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Eugene Botkin slipped into the training room of Castle Eser, closed the door softly. He stood there a moment, feeling old and tired and storm-leathered. His left leg ached where it'd once been slashed in the service of Duke Nicholas Romanov, The Elder.
Three generations of them now, he thought.
He stared across the big room bright with the light of noon pouring through the skylights, saw the boy seated with his back to the door, intent on papers and charts spread across an ell table.
How many times must I admonish that boy never to settle himself with his back to a door? Botkin cleared his throat.
Alexei remained bent over his studies.
A cloud shadow passed over the skylights. Again, Botkin cleared his throat.
Alexei straightened up, spoke without turning around: "I know, I know. I'm sitting with my back to a door."
Botkin suppressed a smile, then strode across the room.
Alexei looked up at the grizzled old man who stopped a corner of the table. Botkin's eyes were two pools of alertness in a dark and deeply seamed face.
"I heard you coming down the hall," Alexei said. "And I heard you open the door."
"A clever assassin could imitate those sounds."
"I'd know the difference."
He might at that, Botkin thought. That enchantress-mother of his is giving him the deep training, certainly. I wonder what her precious school thinks of that? Maybe that's why they sent the old Proctor here--to whip our dear Lady Alexandra into shape.
Botkin pulled up a chair across from Alexei, sat down facing the door. He did it pointedly, leaned back and studied the room. It struck him as an odd place suddenly, a stranger-place with most of its hardware already gone off to Dyuna. A training table remained, and a fencing mirror with its crystal prisms quiescent, the target dummy beside it patched and padded, looking more like some ancient warrior who'd been repeatedly maimed and battered in the wars.
There stand I, Botkin thought.
"Eugene, what are you thinking?" Alexei asked.
Botkin looked at the boy. "I was thinking we'll all be out of here soon and likely never see the place again."
"And that makes you sad?"
"Sad? Nonsense! Parting with friends is a sadness. A place is only a place." He glanced at the charts on the table. "And Dyuna is but another place."
"Did my father send you up to test me?"
Botkin scowled---the boy had such observing ways about him. He nodded. "You're thinking it would have been nicer if he'd come up in persona, but surely you know how busy he is. He'll be along shortly, if that's any consolation for you."
"I've been studying about the storms on Dyuna."
"The storms, eh? Why?"
"Their evils fascinate me."
"That's too polite a word: evils. Those storms build up across six or seven thousand kilometers of flatlands, feed on anything that can give them a push---Coriolis force, other storms, anything that has an ounce of energy in it. They can blow up to seven hundred kilometers an hour, loaded with everything loose that's in their way--sand, dust, whatever. They can peel the flesh off a man's bones and etch his bones to slivers."
"Do they not have weather control there?"
"No, for Dyuna has special problems, costs are higher, and there'd be maintenance and the like. The Guild asks a dreadfully high price for satellite control and your father's House isn't one of the big rich ones, lad. You know that."
"Have you ever seen the Szganys?"
The lad's mind is darting all over today, Botkin thought.
"Like as not I have seen them," he said. "There's little to tell them from the folk of the graben and sink. They all wear those great flowing robes. And they stink to high heaven in any closed space. It's from those suits they were---call them 'stillsuits'---that reclaim the body's own water."
Alexei swallowed, suddenly conscious of the moisture in his mouth, remembering a dream of thirst. That people could want so for water they had to recycle their bodily moisture struck him with a feeling of dread. "What's precious there?"
Botkin nodded, thinking: Perhaps I'm doing it, getting across to him the importance of this planet as a potential enemy. It's madness to go there without that caution in our minds.
Alexei looked up at the skylight, aware that it had begun to rain. He saw the spreading wetness on the gray meta-glass. "Water," he said.
"You'll have to learn respect for water," Botkin said. "As the Duke's son, you'll never want for it, but you'll see the pressures of thirst all around you."
Alexei wet his lips with his tongue, thinking back to the day a week ago and the ordeal with the Mother Baba. She, too, had said something about water starvation.
