The Stone Dogs

  His fist thumped the boards. "They know enough to see that tanks aren't going to win them any more wars. And a better-treated slave is still a slave… Hell, I don't have to tell you all this. The crux of it is, they've changed the plans, there in San Fran. They're thinking in terms of an ultimatum; demonstrating our capacity, then demanding that the Draka back down, accept disarmament as a prelude to,"—his mouth twisted—"gradual reform."

  Their eyes turned to Hayato. The lifesystems specialist fiddled with her cup. "No," she said. "It wouldn't work." Meeting their regard: "Yes, I know I've made myself unpopular by saying Japan would have surrendered without cities being destroyed by nuclear weapons. I still think so. The Domination is a different case entirely. The old militarist caste in Japan, they could surrender, sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the nation. The Draka, the Citizens, their caste is their nation. If that's destroyed, everything worthwhile in the universe is gone, and they'd bring the world down with them out of sheer spite. "

  Lefarge turned his hands palm-up. "Anyone think different?"

  McKenzie hesitated, then spoke. "Fred… Look, I'm just a glorified high-iron man. What the hell do I know? That's what we've got spooks like you for, and a government we elected, come to that. Policy's their department."

  Lefarge opened his mouth to speak. Hayato cut in: "That's bullshit, Colin, and you know it. We've got the power; that means we have the responsibility to make a decision, one way or another. And it is a decision, either way."

  He slumped. "I've got kin back on Earth," he said.

  "We all do," Lefarge said. "Every indication of the way they've configured their off-Earth forces, every intuition I've built up about Draka behavior, tells me that the Snakes have some sort of ace in the hole comparable to us. It's a race, and we know for a fact that they won't hesitate a moment once they're ready; they aren't going to suffer from divided counsels. That's why we've got to act. Right, let's have a show of hands."

  One by one, they went up. McKenzie's last of all, but definitely.

  "I hope everybody realizes we're committed? Good, here's what we do. First, we make multiple insertions of the infovirus; we're set up for it. Next—"

  Cindy Lefarge held her husband's hand. The grip was strong enough to be painful, but she squeezed back patiently, waiting in the silence of the emptied room.

  "Am I doing the right thing?" he asked at last, in a haunted voice.

  "It's what Uncle Nate wanted, honey," she whispered back.

  "Yes, but… he was an old, old man by that time."

  "And he'd taught you to think for yourself!" she replied sharply. He looked up, startled, as she continued.

  "You wouldn't be doing this if you didn't think it was right," Cindy went on. "For what it's worth, I agree… but you know what Uncle Nate always said: 'you take the choice, you bear the responsibility'." More gently: "I can't be sure that what you're doing is right, Fred. But I'm behind you, and I always will be."

  "I know," he said, and raised her hand to his cheek. His shoulders were still slumped, as if under an invisible weight. "I'm left with another question. Is what I'm doing enough?"

  INGOLFSSON ISLAND PRESERVE

  SEYCHELLES DISTRICT

  ZANJ COAST PROVINCE

  DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

  APRIL 2, 1998

  Marya Lefarge shaded her eyes and looked out over the waves. It was a clear day, and the afternoon sun was white light on the hammered indigo metal of the ocean; there was enough wind to ruffle it, throwing foam crests on the waves and up the talc-fine powder sand of the beach. The endless background hiss of the light surf was the loudest sound; above her the wicker sunshade thuttered, and the fronds of the coconut palms rustled over that.

  Out in the water the three Draka were playing, and she could see their bodies flashing through the surface layers. Then they were in the shallows, and Gwen and her young man swept Yolande up between them. They came trotting up the beach with an effortless stride; New Race muscles could do on Earth what ordinary humans did in low-gravity.

  She studied them as they washed off the salt under a worked-bronze waterspout and walked over to the blanket and deckchairs. You could see the differences better nude and wet; slight variances in the way the joints moved, the pattern of muscles sliding under tight brown skin. It was natural; they could secrete melanin until they were at home under this equatorial sun or pale to cream white at will; tablets had done that for Yolande and herself. No body hair, save for the scalp and the pubic bush. They walked unconcerned over sand that had made the elder Draka slip on thong-sandals. Yolande moved with the studied grace of a lifelong athlete in hard training; the younger pair had the fluid suppleness of leopards.

