CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The HC -4 9701 System, 4333 C.E.

"I must say, Admiral Marshak, you're displaying admirable composure under the circumstances," said Vice Admiral Maura Brady-Schiavona, indicating the holo tank and the force estimates on the board beyond it.

Corin permitted himself an infuriatingly calm look.

He was now a vice admiral himself. And his date of rank was slightly earlier than Maura's. So despite her arrival he was still in command of this front. It hadn't always been so.

He'd been promoted to rear admiral shortly after the Sol system had been secured year before last, and given command of a task force that included the Deathstriders. Nobody used the term "Permanent Task Group for Special Operations" anymore except in official dispatches. And Roderick had supported him when he'd bidden tradition be damned and put Garth formally in command of the outfit. Corin would have liked to have stayed under Roderick's personal command. But his task force had been assigned to Admiral Otto Huang—not getting any younger, but a trusted friend of the Emperor—who was to consolidate the Serpens/Bootes region. At the same time, Roderick had gone back to his familiar grounds in Aquila and Capricorn—the "old rebel sectors" as people still called them, as though there'd never been a rebellion anywhere else—to organize an offensive against Toshiro Parnell-Cutlass, who had declared himself Emperor in the Mu Arae Sector and its environs.

Huang had advanced methodically through the swirling chaos that Liang's collapse had left behind, assuring himself of each system before pushing on to the next. His caution hadn't saved him personally—a fanatic of some stripe or other had blasted his command aircar out of the skies of Lambda Serpenti III with a shoulder-launched missile—but it had left a solid foundation of pacified systems on which further advances could be built. And Corin, who'd fumed and fretted about the slowness of the old man's approach, had emulated it after succeeding him in command. Frustrating as it was, it was really the only way. This wasn't a war against a large multi-systemic state, a body with a vulnerable head that might be lopped by a lightning stroke at its capital system. It was more like draining a swamp.

But now, at last, they'd bumped up against something solid.

Corin's eyes strayed to the strategic holo display. The irregular spheroid of the Empire glowed with the bronze-gold of the Brady-Schiavona restoration throughout four-fifths of its volume. To the upper left, as he was viewing it, a three-dimensional cross-hatching of red marked the Ursa Major region's unextinguished resistance. At the back of the lower half, barely visible to Corin through the intervening bronze-gold translucency, was the arrogantly jarring purple of Parnell-Cutlass' gimcrack "Empire." At least it shouldn't be there long. Maura had brought word that Roderick's carefully planned offensive was rolling irresistibly toward Mu Arae. But Corin focused on the lower left, his own current location, where the far reaches of the Serpens/Bootes region bulged the spheroid outward. There, clinging like some parasitic organism to the skin of the now serenely bronze-gold region, was the green blotch of Alvina Coelho's rebel regime.

Coelho, like various other adventurers, had carved out a fiefdom on the fringes of Liang's domain. But she'd gone further than most, out here among systems inhabited largely by imperfectly assimilated ex-Beyonders. And Intelligence had learned that she was negotiating with actual Beyonders, offering them a foothold in Imperial space in exchange for aid. So extinguishing her was an urgent matter . . . but not an easy one. Out here on this windy limb of the Empire, where Beyonder raids had always been a threat, she'd fallen heir to more than her share of Fleet units. At the same time, most of Corin's forces had by now been detached for garrison duties throughout the large volume of space he'd reconquered. Quite simply, he was overextended.

In response to his urgent request, the Emperor had sent reinforcements under the command of Roderick's younger sister, whose three sunbursts were still shiny with newness. And Corin, who'd been bumped to vice admiral just after Huang's death—a necessary precondition to putting him in the old man's billet—could now savor the unaccustomed sensation of being senior to a Brady-Schiavona.

She followed his eyes, and misinterpreted his thoughts as paralleling her own. "Yes, it is unsettling to have Ursa Major still in revolt, isn't it? Especially considering—" She stopped herself with awkward abruptness. Corin might have saved Roderick's life, but she didn't really know him.

