The Domination

Chapter Twelve

SOUTH WING WAITING ROOM

CASTLE TARLETON

ARCHONA

ARCHONA PROVINCE

DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

The family was waiting for her in the ring-road plaza by the south side of the Castle Tarleton grounds. Her brother John and Mandy, sitting at a table under an umbrella and talking. Looking exactly what they were, Landholders in from the provinces, down to the broad-brimmed hats and conservative Tolgren 5mms . . . David, their latest infant, cooing and gurgling in the arms of stout Delores, his brooder-nurse; Jolene, Adele . . . and Marya, with Gwen. Gwen.

“Momma! Momma!” The small red-headed form bounced erect and ran toward her, toddler’s tunic flying. “Momma!” She leaped up.

“Ooof.” She was heavy for a five-year-old; that was the denser bones. Incredibly strong. Yolande grabbed her under the armpits and swung her in a wide circle, laughing up into the face that smiled back at her.

“Zero-G!” the child cried. “Zero-G, Momma!”

Yolande darted a look of apology at her brother, and tossed her daughter up with a swoop-catch. “There you go, spacer! And—one and two and three and dockin’ maneuver.” She gave the child a smacking kiss and hugged her.

Gwen’s arms tightened around her neck, and she pressed her head against her mother’s. “Love you, Momma,” she said.

“Love you, too, my baby Gwennie,” she said.

“I am not a baby! I’m Gwen,” she replied firmly.

“Indeed you are, light of my life.” Yolande signed to Marya. “Here, now stay with you Tantie-ma fo’ a minute, an’ hush.”

John and Mandy were smiling indulgently at her, hands linked.

“I gathah the news is good,” her brother chuckled. Mandy was using her belt phone to call for the car; the family had rented the latest for their stay in Archona, a superconductor-electric with maglev capacity on the few stretches of road relaid for that luxury.

“You are lookin’,” Yolande said, buffing her nails, “at the newest Cohortarch in the Directorate of War.”

“Well, well, well, we Ingolfssons are movin’ up in the world,” he said, with a swift hard embrace. John had never been more than a tetrarch, or wanted to be. He and Mandy did their Territorial Reserve duty, and that was enough distraction from Claestum and its folk. “Even as I dragged you appalling offspring through the zoo and amusement park. Wotan’s stomach, the things they do with rides these days! While Mandy shopped the estate into bankruptcy; we’ll need a Logistics Lifter to get the loot—”

He winced theatrically as the tall blond woman dug him in the ribs. “Gwen didn’t enjoy those rides half as much as you did,” she said. “Do I quarrel with you gettin’ every toy Biocontrol dreams up fo’ the credulous planter? Like those steakberries?” John winced more sincerely; the high-protein meat-mimicking fruit had proven a beacon for every vermin, pest, scavenger, and grub in Italy. Their son began to cry softly. “I could scarcely take Davie along with you and Gwen, now could I?”

They glanced over to the nurses. Delores was just lifting a full breast out of her blouse and brushing the engorged brown nipple across the infant’s mouth; she rocked the child and crooned, smiling, as he suckled.

“That reminds me, you-know-who dropped a broad hint it’d be appreciated if I had anothah befo’ shippin’ out. Hm, Gwen? You likes a little brothah or sistah to play with you?”

The girl had been seated on Marya’s lap, watching the adults and ignoring her cousin with five-year-old disdain. “Can’t play with a baby,” she said practically. “They just makes messes an’ sleeps.”

Yolande laughed, and glanced an inquiry at her brother and sister-in-law. Mandy nodded. “One more’s no problem, ’Landa. Freya knows, what with ours and the two new ones ma an’ pa are having, we gettin’ to be more of a tribe than a family.”

Yolande’s mother had borne four children naturally, but seemed to prefer the new method wholeheartedly.

“I’ll have to pick a brooder,” she said.

“No problem . . . ‘Ship out’?” her schoolfriend said.

Yolande shrugged, spread her hands and looked from side to side in the universal Draka gesture for secrecy. Not that the Security Directorate needed to have spies hiding behind bushes these days.

“Be gone fo’ quite some time. Months, leastways.”

Gwen made a protesting sound, frowning and pouting, blinking back tears. Yolande moved over toward her on the stone bench, smoothing the copper hair back from her brow.

