I went to Morgan and took Ygraine's place, walking with her. "What's this stupidity I hear about us having to leave?" she complained.
"It's a mistake. You're not going anywhere." Over her head I mouthed "Matriarch?" at Boudicca, who tilted her head in the direction of the next room.
I need not be concerned. Messallina would preside, as she must had done for decades.
"Of course we're not going anywhere," Boudicca assured her. "This is the safest place for us in the known worlds. Nobody is getting us off this ship."
I heard quick footsteps outside the door, and saw Dylan dash past, as if checking all the rooms. He ducked back in to where we were. "Tyr, I --"
"I don't want him in here." Morgan winced. I could feel the contraction moving through her simply from the tension in her body.
Ygraine planted herself in front of Dylan. "You heard her. Please leave. Now." She brushed back her sleeve to flex her arm spines.
"I need to speak with Tyr."
"Not here. This is for family only. Go help your wives, or did they also tell you to leave?" Boudicca asked. She knew that to be an insult, though I wondered whether Dylan had the wit to appreciate it.
He was enough of a diplomat not to respond, but his expression was harried. "Tyr. Please."
"I'll return," I promised Morgan, who nodded, and turned her over to Ygraine again. As we left, Boudicca rose and shut the door behind us.
"Someone had better give you the short course in our birthing customs, or you'll never survive to see your children," I told him sourly. "What is it?"
"I need you on the bridge now. The Magog swarmships have entered Ultima Thule System."
I felt my shoulders droop. It had been a long day, and now it would not end. "Send in Rommie to assist, and tell her to do whatever Messallina and the other medics and Trance tell her, and not to argue."
He looked so relieved that I almost felt sorry for him. Almost, but not quite. I turned back to the room, and said, "I'll be there as soon as I've spoken to them. I suggest you do the same." This time he didn't object, but headed toward the rooms where his own wives waited.
Three pale faces turned toward me as I came in. "Magog swarmships have been sighted." As one they nodded, and came forward to touch me briefly for luck. Boudicca whispered in my ear, "Be triumphant." I kissed each of them, whispered the words of acceptance over Morgan and Boudicca so they would know I would accept the outcome of the battle they faced without argument or complaint, and left without looking back.
***
Charlemagne met me halfway to the bridge. "I'm taking my flagship. You make sure I have a family to come back to."
Of course, he had anticipated something like this from the moment he learned Elssbett had gone to Finbar. "As I have."
"You have more, Kodiak. Don't lose sight of one for the other." He kissed me, hard and fast, the salute of warriors, and was gone in one direction as I moved in the other.
Beka had been at my station; she turned it over to me with a small, relieved smile and went to the pilot seat. "Trance?"
I shook my head. "Med deck."
Her eyebrows rose. "How many?"
"Two of my wives. I don't know how many of Dylan's." I glared toward Dylan's back. "They're staying here until afterward."
"Of course they are," she agreed, apparently horrified at the thought that anyone would want to move women in labor away from the most completely outfitted medical unit in the known worlds.
Dylan blew out a puff of breath, exasperated. "Am I the only one who realizes what we're up against? We're going into battle against the Magog. They should be somewhere safer than here."
"And I am telling you, there isn't anywhere safer," I replied, in more of a roar than he probably expected. He swung around, fists clenched, as if he would take me on, and I threw back my head in response to his unspoken challenge. Only Beka, at the controls, sat between us.
"If you both don't cool down, I'm going to have to vent the bridge to get rid of the testosterone -- and that will leave a scent trail as wide as a galaxy." She turned toward Dylan. "I'm willing to make allowances for a lot of things here -- you've got several wives in labor, for one thing, and that's definitely not something I think any of us expected a year ago. But Dylan, do give the rest of us some credit for sense. We've been fighting the Magog our whole lifetimes. When did you start?"
"More than three centuries back," he snapped. "I don't need you to tell me how to do my job. Set course for Ultima Thule."
"You never met a Magog face-to-face until Rev Bem came aboard this ship." Beka took the controls without fear. "I daresay you're the only person aboard who could say that. You may have fought Magog, but you did it from a distance -- and that is far from the same thing." She glanced past him. "Where's Harper?"
"Working." Dylan pressed his lips together as if to prevent further words from escaping, and flexed his fingers consciously. He turned back to his post.
I touched the controls to review our armament. One hundred nova bombs, in addition to the ship's usual weaponry, more than twice the number that the Andromeda had carried when she came forward three centuries. And something else, something I couldn't quite see that seemed to sit in the shadow of a rear vane. Ridiculous. In space, with sensors in every direction, there should not be shadows.
At that moment we entered slipstream, and I held on to the fire control station until we were out again. When I turned back, the shadow was gone, but a speck on the reading showed I had not been wrong.
Charlemagne's voice, from his flagship, crackled in. "Looks like you picked up a passenger, cousin. Shall I dispose of it for you?"
"Hey, wait a minute!" It was Harper's voice. "This is Seamus Zelazny Harper, captain of the war sloop Kali Ma. You bump me too hard, even accidentally, and nothing's going to be left of you but a greasy spot."
