chargeswere there, heavily guarded, for years—until the Shaa were satisfied that the ring would stay where they put it.”
“What about the cables? If the ring slipped off the skyhooks, the cables would wrap themselves right around the planet…”
Sula dabbled plum chutney onto her flat bread. “The engineers weresmart . The cable termini are built with release mechanismshere, on the planet’s surface. The cables would be drawn up into space and we’d never see them again.” She took a bite, chewed, swallowed. “Imagine the Naxids’ surprise. They’d come expecting to land their government on the ring and take the elevator down to the surface—and they wouldn’t be able to get down to the planet! All their officials would bestuck up there, issuing decrees they couldn’t enforce, at least until they brought enough shuttles from Magaria to land their government.”
By this time Martinez had recovered from his slow surprise at this unorthodox notion and his mind had begun to grapple at its implications. “A hot reception could be arranged for them on the ground. I’d have thousands of soldiers guarding Zanshaa city.”
Sula seemed puzzled. “What good would it do? The Naxids would just flame your army from orbit.”
Martinez felt a triumphant smile split his face. “That’s exactly what they’d do—they’d flame any city—but not Zanshaa.They wouldn’t hit Zanshaa for the same reason thatwe couldn’t drop a piece of the ring on it—it would be a desecration of the most sacrosanct place in the empire. Flame the Couch of Eternity? The Convocation? The Great Refuge? The original Tablets of the Praxis?They wouldn’t dare. ”
A wild mirth brought blood mantling the surface of Sula’s face. “Your soldiers could hold out in the capitalforever !”
He shrugged. “For a long time, anyway. The Naxids would have to shuttle in enough troops to defeat them….”
“…And in the meantime the Fleet would be building its power off in the reaches of the empire.” Sula’s grin was gleeful. “Ready to come back.”
“Ye-es…” Further calculations shrank Martinez’s smile. “Except that the Naxids are building, too. They’d have to be.” He looked at her. “What will the Naxidsdo if we don’t fight for Zanshaa? If we blow the ring and withdraw? What could they do? Come after us?”
The green fire of calculation burned in Sula’s eyes. “They couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because they wouldn’t know where the fleet’s gone. Zanshaa has eight wormhole gates. If the Naxids plunge on ahead toward where theythink we are—even if they get the right wormhole—our fleet could still double back through another gate and retake Zanshaa. If they leave a smaller force behind to hold the capital, that force could be destroyed. They’d have to stay here.” She took a thoughtful nibble of her bread. “Yes,” she nodded, “they’d be stuck here.”
“In which case,” Martinez said slowly, “our forces wouldn’t have to just fall back and stay put. They could go on the offensive.”
Her face was a mask of concentration. “Yes. They could bypass Zanshaa and strike into the areas the Naxids already control. Disrupt trade, hinder resupply…”
“…destroy reinforcements and anything building in the shipyards,” Martinez added.
“While the main Naxid force is stuck at Zanshaa trying to find a way to fightyour army and secure the High City,” Sula said.
“…And after suitable havoc is wreaked, and the new loyalist elements assemble…”
“We rendezvous, return to Zanshaa, and take back the capital!” Sula almost shouted out her triumph. And then her exhilaration faded.
“But who listens to the likes of us?” she asked. “So far as we know, the Fleet is nailed to Zanshaa to defend or die.”
Martinez was mentally adding up the people who might be useful. Lord Chen, he thought, perhaps Lord Pierre Ngeni, the recently promoted Do-faq. Perhaps he could get Shankaracharya to contact his patron Lord Pezzini on his behalf.
And if necessary he could go to Lord Said. The Lord Senior had been present when he’d been awarded the Golden Orb, and they’d exchanged a few words—Martinez knew that the head of the government was a busy man, but he suspected that the Golden Orb might be able to win a few moments of the old man’s time.
“We should put together a proposal,” Martinez said slowly. “A formal proposal, listing all the options.” He didn’t want to spring an idea prematurely, before it was developed…he’d made the mistake of doing that with the new tactics, only to encounter ridicule.
Sula’s look was skeptical. “But who will ever read it?”
“I’ll think about that later. Proposal first.”
They cleared away the breakfast dishes, made another pot of coffee, and ordered the surface of the Sevigny table to brighten with its cybernetic options.
They would have to pare their ideas down to a manageable few.
It didn’t pay to be too imaginative in these matters.
Martinez, with Sula’s farewell kiss still tingling on his lips, walked toward the Shelley Palace at midafternoon, his mind saturated with a kind of awe. It was as if his brain had just discharged all its energy like a capacitor, and would require several hours to recover. He and Sula had been so perfect together, their minds working as if in tandem, one filling in details while another leaped ahead to the next point, then the two combining to collaborate on a particularly knotty problem. He no longer had any recollection which idea had occurred to which of the collaborators, it was all one smooth, perfect, ecstatic interface.
It was like wonderful sex. And this was inaddition to the wonderful sex.
He bounded up the stairs of the Shelley Palace as he hummed to himselfOh, the woman on the strand , and as he entered the foyer he encountered his brother. Roland was preparing to go out and gave Martinez a saturnine look as he shrugged into his coat and twitched the lapels into place.
“I’ve been working on family business all day,” he said, “and here you come loitering into the house in the middle of the afternoon reeking of sexual satiation.”
“It’s the uniform,” Martinez said. “The uniform works wonders on the ladies.”
“It seems to have worked its magic on that Amanda person, sure enough,” Roland said. “But you might oblige me by considering a more permanent liaison, as your sister’s done.”
Martinez, smiling to himself, decided not to correct Roland’s misapprehension about the woman with whom he’d spent the night.
“Whereis the happy bride-to-be, by the way?” he asked.
“At our lawyer’s, where I will soon join her.” Roland moodily studied himself in a glass, then twitched at his lapels again. “A few last little wrinkles of the marriage contract need to be ironed out.”
“I’ve been assuming the wrinkles on the contract are the whole point of the marriage,” Martinez said, “since I hadn’t till last evening actually seen the joyful couple together, or heard the groom so much as mentioned.”
“You would if you hadn’t spent so much of the last few days asleep.” Roland stepped to the front door, put a hand on the polished brass knob, hesitated, and then turned to Martinez. “But why be surprised that they don’t know each other particularly well? Why be surprised that marriage is about money and property and inheritance? Why else bother with it?”
“That carefree, fey romantic spirit of yours,” Martinez said, “will get you in trouble one day.”
Roland gave a grunt of annoyance and launched himself out the door. Martinez followed.
“So what gems are going to fall into our collective laps as a result of this alliance?” he said as he fell into stride with his brother.
“Lord Oda is the nephew of Lord Yoshitoshi,” Roland said, his eyes fixed forward. “Lord Yoshitoshi had two children—the eldest, Lady Samantha, has been disinherited for reasons that have never been disclosed publicly, but which are assumed to be…” He searched for words.
“The usual,” Martinez finished.
“Yes. The usual.” Roland frowned. “The youngest child and heir, Lord Simon, died at Magaria. That leaves Lord Yoshitoshi’s brother Lord Eizo as the heir. And Lord Oda ishis eldest child.”
“And the presumed heir to Clan Yoshitoshi. Very good. But presumably Lord Oda’s increased prospects didn’t