“Now, where’s my big brave girl?” she said gently. “Momma has her work, an’ I’ll bring you back another piece of a star, sweetie.” Gwen had been just old enough after the last voyage to understand that the light pointed out in the sky was where her mother had been, and the lump of rock from Ganymede was her most precious possession.

“I don’ want a star. I want Momma!” She tugged on Marya’s hair. “Tantie-ma, tell Momma she cain’ go!”

“Hush, Missy Gwen. You know I can’t tell your mother what to do.” The serf wrapped her arms around the child and made soothing noises.

“Now, don’t be a baby, Gwen,” Yolande said. “Momma doesn’t have to leave fo’ a week yet”—which was forever to a child this age—“and when I go, you can come up to the station with me, how’s that? Right up above the sky.” No more risky than an ordinary scramjet flight, these days, and she could probably swing it.

“And you’ll have Uncle John and Auntie Mandy and Tantie-ma, too, and all the friends you makes at school next year. Oh,” she continued, looking up at Marya. “I meant to tell you. I’ve posted bond, you’re moved up to Class III Literate.” That meant nontechnical and nonpolitical literature, and limited computer access to menu-driven databanks; the classics, as well, most of them.

Marya looked down, flushing. “Thank you, Mistis,” she whispered. For an instant Yolande thought she caught something strange and fierce in the wench’s expression, then dismissed it. Must have been boring, nothing much to read, she thought. Should have done this before. Gwen subsided, looking up with nervous delight at the thought of flying to orbit.

“Well, what have we planned?” Yolande asked.

“Lunch,” John said. “Then the Athenaeum, then dinner at Saparison’s. Then there’s a Gerraldson revival at the Amphitheater, the Fireborn Resurrection, and Uncle Eric used some pull to get us a box. We’ll drop the children off first, of course.”

“Nnoo, I think Gwen might enjoy it,” Yolande said, considering. “The dancin’ at least. Marya can keep her quiet, or take her out in the gardens if not.” And it would be a treat for Marya as well; she had been behaving well of late. Gwen was certainly devoted to her, which was a good sign.

The electrocar had hissed up on the smooth black roadway a dozen meters away. The main processional streets of Archona had been the first public places in the solar system to be fitted with superconductor grids, just last year. Their car floated by the curb, motionless and a quarter meter above the roadway as the gull-wing doors folded up; it still looked a little unnatural to Yolande for something to hover so on Earth, without jets or fans. She reached out for Gwen’s hand and the child took it in one of hers and offered the other to Marya. Their eyes met for a moment over the child’s head, before they turned to walk behind the others.

Strange, Yolande thought. Life is strange, really.

“I did it! Cohortarch, independent command, I did it!” Jolene looked up smiling as Yolande collapsed backward onto the bed in her undertunic, the formal gown strewn in yards of fabric toward the door. The room was part of a guest suite in the von Shrakenberg townhouse, beautiful in an extremely old-fashioned way; inlaid Coromandel sandalwood screens in pearl and lapis, round water-cushioned bed on a marble dais with a canopy, a wall of balcony doors in frosted glass etched over with delicate traceries of fern and water fowl. They were opened slightly, letting in a soft diffuse glow of city light cut into fragments by the wind-stirred leaves of ancient trees; it smelled of water, stone, and frangipani blossoms, and the air was just warm enough to make nakedness comfortable.

“Congratulations, Mistis . . . again,” the serf said.

Yolande shook her head wordlessly; it had been a perfect evening, after a stone bitch of a week shuttling from one debriefer to the next and wondering what the Board would say. Her mind still glowed from the impossible beauty of Gerraldson’s music . . . Why had he killed himself, at the height of his talent? Why had Mozart, for that matter? And this mission, it was the perfect opportunity, for so many things. She rolled onto one elbow and watched Jolene. The serf was sitting on a stool before the armoire, brushing out her long loose-curled blond mane, dressed in a cream silk peignoir that set off the fine-grained ebony of her skin. And also showed off the spectacular lushness of her figure; the black serf had filled out a little without sagging at all. The Draka grinned.

“You pick out a father fo’ the new baby, Mistis?” Jolene asked. “That nice Mastah Markman?”

