I had survived. I had guaranteed the survival of Kodiak Pride, as much as I could. I had wives and children and a place of status I had earned among the powers of the cosmos.
And it was not enough.
No man may control his fate. Nations come and go. Commonwealths fall and rise again, treaties are made or broken, alliances cling or dissipate. An evil whirlwind of destruction that scourged the known worlds for centuries is shattered irrevocably by the will of its victims, wrenched into nothing by nothingness itself made real.
For so long I had lived and waited and watched, and now that I had all that a man of my people should want, I still hoped for one thing more.
***
Wild music danced through the hangar. I found myself moving to its rhythm as I walked across the floor toward the open door of Kali Ma.
Harper sat back in the command chair, his feet propped on the pilot's seat, and his eyes partly closed as if he were watching something in his mind. His hands moved as if he were playing whatever instrument had originally made the sounds I was hearing.
Between the empty aft cargo bay, where I stood, and the helm where he sat, the long low casket of Drago Museveni lay in state on a stand. It had a new, clean drape over it, and as I came closer I could see that the cloth carried the personal insignia of the Museveni, the same insignia that had flown over the government center on Fountainhead long before I was born, before it fell to treachery. A small spray of orchids, undoubtedly from Trance, lay on the draped flag above the insignia, its blossoms trailing across the embroidered symbols.
"Hey. You like?" Harper kicked off from the pilot's chair and swivelled the command chair so that he was facing me. "I did some checking in the All Systems University Library about the man and found out that he liked music, so I figured he might want to hear some again."
"I'm sure he'd be pleased," I said. "You did this?"
"Trance did some, I did some." He shrugged. "It was the least I could do. I mean, I was kind of kidnapping him. I didn't want to be too disrespectful."
I nodded. The scent of the orchids clung to my fingertips, and I did not try to brush it off. Now that I was alone with him, the words I wanted were evading me.
"So, what brings you here? You want to retrieve your ancestor, right? I kept him safe for you."
"Purely as a matter of curiosity, how did you manage to keep Paris Ramses from taking the casket?"
"Trance told him that he'd have to fight you for it, and he backed down." Harper grinned. "I didn't think Nietzschians could backpedal that well."
"I'll take that as a compliment." I was not smiling. "I'm not sure what I should do with you, Harper. You stole my family's chiefest treasure and put it in the most dangerous place possible in the midst of a battle."
"What better way to keep it out of the Jaguars' hands? And give myself an insurance policy so I'd live through the battle?" He stood, crossing his arms, defying me. "Besides, I had Trance with me, so I knew nothing bad could happen, or at least not for long."
I gave him the glare that made most people cower; he glared back at me. "And you think I should be grateful for that?"
"Hell, yes. I think you should be really grateful that I, Seamus Zelazny Harper, managed to get rid of the Magog worldship. You did notice that, didn't you? It's not there any more. It's gone. Bye-bye."
"I noticed. Very elegant flying."
"Partly me, partly Paris. He helped Trance, he helped me."
"I'm sure Charlemagne will be impressed with his genius for helpfulness."
"So? Are you mad at me or what?" He took a couple of steps forward. "This is my ship; I built it and I can throw you off it if I want. Well, I can ask you to leave and call the robots."
"You're not going to ask me to leave."
"Why not?"
"Because I haven't answered your question." I rested one hand on my weapons belt.
"So? You gonna kill me or what? Get it over with. I've got a lot to do."
"Yes."
"Yes what?"
"You've got a great deal to do. Boudicca wants to see you."
This threw him. "She does? Why?"
"She wants to name our son after my shieldbrother."
"What?" If he had been startled before, he was in shock now. His jaw dropped open, and he stared at me as if I'd acquired Rev's face. "Why?"
"You proved that you can act as a true Nietzschian, and my wives want to welcome you into the family."
"Whoa. No kidding." He cast a wary glance at me. "And how do you feel about it?"
"Pretty much like this," I said. I closed the remaining distance between us and kissed him, hard and long, crunching his spiky hair between my fingers. I ran one hand down the front of his clothes to unfasten his fly and push his trousers away. He kissed me back, enthusiastically, but when he felt my hand on his clothes he shoved at my shoulder and I pulled away, confused.
