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"I'm against revolutions," he said low. "No matter the alleged justification, it's never worth the
short-range cost lives and treasure beyond counting or the long-range ripping the fragile fabric of
society. You know how in my younger days I did what I could to help put down a couple such attempts.
If afterward I signed up with old Hans, why, the Wang dynasty had collapsed utterly, and he was the
least bad of the contending war lords. At that, he turned out to be a tolerable Emperor, didn't he?
Neither a figurehead nor a monster. What more dare we expect? And we may owe something to the
memory of Edwin Cairncross, inasmuch as his try at usurpation was what got us reacquainted with each
other, but surely you'll agree he was an undesirable sort."
She secured the sash of her kimono and went to join him. He laid an arm around her waist. His
straight-lined countenance writhed into a smile. "Sorry about the oratory," he murmured. "I'll try to keep it
properly caged henceforward."
She leaned close. "I never mind. It's nice to see you relax from your perpetual clowning." Her innate
seriousness rose afresh. "But you haven't answered me. All right, the Empire was bumbling along fairly
peacefully, and Magnusson's revolt is a disaster. Don't I know it myself? However my parents always
told me to look at every side of a question would his success be a catastrophe? I mean, I've heard you
say often enough that we no longer have any such thing as legitimate government. Maybe Magnusson
would be better than Gerhart, who is rather a swine, isn't he?"
"Well, yes, he is," Flandry admitted, "although a shrewd swine. For a moderately important instance,
you know he doesn't like me, but he's given to taking my advice, because he sees it's practical.
And & Crown Prince Karl does have a high opinion of me, and is a thoroughly decent boy." He
snickered. "If I'm still alive when he inherits the throne, I'll have to set about curing him of the latter."
She stared outward and upward. Stars were lost in the haze of light from the towers everywhere
around, but "Does it make that much difference who is Emperor? What can he, what can any person,
any planet, do to change things?"
"Usually very little," Flandry agreed. This was by no means the first time they had been over the same
ground. They were both aware and concerned, she less cynically than he. But some open wounds do not
allow themselves to be left alone; and tonight they were feeling a freshly inflicted one. "The Policy Board,
the provincial nobles, the bureaucrats and officers, the inertia of sheer size Still, even a slight shift in
course will touch billions of lives, and perhaps grind them out. And occasionally a pivotal event does
happen. More and more, I wonder whether we may not be about to have that experience again."
"What do you mean?"
Flandry ran fingers through his sleek gray hair. "I'm not sure. Possibly nothing. Yet every intuition, every
twitchy nerve I've developed in decades I misspent as an Intelligence agent when I might have gone
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fishing my hunch screams to me that something peculiar is afoot." He pitched his cigarette expertly
away, into an ashtaker, and swung about to face her, hands on her shoulders. "Listen, Banner. You've
been in the yonderlands, you haven't followed the input as you would've with me if you'd stayed home.
The Merseians have now hit us."
She gave him a stark smile. "Is that a surprise? Haven't they always taken what advantage they could,
when the Empire's been in disarray? Nibbles here and there, no casus belli that might unite us against
them obviously, not in this case either, if the story hasn't been released."
"This case is oddly different," Flandry said. "There've been the predictable skirmishes in the marches,
yes. No major thrust. But & they sent a task force, which passed straight through Imperial space they
sent a strike force to Gorrazan, on the far side of us."
"What?" She stiffened. "Why? It doesn't make sense."
"Oh, it does, it does, when you contemplate it from the proper, skewed angle." He spoke softly, as
was his wont when discussing terrible things. "Yes, the Realm of Gorrazan is the pathetic souvenir of a
botched attempt at empire, a few colonies and clients on a few second-rate worlds near the home sun.
Yes, its government has been plagued by insurrectionists who proclaim a bright new ideology God,
how long has the universe endured the same old bright new ideologies? and the rebels are known, to
everybody except our journalists and academics, to nave Merseian inspiration and help. Trouble at our
backs. Certainly I'd instigate the identical thing behind Merseia if I could.
"But now " He drew breath. "Word came in the other day. The Merseians sent a 'mercy mission'.
They declare the need was so urgent they had to traverse our space, hoping we wouldn't notice, and we
were wicked to pounce on them as they were in Sector Alpha Crucis approaching their destination. It
was a shame that we compelled them to trounce what forces we could bring to bear. The diplomats will
be discussing who's to blame, and who's to pay what reparations to whom, and the rest of that garbage,
for years to come. Oh, yes, business as usual.
"But the fact is, the Merseians could have passed through unknown to us, if they'd wanted. They made
their presence blatant when they neared our Alpha Crucis frontier. Our units had no choice but to attack
and take losses. Meanwhile a Merseian detachment punched through to Gorrazan itself. It made rags of
the home defense fleet. It could have blown up every governmental installation. The rebels could have
taken over entirely. We'd either have intervened to prevent, and found ourselves bogged down in a nasty,
lasting little war; or, likelier, we'd have done nothing, and in due course had a pro-Merseian power at our
backs, small and weak but an almighty nuisance.
"Instead, the raiders contented themselves with taking out the Folkmoot's main command center. The
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