ETERRA

a novel
by Michael McMillan

Contents -
Enroute
The Science Fair
The Trade Fair
The Survivors
Good Little Heart
The Fruits of Victory
Governance
Justice
Scavengers
Return
Consequences
School Days
The T P Incident
The Kidnappings
The Trials of Power
The Trial
Always a Price
Suplesse
Brothers
Transition
Amphora
Big Trouble
The Silverwood Box
A Message from Eterra

Enroute

A single star drifted upward outside Gregor Donal's cabin viewport.  Drifting with the star, warship erosion shields glowed red from the impact of relativistic molecules. 

Gregor should have been out there, driving a warship, but he'd washed out of warship school.  Indecisiveness, they said, lack of aggression, the qualities it took to take charge and get ahead of a situation, and that pulled him off the line officer career track and onto the staff track.  This pity assignment to attack controller school would earn him an interstellar ribbon and maybe a planetary medal or two, then some general might tap him as an aide.  Maybe. 

Four warships out there were his, River Element.  Gregor knew his element leader, Captain Tyrell, from the Academy.  The rest were walk-ons, recent hires not on any career track as far as he knew. 

Weeks of deceleration remained before the command ship shield stowed and the new planet would be visible from the control deck.  Meanwhile, the stars that had converged ahead of the ship during acceleration would be drifting back into his viewport, providing a background for the glowing warship shields. 

There were a lot of warships. 

The Science Fair

or
'The dietary effects of lilac and tollar leaves on the lifespan of field mice'

The competition was over and the future scientists retired to the East Bay High auditorium to receive their accolades and scholarships, leaving the gym and its exhibits open to the public. 

"The Creation of the Universe" display had the maximum three upright panels and sported the First Place ribbon, the "Best Display" badge, and an Eterran Physics Society commendation certificate.  It also had the winner of the Western Region science fair and her father appraising her competition. 

"It's beautiful," said Alice. 

"Four billion year old universe," said Piers Amhensen, "with all the elements formed inside the first hour when it was hot and dense enough to do such things.  Sounds about right."

"That's not the point," said Alice. 

"And he has Dr Gamoff for an adviser.  That's impressive."

"That isn't the point, either.  It looks good, father.  The boy must be an art major."

"You could use colored ink on your charts next time, or maybe put ribbons on the cages?"

"I've got mice and data.  He's got an exploding universe."

***

The lilacs surrounding Fredrik Rikardsen's hilltop mansion had an intentional air about them, trailing as they did down the slope through the subdivision.  Dr Rikardsen opened the bulkhead doors of his basement 'laboratory,' letting the springtime breeze rinse out the wintery must. 

"Piers told me you drove down to East Bay to check out your competition," he said.  "Think their winner has a chance in the nationals?"

Alice Amhensen wandered over to the blossoming tollar tree.  "A boy from East High won the Bay City fair.  He made a really impressive display on the creation of the universe, and he has Dr Gamoff advising him."

"I went to school with George.  His four billion year old universe is a solid theory, and he's backed it with evidence, but a display on that isn't science, Alice; it's a book report."

"How so?"

Dr Rikardsen pulled a leaf from the tree and bit it.  "Has your boy tracked the movement of galaxies, or measured the ratios of radiogenic isotopes as Gamoff has?"

"Um, not that I know of," said Alice.  "But his display was beautiful."

Dr Rikardsen laughed.  "So you're worried, huh?"  Alice just shrugged.  "What you've done is real science, Alice.  Feeding lilac and tollar leaves to mice isn't glamorous, but it is solid science."

"My tollar mice are still going after two years, just like your mice," said Alice, "but the control group and the lilac mice all died after a few months.  I just repeated your tollar results, and my own lilac experiment didn't show any results at all."

"Replicating others' experiments and getting the same results is science, Alice, and you demonstrated a negative result with the lilacs. That's also science, though I wouldn't give up on the lilacs just yet.  Your tollar result can extend to people, too. Years ago when your dad knocked on my door looking to help, my hair was grey going to white, but now it's back dark as high school."

"Mother says you dye it."

"Skepticism is another part of science.  Maybe we'll let her have the formula when her hair starts going grey like yours."

"Mother's hair is never going grey, Doctor, and my color is 'ashen,' — from my grandmother Alice."

"Well, once your dad and I confirm that active part of the tollar and add it to the formula, no grey hair for anybody, and we'll all be rich and famous."

Alice shook her head.  "You're already famous, and dad does well enough selling real estate.  But I wonder why he never became a scientist like you."

"That," said Fredrik Rikardsen, "is something your mother might know."

***

Twelve blocks down the gentle rise that hosted Fredrik Rikardsen's mansion and well past the split-level of Piers and Alice, a century-old farmhouse sulked among the plush new homes, subdivision-shorn of its fields and fences and motivation.  A backyard clothesline swayed in the breeze, bannered with a flock of fluttering diapers.  Within the farmhouse kitchen, the diaper production team puzzled at an oddly-shaped piece of plastic. 

Klaire turned the 'Baby-Safe Cabinet Latch' over in her hands.  The device could prove mommy-safe as well — she might have to read the instructions.  Elinor perched on the counter beside her, instruction sheet in hand, and occasionally in mouth. 

"Grandma didn't have these when I was a baby, Elinor, so I led a life of danger when I came here to visit."  Elinor reached out for the latch, so Klaire let her dark-haired toddler examine it.  "You, little girl, aren't going to get into the bleach the way I did . . ."

Elinor had the two latch pieces apart and gave them back to her mother. 

***

Eterran sunlight streamed cheerily through the window over the kitchen sink.  The scent of Grandma's lilac bushes wafted in while Klaire rinsed the last of last night's dishes beneath the faucet, waiting for the whine of the pump.  A click and a whir down in the cellar brought her a smile as she dried her hands and counted off the eleven seconds the pump would run.  Grandma must have done the same. 

With Elinor finally settled in a nap, Klaire landed in Grandpa's ancient sofa for a break.  So much to do getting the old farmhouse modernized.  She'd been at it a year now since she persuaded her husband to move in rather than sell after her grandmother died.  The 'to do' list was growing faster than Elinor, and she thought of another thing. 

Klaire descended the steps to see if she could make a dent in the cellar clutter.  How often she'd played down here when her grandparents had baby sitting duty, how warm her memories. 

Klaire found the leather trunk of Grandma's childhood clothes beneath a stack of old newspapers.  She'd gone through it as a little girl for fun things to play dress-up.  Couldn't throw that out.  The painted wood rocker poked out from behind the trunk, dust a foot thick.  Grandpa called it a hobyorse, a mythical creature that actually let people ride around on its back.  A silly tale for little children, but the rocker would be the right size for Elinor in a year, so that was a keeper, along with the photograph album.  The heavy volume was a treasure for her daughter, a five-generation family tree to give her a sense of who she was. 

Klaire assessed the farm tools in the corner, garden stuff her husband could use if he ever got in a gardening mood. 

"Darn," she said, nothing to throw out.  Then she heard Elinor calling her back to work. 

The Trade Fair

They canceled the National Science Fair.

After all her hard work, Alice should have been upset, but she didn't care.  In fact, no one cared, because the most amazing thing had happened. 

Alien life had been discovered in the galaxy!  It didn't matter that the discoverers were from a planet called She-On, and that the Eterrans were the aliens.  The promise of galactic adventure and commerce was just too exciting. 

Brief alien appearances on tele-vision teased the public, and talk of a commerce fleet on the way to set up trade fairs had every businessman checking his inventory. 

The She-Ons looked human.  Their clothing was like Eterran from a prior century, and they spoke a language not unlike Eterran.  Could they be brothers and sisters from an ancient and unremembered past?

Crazy speculation.  They were real and they were here.  One day soon, they promised a tele-vision interview where everyone's questions would be answered. 

***

Captain Preston Tyrell reclined in his bunk, working another crossword puzzle.  Less than a day remained before the Fleet's arrival at the new planet and the start of the surprise 'Good Will Tour/Training Exercise.'  He figured he should be excited, but the trip had been so exhaustively boring that nothing short of a shooting war could get him going again. 

Nav had two star trackers locked on the command ship and the radio finder needles tuned to its beacon, so there wasn't much left for Tyrell to do. 

"All ships, Battle Alert!  All ships, Battle Alert!  Stand by," rattled a voice over Fleet Common, followed by a broadcast klaxon. 

Tyrell was into his shoes and on his way forward to the control deck in an instant. 

"All ships, all ships.  Training Exercise 221-B is canceled.  All ships in navigational contact with the command ship will assemble in Fleet Enroute Spread formation.  Galactic core is Formation Vertical.  I say again, the Training Exercise is canceled.  Stand by." The message repeated and the signal strength meter on the radio finder doubled. 

"What's that about, Mo?" Tyrell asked, sliding into his control seat.  His navigator had the course and acceleration points to the command ship already plotted. 

"Not a clue, Pres."

"All ships, all ships.  The training exercise is canceled.  We have a problem developing on the new planet Eterra.  Our trade negotiation party has been taken hostage.  We have little information at present.  We will keep you informed.  All ships run weapons continuity checks.  River, Meadow, and Hillside elements dock upon arrival and report for briefing.  Other elements maintain Enroute Spread.  Stand by for acknowledge."

"Criminy!" coughed the navigator. 

***

The command ship's erosion shield swung open to a star of ruddy orange with a blue-green planet off to the side.  Lieutenant Gregor Donal was with his River Element crews, wondering how such a pretty planet could harbor such evil aliens.  The first message from the Contact ship explained the mission's urgency: Xi Ahn's hand extended in friendship had been hacked off. 

The newly appointed 'Eastern Hemisphere' commander summarized the situation.  "The Contact ship struggled up to low space, but it can't fold or maintain vacuum for long because of pressure shell damage.  The Eterrans are firing rocket weapons, trying to knock it down when it dips into the atmosphere to recharge.  They want to steal our field engines so they can refit their own rocket warships."

"Any word of the hostages, sir?" Donal asked. 

"Contact ship confirms some of our trade emissaries were cut to pieces.  The rest are held in several scattered cities.  There's no way a rescue party will be able to find them, Lieutenant, so we'll have to persuade the Eterrans to hand our men back on their own.  They weren't expecting a battle fleet, such as we are, but they'll have seen our bow waves a week ago and figured out from the Contact ship transmissions what to expect. 

"The Western Hemisphere commander will be working his element controllers from the Logistics ship," he motioned in the direction of another officer off to the side.  Donal had seen the man around the warship training squadron, back in the office somewhere, but he had been a Fleet staff major.  Now he sported full line colonel insignia on his collar, the metal pips you wear until your wife can sew on the embroidered ones.  A two-grade field promotion, and the man didn't even wear an Academy ring. 

The Eastern commander was waving a pointer around a detailed wall map, also, Donal noticed, without benefit of an Academy ring.  Apparently one could rise above humble beginnings. 

"We go into action immediately on arrival.  You'll be attacking armament plants in outlying areas," the Eastern commander slapped a few spots on the map with his pointer, "to show them Xi Ahn will not tolerate their treachery.  The plants may be camouflaged and in residential neighborhoods."

"What defenses can we expect, sir?" asked Captain Tyrell, Donal's strike element leader. 

"Ground-based missiles, then rocket interceptors with projectile weapons," said the commander, drawing unsettled murmurs from the officers around Donal.  "Hillside Element will initially split into pathfinder solos.  You solos will break trail for each combat element, drawing whatever fire is in the area.  The instant you spot fire or take a hit, you go vertical and direct the combat element to suppress whoever shot at you.  I don't want any heroes, Hillside.  Too many Xian lives depend on us to be screwing around. 

"Attack elements and controllers: keep the information flowing, but once I decide, I want orders obeyed instantly.  Any lack of discipline in this area, I will personally yank you from the fight and put an end to your Fleet career.  Everybody clear on that?"

A resounding chorus of 'Yes, Sir!'s. 

"Good.  No picnic, men, but if there's to be a fight, we have the tools.  Eterra's warships might match our speed, but nothing can touch field engine maneuverability.  They don't know where we'll hit, so we should have a brief window before their rocket ships arrive.  Get your warships in and flatten everything as quickly as possible.  And I mean flat.  These Eterrans were fools to tangle with Xi Ahn."

"What about a lucky shot?" asked Tyrell. 

"Right.  Forest Element is assigned Search and Rescue in addition to rotating spare, mainly because it isn't all docked yet.  SAR Coordinator will brief standard search and rescue procedures in an hour, Captain, but your men don't want to get captured by these merciless pigs.  I'll leave it at that."

***

Guilt.  Fredrik Rikardsen could live with it, not telling Alice that he'd noticed something about her lilac mice that she hadn't yet, something that would be a gift to humanity if it turned out true.  Her mice hadn't shown the incredible lifespan increase of the tollar mice, but second and third generations of the lilac mice were smart.  Scary smart. 

They watched him latch their cage doors after feeding, then they would unlatch them.  He put in a spring catch, and two mice would press on the door against the spring, and a third would work the latch.  Finally, a stronger spring was more than they could beat. 

Fredrik had long ago found the tollar solvent extract responsible for the lifespan effect.  He was using it on himself, and it was working.  Dark hair, youthful skin and muscle tone.  Now he thought he had the lilac fraction cornered.  The tracer dye layer in the centrifuge tube marked the stuff, and two dozen more runs gave him plenty to mix with the tollar extract.  Nothing left but to give it a try. 

***

The injection knocked Fredrik nearly unconscious, but within hours he experienced a clarity of thought he could describe only as inhuman.  When he tried to stand, his leaden muscles refused to cooperate and he toppled over. 

Fredrik feared his impatience had finally done him in.  Sitting on the floor rubbing his skinned knees, he noticed the seconds sweeping sluggishly on his timepiece.  Wonderful.  He'd ruined his knees and his best watch in his tumble, foolish old man.  Now he'd waste the rest of the day kicking himself.  Wait a second — the mice were squirming sluggishly in their cages.  He tossed his pencil up and watched it fall sluggishly to the floor.  Not his watch, but time itself had slowed!  And his muscles could not move as fast as he now could think!

Instantly, he knew this unexpected turn was the end of his quest, and it might not even be immortality.  At the expense of a mild fever, the previous mix had given him strength and youth and a modicum of smarts, but it didn't begin to approach this effect. 

He pulled out a blank notebook, but before he began writing, he glanced at the counter.  The new mix ampules were sitting next to the old ones, identical.  The old ones would go out with the trash in the morning to avoid a mixup. 

His pen dragged across the paper, unable to keep up with his thoughts.  All his life he had lived in a fog without knowing it, seeing only the nearest bits and pieces.  Now, seventy-five years into that life, the new mix was peeling back the layers and giving him the truth. 

Facts, knowledge, data — his mind was filled with information he had gathered over his scientific career, but the mix was bringing it together into something called 'understanding.'  He looked back and the wrong turns, the bad choices, the unexplored avenues of research leapt out at him, begging for examination.  It all fit together, this life puzzle, and he had more than enough clues at hand to solve it.  He'd had the clues for a long time, he realized, but he didn't have the understanding until now. 

Potent stuff.  If only he'd had it when he was young, how much he could have accomplished.  An old man's regrets, things left undone. 

What was he thinking?  The veil was lifted, yet he was still looking with an old man's eyes.  He wasn't too old anymore, and he was getting younger.  Unless this effect were delusion, or worse, temporary, he could start again and make a profound difference.  Temporary?  Fredrik wrote faster, trying to lock his thoughts down.  Delusion it may be, but this taste of understanding was intoxicating to a scientist. 

He'd go over his work in the morning.  Sunlight always brought him back to reality. 

***

Alice's alarm chimed at her in its nagging way, so she swatted it silent.  Why was it set?  The Channel 4 Sunrise Show.  Aliens, the alien interview.  She rolled out of bed and clicked on the tele-vision, a hand-me- down from the living room, and a good perch for the silver-framed photograph of her latest love.  While it warmed up, she tucked her velveteen critter Toey under her arm and wobbled to her bath to brush her teeth. 

"You up, sweetie?  Don't want to miss it," called her mother from the hallway. 

"Mrrumph."  Alice rinsed out the toothpaste and returned to the bedroom, where her mother was adjusting the tele-vision's fine tuning.  Her father's birthday present lay next to the tele-vision, an expensive sweater in a department-store-wrapped box.  He'd look good in it, of course, but he had sweaters.  It just didn't seem to mean as much as she wanted it to. 

"What would Father really like for his birthday?"

Her mother didn't hesitate a heartbeat.  "He would like to be your age again, Alice.  He'd like to be a scientist like Doctor Rikardsen.  He'd like to be a space explorer and go to She-On with the aliens and see the galaxy and do all those boy things that he's too settled to do now."

"Why didn't he become a scientist after university?  He has a degree in Cellular Chemistry."

"Because you came along, sweetie, and scientists didn't make much then.  His father had a nice, stable real estate business going, and you and I were more important to him than his dreams.  You remember that when you start looking for a husband."

"You never told me that," said Alice, feeling both loved and embarrassed. 

"Not a thing you discuss with a little girl, but you're old enough now.  He hasn't said anything, but he'd be on his way to She-On in a minute if he were your age."

"I'll buy him a ticket next birthday."  Alice took her grandmother's heavy silver brush and began stroking her ashen hair.  "Isn't he up yet?"

"He didn't get in last night, and he didn't call, either.  I hope nothing's happened to . . ."

"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a Sunrise Show special!" blared the tele-vision."Mankind has entered an exciting new era, and after some important messages from our sponsors, we'll be right back with our re- broadcast of last night's amazing interview with the She-On Trade Representatives.  Don't touch that dial!"

***

Piers Amhensen motored along the harbor road, fascinated by the radio re-broadcast of the interview.  The aliens explained that the bright nova light in the sky last week was the She-On commerce fleet, and that it should arrive any day now.  The aliens would set up trade fairs all around Eterra so businesses could see what goods She-On had to barter.  The set-up team had gone up to the Contact ship to wait for the commerce fleet. 

Interstellar commerce meant a seriously bright future for everyone, but Piers had to laugh.  These She-Ons learned Eterran from radio broadcasts, so they sounded like radio announcers.  Eterra had trumpeted its presence to the galaxy with the beat of teen music and the patter of auto salesmen.  Surprising the aliens still landed. 

Dawn's pink fingers traced through the sky, meaning Piers was running way late, late enough that he should have called.  The factory closing was at the closed factory, and no one thought to ask if the telephones were still connected.  They weren't. 

He'd promised he'd be home by midnight, but the buyers' lawyers were trying to pull a fast one, so the meeting kept going.  Bad enough he was late, now he was breaking a promise. 

Ahead in the dawn, a tight cluster of stars drifted downward, then abruptly flew apart, stars streaking off in all directions.  The She-On commerce fleet?  Wondrous. 

Worlds to conquer, a whole galaxy opening up, dreams.  Twenty years ago Piers would happily have been a part of it, but despite Fredrik's chiding, he had made his life choice; the galaxy was Alice's future now. 

***

"River Lead— Four, move out there, will you?  Criminy, where did you learn to drive a warship?"

"River Four— Same place you did, Preston."

"River Lead— I doubt it.  You stay in close like that, you'll scorch me when you fire.  Or get me blown up when they shoot you down.  Get out there!"

Amateurs.  It was hard enough when Preston Tyrell had to deal with foreigners recruited from the Regian and Altamiran armies, but at least they were professional soldiers.  Nothing like trying to herd these contract civilians Eslan Carmina enlisted to fill out his Fleet.  They were more of a danger than the Eterran fiends. 

"River Lead— And Four, it's either 'Lead' or 'Captain Tyrell.'  This isn't the Officers' Lounge."

At least Lieutenant Donal, his strike controller, was Academy. 

***

High above Eterra, Lieutenant Gregor Donal worked the radios, coordinating his four warships from his station in the command ship belly.  He was barely out of controller training, and now twelve warship crewmen depended on him for their lives.  They had only a brief time to work before the Eterran rocket ships arrived, and he would have to continuously plot their position and damage reports by hand. 

His mind raced through the attack sequences, reviewing the normal and emergency procedures.  He had them down cold, but his stomach still fluttered in anticipation, as much as if he were in a warship himself facing the enemy fire.  The Eastern Hemisphere Strike Commander paced behind him, circling the consoles and watching for problems.  Nothing made Donal's job any easier. 

In wide-view, his assigned target region west of Bay City looked residential, but the Eterrans were deceptive, hiding their most dangerous assets within civilian areas.  That treachery would cost them dearly.  He clicked up the magnification and scanned through the eyepiece.  No sign of a large industrial building, but it was still dark on the ground.  With such a vast area to scan at the higher magnification, it could take hours to pinpoint the target.  Targeting Staff had surely taken that into account when they designated the whole region for destruction. 

In the midst of everything else Donal had to worry about, that thought bothered him.  The Academy had full semester classes on military ethics and honor, debates and discussions on what an illegal order is and what to do if you receive one.  This came close, this targeting a population because its leaders placed strategic facilities within it.  Not as egregious as the school example of targeting a whole village in retaliation for partisan sabotage, but still troubling.  Had any Academy grads been on Targeting, they would have caught the problem.  Chairman Carmina apparently used all his Academy hires as line officers and left the staff positions to the non-professional 'walk-ins' when he built his private army. 

Donal realized another misstep.  They were destroying a large area just to get a strategic facility, an armament plant.  An armament plant?  Strategic targets were for protracted wars, months, years.  They needed to go after tactical targets for this conflict.  Knock down the defenses, the rocket warship bases.  But of course, lieutenants, even Academy lieutenants, did not have 'The Big Picture.'

"The Eterrans have broken off negotiations," the commander announced over the loudspeaker.  "They were stalling until they could take measure of our Fleet.  They are forcing a war upon us, which means they are confident of their abilities.  Only a maximum effort on our part will prove them wrong.  Discipline and professionalism, gentlemen, strict adherence to attack protocols."  The commander paused, the break underlining his final words. 

"All controllers are directed to strike their assigned targets.  Hillside solos — lead off!"

This was it.  Donal zoomed out to wide-view and found his four warships, still bright up in the dawn sunlight, then he concentrated on their radio chatter to take his mind off his fluttering stomach.  The chatter suggested Captain Tyrell was having trouble organizing his attack element.  Four, the leftmost ship, was nudged up too close to him for safety.  A glance at the element roster pinned to the chart explained everything — the service numbers indicated Tyrell was the only Academy grad; the others were non-career types, civilian volunteers looking for adventure and fortune.  Donal spoke into his microphone. 

"River Controller— Lead, tell Four if he's worried about taking a hit, he can come up here and hide behind the command ship," which would eliminate most of the adventure and all of the fortune for Four's crew. 

Tyrell didn't respond, and Donal realized he wouldn't.  Preston Tyrell was two years ahead of Donal at the Academy, and Commander of the Cadet Squadron his senior year.  His 'straight arrow' reputation suggested he wouldn't appreciate Donal chiding one of his element warships. 

When ship Four finally got off Lead's back and attained strike formation, Captain Tyrell signaled up that River Element was headed in.  His warships descended from the sunlight into the shadow that concealed the enemy. 

"River Controller— I want immediate reports of any ground fire," Donal transmitted.  "I'll watch out for enemy interceptor trails."

"River Lead— Thanks, Donal," said Captain Tyrell.  "You be careful up there in the command ship.  Don't spill any coffee in your lap."

No, Tyrell didn't appreciate the chiding.  Donal pulled the cap off a red inkmarker just as the first fireballs from the Hillside solo warship began blooming in his target box. 

Eterra demanded war.  Now they had it. 

***

Four gleaming commerce ships headed Piers' way, darkening when they dropped beneath the oncoming dawn.  "Bay City's the other direction, guys," he said, "unless you're looking for a nice place to live."

The alien ships' undersides began to glow, the glow snapping brilliant before rocketing off in blue-white streaks.  The streaks arced out, then split the ground, spraying sheets of flame and illuminating the still dark sky and the alien ships flashing through it.  Buildings touched by the flame exploded and the landscape came alive, crawling with fire.  The display held Piers spellbound as he drove into the middle of it. 

The land erupted around him, flame splashing and sticking to anything it touched.  Bolts flew endlessly from the ships, tearing apart everything they came near.  When the radio screeched and went silent, Piers came back to himself and realized he should get off the road.  Too late. 

A searing jet plowed the pavement ahead, ripping out a jumble of highway concrete and twisted steel reinforcement.  An arc of flame spattered across the shoulder and into his lane, coming right for him.  He skidded left against the guardrail, trapped before the alien fire. 

***

Alice ran to her bedroom window.  "Mother!  It's the aliens!  She-On is attacking us!"  Her mother rushed to the window. 

On the Channel 4 Sunrise Show, the smiling alien spokesmen were answering questions about interstellar trade. 

***

Klaire woke, not from the rumbling and lightning outside, but as usual, to Elinor's crying.  She shook her husband awake. 

"Go see what all the racket is, dear.  I'll get Elinor."

He staggered off and she went to the crib, hoisting her daughter up.  "Oof, little one.  You're getting heavy."

"Klaire!"

She ran to the front door.  Far away, a strange shape was darting about.  She had never seen anything move so fast.  It would stop, begin to flicker like an old-style fluorescent tube starting up, then a glowing rocket or something would streak out.  The streaks ran off and hit the ground and exploded.  The silver thing just kept firing and firing and firing. 

"The aliens!" she shouted. 

The ship zipped around to their direction and began to glow.  "Run to the cellar, Klaire!  To the pantry!"

She did.  She heard a whistling behind her and wrapped herself around Elinor.  Suddenly it was daylight in the cellar, and Klaire was on fire. 

***

Fredrik Rikardsen heard thunder outside the basement door and smiled.  He liked rain, the energy of the shower, the freshness afterward, but he didn't recall rain in the forecast for tonight.  A peek at the clock said it wasn't tonight anymore, and the cramp in his writing hand said he'd pulled his first all-nighter in ages. 

More rumbling had the mice astir and trying to work their cage latches.  Big storm coming.  The next lightning strikes were deafening, and he felt them shake the floor.  Mighty big storm brewing. 

"Calm down, folks," he said.  "I'll go shut the storm door."  He went out the basement door and up the steps to close the steel bulkhead door, but there wasn't a storm cloud in sight. 

Just huge columns of smoke and flame, and silvery things he had never seen slashing through the sky. 

***

Lieutenant Gregor Donal peered into the tele-eyepiece and drummed his fingers on the plotting map.  Smoke and flame covered a corner of the target region as his warships systematically obliterated the area.  Farmers plowing the fields they were, furrowing the town and sowing death.  Donal had another concern now.  Twenty minutes without opposition.  The pathfinder warship hadn't roused any ground fire in its random death-dance through the target box, so it had pulled out to join the re-forming Hillside element in another target area. 

"River Controller— Any sign of ground fire, Lead?" he transmitted. 

"River Lead— Negative, Donal.  You're doing a fine job keeping those interceptors away, too."

"River Three— I don't like it.  Our bow waves warned them ten days ago.  We should have stirred up some resistance by now."

"River Controller— I don't like it, either, Three.  Have you seen anything that looks like a factory?"

"River Three— No, Donal, so far it just looks like it used to be a nice place to live."

***

Tyrell's warship cabin temperature had soared from the megabolts of energy flowing through the lightning weapon, adding to the biting ozone now permeating the air.  Cabins were sealed during combat, so Tyrell had to live with it.  He had another problem developing. 

"How's that rail temp, Shep?"

"Getting hotter, Preston," called Tyrell's nav/weapons officer.  "Like to drop the fire rate if possible, and one twenty knots on your end."

"A hundred twenty knots?  Why don't we just hover until the rocket interceptors get here to shoot us down?"

"Sorry.  One sixty maybe, but you won't have complete coverage."

"Criminy."  It would be Preston Tyrell's luck to draw a crippled warship.  "River Lead— River Element, one twenty knots, one two zero knots.  Coming back now.  Stay with me."  He braced as the moans and groans bounced back from his men. 

"River Controller— What's wrong, Captain?" Lieutenant Donal's voice worried from space. 

"River Lead— Launch rail's overheating, Donal.  Lost a compression coil and the backup magnet's not lined up right."

"Enemy ground fire?  Uh, River Control— Lost due to ground fire, Captain?"  Donal sounded as nervous as Preston should have been with the enemy rocket ships on the way. 

"River Lead— Relax, Donal.  It's just broken.  Four, you're in too tight again.  Our fire fields are overlapping."

"River Four— Right, Lead.  Moving out."

Juggling the little details made the mission interesting in the inexplicable absence of Eterran defenders, but juggling was part of leadership.  If not for his jittery controller above and the living people dying below, this whole thing was nothing more than a training exercise.  It just didn't seem real. 

Tyrell returned his attention to his primary task, carpeting the target box and its disguised armament plant with lightning fire.  His ships were sweeping methodically through the box with a crosswind pushing the smoke sideways over land destroyed in the previous pass, textbook procedure without opposition.  And where were those rocket ships?

Now that the copper sun was up, the stuttering flashes from the element's four lightning weapons weren't as blinding.  The arcing blue traces of Stable Three looked almost pretty as they streamed ahead of the warships and did hell-knew-what to the folks beneath that wall of flame they were kicking up. 

"Nav, have you seen Anything that looks like a factory?"

"Not a thing, Preston.  Biggest building so far looked like a church."

"Or an orphanage," added his co-pilot. 

"Yeah," said Preston.  They were all thinking the same thing. 

Mis-target.

***

"Anything to report, Donal?" asked the little voice in his right earpiece, the Senior Strike Controller. 

"River Sector progress normal, sir.  No opposition yet."

"Good, good."  With a click, the little voice went silent. 

No opposition yet.  Donal flipped a switch on his comm panel to listen to the Senior Controller's channel.  No opposition in any of the polled sectors. 

Forty minutes on, not a single vapor trail from rocket exhaust, not a single scrap of damage to his warships.  River Element's methodical, enemy- cleansing destruction was spreading north from the bottom of the target box.  Donal pulled back from his eyepiece and leaned over to the next console. 

"Your boys getting any ground fire?"

"Nothing, Donal.  If these Eterrans think they can wait until we run out of ammunition, they're in for a surprise."

Donal considered the situation, knowing he'd have to make a choice.  A bad decision in battle is better than no decision, and if there were anything worth defending down below, the Eterrans would have defended it by now. 

"River Controller— Lead, that's gotta be a housing area.  Pull your men out of there.  We're just killing people."

"River Lead— I think you're right, Donal.  There're no targets down here.  River Element, up to orbit."

"Two—"

"Three—"

"Four—"

"DONAL!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING?"

Lieutenant Donal spun around.  The commander loomed behind him. 

"They've mis-targeted us, sir.  This is only a housing area."

The commander shoved Donal aside and surveyed his strike plotting map.  Red inkmarker covered a quarter of the target box.  "I want this whole box red, Lieutenant.  That is an order."

"That's civilian.  That's housing, sir!  We don't strike housing."

The commander snatched Donal's microphone.  "Command One— River Lead, get your men back down there and finish that target box.  That's an order!"

"River Lead— It's all civilian housing down here, sir.  We don't strike housing."

"Command One— That Is An Order, Tyrell."

Silence.  Then, "River Lead— Complying."

"Two—"

"Three—"

"Four—"

Donal and the commander glared at each other.  "You're relieved of duty, Lieutenant.  Report to your quarters.  You're under detention."

"He's Academy, sir," one of the console lieutenants mentioned idly. 

Donal glanced at the other lieutenant.  The highest ranks in the Fleet were all Academy.  The Eastern Hemisphere Strike Commander was not. 

"You're still relieved.  Get out of here."

***

Piers Amhensen came to in his auto.  Half his auto.  The passenger side was gone, sheared away by the alien flame, and his body felt sunburned through to his bones.  He also had a length of steel running through his right thigh. 

He gaped at his leg, unable to accept that this could have happened to him.  He touched the steel with a finger.  Highway reinforcement rod, the end melted smooth by an alien lightning bolt.  The end had gone red hot through the floorboard and through his thigh, barely missing the bone.  He tried to slide free, but the pain left him gasping and convinced him that this had indeed happened to him.  He started to pass out again. 

Petrol fumes reaching his nose snapped him back.  He instinctively looked for fire and found it close.  The back seat upholstery had small flames licking along the fabric, burning padding and carpet and seeking a fuel tank to blow up.  If the explosion didn't kill him, the spreading flames surely would. 

Only one way.  Piers gritted his teeth and closed his eyes, then threw himself sideways from the rod.  Pain ripped through his body an instant before his face slammed into the roadside gravel and he gratefully passed out. 

***

Gregor Donal's tiny cabin lay starside with no view of the attack, but the limited channels he could bring in on his comm speaker told him all.  No resistance, no ground fire, no rocket interceptors streaking to Eterra's defense.  A complete walkover, and gradually he heard attack elements commenting, then questioning. 

And as surely as they questioned, he heard the commander's voice ordering their efforts doubled.  Donal switched off his speaker and rolled into his bunk.  His career was as dead as the Eterrans down below. 

***

Searing pain from his thigh prodded Piers conscious.  The upholstery fire had gone to smoldering, but not before igniting a jet of vapor streaming from a split in the exposed fuel tank.  It hissed away above him, warming the tank enough to boil itself a steady supply of vapor and keep any air from entering the tank to trigger an explosion.  Piers wasn't an engineer, but the situation didn't seem stable enough to trust, so he began crawling away from the wreck. 

The surviving half of Piers' auto was welded to a steel guardrail it had peeled from the posts.  Beyond the stink of fuel and burnt brush, the air had a super-clean overtaste, that same ozone bite as the electric power station he brokered ten years ago.  Electric weapons — then the grounded guardrail must have taken the electric bolt's energy and saved him.  The murderous She-Ons had tamed lightning as well as space. 

The hot steel had cauterized the wound, so Piers tied a suitcase shirt around his skewered thigh and dragged himself up the overpass for a wider view.  Out in the distance, ominous thunder rumbled from warships tearing into another part of town. 

The part his family lived in. 

"Nooo!" he screamed, limping off to save them.  He didn't turn to look when his auto detonated behind him. 

***

Klaire rolled in the basement trash to extinguish her burning nightgown, baby Elinor wrapped within her arms.  When she staggered back to her feet, the only bits of fabric remaining were between her and Elinor, and the patches where the burning synthetic had melted into her skin.  It hadn't yet started to hurt, but she knew it would.  "Shock," she said logically to herself, then looked about. 

The cellar was an open, littered pit.  The flaming bolt must have split before it reached her, judging from the way the basement debris was blown through.  It still felt like an auto-truck when it hit, a jerking surge of electricity that stopped her mind and her breathing for an instant.  She looked down. 

Elinor wasn't breathing. 

Klaire screamed and began thumping her daughter's chest, trying to make her inhale.  It took an eternity of squeezing and pushing on the baby's ribs and tummy, but finally, Elinor's eyes opened and she coughed a horrible, ragged breath.  She looked around, dazed, uncomprehending.  She looked at Klaire, then her eyes drifted as though she didn't recognize her mother.  Klaire breathed a prayer of thanks and hugged her daughter, then swore an ungodly oath as stunned pain nerves began reviving. 

The air pounded in continuous concussion around them.  Klaire ignored the pain and hauled Elinor up the remains of the basement steps to see what had done this.  She found everything gone, flattened, burning: her farmhouse, her neighborhood, her husband.  Body parts littered the withered grass, her neighbors. 

Gleaming warships danced over a distant part of town, grinding it flat with their lightning bolts.  They kept firing and firing and firing. 

***

"Surrender is your only choice," the She-On interpreter shouted over the rumbling.  "You have nothing that can touch our warships, Mr President."

The President stood with the alien envoys on the wilted lawn of a once- impressive mansion, now collapsed around its foundations.  All but a front window.  The mansion's owner sat in a charcoal chair, looking through the glassless window, an incinerated, macabre witness to the lightning weapon's power. 

Warships in the distance continued their methodical darting and firing.  "We electrify the air and hurl it at our targets," called the interpreter, "and we never run out of air."  The view from the mansion's gentle rise was flat devastation all the way out to the harbor road, nine miles away.  "These are only four ships doing this, sir.  Xi Ahn has ten thousand warships assembling to attack.  We will make your entire planet look like this."

"You are monsters," the President yelled over the thunder. 

"We are Masters," declared the interpreter, "and we care little whether you survive to serve us or we populate this planet with a more compliant race.  The convenience of leaving an obstinate people here might be offset by the prospect of future disobedience.  You must convince us that you are worth retaining."

The aliens were offering the President a new alternative to defeat — replacement, the complete elimination of the Eterran race.  The warships continued pushing a wall of flame across the landscape, pounding more of what must already have been tens of thousands of his people into atoms. 

"We will soon finish this village, then a hundred warships will descend on Bay City.  Your capital will be gone in mere minutes, sir, mere minutes, while you spend time deciding — while you spend their lives deciding.  I can prevent it, if only you will tell me to."

The President turned to his advisors, ferried out here with his heavily armed bodyguards by three expendable She-Ons in a steel flying vehicle the aliens oddly called an airship.  The advisors' advice consisted only of shaking heads and bewildered expressions.  His nation hadn't been in a war for three generations.  His army was good at fighting floods.  He was certain his air corps could handle four alien warships, but never ten thousand like the ones shredding this suburb.  It made no difference now, for he hadn't heard from them since the attack began. 

"You served the people of Eterra, now you must save them by serving the people of Xi Ahn.  A billion Eterran lives are in your hands, Mr President.  What will you do with them?"

The President turned away from the interpreter, hiding his humiliation at the defeat these aliens had given him.  Nothing could stop them, nothing but Eterran surrender and submission.  Slavery for an entire planet, and his name would be forever cursed as one of the traitors.

"Stop it," he said.  "Just stop it."

The envoy signaled back to the airship.  Within minutes, the rumbling faded and the warships vanished into space, leaving nothing but devastation behind. 

"Your people will thank you for this."  The interpreter's voice carried the imperious tone innate to the She-On tongue.  "Things won't change much.  You'll collect heavier taxes, of course, but we can do away with the need for elections, Mr President — if you serve well."

The President picked up the name sign from the mansion's flattened mailbox, then glanced at the corpse in the window, a man who had often graced the covers of news magazines, the man who had cured cancer. 

"Fredrik Rikardsen," said the President. 

***

The old sofa had fallen into the cellar with the rest of the house.  Klaire knocked it upright.  She had enough canned goods to keep herself and Elinor alive for a month or two, and the petro generator could run the electric well pump.  Only one problem. 

The burns. 

The initial shock had worn off, and now her body was trying to tell her what her eyes could so easily see: it was in serious trouble.  Flayed skin, ragged flesh, imbedded trash, enough of a mess to make an emergency room crew gag. 

Something grasped the raw meat of her leg.  Klaire screamed from the pain and batted it away from her.  It bounced and tumbled over into the corner.  Its eyes went huge with surprise; its mouth dropped open in shock.  It pulled its blankie up to protect itself. 

"Oh, Elinor!  Baby!  I'm so sorry!"  Klaire started to her, but the pain shot up her legs to her spine and she stiffened and screamed out again.  Elinor pulled the blanket tighter and began to cry. 

Klaire gripped a sofa arm and leaned over, gasping, waiting for the pain to subside so she could move.  It would not.  Curse the pain — her daughter was more important than pain.  She pulled herself upright and took a step toward Elinor. 

Her daughter cringed from her and scooted back into the corner.  Elinor pulled the blanket over her head.  "Daddy," Klaire heard her whimper.  "Daddy."

***

Piers limped into his yard after three days.  The grisly sights of his trek had ripped every shred of human caring from him.  Pieces of people everywhere, charred pieces. 

The only intact people he met were from Channel 4, filming him for their Sunrise Show courtesy of a She-On flying transport ship.  They hadn't offered to help before they flew off.  Just as their slogan said, they were 'Witnesses to History,' not participants. 

Piers found most of his wife and daughter together in the rubble, holding each other.  His only surprise was that he felt nothing. 

***

Piers set the shovel aside and gazed vacantly into the grave.  It was deep enough, empty enough, empty enough to bury his heart, though he intended it for his family. 

He set about collecting the pieces of his wife, her good nature, her gentle humor, her infinite tolerance.  He wrapped them carefully in two decades of love and sharing, thanking the Creator for the unnatural numbness that kept him together while he reassembled the charred flesh and ripped entrails that had once been his wife's mortal dwelling. 

Not until he tried to gather his daughter into a tattered sheet did the full measure of despair hit him.  She was everything, his life, his hopes.  Every possibility that had passed him by lay before her, and she was gone.  He slid his arms beneath her and the tears finally burst out. 

"I should have been here!  Oh, Alice, I should have been here for you!"

He began to lift her, and she came apart in his arms. 

***

Piers scoured the debris northwest of his former house, finding little.  A scarred silver picture frame held Alice's old boyfriend, old if seventeen were old.  But then he was dead; one gets no older than that.  Piers slid the photograph and cracked glass from the frame and left the image to the elements. 

Nearby, another familiar glint of silver.  He gently pulled the old hairbrush from the ashes and dirt.  Silver and ivory, with a delicately carved 'A' on its back.  The monogram was for Pier's grandmother Alice, who had given the heirloom to his daughter Alice on her tenth birthday.  Mud caked the bristles now, bristles that young Alice had run through ashen hair —

Piers' legs gave way and he dropped to the ground sobbing.  Would an old hairbrush and a picture frame be all that remained of his family?  He held them to himself and tried to recover his composure, though he knew not why.  No one but the enslaved Channel 4 News crew remained alive, perhaps no one on the whole planet.  The She-Ons had cleansed the world for their own colonies.  Let them come, though.  He would make the first settlers wish they had done a more thorough job. 

He found Toey amid the shattered splinters of an oak, scorched but defiant.  Alice's raggedy velveteen animal had kept the black button eyes, though the velveteen sported more bare patches now than Alice had worn into him.  A second token of Alice.  Piers slid Toey into his shirt, then uncovered yet another bit of his family.  An arm, wearing the diamond watch he had given his wife so many years before.  This was more than he ever cared to find, so he gathered the treasures and returned to his yard. 

Piers buried his wedding ring and his heart with his family.  "I will never care for another human until you are avenged," he promised, cold words through cold tears, and he had never in his life meant any words more than this promise.  He did not know how it would happen, only that it would. 

She-On left him nothing.  Nothing but time, time to think about a planet he had never known existed. 

***

Atrocity!

All Xi Ahn stood aghast at reports of the bloodbath on Eterra.  Angry crowds gathered in the plaza below Altmark Tower, demanding action. 

The Eterrans had slaughtered the trade delegation and were holding the survivors hostage.  The crippled Contact ship had barely made it into low space before the landing pad was overrun by Eterran mobs.  It couldn't fold home to Xian space. 

The Altmark Corporation Fleet was out on maneuvers, but could it reach Eterra before the Contact ship was shot down?  The aliens clearly wanted field engine technology to power their existing rocket war fleet. 

Eslan Carmina's interstellar exploration had turned up the most evil planet in the galaxy.  Xi Ahn waited breathlessly to see how he handled the Eterra crisis. 

Chairman Carmina's spokesman said reports of Eterran cannibalism were unfounded. 

***

The easy rain cooled Piers' blistered skin.  He let it wash him as it washed the rest of Eterra, rinsing the planet's blood down into the soil.  So little remained to shelter a man from the rain.  Then it struck him — Fredrik Rikardsen's deep basement could survive the aliens' surface-scouring lightning.  Fredrik could be alive!

Piers took his walking stick and limped up the rise to the mansion.  A wall ahead, a solid corner of the structure still remained to give him hope that Fredrik had a place to hide during the attack.  Piers saw a window in the wall, then saw Fredrik seated behind the window. 

Rage surged within him, for the injuries just kept coming.  He raged at the Creator, cursing Him, cursing the injustice of it all.  The rage wore him down, let him think, and he realized that though his friend had safe shelter in the basement, Fredrik Rikardsen would sit by the window to watch the alien attack.  A curious scientist to the last. 

Hot rage had gone cold again, a pattern grown too familiar.  A walk in any direction would reveal a new atrocity, a new source of anger, but within minutes the hopelessness, the futility of that anger would cool it.  Not good. 

His first homeward journey through the devastation burned out his sense of horror, so much that he felt nothing when he found the remains of his family.  That shamed him now, and he knew the burn-out would become permanent if he let his emotions surge and ebb with every new outrage, leaving him no better than an animal.  No better than a She-On. 

Hot rage, cold dispassion, neither was Piers' way.  He always saw himself as a good, simple man at heart and he led his life to preserve that view.  He had always been faithful to his wife, always tried to deal squarely in business, always tried to do the right thing — and his conscience always hammered him when he failed.  Life for Piers Amhensen was always less troubling when he did the right thing. 

Now that She-On had slain his present and destroyed his future, the right thing meant nothing.  Piers seated himself on Fredrik's front steps, to let the full view of his mentor's fate burn into his memory.  He needed a new 'right thing,' a new direction to sustain him and replace the unsteady emotions of this desolate wasteland. 

Revenge. 

The word slipped effortlessly into mind.  Calculated revenge, a goal that took no more dedication than keeping a promise, and he had always been good at keeping promises.  A man with nothing to lose had a power beyond that of flashing warships and alien dictators, a power that would cost She-On far more than its warships cost Piers.  White teeth grinned at him from Fredrik's blackened face.  Revenge, that was a promise he could keep. 

Having settled the fate of the alien planet, Piers hobbled around to Fredrik's basement steps.  A lightning gouge across the steel bulkhead had welded the door closed, but the bulkhead itself was loose from the concrete well, so he pried it over with his walking stick.  He descended the steps and pushed the scorched door aside.  The lab was intact, some shelves knocked over, but — several cages were empty, their doors open.  One grain sack had a hole nibbled in it. 

A handful of mix ampules sat on the counter, more than he remembered there being.  He swept them into a small hardcase for protection, then took one out.  The time had come. 

He rummaged through a drawer and found the alcohol wipes and a packaged syringe. 

***

Days later, after the mild fever passed, Piers returned to the mansion to recover Fredrik's remains.  He buried his immortal friend next to Alice. 

The lightning bolt that demolished Piers' house also undermined the foundation slab.  He took his shovel and enlarged the cavity, shaping a safe place to hide when the alien colonists came looking for survivors to enslave. 

***

Klaire had enough food for a month, but it would not matter. 

Her burns were infected; she could smell it.  The poisons seeping into her blood made it hard to move.  It was everything she could do to open the cans, but she had to.  Elinor had to survive. 

Elinor called for her.  She called for her daddy.  Klaire could never explain to her why her mother wouldn't, couldn't hold her anymore.  Not in this lifetime.  Maybe the next. 

The Survivors

The commander thumbed through his notes at the Daily Briefing. 

"Congratulations are in order, men.  Damage Assessment shows all assigned targets destroyed with the loss of only one Xian warship.  We aren't certain what happened to it, but we'll keep you informed.  Meanwhile, due to what I can only call bureaucratic inertia, we will be resuming the 'Good Will' portion of our original mission while we," he paused to let the laughter die down, "while we wait for Corporation to put together some sort of occupation force.  I'm sure when the civilians get here, they'll have a box of medals for us.  Makes 'em feel like they've contributed. 

"We've had reports of looting out in the target box areas.  The remaining locals had plenty of time to leave, so we can assume anyone we spot is a scavenger from the surrounding region.  On that basis, we have officially designated the target boxes as 'Forbidden Zones.'  Nothing in or out.  We'll run warship patrols on a regular schedule, and anyone in the zone is a free target.  Scavengers are scum, men, and they deserve worse than you'll give them."  The commander paused.  "Does that meet with your approval, Lieutenant Donal?"

Donal looked up, accepting his pariah status.  "Yes, sir."

***

A starry night, a bit of a chill.  Something was out there, a light smoldering through the haze a few miles down toward the harbor road.  Piers slipped back into his hiding place beneath the foundation and found a sweater, a new one he didn't remember having.  He adjusted the sleeves carefully so he wouldn't break any blisters, then limped back outside. 

A yellow glimmer betrayed a campfire out in the ruins, survivors like Piers whom the She-Ons had missed.  Too many hazards hid in the darkness, so he grabbed some bricks from the debris and lined them up on the fire.  When the sun came up, he would hike down that direction and try to find his neighbors. 

A little breeze washed by and he felt a heaviness above him, then a tingling sensation in his skin.  The tingling increased to a crawling sting, then suddenly his hair stood on end. 

"What in the . . ."

With a crackling hiss, a brilliant light flared overhead.  He looked up at a glowing, rounded dart of a shape not forty feet above.  Blue-white waves rippled across the surface toward the wider end of the dart, then slammed together to an intense point.  The point lingered for a second, then shot away with a whistling sound in the direction of the campfire.  The return to darkness left Piers blind, but a distant flare and too familiar rumbling told him what had happened.  The realization paralyzed him until his stomach wrenched and he vomited in the darkness.  The whole thing hadn't taken ten seconds. 

He desperately tried to suppress his coughing, for a She-On warship hovered directly above him, blotting out the stars.  As silently as it came, the dark blotch moved off toward the firestorm it had made of the former survivors' campfire.  Piers fell shaking to his knees and retched again from fear.  He screamed and cursed at the departing ship, madness, for he had seen into hell. 

***

Klaire sagged onto the arm of the sofa.  She could barely raise her head, but if she lay down, she would never get up — and that would be the end for her daughter. 

"Mommy?"

Klaire glanced over at the pantry shelf.  Plastic jugs of distilled water for the iron, a package of cookies, all too high for Elinor to reach.  Everything else was in cans.  She had to get to them down, but the poisons were paralyzing her. 

Elinor tugged at her hand.  That was all it took.  Klaire toppled headlong into the sofa. 

Nothing worked but her ears and her mind, and her mind worked and worked, and she realized her mistake.  What a fool she had been to stay in her basement.  No rescuers would look beneath the rubble.  Not before Elinor starved to death. 

"Mommy?"  She felt Elinor tugging at her hand. 

***

The sun had set.  Klaire waited for death behind her unblinking eyes.  She wondered which would stop first, her breathing or her heart — odd, the things that came into a dying mind.  She prayed.  Klaire prayed that Elinor would crawl up the steps and outside where the rescuers would find her. 

Elinor was hungry and thirsty.  She made that quite clear.  Klaire could only listen, punishment before she died.  Her breathing became irregular. 

She prayed.  No rescuers.  Two weeks, they would have come.  The She-On aliens must have destroyed the whole planet.  Klaire's breathing quit first.  Of course.  She had too much heart. 

So that was it.  Her daughter would die of starvation.  One final prayer in her last few seconds of life.  Let the Creator handle things as He thought best. 

"Mommy?"

Mommy loves you, Elinor. 

Good Little Heart

Elinor tugged at her mother's hand.  Still nothing.  Her mother had ignored her all day.  What had she done to make her mother angry?

She toddled over to the pantry shelf.  The cookies were up there, but she couldn't reach them.  It was dark.  She hid herself in a corner with her blankie. 

"Daddy."

***

A day of frustration. 

Her mother would not feed her, would not even get up to help her reach the cookies.  Would not help her get the water in the jugs.  She could almost reach one jug.  Almost. 

Her mother would not respond when she called, when she pulled on her mother's hand.  Nothing.  What had she done?  She would be a good girl from now on.  Please, please. 

The sun went down.  Elinor went to her corner in the darkness and cried herself to sleep. 

***

Elinor's mother lay on the sofa ignoring her.  Elinor's father was out 'working.'  He must be.  He still loved her. 

The pain in her stomach was intense.  She wanted the water in the jug so much, but her mother hated her and would not help.  Her father would feed her when he returned. 

Elinor tried to reach the jug.  Almost.  She started to climb the pantry shelf and she could touch the jug.  She pulled herself up a little more.  It was hard because she was so weak now, but she got her fingers on the handle.  Yes, yes!

Suddenly the shelf gave way beneath her and she came crashing down, cans flying and hitting her.  The plastic jug hit the floor and burst apart. 

Elinor cried. 

The sun went down.  "Daddy, daddy," she called into the darkness. 

***

Her mother was being bad. 

Perhaps her mother did not know it.  Elinor would have to tell her, to use the word that she knew would maker her mother be good again. 

"No!"

Nothing.  Her mother wasn't listening. 

"NO !!"

Nothing.  It was wrong.  It was bad. 

"no," and she quit trying. 

***

Elinor was having trouble staying on her feet.  Her stomach hurt so badly.  If only she could open the metal cans.  She gnawed at them.  She tried eating the paper labels, the pictures of food.  She licked the dry plastic of the burst water jug. 

"Daddy!" she screamed.  She lay down and cried.  Where was her father?

The sun went down again.  She stayed where she was. 

***

Piers' leg finally started to heal.  New skin closed the entry and exit wounds, leaving ugly discolored dents in his thigh.  A sheath of scar tissue formed within the muscle along the steel rod's path, and Piers knew it would always be with him.  The healing made walking easier, so he enlarged his hunting territory to the grocery ruins down past the little farm.  The farmhouse, machinery shed, and twelve acres of land survived after the old farmer turned from planting corn to planting houses, but only the land survived the She-Ons. 

A little later in each day, the warships went back to work cleaning up the people they missed the first time.  Piers had never feared anything as much in his life, but the brief space before and after dawn let him rummage around and be on his way home by the time they took to the air.  Despite their size, the warship's silent, darting flight could put one atop him without warning, so he kept an eye out for them while he shopped in the grocery rubble. 

Each blast was another Eterran swatted into cinders, but the lightning flashes made spotting the alien ships easy — Piers was usually able to find a little good in every bad thing. 

***

The sun was rising when Elinor woke.  She had so little strength.  She crawled to her mother and took the hand again.  It felt strange, dry.  It was not her mother. 

One last cry, then she would give up; she would go to sleep and the hurt in her tummy would go away forever.  She gave it her best wail, everything she had left.  Then she lay down and closed her eyes. 

***

Noise.  Elinor's sleepy eyes drifted open and saw a blurry shape.  Daddy!  He had come back!  He loved her!

***

Piers took the bottle away from the little girl.  She was still hungry, but too much Infalyte at one go would hurt a tummy that had shut down for lack of food.  She tried to protest, but she was too weak, so she went to sleep.  She was cold, so very cold.  He held her gently against his bare chest, sharing his warmth with the little icicle. 

There were more bottles of Infalyte in the rubble.  He hoped he would need them.  Piers cushioned her with her blanket, finding the name 'Elinor' embroidered in one corner. 

Her faint call had faded through the devastation's silence, but Piers still had a father's ears, well tuned to the cries of an infant.  Despite the pain of his leg, he had run to the cellar and gasped at the sight of mother and child lying inert in the rubble.  He was down the steps in an instant. 

The weeks since the alien attack left little of Elinor, mostly bones beneath a loose tent of skin and scabs.  Piers didn't know if he had rendered a kindness or merely extended her dying moments.  It remained, ultimately, for Elinor to decide. 

He rocked her softly while he looked around the ruins collapsed into the open cellar.  This must have been the farmhouse, the gentleman who sold Piers his building lot twenty years before.  The farmer died a few years back and Piers never met the young couple who bought the house, never knew their last name, though he had wondered why they didn't sell the remaining land for building lots. 

The couple had not cleared out the farmer's cellar after moving in.  It was filled with junk that would be worthwhile only to relatives — a dusty photo album, a box of newspaper clippings, a trunk of old-fashioned clothes.  Other junk was left over from farming days, petro lanterns, a well-head with an electric pump, a petro generator to run it.  Handyman tools, garden tools, useful items under life's changed circumstances. 

Empty food tins littered a corner where Elinor's mother had made a nest in the rubble and set up housekeeping for her daughter.  It had worked for a few weeks, but now the woman badly needed burying.  He ignored the sickly sweet smell and knelt to examine her corpse.  Rotting, infected burns covered her body, and her face — well, she might have been pretty once.  The lightning had singed and discolored her remaining hair, but the shock of the attack had it coming in dead white at the roots.  Piers checked her arms and legs and found glass and wood splinters embedded in flesh that had crusted over in the flayed areas.  No human could possibly have endured the tremendous pain to keep her child alive — the kind of courage a mere father could but wonder at — and she died believing her little daughter would starve to death. 

That might yet happen, as near death as the child was.  He pressed his finger against a bony wrist, feeling for the little girl's pulse.  Still there, good little heart.  Elinor had decided. 

Piers would not let She-On claim another.  He reached out to touch the young mother's scorched hair. 

"I promise," he whispered. 

The Fruits of Victory

'Interstellar trade agreements' lay on the table, sheltered from the reddish sunlight by the multicolored circus tent borrowed for this event.  Wisps of smoke from a few reignited fires drifted through the open sides, setting an appropriately Xian tone for this meeting of Eterran national Presidents and First Ministers. 

The Eastern Hemisphere Strike Commander shared the thought with the Western Commander seated next to him that a circus tent also set the appropriate tone.  The conquest had barely wrapped up when a freighter arrived bearing civilian diplocrats from some obscure office deep within Corporation tower.  Thanks for risking your lives here's some medals go home and We Professionals will take it from here. 

The We Professionals were busily speechifying at the Eterran leaders, more punishment than the leaders had taken from the Fleet, and in such an imperious manner that it embarrassed the Eastern Commander.  He shut out the blather and surveyed the landscape around the tent, the Forbidden Zone outside Bay City, and more specifically, the bedroom community assigned to Lieutenant Donal and Captain Tyrell. 

Tyrell was untouchable, one of The Tyrells of Mount Wren, for whom military service was but passage into manhood.  Anyway, the captain had eventually gone along and obeyed orders.  Donal, on the other hand, was a nobody from Illium-des-Ahns who would have aborted a military operation and put a serious blot on the Commander's record if the Commander hadn't been there to stop him.  That deserved martial court action, but the boy was Academy, Career Contract at that, guaranteed promotions. 

Academy grads, they of the heavy silver ring with the sky blue stone, the Creator's gift to the Fleet — and they would tell you so — when it was the regular guys who did the work and got the job done.  If anyone were going to nail Donal, it would have to be Roger Varta or the Emperor, not some unanointed fellow who clawed his way up from the ranks like the Eastern Commander. 

He slid from his foldup chair and the stifling speeches to slip outside the tent for a fresh breath of haze.  The bureaucrats had chosen this site for its view, the only hillock in the Zone.  They picked it with topo maps and ordered Fleet to set up a tent and haul in the Eterran heads of state.  Then they tried to blame Fleet because smoke still mired their carefully chosen site and obscured the devastated vista they intended for the Eterrans. 

The Commander wandered past a splintered tree stump over to the brick wall with its lone window opening.  A charcoal chair sat within, a shadow of unscorched upholstery on its back and seat.  Depleted Stable Two plasma, he reasoned, breaking down to Stable One.  That would leave the wall standing and imprint the shadow on the chair if someone were sitting in it when the plasma blew through the window.  Hard to say.  The lightning weapon could do funny things. 

The politicians in the tent were lining up to sign the surrender documents, 'trade agreements' in diplospeak.  Safety in numbers for them if they all signed.  The Commander would still wish not to be among them after the Fleet departed, elected politicians facing the wrath of their sold-out constituents during the occupation. 

After the Fleet departed. 

An idea crept into the Commander's mind, a ray of golden Xian sunshine piercing his russet Eterran malaise.  It wouldn't be necessary to hold a martial trial on Lieutenant Donal.  Not at all. 

The Commander pulled a note pad from his jacket and made a memo to himself, then wandered cheerfully back to the circus tent and its performing politicians. 

***

Church bells peeled out across Xi Ahn.  National days of prayer for the hostages on Eterra had been answered — the Corporation Fleet arrived in time! Minimal loss of life, only some Eterran armament factories destroyed, but the mere demonstration of Xian power caused the evil alien leaders to yield.  Altmark Corporation would not be releasing the names of Xian casualties out of respect for their survivors' privacy. 

Corporation Chairman Eslan Carmina's radio address beamed across Xi Ahn, thanking the people of all Xian nations for their support.  Academics and government experts were enroute to Eterra to help establish fair and open democracies, an alien concept to an alien planet run by tyrant kings and despotic dictators. 

The rescued trade negotiators were at present signing favorable interstellar trade agreements, protected by circling Xian warships.  The aliens had requested admittance into Corporation's Trade Empire, and promised huge reparation payments to Xi Ahn. 

***

The President watched helplessly as press-ganged Eterran men wheeled his nation's gold reserves from the vaults into the Xian freighters. 

"Multiple national currencies hinder trade, Mr President, but we will not force you to abandon your money," said the Xian interpreter. 

"Without these gold reserves, my country's currency will fail," the President said. 

"A nation's currency should be backed by the skills of its people, their willingness to work, sir, not some bit of cold metal.  Anyway, much safer that this gold should go to Xi Ahn, backing the Xian Credits your people may now earn.  A far better system, Mr President.  You'll see."

"You're stealing our silver reserves, too."

"Anachronism, Mr President.  You'll be better off without them."

***

Corporation Director Wallace Park watched helplessly as Corporation workmen wheeled Eterra's gold and silver from the starship freighters into waiting electric autotrucks.  His chances to unseat Eslan Carmina as Chairman evaporated with every glittering ton.  The upstart lawyer would have the Corporation Board of Directors in his pocket. 

"Congratulations," Park said absently.  "I understand it was another son."

"Hmm?  Oh, yes, yes.  Thank you, Wallace.  Always good to have a spare," said Carmina.  "Give Eslan Jr some competition.  We named the little guy Bryce."

The silence grew long, filled only with the whine of autotrucks pulling out of the hangar, hauling away Wallace Park's Chairmanship.  Carmina rested a hand on the Director's shoulder.  "See, Wallace.  I told you we had a reason to explore the galaxy.  And every twentieth ingot is yours."

Reasonable solace for a Director who owned 5 percent of Corporation. 

***

Registrar Roger Varta considered Carmina either the luckiest businessman alive or the craftiest; probably a bit of both.  While the Chairman basked in the public glory of his Fleet's hostage rescue and the private glory of Eterra's initial plundering, Varta sorted through the war dispatches. 

The spies and analysts had blown their assessments of Eterra, erring high for both military strength and the governments' resolve.  The politicians caved far too quickly, something they themselves knew now, but with the Fleet established on the ground, it was too late.  Freedom is not in the cards for those unwilling to fight. 

Varta read the reports in time sequence, checking if the conquest had gone as smoothly as it seemed.  It had on the Xian end, with Corporation Accounting complaining about another delayed audit.  Much as he'd like to oblige them, a planetary conquest left the books in Just Such A Mess. 

The Eterran side of the conquest would become textbook material, with one warship down for bureaucratically murky reasons, and a minor hitch caused by a cowardly lieutenant during the initial assault — an Academy grad of course, too prissy to dirty his hands with what had to be done.  The pragmatic Varta was inclined to let it go with a dismissal from the Fleet despite the lieutenant's Career Contract status, but he saw a problem.  Clean hands meant the lieutenant could talk. 

He'd have to dirty those hands some way, perhaps a martial trial.  Varta pulled the man's file, one Lieutenant Gregor Donal.  Nothing in the file said he was anyone important, merely one of the non-political appointments the Academy itself awarded based on high school achievement.  A carpenter and a teacher for parents, no clout there.  A martial trial to sully the lieutenant's record wouldn't step on any important toes, but trials drew attention from the press.  He put the thorny lieutenant problem aside and concentrated on the occupation arrangements. 

He'd slogged through two briefing books when he came across a note to the Emperor from the Eastern Hemisphere Strike Commander.  The message suggested an elegant way to tie up a particularly vexing loose-end lieutenant named Gregor Donal.  The note lacked Eslan's initials, so Carmina hadn't seen it, but Varta thought it worthy of Imperial attention. 

***

Long rows of low, corrugated metal warehouses hunkered beneath the Illium-trademark drizzle.  Registrar Varta followed the technician through a rusty door marked '5-11' and stopped short.  Amid electric cables and humming equipment, a man with a stripe tattooed down his face stared back. 

"What's a slave doing on Corporation property?"

"He's Eterran," said the technician. 

The slave trade was starting early.  "What crime you make?" Varta asked the tallish alien as simply as he could. 

"Just the crime of being a tele-vision engineer — and being Eterran, sir.  I volunteered to come here with the equipment because you promised you would take care of my family while I was gone, but your government changed the rules.  Can Corporation go to the courts to free me?"

Soft on the gutturals, but fairly good Xian, the result of five weeks locked in a starship with Xians.  "What does he mean rules?" Varta asked the technician. 

"He hasn't done anything wrong, sir.  After the hostage rescue, the governments enslaved all aliens on Xi Ahn by decree.  A constable met us at the landing field with a stack of blank enslavement papers and branded him on the spot."

Government meddling again, politicians leaping in to fix a situation that didn't need fixing.  Fortunately this Eterran was the only alien on Xi Ahn who was not already a slave.  Varta turned to the alien engineer. 

"Corporation has little influence with the current government," Varta said darkly, "and no influence in the courts.  Bit of bad luck for you and your family."  The tattooed face fell as Varta turned back to the technician.  "Make certain his family is given an adequate pension, will you?"  The technician nodded and made a note. 

Varta pulled up a chair before the tele-vision receiver.  "Now then, what have you put together for me?"

The technician waited for the Eterran to start the demonstration, but the alien, enslaved on Xi Ahn for the rest of his life, just wandered over into a corner and began sobbing. 

The technician wasn't going to get any help, so he switched the receiver on.  "The tele-vision system has two means of generating pictures," he began while the receiver warmed up.  "A live-action camera like this one," he patted a bulky box with a lens on one side, "and a moving picture viewer.  We haven't gotten the camera running yet, but the viewer works great."

"Moving picture film, theatre film like ours?"

"Sort of, but a different size, and it doesn't burn like nitrocel film.  We have some Eterran clips ready to go.  Got this first one from an Eterran film crew we transported west of Bay City two days after the hostage rescue.  We transferred it to our own newsreels, and it's now being shown around Xi Ahn in theatres."

Colorful rolling bars wavered about the receiver's glowing glass window.  The technician activated the transmitter and Varta heard the familiar clackety sound of a movie projector.  Eterra appeared on the glass.  The image panned across a devastated landscape and a standard Fleet light airship, then settled on an agonized man limping toward the camera. 

Excellent sound from the speakers.  The man cried out in the Eterran language, but Varta heard a message plain in any tongue, a plea for help.  Dark hair singed short, brown eyes within an unshaven, blistered face, a white shirt or rag wrapped about his right thigh, splotched bloody on either side.  The plea continued, alien words about home, family, wife, daughter.  Eterran was not such a different language in the basics. 

Tele-vision had an amazing, powerful presence.  "This went into newsreels all across Xi Ahn?"

"Yes, Registrar.  Pretty rough characters, the Eterrans."

The film crew had returned to the airship and left the man pleading in disbelief.  The public's first Eterran, an ordinary man with a family, someone the Xian people could identify with, not the evil monster Corporation needed.  A heartless film crew and a publicity disaster in the making. 

"Lock all this film in Corporation Archives," said Varta, "and get those newsreels back immediately.  I don't wish to see that man's face ever again."