"Cocky, aren't you?" Charlemagne seemed genuinely amused. "By all means. Let it not be said that I kept any man from seeking his destiny." He cut transmission, but apparently signaled the Jaguar ships, arriving behind him, not to interfere with the small sloop.
"Captain?" Beka asked. She appeared as surprised as I was by this development. "Harper, what the hell are you doing out there?"
"My job, boss. Isn't that what you told me to do?" Harper's face came onscreen. He looked as chipper and bright as ever. I didn't trust that for a moment.
"A captain usually has a crew," I murmured.
"But I do, I do." He enlarged the view to show Paris Ramses, seated next to him. Behind him, along the side, lay a scratched oblong casket that I knew very well. "In the grand tradition of the Andromeda Ascendant, we have a crew of people from all over the place." Standing behind Paris was Trance Gemini.
"I'm sorry, Dylan, but Harper needs me for this," Trance said. "Rommie took my place in the med deck and explained all of our medical facilities to our guests. They're doing fine. She should be back on the bridge very soon." She smiled. "Dylan, you and Portia have a daughter. She was born just as I was leaving, and she's fine. No news for you yet, Tyr."
I nodded an acknowledgment; I could not trust myself to speak. The pieces were falling together too quickly. Did Paris have an inkling of the treasure that sat behind him? Obviously not, or he would have slain Harper and Trance to claim it for himself. What could Harper have told him it was? A secret weapon? Something that he'd been trusted to guard? My voice returned as my anger surged.
"How much did you know of this, Captain Hunt?" I demanded.
Dylan's eyes were narrowed. "Apparently not quite as much as I thought I did."
"Magog swarmships ahead," Andromeda's voice said.
In the black expanse of Thule, the sky glittered with what looked like countless thorned caltrops -- Magog swarmships, each carrying twenty or so Magog, surrounding the approaching worldship like insects buzzing on a carcass.
"Dylan, tell them to keep 'em off me while I get into position, or things will be a lot messier than we want," Harper said. "And you might tell them who else is on board with me."
He didn't have the nova bombs aboard; they were all accounted for on Andromeda. He hadn't stolen the body of Drago Museveni from me only to keep it from possible theft by the Jaguars, but as a hostage. No Nietzschian would chance any harm coming to the Progenitor's remains. I didn't know whether to kiss him or wring his neck.
Dylan slanted his eyes at me and said, "Yes, I will. Beka, send the message that's sitting on the board to Charlemagne."
Charlemagne came onscreen. "Well, well, cousin -- and brother." His glance floated from Dylan to me as he smiled with apparent approval. "It seems we'll have something to talk about even after this is over with. I'm looking forward to it." He signed off.
Dylan relayed the message. "Yes, Tyr, in case you hadn't guessed, Harper's the secret weapon."
"So what else is new," Beka muttered.
I held my peace, for the moment, contenting myself with a glare at Dylan. The only thing that was saving him, momentarily, from the full force of my wrath for endangering both my shieldbrother and my pride's greatest treasure was the realization that Dylan had not known of Harper's plan to steal the body. It was clear, from Dylan's attitude, that he'd encouraged Harper to work on the macro-implosion device and construct the Kali Ma, which looked like a collection of spare parts from the Andromeda and the Maru cobbled together into an amazingly odd-shaped creation. It was fortunate that the thing had never needed to be airborne within an atmosphere; it looked far too much like its classical namesake, a multi-armed goddess carrying death in her hands.
Destruction and creation.
"All ships, protect the Kali Ma but give Harper space to work," Dylan ordered. "And when I tell you, fall back and let the Magog in."
"What's he doing out there?" Beka scowled at the monitor, puzzled. "Knitting?"
It certainly looked that way. The Kali Ma dropped several small devices that bloomed blacker than the sky, and flew between them in a tight, careful pattern to interlace them with energy. More dark blossoms clustered around his ship.
"He's seeding black holes," I breathed.
At the front of the line, ahead of us, the Sabra-Jaguar fleet were starting to fight other Nietzschian ships. I saw the insignia of Cuchulain's flagship flicker briefly in the light of the nearest star, until the first of the Magog swarmships reached it and clung to the Nietzschian ship like deadly insects.
"Light them up, Tyr," Dylan said, "but reserve the novas."
I set to work, sending unmanned fighters to explode anything Magog and whatever fought beside it. It was not the time to think of Elssbett's treachery, or of Harper's betrayal of my trust, or of Dylan's connivance, only to fight.
For once in my life, I had family to protect.
As in any battle, things happen too quickly to recount. All that can be told are images, brief glimpses of the chaos. Space around us was alight with the bonfires of dying ships and shattered metal carcasses. Charlemagne gave the order to destroy any escape pod that came from a ship that Magog had touched; I could hear the strain in his voice. The small ships hurtled in front of us, as we fired through them to clear their path, and still the Kali Ma wove her net of black holes, each one only large enough, for now, to swallow the Maru.
And the Maru was more than twice the size of the Kali Ma.
"Give me more space," Harper demanded, and the allied fleet obeyed, pulling back and creating room around him in every direction. He was working faster now, the strands of pure energy between the holes evident on the screen, and he pulled those strands to stretch his creation out wider before us.
