The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

Owensford thumbed off the microphone. “Deighton! Get bomb disposal and a tac unit moving to the King Jason Hotel, southeast corner of Government Square. There’s a nuke there, details after they’re on the way. Murasaki was last seen there, but I don’t expect you to catch him.”

“Nuke. King Jason Hotel. On the way, skipper.”

“Why won’t we catch Murasaki?” Lysander asked.

“He’ll have a way off planet. Bronson has agents here, they’ll be on their way. The interesting part is they didn’t take Skilly. I don’t think they like her.” He thumbed the microphone back on. “All right, bomb disposal is on the way.”

“Aww, Petie, I thought you go yourself. That way, if the city go up, I know you with it. Anyway, Petie, Skilly wish she never start this. Too bad I can’t stay around and watch you hang Croser, but I probably see it on TV.”

“Miss Thibodeau.”

“Who’s that? That you, King Lysander?’

“Yes.”

“Well, Majesty excuse me, but I don’ have long to talk. You take that reward off like you promise, you hear?”

“I will keep my promise,” Lysander said.

“An’ you don’ know why you want to talk with me. It okay, Majesty, it okay to be curious about such like me. You want to stare into that empty empty abyss, and you doin’ it, and the abyss stares right back, your Majesty. I tell you this, Skilly means it when she say she sorry she start this, and sorry she not listen to Jeffi about that business with the rocket. Now Skilly gone.”

“Signal lost,” a technician said. “Carrier lost.”

“All right, General,” Lysander said. “I’ve stared into the abyss, and I’m not about to become like that. We gave her a promise. Presuming your people find and disarm that bomb, we’ll keep our word.”

“Of course, sir. No reward, no official pursuit.”

“So why are you looking so smug?” Lysander demanded.

“Well, sir, you may remember Sergeant Taras Miscowsky from the incident at the Halleck ranch?”

“Indeed. I remember more than him. I’m reliably informed that you’ve been seeing quite a lot of the Senator’s grand-daughter.”

“Yes, sire. But back to a less pleasant subject. Sergeant Miscowsky has been on campaign for a long time now. Accumulated considerable leave. He served with Jerry Lefkowitz, Sire, and he doesn’t need any promise of reward to keep him on her track until he can send her head to Lefkowitz. I’ve sent for him. He’ll be on leave status from the time he lands. That’s not an official act. Nor is it official if the Officers Mess wants to take up a collection to help Miscowsky enjoy his vacation.”

“Sir, I’ve got some leave coming too,” Sergeant Andy Bielskis said from the doorway. “Excuse me, Colonel, didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but if it’s all the same to you, Taras and I get along just fine, and I think we’d enjoy taking a vacation together.”

“You were at Stora, weren’t you?” Owensford asked.

“Yes, sir, that I was.”

“We might need you—”

“I don’t suppose it will take Taras and me very long,” Andy Bielskis said. “Not long at all.”

* * *

“Where the devil have you been?” Owensford demanded.

Hal Slater grinned sheepishly. “Well—”

“He was chasin’ rebels,” Caldwell Whitlock said. “Doin’ pretty good at it, too. General Slater’s got a pretty good shootin’ eye for a busted up old geezer who can’t walk without a cane.”

“Why, Professor,” Hal said. He eyed Whitlock’s ample stomach. “Apparently Dr. Whitlock chose to swallow his enemy. Anyway, Peter, have you decoded Lermontov’s message yet?”

“No, we don’t seem to be able to.”

“You wouldn’t. King Alexander had the code.”

“We thought of that, and we think we have his codes, but I’m afraid Lysander hasn’t been able to figure out how to use it.”

“I’ll show him,” Slater said. “We need to go tell him about this, but it might be better if we talk about the situation first.”

“All right. Coffee?”

“Yes, please, I could use some.”

“I’ll make it myself.” Owensford closed the door and latched it. “Coffee, Caldwell?”

“Yeah, sure. Peter, we have got ourselves a first class mess, and it doesn’t help at all that King Alexander’s dead.”

“Have a seat and tell me about it.” Owensford spooned coffee beans into the grinder. “No Sumatra Lintong. No Jamaica. Just local, I’m afraid.”

“Right now I’ll be grateful for anything,” Hal said. “Peter, it’s hard to know where to start.”