Yolande chuckled. “No, not this time. We’re giving it a raincheck fo’ a while, different postin’s.” Teller had been a good choice for an affair; interesting and friendly without trying to get too close. “Myfwany’s brother agreed to release sperm from the Eugenics banks when I asked. As fo’ you, wench, you just miss the variety.” She and Teller had tumbled Jolene together a few times, and the wench had been enthusiastic.

“Mmmh.” Jolene said, meeting her owner’s eyes in the mirror as her hands brushed methodically. “It was nice.” More seriously: “Nice to see yo smilin’ agin, Mistis.”

Yolande shrugged, sighed. “Ah, well . . . You can only grieve so long. Gwen deserved better, little enough she sees of me.” Work could keep you busy, hold the pain at bay until it faded naturally; work and the things of daytime. Nights were worst, and the moments when the protective tissue seemed to fall away and everything came back raw and fresh. “Grief dies, like everythin’ else.” For a moment, her mind was beyond the walls, under the unwinking stars. Except hate. Hatred is forever, like love.

Jolene rose, arranged the armoire table, bent to pick up the gown and fold it, swaying and glancing occasionally at the Draka out of the corner of her eyes. Yolande watched with amusement, lying on her stomach with her feet up and her chin in her hands.

“Oh, fo’get the play-actin’ and come here, wench,” she said. “I know what you want.” Jolene sank down on the padded edge of the bed and Yolande knelt up behind her, reaching around to open the buttons of the silk shift and take the serf’s breasts in her hands; she traced her fingers over the smooth warmth of them and up to Jolene’s neck, down again to tease at the pointed nipples. Her own desire was increasing, a soothing-tingling whole-body warmth.

“Mmmm feels nice . . . Mistis? Mmm—” as Yolande ran her tongue into the other’s ear. “Mistis, you picked the brooder yet?”

“Freya, you feel good. Up fo’ a second.” She drew the garment over the serf’s head and tossed it aside. “You first. The brooder? No, I’ll look at the short list when we get back to Claestum.” There were always plenty of volunteers to carry a Draka child; it meant a year of no work and first-rate rations at the least, often the chance of promotion to the Great House, personal-servant work or education beyond birth-status. Being a child-nurse as well as brooder was a virtual guarantee of becoming a pampered Old Retainer later. “Lie down.”

The serf lay back and Yolande straddled her, running her hands from the black woman’s knees up over thighs and hips, circling on the breasts and starting over. Jolene arched into it, squirming and making small relaxed sounds of pleasure. Yolande savored the contrasting sensations, the firm muscle overlaid with a soft resilient layer of fat. Not flabby, but so different from a Draka, she thought.

“You do this with the brooder, Mistis?” Jolene asked through a breathy chuckle.

“Maybe,” Yolande said, running her fingernails up the other’s ribs. That brought a protesting tickle-shiver. “If she’s pretty an’ willing’. I’m goin’ pick her for hips, health, an’ milk, not fuckability.”

She leaned herself forward slowly, until they were in contact, hips and stomach and breasts, then kissed her. Mint and wine, she thought languidly. There were times when this was exactly what you wanted: friendly, slow and easy. It might be the crèche training, but with Jolene she always felt affection without the risk of the wench getting excessively attached, which was embarrassing and forced you to hurt them, eventually.

“Mhhh . . . I’d . . . I’d like to do it, Mistis,” Jolene said. “Have you baby.”

Startled, Yolande rose up on her hands and looked down into the other’s face. “Why on earth?” she said. The movement had brought her mound of Venus into contact with the serf’s, and she began a gentle rocking motion with her hips; the other slipped into rhythm.

“I . . . like babies, Mistis.”

“Hmmm. Up a little harder. You can have you own, anytimes; take a lover or a husband, I don’t mind.”

“Thanks kindly, Mistis, not yet. I hopes to travel with you sometimes, see them faraway places. But you away lots next little while. An’ . . . well, you knows I gets friendly with Marya? No, not like this, just she don’ have many to talk to. Other Literates at Claestum sort of standoffish, ’specially with her.” Yolande winced slightly, remembering her early treatment of the wench. It would mark Marya with dangerous misfortune, in the eyes of most.

