"Well, things change," Julian said. "They change fast on Marduk. Admiral, I've got a presentation on what we went through and what our plans are. If you'd like to see it."
"I would," Helmut admitted. "I'd like to see what could change a clothes horse into—"
"Just say a MacClintock."
"Well, well—Harvard Mansul." Etienne Thorwell, Editor in Chief of Imperial Astrographic, shook his head with an expression which tried, not entirely successfully, to be more of a scowl than a grin. "Late as usual—way past deadline! And don't you dare tell me you want per diem for the extra time, you little weasel!"
"Good to see you again, too, Etienne," Mansul said with a smile of his own. He walked across the office, and Thorwell stood to shake his hand. Then the editor gave a "what-the-hell" shrug and wrapped both arms around the smaller man in a bear hug.
"Thought we'd lost you for sure this time, Harvard," he said after a moment, stepping back and holding the reporter at arm's length. "You were supposed to be back months ago!"
"I know." Mansul shrugged, and his smile was more than a little crooked. "Seems our information on the societal setup was a bit, um, out of date. The Krath have undergone a religious conversion with some really nasty side effects. They almost decided to eat me."
"Eat you?" Thorwell blinked, then regarded Mansul skeptically. "Ritualistic cannibalism of 'great white hunters' by any sort of established city-building society is for bad novelists and holodrama, Harvard."
"Usually." Mansul nodded in agreement. "This time around, though—" He shrugged. "Look, I've got the video to back it up. But even more important, I got caught in a shooting war between the 'civilized' cannibals and a bunch of 'barbarian tribesmen' who objected to being eaten... and did something about it. It's pretty damned spectacular stuff, Etienne."
That much, he reflected, was certainly true. Of course, he'd had to do some pretty careful editing to keep any of the humans (or their weapons) from appearing in the aforesaid video. A few carefully scripted interviews with Pedi Karuse's father had also been added to the mix, making it quite plain that the entire war—and the desperate battle which had concluded it—had been the result of purely Mardukan efforts. The fact that it made the Gastan look like a military genius had tickled the Shin monarch's sense of humor, but he'd covered admirably for the human involvement.
"Actual combat footage?" Thorwell's nose almost twitched, and Mansul hid a smile. He'd told Roger and O'Casey how his boss would react to that. The official IAS charter was to report seriously on alien worlds and societies, with substantive analysis and exploration, not cater to core-world stereotypes of "barbarian behavior," but the editorial staff couldn't afford to ignore the realities of viewership demographics.
"Actual combat footage," he confirmed. "Pikes, axes, and black powder and the decisive defeat of the 'civilized' side by the barbarians who don't eat people. And who happen to have saved my own personal ass in the process."
"Hot damn," Thorwell said. "'Fearless reporter rescued by valiant barbarian ruler.' That kind of stuff?"
"That was how I figured on playing it," Mansul agreed. "With suitably modest commentary from myself, of course."
They looked at each other and chuckled almost in unison. Harvard Mansul had already won the coveted Interstellar Correspondents Society's Stimson-Yamaguchi Medal twice. If this footage was as good as Thorwell suspected it was, he might be about to win it a third time.
Mansul knew exactly what the chief editor was thinking. But what made him chuckle was the knowledge that he had the SYM absolutely sewed up once he was able to actually release the documentary he'd done of Roger's adventures on Marduk. Especially with the inside track he'd been promised on coverage of the countercoup after it came off, as well.
"I've got a lot of other stuff, too," the reporter went on after a few moments. "In-depth societal analysis of both sides, some pretty good stuff on their basic tech capabilities, and an update on the original geological survey. It really underestimated the planet's vulcanism, Etienne, and I think that probably played a big part in how some of the social developments played out. And a lot on basic culture, including their arts and crafts and their cuisine." He shook his head and rolled his eyes appreciatively. "And I've gotta tell you, while I don't think I'd care a bit for Krath dietary staples, the rest of these people can cook.
"Just before the wheels came off for the Krath, they made contact with these people from the other side of the local ocean—from a place called K'Vaern's Cove, sort of a local maritime trading empire—and I got some good footage on them, too. And the food those people turned out!"
He shook his head, and Thorwell chuckled again.
"Food, Harvard? That was never your big thing before."
"Well, yeah," Mansul agreed with a smile, "but that was when I wasn't likely to be winding up on anyone's menu. What I was thinking was, we play off the cuisine of the noncannibals when we start reporting on the Krath. Use it as a contrast and compare sort of thing."
"Um." Thorwell frowned thoughtfully, scratching his chin, then nodded. Slowly, at first, and then more enthusiastically. "I like it!" he agreed.
"I thought you might," Mansul said. Indeed, he'd counted on it. And it fitted in with the traditional IAS position—a way to use the shuddery-shivery concept of cannibalism by simply mentioning it in the midst of a scholarly analysis and comparison of the rest of the planet's cooking.
"All right," he said, leaning forward and setting his small, portable holo player on Thorwell's coffee table, "I thought we might start with this bit... ."
"Helmut's moving," General Gianetto said as Prince Jackson's secretary closed the prince's office door behind him.
The office was on the top occupied level of the Imperial Tower, a megascraper that rose almost a kilometer into the air to the west of Imperial city. Adoula's view was to the east, moreover, where he could keep an eye on what he was more and more coming to consider his personal fiefdom.
Jackson Adoula was man in late middle age, just passing his hundred and twelfth birthday, with black hair that was graying at the temples. He had a lean, ascetic face and was dressed in the height of current Court fashion. His brocade-fronted tunic was of pearl-gray natural silk, a tastefully neutral background for the deep, jewel-toned purples, greens, and crimson of the embroidery. His round, stand-up collar was, perhaps, just a tiny bit lower-cut than a true fashion stickler might have demanded, but that was his sole concession to comfort. The jeweled pins of several orders of nobility gleamed on his left breast, and his natural-leather boots glistened like shiny black mirrors below his fashionably baggy dark-blue trousers.
Now he looked up at his fellow conspirator and raised one aristocratic eyebrow.
"Moving where?" he asked.
"No idea," Gianetto said, taking a chair. The general was taller than the prince, fit and trim-looking with a shock of gray hair cut short enough to show his scalp. He was also the first Chief of Naval Operations—effectively, the Empire's uniformed commander in chief—who was a general and not an admiral. "The carrier I had watching him said Sixth Fleet just tunneled out, all at once. I've pushed out sensor ships. If they come back in anywhere within four light-days of Sol, we'll know about it."
"They can sit outeighteen light-years and tunnel in in six hours," Adoula said.