welcome Merseians–untrue–but mainly because they see us as well-nigh
powerless against their crews–true.
“Can we then do aught? These two have made me believe it. Rebellion can
be forestalled. Yet we’ve netted a flailfish. We need care as much as
courage.
“To most of us, what’s gone on of late in Zorkagrad and in space has
been troubling, even frightening, and not understandable, like an evil
dream. Therefore we went about our work, trusting Gospodar Miyatovich
and his councillors to do what was right for Dennitza. Last night’s tale
of his arrest as a traitor stunned us. We’d have stood bewildered until
too late for anything–this was intended–had not Kossara Vymezal and
Dominic Flandry come to us in our darkness.
“The whole planet must be in the same clubbed state, and likewise its
fighting forces. What to do? Where is truth? Who is friend and who is
foe? Everyone will think best he wait a few days, till he has more
knowledge.
“In that brief span, a small band of well-placed illwish-ers, who know
exactly what they are at, can put us on the tack they want, too hard
over to come about: unless, in the same span, we go up against them,
knowing what we do.
“This day, leaders will meet in Novi Aferoch and decide on a course for
us. This morning along the Obala, other meetings hear what I tell you:
Stand fast with your weapons, speak to no outsiders, keep ready to
move.”
Father. Mother. Ivan. Gyorgye. Little, little Natalie.
Mihail. Trohdwyr. And every soul who perished in our home, every living
thing that did.
Father of Creation, receive them. Jesus, absolve them. Mary, comfort
them. Light of the Holy Spirit, shine upon them forever.
I dare not ask for more. Amen.
Kossara signed herself and rose. The boulder behind which she had knelt
no longer hid Nanteiwon. It looked very small, far down the beach
between gray sea and gray sky. Lutka her doll and Butterfeet her cat
might take shelter in those houses from the wind that blew so cold, so
cold.
Strange she should think of them when their loss belonged to her
childhood and most of her dead were not a day old. She turned from the
village and walked on over the strand. It gritted beneath her boots.
Often an empty shell crunched, or she passed a tangle of weed torn from
the depths and left to dry out. On her right, a hedge of cane barred
sight of autumn fields, rattling and clicking. Waves thundered in,
rushed out, trundled hollowly back again. Wind shrilled, thrust, smacked
her cheeks and laid bitterness across her lips.
Do I comprehend that they are gone?
If only things would move. They had hours to wait, safest here, before
the ychan chiefs could be gathered together. Flandry had offered her
medicines from his kit, for sleep, for calm and freedom from pain, but
when she declined, he said, “I knew you would. You’ll always earn your
way,” and when she told him she would like to go out for a while, he saw
she needed aloneness. He saw deeper than most, did her Dominic, and
covered the hurt of it with a jape. If only he did not see right past
God.
In time? I’ll never preach at him, nor admit outright that I pray for
him. But if we are given time–
They had had no end to their plans. A house in the Dubina Dolyina
country, an apartment in Zorkagrad; they could afford both, and children
should have elbow room for body and mind alike. Quests among the stars,
wild beauties, heart-soaring moment of a new truth discovered, then
return to the dear well-known. Service, oh, nothing too hazardous any
more, staff rather than field Intelligence–nonetheless, swordplay of
wits in the glad knowledge that this was for the future, not the poor
wayworn Empire but a world he too could believe in, the world of their
own blood. Ideas, investments, enterprises to start; the things they
might undertake had sparkled from them like fireworks …
It had all gone flat and blurred, unreal. What she could still hold
whole in her daze were the small hopes. She shows him an overlook she