Collected Driblets of Baen at Dahak's Orbit at the Fifth Imperium Snippet Feed

Heart of Stone - Sat Feb 13 19:02:08 EST 2021

Sat, 13 Feb 2021 19:02:08 -0500

"Heart of Stone" by David Weber, last updated Sat Feb 13 19:02:08 EST 2021

father?s clinic.?

?Looks as if Richard did well by you, but let?s take a look at the leg in particular. Jessica, would you like to work the scanner??

Jessica beamed, then grew immediately serious. ?Yes, sir!?

The examination that followed was facilitated because, after cutting away Cordelia?s damaged clothing, Richard Harrington had supplied her with a loose caftan in an astonishingly brilliant purple and gold pattern. Tests were run, readings taken, resulting in Dr. Flambeau deciding that he?d like to do some further treatment on the worst of Cordelia?s lacerated leg muscles.

?I?ll also give you a crutch, which will free-up your cane hand. You?ve had a bad break in that ankle, then walked on it. It?s going to take at least three weeks to heal, even with quick-heal?longer if you don?t go easy on it.?

When Jessica and Valiant darted off to get the necessary equipment, Stephanie, possibly, Cordelia thought, by way of a distraction, asked Dr. Flambeau:

?Is the girl in emergency badly hurt??

?I can?t speak to specifics,? the doctor replied, ?but sadly yes. She apparently forgot about how serious a fall can be in Sphinx?s higher gravity.? His expression became rueful. ?I?ve had a few near-misses myself when I thought I could manage without my counter-grav unit for just a little. Apparently, she made the same mistake . . . but without the 'miss' part.?

Jessica and Valiant returned then. Before long, Cordelia had undergone a session of nerve stimulation, had had her wounds freshly patched, and was feeling just a little lightheaded from the pain meds. When her com unit chimed as they were heading back to Stephanie?s car, she had to think about what the sound was. She read the text and smiled.

?Mack will be picking me and Barnaby up at your dad?s clinic. He?s bought me a change of clothes, so I can give your dad back this amazing caftan.? She frowned. ?Uh, do I need to have Mack pick up treecat kibble or something??

Stephanie laughed. ?Not really. We?ll give you a list of recommended foods, as well as ones that treecats like but aren?t exac

Governor - Mon Nov 16 19:08:42 EST 2020

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 19:08:42 -0500

"Governor" by David Weber and Richard Fox, last updated Mon Nov 16 19:08:42 EST 2020

"Terry, we're going to be late!" Simron Murphy said.

"Can't be," Commodore Terrence Murphy said with what could only be described as a smirk. "I'm the guest of honor. They can't start it without me, can they?"

"Terry!" Simron shook her head and glared at him, but it was a remarkably mild glare.

"What?" He looked at her innocently. "It's true, isn't it?"

"No, it is not true," she told him severely. "The limo is already waiting. And they can, and will, start precisely on schedule, whether you're there or not."

"Oh, give me a break!" He rolled his eyes. "This is your brother and my father-in-law you're talking about, Simmy! Have they ever started a social event 'precisely on schedule' in their lives?"

She glared up at him. Her father's genetic heritage was obvious in her sandalwood complexion and shining black hair, but her eyes were a startling blue, courtesy of her mother's side of the family. Well, that and a little discrete genetic tweaking a generation or so back. She was a small, compact, gracefully moving woman. Not a great beauty in any classic sense, perhaps — her features were too strong, too sharp for that, especially in an era when biosculpt could transform anyone into a god or goddess. Yet she was astonishingly attractive and stood out in any crowd, largely because she'd chosen to eschew any improvement on nature. That made her almost unique among the Five Hundred, the alliance of families which were the backbone of the Terran Republic's elite society, and uniqueness was always its own cachet. Of course, the fact that a razor-keen intellect and a lively sense of humor dominated those sharp features was another factor.

Alas, only someone with very poor vision would have called Murphy handsome. At just under two meters, he was almost thirty-eight centimeters taller than his wife, with sandy hair and gray eyes set in a strong-jawed face that seemed to be made out of randomly assembled bony planes. At the moment, those gray eyes sparkled with mischief as he gazed back down at his wife with the insufferable air of someone who knew he'd just scored a telling point.

"Maybe not," she acknowledged after a moment. "But —" she raised one hand, index finger extended as she made a point of her own "— Dad is in charge tonight. Rajendra loves this sort of thing but he’s off-world on business. And Boyle will be there. That Boyle, and he won’t too impressed if the guest of honor – one of the guests of honor — comes dragging in an hour late."

"We'll be there in plenty of time," Murphy assured her, turning back to the mirror and adjusting the set of his cuffs. Then he brushed at one of his lapels. The softly shimmering sekyri was a Rishathan import that had cost a small fortune, but it was also the latest fad. Anyone who aspired to the first rank of fashion had to have it. And he had to admit that his coat's dark, cobalt blue did go well with his coloring.

"Terry, we really are going to be late if we don't get a move on," she said in a rather more serious tone.

"Personally, I'd rather stay home and not go at all," he said, turning to consider his profile and smoothing the cravat which had come back into fashion. "Politics." He shook his head with a sigh. "You do know how boring this is going to be, don't you?"

"Boring or not, it's important." She shook her head, her eyes darker. "This is a major step in your career, honey. You can't — we can't — afford to blow it."

Murphy made a noncommittal sound, and she grimaced. She knew her husband was more than smart enough to understand how important the endorsement of someone like Amadeo Boyle was. Boyle, the New Progress Alliance's party leader, stood at the very pinnacle of the Terran Republic's kingmakers. Although he occupied no office of his own, his NPA held almost a quarter of the Assembly's seats, and it was the NPA and its allies — especially the Future Cooperative Party and Jugoslav Darkovic's Conservative Coalition — who had put Prime Minister Verena Schleibaum into office. There might have been a half dozen people in all of the Sol System who could do as much for someone's political aspirations as Boyle, but there wasn't a single soul who could have done more.

"I know it's important," Murphy said now, "but I hate the entire political circuit. I've seen too many people get ulcers dealing with it. I'd really rather be —"

"Out on the bridge of a starship surveying new star systems somewhere," Simron interrupted, and smiled a bit crookedly when he looked at her. She patted his elbow. "Well, there's always time for that, too, but you said it yourself — you've got to have your ticket punched in more than one way to get where we both want you to get, and you have to get the order right. First you go to New Dublin and get that on the record, then you can go back to Survey. For a while at least. License some colony rights." She squeezed the elbow she'd patted. "I know you'd rather go back to Survey for good, sweetheart, but —"

She shrugged with an almost apologetic smile and it was Murphy's turn to grimace, but he also nodded. It might have been a bit grudging, that nod, but she decided to settle for it. Much as she loved her husband, there were times his . . . lack of involvement, for want of a better term, could drive her to distraction. Those were the times when he chose to take absolutely nothing seriously beside the far more important matter of how well his new waistcoat fitted or how the shade of his formal jacket's facings complemented his cravat.

