Marching Through Georgia

by S. M. Stirling

  And that too was power, Karl von Shrakenberg thought, looking around at his fellow-commanders. Strange that I never minded being helpless with her.

  He flexed his hands on the smooth wood. He must be getting old, if the past seemed more real than the present. Time to retire, perhaps; he was just sixty, old for active service in the Domination's forces, even at headquarters.

  "Well." Karl was almost startled to hear the Chief of Staff speak in a normal voice, overriding the quiet buzz and click of equipment and sough of ventilators. He nodded at the map. "Seems to be going as well as can be expected."

  The German fronts were receding, marked by lines like the tide-wrack of an ocean in retreat from the shore. And Eric behind to stop an armed tide with his flesh, Karl thought. I wish there were gods that I could pray for you, my son. But there is only what we have in ourselves; no father in the sky to pick you up and heal your hurts. I knew, Eric, I knew that someday you would have nothing but yourself; we ask the impossible of ourselves and must demand it of our children. Harshness was necessary, sometimes, but… Live, my son. Conquer and live.

  The Dominarch turned to his aide. "Appraisal."

  That woman frowned meditatively. "Second Leipon can't hold until we break through. Their bridgehead is contiguous but shrinking from both ends…" A pause. "Basic reason things're goin' so well with First Legion over on the Ossetian Highway is the situation on the north. Century A of 2nd Cohort is savin' it; they're guardin' the back door."

  Erikssen nodded. "Accurate, chiliarch. That's your boy, Karl, isn't it?" The elder von Shrakenberg nodded. "Damned good job."

  Karl felt a sudden, unfamiliar sensation: a filling of the throat, a hot pressure behind the eyelids. Tears, he realized with wonder, even as training forced relaxation on the muscles of neck and throat, covered the swallow with a cough. And remembered Eric as a child, struggling with grim competence through tasks he detested, before he escaped back to those damned books and dreams…

  "Thank you, sir," he muttered. Tears. Why tears?

  The Chief of the General Staff looked down at the map again. "Damned good," he murmured. "Better to get both passes, but we have to have one or the other, or this option is off. There's always an attack out of Bulgaria, or an amphibious landing in the Crimea, or even a straight push west around the top of the Caspian, but none of them are anything like as favorable…"

  The strategoi nodded in unconscious agreement. It would not be enough to push the Germans back into Europe; to win the war within acceptable parameters of time and losses they had to bring the bulk of the Nazi armies to battle on the frontiers, close to the Draka bases and far from their sources of supply in Central Europe. The sensible thing for the Germans to do would be to withdraw west of the Pirpet marshes, but Hitler might not let them. The Draka strategoi had a lively professional respect for their opposite numbers, and a professional's contempt for the sort of gifted amateur who led the Nazis.

  "And not just good, unconventional," the Dominarch said. "Daring… where's that report?" He reached around, and one of the aides handed him the file. "Your boy didn't just freeze and wait for the sledgehammer, which too many do in a defensive position. Interesting use of indigenous assets, too—those Circassians and Russki partisans. That shows a creative mind." A narrow-eyed smile. "That American has Centurion von Shrakenberg travellin' all around Robin Hood's barn for tricks…" A hand waved. "Lights, please." The shutters sank with a low hum, and they blinked in the glare of noon.

  "With respect, Dominarch…" Silence fell, as the beginnings of movement rippled out. An officer of the Security Directorate had spoken; the sleeve of his dark-green uniform bore the cobra badge of the Intervention Squads, the anti-guerilla specialists who worked most closely with the military. "Ah've read the report as well. Unsound use of indigenous assets, in our… mah opinion. Partisans, scum; savin' effort now at the price of more later. The internal enemy is always the one to be feared, eh?"

  Karl leaned his weight on one elbow, looking almost imperceptibly down the beaked von Shrakenberg nose. An overseers sense of priorities, he thought. Aloud:

  "Most will die. This American seems anxious to remove the survivors; if that is inadvisable, we can liquidate them at leisure."

