David Weber - Hell Hath No Fury

"You say that your Glimpse indicates we will be attacked here shortly," Markan said in excellent, although accented and somewhat overly formal, Ternathian. "I understand that you can not tell us exactly when-not yet, at any rate. But the question in my mind is whether the fact that you have warned us at all will not alter the events you have Glimpsed, and so invalidate the entire Glimpse, in part or in whole?"

"I see what you're asking, Sunlord." Janaki gazed at the Uromathian for a second or two while he considered how best to answer the question.

"First, anything that might be altered would happen … downstream from the initial attack itself," he said then. "The Arcanans' decision to attack us, the approach route they're likely to take, the timing of the attack-all of those are governed by circumstances which almost certainly can't and won't be changed by any actions we might take prior to their arrival here in response to my Glimpse. That's not absolutely guaranteed, of course, but it's very, very likely.

"Second, Glimpses are never as clear as straight Precognition. Because they relate to the actions and decisions of human beings, they're more … flexible. More 'amorphous,' I suppose. Any Glimpse is in a state of flux right up to the moment the events it concerns actually occur. That's one reason they're sometimes so difficult to interpret or describe to anyone else. Some aspects are very clear, and tend to remain that way. Those are what we think of as the 'core aspects' of a Glimpse. According to the latest theory on how Glimpses work, what someone with my Talent actually Sees is the most likely outcome of human actions and decisions from a potentially huge number of closely parallel universes." He shrugged. "I'm not positive the theory is accurate, but it seems to hold up, and according to it, those 'core aspects' represent the points in a Glimpse at which the decision trees of all those universes flow together most strongly, where the outcomes we See are most statistically likely to occur. The less clear aspects are the ones in which the decision trees have greater numbers of branches, so there's less certainty as to which ones are going to be chosen."

He paused again, watching Markan's face. After a few moments, the Uromathian nodded in understanding, and Janaki continued.

"Up until the moment this attack actually begins, the decision trees are already pretty well set. Oh, it's possible that if we do something in preparation and they find out about it, they might alter their plans as a result. It's unlikely, though, and I don't expect any pre-attack portions of my Glimpse to change very much. Once the attack does begin, things get more complicated, and at that point what we do to meet the attack is definitely going to affect the possible decisions and actions of our adversaries as they respond to our responses. However, that's where what we refer to as the 'fugue state' of my family's Talent comes into play."

Rof chan Skrithik shifted slightly in his chair. He seemed about to say something, but Janaki gave him the sort of look platoon-captains weren't supposed to give regiment-captains, and the fort's commander kept his mouth firmly shut. He still looked more than a little unhappy, though, and Janaki understood why. Some aspects of the Calirath Talent were carefully not talked about. Including this one.

""thinspace"'Fugue state,' Your Highness?" Markan repeated. From his tone, which was no more than politely inquiring, one might have been fooled into thinking he'd failed to notice chan Skrithik's unhappiness, Janaki thought with a wry mental smile.

"No one can deliberately summon or induce a Glimpse, Sunlord. Although my family's obviously been experiencing them for a long time, there are some things about Glimpses no one has ever been able to explain satisfactorily, and we've never been able to make our Talent perform to order, as it were. There are certain sets of circumstances which seem more likely to trigger Glimpses, but no one's ever been able to find a way to do it at will. One thing we do know, though, is that once someone with the Talent experiences a major Glimpse, that person almost always finds himself experiencing a sort of … continuous Glimpse if he himself is directly involved in the events as they occur."

Markan's eyes sharpened in sudden, intense speculation, and Janaki smiled again, a bit more tartly.

"That's right, Sunlord," he confirmed. "That's why battlefield Glimpses have served my family so well upon occasion. It doesn't always happen. For that matter, the occasions on which someone finds himself an actual participant in his own Glimpse are rare, to say the very least. But the odds are very good that my own involvement in whatever happens here will trigger the fugue state, in which case I'll be able to predict-probably at least several minutes ahead of time, and possibly quite a bit better than that-how events are going to depart from my original Glimpse."

"With all due respect, Your Highness," chan Skrithik began, "I don't think having you-"

"Regiment-Captain." Janaki's quiet voice cut chan Skrithik off like a knife. Fort Salby's commander looked at him, and Janaki looked back.

"Even with Sunlord Markan's men added to your own, you have fewer than four thousand men," the Crown Prince of Ternathia said, "and you've got better than two thousand civilians to protect right here at Salby. Then there're the TTE work crews out at the railhead."

"And, Your Highness?" chan Skrithik prompted when Janaki paused.

"And you've got at least eight to ten thousand men coming at you, Sir," Janaki said flatly. "With dragons, and those lion-eagle things, and the gods alone know what other 'magic' weapons. If you're going to hold your position and protect the people around you-the Sharonian civilians around you-

then you're going to need me right here."

"But-"

"We're not going to argue about this, Regiment-Captain." Janaki looked chan Skrithik straight in the eye.

"It's the job of an Imperial Marine to protect civilians. It's the job of any member of the Empire's nobility to protect civilians. And it's the job of a Calirath to protect civilians. Who those civilians are, where they came from, and how many of them there may be is beside the point."

Chan Skrithik looked prepared to go right on arguing, but then he stopped. He gazed at Janaki for several seconds, and Janaki wondered exactly what the regiment-captain was seeing in that moment. In one sense, he was clearly chan Skrithik's subordinate, a junior officer the regiment-captain had every right to order to the rear, if he so chose. But he was also the Crown Prince of Ternathia, the Crown Prince of Sharona, elect. And what he'd just said had been the tradition of the Calirath Dynasty literally for millennia.

It was that long, dusty line of ancestors chan Skrithik saw standing behind him, Janaki decided. There were times when being the heir to the oldest ruling family in the history of mankind had its advantages.

"Granting what you've just said, Your Highness," the regiment-captain said instead of whatever he'd been about to say, "the fact remains that you can't be positive your participation will trigger fugue state.

If it doesn't, then having you here would be a pointless, and potentially very expensive, mistake."

"I agree," Janaki replied steadily. "And, as I say, I can't guarantee it will happen. But what I've already Glimpsed includes Seeing myself in fugue state." He really didn't like admitting that bit, but it was the best way to convince chan Skrithik. "That's why I think it's a virtual certainty that it will happen. And the same bits and pieces of Glimpse in which I've Seen that have also shown me that you're going to need me if you hope to hold this position."

Chan Skrithik flinched slightly. Then, slowly and manifestly unhappily, he nodded.