Sword of the Lamb (25 page)

“And the chances of achieving Phase I—have they been calculated?”

Rich nodded. “They’re calculated almost daily as changing events affect the data. The last figures I saw put the chances at between thirty and forty percent.” He leaned forward, meeting and holding Alexand’s eyes. “We’ve also calculated the Concord’s odds for survival. The chances that the Concord will survive more than thirty years under present conditions run between ten and twelve percent. They drop to five percent over a fifty-year period.”

The ring of truth was in those figures. Alexand listened to the vibrant, vital hum of Concordia, yet he wondered if the Phoenix might even be showing an unwarranted optimism.

“Rich, do you really . . .” He couldn’t go on.

“Yes,” Rich said quietly, “I
do
believe. I believe the Phoenix offers at least a slim hope of averting a third dark age, the only hope available to the Concord.”

“And the Concord brands the Phoenix traitor.”

Rich laughed tolerantly. “Of course, but the Lords know nothing of our real aims at this point. Not that they’d consider us any less traitors if they did.” For a moment he was silent, studying his brother’s face, the lean planes lighted by the glow in the eastern sky. He said with a sigh, “You were right, Alex. Father has sired a strange pair of sons. I suppose I shouldn’t have told you all this. I’ve made you an accessory to treason.”

Alexand shrugged at that. “Treason is relative; it usually depends on who wins. I envy you, Rich. You’ve found . . . a cause. If you’re right about the Phoenix, if it does offer a hope for averting another dark age, then you have no choice but to pursue it.”

Rich nodded, turning his gaze again to Concordia, rose-hued, its lights, even in the burgeoning dawn, a scintillant sea vanishing into distance.

“Look at it, Alex. Have you ever tired of seeing it? The city of lights. Was ever an appellation so appropriate?” He paused, then added almost in a whisper, “The lights must never go out.”

Alexand could find no words. After a long silence, Rich turned his luminous eyes on him.

“I’ve detained you long enough. You must go now.”

Alexand looked at his watch and nodded. “Rich, when will I see you again?”

“Concord Day. Octov. I’ll miss your graduation leave in Septem, but I’ll be home for the Concord Day holiday.”

Six months. Half a year. An interminable time, yet only a month more than the separation Confleet imposed on them.

Alexand turned to look out at the city.

The lights must never go out
.

“I’ll miss you, Rich, and I’ll never be free of fear for you from this hour on, but I can only offer my respect and admiration. And my love.” He looked down at his brother. “You’re my linked-twin soul, and you carry a part of me with you, as I hold a part of you—always.”

Rich didn’t speak for some time; he gripped the arms of his chair until his knuckles were white, then finally he said, “Alexand, you’ve loved me with all your heart, and in a few years you’ll be repaid with grief, and that seems a bitter recompense. I can’t spare you the grief, and it might seem that in leaving you now I’m only adding more, but I believe beyond a doubt that the seeds I’m planting will bear fruit one day, and perhaps you’ll taste some of the fruits of the harvest; you and your children. That’s the only way I can make restitution for the grief, and the only form of immortality I can believe in.” Then he smiled and reached for his brother’s hand. “Besides, I expect your first born to be named for me. I’d hate to think of my namesake growing up to a heritage of rubble. I’ll leave you now. No landing-roof farewells.”

Alexand held that frail hand and found in it the strength he always did; the strength now to hold back the waiting pain.

“Rich . . . good fortune.”

Rich released his hand. “Peace be, Alex. Goodbye.”

Alexand couldn’t bring himself to speak that word.

PHOENIX MEMFILES: DEPT HUMAN SCIENCES:
BASIC SCHOOL
(HS/BS)

SUBFILE: LECTURE, BASIC SCHOOL 9 JANUAR 3252
GUEST LECTURER: RICHARD LAMB
SUBJECT: POST-DISASTERS HISTORY
:
THE HOLY CONFEDERATION (2585–2903)

DOC LOC #819/219–1253/1812–1648–913252

Lord Patric Eyre Ballarat is often called the true heir of Even Pilgram (whose last genetic heir died childless in 2514), and there are obvious similarities. There is also a bias on the part of many historians to see the PanTerran Confederation as a natural culmination of Pilgram’s Holy Confederation. The former was, however, in no way inevitable, and was in fact a first in human history, and might just as “naturally” have grown out of the Sangpor League, the Sudamerikan Allienza Salvador, or, even more likely, the powerful Sudafrikan Union.

What Pilgram and Ballarat had in common was that they were both successful at conquest and consolidation, and both made of their campaigns holy wars, but even in these affinities there are more points of divergence than convergence. Time tends to foreshorten the sequence of events as they become more distant. We lose sight of the fact that nearly as much time separated Ballarat from Pilgram as separates us from Ballarat. Whatever they might have had in common as personalities is irrelevant in the face of the vast differences in their historical contexts. Pilgram lived in a strictly feudal world in which the primary source of energy was animal (including human) power, sovereignty was still rooted ultimately in the exchange of fealty for protection, and trade was conducted primarily on a barter level.

