A KNIGHT OF GHOSTS AND SHADOWS Poul Anderson [22 feb 2003—scanned for #bookz] [23 feb 2003—proofed for #bookz] I Every planet in the story is cold—even Terra, though Flandry came home on a warm evening of northern summer. There the chill was in the spirit. He felt a breath of it as he neared. Somehow, talk between him and his son had drifted to matters Imperial. They had avoided all such during their holiday. Terra itself had not likely reminded them. The globe hung beautiful in starry darkness, revealed by a view-screen in the cabin where they sat. It was almost full, because they were accelerating with the sun behind them and were not yet close enough to start on an approach curve. At this remove it shone white-swirled blue, unutterably pure, near dewdrop Luna. Nothing was visible of the scars that man had made upon it. And the saloon was good to be in, bulkheads nacreous gray, benches padded in maroon velvyl, table of authentic teak whereon stood Scotch whisky and everything needed for the use thereof, warm and flawlessly recycled air through which gamboled a dance tune and drifted an odor of lilacs. The Hooligan, private speedster of Captain Sir Dominic Flandry, was faster, better armed, and generally more versatile than any vessel of her class had a moral right to be; but her living quarters reflected her owner's philosophy that, if one is born into an era of decadence, one may as well enjoy it while it lasts. He leaned back, inhaled deeply of his cigarette, took more smokiness in a sip from his glass, and regarded Dominic Hazeltine with some concern. If the frontier was truly that close to exploding—and the boy must go there again ... "Are you sure?" he asked. "What proved facts have you got—proved by yourself, not somebody else? Why wouldn't I have heard more?" His companion returned a steady look. "I don't want to make you feel old," he said; and the knowledge passed through Flandry that a lieutenant commander of Naval Intelligence, twenty-seven standard years of age, wasn't really a boy, nor was his father any longer the boy who had begotten him. Then Hazeltine smiled and took the curse off: "Well, I might want to, just so I can hope that at your age I'll have acquired, let alone kept, your capacity for the three basic things in life." "Three?" Flandry raised his brows. "Feasting, fighting, and—Wait; of course I haven't been along when you were in a fight. But I've no doubt you perform as well as ever in that department too. Still, you told me for the last three years you've stayed in the Solar System, taking life easy. If the whole word about Dennitza hasn't reached the Emperor—and apparently it's barely starting to—why should it have come to a pampered pet of his?" "Hm. I'm not really. He pampers with a heavy hand. So I avoid the court as much as politeness allows. This indefinite furlough I'm on—nobody but him would dare call me back to duty, unless I grow bored and request assignment—that's the only important privilege I've taken. Aside from the outrageous amount of talent, capability, and charm with which I was born; and I do my best to share those chromosomes." Flandry had spoken lightly in half a hope of getting a similar response. They had bantered throughout their month-long jaunt, whether on a breakneck hike in the Great Rift of Mars or gambling in a miners' dive in Low Venusberg, running the rings of Saturn or dining in elegance beneath its loveliness on Iapetus with two ladies expert and expensive. Must they already return to realities? They'd been more friends than father and son. The difference in age hardly showed. They bore well-muscled height in common, supple movement, gray eyes, baritone voice. Flandry's face stood out in a perhaps overly handsome combination of straight nose, high cheekbones, cleft chin—the result of a biosculp job many years past, which he had never bothered to change again—and trim mustache. His sleek seal-brown hair was frosted at the temples; when Hazeltine accused him of bringing this about by artifice, he had grinned and not denied it. Though both wore civilian garb, Flandry's iridescent puff-sleeved blouse, scarlet cummerbund, flared blue trousers, and curly-toed beefleather slippers opposed the other's plain coverall. Broader features, curved nose, full mouth, crow's-wing locks recalled Persis d'Io as she had been when she and Flandry said farewell on a planet now destroyed, he not knowing she bore his child. The tan of strange suns, the lines creased by squinting into strange weathers, had not altogether gone from Hazeltine in the six weeks since he reached Terra. But his unsophisticated ways meant only that he had spent his life on the fringes of the Empire. He had caroused with a gusto to match his father's. He had shown the same taste in speech— ("—an itchy position for me, my own admiral looking for a nice lethal job he could order me to do," Flandry reminisced. "Fenross hated my guts. He didn't like