“Then, she don’t have much to talk about with, with the unClassed.” The vast majority on a plantation, illiterate and forbidden even the most limited contact with information systems.

“Marya good with babies, but Gwen gettin’ to be a holy terror; we kin”—she ran her hands down her owner’s flanks, gripped her hips to increase the friction of the slow grind—“kin help each othah. ’Sides,” she said, raising her mouth to the Draka’s breasts, “I like the idea.”

“Mmmm. All right, I’ll take you in to the Clinic and have you seeded. Now shut up an’ keep doin’ that.”

* * *

Bing. The bedside phone. Yolande raised her mouth from Jolene’s. “Shit.” Bing. Bing. Bing. “It isn’t goin’ away.” Not that it was all that late, she had only been back from the Amphitheater two hours.

Her left hand went to the touchplate, keying voice-only. Her right stayed busy; not fair to stop now. “Yes?” she said coldly.

“Uncle Eric here.” An older man’s voice, warm and assured. “If I’m not interrupt—”

Jolene shuddered and stiffened, crying out sharply once and then again.

“Ah, even if I am, niece, I’ve got a gentleman here I think you’d like to meet an’ some matters to discuss. Half an hour in the study? Strictly informal.”

“Certainly, Uncle Eric,” Yolande said, breaking the connection. “Senator, possibly Archon-to-Be, war hero, Party bigwig, darlin’ of the Aerospace Command, he-who-must-be-obeyed by new-minted Cohortarchs, shit,” she muttered, looking down. Jolene was smiling as she lay with her eyes closed, panting slightly. “Got to go fo’ a while, sweet wench,” the Draka said.

Jolene’s eyes opened. “Half an hour, the bossman said,” she husked, swallowing. “Five-minute shower, five minutes fo’ a loungin’ robe and sandals. Ten-minute walk; that leaves ten minutes. No time to waste, Mistis-sweet, you just lie back there an’ put you legs over my shoulders.”

Yolande threw herself back and began to laugh. I wonder, she thought in the brief moment while thought was possible, I wonder what he has to say?

The study was book-lined, with the leather odor of an old well-kept library; there was a long table with buffel-hide chairs, and another set of loungers around the unlit hearth. A few pictures on the wall: old landscapes; one priceless Joden Foggard oil of Archona in 1830 with a smoke-belching steamcar in front of this townhouse, a nude by Tanya von Shrakenberg. A few modern spacescapes. The doors to the patio had been closed, and the room was dim; a house girl was just setting a tray with coffee and liqueurs on the table amid the chairs. There were three men waiting for her. Uncle Eric; nearly sixty now, and looking . . . not younger, just like a very fit sixty: the hatchet-faced von Shrakenberg looks aged well. His eldest, Karl, thirty-six and a Merarch already, like a junior version of his father with a touch of his mother’s rounder face and stocky build; also with more humor around his eyes.

They rose, and she saw the third man was still in evening dress rather than the hooded djellaba robes she and her hosts were wearing. A rather unfashionable outfit, brown velvet with silver embroidery on the seams and cuffs, and a very conservative lace cravat. An unfashionable man, only fifty millimeters taller than she, broad-built and bear-strong; you could see that he might turn pear-shaped in middle age among any people but Draka. A hooked nose, balding brow, and a brush of dark-brown beard.

“Greetings,” she said politely, gripping his wrist. “Service to the State.”

“Glory to the Race,” he replied; the return grip was like a precisely controlled machine. His accent was Alexandrian, like the Board chairman this morning, but with a human pitch and timbre. And a hint of something else, unplaceable.

“Doctor Harry Snappdove, my niece, Cohortarch Yolande Ingolfsson,” Eric said, with a smile at her well-concealed surprise. “I am on the Strategic Planning Board, Yolande,” he said.

They all sank into the chairs; the house girl arranged the refreshments and left on soundless feet.

“I felt,” her uncle continued, “that it was time you and I started . . . talkin’ occasionally on matters of importance, beyond the purely social.”

His voice was genial as they sipped at the chocolate-almond liqueur, and the other two turned politely toward her, but for a moment Yolande felt as tense as she had before the Appointments Board. Then the mellow contentment of her body forced relaxation on her mind, and she sent a thought of silent gratitude to Jolene.

