The Forge

by S. M. Stirling

  "No!" Raj shouted.

  "And I don't know if you're a traitor or just criminally incompetent, Whitehall," the Governor was saying. "And it doesn't matter. I'm removing you from command."

  "But, sir, I know that if you do … !" Huego Whitehall began. He stopped with a resigned shrug, and made no objection when the Guards seized his arms and began stripping him of insignia and sidearms.

  "No," Raj whispered. Time blurred: East Residence burned, and Colonist soldiers dragged his father from a prison cell, through corridors thick with smoke and littered with the bodies of Civil Government troops. Huego wrenched free as they emerged, onto a vantage point that showed a panorama of East Residence in flames. He leaped to the balustrade of the terrace, but the guards bore Colony lever-action repeaters; they managed to shoot him at least three times before he went over the edge.

  "Lies!" Raj shouted. "All lies!"

  Calm yourself. Consider.

  Raj fought his breathing under control, felt the sheen of sweat dry on his skin in the unmoving dead air. "Those… battles. They're what might have occurred if… If what?"

  If one earlier than you had been allowed to leave this place, with my help.

  He felt the grip on his body relax, and found he could move torso and arms and head. It was inexpressible relief to rub a palm across his face.

  "Your help doesn't seem to be worth much," he said bluntly.

  Consider a general with faultless intelligence staff, who always knows the most probable results of his actions, The mental voice of… Center, he supposed… continued, yet the universe is a structure of probabilities, if the probability of success is sufficlently low, even my assistance is not enough, sociopolitical and economic factors often count for more than winning a battle. Outside this complex i can only advise and observe through my agent, not compel, my calculations indicate the time is ripe at last, for your mission.

  "What mission?" Raj asked.

  To unite bellevue, as a preliminary to the rebuilding of the Tanaki Spatial Displacement Net. Even in the soundless voice, he could hear the capitals on the Holy Name of Faster Than Light Travel.

  "To unite Earth?" Raj said incredulously, touching his amulet.

  Bellevue, Center corrected pedantically. Earth will come later.

  The young man's lips shaped a soundless whistle. The Whitehalls of Hillchapel had served the Governor in arms for half a thousand years, riding at the head of troops recruited from their home county's tough hill-farmers; the Descott district bred soldiers, not tax-broken peons like the lowlands. He remembered vague boyish dreams of glory, dreams that had grown more specific as he passed into manhood. Beating back a Colony grab at the disputed territories in the southeast, perhaps; there was a border war with the rag-heads every generation or so. Or smashing a raiding column of Brigade troops, over northwest across the Kelden Straits, where the Civil Government kept a foothold in the Middle Territories.

  But to reunite the world!

  "That's a job for a hero-saint," he protested.

  I am Sector Command and Control Unit AZ12-b14-c000 Mk. XIV. Without sound, the words roared like the thunder of massed cannon. I say you are the One.

  Raj genuflected. You did not argue with an angel. "I know my duty," he said, straightening.

  That is one of your qualifications, Center observed.

  A thought struck the young man. "You don't mean I have to be Governor, do you?" he asked, worry in his voice. "Governor Vernier has my oath. And Vice-Governor Barholm, too; I swore allegiance as his Guard."

  Vernier will die within the year, Center said, his nephew Barholm will take the chair. That was no news; Barholm was the real power now, not his ailing kinsman. And Raj was Barholm's man. You will act as governor Barholm's shield and sword, and in any case you will be abroad on campaign for many years: your talents are military and administrative, not political.

  Raj nodded in instant agreement; he could keep his feet in the snakepit intrigues of the Palace, but knew he lacked the gift to excel. Perhaps only the interest, but that was enough. Politics was like fencing, one mistake, one momentary lapse of attention, and you were dead. He thought of having to deal with the Chancellor, Robert Tsetzas, and shuddered; that would be like having a spitting fangmouth grafted on your hand. There was a joke, whispered rather than told, that a fangmouth actually had bitten the Chancellor one afternoon, at a levee: Tzetzas hadn't even missed a nibble on his truffle, while the poison-lizard had died in convulsions…

  "I took an oath," he said, "to uphold the Civil Government against all enemies, to restore it to its rightful place as the Holy Federation's agency on this world. I guess this covers it."

