Upon the next landing, hal^ay down the tower, Donol met a soldier, human rather than Oplyte (Alysabeth, he had learned, aflfected a horror of the latter and would not have them "in the house"), perhaps no more than nineteen years old. Seeing Donol sooner than expected, he halted and snapped to attention.
"Sir!"
Donol had found time to rearrange his clothing, run fingers through his sandy, thinning hair, and fasten his tunic to the
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throat. Standing several steps higher, he gave the boy his most supercilious expression.
"Sir, I have been sent to . . . to . . ."
"To hurry me? Speaking as aristocrat to peasant, we shall spare you embarrassment and consider your message delivered. Has the fighting begun?"
"Nossir, that it ha'n't. Have no fear, sir, 'twere never in doubt." At that moment a scream followed the thrum of thrustibles. Further off, came an explosion. Donol returned the boy's eager smile with one more cynical.
"You are commended for your prescience. I want you to remain here, where you are, and permit no one to pass. Do you think you can do that?"
"Yes . . . sir." Disappointment clouded his features. Donol was appalled. The boy wanted to go and risk his life! Could one ever account for another's taste? Perhaps this was the difference between classes, a willingness to fight, as opposed to a willingness to send others. To Donol, the latter seemed far more rational. The boy could learn something from this reprieve. In any case, he would not be the first unhappy soldier in history.
"See you do; they also serve who only stand and guard." Without awaiting reply, Donol hurried downstairs, thinking about this willingness to fight, and about his brother. They had met again upon several occasions, in The Wasted Corsair and other lower-class haunts, arranging transfer of supplies pilfered, although Robret was unaware of it, with the Usurper's permission, planning action after lesser action which consumed more resources than they won for the rebellion, seeing to the reproduction and distribution of subversive thilles intended to arouse the populace—but edited by subtle, clever Alysabeth, so that, by accumulation, they produced an attitude of despairing apathy—outlining various contingencies, and finalizing their overall plans.
In one respect, he had no further reason to envy Robret. Each time they had met, the latter had asked after Lia, once other business had been settled, and entrusted the former with some message which impressed even Donol as impersonal and perfunctory, considering that the two were lovers interrupted upon the brink of marriage. Mocking himself for it, Donol had felt almost indignant upon her account,
although he had not hesitated to relay the cold communication at propitious moments, enjoying its disheartening eflfect.
Passing another window in his downward spiral, a deep shudder of gratitude—that he was up here watching instead of down there fighting—crept through Donol's body as the battle heated below. It had all been so sudden. The woodsrunners and Morven's legions were now engaged man-to-man, squads against individual Oplytes (the latter mosttimes victorious), puny humans attempting to defend themselves, without much effect, from skycraft whose walking beams crushed whatever in their path their thrusting failed to destroy. The plans he and Robret had made, over many weeks in many different taverns, were now betrayed. By evening, likeliest within the hour, Donol would become, as he had always intended, next to inherit the Drectorhood. Chuckling to himself, he resumed his twisting descent.
Robret had found it easiest to accept whatever his brother had seen fit to tell him of the well-being of the young woman who was, in fact, Donol's well-used property, occupied with no concern other than the chafing of her restraints, the confines of her kennel, the extent to which survival depended upon permitting her body to gratify his every demand, however intrusive or humiliating. So much for love stories and fairy tales. The sad reality appeared, even to Donol, that Lia was less important to Robret than Robret to her. In truth, the eldest of the brothers, in the estimate of the middle, had never seemed much motivated by any passion, let alone those attendant upon romance, sex, even the duties of Drector-Hereditary-in-Exile upon which he acted, but for which he demonstrated little visible enthusiasm.
Passing yet another window, Donol was distracted. Even this far from ground level, the screams of dying men, and of those killing them, were next to intolerable. More and more of the courtyard seemed covered with crimson splashes or the crude soot-stains of explosions. It was futile, Donol told himself, and stupid. Did no one recognize a fact of grim reality as he did? Could no one cut his losses, give in to the inevitable, instead of wasting what pittance he had left of his resources without hope of future recovery? As before upon the greenway, Robret*s attack upon the Holdings had proved.
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as ordained from the beginning, a Hanoverian ambush. Why could people never—
Balloonlike, the window before him bulged inward, glowing with unnatural light, crazed over its surface like pottery gone wrong in a kiln. In a comer of his mind, Donol realized this was adrenaline, his perceptions heightened by the threat of death. He threw himself aside, out of the way of a window in process of being destroyed, and the spell broke, time resumed its normal flow. A primitive rocket grenade crashed through, filling the passageway with the smoke and flames of its exhaust, and splashed against the wall, dashing itself to pieces. The hand-shaped explosive charge had failed to detonate. As he picked himself up off the floor, inspected himself for injuries, and shook broken glass from his clothing, Donol discovered that he was indignant. What could Robret have been thinking of? His own brother might have been killed!
