Throne of Stars

by David Weber

  “You’ll need to approve the quarters when we get there, but they should be adequate. Also, we won’t be able to just let the troops roam at will. They’re going to get upset if there’s a noticeable presence of foreigners wandering around, so our people will need to stay mainly in quarters,”

  “Remember Marshad,” Roger said quietly.

  “Oh, yes,” Pahner agreed with a frown. “We’ll deep sweep the walls this time.”

  He looked back at O’Casey.

  “What about the civan? And how do we resupply? People will have to go to the markets. And I’m not sure about keeping all the troops cooped up until they decide what to do with us.”

  “These people aren’t used to foreigners,” O’Casey said with a shrug. “The leadership is going to try to quarantine us as much as possible, and the populace is probably going to be a bit hostile, so keeping the troops close would probably be a good idea, anyway. And whatever else happens, the civan will have to stay down here with us by the docks. The Temple doesn’t seem to have any stables. For that matter, there don’t seem to be any civan on this continent at all, although they do have turom. Anyway, there’s no proper stabling to be had further up in the city, but there are stock holding areas down here by the docks which should work for them, and we can get fodder and forage from the local merchants.”

  “Can we trade directly with the merchants?” Roger asked. “Or do we have to trade through the Temple?”

  “We have to turn over a portion of the trade goods to the Temple as a tax. Actually, the toots translate that as a ‘tithe.’ Other than that, we can deal direct with the local merchants.”

  “I’m sure T’Sool will get right to work setting up contacts for Wes Til,” Roger said, laughing.

  “There are some additional restrictions,” O’Casey went on, her expression thoughtful as she accessed her toot. “Lots of them. We’ll each be issued plaques that define where we can go and under what circumstances. None of us can enter a temple, cross to the eastern city, or enter any private residence without specific, official permission. Officers and specified guards—no more than five—may enter Temple offices which are more or less secular property. And there’s a pretty strict curfew: no being out of our compound after dark or during religious observances. I’ve got a list of ceremonies for the next couple of weeks, so we should be able to schedule around them without too much trouble.”

  “Jeez,” Roger said. “Real friendly folks. Now I wish we’d let their damned ships go!”

  “Arguably, their response could have been worse,” O’Casey pointed out. “The problem is that this is an ‘alles verboten’ society. If it’s not specifically permitted, it’s forbidden. They also tax everything but breathing, apparently. And I’d bet they’re working on that!”

  “Well, if you’re in agreement, Captain, I’d still say let’s do it,” Roger said with a frown. “We’ll take a company of the Carnan Battalion, with Fain in command, and leave the rest on the ships. They can land to stretch their legs, and we’ll rotate the units. Same with the cavalry, but we’ll take Rastar and Honal with us and leave the ship side with Chim.”

  Pahner looked around the massive city, then nodded his head slowly.

  “Concur, Your Highness. But we’d better keep our heads down and be really patient. Any alternative to getting along with these people just doesn’t bear thinking on.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “Whoooeee, now this is what I call civilization!” Julian laughed as the column of troops wound its way inland from the docks. The area where they were to be sequestered was about halfway between the wharves proper and the beginning of the temple zone.

  The local population had been systematically evacuated from their path, but it was clear that the roads normally swarmed with buyers and sellers. Both sides of the route were lined with temporary stalls and carts which had been hastily abandoned, probably at the behest of the staff-wielding guards who “escorted” the humans. This area seemed to be primarily a fishmarket, but the slope gave a fair view of other boulevards, and all of them were packed with crowds.

  “Still sheep to be fleece’,” Poertena grunted as he shifted his pack for a better fit.

