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  “Do you concur in these opinions?” Vereshchagin asked quietly.

  Mutaro studied Vereshchagin's face for a moment or two. “I recollect,” he said softly, “being inordinately impressed by the restraint your forces demonstrated. It was well within your power to destroy Tokyo. Your attack was clearly intended to achieve a particular political result with minimal casualties.” The humor left his eyes. “I do not lightly intrude upon your solitude, but I must ask you to trust me. Please tell me, if it had been neccessary to achieve your goal, would you have destroyed the city?”

  “Truthfully, I do not know,” Vereshchagin admitted “I do not think so.”

  “Why?” Mutaro demanded.

  Vereshchagin pondered the answer for a moment “Because any good I would have achieved would not have been commensurate.”

  Mutaro persisted. “But, hypothetically, what if the good to mankind outweighed the destruction of the city and tens of millions of inhabitants?”

  Vereshchagin looked at him. “Hypothetically, yes. I would have done so.”

  His small figure almost lost in the cushions of the armchair, Mutaro nodded slowly. “Vereshchagin-san, you were a brilliant military officer. I have been told, however, that genius in a military officer is supertluous, even dangerous, and that reliance should instead be placed upon average officers who subordinate themselves to a collective will and intelligence.”

  Coldewe coughed politely. “Anton won't speak for himself, so I will. That particular nonsense is an outgrowth of the old Prussian General Staff System and reflects the notion that a hundred average men who react the same way will achieve better results than a hundred brilliant men who don't. It has some validity when you have corps and armies and the sum of a thousand tiny combats, but colonial wars are little wars. Out here, brilliance wins. I might add that the Prussian General Staff never selected average men.”

  “Tell me, Vereshchagin-san,” Mutaro said languidly, “are you still a soldier?”

  “I have been retired from soldiering for a number of years. I am retired from all pursuits now.” Vereshchagin studied Mutaro's face for what it might reveal.

  Mutaro sucked in his breath. “So! Tell me, do you believe that there is other intelligent life in the universe?” Mutaro rested his elbows on the arms of the chair and rested the palms of his hands against each other, steepling his fingers. “Four months ago, a probe we dispatched almost half a century ago was intercepted near the planet Go-Nihon. The matter was brought to my attention. My experts assure me that one of the planets the probe surveyed is indeed inhabited by intelligent creatures.”

  Mutaro paused. “This news was immediately dispatched to Earth, but it is an eight-month voyage from Go-Nihon to Earth, and with the effects of time dilation, several more years will elapse before Earth can respond. I find this unacceptable. As Imperial commissioner for this sector, I have determined, therefore, to take action using resources available in this sector.”

  “How advanced are these folks?” Coldewe asked sharply.

  “The probe was only intended to survey planets for possible habitation, so the data it could provide is unfortunately quite limited. Nevertheless, my experts assure me that there is unmistakable evidence of extensive telecommunications and electromagnetic power networks, so I would assume that they are quite advanced, although not nearly as advanced as humanity.”

  “Have they developed spaceflight, and are they aware of our existencer' Vereshchagin asked.

  “Such evidence as the probe was able to provide suggests that they do not possess spaceflight,” Mutaro replied. “However, the probe was damaged by an explosion, so it would appear that they are somewhat aware of our existence.” He waited for Coldewe and Vereshchagin to digest this information.

  Vereshchagin looked at Coldewe. “If they do not possess spaceflight, they will.”

  “Perhaps twenty standard years have elapsed since the probe made contact. I believe that it is imperative for us to contact this intelligent, alien species. The potential for mankind to benefit

  from this contact is enormous. The potential danger to mankind is also enormous.”

  Mutaro folded his hands. “I am told that the planet itself is habitable. Although the average surface temperature of the planet is quite warm, averaging 32° centigrade in many places, the atmosphere is dense and entirely suitable, with an oxygen content similar to that of Earth. I am told that this is normal for a planet with an ocean.”

