"Thank you, sir. Though as I've said before the basic idea came from elsewhere."
H'orme waved aside the distinction. "You're not supposed to reinvent the fusion plant every time you need something. It's your staff's job to come up with ideas; it's your job to evaluate them. Don't ever fall into the trap of trying to do it all yourself."
D'arl suppressed a smile. "Yes, sir."
H'orme gave him a sideways glance. "And before you savor the irony of that too much, remember now much work I've dumped on you alone. Pick your aides well, D'arl—in all too many cases, they're what make or break a Committé."
D'arl nodded silently and the two men continued their walk. Looking around, D'arl found his mind drifting back and forth across his thirteen years as H'orme's aide. It didn't seem nearly long enough to prepare him for the task ahead.
"So... what's the latest word from Aventine?"
Startled, D'arl tried to put his brain back online. Aventine...? Oh, right—the new colony world. "The first wave of colonists seems to be settling in well enough. No major problems or overly dangerous fauna."
"At least as of three months ago," H'orme nodded.
"True," The communications time lag, D'arl had already realized, was going to be a problem in governing the new colony. Choosing a competent and reliable governor-general was going to be a major Committee task soon.
"And how do the Trofts seem to be taking it?" H'orme asked.
"No trouble at all, so far. Not even any boarding of ships going down the Corridor to check for military hardware."
"Um. Not what I expected. Still, all the ships up to now have been carrying Cobras as well as colonists. They may not have wanted to tangle with them again. But that can't last." H'orme walked for a moment in silence. "Somewhere along the line the Trofts are bound to realize Aventine is a potential threat to them. When that happens... the colony has to be strong enough to defend itself."
"Or spread out enough that it can't be taken in a single blow," D'arl suggested.
H'orme sighed. "A less acceptable position, but probably a more realistic one. Certainly in the short run."
They'd come full circle around the garden now, and H'orme paused at the office door for one last look. "If you'll sit still for one final word of advice, D'arl," he said slowly, "I'd recommend you find someone for your staff who really understands the Cobras. Not their weaponry, specifically, but the Cobras themselves."
D'arl smiled. "I believe I can do even better than that, sir. I've already been in touch with the young man who suggested the Aventine colony in the first place. His brother, as it happens, is one of the Cobras out there."
H'orme returned the smile. "I see I've trained you better even than I thought. I'm proud to have you as my successor... Committé D'arl."
"Thank you, sir," the younger man managed to say. "May you always be so proud of me."
Together they left the garden, to which H'orme would never return.
Loyalist: 2414
The boundary between field and forest was as sharp as a laser beam, the giant blue-green cyprenes running right up to the half-meter of orange vegebarrier insulating the tender wheat shoots from native plant encroachment. In his more philosophical moments, Jonny saw a multi-leveled yin/yang in the arrangement: tall versus short, old versus young, native versus man-made. At the moment, though, his mood was anything but philosophical.
Looking up from the note, he found the youth who had delivered it standing in a rigid imitation of military attention. "And what exactly is this supposed to mean?" he asked, waving the note paper gently.
"The message is self-explanatory, sir—" the boy began.
"Yes, I can read," Jonny interrupted him. "And one more 'sir' out of you, Almo, and I'm going to tell your father on you. What I meant was, why did Challinor send you all the way out here just to invite me to a meeting? That's what these things are supposed to be for." He tapped the compact phone resting on his hip.
"Cee-two Challinor didn't want to take any chances on word leaking out about this, sir—Jonny," Almo corrected himself hastily. "It's a private meeting, for Cobras only."
Jonny studied the other's face a moment, then folded the paper and stuck it in his pocket. Whatever Challinor was trying to prove, browbeating his messenger boy wouldn't do any good. "You can give Challinor a definite 'maybe,' " he told Almo. "There's a spine leopard that's been poking around the edge of the forest lately. If I don't get it today, I'll have to ride guard with Chin's planter tonight."
"Cee-two Challinor said I should emphasize the meeting was very important."
"So's my word—and I promised Chin he could start his second seedling run by tonight." Jonny reached for his phone. "If you'd like, I can call Challinor and tell him that myself," he suggested.
"No—that's all right," Almo said hastily. "I'll tell him. Thank you for your time." With that he took off across the field toward where his car was waiting.
Jonny felt a smile touch his lips, but his amusement quickly faded. There weren't a lot of teenagers in this part of Aventine—the first two waves of colonists had all been childless, and two succeeding waves of families hadn't made up the deficit—and Jonny had always felt a twinge of pain for the enhanced loneliness he knew Almo and his peers must feel. The four Cobras assigned to Almo's town of Thanksgiving were obvious role models for the teen-aged boys, at least, and Jonny was glad Almo had found a friend in Tors Challinor. At least he used to be glad. Now, he wasn't entirely sure.
Almo's car took off with minimal dust, and Jonny turned both his face and attention to the towering trees. He'd worry about Challinor's cloak and laser later; right now he had a spine leopard to kill. Making sure all the equipment on his belt was secured, he crossed the vegebarrier and entered the forest.
Even after seven years on Aventine Jonny felt a sense of awe whenever he stepped under the ancient canopy of oddly shaped leaves that turned the day into a diffuse twilight. Partly it was the forest's age, he had long ago decided; but partly also it was the humbling reminder of how little mankind knew about the world it had so recently claimed as its own. The forest was teeming with plant and animal life, virtually none of which was really understood. Clicking on his vision and auditory enhancers, Jonny moved deeper into the woods, trying to watch all directions at once.
The extra-loud snap of a branch above and behind him was his only warning, but it was enough. His nanocomputer correctly interpreted the sound as being caused by a large airborne body, and almost before Jonny's brain had registered the sound, his servos had taken over, throwing him to the side just as four sets of claws slashed through the space he'd vacated. Jonny rolled through a somersault—barely missing a gluevine-covered tree—and came up into a crouch. He got a glimpse of the spine leopard as it leaped toward him, razor-edged quills tucked tightly against its forelegs—and again his computer took over.
Standing flatfooted in the open, the only weapons Jonny could bring to bear were his fingertip lasers; but even as it again threw him to the side his computer used them with deadly efficiency. The twin needles of light lanced out, sweeping across the alien creature's head.
The spine leopard screamed, a full-bodied ululation that seemed to bounce off the inside of Jonny's stomach, and its spines snapped reflexively upright on its legs. The instinctive defensive move proved useless; Jonny was already beyond reach of the spine tips. Again he hit the ground, but this time he didn't roll back to his feet. Looking back over his shoulder, he saw the spine leopard struggling to get up, apparently oblivious to the black lines crisscrossing its face and to the brain damage behind them. A wound like that would have killed a human outright, but the less centralized alien metabolism wasn't as susceptible to localized destruction. The creature rose to its feet, spines still fully spread.