the rest of me very much, either. I saw I'd better produce a stratagem, and fast." ("Did you?" Hazeltine inquired. ("Of course. You see me here, don't you? It's practically a sine qua non of a field agent staying alive, that he be able to outthink not just the opposition, but his superiors." ("No doubt you were inspired by the fact that 'stratagem' spelled backwards is 'megatarts.' The prospect of counting your loose women by millions should give plenty of incentive." (Flandry stared. "Now I'm certain you're my bairn! Though to be frank, that awesomely pleasant notion escaped me. Instead, having developed my scheme, I confronted a rather ghastly idea which has haunted me ever afterward: that maybe there's no one alive more intelligent than I.") —and yet, and yet, an underlying earnestness always remained with him. Perhaps he had that from his mother: that, and pride. She'd let the infant beneath her heart live, abandoned her titled official lover, resumed her birthname, gone from Terra to Sassania and started anew as a dancer, at last married reasonably well, but kept young Dominic by her till he enlisted. Never had she sent word back from her frontier home, not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded put down the barbarians of Scotha and was knighted for it, not when Flandry well-nigh singlehanded rescued the new Emperor's favorite granddaughter and headed off a provincial rebellion and was summoned Home to be rewarded. Nor had her son, who always knew his father's name, called on him until lately, when far enough along in his own career that nepotism could not be thought necessary. Thus Dominic Hazeltine refused the offer of merry chitchat and said in his burred un-Terran version of Anglic, "Well, if you've been taking what amounts to a long vacation, the more reason why you wouldn't have kept trace of developments. Maybe his Majesty simply hasn't been bothering you about them, and has been quite concerned himself for quite some while. Regardless, I've been yonder and I know." Flandry dropped the remnant of his cigarette in an ash-taker. "You wound my vanity, which is no mean accomplishment," he replied. "Remember, for three or four years earlier—between the time I came to his notice and the time we could figure he was planted on the throne too firmly to have a great chance of being uprooted—I was one of his several right hands. Field and staff work both, specializing in the problem of making the marches decide they'd really rather keep Hans for their Emperor than revolt all over again. Do you think, if he sees fresh trouble where I can help, he won't consult me? Or do you think, because I've been utilizing a little of the hedonism I fought so hard to preserve, I've lost interest in my old circuits? No, I've followed the news, and an occasional secret report." He stirred, tossed off his drink, and added, "Besides, you claim the Gospodar of Dennitza is our latest problem child. But you've also said you were working Sector Arcturus: almost diametrically opposite, and well inside those vaguenesses we are pleased to call the borders of the Empire. Tell me, then—you've been almighty unspecific about your operations, and I supposed that was because you were under security, and didn't pry—tell me, as far as you're allowed, what does the space around Arcturus have to do with Dennitza? With anything in the Taurian Sector?" "I stayed mum because I didn't want to spoil this occasion," Hazeltine said. "From what Mother told me, I expected fun, when I could get a leave long enough to justify the trip to join you; but you've opened whole universes to me that I never guessed existed." He flushed. "If I ever gave any thought to such things, I self-righteously labeled them Vice.'" "Which they are," Flandry put in. "What you bucolic types don't realize is that worthwhile vice doesn't mean lolling around on cushions eating drugged custard. How dismal! I'd rather be virtuous. Decadence requires application. But go on." "We'll land now, and I'll report back," Hazeltine said. "I don't know where they'll send me next, and doubtless won't be free to tell you. While the chance remains, I'll be honest. I came here wanting to know you as a man, but also wanting to, oh, alert you if nothing else, because I think your brains will be sorely needed, and it's damn hard to communicate through channels." Indeed, Flandry admitted. His gaze went to the stars in the viewscreeen. Without amplification, few that he could see lay in the more or less 200-light-year radius of that rough and blurry-edged spheroid named the Terran Empire. Those were giants, visible by virtue of shining across distances we can traverse, under hyperdrive, but will never truly comprehend; and they filled the merest, tiniest fragment of the galaxy, far out in a spiral arm where their numbers were beginning to thin toward cosmic hollowness. Yet this insignificant Imperial bit of space held an estimated