by Victor Milán
‘‘If you say so,’’ Rorion said sourly.
His master shrugged. ‘‘It’s an acquired taste.’’
‘‘Or not,’’ Rorion said. ‘‘I grew up hearing stories about your exploits growing up.’’
Von Texeira chuckled again. He glanced back over his shoulder at the rear of the retreating Phoenix Hawk.
‘‘I always find those wings absurd. Yet they’re nothing compared to the excesses to be found on their shiny new assault-class Shrikes. It seems the Falcons have begun going out of their way to make their new-issue ’Mechs look ludicrous. ’’ He frowned. ‘‘There’s something to that, but I can’t put a finger on it.’’
‘‘They’re Clanners,’’ his chauffeur said from the front, as if that explained all.
‘‘Ah, but the Clanners seldom do anything without reason. Not necessarily reasonable reasons. But reasons nonetheless.’’
‘‘I take it your lordship had no luck?’’
‘‘Again.’’ Von Texeira sighed.
‘‘Small surprise.’’
The consulate was little help. In von Texeira’s experience, which was vast, Inner Sphere consuls to Clan-occupied worlds tended to fall into two categories: stressed to rolling-eyed near madness, like a housecat in a roomful of attack dogs, or into a state of oblivious denial, usually with considerable chemical insulation. The Honorable Ritt Hormauer, the archon’s official representative on her former holding of Mkuranga, fell into the latter category. His self-medication of choice was a more-than-acceptable native rum, though, and at least he wasn’t selfish about sharing.
‘‘Whom do we ask now?’’ Rorion asked.
Von Texeira shrugged massively. ‘‘Not the Falcons. Such sticklers for rules they are, they might as well be Germans.’’
‘‘Even though their khan herself requested we send an envoy?’’
‘‘Just so.’’
‘‘Absurd.’’
‘‘Clan Warriors lack interest in anything that doesn’t have to do with breaking things and killing people,’’ the older man said. ‘‘You know that.’’
‘‘Still. They’ve been administering captive populations and dealing with the Inner Sphere for the better part of a century. You’d think even they would figure out how to do it half right.’’
‘‘We’re from Recife, Rorion. Since when do we expect efficiency?’’
‘‘Since we left our homeworld and landed somewhere else in Steinerspace, Margrave?’’
‘‘Point taken.’’
Von Texeira sighed gustily. Then he drew in a deep abdominal breath to soothe himself, momentarily blanking his mind of conscious thought.
His aide left him little time to luxuriate in meditation. ‘‘What will o senhor do now?’’ Rorion asked.
Von Texeira glanced out the window. On a broad plaza of faintly pink brick a number of native workers in pale jumpsuits were engaging in group calisthenics under the eye of a minor scientist-caste overseer with a pinched expression and a notecomp. Their motions lacked the customary Clan crispness, not to mention any hint of enthusiasm. Their supervisor would never report their lack of zeal, von Texeira knew: to do so would reflect negatively on her own efficiency rating.
He smiled. The Clanners wore their weaknesses on their sleeves, moreso because few of them would admit their weaknesses existed. They could be almost laughably easy to manipulate. Especially for a manipulator as masterful as Heinz-Otto von Texeira, Lyran merchant prince and chief executive officer (currently on indefinite sabbatical) of Recife Spice and Liquors.
On the other hand, the least misstep in dealing with Clanners meant sudden death. That was what made it a game.
‘‘When we get back, have His Excellency’s excellent bar-tender make me up a nice, cold drink,’’ he commanded. ‘‘Which I will sip and enjoy while you, as usual, do the hard work.’’
‘‘Finding a smuggler to take us to Sudeten?’’
He leaned forward to clap his driver on the shoulder with a beefy hand. ‘‘Aber natürlich, Rorion. What else?’’
5
The Falcon’s Reach
New London, Skye
Jade Falcon Occupation Zone
7 August 3135
‘‘Here’s the horsie,’’ Cynthy said, making the small toy rock in her hand across the cracked pale paving stones, ‘‘riding to the castle.’’ Burton Bear watched with his bright button eyes, sprawled at his plush-toy ease against the battlement of an actual castle in the afternoon light slanting over the forest-crowded hills outside New London. His mistress wore a blue-and-white dress, with a white bow in her blond hair.