  Oh, Gwen, she thought. It was easier when you were a child. A saddening thing, not to be able to wish luck and happiness to one you loved.

  "Remind me not to play tag with yo' New Race types," Yolande was saying, her hands resting on their shoulders. "I wonder that yo' puts up with us fossils."

  "Oh, we've got time," the man chuckled. He was a handspan past six feet, with a head of loose white-gold ringlets.

  That they do, Marya thought with a slight shiver in the warm tropical day. They were in their early twenties, and it would be two centuries before they showed much sign of age. How can even Draka bear to cut themselves off from their descendants so?

  Gwen gave her companion a good-natured thump on the ribs. "A little mo' respect for my momma, there," she said. "See yo' up at the house, Alois."

  "Gwen. Miz Ingolfsson," he nodded to the two.

  Yolande threw herself down on the blanket and stretched. "Nice boy," she said. "Drink, please, Marya."

  Marya smiled to herself as she opened the basket and took the pitcher from the cooler. Yolande regarded her daughter's newfound enthusiasm for the opposite sex with tolerant indulgence, as appropriate for her age. To the elder Ingolfsson, Marya suspected, men were nice enough in their way, often pleasing, but with some exceptions basically rather stupid and prisoner to their emotions. Not an uncommon attitude among female Citizens… She glanced up and met Gwen's eyes; for a moment they shared amusement.

  "Ma," Gwen said, taking one of the chairs. "Do me a favor?"

  "Anythin', child of my heart," Yolande said, accepting the chilled papaya juice. "Thank yo', Marya. Have what yo' like."

  "It's that damned controller cuff," Gwen was saying. Marya froze for a moment, with a feeling of insects crawling on her skin, then made her hands busy themselves in the basket. "Tantie-ma's never said much about it, but it makes my backbone crawl. Take it off her, would yo'?"

  "Ah." Yolande rose on one elbow and considered the serf. "As a matter of fact… Hand me that case from the bottom of the basket, would yo', Marya?"

  There was a thin leather binder about the size of a small book; the serfs hands shook slightly as she handed it to her owner, kneeling beside her. She had not noticed it, slipped in among the bowls and packages and softcover volumes of poetry brought along for a day by the ocean. Yolande opened it and took out a slim jack on the end of a coil cord.

  "Hold out yo' hand, wench," Yolande said.

  It was shaking worse as the Draka took it and slid the jack into an opening on the front edge of the thin metal circlet. The bright sun darkened and the world blurred before Marya's eyes. She saw Yolande's fingers touching controls within the opened binder. There was a tingling in her wrist, and a subdued click. Marya heard herself whimper slightly as the metal unclasped; the skin beneath it was very white. Angry, she caught her lower lip in her teeth as Yolande turned her palm up and dropped the cuff into it. The metal was still warm from her skin.

  "Do what yo' want with it," the Draka said.

  Marya looked at it. Feeling the tears cutting tracks down her cheeks, and making herself remember thepain. It had been twenty-four years, and not a day had passed when she had not suppressed that memory; now she let the holds crack. The two Draka were looking politely aside as she rose unsteadily to her feet and walked
out into the light, down to the edge of the water. The sand was scorching through the thin sandals, the waves cool as she walked into their knee-high curling. There was an intense smell of ocean, of iodine from the seaweed along the high-water mark. A gull went by overhead, shadow against dazzle, grawk-grawk-grawk. Her arm went back, seeming to drift. Forward with an elastic snap, and the cuff was soaring until it was a dot. Hesitating at the top of its arc, then dropping down at gathering speed. A last plek as it broke the smooth curve of a wave in a tiny eruption of white.

  Gone. She dropped to her knees and bent forward, heedless of the ends of her hair trailing in the foam. Gone.

  Yolande looked back to her daughter with a smile. "That seemed to go well, honeychile," she said.

  Gwen nodded and lay back on the deckchair to spare the serf intrusive eyes. "Thank yo', ma," she said.

  Yolande shrugged. How strong and beautiful, and how sweet with it, she thought. It was an ache in the chest, pride and love beyond bearing. Me and Myfwany—you have the best of us both, she thought. Of both your mothers. Marya was still down by the water's edge. Or all three.