“Start at the—”

“Beginning, go through to the end, and then stop. Yeah,” Whitlock said. “Beginning. Lermontov’s truly deposed. In gaol if not dead, and my guess is dead. This message was recorded and coded and set up to be sent in the event anything happened to him. It’s updated with some other last minute stuff. Oh. Falkenberg won, by the way. New Washington campaign is over, Franklin gave up, and whatever passes for a government on New Washington has proclaimed John Christian Falkenberg as Protector.”

Owensford whistled. “Won and won big, then. Wait a minute. Protector. Anything about that political girl, Glenda Ruth Horton, I guess her name was?”

“Yeah, I think so, but we’re still decoding the Falkenberg reports. They were included in this message from Lermontov, so they didn’t break in clear.”

“You think the Colonel married her?” Hal Slater asked.

“You know him better than I do.”

“It’s certainly a possibility,” Slater said. “Which makes things interesting, since we’re all pretty well settled here. Kathryn isn’t going to move again.”

“Miriam Ann likes it here,” Whitlock said. “Took her a while to get used to the gravity and the short day, but she likes the company. Take a powerful lot to move her now. Me too, of course.”

“I never did ask where you finally settled in,” Owensford said. “Sorry, been so busy.”

“That’s all right. I bought a spread near Hal’s new place, off that park area the War College uses sometimes. Interesting neighbors. After we had that meetin’ at Hal and Kathryn’s, Captain Newell started looking around there. He hasn’t bought in yet, but we’ve got, what, Hal? Maybe a dozen CoDominium navy families settled around the area. Makes for good company. I hear you’re gettin’ pretty serious, you staying on Sparta?”

“Yes. Lydia likes the outback. So do I. We’ll keep a ranch out in the Valley, but there’s too much work here. We’ve been looking for something near the Capital.”

“Bring her out to meet Miriam Ann,” Whitlock said. “I expect Miriam Ann and Kathryn can help her find a place she’ll like. Better do it quick, though, I hear there’s more CD people looking at land around there, you’ll want to get 40 or 50 acres before the prices get too high.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks.” Peter poured more coffee. “All right. Back to work. So Lermontov is definitely out.”

“And these are his final orders,” Hal Slater said.

“Call it his will,” Whitlock said. “Grand Admiral Sergei Mikaelovich Lermontov’s legacy to the Fleet.”

“I hate to think that,” Owensford said. “One damned good man. All right. What are the Grand Admiral’s last orders?”

“Lots of stuff addressed to the Fleet, about loyalty, and what the CoDominium Fleet was for,” Whitlock said. “Pretty damn good, too. Political scientists will be mining that for a century. But it boils down to this. The CoDominium existed to keep the peace. Now it’s broken up, gone, and those who tore it up don’t want peace. They’re going to come around demanding loyalty from the Fleet, and they don’t deserve it. Factions are going to try to use the Fleet, but it’ll be to start wars for their own purposes.”

“Jesus, that’s prophetic enough,” Owensford said.

“Right. By the way, there’s another message encoded inside this one, encoded in the authentication code Lermontov used to send messages to the Fleet, and of course it’s addressed to the Fleet. I sent that up to Boris,” Hal said.

“Think his nose will be out of joint that you had the key and he didn’t?” Owensford asked.

“Don’t know,” Hal said.

“I expect yes, but not too bad,” Whitlock said. “We put a lot of stress on Hal being one of Lermontov’s oldest friends—”

“So was Boris,” Hal said.

“And one of Falkenberg’s oldest friends, and that’s going to be real relevant,” Whitlock said. “You see, once he got through warning the Fleet what evil people would do to get control of them and their ships, he gave his last orders. He ordered them to obey his successor as they would him. But he didn’t know who his successor would be. Let me read some of that.

“Brothers and sisters in arms, we cannot name my true successor now. We can be certain that the Rump of the Grand Senate will attempt to name a successor. We can be certain that successors will name themselves. How shall we choose among them? I do not believe that we can, yet we—you, for if you read this, I will not be with you—you must stay together. You must have unity. To that end, you can form a council of captains to advise your new commander, and I urge you to do that, but I do not believe that a council of captains can long govern, or even name a commander for you.