  Excellent.

  A cone of light focused on Raj's forehead; he slitted his eyes, but honor forbade him to flinch. There was a moment of intense pain, that vanished in a lingering sensation of cold between his eyes and behind the skin. Thoughts moved just below the surface of consciousness, fragments of memories of events that he had never experienced. They died away, leaving a residue of dizziness, a ringing in the ears that was wholly non-physical; he felt as if his body was slightly too small to contain him.

  The sensations will fade, Center said, you will now be in constant communication with me at all times, remember that your actions must be yours: my help is informative only.

  Raj nodded, still dazed by the echoes within his head, wanting nothing so much as a long sleep, and…

  "I'll have to tell Suzette; she'll… "

  Observe.

  There was a blinking before his eyes, and suddenly he was in his rooms, near the Vice-Governor's section of the Palace. Suzette was across from him, and he could see bewilderment giving way to horror on the smooth aquiline features. She nodded, smiled, left: then the priests came, the Healers of the Troubled speaking soothingly and maneuvering him toward the coat with the crossed arms.

  The chamber snapped back. "Shit," he said disgustedly, then blushed at the sacrilege of swearing here. "I thought she'd believe me."

  Not without proof which i will not furnish, Center replied, knowledge of my existence would render further calculation impossible.

  Raj shrugged. "All right, let Thom go."

  No.

  The man remembered the bones outside the door; it suddenly occurred to him what it would be like, waiting in the dark unable to control so much as the expression of your face. Unable to blink, feeling your eyes drying out, waiting for thirst or madness to take you.

  "Oh, yes you will, angel or no," Raj said flatly. His hand fell to the butt of the useless pistol, not so much a threat as a statement of intent. "A Whitehall doesn't abandon a friend, not for any reward."

  Poplanich is too close to the old dynasty. Which Vernier had overthrown; old Morris Poplanich had died without male issue… of natural causes, or so most thought. Vernier Clerett had been CIC, Residence Area Troops, which had usually counted more than heredity in succession disputes, throughout the Civil Government's history, now thom Poplanich is of age, and is popular, widely respected among the older families. Which the Cleretts were not; Vernier had been no wealthier or better born than Raj Whitehall himself, an upstart to the ancient kindreds. Just another uncouth Descotter, who wore his spurs indoors, when Barholm clerett assumes the chair, Poplanich dies, observe.

  Images. The gongs of the Temple ringing out in mourning, black headbands in the streets. Barholm ascending the steps to the Chair, cheeks flushed, a hard triumph glittering beneath the mask of grief. Troopers of the 2nd Gendarmerie dragging Thom Poplanich out the gate of his family's townhouse; the young man wrenching his arms free and smoothing his coat, walking with quiet dignity toward the black two-dog wagon. Raj watching in the ranks of Barholm's Guard as Thom was strapped to the iron column in Remembrance Square, with the heralds reading out his crimes—"treason against the Civil Government and the Spirit of Man of the Stars"— while the bare-chested executioner in his black hood stood by the scissor-switch to the thumping generator. Barholm stood; the crowd jeered an
d pushed behind a threatening line of dragoons. The thunder-growl of five hundred wardogs was the louder, until the switch went home and Thom screamed, screamed and sizzled and smelled like roasting pork.

  Raj felt sweat on his palms, trickling down his flanks, but there was no controlling these visions. More: Raj with officers he recognized, talking quietly in the rear room of a tavern. Older men there; Berzetayz of the Governor's Council, leader of the Hemmar River clique, the big landowners. Alois Wijolska the iron-smelting magnate. Gunfire in the Palace; men falling before the two-meter cast-bronze doors of the inner chamber, and his own dog rearing to crash it open with its forepaws. Barholm startled out of bed, standing back naked against the tapestries with his hands before his face. His wife Anne, equally naked and cursing defiance as she raised a pistol. Volley fire from behind him.

