The Lotus Eaters (6 page)

Both the black woman and the Pashtun looked scandalized, if for different reasons. Artemisia said, "Me? Tell someone we nuked a city? And maybe get ourselves nuked in return? Oh, no, Lourdes. That secret is safe with me."

"I don't talk much," Alena added, "and anything that might bring a risk to Iskandr? That's simply
impossible
." The Pashtun woman looked scandalized at the very thought.

Lourdes shook her head. "Whatever are you going to do when you have children of you own, Alena?"

That might not have been a sore point with another woman. With Alena, raised in a culture that placed a very high value on female fertility, it was an embarrassment. Nor was it lack of trying. As much as she knew, she simply didn't know why she hadn't yet conceived.

Nonetheless, she answered, "Raise them to serve my lord, Iskandr."

Though Moore had politely offered to bed her, Wallenstein had begged off, citing fatigue and the need for rest. He'd taken it quite well, she thought, but then sex was the cheapest and freest commodity on Old Earth.

She'd claimed the need for rest, but she wasn't resting. From a balcony of her guest quarters, overlooking the brown-flowing Tiber and the Mausoleum of Augustus on the other side, Marguerite stared in the direction of the
Ara Pacis
.

I wonder if that was the secret we'd never admit to, that war is a constant and the only choice you have is war between outsiders and war against your own. Funny that they never discussed this at the academy.

And so we have peace, here, on Old Earth. If, by "peace," we mean a constant series of insurrections, a vast secret police apparatus to quell the lowers, terror in the form of human sacrifice for any of the lowers that raise their heads from the muck . . . beautiful young girls being dragged off to have their hearts cut out to terrorize the families of beautiful young girls.

Oh, and a ruling class that's taken to wearing the emblems of demigodhood to let the rest of us know our places. That must be very important to "peace," as well.

Could I change any of it? If I get permanent command of the Peace Fleet and get myself raised to Class One, I mean? I am inclined to doubt. After all, the direction we're heading is all down. Ten years ago there was a
little
trouble in the outlying provinces. Now rebellion is open in many of them, simmering just below the surface in others. Ten years ago there were no human sacrifices. Now the Orthodox Druids—thank whoever may be listening that I am Reformed—hang and burn men to propitiate the gods. Now the Azteca cut out the hearts . . .

Marguerite turned away from the balcony and its view of Mausoleum and ancient flood. Sitting down on a broad sofa in the suite's salon, she drew her knees up under her chin and wrapped her arms around her shins.

On the other hand, these simpering nancies of the First Class are weak. Weak! Martin was among the best of the lot and I was a
lot
more capable than he was. Give me enough time, and as a Class One I'll have all the time in the world, and put me in a position to elevate some other Class Twos—that Moore fellow seemed unhappy enough at the current set up—and maybe, just maybe, I can reform this planet. Make me a Class One, give me those assistants, and leave me in command of the Peace Fleet and what would the diadem wearers have to stop me with?

Which still doesn't answer the question: What does one do to reform a planet gone so rotten? But, again, as a Class One, I'll have all the time in the world to figure out the answer to that.

If, that is, I can stop the barbarians on Terra Nova from springing out of their hole like Temujin's hordes and upsetting everything here before we can right ourselves.

That's my advantage over Martin. He could only think of a way to make Terra Nova cease being a threat to us as we are. That's why he had to be so absolute.
I
, on the other hand, can think of a way to make us something Terra Nova will not be a lethal threat to . . . given the power and given the time.

Wallenstein looked around at her temporary quarters, which went way past adequate and even opulent all the way to decadent.
And there
are
some perks to the effort.

"We've kept Quarters One open for you, on the
Isla Real
," McNamara said.

Jimenez snorted. ""We'd have had a mutiny if we tried to fill them." More seriously, he added, "Really, Patricio; we've been able to keep things going as well as we have in good part because we could tell the troops you would be back. That's been getting pretty threadbare for a while now."

