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But he held up his claws in greeting as the teleport dropped him onto the homeship bridge, where the bodies of the male crew lay where they’d fallen. Instead of running, the honour-bound idiots had killed themselves. In their place, a handful of women stood there, waiting for him. Their eyes never left his body as soon as he appeared. It was no expression of lust, he knew, but caution. They wanted to know what would happen to themselves and their children.

“The humans have agreed to take us all in and build a better way,” he said, once he’d introduced himself as the senior surviving Hordesman. Those who had been broken down by human psychologists had abandoned their former ranks, those who hadn’t had been isolated from their fellows and left to work their own way towards salvation. “You are more than welcome to join us.”

He took a breath, then went on. “Imagine an end to our wanderings,” he said. His words tumbled over one another as he struggled to get them out before they could do something stupid. “Imagine, instead, that we develop a world of our own. The humans are prepared to ally with us and work towards the future. This is not the end, but a beginning.”

There were other changes coming, he knew, if the women agreed to join the other outcasts in building a new world. The warrior culture would be eradicated. Instead, the Horde would start using its brains and become true members of galactic society. Some of the humans even talked about a grand alliance between different races, with all of them standing as equals before the universe. Long history said it was a pipe dream, but Cn!lss had hope. And besides, if the women joined as equals, the new society would be far more stable than anything else the Hordes had ever built.

He watched the women talk in low voices. They were in an odd position, according to the human sociologists who had attempted to understand the Hordes, both chattel and independent agents at the same time. Looking in from the outside, the women didn’t have much choice about who fathered their children, but they had absolute authority over their own affairs. There were no human-style families, save for the greatest of warriors. And even they lasted only a few years before breaking up.

The women had nowhere else to go. He hoped they understood that, because they would never be allowed to leave. And even if they did leave, where would they go? The other Hordes would only return them to their familiar status, without giving them any room to grow.

“We will join you,” the leader said, finally. “As long as our children are safe, we will join you.”

“Welcome,” Cn!lss said. He clacked his claws in the Pattern of Greeting Between Equals, then bowed his head. Few Hordesmen would offer such honour to their fellow warriors, let alone mere females. “And your children will be safe from both internal and external threats.”

Chapter Forty

New York, USA

“Dear God,” Steve said. “What a fucking mess.”

New York was gone. The alien warhead might have left little or no radioactivity behind, but it had utterly flattened Manhattan. Piles of rubble that had once been mighty skyscrapers lay everywhere, while — in the distance — he could see damaged towers that had been struck by the dissipating blast.  Millions of people had died in the first few seconds, caught in the open by the fireball, while others had died as the shockwave toppled buildings and crushed them below the rubble.

The President nodded in agreement. “But it could easily have been worse,” he said. “Your people served well.”

Steve shrugged. He would always wonder, he knew, if he’d made the right decision. If they’d intercepted the missiles instead… but there would never be any way to know the truth. All that mattered was that Earth was safe again, for the moment. And that, with the destruction or capture of an entire Horde, the remainder wouldn’t be inclined to attack Earth in future.

“And the population has gone mad with rage,” the President added. “You’ll have all the support you could possibly wish.”

“I know,” Steve said. “But will it be enough?”

It was victory, of a sort, but it tasted like ashes on his mouth. The world’s population had been shocked, horrified and outraged by the slaughter. There would be no quibbling about the lunar colony now, or the desperate need to establish human colonies on countless other worlds. Humanity had been given a sharp lesson in the true danger of ignoring the universe.

Now, there would be no objections to placing weapons in space. But, compared to what the Galactics could produce, Earth’s weapons were almost laughable. And yet, used properly, they’d given the Horde a very hard time.

He sighed. The first batch of soldiers were on their way to Ying, accompanied by Kevin, who had orders to purchase as many additional starships as he could. In the meantime, the Horde homeships were being converted for human use; they’d take a large human population out of the Sol System and somewhere well beyond the reach of the Galactics. Given time — and the information they’d obtained from Friend — they’d be able to set up a whole new civilisation. The human race would survive.

But at one hell of a cost.

“Let us hope so,” the President said. He paused. “What do you intend to do with the captured Hordesmen?”

“They’ll live on Mars, for the moment,” Steve said. The sociologists might swear that the captured Hordesmen and women posed no real threat, but Steve wasn’t inclined to take chances. Besides, if they were placed on Earth or Heinlein Colony there was a very strong possibility of revenge attacks. “And, if they grow into something we can respect, we can welcome them into our new union.”

“We shall see,” the President said. “Alien citizens of Earth?”

Steve smiled, humourlessly. “A century or two ago, the idea that the black man or the Native American could be an equal citizen would have sounded dangerously absurd,” he pointed out, dryly. “It wasn’t that long ago that Japanese-Americans like my partner were regarded as potential spies or people who would commit acts of sabotage. Why not aliens joining the United States as citizens?”

He paused. “Or the Solar Union,” he added. “We will accept aliens, if they wish to join.”

“Good luck,” the President said. “After the battle, it may be a long time before humanity is prepared to accept aliens as equals.”

“That might be a bad idea,” Steve said. “There are races out there far more powerful and dangerous than the Hordes.”

It was a bitter thought. The Hordesmen had been dangerously incompetent and prone to acting like single warriors rather than fighting as part of a team, but they’d bombarded Earth and come alarmingly close to outright victory. If Steve hadn’t cheated and manipulated the aliens, the battle would have ended very differently. A smarter alien race, one that had actually developed its own technology or successfully copied technology from another race, would be a very different problem. Steve had no illusions. A battle squadron from any of the major Galactic powers could overwhelm Earth within hours, if that.

“We will need allies,” he added. “And friends. And we must never forget where we came from when we get our hands on more Galactic technology.”

“True,” the President agreed. He held out a hand. “It’s time to bury the dead.”

Steve nodded. The ceremony was private, even though there were hundreds of thousands of people who had wanted to attend. Only the President, a handful of selected guests and Steve himself. New York had been sealed off, after the troops had searched the wreckage for survivors, in the hopes of preventing looting. The complete absence of people lent a surreal atmosphere to the remains of one of humanity’s greatest cities.