by David Weber
King Rahnyld V had attained his majority under Dohlaran law in 902, but he was a levelheaded young man who’d been strongly shaped by witnessing his father’s failures during the Jihad … and by Thirsk’s tutelage after it. He’d also been both smart enough—and stubborn enough—to retain Thirsk as his first councilor, refusing to allow his ex-admiral regent to retire as he’d longed to do, and he and Thirsk had made a point of keeping the crown’s fingers as far out of the Dohlaran economy as possible. They’d shaped Dohlar’s tax policy to favor investment, abolished Rahnyld IV’s punitive import and export duties, and adopted Charisian patent and licensing law, all of which had turned the Kingdom of Dohlar into a natural magnet for Charisian investors and strongly encouraged domestic Dohlaran innovation. Delthak Enterprises was far from the only Charisian corporation partnering with native Dohlarans, and the results were impressive. Whereas Desnair had just purchased six more automotives from Delthak Automotives, Dohlar was now building its own … and had just sold three to the Temple Lands.
In fairness to Showail, Gahrnet was about to announce the start of production—limited production—at the first of four imperial automotive works being built by the Desnairian crown, although none of them would be as efficient as Delthak’s current manufactories. Desnarian automotives would all be effectively hand-built “one-offs” for quite some time, whereas Delthak Automotives had them in assembly-line production. Worse, the Desnarian manufactories were about to hit a painful bottleneck in steel production … unless they swallowed their pride and imported it from Charis. But there would still be four of them, and they’d soon be producing more automotives than Desnair’s slowly growing rail net could really use. That strongly suggested Gahrnet had his eye on the export market, and given what had happened to automotive production in South Harchong following Zhyou-Zhwo’s exile of all things Charisian, it was pretty clear which export market he had in mind.
No doubt all of the ills of a “planned economy” would present themselves in Desnair in due time, but that didn’t mean Mahrys wouldn’t be able to build an industrial sector of his own. It would be neither as robust nor—certainly—as rapidly expanding as Dohlar’s, but it would be there. And in all honesty, without Mahrys getting behind that and pushing, it might well not have been. It was entirely possible, even likely, that Desnair would have remained as industrially moribund as Delferahk and Sodar. There wasn’t much in Sodar to attract investment, even by Charisians, and Delferahk was … well, it was Delferahk, with a nobility stubbornly dedicated to protecting the status quo that favored them so heavily rather than embracing economic change. Which was precisely what somewhere around eighty or ninety percent of Desnairian “men of the blood” would have been doing without Mahrys and Gahrnet to kick their arses. Desnair had managed to produce at least a narrow middle class which might have been able to sustain a Desnairian industrial revolution, but that assumed the aristocracy wouldn’t have drowned the baby at birth. Which, given what industrialization would inevitably do to the traditional agriculture-based aristocratic society that had produced their status and their wealth, would have been only too probable, Merlin reflected.
“There are times I wish Henrai Maidyn had the kind of authority Mahrys has given Gahrnet,” he said out loud. “Although given the state of the Siddarmarkian economy, I don’t know if even that would let Henrai sort out the mess.”
“It’s getting better,” Delthak argued. His tone, Merlin noticed, was more hopeful than confident. “The central bank is officially up and running now and the credit situation is bound to get better.”
“Only after getting worse first,” Cayleb pointed out. “I’m surprised we didn’t hear the screams from the Siddar City banks and those frigging speculators out west right here in Tellesberg—without SNARCs!—when he announced the new regulations.”
“It is going to be ugly,” Delthak conceded, turning away from where Duchess of Delthak’s gray shape had disappeared into the darkening sky. He started down the steps of the viewing platform towards his waiting bicycle. “But the Republic’s a huge market, Cayleb. And before the Jihad, it was the most … business-friendly Mainland realm by a long chalk.”
“But a lot of that was because of the Charisian expatriates in the Charisian Quarter in Siddar and the other big eastern cities,” Sharleyan said, and her voice had gone as grim as her expression. “I don’t know if Henrai and Greyghor fully realize even now how much the Sword of Schueler’s massacres hurt them in that regard. It wiped out an unholy percentage of the Republic’s bankers, importers, and manufactory owners.”
