Hell's Gate

Chapter Thirty-Four

"So, have you considered my suggestion?"

Darcel Kinlafia turned his head and cocked one eyebrow at the towering young man riding beside him. He had to admit that Prince Janaki had become steadily more impressive, not less, in the days they'd spent together. It wasn't just the young man's magnetic personality and obvious intelligence, either. He looked like a crown prince?improbably tall (even for a Calirath), athletic, broad shouldered, and handsome?and the magnificent horse under his saddle and the hawk riding on the frame attached to it only added to that perfection of imagery. With that new sense of awareness, that self-image of himself as a possible political animal, Janaki's suggestions had awakened within him, Kinlafia had come to realize that Janaki chain Calirath was an imperial publicist's dream come true.

Of course, the prince's horse had never come from a standard PAAF string of mounts, the Voice thought. No doubt the crown prince's sheer size would have made him difficult to mount under any circumstances, but the House of Calirath had been dealing with that particular problem for centuries. Janaki's blue roan?one of a matched pair whose full sibling was trotting along with the column's remounts?was a Ternathian Shikowr, a breed that had been carefully, lovingly developed in the lush, green paddocks and meadows of Ternathia in a breeding program whose stud book had been opened well over two thousand years ago.

Named after its founding stallion?who, in turn, had been named for the ancient Shurkhali cavalry saber the Empire had adopted for its own mounted troops following their resounding initial defeats at the hands of Shurkhali horsemen?and with careful infusions of Shurkhali bloodlines, as well, the Shikowr was a large, powerful breed. It had a characteristic stance, with the front end thrust forward and the hindlegs straight out behind, and a remarkably smooth gait for a horse which could reach seventeen hands in height. In fact, the Shikowr was unique in that it had no trotting gait at all. Instead, it had two four-beat gaits which allowed it to cover a huge amount of ground in a short time, and instead of trotting, it simply moved directly from its fast marching gait into a smooth canter. The Shikowr was as tall as most heavy draft horses, though it was less heavy, and it was renowned for its combination of speed, intelligence, and sheer endurance.

It was even up to the formidable task of carrying male members of the Ternathian imperial family.

All of that had made it the Empire's first choice as a cavalry mount for centuries, although Janaki's roan, a truly superb example of the breed, hugely outclassed the horses which might be found in the typical cavalry or dragoon regiment.

It was said that when the Empire ran into the Arpathians, the most prized booty any septman raider had been able to claim had been Shikowr stock to be incorporated into their own world-famous breeding programs. Having seen Platoon-Captain Arthag's Palomino alongside Prince Janaki's Shikowr, Kinlafia believed it.

"Which suggestion was that, Your Highness?" the Voice replied finally, gazing up at Janaki.

"The one about seeking a career change."

"Oh." Kinlafia smiled. "That suggestion."

"I see you're already practicing the fine art of evading direct answers," Janaki observed. "Is that a good sign, or a bad one?"

"That depends on a lot of things, I imagine, Your Highness," Kinlafia said in a much more serious tone, turning his attention back to the muddy trail before them as it began to climb once more.

"Janaki," the crown prince corrected yet again, but Kinlafia shook his head.

"Your Highness, I deeply appreciate your invitation to use your first name. And perhaps one of these days, if I do go into politics, and if my career prospers the way you seem to feel it might, I may even take you up on the offer?in private, at least. But I don't feel comfortable doing it yet. For that matter, it probably wouldn't be a very good habit for me to get into. I imagine there are quite a few sticklers, not all of them in Ternathia, who'd hold that sort of lesse majesty against me at the polls."

"There might be, at that," Janaki agreed after a moment. "And the fact that you're thinking that way suggests to me that you are indeed considering seeking a seat in whatever new parliament comes out of this situation."

"Yes, Your Highness," Kinlafia sighed. "I am." He shook his head, his expression rueful. "I can't believe I am, but I am. And it's your fault."

"Guilty as charged," Janaki conceded cheerfully. Then his smile faded. "There's a reason I've been pressing you about it, though."

"A reason, Your Highness?"