  Gwen took a fig from the basket and nibbled. "Almost a shame to be leavin'," she said happily. "It's been a good three days, just yo' and the sibs, ma."

  "Liar," Yolande said amiably. "Y'all are indulgin' me, and I know it. Yo' thoughts are divided about equal between the new ship an' dancin' the mattress gavotte with Alois; he's likewise, and polite to me because he's got long-term designs on yo'. Holden is bored in the manner of six-year-olds, and Nikki,—she shrugged again; her oldest son was fifteen—"likes it here because there are a whole new set of housegirls to lay. Plus good spearfishing."

  Gwen laughed, turning her eyes skyward. "Lionheart's a real beauty, though, ma," she said musingly. "Gods, when we took her out fo' the shakedown! Deuterium-boron drives've got it all ovah the older types, the exhaust's all charged particles." Her voice took on a dreamy tone. "Fifty thousand tonnes payload, she's fitted out like a liner! Even a spin-deck at one G. Only- - "

  "Gwen."

  "—two months to Pluto! Granted we'll be there a year settin' up the base, but—"

  "Gwen, honeychile, I was on the design committee."

  Her daughter laughed and waved acknowledgment. "Sorry, ma."

  "You've been noble not talkin' shop, Gwen. I recognize true love when I hears it."

  "And, well, I am sorry to be leavin' yo'. And not… Know what I mean?"

  "Oh, yes, child of my heart, I know exactly." A long laugh, and she reached up to squeeze a shoulder. "Fo' reasons too numerous to state,' I'm feeling first-rate just now. But yo' are always a… string of lights around my heart, child. Ah, here comes Marya."

  Gwen rose. The serf stopped at arm's length and threw back her head; she had never stooped, but Yolande thought she saw a different curve to the neck. "Thank you, Missy Gwen," she said.

  The young Draka embraced her. "Always welcome, Tantie-ma," she said. "Well—"

  Her mother made scooting motions. "Alois and yo' have notions on how to spend the afternoon. Honestly, with an eighteen-month cruise ahead of yo'—"

  "Ma!. "

  "But youth will be served. Or serviced—"

  "Ma!" Mock-indignation.

  "Run along, yo' Tantie-ma and I will find some way to pass the time." Yolande winked, and thought she caught a hint of real embarrassment on her daughter's face. One thing that hardly changes, she thought. It never seems quite natural when the older generation doesn't lose interest.

  "Strange, Mistis," Marya said, watching the child she had borne walk away into the palms and oleander and hibiscus.

  "How so?" Yolande turned her attention back to the serf. Her half-hour by the waves seemed to have composed her, at least. The coffee-brown synthtan suited her, as well.

  "When… when she was little, she was so helpless as I held her. Now I can feel how gentle she's being hugging me, and she could crush me like an eggshell. Strange to remember her so tiny."

  "True enough. Lie down here."

  Marya sat beside the Draka, wrapping her arms around her shins and laying her head on her knees.

  "You want me?" she said, smiling faintly.

  "Yo' and a snack and a nap befo' dinner," Yolande said. "Settle for the snack and nap if yo' tuckered out."

  "Not yet," Marya said, with the same slight curve of her lips. "You have been very… energetic, since Archona."

  "Good news does that to me, and no, I can't tell you what."

  CLAESTUM PLANTATION

  DISTRICT OF TUSCANY

  PROVINCE OF ITALY

  DOMINATION OF THE DRAKA

  APRIL 4. 1998

  "Hello, Myfwany," Yolande said, sitting by the grave with her elbows on her knees. Wind cuffed at the spray of roses.

  There was another nearby, now, her father's. There were a few clouds today, white and fluffy. The air was just warm enough to be comfortable sitting still, with an undertone of freshness that was like a cool drink after the tropical heat.

  "Tina's coming along well," she continued. "Gods, it'll be interestin' to see what a merger of my genes and yourn comes out to! With all the little improvements they puttin' in these days."

  The wind ruffled the outer leaves of the flowers. They were still a little damp from the sprayer in the arbor where she had picked them. Yolande leaned forward to smell the intense wild scent.

