March To The Stars

are relentless.'

'That ... makes things difficult,' the prince said quietly. 'What about me? Or the Mardukans?'

'I think you're one of those guys who doesn't really peak, Your Highness.' Pahner shook his head. 'Dobrescu's been pointing out your vitals to me lately. Your heartbeat and respiration hardly changed the whole time you were in the Temple; that's unusual, in case you hadn't been aware of it.'

'Oh, I'm getting that feeling,' Roger said. 'But what are we going to do at the spaceport?'

'If we can get this one licked, I think the rest will be a walkover,' Pahner told him. 'From Jin's data, the way Mountmarch has compromised his own security should make taking the port itself easy. And taking an arriving ship with modern equipment, which just happens to be stockpiled at the port where we can get at it, shouldn't be too hard. If we can just deal with this little problem. Which, I might add, brings us back to you. Specifically, to your presence at this particular locus of space-time.'

'Okay, already,' the prince said, pulling himself back onto the civan and kicking it on the snout as it turned to take a piece out of his leg. 'I'm sure we'll muddle through somehow. See you after the surrender.'

'Yep,' Pahner agreed, with a waved salute as casual as Roger's own. He waited until the prince and his Mardukan guards were well down the road before he shook his head.

'Whose, Your Highness?' He murmured then. 'Whose?'

* * *

Roger tapped on the door and entered at the grunted reply.

He'd returned to Mudh Hemh accompanied by a bare minimum security detail, but when he reached the town and found only two guards on the entire front wall, he'd realized the extent to which it had been stripped of defenders to reinforce Nopet Nujam. So he left his three Diasprans at the gatehouse to reinforce the Shin guards, and he was accompanied only by two Vashin. Those he left outside as he entered the dwelling the Gastan had turned over to Cord.

The interior was dark, but high for a human. Stone benches along two of the sides were covered in pillows, and the back side of the chamber was occupied by a cooking hearth and a large, low bath.

Cord was dangling his feet in the latter with his back to the door, while Pedi and the two serfs they'd liberated from the Lemmar rubbed his back.

'It looks like you've fallen into a good pond, Old Frog,' Roger observed with a chuckle.

'I'm glad you've returned safely,' the shaman said, and Roger carefully hid his concern as Cord clambered laboriously to his feet. Officially, his wound was well on its way to healing, but the old warrior wasn't snapping back the way he had after he'd been wounded at Voitan. Indeed, Roger was beginning to worry, very privately, that his asi might never snap back. Not all the way, at least.

'And I'm ashamed of my weakness,' Cord went on, almost as if he'd read Roger's thoughts. 'Anasi should have been at your side.'

'I have plenty of bodyguards,' Roger remarked. 'I have far fewer counselors I trust. Although, come to think of it, I'm running low on bodyguards, as well. It doesn't really matter, though. You need to get healed up; worry about the rest later.'

'So why are you here?' Cord asked, limping over to one of the benches.

'Despreaux's on her way here from Nopet, which means they must be about to put off the shots. It should be spectacular, even from here. I thought you'd like to watch.'

'Oh, that would be fun to watch,' Pedi said. 'You're taking off the whole face of Karcrag, yes?'

'Pedi should not be exerting herself,' Cord said, lying back on the bench. 'We will stay here.'

'Pedi should not be exerting herself?' Roger repeated. 'What in hell does that mean?'

'Nothing,' Pedi answered angrily. 'Nothing that he has any right to make a decision about.'

'You are my benan,' Cord said coldly. 'It is my responsibility to ensure your welfare as it is yours to ensure my safety.'

'Welfare, perhaps' she spat back. 'But not safety. I will be fine, thank you!'

'Whoa,' Roger said. He glanced at the other two former slaves, who were huddled in the corner, clearly unhappy about the argument. 'I don't want to cross this whole planet just to die in a domestic disturbance. Cord, you need to get out in the fresh air ... well, as fresh as it gets around here. We'll head up to the walls, watch the shot, and come back. And while we're walking, both of you can be thinking about what you want to tell me about what's going on.'

'It is none of your responsibility, Prince Roger,' Cord said.

'As you've pointed out to me before, Old Frog, I'm responsible for the success or failure of everything in this band. And we will have that talk. After we watch the shots.'

* * *

'They're getting nervous,' Pahner said. The Krath had sent another group up the mountain, using a different path from the one their own people had used. Since the security team had pulled back, it was just as well that the Krath would be too late arriving. They'd also pulled most of their forces out of the tent city, however, and seemed to be preparing for a large-scale assault.

'Yes,' the Gastan said silkily. 'Isn't it lovely?'

'You have your daughter's approach to handling enemies,' Pahner said with a laugh.

'Fortunately, I don't have her approach to handling friends,' the Shin king replied in a tone which was so suddenly exasperated that Pahner looked at him in genuine surprise.

'And I thought we were welcome,' he said. 'Or is there something I'm missing?'

'No, you're welcome, even chased by an army,' the Gastan said. 'It should be obvious to your Light O'Casey that this war has permitted me to consolidate my power as no Gastan has in three decades. And your support has been invaluable in that. But I could wish that my daughter had made better personal choices.'

'Okay, now you've really got me confused,' Pahner said as the Krath began filing into the assault trenches. The Gastan looked down at him and made a gesture of confused resignation.

'I wish that I understood your human body language better. Are you jesting? Or do you really not see the signs?'

'Signs of what?' Pahner asked. In the distance, the Krath assembly horns began to sound as the entire host started to move forward. The troops in the assault trenches would seek to pin the defenders in order to clear the way for the mass assault of the walls.

'You really don't see them, do you?' the Gastan said. Pahner gazed back up at the Shin's ruler and shook his head.

'She's pregnant,' the Gastan said as the explosives on the hillside detonated and the mountain came apart.

* * *

By luck, more than knowledge, the amount and spacing of the explosives was almost perfect—not too hard, and not too soft. At first, the only sign of the impending disaster was a series of muffled thuds and a dust-jet mushroom shape above each of the boreholes. Despreaux had set them to detonate sequentially, instead of simultaneously, and the series went off like a very large machine gun as the sixteen charges exploded in under three seconds.

For a moment afterwards, there was stillness, and Pahner feared that all the planning had been for nothing. Then, slowly, the face of the mountain started to slide. The giant faux-teak trees were the first to show the movement, swaying back and forth as if tossed by a heavy wind before they began to slide. Then dust began to rise, and finally the whole mass began sliding towards the valley floor to impact in a gigantic crash that was felt as far away as Mudh Hemh.

At which point, the blocked waters started looking for an outlet. And looking and looking ... and rising and rising.

* * *

'Cool,' Roger said, gazing at the neat divot that had been taken out of the side of the mountain. He and Despreaux had moved to the wall of the Shin town, and now they stood watching the battle from the safety of the