"Yes. It's going to take us quite a while to reach Fort Brithik with these ambulances. The going's better after that, but we're still not going to set any speed records through the mountains, especially if they decide to send the wounded clear to Fort Raylthar instead of holding them at Brithik. If you're seriously contemplating taking my advice, then I think you should also consider going on ahead of the column. You'd make a lot better time on your own. In fact, if you think your backside is up to it, I have the authority to authorize you to use remounts from the PAAF liveries along the way."

"Why?" Kinlafia looked back across at the prince. "I mean, why is it important for me to rush ahead that way?"

Janaki didn't reply immediately. Instead, he turned in his saddle and looked back down the trail behind them. For a wonder, it wasn't raining for once here in New Uromath, not that anyone expected that to last. Fortunately, Sharonians in general and the PAAF in particular had amassed an enormous amount of experience in how to move people and material through even highly unprepossessing terrain.

Each party which had passed through on its way to Company-Captain Halifu's fort and the portal which had acquired the so-far informal name of Hell's Gate had done at least a little to improve the going for whoever might come after. Company-Captain chan Tesh's main column had done the lion's share of the work, in no small part because it had been accompanied by freight wagons (which had to get through somehow). No one in his right mind would call the trail a "road," but at least the worst of the ravines and gullies had been crudely bridged, the worst of the unavoidable swampy bits had been corduroyed with felled trees, and a right-of-way of sorts had been hacked out, just wide enough for two of the standard Authority freight wagons?or one of its ambulances?to pass abreast.

Unlike the freight wagons, the ambulances had broad, fat pneumatic tires, made out of the relatively newly developed heat-treated rubber, and the best shock absorbers and springs Sharona could design. Given the nature of the terrain, even the best sprung vehicle was going to jolt a wounded man agonizingly from time to time, but overall, the ride was remarkably smooth. The ambulances were also far lighter than the freight wagons, which, coupled with their wide tires, gave them a much lower ground pressure and made them far easier for their mule teams to haul.

Despite all of that, the four ambulances attached to Janaki's POW column were undeniably slowing it down. Kinlafia understood that perfectly. What he didn't understand was why Janaki was worried about it. Personally, the Voice would be just as happy if it did take him a little longer to get back to Tajvana. He dreaded the inevitable encounters with reporters, once he got there, almost as much as he dreaded the visit he already knew he was going to have to pay to Shaylar's parents.

"I don't know exactly what's happening back home any more than you do," Janaki said finally, turning back to him. "I do know things are going to have to move quickly, though, and the railhead was most of the way to Fort Salby before all of this began. Even going ahead without us, it's going to take you at least the better part of two months to reach Salby, which means that by the time you get there, the line will certainly be completed. So from there, you can get all the way home in another two or three weeks. But that's still close to three months, Darcel. Three months for the political situation to change and elections to be scheduled. I want you home before that happens, if we can possibly manage it."

Kinlafia frowned ever so slightly. He'd come to accept that Janaki truly believed that Darcel Kinlafia actually had something to offer to his home universe's political leadership at a time like this. And he'd also come to realize that, despite a certain inevitable trepidation, he wanted the job. Yet he couldn't quite shake the suspicion that there was more than simple political calculation behind the crown prince's ardent desire to get him elected to office. Like any Voice, Kinlafia was acutely sensitive to the emotions of those about him, though he would never dream of violating Janaki's privacy by deliberately probing the prince's. But because he was sensitive to them, he knew the other man's focus on his own possible political future carried with it an almost physical (and highly personal) sense of urgency.

He considered asking what lay behind that urgency, but decided?once again?that it would be presumptuous. So instead of worrying about the question he couldn't answer and wouldn't ask, he focused on the rest of Janaki's argument. And the more he thought about it, the more he realized that Janaki, as usual, had a point.

Janaki chan Calirath watched the thoughts moving behind Kinlafia's eyes. He was pretty certain Kinlafia was aware that he hadn't shared all of his reasons for urging the Voice to seek office, and he was grateful to the other man for not pressing him on the point. If Kinlafia had asked, Janaki would have answered, as best he could; the problem was that he still couldn't come up with anything he would consider even remotely satisfactory as an explanation. The Glimpse he'd experienced several times now simply refused to clarify. That was frustrating enough for Janaki, who'd had no choice but to grow accustomed to the fragmentary nature of the visions his Talent presented. It would have been far more frustrating, and probably more than a little frightening, for Kinlafia. Especially since even though it had refused to clarify, it had become even more urgent feeling. And especially given the fact that while having Kinlafia there would be good for Andrin, that didn't necessarily mean it would also be good for Kinlafia.

