-bottomed, with three small keels running fore and aft and a rudder that can be raised if we get in too shallow."

Bullfinch, now in his element, started to rattle off the design details. "She's just under a thousand tons, and the armored blockhouse here"—as he spoke he led them back toward the squat black structure that ran nearly the length of the ship—"has two inches of iron backed with two feet of oak. Should keep out anything we've run up against so far."

He led them through an open hatchway into the blockhouse. Pat admiringly approached one of the guns. "These are real beauties!" he exclaimed. "I always did envy you sailors for the metal you can carry."

"Four guns per broadside port, and starboard all of them six-inch smoothbores, but the real treat's up forward."

Andrew followed his lead, ducking low in the confined space of the gun deck.

"Our first hundred-pound rifled Parrott gun," Bullfinch exclaimed proudly, slapping the massive breech. "We can hit at four miles with this."

Pat stood behind the gun, sighting down the barrel through the open gun port, grinning with delight.

Bullfinch finally convinced Pat to leave the gun and led them aft. They climbed a narrow ladder and stepped into the armored bridge. Andrew squatted down to look through the narrow slits.

"Normally we'll sail her topside on the open bridge and use this only if we're in action. Since we don't draw that much for a full lower deck, the engine room's directly behind us, most of it above the waterline. Actually that's where we put the most armor, an inner layer of iron and oak, with coal bunkers around the engine as well. Crew's quarters, additional coal and ammunition are all down below, but normally the men will string hammocks right on the gun deck."

Andrew could see the pride in Bullfinch's face. It was not normally an admiral's job to go on the shakedown cruise for a new ship, but for a navy that had only half a dozen active ironclads with the so-called First Fleet on the Inland Sea, the launching of the first true fighting ship on this sea was an event he could not very well miss.

"Once we get Franklin back there in the boat shed launched next month, we'll have a deepwater ship on this ocean as well, sir. Having only half a dozen sloops to patrol everything out there was stretching it way too thin."

"I know, Bullfinch. Remember, I'm on your side."

"Sorry, sir. It's just that I'd love to see that idea that Jack Petracci and I have been kicking around, to build a ship that could handle the docking and resupply of airships. It would really give us the range to explore and keep a check on those heathens out there."

"Maybe next year's appropriations."

Bullfinch nodded sadly.

"Would you care to join my crew and me for tea, sir?"

Andrew registered Vincent's impatient agitation at the mention of staying for tea.

"Later," Andrew said with a smile. "I think General Hawthorne here wants to get his official part of this visit over with first. Perhaps this evening we'll bring the Nippon liaison officer on board for a tour."

"I'd be delighted, sir."

Following Bullfinch's lead, they went back down to the gun deck and from there to the outer deck, where Andrew had to endure yet another round of trilling pipes and exchanges of salutes before stepping back onto the dock.

"Them navy fellas must have to blow them blasted pipes and salute everything in sight before they're even allowed to dump a chamber pot," Pat growled.

With Vincent guiding them, the group climbed the hill away from the navy yard and headed back through the town. Cresting a low rise, Andrew could see spread out before him half a dozen warehouses of rough framed lumber, buildings more than a hundred yards long and forty feet high. A row of workshops was arrayed halfway down the slope, and coming out of the one closest to the road Andrew saw Chuck Ferguson.

Ferguson started up the hill to meet them, grinning, and came to attention, snapping off a salute.

"Ferguson, how's those lungs of yours?" Emil snapped, stepping in front of Andrew. Without waiting for a reply, the old doctor put his head against Ferguson's chest to listen.

"Fine, sir, fine."

"Be quiet. Now breathe deeply."

Ferguson did as ordered and then coughed slightly.

"Uncle Drew!"

Andrew smiled as a boy of three, dressed in a Union-blue jacket and sky-blue trousers trimmed with the white piping of the air corps, burst out of a cabin and raced up to his side, standing with mock seriousness, right hand at his brow, until Andrew returned his salute.

"He's still coughing, doctor."