four million suns. Maybe half of those had been visited at least once. About a hundred thousand worlds of theirs might be considered to belong to the Empire, though for most the connection was ghostly tenuous ... It was too much. There were too many environments, races, cultures, lives, messages. No mind, no government could know the whole, let alone cope. Nevertheless that sprawl of planets, peoples, provinces, and protectorates must somehow cope, or see the Long Night fall. Barbarians, who had gotten spaceships and nuclear weapons too early in their history, prowled the borders; the civilized Roidhunate of Merseia probed, withdrew a little—seldom the whole way—waited, probed again ... Rigel caught Flandry's eye, a beacon amidst the great enemy's dominions. The Taurian Sector lay in that direction, fronting the Wilderness beyond which dwelt the Merseians. "You must know something I don't, if you claim the Dennitzans are brewing trouble," he said. "However, are you sure what you know is true?" "What can you tell me about them?" Hazeltine gave back. "Hm? Why—um, yes, that's sensible, first making clear to you what information and ideas I have." "Especially since they must reflect what the higher-ups believe, which I'm not certain about." "Neither am I, really. My attention's been directed elsewhere, Tauria seeming as reliably under control as any division of the Empire." "After your experience there?" "Precisely on account of it. Very well. We'll save time if I run barefoot through the obvious. Then you needn't interrogate me, groping around for what you may not have suspected hitherto." Hazeltine nodded. "Besides," he said, "I've never been in those parts myself." "Oh? You mentioned assignments which concerned the Merseia-ward frontier and our large green playmates." "Tauria isn't the only sector at that end of the Empire," Hazeltine pointed out. Too big, this handful of stars we suppose we know ... "Ahem." Flandry took the crystal decanter. A refill gurgled into his glass. "You've heard how I happpened to be in the neighborhood when the governor, Duke Alfred of Varrak, kidnapped Princess Megan while she was touring, as part of a scheme to detach the Taurian systems from the Empire and bring them under Merseian protection—which means possession. Chives and I thwarted him, or is 'foiled' a more dramatic word? "Well, then the question arose, what to do next? Let me remind you, Hans had assumed, which means grabbed, the crown less than two years earlier. Everything was still in upheaval. Three avowed rivals were out to replace him by force of arms, and nobody could guess how many more would take an opportunity that came along, whether to try for supreme power or for piratical autonomy. Alfred wouldn't have made his attempt without considerable support among his own people. Therefore, not only must the governorship change, but the sector capital. "Now Dennitza may not be the most populous, wealthy, or up-to-date human-colonized planet in Tauria. However, it has a noticeable sphere of influence. And it has strength out of proportion, thanks to traditionally maintaining its own military, under the original treaty of annexation. And the Dennitzans always despised Josip. His tribute assessors and other agents he sent them, through Duke Alfred, developed a tendency to get killed in brawls, and somehow nobody afterward could identify the brawlers. When Josip died, and the Policy Board split on accepting his successor, and suddenly all hell let out for noon, the Gospodar declared for Hans Molitor. He didn't actually dispatch troops to help, but he kept order in his part of space, gave the Merseians no opening—doubtless the best service he could have rendered. "Wasn't he the logical choice to take charge of Tauria? Isn't he still?" "In spite of Merseians on his home planet?" Hazeltine challenged. "Citizens of Merseian descent," Flandry corrected. "Rather remote descent, I've heard. There are humans who serve the Roidhunate, too, and not every one has been bought or brainscrubbed; some families have lived on Merseian worlds for generations." "Nevertheless," Hazeltine said, "the Dennitzan culture isn't Terran—isn't entirely human. Remember how hard the colonists of Avalon fought to stay in the Domain of Ythri, way back when the Empire waged a war to adjust that frontier? Why should Dennitzans feel brotherly toward Terrans?" "I don't suppose they do." Flandry shrugged. "I've never visited them either. But I've met other odd human societies, not to speak of nonhuman. They stay in the Empire because it gives them the Pax and often a fair amount of commercial benefit, without usually charging too high a price for the service. From what little I saw and heard in the way of reports on the Gospodar and his associates, they aren't such fools as to imagine they can stay at peace independently. Their history includes the Troubles, and their ancestors freely joined the Empire when