Marching Through Georgia (30 page)

Stop evading
, he told himself, turning to the Intelligence officer.

"Well, Sannie?"

Cohortarch Sannie van Reenan held up a narrow sheaf of papers. "A friend of a friend, straight from the developer… They did the usual search-and-sweep around the last known position, and they found the plane, or what was left of it." She paused to moisten her lips. "It came in even, in a meadow: landed, skidded, and burned." The scored eagle face of the strategos did not alter, but his fingers clutched on the mahogany ferrule of his cane.

"Odd thing, Karl… there was a Fritz vehicle about twenty meters from the wreckage, a kubelwagon,
and it was burned, too
. At about the same time, as far as it's possible to tell. Very odd; so they're sticking to
Missing in Action
, not
Missing and Presumed
Dead
."

He laughed, a light bitter sound. "Which is perhaps better for her, and no relief to me at all. How selfish we humans can be in our loves." It was not discreditable, strictly speaking, for him to inquire about his daughter's fate; it
would
be, if he made too much of it when his duties to the Race were supposedly filling all time and attention.

The sun was bright, this late-fall morning, and the air cool without chill; sheltered, and lower than the plateau to the south, Archona rarely saw frost before May, and snow only once or twice in a generation. The terraces were brilliant with late flowers, roses and hibiscus in soft carpets of reddish gold, white and bright scarlet. Stairways zigzagged down to the lawns along the river bank, lined with cypress trees like candles of dark green fire. Water glittered and flashed from the creek as it tumbled over polished brown stone; the long narrow leaves of the trees flickered brighter still, the dove-grey of the upper side alternating with the almost metallic silver sheen of the under.

"Johanna…" he began softly. "Johanna always loved gardens. I remember… it was '25; she was about three. We were on holiday in Virconium, for the races, we went to Adelaird's, on the Bluff, for lunch. They've got an enclosed garden there, orchids.

Johanna got away from her nurse, we found her there walking down a row going:
pilly flower… pilly flower
, snapping them off and pushing them into her hair and dress and…" He shrugged, nodding toward the terraces.

"Gardens, horses, poetry, airplanes… she was better than I at enjoying things; she told me once it was because I thought about what I thought about them too much. Forty years I've tried for
satori
, and she just fell into it."

Your're a complicated man by nature, Pa
, she had said, that last parting when she left for her squadron.
You tangle up the
simplest things, like Eric, which is why you two always fight;
issues be damned. I'm not one who feels driven to rebel against
the nature of what is, so we're different enough to get along
.

She had seemed so cool and adult, a stranger. Then she had seized him in a sudden fierce hug, right there in the transit station; he had blinked in embarrassment before returning the embrace with one awkward arm.
I love you, Daddy
, whispered into his ear. Then a salute; he had returned it.

"I love you too, daughter." That as she was turning; a quick surprised wheel back and a delighted grin.

"I may be an old fool, Johanna, but not so old I can't learn by my mistakes when a snip of a girl points them out to me." He touched a knuckle to her chin. "You'll do your duty, girl, I know."

He frowned for unfamiliar words. "Sometimes I think…

remember that you have a duty to live, too. Because we need you; the earth might grow weary of the Race and cast us off, if we didn't have the odd one like you."

She had walked up the boarding ramp in a crowd of her comrades, smiling.

And if she had wisdom, surely she inherited it from her
mother
. He mused, returning to the present.
Eric… did I show
my daughters more love because my heart didn't seek to make
them live my life again for me
?

He jerked his chin toward the brown-clad serfs in the gardens below, weeding and watering and pruning.

"D'you know where they come from, Sannie?" he asked more briskly.

She raised a brow. "Probably born here, Karl. Why?"

"Just a thought on the nature of freedom, and power. I'm one of the… oh, fifty or so most powerful men in the Domination; therefore one of the freest on earth, by theory. And they are property, powerless; but I'm not free to spend my life in the place I was born, or cultivate my garden, or see my children grow around me."

