Young Chen was still riding with Commander Blenheim in the back seat of her staff car when it rolled to a stop at dockside. She had come directly from her chat with General Harivarman to witness the arrival of the latest unexpected ship from Salutai. This was the third such arrival in two days, and she was thinking to herself that it might have been years since this port had seen such a burst of unplanned activity.
Had she wanted to, she might have tuned in one of the car's remote viewers while being chauffeured to the docks, and got a look at the stranger while it was coming down the entrance channel, or even caught a glimpse of it telescopically imaged as it approached in space. But the commander's thoughts were still concentrated on Harivarman, and she waited for her first look at the arriving ship until it appeared directly before her eyes.
As soon as the hull of the vessel, approximately spherical and a hundred meters in diameter, rose into view through the forcegate she recognized it as an advanced type of battlecraft, bearing the insignia of the planetary defense forces of Salutai. As such, it would be under the direct command of that world's controversial prime minister, Roquelaure. Commander Blenheim for the most part studiously avoided taking an interest in politics, at least outside that which went on within the Templar organization itself. But Harivarman had once or twice mentioned the prime minister to her as one of his bitterest enemies.
The commander in passing remembered hearing someone say that Prime Minister Roquelaure, one of the Imperial officials who had been closest to the Empress, was now also one of the most likely candidates to replace her. And Roquelaure would almost certainly represent Salutai when the Council of Eight met, as they must meet in the near future, to decide who would now occupy the Imperial Throne.
She got her driver's attention, tapping on the staff car's window. "Sergeant, I'm getting out here. Call for an escort, and see to it that Recruit Shizuoka is taken back to his quarters and confined as before." The young man sitting in the rear with her looked at her silently, hopelessly. The commander said nothing to him; there did not appear to be anything to say.
Now Anne Blenheim got out of her car, for a better look at the warship. The insignia on the hull, a mythical beast rampant with upraised claws, gave the whole ship an arrogant look, she thought. The ship now emerged completely from the gate, and at that point ceased its rising. Most of the top half of the hull was now in view, the bottom half cradled invisibly in more fields and in massive pads that had come into position smoothly as the traveler cut power on its engines. Now moving passively, under harbor power and control, the great hull was being eased slowly sideways through the broad channel that would guide it into dock. The commander's educated eye took the opportunity to study the warship's armament; the variations in hull shape that defined a battlecraft were unmistakable to the experienced eye. The exterior weapon projections were under hatches now, but there was no doubt that they were there.
As soon as the docking was completed, the visitor's main personnel hatch opened, and some military people in sharply designed uniforms began trotting out of it onto the dock. They continued to come out, pair after pair of them like mirror images, until the watching commander could count sixteen sharp military uniforms in all, in two rows leading from the hatch. They were actually bearing arms, the commander noticed with surprise and disapproval, as they took up their positions for what was evidently to be some kind of a guard-of-honor show.
The deployment of these troops had the incidental effect of providing a pretty effective occupation and coverage of dockside space, as if they were on the lookout for snipers, or ready to repel a boarding rush. Whether intentionally or not, these armed people—dragoons, she thought Roquelaure called the little army she had heard he was so proud of—were confronting the two or three Templar guards, who were always posted in positions overlooking the docks on what really amounted to no more than ceremonial duty. The dragoons stared up at their outnumbered cousins-in-arms belligerently, while the young Templars goggled back in sheer surprise, for which their commander could hardly blame them. The invaders'—well, that was the impression that they gave—uniforms looked sharper than the Templars', too.
Motioning her driver to follow with the car, the commander had begun walking briskly toward the visitor's main hatch even before it opened, and by now she had come down a flight of stairs and was on the same level as that hatch, ready to greet or confront whoever had sent out all these guards as they emerged.