  Vereshchagin nodded. “On Earth-like worlds, evolving plant life breaks down carbon dioxide, freeing oxygen in quantity until a balance is reached between plants and the animals that feed on them. Raul Sanmartin, who was one of my officers, once told me that after a few thousand millennia, the oxygen content on such worlds stabilizes between 19 and 23 percent”

  “Indeed,” Mutaro said politely, having heard of Raul Sanmartin in a different context.

  “Why are you bringing this to our attention?” Coldewe asked bluntly.

  Mutaro shifted his weight “Coldewe-san,I intend to send an expedition to contact these aliens. I require a special individual to lead such an expedition. Although soldiers are skilled in the management of violence, the person I require must be something more than a soldier.”

  For a period of time, Vereshchagin said nothing. Then he said, “Why would you consider me?”

  “Vereshchagin-san,” Mutaro replied, choosing simple words, “I feel the weight of history pressing upon me. I do not believe I exaggerate when I say that this expedition may have extremely serious consequences. The man I select must attempt with all his heart to establish peaceful relations, but he must also judiciously weigh the risk this alien people presents to mankind. I have studied your career with some care, both your service record and the additional information Imperial Intelligence has been able to gather on you --as you may guess, you have been an object of some interest. You have demonstrated that you can be a ruthless man in the cause of peace. My mind tells me that you are the man best suited. After speaking with you, my heart agrees. Do you disagree?”

  Whatever remained of Vereshchagin's smile faded. “As much as I would like to deny the charge, I cannot.”

  “I'm not sure I understand,” Coldewe said slowly.

  The expression on Mutaro's face hardened. “I believe that you do understand, Coldewe-san. If these aliens are not hostile or dangerous to Earth and its colonies, it would be a crime to deal with them in a hostile manner. The damage to the probe suggests, however, that they may be hostile. If a grave threat exists to mankind, it must be neutralized. Yet could you assess the threat presented by a completely alien civilization and neutralize this threat with the limited forces available for me to send?”

  “God in heaven. I’don't know.” Coldewe admitted.

  Mutaro chuckled, a dry, rasping sound. “Any honest man would say the same.”

  Vereshchagin reclaimed his old pipe from Coldewe's hand and tapped it absently on his thigh. “After what I have done to Tokyo, you will be severely censured for sending me.”

  Mutaro laughed. “When it becomes known that I have selected a notorious and--forgive me--bloodthirsty rebel, long as sumed to be dead, to lead this mission as an emissary of the Imperial Government, there will be considerable criticism, but it will be far too late to matter.”

  “They're going to fry you.” Coldewe said

  “Only figuratively, I hope, but I am no longer a young man. I may not live to answer my critics. But please also understand that if you find it necessary to take military action. there will be a fire storm of protest on Earth, regardless of the necessity.”

  Vereshchagin smiled, tightly.

  “The man I send must not waver in the face of such disapproval. I doubt very much whether I could find another man sufficiently capable of ignoring such distractions.”

  “More to the point,” Coldewe commented, “if it became expedient, the Imperial Government could disavow Anton in a heartbeat.”

>   “Of a certainty, they would do so. But that would scarcely matter, would it?” Mutaro's eyes danced “Indeed, if military action became necessary, what better way to assuage the collective guilt of humanity than to blame the attack on a dead Imperial Commissioner and the traitorous Colonel Anton Vereshchagin?”

  Again, the humor left Mutaro's face. “Vereshchagin-san, I ask you to set aside your saffron robe and undertake this mission for the good of humanity. I believe you possess the wisdom to work wholeheartedly toward an understanding with these aliens, as well as the steadfastness of purpose to do whatever is necessary if an understanding is not possible.”

  “What forces do you have available, and what authority will you give me?” Vereshchagin asked

  “I have a frigate with two corvettes, two supply ships, and an assault transport arriving within thirty days. They are outfitting now. The best interdisciplinary scientific team that my deputy can assemble will arrive with the ships. I regret that I can only provide you with one infantry company of Imperial troops. I will delegate complete authority to you, and all expedition personnel will be instructed to obey your orders without question. For the record, I will dictate detailed instructions as to how you will conduct the expedition. I fully expect you to disregard these instructions as soon as you leave orbit.”