  That pack was something of a legend. Its base was a standard Marine field ruck, but it had been “expanded” by a specially formatted multi-tool into about four times its normal volume. No one was quite sure what all it contained. They knew that it did not have a table-top tester for plasma rifles, although it now contained a field expedient replacement for one. And it did not have a sink; several of the Marines had asked. Other than that, it seemed to contain anything and everything normally found in a first-class armory, including—but not limited to—plasma welders, micrometers, parts, field lathes, and even a “tool about town” christened the “pick pocking wrench” that was stuffed sideways through the top flap. The “pick pocking wrench” was Poertena’s tool of last resort—a meter-long Stilson adjustable. If a recalcitrant weapon failed to function to specification, or, God forbid, a suit of armor locked up, it was exposed to the “pick pocking wrench.” Usually the piece of equipment shaped up immediately. If not, its exposure was increased until it shaped up or shipped out.

  “We gonna teach ’em acey-deucy?” Denat asked. Cord’s nephew had followed the company across half the world, more out of curiosity than for any other reason. Along the way, he’d proven invaluable as a natural born “intelligence agent”—only impolite people called him a spy. And he’d proven equally valuable, of course, as Poertena’s right hand man when it came to introducing people to the new concept of “cards.”

  “Nah.” The Pinopan spat. “For t’ese pockers? We teach them canasta.”

  “Oooooooo,” Julian laughed. “That’s nasty!”

  “Canasta what I teach people I don’ like,” Poertena said. “Next to bridge, t’ere’s nothin’ worse. An’ even t’ese bastards don’ deserve to have bridge inflic’ on t’em. I don’t t’ink I like t’em much, but bridge be too nasty.”

  “I don’t like this, Krindi.” Erkum Pol turned the embossed plaque hung around his neck upside down and tried to read it. “I feel like a civan in the market.”

  “Get used to it,” Fain replied, watching the line of Diaspran infantry being issued the amuletlike identification badges. “If we don’t have them, we’ll get arrested by the local guards for carrying illegal weapons.”

  “That’s another thing—I don’t like all these pocking guards.” Pol peered suspiciously at the ranks of local Mardukans. The issuing ceremony was taking place in a large warehouse by the waterfront, part of a complex of four, and two walls of the warehouse were lined with Krath guardsmen.

  Once everyone had been issued credentials and the area was considered secured, this warehouse and the other three would be turned over to the humans and their allies for their quarters and storage. The facility had very little going for it, but at least it was a roof, and it wasn’t rocking. There was a public latrine just outside, and the locals assured them that it was capable of handling all the waste from the K’Vaernian contingent. Other than that, it would be not much better than camping out. All and all, it was in keeping with the unfriendly nature of their reception so far.

  Krindi contemplated the ranks of guards for a moment, then made a gesture of negation.

  “They’re not anything to worry about,” he grunted. Among other things, the guards were armed only with long clubs. It was obvious that they spent most of their “fighting” time dealing with robbers and rioters. His Diaspran infantry, by contrast, were armed with their breechloaders and still carried their bayonets. The guns were unloaded, and the bayonets were tied into their sheaths with cords, but that would take only a moment to fix.

  Yet weaponry was only a part of it—and not the largest one. The veterans of The Basik’s Own were survivors of the titanic clashes around Sindi, where thirty thousand Diaspran, K’Vaernian, and Vashin soldiers had smashed over three times their own number of Boman warriors. Individually,
caught in a bar fight by these Krath guards, their experience might not be of any particular consequence. But in a unit, under discipline, it was questionable whether there was another fighting force on all of Marduk that was their equal.

  And if there were one, these pocking Krath pussies sure weren’t it.

  “Not a problem,” Fain said with a quiet chuckle. “Basik to the atul.”

  “This isn’t going well,” O’Casey said as she slipped down onto one of the pillows and stretched out. Julian followed her into the room, and the intel NCO looked as if he’d bitten a lemon.

  “More runaround?” Roger quirked an eyebrow.

  “More runaround,” O’Casey confirmed.

  The meeting was small, composed of just the central command group: O’Casey, Roger, Kosutic, and Pahner, along with Julian for his intel information and Poertena to discuss supply. Even Cord and Pedi Karuse had wandered off somewhere. The difficulties O’Casey had already encountered suggested that they would have to meet again, with a larger group, if they were going to work out plans to deal with those same difficulties. But for now, it seemed wiser to discuss the bad news only with the commanders.