Upon the other hand, what led him to believe Robret could think? Already he had another lover in whom he found whatever solace he required, a hardy woodsrunner girl. Donol never doubted she had made all the moves in the direction of his brother, who always had other matters occupying his feeble mind and seemed to have forgotten Lia altogether at some level, visceral or lower. He had even brought his haughty peasant wench, scarcely more than a teenager, to their last rendezvous. In her presence, Robret had appeared more animated and at the same time more relaxed. Fionaleigh Savage: appropriate for the manner in which she radiated musky energy for measures in every direction, as well as for the fiercely proprietary manner in which she clung to Robret's side, devouring him with her dark, fire-filled eyes. Donol had withheld it all from Lia until the moment he could savor it best. He doubted that any female would ever look at him with quite the same—
At last, and perhaps just as well, he reached the stairfoot, feeling he had fallen into the barrel of a huge kaleidothille, filled with chaos churning for its own sake. A few rebels had breached the Holdings—it was amazing any had managed— but were being mopped up. Personnel poured from Morven's office to combat a blaze started when one had hurled some volatile against the wall, dousing himself as well. Before be-
ing extinguished, flames had crawled to the ceiling, consuming an ancient hanging from Shandish and scorching an expanse of graniplastic, although greater heat would have been required to melt it. Having died screaming, the arsonist was now a pile of blackened, grinning leather smoldering upon the floor, filling the place with the reek of petroleum fractions and cooked meat. Waiting for a clear avenue between him and his goal, Donol observed it all with detachment, his thoughts elsewhere.
Robret's new girl-woman. What a waste! Young she was as their dead brother Arran. Not as amply proportioned as Lia, but with a compensating dynamism. Tight-bodied, smooth-skinned, moist-mouthed. Quivering with pent-up heat entirely lost upon its principal object. How anyone could be so obtuse as Robret, Donol was at a loss to understand. He would believe anything any self-serving knave told him, so long as it was less bother than the truth. It annoyed Donol, even when the self-serving knave was himself. It had never occurred to Robret that Donol might be anything but what he represented himself to be, or mi^t want anything but what he represented himself to want. Perhaps gullibility demanded less effort.
Do
nol crossed to the double doors. Inside, chaos was more bureaucratic than military. The suite was deserted. Maps, abandoned by those conscripted into firefighting, had been marked, erased, remarked as tactical actualities changed. Situation estimates elsewhere upon the moonringed planet were being updated, disposition made of the spoils as if already won. He peered at the largest map. Robret had put everything into this operation, as he and his future father-in-law had planned. The rest of Skye was quiescent. The majority of the rebels' hard-won equipment-—vehicles, weapons, supplies—had been brought against the Holdings only to be destroyed or taken.
An aide appeared, looking for Donol to inform him that Morven had taken to the safety of the dungeons at the first sign of invasion. Now a prisoner had been identified who merited special questioning, Donol to assist in the process. Pulse quickening, Donol left the office, thoughts racing ahead of their own accord. He was, he told himself, the victim of no such illusions as his brother suffered. At least such was to
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be believed provisionally, wished for with some fervency. He knew what he was, a male Fionaleigh, no less savage for all that she bore the appropriate name, no less avid for satiation, no less desirous of power in all forms it might assume. Toward fulfilling his desires he had labored, conferring with his brother against Morven, with Morven against Robret, making visits to the tower often as he could, where he could discharge the tensions a double life engendered, in an ambience where the power he wielded, over a single life, at least, was absolute.
In the first weeks of her captivity, he had supplemented his visits with excursions into town, in part from a necessity to learn things he might apply during his sessions in the tower. His experience with Lia had been dangerous, exhausting, and left something to be desired in the way of compliance upon her part and satisfaction upon his own. Also, he had ventured out to establish a pattern accounting for his absences when meeting with his brother. In the end, out of loathing for the tawdriness of professional women, dissatisfaction with a submission they counterfeited in exchange for money, and fastidious fears he had not realized he owned of exotic, incurable maladies—new artifacts and ideas being not the only things these days imported from beyond the Monopolity —he had begun making fewer such trips.
More stairs, into the foundations. He paused at the top, watching order being restored, surrenders accepted, with shouts for quarter and reversed arms everywhere as the rebels realized their situation. Prisoners would be sorted, some fed to the Oplytes, others sedated and lifted offplanet in consignment to the Ceo. This, he reflected, shaking his head, was the inevitable return upon intransigence; the coin in which, throughout history, little men always paid for breasting currents set in motion by larger men. Integrity and bravery were not the irreducible primaries these defeated idiots believed. They were scarce commodities, luxuries no wise individual aspired to unless he could afford them. Like money, they were not ends in themselves, but instruments to be accumulated—and expended—with greater gain in mind. Why had these fools set so impossible a figure upon their honor that anyone wishing to deal with them was priced
out of the market? What had they hoped to purchase with their courage? Freedom? What was that? Donoi knew these people. Had they driven Morven ofFplanet, they would have turned the next moment and enslaved each other, calling the process "self-government."