Whatever it was that the Voice was going to do for Andrin, though, it was important, and Janaki loved his sister. Which meant Parliamentary Representative Kinlafia was as good as elected, as far as Crown Prince Janaki was concerned.

"All right, Your Highness," Kinlafia agreed finally. "I'll take you up on your offer. Both your offers." He looked at his watch, then glanced up at the sun sliding steadily westward overhead. "I'll stick with the column for the rest of the day and bivouac with you tonight. Then I'll move on ahead tomorrow."

"Good." Janaki managed to keep his relief out of his voice as he smiled at the other man. "That'll give me time to dash off a couple of more notes of introduction for you before you disappear. One of them?" he smiled wickedly at the Voice "?will be addressed to my father. He has a little political influence of his own, you know."

Shaylar and Jathmar stood on the Arcanan ship's foredeck as the vessel moved steadily towards another wooden pier. This one extended out from a considerably larger fort, built on the southeastern curve of a bay which, according to Jathmar's Mapping Talent, was over thirty miles wide from north to south and over sixty from east to west. Shaylar was almost positive that it was on the southern coast of the big island of Esferia?the same island Jasak and Gadrial called Chalar?which dominated the New Farnal Sea and the Gulf of New Ternathia. On Sharona, Esferia was a prosperous transshipment point for commerce between Chairifon and New Ternathia and New Farnal, but on Arcana Chalar was the home of the greatest maritime empire in the planet's history.

They could see the broad arc of a portal well inland, beyond the river that meandered down out of the hills to the raw-looking town clustered against the fort's eastern face. It was hard even for Jathmar to judge distances, but it looked as if the portal was perhaps fifteen miles inland, in which case it must have measured about ten miles across. It was easy enough to see the portal's boundaries, though. The sky on this side was a cloudless, scorchingly hot tropical blue; on the other side, it was night … with a violent thunderstorm raging. Even as she watched, she could see the crackling flare of lightning lashing the stormy bellies of the clouds on the far side, and an outrider of thunderheads thrust through the portal to this side. Where she stood, the sun was hot and warm, the breeze gentle; along the fringe of the portal, powerful gusts of wind swept treetops into dancing fury on a tempest's breath, and rain born in an entirely different universe came down in sheets.

Shaylar shivered at the sight, but it was one of the bizarre juxtapositionings one got used to traveling between universes. Which didn't make the thought of venturing into it any more pleasant.

Actually, she was much more interested in what she could see closer to hand as their vessel slid alongside the pilings.

This fort?Fort Wyvern, Jasak had called it?was considerably larger than the one they'd left behind. That didn't make it huge, by any stretch of the imagination, but it was clearly a more substantial, longer established structure. It had to have been here for a while, judging by the size of the town nestled up against its inland perimeter, but there was much less of the sense of bustle and frontier energy which would have clung to most Sharonian settlements.

At first glance, the entire town looked like some primitive farming village, with no sign of the steam- or water-powered local industry which would have sprung up in any Sharonian-explored universe. But as she and Jathmar continued to study it, they quickly realized just how deceiving first appearances could be.

They were close enough to get a decent look at what was obviously the local shipyard, for example. It wasn't very large, and there were only three vessels under construction, but Shaylar felt her eyes opening wide as she studied it. She'd seen enough Sharonian boatyards located in equivalent settlements to know what to look for, but there was no sign here of the steam or water-powered sawmills and forges she would have found in one of them, nor did she hear or see any axes or adzes.

Instead, she saw big timbers levitating themselves effortlessly into the air, hovering there while some unseen force slabbed them into neatly trimmed planks which stacked themselves to one side. Tearing her eyes away from that fascinating sight, she saw workmen engaged on an entire series of equally improbable activities.

