“I’m flattered,” Tara said dryly. And yet she knew the compliment was real. Clan warriors disdained to lie, and facile trader stereotypes notwithstanding, the Sea Fox merchants did no less.
“However,” the tall woman went on, “I do not deem her your greatest threat either.”
“Good Lord,” murmured Tara Bishop. “What’s worse thanthat ?”
Another figure appeared in her place: the broad shoulders, muscular neck and head of a man with brown skin, an unruly hank of coarse black hair, big cheekbones, a lantern jaw and a straight nose. The wide mouth and brown eyes smiled. To Tara Campbell, adept at reading people’s expressions, the smile seemed one of genuine joy.
She wondered what, in the grim and violent world of the Clans, he found to be so happy about.
“He ’smore dangerous?” Tara Bishop burst out. “He looks like the big brother every girl wished she had. Well, maybe notbrother , since he looks like a holovid star. .. ”
Senna smiled. “Interesting you should say that, Captain. These two are a rarity: sibkin—brother and sister—who have both won Bloodnames. The first in Clan Jade Falcon that we know of since Aiden and Marthe Pryde—and we know all, we Sea Foxes. Every word of every Clan’s Remembrance; the contents of records other Clans don’t even know they keep. That is our business, ultimately: to know.”
She gestured. “Galaxy Commander Aleksandr Hazen. He is Malvina Hazen’s sibkin. Fraternal twin, to all intents and purposes—especially inasmuch as they are the only members of their sibling cohort to survive to win warrior status.”
“How do the genetics ofthat work out?” Prefect Della Brown wondered aloud.
“Recessives for fair skin, hair, and eyes in the gene-stock,” Merchant Senna answered. “Sibkin can be even more diverse in appearance. These two couple; there are even rumors that emotional attachment has evolved.”
Ballantrae squinted at her. “What does that mean?”
“They have long been lovers, it is said.”
“That’s unnatural!” Ballantrae exclaimed.
“Of course it is,” the Sea Fox woman said equably. “There is nothing natural about our Clan society, least of all our mode of reproduction. Though we profess great affinity with nature, we meddle with it in every particular of our own lives. That’s another reason we and the Dracs feel such affinity for one another.”
Tara Campbell leaned forward. “Sothis is a greater threat than the bloodthirsty little blonde vampire? He must be a happy lunatic.”
“Your judgment for once is clouded, Tara Campbell,” the master merchant replied. “Aleks Hazen is entirely sane, although by Clan standards stranger than Malvina. Even as Malvina has never spared a foe faced in a duel, so he has never slain one. He is famed—or notorious—for his mercy and compassion.”
“How does he manage to keep his head on his shoulders among such a bloodthirsty lot?” Ballantrae burst out.
“Nobody is good enough to separate the one from the other, Colonel. He has fought Elementals unaugmented—barehanded—and won. As a MechWarrior, only one can touch him: Malvina, whom it is said he has never beaten. As a field commander he may be her better.”
“You say he’s the worst threat?” Tara Bishop said. “Why, if mass murder isn’t to his taste?”
“For precisely that reason, young Captain. Tell her, Countess: teach your fledgling. She shows great promise, but still lacks full wisdom.”
“Malvina’s methods inspire anger and hatred,” Tara said slowly, as her aide looked death beams at the master merchant. “They fill the survivors with desire for revenge. A chivalrous foe such as Aleks doesn’t give even those he conquers much to hate.”
The merchant nodded. Then laughed.
“Lucky for you that he is a freak. The reason the Crusaders lost the first invasion, and lost it so disastrously, was that they had nohistory . The Founders thought to start anew, to create the New Kerensky Man. And so the Crusaders lost because they knew nothing of human interaction except that peculiar hothouse-grown variety we enjoy in the Clans; and so they knew nothing of strategy. But Aleks Hazen knows his history.”
She drank again and smiled. “We might have seduced you within three generations with our marvelous toys, we Sea Foxes. It wasn’t just our killing tech that was superior to yours. But the warriors had their way, as is ever the case except in our own Clan; and we Foxes have always been despised in the Grand Council; when there was a Grand Council.”
The master merchant lowered eyes to her mug and lapsed into a reverie much at odds with her previous loquacity. With her unwilling knowledge of Clan lore, Tara Campbell realized, as the others seemed not to, that there had not been a Grand Council in decades. Nor was Senna likely to ever see one herself.
“Why are you helping us?” Tara Bishop asked.
Senna paused with her mug just short of her scarred lips. Her eyes had gone a deeper turquoise again: there was no danger there, only appraisal.
“The simple, obvious answer—that we hate Turkina’s brood—is true. But it’s so small a piece of the truth as to be a lie, if nothing more were said. We are Kerensky’s children, woman warrior. No less than the Wolves—nor the Falcons. We represent the Founder’s hedge against the possibility his vision was wrong: an alternative strategy to eternal war for dubious peace. No less than our more bloodthirsty brethren do we feel we have a mission to save humanity from itself.”
She shrugged, drank again. “Ironically, it is not so different from the vision of Devlin Stone, which your Countess there serves with such famed devotion. Our agenda is our own, our plans our own; I give nothing away in telling you that, because I credit you with sufficient intelligence to take it for granted.”
Carefully, she set the mug down on the table before her, as if it was spun from fine glass. “Clan Jade Falcon poses a threat to all humanity. Not just your precious Republic, whose time is past—pardon if I give offense, Countess; but you have paid me for the truth. We Sea Foxes honor our bargains, always.
“Malthus is a devil, yet by himself he is nothing, for he needs a long shadow in which to hide to work his mischief. But Malvina and Aleksandr Hazen together create ataiji , dark and light, the ancient symbol of unity in duality, the endless interplay of opposites. Together they are awesome, and may yet prove unstoppable. Yet individually they may pose even greater threats. For each is an elemental force—not Elemental in our Clan sense, but in the classic meaning: a force of Nature Herself.”
“Mystic nonsense,” Ballantrae rasped. It was almost a spit. “Countess, we might as well have brought Kev Rosse himself here, to spin us some daft Spirit Cat vision out of mushrooms and drug smoke!”
Ignoring the Colonel’s outburst, Master Merchant Senna looked Tara Campbell deep in the eyes as she spoke. “Let me give you one final counseclass="underline" kill both if you can, but under no circumstances slay one and leave the other living. Or even the Blake Jihad will seem a trifle.
“For by himself Aleksandr will bring you a smiling slavery from which humankind will not escape for a thousand years. While Malvina untempered by her brother’s true compassion will create such devastation that in a thousand years our descendants will still be gibbering and eating each other in the ruins of it.”
21
Summer Prefecture VIII The Republic of the Sphere 14 July 3134
Aleks hit Summer, three jumps from Alkaid.
Summer hit back.
It was a hot, hard-luck world with a population just under a billion. Its ozone layer was decaying and its old capital, Curitiba, had been nuked by Blakists during the Jihad. The planet’s primary industrial infrastructure on the northern continent Lestrade had likewise been shattered. The war depopulated Summer; some residents returned afterwards, their ranks augmented by the Resettlement Act of 3082.