The child's mother, Varinia, came out the cabin door, an infant in her arms. Andrew tipped his cap, and she smiled a reply but then hurried to Emil's side.

"He still goes into that damnable workshop, even when they're making gas for the airships," she told the doctor, with a worried glance at her husband.

As Andrew watched the young couple he felt warm inside at the love that bound the two. Varinia was the daughter of Marcus's bodyservant, a man who had risen to serve on the Senate. She had been one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen … until the explosion at the powder mill seared her face, arms, and legs. Her very survival was a testament to Emil's skill and to his own wife's ability as a doctor as well. Kathleen had hovered over the girl for weeks and had come away convinced that it was Chuck's love for her that gave her the will to live in spite of her disfigurement. "I know the beauty within," Chuck had said, "and that's all I'll ever see."

Nursing her back to health had created a close bond, and Kathleen and Andrew had stood as their witnesses when the two were married, and now they stood as godparents for their two children as well.

Andrew watched Emil anxiously as he continued to listen and then frowned. Finally Emil straightened up. "Son, I'm making this plain to you. I told you before I thought you had consumption, and I'm telling you now that you do."

Ferguson nodded calmly. "I knew that all along, sir."

"Well, now. You can live to a ripe old age if you take good care of yourself and follow my orders exactly. We'll talk more about it later."

"Sir, a few things I'd like you to see," Chuck said, ignoring Emil.

"All right, but you're too valuable to be out here in the middle of nowhere," Andrew replied. "You're heading back to Rus with me tomorrow."

Chuck looked as if he wanted to protest, but a sidelong glance to Varinia, who was smiling at Andrew's orders, stilled him.

"This way, sir."

Andrew and his companions followed Chuck down the hill and into the shops. Ferguson had insisted on working out at the new airship station, but Andrew could see from Emil's worried expression that it was time to end that.

Ferguson led them into a room that was brightly lit by a row of kerosene lamps hanging from the ceiling. Half a dozen draftsmen labored at long tables.

"We're working on some new airship designs," Ferguson announced, pointing to a drawing.

"This one here will be twin-engined, giving us an estimated speed of twenty-five miles an hour at cruise and forty in a pinch. It's designed for quicker maneuvering, sort of a fighting ship to hunt down other ships. We'd also have a fallback if there's an engine failure. I'm planning this with a three-man crew—a pilot, an engineer who would act as a rear gunner, and a gunner on top."

"How far along are you?" Andrew asked, leaning over the table to study the drawings.

Ferguson smiled. "Nearly done, out in hangar five right now."

"Let's go see it."

"But there's something else first," Chuck added. He reached into a drawer in his table, pulled out a roll of paper, and pinned it to the board.

"This is the real beauty."

The reality of it didn't hit until Andrew saw the scale line at the bottom of the drawing. "Good heavens, Chuck! You're talking about an airship over four hundred feet long."

Chuck grinned. "It'll be powered by four engines mounted two fore and two aft. Now that we've got a good supply of hydrogen we can completely eliminate the hot-air bag. That'll give us even more lift. It'll have a pilot, an engineer, and three gunners."

"But whatever for?" Andrew asked.

"Range and lift, sir. Our old ships had a radius of operation of less than two hundred miles. I expect the two-engine machine can do four hundred. I'm looking at eight hundred miles with this, maybe twelve hundred when the new engines are perfected. We could fly it clear from here to Rus and carry close to a ton of either passengers or munitions at forty miles an hour."

"Trains do it better," Pat sniffed, "and a damn sight safer."

"Trains don't go south or east yet," Ferguson replied. "Sir, even with the older engines we could fly this damn near all the way down into Bantag country. If it was stripped down to just a pilot, an engineer, and one gunner and all the rest of the weight was fuel, I guarantee you it'd get there and back. We'd have photographs sitting on your desk of what they were doing in their camp less than forty-eight hours after they were taken. It could solve once and for all the question of whether they were heading east and leaving us alone or stopped and preparing to turn north. And another thing, sir. We can't send a boat up any of them rivers without maybe triggering a fight. If we fly this thing and keep it at ten thousand feet, hell, sir, there's nothing they can do. No shots are exchanged and those worrywarts back in Congress won't have a fit."