‘‘Why does she do that?’’ Malvina said. ‘‘Clearly, there is no horse. Is she delusional?’’
‘‘It is called ‘play,’ ’’ said Malthus with some asperity.
‘‘So that is what that means,’’ Malvina said. ‘‘It appears to give her pleasure.’’
Frowning, Galaxy Commander Beckett Malthus made himself look away. He was deeply shocked at Malvina’s indulgence of the most decadent kind of Spheroid child-worship. That in itself disturbed him: I hoped I had purged myself of Clan prejudices, through a lifetime of effort.
Part of being a puppet master, he had long since determined, lay in making sure one’s own limbs were devoid of strings.
Galaxy Commander Malvina Hazen stood perched on a crenellation on one leg, her natural one. Her trim body was arched back, her head drawn up and back with her hair falling unbound down her slender neck. With her natural hand she grasped the ankle of her prosthetic leg, which was raised behind her, bent to ninety degrees. The shiny hard blackness of her two prosthetic limbs made a striking contrast to her own white skin, all the more since she was stark naked.
The juxtaposition of white and black, the curvilinear shape his fellow Galaxy commander described against Skye’s perpetually cloudy sky, put Bec irresistibly in mind of the Taijitu, the symbol of yin and yang so beloved among the Capellans and the Combine. Though he was far from the scholar she was, and that her brother had been, Bec knew it symbolized cosmic balance.
Is it irony? he wondered. If not, what does she balance against?
He shook off the thoughts. Such speculations were utterly alien to most Clanners, and strange even for him.
‘‘Really, Malvina,’’ he said, ‘‘this is not wise, quineg?’’
‘‘Wisdom plays even less of a role in my behavior than in that of most Jade Falcons, Beckett Malthus,’’ she said without looking at him. Her eyes were closed.
‘‘I mean displaying yourself so on the rampart.’’
‘‘By which you mean—?’’
‘‘Naked, for one thing.’’
‘‘Has that ever meant much to a Clanner, quineg?’’
‘‘Neg,’’ he said, scowling. ‘‘It might, however, excite unfortunate passions on the part of the residents of Skye who do harbor nudity taboos.’’
She opened her mouth.
‘‘Perhaps more important,’’ he said, driving home the point that he was perhaps the one man in human space who dared to interrupt her, ‘‘silhouetting yourself against the skyline like this makes you an ideal target to a sniper, your state of dress notwithstanding.’’
She laughed. If you didn’t know her, it sounded carefree, almost girlish.
‘‘In either case,’’ she said, ‘‘the response is the same: if the Spheroids act on such foolish impulses, I will teach them a sharp lesson.’’
Malthus set his heavy face. While Skye’s defenders had conceded defeat and requested—and been granted—the right of hegira, or unhindered withdrawal, certain diehards left behind on the planet had not been so willing to admit the obvious. A combination of Seventh Skye Militia laggards and civilians had tried to make a stand in the planetary governor’s palace.
A long-range barrage of Arrow IV missiles had rocked the palace, though it did little damage to the palace’s thick stressed-cement walls. Then, while rocket-firing Skadi VTOLs provided close air support, Malvin
a had led an assault in her Shrike, ‘‘Black Rose,’’ blasting the great gates to smoking ruin with her retrofitted PPCs and kicking them aside. Dismounting in the courtyard she had lead elementals in full battlearmor and conventional infantry in storming the palace, fighting with machine pistol and grenades.
Two dozen survivors had been crucified on great Xs welded from steel girders outside the palace.
That had been her only act of brutality after the conquest of Skye. And even that act, lurid as it might have been, was not truly excessive by the standards of Clan response to defiance, especially after hegira. Indeed, no Clan, or Great House for that matter, was known for its forbearance in the face of an outright challenge to its authority, even the moderately bloodshed-averse Lyrans.
The world’s subsequent pacification, and reprisals for resistance, went forward with no more than the customary Clan heavy-handedness. Perhaps, as Malvina had confessed to Star Colonel Noritomo Helmer, she had realized that her brother’s approach to conquest and the treatment of conquered peoples was not altogether wrong.
Perhaps.
