within him, the one who could kill, looked out upon that future with grim intent. This was not the life that Ezr Vinh had ever dreamed would be his. There would be no friends he could safely confide in. There would be enemies and fools all around. He watched Trinli’s light vanish at the entrance to the park. Fools like Pham Trinli could be used. As long as it didn’t implicate competent Qeng Ho, Trinli was a sacrifice piece in the game. Tomas Nau had set him a role for life, and his greatest reward might be nothing more than revenge. (But maybe a chance, the original watcher tried to say, maybe a chance that Reynolt wasn’t lying about Trixia and the reversability of Focus.)
The cool one took a last long look down the years of patient work that lay ahead… and then for the moment, it retired. Surely there were cameras watching. Better not to seem too calm after all that had happened. Vinh curled in upon himself and surrendered to the one who could weep.
PART TWO
FOURTEEN
Only the most literal-minded would dispute the saying “New sun, new world.” It’s true, the core of the planet is surely unchanged by the New Sun, and the continental outlines are mostly the same. But the steam-storms of the first year of the sun scour back the dry wreckage of all previous surface life. Forests and jungles, prairies and swamps, all must start again. Of Spiderkind’s surface works, only stone buildings in protected valleys may survive.
Spore-borne life spreads quickly, torn apart in the storms to sprout again and again. In the first years, higher animals may poke their snouts from deepnesses, may try to gain advantage with an early taking of territory, but it is a deadly business. The “birth of the new world” is so violent that the metaphor is strained.
…And yet, after the third or fourth year, there are occasional breaks in the storms. Avalanches and steam surges become rare, and plants can survive from year to year. In the winter season, when the winds have gentled and there is a gap between the storms, there are times when one can look out at the land and imagine this phase of the sun as an exuberance of life.
Pride of Accord was once more complete, a grander highway than ever it had been before. Victory Smith had the sports car up past sixty miles per hour on the straightaway, slowing to just under thirty when they entered a switchback. From his perch in the back, Hrunkner Unnerby had heart-stopping views of each new precipice. He held on to his perch with every hand and foot. Except for that terrorized embrace, he was sure the last turn would have flung him out the side of the auto.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather have me drive, ma’am?” He asked.
Smith laughed. “And me sit back where you are? No way. I know how scary it is to watch from the back perch.”
Sherkaner Underhill tilted his head out the side window. “Um, I never realized how exciting this ride was for passengers.”
“Okay, I get the message.” Smith slowed, drove more cautiously than any of them might have done alone. In fact, road conditions were excellent. The storm had been blown away by a hot, compressional wind, leaving the concrete surface dry and clear. In another hour, they would be back in the soup. Their mountain route scraped just under ragged, fast-moving clouds, and the lands to the south were dark with the haze of rain. The view was about as open as it ever got along Pride of Accord. The forest was just two years old, hard-barked cones sprouting tear- away leaves. Most of the treelets were scarcely a yard tall, though here and there a sproutling or a softbush might reach six or ten feet. The green stretched for miles, interrupted here and there by the brown of avalanches or the spray of waterfalls. In this phase of the sun, the Westermost Forest was like God’s own lawn and from almost every point on the Pride, the travelers could see down to the ocean.
Hrunkner relaxed the grip on his perch a fraction. Behind them, he could see Smith’s security detail appear around the last switchback. For most of the trip, the escort had had no trouble staying close. For one thing, the storm and rain had kept Victory to very low speeds. Now they were scrambling, and Hrunkner wouldn’t blame them if they were steamed. Unfortunately, their commanding officer was about the only person they could complain to, and that was Victory Smith. Smith wore the uniform of a major in the Accord Quartermaster Corps. The branch wasn’t quite a lie, since Intelligence was construed as a branch of Quartermaster whenever convenient. But Smith was no major. Unnerby had been out of the service for four years, but he still had his old drinking buddies… and he knew just how the Great War had finally been won: if Victory Smith was not the new chief of Accord Intelligence, Unnerby would be enormously surprised.
There had been other surprises though—at least they’d been surprises until he thought things through. Two days ago, Smith had called, inviting him back to the Service. Today, when she showed up at his shop in Princeton, he’d half expected the discreet security—but Sherkaner Underhill’s presence had been totally unexpected. Not so surprising was the pleasure he’d felt in seeing the two again. Hrunkner Unnerby had achieved no fame for his role in truncating the Great War; it would be at least ten years before the records of their walk in the Dark were unsealed. But his share of the bounty for that mission had been twenty times his life’s savings. Finally, an excuse to quit the Service, a chance to do something constructive with his engineering background.
In the first years of a New Sun, there were enormous works to be done, under conditions that could be as dangerous as combat. In some cases real combat was involved. Even in a modern civilization, this phase of the sun was one where treachery—from theft to murder to squatting—was common. Hrunkner Unnerby had done very well, so perhaps the biggest surprise was how easy it had been for Victory Smith to persuade him to accept a thirty-day enlistment. “Just long enough to learn what we’re up to and decide whether you’d like to come back to longer service.”
Hence this trip to Lands Command. So far, it was a welcome vacation, a meeting with old friends (and it’s not often a sergeant got chauffeured by a general officer). Sherkaner Underhill was as much the unhinged genius as ever, though the nerve damage he’d suffered in their ad hoc deepness made him seem older than he was. Smith was more open and cheerful than he had ever seen her. Fifteen miles out of Princeton, beyond the temporary rowhouses and just into the foothills of the Westermost Range, the two let him in on their personal secret:
“You’re what?” Unnerby had said, almost slipping off his perch. Hot rain was slamming down all around them; maybe he hadn’t heard right.
“You heard me, Hrunkner. The General and I are wife and husband.” Underhill was grinning like an idiot.
Victory Smith raised a pointed hand. “One correction. Don’t call me General.”
Unnerby was usually better at masking astonishment; even Underhill could see this had taken him by surprise, and his grin got even broader. “Surely you had guessed there was something going on between us before the Big Dark.”
“Well…” Yes, though nothing could come of it, what with Sherkaner about to head off for his very uncertain walk in the Dark. Hrunkner had always felt sorry for the two because of that.
In fact, they did make a great team. Sherkaner Underhill had more bright ideas than any dozen people the Sergeant had ever known; but most of his ideas were grossly impractical, at least in terms of what could be accomplished in one person’s lifetime. On the other hand, Victory Smith had an eye for workable results. Why, if she hadn’t been around at just the right time that afternoon long ago, Unnerby would have booted poor Underhill all the way back to Princeton—and his mad scheme for winning the Great War would have been lost. So, yes. Except for the timing, he wasn’t surprised. And if Victory Smith was now the Director of Accord Intelligence, the country itself stood to win big. An ugly thought wormed its way to his mouth, and then seemed to pop out of its own volition: “But children? Not now of course.”
“Yup. The General’s pregnant. I’ll be carrying two baby welts on my back in less than half a year.”
Hrunkner realized he was sucking on his eating hands in embarrassment. He gargled something unintelligible. They drove for half a minute in silence, the hot rain hissing back across the windshields.How could
