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Alexei watched his father enter the training room, saw the guards take up their stations outside. One of them closed the door. As always, Alexei experienced a sense of presence in his father, someone totally here.
The Duke was tall, olive-skinned. His thin face held harsh angles warmed only by his deep-gray eyes. He wore a black working uniform with a red armorial eagle at the breast. A silver-plated barrier belt with the patina of much use girdled his narrow waist.
The Duke said, "Hard at work, son?"
He crossed to the ell table, glanced at the papers on it, swept his gaze around the room and back to Alexei. He felt tired, filled with the ache of not showing his fatigue. I must use every opportunity to rest during the crossing to Dyuna, he thought There will be no rest on Dyuna.
"No, not very hard," Alexei said. "Everything is so..." He shrugged.
"I know. Well, tomorrow we leave. It'll be good to get settled in a new home, put all this upset behind us."
Alexei nodded, suddenly overcome by the memory of the Mother Baba's words: "...for the father? Nothing."
"Father," Alexei said, "will Dyuna be as dangerous as everyone says."
The Duke forced himself to the casual gesture, sat down on a corner of the table, smiled. A whole pattern of conversation welled up in his mind...the kind of thing he might use to dispel the vapors in his men prior to a battle. The pattern froze before it could be vocalized, confronted by the single thought:
This is my son.
"Yes, I'm afraid it will be dangerous," he admitted.
"Botkin tells me we have a plan for the Szganys," said Alexei. And he wondered: Why didn't I tell him what that old hag said? How did she seal my lips?
The Duke noted his son's distress, said: "Botkin always sees the main chance. But there's much, much more. I see also the Combinrade Connete Ober Audienser Mercantiles---the CCOAM Company. By giving me Dyuna, His Majesty is forced to give us a CCOAM directorship....a subtle gain."
"CCOAM controls the spice," Alexei said.
"Which makes Dyuna, with its spice, our main avenue into CCOAM," the Duke said. "There's more to CCOAM than smesh."
"Did the Mother Baba warn you?" Alexei blurted. He clenched his fists, feeling his palms slippering with perspiration. The effort it had taken to ask that question.
"Botkin tells me she scared you with warnings about Dyuna," the Duke said. "Don't let a woman's fears cloud your mind. No woman wants her loved ones in harm's way. The hand behind those warnings was your mother's. Take that as a sign of her love for us."
"Does she know about the Szganys?"
"Oh, she knows much more than that."
"What more?"
And the Duke thought: The truth could be worse than he imagines, but even dangerous facts are valuable if one is trained to deal with them. There is one place where nothing has been spared for my son---dealing with dangerous facts. This must be leavened, though; he is young.
"Few products escape the CCOAM touch," said the Duke. "Logs, donkeys, horses, cows, lumber, dung, sharks, shark fur---the most prosaic and the most exotic---even our low-grade kivka rice from Eser. Anything the Guild will transport, the art forms of Bulruarut, the machines of Thetrov and Wei. All that pales before smesh. A handful of spice will buy a home on New Moscow. It cannot be manufactured, it must be mined on Dyuna. It is unique and has true geriatric properties."
"And now we control it?"
"To a certain degree. But the important thing is to consider all the Houses that rely on CCOAM profits. And think of the enormous proportion of those profits dependent on one sole product---the spice. Imagine what would happen if something were to reduce spice production."
"Whoever had stockpiled smesh could make a killing," Alexei said. "Others would be out in the cold."
The Duke permitted himself a moment of grim satisfaction, looking at his son and thinking how penetrating, how truly educated that observation had been. He nodded. "The Seppanens have been stockpiling for more than twenty years."
"They want spice production to fail and you to be held responsible!"
"They wish the Romanov name to become unpopular," the Duke said. "Think of the Paarlament Houses that look to me for a certain amount of leadership---their unofficial spokesman. Think how they'd react if I were responsible for a serious reduction in their income. After all, one's own profits must come first. The Great Convention be damned! You can't let someone pauperize you!" A harsh smile twisted the Duke's mouth. "They'd look the other way no matter what happened to me!"
"Even if we were attacked with nuclears?"
"Nothing that extreme. No open defiance to the Convention. But almost anything short of that---maybe even dusting and a bit of soil poisoning."
"Then why are we walking into this?"
"Alexei!" The Duke frowned at his son. "Knowing where the trap is---that's the first step in avoiding it. This is like single combat, son, only on a bigger scale---a feint within a feint within a feint----seemingly without end. The task is to unravel it. Knowing that Seppanens stockpile smesh, we now ask ourselves another question: Who else is stockpiling? That's the list of our enemies."
"Who?"
"Certain Houses we knew were hostile and some we thought friendly. We need not consider them for the moment because there is one other much more important: our beloved Pbejtibi Sultan."
Alexei tried to swallow in a throat unexpectedly gone dry. "Couldn't you convene the Paarlement, expose..."
"Make our enemy aware we know which hand holds the dagger? Ah, now Alexei---we see the dagger now. Who knows where it might be shifted next? If we put this before the Paarlement it'd only create a great cloud of confusion. The Sultan would deny it. Who could gainsay him? All we'd gain is a little time while risking chaos. And where would the next attack come from?"
"All of the Houses might start stockpiling spice."
"Our enemies have a head start---too much of a lead to overcome."
"The Sultan," Alexei said. "That means the Sordoi."
"Disguised in Seppanen livery, no doubt," the Duke said. "But the soldier fanatics nevertheless."