“Hmmm. Ah, Uncle . . . am I to presume I’m bein’ invited into the infamous von Shrakenberg Mafia?” The factional struggles within the Party had been getting fiercer these last few years, and it was well-known who led the controlling circle of the Conservative wing.

Eric laughed soundlessly. “Wotan, are they still callin’ it that?” Seriously: “You’re reaching the point where political commitments become necessary.” Yolande nodded slightly; that was almost true. The Domination had never been able to afford real nepotism; you had to have plenty of raw talent to get promoted. Still, it had never hurt to have family and Party connections.

“The Party is going to split soon,” he continued. Yolande felt a cold-water shock at the casual tone, the equally casual nods of the other two. The Draka League had always been there in the background of her life, like the atmosphere.

“How?” she asked.

“Oh, along the present factional lines. About thirty percent to my Conservatives, maybe twenty to twenty-five to Gayner and her Militants, the rest to the Center group; the Center will pick up what’s left of the other parties, the Rationalists and so forth. Melinda”—she thought for a moment before realizing he must mean Melinda Shaversham, the present Archon—“hates the idea; she’ll probably end up with the rump, the Center, and try to hold things together. The Center have the largest numbers, but they’re short on organization an’ leadership. We’ll prob’ly have an unofficial Center-Conservative coalition, for a while at least. The long-term struggle will be fo’ the Center’s constituency.”

“Well, if you lookin’ fo’ my vote, Uncle Eric,” she began dubiously. He shook his head.

“Somethin’ far mo’ fundamental, Yolande.” He paused, looking down into his glass for a moment. “One thing the Militants don’t lack, it’s leadership: McLaren, Terreblanche, and Gayner. A thug, a loon, and a loony thug, but smart,”

“Call themselves Naldorists, don’t they?” she said.

Karl’s snort matched his father’s. “Naldorssen’s been dead since 1952,” he said decisively. “The Militants just wave her name, since we’ve all had her Will-to-Power philosophizing shoved down our throats in school.”

“Well, son, she did put it mo’ coherently than Nietzsche, even the formulations he made after he migrated to the Domination and calmed down,” Eric said charitably. “And the Militants do have a point. All that trans-human stage of evolution thing was mystical drivel when Naldorssen made it up, back when. With modern biocontrol, it could happen.” His mouth twisted slightly. “Under the adjustment to circumstances mealymouthin’, what the Militants have in mind is reorganizin’ the human race on a hive-insect specialization model.”

“Gahh,” Yolande said. Maybe I should have been following public affairs more carefully.

“Bad biology, too,” the professor said. “The hive insects haven’t changed an iota in seventy million years.”

Karl laughed sourly. “Precisely Gayner’s definition of success. Not surprising the ice bitch’s never had an original idea of her own, anyways.”

“But we live in a more challenging environment than insects do,” Snappdove mused. “And . . . intelligence doesn’t necessarily imply a self-conscious individual mind, y’know. Let the Militants get in control for three, four generations, and it’d be a positive disadvantage, even for the Race. We’d end up as empty of selfhood as ants.”

“Loki on ice,” Yolande said, alarmed. “I have been out of touch. Well, off Earth an’ busy. Don’t tell me the electorate is buyin’ this?”

“Not directly, but then the Militant inner circle aren’t spellin’ it out in those terms,” Eric said. “And it appeals to our national love of unchanging stasis, and the basic Draka emotion.” Yolande looked a question. “Fear.”

“Oh, come now, Uncle—”

“Why else would we have backed ourselves into this social cul de sac?” He rolled the liqueur glass between his hands. “Ever since the Landtaking, we’ve been in the position of a man runnin’ downhill on a slope too steep to stop; got to keep going, or we fall on our face an’ break our necks. Individual relationships aside, don’t delude youself that the serfs as a group like us as a group. They don’t. Why should they? We enslave them, drive them like cattle; because if we did any different, they’d overrun and butcher us.”

Yolande looked from side to side, not a conventional gesture but genuine alarm.

“Don’t worry,” her uncle said dryly. “This place is swept daily by technicians personally loyal to me. It works, or I’d be dead.”

“Well . . . ” Yolande gathered her thoughts. “It’s true, some aspects of the way serfs are treated is . . . unfo’tunate.” She remembered deeds of her own. “I gathah you’d like to increase the scope of those reforms you’ve introduced, the serf tribunals an’ such?”