But he knew what it was she couldn't say. Another news item she'd brought had been her brother Teodor's acquisition of his own third sunburst and appointment to command the forces attempting—so far with incomplete success—to suppress the Ursa Major insurgency. Many had thought it a blunder . . . but only to themselves, for lately Ivar had been less and less inclined to tolerate criticism of his firstborn. Maura's own feelings couldn't have been much clearer; she reminded Corin of Janille in her inability or disinclination to use her face as a mask.

"I believe," he prompted, "you mentioned some disturbing rumors that have been coming out of Ursa Major recently." That recently was as close as he could come to since your brother assumed command there. 

"Yes," she admitted, in a tone that did not invite further exploration of the subject. "But as I was saying, Admiral Marshak, you seem remarkably confident—one might almost say unjustifiably so—regarding our tactical situation."

She gestured at the tactical holo tank, currently set for a more than system-wide display. At the center floated a star-dot surrounded by a series of concentric rings—the HC -4 9701 system, where Coelho was headquartered. On the outskirts, their fleet—reduced to a single green icon at this scale—proceeded cautiously inward. Coelho wasn't rising to the bait; she was staying insystem, making them seek her out within the supporting envelopes of planetary and orbital-station weaponry. In those circumstances, even Maura's reinforcement gave them little if any edge—certainly nothing like the three-to-one superiority that military theory had from time immemorial held to be necessary to guarantee an attack's success.

"I know my people's capabilities," Corin explained with the same air of sublime unconcern. "And everything I've seen of your command inspires confidence. Why should I be worried?"

Maura still looked dubious. But, she reflected, this man's record at least raised a rebuttable presumption that he knew what he was doing. "Well, Admiral, I suppose I should be getting back to my flagship. I'll see you after we've occupied this system . . . of course."

"Of course," Corin agreed.

The fleets of red and green icons had slid together in the holo tank, the battleships exchanging the missile salvos the lesser ships had to mutely endure until they drew into beam-weapons range. Then they had commenced the unique warfare waged by ships under drive, pouring out inconceivable energies amplified to even more inconceivable levels by time acceleration, all in an eerie, bloodless silence.

Actually, it wasn't silent at all to the occupants of a ship which one of those gigawatt lasers speared, rending metal with the violence of energy exchange. And no one who had seen a human body that had been on the outskirts of such a spearing would ever again call it bloodless.

Maura braced herself in her command chair as her flagship Redoubtable shuddered slightly from a glancing hit which would have vaporized any wet-navy battleship that had ever sailed the seas of pre-spaceflight Earth. So far, so good. Coelho had offered battle in the outer system and Corin had accepted, despite the rebels' obvious intent to draw him into close range of the armed moons of the sixth planet. They were giving better than they were getting. Corin was justified in his confidence in his forces, veterans of the last two years' hard campaigning. And, Maura saw with satisfaction, her own people were holding up their end. But before much longer they'd enter Planet VI's Chen Limit—extensive like those of all gas giants—and have to disengage their drives. At that point, she expected to be swarmed by fighters, and the equation would abruptly alter.

She wondered if she should raise Corin. . . . But no, she didn't have a legitimate reason to joggle his elbow. He'd given his instructions, and matters were proceeding as per those instructions. And, she reminded herself, I have no more right to second-guess him in mid-battle than any other subordinate. God help me if Father ever catches me thinking I do! 

There were those who thought it dynastic lunacy for Ivar to risk all three of his children—none of whom had yet produced offspring of their own—in combat commands. But his instinct had been correct when he'd committed his blood to the drive for reunification. It was the ultimate affirmation that he had assumed the Dragon Throne out of a sense of duty, not a lust for power, and that the Imperium as he was restoring it carried responsibility, not privilege. The younger Brady-Schiavonas must not only serve in the Restoration War, as people were starting to call it, but do so without any special privileges beyond those appropriate to their ranks.

