This meant he knocked another Bhor unconscious, who'd been shouting claims about the shortness of Iv'r‘s mother's beard, and sat down.
Abrupt silence.
Otho began. These were parlous times, he said. The Empire had turned murderous, and its leader no more than a beardless dacoit. The Bhor must respond to this threat in a new fashion, or face obliteration. Otho reminded them of how they had been following their ancient enemies, the stregg, to extinction, courtesy of the prophets of Talamein and their swordsmen the Jann, before Sten came to the Wolf Worlds.
Now it was time to choose—and there could be but one choice.
"The choice is yours," Otho bellowed, roar booming back from the ceiling high above, "and it is clear. Or have we become a race who flees across the ice from a stregg?"
That put the matter in quite a clear light. The Bhor would declare for Sten.
Iv'r‘s shout rose above the clamor: "Then let us chose a leader. The greatest warrior of all, to lead us in this battle."
Pandemonium. There were those who agreed, those who disagreed, fearing tyranny—although choosing a single warchief in an emergency was a respected Bhor tradition—and most loudly those who knew they were the only possible candidate for the post.
Iv'r began chanting: "Otho! Otho! Otho!"
Eventually others started chanting as well.
Otho's bellow went to sonic boom—and he got the silence he wanted, or at least the noise reduced to mere agony level. "No!"
That got real silence.
"I am old," he began.
Shouts agreeing or disagreeing. Otho paid no mind. "I will assist, I will aid. But I am in the nightwinter of my life, and this struggle might go on for years. I wish to serve in the coming conflict as but a simple soldier. Or, perhaps, battleforce leader.
"I said we must respond to this threat of the evil Emperor in a new fashion, and that I meant Which means someone who can look beyond our cluster, and see what is best, and convey that vision to our elders."
Otho should have built his "nominating" speech to some kind of "Happy Warrior" peak. Instead, he stepped off the table, filled his stregghorn, poured it down, stregg spilling across his chest, gasped for breath, and jerked his thumb across the table.
"Her."
Her, of course, was Cind.
A very long silence, followed by an even greater bedlam.
Cind, after she recovered, attempted to argue. She was but a human. She was still young, and not fitted for this honor. She was—
Whatever else she had tried to stammer went unheard. And the bleat went on.
Near dawn, the controversy was settled. Those still conscious who knew and respected Cind's battle and leadership abilities, plus those who were intrigued by the novelty of a human speaking for the Bhor, "won," although the field looked less like a political debating chamber than Hattin from an infidel's perspective.
Cind would speak for the Bhor.
She went to wake Sten, wondering how he would take the news.
Sten, of course, was delighted. First that the Bhor had declared, and second that they had picked such a talented and capable leader. He also found it funnier than hell that he and a Bhor were bedpartners. Although he did suggest she must immediately concentrate on beard-growing.
Alex Kilgour had not slept that night either. Near dawn, he found himself outside, on one of the fortresses' high battlements. A sentry saw him, started to challenge, then recognized him and left him to his thoughts.
The storm had broken, and the stars gleamed cold overhead.
Kilgour stared up, his eyes going past the strange constellations of the Wolf Worlds, far into interstellar space, toward the unseen galaxy that held his home star and system.
Edinburgh, where he was Laird Kilgour of Kilgour, with cas-ties, estates, and factories. A hard three-g world, that bred hard men and women.
A world that Alex suddenly felt he would never see again.
An‘ whae ae thae, he reminded himself. When y" took th' Emp's shilling, wae it noo wi‘ th' knowledge th‘ service would likely put y' in y'r grave, as it did y'r brother Kenneth? Or, ae best, leave y‘ crippl't, like Malcolm?
Aye. Aye. But th‘ gutcrawl thae y'll noo live f bear th' corpse ae th‘ Emperor't' his final rest i‘ a hard one.
But would y‘ rather die abed, years hence, wi' y'r mind a snarl ae th‘ past, y'r body withered an a', snivelin't graybeard?
Alex shivered, as his mind laid out all the paths before him, and all of them led only to his death.
He shivered, and it was not the cold.
Then he turned and went inside, to his chambers.
F death comit, was his final thought, ae th‘ wee Jann put it, S'be't.
W hae a war't‘ fight i' the meantime.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DUSABLE WAS ONE E-ycar away from its quadrennial elections. At stake: the office of Tyrenne and two-thirds of the seats on the Council of Solons.
All across the big, densely populated port planet—the industrial and political linchpin of the Cairene System—the upcoming elections were heatedly debated. Even the big news of the Imperial hunt for that traitor, Sten, was buried in an avalanche of pontificating and speculation on the livie newscasts.
Everyone from sewer worker to industrial baron was testing the political winds. Parents discussed the chances of Tyrenne Walsh and Solon Kenna at the dinner table. Joygirls and joyboys spread the mordida thicker among the local cops. Ward bosses counted and recounted the promised votes. Dirty tricksters pored over graveyard registries. Even children were recruited from the creche play yards to snoop about the wards for scandal.
Politics, the Eternal Emperor was fond of saying, is big business. On Dusable, it was the only business.
Patronage was the axis upon which the world spun. It was unlikely there was a being on Dusable whose existence didn't depend upon it. Cops were tithed by their precinct captains for prized mordida-collecting beats. Business owners bribed inspectors for their licenses. Unions traded influence for featherbed-ding jobs. Even dishwashers sold their votes to become pot wallopers. And pot washers paid mordida just to keep on scrubbing.
In short, Dusable was the most corrupt planet in the Empire. But in its fashion, the system worked. A citizen careful to always back the right horse was assured a chance of a happy life. Only the losers plotted and schemed to "throw the rascals out"
When the Eternal Emperor had made his long and twisted return from the grave, it was a Dusable election that had given him his first large step up to the throne. Since then, he'd repaid that debt many times over.
To begin with, Walsh and Kenna owed their current exalted status to the Emperor's not-inconsiderable political savvy. He'd stolen the election from Tyrenne Yelad—a boss with three decades of experience in ballot-box larceny.
But the Emperor was a fervent believer in that ancient law of politics, "He who was with me before Chicago..." and had ladled favor with a heavy hand.
Against this backdrop Solon Kenna hit the stump. Electioneering as if the big date were a week away, instead of a year, even though all his advisers said the election was in the bag. They pointed out that Dusable had never been so prosperous. The landing orbits of its big shipping ports were jammed. Factories were working twenty-four-hour shifts. The GNBI (Gross National Bribery Index) at record levels.
AM2 was not only plentiful and cheap, but the Eternal Emperor had gifted the system with a brand-new AM2 depot— servicing two vast sectors in this area of the Empire.