Flight of the Falcon

9

The Forest Primeval Near New London, Skye Prefecture IX The Republic of the Sphere 30 April 3134

Overhead a virago screeched outrage at the intrusion. Much occupied by his thoughts, Duke Gregory Kelswa-Steiner, Governor of Skye and Lord Governor of Prefecture IX (and only the second to hold both titles), continued to ride, oblivious to the possibility the jaylike local bird-analogue might dislodge a hard, baby fist-sized seed pod from the lofty branches and drop it with remarkable accuracy on his head. He almost wished it would; it would give him a chance to vent some of the anger simmering within him by blasting the creature with the pulse-laser pistol in its flapped holster on the belt of his leather riding breeches.

His horse Iago’s dark chestnut coat was sheened with sweat and the beast breathed hard despite the morning’s early-autumn cool. The animal was a gelding. The Duke was a man’s man, a qualified Mech Warrior who had fought in The Republic’s armed forces against the first Capellan invasion before resuming civilian life, and secure enough in that fact not to burden himself with an uncut stallion.

Which occurred to him in a most unflattering way in his almost-ritual daily thinking about his son, Jasek, and possible omissions he had made in the boy’s upbringing.

Duke Gregory should have been a man at peace: a big, fit, middle-aged man in robust health, with most of his hair, and that seal brown going to distinguished silver at the temples. A crisp morning ride in beautiful woods outside the Prefectural capital of New London, with mountains close enough on one hand to break into view at times above the trees to the north, and Thames Bay close enough on the other to smell salt-sea breeze as well as sun-warmed leaves. The great trees were upon the cusp of turning, and late-season field insects sang sawing yet melodious tunes without awareness of the impending arrival of first frost to still their voices.

His domain enjoyed relative peace and order, unlike the Prefectures on the other side of The Republic, wracked by rebellion and factional warfare, or even Terra itself, which had suffered invasion by the Steel Wolves some months before—a poignant thing for the Duke, as for most Skyians, since Clan Wolf had played a key role in freeing Skye of the brutal violence of the Blakist Jihad decades before. It was part of his collective memory, as it had happened before his birth. Skye shared no boundaries with any Clan zone. Its only neighbor not of The Republic was the Lyran Commonwealth, of which Skye itself had once been part; and House Steiner still maintained, at least publicly, its cautious bourgeois approval of The Republic, and disavowed any interest in reclaiming the territory it had ceded to Devlin Stone. The Draconis Combine, an ancient enemy, lay dangerously near, it was true, as did the perilously disordered fragments of the Free Worlds League. Yet planet and Prefecture generally prospered.

He had, Duke Gregory knew, fortuitous placement between the core Prefecture X and the trade-minded Commonwealth to thank in large part for that fact, as for the relative rapidity with which Skye had recovered from the Jihad. Interstellar traffic had dropped sharply in the wake of the HPG collapse. Yet it had also rebounded, if not to pre-collapse levels. Without question, trade was facilitated by faster-than-light communications, yet it did not depend upon them. The nations of pre-space flight Terra had enjoyed substantial, even global trade long before they possessed means of communicating faster than a good ship could sail with favorable winds.

They had also seized, held and administered empires. That latter thought was not so comforting.

Which was only tangentially why the Duke scowled as he rode through the beautiful morning.

The main reason was none other than his son and, as soon as he got around to it, erstwhile heir: the Landgrave Jasek Kelswa-Steiner.

The problem was, the boy longed to be a hero. Which would not have been so bad. Except he had the stuff for it.

The Lord Governor bore no animosity toward the Lyrans nor their ruling family, House Steiner; best not, inasmuch as he had not found the latter half of his surname in a box of breakfast food.

Yet he was two things, and these deeply: a Skye patriot, glad in his heart that his home planet and most of the former Skye Protectorate had at last gained independence after centuries in the grasp of the iron Steiner fist. More even than that, he was a patriot of The Republic of the Sphere, and believed in it and in the transcendent vision of its vanished founder Devlin Stone.

Though no one had invaded Skye yet, nor seemed likely to anytime soon, all was not placid perfection. Below the surface tensions bubbled. And boiled over with increasing frequency into disputes, demonstrations, and of late even communal violence.