  “One frigate with an ordinary weapons load and a couple of corvettes isn't much to take on a whole planet.” Coldewe observed.

  “The frigate will carry forty nuclear missiles in place of a third corvette, and I will provide a skilled team of biological and chemical warfare experts.”

  Vereshchagin raised one eyebrow. “I assume that the missiles and these experts were intended for deployment against SuidAfrika under the correct circumstances.”

  “Indeed.” Mutaro chuckled again, a thin, rasping sound. “You are quite dangerous. I wonder if I should tell President Steen this?”

  “That does bring up a problem.” Vereshchagin said. “I will need to draw personnel from Suid-Afrika's military forces.”

  Mutaro nodded slowly. “I had not anticipated this.”

  “Some anti-Imperial Assemblymen will see this as a plot to strip Suid-Afrika of its defenses,” Vereshchagin surmised, “while President Steen's fiscally prudent allies may view the 'alien threa?” as a myth concocted to avoid military budget cuts. I suspect that even the sober and responsible politicians here are going to have some difficulty accepting the notion that SuidAfrika should provide volunteers for an expedition.”

  “I trust that we will find a way around this dilemma,” Mutaro said.

  Coldewe shrugged. “We have thirty days until your ships arrive.”

  When Mutaro left. Coldewe looked at Vereshchagin. “Saffron robe?”

  “Metaphoric,” Vereshchagin said absently. “Are you interested in coming along? You do not have to, you know.”

  “Dear me, what would keep me here? There is the crazy lady who keeps hitting me with a plastic scythe in public places, the insect watchers who congregate next to the flagpole while I'm trying to eat my breakfast, my ex-girlfriends, and, of course, Professor Dr. Anneke Brink who still calls me up when she's feeling maudlin about Cousin Raul and nips too hard at the brandy. You know full well I wouldn't miss this for the fairy gold in the mountains. Besides, if I go, Danny Meagher will take command of the battalion, and won't Andries Steen love that!”

  Meagher, a caustic Irishman once employed as a mercenary by United Steel-Standard, had joined the battalion as a private and risen through the ranks.

  “Who do you want?” Vereshchagin asked suddenly.

  “God alone knows what we'll need, and I'd rather not have to depend on that rifle company Mutaro is bringing. I want Jan Snyman and two rifle platoons, a recon platoon, half of No. 15 light attack platoon, and a section of engineers. We'll have to take a look at the probe data, but I see no reason why we can't take aircraft. That and a few puppies should be enough.”

  Vereshchagin hid a smile. One of Coldewe's innovations was the pint-sized scout dogs added to No. 18 recon platoon, which Coldewe considered to be cheaper, more effective, and a lot

  more fun than portable sensor units.

  “We'll also want to look around the university to find some more would-be scientific experts to bring along. The scientists Mutaro scraped up probably think they are hotter than plasma, but nobody knows an awful lot about how to approach this sort of thing.” Coldewe remembered a world called Ashcroft and paused. “It’s warm here, but i?”ll be hotter than hell there. We'll need to modify our gear.”

  Vereshchagin nodded.

  “I assume that you'll want Detlef Jankowskie to command the frigate, and that you plan on dragging Piotr out of retirement”

  “Yes,” Vereshchagin said. Major Piotr Kolomeitsev, “The Iceman,” was fomerly the commander of Vereshchagin's A Company. As a tactician, The Iceman had no living peer. He had buried a wife once, and a lot of men since. Vereshchagin could count on him to provide advice that was untainted by anything save the coldest of logic.

  “What are we going to say to Matti?” Coldewe asked in a troubled voice.

  Matti Harjalo, once Vereshchagin's executive officer and Coldewe's predecessor as commander of the 1/35th Rifle Battalion, had been forced into retirement when Andries Steen took office and had largely become a recluse. Harjalo had been left behind from the Tokyo raid to organize Suid-Afrika's defenses. For Anton Vereshchagin, part of the price paid for the raid was the friendship he had once bad with Matti Harjalo.