it appeared." "Nowadays Merseia might offer them a better deal." "Uh-uh. They've been marchmen up against Merseia far too long. Too many inherited grudges." "Such things can change. I've known marchmen myself. They take on the traits of their enemies, and eventually—" Hazeltine leaned across the table. His voice harshened. "Why are the Dennitzans resisting the Emperor's decree?" "About disbanding their militia?" Flandry sipped. "Yes, I know, the Gospodar's representatives here have been appealing, arguing, logrolling, probably bribing, and certainly making nuisances of themselves on governmental levels as high as the Policy Board. Meanwhile he drags his feet. If the Emperor didn't have more urgent matters on deck, we might have seen fireworks by now." "Nuclear?" "Oh, no, no. Haven't we had our fill of civil war? I spoke metaphorically. And ... between us, lad, I can't blame the Gospodar very much. True, Hans' idea is that consolidating all combat services may prevent a repetition of what we just went through. I can't say it won't help; nor can I say it will. If nothing else, the Dennitzans do nest way out on a windy limb. They have more faith in their ability to protect themselves, given Navy support, than in the Navy's ability to do it alone. They may well be right. This is too serious a matter—a whole frontier is involved—too serious for impulsive action: another reason, I'm sure, why Hans has been patient, has not dismissed the Gospodar as governor or anything." "I believe he's making a terrible mistake," Hazeltine said. "What do you think the Dennitzans have in mind, then?" "If not a breakaway, and inviting the Merseians in—I'm far from convinced that that's unthinkable to them, but I haven't proof—if not that, then insurrection ... to make the Gospodar Emperor." Flandry sat still for a while. The ship murmured, the music sang around him. Terra waxed in his sight. Finally, taking forth a fresh cigarette, he asked, "What gives you that notion? Your latest work didn't bring you within a hundred parsecs of Dennitza, did it?" "No." Hazeltine's mouth, which recalled the mouth of Persis, drew into thinner lines than ever hers had done. "That's what scares me. You see, we've collected evidence that Dennitzans are engineering a rebellion on Diomedes. Have you heard of Diomedes?" "Ye-e-es. Any man who appreciates your three primaries of life ought to study the biography of Nicholas van Rijn, and he was shipwrecked there once. Yes, I know a little. But it isn't a terribly important planet to this day, is it? Why should it revolt, and how could it hope to succeed?" "I wasn't on that team myself. But my unit was carrying out related investigations in the same sector, and we exchanged data. Apparently the Diomedeans—factions among them—hope the Domain of Ythri will help. They've acquired a mystique about the kinship of winged beings ... Whether the Ythrians really would intervene or not is hard to tell. I suspect not, to the extent that'd bring on overt conflict with us. But they might well use the potentiality, the threat, to steer us into new orbits—We've barely started tracing the connections." Flandry scowled. "And those turn out to be Dennitzan?" "Correct. Any such conspiracy would have to involve members of a society with spaceships—preferably humans—to plant and cultivate the seed on Diomedes, and maintain at least enough liaison with Ythri that the would-be rebels stay hopeful. When our people first got on the track of this, they naturally assumed the humans were Avalonian. But a lucky capture they made, just before I left for Sol, indicated otherwise. Dennitzan agents, Dennitzan." "Why, on the opposite side of Terra from their home?" "Oh, come on! You know why. If the Gospodar's planning an uprising of his own, what better preliminary than one in that direction?" Hazeltine drew breath. "I don't have the details. Those are, or will be, in the reports to GHQ from our units. But isn't something in the Empire always going wrong? The word is, his Majesty plans to leave soon for Sector Spica, at the head of an armada, and curb the barbarians there. That's a long way from anyplace else. Meanwhile, how slowly do reports from an obscure clod like Diomedes grind their way through the bureaucracy?" "When a fleet can incinerate a world," Flandry said bleakly, "I prefer governments not have fast reflexes. You and your teammates could well be quantum-hopping to an unwarranted conclusion. For instance, those Dennitzans who were caught, if they really are Dennitzans, could be freebooters. Or if they have bosses at home, those bosses may be a single clique—may be, themselves, maneuvering to overthrow the Gospodar—and may or may not have ambitions beyond that. How much more than you've told me do you know for certain?" Hazeltine sighed. "Not much. But I hoped—" He looked suddenly, pathetically young. "I hoped you might check further into the question." Chives entered, on bare