He had never owned any bravery to expend. With that share of integrity which is inherited by every being, he had purchased something less illusory, less ephemeral than freedom: power. He had traded oflf a quality men call character, as he had traded oflf excursions into town, telling himself he obtained all he wanted within the confines of the Holdings. Events here, revolving about his brother and prospective father-in-law, merited more concern. Alysabeth also demanded attention; her promises, ever couched in the most provocative terms were always interrupted short of fulfillment, causing someone else, within as few minutes afterward as possible, to suffer the more. Someday he would make property of the Usurper's daughter, add her to his collection, as it were, and work his will upon her as he did Lia.
He reached the bottom of the steps. Even here, in the dusty dampness of the foundations, the air rang with shouted excitement. Its general import seemed to be that the war, to any extent the word applied, was over. The back of the rebellion was broken. Donol wondered idly what that woodsrunner bitch would be like to tame and add to his—so far—imaginary collection, then shied from the thought, recalling the casual grace with which a thrustible had rested upon her arm. His first act as Drector would forbid women to carry weapons. Feeling better, he pushed aside a grated door to confront the prisoner being held there for questioning. "Hullo, Robret," he addressed his brother, "how have they been treating you, old man?"
Threadbare coverlet about her, Lia folded the bit of conductile she had used to unlock the tower door, relocking it behind her in precaution. It might delay anyone who suspected she was missing. Otherwise unclothed, and barefoot, she hurried down the stairs toward the occupied floors of the Holdings, too aware of what was happening in the courtyard. She was also aware of the stench of fear clinging to her,
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mingled with the sweat of physical conflict and worse—and that her hair stuck out in all directions—but nothing could be done about it now. Spots of milling, multicolored light upon an inner wall reflected greater events below. Morven's minions were retreating from attacking rebels, shielding behind a wall of Oplytes advancing across the flagstones at the shouted command of their oflftcers.
Lia ran a hand over her face, wishing for real clothing and a bath. She descended, each motion awakening bruises, scratches, strains, and other abuses which, until this moment, she had no choice but suffer. For too long survival had hung upon satisfying Donol's punitive appetites, hoping for opportunity to exact retribution. Now, tonight or tomorrow, unless his "helpless prisoner" prevented it, he would become next claimant to the Drectorhood. She had no time for the fury roiling within her, but paused upon a landing below only to glance out another window. Had she learned earlier of this meeting with an alien ambassador, she might have stopped it before it was planned. Donol's boasting had warned her of the event and the guerilla raid it was bait for. One look told her the rebellion was finished, all overt resistance to Morven crushed. Certain obligations remained to be discharged, one of them to determine whether these aliens in fact existed, along with their mysterious technology, and what use Morven hoped to make of it.
At the next landing, halfway down the tower, a young soldier jerked to attention as, lost in thought and—she realized too late—incautious, she halted, expecting the thrum of his thrustible to end her escape.
"Stand where you are!" His voice squeaked at the end of the sentence. Her smile was as sweet as she could manage, while, grateful he was not an Oplyte, she planned the next few seconds' action.
"Of course. Sergeant. Is it permissible to see the battle?"
He cleared his throat. "Trooper, ma'am, I got orders no one passes."
"Well," she smiled again, awaiting opportunity, "I would not wish you to disobey—" His attention distracted by an explosion and a scream, he let his eyes wander. This was all she required. Flipping the one weapon she had—a metal
brace from the bedframe which she had, with great effort, removed and sharpened over the past weeks—from where it lay concealed by her palm and wrist, she drove it with her whole body, straight at his cheek. The makeshift knife slipped into his flesh, skipping along his cheekbone into the eye socket. Lia released her grip and drove it home with the heel of her hand. The trooper crumpled at her feet. Pausing to strip his thrustible from him, she hurried downstairs, tightening the straps about her arm.
Her descent, now, was more circumspect. At the next stop upon what had begun to feel like an interminable journey, she discovered a window shattered by one of the chemenergics— "arpeegee," Robret had called it, in one of his cool, mechanical messages—he had reintroduced to good
effect into the art of thirty-first-century warfare. The hand-made contrivance was far from perfect. She found its unexploded cargo lying at the foot of the wall it had struck, amidst glass fragments and other debris, along with one of Donol's handkerchiefs with which it appeared he had wiped blood from some part of himself.
Pacing the limits of her cell, trying to evade a despair threatening to overwhelm her, Lia had told herself she did not blame her fiance for conveying no warmth in messages entrusted to a third party, even a brother he falsely believed reliable. Donol, not content to torture her physically, had leapt at the chance to comment upon the sterility of Robret's communication, wallowing in the effect it produced upon her already devastated morale. Despite taunts, she had always known she loved Robret rather better than he loved her. As his bride-to-be she had resigned herself, mindful of the many preoccupations of a conscientious heir, admiring his unruffliable, undemonstrative nature—contrasted with what she felt to be her own unpredictable swings in temperament —for, although he had never been much given to passion's heights, neither was he a victim of the inevitable, compensating depths.
Lia shook her head, tears in her eyes, ashamed she had permitted her mind to wander. It was not that she avoided the grim facts of reality. She had focused upon one at the expense of others with better claim upon her. Through the broken window she observed the courtyard, stained with the blood
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