"I've missed the boys," Carrera admitted with a sigh that sounded as if it were of longing. "But you might as well have turned the quarters over to the commander of the Training Legion. And your own, as well."

"Why's that?" Mac asked.

"Because we're going to have to move the legions and
tercios
—yes, almost all of them—from the
Isla Real
to the mainland."

"We're?" Jimenez asked.

Carrera sighed once again. "Yes. 'We're.' Bastards.

"And I'll need to talk to Raul . . . and the leaders of the legislature. I'm not taking sole responsibility for the shit that I do anymore, if only because I don't quite trust my own judgment anymore."

Valid moral judgment is not a question of saying, "Wouldn't it be nice?" or observing, "Isn't it so awful?" and then insisting that the universe be or cease to be whatever the speaker thinks would be nice, tomorrow, or is bad, today. Valid moral judgment must also be realistic judgment. It does not become so merely for taking a favored fantasy and insisting it is reality. And yet so many, throughout human history, have done just that.

—Jorge y Marqueli Mendoza,
Historia y Filosofia Moral
,
Legionary Press, Balboa,
Terra Nova, Copyright AC 468

Nearly everyone who really mattered in the Legion was there: Four thousand officers, six thousand optios, centurions, and sergeants major, about four thousand warrants, and as many junior non-coms as could be spared from their day to day duties. Even the schools had been shut down for two days to allow the cadres and some senior students to attend, while key civilians who worked for the Legion had also been dragged in.

The Golden Eagle of the overarching Legion del Cid, plus those of the legions, themselves, First through Fourth, also golden, stood in a rank on an elevated dais, legionary eagles flanking the sacred eagle of the entire Legion. Ahead of those, and slightly lower, were sixteen silver eagles. Ten of these belonged to the ten
tercios
, or regiments. Then there were the eagles for the
classis
, the fleet, and the
ala
, the aviation regiment. The two for the training units, initial entry and leader and specialist training, stood alongside that of the Opposing Force
Tercio
, composed mostly of highly combat experienced expatriate Volgan paratroopers. Technically the Volgans were not part of the Legion, their official contract being with the Foreign Military Training Group. Some of the Volgans were now citizens of the Republic, others not. Lastly, on the left as the eagles faced, was the eagle for the
Tercio de Cadetes
, the elite youth regiment, itself nearly twelve thousand strong, in six schools, and not counting the adult cadres for those schools.

The place was stuffed to roughly twice its capacity; there were no chairs as there hadn't been room. (All the chairs sat outside under tarps.) Moving everyone to the Center, too, had been a logistic task of no little magnitude, involving use of busses, airplanes, airships, hovercraft, helicopters, Balboa's one useable train line and, in a few cases, privately owned vehicles and even movement by foot.

Every military man and woman present wore either undress Class B khakis or the mostly green, pixilated tiger-striped, slant-pocketed battle dress worn by the Legion when at home in Balboa. Mufti-clad civilians were present, most of them either propagandists for Professor Ruiz's propaganda group, operating out of the university, or scientists and researchers from
Obras Zorilleras
, the Legion's research and development arm.

Standing in the back, behind closed doors, Raul Parilla,
Presidente de la Republica
, and Patricio Carrera waited with McNamara.

Parilla, short and stocky, with brown skin highlighted by steel-gray hair, wore mufti, as befitted a civil chief magistrate. Conversely, Mac and Carrera wore their battle dress, Mac carrying his badge of rank, the baton of the Sergeant Major-General of the Legion, while Carrera's battle dress carried only his name, his service, and, on his collar, two small pin-on eagles surrounded by wreaths for his rank. He didn't even bother with the gold-buckled leather belt that most senior legates wore. The trappings of rank and power had never meant much to Patricio Carrera.

"You look nervous, Patricio," Raul said.

Carrera grunted and gave a curt nod. "Simple explanation: I
am
nervous. I
loathe
speaking in public. Always have."