"You'll learn about the funeral plains," she'd said, "about the empty wilderness, the wasteland where nothing lives except the spice and the saandwurms. You'll strain your eyepits to reduce the sun glare. Shelter will mean a hollow out of the wind and hidden from sight. You'll ride upon your own two feet without 'thopter or groundcar or mount."
And Alexei had been caught more by her tone---singsong and wavering---rather than her words.
"When you live upon Dyuna," she had said, "remember that the land is empty. The moons will be your friends, the sun your foe."
Alexei had sensed his mother come up beside him away from her post guarding the door. She had looked at the Mother Baba and asked: "Do you see no hope, Your Worship?"
"For the father? No." And the old crone had waved Alexandra to silence, looked down at Alexei. "Engrave this on your memory, lad: A planet is supported by four things..." She held up four big-knuckled fingers. "...the learning of the wise, the justice of the great, the prayers of the righteous and the valor of the brave. But all of these things are as nothing..." She closed her fingers into a fist. "...if there is no ruler that knows the art of ruling. Make that the science of your tradition!"
A week had passed since that day with the Mother Baba. Her words were only now starting to come into full register. Now, sitting in the training room with Eugene Botkin, Alexei felt a sharp pang of fear. He looked at the Technopath's puzzled frown.
"Where were you woolgathering that time?" Botkin asked.
"Did you meet the Mother Baba?"
"That Truthsayer witch from the Imperium?" Botkin's eyes quickly lit up with interest. "Yes, I did."
"She..." Alexei hesitated, found that he couldn't tell Botkin about the ordeal.
"Yes? What did that old crone?"
Alexei took two deep breaths. "She said a thing." He closed his eyes, calling up the words, and when he spoke his voice unconsciously took on some of the old crone's tone: " 'You, Alexei Romanov, descendant of Czars, son of a Duke, you must learn to rule. It's something none of your ancestors learned.'" Alexei opened his eyes, said: "That made me angry, and I said my father rules an entire planet. And she said, 'He's losing it.' And I said my father was getting a richer planet. And she said, 'He'll lose that one as well.' And I wanted to run and warn my father, but he said he'd already been warned---by you, by Mother, by many people."
"It is so," Botkin muttered.
"Then why are we going?" Alexei demanded.
"Because the Sultan ordered it. And because there's hope despite what that witch-spy said. What else spouted from this ancient fountain of wisdom."
Alexei looked down at his right hand clenched into a fist beneath the table. Slowly, he willed the muscles to relax. She put some kind of hold on me, he thought. How?
"She asked me to tell her what it is to rule," Alexei said. "And I said that one rules by command. And she said I had some unlearning to do."
She hit a mark there sure enough, Botkin thought. He nodded for Alexei to continue.
"She said a ruler must learn to persuade and not to compel. She said he must lay the best coffee hearth to attract the finest men."
"How did she figure your father attracted men like Gustav and Grady?" Botkin asked.
Alexei shrugged. "Then she said a good ruler has to learn his planet's language, that it's different for every planet. And I thought she meant they didn't speak Galactic Russian on Dyuna, but she said that wasn't it at all. She said she meant the language of the rocks and growing things, the language you don't hear with your ears. And I said that's what Dr. Rasputin calls the Sacred Life Mystery."
Botkin chuckled. "How did that sit with her?"
"I think she got mad. She said the Sacred Life Mystery isn't a problem to solve, but a reality to experience. I quoted the First Law of Technopathy to her: 'A process cannot be understood simply by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process; it must join and flow with it.' That seemed to satisfy her."
He seems to be getting past it, Botkin thought, but that old witch scared him. Why did she do it?
"Eugene," Alexei said, "will Dyuna be as bad as she said?"
"I think she exaggerates," Botkin said, forcing a smile. "One good example would be those Szganys, the renegade people of the desert. By first approximation analysis, I can tell you that there are many, many more of them than the Imperium suspects. People live there, my boy: a great many people, and..." Botkin put a sinewy finger beside his eye. "...they hate the Seppanens with a bloody passion. Do not breathe one word of this, Alexei. I tell you this only as your father's helper."
