Heirs of Empire

“Well, Galahad,” he said quietly, “has Cohanna explained why I wanted to meet you?”

“Yes,” the dog replied. His ears moved, and Colin realized it was a deliberate gesture—an expression intended to convey meaning. “But we do not understand why others fear us.” The words came slowly but without hesitation.

“Excuse me a moment, Galahad,” Colin said, feeling only a slight sense of unreality at extending human- style courtesies to a dog. He looked back up at Cohanna. “How much of that was computer enhanced?”

“There’s some enhancement,” the doctor admitted. “They tend to forget definite articles, and their sentence structure’s very simple. They never use the past tense, either, but the software is limited to ‘filling in the holes.’ It doesn’t provide any expansion of their meaning.”

“Galahad,” Colin turned back to the dog, “you don’t frighten me—or anyone else in this room—but some people will find you … unnatural, and humans are afraid of things they don’t understand.”

“Why?” Galahad asked.

“I wish I could explain why,” Colin sighed.

“Danger is cause for fear,” the dog said, “but we are no danger. We wish only to be. We are not evil.”

Colin blinked. A word like “evil” implied an ability to manipulate concepts light-years in advance of anything Tinker Bell had ever managed.

“Galahad,” he asked carefully, “what do you think ‘evil’ is?”

“Evil,” the mechanically-generated voice replied, “is danger. Evil is hurting when not hurt or when hurting is not needed.”

Colin winced, for Galahad had cut to the heart of his own definition of evil. And whether he’d meant to or not, he’d thrown Colin’s decision about his own fate into stark focus.

Colin MacIntyre stared into his own soul and disliked what he saw. How could he explain that much of humanity was incapable of understanding what Galahad saw so clearly, or why he felt so ashamed that it was so?

“Colin-human,” Colin looked up as Galahad spoke again, “I try to understand, for understanding is good, but I cannot. We know—” a toss of a massive canine head indicated his litter-mates “—you may end us. We do not want to end. You do not want to end us. If we must end we cannot stop you. But it is not right, Colin-human.” Canine eyes held his with heart-tearing dignity. “It is not right,” Galahad repeated, “and this is something you know.”

Colin bit his lip. He turned to Jiltanith, and when her eyes—the black, subtly alien eyes of a full Imperial— met his, they, too, shone with tears.

“He hath the right of it, my Colin,” she said quietly. “Should we decree their deaths, ’twill be fear that moveth us—fear that maketh us do what we know full well is wrong. Nay, more than wrong.” She knelt beside him, touching a slender hand to Galahad’s heavy head. “E’en as Galahad hath said, ’twould evil be to hurt where hurting need not be.”

“I know.” His voice was equally quiet, and then he shook himself. “Isis?”

” ’Tanni’s right. If I’d known what ’Hanna was planning I’d’ve pitched a fit right alongside you, but look at them. They’re magnificent. People, Colin—good people who happen to have four feet and no hands.”

“Yes.” Colin looked down at his hands—the hands Galahad didn’t have—and felt the decision make itself. He rose and tugged on his nose, thinking hard. “How many are we talking about here, ’Hanna?”

“Ten. These four and two smaller litters.”

“Okay.” He turned back to Galahad and his siblings. “Listen to me, all of you. I know you don’t understand why humans should be afraid of you, but do all of you accept that they might be?” Four canine heads nodded in unmistakable assent, and he chuckled despite his solemnity. “Good, because the only way we could keep you really safe would be for us to keep the humans you might scare from finding out you exist, and we can’t do that forever.

“So here’s what I’m going to do. From now on, you four will live with us—with ’Tanni and me—and except for when you’re alone with us, you have to pretend to be just like other dogs. Can you do that?”

“Yes, Colin-human.” It wasn’t Galahad, but a smaller female who spoke, and her dignified mien vanished abruptly. She leapt up on him, wagging her tail and slurping his face enthusiastically, then tore around the room barking madly. She skidded to a halt, tongue lolling, dumped herself untidily on the carpet, rolled on her back, and waved all four feet in the air. Then she rolled back over and sat upright once more, eyes laughing at him.

“All right!” He wiped his face and grinned, then sobered again. “I don’t know if you’ll understand this, but we’re going to take you lots of places and show you to lots of people, and I want you to behave like ordinary dogs. The news people’ll get a lot of footage of you, and that’s good. When the truth about you gets out, I want the rest of humanity to be used to seeing you. I want them used to the idea that you’re not a threat. That you’ve been around a long time and never hurt anyone. Do you understand?”

“If we prove we are not evil, people will not fear us?” Galahad asked.

“Exactly. It’s not fair—you shouldn’t have to prove it any more than they should —but that’s how it has to be. Can you do that?”

“We can, Colin-human,” Galahad said softly.

Chapter Four

Fleet Admiral the Lady Adrienne Robbins, Baroness Nergal and Companion of the Golden Nova, dodged with a haste which ill accorded with her exalted rank. She flattened herself against the wall of the Palace corridor and shrank into the smallest possible space as four human children, a half-grown Narhani, and a pack of four leaping rottweilers thundered down upon her.

Fortunately for the admiral, the long-haired girl leading the charge saw her, and they hit the brakes as only children can, skittering to a halt in a tangled confusion of arms, legs, feet, hooves, and paws.

“Hi, Aunt Adrienne!” Princess Isis Harriet MacIntyre shouted, and Admiral Robbins stepped away from the wall. Sean and Harriet seemed unaffected by her glare, but Sandy MacMahan looked a bit abashed and Tamman studied his toes. Brashan, Brashieel’s clone-child, looked dreadfully embarrassed, for if he was younger than any of the others, he was already a near-adult, given the speed with which his species matured. For their part, the various dogs flopped down and panted at her, but their canine insouciance didn’t fool Adrienne, for she was one of the handful of people who knew the truth about them.

“I wonder,” the admiral said darkly, “how Their Imperial Majesties would react to the way you young hellions came tearing down on me?”

“Oh, Dad wouldn’t mind.” Sean grinned.

“I was thinking more of Her Imperial Majesty,” Adrienne said, and Sean suddenly looked more thoughtful. “That’s what I thought, too. Can you give me one good reason I shouldn’t tell her?”

“Because you wouldn’t want us on your conscience?” he suggested, and she swallowed a laugh and frowned.

“My conscience is pretty resilient, Your Highness.”

“Uh, do you have to mention this to Mom and Dad?” Harriet asked, and Adrienne considered her for a long, dreadful moment. Tamman wiggled, clearly picturing his parents’ reaction, and Adrienne relented.

“Not this time, I suppose. But—” she held up an admonishing finger as relieved smiles blossomed “—I won’t be so gooey-centered next time!”

An earnest chorus of thanks answered her, and she made shooing motions with her hands.

“Then get, you horrible brats!” she commanded, and the cavalcade leapt back into motion (albeit less impetuously than before) down the hall.

Adrienne smiled after them, then resumed her interrupted journey. Sean, she reflected, was a dark-haired version of his father, with the same beaky nose and jug ears no one would ever call handsome, but he was already bidding fair to be quite a bit taller than either of his parents.