“No staying power,” Raj amplified. “They can get into wars, and if you push them to the wall they can mobilize like hell, but when it’s less vital than that, they don’t like paying the butcher’s bill or the money either. They’ll get into wars occasionally, and piss away men and equipment and then decide it’s no fun and go home.”
correct. santander will exercise a general hegemony, increasingly cultural and economic rather than military. this will inaugurate a period of intense competition within a framework of minimal government. such episodes are unstable but tend to rapid technological innovation.
“The Republic will go into space because it gives you as much glory as war and it’s less frustrating,” Raj explained.
observe:
A cylinder taller than a building lifted into the air in a blue-white discharge. The next view was strange: a white-streaked blue disk floating in utter blackness, ringed by unwinking stars. It wasn’t until John saw the outline of a continent that he realized he was seeing Visager from space.
From space! he thought. A construct of girders floated across the vision. Men in spacesuits flitted around it and incomprehensible machines with arms like crabs.
a tanaki displacement net, Center said. in this scenario, visager would enter the second federation without prior political unification. an unusual development.
The visions ceased, leaving only a mirrored wall at the end of a strange study.
Raj handed him a glass and sat in the chair facing him. John took a cautious sip of the sweet wine.
“Lad, you can leave here with no memories of what you’ve seen and heard,” he said calmly. “Or you can leave here as Center’s agent—as I was Center’s agent—to help get this planet out of the dead-end it’s trapped in and set its people free.”
“I’ll do it,” John blurted, then flushed again.
The words seemed to have come directly from his mouth without passing through his brain.
Raj shook his head. “This isn’t a game, John. You could die. You quite probably will die.”
The mirrored wall dissolved into its impossibly real pictures. This time they were much more personal. John—an older John—lay beside a hedgerow. His face was slack, eyes unblinking in the thin gray mist of rain. One hand lay on his stomach, a blue bulge of intestine showing around the fingers.
John sat stripped to the waist in a metal chair, waist and limbs and neck held by padded clamps; another device of levers and screws held his mouth open. A single bulb shone down from the ceiling. A Fourth Bureau specialist dressed in a shiny bib apron stepped up to him with a curved tool in his hands.
“Shame, Hosten, shame,” he said. “You have neglected your teeth. Still, I think this nerve is still sensitive.”
The curved shape of stainless steel probed and then thrust. The body in the chair convulsed and screamed a fine mist of blood into the cellar’s dark air.
Another John stood in the dock of a courtroom. The Republic’s flag stood on the wall behind the panel of judges. They whispered together, and then one of them raised his head:
“John Hosten, this court finds you guilty as charged of treason and espionage. You will be taken from this place to the National Prison, and there hung by the neck until dead. May God have mercy on your soul.”
The visions died. John touched his tongue to his lips. “I’m not afraid to die,” he whispered. Then aloud: “I’m not afraid, and I know my duty. I’ll do what you ask, no matter how long it takes, no matter what the risks.”
“Good lad,” Raj said quietly, and gripped his shoulder. “You and your brother will both do your best.”
Jeffrey Farr looked at the mirrored sphere. “Seems like I’m going to be in action a lot,” he said.
He tried to sound calm, but the quaver was in his voice again. Those scenes of himself dying—gut-shot, burned, drowned, the Chosen executioners with whips made of steel-hook chains—they were more real than anything he’d ever seen. He could feel it. . . .
“If you say yes,” Raj said. “I’m not going to lie to you, son. Soldiering isn’t a safe profession; and if you refuse, the final war between the Land and your country may not be for a generation or more, possibly two.”
“Yeah, and the horse might learn to sing,” Jeffrey said. He was a little surprised at Raj’s chuckle. “And if I had kids, they’d be around when it happened,, anyway. I’ll do it. Somebody’s got to. A Farr does what has to be done.”
Unconsciously, his voice took on another tone with the last words; Raj nodded approvingly and handed him the balloon snifter.