Charlemagne's fleet had made mincemeat of the remaining Kazov, who were pulling back. The Dragans, little better for their numbers, were under Magog attack as well, in clusters.
"Dylan. Novas."
"Yes. Be sparing. Aim them away from Harper."
"What kind of fool do you think I am?" I demanded. I released the nova bombs singly, aiming them so that their explosions would move the debris away at an angle both from Harper and from the energy-greedy worldship. New stars bloomed where they hit.
And still the worldship came on, though its swarm of vicious insects was depleted.
And still Harper wove his living net with Kali Ma, spinning the strands of energy-starved black holes and their links wider and wider, in the worldship's very path. The smaller black holes moved, slid together, grew larger, exerting a visible pull on the debris around them. One by one, the broken Drago-Kazov ships began to fall into a darkness that was starting to affect the Andromeda as well.
"Back us off!" Dylan ordered, and Beka pulled us away as we watched Harper finish his creation and cast its net at the leading edge of the worldship before he sped away toward us. "Fall back, everyone! Charlemagne, do you hear me? Fall back!"
"I didn't become grand duke on my looks alone," Charlemagne commented acidly as his ship glided out of the range of the gravity well.
Heedless of anything but its own lust to consume anything in its path, the worldship came forward, immense and deadly. As much as the Andromeda was larger than the unmanned drones, it surpassed us in size. It seemed as if Harper's net were only a whimsy of lace in its path that would be torn apart by its juggernaut progress.
The tip of the worldship, the size of a small moon, encountered the first edge of the net. It pushed on the energy fields between the holes, and the holes wrapped around the moon and ate it. The rest of the net, snagged, wrapped close around the worldship, and the holes blended into each other.
"Holy ..." Beka murmured.
The Magog worldship shuddered. It was crumpling, breaking open, live unsuited Magog spilling into space to die within an instant. There was no net of black holes now, but a canopy of darkness thrown over the worldship, eating it as its occupants had eaten anything in their paths, tearing it apart. As we watched, the fiery god of the Magog gestured angrily, reached toward the edge of the nearest hole and was shredded into hot red fragments that shriveled and vanished into the growing maw of blackness. Now there was only one black hole, and it was eating everything in sight.
As one, the allied fleet backed away. The remaining Dragans and Kazovs and the few unallied Sabras that had defected with Elssbett were either captive to the net of Kali or gone, slipstreamed elsewhere to lick their wounds and hope to remain unnoticed for a while.
"Fine sport you're giving me, cousin." Charlemagne said encouragingly. "I've always liked shooting galleries." His flagship sped off, and soon the Sabra-Jaguar ships were firing shots to tip the remaining small Magog ships into the vortex.
"Harper." Dylan's voice was hoarse, and I realized that he'd been calling Harper's name for a while. I had not heard it, so intent had I been on the battle. "Damn it, Harper. Come in."
"I'm here." And Seamus Zelazny Harper walked onto the bridge behind me, accompanied by Trance and Paris. "I'd suggest getting the hell out of the way as soon as we all can, because when that thing goes, it's gonna really go."
"What are you talking about?" I demanded, shaken. "It's a black hole. It's not going anywhere."
"It's a temporary black hole. Crushes everything it eats to smithereens, then burps it back up again. We really don't want to be in the neighborhood when that happens." Harper moved to stand behind Beka's pilot chair, and rested one hand on her shoulder. "I'd suggest dropping whatever novas you've got left into that hole and slipstreaming the fuck out of here while we still can."
"How do we know the energy being that created the Magog isn't still in there, able to use the novas to start over again?"
"That guy had an energy signature I could track from the time I saw him on the All Systems Library records. Believe me, he's not there any more." Harper's voice carried truth that I could hear. I touched the controls and watched fifty-one nova bombs drop into the black hole as if they did not matter.
"We're outta here," Beka said. She snapped Harper's words across to the rest of the fleet, before Dylan could even respond, and we hit slipstream and skidded three jumps away from Thule. "This good enough?"
"It's as close as I want to be right now, I can tell you that." Harper patted her shoulder. "Nice flying, boss."
I felt a small hand on mine, and turned away from the screen. Trance stood next to me, her hand warm as it slid from my hand to my gauntlet. "Everything will be all right."
"Everything?"
"Yes, as long as you don't over-react." Her violet eyes sparkled, and I realized I was seeing in them the image of Ultima Thule, swirling light and dark. "I promise you, there is a perfect unique solution to this."
"Good to know," I said, my voice husky.
"Remote viewing onscreen," Dylan said.
We watched as something I would have considered impossible occurred before us. The black hole, which had swollen to exert a pull even on planets in the next system, fell in on itself, rippled, shuddered -- and exploded with a shock wave whose energies were nearly palpable even from where we were. The explosion crescendoed, repeated, enlarged, as if release from the dark pit had sparked fireworks the size of solar systems.
"The nova bombs," Harper murmured. "Hey, I like light shows. Besides, this should take care of anything else out there, don't you think?"
"It certainly seems thorough," Dylan agreed, watching the display.
