walls, gates, turrets, battlements, wind-blown banners (though the
ultimate fortress lay beneath, carved out of living rock) above steep
tile roofs and pastel-tinted half-timbered stucco of Old Town houses.
Thence Zorkagrad sloped downward; streets changed from twisty lanes to
broad boulevards; traffic flitted around geometrical buildings raised in
modern materials by later generations. Waterborne shipping crowded docks
and bay. Lake Stoyan stretched westward over the horizon, deep blue
dusted with glitter cast from a cloudless heaven. Elsewhere beyond the
small city, Kossara could from this height see cultivated lands along
the shores: green trees, hedges, grass, and yellowing grain of Terran
stock; blue or purple where native foliage and pasture remained; homes,
barns, sheds, sunpower towers, widely spaced; a glimpse of the Lyubisha
River rolling from the north as if to bring greeting from her father’s
manse. Closer by, the Elena flowed eastward, oceanward; barges plodded
and boats danced upon it. Here in the middle of the Kazan, she could not
see the crater walls which those streams clove. But she had a sense of
them, ramparts against glacier and desert, a chalice of warmth and
fertility.
A breeze embraced her, scented by flowers, full of the sweet songs of
guslars flitting ruddy to and from their nests in the vines. She sat
back in her chair and thought, guilty at doing so, what a pity to spend
such an hour on politics.
Her uncle’s feet slammed the planks. “Does Molitor imagine we’ll never
get another Olaf or Josip on the throne?” the Gospodar rumbled. “A clown
or a cancer … and, once more, Policy Board, Admiralty, civil service
bypassed, or terrorized, or corrupted. If we rely on the Navy for our
whole defense, what defense will we have against future foolishness or
tyranny? Let the foolishness go too far, and we’ll have no defense at
all.”
“Doesn’t he speak about preventing any more civil wars?” Kossara
ventured.
Bodin spat an oath. “How much of a unified command is possible, in
practical fact, on an interstellar scale? Every fleet admiral is a
potential war lord. Shall we keep nothing to set against him?” He
stopped. His fist thudded on a rail. “Molitor trusts nobody. That’s
what’s behind this. So why should I trust him?”
He turned about. His gaze smoldered at her. “Besides,” he said, slowly,
far down in his throat, “the time may come … the time may not be far
off … when we need another civil war.”}
“No–” she whispered. “I can’t remember more than … resentment among
many. The Narodna Voyska has been a, a basic part of our society, ever
since the Troubles. Squadron and regimental honors, rights, chapels,
ceremonies–I’d stand formation on my unit’s parade ground at sunset–us
together, bugle calls, volley, pipes and drums, and while the flag came
down, the litany for those of our dead we remembered that day–and often
tears would run over my cheeks, even in winter when they froze.”
Flandry smiled lopsidedly. “Yes, I was a cadet once.” He shook himself a
bit. “Well. No doubt your militia intertwines with a lot of civilian
matters, social and economic. For instance, I’d guess it doubles as
constabulary in some areas, and is responsible for various public works,
and–yes. Disbanding it would disrupt a great deal of your lives, on a
practical as well as emotional level. His Majesty may not appreciate
this enough. Germania doesn’t contain your kind of society, and though
he’s seen a good many others, between us, I wouldn’t call him a terribly
imaginative man.
“Still, I repeat, negotiations have not been closed. And whatever their
upshot, don’t you yourself have the imagination to see he means well?
Why this fanatical hatred of yours? And how many Dennitzans share it?”
“I don’t know,” Kossara said. “But personally, after what men of the
Empire did to, to people I care about–and later to me–”
“May I ask you to describe what you recall?” Flandry answered. She
glared defiance. “You see, if nothing else, maybe I’ll find out, and be
able to prove to their superiors, those donnickers rate punishment for
aggravated stupidity.”
He picked up a sheaf of papers on his desk and riffled them. The report
on me must have violated my privacy more than I could ever do myself,