“Good lad.”
“There’s just one thing,” Jeffrey said. He looked up; the . . . computer . . . wasn’t there—wasn’t anywhere, specifically, while he was in its mind—but that helped.
“Just one thing. If, ah, Center can predict things, and manipulate them the way you’re saying, couldn’t you change the Chosen? You showed me what would happen if the Chosen took over by themselves, didn’t you? Left to themselves, on their own.”
correct. Raj nodded.
“So, you could help them, and sort of twist things around so that they built a star-transport system? It’d be easy enough, with you showing all the technical stuff they had to do every step of the way, not like reinventing it, not really. And you could get whoever you picked to the top in Chosen politics, couldn’t you? Make ’em next thing to a living god.”
Raj leaned back in his chair. “Smart lad,” he said admiringly. “But then, you’ve got a different perspective on it than your brother—your brother to be, I mean.”
probability of medium-term success with such a course of action is 62%, ±10, Center said. unusually high degree of uncertainty due to stochastic factors. we cannot be certain of coming into contact with a suitable chosen representative. this course of action is contraindicated by other factors, however.
Raj nodded, his hard dark face bleak. “It might be possible to get Visager back into interstellar space with the Chosen running things,” he said. “But you couldn’t change them into something we’d want in interstellar space—not without redesigning their society from the ground up, and that would be impossibly difficult.”
impressionistic but correct. observe:
The blank hemisphere cleared. Once again Jeffrey saw the blue-white shape of a planet from space, but this time it was not Visager. A shimmering appeared, and spots blinked into existence in the darkness above the planet, tiny until the perspective snapped closer. That showed huge metal shapes—spaceships, he supposed—with the sunburst of the Land on their flanks. Doors opened in their sides, and smaller shapes fell towards the cloud-streaked blue world, shapes with wings and a sleek shark-shape to them. The viewpoint followed them down in a dizzying plunge, through atmosphere and cherry heat, down to the ground. They landed amid flames and rubble, burning vegetation, and shattered buildings. Ramps slid down, and gun-tubs in the assault transports fired bolts that cut paths of thunderous vacuum through the air to clear the perimeter of the landing zone. War machines slid down the ramps on cushions of air, their massive armor bristling with weapons and sensors.
A head appeared in the turret of one of the war machines as it slid to earth and nosed up, dirt howling from around its skirts. The man’s helmet visor was flipped up, and his grin was like something out of the deep oceans.
“Let’s do it, people,” he said. “Let’s go.”
probability of successful redesign of chosen culture is 12%, ±6, Center said.
“We could put them on top; we could even get them out to the stars,” Raj said. “But they’d still attack anything that moved—it’s their basic imperative.”
“Yeah, I can see that,” Jeffrey said, linking and cracking his fingers—then looking down suddenly, conscious that his real hands weren’t moving at all, somewhere he couldn’t see. Raj nodded wryly. And for him, it’s like this all the time. It felt real, but . . .
“Yeah,” he went on. “They’ve got to be stopped, here and now.”
> “You and your brother will do it,” Raj said. “With our help.”
—and the meteorite was smooth under his fingers.
John Hosten half fell to the dock. Raj? he thought. Center? Was this some sort of crazy dream? Maybe he was realty back in his bunk at school, waiting for reveille.
The dockers were looking at him, dull curiosity, or simply noting that he was something moving. Jeffrey Farr three-quarters fell down the net after him, his face stunned and slack. John caught him automatically, pushing the limp form against the cargo net so that he could cling and support himself. “You too?”
do not show distress, the machine-voice said in his mind.
Pull yourselves together, lads, Raj continued. The voice was equally silent, but it had the modulation of human speech, without the sense of cold bottomless depth that Center’s carried.
“John! Jeffrey!”
There was anger in the adults voices. Jeffrey’s face was pale enough that the freckles stood out like birthmarks, but he smiled his gap-toothed grin.
“Hey, we’re in some shit now, man.” “Lets go.”