“And the carrion-eaters who rushed to seize the opportunities that presented in places like Mantorath are among the worst offenders when it comes to overextending themselves,” Delthak agreed. He mounted his geared bicycle, and began pedaling his way home, and his expression couldn’t decide whether it was more disgusted or apprehensive. Or possibly just resigned. “When those notes start coming due and they can’t renew them on the same ridiculous terms thanks to Henrai’s new bank, they’re going to be at least as pissed as the land speculators.”
“And it’s going to have a more immediate effect on industrialization, too,” Merlin said glumly.
“Greyghor and Henrai both know that,” Nynian put in. “I think they’re hoping that if they can just get a tourniquet on the bleeding, Charis will swoop in and snap up as many ‘distressed bargains’ as possible. It won’t make the man-in-the-street love Charis when we start buying out ‘good Siddarmarkians’ just because they didn’t have the sense God gave a wyvern when it came to managing their business affairs, but it would buoy up their industrial sector … such as it is.”
“That’s exactly what they’re hoping,” Nimue agreed. “And if they really can stabilize things, convince the markets in Tellesberg they’ve actually turned the Republic into a safe place to invest, it’ll probably happen.”
“For that matter, Sharley and I have been thinking about dropping Greyghor a note about a possible Ahrmahk Plan for Siddarmark,” Cayleb said, nodding his head. “Proportionately, it would have to be on a smaller scale, given how much bigger the Republic is than the United Provinces. The same amount of loans simply wouldn’t cover as big a percentage of the need, but it would have to help. And loans to Siddarmarkians that could be paid back would be a lot less likely than outright Charisian ownership to rile those ‘good Siddarmarkians’ you’re talking about, Nynian.”
“That’s true,” Delthak said more cheerfully. “And even though Greyghor and Henrai both understand why we haven’t been able to do that already, getting quietly started on planning for it now would be a huge help when the time comes.”
“Exactly what we were thinking,” Sharleyan agreed. “The two of them have been having an awful time of it, but they’re both good men. I think we can count on them to keep the offer under wraps until the situation does settle down enough to make it practical.”
MAY YEAR OF GOD 906
.I.
Nimue’s Cave, The Mountains of Light, Episcopate of St. Ehrnesteen, The Temple Lands.
“Does this officially make me an uncle?” Nahrmahn Baytz asked, leaning back in a virtual chair and nursing an equally virtual glass of wine. “Now that I think about it, can somebody who’s dead be an uncle? Official or not, I mean.”
“As long as the job calls for somebody who’s annoying, you’re a natural,” Nimue Gahrvai replied without looking over her shoulder.
She and her husband stood in a sealed chamber at the heart of Nimue’s Cave. Koryn Gahrvai wore booties, scrubs, and a surgical mask, as well, even if none of them looked very much like the gear pre-space surgeons had worn back on Old Terra. Nimue didn’t need a mask, since she wasn’t planning on any breathing. For that matter, she didn’t really need the scrubs she, too, was wearing, since her entire chassis had been subjected to the kind of sterilization organic flesh didn’t take to well.
“I don’t think ‘annoying’ is the right word,” Nahrmahn said in affronted tones. “I t
hink of myself as … intellectually challenging.”
“Really? I think of you more as intellectually challenged,” Nimue shot back, still watching the readouts. The large, smooth-sided apparatus in front of her was about six feet long, four feet wide, and four feet tall, not counting its domed, obviously removable lid. There were no visible electrical feeds, no tubes or piping, no nutrient tubes anyone could see. There were only the vertical sides, the bronze color of so many of the Federation’s artifacts, rising from a polished stone floor, and the simple panel of readouts atop its lid.
They showed temperature information, heartbeat rhythms, and half a dozen other critical data components, but at this moment the most important one was the digital clock counting down at the center of the instrument cluster.