Ferguson leaned forward.

"Sir, it'll end the questioning once and for all about what's going on down there. With luck, maybe we'll find nothing and that will end it. That will mean their patrols are just trying to make sure we stay at a distance. Hell, it might even mean they're afraid we're coming after them. But if we do find something, it will end this deadlock with Congress and we can be ready for whatever comes."

"You're talking one hell of a distance, Chuck."

Ferguson nodded toward the back of the room, where Jack Petracci, chief pilot of the air corps, stood expectantly.

"Colonel Petracci, get over here!" Pat shouted, and Jack came over with a grin.

Pat slapped him hard on the back. "I keep betting you're dead," Pat laughed, "and losing my money."

Andrew shook Jack's hand and then motioned toward the drawing. "What do you think?"

"I'd be scared to death to fly it," Jack said quietly, "but then again I've always been afraid of flying."

Andrew grinned, but he could see the truth in Jack's eyes. By an odd set of circumstances, Jack, having once worked for a circus that had a balloon, had wound up being the planet's first pilot, handling an observation balloon. From there the balloon evolved into airships. Though he admitted to his fear, there was no denying that when need be Jack consistently tempted the fates and came out ahead.

"The four engines suit me just fine. I like the backup, especially when flying downwind. That'd be the problem with going for a look at the Bantag. Heaven knows what the weather and winds would be like. We could get down there and never get back if the weather was against us. Always been a problem on this world. Prevailing winds come from the west. It's the return trip that makes you worry, since you're bucking the wind all the way."

"What about the range?"

"Nearly sixteen hundred miles round trip. That'd be nearly two days in the air. There's that rough air station started down on the defensive line. If we could at least get some fuel stockpiled down there, along with a hydrogen gas generator, I'd feel a bit more secure. That would cut the run down to less than four hundred miles southeasterly across the sea before fetching up on that river we're curious about."

"Hauling all that equipment down there without the railroad would be devilish," Pat interjected.

"You're forgetting the Petersburg, Bullfinch's new boat," Jack replied. "It's going down that way anyhow."

"Well, that point is moot right now," Andrew replied. "Though maybe it would a good idea to have that equipment there for our light airships."

He saw an exchange of significant glances between Jack and Chuck, which set off a bit of an alarm bell for him.

"How much?" Andrew asked.

"Sir?"

"How much will this cost?"

"Well, sir, it's like this."

"Remember Chuck, it's not the old days, when we just built what we damn well pleased. The Cartha control the silk trade to the south and the bamboo you've been using for framing."

"I'm trying out some ideas using canvas painted with this mixture we've been getting out of the oil we're refining. As for the bamboo, there's something like it growing up in the north woods. It's like nothing we've got back on Earth. Cut it into thin strips, soak it and bend it to shape, then laminate it several layers thick, and you've got something dam near as strong as steel but as light as bamboo."

He hesitated.

"Problem is, not many have been trained how to work it yet."

"The cost, Mr. Ferguson."

"Fifty thousand."

Andrew exhaled noisily.

"Laddie, you can build locomotives for five thousand Rus dollars each," Pat reminded him, shaking his head. "Last year's budget for the entire air corps was damn near sixty thousand. And half your ships were lost or crashed and turned into junk."

"Not to mention twelve pilots and crew dead," Emil interjected.

"We need it, sir. If it gives us early warning, we'll have months to get ready, instead of only weeks or days, as it now stands."

Andrew nodded, saying nothing, and walked out of the room, heading into the adjacent workshop. The room was humming with activity. Leather belts attached between the lathes and drive shaft whirred, metal and wood shavings were deep around the machines. The workers paused to see the distinguished visitor. Andrew, feeling almost like a politician, worked his way through the room, shaking hands, looking into the eyes of old veterans who gazed at him proudly as they named the regiments they had served with. Again there was the mix of Rus and Roum workers here, something Andrew was proud of.