Ballarat’s world was quite different, although it might be argued that it couldn’t have existed without Pilgram’s consolidation of the feudal holds. In that sense perhaps he
is
Pilgram’s heir, but so are we all. The Holy Confederation hastened the advent of Conta Austrail’s renaissance, which was, unlike the renaissance following the First Dark Age, also an industrial revolution. Some knowledge always survives a dark age, and humankind entered the Second Dark Age at a more technologically advanced level in the twenty-first century than pertained in the fifth century when it entered the First Dark Age. Even in Pilgram’s time a few crude radio communication systems were still in operation. His strategic use of this “word-winger” contributed to his military success, in fact. I doubt that he or anyone who employed radio devices at the time understood how or why they worked; their construction, maintenance, and use was a matter of tradition hoared with dogma, but with the advent of the Holy Confederation, pooling and expansion of knowledge by interchange became possible. The first organized educational institutions—the forerunners of the University System—were established during this period under the aegis of the Church, and when some of the great libraries were later discovered in the ruins of Canber, Brisbane, and even in Melborn before it became the site of Concordia, the intellectual soil had been prepared for the seeding of that precious knowledge from the past.

That seeding precipitated a technological renaissance that evolved far faster than the social structures supporting it, and that’s one problem our era shares with Ballarat’s: our social structures still haven’t caught up, and various factors have combined since then to further retard them.

But in the twenty-ninth century, the technological resurgence was more obvious than the social lag, and, as is so often the case, the resurgence hinged on one key invention. That was the energy amplification/storage cell, whose invention in 2761 was credited to Lord Cilas Darwin, although it was probably developed by scientists allieged to him, and was undoubtedly based on twenty-first-century prototypes. Hydroelectric power and fossil fuels were the primary sources of power before the development of the Darwin cell, but neither were abundant enough to adequately power an industrial renaissance. The Darwin cell, however, made possible full exploitation of solar power, even without the advantage of beamed solar power systems, and the Holy Confederation took the first step into a new age.

In the century between that crucial invention and Ballarat’s emergence into the light of history, much that is familiar in our world came into existence. The term “Fesh,” for instance, derived from “professional.” More important, the first industrial—as opposed to landed—Houses appeared, which led to the establishment of the franchise system. The term “House” came into general use during this period, too. Prior to the development of exclusively industrial Houses, terms such as “domain,” “dominion,” “province,” or the archaic “station” were used to describe the primarily geographical boundaries of sovereignty.

The Holy Confederation flourished, expanded, and differentiated at an astounding rate so that one generation’s world was all but unrecognizable to the next. Industrialization begat trade, and trade begat the need for expanded markets and the means to reach them. The Holy Confederation moved out into the world via waterborne and airborne craft that seem slow and even dangerous to us, but were wings to the Confederation. This was a period of reaching out, of the rediscovery of Terra and of the receding boundaries of knowledge, and there is evident in its extant writings on almost any subject a blithe optimism we can only look back on with envy.

Among other things, the traders and explorers of the mercantile and industrial Houses of the Holy Confederation discovered that although many parts of the planet were still blighted by the poisoning of pollution and exploitation, and the scars of nuclear war left by the Disasters, people and cultures were thriving in other areas. None of the cultures had advanced beyond feudalism, but that didn’t make them less attractive as markets for the products of Conta Austrail’s industrial Houses, or as producers of raw material for further industrialization.

This was a crucial period not only because of the many changes that did occur in a relatively short time, but because of one change that might have occurred, which would have drastically altered the future course of history, but did not occur. The Fesh, the middle class that burgeoned inevitably during this period, did not escape the dominion of the Elite. (That term, of course, didn’t come into general use until after the Wars of Confederation.) The Fesh did not break the allegiance system to their Lords, perhaps because House specialization blunted the effects of individual specialization, or perhaps it was simply attributable to the lag between social and technological development. As a corollary, the Bond class also remained bonded to their Lords. It might be noted that there was some potential for upward movement from one class to another during this period, which may have made the class restrictions more acceptable. Another factor is that the Orthodox Church was a dominant social force—far more so than today—and one of the Church’s doctrines was the sanctity of allegiance. The Church also offered individuals the option of what was essentially another class, that is, becoming part of the Church hierarchy. “Tithe” conscriptions were not yet practiced, and entry into Church service was entirely voluntary. At any rate, the Holy Confederation moved into the industrial renaissance with its feudal foundations intact.

An important factor initially overlooked by contemporaries in this pre-Wars period was that the Holy Confederation’s interactions with other cultures inevitably changed them. It hastened their emergence out of feudalism so that the primitive cultures that had once docilely provided markets and raw materials finally became manufacturers themselves, or developed their own marine fleets and began to threaten, by competition or piracy, the Holy Confederation’s mercantile Lords.