***

From the moment he scattered the first shovel of soil over his family until he found Elinor holding her mother's rotting hand, Piers had plotted revenge.  His plans centered on an invisible, unstoppable wraith who disemboweled She-On colonist families in their sleep and left the remains in decorous display for other colonists to discover.  Stupid plans, he realized, hateful fantasy.  Even finding his own family in that state had not unhinged his humanity to the point where he could murder someone. 

A child to care for put an unexpected crimp in Piers' subsequent replanning, but he could not leave the girl to die, and he had, after all, made a promise. 

He carefully nursed his new daughter away from death.  Her little arms firmed and the gaunt cheeks gradually filled out, the burns healing without scars courtesy of a Rikardsen regrowth regulator ointment.  Singed hair grew back in a dusty shade that she must have shared with her mother.  She slept a lot. 

The antique trunk had a good supply of children's clothing, so Piers went down to collect it from the farmhouse cellar.  Elinor would grow up generations out of style — not that fashion mattered on a barren planet. 

The photograph album sitting on the trunk was filled with old pictures of the farmer and older pictures of his ancestors, a left-behind when Elinor's parents bought the house.  One picture held his eye, the old farmer in his much younger days.  A dark-haired girl about eight sat astride a hobyorse rocker too small for her, with the farmer kneeling beside.  The rocker in the basement's corner matched the photograph, so the child must have been the farmer's daughter or granddaughter, long since grown and married and moved away.  Far enough away, Piers hoped, to still be alive. 

He closed the heavy album cover.  There was more, but they weren't Elinor's relatives and they reminded Piers of things he himself had lost, so he left the album in the open cellar and returned to his home. 

The cave that Piers had dug beneath his foundation slab was totally unsuitable for Elinor when she became active.  After debate, he moved her to the more upscale but less obscure hovel of Fredrik Rikardsen's basement.  The lab mice were still around and the scientific instruments mostly undamaged, so he gathered the mice back into cages and brought the petro generator up from Elinor's farmhouse to re-establish Fredrik's laboratory. 

Changed circumstances abounded.  A lone survivor might risk the warship patrols, but a father could not.  Piers became a night creature, completing his food runs to the demolished grocery by dawn.  He got generator fuel from a petro station's underground tanks and drew water from Elinor's farmhouse ruins using the old lever pump. 

After weeks, the haze of smoldering fires finally dissipated.  Incredibly, Bay City glimmered in the distance at night, intact!  Piers scrambled to find a battery radio and learned that the aliens had not devastated the whole planet, just his town.  The destruction was a lesson in obedience, his town a Forbidden Zone, an eternal reminder of the power of She-On.  Piers didn't know whether to laugh or cry. 

So be it.  When the canned food went bad in two years, he could return to Eterra's new slave society, but Elinor would have a good foundation for her life's mission, and Piers would understand immortality. 

***

"Donal."

Gregor Donal turned around.  Only the Academy grads still had the courage to speak to the Coward of the Conquest.  Preston Tyrell was a captain. 

"I did some checking for you, Donal.  None of the leadership were Academy.  I guess Carmina thought we'd balk at the slaughter."

"I seem to be the only one who did, though."

"Yeeeah."  Captain Tyrell's eyes dropped.  "It was a matter of disobeying a direct order, then trying to explain it to a bunch of lawyers and generals who took weeks to decide what they think you should have decided in a few seconds.  So I finished out.  You were right to quit, though.  That whole hostage thing was a cover story for the press at home."

"Where did you hear that?"

"How did the command ship know about the so-called hostages?  You can't receive radio signals that far out.  Our speed would run the frequency right off the scale."

It would.  Radio contact with planets was possible only in the last stages of deceleration, when the frequency shift was within the limits of the radion tube circuits.  Which meant:

"They knew ahead of time?  How could they?  Eterra is two months away from Xi Ahn.  It would take four months after a call for help for us to arrive."

"No call for help, Donal, no hostages.  It was a cover story, a total invention.  They planned our attack before we left.  Six of the warships were from the training squadron, enough to shut down training operations for half a year while we were out here on a 'goodwill tour.'  Think about it."

Donal had tried very hard not to think about warship training school, but Tyrell had spotted something significant.  They sent every warship available on Xi Ahn.  They went interstellar.  They filled line positions with instructors.  Every odd thing about the training exercise made little sense unless it were a mask for a hastily assembled conquest.  That decision had to come from the Imperium, which meant Donal was in water hotter than he ever imagined. 

"They'll paper over your record, but they can't let you go back to Xi Ahn.  You're the only one who can talk about what we really did to Eterra because you did the right thing."

"You mean I'm right but I'm screwed."

"Not at all, Lieutenant," came a voice from behind the captain.  "Captain Tyrell, you're needed elsewhere."

"Yes, sir," Tyrell said stiffly. 

After Tyrell left, the Eastern Hemisphere Commander placed an envelope in Donal's hand. 

"Just to show I have no hard feelings, Lieutenant, I recommended you for this position myself."

Donal opened the envelope.  Orders. 

"Assistant Deputy Lieutenant Governor of Eterra?" asked Donal.  "I'm no bureaucrat!"

"You are now.  You retain your commission, so you'll keep your military contract pay and benefits.  Of course, that's only about a fifth of what a civilian would make in the same job, but we all have to live with these arcane rules.  It's permanent, too.  You won't be seeing Xi Ahn for many years."

"You can't keep me here, sir!  I'll appeal to Fleet High Command.  Only the Emperor can overrule them."

A grin slithered across the commander's face.  "Then I guess I was wrong, Lieutenant," he apologized.  "You are right and you are screwed."  He took the orders from Donal's hands and held them up in front of his face. 

The signature below the orders read, "Eslan Augustus Carmina, Emperor."

***

Bay City was the largest and arguably classiest city on Eterra, and capital of one of the planet's several former nations, now retitled 'Administrative Regions,' each under the authority of a Xian Regional Lieutenant Governor.  With the arrival and encampment of the Fleet in a broad valley some miles outside of town, Bay City was now de facto capital of the entire world, an honor it could have done without. 

In a gesture of confidence in his Fleet, Eslan Carmina had dispatched a freighter load of civilian bureaucrats to Eterra mere weeks after the Fleet departed for the conquest, months before he knew the outcome of the battle.  The bureaucrats arrived to find the Fleet in firm control of Eterra but with no notion of what to do with it.  A second freighter soon landed, bringing the rest of the skeleton occupation force, and a box of medals. 

***

No military encampment is ever complete without a parade field, and a medals presentation is a perfect excuse to use it.  The parade went down as the only disaster of the conquest, but the attendant medals and ribbons flowed like wine under the ruddy Eterran sun.  The ceremonies concluded with the Fleet Commander handing Eterra over to Corporation's civilian occupation bureaucrats, who were already dreaming up and of regulations. 

After dismissal, Gregor Donal wandered with Preston Tyrell down to the end of the parade ground to examine the shiny new patrol ships freightered in from Xi Ahn with the civilians.  Preston glittered with honors, but Gregor's chest was conspicuously desolate.  He was, in fact, the only officer without a new ribbon.  The Eastern Hemisphere Commander had him standing in the front row of honorees to make his singular achievement more memorable. 

Gregor was also the only officer relieved of duty during the attack, which made him ineligible for a share of this planet's 'combat recompense,' a euphemism for the initial war plunder.  Rumor had the amount at ninety thousand Credits this time, a wealthy man's eventual retirement, and almost enough to buy out a soldier's enlistment contract.  If Corporation ever found another populated planet, recruiting for the conquest would be easy. 

As they approached the first patrol ship, Preston put a hand on Gregor's arm to stop him.  A pair of native Eterran animals came sailing at them at high speed, flame red arms outstretched a few feet above the grass.  The creatures pulled up abruptly and rose into the air over the two officers' heads and dropped atop the first ship. 

"Parrots?" ventured Preston. 

"I think so.  They look like what that worker told us."

They moved back carefully so as not to disturb the animals, which reportedly would not attack unless provoked or hungry.  Hard to tell from beady black, expressionless eyes that gave no hint of the animals' intent.  The parrots balanced nonchalantly on the patrol ship's horizontal radio antenna, gripping it with crushing, razor-claw feet, and dropping some white deposits on the paint.  They uttered a few squawks from mouths that were flesh-tearing hooks of a hornlike material, then spread their arms and rose again into the air.  Their path toward the reviewing stand sent soldiers and bureaucrats scattering before they ascended and disappeared over some tree tops. 

"I can't imagine the Eterrans letting animals that dangerous live," said Preston.  "Why don't they wipe them out, do something to protect their children?"

"You'd think they would, but this is a different culture from Xi Ahn.  The things 'only eat a few children' a year, so why bother?  Incredible.  You going to mention them when you get home?"

"Not a chance, Gregor.  Demons with bright red fur that eat children and swim through the air by waving their arms.  Sure.  Who wouldn't believe that?"

Gregor grunted agreement and they walked back to the dung-marked patrol ship, both glad that the Eterran workmen who helped build the encampment had warned them about the native animals.  There were other floating creatures on Eterra, too, but mostly smaller and less dangerous.  Conquer a planet, you take the bad with the good. 

Gregor bumped the latch and the patrol ship door flopped open with the tinny sound of sheet metal, not the ringing tone of a warship's welded steel plate.  He ran a finger over the thin hatch seals — not a ship for traveling outer space.  No heavy forward shield, no armor, no Fold engine, no crew facilities or docking port.  Just the essentials for subjugation, a field engine and a lightning weapon launch rail. 

"Small, but lots of windows," said Gregor.  "Good for spotting things to shoot at."

"Clean, new.  Doesn't look like it's had three guys living in it for a month.  Not a warship, that's for sure," said Preston, followed by an awkward, searching silence.  "Look, Gregor, you did what I should have done, and now you're stuck out here and I'm going home.  If you need any help, anything at all, give me a call.  Don't know where I'll be, but here's my folks' address." Preston produced a gilt-edged calling card. 

"Mount Wren?  My, Preston, I didn't know you were Old Royal."

"We're not, just filthy rich.  I'm serious about this.  I've got a load of guilt about the conquest I need to work off."

Gregor nodded.  He was stuck on Eterra, but his conscience was clear.  Except for the filthy rich part, he would not have traded places with Preston. 

***

Preston Tyrell endured the ride home to Mount Wren with his parents less well than he'd endured his miserable voyage back to Xi Ahn.  A hero – they thought he was a hero.  Everyone on Xi Ahn believed the Fleet had rescued the trade delegation from evil Eterran tyrants.  The stories in the newspapers, the desperate battles, the gallant exploits — spoon-fed from Corporation; they could never have happened on the defenseless planet he attacked.  Even the warship that went down wasn't lost due to the Eterrans.  Its element leader had called a right turn, but the pilot had inexplicably turned left into his element, glancing off one warship and smashing into a third.  Fleet decided to bury the screw-up with the bodies, adding three more 'Heroes of the Empire' to a short but growing list. 

The lie was so big, the adulation so great, that it trapped the few who knew the facts into silence.  And even silence seemed like stoic reserve, denials like modesty.  Preston could not let that lie go on.  He had to tell the truth. 

After dinner that evening, his mother and sisters retired to their own regions of the mansion when it became apparent Preston was not inclined to entertain them with war stories.  His father drew an Apteran aperitif for him, the kind that an educated gentleman might share with a peer after dining, then poured one for himself. 

"Your mother was unhappy when you decided to go to the Academy," his father allowed.  "She was proud of you, but there was always the knowledge that one day you might not come home, that wherever you went, someone was going to try to kill her little boy.  When we heard what Eterra did to the trade negotiators, and you were out on patrol, and that Corporation sent you to Eterra, we, — I was afraid, too.  I've never told you, but — Son, I'm so proud now.  We all are."

Preston never thought to hear such words from his father.  Love and pride among the Tyrells was understood, never voiced.  The old brown eyes shone. 

So much for the truth.  "Dad, I killed people out there, innocent people.  I don't wish to do that again.  I'd like to leave the Fleet."

"Preston, they were aliens, bent on evil, and you stopped them."

"No."  Preston took his father's hand and held it up.  "People, like you and me and Mother.  They got in Corporation's way and they died."

"Your mother will be disappointed."

"Not my mother, Dad.  If ever I had anything to prove to you, haven't I done that now?"

You never had anything to prove to me, Preston read the words in his father's face, but did not hear them.  Of course. 

His father put an arm around Preston's shoulders.  "One war is enough for any man, even a Tyrell.  I'll see about buying out your Fleet contract.  Any idea what you'll do?"

"I think I'll start a newspaper."

***

Piers read through Fredrik's notebooks, tracking the course of the mix as it re-engineered the old scientist's body.  Fredrik noted that the changes in skin texture and resilience were about as expected from his mice studies, likewise the improved muscle tone.  Other effects were far from intended.  The mental improvement was far more than a mere return to youthful sharpness. 

Piers studied with a growing sense of awe.  The concepts and speculations went beyond anything Fredrik had ever discussed with Piers: detailed proposals of fixes for suspected flaws in the mix, branches into other areas of the life sciences, sketches of new equipment for experimental use.  Page after page of brilliance. 

Piers closed the notebook and started an inventory of his mouse lines.  He wasn't looking forward to a new series of experiments, and dangerous ones at that.  No matter how careful he was, mice were going to die. 

***

The warships slept late, so Piers toured his domain at dawn, Elinor snugged in his arms.  Out front, the splintered stump of Fredrik's tollar tree had sent up some shoots.  Piers knelt beside it and let her touch the new leaves.  The tree of life, it was rumored, though only Fredrik and Piers knew why, and that was the reason Fredrik planted one in his yard.  Elinor pulled off a leaf and bit it, then curled her tiny nose at the taste. 

A curious little girl, Elinor.  Curious odd, curious inquisitive.  She had been very withdrawn at first, no surprise considering what she had been through, and very fearful of being left alone.  This child clung to him in a way that Alice never did, almost trying to merge herself into him so that he could never let her go.  Sometimes at night, he would awaken to find her attached to his hand. 

Piers held the little girl in his arms while she examined his nose.  Did it match her father's nose?  Did she even know he was not her father?  It plainly did not matter to her.  She would be a hard one to give up when the time came to return to society. 

As time passed, she became more independent, exploring her surroundings while keeping him in sight.  Eventually, she began venturing beyond eyeshot, and Piers found it amusing to see her serious face pop up in some distant corner, just checking on him, before disappearing again. 

For months, Elinor did not grow at all, trying just to recover ground lost in the She-On Conquest.  Piers guessed the starvation set her body back at least a year.  Not her mind, though.  He spoke constantly to her and did all his thinking aloud, trying to make up for the lack of adult conversation for her to hear.  All the words that Alice had said and understood her first years, Piers said to Elinor.  He gave her his full attention, and after time her words and thoughts became sentences.  Finally they could hold conversations.  He discovered Elinor had interests different from his, but so had Alice. 

Alice had an artist's eye from her earliest years and she had the prettiest bedroom any little girl could ever create.  Not until Alice discovered Fredrik Rikardsen and his mice did she take to Piers' interest in biology. 

Elinor took to the mice, too.  They fascinated her, things smaller than she was, creatures that Piers also talked to and looked after.  Elinor tried talking to them, but they just made sounds that she could not understand.  She was inclined to make the mice pets, which Piers found troubling.  Sometimes the compounds he tried turned out poisonous, and he had to spend time consoling her when they died. 

Never a problem with Alice because she was never around when the experiments went badly, but Elinor lived with the mice.  Piers had to catch himself.  As often as he thought of his Alice, comparisons were unfair to this little girl who had called him into her life. 

Elinor was not Alice, and she would never become or replace Alice.  Piers accepted her as she was and gave her mind rein to develop.  She might turn out to be an interesting person in her own right. 

The remains of Fredrik's mansion sat atop a rise, and on a good night they could see nine miles to the harbor road — the lights, the businesses, the slavery.  Elinor never asked about it or about her past.  She accepted Piers as he was, her father, her teacher, her world. 

***

Gardening was now more than a hobby for Piers.  He recovered seed packets from the grocery and hardware store debris, then planted in tiny plots scattered around the neighborhood, nothing conspicuous to give his presence away.  He fertilized the brush he knew would grow tall to give his pathways cover from the She-On patrol ships. 

While clipping seed heads from the brush and grasses for his mice, Piers noticed his family's graves were overgrown.  He pulled the weeds and scythed the grass, but the graves still looked scruffy. 

"Time," he said to his daughter.  "Time will make it right.  We need to be patient."  She smiled beneath her darkening hair and pulled some weeds herself.  "With time, Elinor, you and I will pull the real weeds of this galaxy."

***

Children needed sunlight, so Piers had Elinor playing in the yard while he scanned for warships.  She was good at gathering and stacking loose bricks, very orderly, unlike Alice the artist, who would have arranged them in a pleasingly haphazard way had she deigned to touch them at all. 

Elinor, bouncing along on little legs, two and a half, maybe three if the starvation and injuries set her back as much as he suspected.  Piers had forgotten how much he loved the age — the intensity of discovery, the unbridled delight, the world-ending despair, every emotion so pure.  He hadn't really forgotten; he just appreciated this little reminder in a desolate world.  If only he could keep her this way forever. 

Impossible not to think of Alice as he watched.  He had wanted a son for all the usual reasons, then when Alice began turning from 'the baby' into a real person in her third year, he found as much happiness in her as any son could bring.  He had Alice for seventeen too-short years before the She-Ons took her.  Would he have Elinor that long?

He doubted it.  An up-sun glint gliding into the Zone caught his attention and pulled him back to reality.  The child needed a mother and Piers needed to get on with his revenge. 

He put the warship under observation, one of the new, smaller ships that began appearing four months after the attack.  It ran steadily eastward, then darted ahead and jerked to a halt.  Amazing, the way the things moved.  Piers could understand the fascination that cost Fredrik his life.  Fredrik.  Fredrik was observing the warship attack as a scientist, noting everything he could for the sake of pure knowledge.  Piers could now do no less, though more to facilitate his quest for revenge. 

The ship made a northerly turn that would bring it closer, not directly at him, but still in the neighborhood.  If it darted forward, it would be on them instantly. 

"Elinor, come here."  She looked up from her bricks, but she was intent on her stacking and didn't move.  "Elinor!  Come here now!"

She stayed put.  The ship altered course again. 

He ran to gather her up roughly and retreat into the tall brush.  The warship continued its turn, then shot towards them, bearing down.  It passed nearby and stopped beyond their bushes, where it hovered. 

"Daddy?" Elinor said, uncertain whether she had made him angry.  She had. 

"Father," he snapped with an eye on the ship.  "I am Father, Elinor, and when I say 'Come here,' you come right away, understand?  Right away!"

"Yes?"  She was close to tears, unsure if the situation required them. 

"Yes."  He pointed to the ship now drifting backwards with the breeze.  "Bad, Elinor.  That will hurt you if it sees you.  When I tell you to do something, you do it, understand?  I love you and I don't want it to hurt you."

Elinor nodded, no tears.  The ship glided forward, away. 

"Good girl."  He gave her a hug and helped her back into her shirt.  Bare skin was too bright in the sunlight to hide from the She-Ons, who apparently from the great distances they were firing, had excellent eyesight. 

The ship darted around, scouring an area perhaps half a mile away.  Now that he was 'observing' the motion, it was not what he had thought.  Rather than the zip, zip, jerky movement, it was more a slingshot acceleration up to speed and then a slingshot to a stop, a smooth, flowing motion despite the incredible accelerations involved.  An awesome technology. 

The ship made a sweeping turn toward them again and Piers caught his breath.  It passed overhead, stopping just beyond.  Piers felt the fear again and held Elinor tightly, but his observation gave his mind something to do besides churn his stomach. 

This death machine was smaller than the warships, an arrowhead shape twenty feet at its broadest, forty feet long.  The off-white underside had a concavity to it, a shallow depression with a black rail of some sort running the length of the ship.  Short black spikes studded the surface in a grid pattern. 

Although smaller, the undersurface had the same shape as the glowing bottom of the warship that took out the campfire months before.  The spikes could be discharge electrodes, dumping some incredible voltage into the air, enough to make Piers' hair stand on end from forty feet away.  He looked hard at the white material and concluded it was plastic or ceramic, a dielectric to keep the voltage from killing the crewmen. 

Where the voltage came from, how the rail launched the electric bolt, things Piers could not guess.  But he would learn.  Before he destroyed the aliens, he would learn their secrets. 

The ship obligingly turned to give him a profile view, then sped off to check out some other suspicious area.  Piers began breathing again. 

"Daddy?"

"Father, Elinor.  Father."  Daddy was a lucky man with a courageous wife and a beautiful daughter, whose luck had run out. 

Governance

Governor Crauley arrived on Eterra five months into the occupation, a law school acquaintance of Emperor Eslan Carmina, loath to soil his hands with the trade.  A pudgy waist and curly, thinning hair atop gave him the mien of a man older and wiser than he was, and he knew it.  His choice of bookish glasses enhanced the facade. 

Crauley more than made up for any shortfall in wisdom with wiles and gall, excellent attributes for leadership. 

Decisiveness was another attribute.  During his tour of Bay City, he saw a house on the university campus that suited him.  The university chancellor was given three days to move out.  The campus itself suited him, too, so he directed his occupation force to move its headquarters there. 

"That's going to foul up school operations, Governor."

"Tell me some things you learned in university that you use, General." The general hesitated, trying to think of something.  "See?  You knew everything you really needed by eighth grade.  Pick the best buildings, then we'll bulldoze a buffer around our compound."

The general set a task group to work, instructing them to save as much of the campus as they could get away with.  They tried. 

"We don't need the library, General.  Knock it down."

A blank gaze from the disbelieving soldier.  "You'd waste all that knowledge, sir?"

"I said knock it down.  We have nothing to learn from this Eterran subspecies.  Leave the power station, though."

"Why, Governor?  We've already installed field engine generators."

"We can fuel the boilers with books from the library," said the Governor, "so we don't waste all that knowledge."

***

Of the many interchangeably faceless Deputies who arrived with Governor Crauley, one had 'street smarts,' a special talent for learning the lay of the land, and unknown to Crauley, the Emperor had assigned this Deputy a special additional duty. 

Half a mile around from the university compound's main gate, Deputy Lieutenant Governor Endorf leaned against the remaining wall of a building on the Eterran side of the bulldozed perimeter, twilight shadows hiding what might have been a weapon.  It wasn't, but appearances counted in his chosen sideline and he didn't wish to be bothered by footpads, which he wasn't. 

At the appointed time, Endorf heard the strained sound of an Eterran petro motor cranking up.  He looked around, then headlights flared on a vehicle across the way.  It had been sitting there in plain sight, watching him all this time.  He hadn't noticed it.  He smiled in recognition of a professional besting and took the lesson to heart. 

The rust-colored vehicle covered the distance quickly, rolling past his own electric auto and crunching through the chunky, dozer-ground rubble trailing the faintest cloud of blue exhaust.  The vehicle circled the wall once to clear any doubts about solitude and came to a halt with its exhaust huffing away at the Deputy's shins.  The cloud was thicker than necessary when the driver shut his motor off. 

Endorf could take an insult, especially an earned one.  He could give them, too, but insults were a valueless commodity in commerce.  A man wearing a flower print shirt and chrome sunglasses slid from the auto. 

"What have you got for me?"

"Good one, about three.  Lots out there, Governor, afraid to come in.  You pass a law saying they're game, I can scavenge you all you can handle.  You pass it quiet, though, so we don't scare 'em in.  I'll make sure the right people know about it."  The man pulled off the sunglasses and tossed them through the window into his vehicle.  He came back and stopped.  "Hey, you got six fingers on your hand.  How many you got on the other?"

The Deputy smiled the dull smile of tolerance.  "Five.  So?"

"So — Nothing, I guess."  The man opened the cavernous trunk.  "This what you want, no missing parts?"

A boy, about three, lay quivering on blankets, hands and feet bound with packing tape, eyes and mouth covered with it. 

"Yes," said Endorf.  "Young, ignorant, trainable orphans.  Adoptable, of course."

"Of course.  You She-Ons really want us to believe these are going for adoption?"

"Want?  No.  We expect you to believe it like you expect us to believe these are really orphans.  Hundreds of Xian families lined up to adopt an orphaned alien child."  Endorf slipped a hand inside his jacket and the flowered shirt backed off a touchy step.  The Deputy produced an envelope.  "What we want is for you to deliver quietly and in quantity."

"Can do, Gov, and I can guarantee they're orphans.  That's easy to arrange out in the Zone."  The man held out his hand.  The Deputy placed the envelope in it.  The man sorted through the Eterran bills it contained. 

"I was hoping for She-On Credits."

"We have to account for all the Credits we hand out.  You start paying taxes in Credits, maybe that will change.  Dump him in my vehicle."  Endorf opened his trunk and the Eterran bundled the sniffling child into it. 

"Adoption," said the Eterran with a smirk. 

"Adoption," said the Xian with a straight face. 

The scavenger drove off and Endorf closed the trunk after checking his purchase's integrity.  He guided his auto through the ruins and back into the university compound, heading for an isolated building with small, isolated rooms, where a forget-and-keep-quiet drug from Aptera waited for the boy.  He also had a tattoo kit, for the boy's face. 

***

Gregor Donal milled around the Governor's office with the waiting sycophants and favor-seekers.  He had paperwork for the Governor's signature, but Crauley was tied up in a meeting somewhere.  The Governor's Letter of Appointment was framed on the wall behind the wide desk, signed by Roger Varta himself, Altmark Corporation Registrar of Shares.  Interesting. 

Later, Donal checked the Appointment Letters of the Lieutenant Governor and all the Deputies.  Only the Deputy for Indigenous Relations had Varta's signature; all the rest were signed by Registry bureaucrats.  Roger must have been too busy. 

The war fleet had gone home and left Donal on Eterra to fend for himself.  They had gotten the Emperor to sign his orders, so there was no appeal.  Very well.  Perhaps it was time to see if aggressiveness worked.  With all these unenlightened new civilians arriving from Xi Ahn, Gregor Donal could become anything he wanted. 

Military expert, Chief of Staff, Emperor's secret agent.  Anything. 

***

Donal entered his office to find Eterran workmen packing his desk into boxes.  "Deputy Lieutenant Governor's orders, Master," said one worker. 

"I'm a lieutenant, not a master.  Put it all back, then go home for the day."

An hour later, a Deputy popped into the office expecting to find it empty.  Donal looked up from his desk.  "May I help you, Deputy?"

"Uh, this is my office.  I moved your office down the hall."

"Is it a nice office?"

"Uh, sure."

"Then you have permission to use it."

"Wait a second.  You're Donal, right?  You're only an Assistant Deputy."

Donal set his pen down with military precision.  "I've retained my Fleet commission, Deputy.  You don't have to call me 'Lieutenant' or 'Sir,' but this is a military assignment, not a political appointment.  Who signed your appointment letter?"

"The Registrar of Shares, I think."

"I would find that surprising, Deputy.  Roger signs only for Governors like Crauley.  He has underlings in the Registry sign the rest."  Donal jerked a thumb toward the framed military orders behind him.  The Deputy went over to read it. 

"Criminy, Lieutenant!  The Emperor himself signed your appointment!"

"Look, Deputy, I'm Permanent Party.  I was here when you came and I'll be here after you leave.  My job is to keep the Governor and his political appointees out of trouble.  If you guys stir up a revolt, remember, Xi Ahn is four months away.  There's nobody out here to rescue you but me."

***

His Deputies had been complaining, so Governor Crauley dropped by Lieutenant Donal's office. 

"What exactly, Donal, is your position here?" he inquired. 

"I'm an officer of the Imperial Fleet, sir, assigned to assist you."

"Then why don't I sign your performance evaluations?"

"My records are kept by the Imperium, sir.  I have copies of their evaluations."  The lieutenant reached into a lower drawer. 

"How can they evaluate you from forty thousand light years away?"

"Their grading is based on other criteria."  Lieutenant Donal dropped the folder on the desk and opened to a grade sheet.  Crauley saw all the check marks ran right down the center of the page.  "Every one the same, absolutely average.  Make of that what you will, sir."

After giving the sheet a cold stare, Governor Crauley left for his own office, mind churning.  Absolutely average meant inconspicuous — deliberately inconspicuous.  The Emperor had personally assigned the man to Eterra – a Fleet officer wearing civilian clothes without any particular duties who reported directly to the Imperium.  And his evaluations were based on 'other criteria,' criteria visible across forty thousand light years.  The implications were obvious. 

Eslan Carmina had inserted a spy to keep track of Crauley. 

***

Life takes strange turns, none stranger than having aliens show up and conquer your planet.  Biologist Fredrik Rikardsen had become wealthy noticing the fine details of life, but with life's larger details he was as human as anyone, and with the large detail of the She-On attack, he was dead.  Piers now paid close attention to the large details that meant life and death, and he quickly noticed that on each seventh day, the She-Ons rested. 

Piers doubted that his planet's destroyers had any dealings with it's Creator, but the pattern permitted Elinor to play safely in the sunlight once a week. 

"Elinor, hide!" he shouted.  She vanished beneath a lilac bush. 

"Come here!"  She stayed hidden. 

"Elinor, please come here!" and she was back with him, a serious game they played, for Piers suspected the She-Ons were not the only danger in the Forbidden Zone.  Instant obedience might be that life and death detail in this lawless wilderness, and Piers had already lost too much to neglect it. 

He clambered up the bricks above Fredrik's window, the highest point around, to survey his kingdom.  Downtown was gone, and with it, his local broker and a quarter million in street-name stocks and bonds.  His bank was gone, only a few thousand there.  Piers' real wealth lay in the rental houses and storefronts he acquired over two decades, but now he owned only three dozen vacant lots in an area the aliens claimed as their own.  With land titles at the sufferance of the She-Ons, it was a good time to leave the real estate business. 

Although Piers Amhensen had brokered real estate before the invasion, biology was his hobby from his youngest days, and he was forever bringing pond and woodland creatures home to upset his parents.  Despite a lack of native talent, he worked hard and earned a degree in Cellular Chemistry, but mediocre grades kept him out of contention when the research companies did their hiring.  That left him real estate, his father's profession.  Piers knew the business and did well at it, but it wasn't what he wanted. 

After marrying and building his home in this new subdivision, he discovered Eterra's most noted biologist lived right up the hill.  Fredrik Rikardsen had recently retired and was looking for a part-time assistant to aid in his pet hobby, longevity research.  The day Piers screwed up his courage and knocked on Fredrik's door was fortunate for them both.  It would have been fortunate for the entire planet had their researches not been terminated by the She-On attack. 

Now Piers was a father again, most inconvenient for a revolutionary.  What to do with the little girl, perhaps find a married couple to take her off his hands when he returned to society.  Yes, that would be best.  A child with only one parent would grow up without a balanced view of life.  Maybe Fredrik's son Geri would take her in.  Maybe, if Geri Rikardsen were still alive. 

Elinor was wandering off, so Piers dropped from the wall and joined her in her exploration. 

***

Let the Deputies handle the details, that's what Roger Varta said.  They do the work, you get the glory. 

It sounded great when the Registrar briefed him on Xi Ahn, but it wasn't working out that way.  Governor Crauley tapped his fingernails on the desk while yet another Deputy vented steam about Lieutenant Donal's current latest indignity.  A regulation standardizing business opening and closing times in Bay City had made it to Donal's desk — and died.  Donal sent it back to the Deputy with a polite note explaining that unnecessary and inefficient regulations hampered commerce, which provided the income for the taxes Xi Ahn levied, which the Governor used to purchase the goods that filled the bi- weekly freighters, which made the whole exercise worthwhile to Corporation Treasury (whose imprint was on every big paycheck Crauley got, unmentioned but implied). 

"Why is an Assistant Deputy worried about upsetting the Eterrans?  Whose planet is this, anyway?  And why does Donal have any say at all?  I mean, he's only an Assistant."  The Deputy ran out of arguments and waited impatiently before Crauley's desk for a decision. 

Donal had a say because Crauley liked the big paychecks.  "Donal is part of the approval process.  If you can't get something past him, don't expect to get it past me."

"Who's Governor around here, Donal?"

Seriously wrong question.  Crauley let it hang in the air while the Deputy began to appreciate the fact.  "If there's any doubt in your mind, I'd suggest you think about your highly paid job and the length of a starship ride home, then answer the question for me yourself, Deputy."

"Uh, you are, sir.  You're the Governor."

"As long as we understand that, Deputy.  Unless you have another problem you can't handle yourself, good-bye."

The Deputy retreated out the door and Crauley ran a hand through his thinning hair.  It felt even thinner.  This was not the first complaint on Donal, but the lieutenant always had a reason for whatever he did. 

***

Governor Crauley downed an anti-acid tablet.  For months now, everything he did went through the Emperor's man, Donal.  Donal changed the orders whenever he felt like it, always happy to explain why he did, how the original order might provoke the natives, and Crauley dared not cross him.  One word to the Emperor and Crauley could be back on Xi Ahn having to lawyer for a living, and even the crookedest lawyer could never steal the kind of money a Planetary Governor did. 

Donal kept things running smoothly, but he was an axe hanging over the Governor's neck.  Crauley popped another anti-acid.  Maybe if he wrote Eslan Carmina about Lieutenant Donal, he would know where he stood. 

***

Piers woke.  One moment asleep, the next awake with his eyes closed but with his mind clear and every other sense alert.  Piers had been a slave to morning coffee for as long as he'd been in real estate, but no longer.  Mere weeks after he tried Fredrik's final immortality mix, he began waking like this. 

He felt movement and opened his eyes.  Elinor had crawled atop his blanket again and was curled next to him in a restless dream.  He flipped the blanket off himself and over her, watching her as she stirred in her sleep. 

What dreams went through this somber little girl's mind, what waking thoughts did she have?  Was she forgetting the horror of watching her mother die, or did she relive those weeks every night?

"Forget, forget," he whispered softly and stroked her fine hair, but still she would murmur something like 'daddy' in her troubled sleep.  Dreaming of good times or crying for rescue, Piers could not tell. 

He slipped carefully from his cot without waking her and dressed in his colorless style, a fashion best resembling a piece of trash or a pile of rags, anything but a target.  A last glance at Elinor, and he pushed through the steel bulkhead covering the basement steps. 

With sunlight tinting the predawn skies, Piers made his way down to Elinor's farmhouse to retrieve the hobyorse rocker.  He descended the steps into the pit, then stopped.  Things were amiss. 

The photograph album lay ripped and scattered, workbench drawers opened and dumped, everything carelessly gone through.  Piers pulled the rocker from the debris and climbed from the pit, looking around cautiously.  Someone had been to the farmhouse. 

The field of play had changed. 

***

"Elinor, do not play with the mice," said Piers. 

"Why?" — the long, slightly rising 'why?' that would dominate their conversations during this stage in her development. 

"Because they have work to do."

"Why?"

"Because you and I wish to live forever and they will tell us how.  Play with Skweek.  He's retired."

"Re-tired?"

"Multiple syllables.  Good.  Re-tired.  What you and I will do when we have crushed the She-On Empire."

***

Gregor Donal entered the Governor's office to find the Bay City Lieutenant Governor and all the Deputies watching him with varying degrees of smirk. 

"You have," Governor Crauley said, "at one time or another countermanded the orders of each of us.  You have intimidated the Lieutenant Governor and flummoxed my Deputies to the point where they regard you with fear.  Well, four months ago I wrote to the Emperor about you, and guess what, buddy?"  The Governor held up a letter on Imperial stationery. 

The party was over.  "I'm cooked?"

"You are in the middle of the griddle, pal."

***

Fleet Lieutenant Gregor Donal was officially booted off Crauley's semi- prestigious 'planetary' staff of Deputies and reassigned to Lieutenant Governor Haier's Bay City Regional staff.  It didn't make any difference.  Only the wives kept track of seniority, and anyway, Haier was just down the hall from Crauley.  Donal kept his old office four classrooms away from the Governor, where Crauley could keep him under thumb. 

Well, it was fun while it lasted.  Donal had proven to himself he could govern as well as any of them. 

Governing was not what the Governor had in mind for him, though.  Crauley was giving him all the chores the Deputies didn't want.  Not the routine administrative busywork that bureaucrats thrive on, but the odd, find- your-own-way stuff. 

Donal had somehow found his own way to Sandviken Printing, a heavily guarded concrete bunker of a building on the far side of Eterra.  Carpenters ran around measuring, sawing, hammering, while millwrights unbolted and disassembled.  Eight unique, high-precision gravure presses eventually wound up in custom crates, waiting for pickup by the bi-weekly freighter from Xi Ahn.  The orders came directly from Corporation Treasury. 

Sandviken printed the banknotes for every country on Eterra.  Using tons of pressure, the presses put such microscopic detail on the bills that no counterfeit money could survive more than light scrutiny.  Xi Ahn had nothing like them, at least not until the next freighter unloaded in Illium, then Eterra would have nothing like them. 

On the planet Aptera, the forced conversion to Xian Credits destroyed so many businesses that the Apteran economy collapsed.  Collapsed economies don't generate much to tax, so, lesson learned, Carmina was collecting Eterran taxes in Eterran currency, then buying open market goods for shipment to Xi Ahn. 

Donal was babysitting a big satchel of cash to pay for the presses, but he couldn't help wondering why Sandviken didn't just print the money to pay itself.  The local government bureaucrats required a paper record of everything, so they gave Donal a form to sign attesting to the value of the presses.  Sandviken Printing filled in the paperwork for him, marking the value at nineteen and a half million Credits. 

Governor Crauley had not mentioned the amount of money Donal was delivering.  The satchel was sealed and Donal had signed for only the seals, so he wasn't worried about it, but the amount of money impressed him. 

After four days crating machinery and three days waiting for the freighter, Donal sat in Fleet uniform across from Arn Sandviken, fourth and now last generation owner of the printing firm.  Civilian clothes were more appropriate to Donal's mission, but the local laundry knew he was Xian and must have used plaster instead of starch in his shirts. 

Underlings at a table counted the money for Sandviken, a thin, light- complected man in his fifties.  One counter delivered a slip of paper to the executive, who stared at it for a while.  He slammed a fist on the desk then looked angrily at Donal.  "We're a little short here."  The words were controlled, but uttered through clenched teeth.  He gave the slip to his assistant, who gave it to Donal.  "The errand boy gets a cut, too?  Is that it?"

Donal knew the language well enough to catch an insult.  "Errand," pause, "Boy?"  He was across the room and looming over the Eterran's desk before he finished the word 'boy.'  Donal had to take whatever Crauley threw at him, but this man was no Xian.  "Perhaps you'd explain what you mean — sir," he said, controlling his own words. 

Sandviken wasn't intimidated.  "You know what I mean!  Look at the slip."

Donal did.  Twenty million, even.  The price was nineteen and a half. 

The Eterran snapped to his feet and strode over to the counting table, ignoring Donal.  The counters pointed to their totals and shrugged shoulders.  Sandviken hunched over their table and slammed his fist down again. 

"Des, des that Crauley!  I should have known.  Give this (Donal didn't recognize the word) She-On his receipt and get him out of my sight."

Sandviken continued to mutter with his back to Donal.  An assistant gave Donal a slip of paper and apologetically ushered him from the room.  Once in the hallway, Donal checked the receipt. 

Twenty-one million, even. 

***

Donal managed to pack his laundered shirts without breaking them.  He would recheck the paperwork after he returned to Bay City, but he was certain what he would find.  Governor Crauley had listed the purchase at twenty-one million to Corporation; Sandviken had told his shareholders and government tax men he received nineteen and a half.  Crauley and Sandviken would then split the difference between themselves, but Crauley had taken an extra quarter million for his trouble. 

An eye-opening experience for Donal.  They did not teach this style of management at the Academy. 

***

Deputy Endorf waited at the usual spot, checking his timepiece with a handlight.  The dealer was late. 

Finally a rust-colored auto-transport pulled around the corner and dimmed the headlights.  After the usual circle, it stopped, careful not to cloud the Deputy with its exhaust, which in the past seemed to affect the price the Deputy was willing to pay.  Another commercial decision. 

"You're late."

"Yeah, well it's been kinda' dicey out there lately.  Scavengers been turning up missing, and I don't think it's just 'cause the patrol ships are getting thicker.  Although that is something you could work on, Governor.  I gotta' be more careful, and that means I need more money."

Endorf smiled kindly.  "I pay for output, not process.  I have other suppliers, and you get the going rate.  Period."

The dealer popped the trunk lid but said nothing. 

"Actually," said Endorf, "you get less than the going rate this time.  One of the girls last time was used goods."

The dealer closed the trunk lid and faced the Deputy.  "Used?"

"Let's say if you were the girl's father, you feel like killing somebody."

"If I was the girl's father, I'd be dead.  You don't go shorting me because of some — what the des are you doing with these 'orphans?'  How close are you checking them, anyway?"

"Just looking for damage."  The dealer made no move to open the trunk.  Endorf sighed.  The hour was late and he had other chores before he went home.  "If you haven't noticed, I don't care one way or the other about the children.  They're a commodity that I trade in, right?  So what have you got?"

The dealer popped the latch.  "Boy, five, girl, two.  How comes you pay more for boys?"

"Different clientele.  More demand.  These are undamaged?"

"They got the right number of fingers and toes," the dealer said curtly.  "I don't go poking around where I don't belong, Governor.  You pay me for fingers and toes.  Period."

Endorf poked around the merchandise, taking his time and drawing some packing-tape-muffled cries from the goods.  He gave the smaller one a six- fingered pat on the rump just to irritate the dealer.  "Better quality stuff.  We'll forget about last time.  Good will gesture."

"Yeah, good will."  The man rearranged their clothes, then hefted the two bound children into Endorf's vehicle and took the two payment envelopes.  "Like I was saying, it's getting dicey out there.  People been following me sometimes.  The price is gotta' go up if you want me to stay in business."

The dealer pulled the blankets from his own trunk and shook them out.  A pink hair ribbon went flying. 

Endorf picked up the ribbon.  "If someone's following you, you shouldn't leave evidence lying around."  He slipped the ribbon into his pocket. 

Endorf departed and threaded through the compound's back streets to what was once a freshman dormitory.  A long, isolated building: concrete block construction, two squat floors of individual rooms opening outside onto common balconies.  Endorf had the windows bricked up and the balconies enclosed into upper and lower hallways, using only one floor at a time for his guests.  This allowed local workers to clean the other floor without coming into contact with the children. 

As usual, Doctor Ritt waited for him outside in her auto.  Solid, bottom-heavy, a pinched face with no make-up, deliberately drab for a purpose.  She hailed from the Xian nation of Altamiras, a physician with an interesting past under a previous name that qualified her exceptionally for the dirty business at hand.  She was running a small-time drug ring out of a hospital when a dissatisfied customer threatened to turn her in.  Ritt had unwisely prescribed murder as a remedy, doing such a novel but amateurish job that the police were on to her immediately.  She wisely fled, and was now a fugitive with a conviction in absence for the killing, and the admiration of forensic pathologists all over Xi Ahn. 

Endorf didn't like her and he didn't trust her, but he needed her to administer the Apteran drugs and handle certain medical tasks.  He was marginally comforted that both knew should anything happen to him, her death warrant would arrive on the eighth-next freighter, signed by the Emperor himself. 

He pulled the boy from the trunk and took the stairway to the upper level.  Ritt slung the girl over her narrow shoulder and closed the trunk, following him up the steps.  The 'quiet' rooms were at the far end of the corridor, heavily soundproofed for holding customers until the initial drug dose took effect.  They went to the end and dumped their squirming loads onto the mattress.  Endorf filled out data sheets on the new arrivals while Ritt weighed them for correct dosage.  She needled them quickly, and they were out. 

"'ET79' for the boy and '80' for the girl," said Endorf, tossing her two tags and a tagging plier.  "Both single stripe."  Two clicks later, the children had tags in their right earlobes. 

"I'm getting too good at this," Ritt said, peeling the tape from their mouths in case the drug caused vomiting.  She undid their buttons and slid a stethoscope over their hearts. 

Endorf noted without comment that she first warmed it against her palm.  Considerate.  "Want to do stripes or rounds now?"

"Rounds.  I'm not up to tattooing at the moment."  She rolled the limp children onto their stomachs and made some notations on Endorf's data sheets. 

They left the children on the mattress and went down the hall to room 207.  The dorm originally comprised single rooms with two beds and a bathroom partitioned off in one corner, but Endorf seldom had more than half a dozen guests awaiting the next freighter, so he had removed the partitions and one bed. 

Unlocking the door, they found 207's occupant seated on the toilet.  That was a good sign.  He didn't seem to notice them.  That was also a good sign.  They waited respectfully while he finished and washed his hands, then Ritt took him under the room's single light and examined him. 

"ET74," she read from his ear tag.  "Healing nicely.  Should be ready when the freighter arrives.  Want to check out my work, Hanz?"  Endorf declined icily and made a note on his clipboard.  She knelt in front of the four-year-old boy.  "Do you remember me from yesterday?"

"No."

"Do you remember your mother?"  He shook his head.  "Do you know what a mother is?"  He nodded. 

Endorf busied himself cleaning the boy's food tray while her questions continued.  The child had been with them nine days, off the drug for two.  His memory wouldn't start working again for another week, and by then he would be on his way to the master planet.  'ET74' was a special-order two striper, a 'Household' slave already sold to someone on Xi Ahn.  He was worth fifteen thousand Credits to Endorf, and a third that much to Ritt, so she was making sure the drug had done its job and not done any permanent damage. 

The single stripes were worth half as much, but they took less work, usually only drug monitoring.  The drug was an extract of the Apteran nepenthe vine called Tide, named after an ocean phenomenon associated with Aptera's very large moon.  Tide's effect was like surf on sand castles.  It wiped memories, beginning with the most recent and working its way backward.  The recipient would eventually start forgetting learned habits and language skills, then the brain side of motor skills, then finally, literally, when everything else was forgotten, the person would forget to breathe. 

The Apterans used Tide in criminal rehabilitation, erasing past bad behavior and retraining good habits.  Sometimes it worked.  Some people, on the other hand, were just born bad. 

Such was Tide's power for good and ill that Eslan Carmina banned its export from Aptera as soon as he heard of it.  Trafficking in Tide would get one marooned on one of the Empire's uninhabited planets.  The only allowed use outside Aptera was on children destined for the slave trade, and that use was an Imperial secret. 

Tide kept working for a while after the last dose, so it took judgment to produce the right amount of forgetting.  Ritt was getting good at using it.  She ruined a couple children in the beginning, but now her timing was excellent.  'ET74' didn't remember modesty or his mother, but he remembered to wash his hands.  Just about right. 

Ritt finished her questioning.  The Tide-washed child remained blank behind the twin stripes running up his face.  He knew no past; he knew no future; his only existence was right now, and then for only a few minutes span. 

"That's it, buddy," she said, slapping him gently on the rear.  "We've got four more of your pals to check out, but they're all single stripers, not special like you, Stud.  You be good 'til we come back."

"Sometimes," Endorf groaned at her, "I don't think you take this job seriously."

"Don't dare to," she snapped. 

***

"Thank you for your concern, Endorf, but I'll let Security worry about the expense of Forbidden Zone patrols.  They do serve a purpose."

"Please enlighten me, then, Governor.  As far as I can see, they're just piling craters on top of craters and rekilling folks who are already dead."

"You are correct," said Crauley, in a good enough mood to contain a growing exasperation with this low-profile Varta appointee questioning him.  The man was one of the few useful Deputies around, volunteering to help with quarterly inventory, finance, and operations reports whenever he finished with his own indistinctly specified duties. 

"Most of the firing is target practice," Crauley explained, "but you can hear the rumbling in Bay City when the wind is right.  At night you can see the lightning flashes reflect off the clouds.  People know what it is and they think Eterrans are dying.  People remember that we Xians are cruel, heartless bastards who delight in causing suffering when we're not otherwise occupied eating babies or torturing pets.  People conclude the only reason we don't destroy their nice homes in Bay City is because we like the taxes we get from them.  People therefore cheerfully pay their taxes and give us fewer headaches. 

"And therefore, Deputy, the Zone patrols will continue."  Crauley unrolled his hand suggestively in the direction of his open office door.  "Any questions?"

"No, sir," and the Deputy took the hint and departed, leaving Crauley wondering what 'Indigenous Relations' were, and if the man really did have as many fingers on that hand as Crauley thought he saw. 

***

Months after the Sandviken journey, Donal was busy at another of the distasteful jobs Governor Crauley assigned him – mostly busy trying to fend off boredom on this one: supervising Eterrans loading crates of plunder into the Corporation freighter.  One box was marked 'Governor Crauley - Personal.'  The manifest listed only its crate number and weight. 

"What's in here?" Donal asked a worker. 

"What we'd call 'supplemental retirement funds,' Master."

"My rank is lieutenant, worker.  Open it."

The Eterran stared at him, "The Governor's personal stuff?"

Donal stared back. 

"Yes, Lieutenant."

The crate held smaller cartons filled with jewelry and gold, Forbidden Zone loot confiscated from scavengers.  It sickened Donal, these remnants of people he'd killed. 

"I want a complete inventory of these items, then repack the crate."

"Lieutenant, the freighter leaves in the morning."

"Then you'd better get started.  I want two copies."

The worker gave him a sour look. 

"That was not a request, worker.  Have any like this come through before?"

"More and more frequently, Lieutenant."

"Every time, worker, inventory.  Two signed copies, only to me, no other record.  You understand?"

"Yes, Lieutenant," the worker said with half a smile, "I think I do."

"Good.  I'll send some help down here for you."

***

Gregor Donal discovered a card from Preston Tyrell in his mail. 

After returning to Xi Ahn, Preston had quit the Fleet and was using family wealth to found a financial newspaper, the Illium Financier.  Did Gregor have any news from Eterra?

All his mail in both directions was opened and censored, so no, Gregor did not, other than that parrots ate fruits and nuts, not children, and that some Eterrans kept them as pets. 

Although the largest nation on Xi Ahn, Illium had little cachet among the others.  Donal wrote back suggesting Preston change the name to des-Ahns Financier.  More international.  The two Ahn rivers, Blue and White, touched three countries before combining in Illium, and 'des' meant 'two' in the Illian dialect. 

It had a ruder meaning in Eterran.  Preston would appreciate the joke. 

***

Deputy Endorf waited by his wall watching the stars crawl across the cloudless sky.  His second-most reliable supplier was late and getting later, but he couldn't call it a night and go home.  His commodity purchases were all delivered fresh from harvest, and none of his suppliers were allowed storage facilities — no telling what condition the children would be in if left in scavenger hands for any length of time. 

He'd wait all night if he had to, then sleep in the next morning, putting off his feed and watering chores until noon.  It was the nature of the business. 

Endorf checked his timepiece again.  There were times on this alien planet when he felt as though he were back on his parents' farm tending the livestock.  The Emperor paid a lot better, though, and the job didn't entail any milking. 

***

Officer Thorgil placed two discards, one on each stack, then drew two cards from the deck.  Officer Dahl took one discard, then dropped one on the stack.  Thorgil suspected Dahl was making up his own rules for the game. 

"I'm just out of training," Thorgil said, "so I expected to get overnight guard shift, but you're pretty senior at the station house.  How'd you get stuck guarding the She-On compound tonight?"

Dahl grimaced at his hand, as easy to read as a book.  "Lost a bet.  Played a hand better than this one and lost.  Don't know why I'm teaching you the game, since you're beating me, too.  I guess I'm just unlucky at cards."

Thorgil could believe it.  Guarding the aliens was easy duty if one could stay awake, though most Bay City policemen found it distasteful for any of the tens of thousands of reasons lying unburied out in Eterra's Forbidden Zones.  The North University neighborhood was quiet to start with, but fear of the She-Ons laid a deathly pall over it. 

An electric-eye warning bell dinged, shaking both men's attention out to the entrance drive and the glare of approaching headlights.  An auto was rolling through the entrance directly at them. 

"Run!"  Dahl tossed his cards and hit the barrier switch, then yanked the rookie policeman out of the shack.  Steel plates rotated up from the pavement behind them, blocking the way into the compound as the two officers ran out a safe distance.  When they turned back, the auto was still rolling toward the guard shack, at a leisurely five miles an hour.  It crunched into a steel post short of the shack, kinking the bumper.  The engine sputtered and stalled with a cloud of blue exhaust smoke.  No one in the auto. 

Thorgil started toward the rust-colored vehicle, but Dahl held him back and went to examine the situation himself.  "Oh, des."  He reached in the open window and pulled out a sheet of paper.  Thorgil came up behind and looked in.  A body wearing a gaudy flower print shirt lay sideways in the front seat, oozing darkly.  Dahl handed Thorgil the note. 

One word.  "Slaver?"

"Yeah," said Dahl, "the Resistance got him.  Looks like they beat him to death."

"Why?  What's a slaver?"

A She-On security man emerged from the compound and started out to see what was going on.  Dahl leaned back into the auto, going through the dead man's pockets.  "The She-Ons have been taking Eterran slaves to their planet.  You noticed there aren't any children playing in the streets?"

"I haven't been here long enough to notice much of anything," said Thorgil, who came from East Bay and had never been in the North University neighborhood the She-Ons chose to infest.  "The She-Ons have been kidnapping children from here?"

"Not themselves, just buying them from scavengers like this piece of dirt.  You got children, you don't want to be anywhere near the She-Ons.  They had to shut down the local school because all the families moved out to other parts of town."

Thorgil couldn't believe it, an Eterran selling Eterran children to the She-Ons for slavery.  No wonder the body was pounded to a pulp. 

The alien came up to the auto and looked in.  "Who's this?"  Dahl handed him the note.  "Slaver.  Humph.  Looks like your Resistance beat him to death."  He shrugged and gave the note back to Officer Dahl.  "Too bad."

Thorgil stepped forward angrily.  "You She-Ons have been kidnapping children?  Making slaves of them?"  Dahl took his arm and tried to pull him away, but Thorgil wanted an answer from the alien. 

The She-On stepped back.  "We — this isn't — not my idea.  I don't like it, but I've got about as much say as you do.  The children are all orphans, mostly from the Forbidden Zone, not from around here.  Guys like him," he pointed inside the auto, "they go scavenging out in the Zone and grab anyone they find.  It isn't right, but I can't stop it.  It's high up."

This She-On was not the problem, but Thorgil was still angry.  "Anyone with children has moved away from the neighborhood," he said with a glance back at Dahl. 

"They're reacting to rumors," answered the She-On.  "We can't stop that, even though the rumors are wrong."  He hesitated, clearly embarrassed by the situation.  "This guy never got past your guard post, so you handle it any way you want; just send me a report."  The She-On turned and headed back to the compound, resetting the street barriers as he went. 

Officer Dahl heaved a sigh.  "Thorgil, if you'd gotten the wrong She-On, you'd have been on your way to the slave camps yourself."

"It's not right," said Thorgil. 

"The whole Conquest wasn't right, but you live with it.  You're a policeman now, and sooner or later you'll have to arrest other Eterrans for these aliens."  Dahl opened the auto's door, scooted the battered body over, and sat behind the steering wheel. 

Thorgil heard a screech, then a ting-ting-ting as Dahl started the motor.  Fan blade, probably.  Dahl backed the auto away from the post, set the brake, and got out leaving it running.  "How about these, huh?" he said from behind the chrome sunglasses he found on the dashboard.  Dahl started going through papers he'd taken from the glove compartment.  "You want an auto?"

The walking-speed crash put a serious kink in the bumper, but otherwise the vehicle looked sound to Thorgil, maybe new piston rings judging by the blue exhaust plume.  And he did need an auto. 

"This guy owned the auto," said Dahl, "and since he doesn't need it, why don't you look after it for him?  Drive him down to Bay City Morgue while I start the paperwork.  Then either drop the auto off at the impound lot, or come back here with it.  I'm, uh, not going to mention it in the report.  If the city wants it, let them ask."

"So that's the way it works, huh?"

"No, not very often.  Usually it's a free cup of coffee."

Thorgil hesitated, unconvinced. 

"We're not here to steal, Thorgil.  But like I said, this guy's dead."

Over by the inner gate, the She-On was stomping down the last barrier.  The papers said the auto was paid for.  The bumper wouldn't cost much to fix.  It really was a decent auto. 

Thorgil just didn't know if he wanted to drive across town next to the battered corpse of a man who sold orphaned children into slavery. 

***

Elinor rocked listlessly on her hobyorse while Piers jotted down the last of the daily readings on his mice.  He listened to the creak, creak, creak for the longest time.  She had no playmates, no chance to learn the skills of dealing with others.  He saw the problem but had no solution.  Piers was not ready to return to Eterran civilization and its slavery, yet he wondered how living with only a forty-three-year-old widower and dozens of laboratory mice would affect the little girl. 

Maybe fairy tales would help.  Piers told her a tale about a princess in a castle who was forced by the king to marry a foreign prince she did not love.  What did 'marry' mean?  What was a princess?  Piers explained.  What was a castle?

He struggled through the tale as best he could.  Elinor wanted to meet the princess.  She wanted to go to the castle.  Piers explained it was make- believe.  Was that like lying?

Cursing the She-Ons under his breath, Piers' continued explaining.  The distinctions were losing Elinor, so he thought to have her try something that Alice was good at — making up her own fairy tales. 

When she finally grasped the concept, Elinor drew on her own experience and put together tales of mice.  Inventive stories, but absolutely literal.  Her mice never spoke, for mice never speak, and they acted as mice would act.  With a view unclouded by human experience, she saw through to the essentials of mouseness, and taught Piers things about mice he would never have noticed. 

The child had an intelligence comparable to Alice's, but of a different vein.  Fortunately, not all the books in Fredrik's basement were scientific manuals, so Piers decided to teach her to read. 

***

Every last stinking job landed on Donal's plate, like Bonfire duty: supervising workers throwing books into the boiler fires.  Bay City University had plenty of books to burn.  One worker was reasonably cute. 

"How does a girl get assigned to the boilers?" he asked. 

"A girl chooses a History professor for a father, one who voiced his displeasure at burning books, Master," she said.  An older man watching them, her father, bowed slightly to Donal, then threw some math books into the furnace.  "You assigned both of us to this task as a reward."

"My rank is lieutenant, worker.  This assignment is my reward, too."

"I'm sorry you don't enjoy your job," she said.  "A master should not have to wallow in his stupidity."

"We have less onerous work for those with the right attitude."

"Then I am where I belong."  She waved a history book at him.  "Do you know what this is, what you are wasting?"

"History?  Your people have no history before we came.  Your purpose is to serve Xi Ahn, and anything not serving that end is wasteful."

"Aaugh!"  She threw the book at him, missing badly. 

"Assault by a worker is a serious offense.  Workers, pick her up and come with me."

Two workers hesitated, then reluctantly grabbed her while another restrained her anxious father.  Donal left the power plant and led them to his office in the neighboring building.  The workers brought her in, then Donal told them to leave.  Their looks said stopping a rape was not worth their lives.  They left. 

"You'll get no satisfaction from me," she glared, looking about for a weapon. 

"Ouch.  You read romance novels as well as history," laughed Donal.  "Pull up a chair, Miss.  All that was for appearance."

"What do you want from me, Master?"  She spat the word 'master.'

"First, quit calling me 'master.'  My military rank is lieutenant, and rape is a serious offense in the Fleet.  Sorry to disappoint you, but I truly am interested in your history."

She continued to glare at him.

"This book destruction offends me as much as it does your father.  I'm stuck here for years, so perhaps you and your father might teach me of Eterra's past."

"Why do you burn books?"

"The same reason you do: somebody ordered me to.  The Governor is serious about stanching anything sustaining Eterran pride.  Like teaching history."

"He's burning more than history.  Science and math and medicine . . ."

"Stupidity, Miss, as you said.  Bring me copies of each text for my personal library.  Some day you might republish them."  Her glare weakened to skepticism.  "You have a name?"

"No."

Donal thumbed through the work assignment sheets.  "Karin seems the only girl's name on your shift.  Well, Karin, my name is Lieutenant.  What shall we talk about for the next fifteen minutes, for the sake of appearance?"

"Two minutes would meet our expectations, Lieutenant," said Karin. 

***

Donal ran through the latest inventory sheet on the Governor's supplemental retirement fund.  "This can't be right!"  He went down to the loading docks to find his man. 

"What is this 'fourteen teeth with gold fillings?'  Eterra doesn't use gold to fill teeth, only silver.  Did you make this up?"

"I guess I did, Lieutenant.  Sorry.  Gold sounded better than silver."

"Are there any silver teeth?  That's terrible."

The worker shook his head. 

"I know you're trying to help, but an honest inventory is what we need in — I don't want to have to — Ahh!"

"You want untarnished evidence in court, Lieutenant.  I'll do better from now on."

***

The history lesson ended.  Donal paid the professor. 

"It hurts, doesn't it, taking Xian money."

"Thank you for reminding us, Lieutenant," Karin said.  "We wouldn't need it if you hadn't banned teaching history."

"The Governor feels your history is not important to being good citizens of the Empire.  If it is not taught, Eterrans will not bother seeking it out."

"You always spout these standard lines," said Karin.  "You don't believe them.  You think if you sound like a good soldier they will let you return to She-On."

"Xi Ahn."

"Zhe-Ahn," she tried.  "Is Eterra such a horrible place?"

"Your planet is beautiful.  I just dislike what I must do here.  I wouldn't like Xi Ahn either if Corporation ran it."

"Corporation.  I've heard that before," said the professor. 

Donal caught himself.  "Altmark Corporation is the organization that administers Eterra.  The Emperor is Chairman of Altmark."

"Another standard line.  I see right through you, Lieutenant.  You're no conqueror at heart."  Karin looked into his eyes.  "You don't dislike what you do here, you hate it.  Inside, you're as human as I am."

"Two planets a galaxy apart with the same human species?  I don't think so.  We only look alike, Karin."

"More than looks, Lieutenant," said the professor.  "A She-On soldier raped an Eterran girl last month, and now she is pregnant."

Few soldiers remained on Xi Ahn, enlisted technical specialists and security men, mostly, and no officers that Donal knew of.  The Governor had kept this hushed up.  "I hadn't heard that, sir.  I'm sorry.  Rape penalties for soldiers are harsh."

"I'm glad you know that, Lieutenant," said the professor. 

Donal and Karin shared a glance. 

***

Officer Thorgil parked his new(ly-waxed) auto in the space by the She-On compound guard house.  Some day he'd have enough seniority that he wouldn't have to pull these night shifts. 

When he opened the door to the guard house, the other officer looked up from a magazine.  "Don't bother sitting, Thorgil.  Got a telephone call from the She-On Security Office, and a Deputy wants to talk to you about that dead slaver you and old man Dahl found.  Hike down to the inner gate and they'll take you where they want you."

A Deputy.  Deputies were high up.  Thorgil felt his stomach going to work on him. 

"Good luck in there.  Hope to see you again."

"Yeah.  Thanks a lot."

Thorgil began walking toward the gate, then an electric cart came out to get him.  He hopped in and asked the She-On where they were going. 

"Deputy's office.  If it's any comfort, I'm supposed to wait to bring you back."  It was indeed a comfort. 

The office turned out to be a former classroom, complete with chalkboards and erasers.  The Deputy sitting stiffly behind the professor's desk did not look anything like a professor, though.  Young man with high mileage.  Sharp eyes, the kind that don't miss things. 

"Officer Thorgil, yes?  I spoke with your Officer Dahl earlier today.  He mentioned that he carelessly omitted some details from his official report.  I'd like to hear everything from you.  And I do hope your stories match.  Sorting out details is such an unpleasant task."

More lay with those words than just the arrogant accent they came wrapped in.  Thorgil stood before the Deputy's desk and told him absolutely everything. 

"You still have the auto?  Here with you?"

"Yes, sir.  It's out at the guard house."

The Deputy considered things for a moment, then dialed a number on his telephone.  "Release Officer Dahl.  He won't be needed again."

If Thorgil had ever in his life been glad he'd been honest, this was the time.  The Deputy replaced the handset and said, "Let's go."

The electric cart soon pulled up to Thorgil's rust-colored auto.  The Deputy got out and looked into the interior.  "You had this cleaned?"

"No, sir.  Re-upholstered.  Didn't even want to start with the blood."

The Deputy went through the glove box then looked under the seats.  He went to the back seats and slid his hand down into the crease. 

"The upholsterers had these seats out?"

"Yes, sir.  They didn't find anything but coins and combs and such.  Trash."

"You asked them?  Why?"

His future was riding on his answer again.  He remembered the She-On agent saying the slaving was high up, so this could be the alien slaver trying to cover his tracks.  "I'm a policeman.  The auto had a murdered man in it." Or maybe this Deputy was the murderer. 

"Oh."  That seemed to satisfy the Deputy.  He closed the door and told Thorgil to open the trunk. 

"What was in here?"

"Old rags and blankets and stuff.  More trash.  We threw it out."

The Deputy looked all around the freshly carpeted trunk. 

"What's your interest here, Deputy?"

Thorgil couldn't believe he asked the question.  Stupid, deadly stupid.  Could he be lucky twice?

The Deputy pulled out of the trunk and closed the lid.  He turned to Thorgil and gave him a look that chilled the officer down to his boots. 

"The man was a slaver.  You wouldn't think it possible to smuggle children on an interstellar freighter, but it's happening.  There has to be a high level connection somewhere and I intend to find it.  This vehicle may have held a clue, but you've cleaned it up very well."

Lucky twice.  Thorgil felt almost sick. 

"You keep your mouth closed about this, Officer.  There are killers on both sides of this street and I don't wish to meet any of them.  Understand?"

"Yes, sir.  I wish you luck, sir."  Thorgil stupidly held his hand out to shake. 

The Deputy smiled the dull smile of tolerance at Thorgil and shook the offered hand.  Thorgil noticed the alien's hand even before he took it.  The six-fingered handshake felt a little enveloping, but Thorgil was glad this Deputy was on Eterra trying to protect the children. 

***

"Heard you lost a supplier," said the scavenger, glancing briefly at the Deputy's hand, "the guy with the crazy shirts."

"Yes," said Endorf, used to brief glances at his hand.  "Word gets around.  Is that why you insisted we meet here?"

"Uh-huh.  People don't come to this end of 28th Avenue unless they have to."

"I can see why.  What is that smell?"

"Sewer pipes dump into the river down below the turnaround.  This is as safe a place as you'll find in Bay City."

"So what do you have for me?"

"Nothing this time.  Me and my . . ."

"Nothing?  You drag me down here . . ."

The scavenger waved him quiet.  "Me and my pals," he said, motioning toward two large thugs hunkering in his auto, "need more money next time.  The usual meeting place is being watched, so we brought you down here so you could check the place out, you know?  Make sure your own folks don't hang around here.  You know, be smart about things, huh?"

Endorf thought about it.  It was smart.  "Yes.  All right.  So why should you get more money?"

"Children are a sideline, Gov'ner, bonus money.  Always have been.  We find 'em, we bring 'em in, but we're mostly looking for other stuff.  Jewelry, silverware, cash, that's where the money is, but the weeds and brush are growing again and we have a harder time finding stuff.  Plus, you haven't done anything about the patrol ships.  Pickings get too thin, we got no reason to be out there risking our necks unless we get more for your kind of stuff."

