The Kalif paused again, long enough to encourage a hand to wave, or a voice to challenge. None did.
"Again assume, for the sake of argument, that the Klestronu violated the space of a non-human empire. An empire a hyperspace year away. If their ship informed them, and if they constitute a vast and powerful empire, why haven't they come to challenge us? They've had five years!"
His eyes shifted to Lord Rothka, whose face was stone hard now. "I cannot prove that a non-human fleet will not emerge from hyperspace in this system three years from now. Or tomorrow. Any more than I can prove that Kargh will not strike you with lightning three years from now. Or tomorrow.
"But the odds that the Confederation will someday find and attack us, if we do not move first, are much greater. And it is that probability that I wish to forestall."
He exhaled gustily and looked around. "Well. Are there more questions? If there are, I hope you don't throw them at me like poison darts."
At the weak humor, laughter rippled thinly through the Diet, a release of tension. Then, for the next half hour, the Kalif answered questions dealing mostly with feasibility-mainly logistics and cost predictions. He also answered complaints about the suggested military contributions to come from the various planets. His figures on logistics and costs came from SUMBAA, he said, and SUMBAA had indicated they were feasible. As it had the military contributions tentatively assigned the separate sultanates. But he'd be glad to discuss either of these matters before requesting an appropriation, and to adjust them if they threatened an unfair hardship.
Then he excused himself and left. Jilsomo would show him the video record of anything in the meeting that he needed to see and hear.
Tain had become considerably more outgoing and animated since their wedding-a development that pleased her husband very much. But this evening at supper, she ate slowly, silently, and little. At first he didn't intrude, respecting her privacy. At length, though, he questioned her.
"You're quiet. Is anything wrong?"
After a moment she answered. "Someone left something for me today. A video cube. With a note telling me to play it."
"Oh? And what was it?"
"It was of you. You were giving a speech to the people. About invading the Confederation."
He looked to his cup, and took an unwanted sip of tea, avoiding her eyes for the moment. "What did you think of it?"
"It hurt. It hurt to hear that my husband wants to make war on my home world. Even if I don't remember it, the memories are there. Of the people, my family, friends… Memories I can't see, but that sometimes I can feel."
"Ah. And how do they feel to you, those memories? Are they happy, do you think?"
"It seems to me they are. More happy than otherwise."
"Do you feel that the government of the Confederation is a good government? Kind? Just? Or do those hidden memories reflect a good home, a loving family, dear friends?"
Her answer was soft, monotone. "If it does-During your invasion, what will happen to that family, that home, those friends?"
The question stabbed him-somehow he'd never thought of it! How had he not? he wondered. But it showed only as a brief flicker in his eyes. "And what kind of government do they live under?" he asked quietly, then answered his own question, or seemed to. "By the evidence, one that can put a uniform on a young woman, a girl, a beautiful girl with her life before her, and send her to war, perhaps to be killed."
She picked idly at a salad leaf, not answering.
He got up. "Will you walk in the garden with me? Or sit by me in the roof garden?"
Tain got up, too. "The roof," she said. "Where I can see more stars."
He nodded and they went up together in their private lift tube. It was approaching full night. There was no sign of the moon. Stars vaulted upward from the east, past the zenith and down toward the silver of a fading sunset. Husband and wife sat down side by side, shoulders almost touching, and when his hand found hers, she did not withdraw it. After awhile he spoke again.
"What are you thinking? If you tell me, I will not argue with you."
"Why must you invade my homeworld? Why not send a diplomatic mission?"
He absorbed the question before answering, attention inward, fingers massaging the silver sextant on his chest as if to gain wisdom from it. When at last he spoke, it was slowly, choosing his words. "First there are matters of principle," he said, "which in this case tend more to set limits than to dictate actions. A state of war exists between the Confederation and Klestron. I cannot send a peaceful embassy to an entity at war with an imperial world. The Diet and the sultanates wouldn't stand for it."
Her lips parted as if to object, but he went on. "Not even when the war was brought on by Klestron's own military; political principle is not always just or logical.
"Beyond that, there is military tradition that defeat in battle must be avenged if possible. In recent millenia it's lost much of its force; few would argue now that we need to fight so large and distant an adversary to save Klestron's face. I doubt that even Sultan Rashti would urge it for no more reason than that. But it's enough to prohibit sending a peaceful embassy. If anything is sent, it must be military, not diplomatic.
"Of course, none of that requires that I send anything, and I must tell you that many would prefer I don't. There are other reasons favoring an invasion over doing nothing." He proceeded then to repeat the arguments he'd given the Diet.
"And were it possible to send an embassy," he went on, "we wouldn't know for five years what the results were. Meanwhile, the Confederation could continue to arm; to send an embassy would be very dangerous for us." He shrugged.
"I'm the Kalif," he finished. "I can't sit back and say to someone else, I cannot decide, I cannot act, I will not accept the responsibility."
He pressed Tain's hand. "That's my answer to you. I realize it may well seem inadequate; no doubt it would be to me, if our places were reversed. That's why I said nothing to you earlier."
Her reply was calm and cool. "You have answered my question, but you haven't eased my distress. Now that I see your reasons more fully, I've lost the bitterness I felt, but it will be difficult to feel toward you as I did before. It will take time. I do still love you, but there is a wound now."
She paused, but he kept silent, knowing she had more to say. After a long and meditative minute she went on. "On the other hand, I'm thinking how remarkable it is that I'm here. In the empire. And that you found me and wanted me, and that you love me. If you still do. You the Kalif, and I a prisoner of war.
"It seems to me that someone I've known, sometime, somewhere, would tell me there was a reason for that. Whether the will of Kargh, or something else. A reason and a purpose."
She fell silent then, and when, after a minute, she'd said nothing more, he squeezed her hand slightly. "I do love you," he said. "Very much. I always will."
After another moment she spoke again. "In your speech, you mentioned those who wished to block you. I can only hope they succeed. Not for lack of loving you, but for love of what I once knew as home." She peered at him in the darkness. "How does that seem to you?" she asked. "Treasonous?"
"No. No, I cannot fault you for feeling that way. As for me, I love this empire which Kargh has given me to rule, and it seems to me that what I propose to do needs to be done. That's a feeling I've rationalized before the College and the Diet, and the reasons I gave them are true. But the feeling goes deeper than that, as if Kargh had ordered it."