The Prince by Jerry Pournelle and S.M. Stirling

Grant shrugged. “Bronson’s or Harmon’s? Bronson has hated Colonel Falkenberg ever since that business on Kennicott. The Bronson family lost a lot of money there, and it didn’t help that Bronson had to vote in favor of giving Falkenberg his medals either. I doubt there’s any more to it than that.

“Harmon’s a different matter. He really believes that Falkenberg might lead his troops against Earth. And once he asks for Falkenberg’s scalp as a favor from Bronson—”

“I see. But Harmon’s reasons are ludicrous. At least at the moment they are ludicrous—”

“If he’s that damned dangerous, kill him,” Grant said. He saw the look on Lermontov’s face. “I don’t really mean that, Sergei, but you’ll have to do something.”

“I will.”

“Harmon thinks you might order Falkenberg to march on Earth.”

Lermontov looked up in surprise.

“Yes. It’s come to that. Not even Bronson’s ready to ask for your scalp. Yet. But it’s another reason why your special favorites have to take a low profile right now.”

“You speak of our best men.”

Grant’s look was full of pain and sadness. “Sure. Anyone who’s effective scares hell out of the Patriots. They want the CD eliminated entirely, and if they can’t get that, they’ll weaken it. They’ll keep chewing away, too, getting rid of our most competent officers, and there’s not a lot we can do. Maybe in a few years things will be better.”

“And perhaps they will be worse,” Lermontov said.

“Yeah. There’s always that, too.”

* * *

Sergei Lermontov stared at the viewscreen long after Grand Senator Grant had left the office. Darkness crept slowly across the Pacific, leaving Hawaii in shadow, and still Lermontov sat without moving, his fingers drumming restlessly on the polished wood desktop.

I knew it would come to this, he thought. Not so soon, though, not so soon. There is still so much to do before we can let go.

And yet it will not be long before we have no choice. Perhaps we should act now.

Lermontov recalled his youth in Moscow, when the Generals controlled the Presidium, and shuddered. No, he thought. The military virtues are useless for governing civilians. But the politicians are doing no better.

If we had not suppressed scientific research. But that was done in the name of the peace. Prevent development of new weapons. Keep control of technology in the hands of the government, prevent technology from dictating policy to all of us; it had seemed so reasonable, and besides, the policy was very old now. There were few trained scientists, because no one wanted to live under the restrictions of the Bureau of Technology.

What is done is done, he thought, and looked around the office. Open cabinets held shelves covered with the mementos of a dozen worlds. Exotic shells lay next to reptilian stuffed figures and were framed by gleaming rocks that could bring fabulous prices if he cared to sell.

Impulsively he reached toward the desk console and turned the selector switch. Images flashed across the viewscreen until he saw a column of men marching through a great open bubble of rock. They seemed dwarfed by the enormous cave.

A detachment of CoDominium Marines marching through the central area of Luna Base. Senate chamber and government offices were far below the cavern, buried so deeply into rock that no weapon could destroy the CoDominium’s leaders by surprise. Above them were the warriors who guarded, and this group was marching to relieve the guard.

Lermontov turned the sound pickup but heard no more than the precise measured tramp of marching boots. They walked carefully in low gravity, their pace modified to accommodate their low weight; and they would, he knew, be just as precise on a high-gravity world.

They wore uniforms of blue and scarlet, with gleaming buttons of gold, badges of the dark rich bronze alloys found on Kennicott, berets made from some reptile that swam in Tanith’s seas. Like the Grand Admiral’s office, the CoDominium Marines showed the influence of worlds light years away.

“Sound off.”

The order came through the pickup so loud that it startled the Admiral, and he turned down the volume as the men began to sing.

Lermontov smiled to himself. That song was officially forbidden, and it was certainly not an appropriate choice for the guard mount about to take posts outside the Grand Senate chambers. It was also very nearly the official marching song of the Marines. And that, Admiral Lermontov thought, ought to tell something to any Senator listening.

If Senators ever listened to anything from the military people.

The measured verses came through, slowly, in time with the sinister gliding step of the troops.

“We’ve left blood in the dirt of twenty-five worlds,

we’ve built roads on a dozen more,

and all that we have at the end our hitch,

buys a night with a second-class whore.

“The Senate decrees, the Grand Admiral calls,

the orders come down from on high,

It’s ‘On Full Kits’ and sound ‘Board Ships,’

We’re sending you where you can die.

“The lands that we take, the Senate gives back,

rather more often than not,

so the more that are killed, the less share the loot,

and we won’t be back to this spot.

“We’ll break the hearts of your women and girls,

we may break your arse as well,

Then the Line Marines with their banners unfurled,

will follow those banners to Hell.

“We know the devil, his pomps and his works,

Ah yes! we know them well!

When we’ve served out our hitch as Line Marines,

we can bugger the Senate of Hell!

“Then we’ll drink with our comrades and lay down our packs,

we’ll rest ten years on the flat of our backs,

then it’s ‘On Full Kits’ and ‘Out of Your Racks,’

you must build a new road through Hell!

“The Fleet is our country, we sleep with a rifle,

no one ever begot a son on his rifle,

they pay us in gin and curse when we sin,

there’s not one that can stand us unless we’re down wind,

we’re shot when we lose and turned out when we win,

but we bury our comrades wherever they fall,

and there’s none that can face us though we’ve nothing at all.”

The verse ended with a flurry of drums, and Lermontov gently changed the selector back to the turning Earth.

Perhaps, he thought. Perhaps there’s hope, but only if we have time.

Can the politicians buy enough time?

II

The honorable John Rogers Grant laid a palm across a winking light on his desk console and it went out, shutting off the security phone to Luna Base. His face held an expression of pleasure and distaste, as it always did when he was through talking with his brother.

I don’t think I’ve ever won an argument with Martin, he thought. Maybe it’s because he knows me better than I know myself.

Grant turned toward the Tri-V, where the speaker was in full form. The speech had begun quietly as Harmon’s speeches always did, full of resonant tones and appeals to reason. The quiet voice had asked for attention, but now it had grown louder and demanded it.

The background behind him changed as well, so that Harmon stood before the stars and stripes covering the hemisphere, with an American eagle splendid over the Capitol. Harmon was working himself into one of his famous frenzies, and his face was contorted with emotion.

“Honor? It is a word that Lipscomb no longer understands! Whatever he might have been—and my friends, we all know how great he once was—he is no longer one of us! His cronies, the dark little men who whisper to him, have corrupted even as great a man as President Lipscomb!

“And our nation bleeds! She bleeds from a thousand wounds! People of America, hear me! She bleeds from the running sores of these men and their CoDominium!

“They say that if we leave the CoDominium it will mean war. I pray God it will not, but if it does, why these are hard times. Many of us will be killed, but we would die as men! Today our friends and allies, the people of Hungary, the people of Rumania, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Poles, all of them groan under the oppression of their Communist masters. Who keeps them there? We do! Our CoDominium!

“We have become no more than slavemasters. Better to die as men.

“But it will not come to that. The Russians will never fight. They are soft, as soft as we, their government is riddled with the same corruptions as ours. People of America, hear me! People of America, listen!”

Grant spoke softly and the Tri-V turned itself off. A walnut panel slid over the darkened screen, and Grant spoke again.

The desk opened to offer a small bottle of milk. There was nothing he could do for his ulcer despite the advances in medical science. Money was no problem, but there was never time for surgery and weeks with the regeneration stimulators.