“What now, Elliot?” Rick asked.
“We’ll accept your offer,” Elliot said. “If it’s still open.”
“It’s open,” Rick said. “But it won’t be for long.” He looked at his watch. “You have no more than two hours to get back to the village and bring any men who want to come. Bisso will stay with me.”
“Yes, sir,” Elliot said. “Two hours.” He stood awkwardly for a moment, obviously fumbling for words. “I’m not much for apologies,” he said. “I thought I was doing the right thing back when we first landed. Now—”
“You don’t have to apologize,” Rick said. “Just get back with the men. Leave equipment if you have to, but bring the men and what you can carry. Two hours.”
“Yes, sir. Two hours.”
Forty minutes after Elliot brought a dozen men and the light machine gun to Rick’s pavilion, the gunpowder exploded.
EPILOGUE
Tylara looked down from the battlements of Castle Dravan with satisfaction. The last remnants of Sarakos’s siege works had been removed, leveled over. They were gone without trace. Dravan stood strong again.
It would need to be. Sarakos was dead—had that been his body in the silken robes? The gunpowder bomb had obliterated the face. Whoever that was, Sarakos had died; and with neither king nor star men to lead them, his armies had dissolved at a touch from Rick’s pikemen and archers. Drantos was free, but there were rumors of war from the north, and more than rumors of invasions from displaced tribes to the south.
The Demon Star stood brightly above the horizon, visible even at high noon. She thought she could already feel its warmth. The Time was coming, and there were myriads of details for the attention of the Eqeta and Eqetassa of Chelm. She turned away from the battlements to where Rick and Gwen stood, and she smiled faintly. Rick was sending Gwen away. She need no longer fear what her husband might feel for his countrywoman.
“They can’t expect a crop for another year,” Gwen said. “The invader star won’t be bright enough. Are you sure you won’t need me here?”
Rick shook his head. “I’ll manage. Tylara doesn’t like having you around anyway—”
“I’ve noticed.”
“But the main thing is to start the university as soon as possible. You’ll have Warner and Campbell, and I’ll send you McCleve as soon as he’s finished his work on a tetanus inoculation.”
The medical sergeant had already developed a smallpox vaccination, and was teaching anatomy to someof Yanulf’s acolytes. That knowledge would soon be spread too far for the Shalnuksis to eradicate even with atom bombs.
“I wish you didn’t have to stay here,” Gwen said. “Not—Tylara has nothing to be jealous of. But there’s so much to do.”
“I’ll come by for visits,” Rick said. “I want to keep an eye on Marselius. He’s keeping the peace so far, but you never know. I confess I envy you. A tranquil university life looks pretty tempting compared to what we’ll have to do here.”
More details. Fields to be cleared for the surinomaz. Careful planning of the cultivation area so that the population could quickly take refuge in caves. The caves to be stocked with food, and more fields to be plowed with the newly designed plowshares. And always the threat of wars— Tylara came to join them. Rick took her hand and stood close to her. Living with her was like having a dozen wives: one moment she could command armies, but in the next she would be shy and seem helpless. At the moment she wore armor and looked very much the warrior aristocrat.
They’d been married two months, and he understood her less now than he had when they first met. There was only one certainty: he couldn’t imagine living without her.
Well, one other certainty. Gwen’s leaving couldn’t hurt. The Chinese ideograph for “trouble” was a stick drawing of two women under one roof, and the last months had shown the truth of that.
“Before you go, there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” Rick said to Gwen. “You might not want to tell me. You once mentioned that Les had a message for his child. I’d like to hear it.”
“All right,” Gwen said. “It wasn’t long. He said he wanted his child to know this much: to know that his father believes that the human race has a greater destiny than to be the slave soldiers of a so-called civilization preening itself over remaining unchanged for five thousand years.” She looked up at the Demon Star. “I hope he was right.”
“Damned right he was,” Rick said. “Even if Les can’t come back with his textbooks and a ship. All we need is time, and we’ll have that. We’ll have six hundred years. It didn’t take Earth half that long to go from the steam engine to the space shuttle. We’ll do it in a generation because we start with more.”
Gwen nodded agreement. “A lot more. And we know starships are possible.”
“Yes. That does help. You go start your university, and I’ll deal with the Shalnuksis. One way or another, your child will inherit the stars.”
“Our children,” Tylara said.