David Weber - Empire from the Ashes

His attention moved to Tamman and Harriet. Despite Israel 's size, she was intended for deployment from her mother ship or a planet, not interstellar voyaging, but at least she was designed for a nominal crew of thirty. That gave them enough room to find privacy, and the humans had fallen into couples without much fuss or bother. For him and Sandy, he knew, the pairing would be permanent even if—when!—they got home, but he didn't think it was for Harry and Tamman. Neither of them seemed particularly inclined to settle down, though they obviously enjoyed one another's company... greatly.

He grinned and inserted his own feed into the captain's console for a systems update. As usual, Israel was functioning perfectly. She really was an incredible piece of engineering, and he'd had an unusual amount of time to learn to appreciate her design and capabilities. They'd spent endless hours running tactical exercises, as much for a way to keep occupied as anything else, and he'd discovered a few things he'd never imagined she could do.

Still, it was Sandy who'd unearthed the real treasure in Israel 's computers. Her original captain had been a movie freak—not for HD or even pre-Imperial tri-vid, but for old-fashioned, flat-image movies, the kind they'd put on film. There were hundreds of them in the ship's memory, and Sandy had tinkered up an imaging program to convert them to holo via the command bridge display. They'd worked their way through the entire library, and some of them had been surprisingly good. Sean's personal favorite was The Quest for the Holy Grail by someone called Monty Python, but the ones they'd gotten the most laughs out of were the old science fiction flicks. Brashan was especially fascinated by something called Forbidden Planet , but they'd all become addicted. By now, their normal conversation was heavily laced with bits of dialogue none of their Academy friends would even begin to have understood.

He withdrew from the console, maintaining only a tenuous link as he tucked his hands behind his head and crossed his ankles.

"Behold the noble captain, bending his full attention upon his duties!" Sandy remarked. He stuck out his tongue, then looked at Harriet.

"Looks like our original position estimates were on the money, Harry. I make it about another two and a half days."

"Just about," she agreed, an edge of anticipation sharpening her voice. "Anything more on system bodies, Brash?"

"Indeed," the Narhani said calmly. "The range is still well beyond active scanner range, but passive instrumentation continues to pick up additional details. In particular—" he gave his friends a curled-lip Narhani grin "—I have detected a third planet on this side of the star."

Something in his tone brought Sean up on an elbow. The others were staring at him just as hard, and Brashan nodded.

"It would appear," he said, "to have a mean orbital radius of approximately seventeen light-minutes—well within the liquid water zone."

"Hey, that's great!" Sean exclaimed. "That ups the odds a bunch. If there used to be people here, we may find something we can use after all!"

"So we may." Brashan's voice was elaborately calm, even for him; so calm Sean looked at him in quick suspicion. "In fact," the Narhani went on, "spectroscopic analysis confirms an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, as well."

Sean's jaw dropped. The bio-weapon had killed everything on any planet it touched, and when all life died, a planet soon ceased to be habitable, for it was the presence of life which created the conditions that allowed life to exist. Birhat was life-bearing only because the zoo habitats had cracked before her atmosphere had time to degrade completely, and Chamhar had survived only because no one had lived there, anyway. Earth, never having been claimed by the Fourth Empire, was a special case.

But if this planet had breathable air, then perhaps it hadn't been hit by the bio-weapon at all! And if they could get word of their find home again, humanity had yet a third world onto which it might expand anew.

Then his spirits plunged. If the planet hadn't been contaminated, it probably hadn't had any people, either. Which, in turn, meant no chance at all of finding Imperial hardware they could use to cobble up a hypercom.

"Well," he said more slowly, "that is interesting. Anything else?"

"No, but we are still almost sixty-two light-hours from the star," Brashan pointed out. "With Israel 's instrumentation, we can detect nothing smaller than a planetoid at much above ten light-hours unless it has an active emissions signature."

"In which case," Sean murmured, "we might begin seeing something in the next eighty hours. Assuming, of course, that there's anything to see."

The talmahk were returning early this spring.

High Priest Vroxhan stood by the window, listening to the Inner Circle with half an ear while he watched jeweled wings flash high above the Sanctum. One gleaming flock broke away to dart towards the time-worn stumps of the Old One's dwellings, and he wondered yet again why such lovely creatures should haunt places so wrapped in damnation. Yet they also nested in the Temple's spires and were not struck dead, so it must not taint them. Of course, unlike men they had no souls. Perhaps that protected them from the demons.

Corada's high-pitched voice changed behind him, and he roused to pay more heed as the Lord of the Exchequer came to the conclusion of his report.

"... and so Mother Church's coffers have once more been filled by God's grace and to His glory, although Malagor remains behind time in its tithing."

Vroxhan smiled at the last, caustic phrase. Malagor was Corada's pet hate, the recalcitrant princedom whose people had always been least amenable to Church decrees. No doubt Corada put it down to the influence of the Valley of the Damned, but Vroxhan suspected the truth was far simpler than demonic intervention. Malagor had never forgotten that she and Aris had dueled for supremacy for centuries, and Malagor's mines and water-powered foundries made her iron-master to the world, a princedom of stubborn artisans and craftsmen who all too often chafed under the Church's Tenets. That chafing had been the decisive factor in starting the Schismatic Wars, but The Temple used those wars to put an end to such foolishness forever. Today Prince Uroba of Malagor was The Temple's vassal, as (if truth be known) were all the secular lords, for Mother Church made and broke the princes of all Pardal at will.

"Frenaur?" Vroxhan raised his eyes to the Bishop of Malagor. "Does your unruly flock truly mean to distress Corada this year?"

"Not, I think, any more than usual." Frenaur's eyes twinkled as Corada's jowls turned mottled red. "The tithe is late, true, but the winter has been bad, and the Guard reports the wagons have passed the border."

"Then I think we can wait a bit before resorting to the Interdict," Vroxhan murmured. It was unkind, and not truly befitting to his office, but Corada was such an old gas-bag he couldn't help himself. The fussy bishop's bald pate flushed dark against its fringe of white hair as he sniffed and gathered his parchments more energetically than necessary, and Vroxhan felt a pang of remorse. Not a very painful one, but a pang.

He turned back to the window, hands folded in the sleeves of his blue robe with the golden starburst upon its breast. A company of Guard musketeers marched across his view, headed for the drill field with voices raised in a marching hymn behind their branahlk-mounted captain, and he admired the glitter of their silvered breastplates. Polished musket barrels shone in the sunlight, and scarlet cloaks swirled in the spring breeze. As a second son, Vroxhan had almost entered the Guard instead of the priesthood. Sometimes he wondered rather wistfully if he might not have enjoyed the martial life more—certainly it was less fringed with responsibilities! But the Guard's power was less than that of the Primate of all Pardal, too, he reminded himself, and sat in his carven chair, returning his attention to the council room.