Two men were shaping what were obviously framing timbers for the largest of the vessels under construction, but they were doing it without any tools Shaylar could recognize. Instead, each of them held what looked like simple hand grips at either end of a shaft of shining crystal. The grips were mounted at right angles to the shaft, which was about eight feet long and an inch in diameter. It swelled into a thicker cylinder?perhaps a foot long and seven or eight inches across?at its central point, and the workmen were moving that thicker cylinder carefully across the timber they were shaping while chips and sawdust flew away from it in bizarrely silent clouds.

Other pairs and small groups of workmen were dealing with other jobs?jobs which would have been accomplished with snorting steam or raw muscle in Sharona. Here, though, they were done with more of that eerie "magic" of Gadrial's, and the implications were frightening. There couldn't have been more than thirty men working in that shipyard, but the biggest of the three vessels they were constructing was probably three hundred feet long. That was smaller than the ship on which she and Jathmar presently stood, but it was still a substantial hull, and unlike the smaller ships being built beside it, it was not sail powered. Back in Sharona, the construction crews working on a project that size would have been far bigger. If Arcana's "magic" allowed that much greater productivity out of its workforce …

"We'll be going ashore shortly," Jasak announced, walking up behind them. "I'll have to report to Five Hundred Grantyl, the base commandant. I'm sure he'll want to … meet both of you. I don't imagine we'll stay long, though."

"That doesn't look very pleasant," Shaylar offered, waving one hand at the violent storm raging across the portal threhhold.

"No, it doesn't," he agreed. "The other side of the portal is in what I believe you call Uromathia in your home world. The temperature's not too bad there, but we'll have some mountains to cross to reach the next portal. We'll have to wait for the weather to clear before we can leave, and we'll have to bundle up for the flight."

"Flight?" Jathmar repeated, and Jasak nodded.

"We're going to be spending a lot of time on dragonback," he told them. "That's one reason I hope Windclaw's reaction to you had something to do with your head injury, Shaylar."

"So do I," she replied, just a bit tremulously, although she'd come to the conclusion that Windclaw had probably reacted less to her head injury than to her efforts to use her damaged Voice Talent to communicate with Darcel. Those efforts had coincided with both of the transport dragon's determined efforts to eat her, and she was just as grateful, in a guilty sort of way, that there couldn't be anyone within her range now.

"In case it didn't have anything to do with the concussion, though," she offered with a wan smile, "I'd personally vote for traveling on horseback!"

"Oh, no, you wouldn't," Gadrial told her. Shaylar looked at the other woman, standing beside her with the hot breeze stirring her hair, and Gadrial made a face. "Believe me, I've already made this trip, and it's going to be a pain. They haven't extended the slider rail beyond Green Haven, and that's something like twenty thousand of your miles from here. And it's sixty thousand more miles from Green Haven to New Arcana, so even with dragons to get us as far as the sliders, it's going to take something like four months to get to Garth Showma. You don't even want to think about making that trip on horseback!"

"No, I don't imagine I would," Shaylar replied, trying to hide her shock at what Gadrial had just said. It was less than forty thousand miles from New Uromath to Sharona. She and Jathmar had already realized that the Arcanans had clearly been exploring the multiverse longer than Sharona had, but still …

"Well," Jasak said as the boarding gangway once again lifted itself out of its brackets and settled into place between the ship's deck and the pier, "I suppose we might as well tell the captain goodbye and get ourselves ashore."

Division-Captain Arlos chan Geraith broke off his conversation with Division-Captain chan Manthau as the conference room door opened. They turned away from the snowcapped mountains, visible along the northern horizon outside the window, and stood respectfully silent as Corps-Captain Fairlain chan Rowlan, commanding officer of the Fifth Corps of the Imperial Ternathian Army came through the open door, followed by his chief of staff and his senior logistics officer.

chan Rowlan headed directly for his chair at the head of the conference table. The corps-captain was of little more than moderate height for a nativeborn Ternathian, and he normally moved with a certain deliberation, as if to compensate for his lack of height. There was no sign of that today, however. His movements were quick, almost urgent, and his expression was grim.

Which doesn't exactly come as a tremendous surprise, now does it, Arlos? chan Geraith told himself sardonically. There was real, if trenchant, humor in the question, but he was entirely too well aware of his own grim worry?and anger?simmering away beneath it.