"I can't do anything about the patrol ships.  That's an entirely different operation.  As for prices, there have been some marketing changes on Xi Ahn, so the trade will barely support the current fee for boys right now.  Girls, maybe, we could use more girls at the moment.  How much?"

"Twenty percent."

"Market won't take that, but I like your sense of humor.  I'll kick it up ten percent for girls.  Your crew only and keep it to yourselves."

The scavenger spit off to the side, but his snort said he'd take the raise.  "You She-Ons are something else, come here try to run Eterra like a department store.  'Clearance special this week on orphan girls.  Everything must go.'"

The alien's comments had nothing to do with business, so Endorf let them bounce.  After all, these weren't Xian children he was buying.  "You prefer the old price?"

"Oh, no, no," laughed the scavenger.  "We've been scouting a new area of the Zone that's got signs of survivors — about nine miles up from the harbor road.  We'll find you some girls."

"Orphan girls."

"If they ain't, they will be."

***

"Elinor, Please do not play with the mice."

"But Skweek is hiding from me."

Skweek did that when Elinor wore him out, which she did more frequently now that she was older.  Skweek was a lilac descendant with a tollar upbringing, about the same age as Elinor and now retired. 

Piers rummaged around and found Toey, Alice's old velveteen critter of indeterminate species.  Toey was scorched from the Conquest, but still in one piece. 

"This is Toey, Elinor.  He does not say much, but he will listen if you talk to him."

"Will he hide like Skweek?" she asked with the little smile that said she knew he was gently teasing her.  As she grew, she was catching on. 

"No.  He is always there when you want to talk.  And he likes hugs."

She gave the toy a test hug.  Satisfactory, to all appearances.  "He is like me, Father.  I like hugs, too."

Justice

"Carmina is the most venal man on Xi Ahn," said Lord Daven, Pretender to the pretend throne of Regia, and more relevantly, Presiding Judge of Regia's Ultimate Court.  "It's an outrageous situation."

"You'll have no argument from me," said Joel Smithson, Duke of Illium, Chief Judge of Illium's Final Court, and more relevantly, host of this informal conference of Xi Ahn's highest judicial authorities.  "But the question is: What if he's telling the truth?"

The problem behind the question lay in the enslaved and sometimes mutilated children who began showing up in Xi Ahn's several countries.  No Xian nation enslaved children; that fate was reserved for bankrupts and non- violent criminals of great notoriety.  Yet Corporation was importing children it claimed were lawfully enslaved on their own alien planets by brutal alien governments.  Organizations on the barely legal fringe of Abolitionism were bringing suits to have the children freed.  Some suits were successful and some failed, but appeals on both sides had finally reached the high courts of all Xian nations. 

Many generations before this conference, the disease of democracy had swept away the kingdoms of Xi Ahn.  The Xian kings and lords had reluctantly given up their faltering thrones in exchange for land rights and hereditary control of the judiciary, thus ensuring those land rights could never be taken away.  Under the contorted, evolved illogic of the law, slavery for criminals fell under land rights. 

The judges knew their decisions on these appeals had to be unified to prevent unprincipled gaming of the laws.  The profits of slavery contributed to the nobility's wealth, so any challenge to the system had to be dealt with firmly.  But slavery for children, that cut to the heart. 

"Not one of us wishes to see children in slave markings," posited Smithson.  Harumphs of agreement circled the conference room of his riverside castle.  "But if we freed the children as we wish to do, we would give precedent and encouragement to the Abolitionists."

"We also have the situation that his lordship pointed out," said Baron Coan, perhaps the most brilliant jurist in Illium-des-Ahns.  "Carmina says Corporation brings them here to give them a better life under slavery than they would have on their home worlds, but he also asserts that the planets of his 'Trade Federation' let them leave only on the understanding that the children would not be freed once they reach Xi Ahn.  He offers no evidence; he offers no opportunity for an observer to travel to any planet to investigate his claims.  We have only his word."

"The word of a commoner, a peasant risen from the mud of Illium-des-Ahns who cheated and murdered his way into power," said Lord Daven.  "And yet that does not mean he is lying to us now.  A fine dilemma Carmina places us in.  Do the right thing by freeing the children, we hurt our own interests and condemn thousands to lives of misery on their own planets.  Allow the slavery, we set a precedent that the repressive laws of other planets have some validity here on Xi Ahn."

Duke Smithson opened the folder of judicial appeals before him.  "The thing we agree on, my lords, is that we must have one response to all these appeals, and that response must be unassailable."

"People inexperienced with slavery should not dabble in it," said Coan, "but yet they have.  Our 'elected representatives' may have given us our response."

***

Registrar Varta smiled to himself as he read the article in the des-Ahns Financier's new 'Law' section.  A judicial conference had reluctantly declined to rule on the 'agreement' between Altmark Corporation and the planets of the Empire concerning slave children, and all lawsuits and decisions on the matter were set aside.  The slave status of the children was affirmed and must be honored, the conference said, but it declared the decision was based on the laws enslaving all aliens that Xian nations passed after the Eterran treachery.  Should those laws change, the conference would take up the matter of Corporation's agreement and the applicability of alien laws on Xi Ahn. 

The conferees' overriding concern, they emphasized, was the humane value of providing the enslaved children a better life on Xi Ahn than they would have under the 'brutal' governments of their own planets. 

Varta put the paper aside.  The Old Royal judges sidestepped the thorny issues, laid the blame on the governments, and left a blurry warning to leave the enslavement laws alone.  The Royals would never vote against their own interests, so Corporation's slave trade was now legally secure, and politically safe as long as it kept a low profile.  No newspaper on Xi Ahn had much stomach for taking on the Old Royals in a matter as dear to them as slavery. 

As much as Varta hated to admit it, Eslan Carmina was right again. 

***

With little outlet for his ambitions, Gregor Donal was becoming an authority on Eterran history.  His interest, however, ran more toward Karin, and he liked to think she was interested in him.  Just a game to play, for the Emperor had forbidden anything more. 

"Sometimes," said the professor, "I think you study history just to have Karin around."

"So why teach me?" asked Donal. 

"Father wants me close to you so I can learn your She-On secrets," said Karin, "so I can tell him how to defeat you."

"Being close to a Xian could be dangerous for an Eterran girl."

"No, Lieutenant.  Karin's mother brought her up well.  I trust her." The professor closed his book.  "And I trust you because unlike us Eterrans, you cannot afford to break any more She-On rules."

"There is also danger in resisting Xian authority."

"But there is only slavery if we do not," said the professor.  "History teaches us that lesson."

"History teaches no lessons, Professor.  Historians have been about for thousands of years, and we still repeat the mistakes.  Empires don't last forever, and when this one declines, your descendants will attack my descendants to right the wrong of this conquest — a wrong done neither by nor to any of them.  Another wrong will be created, courtesy of historians who keep the memory of ancient injustices alive."

"You would change this injustice if you could."  Karin put a hand on his arm.  "Your Governor looks to steal from Eterra.  You look just to get away from us."

"From some of this, yes.  But parts of Eterra," he placed his hand atop hers, "I would keep with me if I could."

"Karin, it's time to leave," said her father, wincing at the soapiness.  "Curfew hour."

"I'll write you a pass," said Donal. 

"Karin, it's time to leave," the professor insisted. 

***

Donal kept his eye on the courtroom bookings, eventually spotting a martial court scheduled for one of the smaller chambers.  Closed hearing, no names, and a year after the rape, but that had to be it.  The listed judge was newly arrived from Xi Ahn, probably a sub-colonel from Fleet Lawyer Corps imported specifically for the trial, poor fellow.  Donal would finally have another officer to commiserate with. 

Donal's judicious inquiry revealed that the Governor's police had searched out the girl and taken her baby as evidence.  Discovering this, the soldier's lawyer pled guilty in exchange for a lighter punishment.  The deal was done, but the court had to pass sentence officially.  Cut and dried. 

When Donal entered the chamber, the girl was testifying, her face red with shame and wet with tears.  She was the only woman in the room.  It went on, her voice cracking, frequent dead pauses when she could not bring herself to speak.  The judge was becoming annoyed. 

Donal leaned over to the civilian standing beside him.  "This is awful! I thought they already had a plea settled."

"They do, seven years on Aptera," the man replied, "but the judge is new here and he wanted to hear the details of the rape from the girl."

Donal groaned.  Fleet's standards for its martial judges had really slipped, or this officer had somehow slipped beneath them.  Donal looked for the judge's grade insignia, but saw none.  "What rank is he?  Why isn't he wearing any rank on his robes?"

"Oh, he's not military.  Somebody's nephew or something, worked in a Harbin law firm and wanted to travel.  Eterra is his first appointment off Xi Ahn."

A civilian was passing judgment on a soldier?  And torturing a victim with questions to satisfy his curiosity?  Gregor Donal saw red, but he did not see any rank on the soldier's lawyers, either.  He glanced around.  No military anywhere, yet it was a martial court.  Soldiers had an absolute right to a military judge.  Absolute!

"Pardon me, gentlemen," called the judge.  "I hope our little hearing isn't interfering with your conversation, Mr —?"

"Lieutenant Donal," Donal steamed, wishing he had worn his uniform.  "I was asking why the victim must testify in a settled case.  Please excuse my ignorance, your lordship."

The judge sat bolt upright at the insult.  "I am not Old Royal, sir!"

"Then you've forgotten to wear your rank on your robes."

"That is not your . . .", the judge shot back, then he stopped, and Lieutenant Gregor Donal knew why.  They wanted the whole trial kept quiet.  The light seven year sentence, civilian appointee judge and lawyers.  Someone in the audience who was not in on the deal could blow it.  "If you have additional comments, sir, you may submit them to the court in writing."

The judge shifted his stare between Donal and the girl, deciding whether it was worth it.  "No further questions.  You will remain in the courtroom, Miss."

Thoroughly humiliated, she took a seat off to the side. 

The soldier stood and the judge read his sentence.  "In accordance with the plea agreement, you are sentenced to," the judge glanced at Donal, "three years at the Work Camp on Aptera.  Reduction in rank two grades and promotions frozen for the duration of the sentence."

Only three years!  The soldier would never appeal so light a sentence.  Donal heard the planet Aptera was no picnic, but the soldier kept pay and benefits.  He'd probably be a camp guard. 

"And you, Miss."  The soldier's victim looked up, perhaps expecting an apology.  "In accordance with Imperial Policy, you are sentenced to death.  Your child is remanded to Slave Services for processing."

The girl fainted, and Donal's legs gave way beneath him. 

***

Governor Crauley returned from a farside trip to find the martial trial he tried to hide had roused his normally invisible Lieutenant Governor to action. 

"Do we really need to get involved, Haier?  I mean, Fleet has its own rules on this stuff."

"Sure, but the raped girl isn't in the Fleet.  As a Regional Lieutenant Governor I'd have pardoned her myself, but I can't find where I have that authority, and I don't have any authority over the Fleet."

"And I do?"

"Fleet works for the Emperor, and you're the Emperor's voice out here.  You should be able to pardon anyone you want.  A ruler has an obligation to those he governs, even if they're aliens."

"That sounds like Old Royal bilge.  You aren't one of them, are you?" The sudden set to Haier's eyebrows said he was. 

"Corporation owes my family the barony down in Londrina from three generations ago.  I figured the only way I'll get what I deserve from it is to work the planets."

"That's why we're all here, Haier, and the way we do that is do our time, get rich, and retire to Mount Wren, not stir the pot.  I'll look into it, but don't count on anything."

"That's all I ask, Governor."

The next day, Crauley had his secretary bring him the court summary.  The girl was innocent, but she was an alien and she fell under Carmina's miscegenation directive, sort of.  The judgment had only an old Imperial Policy Dispatch backing it and was so poorly written that Crauley looked up what he had on the judge.  The guy wasn't even military, just a jerk relative of a relative to whom somebody in Registry owed a favor.  Crauley didn't see any reason why she shouldn't be pardoned, other than he'd be going out of his way to help an alien. 

His secretary informed him later that Lieutenant Donal wanted to see him about the girl's case, and that the lieutenant was 'really upset.'

Which put a different light on the matter. 

***

Donal couldn't believe what he was hearing.  "Governor, this is inhuman! I'd never thought you capable of . . ."

"Save it, Donal.  The soldier comes under your military code, but the girl and the baby, that's Imperial miscegenation law, not me.  Any alien engaging in sexual union with a Xian gets death.  Any offspring fall into slavery."

"That can't possibly hold for rape.  Delay the execution until you have a clarification from the Emperor."

"I have the clarification right here."  Governor Crauley produced an old Imperial Policy Dispatch dating before the conquest of Aptera:  Lax enforcement leads to civil unrest.  Imperial law was not open to interpretation.  The Governors were to strictly enforce the letter of the law.

"Eslan Carmina's never met an alien," said Crauley.  "He doesn't know and he doesn't care.  I've got another rape case and we're going to have another execution.  Just pray the message gets out."

"Governor, this is your planet.  You make the decisions here, and you can do the right thing.  The Emperor expects that from all of us."

The Governor paused in thought.  "Yes, I do make the decisions here — and I do not need instruction on how to make them."  He pulled his glasses off and began polishing with his handkerchief.  "In this case, I've decided to follow Imperial policy."  He put the glasses back on and fixed his gaze on Donal.  "Which means, Lieutenant Donal, you're now in charge of civilian executions."

"You . . ."  Donal stopped himself, or rather, the lieutenant in him did.  "Is this you or the Emperor?  Sir."

"A job like this comes up, we both think of Gregor Donal.  Want to see the Imperial Policy Dispatch?"  Crauley's thick fingers flipped a few pages in the Policy binder. 

Donal couldn't believe it.  He was the subject of an Imperial Policy Dispatch.  He excused himself and wandered into the hallway, dazed that he, among all the miscreants of the Empire, rated his own IPD, and that Crauley had seized an opportunity to screw him again.  He was barely outside Crauley's door when the true import of the meeting struck him — Crauley had assigned him to take the life of the girl he tried to save. 

Donal's hand shook as he open his office door.  He dropped into his chair short of breath.  This was not a trip to the dentist or an incomprehensible Academy exam on differential equations, something that would be over when the sun rose the next day.  This was go out and kill someone. 

***

Classrooms ringed a concrete courtyard once paved with grass and students.  The far classrooms had their windows bricked up and covered with a drapery of grounded copper cables, while the remaining ones merely had drawn shades.  This was it, thought Donal, the dirty guts of an interstellar empire, the unseen, unthought-of sewer where everything unwanted went for disposition.  Today the Empire would dispose of a girl who was caught between the words of legislators and lawyers and bureaucrats, the victim of a bad rape and now the victim of a bad translation.  Soon, the victim of Gregor Donal. 

The girl wasn't yet in the courtyard, waiting in a classroom for the official summons as though this were some grand ceremony celebrating some worthy achievement.  It was not, despite the forlorn drummer leaning in a far corner.  They could have just taken her out and unceremoniously slammed her in the back of the head with a pipe wrench.  She'd have been just as dead. 

Donal knew this had more to do with him than with her.  The drummer was proof of that.  Crauley could have pardoned her with a scratch of his pen, but Lieutenant Gregor Donal had asked for that pardon.  A lesson must be taught, and an innocent girl would teach it. 

They brought her into the courtyard, ashen and drawn.  She saw Donal standing by the lightning weapon.  She knew him, the sympathetic Xian officer who had been in the room while her lawyers assembled their fruitless appeal.  "My baby!" she screamed at him.  "They wouldn't let me see my baby!"

"Your baby's on a starship bound for Xi Ahn, where he will grow up in slavery," Donal said to only himself, for her screaming continued while they chained her ankle to an iron ring in the pavement.  Words of comfort. 

Donal couldn't let this happen, just as he couldn't let his warships murder the civilians during the conquest.  His regulations search confirmed that continuing the attack after Tyrell verified the neighborhood's civilian status was an illegal order, and Donal was right to refuse it.  His Career Contract, however, confirmed that they had every right to keep him here on Eterra and order him to kill this girl, and yet he could refuse again.  He'd be in trouble again, but his conscience would be clear.  Again. 

"My baby!" she screamed at him, at him alone because she knew he knew it was wrong.  Her pleading eyes were locked to his, her fists bobbed on arms bent rigidly at her side, her free foot stamped the ground to get him to call it off. 

Donal could call it off, if only for the moment.  Someone else would get the task and she would have to go through this all again, but Donal wouldn't have to do it. 

"Lieutenant?"  Donal glanced at the weapon operator, whose eyebrow arched in question.  "You're making her suffer, Lieutenant," he said.  Donal looked over at the drummer hiding in the corner, drumsticks on the ground, abjuring his duty.  If only it were that easy.  He looked back at the girl. 

The orders this time were legal, and legal orders must be obeyed.  Military order and discipline and often lives depended on them.  But an innocent life now depended on their refusal, and Lieutenant Gregor Donal was the only military officer within forty thousand light years.  He could still call it off. 

"My baby!"  She would not let go of his eyes. 

"Fire," he breathed, and her eyes disappeared. 

***

Gregor Donal spent the entire next day in his room, unable to function.  With one word, he had lost that moral superiority the Academy issued all its graduates, and he had lost it due to his Academy training.  He now knew exactly how Preston Tyrell felt, because he felt a hundred times worse.  Preston had only seconds to decide whether to follow orders, but Gregor had an entire week. 

He tried not think of the girl, only of the execution, only of the man who ordered it.  Unless the Governor were uncommonly lucky in building his personal fortune, Gregor was stuck with Crauley for two decades.  One day, he would return this favor. 

Objectively, the execution had gone smoothly despite the victim's unsettling hysteria.  A bright weapons flash, a cloud of steam, a scattered pile of chunks and whatever for the janitor to mop up.  The look on her face, the sound in his ears. 

"My baby!" she had said.  "My baby!"

***

Donal endured the professor's harangue, but Karin's reaction cut.  She said nothing, yet her coldness spoke eloquently. 

"Another rape case, Karin.  It doesn't matter to the Imperium.  The girl will die, and I'll supervise."

"Slavery for babies, Gregor."

"We're all slaves here.  We just aren't marked."

"Not you, Gregor," said the professor.  "She-On does not make slaves of its own."

"You're wrong, Professor.  Debtors, criminals, war prisoners, we've long enslaved our own.  It's always been individuals, though.  Xi Ahn has never marked babies; slaves' children have always been free."

"You've done nothing to stop it," she said. 

"I can't keep men and women apart," he said lamely.  "I'd like to see the compound moved into the countryside to put some distance between them, though.  Maybe these executions will make them less willing," he said, then realized he hadn't made any sense, not that there was sense to be made. 

"Rape victims aren't willing, and still you murder them."  Karin turned away from him. 

Donal gazed at her back, wondering if there were any way. 

"Karin, do you love me?"

She turned around, disbelieving.  "You're from Xi Ahn.  You're a master!"

"Not the question.  Do you love me enough to marry me?"

Suddenly the professor lunged at him.  "You alien monster!  You'll get my daughter killed."

An academic lunging at a professional soldier produced a predictable result: Karin's father lay on the floor with an arm twisted behind his back and Donal sitting on him. 

"Will you marry me, Karin?  I'll petition the Imperium.  If they allow it, then Crauley has to stop the executions."

"Monster!" shouted the professor.  "You're coercing her to marry you.  Get off me."

"He's not forcing me, Father.  Do you love me, Gregor?"

"So much I'm willing to do anything but get you killed."

"If they allow it, I will marry you, but I'm not willing to get me killed, either.  As popular as you are, they'd make you supervise."

Her father quit struggling.  "Impossible.  This cannot be happening to me," he said.  "But if you fools have decided on your suicide pact, may I get up?  You'll need help with that petition."

***

Governor Crauley leafed through the photo-statics of Lieutenant Donal's petition, then handed them to Lieutenant Governor Haier.  "Donal's asking for trouble, going to Carmina behind my back."

"An officer is required to obtain his commander's permission before marrying a foreign national," said Haier.  "The Imperium is just a technical address.  A request like this is handled through Fleet before it ever gets there."

Unconvinced, Crauley took the photo-statics back.  "You sent this?"

"Yes, sir," said the postal manager.  "I hate to disagree with Governor Haier, but since this routes through Imperial Fleet channels without any stopover addresses, I think it will reach the Emperor.  We don't have authority to censor his letters if they go through Fleet to Fleet addresses, and Carmina's office is . . ."

"Yeah, I know, the top Fleet address."

"Just copying it is taking a chance, sir.  We don't have authori . . ."

Crauley's hard glance stopped him short.  "I know that.  You'll keep doing it, though, won't you?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then Donal has a direct line to the Emperor?" asked Haier.  "Outside his supervisory chain?"

"Doesn't mean a thing," said Crauley, waving the postal manager from his office.  "Carmina made it quite clear in his letter why Donal's on Eterra.  This petition won't make it past his secretary, so there's no reason not to let justice run its course."

"Fleet channels may not go through his secretary," said the Lieutenant Governor.  "You want to take that risk?"

Scavengers

Three scavengers waded through the brush of a familiar yard.  The only wall standing for miles, the front window with its seated corpse became a symbol of all the massacres across Eterra after Channel 4 sold the film to the other Eterran broadcasters. 

The charcoal chair was vacant now.  "Man, that's eerie," said one scavenger.  "That's it, isn't it, the window?  It's been two years since the attack.  You suppose the guy got bored and walked away?"

"Sure, and now he's some inhuman zombie walking around ripping the hearts out of innocent folks like us.  I'm really scared."  The scavenger surveyed the ruins.  "Another jackpot, boys.  Big house — rich owners.  Debris field runs northwest.  You watch for patrol ships while I check out the house."  He dropped his heavy loot sack on the front steps and circled the foundation wall.  He came upon basement stairs. 

Around front, the other scavengers heard a rustling in the bushes.  They froze, ready to bolt at the slightest sign of police or She-Ons.  A man emerged from the brush carrying a canvas shopping bag, then froze himself when he saw them.  No policeman, he wore scruffy clothes and the lean, frightened look of a survivor.  He should have run — brave men didn't last long in the Forbidden Zone — but he stayed put. 

The two scavengers knew it immediately: the man wanted to flee, but he couldn't.  This was his lair, and he had something valuable here. 

***

Elinor heard voices.  Bad men, come to take her away, just as her father had warned her.  She edged up behind the furnace.  Don't breathe. 

The door crashed open and evening sunlight brightened the cellar.  Someone kicked things.  Elinor heard him moving about, heard him pick things up, books, food cans, and read them aloud, slowly.  Don't breathe. 

She heard other voices outside.  They would help him find her.  The man moved around the corner, facing away from her, tossing things about after he read them.  He bent to look at the mouse cages and muttered something about disease, but didn't touch them.  A man much bigger than her father, he turned and looked at the furnace.  He looked right at her.  Suddenly he cried out in fright and jumped back against the wall, throwing his arms up to protect himself.  Elinor didn't move, but her eyes were never as wide, her heart never pounded so loudly. 

"A girl!" the bad man gasped, then he laughed.  "You're just a girl — and you're alive!"  He eased toward her.  "Don't be afraid, little girl.  We're here to take you to your family.  Come here."

Elinor wedged herself back into the pipes.  He took her hand and began pulling.  She fought.  He was not as strong as her father, but stronger than she was.  She lost her grip just as she heard another voice outside.  Her father!

The man pulled her out and tucked her under an arm.  She kicked and kicked and got to the ground, but he held her wrists and dragged her.  "Yes, little girl, you know, don't you?" he laughed.  "Somebody's told you about the slave dealer."

He yanked her up the steps.  "Got us a prize here!" he called out.  "Bonus time.  She'll bring a good price in Bay City!"  Elinor saw her father with two bad men.  He looked so afraid!  "See you guys found her dad.  Well, lose him.  They only want orphans."

The other two men grabbed her father.  "You don't want to watch this, sweetie," said the man, turning her away so she couldn't see.  Elinor kept kicking until she got an arm free, then she snatched a loose brick from the rubble and whacked the bad man's shin.  He yelped and let go, then he slapped her hard into the bushes. 

"Run, Ellie!  Run!"

She did.  Just as she was taught.  She ran and ran and didn't look back.  She ran the practiced route from Fredrik's house, over and under and around.  They would never catch her. 

Elinor whisked into the secret hiding place and up onto the shelf, pulling the screen door up to hide herself.  Don't breathe, but she had to breathe!  Loud, panting breaths in the darkness. 

Withering screams cut through the twilight and drifted down into the secret hiding place, weird screams like she had never, ever heard before.  Elinor shivered, trying beneath her tears not to make a sound that would give her away.  The cries ceased, then a deathly quiet. 

She listened for the footsteps, between breaths that seemed so loud in the silence they would surely get her caught.  She waited.  And waited.  Then she heard them. 

"Ellie?"

***

Elinor twitched awake with the dawn.  She squeezed her father tightly. 

"Ellie, I have to go back."

"No!" she cried.  "Don't ever leave me.  No!"  His fate was her fate. 

"Come with me, then.  I have to see."

They kept under cover, taking a different route to Fredrik's basement.  Emerging from behind a lilac bush, they found the bad men where her father left them.  He turned away. 

"Scavengers," he said in a little voice that sounded like he wanted to cry.  "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.  I didn't know."

Her father was covered with blood.  Elinor had bloody hand prints on her clothes where they held each other during the night. 

"What happened here?"  Elinor had seen body pieces left over from 'the Conquest,' but never like this.  These were big pieces. 

Her father held up his hands, his bare hands, and just stared at them. 

***

Deathly afraid of discovery, Piers dragged the bodies far into the fields for the animals to disperse.  Fredrik's eternity formula had made him stronger, but fear had tripled that strength and anger had unleashed it.  A hideous strength, an adrenaline hyper-sensitivity, and a thin line between him and a murderer.  He'd crossed it. 

He found their loot sacks where the scavengers dropped them, forty pounds in all of gold and jewelry, and damning evidence of his crime. 

Later, he began freeing the stones and working the gold into small ingots with a tap hammer.  A simple, mindless activity to reduce scavenged jewelry to untraceable commodities.  Piers almost enjoyed it, and soon he could gauge an alloy from its color and ductility.  The gems became handfuls of colored pebbles for Elinor's toys. 

Judging from the radio prices, gold had become a rare asset on Eterra, quintupling in price from what he remembered before the aliens came.  The ingots would make him comfortable, but the jewels made up a small fortune.  Although She-On severely discounted Eterra's paper money, the scavengers had found so much that Piers could return and live for years while he searched out a black market for his gems.  The gold would need no brokering. 

Elinor sorted her sparkling stones.  By color.  By size.  She made patterns.  Piers suspected his daughter would become more accountant than revolutionary. 

***

The copy boy entered Preston Tyrell's office holding a package at arm's length.  He placed it on Tyrell's desk, and the publisher of the des-Ahns Financier whiffed a vaguely familiar odor. 

"A package from Eterra, Mr Tyrell, from that lieutenant friend of yours.  It doesn't smell too good.  Maybe you should open it outside."

It didn't smell good at all.  Preston Tyrell went outside and slit the tape, yellow assize tape — the contents had been inspected before it left Eterra.  Within, he found a letter and wadded paper packaging wrapped protectively around a plastic bag of goo.

"Sorry about the stationery, Preston, but you can figure things out.  Here's that DOUBLE tollar fruit you asked for.  Things are going well with us as always. 

Gregor"

Eterran tollars lasted only a week before rotting, and Preston had not asked for one.  The stationery apology was the clue.  He sorted through the wrapping papers and found them typed with gibberish.  One was a routine directive with Gregor Donal's name, rank, and service number on it.  The service number was doubly underlined.  Good old Academy subterfuge — a doubly- coded message with Gregor's number as one code key.  Maybe Preston's old service number was the other key. 

Two hours later, Preston Tyrell had the gibberish decoded.  Gregor wished to marry an alien girl and wanted some help persuading the Emperor to let him.  Lots of juicy tidbits about Eterra's rulers, but Gregor suggested using flattery.  Save the dirt for when they really needed it. 

Preston sent him back a quart of Apteran corn seeds, a novelty item Corporation had begun importing.  Plant some, then toast the rest in hot oil.  He packed the jar in wadded paper and included a note apologizing for the stationery. 

***

Exploding corn seeds.  That Preston Tyrell had a sense of humor.  Karin and Gregor jumped when it began detonating, but when it finally quit, they had a bushel of white fluff to clean up.  They wondered if it were still good to eat. 

***

Preston sorted through the incidents Gregor had detailed.  If the des-Ahns Financier printed them, Corporation faces would be red right down to their dirty socks.  A delicious bit of revenge on the system that had misused him and left Gregor to rot out in the galaxy.  There was even enough here to inspire the Old Royals to judicial inquiry. 

And Altmark Corporation would know exactly where the information came from. 

Just about anything could 'happen' to a young lieutenant on a dangerous assignment out in the Empire.  A brief investigation, a letter of condolence to the parents, another soon-forgotten name on the honor roll of Xians fallen for the glory of Corporation.  Gregor had placed his trust in Preston; Preston must trust Gregor's judgment.  He put the pages in a folder and marked it 'Interstellar Trade Issues,' then buried the folder in the back of his personal file cabinet.  Later. 

Preston rolled a sheet of paper into his typewriter and began writing his editorial. 

***

"We've been had," said Registrar Varta, throwing a copy of the des-Ahns Financier onto Eslan Carmina's desk.  "That lieutenant out on Eterra?  He's marrying an alien girl."

"Repulsive thought," said Carmina, then, "I thought I forbade miscegenation?"

"You did, but we can't do anything now.  Read the editorial."

A brief article and sidebar on Page One, an article in the Political section, and a big editorial praising Eslan Carmina and Altmark Corporation. 

"I checked on this.  Lieutenant Donal wrote a letter to Preston Tyrell at the Financier saying he'd petitioned the Imperium for permission to marry an Eterran, and that he 'thought' he had a chance for approval.  Tyrell took that as a 'yes' and wrote the editorial praising your new attitude and how this should help Corporation's image and improve relations with the aliens."

"Get me Tyrell on the telephone.  He used to work for us, didn't he?  I'll shut his sorry rumor rag down."

Varta shook his head.  "This story stopped the slide in our stock price from the Apteran disaster.  We're even up a tenth from yesterday.  Tyrell's done us a favor."

"Not likely.  Where is this petition?  Why haven't I seen it?"

"It got as far as your secretary.  You told her to put a hold on everything that came from Donal, remember?"

"Roger, I'm serious on this miscegenation thing.  I'll forbid the marriage.  There's no telling what kind of monstrosities we'll have being born.  That's why I outlawed rape on the planets.  We've had executions."

Varta crumpled into a chair and put his head in his hands. 

"Dead Kings of Illium, Eslan!  Don't you follow up on these things?  That sidebar article raises the question of Xian-alien children, but we know from those rapes what the children look like.  They look like us.  Absolutely normal.  And the executions!"

"Your Dead Kings used to execute for rape," countered Carmina. 

"Not the women!  That numbskull Crauley executed one of the women."

"The women?"  Carmina groaned. 

"And he sold the a baby off as a slave, a slave here in Illium.  It's in the transcripts, written in the official records.  He kept the trial hidden, but it's still on the record.  What good does it do to have a secret trial if you're going to publish the results?"

"Tyrell hasn't seen the transcripts, otherwise we'd have read about it in his newspaper.  Send a message out there to burn the records."

"We can't."

Carmina's look approached constipation.  "Go ahead.  Tell me there's another hitch."

"We had a woman in our custody who is now dead.  How did she get that way?  Crauley may have screwed up royally, but as long as there's a transcript, he screwed up legally.  The best we can do is seal it and sit on it and hope the Old Royals don't get wind of all this."

"Don't worry about the Royals and slaves, Roger.  They may dislike the competition, but they'll do the right thing if it ever gets into their courts.  What about the baby?"

"It's privately owned and the owners don't know the story.  The danger is that the public thinks Eterra is enslaving children, not us, that we just bring them here for a more humane life.  At a hundred thousand apiece, we can't afford to have Tyrell nosing around."

"That's a fact," said Carmina.  "People with those tastes and that kind of money like their privacy, and there's a lot more of them than I'd have thought likely.  Speaking as a parent myself, that's scary."

"With ninety million Illians, even a tiny percentage makes a huge market," said Varta.  "Half a dozen children every other week doesn't begin to satisfy it, but we can't let the newspapers know there is a market."

"Crauley must have found our slave regulation and applied it to rape babies, jeopardizing Endorf's whole operation.  Criminy, Roger, I wish you'd tried harder to talk me out of appointing that idiot."  Carmina rocked back and rubbed his eyes.  "Back to the problem.  Short of murder, how do we take care of Tyrell?"

"We let Lieutenant Donal do it for us," said Varta. 

Carmina raised an eyebrow. 

"The only safe way to deflect Tyrell's sidebar question is to allow the marriage and let everyone see what the children look like."

"Alien freaks," muttered Carmina. 

"With any luck," said Varta. 

***

The Xian courier took a seat while Governor Crauley read the Imperial dispatch. 

"Hah.  I'm surprised Carmina is allowing the marriage," said a bemused Crauley, "but I'm amazed he's promoting Donal.  Still," he said, brightening, "it's good that he clarified that misunderstanding about rape executions.  We've had one, you know."

"Yes," said the courier.  "We know."

***

Governor Crauley took the key from the jailer and led the girl's parents, her lawyer, and several chosen journalists down the corridor to her cell.  She waited, an empty husk left from months of contemplating execution while the Governor pled her case.  Crauley had 'personally petitioned the Emperor on the matter' and finally prevailed.  He personally unlocked her cell and she fell to her knees, kissing his hand and thanking him. 

"Oh, no, no," he said modestly.  "It was the least I could do for you."

And it was. 

***

"A message from the Emperor," said Gregor Donal, now a Fleet captain whose efficiency grades and promotions were tailored in Illium-des-Ahns to make him look absolutely average.  "My wedding has Eslan Carmina's blessing, and I am no longer Assistant Deputy Lieutenant Governor."

Donal took a razor blade from his desk drawer and scraped the 'Assistant' letters from his classroom/office's glass door.  The courier shadowed him. 

"That letter means nothing, Captain," said the courier.  "Here's the real message from Eslan Carmina: You pull another stunt like this and you and your alien woman will be in charge of a slave colony on Aptera.  Any questions?"

"None at all," said Deputy Lieutenant Governor Donal, who had just saved a life and gained a wife. 

***

A life saved, a small victory, so rare in his career, yet snatched away by a paragraph. 

A cloud of black, evil death filled Donal's mind, for he had blamed his Academy training for making him follow Crauley's order, but the failure was only his own. 

Military orders must be obeyed because lives might well depend on them, and they could be obeyed because a bond of trust and honor underlay them, a bond running both ways between a commander and his men: the knowledge that all the way up the command line, superiors would not sacrifice lives needlessly, and that any lives lost would be given in service to the nation, not the whims of some officer. 

Crauley had never been military, and no bond of trust would ever attach to him.  The girl's death served no nation, only the vindictive whim of a civilian bureaucrat, but those weren't the reasons Donal was sick. 

The Fleet War Code book had thick inches of thin paper covered with the fine print of the military discipline.  It lay on his desk, open to the section on military justice and tribunals, its paragraphs read far too late in the lives of one Eterran woman and one Xian lieutenant. 

A martial court trial with no officers participating had no standing under Fleet rules.

Donal could have refused the order.  Fleet would have backed him, and Crauley would never have dared appeal to the Emperor. 

The girl would have lived. 

***

Three armed guards accompanied the Corporation Treasurer into Roger Varta's office, pushing a cart covered with a cloth. 

"A bit dramatic, don't you think?" said Varta. 

"You tell me, Roger," said the Treasurer, shooing the guards back into the hallway.  He pulled the cloth off, revealing a half-cylindrical plate of shiny steel.  "This is a gravure plate that was still on one of those Sandviken presses we got from Eterra.  It's been used."

"So what does it say?  Aliens Invade Eterra?"

"I wish," said the Treasurer.  "If this gets out, we are in serious trouble with the governments.  You've got to find someone out on Eterra you can trust to handle this bomb, and I don't mean Crauley."  He handed the Registrar a large sheet of paper with an impression taken from the plate. 

Varta checked it closely.  "Criminy!"

***

On a clear, sparkly evening, Piers Amhensen sat on Fredrik Rikardsen's front steps watching the distant lights of Bay City, his arms wrapped around his little girl.  The slackening alien patrols encouraged scavengers, and he had so much to lose now.  She gave him a squeeze.  So very much. 

Return

Elinor was tired from all the walking, but she heard it, too.  A crash, then some laughter out in the darkness.  Her father gave her two quick taps on the shoulder, the signal for absolute silence.  Elinor froze, then sank down next to a pile of people bones.  She hated the bones.  They were once people like her, but they died, just as the mice did sometimes when her father's 'experiments' did not go well.  People bones, but these were not experiments.  The She-Ons killed them on purpose. 

The She-On patrol ships would turn her into bones, too, if they saw her.  They were seldom around anymore, but the danger was still great enough to travel at night. 

Her father slowly dropped down with her.  Not far away, she heard voices, scavengers going home after a hunt.  Bad men, and the danger from them was worse.  She-On was only silvery things up in the sky, but she knew scavengers. 

Elinor had never been this far from home, and she would likely never see home again.  "We'll wait here until dawn," her father whispered.  "The edge of the Forbidden Zone is not far now."  He unrolled his blanket and wrapped it around them.  Elinor gave Toey a hug and curled up within her father's sheltering arms. 

***

"TAVERN.  OPEN."

"Very good," said her father.  "A tavern has things to eat and drink inside.  We are still near the Forbidden Zone, so we must be careful."

"Bad men?"  The sun was peeking over the horizon, and Elinor was tired and hungry from their journey, so she hoped not. 

"Perhaps.  Perhaps not.  It is a long walk to the next place."

They went in.  Four men over in the corner watched them intently.  They had bags of junk beside their chairs.  Maybe they were the men from last night. 

"Morning," said the man behind the counter, the tavern keeper.  "Beer?"

"Breakfast?"

"We got eggs.  Milk for the lady?"

"For us both, thanks."

Elinor's father helped her up on a stool at the counter.  The tavern keeper glanced at the others before he went in the back room, the kitchen.  The four men in the corner were watching her; they were looking at the suitcase next to her stool.  After a brief discussion among themselves, one got up and went to the door and turned the sign around so the 'CLOSED' side faced outside.  He leaned back against the door, watching her. 

Her father slid silently from his stool and turned to face them.  Elinor dropped off and scooted up behind him.  He put his hand back, resting it on her shoulder.  She knew what he wanted her to do.  The other three men rose and spread out.  The largest man walked up to her father. 

"You been out a long time, pal.  Most of the others came in within a couple months."

"We don't want any trouble, sir."

"Catch you two out there, you're ours.  Nobody says we didn't.  You won't bring anything, but the girl will, so if you want to just walk away, you won't get any 'troublesir.'"

Elinor's father didn't move, just like she knew he wouldn't no matter how big the bad man was.  She felt him tighten up, the way he had been that one night after the other bad men.  She did not want to see that happen.  "Father, no, please."

The big man reached down for her.  Suddenly her father's hand left her and returned.  Then she heard a dull thud, or maybe she heard the thud first.  The bad man backed away with his mouth open in surprise, then he put both hands to his chest.  He looked at Elinor, shaking his head, then he sucked in a huge wheezing breath and toppled over backwards.  The other men rushed at them, but quickly two were sleeping on the floor and the third was doubled up and shrieking, holding an arm that bent the wrong way.  The big man was kicking and wheezing desperately. 

The tavern keeper peeked out from the kitchen, then disappeared.  Elinor's father was instantly into the back room and dragged him out, throwing him on the pile with the others. 

"Thanks for the help, friend.  You'd better get your customers to a doctor, the big guy in a hurry."

"Hey, pal, I didn't know . . ."

"NOW !!"

***

Geri Rikardsen's wife answered the telephone while he perused the morning newspaper.  The She-On censors didn't leave much of interest to read. 

"Geri!" she shouted.  "It's Piers Amhensen!  Alive!"  Geri tumbled out of his chair.  "He's calling from a tavern out on the harbor road."

"My father?" asked Geri, scrambling to the telephone. 

His wife shook her head.  "Piers says he found your father after a week and buried him."  She sighed.  "Next to his own wife and daughter."

Geri had never held any hope for his father, but now he realized that wasn't true.  His wife saw it in his face and twitched him a sad 'I'm sorry' smile and patted his cheek as she gave him the handset.  Geri took a breath and caught up with the present. 

"Piers, thank the Creator!  We'll come right out to get you.  Yes, I know the place.  Oh?  Yes, within the hour."  He replaced the handset. 

"It isn't just Piers.  He has someone with him named Elinor."

***

Piers and Elinor stayed with Fredrik Rikardsen's son Geri for two weeks while he sought out an apartment.  He had taught Elinor about dresses and brushing hair and looking pretty, but she still had long talks with Mrs Rikardsen, catching up on all the girl stuff her father would never understand. 

While Elinor expanded her horizons, Piers explored the North University area, searching for apartment and employment.  A clean, safe neighborhood that had seen better days, North University still had its pockets of elegance, and it held a special attraction for Piers Amhensen: it surrounded the She-On compound.  If things were known about the She-Ons, this neighborhood would know them. 

Once the pride of the city and anchor of the neighborhood, Bay City University survived its gutting by the aliens, tenaciously holding classes in warehouses, storefronts, and private homes.  Its remaining professors survived on donations from around the planet, but the support staff was mostly gone. 

Piers rented an apartment in an older building that he could afford no matter what job he took.  Third floor walkup, two small bedrooms with a living room that turned seamlessly to dinette to kitchenette.  It was not what he was used to, but it was definitely the environment he wanted for Elinor. 

In his prior life, Piers had everything appropriate to a successful real estate broker — a luxurious but unobtrusive house, a tastelessly over-chromed auto for hauling impressionable clients, a wife overflowing with common sense who nevertheless loved him, and a daughter Alice who inherited her mother's best traits.  The house was now a vacant lot, the rusting auto entwined with a steel guard rail, the wife and daughter patiently waiting for him to fulfill a promise. 

He had given Alice a life of privilege, the best schools, the best social clubs, the best labels hanging in her closet, then the She-Ons killed her.  This new world demanded more of a daughter, and Piers was determined that Elinor would grow up tough, tough enough to take on anything the aliens could throw at her and throw it back doubled. 

***

The She-Ons had assigned the Eterran national-become-regional governments the duty of protecting them, letting the governments take the day-to-day blame for any friction.  Bay City policemen therefore guarded the entrance to the She-On compound, anxious to minimize incidents they would have to explain to their masters. 

Piers sauntered past the gates hoping for a peek within, but an inner wall blocked any direct view.  Concrete posts and steel paling marked a passage to inner gates, with two right angle turns making a high-speed direct assault impossible.  Steel plates in the pavement probably concealed other barriers.  Not a She-On in sight.  A second or third trip past, and the two men in the little guard shack would remember him.  Piers kept going, kicking himself that his first attempt at espionage had been so obvious, amateurish, and unsuccessful. 

Although he'd spent four years at this university, he was having difficulty navigating.  The She-Ons had redecorated the neighborhood with bulldozers, and much of what Piers remembered was now a wide band of nothing, faced with the exposed alley entrances of commercial buildings. 

He eventually came to High Street, so he turned left to reconnoiter his student haunt.  Immediate success.  A party of five, two men and a woman escorted by a pair of city policemen, marched up the sidewalk toward him.  The officer in front had his eyes on Piers with an occasional sideways clearing glance.  When they met, the policeman placed a hand on Piers' chest and pressed him against the wall until the group passed.  The other policeman flowed to the front to handle the next potential threat.  Piers' captor released him, then mumbled, "Sorry," before trotting along to take up the rear guard position, where he glanced back to give a don't-follow-us wave of his finger. 

It happened with such smooth precision that Piers had no thought of being offended, not even the thought that he had encountered his first She-Ons, the aliens who murdered his family. 

The group turned into a storefront, so Piers crossed the street for a better view.  A jeweler, and Piers saw a 'Help Wanted' sign in the window, surely a coincidence, because the Creator neither condoned nor facilitated revenge. 

***

"I was looking for someone younger," said the jeweler.  "It's just an entry-level position."

"I can take a commission on sales over a set level," said Piers.  "I do know how to sell."

"A commission!" laughed the owner.  "What do you know about the jewelry business?"

"I've sold some pretty rough real estate to reluctant buyers before.  Your inventory here should sell itself."

"You don't know jewelry, but you think you know sales.  Well, it takes more than flattery to get hired."

"But not to make a sale."

"I suppose that's true," acknowledged the owner, "but why this job?  What's the attraction?"

"I lost everything I valued in the Conquest, sir.  I have responsibilities, and I need stability more than I need money."  Piers also needed anonymity and a location near the She-Ons. 

The jeweler considered Piers for a few moments.  "We'll try you for a week.  See what you can do."

"And after that," said Piers, "we'll set a quarter over last week's sales for my commission level."

"You think so, eh?"

***

Three weeks and a cozy commission arrangement later, Piers had the job and stability that he wanted.  Sales were easier than in real estate because the prices were lower and everyone came into the jewelry shop ready to buy. 

Almost everyone, anyway. 

The boss was in back resetting a ring when a man wearing oversized glasses entered the jewelers, looking around as though he owned the place.  A pudgy waist and curly, thinning hair gave him a bookish but not very Eterran appearance.  Piers spotted two bodyguard types milling outside on the sidewalk. 

"You, there," called the man, though Piers was but five feet from him.  "You handle used jewelry?"  Poor Eterran with that arrogant She-On accent. 

"Yes, sir.  We have an excellent selection.  Many former university professors have consigned . . ."

"No.  I have some to sell, and I expect good prices.  These here."

Three brooches clattered onto the glass counter.  Piers instantly recognized their scavenged look, so he examined them with his loupe.  Cheap stuff, but the alien expected good prices. 

"High quality stones, sir.  Excellent workmanship."  Piers took off the loupe.  "My boss will have to approve it, but these are worth thousands apiece, even at wholesale," he said with intense sincerity. 

Thousands?  The alien's eyes lit up.  His lips parted, though he tried to restrain his smile.  Piers had him. 

"This one piece even has the 'Prietich' hallmark on the back.  Very rare."  Very rare indeed on jewelry, as Prietich Manufacturing made only adding machines and cash registers.  Piers reached in a drawer and pulled out a form.  "Now if you'd give me the bills of sale or provenance forms for these, I'll start on the paperwork."

"Paperwork?"  The alien looked suddenly unsure.  "Do you know who I am?"

"I was about to ask, sir.  The Masters have severe punishments for those dealing in items scavenged from the Forbidden Zone.  If you'll show me the papers, I won't have to confiscate your brooches for them."

The alien was turning red.  He reached for the jewelry, but Piers' finger pinned his hand down before it got anywhere near them. 

"A name, sir, for your confiscation receipt?  The She-Ons will require a name if these items prove scavenged."

The alien stared at the jewelry, then at Piers, who was confiscating brooches worth thousands apiece. 

"A name, sir?"  Piers began reaching for the telephone. 

Livid, the alien made up his mind.  He turned and fled, slamming the door behind him.  That brought out Piers' boss. 

"Who was that?"

"An alien.  He acted important."

"Des, des, DES!" swore his boss.  "They all act important, and unfortunately, some of them are.  Next time a She-On comes in, let me deal with him.  Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

His boss noticed the form Piers had lying on the counter next to the Prietich cash register.  "Is that my on-street parking renewal?  If I get fined, it comes out of your paycheck."

"I'll mail it today, sir."

***

Crauley was three steps out the door when he realized he'd been had. 

"Is something wrong, sir?  Shall I go back and . . ."

"Shut up.  Take me back to the compound."

A shop clerk had threatened to turn him in to the authorities, so he panicked and fled.  Curse the man, Crauley was the authorities!  There was no way in the Creator's universe he could go back in that shop now and admit the alien had played him for such a fool!

The bodyguard held the limo door open for him.  "Are you sure you don't . . ."

"Shut up!"

Crauley dove into the leather seat and hunched over with his hands balled into fists.  Thousands!  That thieving Eterran had cost him thousands!

***

Although the pudgy man never returned, other She-On masters came into the store.  Piers studied them, studied their accents, studied their arrogance.  He looked for a weakness. 

He was not the only Eterran looking. 

***

Piers spent his jewelry weekdays tapping, setting, selling — and listening.  He soon had the pulse of North University, and he learned the odd nature of alien slavery.  No chains, no brandings or beatings, just crushing taxes and interference into every detail of life. 

On the weekends, Piers set up shop in a neighborhood tavern, buying, selling, brokering — and listening.  The tavern sat on a hillside, offering its patrons a good view of the alien headquarters in the remains of Bay City University.  It was a natural venue for those patrons planning the overthrow of She-On rule. 

Piers was similarly inclined, but his time horizon far exceeded the mere mortals around him.  He listened to the agitators and dissidents without comment, absorbing their good ideas, dismissing the foolish ones. 

Nevertheless, a foolish idea oft-repeated may begin to sound reasonable.  The She-On Command planned extending its operations from the confining university out to a new base northwest of Bay City.  The conspirators suspected they were being watched, so would Piers travel out there and scout the terrain for them?

No harm in a bicycling overnight with Elinor. 

***

Piers had the tent and gear on his bicycle; Elinor had the food.  He towed her up the hills and whenever she tired.  He was starting to have second thoughts about helping the conspirators so openly, when they topped a gentle rise and in the distant valley they saw starships. 

"The new She-On base," said Piers. 

"Bad men?"

"Bad men."

A ridge ran off to the right, promising a good view.  They followed it until they came upon a gouge of glassified soil cutting across the path.  A lightning weapon scar.  The aliens left it as a warning not to venture further. 

Piers and Elinor knew them from the Forbidden Zone.  "Bad men," she said. 

Two hours later they were on the opposite side of the valley, setting camp atop a lower rise.  Piers scanned the She-On compound with binoculars.  Three miles north to south, a mile wide.  A moat circled it, breaking only for gates on the east and west sides, and enclosed an electric fence, enough to discourage any attacker wet from swimming the moat.  No direct assault, so Eterran workers would have to set things up from inside. 

Guard towers, warship revetments, landing pads for large freighter starships, an open area marked with streets for eventual housing.  Piers took no incriminating notes, for Fredrik Rikardsen's immortality process had strengthened his memory as much as his body. 

The process had nothing but favorable effects on Piers, but he knew somewhere it had its price.  Everything had a price.  Always. 

"What are we going to do to them?" Elinor asked. 

He would give the process to Elinor one day, and she would become strong and brilliant and immortal.  Right now she was just a bright little girl. 

"Nothing, Ellie.  We will let others try, and we will watch and learn."

"Just like school," she observed. 

***

Piers gave the map to the chief conspirator, who traded him some money, thanked him, and went off to a tavern booth to study it with his fellow plotters.  Elinor slid darkly into an empty chair at Piers' corner table. 

"You told him we didn't go to the compound.  You told him a worker sold you the map."

"You remember that funny hat Mrs Rikardsen bought?  What you said when she asked you if you liked it?"

"I didn't want to hurt her feelings, so I said 'yes' just like you said I should do.  You thought you would hurt his feelings?"

"Just as I said you should do.  Like and as, remember?"  Piers considered how he should explain his lie.  "No, I wouldn't have hurt his feelings.  What the rebels are doing is dangerous for them, and if people find out we are helping them, it is dangerous for us, too.  The less others know about what we do, the safer it is for us."

"But telling the truth is better when it isn't dangerous?"

"Yes, even when it's uncomfortable.  If you tell lies, people won't trust you, and sometimes it's important for people to trust you."

"But you want the rebels to trust you, and you told him a lie."

"No, I don't want the rebels to trust me.  The fewer folks they trust, the safer they are from the She-Ons.  My lie didn't hurt him, but it keeps us out of their plots, because buying and selling is what I do for everyone."

Elinor munched on an unconvinced fry.  Piers would have to do better. 

"You learn what's important as you grow older.  Just don't tell people more than they need to know about you."  The plotters were getting noisy in their booth, arguing about approaches to attack the compound. 

"Let's go home, Ellie.  We'll talk later."

***

Over the weeks, the plotters plotted and Piers kept to his corner of the tavern doing weekend business.  Elinor often helped him, counting the money and eating crunchy orange potatoe fries.  Her attempts at keeping records showed promise beneath the grease and ketchup.  She would also stand by the conspirators and listen, a dumb-little-girl and no threat to anyone. 

Then she would tell Piers everything.  The conspiracy had cornered two unenthusiastic workers and coerced them into smuggling explosives into the new compound.  In two months, they would have everything in place.  Strategic detonations would cripple the compound, then the rebels would storm through the gates in the confusion and capture the She-On installation and its warships. 

Piers kept his distance from them, mentioning to the tavern keeper that the conspirators were crazy.  But harmless.  Elinor, in her dumb-little-girl way, discovered the conspiracy was planet-wide.  Every She-On base on Eterra at once.  Maybe they weren't harmless. 

***

Sequential detonations ripped along the soil berm and leveled it.  Gregor Donal reacted instantly when he saw the blast wave coming, but his dive for the ground was nowhere near fast enough.  It slammed into his side and knocked the breath from him, sending him rolling.  Steel shards whizzed overhead, clipping branches from the trees behind him.  He looked up and saw a solid wall of smoke barreling toward him, so he stayed down and buried his nose into the fabric of his jacket to filter out as much as he could.  The scorching-hot smoke was a powder puff compared to the blast impact, but the heat made breathing painful even through the fabric. 

"Criminy, Captain," coughed a voice nearby in the cloud.  "They weren't fooling with this stuff, were they?  How did you guys survive the conquest?"

"We never gave them a chance to use their weapons.  We started killing the moment we arrived."

"Wise move, I'd say," said the voice, a civilian appointee accompanying Donal on his mission.  "The next armory we blow up, let's pull back a few miles to watch."

Donal ached up to one knee and coughed.  Governor Crauley sent him on this assignment, making the usual assumption that it was a dirty job no one would want.  In reality, Donal rather enjoyed eliminating weapons that the Eterrans would happily be using against the Xians.  The process of destroying Eterran military arsenals was going to take months, and at that, they were just blowing up the explosives and heavy projectile weapons. 

"More blast than I thought, but I never expected there to be so much heat.  That was almost flame."  He rubbed the crinkly exposed skin of his forearm, then saw the singed hairs and reddened skin the almost-flame left in passing.  He ran a hand through his hair and grimaced at the cloud of ash it had become.  Karin was going to have a laugh when she saw him.  "They never taught this at the Academy."

"Don't need to teach explosives when you have the lightning weapon, eh, Captain?  You notice they didn't suggest we back up any to watch," his companion added with a scorched grin.  "I'm sure they just forgot to mention it."

***

Deputy Endorf was down in Accounting, having generously volunteered again to help with the quarterly reports.  He sorted through the raw numbers, comparing them to the figures in the polished quarterlies.  The Emperor had a certain percentage allocated for graft, but the raw numbers indicated it wasn't graft that was cutting into the Emperor's profits.  It was plain incompetence on the Governor's part. 

Crauley's staff sanitized the reports before they went off to Xi Ahn, making sure everything appeared fine on paper.  Aside from his work with Ritt, Endorf's real assignment on Eterra was slicing through this fog and sending his own 'brutally honest' reports to the Imperium.  The risks were great — potentially fatal if the other appointees discovered he was jeopardizing their livelihoods — but the rewards were great, too.  He would retire with a stipend nearly as large as the Governor's if he survived. 

Endorf didn't know if it were just luck or the Imperium planned it that way, but Captain Donal was the most brilliant piece of survival architecture on Eterra, a perfect cover for Endorf's activities.  The man was a clown, a totally honest total screw-up, and no sooner would the furor die down from one misadventure than he'd be at the root of another.  Crauley hated him. 

The Deputies, on the other hand, still believed Donal was Carmina's spy.  They didn't dare bump him off, though, because he was Imperial Fleet and no one wanted to find out how thorough a military inquisition might be. 

Donal was currently out on another of Crauley's onerous assignments and wouldn't be back for weeks. 

***

"SANDVIKEN," said the Security chief.  "Now that's a sign that won't need repainting."  The huge letters were cast into the concrete of the building's backsloping thirty-foot-high wall.  It was bare grass gone to seed and weedy for two hundred yards in every direction from the building.  The chief stepped from the light transport airship with his men and approached the guard sitting behind a very thick multi-layered glass window in the otherwise windowless wall. 

"You guys from Governor Crauley?" came a loudspeakered voice before he could say anything. 

"Yes, you could say that.  Actually we're on orders from Registrar of Shares Var . . ."

"Good enough," said the voice.  After some loud clanks and a whir of motors, a steel door opened in the wall.  "Think those lightning weapons your men are carrying could reach me in here?"

"Does glass melt?" mumbled the Security chief as he led the procession into the printing company.  The dimly-lit foyer had a maze of unmarked corridors leading from it. 

"The building has what they call a convoluted floor plan to trick up any burglars," said the echoey voice.  "I can't come out to lead you, but I'll turn the lights on in the hallways you need to go down.  After you pick up the boxes and I lock up, Sandviken will be out of business and I can go home."

"Boxes?"

"Sure.  The Governor sent you here to pick up his boxes, right?  They're stacked on hand carts ready to go.  I'll have an electric forklift waiting for you outside, but you'll need a bigger spaceship than that little toy you came in.  You leave one of your men here at the guard station so he can telephone home and order a bigger ship.  You got a couple hundred cubic feet of boxes to haul away."

***

Donal opened the door to his office to find the back of his classroom filled with boxes and the Bay City Lieutenant Governor seated at his desk reading the Fleet War Code book.  The boxes had rolls of chain-link fencing wrapped around them with padlocks holding the rolls together. 

"Fun trip, Donal?  Nice haircut.  What happened to your eyebrows?"

Although most of Donal's orders came directly from Crauley, Lieutenant Governor Haier was technically his boss.  Donal remembered Haier's name from high school in Illium-des-Ahns.  He was from a down-country Old Royal family that lost its money and estates several generations earlier.  He was three years older than Donal, tops in his class at a neighboring high school, big track star, and he was also appointed to the Academy.  He lasted less than a year.  Haier didn't talk much about it, but then Donal didn't talk much about warship school. 

Haier was next ranking man on the planet after Crauley, and like all the political appointees, he was here to get rich.  He moreover wanted to put his family in Mount Wren, so he was signed up for as long a haul as Donal.  And he was, most significantly, the only appointee who didn't treat Donal as a pariah. 

"Interesting time, sir, blowing things up, getting scorched.  I'm glad they didn't have a chance to use that stuff on us during the conquest."

"Yeah, sorry I missed all that excitement."  Haier held up a bill, a Xian Twenty Credit note.  "You remember the Sandviken job?  We were wondering why Corporation wanted the presses?"

"Sure.  They send me a tip?"

Haier laughed.  "Take a look at it."

Donal examined the bill.  National Bank of Illium, which on Eterra passed for Xi Ahn.  Very new, very clean.  He pulled a Twenty from his wallet and compared them.  His own bill looked fake. 

"Treasury found a plate still in the rollers when they reassembled the presses.  That's one of the counterfeits the Eterrans printed up.  They could make better Xian money than we can.  A freighterload of that paper would really play havoc with the economy back home."

"And all those boxes in the back of my office are counterfeit?"

"Every last one, about a gazillion Credits worth.  Registrar Varta himself sent Security out to Sandviken looking for counterfeits, and Crauley went apoplectic when he heard Security already notified Registry about what they found.  Must have been his retirement fund."

"So," said Donal, "what are they doing in my office?"

"I don't know why, but Varta has assigned you — and only you — to burn them."  Haier handed him a typed directive, then dumped a handful of padlock keys onto the desk.  "I thought you and the Emperor were on the outs, but now I'm not so certain."  The Lieutenant Governor closed the War Code book with a pop and rose to leave. 

"Easy enough to figure," said Donal, perusing the Imperial directive.  "They trust me because I'm the only guy who didn't come to Eterra to get rich."

"Sure, Donal," Haier drawled with a knowing wink. 

Consequences

Gregor Donal typed away in his office, transcribing his notes into another report that no one would ever read.  The heavy steel projectile weapons proved resistant to explosives, so Donal first tried fusing their breech blocks with thermite charges.  Effective but time consuming.  The Eterran soldiers had little enthusiasm for destroying their own weapons and required close supervision. 

Donal then borrowed a transiting Fleet warship and tried the lightning weapon.  Stable Two plasma was very effective on steel, and the warship could weld a large stock of what the Eterrans called 'artillery' into a pile of scrap in one pass.  The lightning weapon was also effective on the morale of the observing soldiers, most of whom had never seen a Xian warship in action.  Donal took no pleasure in their disheartened expressions, soldiers like himself, but soldiers whose armies would soon be disbanded. 

On a cheerier note, no Eterran government allowed private ownership of hand or shoulder weapons, so after the government arsenals were destroyed or dumped into the sea, Xian control of Eterra was secure. 

Donal stopped typing.  Xi Ahn had the lightning weapon and the field engine, and would never allow its subject planets to have them.  The military security of Eslan Carmina's Empire was absolute.  It's end, like that of so many empires before it, could come only from within.  Donal left that out of his report. 

He typed a few closing words and pulled the last sheet from his typewriter.  Nine weeks on the other side of the planet, and no backlog of executions when he returned — couldn't ask for more.  The trip had been interesting, too, blowing up the surviving Eterran national armories to disarm the planet completely.  The weapons were rusty but deadly, and Donal was glad the Eterrans hadn't enough time to dust them off before the conquest.  All in all, aside from missing Karin, the job had been a vacation. 

"Donal, you look bored."

Donal cast a wary glance up.  Governor Crauley's pudgy body filled his doorway. 

"Executions been a little slow lately?"  Crauley had a sheet of paper in his hand. 

"I wish I could take credit for that, sir.  I really do."

"Well, perk up, Deputy."  The Governor dropped his list on Donal's desk and cast a longing look at the boxes still piled in the back of the office.  "Been talking to Security, and they say the execution business is about to start booming."

***

Donal pulled the security files that backed Crauley's list to look for errors.  The appalling size of the 'project' made mistakes inevitable, but the Governor's security men had been efficient at finding informers among the conspirators.  Only two cases were questionable, possible bystanders, little people in any case, and Donal took one file home to study. 

***

Two weekends to go before the revolution.  Elinor relocked the mail slot and sorted through the advertising letters.  Resident, resident, resident, then surprisingly 'Miss Elinor Amhensen' appeared on a large envelope.  She flew up the flights of steps and burst into the apartment. 

"Father!  Father!  Look what I got!"  She held up the envelope. 

"Well, a letter for you.  And from whom?"

Elinor hadn't noticed.  "It says from Mr and Mrs Geri Rikardsen.  Can I open it?"

"May I open it.  Of course you may."

Elinor unsealed the flap and slid out a photograph, a kneeling man and a little girl in an old-timey dress holding a raggedy stuffed toy.  "The picture Mr Rikardsen took of us when we lived there!  I know where this goes."

Elinor ran off to her bedroom and pulled out the big suitcase they brought from the Forbidden Zone.  She undid the straps and dug the through the money and jewels until she found the scarred silver picture frame. 

"That's a good idea," her father said from the doorway.  "That frame needed something to do."

"Can you, may you fix the frame at the jewelers?"

"'Can' is correct," he said, "and I can, but the scratches remind us of the aliens who made them, Ellie.  When the She-Ons are gone, I will fix the frame."

Elinor made a sour face while she slipped the photograph into its new home.  The scratches in the silver were deep and ugly on the pretty frame. 

Her father looked at his timepiece.  "You must write to the Rikardsens to thank them, but right now we need to be going."

Elinor placed the photograph on her dresser and tossed a schoolbook into the basket of her bicycle. 

Ten minutes later, they were pedaling up to the tavern for her father's usual weekend wheeling and dealing.  Turning the corner, they found police vehicles surrounding the tavern. 

"Just go right past, Ellie."

She saw conspirators in handcuffs and a She-On master supervising the roundup. 

"Let's pedal home," Elinor suggested wisely. 

They did.  A police cruiser was waiting for them. 

***

Officer Thorgil had his wife call him in sick the next day.  And he was sick, sick to his very soul at what he had done.  Old man Dahl warned him that night they found the murdered slaver.  "Sooner or later you'll have to arrest other Eterrans for these aliens," Dahl said, but Thorgil never thought it would be like this, making a slaver of himself. 

He'd have thought the man and his daughter had never been apart, the way they went hysterical when they were separated at the station house.  Thorgil had the girl in his custody when a She-On Deputy Lieutenant Governor pulled him aside.  "I'll take care of her," the alien said in that arrogant accent, and Thorgil gave her up.  Just like a slaver. 

The Deputy took the girl and made quietly for the door, just like he had a place to go with her, just like he had a plan, and Thorgil just watched him leave.  No children appeared on the arrest sheet when Thorgil checked it later before going home.  Just like she'd never existed. 

Everything that night in the guard shack came back to him.  The words of the She-On security officer rang inside his head: "It's high up," he said of the aliens buying the slaves, and only two She-Ons in the Bay City Administrative Region ranked higher than Deputy.  Everyone with children moved out of North University, Dahl said, everyone but the stupid man Thorgil arrested. 

Orphans, the security officer said.  The little girl was headed that way, because she had seen her father for the last time. 

The She-Ons planned a mass execution and had used the local police to round up the victims.  It would happen again, as certain as rain, and if Thorgil were still in the area, they'd have him rounding up the next batch for slaughter. 

Lucky three times?  Thorgil would never know, because the one time speaking out really counted, he kept silent.  Officer Thorgil began writing a request for transfer from the North University station house. 

***

Piers spent a sleepless night alone in a cell, worrying about Elinor, worrying about himself.  He'd kept clear of the plotters for this very reason, and look what good it did.  No word when they hustled him to a Deputy Lieutenant Governor's office in the She-On university compound.  Piers waited nervously for him under the eye of an Eterran policeman. 

The Deputy came through the door looking irritated.  "Mr," he glanced at his clipboard, "Amhensen."

"What have you done with my daughter?"

The Deputy spoke Eterran with the usual arrogant She-On accent.  "I'm Deputy Lieutenant Governor Donal, Mr Amhensen, and I'm in charge of civilian executions.  Was the tavern keeper involved in the conspiracy, too?"

Piers panicked and shook his head 'no' without thinking. 

"Well, good."  Donal pencilled a line through one name on his list.  "And you.  How deeply were you involved?"

"Not!  None!" Piers choked.  "No!  They were — they were harmless!  They were just, it was just talk.  Never, they, they . . ."  Piers couldn't think. 

Donal's dusty brown eyes bored into him.  The pencil did not move. 

"My wife has taken your daughter in, Mr Amhensen.  Elinor will need looking after for a while."

Piers blanched. 

"Let's go."  Donal turned and held the door open for Piers.  "The executions are about to begin, and we've been waiting for you."