What made it most infuriating was that he was one of the smartest men she'd ever met. He simply chose not to use that intelligence unless it was to get something he wanted, and, unfortunately, he seemed to want the political power that lay within his reach a lot less than he wanted to gallivant around the galaxy discovering new planets. In fact, she was fairly sure he saw the acquisition of that political power mainly as a way to push Survey's budget priorities, even if he didn't get to go play intrepid explorer himself. Yet for all his exquisite tailoring and general detachment, there was a sense of responsibility under that exterior. It was deeply hidden, almost as if he was embarrassed to admit its existence even to her, but it was there. Once he had political power, that responsibility would drive him to use it far better than all too many of the idiots who had it now.

She only wished he would enjoy it as much as the idiots did. He wouldn't, of course. But he would do his job well, and that was what really mattered.

Now he finished examining his appearance in the mirror, then turned and flashed her that wide, laughing smile that transformed his bony countenance as he offered her his arm. She shook her head again, eyes laughing back up at him, as she tucked a small hand into his elbow and they headed for the air car landing.

Kanada Thakore placed his palms against a darkly stained wooden rail. He brushed fingertips one way, savoring the feel of small scales against his skin, then moved them the other way and felt glass-like smoothness. Sharkskin wood was rare and scandalously expensive on Earth, imported from the Tesseract System, far beyond the blue line. He flashed a fake smile to a woman passing on the dance floor just below the raised platform he shared with a slightly shorter man. Amadeo Boyle wore a black suit run through with gold lustron threads and held a drink in his pudgy hand.

Music from a holo quartet carried perfectly over the low hum of conversation in the ballroom, speakers in the ceiling focusing just the right volume from the stringed instruments to Thakore’s ears.

He swiped his thumb down a finger and tiny sensors in his skin lowered the music for him and him alone as he listened to the dozens and dozens of conversations from his guests. Scions of major corporations, established families, and Terra’s intelligentsia were here. All the right people, and he was well aware of who hadn’t sent their RSVP for the event.

Waiters—all actual humans—in leggings and-high necked collars moved through the crowd carrying platinum inlaid trays with finger food or flutes of champagne. Droids could have done the job perfectly and cheaply, but paying the outrageous fee Authentic Limited charged to provide flesh and blood waiters to service the event was a flourish that would keep the newsies buzzing about the ball for days.

Everything was going smoothly. He flicked a nail against his middle finger and the time popped up on his synched contact lens.

Almost everything.

“Your boy’s going to be late,” Boyle swished thin black liquid in his glass and took a sip. “Not getting cold feet, is he?”

“Finish your singularity. His car’s landing now,” Thakore traced a tight circle over one eye.

“Your invitation said this was an un-linked event,” Boyle held his nearly empty drink to one side and waggled it slightly. A waiter with a tray of a half dozen different potent potables seemed to appear out of nowhere and took the glass. Boyle dismissed him with a wag of his fingers.

“For the guests; I’m the host,” Thakore said. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you dipping into your link. What’s her name?”

“Money,” Boyle sniffed. “She never sleeps. Cruel mistress.” He shrugged, and the gold threads in his suit morphed into a dragon and snapped its teeth at Thakore.

A set of double doors opened and a couple walked in, arm in arm. They stopped just over the threshold, and camera flashes sparked from the scrum of reporters behind a red silk rope.

Drones would have covered most events, but this wasn't "most events," and there were live reporters behind those flashes. Turn down an invitation from Kanada Thakore to rub elbows, however distantly, with the cream of the Five Hundred? Of course they'd come! And their glowing, firsthand reviews as they gushed over it on the social feeds tomorrow would be worth every penny he'd spent to get them here.

A potbellied doorman in a pure silver suit rapped a staff against the marble floor.

“The Honorable Rear Admiral-select Terrance Murphy and Mrs. Simron Murphy!” he announced, and the attendees broke into polite applause.

"Your boy and your lovely daughter are finally here," Boyle murmured as the new arrivals entered the ballroom and began shaking hands and speaking with guests. Both wore broad smiles that would make any politician proud. "I suppose that means the festivities can commence."

He removed a small box from his coat and golden lines of flame danced down his arm as the lustron flexed. He squeezed the side and the lid popped up, revealing a pair of twined starburst studs.

“How’s this Navy nonsense supposed to go? I push the metal pin through his Rishathan silk shirt and beat my fist against it until it hits flesh?” Boyle asked.

"Don't be a pain in the ass, Amadeo," Kanada Thakore scolded. Aside from his coloring, he didn't look a great deal like his daughter. He was almost as tall as his son-in-law, with the broad shoulders and flat midsection of someone who kept himself fit on the microgravity handball court. His naturally dusky complexion was rather darker than Simron's because of the time he spent at the helm of the Amphitrite, his ninety-meter catamaran. “There’s a representative from Bureau of Personnel in the crowd drinking my best alcohol. Soon as we’re ready, he’ll read some scripted business and then my daughter will hand him the rank. Then he’s a real admiral.”

“Murphy knows what to do after that? He still remember how to salute? It’s been a while for him, yeah?” Boyle snapped the box shut.

"Whether or not he chooses to show it, Terrence is a very smart fellow. And don't forget the Murphy family name! He can be very useful to us, down the road."

Boyle grimaced.

"I know that — that he can be useful to us, at any rate. I'm not so sure about the 'smart fellow' bit, though. Oh," he waved one hand in a small throwing away gesture, "I know all about his aptitude testing and the Raymond Whoever Award and the rest of his towering scholastic reputation. But it doesn't matter how smart you are if you aren't willing to put that intelligence to work doing something useful. We have plenty of worker bees who can survey new star systems, Kanada!"

Thakore glanced at the shorter Boyle. There was something much too like disdain in the NPA party leader's expression, but there wasn't a great deal Thakore could do about that. For that matter, he wasn't positive the disdain was as unmerited as he'd like to think, and he hid a sigh as he looked back to watch his daughter and his son-in-law crossing the ballroom floor toward him.

They were a striking couple, Thakore admitted, and although he knew Murphy would have preferred to be almost anywhere else, no one could have guessed that from his pleasant smile, the way he paused to share pleasantries along the way as he worked through the crowd. One of the more maddening things about Terrence Murphy was that he was just as effortlessly charismatic — in a very different way — as Simron yet seemed blissfully unaware of what a useful weapon that ability to charm people could have been. Indeed, at times Kanada was tempted to agree with Boyle, but he'd worked too long and too hard to put all of the pieces into position. He wasn't about to walk away from it all now!

