The Chosen

in command here?'

John replied in kind. In accentless Landisch he replied: 'Johan Hosten, owner-aboard. What can I do for you, Leutnant?'

subject's apprehension level has increased markedly.

Nice to know that he wasn't the only one feeling nervous here, and even nicer that he had Center to reveal what was behind that poker face. Of course, only a fool wouldn't be a little fearful of the possible consequences of a fight here. Not the physical ones-cowards didn't make it through the Test of Life-but the political repercussions. Relations between the Land and Santander had never been all that good, and since the fall of the Empire they'd gone straight down the toilet. The press back home was having a field day with the atrocity stories the refugees were bringing in; the Chosen were too insular to even try countermeasures, they didn't understand the impact that sort of thing had on public opinion in the Republic. John's own papers were leading the charge. . and the stories were mostly true, at that.

The Chosen did understand status and territory and pissing matches, though. Sinking the yacht of a wealthy, powerful man related to a Santander Navy admiral. .

'Herr Hosten?' Tirnwitz said. She cleared her throat. 'My vessel was pursuing a small boat. Carrying subversive terrorist elements.'

John made a sweeping wave of his hand. 'As you can see, Leutnant, there's no boat here except our ship's lifeboats, all of which are secured and lashed down. . and dry.'

His eyes lifted slightly to the dirigible. It was much closer now, but when he'd come aboard it had been too far to the north to see what actually happened.

Tirnwitz's lips thinned in frustration. The Windstrider's boats were lashed down and tight in their davits; nobody could have hoisted one aboard in the time they'd had. Nor could a whaleboat have made it over the horizon in the yacht's shelter. . although possibly the men on one could have scrambled aboard and pulled the plug on their boat.

He could see that thought going through Tirnwitz's head. 'I must make inspection and question your crew,' she said after a moment.

'Impossible,' John replied.

Jeffrey moved up to his side. 'And to paraphrase what my father said in Salini last year, if you want to start a war, this is as good a place as any.'

Pia waved a steward forward with a tray; it looked rather incongruous when combined with the cutlass and revolver at his waist, and the short rifle slung over his shoulder.

'Perhaps the Leutnant would like some refreshments?' she said with silky malice. 'Before she returns to her ship.'

The sailor behind the Chosen captain growled and half moved, then sank back quivering with rage at a finger-motion from her. She stared at Pia for a moment.

'An Imperial. The animals are less insolent in the New Territories these days,' she said. 'Teaching them manners can be diverting.' She nodded to John. 'Someday we may serve Santander refreshments, a drink you'll find unpleasant. Guten tag.'

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The blast furnace shrieked like a woman in childbirth, magnified ten thousand times. A long tongue of flame reached upward into the night, throwing reddish-orange light across the new steelworks. John nodded thoughtfully as the bell-cap was lowered down onto the great cylinder, like a cork into a bottle taller than a six-story building. The flames died down as the cap intercepted the uprush of superheated gases from the throat of the furnace, channeling them through pipes where they were cleaned and distributed to heat ovens and boilers. A stink of cinders and sulfur filled the air, and the acrid nose-crackling smell of heated metal. Gravel crunched under his feet as he turned away, the small party of engineers and managers trailing at his heels.

A train of railcarts rumbled by, full of reddish iron ore, limestone, and black-brown coke in careful proportions. The carts slowed, then jerked and picked up a little speed as the hooks beneath them caught the endless chain belt that would haul them up the steep slope to the lip of the furnace.

'Nice counterweight system you've installed, sir,' the chief engineer said. 'Saves time on feeding the furnace.'

John nodded. Courtesy of Center, he thought.

'Saves labor, too,' the engineer said. 'God knows we're short.'

'How are those refugees shaping up?' John said.

'Better'n I'd have thought, sir, for Wop hayseeds. They're not afraid of shedding some sweat, that's for sure.'

'Pay's better than stoop work in the fields,' John said.

A lot of the Imperial refugees who'd left the camps outside the cities on the south shore of the Gut ended up as migrant workers following the crops across Santander. They'd jumped at the chance of mill work. A couple of them snatched off their hats and bowed as he passed, teeth gleaming white against their soot-darkened olive skins. John touched the gold head of his cane to his own silk topper; luckily white spats were out of fashion, or Pia would be even more upset than she was likely to be with him anyway.

'No damned strikes, either,' the plant's manager said.

'Shouldn't be, with the wages we pay,' John said.

Off to the left a huge cradle of molten iron was moving, slung under a trackway that ran down the center of the shed. It dropped fat white sparks, bright even against the arc lights, then halted and tipped a stream of white- hot incandescence into the waiting maw of the open-hearth furnace. Further back, beyond the soaking pits for the ingots, the machinery of the rolling mill slammed and hummed, long shafts of hot steel stretching and forming.

The engineer nodded towards them. 'We're fully up to speed on the rail mill,' he said. 'If you can keep the orders coming in, we can keep the steel going out.'

John nodded. 'Don't worry about the orders,' he said. 'Plenty of new lines going in, what with the double- tracking program. And the Chosen are buying for their new lines in the Empire.'

That brought the conversation behind him to a halt. He looked back at the expressions of clenched disapproval and grinned; it was not a pleasant thing to see.

'You're selling to the Chosen?' the engineer said.

'I prefer to think of it as getting the Chosen to finance our expansion program,' John replied.

What's more, it's good cover. Several times over. It gave him a good excuse for traveling to the Land, which helped with his ostensible work as a double agent in the employ of the Chosen. The shipments were also splendid cover for agents and arms to the underground resistance.

'And besides the sheet-steel rolls, you'll be getting heavy boring and turning lathes soon. From the Armory Mills in Santander City.'

That rocked the man back on his heels. 'Ordnance?' he said. 'That'll cost, sir. We'll have to learn by doing, and it's specialist work.'

John nodded. 'Don't worry about the orders,' he said again. 'Let's say a voice whispered in my ear that demand is going to increase.'

He touched the cane to his hat brim again and shook hands all around. His senior employees had learned to respect John Hosten's 'hunches,' even if they didn't understand them. Then walked across the vacant yard to where his car was waiting by the plant gate under a floodlight.

'Back home, sir?' Harry Smith said, looking up from polishing the headlamps with a chamois cloth.

'Home,' he said. 'For a few days.'

'Ah,' the ex-Marine in the chauffeur's uniform said. 'We're going somewhere, then, sir?'

John nodded and stepped into the passenger compartment of the car as Smith opened it for him, tossing hat and cane to one of the seats. There were six, facing each other at front and rear. One held Maurice Hosten, sleeping with his head in Maurice Farr's lap; the older man looked down at his five-year-old namesake fondly,