On the Oceans of Eternity by S. M. Stirling Read Free Book Online Page B

patina of machine grease toyed with a cup as he spoke.
    “I was up on Anglesy, some problems with the drainage engines in the copper mines, then dropped down to troubleshoot the Merrimac project with Erica. I was surprised to hear you were coming,” he said. “I expected you and the fleet to be off by now.”
    Alston nodded and glanced over her shoulder. Over at one of the long common tables the Marine escort were enjoying themselves with food, drink, and local company caught by the glamor of the uniform. She caught Swindapa conscientiously checking in that directon occasionally as well. They were good troops, but young, and only Ritter was actually something approaching a native Islander—she’d been a ten-year-old orphan adopted by an elderly couple in Nantucket Town, right after the Alban War. The rest of her squad were foreigners enlisted for pay, adventure, and the promise of citizenship at the end of their hitch, like much of the Coast Guard proper and most of the Marine Corps these days. Four of them linked arms over shoulders and sang, fairly tunefully:
    “When you see the Southern Cross for the first time,
You’ll understand why you came this way—”
    Nobody was getting too loud, and nobody minded. OK, that’s well in hand, Alston thought, then sighed as she replied to the engineer-entrepreneur. “I expected to be away by now myself, but the first casualty in any war is your battle plan,” she said. “Sometimes even before the war starts ... Two clans of the Uarwasorii teuatha started another round of one of their Goddamned blood feuds on their way to the muster point.”
    “And none but Marian could deal with it,” Swindapa said pridefully.
    Alston smiled a crooked smile. “I do have the baraka, the keuthes, they call it,” she said. “Or the Sun People think I do, which is ’bout the same thing.”
    “So they could surrender to you without losing too much face,” Stark said shrewdly.
    To the Sun People, keuthes was rather like having Fate putting a finger on your side of the scales, or a big spiritual battery pack full of capital-L Luck. The way the charioteer tribes looked at it, she, Alston, had a monstrously unfair amount of war-keuthes, giving her an unbeatable edge in anything involving fighting, raiding, or plundering. They called her the Midnight Mare, and it was a title of high respect and fear, which were much the same thing in their terms, invoking both the feared black-hued demons of the night and the wild power of Hepkonwsa, the Lady of the Horses.
    Ron Leaton nodded. “You’re the one who beat their war-host and wizard chief on the Downs. They believe in legends and heroes, not institutions and governments.”
    Marian shrugged. What I’m needed for here is to keep our local allies together, and convince them we’ll win. Luckily, I’ve got a good general staff, who can handle things at home under
    Jared. A moment of worry: Do the enemy? It wouldn’t necessarily be obvious to our agents. She didn’t think so. Walker would be too suspicious of possible rivals, and the concept would be alien to Isketerol of Tartessos.
    Instead she went on: “‘Dapa and I had to take a company of Marines from Portsmouth Base up north to kick ass and take names. We had a radio along, heard Ron was here, sent most of the party back, and dropped over ourselves to consult after the shouting was done.”
    The actual slaying that started the whole mess had been a fair enough fight, which helped.
    Alston was glad they hadn’t had to actually open fire; she’d gone armed and in uniform all her adult life, but not from any love of combat. I leave that to maniacs and Sun People warriors, which is much of a muchness. Killing human beings was a disgusting incident of her real job, which was winning safety for her children, partner, friends, people.
    Now, William Walker and Alice Hong, a few of their collaborators, I’ll make an exception for them, yes. I’ll have to repress an impulse to swing on the