killed, and his whole genotype purged.”
Tara glanced at her aide. Tara Bishop was nodding. Clan warriors, especially those of proud Jade Falcon, feared little, least of all death. But such were Bec Malthus’ gifts that he found something theydid fear.
“Now a Trial of Annihilation is far too potent a weapon for frequent use, although that first luckless warrior isn’t Beckett Malthus’ only rival to suffer it. His enemies, let us say, have a way of ending up dezgra —disgraced. Make no mistake, he’s capable of fighting when he has to—and winning. It’s just been quite a spell since hehad to.”
“Intrigue doesn’t come naturally to Clanners,” Prefect Brown said musingly.
“Nicholas Kerensky tried to breed it out of his bottle babies,” Tara Bishop said. “So now that the Falcons have a master manipulator among their warrior caste, nobody can deal with him. I guess that’s what you call the law of unintended consequences.”
Prefect Brown looked at her sharply. She still had not softened to Tara Campbell, and patently believed officers as junior as Bishop should be seen and not heard. And not much seen.
“Quite astute, young lady,” Stanford Eckard said. Tara Campbell made herself refrain from glancing at him. Was he, then, starting to accept her?
“There is one,” Senna said. “Khan Jana Pryde. He has been her left-hand man throughout her rise to Khanship of the Falcons. She knows the colors of his soul, you can bet your final stone.”
“Which may be why she chose him to command the invasion force,” Tara Campbell said. “I wonder that he never acted to seize the Khanship himself.”
Master Merchant Senna smiled her crooked smile. “One thing Bec Malthus is not is mad, Countess. He’s an altogether functional sociopath—like your playmate Anastasia Kerensky.” Tara stiffened; she felt the other Tara’s touch brief and light upon her arm where the others could not see.
“Unlike the Wolf-bitch,” continued Senna, who had not glanced at Tara Campbell in naming her nemesis, “his sociopathy enables him to become something even rarer, especially among the Clans: a man capable of total objectivity. One of the things his terribly clear vision has shown him is that anything one can be seen to possess is potentialisorla to every other warrior. He decided early on, therefore, that his ambition would be far better served by being the power behind the throne than the occupant thereof. Instrumental as he was in Jana Pryde’s rise to the Khanate, he successfully convinced her that he posed no threat to her position.”
“But now she suspects he’s outlived his usefulness?” Tara Campbell asked.
Senna shrugged. “We understand the Clan mind as, candidly, few other Clanners do. But our analysts aren’t psychic. Let us say the Khan has decided he’d best serve Turkina, and her, a hundred light years from the Clan Occupation Zone.”
Robert Ballantrae shifted in his chair. A big bluff Northwind Highlander of the old style, he had little more love for fancy talk than he did for Clanners. “So this madman’s the main threat to our peace here in the Inner Sphere?”
Tara Campbell noted he did not say, The Republic ; during the second fight for Northwind the Colonel
had made it clear that his primary loyalty was to Northwind itself, and if The Republic would not protect his home world, then it could go hang. Fortunately, his loyalty to planet was inextricably intertwined with loyalty to the person of that planet’s hereditary ruler: Countess Tara Campbell. He would serve The Republic of the Sphere as zealously as did Tara despite his skepticism, because he would serve his Countess as loyally as her own right hand.
Senna laughed softly through the dark. “No, Colonel. Not at all. He’s neither main nor maddest.”
She touched a control surface on the remote she held. The image of Bec Malthus was replaced by that of a woman: strikingly beautiful, with skin like snow, eyes like winter sky, and hair like a frozen waterfall.
“Galaxy Commander Malvina Hazen, commanding the Delta or Gyrfalcon Galaxy. The White Virgin, the Ice- Bitch, the Butcher of Wotan. Since leaving her sibko, she has never left an opponent who faced her in single combat alive—not enemies on the field of battle, nor fellow Falcons in Trials. The leading ristar of Clan Jade Falcon, its foremost MechWarrior and battle commander. Excepting only one. It is said you can see a furnace of fanaticism and fury burning through her pale skin, although I wonder if that’s just the light of madness.”
