239

Christopher Stasheff

“Yes, sir. There is a woman twenty meters from this station.”

Magnus froze. A woman? Who … ?

Somehow, he thought he knew.

Magnus stepped out of the hatch; it remained slightly ajar behind him, as he had told it to—not that he really thought he would need a quick escape route, but he was growing very cautious. He stepped forward, hands on hips, feet wide apart, and looked about him, upward, breathing deeply of the fra-grances of the forest, like a man enjoying a beautiful morning—and it wasn’t terribly hard to pretend just that, though it was mid-afternoon.

She stepped forward from a screen of brush, lis-some and lithe, as beautiful in a medieval gown and bodice as she had been in tights and jacket. But her face wasn’t anywhere nearly as attractive when it was set in such stony anger.

Magnus glanced her way, then bowed his head gravely. “Good afternoon, Lieutenant.”

“Don’t give me ‘good afternoon,’ recruit!” Allouene advanced on him, eyes blazing. “Do you realize just what a churned-up mess you’ve made of things?”

“Not really,” Magnus answered, slowly and deliberately. “The castle fell, as you intended it to.”

“Yes, but we had to get an agent in to suggest strategy, after you shot out those first three cannon! You know you weren’t supposed to use modern sighting equipment!”

Magnus just stared. “You told the lords to sur-240

round the castle with energy projectors and fire all at once?”

“Not me—Oswald,” she said impatiently. “And he had the devil of a time getting into the camp and dreaming up a pretext to mention the notion, I can tell you!”

“So SCENT is responsible for the deaths of all those serfs.”

Allouene shrugged impatiently. “It would have happened eventually anyway—and as soon as we saw you were bound and determined not to let events take their course, we had to stop you, fast!

How the hell did you blow up all those energy projectors, anyway?”

“A man who tries to use nuclear power as a weapon is a fool,” Magnus said evenly. “So you couldn’t take the chance that Aran might have been able to hold out.”

“He couldn’t possibly have lasted! It was just a matter of time before the other lords would squash him! The most he could hope for was martyrdom, so his example might inspire other men!”

“Or scare them off,” Magnus said evenly. “Besides, there was his granddaughter. Would you have left her an orphan? Or were you planning on her being martyred, too?”

“Don’t get smart with me, recruit! No matter how much you think of yourself, you’re just a bare begin-neri You can’t possibly know anything about social change, beyond what I’ve taught you!”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” Magnus retorted, “but 241

true or not, I still know something of loyalty, and morality.”

“The ends justify the means, Gar! You know that!”

“The ends do not always justify the means,” he contradicted. “You must have a sense of proportion, a sense of balance.”

“It’s doctrine!”

“Doctrine by its nature is fallible. When it becomes inflexible, it opens itself to mistakes. You can’t live your life by principles alone; you have to have compassion, too. If you don’t, the best principles in the world can be corrupted into inhumanity.

It’s people who matter, not causes.”

“If you honestly believe that, you can go someplace else to try to put it into practice!” Allouene snapped. “This is our planet, and we’ll push it toward democracy as we see fit! And so will you!

You took an oath, and you’re under military discipline!”

“The oath I took was for the good of the people of the planets that SCENT would work on,” Magnus said evenly, “and the miliitary can only apply discipline through a court-martial.”

“We’ll convene one.”

“You’ll have to start without me, then.”

Allouene reddened, about to make another retort, but caught herself at the last instant. She took a deep breath, and forced a smile. “Look, Gar. The situation isn’t totally fouled up yet. We can still salvage something. Leave the old lord to his own devices. His peers will catch him and try him, and he’ll still be a/p>

martyr. Not as effective as dying in battle, but still good enough.”

“And the child Heloise will still be alone in the world. And I will be have lost my honor, and have to live with the knowledge that I abandoned a man to whom I had sworn loyalty. No.”

“Loyalty! Honor! You talk like somebody out of the Middle Ages!” Allouene snapped. “What have you done, gone native?”

“Let us say that I can understand the frame of reference,” Magnus said, poker-faced.

“Then remember this—you swore loyalty to us first!” Allouene blazed. “You have no right to louse up our plans this way!”

“And you have no right to interfere with these people and their society. If you’re going to do it at all, you should do it ethically.”

“There are rio ethics when it comes to trying to change a society!”

“There are,” Magnus said. “You might start with trying to shorten the sufferings of the oppressed.”

“We can’t free them right away without starting a civil war! Even if they won and the lords were muzzled, the gentlemen and serfs don’t know enough to establish a viable democracy! They don’t even have the concept of human rights yet! Anything they build will fall apart! You’ll have anarchy! Warlords fighting it out! Everybody will suffer!”

“But you can save the ones who are in the worst trouble in the meantime,” Magnus retorted. “I won’t try to upset your plans, Lieutenant Allouene—but I won’t abandon this old lord, either.”