"My father has told me of Za-a-a-Duma," Alexei said. "Do you know, Eugene, it sounds much like Dyuna....perhaps not quite as bad, but much like it."
"We know nothing of Za-a-a-Duma today," Botkin said. "Only what it was like long ago---mostly. But what is known---you're right on that score."
"Will the Szganys help us?"
"It's possible they might." Botkin stood up. "I depart today for Dyuna. Meanwhile, you take care of yourself for an old man who's fond of you, yes? Come around here like a good lad and sit facing the door. It's not that I think there's any danger in the castle; it's just a good habit that I feel you should form."
Alexei rose to his feet, moved around the table. "You're going today?"
"Today it is, and you'll be following me tomorrow. When next we me it will be on the soil of your new planet." He gripped Alexei's right arm at the bicep. "Keep your knife arm free, yes? And your barrier at full power." He released the arm, patted Alexei's shoulder, whirled and strode quickly to the door.
"Eugene!" Alexei called.
Botkin turned, standing in the open doorway.
"Don't sit with your back to any doors," Alexei said.
A grin spread across the seamed old face. "That I will not, lad. Trust me.' And he was gone, shutting the door softly behind him.
Alexei sat down where Botkin had been, straightened the papers. One more day here, he thought. He looked around the room. We're leaving. The idea of departure was suddenly more real to him than had ever been before. He recalled another thing the old lady had said about a planet being the sum of many things---the people, the dirt, the growing things, the moons, the tides, the suns---the unknown sum called nature, a vague summation without any sense of the now. And he wondered. What is the now?
The door across from Alexei banged open and an ugly lump of a man lurched through it preceded by a handful of weapons.
"Well, Gustav Vasa," Alexei called. "Are you the new weapons master?"
Vasa kicked the door shut with one heel. "You'd rather I come to play games, I know," he said. He glanced around the room, noting that Botkin's men already had been over it, checking, making it safe for a duke's heir. The subtle code signs were all around.
Alexei watched the rolling, ugly man set himself back in motion, veer towards the training table with the load of weapons, saw the ten-string ostriolkusk slung over Gustav's shoulder with the multipick woven woven through the strings near the head of the fingerboard.
Vasa dropped the weapons onto the exercise table, lined them up---the rapiers, the flails, the kindjals, the slow-pellet stunners, the barrier belts. The inkvine scar along his jawline writhed as he turned, casting a smile across the room.
"Don't you have a good morning for me, young imp?" Vasa said. "And what barb did you sink into old Botkin? He passed me in the hall like a man in a hurry to attend his enemy's burial service."
Alexei grinned. Of all his father's men, he liked Gustav Vasa best, knew the man's moods and deviltry, his humors, and thought of him more as a friend than as a hired sword.
Vasa swung the ostriolkusk off his shoulder, began tuning it. "If y'won't talk, y'won't," he said."
Alexei stood, advanced across the room, calling out: "Well, Gustav, do we come prepared for music when it's fighting time?"
"Sassing your elders today, are you?" Vasa said. He tried a chord on the instrument, nodded.
"Where's Grady Ukrainia?" Alexei asked. "Isn't he supposed to be teaching me weaponry?"
"Grady's gone to lead the second wave onto Dyuna," Vasa said. "All you have left is poor Gustav who's fresh out of flight and spoiling for music." He struck another chord, listened to it, smiled. "And it was decided in council that, as you have shown yourself to be such a poor fighter, we'd teach you the music trade, so you won't waste your life entire."
"Maybe you'd better sing me a lay then," Alexei said. "That I may learn how not to do it."
"Ah-h-h-hah!" Gustav laughed, and he swung into "Galacian Girls," his multipick a blur over the strings as he sang:
"Oh-h, the Galacian girls182Please respect copyright.PENANAoFCyblLkx3
Will do it for pearls,182Please respect copyright.PENANAtRzvBqBSqN
And the Dyuni for water!182Please respect copyright.PENANA1rlXyWKXJv
But if you desire dames182Please respect copyright.PENANAFKDTAPvOew
Like confusing flames,182Please respect copyright.PENANAJ4czBhpWuN
Try an Eserinin' daughter!"
