The evening wore on, and still Foord stayed talking. Despite his misgivings, and with all the issues looming in the background, he found himself enjoying it: Thahl’s father was good company. Thahl himself hardly said a word, having clearly decided to leave them to each other.
“I was watching you, of course, when you saw the srahr,” Sulhu said. “Later I watched you examine a dead leaf. Both are getting numerous. We’re well provisioned here for our winter, but are your people provisioned for theirs?”
“What makes you ask that?”
“I listen to Commonwealth broadcasts, Commander. I read Commonwealth journals. They all refer to Faith as a distant thunder. They hint that whole systems, including this one, may be battened down if She comes. I’m old and diseased and will soon die, so few things worry me; but that does.”
Tall narrow windows were scored down one wall of the Hall, like clawmarks. Foord stood up, stretched, and strode over to gaze out of one of them, his heels clacking on the flagstones. He was tall and powerfully built, dark-haired and bearded, a fourth-generation native of one of the Commonwealth’s heavy-gravity planets. He exuded a musky odour, like a lion. People meeting him for the first time found his quietness and reticence so at odds with his appearance as to be unnatural, almost threatening.
“Why does it worry you?”
The Sakhran laughed drily. “Because they’ve sent you here. The prospect of being anywhere nearby when you find Her is not appealing.”
“But you’re old and diseased and will soon die.”
Sulhu inclined his head, in the way of acknowledging a hit. Foord thought, It must be all this time around Thahl. I’m beginning to learn irony.
“Well,” Sulhu said, “there’s also the fact that my son will be on your ship.”
“No. There’s something else that worries you. Something you haven’t told me.” It amounted to calling his host a liar, so Foord spoke carefully. “But I think you will, when you’ve worked out how to say it.”
He continued to gaze through the leaded glass where the cold blaze of Blentport and its surrounding cities was spread out far below, prominences flaring now and then as ships landed for refit or lifted off to join the cordon around Sakhra. Under the huge Sakhran night, the spaceport seemed both mighty and vulnerable; like a beached whale, its size made it weak.
“An impressive spaceport,” Sulhu observed. “Much more impressive than anything we had. And yet, do you know how it got its name? When Sakhra became absorbed by, or rather was Invited To Join, the Commonwealth two hundred years ago”—Sulhu’s vocal irony, like all other forms of Sakhran irony, was light and subtle—“we pointed out Srahr’s tomb and asked that no human should ever go there uninvited to read his Book. For no better reason than that, a man named Rikkard Blent did. We caught him before he entered and later returned his still living body to the lowlands. The Commonwealth never actually retaliated, except—rather injudiciously if you ask me—to name Blentport after him.”
Sulhu paused for a moment. When he resumed, the irony had drained from his voice.
“To name its biggest spaceport after a silly man who thought he could come up here and just read the Book of Srahr. Srahr was the greatest of us, Commander. Poet, philosopher, soldier, scientist; and, unfortunately, author. We never recovered from his literary career… Must you go back tomorrow morning, Commander?”
“I think so. The refit has to be completed.”
“If you could stay until the afternoon, I had in mind a hunting trip.”
Foord smiled. “Cyr would have liked that.”
“He’s your Weapons Officer, isn’t he?”
“She.”
“Ah. Tell me about the people on your ship.”
Foord told him.
“But if they’ve done those things, why aren’t they dead? Or in prison?”
“Because they’re too valuable. And I’ve Done Those Things, too.”
“You see, Commander,” Sulhu went on, “There’s something wrong about this mission of yours.” His hands raised themselves from his lap, just enough to silence Foord, and returned to rest. “Let me think about how best to put it to you.”
Not for the first time that evening there was a loud roar as some military transports dipped low over the Irsirrha on their way down to Blentport. Suddenly aware that he was shivering, Foord walked back to stand by the fire.
“Yes,” Sulhu said as the noise from the ships died away, “that’s a good cue. It’s common knowledge—I didn’t get this from my son, it’s in all the broadcasts—that Horus Fleet has been ordered to maintain a defensive cordon around Sakhra, and that if She appears in the system, you’re to go out and engage Her singly, and they’re to stay put.”
“Yes, the Department made a terrible mistake at Isis. They insisted the Sirhan should join the regular forces, and not fight Her alone. They don’t want to repeat that mistake here. If anything, they’ve gone to the other extreme.”
“But Horus Fleet is the biggest in the Commonwealth, outside of Earth. Do the people who give you your orders really think the whole Fleet isn’t equal to Her?”
“Maybe they think She isn’t equal to me.”
“I was in Blentport a few days ago and I watched your ship land.” A carnivore’s lightning-bright smile. “I can’t imagine much that would equal it. But here’s my point: what will happen after you destroy Her?”
Foord had some difficulty hiding his surprise. “I can’t say. My orders aren’t specific.”
“No, not what you will do afterwards; what will happen. This is a matter which has interested me for a long time.” Thahl, who had been almost silent all evening, shifted uneasily, but Sulhu went on. “Why is the Commonwealth expanding?”
Again, Foord had some difficulty hiding his surprise. “Is that all you were thinking how to say?”
“All?”
“Well. There are obvious reasons: economic, political, military, probably in that order.”
“I hardly think so. Economically the Commonwealth already has an abundance of unused resources, politically its systems are if anything more divided than they were before it acquired them, and militarily it has never encountered an enemy strong enough to justify making itself bigger; though that may change now.”
Foord was beginning to feel tired, and remembered the journey which would be waiting for him the following day.
“Then maybe none of those. Maybe culturaclass="underline" just sheer curiosity.”
“Better, but it still only explains the process in terms of itself. New systems are acquired because they’re there.” Sulhu’s tone was almost bantering.
“Then,” Foord’s was almost irritated, “since you’ve obviously thought about it, what’s your answer?”
“It’s very strange, Commander. I’ve studied cultures like the Commonwealth. They seem to expand for no good reason, at least none they’re conscious of. Almost as if something external was making them.”
“What made the Sakhran Empire stop expanding three hundred years ago?”
“Two things, Commander: Faith, and Srahr’s Book. And it didn’t just stop expanding, it declined. When you see this,” he gestured around him, “you must find it difficult to imagine that we once built ships….though nothing like yours, of course, or like Her….”
Sulhu turned and gazed deliberately past Foord towards the windows. His hands tightened slightly round the obsidian goblet he was holding.
Foord read the gesture accurately. The subject was important, but they’d only touched on it; it needed a whole new conversation, and it was too late. He stood.
“It’s been a pleasure. Thank you for your hospitality.”