"Just a sec." He reached back and flipped a switch. "Privacy screen; opaqued the windows."
"Excellent."
His hands were on my own trousers, unfastening the leather so that it came aside neatly, leaving my legs clad and the rest bare. "Do you have any idea how hot you look like that?" he whispered.
"I'm not concerned with how I look." Where to do it? Cleaning the instrument panel might cause problems. The seats looked as uncomfortable as any command chair scavenged from the back of the Maru might, although it appeared that he'd cleaned them before installation. "Here." I pushed the fine drape aside to reveal the curved, scarred casket.
"Are you kidding? Isn't that, um, like majorly disrespectful?"
"Drago Museveni was the ultimate pragmatist, and this is practical." I grabbed a cushion from one of the chairs that looked like something Trance might have brought, and put it on the casket to cushion him. "What more evidence do you want of how I feel?" I stroked myself, feeling myself lengthen and harden even more.
"Hey, that's mine." He reached across and grasped me, and I moaned with pleasure. I pushed his work trousers down and he rubbed against me, skin on skin, lining himself up so that his cock slicked a path along the line between my thigh and my abdomen, the demarcation zone for armor for thousands of years. I ran my hands along his shoulders and down his back to clutch him, kneading the rounded muscles.
He pulled back, his thumb coursing across my slick glans, and let go as he turned around to bend over the casket, his hands grasping its edges as he leaned on the cushion. "So? Tell me how you feel."
I moved behind him, lining myself up. "I feel that you owe me something for stealing my property, and for lying to me."
"When did I lie to you?" he countered. "I evaded. I avoided. I didn't lie."
"And you think that buys you what?"
"Get on with it," he said. "Don't tell me you're all hat and no cattle now?"
I ran a dampened finger around his entrance, waiting for his moan, then I slapped one cheek, hard. "That is for theft." I did the same again, intruding until I heard a moan, then withdrawing and slapping the other cheek. "That is for lies." They were not gentle slaps; his body bore red hand prints on either side. He whimpered, not without pleasure, and I slicked myself and breached him, slowly moving inward until I felt his heated skin against me. "And this is from me to you." I kissed his back, reached around to toy with him, and started to ride him.
He pushed back from the casket against me, panting hard. I braced my feet against the corrugated flooring and went steadily, carefully, making it last, until I could wait no longer and let go to spend myself within him as he spasmed around me, each of us taking the other. Afterward, I lay on his back, still in him, feeling the heat of his body, feeling the touch of his fingers reaching back to caress my flanks just above the edge of leather.
"Lots of cattle. Whole planets of them," he murmured. "All kinds of cattle."
"Are you all right?"
"Fine. Great. Stupendous. This is a day for the books; I've gotten laid over a coffin."
"Why? It was what was practical. Would you have preferred the command chair?"
"No way. That thing itches. I've got to tell Beka to get a new supplier for chair covers." His heartbeat and mine still pounded as one. "So. Anything else you want to discuss?"
"Ygraine has some designs she'd like to run past you. Morgan wants to talk mathematics." He nodded. "And both of them, as well as Boudicca, seem to think that adding a few of your genes to our genetic pool would only benefit future generations." I kissed the back of his neck as he squirmed.
"You're kidding. Your wives want me to be daddy to their next kids?" One frantic eye sought mine, and he struggled under me. I let my weight settle on him a little more. "And you're okay with me, um, usurping your prerogatives?"
"Boudicca assured me the cross could be done in a laboratory, if you felt uncomfortable with the thought. The woman is rather single-minded about children, I think." I shook my head for the pleasure of watching him wiggle as my hair tickled him.
"But I lived on Earth --"
"For a long time, and some of your genes are not what they could be. We'll take care of that. I promise you, there will only be healthy babies in Kodiak Pride." We uncoupled and I pushed myself up straight and helped him up. He reached into a closet and got out clean rags for each of us, and a tin of the same all-purpose absorbent chips that he'd had in the workshop for the spatter on the floor. I twitched the drape back into place over the casket and replaced the orchid, which had fallen to one side.
"You're really serious about this."