Eric nodded. “Yes; but those are strictly limited. Administrative measures, really. They regularize the way serfs treat serfs . . . perhaps not so minor a mattah, since we use serfs fo’ most of our supervisory work. It’s certainly improved morale and efficiency, among the Literates . . . and they still provide the headhunters with the most of they work. An ex-slave in America once said that a badly-treated slave longed fo’ a good master, and a slave with a good master longed to be free . . . Not entirely true, thank Baldur the Good, or even mostly, but often enough to be worrisome. No, the long-term solution is to eliminate or reduce the fear. Do that, make the Citizen caste absolutely sure they’re not in danger from the serfs, an’ genuine reform becomes possible.

“You see,” he continued, leaning forward with hands on knees. The dim glowlight outlined the craggy bones of his face. “You see, an outright slave society like ours is a high-tension solution to a social problem. Extreme social forms are inherently unstable; ours is as unviable as actual democracy, because it’s as unnatural. It’s too far up the entropy gradient. We have to push, continually, to keep it there. Remove the motive of fear and necessity an’ the inherent human tendency to take the path of least resistance will modify it. Eventually—perhaps in a thousand years—we’d have . . . oh, a caste society, certainly, an authoritarian one, perhaps. But somethin’ mo’ livable fo’ everybody than this wolf-sheep relationship we have now. A better way out than Gayner’s bee-hive, fo’ certain. That’s almost as bad as annihilation.”

“Leavin’ us Citizens as sheepdogs instead?” Karl asked rhetorically.

Eric grinned at his son. “Don’t quote me back at mahself, boy. But yes, the human race will always need warriors and explorers, leaders even.”

Yolande paused, picked up a brandied chocolate truffle and nibbled on it. “Uncle, with all due respect, Ah don’t see how you could remove the necessity fo’ strict control. It’s been . . . well, the root of everythin’. Except by turnin’ the serfs into machinery o’ ghouloons.”

Eric’s grin became almost boyish. “We use go-with, on the Militants,” he said. Yolande frowned in puzzlement; that was an unarmed-combat term, a deception ploy which used an opponent’s weight and strength against themselves.

“You’ve been in contact with the Eugenics people, fo’ your daughter?” She nodded.

“The Militants thought they’d fought through a favorable compromise, a first step. We suckered them. Look—what are the biocontrollers removin’ from the serf population? It’ll take centuries more than the changes they’re making in the Race, but what? Not intelligence; they’re increasin’ that, by eliminatin’ the subnormal. Not creativity; Loki’s tits, we don’t know what causes that an’ I suspects we never will, same as we’ll never have a computer that does mo’ than mimic consciousness. We’re just removin’ . . . that extra edge of aggressiveness that makes a warrior, from the subject races. We all know serfs that be no menace however free we let them run, right?”

“And Draka who aren’t much mo’ dangerous,” Karl laughed.

Eric acknowledged it with a nod. “So, eventually . . . no fear. Not that the serfs would be without bargainin’ power; they’ll still outnumber us by eighty to one, and we’ll still be dependent on them . . . but we could let the balance shift without bein’ terrified it’d shift all the way. And think of what we could do if we didn’t have to keep such tight clamps on their education an’ such!”

Snappdove made a vigorous gesture of assent. “Better evolutionary strategy than Gayner’s,” he said. “More flexible. Couldn’t count the number of species that’ve hit extinction by being overspecialized. Not that specialization’s altogether bad, have to strike a balance.”

She sipped at the drink again. Silence stretched into minutes. “Uncle Eric . . . Senator . . . you’ve always been good to me, and honest with me. I’ll be honest with you; it sounds good, and mo’ or less what I’ve been thinkin’, though I haven’t articulated it. I’ve Gwen’s future to think of, and my other children. But on foreign policy, as I understand it, the Militants stand fo’ absolute, well, militancy. And that’s my position, too. I . . . have reasons.” She stopped, feeling her own fragility.

“Oh, so do we,” Karl said.

“Absolutely. Political equations don’t figure as long as the Alliance is in it,” Snappdove rumbled, combing his beard with his fingers. “Adds too much tension and anxiety.”