Ferguson came to his side. "This is the new machine shop for the airships. Right now we're turning out a new set of engines for all the ships, based on the improved design tested last month."

"And I take it this was in the budget?"

Ferguson smiled and nodded his head. "It's all fair and square, sir."

"But you do have a couple of things up your sleeve, Chuck. I know you better than that. If old John Mina was still alive, he'd have ferreted it out by now."

Chuck lowered his head and started to cough, covering his mouth with a handkerchief that Andrew noticed had a few flecks of blood on it.

"You're worse off then you're letting on."

"A lot of work to get done, sir. There's something brewing out there, and I want us to have the edge."

"You think we don't?"

"You've heard the rumors, sir. Even the name of this new Qar Qarth."

"The Redeemer," Andrew said. "I've heard them all. Remember, Chuck, I do have access to intelligence reports, something you're not supposed to have."

"Well, sir, it adds up that there'll be trouble sooner or later. I want to push things."

"While there's still time, is that it?"

Chuck nodded and coughed again. Andrew realized that Ferguson had not understood the context of what he had just said.

"While there's still time for you," Andrew said quietly.

The thought frightened Andrew. Almost every major invention or reinvention on this world had come from Chuck—the railroad, telegraphs, standardized mass production, ironclads, airships, and even photography. If he should die now, the world could go dark.

He looked carefully at Ferguson.

"You're going home with us. You need some rest, and there's that teaching position at the new college."

Chuck laughed. "Me? A professor? Hell, sir, I never finished my degree back home."

"Well, we've got to start somewhere and you're it. Someone's got to train the younger ones around here to think the way you do. So amongst the other powers I have, I'm going to call you Doctor of Engineering and you can settle on being a professor."

"Before I'm gone, is that it?"

"I didn't say that, son, but you are going home."

Chuck looked at him imploringly. "Just a couple of things first."

"All right. Let's see them."

Chuck led him to a room adjacent to the machine shop. Andrew stopped at the sight of the artillery piece pointed toward the door. He looked at the gun carriage, which came only up to his knees, and bent over to examine it.

"It's quarter scale, sir"—Chuck hesitated—"so I'd save on cost."

"Breechloading artillery?" Andrew asked.

"Yes, sir. When the idea hit me, it was so damn simple. It's an interrupted screw breech. Turn the handle a quarter turn, it unlocks, shove a shell in, turn it back a quarter turn and it's sealed."

"What about the problem of gas escape?"

"The shell does it, sir," and Chuck went over to a wooden case, opened it up, and lifted out a brass cartridge.

"It's like the cartridge for a Spencer rifle, only bigger. The rim of the cartridge is locked in between the breech and the barrel, making it airtight. It's simple, it works, and it can fire up to ten rounds a minute with a trained crew."

Andrew took the shell and hefted it.

"Brilliant. Ten rounds a minute, you say?"

"Absolutely, sir. And range, sir. We can get a tighter fit between shell and barrel than with a muzzle loader. There's a lot more pressure as a result, but I think we've licked the problem we had with brittle steel by injecting oxygen straight into the crucible to burn off the impurities, then adding a trace of nickel. I think a full-scale gun would shoot three to four miles. I've been fooling around with some improved fuses as well, and for close range a new type of canister round. Actually it's a tin packed with hundreds of nails mounted in resin."

"There's a problem, though," Andrew replied.

"Yes, sir. Brass. I already thought about that. A battery of six guns could fire off a couple of thousand rounds in an hour. They'd burn their barrels out, but they could pump out the firepower of a full battalion of Parrott guns. If we had had fifty of these at Hispania the Merki would never have gotten across the river."

"And we would have needed a stockpile of a hundred thousand shells."

Vincent nodded. "That's what I was hoping for."

Pat came into the room and whistled softly when he saw the gun. Going to the breech, he tried out the screw mechanism and smiled sadly at Vincent. "I guess me old beauties are destined for the scrap heap."