  "Strategos von Shrakenberg, mah Directorate's function is to ensure the security of the State, which cannot be done simply by killing men. We have to kill hope, which is considerably moah difficult. Particularly when sentimental tolerance fo' rebel-dog Yankee—"

  The Dominarch broke in sharply. "That is enough, gentlemen!" Institutional rivalry between the two organizations which bore arms for the State was an old story; there was a social element, as well. The old landholder families of scholar-gentry produced more than their share of the upper officer corps, mostly because their tradition inclined them to seek such careers. While Security favored the new bureaucratic elites that industrialization had produced…

  "Von Shrakenberg, kindly remember that we are all here to further the destiny of the Race. We are not a numerous people, and nobody loves us; we are all Draka—all brothers, all sisters. Including our comrades from the Security Directorate; we all have our areas of specialization."

  Karl nodded stiffly.

  The Dominarch turned to the liaison officer from the secret police. "And Strategos Beauregard, will you kindly remember that conquest is a necessary precondition for pacification. Consider that we began as a band of refugees with nothing but a rifle each and the holes in our shoes; less than two centuries, and we own a quarter of the human race and the habitable globe. Because we never wavered in our aim; because we were flexible; because we were patient. As for the Yankee—" he paused for a grim smile "—as long as they serve our purposes, well let his reports through. Right now we need the Americans; let this Dreiser's adventure stories keep them enthralled. Their turn will come, or their children's will; then you can move to the source of the infection. Work and satisfaction enough for us all, then… along with the rape and pillage!"

  There was an obligatory chuckle at the Chief of Staffs witticism. Erikssen's eyes flicked to Karl's for a moment of silent understanding. And if those reports make your son something of a hero in the Domination as well, no harm there either, eh, old friend?

  The Dominarch glanced at his watch. "And now, gentlemen, ladies: just to convince ourselves that we're not really as useful as udders on a bull, shall we proceed to the meeting on the Far Eastern situation? Ten minutes, please."

  * * * *

  The corridor gave on to an arcaded passageway, five meters broad, a floor of glossy brown tile clacked beneath boots, under arches of pale granite. Along the inner wall were plinths bearing war trophies: spears, muskets, lances, Spandau machine-guns. The other openings overlooked a terraced slope that fell away to a creek lined with silverleaf trees. Karl von Shrakenberg stood for a long moment and leaned his weight on his cane. Taking in a deep breath that was heady with flowers and wet cypress, releasing it, he could feel the tension of mind relaxing as he stretched himself to see. Satori, the condition of just-being. For a moment he accepted what his eyes gave him, without selection or attention, simply seeing without letting his consciousness speak to itself. The moment ended.

  The eye that does not seek to see itself, the sword that does not seek to cut itself, he quoted to himself. And then: What jackdaws we are. The Draka would destroy Japan some day, he supposed; they saw nothing odd in taking what was useful from the thoughts of her Zen warrior-mystics. The Scandinavian side of our ancestry coming out, he thought. A smorgasbord of philosophies. Although consistency was a debatable virtue; look what that ice-bitch Naldorssen had done by brooding on Nietzche, perched in that crazy aerie in the High Atlas.

  Stop evading, he told himself, turning to the Intelligence officer.

  "Well, Sannie?"

  Cohortarch Sannie van Reenan held up a narrow sheaf of papers. "A friend of a friend, straight from the developer… They did the usual search-and-sweep around the last known position, and they found
the plane, or what was left of it." She paused to moisten her lips. "It came in even, in a meadow: landed, skidded, and burned." The scored eagle face of the strategos did not alter, but his fingers clutched on the mahogany ferrule of his cane. "Odd thing, Karl… there was a Fritz vehicle about twenty meters from the wreckage, a kubelwagon, and it was burned, too. At about the same time, as far as it's possible to tell. Very odd; so they're sticking to Missing in Action, not Missing and Presumed Dead."

  He laughed, a light bitter sound. "Which is perhaps better for her, and no relief to me at all. How selfish we humans can be in our loves." It was not discreditable, strictly speaking, for him to inquire about his daughter's fate; it would be, if he made too much of it when his duties to the Race were supposedly filling all time and attention.