"Did Botkin talk to you about Za-a-a-Duma?"
"The Sultan's prison planet? No."
"What if it were more than a prison planet, Alexei? There's a question you never hear asked about the Imperial Cossacks of Sordoi. Where do they come from?"
"From the prison planet?"
"They come from somewhere, just like everything else."
"But the supporting levies the Sultan demands from..."
"That's what we're led to believe: they're just the Sultan's levies trained young and superbly. You hear the occasional muttering about the Sultan training cadres, but the balance of our civilization stays the same: the military forces of the Paarlament Great Houses on one side, the Sordoi and their supporting levies on the other. And their supporting levies, Alexei. The Sordoi remain the Sordoi."
"But every report on Za-a-a-Duma said it's a hell world."
"It is. But if you were going to raise tough, ferocious men, what environmental conditions would you impose on them?"
"How could you win the loyalty of such men?"
"There are proven ways: play on certain knowledge of their superiority, the mystique of secret covenant, the spirit of shared suffering. It can be done, has been done, on many planets in many times."
Alexei nodded, holding his attention on his father's face. He felt some revelation impending.
"Consider Dyuna," the Duke said. "When you get outside the towns and garrison villages, it's every bit as awful a place as Za-a-a-Duma."
Alexei's eyes went wide. "The Szganys!"
"We have there the potential of an army as strong and deadly as the Sordoi. It'll require patience to exploit them secretly and wealth to equip them properly. But the Szgany are there---and the spice wealth is there. You see now why we walk into Dyuna, knowing the trap is there."
"Don't the Seppanens know about the Szganys?"
"The Seppanens sneered at the Szganys, hunted them down for sport, never even bothered trying to count them. We know the Seppanen policy with planetary populations---spend no more money than is necessary to maintain them."
The metallic threads in the eagle emblem above his father's breast glistened as the Duke shifted his position. "You see?"
"We're negotiating with the Szganys right now," Alexei said.
"I sent a mission led by Grady Ukrainia," the Duke said. "A proud and ruthless man, our Grady, but fond of the truth. I think the Szganys will admire him. If we're lucky, they may judge us by him: Grady, the moral."
"Grady, the moral," Alexei said, "and Gustav the valorous."
And Alexei thought: Grady's one of those the Mother Baba meant, a supporter of planets....the valor of the brave.
"Gustav tells me you did well in weapons training today," the Duke said.
"He, himself, did not tell me so."
The Duke laughed out loud. "That's not surprising, since Gustav is known to be sparse with his praise. He says you have a nicety of awareness---in his own words---of the difference between a blade's edge and its tip."
"Gustav says it's unsporting to kill with the tip, that a kill should be made with the edge."
"Gustav's a romantic," the Duke growled. This talk of killing suddenly disturbed him, coming from his son. "I'd rather you never had to kill---but if the need arises, you do it however you can--tip or edge." He looked up at the skylight, upon which the rain was pounding.
Seeing the direction of the father's stare, Alexei thought of the wet skies out there---a thing never to be seen on Dyuna from all accounts---and this thought of skies put him in mind of the cosmos beyond. "Are the Guild really big?" he asked.
The Duke looked at him. "This will be your first time off-planet," he said. "Yes, they're big. We'll be riding an Ayliner because it's a long trip. An Ayliner is a gargantuan vessel. Its hold will tuck all our battleships and transjumpers into a little corner---we'll only be a small part of the ship's manifest."
"And we won't be able to leave our battleships?"
"That's the price you pay for Guild Protection. There could be Seppanen warships right alongside us and we'd have nothing to fear from them. The Seppanens know better than to risk their shipping privileges."
"I'm going to watch our screens and try to catch sight of a Guildsbeing."
"You won't. Not even their agents can see a Guildsbeing. The Guild's as jealous of it privacy as it is of its monopoly. Don't do anything to endanger our shipping privileges, Alexei."
"Do you think they hide because they're mutated and don't look---human anymore?"
"Who knows?" The Duke shrugged. "It's a mystery we're not likely to solve. We have more important problems---among them: you."
"Me?"
"Your mother wanted me to be the one to tell you, Son. You see, you may have Technopathic abilities."
Alexei stared at his father, not able to speak for a moment, then: A Technopath? Me? But I..."
"Botkin agrees, son. It's true."
"But I thought Technopathy training had to start during infancy until the subject couldn't be told it might inhibit the early..." He broke off, all his past circumstances coming to focus in one flashing computation. "I see," he said.
"A day comes," the Duke said, "when the potential Technopath must learn what's being done. It may no longer be done to him. The Technopath has to share in the choice of whether to continue or abandon the training. Some can continue, others cannot. Only the potential Technopath can tell this for sure about himself."
Alexei rubbed his chin. All the special training from Botkin and his mother---the mnemonics, the focusing of awareness, the muscle control and sharpening of sensitivities, the study of languages and nuances of voices---all of it clicked into a new kind of understanding in his mind.
"You'll be the Duke someday, son," his father said. "A Technopath Duke would be formidable indeed. Can you decide now---or do you need more time?"
There was no hesitation in his answer. "I'll continue with the training."
"Formidable indeed," the Duke murmured, and Alexei saw the proud smile on his father's face. The smile shocked Alexei: it had a skull look on the Duke's narrow features. Alexei closed his eyes, feeling the awful purpose reawaken within him. Perhaps being a Technopath is a terrible purpose, he thought.
But even as he focused on this thought, his new awareness denied it.
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