Escorted by policemen, Piers followed the Deputy Lieutenant Governor.  The halls had changed since his university days, starker, stripped of the portraits of great men, the mementos of athletic triumph.  The Xians had no sense of color whatever, two muddy shades of paint senselessly dividing the hallway into upper and lower halves.  He noticed everything, anything to keep his mind off what awaited him. 

Donal led on down the hall to what was once a classroom.  Piers entered and saw the tavern keeper and a dozen others he did not recognize. 

"You Eterrans have been conspiring for some time to overthrow the justly established rule of the Empire," Donal announced to the group.  "The Governor has watched this with amusement.  He held trials last month and the sentences came down yesterday morning.  Rather than wait until someone got hurt, the Governor ordered the conspirators arrested.  All around the planet."

"You sentenced the men before they were even arrested?" shouted one man.  "Who was there to defend them?  Why even have a trial?"

"The Governor's feeling exactly, but there are rules," said Donal.  "You gentlemen are leaders of Eterra, here to learn the price of challenging the Empire.  You two," he said to Piers and the tavern keeper, "you're little people, but you had the opportunity to stop them before it came to this.  I'll have sleepless nights after today.  Maybe you'll have them, too."

Piers sagged against the blackboard wall, thanking the Creator for the promise of sleepless nights.  The conspirators had been too loud, the She-Ons too intelligent, and Piers had been too blind.  Everyone underestimated the aliens, and the penalty was death. 

Donal went to the windows and opened the blinds.  A courtyard below held four frightened men chained to rings in the pavement, men who hadn't planned to die today.  Piers knew them from the tavern.  A few dozen other men stood at the back of the courtyard, more witnesses. 

Deputy Lieutenant Governor Donal turned away, then one by one, bright weapons flashes vaporized most of the four criminal rebels.  The courtyard witnesses reacted even more than the men in the room with Piers.  He fastened his eyes on Donal's back.  The alien was a coward, unable to watch the killing he had ordered.  Then Piers noticed Donal's reflection in the glass doors of an emptied bookshelf.  The She-On was looking back. 

"You're staring at me, Mr Amhensen."  Donal's voice had the chill of indifference, not cowardice.  "Perhaps you'll find the proceedings more interesting if I provide you a closer view."

"Only a barbarian would order public executions."

"Public?"  Donal turned to face him. 

"Those witnesses around the courtyard, Governor.  You've dragged them in off the street to spread the word."

"They aren't witnesses."

The guards dragged four 'witnesses' up and chained them to the rings.  Piers' mouth fell open.  The slaughter had only begun. 

"You don't leave until they are all dead," said Donal.  "This is your first time in the dignitaries' room and probably your last.  My nightmares will continue."

Piers moved forward to face him, prompting a wary reaction from every Eterran policemen in the room.  "You're not responsible for these executions?"

"Oh, yes, Mr Amhensen, I'm responsible.  I just have no authority to stop it."  Another weapons flash made the Deputy Lieutenant Governor wince.  "You lost people in the conquest?"

"My family."

"I'm responsible for them, too.  I worked in the command ship coordinating the attacks, but I stupidly tried to stop the slaughter when I realized what we were doing.  The other soldiers went home when the occupation bureaucrats arrived, but they 'rewarded' me with this assignment.  I should have kept my mouth shut."

"As I understand it, your Lieutenant Governor position will make you wealthy enough to retire on Mount Wren some day.  At least Governor Crauley is skimming enough off my planet to retire there, if it isn't treason to mention it."

"It is, but I wouldn't take this position for any amount of money.  I still have my commission and I draw only military pay.  They are just teaching me a lesson, much as they hope to teach you and these others."

Piers heard meaning in the words beyond the insolent accent, saw need in the She-On's eyes.  A young man with limited experience, a man being punished by his own people, a weakness that might give Piers an opening.  Other Eterrans had thought they saw weakness in the She-Ons, and now they were chained in the courtyard.  Mistakes around the aliens weren't free.  Did he wish to take a chance?

This alien had already taken Elinor.  What was left to lose?

"We might be of service to each other," Piers said.  He held out a card, his telephone number.  Donal hesitated, then took it.  "Next week sometime.  And you know these executions just stiffen our will."

"Yes, I know.  We're only weeding out," another bright flash, "the rebels foolish enough to get caught."

***

Two dozen men vaporized.  One by one, they blew apart in clouds of steam while screaming comrades chained next to them tore themselves bloody trying to pull free of steel shackles.  The less tidy deaths required a second shot to quiet the remains. 

'Vaporized' was in fact a graciously inaccurate euphemism for what Stable Two plasma did to a human body, and as effective as the lightning weapon was, it was not exactly efficient.  The courtyard was a charnel mess and Piers and the others were heartsick and physically sick, hollowed out and emptied out by the time Deputy Lieutenant Governor Donal returned from the 'other business' he had used as an excuse to leave. 

"What must I do to get my daughter back, sir?" asked a defeated Piers Amhensen.  Water from a hose splashed across the classroom windows as a workman down in the courtyard began washing some sticky remains off the glass. 

"Go home, Mr Amhensen.  Think about your responsibilities to the families of these men.  You could have prevented their stupidity, but you chose to let them die."  The Deputy's words were as cold and disdainful as his alien heart must have been. 

"My wife will drop Elinor off at your apartment later."

***

Piers' jacket hung neatly on a chair back, a chalked name written in reverse across it where Piers had sagged against the blackboard, an executed conspirator's name that had followed him home.  Deputy Donal had failed to mention it when Piers turned to leave, choosing to let it speak for itself. 

Piers slumped on the old sofa, his head tilted back staring at the peeling ceiling paint.  He had come so close to losing his daughter again.  Elinor had her head in his lap and an arm wrapped around Toey, staring at the same ceiling. 

"Mrs Donal said you should have stopped those men."

"I wanted to learn what She-On would do, Ellie.  Now I know.  Now I know."

"Mrs Donal said it wasn't worth their lives for you to find out what she could have told you."  Piers looked down at his daughter.  "She said She-On is too powerful to defeat.  Only someone inside can change it and free Eterra."

"Why did Mrs Donal keep you?  What did she want from you?"

"She wanted to know about you.  Mr Donal came in and he wanted to know about you, too.  I didn't tell him much, just that you buy and sell.  Then he left."

Cold fear clawed Piers' stomach.  He had attracted the close attention of a Deputy Lieutenant Governor of Eterra, an alien executioner.  And he had attracted it before they ever met. 

"Did you learn anything about them?"

"Mrs Donal said she married her husband to stop the executions.  She married him so she could go to She-On one day and work for Eterra's freedom."

"Why, Ellie?  Why would a master want to help Eterra?"

"Mrs Donal is Eterran like us, Father."

***

"Well?" asked Karin. 

"Well, what?" Gregor returned, still numbed by the executions.  He pulled another page from the folder and slid it into the flames.  It curled and darkened and became one with the fire. 

"Was he worth saving?"

"He was not a part of the conspiracy, if that's your question."  Gregor dropped the last page into the backyard trash burner.  "He was very careful not to get personally involved, but I'm certain he knew everything that went on.  He could have prevented it if he wanted, but instead two dozen men had to die."  Gregor pulled the incriminating metal page clip off, then tossed the folder jacket in.  "Crauley had paid informers in the taverns looking for this conspiracy before it even existed, and he knew what the rebels were going to do before they themselves thought of it."

"How?  Crauley isn't omniscient."

"It's written in a Corporation manual.  The Empire has other planets, Karin.  They're all different, but the Resistance story plays the same.  First the stupid people plot and die, then the smarter ones plot and fail, then it settles down to vandalism until the people accept that the Empire is a chronic condition."  Some burning trash collapsed in the steel barrel, sending a shower of sparks rising into the night.  "Your fellow Eterran is now unknown to the security force.  If he stays out of trouble, I will not have to answer for destroying his file. 

"How," he asked, "did it go with his daughter?"

"Intense little girl.  She didn't calm down until I told her that her father wasn't in trouble, which I understand, but getting anything from her was impossible.  If a girl is proud of her father, it's usually harder to get her to stop talking about him than it is to get her started.  Elinor is devoted to him, but — well, she'd make a good rebel.  I couldn't pry a thing from her."

"Elinor Amhensen," Gregor said. 

"Actually, she pried more from me about you."  Karin took his arm and pulled up close, the last flames of the folder giving an added gravity to her features.  "Crauley makes you take life, and you risk your career to give it back."

Gregor shrugged off her comment as he walked with her back to the house.  "Not much of a career to risk.  Wasn't much of a file either, so if his name comes up again, I'll say he was an informer.  Who knows, maybe he will be.  I'm meeting him next week."

***

Piers lounged in the sand, leaning back on his elbows, staring out at the ocean horizon.  Behind him lay the harbor road, and farther beyond, the Forbidden Zone.  This stretch of beach was the best around Bay City, west of the point that formed the southwest arm of the bay, and up-current of all the streams that dumped sewage.  The inner Bay beaches weren't too bad, but they were the brown mud sand of brackish river estuaries.  This stuff was salty-clean and nearly white. 

He had foolishly given Elinor a book about the sea, so, inevitably, here they were.  She ran up and down the beach exploring for the dead things that washed up, the antithesis of grace in her nondescript brown swim suit. 

Alice always had the candy brightest suit on the beach, but Elinor wasn't Alice.  Practical little girl. 

He glanced down at his thigh, his main reason for not wanting to come here.  It was as ugly out in the sun as it was indoors, a white-glazed, red- undercoated coin of a scar on the outer side, a ragged, ripped purple starburst on his inner thigh where the hot steel tore it out.  The current style of swim trunks didn't begin to hide it.  Still, Elinor wanted to go to the beach. 

"What is that?" she had asked.  She had never seen it. 

"A scar.  A piece of steel went in there and came out here."

"Was it an accident?"

"No, the She-Ons did it on purpose.  They were trying to kill you and me, and they almost did.  You remember the people bones?"

Elinor reached out to touch it, then drew her hand away when it didn't feel like people.  It didn't feel like people to Piers, either, and tomorrow he was going to meet with one of the She-Ons who put it there. 

Some children were gathering down the beach, examining something large that had washed up.  Elinor found something in the surf herself and trotted back to show him: a spiral sea shell with a recently deceased and heavily benibbled occupant. 

"Ellie, why don't you go over there to see what they've doing?"

She hesitated, but dumped her shell and went anyway.  She circled the group, but they wouldn't let her in to see.  Some words were spoken, then she came back crying. 

"Let's go home."

Piers got up.  "What did they say to you?"  He took her hand and started toward them, but Elinor yanked him back. 

"No!"  He knelt down and focused on her.  "No," she said, sniffling back her emotions.  "I want to go."

They walked hand-in-hand to the bicycle stand.  Alice, who never kept anything in, would have tattled.  With every passing day, this child was telling him she not Alice. 

***

Piers Amhensen, undistinguished face, average height, average build.  An average-looking man.  Donal shook his hand.  A carpenter's iron grip, but soft hands that had never swung a hammer.  Warm eyes inappropriate in a countenance hardened by what Donal had done to his family. 

"Tell me of your family."

Amhensen's face reacted for an instant, then settled.  "A wife and a daughter.  I buried them.  What are you . . ."

"We expected resistance, Mr Amhensen.  Forty minutes on we hadn't lost a single warship; we hadn't even taken a hit.  We were just killing people.  I tried to recall the ships in my sector and I got yanked off the console.  I got crosswise with the system, so here I am, looking those people in the eye."

Amhensen reddened.  "I'm not in the forgiveness business, Governor.  I deal with She-Ons because I want things and I'm willing to give things in return.  Don't look for sympathy from me."

Exactly what Donal was looking for.  He pulled a chair over.  "I would rather have lost family myself than caused the suffering.  Guilt is hard to handle because you don't have anyone else to blame."

Amhensen sat back, thinking.  The curve of an eyebrow, the movement of his jaw, the tightening lips, the man's face was an open book of his thoughts. 

"I intend to create a lot of suffering eventually, but I need things from you now.  I need to know how the Empire operates, how She-On runs it.  I need bank accounts on She-On.  I need sources on She-On. 

"In return, Governor, you get enough to retire on Mount Wren."

"I doubt that.  How do you know about Mount Wren?"

"Workmen overhear Governor Crauley talk about it.  It's some heavenly mountain you retire to when you've stolen enough Eterran money."

A minor misunderstanding.  "Heaven isn't as expensive," said Donal.  "Illium-des-Ahns is the capital of Illium, the largest country on Xi Ahn.  It's where the money is, but it's a pigsty.  You have pigs on Eterra?"

"We do now."

It wasn't going to be easy.  "Why am I here?  I have no shortage of informants.  Why should I even bother with you?"

"Because you want something, as I do, but we don't yet know what we have to offer."

That's what it came down to.  Donal was stuck tending these obstinate aliens and the aliens were stuck with their imperious Xian masters.  If there were any way Donal could reach out to the Eterrans, he would.  "Mount Wren is a town, Mr Amhensen, not a mountain.  It sits on bluffs across the Ahn river from Illium-des-Ahns.  Very exclusive, and you have to be friends with the Old Royals to buy land there.  But you can buy their friendship."

"Who are the Old Royals?"

"The old kings and barons of Xi Ahn.  We've elected our governments for generations, but they still own most of the land and have hereditary rights to judgeships.  They own the Xian slaves.  Corporation is bringing in slaves from the planets to compete, but the Old Royals still have great power."  Donal bit his lip.  He had let slip a Xian secret and Amhensen caught it. 

"We occasionally hear the term 'Corporation' when we expect to hear 'She-On,' Governor.  And like Eterra, you have countries.  Which country owns the war fleet?"

The stock answer that Corporation was 'the organization that administers Eterra' did not fit Amhensen's question.  Donal searched for an answer that did, but Amhensen grinned. 

"No country, right?  This 'Corporation' owns the Fleet.  You'd have us think we're your only conquest, but you've got a private company out conquering planetsss, plural, and we're just part of a profit-making enterprise.  Am I close, Governor?"

"No, Xi Ahn is a powerful . . ."

"No planetary pride involved, just entries on a company's balance sheet."  Amhensen's eyes narrowed and his grin wasted to a thin smile.  "You have to turn a profit, and the rebels are costing you money.  If you don't make money, no point in staying on Eterra.  The rebels haven't figured that out yet."

Donal saw the imminent blackmail.  "I should never have come here."

"I don't abuse business partners, Governor.  And we are business partners now."

***

Gregor Donal walked through the door and found his wife on the telephone.  He planted a kiss as she replaced the handset. 

"That was Doctor Ritt."

"Ritt?  Why would you of all people go to a Xian doctor?"

"The other wives say she's really good with children."  Karin placed his hand on her tummy.  "Guess what, Xian."

***

A sticky stinky sack of tollar sludge sat on the sill outside the window while Preston Tyrell decoded the letter from Gregor Donal.  This time the Xian exile wanted a favor.  Was there any way an Eterran could invest on Xi Ahn?

Tyrell knew of none, but as publisher of the des-Ahns Financier, he could find out. 

***

"Preston, my boy, the more we thought about your goofy idea, the more we liked it."  The Xuan Group lead investor wrapped an arm across Preston Tyrell's shoulders.  "It's as illegal as anything we've ever done — and that covers a lot — but it's a peek inside Carmina's secret galactic Empire, find out where the money is."

"But you have a seat on the Board, sir.  Don't Corporation Directors have the right to see the books?"

"He's been cooking them for years to cover losses on the first three planets.  That's not for publication, by the way.  If Eterra hadn't come through for him, he'd be in jail."

"But it did, and he isn't," said Preston Tyrell.  Unhappy fact. 

"You were still out on Eterra then, but he stole enough gold from that planet to pave Illium-des-Ahns' streets with the metal.  Some parts of this town, I'd settle for gravel — but anyway, you can bet those Corporation books look just spiffy now."

"Gold?  Gold backs all the world's currencies, Director.  A large enough horde could affect their value."  Tyrell smelled a story.  "How much gold did he bring back?"

"Ohh," said the white-haired Director, examining his nails for shine or length or whatever, "that's a closely guarded secret, which is to say I don't at this moment know."

"But at some later moment?"

"You never can tell.  You do me a favor some day, I do you a favor some day, you never can tell."

"Somebody said journalists aren't supposed to do favors for stories, sir.  It ruins their objectivity."

"Absolutely right, Preston.  Somebody did say that."

The number wasn't forthcoming any time soon, but Preston had other reasons for cultivating this friendship.  "Do you know much about the planets apart from the money side?"

"You probably know as much as I do, what with your captain friend out on Eterra.  Carmina keeps his planets to himself.  No one goes to them unless he works for Corporation.  That's what's intrigued my colleagues about having an alien in the Group.  Keeps us an eye on Carmina's finagling."

"You think he needs watching?"

The Xuan partner squinted at Tyrell.  "Son, that conniving lawyer was just a gofer in Altmark Legal Department when he stepped on old Chairman Landya's toes — literally — and had to spend two years kissing everyone's, uh, boots.  But he had some important friends and got early wind of Landya's plan to put politicians on the Board, better public relations or something.  The Board paid five thousand plus tips back then, a good little sum for a pol, and legal, too.  Carmina told the men that he was working on a way to get them some extra money.  The fools believed him, so when it happened, they thought they knew whom to thank. 

"After the old man finally died, the grateful Board elected Eslan Carmina Chairman instead of Landya's son.  Twenty-seven years old, and head of the largest company on Xi Ahn.  Landya's son supposedly committed suicide a year later, but no one believes that."

"They don't?  We need to talk again," said Tyrell.  "I'm getting a good education here — not for publication, of course."

"Don't worry about it, Preston," laughed the Xuan partner.  "Nobody reads your newspaper for its editorial content."

***

"The Shuwen Group?" asked Piers Amhensen.  "What's a Shuwen?"

"Xuan is an ancient spelling of Xi Ahn, and Xuan Group is an anonymous cartel," said Donal, "a group of businessmen who pool resources and act in each other's interest.  Cartels are a common practice on Xi Ahn, and their privacy is guaranteed by law.  You are now a member of the Xuan Group.  It will handle your business matters and investments."

"Is it safe?"

"Perhaps.  As an alien not allowed to invest on Xi Ahn, you have no other option.  Xuan has, by the way, a seat on the Altmark Board of Directors."

Amhensen's eyes lit up. 

"If you're going to be a member of Xuan Group," Donal said with an edge of annoyance, "I'd recommend you learn to pronounce Xuan correctly.  I burned a favor to get this for you, Amhensen.  You're nothing to Xuan, and not a big player on Eterra, either.  How do you plan to get me to Mount Wren?"

"Eterra is fluid, Governor.  Opportunities abound in flux."  Amhensen reached inside his jacket and produced a package.  Small, folded paper packets.  "These are tokens of my intent."  He opened one packet and four very large diamonds spilled out.  "You keep these, and as my fortunes improve, I shall buy them back."

"Four diamonds are hardly enough for Mount Wren."

"All the packets, sir.  Two hundred stones of high quality.  You might find something in there for your wife, too."

Donal opened a packet.  Six big rubies.  Another packet, more diamonds, and many more packets. 

"And I must offer my congratulations.  A new son for our Empire.  Will he be a master, or like his mother?"

Donal was fixed in the glow of the gems.  "Huh, what?"

"I said congratulations on your new son."

"Yes, thank you.  We named him Andrew.  Uh, what else did you ask?"

"I said keep like stones packaged together so they don't scratch.  The emeralds are especially soft."

"Oh, of course."  Donal opened another packet.  Sapphires. 

"Wait, these are scavenged jewels."

"Yes, Governor, they are.  Ripped from the throats and fingers of Eterran women killed in your Conquest.  That's why I offer to buy them back over time."

"And you think I might find something for my wife among scavenged jewels?  Karin is Eterran."

The Eterran had let his bitterness get ahead of him.  After a pause, "True.  For that, sir, I apologize."

"You never let up, do you?"

"We are in business, not friendship.  We have things to offer each other.  Value for value."

***

When the Forbidden Zone supply dried up, Deputy Endorf had to find other sources for his trade.  Faking stillbirths and crib deaths was absolutely awful, and even Ritt resisted.  While the market price for older children was rising to heights unseen in the good old scavenger days, orphaning wasn't as easily arranged now.  Too many relatives, not enough warships. 

Endorf had lost track of childhood friends when they moved away to another school.  That held promise, but there were still parents and relatives.  Something semi-official, make the parents think it's a legitimate part of the oppression.  Something not quite a reform school, but a 'program' for unruly boys and girls.  On Xi Ahn. 

"Girls aren't unruly," said Ritt.  "We'll still be short of girls."

"School administrators are flexible," said Endorf.  "With enough incentive, they'll get us girls."

"And for free, this time.  Hanz, I'm actually impressed."  Ritt returned her attention to the little boy.  "C'mon, little buddy, talk to me.  I haven't had a complete mindwipe in months."  The child remained unresponsive. 

"Criminy, Ritt, not another bad batch of Tide?"

"Mushmind for certain, aren't you pal?  You boys are usually way less sensitive to Tide than girls, so this must be really bad stuff."  Dr Ritt drew a terminal overdose into the syringe.  "Say goodbye, fella.  You won't feel a thing."

"Next girl we get in," said Endorf, "we'll have to be extra careful."

School Days

Elinor Amhensen's hand shot up.  The teacher scanned hopefully around the classroom, but none of the other seventy students were interested enough or had studied enough to have an answer.  "Elinor," he sighed. 

"The Sendan Peninsula."  Correct as usual. 

Geography was not among She-On's approved subjects for third grade, so the teacher could do nothing about his students' lack of interest.  He dared not punish or single anyone out, nothing that would produce a complaint from the parents.  While the Administration probably wanted Eterran subjects taught, their jobs depended on obeying the She-On masters, so they would come down on him hard. 

He had moved Elinor to a back row and some of his back row boys up front in hope that proximity to his switch might improve their attitudes and distance might dampen Elinor's enthusiasm.  Unfortunately, classes this size dashed hopes as regularly as the Sendan Peninsula dashed sailing ships.  The front-row-back-row boys had that 'we'll fix her next recess' look again. 

Elinor was a bright little girl, among the brightest in this class, but she was proud of her intelligence and liked to beat the other children over the head with it.  She gave the impression that she felt herself better than the others, which was not, in a few cases, the case.  The teacher had often tried to match her against his truly brilliant boys to teach her some humility, but the boys were brilliant enough not get involved. 

Because of her small size, the others didn't have to put up with her attitude, and during recess they sometimes did something about it.  All their efforts to teach Elinor a lesson failed, though, and when they beat her up during recess, she would come right back and beat them up in class. 

As much as the teacher might otherwise admire her pluck, he had to deal with seventy children at a time, and a new group every hour.  Elinor Amhensen was a discipline problem that he and the other teachers who had her did not need. 

***

The school omnibus dropped its only passenger off, then trundled emptily back across town.  Elinor came through the door with a note in her hand. 

"Ellie, you've been fighting again."

She handed him the note.  "They were teasing me."

"That isn't an excuse.  The Creator made some of us large and some of us small.  Picking fights is not wise if you're small."  Piers smoothed the dark bangs away from her forehead and saw a scrape.  "Did you get him back?"

"Real good," she said. 

"Real well," he corrected. 

She canted her head at him. 

"Really well," he corrected himself. 

The note said her home-room teacher wished to speak with him. 

***

"Elinor is an only child?"

Piers nodded. 

"Knocking heads with siblings gives you social skills that Elinor lacks.  I'd have guessed she has no neighbor children to play with, either, even without knowing you live in North University."

Piers said nothing as Elinor's teacher correctly assessed his daughter's circumstances. 

"Mr Amhensen, Elinor has never had a birthday party."  Piers sat bolt upright.  "And even if she did, whom would she invite?"

He had not the slightest clue as to Elinor's birthday, not even the date when he found her in the ruins, and the thought of a party had never crossed his mind.  Alice always had parties, and he had been to every one.  Alice shone at parties. 

He started to speak, but how could a father admit such a thing?  The woman had made her point and mercifully moved on. 

"Physically," she explained, "Elinor could be a grade lower.  Mentally, she belongs a year ahead.  She becomes bored with the lessons and causes trouble.  The others resent her and don't hesitate to pick on her because she is small."

"Why don't you punish the others?"

"Because school has changed since the She-Ons came.  We have seventy children each.  We have no time," she said, "no time anymore.  She-Ons don't care about our children.  Just teach them to read so they can read the She-On work rules.  Just teach them enough math to pay the She-On taxes.  Just get them out of school and off to work in the factories. 

"We can't look after individual needs anymore.  The best we can do is teach every child to get along and to look out for himself.  Every second I give to Elinor I must take away from seventy others.  She should go to university eventually, but I can't recommend her for that track because we have only two slots for her grade.  I can't waste a slot on a girl."

Piers bristled.  "What do you mean, 'waste a slot on a girl'?"

"I mean boys and girls get married.  The boys must work to support their families.  The girls would rather stay home and raise their children as we did before the She-Ons came.  I," she said, "would rather stay home than send my little boy to that horrid She-On day camp, but I must work to pay the taxes.  I take as much sick time as they allow. 

"I have a degree, Mr Amhensen.  My husband doesn't, and his pay from the She-On masters reflects it.  He can't change jobs without government permission, and he can't start his own business because, well, the regulations and rules and permits and paperwork — you wouldn't believe how difficult they've made it."

Piers knew the official barriers too well, which was why he did his own business from a table in a tavern. 

"If he had the education instead of me, I would not have to work here."

Piers could not argue.  She was right; the old ways did not fit the way of the Empire.  "What does it take for private school?"

"Private schools are banned."

"I have money."

"It takes money.  And time, at least a year for them to check you out.  The She-Ons don't enforce the ban tightly yet, but people have still gone to prison camps.  I will have someone contact you, but your daughter will be here next year."

"Would they still pick on her in private school?"

"Probably."

***

Deputy Endorf leafed through the principal's folder, noting the worthwhile points, while the man waited on a lonely chair in the center of the room.  "You graduated from Bay City University.  Education degree."

"Yes, sir."

"Any classes in this room?"

"This was a mathematics classroom.  I had Diffy Q here."  Endorf glanced up.  "Uh, Differential Equations, sir.  And, uh, basic Probability & Statistics."

"Heavy math, for a teacher.  Usual education courses.  I don't see any management courses.  Nothing on handling unruly children."

"That came under Child Psychology, sir.  Three credit course, if I recall correctly."  The principal shifted nervously on the hard chair.  "Sir."

"You do."  Endorf let a few seconds slip by, flipped a few sheets in the folder, letting the man's mind work on him.  "That's why I'm disappointed."

The ceiling fan stirred the air.  The blackboards carried no chalked equations, rather, cryptic notes in Xian that Endorf knew the principal couldn't read.  The empty bookcases held a barren, forlorn message for an educator.  Student desks stacked in the corner like so much firewood. 

"I'm disappointed," Endorf repeated.  "We designed our program especially for you, to help you with problem children.  We need you to use it."

"You need us to use it?" asked the Principal.  "I mean, sir, if we can handle our own discipline cases, why should we put you to the extra trouble?"

"You should, because I'm trying to be subtle at the moment and not frighten you with what will happen if you don't."  Deputy Endorf smiled gently.  "Other schools participate, and their staff prosper," the Deputy smiled even more gently, "here, on Eterra."

"But I've heard that children . . ."

"Baseless rumor!" Endorf snapped the words out almost in anger, but then softened his tone.  Professionalism.  This was the sixth 'educator' he'd had to educate, another paper-pushing, progress resisting bureaucrat who thought — "All the children participating in the program are doing well."  Endorf placed a hand on the folder, a finger tapping slowly on its own.  "Contributing members of society, reaching their full potential."  The hand clenched and slammed on the desk. 

"All that platitudinous garbage you teachers have been laying off on us for years!  You are going to provide me a little trouble-maker or two, got it?"

"But . . ."

"Alternatively, I could find someone on my own, preferably a girl.  Why, here's one right handy," Endorf said, pulling a photo from the open folder and holding it up.  "Your file says you have a little girl, you and your wife.  Am I getting through to you, or will you be surprised when she's gone?"

The principal's eyes went wide white. 

"Children aren't the only ones we have 'programs' for, Principal."

***

Spring Planting month neared.  Elinor continued fighting.  She continued losing.  The notes from her teachers became more threatening.  If the fighting continued, the disruptive girl would be sent away to a 'special' school that the She-Ons themselves ran for such children, a school where children were taught to serve others without complaint. 

The implied threat was slavery on She-On. 

Piers had once murdered three men to prevent that.  His conscience still ate at him even though he had sworn never to take another life.  He couldn't count on his 'business relationship' with Deputy Donal to help, either.  He'd gone out of his way to depersonalize their dealings, alienating the alien, and besides, Donal's influence seemed negative at best.  The last Eterran he'd tried to help got executed. 

Old omnibus brakes squealed outside and Piers went to the window to watch his daughter disembark.  She looked as she had on too many other occasions.  The hall entrance creaked, then small footsteps padded up the flights.  They stopped just outside the apartment, waiting, building courage.  Elinor came through the door and ran into his arms, her dress torn. 

"Ellie, they will take you from me unless you stop.  You cannot keep this up."

"It's the others, the others," she sobbed. 

"I know, but if the She-Ons take you away, the school won't have any more trouble.  That's all they care about."

"No!  I won't ever leave you!  Let's run away; let's go back to the Forbidden Zone."

Piers held her close.  He needed her more than life now, and he needed to make her understand.  "No.  Eterrans don't run away.  We must fight She-On, not each other.  If you fight again, they will take you from me.  Please don't let that happen."

Elinor backed away, rubbing at her tears.  "I won't ever leave you."

"Then stop fighting."

She sniffled back a tear.  "I will.  I won't fight any more."

***

The nurse snagged his arm as Piers ran into the clinic.  "You must be Mr Amhensen."  Piers nodded.  "We see a lot of Elinor, but this is more serious.  She has a dislocated shoulder.  I popped it back in place, but there was a lot of pain involved.  It's going to take all Spring Planting to heal."

"Where is the doctor?" asked Piers, looking around. 

"Doctor?  Looking after the She-Ons, of course.  We see a doctor once a year to check for contagious diseases.  That's all."

The nurse led him to the beds.  Elinor sat atop the sheets in her slip, propped against a pillow.  Both knees had bandages and her cheek was scraped.  Bruises on her face and arms, and one arm was in a sling.  Piers ran to her. 

"We think some boys pushed her down, then other girls kicked her.  She won't tell us who, but if we find out, it will be serious trouble for them.  She didn't fight back this time."

Elinor had her eyes locked on Piers.  She had done just as he asked. 

***

Piers sat on the floor, leaning against the sofa.  Elinor lay on her back with her head in his lap, rubbing the itchy knee beneath the bandage.  Two weeks remained before Spring Planting, but would she not return to school until after the Planting recess was over. 

The unsigned letter in his hand said no private school for Elinor.  Piers had been seen meeting with a She-On Lieutenant Governor. 

"I wish I was bigger.  Then they wouldn't pick on me."

"I wish I were bigger," said Piers.  "I wish you were bigger, too.  We can't do anything about that."

"Then I wish I were stronger.  Strong like you.  Bigger people don't pick on you.  Never more than once."

"No, Ellie, they don't."

Fredrik Rikardsen's immortality formula had 'optimized' Piers' body.  Only a mild fever, then over time he gained a strength and quickness he had never known.  His mind had never been as alert as the Rikardsen process made it. 

Immortality; maybe it was, probably it wasn't.  The process still had flaws, many flaws, but it had given him the intelligence and the time to conquer them.  Piers knew he would give it to Elinor one day, but what she needed now were the side effects, the strength.  Before the bullies hurt her again.  Only a mild fever. 

"Ellie, I can make you stronger."

***

The school situation on Elinor's return took up right where it left off.  She had read the lessons and done the work at home, and she showed them in class that she knew the answers better than anyone. 

Elinor surveyed the playground warily.  A big fifth-grader leaned against the school wall, watching her.  Her nemeses were over playing circleball, aiming their throws at the other children's heads in contravention of the game's play-nice rules.  When they tired of hurting everyone else, they would track her down and try to hurt her, too, but Elinor wasn't worried about them.  A little nervous, perhaps, but not worried, not anymore. 

In due time, her bullies tired of the game and didn't think anyone else should be playing it without them, so the bouncy neotex ball went sailing over the playground chainlink, out into the forbidden street.  Elinor tried valiantly to restrain a grin when they sauntered over her way followed by a herd of girls.  The fifth-grader fell in behind them. 

"Hey, stinky Elinor.  We really missed punching you over Planting Break.  Did you go play with your stinky She-On friends?"  Elinor didn't answer, generously willing to let them learn for themselves what had happened over Planting.  The bully reached out for her, but he suddenly went diving sideways and smashing into the asphalt, skinning his palms. 

The fifth grade boy had stepped hard on the side of his ankle and driven him to the ground.  A big hand pushed the bully's face into the playground pavement. 

"People shouldn't pick on people smaller than them, little boy," the fifth-grader growled to the bully, who was definitely the smaller of the two and in complete agreement.  "It makes me want to hurt somebody when I see that happen, and I'm going to be watching a lot during recess."  He slapped the bully twice on the face.  "Tell me you understand."

"I — I understand," the bully said through the tears starting down his bright red cheek. 

"Good.  You can get up now."  The fifth-grader let him go, then winked at Elinor.  "Everybody else understand, too?"  The crowd nodded. 

After the fifth-grader left, Elinor stuck her tongue out at her bullies. 

***

Piers had enlisted a boy in his fifth year to be Elinor's 'big brother' — her big, tough brother.  She survived the summer and into the Harvest recess without damage.  The winter session brought renewed fears, though, after the boy graduated to the factories. 

The injection had affected Elinor far more than it had Piers, knocking her out and giving Piers hours of anxiety.  She was wobbly and woozy, but was back to her normal self by the next day.  Piers tested her strength constantly, hoping the Rikardsen process would give her growing body the muscle she needed in less than the two years it had taken him.  He saw only her quickness improve. 

***

"Where's your big brother now, Miss Smartypants?  Run away and leave you?"

The bully who injured her shoulder last year had grown larger.  Elinor backed away, into the taunting crowd of fourth-grade girls. 

"You didn't learn anything over Harvest, did you?" he jeered as the other girls shoved her around.  "You didn't grow any, either, little girl." The crowd picked up the 'little girl' taunt.  The chant attracted the principal across the playground. 

She had been dreading this day ever since her fifth-grader had shown up the bullies, this day when she would have to face them alone.  They had a lot of humiliation to make up for.  Her heart pounding, Elinor squeezed through the girls, away from him — and into the arms of the other boy who hurt her. 

"Still live in that stinky She-On neighborhood, little girl?  Why don't you go play with your alien pals, huh?"

He punched her in the bad shoulder on purpose, sending a painful jolt through it.  They were really serious this time, and Elinor felt a fear like she had never, ever known, a fear mixed with anger and something else, something she could not describe.  It tried to pull her away from the danger, though the bully's painful grip still jerked on her arm.  He didn't know, she thought, he just didn't know how much he was hurting her.  Anger surged through her, taking control as it built. 

"Here's what we do to little girls who don't belong here," he said, shoving her to the ground. 

Elinor did not understand what was happening.  Everything around her was slowing down, her pounding heartbeats now dull thuds and far apart.  She could see his hands as they pushed her and began to pull away.  She could see and she could think — and she could do something about it.  Elinor grasped his fingers on the way down and crunched them backward to his wrist, dragging him forward.  He fell to the ground with her, gasping, doubling over around his demolished hand.  She snapped back up. 

The first bully caught her and swung his fist, only to miss as she slid beneath the blow.  She raked her heel quickly across one shin then the other.  He yelled and dropped to the ground, his nose meeting her rising knee enroute.  The taunting girls fell back, stunned silent just as the principal arrived. 

Elinor stood alone between the damaged boys, wishing she had time to do more.  She looked up at the principal.  He had warned her about fighting — and about consequences. 

He jerked her away and spun her around to face the two crying boys.  One had blood soaking through his pant legs and a bleeding nub of a nose; the other's fingers were sickeningly awry. 

He turned her back to him and put his hands on her shoulders.  "We've talked about fighting before, Elinor.  What have you to say for yourself?"

He looked really angry, but Elinor wasn't afraid anymore, no matter what he did.  "I won," she said. 

The principal started to speak, but then he stopped and looked at her for the longest time, as though he were trying to decide something.  Then he drew a breath and abruptly nudged her back into the crowd of girls, which parted for her, and went over to her victims. 

"You boys are on a month's detention for fighting each other."

***

Elinor's father thumbed through her textbooks.  "She-On designs these books for slaves," he grumbled.  Then he noticed the '5' on the covers. 

"Ellie, these are fifth grade.  They moved you up?"

She beamed.  She had been waiting for him to spot it.  "The other books were too easy.  These aren't very hard, either."

"Do they pick on you?"

"I'm too little to pick on.  They'd be embarrassed.  And," she announced, "fourth-graders aren't allowed to pick on we fifth grade girls.  We have the biggest boys in my grade."

"On us fifth grade girls," her father said, and gave his favorite fifth grade girl a hug. 

***

Elinor closed her books.  Fifth grade was almost over.  They had her reading in secondary books just to keep her interested, and the work just kept getting easier.  What she read, she understood; what she understood, she remembered. 

Her memory was becoming incredibly sharp.  Even memories of her childhood were returning.  Vivid memories.  The bad times, the earliest days in the Forbidden Zone.  The secret hiding place. 

Her mother. 

The T P Incident

Elinor continued her dumb-little-girl routine while her father did weekend tavern business, though she knew the regular patrons had her figured out by now.  They shooed her away when they discussed matters they would rather Piers not hear about.  Eterran workmen from the new She-On complex occasionally turned up in the tavern, but they were not so cautious.  Elinor learned much about the inner workings of the Compound, and combined with the memory of her overnight camping trip there with her father, she put together her own map. 

Some things about the Compound stood out to her.  If grown-ups could scheme and plot, why not Elinor?

***

Piers nosed in over his daughter's shoulder.  "What," he inquired, "are you up to?"

"I'm planning a raid on the She-On compound.  The one out in the country which we scouted."

"That we scouted.  You intend to carry it out alone, or will you need help?"

"I'm too little to drive an auto-truck, so I'll need help."

Piers pulled up a chair. 

"Six auto-trucks are in the impoundment lot north of the university if we need them.  Just a padlock and chain on the fence.  The starship freighters take ten and a quarter days to arrive after the brightest shining, so if we see one in the early evening, ten days later they are unloading it at two in the morning.  Nobody's awake then.  They tell the workers about an arrival days before, then the workers tell us.  If we need a diversion, the hidden bombs from the big revolution are still in place."

"They are?  Ellie, how do you know that?"

"I asked Mrs Donal if I could see the interviews from the men they arrested, but she said there weren't any.  They asked them only who else was involved before they killed them, so that means the She-Ons don't know about the bombs.  I'll need some burned out street lamp bulbs.  Four weeks ago, She-On sent a big fire engine to the Compound.  I can use that, too, Father."

"A fire engine?"  Piers looked through her papers.  Elinor had researched and detailed everything.  He had never thought about the explosives still being intact.  "You're getting dangerous, Ellie.  If I give you a hug, will you promise me you won't attack the She-Ons?  Mrs Donal would never speak to Captain Donal again if he had to vaporize you."

"That would be bad, wouldn't it?  I promise I won't attack the She-Ons.  Hug, please."

***

The tavern patron saw Elinor come in, but her later appearance at his table with a round of drinks surprised him. 

"Elinor, are you working here now?  I thought you were still in school?"

"Yes and no," said Elinor, setting the drinks out.  "I pretend to serve drinks and they pretend to pay me.  One She-On Credit an evening."

"A whole Credit?  Ellie, that isn't pretend pay."

"I go over the week's receipts and look for arithmetic errors.  That's what they really pay me for.  This just keeps me busy when Father doesn't want me near his clients."

The patron glanced toward the corner at her father, busily wheeling a deal with a rough-looking character. 

Elinor leaned in and whispered in his ear, "Are you still trying to overthrow She-On?"

"No!" he said, surprised again.  "I am a good citizen of the Empire."

"Me, too," she whispered, "but if you know anyone who isn't, I have a secret plan to swipe some of She-On's stuff."

"Elinor, you are too young to tend bar and you are too young to be plotting against She-On.  Does your father know about this scheme?"

"No, sir.  He's a good citizen of the Empire like us.  And he stays away from you plotters ever since they made him watch those executions."

"I am not a plotter," he said.  "What do you have in mind?" he whispered. 

She produced some sheets of paper from beneath her drink tray.  He snatched them from her and tucked them inside his shirt.  "Never put anything in writing!" he hissed.  "These She-Ons wouldn't hesitate to vaporize a child, or maybe fix you and send you to She-On as a slave."

"Fix me?"

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that.  I wasn't thinking."

"Fix me?  What does that mean?"

"Some of the children they take as slaves, they make them so they can't ever have children.  Less for them to worry about."

"That's mean."

"Sorry I brought it up, Ellie.  So, is your scheme any good?"

"Very good," she asserted.  "I hear a lot, and I researched everything.  If you use it, I want a share of the profits."

The patron patted her on the head.  "Miss Amhensen, you've been around your father too much."

***

Months passed, a dozen freighter cycles, a dozen freighters landing in daylight.  Elinor was well into secondary school when she saw it.  A glowing bright star where She-On was, a glowing bright star in the evening, a starship freighter for the She-On compound that would unload at two in the morning, ten days hence. 

The next morning, Elinor made a telephone call. 

***

"Father, would you like to go on another bicycling overnight?  You won't have to pull me up the hills anymore."

"Where to, Ellie?"

"I was thinking out by the She-On compound again.  It was pretty out there."

Her father's fingers drummed on the table top.  "I saw that freighter, you know."

Elinor's lips scrunched up.  This just wasn't fair.  "You had your chance to watch them!  They didn't even get started before it fell apart! This time everyone knows what will happen if they talk.  She-On isn't dealing with chatty children this time."

"No, they are dealing with Elinor Amhensen.  You remember when we talked about trust and telling the truth?  Well, that goes for promises, too, especially promises."  Elinor started to say something, but he cut her off.  "It isn't the words that count here; it's the understanding behind them.  You know what I thought you meant.  That was the promise."

He continued drumming his fingers, then stopped.  He nodded slowly.  "Your men know what they are up against.  We'll watch them."

***

It started out a pretty day.  Puffy pink clouds scattered about, mild temperatures, a little breeze now and then.  No one noticed the Eterran workmen out doing maintenance on the huge dyna-motor transformers that made alternating current for the Xian compound.  The sun climbed toward noon while a work crew busily did whatever it was doing around the foundations of the depot warehouses. 

The telephone system supervisor stopped by to warn a work crew digging just east of the little telephone switching building that they should be careful because the trunk cables were buried in a conduit next to where they were.  The firemen didn't pay any attention to a workman replacing bulbs on three street lamps south of the fire house.  They were too busy mixing barbeque sauce and setting up the fire pit for the thirty pounds of ribs some generous soul had dropped off earlier in the day. 

The Security office desk sergeant grunted indifference when a workman told him they were going to do some sewer repairs in front of the station and one end of the street would be blocked overnight.  By the time the sun went down, the street had a trench across it and the workmen were setting a caution sign on the far side to warn of the hazard. 

No one paid any attention, so no one noticed that all this work was being done by the same Eterran workmen. 

***

The little convoy of auto-trucks topped the ridge that separated the She-On compound from the basin that held Bay City.  The lead driver saw flarepots out ahead, then swore nervously to himself when his headlights lit up a barricade.  He looked in his side mirror and saw movement crossing the road behind the last truck, another barricade.  Trapped!

He slowed to a stop before the barrier, one hand on his tire thumper baton, a useful tool for checking tire integrity and also handy in an altercation.  Someone he assumed was a hijacker came up to his window. 

"Hello there, sir.  We'd like to borrow your vehicles for tonight."

The Resistance.  His passenger side door opened and another man slid quickly into the seat and confiscated the heavy thumper.  "Out, please."

He stepped to the ground, looking back at the convoy.  Other Resistance men were putting blocks around tires and pulling the drivers out. 

"Hey, don't hurt us.  We're on your side, all of us.  We got families.  We're just going to do some hauling for the She-Ons.  Our boss has got a contract."

"Yes, we know."  The hijacker handed him a bundle of ropes.  "You'll want to stay out of sight for about three hours, then tie yourselves up and wait by the roadside for rescue."

"What?"

"If you were hijacked, the She-Ons can't blame you for what's going to happen tonight."

***

The street lights were out on the south side of the fire house.  The trucks slowed as they drove into this darkness so three men could hop out.  The trucks pressed on to the landing field, while the men crept up to the fire house.  The main door was open, with the new fire engine waiting inside, a beautiful creation and ready to go at a moment's notice. 

A dim light flooded the bay, but otherwise the fire house was dark.  The air smelled of barbecue.  The firemen were upstairs asleep, digesting what they had charcoaled for dinner.  The three rebels turned to each other and shook hands.  The situation was perfect, exactly what the plan predicted. 

***

The first man to spot the bi-weekly starship would win the pool, so the rampers staked out their territories on the landing apron and kept sky watch.  At two in the morning, the omnibus driver called out that he had it, the white position lights.  Soon the ship's brilliant burst of landing lights confirmed his win. 

The freighter continued down to a mile above the ground, where it bobbed massively while the pilot balanced the drive and gravity engines for the planet.  When the drive field was down to zero, the red flashing beacon went steady and the ship descended solely by gravity engine.  The breeze put in a last-second cross drift and the ship crunched stiffly onto the apron to the tune of steel skidding over concrete, which meant the pilot would be on the control deck 'doing paperwork' (hiding) until all his passengers were off the ship.  Pilots' attitudes during the two-week Eterran layovers had a high correlation with their latest landing, and this one was in the 'firm but safe' category, in pilot terms. 

The station freight manager wheeled boarding steps up to the ship and knocked on the steel plate with his adjustment hammer, then stood back. 

Weeks-weary travelers tumbled from the forward passenger hatch and bounced into the ramp omnibus, deliriously happy to have finished serving their sentence and neither asking nor caring what kind of accommodations the compound hotel offered. 

When he had them all off, the freight manager entered and went back to help the ship loadmaster strip vacuum wax from the internal air seals and unbolt the great cargo door.  After it dropped level, they installed protective covers over the not-really-delicate-but-why-take-a-chance neotex seals of the huge door.  Mechanics came aboard and started sorting through the maintenance write-ups, depressed as always at how badly passengers and crew mistreated their starship freighters.  The usual contract convoy of local auto-trucks waited outside, ready to take the offload wherever. 

The loadmaster had his cargo sorted, so the freight manager called the drivers over and briefed them.  He hadn't seen any of them before, and they did seem exceptionally well-spoken and eager for truck drivers, but that merely cheered him up. 

"First, load these four tons of crates and take them to the Number 1 warehouse.  Back your trucks up to the loading deck carefully, then you can wheel the pallets over, no lifting.  Same situation at the warehouse dock.  The warehouse crews will move it inside in the morning.  When you finish that, come back and we'll decide where the rest of the stuff goes.  Now this is High Value merchandise," he grinned at the loadmaster, "so be careful with it."

The truckers seemed really enthused to get going, so the freight manager stepped aside and let them work.  He'd have to check back in the office to see if Admin had changed contractors, but this bunch was a pleasure to work with. 

***

Twenty feet up in a tree by the fire house, an Eterran wearing black watched the activities out on the distant landing pad.  Another man down below kept an eye on the sleeping fire engine. 

Out on the pad, an auto-truck pulled away from the starship and flashed its headlights in the direction of the fire house.  It was quickly joined by the other trucks. 

"That's it," whispered the man in the tree.  He clambered down and followed the other two men into the open fire house bay.  Even in the dim light, the engine sparkled. 

***

Beneath a starry Eterran sky, Elinor perched atop her father's shoulders while he leaned against a tree. 

"My turn, my turn," she urged. 

"I should have brought another pair," he grumbled, handing up the binoculars.  The She-On complex glowed down in the valley, a starship freighter on the landing pad unloading into auto-trucks.  "How is your project going?"

"They're done.  Any moment now.  Something's happening at the fire house, too soon, too soon.  Wait, wait, wait, wait."

A white flash at the other end of the compound sent everything but vehicle headlights black.  Seconds later, the sharp report of the exploding dyna-motors reached their hilltop.  Yellow flames broke out in one warehouse.  Backup lighting flickered on in a few buildings. 

"Yes, now!  I can see the fire house.  There's the fire engine already moving out."

"Watch the gates, Ellie."

"Here comes the fire engine.  Can you hear the siren?  He's at the gate and they're opening it for him.  Come on, come on."

"I should have brought two binoculars."

"He's through.  The trucks are right behind him," Elinor giggled.  "The guards don't know what to do.  Boy, are they in trouble now!"  She hugged her father's head.  "This is great!"

"Why didn't I bring two binoculars?"

Six minutes later, the magnificent fire engine roared past in the dark, leading the convoy of auto-trucks.  Elinor waved and the drivers waved back. 

Piers sighed.  "Ellie, you are going to be hard to live with."

***

The loadmaster and the station freight manager lounged patiently on the ship's loading floor drinking coffee, waiting for the auto-trucks to return for the next load.  The ramp floods went out with the explosion, leaving the starship with the only lights in the neighborhood. 

"I'd guess your transformers blew up and set the warehouses on fire.  You suppose they got hurt?"

"The dyna-motors aren't anywhere near the warehouses.  The trucks hadn't been gone long enough to get over there, anyway.  Maybe the road's blocked or they're waiting for instructions or something."

"Heard your fire engine pull out, but he doesn't seem to be making much progress on the fire."

"No, he doesn't.  Must be the darkness.  Gonna have a mess to sort through when the sun comes up."

When the sun came up, they were still sitting on the loading floor, drinking coffee, waiting for the auto-trucks to return. 

***

This would be hard to explain.  Fortunately, the responsibility lay with the Xian Compound Administrator, not with Gregor Donal.  The obvious first step was to invite his Eterran 'business partner' in to answer a few questions.  He had to use his home telephone, because a stupid Eterran work crew had accidentally cut the telephone trunk line while digging.  Repairs would take a week.  Crauley had naturally tasked him to supervise, but Donal didn't mind.  It was a chance to learn how the automatic machinery out in the little switching building sorted out the calls.  But first things first. 

"You were out that night, Mr Amhensen, but you had Elinor with you.  While I doubt you would involve her in this, if I find you had a hand in the planning, you'll learn the limits of our business relationship."

"I had nothing to do with either planning or execution," said Amhensen, "though I do admire the planner's originality."

"Yes, I'll give you originality," Donal acknowledged, "but I wouldn't use the word 'admire.'  You do know who did the planning, though, don't you?" Amhensen seemed not to hear the question, so Donal continued.  "We found the real drivers tied up by the roadside — and they weren't tied very tightly.  We won't do anything to them, though they must have been in on it, and we can't blame our gate guards for not stopping a fire engine.  We also had a Security cruiser rip out his undercarriage when he went charging through an unlit street repair that we can't find a work order on.  The driver's broken nose is the only injury we know of.  That's small stuff, but our main electric transformers are ruined and we have two warehouses burned down.  Do you realize how much trouble this will cause?"

"Very little for you, sir.  The Administrator writes the reports.  How can he say, 'I lost two warehouses because rebels took my fire engine while stealing four tons of my toilet paper and my guards let them drive out the gate'?  Accidental fire.  Must have been."

Deputy Lieutenant Governor Donal held his head in his hands.  "Why didn't I stay on Xi Ahn and become a lawyer like my uncle, freeing murderers and stealing old ladies' pensions?  At least that's honest work.  And where is our new fire engine?  In the lake?"  Donal's head bobbed up.  How did Amhensen know what they stole?

"Or the bay," said Amhensen.  "I'll see what I can learn, but I suspect they had another use for it.  The Administrator's real problem is the toilet paper.  My clients didn't know what was in the crates, but now it seems they've cornered the market . . ."

"Your clients?  You're involved?"

"As a broker, yes.  They could hardly come to you themselves, and they know who has contacts with our She-On masters."

"Who are they, Amhensen?  We'll pay for names."

"I don't broker names, Governor," Amhensen flared in indignation so abrupt that it sounded genuine, "or the people who own them."

"But you do know them."

"No, I don't, but they know me and they know I'll find them if they don't uphold their end of the bargain."

"Bargain?"

"Since you don't like Eterran toilet paper . . ."

"It's the paper cuts that we don't like."

"Technique, sir.  Anyway, my clients have something that you need and you have money that they want.  Value for value.  I broker for a living, Governor.  Today, I'm brokering toilet paper."

"Des, des, des," Donal muttered in disbelief at this absurd turn. 

"Right.  Well, I've brokered worse," Amhensen said with a shrug of agreement.  "You'll get a ransom note in a few weeks when you're desperate.  Get the Administrator to pay it out of his funds.  He won't argue, as long as you promise to keep quiet."

"They're kidnapping our toilet paper?"

The Kidnappings

Two disheartened university types wandered through the splintered remains of a house outside Bay City.  Friends of theirs had been barricaded inside when a She-On lightning weapon blasted the house to toothpicks. 

"I would like," said the first, "a look at their lightning weapon.  Such a device could prove useful in Resistance hands."

"An electric weapon," observed the second man.  "The She-On patrol auto-cars carry them.  Perhaps we might waylay one and ask to examine it."  He kicked at some scorched drywall and uncovered a piece of someone he knew.  "The She-Ons might object, however, and I wouldn't wish to end up as our friends here have."

"She-On auto-cars can't fly like the warships," said the first.  "They can't swim, either."  The second man turned to the first, wondering.  "Our alien masters," continued the first, "might hesitate to fire an electric weapon if they were standing in water."

***

A rebel rake poked into the water.  "It's four feet deep.  That's too much."

"Well, Professor, if you wanted a puddle, you should have said so."  The road crew foreman kicked some dirt into his trench.  The clod made a muddy splash and sank.  "I stuck around overnight and dug this thing for you guys.  Try to do somebody a favor . . ."

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry.  We appreciate what you've done for us in the past, and we'll make this work.  You'd better head home.  Have a nice weekend."

"I'll sure have a better weekend than whatever aliens you suck into this trap.  Leave the excavator by the pit with engine running so it looks like you dug it after the road crew went home."

***

A thin overcast cut the starlight to nothing.  Out in the blackness, a lonely set of headlights appeared, cresting the ridge and dropping down the hillside.  Off to the right, another pair of headlights blinked several times, then went out. 

"She-Ons.  Headed home after a hard day's oppression.  Come on, we have maybe two minutes before they get here."

The rebels dragged the detour sign into the road and angled the burning flarepots off to indicate a path around the supposed obstruction.  The pit waited among the flarepots, hidden by a tarp.  After the She-On auto splashed into the pit, the rebels would wait for the occupants to wade out, then tie them up and make off with the lightning weapon.  Foolproof. 

The She-On vehicle was rounding the last bend.  Headlights from the rebels' spotter vehicle started down the hillside, trailing a mile behind. 

"Oh, no!  Look!"  A corner had come loose and the tarp was sinking into the water, a mess that no one would drive into.  One rebel ran out to pull it back just as the She-Ons came to the detour sign and turned off the roadway.  They caught him full in the glare of their headlights. 

Brakes squealed and flarepots flew as the She-Ons swerved to avoid him.  They spotted the pit, but too late.  The left side wheels dropped in and for the briefest moment, the vehicle teetered sideways, then rolled over on its roof and sank into the water. 

***

Governor Crauley's scowl could not have been deeper.  Donal grabbed a folding chair off to the side, out of the line of fire for once.  Crauley's security chief, in hot water and on thin ice simultaneously, conducted the briefing himself. 

"The soldiers failed to return from patrol, so we sent another party out to backtrack their route.  Nothing turned up.  At sunrise, we notified the Bay City police and county constables.  An hour later, the road crew that's been doing shoulder work on the Compound road found the vehicle hidden among their own equipment, soaking wet and stripped of radios and the lightning weapon.  No sign of the men.  A pit near the road was filled with water diverted from a drainage culvert, and apparently the soldiers drove into it."

"Why?" asked Crauley. 

"No clues yet.  Rebels are responsible for stripping the vehicle, but the soldiers may have gone off the road on their own and just run away, frightened of punishment, or possibly rebels captured them.  We have every available resource on the case, Governor."

"Why oh why did it have to be soldiers?" said Crauley.  "The last thing I need is the Fleet on my back.  We'll hold off reporting losing two of their men until we know what we're dealing with.  That better be soon."  The security chief turned a shade paler. 

Donal thought they were missing the critical part.  "What about finding the lost lightning weapon, Governor?  Isn't that more important than laying blame?"

"Hardly," said Crauley.  "You Fleet types know a lot about weapons, but not everything."

***

Donal scoured the scene with the security investigators.  The vehicle's top showed damage from dragging, and the oily slick on the water smelled not of lube oil from the electric vehicle, but like Eterran fuel oil.  The water had drained to only a foot deep, so he felt around the bottom mud with a rake handle until he tapped something solid.  He nudged it over to a shallow area where it emerged, a flarepot scrunched and split open.  Donal snagged it with the rake teeth and pulled it clear of the pit.  The scrunched side had a swipe of the vehicle's paint on it. 

"Rebels," said Donal.  "A string of these flarepots directed the auto off the road into the pit.  Maybe a detour sign they took away.  Those marks on the side suggest it rolled upside down going into the water.  You said the water was four feet deep?"

"You're thinking the same thing I am," said one investigator. 

"Sir!" called the driver of their auto.  "On the radio.  The Governor wants us back right away.  They got a ransom note for the two soldiers."

***

"I hope," said Governor Crauley, "that you handle this well.  I don't want to appoint a new Security head."  He slid the satchel across his desk.  The Security chief signed a slip for the satchel and slunk out the door. 

"Twenty thousand Xian Credits to reward criminals, Governor?  We don't even know the soldiers are alive," said Donal. 

"You want his job, too, Donal?  You may get it if he doesn't come through."

***

Two days after the ransom drop-off, no soldiers.  The Security chief was sweating. 

"No lightning weapon, either," said Donal. 

"Don't worry about it," said the Governor.  "We did not design the lightning weapon to be examined."

***

The lightning weapon lay on the table, a dull black, ugly thing with a bit of white porcelain at the business end.  With cooling slots and fins and the corrugated surface typical of high voltage devices, it would have fit right in as an alien movie prop from the '80s, a simpler time on Eterra.  Simpler, but not far off in its movies' projections of the future. 

One rebel filed away on a screwdriver, shaping the tip to fit the strange screw heads holding the weapon together.  "We couldn't make it work.  Might have something to do with it getting soaked."

"More likely a little She-On trick to keep us natives from using it on them," said the former Electrical Engineering professor from the former Bay City University.  "I appreciate your bringing this thing to me.  A chance to pay the aliens back for my unemployment."  He pointed to a small button on the side.  "What's this?  You pressed it yet?"

"We've pressed and pulled and twisted every knob on that thing without any luck.  That button's a charge indicator, I think.  It lights up a little green light inside the hole next to it.  Probably has a red light in there for when it's low on juice."

"Makes sense."  The professor took the customized screwdriver from the rebel and began to undo the case. 

"Heavy weapon, almost more than one man can handle.  Old-fashioned bakalite parts, good insulation but twice the weight of plastic."  The last screw dropped out and the case sprung half an inch apart.  The professor peered in with a flashlight. 

"Looks like an antique store in here, stuff I haven't seen in ages.  I'm not surprised, though."

"Why's that, Prof?"

"People bring me lots of stolen alien items to figure out, and I've never seen an elegantly designed piece of She-On equipment.  It's all been kludged, brute-force engineering, crude manufacture.  The stuff that I understand, I could have built twice as efficiently. 

"My considered opinion, gentlemen, is that She-On is a backward culture that discovered space travel by accident.  We haven't been able to learn how their starships work because even they don't know.  I am of the further opinion that had our gutless politicians not surrendered the first day, we could have beaten their invasion."

"How, Professor?  They had ten thousand warships waiting to attack."

"So they said.  Resistance reports were never able to account for more than a few dozen, though.  Anti-aircraft artillery would have made short work of anything flying as low and slowly as they did, if only we'd used it."  The professor tipped the weapon over and craned his neck to get a better view of the interior. 

"Heavy cabling, some battery leads, a humongous condenser.  Shiny metal can is probably a vibrating interrupter for a transformer buried in here somewhere.  Can't see any electronics, though.  Whatever I say about the She-Ons," he propped a poetry book under the stock to hold it in position, "they may not know much else, but they do know electricity.  What's this thing?"  The case wouldn't open any wider. 

"Something holding this together — oh, here it is, a latch."

A white tab with an arrow jiggled back when he jiggled the two case halves, the arrow an instruction for inexperienced repairmen wondering how to open this particular model of lightning weapon.  She-On engineers weren't any different from Eterran engineers in that respect, always trying to be helpful. 

"Just push this white tab the direction the arrow points," he put on an insulating neotex glove before reaching into the high voltage innards with the screwdriver, "and it should pop right open."

***

Piers lay on the sofa, reading a She-On book on Corporation's history that he'd blackmailed Captain Donal into providing.  Reading and understanding She-On came easily to him now, an effect of the Rikardsen process.  Speaking it was another matter; the harsh gutturals required practice. 

A trading company that went back two hundred years, the "Corporation For Trade And Commerce" started with caravans and sailing ships, forestry and mining.  The Landya family, of sailing heritage and the Altmark Cartel, consolidated everything over the generations and made Corporation a planet- wide power.  The book got as far as Edwin Landya, Carmina's predecessor, who moved Altmark Corporation headquarters to Illium-des-Ahns and built the twelve hundred foot tower called (cleverly, Piers thought) Altmark Tower.  No mention of space travel or Eslan Carmina, but the deference accorded the last Landya indicated the book was written during his tenure. 

Corporation played a part in the rise of democracy and the downfall of She-On's nobility.  After the Mercantile revolution —

A brilliant white flash overwhelmed the apartment.  An instant later, the explosion blew the front window past the sofa, spraying glass across the kitchenette linoleum. 

Elinor burst around the corner from her room and came flying into his arms, frightened tears streaming down her face.  Piers instinctively grabbed a cushion and held it between the window and them. 

"Ellie, are you all right?  Are you hurt, dear?"

She looked up and shook her head, eyes wide. 

Just scared.  Down inside them both, she was still his little girl, and he held her close.  She had her toy animal wedged between them.  "What was that?  Is Toey all right, too?"  She nodded.  "Let's look.  Be careful where you step; there's glass all over."

He carried her to the tattered window, where they peeked around the corner.  A white cloud boiled upward through the sky, trailing a fog of black smoke underneath.  The trees were stripped of leaves, shingles and branches everywhere.  Things were still falling from the sky.  Orange flames a block over. 

Piers looked up, but failed to see a warship anywhere. 

They picked their way through the glass into the little hall that connected the two little bedrooms with the little bath.  It was free of fragments, but a peek into Elinor's room made him catch his breath.  The bed sparkled with shards and the closet door bristled with embedded slivers.  Glass all over the linoleum.  Piers patted himself on the back that he had the foresight to rent a cheap apartment with no glass-catching carpet, save for a few small rugs that were going out with the trash. 

Elinor had built a play tent on the bedside away from the window, tucking a sheet under the mattress and into a closed dresser drawer and around the closet door knob.  The sheet had a good sprinkling of window glass, and a few slices that weren't there when he bought her the linens. 

"You were playing in the tent?"

"It's a princess castle," she said, and it had saved his little girl some nasty injuries. 

"It is indeed."

***

The North University neighborhood had a big hole blown in it.  Gregor and Karin Donal drove down the narrow lane a dozer had cleared in the street. 

"Devastation, Gregor.  Is this what the Forbidden Zone looked like?"

Gregor nodded.  "The Governor told me we did not design the lightning weapon to be examined.  I thought he was a fool for not worrying about it."

"A booby trap.  How many people died here?"

"Same number that lived here, Karin.  This Amhensen's street next?"

"Uh huh.  Left."

They drove by the apartment.  Elinor's colorful bed sheets decorated the blown-out windows, so Karin was satisfied they were safe. 

An hour later, Gregor pulled off the road a quarter-mile past the kidnapping site.  The road crew's excavator and several police vehicles were parked out in a field of saffron windflowers.  An investigator hiked over to them. 

"Mrs Donal, Captain, thanks for coming out.  Patrol ship spotted a green path through all these yellow flowers and saw it ended with some fresh dirt.  It's all cleaned up now and the coroner went home, but it's what we suspected — they drowned when the vehicle rolled upside down in the pit.  The rebels buried the bodies out here and sent us the ransom note."  He glanced toward the rear of Donal's auto.  "I see by the shingle stuck in your bumper you drove past the explosion."

"Incredible mess," said Gregor. 

"The Governor will be mad about losing his money, but we don't have to worry about the weapon or the kidnappers.  They've been taken care of."

"Along with a hundred innocent people," said Karin. 

"That's the way of insurrections, ma'am," said the investigator.  "Nothing more dangerous than being an innocent bystander."

***

Word of the paid ransom spread.  Easy money. 

***

Elinor rose to answer the telephone, but her father reached around the corner and answered it. 

"No," he said.  "I will not.  Never.  You shame us all.  Release them immediately."

Her father was turning red.  Elinor went over and took his hand. 

"0824-48.  You make your own deals."  He slammed the telephone down.  "Another kidnapping," he told her, then he dialed a number. 

"Piers Amhensen, Captain.  You have another kidnapping.  They wanted me to broker for them, but I gave them your secretary's number."  He listened.  "Never, sir.  Buying and selling humans is She-On territory.  I will never . . ."  He listened some more.  "No, Captain Donal, and don't ask me again.  Good day, sir."

"You don't want to help Captain Donal?" wondered Elinor. 

Her father knelt down to her.  "I don't help anyone buy and sell people.  You remember the bad men, Ellie?  The ones in the Forbidden Zone?"  Elinor remembered them.  She remembered what her father did to them. 

"They tried to kidnap you from me.  They wanted to sell you, Ellie.  They wanted to sell you to the She-Ons.  Do you understand now how I feel about it?"

Elinor nodded slowly.  She hoped her father never met any more kidnappers. 

***

Gregor Donal tore the latest dispatch off the auto-typer and taped it up in the kidnapping section of his office blackboard.  "That makes four now, Governor.  You subsidize anything, you get more of it."  The hijacking section had a dozen dispatches taped up. 

"I didn't hear any suggestions from you on how to handle them," said Lieutenant Governor Haier. 

"The Governor made it clear he didn't want my suggestions."  Donal dropped the tape into the blackboard chalk tray.  "We need to drag our heels on these things, make getting money from us like pulling teeth.  Give Security a chance to track them down.  The way we're spread across the planet, we look like an open candy store to the Resistance."

"You've been trying for years to get us to barricade ourselves out in the compounds," said Governor Crauley.  "This is our planet now, and these Eterrans will have to get used to having their masters underfoot.  They won't be driving us out while I'm Governor."