"Of course. I am now the head of Kodiak Pride, and it's not large; shouldn't I be concerned about diversifying the gene pool, so that our children have a better chance at survival? And this is not unusual for shieldbrothers. There is always a pride geneticist who tracks such things, to make sure there will be no problems." I watched his face, and added softly, "It is their idea, and I won't interfere. This is between you and them -- but Boudicca informs me that she admires your ability to think, and that is certainly something lacking in much of the current Nietzschian population."
"Yeah, like those Kazov idiots at Denali. Hey, I like the sound of it."
I watched his face, concerned for now and for the future. "You hated Nietzschians, when I first came aboard. You wanted to kill all of us because of what the Dragans did to your planet."
"Hey, you're not fond of some of them either. Yes, I hated them. I built the device that wiped out the fleet at Witchhead, and then I realized that hating them so much made me someone I didn't want to be." Harper looked across at me, asking without words for truth, not comfort.
I glanced out the one-way glass toward the bay doors that led to space. "If you had not done it, and the full fleet had been at Witchhead, who's to say whether any of us would be here now? I cannot want to change the past when it might have kept me from being born." When I looked back, his eyes were dark with compassion. "I regret their deaths, as I have regretted few things in my life, but I would not have changed history."
"So do I," he said softly. "And now we're making history. You and me, shieldbrothers. That's not something that's happened before, is it?"
"It's a first for the historical records." But I thought he still looked a little sad. "Do you like the sound of Seamus, out of Boudicca by Tyr?"
"Wow. Yeah. I could get used to that." Seamus the elder smiled freely for the first time since I'd entered the ship. "So, I guess this means you're not trading me in for three wives and assorted children?"
"Is that what you thought would happen?" I was amazed. "Really?"
He shrugged. "Hey, guy gets married, gives up his former life. What else was I supposed to think?"
I pulled him close, against my heart. "Listen to me. You remember Elssbett Mossadim. She takes things to extremes, but you must understand, she is not that different from most Nietzschian women I have met."
"Your ladies aren't like that," he murmured into my neck. "They've got a lot more going for them."
"Which I very much appreciate, believe me. But they do not know me, and even if they did I would still like to have in my life the one person to whom I need not apologize for my ideas or attitudes." I felt his shock as he stiffened. "Don't get me wrong. I am still Nietzschian, but the life I have led is so different from that of most of my people that I don't find a lot of understanding at times."
"It's not easy for me, either." He kissed the side of my neck. "So. Neither of us has to apologize for what we are."
"Exactly."
"And I don't have to be a convert, do I? I can stay human?"
"You need not be anything you don't wish to be."
"Good. Because, you know, those arm spikes would really get in the way when I'm tuning up the slipstream drive. It's kind of tight in there." He pushed me away. "You know, I thought, when I took that," he tilted his head toward the casket, "you'd want to kill me. I didn't just go to meet your wives to see if they were pretty, I went to see if they were likely to support you if you told them about having it. And I wasn't sure I could trust Blondie Bolivar either. I knew I couldn't trust Dylan; he'd already locked it away from you. So the only one I could trust was me."
"Again, an admirable bit of thinking. Why should it upset me?"
"Because I stole your Progenitor?"
"Actually," I shrugged, "I assumed you had moved him to keep him away from the Jaguars."
"Well, yeah, that was part of it. But he was insurance, too." Harper frowned. "Is that still a problem?"
"Let's say I wasn't pleased that you were endangering him. But you impressed Charlemagne. In fact, he has suggested to Dylan that Kodiak Pride resume its protection of the Progenitor -- and do so aboard the Andromeda as part of the Commonwealth." I took one step closer but disguised it by leaning my hip against the control panel. "You had to lie to me, and to Beka, in order to do what Dylan wanted. I don't like that, but any anger I feel on that account is aimed at Dylan, not you."
"Oh, so that slap at my ass was purely gratuitous."
I smiled at him. "How well you understand me."
He smirked back. "How mad at him are you?"
"Not very." I shrugged. "None of us can see in all directions at once. And Dylan has much to deal with. Half of his wives want to leave him and remain within Jaguar Pride's territory to raise their children. It's not an unusual way to proceed, considering how decimated Jaguar has become, but he's having some problems with the idea.
"How's Dylan taking the whole Kodiak-Pride-onboard thing?"
"A little better than he's taking Charlemagne's marriage counseling session, but not too badly, all told."
