and was compelled to push himself back down to the deck with his hand like a planetlubber. He had been thoroughly trained and seasoned in microgravity maneuvering long before this mission began. And he, like the rest, had had little enough to dobut practice it.
His brief flight was a clear sign of his agitation.
Sprawled in another plush red chair, Malvina tilted a twisted grin toward her sibkin. “Here you were always the amenable one, Aleks,” she reminded him.
He shook his shaggy head as if shedding water from his square-cut bangs. “We must not do this thing. It would be a disaster!”
Malthus’ eyelids were at half-mast, as if he were drowsy. “What do you mean?” he asked mildly. It was a mildness few Clanners would recognize as dangerous.
“To raid Porrima,” Aleks said, “would disrupt our schedule.”
“The schedule is flexible,” said Malthus. “It is ten days’ round trip from jump point to planet. Allowing one day for the raid, or even two, will not add unacceptably to our time loading; we cannot depart the system within one hundred sixty-four hours of our arrival in any event, owing to the necessity to recharge our star drive. Four or five more days will not compromise our ultimate victory.”
Aleks paced the cabin, careful not to break loose again, his long legs taking him the length of the available space in two strides each way. “We risk rousing opposition—warning our foes to prepare for our arrival. Do we wish to discard themaskirovka completely?”
“After our arrival at Chaffee,” Malthus said with something resembling humor in his voice, “few will harbor any doubt as to our true intentions. To be sure, the purpose of ourmaskirovka was to forestall any significant attempt by the Steiners to halt us. Yet always we have had the odds on our side. The ultimatum that our people delivered upon Tharkad will likely have caused the Lyrans to equivocate, in accordance with their essentially mercantile nature; there was a reason Jade Falcon took so many worlds from them when first the Clans returned to the Inner Sphere some eighty-five years ago.
“Even should they decide to try and intercept us, the message lag caused by the collapse of the HPG network would make that problematic at best; after all, it is not as if they know our itinerary. And finally, we know through intelligence gathered by our own Watch that House Steiner prepares a major initiative of their own against the disordered remnants of the Free Worlds League, and have no desire to disrupt their own preparations chasing phantoms.”
“All this is true, Galaxy Commander,” Aleks said. “Yet once we perform a hostile act, the chance exists that JumpShips will carry word before us to our target systems. We have yet two jumps before we reach our first objective, to Edesich and Whittington. The locals might attack us as we recharge.”
Seated behind the small polished mahogany desk in the richly paneled stateroom, Malthus turned his heavy face toward Malvina. “Let them try,” she said, laughing. “Old Dolphus Binetti would kiss them
before he vaporized them with his main batteries for giving him his shot at glory. Even if Galaxy Commander Malthus will not let his WarShip go weapons-free, DropShips and aerospace fighters would give the Spheroids short shrift.”
“We should not overlook that Porrima is the personal holding of the Archon Melissa Steiner herself,” Aleks said. “Merchants though they are, the Lyrans will not take such an insult lightly.”
“They will never catch us up,” his sibkin said. “Once we have our foothold in the Inner Sphere, let them try to dislodge us!” She laughed like a child at the thought.
Aleks’ normally dark face was ashen and tense. “What honor is there, then, in falling upon an unsuspecting world?”
“What honor is there in attacking Chaffee, come to that?” Malvina asked.
“It serves a direct military end,” he said. “Therefore it serves the overriding interests of Clan Jade Falcon— and all humanity, ultimately.”
Malthus rose languidly from behind his desk. “As does a raid upon Porrima,” he said. “Our warriors grow impatient. They need the taste of hot blood in their mouths. We have already seen one death result from an attack prompted by a chance remark in the corridors of this ship. That incident was a certain harbinger of what we can expect a great deal more of, and soon, if we cannot slake our war birds’ appetites for action!”
Aleks’ broad shoulders slumped and he looked down at the crimson carpet. “A repetition would be disastrous for morale,” he acknowledged.
“At last, my fine young ristar shows evidence of his famed clarity of thought!” Malthus said. “You are widely esteemed as a military genius, boy, as well as a true Jade Falcon warrior—both of you are. Indeed, I myself so represented you to Khan Jana Pryde. Yet in this matter you display no more wit than a street-sweeping laborer!”
It was a risky thing to say to any Clanner, much less a Jade Falcon. But Bec Malthus knew his man.
He always did.
Aleks sighed and stared down at his big, strong hands as if doubting their utility. “There is something to what you say, Galaxy Commander.”
“It is not softness of the head which troubles you,” Malvina said, “but softness of the heart.”
He brought his head up sharp, and when his dark eyes fixed upon her there was something of the Falcon in their gaze.
“It is your silly sympathy for the bellycrawlers,” she said. “You scruple to risk spilling any of their precious blood, though only the very best of them is worth more than the lowest Falcon laborer.”
“You easily dismiss these ‘bellycrawlers,” ’ Aleks said, “yet billions of them dwell under Jade Falcon control in the Occupation Zone.”
“At least they areunder control, not living and rutting like beasts of the fields.” She tossed her head,
making her snow-colored bangs bounce on her forehead and her heavy braid slither on her shoulder like a restive serpent. “And perhaps ifI were Khan they would be under better control still.”
Aleks goggled, looked from Malvina to Malthus and quickly back again. Plain on his face was concern that his beloved sibling should voice such sedition in the presence of a man far and not always well-famed as the pure creature of Khan Jana Pryde.
“Do not let your own heart’s hot blood betrayyour head, Galaxy Commander Malvina Hazen,” Malthus said blandly, showing no reaction to the woman’s shocking words. “The Inner Sphere has its true warriors; it was not Wolf perfidy and cowardice alone that stymied our first Crusade. And the distance between us and them has diminished, do not forget, in the years since we agreed to our Devil’s bargain.”
The last came out tinged with bitternessDevil’s bargain had been gaining currency of late among the radical traditionalists of the Crusader faction, referring to the modus vivendi the Falcons, even of the homeworlds, had agreed to with The Republic of the Sphere. It was itself a play upon a rare Clan play on words: those same fervent traditionalists had taken to calling The Republic’s vanished founderthe Devil in Stone .
Malvina made a circular gesture with her hand, as if deferring to her superior without conceding his point.
“Our mission is to protect the people of the Inner Sphere,” Aleks said, calmly and quietly now. “Even from themselves. Such was the Founder’s vision.”
“Yet theyare inferior—with all respect, Beckett Malthus, allowing them the odd hypothetical hero. The fact remains that as warriors, man and woman, they cannot touch us. I know you are nochalcas , Aleksandr, entirely the opposite, in fact. Why then this soft spot for Freebirths, whose lives are as chaotic and undisciplined as their breeding habits?”
“Precisely because of what you say, Malvina,” he answered gently. “Yes: we Clanners are superior. As we warriors are superior to our laborers and techs. And with that superiority comes a burden: responsibility . The Founder, Nicholas Kerensky, decreed the one when he set about to build the other.”
“All this to the side,” Malthus said, overriding Malvina, whose sculpture-perfect face had started to crease with anger, “we can all agree without hesitation that Turkina’s interests outweigh those of the people of Porrima— and that if we do not find some way to bleed our internal pressures fast, they will rupture us like a faulty fuel cell.Quiaff? ”
“Aff, ’’said Malvina, lightly, as if nothing said previously were of any consequence to her.
Aleks hesitated. “Aff, ’’he said at length.
Malthus smiled and nodded heartily. “Excellent. Now as to the raid itself—”