"It's creating something new," Trance whispered next to me.
And Rommie's voice said, "Dylan, Tyr, your wives would like you to meet your children, at your convenience, now that the battle is over."
For the first time that day a smile truly split Dylan's face. "Thanks, Rommie. Send what we're seeing throughout the ship, so that everyone will see what's happened."
"Already done, Dylan. I thought this was an event everyone needed to know about. Rommie out."
***
Great decisions are made in the time between one breath and the next.
Small matters may take years to decide.
***
I found Morgan holding a squeaking bundle that, when uncovered, had her flaming hair coiled in curls as tight as the ones my mother told me I'd been born with. Boudicca, next to her in the great bed, cradled a slightly larger child, with my features but her paler skin and celadon eyes.
"You were right." I kissed both of them and gently touched the feather-soft newborn skin with my fingertips. "They're beauties."
"And you triumphed." Ygraine tackled me from behind, and I pulled her around to include her in my embrace.
"We can have the Naming when you like ... or not." All at once the end of the hours-long battle caught up with me, and I felt my muscles start to loosen. I collapsed onto a chair near the bed as they looked at one another and then back at me.
"What are you talking about?" Morgan demanded, with more energy than I would have expected for a woman just out of several hours of hard labor. "Don't you want us?"
I sighed and rubbed my face. "I've had a little time to think. Believe me, I am only saying this because I want to be fair to you. I know what your life was, and what it is, as Charlemagne's sisters --"
"Way better than being Elssbett's sisters-in-law, believe me," Ygraine muttered.
"-- and I must remind you that I am not Charlemagne. I have no established pride to welcome you. I have no home, except aboard this ship." I stopped myself. This was a day of victory, not a day on which I wished to recount all that I had lost or think of all that I could never regain.
Boudicca put her hand over mine. "Hold your children, and listen to what we have to say." Without pausing to allow me an answer, she and Morgan handed me the babies, laying them in either arm with care to avoid snagging their wrappings on my spines. "We have discussed this, as we waited, and we have decided to remain with you. I know," she held up a hand as I started to speak, "we are battle brides, not contract or ceremonial; if you wish to be rid of us you need only speak. But we have found you to be a good husband, and a good father, and we wish to help you refound Kodiak Pride."
More than I could have asked. More than I could have dreamed. It would have been well within their rights to take the children, return to Charlemagne's ship and never return.
"Pride Kodiak is --"
"Here, in us," Morgan said. "And in Seamus."
"Harper?" I asked, feeling somewhat stupid. Had she proposed adopting him?
"Your shieldbrother. Surely you haven't forgotten him already?" Ygraine giggled, her dimples showing. "I know, I know, so untraditional. So un-Nietzschian. Isn't our people's history founded on choosing what is best?"
"Yes." I could not have said, at that point, to what I was agreeing. It had been too many hours.
I must have fallen asleep with the children in my arms, because I did not even recall any further conversation until much later, when Ygraine was adjusting a blanket over me. My arms were empty, and I started, but as I glanced around the room I saw the children being fed, so I relaxed again and let her tuck me in, and went back to sleep.
How long it had been since I had slept securely in the midst of my pride, my family.
***
"Ssh, don't wake him."
I had been drifting toward waking, somewhere beneath the edge of consciousness, when Beka's words brought me up into daylight. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding one of the babies, talking with Boudicca in a whisper. Ygraine and Morgan were elsewhere.
"Mmmm?" I said, or something like that, for they glanced toward me and immediately moved closer to me.
"Sorry. Didn't mean to wake you; I just wanted to meet the babies," Beka apologized. "They're adorable."
I would not have expected to see the world-weary Beka cooing over any child, let alone a child of mine, but it was happening. Undoubtedly, I had moved into an alternate universe and would soon be told that I owned the Andromeda Ascendant and had, through some extraordinary means, managed to restore both the Commonwealth and my own personal fortune.
And that dream, plus a few spare thrones, would buy me a cup of kaffe on Denali Station.
I shook my head to clear it, but that did not seem to help.
Beka leaned across to place the child in my arms. This was Boudicca's child, and, I found, a boy; with his newborn strength he gripped my finger tightly, as if trying to pull himself up in order to see me more closely. His eyes, hazy and unfocused, met mine.
"What's his name?" Beka asked.
"We have not had the Naming yet," Boudicca told her, "but I expect it will be soon."
"I hope so. I'd like to throw a party for you and Morgan and the babies -- if that's not out of line." Beka looked wistful. "I don't know what you'd consider proper."
"A party is always proper, Commander Valentine," said Charlemagne, from the door. "In fact, it's a requirement." He strode in, surveying the scene with a broad smile on his face. "Nothing quite as touching as family, I always say."
"Actually, I don't think I've ever heard you say that before, brother, but I'll take it as read." Boudicca laughed. "Come to pay your respects to the first child of the new Kodiak Pride?"
"Oh, is that the way it is?" Charlemagne tilted his head toward me. "I suppose you've already told him what the rest of his life will be like? And figured out which planet you intend to colonize? Actually, who needs a planet, when you've got the Andromeda?"