Malvina released her ankle. Slowly she straightened her leg behind her, extending her arms in front of her for balance. Then she lowered it, bending the knee, bringing it forward. As soon as she could do so she extended the leg again, and raised it, slowly, until her pointed toes aimed directly skyward. It had to be agonizing for her, even after the strengthening resulting from months of the fanatical rehab routine she had imposed upon herself. Yet except for a tightening of the skin around her mouth and eyes, and the beads of sweat appearing at her hairline, she showed no trace of strain. Malthus only saw the signs because he knew to look for them, and looked closely.
She lowered her leg again deliberately. When both feet rested on the stone she hopped down to the terrace and plucked a white linen robe off a nearby crenellation. The child looked up and smiled at her as Malvina wrapped the robe about herself. Malvina smiled back, and the little girl returned to playing with her toys.
Malvina walked toward Malthus, cinching the robe with a belt of the same fabric. The marble flagstones beneath her soles still showed scorch marks from the bombardment. Neglect had allowed aggressive native creeper vines to clamber like a storming party over the battlement; they extended thin tendrils across the pavement, ending in flat five-leaved sprays of dark green that clung to the white stone like drowning men’s fingers.
‘‘If you came here to question my judgment,’’ she said, ‘‘I doubt it was because of the way I choose to conduct my balancing exercises.’’
‘‘I did not come to criticize you at all, Malvina,’’ he said. ‘‘There are matters I would discuss.’’
She shrugged. ‘‘Discuss them.’’
He flicked his murky green eyes toward the child. ‘‘What I have to say is best said in private, Galaxy Commander.’’
Malvina glared. ‘‘She is a child.’’
‘‘Little pitchers have big ears, if I recall the Spheroid epigram correctly.’’
‘‘The child is mine. She stays. Subject closed.’’
Bec Malthus blew a long sigh out his broad nose. He looked off across the terrace to where a party of locals scrubbed at more blast stains on the paving under the disgruntled eye of a convalescing infantry warrior. Likely they were too far away to hear anything.
‘‘Very well,’’ he said. ‘‘Let me ask you something, Malvina: do you expect Khan Jana Pryde ever to send the Jade Falcon touman to exploit our conquests here in the Inner Sphere?’’
She looked at him, her pale blue eyes narrowed to slits. ‘‘Say on.’’
‘‘Something has become very clear to me. We succeeded, you, your brother and myself. We won a victory—many victories—worthy not just of inclusion but of many lines in the Clan Jade Falcon Remembrance.
‘‘And yet we are ignored. No more than a few ritual words of congratulations have we had from Khan Jana Pryde since taking Skye. Requests for resupply and reinforcement go essentially unanswered. The dribs and drabs of replacements we receive—well, you have seen them. Dezgra MechWarriors. Solahma. Malcontents and incompetents who, with pitched battles so rare back in the occupation zone, their commanders have few other means of getting rid of. She sends us culls, Malvina!’’
Malvina nodded. Her expression had grown relaxed but watchful. ‘‘I noticed as much, Bec Malthus.’’
His slow nod mirrored hers. ‘‘I have long resisted the obvious conclusion,’’ he said, his voice rendered grave by the fact that his square chin with its gray beard rested against the gray tunic trimmed with maroon that he wore across his broad chest. ‘‘That the khan never intended to send the touman into the Inner Sphere, regardless of the outcome of our desant. Instead it was a way to bleed off pressure—to appease sons and daughters of Turkina who chafed beneath Devlin Stone’s enforced peace.’’
Malvina laughed again. ‘‘Do not try to tell me that is all you have concluded,’’ she said. ‘‘Come now, admit it: in the eyes of our beloved khan, it is we who are the culls. You, me, even my noble brother. Aleks and I posed threats to her, with our ristar popularity and impeccably traditionalist credentials. And you’’—he stood unmoving as she paced around behind him as if appraising him for purchase—‘‘you were a formerly prized asset whom she had come to regard as a liability. Quiaff?’’
He turned to face her. His broad, high forehead creased in a frown. ‘‘Aff,’’ he said.
Once again I am reminded, he told himself, under no circumstances to underestimate this creature. Whatever she may be.
‘‘We could be broken for bloodfoul for this conversation, Beckett Malthus,’’ she said lightly.