Donal tapped on the hijacking section.  "The auto-truck drivers are refusing to deliver out to the Compound, afraid their trucks will be burned by the rebels.  Our last two starship freighters left half empty, and that has to be costing revenue.  If I know the Imperium, you'll be getting a memo on the subject soon enough."

"That letter from the Emperor told us how well you know the Imperium," laughed Haier. 

Donal reddened.  "And what did his signature on my marriage license tell you?"  Haier glanced over at Crauley.  "Maybe there's more to the story," said Donal.  "Let's get some patrol ships buzzing around when the auto-trucks haul your loot out of town."

"Loot," sniffed Crauley.  "You've been listening to that wife of yours."

"That wife of mine lets me know when we Xians screw up.  That's worth a hundred of your advisors' expert opinions."

Donal's telephone rang.  "Captain Donal.  You found it?  Where?"

***

A fleet of Imperial auto-cars filled the turnaround court on the river end of 28th Avenue.  Sewer pipes dumped into the river just beyond, so the fragrance kept the location lonely.  A small, dilapidated warehouse in one corner of the court had trash trees growing from cracks in its driveway and the highest officials of the Xian occupation crawling around its dim interior. 

"That's it," said Lieutenant Governor Haier.  "I'd recognize that siren anywhere."

"My informant said they were looking for the secret of the field engine that powers our vehicles," said Donal. 

"Since only silvide batteries power our vehicles," said Haier, "I guess the secret is safe for another month."

"This place stinks," said Governor Crauley, who turned and left. 

The disassembled fire engine lay all about them, sorted into tidy piles. 

***

"This is choice stuff," said Preston Tyrell, publisher of the des-Ahns Financier.  "Really choice.  How good are your sources?"

"A Rosewater-White auditor spotted it and did some investigating on his own," said the reporter.  "Rosewater doesn't release the audit for another week, so he had time to do a thorough job.  He showed me the numbers.  Ephardt went on vacation right after the auditor questioned him about the money, and yesterday a moving van was at Ephardt's mansion.  I went over to Mount Wren and checked out the paperwork, and he's definitely headed for Altamiras."

"Swipe the company's money and flee the country," laughed Tyrell.  "It don't get much better than that, do it?"

"Rosewater's going to take a big hit after we print, sir.  You know anyone invested in them?"

His reporter's tone said he did.  "Who?"

"Xuan Group.  You can put something extra in the pay envelope for that, Boss.  'Bye."  The reporter bounced out the door, letting the bomb tick. 

"Xuan!" Tyrell exclaimed when it finally dawned on him what the reporter had hinted.  The gold story!  He rang the telephone operator for a private number, Xuan Group's lead investor. 

"Hi.  Preston Tyrell here.  Fine, just fine, sir, and you?  That's just great.  I understand Xuan is invested in Rosewater-White."  He waited.  "I know you can't comment on your investments, so I suppose you don't wish to comment on a Rosewater story we're printing tomorrow.  Um hmm.  You might.  Well, sir, we're saying that a Rosewater principle partner has packed his bags and moved to Altamiras, and that a big chunk of money is missing from Rosewater's — Hello?  Yes, I'd be happy to hold on."  Tyrell leaned back and checked the clock.  The stock market was open for another two hours. 

"Yes, still here.  Your comment is that you can't comment on it.  That's fine, yes.  Yes, Ephardt, right; good guess.  You're welcome, sir.  Yes, that would be nice.  Thank you.  Good bye."  Tyrell pulled out his copy of the Xi Ahn World Almanac and looked up a golden number.  At one time, the publication was called simply the World Almanac, but that was before Eslan Carmina began conquering the galaxy. 

An hour later, Rosewater-White stock dipped one percent as a large block of shares traded. 

After the Rosewater story went to press the next morning, its stock plummeted, losing a fifth of its value.  Later that day, a courier delivered an envelope to Tyrell containing the true tonnage of gold that Corporation brought back from Eterra. 

Tyrell whistled at the number.  The Corporation conquest of Eterra had doubled the amount of gold on Xi Ahn. 

He rolled a clean sheet of paper into his typewriter and began the gold story.  The metals traders would take a hit when it came out, just as the Rosewater investors did today, but that was the nature of the game.  Tyrell's job was to deal the cards. 

"Yes, someone did say journalists shouldn't trade favors.  Probably talking about his competition."

***

Eslan Carmina stomped around his desk in ever-widening circles, throwing whatever came to hand at the hardened window wall.  Beyond the glass and a hundred stories below, protesters marched around the plaza carrying signs decrying a myriad of alleged Corporation faults.  Altmark Plaza was private property for use only by those with Corporation business, but the police were nowhere in sight. 

"Stop the Slavery!  Free the Planets!  Return the Stolen Gold!  What have I done to deserve this?"

Registrar Varta snatched a sofa cushion away when Carmina reached for it in passing.  "Calm down, Eslan.  This is just some unforeseen consequences."

"The signs are professionally painted, Chairman," said the Chief of Security.  "It's staged.  Probably the City Council's work."

Carmina stopped his circling. 

"It's partly a diversion, sir.  The folks down in the Wash were near rebellion when the Council banned their horses, so the Council is trying to divert all that wrath in our direction."

"But why us?"

"Raging mobs lose a lot of steam after they hike all the way across town to Altmark Tower," offered Varta. 

"That could be part of it, sir," said Security, "but we heard that when the Financier printed that article on how much gold we'd taken from Eterra, gold prices collapsed around the world.  Two Councilmen are commodity traders, and they must have taken a huge hit on their gold positions."

"Those picketers don't look like stockbrokers."

"Farmers, sir.  The big harvests on Aptera and Eterra depressed grain prices."

"Is there anything," Carmina fumed, "we can bring in from our planets that won't upset somebody's cozy arrangements?"

"We only import grain as a cover for the high-value manufactured goods we pretend are made in our Xian factories," said Varta.  "We couldn't possibly bring in enough grain with our present freighter fleet to really affect grain prices.  It's a matter of misinformation that they think . . ."

"Nevertheless!" glared the Chairman, "we need to do something here."

"Buy gold," said Varta.  "Open market purchases.  Make everyone think we're trying to corner the gold market.  That should bring the price back up.  If it gets too high, we just say we're backing our bonds with it.  Same with the alien gold.  We're just securing our debt."

"Maybe they grow some stuff on the planets that we don't grow here," said the Security chief. 

Carmina pointed at him.  "That is the kind of thinking we need.  Thank you.  Now what about the slave issue?"

"Should be settled," said Varta.  "The Old Royals have to back us on this one, since they invented slavery.  By some fortunate twist of logic, they've been forced to rule that slavery laws on all planets must be honored here.  The police will take care of the Abolitionists if we press them to."

"Sure," said the Security chief.  "We're just bringing the alien slave children here to give them a better life than they'd have under those awful governments out there.  How can you be against that?"

Carmina shot Varta a glance.  "Right.  How indeed."

Varta took the hint and rose from the sofa.  "I'll go make some telephone calls, newspapers, City Hall, so forth.  Maybe you should invite the protesters in for a chat with me," he said to the Security chief.  "Somewhere out of the public view, one of the conference rooms.  Maybe in an hour?"

"Right.  I'll get right on it."  The Security chief ran out the double doors. 

"He doesn't know about the slave children," said Carmina. 

"If he did, he'd want a cut of the take," said Varta.  "Security has no need to know.  That matter is between you and me and our Deputies in charge of 'Indigenous Relations.'"

***

"Fire," said Donal, and two murderers came apart much as criminals had done since Crauley first assigned Donal to this duty. 

Not that it made any difference to the lightning weapon, but the circumstance of these criminals' participation in the exercise was unusual.  They had not kidnapped a Xian wandering off the normal safe path, but had taken an Eterran businessman and his wife in a poorly researched escapade.  The couple's lone child of two years had neither relatives nor means of his own to meet the ransom demands, so the couple was killed, ostensibly to prevent identification, but given the killers' sorry backgrounds, more likely as a convenience.  This was not in the accepted spirit of abduction. 

The hunt and capture made interesting reading, but the murder details brought out in the trial generated a lynch mob mentality that Governor Crauley exploited to make the Xians look like heroes for a change, and for a while.  It wouldn't last. 

The execution just concluded ran on both tele-vision channels planet- wide; the consensus among commentators was that the lightning weapon was too good for the killers. 

It may have been, but the sentiment was lost on Donal.  One execution was like another to him now, just one more stroke of the file that was grinding away his soul. 

The troubles continued.  No Xian was safe — soldier, bureaucrat, wife, child.  The solved kidnappings provided grist for what Gregor Donal chose to regard as his execution mill. 

***

Five months after the first less-than-full freighter departed, Donal's prediction materialized.  The Imperium's memo crashed on Crauley's desk:  Fix Things or Else!

The Bay City Lieutenant Governor dropped in on Donal's office after the captain went home.  Kidnapping cases filled the blackboards, with several dispatches sporting the big red X.  Fatals, money delivered, corpse returned.  Dispatches with black X's were the solved cases, the guilty parties reformed by a brief consultation with Donal's execution squad. 

The Resistance disclaimed the kidnappings, admitting only to hijackings and sabotage, and occasionally offering clues and names in cases deemed harmful to The Cause.  Freelancers had changed kidnapping from an act of resistance to an Eterran cottage industry. 

Haier went over to examine the Emperor's signature on Donal's framed orders.  Carmina seemed to know what was happening on the planet, regardless of the distortions and outright lies Crauley put in the quarterly reports.  The Emperor had eyes on Eterra, and despite the Imperium's assertion otherwise, suspicion remained strong that those eyes belonged to Captain Donal. 

Far too many facts fit that fear.  Donal accepted Crauley's harassment with a stoic attitude that reeked of higher duty, and with an Imperially sanctioned Eterran wife and a father-in-law known to be a rebel sympathizer, Donal could live safely in the North University neighborhood, a hotbed of Resistance sentiment.  In doing so, the captain had conveniently positioned himself to report on both the Xian bureaucracy and the Eterran opposition.  Entirely too convenient, Haier thought. 

Donal was the only Deputy on the planet who didn't have a bribery, extortion, skimming, black market, or other shady scheme going to pad his retirement.  That meant somebody back on Xi Ahn was looking after him, somebody like the Emperor.  If Carmina had truly placed him as a spy, the Imperium's letter denying it was worthless. 

Security still hadn't figured out how the captain was communicating with Carmina.  By standing order, Donal's wastebasket contents went through the Security Office before they hit the trash burners.  Pages of gibberish sometimes turned up, unbreakably coded messages that went somewhere unknown, most likely undetectably threaded into his standard bi-weekly 'Request for Re- Posting' message to the Imperium.  Identically worded messages went with every freighter to Xi Ahn, where according to Crauley they got as far as Eslan Carmina's secretary's wastebasket.  Not likely. 

Haier rocked back in Donal's chair and put his feet up, surveying the miles of dispatches taped up on the former classroom's blackboards.  The occupation had run a lot more smoothly when all the directives went through Donal.  The man understood Eterrans.  Only after Crauley demoted him did things begin coming apart. 

The Lieutenant Governor made a decision. 

***

"Grab the boy and pack the suitcase, Karin.  We're moving out to the new Compound."

Her withering stare drilled into him.  "I've finally gotten this house the way I want it, Xian."

"I know," said Gregor, "and I'm sorry.  Haier persuaded Crauley to abandon the university.  The other regions are moving out, too."

Karin sighed and plopped into the sofa.  "I know it's what you wanted, getting your people out of town, but I'm a town person.  We're in no danger here, not with my dad around."

"After we move out, your dad can help the university start up again.  Eterra needs that more than you need a neighborhood grocery."  Gregor plopped down next to her.  "And your dad makes a lousy rebel, anyway."

***

A modest house.  Two modest bedrooms and a modest porch with creaky boards layered in grey floor enamel.  A wooden screen door sagged open to a narrow lot that went way back.  Dead grass gone to seed, the weedy remains of someone's garden, two tollar trees grown wild.  A good pruning would bring them back into fruit. 

"It's bigger than the apartment," said Elinor. 

"And with a shed out back, you won't have to share your bedroom with the bicycles."

"I still don't want to move, Father."

"Ellie, that explosion was only a block away.  Too many people around the apartment are rebels, and if the She-Ons go after them, they could hurt us, too."

"I thought we were also rebels."

"We are the only rebels who can succeed, but we cannot free Eterra if we are dead.  Our time will come of its own, Ellie.  For now, we wait."

***

The Corporation Vice President for Finance gave Eslan Carmina the bad news. 

"All Corporation's Xian operations are reporting healthy returns this year, Chairman, but Planetary's profit margin is razor thin, and that's only if the numbers are fudged.  Your newest planets are too far away and they aren't helping.  Only Eterra has kept us in the black, and now it's being squeezed by the kidnappings and violence.  If you can't put Eterra back in production, I'll be forced to go along with Wallace Park and recommend pulling out to the Board of Directors.  We are not here to subsidize the galaxy."

"Shut down the whole Empire?"  Carmina's stomach churned.  Park still wanted the Chairmanship, and was willing to use that bunch of Board Room political hacks to defeat the man who conquered the universe. 

"Those huge freighters are hugely expensive, sir, and they're tied up for four months making each trip, six months for the farther planets.  It's tight just making the interest payments on them, and now you're getting them back from Eterra half empty.  It's pointless to run a money-losing operation, sir — unless you just like being called 'Emperor.'"

Eslan Carmina did like being called 'Emperor.'  Eterra would have to mend its ways. 

***

They were halfway through rounds when Ritt brought it up. 

"I'm not moving out to the new compound, Hanz.  I'm quitting."

"My name is not Hanz," Endorf said, refusing the provocation.  "And yes, you are moving to the new compound."

"I'm staying in town.  It's all Xians out there and someone will recognize me.  They still read newspapers, even this far from Altamiras."  Her voice had a shaky quaver that bothered Endorf. 

"You let the Emperor worry about that.  I still need your help with the children."

"No, you don't.  You know Tide as well as I do now.  You just want me to handle the Households, and I'm not going to do that anymore.  I'm done."

She had a 'don't push me' look.  Endorf had seen it growing over the past years and he worried about her stability. 

"Yes, I need you for the Households.  Give it some time.  The compound won't be as bad as you think."

Ritt said nothing more, but she didn't look persuaded. 

***

Endorf pulled up to the dormitory.  Ritt's vehicle was parked by the stairway, but she wasn't waiting in it.  He entered the lower hallway just as she was leaving one room. 

"You're early."

"Yes, Hanz.  I wanted to get that Special done for you.  Sort of a going away present."  She was wiping something from her hands onto a towel. 

"What do you mean going away?  You're not staying behind in town, Ritt."

"Sure I am.  I'm finished with this crud."  She pinched his cheek in passing, then stopped.  "You'll need this," she said, throwing him the towel.  "Special in Number 5 is done.  You just need to stripe it."

"It?"  The sticky red on the towel was blood.  Number 5 wasn't supposed to be Householded.  "Ritt, what have you done ??"  He turned and ran down to Room 5, fumbling with the key in the padlock.  When it finally unlocked, he slammed the door open and immediately gagged. 

***

The double doors were closed and Eslan Carmina and Roger Varta had their heads together trying to sort out the latest mess on Eterra. 

"These sunny reports from Crauley are worthless," Carmina said, sweeping the stack of quarterlies from his desk.  "He's not reporting the kidnappings if he gets the victims back, and there's no record of how much of our taxes the rebels are swiping before it gets to the freighters.  He's losing control of Eterra, and Haier isn't pushy enough to keep him on track.  We wouldn't stand a chance of correcting things if we didn't have Endorf out there watching him. 

"This move out of the cities, for instance.  That's going to reduce what little control Crauley still has over the locals.  Endorf says that lieutenant's been pushing the idea for years."

"Captain Donal, sure, that figures.  What's Endorf say about the Household we lost?"

Carmina slid him the letter from Deputy Endorf.  "Rascher went crazy, that's all.  She chopped that poor child up and rearranged the pieces and Endorf says it took everything he had to inject an overdose of the memory drug to put it out of its misery.  Rascher . . ."

"Don't even think that name, Eslan.  Her name's Ritt, now."  The Registrar read the letter, then slid it back to Carmina.  "We thought we were so clever sending someone who had a price on her head.  Three Graces, we should have known she wasn't stable by the sick way she killed that druggie over in Altamiras."  Varta collapsed into the sofa.  "No more Specials.  That'll cost us.  I suppose Endorf wants a death warrant sent out.  We can't leave someone as dangerous as Ritt running loose, even on an alien planet."

Carmina shook his head.  "Endorf thinks an arrest would trigger too many questions — somebody out there would be sure to find out who she really is.  He says she's moved into the city and started a pediatric practice, if you can believe it.  He says half the occupation wives take their children to her."

The silence ran long before Varta said, "That is truly frightening."

"Endorf has no idea what triggered her, but we have to trust his judgment.  He knows a third murder will come a lot easier than the first one did, so he's assigned a nurse from the compound to keep an eye on her.  Still, the wrong child gets her at the wrong moment, we've got headlines."

***

The Xians' forced retreat into the compounds made governance more difficult.  Eterran civil administrators, always unsure of their authority, had a harder time getting Xian approval for their actions.  Eterra grew wilder, more dangerous for everyone, the roughest planet in Eslan Carmina's growing Empire. 

***

The Xian Compound looked good on paper.  One by three miles, set outside Bay City in a pastoral valley, surrounded by an electric fence and a moat.  Clean, modern houses, patrolled by armed Xian guards. 

The Eterran architects and builders made every effort to hide burrs in the housing, irritants that would not be noticed for years.  Black iron plumbing, flare connectors, aluminum wiring, everything built to Xian-standard dimensions.  With a run of several hundred houses, Eterran manufacturers had no problem meeting the new specifications, but when carpet needed replacing or a window screen broke, the aliens would find Eterran carpet was four inches too narrow and Eterran screens used a fatter retaining gasket.  Black iron put rust in the water, and aluminum wiring overheated.  Flare fittings went out of style two generations ago.  Water-saving toilets that needed two flushes.  Plumb, square, and level?  Almost. 

Very middle class, very sterile.  The only spice in life for the Compound residents was the fear that accompanied a jaunt into town. 

City girl Karin Donal rebelled. 

"I am sick of this Compound, Gregor!  I will not be a hostage on my own planet.  I'm moving back to Bay City with Andrew, whether you come along or not."

"It's too dangerous, Karin."

"I'm an Eterran, remember?  Only Xians get taken.  And I am sick to death of your nightmares about the executions.  Why don't you quit?  Crauley's a civilian, Captain Donal.  What could he do to you worse than making you kill chained-up men?"

She did have a point, thought Gregor.

***

The electrician warmed up the tele-vision camera for another live broadcast of death.  The Eterran invention gave new meaning to the term 'public execution.'  The electrician checked his sheet.  No murderers or kidnappers in today's group, just a few conspirators. 

"Microphone working?" Captain Donal asked him. 

"The wailing is coming through fine, Captain," said the electrician.  "Real pathos.  Nobody dies with dignity anymore."

"I'm going out there.  Tell them not to fire, would you?"

"Sure thing, Captain," said the surprised electrician.  The captain had never been on camera before, but, ahh, the lure of tele-vision stardom. 

Captain Donal descended to the courtyard and said something to the guards.  He soon appeared on the electrician's tele-vision monitor. 

"I am Captain Gregor Donal.  You men have been convicted of conspiracy to overthrow the justly established rule of Xi Ahn.  Fortunately, you have injured no one in your crime, and this day Xi Ahn chooses mercy.  Go home to your families.  Ask your fellows to stop the kidnapping, but never again abuse the benevolence of Xi Ahn."

The guards began unchaining the prisoners, and the electrician broke out laughing. 

***

"That went out live?" asked Governor Crauley. 

"All around the planet.  We could arrest Donal, but then the Fleet would get involved."

"We already have enough heat from Carmina about the kidnappings, and the next execution will stir things up twice as much."  Crauley threw his pencil across the room.  "Pull him off executions.  I don't want him near a tele-vision camera ever again."

***

The apparent pardon quieted the violence for a while, but inevitably, someone committed an offense worthy of execution.  Gregor Donal didn't do the honors, but the Governor was correct.  The tele-vision broadcast sent things out of control again. 

***

". . .  and Corporation Accounting Department has expressed interest in an audit somewhat more thorough than is usually accorded a returning Planetary Governor. 

While we both hope things don't get to that point, I must remind you that being recalled prior to the termination date of your contract with the Imperium has a detrimental impact on the vesting rights of your retirement accounts. 

Best regards,

Eslan Carmina, Emperor"

Governor Crauley folded the letter and slid it into his jacket pocket.  His footsteps' metallic echo rang hollow in his ears as he paced the length of the freighter's hold.  Little cargo hindered his passage. 

Carmina wanted an immediate return to pre-kidnapping profits.  Eterra's last balance sheet showed accelerating losses. 

Carmina wanted full freighters.  The Governor had stripped the warehouses, and still failed to fill the ship. 

Carmina wanted, Carmina wanted.  Carmina had no idea how difficult things were on this cursed planet, how the Resistance threatened the auto- truck drivers, how they slashed tires and burned any vehicle with freight destined for the Compound. 

Crauley got to the forward pressure hatch and ran into Captain Donal.  "What are you doing out here?"

Donal looked past him into the hold.  "Thought I'd see what was delaying the departure, Governor.  The ship was due off yesterday evening, but it looks like they've barely begun loading."

Crauley didn't need Donal to remind him.  He brushed past the captain and hiked over to his auto.  Another empty starship, another board for his coffin.  Eterra was supposed to make him rich, supposed to put him in Mount Wren.  Instead —

Crauley dropped into the leather seat and the chauffeur closed the door.  He pulled the letter out and read it again, feeling the heat rise into his cheeks.  Everything was falling apart.  He began tearing the letter into little pieces — little tiny pieces. 

This planet was going to pay for what it was doing to him. 

***

The new lightning weapons in from Xi Ahn were lighter and less powerful than the old ones, but still an armful.  The bodyguard assigned to the Deputy's wife and children appreciated the difference as he tagged along in the Bay City grocery.  The other guard waited in the street by the auto.  Why the wives insisted on shopping outside the Compound remained a mystery, but they did. 

This grocery was a known quantity to the security force.  One door in front, an alarmed steel door in back leading to the service alley, glass across the street side for easy viewing in and out.  The Deputy's wife came here every week. 

Her daughter rode in her grocery cart, digging into a package of cookies.  Her boy darted ahead and crashed into the arms of a gentleman shopping with a hand basket.  "Easy there, son!" the man said, lifting the boy up.  He smiled as the wife reached him. 

The bodyguard heard a crash behind him and turned, ready for the worst, but it was only another boy, an Eterran, who had knocked over a stack of canned vegetables and filled the aisle with rolling tins. 

"Here!" shouted a stock boy.  "You did that on purpose!"  The child fled from the store, laughing. 

The guard laughed himself, then turned back.  His laughter quit immediately.  The Deputy's wife was not in sight and the gentleman held a hand over her struggling son's mouth.  A woman's shriek came from the back aisle.  The alley door alarm went off and the gentleman kicked out a shelf bracket, flooding the rest of the aisle with tins.  He nodded, grinned an evil grin, then darted around the corner with the boy. 

The guard waded through the cans, falling once and slowed further by his weapon.  Alerted by the alarm, the other guard rushed in from the front and immediately went sprawling when he hit the cans at the far end of the aisle.  The steel door was just closing when they got to the back aisle. 

"Locked!  It's locked!" yelled the other bodyguard. 

"Go radio for a patrol ship!"  The guard swung his weapon around and aimed at the door's lock.  The blast nearly blinded him and filled the air with sparks and molten debris, leaving a glowing two-foot hole gaping where the lock had been.  He kicked the door, but it wouldn't budge. 

"Welded!" he cursed.  The electric bolt had spot-welded the door to its metal frame.  He tried to blast a hole through the concrete block wall, but the weapon was locked in a recharge cycle. 

He waded up to the front windows, then stopped cold.  His companion was outside, running in useless circles around their vehicle — their blazing vehicle. 

"Some guy doused it with fuel after your friend rushed inside," said a female voice.  The bodyguard looked over the counter at the checkout girl hiding below the cash register.  She held up a handset.  "I tried to call, but the telephone is dead, too."

***

Crauley's Security chief led the briefing.  The victimized Deputy wasn't in the room, far too upset to help with any decisions.  Donal had never met him other than in passing, one of the many political appointees who stayed out of sight and never made waves.  Compared to Donal's career, that wasn't a bad tactic. 

The Security chief had a sketchy map of the grocery propped up on an easel.  "They blocked her bodyguards and quickly took her and the children through the back of the store, locking this steel door behind them.  They needed a key to do that.  Our auto was on fire by the time the guards got back to the street, so we couldn't use the radios.  Telephone service to the whole neighborhood was cut."

Crauley looked across the room to Gregor Donal.  "You happy now, Donal?"

"This has nothing to do with renewed executions, Governor.  It was too well coordinated," said the Security chief.  "They've been planning this one a long time, and we don't have a clue who did it."

"You turn Eterra upside down if you have to," said Crauley.  "I will not stand for it, not this time.  This planet needs a lesson in obedience."

***

The Governor's voice reeked of desperation, so Donal went back to his office and set his auto-typer to 'Receive All.'  Every message from the Governor's office would print out, regardless of addressee.  Crauley's clumsy, tactless handling of Eterra had pushed the planet out of control, and Donal expected a clumsy response to the latest crisis would make things worse. 

The next day, the auto-typer rattled out a message addressed to all stations planet-wide.  Security chiefs were to select a residential town in each Eterran region and seal it off.  A tele-vision announcement would then appear stating that the Eterran people had three days to inform on the kidnappers, or Xian patrol ships would destroy the towns and all inhabitants. 

Donal grabbed his coat and went to visit Piers Amhensen. 

***

"What makes you think I would know . . ."

"You make it your business to know things.  I don't have time to waste here, Amhensen.  Crauley's got twice as many ships now as it took to conquer Eterra, and he's got an excuse to use them.  You want more people to go through what you did?  Find those hostages!"

Amhensen considered for a moment.  He dropped his pruning shears to the ground beneath the tollar tree and climbed down the ladder.  "If you'll excuse me, Captain, I'll go make some enquiries."

***

One day gone with no word from Piers Amhensen.  The bi-weekly freighter to Xi Ahn would leave in the afternoon.  Donal slipped a postcard into the mail sack, addressed to Preston Tyrell at the des-Ahns Financier. 

It said, 'Do it.'

***

Donal's wife paced in his office.  "Two days are gone, Gregor.  If Mr Amhensen doesn't come through today, tens of thousands are going to die in the morning."

"Correct," he said.  "Just like the conquest.  I couldn't stop that, either."

"But you tried!" pleaded Karin.  "You can be pretty brazen when you want to, when you need to."

Donal had not stood up for the rape victim, even though her death was wrong.  He remembered how he felt about it afterward. 

"I need to now, don't I?"

***

Governor Crauley was finishing lunch when a Deputy dropped an auto-typer message on his desk. 

"This went out to all stations this morning, excepting our own security staff.  They caught it when several stations asked about it."

Crauley read it.  Gregor Donal had countermanded his orders on the retaliation attacks.  "That insolent — Where is he?  Why didn't this come in on my machine?"

"Haven't seen him around, Governor."  The Deputy went over to the auto- typer and looked behind it.  He held up a cable.  "Somebody unplugged you."

***

Gregor and Karin left their son Andrew with her father and set up shop behind the constantly clicking circuit racks in the little telephone switching building. 

"You think we'll get any support, Gregor?  Locked away back here we don't have any way of knowing."

"We'll know better locked away here than locked away in a cell.  At least we can monitor the messages on the command circuit."  Donal loaded a fresh roll of paper into the auto-typer. 

"You can't just go out and kill innocent people because some bad people hurt you," she said in frustration.  "Don't they know it's murder?"

"No, they don't.  They're all civilians and they're just making this up as they go along.  They think conquering planets is supposed to be about killing people and that makes it all right."  He checked the inker ribbon, then hit the circuit test button.  A string of echo messages printed out from all the stations on the command circuit.  "They find it quaint and amusing," he said grimly, "that we soldiers have rules of warfare."

"But you do have rules!  Why . . ."

"Because no one's written them down for the occupation civilians.  I left the Fleet War Code book on my desk, open and bookmarked for anyone who comes looking for me.  Little good it'll do."  Donal reached inside and flicked off the Echo switch, making the auto-typer, and his presence, invisible to the other stations on the circuit.  A red light glowed beside the keyboard to warn of the condition.  He closed the cover and set the auto-typer back to 'Receive All.'  It quickly rattled off another message. 

Karin tore it off and shook her head.  "Crauley's re-ordered the attack at dawn tomorrow and ordered everyone to ignore anything you put out.  You're to be arrested on sight."

"Cheer up, Karin.  You'll like the work camp on Aptera."

"Not me, Xian."

***

The Bay City Compound Administrator read the latest madness off the command circuit.  Insanity.  The world was going mad, the Governor's office had already done so, and the Administrator would soon go mad, too.  His telephone had rung continually until he left it off the cradle just to get some peace. 

After the tele-vision announcement sealing off the areas for retaliation, the Compound's entire Eterran work force rebelled.  Every toilet and drain in the Compound was clogged, telephone wires clipped, fire hydrants opened, power lines dropped.  Two warehouses burned, the same ones as before, but empty this time.  Half the Administrator's autos had their batteries shorted and tires flattened. 

Unknown workers had even splashed a patrol ship with fuel oil and set it ablaze before they were all excluded from the base, but that was Security's problem.  It still had enough ships to destroy the condemned areas, but the crews were in revolt at the idea.  They were making no effort to keep the Eterrans from fleeing their doomed homes. 

"We'll find enough crews to do the job," said the Security chief, "but there'll be the devil to pay when this is over.  And it's going to be paid either by the crews who went, or by the ones who refused to go, no telling which."

"I came to this planet to get rich, not to kill people," said the Administrator.  "Look at these dispatches."  He handed them to the Security chief. 

The chief read the messages.  "They're crazy.  Eterra is about to explode, and Crauley's having a typing duel with Captain Donal.  And I'll tell you something even scarier."  The Administrator looked up.  "We've just discovered the electric fence and perimeter lighting is out.  They destroyed the transformers.  The patrol ship weapons aren't accurate enough to operate in the dark, so if the Eterrans decide to storm the Compound overnight and take captives, we're in trouble."

"Do we have any Fleet warships on the planet?"

"No, sir, and the Xi Ahn freighter just left.  Assuming we can warn the next starship and it has enough air and food to make it back to Xi Ahn without landing here, we're four and a half months away from any help."

***

The Governor's auto-typer began hammering out another message.  "Donal again?" asked Crauley.  Lieutenant Governor Haier nodded.  "Where is he?  I'll have his hide nailed on my wall when we catch him.  What does it say?"

Haier tore off the message.  "He says retaliation against civilians is unlawful under Fleet rules and a war crime on Xi Ahn.  He directs the Regional Lieutenant Governors to stand down their security forces and release the sealed towns."

"What?"

The Haier read the rest to himself.  He glanced at Crauley, then pulled the keylock from the command auto-typer, disabling the keyboard.  He dropped the message on the Governor's desk and ran off down the hall. 

Crauley read it and turned purple.  The Regional Lieutenant Governors were to assume autonomous rule until the Emperor appointed a replacement for Governor Crauley.  All planet-wide directives were to pass through Captain Donal's office. 

It was signed 'Fleet Captain Gregor Donal, Military Director of Eterra and Representative of the Emperor.'

"I'll kill him!" Crauley screamed.  "I'll strangle that traitor with my bare hands!"

***

The door to the telephone switching office slammed open.  The Security chief entered, smiling broadly.  Half a dozen grinning guards wedged in behind him. 

"My, my, my — Captain Donal.  Imagine finding you here.  And your lovely Eterran wife, too."

Well, it was fun while it lasted.  Donal tried to return the smile but failed. 

"There's only so many taps on the command circuit, Donal.  We got the list from the techs, and this is the only auto-typer that didn't show up on an echo test.  Guess we're not as dumb as you thought, huh?"

Karin was about to say something when Gregor elbowed her. 

"So now what?"

"Up until you decided to name yourself king, I'd say a few years on Aptera sorting laundry.  Insubordination is one thing, Donal; mutiny's a whole 'nother.  Now you'll get to see an execution from the prisoner's point of view.  Crauley said he wouldn't mind if you were killed trying to escape, though.  Be better for everyone, including your wife."

"I've never been good at taking advice."

"Yeah, isn't that the truth?"  The Security chief took the handset from the wall telephone and dialed.  "We got him, sir.  No, alive.  We'll be right over."

He came around the circuit racks and clicked handcuffs on the two Donals. 

"Let's go, you two.  Time to pay the telephone bill."

***

Crauley replaced the handset in the cradle.  Donal wasn't skating out of this one.  He'd be all over and dead by the time Fleet got wind of it.  Crauley might have to explain why he'd held a civil trial instead of a martial court, but mutiny was even higher on Fleet's list of capital crimes than it was on Crauley's. 

"Got you this time, you sorry . . ."  Crauley saw Haier down the hallway talking to someone. 

"Haier, where have you been?  Get in here and put that keylock back.  They finally caught Donal, so we've got some directives to send out.  I'll teach this planet what Xi Ahn is about."

The Lieutenant Governor drifted into Crauley's doorway.  "No, Crauley, you won't."  He held a thick book up in one hand. 

"Fleet War Code book from Donal's office.  Says here that it's a crime to either issue or obey an unlawful order, and general retaliation without a legitimate target is an unlawful order.  We know Eslan Carmina personally assigned Donal here, and we've always suspected he wasn't what they said." Haier dropped the War Code book onto Crauley's desk.  "I'm not getting sucked into this, Crauley, and neither are any of the other Lieutenant Governors.  Until we get word from the Imperium, you are relieved of authority, sir."

***

An amalgam of tips and clues had Piers pedaling up to a lonely house out at the edge of town, uncertain why.  Elinor remained behind, watching him with binoculars from atop a hill.  The kidnappers faced the death penalty, and if they truly were inside the house, their discoverer could face death, too.  Piers might lose his life and everything he had worked for, leaving Elinor to the mercy of whoever adopted her — and that could even be the She-On Gregor Donal.  Piers shuddered at the irony of his second little girl being raised by the man who killed his first. 

Yet here he was, risking everything by trying to rescue the family of a She-On overlord.  Why, why, why?  Only a vague notion of it being the right thing to do, a concept he thought the Conquest had driven from him. 

He came to the house's low board fence and dismounted, wheeling his bicycle through the broken gate.  The grass needed mowing.  The house itself needed paint.  Piers spotted boarded-up basement windows, and closed curtains everywhere else. 

He stepped up on the creaky wooden porch and knocked on the door.  It cracked open, a heavy security chain sagging. 

"Yeah?" asked a pair of eyes in the dark interior. 

"Have you harmed them?"

The chain dropped and three men yanked him inside.  They were well armed. 

"What are you talking about?"

Three men.  A constricting fear gripped Piers' body.  A doubled fear, for he had felt it before.  He looked at them, but saw the faces of three other men he had once encountered. 

Scavengers. 

His heart pounded, but now the beats were dull thuds, the same fatal far-apart beats that marked his murdering rage in the Forbidden Zone.  His muscles tensed automatically, ready for the killing they knew was coming.  The scavengers saw it, saw something dangerous in his eyes.  Even armed as they were, they edged away. 

Piers wasn't ready for it, the sickening memory flooding back, the secret he had buried in the Forbidden Zone.  This time he could not hide his crime.  Police would be all over this house by morning and they would never allow such a monster to keep Elinor.  He would lose her, and for what?  Some alien master's family?

"What are you talking about, mister?" the scavenger repeated. 

Piers had vowed never to kill again.  These men couldn't be the scavengers.  The scavengers were dead, and these men weren't after Elinor and they didn't deserve to die.  He drove the fear down, forced it back, away from control of his body.  Only crooks, not scavengers, and he began to see their real faces. 

"Mister?"

This was the right thing to do.  Piers' fear subsided, but his body was still keyed.  He could conquer it.  He could. 

"Your — your next visitors won't be Eterran," he said.  "And they won't offer you a thousand Credits apiece for them."

The men traded glances.  They had asked for a hundred thousand.  "We don't know what you're talking about."

"It took me only three days to find you.  That's not worth much."  Piers pulled a bundle of She-On Credits from his coat and dropped it on the table.  "I'll wager three thousand that the She-Ons get a telephone call with your location before midnight.  I won't let them carry out another massacre."

The men conferred.  Their resigned muttering said they knew it was over.  "You alone?"

"Of course not.  The call goes out instantly if you step out the front door without me."

"Down in the basement."

He followed them down the steps.  A padlocked pantry door had a light shining through the cracks; behind it, the commodity that could save fifty thousand lives.  Piers pulled a blindfold from his pocket and put it on.  "Push me through the door."

They did.  Piers heard sniffling and removed the blindfold.  A frightened woman huddled with two children.  "Are you injured?"

The woman shook her head. 

"Are you here to rescue us?" asked the little boy, whose hand oddly had six fingers. 

"I'm here to buy you, the same way you She-Ons buy and sell Eterrans."

***

The airship transport settled onto the Compound landing pad, flanked by two patrol ships.  Donal stepped out on the ramp with Piers Amhensen by his side, then the children and their mother ran out to the arms of the waiting Deputy.  Donal scanned the crowd.  Lieutenant Governor Haier and the other Deputies were applauding, but he did not see Governor Crauley among them.  Cheers broke out. 

The Deputy came over to Amhensen with tears in his eyes and held out his hand, six-fingered like his son's.  "How can I ever repay you, sir?" he said. 

"You can't," Amhensen said, spurning the offered hand.  "My family died in your Conquest."

The Trials of Power

A two-month-old postcard from Eterra emerged from the mail sack.  'Scenic Bay City,' insisted the ruddy photo on the front — Eterrans were blissfully unaware that colors existed beyond shades of orange.  Preston Tyrell flipped it over.  The back said, 'Do it.'

Tyrell went grimly to his file cabinet.  Something had cut loose on Eterra two months ago and Gregor Donal could be dead by now.  He opened the drawer marked 'Interstellar Trade Issues' to pull out a fat folder, one of many the drawer now contained.  Good weeks of stories for the des-Ahns Financier. 

"Copy!"  The copy boy popped into his office.  "Take these two down to Layout and set them up Front Page.  This one on top."  The copy boy ran off and Tyrell picked up the telephone.  "Send out for sandwiches and get up here.  We're going to be writing all night."

***

Emperor Eslan Carmina lay on the office sofa with his forearm over his eyes.  The conquest of Eterra had saved his Chairmanship, but it was making him pay.  The des-Ahns Financier lay wadded up on the floor, the price tag. 

Three pages devoted to a scandal out on Eterra.  Carmina expected his Governors to skim the profits.  That was, after all, the incentive to go to the slave planets, but they were not to get caught.  And no one had ever gotten caught as thoroughly as Governor Crauley. 

The Financier had records of everything Crauley had stolen from Eterra.  The idiot kept records!

Registrar Varta burst into his office.  "Eslan!  Did you see the — oh — I guess you did."

"He pulled gold fillings from the teeth of conquest victims, Roger." Carmina sat up.  "Dead people.  I'm going to be sick."

"The Financier learned about the rape girl Crauley executed, too," said Varta. 

"It's that lieutenant we stranded out there.  It has to be him.  I want him destroyed."

"He's a captain, now, Eslan, and we can't destroy him until we know what he has to say about Crauley at the trial."  Carmina threw Varta a sinking look.  "Yes, a trial.  Corporation owns Eterra, so Crauley stole from our shareholders.  That means Registry has to take him to court to get our money back."

"Then we're screwed," said Carmina, "and it's going to take four months before we know how badly."

***

It took two weeks, not four months.  The des-Ahns Financier printed new revelations every day, a merciless pounding that had Carmina close to an ulcer and Varta borrowing his anti-acids.  They were helpless before the onslaught, months away from any remedy, when the next freighter in from Eterra brought details of a mutiny against Governor Crauley.  The ship might as easily have come from Heaven. 

A letter signed by all the Regional Lieutenant Governors supported the takeover in light of Crauley's unlawful retaliation order, but questioned Captain Donal's authority.  The letter criticized the Imperium for not clarifying Donal's position. 

A separate letter from Donal to the Emperor suggested they get their stories coordinated.  It was typed and unsigned. 

"Crauley's a dead horse in this race," said Varta.  "There's no way we can back him after the pounding we've taken from the Financier.  Worse, Donal's a hero for rescuing the Deputy's wife and children."

"Every time," scowled Carmina.  "Every disaster on Eterra, I see Gregor Donal's name come up, and he dances out of trouble."

"Maybe that's because he's good, good enough to have been running Eterra from the start.  He's given you two choices.  You can look like a stooge for letting Crauley rob Corporation, or you can look like a genius for placing Donal out there to spy on him.  That was our Deputy's family he saved, by the way."

No choices.  "Issue the press release, Roger, but I don't care how good Donal is or who he saved.  Career Contract or not, he's never going to see another promotion as long as he lives."

***

The Xian freighter floated clear of the ground, then briefly engaged the field engines to sling itself beyond the atmosphere for the Fold.  In nine seconds, it was out of sight. 

"Goodbye, Crauley," said Lieutenant Governor Haier. 

"I don't like it," said Gregor Donal, Military Director of Eterra.  "He burned his records and you didn't stop him.  Now he'll have a four-week jump on us if we're called to Xi Ahn for a trial."

"A trial?  For what, war crimes?" asked Haier.  Donal nodded.  "No one as naive as you could possibly be in authority — well, on this planet it's possible.  War crime trials are what the winners have for the losers, Donal.  You've executed enough Eterrans to know that by now.  Xians are still the winners, and Crauley is still a Xian.  As for the records, now he can't defend himself from any false charges.  You can accuse him of anything without fear."

"There won't be any false charges from me."

"Donal, you are honest as well as naive.  I'm beginning to doubt you really work for Carmina."

"We'll know in two weeks," said Donal. 

***

Eslan Carmina made it almost completely through the quarterly Board of Directors meeting.  Then Director Wallace Park brought it up, 'it' being Gregor Donal. 

"I hate to admit it, Eslan, but you handled Eterra almost as well as I would have."  Laughter around the Board.  "This Captain Donal fellow you put out there — he's done an excellent job looking after our interests.  Why don't you appoint him the next Governor?"

Carmina choked.  Park owned a huge chunk of Corporation.  "Because I was thinking of your nephew for the position, Wallace."  Anything to avoid Donal. 

Directors down at the end of the table laughed.  Park's nephew was an embarrassment to everyone.  Park shot them a look that shut them up, but Carmina knew he wanted the nephew gone more than anyone. 

"That's why you're Chairman, Eslan — always thinking ahead.  We don't dare let the boy run a planet, though.  Make Donal his senior Lieutenant Governor and give Donal all the power."  Harumphs of agreement from the Board. 

'It' was settled. 

***

"Senior Lieutenant Governor of Eterra," said the Bay City Lieutenant Governor, "and there's going to be a trial with you as the star witness.  Donal, I am impressed."

"I guess that means now you call me 'sir.'"

"Some things, my boy, don't change," said Haier. 

"Oh.  So, who's this Brambach fellow they're sending?"

"Director Park's nephew.  Worthless.  Harmless.  Sort of a non-Governor replacement for Crauley.  Donal, you own Eterra."

"Just don't screw it up while I'm gone, sir."

***

"Wow, Dad.  It's huge!"

"Wouldn't seem so big if we filled it with freight," said the navigator escorting the Donals through the starship.  "And it sure won't seem huge after you've spent thirty-seven days locked inside."

"Bigger than the ship I came here in," said Donal. 

"That was a warship, wasn't it, sir?  Back when the Fleet rescued the trade delegation.  I was just a boy, then.  Hardly seems like fourteen years."

"Only thirteen.  Only — seems like I was born here, now."  Gregor looked around the nav station.  The instruments were different from the old command ship, less of that austere military bolted-together look.  "You don't go much faster, though.  You'd think by now they'd be spending less time between planets."

"We've reached the limit, sir," said the navigator.  "Size and speed.  At two hundred feet long, this ship can just barely fit inside the Fold volume, but they've known that size limit forever.  The field engines just run out of steam at nineteen g's for anything practical."

"You can't run an Empire when it takes two months each way to travel between planets," said Donal.  "I'm surprised Carmina's kept it together as long as he has."

"You want sympathy?" asked Karin.  "The sooner it falls apart, the happier this galaxy will be."

"Dad," Andrew tugged at his father's sleeve.  "Thirty-seven days isn't two months."

"Travel at lightspeed does that," said the navigator.  "As we go faster, our clocks slow down.  The ship takes two months to travel to Xi Ahn, but our slowed-down clocks show only thirty-seven days.  We call it speed compression."

Andrew looked skeptical. 

"He'll have plenty of time to explain, son," said Gregor. 

"Thirty-seven days, Xian," growled Karin. 

"Nav," said the pilot's voice over the speaker, "you have Governor Donal back there with you?"

"Yes, sir.  All three.  Nav's ready any time, Major."

"Just didn't want to leave without them.  Here we go."

The gravity engine silently came up to power and pulled the freighter a thousand feet up.  Andrew was glued to the nav station's glass bubble watching his home fall away below him.  The ship slid out to Bay City and circled the city in a farewell sightseeing tour. 

"Wow," said Andrew.  "All the houses and buildings are like little toy size.  You can see how everything is put together."

"The folks on the ground see their world as straight lines and turns.  Very linear thinking, like living in a tunnel," said the navigator.  "People who travel through the air can see how things relate."

"We Eterrans call that flying," said Karin. 

"Flying?  Nice word."  The navigator spoke into his microphone, "All set, Captain," then he turned to Andrew.  "Now that we're high enough, the pilot will engage the field engines to launch us into space.  This is neat."

Lights on the navigation panel lit up amber, then flashed green.  Suddenly the ground flew away from the ship at an incredible rate.  Karin gasped and grabbed Gregor.  Within seconds, Eterra was definitely a round planet floating in space and they hadn't felt any movement at all. 

"Wow!  Can we do that again?"

"Not until we come back, son.  You all right, Karin?"

She shook her head.  "You boys play spaceman.  I'll go read a book in our cabin."  She departed to the safety of the ship's interior. 

"Why did we go up in the air first instead of just jumping off the ground?" asked Andrew. 

"The field engines generate an acceleration field around the starship, and everything inside the field moves at the same rate, sort of like falling together.  That's why you couldn't feel anything when we shot up into space.  If we did that on the ground, we would take some of the concrete with us."

"I thought everything in space was supposed to float around?"

"Everything would if we just used the field engines," said the navigator.  "The engine that got us off the ground doesn't generate the big field, just a tiny one that accelerates only the engine itself.  We call it the 'gravity engine' and it runs all the time we're in space.  It pushes the starship upward, then the starship pushes you upward.  It feels just like gravity, but it isn't."

"But how do you know which way is up?"

"Up is whichever way the gravity engine is pointing, and it always points in this direction," said the navigator, pointing to the ceiling.  "The pilot has an arrow pasted on his control panel to tell him."

"I heard that, Nav," came the pilot's voice over the speaker. 

***

Over a month locked in a starship with a five-year-old was hard on everyone, crew included — as Andrew was given to understand, though he couldn't understand why. 

"Hello, Xi Ahn," he said.  The master planet whizzed past at two million miles per hour, azure and white, tan and green, oceans and continents swirled together.  Another hour and a half before they got the starship stopped, then two hours to return to where they were now.  Sometimes the cruise timing was a little off.  Often times, actually. 

"Goodbye, Xi Ahn," said Andrew. 

"Thanks for reminding me," said the navigator. 

"I think," said Andrew's mother, "rather than endure taking him back to Eterra, we will just sell him."

"I hope prices are up," said his father. 

***

Under strict instructions that he would endure a hug and kisses from his grandmother, Andrew flew down the ramp to plant his feet on solid ground again.  A kindly older couple waited at the bottom for him. 

"You must be Andrew," said the gentleman. 

"Yes, sir.  You must be . . ."  Andrew looked around.  The colors!  The sun was white, not orange, and everything had colors he'd never seen.  "Wow! What a neat place!"

"Glad you think so.  And yes, we are your grandparents."

Andrew endured the hug and kiss.  Girls were always into kisses, even when they got old and became grandmothers.  He shook hands with his grandfather as his parents walked down the ramp to them. 

"Well, dear, we've waited seven years for this moment," said his grandfather, eyeing Andrew's mother.  "What do you think?"

"Hard to say until we hear her speak," said his grandmother, "but she looks human."

"Glad you think so," said Karin with a little curtsey.  "And yes, I am your daughter-in-law."  She got a hug and a kiss from both grandparents. 

Andrew tugged his mother's sleeve while his dad endured a hug and a kiss, too.  "Mom, if you still want to sell me, it's all right."

The Trial

The Financier articles about it were still enroute to Eterra when Crauley arrived back on the master planet, so no one was more surprised than he was at the thoroughness of the records he had kept on his graftiness.  The court papers inviting him to trial were handed to him as he stepped from the starship. 

Crauley had kept no records, yet here they were, impeccably entered on official stationery in official binders.  He knew instantly that Donal had set him up, and the only way to discredit the records was to discredit the traitor who kept them.  That's what lawyers were for, and he hired a bunch. 

***

"This infamous toilet paper incident, Captain.  You knew the report submitted to Xi Ahn was false, the claim of an accidental fire and the fire engine taking a wrong turn," said Crauley's lawyer.  "Doesn't that indicate a willingness to deviate from the truth on your part?  A willingness, for instance, to falsify these alleged inventories of the governor's shipments home?"

"The Compound Administrator felt the actual story was too improbable.  The laughter I heard when it was recounted confirms his judgment.  We did learn of flaws in the gate arrangement, which he corrected, and I was able to recover the fire engine."

"In pieces, I understand. 

"The Eterrans disassembled it to learn the secret of the field engine electric generator.  They found, to their disappointment, only a battery bank and an electric motor.  All the nuts and bolts were in buckets."

"Ever get it back together?" asked Judge Coan. 

"Eventually, your lordship.  Even had parts left over."

The lawyer was making little headway.  "You were involved in ransoming the toilet paper."  He ignored the snickering behind him and went on, "The eventual price you negotiated was outrageous, so much so that one might suspect you got a cut of the action."

Donal let the accusation pass.  "The only cut I got was from what little native Eterran paper we could find after word got out.  Nasty stuff.  Odd thing about toilet paper economics, sir.  The demand curve is a vertical line.  When it's cheap, you don't buy more, and when it's outrageous, you don't buy less.  When the ransom price finally came in, we were in the outrageous part of the curve.  Desperately so."

"You live in an Eterran neighborhood, Captain.  You have an Eterran wife.  Her father is a suspected rebel sympathizer.  How do we know you weren't working in the interest of the Eterrans?"

"I continue to work in the interest of the Eterrans.  Surely you realize the interests of the Empire coincide with the best interests of the Eterran people.  There is an Imperial Policy Dispatch to that effect."

"Still, we all know that isn't the case."

"Objection," objected a Corporation lawyer, "as to what we all know.  We all being Altmark Corporation know that is exactly the case."

"Captain Donal, your wife is Eterran?" asked Judge Coan, content to needle both sides.  "What is her opinion?  Is she happy to have the Empire working in her best interest?"

"She came with me to Xi Ahn, your lordship.  You might invite her in to ask how she feels about Governor Crauley's tenure."

"Conference!" called both sides. 

"Go ahead," said Coan with a wave of his hand.  He leaned over to Donal.  "Love it, watching them dance."

***

Just because Gregor was stuck in an Old City courtroom all day didn't mean Karin couldn't go adventuring with Andrew.  Preston Tyrell, Gregor's old friend from Fleet days, had taken the day off and was chauffeuring the Donals around the sights.  The tallest attraction was Altmark Tower, twelve hundred feet of glass and steel built on a rise at the southern edge of Illium-des-Ahns. 

Fifty feet below the roof, the observation deck offered a panoramic view of the city and neighboring Mount Wren.  Andrew was all over the towns with the five-penny rental binoculars, but Karin focused on the town across the Ahn River. 

"That's Mount Wren?  It's just a wooded hillside with some houses stuck in it.  Why all the excitement?"

"Well, they're very big houses for one thing, and they sit on very big parcels," said Gregor's father, a carpenter and stone mason.  "I worked on some of the newer ones.  They don't build them too often because the Old Royals won't sell you the land unless you meet their standards."

"That means very rich and anxious to bring the kings back to rule us," said Gregor's mother. 

Preston steered Karin a bit left.  "See that notch in the Mount Wren bluffs lined up with the Old City?  That's why Illium-des-Ahns is where it is.  The ocean packets can get up the river as far as the Great Bend, and the Notch is the only easy route through the bluffs for a hundred miles.  The packets would unload just downstream of the Stone Island rapids off to the right there, then barges would travel on up-river or caravans would take the goods through the Notch up into the heartlands.  The kings of Illium built the Old City fortress to control trade for much of the interior."

Karin dropped her focus to the near side of the river, the Old City, then to the flatland this side of the walled enclave.  The roofs inside the Old City were steep slate and green copper, but the area outside the walls looked like a slum.  Much of Illium-des-Ahns had that dirt-street, tarpaper- shack look. 

"The capital of the galaxy doesn't glitter much," she said, pointing the area out to Preston. 

"That's called the Wash.  The Old Royals own it like they own everything around here, and it's filled with squatters who moved to the big city looking for work.  City won't throw them out for the Royals because they need the workers and there isn't anyplace else to put them.  They won't stay there forever, though, because when the Ahn floods, it puts the Wash four feet under."

Karin scanned the rest of Illium-des-Ahns, a big, dirty, undeveloped frontier town sprawling incongruously before a twelve hundred foot skyscraper.  New construction at the National Assembly complex showed promise, but looked years off.  Illium-des-Ahns couldn't hold a candle to Bay City, and yet it did rule the galaxy. 

Maybe that could change.  The Old Royals didn't like the common people's elected governments that didn't like the domineering Corporation that didn't like the anti-commerce Old Royals, and vice versa.  A three-way power game meant one could stir up trouble without ever being on the losing side. 

***

Gregor Donal idled patiently in the witness seat, having misled himself during his journey into thinking that he was playing some part in destroying the rest of Crauley's life.  Crauley was on trial, but not for war crimes — Corporation Registry had initiated a civil action to recover the huge sum Crauley had stolen from the Eterrans.  Recover it for Altmark Corporation, of course, not the Eterrans.  At least, Donal consoled himself, it was a trial. 

By now, former Governor Crauley had given up the grimacing, frowning, and glaring.  He just looked bored.  Both sides' lawyers were in another coordinating conference.  Everyone had secrets to hide. 

Judge Seth Coan leaned over to Donal.  "Those guys should get married."

"And ruin their relationship?" observed Donal.  "How do you like living in Mount Wren, your lordship?"

Coan, a baron among the Old Royals, who still recognized titles, eyed the captain, who would in a few years be a returning Corporation planetary bureaucrat, who would want what all returning planetary bureaucrats wanted.  "Quite well, but I doubt we'll be neighbors, sir.  You seem too honest to steal the money it requires."

"Just taking bribes won't do it, huh?"

"Not even close," said Coan.  "Looks like they've negotiated the next question.  You're doing fine so far."

Crauley's lawyer posed his heavily negotiated question. 

"On the matter of these alleged gold fillings, Captain.  You cannot state that you actually saw them.  In fact, would you not agree that the alien Eterran completing this inventory could have deliberately falsified his report, knowing it might someday be used in a trial?"

Crauley lounged next to his lawyers, absently polishing his glasses with a handkerchief, just as he had done when he assigned Donal to execute the first rape victim. 

"I agree completely, sir," said Donal.  "Even an alien could see that a trial was likely, and if the Governor hadn't destroyed his own records prior to leaving Eterra, we would know the truth for certain.  As it is, I choose not to believe that Governor Crauley, or any decent man, would rip the teeth from a corpse just to get . . ."

"Objection."

"Conference."

The lawyers huddled again. 

Coan leaned over.  "I'm going to order the death penalty for both sides."

"I'd recommend against that, your lordship.  I've had experience with it."

Coan sat back.  "Oh, so you have.  Sorry, Captain."  He cleared his throat and leaned forward again.  "I've never sentenced anyone to death in my career, and I've never, uh, attended.  Is it as bad as I've imagined?"

"You enter that courtyard knowing it's going to hurt, but until you leave, you could never have believed how much.  Every time it's like that, like it's your first time.  They all take a bite from your soul, especially the innocent ones."

"The innocent ones?  What's going on out there, Captain?"

"The business of Empire, your lordship, overseen by Corporation's appointed Planetary Governors."  Donal nodded toward Crauley, now drawing bored doodles on a legal pad. 

"Outside the jurisdiction of this court," said Coan, tapping his pencil in Crauley's direction, "unfortunately."  The lawyer huddle began breaking up.  "You may be off the stand shortly, Captain.  You're hurting everyone but me."

Baron Coan was right.  "No further questions," agreed both sides. 

***

At the end of the trial, Corporation recovered nine of the twelve million Crauley stole.  Crauley's lawyers argued first that he never had the other three, then that it wasn't theft, then that he had already spent it.  The court accepted the last argument and threw out Corporation's half-hearted attempt to deny Crauley his pension, leaving the former Governor only thirty thousand Credits a month to live on. 

Not enough for Mount Wren. 

***

Preston Tyrell had the five Donals over for dinner.  Porc Forestiere, essentially the same feral critter the Eterrans called a pook, and the farmers on Xi Ahn called less pleasant things when it rooted up their crops.  Domesticated, it was called a pig, which brought to Donal's mind his first business meeting with Piers Amhensen. 

"I like what you've done here, Preston" said Gregor's father, who should have because he had designed and cut much of the stonework.  "Turned it into a real home.  Real convenient to the schools and everything, too."

"Thank you, Mr Donal," said Preston.  "Speaking of schools, I understand Illium-des-Ahns is now requiring seven years of all its children."

"Yes, up from six like the rest of Illium requires.  Of course it can't compare with the ten you require here in Mount Wren, but it's still appropriate for Illium's capital city."

Gregor saw it coming. 

"You know, Gregor, I was thinking," Preston said as though the thought had just occurred to him.  "Andrew hasn't seen much of Xi Ahn, and I'd hate to send him off on another month in space before he has.  Would you and Karin consider leaving him here for a year of school?"

"Could I, Dad?  Please?"

"Your parents put me up to it," confessed Preston.  "My boys would look after him."

A conspiracy.  Karin and Gregor wouldn't have to sell the child after all. 

***

Graduation day.  A sixth-grader was too old to be sitting next to his mother, but Bryce Carmina did so self-consciously anyway, high school yearbook in his lap.  Gus' yearbook, Gus' graduation. 

Eslan Augustus 'Gus' Carmina, Jr was down on the gym floor returning to his seat among his classmates and wearing that stupid graduation gown.  He had just received the school's Good Citizenship Award.  He was also in the Honor Society and the Top Ten Percent, and was first semester Student Council President. 

"He could have graduated number one if he hadn't wasted his time with all those sports," grumbled Bryce's mother.  And, sure, Gus was Central's top letterman, too, with nine varsity letters — three each in Fieldball, Wrestling, and Track.  No one kept score of varsity letters, though, so at least Bryce wouldn't have to suffer through his brother getting another award. 

"You don't learn what you need to know just studying books," said Eslan Carmina, Sr.  "That lunkhead down there," he said, pointing to the valedictorian taking the podium for another boring speech, "he never went out for any sports.  Gus said he never took any of the advanced classes Gus was in.  What is he good at, maybe kissing up to teachers?"

Bryce leafed through the yearbook index.  The valedictorian lunkhead was in Debate Club and Drama Club, not to mention Pep Band.  But he did have a varsity letter as a Track Team equipment manager his senior year.  Towel boy.  Gus had five lines of densely packed credits after his own name. 

"You remember that, Bryce," said his father.  "Gus is a self-starter, always looking for something important to do.  He'll leave that lunkhead down there in the dust."

"Gus'll be Emperor of the Galaxy, Dad.  I don't think that has much to do with self-starting."

"If he plans to keep the job it does, Bryce.  He's set you a good example of what a Carmina can do.  You'll be just as good when you get to school here."

"Dad, I don't want to go to Central High.  Gus had to ride down here every day in a limousine.  I want to go to Saint William so I can ride my bicycle."  And so he wouldn't have the same teachers as Gus anymore.  Bryce was sick of living in Gus' shadow.  Gus this, Gus that.  'I remember when your brother . . . ' from all the teachers.

"Saint William is full of those Old Royal and banker brats who think they deserve all the money they're going to inherit," said his dad.  "That's why I sent Gus to school here in Illium-des-Ahns.  This is where you learn to compete, son."

"I think Bryce should go to school in Mount Wren, too," said his mother.  "There's plenty of competition from all those high-achievers there.  Better teachers, more courses.  Just because you went to Central . . ."

Bryce tuned out the old argument and flipped through the depressing yearbook.  Gus was in it everywhere, a privilege of being its Assistant Editor. 

Eventually they began handing out diplomas, and soon enough they called 'Eslan Augustus Carmina, Jr.'  Gus got a round of giggly cheers as he stepped into the spotlight on the podium.  Sure, he was popular with the girls, too. 

***

Senior Planetary Lieutenant Governor Gregor Donal stepped into the orange sunlight on a planet that had changed during his absence.  Their brush with genocide sobered the Eterran Resistance, and the power struggle within the Xian leadership left them holding their breath.  No one dared do anything that might trigger another mad response from their wounded overlords. 

The new Governor's name was Brambach, somebody's nephew and just in it for the money.  No naive notions about reform or efficiency or fairness.  Word was that the real power lay with Donal, a man content to let Eterra go its own way as long as he could fill the freighters. 

After the insanity of the kidnapping years, Eterra welcomed the respite of a merely greedy Governor.  Gregor Donal was determined to keep that entente in place. 

***

In a darkened corner of the tavern, a young man fidgeted across the table from Piers Amhensen.  To his left, a dour tavern keeper polished uncharacteristically on a beer mug, waiting for him to leave.  The dark-haired little girl seated on a tall bar stool flipped through receipts, occasionally writing something down, occasionally tossing him a cute smile.  A pink and bubbly soda pop fizzed away in the beer mug beside her.  She was too young to be in the tavern, especially at the bar, but even though he was a policeman, he wasn't going to do anything about it. 

Despite his civilian clothing, the tavern emptied soon after he arrived, thus the keeper's scowl.  It was a private matter, a family matter, and the young policeman would never have come into this Resistance-tainted, She-On stained neighborhood if there were any other way out.  Piers Amhensen slid an envelope of old Eterran money across the table to him. 

"You'd better be on your way," said Amhensen, pointing to the tavern keeper with his thumb.  "You're costing my 'landlord' business."

"Thank you, sir.  I won't forget this."  The policeman put the precious envelope inside his jacket.  He excused himself and hurriedly left the tavern, passing the patrons loitering outside.  They didn't look at him; he didn't look at them. 

It was complicated.  The She-Ons severely discounted Eterran currency and burned what bills they took in taxes and replaced them with She-On Credits.  With the money presses expropriated by the She-Ons, printing new currency was impossible.  This meant that all the Eterran currencies, which had officially fallen in value, were becoming increasingly scarce and thus perversely valuable again.  Artificial deflation, economic insanity inadvertently imposed by the She-Ons in an effort to push everyone over to a currency they controlled.  Old debts not in She-On Credits were climbing to usurious levels, and not even the banks would exchange money at the official rate any more. 

The policeman's parents were in such a bind.  They needed cash to pay off an old mortgage that had risen beyond their means, and the creditor, who wanted the land beneath their home, refused to convert the debt to She-On money.  The rumor around the station house was that a man in a North University tavern had saved other policemen's hides and asked nothing in return.  The policeman patted the rumor's confirmation in his pocket.  Piers Amhensen had incredibly made the exchange at the official rate, nothing less than a technically legal gift to the policeman. 

The money would convert his parents' financial debt into his own personal debt. 

***

Jim listened to the chauffeur in cautious silence as the imposing mansions along the Ahn river slid by.  Great meadows of grass stretched out, close-cropped, but Jim saw no grazing animals to keep them that way.  He looked for the mountain, but only wooded bluffs lay northward.  Mount Wren was like the country in some ways, but more like a pretty painting of the country.  Not what he expected.  Maybe the Seviers were like that, too.  Maybe not.  Whatever the future held for him, it couldn't be worse than his first twelve years. 

The chauffeur slowed the electric limousine for an oncoming carriage.  He waved at the other driver, who returned a quick flourish of his whip as he passed. 

"I don't know what you're used to, Jim, being from the country and all, but I think you'll like the Seviers.  They're a little stiff with the staff, maybe strict, but very fair.  Mrs Sevier comes from an Old Royal family and she kind of thinks along those lines, but she's still a good woman underneath and not bad to work for if you try hard.  Mr Sevier has common-folk roots and doesn't act like he's better than anybody.  He is, though.  He's probably the smartest and most honest money guy in the whole world, and you have to respect that.  A lot of the new-rich people here in Mount Wren owe their fortunes to him."

The limousine overtook and passed another horse-drawn wagon, an enclosed one with thick slabs of korkbark on its sides.  'ICE,' it said in big, icy blue letters, then 'Ammonia free' and 'from City Water,' in smaller frosty white ones.  The limo slowed again, then turned in at the drive of a riverfront mansion.  The velvet green lawn stretched out forever. 

"If I had a few million to invest, he'd probably put me in one of these places myself after a few years.  'Course I don't, and that's the way of things.  It takes money to make money."

"If you had a few million, sir, couldn't you buy a mansion here anyway?" Jim asked, daring a question despite knowing familiarity from superiors was not an invitation to converse. 

The chauffeur also knew it and gave him a quick look.  "Jim, this is Mount Wren.  They probably spent that much on the driveway."

The limo rolled through the porte-cochere and stopped before the turn- off to the carriage house and stables.  Jim got out and followed the chauffeur up to the mansion's back veranda, where a slender, greying man and a woman of upright bearing and pale complexion waited. 

"Jim," said the man, "I am Anton Sevier.  You've met my wife, Endra.  We hope you will be happy here."  He extended his hand, and Jim shook it almost as an equal might, an unfamiliar feeling. 

"I'll do my best, Mr Sevier."

Endra Sevier made no effort to greet him.  Instead, she politely surveyed Jim as though she were considering buying him — needlessly, of course, because she already had. 

Always a Price

Karin Donal ran over the statistical regression homework with Elinor.  Karin usually taught her of Eterra's forbidden history, but this time she sat back, watching Elinor multiply numbers in her head. 

Elinor looked up.  "What?"

"Everyone I know would need a pencil and paper just to add those numbers."

Elinor shrugged.  "It just takes practice."

"You're sixteen, and you're a senior in the only private college Xi Ahn lets us have."

"And?" said Elinor.  "My father is bright, so I'm bright."

"You are very strong.  You can lift things I couldn't even budge."

"My father is strong, too."

"And you are very small for sixteen."

