"Thanks. We did it to avenge troopers like you on Alyina." Phoebe's gray eyes grew distant for a moment, then she smiled. "We should have known the Clans could never beat soldiers like you and Kai."
Larry's father stepped up and held out the chronometer on his wrist. "We should get Larry's luggage, then head out. If we're quick, we won't have to pay the spaceport authority for your reminiscing."
Larry looked at his mother. "Arthritis or no, he's not changed, has he?"
The elder Acuff brought his head up. "And I won't, not ever. Why vary perfection?"
George laughed. "What can you say to that?"
"Nothing, Dr. George." Larry's father patted his son on the back of the head. "It is good to have you home again."
"And definitely good to be here." Larry smiled and meant it all the way.
6
It is but seldom that any one overt act produces hostilities between two nations; there exists, more commonly, a previous jealousy and ill will, a predisposition to take offense.
-Washington Irving, The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon
Tharkad City, Tharkad
District of Donegal, Federated Commonwealth
10 June 3057
Katrina Steiner-Davion smiled graciously as she shook the hands of her visitors. "Thank you both, Dr. Price and Dr. Wu, for spending so much time explaining all this to me. Your input has been invaluable in shaping my plans for research grants."
Both men took their leave of her reluctandy, but Katrina was used to that. From an early age she'd learned to use her charm to manipulate others as easily as a fish swims or a bird flies. A smile, a wink, the press of her hand against someone's arm, a conspiratorial whisper in an ear or a glance sharing a silent joke bound people tightly to her.
Katrina saw her charm as a tool, but others seemed to seek it like a drug. Growing up, she'd learned from her mother, a master of charm, how potent it could be in winning others over to her point of view. Melissa Steiner had combined it so effectively with her innocent idealism that few could stand against her. Her cousin Ryan Steiner had seen that early on, and since he couldn't neutralize Melissa by marrying her, he'd sought another solution to the problem.
Katrina had determined that she would not make the same mistake as her mother, a decision made long before the deaths of either of her parents. Melissa, in being so loved, felt safe in her role as a benevolent figure. After all, she had Hanse Davion, her husband, as the force to destroy those she could not charm.
Unfortunately, as it happened, the stick died, leaving the carrot unprotected.
Katrina had anticipated that turn of events and resolved never to leave herself so vulnerable. Her natural abilities combined with diligent work had built up her own network of loyal agents who provided her with all manner of information about her enemies. David Hanau had been her spy in Ryan Steiner's camp, though his warning about Ryan's plan to kill Galen Cox had come too late for her to do anything about it.
She shrugged. Chances were that any attempt to change Ryan's mind about Galen would have failed. Ryan had built up an immunity to her charm. He'd seen as much value in using her as she did in manipulating him. In his efforts to destabilize Victor's hold on the government, Ryan realized that Katrina could become a rival whom it would be difficult to vanquish.
What he did not grasp was that she had already strengthened her position in the Federated Commonwealth and was benefiting from the results of Ryan's treasonous activities. This was especially so in the Lyran half of the nation. In adopting the name of Katrina—that of her beloved grandmother—Katherine had won over many Lyrans who might have criticized her because she'd been raised on New Avalon. With the name change and the way she berated both Victor and Ryan for squabbling over the Skye March, in the people's eyes she became the person who would accept responsibility for the fate of a nation savaged by the Clans and almost voiceless since the death of Melissa Steiner.
She had charmed them into believing that. She had charmed Galen Cox. She had charmed the doctors and she would charm everyone else. No one should be able to resist her, but if they somehow did, she would find another way to deal with them.
As she had to find a way to deal with Victor.
Victor had never been prey to her charm. Like any older brother, he usually found her antics annoying. Though only two and a half years her senior, he had dismissed her as frivolous until lately. Even then, he only paid attention to her because she was a weapon for use against Ryan, sword to plunge into the heart of the rebellious Isle of Skye.
He who lives by the sword, so shall he die by it.