The big man rocked back on his heels. ‘‘Bloodfoul’’ was a terrible word. A terrible thing. It sprang from a myth— Malthus was fairly sure it was no more—that during the wars that led to the Exodus scientists had created a terrible pathogen, a retrovirus capable of degrading its victim’s very genes. This degeneration was alleged to be both heritable and highly infectious. Whatever the truth, the word had come among the Clans to mean treason, heresy, blasphemy rolled into one. It signified beliefs and actions so obscene that they tainted the guilty party’s DNA, so unnaturally virulent they could contaminate all those who came in contact with them. The word also meant the perpetrator of such an ultimate crime.
It could, literally, not be spoken lightly by a Clanner.
‘‘I am well aware of the risks,’’ Malthus said at length. He forbore pointing out that those risks underlay his reluctance to speak openly before the Inner Sphere child. The girl, amazingly enough, seemed to have grown quite attached to Malvina. But who knew what she might carelessly babble, to whose ears? Khan Jana Pryde had made the Jade Falcon Watch a reasonably efficient secret police.
He had helped.
‘‘Your caution is well-known,’’ she said softly. He stiffened. ‘‘I take it, therefore, that you desire me to derive the only possible conclusion.’’
‘‘What would that be, Malvina Hazen?’’
‘‘It is time that the Eye of the Falcon looked again upon Turkina’s eyrie.’’
He stood, holding a breath half-taken.
‘‘You think the time has come for me to return to Sudeten, ’’ she said. Smiling, she reached up and patted his cheek.
‘‘You helped one khan of Clan Jade Falcon to her khanship. Perhaps the time approaches for you to do the same for a second, quiaff?’’
‘‘I know you, Heinz-Otto von Texeira,’’ she said.
‘‘Quiaff?’’ he asked. But she did know his full given name.
The long, scarred face laughed silently. ‘‘Aff,’’ Master Merchant Senna Rodríguez said. ‘‘Most definitely, aff. As trading partner and rival. You have quite the reputation, Markgraf.’’
They spoke English. He sat watching her through the smoke-streaked gloom. He kept his face as impassive as years of practice, and a will of endosteel, could make it.
‘‘My man didn’t tell you?’’
She shook her head. Then she leaned forward with her forearms on the knife-scarred tabletop. ‘‘I do not know everything that happens in human space,’’ she said. ‘‘Not personally. But in the fullness of time, Clan Sea Fox does.’’
It was a standard spaceport dive called the German East. Tucked among warehouses in a quick-fab plascrete half cylinder, it vibrated to thunderous harmonics each time a DropShip landed or took off. It was of course gloomy and smoky, otherwise it would have lacked credibility among its clientele, who liked to smoke as much as they liked semi-anonymity. The walls were covered with blurred holopics of nude men, nude women and sporting teams.
Senna drew on her long black cheroot and added her own blue-gray contribution to the pervasive smoke. ‘‘The CEO of Recife Spice and Liquors.’’ She pronounced his homeworld’s name as a native might, Portuguese-fashion: ‘‘Heh-see-fee.’’ She raised an eyebrow above a long, slanted blue eye. ‘‘You’re a long way from the boardroom, Herr Chief Executive.’’
The contraction didn’t surprise him. The Sea Foxes were oddities among the Clans. But they were Clan enough to revel in it rather than try to hide or deny it. Unlike most Clanners, though, they were skilled in dissimulation, a fact he forced himself to keep at the front of his awareness.
He shrugged. ‘‘I am on sabbatical,’’ he said, ‘‘at the personal request of Archon Melissa herself.’’ It was even true.
‘‘You’re the emissary Jana Pryde requested, then.’’
‘‘Yes. So you do know everything.’’
He laughed to show it was a joke. She smiled. She had a long face, worn and weathered and far from pretty. Yet he, who had seen a great many pretty faces, found it easy to look upon.
‘‘Not quite,’’ she said. ‘‘It’s no secret that the green bird khan is nervous about the liberties her expeditionary force took with two of the archon’s worlds. Especially gassing Chaffee. With The Republic enraged and Clan Wolf poised on the frontier looking for a chance to pounce on their old rivals, the last thing she needs is major retribution from House Steiner. Especially since her little scheme to remove a few painful thorns from her claw may be turning out to have had the effect of transferring them to a more tender portion of her anatomy.’’