The Stone Dogs

  "What—" she choked, swallowed to clear her mouth of saliva. "What do you want me to do?" she asked, clamping her hands together to halt the shaking.

  Yolande opened the controller and poised her finger. Her eyes met the American's, and Marya could feel them drinking.

  "I want yo' to scream," she said, and pressed down.

  NEW YORK CITY

  DONOVAN HOUSE

  FEDERAL CAPITAL DISTRICT

  JANUARY 21, 1977

  "I still say it stinks, General," Frederick Lefarge said. His body somehow gave the impression of tension, even when he sat relaxed in the stiff government-issue office chair.

  Nathaniel Stoddard nodded, considering the man who sat across from him. Thinner, he thought. And not just in body. Pale as well, with the pallor that comes from long months inside a submarine, or a spaceship.

  "I agree, but…" He pressed a spot on the desk screen, and a thinfilm rectangle slid up along one wall.

  "India hurt us," he said quietly. "Not so much physically— it was the sinkhole of the Alliance—but in our souls. Our first major brush with the Domination, and we lost. Granted it was the Indians' own damn fault; that disinformation campaign wouldn't have produced secession if they hadn't been completely irrational about it. Granted, but we still lost, and another three hundred million went under the Yoke."

  He rapped the desk with his knuckles. "First, we needed a victory, and the asteroid agreement is that. What we have to guard against is not treason, that's the enemy's problem. What we have to fear is defeatism; the turning-away from useful work into hedonism, because people don't think there is a future. That's the real danger, in the short term."

  "I'd rather have kicked the Snakes out of the belt and everything outward."

  Stoddard shook his head. "Not feasible, Colonel. It was turning into a struggle of attrition, and they outnumber us." He produced his pipe, took comfort from the ritual of lighting it. "Nor can we fight full-scale near Earth, not anymore. India took us to the brink of that, and it's only the sheer insanity of Draka ruthlessness that let it get that far." He puffed. "Now, list for me the positive aspects of these miserable few years."

  Lefarge shrugged. "The Alliance will stand, now."

  Stoddard nodded; the constituent nations had agreed to a full merger of sovereignty. A pity in a way—he had always regretted the increasing uniformity of life in the Alliance— but necessary.

  "And not just among the electorate, either." His expression became wholly blank. "Now, I'm about to tell you something that requires complete commitment. If I'm not satisfied by your reactions from this point on, then the only way you will leave this building is as a corpse."

  Lefarge sat upright, a slow uncoiling motion. His eyes met the other man's for a long moment.

  "You're serious," he said flatly.

  "Never more so. Want me to continue?"

  The moment stretched. "Yes."

  Stoddard cupped the bowl of the pipe. "We—that is, the permanent staff just below the political level—we've become convinced that if things go on as they are, we're headed for the Final War. If only because the limits of the Domination's ability to adapt to technical progress are on the horizon, and they'll bring everything down in wreck rather than see us reduce them to irrelevance."

  Lefarge smiled. "Then the only alternatives are annihilation or surrender?"

  "Surrender is annihilation, certainly for freedom, probably for humanity," he said, nodding agreement. "And the Final War is annihilation, too, It's the seeping realization of that that's been paralyzing our leadership echelons." He touched another spot on the screen, and a starfield lit the rectangle that hung from the ceiling.

  "Tell me, Fred, what do you know about fusion power?"

  Lefarge blinked narrow-eyed at the older man. "Controlled? Still a ways off. Plasma-confinement, we just reached breakeven, possibly a workable reactor by the turn of the century. Inertial confinement shows some promise. Solid-state tunneling reactions are tricky and we still don't understand them; much longer."

  "Look at this, then." A schematic appeared, a huge sphere with a tube protruding from each end, like a straw through an orange. "Build a big sphere; doesn't matter much of what, as long as it's thick enough. Throw fusion bombs in through this magnetic catapult. Set them off; we've got an electron-beam system that looks likely to work, but uranium's cheap off-planet these days. Bomb goes off, vacuum, no blast. Just radiant energy; shell absorbs the energy, you extract the energy, then beam it anywhere you want via microwave. Simple, robust, nearly as cheap as solar past Mars…"

  "Useful," the younger man said without relaxing his lynx stare. "Particularly in the belt. With that, we could really set up a self-sustaining system, and fast. But that isn't what you had in mind."