feet which touched the carpet soundlessly though the gee-field was set at Terran standard. "I beg your pardon, sir," he addressed his master. "If you wish dinner before we reach the landing approach zone, I must commence preparations. The tournedos will obviously require a red wine. Shall I open the Chateau Falkayn '35?" "Hm?" Flandry blinked, recalled from darker matters. "Why ... um-m ... I'd thought of Beaujolais." "No, sir," said Chives, respectfully immovable. "I cannot recommend Beaujolais to accompany a tournedos such as is contemplated. And may I suggest drinking and smoking cease until your meal is ready?" Summer evening around Catalina deepened into night. Flandry sat on a terrace of the lodge which the island's owner, his friend the Mayor Palatine of Britain, had built on its heights and had lent to him. He wasn't sleepy; during the space trip, his circadian rhythm had slipped out of phase with this area. Nor was he energetic. He felt—a bit sad?—no, pensive, lonesome, less in an immediate fashion than as an accumulation from the years—a mood he had often felt before and recognized would soon become restlessness. Yet while it stayed as it was, he could wonder if he should have married now and then. Or even for life? It would have been good to help young Dominic grow. He sighed, twisted about in his lounger till he found a comfortable knees-aloft position, drew on his cigar and watched the view. Beneath him, shadowy land plunged to a bay and, beyond, the vast metallic sheet of a calm Pacific. A breeze blew cool, scented with roses and Buddha's cup. Overhead, stars twinkled forth in a sky that ranged from amethyst to silver-blue. A pair of contrails in the west caught the last glow of a sunken sun. But the evening was quiet. Traffic was never routed near the retreats of noblemen. How many kids do I have? And how many of them know they're mine? (I've only met or heard of a few.) And where are they and what's the universe doing to them? Hm. He pulled rich smoke across his tongue. When a person starts sentimentalizing, it's time either to get busy or to take antisenescence treatments. Pending this decision, how about a woman? That stopover on Ceres was several days ago, after all. He considered ladies he knew and decided against them, for each would expect personal consideration—which was her right, but his mind was still too full of his son. Therefore: Would I rather flit to the mainland and its bright lights, or have Chives phone the nearest cepheid agency? As if at a signal, his personal servant appeared, a Shalmuan, slim kilt-clad form remarkably humanlike except for 140 centimeters of height, green skin, hairlessness, long prehensile tail, and, to be sure, countless more subtle variations. On a tray he carried a visicom extension, a cup of coffee, and a snifter of cognac. "You have a call, sir," he announced. How many have you filtered out? Flandry didn't ask. Nor did he object. The nonhuman in a human milieu—or vice versa—commonly appears as a caricature of a personality, because those around him cannot see most of his soul. But Chives had attended his boss for years. "Personal servant" had come to mean more than "valet and cook"; it included being butler of a household which never stayed long in a single place, and pilot, and bodyguard, and whatever an emergency might require. Chives brought the lounger table into position, set down the tray, and disappeared again. Flandry's pulse bounced a little. In the screen before him was the face of Dominic Hazeltine. "Why, hello," he said. "I didn't expect to hear from you this soon." "Well"—excitement thrummed—"you know, our conversation—When I came back to base, I got a chance at a general data scanner, and keyed for recent material on Dennitza. A part of what I learned will interest you, I think. Though you'd better act fast." II Immediately after the two Navy yeomen who brought Kossara to the slave depot had signed her over to its manager and departed, he told her: "Hold out your left arm." Dazed—for she had been whisked from the ship within an hour of landing on Terra, and the speed of the aircar had blurred the enormousness of Archopolis—she obeyed. He glanced expertly at her wrist and, from a drawer, selected a bracelet of white metal, some three centimeters broad and a few millimeters thick. Hinged, it locked together with a click. She stared at the thing. A couple of sensor spots and a niello of letters and numbers were its only distinctions. It circled her arm snugly though not uncomfortably. "The law requires slaves to wear this," the manager explained in a bored tone. He was a pudgy, faintly greasy-looking middle-aged person in whose face dwelt shrewdness. That must be on Terra, trickled through Kossara's mind. Other places seem to have other ways. And on Dennitza we keep no slaves ... "It's powered by body heat and maintains an audiovisual link to a global monitor net," the voice went on. "If