"That's not quite true, you know," Parilla corrected. "I've seen you warm to your audience and your subject before. What you hate is
waiting
to speak in public, fearing you won't do very well. Though why this should be, I don't know."

"He's right," Mac added. "And on that note, gentlemen, if you'll permit, I go announce you."

"Malcoeur, you fat, slimy toad," shouted General Janier, the Tauran Union commander in Balboa. Tall and slender, handsome after a fashion but for an unfortunately large nose, the general was dressed in his favorite costume, a replica of that of a marshal of Janier's hero, Napoleon.

"Oui, mon general?"
the toady answered as he filled the lower half of the door to Janier's officer with his wide and short bulk. They called the Gauls, "Frogs," and in Malceour's case, the description was apt, from his wide bulk to his shortened, frog-like, pug face. The toady, a Tauran Union—which is to say Gallic Army—major, served as the great man's aide de camp.

"What is this meeting the locals are holding? Why was I not informed? Twenty thousand of them show up on our doorstep and I wasn't informed!"

"We had no warning,
mon general
. Apparently the word went out late last night and—voila!—they were suddenly here."

Janier gave Malcoeur a suspicious look. Was it possible the toad was enjoying his commander's discomfiture?
No, impossible
; so Janier thought.

"Nonsense, you fat fool," the general said. "This is an army of uncultured, uncivilized barbarians, people without tradition or experience or higher military education. They do not simply give orders and move. Even
we
could not assemble such a force so quickly."

We
likely could not
, agreed the aide, silently.
But they seem to be able to. One suspects there are standing orders and plans in place to move like that, though we do not have adequate access to their plans and operations department. And we
would
have informed you a bit sooner, except that you were busy fucking your mistress in the apartment you carved out for her from military offices, just down the hall.

Malcoeur was an ass-licker, so all on the staff agreed, but he was an ass-licker who could still
think
. And he
was
enjoying Janier's feeling like a fool.

"Go and fetch me the G-2"—the intelligence officer for the Tauran Union forces in the Transitway—"and bring the miscreant to me by the scruff of his neck," Janier ordered. "I am confident that after we have a little chat he will not in the future be so remiss."

Almost,
almost
, Marguerite felt confident enough of her position to skip proskynesis before the SecGen. But
, no, this is too important to both the Earth and myself to let pique and arrogance get in the way
.

Moore stood beside her at the grand door to the former Papal apartment. The two waited while the
major domo
announced, "Captain and Admiral
pro tem
Marguerite Wallenstein, Class Two, for an audience with the Secretary General."

Moore said, "I'll be waiting when you've finished, Marguerite."

Clutching a valise in one hand, Marguerite nodded and advanced alone. She showed more confidence than she truly felt. The soft, plush rug underfoot muffled the sound of her high, black uniform boots. At a spot on the carpet about a dozen meters from the SecGen's large and ornate desk, Wallenstein placed the valise down and dropped to her knees. Leaning forward, she then placed both hands on the carpet ahead of her. Keeping eye contact until the last second, Wallenstein then bent and kissed the carpet three times, on the last kiss leaving her forehead to the floor. She straightened out until her breasts and belly were flush to the carpet and stayed that way.

"Arise, my child," the SecGen called. As gracefully as possible, under the circumstances, Wallenstein did. When she did, she was able to note certain things about the SecGen. He was young in appearance, very young.
Well, you would expect that from the very best anti-agathics
, she thought.
Such as are available to Class Ones
, she added, with bitterness in her mind. She thought he must have had extensive plastic surgery, too.
No man could be that
 . . . pretty.
Not naturally.
Lastly, and most oddly, the SecGen shimmered, as if his skin had been freshly dusted with gold.
Which it probably has been
, she thought.

"Come closer, Captain," the SecGen said. Marguerite felt her stomach sink.

If he's using my permanent rank then maybe I won't be prorogued into the Admiralty. Shit.

The SecGen made a subtle but imperious gesture with his left hand. Marguerite thought she heard the door closing behind her and suddenly felt as if the
major domo
had left her alone with the SecGen.