Diana passed out beverages and slathered mustard on bread for herself. “The Empire’s always been fairly tolerant, hasn’t it?” she remarked.
“It is becoming less so, I fear,” the Tigery mumbled. “And as for what a ‘new broom’ might sweep away from us—” .
“Then in spite of what you’ve said about Admiral Magnusson,” the girl tossed back, “wouldn’t he be off his orbit to try for the throne? I mean, he’s got to operate out of Daedalus to start with, but if the dwellers don’t like the idea and begin undercuttin’ him—”
“They will meekly do whatever they are told, aside from black marketing and the like,” Targovi said. “Likewise the fighting men. I’m sure many will be less than glad at being taken from home, back to war, this soon. But what will they dare do save shout hurrah with everybody else? Yours is a magnificent species in its fashion, little friend, but like every species it bears its special weaknesses.”
He stroked his chin. His tendrils lay back flat, and a fang gleamed into view. “Furthermore,” he murmured, “Magnusson, who is no simpleton, will have made his alliances with powerful factions on Daedalus. They will help keep order at his back, until he has overrun enough space elsewhere that Daedalus no longer matters. There are Paz de la Frontera … Lulach … Ghundrung … Zacharia—Zacharia—Aye, surely he has his understandings with persons in these and other places.” Axor looked distressed. “This conversation is taking a horrid turn,” he said. “What can we do about it but tend our private affairs and pray to God for mercy upon helpless beings throughout the galaxy?”
“Well, we can get to Daedalus ‘ere Javak looses his flames and we are forbidden to travel,” Targovi said, not for the first time.
“Yes, yes, I understand, and you are very kind, aiding me on my quest.” Axor gusted a sigh that nearly knocked Diana’s beer bottle over. “We were speaking of happier matters. You were, kh-h-h, briefing me on Daedalus—the planet itself, pure from the hand of the Creator, before sinful sophonts arrived. I seem to recall mention of its being extraordinary in numerous ways.”
“Well,” said the human around a mouthful of sandwich, “it doesn’t have a horizon.”
Axor elevated his snaky neck. “I beg your pardon?”
“The parameters—pressure and temperature gradients, mainly—they’re just right for light to get refracted around the curve of the globe. Theoretically, if you looked straight through a telescope, you’d see your own backside. Of course, in practice mountains and haze and so forth prevent. But the cycle of day and night—about a fifteen and a half hour rotation period, by the way, which is short for an inner planet anywhere—that’s quite an experience.”
“Dear me. Amazing.”
“I have read of the same thing elsewhere,” Targovi said, “but those worlds chance not to be habitable.”
“In fact,” Diana added, “I’ve heard how Terra itself’d be like that, if it kept the same air but was a few kilometers less in radius. How much less? Thirteen, is that the figure? Nothin’ to speak of as far as gravity and such are concerned. Daedalus happens to fit those specs.”
“Or else God made it thus, for some purpose that perhaps the Foredwellers came to know, and we ourselves may someday,” Axor crooned. “Oh, wonderful!”
The word came as Moonjumper was in approach curve. The planet filled vision ahead. Its huge polar caps were blinding white. Between them the tropics, seventy degrees wide, and the subtropics shone azure on the seas, dun and deep green on land, beneath clouds which the rotation twisted into tight spirals. The single moon, Icarus, stood pockmarked behind.
Suddenly the outercom picked up a message on the official band and blared it forth. Against his will, after his vital recommendations for military and political reform had been ignored, Admiral Sir Olaf Magnusson had bowed to the unanimous appeal of his valiant legionaries, that he take leadership of the Terran Empire before it crumbled in chaos and fell victim to every consequent evil. He had imposed martial law. Civil space traffic was suspended, unless by special permit. Sensible persons would instantly see why: an average-sized vessel moving at interplanetary speeds carried the energy of a small- to medium-yield nuclear warhead.