  "No. Incidentally, we think the Draka are using a much cruder form of this to mine ice from Sinope or Himalia, off Jupiter." Another tap on the screen. The artifact that appeared this time was a simple tube of coils and large-scale industrial magnets floating free in space, contained by the outline of an enormous box. "What's buried in New Mexico and eats power?"

  "Linear accelerator…" His hands gripped the rests of his chair. "Antimatter, by God!"

  "Right the first time, give the man a cigar." The stem of the pipe pointed. "And that's the first of the secrets you'll be expected to guard. You think, Fred. Think."

  Slowly. "It can't be for bombs. We've already got bigger weapons than we can use." A pause. "Spaceship drives?"

  A nod. "Paahtly. The ultimate reaction drive. We've tested models with the minute amounts we've made here Earthside. A great advantage, even over the improved pulsedrive models we're working on. Even over the fusion models that well have in a decade."

  "But not enough," Lefarge said. "It'll never be enough, a better weapon, more weapons, even when we've got a lead we're too gutless to use it."

  The general frowned. "Fred, the price of open war is too high. And getting higher! They can at least copy what we do." He shook his head, waited for a second, then summoned up another image. "All right, look at this."

  This was a spaceship, with an outline he recognized beside it for comparison; a Hero-class deepspace cruiser, the type he had been operating out of in the Belt. Those had a 7,000-tonne payload… and this one was dwarfed by the model beside it. A huge cylinder, basically; a wheel and a ball at one end, at the other a long stalk and a cup.

  Awareness struck him. "Judas Priest!" he wheezed. "A starship!" For a moment he was a boy again, watching Bat Markam, Alliance Future Patrol, planting the blue-and-gold on a planet of green-tentacled aliens… Then his teeth skinned back. "Shit." A bolthole.

  "How do you feel about the idea, Fred?"

  "Jesus…" He ran a hand over his face. "General, could we do it?"

  A shrug. "Ayuh. Theory's all right, the engineering is big but nothing radical. Have to test the drive, but the math works. Alpha Centauri in forty years. And, Fred, they've been looking that way with the Big Eye." That was the fifty-kilometer reflector at the L-5 beyond Lunar farside. "There's a planet there."

  The excitement surged again, mixed sourly with bitterness at the back of his throat. "Inhabitable?"

  "Mebbe. Mebbe not. It's got an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, water vapor, continents and oceans… Yes, the definition's that good. A little smaller than Earth and further out; and the orbit's funny, what you'd expect." The Centauri system had three stars; that must be complex. "A Mars-type as well, subjovian gas giants, moons, asteroids we think from the orbital data. A planet by itself isn't enough these days." More slowly: "How do you feel about it, Fred?"

  Unconscious of the general's stare, the younger man rose and paced, running a hand through his close-cropped black hair. "Christ. I love it; that's something I've dreamed since I was a kid. When the news flash came through about the Conestoga reaching orbit, I was on my first date, you know? Sheila Washansky. Her folks were away for the afternoon, we were on the couch upstairs, I had my hand up her skirt and the TV on do
wnstairs—and I dumped her on the floor, I got up so fast. Never even noticed her walking out the door. Thirteen, my first chance to score, and I never noticed: that shows you how I feel."

  He stopped and drove a fist into one palm. "And I hate it, the idea of running away. Even as a last resort," he swung towards the general.—"It is a last resort, isn't it?"

  "Ayuh."

  "Just to get a few hundred clear—"

  "More like a hundred thousand, Fred."

  At his surprise, Stoddard continued: "The other side aren't the only ones who do technological espionage. They've about perfected a reduced-metabolism system that works; down to less than one percent of normal. Our biology people say they can work out the remaining bugs without using their methods." They both grimaced slightly; one reason the Domination made faster progress in the life sciences was its willingness to expend humans.

  "So the passengers age less than a year. Crew in rotation; no more than five years each. Seeds, animals, frozen animal ova, tools, knowledge, fabricators… all the art and history and philosophy the human race has produced. Enough to restart civilization; our civilization. America was started by refugees, son. What's your say?"