“Yes, I’m afraid so,” Eric sighed. “I wish . . . well, we live as we must, and do what is necessary. Our prim’ry obligation is to our descendants, aftah all. As to the Yankees . . . we’ll probably have to kill most of them.” He set his glass down. “Gods, how sick I am of killin’!”

“I’m not,” Yolande said grimly. To herself: Is there anything I value more than revenge? Gwen, perhaps . . . A ghost opened green eyes at the back of her mind and whispered. Don’t borrow trouble, ’Landa-sweet. Or torment yourself with decisions you don’t need to make.

“Which brings us to the secondary mattah of Task Force Telmark IV,” Eric said. “Incidentally, Arch-Strategos Welber is one of us.”

Us, Yolande thought. So we make irrevocable decisions, without a spot you could stop and say—“Here. Here I did it.” She shivered slightly; the trip to Archona had been difficult enough when only an Appointment Board was at stake. Now she had joined a political cabal, and Draka politics was a game played by only one rule: rule or die.

“We—the inner circle of the Conservatives, that is—want to win the Protracted Struggle very, very badly. In the interim, we’ve got to be seen to wage it effectively; one hint of softness an’ the Militants will be over us like flies on horseshit. This is an impo’tant mission. I think you can handle it. Wouldn’t have recommended you fo’ it, otherwise.”

A wolf’s expression. “Doesn’t hurt that you a von Shrakenberg relation, from the Landholder class . . . and have been seen extensively in my company these past days. Politically profitable glory fo’ all. If you win, that is. Fail, and it’s a setback fo’ me.” And a disaster for you, girl, went unspoken between them.

“M-ha,” Snappdove said. “Very important. If that object’s what we think, our materials problems in the Earth-Moon area will be solved for the better part of a decade, without having to cut back on anything. By which time the outer-system projects will be on-line. Finally.”

“We were over hasty,” Karl agreed. “Whole space effort has been.

Those early scramjets, they were deathtraps.” He shook his head. “Both sides. The Yankees kept trying to model the airflows with inadequate computers, and we, we built a gigawatt of nuclear power stations, used the whole Dniester for cooling, to get that damned Mach-18 quarter scale wind tunnel. And we still had disasters.”

Snappdove spread his hands. The gesture triggered something in Yolande’s memory, and suddenly she could place the overtone to his accent—East European. His family must be one of the rare elite given Citizen status after the conquest. Scientists, mostly; that would explain a good deal.

“We needed the lift capacity, if we were to develop near-space in time,” he said ruthlessly. “The only other way to orbit was rockets, and they are toys. Even those first scramjets could carry six tonnes to orbit; now they’re up to fifty.”

“The early pulsedrives were almost as bad,” Yolande said. “We lost a lot of brave people, using them in the outer system.”

Snappdove smiled at her, and to her astonishment began quoting poetry. Hers: The Lament for the Fallen who Fall Forever, part of the Colder Than the Moon collection. It had used a literary conceit, a fantasy, that the quick-frozen bodies retained a trickle of consciousness in their supercooled brains:

“And those graveless dead drift restless

In the emptiness of space

Who died so far from love and home

And the blue world’s warm embrace . . . ”

“But now those problems are largely solved,” he continued. “What remains is engineering. Wonderful engineering, though!” He warmed, eyes lighting. “Perhaps that is why we of Technical Section support the good senator . . . Did you know we have funding for the first Beanstalk project, now?”

“Ah?” Yolande said. That was news. “Where?”

“Titan!” He made the spreading-hands gesture again at her raised eyebrows. That was a cutting-edge project, lowering a cable from geosynchronous orbit and using it to run elevators to the surface. Daring, to put it on one of the moons of Saturn . . .

“Logical,” the professor insisted. “The gravity there, that is nothing, only .14 G, but the atmosphere is thicker than Earth’s, and the problems of operating on the surface horrendous—lasers or mass-drivers out of the question. But a Beanstalk that gives us even cheaper transit, and once we do—nitrogen, methane, ethane, hydrogen cyanide, all types of organic condensates! It will take nearly a decade, but even so, once completed we can pump any desired quantity of materials downhill to sunward. Better we had concentrated on Saturn’s moons in any case; the distance is greater but the environment less troublesome than Jupiter.” The giant planet had radiation belts that were ferociously difficult even with superconductor-magnetic shielding.