  The bottom line was that they needed the Krath. On the K’Vaernian continent, there’d always been “handles” they could use—differing factions they could ally with or manipulate, or alternate routes they could use to go around obstacles. Here, though, the only way to get to their objective was through the Krath, and the Krath were turning out to be not only insular and hostile, but also remarkably lacking in handles.

  “There are several things going on on the surface,” she said with a sigh, “and who knows how many in the background! Sor Teb, our low-rank greeter, is actually the head of the slave-raiding forces. Technically, that’s all he is, but the reality seems to be that he’s something between a grand vizier and head of the external intelligence service. He’s very much playing his own game, and my guess is that he’s angling to succeed the local high priest. Everyone else in the local power structure seems to think he is, as well, and there seem to me to be two camps: one against him, and one neutral.”

  “No allies at all?” Roger’s eyebrow quirked. “And what does this have to do with us?”

  “No obvious allies, anyway,” O’Casey replied with a headshake. “And what it has to do with us is that he not only has some of the best forces, but he’s also the most probable danger to our plans. There’s also the fact that, in general, nobody else on the council is willing to make a decision unless he’s present, so it might be that what’s actually happening is that his plotting is so far along everybody else is just staying out of his way.”

  “Guards like his troopers would probably make decent assassins,” Julian pointed out. “And they are very feared—the Scourge, that is. Far more than the Flail.”

  “What’s the Scourge? Or, for that matter, the Flail?” Pahner asked. “Those are new terms to me.”

  “We just picked up on them,” Julian admitted. “The names of the three paramilitary groups associated with the Temple are the Sere, the Scourge, and the Flail. The Scourge is Sor Teb’s group of slave-catchers, but the Sere is the external guard force, while the Flail is the internal police force. Together, that triumvirate’s COs make up a military high council.”

  “I would surmise that the high priests use these groups to counterbalance each other,” O’Casey interrupted. She looked out the window at the trio of volcanoes looming over the city and shrugged. “There is resistance to Sor Teb, mostly from the Sere, the conventional forces whose function is to skirmish with the other satraps. The Sere’s leader is Lorak Tral. Of all the High Council, Tral acts the most like a true believer, so he’s well liked by the general population, and his appears to be the next most powerful faction. The local satrap, however, is beginning to fail. The jockeying for his position is coming to a boil, and it looks like it may be happening a bit too soon for Tral’s plans or prospects. The fact that the last two high priests have been from the Sere is fanning the fire under the pot, too. Apparently, the other interest groups think it would be a Bad Idea to let the Sere build up any more of a ‘dynasty’ by putting its third CO in a row into the satrap’s throne, which is making it very difficult for Tral to rally much support amongst his fellow councilors. It looks like, whatever the general public thinks about it, the Scourge’s leader is going to be the next high priest.”

  “Can’t be a popular pick,” Roger observed. He scratched Dogzard’s spine and shook his head. “A slave trader as a high priest?”

  “It’s not popular, Your Highness,” Julian agreed immediately. “People don’t say it outright, but he’s not well liked at all. He’s feared, but it’s not even a respectful fear. Just . . . fear.”

  “So what does this succession struggle have to do with us?” Roger asked again, then stiffened as the floor shuddered slightly under them. “Uh-oh!”

  The shuddering continued for a moment or two, then stopped, and Julian shook his head.

  “You know, Your Highness, if you’re going to turn on that earthquake-generator whenever you speak . . .”

  “Damn,” Kosutic said. “At least it was light. I hope it wasn’t a pre-shock, though.”

  “Without a good sensor net, it’s impossible to know,” Roger said, leaning over and patting the hissing beast on her legs. “But I don’t think Dogzard likes them.”

  “She’s not the only one, Your Highness,” Pahner said. “It would be a hell of a thing to get you this far and lose you to an earthquake!”