And he is a Murphy, Thakore reminded himself. It's been a while, but people remember his grandfather. That name recognition alone will be worth an extra five or six million votes when the time comes!

Personally, a military career had never appealed to Thakore. Why risk his talents and all the good he could do for the Republic by dying in a deep space fight? There were colonists for that sort of thing, and he had too many other, more important things to do running Venus Futures.

There'd been suggestions, over the years, that Venus should be renamed, christened with some new and exciting title more relevant to humanity's expansion into the galaxy. Thakore had shot them all down, because some intangibles were more valuable than simple relevancy. As the very name suggested, Venus Futures predated the Terran Republic itself. For that matter, it predated even the internal development of the Sol System, far less humanity's sprawling outreach to the stars. And the originally modest little corporation whose highest ambition had been to place a habitat in Venus orbit all those centuries ago had become one of the dozen most powerful transtellar corporations in the galaxy. VF had led the way in penetrating the Rishathan Sphere's internal markets and continued to dominate the Republic's trade with the Sphere, and it showed in its hefty bottom line.

More than that, it was poised to grow more powerful still, thanks to its position as one of the Terran Navy's primary suppliers. The endless, dragging war with the lunatics in the League was a terrible thing, no doubt, but there was that old proverb about ill winds blowing no one good, and there was no point pretending the war — and all those government contracts — hadn't done wonderful things for Venus Futures. Of course, other proverbs about war being good for business weren’t lost on him. And when the Navy officially ordered the first of the Cormoran-class carriers . . . .

Thakore rubbed his hands together.

That was one reason to put Terrence Murphy's face front and center during the appropriations process. Very few people were likely to forget that Terrence’s grandfather, Admiral Henrik Murphy, had been directly responsible for the Navy's transformation from a batch of simple peacekeepers — little more than the "Coast Guard in space" old Henrik had called it in his more disparaging moments — into the genuine war-fighting force the Republic had needed so desperately when the League launched its war of aggression. Nor had they forgotten Commander Henrik Murphy's role in pushing the Republic's frontiers steadily outward before rising to such high command.

A few bribes paid to the right news organizations and the algorithms would link stories of the new Cormorans to Murphy, and his obvious need to have the best ships out there to fight the League. So what if the ships ran into cost overruns during production?

Terrence was a throwback to that earlier point in Henrik's career. Everyone knew his true interest lay in exploration and survey, just as Henrik's had, which had made the string pulling to get him his new command a bit more difficult than usual. He even looked quite a bit like the old man, and as was the Murphy family tradition, he'd graduated from the Academy and gone into naval service when it was his turn. And despite his personal preference for survey work, he'd actually done fairly well at the Battle of Steelman's Star. Better than his father had at the Brin Gap, at least. Probably best not to mention that part of his heritage and concentrate on Steelman's, instead. Oh, the odds had been nowhere near as unfavorable as Thakore's PR machine had suggested, but he hadn't done badly. And with his name, "not badly" was easily transformed into "brilliantly" in the public's mind.

That would be worth the odd hundred thousand votes, even though the war was scarcely a burning issue here in the Sol System or among the other Heart Worlds. It was too distant, and after over half a century, it had been going on too long for that. It had turned into little more than background noise for the important things in their lives. Still, there were those, even right here in the Sol System, who followed the war news. They might not be among the Five Hundred, but they did have votes, and the fact that Terrence had "distinguished himself in combat" wouldn't be lost on them.

And won't Madison eat her heart out when we land the primary contracts for the Cormorans, Thakore thought now. Maybe she should have tried a little higher for Terrence when he was still on the market!

Madison Dawson, the CEO of Astro Engineering, had a daughter about Simron's age, but she'd clearly failed to grasp the significance of a family connection to the Murphys in the midst of humanity's longest, bloodiest, and most destructive war. It was, perhaps, fortunate that twenty-five-year-old Simron hadn't realized just how assiduously her father had thrown her and then-Lieutenant Murphy together, of course. She was a stubborn young woman, his daughter, and if she'd realized how hard he was pushing, her auto response would have been to push back.

A valuable asset, my son-in-law, he thought. I wish he gave a damn for anything besides his wardrobe and getting a ship's deck under his feet again, but still a valuable asset. He's a little too much[/i] like his grandfather in some ways, but it's probably just as well he doesn't have the old man's stubbornness.[/i]

Managing the career of someone as smart as Murphy could get tricky, and there'd been a time or two — especially right after he'd come back from Steelman's Star — when he'd seemed a bit . . . restive. A bit prone to resist his father-in-law's advice and counsel. In fact, there'd been a time there when Thakore had been afraid he'd pushed too hard. He hadn't counted on how Terrence had taken his own war experience to heart or how that experience might shape his response to the sorts of opportunities which naturally came the way of a man with his pedigree and connections. He'd even been critical of Venus Futures' pursuit of the military contracts which were its corporate life's blood, at least until Thakore sat him down and explained some cold, hard facts of life.

Someone had to build the Navy's ships, he'd pointed out, and it would be best for everyone if the "someone" in question had the resources, the engineering talent, and the proven ability to deliver that Venus Futures had demonstrated over the last several decades. And, inevitably, that meant Venus Futures — and thus Terrence's own family — would make a lot of money in the process. It wasn't profiteering, though! In fact, Thakore had been shocked — shocked! — that anyone would accuse him of that. But there was nothing wrong with making money, of being paid for delivering what the Navy needed when, where, and as it was needed. And it required a healthy cash flow to maintain the physical plant and human capital Venus Futures had amassed in the Republic's service.

Fortunately, Murphy had recognized the voice of reality when he heard it. He might be more focused on getting back into space — and on his wardrobe — than he was in driving Venus's opportunities, but Thakore could work with that. He'd been more than a little irritated, initially, by Murphy's insistence on adding another deployment to the pot, but he'd gotten over it, especially when the arguments Murphy advanced in favor of it had demonstrated that he understood — now, at least — the importance of political power.

He was the one who'd reminded his father-in-law that the Emergency War Powers Act had "temporarily" waived the constitutional requirement that federal system governors be civilian appointees approved by the local legislature and given the federal government the power to appoint them, instead. Olympia was still supposed to consult with the local government whenever possible, but the slowness of interstellar communications had clearly made that impractical in a wartime situation. And so, for the last fifty-odd years, the federal government had been routinely appointing those governors. And since the constitutional restrictions had been set aside, Olympia had taken to combining the office of governor with that of the system's military commander whenever possible. Especially in the systems closest to League space. So if he was on the list for deployment and Thakore could find one of those systems, preferably one that was a bit more important than the others, and get him appointed to it . . . .