“Say good-bye to your father,” Sally Hosten said.
John stepped forward. “Sir.”
Karl gave a tiny forward jerk of his head. “Min sohn.”
He extended his hand; John stared at it in surprise for an instant. That was the greeting among equals. Then he bowed and took it. The impersonal power clamped briefly on his. A servant came forward at Karl’s signal.
“Here,” Karl said. He handed John a cloth-wrapped bundle. Within was a gunbelt and revolver. “This was my father’s. You should have it. This and my name are all that Fate allows me to leave you.”
Thh . . . thank you, sir,” John said.
His eyes prickled, but he fought the feeling down. Why now? Even by Chosen standards, Karl had never been a demonstrative man.
“You are a boy of good character,” Karl said. “If I have ever been less than a father to you, the fault is mine. Your mother and I have parted but for reasons each thinks honorable. Obey your mother; work hard, be disciplined, be brave.”
“Yes sir,” John said.
Karl hesitated for an instant, began to turn away. Then he swallowed and continued: “You will always be welcome among the Chosen, boy, while I live.”
He saluted, fist outstretched. John answered it for the first time—for the last time, he realized, as his father strode away with the same stiff-backed carriage.
“Good-bye, sib,” Gerta Hosten said. She drew him into a brief hug, leaving him speechless at the display of emotion. “Watch your back among the Santies.”
Heinrich clasped hands and thumped him on the shoulder. “The Land’s loss but maybe your gain,” he said. “Come visit sometime, sprout, when you’re rich and famous.”
John watched them leave and took a deep breath. “Good-bye, Maria,” he said to the Protégé nursemaid.
She folded him to her broad bosom. “Good-bye, little master. Call Maria if you ever need her,” she said in her slurred lower-class Landisch.
Her husband bowed and touched John’s hand to his forehead. He was a bear-broad man with grizzled black hair. “I, too, young master. Now, go. Your mother waits for you.”
John did an about-face and began walking towards the gangplank, his face rigid. His mother’s hand took his; he squeezed it for a moment, then freed himself.
No more tears, he thought. That’s for kids. I have to be a man, now.
CHAPTER TWO
1227 A.F.
310 Y.O.
“People are going to think we’re weird,” Jeffrey said, panting.
“Hell, we are weird, Jeff,” John replied.
They fell silent as they raced up the slopes of Signal Hill, past picnicking families and students—it was part of the University Park. The switchbacks were rough enough, but John cut between them whenever there weren’t any flowerbeds on the slopes. At last they stood on the paved summit, amid planters and trees in big pots and sightseers paying twenty-five centimes apiece to look through pivot-mounted binoculars at the famous view over Santander City. Jeffrey threw his hand-weights to a bench and groaned, ducking his head into a fountain and blowing like a grampus before he drank.
John stood, concentrating on ignoring the ache in his right foot, drinking slowly from a water bottle he carried at his waist. Signal Hill was two hundred meters, the highest land in the city and right above a bend in the Santander River. From here he could see most of the capital of the Republic: Capitol Square to the northwest, and the cathedral beyond it; the executive mansion with its pillars and green copper roof off to the east, at the end of embassy row. The Basin District, the ancient beginnings of Santander City, was below the hill in an oxbow curve of the river, and the canal basin was on the south bank, amid the factories and working-class districts. Southward the urban sprawl vanished in haze; northward you could just make out the wooded hills that carried the elite suburbs.
The roar of traffic was muted here, the hissing-spark clatter of streetcars, the underground rumble of the subway, the sound of horses and the increasing number of steamcars, even the burbling roar of the odd gas-engine vehicle. He could smell nothing but hot stone and the cool green smells of the park, also a welcome change from most of the city. The sun was red on the western horizon, still bright up here, but as he watched the streetlights came on. They traced fairy-lantern patterns of light over the rolling cityscape, amidst the mellow golden glow of gaslights and the harsher electric glare along the main streets.