  “Likewise, Captain.” Roger smiled. “But where were we? Ah, yes. This Sor Teb and why he’s important to our plans.”

  “It’s starting to look like we’re not going anywhere without his okay,” O’Casey pointed out. “We haven’t even gotten a solid yes or no on permission to leave the city, much less to head into the other satraps. The official position is that the local authorities have to get the permission of the other satraps in advance before letting us enter their territories, but that doesn’t hold water.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Julian agreed. “Denat’s been talking with Pedi Karuse. It’s funny, in a way. Cord is probably the best scholar we have, after Eleanora, of course, but Denat has a much better ear for languages.”

  Actually, Roger thought, Julian was considerably understating the case. He’d never met anyone, Mardukan or human, who had an ear for language that matched Denat’s. Cord’s nephew’s natural affinity for languages was almost scary. The only native Mardukan who came close to matching it was Rastar, and even he had a much more pronounced accent, however good his grasp of grammar and syntax might be.

  “He’s picked up enough of the local dialect from her for a decent start,” Julian continued, “and he went out doing his ‘dumb barb’ routine.

  “According to what he’s managed to overhear, a fairly large portion of the valley to the immediate north is controlled by Kirsti. The next satrap to the north is Wio, and Wio isn’t well regarded by the locals. All of the satraps upriver from here—starting with Wio—charge extortionate tolls for goods to move through them, and Kirsti resents hell out of the way that subsidizes the other satrapies’ merchant classes. In Wio’s case, for example, the Kirsti merchants can either deal exclusively with Wio’s . . . or lose half their value to Wio’s tolls before they even get to another market on its other side.”

  “And, of course, trade can’t pass through the tribal vales at all,” O’Casey pointed out. “There’s not much point trying to pass through the Shadem. Even if they wouldn’t raid the caravans blind, they’re on the ‘outside’ of the curve of the river, so there’s nobody on their other side to trade with, anyway. And trying to pass through the Shin lands would be . . . really a bad idea.”

  “But there’s a fair distance between Kirsti and the Wio border,” Julian said. “They divide the satraps into districts called ‘watches,’ and it looks as if each watch is about fifty kilometers across. There are four of them between here and Wio, so we’re looking at a
bout two hundred kilometers of travel. And there’s another entire major city between here and Wio, as well. They seem to have a pretty good internal transportation system. In fact, it looks to be far and away the best of any we’ve encountered so far. So there’s no real physical bar to our making the trip. They just want to keep us in place.”

  “How far to the Imperial capital itself?” Roger asked. “And to the spaceport.”

  “Twenty marches,” Julian promptly replied. “And three more satrapies.”

  “Could they have already sent a message?” the prince asked. “To the capital, or even the port? I know they’re independent of the capital, but ‘what if’? For that matter, ‘what if’ the entire reason they’re keeping us from leaving Kirsti is to keep us penned up here until a message comes back down the chain to tell them what to do with us?”

  “Well,” Pahner said. He leaned back, gazed thoughtfully up at the ceiling, pulled out a bisti root, and carefully cut off a sliver. Then he slowly and deliberately inserted the sliver into his mouth. So far as they’d been able to discover, the root was unknown on this continent, and his supply was dwindling fast.

  “We’ve been here for ten days,” he said finally. “If it’s twenty marches to the capital, that means another ten days for any messenger to get there, or to the port. If a message got to the capital, I’d think that there’d be some discussion before it was sent on to the port. So, figure another twelve days or so before it gets to the governor . . . or whoever is running the port.”

  “And we could see an assault shuttle here within a day or two afterwards,” Roger said with a grimace.

  “Yes, Your Highness,” the captain agreed evenly. “We could.”

  “And what do we do about that?”

  “One thing is to try to get a better feel for the intentions of this Sor fellow,” Pahner replied. “If he’s ambitious enough to want to head up the local satrap, he’d probably be even more interested in knocking off the entire valley.”