And now in the ship's open hatchway appeared the man who had to be the object of this belligerent-looking guard of honor. Commander Anne recognized him as soon as he appeared, though she had never seen him before in person, and had certainly not been expecting to see him now; almost anyone in the Eight Worlds would know that gaunt, aging face on sight, trademarked as it was with long, curled mustaches. It belonged to Grand Marshall Beraton, a Niteroi native and a legendary hero to all the Eight Worlds. His career in anti-berserker warfare went back long before General Harivarman's in that ancient and apparently endless field of endeavor. The grand marshall, Anne Blenheim thought to herself, must now be at least a couple of hundred years old, and if anyone had recently asked her about him she would have said that he must have retired long ago. In passing, she wondered suddenly if the grand marshall might have been on the Fortress during or before the last berserker attack against it, and whether he might therefore be able to advise her on some points of historical restoration.
The grand marshall stalked out of his ship and stood looking rather fiercely about him, ignoring the two ranks of his guards. Then his stern expression altered as his gaze lighted on Commander Blenheim's approaching figure. It was a subtle change, in keeping with his dignity. So was his bearing as he advanced toward her now on his long legs. Of course her uniform and her insignia made her quickly recognizable by rank and status if not by her personal identity.
Coming in that ceremonial pace to meet her, the impressive old man halted four paces away, and granted Anne Blenheim the salute that was her due here as commanding officer; elsewhere, of course, his own rank would be far greater.
She returned his salute sharply.
"Press coverage?" Those were the grand marshall's first words of greeting. At least that was how Anne Blenheim understood them. They had been delivered in an aristocratic accent with which she was not overly familiar, and the question was asked in a low, almost conspiratorial tone, as the grand marshall looked alertly to right and left.
"I beg your pardon, Grand Marshall?"
Beraton's great age was even more obvious at this close range, but by all appearances age was still treating him very kindly. Bending near, smiling faintly as he towered over Anne Blenheim's own modest height, he said, this time not quite so softly: "Thought there might be press on hand. Not sure that it's a good idea at this stage. Just as well there's not." She got the impression that the grand marshall was enjoying himself, that he would have enjoyed some press on hand even more. The old man's expression was just suitably tinged with sadness, in keeping with the gravity of what she supposed must be his mission.
It was one of those occasions, Anne Blenheim decided, when it might be better not to push immediately to clarify the meaning of what someone had just said.
She had hardly begun her formal welcome, offering the hospitality of the base, before another officer, this one a much shorter and younger man, came marching out of the open hatch and approached them with short-legged, energetic strides. Behind him, well inside the ship, a man in civilian clothes appeared momentarily, and retreated out of sight before Anne Blenheim was able to get a good look at him.
"Captain Lergov," the short, energetic officer introduced himself, at the last moment breaking off what was almost a charge to toss her a quick salute.
"My second-in-command," Beraton amplified.
"Commander Anne Blenheim," she told them, looking from one to the other. "Welcome to you both, gentlemen, and to your crew." She was a little surprised, not at the coolness in her own voice—she thought the visitors' behavior so far had earned that—but that she did not regret that there was cause for coolness. "Is this a duty call?"
"Afraid so," said the grand marshall. Looking a trifle sadder and keener than ever, he fell silent at that point, as if the subject were too painful for him to continue. Lergov meanwhile muttered something about seeing to his people, and turned away to give his honor guard a quick looking-over; Anne Blenheim observed how the sixteen young women and men who composed it stiffened visibly, fearfully, under his inspection.
The seeing-to did not take long. Lergov turned back, able now to spare a few more moments, it appeared, for a mere Templar colonel. But no, he was ignoring her. "Grand Marshall?" he asked, in a tone of deferential prodding.
"Humf, yes." And from an attache case that had heretofore been tucked under one of his arms, looking like part of his elegant uniform, Beraton now produced a folded document of what looked like genuine heavy paper. This, with a gesture conveying understatement, he now presented to the base commander.
She examined the document. It was indeed real, heavy paper, as far as she could tell. Unfolding it she saw that it came in both electronic and statparchment forms—the electronic in the form of a small black tab attached to the paper—and it was from the Council themselves. Or at least, though this was not explicitly noted, from a quorum of the Council's members. As many of them as possible must have been convened in an extraordinary session as soon as possible after the shock wave of the Empress's death struck through the Eight Worlds.
To Commander Blenheim at first inspection, the order seemed undoubtedly authentic, legal, and official. As such it would seem to require that the base commander of the Templar Fortress at the Radiant turn her famous prisoner over to these people at once.