She snorted. "Jean-Jacques Rousseau has been dead for a long time, my friend; also, other people's lives always look simpler from the outside, because you can't see the complexities.

Would you change places?"

"Of course not," he said with a harsh laugh. "Even retirement will probably drive me mad; and she may not be dead, at all.

She's strong, and cunning, and she wants to live very much…"

He forced impassiveness. It was not often he could be simply a private person; that was another sacrifice you made for the Race.

"Speaking of death, for our four ears: I suspect that headhunter in green would like to do at least one von Shrakenberg an injury, and the General Staff through him."

Sannie van Reenan nodded decisively. Keeping track of Skull House's activities was one of the Intelligence Section's responsibilities, after all. "They
don't
like that son of yours, at all.

Still less now that he's achieving some degree of success, and by… unorthodox means. The headhunters never forget, forgive, or give up on a suspicion; well, it's their job, after all.

The master of Oakenwald tapped his cane on the flags.

"Sannie, it might be better if that man Dreiser's articles found a slightly wider audience. In
The Warrior
for instance." That was one of the Army newspapers, the one most popular with enlisted personnel and the junior officer corps. "Unorthodox, again.

Things that happen to people in the public view provoke questions, and are thus… less likely to happen."

The woman nodded happily. "And Security's going to be over-influential as it is, after the war. Plenty of work to do in Europe; we'll be working on pacification and getting ready to take the Yanks, which is a two-generation job, at least. Better to give them a gentle reminder that there are
some
things they'd be well advised to leave alone."

Karl looked at his watch. "And more ways of killing a cat than choking it to death with cream. Now, let's get on to that meeting.

Carstairs keeps underestimating the difficulties of China, in my opinion…"

"You've assigned a competent operative?"

"Of course, sir."
How has this fussbudget gotten this high
?

the Security Directorate Chiliarch thought, behind a face of polite agreement.
Of course, he's getting old
.

"No action on young von Shrakenberg until
after
we break through to the pass. Then, the situation will be usefully fluid for… long enough."

The car hissed quietly through the near-empty streets. The secret-police general looked out on their bright comeliness with longing; a nursemaid sat on a bench, holding aloft a tow-haired baby who giggled and kicked. Her uniform was trim and neat, shining against the basalt stone like her teeth against the healthy brown glow of her skin.

Tired
, he thought, pulling down the shade and relaxing into the rich leather-and-cologne smell of the seats.
Tired of planning
and worrying, tired of boneheaded aristocrats who think a
world-state can he run like a paternalist's plantation
. He glanced aside, into the cool, intelligent eyes of his assistant. They met his for an instant before dropping with casual unconcern to the opened attache case on his lap.
Tired of your hungry eyes
and your endless waiting, my protege. But not dead yet
.

"The son's the one to watch. The old man will die in the course of nature, soon enough; the General

Staff aren't the only ones who know how to wait, after all. The daughter's missing in action; besides, she's apolitical. Smart, but no ambition."

"Neither has Eric von Shrakenberg, in practical terms."

"Ah," the older man said softly. "Tim, you should look up from those dossiers sometimes; things aren't so cut and dried as you might think. Human beings are not consistent; nor predictable, until they're dead."
And you will never believe that and so will
always fall just short of your ambitions, and never know why
.

"Black, romantic Byronic despair is a pose of youth. And war is a great realist, a great teacher." A sigh. "Well, the Fritz may take care of it for us." He tapped the partition that separated them from the driver. "Back to Skull House; autumn is depressing, outdoors."

"
…the Ottoman collapse in 1917 gave the Draka their
long-awaited Turkish spoils; the Thousand-Dirigible Raid on
Constantinople and the occupation of Thrace and cis-Danubian
Bulgaria rounded off the new acquisitions. Neutral Persia had
been overrun in 1916. ostensibly to help supply the Czar's forces.