Thakore had to admit he hadn't thought of that possibility. He'd actually been focused on keeping Murphy off the active deployment list and right here in the Core Worlds. And he knew damned well that the political angle wasn't the only part of it — to Murphy, at least. Thakore was pretty sure he wouldn't want to surrender his upcoming task force command and come home again on schedule. But he'd do it, and however much the delay irritated Thakore, he'd been forced to admit Murphy had a point. It would look good on his résumé, especially with the added gravitas of a system governorship in his pocket. In fact, Thakore had been a bit chagrined to realize it had taken Murphy to point out to him that a survey mission punctuated by a battle was an insufficient influence-buyer, even for someone named Murphy. Tickets had to be punched and merit badges had to be earned, and successful command assignments were the currency that mattered to a military establishment whose members had been at war their entire adult lives.

Thinking back on it, Thakore was confident that for all his apparent disinterest in politics, Murphy had also grasped just how far someone with the Murphy name could hope to rise, especially when that name was backed by Amadeus Boyle's political blessing and Kanada Thakore's enormous wealth. And he'd been right. With a second deployment — this time, as a task force commander, not simply a squadron commander — on his list of qualifications, there was no limit on the political career waiting for him when he returned to Terra. The premiership itself would probably be within his reach, after five or ten years in the Assembly's trenches, and that had to be a dazzling prospect for anyone. Of course, even someone as smart as Murphy might not notice who was pulling the strings behind his premiership if it was done adroitly. And Kanada Thakore knew very few people more adroit than he was or —

"Good evening, Papa," Simron said, smiling affectionately as she and Terrence reached him and she laid her free hand on his arm. "Sorry we're late. Someone had to be sure his cravat was straight."

"Really?" Thakore cocked his head at his son-in-law. "Any idea who that might have been, Terry?"

"Haven't got a clue," Terrence Murphy replied, and smiled.

Two Cases for the Czar - Fri Nov 13 6:31:10 EST 2020

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:31:10 -0500

"Two Cases for the Czar" by Paula Goodlett, and Gorg Huff, last updated Fri Nov 13 6:31:10 EST 2020

“I’d like to,” Bernie assured the lad, “but where did Pavel go?”

“He went to tell Colonel Aslonav that you are here.”

“Dumnye D’iaki Zeppi.” Colonel Aslonav bowed and Bernie sighed. Mikhail had bumped Bernie to the status of “duma clerk,” basically the highest rank a person without family rank could get. It made him almost a suitable match for Natasha, which Bernie approved of. It also made him the target of fawning attention and knives in the back, which Bernie approved of rather less.

But Mikhail didn’t do it to make it easier for Bernie to get married. He did it because in the months since the escape Bernie had become Mikhail’s semi-official fixer. And to do that job in Russia in the seventeenth century, even the Ufa-based modern Russia they were trying to build, you had to have rank.

“Colonel Aslonav.” Bernie gave back a nod for the bow. “I’m here to provide a bit of backup to the sergeant in his murder investigation.”

This announcement was met with gratitude that was mixed with more fawning than Bernie liked, but at least Aslonav wasn’t the sort to put a knife in his back. It took a few minutes to get the colonel back into his office, then they got down to business.

Pavel pointed at the stock certificates. “I think that he was killed for those. And I think he was killed by an agent of the embassy bureau, or perhaps one of the Kazaks who are in town with the khan.”

“How did you get those?” Bernie pointed at the embossed stock certificates.

“Miroslava found them in a secret compartment in the victim’s wardrobe.” Pavel said it without hesitation or resentment, Bernie noted with some relief.

“Where is she, by the way?”

“We think the killer was a woman or a small man from the wound, the blood spatter, and where we found the bullet. Miroslava spent yesterday looking for a prostitute as the killer. I think that if it was a prostitute, she was employed by someone else.”

“Why?”

“Because of the locked room.”

Bernie shook his head, and lifted his hands in question.

“It was done by a smart person, but a–what is it you called them–a smart-ass, someone who just had to prove how smart they were. Even when there was no point.”

Bernie grinned. “That sounds like the embassy bureau, all right. But you still haven’t told me where Miroslava is now?”

“Looking at fingerprints.” Pavel sighed. “She doesn’t seem to have the insight into this case that she did into the one about the girls killed at the Happy Bottom. She hasn’t even addressed the locked room. And she seems obsessed with the notion that it was a prostitute who killed him.”

“Well, let’s collect her, and go visit the embassy bureau.”

Location: Ufa Kremlin, Embassy Bureau

Date: May 11, 1637

Simeon Budanov didn’t frown. He was a professional, after all. But Bernie could tell that he wanted to. “Mr. Zeppi,” he said in passable English, “what brings you to our little corner of the Ufa kremlin?”

“I go where Mikhail sends me,” Bernie replied in Russian. The use of Mikhail’s first name without honorifics was intentional. “The czar is concerned about the lack of cooperation the detective sergeant here received in his investigation. If our man on the China desk has been murdered, we need to know why and whether it has anything to do with his work or this railroad venture he was involved in.”

“How did you find out about that?”

Bernie turned to Pavel. “You nailed it. That was what he was trying to hide, or at least part of it.”

“Apparently, Dumnye D’iaki Zeppi,” Pavel said. “Though I suspect there is more.”

“How,” Budanov asked again, “did you learn about the railroad?” He didn’t sound nervous. No, he sounded angry, really angry.

“Let’s go into your office,” Bernie said. They were in the outer office of the embassy bureau, not Budanov’s private office.

“Yes. That’s an excellent idea. And the sergeant, the young woman, and the boy can wait out here, not speaking to anyone.”

“No,” Bernie said. “They’ll come with us.”

“Mister Zeppi, you are a clerk of the duma by the czar’s will, but I am a boyar.”

“Yes, that’s true. But I am here on Mikhail’s instructions. You have three options.” Bernie held up his right hand, finger pointing at the ceiling. “You can cooperate with me.” He extended a second finger. “You and I can go see the czar right now. You won’t like that, but you will probably survive it.” He held up a third finger. “Or you can refuse, in which case I’ll be back with a company of the imperial guard in about five minutes to arrest you. You probably won’t survive that.” Bernie dropped his hand. “Your choice, but make it now.”

There was a pause. Not a really long one, but one long enough to suggest that Simeon Budanov was at least considering the second option, if not the third. Then he said, “We’ll talk in my office.” He turned and headed for his private office.

Bernie, Pavel, Maksim, and Miroslava followed.

As soon as they were all in the room, Maksim closed the office door and leaned against it.

Pavel waved Miroslava to one of the seats in front of the desk. It was a modern designed desk with a modern designed office chair behind it. There was also a small but plush couch against the far wall.

Simeon Budanov didn’t go around his desk to sit in his chair. He turned to Bernie and hissed, “You idiot. How dare you embarrass me in front of my staff like that?”