It was at this pregnant point in history that Lord Patric Eyre Ballarat appeared, and it was Ballarat who made enemies and heathens of the “outlanders,” and convinced the other Lords of the Holy Confederation that it was their duty and destiny to conquer the enemy and make enlightened Mezionists of the heathen.

It would entail more long evenings with Julia Fallor, but even that seemed a small price for a few days at home, out of the black uniform; a few days with Rich. He would be home for the holiday, too. Home from Leda, from the—

A stir of sound in his ear alerted him. He adjusted his headset as one of the ’com screens flashed to life.

Leftant Commander Evret.

“Flagship
Stanton
to Corvet
Ariad
. . .”

Alexand touched a lighted button on the console.

“
Ariad
to flagship. Leftant Woolf on line.”

“Commander Evret for Major Goring.”

“Yes, sir. Just a moment.” Alexand swiveled his chair toward Goring, who occupied the command seat in the center of the Corvet’s crowded control deck. “Major Goring?”

The major was talking to the navcomp officer; he looked up, obviously annoyed at the interruption.

“What is it, Leftant?”

“Commander Evret for you, sir. Intership FR310.”

“Oh.” His annoyance vanished as he switched on his headset, turning his attention to the small screen mounted on the arm of his chair. “Major Goring on line. Commander.”

Alexand’s hand went to the console, and his screen went blank, but he neglected to turn off the audio circuit. He was expected to do so. and apparently it didn’t occur to Goring that he wouldn’t. He never checked, and Alexand eavesdropped regularly without a qualm. As he listened, he looked up at the vis-screens lining the curved walls above the arc of consoles.

“. . . on stand-by status, Major. A serious Bond uprising is in progress in the Alber compounds in Canadia. Lord Fallor has requested Confleet forces to stand in reserve.”

Alexand’s eyes narrowed, but there was no other indication of his sick dread. Fallor. That carping fool, Charles Fallor. His future father-in-law, no less.

“Of course, Commander. Is the status critical?”

“The reports are confused, as usual. At least they have some idea what started this one. Some damned Shepherd was executed, and the Bonds went berserk when Fallor’s guards wouldn’t let them have the body.”

Terra’s flat curve bisected the screens; Alexand stared at the image fixedly, the dread turning to anger.
Ariad
was passing over the Eastern Coastal Wastes of Noramerika, and those millennium-old scars seemed a fitting symbol.

If the Bonds had revolted because they were denied the body of one of their religious leaders, they were justified. The Rites of Passing, the ceremonies surrounding the cremation of the dead, were of profound significance to them; a soul denied these rites might be excluded from the Beyond Realm. And the Galinin Rule stated unequivocally that Bond religious ceremonies were not to be interfered with or curtailed unless they constituted an immediate threat. It was highly unlikely that a threat existed in letting the Bonds carry out the circumspect ceremonies of the Rites.

He knew what had happened. Some officious House guard had taken matters into his own hands and capriciously—or fearfully, out of ignorance—denied the Bonds what they had every right to expect. And by that one mindless act, another holocaust had been unleashed.

He stared up at the cloud-shimmered images on the screens, a lapis lazuli world turning under them, turning toward Alber, while Evret’s voice rasped in his ear.

“. . . five hundred Fallor guards and a hundred Conpol officers, but reinforcements are on the way from Montril. I’ll have orders from FleetComm within ten minutes.”

Alexand turned to the console, apparently reading a status communication, but his finger rested casually on the Intership button. He would have to switch off when Goring did, or the lighted button would betray him.

“. . . only on stand-by, Major, but order your Falcon complement into closed-V formation. We may be making a fast change of course.”

“Very well, sir.”

“That’s all, Major.”

Alexand pressed the button. He expected Goring’s voice next, and he was startled that it wasn’t his.

“Hey, Alex . . .”

The voice was close, low-pitched, carrying a sibilant smirk. It belonged to the man seated next to him, the
Ariad
’s gunnery officer.

“What the hell’s wrong with you, Alex? Just think—a few more hours and you’ll be making it with sweet Julia.”

Any reply he might have made was cut off by Goring’s starchy. “Leftant Selasis!”

Karlis Selasis stiffened and looked back at Goring. “Yes, sir?”

“I will tolerate no idle conversation on this condeck. Leftant Woolf . . .”

Alexand turned. “Yes, Major?”

“Put me on shipboard and complement frequency—and switch in the sig-mod circuit.”

“Yes. sir.”

He moved about the task automatically, his bitter rage in no way evident. The uprising in Alber was foremost in his thoughts. He had no doubt their unit would be called in; he knew Charles Fallor. But, on another level, he was thinking that one day he’d find out who had arranged his assignment to the same unit, to the same ship as Karlis Selasis. There was malicious intent behind that. It couldn’t conceivably be accidental.