Time lag

569 A. C. C.

Dirzh had changed while the ships were away. The evolution continued after their return. The city grew bigger, smokier, uglier. More people each year dropped from client status, went underground and joined the gangs. Occasionally, these days, the noise and vibration of pitched battles down in the tunnels could be detected up on patron level. The desert could no longer be seen, even from the highest towers, only the abandoned mine and the slag mountains, in process of conversion to tenements. The carcinogenic murkiness crept upward until it could be smelled on the most elite balconies. Teleshows got noisier and nakeder, to compete with live performances, which offering more elaborate bloodlettings than old-fashioned combats. The news from space was of a revolt suppressed on Novagal, resulting in such an acute labor shortage that workers were drafted from Imfan and shipped thither.

Only when you looked at the zenith was there no apparent change. The daylight sky was still cold purplish-blue, with an occasional yellow dust cloud. At night there will still the stars, and a skull.

And yet, thought Elva, you wouldn't need a large telescope to see the Third Expedition fleet in orbit — eleven hundred spacecraft, the unarmed ones loaded with troops and equipment, nearly the whole strength of Chertkoi marshaling to conquer Vaynamo. Campaigning across interstellar distances wasn't easy. You couldn't send home for supplies or reinforcements. You broke the enemy or he broke you. Fleet Admiral Bors Golyev did not intend to be broken.

He did not even plan to go home with news of a successful operation or a successful raid. The Third Expedition was to be final. And he must allow for the Vaynamoans having had a generation in which to recuperate. He'd smashed their heavy industry, but if they were really determined, they could have rebuilt. No doubt a space fleet of some kind would be waiting to oppose him.

He knew it couldn't be of comparable power. Ten million people, forced to recreate all their mines and furnaces and factories before they could lay the keel of a single boat, had no possibility’ of matching the conceited efforts of six and a half billion whose world had been continuously industrialized for centuries, and who could draw on the resources of two subject planets. Sheer mathematics ruled it out. But the ten million could accomplish something: and nuclear-fusion missiles were to some degree an equalizer. Therefore Bors Golyev asked for so much strength that the greatest conceivable enemy force would be swamped. And he got it.

Elva leaned on the balcony rail. A chill wind fluttered her gown around her, so that the rainbow hues rippled and ran into each other. She had to admit that the fabric was lovely. Bors tried hard to please her. (Though why must he mention the price?) He was so childishly happy himself, at his accomplishments, at his new eminence, at the eight-room apartment which he now rated on the very heights of the Lebedan Tower.

“Not that we’ll be here long,” he had said, after they first explored its intricacies. “My son Nivko has done good work in the home office. That's how come I got this command; experience alone wasn't enough. Of course, he’ll expect me to help along his sons...But anyhow, the Third Expedition can go even sooner than I'd hoped. Just a few months, and we’re on our way.”

“We?” murmured Elva.

“You do want to come, don’t you?”

“The last voyage, you weren’t so eager.”

“Uh, yes. I did have a deuce of a time, too, getting you aboard. But this’ll be different. First. I’ve got so much rank I’m beyond criticism, even beyond jealousy. And second, well, you count too. You’re not any picked-up native female. You’re Elva! The girl who on her own hook got that fellow Ivalo to confess.”

She turned her head slightly, regarding him sideways from droop-lidded blue eyes. Under the ruddy sun, her hair turned to raw gold. “I should think the news would have alarmed them, here on Chertkoi,” she said. ‘Being told that they nearly brought their own extinction about. I wonder that they dare launch another attack.”

Golyev grinned. “You should have heard the ruckus. Some Directors did vote to keep hands off Vaynamo. Others wanted to sterilize the whole planet with cobalt missiles. But I talked ’em around. Once we’ve beaten the fleet and occupied the planet, its whole population will be hostage for good behavior. We’ll make examples of the first few goozes who give us trouble of any sort. Then they’ll know we mean what we say when we announce our policy. At the first suspicion of plague among us, we’ll lay waste a continent. If the suspicion is confirmed, we’ll bombard the whole works. No, there won’t be any bug warfare.”

“I know. I’ve heard your line of reasoning before. About five hundred times, in fact. ” “Destruction! Am I really that much of a bore?” He came up behind her and laid his hands on her shoulders. “I don’t mean to be. Honest. I’m not used to talking to women, that’s all.”

“And I’m not used to being shut away like a prize fish, except when you want to exhibit me,” she said sharply.

He kissed her neck. His whiskers tickled. “It’ll be different on Vaynamo. When we’re settled down. I’ll be governor of the planet. The Directorate has as good as promised me. Then I can do as I want. And so can vou.”

“I doubt that. Why should I believe anything you say? When I told you I’d made Ivalo talk by promising you would exchange him. you wouldn’t keep the promise. She tried to wriggle free, but his grip was too strong. She contented herself with going rigid. “Now, when I tell you the prisoners we brought back this time are to be treated like human beings, you whine about your damned Directorate —”

“But the Directorate makes policy!”

“You’re the Fleet Admiral, as you never lose a chance to remind me. You can certainly bring pressure to bear. You can insist the Vaynamoans be taken out of those kennels and given honorable detention —”

“Awww, now.” His lips nibbled along her cheek. She turned her head away and continued: “— and you can get what you insist on. They're your own prisoners, aren’t they? I’ve listened enough to you, and your dreary officers when you brought them home. I’ve read books, hundreds of books. What else have I got to do. day after day and week after week?”

‘But I’m busy! I’d like to take you out, honest, but —”

“So I understand the power structure on Chertkoi just as well as you do, Bors Golyev. If not better. If you don't know how to use your influence, then slough off some of that conceit, sit down and listen while I tell you how.”

“Well, uh. I never denied, sweetling, you’ve given me some useful advice from time to time.” “So listen to me. I say all the Vaynamoans you hold are to be given decent quarters, recreation, and respect. What did you capture them for, if not to get some use out of them? And the proper use is not to titillate yourself by kicking them around. A dog would serve that purpose better.

“Furthermore, the fleet has to carryy them back to Vaynamo. All of them.”

“What? You don't know what you're talking about! The logistics is tough enough without —”

“I do so know what I'm talking about. Which is more than I can say for you. You want guides, intermediaries, puppet leaders, don’t you? Not by the score, a few cowards and traitors, as you have hitherto. You need hundreds. Well, there they are, right in your hands.”

“And hating my guts. ”

“Give them reasonable living conditions and they won't. Not quite so much, anyhow. Then bring them back home — a generation after they left, all their friends aged or dead, everything altered once you've conquered the planet. And let me deal with them. You’ll get helpers.”

“Uh, well, uh. I’ll think about it.”

“You’ll do something about it!” She eased her body leaning back against the rubbery muscles of his chest. Her face turned upward, with a slow smile. “You're good at doing things. Bors.” “Oh, Elva —”

Later: “You know one thing I want to do? As soon as I'm well established in the governorship? I want to many you. Properly and openly. Let 'em be shocked. I won’t care. I want to be your husband, and the father of your kids, Elva. How’s that sound? Mistress Governor General Elva Golyev of Vaynamo Planetary Province. Never thought you’d get that far in life, did you?”