Conqueror

trying hard to look brave-a difficult task, naked and helpless. There were a hundred or so of them, all the adult males of the ruling families.

'Here are the men,' Raj went on, pointing, 'who are the true authors of your misfortunes. Here are the men who refused to open the gates peacefully and exposed your city to storm and sack.'

An animal noise rose from the crowd. Oligarchs were not popular anywhere, and right now the commons of Lion City needed a target for their fear and fury, a target that wasn't armed. De Roors turned and knelt toward the podium, bawling a plea for mercy that was lost in the gathering mob-snarl. A rock hit the back of his head and he slumped forward. The old Syndic who'd had his guard try to assassinate Anarenz spat at the mob, lashing out with his fists as work-hardened hands cuffed him into the thick of it. A knot of women closed around him, pried-up cobblestones flailing in two-handed grips. The others disappeared in a surge of bodies and stamping feet, dying and pulping and spreading as greasy stains on the plaza pavement.

'Spirit of Man,' Anarenz shouted, pushing forward. 'Stop this, you butcher! Hang them if you want to, that'll terrify the syndics of the other cities.'

'No,' Raj replied.

His voice cut through the noise much better than the sailmaker's did, and the mob were recoiling now-from themselves, as much as from what remained of the city's former rulers.

'No, doing it this way is better. The magnates elsewhere will know I've a much more terrible weapon to use against them than my army.' He nodded to the crowd. 'And they will know there's no going back; if the Brigade wins, it'll make an example of Lion City.'

Anarenz looked at him with an expression more suitable for a man who'd stumbled across a pack of carnosauroids devouring an infant.

'For the Spirit's sake, is there anything you won't do to win your bloody war?' he shouted. 'Anything?'

Raj's head turned like a cannon moving with a hand on its aiming-wheel. 'No, Messer Alcalle,' he said. 'There's nothing I won't do to unite civilization on Bellevue, and end things like this forever. For the Spirit's sake.'

Suzette sank down beside Raj and leaned her head against his shoulder. 'You did what you had to do, my love,' she said softly.

His hands knotted on the table, and the empty bottle of slyowtz rolled away. The spray of plumb-blossom on the label curled about a stylized H; it was the Hillchapel proprietary brand. How long was it since he'd been home?

'Only what you had to do.'

Raj's arms groped blindly for his wife. She drew his head down to rest on her bosom, rocking it in her arms.

lady whitehall is correct, Center said. observe-

I know! Raj cut in. Lion City rising behind him, other cities closing their gates. Costing him men, costing him time, neither of which he had to spare.

'I know,' he said aloud.

'Shhhh, my love.' The commandeered room was quiet, only the light hissing of the lantern breaking the silence. 'You're with me now. No need to be the General. Peace, my love. Peace.'

For a moment the hard brilliance of another image gleamed before Raj: the Old Residence seen in the near distance, its wall towers and walls silent but threatening simply for their enormous extent.

The vision faded, yes, said Center. peace, for now.

BOOK FOUR: THE STEEL CHAPTER ONE

Thom Poplanich floated through infinity. The monobloc exploded outward, and he felt the twisting of space-time in its birth-squall. .

I think I understand that now, he thought.

excellent, Center said. we will return to socio-historical analysis: subject, fall of the federation of man.

He had been down here in the sanctum of Sector Command and Control Unit AZ12-b14-c000 Mk. XIV for years, now. His body was in stasis, his mind connected with the ancient battle computer on levels far broader than the speechlike linkage of communication. It was no longer necessary for him to see events sequentially. .

Images drifted through his consciousness. Earth. The True Earth of the Canonical Handbooks, not this world of Bellevue. Yet it was not the perfect home of half-angels that the priests talked of, but a world of men. Nations rose and warred with each other, empires grew and fell. Men learned as the cycles swung upward, then forgot, and fur-clad savages dwelt in the ruins of cities, burning their books for winter's warmth. At last one cycle swung further skyward than any before. On a small island northwest of the main continent, engines were built. Ones he recognized at first, clanking steam-engines driving factories to spin cloth, dragging loads across iron rails, powering ships. The machines grew greater, stranger. They took to the air and cities burned beneath them. They spread from one land to the next, springing at last into space.

Earth floated before him, blue and white like the images of Bellevue that Center showed him-blue and white like all worlds that could nourish the seed of Earth. One final war scarred the globe beneath him with flames, pinpoints of fire that consumed whole cities at a blow. Soundless globes of magenta and orange bloomed in airless space.

the last jihad, Center's voice said. observe.

A vast construct drifted into view, skeletal and immense beside the tubular ships and dot-tiny suited humans.

the tanaki spatial displacement net. the first model. Energies flowed across it, twisting into dimensions describable only in mathematics that he had not yet mastered. The ships vanished, to reappear far away. . here, in Bellevue's system. The Colonists, first men to set foot on this world. They landed and raised the green flag of Islam.

even more than the jihad, the net made the federation of man essential, Center said. the empire that rose this time expanded until it covered all the Earth, and leaped outward to nearby stars. a century later, its representatives landed on distant Bellevue, much to the displeasure of the descendants of the refugees,and the net was its downfall. expansion proceeded faster than integration. Long strings of formulae followed. once the tipping point was reached, entropic decay accelerated exponentially.

The higher they rise, the harder they fall, Thom thought.

true. There was a slight overtone of surprise in Center's dispassionate machine- voice.

More images. War flickering between the stars, mutiny, secession. Bellevue's Net flaring into plasma. The remnants of Federation units turning feral when they were cut off here, bringing civilization down in a welter of thermonuclear fire. Swift decay into barbarism for most areas, a pathetic remnant of ancient knowledge preserved in the Civil Government and the Colony, degenerating into superstition. Now a thousand years and more had passed, and a tentative rebirth stirred.

cycles within cycles, Center said. the overall trend is still toward maximum