“Simeon,” Bernie said, “I am here on Czar Mikhail Romanov’s instruction. I told you that at the beginning. He sent me here because you were impeding a police investigation into the death of one of his people. The reason you got embarrassed was because you were pitting your will against Czar Mikhail. Mikhail Romanov will tell you himself that he isn’t a very forceful person. He doesn’t like to argue. He doesn’t like to fight. And, for a very long time, while he was surrounded by forceful people who pretty much ignored what he thought, that made him pretty ineffective. However, he is no longer surrounded by forceful people who don’t listen to him. Now he has surrounded himself with forceful people who do listen to him. Mikhail isn’t forceful. That’s what he’s got me for.

“Back before all this, before the Ring of Fire, I was a football jock. Not the sort of thing that shy and retiring folks go in for. I may not be as smart as Mikhail Romanov. I’m certainly not as smart as Natasha, or, well, most of the people I know. But I know how to rush a quarterback.”

Pavel was looking at Bernie in confusion. So were the rest of them. Oddly enough, the only person in the room who wasn’t, was Simeon Budanov.

“That’s the game that Sterns’ brother-in-law played, isn’t it? The one who scares the crap out of German mercenaries.”

“Yep.” Bernie didn’t play a lineman like Tom Simpson, and he hadn’t made it into college, but Budanov didn’t need to know that. “Now, we are going to need access to everything Nikola Vetrov was working on, especially the Russia China Railroad.” Bernie watched Simeon’s face as he mentioned the railroad. Yes. It wasn’t surprise. It was fear he was seeing on Simeon’s face. Simeon knew about the railroad project. That only left the question: why the hell hadn’t Mikhail?

The Macedonian Hazard - Fri Nov 13 6:31:10 EST 2020

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:31:10 -0500

"The Macedonian Hazard" by Eric Flint, Paula Goodlett, and Gorg Huff, last updated Fri Nov 13 6:31:10 EST 2020

Eumenes’ smile died as his mind turned to Cassander. Cassander was no general, but he was smart and had a flexible mind, and that might well be more important in this new sort of warfare than personal courage.

Finally the unloading was finished, and another ship’s boat pulled in and started unloading supplies and equipment. The Queen would be heading for Alexandria as soon as the boats were back aboard.

Queen of the Sea, Alexandria Harbor

November 10, 320 BCE

Ptolemy sat in the Royal Lounge, reading the constitution of the United Satrapies and States of the Empire. The USSE constitution was interesting, and it was going to require him to reconsider his options. He looked up at ThaÃ¯s and waved the document. “What do you think?”

ThaÃ¯s tilted her head in a gesture that Ptolemy knew well. It wasn’t quite a nod nor a head shake. ThaÃ¯s wasn’t sure or, more exactly, liked part of it and disliked other parts. “What do you like about it?”

“It’s a good framework,” ThaÃ¯s said. “For the most part, it will leave you as ruler of Egypt and give you a level of legitimacy that even the agreements at Babylon didn’t.”

“And what part of it do you dislike?”

“You are probably going to have to give back Syria, Israel and Judea. And you may well be called on to contribute troops to Eumenes. If the constitution is valid, so is the appointment of Eumenes as strategos for the empire.”

“Frankly, that bothers me less than giving up Syria. I bought that territory with good silver and quite a lot of it. What bothers me isn’t the specific of having to send troops to Eumenes. It’s the general principle of placing the defense of the realm under the over government that they establish.”

“Federal government,” ThaÃ¯s said, using a ship people word. “You will be able to appoint a representative to the upper house, the one they are calling the House of States.”

“What about the elections?”

“That’s mostly ship people influence, but the Greek city states piled on in a hurry. Especially Athens. Representation will be allocated by population and elected by the citizenry. That includes free women as well as all free men, no matter their wealth. But not slaves. We went round and round on that and I am not sure we made the right choice. The compromise that we finally agreed on was that slaves didn’t count for representatives. Not even war captives, much less two-footed livestock. That at least encourages manumission in order to increase a state’s or satrapy’s representatives, in the House of the People.”

ThaÃ¯s used the Greek words. The world of fourth century BCE had lots of types of slaves and each had their own word, most of which didn’t translate to twenty-first century English. Not directly. They had words for chattel, slaves, serfs, and war captives–who were in some ways more like chattel, but had higher status.

Ptolemy looked at his long-time lover and–given the new situation–possible future wife, with a sardonic lift of an eyebrow. He knew her background. Born a slave, she’d been sold to a school for hetaera as a child and then required to work off her debt. She had every reason in the world to dislike the institution of slavery. But at the same time, she had managed to go from slave to only one short step down from a queen through her abilities. “What do you really think? Are the ship people right about slavery?”

ThaÃ¯s stood up and walked to the window, then turned back to face him. “No, but they will be.”

“What does that mean?”

“The way the world is now, we couldn’t survive the abolition of slavery. There isn’t enough wealth to pay all the freed slaves for their labor and with everyone weeding their own garden, we would fall into barbarism. But that’s right now. It will change as the ship people’s machines magnify the productivity of individual workers. In a hundred years, perhaps less, they will be right about slavery. We need to be ready for that day, or our children and grandchildren will live in a world even more soaked in blood than this one.”

“So, do you think I should sign it? Commit to this new nation?”

“No.” ThaÃ¯s frowned. “Not yet. Don’t commit either way. See how Eumenes does against Cassander, at least. Perhaps even wait to see how he does against Antigonus and the eastern satraps. Don’t tie yourself to this new ship of state until you know whether it will float. Stay neutral as long as you can.”

Ptolemy nodded. One of the things he liked best about ThaÃ¯s was that she gave good advice. Even when it wasn’t entirely in her best interest. “You’re right, as usual, my very dear. And I have missed you.”

When the Queen of the Sea left again, it would leave ThaÃ¯s and the children here.

“I do want to send someone to keep an eye on the ship people. Who do you recommend? I considered Dinocrates or Crates or one of the fellows of the library, but I am concerned that they will be seduced by ship people knowledge.”

“It’s not just the ship people on the Queen of the Sea that matter. We need relations with New America too. You would be shocked at how much they accomplished in a year and I suspect they are just getting started. We will be able to buy impossible devices from them soon.” She paused a moment in thought. “The Queen will visit New America regularly and we will have the radio to keep in contact so perhaps we only need one watcher. Menelaus?” ThaÃ¯s voice made the name a question. She wasn’t fond of Ptolemy’s little brother and aide.

Ptolemy grinned at her. “It will get him out of the palace, but he’s not going to like giving up his slaves.”

“My heart bleeds for him,” ThaÃ¯s said, using a ship people expression directly translated into Greek.