Even Ted seems to grasp that, she thought. Not that he's seen much combat so far. And the issue doesn't arise for Rod, who's in overall command. But as for me, I'm about to go into that planet's Chen Limit pursuant to a plan I don't agree with, on the orders of a man whose background isn't exactly above question. . . . 

Her thoughts trailed off, forgotten, as she watched the red icons in the tank veering raggedly off, their formation dissolving as they backed out of range.

Before she could question the evidence of her eyes, the comm officer spoke excitedly. "Admiral, it's the flagship. Admiral Marshak has received a surrender signal. He's ordered a general cease-fire."

"Transmit that to all ships. And . . ." To hell with it! "And get me Admiral Marshak."

It took only an instant before Corin's face appeared on the comm screen. Maura didn't waste time with preliminaries. "Sir, what's happening? Why did they—?"

"Have you looked at your strategic display lately, Admiral?" Maura hadn't. "Our computer here should have finished downloading the update to yours by now."

Maura turned to the hologram of the Empire. Even as she watched, the purple zone around Mu Arae faded and then vanished, as though it had dissipated tracelessly into the bronze-gold. As understanding dawned, she swung back to the tactical display and ordered it to go to system scale. The green icons of newly arrived friendlies were popping into existence at the outer perimeter. She had a pretty good idea where they'd come from.

Corin cleared his throat. "I suppose I owe you an explanation, Admiral."

"You might say that, sir," she agreed, with as much frostiness as a subordinate could permit herself.

"At our last mail drop before arriving at this system, I communicated with your brother and learned that Parnell-Cutlass had just surrendered. There was still some scattered resistance to overcome in the Mu Arae sector, but he was confident that he'd soon be able to lead his main force here. We arranged our timing so that he would arrive when my attack had Coelho pinned down. As soon as Coelho—no fanatic, just a pragmatic brigand—detected the new arrivals and understood the hopelessness of her situation, she instantly surrendered."

"You might have told me . . . sir."

"I thought the news might lead to overconfidence if it became general knowledge. Coelho is no fool; if we'd gone into battle acting as though we knew the outcome was foreordained, she might have smelled something and refused battle. And the plan depended on our being engaged with her at the right time. So I kept it to myself. My reticence reflected no distrust of you—but I apologize nevertheless."

Maura's annoyance began to ebb a little. "Still, you took an awful chance. What if he hadn't been able to keep to his schedule?" The hazardousness of battle plans requiring precise coordination of widely separated elements had been a military truism even on pre-spaceflight Earth, before anyone could have imagined a separation this wide.

"Not really. Our plan provided for emergency disengagement and withdrawal." This, Maura knew, was true. "And besides . . ." Corin's sudden awkwardness puzzled her. It was as though he was unsure of the boundaries of the appropriate. "Besides, it was Rod's . . . your brother's word I was relying on. So I knew he'd be here when he said he would."

Maura felt the last of her irritation seep out. "I'd gathered before coming here that you've developed a special relationship with Rod. That much was clear from the messages I'd gotten from him since you saved his life at Sol. But now I know just how special it is, Admiral."

"Please call me `Corin.'" Briskly: "And now, I need to get into a virtual hookup with you and the other flag officers, including Brigadier General Krona, and initiate our plan for occupation of this system. And, of course, I'll see you in person when we land."

"Of course . . . Corin. Signing off."

As she was donning her VR connections, Maura glanced again at the strategic display. The news of Coelho's surrender must have just percolated down the cybernetic grapevine, for the green at the bottom left was fading out. Except for the irritating red rash in the Ursa Major region, the entire holographic spheroid glowed a uniform bronze-gold.

Dear God, she thought with a reverence foreign to her. (Like all her family, she was a nominal Reformed Orthodox Cosmotheist.) It's nearly over! 