He grew conscious of someone watching him: a girl about his own age, but not a student—her calf-length dress was too stylish, and the little hat perched on one side of her head held a quetzal plume. She smiled as he met her eyes, then turned to talk to her matronly companion.
“Looking you over, stud,” Jeff said.
John half-grinned. Objectively, he knew he was good-looking enough; tall like his father, with yellow-blond hair and a square-chinned face. And he kept himself in good enough shape . . . but they don’t know. His foot twinged.
He punched his brother on the arm. “Like Doreen down in the canteen?” he said. They sat on the grass and passed a towel back and forth. “Thank me for it, bro. If I hadn’t gotten you into this weird Chosen stuff you’d still be a weed and skinny. She’s eating you with her eyes, my man.”
Jeffrey Farr had filled out, although he’d always be slimmer than the son of his foster-mother. Only a trace of adolescent awkwardness remained, and his long bony face was firming towards adulthood.
“Doreen? All she’ll do is look. Her folks are Reformed Baptist, you know; I’ve got about as much chance of seeing her skirt up as I do of getting the Archbishop flat. I tried pinching her butt and she mashed my toe so hard I dropped my tray.”
John clucked his tongue. “The Archbishop’s butt? Hell, I didn’t know you had a taste for older women. . . . Pax, pax!”
Jeffrey lit a slightly sweat-dampened cigarette. “Those things will kill you,” John said, refusing the offered pack.
“And the other Officers Training Corps cadets will think I’m a pansy if I don’t smoke,” Jeffrey said, leaning his elbow on his knee and looking out over the city. “I’ll admit, the phys ed side of it is easier because of all this exercise shit you talked me into.”
“How’s Maurice taking you going into the army?”
Jeffrey shrugged. “Dad’s just surprised, is all. Every Farr for five generations has been navy.”
“Since the days of wooden ships and iron men,” John agreed.
The Republic hadn’t had a major land war in nearly seventy years, and the army was tiny and ill-funded. The navy was another matter, since it had always been policy not to let the Empire gain too big an edge.
“More like iron cannon and wooden heads. When do you hear from the diplomatic service?”
“Next week,” John said. “But I’m pretty confident.”
“You’ve got the marks for it.”
Thanks to
Center, he said silently.
Jeffrey’s green eyes narrowed and he shook his head. Even Center can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s udder, he replied, through the relay that the ancient computer provided.
correct, Center said. i have merely shortened the period of instruction and made possible a broader-based course of study.
Think we’ll have enough time before the Chosen take on the Empire? Jeff thought.
chosen-imperial war within the next two years is a 17% ±3 probability. within the next four, 53% ±5. within the next six, 92% ±7.
“I should have my commission in a year,” Jeff said. “You’ll be a member in good standing of the striped-pants-and-spooks brigade.”
“Much good it’ll do the Empire,” John said gloomily, splitting a grass stem between his thumbs.
North lay the rest of the Republic, and the Gut—the narrow waterway that divided the mainland along most of its width. North of the Gut was the Universal Empire, largest of Visager’s nations, potentially the richest, and for centuries the most powerful. Those centuries were generations gone.
“And we’re doing fuck-all!” Jeff said. “I know politicians are supposed to be dimwits, but the staff over at the Pyramid are even worse, and the admiralty isn’t much better, apart from Dad.”
“We’re doing all we can,” John said calmly. “The Republic isn’t doing much yet, but some people see what’s coming—Maurice, for example. And he’s a rear admiral, now. We ought to have some time after they attack the Empire.”
“I suppose so,” Jeff sighed. “Hey, you keep me on an even keel, did I ever tell you that? Yeah, even the Chosen aren’t crazy enough to take on us and the Empire at once. When that starts, people will sit up and take notice—even them.” He nodded towards the capitol building’s dome.
“Maurice sometimes doubts they’d notice if the Fleet of the Chosen steamed up the river and began shelling them,” John said lightly.
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