"Blondie doing marriage counseling with Dylan." Harper looked dazed. "Did I wake up on the right side of the cosmos?"
"You know, I've been asking myself that all day, too." I glanced around the ship. As I'd expected, it was made of spare parts from the Maru and from the Andromeda repair stores. "How long did it take you to make this?"
"A while. I did it in bits and pieces all over the ship, and had the robots put it together when I was busy with you." He had the grace, or misfortune, to blush. "It was the only way I could find that you wouldn't learn about it."
"Aha."
"What aha?"
"I knew that slap would not prove gratuitous."
"No, you just wanted to feel me up." He wiggled his ass at me. "I'm still shocked about doing it on the coffin. You're not going to tell me that's usual, are you?"
I leveled my eyes at him. "On your planet, wasn't it the custom of some religions to hold their ceremonies over the bones of the dead? Some Christian sects, for instance?"
"Well, technically. Sort of. Kinda. It's not exactly like that."
"How was this any different? Or did you expect Drago Museveni to awaken and take an interest?"
"No to the second question. I mean, I really hope not. That would be kind of creepy. As for the first, well, it'd be the same only if it was a solemn religious event."
"I see. So, uniting with one's shieldbrother would not be --"
"Actually, I take that back. That was as close to a religious event as I want to have, these days."
I assumed a sad expression. "Does that infer that you wish only to conduct such activity during one hour on a certain day per seven-day cycle, according to the calendar of an obscure planet I've never seen?"
"Now you're just being silly."
"Nietzschians are never just silly."
"No, in my experience they're usually horny also."
***
The next few months brought many changes to the Andromeda and her resident crew. Boudicca took over Rev Bem's old study, with its records of ancient knowledge and philosophy. She spent her time learning different languages, studying the political philosophies of groups allied to the Andromeda or to the Commonwealth, and conferring with Dylan on policies and practices of various systems and cultures. As a result, he was able to triple the number of Commonwealth members within six months, which seemed to make him feel that although the universe he knew had changed he could still function within it satisfactorily.
Ygraine and Harper strengthened the Maru, to Beka's great delight, and worked at redesigning the Kali Ma. Ygraine persuaded Rommie to allow her to modify some of the Andromeda, to create an environment that would challenge our children -- a holographic simulation of Fountainhead, so none of us would forget our heritage. The clothing design business with Beka brought in welcome funding for the ship, as well as for us as a pride, and put us on a better footing when we came to planetary systems that were not terribly clear on the concept of a commonwealth but did understand fashion and trade.
Morgan spent long hours with Rommie, studying astrogation charts, and comparing the records of slipstream jumps with the mathematics she was developing. Within months she had devised the theoretical framework for a hyper-slip jump, a mode of travel that leaped from the edge of one slip curl to the next within slip, unfailingly and without the jarring that would batter an already damaged ship and leave it helpless once it had left slipstream. Morgan was eager to try for time jumps; I left it to Harper to tell her why, with this particular captain, it was not the best idea at the moment and should be left for a later time when all the details had been worked out and there was no chance of marring a time line.
Dylan, who had apparently never even considered combining family life and work in a normal way, eventually adjusted to working with his wives and mine aboard ship, though he never seemed quite at ease with the notion of a Nietzschian woman in work clothing carrying a baby in a sling around her body for much of the first year of a child's life. I saw his eyes following Beka around the bridge with regret, but I said nothing. We all make our choices, and live with them, and learn from them.
Trance added child care to her lengthening list of talents and tasks. I had a feeling that as soon as the children were old enough to want to play in the mud, she'd have an area of the hydroponics garden set aside for them to grow their first plants. I had no objection. Fountainhead had been an arid planet, a good place to create a strong people, but times change. It would not hurt Nietzschians to learn to grow food as well as to kill it, to understand ways of repair and healing as well as warfare and defense. We had done these things in the past, and lost the knowledge of them over three centuries of warfare; it was time we regained them.
Beka took her position of chief negotiator and businesswoman seriously. Dylan joked that the next four systems joined the Commonwealth purely because they could get better prices on Ygraine's clothing; it wasn't entirely untrue. She became a friend to those of Dylan's wives who stayed aboard. Anjali, a physician, took over many of Trance's duties on med deck and conducted general scientific research with her sister, Karla, a xenobiologist; Nerissa, with Morgan, upgraded the ship's exercise facilities and conducted defense and weapons training for everyone aboard -- including Dylan; Olivia shared child care duties with Trance while writing an historical account of the events culminating in the Battle of Ultima Thule.