Elinor's eyes dropped back to the regression data sheet.  "Let's talk about something else."

"No, Ellie.  You haven't had a mother to talk to, so talk to me.  You aren't turning into a woman, are you?"  Elinor eventually shook her head.  "Not the kind of thing to discuss with your father.  I know a doctor who works down at what's left of the university.  She can help."

Elinor was quiet, gazing at the numbers but not seeing them.  "I thought I would start late because I'm so small, but I just keep waiting.  I don't know what to do.  I don't know whom to ask."

"Well, I do.  I'll get you an appointment."

***

The doctor offered Elinor a chair.  "Miss Amhensen, you come to me highly recommended.  So what may I do for you?"

"I'm not growing up."

"Many girls bloom late, dear.  Just give things a little time."

"I'm sixteen."

"You are?"  Doctor Ritt checked the form that Elinor filled out in the waiting room.  "And you're a Senior in high school?"

"I'm a Senior in university."

"University?"  That caught the doctor.  "Really?  How long have you known Karin Donal?"

"Since I was five."  Elinor hadn't suspected the doctor would be a She-On.  It gave her a chance to try her language skills on someone other than Mrs Donal's poor husband. 

"Your Eterran has a Xian accent, Doctor," she said in her best formal Xian, "but not Xian Xian like Governor Donal.  Are you in the occupation force?"

Doctor Ritt paled as though she'd been caught committing a crime.  "You — speak Xian very well, Elinor.  You could almost pass for an Illium-des-Ahns native," she said in Xian.  A forced smile didn't cover the nervousness in her voice. 

"That's the capital of Illium where Governor Donal is from.  You don't sound from there."

That caught the doctor again.  "You have a very good ear for someone with a cute nose.  I'm from — I'm from a different country.  I came here with the occupation force, but I quit when, I stayed behind when they moved out of the university compound.  I'm Eterran now," she said, switching back to the Eterran tongue, "for keeps."

A light sheen of perspiration graced her forehead.  The doctor's eyes lost focus for a moment and her mind seemed to wander, then she tapped Elinor's form.  "You are small for sixteen."

"Girls I went to primary with are having children, Doctor.  I still am one."

"I'll do some blood tests, but I think you should see an associate of mine.  She's Eterran and she's got some Eterran equipment that will tell you more than I can.  We She-On doctors are only good at billing."

Doctor Ritt dialed a number on the telephone.  "Hi, Sue.  Ritt here.  I have a young lady named Elinor Amhensen I'd like you to see.  Sixteen and still waiting for boobs.  Yes, Amhensen."  She checked Elinor's paperwork.  "Piers Amhensen, right.  Um hmm."

She put her hand over the microphone and whispered to Elinor, "She says you probably inherited that from your father.  He doesn't have any either."

Elinor suppressed an undignified giggle. 

"Karin Donal sent her to me, but it's too much like — right.  Sure.  Two hours?  Great, I owe you.  Thanks so much."

Doctor Ritt replaced the handset.  "Magic name, Karin Donal.  Got you an appointment in two hours.  We'll drain a couple gallons of blood from you and send them down to the lab with a rush label.  Doc Sue's just across the street in that warehousey-looking place.  I'll send the lab results over right away.  Now let's go pump some blood."

The doctor led across the hall to another cubicle with an autoclave and a stack of cylindrical packages wrapped in paper and stapled closed.  She opened one with her back to Elinor and dumped the contents onto a tray, which she slid into the autoclave. 

"Tools of the trade.  Gotta' cook 'em a while," she joked awkwardly, then took a chair and began filling out a clipboard form, which Elinor assumed was a blood-work order.  "What, umm, you seem to know a lot about Xi Ahn.  Karin Donal has told you about it?"

Elinor nodded, "And Governor Donal, too.  And what I read in the des-Ahns Financier."

The clipboard clattered to the floor. 

Elinor's experience with She-On women was limited at best, but she knew Doctor Ritt could not be typical of the breed.  The doctor seemed very self- conscious about her accent, and even more so about Elinor's knowing she wasn't from Illium.  Her jokes were strained, her laughter forced while they chatted, waiting for the autoclave to sterilize the blood-collecting needles and tubes. 

The timer finally dinged and Doctor Ritt pulled the metal tray from the autoclave.  The tray held an assortment of razor scalpels and other nasty medical things in addition to the syringes and glass collection tubes. 

The doctor set the tray beside her and tied an elastic band lightly around Elinor's arm, then wiped the inside of her elbow with alcohol.  She fitted a collection tube to the syringe and shakily aimed for a vein.  She missed.  Two more misses and Elinor decided not to watch, turning her head toward an out-of-date calendar advertising some miracle drug or another. 

Doctor Ritt fumbled around on the tray for something, then Elinor caught a glint in the corner of her vision.  She turned her head back and saw a scalpel descending toward her wrist.  In half a heartbeat, Elinor snatched her arm from beneath the blade. 

"What are you doing ??" she squeaked. 

Doctor Ritt fumbled for words.  "I — I was just going to open things up a bit, the vein . . ."

"Doctor, would you like me to do that?" came a She-On voice from the doorway.  A nurse poked her head into the room. 

Ritt palmed the scalpel and slipped it back on the tray.  "Uh, yes, would you please?  I'm a little out of practice."

Elinor's breath came rapid and shallow, and her eyes darted from Doctor Ritt to the nurse to the scalpel and back.  She hadn't a clue about what just happened, but it hadn't increased her confidence in She-On medicine. 

***

It wasn't quite two gallons of blood, but Elinor did feel lighter, lighter in the head, anyway.  Her forearm had a nice complement of tab tapes, only one generated by the nurse, who was a She-On from a boondocks mining town in Illium called Londrina.  When Elinor enquired, the nurse said she'd been assigned by a Deputy to 'look after' Doctor Ritt.  No, she said, it wasn't Captain Donal, who, for the record, was now on the payroll as a Fleet major. 

Doctor Ritt had written up the lab order and then retired to a chair in the corner of her office, where she sobbed away and wouldn't speak to Elinor.  She-On doctors were strange. 

The very Eterran Doctor Sue had met her at the 'warehouse' door and now led her up the steel mesh steps to a bare concrete landing before a painted steel door that had 'Fireproof' embossed all over it.  They entered and crossed more concrete in a large room that definitely was a warehouse. 

The doctor pushed some crates aside and slid through against the warehouse wall.  The shadow-ray machine hid among the crates, a heavy upright ring with a padded bench through the hole.  She sat at the console and threw a switch, filling the air with a deep hum. 

"Take your belt off, Elinor, then lie back on the bench.  It slides you through the ring, and the ring looks inside.  Won't hurt a bit."

Elinor slipped her belt off.  "What is in the crates?"

"Eterra, dear.  The history of our planet.  The masters burned our textbooks, all but these ones we hid."

"Why?"

"In the She-On mind, we are here to serve them.  We have no history before they came, so we do not need history books.  The stupid, arrogant sots burned the chemistry books and the medical books and the . . ."  The doctor stopped, breathing hard. 

"They are far behind us in medicine, Elinor, but they don't care.  They don't want to hear about it.  So they burned the books.  Doctor Ritt's the only one of them that's worth spit, but she's got her own problems and then some, which is why she sent you to me.  That whole She-On race should have stayed in their cages and left the galaxy alone."  The doctor stopped again.  It looked to Elinor as though she were counting to ten.  "Hop on the bench before I say something rash."

Elinor lay back on the bench, more like a vinyl-covered board with not enough padding.  "Do you like Doctor Ritt?"

"Everyone likes Doctor Ritt.  She can be funny in a rough way and she's very good with little children.  The parents love her.  It's just that she's had some problems in her past that she's trying to straighten out.  We all have problems. 

"Now hold very still, dear," the bench began sliding Elinor through the heavy black ring, "and we'll try to solve yours."

***

Elinor slumped in the heavy oak chair, staring vacantly at the shadow-ray film on the light box.  A shadow pelvic girdle, small, yet large compared to the reproductive organs it shielded. 

"I'm sorry," said the doctor as she placed the blood lab results into Elinor's folder.  "That's my opinion."

"I don't need this," said Elinor, gripping the chair's wooden armrests. 

"Did anything happen to you when you were six or seven, any serious injury?"

"This isn't fair," said Elinor. 

"Was your mother a small woman?"

"I don't have a mother," said Elinor. 

"Could this be something inherited from your mother, I mean does it run on her side of the family, other aunts maybe?"

"I was starving and she wouldn't give me food.  She didn't love me.  She abandoned me."  Elinor's knuckles were white, her words intense. 

"Starvation could have caused this.  Did your mother . . ."  There was a sharp ripping sound. 

"I DON'T HAVE A MOTHER !!"

Elinor stood before her, eyes glistening as she fought back tears.  In her hands, splintered armrests wrenched from the oaken chair. 

"I don't have – a mother – anymore."

***

Elinor thrust a note into his hand as she whipped by.  She went into her room and locked the door.  Piers tapped on her door. 

"Ellie?"

"Go away."

"Are you all right?"

"Oh, I'm just dandy.  Go away."

Piers read the note.  A doctor down at the university wanted to speak to him. 

"Ellie?"

"Go away."

***

"Cellular Chemistry," said Doctor Sue. 

"My degree, yes.  I ended up selling real estate."  Piers took a hard look at her.  "I'm sorry, Doctor, but I don't remember you."

"I was a freshman in Pre-Med.  You were a senior and so in love."

Piers smiled.  "Yes.  I guess I was."

"You waited a long time to have Elinor.  You'd have been, what, forty?  I was sorry to hear about all the rest, though."

"What rest?"

"Elinor said your wife abandoned you both.  She really seems to hate her mother for it."

"My wife?"  Piers tried to put the pieces together.  "Elinor's mother died in the Conquest."

The doctor looked surprised.  "Oh, I see.  I'm very sorry," she sighed.  "You should talk with her, then.  She was only a baby, and she's a little mixed up about it."

"I will.  What do you need to show me?"

The doctor led him around some dusty crates.  An old shadow-ray machine waited behind, hidden from the She-Ons.  She powered the light box and pulled out Elinor's images. 

"You fathers would be happy to keep your daughters as little girls forever, but we usually do grow up.  Elinor has always been small for her age, so you probably didn't notice that she wasn't growing up in the other way, either.  Look at this. 

"Left arm.  There aren't any cartilage shadows here," she tapped the film, "so she's done growing.  Bones sturdy, tendon attachments massive, yet the muscles and joints are slender.  I've tested her strength.  She's as powerful as a grown man.  We'll go down to the pelvis."  She slipped another shadow-ray film on the light box. 

"The bones haven't widened for childbearing.  Her blood shows no adult hormone levels.  Here's the reason."  The doctor tapped the center of the film.  "These organs belong to a girl of five or six.  Internally, she stopped growing ten years ago.  I don't know why."

Piers stared at the light box, his mind lurching at the devastating image.  He knew why.  He was why. 

"Ohhhh! What have I done ??"  He covered his eyes and spun away, crashing through the crates as sickness welled up within him. 

***

The doctor cleaned up the floor with a towel.  She hadn't expected a Biology grad to have a queasy stomach.  Piers leaned sickly over the sink. 

"It wasn't anything you did," she said.  "Some people just don't mature physically.  With your permission, we can put her on a hormone series to give her a bit of a bosom, but Elinor's stuck with the rest."

She went to Piers and pulled his ashen face up from the sink.  "She can't have children.  Just like many women can't have children.  Don't blame yourself, Piers."

"I'm so sorry, so sorry," he moaned. 

"I've told her this, but you should know, too.  Having sex with a man will put her in the hospital.  It might even kill her."

***

Piers and Elinor did not speak.  They knew.  They knew what, they knew when, they knew why.  Nothing left to say. 

"Tell me about your mother."

"I don't have a mother," said Elinor.  "You married her.  Why ask me?"

"We've never talked about her.  I didn't think you remembered."

"She didn't love me anymore.  She wouldn't feed me when I was hungry.  She abandoned me.  I don't want to talk about her."

"Ellie, I never knew your mother.  Before the Conquest, I lived in a house like this one.  I had a wife and a daughter whom I loved very much.  When the She-Ons came, they killed my family.  You remember our secret hiding place?  That was my house."

Elinor scooted back in her chair.  "I don't think I like this story."

"They killed your father and burned your mother."  Elinor began shaking her head.  "Your mother tried to protect you.  She fed you and looked after you as long as she could, but her burns became infected and she died."

"No," said Elinor, "that isn't true."

"I heard you crying in the rubble and I found you holding her hand."

"She wouldn't feed me.  She didn't love me anymore."

"She was dead, Ellie.  She loved you and she died thinking you would starve to death.  That must have hurt more than her burns.  That's when I found you.  She must have prayed that I would."

"You aren't my father?  You're telling me that so you don't have to be my father anymore!"

"I am your father and you are my daughter.  Forever.  The She-Ons tried to kill us, but we found each other.  Now we will show them the mistake they made."

"No!" she shouted.  "That isn't true!"  Elinor ran off to her room. 

Piers held his hands in his lap.  Alice had been an ordinary girl with ordinary dreams and ordinary problems and an ordinary father. 

Elinor was not. 

***

Elinor inspected the body in the mirror, a child's body, a body that would never change.  Slender now, but still sleek and hairless, without the ugly bumps of breasts or unsightly bulging hips.  Forever.  She wiped a tear, then put on a bathrobe and left her room.  Piers was still in the chair with his head in his hands. 

"That's all true?"

"It is," he said without looking up.  "The Emperor took away my first daughter and gave me a second."

This matter was between Elinor and her father, not the Emperor, not She-On, not anything else.  "Piers, look at me," she said, dropping her bathrobe to the floor. 

He did, then turned away. 

"No, look at me!  This is the body you have given me.  I am your daughter, but not because some tyrant on a faraway planet gave me to you.  I am yours because you made me what I am, what I will always be."

"Ellie, I am so sorry.  I just did not know."

"I will never know marriage.  I will never have children.  I will never be an old woman playing with her grandchildren."  She picked the bathrobe from the floor and started back to her room.  "And I will never again call you Father."

***

Days passed without a kind word from Elinor.  With barely a word at all.  She was being polite to the man who saved her life.  She was being tolerant of the man who destroyed her future.  Piers tried to apologize, tried to get her to talk with him, but he failed.  His heart was invested in her, his sole consolation for the loss of his family, and he was losing her. 

Piers slumped in the sofa and let his mind loose to another terrible gift the Rikardsen process gave it — memories.  Memories vivid and real, and painful when they were of things lost.  His family.  His first daughter.  Alice would have been, he counted the years, thirty-one.  Alice would have children of her own now.  Alice would have a husband to love her and — But the She-Ons came. 

One She-On in particular, Lieutenant Governor Gregor Donal.  Donal, who sat in the command ship and directed the flaming weapons upon Piers' family.  Donal, who supervised the heartless executions of countless Eterran prisoners.  Donal, who used Piers to overthrow his own superior and make himself the most powerful man on Eterra, the alien ruler of a billion people, a curse on Eterra and a curse on Piers. 

His voice pierced Piers' thoughts as though he were standing right before him, "Think about your responsibilities, Mr Amhensen.  You could have prevented this," blaming Piers for his own actions.  The memories continued to flow, the She-On master's words hammering through Piers mind, "I would rather have lost family myself than caused the suffering.  Guilt is hard to handle because you don't have anyone else to blame."  Then the words stopped.  Piers felt a hand on his shoulder. 

"Are you all right?" asked Elinor.  "You dozed off into a nightmare."

Suddenly, Piers understood.  "I can't take this, Ellie.  You know I love you.  You know I'd undo everything if I could."  He placed his hand atop hers on his shoulder.  She withdrew it and backed away, then turned to walk down the hallway to her room. 

"I love you and I need you, Ellie.  You are my life."  She paused, then went into her room. 

The memories were like the process strength, something Piers must learn to control.  Something he could use. 

"You don't have anyone else to blame," Piers mumbled, and he understood.  Gregor Donal had done things he wished he could take back.  Just like Piers.  Elinor was not inclined to forgive.  Just like Piers. 

It hurt.  It hurt. 

***

Hate and love and regret and despair writhed through her mind.  Everything evaporated.  Elinor was not who she had thought herself to be.  She was not Piers' daughter; he was not her father, just some man who found her in the rubbish and took her home. 

Elinor rummaged through the drawer and pulled out the old measuring tape.  The numbers were worn off the spots where she held the cloth tape to measure herself.  Because she always held the same spots.  Because the measurements never changed.  Because the measurements never would change. 

Piers never noticed.  His hatred of the Empire blinded him to things around him.  It went deep, deeper than she could comprehend. 

He had given her the immortality process to protect her in school.  It had.  It propelled her through college at record speed.  It gave her incredible strength and quickness.  It sterilized her. 

Elinor felt nothing more toward boys than the childish crushes all the girls got.  The sexual part never entered in.  Making love seemed an absurd and awkward act to her, the disinterested observer, the Creator's idea of a joke on mankind.  A joke she would never get. 

No roots, no moorings, an uneasy freedom, and she hated it.  If she were not Piers' daughter, whose daughter was she?  If he were not her father, why had he given his whole life over to her?  Why had he taught her and comforted her and risked his own life to protect her?  Why had he killed three men to save her from slavery?  Her anchor waited for her in the living room. 

A silver-print photograph bordered within a scarred silver frame sat on her dresser — a kneeling man with an arm around a little girl in an old-timey dress.  Her past now become her future. 

She hated her father and she loved him.  The tape could measure only the hatred. 

She dropped it in the wastebasket. 

***

Elinor pulled the bicycles from the shed and brought them around front.  Entering, she found her father on the sofa.  He had been crying.  He was, she noted grimly, such an emotional cripple at times.  And this time she was going to find out why.  She slammed the screen door to get his attention. 

"We have a journey to make, Piers.  You can tell me about my mother on the way."

***

The secret hiding place had changed.  The grassy spots that Elinor remembered had grown over with weeds and trees.  Piers used to sit here with her, or by himself watching while she played.  She remembered him pulling out the weeds, trimming the grass with a hand scythe.  She remembered sometimes he would sit in the grass near this place and cry for no reason. 

Now she knew the reason.  These were graves.  His family was here. 

The mother who abandoned her was here. 

"When the She-Ons stop the patrols, we will come back," said Piers.  The tears still glistened on his cheeks, but he wasn't crying now and he made no move to wipe them away.  "We will make this a park and our family shall have proper graves."

"After all these years, you remember exactly where they are."

"I dug these graves by hand.  I will never forget."

Elinor pulled out some weeds, then knelt over her mother's grave.  Her mother.  She had hated her mother all her life, the touch that she wanted, the comforting hand that her mother refused her.  That touch, now only a few feet away. 

Slowly, carefully, she began digging with her fingers.  She felt Piers' hand on her arm. 

"Our life together sprang from these graves, Ellie, but they are our past, not our future."

Elinor stopped digging.  "I must see her.  I must apologize for everything I thought of her.  I must make her understand — but how can I do that now?"

"She understands.  That you are alive is enough for her.  I know this."

Piers did not understand.  How could he understand?  He had not been cursed with a false, wicked hatred his entire life.  Elinor resumed digging. 

"Ellie, those we love live again when we think of them."

"I did not love her!  Can't you see?"  Her own tears welled up.  "I despised her for what I thought she did to me, for what she did to you.  My memories of her are spiteful!  I must see her again in love if I am ever to . . ."

Piers pulled her up.  "It is not soil that stands between you."

"What then?" she sniffled. 

"She-On."

"Ahh!" she screamed and pushed him away.  She-On, She-On.  Always with Piers, She-On!  Piers' own inner demon, that blind and blinding hatred of a planet he had never seen.  Elinor had lived with She-On as a brother, for it was the only thing Piers cared about besides her, her only competition for her father's attention. 

***

The Emperor required Fleet warships traveling between Xian compounds to patrol past the Forbidden Zones.  Just to keep up morale. 

"I saw some movement down there.  You want targeting this time?"

"Why don't we just put a shot near them and let the locals clean it up?  This is all so pointless."

The polished warship slid around into the evening sun and lined up on a spot in the Forbidden Zone, nine miles inland from the harbor road. 

"Release charge."

"Confirm target?"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever you want.  Fire."

The sky before the warship went blue, then the glowing bolt of Stable Three plasma appeared, already far away and arcing gracefully down toward two trespassers. 

***

"Piers, look!  A warship!"

A glowing blue bolt was already streaking their way.  Elinor yanked him started by the arm and together they flew down into the hidden cavern he had dug beneath his old house.  She pulled the screen door up for a shield, but its wires had all rusted to dust. 

"Hold me, Ellie!" he screamed, and she did.  She had never heard such fear in his voice. 

Plasma energy crushed denser than lead struck and shook the ground above them, exploding into the soft death of Stable Two.  The liquid energy flowed like water, burning and electrocuting anything it touched.  A splash rolled into the chamber, a weightless ocean breaker tobogganing across the cavern walls toward them and sloshing up against the old shovel.  The handle burst into flame, but it slowed the plasma, which settled by their feet in a radiant, bubbling pool.  Its ozone breath hissed around them, blazing at them with a thousand needles of fire. 

Elinor's muscles quivered with the electricity, tightening like a vise.  Piers shivered in her arms, completely broken by this demon from his past.  "Hold me, hold me," he sobbed, and she did. 

The air filled with ozone, so strong her eyes were tearing, so thick it would poison them if they couldn't get past the electric liquid to fresh air.  Elinor desperately coiled herself against the chamber wall, grasped her father as tightly as she could, and exploded through the air across the deadly puddle.  She and her father landed barely an inch past the plasma, but that was enough.  Another two feet and she had their heads outside in the not really fresh air. 

Elinor slid over just enough to see back into the hiding place.  It glowed an eerie blue as the liquid death boiled and spattered, almost alive.  The puddle finally decayed into Stable One plasma, luminous blue balls of fluff that floated and bounced, and then vanished with pops and bangs and left a dusting of nitrates on the floor. 

She turned back to her trembling father.  Piers Amhensen would fearlessly take on men twice his size to protect her, but this alien lightning, this had shattered him.  She gathered her father close against her breast.  Now it was her turn to protect. 

Her skin burned everywhere, a deep, strangely familiar pain.  Elinor had felt this stinging before.  A long, long time ago. 

"This is what burned my mother when she tried to protect me.  This is what She-On did to her — and I hated her because I did not know."

The She-Ons had done this to her family, to her father's family.  Elinor understood Piers' hatred now.  Oh, yes, she understood it, and she felt it growing within her.  And growing. 

She-On would suffer a vengeance like none it had ever known.  Elinor Amhensen had time as her ally.  Eternal time. 

***

The Bay City Police Zone-rover jolted down the remains of the road, aiming for the column of smoke in the Forbidden Zone.  Flaming trees and brush marked the perimeter of the She-On target, and the officer had to dodge off the road to avoid some of the debris.  The warship circled in a wide arc. 

"If you find anyone alive, they go to the Xian Compound for processing," crackled an arrogantly accented voice over the speaker.  "If you find bodies, do what you want."

"Yes, sir, I know the rules," Sergeant Thorgil said into his radio.  "Bunch of animals, you She-Ons," he muttered. 

He saw something moving among the flames, scavengers or tourists too stupid to stay out of the Zone, lightning weapon survivors headed for slave labor camps.  It looked like a child and an animal, then with a swirl in the smoke the animal became a man on his hands and knees throwing up. 

"Learned a lesson, did we, fellow?  Well, it isn't over."  As the rover crunched through the last of the smoldering brush before reaching the couple, Thorgil recognized the man. 

"Oh, no!"  He stopped the rover and grabbed a blue blanket from the back.  He ran out to them, keeping an eye on the warship now sweeping into a turn to circle back.  The ozone was so thick it hurt to breathe. 

"Mr Amhensen!  Stay where you are, sir.  Wrap this blanket around you." He tossed his police jacket to the girl and pulled the blanket around the dazed and blistered man.  "You his daughter?"  She nodded, and he saw red welts across her ear and the side of her face.  "Try to look like a policeman and come back to the auto."

Thorgil hustled them into the rover.  Many Bay City policemen owed Piers Amhensen serious favors, and all of them knew it.  "You got something?" came the call from his radio. 

"Just some animals.  Nothing three policemen can't handle."  Please, please. 

"Three policemen, huh?" said the radio, then a long silence as the warship circled.  "Just animals.  Put that in your report."  The warship sped off. 

Lucky three times.  "What were you . . ."

"Visiting relatives," said the girl.  Thorgil remembered her now, the child he had given over to the She-On Deputy.  She hadn't grown much.  "Thank you, Officer."

"He be all right?  You both look scorched."

"We got too close to the lightning.  Once we've destroyed the She-On Empire, he'll be fine."

Suplesse

Summer job time again.  Bryce Carmina had a mail room position in Altmark Tower, the idea being to learn his way around the immense edifice that Edwin Landya built before Bryce's dad was born.  At fourteen, there wasn't much else available for him at Corporation.  Today, however, he was on a field trip with Gus, riding out to the warehouse complex surrounding the Empire's freighter landing field.  His dad had given Gus an 'interesting' job this time around: crew boss at 'Eterra' dock, in charge of a dozen dock hands loading and unloading the giant freighters — the absolute bottom of the management ladder. 

The limousine crunched through the gravel and pulled up beside a dented door rusting away in a stark expanse of corrugated metal siding.  An oft- repainted metal sign said, 'Keffan Impex Wrhs 5-11,' and someone had scribbled 'Eteera dock' below. 

"Not as imposing as Altmark Tower," said their tour guide, Gus' summer boss, turning the latch lever and giving the door bottom a solid kick.  "But then this isn't owned by Corporation."

"What is Keffan Impex?" asked Bryce.  "Keffan is my grandparents' name."

"Ah ha!  Your mother's maiden name, then.  A mystery solved.  Keffan Import-Export has the contract for all the freight handling here at the spaceport.  It used to be called something else, but some cartel named Amphora bought it out and changed the name to Keffan."

He led them through a pressboard-walled corridor to a large open area stacked with heavy bags.  "This is gonna be your speciality, Gus.  Eggs.  Powdered eggs."  He slapped a big paper sack, raising dust.  "You have a freighter in from Eterra; you take a dozen men and move these sixty-pound bags from the ship into this warehouse.  Then you take your men down the way to warehouse 5-13 and move sixty pound bags of rice into the starship.  Simple, huh?  There's a catch, though."

"Which is?" Gus asked on cue. 

"The men don't like to move sixty-pound bags."  Gus' boss smiled.  "That's what your dad sent you here to learn this summer: leadership — how to get people to do what they don't want to do."

"So how do I do that.  What's the secret?"

"No secret.  Threats, persuasion, cajoling, example, whatever it takes.  No two people respond alike, so you just have to experiment and see what works.  Some people are good at it, some aren't.  The bottom line here is that the bags have to move.  If your men don't move them, you do."

"Good incentive for me, but how about the men?  Can I fire anybody?"

"Nope.  I can fire anyone you can't handle, but if I have to, your dad asked to be informed."

"Ahh, I see," said Gus.  "This could be an interesting summer."

"Could be, Gus.  Just remember that thousands of people do this same job, and for not a tenth of your weekly allowance.  Your dad said being a crew boss would give you a little perspective on life."

"What are eggs?" Bryce asked. 

"Bakers and commercial food companies use the powder to add to cakes and stuff.  The eggs themselves are oval things that certain animals on Eterra are born from.  The mothers just leave them around and we collect them."

"Animals?"

"Sure, come on into the office."  Gus' boss led them to the warehouse office, a masterpiece of paint and linoleum on metal and concrete.  He pulled out a loose-leaf binder and flipped through a few pages.  "Here we are.  These are called hens and they produce the eggs."

Bryce wedged in front of Gus and saw a picture of a round white creature with two claw legs, no arms, and a pointed mouth. 

"Is that white fur?  What does it do for arms?"

"The arms are broad and flat; here they're folded up against the body.  They say — and don't repeat this because you'll sound like an idiot — they say the hens can beat their arms up and down and move through the air."

"You mean like jumping?" asked Gus. 

"No, like a shuttle airship.  Like a starship.  Treetop to treetop without touching the ground."

"You're joking."

"That's what I was told.  They say the reason we powder the eggs for shipment is because they won't last the journey without rotting, but I think it's so we don't get any hens running loose here on Xi Ahn.  They do send us some fur in now and then.  It's real light and fluffy."

"Hen fur?"

"Similar animal called a gooce, same thing but bigger and meaner.  They call the fur 'down.'"

"Down, huh?  I think you're making this up."

"Good thing to keep thinking, Bryce.  Maybe you'll go to Eterra some day and find out for us."

A planet with round white clawed creatures jumping from treetop to treetop.  It would take a pretty powerful reason to get Bryce to go to Eterra. 

***

Graduation day.  Elinor was easy to spot, the little girl down front, Valedictorian, of course.  Piers had a good seat in the stands due to having invited the Donals, who were ensconced among the dignitaries. 

Elinor had tested out of all but the most advanced math courses.  She spent her toughest classroom hours in the required social studies topics, but she buttered the teachers sufficiently to make top grades.  Science was easy, though the laboratory work took time.  She had gym classes her freshman year.  Despite her lack of interest in sports, her lightning reflexes ruined any competitive activities for everyone else, so they gave up on her and marked her tested out there, too. 

The Chancellor had read her draft valedictory the previous day and choked.  He reminded her that the private college existed at the sufferance of the She-Ons, and that there were certain to be She-On minders in the stands.  Would she do him a favor, he asked, and leave her feelings about the oppressors out of her speech so that the school might stay open to educate future generations?  No, she said, it was a matter of principle, but if he had any stock valedictories from previous years, she would consent to read one instead. 

Piers was so proud of her.  She was receiving a college degree at seventeen, the same age Alice was when she graduated from high school.  The same age Alice was when the She-Ons killed her. 

He had a tear in his eye as Elinor was finishing off her canned speech, not from the routine 'our lives are just beginning' rhetoric, but from thinking of his two daughters.  He would never again compare them, for they were nothing alike.  Alice would likely have become a force in Eterran society.  Elinor could become a galactic force, one the She-Ons would regret crossing. 

Elinor was up on the dais receiving her diploma from the beaming Chancellor.  An awesome college career unlikely ever to be equaled.  And Piers had made her pay an unequaled price to have it. 

***

Elinor's baccalaureate led to many job offers: waitress, cashier, secretary, typist.  No one was inclined to offer Piers' little girl an executive trainee position, not while she was still a teenager and looked not even that.  He had wheedled her a teller job at the bank just to give her some spending money of her own while she sought more challenging employment.  He knew she was unhappy with her situation, though not yet how unhappy.  He did like still having her around the house. 

"Piers, we are spinning our wheels."

He did not like his daughter using his first name, but Piers Amhensen wasn't about to reopen the wound that had nearly cost their lives to heal.  He turned to her and surmised she had something significant to say, and it looked practiced. 

"How so, Ellie?"

"The Empire still exists.  It has enslaved more planets.  We are friends with the She-On master of Eterra, but he is still the enemy.  We are not powerful; we grow no richer; we are nowhere near traveling to She-On.  Patience is wise when things are moving your way, but not when it merely adds to Eterra's days of slavery."

"Nice speech.  What do you suggest?"  Storm clouds gathering. 

"We need power to destroy the Empire.  We have none.  Money can buy us power, but we don't have that, either."

"I should go out and find a real job?"  Wrong thing to say.  Cloudburst triggered.  Seek shelter. 

"You," and this was definitely not practiced, "have wasted the entire lifetime I've known you hating She-On.  You have hated that planet more than you have loved me."  That stung.  "So you sit around wheeling and dealing with all those small time punks because you're good at it and you like it.  Well, now you're wasting my time, and I don't like it.  Get off your rear end and make something happen!  You know things no one else in the galaxy knows.  You hold eternity in your mind.  Isn't that worth something?"

Piers' mind darkened.  He had been lazy and complacent, waiting for the inspiration he knew would come, the idea that would light the path of revenge, but Elinor's proposal was out of bounds. 

"Fredrik Rikardsen's process is for you and me and not for sale.  It is a gift we might one day give to someone we need in our efforts, but having other immortals around is dangerous.  I will not sell it, and I will never give it to a She-On.  That, my beloved child, is a promise."

"Then perhaps," Elinor said undeterred, "there are pieces you could break off, things to use as a bribe.  The day will come when we need such coin."

The process had many pieces, and every one was necessary for immortality.  Elinor had struck a chord.  "Yes, a piece.  A bit of extra life, a more comfortable decline."  Here was his inspiration, though it took a slap in the face to wake him to it. 

***

Piers pulled out the old laboratory notebooks.  Fredrik Rikardsen always had a sense of his place in history, so the bound volumes were of archival quality, unlike the one Piers had been using since Fredrik's cache ran out.  Perhaps if he were successful, Piers might spend his wealth on books that might last a lifetime.  Or two.  Or three. 

He flipped first through his own writings.  Endless possibilities, but all required laboratory equipment and precision, and nothing could be churned out in commercial quantity.  On to the master's tomes. 

Fredrik's last volume was a jumble of half sentences and half thoughts, as though in some rush of insight he couldn't record his ideas as rapidly as they occurred.  Deeper examination had the scientist leaping to conclusions beyond the evidence offered, yet Piers' own experiments had discovered Fredrik's conclusions invariably correct. 

The familiar handwriting brought unexpected tears as he remembered his mentor, unexpected process memories of Fredrik.  He fought them, the vivid, heart-tearing memories that might plague him as long as he lived.  Control, he thought, control them as he controlled his anger to control his strength.  Only then could he learn to use them. 

Useless.  Piers closed the old notebook and rushed out, past Elinor, past the shed, to his tollar trees.  He leaned into one, clearing his head with technical details, with problems he had worked before.  Then it came to him, one of the pieces, an early discovery of Fredrik's. 

"Piers?" Elinor called from the back porch.  "Are you all right?"

He nodded.  She nodded back skeptically and went inside.  Working the memories, exploring them, learning to use them would be painful, but Fredrik the scientist would have done it — had he lived.  Piers could do no less. 

He went back in and opened the notebook. 

***

Elinor heard a crashing out in the shed. 

"What are you doing?"

"Rearranging the junk to make a little room," said her father.  "I'm thinking of becoming an honest businessman. 

"I wouldn't call rearranging junk a business."

"Selling skin cream.  A touch of immortality for the skin shouldn't be too hard to do.  Women would kill for something like that."

"Would we, now?"

"You'll never need it, Ellie, but every other lady in the galaxy will.  I see us growing rich on the vanities of She-On."

"How will you sell skin cream on She-On?"

"That, dear one, is why we cultivate friendships with She-Ons like Gregor Donal."

***

"Mr Amhensen.  What have you there?"

"Your ticket to Mount Wren, Governor.  Ten percent of sales."

Donal peered into the carton.  "Skin cream?"

"Skin cream.  I'm turning legitimate.  Some for your wife and all her friends.  You know anyone on She-On who can handle distribution?"

"Xi Ahn, not She-On."

"Zhe-Ahn."

"Getting ahead of yourself, aren't you?"  Donal read a little jar's label.  "Supplenesse?"

"That's what it does for the skin — gets rid of wrinkles.  Ellie and I don't have any wrinkles."

"Elinor is only nineteen, Mr Amhensen, but no, you don't have any.  How old are you?"

"Sixty."

"Sixty?"  Donal got up to look at Piers' face.  Absolutely smooth.  Not even razor stubble.  "Do you ever shave?"

"Uh, no.  But that's, umm, inherited."

Sixty.  "We'll try it on Eterra first."  Ten percent of sales.  "And we'll find a better name."

***

Karin Donal gazed into the mirror.  It had to be wishful thinking; nothing could do what she thought she saw — or rather, didn't see.  Ever since thirty, the slow decline, the shift from beautiful woman to handsome woman, she had fought it as women had done since mirrors were invented.  The little wrinkles, the 'laugh lines,' the ones she knew she had, gone!  Only months.  Her fingers were smoother just from applying the cream to her face, and it was spreading to the backs of her hands, areas untouched by the cream. 

Elinor's father was sixty, though he looked barely older than Gregor.  He had kept this secret to himself all this time, and now when Karin needed it, he was offering it to the world.  Oh, goddess of good fortune, what a lucky time to be alive!

Karin Donal was now the most influential woman on Eterra, sought by newspaper and tele-vision interviewers.  Inappropriate to be plugging a skin cream, but sharing it among the various ladies of print and tele-vision would be just as effective.  She needn't mention she owned a piece of Mr Amhensen's little company. 

***

Piers and Elinor settled themselves in front of the tele-vision, a rare occurrence provoked by a note from Karin Donal, who said that the star, a wrinkled old doyenne from tele-vision's pre-Conquest days, had been given a jar of Piers' skin cream. 

Tele-vision had not improved since the She-Ons took control.  Two channels, uninspired programming, politically 'correct' news and opinion.  Even under Gregor Donal, the She-Ons were still afraid of it. 

The show began and the star wobbled out to her trademark theme music, accompanied by an interview guest.  The camera courageously dollied in for a close-up. 

"Wow," said Piers under his breath. 

"We're rich," said Elinor, under hers. 

***

"Suplesse."

Preston Tyrell read the letter that came with the case of skin cream jars.  Gregor Donal was selling skin cream that 'really, really worked,' and did Preston know any cosmetics companies that could sell it on Xi Ahn?

Yes, the publisher of the des-Ahns Financier knew every cosmetics company on the planet.  But he would let his wife try it first. 

***

Xuan Group retained an accounting firm to handle the auction.  Preston Tyrell mingled among the agents of the many Xian cosmetics companies desperately competing for Suplesse, waiting for the opening bid. 

"You sure you don't have a chunk of Suplesse, Preston?" wondered the Xuan partner. 

"Wish I did.  I wouldn't need to be in the newspaper business."

"You hardly need to work at all, my friend, what with Tyrell for a last name."

"A man earns his own way, sir.  I've repaid my father what I borrowed to start the Financier.  By choice, my only inheritance is an open door to society, and some good family friends."

"I thank you for that, and I'm certain your sisters are pleased," said the Xuan partner.  The noise in the room was rising as more bidders tried to crowd in. 

"I've never seen such enthusiasm for mere distribution rights," Preston said over the racket.  "You were lucky to get management for the Suplesse account."

"Not lucky at all, Preston.  It's actually your fault.  You remember that alien you talked us into taking?"  Preston's eyebrows went up.  "Yes, my friend.  Turns out he's the principal, not your pal Donal.  That isn't for publication, by the way."

***

Suplesse sales were booming on Eterra.  Piers moved from his shed to a shop and named his company 'Rikardsen Pharmaceutical.'  He was looking for a factory by the time Donal forwarded him the letter from Preston Tyrell on She-On.  The Suplesse samples had flabbergasted everyone, with a dozen She-On companies fighting for distribution rights.  Two winners tied, offering huge up-front payments and 80 percent of gross sales. 

"We clear four hundred She-On Credits a jar, Ellie.  We'll bleed that planet dry in no time."

"Except the She-On tax man takes 30 percent right back," she complained.  "No wonder they call us a slave planet."

***

Gregor Donal woke from his dream breathing hard, the same dream, the first execution, the rape victim.  Years had passed, then he began dreaming of her again. 

"Dear, you can do something about it," said Karin.  "Find her baby.  Help him.  You owe her that much."

"I don't owe her anything, Karin.  Corporation does.  There's nothing we can do from Eterra for a slave on Xi Ahn."

"Slave Services has records, Gregor.  You can get copies and keep track of him.  Then you can promise me we will do something when we retire to Xi Ahn."

"You have my promise.  I'll write them today."

***

"Here, take a look at this."

"A records request?"  The Xian clerk checked the letter.  "From a Planetary Lieutenant Governor, no less.  Pretty high up to be worrying about slaves, but so what?"

"Look at who he wants to know about."

The clerk read the letter through.  "Ohhh, this is one of those, that one, isn't it?  ET133."

"Yeah, 133, that's it.  Old man Varta had a fit when he heard about that one.  I kind of hoped we'd kept it buried, but maybe not.  What do you think, change the name and send him somebody else's record?"

"Sure, if you wanna lose your job.  This Donal is that guy they gave Eterra to after the trial, remember?  Took down his own Governor.  You want to try fooling him?"

"So what do we do?"

"Sit on it.  Send him the record eventually.  He's Corporation.  He'll understand."

***

Eleven months later, Corporation Slave Services sent a copy of the baby's record.  They had named him 'Jim' and given him to a slave couple to raise.  At four, he was sold to an older single man.  At eight, he ran away, then was caught and returned.  The man had him marked 'Household' and kept him another four years before selling him to a wealthy financier named Anton Sevier. 

Gregor was near tears.  His wife could not understand why. 

"Corporation is new to the slavery business," said Gregor, "and the Old Royals never enslaved children.  Corporation didn't understand why single men wanted young boys.  Now they do, so now they sell child slaves only to married couples."

Karin put a hand to her mouth as she understood.  "Is that why he ran away?"  Gregor nodded. 

"What is 'Household' marking?"

"Slaves are marked with a permanent tattoo," said Gregor, "a vertical stripe across the face.  'Households' have two stripes."

"But what are 'Households'?"

"'Households' are tame; they've been fixed.  You don't have to worry about them."  Karin shook her head, questioning.  "Neutered, Karin.  The man had the boy neutered as punishment for running away.  That sure won't stop my nightmares."

Karin paled.  "That's evil.  So evil."  She took her husband's hand.  "I still have your promise to help him when we can.  That will stop the dreams."

After a while, it did. 

***

Years after his appointment as Senior Lieutenant Governor, Gregor Donal finally declared the Bay City Forbidden Zone open.  Eterran volunteer brigades combed the ruins to gather the remains of thirty thousand people who died one horrible day eighteen years earlier. 

Gregor and Karin stood beside Piers and Elinor Amhensen while a backhoe carefully removed the soil covering the graves of four people, three ladies and a gentlemanly scientist.  Four caskets waited alongside. 

"Something!" signaled the Eterran worker guiding the backhoe.  He hopped into the pit, then nodded to the Lieutenant Governor. 

"Miss Amhensen, Mr Amhensen," said Gregor Donal, "I am directing you to leave here.  Karin will take you home.  I will supervise their recovery."

"But, but why?" asked Piers.  "We haven't . . ."

"Bad memories fade with time.  The good memories of your family are what you have left."

"You can't do this to us," said Elinor. 

"I can.  You don't need to see what time has done to those you loved — but I do.  I did this to your family, now I must face them.  Now I must face myself."

***

Elinor stomped and steamed around the house. 

"Ellie, will you sit down?"

"He treated us like children, Piers!  He has no right to deny us seeing our families.  'Now I must face myself,' as though he were some aggrieved party here, as though he felt we should feel sorry for him.  He . . ."

"He was right.  I put them in the ground.  I don't need to relive that memory," and yet the memories began flowing. 

"But what about me?  I wasted fourteen years of my life hating the woman who bore me and gave her life to save mine.  That's what the She-Ons did to me, and all because I misunderstood.  Well, I'm not going to misunderstand anymore.  I'm going to know exactly what they did, and Gregor Donal is not going to stop me!  And he should have opened the Forbidden Zone the moment they gave him Eterra."

Process memories of his family's destruction raged through Piers' mind.  He tried to control them, but they were too strong.  The images had him too emotionally beaten to argue. 

"You do what you must, child.  I don't think it's for the best."

***

The chilled air carried a dead, chemical smell.  The morticians' assistant lay crumpled in a darkened corner, breathing through clenched teeth against the pain of his crushed wrist. 

"Which one?" Elinor asked him again.  The assistant shook his head.  "The woman with burns," she said. 

"There's three women there," he grimaced, getting up to one knee, "and they all got burns, what's left of them.  It's against the rules for you to be back here."

He had made the same assertion seconds earlier, foolishly reaching out to block her from entering the holding room, foolishly thinking his large size made any difference to her. 

"Two women were buried together," she said. 

"The two in the middle.  The man's on the left.  Could I leave, now?"

"Can you turn up the lights?"

"Lady, you don't want any more light.  They're pretty bad, all four.  The She-Ons got them during the Conquest, and that lightning weapon — it, it does things to a body."  He edged toward the door, then slipped through. 

The sheet to the right, and Elinor never knew her name.  She steeled herself, then pulled the sheet from the body, letting it fall. 

Her mother. 

"Ohh," she gasped faintly.  Her head spun and she settled to the floor with the sheet.  Burnt skin flayed to expose muscle; muscle ripped to expose bone.  Years in the ground had not destroyed the evidence of this woman's suffering, of her undying courage.  "Oh, Mommy, how could I have known?"

Beyond the door, the assistant hissed panicky words to someone on the telephone.  Elinor regained her feet and slipped the sheets from the other remains, collections of parts, ragged, desiccated flesh barely recognizable as bodies.  Senses reeling, she forced herself to look at them, to comprehend, to believe what she was seeing.  Both women had wedding rings, one ring much too large — Piers' wedding ring, trusted to his daughter for keeping. 

Elinor had finally met her sister Alice. 

She fought down the nausea and found the wedding ring scalded into the flesh of her mother's hand.  Nothing else remained to her of her father, the man she had always assumed Piers to be.  It was everything she could do to touch her mother's hand, to take the ring that bound her parents and would now bind her. 

She had wasted her entire life hating her mother, the woman who had sacrificed her own body to shield Elinor from the She-On lightning weapon.  The woman who for weeks had dragged around a body that was slowly becoming a corpse, in order that her daughter might survive.  Love and sacrifice beyond human understanding, and her daughter had rewarded her memory with hatred. 

"Lady, I called the police," came the assistant's voice from outside the door. 

"Of course you have."  A midnight call from the funeral home, a madwoman terrorizing the night staff.  What would the poor police think?

No matter what they thought, the police could not save She-On.  Nothing would save the planet that had taken all this from her and from Piers.  Elinor's blood ran to ice as she contemplated the remains before her, knowing that her father had to gather this assemblage of cracked bones and charred flesh.  What thoughts went through his mind as he touched what the She-Ons had left of the two women he loved?

Elinor would have her revenge on She-On for this.  She would have more than revenge and it would not be enough.  Elinor Amhensen did not know how it would happen, just that it would. 

***

Bulldozers rumbled and rattled across the Forbidden Zone neighborhood, scraping away the rubble of a thousand homes, clearing the trash trees and undergrowth, shaping the land into rolls and glades that had never been.  Gregor Donal watched from the gentle rise that was once Fredrik Rikardsen's mansion.  He turned to Elinor. 

"You went to the funeral home and saw your mother."

"I did."

"Piers?"

"No."

He knew Piers wouldn't go.  As tough as Amhensen tried to act around Xians, Donal knew he could break into tears with little provocation.  The mangled bodies in the graves had brought even Donal to tears, he, an executioner who had lost count of the number of men — and women — he'd killed. 

The bulldozers clattered on in the distance, but Elinor's silence enveloped him.  He needed her forgiveness, but he began to doubt turning this part of the Forbidden Zone into a park would buy it for him.  Buy it.  Exactly what he was trying to do, but forgiveness had a currency beyond money. 

"No," she eventually said to his unspoken request. 

"I didn't know, Elinor.  When I learned, I tried to stop it."

"No," she repeated. 

Donal's conscience was clear when the Fleet abandoned him on Eterra.  He had tried to stop the slaughter, risking his career in defiance of his commander, but that was then.  Now he knew the Eterrans, the people his Fleet had conquered.  Now he felt almost one of them.  Now his conscience shrieked at him, awakened by what he saw in the graves of Piers' family. 

"This was a planet run by evil tyrants who had taken our trade delegation hostage.  A planet trying to steal our starship propulsion so it could conquer the galaxy.  That's all we knew when we came here."

"Piers said everyone wanted you to come to Eterra," said Elinor, "wanted your trade delegations, wanted to visit your planet and see the wonders of the galaxy.  But there was no trade delegation, only your warships.  The only Eterrans who ever see She-On go there as slaves."  Elinor turned to Donal.  "There was no trade delegation to take hostage."

"Only the Emperor knew that.  We thought we were on a rescue mission."

"You knew innocent people would die, no matter what targets you picked."

"Innocent people always die when their rulers fight, Elinor.  That's part of war.  Unavoidable."

"Forgiveness.  Is that an unavoidable part of war, too?"

Donal looked down at her.  Light grey eyes, not windows to a soul, but to a mind of unimaginable depth.  Light grey eyes, and he saw no forgiveness in them.  He looked back out across the Forbidden Zone and the clanking soil movers. 

"No."

***

The caskets of Piers' wife and his daughter Alice, Fredrik Rikardsen, and Elinor's mother rested in their still-open graves.  Dabs of sunlight came and went, but grey clouds promised rain later on.  Saplings dotted the Forbidden Zone landscape and crews worked off in the distance, leveling soil and spreading grass seed.  The little patch of land that had been Piers Amhensen's yard was sodded, though, and the little band of Eterrans at the funeral milled about discussing the past. 

Geri Rikardsen's children and grandchildren constituted most of the group.  He came over to Piers and Elinor. 

"I have to thank you for this, Piers, and for what you did two decades ago for my father."

"It was no more than you did for Elinor and me when we left the Forbidden Zone.  The shares of stock are no more than payment for letting us use your father's name for our company."

"My father would have been proud to know you two were living in his basement," said Geri.  "I understand Governor Donal's going to leave it as a memorial."

"Or as a reminder," Elinor said darkly.  Piers caught her meaning. 

Geri wandered back to his family, and Piers took Elinor aside. 

"Gregor Donal wants your forgiveness, Ellie.  He's risked a lot trying to protect Eterra from the Emperor."

"He has our friendship.  That should be enough for him," she said.  "We all lost things because of the Conquest.  And we all have to live with what we have left — Piers."

Piers backed off.  Forgiveness for the She-On Donal was not worth jeopardizing his own fragile peace with his daughter. 

Brothers

Graduation day.  This time it was Saint William High in Mount Wren, and Bryce Carmina had big brother Gus sitting in the bleachers with his mother, holding Bryce's yearbook.  Bryce was everywhere in the yearbook, a privilege of being the Editor in Chief.  He had three lines of credits after his name in the index, less than Gus had managed, but they were solid and dense.  Honor Society, Junior Business Council, Student Council President, Junior Marshal.  Gus had graduated somewhere in the Top Ten Percent at Illium-des-Ahns' Central High, but Bryce was graduating fifth in his own class, against the far stiffer competition at Mount Wren's prestigious Saint William. 

His sports career didn't match his brother's, but that wasn't his fault.  He earned himself a varsity letter by scoring goals in his first three Fieldball games, but when the Saints played the rival Central High Blue Devils, he got hammered into the ground.  A broken collarbone sidelined him for the season and convinced his mother that sports were out for her son, and not even the Emperor of the Galaxy could persuade her otherwise. 

Bryce wasn't in line for any special awards at graduation.  The Good Citizenship Award wasn't remotely in the picture, not in a school where half the students shared family names with philanthropic organizations.  Diploma presentation, however, was by graduation order.  Saint William valued academic accomplishment more highly than the alphabetically-oriented Central High, and Bryce received the fifth diploma. 

After the ceremonies, the parents and guests descended from the stands to mingle and take photographs.  Also a last opportunity for yearbook signing.  Gus had the yearbook and waded through the crowd toward Bryce, but he didn't make it.  The daughters of the bankers and businessmen, the princesses descended from Illium's old kings and queens, the young ladies from Mount Wren's most elite families, all recognized and mobbed the young man who would one day rule the galaxy. 

Bryce Carmina, on his graduation day, once again found his brother the center of attention. 

***

Summer job time again for Bryce.  The two summers since his graduation from high school had been pure Corporation — a month in the Forestry Department, a month learning Mining operations.  Logs and Rocks, then he went with the trade negotiators for a frustrating month of trying to move Xian governments out of commerce's way.  Not a total waste, though, for he did learn that bribery sometimes works.  He put in a brief stint with Shipping, then over to Finance.  Necessary resume items for a future executive, he supposed, but still boring. 

This time the note from his father finally asked him to show up at the Amphora offices buried deep in the bowels of Altmark Tower.  Big brother Gus had been working at Amphora for four years, running the family cartel for the last two.  Time enough, Bryce thought, for the big guy to be moving upstairs to the Imperium and learning how to run an Empire. 

Two years of top marks at Illium University had doubtless convinced his father that Bryce was ready to make top marks in the family business.  When the family business spanned ninety thousand light years and controlled billions of alien lives, that was a vote of confidence. 

Bryce knew little of Amphora, which was more than everyone else on Xi Ahn knew.  Eslan Carmina had set up the cartel after his unlikely ascension to the Corporation Chairmanship.  Unspoken rumor of those shadowy days had it that Amphora's first task was to consolidate the new Chairman's power, which soon came about with the apparent suicide of Corporation's then-President Richard Landya. 

It's next task was to gather Carmina as much wealth as it could, then keep those assets out of harm's way.  To do that, Carmina hired a promising young financier named Anton Sevier to direct Amphora and set rules in place that continued to guide the cartel. 

Amphora had a third task: Eslan Carmina wished to control a majority of Corporation voting shares.  An outlandish dream, because control meant ownership, and ownership was impossible due to Corporation's immense size.  Director Wallace Park's family had been collecting shares for centuries, yet Park controlled just a twentieth of the votes. 

Impossible tasks, however, were to become Anton Sevier's stock-in-trade.  He devised an innocently opaque scheme to split control away from ownership, and over the years Eslan Carmina, a pauper compared to Wallace Park, nevertheless gained greater voting power in the Corporation Board Room. 

Sevier left Amphora some ten years before Bryce was born, quickly becoming the most respected financier in Illium.  His departure left a ghost lingering within the cartel — the hoary rules and principles that still guided its daily operations.  Bryce suspected that three-decade-old rules were also three decades out of date, and that was where Bryce would make his mark.  Gus was smart, but to Bryce's mind he wasn't in the same league as his younger brother when it came to ambition and spotting opportunities.  Bryce would spend the summer learning Amphora's habits, then he would mold the cartel into a sleek, aggressive, modern money machine. 

Let Gus become Chairman and worry about mining and forestry and commerce and those prickly alien planets.  Bryce would make silent, secret Amphora the real power behind the throne. 

***

"Look, Bryce, if you want to fool around with risky ventures, we can set aside some money to do that," said Gus, "but I'm not going to take any chances with Amphora's reserves.  That money is going to put my children through university."

Bryce cringed inside at Gus' intentional understatements.  Amphora's reserves could build universities all around the planet.  "I'm not talking risky," Bryce replied.  "I'm talking a decent return on our investments.  Dad's original idea was probably to not lose any money, because his income from the Chairmanship made up for the slow return Amphora was providing.  We're making only 3 percent when we could be compounding twice that without risk."

Gus shook his head.  "We stick with Sevier's rules.  They built Dad's fortune, and you aren't going to see me losing it for us."

"Sevier didn't make his own millions with rules like these."

"Sevier skimmed the foam off the vast fortunes out there, fortunes like Amphora.  We aren't the foam, little brother.  We're the ocean underneath."

***

Bryce finished the summer well-informed but slightly steamed.  The same old story with Gus, not that it was Gus' fault, not that it was ever Gus' fault.  Problems came up, solutions were tossed around, Gus made a decision.  The Amphora staff respected his decisions and carried them out without question.  The process was smooth.  When the choices proved wrong, they worked together to patch things up. 

Bryce wasn't so lucky.  Someone, either a staffer or Gus himself, was always looking over his shoulder.  The moment Bryce made a decision on whatever insignificant task they assigned him, it went to Gus for approval.  Nothing overt, but Bryce knew they were doing it.  They didn't hesitate to question him — what was his rationale, his thinking, his aim?  Always politely, nursing him along as though he weren't the younger brother, but the baby brother. 

That would change.  Autumn's resumption of classes at Illium University put him back in familiar waters, a comfortable environment he had mastered.  His Amphora notebook provided plentiful areas for study in his spare moments.  The cartel's steady, slow, silent investment strategy produced equally steady and slow returns.  Amphora's vast reserves made for impressive income numbers, but abysmal Return on Equity.  Bryce could get better returns with a bank savings account.  When he found the secret to boost those returns, his father would boot Gus upstairs to the Imperium and leave Amphora to Bryce. 

Head of Amphora — king maker, power broker, respected, feared — Bryce let his mind wander over the possibilities that might compensate for the accident of birth that denied him the Chairmanship.  He spent his weekends in Amphora's offices skimming financial reports for the magic formula. 

Only weeks before his summer-break return to Amphora, he found it.  Right beneath Corporation's nose. 

***

Bryce lounged back in the sofa while Gus browsed the financial folder. 

"I had no idea Corporation spent so much money on such mundane stuff."

"That's the beauty of it, Gus.  All that money for laundry and maintenance and paper clips, it all gets spent regardless.  There isn't any reason it shouldn't come to us."

"Except we don't know a thing about running a laundry."

"We buy a laundry, Gus.  Then we redirect the laundry contract to our company.  It should be simple.  The way money gets spent around here, I'm surprised Dad hasn't been doing this all along.  Corporation owns some subsidiary companies that could just as well be on our own books, too.  Think how good you'll look when you deliver the annual report to Dad, doubling our net.  We can do it with just a little manipulation.  It doesn't hurt Corporation, so why not?"

"Glad to see you haven't been wasting your school time, little brother.  I have all I can handle with the rest of Amphora, so you get on this and let me know what you need."

Gus handed him the folder, and handed him the opportunity he wanted.  Now all Bryce had to do was make it work. 

***

Bryce found the company by looking in the telephone registry book.  The owner was near sixty and anxious to retire, so he was happy to take Bryce's low price.  The tired but sturdy masonry building covered a quarter of a small block down by the Old City.  Open floor plan with cast iron trusses overhead, ropes and pulleys hanging on racks, scaffolding and planks stacked by the brick walls, unused old horse stalls that still had straw in them.  Bryce pointed up at the grungy brown clerestory windows above the trusses. 

"The windows?  Well, the last thing my guys want to look at when they get back from a job is another window, and paying someone to clean a window no one looks out is the last thing I want to do."

"Hmm.  You can stick around until we get it going, the Altmark Tower contract?" asked Bryce. 

"Sure.  The wife's waited this long to cash out; what's a couple more months?  The daughters aren't interested in the business, otherwise I'd have given it to them.  The only problem I see is the size of your place. 

"Altmark Tower must have a thousand square miles of glass on it, and I just don't have enough people to do it.  Tim's Windows has been there for years, and we aren't anywhere near Tim's size.  Plus, there's all that equipment."

"I checked on that," said Bryce.  "The pendant scaffolding and motor dollies and davits all belong to Corporation, designed specifically for us when the Landyas built the tower.  You just need men, buckets, and squeegees.  The men you can hire from Tim's when they get laid off.  They'll know any fine points you don't."

"You've thought this through pretty good, haven't you, son?  Want to show me around Altmark Tower's roof?  I'd better check it out before I make any more promises."

"Sure."  Bryce followed him across the concrete floor, a mad splash of patterns where spilled window solvent shifted the dirt and grease around.  This little scheme should net Amphora another hundred thousand Credits, and the whole thing was so simple that Bryce couldn't imagine why his father hadn't thought of it.  The fix was already in on the upcoming window cleaning contract, so his man better not find any problems on the roof. 

***

Bryce's research had come across some Corporation-owned companies listed on the books at their stocks' par value — the guaranteed value of the shares when they were originally issued back in antiquity — and not at their much higher present worth.  Simply purchasing the companies at par would bring an incredible Return on Investment.  Bryce settled into discussions on the transfer with his lawyers.  Another block in his plan was falling into place, and piece by little piece, Bryce was reshaping Amphora into a real player. 

***

Summer ended.  Autumn classes resumed at Illium University, drawing Bryce away from his work at Amphora.  He moved from his apartment in Altmark Tower back to his apartment across town near the university campus, confident his improvements to the Amphora operation would soon provide noticeable results. 

***

"Well, thanks for telling me, Tim.  I don't have anything that can help you right handy, but I'll see if the Council will authorize a supplementary contract on some fire station windows or something.  I don't know what game Carmina is playing, but I thought we had an understanding with him.  Sure, right, right.  Well, that game goes both ways.  My best to your mother when you see her.  Yeah.  Thanks for calling.  'Bye, Tim."

"Your nephew, Mr Mayor?" asked his assistant. 

"My wife's nephew.  Seems he lost the window washing contract for Altmark Tower to some little jerk outfit I never heard of.  That's going to put a serious crimp in our finances.  I mean his finances."

With a knock on the big oak door, his secretary poked her head in.  "Mr Mayor, the 'Pave the Streets' delegation is waiting for you."

"Thanks.  I'll be right with them."  After his secretary closed the door, the mayor of Illium-des-Ahns rose from his desk and gathered his ample frame into his jacket.  "Eslan Carmina's always banging on my door wanting something.  Well, he's gonna find out that you gotta honor your commitments if you want me to play along.  'Something for Nothing' is NOT this mayor's middle name."

"Shall I make a note of that, sir?"

"Nope," said the mayor.  "'Nothing in Writing' IS my middle name."

***

The chilly note inviting him upstairs to the Imperium for an audience with his father did not bode well.  The Chairman's expression when Gus went through the double doors boded even less well.  Gus heard the secretary close the doors behind him. 

"Care to explain, son?" said Eslan Carmina, holding out a sheet of paper. 

Gus took the paper, one of Bryce's bright ideas to perk up Amphora's profits.  "This is a window washing company we bought this summer.  Corporation had the windows contracted out to another company, and we thought we might as well be bringing the money into the family.  I think we made around ninety thousand Credits on the deal.  Sir."

"I see," the Chairman said quietly, tensely.  His knuckles looked whiter than Gus remembered them.  "The company with the former contract belongs to the nephew of the mayor of Illium-des-Ahns.  Didn't know that, did you?"  No, Gus did not.  "Take a look at this."

Gus read the offered sheet of paper.  Corporation had lost the street repair bitumen and gravel contracts for the City of Illium-des-Ahns.  The net from the previous year's contracts was around seven million Credits.  Gus got that sinking feeling.  The arithmetic here did not require a degree in math. 

"Well, golly," said the Chairman into the room's silent vacuum.  "Things aren't always what they seem, are they?  Maybe there's things going on you don't know about that you should have known about.  Maybe knowing things is why your father is sitting in this chair instead of Richard Landya."

Gus didn't utter a word. 

"Did you really think Amphora got so big on that little bit of interest it officially makes?"  Yes, Gus really did.  "I had a personal agreement with the mayor, Gus.  A personal agreement, nothing on paper, nothing but my word, Gus, to the Mayor of our fair city."

The Chairman's face was turning red and his temples were throbbing.  Gus knew an explosion was coming, and Bryce was off in school playing with the girls.  Gus glanced at the closed double doors behind him, but it was too late to run away. 

The Chairman rose from his seat and leaned forward over the desk. 

"YOU IDIOT !!"

***

"Say, come look at this item," said the auditor, drawing his supervisor over.  "We've got a little company transferred off our balance sheet and over to Amphora Cartel's.  I checked the authorization, and it's a line item in a big bundle that the Chairman signed, the kind of stuff that even if he read it he wouldn't notice.  But even if Carmina did notice it, I don't think he can do it."

"Isn't there a payment or trade from Amphora?"

"Right here on this other sheet, but it's for the shares' par value, not near what the company's worth."

The supervisor shook his head.  "This is one of those companies we bought before I was born, back when the Landyas were running Corporation.  We keep them on the books at par value so when we have a down year, we can revalue them and show a profit.  You do a transaction with one, it's useless for that purpose."

"An external transaction like this not only ruins it, then," said the auditor, "it costs us real money."

"Exactly," said his supervisor.  "We'll flag it in our report, but that doesn't mean it gets fixed.  You find any more like this one, I know the man who can fix it."

***

"Heh, heh, heh," chuckled the Court Beat reporter as he dropped a typed sheet on Preston Tyrell's desk. 

"With a grin like that, this better be good," said the publisher of the des-Ahns Financier. 

"Oh, it is.  I know what good buddies you are with Eslan Carmina," said the reporter as he exited. 

Tyrell read the story.  No less a figure than Corporation Director Wallace Park had filed a shareholder lawsuit against Corporation and a cartel named Amphora.  Seems some assets had improperly slipped off the Corporation books and slipped onto Amphora's.  The lawsuit asked for the return of the assets and their equal value in damages. 

And no less a figure than Joel Smithson, Chief Judge of Illium's Final Court, had assigned himself to hear the case during the Final Court's recess months.  Tyrell whistled.  The most royal of the Old Royal judges, Smithson seldom took civil cases unless there were something 'interesting' about them. 

Depending on who owned this Amphora Cartel, the lawsuit could prove a fun story to work. 

***

Gus had already begun a desperately defensive search through all the bright innovations Bryce had innovated during his summer rampage, when he read the big article on Amphora in the des-Ahns Financier. 

Gus' intercom spoke up.  "Mr Carmina?  The Chairman's secretary called.  She says he wants you in his office right now.  She says he sounds angry."

***

Elinor Amhensen paged through the des-Ahns Financier at a lazy two thousand words per minute, her mind analyzing the articles about half a page behind what her eyes were taking in. 

"How do you do that, read so fast?" asked Piers. 

"Hmmm?  I don't, really.  I just read normal speed but I slow time down when I do."  She saw her father didn't understand.  "Doctor Rikardsen's process.  I speed up my thinking, and it makes time seem slow.  You can't do that?"

"I . . ."  His face bent into the unmistakably pained expression that meant the men he had killed were back ravaging his mind.  "I, know the, the, but, I can't just do it.  Only when, sometimes, . . ."

"It feels like a bump, off to your right.  You push it."

"Oh."

Elinor pushed the bump, skimming the Financier and worrying about Piers.  Her father was so easy to read.  He must have associated the adrenaline-induced high speed thought with the terrible deaths of the scavengers, and avoided exploring it as she had done.  Perhaps now that he knew it could be a voluntary thing, he might learn the skill.  She stopped reading, then flipped back a page. 

"Piers, here's an article on a shareholder lawsuit filed by Wallace Park against Corporation and a cartel called Amphora."

"Wallace Park?  Anybody important?"

"He's Corporation's biggest shareholder, and he's on their Board of Directors."

"Why is he suing his own company?"

"Doesn't like Carmina, according to Gregor Donal.  Wanted to be Chairman himself.  Anyway, the suit alleges some inappropriate asset shifting to Amphora.  The suit is attracting attention because the judge is the top judge on Illium's high court, and nobody seems to know who is in the Amphora Cartel."

"Thank goodness for cartel secrecy.  Who should we root for, Ellie?  If Amphora is a bunch of crooks trying to steal from Corporation, they have my vote."

Elinor resumed flipping pages.  "Whom should we root for, Piers," she said three pages later. 

***

Preston Tyrell had a decision to make.  The law guaranteed cartel secrecy, but he had Corporation sources who alleged and confirmed that Amphora Cartel was none other than Eslan Carmina himself.  Amphora registered soon after Carmina engineered his Chairmanship coup, and its initial capitalization was close to the amount of Carmina's first bonus check from the Board of Directors, less taxes. 