224-226 12th Street, Fort Plymouth, New America

November 10, 320 BCE

Crack! The sound jerked Daoud Khoury around. He looked at the red hot door of the furnace. He moved up and, using a long, heavy wooden pole, opened the small door. Holding up his hand, he tried to look into the fire. He couldn’t. It was much too bright to see anything, and it made him feel like his eyeballs were going to boil.

He went back to the table and got the tinted glasses from the Queen of the Sea and looked again. The cracking sound was what he was afraid of. The crucible was cracked, and the molten iron was pouring down into the bottom of the furnace.

Quickly he went to the shutoff valve and shut the oil feed. It took five minutes for the fire to go out and an hour for the furnace to cool to merely scorching hot.

Cool enough for him, using tongs, to lift out what was left of the crucible. It took another day for the furnace to cool enough for him and his crew of locals to remove bricks to make an opening to pry out the melted iron. Then it was brick the whole thing up and start over with a new crucible, as his money got lower and lower and he got deeper and deeper in debt to the Bank of New America.

It didn’t help that he couldn’t keep a trained crew. The locals came and worked long enough to get the money to buy what they wanted. Then they went back home. Some few locals stayed, but far more of them just wanted what they wanted, then back to their own ways. Daoud couldn’t really blame them, either. He’d give anything on this Earth or another if only he could go back to his own ways. Accounting might have been boring except at tax time, but trying to make steel with primitive tools was one hell of a lot worse. He wondered when the Queen would get back. At least somewhere still had air conditioning.

Domesticating Dragons - Fri Nov 13 6:31:10 EST 2020

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 06:31:10 -0500

"Domesticating Dragons" by Dan Koboldt, last updated Fri Nov 13 6:31:10 EST 2020

Design 48

The utility of a biological simulator in a place like this was obvious, at least to me, but I’d still have to get the design team on board. I believed in my program’s logic–so did Evelyn, or she wouldn’t otherwise have brought me in–but integrating it with the existing design program was a major challenge. It had to be seamless, built right into DragonDraft3D so that the designers could run simulations at every step of their process. That’s a lot harder than it sounds. I knew my own code inside and out, but the design interface was unknown territory. I had to understand it inside and out before I could do anything.

I probably put in seventy or eighty hours that first week. Day blurred into night. One particular advantage of installing a new software package into Reptilian’s systems is that I was temporarily granted high-level administrative access. And so, while my main focus was installing the simulator code for everyone, I also created a private virtual workspace for myself. A place where I could tinker with genetic code and dragon designs without anyone knowing about it. As long as I kept file sizes reasonable and didn’t use too much computing power, this little testing ground would give me a private sandbox.

I was going to need that privacy. Indirect as it might seem, the path was pretty clear to me. Get my simulator up and running. Establish myself as a key part of the design team. Then I’d have access to the company’s computing resources and their all-important God Machine. That’s when the real work, the work I’d actually come here to do, could finally begin.

At the moment, however, dragons were the bread-and-butter. The visual models produced by DragonDraft3D were clunky, monochrome things. The general shape and number of limbs were correct, but that was about it. My simulator already offered a dramatic improvement, but I knew I could do better. The company’s private servers–the Switchblades–offered more computing power than I’d ever imagined. So I expanded my code as I went, adding new subroutines and deeper features. The designs evolved into ever more precise biological models. Evelyn was going to love them. I’d have shown her right then, but it was Sunday. How did it get to be Sunday?

It was probably for the best–I still hadn’t tested the latest updates. But first, I needed coffee. My legs carried me out of the pentagonal design lab. Only when I passed through the sealed door did I notice that the entire room had a soft, deep hum to it when the God Machine wasn’t running. It had a smell, too: a faint hint of metal and oil beneath the hot silicone.

The door whispered shut behind me, dampening the noise. A new aroma wafted to my nose, and I followed it like a moth to a flame. Down the white LED-lit hallway, around the corner, and into the break room. Evelyn had pointed it out once on my tour, and I’d mentally bookmarked it for a closer look. A rectangular glass table sat in the center of the room, flanked by half a dozen ergonomic chairs.

Swedish-made furniture, by the look of it. High-end stuff. But my tired eyes skimmed right across it to the counter on the far wall. There was a second machine in the building that made dreams come true. This one dispensed not dragon eggs but liquid delight from a dark master. The screen brightened as I got near it. A wonderful array of drink options beckoned. I pressed the rectangle that read Cappuccino.

The panel flashed a confirmation, then opened a new window: a live camera feed of the machine’s interior. My cup took shape in red plastic on the metal platform, the 3D-printing arms spinning around it as they shaped it. The instaplastic material hardened in seconds, while puffs of steam announced that the milk was ready. Part of me thought this was too cool, too easy to be real. So when the panel slid open to reveal my serving of freshly-made coffee, it was quite a moment.

I cradled the still-warm cup in my hands, brought it close. There was even a little Reptilian Corporation logo etched on the outside. Steam drifted up from it. I closed my eyes and inhaled. “Ah, sweet elixir.”

Frogman shuffled in, headphones on. “Hey.” He hit the button for black coffee.

I watched the vidfeed over his shoulder. “This is a hell of a coffee machine.”

He grunted. “They like us well-caffeinated.”

“They?”

“The board of directors.”

“Oh.” I nodded sagely. “I suppose I thought Robert Greaves called the shots here.” That’s what most of the industry-analysis articles claimed. Redwood, despite his founding the company, let his old friend run the day-to-day.

“Who do you think runs the board?” He shuffled out.

Good point. “Is Simon Redwood around much?”

“If he is, I haven’t seen him.” He shuffled out.

I felt a small stab of disappointment, because I wasn’t lying when I told Fulton that I had a slight Redwood obsession. Granted, Frogman didn’t strike me as the most observant person in the world. Redwood could probably dance a jig in the corner of his module and he might not notice.

I swirled my cappuccino, admiring the perfect froth level. On my way back to my workstation, I noticed that all the designers were working on Sunday, too, other than the mysterious Wong. Everyone at Reptilian went the extra mile. I hoped I’d live up to the reputation.

Thanks to the caffeine infusion, I banged out a couple more hours of work before heading home.

Monday couldn’t get here soon enough.

I crashed hard that night. When my alarm went off at six a.m., it was painful. But the promise of showing off my simulator got me up and moving. I beat most of the designers to work, but not Evelyn. She sat behind her desk, sipping espresso behind a phalanx of holoscreens.

I knocked softly. “How would you like to test drive the new biological simulator?”

She craned her head around a screen to look at me. Her brow furrowed. “You look exhausted.”

I shrugged, uncomfortable under the sudden scrutiny. “I was up late.”

“Again? You’ve been putting in a lot of hours, Noah.”