the computers notice anything suspicious—including, of course, any tampering with the bracelet—they call a human operator. He can stop you in your tracks by a signal." The man pointed to a switch on his desk. "This gives the same signal." He pressed. Pain burned like lightning, through flesh, bone, marrow, until nothing was except pain. Kossara fell to her knees. She never knew if she screamed or if her throat had jammed shut. He lifted his hand and the anguish was gone. Kossara crouched shaking and weeping. Dimly she heard: "That was five seconds' worth. Direct nerve stim from the bracelet, triggers a center in the brain. Harmless for periods of less than a minute, if you haven't got a weak heart or something. Do you understand you'd better be a good girl? All right, on your feet." As she swayed erect, the shudders slowly leaving her, he smirked and muttered, "You know, you're a looker. Exotic; none of this standardized biosculp format. I'd be tempted to bid on you myself, except the price is sure to go out of my reach. Well ... hold still." He did no more than feel and nuzzle. She endured, thinking that probably soon she could take a long, long, long hot shower. But when a guard had conducted her to the women's section, she found the water was cold and rationed. The dormitory gaped huge, echoing, little inside it other than bunks and inmates. The mess was equally barren, the food adequate but tasteless. Some twenty prisoners were present. They received her kindly enough, with a curiosity that sharpened when they discovered she was from a distant planet and this was her first time on Terra. Exhausted, she begged off saying much and tumbled into a haunted sleep. The next morning she got a humiliatingly thorough medical examination. A psychotech studied the dossier on her which Naval Intelligence had supplied, asked a few questions, and signed a form. She got the impression he would have liked to inquire further—why had she rebelled?—but a Secret classification on her record scared him off. Or else (because whoever bought her would doubtless talk to her about it) he knew from his study how chaotic and broken her memories of the episode were, since the hypnoprobing on Diomedes. That evening she couldn't escape conversation in the dormitory. The women clustered around and chattered. They were from Terra, Luna, and Venus. With a single exception, they had been sentenced to limited terms of enslavement for crimes such as repeated theft or dangerous negligence, and were not very bright or especially comely. "I don't suppose anybody'll bid on me," lamented one. "Hard labor for the government, then." "I don't understand," said Kossara. Her soft Dennitzan accent intrigued them. "Why? I mean, when you have a worldful of machines, every kind of robot—why slaves? How can it ... how can it pay?" The exceptional woman, who was handsome in a haggard fashion, answered. "What else would you do with the wicked? Kill them, even for tiny things? Give them costly psychocorrection? Lock them away at public expense, useless to themselves and everybody else? No, let them work. Let the Imperium get some money from selling them the first time, if it can." Does she talk like that because she's afraid of her bracelet? Kossara wondered. Surely, oh, surely we can complain a little among ourselves! "What can we do that a machine can't do better?" she asked. "Personal services," the woman said. "Many kinds. Or ... well, economics. Often a slave is less efficient than a machine, but needs less capital investment." "You sound educated," Kossara remarked. The woman sighed. "I was, once. Till I killed my husband. That meant a life term like yours, dear. To be quite safe, my buyer did pay to have my mind corrected." A sort of energy blossomed in look and tone. "How grateful I am! I was a murderess, do you hear, a murderess. I took it on myself to decide another human being wasn't fit to live. Now I know—" She seized Kossara's hands. "Ask them to correct you too. You committed treason, didn't you say? Beg them to wash you clean!" The rest edged away. Brain-channeled, Kossara knew. A crawling went under her skin. "Wh-why are you here?" she stammered. "If you were bought—" "He grew tired of me and sold me back. I'll always long for him ... but he had the perfect right, of course." The woman drew nearer. "I like you, Kossara," she whispered. "I do hope we'll go to the same place." "Place?" "Oh, somebody rich may take you for a while. Likelier, though, a brothel—" Kossara yanked free and ran. She didn't quite reach a toilet before she vomited. They made her clean the floor. Afterward, when they insisted on circling close and talking and talking, she screamed at them to leave her alone, then enforced it with a couple of skilled blows. No punishment followed. It was dreadful to know that a half-aware electronic brain watched every pulsebeat of her existence, and no doubt occasionally a bored human