Most of the population felt as he did, though generally less fervently with regard to The Republic. But some among the English speakers, primarily of Scottish or Irish descent, longed for a time before the Steiners ruled Skye, when the planet was seat of its own vest-pocket empire, the Protectorate. These felt they had exchanged a foreign master on Tharkad for another on Terra. They viewed The Republic’s diminished influence as a result of the HPG loss as an opportunity to seek true independence. If not more; a prospect the Duke knew annoyed and worried other planets of Skye’s erstwhile dominion.

On the other hand, an extremely vocal minority among the German speakers cried out for reannexation by the Lyran CommonwealthAnschluss. The planet’s most visible, and audible, agitator for resorption under Steiner rule was Arminius HerrmannFreiherr von Herrmann, as he had recently if dubiously taken to styling himself, was the tall, stout, choleric scion of the family which owned controlling interest in

Skye’s, and indeed the Prefecture’s, largest media corporation, Herrmanns AG.

Herrmann was a bumptious buffoon, a ripe target for caricature by media rivals—who were cheerfully aware of the fact, and egged on besides by Arminius’ propensity to fly into trumpeting rages whenever someone landed a particularly barbed lampoon. Indeed, Duke Gregory believed the man’s very name indicated a certain softness of the head had set into the Herrmann clan at least a generation backDon’t the imbeciles realize “Arminius” and “Herrmann” are the same bloody name?

Yet Herrmann possessed an uncomfortable degree of influence by virtue of his media control. His wealth and prominence gave him a substantial buffer, especially in a Republic dedicated to liberal principles of freedom of speech. He had never quitecrossed the line into open sedition, although if it had been demarked with chalk, he’d have more than a few yellow stripes on his trousers.

And speaking of crossing the line ... there was Landgrave Jasek.

The boy had been a dutiful lad, strong and smart and brave, as befit the heir to a noble house. The Duke had never seen reason to curb his love of the history, and most particularly lurid tri-vids and books recounting the glories, of the Lyran Commonwealth. That was part of the heritage of Skye—and his own birthright. All to the good.

Yet the romantic yarns had produced unhealthy effects on the boy. He had come to identify more with the Commonwealth than The Republic. His father, preoccupied with concerns of state—running a planet and a Prefecture was not an easy or uncomplicated job, even in what now seemed the lost Golden Age before the blackout—had seen no danger signs. Indeed, he had been proud when Jasek followed his own example, took military service and qualified as a MechWarrior, rising to command The Republic Skye Militia, distinguishing himself fighting raiders from the chaotic Marik-Stewart Commonwealth and ronin strikes out of the Combine.

Then came the blackout. Like most people with any vision past the ends of their noses, Duke Gregory felt foreboding: for the HPG net was the glue that held together the hard-won civilization represented by The Republic. He took solace in the fact that even though their numbers were continually pared by budget cuts, well-trained, well-seasoned troops under command of his son—his own son, heir to his name and title and estates—stood on hand in case the chaos came.

As it came to other planets, other Prefectures. Yet when young Jasek heard tales from JumpShip captains of what Duke Aaron Sandoval and Katana Tormark and others had done—the whole grim cavalcade of treason and opportunism—he took their actions in turning against The Republic they had sworn to serve as a clarion call.

Jasek had called together those soldiers of the sadly diminished regular regiments, the Hastati Sentinels, the Trirarii Protectors, and the Principes Guards IX, as well as his own Militia, who like him favored the Lyran Commonwealth over The Republic of the Sphere, or whose devotion to their beloved battle leader transcended their own sworn loyalty to The Republic. They acclaimed him their commander. He then declared for House Steiner and fled Skye literally steps ahead of an arrest-squad of his father’s police under orders to bring the heir back at all costs, alive—or not.

It was as if the guts had been scooped out of Duke Gregory’s defenses. And, when he thought about it—as he did now, as he did daily, if not hourly—of Duke Gregory himself.

The betrayal that rankled most of course was of him.

The youngfool!thought Duke Gregory, taking his horse in a low jump over a fallen bole and resisting the temptation to vent his fury on the beast’s flanks with his spursHe not only turns on the man who fathered and raised him, and The Republic which it was his family’s—and his own—privilege to serve. He prates on about his love for Skye and her lost glory—and then when the skies darken and storms threaten our horizons, he abandons us and leaves us all but helpless!