Paris Ramses and several of his cousins stayed aboard as well. Dylan devised a rotation of responsibilities so that each of them would acquire experience in every area of ship's operations. After Paris realized that I was unlikely to pursue him, considering that I was already fairly occupied with family obligations, he turned his attentions to study and his eyes toward Beka, who looked back at him and seemed to like what she saw. When I heard passionate, delighted sounds coming from a residential area of the ship I'd thought unoccupied one night, and recognized Beka's voice and his, I was glad they had chosen an area so far from Dylan's quarters or her own. Dylan had been awake for two nights with a colicky son; he would not have been amused.
And one day, on the bridge, as I watched Harper wrestle a recalcitrant section of repair work back into place with the assistance of Morgan and Paris, I said idly, "Dylan, what's the latest news from Charlemagne about his clean-up operation?"
"Actually, there's a transmission coming through now; onscreen, please."
Charlemagne wore a mocking smile, though a new and livid scar marred his brow. "Greetings, cousins, sisters, and brother Kodiak. It's taken a bit longer than expected, but we've managed to deal with the Dragan remnant fairly nicely. Along the way we've run across more possibilities for the Commonwealth -- a couple of colonies of Atreus Pride that settled farther away from the action than I'd ever imagined."
"That's wonderful, Charlemagne. I'll look forward to hearing more about them."
Charlemagne smiled back at Morgan, and at Ygraine, who had just entered the bridge with a pad in her hand. "I see the family's doing well. Always pleased to know that. I hope to be back fairly soon. However, there's one area that's still Dragan-held that seems to want to hold out and give us a bit of difficulty."
Beka raised her eyebrows and exchanged glances with me. "I wonder where that might be." She knew, as I did, how unlikely it was for Charlemagne to consider any challenge impossible that included the Dragans.
"It seems there's a bit of a stand-off coming up in Milky Way Galaxy, over a funny little planet that's third out from its star. For some reason I didn't think you wanted me to just dust the place off, so I thought you might be interested in coming over to give us a hand with it." Charlemagne turned, as if someone had called his name. "I believe it's called Earth? Might help if someone besides a Nietzschian shows up to talk with the original residents. They're not fond of us at all."
"Dylan -- " Harper started.
"We're on our way there, Charlemagne. And I appreciate your forbearance." Dylan said.
"Not at all. I've heard too much that's interesting about the place to want to just blow it away, regardless of the idiots who are in charge of it at the moment." Charlemagne smiled again, with less sarcasm than truth. "Bolivar out."
"Dylan --" Harper repeated.
"It's the least we could do, don't you think?" Dylan said. "Harper, I'm appointing you and Tyr chief negotiators for the Commonwealth on this one. You'll be in charge of arranging a settlement with both the Dragans and the humans."
"You don't ask for much, do you?" Harper shot back, but he'd begun to bounce on his heels, and the smile I loved to see curved his mouth.
"Just miracles," I said, but I couldn't help smiling as well. Peace was all well and good, but a man needs a challenge now and then after nearly a year of quiet, and I looked forward not only to dealing with the Dragans from a position of power but to seeing what was left of the planet that Harper had once called home.
"I've noticed that you two seem to be rather good at them, so I figure you wouldn't want to miss the chance to do another one." Dylan turned back to the controls.
Harper said nothing, but his face glowed and he looked so happy that Ygraine hugged him impulsively. "It'll be all right," she told him. "It will." He hugged her back, his arms wide to encompass her swelling body; her child and his would be born in a few months. Her first, with me, had miscarried, and we had all mourned; I could only be pleased when Harper returned the happiness to her face.
Behind them I saw Trance smile suddenly, that odd, slightly angular smile that told me that all would, indeed, be well, whether I wanted to believe it or not. All would be well, and all would be well, and all manner of things would be well. How odd that I would think of the words of an Earth woman who had never seen anything outside her own town, let alone her own planet, but they rang true in my mind.
And we set our faces toward the planet from which all
humans once came, and headed toward our future.