Katrina wondered if Victor knew what he was doing. In questioning the two doctors about leukemia, she'd learned that though the disease could easily make the brain swell and that the anemia resulted in much bleeding and bruising because it reduced the blood's ability to clot, it would not cause strokes. What the doctors didn't know was that she'd received a security briefing nearly a year before indicating that Joshua Marik had suffered a stroke resulting in some memory loss and affecting his speech, but that he was recovering quickly. The doctors had noted that, short of the miracle of spontaneous remission, no one recovered from anything concerning leukemia quickly.
As the doctors left the room and the doors clicked shut behind them, Katrina sat down on the white leather couch, her blue eyes narrowing as she thought about Joshua Marik. The stroke was a nice cover, if Victor was doing what she suspected. It wouldn't have been his plan, of course, but probably something begun by their father. Victor wouldn't have had the stomach to do what was necessary to create a double for Joshua Marik.
That sent her thoughts back a dozen years to a stormy October day in the palace on Tharkad. Her mother had been curiously quiet that morning and Katrina had instinctively sensed Melissa's need to talk to someone. She'd trailed after her around the palace and, when Melissa had started to bundle up for a trip outdoors, Katrina had silently joined her. Melissa smiled her approval, and they had ventured out into the icy city without notice or fanfare.
The driver took them to a small cemetery where the Twenty-fourth Lyran Guard buried its dead. There Melissa led her daughter to a grave site. After they'd cleared away the snow and laid flowers on the grave of Jeana Clay, Melissa knelt down to say a silent prayer. Seeing her mother cry, Katrina hugged her tight, then they returned to the car and rode silently back to the palace.
The next day Melissa told her daughter about Jeana Clay, who acted as her double in the time before Melissa Steiner married Hanse Davion. After the marriage, Jeana had taken Melissa's place on Tharkad while Melissa stayed with her husband on New Avalon. When the Fourth Succession War began, Skye separatists—every bit as troublesome then as they were now—had tried to assassinate Archon Katrina Steiner and Melissa. Jeana had discovered the plot and killed the assassins, but died defending the Archon.
If not for hearing that story and her own close brush with death in the blast that had killed Galen, the idea of creating a double for herself would never have occurred to her, nor would she have spotted the problem with Joshua's stroke. And she could not be certain that the use of the term "stroke" had been only carelessness on the part of the Intelligence Secretariat. Katrina knew that if she had Joshua and a double, and Joshua was dying, she wouldn't hesitate to make the switch to keep Sun-Tzu at bay.
Everyone knew he was just waiting for the chance to strike back at the Federated Commonwealth to regain the dozens of worlds lost in the Fourth Succession War. The Capellan Confederation was no match for the Federated Commonwealth, but those fanatics would become plenty dangerous if Sun-Tzu could draw on the industrial might of the Free Worlds League.
And once Joshua was dead, what would stop Sun-Tzu? Sooner or later Thomas Marik was going to have to let him marry Isis—and then Thomas better watch his own back. As long as everyone believed Joshua still lived, the status quo would continue. Once the boy died, everything would be up for grabs. Katrina knew it. Thomas knew it. Sun-Tzu knew it. And Victor also
knew it.
She smiled to herself as her secretary buzzed to let her know that her next visitor had arrived. I'll have to watch how you handle this, Victor. This may be exactly what I need to learn just how dangerous you truly are.
Tamar
Wolf Clan Occupation Zone
Phelan Kell Ward smiled as he looked over to where Natasha Kerensky lounged casually in a camp chair in the office of ilKhan Ulric Kerensky. "You are very confident that your Alpha Galaxy will beat my Beta Galaxy in these exercises, quiaff?"
Self-assurance sparkling in her eyes, the flameheaded Khan nodded at him. "Aff, Khan Phelan. I cracked the defenses of Tamar City when that lunatic, Selvin Kelswa, was defending it six years ago." She leaned back, letting her chair balance on two legs. "The city's defenses are not enough to stop the Dire Wolves."
Brushing a few stray black hairs from his eyes, Phelan forced a yawn, then glanced at the white-haired man seated at the desk across from both him and Natasha. "It seems, ilKhan, that Khan Natasha is getting rather cocky in her dotage."