Now I knew I must be in an alternative universe. If that were not so, perhaps I had been slain without realizing it at some point during the battle with the Magog, and had wakened in some thoroughly unexpected afterlife belonging to any of a dozen improbable religions.
I had been lying down on the long chair; I pushed myself up to a sitting position and tried to look as if I knew what was going on. Beka smiled and left, murmuring something about going to visit Dylan's family.
"It's not that confusing, brother." Charlemagne sat down next to Boudicca. "Actually, it's quite simple. I'm a student of history. I read and I think and I notice the way things are, and what I've noticed is that we Nietzschians aren't doing as well now, at each other's throats all the time, as we were when your pride guarded the Progenitor's bones. I know, silly concept, but that's what makes the universe turn, isn't it?" He touched a finger to my child's cheek and it grabbed onto that finger as well, holding one of us with each hand. "I want the same things you do -- I want a happy family of children and grandchildren, and the convenient deaths of my enemies, but I think all of that's far more likely to happen if Kodiak Pride is restored to its rightful place as guardians of Drago Museveni."
I blinked. "I'm not sure I'm awake yet. Would you care to repeat that?"
"Probably more times than you want to hear it. The long and the short of it is that I'm willing to work with you to create a neutral zone for the Kodiak, including a reconstructed Ayn Rand University, on New Fountainhead."
"And where would that be?" This sounded too real, too good.
"Anywhere you wish. You name the planet, we'll designate it." Charlemagne chuckled. "I'd be willing to make you a deal for any number of former Dragan planets, but I suspect you'd be happier with one that didn't need cleaning first. So you pick it, we'll secure it, and do the thing right."
"And what's in it for you, brother?" There was no way that I would not ask that question.
"Membership in Dylan's precious Commonwealth doesn't buy me much unless there's a chance that we as a people can come back to the kind of strength we had a few centuries ago. I see this as a way to build our strength -- and maybe it's time to go back to the oldest ways, bringing in some of the best-adapted humans and add their genes to our stock. I mean, look at what's happened to the Drago-Kazov; all brawn and no sense at all. I'm ashamed to think of them as Nietzschian; they're not superior to a hoppy toad, are they, little one?" he said to the baby, who gurgled at him. "Oh, look at you, listening already. A very superior being, aren't you?"
The Jaguar Grand Duke was cooing over my Kodiak child. Perhaps I had ingested some sort of drug without realizing it, during the battle or afterward, that might still be affecting me. Some manner of contact hallucinogen?
"I don't suppose you've mentioned this to your matriarch yet, have you?" I was still unsure if I was actually hearing these oh-so-welcome words from the Jaguar warleader whose army had been the scourge of dozens of systems for more than a decade.
Charlemagne and his sister exchanged glances. "We've discussed the possibility, yes," Boudicca said. "You were the deciding factor. And your shieldbrother."
"My shieldbrother?" This had to be an alternate reality. Nietzschians who had attained the position of pride alpha did not acknowledge the possibility of non-enhanced humans becoming shieldbrothers. Perhaps I was still asleep and dreaming of that odd place called Oz that Harper liked so much, and the next creature through the door would be a green witch or an animated tin man or an annoying child with a yapping puppy.
"He's really not awake yet," Boudicca apologized for me.
"Understandable. Well, I'll leave you to yourselves. You will invite me to the Naming, won't you?"
"How could I have a Naming without my big brother there?" She hugged him, unselfconsciously, and he kissed her cheek, patted me on the shoulder as if everything were already settled for the future, and left, whistling what sounded like an off-key version of the Vedran Empress Sucharitkul Ceremonial March.
"So," I said, watching Boudicca with the baby, who was enjoying a meal eagerly. "Have you considered any names?"
"A few. You should get something to eat."
"In a while. What names did you have in mind?"
"For a while, I was thinking of Ailill for him; it's a good historic name. But that lineage has fallen into disrepute, since Cuchulain came along," She shrugged, and the shawl she wore around her shoulders started to fall; I pulled it up and tucked it around her. "I considered Ivan and Malcolm."
"Malcolm was a good war leader, and a wise ruler. I like that," I told her.
She sent me an unreadable glance, sideways, over our son's head. "I had thought that you might have wanted to name him after your shieldbrother. That's not uncommon, you know."
"I -- I hadn't thought about it. Do you think he'd like it?"
"I don't know. Why don't you find him and ask him?" Boudicca shifted the baby to her other breast. "I know none of this is what you expected. You didn't think we'd like him, did you?"
"I must say, I was unsure of his welcome." I shook my head; it felt as if I were still in Cloud- Cuckoo Land, or some other improbably utopia.
"In the ordinary way of things, you might be right. But I think it takes an extraordinary human to find a way to destroy the Magog permanently, and to safeguard the Progenitor at the same time. Among the Jaguar, we have been proud to carry the genes of David Geronimo." She reached her free hand toward me, a gesture of appeal as much as comfort. "I think I speak for my sisters as well when I say that we would like future generations to have the opportunity to be proud of inheriting the creative intelligence of Seamus as well as the courage and cunning of Tyr. If you have no objection, that is..." Her voice trailed off.
