Аластер Рейнольдс - The Iron Tactician

The boy said: ‘I wouldn’t do it that way.’

‘Show me how you would do it,’ Baskin said.

The boy took the battlement and shifted its position. Then he took another and placed them in close formation. He looked up at Baskin, seeking both approval and praise. ‘See. That’s better, isn’t it?’

‘Much better,’ Baskin said.

‘You can move that one,’ the boy said, indicating one of the other battlements. ‘Put it over there, the other way round.’

‘Like this?’ Baskin asked, with a nervous, obliging smile.

‘A little closer. That’s good enough.’

Merlin realised that he had been holding his breath while this little exchange was going on. It was too soon to leap to conclusions, but it had been a while since the room last shook. Hardly daring to break the fragile spell, he slipped into a brief subvocal exchange with Tyrant . His ship confirmed that the rain of kinetics had ceased.

‘Now for the tricky part,’ Merlin murmured, as much for himself as his audience. ‘Prince, listen to me carefully. Rebuild those defences. Do it as well as you can, because you need to protect yourself. There’s hard work to do – very hard work – and you need to be at your strongest.’

‘I don’t like work,’ the boy said.

‘None of us do. But if you’re bored with this game, I’ve got a much more interesting one to play. You’re going to engineer a peace, and hold it. It’s going to be the hardest thing you’ve ever done but I’ve no doubt that you’ll rise to the challenge.’

Struxer whispered: ‘Those fleets aren’t exactly ready to set down their arms, Merlin.’

‘I’ll make them,’ he said. ‘Just go give the Prince a running start. Then it’s over to him.’ But he corrected himself. ‘Over to all of you, in fact. He’ll need all the help he can get, Struxer.’ Merlin leaned in closer to the boy, until his mouth was near his ear. ‘We’re going to lie,’ he said, confidingly. ‘We’re going to lie and they’re going to believe us, those fleets. Not forever, but long enough for you to start making peace seem like the easier path. It’s a lot to ask, but I know you’re up to it.’

The boy’s face met Merlin’s. ‘Lie?’

‘You’ll understand. Tyrant : open a channel out to those ships. The whole binary system, as powerful a signal as you can put out. Hijack every open transmitter you can find. And translate these words, as well as you can.’ Then he frowned to himself and turned to Teal. ‘No. You should be the one. Better that it comes from a native speaker, than my garbled efforts.’

‘What would you like me to say?’

Merlin smiled. He told her. It did not take long.

‘This is Teal of the Cohort,’ she said, her words gathered within the sensorium, fed through Tyrant , pushed out beyond the ruins of Mundar, through the defense screens, out to the waiting fleets, onward to the warring worlds. ‘I came here by Waynet, a little while ago. But I was here once before, more than a thousand years ago, and I knew King Curtal before you set him on the throne. I stand now in Mundar, ready to tell you that the time has come to end this war. Not for an hour, or a day, or a few miserable years, but forever. Because what you need now is peace and unity, and you don’t have very long to build it. A Husker attack swarm is approaching your binary system. We slipped ahead of them through the Waynet, but they will be here. You have less than a century… perhaps only a handful of decades. Then they’ll arrive.’ Teal shot a look at Merlin, and he gave her a tiny nod, letting her know that she was doing very well, better than he could ever have managed. ‘Ordinarily it would be the end of everything for you. They took my ship, and I’m with a man who lost a whole world to them. But there’s a chance for you. In Mundar is a great mind. Call him the Iron Tactician for now, although the day will come when you learn his true name. The Iron Tactician will help you on the road to peace. And when that peace is holding, the Iron Tactician will help you prepare. The Tactician knows of your weapons, of your fusion ships and kinetic batteries. But in a little while he will also know the weapons of the Cohort, and how best to use them. Weapons to shatter worlds – or defend them.’ Teal drew breath, and Merlin touched his hand to her shoulder, in what he hoped was a gesture of comradeship and solidarity. ‘Hurt the Tactician, and you’ll be powerless when the swarm arrives. Protect it – honour it – and you’ll have an honest chance. But the Tactician would sooner die than take sides.’

‘Good,’ Merlin breathed.

‘He’s my blood,’ Teal continued. ‘My kin. And I’m staying here to give him all the protection and guidance he needs. You’ll treat me well, because I’m the only living witness you’ll ever know who can say she saw the Huskers up close. And I’ll do what I can to help you.’

Merlin swallowed. He had not been expecting this, not at all. But the force of Teal’s conviction left him in no doubt that she had set her mind on this course. He stared at her with a searing admiration, dizzy at her courage and single-mindedness.

‘You’ll withdraw from the space around Mundar,’ Teal said. ‘And you’ll cease all hostilities. A ship will be given free passage to Havergal, and then on to the Waynet. You won’t touch it. And you won’t touch Mundar, or attempt to claim the Tactician. There’ll be no reminders, no second warnings – we’re beyond such things. This is Teal of the Cohort, signing off for now. You’ll be hearing more from me soon.’

Merlin shook his head in astonishment. ‘You don’t have to do this, Teal. That was… courageous. But you’re not responsible for the mess they’ve made of this place.’

‘I’m not,’ she said. ‘But then again we had our chance when we traded with them, and instead of helping them to peace we took one side and conducted our business. I don’t feel guilty for what happened all those years ago. But I’m ready to make a change.’

‘She does have an excellent command of our language,’ Baskin said.

‘And she’s persuasive,’ Struxer said. ‘Very persuasive.’

Merlin made sure they were no longer transmitting. ‘You all know it’s a lie. There’s no attack swarm heading this way – not how Teal said it was. But there could be, and for a few decades there’d be no way of saying otherwise, not with the sensors you have now. Here’s what matters, though. You’ve been lucky so far, but somewhere out there you can be sure there is a Husker swarm that’ll eventually find its way to these worlds. A hundred years, a thousand… Who knows? But it will happen, just as it did to Plenitude. The only difference is, you’ll be readier than we ever were.’ Then he turned to direct his attention to the boy. ‘You’ll have the hardest time of all, Prince. But you have friends now. And you have my confidence. I know you can force this peace.’

For all the toys and battlements, some spark of real comprehension glimmered in the boy’s eyes. ‘But when they find out she lied…’

‘It’ll take a while,’ Merlin said. ‘And by then you’ll just have to make sure they’ve got used to the idea of peace. It’s not such a bad thing. But then again, you don’t need me to tell you that.’

‘No,’ the boy reflected.

Merlin nodded, hoping the boy – what remained of the boy – felt something of the confidence and reassurance he was sending out. ‘I have to go soon. There’s something I need on Havergal, and I’d rather not wait too long to get my hands on it.’

‘Whatever authority I still have,’ Baskin said, ‘I’ll do all that I can to assist.’

‘Thank you.’ Then Merlin turned back to the Prince. ‘I hope you won’t be alone again. I’ll leave the immersion suits behind, and a few spares. But even when Teal and Struxer and Baskin can’t be with you, you don’t have to be without companionship.’ He dipped his head at the ranged formations. ‘There are two other boys who used to enjoy games like this, but like you their hearts were always elsewhere. They could come here, if you like. I think you’d get on well.’