“She murdered Hamilton.” Tara Campbell almost spat the words. She saw no need for diplomatic evasion here.
Senna nodded slowly. “She did. And whether you believe me or not, Countess, I despise the deed as heartily as you. No matter: she has done as much before, and worse. A few years back, laborers mutinied on Wotan against the incompetent administration of a MechWarrior who had caused a famine claiming a thousand lives. That MechWarrior was later broken by the Clan Council, and died Solahma under command of Malvina herself. In spite of that, then-Star Captain Malvina, not yet Bloodnamed, exterminated the population of an entire bloc. Five thousand workers. Children, women, men. By way of example, you see.”
Silence filled the room like sickly fog.
“She is even smaller than you, Countess Campbell,” Senna said. “The confrontation between you will be epic despite your physical statures.”
“I’m flattered,” Tara said dryly. And yet she knew the compliment was real. Clan warriors disdained to lie, and facile trader stereotypes notwithstanding, the Sea Fox merchants did no less.
“However,” the tall woman went on, “I do not deem her your greatest threat either.”
“Good Lord,” murmured Tara Bishop. “What’s worse thanthat ?”
Another figure appeared in her place: the broad shoulders, muscular neck and head of a man with brown skin, an unruly hank of coarse black hair, big cheekbones, a lantern jaw and a straight nose. The wide mouth and brown eyes smiled. To Tara Campbell, adept at reading people’s expressions, the smile seemed one of genuine joy.
She wondered what, in the grim and violent world of the Clans, he found to be so happy about.
“He ’smore dangerous?” Tara Bishop burst out. “He looks like the big brother every girl wished she had. Well, maybe notbrother , since he looks like a holovid star. .. ”
Senna smiled. “Interesting you should say that, Captain. These two are a rarity: sibkin—brother and sister— who have both won Bloodnames. The first in Clan Jade Falcon that we know of since Aiden and Marthe Pryde—and we know all, we Sea Foxes. Every word of every Clan’s Remembrance; the contents of records other Clans don’t even know they keep. That is our business, ultimately: to know.”
She gestured. “Galaxy Commander Aleksandr Hazen. He is Malvina Hazen’s sibkin. Fraternal twin, to all intents and purposes—especially inasmuch as they are the only members of their sibling cohort to survive to win warrior status.”
“How do the genetics ofthat work out?” Prefect Della Brown wondered aloud.
“Recessives for fair skin, hair, and eyes in the gene-stock,” Merchant Senna answered. “Sibkin can be even more diverse in appearance. These two couple; there are even rumors that emotional attachment has evolved.”
Ballantrae squinted at her. “What does that mean?”
“They have long been lovers, it is said.”
“That’s unnatural!” Ballantrae exclaimed.
“Of course it is,” the Sea Fox woman said equably. “There is nothing natural about our Clan society, least of all our mode of reproduction. Though we profess great affinity with nature, we meddle with it in every particular of our own lives. That’s another reason we and the Dracs feel such affinity for one another.”
Tara Campbell leaned forward. “Sothis is a greater threat than the bloodthirsty little blonde vampire? He must be a happy lunatic.”
“Your judgment for once is clouded, Tara Campbell,” the master merchant replied. “Aleks Hazen is entirely sane, although by Clan standards stranger than Malvina. Even as Malvina has never spared a foe faced in a duel, so he has never slain one. He is famed—or notorious—for his mercy and compassion.”
“How does he manage to keep his head on his shoulders among such a bloodthirsty lot?” Ballantrae burst out.
“Nobody is good enough to separate the one from the other, Colonel. He has fought Elementals unaugmented—barehanded—and won. As a MechWarrior, only one can touch him: Malvina, whom it is said he has never beaten. As a field commander he may be her better.”
“You say he’s the worst threat?” Tara Bishop said. “Why, if mass murder isn’t to his taste?”
