March To The Stars

under the pot, too. Apparently, the other interest groups think it would be a Bad Idea to let the Sere build up any more of a 'dynasty' by putting its third CO in a row into the satrap's throne, which is making it very difficult for Tral to rally much support amongst his fellow councilors. It looks like, whatever the general public thinks about it, the Scourge's leader is going to be the next high priest.'

'Can't be a popular pick,' Roger observed. He scratched Dogzard's spine and shook his head. 'A slave trader as a high priest?'

'It's not popular, Your Highness,' Julian agreed immediately. 'People don't say it outright, but he's not well liked at all. He's feared, but it's not even a respectful fear. Just ... fear.'

'So what does this succession struggle have to do with us?' Roger asked again, then stiffened as the floor shuddered slightly under them. 'Uh-oh!'

The shuddering continued for a moment or two, then stopped, and Julian shook his head.

'You know, Your Highness, if you're going to turn on that earthquake-generator whenever you speak ...'

'Damn,' Kosutic said. 'At least it was light. I hope it wasn't a pre-shock, though.'

'Without a good sensor net, it's impossible to know,' Roger said, leaning over and patting the hissing beast on her legs. 'But I don't think Dogzard likes them.'

'She's not the only one, Your Highness,' Pahner said. 'It would be a hell of a thing to get you this far and lose you to an earthquake!'

'Likewise, Captain.' Roger smiled. 'But where were we? Ah, yes. This Sor Teb and why he's important to our plans.'

'It's starting to look like we're not going anywhere without his okay,' O'Casey pointed out. 'We haven't even gotten a solid yes or no on permission to leave the city, much less to head into the other satraps. The official position is that the local authorities have to get the permission of the other satraps in advance before letting us enter their territories, but that doesn't hold water.'

'No, it doesn't,' Julian agreed. 'Denat's been talking with Pedi Karuse. It's funny, in a way. Cord is probably the best scholar we have, after Eleanora, of course, but Denat has a much better ear for languages.'

Actually, Roger thought, Julian was considerably understating the case. He'd never met anyone, Mardukan or human, who had an ear for language that matched Denat's. Cord's nephew's natural affinity for languages was almost scary. The only native Mardukan who came close to matching it was Rastar, and even he had a much more pronounced accent, however good his grasp of grammar and syntax might be.

'He's picked up enough of the local dialect from her for a decent start,' Julian continued, 'and he went out doing his 'dumb barb' routine.

'According to what he's managed to overhear, a fairly large portion of the valley to the immediate north is controlled by Kirsti. The next satrap to the north is Wio, and Wio isn't well regarded by the locals. All of the satraps upriver from here—starting with Wio—charge extortionate tolls for goods to move through them, and Kirsti resents hell out of the way that subsidizes the other satrapies' merchant classes. In Wio's case, for example, the Kirsti merchants can either deal exclusively with Wio's ... or lose half their value to Wio's tolls before they even get to another market on its other side.'

'And, of course, trade can't pass through the tribal vales at all,' O'Casey pointed out. 'There's not much point trying to pass through the Shadem. Even if they wouldn't raid the caravans blind, they're on the 'outside' of the curve of the river, so there's nobody on their other side to trade with, anyway. And trying to pass through the Shin lands would be ... really a bad idea.'

'But there's a fair distance between Kirsti and the Wio border,' Julian said. 'They divide the satraps into districts called 'watches,' and it looks as if each watch is about fifty kilometers across. There are four of them between here and Wio, so we're looking at about two hundred kilometers of travel. And there's another entire major city between here and Wio, as well. They seem to have a pretty good internal transportation system. In fact, it looks to be far and away the best of any we've encountered so far. So there's no real physical bar to our making the trip. They just want to keep us in place.'

'How far to the Imperial capital itself?' Roger asked. 'And to the spaceport.'

'Twenty marches,' Julian promptly replied. 'And three more satrapies.'

'Could they have already sent a message?' the prince asked. 'To the capital, or even the port? I know they're independent of the capital, but 'what if'? For that matter, 'what if' the entire reason they're keeping us from leaving Kirsti is to keep us penned up here until a message comes back down the chain to tell them what to do with us?'

'Well,' Pahner said. He leaned back, gazed thoughtfully up at the ceiling, pulled out a bisti root, and carefully cut off a sliver. Then he slowly and deliberately inserted the sliver into his mouth. So far as they'd been able to discover, the root was unknown on this continent, and his supply was dwindling fast.

'We've been here for ten days,' he said finally. 'If it's twenty marches to the capital, that means another ten days for any messenger to get there, or to the port. If a message got to the capital, I'd think that there'd be some discussion before it was sent on to the port. So, figure another twelve days or so before it gets to the governor ... or whoever is running the port.'

'And we could see an assault shuttle here within a day or two afterwards,' Roger said with a grimace.

'Yes, Your Highness,' the captain agreed evenly. 'We could.'

'And what do we do about that?'

'One thing is to try to get a better feel for the intentions of this Sor fellow,' Pahner replied. 'If he's ambitious enough to want to head up the local satrap, he'd probably be even more interested in knocking off the entire valley.'

'Try to recruit him?' O'Casey asked dubiously, and grimaced. 'He's a slippery little snake, Armand. Reminds me of Grath Chain in Diaspra ... only competent.'

'I don't like him either,' Pahner said. 'But he's the most likely to be willing to take a chance. If we back his coup, we use our better position and his raiding forces to move up through the other satraps and take the port.'

'And if he balks?' Roger asked.

'Well, if Eleanora's negotiations aren't completed by the end of the week, I suggest we come up with a Plan B and implement it,' Pahner said. 'At that point, we can assume that the port is aware of our presence.'

'And what do we do about that?' Roger asked again.

Pahner let a flash of annoyance cross his face, but the question wasn't really off-point. In fact, it was bang on-point.

'Then we cut our way out of the city, head for the hills, and hope like hell we can disappear in the Shin mountains before the port localizes us.'

'I thought you said there was no alternative to being patient,' Roger said with a smile, and almost despite himself, Pahner smiled back, ever so slightly.

'And the Shin?' the prince continued after a moment.

'We'll cross that bridge when we come to it,' Pahner said, his smile fading into a frown. 'Getting out of town will be hard enough,' he went on, and turned to the intelligence NCO.

'Julian, we need to work up a full order of battle on the local forces. In addition, I want routes from here to the gates, alternate routes, and alternate gates. I want to know where all the guard houses are, what the forces at each guardhouse consist of, probable reaction times, and how they're equipped. I want to know as much as you can find out about the forces outside the city, as well. And we need a better feel for the relative capabilities of the three different forces here in Kirsti. Last, I want to know where the main units of this slaving force are. It's beginning to look like they're both the most effective force, and the one with the most effective commander. I want to know, if we make a move to break out of town, where the majority of them are, and when we can expect their reaction.'

'Tall order, Captain,' Julian said as he marked up his pad. 'But I'll try. We've still got some of our remotes left. I'll get them deployed and then get Poertena and Denat to spread around a little silver, see what sort of HumInt they can shake free.'

'Shanghai Despreaux and anyone else you need,' the captain said. 'You know what to do.'