Nynian nodded again, suppressing an inner shiver as she thought of the nightmare Merlin—Nimue—would have faced under those circumstances.
“So, if they’re ‘returning,’ it has to be in some other fashion, and, frankly, I don’t have a clue what that might be. For that matter, as I say, we don’t know they’re really going to ‘return’ at all. There’s nothing in the Writ about it, nothing in The Testimonies or The Commentaries. For that matter, there’s nothing in the message Schueler left. So unless there’s something in the Church’s secret archives that not even Paityr’s father ever heard so much as a hint about—which strikes me as unlikely, to say the least—the only evidence that they’re going to come back is the oral tradition passed down in the Wylsynn family, theoretically from Schueler himself but independent of the message he personally recorded.”
Merlin grimaced, the expression as frustrated as it was worried.
“Taking all of that together, I’d be very tempted to simply brush the whole thing off as a myth that self-started somehow over the last several hundred years. Unfortunately, Paityr tells us there are veiled allusions to the return in Wylsynn family diaries that date from within twenty years of the War Against the Fallen. So if it’s a self-starting myth, it self-started pretty damned early. And, leaving that aside completely, deciding there’s nothing to it would be the sort of wrong assumption we only get to make once.”
“Agreed,” Nynian said. “But that’s why we’re pushing so hard to ‘get the genie out of the bottle,’” she smiled faintly as she used the phrase Merlin had introduced her to. “Right?”
“Exactly.” Merlin nodded. “We’re looking at a binary solution set here, in a lot of ways. Either there’s going to be some sort of return of the ‘Archangels,’ or there isn’t. Even if there isn’t, we still need to figure out how to neutralize what’s under the Temple and/or the bombardment system eventually. Actually, now that I think about it, there’s no ‘and/or’ in it—we need to neutralize both of those to be sure something really, really bad doesn’t happen. We’re just under a lot more time pressure to get it done if they are coming back somehow.
“We may or may not be able to accomplish that, but unless we can manage that and get the industrial plant in Nimue’s Cave up and running and replicating itself—with at least a decade or so to spare—we’re still screwed. If we could pull that off, and if we had that decade to work with, we wouldn’t really care if the ‘Archangels’ decided to put in an actual physical reappearance of some sort.” He smiled coldly. “Give me four or five years of open Federation-level tech to work with, and I will guarantee that anything the ‘Archangels’ bring with them gets blown to hell and gone. And I can think of very few things that would give me more personal satisfaction!
“But if we can’t do that, we have to play for the possibility—the probability, I hope!—that whatever turns up calling itself an ‘Archangel’ isn’t quite as lunatic as Langhorne was when he pulled the trigger on the Alexandria Enclave. I have to think they wouldn’t be coming back at all if they didn’t want to make sure the human race survives. And killing the human race themselves wouldn’t strike me as the best way to do that, which is why we want the ‘genie out of the bottle.’ Spreading the violation of the Proscriptions—of their purpose, the thing they were supposed to achieve, at least—as broadly as possible, even if their word was still technically observed was always part of our gradualist strategy. But Paityr’s warning’s lent that strategy a lot more urgency, because if we can spread the new technology broadly enough that it would require a planet-wide application of ‘rakurai’ to eradicate all the threats to Langhorne’s grand plan, then anyone but a raving lunatic would realize that plan’s failed. We’re in no position to predict how he might react, but I think it’s likely any non-lunatic would see no option but to engineer as soft a landing to the Proscriptions’ collapse as possible.
“That’s why the economic implications of Ehdwyrd’s railroads and of steam-powered maritime trade are far more dangerous to the Church in the long term than any warship or artillery piece. But let’s be honest—it’s always possible for someone to cut off his economic nose to spite his face on religious grounds. God knows it was done often enough back on Old Earth! The ultimate consequences would be disastrous, and any realm that chose to do that would be a complete political and economic nonfactor within a generation. But that doesn’t mean they won’t do it, and I can easily imagine a reactionary ‘counterreformation’ throwing up all sorts of obstacles to stretch the process out even farther. Quite possibly for longer than we have before that return visit we’re worrying about.
“Enter the King Haarahlds.”
He leaned back in his chair again, raising both hands in the gesture of someone who’d just completed his revelation, and Nynian frowned.
“What are you talking about?” Her tone suggested she was on the cusp of understanding and knew it but hadn’t quite made the leap.
“A single King Haarahld is—as Captain Bahrns told Domynyk—more powerful than every other warship on the face of the planet put together, Nynian,” Sharleyan said. “Faster, bigger, more dangerous than anything she could conceivably face … and impossible to build without embracing—fully embracing—Ehdwyrd’s innovations. At the moment, the Temple’s supporters can argue that nothing we’re using against them is completely beyond their capabilities. They may not be able to produce weapons that do what ours do as effectively and efficiently as ours do it, but they’re in a position to convince themselves that theirs come close enough for an army equipped with enough of them to survive against an army equipped with Charisian new-model weapons.”
Nynian nodded slowly … and then her eyes widened and understanding flowed across her beautiful face.
“I knew you’d get there, love,” Merlin said, tucking an arm around her.
“They’re … they’re technology demonstrators!” she said.
“That’s exactly what they are,” Cayleb agreed in a tone of grim, profound satisfaction. “Mind you, I really would like to sail them into Temple Bay, but I’ve known all along we can’t, whatever I’ve suggested to people who don’t know what this war’s really about. But when Gwylym Manthyr steams right through anything that gets in her way without even slowing down, when she steams all the way from Tellesberg to Claw Island at twenty-plus knots with only a single refueling and shows she’s twice as fast as any galleon ever built, and when she steams into Gorath Bay and blows its fortifications into gravel, it isn’t going to be just the retribution Sharley and I promised ourselves—that we promised Gwylym. It’s going to be that, and Sharley’s going to make that point for our people before she ever sails. And it’s also going to be an object lesson to Zhaspahr Clyntahn and any other bloody-minded bastard who thinks the way he does. A warning about what will happen to anyone else who butchers our people or hands them over to be butchered by someone else. That’s a lesson we damned well mean to drive home to the bone, Nynian—as Emperor and Empress of Charis, not just members of the Inner Circle.