"Dotage!" Natasha rocked her chair forward, bringing her booted feet down with a heavy thump. "I may have been fighting and winning wars before your father was admitted to the Nagelring, but I've not lost any of my edge. And if you try to argue, as the Crusaders have, that my age has made me use my influence to reduce our fighting, I'll turn you over my knee."
Phelan laughed, his green eyes flashing. "I would never suggest that you have become a pacifist because of your age. The Crusaders are foolish to imply that is the reason you support the truce the ilKhan struck with ComStar after the battle for Tukayyid. The fact that I support it and that Ulric negotiated it, and that we're both very much your junior undercuts their argument."
Ulric nodded. "You would prefer, Natasha, the Crusaders fighting a battle they cannot win to having them turn their efforts to something more useful, quiaff?"
"Aff, but having to answer challenges from Crusaders within Clan Wolf is becoming annoying."
The Khan of Khans smiled. "You are doing wonders thinning out the Crusader ranks when you defend yourself."
"I can see that, but the only ones I'm getting are those who have earned Bloodnames, with plenty of young Crusaders waiting to step into their places." Natasha curled her lip in disgust. "I would resign, but with Dalk Cams as Loremaster, I would be surrendering my position to a Crusader, and surrender is something I will never do."
The Wardens and the Crusaders were the two main political divisions within the Clans. The Crusaders believed it was the Clans' destiny to conquer the Inner Sphere in order to restore the glorious Star League. The Wardens disagreed, believing it was the Clans' mission to wait in readiness to protect the Inner Sphere against dangers from without.
Phelan frowned. "We could get someone to challenge Cams, oust him and replace him with a Warden."
Ulric arched a white eyebrow at the younger Khan. "Could we?"
"Cams is Loremaster, but that is because he is a better politician than he is a Mech Warrior. Athen Kederk or Alita Winson from my Beta Galaxy could unseat him."
"I agree, but that does not answer my question." Ulric leaned forward at his desk. "Could we get a Warden elected to the position of Loremaster, quineg?"
The addition of quineg to Ulric's question surprised Phelan. It meant the ilKhan clearly expected a negative response. "I am the first person to admit I am not a politician of any skill, but I was unaware that sentiment within the Wolf Clan had shifted so sharply toward the Crusader point of view."
Natasha rested her elbows on her knees. "The shift has been gradual, Phelan, and comes from the youngest ranks of Mech Warriors. They were hearing the great tales of our victories as we invaded the Inner Sphere. Knowing they would be finished with their training and in the field by the time the final assault on Terra began, they dreamed of great glory. Because we Wolves were the Clan that had pushed most deeply into the Inner Sphere, the honor of the assault would go to us, and they eagerly imagined the day they would participate in that great victory.
"When Tukayyid resulted in a truce, our young warriors were frustrated. Clan Wolf did not suffer great losses on Tukayyid, so the younger warriors have been left with few chances to compete for Bloodnames. The severe losses suffered by the other Clans opened up whole ranks, and new warriors in the Jade Falcons or Nova Cats have been able to move into positions of higher responsibility. Because the glory dreams of our young warriors have not died, many of them want us to break the truce and finish what we started."
Phelan shook his head. "So they view the right to attack Terra as something positive for Clan Wolf?"
"Aff. Our young have become Wolf supremists." Ulric narrowed his blue eyes. "They are misguided. It's true that they repudiate the beliefs and aims of Crusaders like Clan Jade Falcon, but they are willing to follow Wolves who accept the line of the Crusaders."
Natasha nodded. "Chief among their ringleaders is Vlad."
Phelan's nostrils flared. Vlad, of the House of Ward, was the Mech Warrior who had captured him eight years before and brought him into the Wolf Clan. Vlad was a Crusader, fully embracing the idea that the Clans were destined to conquer the worlds of the Inner Sphere and rule over humanity in a newly resurrected Star League. In a strange twist of fate, Phelan and Vlad had ended up battling in a Trial of Bloodright for the coveted surname of Ward. Suffering defeat at Phelan's hands had only intensified Vlad's hatred.