“Have I? Hardly seems that way.”

“Seventy-six hours last week, based on the server logs.”

“I like to keep busy.” And I hadn’t realized she’d be keeping tabs on me, either.

“You should pace yourself. But since you brought it up, let’s see what you’ve done,” Evelyn said.

I came around her desk. “Already sent it to you.”

She brought up DragonDraft3D in a new holoscreen and loaded a design. “This is the original dragon, the hog-hunter.” She launched the simulator with a flurry of keys. A three-dimensional dragon shimmered into view, rotating slowly in full color. It was lithe but muscular, with impressive sets of teeth and claws. The scales had a dull brown and green color to them that reminded me of Texas dustbowls. I mentally celebrated the fact that I’d thought to go full color.

Evelyn gasped.

“Do you like it?” I asked.

“It’s very impressive.” She put two fingers on her touchpad and spun the model around. “The physical traits look spectacular.”

“I thought so, too.” And I didn’t even cheat. I could have, too. I could have taken photos of the real-world dragons that hatched from Reptilian’s eggs, and made sure my simulator predicted them perfectly. But that would only work once, and someone at Reptilian would probably be able to figure it out pretty quick. I didn’t dare risk coming off as dishonest.

“There’s another model I want to try it on.” She tapped a few commands. “Will your simulator run in real-time?”

“It should.” The simulator would work on any organism, theoretically, though I’d done most of my testing on higher-order animals.

She loaded a design labeled 48 and launched the simulator. The visualization took longer to load this time, even on the fancy servers.

“It’s a little slow,” Evelyn said.

Ouch. I couldn’t resist a parry. “You must have made a lot of modifications.”

Her cheeks flushed a little, and I wished I’d hadn’t said that. Typical Noah, open mouth, insert foot.

“Then again, I haven’t had access to your level of computational firepower,” I said. “I’m sure there are things I could do to speed it up.”

The simulator finished loading, and the image of the resulting dragon appeared in midair in front of us. Right away, I could spot the differences from the hog-hunting model. An almost friendly stoutness had replaced the sleek lines of the hunting model. All the sharp edges had been smoothed out, from the ridges on the back to the size of the claws and teeth. They’d practically made it playful. From the size of the cranium, it would be smarter, too.

“This is a very different dragon,” I said.

“It’s meant to be.”

“Not for hunting hogs, I hope?”

“More like playing with kids.”

I gave her a sidelong look. “You’re serious about that domestication thing, aren’t you?”

“There’s a huge market if we can produce the right reptiles for it.”

Again with the market talk. A hint of worry began nagging at the back of my head. “So how close are we?”

“Not very. Our dragons want to be predators.”

“That’s not too surprising, given the genetic sources,” I said. The Dragon Genome was a composite based on the genomes of lizards, snakes, and rodents. Predator instincts would be strong. “What have you done to tweak it?”

“Already more than I thought necessary. Physical traits, intelligence, metabolism, the works.”

“I assume you brought down some of the hormones.”

“If we lower them any further, the thing won’t want to get out of bed.”

“Do you mind if I?.?.?.” I gestured at the design.

She slid over. “By all means.”

I slid up next to her and scrolled through the design in DragonDraft3D. Jeez, she’s not kidding. I counted no less than thirty genetic modifications to the endocrine system. “Wow. Not bad.”

She smiled. “You’re not the only one who can put in seventy hours a week.”

She grimaced. “I don’t trust those. Too unpredictable.”

“They’re a billion-dollar industry, you know.” Second only to lipid-lowering medication, the last time I checked.

“Without a way to predict the outcome, I’ve been reluctant to tamper with those networks.”

I shrugged. “A little mood-centering might go a long way. Otherwise it’s running on survival instincts.” Most wild animals lived by instinct: fight, eat, mate, survive. You almost had to target those pathways to domesticate something.

Evelyn sighed. “It can’t hurt to try. Any recommendations?”

“I’m partial to serotonin receptors.”

She rolled back in her chair and gestured at her desktop panel. “Go ahead.”

I felt the grin spread across my face. “Really?”

“Sure. I’m in edit mode anyway.”

I pressed three fingers down on the glass to resize the keyboard–she must have teeny tiny hands–and found the right menus in DragonDraft3D. To Evelyn’s credit, there were modification commands for every neurotransmitter pathway I’d ever heard of.

I kept mine subtle: first, structural change on the serotonin reuptake channel, to slow it down. Serotonin stimulated positive reinforcement: the longer it stuck around, the more a dragon would be content with its current stimuli.

Of course, satisfaction might not be enough to counteract the wild aggression of the juvenile Evelyn had shown me. A secondary adjustment couldn’t hurt. Dopamine seemed like the best option. I didn’t dare tamper with dopamine release; that would be akin to putting the animal on heroin. Instead, I goosed up the sensitivity of the receptor to help the dragon get happy, as they say.

I double-checked the modifications and nodded to myself. “Let’s try that.”

Evelyn copied my three-finger shortcut to resize the keyboard. “Looks like you’re getting comfortable with our systems.”

Whoops. I’d spent so much time on them the week before, I didn’t realize how familiar it felt. “I’m a quick learner,” I said, chiding myself for such carelessness. The less she knew about how comfortable I was with their systems, the better. They still hadn’t taken away my sysadmin access.

“So it seems. But we’ve made enough tweaks to this model. I think it merits a live test.” She hit a bright red rectangular button in the top right corner of the keyboard.

“What was that?” I asked.

She smiled, and her eyes glowed with joy. “The print button.”

It took a lot of self-restraint not to run back to the design lab. By the time we got there, the God Machine had already whirred into motion, its robotic arms bobbing and weaving like the needles of a possessed sewing machine.

“How long does it take?” I asked.

“Seventeen minutes, give or take,” Evelyn said.

I pulled up the design simulation on my workstation while we waited. The specs looked good, but I didn’t really have a way to guess at the dragon’s aggression. If they really wanted to tap into the consumer market, the dragon would have to be gentle as a lamb.

Finally, the arms of the God Machine went still. My conveyor belt purred into motion. I peered down into the darkness of the print chute. A round shadow appeared and zoomed toward me. Color bloomed when it hit the light: chestnut brown, with flecks of black and ivory. Kind of like a sparrow’s egg, except this one was the size of a small watermelon.

“God, it’s gorgeous,” I breathed.

“I never get tired of seeing them come out of the printer,” Evelyn said.

“This one looks different from the one I saw on my tour.”

“They’re all unique. Like snowflakes.”

“Even eggs printed from the same design?”

She shrugged. “The patterns are always similar, but there are subtle variations.”

“Hmm. Biological noise?”

“I suspect it’s from the Redwood Codex.”

“I can’t wait to hear what that is. Other than a fire hazard, I mean.”