"Good morning," chan Rowlan said to chan Geraith and his companions. "I'm glad you were all on the base this afternoon, but time's short. So let's get seated and get to it."

chan Geraith crossed to the table and took his own seat. Fifth Corps' other two division-captains?Yarkowan chan Manthau of the Ninth Infantry and Ustace chan Jassian of the Twenty-First?seated themselves to his left and right respectively, and he reflected (not for the first time) on how different the Ternathian military was from that of its only true rival, Uromathia. Uromathians were much more addicted to flashy uniforms, rank insignia, and salutes?not to mention bowing and scraping properly to one's superiors. Ternathians, by and large, preferred to get on with the job in hand. They'd been doing it for a very long time, after all. There weren't very many current-service units in any army which could trace their battle honors in unbroken line of succession for over four thousand years.

The Third Dragoons was one of them … which made chan Geraith's division substantially older than the entire Uromathian Empire. Or, for that matter, the Uromathian language.

With that sort of history behind them, Ternathian officers felt no particular need to emphasize their own importance and prestige. Even division commanders like chan Geraith, with the next best thing to nine thousand men under his command, normally eschewed dress uniform in favor of the comfortable, practical field uniform he wore at the moment. And while there was no question about chains of authority and military discipline, the Ternathian tradition was for senior officers to discuss military problems and strategy like reasonable adults. Unlike certain other empires whose relative youth caused them?and their senior officers?to act like touchy adolescents whose insecurity had them playing the bully on a playground somewhere.

chan Geraith knew he was being at least a little unfair to the Uromathians, but he didn't really care. The fact was that he didn't like Uromathians. He was always scrupulously polite in his dealings with them and in his public comments about them, but he saw no reason to waste fairness on them in the privacy of his own mind.

"I'm sure you're all as well aware as I am of events in the Karys Chain," chan Rowlan said.

For just a moment, the corps-captain's face twisted with a spasm of intense pain mingled with something far darker and uglier. Unlike chan Geraith, who wasn't Talented at all, chan Rowlan's wife was a Voice, and the corps-captain had a fairly powerful telepathic Talent of his own. chan Geraith hadn't often seen raw hatred on his corps commander's face, but he was seeing it now, and he didn't blame chan Rowlan one bit.

"What you don't know yet," the corps-captain went on a moment later, with a certain forced briskness, "is that I've just received orders from Captain-of-the-Army chan Gristhane, placing Fifth Corps on immediate notice to deploy forward."

chan Geraith felt his fellow division commanders coming upright in their chairs with him as if they'd rehearsed the choreography ahead of time.

"There are several reasons we were selected," chan Rowlan continued. "One of them is purely political, and not to be discussed outside this room. Specifically, Chava Busar has already placed the better part of two cavalry regiments at the Authority's disposal. They're being given absolute priority for transport forward on the basis that they're the closest non-PAAF force available. We don't want to see Chava get his military toe any further into that door than we can avoid, hence the offer of our own troops.

"Among the purely military reasons, we're the closest Ternathian corps HQ to Larakesh. For that matter, Fort Erthain is closer to Larakesh than any major non-Ternathian?" he very carefully did not say "Uromathian," chan Geraith noted "?military base, as well. We can entrain and get to the portal more rapidly than anyone else, and with a lot more combat power when we go. In addition, at the moment the railhead hasn't quite reached Fort Salby in Traisum. That leaves us almost four thousand miles?four thousand unimproved miles, all of them overland?from Hell's Gate."

He used the new, unofficial name for the contact portal without hesitation, chan Geraith noticed, and the division-captain raised two fingers in a request for attention.

"Yes, Arlos?"

"Should I assume that, for my sins, the Third gets to take point?"

"Yes, you should," chan Rowlan replied, and chan Geraith nodded.

Fort Emperor Erthain, on the mountain-ringed plains of Karmalia, was one of the Imperial Ternathian Army's largest military bases. In fact, it was by most measures the largest military base in the entire multiverse. Well, in our part of it, anyway, he reminded himself. It was also home to the Empire's major military proving grounds, and the place where the Imperial Army played with its newest toys to see what they could do.