Phelan, who had been born in the Inner Sphere of Morgan Kell and his wife Salome, was what the Clans reviled as a freeborn, an individual conceived and born by natural means. That Phelan had managed to defeat the fruit of generations of selective Clan breeding to produce superior warriors infuriated other Clansmen—Crusaders in particular—because his skill challenged their notions of superiority over the freeborns of the Inner Sphere. For a man like Vlad—full of ambition and dedicated to the Crusader mission—losing to Phelan opened a wound that would never close.
"So Vlad is using the young warriors' inexperience and lack of sophistication to push against the Wardens and the truce?"
Ulric nodded in reply. "The idea he is preaching is very attractive to those warriors who have little or no chance of nomination for a Bloodname without warfare to prove their worthiness. He is using your elevation to prove that I have embraced the Inner Sphere, and he uses Natasha's age to suggest that no upward movement in the Wolves will take place because we are not cycling our personnel as other Clans do."
Phelan punched one fist into the palm of the other. "Vlad persuades the youngsters that they have no future, then offers them a solution that means more war and destruction."
Natasha plucked nervously at a thread on her gray jumpsuit. "The problem with the Warden position has always been that it advocates caution and hesitation in a people who are warriors. That never goes over well. Because Nicholas Kerensky was the founder of the Clans, and because Kerenskys have always led the Wolves, we have been able to promote the Warden point of view with impunity. Restlessness among the other Clans finally resulted in the invasion, but only by leading, as a Kerensky must, has Ulric been able to prevent a complete slaughter of the Inner Sphere."
Phelan nodded grimly. "But as long as Ulric remains ilKhan, the Crusaders are stymied."
"True, but sooner or later they will try something to rekindle the war."
"Like the Red Corsair."
The other two Wolves fell silent at Phelan's mention of the renegade Jade Falcon warrior who had almost broken the Truce of Tukayyid with a unit made up of volunteers. Phelan, working in unison with the Kell Hounds, had defeated the Red Corsair and the Crusader plot to reignite the warrior against the Inner Sphere. He had been able to isolate knowledge of the plot—even Ulric and Natasha had not learned all the details—and control the damage. Even so, the nature of the plot suggested that the Crusaders and those Clans they dominated, like the Jade Falcons, would use any opportunity to destroy the truce and conquer the Inner Sphere.
"Let us hope they never again
become that ambitious, quiaff?"
Natasha nodded at the ilKhan. "Aff."
A light knocking at the door of the ilKhan's spartan office brought Ulric's head up. "Come."
Phelan turned to look, then stood as Dalk Cams marched stiffly through the doorway. Unlike the two Khans, the Loremaster wore gray ceremonial Wolf Clan leathers and carried an enameled wolf's-head mask in the crook of his left arm. In his right hand he held a tightly rolled piece of parchment, sealed in red wax. Two small black ribbons trailed out from it.
Cams stared directly at Ulric. "Are you Ulric Kerensky, ilKhan of the Clans?"
"I am Ulric Kerensky."
Dalk extended the scrolled sheet toward Ulric. "This is an indictment generated by an internal Wolf Clan investigation."
Phelan reached out for it, to relay it to Ulric's hand, but Dalk pulled away. "Khan Phelan, do not interfere with a Loremaster in his capacity as High Bailiff."
Phelan opened his hands and raised them in mock surrender. "Forgive me. I was not aware of the protocol."
Natasha slowly rose, smoothing her jumpsuit. "And I, Loremaster, was unaware such an investigation could be undertaken without a Khan's approval."
"As you may know, Khan Natasha, a Loremaster does not require a Khan's approval to conduct an investigation when there is suspicion that one or more of the Khans of the Clan might be implicated in the charges."
The woman shook her head. "That I know. Who did the investigating?"
Cams frowned. "A competent individual who knows the facts of the case."
Phelan looked at Natasha. "Vlad?"
She nodded. "Who else?"
"You will learn in good time, my Khans." Cams held the scroll out to Ulric again. "Receive the indictment"
Ulric slowly came around from behind his desk. He held out one hand to accept the document, but Natasha stayed the hand.
"Yes, Natasha?"
"This indictment comes through an unsanctioned Lore-master's investigation. If you do not accept it, he cannot press the charges. The Loremaster has no jurisdiction over the ilKhan."