I could not speak for a moment but only gaped at her. "You would want to replace me so quickly," I said, finally, for lack of anything better.
"I think you know better than that." She smiled fondly down at the child, who had released her and had fallen asleep. "I am pleased with you, and not only for him."
It seemed that I was always the one who had to be practical. "Harper's genes have been damaged from too many years unshielded from radiation."
Boudicca shrugged, careful not to disturb the child. "Our scientific abilities in that regard are much more advanced than they were a few years ago. I don't think that need concern us. And it can be a matter of science rather than one of mating, if that worries you or him. Do you think he would object?"
Nietzschian women run the universe; we men simply exist to make their will reality. I had never known it to be different except among the Orca sub-pride of my former wife, which had followed its own ways to destruction. "Messallina -- "
"She knows as much as she needs to know. And, ultimately, what Kodiak Pride does is not the business of the matriarch of Jaguar Pride except as a matter of courtesy. Don't you agree?" Boudicca smiled slowly, the smile of a happy lioness, and that, if nothing else, persuaded me that I was, indeed, speaking to the new matriarch of Kodiak Pride. I moved over next to where she sat on the bed and kissed her. She tasted warm and sweet, her lips soft, and for a moment I rested in the warmth of her caring for me and for our child.
"I still have duties; I must go and --"
"We will be here," she promised. "Tell your friends not to be shy; I love company. And I'd be interested to find out what I can do around the ship. There's much for me to learn."
I met Morgan and Ygraine in the hall. "Tyr, we have so many plans." Ygraine bubbled over. "I'm already playing with ideas for the clothes Beka would like to market with us. And I've looked at some of Seamus' projects, the ones Rommie showed me, and I have some ideas I'd like to run past him --"
"Oh, don't wear him out yet," Morgan said, with a small, genuine smile for me. "He hasn't heard my ideas." She handed me the baby to hold as she refastened her robe. "Do you think you could invent a robe that won't fall off me at the wrong time?"
"No problem." Ygraine pushed Morgan's hands away and repaired the fastening. "You had it upside down. I'll fix that in the next version."
"And what have you been working on, besides our daughter?" I asked her. The child caught a strand of my hair in her fist and gave it a hearty tug.
"Mathematics. I've been envisioning a new way to calculate space and time. Would you like to hear about it?"
***
I met Dylan in the galley, nursing a cup of kaffe, with such a combination of bemusement and pain on his face that I almost nodded to him rather than wishing him joy of the birth of his children. But after I found myself some food and a mug of kaffe, I sat down across from him at the table. This section of the galley, below the observation deck, gave diners a view of the ship's progress through space; if he wished to brood silently I would, at least, have something else to observe besides the depths of my cup.
At length he stirred and said, "Congratulations, Tyr."
"And to you. You have also achieved fatherhood."
"Not exactly." The lines on his face deepened. "Sofia, Portia and Brigid have decided to return to Jaguar Pride to raise our -- their -- children, so I will lose them after the claiming ceremony. I'm not even sure how that ceremony will go, now." He ran his fingers over the smooth ceramic cup, toying with the handle. "You know, Tyr, I never expected to marry anyone, not after I lost Sara, and this is all still a bit of a shock."
"The wives or the children?"
"Both. I do still have four wives, and one child: Nerissa, Anjali, Karla and Olivia are staying." He sighed. "A warship is no place to raise children, but I don't have another home."
"Nor do I. It seems that a great deal has occurred while I was sleeping," I told him. "Think of it another way. How many crew did this ship carry when you first took command?"
"About four thousand people, including a thousand lancers."
"Then your crew complement is a bit short at the moment." I stirred my kaffe. "Would you be willing to listen to an offer you might find too interesting to refuse?"
"I'll listen. I can't promise anything." He straightened in his chair. "Regardless of anything else, my mission is still to recreate the Commonwealth."
"I'm not about to stop you." I smiled at him; he was in pain, undoubtedly, and I was not about to ignore that, but I hoped he would be willing to consider the better side of the situation. "Let me suggest that you consider a few additions to the crew in residence: a philosopher/strategist, a designer whose work you've seen and admired, and a mathematician and martial arts instructor."
"Excuse me? Are you talking about Paris?"
He could be forgiven for the confusion; it had been as long a day for him as for me. "No, my wives. Boudicca holds six degrees in philosophy; she was Pride Jaguar's professor of strategy and the arts of thought. Ygraine likes to design things, everything from clothes and toys to the ship's hulls and weapons. She has some ideas she'd like to show Harper. And Morgan seems to be on the verge of inventing a new mathematics of space and time, from what I understand of it. She said she's been conferring with Rommie."
Dylan nodded slowly, considering. "We could certainly use the help. But are they planning to join the High Guard or the Commonwealth? I'd rather not turn the Andromeda only into a pleasure craft for our families, regardless of how advantageous that might be."
"Has Charlemagne spoken to you about the Commonwealth?"
Dylan frowned. "Not yet. He is still interested, I trust?"