For the last two years, Fifth Corps in general?and the Third Dragoon Division, in particular?had been experimenting with a radically new approach to military logistics. The basic concept had suggested itself following the improvements in heavy construction equipment produced by the Trans-Temporal Express's insatiably expanding rail net. There were those who believed the newfangled "internal combustion engine" was going to be the powerplant of the future because it was so much lighter and more efficient than steam, and chan Geraith wasn't prepared to tell them they were wrong. But those noisy, oil- and gasoline-burning contraptions were still taking the first, hesitant steps of infancy, and out in the field, where the TTE did most of its heavy construction work (and where the army might be called upon to maneuver), refined oil products might not be available. So TTE had specialized in developing ever more efficient steam-powered excavators, bulldozers, and tractors. Designed to burn just about any fuel which could be shoveled into their fire boxes, they'd grown steadily more powerful, lighter, and more reliable for over fifty years now.

In fact, they'd grown reliable enough for the Imperial Army to take a very close look at them. chan Geraith was one of the general officers who continued to nurse serious reservations about their maintainability in the field, but he'd seen enough over the past twenty-odd months to become convinced they were, indeed, the future of military transport.

Plans had called for the entire Fifth Corps to be provided with the new personnel carriers and freight haulers, but as was always the case (especially with peacetime budgets) procurement rates had run far behind schedule. Third Dragoons, tasked as Fifth Corps's quick-response division, was the smallest of the three divisions (horsed units always had lower manpower totals than infantry units), as well as the most mobile. It was also the only one which had received anything like its full allotted transport, even it was still a good twenty percent below the intended establishment. On the other hand, chan Geraith's mounted troopers wouldn't require anywhere near the personnel lift one of the infantry divisions would have demanded.

"In order to make Arlos up to strength," chan Rowlan went on, looking at chan Manthau and chan Jassian, "we're going to raid you two pretty heavily. In fact, we're going to focus on putting him as far over establishment as possible. All of us know we're going to have maintenance problems and breakdowns once we've got the steamers out there under real field conditions, so we're going to have to try to make up for lack of reliability with redundancy."

The two infantry commanders nodded. It was obvious neither of them was happy about the prospect, but, equally obviously, both of them understood it.

"Captain-of-the-Army chan Gristhane has also informed me that the procurement and development of additional steamers?and the alternate program, looking at the gasoline-powered versions?is about to get a brand new priority. In fact," the corps-captain produced his first genuine smile since Seeing the Voicenet reports from Hell's Gate, "the Navy's already been informed that it won't be getting two of those new battleships it wanted. It seems the Army's finally going to get first call on the Exchequer."

The smile vanished as abruptly as it had appeared as all four commanders remembered why that was. Then chan Rowlan cleared his throat.

"Arlos, your division is going to move out ASAP. Dust off your mobilization plans."

chan Geraith nodded without mentioning that he'd done that over thirty-six hours ago. Third Dragoons had been checking equipment, shoeing horses, drawing ammunition and supplies, and combat-loading its steamers since dawn yesterday.

"Can you move out within twenty-four hours?" chan Rowlan asked, which made it clear he was well aware chan Geraith had begun his preparations long since. "It's going to take almost that long for the railroad people to assemble the cars you're going to require."

"I can have my lead brigade ready to entrain in another twelve hours," chan Geraith promised. "It's short about fifteen percent of its assigned steamers, but if we're going to make up the shortfall from Yarkowan and Ustace, I can strip what First Brigade needs out of Second and Third. It'll probably slow Third down, since I'm guessing we'll get a ripple effect into its transport when I send Second out in the next echelon, but I suspect we can still have everybody ready to go by the time the quartermasters can put together the trains to get all of us on the rails, anyway."

"Good!" chan Rowlan said. Then he straightened his shoulders and inhaled visibly.

"At this time, we don't know what we're going to be called upon to do when we finally get to New Uromath," he said. "Arlos, we'll do our best to keep you informed of policy changes and strategic intentions via the Voice chain, but the time delay is going to mean you'll have to use your own discretion?a lot. I'll come forward to join you as soon as we've got at least one of the infantry divisions en route, but until then, you're going to be the man on the spot, in more ways than one."

"Understood," chan Geraith said.