"Not yet," Andrew replied. "We're talking more brass here than exists in all of Rus and Roum together. The supply of zinc for brass just isn't there."

"Another reason to push for Nippon. The survey team I sent out there said their territory has a lot of metals we need," Vincent interjected.

Andrew smiled at his engineer. "Subtle, Mr. Ferguson. I'll keep the argument in mind. All right, what else?"

Vincent walked him through the shed, and Andrew marveled at the destructive ingenuity Chuck displayed. It was as if the boy was obsessively compelled to think up as many engines of destruction as possible. He knew Chuck's motive: fear of his own mortality and rage, locked deep within, over the agony that the Merki had inflicted upon his once lovely wife.

Andrew examined the improvements on the rockets that had been so crucial in breaking the final Merki attack and shook his head sympathetically as Chuck reviewed his problems with perfecting a steam-powered Gatling.

"And this thing here—it's got me beat for the moment."

Andrew picked up the model and looked at the cylinder curiously. "What the hell is it?"

"Well, sir, I remember reading in Scientific American how Ericsson's monitor was based on a design he once submitted to Napoleon III during the Crimean War. The original design had a built-in infernal machine."

Pat looked at him in confusion. "You mean like the Rebs made? Barrels packed with powder and a percussion fuse?"

"Not exactly. Those kind of infernal machines, or torpedoes, were anchored in place and if a ship hit one it blew up. This idea is different. Ericsson was trying to make one that moved. The weapon was launched out of an underwater tube attached to the bow of your own ship. It would then move at your target, hit it below the waterline, and sink it."

"Devilish," Pat muttered.

"Precisely. I can't remember exactly, but I think the Ericsson design had a vulcanized hose attached to the torpedo. The hose would unwind from a reel as the torpedo moved forward. Jets of air would go from the ship through the hose and blow out the back of the torpedo to power it and steer it. It struck me that if we could put a cylinder of pressurized air inside the torpedo and figure out a way to steer it automatically, the thing could travel on its own, maybe half a mile or more."

"Cost?" Andrew asked.

"We could go to Bullfinch, maybe take something from the Navy Department's budget."

"Cost?"

"Very fine tolerances on this one, sir, a lot of research to be done and testing at sea. I figure thirty or forty thousand at least for development, testing, and fitting our ships out with it."

Andrew shook his head.

"We've got full control of the Inland Sea with our monitors right now. The Cartha ships are falling into disrepair and there's no threat from that quarter. And the cost of building the new naval station on the Great Sea and launching the first monitors here is eating up the rest of the budget. Shelve it for now."

Chuck shook his head in disappointment.

"For the artillery, I'll see if we can shake some money loose at least to get one battery and a couple of thousand rounds of ammunition."

"I'd like to adapt the guns for airship use. A one-and-a-half-inch bore firing a two-pound shell. It'd give our gunner a hell of an advantage in range, sir, and up there range is everything."

"All right on that. Now, anything else?"

"Oh, just the things you already know about, sir. Improvements on the Sharps carbine, a far better design for the trapdoor breech-loading conversion I was thinking about for our Springfield rifles, some other things I was fooling around with concerning railroad engine designs for trapping the steam exhaust and reusing it, and a couple of by-product ideas for the oil we're throwing away after we refine out the kerosene."

"No surprises?"

He stared straight at Ferguson and saw his eyes flicker.

"Well, sir."

"Mr. Ferguson, there's been a couple of rumors floating around. There's no sense in hiding whatever it is you're up to."

"Well, there is one," Chuck finally said, and he led the way out of the workshop onto the landing field for the airships. Chuck walked down the row of hangars and Andrew paused at each of them to look inside. One was empty, the hangar for the airship that had disappeared the week before. As they approached the last hangar in the row, Andrew slowed down when he saw a crew at the far end of the building working on a roof over a recently added extension.

Chuck stopped by the open doors to the building and waited nervously as Andrew approached. The massive doors were wide open and Andrew looked up in awe when he entered the building. The wickerwork frame of a new airship towered above him and stretched the length of the building. Dozens of workers were scurrying over the basketlike framework, and the air was heavy with a pungent scent that made him feel light-headed.