So, he was right, was Anne Blenheim's first thought after reading the sense of the message, seeing in her mind's eye the general's impassioned face. She felt angry with Harivarman for being right. Then why has he been hiding out there in the empty regions, occupying himself with archaeology? Why wasn't he—doing something? Of course, he might have seen that there was nothing to be done.
"Can you please order him brought here at once?" the grand marshall was inquiring of her. It sounded rather as if he were asking some junior officer to have his car sent round. Evidently the old man, impetuous as any youth, was ready to turn in his tracks, undock his ship again, and depart in a matter of minutes.
The commander continued to study the printed order in her hands. She felt glad that she had already had some time, a few days, in which to anticipate this moment, and ponder the several choices that it might pose.
She said: "I'm afraid, sir, the business mentioned here can't possibly be concluded that quickly. This paragraph calls on me to hand over other people to you as well . . . offhand I don't know that I have a right to do anything like that."
"No right? No right?" The old man looked her up and down, in a way that gave the impression that he was revising his opinion of her downward. "I understood that I was speaking to the commanding Templar officer."
"And so you are, Grand Marshall. But civilians here are only very tenuously under my jurisdiction. At a minimum I'm going to have to talk to the judge advocate first on the subject of those people. As for General Harivarman himself, I've already sent courier relays out to inform the Superior General of my order—inform him of the assassination of the Empress, and the possible implications—and I hope to have some reply from the SG in a few days.
"Meanwhile, won't you come aboard? We may be a little short of completely finished quarters for a crew the size that yours must be"—she glanced at the two armed ranks, letting a touch of disapproval show—"but we can offer you all some hospitality."
Actually, prodded by Harivarman's warnings, she had several hours ago ordered such legal staff as she had available to get busy researching the situation. So far there had been no report. The commander suspected that no one was going to be eager to stick his or her neck out and advise her firmly as to what to do—no one of course but General Harivarman himself, and now these people who had come here to arrest him.
But the order looked damnably authentic. And, at least regarding the general himself, it looked convincing too.
It looks like I'm going to have to give him up to these people. And I don't want to do that. And Anne Blenheim's own silent words surprised her, for they suggested an uncomfortable and unwelcome personal attachment.
For the moment, the commander was politely adamant with her visitors, assuring them that all the people named in the arrest order were on hand, but that she needed to hear from her superiors, or her advisers at least, before any of them could be simply handed over.
Beraton, his feelings perhaps wounded by his failure to overawe her instantly, seemed to withdraw uncommunicatively inside a protective shell, perhaps to heal them. Lergov became rather ominously silent. The grand marshall formally accepted hospitality for them all, but he informed the base commander that most of his ship's crew would probably remain aboard his ship. One implication was that their stay was going to be quite brief.
Five minutes after ordering the arrangements for hospitality, Commander Blenheim, the Council's formal document still in hand, was conferring in her office with her judge advocate. Major Nurnberg was a rather short, stout woman who took her usually dull job quite seriously.
The commander complained: "They want Shizuoka, too, and not only him. The way this thing is worded, it seems to be telling me that they can arrest anyone on the Radiant Fortress with whom Harivarman has become closely associated during his stay. If they discover someone who they think fits that category, they can just direct me to hand that person over. I frankly can't see myself giving them that, or anything like it. Not without some clear directive from the Superior General himself. Or some equivalent authority."
"You may have a point, ma'am." Major Nurnberg was evidently going to play it cautiously, for which her boss could hardly blame her. "Looks to me like they're just fishing to see how much they can get. This is our territory. As to the general, of course he's not a Templar. I don't see that you have any possible grounds to refuse them in his case. As for Recruit Chen Shizuoka . . . maybe we can wait for word from the SG."
"And the civilians they're demanding I hand over to them?"
"Well . . . I'd like to do some more research, ma'am, before I say yes or no definitely on that."
"Thank you, Major. I'll keep putting our visitors off for a few days, then."
"That seems like a good plan, ma'am."
Anne Blenheim could only hope that word from the SG came soon.