“Energy would be a problem, wouldn’t it?” Yolande speculated. This is part of the bait, she thought without resentment, looking at her uncle sidelong. They know my dreams. That was politics, and the dream was shared.

“Well,” Eric said easily, “there we’ve taken a tip from the Yankees. Here, look at this.”

He slid a folder of glossy prints across the table to her. She flicked through them rapidly. They were schematic prints for some large construction; zero-G, or it would have collapsed. Circular, with two—large railguns?—at either side.

“What is it?” she said.

“Somethin’ the Yankees fondly believe is secret,” Eric said, then glanced at his son. “Need to know,” he added.

The younger man rose. “Goodnight, all,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve got company waitin’, anyhows. Less intellectual but mo’ entertainin’.”

Eric waited, then continued. “Example of how it’s easier to do things in space,” he said. “We still haven’t got a workin’ fusion reactor here on Earth. This is one—in a sense. Big empty sphere with heat exchangers an’ superconductor coils in the shell. Throw two pellets of isotopic hydrogen in through the railguns, splat. Beam heat at the same time. Hai, wingo, fusion.”

“Ahmmm,” Yolande said thoughtfully. “Sounds like what we’re plannin’ fo’ the next-generation pulsedrive.” A pause. “Crude, though, as a power source. Mo’ like what we’d do. And why do they need nonsolar power sources in the Belt?”

“Yes,” Snappdove said. “Patented brute-force-and-massive-ignorance method, very Draka . . . but it will work. Even useful for industry—the sun is fainter out there, microwave relay stations for the power . . . also typical of our methods. Here.” He pulled out another of the prints, showing a long rectangle of some thin sheet floating against the stars. “And what our sources in the Belt say is being subcontracted for.”

She read the list. “Superconductor coils . . . wire . . . tungsten?”

“Linear accelerators,” Snappdove said. “Not for mass-driving, not for research. Antimatter production.”

Yolande blinked. “Is it possible?” she said. “I thought . . . wasn’t there an accident, a whiles back?”

“TechSec facility in the Urals.” Eric nodded. “Equivalent of a megatonne sunbomb. Discouraged us no end. Engineerin’ problems in laser coolin’ and magnetic confinement, but antimatter is an old discovery on a laboratory scale, back as far as the 1930s. Mo’ sensible to do it in space, though. Question is, why so secret?”

“Weapons?” she thought aloud.

“What point? We’ve already got weapons mo’ powerful than we dare use here on Earth. Oh, yes, tactically useful in deep space. Even better as a propulsion system, if’n it can be managed, the ultimate rocket, yes. Still, it’s puzzlin’. This has to be a long-term project, an’ expensive as hell. The maximum security approach makes it even mo’ expensive an’ slow. Fifteen years even to start on large-scale production. Probably mo’; it’s doable but all sorts of problems. They’d put it in the Belt, certainly.” The Alliance was encouraging “homesteading” there by every means possible. “We’re goin’ to deuterium-tritium fusion pellets fo’ pulsedrives soon, then deuterium-boron 11. That’s almost as efficient, all charged particles. They can’t be goin’ to this much trouble just to build a better pulsedrive fo’ warships.”

Snappdove snorted. “We have a pilot project, at the Mercury-Shield Platform.” That was a research settlement orbiting in the innermost planet’s shadow. “Developing a plan to mass-produce solar power farms for near-sun use. Easily adaptable to powering antimatter production, perhaps early next century. We do the usual, wait for the Yankees to solve the tricky problems, steal their development, rejig it for our needs. They get a little ahead but not much.”

“So it can’t be just what it seems,” Eric said grimly. “Not just a power source for Belt settlement, not just a try fo’ better drives. There’s a big secret here. The sort that I have nightmares about, knowin’ some of our big secrets.”

“Well . . . yes, Uncle Eric, but what’s my part in it? Thought the High Command was sendin’ me to grab a rock?”

“Aha,” Eric said, with a mirthless laugh. “A rock comin’ from fairly close to where a lot of Alliance personnel have been goin’. And not comin’ back, never. Now, we have information on a launch . . . ”