"Actually, I'm interested in a great many things, cousin," Charlemagne wandered toward the table. "Oh, don't stand on ceremony; I understand we're being family at the moment, so I served myself. Have you told him any of my suggestions yet, Tyr?"
"Dylan was telling me that several of his wives are returning to Jaguar Pride," I replied, to remind Charlemagne that there was more on the table here than he might have expected.
"Are they? They haven't informed me yet. Hmm. I'll have to talk with Messallina about that." Charlemagne pulled up a chair and straddled it. He leaned an arm on the back as he sipped his drink. "No, I was speaking of my proposal to help Tyr found a New Fountainhead and rebuild Kodiak Pride as part of our contribution to the Commonwealth."
Dylan regarded Charlemagne with the concentrated attention one might give to a supposedly mythical creature that suddenly appeared in the midst of everyday life. Perhaps I wasn't the only one who felt as if he'd wandered into an alternate dimension. "Contribution to the Commonwealth?"
"Well, yes. Nietzschians were welcome citizens of the previous Commonwealth, until it made the Treaty of Antares with the Magog. We were quite happy there, for centuries, weren't we?" Charlemagne took another sip. "Hmm. Marvelous stuff. You must tell me where you found it. Where was I? Oh, the Treaty of Antares. Commonwealth treaty with the Magog, three centuries ago. You've heard of it?"
"I believe I'm familiar with it." Dylan's lips twitched.
"Well, your Commonwealth ship and its crew just destroyed the Magog. I'd say that treaty's pretty dead, and with it gone, I'm willing to talk about bringing the Nietzschian worlds back into a peaceable situation again."
"Excuse me for saying this," Dylan began, "but you're the dux bellorum, the leader of wars, in four hundred systems, and you're telling me you want peace?"
"Don't you believe me? What can I tell you to make it more convincing?" Charlemagne shook his head. If he had ever used pretense when speaking to us, he had discarded it and was only a weary man, slumping, rather than relaxing, in his chair. "Dylan, I'm tired of wars. In my lifetime I've lost half of my family to the Magog and half of those who were left to the Dragans, and I'm sick of spending all my time tearing things apart. I think I'd like to build something that will be around for a while, but I don't know what peace is like; I've never lived in one. You seem to be pretty good at that sort of thing, so I'd like to do it with you. Are you interested?"
"When you put it that way, yes." Dylan smiled slowly, though there was heartache behind it. "You're not the only one who's tired of wars. What did you have in mind?"
"I'd like to maintain a significant -- and varied -- Nietzschian presence aboard the Andromeda to remind the rest of my people that we have a stake in the future of the Commonwealth. For now, that would be Kodiak Pride, the guardians of the Progenitor, and whatever members of Sabra- Jaguar you're willing to accept as crew. Swear them in and all -- we don't give our word often, but when we do we keep it, despite what you might think."
Dylan looked away, out the window. "That's not what I thought at the Battle of Hephaestus, when my crew turned against me, even my first officer." His eyes met mine and I knew, from the bitterness in his expression, he was seeing not me but Gaheris Rhade, his first officer, who would have killed him had the Andromeda not slipped into the rim of the black hole.
"It's not something any of us would have told you, but it's true." Charlemagne sounded almost contemplative. "I can show you the histories. It took a great deal of discussion and thought to make any of us turn our backs on the Commonwealth, back in the days of Hephaestus."
"I'd like to see them. I've read what I could find, but I'd like to know more." Dylan finally looked back at Charlemagne, who had not stopped watching him. "What else?"
Charlemagne put his mug on the table and crossed his arms on the chair back. "For my part, I'll see what I can do to round up the rest of the renegades and keep them out of trouble; that should give my fighters something to do in a good cause, until they get used to the way things are. And, before you ask, I benefit because my family will be safe, because it will open up trade for us, and because it will give us a chance to recover something of what we've lost in the past three centuries."
"Perhaps we do have something to talk about," Dylan said, "cousin."
If I squinted a little, I could almost see spines on his arms.
"If you don't mind, I believe I have some other negotiations to see to," I said. Charlemagne glanced up, with the smile he'd had when we had arranged a pure sample of antibody for him, and I knew without words that our shikastrin bond had served its purpose. He would not ask why I had apparently allowed the Progenitor to be endangered, or attempt to take the casket from me, and I would not contest his suggestions for the alliance. I clapped him on the shoulder and he grinned, as Dylan watched.
As I stood, I said to Dylan, "You will, of course, be present at my children's Naming and Claiming, won't you?" He gave me an odd look. I continued, "You did owe me a favor, once upon a time."
Dylan leaned back in his chair and smiled, finally starting to relax. "Yes, I did, didn't I? I wouldn't miss it."
Before I reached the hall, I could hear Charlemagne saying, "Now. Let's talk about people for this Nietzschian presence on board. I'd like to suggest several of my cousins, for a start. I think you've met them? Of course, a few have just had babies, but that shouldn't bother you ..."
***
Beka rested a barbell against her thigh, in the exercise room. "Tyr, have you seen Ygraine's designs? We'll make a fortune on the licensing alone, not to mention on the clothes themselves. We might even open shops to market the originals to a discreet and exclusive clientele. Isn't it exciting?"