Corin knew something was wrong the moment he saw Garth's face.

Selangore, the system's third planet, had been Coelho's capital. The Deathstriders had gone in first, taking possession of the planet and its orbital facilities—including and especially the tachyon beam array. Now all was secured, and the VIPs could start transposing down. Corin appeared on the vast expanse of a spacefield whose distant perimeter was lined with lush tropical vegetation. The heat enveloped Corin in an oppressive embrace even though his dress uniform's memory fabric had adjusted its weave pattern for warm weather. It added an extra dimension to the inevitable disorientation. He came out of it with practiced ease, and saw Garth and Janille standing in front of the ranked Marines.

"Come on," he said to Maura, who'd appeared on the tarmac just after him. "I want you to meet someone." He led her over to the honor guard, where he began a greeting . . . and stopped.

"Garth, what's the matter?"

The big ex-mercenary shook his head. "It'll have to wait until Rod arrives." His reticence was as uncharacteristic as his closed face. That face was shiny with sweat which, Corin couldn't help thinking, wasn't entirely due to the saunalike climate. "What's this about him not transposing down?"

"Why . . . that's right," Corin affirmed, willing to go along with Garth's change of subject. "He's decided to take a shuttle down instead. By the way, this is his sister, Vice Admiral Maura Brady-Schiavona."

"Admiral," Garth greeted with a salute. Even though Maura had three sunbursts to his one, the formality wasn't like him. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to see to the honor guard." And he was gone.

"I can't get anything out of him either," muttered Janille, who had already met Maura. "He's been like this ever since he came back from the tachyon beam array—he took personal charge of securing it, while I was down here. But beyond that, I haven't a clue."

"Well," said Maura, "we shouldn't have to wait much longer to find out. Rod is due down any time—"

"Now," Corin finished for her, pointing up into the nearly cloudless sky, where a descending shuttle caught the light of HC -4 9701.

He thought he knew why Roderick had chosen this way of landing on Selangore. The young admiral knew, as all of them knew, that this was a historic moment. And he wanted a more traditional and impressive sort of arrival than the transposer afforded. It was typical of him—the sure and certain sense of rightness. Corin was thinking about it as the shuttle settled down on its landing jacks with a moan of impellers. And when its hatch opened, he saw the man who emerged as though for the first time.

Roderick Brady-Schiavona was now thirty-seven standard years old—only a few years past the age when anagathics could have started to make a difference. His medium-tall body was still well knit, his movements were still springy, and his hair was still thick and chestnut—although if you looked closely you could see a few gray threads at the temples. And the wrinkles that his frequent grins sent radiating from the outer corners of his blue-gray eyes were deeper, and didn't smooth themselves out quite so readily afterwards as they once had. Corin, now forty-five, had first gotten access to anagathics with his initial attainment of flag rank seven years before. Afterwards, the provisional government at Epsilon Eridani had budgeted the treatments for key people. Now he was physiologically only two or three years older than Roderick, and the two of them looked roughly the same age. A time would come when he would be able to pass as Roderick's nephew. Not for the first time, he wondered how Roderick could endure the shadow that hung over him—the knowledge of what must come.

There was no shadow in evidence as Roderick stepped from the shuttle into the dazzling sun. Commands rang out, and the honor guard came to attention with a crispness that not even Selangore's tropics could wilt. Aline Tatsumo followed him down the ramp. Corin advanced to meet them, with Maura, Garth and Janille behind him. The two groups met and halted. Corin saluted gravely and spoke the sentence he'd waited so long to deliver.

"Sir, I have the honor to report the Serpens/Bootes region pacified."

Roderick returned his salute with equal gravity. "Thank you, Admiral Marshak. I will so inform His Imperial Majesty." The formality lasted all of two seconds more. Then Roderick's face formed the grin that seemed to outshine suns, and he stepped forward and grasped the hand of the man he hadn't seen in over a year. Then he embraced Maura tightly, and they were all talking at once in a knot of handshaking, backslapping wonder, still coming to terms with the completion of the great task their lives had been built around for so long.