  “You talk with Jan. I will deal with Matti,” Vereshchagin said

  Tuesday (1167)

  LYING IN WHAT WAS BECOMING A CONSIDERABLE PUDDLE, MAJOR Jan Snyman felt the familiar hum as a radio signal crept up his back and under his cap before registering through the boneinduction plates over his temples.

  “Coldewe here. Hello, Jan.”

  Snyman silently cursed the rain and all communications with headquarters. “Hello yourself, Hans. If you are calling about poachers, can it wait? Heaven knows they should have better sense than to be out in the forest tonight”

  “No, it isn't poachers, but I'm pulling you out anyway.”

  “Colonel Hans, sir,” Snyman protested, “we finally have those street sweepers from No. 2 platoon nibbling at the cheese. We owe them an ambush, and having sat in the same patch of

  mud for two days, the boys will probably wish to shoot both of us if I pull them out now.”

  He heard Coldewe laugh. As the reserve companies had ruefully learned. the 1/35th took company maneuvers very seriously. Failure carried a price-- losers bought the winners beer.

  “Can you wrap things up in another hour or two?” Coldewe asked.

  “Possibly,” Snyman conceded.

  “You have until midnight, and then I'm calling off the exercise. March everyone to Landing Zone Beppu Beppu, and I'll send aircraft to pick you up.”

  “Any particular reason?” Snyman asked.

  “Think of it as another Tokyo mission, across the sea of stars. I want you to quietly find me two platoons of volunteer infantrymen and a recon platoon. No married men unless we can contrive to take their wives along. Get as many of the old laggs as you can. Tell them that they can talk it up among themselves, but if it leaks outside the battalion, like Salome I'm going to want somebody's head.”

  “Yes, sir,” Snyman said, stunned.

  “And while you're at it, speak with your charming wife.” Snyman's wife, Natasha Solchava, was the battalion surgeon. “Ask her if the two of you have plans for the next few years. I will explain in detail when you get in. Coldewe out.”

  Snyman glanced over at one of his troopers-- a stocky Afrikaner named Meier, whose nickname was “Snack Bar”-- lying in another puddle a few meters away. '“This is shaping up as one of those evenings,” he commented.

  Major Tikhon Degtyarov's A Company called itself '“The Night Shift,” and his No. 2 platoon called itself “The Devil's Own,” only partl
y in jest. As Degtyarov himself said, they would have rescued Christ from the cross to pocket the nails.

  They somehow sniffed out C Company's careful ambush, escaping with fewer than a dozen casualties. It was, as Jan Snyman observed sourly to his wife a few hours later, one of those evenings.

  Wednesday (1167)

  AT DAWN, ANTON VERESHCHAGIN DROVE HIMSELF TO THE BATTALION'S casern on the outskirts of Pretoria and paused for a few moments in the battalion cemetery.

  A small crypt held the ashes of Paul Henke. After suffering a small stroke, Henke had quietly retired as D Company commander and ended his life with a chemical grenade. As always, Vereshchagin paused to say a prayer for The Hangman's troubled soul.

  As he stopped beside the cenotaph to Raul Sanmartin, Yuri Malinov, and the others who had died on the Tokyo raid, he saw a young woman approaching. “Rikki, what are you doing here?”

  Hendricka Sanmartin came up to stand beside him. “Tant Betje sent me to ask what you are up to. Hans said you were coming to Pretoria this morning, and I thought I would find you here.”

  “I am becoming too predictable.” Vereshchagin asked innocently, “What makes Betje believe that I am up to anything?”

  “Uncle Anton!” Hendricka squeezed his hand. “She can smell when you are up to something, and I am sure I can, too.” Blond with a heart-shaped face, Hendricka bore a strong resemblance to her mother, Hanna Brower, who had served as the first speaker of Suid-Afrika's Assembly. In temperament, charitable people said she favored her father, Raul Sanmartin. Less charitable people said she favored her great-grandfather, Hendrik Pienaar, who had scant use for fools in his lifetime. With her mother executed by Imperial soldiers during the second rebellion and father dead in the attack on Tokyo, Albert and Betje Beyers were the only parents Rikki Sanmartin had known for most of her life.

  “I have not spoken with Betje. How is she?” Vereshchagin said aloud.