"Honest money? Are you sure you can stand the shock?" I teased her, and she pouted at me as she put the barbell into its rack.
"As if I'd never earned an honest day's fee in my life! You know better than that, Tyr."
"I should. I was probably there the first time you did, the day after Dylan asked us to stay on."
"Define honest." She threw a towel at me. "I suppose you're looking for Harper? I haven't seen him. Actually," she said, picking up the towel after I threw it back at her, "I don't think I've seen him since some time yesterday. Have you tried his quarters?"
"His, mine." I turned to go.
"Hey," she said, and I paused on the threshold. "I'm glad you're staying on."
"Am I?" Just because Dylan and Charlemagne were agreed on a 'significant Nietzschian presence' did not mean I necessarily had to be part of it, though if I were to retain my position as alpha of Kodiak Pride I would need to be in fairly close contact with my wives.
"You'd better. I've gotten used to your cooking. What do I have to do to make it happen, talk to Dylan?"
"Oh, right," I replied, and she snorted and went back to work. "Are you staying, if his wives are here?"
She gave me a frank look, not untinged with pain. "I knew that wasn't forever when it started. Dylan was fun, but that was all." A philosophical shrug. "Besides, I've got more of a future here than I have anywhere else, what with Ygraine's plans as well as the Commonwealth."
"And maybe a Guardsman or two to enliven your nights?"
"I think I'll find enough to keep me busy." She stepped onto a treadmill as I left.
Trance was talking to some manner of tall waving flowered herb when I reached the hydroponics garden. "Have you seen Harper?" I asked her.
"Not in the last few hours. You know," she confided, "you do make pretty babies."
Lately, it seemed, I spent most of my time accepting unlikely compliments when I spoke with her. "Thank you." I offered her one of her favorite crnaps that I'd brought from the galley, and she accepted it gratefully. "How is Messallina doing?"
"Oh, I think she's probably still resting after all the excitement yesterday. She told me it's been years since she was called upon to oversee six births at once."
"It wasn't too much for her, was it?"
"Oh no," Trance assured me, "she said it was one of the highlights of her life. She told me a lot about Nietzschian customs and her family's history. Apparently she was very impressed with Andromeda."
"I don't suppose any of that would be because of you?"
"It might be. Some of it, at least." Her smile wasn't as shy as I had once thought it was.
"That's good." I considered a moment; yes, this was the time to ask. "Would you be willing to be a guardian for my children?"
Trance choked on a bite of crnap and I thumped her on the back, gently. "Isn't that unusual?" she asked when she'd stopped coughing. "I mean, doesn't the pride usually act as the guardians?"
"Normally, yes, but Kodiak Pride is rather small at the moment." I watched as she realized just how small it was.
Her eyes grew rounder, and she looked uncertain, perhaps even a bit scared. "Actually, Tyr, I should probably decline the honor -- and I know it's an honor, it's a great honor -- because I don't know how much longer I'll be here."
"None of us know that." I had thought hard before making the request. "Do you anticipate leaving the Andromeda, say, in the next five minutes? The next year? The next decade?"
"No, but things happen. You know things happen. I don't want to mislead you." Her voice shrank. "I don't want to make a promise I can't keep." She reached for a seedling and tucked it into the growing medium with careful fingers. "If this grows, and stays strong, about fifteen years from now it should have lots of hazelnuts. I don't know if I'll ever eat any of them."
I leaned against the wall and watched her, as I searched for something to say. "In the best of all possible worlds, I think that having you as one of my children's guardians would be part of the perfect possible outcome." And I looked away from her as I said it, for at times Trance reminded me of a cat my sister had had as a child, who would be more likely to respond well if left to make up its own mind.
She finished planting the last seedling, dusted off her hands and stood. "What does a guardian do, Tyr?"
"Take care of the children, if we can't. Try to make things turn out well for them. Wish them well."
"Oh!" Happiness poured over her face like sunshine. "I can do that."
Her happiness made me smile as well, but so much was happening in my life that I wanted to smile anyway.
"So, how is Paris as a pilot?" I started back toward the entrance, and she came with me.
"He's not bad. I didn't work with him, though, I worked with Harper."
"How did you do it?" I asked, genuinely curious.
"I put my hands on his shoulders, and saw what should be, and I showed him, and he made it happen."
And I knew I would never have a better explanation of the strategy in the Battle of Ultima Thule.
***
Andromeda shimmered into view near me, outside the fourth workshop I checked. "He's in the Maru."
"You told me two hours ago that you didn't know where he was," I muttered.
"I know. He said he wanted to be alone, and I had to respect his wishes, but he seems to have changed his mind."
"Where?"
"The Kali Ma, in Hangar Twelve. He's opened the aft bay doors." The apparition smiled. "I think he's listening to music. At least I think it's music."
"Does it have words?" Hangar Twelve was only a few hundred yards down the corridor.
With a bemused expression on her face, she quoted, "'Scuse me, while I kiss the sky?'"
"Ah, the classics."
She was still listening to the music, her head slightly
tilted, as I left her behind me to take the short cut down four floors
to the hanger door.