  "And Gwen… ah, love, yo'd be proud of her. Assistant Com officer on this new ship, the Lionheart. Exploration voyage, really; establishin' a study-base for the outer system and the Oort clouds. Cold out there… Hope it works out for her. Hope she settles with Alois, he's a good sort."

  She smiled and touched the flowers and the short dense grass. "And there's somethin' else. Wotan and the White Christ, it's so secret I hardly dare tell yo', sweet! Gods witness, I'd begun to despair of the whole Domination, we seemed to be goin' nowhere, until Uncle Eric let me in on the secret. Been in the plannin' since,"—she swallowed—"since befo' India. A chance to put an end to the struggle, once and fo'all."

  Yolande stopped for a moment. This is the most painful pleasure of my life, she thought. "I'm… worried, though.

  About Uncle Eric. He's… not frightened—it's just so easy to be indecisive at these levels, love! Always easier not to decide. He hates the idea of usin' it, takin' the risk. Even of the killin' involved." Slowly: "I admit it, love, I don't like the idea either. The fighters… they take they chances, same as I. Always hated hurtin' the helpless, and as fo' throwin' sunfire across the land…" she made a grimace of disgust, looking out across the hills of her birth-country. Birds went overhead, a flock almost enough to hide the sky for an instant.

  She hammered a fist on her knee. "But what can we do, love? I could live with the thought of everythin' bein' destroyed, when there was no choice. Now there is. And the longer we wait, the worse. Ah, Myfwany, it's so hard to know what's right."

  Shaking her head, she rose and dusted her uniform. "I wish yo' were here, honeysweet," she said. "I promise… I'll do my best fo' the children. Goodbye fo' now, my love. Till we meet again."

  "What the hell is that?" Marya exclaimed. "Mistis," she added hastily.

  "That," Yolande replied, "is the most expensive toy evah built."

  She had managed to shake most of the crowd of officials at Florence Airhaven; even the officer from Tech Sec, who was reasonably interesting when he got onto the yacht's construction. Enough of crowding back on Luna, she thought, and besides, she had checked out fairly thoroughly on the simulators. They were almost alone on the floater; even this backwater had modernized maglev runways, now. The craft before them was not something it had seen before, or most other airhavens in the Domination, either. Ninety meters long, a slender tapering wedge; the bottom of the hull curved up at the rear into the slanted control fins. There were control-cabin windows at the bow, scramjet intakes below the rear edge. And what looked like a huge four-meter bell pointing backward at the stern.

  "It's from the te
st program fo' the fifth generation pulse-drives, the Rex class. A sliver of afternoon light fell within the thrustplate, and glittered off the lining. "Synthetic single-crystal thrustplate, stressed-matrix/mag equalizers, deuterium-boron-11 reaction. They had two of the first units left ovah. Decided to try matin' them to a heavy scramjet assault-transport; first Earth-surface to deepspace craft ever built, is the result." A Yankee might have junked the test units, but Draka engineers had a rooted abhorrence of throwing anything that still worked away.

  "The power-to-weight's good enough yo' could take off on the pulsedrive," Yolande continued, as they came to the lift and stepped on board. It hummed quietly and swept them past the black undersurface heatshield; the top of the craft was dark as well, but the texture was subtly different. "Though that wouldn't be neighborly. Actually it's a waddlin' monster in atmosphere, and mostly fuel tank inside; liquid hydrogen, of course. Got good legs, though; that reaction is energetic. Yo' could make it to Mars or even the Belt, iff'n yo' didn't mind arrivin' dry."

  They stepped through the open door. It swung shut behind them, and she took a deep breath. Filtered air, the subliminal hum of life-support systems; pale glowpanel light, and the neutral surfaces of synthetic and alloy. Space, Yolande thought. Even though they were still on the surface, it had an environment all its own. She ducked her head through the connecting door into the control cabin. There were comfortable quarters aft; it was essentially a very expensive yacht.

  Not that they're likely to become a hot item anytime soon, she thought wryly. Even discounting the cost of the drive as part of the research overhead, the Mamba would price in at about the combined family worth of the Ingolfssons and the von Shrakenbergs. For now, the Archon and the Commandant of Aresopolis were assigned one each.

  She returned the pilot's salute. The control deck was horseshoe shaped, with pilot and copilot forward, Weapons and Sensors to either side on the rear. Only the two pilots were here now, of course.