like twenty days. Sula checked the capital’s copious data banks and found that the head of the Eldey clan was a sixty-one-year-old Torminel and had chaired the Power, Antimatter, and Ring Committee in the Convocation. Between that connection to extraplanetary matters and a nephew who was a captain in the Fleet, perhaps he would have a more sympathetic view of an upstart young officer than someone like Tork.
It seemed worth a try anyway. Sula sent him a complete report of the state of Zanshaa, along with a brief history of her activities and those of the secret army. She also enclosed advice on how to treat the army and the various interests that it represented.
The report, minus the advice, also went to the Convocation and to the Fleet Control Board. She wanted them to see her own words and her own achievements without being filtered through Tork.
To her immense surprise, a reply came from Eldey two days later. The camera showed him in an elaborate acceleration couch, brown leather and silver mountings, and he was dressed informally, in the simple vest that Torminel often wore to keep from overheating in their fur. His voice was very soft, with a bit of a hesitation. His fur was thinning with age. He looked like a slightly worn, much beloved stuffed toy.
“I take your point in regard to the army,” he said, “and I quite agree with your solutions. I will confirm all amnesties and awards under my own authority. I think you have done an extraordinary thing, and I will recommend to the Fleet Control Board that you be decorated. I can’t help but think you have a remarkable career ahead of you.”
This might have been flattery mixed with a careful politician’s appreciation of the possibilities for his own survival—perhaps he meant none of it at all—but at least the words were the right ones. Sula began to think the Convocation might have made a good choice.
If she’d known a few days earlier that someone like Eldey was on his way, perhaps Lady Trani wouldn’t have died. Perhaps the planet could have endured Trani’s presence for twenty-odd days.
On the scale of Sula’s regrets, however, Trani’s fate didn’t rate very high.
Since it appeared she wasn’t about to be killed on orders of higher authority, she began to consider her own future. She went to a pharmacy, donated a drop of blood, and had her genetic code read. Then, with the nonchalance she was developing as an absolute ruler, she marched into the Peers’ Gene Bank, an ornate building of brown stone squeezed between two government offices, and asked for a tour. A flustered Lai-own clerk showed her how the genetic records of every Peer on Zanshaa were collected when that Peer applied for a marriage license, and how these were recorded in the gene banks that went back to the founding of the empire. She showed Sula how the scanned genetic material would be compared for points of coincidence to determine ancestry, if there were ever a question about a given person’s genetic heritage.
“Is there a backup?” Sula asked.
“Yes. In the safe downstairs.”
Sula tried to suppress her amusement. The priceless genetic record of the Peerage and its only copy were kept in the same building, and could be subjected to the same accidents, a fact that revealed a confidence that the High City, and the empire, would stand forever.
“Let me see the backup,” Sula said.
The clerk took her to a room in the basement and opened the safe. Sula had pictured a small, perhaps antique safe, but in fact the safe was huge and magnificent, all gleaming, polished metal. She watched her distorted reflection ooze across the door as it swung open. She and the clerk stepped inside. The interior of the safe smelled faintly of lubricating oil.
The data store, and its operation, were identical to those of the primary computer on the ground floor.
“Show me how it works,” Sula said.
The clerk obeyed.
“Very good,” Sula said. “Now clear out.”
The clerk stared at her with wide golden eyes. “My lady?”
“Leave. Take an early lunch, and take everyone else with you. I need to extract genetic information on some wanted Naxid fugitives, murderous officials who are escaping punishment for their crimes.”
The clerk’s muzzle dropped open in shock. “My lady. We can do that for you.”
“No, you can’t. I can’t allow you to know their names. It’s a military secret.”
“But my lady—”
“You know,” Sula said, “I could save a lot of money for the administration just by shutting this place down. It’s not like any Peers have been getting married lately.”
There was a scurrying for overcoats and hats, and the clerks fled into the slate-gray winter day. Sula locked the front door and sat at the control station. After a pause to savor the moment, she deleted all Caro Sula’s ancestors going back some 3,500 years, replaced them all with herself, then shut down the terminal.
She did the same for the backup.
Perhaps, she thought, that would finally put Caro to rest.
Sula and Lord Eldey developed a cordial relationship in the days that followed their first exchange. He confirmed all her appointments, her amnesties, and recommended to the Fleet Control Board that they confirm the awards she had given to the army. She told him of the shortages Zanshaa was experiencing in antimatter for power generation, and he told her that the shortage had been anticipated and shipments of antihydrogen were on the way. She told him of the various conflicts that were appearing between loyalist factions that had stepped into power in various cities, and Eldey offered suggestions for handling them.
“I have to compliment you on your firmness in dealing with the Naxids in charge of the food ration,” he added. “But you might have accomplished your task much easier by announcing a stiff tax on food, to go into effect in, say, six months.”
Sula grinned. There reallywas a macroeconomic solution to the problem.
“What truly surprises me is the Naxids,” Sula said. “They’ve been very quiet and cooperative, even the captives. I understand that the prisoners may be cooperating so we won’t go after their relatives, but there’s no way to tell if there’s some Naxid out there working from my playbook, and that any day we’re going to start seeing assassinations and bombings.”
The answer, when it arrived a day later, startled her.
“I think that after their defeat, the Naxids will become good and loyal citizens,” Eldey said. “When the revolt first happened, I couldn’t understand it—why would some of the most prominent people in the empire, Peers who already held vast amounts of wealth and power, risk so much?”
He bobbed his venerable head. “I think the Naxids’ revolt should be read through their species psychology— they are pack animals, and will follow a clear leader. The Shaa were the head of the pack that was the empire, and when their replacement was a committee of equals, it must have made the Naxids uneasy. The situation was too ambiguous. They couldn’t be certain where they stood in relation to all the other members of the pack.
“When the war is over, and it’s clear that the Naxids have been thoroughly beaten and are driven to the absolute bottom of our society, I think they will be content with that. Once they know for certain where they are in the hierarchy, they will be happier than they would be otherwise. They will excel in their particular niche.”
Sula considered this through a haze of surprise, and decided that though the theory was interesting, she’d better continue to be ready for a Naxid counterattack. This thought occupied her sufficiently that Eldey’s next statement caught her unprepared.
“What we should perhaps begin to concern ourselves with,” he said gently, “is sending the army back to their normal lives. I will welcome your suggestions.”
Well, Sula thought, that was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? Her own position on Zanshaa depended on the army, and the army was small, imperfectly trained and equipped, and already longing for their own beds. Someone like Lady Trani, a latecomer of little understanding and deserving no respect, could be dealt with. Tork, confined to running circles around the Zanshaa system and unable to unleash his formidable weaponry on his own capital, could be kept at arm’s length.
Lord Eldey, intelligent and credible and with the authority of the Convocation and the empire behind him, was something else. Once he landed, Sula realized she became not simply redundant, but a potential embarrassment. What exactly could she do, in command of an army that was no longer needed? If she rebelled, who would it be against?
For a moment she entertained the thought of returning to her underground life and becoming Bandit Queen of