The ramifications of a Chairman diverting his company's assets into his own purse were serious.  Wallace Park might be planning another assault on the Chairmanship and enlisted Old Royal judge Joel Smithson to help.  Might, nothing.  Park had access to at least the same sources as Tyrell, and no telling what spies the Royals had buried in Altmark Tower. 

Should a newspaperman protect cartel secrecy?

***

Elinor breezed through the des-Ahns Financier at her usual clip, noting the name Amphora on the first page.  The paper was two months old after its journey to Eterra, so the trial on faraway Xi Ahn should already be over.  She skidded to a halt and went back to see if what she read really contained what she thought she read between the lines. 

It did.  Amphora Cartel belonged to Eslan Carmina. 

***

The trial ended.  Joel Smithson read his judgment from the bench in a disappointed monotone. 

"Amphora will return all Corporation assets acquired in the past year and will reimburse Corporation all litigation expenses.  It will pay damages in the amount equal to the true value of all assets returned.  Amphora is hereafter forbidden to acquire any asset of any nature that has ever been owned by Corporation.  Judgment is thus rendered against Amphora Cartel and Corporation for Trade and Commerce, operating as Altmark Corporation."

Smithson took off his reading glasses and waved the litigants to approach his bench.  "As a personal aside, gentlemen, let me say that I found your arguments of sloppy bookkeeping and inexperienced management most unconvincing, to put it graciously.  Insufficient evidence of criminal intent saved your tails this time, but don't even think of showing up in my courtroom again with something this shabby.  You won't be lucky twice."

***

The latest court decision came down heavily against the Chairman's cartel.  Carmina raged in circles around his desk, throwing things in the general direction of the Old City.  Only the thick windows of his hundredth floor office protected the Old Royals down in their ancient walled quarter. 

"They can't be bought, they can't be extorted, they can't even be reasoned with!" he fumed. 

"And even if you kill one, he just gets replaced by his heir," Registrar Varta added, "who is inevitably less pliable."

"Those Old Royals have a death grip on their judgeships and a choke hold on commerce.  We can't get a law passed and we can't get a court decision to free up trade."

"Folding that company into Amphora had nothing to do with trade, Eslan.  You want to bring any more companies into the cartel, you'll have to get them before they go on the Corporation balance sheet.  These shareholder lawsuits are inevitable now that they've discovered what your boy has been doing.  You'll lose every time."

"You're saying?"

"Amphora isn't my affair, but it needs better management than Gus is giving it.  Bring in someone else.  And stay out of the courts."

Carmina quit his pacing and turned darkly to the Registrar.  "My son is going to rule this galaxy one day."

"Not soon, let us hope," which did nothing to soothe the Chairman.  "Look, it's your money.  If you wish to waste it letting him learn management, go ahead, but at least hire him an intelligent teacher."

Transition

Despite Doctor Sue's suggestions, Elinor had waited years more, hoping that her body would begin the change on its own.  It hadn't.  She went to visit Doctor Sue and her shadow-ray machine. 

The years hadn't improved the shadow-ray films.  The doctor circled an area with a grease pencil. 

"This womb will never produce children.  It's solid muscle now.  The rest of what you have remains juvenile.  This lower area here is too, hmm, malformed and inelastic to allow any sexual activity.  Should you decide to marry, you can have surgery that might make it possible.  Tricky, though.  You'd really have to love the guy."  The doctor rocked back in her chair.  "We can still give you a bosom.  Interested?"

Elinor nodded. 

"The tissues respond to hormones, which we can now supply artificially, but how much they respond depends on your heredity.  As a matter of aesthetics, with your height and slender hips, a modest response would be best.  The highly technical medical term we doctors use for that is 'pert.'  If it looks like you're headed for top-heavy, we stop the treatment."

"I'm just tired of being mistaken for a child," said Elinor. 

"That we can fix.  Side effects to worry about: You remember when the other girls went through puberty, how they went gah gah over boys boys boys?"

"Too well," a sour reply. 

"Well, that could happen to you.  Awkward in your twenties.  Also, this stuff," she tapped the shadow-ray film in the circled area, "might try to start working, which it cannot do properly or safely.  Then we're looking at surgery to remove everything."

"Swell choices."

"Yeah, but with or without the complications, you come out a pretty young lady instead of a pretty little girl."

***

The years passed swiftly under Gregor Donal's leadership, calm years while the Eterrans became conditioned to the yoke of Xian rule.  Donal's understanding of the Eterrans' nature and his sensitivity to their sore points kept them quiet while they sank ever more deeply into the Empire's slavery. 

The Deputies all respected him, at first from fear and hope that his memory was short, but eventually recognizing his ability and appreciating the healthy effect peace had on their own 'supplementary' retirement schemes. 

He even gained Piers Amhensen's respect as business partner, and for some reason unknown to Gregor, Piers' antipathy for the man who destroyed his family diminished.  Piers used Gregor to gain contacts on Xi Ahn; Gregor used Piers' information to control Eterra and keep it profitable.  Their talents complemented, and true to Piers' promise, Gregor gained enough wealth to retire to Mount Wren. 

***

Eslan Carmina's secretary knocked on the double doors and entered the Chairman's office with an envelope.  "This came by messenger, sir.  He wouldn't say from whom, but I believe his company delivers mostly for banks down in the Old City."

"Thank you."  Carmina opened the envelope after she left, and found her observation correct.  The note was unsigned but he knew the author's handwriting. 

"Thought you might like to know . . . " it began, then offered a scrap of financial information about Gregor Donal, the Senior Lieutenant Governor of Eterra. 

The Old City had spies all over Altmark Tower, far more than Carmina had been able to infiltrate into the Old Royal establishments, where employment always seemed a matter of inheritance.  Despite the imbalance, his spies did manage to root out the really important nuggets, and this nugget meant trouble. 

***

Preston Tyrell scooped another shovelful of sand into the canvas bag, knowing he was coming out of this weekend adventure with a warm human interest story and blisters on all his digits, save his two calloused typing fingers. 

"Not so full, Mr Tyrell.  The sandbags seal against themselves better when you leave them a little floppy."

"That makes sense, Andrew," he said.  "Not too gracious of us to put you to work as soon as you stepped off the starship, was it?"

"Naw, I'm happy to help after all those days stuck on that stupid freighter with nothing to do."  Andrew knotted the drawstring on the bag and tossed it to another boy, who tossed it on down the line.  "Although I don't think this is what I'll do for a living after I graduate."

"You've got plenty of time to figure that one out," said Tyrell, pulling another empty bag off the stack.  Hundreds of volunteers filled sandbags and tossed them to the long lines of high-schoolers shuffling the bags out to the levee.  The Ahn river was in full flood this year and the high schools had turned out in force to try to save the low areas of Illium-des-Ahns upstream from the Great Bend.  The students from Mount Wren's Saint William High were down here dabbling in manual labor just for the cachet, while the Central High boys were trying to save their own homes.  Two decades ago students earned huge plaudits for their efforts, saving thousands of homes from flooding.  This year it looked dubious. 

Gregor and Karin Donal sent Andrew back to Xi Ahn to finish high school in Mount Wren.  Tyrell had just picked the boy up from the freighter landing field when his two sons suggested they all volunteer for the flood effort.  They weren't dressed for it, but why not?

So here they were, tossing sandbags.  The levee ran five foot high down a thousand yards, barely a foot above the rising water.  To Tyrell's unpracticed but educated (the Academy was an engineering school, after all) eye, the race for height was shortchanging the need for depth.  The wall looked thin, and poorly placed at that.  The river's natural flow here at the beginning of the Bend was directly against the levee, not parallel to it. 

Tyrell was shoveling and engineering at the same time, trying to figure out a more defensible line for the dike, when he heard shouting down the line.  Baggers were pointing out into the river, where a barge broken from upstream moorings was drifting down into the first turn.  It wasn't going to make it. 

Good leadership along the dike pulled all the baggers safely back to higher ground, but the barge had the levee targeted.  It plowed through the bags and hung, giving Tyrell hope it might stay put long enough for the baggers to get to it and use it as part of the dike.  A few supervisors out there had the same idea and called for reinforcements. 

The Ahn had other ideas.  The barge jutted into the stream enough to build an upstream head, just enough to top the remaining levee and start dismantling it.  The river drove the barge sideways along the length of the dike until the sheer mass of sandbags it scraped up grounded it, turning it into a finger dam jutting seventy feet into the flow.  The huge gap was just what the river wanted, with the barge diverting even more water into it. 

The baggers could do nothing but watch the slow motion disaster as the gap widened, letting the Ahn flood into the poorest neighborhoods of Illium-des-Ahns.  The evacuation began in earnest. 

"All that work," said Andrew.  "I'm sorry," he said to Tyrell's two sons. 

Preston Tyrell could do nothing more to stem the flood, but he was a newspaperman.  He sent Andrew home with his boys, then pulled out his notepad and pencil.  He couldn't stop it, but there were stories here to tell. 

***

The Ahn river was in flood again, the downstream victim of heavy rains weeks earlier in the White Ahn watershed.  Outside the Great Bend, the lowest parts of Mount Wren sat a dry two feet above the river's crest.  Within the Bend, the Old City itself was below flood level, but its ancient walls were originally built as dikes, so it remained as dry as Mount Wren.  The Ahn's northward bend upstream of the Old City was not as fortunate. 

The four-foot crest had run water far ashore, driving fifteen thousand Illians from the city.  Miles to the south, Altmark Tower had an excellent view of the disaster. 

"They should do something about that," clucked Eslan Carmina from his office's hundredth-floor vantage. 

"Maybe build a dam or something," agreed Roger Varta. 

"Old Royals own the land that a dam would flood, though," Carmina said thoughtfully.  "And their own homes in the Old City are quite comfy.  Floods this high happen only every few decades, so why should they care if thousands of their neighbors resent their forbidding a dam?"

"Especially since most of those neighbors are squatting on Old Royal land," said Varta.  "The river does the Old Royals' dirty work, driving the squatters out and . . ."

"And into the arms of the Populist Party," said Carmina.  "The party of doing what sounds good.  Bunch of shallow-thinking airheads."

"Airheads with votes, Eslan.  Every flood will work to our advantage if we can buy off the party leaders.  Some day we'll have enough support from the people to eliminate the Royals' hold on the courts."

"Not in our lifetimes, Roger, but maybe in my sons'.  You have to look ahead the way the Landyas did, long-term.  Their Altmark Corporation was a long-term entity working on long-term projects, and that's how I and my descendants will run it.  We'll get the Old Royals eventually," Carmina said, drumming his fingers on the glass, "but enough philosophy.  I have a more near-term concern: Gregor Donal."

"Donal?  Oh, yes, our 'Hero of the Empire.'  It's been so quiet out on Eterra I'd forgotten about him.  He's due to retire, isn't he?  Year or two?" Varta had gone well past civil retirement age himself, clinging tenaciously to his lifetime appointment as Registrar.  "You're worried about the conquest, what he knows?  That's the reason we stranded him . . ."

"No, no, old news no one cares about.  Donal's had his hand in every atrocity ever committed on Eterra.  He was the one who actually executed that raped woman, remember?  That didn't come out in Crauley's trial, and he sure won't want it coming out now that he's going to be living here.  No, he won't talk."

"What, then?"

Carmina's fingers quit their drumbeat against the glass.  "I doubt he likes us any more than we like him, Roger, and certain of our banking connections tell us that he may be worth better than five hundred million Credits.  That, my old friend, is enough to worry me."

Varta was momentarily silent while the number sank in.  "Five hundred million?" he choked.  "Preposterous!  No Planetary Governor could ever steal anywhere near that amount.  Even your pal Crauley managed only twelve million."

"But someone who could," said Carmina, turning his back to the flood, "might be capable of other preposterous acts.  He's had a long time out there to think of something."

***

The time neared — military retirement.  Karin Donal marked another day off the 'short-timer' calendar that Preston Tyrell had sent from Xi Ahn, a seven foot roll of paper that hung on the wall and touched the floor.  The calendar was an antique from the master planet's days of conscription, a Xian year's worth of days to count off with the last day at the very top.  Before long she would cross off day two hundred. 

That glorious day at the end of the roll would end her husband's contract with Corporation — and end its ability to hold him on Eterra.  While the contract kept him there, it nevertheless required Corporation to promote him on a schedule.  As a result, he would draw a sub-colonel's retirement check, easily better than the captain's pay Carmina wanted to freeze him at, but nowhere near what a Planetary Lieutenant Governor should receive. 

However, the Donals' 10 percent share of Rikardsen Pharmaceutical brought them over nine million Credits a month, unbelievably beyond even an Emperor's official yearly paycheck.  Mount Wren beckoned. 

Preston Tyrell was scouting out Xian business opportunities for Gregor, and their son Andrew was already in high school in Mount Wren.  All in all, things looked great. 

Unless Karin got herself arrested. 

After her father passed away, Karin took up the professor's cause, maintaining his contacts with the Resistance.  She disliked Corporation for what it did to him, and she hated it for what it did to Eterra. 

Karin tutored Elinor in Eterra's forbidden history.  Emotionally, Karin recognized, Elinor was like Piers, inconstant, unsophisticated, still the child inside, and Karin found fertile, fervent ground for the professor's notions of how things ought to be. 

Elinor's mind, however, had grown far beyond her small body — an intellect vast and cool and unsympathetic.  She saw relationships in commerce and politics as easily as she saw them in mathematics, and she saw ways to use them.  Karin was happy to guide her, and slowly and surely they drew their plans against the Empire. 

***

"A laundry?  Why would I set up a laundry company on Xi Ahn?" wondered Gregor. 

"Because you love me," purred Karin.  "And a typewriter repair company and a printing company and a few other utterly plain businesses."

Elinor sat off to the side, a twenty-four-year-old little girl with a pert bosom.  "You won't use your own money," she said.  "Piers and I have kept most of our Rikardsen profits on Xi Ahn for convenience . . ."

"Convenience, nothing!" laughed Gregor.  "You'd have paid hundreds of millions in Eterran taxes if you'd brought the money here."

Elinor shrugged.  "You draw the funds from Xuan Group, then sell the companies to a cartel Piers and I have been operating in Illium-des-Ahns.  After that, you're done."

"I still don't see why . . ."

"Eslan Carmina used you to kill Elinor's parents," said Karin.  "He used you to kill Piers' family.  When you tried to stop it, he stranded you on an alien planet as punishment.  He made you an executioner, and if he had his way today, we'd be running the slave colony on Aptera.  You owe Eslan Carmina less than nothing, Gregor.  Elinor, explain to this dense Xian what your scheme will do."

Elinor explained.  What little of it Gregor understood, frightened him. 

"You can't have thought about the consequences," he said.  "You're the richest people on Eterra, but if you're discovered or fail, you'll lose everything to the Emperor."  Elinor's expression did not change, and Gregor had another thought. 

"And if you succeed, the Emperor will put death warrants on you."

"Yes," said Elinor, "he will."  Her target was the Imperial family. 

Amphora

Retired Governor Gregor Donal kicked some trash from the sidewalk boards into the gutter.  After all those years on Eterra, Xi Ahn's yellow sun made even the trash look good. 

"So," said Donal, "what do you think?"

"For a commercial laundry, it's got a great view of Altmark Tower," said his new employee, an old hand in the laundry business.  "Seedy neighborhood even for Illium-des-Ahns, that's good.  Plenty of folks in this area looking for work.  The equipment needs fixing, but we can be operating in a month.  You gonna buy or rent?"

"Rent.  You'll be able to find us customers?"

"You get me a bookkeeper and a cash register, boss, I'll get you the accounts.  How about a name?"

"I was thinking of 'Dunrite Laundry.'"

"For laundry done right, huh?  It'll fit on the door."

Donal locked the shop door and made a mental note to return the key to the real estate agent.  The location fit Elinor's requirement that it be visible from Altmark Tower.  Seven blocks away, that immense edifice rose twelve hundred feet above the rest of Illium-des-Ahns, a gleaming glass flower growing in mud. 

***

A parasite lurked among the anonymous lower floors of Altmark Tower.  Feeding off scraps dropped from the Empire's table, Amphora Cartel had two purposes in life.  It was to make Eslan Carmina's family the richest in the galaxy, and it was to gain him absolute control of Corporation.  Amphora was well along in both missions. 

Carmina founded Amphora soon after taking the Chairmanship, hiring a brilliant young financier named Anton Sevier to direct it.  Sevier set the guidelines, then moved on when Amphora's competence was proven.  Carmina gathered Voting stock to himself; Amphora diverted it away from others.  Carmina granted contracts to small companies in fair and honest bidding; Amphora took over those companies with its aggressive tactics. 

Eslan Carmina gathered power.  He left gathering wealth to Amphora.  He also used it as a school for his sons, preparing them to rule the galaxy. 

***

Graduation day.  Eslan Jr, 'Gus,' had run Amphora for several years, getting his feet wet in business.  After completing university, younger brother Bryce came on full time last year for the same reason.  Now the Chairman was pulling Gus out and bringing him upstairs to the Imperium, where he would learn the ropes of galactic management and the strings of Corporation politics. 

Amphora Cartel was too important to be left to Bryce alone, so Chairman Eslan Carmina brought in a tutor, Anton Sevier, the man who started Amphora rolling.  Carmina addressed the Amphora staff. 

"Three decades ago, when Anton Sevier was young and foolish, he agreed to help me set up Amphora.  Well, now he's back and under contract, which proves only that he is older."  Mild laughter.  "Anton set the business example for all Illium-des-Ahns.  You folks can learn from him, and that's the idea.  He'll be retiring in a few years, so don't let this opportunity go to waste."  The Emperor and Gus wandered off and the rest of the staff crowded around Anton Sevier. 

Bryce leaned against the window-wall as the staff fawned over the legendary financier.  With his brother Gus' departure, Bryce was now the boss — but not really.  His father didn't think he could handle Amphora, so he bought Bryce a babysitter.  Everyone knew it. 

Baby brother Bryce, always a nanny to watch over him.  Bryce glanced out the window.  Illium-des-Ahns swarmed before him, a raucous city where anyone could become a king if he seized his opportunities.  Anton Sevier was under contract to run Amphora, but Bryce was technically his employer.  That meant Bryce could technically give Anton Sevier orders. 

***

The 'River Castle' was grandest of the few Royal mansions outside the Old City walls.  The traditional seat of the Illian kings was an impressive five hundred-year-old castle within the Old City, but when modern livability became an issue, a Smithson ancestor began building the River Castle.  Not long after its completion, he lost his throne. 

Now livability had again become an issue.  Tradesmen's carts and grazing draft horses littered the lawn, and ladders climbed the fine-grained limestone walls.  Deep within those walls, the River Castle's current owner, Joel Smithson, Chief Judge of Illium's Final Court, entertained Gregor and Karin Donal, Corporation types recently returned from one of the slave planets. 

Smithson knew what they wanted before they asked.  All returning Planetary Governors wanted an estate across the river in Mount Wren; it must be a Corporation job requirement or something.  He granted this audience only because he had heard of Donal's daring hostage rescue and had questioned Baron Coan about Donal's performance in that self-abusive circus trial they held for Governor Crauley.  Not the usual Corporation crook by Coan's account, but that was hardly a ticket to Mount Wren.  Years before, the very bureaucrat whose family Donal had rescued, had failed on his retirement to persuade any Royals to sell, despite offering exorbitant amounts of cash.  Donal himself had hundreds of millions in the bank, but Smithson owned the bank. 

"I know the word in Altmark Tower is that we Old Royals will sell at the drop of a few million Credits," said Smithson, "but we still have our pride and our judgeships, if not our thrones.  The word in the Old City is that you Governors make your zillions by stealing from the enslaved planets."

"Some do," Donal responded to his challenge.  "Reprehensible.  I made mine by taking bribes."

Smithson laughed.  "I like you already, sir."

"Corporation stole from the Eterrans and the Eterrans stole from Corporation.  I ignored it, and we never once got kidnapped."  Smithson nodded at the reference to the signature Eterran pastime.  "I did learn some things about bribery, though.  For instance, if your first offer is overly generous," Donal slid a slim silverwood box across the ornate desk, "you seldom have to haggle."

Smithson's wealth and breeding made him immune to bribes, but he was curious how the retired bureaucrat might try to persuade him to sell, so he opened the box.  Blue velvet lining.  Two capsules.  His face stiffened and he closed the lid.  Without looking up, he said, "Those drug dealers we do not execute, Governor Donal, spend the rest of their lives in slave markings."

"Not drugs, your lordship," said Karin Donal.  "Life.  For you and for your lady."  Smithson looked up.  "Thirty years more than your current allotment.  Gregor and I are proof."

A life extending potion from an exotic and mysterious alien planet, every man's dream, impossible to prove or refute, a con man's offer, a sucker's bet.  Smithson had expected better than such a rank amateur effort.  He was about to laugh when the thought hit him — Donal's bank account was not that of a rank amateur.  He reconsidered. 

The Donals did look too young for a retired couple, and there were rumors that their money actually came from an early investment in Suplesse, the incredible youth potion for the skin.  Still, youthful skin, no matter how resilient, could not hide an age-slackened substructure.  Now that he really looked at them, the couple across his desk did not look like Suplesse jobs.  Smithson pondered the box for a while, then he re-opened the lid.  Capsules of life, something no one's money could buy.  Smithson was not ready to believe that someone could sell it, either. 

How far would this pair of charlatans go to get their plot of ground?

"That land has the best view in Mount Wren, Governor Donal.  I also have a daughter whom I . . ."

"No!" shouted Karin Donal, then put her hand over her mouth.  "Never give it to a child," she shook her head.  "Never."

That reaction surprised even Joel Smithson, a judge who'd made a career of separating lies from truth.  He had his answer, and his gaze dropped to the capsules. 

"Could you stay for lunch, Governor?  I would enjoy hearing tales of your faraway land, and anything else you may wish to discuss."

***

Workmen freed the castle chapel's last stained glass window and lowered it into a crate while Mrs Donal examined the new panels of clear beveled glass waiting against the wall. 

"No, Gregor, the window saints are off to a museum, and I gave the altar to a mission congregation in Londrina."  Smithson leaned out the opening and looked across the Ahn river.  "As much debauchery as this chapel has seen, its consecration has pretty well worn off.  My daughter demanded a bigger bedroom."

"Times change, your lordship," said Donal, leaning out beside the Chief Judge.  "How did you get permission to take down the castle's river front rampart?"

"I'm Duke of Illium, descended from Illium's last king," said Smithson.  "I don't need permission to do anything on my land, and I own the river bank from the Old City walls all the way around to Stone Island.  The rampart blocked this good view of my holdings on the Mount Wren bluffs.  That's why I'll want a look at your plans before you build.  If your house has an ugly side, make sure it faces Baron Coan's place, not mine."

***

Karin Donal had already embarrassed her husband by asking the question, so Joel Smithson might as well give her an answer. 

"Tell her what you did," said Smithson. 

The slave turned to Karin.  "I embezzled, Mrs Donal.  I took my company's money, some operating money, some pension money."

"You didn't consider slavery?"

"I knew the penalty, ma'am.  I just didn't think I'd get caught.  I wouldn't have been, either, but — well, I took too much at the wrong time.  The company went bankrupt."

"He hurt many people," said Smithson.  "Slavery is a well known risk for certain crimes, and Old Royal judges do not impose it lightly."

Karin held her cup out as the slave poured tea.  Smithson noticed her unsettled glances at the tattooed stripe.  "Thank you," she said.  Smithson noticed that, too. 

"It is not the custom on Xi Ahn to thank slaves, Karin, if you'll forgive an ungracious host for mentioning it.  It makes you sound as though you've just arrived from the hills."

"I have just arrived from the hills, your lordship."

"So you have.  Merely a rough, country corner to polish smooth, then.  Slaves are criminals, serving a life sentence for harming others.  Slavery is a privilege we grant the least dangerous so they might avoid spending their lives in cages, and it gives them a chance to render some compensation for the harm they've done.  Thanking them is inappropriate.  Do you thank slaves on Eterra?"

"We have no slaves on Eterra," said Karin. 

"What?  None?"  Smithson turned to Gregor, who nodded agreement.  "But Corporation has been importing them for years, offering them a less onerous life on Xi Ahn."

"That is what Corporation says," said Gregor. 

Smithson settled back in his chair, contemplating.  He took a sip of tea, then set cup and saucer on the patio table.  "Aaah!" he snapped in disgust.  "So Corporation has been slaving under our very noses, slaving children, even.  Finally we catch them in a lie, and it's one we Old Royals cannot use against them."

"What do the Royals have against Corporation, aside from everything I have against it?" asked Karin. 

"It goes back a century or two, Karin.  My ancestors were Kings of Illium, but no longer.  Corporation had a hand in that and in the demise of thrones all around Xi Ahn.  I'll give you that most people other than my relatives regard the rise of democracy a good thing, but they cannot see the real danger."

"The dangers of democracy are small compared to the dangers of having the wrong king," said Karin, "with all respect, sir."

"Granted, but that is not my fear.  The Landya family controlled Altmark Corporation and fought us Royals for a century, but only to put a Landya on the throne, one king for all Xi Ahn.  Democracy was an unforeseen, frustrating aberration from their viewpoint."

"The Landyas are gone," said Gregor.  "You think Eslan Carmina wants to be king?"

Smithson leaned forward.  "Carmina lives for power, and he lives to give it to his sons.  The man has dynasty in his blood, Gregor.  I have it in mine, and I can smell it in others.  Has he not already awarded himself the title 'Emperor'?  When democracy weakens or crisis arises, my friends, Xi Ahn will have kings named Carmina, whether they take the title or not."

"Then you'll help us?" urged Karin. 

"You have your reasons to oppose Corporation," said Joel Smithson, Duke of Illium and Chief Judge of Illium's Final Court.  "I have mine."  He raised his tea cup from the patio table in gentle salute.  He took a sip, then smiled. 

***

The President of Illium Commerce Bank was in a fix.  The Chief Judge of Illium's Final Court was asking him to do something unethical.  Joel Smithson was also his largest individual depositor. 

"Your lordship, if Amphora discovers I've divulged any of their confidential . . ."

"It will come before my court," Smithson said.  "And I own a few banks myself, should you have employment concerns."

***

Workmen with electric saws swarmed over the giant oak, felled because it grew where the Lieutenant Governor decided to plant his new mansion. 

"Hate to lose that one, Governor," said the construction foreman.  "A real beauty, but too big to move."

"The new ones will grow just as big," said Mrs Donal, an alien from the planet Governor Donal once ruled, as the foreman understood it. 

The foreman looked back at the rows of sapling oaks planted along the way cleared for the mansion's drive.  "That they will, ma'am.  Shame none of us will be here to see it."

Governor Donal and his wife nudged each other and began laughing.  The foreman must have missed the joke, alien humor, no doubt. 

***

"A letter from Gregor Donal, Ellie."  Piers slid a photograph across to her. 

"Looks more like a novel than a letter.  Nice house.  Is this Mount Wren?"

"Must be.  The 'novel' is a summary on the Carmina family cartel.  Everything we didn't know before about Amphora, the little details we had to guess.  It's run by Eslan Carmina's sons, but they have some high-powered help.  Seems they're doing on Xi Ahn what the Governors have done on the planets.  Greedy bunch of crooks, just like I thought, stealing Corporation from the shareholders.  Just as I thought," he added before she could nail him.  "Not that I mind."

"Greed is useful, Piers.  It blinds people.  When you finish browsing that report, leave it on my desk.  I might wish to make some adjustments."

Piers' eyebrows rose in concern.  "Adjustments?"

"Well, we could use a little protection," she smiled sweetly.  "An insurance policy."

***

Corporation Director Wallace Park folded the letter from Eterra and slid it back into its envelope.  For a 'gift' of a hundred Corporation shares, he could own 10 percent of Rikardsen Pharmaceutical.  Rikardsen apparently manufactured the outrageously-priced skin cream that several Xian cosmetics firms sold under different names.  The stuff worked.  His wife was proof. 

"Why a gift?"

His accountant had it figured out.  "Shares in Xian companies may be sold only on Xi Ahn, and any alien caught on Xi Ahn is subject to slavery.  Separately written laws, but effective in preventing aliens from purchasing Corporation shares.  Nothing, however, says you can't give them the shares.  If these Amhensens are legitimate, you can't pass this up.  And if you do," he laughed, "give me the option."

"What could they want?"

"Corporation cachet, a foot in the door, maybe.  Wallace, who cares?  Rikardsen is privately held.  This peek at their books says those shares are worth ten times what they want, and that skin cream is a miracle.  My wife would buy it at twice the price."

"And the Carminas don't know about it?"

"They couldn't.  Everyone thinks Suplesse is made on Xi Ahn.  Bryce would have Amphora all over Rikardsen if he found out a company in his dad's Empire was making that kind of money.  Maybe that's the angle.  They're afraid of the Carminas."

"Well, I'm not afraid of the Carminas," said Wallace Park.  "Get out to Eterra and make the deal."

***

"I have years left, Anton, at least three.  Perhaps four.  I'll be here when you get back."

Anton Sevier's wife Endra sat on the sofa with him, leaning into him, holding his hand.  He had tears in his eyes.  Her leucholia was tearing him apart, and he knew that caused her more pain than the lingering death-sentence disease. 

The Chairman had placed his younger son Bryce in charge of the family cartel, and children had no appreciation of life's preciousness, of time's irreplaceable value.  Bryce Carmina had ordered Anton Sevier on a journey to audit three planets for Amphora, and Anton was under contract. 

"Make me happy when you're with me, Anton.  Cry after I'm gone."

***

Every other week, two-month-old mail arrived on Eterra with the Xi Ahn freight run.  Some of it went to Rikardsen Pharmaceutical. 

"Well, bless you, Gregor Donal," said Elinor.  "Piers, he's found us the perfect tool in the Carmina cartel.  An accountant with an ailing wife — information and the means to pry it from him.  Seven months until his planetary tour gets here, no, only five.  This letter is two months old."

"And two more months before any additional 'embellishments' can get to Xi Ahn," said Piers.  "Our preparation is already complete, Ellie.  Why take a chance . . ."

"Why?  How did you feel when you lost your house, your savings, your properties?"

"That meant nothing.  I'd lost my wife and my daughter.  Nothing meant anything after that."

"Exactly."  Elinor folded the letter from Gregor Donal and slipped it back into its envelope.  "We will ruin Eslan Carmina financially, but that isn't enough."  She placed the letter in Piers' hands.  "I want him to know what you felt.  I want him to know what went through my heart when I saw my mother."

"No," said Piers, shaking his head.  "Why risk everything we have on a last-minute change?  A man who has no heart can never know what we felt."

"You're wrong, Piers.  Eslan Carmina will wish he'd never heard of Eterra."  Elinor's eyes shown fiercely. 

"I will make him cry."

***

The package from Eterra had Governor Brambach's personal seal, which meant the contents were uninspected and uncensored.  That also meant it was from Piers and Elinor Amhensen.  Gregor Donal snapped the seal and slipped out the contents, two envelopes of pills and a letter. 

***

"Mrs Sevier, Governor Gregor Donal is here."

Endra Sevier opened her eyes.  Her servant waited just inside her bedroom door, two stripes tattooed down his face.  "Tell him my husband is off the planet for several months, Jim."  She braced her arm and pulled herself higher on the pillow.  "Tell him — Governor of where?"

"Former Senior Lieutenant Governor of Eterra, my home world.  He is retired here in Mount Wren, and he has come to see you, not Mr Sevier."

Endra dropped back.  "This is a bad day for me, Jim.  Maybe tomorrow will be better."

"I've come about your bad days, Mrs Sevier.  You may leave us, Jim." The Governor had entered behind the Eterran slave.  Jim looked to Mrs Sevier. 

"You have nerve, sir," said Endra.  The man appeared too young for a retired Corporation bureaucrat.  "I'll call if I need you, Jim."

Jim bowed and closed the door as he backed out. 

"Be brief, Governor.  I am not well today."

"I heard of your condition when I came to Mount Wren, Mrs Sevier.  I still correspond with the head of Rikardsen on Eterra, and he sent some herbals for you.  One relieves the pain, and the other works on the disease."

Endra was too tired of it all.  "Another folk remedy?  Governor Donal, was it?  I am dying, sir, and blood diseases do not care about tribal witches and spells.  What is Rikardsen?"

"Rikardsen Pharmaceutical.  You know its products, sold here as Lifecream and Suplesse," said her visitor.  "And your condition no longer exists on Eterra."

Endra pulled herself up again.  She used Suplesse.  "My every day is filled with pain, sir.  If your correspondent can help, you will have my gratitude.  If not, you will have something else from my husband when he returns."

Governor Donal rapped on the door behind him and came to her bedside.  Her slave entered with water on a salver, obviously a conspirator.  The Governor held out two envelopes, one blank, one marked 'For Pain.' 

"Piers Amhensen and his daughter Elinor founded Rikardsen during my term as Lieutenant Governor," said Donal.  "I trust them.  They did not promise a cure, only relief.  One pill of each, every day."

Endra took the pain pill.  "I have been offered hope before, Governor.  And been disappointed.  Forgive my cynicism."

"Understandable.  Good day, Mrs Sevier."  The Governor bowed and left her. 

She looked to Jim.  "You have no leucholia on Eterra?"

"I wouldn't know, madame.  I was taken from there as a baby."

***

Xi Ahn's sun shone invitingly to Anton, a yellow-white dot mere light- weeks distant, but his starship wasn't going that way.  It was back in Xian space only because Corporation didn't know the fold path from Proscenia to Aptera.  Once the Fold engine cooled, they would set the vector for Aptera and fold again.  As far as anyone could tell, the vector for any planet worked even this far away from Xi Ahn. 

The loudspeaker in the nav compartment spoke up.  "Temp's finally down to green band, Nav.  Pre-Fold check done to Nav check.  Aligning for the Fold."  The ship rotated around and Xi Ahn's sun slid from view. 

"All set back here, Captain.  Aligned and fifteen point zero required.  Now steady at fifteen point zero.  Nav Pre-Fold check complete.  Whenever you wish, sir."

"Fifteen point zero agrees.  Pre-Fold check complete.  Fold in three, two, one, fold," said the speaker. 

"Ready?" asked the nav. 

"No," said Anton. 

The stars didn't even flicker.  A star bluer than Xi Ahn's appeared, dimmer, Anton knew, because it was farther away.  It would still take thirty- seven days of starship time to get there.  It always took thirty-seven wasted days to get anywhere in a starship, even to cross the galaxy.  The scientists who dabbled in space travel didn't understand it completely, and Anton didn't understand it at all. 

When the auditing team finished with Aptera, they would repeat the procedure, folding to Xian space, then folding for Eterra.  Wasting another thirty-seven days. 

Thirty-seven days of Endra's remaining life. 

***

Endra's limo pulled up beneath Governor Donal's porte-cochere.  She waited for Jim to open her door, then took his hand.  He helped her to her feet, then stepped back as she walked unaided to the Governor's door.  Gregor Donal extended his hand to her with a smile. 

"I dare not try to thank you, Governor.  The doctors say I am in remission; not cured, but greatly improved.  I want you to tell me only one thing, sir, that you have more of the Eterran herbal."

"A month's worth, Mrs Sevier.  I don't know if that is enough to stop it or just keep it at bay.  You look well, though."  He offered her his arm and led her into a paneled sitting room. 

Two weeks of the herbal had gotten her on her feet again, but only another week's pills remained.  Endra had weathered enough politics to know Donal would want something for the second supply.  Selfless bureaucrats did not acquire wealth sufficient to buy a Mount Wren house. 

"The price, Governor Donal."

He acknowledged her insight and took a seat across from her.  His servants left, but Jim remained, a flagrant breach of slave propriety.  "A letter," he said.  "A letter to your husband that Piers Amhensen will deliver on Eterra.  You and I will compose it together."

"What game do you play, Governor?"

"It takes two months for letters to reach Eterra and two months for a reply, whether that reply is more herbals — or just a letter.  I would not call it a game, Mrs Sevier, not for you."

***

The erosion shield slid open to a copper star, with a blue-green speck off to the side.  "Two down, one to go," said the pilot. 

"Ugly star," said Anton Sevier. 

"Beautiful planet, though," said the pilot.  "Shame it's populated.  These Eterrans are the roughest citizens in the Empire.  Steal you blind; stick a knife in you given the chance."

"Well, let's not give them the chance.  Mellie, what's the schedule?"

His assistant pulled out her folder.  "Governor Brambach greets you, then the day off to get settled.  Tomorrow, Brambach babysits us for a tour of the Compound, then meetings with our various interests here."

"Brambach is Director Park's nephew," said Anton.  "Worthless."

Mellie laughed.  "So I understand.  He transmitted a personal note to you.  He says there are interesting things to do outside the Compound, and he can arrange . . ."

Anton had heard it before.  "I love my wife, Mellie.  I haven't hit on you all these years, and I'm not going to start with some alien babe."

"I don't think recreation is his intent, sir.  He knows this is a tour of Amphora's financial holdings, and the word 'interesting' is underlined."

The blue-green speck became a blue-green planet.  Anton Sevier went back to shower and dress.  He had so little time left with his wife, but Bryce Carmina still sent him out here to audit.  She was more important than making the Carminas rich, but he had signed his good name to a contract. 

***

The copper sun cast a moody atmosphere about Eterra that left Anton uneasy.  Not surprising the natives were so troublesome.  Beautiful planet, but brooding. 

His eighth day on Eterra.  He had lost interest in the audit tour, his only thought to return to Endra, to what was left of his life with her.  He had truly lost interest not long after he left Xi Ahn, but now not even his professionalism could make him feign it. 

The facilities tour around Eterra had uncovered nothing unforeseen.  The Eterrans were indeed stealing Amphora blind, but Theft was a line entry on both sides of this planet's ledger.  Amphora still made a profit. 

His accountants were in the Compound auditing records, preparing for the next day's departure and thirty-seven more days in space.  Travel to the planets was a serious undertaking.  Anton could not understand how the Empire maintained control over such painful distances, unless the Fleet had truly frightened the locals into docility.  Or – he thought of Brambach – Carmina had installed brilliant administrators. 

Brambach's management style wavered between 'Bribery & Graft' and 'Muddling Through,' both valid methods as long as they worked for a governor.  Eterra was giving Eslan Carmina fewer headaches now than it did under Crauley, so Carmina must have seen more potential in Brambach than anyone suspected was there. 

This last day for a side trip to Brambach's 'interesting' company, Rikardsen Pharmaceutical, though Anton wondered what could be interesting about a cosmetics company.  The owners, most likely little people looking for a foot in the door on Xi Ahn, had probably bribed the Governor to bring Anton. 

With her usual efficiency, Mellie had gathered a history on the owners, a father-daughter pair named Amhensen.  Anton ran through it while the governor's native petro-powered limo cruised along the highway and crested the last low rise.  Rikardsen's factory sat outside Bay City in a glade cleared from second growth woods, reverted farm land judging from the look of the surrounding trees.  Chainlink fences a few hundred yards on a side enclosed the factory and some modest cottages.  The cottages were in turn surrounded by gardens growing the secret ingredients that went into Rikardsen's big money- maker, Suplesse. 

Anton finished the dossier just as the limo pulled up to the main building, a two-story brick that looked as it was, the front of a factory.  Piers and Elinor Amhensen met them in the executive foyer. 

"I apologize, Piers.  We were running late today," said Brambach. 

"Not at all, Governor," said Elinor.  "We can do a factory tour after lunch, then.  Chef is ready, so if you would step into the dining room?  Nothing too exotically Eterran, Mr Sevier," she said, placing a hand on his arm as though she wished him to escort her, "just local critters and veggies."

Anton obliged her, appraising his hosts as they walked down the hallway.  Their speech was the pure, unaccented Xian of Illium-des-Ahns natives, a remarkable achievement in such a remote place, and an indication that they had prepared for his visit well in advance.  His inner voice whispered, these people want something. 

Piers Amhensen would blend unnoticed into any crowd, Eterran or Xian.  The few words they had exchanged so far revealed no charisma, no forcefulness, nothing at all exceptional about him.  And yet the man rated an apology from a Xian Planetary Governor. 

Amhensen's daughter Elinor, on the other hand, was unique.  A small, slight woman, she had a childlike quality about her figure.  Her face was pretty, but she had not the deep, enduring beauty that Endra had carried well past middle age.  Endra was born Old Royal and had the patrician looks and bearing of that breed.  The wasting ravage of leucholia dimmed only the looks. 

Mellie's dossier on the Amhensens had shown Anton that there was more to these two aliens than met the eye.  The father was a nobody in local real estate until the conquest, when he dropped out of sight.  He later resurfaced as an intermediary between Eterran and Xian interests, which Anton took to mean informer, and played a minor role in Governor Donal's well-reported hostage rescue. 

Born around the conquest year, his daughter Elinor had a troubled school record until ten, when her hidden brilliance bloomed.  She blew through the only allowed private college in record time.  Her father founded Rikardsen, but her financial genius turned it into a money machine.  An invisible money machine, for though it made hundreds of millions from Xian sales, no one on Xi Ahn had heard of it. 

That must be why Brambach underlined 'interesting' in his note.  Sucking Rikardsen into Amphora would bring a huge coup for Anton Sevier, and appropriate appreciation to Governor Brambach.  Not that it mattered anymore. 

"We were sorry to hear your wife has fallen ill, Mr Sevier.  Please accept our sympathy," said Amhensen. 

"Thank you, Mr Amhensen.  That fact is not widely known."  Anton glanced at Brambach, who shrugged innocence. 

***

The tollar fruit after lunch was an experience.  Even breathing as instructed, Anton's eyes still watered.  "It is an acquired taste," Elinor allowed. 

The factory tour was as dull to Anton as accounting was to everyone else.  Skin cream tinted pink and put into Suplesse jars.  Tinted aqua with a different scent, it went into Lifecream tubes.  Emollient gold, either way. 

Gold or not, Suplesse was far outdistanced by Elinor Amhensen.  Now that he had spoken with her, he judged her easily the most valuable property on Eterra, casually challenging his mind with incisive financial questions.  If only he could take her to Xi Ahn, Amphora would soon be bigger than Corporation.  The Carminas would never allow an alien near Amphora's books, though. 

Anton felt a flush coming on.  He stopped, then dropped to his knees. 

"Anton!" said Mellie, then caught herself.  "What is it, sir?"

"Dizzy," said Anton Sevier. 

***

Anton woke in bed, with the two Amhensens at his bedside.  Piers looked at his timepiece and held out his hand.  Elinor shook her head and gave her father a coin. 

"What happened?"

"Something you ate made you ill, Mr Sevier," said Elinor.  "This is our clinic, and you have been here a day and a half.  Mellie watched over you, but she finally went to bed.  You don't pay her enough, sir."

Anton had never been allergic to anything.  "Was it that tollar fruit?"

"Oh, no, Mr Sevier.  It was the drug we put in your wine," said Elinor. 

Kidnapped!  Anton Sevier knew he should never have left the Xian compound to come here.  Eterra had been notoriously dangerous for occupiers, and not all the kidnapping victims survived. 

"You can't hold me here," he said.  "Too many people know where I am."

"The days of kidnapping are past, sir.  You are free to go," said Piers Amhensen. 

"There is a fee, however," said Elinor Amhensen.  Here it comes, thought Anton.  "We gave you something, now we wish something in return.  We would like to gain a stake in Amphora.  A large stake.  I need to ask you about its structure.  I can figure the rest out myself, as I believe you realize."

Incredible nerve!  Anton pulled himself up against the pillows.  "You, an alien couple, think you can get into the Imperial family's pocket as partners?  You must be out of your minds.  And what have you given me that would be worth ruining my life?"

"Exactly that, Anton.  We have given you life," said Piers. 

"What?  You poison me, then pull me through?  That's saving my life?"

"We have given you immortality," said Piers and Elinor Amhensen together. 

***

"Here it is," said Wallace Park, plowing through the pages of his des-Ahns Financier.  "Anton Sevier is out touring Amphora's holdings on the planets.  If anyone can sniff out Rikardsen, he's the one.  Amhensen must have heard about the trip and gotten scared.  That's why he gave us a piece of Rikardsen."

"If Amphora buys Rikardsen," said his lawyer, "10 percent of the price is yours.  I told you the deal was too good to pass."

Park went to the window of his Altmark Tower offices.  Ninety floors below, the pigsty of modern Illium-des-Ahns seethed around the quiet beauty within the Old City's distant walls. 

"The Old Royals just wallow down there, taking in their rent money, sentencing the crooks and debtors to slavery, then selling the slaves.  A good life, Counselor, while up here we're scrambling just to earn a few pennies.  Worse — I just thought of this — everyone we drive into bankruptcy is more fodder for their slave courts. 

"Aaugh!  That thought is going to ruin my day."

"I'll give you another one, Wallace.  Anton Sevier is the one man smart enough to figure a way around your Rikardsen holdings, and if these Amhensens think they can outwit him, they're in for a surprise.  I can name a dozen Old Royals who tried it, and now they aren't living in Mount Wren anymore.  It was a dark day when he went back to Amphora and the Carminas."

***

When he recovered from his shock, Anton evaluated the Amhensens' claims.  Elinor looked the right age, but Piers didn't look quite forty.  He would be seventy or eighty.  But it did not matter. 

"An immortality drug.  Even if I believed that, you're still wasting your time.  I don't care about it.  I'm losing my wife, and my life is done when she dies, no matter how long I live.  I won't help you."

Elinor reached out to take his hand.  "I've admired your financial acumen for years, Anton.  Together, we could own this Empire right out from under the Carminas, you and I.  They would wake up one day and . . ."

Anton snatched his hand back.  "I'm in business with the Carminas, Miss Amhensen.  I deal squarely.  And I wouldn't deal with you two if my life depended on it."

Piers Amhensen pulled an envelope from his jacket and tossed it on the bed.  Anton saw his name in Endra's handwriting.  The two Eterrans rose and went to the door.  "Anton, your life does not depend on it."

***

Endra Sevier stared at the envelope in her slave's hand.  Weeks of life, real life, without the aching pain, the clawing sickness.  But only weeks. 

"How did he involve you, Jim?"

"Governor Donal heard I was Eterran.  He made some promises."

"What promises?"

"Freedom.  You sell me to him, then he grants my freedom."

"Sell you?"  Donal had no business bargaining with another family's slave, regardless of his position, or his herbals.  "You've been with us since childhood, Jim.  Why would we sell you?"  Jim said nothing, but his expression spoke eloquently.  She began to worry. 

"You trust him?  Look how he's blackmailing me."

Jim sat in a chair opposite her, another breach of slave propriety.  Endra had never seen him seated in her presence, and she found it unsettling. 

"Not a matter of trust, Mrs Sevier.  I already have the papers with his signature.  I just type in the date after you sell me.  And you will sell me to him; there is no doubt of that."  Jim pulled a pill from the envelope and held it up.  Endra's heart started racing at what might happen to it. 

"Yes," said Jim.  "Freedom for you, freedom for me.  A business deal, Governor Donal told me.  Value for value."

"Just put the pill back in the envelope, Jim.  Please."

"Of course."  Jim returned the day of life to its place.  "Value for value."

***

The secretary ushered Anton Sevier into Piers Amhensen's office.  Elinor sat on his desk, wearing the same stony expression that Piers had behind her.  Anton barely knew where to begin after reading the letter from his wife. 

"Cry yourself to sleep, Anton?" Elinor asked. 

He had indeed.  Anton choked on his words, so he nodded.  These people had given him a gift from heaven.  Only it wasn't a gift — they wanted something back. 

"So now you understand how it is," she said.  "I'd like you to spend some time here on Eterra.  You have so much to teach me."

He nodded again, then noticed the cartons sitting beside her.  "Is that, is that the herbal that Endra needs?"

"This?"  Elinor patted the boxes.  "Oh, no, just a case of Suplesse and a case of Lifecream.  She may have whichever she uses.  The other case is for Mellie.  You don't pay her enough, you know."

***

Mellie patted the case of Lifecream strapped into the seat next to her.  Keep a few dozen tubes for herself and sell the rest.  She would go to her grave wealthy and looking good. 

Mrs Sevier used Suplesse, but what she would do with a case was beyond guessing.  Anton had given Mellie a smaller package of pills, saying it would help Endra's condition.  Endra might not even be alive when the starship reached Xi Ahn. 

Mellie went to the side viewport.  The stars were scrunched up toward the front of the ship.  Strange.  Not as strange as the scene she left on Eterra. 

Elinor Amhensen was sweet on Anton, teenager sweet.  Obvious to Mellie, who had the same symptoms for decades, but Mellie had no idea what Elinor had done to get him to stay on Eterra.  It was so unlike Anton, giving in to infatuation.  He had fought not to go on the tour, and now he was staying several extra weeks. 

Anton's auditing team was in the Amphora starship writing reports, but Anton said he'd catch a later freighter for Xi Ahn.  He couldn't be having an affair, not with the way he felt about Endra.  Not with someone he'd just met. 

And not with Mellie. 

***

Anton's sessions with Elinor started with walks around the factory grounds while she asked questions.  Simple questions at first, then increasingly complex as the days went by.  His years of teaching night school helped him anticipate her, but she was unlike any student he ever had, far more intense than Mellie had been, far less satisfied with pat answers, far more insistent on knowing the 'why' of things rather than just the 'what.'  When she asked him to explain something, Elinor was not asking for a restatement, but an expedition into the esoteric depths of a subject. 

Elinor had no practical business experience beyond setting up Rikardsen, and she realized it.  She had no management skills, no people skills.  Awkward moments in their relationship flustered her: accidental touching of hands, eye contact that lasted too long.  She had grown up without siblings to learn from, and Anton found this weakness in her endearing. 

That seemed her only frailty, though.  She took no notes, yet nothing he said escaped her, disconcerting to a teacher when he finds himself confronted with conflicts in his testimony.  Elinor was making him think more deeply about his craft than he had in ages. 

In doing so, he thought less and less about Endra, which he attributed to her improving health.  This did not worry him especially, until he realized what he should have seen immediately.  Although Elinor's mind had reached dizzying capacity, her body was still childlike and so were her emotions.  Like so many students before her, she had a crush on her teacher. 

Elinor was monopolizing him, an unseasoned way to show affection, a poor way to obtain it in return.  Still, she had been there when a great burden was taken from his shoulders, and she had no need to remind him that she was responsible.  It should hardly have surprised him. 

Anton was developing an affection for his student. 

"Endra, Endra, Endra," he said to himself, directing his thoughts where they belonged. 

***

Anton left Elinor's office and trudged to the lift, a beaten man.  Over two weeks, she had pried every financial secret from him, every technique, every trick.  She was better than he was now, and he was better than anyone on Xi Ahn. 

Every flaw in Amphora's armor was apparent to her, even flaws that Anton had not recognized.  Her plan was good.  Three graces, her plan was unstoppable!  Amphora would be the Amhensen's property before the Carminas even knew they were under assault.  Eslan Carmina would even lose title to his own home.  All because Endra Sevier had leucholia. 

Piers Amhensen waited for him by the lift.  "Ellie says your work here is finished, Anton.  She really admires you, you know."

'Admires' wasn't the right word.  She had a crush, a simple high school crush on an older man, and Anton wasn't about to get involved in anything so dangerous.  A jilted girl with an intellect like Elinor Amhensen's could destroy a planet. 

"You two aren't human, Piers.  She emptied my mind after the first week; now I'm the student."

"She always had that knack, even as a little girl before she had the pr— "  Amhensen cut the word off. 

"Before she became immortal?  Is that what it does to you, optimizes your mind?"

The insight flustered Amhensen, if only for an instant.  "Stop by my office tomorrow," he said.  "We need to discuss immortality."

The lift arrived and Anton stepped in.  Amhensen caught his arm. 

"Something to think about tonight, Anton.  Those pills don't just slow the disease.  They will cure your wife."

***

Mellie slid the window panel back as the limo rolled down Anton's long drive.  Jim had answered the telephone when she called from the landing field, but he said only that Mrs Sevier would be waiting, nothing about her condition.  Still alive, at least. 

The Seviers' slave came bounding out and opened her door.  "Jim, how are you?  And how is Mrs Sevier?"

"I'm wonderful, Miss Mellie, and you'll have to see for yourself."

Mellie wondered, but Endra came out before they got to the door.  Even on her 'good' days, Endra never looked so well. 

"Mellie, welcome back!  Where is Anton?  He didn't go straight to the office, did he?"

"Uh, no, Endra.  He had to stay on Eterra for a couple weeks.  Said he'd be back on the next freighter."  Endra's face fell.  "But look at you!  What happened?"

"Doctors say I'm in remission," she said dejectedly.  "Anton stayed behind?"

Remission?  And she still thought only of Anton while Anton was out playing with his little alien babe.  Mellie gritted her teeth. 

"He wanted to leave, but he had things to do.  He sent this for you." She held out the package of pills. 

"Oh, more herbals.  The Amhensens have been sending these every month since right after you left Xi Ahn.  That's what stopped the disease."

"You know the Amhensens?"  Impossible!  Aliens were not allowed to travel, and Endra had never been off Xi Ahn. 

"No, they are friends of Governor Donal.  I have never met them."

Mellie continued to wonder, but things were connecting. 

"What's with Jim?" she asked.  "He's bouncing around like a teenager.  I thought Household's were fixed?"

"Oh, he's still tame — darn it," Endra smiled.  "Been tame since childhood.  He's working on a deal for freedom with Donal."

"My.  Shame to lose a good boy like him.  Does he know what he's getting into?"

"They all want it, Mellie.  But when you're marked 'Household' — they go out for a while, then they come back.  They learn being owned isn't so bad."

***

Mellie tried to connect the pieces on her way back to Illium-des-Ahns.  No one had heard of Rikardsen, but Rikardsen was sending Endra medicines months before the tour got to Eterra.  Donal was the former Lieutenant Governor of Eterra, and he was dangling freedom before the Seviers' slave. 

That short little minx out on Eterra might not be the only reason Anton was dallying. 

***

Anton Sevier stood before Piers Amhensen's desk.  A childhood portrait of Elinor adorned the wall behind it, and Elinor herself sat on a corner of the desk, radiant, dangerous, uncontrolled.  If he could get her to Xi Ahn, together they really could beat the Carminas.  But the threat of Xian slavery would keep her on Eterra, so he would leave on the freighter tomorrow and never see her again. 

Her scheme was too dangerous to get involved in.  Through surrogates, the Amhensens had built a network of little companies on Xi Ahn with interwoven ownership and obligations.  Each had some dealings with Corporation, each was designed to be attractive to Amphora. 

Under Xian accounting rules, an acquiring cartel assumed both the assets and liabilities of the captured company.  If Amphora acquired as few as three of the companies — and it had already swallowed one — the obligations would permeate into Amphora, encumbering all the Carmina family's assets. 

Elinor built the framework on her own.  His information merely helped her target every Amphora weak point.  No, even that was giving himself too much credit.  He had merely confirmed the few guesses she made about Amphora's structure.  It was poison bait for Amphora, and Anton Sevier would not help her carry it off. 

He was indebted to them for saving his wife, but breaking his prior commitments to the Carminas would violate principles that had made him the most respected financier on Xi Ahn. 

"I deal with many Xians, Anton.  Most are crooked," said Piers, "and I can see through them like glass.  Maybe that's why I have no idea what you will do when you return to the master planet."  Piers Amhensen placed a slender silverwood box on the desk next to Elinor.  "That's why we should discuss immortality."

Anton owed them a measure of honesty, though no more than he needed to get safely back to the Xian Compound.  "I'm not interested in immortality, Piers.  Elinor, I love my wife, and I would be lost without her.  I choose not to be lost for an eternity."

Elinor opened the flat box.  Blue velvet lining.  On the right side, three capsules and two glass ampules.  The same on the left, with one capsule missing. 

"We haven't given you immortality," said Elinor, touching the empty depression, "just started you on the path.  Take the path," Elinor touched the remaining four on the left, "and the box becomes yours.  To give to whomever you please."

They hadn't missed a bet.  Anton's plan collapsed with this glimpse of immortality for his wife.  He had grown old with her — wouldn't she love to grow young with him?

"You'll already see a hundred, Anton.  Long time without a friend.  I'll be here, though," Elinor said brightly. 

The inner voice that served him so well saw venomous undercurrents in this incredible offer, threads of a design beyond his understanding.  The inner voice spoke.  "No," Anton shook his head.  "You make me feel small, Elinor.  And you're evil.  Temptation on this scale can come only from evil."

Piers Amhensen rose from his chair.  "I don't know how to take that, Mr Sevier.  Any evil here is mine, not Elinor's.  You would have picked up our companies anyway.  No one at Amphora is sharp enough to unravel the web we wove, not even you.  The result would be the same, except you wouldn't have a wife when you got home from Eterra."

Amhensen snapped the box lid closed and opened a wall safe behind the portrait of Elinor.  He tossed the box in and slammed the door shut, spinning the dial.  "Elinor, take this Xian back to the Xian Compound," he said without turning to face Anton. 

***

Elinor had her hands in her lap.  The entire ride from Bay City, she had spoken barely a dozen words. 

Anton felt her silence.  "I'm sorry I said that, Elinor."

"You meant it, though."  Her head stayed down. 

"It's just that you've turned my life inside out.  My wife was dying, now she's cured.  You've tacked thirty years onto my life.  You want me to overthrow the man who founded the Empire.  You want me to turn a blind eye to a scheme that will destroy Amphora."

"Your eye was already blind, Anton.  How many times did I have to explain how it worked?"

"That isn't the point.  I'm obligated to Amphora."

"Amphora is a bunch of crooks trying to steal Corporation away from the shareholders, and you are helping them do it."  Her head came up.  "Eslan Carmina killed my mother, Anton.  I can't kill him, but I can cause him pain.  Don't get in my way.  You owe me that."  Her head went back down. 

The limousine topped the hill overlooking the Xian Compound.  Anton noted the triple gates were too angled for a fire engine to get through without stopping — the story of the toilet paper kidnapping had gone galactic after the old Governor's trial. 

"Will I ever see you again?" Elinor asked. 

"I don't know."  But he did know.  This was good-bye.  Forever. 

She took his hand and scooted around.  "When you get home, look into your wife's eyes.  Then think of me.  Think of these eyes, young eyes.  Your wife could have young eyes again.  Think of these lips."

Anton saw it coming, but her hands instantly grasped his and he could not stop her.  She kissed him fully on the lips, a passionate, inexperienced kiss.  Surprisingly, he had started to return it when she pulled back. 

He tried to wrest his hands from hers, but she had incredible strength.  She sat looking at him, stunned by what she had done.  Finally she released his hands and spun back into her seat, staring straight ahead. 

"Think of the silverwood box, Anton.  Think of eternity with someone who loves you.  You can't begin to imagine the power of immortality."

"You're smarter than I am," said Anton.  "You're stronger than I am.  You're the most intriguing woman I have ever met.  Elinor, I am already beginning to imagine it."

"I'll tell you something you haven't imagined."  Elinor scooted around again, her eyes aflame.  "We have another scheme already in motion, and you won't see it until it is over."

***

Mellie and Bryce went to the Tradeport with Endra to greet Anton, to their regret.  After six months apart, the inseparable pair were effusive in their reunion. 

"Revolting," said Bryce. 

"Stomach-turning," agreed Mellie. 

***

Three days later, Anton's debriefing got around to Rikardsen. 

"Suplesse is all they have, Bryce.  I'd recommend going after their distribution rights on Xi Ahn.  That's where the money is.  These other Corporation holdings on Eterra are really more trouble than they are worth, too, what with the thievery going on out there.  You might recommend easing out of Eterra to your dad.  There are better uses for his capital than that mud hole."

"Tell you a secret, Anton.  After three dud planets, the Board was ready to put Dad out on the street.  That mud hole turned the first big profit for the Empire and he loves it.  He'd get rid of Mom before Eterra."

"Well, we don't need to be investing in his mistresses, no offense."

"What's the ownership of Rikardsen?"

"Old guy and his spinster daughter.  They had to bribe Brambach to get us to go there."

"She very cute?" Bryce asked. 

"Reminds me of your mother," Anton answered, then laughed at Bryce. 

***

Bryce ran through the auditors' report of the planetary tour.  Accounting mumbo-jumbo, mostly.  Their report on Rikardsen was cheerier than Sevier's view.  Bryce telephoned an old high school pal who worked in Corporation Accounting, six floors above Amphora's offices. 

"Bud, Bryce Carmina.  Could you do me a favor?  There's a company out on one of Dad's planets I'm interested in.  Would you look over a report I have on it?  Thanks.  I'll send it up to you."

***

"Sorry it took so long to get back to you, Bryce, but when I found out this company made Suplesse, I dug a little on my own.  I always thought Suplesse was a Xian discovery."

"I appreciate the favor, Bud.  You think it would be worth going after distribution rights, then?"

"Distribution?  Hardly.  The company that sells Suplesse here pays Rikardsen 80 percent of its retail sales.  That's high even for the cosmetics business, but as good as Suplesse is, easily justified.  If you've got a chance to get hold of the source, by all means, do so.  Give me a chance to buy in, too."

"My in-house recommendation was to try for distribution."

"Waste of time.  Why take net of 20 percent when you can have gross of 80?  Whose bright idea is that?"

"Anton Sevier's," said Bryce. 

Bud pursed his lips.  "Anton Sevier?"  Bryce nodded.  "You've got Anton Sevier's opinion and you asked for mine?"  Bud looked at the report in his hands.  "I'm flattered, Bryce, but if Sevier thinks distribution, then that's what I think, too."

***

Bryce leafed through the latest income figures.  Anton Sevier had worked magic on the money side, and he was holding talks with Maritime Group about converting its Voting Shares.  Sevier had already gotten the Chairman up to 45 percent of the Voting stock.  Maritime would put him over 50, but Maritime was reluctant. 

Can't argue with success, yet Bryce still wondered what Anton Sevier knew about Rikardsen that kept him against a takeover. 

***

Anton's mail came across Mellie's desk.  One lavender envelope had an Eterra post-token.  She was over at the water cooler when Anton opened it. 

Through the glass walls of his office, she watched him tear it up and throw the shreds into his wastebasket.  Then he retrieved the pieces and went over them with a black inkmarker.  Then back in the trash. 

***

Every two weeks, another lavender letter from Eterra.  Mellie watched Anton when the letters came in.  He now blacked them out before he tore them up. 

***

Mellie crawled from the bathroom through the sea of confetti.  Her desk loomed ahead.  Anton and Eslan ambled past, slapping each other on the back.  This would be an office party to remember, if possible. 

Years ago, after old Edwin Landya died, the Board of Directors elected an unknown lawyer from Corporation Legal Department, Eslan Carmina, their new Chairman.  Landya's son was Corporation President and rightful heir to the Chairmanship.  A year later, he died, supposedly a suicide. 

Legal Department's revision of the Corporation charter made provisions in both Landyas' wills meaningless, so Legal had Treasury pay off the Landya family in cash and bonds.  Leadership fell to Eslan Carmina, for as long as he could hold it. 

Mellie made it to her desk.  A bottle of Apteran Sparkling White had about a glass left.  Mellie wrung the last drops into her paper cup. 

Eslan Carmina had the Chairmanship and Presidency, but he didn't have the money, and the Board still had the power.  He called upon a young Anton Sevier to help him steal Corporation away from the shareholders.  He didn't put it that way, because Anton would never have helped if he had. 

Mellie sipped her wine.  Anton set up Amphora Cartel as the Carmina family trust, a place to keep plundered assets out of harm's way.  He then came up with the scheme to put Eslan in absolute control of Corporation.  A Chairman who could never be replaced. 

The Corporation Board approved a second class of stock, the Dividend Share.  The Altmark Corporation for Trade and Commerce Dividend Shares (CACd's) would have no voting rights, but would pay one thousand times the Voting Share dividend.  CAC Dividend Shares were very desirable.  Amphora was appointed transfer agent for the stock. 

Corporation wasn't making any extra money, so that cut the Voting Share dividend to a thousandth of its value.  Amphora traded Voting stock for Dividend stock, one for one.  Corporation was selling its profits to buy back control. 

Eslan Carmina took his bonuses in cheap CACv Voting Shares, building his control, letting Amphora take care of building his wealth.  Mellie joined Amphora from university, where Anton had spotted her talent in a night class he was teaching.  Anton Sevier soon moved on to the other ventures that built his reputation, taking Mellie with him. 

Mellie tossed her empty cup across the room and began picking through the remains of the orderve tray on her desk.  Over in the corner, Endra Sevier sat on the floor with the Empress, two drunk old ladies in party dresses swapping lies about old boyfriends. 

Anton was married to Endra when Mellie met him.  He loved that woman more than life, and Endra loved him back.  If Mellie couldn't have him, she was glad that Endra did.  That little alien tart out on Eterra was still sending him love notes.  Anton had his fling.  That was the end of it.  No woman was worth a month each way of starship agony to visit. 

Anton had come back to Amphora when the Board and the shareholders figured out they were being lured away from power with their own money.  Eslan Carmina had 45 percent of CACv Voting stock, but he was stuck there.  Anton's financial genius kicked the Amphora operation into high gear, and the party tonight was the result. 

The Maritime Group had finally traded in its Voting Shares.  Eslan Augustus Carmina now controlled 51 percent of Altmark Corporation Voting Stock, the Chairman who could never be replaced. 

***

Anton Sevier was almost sober again when he collapsed into his sofa.  Endra was still looped, though.  Jim eased her over to the sofa. 

"You need any more help tonight, sir?" asked Jim. 

"Yoou don't have the kind of help I — need here, Jim," slurred Endra. 

Anton grinned as Jim huffed off to bed.  Alcohol made Endra somewhat blunt. 

It also put her in the mood.  "Do yoou still find me attractive?" she asked, sprawling against Anton's chest. 

"You're pretty cute for a girl."

"Girl.  I wish I was still that girl yoou married."  She snuggled up nose to nose.  "Look in, into my eyes.  What do yoou see?"

Anton looked into her eyes.  Old eyes.  He thought of Elinor.  He thought of Elinor's lips.  Cursed thoughts!

"I wish — I had young eyes again, Anton.  For yoou.  I wish we were young again, I whish we coould do it all — all over again.  Can yoou get me up the stairs?  I think I offended Jim.  I want to fool around.  I want yoou to try to talk me into it, like when I was a girl.  I love yoou so much.  So much."

"I love you too, Endra.  So much."

She started giggling again, like when she was a girl. 

"So very much," he said.  He knew what he had to do. 

Big Trouble

"Anton went on vacation, Mellie.  You're the boss."

"He did?"  Endra said nothing about it when Mellie called her over the weekend. 

The mail cart had already come through and dumped a pile on Anton's desk.  Mellie saw a lavender envelope in it.  Private letter from Eterra.  She had no business reading it. 

Mellie went through the mail, tossing most of it in the wastebasket.  One slipped between the wastebasket and the desk.  She bent to retrieve it, and saw lavender.  A months-old piece of a torn-up letter had missed the trash and gone under the desk.  Mellie read it. 

'. . .  s waiting for you.'

"I'll bet you are," said Mellie. 

