By Force of Arms by William C. Dietz Read Free Book Online Page B

formed a steeple with his fingers. “All of which is good except that it won’t last, won’t mean anything, if the Sheen destroy the Confederacy as part of their effort to reach the Thrakie. “That’s why I’m going to name you as my secret envoy, give you more power than any one being should rightfully have, and let you enter talks with the Hudathans.
    “Sell them what you sold me, attach all the conditions you can. and do it quickly. Time is short—and the clock is ticking.”

4
    To see the future one has but to visit the past.
    Naa folk saying
    Circa standard year 1700
     
    Planet Algeron, the Confederacy of Sentient Beings
     
    It was cold. Snowflakes twisted down out of the heavens, and the Towers of Algeron were but shadows in the distance. Some of the peaks soared more than eighty thousand feet into the atmosphere, which made them taller than Olympic Mons on Mars. In fact, the mountains were so massive, that had they been located on Earth the Towers would have sunk down through the planet’s crust.
    However, thanks to the fact that Algeron completed a full rotation every two hours and forty-two minutes, centrifugal force had caused the equator to bulge outwards.
    In fact, although Algeron possessed roughly the same amount of mass Earth did—its equatorial diameter was 27 percent larger. That, combined with the fact that the planet’s polar diameter was 32 percent smaller than Terra’s produced an equator nearly twice the diameter of the poles. All of which meant that the Towers of Algeron, which rode the world-spanning bulge, weighed only half what they would on Earth.
    All facts that Genera! William Booly had been aware of since childhood—the earliest part of which had been spent in a village seventy-five miles to the northeast.
    The legionnaire stepped out onto the parapet, saw his breath jet outwards, and was glad of his jacket. He’d been dirtside for one standard week by then, and the sentries had become familiar with his morning walks. The habit had been born on the walls of his previous command, in Djibouti, Africa, and continued here. Precious minutes during which he could think and no one dared disturb him. He followed the top of the wall.
    FortCamerone, which had been named after what the Legion considered to be its most important battle, crouched on a dry rocky plain, and, with the exception of antenna arrays, flyform landing pads, and missile launchers that interrupted its boxy lines, was reminiscent of Legion forts in North Africa. It was, Booly decided, the way a fortress should look. Hard and uncompromising.
    It was strange to be there, not only in command of FortCamerone, but of the entire Legion as well. Yes, he’d been ambitious enough to fanaticize about such an achievement, but never believed that it would happen. Not to a half-breed.
    But it had happened—though not in the way he would have preferred. Rather than earn the position, he had inherited it from officers who, like Mortimer Kattabi, had died in battle, or like Leon Harco, who had chosen the wrong side and paid the price. Good officers, perhaps better officers, who, except for a moment of bad luck, or poor judgment, would have been in command. A fact that played into the feelings of inferiority that had been born right there, beyond the veil of the slowly falling snow, where he and his Naa playmates had fought their play pretend wars. Wars that he generally lost.
    A sentry snapped to attention, presented his weapon, and waited for Booty’s acknowledgement. Like everyone on the battlements, he was aware of the general’s presence and more than a little self-conscious. The officer returned the salute and continued on his way.
    Yes, it was hard to compete when your peers could smell game from a hundred feet away, could sense heat with the soles of their bare feet, and on a cold day, much colder than this one, had the capacity to run nearly naked through the snow, for miles on end if need be, laughing all the way.
    Booly had