  Fragments. A view that it took him a second to recognize as being from the Chair, and the High Priest raising the Diadem over his own head. Suzette dying—Suzette!—her lips blue with poison. Chancellor Tzetzas going to the pillar himself; the crowd cheering this time, and the Chancellor spitting at the executioner's feet as Governor Raj Whitehall raised his arm. Raj leading troops, but the enemies were Civil Government forces, others in the outfits of noblemen's household retainers. Other battles, a kaleidoscope.

  One final scene. Raj Whitehall stumbling at the stirrup-iron of a man he recognized all too well, from Intelligence reports, his hands tied to the leather. Tewfik, amir of the Army of the South, one-eyed eldest son of the Settler; not his heir, no man not whole in body could be, but certainly his commander in the field, and not because of his blood, either. This field was the East Residence, burning, with bodies lying in the rough heaps as the death-squads had left them. Another row fell before a Colonist firing squad as he watched, and a white-bearded imam preached from an open Koran behind them as a new batch marched up. Others, women and children mostly, stumbled by chained neck-and-neck under the whips of mounted guards. Wagons of white salt rumbled up the street.

  "We will sow it with salt," Tewfik said, looking down at the bloodied face of his captive. "But do not worry. The hot irons will ensure you see no more."

  * * *

  "No," Raj said. He could taste the iron-and-copper of his own fear, smell it. Suzette had died hard, blind animal pain in her eyes, nothing human left. "No. I still won't let you kill Thom. A man who doesn't stand by his friends is no man." And if I give in on this, I'm a dove. I'll serve the Spirit of Man, but damned if I'll be a dove even to a god.

  Again, excellent. Amusement at his indignation. A successful general must know loyalty, before he can evoke it Poplanich will come to no harm: I can hold his body in complete stasis, and provide more than sufficient mental stimulation. Was that some sort of joke?

  You may return and visit occasionally, when this will not excite suspicion.

  He hesitated.

  Remember that if he leaves here now, he dies, and not him alone.

  "Raj." Whitehall's head shot up. Thom's voice; the smaller man turned to face his friend. "Raj, I'm all right… it's showing me the most amazing… the most amazing things…"

  He froze again, but this time the expression was one of wondering delight, not fear. Raj took a tentative step forward, and found that he could. His fingers reached out and touched his friend's skin; it was already cooling, slightly rubbery under his palm. There was a slight shimmer in front of Thom's eyes, like a trick of vision seen out of the corner of the eyes, and Raj could see his pupils expanding and contracting, as if they were moving across a landscape of light and shadow.

  "Goodbye," he said; and saluted, for some reason he could not have explained even to himself.

  * * *

  The corridor of bones was as he had left it, save that the door two meters above its surface was open. No other help was offered; evidently Center expected him to make his own way in the world.

  Raj Whitehall nodded once, and stopped to reload the revolver before he jumped to plant fingers on the edge. It was lucky not many knew Thom and he had gone exploring together; he had not even told Suzette, she had been dropping more and more hints about how dangerous Poplanich was to know.

  Not that dangerous, Raj thought, grinning humorlessly into the dark as he chinned himself and threw a knee over the doorsill. Not nearly as dangerous as knowing me seems to be.

  Chapter Three

  "Captain the Honorable Messer Raj Ammenda Halgern da Luis Whitehall, Whitehall of Hillchapel, Hereditary Supervisor of Smythe Parish, Descott County, Guard to the Exalted Vice-Governor, presents himself for duty!"

  Raj winced as the herald's bellow rang deafeningly in his left ear; she was using a megaphone that was no less functional for being built of thin polished silver with decorations in niello and diamond chip. The jostling crowds of petitioners fell silent for a moment, craning their necks towards the main doors and pressing against the line of Gendarmerie troopers in dress uniforms. The rifles they held were richly inlaid but loaded and in perfect working order; the whole hall where the Gubernatorial Levee was held was like that, he supposed.

