Jon Streicher walked the strand at God's Beach, hand in hand with Carla. Three weeks had passed since the battle; it was night, and Dis hung, as ever, just above the eastern horizon, a sickle-crescent bisected by the silver-gold slash of her rings. Overhead, aurora fluttered in pale glory, with the occasional white scratch of a meteorfall flaring briefly, then fading from view.
A beautiful world.
Overhead, a constellation of golden stars, especially bright, hung like gems in a necklace, drawn out in an unnaturally straight line.
The Confederation Fleet had returned.
Somehow, Denever had managed to hobble her way back to Primus, and Moberly, who'd survived the fight buried in the well-armored Combat Command Center, had mustered a relief fleet. They'd arrived looking for a fight . . . and seemed disappointed that the fighting was over.
"I don't think I'll ever forget the look on Moberly's face," Carla said, "when he found out he'd gathered the relief fleet and come all the way back here . . . and we'd already won the war!"
Streicher chuckled. "Well, he was fast enough to recover, wasn't he? At least enough so he could take the credit!"
"Do you think the peace will last, Jon?"
He shrugged. "I don't know. We didn't really win, you know. Officially, we've signed an armistice. We might've won in Trolvas, but we were pretty much getting our tails kicked everywhere else on Caern. Even Bolos are hard put to take on an entire planet, without any support! But the Aetryx seem happy enough with the new arrangement. And it gives our side what we were looking for. Trade access . . . and at least the chance for emancipation for all Caern-humans."
The agreement hammered out by Streicher and the 4th Regimental staff guaranteed an independent human statedefined as the district of Kanthuras, including the Kretier Peninsula and the coastal lands as far south as Paimos and as far inland as Yotun, on the plateau between the Urad and Kanthurian Mountains. Negotiations were under way for Kanthuras to become a Confederation protectorate; what Moberly and his army of Confederation diplomats didn't know was that Streicher had already privately urged the locals to maintain their independence from Confederation and Aetryxha Reach alike. The Aetryx still didn't understand human notions of freedom, and the Confederation, Streicher was sure, was more interested in trade monopolies on Caern than it was in the rights of its people.
The Kanthurans themselves weren't all that sure what to make of this slippery thing called independence. They were learning, though. Elken One was head of the provisional government, and he was being coached in the history of human government by Victor. Officially, Lieutenant Tyler, fully recovered now from her burns, though still hobbling around in a cast, was the Confederation Liaison Officer with the new Kanthurian government. War always changed those it touched, and in Kelly's case, it seemed to have brought out some unexpected people skills. She'd been especially effective in dealing with the Elkens and the other downloaded human personalities inhabiting a host of intelligent Aetryx machines, not only in Kanthuras, but all across Caern.
But it was Victor who was providing the ideas from his vast trove of archival histories.
He just hoped the Kanthurans could learn from that long and bloody history of mistakes.
The Aetryx, for their part, had promised to allow all humans on Caern a free choiceto continue living with the gods, or to emigrate to Kanthuras, where humans could be their own gods. So far, few humans in the other districts around the planet's habitable ring had taken up the offer, and quite a few humans had elected to leave for Vortan, to the north, or Jebeled in the south. But in time, the direction of migration might be reversed.
It often took a generation or two for new ideas to settle in.
In the meantime, those who remained were busily rebuilding their shattered cities. A glare of light on the horizon to the southeast marked where construction teamsassisted by Mark XXXII Bolos equipped with duralloy 'dozer bladeswere clearing away the ruins of Ghendai. Confederation engineers were with them, and more were coming.
The humans of Caern were building their own vision of the future.
"I think the peace will hold," he said at last. "When you think about it, the war was really an accident, a clash of worldviews so mutually alien there was no common ground for understanding. The Aetryx know where their best interests lie, and it's not in war with the Confederation. They're at least as intelligent as we are, maybe more so." And that datum would be puzzling the Confederation xenobiologists and sophontologists for generations to come. The microstructure of Aetryx brains was astonishing, far more compact and efficient than that of humans. . . .
"It's still funny and kind of weird how their whole worldview is dominated by the fact that they're parasites," Carla mused. " `A place for everything, everything in its place,' and that means them running everything. It's like they saw the whole universe as designed for their use, just because they evolved as parasites inside those poor centaur-spider things."
"Well, I suppose it makes sense, from their point of view. Still, they're fast learners. Maybe that's the true sign of intelligencethe ability to relearn how you think, how you perceive the universe. I hear they're growing a whole new somatoform for themselves. A merchant-type to match wits with our traders. They really do think of themselves as gods, you know. Shapers of their own destinies and of the worlds and destinies of others."
"So now they're learning how to share the universe with other gods. Pretty sharp. I know humans that haven't learned to do that." She gave him a sidelong glance. "How are you doing by the way?"
He knew what she was asking. He'd told her about the euph, shortly after the battle. "Okay," he said. "Hardly think about the color blue at all, any more."
After the battle, he'd returned at last to the crashed command ship and recovered the rest of his supply of euph. They'd gone into the common cache of drugs, first aid supplies, and medical items being gathered to help take care of Caern's wounded. Most of the locals, it seemed, had implants almost identical to those within the invaders' brains, the technology that allowed their gods to communicate with them directly. That handful of sky-blue pills would help a few of the most badly injured, at least, to forget, to begin to heal.
All he knew was that he didn't need them any more.
For so long, he'd been so wrapped up in himself, in his pain, he hadn't been able to share much of himself with others. That had changed.
Maybe it was just the need to think about Caern, and what had happened to this world, that had drawn him away at last from the old and fading nightmare of Aristotle.
Or . . . could it be something more personal? Fighting to save others, especially others dear to you, went a long way to taking your mind off of yourself.
He didn't know. He wasn't sure he would ever know.
But he knew he didn't need the pills any more.
What he needed was standing beside him, had been standing beside him all along.
"I love you," he said.
And he took her in his arms.