Only Garth held aloof.

Roderick noticed it almost at once. "What is it, Garth?"

"Sir," the Marine said stiffly, "I need to report to you in private."

"Well, let's all get in the command aircar. That'll be private enough. And we're not in such a hurry that we need to transpose to the city."

The aircar's cabin was somewhat cramped for the six of them, but at least it was blessedly air-conditioned. As the spacefield and the surrounding bright-green landscape fell away beneath them, Roderick sank back in his seat with a sigh of relief. "All right, Garth, out with it."

Garth's eyes flickered over the others' faces, resting longest on Maura's. "Sir, I feel . . . constrained by the presence of others. Especially that of Vice Admiral Brady-Schiavona."

"Nonsense! There's nothing you can say to me that can't be said in the presence of everyone here—including my sister!" The snap of command left Roderick's voice and he grinned again. "Besides, Garth, this day can't be spoiled. Do you—all of you—realize what's happened? We've practically finished the reunification of the Empire. Except for what's left of the resistance movement in the Ursa Major region—"

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, sir," Garth broke in. "That resistance is over. The message arrived while I was in the process of securing this system's tachyon beam array."

In the echoing silence, Roderick's voice seemed unnaturally loud. "But . . . but that means the reunification is complete! Why did you think you needed to be worried about telling me this?" The young admiral seemed to gather himself in, and he gazed narrowly at the big Marine, who still hadn't relaxed in the slightest. "But you did think so. And you evidently clamped a lid on the news. Why?"

Garth wore the look of a man advancing into a minefield. "Sir, the message makes it apparent that your . . . that Vice Admiral Teodor Brady-Schiavona ordered the destruction of the planet Rhea, one of the major holdout worlds. It was completely disrupted by antimatter warheads. It's uninhabited now—uninhabitable, in fact. He promised the same treatment for any other world that continued to resist. When the rest of the rebels heard, they surrendered."

Corin wondered if his own face wore the same expression as everyone else's, as they all looked at Roderick, waiting patiently for him to say something.

When he spoke, his voice was very, very controlled. "Thank you, General. You acted correctly in suppressing this news. And now, I need to consider the official position I'll take when it's made public."

He spent the rest of the flight sitting silently and expressionlessly in an invisible shell which not even Maura felt inclined to break.

The endless round of receptions for the local dignitaries in the old Imperial sector governor's residence in the capital city of Muramar finally began to wear on Corin.

"Have you seen him lately?" Janille asked him just before he stepped outside.

"No." There was no need to ask whom she meant. Roderick had performed with his usual charm, but it had been just that: a performance.

He stepped out onto a wide-curving balcony and stood breathing in the fresh—though still not cool—air, and considered the view.

These far reaches of the Serpens/Bootes region were old Beyonder territory, never fully assimilated. Many of Selangore's people still showed the distinctive ethnic type—stocky, brown-skinned, high-cheekboned, but with prominent curved noses jutting disharmonically out of flat faces—that adaption to local conditions by a blend of Old Earth elements had produced before the conquerors in the dragon-emblazoned ships had arrived. The cosmopolitan Imperial population had increased over the centuries, though, and by now it predominated in the major cities like Muramar. But even those cities still showed the influence of architectural precepts not readily appreciated or even grasped by those from the Empire's distant heart. The nighttime cityscape, even more than the unfamiliar star-patterns, reminded Corin that he stood at the very end of the Imperial reach. As he looked out over the exotic skyline toward the ocean, where the light of one small moon—another was behind clouds—flickered on the dark waters, he'd seldom felt so alone.

Then the second, larger moon appeared, and he saw he wasn't alone after all.

He started to go quietly back inside without disturbing the figure leaning on the railing a few yards away. But he also stood revealed in the flood of moonlight, and the figure stood up. A distinctive grin flashed in the shadowy face, but only momentarily.