Will do it for pearls,182Please respect copyright.PENANAtRzvBqBSqN
And the Dyuni for water!182Please respect copyright.PENANA1rlXyWKXJv
But if you desire dames182Please respect copyright.PENANAFKDTAPvOew
Like confusing flames,182Please respect copyright.PENANAJ4czBhpWuN
Try an Eserinin' daughter!"
"Not bad for such a poor hand with the pick," Alexei said, "but if my mother heard you singing a bawdy like that in the castle, she'd have your ears on the outer wall for decoration."
Gustav pulled at his left ear. "And what a poor decoration it would be, they having been bruised so much listening at keyholes while a young lad I know practiced some strange ditties on his ostriolkusk."
"Have you forgotten what it's like to find sand in your bed?" said Alexei. He pulled a barrier belt from the table, buckled it around his waist. "Fight me! I dare you!"
Vasa's eyes went wide in mock surprise. "So! It was your wicked hand that did that deed! Guard yourself today, young master---for I accept your challenge!" He grabbed up a rapier, laced the air with it. "Consider me a hellspawn demon lusting for vengeance!"
Alexei lifted the companion rapier, bent it in his hands, stood in the aguile, one foot forward. He let his manner go solemn in a comic imitation of Dr. Rasputin.
"What a dolt my father sends me for weaponry," Alexei intoned. "This doltish Gustav Vasa has forgotten the first lesson for a fighting man armed and shielded." Alexei snapped the force button at his waist, felt the crinkled-skin tingling of the defensive field at his forehead and down his back, heard external sounds take on characteristic barrier-filtered slurry slowness. "In shield fighting, one moves fast on defense, slow on attack," Alexei said. "Attack has the sole purpose of tricking the opponent into a misstep, setting him up for the attack sinister. The barrier turns the fast blow, admits the slow kindjal!" Alexei snapped up the rapier, feinted fast and whipped it back for a slow thrust time to enter a shield's mindless defenses.
Vasa watched the action, turned at the last minute to let the blunted blade pass his chest. "Speed excellent," he said. "But you were wide open for an underhanded counter with a slip-tip."
Alexei stepped back, chagrined.
"I should spank your ass for such carelessness," Vasa said. He lifted a naked kindjal from the table and held it up. "This, in the hand of your enemy, can let out your lifeblood! You're an apt pupil, none better, but I've warned you repeatedly that not even in jest do you let a man inside your guard with death in his hand."
"I guess I'm not in the mood for it today," Alexei said.
"Mood?!" Vasa's voice betrayed his outrage even through the barrier's slowing. "How dare you speak of mood to me! You fight when the need arises---the mood you're in being irrelevant. Mood's a thing for cattle or lovemaking or playing the ostriolkusk, not armed combat."
"I'm sorry, Gustav."
"I will not accept your apology!"
Vasa activated his own barrier, crouched with kindjal outhrust in left hand, the rapier poised high in his right. "Your violence has amused me," he hissed. "Now let's see if my violence amuses you!" He leaped high to one side, then forward, pressing a furious attack.
Alexei fell back, parrying. He felt the field crackling as barrier edges touched and repelled each other, sensed the electric tingling of the contact along his skin. What madness has overcome Gustav? he asked himself. He's not faking this! Alexei moved his left hand, dropped his flail into his palm from his wrist sheath.
"You see need for an extra blade, do you?" Vasa grunted.
Is this betrayal? Alexei wondered. Surely not Gustav.
Vasa took the step.
Alexei directed his parry downward, turned, saw Vasa's rapier catch against the table's edge. Alexei flung himself aside, thrust high with rapier and came in across Vasa's neckline with the dagger. He stopped the blade an inch from the jugular.
"Is this what you see?" Alexei whispered.
"Look down, lad," Vasa panted.
Alexei obeyed, saw Vasa's kindjal thrust under the table's edge, the tip almost touching Alexei's groin.
"We would have joined each other in death," Vasa said. "But I'll admit you fought some better when pressed to it. You seemed to get in the mood." And he grinned sadistically, the inkvine scar rippling along his jaw.
