observe:
Raj stood in a testing room in the Armory, examining a rifle. He was older, his hair mostly gray. The weapon in his hands was one the younger self did not recognize; chunky and short, with a box-magazine protruding below the stock and a cocking-lever at the side. He raised it and fired at the target downrange. The rifle fired again and again, spitting spent brass to the right, without any motion but pulling the trigger. And there was no smoke from the barrel. .
observe:
A crowd of gaping peons stood at the edge of a wheatfield-somewhere in the Central Provinces, from the flat terrain and broad treeless horizons. Behind them were the mud hovels they dwelt in; in front of them a huge clanking machine snorted and backed, then surged out into the ripe grain. It moved slowly, a whirring contraption like a skeletal cylinder of boards bending down the heads of the stalks. Beside it went an ox-wagon, and threshed grain poured out of a spout into it as the machine chewed its way into the wheat. As Raj watched, it reaped as much land as a dozen peons could do in a day; from the sun, scarcely an hour had passed.
observe:
Sullen, shaven-headed Skinner nomads surrendered their huge sauroid-killing rifles to an officer in Civil Government uniform. A huge engine on linked treads of steel stood behind the officer, quivering with mechanical life; the twin trails of its passage stretched off into the distance, and weapons bristled from its armored hull. Overhead a flying machine circled, with stiff wings like a soaring pterosauroid and a buzzing propeller at the rear.
observe:
An older Raj stood in the Cathedron once more. Suzette was with him, older as well, but smiling. The groom walked to his place beneath the dome; for a moment Raj thought it was Thom, but then he saw the differences, the darker complexion and the beak nose. Thom's son, he realized.
The image of a Raj twenty years older stepped forward, the bride's fingers resting on his arm. The young woman's green eyes glowed.
observe:
Bartin Foley as an old man, in a nobleman's formal civil clothes. He stood in the presentation room of the Palace, and bowed his head as an official Raj didn't recognize placed a gold-chain medallion over his head. Beside him on the table rested a book. On the cover, embossed letters read: Raj Whitehall and His Times.
observe:
He was looking down from the roof of a great shed. The dust motes in the air shook with the force of the energies below. Incomprehensible machines crawled by on a conveyor-belt. Men and women in overalls swarmed about them, fastening on parts with tools that hummed and screeched and whirred and sent showers of sparks across the concrete floor.
A siren whooped. The noise ended as if cut off with a knife, and the workers downed tools and turned to troop out of the huge building.
observe:
A crowd gathered around a plinth in East Residence. They were just familiar enough to be disturbing, men with their hair in pigtails, women in skirts scandalously short, to their knees. A poster read: Elections to the Consultative Senate to be held. Beneath: Vote Reform! The Anti-Peonage Act needs your support!
observe:
A train streaked by. Raj thought it was a train. It floated above the tracks with no visible support, and the locomotive was shaped more like a rifle bullet or an artillery shell than anything he recognized. The hum of its passage lingered in the air long after it had passed the horizon.
observe:
An avenue in East Residence, with a view down to the harbor. Raj could recognize a few of the buildings: the Cathedron, the Palace. Most of the rest had changed, in styles totally foreign. Before him was a mausoleum. The viewpoint swooped closer. The walls around the base were sculpted in bas-relief, and they showed his troops. Marching, making camp, charging with leveled bayonets. The central column held high-relief bronzes; here he recognized faces, Gerrin, Bartin, Kaltin-all his Companions, and Suzette. Their clasped hands ringed the broad pillar.
Atop it was a statue. A rider, on a great black hound. He was armed, but his outflung hand was empty, pointing to the sky. Below in gold letters was set:
raj whitehall. the conqueror of peace.
* * *
Beyond, from the bay where East Residence's harbor lay, something huge was lifting toward the heavens on pillars of pale fire.
Pigeons rose in a massed flutter of wings about the statue as the thunder of the starship's drive rolled across the plaza.