supervisor examined her screen at random. But seemingly the guardians didn't mind a fight, if no property was damaged. She sought her bunk and curled up into herself. Next morning a matron came for her, took a critical look, and nodded. "You'll do," she said. "Swallow this." She held forth a pill. "What's that?" Kossara crouched back. "A euphoriac. You want to be pretty for the camera, don't you? Go on, swallow." Remembering the alternative, Kossara obeyed. As she accompanied the matron down the hall, waves of comfort passed through her, higher at each tide. It was like being drunk, no, not drunk, for she had her full senses and command of her body ... like having savored a few glasses with Mihail, after they had danced, and the violins playing yet ... like having Mihail here, alive again. Almost cheerfully, in the recording room she doffed her gray issue gown, went through the paces and said the phrases designed to show her off, as instructed. She barely heard the running commentary: "Kossara Vymezal [mispronounced, but a phonetic spell-out followed], human female, age twenty-five, virgin, athletic, health and intelligence excellent, education good though provincial. Spirited, but ought to learn subordination in short order without radical measures. Life sentence for treason, conspiracy to promote and aid rebellion. Suffers from hostility to the Imperium and some disorientation due to hypnoprobing. Neither handicap affects her wits or basic emotional stability. Her behavior on the voyage here was cold but acceptable. "She was born on the planet Dennitza, Zoria III in the Taurian Sector. [A string of numbers] Her family is well placed, father being a district administrator. [Why no mention of the fact Mother was a sister of Bodin Miyatovich, Gospodar and sector governor? O Uncle, Uncle ... ] As is the rule there, she received military training and served a hitch in the armed forces. She has a degree in xenology. Having done field work on planets near home, several months ago she went to Diomedes [a string of numbers]—quite remote, her research merely a disguise. Most of the report on her has not been made available to us; and as said, she herself is confused and largely amnesiac about this period. Her main purpose was to help instigate a revolt. Before much harm was done, she was detected, arrested, interrogated, and sentenced by court-martial. There being little demand for slaves in that region, and a courier ship returning directly to Terra, she was brought along. "We rate her unlikely to be dangerous, given the usual precautions, and attractive both physically and personally—" The camera projected back the holograms it had taken, for its operator's inspection, and Kossara looked upon her image. She saw a big young woman, 177 centimeters tall, a bit small in the bosom but robust in shoulders, hips, and long free-striding legs, skin ivory-clear save for a few freckles and the remnant of a tan. The face was wide, high in the cheekbones, snub in the nose, full in the mouth, strong in chin and jawline. Large blue-green eyes stood well apart beneath dark brows and reddish-brown bangs; that hair was cropped below the ears in the manner of both sexes on Dennitza. When she spoke, her voice was husky. "—will be sullen unless drugged, but given the right training and conditions, ought to develop a high sexual capacity. A private owner may find that kindness will in due course make her loyal and responsive—" Kossara slipped dreamily away from the words, the room, Terra ... the whole way home. To Mihail? No, she couldn't quite raise him from the dust between the stars—even now, she dared not. But, oh, just a few years ago, she and Trohdwyr ... {She had a vacation from her studies at the Shkola plus a furlough from her ground defense unit in the Narodna Voyska. Ordinarily she would have spent as much of this time as he could spare with her betrothed. But a space force had been detected within a few light-years of the Zorian System which might intend action on behalf of some other claimant to the Imperium than Hans Molitor whom the Gospodar supported, or might use such partisanship as an excuse for brigandage. Therefore Bodin Miyatovich led some of the Dennitzan fleet out to warn off the strangers, and if necessary fight them off. Mihail Svetich, engineer on a Meteor-class torpedo craft, had kissed Kossara farewell. Rather than fret idle in Zorkagrad, she flitted to her parents' home. Danilo Vymezal, voivode of the Dubina Dolyina, was head of council, chief magistrate, and military commander throughout a majestic country at the northern rim of the Kazan. Soon after she reached the estate, Kossara said she wished for a long hunt. Her father regarded her for a moment before he nodded. "That will do you good," he said. "Who would you like for a partner? Trohdwyr?" She had unthinkingly supposed she would go alone. But of course he was right; only fools went by themselves so