  All of two hundred meters long and fifty high; the ceiling was a mosaic, a wheeling galaxy of stars against indigo night, with the head and shoulders of the Spirit of Man looming above it. Much like the one in the Temple, and like that it always gave you a slight creeping sensation between the shoulderblades, as if the huge dark eyes were following you and looking into your soul. The floor was tessellated marble, and the walls point-topped windows filled with stained glass, mostly Scriptural scenes—computers, spaceships lifting off—or gruesome martyrdoms, or the triumphs of the Governors. A blare of trumpets, and the mechanical men spaced at intervals along the walls came to attention from parade rest, slapping the replica lasers with their left hands as they brought them to the salute. There was a hiss and whir from the compressed-air machinery of the automatons, and the arc lights along the angle of ceiling and wall popped and flared, shedding an actinic blue light and the occasional spark. The crowd moaned, bowing in unison before the awesome technology of the ancients.

  Raj increased his pace slightly, the gold-alloy spurs on his high boots jingling. He was in full dress fig for this, and as always it made him feel like a dancer in a revue down on Carcossa Street; skin-tight crimson pants with gold piping down the seams, codpiece, jewelled saber-belt and tooled pistol holster, a tache so long and elaborate that he had to hold the scabbard of his sword in his left hand to keep it from dragging on the floor. The blue jacket hugged his shoulders so tightly he could feel the tickle of the epaulets, and the split tails nearly reached his ankles.

  The horseshoe shaped end of the Hall was focused on the Chair, standing alone and untenanted at the top of a semicircular flight of white marble stairs. Vice-Governor Barholm was sitting in his usual chair of state on one of the lower steps; to either side were the Chiefs of Department at their inlaid desks. The ceremonial view-screens in each were symbols as well, the actual paperwork would be handled by the crowds of flunkies and aides who hovered at their rear.

  Raj went down on one knee, bowing deeply: all that was necessary, considering Barholm's official status and his own. The Vice-Governor's long robe was so heavy with embroidery and jewelwork that it was probably as uncomfortable as Raj's uniform, even on a cool spring day like this. His face showed as little of that as did the other nine Guards who stood behind the bureaucrats. Or the bureaucrats themselves; this was part of the ritual of power, after all.

  "Rise, Whitehall of Hillchapel," Barholm said. He was more typical of the Descott Hills than Raj himself, lacking the younger man's rangy height; stocky, with a torso like a brick, a heavy-muscled man who moved with a tensile quickness despite a sedentary life. But his accent was pure East Residence, smooth as a hired rhetor's.

  Raj came to his feet, saluted smartly with his free hand and buckled on the plumed helmet; at least on his head it didn't tickle his nose the way it did under one arm. He settled to parade rest beside Hemlt Stanson, the Guardsman ne
xt in seniority. Their station was directly behind the Vice-Governor, and they rested their palms on the butts of their pistols. Not that they expected trouble, a very expert crew of chamberlains inspected everyone before they were allowed this far into the Palace. For that matter, there were two dozen very expert riflemen with 'scope-sighted weapons behind various pieces of ornamental grillwork. The status of Guard did not appear on any muster roll, but it could count for a good deal more than formal military rank. The Guards were all well-born, well-connected; fighting men who could be relied on for anything that needed doing.

  A need shared by both Vice-Governor Barholm and myself, Center observed, someday inquire as to the meaning of the term "bucellari."

  Raj managed not to jump, and subvocalized: be careful, you might distract me. Consciously, he schooled his mind to acceptance; numinous awe was all very well for church, but he had work to do in this world, that was why the angel had chosen him. Act as if everything was normal, he told himself. Act well enough, and you'll grow to believe it in your gut as well as your head.

  Silence, while the ushers shepherded forward the first batch. Three of them, two men and a woman in expensive but unfashionably up-country clothes, without the hired cicerone who could have shown them how to really penetrate court ritual. They began to go down in the full prostration, to be halted by the hissed outrage of the usher; that was for the Governor alone. Raj blinked, catching slight alterations in Barholm's expression—funny, I was never this good at that before—and decided that the yokels had done themselves no harm and the usher herself no good. It had been a long time since anyone got to the Chair without wanting it bad enough to wet-dream about it waking and sleeping; that was one of the Civil Government's problems. It would probably be better if somebody like Thom Poplanich could inherit the job for once.

  Of course, Thom was a gentleman and a scholar; he wouldn't last a week.