She didn’t really need to watch those readouts with her eyes, since she was tied directly into Owl as the AI oversaw events, but it was one of those psychologically comforting things someone who lived inside an artificial body craved from time to time. Especially at moments like this, she thought, reaching out to take her husband’s gloved hand in hers.
There were still times when that thought—her husband—took her totally by surprise. It was a possibility Nimue Alban had spent all of her twenty-seven years avoiding even thinking about. She remembered when she’d realized her parents’ marriage had collapsed in such bitterness because her mother had become pregnant with her against her father’s wishes. It wasn’t that her father hadn’t loved her—too much, she thought sometimes—after she was born; it was the fact that she’d been born at all into a world he’d known was doomed even before most of the rest of the human race had begun figuring it out. She’d loved her mother, too, but the very thought of repeating Elisabeth Ludvigsen Alban’s error had been the stuff of nightmares for her. She hadn’t realized—or possibly hadn’t allowed herself to realize—how much her refusal to even contemplate any kind of serious romantic interest had owed to those nightmares. Even when she’d been so desperately trying to convince Koryn he’d made a dreadful mistake, she hadn’t realized that. Nor had she grasped how right Nynian had been about the reason she’d turned her inability to conceive into an insurmountable barrier to marriage in her own mind.
Marriage, the ability to admit she loved a man, and the very thought of children were concepts from which she’d fled for her entire life, and her subconscious had turned them into mutually reinforcing arguments against doing the two things which had terrified her more than the thought of her inevitable death had ever terrified Nimue Alban.
I wonder if Merlin worked that all out, too? she thought now. Nynian already had Stefyny and Sebahstean before he got around to proposing to her, so was the possibility of creating a child even on his mental radar? And would it have stopped him for a moment if it had been? Once he realized how he felt about her? She shook her head mentally. Probably not. It’s funny, for two people who started out the same person, but in a lot of ways, he’s a lot braver than I am. At least where personal relationships are concerned. I wonder if that’s because by the time I came along, he’d already established most of those relationships and I didn’t have to. I sort of just … slotted into a lot of them, almost as an extension of him. Or as the “little sister” he calls me. And I guess that’s what I am. But Koryn wasn’t part of the inner circle when I was “born,” so I didn’t really have that kind of pre-engineered slot where he was concerned. And the sneaky bastard snuck up on me shamelessly!
She squeezed Koryn’s hand gently, and he looked down at her. That was something else that had taken getting used to, and not just with Koryn. Her husband was tall for a Safeholdian, but he was four inches shorter than Nimue Alban had been … and still seven inches taller than Nimue Gahrvai was. She’d had to grow accustomed to being surrounded by towering giants, and it had been harder than she’d expected.
And a lot harder than that airily overconfident “big brother” of mine assumed it would be!
She snorted at the thought, and Koryn quirked an eyebrow at her.
“Something amusing?” he asked. “Aside from Nahrmahn, of course,” he added, twitching his head in the direction of the corner occupied by Nahrmahn’s image. Or, rather, in the direction of the corner over which Owl had superimposed Nahrmahn’s normal hologram using Nimue’s broadband receiver and Koryn’s neural implants.
“I resemble that remark!” Nahrmahn’s voice called in the backs of their heads, and Nimue chuckled.
“Just thinking about what it took to get me here,” she said, and her smile smoothed into a more serious expression as she shook her head. “Not just here here,” she added, waving at the spotless chamber about them. “I mean ‘into existence’ here. I think the term ‘unlikely’ describes it pretty nicely, actually.”
“I’m a simple man raised in a theocratic society that predisposes its members to expect divine intervention,” Koryn replied, tucking an arm around her and pulling her in against his side as the digital timer counted down. “As such, I don’t have any problem with it.” He squeezed tighter. “I said it was a miracle, and that’s what it was. And in about—” he checked the timer “—twenty-eight seconds, we’ll have a couple of more miracles to keep you company. Not just in the world, either.” He pressed his cheek against the top of her head. “Have to build a couple of new rooms in my heart, too, I think.”