"Damn it, Chuck," Andrew whispered, "you're building the big one, aren't you?"

"Well, sir, we had appropriations for replacements for the ships we lost last year. I just thought I'd sort of throw them all together."

"This is that four-engine design I looked at."

"Yes, sir, it is."

Andrew glared at Ferguson. "You know the spot this puts me in, don't you? Congress will have my hide over this."

"Well, sir, Congress is sort of a thousand miles away at the moment. We could say that we just tried hooking the ships together."

"We had appropriations for eleven airships in our fleet. Now we'll only have six and someone will want to know why."

"Sir. You can see they're starting to hang the skin on it now. It's that new canvas treatment I was telling you about. The smell is from a lacquer we cooked up to make it airtight and help to shrink the fabric onto the frame. It's a whole new design."

"I told you once before," Andrew snapped angrily, "that you're a loose cannon, Mr. Ferguson."

Chuck started to cough again, and Andrew waited patiently for him to recover.

"Sir, you can fire me at any time. I was right during the last war, and frankly, sir, I've got a gut feeling that we're heading into another one. This ship can give us the answer. It'll be ready to fly in a month. I think, sir, that in about four weeks, the day after this ship flies on its first mission, the issue of budgets simply won't matter."

Andrew turned toward Pat, who was grinning.

"No comment from you," Andrew snarled and stalked into the hangar.

Looking up at the airship, he silently cursed Ferguson for being so damned unexpendable and also so damnably right. Politically, he knew this ship would be the last straw for some, another argument that the military was out of control and Andrew was at fault. When the trainload of congressional delegates arrived later today to meet with the Nippon representatives, there was no way in hell that he could hide this thing. That was one of the reasons he had come out early, to see if Chuck had come up with follies that could somehow be concealed until after the elections. This—this was an elephant they couldn't drag out and bury someplace.

But if they stopped work on it, then what? It would just sit in the hangar and rot.

Frustrated, Andrew toned back to Ferguson. "Finish the damn thing. But Mr. Ferguson, as of today, right now, you are fired as chief of ordnance."

Chuck's face fell, and Andrew looked at him coldly until he suddenly doubled over with another spasm of coughing.

Andrew put his hand on Chuck's shoulder. "Come on, son, you're going home with me. I need you elsewhere now."

He saw Emil, Vincent, and Varinia approaching. Varinia broke away and ran up to Chuck's side. Though his face was pale, he forced a smile for her.

"Guess we're going home," he said, and she looked at Emil, who put his arm around Chuck's shoulder and led him away.

As the group left, Andrew turned on Vincent. "You knew he was building this, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"I should can you, too."

"I could say it was outside my department, sir. The air corps answers directly back to headquarters in Rus, sir." Pat shifted uncomfortably, and Andrew fixed him with an unwavering gaze.

"Are all of you in a conspiracy against me? Is that it?"

"Well, sir. We know you're going to run for president next year."

Andrew was so nonplussed he was unable to reply.

"Oh, Kathleen never said anything. Neither has Kal, though I daresay you've told him as well. It's just—we knew you were going to do it. Everyone in the old Thirty-fifth and Forty-fourth has figured on it for some time now."

Andrew turned away and stared back at the ship.

"So we figured we'd just keep it to ourselves, bury it in the books, as they say. If it came up, along with a couple of other things, the blame wouldn't come back on you."

Andrew knew that Ferguson was right. They needed this ship. They needed improved ironclads, another ten corps of infantry, a corps of cavalry, upgrading of seventy-five thousand smoothbores for rifles and rifles to breechloaders. They needed all of that … and that was why he was going to run.

Andrew surveyed his two generals and friends.

"Thank you, but I'll take responsibility for this. After all, I'm in command."

"Ah, Colonel, darling," Pat beamed, "you'll make a dandy president—if the Republic is still here to vote for you come next year."