Nah.
He looked at the boy again, now nuzzled into his mother, and felt something he had not felt in a very long time. It wasn't love; he loved Lourdes and had for a lot longer than he'd been willing to admit it. If she was not Linda, she was still the finest-and based on her just concluded delivery one of the toughest and bravest-human beings on the planet.
No… it's not love that I feel anew. It's… it's… He struggled with the concept before realizing, It's a sense of future, of having a continuing place in the march of Man. I lost it when Linda and the children were killed. Lourdes has just given it back to me.
With his right palm stroking Lourdes' hair he bent over her and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. 'I love you, Lourdes,' he said. 'In all this world I love you and our child above all. You, and he, have given me my future back.'
And for that future I will fight.
Carrera rested his head upon hers and lay that way for several minutes. At length, he became aware of a hubbub of sorts coming from outside the field hospital.
Sada stuck his head in the door. 'Patricio, there are over a thousand soldiers outside, maybe two thousand, including mine, and they want to see the baby.'
Looking at Lourdes, Carrera saw her smile again and head nod, weakly. 'Show them, Patricio,' she said.
The doctor shrugged and said, 'I think it's safe enough. There are some stairs down the hallway that lead to the roof. You can use those.'
'Show them, Patricio,' Ruqaya agreed.
Gingerly, for he had not held a newborn in a very long time, Carrera took the still naked child from Lourdes' breast and placed it on his own shoulder, one hand under the baby's head. The baby-they'd already agreed he would be named Hamilcar Xavier Adnan CarreraNunez-took it pretty well, not crying but peering curiously at the out-of-focus, barely perceived world around him.
Lots different from my last digs, thought little Hamilcar. Might be fun. And there's so much more room to grow here.
Still cradling the baby, Carrera gave Lourdes another warm and gentle look. Then he left the delivery room and walked to the stairs, Sada and Ruqaya following. These they ascended. At the top of the stairs they emerged onto the roof, itself surrounded by a low adobe wall built in the Arab fashion. Stars shone down on the roof, as did Hecate and Bellona. There was a murmuring sound, as if coming from thousands of throats. The sound was gentle and quiet, though, as if, also, those making it were reluctant to disturb the new mother.
New mother or not, the murmur arose to a roar when the legionaries of el Cid and the askaris of Sada's brigade saw Carrera's head, then shoulders, and then the baby.
To the roar of the men was added a round of mass applause. Good job, Legate. Fine work, Lourdes. Welcome to the legion, little one.
Carrera placed one hand, then the other, under Hamilcar's arms and gently lifted him overhead, to display to the troops. The applause and the cheering grew louder still, which seemed not to bother the baby one bit.
Behold my son, Carrera thought. Behold: I have a future. And for that future I will fight.
Carrera looked up at the sky once again, looked at the stars, and wondered which of them were ships of the UEPF.
On the horizon, Eris was just beginning to rise anew.
III
Robinson sat on the observation deck of Spirit of Peace watching as Eris rose and Hecate prepared to plunge behind the planet. In his hand he held hard copies of dispatches from the Consensus on Earth.
The future is black, he thought. Everything is going black. I should nuke Terra Nova now, while I can.
It wasn't just the situation in Sumer that had Robinson's mood down in the pits. The dispatches from home were at least as depressing: riots in Rome-the caliph had been torn limb from limb by a mob. Raiders from the reversions-those areas on Old Earth that the Consensus lacked the means or will to keep civilized-had struck civilization in three places; just west of the Dahlonega Glacier, along the edge of the Arabian reversion area, and at the mines in central Africa. The Consensus itself was split, with some advocating further pullbacks from the reversions and others-notably the druids and neopagans-demanding an increase in the strength of the security forces to roll back the reverted areas.
So they're compromising by ordering me to send back half my security force. How the hell am I supposed to even guard Atlantis Base with half my troops, such as they are, gone? What will be next; ordering me to send back half the fleet to nuke the reversions into submission?
Oh, Holy Annan, what am I to do?
Robinson placed his elbows on his thighs, rested his head in his hands, and tried desperately to think.
All right, my best way of guarding Atlantis Base is probably bluff. I think I can keep the locals from sensing half my force is gone by ordering the remainder to be more aggressive about their patrols and enforcing the exclusion zone to surface shipping and air transport even more rigorously than we do. That will help… for a while, anyway.
Robinson's thoughts were interrupted by the sound of elevator doors whooshing open, then closed, and soft footsteps on the deck behind him. He recognized the footsteps.
'Hello, Marguerite,' he said, raising his head from his hands but staring out the large rectangular viewport rather than turning to see her.
'High Admiral,' Peace 's captain answered, with an unseen nod. She knew what was troubling him; she'd seen the dispatches from Earth before he had and she knew that Sumer was, from the Earth's and Robinson's point of view, a failure.
She gracefully took a seat on the padded bench next to Robinson. There she remained, quietly, allowing him to continue to think undisturbed.
Robinson broke the line of silence by saying, 'It's odd, isn't it? That, outside of Europe, it is the first areas of home to come under real Consensus control that were also the first to revert? That, outside of Europe, it is the areas that came in last that provide the core and the strength to our system?'
Wallenstein shrugged. She tried not to think about that, nor about what it implied for the system as a whole.
'What are you going to do?' she asked, changing the subject.
'Send them the troops, I suppose. Though I'm sorely tempted to recruit some mercenaries like that Carrera bastard and ship them to help the Consensus with its problems.'
'Martin, you can't! If the locals ever saw what home was like-'
'I know that,' he answered. 'I wasn't serious when I said it. Send back thousands of local mercenaries who are not only willing to but actually know how to fight? Abomination! They'd destroy our system of governance even faster than the reverters would. And we could never control them.'
Wallenstein breathed a small sigh of relief. 'So you will send the troops back. How will we keep Atlantis Base secured?'
'The same way we keep the FSC from blowing us from the skybluff.'
'And if we're discovered? If someone calls our bluff?'
'Marguerite… I don't know.'
'The longer it takes to win down below, the more likely it is our bluff will be called,' the captain observed.
Robinson sighed, himself. 'That much I do know. I think we're going to have to help Mustafa and the TU to destroy the FSC more directly than I've been willing to. There's only so much time, after all.'
Wallenstein nodded. The two went silent then, as the orbits of Bellona and Eris carried the moons to close juncture. After long minutes she stood and walked to a panel to the right of the transparent view screen. There she pressed a button. From either side doors began slowly and silently to close on the scene. She walked and stood in front of the high admiral of the fleet.