"I see you needed to get away too," Roderick remarked.

"Uh, yes, sir," Corin said, inarticulate with the unique mix of emotions he always felt around this man, to whom he bore a relationship that was just as unique.

"To hell with that `sir.' Call me Rod. As far as I'm concerned, you're practically part of the family."

Corin didn't trust himself to respond. He sought refuge in small talk. "It was getting awfully stuffy in there."

"True. But I imagine that wasn't your real reason for needing to come out here, any more than it was mine."

"Sir—uh, Rod, I don't know what you mean."

"Oh, yes you do." Roderick stared fixedly out toward the distant moonlit ocean, and talked as though through physical pain. "We'd thought planetary genocide was something tucked safely away in history books about the Unification Wars. Oh, sure, aliens like the Zyungen, and Beyonder barbarians—but not us! Atlas was the last time we'd done it . . . and you had to make allowances for the rebels who'd endured the Draconis Empire. And afterwards they established the Solarian Empire to assure that it would never happen again. That's why the Empire, under one name or other, has always been restored in the end. It's why we've been restoring it."

"Rod," Corin spoke in a pleading tone, "you know I can't—"

"Can't what? Speak freely? Why not? Because we're talking about my brother?" Roderick gave a horrid parody of a laugh. "Believe me, you can't say anything about him I haven't thought. In fact, you can't say a fraction of what I could, because I know him and you don't. For one thing, I happen to know he's a coward. We've both seen enough of war to know how vicious a coward can be, given the upper hand."

Corin didn't want to be hearing this, but he sensed Roderick's need for a receptacle into which to pour it. So he kept silent while the other man resumed, in a tone that shaded over into puzzlement. "Yes, I've always known he was capable of petty viciousness. But it was petty! This is . . . grandiose. I have no illusions about him, but I still have trouble believing this."

"Rod," Corin said softly into the silence, "I'm just guessing. But . . . remember when your father pardoned Chewning and Liang?"

"Yes. What about it?" It had been a kind of acid test for Ivar's policy of sparing surrendered enemies and giving them posts. Liang had been an even harder case than Chewning.

"I've heard that it was largely on Teodor's urging that he agreed to include Liang. The story goes that your brother offered to be responsible for him. And that subsequently they were both assigned to positions directly under him. I don't know for certain that they went with him to Ursa Major. But if they did . . ."

Both moons went behind the clouds, and Roderick's expression was unreadable. "You think he may have come under their influence?"

"I don't know. But you yourself say that what he's done seems out of character. And Chewning, in particular, is nothing if not a master manipulator."

Roderick turned and leaned on the railing again, and stared out into the night. He spoke in a monotone. "We never expected enthusiastic support from the populations of the Ursa Major frontier. We knew we'd inherit some of the disaffection Oleg left behind. But now it's going to go beyond mere surliness. Our dynasty is going to face outright, irreconcilable hostility there—a poisonous hatred that will be like an ulcer in the body of the Empire." He fell silent, leaving Corin feeling inadequate. Then he sighed deeply and straightened up. "All right. It's too late to do anything about that. But we can't allow anything like it to happen again. It has to be prevented—whatever the cost."

"What do you mean?" Corin asked. He was fairly sure he knew the answer, at least in general terms. He just wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"We'll all be returning to Sigma Draconis before long," Roderick answered obliquely. "We need to be prepared to act as the situation there warrants. By `we' I'm including Maura. Also Garth and Janille. And Aline Tatsumo. I think that's as far as we'd better let it go, for now." All at once he was his usual brisk self. "Let's go back inside and wrap this reception up as quickly as possible. Then the six of us need to meet. Have some coffee sent for. Lots of it."

He turned on his heel and walked back inside. Only it wasn't really so much a walk as a march, Corin realized. As though he was striding unflinchingly across a line only he could see.