"I'm sure, of course, this is what must be done," Poyndex said. "You've argued so persuasively. However, it would be remiss of me not to point out the dangers in this action.
"Some might argue that it would be better to ignore the whole thing. You've already ordered an Empirewide blackout of the proceedings. Continue it. Make no response. Then let them slink away. We could arrest them at our leisure. Also, the attack itself might backblast. Our own allies may become fearful. But I'm sure all of you know these things. I'm only pointing them out so that no little detail might be overlooked."
"Bloody hell on th' allies," one Kraa snarled.
"If we don't act, some fools might think those outrageous charges are true," Malperin said.
"Send the fleet," Lovett said.
Poyndex sent the fleet. However, as he was issuing orders all around, he called in his most trusted aides. There was a great deal of ass covering to be done.
Poyndex had to get ahead of events before they ran him down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Imperial captain of the Guard (Retired) Hosford topped the hill, rested on his staff, and gave himself five solid minutes of wheezing before starting downslope, across the next valley, and up the next ridge. Foothills, he thought. Foothills of the clottin' Himalayas, you ought to add.
Not only did he feel himself too fat and too old for this assignment, but it was a perfectly empty and thankless one.
There had been two things eternal about the Empire. A pistol and a bomb had proven one to be mortal. The other was the Gurkhas.
The Gurkhas were the best soldiers any world had ever produced, human or otherwise. Most people hoped that a species of still-more lethal killers would not appear—or that if they did, they would be as firmly on the side of the Empire as the Gurkhas. The Gurkhas and the Empire were one and the same to the many, many people who had seen them on the livies.
The privy council wanted them back. Both because they wanted absolutely faithful, absolutely incorruptible beings for their bodyguards, and to legitimize their own rule.
Hence Captain Hosford's mission.
Hosford had been—years, lifetime, lifetimes ago, he thought—commander of the Gurkha bodyguard at the Emperor's palace of Arundel. He had been a very promising officer, guaranteed for high rank—as, indeed, was anyone picked for Captain of the Guard.
The assignment was glamorous—and gave its holder no time for a personal life, as Sten had discovered when he had replaced Hosford in the position.
All went well—until Hosford fell in love. Completely, absolutely. So much so that he had covered the walls of his quarters with paintings of Maeve. Maeve never said anything, but Hosford realized the choice was clear. The assignment—or her.
He called in every favor he could to get out. The military powers did not like one of their chosen ones changing the plans they had for him. So the only assignment offered was an exile post on a frontier world. Hosford took it, and Maeve went with him.
Obviously there was no more career for him in the Guard. He resigned his commission, chose not to reenlist when the Tahn wars started, and wandered with Maeve. He had thought that wandering aimless, but he had once plotted his travels and realized that they led, in a perfectly logical pattern, to Earth.
And the Gurkhas.
The Gurkhas who had survived Imperial duty may have been rich, but Nepal was still a very primitive province. It was kept that way by its king, who claimed that his succession ran back to when the mountain gods were born. He must protect Nepal and his people. The country was a sacred place, from the peaks of Dhaulagiri, Annapurna, and Chomolungma to the Gautama Buddha's birthplace in the Lumbini Valley. In practice that meant the Nepalese were actively discouraged from becoming too "civilized." They no longer died of the same diseases, nor was tuberculosis endemic, and lifespan was extended—if not by "civilized" Imperial standards—but it was still a hard, primitive tribal existence. Hosford wanted to help.
He was not permitted to settle in Nepal—no foreigners were allowed in the country except in limited numbers for brief visits. But he and Maeve found a home in Darjeeling, in the nearby province of Gurkhali, once part of a long-fragmented nation called India.
From there, he did what he could. He encouraged education and teachers inside Nepal, assisted any old soldier he could, and helped and found work for the depressed, near-suicidal young men who were rejected from the military.
He and other ex-Gurkha officers were allowed into Nepal twice a year to distribute pension monies, to offer any technical education they could, and to recruit—until six years earlier, when the Emperor had been murdered and the Gurkhas returned home. Every year, Hosford was commissioned by a representative of the privy council to try recruiting once more. Every year he was greeted with smiles and whiskey and told "We serve the Emperor. Only."
The first two years he tried arguing: The Emperor was dead. Were they planning to abandon their military tradition? Their answer was: "No, Captain. We are not foolish. When the Emperor returns, so shall we. But serve this privy council? Never. They are worth less than one yak pubic hair."
Why did he keep returning? The commission was part of it—he left the monies with village heads for their own purposes. But just being in the mountains, being in Nepal, being with the Nepalese was reason enough.
One more year, he groaned. One more trip. One more rejection. This must be the last one. Otherwise his body would be found, years later, dead on some unknown hillside when his heart gave out. This... well, no. Perhaps next year. But that would definitely be the last.
Ahead lay the Gurkha Center in the hamlet of Pokhara. Hosford shifted the heavy pack of credits and marched on. He knew what he would see from the next hilltop. The center, and some of his old comrades waiting. Somehow they always knew when he would be there. They would be drawn to as rigid attention as their age permitted. At their head would be ex-Havildar Major Mankajiri Gurung, who, unless he was actually his son, Imperial records said was over 2S0 years old. Them... but that would be all.
Pokhara, in fact, was a confusion of noise, music, and youth. Almost, Hosford estimated, a thousand of them, drawn up in what screaming old men were telling them was a military formation, and if they shamed their clan or Captain Hosford they would be tied up in barrels and rolled into the headwaters of the Sacred Ganges to disappear into the sea.
In front of the assembly stood Mankajiri. He saluted. Hosford returned the salute. He should have waited to ask, but could not.
"These are... recruits?" he wondered aloud.
"Such as they are. Mountain wildflowers compared to men of our wars, Captain. But recruits, if they pass your careful eye. Their medical records wait for your examination."
"Why the change?"
"Change? There has been no change."
"But you said you would never serve the privy council."
"Again, no change. These men will serve the Emperor. He is returning. He will need us."
Captain Hosford felt a cold chill down his spine-a chill that had nothing to do with the icy winds blowing down from the nearby mountain tops.
" 'Ow lang wi' the' squawkin't an' squeakin't frae th' Tribunal gae on?" Kilgour wondered.
Mahoney shrugged. "Until every lawyer has his day in the sun, and until every challenge the privy council can come up with now or later is answered."
"Ah hae no plans," Kilgour said grimly, "frae much of a later f'r th' clots. Thae drove me off Edinburgh. Thae'll be ae accountin' f'r that. Wi' me. Nae wi' a court ae law."
"Alex. We aren't vigilantes," Sten said.