  The sun was bright, this late-fall morning, and the air cool without chill; sheltered, and lower than the plateau to the south, Archona rarely saw frost before May, and snow only once or twice in a generation. The terraces were brilliant with late flowers, roses and hibiscus in soft carpets of reddish gold, white and bright scarlet. Stairways zigzagged down to the lawns along the river bank, lined with cypress trees like candles of dark green fire. Water glittered and flashed from the creek as it tumbled over polished brown stone; the long narrow leaves of the trees flickered brighter still, the dove-grey of the upper side alternating with the almost metallic silver sheen of the under.

  "Johanna…" he began softly. "Johanna always loved gardens. I remember… it was '25; she was about three. We were on holiday in Virconium, for the races, we went to Adelaird's, on the Bluff, for lunch. They've got an enclosed garden there, orchids. Johanna got away from her nurse, we found her there walking down a row going: pilly flower… pilly flower, snapping them off and pushing them into her hair and dress and…" He shrugged, nodding toward the terraces.

  "Gardens, horses, poetry, airplanes… she was better than I at enjoying things; she told me once it was because I thought about what I thought about them too much. Forty years I've tried for satori, and she just fell into it."

  Your're a complicated man by nature, Pa, she had said, that last parting when she left for her squadron. You tangle up the simplest things, like Eric, which is why you two always fight; issues be damned. I'm not one who feels driven to rebel against the nature of what is, so we're different enough to get along. She had seemed so cool and adult, a stranger. Then she had seized him in a sudden fierce hug, right there in the transit station; he had blinked in embarrassment before returning the embrace with one awkward arm. I love you, Daddy, whispered into his ear. Then a salute; he had returned it.

  "I love you too, daughter." That as she was turning; a quick surprised wheel back and a delighted grin.

  "I may be an old fool, Johanna, but not so old I can't learn by my mistakes when a snip of a girl points them out to me." He touched a knuckle to her chin. "You'll do your duty, girl, I know." He frowned for unfamiliar words. "Sometimes I think… remember that you have a duty to live, too. Because we need you; the earth might grow weary of the Race and cast us off, if we didn't have the odd one like you."

  She had walked up the boarding ramp in a crowd of her comrades, smiling.

  And if she had wisdom, surely she inherited it from her mother. He mused, returning to the present. Eric… did I show my daughters more love because my heart didn't seek to make them live my life again for me?

  He jerked his chin toward the brown-clad serfs in the gardens below, weeding and watering and pruning.

  "D'you know where they come from, Sannie?" he asked more briskly.

  She raised a brow. "Probably born here, Karl. Why?"

  "Just a thought on the nature of freedom, and power. I'm one of the… oh, fifty or so most powerful men in the Domination; therefore one of the freest on earth, by theory. And they are property, powerless; but I'm not free to spend my life in the place I was born, or cultivate my garden, or see my children grow around me."

  She snorted. "Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been dead for a long time, my friend; also, other people's lives always look simpler from the outside, because you can't see the complexities. Would you change places?"

  "Of course not," he said with a harsh laugh. "Even retirement will probably drive me mad; and she may not be dead, at all. She's strong, and cunning, and she wants to live very much…"

  He forced impassiveness. It was not often he could be simply a private person; that was another sacrifice you made for the Race. "Speaking of death, for our four ears: I suspect that headhunter in green would like to do at least one von Shrakenberg an injury, and the General Staff through him."

  Sannie van Reenan nodded decisively. Keeping track of Skull House's activities was one of the Intelligence Section's responsibilities, after all. "They don't like that son of yours, at all. Still less now that he's achieving some degree of success, and by… unorthodox means. The headhunters never forget, forgive, or give up on a suspicion; well, it's their job, after all.

  The master of Oakenwald tapped his cane on the flags. "Sannie, it might be better if that man Dreiser's articles found a slightly wider audience. In The Warrior for instance." That was one of the Army newspapers, the one most popular with enlisted personnel and the junior officer corps. "Unorthodox, again. Things that happen to people in the public view provoke questions, and are thus… less likely to happen."

  The woman nodded happily. "And Security's going to be over-influential as it is, after the war. Plenty of work to do in Europe; we'll be working on pacification and getting ready to take the Yanks, which is a two-generation job, at least. Better to give them a gentle reminder that there are some things they'd be well advised to leave alone."

