"Captain Wallenstein," Shi began, with a small nod of the head. Raising his head and eyes, Shi looked more carefully. "Ah, Admiral Wallenstein. Let me be the first this side of the rift to offer my congratulations, Marguerite."
"Thanks, Bruce. From you, that means something." Wallenstein gave Shi the smile she normally reserved for former lovers, still on good terms.
"Honestly, Marguerite, I wasn't sure I'd ever see you again . . . in this turn of the wheel. You convinced the Consensus, then?"
"I convinced the SecGen," she answered. "He convinced the Consensus . . . or enough of it. But Bruce . . . things are getting really bad at home. Bad in ways . . . well, you might not believe me without seeing for yourself."
"More areas reverted?" he asked.
"That, yes, but . . ."
"But?" he prodded.
"Let me tell you a little bit about the Ara Pacis and the Burning Man . . ."
* * *
Richard, Earl of Care, was burning up inside. And I know why, he thought, I know the exact cause. She's brown and petite and hourglass shaped, with a face like an angel and a disposition so different from the Class One women I've known that she shines their superior in every way that matters.
Of formal education she has not much, though once she learned to read she began picking things up at an amazing rate. Surrounded by mostly classes above Four, her Anglic has gotten to be something no Class One would have to be ashamed of back home. And such an adorable accent!
Elder gods, she terrifies me. What if I approached her? She couldn't reject me by law and custom but it would be meaningless for her to accept me unless I gave her the freedom to reject me in advance. And if I did that she might reject me. She's no cause to have any love for my class.
* * *
It was too far away to see the new world with the naked eye, but Esmeralda could see the bright dot of the sun of this system from the observation deck.
Just a few more months, Richard told me, until I'll be able to see Terra Nova. I can hardly imagine; a place where Man is free of the uppers that tyrannize poor Earth.
Richard, she sighed. What am I going to do about Richard. He loves me, I think. And, though I hate his class, I can't hate him . . . nor even, maybe especially, the High Admiral. What am I going to do. If I become his lover, as he plainly wants to ask me to become, could I then do what I must? Should I push to become his lover so that I will be in a better position to do what I must? God, I don't know.
I only know that my sister who took my place a few days before the High Admiral freed me . . . took my place to have her heart cut out on their filthy altar, made me swear revenge.
She thought upon it long, weighing advantages and disadvantages, conflicting duties and responsibilities. Finally, still undecided, she stood and began walking the ship's corridors, in the direction of the captain's cabin.
Ammunition Supply Point, Legionary Base Lago Sombrero, Balboa, Terra Nova
All three moons were up, Bellona, Hecate, and Eris. They bathed the world beneath them in a bright and, because of their spacing, virtually shadowless light.
Under those moons, just outside the door of bunker number twenty-three, a huge meter-thick assemblage of old and very, very strong concrete, Duque Patricio Carrera gazed up into the night sky. Though trees blocked his view of the ground to the south, he knew he could see the airstrip if he wanted by just climbing to the earthen, treed roof of the bunker. He didn't bother; he already knew exactly what it looked like.
Carrera's title, Duque, was a military title rather than a title of nobility. It signified that he was the commander of the Legion del Cid, the originally mercenary, or more technically auxiliary, force that had been raised in the Republic of Balboa, adopted by Balboa, and which had adopted Balboa in return. Ultimately, the title derived from the Latin "Dux Bellorum," Commander of Wars. The Legion took many of its traditions from ancient Rome on Old Earth.
A set of night vision goggles hung by their straps from Carrera's neck. The goggles rested high on his chest, itself covered with the peculiar custom-made, slant-pocketed, pixilated tiger-striped camouflage that the duque had selected for his legions' jungle wear. Between the two was the Legions silk and liquid metal lorica.
Above goggles, lorica, uniform, and chest was a salt-and-pepper haired, deeply tanned face, with striking eyes, a narrow, aquiline nose, and more wrinkles than Carrera's years should have accounted for.
The sky was clear, unusually for Balboa's wet season. Mosquitoes droned in Carrera's ears. From further off the nighttime cries of the antaniae, Terra Nova's winged, septic-mouthed reptiles, came softly, muffled by the surrounding jungle. Mnnbt . . . mnnbt . . . mnnbt. As with the mosquitoes, Carrera likewise ignored the moonbats. Besides, they were fairly harmless except to children, the physically disabled, and the feeble minded. Cowardly creatures, they were.
Carrera stole a quick glance at his watch—forty minutes past midnight. He stood in the small area defined by the bunker's door, the berm of concrete-revetted earth that was designed to protect the contents of the bunker from either an accidental explosion or a near miss from a deliberate attack, and the two angled projections from the door to the access road. In this little trapezoid, hands clenched behind his back, Carrera paced out his frustrations and anxieties.
"Duque?"
Carrera turned to his driver, just emerging from the shelter of the bunker. Without another word Warrant Officer Jamie Soult handed his commander a cup of coffee, black and bitter. It was an old routine. "Sir, how do you know they're coming?" Soult asked.
Soult, tall, slender, and rather large-nosed, had been with Carrera in two armies, over as many decades. He was more a son or a younger brother than a subordinate. Even so, the term that best described the relationship was probably "friend."
The corners of Carrera's mouth twitched in something that vaguely resembled a smile. "Jamie, I know they're coming," he said, "even if I don't know which units or in what precise strength, because they think they've no choice. I made them think they have no choice."
In point of fact, Carrera actually did have a pretty good idea of who was coming, the units and the strength. After all, his enemies in the Tauran Union only had so many airborne units of the requisite quality.
Anglian paras or Gallic, he thought. Sachsen, just possibly. But I don't think so. Probably Gauls.
Over the hill that separated the Ammunition Supply Point, or ASP, from the rest of the base, blocked from Carrera's view by the thick, intervening trees, was the bulk of the cadre of the First Legion. At current mobilization levels, this amounted to the cadres, the very senior cadres, of two of the mechanized tercios, or regiments, of the legion, supplemented by a small number of select reservists. In terms of strength, these made up roughly the equivalent of six fairly small companies.
Mostly dug-in in a ring around the base; the reinforced cadres were there as bait. Good bait, however, ought not resemble bait too much. Therefore, some of them actively patrolled the perimeter. This patrolling had an additional, and vital, purpose. The one thing Carrera feared—not just here but in half a dozen places around the republic—was that the Taurans would find out that something beyond the obvious was waiting for them at Lago Sombrero . . . or at the airport . . . or at Fort Williams . . . or at any of half a dozen spots where, in fact, a major ambush or surprise attack was waiting for them.