Mellie ripped open the new love note.  Three company names that Mellie recognized as acquisition targets for Amphora, written in the same feminine hand on the same lavender paper.  At the bottom of the page, 'Eternity.'

What was going on?

***

"Hi, Pammy, this is Mellie.  How are the brats doing at university?  Great, great.  I'm looking for your mom and dad."

Mellie wrote the strange number down, Endra's sister in Altamiras.  Some vacation.  She rang again and got the overseas operator.  The eventual connection through the new undersea cable was passable. 

"Endra?  Mellie.  Mellie!  Hi.  How is your vacation?  Great.  Can I speak to Anton?  Oh?  When, then?  Oh.  Well, give him my love.  Have fun, you two.  'Bye."

Mellie replaced the handset.  Anton was not available.  Not going to be available.  "Operator, Tradeport Scheduling, please. 

"Hi, this Anton Sevier's assistant at Amphora.  What ships have gone to Eterra in the past two weeks?  Just one.  Would you send me the passenger list, with complete I.D. info?  Thank you.  Just send it to Amphora at Altmark Tower in Illium-des-Ahns.  Mark it 'Mellie' down in the corner.  M-E-double-L- I-E.  Thanks very much."

***

Mellie quickly checked the passenger list, then handed it to a secretary.  "Call each of these people; find out where they are."

Three hours later, "They're all off to Eterra, ma'am.  Except this one.  His son said he's in a nursing home, and they don't expect . . ."

"That's fine.  Thanks."

A retired Corporation accountant confined in a nursing home was enroute to Eterra.  Probably going to take inventory of a young alien lady's assets.  Mellie slammed her top drawer home.  Endra didn't deserve what he was doing.  Thirty-seven days each way, and the girl was only average pretty!  Anton, why?

***

Mellie skimmed the run-down sheets on each of the three 'lavender' target companies.  Nothing on the surface looked suspicious.  She pulled the sheets on every acquisition Amphora made since Anton took over.  Still nothing suspicious, except one noteworthy name caught her eye.  The Dunrite Laundry Company was founded by Gregor Donal, the man whom Carmina promoted to Lieutenant Governor out on Eterra after he risked his life to save a family kidnapped by Eterran terrorists.  A 'Hero of the Empire,' said the newspapers.  And the man who supplied Endra the herbal pills. 

Mellie went through the three lavender companies line by line.  All owned by anonymous cartels, but the cartel owning a specialty printing firm had Donal listed as its principal.  Deeper checking.  The lawyer handling the Dunrite acquisition paperwork for Gregor Donal was principal for a second lavender cartel. 

It could all be coincidence. 

***

Bryce Carmina contemplated his mystery.  An unsigned letter in a feminine hand lay on his desk.  One word, 'Dunrite,' and a drawing of a magnifying glass. 

Dunrite Laundry Company held the commercial contract for Altmark Tower.  All the towels and service uniforms.  Bryce flipped through his card file until he found its address, then he went to the window and counted streets until he saw two ugly lavender service vehicles parked outside what must have been their storefront.  Seven blocks away. 

Amphora purchased Dunrite after Anton Sevier came back to get Amphora moving again. 

***

Bryce had another mystery letter.  Three names this time, with a magnifying glass drawn beside them, companies with Corporation contracts, little companies on Amphora's target list for acquisition. 

Bryce made a telephone call.  "Do you have any auditors free?  I need a sharp one who can do some checking for me.  Quietly."

***

"Unusual, Mr Carmina, coming to us.  Half the lawyers in Illium-des-Ahns work for Corporation.  Couldn't they do this for you?" asked Elliot Cale, Illium's shrewdest lawyer. 

"Yes," said Bryce.  "They could.  I could have asked an in-house auditor to compile this folder, too."

"I see.  Your out-house auditor found some coincidental connections between these companies, and he wondered about legal liabilities.  We'll run these by our experts . . ."

"I don't want them 'run by' anybody.  These connections are buried, unfulfilled second-tier contracts that left a top auditor perplexed.  I want you to beat these things to death.  Anything at all suspicious, any name that comes up twice.  I want you to use a magnifying glass."

***

"It's been two weeks since we notified Amphora to cease acquisitions, Elliot, and you haven't found the way out yet?"

Elliot Cale presided over a conference table strewn with charts and open law books.  "There is no way out.  There are no flaws.  There are no precedents to use.  A scheme with this scope and complexity has to have flaws, but there are none.  It's breathtaking."

"Bryce Carmina must have supernatural powers to have spotted this, Elliot.  There's more to that boy than anyone has given him credit for."

"I've never been afraid of any legal tangle," said Cale.  "But this, this is dangerous.  We cannot let it get into the courts.  We have to take the hit and run away."

***

The lawyers began setting up charts and 'visual aids' in Bryce's office. 

"Trying to pad my bill here, Counselor?" laughed Bryce. 

"This stuff is free.  You've run up the biggest legal bill I've ever seen, and I'll be richer than your father when you pay it."  Elliot Cale leaned over Bryce's desk.  "Dunrite is going to cost a ton to straighten out, too, but you'll be kissing my shoes, because you almost lost Amphora."

Bryce leapt to his feet.  "I What ??"

"Your auditor didn't spot half of what went on.  We've got two hours of details, but here's the outline. 

"Gregor Donal was Lieutenant Governor of Eterra after the conquest.  When he retired from Eterra to Mount Wren, he set up Dunrite and the other firms on your list, but he sold them off to some anonymous cartels that quickly resold them.  He's not involved at all now, so we can't touch him. 

"Donal's money came from Eterra.  The scheme may have, too.  Anyway, Dunrite has these second-tier contracts with suppliers and unions and such that all look innocent, but you were sharp to make us dig, Mr Carmina. 

"Underneath everything, the pieces form a single, interlocking contract with unlimited liability.  If you picked up any two of those other companies, you'd trigger cross-linked ownership and compensatory clauses beyond anything I've ever seen, and that isn't the worst of it.  Any owner of any cross-linked company can call on half the assets of any other owner for any reason, and you can bet you're the only owner who has any assets worth dink.  Unless you picked up all the companies, whoever owned the remaining company would own half of Amphora's assets.  Your family would have a partner, Mr Carmina, and we can't find who it is."

Bryce went to his bar and decanted a piquant Apteran varietal.  He downed it in one swallow.  "You say I can get rid of Dunrite?"

"I'm saying you have to get rid of Dunrite!  It'll run you ten times what you paid just to discharge the obligations."  Cale set his first chart on the easel, a seriously incestuous family tree of companies.  "Pull up a chair, Bryce, and send out for popcorn.  You're going to get quite a show."

***

Cale's accountant pulled the last vertiginous balance sheet off the easel, then resumed his seat.  Bryce's mind reeled at the complexity of the scheme.  It would have taken ten years to unravel its way through court and would have tied up all Amphora assets the entire time.  Then whoever the other party was would own half of Amphora.  Period.  Only the Corporation Voting Shares weren't involved, because Bryce's father held those in his own name as Chairman and Emperor. 

"Scary, huh?" said Elliot Cale.  "Whoever put this together is smarter than I am, Mr Carmina, and that's nobody I know of.  I like the part where your dad's house could go up for auction.  That was diabolical, something the Old Royals would try if they had the brains."

"And you don't know who is behind this."

"There's this unclear Eterran connection, so we looked at Donal, the ex- Eterran Governor, but they don't teach finance at the Military Academy.  You have to be bright to get in there, but bright is not the word for the author of this scheme.  The only possibility is Anton Sevier.  He — maybe — could put this together, but he's your employee.  If he were the one, the court would toss everything out and throw him in jail, so he must be innocent.  These companies met the criteria you set up, so anyone running Amphora would be looking at them.  Where is Anton, by the way?"

"He went on vacation when Dad hit 51 percent."

"It's a long shot, Bryce, but where?"

***

Bryce held his head in his hands.  Mellie sat by his desk, crying.  Elliot Cale sat across from him, scribbling away on a legal pad. 

Anton was on Eterra. 

It just did not make any sense.  Anton Sevier setting up an incredible scheme he could not possibly benefit from?  Anton Sevier playing with another woman?  Anton Sevier doing anything on the sly?

"Thank you, Mellie," said Bryce.  "You're blameless here, and the Carmina family owes you a great debt for helping us find Anton."  She sniffled.  "I just wonder if Endra really knows why he went to Eterra." Mellie started bawling again. 

"You going to tell the Chairman, Bryce?" asked Cale. 

"No, I'd like to remain in the Carmina family a little longer.  I'd be in worse trouble than Anton if my dad found out."  Mellie wailed.  "Elliot, why don't you take Mellie home?  I'm getting a headache."

***

The first injection was uneventful.  The ten-hour wait was nerve- wracking, but the second injection was also uneventful. 

"I didn't think anything would happen," said Piers.  "A little temperature rise, maybe.  Over the next couple years, your temperature may drop by two degrees.  That's normal for immortality."  Piers closed the silverwood box and placed it in the wall safe.  "First injection makes you smarter.  The second makes it permanent.  Makes you permanent, too."

"What about the last capsule?" asked Anton. 

"Tidies up some loose ends after things settle down.  In a month or two," said Elinor.  "No hurry with it."

"I can do it after I get back, I guess, when I start Endra on the path."

"No," said Elinor. 

Anton's eyes went wide.  "What ??"

"The box stays here on Eterra," she said. 

Anton leapt up.  "You said the box was mine!  You said I could give it to Endra!"

"The box is yours, Anton.  You may share immortality with anyone you wish, as long as you share it on Eterra.  Immortals may leave Eterra, but the secret stays here."

***

Anton smoldered inside.  They should have given him the box. 

The Corporation freighter soared into space from the Xian compound, then set the fold vector for Xi Ahn.  Anton watched the orange sun through the viewport, then the gentle nudge of the Fold.  The ugly orange sphere disappeared, replaced by a faraway yellow-white one. 

"Beginning acceleration," said the pilot.  They had crossed the galaxy in the blink of an eye.  Now they would cross a few light-weeks in a month and a quarter. 

Anton could not fight the Amhensens.  They held every card, and as priceless as immortality was, he knew they were right to hold their secret close.  He would retire on Xi Ahn, then he and Endra would go on a honeymoon to Eterra, the roughest planet in the Empire. 

***

Anton stepped off the freighter into the waiting arms of Corporation Security. 

"Anton Sevier?"

"Yes?"

"Ever heard of Dunrite, sir?"  They put him in handcuffs. 

***

"I spotted a few odd things in your recent acquisitions, Anton, so I had Mr Cale examine them," said Bryce.  "You've put us in a bind and we're going to take a big hit, but we'd be dead if I hadn't caught on to your scheme.  You're going to jail, Anton.  Pity, too, now that your wife is recovering."

"Conspiring with aliens is a criminal offense," said Elliot Cale.  "The Old Royal judges would love to get their hands on a high Corporation type, especially one who's put more than a few of their 'cousins' out on the street.  Slavery for sure.  You own a slave, don't you?"

Anton Sevier was facing an eternity of slavery.  Endra getting immortality would make no difference to her without Anton.  "I want a lawyer."

"You cut me to the quick, Mr Sevier," said Cale.  "The most expensive legal advice in Illium says you're doomed, yet you want a second opinion."

***

The Corporation Registrar of Shares affixed his seal to the three signed letters and put one in his folder. 

"Altmark Corporation lets Amphora use these offices as a courtesy to your father, Bryce.  I don't know what this is about, but if I hear you've been up to no good, I'll come down here myself and throw you out."

He snapped the folder closed and left for the sanctity of Corporation Registry, many floors above. 

"Everything Anton Sevier has done since coming to Amphora has been at my direction.  Signed, Bryce Carmina and dated today."  Elliot Cale gave a copy to Anton's lawyer.  "That should muddy the legal waters sufficiently.  Now, Anton, tell us a story."

"I think Bryce would like to hear this in private," said Anton. 

***

Immortality. 

The thought overwhelmed Bryce Carmina.  On a distant planet, a set of eternity pills had his name inscribed.  And not just living forever, great strength and freedom from disease.  And a mind that could concoct a scheme like the one the Amhensens cranked up to steal Amphora. 

The takeover would have to happen fast.  That was a given.  Allowing the Amhensens time to react would be fatal. 

Only one way, and it was cheap, too. 

***

"I've never heard of Rikardsen, Bryce," said Eslan Carmina. 

"They make Suplesse and Lifecream on Eterra.  You know what Mom spends for that stuff.  She says you sneak some of it, too."

"Suplesse?"  The old Emperor sank back in thought.  "This'll be a clean snatch?  You know how much commotion it causes when there's a catch."

"Dad, nobody's ever heard of it, but that place is a gold mine.  Owned by some old Eterran guy and his daughter.  If they raise a fuss, just hold another public execution."

"Oh, no, no, nooo!  Eterra is the last place you'd ever want to do that again.  You're too young to remember, but those folks turn murderous when you rouse them."  Eslan took his pen and signed Bryce's confiscation order.  "Get this down to a family judge, then send your people out to Eterra.  I don't want the supply of Suplesse interrupted.  You tell them that."

***

Stupid.  Really stupid.  Elliot Cale had done some stupid things in his life, but stepping aboard a starship freighter topped them all. 

He watched the stars sweep forward then halt.  The engine lights went from green to amber to blue.  Eighteen days out, and still another eighteen days to go.  He should have sent his minions on this task, but meeting the mind that put the Amphora takeover scheme together was far too enticing. 

Cale left the nav station and made his way through the cavernous hold to the library to grab yet another book.  The whole ship had the aroma of old laundry, dusty rice, and something that made him think of cake.  Even with everyone taking daily showers, it would smell like a locker room by the time they reached Eterra.  How Eslan Carmina held his Empire together over these mind-numbing distances, Cale couldn't guess. 

And he couldn't guess what Sevier had told Bryce, either.  Cale had grown rich on his ability to read people, and whatever Sevier's story was, it was consuming the young Amphora boss.  That was the really frustrating part of this job, uncovering the depths of the plot and then getting booted from the office just as Sevier was about to reveal the secret.  An infernal mystery novel with the last two pages ripped out. 

Only the promise of dealing with Piers Amhensen kept Cale going.  It had been a long time since he sparred with anyone on Xi Ahn who could match him, but with every unfolding layer of the Amphora scheme, Cale was certain he'd found his intellectual equal.  Amhensen had put together a machination that Cale could barely understand, and he had put it together on a planet forty thousand light years remote from himself. 

Almost a shame to steal the man's company with a simple confiscation. 

***

Eterra.  After thirty-seven days of starship confinement, Cale and his team burst onto the concrete apron.  The sun hung mid-afternoon, but the color was sunset.  It was dimmer, too, definitely dimmer, but it felt just as warm on his cheek as Xi Ahn's sun.  The ship's gravity had risen during the journey, so Cale was now accustomed to the alien planet's heavier pull.  Everything else around the landing pad could have been Xi Ahn. 

No welcoming delegation, just an old omnibus of native design.  "You folks for the Compound hotel, or you got someplace to go?"  The driver's accent said native Eterran. 

"Didn't the Governor know we were coming?" asked one of the accountants. 

"Didn't mention it over tea yesterday," shrugged the grizzled old driver.  "Where to?"

Wise guy.  "Hotel," said Cale. 

The team loaded the luggage while the driver watched.  No tip, thought Cale. 

***

"No, I usually don't greet starships, Mr Cale.  I had my fill of starships when I came to Eterra," said Governor Brambach, an opinion Cale now shared.  "So I won't ask if your journey was pleasant.  I haven't seen anything from the Imperium about you, so I assume your business here is of a private nature."

Brambach looked familiar, but Cale couldn't place him.  Probably one of the Carmina sycophants he had seen hanging around Altmark Tower.  "We represent Amphora Cartel, and indirectly, the Imperium.  We are here to effect a confiscation."

"Nothing of mine, I hope," said Brambach with a smile.  "I am a Corporation shareholder, you know."

"A cosmetics company, Governor, Rikardsen Pharmaceutical.  They make skin cream."  Cale caught a trace of surprise in the Governor's face. 

"I know them."  Brambach slid his chair back from the desk.  "Trying to get a piece of the action, sir?  Or are you just trying to secure a free supply of Suplesse?  You don't look your age at all."

Where did he know Brambach from?  The Governor obviously remembered Cale from somewhere.  "Amphora is interested in managing Rikardsen.  Private arrangements between planets, while not forbidden, counter the Imperium's philosophy on planetary trade."

"They have a small factory on the outskirts of Bay City," said Brambach.  "You plan to go out in the morning?  We don't recommend driving at night around here.  People have run off the road."

Cale had heard that particular story.  "In the morning, then.  You have a driver who knows the way?"

"We can get you there in the ramp omnibus.  The telephone directory has all the numbers you'll need.  Feel free to use the Compound facilities."

The Governor rose to indicate the meeting was over.  Cale extended his hand, but the Governor didn't take it.  He merely smiled again and said, "Good evening, Mr Cale."

Where did he know Brambach from?

***

Governor Brambach stared after the departing delegation.  His secretary came in and asked if he needed anything.  He shook his head and she closed the door.  A smile crossed his lips, then he broke out laughing.  This was just too scrumptious.  Elliot Cale had forgotten him. 

That would not be the case when Cale eventually left Eterra. 

Brambach dialed a telephone number.  "Piers, Brambach here.  Guess what?"

***

Piers Amhensen's secretary ushered Elliot Cale and the Amphora lawyers and accountants into the office.  Cale looked around.  Amhensen sat behind a large desk, a childhood portrait of probably his daughter on the wall behind him, but she was not in the room.  Governor Brambach sat off to the side with two marshals from the Xian compound.  Considerate of the Governor to make certain things went smoothly. 

"Governor.  Mr Amhensen, I am Elliot Cale.  My associates and I represent Amphora, a registered cartel of Xi Ahn, and designated representative of Altmark Corporation for Trade and Commerce in this matter.  We hereby confiscate Rikardsen Pharmaceutical.  You are directed to leave the property.  Here is the confiscation order."

The Illium court constable placed the document on Amhensen's desk.  Amhensen did not look at it, a gesture of cool defiance Cale found encouraging.  The man might yet make the lawyer's journey worthwhile. 

"By what authority, Mr Cale?" asked Amhensen. 

Amhensen's opening was formal, but did he have the legal background to make anything of it?  Whether the Eterran had any training or not, the outcome was certain.  Corporation wanted Rikardsen, and out here, Corporation was law.  "That order is signed by the Emperor and authorized by a court magistrate of Illium-des-Ahns, sir."

"And what do you purport to do with Rikardsen?"

Good.  Amhensen wished to play Cale's game, but it was Cale's game.  He sensed confidence in the voice, possibly an artifact of the too-soft gutturals of the alien-accented Xian, but the man's face was an open book.  A deliberate but poor attempt to hide his feelings: quiet resentment with a touch of what? — hatred?  — exactly the crippling attitude Cale liked to deal with on the witness stand.  Give the man a little slack, let him struggle, let him think he had a chance, then slam him. 

"I purport, sir, to take possession of your company, and operate it as a part of Amphora."

"Does that fill the squares, Governor?" asked Amhensen. 

"I believe it does," said Governor Brambach.  "Boys, they're yours."

The Xian marshals pulled out a bag of handcuffs and arrested the entire stunned delegation.  Cale stood slack-jawed looking down at the stainless steel shackles on his wrists.  Impossible.  Amhensen could not possibly have bought a Xian Planetary Governor!

"That signature is an obvious forgery," said Brambach.  "Among Rikardsen's shareholders are the Xuan Group, Wallace Park, and the current Governor of Eterra.  That's me, Mr Cale."

"Director Wallace Park?" gulped Cale. 

"The Emperor would never sign a confiscation order on a Director's property, Mr Cale, and it is unlawful to confiscate the property of any shareholder without consent from the Board of Directors.  The Amhensens own a hundred Corporation shares, Counselor.  Guess where you're going."

The marshals dragged the Amphora delegation from the office and out to the patrol wagon. 

***

"That went well," observed Elinor from the window in her office.  The marshals outside were having difficulty persuading the lawyers to enter the patrol wagon.  "You say you know that one lawyer?"

"Elliot Cale was on the faculty board that threw me out of law school," said Brambach.  Outside, a lawyer began arguing with one marshal, the one with a nightstick.  "Oh, ouch!  That must have hurt."

"Yes, but now the others are hopping right in," said Elinor. 

"I was thinking," said Piers, "that your jail might be crowded if you also threw in the accountants.  Perhaps they should return to Xi Ahn, get these lawyers some competent legal help."

"My thoughts exactly, Piers."

"Starship takes two months each way," said Elinor.  "That's a long time to spend in jail."

"Yes," said the Governor.  "It is."

***

"I always wondered what it was like to languish in jail, Elliot," said the lawyer with a bandage over his nightsticked ear.  "Now we have at least four months to find out.  Thank you."

All his lawyers' eyes were on him.  Elliot Cale was going to spend the rest of his life languishing in jail, because when he got back to Xi Ahn, he was going to strangle Bryce Carmina.  No, they'd never convict him.  It would be justifiable homicide. 

"Thirty-seven days imprisoned in that miserable starship, one day off — one day, Elliot — and now we're in jail for forgery.  Worse, when they get word from Xi Ahn confirming that really is Carmina's signature, they'll also get a list of Corporation shareholders.  If Amhensen's name is on that list, they'll keep us in jail for trying to confiscate a shareholder's property."

"That's no crime," said Cale, hoping he was right.  Why hadn't he checked?  How could he possibly have thought the author of the Dunrite scheme wouldn't have protected himself?

"No crime in Illium-des-Ahns, Elliot, but this backwater planet is forty thousand light years from civilization.  Brambach decides what a crime is out here, and I can't imagine what we've done to antagonize him."

Elliot Cale could.  In fact, he could now remember the exact words he used at the expulsion hearing to tell a young Brambach that he was a blight on society and would never amount to anything. 

"Brambach works for Corporation, and at the moment, so do we," Cale said. 

"That's never gonna happen again."

"You're right about that," muttered Cale.  "They'll have to take us back to Xi Ahn."

"You never checked to see if Brambach was a Rikardsen shareholder?  Or Wallace Park?  If Park has a chunk of that company, the Chairman will probably deny he ever heard of us."

Wallace Park.  Cale shook his head.  At least that meant Bryce Carmina was in worse trouble than his lawyers. 

***

Bryce shook his head at the constable.  "Say that again?"

"They threw your lawyers in jail.  Would have thrown me in, too, but they said they needed me to deliver the messages."

"What messages?"

"One to the Xuan Group Director, ones to Director Park and Governor Donal over in Mount Wren.  And one to you.  I rode over here with Director Park."

"Director Wallace Park?"  Bryce felt the blood draining from his brain. 

Bryce's intercom spoke up.  "Mr Carmina?  The Chairman's secretary called.  She says he wants you in his office right now.  She says he sounds angry."

***

Bryce went through the double doors.  Big brother Gus was off to the side, looking lost.  The Xuan Group Director and Governor Donal stood next to Director Wallace Park, all looking incensed. 

The Chairman rose from his chair behind the big desk. 

"YOU IDIOT !!"

***

As it usually did, word reached the workmen long before it got to lower management, and they unhappily began extracting pallets they had just loaded into the starship cargo bay. 

"Destination change, boss," said the forklift driver.  "Ship's going to Aptera instead of Eterra."

"Aptera?  Why?"

"Nothing's going to Eterra.  Carmina's ordered a complete halt to voyages out there and reassigned the next two months of freighters."

"Some kind of disease or something?"

"Don't think so, or why's he letting in all the ships that come from there?  I heard a rumor it has to do with the stock market, some company on Eterra that everyone wants a piece of."

"Must be some kind of company if Carmina's willing to lose two months of trade," said the supervisor.  "Maybe we ought to invest."

"Some alien company way out in the boondocks?  Not if I live to be eighty."

***

The Xuan Group Director rehooked the telephone handpiece and settled uncomfortably back in his chair.  His man at the Tradeport confirmed that Corporation had embargoed Eterra.  A blind move by Carmina, a hunch. 

An absolutely correct hunch, curse the man.  Xuan now had no way of keeping the Amhensens informed of how badly things were going.  The Dunrite ploy made a few million on its own, but it was only a small part of a scheme that would have cut Xuan Group and the Amhensens in on half of the Carminas' fabulous Amphora fortune. 

That was not going to happen now.  The Amhensens' Amphora scheme was as dead as the Kings of Illium, and only because someone had exposed it — but who?  Besides the Xuan Group Director, the only Xians who knew were Gregor Donal and Anton Sevier.  Donal had too much to gain, and Sevier owed the Amhensens for his wife's life.  He was too honorable to break that kind of debt, and certainly no one on Sevier's staff knew about the scheme. 

The Xuan Group Director put the question aside.  Instead of owning half of Amphora, Amhensen was now going to lose his own company, and with Carmina's embargo, Xuan had no way to warn him.  Xuan had a large stake in Rikardsen, so the only thing to do was to maximize the share price before selling out.  Without the Amhensens in the loop, everyone was on his own. 

The publicity from this mess would also put an end to Piers Amhensen's secret involvement in Xuan Group.  The Suplesse inventor's name was now known to all Xi Ahn, and for the moment, Xuan was merely his 'representative.'  But the inevitable scrutiny of further dealings might well turn up Xuan's unlawful partnership with the alien.  He would be the richest man on Eterra — criminy, he was already the richest man on Eterra — but stuck there, no longer a player on the master planet. 

Too bad.  The Xuan Director always sensed that Amhensen had something big planned for Xi Ahn, and it would have been interesting to find out what. 

Oh, well — no sense worrying about what might have been for somebody else when your own wallet is on the line.  The Director unhooked the telephone handpiece and gave the operator Wallace Park's private number. 

***

The word on Rikardsen was out.  The consumer groups that did product testing felt like dolts for proclaiming Lifecream worked 11 percent better than Suplesse.  The price for Lifecream didn't drop, though. 

The Eterran firm was in play.  Governor Donal dribbled his shares out, giving the markets something to work with, and the share price rocketed.  The Amhensens apparently owned less than 50 percent of Rikardsen, so when Xuan Group indicated a willingness to sell its shares, takeover fever struck. 

Bryce worked his accountants overtime to see how much cash Amphora could pull together for an offer.  They quickly replied the cartel could bid half again the current market price for 51 percent of Rikardsen without any borrowing.  The smart thing, they said, would be to offer a 30 percent premium over the market price, enough to scare off competition.  Getting into an auction for Rikardsen would drive the price sky high. 

"As best we can discover, sir, more than half of Rikardsen's shares are held here on Xi Ahn.  Xuan Group has the most, with Wallace Park and Governor Donal next.  Brambach has some, but he should be no problem because he works for your dad."

"Donal's shares have been feeding the market, so he'll sell what he has left," said Bryce.  "That leaves Xuan and Park.  Dad says the Eterran embargo is costing him money and making the Board uneasy, so we have to get this done in a hurry."

"We have the money, Mr Carmina, so we'll put the offer to Xuan Group and Director Park tonight.  I'll tell our traders to quit buying on the stock exchange immediately.  That should cause a sustainable price drop, enough to nudge them into accepting our offer.  If it doesn't, we start selling the shares we already have.  In a speculative market like this, sir, that could cause a selling panic."

"After the bottom drops out, Xuan, Park, and Donal come begging to accept our offer," said Bryce.  "Once we pick the remaining shares off the floor, Rikardsen is ours."

More than Rikardsen — all eternity would be Bryce's. 

He swivelled his chair around to the window-wall behind him.  Seven blocks away, down in the filth and mud of Illium-des-Ahns, a little laundry company scrubbed away.  He knew where it was, Dunrite, the now-defused time bomb that started him on the road to immortality. 

"I like it," he said.  "Set things up tonight.  We're going to turn the stock market inside out in the morning."

"Yes, sir."  The aide snapped about and hurried from Bryce's office. 

"I like it, yes indeed I do," Bryce murmured.  By now, Amhensen might suspect that the embargo had something to do with Rikardsen, so Bryce would have to be on that first ship returning to Eterra to beat the news getting to the man.  A grin stretched itself unbidden across his face.  Amhensen would come to work and find a silverwood box sitting on his desk and the Emperor's son sitting in his chair.  The Eterran was brilliant beyond measure, but he and his potion were about to be swallowed by Bryce Carmina. 

Bryce rose and went to the bar in the corner of his office.  He decanted a mild Apteran and toasted the young man smiling back in the mirror.  The Amhensens had placed a few pathetic hurdles in his way, but no aliens could stand up to the full weight of Amphora.  Everything was falling into place, almost as though it were intended that he should become immortal. 

***

Bryce came into the office early, expecting to find his men grinning and the stock exchange in an uproar as Amphora played its little gambit.  The market was indeed in an uproar, but Bryce saw no grins. 

"Now what?"

"Rikardsen quadrupled overnight, and it's still climbing!"

"What ??"

"Wallace Park turned our 51 percent offer down flat.  He won't sell unless you offer to buy all Rikardsen shares, including the Amhensens'.  But it's worse than that."

"Xuan turned us down, too?" asked Bryce, incredulous. 

"No, that would have been a blessing.  Xuan Group made a buy offer of their own.  Way above ours, still nowhere near the opening price today.  Everyone sees a bidding war starting, but even that isn't the real reason."

Bryce's heart roiled in fear.  They could not have discovered the secret. 

"The rumor is that Rikardsen's got an immortality potion.  They say Amhensen looks forty, but he must be near eighty.  The accountants over at Cale's law firm confirmed it before they hung up on me.  I called Anton Sevier, but he said to ask you about it."

Bryce flushed red.  The secret was out.  Now it was going to cost real money to get those pills. 

"We need an answer here, Bryce.  Is that why you're so hung up on Rikardsen?  We need to either get in deep, or pull out now.  If that rumor's true, I'd sell my children to buy Rikardsen."

"It's true."  Bryce went to the window and stared down at the Old City, so peaceful, so calm, so rich.  "Sell your children, Frank.  We're betting everything on Rikardsen."

***

"Convince me," said Gus. 

"Wallace Park's hair is dark again," said Bryce.  "So is Anton Sevier's, and Sevier looks a whole lot better than he did before we sent him to Eterra.  Amhensen gave him the formula.  Everyone who's seen Amhensen says he looks forty years too young."

"Dark hair comes in a bottle, little brother.  And Sevier looks better because his wife beat leucholia.  If she'd died, I don't think he would have lived a year."

"Nobody beats leucholia, Gus.  She beat it after he came back from Eterra.  Does that tell you anything?"

Gus said nothing, but his head turned and his eyes rolled back. 

"Right.  They can cure leucholia, too."

***

Bryce had the accountants working overtime again, this time to see how much Amphora was worth.  It had been accumulating assets for longer than Bryce had been alive and it had a lot, far more than Xuan Group could muster.  The way Rikardsen stock price was going, Bryce would have to mortgage every bit. 

Xuan Group soon dropped out of the bidding for Rikardsen, overwhelmed by the soaring cost and Amphora's deep pockets.  That didn't help Amphora, though.  It was now bidding against the entire populace of Xi Ahn. 

It did not matter.  Bryce would pay whatever it took to win. 

The Silverwood Box

A star glowed in the spot where Xi Ahn was supposed to be.  Why starships glowed was a mystery to the Eterrans.  It may have been the engines, but they didn't glow during departure or landing. 

"I don't think it's a freighter," said Elinor.  "The color is too blue."

"Maybe they've painted it a different color.  Another ten days and we'll know, Ellie.  The She-Ons in the Compound need a freighter.  No telling what they've been using for toilet paper."

"They'll never run out of paper, Piers.  Not while they've got those jailed Xian lawyers to generate it."

***

The Distant Star sank through the night and settled on the Xian compound landing pad, one day ahead of Piers Amhensen's prediction.  The new Imperial starship was mostly engine and the fastest ship in the galaxy, and the first ship to reach Eterra for four months.  The Emperor had cut off commerce with Eterra when the bidding war began for Rikardsen. 

Bryce Carmina led his army of auditors, detectives, chemists, and management majors down the floodlit ramp to the waiting auto-cars.  After thirty-three days stuck in that stinking steel tank they called a starship, he was ready to breathe real air and go for a walk, but he had something to do first. 

While Eterra slept, the vehicles negotiated the angled gates and sped off into the darkness.  Bay City lay ahead at the end of the road, and the end of the road lay ahead for Piers Amhensen. 

***

The gate guard waved him to stop.  Piers opened the window. 

"The She-Ons are here, sir.  They say they own us."

A day too early.  Piers sat thinking. 

Elinor leaned over.  "Did they have any identification?  Did you recognize the Heir?"

"Only knew the She-On Compound Administrator, Miss Amhensen.  One auto had someone who could have been the Imperial Heir or his brother.  He looked a little like those photographs you gave us, but I'm not sure."

"We can't take the chance, Piers."

"You're right, Ellie.  Would you drive Miss Amhensen home?" Piers asked the guard. 

"Of course, sir.  Good luck in there."

"Thanks.  Ellie, I'll call when I can."

Piers left his briefcase in the auto and walked to the building, thinking about the wall safe behind Elinor's portrait.  When he entered, the staff looked to him anxiously. 

"It's Bryce Carmina, sir, the Heir's brother," said the receptionist. 

"The Governor with them?"

She shook her head. 

***

Bryce lounged back in Amhensen's chair, just as he imagined he would.  Amhensen entered the office, and he really did look only forty.  Bryce caught the man's quick glance up at the portrait before grinning Xians surrounded him. 

"Administrator," Amhensen nodded.  "You other gentlemen are trespassing.  Please leave."  Only Bryce's interpreter moved, unneeded with an Eterran whose Xian sounded perfect.  "I had the Governor throw the last bunch in jail."

"Not this time," said Bryce.  "Governor Brambach has been retired to Mount Wren.  And you, sir, have also just retired."

"A plurality doesn't do it, Mr Carmina."  Amhensen smiled thinly.  "It takes a majority to gain control of Rikardsen.  Now get out of my office."

"We found out what you were doing with Anton Sevier," said one of Bryce's lawyers. 

Amhensen's smile dropped immediately and Bryce spotted a second glance at the portrait. 

"We dumped the one poison company we had, and we know what to look for in any new acquisitions.  Mr Sevier became very helpful when he thought about prison," said Bryce.  "He also pointed out everyone with Rikardsen shares.  Brambach sold out to us last night.  You knew Xuan Group and Wallace Park might sell, but you didn't think Gregor Donal would sell you out.  His were the first shares on the market."

Amhensen's mouth dropped open. 

"Check for you, sir."  Bryce slid the bank draft across the desk.  "That should make your mouth drop open, too."  Amhensen's mouth snapped closed. 

"Strictly business, Mr Amhensen.  You're getting a tremendous amount of money for Rikardsen."

Piers Amhensen gazed blankly around the room, then stared at the check.  He looked as though he'd just lost a child. 

"Gentlemen, if you please?" said Bryce.  "Mr Amhensen would like some privacy while he packs up his desk."  The Xians filed out into the hall.  All but Bryce. 

"Thank you, Mr Carmina.  I, I," Amhensen sounded stunned as it finally hit him that his incredible scheme had backfired.  "I would like some privacy to pack a few personal things.  If you please, sir?"

"Amhensen, you tried to take over Amphora.  A clever scheme for an Eterran, but you're dealing with Xians.  We saw right through it, and now you're losing your own company instead.  These are the big leagues, sir, and you just aren't ready to play. 

"Sorry, Mr Amhensen.  I stay."

Amhensen stared at him.  Bryce stood and went to the portrait of Amhensen's daughter.  He bumped the frame and swung it open, revealing the wall safe. 

"The combination, please?"

"No!"  Amhensen shook his head violently.  "You didn't buy that!"

"Oh, but I did.  You think I'd risk everything in Amphora for less than immortality?  I've mortgaged the whole cartel, my friend.  Everything.  I couldn't make it up in two lifetimes, but in three or four I'll own the galaxy."

"You're crazy.  There's no such thing as immortality.  That's just something I told Anton Sevier to get his cooperation."

"You haven't seen Anton lately.  The years are dropping away, Amhensen.  And how old are you?  Eighty?"

Amhensen looked ready to blow up.  "You'll regret this, Xian!"

Bryce broke out laughing.  "You lose the company you founded, and that's the best you can come up with?"  He laughed again.  "'You'll regret this, Xian?'  That is so trite!"

Amhensen snatched his check and stormed to the door.  He turned around and pointed at Bryce.  "Now it's personal!"  Bryce guffawed.  "And I'm sixty- eight!"  He slammed the door behind him. 

Bryce dabbed at his tears.  "Heh, heh.  Oh my, oh my," he sniffed.  "Ahh, leave 'em laughing."

***

"Let me see, let me see!" bounced Elinor. 

Piers held out the bank draft. 

"Pay to Piers Amhensen and Elinor Amhensen," she read, then got to the amount.  She had never seen eleven digits on a check.  "Oooooh, that must have been some bidding war.  Well, hoo-ray.  You could buy a planet with this."

"If only we could, Ellie.  If only we could."

***

Well, it went almost exactly as Bryce had imagined.  He forced a grim smile as a forklift positioned the safe in the hundred-ninety-ton hydraulic press.  They destroyed Amhensen's office trying to get the wall safe free.  It had a thousand broken drill bits sticking in it, and skid marks everywhere from demolished grinding wheels.  A cutting torch would have opened the safe, but Bryce was taking no chances with the contents.  Hydraulic motors whirred to life as the industrial press leaned on one corner, springing the door. 

"Just needed the right tool," he said, looking inside.  The silverwood box waited.  Bryce reached in.  Immortality felt silky smooth to his touch. 

***

Bryce woke a day and a half later in the Xian clinic.  Immortality started with a headache. 

"How do you feel, sir?  You had us worried."

Bryce broke out laughing. 

***

Workmen were still restoring Amhensen's office from the safe fiasco, so Bryce moved into the daughter's suite.  The chief chemist had no good news for him. 

"We're all competent scientists, but Piers Amhensen came up with the ideas.  He'd send us in this direction or that and we'd do the work, but he's the brains behind Research Department.  Or he was, anyway."

"What about the founder?  I understand there is a Doctor Rikardsen, something of a whiz at biology.  Could we get him back?"

"Mr Amhensen is the founder.  There was a Doctor Rikardsen, but you killed him."

"I what?"

"Several decades ago he was sitting where one of your warships was aiming.  The company is named in his honor."

"Oh."  So much for that thought.  "You have anything on the shelf?"

"Some new chelation processes for damaged cell proteins."

"What's that?"

"Scrubbing sludge from your cells.  Chelation usually means removing heavy metals from your body, but we've developed . . ."

"Any money in it?"

"Not really.  Mr Amhensen was mostly interested in basic research.  We have a couple cosmetics projects going, but nothing like Suplesse/Lifecream."

Bryce sighed.  Not much chance of hiring back a man he'd made staggeringly wealthy and then insulted.  As good as Suplesse was, it wouldn't come near paying the interest on the amount he'd borrowed to buy Rikardsen.  He unlocked the drawer and pulled out the silverwood box. 

"Anyone recognize these?"

"Injection ampules.  What's in them?"

"That's the question.  Could you analyze them?"

The head chemist held one up to the light.  "Clear liquid.  Nothing in suspension."  He gave the ampule back to Bryce.  "If it's a straight compound, sure.  Might be a complex organic mix, though.  We'd need three or four times that amount, and duplicating it might not be feasible."

"Could they analyze it on Xi Ahn?"

The whole group broke out laughing.  "They couldn't even figure out Suplesse and Lifecream are the same product!"  More laughter. 

Bryce closed his eyes.  A classic dilemma. 

Immortality was a sure bet if he took the injections.  So was bankruptcy and a one-way visit to the Old Royal slave courts. 

On the other hand, if he gave the ampules to the chemists, he would be either rich and immortal, or broke and temporary.  A choice of that nature could give a man ulcers. 

"Curse you, Piers Amhensen," he said of the man who correctly predicted he'd regret this. 

***

Bryce Carmina stepped aboard the Distant Star a ruined man.  He had mortgaged his family's entire fortune to get immortality for himself, and now he might spend eternity as a slave.  How could he face Gus?  He considered stepping through the airlock into space once they got going. 

What had he told Gus?  He ran up to the control cabin.  "We're staying another day.  I forgot something."

***

"Leucholia."  The chemists shook their heads.  "The blood disease.  Blood cells out of control?"

"Oh, that.  We have another name for it, Mr Carmina, but we seldom see it.  It isn't much of a problem."

"Well, it is for someone who has it," said Bryce.  The chemists just shrugged again.  "What do you do for it?"

The head chemist took him to the window.  "Those weeds out along the fence row?  Make tea from the leaves.  Takes a few months to cure it."

Bryce gaped out at the weeds. 

"Can't make any money curing a disease no one gets, sir.  The weeds grow everywhere, and the tea itself is quite popular."

Bryce laughed and pummeled the window glass.  He howled. 

Saved!

***

Gus met the Distant Star's arrival.

"Where's Elliot Cale?"

"Cale?  Was I supposed to bring him back?"

Gus thumped his forehead with his palm.  "Rikardsen stock price is down 20 percent," changing to a more pleasant topic.  "We had to sell off a chunk to meet expenses.  How does it look out there?"

"Thin, but do-able," said Bryce.  "They only have Suplesse/Lifecream.  We need to bump the stock price up, then reduce our holding to about 60 percent.  I know how to do it."

"The immortality potion?"

"Amhensen took it with him, if it exists."

The words hit Gus like a high-speed brick.  "But . . .", the word trailed off into nothingness.  "We mortgaged every, we . . ."  Gus' head shook side to side in denial.  "Everything.  We lose everything," without the immortality potion. 

"Look, you don't want Dad getting something like that anyway, do you?  Eterra does have the leucholia cure, but it's a roadside weed everyone knows about, not Rikardsen's.  Here's what we do."

***

Piers and Elinor glowered across at the bank president, considerably less happy than when they first entered his office with their check.  There was a snag. 

"Three snags, actually, folks.  The first is the amount of the check.  It's significantly more than my bank is worth, and the interest I would owe you would clean out my working reserves in no time.  Banks make their interest payments by lending out deposits, but not even governments ever borrow this large a sum, and if they did, they'd do it by issuing bonds. 

"Second, it's in She-On Credits.  That makes currency conversion problems for me.  The She-Ons' National Bank of Illium runs branches in the compounds, but this is out of their league, too.  And you aren't She-On, which means you can't get an account with them so they could take the check and lay it off on their main bank in Illium-des-Ahns."

"We have accounts on She-On," said Elinor.  "We could send the check to them."

The president sadly shook his head 'no.'  "A minor point that you seldom run into.  This draft is made out 'Pay to Piers Amhensen and Elinor Amhensen.'  It should have said 'Pay to the Order of . . . '"

"So they made a mistake and left a word out," said Elinor.  "It still says to pay us.  They can't get around that."

"No mistake, Miss Amhensen, and no, they can't get around it, but neither can you.  'Pay to the Order of' means the bank sends the money wherever you order it to, such as your account here.  'Pay to' means they have to give the money to you — both of you at one time, and in person.  The check is drawn on Illium Commerce Bank, which has no branch on Eterra.  You both have to go to Illium-des-Ahns and present this check to them to get your money."

"But it's slavery for Eterrans who go to She-On," said Piers. 

"Why, so it is," said the president.  "As I said, they didn't make a mistake.  You'll have to send to She-On and get the check redrawn."

Elinor was doing a slow burn.  "The float," she muttered. 

"Exactly," said the banker. 

"What's that?" asked Piers. 

"The interest that they earn and we don't for each day a draft doesn't get deposited," said Elinor.  "Interest on this amount runs high six figures a day.  And it's a four month round trip if they get the check cut right away, which they won't.  Count on losing another month."

The bank president wistfully turned the check over and over in his hands.  "I've never seen a check this large in my life, and I could have gone to my grave happy if I'd been able to deposit it for you."  He reluctantly returned the check to Elinor.  "The guys that pulled this trick are definitely pro's, folks.  A cheap trick, but very expensive.  I just don't see any way they aren't going to nail you.  Wish I could help."

Piers turned to Elinor.  "Well?"

"I'm thinking, I'm thinking," she said. 

***

The President of Illium Commerce Bank was in a fix again; he just didn't know it yet.  The Xuan Group Director, acting as the Amhensens' agent, had just presented him with the cheap trick check.  The day he cut it, he knew he'd see it again. 

"I can't accept it the way it's made out.  Amphora had it specifically drawn this way for Bryce Carmina to deliver on Eterra.  Your recourse here is to ask them to redraw it, or take them to court if they won't.  It isn't the way I'd do business, but I'm required to follow their . . ."

"They obviously made a mistake, forgetting the Amhensens cannot come to Xi Ahn.  The money is sitting in Amphora's account.  You recut a corrected check and do a paper transfer to this Xuan Group account and back-date the interest to the date of the original check."

"I really can't."

"Then be kind enough to take care of this withdrawal slip for me," the Director said coldly. 

The president looked at the amount and knew he was in trouble.  Xuan Group had 38 percent of Rikardsen, less than the Amhensens' 40 percent, but its take was much larger than the Amhensens' because Corporation had seized the customary 30 percent bite from the check that went to Eterra.  Xuan left its own Amphora payment on deposit with Commerce Bank, and now it wanted to withdraw it.  Fifteen thousand million Credits in cash. 

"You'll notice this, too, is not a 'Pay to the Order of' slip.  I'll have auto-trucks come by in an hour, and you can begin loading gold from your vault."

"The whole amount?  But we don't have that much gold or cash, or even liquid instruments," the president pleaded.  Bank operations would be in crisis for months, if the bank even survived such a huge withdrawal. 

"Or we could leave the money with you, and you could cut the check the way Amphora really meant to cut it.  They really would want you to correct their mistake, wouldn't they?"

Unhappy Amphora or insolvent bank — easy choice.  "Yes, I'm sure you're right," said the president, unhooking the telephone handpiece.  "Send the Accounting VP up here, and have him bring Legal with him."

He turned back to the Xuan Group Director.  "I can't understand it.  Amphora's been our customer for a long time.  It really isn't like them to make such an error."

***

Preston Tyrell, founder and publisher of the des-Ahns Financier, began reading the press release from Amphora, the Carmina family vacuum cleaner.  Amphora decided it 'inappropriate' to have so much of its holdings off Xi Ahn.  It was going to sell another 30 percent of Rikardsen 'to let the Xian people share in the profits.'  As Tyrell suspected, they paid far too much for Rikardsen. 

He chuckled.  Young Bryce wasn't nearly as smart as he pretended.  That became obvious when they put Anton Sevier out to pasture during the bidding war.  The chuckle stopped when Tyrell read the second page. 

Rikardsen claimed a cure for leucholia. 

Leucholia.  The 'claw,' the one disease that struck from nowhere and could drag a death out for years.  It respected neither rich nor poor, doctor nor medicine.  Just the very word sent shudders through Tyrell.  He resumed reading. 

The Rikardsen stock sale would happen after the clinical trials.  Half a year.  That meant they were totally confident in the cure, and every Xian would be watching the trials.  Combined with the Suplesse profits, it also meant break-even for Amphora, even with the ridiculous price they paid. 

Maybe young Bryce was as smart as he pretended.  Eslan Carmina astounded the business world when he took over Xi Ahn's largest company at twenty-seven.  Bryce Carmina's leadership of Amphora could eclipse his father. 

If it confirmed the rumored immortality potion before the Rikardsen stock sale, Amphora would be worth more than Altmark Corporation itself. 

***

Elinor read the article in the old des-Ahns Financier.  "Amphora's selling a stake in Rikardsen," she said.  "Their leucholia trials are going splendidly and the rumor persists about an immortality drug."

"Immortality?  Some people will believe anything," said Piers. 

"Think we should invest?"

"An alien company way out in the boondocks?  Not if I live to be a hundred."

***

The twin ampules continued to haunt Bryce.  He had taken the second capsule and noticed nothing.  The ampules would do it.  Inject the first, then wait ten hours to build strength for the second ampule.  Not just a longer life. 

Immortality.

The power to outlast your competitors, to outlive your enemies, to buy and own forever.  Piers Amhensen knew the secret, and somewhere, maybe centuries in the future, they would duel again.  Even as dangerous as the Eterran inventor was, this round had still gone to Bryce Carmina. 

Amhensen would also be building his wealth, building his power, but when that final confrontation came, it would be with Emperor Bryce Carmina. 

Or perhaps Bryce would save himself the worry and have Amhensen murdered.  That spinster daughter of his, too.  Surprising, the thoughts that came into a mind contemplating immortality.  What thoughts would he have when his mind reached Amhensen's level?

The immediate thought that popped into his mind was that murder was a poor way to treat a man who had given him the ultimate gift, however grudgingly. 

So it was.  He'd make certain old Piers had a magnificent headstone. 

Bryce chuckled to himself.  The rumor was out that he had already taken the immortality potion.  His father and Gus suspected that he had.  Mid- twenties — not a bad way to look for all eternity. 

"Clinic please."  He stroked the wooden container with a finger.  "This is Bryce Carmina.  Would you send a nurse up to my apartments?  No, nothing serious.  Thanks."

Something very serious.  Bryce replaced the handpiece and stared at the silverwood box of immortality.  He reached out again to touch it's silky smoothness.  This was it, man's eternal dream, sitting on his desk.  He could see nothing else. 

***

The overwhelming surge of Immortality knocked him to his knees, but Bryce stubbornly held conscious.  This was not an experience he would miss. 

The nurse eyed him suspiciously, ready to ring the clinic should he falter, but he knew her hand would never reach the telephone.  Everything around had slowed for him, the seconds of the clock, the flicker of her eyelids, the beats of his heart.  Even across the room, he could snatch the handpiece away before she even thought to reach for it. 

Veils lifted within his brain.  Amhensen had more than a brilliant mind working for him.  He had this ability, this secret power, accelerated thought, and Bryce never suspected it existed until the first injection ripped his mind from its shackles.  Three graces, with a mind like this, Amhensen could have ruled the galaxy had he been Xian. 

And Bryce had still beaten the man. 

His breathing came more easily as the injection's impact wore thin.  His mind slowed, but it felt clearer, cleaner, perhaps the first inklings of brilliance creeping in along its fringes. 

"Mr Carmina, you're sure you don't want me to call downstairs?  I've never seen . . ."

He could think circles around her with this new mind.  He could think circles around Elliot Cale and Anton Sevier.  No, not Sevier.  Sevier had the same injection.  Someone else with Bryce's abilities was dangerous.  Sevier would die with the Amhensens. 

Bryce changed thoughts in mid-thought, and marveled at how effortless it was.  This mind was a land of wonders.  He explored it, poked it, prodded it.  He found a knob off to the right, a bump that felt like it meant something, so he pushed it.  Her voice stretched.  The clock's sweep hand slowed.  Accelerated thought had returned at the press of a button!  Bryce could control the most powerful mind in the galaxy. 

He already controlled Amphora.  He would eventually control Gus and Corporation.  Bryce Carmina must inevitably become Emperor in his own right, immortal ruler of the galaxy. 

"— your kind of reaction to an inoculation before."

"Just a sniffle I caught out on Eterra.  They said this injection, then another in nine and three-quarter hours," he didn't even need to look at the clock, "would cure it."  Bryce better appreciated the ten hour rest between injections while the brilliance built.  He could happily spend the time just exploring.  "I won't need you to stay."

He rose so rapidly that he startled her, then he staggered and planted himself back on the sofa.  His muscles weren't up to his mind's speed yet, but that too would change. 

"I'll give you another hour, sir.  Just to make sure."

No point in arguing.  Bryce nodded and sank back.  The second injection would make his gains permanent.  It would make him master of the galaxy, and it waited for him within the silverwood box. 

***

"You have my promise.  Yes.  Thank you, Endra."  Preston Tyrell replaced the handpiece.  He hated researching rumors.  This time he had to promise to make Anton Sevier a hero in any more stories the des-Ahns Financier published on the Rikardsen affair. 

This was more than a rumor, though.  Dunrite, the little laundry company that Amphora dumped after they fired Anton Sevier, had gone into the herbal tea business.  It was importing an herbal from Eterra, and had started growing its own overseas in Regia and Altamiras in case Corporation decided to cut its supply.  Two-month stocks had been sent to every leucholia patient left out of the Rikardsen drug trials.  Including Endra Sevier. 

"What's Rikardsen doing now?" he shouted across the room. 

"Per share's down a bunch, chief, and still sliding."

Endra Sevier confirmed that the tea tasted just like the herbal capsules that cured her. 

***

"Really bad news, sir.  The tests show that your kidneys have failed.  Some massive shock has stopped them cold, and there isn't much we can do about it."

Bryce Carmina closed his eyes.  The second injection had burned like fire through his entire body.  Anton Sevier hadn't felt a thing with either injection. 

"I'm sorry," said his doctor.  "The kidneys filter waste products from the blood, and without them working, it's like being slowly poisoned.  Other organs start failing because of it, and it just gets worse.  We can do blood transfusions, but the poisons eventually catch up with you.  I must be frank, sir.  This is not a pleasant way to go."

"I'm looking at death."

"Xian medicine has no way to prevent it."

That ultimate confrontation with Amhensen had come centuries sooner than Bryce expected. 

Piers Amhensen had switched ampules. 

A Message from Eterra

"Thought you might like to see this."  The Corporation Director from Xuan Group offered a lavender envelope to Preston Tyrell.  "That game Amphora was playing with the immortality potion is playing out.  I doubt the rumor of Bryce Carmina taking it is enough to keep it going."

"Nope," said Tyrell, unfolding the letter.  It was from Elinor Amhensen.  "This is the daughter of the Rikardsen guy?"

"Yes."

"Bryce is dying," said Tyrell.  "Word leaked out from Corporation Clinic — kidney failure.  That immortality potion must have nailed his kidneys.  It'll drive a nail in Rikardsen's stock price before the day is out."  Tyrell began reading.  "And a nail in Amphora's coffin, too."

The Director leaned on a corner of Tyrell's desk.  "Then there isn't any immortality formula, Preston.  You can print that now.  You have the proof in your hands."

Preston Tyrell read the letter through.  Piers Amhensen, the man who founded Rikardsen, the man who invented the eternity potion, had died of old age at seventy. 

***

A weary man slid the grave marker from his wheelbarrow.  It scraped across the metal edge and thumped into the grass.  He took his shovel and began digging a hole for it. 

"That's awfully soft stone, Miss Amhensen, and you paid extra to get it.  Do you mind my asking why?"  The caretaker of Bay City's Memorial Cemetery offered her his handkerchief. 

"I can afford it," she said, taking it. 

He assumed she misunderstood his question. 

The workman tipped the headstone upright.  Its shallow letters would not long withstand the elements, making the marker as illegible as the other stones in this ancient section of the cemetery. 

"People don't need to know who is buried in this grave, sir.  A hundred years from now, they won't."

***

After the des-Ahns Financier article, a threat of criminal penalties coerced the release of Bryce Carmina's medical prognosis prior to the Rikardsen stock offering.  Amphora tried to postpone the offering, but a lawsuit from a company that had pre-subscribed for ten shares of Rikardsen at the exorbitant initial 'offer' price forced the sale to go on.  The company was Dunrite Laundry. 

Two people who had taken the supposed immortality potion were dead or dying, and the miracle leucholia cure was now available on the grocer's tea shelf.  Rikardsen had nothing left but Suplesse.  The opening bids on the Illium Exchange reflected the fact, then plummeted when the supply of buyers ran out. 

Amphora's representatives suffered through the day watching their future evaporate, then set the lawyers to work to see how much of the fiasco they could blame on Bryce Carmina. 

The Old Royal slave courts would want a name when the Amphora bankruptcy case came before them. 

***

The Rikardsen Pharmaceutical sale was a disaster.  Amphora's underwriters took a bath, but Amphora was wiped out.  It still had 50 percent of Suplesse/Lifecream, but a hundred percent would not meet the next interest payment. 

National Bank of Illium led the creditors group in insisting the bankruptcy court appoint an overseer to secure Amphora's records.  Illium Commerce Bank, both a creditor and Amphora's banker, endured the same indignity.  Its president resigned, only to be quickly hired as an advisor to an Old Royal bank owned by the Smithson family. 

The release of the records revealed a tale of avarice four decades long.  Secrecy laws required names to be blanked, but no doubt remained about the identity of the cartel owner.  Early illegalities were unpunishable, beyond the law of limitations, but not beyond the realm of public censure.  Except for the unlawful transfer of Corporation subsidiary companies to Amphora's books by the unnamed sons of the unnamed owner — which had already been settled in the courtroom of Joel Smithson — no recent activities were truly illegal.  Just oh-so-shady. 

The des-Ahns-Financier had a wonderful time. 

***

Eslan Carmina, First Emperor of the Known Planets, glared across his desk at Eslan Augustus 'Gus' Carmina, Jr, Heir to the Imperium.  He should have been glaring at Bryce, but Bryce was dividing his remaining time between hospital and church.  Bryce's focus had turned to eternal life of a different sort. 

"Your mother and I are going to lose our home, Gus!  We'll buy it back, but all Xi Ahn is going to see the Chairman's house go up in a bankruptcy sale.  Do you know what that's going to do to the Corporation image?  And to your mother?  You can bet the Old Royals will be there bidding up the price.  They know I can't let them have it."

"But Dad, at least you still have all the Corporation shares.  We . . ."

"I gave you Amphora!  How could you screw that up?  I told you to look after your brother!  How could you let him run off to that stinking Eterra and get himself poisoned?  How?"

"But Dad, you pulled me out of Amphora and gave it to Bryce . . ."

"I don't want to hear your lame excuses . . ."

The secretary excused herself and closed the double doors behind her.  The Chairman/Emperor would not require notes of the meeting. 

***

"More tea, Preston?"

"Yes, please, Endra.  This really isn't too bad for an herbal."

Endra Sevier topped him off and went to sit on the sofa beside Anton. 

"That's quite a story" said Tyrell.  "We'll have our legal go over it with your solicitors to weed out the kinks, but this will still set Corporation on its ear.  I hate to grease the way for the Old Royals, but that's what the Carminas have done.  Might be good to have the Royals owe me a favor."

"Yes," said Anton.  "You could end up in their courts after Corporation bankrupts your newspaper."

"I don't think it will.  Corporation will appreciate all the things we leave out of the story.  Oh, some news.  Xuan Group has made a purchase offer for all Rikardsen shares on behalf of Elinor Amhensen.  Twice the street price, but the whole tab should run her barely a hundredth of what Amphora paid for her 40 percent.  She won't have any trouble.  Obvious why she wants it — sentimental value."

Anton nodded.  "Sweet girl.  Might make up some for losing her father."

***

After Preston Tyrell left for Illium-des-Ahns, Anton walked with his wife back into the gardens overlooking the Ahn river. 

"Elinor doesn't want Rikardsen for any sentimental reason," he said. 

"What do you mean, dear?"

"She told me they had another scheme going beside the one she used me in, and I wouldn't see it until it was over.  She was wrong.  It isn't over, and I already see it. 

"When Amphora bought Rikardsen, they registered it as a Xian company.  Aliens can't buy a Xian company, but the bankruptcy court will force Amphora to accept Elinor's offer, making the law moot and giving her a solid foothold on Xi Ahn.  The woman has incredible foresight, Endra, unnatural foresight.  She designed that company with her father, and there's no telling what she's built into it. 

"Eslan Carmina killed her mother in the conquest and she hates him for that.  Now she's killed his son and driven him into bankruptcy court.  She never intended the scheme involving me to work."

"But you said it was flawless, Anton."

"It was flawless.  We would never have seen the traps they set.  I was betrayed to Amphora by the only person who could see them — Elinor Amhensen."

"You thought it was Mellie."

"And I can't forgive myself for that, even if Mellie does.  No, the Amhensens didn't need me on Eterra at all.  They just wanted to lure Bryce or Gus within reach.  And they got Bryce but good."

Anton wrapped his arms around Endra from behind and held her to him, her love all the more precious for its near loss.  In his youth, he sought change, he had driven change, but now change was the tool of others.  Endra was his fortress, his refuge from the terrors of change that swirled about him. 

Across the Ahn river, the Old City had its own fortress walls to protect the ancient quarter from the seething commerce that had transformed Illium-des-Ahns into a cesspool around it.  A cesspool from which rose the twelve hundred shining feet of Altmark Tower. 

"She wants Carmina dead, Endra.  Just killing his son won't be enough for her."

"Elinor is far away on Eterra, dear.  Eslan hasn't survived this long by being careless."

***

Bryce Carmina's silver casket shone brightly amid the sea of black at the cathedral.  Two heads of state attended, ostensibly in town for global trade talks, but solid testimony to the growing power of Corporation and Eslan Carmina.  The assembly rose in respect as officers of the Imperial Fleet shouldered the casket from the catafalque and marched in slow lockstep from the chancel. 

The Chairman's tears were shed in private, and as he stood next to his shattered wife and remaining son, his anger burned deep.  The man who had given the galaxy to the world had lost his son and his fortune, and he could not touch the alien woman who had taken them both. 

She was a Corporation shareholder. 

***

The Old Royals were mostly haunting the cemetery, judging interment more sincere than eulogy. 

Anton and Endra waited at the cemetery among the Royals.  Baron Coan pushed his way over to them.  "Anton, what are you doing out here?  I thought you might be a pallbearer.  Endra, nice to see you again," he said, kissing her hand. 

"Well, Seth, it's nice to be seen again," she said.  "Especially when I get my hand kissed.  We, actually, were dis-invited from the cathedral service."

"I'm in serious disfavor among the Carminas," Anton said, looking out over the crowd.  "They didn't want — they didn. . ."

"Anton?  What is it?  You look as though you'd seen a ghost," said Coan. 

"Uh," Anton shook his head, "I, uh, no.  No.  Must be that eternity potion I took out on Eterra."

Baron Coan laughed at the joke.  "I hope not.  We don't want you dying the way young Carmina did."  He laughed again.  "What a fairy tale that potion turned out to be.  They're talking about banning that kind of research, afraid we'll all turn into senile old fools without the sense to die off.  That, or some kind of freak."

"Who's talking that way?"

"Illium National Council, for one.  Inheritance taxes on you non-Royals pay a lot of government bills, and the first folks to go permanent will be the ones with the most money.  Think about it, my possibly permanent friend.  Governments get touchy about threats to their income."

"Never happen."

"Immortality, or a ban on it?"

"Both."

"Would be nice to have the option, though.  And you, sir, time will find you out."  Coan stood on tiptoe.  "Here comes the cortege.  Well, I'm off to toast its passage with my cousins.  Endra, I am delighted Anton went to Eterra and saved you with that herbal tea.  Losing only one Carmina seems hardly a fair trade."

"Seth, you're terrible," Endra said as he kissed her hand again. 

When he was out of sight in the crowd, Endra snapped around to Anton.  "You do look like you've seen a ghost."

"Before the day is out, we're going to get a visitor."  Anton's face hardened.  "An Eterran visitor."

***

The limo hadn't yet reached the mansion when Emery came running out.  He said something to the chauffeur, then came to the back windows. 

"What is it, Emery?"

The Apteran slave caught his breath.  "You are invited to Governor Donal's immediately, sir.  He has a guest.  That is all I know."

"Thank you, Emery."  Anton turned to Endra.  "As I said."

"Ummph, man of mystery," she sniffed. 

Five minutes later, Jim opened their door beneath Governor Donal's porte-cochere. 

"Jim!  You're here now?  I thought the Donals freed you?"

"They did, Mrs Sevier.  Freedom just wasn't what I expected.  Besides, I'm marked as a Household slave.  This is what I know, so now I do it for a salary."  He led them up the steps.  Gregor and Karin Donal waited within. 

Donal pointed down the foyer hallway.  "Out in the garden.  You didn't come here to see us."

"Thanks, Gregor."  Anton offered Endra his arm, and together they went to the back portico. 

She stood beneath a willow, a small, slight woman.  Endra dropped Anton's arm and ran out to her.  They spoke a few words, then Endra gave an intense hug to the woman who saved her from leucholia. 

Anton remained on the portico, his mind churning as the two women turned and walked hand-in-hand back to the mansion.  Elinor was right and he had been wrong — he hadn't seen her second scheme at all.  Now he really did understand. 

The Donals had come out to the portico.  Gregor smiled hugely at the returning pair, but the alien Karin watched Anton, her smile as broad but less benign. 

"What have I done?"

***

Anton's wife chattered away during the ride home.  Dinner had been excellent, Apteran wines and Eterran favorites imported by the Donals.  The Donals and Elinor talked of old times and Endra piped in with the Xian side of the story. 

Elinor surprised them all when she confessed to planning the galactically notorious toilet paper kidnapping as a child.  Endra asked how she avoided the slavery that the governments imposed upon any alien found on Xi Ahn.  Her light grey eyes turned serious and she replied that she was no longer Elinor Amhensen, but she kept her new identity to herself.  When Anton asked her about the injections, he found what he suspected:

"Everything was in the first pill, Anton.  The rest was only saline and harmless powders.  It doesn't give you immortality, just the extra thirty or so years I said.  Oh, that reminds me — Endra, here.  Anton would be lost without you, so I have thirty years for you, too.  Karin and Gregor had theirs before they left Eterra."

Endra had swallowed the pill to applause. 

Anton settled back into his limousine's upholstery, watching the woman he cherished, not listening to her chatter.  Endra's life was Elinor's gift to Anton, a priceless gift, and now more lasting than any human had a right to expect.  What an incredible debt he owed the brilliant young woman from Eterra. 

Yet it was not a debt.  Endra's life was not gift but mortgage, payable with silence.  Anton saw through Elinor's facade.  Whether she knew it or not, she was evil, just as his inner voice had insisted on Eterra.  One comment told him everything:

"A shame Bryce didn't try the herbal tea," she had said.  "It works on all blood diseases."

Elinor had given Eslan Carmina's son a fatal disease, then spread the cure everywhere around him, within easy reach.  Hidden in plain sight, as close to a mistake as she had come in her scheme, and even that was deliberately done.  Slow, calculated, taunting murder. 

The Amhensens' plan was unrelenting.  Elinor would not kill Eslan Carmina.  She would toy with him, torment him, make him live every day with the loss of his son.  Rikardsen would rise to prominence on Xi Ahn, Carmina's own fortune transformed into an alien presence, a constant reminder of the debacle. 

After old Eslan died, Elinor would kill his other son.  Maybe not right away, but eventually.  Then she would kill his Corporation.  Anton knew it would happen.  Elinor Amhensen could do it. 

And she wouldn't have to do it alone. 

***

The chauffeur held the door open.  Elinor hopped in and bounced on the buttery leather.  It needed, she thought, some extra padding to bring her high enough to see out the windows without stretching. 

"Well?  Did you have a Large Evening?"

"Very.  It was good to see everyone again."

"And meet Endra?"

"First and last time.  How was the funeral?"

"A splendid affair, but I felt almost sad.  Inexplicable."

"And?"  Elinor held out her hand expectantly. 

Piers nodded and placed a silver coin in her palm.  "You were right, Ellie.  It isn't enough."

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