“Ah, you are young. Myself, I have lost faith in the likelihood of water spontaneously running uphill, teakettles boiling if set on a cake of ice, and governments being wise or benevolent. Tell me, what do you know about Admiral Magnusson?”
“Why, why, what everybody knows.”
“What is that? Spell it out for me. I am only a xeno.”
Diana flushed. “Don’t get sarcastic.” Calming: “Well, if you insist. He was born on Kraken … m-m … forty-some Terra-years ago. It’s a hard, harsh planet for humans. They grow tough, or they die. An independent lot; their spacefolk trade outside the Empire as well as inside, clear to Betelgeuse or Merseia itself. But they give us more’n their share of military recruits. Magnusson enlisted young, in the Marines. He distinguished himself in several nasty situations. Durin’ the dust-up with Merseia at Syrax, he took command of the crippled ship he was aboard, after the officers were killed, and got her to safety. That made his superiors transfer him to the Navy proper and send him to the Foundry—the officer school in Sector Aldebaran. It has a fierce reputation.”
“What did he do during the last succession crisis?”
“Which one? You mean the three-cornered fight for the throne that Hans Molitor won? Why, he—m-m, his age then—he must’ve been at the academy yet. But the accounts I’ve seen tell how he did well when a couple of later rebellions needed squelchin’, plus in negotiatin’ with the Merseians, so you can’t say he hasn’t been loyal. In fact, he’s seldom visited Terra and never played office politics, they say, but he’s risen fast regardless.”
“It did no harm that he married a Nyanzan heiress.”
“Oh, foof! You’ve got to have money to go far in the service, civil or military. I know that much. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love her.”
“That is the official biography. What have you learned about him as a person?”
“Oh, just the usual sort of thing you see on the news. No, I’ve also talked with some of the boys who serve under him. What they tell sounds all right to me. He does seem pretty humorless and strict, but he’s always fair. The lowliest ranker who deserves a hearin’ will get it. And he may be curt in everyday life, but when he unrolls his tongue—” Diana shivered. “I caught his speech last year, of course, after he’d saved us from the Merseians. I still get cold prickles, rememberin’.”
“A hero, then,” said Targovi down in his throat.
Diana’s gaze sharpened. “What’s wrong?”
“Best I say no more at this stage,” he demurred. “I could be mistaken in my fears. But ask yourself what elements—criminal, mayhap—could be conspiring to take advantage of chaos. Ask yourself what harm I can work on any innocent party by helping uncover the truth, whatever the truth may prove to be.”
“Um-m-m.” She stared out beyond the sunset. “Persuadin” Axor—because I will not fool him, Targovi, though I could maybe shade the facts a trifle—m-m-m … Yes, if I said Daedalus is a better huntin’ ground for him, and we’d be wise to get there while we’re sure we can, and you’ll take us because you’re sort of interested yourself—I think that would satisfy him. You see, he really does believe in goodness.”
“Which you and I are not certain of. But we are certain of evil,” said Targovi. His tone had gone steely. “You might also, Diana Crowfeather, consider the cost of a civil war launched by your hero. Destruction, death, maiming, pain, grief, billionfold. You are more compassionate than I am.”
Chapter 4
The home of Admiral Sir Olaf Magnusson lay in the desirable tract a hundred kilometers north of Aurea. It was small, and the interior austere, for a man of wealth and power. But such was his desire, and any decisions he made, he enforced. The only luxuries, if they could be called that, were a gymnasium where he worked out for at least forty minutes in every fifteen hours, and an observation deck where he meditated when he felt the need. Naturally, his use of these was restricted to times when he was there, which had not been many of late.