"Then understand this, too. Our primary responsibility is the protection of Sharonian civilians and the recovery of any of our people who may be still in enemy hands. I know we all hope we're talking about Shaylar Nargra-Kolmayr, but there are other civilians?and quite a few military dependents?in proximity to this point of contact, as well. Their safety is our first concern.

"Having said that, however, Captain-of-the-Army chan Gristhane has pointed out that there's a very important secondary consideration here. Specifically, Hell's Gate is a cluster, and according to the Authority's best guess, several of the portals in the Karys Chain are of relatively recent formation. That suggests this is an unusually active chain, which may be expanding even as we sit here talking. We cannot afford to leave a hostile?and these bastards have certainly demonstrated their hostility, I believe," chan Rowlan showed his teeth in grim amusement "?in possession of that cluster. Particularly not if it is expanding rapidly and might double back into one of our own chains at some point."

"So my orders are to secure control of that universe, as well?" chan Geraith wanted to be very certain he was clear on that point, and chan Rowlan nodded.

"It may be that eventually some sort of diplomatic solution can be arrived at. For that to happen, it will have to include severe punishment for the people responsible for this … assuming Company-Captain chan Tesh hasn't already taken care of that in full. But at this time, the very least we would find acceptable would be some form of shared control of this cluster. If it takes a mailed fist to accomplish that, then so be it. It's always possible that whatever comes out of this new Conclave in Tajvana may change those instructions, but I consider that highly unlikely. You'll have formal written orders to cover as many contingencies as we can envision, but the bottom line is that you will secure control of that cluster and hold it."

It was chan Geraith's turn to nod again. The thought of taking a single division of dragoons off to face the massed fighting power of a totally unknown trans-universal empire was daunting, to say the least. Especially in light of the uncanny weapons the other side had already displayed since, unlike some of his fellows, chan Geraith strongly suspected that so far they'd seen only the surface of the other side's technological iceberg. There were more, and nastier, surprises waiting for them, although it seemed quite obvious that Sharona had had a few surprises for the other side, as well. The confidence, almost exuberance, he'd seen out of some of his junior officers as news of chan Tesh's successful attack on the other side's portal forces reached home worried him, and the fact that they had no idea of what sort of logistical constraints the enemy faced?or didn't face?was another concern.

But despite any of those worries, chan Geraith felt confident of his ability to secure and hold the portal cluster if he could only beat the enemy there in the first place. At the moment, chain Tesh controlled the enemy's access portal, and it was only a few miles across. Third Dragoons could hold that much frontage even against an army of Arpathian demons.

"I understand, Sir," he said. "When you get there, that cluster will be waiting for you."

"You wanted to see me, Gahlreen?" Olvyr Banchu said politely as the secretary opened the office door and bowed him through it.

Gahlreen Taymish, First Director of the Trans-Temporal Express looked up from the paperwork on his desk and nodded sharply.

"Damned right I did," he said briskly. He shoved his chair back and walked around his immense desk to shake Banchu's hand, then jerked his head at the huge window overlooking the Larakesh Portal.

Banchu took the hint. Taymish was renowned for his wealth, his capability, his tough mindedness, his temper, and his arrogance, yet deep inside him was the little boy who'd grown up on a hardscrabble farm right outside Larakesh, dreaming about the huge portal which dominated the city and its entire universe … and his own future. That little boy had never tired of the marvelous view connecting him to the mountains over four thousand miles?and a universe away?near the southern tip of Ricathia. Taymish did his best thinking standing in front of that window, looking at that view and pondering the promise of all the other universes which lay beyond it.

"I imagine you know why you're here," the First Director said after a moment, darting a sharp sideways look at Banchu.

"I can think of two possible reasons," Banchu replied. "First, I'm here so you can tell me I'm fired for not meeting that insane schedule you gave me. Or, second, I'm here so you can tell me that you never believed I'd meet it anyway, and that you want to congratulate me on how well I've actually done."

"Close, anyway," Taymish said with a tight grin. "Yes, I never believed you'd meet the schedule. I've discovered over the years that demanding the impossible from someone quite often gets him to do more than he thought was possible before he started trying to satisfy the idiot screaming at him. And, yes, I'm more than pleased that you've done as well as you have. However, I've got a new little task for you."

"Oh?"