She laughed. “That fire hazard is the reason we produce living dragons, and our competitors do not.”

“What does it do?”

“You’d have to ask Simon Redwood.”

Oh, please be serious. I’d have killed for five minutes him. “Sure. Where’s his office again?”

“He doesn’t have one.”

Damn. “Have you met him?”

“Once, very briefly.” Her eyes glowed.

I leaned close to her. “What did you think of him?”

“I thought, this man is crazy as a loon.” But she smiled, and I knew she was kidding. In fact, I got the distinct feeling that maybe she was a Redwood believer, too.

The arrival of the hatchery staffers prevented me from asking a hundred more questions about Redwood. The handlers hefted our freshly printed egg into their foam-topped cart and whisked it away to the hatchery.

“They don’t waste any time, do they?” I asked.

“We don’t like the temperature to drop more than a couple degrees. And the hatchery staff are?.?.?.?attentive.”

Now there’s an understatement. “When will the egg be ready to hatch?”

“Almost two weeks.”

“Aw, why so long?”

“We’ve pushed it down as much as we could,” Evelyn said. “Any faster and the lungs won’t develop by hatching.”

“It’s going to kill me to wait that long.”

Evelyn gave me an indulgent smile. “That’s what I said about design 36.”

1637 No Peace Beyond the Line - Wed Nov 4 7:01:29 EST 2020

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 07:01:29 -0500

"1637 No Peace Beyond the Line" by Eric Flint and Charles Gannon, last updated Wed Nov 4 7:01:29 EST 2020

Leonora forced herself to become calm. “Sophie, you did not act to deprive Laurids of his life. And whatever you may have felt about your marriage, I do not believe you wished him dead, did you?”

Sophie shook her head mutely.

“And you only learned of the three other children afterward, so they could not even have been a part of your initial reaction to his death.”

Sophie looked up. “What point are you driving toward, Leonora?”

The young woman considered. “You have read much of the up-timer literature?”

“As much as I can, but it was mostly histories, since that is what fascinated Laurids. Ironically, the copies he commissioned arrived two years after he died.”

“How much of the up-time ‘psychology’ have you read?”

“I know the word, and the basic principles, but nothing specific.”

“I see. Well then, when you have the opportunity, you must come to peruse the complete copies that my father has in his library. And once there, you must look up the term ‘survivor guilt.'”

And Sophie asked, as Leonora had hoped: “What is survivor guilt?”

“It means that when, in a group of people, only a few survive, those survivors may feel guilty not to have lost their lives, too. It was often observed when the up-timers’ ships sank or their flying machines crashed. It happens with them much, much more than with us, because so many people of our time are convinced that God chooses, with great purpose, who shall live and who shall die.” And there is a statement that damns me, Sophie: “many people of our time are convinced that God chooses . . .” — but not me. Not anymore. “There is much more to it than that, of course. And, since I am a wall-flower at these dances and parties, I shall have ample time to explain more of it this evening, if you so wish.”

Sophie smiled. “I do so wish. And thank you for not insisting on returning to the matter of my surname.”

Leonora blinked. “To be truthful, I had quite forgotten about it. I take it you were referring, then, to why you are not using the name Ulfeldt?”

“Yes, that is part of it. Although it wasn’t even my own doing.”

“I do not understand.”

“That is because you are not the daughter of my mother. It was she who compelled me to keep my name Rantzau, so that the estates in my father’s name would not be so easily subsumed into the growing treasury of the Ulfeldt family. And also to ensure that my name did not strike the ear of your father with an immediate spark of pain and annoyance.”

Hearing those words, Leonora felt her very own spark of pain. “Well, that is truly said.”

Sophie’s hands flew to her mouth. “Oh, Leonora, I am so sorry. I was too deeply involved in my own regrets. I forgot that you, too –“

“There is nothing to be sorry for. The dissolution of my betrothal to Corfitz Ulfeldt is past and done. Do not trouble yourself with any thoughts of it. I don’t,” Leonora lied.

Sophie’s eyes remained upon her, gentle but steady. “You are a strong young woman, Leonora, and driven by a quiet but firm will that many might miss. I can even imagine it extends to embrace the idea that one finds in so many of the up-time attitudes, and in their later writings: that a woman need not be defined by any man, not even her spouse or father. A fearsome thing for many of this world. Conversely, it is a refreshing, even life-saving, freedom to a few of us. But I wonder –“

Leonora heard that last fragment of a sentence for what it was: a baited hook, which, if inquired after, would catch her on a question she might regret. But as ever, her curiosity was greater than her fear: “What is it that you wonder?”

“Whether any girl, at the age of eleven, has ever been completely indifferent to having a betrothal struck aside by her royal father? And to a powerful man who, I am told, showed as much affection toward you as he ever has toward anyone else.”

Yes, as much as that was. And would have been more properly avuncular, since he is more than twice my age. “It was a disappointment, yes, but even then, I realized that although father’s first thought was to protect himself and the throne, his nullification of our betrothal was a blessing to my future happiness.” She leaned back, vaguely remembered that if she did not triumph over her annoying, mousy brown hair, she could not countenance going to tonight’s party at all. “I remember quite clearly when my father’s first agents returned from Grantville, just before summer, 1633. Corfitz, who had been his favorite courtier, had not only been a traitor to him in the other world, but the documents revealed that he had already commenced pursuing the earliest of those same treacheries in this one. There was no explaining the future events as a sad set of unfortunate circumstances in which some combination of flawed perception and momentary lapses of integrity had led him down a path that history contrived to paint in unflattering hues. No, his flaws of character were revealed to be many and monstrous. Indeed, in retrospect, much of the wit and charm with which he had captivated my father upon his arrival in court had barely masked a scheming mind overwhelmingly shaped by two principles: ruthlessness and ambition.”

“I have heard,” Sophie ventured, “that although he has committed no overt crime against the throne, your father’s rejection of him has made him so vituperative and disruptive in the Rigsrad that it might be best if he were to be banned from it. Given that the new trade and cooperative industries with the up-timers is bringing Denmark far more silver than Corfitz’s own fiscal proposals, there are very likely enough sympathetic nobles to make such a dismissal possible.”

“Yes. I have heard the same things whispered,” Leonora said with a nod. “But I suspect that my father has reservations about doing so.”

“Your father is, of course, quite politically prudent.”

Yes, Sophie, he is. But prudence is not why he has foresworn what would amount to a public crucifixion of Corfitz Ulfeldt. The question is, should I share the actual reasons with you? Are they too hurtful? And will the subjectivity of memory — my memory — do them justice?

As if magically summoned by that final concern, her memory seemed to wipe away her sight, expanding and unfolding until, quite suddenly, she was in that past moment, almost a year ago this very day . . .