"The way you came at me," Alexei said. "Would you really have taken my life?"
Vasa withdrew the kindjal, straightened. "No. But had you fought one point below your abilities, I would have cut out your right eye, a handicap you'd have to live with for the remainder of your natural life. I'll not have my favorite pupil fall to the first Seppanen harlot who happens along."
Alexei deactivated his barrier, leaned on the table to catch his breath. "I deserved that, Gustav. But it would have angered father if you'd hurt me. I'll not see you punished for my failing."
"As to that," said Vasa, "it was my failing, too. And please don't be distressed about an occasional training injury. You're lucky to have suffered so few. As to your father---the Duke would punish me only if I failed to make a first-class warrior out of you. And I would have been failing there had I not explained the fallacy of this mood thing you've suddenly developed."
Alexei straightened, slipped his dagger back into its wrist sheath.
"Play is not something we do here now," Vasa said.
Alexei nodded. He felt a sense of wonder at the uncharacteristic seriousness in Vasa's manner, the sobering intensity. He looked at the beet-colored inkvine scar upon the man's jaw, remembering the story of how it had been put there by Beast German in a Seppanen slave pit on G'ob Prime. And Alexei felt a sudden shame that he had doubted Vasa even for an instant. It occurred to Alexei, then, the making of Vasa's scar had been accompanied by pain---pain as intense, perhaps, as that inflicted by a Mother Baba. He thrust this thought aside; it chilled their world.
"I guess I should have known better to expect play, being almost a man," Alexei said. "It bothers me that things have been so serious around here lately."
Vasa turned away to hide his emotions. Something burned in his eyes. There was pain in them---like a blister, all that was left of some lost yesterday that Time had pruned off him.
How soon this child must assume his manhood, Vasa thought. How soon he must read that form within his mind, that contract of brutal caution, to enter the necessary fact on the necessary line: "Please list your next of kin."
Vasa spoke without turning: "I sensed the play in you, malchick, and I'd like nothing better than to join in it. But this no longer can be play. Tomorrow, we go to Dyuna. Dyuna is real. The Seppanens are real."
Alexei touched his forehead with his rapier blade held vertical.
Vasa turned, saw the salute and acknowledged it with a nod. He gestured to the practice dummy. "We will now work on your timing. Let me see you catch that thing sinister. I'll control it from over here where I can have a full view of the action. Be warned: I'll be trying new countermoves today. There's a warning you'd never get from a true enemy."
Alexei stretched up on his toes to relieve his muscles. He felt solemn with the sudden realization that his life had become filled with dramatic changes. He crossed to the dummy, slapped the switch on its chest with his rapier tip and felt the defensive barrier forcing his blade away.
"Nachnite!" Vasa called, and the dummy pressed the attack.
Alexei activated his barrier, parried and countered.
Vasa watched as he manipulated the controls. His mind seemed to be in two parts: one alert to the needs of the training fight, and the other wandering in fly-buzz.
I'm the well-trained fruit tree, he thought. Full of well-trained feelings and abilities and all of them grafted onto me----all bearing for someone else to pick.
For some reason, he recalled his younger sister, her elfin face so clear in his mind. But she was dead now---in a pleasure house for Seppanen troops. She had loved pansies......or was it daisies? He couldn't remember. It bothered him that he couldn't remember.
Alexei countered a slow swing of the dummy, brought up his left hand entretisser.
That clever little devil! Vasa thought, intent now on Alexei's interweaving hand motions. He's been practicing and studying on his own. That's not Grady's style, and it's surely nothing I've taught him.182Please respect copyright.PENANAt31O75JGS4
This thought only contributed to Vasa's sadness. I'm infected by mood he thought. And he began to wonder about Alexei, if the boy ever listened fearfully to his pillow throbbing in the night.182Please respect copyright.PENANAY5KEz2jfk0
"If wishes were fishes, we'd all cast nets," he murmured.182Please respect copyright.PENANAifpbiqNg7Z
It was his mother's expression and he always used it when he felt the blackness of tomorrow on him. Then he thought what an odd expression that was to be taking to a planet that had never known seas or fishes.
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