Banchu regarded his superior warily. In the fifteen years since Taymish, then the executive head of TTE's Directorate of Construction, had lured him away from his position in the Uromathian Ministry of Transportation, Olvyr Banchu had learned that Taymish's idea of the proper reward for accomplishing the impossible was almost always a demand to accomplish something even more preposterous.

"Exactly." Taymish smiled broadly at the Trans-Temporal Express's chief construction engineer. It was only a brief smile, however, and it vanished quickly. "I want you to go out to Traisum and take personal charge."

"I see."

Banchu could hardly pretend it was a surprise. The rail line creeping steadily down the Hayth Chain towards Karys had been progressing satisfactorily enough before the murderous attack on the Chalgyn Consortium survey crew. Enormous as the task was, it had also been essentially routine for TTE. And the fact that every planet the Authority had opened through the portal network was a duplicate of Sharona itself helped enormously, of course. By and large, the routes for rail lines could be surveyed here on Sharona?or even simply taken directly from already existing topographical maps. Getting the men, material, and machinery forward to do the actual construction work was more of a straightforward logistics concern, than anything else, and the TTE building teams were the most experienced, efficient heavy construction engineers in human history. They'd laid well over two million miles of track across forty universes, and along the way they'd developed the techniques?and machinery?to take crossing an entire planet in stride.

But what had been a more than acceptable rate of progress in an essentially peaceful and benign multiverse was something else entirely when there was a vicious, murderous enemy at the far end of the transit chain.

"You want me to ginger them up, is that it?" he asked after a moment.

"That's part of it," Taymish agreed. "You're invaluable here in the office, but let's face it, you were born to be a field man yourself. If anyone can get a few more miles a day of trackage out of our people, it's you. But, frankly, the main reason I want you out there is because of your seniority."

"Ah?" Banchu raised one eyebrow, and Taymish chuckled. It was not an extraordinarily pleasant sound.

"We've got heavy equipment, rails, and work crews pouring down the Hayth Chain right this minute. We've pulled in entire crews, from other projects all over the net. For that matter, we've shut down operations completely in the Salth Chain to divert everything we have into pushing the Hayth railhead to Karys and New Uromath. That means we've got some very senior field engineers all headed for the same spot, and we don't have time for any stupid headbutting over who's got the seniority on this project. With you out there on the spot, that sort of frigging stupidity can be nipped in the bud.

"Possibly even more to the point, we're going to have some really senior military personnel moving into the region, as well. I want someone with equivalent seniority from our side of the shop there to coordinate with them. Someone who can speak authoritatively about the realities of what we can and can't do and explain exactly what sort of priorities we need from them."

"And the fact that I'm Uromathian and I'll be in charge of the most critical single infrastructure project in Sharona's history won't hurt anything, either, will it?" Banchu said shrewdly.

"Never has yet," Taymish admitted cheerfully. "Hells, Olvyr! I never could decide whether I recruited you in the first place more to poke Chava in the eye by luring you away from him or to make you my token Uromathian to satisfy the Ternathian liberals! The fact that you turned out to be at least marginally capable was just icing on the cake."

Banchu shook his head with a laugh. Given Gahlreen Taymish's penchant for killing as many birds as possible with every stone, there probably really was at least a grain of truth in that. Not that Taymish would have hired anyone, regardless of his origins, if he hadn't been convinced that that person was the very best available.

Still, the First Director often showed a degree of sensitivity to human interactions and dynamics which would have startled most of his (many) detractors. Having a Uromathian of Banchu's seniority out there in charge of the critical rail-building project really might gratify Emperor Chava?or, at least, placate his pride and hunger for prestige. And it was unfortunately true that many other Uromathians shared their Emperor's resentment of the way Ternathia's towering reputation as Sharona's only true "superpower' continued to linger, despite Uromathia's population and power. Having "one of their own" out there at the sharp end would play well with them, as well, and the Uromathian press would love it. And if some of the PAAF military officers in the area happened to be Uromathian themselves, Banchu's presence could turn out to the extremely valuable in terms of reduced friction and amicable relations.

"All right," he said. "I've got two more construction trains moving out tomorrow. I can assign myself to one of them. For that matter, I may even have time to kiss my wife goodbye!"