"Fairly well," Ardan said with a shrug. "Battles don't help, of course, but the Techs keep scrounging parts, combining 'Mechs that have had severe damage. We do need to redevelop the necessary technologies," he replied.
"Hanse Davion must be attempting that very thing," Adriaan said. "I hear that NAIS is working hard to releam the old techniques and to develop fresh ones suitable for our needs."
He reached to take his wife's hand. "It occurs to me that this latest attack by the Capellans may have been motivated by the fear that we would succeed in all that After all, their weaponry and systems, like everyone else's, are wearing out and being lost from year to year."
Ardan nodded in the growing dark. "That's a possibility, but there are probably many reasons. One of which is the fact that Hanse has persisted in meddling in the affairs of other Houses."
Adriaan moved irritably. He and his son had had many arguments over this very issue. The old soldier knew what happened when weak rulers didn't know how and when to apply pressure. He had tried to make Ardan see the realities, but their two heads were equally hard.
"Time will teach you, I fear," he said. "Time and the battles to come." Adriaan sighed then, and shrugged. "It's true that the young cannot wear the heads of the old."
Ardan rose from his comfortable chair. One of New Avalon's moons was rising, filling the fields and gardens with tenuous light.
"I must go. Another hard day tomorrow when we get a battery of medical checkups and shots. I likely won't be able to come again before liftoff."
He heard his mother make a soft, despairing sound. He turned and kissed her cheek. "You take care of this old man. Make him be careful...just a little. I'd like to see the old coot again."
Felsa rose to give him a parting hug. "You take care, yourself," she said. "And when you come back, you will probably be an uncle. That should give you some incentive!"
He laughed. "It will, I'm sure. Goodbye Felsa...Mak. Goodbye all!" Ardan called, as he turned and went down the steps of the terrace to the path. This footway led along a stream into the city. An hour's walk would see him back in the ready-barracks. He needed the time alone.
Walking away, he knew that his mother was probably weeping softly now, his father stroking her hand helplessly. Felsa would be watching him go, holding tightly to Mak's hand and being grateful that her man was a farmer, not a soldier.
But he was glad. Glad to be leaving the ease of this secure world. He had grown soft, lazy. It was time for him to get back into harness. His father, as much as he hated to admit it, was right
Drilling without killing didn't do the job. In combat with men who were armored and weaponed as he was, Ardan was in his element, his adrenals charged to their fullest extent, his mind racing like a computer, commanding his huge brute of a mechanism to do impossible things...three at a time.
In the distance, from the shadowy bulk of a house beside the stream, there came the cry of a child.
Ardan stopped. He stared down into the star-speckled water. Ripples made the points of light dance across the stream before breaking among the reeds at the edges.
There was another side to battle, one he had not admitted to himself before that terrible day that hung in his memory like a ghost or a demon. He shook himself, however, and hurried on, knowing he must force his mind to remain focused on the necessary aspects of war.
Not just one child would suffer if the Liao forces took over the worlds of the Federated Suns. All the children of all the people would starve, would be enslaved from the cradle upward. He knew the policies of Maximilian Liao as well as anyone.
The wily Chancellor of the Capellan Confederation had only one purpose for people—to use them. If they did not serve his needs, he discarded them like so many lifeless pawns in a game. And by that time, many were, indeed, without life.
For a moment, Ardan was intensely grateful that he had not given his mother the grandchild she craved. He felt a momentary pang, thinking of Felsa's expected infant What would come to it, in its lifetime, if the advance of Liao were not stopped now?
Of course, he knew that it would not be totally stopped. No more than had Hanse's depredations into Capellan space. There seemed no end to the back-and-forth exercise.
Politics. It all boiled down to politics, the control of men and machines by other men and machines. He hated the word now, was growing to hate it more every day of his life.
He sometimes felt as if his brain would foam up like the batter for the bread his mother had the cook make so often, running over the edges of his skull, rising and expanding and exploding. But he shook himself again.
What was the matter with him?
The cry of the child came after him through the soft, warm night. He saw, behind his eyes, that other child...and began to run up the path toward the barracks.
9
The jumps were as nasty as Ardan recalled them. He was dizzy and disoriented as the DropShip travelled from Jump-Ship to JumpShip, docking onto a fresh vessel without the long wait for recharging necessary for less-favored groups. Though a JumpShip normally needed a week to recharge before it could make its next jump, the Command Circuit used a relay system of ready-charged ships waiting at each jump point between worlds. Because it was so expensive to maintain, the Command Circuit was reserved for only the most high-priority uses.
There was no need to consult with Felsner or Hamman. All possible advance planning had been done. Details checked, rechecked, chewed to rags by the officers and by Hanse. Only the totally unforeseen could disrupt their counteroffensive, he decided.
Their arrival on Dragon's Field was a relief. Here was a busy port where the Davion DropShips would await the final sortie taking their attack force to attempt the reconquest of Stein's Folly.
Disembarking from the DropShip, Ardan was relieved to leave behind the disorientation he experienced from jump. He envied his fellows, few of whom seemed to suffer a similar distress. He steered his way around Techs arguing over the disposition of their own particular charges, Lance members disputing who had lost at the last game of chance, and officers quarreling over who was in charge of what.
It was a staging area like so many others he had seen. As a prelude to battle, he found them almost comical. A detached observer would, he thought, have written music and depicted such a scene as a comic opera. The revival of the old art would suit perfectly this conglomeration of the ridiculous and the serious.
Ardan went into the first mess hall he came to. "I don't jump well," he told the harried cook. "Do you have some soup? Or anything else that might settle my stomach?"
The man sighed, wiped sweat onto his forearm. "I've fed eight thousand men since sun-up, Colonel," he said wearily. "You just cannot believe what it's like. Not one... not...one...single...one...liked the food I gave him. And it's the best the Duke can provide. I've never cooked better. Ungrateful..." his voice trailed off. Ardan noticed that the man's eyes were a bit glazed.
"I guarantee that if you have anything at all that is rather bland and smooth and won't upset a queasy stomach, I will appreciate it heartily and thank you from my soul," he said.
The cook sighed and turned to a huge boiler. "This should do it. Soup's always good for such problems. Here ..." He dolloped a ladleful into a thick bowl. Turning to set it on the counter beside Ardan, he scooped up a handful of crisp strips of bread. "There. Hope it helps."
Ardan smiled his thanks and took the bowl to a table in the corner, where he sat with his back to the wall. Somehow, before a battle, that was most comfortable for him. As he ate, slowly and with care, he felt his knotted insides relax.