  Karl looked at his watch. "And more ways of killing a cat than choking it to death with cream. Now, let's get on to that meeting. Carstairs keeps underestimating the difficulties of China, in my opinion…"

  * * * *

  "You've assigned a competent operative?"

  "Of course, sir." How has this fussbudget gotten this high? the Security Directorate Chiliarch thought, behind a face of polite agreement. Of course, he's getting old.

  "No action on young von Shrakenberg until after we break through to the pass. Then, the situation will be usefully fluid for… long enough."

  The car hissed quietly through the near-empty streets. The secret-police general looked out on their bright comeliness with longing; a nursemaid sat on a bench, holding aloft a tow-haired baby who giggled and kicked. Her uniform was trim and neat, shining against the basalt stone like her teeth against the healthy brown glow of her skin.

  Tired, he thought, pulling down the shade and relaxing into the rich leather-and-cologne smell of the seats. Tired of planning and worrying, tired of boneheaded aristocrats who think a world-state can he run like a paternalist's plantation. He glanced aside, into the cool, intelligent eyes of his assistant. They met his for an instant before dropping with casual unconcern to the opened attache case on his lap. Tired of your hungry eyes and your endless waiting, my protege. But not dead yet.

  "The son's the one to watch. The old man will die in the course of nature, soon enough; the General Staff aren't the only ones who know how to wait, after all. The daughter's missing in action; besides, she's apolitical. Smart, but no ambition."

  "Neither has Eric von Shrakenberg, in practical terms."

  "Ah," the older man said softly. "Tim, you should look up from those dossiers sometimes; things aren't so cut and dried as you might think. Human beings are not consistent; nor predictable, until they're dead." And you will never believe that and so will always fall just short of your ambitions, and never know why. "Black, romantic Byronic despair is a pose of youth. And war is a great realist, a great teacher." A sigh. "Well, the Fritz may take care of it for us." He tapped the partition that separated them from the driver. "Back to Skull House; autumn is depressing, outdoors."

  Chapter Fourteen

  "…the Ottoman collapse in 1917 gave the Draka their long-awaited Turkish spoils;
the Thousand-Dirigible Raid on Constantinople and the occupation of Thrace and cis-Danubian Bulgaria rounded off the new acquisitions. Neutral Persia had been overrun in 1916. ostensibly to help supply the Czar's forces. This much had been expected; what was not was the Russian collapse following the Brusilov offensive and the Bolshevik coup. Britain was totally committed to the Western Front, and could no longer do more than scold; dazzling opportunities presented themselves. The Domination had more than eight million troops under arms, and alone of the major Powers had suffered bearable casualties—most of those Janissary serf soldiers driven into the machine guns and the wire. The only serious dispute in Castle Tarleton was between those who wished to drive north into the Ukraine and the 'Easterners.' A Ukrainian offensive would have involved a major confrontation with the German army, which the Draka had carefully avoided. Instead, it was decided to launch the great push to the northeast the initial objectives were Tashkent. Samarkand and Alma-Ata, and operations would continue until strong resistance was met

  None was. and in the end the offensive petered out only when the logistical strain became unbearable, in western China and the headwaters of the Yangtze. Six million square miles, near two hundred million souls; only sober second thoughts prevented a drive to the Pacific. The spearpoint legions were being supplied by dirigible, every round of ammunition and gallon of fuel brought six thousand miles from railheads themselves ten thousand miles from the industrial cities of central Africa. By 1920. it had become clear that the Domination was committed to a generation of overstrain if the New Territories were to be held, pacified, and settled. From this much flowed: the break with Britain, the enhanced role of the Security Directorate, the decision to extend compulsory military service for Citizen women, the clashes with Japan along the Mongolian border in 1938-1939…by 1940 twenty years of effort were bearing fruit. Road and rail links spanned the whole area from Sofia to Mongolia: scores of new cities had been built the oil resources of Arabia and Kashgar tapped, new plantations established by the hundred thousand. Most of all. from a strategic liability, the new serf populations had become a source of docile labor and reliable recruits…