“I think it’s big enough already,” she said softly, hugging him back. “Mind you, I don’t mind if you give each of them their own room, too.”
“That’s the good thing about hearts,” he told her. “Expansion’s no problem. Sort of like someone else’s virtual reality, only better.”
Nahrmahn made a loud raspberry sound, and Nynian smiled.
“Can’t fool us, Nahrmahn!” she said loudly. “You’re as soft and gooey inside as an old-fashioned marshmallow, and we all know it.”
“Am not!” he protested in an affronted tone.
“Are, too!” she shot back.
“Am—”
“Forgive the intrusion,” Owl’s tenor voice interrupted, “but I believe the moment is at hand. Are you ready?”
Nimue cocked an eyebrow up at her husband, and chuckled again as his nostrils flared and he nodded.
“Judging by the male parenting unit’s somewhat glassy eyes, I would say we’re ready … but nervous,” she said wickedly.
“Tell me you’re not taking sadistic glee in a PICA’s ability to override physical cues whenever she wants to,” Koryn muttered, and she laughed. Then she looked up at the central video head at the center of the chamber’s high ceiling.
“Seriously, Owl, we’re ready,” she said.
“In that case, let us proceed,” the AI replied softly, as the timer ticked down to zero, and there was the quiet, sibilant sound of a breaking pressure seal as that domed lid rose smoothly upward in the invisible grasp of a tractor beam.
Nimue heard Koryn inhale deeply beside her, saw him square his shoulders, and then they stepped forward.
“Conditions are optimal,” Owl informed them. “Both babies are in excellent health. Would you prefer to begin with Lyzbyt Sahmantha or Daffyd Rysel?”
“I left that one up to Koryn,” Nimue said, smiling warmly up at Koryn.
“Ladies first, always,” Koryn replied, smiling back down at her, and another, internal lid swung up on its hinges to reveal a thick, fibrous-looking mat.
“Very well,” Owl said, and Nimue realized she’d just drawn one of those deep breaths she no longer truly needed, as well.
She picked up a scalpel from the tray of sterile instruments at her elbow. She looked down at it for a moment, turning it in her slender, strong, sterilized fingers. Then she handed it to Koryn.
“Are you sure, sweetheart?” he asked taking it in his right hand.
“I’m sure,” she replied, blinking synthetic eyes which persisted in tearing, and he looked down at her for a moment. Then he touched her cheek gently with his free hand before that same hand caught her right wrist.
He stepped closer to the open lid, still holding her wrist in his left hand. Then he set her hand on his own right wrist.
“Not doing this alone, love,” he told her. “Not any of it. So, what say we start out the way we’re going to proceed—together?”
“That—” She cleared her throat. “That works for me.”
“Good.”
Koryn reached out, her hand going with his, and the scalpel blade, sharp as Nimue’s own katana, touched that fibrous surface. He drew it slowly, slowly down the line Owl projected, cutting the mat cleanly, exposing the amniotic fluid beneath. The placenta curled down from the underside of the mat to the amniotic sac drifting in that fluid, and his breath caught as he beheld his infant, unborn daughter with his own eyes for the first time.
There’d been video from inside, and audio as he listened along with the slowly maturing babies to the sound of a human heartbeat, of human lungs breathing. Their mother couldn’t produce those sounds for them, but there were hours of her voice reading to them, talking to them, singing lullabies. His eyes had softened as he listened to her, heard the welcome and the longing, all the greater because she’d never allowed herself to admit how much she’d yearned for this moment. He’d asked her to marry him knowing it could never come to her, and it hadn’t mattered to him at all. Nor would he have loved her one bit less if it hadn’t. He would have been content, and he knew it. But now they had this magical moment, as well, and despite the truth he knew now, a passage from the Book of Bédard flowed through his mind. “The two shall be as one, and they will conceive and bear children together, yet the creation of a child is but a beginning. The creation of a life is their true task, and their solemn joy, and their greatest gift. Remember that always, both of you, for that child’s nurture is in your hands. Be certain that you do not fail of your charge.”