For the Duke was not deceived. Already the evil had struck at Terra herself. Despite apparent peace and prosperity—indeed, very much because of the latter—Prefecture IX and Skye herself would not remain untouched. Could not.

He raged inwardly as well against his kinsmen and women in Lyra. After the fact, his counterintelligence service had identified several likely Lohengrin operators among the Militia troops who lifted with the Landgrave. Duke Gregory had not failed to exact a measure of revenge: two more Lohengrins and a suspected Loki agent had been identified, and quietly eliminated on his personal orders.

Obviously House Steiner felt it served their ends that young Jasek should wrest a powerful weapon from The Republic’s hands and place it in theirs. For the sake of strengthening themselves rather than weakening The Republic, the Archon’s government had assured Duke Gregory in an unofficial official communique delivered under the rose. The cynical, expertly political side of him was even inclined to believe that, although his office in the Planetary Governor’s New Glasgow seat had required extensive remodeling after he received the note.

Yet even if the armored fist of Steiner disdained to pluck the ripe and newly undefended fruit of Prefecture IX, Duke Gregory Kelswa-Steiner knew someone would accept the invitation.

Thanks to the faithless brat. Bastard in fact if not in law—and the one good thing about his mother’s premature death is that she did not live to see that fact made manifest.

He stuck a dagger in my back. Such blades can cut in both directions.

It could happen. It had been known to happen—in the greatest of Houses. There was a dark strain in the Kelswa blood, the Duke was aware. House Steiner itself had not been free of internecine violence....

There was much to be said for... extrajudicial... handling of his son’s treason. The Republic itself would strenuously disapprove such action. Should they chance to become aware of it. The universe had always been a place where deadly mishaps occurred as if by chance, and all the moreso since the HPG collapse. Removing his all-too-capable heir might well prove a signal service to The Republic: the current forbearance of Jasek by reason of apathy of House Steiner toward The Republic and the former Lyran holdings therein could change at the whim of the Archon, and the whims of princes were notoriously mercurial.

Or the reigning Archon could change—the whims of Fate being more infamously mercurial still.

I could, I could so . . . The Duke’s thoughts trended toward a dark place. Yet there was that within him which bid himpull back, pull back ....

The personal communicator hung at his belt, as if to counterbalance the laser pistol, buzzed for attention like an amplified insect. He became aware that he had all unthinking urged his horse into a full gallop, a reckless pace to set among the thick but widely spaced trunks of the forest giants rearing sixty meters and more above his head, with sometimes fallen limbs to cause a stumble. His horse’s flanks were even

darker than usual with sweat and his nostrils distended. The Duke reined in to a walk, patting the beast on the neck and cooing apologetically as it bobbed its head and blew. He felt chagrin: it was not the Duke’s way to use any creature so, without consideration.

Overhead a tilt-rotor scout VTOL, scrupulously unseen, maintained a watch on the Duke via forward-looking infrared and televisions with telescope lenses. It conveyed the Duke’s approximate location and vector to the lance of hoverbike troops maintaining a loose moving perimeter about him—while staying themselves out of eye- and earshot—and the lance of attack VTOL keeping similarly discreet watch from somewhere above the treetops. Before the HPG collapse he would never have countenanced such a thing. Now, with civil unrest on the rise and shadowy menaces moving, unseen, in a universe grown dark with the end of instantaneous interstellar communications, he still did not welcome such nursemaiding. Hence the bodyguards’ extreme diligence to avoid actually making their presence manifest to their charge. He would still not have accepted it, certainly not ordered it, had his chief minister not insisted.

Ah, Solvaig,hethought with a certain guarded warmth—which was generally the only kind of warmth he allowed himself to feel, especially since... .How lost would I and Skye be without you?

At last he stripped the riding glove from his hand and took out the communicator, which had maintained its ungentle insistence all along. “Yes?” he said in a clipped tone that served to reinforce what the party at the other end must well have known:this better be important .

“Your Grace,” said the professionally anonymous voice. “We have just received a double communication from the zenith proximity point. A JumpShip has emerged, outbound from Terra; we have word of its arrival from our observation station, as well as a communication from the vessel herself.”