  Lefarge nodded once, then again. "Yes. As a last resort, because too much is at stake. It's not as if the resources were crucial. The Protracted Struggle isn't going to be tipped by a percent here or there."

  Stoddard sighed with relief, and his smile was warm.

  Hell, that's Uncle Nate's smile, Lefarge noted with surprise.

  "Fred, you just past the test," he said, coming around the desk to lay a hand on his shoulder. "And I can't tell you how glad I am."

  "Test?"

  "Yes. Look, Fred, we've got lots of anti-Draka fanatics; the Domination produces them like a junkyard dog does fleas. They're useful; that's one reason India cost the Draka the way it did. But fanatics are limited; they can't really think all that well, not where their obsession is concerned, and they aren't reliable. They've got their private agendas, which is fine if they happen to coincide with the command's, and if not—" He shrugged. "This is too big to risk."

  Lefarge nodded slowly. "And I've just shown I'm not a fanatic? General, don't bet on it."

  "Mebbe there's a difference between that and a good hate." He made a production of refilling the pipe. "Well, that was a big enough secret?"

  "Oh, sure." Lefarge grinned like a wolf. "Out with it." Another secret, went through him. And this one has to be a weapon. Something that can well and truly upset the balance.

  "Nh-huh. You are going out there. With a promotion to lieutenant colonel. Security chief, overall command with War Emergency Regulation powers. The rank will go up as the Project builds up."

  Lefarge whistled silently. War Emergency Regulation. Power of summary execution!

  "You see, Fred, you're perfect. Good technical background; good record with the OSS. Known to be space-trained. But not prominent enough to make the Security Directorate flag you, particularly. Not more than they watch fifty, a hundred thousand other officers." There were twenty million in the Alliance military.

  "Just the right type to be put in charge of a middling-important project. Like a fusion-power network for the asteroid belt; like an antimatter production facility. Like a fleet of antimatter-powered warships. Layers like an onion; by the time, which God forbid should ever happen, they come to the New America,"—Lefarge nodded at the name—"you'll be senior enough to oversee security work on that."

  "And?"

  Stoddard leaned backward against the desk, cupped an elbow in a hand. "And that's as much as anyone on Earth knows, except me, thee, and a few technical people. Damned few know that much. The technical people will be going out with you; they'll brief you when you get there. All the Chairman and the President know is we're doing something, and the appropriations are in the Black Fund."

  "Yeah. Everyone's feeling rich these days." Even with the military burden, taxes had been cut and cut again in recent years, as wealth flowed in from new industries and from space. Economists kept warning that the budget surplus would wreck the economy if prices went on flailing the way they had. "They won't miss it."

  "You'll get everything you need. We're encouraging development of the belt, you may have noticed, and doing it hard. That'll give more background to camouflage you, and more local resources to draw on in the later stages. This project is going to be a black hole, and you're the guardian at the event horizon. Nobody comes back. Nobody and nothing. Except you, occasionally, and you report verbally to me or my successor. I don't tell anyone anything. Not until it's ready."

  For a moment, for the first time in a year, Lefarge felt pure happiness. Then he hesitated, reached into his uniform jacket for a cigarette. Have to give this up again, he thought. At least until whatever habitat we build gets big enough.

  "Any news?" he asked softly. They both knew he could only mean his sister.

  "Fred—" Stoddard returned to his chair, fiddled with the controls. "All we've been able to learn is that she's alive, they haven't penetrated her cover, and she's been bought up by a pilot officer who was there." He leaned forward, sorrowful and inexorable. "No, Fred, no. We will not expend assets— people!—trying to pull her out. And we won't try to trade for her, because we have to keep what bargaining power we have for situations where it's really needed."

  There was more emotion in the old man's voice than Lefarge had heard in many years. "Fred, I love you both as if you were my own, you know that. Marya's tough and smart. It's not inconceivable she could get out. Or die trying. Until then, the only help, the only protection she has is that cover story. You will not endanger it, understood?"

  "Yes. Yes, sir." Lefarge straightened, set his beret on his head. "I'm to report in a week? Well, if you'll excuse me, sir, I intend to go take advantage of the time. First, by getting very drunk. Safely, alone."