This much had been expected; what was not was the Russian
collapse following the Brusilov offensive and the Bolshevik
coup.
Britain was totally committed to the Western Front, and
could no longer do more than scold; dazzling opportunities
presented themselves. The Domination had more than eight
million troops under arms, and alone of the major Powers had
suffered bearable casualties—most of those Janissary serf
soldiers driven into the machine guns and the wire. The only
serious dispute in Castle Tarleton was between those who
wished to drive north into the Ukraine and the 'Easterners.' A
Ukrainian offensive would have involved a major confrontation
with the German army, which the Draka had carefully
avoided. Instead, it was decided to launch the great push to the
northeast the initial objectives were Tashkent. Samarkand and
Alma-Ata, and operations would continue until strong
resistance was met

None was. and in the end the offensive petered out only when
the logistical strain became unbearable, in western China and
the headwaters of the Yangtze. Six million square miles, near
two hundred million souls; only sober second thoughts
prevented a drive
to
the Pacific. The spearpoint legions were
being supplied by dirigible, every round of ammunition and
gallon of fuel brought six thousand miles from railheads
themselves ten thousand miles from the industrial cities of
central Africa. By 1920. it had become clear that the
Domination was committed to a generation of overstrain if the
New Territories were to be held, pacified, and settled. From
this much flowed: the break with Britain, the enhanced role of
the Security Directorate, the decision to extend compulsory
military service for Citizen women, the clashes with Japan
along the Mongolian border in 1938-1939…by 1940 twenty
years of effort were bearing fruit. Road and rail links spanned
the whole area from Sofia to Mongolia: scores of new cities had
been built the oil resources of Arabia and Kashgar tapped, new
plantations established by the hundred thousand. Most of all.

from a strategic liability, the new serf populations had become
a source of docile labor and reliable recruits…

200 Years: A Social History of the Domination
by Alan E. Sorensson, Ph.D.

Archona Press. 1983

VILLAGE ONE, OSSETIAN MILITARY HIGHWAY APRIL 15, 1942: 0230 HOURS

"Sir." A hand on his shoulder. "Sir."

"Mmmmph." Eric blinked awake from a dream where cherry blossoms fell into dark-red hair and sat up, probing for grains of sleep-sand until the warning twinge of his palms forbade; grimacing at the taste in his mouth. He glanced at his watch: 0230, five hours' sleep and better than he could expect. The command section was sleeping in the cellar-cum-bunker he had selected as the H.Q.: a cube four meters on a side, damp and chilly, but marginally less likely to be overburdened with insect life.

The floor was rock because the earth did not reach this deep, five meters beneath the sloping surface. The walls and arched ceiling were cut-stone blocks, larger and older and better-laid than the stones of the houses above, even though the upper rows were visibly different from the lower. This village was
old
, the upper sections had probably been replaced scores of times, after fire or sack or the sheer wasting of the centuries. The cold air smelled of rock, earth, the root-vegetables that had been stored here over the years, and already of unwashed soldier. One wall had a rough doorway knocked through it, with a blanket slung across; a dim blue light spread from the battery lamp someone had spiked to one wall.

Shadows and blue light… equipment covered much of the floor: radios, a field telephone with twisted bundles of color-coded wires snaking along the floor and looping from nail to nail along lines driven between the stone blocks. The rest was carpeted in groundsheets and sleeping rolls, now that they had had time to recover their marching packs and bring the last of the supplies down from the Aiders, with scavenged Fritz blankets for extra pad-cling. Someone had improvised a rack along one wall to hang rifles and personal gear, strings of grenades, spare ammunition, a folding map table. Somebody else had one of the solid-fuel field stoves going in a corner, adding its chemical and hot-metal odor to the bunker, along with a smell of brewing coffee.

"Thanks," Eric muttered as hands pushed a mug into his hands: Neal, the command section rocket-gunner, a dark-haired, round-faced woman from… where was it? Taledar Hill, one of those little cow-and-cotton towns up in the Northmark.