Duke Gregory’s brows beetled. He had wonderful brows for the gesture: as he had grown older they had become bushier, shot with fierce, longer black strands. Now the shorter hairs were brushed with gray as was his beard, leading to a most striking effect.

“What does the JumpShip captain say?”

“She brings with her Tara Campbell, Countess of Northwind and Prefect of Prefecture III, your Grace. The Countess herself transmitted a coded signal containing the appropriate courtesies. She has also informed us that she, her staff, and elements of her Highlander regiments are inbound for Skye with an estimated arrival time of forty-seven hours, and in The Republic’s name begs leave to be allowed to make planetfall at the New London spaceport soonest.”

Now the Duke’s splendid brows rose. The Exarch’s pet poster girl herself sees fit to grace my world with her presence, he thought.On some business she dares not even entrust to Prefectural-level encryption.

She was sending an unmistakably clear message, however: the transit time from Skye’s jump points to planetary orbit was four days, relatively trivial as such things went; Alkaid in Duke Gregory’s own Prefecture had a transit time of 124 days. The Countess’ projected arrival indicated her DropShip was burning insystem at two gees, the maximum acceleration considered safe and twice the normal. That she would subject self, staff, troops, and the DropShip crew to the brutal discomfort of two full days at twice normal weight to shave a trifling two days off her transit time spoke volumes.

It also, he thought with an amused quirk of his bearded lips, indicated her intentions were pacific toward the planet of Skye. So taxing was it on the human system to sustain higher-than-standard gees that it was a rare and rash commander who used them on an invasion drop. Two days of their hearts pumping blood against twice the normal resistance would leave the ship’s occupants as drained as if they had run multiple marathons, even if all they did was lie on couches, which unless they were foolswas what they were doing.

“Return the appropriate acknowledgment and permissions,” he commanded. “Add that I am most eager to receive the Countess so soon as she may have recovered from the rigors of her journey.”

The subtext of the tri-vids would seem to bejustified, he thought with certain scornFluff-headed glamour girl! She’ll no doubt be more than two days recovering abed, mere slip that she is.

He gazed around him at the glory of the trees and their gilt-edged leaves in the golden-yellow glow of the Sol-like sun, then sighed, filling the lungs in his substantial chest with a last free draught of autumn air like the finest vintage wine. He had an intimation that this was his last unencumbered breath of wild air for a long time. If he once again smelled the smell of woods before the year’s turning, he suspected, it would be in the field—and not on maneuvers.

“There is a clearing some three hundred meters to the northwest of my position,” he said, and spoke coordinates from the map-display on the datapad strapped to his thick, hairy wrist. It kept track of his position by a combination of inertial tracking and analysis of known patterns of geomagnetism; it would not do, in today’s unsettled environment, to have the Duke of Skye constantly broadcasting his location to anyone with the nominal equipment and only slightly less nominal know-how required to crack the satellite positioning system. “Order a cargo VTOL to pick up me and my horse. I return to the Prefectural compound at once.”

“Sir?” the voice said. “Might I remind your Grace that the Countess is not due for another—”

“You have,” he said crisply but not harshly. He had no desire to surround himself with toadies, preferring forthright subordinates who exercised initiative. It did not guarantee them immunity from outbursts of his famous temper; but no one had actually suffered harm to career, much less person, from the competent discharge of duty. Indeed, no few had benefited from ducal repentance of hasty words, although it was not the Lord Governor’s way to apologize in words.

Now, strangely, the blackness of his prior mood had lifted. He was faced with a puzzle. And while it would undoubtedly complicate the Duke’s life still further, something about it quickened his hunter’s blood.

“Whatever tidings the Countess is bringing us, I suspect two days will be no more than enough to prepare to hear them,” he told his communicator. “The Duke out.”

He snapped the small device shut and reholstered it. Then he leaned forward to slap the neck of his horse, now halted and stretching to crop maroon bunch grass, and murmur a few endearments.

He would make quickly for the clearing and his rendezvous with the VTOL; the aircraft was standing by in New London a few minutes’ flight time away against just such contingencies.

But first he would visit a stream he knew nearby to let Iago drink of cold waters, down from the mountains already capped with snow. It was the least he could do, for having pushed the animal so.