far into wilderness that no radio relay could pass on a distress call from a pocket transceiver. The old zmay was welcome company, not least because he knew when to be silent. They took an aircar to a meadow on the unpeopled western slope and set forth afoot. The days and nights, the leagues and heights, wind, rain, sun, struggle, and sleep were elixir. More than once she had a clear shot at a soaring orlik or a bull yelen poised on a crag, and forbore; those wings or those horns were too splendid across the sky. But at last it was sweet fire in the blood to stand before a charging dyavo, feel the rifle surge back against her shoulder, see fangs and claws fall down within a meter of her. Trohdwyr reproved: "You were reckless, Dama." "He came at me from his den," Kossara retorted. "After you saw the entrance and took care to make much noise in the bushes. Deny it not. I have known you longer than your own memory runs. You learned to walk by clinging to my tail for safety. If I lose you now, your father will dismiss me from his service, and where then shall a poor lorn dodderer go? Back to his birth village to become a fisher again, after these many years? Have mercy, Dama." She chuckled. They set about making camp. This was high in the bowl of the Kazan, where that huge crater bit an arc from the Vysochina. The view could not have been imagined by anyone who had not seen it, save God before He willed it. Though treeless, the site bore a dense purple sward of mahovina, springy underfoot and spicy to smell, studded by white and gold wildflowers; and a nearby canebrake rustled in the breeze. Eastward the ringwall sloped down to timberline. Beyond, yellow beams of evening fell on a bluish mistiness of forest, as far as sight could reach, cloven by a river which gleamed like a drawn blade. Westward, not far hence, the rim stood shadowy-sharp athwart rough Vysochina hills. Behind them the snowpeaks of the Planina Byelogorski lifted sungold whiteness into an absolute azure. The purity of sky was not marred by a remote northward thread of smoke from Vulkana Zemlya. The air grew cold soon after the sun went behind the mountains, cold as the brook which bubbled iron-tasting from a cleft in the crater's lip. Kossara hunched into her jacket, squatted down, held palms forth to the fire. Her breath drifted white through the dusk that rose from the lowlands. Before he put their meat on a spit above coals and dancing flamelets, Trohdwyr drew a sign and spoke a few words of Eriau. Kossara knew them well: "Aferdhi of the Deeps, Blyn of the Winds, Haawan who lairs on the reefs, by this be held afar and trouble us not in our rest." Hundreds of kilometers and a long lifetime from the Black Ocean, he remained an old-fashioned pagan ychan. Early in her teens, eager in her faith, Kossara had learned it was no use trying to make an Orthochristian of him. Surely the Pantocrator didn't mind much, and would receive his dear battered soul into Heaven at the last. She had never thought of him as a zmay. Not that the word had any particularly bad overtones. Maybe once it had been a touch contemptuous, four hundred years ago when the first immigrants arrived from Merseia; but later it came to mean simply a Dennitzan of such ancestry. (Did the growth of their original planet into a frightening rival of Terra have anything to do with that?) However, from him and his family she had learned Eriau—rather, the archaic and mutated version they spoke—at the same time as she was learning Serbic from her parents and Anglic from a governess. When finally prevailed upon to stop scrambling these three into a private patois, she kept the habit of referring to Trohdwyr's people by their own name for themselves, "ychani": "seekers." For he had been close to the center of her child-universe. Father and Mother were at its very heart, naturally, and so for a while were a doll named Lutka, worn into shapelessness, and a cat she called Butterfeet. Uncle Bodin approached them when he and Aunt Draga visited, or the Vymezals went to Zorkagrad and he took her to the zoo and the merrypark. Three younger siblings, two brothers and a sister, orbited like comets, now radiant with love, now off into outer darkness. Trohdwyr never shone quite as brightly as any of these; but the chief gamekeeper to three generations of her house moved in an unchangeable path, always there for her to reach when she needed him. "Kraich." Having started dinner cooking, he settled back on the tripod of clawed feet and massive tail. "You've earned a double drink this evening, Dama. A regular sundowner, and one for killing the dyavo." He poured into cups from a flask of shlivovitza. "Though I must skin the beast and carry the hide," he added. The hoarse basso seemed to hold a note of genuine complaint. Startled, Kossara peered across the fire at him. To a dweller in the inner Empire, he might have been any Merseian. No matter how anthropoid a