escaped and managed to join up with a relief column advancing from Menassim
under the command of a General Yemblayen. Kleippur had ordered Yemblayen to halt
and avoid further engagements until the reason for the sudden Waskorian
invincibility was better understood.
The most worrisome aspect of the unexpected Waskorian successes was that the
Lumian weapons must have come from the Kroaxians, with whom the Lumians were
known to have made contact. If the Waskorians were taking over the border zone
as preparation for an all-out invasion from Kroaxia, and if the whole of the
regular Kroaxian army had been equipped, with firepower as devastating as that
being demonstrated behind Kleippur’s residence, then Carthogia wouldn’t last
another bright. Kleippur’s social experiment would be over; night would fall
over an Age of Reason that had barely begun to dawn; and everything that Thirg
and Lofbayel had sought to escape would ensnare them once again.
“What is your opinion, Pellimiades?” Kleippur asked the technical advisor, who
was examining another sample of Waskorian weaponry with an artisan’s keen eye.
Pellimiades shook his head dubiously. “Such detail and precision are only to be
found growing naturally upon this world,” he replied. “No work of any craftsman
that I have seen, nor any of which I have heard tell, could remotely approach
it. If this is Lumian workmanship, then the Lumians could well be lifemakers
indeed.”
“You can offer no imitation, however crude, nor any other means by which our
soldiers might hope to compete on equal terms?” Dornvald asked.
Pellimiades shook his head again. “None, General.”
Two soldiers arrived at a run from the far end of the grounds and presented four
target plates. The first had the center of its red disk completely blown away;
the second was torn into a tight cluster of overlapping holes offset to one side
of the disk; the third was peppered with a pattern of more widely scattered
holes; and the fourth was much like the first. Kleippur drew a long, heavy
intake over his coolant vanes and shook his head gravely. “We have no choice,”
he said. “Our only chance is to accept the terms which the Merehant-Lumians
offered us originally. If we cannot supply comparable armaments of our own, then
we must obtain theirs; and if taming forests for Lumians is the price we must
pay, then so be it. This has become a matter of survival.” He turned to
Lyokanor, the army’s senior intelligence officer. “Assemble the Cabinet to agree
what shall be the form of our message. We will convey it to the Lumian merchant
princes by way of the inquirers who still occupy the Lumian camp.”
“At once, sir,” Lyokanor replied and hurried away.
“We will proceed to the Council Chamber and await the others there,” Kleippur
said. “Our first task must be to arm every able-bodied citizen as best we can in
case the Kroaxians invade, and to agree on tactics for holding out until we
begin receiving Lumian aid. The times ahead will be hard ones, I fear.”
Thirg felt dejected as he and Lofbayel followed the rest of the party across the
rear courtyard toward the house. Kleippur, with his usual pragmatic acceptance,
was devoting his efforts to making the best of the situation as it existed and
not wasting time and energy on futile accusations or complaints. But it was
Thirg who had persuaded him that the Wearer was sincere, and who had talked him
into heeding the Wearer’s treacherous words. It was clear now that the whole
episode involving the Wearer had been a Lumian ploy to keep Carthogia
unsuspecting and inactive while negotiations were concluded with Kroaxia, the
start of a process that would eventually bring all the robeing nations under the
Lumian heel. The Lumian strategy to attain that goal had been cold, calculated,
ruthless, and efficient, and its implementation seemed so practiced that
Kleippur suspected the whole technique to have been perfected long ago—used,
perhaps, for the enslavement of dozens, or even dozen-dozens, of worlds. But
whatever the truth of that, there could be no stopping the process now. Better a
slave state than no state at all—the main task now was to ensure the survival of