  Stoddard sighed and dropped his face into his hands as the door closed. I cannot weep, he thought. For if I do, will never stop.

  CLAESTUM PLANTATION

  DISTRICT OF TUSCANY

  PROVINCE OF ITALY

  MAY, 1976

  "Yolande? "

  She stopped, caught between impatience and sick relief at the excuse for delay. It was John, looking grimmer than she had seen him in a long time, since Mandy got back from the last operation, in fact. Jolene was behind him, trying to make herself invisible. Yolande stopped, sighed, rubbed a hand over her forehead.

  "Yes, John?"

  He faced her, looked aside for a moment, then directly into her eyes.

  "There's somethin' I'd like to discuss with yo', sister," he said. A nod in the direction of the plain door ahead; they were in a little-used section of the manor, only sketchily finished at all, suited for the use she had put it to. "That serf of yours, in particular."

  The day was warm, but Yolande felt her skin roughen under her field jacket. "That's… not somethin' I care to discuss, brother," she said carefully, eyes on his face. The dappled sun-shadow patterns from the tall window at her back fell across the hard tanned planes of it, bleak and angry.

  "I care to discuss it," he said. "Not just fo' myself. Fo' our parents, yo' sisters, for Mandy."

  She opened her mouth to reply, then hesitated. The look on his face was enough to bring her out of self-absorption, with a prickle of feeling that it took a moment for her to recognize. Danger. This was the wrong context, the wrong person; this was her brother, Johnnie… and a very dangerous man, an extremely angry one. A cold-water feeling, a draft of rationality through the hot, tight obsession these rooms had come to represent.

  "All right," she said, impatiently. "Say yo' say."

  "Not here. In there."

  Yolande blinked, conscious of her lips peeling back. Unconscious of her hand dropping to the butt of her sidearm, until she saw him copy her motion with flat wariness.

  "If that's the way yo' want to discuss it, 'Landa."

  "I—gods, Johnnie!" She shook her hand loose. "All ri
ght, then." Her back went rigid at the thought of another seeing this with her. She pushed open the door.

  The American serf had been sitting at a table, picking listlessly at the wood. She looked up at the sound of the door opening, and scuttled to the far corner of the room; her hands caught up the tablecloth in passing, held it tented out in front of her as she scrabbled to push herself back into the stone.

  "Noooooo," she said. They could see her mouth through the thin fabric, open in an O as round as her eyes. "Nooooooo. Ahhhhhhhh. Nooooooo." The serfs face looked fallen in, as if something had been subtracted from it, and her arms were wasted.

  Yolande swallowed and turned her back; it was different, seeing it with John there. Suddenly she felt herself seized, the back of her neck taken in a grip as irresistible as a machine, turning her about.

  "Look at that!" John said. "That is what I wanted to… This can't go on, 'Landa, it cannot. I will not allow it. None of us will."

  The serf was making a thin whine, clutching the tablecloth to her with arms and legs, rocking. Yolande reached back, used a breakhold on the thumb to free herself, spun to face her brother, panting.

  "Yo' disputin' my right to do as I will with my own?" she grated.

  "Not on my land!" he roared, the sound shockingly loud. "Not in my family's home!" John reached over and pulled her pistol free, grabbed her hand, pressed it into her palm.

  "Kill her, if that's what yo' want. Or get rid of her. Or if yo' want to keep actin' like a hyena, "get yo' gone."

  Yolande looked at the weapon, up at her brother, her eyes hunting for a chink in his rage. "Are—" She fumbled the weapon back into its holster. "Are yo' tellin' me I'm not welcome in my family's home?" she said, in a small high voice.

  "My sister Yolande is always welcome here," he said flatly. "My sister wouldn't do that,"—he jerked his head at the moaning serf—"to a mad dog. It's your property… Don't yo' understand, 'Landa, yo' doin' this to yo'self. Every time yo' think of Myfwany, yo' takes it out on that poor bitch. Does that ease yo' pain? Does it? Isthat,"—he pointed again— "what yo' want your memories attached to? Yo've got to start livin' again. Not just goin' through the motions."